Spectral Eclipse book 3: Luminous Nightmares

Overview of book 3: Luminous Nightmares

Cover for Luminous Nightmares
Angelfishes on the prowl

Thirty-five completely original, illustrated creatures from the Fey Frontier! From the orbital station-eating Angelfishes to the identity-twisting malice of Pithgyps, each of these perversions of deep spaces will provide many plots and adventures for all types of Shapers.

Each creature data sheet is illustrated and includes complete Shaper, Space, Ego and Holding level stats. Interesting details of culture, anatomy and physiology are included, as well as plot hooks and ideas on how to properly introduce the monsters into a campaign or adventure.

Coming soon? 96 pages, close to forty illustrations, landscape format, color cover.

Spectral Eclipse Book 2: Ego Trip

Ego Trip cover


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The Alliance sleeps. The space lanes are tranquil, the Nets quiet. Everyone believes the Universe is resting peacefully. But you aren’t.

You want to ply the space lanes for goods, trade with foreign alliances, be a buccaneer, fight space battles against gigantic cruisers or myriads of warp fighters.

Or you want to explore the nets for scuttlebut and illegal data warehourse, trade information to the highest bidder or steal memories from a war veteran.

Strategos, Tiger People and Technikos Shapers will find joy is a warm cyberjack in Ego Trip, the second book of the Spectral Eclipse Ectoverse.

This 160-pages rulebook contains:

  • Rules for the Ego level, including complete rules for cybernetting and mental intrusions and how to translater the Shaper’s abilities to the Ego level.
  • Rules for synesthesia and Abe mental diseases.
  • There is also a great deal of equipment in here, including Ego gear, starships and varied gear for the Machitis, Magos or Tolmiros!
  • The Spave Level, including tactical ship combat rules, rules for travel sickness, data for the Mylos subsector and Maps of the Fey Frontier.
  • A free 3DSMax model of the Mote starship.
  • Rules to create non-human shapers: Oaso, Kru-Gall-Krics, Octomans, Inumanos, Human variants and Abes and Robotic shapers.
  • Intrusion software, cybergear, more weapons.
  • Full Holding data on the important Holdings of the Frontier, including the maximum limits of their attributes.
  • More background data: Slavery, the genetic hierarchy, the Wardens, the Laws and Charter of the Alliance, and a radical group of net-assassins.
  • Rules for the effects of the Beautiful Dreamers on the campain in the 3300 Epoch, and well as an introduction to the many monsters of Fey space!

And of course, more on the Beautiful Dreamers…

But shh! Be quiet! The Alliance still sleeps and dreams… for now.

Like all Enigmachine roleplaying products, you will receive free updates to this edition of Book 2 when purchased through RPGNow.

Spectral Eclipse Book 1: Shapers and Holdings

 

Spectral Eclipse : Broken Dreams in a Shiny Future

You are a shaper.

A shaper of Empires, a shaper of Armies

Spectral Eclipse cover

A shaper of Fortunes, or Minds

A Maker of Objects and devices, or maybe you Shaped your own body to perfection.

A shaper of destiny?

But who shaped your soul?

The galaxy is a bright, wondrous place, but your dream world is on the verge of the abyss. Every story, every dream has two sides.

And now the darker side wants a piece of the pie. The Singing Star has foretold of their coming; They, the Dreamers. They, the Forgotten. The Dead Memes. All the parts of human soul and alien emotions that have been shredded apart and thrown away, hidden behind the veils of Death. Behind the black holes and the Dark Matter.

But they are coming back. As dreams. Nightmares. And someone is helping them. Someone is shining the beacon. Someone is making horrible melds of psychic remnants and battle armour. Someone is killing your dreams.

Why? What can the undead dream of?

You are a Shaper: An Emperor, General, Tekmage, Soul Fixer or DNA thief. You had a destiny. You remember that much.

But who stole your dreams?


A 182 pages Illustrated rulebook for the Spectral Eclipse ectoverse

Spectral Eclipse is a science-fiction role-playing game set a thousand years in the future. Humans have explored far and wide, settled planets, conquered alien races. Today this uneasy alliance of species is living in relative peace; genetic engineering and cloning have made life a trivial matter. But lately, something odd has been going on. The people are uneasy. A few clones have gone berserk. The Tiger People, gifted psionicists, have gone into hiding. Even shadows seem to move on their own.

In Spectral Eclipse, players take on the role of citizens of the far future; humans, androids, genetically modified beings, near-immortal clones, artificial intelligences or aliens of many kind. They may begin play as unimportant, desperate adventurers, but can grow to become rulers of entire planets, invincible super-human warriors, or ageless owners of corporations spanning lightyears.

Book 1 of Spectral Eclipse contains all the information necessary to begin a Spectral Eclipse campaign, where the player’s Shapers stake a claim on the Universe, and fight back at the oddities gnawing at its edge. It includes:

  • An introduction to the Spectral Eclipse universe and some of its inhabitants, and stats for the Mylos system, the center of the Fey Frontier
  • Timeline to the Eclipse
  • Technology, weapons, equipment, and starter nanotech tricks
  • The Universal Laws for clones and Artificial Beings
  • A rules-light system for task resolution and a very flexible experience & reward system
  • Very fast and lethal combat rules – that can be customized for every character!
  • Rules & cardset for the Holding game, a “pocket empire” game-in-a-game that is fully integrated with the character level of role-playing!
  • An original and in-depth point-based character creation system – lets you generate everything about a character; origin, destiny, Holding all the way to dreams
    and personality! It’s impossible to generate a bland, generic space marine or
    diplomat with these rules.
  • Rules for Bright and Dark Fates – events that let the player make his character live up
    to its archetype! Fates let the player decide what happens at dramatic moments;
    It’s like deus ex machina, without cheating!
  • Description of skills, mental and physical diseases, genetic and technological character improvements, experience (benefit) rules and more
  • Black & white illustrations, 3D art and stories
  • An introduction to the darker side including a primer on the
    Beautiful Dreamers, creatures that are corrupting the soul of the Frontier.This download includes a free 3DSMax model of the Schizm Interceptor starship.


    Here is what five imaginary friends have said about Spectral Eclipse:

    “It’s like Star Wars meets the Lathe of Heaven!”

    “It’s like Captain Kirk against Freddy Kruger!”

    “Is this like Monopoly? I want to be the top hat!”

    “How dare you call me a dead Meme? The wedding’s off, buster!”

    “Sometimes, a light saber is just a light saber, Anna!” – Sigmoïd Freund

    Can five made up friends be wrong?

    To ensure you get your money’s worth, Enigmachine provides free monthly updates to all who purchased this product through RPGNow’s Revision System.
    If you have a tweak, an errata or designs you would like to share, please let us know!

    Get the demo

Ring of Magical Computer Virus Protection

The world’s first Ring of Magical Computer Virus Protection is now available for you, totally free!

Simply use one of the images below as your desktop background and your computer will be MAGICALLY SEALED against ALL forms of magical computer viruses, trojans, backdoors and other nasties, GUARANTEED!

In fact, if your computer ever catches a magic computer virus while you’re using this, we’ll give you your money back!

Neon style
Photocopy style

 

Sandstone style

La coupure ressources humaines

Les recruteurs en Informatique comprennent-ils bien ce que les candidats ont à offrir?  Il me semble que les postes disponibles demandent une quantité surprenante de qualifications et d’expérience, tandis que les gens en charge de remplir les postes ignorent comment répondre au besoin. Par exemple, il n’est pas rare de rencontrer un recruteur qui ne connaît que les acronymes liés au domaine de l’informatique sans savoir ce qu’ils signifient ou comment ils sont liés.  Si on est un expert du J2EE, n’est-on pas aussi un expert du Java?  Un expert Scrum ou eXtreme ne connaît il pas nécessairement une méthode Agile?

Quelle est la quantité de pratique nécessaire pour dire que l’on connaît un langage de programmation?  Avec un bacc. en Informatique et une connaissance d’un éventail de langages de programmations, faut-il vraiment 2 ans dans une technologie spécifique pour être utile?  Pourtant à ce niveau, il n’est pas nécessaire de passer des semaines à apprendre une nouvelle technologie avant de pouvoir contribuer à un projet. Par exemple il est parfaitement possible  de débugger sans connaître tous les détails du langage utilisé. Ce qui est long à apprendre sont les librairies de fonctions.  Un nouvel employé doit apprendre l’architecture et les fonctions du logiciel produit, qu’il connaisse cette technologie à fonds ou non.  Les études sur le temps d’adaptation datent d’une époque ou les logiciels étaient bien moins complexes; je ne dis pas que ce temps n’as plus d’importance, mais qu’au contraire une expérience sur un projet différent ne garantit pas que cela prendra moins de temps pour réaliser le nouveau projet.

Pourquoi alors perdre un temps précieux a chercher un spécialiste au niveau d’expérience presque introuvable quand le candidat moyen peut être efficace en moins de temps?

Est-ce parce que les gens des ressources humaines ont, en général, une formation autre que l’informatique?  Lorsque j’ai rencontré récemment une experte en recrutement, elle m’as dit qu’un peu d’expérience en Informatique peut transformer le chasseur de têtes moyen en directeur du recrutement.

Est-ce que c’est parce que l’on cherche à remplir des postes avec l’expertise d’un employé qui quitte?  Pourtant si il quitte, c’est probablement parce qu’il a développé une expertise trop avancée pour le poste en question. De plus les experts sur place ont tout à gagner de faire ‘mousser’ leur offre en augmentant la difficulté de recruter de nouvelles personnes.

Je peux mentionner le cas d’une firme de consultants qui ne peut plus remplir ses mandats car ils ne recherchent que des experts en J2EE.  Les recruteurs m’ont expliqués que cette expertise était nécessaire pour montrer à leur clients qu’ils n’engagent que des consultants efficaces.  Du même souffle ces recruteurs me disent que le salaire minimum chez eux est de 100,000$.  Tout ça sans pouvoir m’expliquer pourquoi la necessité d’utiliser J2EE ou par quelle méthode ils peuvent différencier efficacement l’expertise d’un candidat qui a 2 ans de celle d’un candidat qui en a 10,  sauf par une entrevue avec le directeur technique.  Il est clair que cette entreprise ne fait pas des pieds et des mains afin d’offrir une formation continue à ses experts déjà en place…

Comment ne pas croire que les entreprises qui suivent ce modèle ne se tirent pas dans le pied à plus long terme?  Pourquoi ce désir d’encourager les Informaticiens à devenir consultants, contractuels et de seulement mettre l’accent sur les clients acquis?  Cela ne peut que continuer à réduire la quantité de candidats disponibles tout en augmentant les salaires des ‘experts’.

The Four-Sided Triangle

More than ten years ago my boss explained the Software Management Triangle to me.  As he taught project management to engineers, I expected it to be timeless and precious wisdom. He wandered into my nobicle (it only had one wall so not a cubicle) and revealed that our project was in trouble. But he had a cunning technique to get back on track.

“Time, Cost or Scope.”, he said in a decisive tone, “Pick one.”.  The project was his baby so I knew reducing the scope was out of the question. We also liked the loose deadline. Thus only the Cost was changed; it spiraled out of control and the project was shut down.  That was my introduction to the Triangle.

What my would-be mentor did not mention is that the sacrifice for cutting down on any of those three items was Quality, which we wanted to keep high. However there is another, hidden part of the Triangle that can affect all others. It is known by many names but I like to call it simply “Location! Location! Location!”.

I believe that even in this era of telecommuting and high-speed networks, being in the right place is still an important aspect of success.  There is still no better way to understand someone’s requirements than to meet them face to face. It is still difficult to get people interested in your projects or what you can do if they can’t see you.  And synergy and other partnerships just can’t get started without a good handshake or some other way to get a ‘gut feeling’ about the other party. Off-shoring and outsourcing are all about changing the location factor; this change can improve or reduce quality.

That’s why I want to announce that I made the jump – from a small city with lots of resources (especially top-level programmers and analysts) but no real funds and large enterprises to Montreal, where there’s so many openings that rifling through IT jobs search engines takes about 20 hours.

Now all I need is some time, money and scope to manage!