In March 2017 we presented the Space: 1889 Bundle, featuring the new 2014 Clockwork Publishing edition of the classic proto-steampunk space-fantasy RPG, Space: 1889. Originally published by GDW (1988), Space: 1889 sends your ether flyer to the swamps of Venus and the ancient canals of Mars for civilized adventures out of Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, and H. Rider Haggard. GDW and its licensees produced a dozen Space: 1889 RPG supplements (all still available as scanned .PDFs from Heliograph, Inc.), miniatures and computer games, audio dramas (two of them still available from Who North America), and, later, three series of ebook novels from Untreed Reads.
This offer featured the new Clockwork Publishing edition of Space: 1889, licensed by designer Frank Chadwick and funded by a successful July 2013 Kickstarter campaign. The Clockwork edition uses the easy and fast-playing Ubiquity rules system created for Hollow Earth Expedition (featured in our December 2015 Ubiquity Bundle).
Our Starter Collection (retail value $35) included Clockwork Publishing’s complete 260-page Space: 1889 rulebook (retail price $25) and composer Ralf Kurtsiefer’s complete soundtrack Music of the Ether (retail $10), with 18 DRM-free .MP3 audio tracks of atmospheric music for Space: 1889 game sessions.
Those who paid more than the threshold (average) price also got our entire Bonus Collection with five more titles worth an additional $45:
- Marvels of Mars (retail $10): A two-fold sourcebook spotlighting the lost technologies of the ancients as well as the monsters that fight to survive in the unforgiving red sands.
- Venus (retail $20): A big planetary sourcebook full of jungles, swamps, lizard-men, dinosaurs, and colonial zeppelins.
- Space: 1889 Gamemaster’s Screen and NPC Booklet (retail $10): Useful charts and tables, plus a 32-page booklet of nonplayer characters for every situation.
- London Bridge Has Fallen Down (retail $5): A search for a missing scientist’s ether flyer leads to the oldest city of Mars, and then deep into the Isidis Desert in search of the Empire’s best-kept secret.
- The Strange Land (retail $5): Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan’s adventure of a Martian child at the center of both the London Dock Strike of 1889 and a parallel labor dispute on Mars.
That’s a US$85 value for the price of one hour’s cloudship rental (adjusted for inflation). Ten percent of each payment (after gateway fees) went to the charity chosen by Clockwork Publishing: UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency.
