In August 2020 we presented two offers featuring the GDW and Clockwork Publishing editions of the Victorian-era proto-steampunk scientific-romance RPG Space: 1889. The all-new Space: 1889 Odysseys had the complete 1990s RPG line originally published by GDW, along with recent sourcebooks and adventures from Uhrwerk Verlag/Clockwork Publishing. And the revived March 2017 Space: 1889 Clockwork Bundle once again presented the 2014 Clockwork Publishing edition that uses the easy and fast-playing Ubiquity rules system created for Hollow Earth Expedition.
Each of these offers had everything you need for a complete campaign of scientific romance in the Victorian Solar System. Between them, these two offers presented every RPG title published by GDW and Clockwork for Space: 1889. (Both editions of the game are now sold by Ulisses Spiele International.)
Space: 1889 is alternate-history space fantasy. In 1870, when he reached the Red Planet in his prototype ether flyer, American inventor Thomas Edison became the first of many Earthmen who would gaze in astonishment at the wonders of Mars: the canals, built millennia ago; cities, already old when Earth’s civilization was young; and relics of technologies long forgotten. Other ethernauts have since explored the dinosaur-infested swamps, seas, and jungles of Venus — Mercury, where the World River, in the twilight zone between hot and cold hemispheres, dares explorers to seek fame and fortune — and Luna, honeycombed to its core with caverns and tunnels that harbor the mysterious Selenites. And adventurers are also reaching the remote uncharted areas of Earth, where the colonial powers’ struggles are as exciting as those on other worlds.
Space: 1889 captures the literary spirit of Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle, and H. Rider Haggard. These fantastical journeys take place in an age obsessed by technology and progress, lit by gas lamps, powered by steam engines, and aglow with the wonders of electricity and ether — a Solar System of inventive genius and a thirst for adventure. Gentlemen and ladies of good character find adventures in London’s fogbound alleys and on the dusty streets of Syrtis Major on Mars; soldiers might be posted to East Africa or Venus; historians search for the secrets of the ancient Martians; and wild Lizard-men and proud Martian steppe warriors must confront the aliens newly arrived from Earth.
SPACE: 1889 ODYSSEYS [all-new]
This new Space: 1889 Odysseys offer’s base collection presented the entire GDW Space: 1889 RPG line, originally published in 1988-92 and republished as beautifully scanned .PDFs by Heliograph in 2000. This offer’s bonus collection added sourcebooks and adventures from Clockwork Publishing that debuted after our Clockwork offer’s run.
There were nine titles in this offer’s GDW Collection (retail value $49) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks, including the complete 225-page GDW Space: 1889 core rulebook (the 2000 Heliograph reprint of the 1988 original); the gazetteer Conklin’s Atlas of the Worlds; the Soldier’s Companion miniatures rules; the adventure collections Tales From the Ether and More Tales From the Ether; Canal Priests of Mars in its restored 2000 edition; and three GDW Martian odysseys: Caravans, Beastmen, and Steppelords of Mars.
Those who paid more than this offer’s threshold (average) price also got this offer’s entire Clockwork Collection with ten more titles worth an additional $58.50, including Clockwork Publishing’s comprehensive Mars and Mercury Sourcebooks plus no less than seven full-length adventures — in versions for both Ubiquity and Pinnacle Entertainment’s fast-furious-fun Savage Worlds Explorer Edition rules: City at the Center of the Earth, The Ether Calculator, The Fate of Angahiaa, Murder on the Ether Express, Nocturne in the City of Lights, On the Trail of the Gods, and Thunders of Venus.
SPACE: 1889 CLOCKWORK
[from March 2017]
Revived (and renamed) from March 2017, our original Space: 1889 Clockwork Bundle had the core Ubiquity-system rulebook (2014) and early supplements from Clockwork Publishing. There were three titles in this revived offer’s Starter Collection (retail value $49), including Clockwork Publishing’s Space: 1889 core rulebook; the Clockwork GM Screen and NPC Booklet ; and composer Ralf Kurtsiefer’s Space: 1889 soundtrack.
This offer’s Bonus Collection added four more titles worth an additional $40:
- Marvels of Mars: 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: A big planetary sourcebook full of jungles, swamps, lizard-men, dinosaurs, and colonial zeppelins.
- London Bridge Has Fallen Down: 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: 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.
http://bundleofholding.com/presents/Clockwork1889
Ten percent of each payment (after gateway fees) went to these two Space: 1889 offers’ pandemic-related charity, Direct Relief. Direct Relief gets protective gear and critical care medications to health workers, with emergency deliveries daily to medical facilities across the US and to regional response agencies across the world.
