Casting through the Gap
Monday, October 9th, 2017
Þar munu eptir | undrsamligar
gullnar töflur | à grasi finnask,
þærs à árdaga | áttar höfðu.
—
In wondrous beauty | once again
Shall the golden tables | stand mid the grass,
Which the gods had owned | in the days of old
–Völuspá, Poetic Edda, Bellows translation
The game system for Niflgap, as a stand-alone product rather than a Series Pitch for Pelgrane’s Drama System — and even back in the days when Niflgap was still titled Dead*Space — was one of those items that consistently resisted development. I knew the direction I wanted the rules to take, in an aesthetic sense, but developing a specific, concrete design led to dead ends or design paralysis.
A while back I came across one of those design attempts still lurking in Niflgap’s folder, and decided to polish it up, hoping it might be of use or spark some creative advancement on the rule-design. It has not. But the core of conflict resolution has always involved the use of runestones. To that end, here is some advice on how to design your own set.
Niflgap Now Available
Tuesday, July 1st, 2014
It is time! Vikings! Zombies! Spaceships!
Sail the black tides of the cosmos in “Niflgap.”
Pelgrane Press has released the latest “Series Pitch of the Month” for the DramaSystem, Raven Daegmorgan’s Niflgap, based on ideas from his long-unpublished RPG, Dead*Space: as the universe dies, you, the fractious Norse gods, set forth in starships from lonesome Midgaard, hoping to find salvation in the void where armies of the hungry dead writhe endless beneath black suns.
You can order Niflgap, and all the other great pitches, from the Pelgrane Store. Look under ‘Other Publications’.
Into the Gap
Tuesday, November 6th, 2012
Dead*Space may finally be seeing the light of day, at least a form of it is. Robin Laws’ recent Kickstarter for his Hillfolk game included solicited pitches for different settings to use the game system with. My accepted pitch was based heavily on the ideas I’ve been developing for Dead*Space over the last eight years, though this iteration has its own unique twist.