A hippie's hatred.

Greetings Adventurers! This week, Heliosail is ramping up to secure its ad funding over on Gamefound. Our aim is to secure 200 followers in the next four days, and to help us reach our goal we're hosting an art stream on the discord server!

Maria over @mkingamess will be hosting the stream at 10am MST on 7/19/2025. She's an incredibly skilled artist who has provided Heliosail with beautiful and highly detailed work already, including our amazing cover art. Join our server and tune in this weekend to catch the stream! And don't forget to give us a follow over on our Gamefound page!

Monster Monday: Greenwalkers

All complex robotics have a terrarium inside, with a plant, that is an essential part of the mechanism. Part homage to planet Earth, and part bio-engineering, these plants detect and absorb light. They can serve as the robot's "eyes" in this way, and also extend the life of their battery or power supply. If a robot become so damaged that it no longer functions, the plants inside these sealed terrariums may live on. Over time, they can outgrow their terrariums, growing into the mechanism of the robot, and slowly taking over its shell.

The electrical impulses the plants give off can cause the robot's body to move around and act randomly. A Greenwalker was once an anthroparian who has met this fate. Completely overgrown by the plants, they are trapped within their body. Some amount of consciousness remains, and Greenwalkers often try to move towards other people, reaching out for help.

These are a robotic, plant-y take on a traditional zombie. Greenwalkers cannot be saved- the only humane outcome is death.

Here's apicture of a regular anthroparian, to help you imagine what a Greenwalker is taking over:

Art by the forever amazing @mkingamess.

On Heliosail's Release Date

As we begin 2025, the reality of how much work still needs to be done is really settling in for me. It is my goal to release Heliosail's first edition this year, and I'm going to work very hard to try to reach that goal. I do have a release date in mind, but I am not sharing that specific date at this time, in case plans have to change.

In order to meet my goal of releasing the first edition this year, I need to change some of my goals for what will be included in the release. The original plan was to have the core rulebook, the lore book, and one pre-written adventure included with the release. If I want to release it this year, that will not be possible.

Instead, my new goal is to have the rule book and a free adventure released, and to release the lore book later on, hopefully sometime in 2026. In order to compensate for the fact that the lore book will be releasing with the rest of the game, I plan on making its content available for free here on Patreon as it is finished.

After Release

After the initial release, I will put all of my effort into the lore book (the "Atlas of the Sol System") and try to have a release of that, hopefully on the 1st anniversary.

When all of that is finished, this Patreon will shift to making paid content for the game. I will definitely make digital content, such as adventures and optional supplements. I would also love to partner with crafters to make physical products, such as 3d8 dice sets and turn tokens. I have a ton of ideas!

Expansions and Later Editions

I do have fuzzy, far-off ideas in my mind for expansions to the game, including new ancestries and a new campaign setting. None of these are set in stone just yet, but may become long term later projects. I also fully anticipate making a second edition, based on feedback from seeing how people play and tweak the first edition.

And of course... Art.

Many thanks to the immensely talented and wonderful @mkingamess for her incredible work on Heliosail's cover, which is the image for this post. She poured through the lore, designed dozens of characters, and really stepped up to the plate to create a cover work that captures Heliosail's world and aesthetic. The right hand side (with the ships) is the front cover, with the left side as the back.

Got a few left over cards back which have slight damages and I figured, why not make a bit of a sale :) This is all A grade stuff, just very cheap. There's an option for getting a random B grade one (same selection as the A-grades in here) for 0.05$!