A significant portion of my lengthy undergraduate career was spent sitting around in an empty classroom with my friends, scribbling ideas on a whiteboard. My very smart and attractive friends had come up with something that I thought could be just a little bit better if we nudged it here, poked it there, tweaked it like this…

In the intervening time between then and now, from the collective confusion of a decade lived in unprecedented times, emerged the current version of Aeronauts, called Aeronauts: Flight after Fall. It's a TTRPG, both system and setting! It's built from the ground up on 3d6 and takes place after the end of the world. It's not steampunk, but it used to live in a steampunk group home! It's a swashbuckling pulp buffet with a sci-fi salad bar and an optional horror dessert station. There are very cool cooperative worldbuilding mechanics that everyone seems to really like. It's purple!

I like to think about it as a game that explores possible cultural responses to disaster, with airships.

Some people have called it "Firefly, but with airships."

Others have called it "An expanded Canticle for Leibowitz, in the format of interactive fiction, with airships."

A few have even called it "Alex, are you still holding a torch for Final Fantasy XII?" (To which I respond, buddy, they won't even let me fuck the airships.)

I and my friends have been working on this game for over a decade. We probably should have released it earlier! At the very least, we wouldn't have the background radiation of the whole OGL thing going on. But, inadvisably or not, we invented this from scratch. And it's here now, and FREE!, and I'd really like it if you gave it a try.

AIRPLANES!!!!

its hinata and diesel against the world and also each other. nothin like getting stranded with your sworn rival (well. hinata's sworn they're rivals, anyway)

Because we want to make the game even better, this version is free! We want you to play it and give us feedback! It even comes with a pre-written adventure you can run. Check it out!

I’m really back on my balloon bullshit now. ✨🎈✨🎈✨

“In 1862, ambitious scientist James Glaisher set out to do the impossible: ascend higher into the skies than ever before. A pioneer of weather forecasting and of photography, and a founding member of the Royal Meterological Society, he wanted to take groundbreaking research measurements from different altitudes.

On 5 September, along with experienced balloonist Henry Coxwell as his pilot, he lifted off in a hot air balloon for what would prove to be a death defying historic flight. Rising above the English countryside, they rose to the remarkable height of 37,000 feet (7 miles or 11 km)...” 

“In this dazzling fusion of history, art, science, and biography, Richard Holmes once again gives us an unforgettable portrait of human endeavor, weaving together exhilarating accounts of early balloon rivalries, pioneering ascents over Victorian cities, and astonishing long-distance voyages.”

The Aeronauts 2019

Tom Harper Dir.