Red Star Games returns to YouTube! This video covers what we've been up to lately, as well as some new announcements and updates. Whether you've been a fan from day one or are just discovering RSG's work, be sure to give it a watch! Alternatively, a transcript (with links) is included below for your convenience:
Transcript begins:
Hello, everyone, this is Lehari, the founder of Red Star Games. I know it’s been a while since we’ve posted anything on YouTube, so the team figured we should make a video to help you get caught up on what we’ve been up to lately.
For those of you who haven’t heard about us, Red Star Games is a BIONICLE fan project that primarily focuses on producing tabletop roleplaying games. Other facets of the project include a canon-compliant worldbuilding effort, custom-made and 3D-printed designs of Kanohi masks and weapons, music production, and more. We’ll be going over what’s new in each of these sections over the course of the video; links to everything we mention will be included in the description.
First off, we have the Doronai Nui: a d20-based tabletop roleplaying game set in the BIONICLE G1 universe. This is what RSG was originally founded to produce; the game’s very first release was back in 2018, and we’ve come a long way since then.
The most recent release of the Doronai Nui is version 0.9.0.1, which is packed with features: seventeen playable species, all sixteen canon elements, over seventy masks of power, indexes of NPCs and Rahi beasts, systems for crafting your own materials, weapons, powers, and vehicles, and much more. The system itself is modular, meaning that you and your team can pick and choose which pieces you want to use in your games. You’ll note that the current version number is less than 1, which is intentional: the Doronai Nui is still under development, and we’re especially looking for feedback now as we work our way toward that long-awaited 1.0 release. Find something that doesn’t seem right when you’re playing? Let us know and we’ll work to fix it. Lehari will also be personally offering bounties for finding particularly large errors or issues with the system - check our Discord server for details.
Next up is Heroes of the Stars, a rules-light d12-based game set in the G2 universe. We’ve specifically aimed to make Heroes of the Stars a more approachable game that can be enjoyed by all players regardless of their prior tabletop experience. The expansion packs for Heroes of the Stars are optional - you can play with either just the core rulebook, or add things like our recent Crystal Smithing expansion to give your players some additional complexity if you so desire.
On that note, we are currently in the process of developing our very first story module for Heroes of the Stars! Although we’re keeping the details close to the chest for now, expect to hear more about that either later this year or early next year.
We also have the Barranai Nui, a BIONICLE-themed tabletop wargame. With nine full factions and two subfactions, you can take to the battlefield and wage war as some of the most iconic heroes and villains from throughout the universe.
If you visited our booth at Brickfair Virginia last year, you might have seen some of our prototype miniatures! These are still deep in the development stage, but we’re thrilled with the positive responses these little guys have gotten so far.
And if you caught our livestream from BIONICLE Day 2021, you might be wondering what became of the digital Barranai Nui tournament we were planning on running. Truth be told, as we were in the process of getting the tournament set up, the BN development team started to notice more and more things they’d like to change or improve upon in the current revision of the game. With that in mind, in order to offer you all the best play experience we can, we’ve opted to postpone the tournament until the current round of game updates is done. I know this might come as a disappointment, but the work that’s being done is hopefully going to really let the game shine. We’ll be providing more details about that in the coming months once the update is closer to release.
We do, of course, have more than just games. One of our other prominent aspects is the Red Star Forge, a team of designers and 3D modelers who produce custom masks, weapons, and armor that are compatible with official pieces. You can find our merchandise on our Shapeways shop, as well as a small (but growing) selection of resin-printed items on the Forge Shop on our website. Proceeds from the sales are used to pay our artists and modelers.
Some of our recent Forge releases include a line of G2-compatible masks, Vanguard masks and weapons that represent the Toa Mangai, immoral masks that match the powers of some of the Rahkshi, as well as a few updates to our older models.
We also do our best to regularly attend Brickfair Virginia, where we sell 3D prints of our designs. It’s always fun to get to meet our fans in person, and we get the opportunity to show our work to a wider audience than we might otherwise. We’ve also donated to the show’s annual charity auction, including prints of new or even unreleased masks; the proceeds of the auction go to benefit the SladeChild Foundation, which is based in the state of Maryland and helps children in need.
We’re aiming to return for the 2022 show in August, and we hope to see you there!
Another component of RSG is the lore and worldbuilding team. When the first generation of BIONICLE ended, so much of the universe was left unexplored, with whole islands and species having only a few sentences (or sometimes less) to their names. What we strive to do is fill some of those gaps in a canon-compliant and lore-friendly way that people can pick and choose to draw from as they please. We’re not looking to dictate what is or isn’t “canon”, we just want to present a solid option for what might lurk in those strange and distant lands. The lore we write here also goes into other parts of the project like the Doronai Nui and Barranai Nui, ensuring that we provide consistency across our various works.
One of the other ways in which we deliver our worldbuilding is through stories from the Akutana e-Metru Nui, a fictional group of Chroniclers who seek out adventure and collect legends to create a sort of anthology. New stories are posted on our website on a somewhat-regular basis, generally every few months. We’re additionally looking into producing narrated stories to help supplement our text-based releases.
We also do some work on longer-form guides; most recently, we released a large update to our Map Companion, which has information on islands from across the universe. Some of them might be locations you recognize from canon, while others are of our own creation.
One of our upcoming releases is entitled The Chronicler’s Guide to Metru Nui, which will take a deeper dive into many aspects of the City of Legends. Keep an eye out for that in late 2022 or early 2023.
We’re also proud to be able to spotlight our music team, who have been hard at work on pieces that have appeared in our promotional material, announcements, and even in this very video! In the near future, we will be creating an official Bandcamp page to feature their work - the revenue will go first and foremost to our artists, and the remainder will help keep the project afloat.
One effort that’s a little further down the line is Tales of Destiny, the name of which might sound familiar from our announcements during BIONICLE Day last year. We aim for Tales to be a community-based campaign run via Discord by members of RSG, initially set in the early days of the Matoran universe and progressing onward from there. However, we recognize that this is a fairly large undertaking, and we’d like to take the time to get the Doronai Nui into a better shape - as well as fulfilling some of our other long-standing commitments - before we get Tales started. As a result, we will be postponing it until either the end of 2022 or the beginning of 2023, contingent on the development schedule for other parts of the project.
Speaking of long-standing commitments…it’s been an awfully long time since we’ve said anything about Shadow of the Coliseum, our internal Doronai Nui campaign set in Metru Nui following the Matoran Civil War. Fortunately, we are pleased to be able to tell you that not only is recording actively in progress, we are currently on-track to begin releasing episodes later this year. Thank you for your continued patience and interest; it’s been a long and disrupted road, what with cast changes, ongoing updates to the game itself, and the logistical obstacles of recording with eight or more people who live in different places and different time zones. As of now, we’re closer than we’ve ever been, and we hope that you enjoy what’s in store for the Toa Kartur.
One last thing before we go: Red Star Games is on Patreon. For just one dollar per month, you can get early access to developer insights, lore previews, and occasionally sneak peeks at concept art, as well as a cosmetic role on our Discord server. Proceeds go toward paying our artists, helping pay for our website, and getting us to events like Brickfair. So much of what we do wouldn’t be possible without your support, and we are grateful for each and every one of you.
If you want to learn more about RSG and what we do, visit our website (www.redstargames.org) or join our Discord server, In the Light of the Red Star (https://discord.gg/UTC2JGV). Additionally, make sure to check out our partner network, Mask of Destiny (www.maskofdestiny.com) for updates on this and other excellent BIONICLE fan projects.
For now, this is Lehari, signing off.
Transcript ends.