Disclaimer: Egg Embry is one of the contributing authors for Tales from Vigilante City.
Bloat Games released their superhero Old-School Revival (OSR) RPG, SURVIVE THIS!! Vigilante City, via Kickstarter. Combining the hallmarks of basic D&D with the superheroics of 1990s cartoons, this RPG is fertile ground for those that want to play supers using a known ruleset. An update during their Kickstarter campaign mentioned a prose anthology and I shared more details on the Tessera Guild as did Tim Knight through his HeroPress blog. Since Tales from Vigilante City debuted this week, I reached out to its authors – Clare L. Deming, John McGuire, Christopher Robin Negelein, “Aerzyk” Thomas Parent, and myself – as well as the publisher, Eric Bloat, about what they wrote and why.
Before we discuss the individual stories, Eric Bloat, owner of Bloat Games, answered a few questions about this project.
What is SURVIVE THIS!! Vigilante City?
ERIC: Vigilante City is a street level superhero roleplaying game. Vigilante City is heavily inspired by Batman: The Animated Series. Along with the X-Men, Spider-Man and TMNT cartoons of the 1990s. Vigilante City utilizes the familiar ruleset of the world’s most popular fantasy RPG, mixing the old-school with modern mechanics for the best possible gaming experience. With it’s modular system design, you can easily play to the exact style of super’s game you want!
Bloat Games continues to be successful in the RPG market, why branch out into fiction?
ERIC: I’ve always been a fan of fiction and an author, also, thus making the transition from straight RPG content into the realm of fiction seemed like a no brainer to me. Also, I really wanted to give up-and-coming authors a place to showcase their talents and provide them with another avenue to get their work published and in front of an audience.
As one of the authors, I appreciate that.
Why do a Vigilante City anthology as opposed to another Survive This!! title?
ERIC: We have published a really decent quantity of content for the four SURVIVE THIS!! lines, Dark Places & Demogorgons, Zombies!, Vigilante City, and Fantasy, and all really could use the support of fiction, but Vigilante City falls most closely to the types of stories and I prefer to read, so that’s why we went with VC over the others.
Turning to the authors, I asked why they submitted to Tales from Vigilante City?
CLARE L. DEMING: I saw the call for submissions through a friend who does some gaming work and I thought my story would be a good fit. I love the description of the game as something that is influenced by Batman, TMNT, and X-Men, all things that I grew up on. Perhaps that’s why my story ended up fitting in to this universe?
EGG EMBRY: At Origins Game Fair 2018, I played Survive This!! Zombies! with Eric Bloat. I’ve done an interview with Eric, quoted him several times, and reviewed his games. Wanting to write for him, especially a tale of street level drama, seemed natural. When he picked my story, I felt an immense amount of validation.
JOHN MCGUIRE: When you hear that Vigilante City was inspired by Batman: The Animated Series, your brain begins to spin. I love that show, and the idea of playing in a gritty superhero world was too good to pass up. The idea came in a flash on my way home from work one day. In those 20 minutes, I’d come up with the whole framework of a story that felt like it really fit well into such a world. I was grateful that Eric Bloat felt the same way and accepted my story into the anthology.
CHRISTOPHER ROBIN NEGELEIN: I think we need more superhero and pulp fiction stories. Both the ones that deconstruct the genre and those that celebrate it. Among other things, genres like fantasy or scifi save their one big epic set piece for the climax, but superhero stories can deliver several set pieces in a row. All while delivering a story with heart. I had a blast writing my story but afterwards there wasn’t a home for it. Then TfVC came just in the nick of time, like a speedster with enhanced hearing, and I had a fun story ready to go!
“AERZYK” THOMAS PARENT: I submitted because the feel that the game evoked (gritty 90’s comics/cartoons) inspired me. When I saw the call for submissions (I think one of your posts, Egg) I checked out the game and the art and this story immediately started forming in my mind. I had to write it and get it out, it was a lot of fun to develop. I know I strayed from the 90’s in regards to technology, but I hope I kept the feel. A lot of the comics and shows that the game references as inspiration included decent super hero/personal drama mixed with slice-of-life and I tried to sneak a little but of that in “Marshwalk”, too.
TALES FROM VIGILANTE CITY SYNOPSIS AND AUTHOR BIOS
“I’m Not a Superhero” by Clare L. Deming
“I’m Not a Superhero” is about how my hero, Mark, discovers his unwanted superpower. He starts to have hallucinations involving the people around him and, together with his best friend Wyatt, has to discover what’s going on, all while saving the day, as heroes do.
Clare L. Deming (she/her): I write book reviews and other things on my blog, although I have not been as active there as I’d like. I’m trying to polish up a few short stories to get ready to send out to magazines and then I need to get back to work on my novel, tentatively titled Daughter of the Sun. It is a heroic fantasy stand-alone, and I’m just getting to the good parts!
[You can find Clare’s bibliography here at her website.]
“BANG-BANG” by Egg Embry
Shira flees through the streets of Vigilante City, running from the justice she dispensed. Laying low at an all-night diner, she meets a man whose voice she cannot resist. He orders her to kill her waitress, and Shira finds herself obeying.
Egg Embry (he/him) / Egg Embry Publishing: I’m the creator of the POWERED by the DREAMR RPG zine using the Powered by the Apocalypse system [physical copies available via itch.io] as well as co-creator of the RPG zine, Love’s Labour’s Liberated for 5e [physical copies at itch.io]. My freelance RPG journalist can be read here at d20 Radio as well as EN World, Tessera Guild, Knights of the Dinner Table, Around the Table (GAMA), and High Level Games. I have another short story in the free RPG zine, Harrowings #01: From the Rime!
“Anonymous” by John McGuire
In Vigilante City, there are opportunities to be found whether you are on the right side of the law or the wrong side. However, the glitz and glamour of being the villain captured on the evening news isn’t all it is cracked up to be. And for one anonymous henchman, he has a plan to get his last score.
John McGuire (he/him): I have written comics, novels, and written an RPG Zine, Love’s Labour’s Liberated. My steampunk comic, The Gilded Age, can be found here. My urban fantasy novel, The Dark That Follows, and my dark fantasy, Hollow Empire, can be found here and here. I have a new science fiction novel called The Echo Effect.
[You can follow John at his website and the Tessera Guild.]
“The Icy Death of Dr. Furious” by Christopher Robin Negelein
“The Icy Death of Dr. Furious” follows Dr. Furious’s now 80-year old sidekick, Chuck, who watched him die in the 1950s. Now as an old, lonely man, Chuck finds Dr. Furious alive, and young, in his living room and on the run from mysterious agents. The pulp hero has secrets beyond just his apparent immortality and Chuck will have to decide between his mundane, safe life or a secret world that is much crazier than he remembered.
Christopher Robin Negelein (he/him) / Ganza Gaming: By the time the book hits shelves, I’ll have two secret projects become not so secret and out for DMs Guild and other places. I’ll also have Hippocampi Knights out, a sequel to Hymlocke Row, my 5-star urban fantasy PDF for Tiny Dungeons. My DMs Guild [can be found here]. My other stuff [can be found on DriveThruRPG here].
[I reviewed one of Christopher’s games here.]
“Marshwalk” by ‘Aerzyk’ Thomas Parent
“Marshwalk” is told thru Abe, a night shift deliveryman with a case of amnesia and some slight bat-like mutations. He and his two friends, a beat-cop with an experimental chip in his brain and a tech school teacher with homemade power armor, investigate a string of missing persons and wind up way over their heads when they infiltrate a megacorp’s headquarters.
“Aerzyk” Thomas Parent (he/him): I work full time and have a wife and four kids so nothing much aside from that, haha. But in my spare time I’m usually doodling on a map or working on one of my perpetually unfinished writing projects. I have some maps on my Instagram (@aerzyk) and some short fiction and RPG musings on my blog.
Check out Bloat Games’ Tales from Vigilante City at:
- DriveThruRPG (pdf)
- COMING SOON – Lulu Press (print)
Egg Embry participates in the OneBookShelf Affiliate Program and is an Amazon Associate. These programs provide advertising fees by linking to DriveThruRPG and Amazon.
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