Musings on Feudal Universe (aka DCC-DUNE)

My first post for Feudal Universe covered the history and ideas on how this universe was both inspired and differed from Frank Herbert's Dune.  Other inspirations come from J.R.R.Tolkien's The Silmarillion. Michael Moorcock's Elric, L. Ron Hubbard's Battlefield Earth and many more Appendix N titles I'm not even aware I'm borrowing from.

Now while most people thought this was a cool idea, a few found it strange that I changed "the spice" to a liquid/fume substance called "guzzoline."  They also pointed out that the nebula this substance is found in is a cool idea, but doesn't correlate or translate well with the harsh desert environment of Arrakis.  I'd like to differ and have been thinking about this stuff for a while since writing that post   While everything is subject to change, I'd like to explain my thinking and perhaps sell these ideas.

Why changed The Spice to Guzzoline?

To answer that question we have to go back to when I first started thinking about writing a Dune setting on March 22, 2014.  Then I was calling the project DUNE OSR.

I even made a sweet little logo for it!

Here I was going to attempt to write a completely "new" rule set; either that or retro-clone fit into something like LL or LoFP, etc.  For while it was going well, but then I stopped working on.  Things came up as they will do and it was put on hold.

Fast forward to the present, I have become a 3rd party publisher for DCCRPG and while writing those adventures my DUNE OSR (as with everything Dune related) has been ever present in the back my mind.  It suddenly dawned on me; why not use DCC?  I thought it would be neat to make the Dune Universe a little more chaotic, by adding in a touch of Mad Max.  At the time I didn't know exactly what I meant by that and frankly I'm still figuring it out, but basically that's where the term "guzzoline" came from and for the time being that's what I'm going to call it.

Just as the spice is in Dune, gaso- I mean guzzoline is just as rare in the post-apocalyptic setting of Mad Max.  In my setting, as in Dune, guzzoline will aid different classes while also hindering them if they become addicted.  And just like Dune, it can be found in only one region of the universe.  Though even as I write this I'm thinking about changing that.  Maybe there are different types of guzzoline found in different nebulas that have different properties.  Probably not, but who knows!

Okay, so that's why at the moment "the spice" is now "guzzoline," but what about the nebulas?  And I'm willing to change it if it doesn't fit in the end.

What About Them Nebulas?

Again this is came about through sheer creative writing.  As I was making up the history of the universe, borrowing from different sources, and writing about the new class called the Felfenkin, which are a mix of the Fremen and elves, I decided they needed to come from space and everything just kinda fell into place.

I like the idea of mining a nebula, like Cloud City mined the gas planet of Bespin.  Except unlike Bespin (unless I've missed something in the now scraped Expanded Universe) the nebula is swimming with dangerous space worms called Galaxorms and on hidden asteroids are secret cities where the Felfenkin dwell.

Like Arrakis, the nebula is an unforgiving place made up of celestial death storms, gas storms, solar storms, radiation, guzzoline addiction and what ever else I want to make up or change the scientific definition of because well... this is science fiction after all and we can pretend like it's the 1950's and Google is just a made up word.

I hope this clarifies my thinking process a bit and answers any questions you may have had.  Next time we talk about about the Feudal Universe it will be about the new class: The Felfenkin!