SLA Industries
|
|
SLA Industries was an obscure roleplaying game published in 1993 by Nightfall Games in Glasgow, Scotland. The game combined elements of the gothic lifestyle with lyrics from David Bowie songs, cyberpunk standards like Blade Runner and Max Headroom, and other unusual sources to create a dystopian, far-flung future in which the entire known universe is run by a single corporation known as SLA Industries.
| Contents |
Setting
SLA Industries itself was run by an immortal and indestructable creature named "Mr. Slayer", whose cadre included other creatures like himself with names like "Intruder" and "Perceptor Teeth". The corporation, and the city that housed its employees covered an entire planet called "Mort". ("Mort" stands for "Death" in French, although this might be a coincidence.)
Players played employees of SLA Industries, on Mort, and adventures were odd jobs assigned to the players by the corporation. These jobs usually involved hunting down serial killers, clearing out monsters from the sewers under parts of the planet-wide city, and subduing riots. Appearance and charisma were emphasized almost more than combat ability, because everything was televised, and a character's television ratings were often more important than his/her abilities. Later expansions to the game also let players play as celebrity gladiators.
Along with humans, playable races included the feline "Wraith Raiders", the Predator/Klingon-like "Shaktar", and two human-like races who had the only magical powers in the game. The races were remarkably unbalanced; humans were at a significant disadvantage to members of any other race, and the two magical races were the only ones who could later become "Necanthropes", the most powerful race in the game.
"The Truth"
The game actually takes place entirely inside the mind of a modern-day man from Kilmarnock, Scotland named Brent Walker, who created it with the aid of a drug called Reathanol(and died as the result) and his alternative personality known as "Tide". Brent was betrayed after the creation of the SLA Industries universe and became "Bitterness", a rarely mentioned nemesis of the game's background. Bitterness is trapped on White Earth. Tide became Mr. Slayer. Bitterness is featured in the cover story of every SLA Industries game book. Extremely vague hints and clues to the nature of "the Truth" are given throughout SLA Industries in the form of hidden references to David Bowie songs such as Diamond Dogs.
The Truth was detailed in the SLA Industries Writers Bible.
Publication
SLA Industries was first published independently in 1993. The game was later bought by Wizards of the Coast, sometime in 1994, after their success with Magic: The Gathering. It was later republished by Hogshead Games, until Hogshead Games found the relationship with Nightfall Games unworkable. A minority of fans of the game hoped that Nightfall Games would then re-release the game again under the popular d20 system, but a d20 version never materialized.
Preserved for Posterity
Here is Nightfall Games own "pre-vandalization" of this page, before it was replaced with correct information:
- SLA Industries is the role-playing game design company that designed the classic RPG Nightfall in 1993. Nightfall centers on the lives of unemployed writers and artists living in the nightmarish metropolis "Glasgow", slaving away for "Nightfall, Ltd.", an uber-corporation headed by the mysterious Dave. Other power players include the tragi-gothic Jared, the dark sorceress Anne, and the terrifying Preceptor Tim. An expansion pack also introduced the powerful but unstable character Angus.
The writers are credited by their noms de plumes, including Slayer and Intruder. They also credit Reathanol for the success of their product.