Liquid Steel by Alcatena and Mazzitelli Is Becoming a Tabletop RPG

Did you know there are tabletop RPGs created in Argentina that are sold and played all over the world? Game designer Gavriel Quiroga works from his studio in Temperley, creating systems and worlds that become Tabletop Role Playing Game (TRPG) manuals used on an international scale: Neurocity, Warpland, Hell Night, Sygil, The Black Rainbow Society, and Hell World Earth.

Now, Gavriel has turned his attention to Liquid Steel, driven by his passion for Argentine comics and those classic local magazines like El Tony, Skorpio, and Fierro. He reached out to Quique Alcatena to start this new project: the Liquid Steel RPG.

Liquid Steel, the Tabletop RPG and Its English Translation

From the great creative team of Quique Alcatena and Eduardo Mazzitelli came Liquid Steel (Acero líquido), one of the most important titles in Argentine comics. Originally published in Skorpio magazine starting in the '90s, the comic held a prominent place in the publication, running for 20 chapters. Fortunately, it is not one of those titles lost to time: over the years it has been reprinted several times and can be found today in nearly any bookstore or comic shop.

In Liquid Steel, the story revolves around Hark, a jester who, as punishment for his insults and mockery of the king, is transformed into a violent warrior bearing a hyper-armor that grants him superhuman strength... at the cost of his humanity. But what made it truly compelling was not just the art -- chapter after chapter brought surprises, as the plot was not bound to always follow our antihero. The adventure is set in a world between cyberpunk and fantasy, deeply dreamlike, filled with the kind of places and characters that only Alcatena could imagine.

Gavriel says the game will be published by the English publisher Melsonian and will be adapted to work within his Troika RPG system. They are currently working on the tabletop RPG adaptation, which involves not only the game design work but also finding the right aesthetic and visuals that the source material demands.

This project does not just bring Liquid Steel to new readers in the RPG world -- it is also resulting in the comic's first-ever English translation, which Melsonian will publish as well. A BackerKit campaign was created to fund both the game and the comic translation, and it has already reached its goal. So all that is left is to wait for its release in the last quarter of this year.

In the meantime, you can check out some of the previous games Gavriel has worked on.

Neurocity

During the explosion of OSR (Old School Renaissance) RPGs and indie games, alongside the arrival of Mork Borg in 2019, Gavriel had been making games for his circle of friends. But he used the free time during lockdown to finish assembling Neurocity, his first tabletop RPG manual, and through Kickstarter he secured the funding to publish it.

This RPG places us in an underground city governed by an ever-watchful supercomputer called I.S.A.C. Society is on the brink of collapse and is experiencing a regression from digital to analog technology, due to resource scarcity.

Warpland 

After the success of his first Kickstarter campaign and game, Gavriel continued working on new titles like Warpland (2021), an RPG that blends pulp sci-fi worlds with '70s-style fantasy, and which is currently set to receive a new edition for the European market.

The game features a manual with extensive graphic work, a design that holds its own against any modern RPG book, and an aesthetic rooted in Nippur and other Argentine comic publications in the vein of magazines like El Tony, Skorpio, and Fierro.

Hell Night + The Black Rainbow Society + Sygyl

His latest two RPG titles and card game all belong to the same universe: Hell Night (2022), The Black Rainbow Society (2024), and the card game Sygil (2023). These three games embrace an aesthetic from the late '80s and early '90s, drawing influences from Cronenberg, Stephen King, and other classics of horror and sci-fi cinema from that era.

Music also plays a direct role in the creative process, with metal, industrial, and post-punk becoming part of the setting itself. In fact, Hell Night comes with 2 cassette tapes produced exclusively to set the mood for the game.

Hell World Earth 

His next project is Hell World Earth, an ultra-violent RPG created alongside Patrick DuRivage, an illustrator who specializes in incredible monsters.