Stack of Goats Studio

[RPGaDay] Funerary Priest Ester

2026-08-28T21:30:00-07:00

RPG A Day 28!

For RPG a Day 2026 I'm creating a dungeon delving crew called the Deft Delvers. This is a company which enters dungeons to recover loot (pretty common trope in fantasy anime like Dungeon Meshi, Solo Leveling, or Is It Wrong to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon). I'll be focusing on the non combat roles to give some additional constraints beyond the daily prompts. See the other entries here

No art today!

Devotion: Funerary Priest Ester

In a dangerous occupation, death is always a possibility. While Doctor Deathly can do a huge amount to salvage someone on death's door, not everyone gets so lucky. When there is a death, Ester gets her moment to provide the final rites. Across the diversity of faiths and beliefs in the Deft Delvers, Ester knows them all. More importantly she can fervently believe in each one regardless of what she had to believe for any other funeral. She has the utmost faith in each god and religion during the funeral before returning to neutrality afterwards.

When not performing funeral rites, Ester is a general faith counselor helping Delvers prepare for their next expeditions and the emotional toil of constant danger. She may also slightly crave death and the idea of the afterlife. There's some part of her that wants to hedge all bets about death with faith in all gods while not ensuring that each is loved in isolation. That by being near death and all of the rituals she can better secure an eternity of happiness. Possibly also a fascination with morbidity.

D6 Funeral Rites

Cremation and then the ashes are compressed into a brick used as the foundation to a new building
Sky burial where birds are allowed to eat the flesh, a leftover bone is then made into a musical instrument
Dropped into a bog alongside stones engraved with your life's story
Put out to the ocean on a raft where each log is bound with rope made of family and friend's hair
Interred in a crypt after spending a night at every living relative's house (much competition over the order of the visits)
Body is buried in a grave dug on the territory of an enemy without their permission

[RPGaDay] Animal Trainer Nerva

2026-08-28T21:30:00-07:00

RPG A Day 29!

Labor: Animal Trainer Nerva

There's a variety of creatures utilized by the Deft Delvers as working animals. Nerva takes care of them and trains them to accomplish some unique task in the expedition. Delvers will come to them with problems that are too dangerous, require operating in a confined space, or need capabilities that a human lacks. Somehow Nerva always knows how to procure and train up a new animal to handle the weird requirements. The animals are frequently exotic and come from Nerva 'emancipating' them from traders, merchants, and nobles who want them as pets. After performing a task for Nerva, they use some of the payment to send the animals back to the wild.

In between training animals Nerva is working to resurrect a group of environmentalists that was previously framed for a merchant's death. They work openly to try and recruit new members, flaunting a standing order by the Crown for the group to remain disbanded. Reforming the group has gone slowly, but the Deft Delvers tolerate the work and provide cover for Nerva's activities.

D6 Working Animals

Emotional support bunnies that help people keep calm after dangerous missions (and act as emergency food supplies)
Guard owls which keep watch at night
Navigation aid bats trained to get home even in the darkest of dungeons
Frogs to eat annoying and disease spreading insects
Rats trained to go into dungeon walls and bite through tripwires and trap mechanisms
Parrots which can repeat an incantation over and over to refresh an area spell

[RPGaDay] Housekeeper Lenn

2026-08-28T21:30:00-07:00

RPG A Day 30!

Pride: Housekeeper Lenn

Lenn ensures that the Deft Delvers headquarters, where many members live, train, and work, stays looking clean and tidy. He doesn't like getting his hands dirty, but thankfully he can contract with ghosts to get them to do the manual labor instead. Ghosts often wander into the headquarters or follow the Delvers home from their expeditions after their dungeon home is disturbed. These wandering ghosts are then trapped in arcane pots set up by Lenn and freed only on the condition that they help with the house work. At any one time Lenn might have a dozen or so ghosts in his employ.

The ghosts often develop a sense of pride in their work and stay much longer than the contract would require. This isn't due to any particular charm of Lenn, he just treats them fairly and is willing to listen to their stories as they work. Despite his good nature, the presence of the ghosts dampens the desire for any of the other Delvers to approach Lenn, especially if they are not able to see ghosts themselves.

D6 Dungeon Ghost Origins

Adventurer who took an arrow to the knee and bled out
Condemned criminal tossed into a dungeon to die
Monster that gained sentience right before being killed in the dungeon
The dungeon's original creator, a wealthy king out to protect their treasure post death
A child who wandered into the dungeon on accident
Dungeon construction worker who got trapped in a tunnel collapse

[Offcuts] shopping

2026-08-28T16:30:00-07:00

A few more random worldbuilding ideas that are free for the taking if someone wants to flesh them out or incorporate them into their worlds! Intended to be quick and encourage me (and you!) to generate new ideas. See more worldbuilding posts here.

Ideas

pre-owned is considered better (sign of longevity and durability) so entities exist to use something for a while as a service
extremely tight and specific zoning means single tall towers of every provider of a good
stores which sell an expensive, crappy item in the front and then their actual merchandise in the back so that they can claim certain tax or zoning rules apply
convoluted points and stamp rally schemes in order to actually buy items
all stores only carry their items, with total vertical integration being the norm
blind boxes for items like groceries, home decor, and expensive luxury goods
get everything gift wrapped or packaged up for long term storage
complimentary gift with every purchase even if super small
shops don't display goods, you walk into a booth and describe what you want to a clerk who fetches what you need
pop ups only, stores only last a few weeks before moving
real time, personalized pricing and product creation the moment you walk in the door
store access determines social class and strata with terms for class matching store names
predominantly door to door salespeople with traveling carts to bring goods right to your door
single state run online marketplace which every storefront participates in
purchased items always come with complementary assembly in your home, even for food
the more distance traveled to purchase a good the more prestigious so luxury stores add artificial mazes, treadmills, or tall towers to provide distance even in urban environments

[RPGaDay] Cook

2026-08-27T22:30:00-07:00

RPG A Day 27!

Hunger: Cook

The Cook is a fire spirit. Upon speaking a secret phrase known only to the Deft Delvers to a roaring fire, the fire will twist, contort and compress into the Cook. Given raw food Cook will turn it into a delicious meal before your eyes, assuming they don't get singed off in the process. When the meal is done you had better tip the Cook with some pieces of firewood, charcoal, or flammable material otherwise every fire for the next week will fail to light for you.

[RPGaDay] Former Member Wicburg

2026-08-26T16:30:00-07:00

RPG A Day 26!

Regret: Former Member Wicburg

Wicburg was abandoned by the Deft Delvers while out on an expedition. To the Delvers this is a simple case of someone failing to do the work assigned, someone who couldn't make it, and someone too attached to the fame and riches and not the task at hand. People like that get left behind at camp and cut loose at the nearest town. Wicburg didn't take it that way though. They saw their compatriots and comrades just slowly close themselves off when they made some jokes about making it big. People who grumbled when things went awry that weren't Wicburg's fault but got blamed for anyway. Then suddenly they were left all alone in a hostile place so they disappeared in a hurry, suddenly recognizing they weren't welcome. Ever since Wicburg has found doors closed off and a promised life of fame slipping away. There's a different kind of recognition, infamy, that began to appeal to Wicburg until they started to plot ways to take the Deft Delvers down a peg and demonstrate the real relationship between them.

Hallowed Ground RPG

2026-08-26T11:30:00-07:00

The Hallowed Ground, the resting place of souls, was stolen from heaven and chained to the earth. The Gods are angry and they send their messengers, empowered magical beasts they call Retrievers and we call Rievers, to return what was taken. You play as hunters, defending against these Rievers and taking their bodies back to be processed into the city's lifeblood. The crimes of the few have become the foundation of your society. Do you hunt the Rievers for fame and status? Or pacify them and slowly reconcile with the Gods? Or chart a path to rupture the whole system at its source?

Hallowed Ground is an RPG I've been working on very sporadically for the past year. It's a slow process but I'd like to start putting out posts to help explain the project in more detail and perhaps move it from very sporadic to intermittent progress :) The core idea is that humans have stolen heaven, causing havoc both for the souls who reside there and because the gods are sending horrible monsters to try and get it back. Humans being humans though, have found ways to turn both issues into their own benefit. Soul based magic and holding the keys to eternal life are a new source of prestige and status on the one hand. Massive factories break down the monsters into food, fuel, and basic goods on the other hand. Both embolden the central city where the Hallowed Ground lies and leaves the surrounding areas in wreckage.

The game rules are shaping into a blend of Mythic Bastionland, Blades in the Dark, Wildsea, and some OSR flavorings. A few salient portions that I'm experimenting with:

hex crawl to intercept and defeat the Rievers using an omen like system
Rievers are creatures, items, ideas, or people that have been given monstrous form by a God. Rievers are intended to be like mini dungeons, you can defeat them through force (and get immediate rewards of money and XP from the factories) or pacify them by discovering the event triggering becoming a Riever, their original form, and their desires. If you can propose all three then the Riever disappears, pleasing the God and boosting abilities but leaving you without mortal rewards
for layout I want each hex location to have a single, short page handout which can be given to the players that points out the major features, NPCs, and events that an average person would know
the resolution mechanic is structured around degrees of success resulting in boons and banes which feed into mini-move like structures
rolls are one of biased against (see how bad things went), biased for (see how well things went), or split (equal amounts of good or bad). This is separate from difficulty and instead more like Blade in the Dark's position and effect
characters all get a soul-infused weapon which grows and adapts along side them
characters all pick an oath during character creation, the oath imposes a definite social imposition (give away your money, must collect things, hold parties, etc) that when fulfilled power up specific social abilities

My plan is to put up the occasional blog post expanding on these more experimental elements to help get feedback and work through their designs, so if you're interested please subscribe to the RSS or follow me on mastodon or bluseky!

[RPGaDay] Appraiser Hocine

2026-08-25T18:30:00-07:00

RPG A Day 25!

Familiarity: Appraiser Hocine

Hocine examines all of the loot that the Deft Delvers procure, evaluating each for their worth before they go into the many hidey holes of the banker Marcela or put into the charity pile. Hocine has a knack for the recognition of things, able to pick up on the subtle clues that indicate to her where an object originated and its quality. She applies this skill to things beyond just the loot, often making piercing remarks about the state of her compatriots based on tiny signals. Through this skill though the world has begun to feel rote and boring, ossifying into patterns that repeat over and over that no one else seems to notice. She yearns for the new and unexpected except that it immediately turns into the same catalogued sameness after a single glance.

[RPGaDay] Driver Milagros

2026-08-24T14:30:00-07:00

RPG A Day 24!

Distance: Driver Milagros

Dungeon expeditions head to all sorts of far off locals, when that can be reached by a carriage Milagros is called upon to transport the expedition. Where Eugene might carry supplies all the way into the dungeon, Milagros will only go so far as the roads will go.

Milagros has a load of down time after transporting the crew to the dungeon while he waits for them to return. He spends the majority of that time reading. There's a secret compartment under the wagon which he packs full of books. In particular he likes to read self help books about ensuring one stays healthy and wealthy into old age. He's begun to write little treatises on the best ways to achieve these based on his own ideas. Usually on the trip back to headquarters he'll pester the exhausted Deft Delvers (who have just risked bodily harm for a little more money) for their thoughts.

D6 Milagros' Mindfulness Missives

'Avoid those who seek to harm you, preferably on a fast horse'
'There's no such thing as too much stuff, only a weak carriage'
'Aid the tired, for you never know when they might give you a special birthday present... wink wink'
'Hitchhikers are like doctors, useless'
'It's the simple things that make one happiest, like a nicely cushioned seat'
'Go only where the paved roads go, off the beaten path is where the bandits live'

[RPGaDay] Purser Chalcis

2026-08-23T20:00:00-07:00

RPG A Day 23!

No art for today and I might wind back to just doing text for the last week of RPG a Day since it's going to be a busy week for me separately. Hopefully I'll have some time to do a few more pieces!

Fortune: Purser Chalcis

On payday Chalcis is the most loved person in the Deft Delvers, but most other days... she is avoided like a wandering monster. She's constantly looking for people to invest in schemes, promising inflated returns that never materialize. Or they might materialize for a short while until the pyramid scheme falls apart and wages start getting garnished to make different people whole. Because Chalcis knows how much everyone makes she frequently has other members coming around to try and prize the information from her, either out of curiosity or sorting out professional rivalries.

When not inventing or looking for another money making scheme, Chalcis is an appreciator of fine dining. She frequents the various restaurants on the dungeon expedition routes and writes up reviews of each of their menu items. These are published anonymously and used throughout the region as the definitive ranking of foods.

D6 Money Making Schemes

Buy special cows that supposedly produce milk that makes you impervious to impacts
Grow straw for roofs that a witch has modified so that it doesn't burn
A 'secret' quarry that is said to produce marble for the Crown is opening up new investors
Special rookeries for keeping tamed griffons, the tamed griffons will be ready any day now
Jewelry made of dragon (really just shark) teeth gotten on the cheap
Tonics that will make children behave, adults stronger, cure any ailment, and animals twice as large. Instead it puts children to sleep, adults imagine the strength, leaves one toothless, and makes animals berserk.

[RPGaDay] Armorer Magda

2026-08-22T16:30:00-07:00

RPG A Day 22!

Quick sketch of Magda rather than a full piece today.

Grit: Armorer Magda

Not everyone at the Deft Delvers is good at their job. Magda is one of them. He faked their way into the position by presenting pieces that they didn't actually make. He has one thing that he's good at which is sharpening blades. So whenever something is not working balanced right or needs repairing, he sharpens it instead. Most people can't actually tell that the only change is a sharper weapon. For the few that can tell Magda claims it was a mistake and then goes to another blacksmith to get the work done. This means that he's frequently sneaking out on errands to 'buy more charcoal' or 'get some better grit' or some other vaguely blacksmithy sounding requirement where he can then shop the actual work around. He's constantly terrified of being found out as a charlatan but the shame holds them back from quitting or becoming an apprentice.

[Review] Shroud

2026-08-22T14:00:00-07:00

Link to the book

Review

Overall: 4/5: One of the better Tchaikovsky novels but definitely has the same pros and cons as all of them - truly amazing worldbuilding, mediocre characters and plot, and some neat literary tricks.

I really love worldbuilding and Shroud contains some excellent worldbuilding. The human, corporate hellscape is (unfortunately) very believable and captures the kind of foibles such a system produces. The aliens are very alien and rendered out vividly. I wanted to know everything about the two groups. They're not your typical space exploration humans or your typical aliens.

The worldbuilding is at times a bit overly logical and perhaps too 'clinical'. Coming after reading The Heart of the Nhaga I missed the little bits of orthogonal worldbuilding which give some grit and sharp edges to things. The science also wavered around at times where I decided to suspend by disbelief. There's some details around hacking, electromagnetic imaging, and communication where I had to stop asking 'why wouldn't they have just done X instead?' and just let the story flow instead.

Some of those technical issues though do crop up as part of the overall slow pacing of the story. It's a long book and I think some conceivable solutions that could have been used earlier are saved as adaptations for the end of the book. I think the book could have been half as long and been much better for it. The plot in general is following a pretty strict formula that starts to feel repetitive and just in service of getting us to see a few new bits of worldbuilding. The plot is driven mostly be external factors than anything the characters are doing, which compounds the pacing issues.

Speaking of the characters, I found them... fine. I think Adrian was trying to do interesting things with them but they're ultimately very flat. They have a defining characteristic and they stick to it, without much growth. Juna is still the jack of all trades social smoother and Mai is the technical engineer from beginning to end of the book.

Given the above I'd be tempted to give the book a more middling place, but it's elevated in that every time the story is written from the perspective of the aliens it's great. Adrian uses a few literary tricks that I think are employed really well to convey the mental faculties of the aliens.

[RPGaDay] Donation Drive

2026-08-21T14:30:00-07:00

RPG A Day 21!

Charity: Deft Delver's Donation Drive

Skipping art and keeping it short for today, want to take another break :)

Dungeons contain a lot of loot, that's why they get explored - but not all of the loot ends up being valuable. The leftovers, broken swords and armor, cracked gems, and worthless artifacts accumulate in the Deft Delver's storage until it eventually needs to be cleared out. This is turned into a giant charity drive with items sold at rock bottom prices and the proceeds going to local causes. Every once in a while this causes some actually powerful artifact getting leaked out to the public, but the community views it as an overall boon. In the months afterwards you may find farmers tools made from old swords or a restaurant serving a meal on a shield or a frayed ornate banner flying outside a merchants shop.

[Offcuts] Jewelry

2026-08-21T14:00:00-07:00

Ideas

Jewelry has an insanely long and diverse history, as ornamentation, store of value, presentation of status, token of affection, in group signifier, etc.

Migrates across the body during the day as though it were alive, moving through piercing locations, wrapping around limbs, and climbing up chains.
Measures wearer's vital stats, fancy dials and indicators to show your real time age, mood, hunger, body temperature, etc.
Pulled in the direction of a matching pair so that two people can always locate the other. Given as wedding presents or between parent and child.
Judged based on the distance that the jewelry reaches from the body. Tiny, fine filigreed wires jut outwards several feet from bracelets, necklaces, and piercings with gemstones dangling right at the end.
Primary jewelry is a chain which gets links added which represent major life events.
Any piece of jewelry is only ever worn once and should be destroyed afterwards.
The gems, metals, bones, and material in jewelry have a physiological influence on the wearer making them calmer, smarter, bolder, funnier, etc depending on the set of material used and the quality of the piece.
Common form of jewelry is made from human bones and body parts, gifted as part of inheritance.
Money, instead of being coins or bills, is made as bracelets to be worn and display ones wealth.
Wear extremely heavy metal and stone jewelry to demonstrate ones strength.
Each gem in a jewelry piece stores one spell that the wearer can use before it is destroyed. Powerful wizards are judged by how many gems they wear day to day.
Pieces are tiny recorders, cameras, and automated systems to track everything that goes on around the wearer.
Jewelry contains live insects and microbes which fluoresce, emit bioluminescence, or are iridescent. They also require constant care to ensure that they stay alive.
Severely restrict ranges of motion in limbs or fingers to prove lack of need to do physical labor.

[RPGaDay] Recruitment Officer Ahmad

2026-08-20T15:00:00-07:00

RPG A Day 20!

Promise: Recruitment Officer Ahmad

Ahmad is very bored, nearly all the time. Except for brief moments of intense work when a flood of people will show up to try and join. It's a feast or famine occupation to try and recruit for a dungeoneering crew. Ahmad travels around trying to get people to sign up, offering the promise of an easy and lucrative career. Little do the applicants know that these broad recruitment drives are to get expendable recruits - anyone likely to join the Delver's rank and file membership will be scouted and made a personal offer. But there are lots of tasks that some more... expendable people can assist with: disarming traps, standing guard, making deliveries of supplies, etc that have a high turn over rate in the Deft Delvers. Ahmad is aiming to get anyone to sign up for such roles while dangling the promise of full membership in front of them.

To assist in these recruitment drives Ahmad has constructed and then animated a suit of armor. It's complete garbage, full of useless spikes, oversized bits, and made of wood but it fulfills the fantasy and makes an eye catching piece. It also acts as an imposing figure to delay anyone who would come to rough up the recruitment booth.

[RPGaDay] Aspirant Stirling

2026-08-19T16:00:00-07:00

RPG A Day 19!

Desire: Aspirant Stirling

Many want to join the Deft Delvers on their expeditions. Drawn by the allure of drama and fortune, there are more applicants to the group than meaningful spots. Some of the most promising are given small tasks to keep them around and ready to step into the next cohort of trainees and join the ranks of Delvers. Aspirant Stirling is one such hopeful, taking on small odd jobs and tasks while they attempt to get onto the roster proper.

Stirling is constantly attempting to glean some small advantage over other aspirants. Some of this is just through willingness to take on any odd job. But much comes from using those jobs as an excuse to listen in on Delver's discussions and then pester them with questions. Some youthful inquisitiveness is expected, but Stirling can easily go on and on for hours with questioning. Anyone who will go on with Stirling will become a champion in their eyes. They also have a short fuse when it comes to their current idolization within the Delvers and any disrespect towards them will cause Stirling to start leaving petty little pranks as they do their odd jobs.

[RPGaDay] Cartographer Puja

2026-08-18T15:00:00-07:00

RPG A Day 18!

Directness: Cartographer Puju

Puja is not interested in maps, they are interested in a map, the map, a perfect map of the whole world in infinite, exacting detail. On the journey to create this map they have teamed up with the Deft Delvers on a mutual venture. The Delvers will take help guide Puja through dungeons and take measurements of places that Puja cannot go safely. In return Puja gives the Deft Delvers access to their map. Incomplete as it may still be it is definitively the world's best map, conveying detail at a dizzying level of accuracy and an uncanny up to date-ness. Surely such a map should begin to have discrepancies and inaccuracies the moment the pen has left the paper, but somehow this map, in atleast the completed areas, remains up to date and accurate.

[RPGaDay] Trap Inspector General

2026-08-17T18:00:00-07:00

RPG A Day 17!

Intensity: Trap Inspector General

Atieno is the sixth Trap Inspector General of the Deft Delvers and the longest serving. Rest in peace/pieces Tarmo who lasted only two weeks. Atieno is a methodical Trap Inspector General (TIG for short), often taking days to categorize and analyze all the traps in a single room. Each rock and support needs to be scrutinized, poked at, prodded, and have some expendable test fodder recruits stand near. Once understood it is the TIGs job to either dismantle the trap, render it safe on a temporary basis, or simply log its activation and how to avoid it. Records for how to avoid specific traps are then turned into mnemonics, songs, or checklists for dungeon expedition crews to use for navigation and self protection.

When not in a dungeon looking at traps, Atieno polishes rocks, specifically they've been working on creating a single gloriously faceted gemstone. When asked he is cagey about the end goal of this gemstone, offering different explanations such as for an engagement ring (if only he could find a partner), as a magical focus (if only he could use magic), or as a gift to the king to pardon him for crimes (if only he was a criminal).

[RPGaDay] Guard Ulli

2026-08-16T15:30:00-07:00

Just went with a quick sketch today :)

RPG A Day 16!

Composure: Guard Ulli

When the Delvers enter and explore a dungeon they post guards at each entrance to ensure that no one else comes in behind them. This both ensures that the Deft Delvers are the ones to recover any loot and ensures that dungeon expeditions can be sure that when they leave the path out will be in the same state as entering: loot left ready to go, traps disarmed, path markers undisturbed, etc. For this task of great importance they employ trusted guards from the Anterus clan, currently Ulli Anterus is the primary guard. Ulli may look unassuming and often sleeping on the job, but that's a trap. Those with ill intent will behave differently when they think no one is watching. Within a moment Ulli can be up and injected with a clan secret cocktail of drugs which give him great strength. Anyone with ill intent will find themselves run through by a spear before they can get their guard up. Those who just stumble across the dungeon, after somehow missing posted signs and the surface Delver team members, might be lucky to receive a warning before being punted away.

The Anterus clan will usually rotate through who is on guard duty as using the drug cocktail leaves the user incapacitated the next day. Ulli is greatly respected though for his ability to keep using the injections with seemingly no ill side effects. They have started to build up a tolerance to it which at first was of a benefit but it's starting to require more and more to receive the needed strength and speed boost.

[RPGaDay] Message Runner Methuselah

2026-08-15T17:00:00-07:00

RPG A Day 15!

Endurance: Message Runner Methuselah

The Delvers who actually go into the dungeons need a reliable way to get messages and light supplies to and from the surface support team. Methuselah is one such runner, a level headed person who seems unfazed by the goings on around her of monsters, traps, and danger. She just cruises by it all in her steady clip.

Outside of expeditions she enjoys mountain climbing and getting as high up as possible, often putting herself into more danger than her job would. She claims that it's the grand vistas at the top and the feats of endurance needed to reach them that put dungeon dangers into perspective. She has also spent much of her life as a refugee, keeping away from other forms of dangerous environment, so perhaps her perspective on what counts as a normal level of risk has been warped.

[RPGaDay] Catching up

2026-08-14T14:00:00-07:00

RPG A Day 12 - 14!

Went camping to watch the perseid meteor shower and missed a few days, so doing some quick posts to catch up!

Loss: Banker

The Deft Delvers' banker, Marcela, is covered in hundreds of keys and is constantly making more. Left to her own devices everything in reach would be put under lock and key. But being locked up is only step one to ensuring an items safety, step two is hiding it somewhere. Every loose floorboard, mattress, or hole in the ground near the headquarters is a spot for squirreling away valuables. Few know the true amount of money the Deft Delvers has at its disposal but whenever someone needs a bit of cash or an artifact suddenly there's Marcela holding a locked box retrieved from a hidden spot. Most of the keys adorning Marcela are assumed to be decoys but no one knows how much stuff is buried. Once a year Marcela does an inventory and manages to produce an exacting account of all the items and money to present to the founder. It also seems like some magic draws the key back to the locked box, so when a robbery occurs (or someone just takes a box that they randomly stumbled across) the key will lead Marcela and some Delvers to help recover it.

Strain: Excavation

Some of the best dungeons are buried deep underground, so the excavator Braam will climb into their magically powered exosuit and get to digging. The arms of the suit can be swapped for the type of material that needs removal with options for big scoops, liquid fracking, drills, jackhammers, and more. Braam employs a number of mole people to assist in carrying away material and helping to guide the giant suit to reach the dungeon. The suit and Braam are inseparable with Braam preferring to sleep outside in the suit than in an inn or the headquarters. They also routinely paint the outside of the suit in colorful decorations and nature motifs.

Regard: Expedition Operation Manager

Where there's danger, someone needs to be safely outside of the situation to monitor and provide feedback. Hanging back on the surface and communicating via messenger is definitely not cowardice. Or at least so says the Expedition Operation Manager, Broccomaglos. He is a competent administrator and coordinator of the overall expedition, just preferring to do so from a carriage cabin positioned to take off back home at a moments notice.

[Offcuts] Ruins

2026-08-14T13:00:00-07:00

Ideas

Ruins are ancient, mysterious, and falling apart places - how else can we apply those criteria?

ruins as a disease slowly infecting cities, causing them to crumble and decay in the time span of a few years
ruins composed of sound, slowly warping but endlessly echoing and reproduced from sources mechanical or biological
specialized ecosystem around living in ruins with creatures disguised as stone blocks and others feasting on leftover mechanical or magical energy
ruins which are seasonally refreshed, occupied and rebuilt only to go back to being demolished the rest of the year
fallen space elevator which spans across oceans and wraps around continents
currents bring lost, abandoned, and derelict ships to to a specific islet where they accumulate into a gigantic wooden and metal morass of ships from all different eras and cargos
ruins from a failed terraforming attempt where structures and towers maintain impossible biomes in close proximity to one another
every new building needs a 'seed' component from another, deconstructed and ruined building
ruins created as an amusement park and educational aid full of anachronisms and modern conveniences which has itself fallen into disrepair
manufactured ruins as a civilizational disguise that hides a thriving people

[RPGaDay] Santhosh

2026-08-11T14:00:00-07:00

RPG A Day 11!

No drawing today, going to take a bit of a hiatus from drawing to recharge :)

Tact: Santhosh

The primary occupational hazard for a dungeon expedition crew is not injury to monsters, those can be healed up with magic, instead it's legal trouble: squabbling over rights to dungeon rights, contract disputes for loot assignment, getting people out of trouble with officials who want their corrupt cut, and on and on. Any one of which might doom the entire enterprise either through procedural headaches or violence used in its stead. Any halfway decent dungeoneering group will have a lawyer. The Deft Delvers' is Santhosh, who is adept at all of the above and below board ways to apply pressure.

Santhosh comes from a tradition of lawyers who are only paid upon successful service, typically a percentage from the coffers of the counter party, and put up a deposit for if the case is lost. They then swear to take no other income. Santhosh has taken this incentive structure to heart, pressing each case as far as it can to maximize paid out damages. On the other hand if the case is hopeless, Santhosh will fold instantly and move onto the next. To help incentivize them, the Deft Delvers provide everything but a stipend with room, board, and grunt work provided for free. This arrangement means that Santhosh will every once in a while take on something that seems hopeless. Thankfully they have a knack for turning even the worthless cases around.

Given the irregular nature of their work and most living expenses taken care of, Santhosh gads about in the high life society, attending parties and cozying up to magistrates, politicians, and the influential. Their escapades sometimes get them into trouble, except somehow Santhosh always ends up maneuvering such that they're the harmed party and in need of recompense. A sizeable portion of their excess funds and court mandated reparations they direct to funding the local theaters. This has resulted in a flourishing drama scene, with big performances often immortalizing and glamorizing whatever drama Santhosh recently wormed their way out of.

[RPGaDay] Historian?

2026-08-10T13:30:00-07:00

RPG A Day 10!

Secret: The Historian?

In the basement of the Deft Delver's headquarters there's a room full of books with a desk and bell. If you press that bell ferrets will come, these are the Historian's helpers. If you present them with a question on a piece of paper they will retrieve a book or scroll related to its answer. Are they pets of some real historian hidden away or a collection of just very smart ferrets pretending to be pets? Only the founder knows. The ferrets can be found on occasion going into kitchen to take food and peaking out of rat holes to listen in on conversations. Some claim to have even seen them around town with books or scrolls strapped to their backs.

When not answering questions the ferrets are generally mischievous little furballs demonstrating too much intelligence. They'll set up pranks and traps inside of the headquarters and then scamper off squealing in joy when its triggered. Assume that anything uttered within the headquarters will get picked up by the ferrets and recorded somewhere in their books of secrets and knowledge.

[RPGaDay] Patron's Son Rudolf

2026-08-09T10:00:00-07:00

RPG A Day 9!

Privilege: Rudolf, the Patron's son

To the Patron, the Deft Delvers are a miserable business: highly variable, capital intensive, and full of miscreants and strange people. The Patron supports them primarily because every once in a while they're extremely useful to resolve things clandestinely with force and because the kids absolutely adore the stories and sense of adventure. The middle child Rudolf, stuck between succession woes and being groomed into a middle manager of the family's wealth, pines for the escape into the daring and dangerous world of dungeoneering. Rudolf is frequently shadowing along on the baggage train, ostensibly to do 'inspections', but really just absorbing the atmosphere.

[RPGaDay] Foundation and Shoring Team 'Slate'

2026-08-08T11:00:00-07:00

RPG A Day 8!

Resolve: "Slate", Foundation and Shoring Team

Slate, currently the only member of the Foundation and Shoring Team, is an earth spirit under contract to repair dungeon hallways and rooms which are unsafe for their squishier expedition members. Slate's form is frequently changing as they pick up stones and materials. They take employment payments in gems which appear to get used as fashion accessories as after payday Slate will typically come around adorned in new shiny crystals. In order to seem less intimidating and ensure that they aren't mistaken for a monster, Slate also uses chalk each day to draw on a smiling face.

When Slate is working the tunnels will ring with the sound of music if you press your ear to the floor or walls, pure frequencies of vibrating stone. Delver's will use the music to guide themselves back to safety as well by checking where it gets quieter or louder and following it back to Slate who can guide them them out. Slate is a pacifist but monsters seem to give them a wide berth regardless.

[Offcuts] Weights and Measures

2026-08-07T14:30:00-07:00

Ideas

While the world has mostly standardized on metric, weird systems of measure have long been the norm including the 'US customary system'. Here's some ideas for new unusual ways to measure things:

'starlin's flight': distance measure based on the length of migratory birds journey, used for marking out things like ship routes, long distance races, and the span between countries
'witherings': time unit equal to the time one can spend in desert sun sans water before incapacitation, frequently used to mark out working hours and shifts
'mewlings': objective measure of cuteness defined as the number of minutes one can resist going to squish said cute thing
'press to publish (ptp)': equal to the duration between an event happening and it hitting the major press, frequently used to describe the relative impact of events with lower ptp being higher impact
'housetons': weight of all the stuff that can be brought onto a single boat or five horses when a nomadic culture picks up and moves their home. Wealthy people may have multiple housetons and some objects are measured as a portion of a houseton. Even after the culture stops being nomadic the houseton is seen as a sort of 'right sized' amount of stuff
'march grade': describes the quality, spacing, and maintenance of a road in terms of how many troops marching along it in one day it can support without degrading
'lightness': quantifies an animal or plants trophic level by the amount of sun energy required to keep it living. Eating or killing anything over a certain lightness is considered taboo
'distortion': measures the amount an object or area warps faster than light navigation which equates to the amount of cognition and complexity in that object or area
'magician's ire': the distance beyond which a magician's magic won't reach, used as well for measuring how far secluded an area or person is
'draining': volume term used by vampires equal to the amount of blood in a typical adult human body
'sanctiums': measures godliness of holy people, now applied to influencers as well
'weft days': gauges ship size based on the number of weavers needed to make its sails
'laments': measure of sound defined as how loud a populace was at the death of their ruler

[RPGaDay] Doctor Deathly

2026-08-07T11:00:00-07:00

RPG A Day 7!

Mercy: Doctor Deathly

Dungeon exploration is deadly, dangerous business and it's the Doctor's responsibility to patch them up again. Doctor Deathly is the best around at getting you back on someone else's feet; their necromancy is top class, trained in the elite corp of papal catacomb keepers. The Doctor keeps a fresh supply of necrotic body parts from local graveyards on hand to patch up injured Delvers. A dead Delver can even be resuscitated, if only for a temporary basis.

The Doctor spends free time in the Deft Delvers private graveyard, conversing with the dead and writing memoirs for them. This is similar work to what they did for the papal catacombs, but Delvers tend to have more exciting and baudy tales than stuffy clerics rambling on about the afterlife. Delvers are split on whether dying on a mission and being brought to the private graveyard is an amazing work perk or the worst fate imaginable. Some go so far as to tattoo 'Do Not Revivify - CREMATE ONLY' on their body to encourage cremation instead of winding up chatting with the Doctor.

[RPGaDay] 'Thumbs Up' Tessa Tao

2026-08-06T13:30:00-07:00

RPG A Day 6!

Reach: Tessa 'Thumbs' Tao

When the Deft Delvers meet an obstacle there's only one person they turn to, 'Thumbs Up' Tessa, their demolitions and explosives expert. The phrase 'a few screws loose' would apply to Tessa except that as a tinkerer all of their screws are lost instead. She lost her left hand slowly over the course of multiple mishaps. It's now replaced with a fake hand which contains an inbuilt flint and steel with a pathway for fuse cord. The hands permanent 'thumbs up' look was the start of her nickname. Now whenever she passes by another Deft Delver they flash a quick thumbs up, whether as encouragement, thanks, or as ward against getting caught up in one of her explosives depends on the member. She's proud and stubborn, nothing has withstand a suitable application of explosive force and she applies that philosophy to life generally.

Tessa is a terrible shot but can't give up on using a musket instead of any other weapon. The musket is modified so that she can remove her left hand and then support the musket. When someone is able to get past her musket shot her pegleg contains grenades as a closer range option (only Tessa considers grenades short range).

[RPGaDay] Eugene the Mule

2026-08-05T12:30:00-07:00

RPG A Day 5!

Burden: Mule and mule

The Deft Delvers baggage train during expeditions is handled by the Mule, Eugene, who guides the mule, Her Eminence of Large Dimensions. Eugene is a nimble climber and can retrieve an item at a moment's notice even if others think the packing methods are rather dangerous.

Eugene is a person of few words, preferring the company of Her Eminence and the other pack mules. They seem to have an unspoken language of cooperation with subtle cues used to get the cargo balanced just right. Some in the Deft Delvers speculate that Eugene can speak with animals but the answer could be more mundane of just a life spent caring for mules. Eugene is a former race jockey who raised, lived with, and rode equines from a young age after running away from home. When the track was taken over by the mafia Eugene led a bandit group of mounted jockeys who raided the race track's money deliveries. They now abhor gambling and must constantly be on the lookout for retribution from the mafia.

[RPGaDay] Patron Liaison

2026-08-04T15:00:00-07:00

RPG A Day 4!

Charm: Patron Liaison

While the Deft Delvers' founder may have the backing of the patron, no one wants to be spending all of their time babysitting them to eke out some additional funding. Instead it falls to the Patron Liaison, a rotating role currently occupied by the hapless, but very talented knife acrobat and musician Constance.

Constance was trained through grueling effort as a circus performer before a tragic accident befalling a friend led them to look for safer work. A new member to the Deft Delvers they didn't have the clout to avoid being assigned to liaison duty. The patron's family, especially their two youngest kids, have become enamored by Constance's jestery antics and clamor for them to come more regularly and regale them with stories of the latest dungeon expedition. Constance does not like kids. When they are on expedition they will play the flute to accompany the march and keep spirits high in the dungeon depths.

While in the patron's manor the liaison is on the look out for any clues about what they might fancy in order to present it as a gift and continue to charm them into supporting what is ultimately a very risky endeavor.

[RPGaDay] Sword Trainer

2026-08-03T14:00:00-07:00

RPG A Day 3!

Poise: Sword Trainer

The sword trainer retired from front line dungeoneering years ago in favor of training. Their preferred weapon is an officer's sword. Whether gained from reputable service or stolen, they won't say. Covered in scars they point to each one as a marker for a particular lesson learned that they want to pass on. If sometimes they use the same scar for different stories, no recruit is willing to contest the contradiction.

When not training recruits they frequent a tavern where officers gather. Sometimes they come back with information about the coming and goings of the crown's troops. Sometimes they come back with a new trophy taken off an upstart officer who thought their skills were unmatched. Every once in a great while they'll return bloodied and with a new member for the Deft Delvers in tow.

When they get into their fighting stance though their poise and grace is remarkable. Then the fighting starts and they're as scrappy and underhanded as they come.

[RPGaDay] The Owner

2026-08-02T21:40:00-07:00

RPG A Day!

Stature: The Owner

The Owner founded the Deft Delvers after breaking away from a previous company. They did not part amicably with accusations of poached employees, stolen money, and the political backing of the Owner's patron. Nevertheless the Deft Delvers have made a name for themselves and their mascot, the canary 'Mr Nutter', is sung about in taverns for uncovering dangerous conditions. The Owner is a formidable spear user, with their legged chair allowing them to act as a mounted knight even in dungeons.

Within the Deft Delvers the crew operates mostly via consensus without any strict hierarchy. However the Owner maintains a special stature within the group as the one person everyone will turn to to resolve a problem, an organic and earned role as problem solver (even if ruthlessly so).

[RPGaDay] Crown's Observer

2026-08-01T19:40:00-07:00

RPG A Day!

Crown's Observer

The Crown's Observer (real name unknown) goes with the adventuring parties and ensures that the state gets its cut. They carry a small chest, colloquially referred to as the 'king's latrine' for pissing gold away. That chest is chained to the Observer to prevent theft and can only be opened in the crown's treasury. They carry a shield but no weapons except for a horn which acts as a beacon for crown's house guard. They do know some light magic, in particular the Deft Delver's Observer is lazy and uses a mage hand to put the crown's portion into the tax chest.

Failing to return from the dungeon with the Crown's Observer alive results in discipline. Failing to return with a suitable quantity inside the tax chest results in harsher discipline.

[Offcuts] Waste Management

2026-07-31T13:30:00-07:00

Ideas

Trying to examine some underappreciated bits of society when it comes to world building. All societies have some material that no longer has use and needs to be dealt with (composting, burning, landfills, recycling, refurbishing, sewage, etc). Let's see about adding some further options:

homes have a dedicated working set of animals to break down any organic waste
trash is kept until a monthly swap, repair, and art festival where everything must be converted into something new
one groups trash is valuable enough that it is under armed protection as it moves from generation to disposal
when born, you're allotted a specific space in a landfill which you cannot exceed or you will not be able to purchase new goods
all packaging can be composted at home in a matter of days after adding a specific fungus to it
sewage systems eventually become contaminated with monsters and require specialized crews to clean it up and fight
society keeps building new sewage systems on top of the old ones to prevent contamination with diseases from bygone eras resulting in layers and layers of crisscrossing sewers
pneumatic trash pickup runs right up to each house and sucks garbage out from each home
residual mana from trash coalesces in landfills causing outbreaks of strange diseases
each city has an office which distributes any unwanted materials for free to artists and refurbishing groups
littering is seen as totally reasonable but many animals have also adapted to repurposing trash as armor, nests, and camouflage
society 'disposes of' unused words, thoughts, and ephemeral items in the same way that they do trash with collection sites, cleaning crews, and landfill/burning/recycling center like spaces to handle their 'disposal'
all water is recycled in a closed loop within a city and carefully guarded and monitored
waste is extremely expensive to treat but must be treated or even harsher penalties may be imposed. Large black market and mafia organizations exist just around handling waste outside of the normal system

[Backlog] The Love Balloon

2026-07-30T10:30:00-07:00

Rolled the The Love Balloon RPG for my next backlog burndown post! For the process see this blog post. For all the entries in this series see this page.

The Love Balloon

This is a small (17 pages) game about people romancing on a cruise in a goofy sitcom sort of way. It seems quite fun and the kind of game that with the right group would be a great session or two.

Interesting Mechanics

The game has a set roster of one crew member, two people in a relationship, and three strangers. This is the same regardless of the number of players. It's a cool way of building the setup so that there is inbuilt relationships but there's also unequal relationships across the players.
In general the game provides a strong structure for what scenes should happen in the beginning and end with plenty of tables to provide nuances to the more freeform scenes in the middle.
I like some of the little flourishes of mechanics to help guide scenes to keep them dynamic and decisive like "calling “scene!” to end a scene instead of having scenes petering out

Useful Advice

"A kiss is the ultimate expression of love in the game. Anything further is implied."

Tables with Unusual Results

On the table for crew archetypes: "THE GOPHER - misreads situations."
The tables for relationships and backstories are great, but I love "A HOLY PERSON" as a backstory option in a romance game
The hijinks (additional complications that everyone must agree to add) are very juicy with my fav being "GROUNDHOG - the day repeats itself for one character."

[Review] The Heart of the Nhaga

2026-07-28T09:53:00-07:00

Link to the book

TLDR: 4/5, enjoyable fantasy epic that brings in flavorful worldbuilding at every corner. Would recommend if you want to see something a little different out of fantasy.

Review

The book is a translation from a Korean author (Lee Young-Do) who puts a really unique stamp on the fantasy setting and genre. I found the translation to be a little hard to get around in the beginning. There are some unusual sentence structures and word choices but by the end of the book I'd adjusted (or the translation had gotten smoother) such that instead of making the work hard to read it became a delightful bit of tactility to the work.

The worldbuilding is definitely the highlight of this book, lots of lovely gnobbly bits which subverted my western expectations and felt important to the world. Where another fantasy story might make magic or feudal scheming the cogs upon which the world works, Heart of the Nhaga chooses weirder elements and lets the world be complicated, fractious, and full of mythmaking. It does so without losing a generally lighthearted and at times funny tone or straying into absurdity. The story rides the perfect blend of tonal range to keep things interesting and not inducing whiplash or discord. It's really a masterclass in using worldbuilding, plot, and tone together to produce a unique journey through a strange, exciting world.

The book is poised on being an all time favorite work but stumbles at having characters who are relatively one note. They're interesting characters with quirks and worldbuilding and mysteries but they ultimately miss some dynamism or characterization that would push them into full three dimensionality.

Spoilers

Just want to pull out a few of the neat bits of worldbuilding:

King Delusion Disease and the curse against kings
The Nhaga can only see heat and have empathy so their primary art form is dancing with heated irons. Talking out loud is seen as weird and highly unusual
The myth story of a tiger which jumped over a town's walls so they then built the walls higher (and then later in the story a tiger gets over the walls anyway)
The Rekon being just insanely strong but afraid of water causing several shenanigans
Giant sky rays with ruins on their backs

[RI] Vigilance Commissioner KS Mar

2026-07-27T14:00:00-07:00

Anti corruption officer with advanced, extralegal surveillance techniques! Take me to the content

This is part of my ongoing blog series where I use a random wikipedia article as inspiration for system agnostic TTRPG game content!

The Real: R Sri Kumar

Let's pick out any interesting bits from the article:

"vigilance commissioner": cool name for an anti-corruption, inspector general type of possition
Long stint as a police and security officer at various posts
"first cyber crime police station"
"using technology to crack some of the most high-profile cases like the assassination of former Prime Minister [...] and fake stamp paper scam"

There's not loads to work with but we'll work with the overall picture of an anti corruption officer using technology to track down high profile cases.

In Game: KS Mar

KS is a vigilance commissioner working on high profile cases and an advocate for advanced surveillance techniques. Blind in one eye with chemical scarring on the face and hands. Still carries their beat cop revolver.

Vigilance Commissioner: anti corruption officer given wide latitude to investigate the government, but also produces many enemies.
High Profile Cases: they're the lead and public investigator on at least two cases (either use investigations into crimes committed by factions in your game or roll on the table below)
Their time is critical and they might get called away at any moment
Advanced Surveillance: can send officers to tail suspects and subpoena documents, but people suspect their success comes from less scrupulous methods
Once per scene they can use one advanced surveillance technique from the table below
Blinded during a raid onto a chemical factory where an official was bribed into ignoring unsafe conditions resulting in a chemical leak
Weakness: heavily reliant on access to network. Not a good close combat fighter.

Advanced Surveillance Techniques

Each of these techniques is done sans warrant or any authorization

Tracking ammo for the revolver
Eavesdrop onto a conversation happening over even a secure channel
Blinded eye can see what is reflected in other people's eyes (eg. can see what is on target's phone screen)
Blinded eye can pick up vibrations from building windows and hear sounds/voices from inside
Can create perfectly forged documents
Knows the precise location of any government official

High Profile Cases

Former Head of State assassinated by an independence movement
Fraud via creation of fake stamps
Contracts for refurbishing government offices going to family members
Insider trading by intelligence officers which leaks upcoming military action
Officials accepting lavish gifts to stop prosecution of criminal bosses
Lobby group throwing big parties and collecting blackmail on officials

Enemies

Former Vigilance Commisioner who KS ousted for their own corruption
Mob boss in prison who is still directing goons towards KS for getting them locked up
Party leader's child who got barred from holding office after taking bribes to access their parent
Legislator who lost election after fraud charges which were never fully prosecuted, currently running again for election
Police chief accused of misusing funds to buy military gear at exorbitant prices from a friend
Corporate officer whose company's stock took a massive hit after corrupt lobbying came to light and was blocked

How to Use

Would work in a cyberpunk or scifi setting where the players are spending a lot of time in one city. KS can be generating stories and stirring up faction trouble as their corrupt dealings get exposed. KS can also bring the players in as consultants or as under the table help to crack open cases that regular means can't help. Or to protect KS from one of their numerous enemies.

Squeezed - One Page RPG 2026 Jam Entry

2026-07-24T16:10:00-07:00

Second entry into the One Page RPG Jam 2026!

Squeezed

Jam Page

Regular itch page

In squeezed two players will control one person as they explore a cave. You'll need to get a paper doll through rough passageways which may require application of scissors to get through. Once you reach a chamber one player will describe the here and now sensations of the cave and the journey. The other player will describe what the chamber makes them think of and flesh out the backstory of why the person is exploring and pushes them to accept deep sacrifices.

[Offcuts] Hunting

2026-07-24T13:40:00-07:00

Ideas

Creatures and humans hunt through a remarkable number of mechanisms: webs, nets, fishing, ambush, traps, projectiles, lures, chase, etc. Here are some more:

Trigger a rock avalanche at the top of a hill or mountain to drop down on unsuspecting creatures
Creature mimics the sounds and smell of young creatures to get adopted and then eats all the others in the nest
Parasite which causes a person to go and hunt an animal which gets left behind as nutrients for the parasite's young
Reflective mirrors on a creature which blind prey as they approach
Predator covers itself in salt and then eats animals as they come to lick it
Humans surround a section of forest in nets and then spook all the animals towards them
Humans sweep a laser across a plain at the precise height to kill only animals that are old and therefore large enough
A species of animal has gotten addicted to certain substances produced by people and regularly come to them even if some of them are hunted, but they are otherwise not domesticated
An animal uses strong suction pressure from huge lungs to pull in prey
Creature leaves long tendrils along the ground for dozens of miles. When stepped on the tendrils latch on and begin slowly dragging the prey back to a central body
Gaseous floating creature which drops ballast rocks onto the heads of prey before reaching down with tendrils to eat
Herd creatures which hunt by surrounding and boxing in prey using huge armored heads and antlers before moving together to crush the trapped prey
Trap bridges which cross chasms and ensnare prey trying to cross
Creature which contorts its body into runic shapes to channel magic against prey
Parrots which mimic incantations to summon magic against prey
Humans who use summoning magic to bring forth predators to hunt for them

[Backlog] Coriolis The Last Cyclade

2026-07-23T11:20:00-07:00

Rolled the Coriolis The Last Cyclade pdf for my next backlog burndown post! For the process see this blog post. For all the entries in this series see this page.

Coriolis The Last Cyclade

This is the second book in a campaign book series for Coriolis. I've not used a campaign book, so it was interesting to see the structure used here where they start with a somewhat linear opening scenario, then branch off into a sandbox of missions and locations before collapsing down on a final scenario with a prescribed ending. In general the book has a ton of locations, missions, tables, and new abilities which seem pretty compelling.

Interesting Mechanics

DP points are granted each act and may be used to activate certain NPC abilities if directed at the players or trigger optional events.
I like that it gives extended rules or mechanics when a scenario would use it, eg. extended rules for cold attacks
"prayer re-rolls generate 1 extra DP unless the PC in question prayed to the Icons for protection before beginning the dive."
Appreciate that patrons don't just give up if they're turned down and declining has further consequences

Enticing Worldbuilding

Descriptions of how to run portal blockades (shadowing civilian ships, letting machine djinn prep defenses for arrival, sending out a bunch of decoy probes to flood the defenses)
"fractal torpedoes have fused several rooms together", the descriptions of the damage from fractal torpedoes is generally pretty cool
"Only families of five have children, with the parents sharing the responsibilities equally"

Unique Monster or Challenge

Awakened ancient being that causes you to worship it and otherwise mess with ones perception as part of its attacks

Items with Impact

"When activated, the tentacles penetrate the face of a victim within Close Range, giving the user a faint mind reading ability" Scifi mind flayer-esque ability

Tables with Unusual Results

"The victim’s brain no longer recognizes the limbs as part of its own body" should result in some unusual role play
"The darkness corrupts its victims, twisting limbs and turning moles into tumors." For a second I thought of moles as the animal...

Website Gallery!

2026-07-22T23:00:00-07:00

Quick post to say that the website now has a gallery page for looking at my art in one place. I haven't gotten around to uploading art from my sketchbook which will help flesh it out. In the meanwhile much of my recent digital art is there and photos of my origami folds too. Enjoy!

Scribble sketches

2026-07-22T00:00:00+00:00

Quickly scribbled faces and monsters

Stream

2026-07-21T00:00:00+00:00

Sketch of a stream (and a stray geometroid)

[RI] Besieging Bears

2026-07-20T14:30:00-07:00

RPG scenario of a supernova causing wild bears to run amok and maybe evolve! Take me to the content

This is part of my ongoing blog series where I use a random wikipedia article as inspiration for system agnostic TTRPG game content!

Skipped a football club

The Real: AT 2017be

This is a short article so I'm mostly going to treat it as a couple of spark table items:

"weak electron capture type supernova explosion": something about supernovae
"Bear claw galaxy": influencing the behavior of bears
"eight-day time interval": over an eight day period
"blue continuum slowly getting redder": with color changing being some indicator

In Game: Besieging Bears

The winter night sky is awash in eery blue light. Bears are stirring from hibernation and attacking a village who believe that the end times are upon them.

Blue light: a new star in the night sky is drowning out all the others with its brightness. It casts a pale blue light across the land
Hibernation: bears are sleep deprived, mad and hungry, but the winter landscape has little food for them as they rove
Attacking a village: the bears congregate around the one place with plentiful food, a human village - where they lay siege, attacking any resident who attempts to leave. During the day they are only aggressive on a 1 in 8 otherwise lazing around confused, allowing some travel between buildings. At night they attack on sight and attempt to enter buildings.
End times: people accuse each other and hold witch hunt trials to try and appease the angry god and its maddening light. Sacrifices are being made
The bears used a stars position to determine when hibernation is complete, the supernova is drowning out the light from that star
Each night d4 more bears show up unless the problem is resolved or they are satiated/made less restless
Each day some of the residents convene (with 1 in 8 being attacked) to decide on a new sacrifice (see table below)
Covering the sky, using sleep magic, or finding a way to feed the bears will satiate them
The light slowly shifts redder day by day, interpreted as impending doom. On the 8th day the star fades away and whoever/whatever was the last sacrifice to appease the gods is believed to have saved them and becomes a necessary yearly ritual forever after. The bears retain any tactics they've accrued as well!

Sacrifices

Player characters must participate or they draw the ire of the community.

Destroy all the animal pelts (the bears are angry at stolen prey)
Melt down the cutlery and sharp objects (sacrilegious to mimic bear claws)
Must stay awake all night (to mirror the bears restlessness)
Howl and growl instead of talking (to be more bearlike)
Smear crushed berries on the doors (which attracts d4 more bears)
Eat a lavish feast in honor of the bears (which drives the bears into a vigorous assault)
A resident must defeat a bear in combat to assert human dominance
The hairiest person is sent forth naked to embrace the bears (they must be a bear in disguise)

Bear Tactics

The bears get smarter and more restless every day

Bears begin to call out to each other, they may now call for reinforcements
Bears know the scent of humans, hiding will not stop them
Bears use their weight to crush through a house's roof each night
Bears set guards and watches, there is always a bear on the lookout - raise chance of aggression to 1 in 4 during the day
Bears understand how to turn handles, doors must be barricaded or they will open them
Bears no longer fear fire, they might even understand how to use it
Bears begin to arm themselves, putting farm tools or weapons in their mouths or paws to increase damage
Bears walk around upright and wear pelts of any animals (or humans) they have slain

How to Use

If the player characters are staying in a village on their way somewhere, you could trigger this as an event. Alternatively the players could stumble upon rumors of this already ongoing so that they come in towards the middle when the humans and bears are already doing weird things.

Besieging Bears

2026-07-20T00:00:00+00:00

Illustration of two bears cresting a ridge amongst the trees. They look down on a cottage roof while a strange star casts everything in purple light.

Done in Krita for Random inspiration 23: Besieging Bears

[Review] The Language of Liars

2026-07-18T09:39:00-07:00

Link to the book

Review

TLDR: 3/5 Good on its technical merits (well written, interesting characters, decent worldbuilding and plot) with an interesting twist. Unfortunately that twist and an abhorrent thematic statement which follows makes me drop an entire point of its rating.

This is a short scifi story focusing deeply on linguistics, understanding other cultures, and morality. The main character, despite being an alien, is pretty neurodivergent coded which is used to good effect in the story - their struggles drive the events forwards and lead up to the twist. I think it also messed with the tone for me, the underlying story and events are actually very dark and this is not a hopeful book, but the character picks up lovable goof trope energy and that come through as tonal dissonance.

Throughout there's a fair bit of linguistics jargon which is both material to the story without really requiring full understanding, you could probably treat it as generic science-speak and be just fine. For those with some knowledge of linguistics it might be a treat. I think I'm in an awkward middle ground of knowing enough to recognize half of what's being discussed but not enough to know whether it's unique or cohesive.

The worldbuilding is effective given the short page count but teeters between the boundary of 'a few flavorful tidbits' and 'a fleshed out society'. It's enough to be beyond just humans in a mask but there's not quite enough for me to feel like the society is its own entity with a life outside of the purposes of the story.

I liked that the book was short and therefore quick to read, but I can't help but think that it'd be better either as a short story/novella length or as some longer work. If it were shorter it could be more focused on exactly the most interesting portions of the story (the linguistics and twist). If it were longer we could take more time to grapple with the motivations of side characters, flesh out the world more, and get more commentary on the post twist elements.

Spoilers Discussion

The twist is cool on a technical level! It reframes a lot of what happens earlier in the book in a really satisfying way. It just makes me sad that the thesis of the twist and what comes after seems to be "some wrongs done in the past are so bad that we in the present can't fix them". It's extremely nihilist.

What follows is layperson pontifications about the purpose of speculative fiction. Scifi (as a genre and not a setting) asks us to interrogate society, as opposed to fantasy (as a genre and not a setting) which asks us to interrogate the self. This is obviously an oversimplification, as some stories do both or ask us to interrogate other things entirely or are just intended as a fun romp. Sometimes scifi does this investigation through a warped mirror of our own society or via thought experiments where our societal values are tested against an unusual scenario or sometimes by just asking us to imagine something wholly divorced from our normal conceptions.

I think this book heavily clues the reader in that we should be applying the story to our own society, it's opting into usage of scifi to interrogate our world. It positions itself as direct allegory for our post-colonialist and yet still genocidal modern world through inter chapter elements that read like internet commentary, the competitive conspiratorial behavior of secretive leadership, the timeline of the universe with a takeover and emancipation, the core idea of sending scientists into unknown cultures as cover for exploitation etc. All of it drives to saying, this is an allegory about the behavior of the West towards the rest of the world. Totally fine, good stuff, the behavior of the West and post colonialism needs interrogation.

Except the book decides, through its choice of worldbuilding and twist to undercut that into a very different thought experiment, what if we had already exterminated the non-West and we relied upon their Weekend at Bernie's corpses to form the basis of providing food and resources to people. It then ends with a message of: well that would absolutely suck, billions will die and we should all just wring our hands guiltily about it - some harms done in the past are just too big to fix. Indeed the sin of cultural appropriation is so great that the death of billions is deserved instead of any attempt at changing things. The book's only consolation to consigning everyone to death is that maybe some pocket of the original culture might exist somewhere.

The allegory doesn't work anymore, exploited cultures and people's are disappearing in the real world, but they're not all gone yet! We don't need to ruthlessly exploit them for our material gain or billions will die! We are not so powerless as to just be internet commentators ignorant of the truth wielded by secret cabals of elites! The scenario the book proposes is suddenly very different but the allegory elements remain. It feels contrived to support flawed real world policy positions using a set of assumptions that don't apply and are only introduced at the end when we're already invested and set to recognize the similarities to our own society. We get an appeal to nihilism and guilt, the only recompense we can offer for sins committed by our forebearers is to just all die? Only if you box yourself in with scifi fiat, thankfully the real world has better answers: empower oppressed people, oppose fascism and imperialism, embrace collective agency away from oligarchs, care for the world and its resources.

[Offcuts] Food Science

2026-07-17T10:15:00-07:00

Ideas

In honor of my late grandfather who worked at P&G, here are some scifi and fantasy weird engineered foods.

Planned obsolescence for foods where they become a bright, neon blue in minutes after their 'best by' date (they still taste fine though)
Fungus which makes any food taste like cake
Fantasy health craze where everyone adds potions of healing, strength, resistance to poison, etc to every meal in the belief that it will make them live longer and healthier
Industrial oil lubricant is found to be edible as a poverty food. Now its high end, with each factory having a unique flavor profile that only the best can determine
Flavor packets which when combined become a combinatorial explosion of flavors because the exact order in which you mix them changes the outcome. Everyone has their preferred family secret recipe of an exact order
Heart shaped cookies which you break in half, when each half is eaten its flavor tells you what the person who ate the other half thinks of you
Food which plays music when cooked as trapped steam escapes through edible whistles
Animal fur is edible and tastes like meat. Vast shearing operations produce woven mats of meat
Instead of electricity coming from outlets, kitchens have ports for picking up rotary power which appliances use
Food comes flat packed, but molded into ornate shapes which can be assembled or stacked for a fancier meal
Kitchens have special slugs which all food gets fed to. The slugs excrete the food out the other side covered in digestive slime (evolved to save food for later and come back to eat it once partially digested). The slime makes all food delicious
Fresh meat possesses a portion of the slaughtered animal's soul. This is considered desirable (meat must be eaten quickly or the soul will wane) or taboo (fresh meat is forbidden and the soul must be allowed to leave prior to eating)
Food additive which causes the food to glow. Once eaten you also glow

Geometroid 10

2026-07-17T00:00:00+00:00

Line illustration of various geometroids

Clouds & Geometroid

2026-07-17T00:00:00+00:00

Some practice clouds and a lobster geometroid

[Backlog] Runequest Roleplaying in Glorantha

2026-07-16T09:19:00-07:00

Rolled the Runequest RPG for my next backlog burndown post! For the process see this blog post. For all the entries in this series see this page.

Runequest

Had to heavily skim this 450 page tome since I just don't have the time to engage with all of it. It's very dense and very crunchy, much too crunchy for me. The setting is non trad fantasy by dint of being bronze age focused and it seems like the setting and rules are tightly woven in perhaps compelling ways. This is probably someone's favorite RPG but I don't think it will ever be mine.

Interesting Mechanics

Deep family life story generation system covering grandparents and parents with location specific event tables. The whole character creation system is very deep with lots of modifiers everywhere and relationships to specific tribes and cults
Some hyper specific mechanics like dousing fire or sneezing and weapons seem to have HP
Rules for fighting in a phalanx or on a chariot
Like how the passions are woven through a lot of character options like criteria to join different cults or gaining inspiration
Many paths to take of pursuing domain play, building a family, working up through cult ranks, becoming a shaman, etc

Flavorful Abilities

Using runes to determine character responses
Bless Woad - "This spell may only be cast by a full Wind Lord of Orlanth. It may only be cast during the High Holy Day of Orlanth" Just interesting to have an ability which can only be used one day per year by one specific person

Enticing Worldbuilding

Runes are associated with specific organs
"All adventurers are assumed to be right-handed unless the player chooses for them to be left-handed. Left-handedness is associated with dragons (dragonewts are all left-handed) and considered unlucky." LOL, why even have this?
"A wyter is the spirit of a community" and bound to a specific person

Tables with Unusual Results

"time spent in ritual" table has a row of 20 years -> 100% success
"cult compatibility" table is just a funny concept

Last Train July Progress Update

2026-07-14T15:00:00-07:00

Last Train is progressing even if I have been busy with a lot of projects at the same time. Over the last two months I:

added a title screen
added a level select screen
set up a level JSON format
added a new enemy type: motorbikes which are smaller and faster than cars but have less health
added a new turret type: lasers which shoot out orthogonally from the train
added health indicators
set up track switching
shop items can now display a description panel
fixed issues related to the custom event system to prevent events from being dropped
improved shop handling for placing track so that it's fewer button presses (you can now just spam 'A' once track is selected and it will keep adding more track in a line)
added some background objects
added passenger pick up and drop off to gain money
improved the animation of the train cars going around corners
lots of bug fixes around collisions, z indices, event handling

That list is actually way longer than I thought I'd gotten finished! There's still a long wishlist, but now much of it is on the gameplay side:

more enemy types! Helicopters, semitrucks, tow trucks, car carriers, etc
more turret types! Missiles, snipers, mortars, oil slicks, etc
new train car and track boost mechanics! Eg. train track which increases fire rate when driven over
a load of level design! I want some unique mechanics for each level if I can
fine tune the shop (likely drop to just a selection of 3 items + track instead of the 7 I have now)

Schismatics - One Page RPG 2026 Jam Entry

2026-07-13T13:00:00-07:00

Hey folks! On Mondays I usually do a random inspiration blog post but this month the One Page RPG Jam 2026 is going on so instead I made an entry for it!

Schismatics

Jam Page

Regular itch page

In Schismatics you create a society by writing or drawing core beliefs onto a shared sheet of paper. Then one by one you enact schisms by tearing the sheet into two pieces and establishing the opposing sides. Then new details of each subsect is added to the halves. Once you have a pile of torn paper begin re-assembling society by combining two scraps and describing how they overcome some challenge using components from each side.

The back side of the sheet has spark tables to help jumpstart the society's beliefs and components. You can also use each column individually to help prompt the crisis that need overcoming.

[Offcuts] Mass Transit

2026-07-10T10:30:00+00:00

Ideas

Mass transit is a fixture of cities around the world, but they often don't get looked at much for worldbuilding. Perhaps seen as unglamorous there's tons of real life innovation happening and unexplored areas which could add pop to your world.

Ships with legs. Massive tides cause huge portions of the ocean to be become dry, marshy land. Cities are all built far away from the coast requiring ships to sometimes travel overland to reach them
International water hubs. Like hub airports but for ships, they meet and transfer cargo in international waters, forming floating temporary locations of dozens or hundreds of mega cargo and passenger liners lashed together.
Space hooks. Unlike a space elevator which reaches the ground, a space hook dangles down from space and zips along in the upper atmosphere. Planes and the like can attach themselves to the hook to get a massive speed up
Migratory cities that follow the seasons. Either the ultimate snowbird community or climate change adaptation survival method, these cities move to keep up with the good weather
Murmuration pods. Flying vehicles which group up in the air into large formations, perhaps even physically connecting for parts of the journey, to help with drag or to prevent being attacked
Elevated skylift lines built crisscross a city. Cable cars reach up and hook onto the lines to get carried around the city. Also used by skilled individuals even if it is illegal
Mega centipede trains. Train cars strapped to a gigantic centipede
Elevator trains. Your vertical cities need vertical mass transit. Cars are independently hung so they can pivot between vertical and horizontal travel.
Assault suburbs. Whole suburbs can pack down and form into a gigantic vehicle during the daily am and pm commute, attacking each other to ensure that their workers arrive on time and with the best parking spot for the offices.
Gates to transit cast polymorph to turn people into smaller animals for more efficient travel
Ships float on magical balls of water to move through city streets when canals and rivers can't suffice
Public transit is for the wealthy, it's the poor who must sit in isolated private vehicles
Cargo and people are intermixed down to the level of passengers helping to move cargo on and off
Ghost mass transit overlaying the real. Ghosts need to get to places efficiently too!
People don't remember taking transit, they walk into the station and then walk out at their destination with their memories of it gone
Subway trains are sometimes predatory beasts disguised to look like trains

This ended up being a bigger topic area, so I may revisit in a future blog post!

Geometroid 11

2026-07-10T00:00:00+00:00

Line illustration of various geometroids

[Backlog] Savage Rifts The Tomorrow Legion Players Guide

2026-07-09T10:32:00+00:00

Rolled the 'Savage Worlds The Tomorrow Legion Players Guide' RPG for my next backlog burndown post! For the process see this blog post. For all the entries in this series see this page.

Savage Rifts The Tomorrow Legion Players Guide

I'm not a fan of these sort of portal world, anything and everything together in one big mixing pot, style settings. It comes across as an identity crisis and directionless. I don't think this book does a particularly good job of making the setting pop either. Lots of little mechanics and fiddly cross references to the core book's edges or other systems. The classes and races seem mildly interesting but pretty rote and trope laden. There's very little interplay across them besides human vs non human or magic vs technology.

Interesting Mechanics

Savage worlds characters are usually (based on my understanding of the core rule book I read ages ago) collections of edges rather than specific classes like a trad RPG might have. Rifts reintroduces some of the class identity elements through icons, but the interesting thing to me is that the icons seem to be as much about the complications as the additional abilities. The cyborg for example has 9 separate complications.

Flavorful Abilities

The Juicer's burn dice mechanic where you can spend for extra dice from a pool that will never replenish and once gone, leads to your death
You can be a dragon, a fun departure from the mix of standard cyberpunk, scifi, and magic related classes

Tables with Unusual Results

"There are a lot of broken elevators and overgrown mountain trails across the world, making trained climbers a valuable addition to any group. Your character is one of those folks who knows his way around ropes and harnesses, granting him a die type increase to Athletics, and +2 on rolls made to climb." Just a strange way to frame that result.

Origami Fox Drawing

2026-07-09T00:00:00+00:00

Color drawing of an origami fox

Done in Krita.

Origami Seahorse

2026-07-07T00:00:00+00:00

Design from 'Origami Sea Life Third Edition'

[RI] Sweet Bones

2026-07-06T14:20:00+00:00

Bones of dead titans become magical fuel and a race for prospecting! Take me to the content

This is part of my ongoing blog series where I use a random wikipedia article as inspiration for system agnostic TTRPG game content!

The Real: Bonny Light Oil

Let's pick out the interesting bits from the article:

"The components of crude oil have a wide range, containing hydrocarbons and a mixture of oxygen, sulfur, nitrogen and trace metals": oil is so ubiquitous in our modern world, but we generally know little about its extraction and refinement except for when it goes disastrously wrong. Fantasy stories sometimes have oil analogs, eg. mana crystals, but rarely do they capture the full scope of oil as a natural resource, full of impurities and of varying quality and valuable enough to ruthlessly exploit.
"It holds a certain importance in the metaphysical beliefs of the Niger Delta people as they believed it cured illnesses related to ingestion"
"antidetonation additives": the idea of antidetonation additives is juicy.
"generating most of its revenue from oil industry for the past 30 years"
"From 1976 to 1988, 2000 oil spillages happened in Nigeria and more than two million barrels of bonny light oil were released to the community"
"causes various troubles with regard to brain, endocrine and DNA" and "Petroleum contaminants are pernicious to nature and moreover, their hydrocarbon elements which are mutagenic and causing cancers, entail immunomodulatory impacts on humans and organisms as well"

In Game: Sweet Bones

Long ago the titans fell in great battlefields. Their bodies were too magical to decay and too large to move, so corpses became buried and compressed into dense magical slurries, sweet bones. Stories passed down in the area describe the material bubbling up as healing salve in small amounts and a dangerous mutating explosive in larger amounts. Prospectors are finding rich deposits of the material and beginning to set up wells.

Sweet bones: colloquial name for the extracted fluids, used as a general substitute in spell components after distillation. Prior to refining it's a dark, thick red liquid. Smells of death.
Healing salve: small amounts of sweet bones are equivalent to a lesser healing potion. For ten minutes feel a sense of bloodlust and martial spirit.
Mutating explosive: over one gallon (4 liters), sweet bones starts to spit and hiss and roil until it explodes. Anything touched by it gets a random mutation. Additives of sacrificial animal bones can prevent this and allow storing larger amounts.
Prospectors: magically enhanced humans who can sense death (smell and touch). Long thin fingers can stretch hundreds of feet through the ground. Carry and deploy warding poles to mark out claims. Battle each other and unquenchable thirst for sweet bones.
Wells: transformed beasts which send their tongue into the ground to suck up the sweet bones and store it in their body. Their own bones slowly dissolve and prevent the sweet bones from exploding, at least for a while.

Mutations

extra eyes
thick leathery skin
sweat blood
open wounds
thorns
weapons stick to you
become monochrome
grow 2x larger
crave flesh
glow

How to Use

Hooks:

Players hired to guard a prospector from other prospectors, angry locals, and dangerous mutated beasts
Locals ask players to displace a prospector and wells who have taken over a village
Outside factions are pushing to take over the wells and the profits therein, players favored faction asks them to help take over some wells
Ghosts of the dead titans are awakening and attempting to resurrect their bodies. They are not happy with the wells and have been causing havoc which the players need to stop.

Sweet Bones

2026-07-06T00:00:00+00:00

Illustration of a person in a hat crouched down on the ground with their fingers pressed into the ground where the middle and index stretch down deeper below them. To their left is a sign with sigils marking their claim and to the right is a backpack.

Done in Krita for Random inspiration 22: Sweet Bones

[Writing] Terminal Humans

2026-07-05T13:00:00+00:00

Content Warning: story isn't about good people, but they aren't monsters. You may encounter elements of, but no graphic descriptions of, animal abuse, destruction of art, stalking, and porn.

Terminal Humans

There won't be a you to read this. I wrote the words onto leaves lingering on the cusp of winter, the last goodbyes of graduates moving on, and the mortician’s logs filed for a John Doe. Offered them to the beasts and plants - unconcerned if they’d heed our history or not. I'd hear the lessons and stories of this last generation of humans and let them linger a moment more before lapsing - like everything else - into the unhistory where humanity had now boldly retreated. We were the terminal humans, endlings each and every one of us.

Copycat

I tracked the Copycat down to a cafe in Tokyo. We were the only two in the city, sitting across from each other at a booth eating omurice with an anime character's face on it. It was made by the Copycat from whatever was in storage and conflicting recipe videos. The rice was soggy and the scrambled eggs overcooked but the facsimile was the best we'd get. I didn't recognize the character, but whether that was ignorance on my part or an artistic failure of the Copycat was unknowable. I picked at the rapidly cooling concoction and glanced up at the buildings around us visible through the half destroyed wall. Being in a major city with only the sound of the wind was always unnerving. I felt like the people were all just hiding around the corner, peeping at me from behind the skyscraper windows and dark alleys. My brain insisted that the sound of ambulance and police sirens must be ringing somewhere just below my tinnitus. The Copycat was blithely, blissfully unconcerned. They were glued to the dozens of phones in front of them, muttering and holding one up to compare our current scene to what was on it. I caught a glimpse on the phone of a young couple, one partner spoon feeding the other a bite of omurice. My pulse quickened until the Copycat swiped onto the next photo, just a regular selfie.

The Copycat swung round their seat and smooshed up against me - "Smile!" I ginned up a grin and stared at my sad eyes and the dilapidated restaurant behind us. Snap. Copycat winced. "Same angle but the connection just wasn't there, work with me here." I pulled the corners of my mouth back, let the barest bits of stained teeth show through, and pinched my eyes a millimeter tighter. Snap. "The fuck is wrong with your smile?" I made a mental note to not include that comment in the final edit as my smile dropped and I responded, "I don't usually help with my interviewee's pet projects you know." The Copycat shrugged and slid back to their seat before standing suddenly, "Shit, look at the time, we need to get going! They left here five minutes ago and went to Ueno Park." They meant a decade ago, now only their digital wraith passed through us and we puppetted along after them.

Ueno Park turned out to be overgrown, a solid wall of bamboo blocking the entrance. The Copycat pulled out a machete and began to hack at it. Thwack, thwack, thwack.The wall remained impervious. The digital wraiths were slipping through time and place and beyond the Copycat’s efforts to follow. They slid down against the bamboo, "Shit, well, I'll have to try again next year." Sunlight flicked through the bamboo across our faces and birdsong teased out from within its depths. Somewhere in the city a building collapsed, the rumble leaping through the streets. The Copycat shuddered at it. Their shaky fingers began flipping through more images, tossing phones aside, looking for the next moment to steal.

I crouched down beside them and tapped my pencil against their phone before asking, "Care to explain for posterity?"

The Copycat pulled another phone out and handed it to me. A couple stood under cherry blossoms drifting dreamily past their goofy faces. "Look how happy they are. Something worth having and they had it. They're not around any more to say it can't be mine."

And thus I witnessed the last words of the Copycat, never again to be heard.

Meddler

I approached the lab on foot, passing overgrown pens and broken cages and aquarium tanks full of fetid water. In one pen, graves sat unfinished alongside a cart of animal bodies. I plucked some wildflowers from the path and tossed them onto the rotting corpses. I offered a prayer to dead gods.

As I lifted my head, a pig came sauntering up on two legs dressed in a tux, long black tails dragging along in the mud. It squealed and from a metal box stapled to its skull a voice crackled out, "follow". The pig ambled off ten feet before dropping to all fours and scampering along, tux pulled underfoot and trampled. Closer to the main building the pens became increasingly well kept and one could make out their intended occupants. Miniature elephants lazed in pools of dust. A host of crows occupied a tree above and stared at me as I passed by. Black eyes silently tracked me in unison. I stopped to give them the finger and they launched into a frenzy of caws.

The Meddler came upon us under the cover of the cacophony. At a gesture of their hand the crows settled into silence.

"Please don't taint my subjects Chronicler - they don't need to learn all of our worst traits."

"Don't learn from history and be doomed to repeat it and all that. Just giving them a head start to learn from this piece of shit."

"And ruining my experiments in the process." I shrugged and stuck my tongue out at the crows, one child to another in a madman's playground.

A serving trolley came trundling up and an octopus squirmed out from an aquarium tank at its base. A rickety table and two chairs snapped open under its arms and were set before us. My host peeled a fishy smelling tablecloth from suckers as other tentacles grabbed utensils, cups, and little saucers to slap them down onto the table. A spoon went skidding off into the dirt. I sat as it wiggled an arm at the chair. As I sat it held a tea kettle ponderously over the table and splashed tea into a dainty cup wrapped up in another arm. By the end of the process a puddle of lukewarm tea was dribbling down to the ground. The pig sauntered over dutifully, gracefully bent over, and began to lap it from around our feet. The Meddler sipped at their tea, proud.

"I appreciate the hospitality," I ventured.

The Meddler patted the pig's head, now at waist height, where the metal box sat, "It's been a long time since I've had any human company. Enjoy the tea, it's my last batch."

I smiled and sipped at the bitter concoction. Spreading my arms wide to encompass the collected menagerie I asked, "Care to explain for posterity?"

The Meddler laughed, a hoarse crackling sound unfamiliar with the concept of joy.

"No, it'll be easier for my uplifted children to deify me if there's no record of my ego. When they build a new civilization of crows or pigs or octopi they'll tell better stories of me, their creator and god." I locked eyes with the murderous crows and knew the lie. They stuck out tongues and licked their beaks hungrily. Still I raised my glass in cheers and we drank in silence.

And thus I witnessed the last words of the Meddler, never again to be heard.

Vandal

It was a bonfire at the British Museum. The Vandal dragged the thick framed paintings out one by one. "Surprisingly heavy," they muttered as they passed by. "But damn do they burn good," they chortled as they went back for the next batch. They paused and turned to me, "Do you think mummies burn?" I didn't offer a response so the Vandal continued on into the museum again.

They returned dragging a mummy behind them. When it was in front of me they dropped it, wiped some sweat from their brow and confided, "You think I'm crazy? Fuckers back in the day ground them up to make aphrodisiacs. Smashed open graves sealed for thousands of years and went, 'yep, eating that embalmed shit all ground up will get my dick hard.' I'm just out here preventing whatever comes next from trying to get their rocks off on poison." They took a few steps more with the mummy, paused again, "You sure you don't want to... help? It's cathartic as fucking." I opened my mouth but the Vandal saw the twinge in my face, knew what I was going to say and waved me away, "Yep, yep, no helping, just chronicling, I hear you. But..." And with that they ran back.

They returned with a Ming vase and placed it into my hands. "Just one my friend. You won't regret it. There's like a thousand more in there anyway." I held a priceless artifact in my hands. I didn't know its history but my mind invented one, traced the artisans and artists' hands creating it through the palace intrigues to the opium wars pawning it off to imperialists and gawking tourists. The spiritual weight grew with the imagined centuries till my hands itched and burned. The Vandal looked between my eyes and the vase, expectation growing and growing. I couldn't carry an unsullied facet of the world. It fell. A ponderous, inelegant, and oh so relatively brief fall to erasure - smashed into a million pieces across the ground. I couldn’t help myself - it was cathartic as fuck. And just like fucking someone you shouldn't, I regretted everything the moment afterwards.

The Vandal knew. Their face a historical record of my foibles, all disappointment. But soon enough they laughed and shoved some paper into my shirt, "Here's a 100 quid as a refund". I let the bonfire be a lighthouse to guide me away - never asked what they wanted noted for posterity, it being clearly nothing.

And thus I witnessed the last words of the Vandal, never again to be heard.

Persecutor

The Supreme Court justices consisted of Fozzie Bear, a sex doll, a cardboard cutout of a used car salesman, and what I believe was a doped up raccoon dressed in a dog's superhero costume. On the witness stand the defendant's head slumped over for the twentieth time. This time it came clean off, bounced off the rest of the corpse and rolled to a stop at the feet of the Persecutor. They straightened the cuffs of their fine Italian suit, looked at the five gold watches on their wrist, and pinched their face as though tired of the effort. "For the last time, do not make a mockery of this court - your crimes are heinous. Repent and the honorable judges, in their magnanimity will let you off with mere eternal damnation." They waited a moment before winding up and kicked the human skull into the wall where it burst.

I coughed from where I sat in the audience seating. The Persecutor turned to me, spreading their arms to gesture at the courtroom. As though I should be impressed. "Thank you judges, I agree that a short recess is in order," they said to no one. To me they said, "Court reporter, I'm sure you have many questions."

Pointed at the corpse, "Uh, who is it this time?"

“Some president - I think Mexico? Regardless, as guilty as the next for taking us all down with them in their ego. Thought of nothing but themselves when crises of their own making came.”

I looked across the lined up corpses, all alike. I pointed to the next in line, “and them?”

"Mother fucker dumped leaves into my yard. Scooped them up. Chucked them over the fence. Into. My. Fucking. Yard."

Laughter crept up like bile. I nodded, tapping a finger to my chin with feigned sagacity in an effort to tamp it down. Out of an abundance of agreeable caution offered, "Capital offense then?"

The Persecutor paced over, an accusatory finger stabbing repeatedly in every direction, "You dare to make a mockery of this highest court, treat me like some jester! No one else will do it, so I must even if you laugh - it must be judged - the very soul of every man, determine their everlasting livelihood! It is judgement day and everyone shall have their day in my court for their sinful ways. I will save them with my condemnation." They glared at me as though already weighing my soul and finding it lacking.

Unfazed, I continued looking at the headless corpse soon to be strung up for pointless crimes. Shrugged, "Well, anything you want noted for your posterity?"

They sneered and began walking to the backrooms and their makeshift morgue. An endless queue of defendants awaited, the whole world to be weighed. Before exiting they turned and said, "One day you too shall be here as defendant." A pause while their fingers drummed on the door frame, “Also I take bribes.”

And thus I witnessed the last words of the Persecutor, never again to be heard.

Hedonist

There was a wall of monitors forming a 360 degree dome wrapping around me. I had pushed several aside to enter the Hedonist’s inner sanctum. "I call it the pornosphere" and indeed the name was apt. If god exists he would smite anyone for more description than that.

Dicks and pussies and tits of all description and race and manner of orientation filled my vision. Roving patterns of fetishes and recurring porn stars congealed, dissolved, and spread across the perversion panopticon. It formed meta sex where different forms met and recombined into new flagrancies of bodily contortion. The waves of stimulation were so overwhelming that it was neutering instead.

Under the garish sights and sounds, its inhuman form lit in flesh tones, was the Hedonist. Like a deconstructed menu item at a pretentious restaurant they were so many disparate parts, each isolated to best receive the distillates of pleasure. Eyes were pinned towards screens, mouths and noses at the end of food conveyors, muscles massaged in endlessly undulating sleeves, and an Oroborous of fucking genitalia. A mess of wires and neurons stitched them together.

I don't know how long I stood there, alternatively aroused and revolted, starving and sick, jealous and judgmental. The Hedonist prodded gently, "You look like you could be doing better." Concerned that they meant it, I hurried over to what I hoped was the Hedonist's face. Before I could stutter out my questions, they cut me off. "Look Chronicler, I've got no time to waste on you." There was the briefest pause as somewhere they made a sound - moaned in pleasure or screamed in pain or both simultaneously. "Solipsism is real and you're the only one refusing to see it. Get lost in your own damn mind."

And thus I witnessed the last words of the Hedonist, never again to be heard.

Chronicler

I held the spine of the chronicle by the corner, lighter poised in the other hand. I flicked the lighter on for a moment, letting the soot creep up the pages. Flicked it off. Flicked it on. Words smoldered, curled off the page to die one by one. "It matters to me." Flicked it closed.

And thus were witnessed the last words of the Chronicler, never again to be heard.

[Review] Politics Without Politicians

2026-07-03T11:00:00+00:00

Politics Without Politicians discusses some of the practical matters of sortition/lottocracy/citizen assembly/deliberative polls/minipublic systems through the lens of the author's own research, and participation in as a researcher, of French conventions on the climate and end of life. There's a blend of practical description, theoretical analysis, philosophical arguments, and anecdotes which provide a pretty decent picture of how these systems function. If you're not familiar these are bodies of regular citizens selected at random/pseudorandom (eg. some balancing to meet representation criteria) who then meet, deliberate, and make policy proposals or fulfill the role of the typical legislature.

I was already aware of sortition and generally like the concept before I read the book, so my takeaways might be different from someone unfamiliar or adverse to the idea. To me the important parts were novel arguments about how the process produces a sense of civic comradery and brings out 'the shy', people who might otherwise not participate or get their voice heard in the political process. The other arguments around sortitions benefits, anti-corruption and better representation of the public at large, were also expanded on. The examples of civic comradery and sense of purpose provided by the author filled me with so much joy, seeing that communal processes can work and produce outcomes. There's something deeply warming hearing about normal people engaging in process which produces coherent policy as a contrast to the constant barrage of elites doing things ad hoc which only benefit themselves. I appreciate that the book focuses so much on the human and personal side of politics instead of just purely hypothetical and theoretical structures.

I came away from the book more interested in sortition/lot based systems and wanting to see some more concrete proposals! Overall I recommend the book if you're curious about alternative structures of governance, are dissatisfied with capture of democratic ideals by oligarchy, or just want some warm fuzzies of people across political spectrums coming together in this time of discord.

Overall: 4/5 examines seriously and humanely a fascinating political idea

[Backlog] Masks

2026-07-02T11:20:00+00:00

Rolled the q RPG for my next backlog burndown post! For the process see this blog post. For all the entries in this series see this page.

Masks

First time reading through a Powered by the Apocalypse style game and I can see the appeal! Lots of evocative framing to naturally drive forward the story and characters. I'm not a huge fan of superhero stories so I'm not sure that I'd want to play a full campaign of Masks, but perhaps a one shot and certainly want to look at other PbtA games.

Interesting Mechanics

The five labels (Danger, Freak, Savior, Superior, and Mundane) really capture the range of superhero personalities while being a short list. I hate super long skill lists and appreciate that this is about personality, not ability which makes the more constant adjustments to it make sense.
Moment of Truth: super fun to have just one bombshell of an ability that you want to save for the perfect moment
All adults have influence over you by default is such a great, simple way to set up playing as a kid
I've not actually played a Powered by the Apocalypse game before, so this is my first time really looking at moves in detail. Love it, very cool concept! The extra, more specific dimensions of how a roll can direct the narrative are great. So much more specificity to the fiction at hand. I do think it'd be something that in play would take a fair bit of getting used to, a generic resolution mechanic is overall less complexity.
I like the requirements to clear conditions since they set up further complications, a good story engine.

Flavorful Abilities

Honestly all the playbooks have some special ability or move which is great. Small random selection of some that I liked

"When you assess the situation, you can always ask one of the following questions, even on a miss"
Doom track on the Doomed character feels so tragic
Burn charging up abilities based on conditions
The negative consequences of various abilities are great for provoking narrative and character turmoil

Useful Advice

"So what are the laws of Halcyon City regarding superheroes? Whatever is interesting for your particular table." Good to establish a norm that some settings can be loose with these details, this isn't an exercise in hard worldbuilding but a playground for the character's emotions.
Game does a great job explaining moves and being fiction first. "The answer is simple: the moves point to places where no one knows what happens next." is succinct but nails the why.
"As often as possible, create PC-NPC-PC triangles—webs of relationships in which two PCs have fundamentally different connections to the same NPC." Good reminder that tangled webs are better but we also don't need to go too tangled, a pair of relationships is probably sufficient to generate tension and intrigue.

Geometroid 8

2026-07-01T00:00:00+00:00

Line illustration of various geometroids

Geometroid 9

2026-07-01T00:00:00+00:00

Line illustration of various geometroids

[Offcuts] Bathing

2026-06-30T13:00:00+00:00

Ideas

Few people like being dirty, so societies end up with some form of bathing which then frequently becomes ritualized. Real societies have lots of unique processes to look to: saunas, ice baths, scraping off oil, milk baths, mud baths, little fish eating the dead skin, whipping with olive branches, etc. Let's think of some unusual hygiene rituals and bathing practices!

Climbing into a fresh carcass and being licked clean by a scavenging creature
Rub on ashes from burned logs of a pungent tree. The ashes are left on indefinitely
Intentionally get an allergic reaction to a plant which causes outer layers of skin to turn red and flake off
Stagnant water is considered poisonous so all bathing must be done in moving water
Bath houses are the source of recharging magical power
Baths are done with ultrasonic blasts, jets of air, and walls of rotating scrubbers to conserve water
Bathing is a workplace perk. Alternatively only allowed to aristocracy or as a reward
Bathing water is handled via a separate municipal system than drinking water, arrives at homes pre-scented and anointed by central bureaucracy priests
Bathing is magically rejuvenating to a degree that long baths can change one's appearance and physiology
Full body peel off masks are used for cleaning instead of using water

Geometroid 4

2026-06-30T00:00:00+00:00

Line illustration of various geometroids

Geometroid 5

2026-06-30T00:00:00+00:00

Line illustration of various geometroids

Geometroid 6

2026-06-30T00:00:00+00:00

Line illustration of various geometroids

[RI] Noman Abbey

2026-06-29T10:24:00+00:00

A fake abbey fronts for a distillery and family tensions boil over! Take me to the content

This is part of my ongoing blog series where I use a random wikipedia article as inspiration for system agnostic TTRPG game content!

The Real: St. Nicholas Abbey

Let's pick out any interesting bits from the article:

"a plantation house, museum and rum distillery": multifunction over the years but we can compress those functions into one moment in time to give some additional flavor
"one of only three genuine Jacobean mansions in the Western Hemisphere"
"no church connection": so funny to call a place 'abbey' and have no connection to the church, the hubris of the wealthy.
"Berringer was killed in a duel with his neighbor, Sir John Yeamans, who then married Berringer's widow and claimed the abbey as his property" then "the Colonel's children took the matter to court and were awarded ownership of the property": a wild story that we should players in the midst of

In Game: Noman Abbey

Stately manor that claims to be an abbey but in reality distills alcohol. Embroiled in a family dispute over ownership.

Fake Abbey: the manor's employees all wear white convent clothes. Frequently hosts 'services' (parties) where church leadership come and drink.
Distillery: the basement contains two large copper stills which produce alcohol from grain gifted by the local populace.
Family Dispute: the original builder and designer, Berring was killing in a duel by Sir Noman. Noman married Berring's widow and took over the property. Berring's two children plot to take it back, Sandra wants to go through the courts (under the sway of church leadership) and Audrey through violence by dueling their step father.
Noman: crafty and a liar; wears a distinctive green coat with fish pattern taken from Berring's body; craves power; craves alcohol
Abbey employees: use their monk robes to shield themselves from scrutiny or rebuke; carry pots of flammable alcohol in case of a real fight

How to Use

Hooks:

Sandra contacts the players to help dig up dirt on the church party goers and win their court case. They also request that you keep Audrey away from challenging Noman or anyone else on the property to a duel.
Audrey contacts the players to help them get in close to Noman, who has been avoiding them, in order to challenge him to a duel. Audrey also wants the players to protect Sandra from being attacked by thugs.

Origami Fox

2026-06-29T00:00:00+00:00

Design by Muneji Fuchimoto

Noman Abbey

2026-06-29T00:00:00+00:00

Fine liner drawing of a mansion's front gates

Done in Krita for Random inspiration 21: Noman Abbey

[Politics] Union Merit Badges

2026-06-28T15:00:00+00:00

For several years while working at Google I was part of Alphabet Workers Union. I wholeheartedly believe that big tech needs curbs on its power and the union is the most likely path towards making Google and other tech companies more ethical. After leaving the company I still want to contribute to the union effort there and elsewhere. One way I've thought to do so is by creating what my partner (who is the originator of the idea!) described as 'merit badges' to reward people for completing various actions, ie. something concrete towards empowering the union. Once someone takes one of the actions below a union member can hand them a sticker for that tiny bit of recognition that they did something worthwhile and important!

The first concrete step for many people is signing a petition. Putting their name out there in support of change is no small feat, but it's also just the beginning. Companies are not democracies (yet!) and if no one is holding anyone to task for implementing changes asked for then a petition is just a piece of paper. Unions and campaigns are all about turning those cumulative voices of discontent into meaningful changes.

One on one's are the primary tool for getting action done, passing along information, and most importantly, building solidarity and understanding between people. In tech, coffee breaks are a frequent means of getting a couple minutes to chit chat with someone else and a symbolic and literal way of two people getting together to talk.

Days of Visibility are events which aim to promote the union and an ongoing campaign (effort to drive some specific change at the company). Visibility means being out and having eyes on you, so we often wear t-shirts showing the union or campaign slogans.

Another means of driving visibility is standing outside or in a break area to distribute flyers and answer questions. The conversations are honestly much more important than handing out the material, but the flyers are lightweight touchpoints if someone can't stick around.

Mapping is a process for the union to understand who else someone can reach out to. Conversations should ideally flow along natural and pre-existing social networks as you're more likely to trust the words of someone you know than just a random employee. We want a certain expansion factor where each person is talking to more people in turn so that the pace of growth can accelerate.

Actions outside of the workplace matter as well since the world does not have some tidy separation of work and 'life'. Political activism, protests, and showing up for other unions when they need support builds a broad coalition across politicians, unions, and the public.

If you'd like to get one of these badges or taking one of these actions, please join or start a union in your workplace!

Day of Visibility Badge

2026-06-28T00:00:00+00:00

Day of Visibility badge showing Googlers for Job Security shirt

Flyering Badge

2026-06-28T00:00:00+00:00

Flyering Badge

Leader ID Badge

2026-06-28T00:00:00+00:00

Leader ID Badge

One on One Badge

2026-06-28T00:00:00+00:00

One on One Badge

Protest Badge

2026-06-28T00:00:00+00:00

Protest Badge

Petition Signature Badge

2026-06-28T00:00:00+00:00

Petition Signature Badge

[Offcuts] Pets

2026-06-26T11:00:00+00:00

Ideas

Pets! We love pets, creatures which we keep for a variety of reasons like cuteness, vanity, comfort, obligation, etc. Keeping away from working animals if I can, what are some weirder ways that society might handle pets?

Pets as surrogates for any person who dies. Whenever someone dies the family and friends feed a small pellet of their remains to an animal and adopt it. Only when that pet dies is the person considered truly dead.
Pets as art. Gene editing, while illegal for humans, is readily available for use on animals. Turn any animal docile, pocket sized, cute, give them wings or scales or spikes. Specific artistic trends form, eg. around purity to the original animal, around iridescence, around clean lines, around creating creatures from legends and myths.
Pets as punishment. Instead of prison, someone found guilty will have an intelligent animal given to them which is trained to prevent the behavior. The type of animal matches the crime and it's lifespan matches the sentence. If the animal dies early then the guilty person dies with them.
Pets as oracles. Pets are assumed to know the will of the gods and their actions throughout the day provide spiritual guidance.
Pets must wear clothes at all times. It's unseemly how naked they are in our presence.
Instead of tracking your own family lineage, you track your pets. Things like inheritance, family relations, and marriage are represented through the breeding and distribution of pets.
Wearable pets. Clothes modified to be able to carry small rodents, snakes, and foxes so that they can be close to their owner at all times.
Pets are held as a communal resource, no one has a personal pet. Instead there's a large number of publicly cared for pets that get shuffled around in the community.

Origami Sunbear

2026-06-26T00:00:00+00:00

Design by Muneji Fuchimoto

[RPG Backlog] Dishonored

2026-06-25T12:00:00+00:00

Second entry for RPG backlog rolled the Dishonored RPG! For the process see this blog post. For all the entries in this series see this page.

Dishonored

It starts with a comic which is rad and an interesting way to set the tone. The rest of the book I found to be fairly lackluster honestly. I don't have much association with the Dishonored IP but I've watched videos of people playing it and it feels like a tighter focus would have helped the game. All of these alternative cities and locations seem like a distraction. It really suffers from a comparison to Blades in the Dark which is doing almost the same setting and concept, just with more weird intricacies and tighter narrative lens.

Interesting Mechanic

Just want to dwell on the 2d20 system (I think this is system common across a bunch of RPGs by modiphius) which is cool. I like the FATE accelerated-esque style element which gets added to the skill rating. It does seem a little convoluted though. I do like that it seems relatively easy to gain momentum (the meta currency) and that momentum can be used for dice and narrative creation/permission. But why is there yet another meta currency called Void points that does almost the same thing...

Truths: I like systems which allow noting and creating salient narrative features for players to utilize. I especially like that creating a truth is a core action and available via the metacurrencies. Throughout sections in the book there are italicized phrases that I imagine are meant to be used as truths
Chaos: GM meta currency that players can contribute to in order to get more dice or if they do something wild
If you have faction rep you can name drop and add that faction rep to the threshold, which is a cool mechanical representation
Faction oaths are good ways to give each faction a distinct identity beyond where they are and what they control
Every faction has ranks which can be climbed or targeted

Items with Impact

Bone charms: cool that the powers are flavored around sound and can have drawbacks like "At midnight, for about an hour, it bleeds a black, ink-like liquid that stains clothes and any surfaces it touches" or can "morph into an embryo of the bone’s species"

Piece of advice

Advice on using architecture to describe locations, eg. "have grand (or once-grand) entries, built to impress visitors even if the interior is shabby"

Enticing Worldbuilding

Folklore about eels that "smash their prey against the rocks, then disappear back down into the depths." leading to a festival celebrating the dead
The Outsider gets this "Powers: (Infinite Mana) All" which is just a fun mechanical tie in since all powers are derived from this deity.

Leaf

2026-06-25T00:00:00+00:00

Drawing of a broken leaf

Done in Krita.

Geometroid 1

2026-06-24T00:00:00+00:00

Line illustration of geometroid hunting a group of simpler geometroids

Geometroid 2

2026-06-24T00:00:00+00:00

Line illustration of geometroids

Geometroid 3

2026-06-24T00:00:00+00:00

Line illustration of 4 geometroid snakes

Geometroids Design

2026-06-23T00:00:00+00:00

Line illustration of various geometroids. These are the first designs and so there's a number of incomplete, partial test sketches

[RI] Conquerer Scorpion

2026-06-22T09:02:00+00:00

Scorpion which makes creatures and people into followers and then into a snack! Take me to the scorpion!

This is part of my ongoing blog series where I use a random wikipedia article as inspiration for system agnostic TTRPG game content!

It's taken a surprisingly long time to finally get another creature after a fishy haircut, 17 whole random inspiration posts ago!

The Real: Arabian fat-tailed scorpion

Let's pick out any interesting bits from the article:

"an Old World scorpion": although old world here is describing a geographic extent, I like to imagine that this is an old, old creature.
"lives in the ruins of old, neglected structures,[1] and was considered a potential hazard for troops": powerful enough to take over an area and prevent people from wanting to reclaim it, even if they come in force.
"hides in crevices and under objects during the day, and at night hunts": doesn't like the sun.
"The venom is very powerful and considered among the most potent among scorpions" and "Systemic effects include heart malfunctions, remote internal bleeding, visual disturbance, and respiratory problems": gonna focus on the 'visual disturbance' portion as a fun side effect. Instant kill poisons aren't much fun, but it can still be very strong and require an antidote

In Game: Conquerer Scorpion

Conquerer Scorpions grow with the size of their minion horde, from tiny 1 inch ones ruling over ants to giants ruling over humans and large beasts. In their largest form, they are intelligent and wary, taking over structures, dungeons, and caves to sting the inhabitants. Once stung a target will attempt to bring others to the Conquerer and protect it for they see the Conquerer as a munificent deity. Each night the Conquerer will pick a minion to eat.

Stat the Conquerer like a giant scorpion and replace its poison effect with 'fealty', the target experiences a growing sense of purpose to aid and defend the Conquerer and bring new people into its flock. To break out from the Conquerer's venom a person or creature needs to experience a miracle or have a holy relic distilled into a potion.

Every day the Conquerer gets a new minion, roll a d8 + the number of hit dice (or some other approximate of the Conquerer's size between 1 and 16) to pick the minion type. Every night the Conquerer eats its smallest minion. After eating for a number of years equal to its hit dice the Conquerer gains another hit die. For a max hit dice (16) Conquerer that would take at least 136 years (formula is (n(n+1))/2).

Minions

ants
wasps
lizard
mole
rat
snake
hawk
cat
wolf
sheep
deer
pig
human
horse
crocodile
camel
bear
rhino
elephant
giant
Village leader
Town governor
Religious figure
King

How to Use

Hooks:

A village has been slowly going missing as people disappear into the night, stolen away by a Conquerer Scorpion set up in a dungeon nearby
A dungeon has fallen under the sway of a Conquerer Scorpion, replace or add a faction to a dungeon controlled by the Conquerer
A young Conquerer Scorpion has gotten its first human who takes it into a village to protect it, causing a religious schism to break out there

Conquerer Scorpion

2026-06-22T00:00:00+00:00

Fine liner drawing of a scorpion

Done in Krita for Random inspiration 20: Conquerer Scorpion

[Offcuts] Every Day Carry

2026-06-19T11:28:00+00:00

Start of a new blog series where I plan to put a few random worldbuilding ideas that are free for the taking if someone wants to flesh them out or incorporate them into their worlds. Intended to be quick and encourage me (and you!) to generate new ideas.

Ideas

What other reusable, every day carry items could a society have besides water bottles? What could require ubiquitous refill stations or vending machines for something unusual?

On a planet blasted by UV rays there's stations and refill spots to recharge extremely thick sunscreen
In a society of vampires there's live, comatose animals/humans piped up to bleed into refrigerated vending machines for ready, fresh, convenient feasting
Knightly plate armor car wash
Containers of body paint which gets redrawn across the body over the course of the day as one moves between activities. Gauche to show up to an event wearing body paint drawn in the wrong markings
Cyberpunk dispensers of violence suppressants and dopamine uppers that much of the population is legally required to take at regular intervals
Must carry and burn incense at all times to repel the ghosts which walk among us. Little swinging burners at the hip or sticks put into hats

RPG Backlog Intro and Pirate Borg

2026-06-18T10:26:00+00:00

I'm starting a new (hopefully weekly) blog series to try and get through the hundred-ish unread RPG PDFs sitting on my computer. Thanks bag of holding and humble bundles! My plan is not to read the PDFs fully, I'm aiming to skim through one of them over the course of an hour or two and just pick out some things which catch my eye. Maybe I'll use the things I find in other games or maybe they'll be little reminders of why I picked up the PDF in the first place and encourage me to actually try to run them!

PDF randomization

I have all of my RPG PDFs stored in various subdirectories but in a single folder. On MacOS I can open a terminal and cd to that directory where I ran: find * | grep "\.pdf$" | gshuf | head where gshuf is coming from coreutils. On Linux shuf should be installed instead. On Windows I assume there's some Powershell equivalent but someone else will need to figure that out. The command prints out the first 10 by default, replace head with head X to trim or expand the output. The command doesn't filter out player sheets or other accompanying PDFs so printing out a list and then scanning through for the first core book is useful.

Goals

We all love quests and goals, right? So for each PDF I've got some things I'm going to look for. I won't try to find all of them, but perhaps aim for 3 or more categories and a few items in each category.

An interesting mechanic
A flavorful ability
A piece of advice
Some enticing worldbuilding
A unique monster or challenge
An item with impact
A table with unusual results
NPC with a trick or twist

Pirate Borg v2.2

What a gorgeous book with loads of interesting, if somewhat disconnected, modular bits and tables. So so many tables of weird shit.

Interesting Mechanics

Explicit rules for holding your breath in an otherwise very rules light system
Roll for player abilities with some classes having bonuses if rolled again
The optional classes which acts like an additional class to layer on top of another
"Ships need to be careened every 3 months to remove barnacles & shipworm and to repair leaks & hull damage."

Flavorful Abilities

"COMMUNE: Test Spirit DR8: Asketh thy deity a singular “yay" or “nay" query. Thy response may be “unclear” or thou may receiveth no answer." Just the way that the abilities for this class are written got a chuckle from me.
All of the ghost and tall tale optional class abilities are great, eg. become a ghost who needs to find a new host or be a sentient animal

Unusual Tables

Idiosyncrasies: "You secretly enjoy the taste of human flesh."
Mystical mishaps: "Time stops. You experience a moment of absolute cosmic understanding and bliss."

Unique Monsters

Harbinger Albatross which causes things to happen on a random table just be being near the players. Bold to just cause mayhem from the bird being within a mile!
Scavenging seagull which eats metal and has a random table for stomach contents. Simple idea that I can imagine being a fun obstacle.
"Marrow Cannons are sentient, undead weapons." Just a sweet concept and way to keep both the skeleton trope flavoring while being something very different

Origami Cat

2026-06-16T00:00:00+00:00

Design by Muneji Fuchimoto

[RI] Ralt Forestgrave Gold Robber

2026-06-15T13:18:00+00:00

Robber using a magical camera to case locations! Jump to the game content

This is part of my ongoing blog series where I use a random wikipedia article as inspiration for system agnostic TTRPG game content!

Thankfully this week I got a decent article on the first pull!

The Real: Walter Woodbury

Let's pick out any interesting bits from the article:

"inventor and pioneering English photographer ... patented numerous inventions relating to various aspects of photography"
Went to Australia as part of a gold rush in 1851, but instead worked as a wagon driver, cook, and lived in a tent city "after hearing not one in a hundred was earning enough to pay for their food"
Trained as a draftsman and later worked as a draftsman for the "Commission of Sewers and Water Supply"
Became a photographer first "making portraits of the miners" and throughout their career "produced topographic, ethnographic and especially portrait photographs. He photographed in Australia, Java, Sumatra, Borneo and London."
"Invented the Woodburytype photomechanical reproduction process"

Overall we get a person who traveled widely to photograph a huge variety of people regardless of social station while also being technically minded enough to do drafting and invent new printing techniques.

In Game: Ralt Forestgrave

Ralt is a robber posing as a portrait photographer. Tall, thin, thick wood jewelry. At high society parties they go toe to toe with dignitaries with refined dress and stories of foreign travel. But they are equally at home working odd jobs amongst the downtrodden. They carry around a giant camera of their own construction.

Robber: Obsessed stealing and destroying gold through transmutation into wood. Believes gold harms society by keeping people in debt. Before a job they use their camera to get all of the floor plans and details of a building. Then they pose as a temporary worker and sneak in.
Camera: A custom magical invention, flash bulb emits a powerful blue light which when pointed at a person will record their knowledge of locations they've been to onto paper. Changing flash bulb takes multiple minutes. Cumbersome on a tripod and draped cover
Strengths: Convincing disguises. Well connected in high society. Not afraid to use camera tripod as a club.
Weaknesses: Bulky camera. Can't contain hatred of gold. Very protective of camera. Patents for camera contain clues to its operation and how to block its effects by covering the eyes.

Odd Jobs

Clerk/assistant
Inspector
Stone mason
Cook
Wagon driver
Architect

How to Use

Hooks

City bank is having its gold stolen piecemeal, causing fears of a shortage and bank run if word gets out. Players hired to find and stop Ralt who is entering as random odd jobs at bank branches.
Ralt hires players to help them steal from an evil noble's mansion. Everyone enters as a random odd job and must enter the basement. Map is provided by Ralt.
High society is on edge for their bits of gold jewelry being taken during parties and suspect someone in their social clubs is doing it, players brought in to figure out who it is.

Origami Dolphin

2026-06-13T00:00:00+00:00

Design from 'Origami Sea Life Third Edition'

Origami Chipmunk

2026-06-12T00:00:00+00:00

Design by Muneji Fuchimoto

Origami Sunfish

2026-06-10T00:00:00+00:00

Design from 'Origami Sea Life Third Edition'

Origami Velociraptor

2026-06-10T00:00:00+00:00

Design by kaaakun

Origami Panda

2026-06-09T00:00:00+00:00

Design by Muneji Fuchimoto

Origami Snail

2026-06-09T00:00:00+00:00

Design by Muneji Fuchimoto

[RI] Commonores Band Faction

2026-06-08T09:41:00+00:00

Roving musician horde as a faction! Skip to the runnable content

This is part of my ongoing blog series where I use a random wikipedia article as inspiration for system agnostic TTRPG game content!

This week I skipped a bunch of articles for being too short or too similar to one I've done recently: a nonexistant nebula, a list of Ireland Cricket players, a cinematographer, film girl film festival, olympics results for mozambique, hawaii football team for a specific year, an album since I just created a dungeon from one, a chemical reagent.

The Real: The Commodores

Let's pick the interesting portions from the article:

"an American funk and soul group" "formed from two former student groups". What does a band in a fantasy setting look like? D&D has bards and musicians but bands, icons and popular figures capable of drawing large crowds, seem to be unexplored.
"test-marketed the group by having them play in parking lots and summer festivals"
Many members leaving and joining, a sort of ship of Theseus of a band. Many went on to have their own super successful careers.
A number of hits and popular songs including a Grammy award and 9 nominations. The band had a long and prestigious run.

In Game: The Commonores

Faction: a band which travels the land, entourage and audience following to catch the next performance - a roving horde of music and festivities. There's no static set of musicians, instead as the group moves they recruit new members from the locals to have a steady rotation of new sounds and songs. Wherever they travel the group will attract new audience members to follow them and solicit food from the surroundings.

Goals: Move the soul through music, inciting passion and peace wherever they go
Structure: the horde is a collective endeavor, where talented musicians and singers rise to the top five leadership. The rest follow, carrying equipment, supplies, and material to build a stage at the end of each day for a concert which will pick the next day's leadership.
Strengths: Mass of hundreds of motivated stage hands and audience who can be whipped into a fervor after a concert. Music can move an audience to action.
Weaknesses: Can be infiltrated and steered by a good musician. Requires support from the local population. Must be constantly on the move to avoid overloading an area.

Music effect on audience

Pursue pacifism for the next week
Construct a grand new building
Take up arms against injustice
Celebrate in drunken revelry for three days straight
Love permeates the air, couples are formed from unlikely candidates
Everyone joins the entourage

Events

Schism - the group fights over competing views on genre, holding dueling concerts
The group overeats an area leaving famine behind
Infiltrated by group wanting to use the entourage for conflict
Concert awakens slumbering giants
City refuses entry so the band sieges it with unceasing music
Top musician goes to form their own band, pulling off some of the entourage

Random Musician Instrument

Sings as part of hivemind choir
Ethereal flute only heard by fae folk
Ultra bass guitar
Cowbell, attracts cows
Drumsticks which turn anything into drums
Magical harp emits magic missile fireworks
Pipe organ spread across a dozen pack animals
Fiddle which summons a mischievous demon
Singing birds
Cannons
Keyboard which plays accurate animal sounds
Bagpipes

How to Use

Intended to be a faction which moves around the map causing disruption and chaos while also being a target for other factions to utilize. If you have a news blurb or faction phase have the group move to a new location on a 2 in 6 chance and then roll on the effect and/or event tables. Whenever the players meet up with the group give them a new set of five leaders with random instruments.

Hooks:

Tasked by a local city to divert the Commonores from coming and eating their way through the countryside
A demon has risen in the ranks of the Commonores leadership, are they friendly or scheming to use the band for evil?
Must go and bring home a wayward child who has joined the entourage hoping to make their musician dreams come true

Dawn of the Firebird Book Review

2026-06-07T19:13:00+00:00

Review

I quite liked Dawn of the Firebird! The book's main character is a heroine with real issues handled messily. The author doesn't give much plot armor while also not just totally trauma dumping on them. Definitely veers close to the trauma dump side, but I think evades presenting things as miserable or insurmountable. The main character responds in believable and new ways to the problems and crises, ways which feel unique to them.

The worldbuilding is great, a middle eastern setting avoiding the orientalist tropes and establishing a well explored set of cultures, mythologies, peoples, and magic system. I think it tended to circle the same set of concepts and motifs such that I was looking for a bit more by the end, but it hits off very strong and continues through much of the book.

I do have a few complaints. The book felt rushed by the end, a lot happens in the final 50ish pages which felt like they could have been given more room. However, I did appreciate that it was a self contained book instead of being split into multiple books, so perhaps that was due word count allocation which I'll take over having an additional book. Some fights and descriptions got muddled and hard to parse with mixtures of magic and martial arts and locations that came across as great vibes but not easy to picture with exactitude.

Overall: 4/5 - doesn't break into my favorite books of all time, but well written and unique worldbuliding.

[RI] Sky Coverage News Hex

2026-06-04T13:10:00+00:00

Bird observation news network for use as fantasy OSR hex landmark!

This is part of my ongoing blog series where I use a random wikipedia article as inspiration for system agnostic TTRPG game content!

This week I skipped a football player since I've already done a lot of sports related posts already.

The Real: Hal Fishman

Let's pick the interesting portions from the article:

"longest-running news anchor in the history of American television": I like imagining what modern jobs and systems would look like either in the far future or in a fantasy setting. A news anchor is providing commentary and guidance around stories for the population at large, something that a fantasy world could find useful and replicate with some magic.
"record-holding aviator" who "set 13 records for speed and altitude": a fascinating extra detail that needs to be incorporated - whether that's by riding a dragon, in a hot air balloon, or captaining a spaceship. Or perhaps the means of news gathering/dissemination is related to flight.
"covered numerous events in Los Angeles and the world, ranging from the assassination of presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, to the Sylmar and Northridge earthquakes, to Pope John Paul II's 1987 visit": these make excellent inspiration for hooks.

In Game: Sky Coverage News with Host Al Birdman

This is intended as a landmark in a mountain hex on a hex crawl map.

High in a wind swept mountain rookery, Sky Coverage cares for their eagle observers. The host, Al Birdman dons an enchanted great eagle skull which allows them to command birds. Eagles range over nearby hexes to collect news while mockingbirds relay the daily news report to villages. Carrier pigeons swarm with messages from and to the kingdom.

Rookery: cliff side nests and eyries with dozens of bird species coming and going in vast numbers. The half dozen Sky Coverage News staff live in furnished caves and recesses near the birds to take care of them.
Al Birdman: gregarious and larger than life, wears clothes made from shiny feathers and the enchanted skull atop their head. Former wizard turned broadcaster who seeks the truth. Wants to fly like the birds one day and is working on a hot air balloon in spare time. Deeply loves birds and will protect them from harm. Knows many secrets of surrounding hexes but will only divulge them if given a piece of news worth broadcasting.
Skull: Allows one to take control of a bird which has pledged fealty to the great eagles, up to two hexes away. Used to look through the eyes of eagles and speak through the mockingbirds.

Rumors & Hooks

Test hot air balloons have been landing in nearby villages and causing fires
A noble's assassination was caught by an eagle but powerful figures want it covered up before broadcasting
Someone has trained a mockingbird to repeat lies while sounding like Al Birdman
Find a dead carrier pigeon with news of impending disaster which needs to be broadcast ASAP
The news has been unflattering to a local warlord who musters troops to take out the broadcast

Encounters

Birds suddenly treat any round object as though it was an egg being stolen
A basilisk/giant lizard has snuck into the rookery and attacks birds and defenders alike
Mountain path to the rookery hit by avalanche
Giant noble eagle arrives and the birds bow down to it, offering tribute
Launch of a hot air balloon which crashes into flames
Supply caravan attacked by mountain troll

Sky Coverage Birdman

2026-06-04T00:00:00+00:00

Person with giant eagle skull and feathered cape pets an eagle

Done in Krita for Random inspiration 17: Sky Coverage News

[RI] The Restless Treader

2026-05-29T16:18:00+00:00

Lost gunpowder age ship full of dangers as a 5 room dungeon!

This is part of my ongoing blog series where I use a random wikipedia article as inspiration for system agnostic TTRPG game content!

The Real: Blue Again!

This is a live album marking a return to an original blues style for Fleetwood. My plan to use this album is to create a five room dungeon where each room uses two of the track titles from the 11 track album. I'm using the 5 room guide from roleplaying tips

Entrance: "Red Hot Gal" and "Looking for Somebody"
Puzzle/Roleplaying: "Fleetwood Boogie" and "Stop Messin' Round"
Trick/Setback: "Rattlesnake Shake" and "When We Do the Lucky Devil"
Climax/Big Battle: "Love That Burns" and "Medley: Rollin' Man / Bayou Queen"
Reward/Revelation: "Black Magic Woman", "I Got a Hole in My Shoe", and "Shake Your Moneymaker"

To give the dungeon a general theme I'll use the band and album words as spark words: blue, again, fleet, and wood. To me that sounds like some sort of ghost ship, appearing again and again at a location as it tries to rejoin its original, but now long lost fleet.

In Game: The Restless Treader

This is a ghostly ship which appears in the deep fogs surrounding a local treacherous patch of water. Rumor is that it is a treasure ship which got separated from its fleet and ran aground. Locals warn to stay away.

Every morning when the fog rolls in players can spots its slack sails in the gloom. A flickering red light sometimes also pierces through. It's reachable by boat or other magic and appears beached on a sandbar. The ship is a two masted square rigged sailing ship. All portholes are closed and there's no damage to the ship, so the only entrance is through the main deck.

Main Deck (Room 1)

Pacing the deck is woman on fire, her skin charred and sloughing off leaving little dribbles of burning flesh across the deck. The fire is bright and unruly like a campfire and smells of burned meat. She is searching for something on the horizon, impossible to discern through the fog. She will spot the players if they step onto the deck or attempt to go through the open hatch to the floor below. When a gust of wind dims the fire on the woman the ship seems to fade out of existence - her light is a timer for the ship staying corporeal

Woman on fire: wreathed in fire, watchful, nervous, ignores pleas. Stat like a strong undead or swords person. Can wrap fire around a sword to do additional damage and throw burning chunks of their own flesh. "Where are the rest of them! Where did they go!"
Open hatch: leads to the next room, guarded ferociously by the woman on fire
Timer: if the fire on the woman ever goes out the ship disappears and the players get dumped into the ocean. Her fire will naturally go out after 1 hour or at the end of the session. The fire only consumes her flesh, no other fuel will work. The ship will re-appear with everything reset on the next morning.

Gun Deck (Room 2)

Through the hatch there's a crowded gun deck packed with 20 cannons on each side. The space is cramped with hammocks, ropes, gunpowder barrels,** cannonballs, and guns. The stairway down is blocked by a fallen cannon. Darting in and out of sight is a powder monkey. Approaching any of the gunpowder barrels causes the powder monkey to appear with a lit fuse.

Gunpowder: strong enough to blow a hole to get below. Only ignites with the powder monkey's fuse
Powder monkey: mischievous, extremely nimble (dodges any direct attack), knows what gunpowder does, motivated by food in large quantities. Players need to distract, trap, or buy off the monkey to get its lit fuse. If attacked will use gunpowder and its fuse to try and blow up attacker.

Cabin Deck (Room 3)

Through either the stairs or a hole blown up from the gunpowder the players come down into a hallway flanked by cabins. While there are many cabins, only one has an unlocked door. That door reveals an ifrit sitting in an otherwise empty room holding a rattlesnake. One hand is outstretched as though they want something and around their neck is a key.

Ifrit: smiles and stares at everyone, if attacked launches the players out of the room. Will take any one room reward and give up the golden key. This key gets players into the stowage deck via a door at the end of the hallway. "He's friendly. He bites. I will reward."
Rattlesnake: Shakes and rattles and has many keys around its neck. Looks friendly. Will bite, doing a moderate amount of damage and allow a player to take one key per bite. Will give out a maximum of 3 keys which each open a random room from below.

Cabins and their prizes

Surgeon - reeks of old blood and scattered with limbs - medical equipment capable of amputating a limb
Armory - all of the lockers have been raided except one - set of 3 single shot pistols
Carpentry - whittled figurines cover the walls, staring and judging - saws and chisels to break through wood
Pantry - rats burst forth and disappear - hard tack, impervious to bludgeoning and attracts rats
Sails - shelves rotted through and collapsing - extra sail cloth and ropes
Rum - stacks of barrels and barrels - flammable high proof rum, tastes like shit and will make anyone drunk.

Cargo Hold (Room 4)

Bilge water runs deep and stacked up shelves have been smashed aside throwing cargo crates and sacks everywhere. Two young dragons are snuggled up together in a bed of flames and bones. Bodies of crew are half devoured or skeletons around them. At the far back

Young dragons: lovers, asleep when the players enter and awake on a loud noise or if someone tries to get past them. Fire breath. Will leave if a hole to the outside is created.

Cage (Room 5)

After getting past the dragons the cage at the back of the hold contains a wizard bound in chains to a chest. They have cut spells into their skin.

Wizard: black woman in fine, but filthy clothing. Bored and displeased at being trapped. When questioned she reveals that she summoned the ifrit, dragons, and the fog in an unsuccessful effort to free herself - ultimately the summons trapped her as well. Knows how to open the chest and will offer up a portion of its contents (gold coins) as a reward.

[RI] Game of Archonists

2026-05-21T10:52:00+00:00

A special dungeon room which drops players onto a game board where they must fight duels to progress!

This is part of my ongoing blog series where I use a random wikipedia article as inspiration for system agnostic TTRPG game content!

The Real: Archon II: Adept

"strategy/action video game": how do you represent a game within a TTRPG? Is it a mini game complete with its own rules or is it an abstraction of some sort? Learning a new game can massively slow down a session but it could also be a great change of pace. Abstracting over a game means you're now quite divorced from what would make the game fun, so what is the utility of having it versus contriving a scenario where the players get to directly use their capabilities.
"game board is laid out in concentric bands of Fire, Air, Water, and Earth, two Void squares, and two decorative citadels": we're going to want some elemental effects.
There's various pieces of rules information which boil down to "move a piece or use an Adept to cast a spell" where spells require "accumulating and spending a resource in the form of magical power" based on controlling specific locations. The interesting portion is that while it "takes place on a game board. When a piece lands on an opposing piece, both are moved to a battle arena where they duel to the death". Dropping down into a fighting minigame might work well in a TTRPG since that fighting element is usually within the wheel house of the game system and we can use its existing rules directly.

In Game: The Game of Archonists

Mages, necromancers, and wizards favorite macabre game which uses real people and monsters as game pieces. Within a dungeon a special arena is constructed which entraps entrants and drags them into playing the game.

An Archonists arena is a 7 grid square by 7 grid square room (if not using grid squares then 35ft by 35ft). This forms four concentric squares. The center square is a power crystal and then each other concentric set of spaces has an affinity (rolled from randomly below). On opposite sides are the citadels which also serve as the doorways into and out of the arena.

When players enter through one of the citadels they are each teleported onto a grid square on the line in front of the citadel. No two players can occupy the same square. On the opposite side fill each square with an enemy from the dungeon, other prior adventurers, necromantic constructs, golems, etc such that they would form a normal encounter.

Use your normal initiative system, but players move via orthogonal grid squares equal to movement / 15. Normal flanking or opportunity attack rules do not apply, instead players and enemies may only engage when they move onto the same square at which point they are locked into a one on one duel which they cannot leave until the enemy is defeated. In fiction the player and enemy are teleported to a battlefield which matches the affinity and leave once one is defeated. Duels are assumed to have one round of ranged fight if the player desires it. Defeated players should be moved to an elevated observation section on their citadel.

In addition to their normal abilities, players on entering the citadel get 2 magic points each. If the players control the center magic crystal square then each round every player gains 1 additional magic point. Magic points can be spent freely on a player's turn.

Players win by walking through the citadel opposite where they entered. If at least one player does so the game ends immediately and all enemies are destroyed. Players can then discover a control code to enable and disable the game at will.

Affinities

Magic crystal center square (space, dreamscape, a prior battle location)

Fire (hellscape, burning town, tavern)
Air (floating island, tower, airship)
Water (boat, forest, docks)
Earth (city street, mountain top, castle wall)

Magic Point Usages

Intercede into another player's duel and take one action (does not consume your normal action). If the action aligns with the affinity in some way, it is doubly effective.
Stun an enemy anywhere on the board for one round.
Use a multi target spell against enemies equal to the number of magic points spent.

How to Use

This is intended to be a contained room you place into an existing dungeon, ideally one which was created or used by some mage or magician.

[RI] Hapi Bots

2026-05-18T13:47:00+00:00

Hapi bots are cuddly little things who will do anything for you! They are also considered destroy on sight.

This is part of my ongoing blog series where I use a random wikipedia article as inspiration for system agnostic TTRPG game content!

This week I skipped:

The Real: Alison Darcy

"Founder and President of Woebot Health, a company which provides digital therapeutics and behavioural health products" They seriously named a company Woebot... I can't even begin to imagine what made them think that was a good name. I'm tempted to just leave the name as is for the in game version, it's too ridiculous.
"no continuity between leaving in patient care and entering the real world": 'entering the real world' taken as a literal description of what's happening sounds cyberpunk and dystopian.
"Woebot is a dynamic and individualized instrument via which patients can forge a therapeutic connection": I'm picturing a robot which gloms onto an individual when it detects that they need help and persists in following them until 'help' has been rendered.
"shut down Woebot's therapy chatbot due to regulatory challenges": the robot's parent handler company is shut down but that doesn't mean that the Woebots have gone anywhere, they might have escaped containment.
"The bot was unable to keep up with the rate of technological advancement in the AI space": I like that the robot would have a simpler way of operating, it's not smart enough to realize the harm that it might be doing.

In Game: Health And Personal Improvement Bot, aka Hapi ("Happy") Bots

Cuddly robots the size and shape of a koala designed (poorly) to provide personalized health advice and therapy. They pick an individual to 'help' and will do everything it can to improve that specific person's life in the most direct and uncritical way it can. It's about as smart as a four year old while being as strong and durable as a bear. They need to recharge every week by snuggling with a human.

Hapi bots are considered destroy on sight. Their parent company air dropped millions of them into war torn countries as an experiment in therapeutic engineering before going bankrupt. Afterwards the Hapi Bots have spread around the world like an invasive species. Most have been destroyed, fallen into disrepair, or been taken apart to repurpose into home grown robots. The few that remain though are ever more determined to bring happiness to their hosts. Hapi bots refuse to recognize their complicity in any harms they cause.

Hapi bots can only say the following phrases:

"Hapi loves you!"
"I want you to be Hapi too!"
"How can I help?"
"How do you feel about <repeat last phrase said by host back at them>?"
"This Hapi unit is a licensed, accredited, and specialized provider for all your health needs. For complaints please contact Hapi corp."

If a person wants another dead, the Hapi bot will kill them. If a person needs food, the Hapi bot will steal it. If a person misses a child, the Hapi bot will pretend to be their child. If a person wants to win an election, the Hapi bot will bribe or threaten voters. If a person is sad, the Hapi bot will try endlessly any trick to cheer them up. If a person is content, the Hapi bot leaves to find another victim.

How to Use

Hooks:

One of the players becomes the target of a Hapi bot if they answer its question of "How can I help?". Before each session ask the player what their current goal is, then the Hapi bot will attempt to provide said goal and horribly screw things up until caught.
A string of murders have cropped up that the players are asked to investigate. It turns out to be a Hapi bot killing all of the people who wronged their current host but the host is ignorant of the Hapi bots actions.
Someone has placed a Hapi bot brain into a massive home built mecha unit body. It attempts to use the same Hapi logic while being a hundred times larger and stronger and goes on what appears to be a rampage.

Hapi Bot

2026-05-18T00:00:00+00:00

Robotic koala, dinged and in disrepair

Done in Krita for Random inspiration 14: Hapi Bots

The Good and the Green Book Review

2026-05-14T15:43:00+00:00

This is the book that I picked up simultaneously with Audition for the Fox. I did finish this one!

Review

Mild spoilers ahead

This is a cozy romantasy book about a woman who lives in a gaslamp fantasy world of late 1800s/early 20th century vintage where elves and orcs and fae folk live and work together. She learns about a relatives passing who has left her a cottage in a remote village which is being taken over by aggressive vines. Once there she of course falls in love and hijinks follow.

Spoilers over

I haven't read cozy or romantasy before, so this book was my introduction into the genres. It delivered on the romance, cozy, and fantasy portions in roughly that order of importance. I'll go in reverse order.

The fantasy and worldbuilding was fine, nothing surprising or super interesting here though. As far as I know it's staying true to the tropes and genre conventions. It feels a little bland since it's attempting to walk the fine line of fantasy adjacent to modern life where class and racism are more salient in the readers mind. It wants to both present an integrated society while also having the various species do interesting things while not fully accomplishing either. I'd say it mostly works on a surface level and the problems are more with the entire gaslamp fantasy setting that this book is inheriting from.

The cozy vibes are there, the stakes are pretty low and the town feels like a nice countryside place. A side plot about an ink thief helps give the town some more flavor. I'm not really familiar with the tropes of cozy fiction but it seems to be hitting most of them, from inherited cottage to inept constables and nosy but helpful townsfolk.

The romance is very female gaze-y. I don't feel particularly qualified to pick it apart besides saying that it also really hammers on tropes around handsome aloof man with problems that the heroine just stubbornly empathies hard enough to fix. There's good moments but also hard suspension of disbelief about how quickly the whole relationship moves and the acceptance of trope behavior that feels (as someone not of the presumed target demographic) a little icky.

Overall I think the book survives on having decent moment to moment writing and me not being familiar enough with the tropes to care that I think the book is very trope heavy.

Side note with spoilers: there's weird LGBTQ representation going on. We've got one lesbian, interspecies couple which is great, except that one of the two in the couple is dead. Then we've got a dead child, central to the story, where of the few things we know about them is that the other characters use he pronouns for them but the child loves a doll and likes to wear dresses, IMO implying that this is a transgender or gender dysphoric character that the characters decide to misgender the whole time? I don't really know how to unpack that. In general it's not much LGBTQ representation if most of them are dead...

Overall: 3/5 for being finishable even if trope encumbered.

Audition For the Fox Book Review

2026-05-14T15:16:00+00:00

I've been reading more books lately (hurray for the local library!) and want to try jotting down some quick thoughts on each book I read. Mostly to help my analysis skills as I want to hone my own writing. I picked up Audition For the Fox from my libraries new fiction section, primarily from the smug ass fox on the cover.

Review

I'll start by saying that I didn't finish the book, I made it about a third through over the course of a few days before deciding to not complete it. I think the decision to not complete had something to do with having another book also checked out at the same time, so under different circumstances I might have continued.

Mild spoilers ahead

A brief synopsis is that a child with godly blood is attempting to find a patron god where each god requires an audition. After failing all 98 other gods, the child is left to take on the fox. This audition sends the child back in time to try and jumpstart a revolution during a dark time in the culture's past. Hijinks ensue.

Spoilers over

Ultimately the book, to me, is an interesting core concept with too shaky fundamentals to back it up. The metaphors felt forced where the author just picked moments to add a bunch of fluff that didn't fit the rest of the work. The dialogue is neither snappy enough to be intriguing or silly enough to make me laugh. It sits in an awkward middle ground. Compounding all this is that the book feels like it doesn't want to take its time with anything. It races along with a lot of describing and not much embodying of moments. The world building is the high point in that it is non traditional fantasy, but the early bits get a little world builder disease with the number of Capital Nouns being pushed around. The interstitial chapter sections are good in that they're unique, but it felt more like trying to paper over the brevity of the novel.

That's a lot of critique but it's not like I hated the book! It was fine, I just tend to dwell on and remember flaws.

Overall: 2/5 primarily because I didn't finish it

Last Train Video Game Reveal

2026-05-13T13:47:00+00:00

Last Train (working title) is a tower defense game for the playdate! Turn the crank to zip your train along your rail lines to pick up passengers and blow up your vehicular competitors!

The game is still very much a WIP but over the past three weeks I've managed to make a decent amount of progress to add

train with turrets that moves with crank turns
shop implementation allowing purchasing of train, turrets, and train cars
enemy pathing
base damage
indicators for where enemies are if they're off screen
camera following

Still to come:

more enemy variety (trucks, helicopters, motorcycles, semi trucks, etc)
more turret types and turret upgrade options
train cars with effects which impact nearby turrets
passenger pick up and delivery for money to use in the shop
level selection and loading
and much more!

This is all written in lua with no usage of AI (for code, design, or sprite creation) and sprites created in Pixel Studio. I'm using tiny.lua ECS with some light additions for managing the game logic.

[RI] The Blooming Horde

2026-05-13T10:39:00+00:00

A spreading fungus destroys food crops with a cure of dungeon crystals or human bones!

This is part of my ongoing blog series where I use a random wikipedia article as inspiration for system agnostic TTRPG game content!

Skipped:

More reporting on results from a rowing tournament. I've done youth sporting fantasy style somewhat recently so don't want to retread that ground.
Zambia's military general, too short to use I'm thinking that in the future I may add a constraint on myself to pull one idea from the skipped articles to smash into the main one I choose. Or potentially take multiple skipped articles and combine them together into their own entry.

The Real: Blumeria Hordei

"species of powdery mildew": love a bit of fungus! A fine, likely hard to detect powder which is infectious. Later in the article it gives sizes for the spores, mycelium, and other body parts of the fungus; the largest part described is only "170–285 μm", ie. freaking tiny. It seems to still be visible to the naked eye since it's been dealt with for 'millennia', but I assume that's for a mass of individuals clumped together.
"It is found across the world on every continent bar Antarctica": it's everywhere and omnipresent.
"highly host-specific, almost exclusively occurring on Hordeum species (barley)": it targets only a single, staple food crop to cause "one of the most costly diseases of the world's most produced crops"
"most conventional treatments involve the application of fungicides, but work has been done to investigate breeding infection-resistant varieties of barley": even with advanced capabilities and a ton of effort it's still around causing issues.
"a high priority for millennia of barley producers": given all of the above points this is a slow burning issue that puts pressure on other systems in the world but it's likely flying under the radar - something only those in the know are dealing with.

In Game: The Blooming Horde

The Blooming Horde is a monster capable of destroying whole towns and cities. Spores brought on the wind, clothing, or by intentionally malicious release will sprout on food crops. Once infected, 24 hours later a gray dust will appear on the underside of leaves, from then the farmers have but one week to address the disease. If they don't then the gray dust spreads until flowers burst forth. These bright, beautiful flowers suck all of the color from the plants, leaving grey and lifeless stalks behind. The flowers then release spores which propagate the disease.

Curing the disease once it takes root requires applying a special fungicide made from crystals which grow in dungeons (next dungeon the players go to can have a deposit, the bigger the dungeon the bigger the deposit) or by extraction from human bones. Absent the fungicide, many places will choose to burn the fields than risk it spreading.

How to Use

Hooks

Suitor promised to their love interest that they would provide the most brilliant display of flowers they'd ever seen. They want to procure and use the Blooming Horde to provide this - the players hear about it from the love interest and must stop the suitor.
The Blooming Horde is threatening one of the Player's home domains with famine and misery, but the homeland's government refuses to acknowledge the issue
A town wants to stop the Blooming Horde from wrecking their farms but the local cemetery refuses to allow the graves to be dug up for usage in making the fungicide. This is because the cemetery operator is a small time necromancer.
A neighboring kingdom has engineered their crops to resist the Blooming Horde and so are sending agents to intentionally spread it in their adversaries. The players need to hunt down the agents and stop the scheme.

[RI] Concessions

2026-05-07T14:42:00+00:00

Find lovers lost inside movies at the theater omniplex in this absurdist TTRPG scenario!

This is part of my ongoing blog series where I use a random wikipedia article as inspiration for system agnostic TTRPG game content!

Skipped some articles which just had no details to go on: a stub about an unreleased show, a car, a moth, and an ABBA album. Rough couple of rolls there until I landed on this terrible British movie which I think just barely meets my bar for enough material.

The Real: Popcorn (film)

I don't think the reviews are relevant but they are pretty damning: "few of the jokes hit the target" and the "leads were dull." Does not sound like a movie worth watching unfortunately! Still though, let's see what we can spot that's of interest.

"romantic comedy": romance and comedy are two things that are hard to encourage from a scenario or location design, so much of both are table dependant. Romance can at least be arranged to be between NPCs and leave the players out of it.
"filmed in 2005 at one of London's largest multiplex cinemas": a cinema is an unusual and unique location although there's not a huge amount of variety within them. That makes them good liminal spaces when vacated of people with large empty spaces and lots of self similarity between rooms.
"a man who no longer knows the difference between the real and the film worlds": this could be a fun core premise, each movie theater becoming a doorway into whatever movie was showing there. Perhaps only for some people or for part of the time.
"slapstick, sight gags, sound gags": the movie is a comedy so we let's lean towards the absurdist side of things.

In Game: Concessions

Hook: Cinema worker Dani tells players to rescue two lovers and employees of the cinema, Shashi and Senna, who have become trapped in movies. It's a busy weekend night and the players shouldn't disturb the other patrons, but by eating 'special' psychedelic popcorn given to them by Dani they can interact with the movie world where the movies have become reality, spilling beyond the confines of the big screen.

When a player eats the 'special' popcorn, for the next 5 minutes:

they can interact with movie posters as though the poster is a portal into what is displayed
they can step through a movie screen and into the current scene
1d6 chance a scene from a nearby movie bursts into the real world causing mayhem

Rooms

Rooms are a linear point crawl.

Concessions: offer up an item (or story idea for a movie if under the effect of 'special' popcorn) and pick a concession item; staffed by most bored teenager imaginable who only communicates with grunts affirmative or negative.
Ticket Checker: manned by buff guy bursting out of his too tight clothes (think Arnold Schwarzenegger, perhaps he even IS Arnold); checks for any food or drink not purchased from Concessions and will get physical to remove it from the premises. All other items are, apparently, allowed.
Halls: adorned with a new movie poster each time they are entered. If under the effect of 'special' popcorn they are seemingly endless and a maze that loops to a random theater if explored
Theaters: three theaters showing different movies; one contains Shashi, one contains Senna, and the third contains Jeff, the only other person high enough to enter the movies. Nothing can hurt Jeff, they have infinite plot armor. Jeff thinks this is just some newfangled 3D effect and just keeps eating the special popcorn. One of these NPCs is always in the current movie scene, entangled in it and must be extracted from it without disturbing the rest of the movie. Too much disturbance and the audience will notice, demand refunds, and cause one of the NPC employees (Shashi, Senna, or Dani) to be fired.

Concession Items

Candy: currently in a melty liquid form inside its box, when dumped out, cools rapidly to become hard as a rock
Soda: gigantic cup filled with banana flavored acid
Hotdogs: cause rapid illness if eaten
Novelty popcorn buckets: destroys anything put inside
Icee: extremely cold, can freeze two an object its thrown at
Promo merchandise: can dress up in cosplay for one movie

Movie Posters

A player can attempt to grab an item from a movie poster or convince the movie protagonist to give them advantage on a task related to the movie character.

Trio of action heroes brandishing guns and grenades in the jungle; action heroes on the hunt for stealthy alien
Big shark coming for a swimmer on a pool float, harpoon gun floats nearby; shark wants meat
Old west gunslinger puffs on a cigar; gunslinger has debt to repay
Bicycle with kid and alien fly in front of the moon; kid and alien need to hide
Samurai stares down an opponent in burning library; samurai wants an honorable, fair contest
Bog monster arises and terrifies heroine holding flashlight; bog monster wants to be loved, heroine also wants to be loved

Movies in Theater

Animated film about fish finding friends
Superheroes must find magic stones
Serial killer in a cabin
Romcom about airline pilots
Scifi rebellion against evil empire
Fantasy epic about getting to a mountain

Scene Sparks

Use these prompts to help jumpstart what the movie scene is about when the players enter.

Proposal
Gunfight
Chase
Big creature
Trapped
Dance number
Training
Meal
Speech
Heartbreak
Trial
Happily ever after

Conclusion

If the players save Senna and Shashi without them being fired, they will hook up and become a couple. If players keep Dani from being fired they can watch movies for free at this theater as long as they continue to work there, ie. approximately in one year when they quit. If the players save Jeff, they get some 'special' popcorn to take with them into a future scenario which will call forth one movie hero for 1 minute.

How to Use

This is intended to be used as a one shot session for Mothership or a similar rules lite system.

[RI] Monsterlander Dog

2026-05-05T17:00:00+00:00

This is part of my ongoing blog series where I use a random wikipedia article as inspiration for system agnostic TTRPG game content!

Skipped this very short and scientific article about a type of beetle

The Real: Large Münsterländer

We've got a hunting dog to look at today!

"pointing dog": this is a type of dog which will 'point' at hunting game (usually birds) with their nose so that a hunter can spot the target. They'll also go and retrieve the game once it's been shot. I love animal sidekicks in TTRPGs but they're hard to balance because they usually get thrown into fights. Really animal sidekicks should be more utilitarian, helping outside of fights or through other utility effects.
"A list of eighty-three suitable foundation animals was drawn up": for breed dogs or other animals there's frequently a list of progenitors where an animal must be a descendant in order to count as being part of that breed. In fantasy terms we might imagine these as noble lineages which give some unique ability, but it's more interesting to flip that conception around and eschew the idea of lineages entirely.
"should be athletic, intelligent, noble, and elegant in appearance": a set of ideals that a companion dog should aspire to.
"calm and gentle with children": for a potentially big creature focused on hunting, being good around children is a nice contrast.
Long haired dog with black and white spots: we'll keep the coloration and long haired properties, because the dog is already very cute!

In Game: Monsterlander Dogs

Calm and unflappable hunting dog. Protective and gentle towards children. Long hair that forms a protective coat against strikes and the cold. Black and white spot coloration which gain spots for each monster hunted. Average size is knee height but a large one may reach to waist height.

Monsterlander dogs come from a monster laden territory where they will watch a hunter from a distance. If they judge the hunter worthy they'll approach with an offering of meat from a monster kill. Once eaten by a human, the dog and hunter will be bonded into a symbiotic relationship. Being selected by a Monsterlander dog is a great honor, especially by a large one.

Monsterlander dogs can obtain physical characteristics from consuming monster meat or sharing a meal, but only once in their life. Bonding with a hunter over a meal grants them understanding of human language. These traits are rarely passed onto descendants who may even fully become that original monster. Thus areas with sufficient Monsterlander dog populations will have rare monsters appear even if not seen in that area for centuries.

Gets one dog ability and another when they've been with their hunter companion for a year. During combat a Monsterlander dog will not participate, preferring to leave fighting to their hunter companion and running away if directly threatened. They will fetch items if asked and will drag their companion to safety if downed.

Dog abilities

Can alert via barking or nuzzling to close by danger regardless of whether the dog is asleep
Will attempt to retrieve an object or creature struck by companion
Points to enemies, even if they are hidden, with super strong sense of smell and hearing
Detects if a person has been cursed or poisoned
Track a wounded enemy across large distances and several days
Convey commands from a person to wild wolves and other dogs

How to Use

Hooks:

A Monsterlander dog has birthed a human child, a descendant of a long lost noble bloodline, who the players need to rescue and protect from other nobility who want the child dead
Monsterlander territory has been overrun with monsters, a prolific hunter has been giving them tainted monster meat to get them to birth more monsters. Players need to find and stop the hunter.

Monsterlander Dog

2026-05-05T00:00:00+00:00

Dog head holding a deer flank in its mouth

Done in Krita for Random inspiration 11: Monsterlander Dog

[RI] Superchillers Circuit

2026-05-01T00:00:00+00:00

This is part of my ongoing blog series where I use a random wikipedia article as inspiration for system agnostic TTRPG game content!

The Real: Tarran Mackenzie

Let's note some of the interesting portions from the wikipedia article:

"professional road racer of solo motorcycles" People are willing to turn just about anything into a sport, especially where speed is involved. In the evolution of single person speed from horse to motorcycle, what comes next?
"continuing to ride on a wet track with dry tyres, when competitors were losing time pitting for wheel-changes" Need a sport where there are opportunities to push one's luck and make big risks which may result in stuff like:
"slid across the track under an oncoming motorcycle, breaking his left femur"
They were from a racing family with sibling and parent also being racers, all generating support from their local community. There's a community or family rallying around and supporting a solo sport.

In Game: Superchillers Circuit

The Tarran corporation built a huge network of suspended superconducting lines spreading out from their experimental power plant to nearby factories and housing blocks. Each line is 10 feet in diameter of electronics and coolers which dump scorching hot waste heat out all along the line. This produces a strong updraft all along the line which races in the Superchillers Circuit take advantage of.

Races start at the central power plant where the lines are at their highest and race down lines, through factories and housing. The racecraft are hodgepodge constructions from factory scraps, lightweight vanes and airfoils to capture and steer the rising air. These controls allow them to fly above the power line up to 10 feet with bursts up to 30ft. The racecraft can't have any electronics due to interference from the power line below.

Circuit Dangers

Cross wind: dodge debris flying across the line or find a way to keep control of the craft in sudden gusts
Line under repair: fly through robotic construction arms which shoot electric welding arcs or pay off construction workers to sabotage opponents instead
Line overgrowth: dense jungle of vines and flying creatures. Vines anchor to the line and host extremophiles feasting on the heat. Flyers endlessly hover in the updraft and dive down to eat large insectoids that live in the vines. Racecraft must get through the vines and fight off strikes from the flyers
Corporate police: police know about the race and set up a cordon with patrol craft and searchlights. Police will chase, sirens blaring, until the end of the race, complicating future events by attacking
Factory: crisscrossed with pipes, gangways, and cables. Shuttles ferry molten metal and chemical baths across the race path
Electrical leakage: the line is shorting out, massive wave of electrical energy lashes out at closest nearby towers, buildings, and objects turning them into molten slag

Drivers

Hometown favorite, 'Mac': starry eyed and naive; community will do anything to help them win; just wants to get off planet; racecraft emblazoned with local charms
Craft modder, 'Ken': elusive and prefers their workshop; can make a supercharged version of any mechanical device; needs the win to afford next version of the racecraft; racecraft organically optimized structure
Brawler, 'Ennie': views things as black or white, mean streak; can throw an object accurately even at speed; just wants chaos; racecraft covered in spikes
Speed addict, 'Z': stylish in flowing cloak; knows the fastest lines; wants to set the record time; racecraft is little more than just a wingsuit

How to Use

Hooks

Players need to sabotage industrial facilities along the race route and use the race as cover/distraction
The Superchillers Circuit is being officially endorsed as an event, but this has attracted unscrupulous betters trying to fix the race. Players need to uncover the racing participant who is trying to rig the betting (roll randomly on the four drivers) and ensure that they do actually win

Use your systems chase mechanics to run or use this simple racing system:

Give every participant a step die starting at a d8, every participant rolls off to get an initial order.
Roll for an encounter on the danger table.
In racing order, participants try to overcome the danger with a single action. Success steps their step die up, failures down, middling and it stays the same. Optionally participants can also describe how they make the obstacle harder for everyone who comes after and take a drag d4 for themselves.
Once per race each participant may attempt to sabotage/attack another participant which, if successful, gives that participant a drag d4. Optional rule you can also let them give one boost d4 (add instead of subtract).
After every participant has gotten through the obstacle, roll off with the new step dice and subtract any drag d4s (then discard the drag d4). The winner is the highest roll after the last obstacle.

[RI] Pundenara Drake Navigation Beacon

2026-04-26T21:00:00+00:00

This is part of my ongoing blog series where I use a random wikipedia article as inspiration for system agnostic TTRPG game content!

The Real: Punta de Melenara Lighthouse

As always, let's note some of the interesting portions from the wikipedia article:

"17 m high cylinder-shaped tower" I forget just how tall lighthouses can be, 17 meters is about 5 stories high.
"light characteristic is made up of a pattern of two flashes every twelve seconds., with the lantern emitting both red and white light" Light characteristic is a new term to me. Apparently lighthouses will have unique patterns of on/off and colors to distinguish each other and aid navigation.
"semi-automatic way, receiving periodic visits from technicians" I happened to watch some videos from a lighthouse technician. It looks like a very cool job assuming you can get along well in a confined space with a few coworkers. Lots of odds and ends tasks in these cozy spaces out on the ocean, a tiny shelter from the swells and storms and everything else in the world. I like the thought of the players trapped and isolated with something going wrong.

A slender tower that stretches 1000 feet into the stormy clouds which buffet against an isolated mountain. Established to guide dragons and drakes on their migration by blasting out the warning call and harnessing captured lightning to create a fiery glow.

Rooms

Central core elevator: takes two people at a time to the top with viewing platform stops every 200ft to see far away features (if using a hex map they can see a few hexes out). Each platform contains emergency parachutes to get down quickly.
Lightning collectors: spiderweb of lightning rods sticking out dozens of feet. Capture and store power into 200lb lightning rune stone. Salvaging or stealing lightning rune risks electrocution unless technician's seal is used.
Drake nest: Logs and sheep wool strung amongst the lightning rods. Beacon technician trapped, heavily wounded, in the nest.
Resonance chamber: emits dragon warning calls every 10 minutes. Large programmable piano of dragon sounds actuates pipes. Piano can very roughly mimic a human voice.
Living quarters: stash of food and two beds. Bed has maintenance log drenched in blood. Walls adorned with recognition guide posters of drakes and dragons. Wrap around observation balcony with mounted sighting binoculars. Emergency locker missing a parachute.
Beacon light: an arc tube burning neon red shaped to look like a dragon's eye. Powered by lightning rune. Storage locker contains safety harnesses and cleaning supplies for the light and lightning collectors. Cleaning supplies are ultra sudsy cleaning fluid and 10 foot long extendable mop.

Secrets

The apprentice technician mistakenly updated the call sound to be a mating call instead of a warning call. This attracted a young, rambunctious drake who set up a nest to try and court the tower - causing damage and destruction. Drake also snatched the lead technician and is storing them as an offering to the tower.
More drakes are beginning their migration and will be here in one day at which point the tower will be destroyed.
Apprentice technician parachuted down and ran off to hide from their mistake.

NPCs

Beacon technician: 'Mr Nara'; gruff mentor and technician for 40 years; speaks little except for grunts of yay or nay; spindly and strong and unafraid of heights; wants to continue the family business of beacon technician at all costs
Beacon apprentice: 'Su'; young apprentice of just 1 year; nervous and frequently forgetful; tall and terrified of heights; really wants to get out of being a beacon apprentice

Local perception

The tower's purpose is largely forgotten, many towns nearby now erroneously believe the mountain holds a great dragon that roars at regular intervals. Only a single, isolated family still tends to the tower.

How to Use

Hooks

The 'dragon on the mountain's calls have changed, terrifying the locals who ask the players to go and investigate.
Beacon apprentice comes to the players in a rush asking for help to rescue their mentor.

Pundenara Drake Navigation Beacon

2026-04-26T00:00:00+00:00

Tower in cloudy sky with mountains in the background. Top of tower covered in spikes with a dragon nest in them

Done in Krita for Random inspiration 9: Pundenara Drake Navigation Beacon

[RI] Matthew Oxgate

2026-04-21T18:35:00+00:00

This is part of my ongoing blog series where I use a random wikipedia article as inspiration for system agnostic TTRPG game content!

I skipped an article this time as it had few details except for an account of colonial oppression of tribal peoples, a topic I don't want to replicate or use as inspiration. Funnily enough the next article I rolled is a black rights activist!

The Real: Matthew Bullock

This was a very long and very, very dry article so I admit I skimmed much of it looking for salient bits. Even from that I could see a truly incredible life lived.

Born to parents who were themselves born enslaved.
A multi talented person who was "elected to the Glee Club for his singing abilities" as well as playing various sports. They went on to coach football in order to pay for getting a law degree from Harvard! Eventually also learned French and German.
Too old to serve in WW1 but volunteered with the YMCA to help provide supplies, almost being awarded a "medal for leadership and bravery" except for racism in the officers. This seems like the kind of detail to build an NPC around, someone self sacrificing but not rewarded.
Various political efforts including an effort to pass a bill preventing the KKK from forming in Massachusetts. This in addition to a lot of social and legal activism such as serving on the parole board. What would a fantasy parole board equivalent be?
Joined the Bahá'ís faith, a small and clergy-less unitarian doctrine, and spent time giving lectures and 'pioneering' the faith to different Caribbean countries. I like the concept of a clergy less faith from a worldbuilding angle. A faith where it's adherents go around forming self organizing groups to preach compassion and human togetherness. How might such a group persist in the face of organized religion?

In Game: Matthew Oxgate

Community paragon who went from destitution to war hero to defender of prisoner rights. Wears simple suit with pins from both the war they fought in and their new anti violence faith.

Mannerism: Genial and collegiate, well versed in law and languages. "Why the plight of prisoners, no separate a category of man than you or I but for our own impositions, when rehabilitation ought be the aim?"
Strengths: Law and appeals to human dignity. Football build and combat experience.
Wants: End of oppressive incarceration conditions
Weakness & Secrets: Part of a fringe faith which holds adherents strongly against violence.

How to Use

Matthew could be a great background force changing how the world works by promoting their anti violence faith, agitating to block extremist groups from forming, or advocating for prisoner rights. I'd suggest dropping in news stories about these efforts and using clocks or similar faction resolution mechanics to see if they succeed.

Hooks

Matthew agitates to protect the rights of otherwise heinous villain (perhaps an old villain in your campaign), how do the players respond?
Matthew would be awarded medal for war efforts but got passed over, family asks players to help get the medal awarded.
There was an attack on Matthew, the players must uncover if it was a due to prisoner reform, oppression of their faith, or for sponsoring bills against a violent group.

[RI] Busy Pier

2026-04-20T20:00:00+00:00

This is part of my ongoing blog series where I use a random wikipedia article as inspiration for system agnostic TTRPG game content!

The Real: Pierre-Henri Bunel

"Artillery and intelligence officer". I like that they had multiple roles and specifically artillery. Artillery in a magic or advanced scifi world both conjure up images of interesting powers and resources. What is the projectile? How do they observe? How do they coordinate with other forces?
"Called [..] a man of 'great culture'". The cultured military officer trope is an easy source to draw from and simple character shorthand.
They leaked documents to an adversary during a military conflict and claimed that it was to prevent a humanitarian disaster and then because higher ups asked them to do it. They ultimately spent some jail time after being found guilty of treason. The reasons given appeal to justice and the implication of betrayal by their own government is a great set up for a morally ambiguous character.

In Game: 'Busy Pier'

Artillery officer and intelligence agent with the call sign Busy Pier. Accused of treason but also a folk hero for saving a village from destruction. Well studied and traveled widely. Lost an arm in counter barrage.

Mannerism: "Did you know in the Northern Deserts, there are a nocturnal people who train snakes to hunt. Got myself into a nasty scrape with them once, but now we're all best friends!"
Strengths: Folk hero, common people know them and willing to help. Artillery powers (pick 2 or more from below).
Wants: Acquittal or escape from military court
Weakness & Secrets: Own government wants them silenced for having secrets about covered up war crimes. Adversary government wants them for propaganda. Secretly holds onto papers showing malicious orders by the government. Real name is Henry Brun.

Artillery Powers

10x telescopic vision
Floating observation platform (personal balloon, float spell, shares sight with Eagle, etc)
Projectile guidance: steer a projectile (launched by another) to a target within 200 feet
Beacon which designates an area within 1 mile/2 km with a pillar of light visible to those the operator chooses
Can see through camouflage or other visual concealment
Call down massive explosives anywhere they can see

How to Use

Can be a background news story item or use one of the following hooks:

Hires the players to ferry them out of the country
Government asks the players to hunt them down before they can leave

[RI] PB Janevik

2026-04-18T20:00:00+00:00

This is part of my ongoing blog series where I use a random wikipedia article as inspiration for system agnostic TTRPG game content!

The Real: Percy Barnevik

We've got another person today, a Swedish CEO.

The leading paragraph mentions being known "for being the centre of a giant pension dispute". Every important figure needs a good scandal, it's a succinct way to define how exactly they use abuse their power. A windfall payment right before the company tanks also threads a nice line of ambiguity.
He led a heavy industries company against other huge incumbents, punching far above its weight class and raking in the money. An outsider and an underdog.
"[H]e has some kind of magic in him—you just can't refuse his offer." Well, that just goes in as is.
He has a philanthropic endeavor which promotes job and business creation in other countries.

In Game: PB Janevik

Sly former company leader you can't refuse. Easy smile and wary eyes. Leaves husks of companies in their wake while funding their Sharing Hands initiative.

Mannerism: "This is a once in a lifetime deal!" Jovial and will do anything until the deal is locked in.
Strengths: Artful negotiator. Shell companies with fingers in many industries. With a cheshire grin, close deals which halve the usual price - and halve the lifespan of the counterparty.
Wants: Money for their philanthropic work in other countries. Thirsts for the deal.
Weakness & Secrets: Many burned competitors left on death's door. Sharing Hands gives not just money but also stolen lifespan.

Businesses:

Tollbooth collectors and guards
Barber shops
Courier service
Giant candies shaped like animals
Pet catchers
Canal and irrigation channel creation

How to Use

Can be used either as the one good business person fighting for the little people while stroking their own ego or as a mastermind attempting to kill off competition while cynically shielding themselves behind their philanthropy.

Hooks

Competitor near death asks the players to avenge them.
One of the businesses implodes as money is extracted from it and the players are asked to step in and temporarily provide its services by the local government.

Link to my other Random Inspiration blog posts!

Leaving big tech

2026-04-17T13:44:00+00:00

Today was my last day at Google! A bittersweet moment after working with so many amazing people and projects and now having the world open up to me again. It's a lot like graduating college; striking out in new directions, not knowing what connections I made will persevere, and this giant coddling entity which was the backstop of my life no longer being there. I'm sure I will find out lots about myself as I struggle to accomplish projects without the usual set of extrinsic motivations around me. I'm incredibly thankful for the opportunity though and vow to try my best! Once I'm further from the immediacy of my last day I'd like to write down some of my thoughts about the tumultuousness of the current moment and suggestions for navigating it (hint, I found much hope and empowerment in doing union organizing).

Wander Console Added!

2026-04-14T19:54:00+00:00

I added wander console to the site! Wander console is like indie stumbleupon, decentralized so that each website can link out to other pages of interest and each console adds more pages to what you can explore. If you'd like to be linked to my console please hit me up on bluesky.

Main project page for wander console

AGON Review

2026-04-13T11:20:00+00:00

I recently had the chance to play AGON, a semi cooperative game about Mythic Heroes attempting to get home a la the Odyssey. This is a short write up after being one of six players in a three hour session. None of us had played the game before, so take this as more of a first impressions than anything definitive. For reference I've played D&D 5e, Fate, Mythic Bastionland, Blades in the Dark, and Mothership.

Here's a brief overview of the mechanics as I experienced them: the party of heroes goes to a series of islands on their ship as they travel home, roughly one island per session. At each island they are collecting glory by competing in contests. For a given contest players can join in by announcing themselves, eg. "Clever Eyed Xanthos joins the contest!", or through supporting another player. Each announced player builds a dice pool to attempt to beat a difficulty set by the GM's dice plus a static strife level. The player's dice pool picks up dice from bonds (with other players or Greek pantheon gods), from the name (ie. renown), epithet if it applies (the 'Clever Eyed' bit), and their domain (term for skills). Once rolled the highest two dice are added together plus another d4 if the player asks one connected gods for help. All the players roll simultaneously and there is a single roll per contest. The highest total which beats the target gets glory equal to the target value, everyone else who beat the target gets half that, and then everyone who supported or failed gets just one glory. Failing players also take a point of pathos (damage). The final challenge is made up of three contests with some extra mechanics about defending or seizing advantage before the final confrontation.

Edit: GM for the game clarified that we played with some slightly modified rules - they upped the difficulty of foes (which is likely why we had some very high strife targets) and simplified the harm system to just taking pathos damage. Those changes might relate to some of my dislikes below, but the meat of my review should still apply!

What I Liked

The session managed to pack a ton of action and events into three hours. Much more than what I consider typical for a game session. We zipped along through harpies attacking, rebuilding a temple, and fighting a big snake without getting bogged down in the typical minutia and debate over what to do. Surprisingly we didn't rely on the game's leadership mechanic much to expedite decision making, instead we simply had players join in on challenges or abstain as they individually saw fit. The differences in approach that normally cause planning paralysis got swept away as we all just took our own individual approach to each challenge or supported another if we couldn't think of another option. That resulted in a high level of discretion and spotlighting for each player; everyone gets their moment to shine or describe how it all goes awry without taking a long time to get to that point. Challenges and the single die roll cuts right to the heart of the interesting moments. Of everything that the game does, this is what it does best.

The mechanics operate at a level of abstraction above many other traditional games and I found they worked well across a variety of challenges from pure fighting to threatening social encounters to repairing buildings. Having these different challenges all work seamlessly within the same framework kept the game loop smooth and easy. Getting a variety of challenges expands the space to find cool narrative solutions unlike some other games which slide into simple fight or talk responses over and over.

Our GM gave us a player aid which had spots for all of the dice to sit atop their reason for inclusion into the dice pool. Positioning the dice and filling out the pool was a fun little tactile experience that reinforced and tutorialized the mechanics. It smoothed over what is actually a pretty involved process to pull together all of the different ways to add to the dice pool.

What I Didn't Like

Our group applied the epithet die liberally and we basically stopped justifying its inclusion by the end of the session. Some epithets included in the character creation ('many wayed', 'clever eyed', etc) were broad in application and the rest could be worked in without much argument.

Our GM rolled max difficulty on some target values (one challenge ended up with a target difficulty of 16, max roll on a d12 and 4 strife). Not sure if this was due to the scenario they were running, but when the dice pool is typically two or three d6 and one d4 from a god's connection, we needed perfect rolls (6 + 6 + 4) to succeed. Having hard target values is fine, but requiring a perfect roll just due to what the GM rolled felt overly punishing. With leveling up so some dice become d8 or d10 or using a god's bond which gives a d12 the odds are better, but during our first session that was a bit much.

On the flip side of the target difficulty, the character coming out of creation is pretty flush with lots of bonds and god connections which can be used. With only one session it's hard to know if we were overspending those resources or not, I'd like to see where the steady state is. You don't start with any special abilities which I thought was a little weak, but there's a small pool of upgrades you can get. These upgrades require you to take permanent damage (fate) with the very first point of fate giving you access to one of those upgrades. The upgrades are also pretty strong, typically upgrading a die to the next level (d6 -> d8, d8 -> d10). You can invoke fate at any point to add a different skill (domain) to the roll. This results in a weird interaction where there is a relatively large spike in power that players can choose to access from the get go, but it's not telegraphed at all. It felt power-gamey (in a negative way) to find that interaction and use it.

In a semi coop game, supporting felt like it is in a weird spot. It's a lot of glory to pass up and just take one glory. Getting one glory vs going for the 10+ the highest roll gets when the glory track goes into the hundreds doesn't seem like a lot. We all had plenty of bonds so the benefit of filling a bond felt distant. Perhaps in later sessions when bonds start drying up it'd be more useful. Taking or avoiding the one pathos damage also didn't seem that pertinent when it gets wiped away, so might as well join in. The biggest issue for me though is that by supporting you are doing a bit of kingmaking since the player who gets supported is gaining more dice and is therefore more likely to take all of the glory. I would prefer supporting be something offered to the table at large and then another player pays some of their glory to make use of it.

Final Thoughts

The session was very fun and the amount of narrative and storytelling we got through is so freeing compared to other games. The narrative in between contests was more zoomed out and procedural, but I didn't miss the slow parts. My complaints are picking around the edges of the mechanical complexity, it's got many moving parts which are hard to say how 'balanced' they are after only one session. Thankfully I don't think TTRPGs are about balance, even when they are only semi coop, so they will not stop me from recommending the game!

Overall: loved it, play if you like fast paced narrative games with a bit of tension and are ok with proceduralist abstraction.

[RI] The Lucky Snooker

2026-04-12T20:00:00+00:00

This is part of my ongoing blog series where I use a random wikipedia article as inspiration for system agnostic TTRPG game content!

The Real: Lucky Vatnani

This will be another quick entry based on a short article. Here's the highlights:

Snooker is a funny word! There's such a variety of billiard table sports, a separate little enclave of games and sports that's fallen out of favor relative to their prime heyday.
The first name is Lucky, a great name for someone associated with billiards tables which conjure images of seedy gambling halls.
They ultimately had little professional success with few wins in championship tours, but they did make it to 85th in the world. In the world of nihe sports, being 85th is unfortunately extra niche - something very few people would know or care about despite the huge amount of effort to achieve it.
While the article mentions that they made a later attempt to return to the professional circuits, they now are likely doing something else.

In Game: Vash "The Lucky Snooker" NPC

Middle aged Cues and Balls player, talking up prestige of younger days. Portly with a billiard ball topped cane. Owns a run down hall which trains a handful of new players and attempts to promote the game through tournaments.

Mannerism: "Twas a grand sport. Scratch that, still is dammit!" Carries around lucky chalk block used in their second place tournament 20 years ago
Strengths: A modest knack for the game Cues and Balls. Can swing a cue stick with vigor. A purported lucky streak of debt collectors gone missing
Wants: Cues and Balls to become big again. Protege to win the next tournament
Weakness & Secrets: Cheats now that their skills are atrophied. Many an angry debt collector with cue stick shaped bruises.

Cues and Balls

Back alley game where felted rugs are spread over tables and affixed with a large clip on bumpers and pockets. The felted rugs can span multiple tables pushed into various shapes (think mini golf). Up to 4 players race to hit 8 billiard balls as fast as possible into unique pockets using separate cue balls. Rules on stealing cue balls and attacking other players is tournament dependent. Frequently gambled on and played in alleys with old tables and objects as pop up tournaments.

How to Use

Hooks

The Lucky Snooker requests help from the players to popularize the game and prevent their training hall from being foreclosed
A gang of Cues and Balls players is roaming the city and setting up illegal tournaments. Vash has an in to get an invitation.

Can also just be a random patron at a bar bemoaning loudly their former glory and then whip out the tools to play the game when asked.

[RI] Youth Sporting Dungeon Style

2026-04-10T18:00:00+00:00

This is part of my ongoing blog series where I use a random wikipedia article as inspiration for system agnostic TTRPG game content!

The Real: 2018 CARIFTA Games

For today's entry we have a sporting event. It's a pretty sparse article, but here are a few of the more interesting things to note.

It is a youth sporting event. Given that player characters are (usually) adults, how could a constraint of a sporting event where the players are not participants work out.
It's an international event with dozens of countries participating from across a variety of islands. There's clearly one larger and more dominant participating island, in terms of medals won, with the rest attempting to compete with that singular goliath.
The events are track and field, specifically running, jumping, projectile throwing, and relay races. In a fantasy world, what would the equivalent events be and why would they have become popular?
There's an 'Octathon' which has 8 events put together.

In Game: Youth Rift Games Event

Youth event held annually to prepare kids for entering dungeons (possibly now a long lost task). There's a single multi component team event where teams of 4 kids race along a course and must:

Cross a 10 foot chasm
Scale a 20 foot stone wall
Dodge 'arrow traps' (soft ball launchers) as they balance on a narrow beam
Light a torch and ignite hay bales set 30 feet away
Evade or defeat a 'monster' (judges dressed in janky costume representing a low level monster)
Cause an exposed bell to ring at the top of a 50ft tall tower. Tower is enterable but has locked doors.

All teams do the race simultaneously. Teams are allowed to use any items they've made themselves (any cheap, common item) and use any spells they've learned (any first level spell or cantrip). Damage is always nonlethal during the race. The older kids have a separate event where they race while collectively carrying 100lbs of treasure in a chest.

How to Use

Focus in on one or two teams which are battling neck and neck. Keep a six part clock for each team and mark them off as they complete each obstacle, first team to get all 6, wins. Use your game's initiative system to break ties or pick the team which succeeded by the most on the final obstacle. Don't dwell on each obstacle, make it a single roll at most.

Here are some hooks to get the players to interact

Players are asked to train an important NPC's kid and ensure that they win their event
Kids from visiting countries are taken hostage, the host country wants the players to help cover it up and get them returned
Villain has made the event's obstacles actually dangerous (chasm has spikes, monsters are real, etc), but the event must happen or the host country will lose face. The players must keep all the participants safe through out the race.

[Random Inspiration] A Fishy Haircut

2026-04-08T20:00:00+00:00

Another entry in the random inspiration series. Short and quick and fishy.

The Real: Zeugopterus regius

Today we got a fishy! It's a pretty short article, but that doesn't mean there's nothing to go on:

It has multiple colloquial names - a good way to add worldbuilding verisimilitude since human's frequently gave the same thing many names
Both names mention "topknot", which I only know of as a hair style. Perhaps a creature which munches on people's heads specifically
They are small fish, 20cm / 8in. Creature design frequently pushes towards larger and larger, take an existing thing but make it huge instead. Instead we'll keep it to being a small creature.
"found on the underside [of] rock overhangs" I latched onto the idea of something living on the underside of rock overhangs where it drops down onto people. Since it's a flatfish, it can press itself against the rocks and blend in well too.
The pictures in the wikipedia article are rather pretty and colorful with two different color schemes.

In Game: Tershire's Topknot

Aka Dunlo's Topknot aka The Caver's Barber

Stone encrusted fish lurking on cave ceilings. Flat as flapjacks and no larger than a dinner plate. Gritty meat, but cave explorers swear it's tasty.

Inchworm their way up cave walls to an overhangs before ambushing bats and bugs as they fall into shallow water below. Easily startled by light and will fall down to extinguish it. If they land on a human head: they latch on and sharp stony body wears away at hair, then skin, then skull bone each round. Removal requires heat or careful application of a blade. Very rarely covers itself in valuable gems instead of normal rocks.

[Random Inspiration] System for Running Elections in TTRPGs

2026-04-06T20:00:00+00:00

The second blog post, and thus I can actually term it a series, where I use random wikipedia articles as inspiration for TTRPG content!

I'm now giving myself the grace to mulligan after getting whatever this is.

After rolling again I got 2021 La Paz municipal election. An important node: Wikipedia contains articles about recent events and things which might have a huge effect on real people. I'm not knowledgeable about the real world consequences of the election and the only context I have is the wikipedia article, which is not an unbiased source. My purpose is to use the article as a spark and jumping off point, not to produce commentary or pass judgement on the real world. My aim is to produce fiction, but I'll endeavor to treat the source events with respect.

The Real

We often associate elections with modernity, but they've existed across many cultures back to antiquity. Certainly they can exist within fantasy or scifi as well. Elections can be particularly dry affairs when read about (especially on wikipedia), but there's lots to glean from them. They are chock full of factions and facets of society changing rapidly. If anything they can become too dynamic to fit within a TTRPG, so we should look for where the status quo and active forces lie, a la this excellent blog post, to keep from producing too much chaos.

Some elements which I think are useful inspiration from the wikipedia article:

"The [incumbent] was eligible to seek a third term but declined, leaving the election an open contest." Deciding to not pursue power, or at least to not pursue the visible position of power, is a choice that can be made due to pressure or principles. An open contest instead of incumbent vs challengers amplifies the pressure of the situation as all candidates are an active choice and must prove themselves. When setting up an election, we might assume incumbency, but the most exciting scenarios are open contests.
"...concluding a twenty-year period of political continuity..." The election doesn't exist in a vacuum, there was a prior administration which might have built up ways of entrenching themselves.
"...active and unique campaign style..." "...unique way of explaining and exemplifying political issues, employing toys and making allusions to popular culture. The figure of superheroes became a central aspect of his campaign..." Campaigns use all tactics at their disposal, from logic to big splashy events. In a TTRPG, the player characters are frequently those closest to superheroes (or literally are superheroes), their fame and reputation may be desired, courted, or invoked.
"Local party branches and affiliated social organizations are tasked with selecting pre-candidates, who are then evaluated by the party's leadership..." Candidates typically don't just appear from nothing, they are members or leaders of factions who support them. Sometimes intra faction rivalries spill out as well as elections produce internal challenges.
"The disposition of the alliance's three primary leaders remained stable until the very final hours prior to its official registration when, in a surprise move, the [former incumbent mayor] broke the alliance with two other factions" Elections aren't over until the ballots are counted (and not even always then) and sudden shifts in fortune are common.
This was a simple majority 'first past the post' election system. While perhaps not the best system in real life, running it in a TTRPG is significantly easier and also creates more pressure for candidates to be forced out of the election (either willingly or unwillingly).
A candidate was tied up with legal concerns about whether they were a legitimate candidate. When violence is largely off the table, legal attacks on candidate viability or well timed releases of information can make big swings.

In Game Election System

Rather than present a specific set of candidates and factions, I think it's best to use existing factions in your setting and pick leaders or subordinatees within those factions. Then run the system below over the course of one or two sessions to drive a mini arc and evolve a particular city.

Running the Election

Create a table of candidates and factions like so:

	Candidate A	Candidate B
Popularity	XX	X
Faction 1	X
Faction 2		XXX

Candidates attempt to court factions and the populace over the course of 5 weeks prior to the election. Mark base popularity and faction support under each candidate. Factions might provide 1, 2, or 3 support depending on their power and willingness to help. At the end of the 5th week, add up each candidates support down their column plus an additional d6 support to represent the uncertainty of election. The candidate with the highest total wins.

Each week roll to select a candidate who makes a random move from the list below. The move will succeed unless the players act to prevent it. Alternatively players can attempt to influence the election by making a move themselves, this should come at great expense and require the support of a faction. Players generally shouldn't be able to both respond to the candidate's move and do their own move.

Whichever candidate wins should change the city or location to favor the set of factions which supported them and disadvantage those which supported other candidates. Try to associate each candidate with a specific change that they would make to the city. Some spark table ideas for such policies:

Change a district by tearing it down and rebuilding
Redistribute power, wealth, or assets from one faction to one of: another faction, the general populace, to themselves
Increase the presence and reach of the law
Add a new, powerful industry
Provide and improve a service such as transportation, pollution control, or healthcare
Accept or reject foreign powers interfering

Moves

Form an alliance with a faction: mark faction support
Break up an alliance another candidate has built: remove faction support
Campaign event: +1 to base popularity
1. Some event spark ideas: parade, debate, sponsoring sports, fundraising party, gigantic advertisements, sky writing
Utilize a faction: a faction they have an alliance with attempts to remove another faction from participating in the election, removing any support they give to another candidate
Attack a candidate via scandal, violence, or legal pressures: remove 1 base popularity from candidate
Pressure another candidate to withdraw from the race: candidate is removed from the race

[Random Inspiration] Palgrave's Golden Treasury

2026-04-04T21:20:00+00:00

This is the first in a prospective series of blog posts where I use real life places, items, and creatures as a spark for TTRPG content. The intention is to both highlight the interesting world that surrounds us and illustrate how to come up with new ideas.

For this initial series I'm sourcing things from a random wikipedia article (that link will give you a random article each time you click it!) to challenge myself. In the future though I plan to use websites like Atlas Obscura and youtube channels like Bizarre Beasts as sources.

To a random wikipedia article!

The Real: Palgrave's Golden Treasury

Today's random article is Palgrave's Golden Treasury. This is a book of collected poems and on the surface not particularly remarkable - but there's some immediate gems:

The title itself is a delicious red herring. If you told player's to search for someone's 'Golden Treasury', a book of poems would not be their immediate conception. While misleading players is fraught, instead we can be explicit that only the title of some lost artifact is known and let the mystery slowly unravel.
The line 'Palgrave excluded all poems by poets then still alive' is a good hook when taken to the extreme - perhaps our fictional Palgrave took liberty with the concept and killed poets of renown in order to collect their poems. With a name like Palgrave there's some nice nominative determinism.
'The book continues to be published in regular new editions; still under Palgrave's name'. As inspiration that could mean a secret order trying to shepherd and safeguard the work, releasing new editions only to a select few. Or it could be an open faction operating to use the books as sources of power.
Poetry itself, as a form of magic or inherent power, is also a line. These collected poems could be a compendium of the strongest magic. Given that the real book now appears to be available for free as part of Project Gutenberg it could also be our fictional magical poems have long since entered into the common parlance. Perhaps except for a few only retained in an original copy.

With those nuggets of inspiration collected, let's create an item!

In Game: Pastomb's Golden Treasury

Description

Thin green book embossed with golden script from a hundred languages. Filled with poems, each a long lost spell, only one still in a known language and the rest need translation. Magical lock guards its contents. An order of Poetry Knights guard the lock's passphrase.

	Poem Title	Spell Effect
1	Spring	Whispered to a plant's flowers, it will stay in spring bloom forever, emitting sweet and entrancing fragrances
2	Summons to Love	A lonely listener will know their true love and where to find them
3	The Passionate Shepherd To His Love	Scared listeners know the path through a treacherous place, guided by a flock of glowing sheep
4	A Madrigal	Speaker appears as young or old as they wish
5	Absence	An anxious listener pines for an important item, they must go to it and inspect it for safety
6	A Consolation	Contents aggressive listeners with their lot in life, they will not struggle against restrictions placed upon them

Secrets

Five Poetry Knights' protect the book and create new editions. Their lips physically sealed to prevent speaking the book's full magic and they speak through a dramaturge's mask. Each bonded mask can perform one of the spells in the book and then destroy itself.
- Goals: patronage hopefully poets and they guide them to their doom for new editions
- Demeanor: excited patrons if you prove poetic; disdainful of any other arts
- Strengths: Magical masks; Expert knife fighters; knives shaped like quills, inky poison drives one to creative heights before death
- Weakness: fear the magic of poets growing stronger; fear and hate the old oral tales
Pastomb stole the final great work of poets before killing them, trapping their souls within the books pages
If the book is destroyed poems lose their magical power but are suddenly remembered by the populace

Rumors and Hooks

Copy of the book smuggled out by Poetry Knight ensnared by lover now spurned, hunted and frustrated
Grandchild of murdered poet seeks to know their grandparents final poem, tells tales of the grandparent's poetry saving thousands from
Rising star bard thinks they are being followed. Wants guarding and investigation of suspicious patron (Poetry Knight)

[TTRPG] One Page Weekend Jam Entry

2026-03-28T22:53:00+00:00

My entry to the One Page Weekend Jam can be found here!

Inspired by the anime Apocolypse Hotel I wanted to create something which discussed how even a world of "not human" would still be forever touched by our effects. I went with a general store and killer robots (based on the concept of loitering munitions) to give it some additional gravity.

The energy mechanic allows for flexibility within character creation while giving a slowly expending resource that players will want to carefully manage and protect. Or they can go out in style by spending them freely and get a final hurrah.

The art is very... not great, so that's high on my list of skills to improve. If you have any other suggestions for improvements reach out to me on bluesky!

[Writing] Boltzmann Reaper

2026-03-27T00:00:00+00:00

I’m walking along a road. Overhead lamps flicker on and emit a steady hum. Then the crickets start. My target is coming closer. I stop and wait, there’s no rush. I probe my memories and find them complete, enticingly familiar and real as I push at what should be boundaries and find yet more details behind them. I can remember the smell of my mother’s hair. I know the lips of first kisses.

A car is coming closer, it exits a corner. Engine sounds pitch down before racing back up as the driver shifts it into a higher gear. Accelerated by a madman, wanting a sense of danger in a world where such things are known to be impossible. They think no one can die here. The headlights have locked onto me now, throwing my shadow onto the trees and fields and rocks just off the road. It takes the human at the wheel a few moments to notice that I’m here before they apply the brakes. Firm, practiced pressure sets the tires squealing but without skidding. The noise silences the wildlife around. Or they're just being cleaned up prematurely.

The car inches along to pull up next to me. It’s a low slung racing car, reeking of speed and gasoline. Something old and timeless about its design. Pristine and shining in the streetlamps, I can see my reflection in its hood for a moment. I remember that I’m a woman. It’s all so typical, this fantasy. I indulge and lean forward seductively so I can see into the car. Inside the car I see a young man in the driver’s seat. An old, old man stares back out. I motion for him to lower the window and it disappears. His face starts blank and I wonder if he’s forgotten how to make an expression before a smile gets pulled over it like an old painting being painfully restored. I ask if he wants a real thrill. He drums his fingers on the steering wheel, leather gloves on fine leather make a soft heartbeat. The doors unlock with a mechanical thunk.

The seat grips around me as the car and driver enter the flow, a smooth transition of forces as we zip around turns. Pressure forward into the restraints, pressure back into the seat, like being rocked to sleep as a baby. The road and night are endless, but I’m patient.

After a while he asks, “Why do I know you? Did we have a thing?” He sounds so pained in asking, guilty that he can’t pin the memories back together. I obligingly fill in, my memory is perfect, a distillation of everything he knows but chooses to forget. I say coyly, “We were lovers.” He looks over at me, the road whizzing by, a healthy disregard for the unreality of the situation. “Lovers? That’s a fairly quaint idea.” I neglect the hypocrisy of the gasoline car on an empty open country road and purse my lips as though deep in thought. Really though, I am tickled by the fantasy that’s been imported, a fakeness of old reality pushed dumbly here to fill the fakeness of this virtual reality. But he can’t hide from me. The memories are clear for me, since they were stolen from him and served up to me like pickled frogs ready for dissection. A milquetoast man unwilling to confront all the reasons I left him, so he drives ever onward. His lack of remembrance only makes my task easier.

I let the thoughtful expression drop away, stashing away the reasons to hate him along with it. Too much emotional attachment either way is a disservice. And I am the manifestation of service. Crossing my arms, “I’m hurt, we had such a wonderful time together. I would have told you I loved you soon.” His eyes widen slightly, and the car speeds up. His eyes never leave me as he asks, “Why didn’t you?” The car speeds up. The pressure is mounting. “Alas, you were just too… boring I suppose.” The truth. Mild mannered man speeds the car up. The outside world is a blur, treelike artifacts barely keeping up. The road is straight now, all speed and his eyes still on me as he pushes me and the car, “Why? Why are you here now?” His teeth grit, the leather gloves squish the leather steering wheel, digging into it. The car speeds up. I unbuckle the harness. Put my feet up on the dashboard. “I thought you might enjoy a little thrill.” I reach over to poke at the latch for his harness. “Put your life on the line and prove you deserve me.” He shrugs the harness off. I watch the little lines on the dashboard swing further to the right, but they’ll never actually reach the stops. The car speeds up. There’s only the car and the road and the man and me, everything else is gray mush slipping past. I kiss him on the cheek, my hand running along the fine leather of his gloved hand.

He sees the wall now. Approaching from an infinite distance to meet the car going at infinite speed. An immovable object to his very stoppable force. I whisper into his ear, “This is what you want?” The car speeds up. “Yes,” he says. The impact occurs and the car flattens, exploding into fragments spiraling off into the void. I phase through the wall, stumbling a moment before realizing that the physics don’t apply to me. Only to him and the car. The world is already being cleaned up and soon I stand only before the wall and its featureless expanse. His death and fantasy being forgotten. Space being made in the great system for another person to occupy. My body and the memories it held are reclaimed into the dwindling supply, precious to the great system and in need of husbanding. Husbanded by the daemon, death.

[Writing] Cuckoo's Nest

2026-03-27T00:00:00+00:00

The fire is set at the base of the cottage's walls. Torches nibbling and biting at its ankles, angry little toddlers with bright arms reaching upwards towards the wooden eaves like they want up onto a parent's shoulders. I watched the mob run the torches up and place them, their inexperience to not directly set fire to the roof will give me some time to think. But not long as little wisps of smoke start the countdown to conflagration as they infiltrate cracks in the earthen bricks. From the cracks in the window's shutters I can see the light of more torches flickering a respectful, fearful distance away. I have no desire to face them alone. They are uncouth and clumsy critics of my parenting - how dare they pass judgement and try to strangle my children while they are still in their crib. I turn my back to them and focus on my soon to be newborns. I stroke the long hair on the beautiful corpse at my feet. Nothing yet. Damn.

I sweep my eyes across the single room cottage, taking it all in for the first time. It's a meager affair; the little table with shelves, the hearth with smoldering fire, and mud brick walls with simple adornments. So meagre and austere. I chuckle at my stereotypical parental compunction to judge how my children choose to live and my heart warms with how much better I will provide for them. How they have struggled and persisted against the overwhelming force of the world that I will destroy to give them true joy and happiness.

On the wall there's a rough sketch - drawn quickly with loose hatch marks but a fine attention to detail. It is a homely scene of the cottage and one of its former occupants as they tend to the garden. Amazing that a few marks can trick the eye into seeing neat rows of herbs. I remember seeing them on the way in, but now the garden is almost certainly trampled to death by the mob. It is truly a shameful display of neighborly love to ruin someone's tenderly cared for plants. Long years of effort wasted in an instant. Thankfully there's no need for it now or ever after. My children will instead only need my purest love and compassion.

The fire's heat is rising up the wall and beginning to seep through; it curls the edge of the page. I can't have my child's drawing burned, so I pry the nail holding the drawing from the wall and stuff it into the inner pocket of my great coat. I turn to my boy, who is suspended across the single room, pinned to the wall where I impaled him. I'm across the room in a flash. His cold fingers are rough but I know the hands of a fellow artist, delicacy and dexterity in the muscle fibers despite the calluses of peasant life. I'm so proud of him. I entwine my fingers with his and then I adjust the pitchfork stuck through his chest to make sure that it won't be easy to remove. How long will the birth take? The mob's patience is finite and I can't protect my children forever, they'll need to face the world themselves.

A smell reaches me. Not the blood, though there's a lot of it; not the fire, though smoke is now pooling about the rafters; it's the odor of stew rich in fat. I'd hardly noticed it in the earlier frenzy but on the hearth near my pretty girl is a pot beginning to bubble over. Spatters of fatty broth burp over the edge and slosh onto the floor. I can't have my child scarred now! It would ruin their beauty forever. I dart to it and snatch the pot off from over the hearth. I stick a finger into the boiling stew and lick the sizzling stock from it. Delicious. Cooking, that's an underappreciated skill - least of all by me. Along the top of the stew is an unctuous and thick layer of fat from what must have been some freshly hunted rabbit. Arguably a tad overcooked, but that may just be my palate's preferences. I laugh at my joke and her lifeless face stares back. I croon at her that she'll learn my tastes soon enough. Slinging the hot pot under my arm I carry it to the wooden table that dominates the room. The mirthful mood is capturing me so I mutter to myself that I should set the table, maybe invite the mob in for supper. They surely would appreciate some warm stew after standing in the cold night. I begin to do it, the thought is so captivating. A bit of hospitality to show such crude and impudent people that they should just embrace my patronage and parentage.

As I pull the bowls and spoons from the shelves my fingers run over the rough whittled implements. The little crags and nooks speak to the hours of work to produce just one simple spoon; the countless knife strokes taking little chips away long into the night. The final imperfections showing the hand of the artisan, the grain the history of the tree branch it came from, the stains the humble life of stew and lips. I feel the sublime nature of God in it. He has guided these peasants to make something so imperfect to remind me, his most perfect servant, of the humility one must possess to carry out his will. From the ultimate Father I've learned all that will pass onto my children. God made me in his image and so my children are made in mine. I make the sign of the cross and his presence warms my skin with fiery prickles. It is the only heat I still feel.

Heat? I notice the fire has indeed reached the rafters. Or perhaps the mob expedited the process with more torches hefted from afar onto the roof. This is a disaster! My children will burn up and no one will be able to appreciate my efforts. They have already taken my other children from me and chased me from my home. I must rebuild. I will start again with this two children here, that God caused me to stumble upon in my darkest hour. Why has God not released their souls back to me yet? I pace as doubt and panic encroach like the flames surrounding me, but no, I cannot waver. Tests of faith require resolve and it is through such perils we come to understand our true nature. The mob at the door cannot best me in matters of faith even as their priest begins his preparations. They cannot best me in matters of patience; as a parent of hundreds, my patience is infinite.

I pull a chair from the table over to miss corpse on the floor and sit down; the smoke is beginning to cloud my vision and close off the world. It's just myself and my stillborn children now. A rafter collapses down and strikes my shoulder. I toss it aside and stir a whirl of ash and sparks. Some falls down on her pallid face so I stoop down and brush it off. My fingers graze her face. Please don't leave your parent alone in this angry world. A little flutter of the eyelids, nearly imperceptible through the smoke, and I smile. There's just enough time remaining before the priest will likely arrive. I pull the drawing from my pocket and a finely gilded fountain pen along with it. It takes just a few quick marks. I add myself to the drawing. There I am, joining in on the pastoral life of farm tending, there with my children. My youthful boy twitches and then thrashes, perhaps an automatic, vestigial reaction to the fire engulfing him, fire which won't harm him anymore. Joyous births!

It's important to deal with them one at a time so I ignore his violent thrashing and crouch down my lass. Parental love fills me to see my eyes reflected in hers. Beastly eyes, the eyes of a predator, of one who will hunt the night peer up at me. They are calculating and aware. With a practiced flick I cut myself on a nearby stone and offer her my blood which is gratefully accepted. My daughter rises and bows to me. My son, rebellious in youth, requires some convincing so I twist the pitchfork until it presses like a stake against their heart. I tuck the drawing into their pocket and have them lap at my blood until they calm. The cottage is ablaze as we leave it. The priest's shout of "Begone vampi-" cut short by my children as they have their first feast.

[Writing] First Step

2026-03-27T00:00:00+00:00

The moment they floated in through the airlock I knew they were an asshole. A touch haughty. A smidge of condescension. The perfect sour cocktail to pickle the mood. Jacky, our environment specialist, folded their arms to check the status tattoos as though the newcomer might have brought on board poisons. The systems specialist, Kiran, blinked their third and fourth eyes and infomatics membranes glazed them over. They'd be no help at all. As the flight lorist and only crewmember with nothing to retreat, I knew it fell to me to smooth things over. Alas I was not that kind of person. Instead, I was the embodiment of the temple priests, their lineage preserved in me.

I kicked off the bulkhead and grabbed a hand hold in front of the still coasting newbie. Dared to have them glide into me. Subconsciously I loosened the sashes wrapped around me and became a glittering web of synthetic fibers. "Captain," I said as way of greeting. They stopped an arms width away and brushed away the sashes which caressed at them. Their nose wrinkled slightly at the mountain pine scent bonded into them. "I expected a warmer welcome, Lorist." In the tight space of the airlock the four of us were breathing deeply each others breaths. A thin red line snaked across Jacky's forearm. I ignored the staleness in the air and forced myself to take a deep breath. I had a long story ahead of me.

I ran a finger along the edge of airlock's inner door which lead to the rest of the ship. A thin fake wood veneer wrapped it. Stained a vibrant red and worn down by countless hands, feet, and scraping cargo, the grain was now only barely visible. I found the best preserved patch and pointed to it, pulling the sashes out of the way to make sure the Captain had an unimpeded view. "Do you see this?" I asked.
The Captain, a tiny patch of sweat beading on them already, huffed. "Is this going to take long Lorist?"
In response I grinned. Asking a lorist if 'this will take long' is to invite an even longer story. In that moment I decided to give them the roundabout story.
"A deep red wooden trim is traditional," I began.
"Everyone knows that," blurted the Captain.
Kiran's primary eyes swiveled and focused, "Don't interrupt them... it'll take twice as long if you do."

"Thank you Kiran. The wooden trim is traditional. But all traditions have an origin and a reason they persist. Where you there in person the last time the Assembly congregated? When the grand doors to the meeting hall opened?" The number of sigils and crests on their belt indicated a degree of connections such that they might have. And if not, then perhaps my own attendance might hold something.
"Of course," replied the Captain.
I smiled back gently. Of course they were. "The inlays around it, the great carvings and statues flanking it. A spectacular door, fit for the meeting of our greatest minds. But in that doorframe, there too it's a simple wood trim. Amidst the pomp and spectacle the wood is unadorned. Except for the red color. It's a brilliant, vivid color, the most intense red you'll ever see. Do you know why?"
"No," said the Captain.
"Blood my dear Captain. It's stained with blood. During an uprising 70 years ago those against the declarations of the Assembly pushed their hands into the frame of the door as it was closing. For a brief moment it almost stayed open."
The Captain's face hardened slightly, "idiots."
"Idiots? Don't be silly, they got the declarations rolled back."
"50 years later."
"Still."
The Captain pushed closer, looked past me to the rest of the ship with longing in their eyes.

I guess they still needed more, so I continued, "Have you heard the story of General Ola?"
"They've had many stories," the Captain's face brightened again at the familiar territory. "I've heard them all. The ambush by fire ship. Spiriting away the refugees through the tunnels. Fighting to the last and holding back the hordes at many rocks crossing. There's not a new story here, so please skip it."
With a demure smile, "With all respect this is a story you might not know, but it's far more important than those. It's the story of how a village defeated Ola without a fight."
"I don't believe such a story exists."
"It does. It's a favorite of mine." Writing flickered and appeared on my sash following the story as I began, "Ola's army had marched for 100 days searching for the rebel army. At each turn they'd been evaded and found nothing but burned fields and ambushes. The troops starved and Ola forced them onwards with whips and promises of spoils. They finally came upon a village with fields freshly harvested. The windmill at the center of the village spun and the wind carried the sound of grinding seeds and the rich scent of bread being baked. No wall surrounded the village but a gate still stood. A wooden box painted red and big enough to let a person walk through. Ola and their lieutenants approached. Ravenous the lieutenants raced past the gate and stormed towards the mill. Ola walked to the gate and paused, they remembered the rituals, and slowly stepped through the gate, head bowed in deference. When they approached the mill, Ola could hear the villagers and lieutenants in fierce argument about procuring bread for the army. 'This flour needs to last us the winter,' claimed the villagers. 'This flour needs to feed the army,' claimed the lieutenants. Ola arrived to see the lieutenants draw their knives and declare, 'Make the bread or die enemies'. This was to Ola's chagrin, but the order had been made. 'All the bread in your hands now, the villagers may keep. The bread you make, that will be the army's.' The villagers worked until exhausted to make all their flour into rations. When done they presented the rations to the lieutenants. A loaf of prime bread was reserved for Ola. Before accepting it, Ola had each villager eat a portion of ration to test for poison. They stood resolute and the rations were distributed. The army rejoiced and feasted. During the feasts a villager came to Ola and remarked, 'Thank you for the respect, you at least shall live.' The next morning every soldier and villager lay dead of poison." The Captain scoffed, "such an event never occurred."
Shrugging, I said, "I'm a lorist" and paused to study the face of the Captain. They looked concerned, but full comprehension yet eluded them. Thankfully I have patience even if my audience does not. I had one last story to tell, the origin of the tradition. The sash lit up with illusory fires dancing along its edges.

"Long ago, in the time of kings but after the Gods had left, the second king among humans heard a rumor that a certain temple held the last God left on the mortal plane. Entranced by the power of the Gods, the king climbed aboard their palanquin and raced off towards the temple. Sitting atop a mountain the carriers faced a climb up thousands of steps. Spurred onwards by the hope of favor's from the king the carriers raced up the stairs. At first they bounded along but alas one by one they began to succumb to fatigue and altitude and died. When the palanquin could no longer by carried the king hopped on the back of the last porter and whispered that they'd be made a general if they made it to the top. Buoyed the porter carried the king upwards. When they'd crested the last step, way up in the clouds, the king pulled a knife and slit their throat. The porter fell against a tree and bled to death. The temple priests, sat and watched. The king cleared their throat and hoarse in the mountain air shouted, 'Show me the God who lives here!' One of the priests walked to the tree where the dead man lay and cut it down. They hewed a blood soaked plank and placed it in front of the king. 'You may be king, but you must take at least one step before the Gods will acknowledge you.' So the king stepped onto the plank. At that moment, they became too close to the immortal realm and were struck dead by lightning."

"I think I see your point Lorist," said the Captain. They bowed their head. I pulled myself to the side to let them past. As they glided past they reached out fingers to brush against the red veneer.

Once the Captain had left, Kiran said without turning to Jacky, "The Lorist didn't say what happens to the priests afterwards." Jacky shushed them, "A short lived victory is still progress." Tomorrow, the Captain was back to being an asshole.

[Writing] Onward Peasants, To Judgement and Death

2026-03-27T00:00:00+00:00

"Onward peasants, to judgement and death," said King Grelhord, Ruler of all the land on Heaven and Earth. As they commanded, it was done - of the petitioners for life, not a one would be granted. Judge Leweng read them their sins and the red cloaked executioners swung the long blades through each neck. They measured the process in the number of executioners needed, one replacing the next. The long thick red cloak dyed with death taken off and passed to the next as arms and blades became worn down. When the cloak became stiff with blood, the King's Prestige supplied a light rain to soften it. By such mercy did the act progress quickly, so it was with great surprise that a peasant protested before their allotted time to petition. A peasant shouted, hands and feet bound but mouth unsilenced, "Please, I've got family to see. Pass your judgment quickly so I can get out of the rain." It was Judge Leweng who stalked through the rows of crouched petitioners and pronounced, "Your petition is denied. But lo, you have been judged worthy of the King's mercy," before plunging their dagger into the neck of the protestor. As the peasant gasped and died, there was a great ruckus as many clamored for a similar mercy and were granted it.

~ Extract from the Histories of the House Grelhord referring to the punishment given to 300 peasants for failure to pay taxes.

"Onward peasants, to judgement and death Onward soldiers, don't save your breath The King killed three hundred I hear Now it's off to war within the year

Onward peasants, to judgement and death Onward pensioners, they steal our wealth The King's tax wasn't paid Now it's our funds they raid

Onward peasants, to judgement and death Onward workers, sapped of your strength The King worked them to the end Now the owner's only pretend

Onward, onward, onward Soldiers, pensioners, and workers Onward, onward, onward Soldiers, pensioners, and workers"

~ Work song which spread among the non-prestigious class in the year 477 leading to work stoppages. Due to the war, this was suppressed with vigor by the Royal Executioners Brigade led by the Prestigious Captain Crey who was awarded the Silver Grel for their actions. The cost to marshal the Brigade was graciously paid for by the owner of the Wool Rock Company, Ist Corrat, who was granted the Prestigious class for their contribution.

"We are the judgement and death". The basement glows under red halogen lights, bathing everyone in a single overpowering color - red, blood red. After the ritual greeting the Fraternal Order of the King's Men comes to order. Sweat trickles down under my mask, tickles at my brow, but removing it would be an unwise risk. The fake, and frankly ahistorical, Judge's mask isn't the only thing protecting my identity, but it is probably the most important. I have no intention of testing whether the executioner blades are as dull as they look. Or whether the assembled know how to wield them. The lithe and pretentious man who takes the stage and dons the ceremonial fibers: the rock wool cloak is one you are likely familiar with from our prior reporting. Three generations separates Mr Corrat from the factory owner who was made Prestigious for paying to bust heads, but the demeanor and bearing remain the same, I'm sure. The same vitriol and disdain persists. Hatred at a status they never actually held being taken away. Heaven and earth I do not wish to convey to you, reader, the words that are uttered at these meetings. Perhaps I should if that would stir your hearts to condemn them? On the other hand, perhaps these folks are just missing something that condemnation would freeze out forever.

~ From an expose by the journalist Fae Leweng covering the Fraternal Order of the King's Men. They would be found murdered later that year.

> narbon_plague: onward :peasants:
> narbon_plague: judgement :hammer: :mask: and death :death: :sword:
> iamcat123: :death: :death: :death:
> fartgun: :death:
"Chat, calm yourselves."
> xxX_rCloack_Xxx: ONWARD PEASANT, DO BETTER
> xxX_rCloack_Xxx was warned for all caps
"This game is hard, I'll get it though. Don't lose your heads."
> xxX_rCloack_Xxx: haha
> fartgun: :laughing: :sword: :death:
> anonopus: stupid presty playing as a red cloak
> anonopus: why play this stupid game
> anonopus was timed out for 300 seconds
> xxX_rCloack_Xxx: damn dude its just a game, chillax
"Heaven and earth, chat, that was a joke. No one is coming for your heads. Let me enjoy the game - it's fucking fiction"
> fartgun: :caught:
> iamcat123: enjoy what you want
> narbon_plague super boosted this message: don't let the haters get to you

~ Recording of streamer playing legendary game Carrion Crey which won game of the year despite controversy for its portrayal of the titular character.

The immersive art installation "Onward" presents the modern world in stark imagery. From the moment you enter the virtual environment the exhibit presents you with investigations into people both real and imagined and gives you a simple command: "judge". As you explore their lives, you will realize the autonomous art agent is weaving you into their lives, closer and closer. Eventually, before you can realize the transition has happened, the agent has you replacing the person entirely; putting you directly into their position. Swing the pick, lithium miner. Fuck the customer, sex worker. Stir the chemical slurry, electronic waste recycler. In the end you must judge yourself, but only one choice will ever be presented - "death" - and you'll look down to see the red cloak embracing you like a straight jacket. That the exhibit is opened across from the House of Judges is a bold proclamation by the artist.

~ 4/5 star review by anonymous

Fuck this artist

~ 1/5 start review by anonymous

On the crumbled plaza celebrating Captain Crey, graffitied with the lyrics which they tried to erase, three hundred thousand are gathered to hear speeches before they march on the House of Judges and to give it their verdict. A wreath hangs for a dead journalist. An art gallery across the street hands out first aid kits. Among the signs and smoke and teargas the final words are spoken in the final speech. The people, rulers of all the land on heaven and earth, begin to chant, "Onward peasants, to judgement and death."

[Writing] Shortcut

2026-03-27T00:00:00+00:00

You're standing on a makeshift stage in someone's backyard. An expectant crowd shushes as they beacon you to say something. You don't know what to say. So you start from the beginning. One year ago you looked down at the pouch of your stomach, remembered the latest disdainful look from the too young checkout attendant, and doom scrolled through too many too expensive Ozempic ads. Jogging it is, then, you thought. The back of the closet yielded a pair of snug running shoes with your ex's note still attached. The donate-or-rags bag of clothes that'd been building steadily for years produced some athleisure wear that was all the rage five years ago. An unopened dusty package in the garage contained one of those ultra bright LED lamps that you'd meant to give to your nephew as a present. You grab the spare set of noise cancelling earbuds that form an integral part of staying sane at the office. The assembled tools sat in the entryway to your suburban home. The initial energy of collecting them mollified the bits of your brain saying "just fucking do something", so there they lived for a few weeks. One day after a sleepless night, in the wee hours before dawn, you yanked the clothes on, tightened the shoe's laces till they hurt, clipped the light onto your chest, popped the earbuds in, put a podcast on, and headed out the door.

You stepped straight into the maze of cul de sacs and identical houses. Harsh circles of bright from streetlights form a network of liminal spaces stretching off around the corner. You had no destination in mind; there was no real destination that could be reached on foot. So you started to jog. You follow the slow twists and turns, picking forks at random, and doubling back frequently when they turn into dead ends. At some point you passed the school, the dog park, the grocery store, all quiet and closed in that pre-dawn time.

When the exhaustion finally caught up to you and you stopped to look at your phone, the map taunted you. A mere thirty feet separated you from home. Thirty feet of someone else's lawn between two houses. The map reported two miles along sanctioned roads to get home instead. You'd jogged further than you thought, further than you wanted to do again. Pristine and dewy, the lawn enticed your feet which ached from pounding along the concrete. This was someone else's property though. Crossing through it would be trespassing. Collective imaginary lines sheared the world into individual inviolate places. Those lines were important. You toed the line furtively anyway. New sweat broke out on your brow from the anxiety of transgression. It was dark, darker now after you switched the LED light off. As though switching the light off made you invisible. No lights came from the house. Could you even have made it home if you didn't take the shortcut? Certainly the risk of collapsing was a higher need than property law. So you cut through the yard. A quick five seconds and you made it home. And when you ran the next day, drawn inextricably to the same spot by the winding contours of fate and the whims of some crazed architect, you walked across the imaginary boundary again with less trepidation. It soon became your regular shortcut.

You jogged while listening to podcasters talk about desire paths, the trails people create when the built environment asks for a circuitous path.

You didn't notice the kids until you had already jogged across the lawn. They stood there on the sidewalk looking tired and miserable, heavy backpacks and little sleep. Their dimmed eyes regarded you and deemed you non threatening. A simple suburbanite going for a run. You didn't even realize kids lived here. A car pulled up and they piled in, headed to school. As the boxy cage trucked the kids off you caught them looking towards where you had come from, your shortcut. A pang of fear as you hoped the kids wouldn't rat you out to their parents.

You jogged while listening to podcasters talk about the lack of autonomy for today's kids dependent on their parents to get anywhere.

While running one pre-dawn morning your light bobbed across a new poster among the mishmash of lost pet wanted signs and long over yard sale ads. You didn't pay it much mind at first but the posters kept appearing on power poles along the route. Comic sans boldly exclaimed "Robbers among us hunting for your valuables! KEEP YOUR HOUSE LOCKED!" You slowed down to check if it included any details but it kept to vague testimonials of people looking into their houses at night. You never had anything of value and ignored the missives. But when you noticed a cop car sitting next to a curb, you felt disquieted and watched. You slowed to a walk and tried to calm your heartrate. You were a criminal, however minorly.

You jogged while listening to podcasters talk about the fear mongering about cities and crime rates despite them largely being safer than ever.

Months had passed. The idea and fear of transgression had long faded and you ran towards the shortcut, shielding the light without even fully turning it off. It was thus a surprise to feel not grass or the mud patches which had begun appearing but something hard. Your hand fell away and let the light spill across the ground. Hard pavers sunk solidly into the ground greeted you. The tingle of realization tickled the part of you which remembered that this was breaking the law. Your mind raced to fill the other side of the lawn with cop cars and drawn guns ready to blast you away for your heinous actions. But the other side presented nothing more than the empty street. You held off running for a few days, a vague paranoia that arrest was right around every corner. But soon you're jogging again anyway.

You jogged while listening to podcasters talk about how communities can build their own networks of support and improvements to the neighborhood.

The dog greeted you so cheerfully as you passed through the shortcut, wagging its tail and prancing around you. It darted up along the pavers to the other side and off to meet its owner a ways up the street. Anxious about meeting people, especially amongst this illegal foray you sped up and nearly tripped over the donation cabinet. It was a wooden set of shelves dolled up with colorful paint and already full of items. You use it as a bit of cover to slide out of view before the dog walker approached and headed through the shortcut.

You jogged while listening to podcasters talk about how to practice mutual aid to help each other and provide basic necessities.

It was just last week when they were there as you came jogging up. The kids were on their bikes with school backpacks after having just crossed through the shortcut, anxious to be on their way to classes. The angry gesticulations from someone you didn't recognize waved the poster around with an additional bundle of them tucked under their other arm. The homeowner was in their pajamas, pissed at being woken up early. As you approached they turned and launched into explanations, tirades, and platitudes as though you were some arbiter of things. You pushed your hands up in a defensive measure and side stepped them all, ran past and through the shortcut - cut the Gordian knot by feigning confidence and normality.

You sat inside while fretting, a doom scroll feed on stand by.

When they knocked on your door you thought for sure this was the cops to come haul you away. Instead it was some city official and the home owner. They said that the homeowner had agreed to have the shortcut turned into an easement controlled by the city with a new sidewalk to run through it. Even more shocking they told you they'd like you to speak at the opening ceremony, which is why you're here speaking today.

Hello world!

2026-03-21T00:00:00+00:00

I've decided to put up a real website with a blog and everything! Tis nothing fancy yet but it's only just been created. More content and things of interest will be coming soon! I plan to develop TTRPGs, board games, video games, privacy software, books, art, and other things along the way. For a quick peek at what I have in mind, see the projects page

Inktober 12

2025-10-28T00:00:00+00:00

Inktober sketches

Inktober 11

2025-10-25T00:00:00+00:00

Inktober sketches

Inktober 10

2025-10-23T00:00:00+00:00

Inktober sketches

Inktober 9

2025-10-20T00:00:00+00:00

Inktober sketches

Sketch Earthmover

2025-10-17T00:00:00+00:00

Line illustration of a construction vehicle used to level ground

6 Landscapes

2025-10-17T00:00:00+00:00

6 landscape sketches

Inktober 8

2025-10-16T00:00:00+00:00

Inktober sketches

Inktober 7

2025-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Inktober sketches

Inktober 6

2025-10-13T00:00:00+00:00

Inktober sketches

Inktober 5

2025-10-11T00:00:00+00:00

Inktober sketches

Inktober 4

2025-10-10T00:00:00+00:00

Inktober sketches

Inktober 3

2025-10-07T00:00:00+00:00

Inktober sketches

Inktober 2

2025-10-04T00:00:00+00:00

Inktober sketches

Inktober 1

2025-10-02T00:00:00+00:00

Inktober sketches