I guess it's 2024

trying to find where the time goes

I published a thing:

It's not entirely finished yet, but I managed to brush up the main bits I have playtested into something that can be run at the table, a full year and a half after I first wrote it.

I think it's a wonderfully spooky and silly sort of dungeon. I did some collage art and have been playing with layout. DIY lifestyles mang. Any feedback would be appreciated, as I am fairly new to the layout stuff.

I had run it three times over the course of maybe 8 sessions aggregate. There's a greenhouse section in the works, about as many rooms as the mansion, with some weirdness I need to sort out. Which brings me to the main point of why I am writing this....

Dusting Off the Ol' Bloggerino

Cough Blow GIFfrom Cough GIFs

I have been absent from these parts. Work swallowed me whole and then I got a new position and moved to a new town. My interest in the hobby waned, as ADHD is wont to do, but here I am.

Fantofel is still being worked on, I even had a couple of promising playtests in September, which I was considering writing up, but maybe not just yet.

possible teaser

But, for now I think I need further distractions.

Which brings me to this wonderful article by Roll to Doubt, which has been inspirational. And it has brought me back to what I had been considering as a method by which to do the sadly abandoned #Dungeons23. I will try to craft adventures. No strings, no expectations, no plans. My ambition is often a source of sabotage. I was best at poetry when I flowed with the vibe. Then I chained myself to the muse, recently I have chained myself to ambition. By working at a craft I can entertain whimsy, I can revel in the mercurial impish nature of my mind with the only expectation of creation.

Book Dust GIFfrom Book GIFs

Quality will come, and I can cannibalize as I see fit as I go along.

Fragments and palimpsests, this is how I will vibe.

The Congress of Swine

 

this was the first iteration of nutmeg pass

 
initially, what would become The Congress of Swine was just a fun collection of words i came up with when i decided to include Rosa Bonheur's painting of wild boars in the snow while constructing my first map of Nutmeg Pass, using this sort of voronoi-esque hexmap. it sort of stuck with me, so i thought, what better way to follow up my cairn dungeon (see Caspar David Friedrich's painting also included above), than playing around with these mysterious swine.

Rosa Bonheur

now this dungeon, i haven't prettied up quite yet, and it is in fact quite minimalistic. i even had a layout planned at one point, but i am now reconsidering so now i just have an unlinked group of rooms which are to be taken together at some point. the main gist is that maybe these swine are causing trouble for the local aurochs herders (a generational feud if the frescoes buried beneath the cairn are anything to reckon by). like the boarskin mask found among the cairn's hoard, the congress of swine have the gift of stoneskin, but they have no control over when they are flesh and when they are stone. these little buddies turn to stone as soon as the sun fully clears the horizon and awaken when the sun again touches the horizon. these crepuscular transformations keep them relatively safe during the day when the herders are about, yet leaves their lair vulnerable during the day.

domes are neat

while i had considered a full capitol building of mysteries, i am now less inclined to do so, as i feel as though the swine would want to keep a low profile. when players go deeper into a certain section of the woods they will find a stone amphitheater, surprisingly well kept, facing a small open air rotunda. the amphitheater may at time be populated by swine caught in the midst of an argument, in the flesh at night or frozen in stone during the day. within the rotunda will be a small bronze boar statue which is a trapped secret entrance to their underground chambers.

Carl Gustav Carus

 below ground will be a colonnade hall, a small fungus farm, a trophy room, a records room, a magical mud pit, and more. and because this is dungeon23 and i am already working on the next dungeon located in a completely different area, this is where i will leave it for the time being. Sean McCoy did put out a call for minimalism and grace through this, and i think my inclination for this unfinished jumble of mostly keyed rooms is to give myself the wide berth of grace necessary to continue on. i cannot linger any longer on what i have already made well enough. more exists now than had before i started and the show goes on

Jacob Gløersen

The Cairn

 i am stuck in minnesota after a scuffle with the snow. meaning i have a lot of time on my hands. as such i completed a proof-of concept for my foray into the dungeon23 lifestyle. this is a work in progress, so the layout is only a start and it is still incomplete. final edition will take place at some point, but i feel good having made something of substance out of what was only an idea bouncing around the back of my head.

so without further ado, here is the cold cairn found atop a snowy hill in Nutmeg Pass.

The Cairn

Nutmeg Pass is essentially the introductory level to the Fantofel Recreation area, and skiing through its slopes is the best way to get to the charming old town of Law-o'-Caspan, a formerly popular vacation spot well beyond its initial hype. Nutmeg Pass is primarily the territory of a dairy herding cooperative who use the Glass Pyramid Train Station's defunct casino as barn and milking parlor.

i have also started on the next dungeon in Nutmeg Pass called The Congress of Swine. i am looking forward to how that shapes out and i am using my current marooning in minnesota as a source of inspiration as i am strangely staying in a charming hotel run by an old catholic boarding school. the campus is honestly vaguely reminiscent of my image of Law-o'-Caspan, complete with stone clock'n'bells tower.

Law-o'-Caspan

my dungeons23 continues to excite me and i am looking forward to how this first seasonal area unfolds. hope you all are keeping the shivers at bay this oddmas season.

iron fragility and lead scarcity

the idea that i am gonna talk about came up in the bastionland discord, it was regarding fragile weapons in a dark sun sorta setting. this was brought up again today in the discord based on a stalker-based hack, so now i am gonna put it here for posterity. these rules are for into the odd and its offshoots wherein there are no to-hit rolls.

i can probably hit something with that old thing

in my mini dungeon i am writing this week, the players will be able to discover some aged and fragile swords and other medieval weaponry. these are really neat, but they are essentially artifacts. they may have historical significance and may be worth money to the right buyer, but they are also weapons. say there's this gorgeous claymore, corroded but still sharp, gemstones since pried from its handle, but a decent looking beast of a weapon.

ancient claymore, d8, bulky, fragile

fragile in this context turns the damage die into a usage die. say you swing this weapon at a grave wight and roll a hefty 8 for damage, what a show, but the darn thing is so old it can't take that sort of beating. clang!  the tip of the blade breaks off, dang, no good. bump that damage die down to d6.

might be interesting to a back-alley museum

later you are facing off against an annoying wrencher trying to steal your gear while sleeping. roll damage. a nice clean 6 and the damaged old thing cuts through the wrencher's stinking yellow coat but gets stuck, with a yank you come away with a handle and just a bit of blade left. d4 damage, and not really all that bulky anymore probably. might be worth a bit of coin, maybe 20 silverbucks from an avid collector, but probably not, just a rusty hunk of metal at this point. this would also be great for any sort of cobbled together weaponry, a bone club, a chair, wine bottle, any sort of weapon that could be considered fragile.

gotta show them ghouls what for

this is also something i think works well for automatic weapons with regards to ammo. i like how this worked with the corrosion cannon from the iron coral, but make it granular. say you got yourself set up with a neat little gatling as those pesky orchard ghouls are planning to overrun the cidery, again. you tried to negotiate with them to no avail and now it's fucking lead'o'clock.

gatling gun, d10, blast, automatic, stationary

this bad boy can do some damage, and say you roll 10 on damage, yeah that mows down a bunch of em, but still they come. your ammo is running low, d8 damage now. it sure is fun to fire a hundred rounds a second, but bullets don't grow on trees, at least round here. keep bumping the die down when rolling max damage until you are all out. d10>d8>d6>d4>0

so that's the thing. i tend to like elegant solutions, the fewer rolls the better, so if you have some sort of automatic weapon or a fragile boy, why don't you usage die the damage die. i really like doing the max score because that way it feels good before you lose some power, yeah you did a critical hit, but physics, yeah good shooting, kid, but you kind of held that trigger a bit longer than you should have.

Solstice Dungeon - a work in progress

 as my hobonichi came early and had weeks starting this december, i thought maybe i would start early during the week of the winter solstice, the true new year. seeing as my theme for dungeons23 is seasonal, it felt appropriate to start at the very beginning of winter. to mark the solstice, here is what I have put together thus far.

The Cairn

While trekking through the valleys of Nutmeg Pass you spy an impressive cairn looming atop a hill amongst a small copse of windbeaten pines. The winter wind whistles through the cracks in the cairn as you lift the stones revealing a dark shaft driving into the frozen earth.

Caspar David Friedrich

1) Burial Sleigh
    - Mummified corpse in decayed finery sitting on a sleigh lashed to four mummified aurochs.
    - Ancient, brittle medieval weapons (d6, fragile) and various debris litter the floor
    - Portcullis propped open with broken wood and mummified corpses to hallway leading deeper.

2) Humming Stone Chamber
    - Enormous humming brown stone resembling a walnut swings gently via a chain pulley system bolted to the ceiling and ending in a crank spool on western end of the room.
        + The humming causes vomiting for anyone being in this chamber for more than 5 minutes.
    - Floor mosaic depicting figures battling on aurochs-led sleighs on an arctic battlefield.
    - Hallways leading North (to 4, portcullis shut from other side), East (to 5, portcullis blasted open), and South (to 1, portcullis propped up)

6) Diggerman Cave   
    - Rough hewn tunnel-like cave, supported primarily by fresh timber and tomb detritus.
    - Chest of precious minerals and stones
    - Diggerman 4HP, pick (d6, bulky) minibombs (d6, blast)
        + Desires precious minerals and stones
        + Dirty, disgusting, nerdy, distinguished.
        + Chained to Diggerbeast
    - Diggerbeast 6 HP, digging claws (d6)
        + Loves but does not respect Diggerman
        + Desires freedom and friends

Carl Spitzweg

some passing ideas regarding this process include when is it appropriate to "work ahead"? at times i found my head swimming with ideas and i made an effort to file these away, not wanting to get too far ahead of myself. part of the appeal of this practice is that it echoes a lot of the mindfulness techniques i learned while training to be a social worker. at work, this practice is of particular use given how fast-paced and often brutal my work can be.

i did these sitting in a window just off a skyway leading to the cafeteria on the furthest south end of the hospital. this window is far from my unit and often quite sunny, weather permitting. i sit, eat lunch, listen to whatever is in my head that day and write out a room. and this evening i wrote everything down and fleshed out the three rooms in a blog draft.

nice view for dungeonmaking

but on my way home, walking in the pre-blizzard conditions, i started thinking of the other rooms, what might lurk in room 7? what riches await in room 3? what should i put in the other rooms? but i set these thoughts aside and instead focused on fleshing out the diggerman who had once been a geologist with a giant mole. and yet my mind tugged me away, what about slim watchers in the woods who shyly protest "don't look!"? no, not yet.

i can't pin down a conclusion on whether or not i should think too much on other rooms, whether i should hold them lightly, eschew working ahead altogether, or just follow the dopamine. for now, i think i will try mindfulness, but if it becomes too rigid, i may have to bust out, and then reconstrain, like breathing through this project.

dungeon23 blog get

she steps out from the shadows

long time lurker i have been, a player of many games, a playtester throughout the years, former member of the gygaxian democracy on many an occasion, and hey i did co-edit a thing that one time. but something about the spirit of '23 has got my bones rattling, my fingers itching, and my slimy skullguts buzzing.

it has been told, as i have heard, that this anticipation of the new year brings to mind the heyday of our dearly departed G+, and having baled some of said hey back in said day, i am compelled to agree.

i cut my teeth on that platform and likely would not have made it through my short-lived career as a dairy farmer without the escapism provided by the creative exuberance that manifested toward the end of said platform's life.

enough has been said about that, though, it's been almost 5 years, an entire decade of discourse has passed, we need not dwell in demolished ruins.

i have opted to dwell in the bright and shiny new ruins to be made over the course of dungeon23

this is a logo i found

also i got a blog. this is my attempt at accountability. it may quickly perish, i have had blogs before, but a weekly update of my progress may not be too cumbersome to do, especially as i like the idea of sharing my work, and documenting it in some way.

i am not too vain as to think that my work will be notable, but i do have some ambitions; projects that i have spent too much time thinking of and too little time acting on. so to the blog, at the very least i stand a chance of capturing my conjurings rather than letting them slip away like so much sand between my ribs.

i am a mature professional now and my dog is dead, so i gotta have some sort of outlet else the base evil cruelty of working in united states healthcare industry take me down in all its crumbing. no, i will make a dungeon based upon skiing, a sport i have never participated in even once.

yes, skiing

my dungeon23

here is my proposal, or at least how i think i may go about the project. i have four major pieces of work i have been attempting to put together over the last few years, four seasonal adventure locations themed around the idea of vacation, leisure, that sort of thing denied to my impoverished ass.

of course this is a loose theme, if, for example, i am suddenly spurred in a new direction during this experiement, i will allow it. maybe i don't want to write about the beach some day come june, well fine, a farming dungeon it shall be, or something based upon my horrific experience teaching ceramics to children.

i want to hold loosely to everything that i do in this, else i am bound to fail. but without any further blathering, i shall introduce the four loose locales that i will be exploring.

as i am also primarily and exclusively interested in into the odd/electric bastionland, the entirety of what i will be posting will be marked by the odd and powered by bastionland electrical conglomerates. i think you will also find that the proposals i am putting forth are very appropriate for the setting.

 

i already made the front cover

law-o'-caspan and the fantofel recreation area

 this is the run-down old skiers' holiday town with cows, a giant lake, an insect wrestling league, a mountaintop observatory, and some sucrose flats. this was based on some early 20th century slovenian postcards by valentin hodnik depicting silly vacationers enjoying winter sports at lake bohinj in slovenia. it grew from that and it has become vaguely unwieldy, but i do have some distinct dungeonesque ideas that could use fleshing out and doing so a room-a-day this winter seems just the tick.

 

 

anyone up for a swim?

the ginsea shore and carcino bay

these two badboys are kind of similar summer destinations and they are likely to merge. the ginsea shore started as a borough for a bastionland one-shot that never happened and also a deeply personal love letter to my time going to the jersey shore while i was farming in pennsylvania. some beautiful times were had on new jersey beaches, despite the custard-nabbing gulls. i would also pull in favorite bits of going to the outer banks of north carolina that one time, sans the traumatic moment in which an arm was broken.

carcino bay is as of yet more abstract, but it came about while listening to my favorite floridian import, the punk band that saved my life in '06 and '08, and a few more times since then, against me! carcino bay is a direct reference to the depiction of the city named "miami" in their song, curiously also named "miami". that song and a lot of their album white crosses give a fair amount of fantastic imagery that lit up my day that one time walking to class.

 

 

rare sighting of jfur in the wild

i also like michigan, chris kutalik

okay, so this doesn't have a name because the perfect name has already been taken, so i need to think a lot about it. this is the springtime vacation location and it's based on my love of the state of michigan, and an incredible vacation i took there after my first year of grad school. even before that i had spent a lot of time in michigan, mostly visiting housing cooperatives in ann arbor and detroit. this is not super well-formed, but i do have a lot of ideas written on the back of a ferry ticket. flowers, cherries, ferries, and dunes will be the touchstone of this badboy. and more boardwalks, but different to the boardwalks from new ginsea

 

 

i also like edmund weiß, chris mcdowall

 the curse of slumberwood valley

before i was a farmer but after i had finished being a poet, but before i had wholly written off academia as a waste of time, i took the best literature class in my entire life and wrote the best piece of literary criticism in my entire life. also the last, for both. it was about gothic literature and fuck if that class didn't make me both learn to hate johnny truant and love washington irving. i will not be talking about the former here.

the curse of slumberwood valley is clearly just a rebranding of washington irving's scathing critique of capitalism. through dietrich knickerbocker, washington irving weaves together an incredible story about place, belonging, and a town triumphantly getting rid of some asshole who just wanted to do the 18th century version of putting a walmart in a small town.

i wanted to pay homage to this by making an adventure wherein the villain won and married katrina and destroyed the town in the process. this has a lot of potential and ideas, and it is the fall theme, but also has a bit of summer and winter in it for good measure. the primary locations are the port town of lingervale, the slumberwood itself, the ghost town since dubbed "crayne's folly", and the kaaterwaul mountains. i did a teaser a few years back for the 24XX jam which you can look at here.

 

this location has nothing to do with the rest

 good luck to me i guess, hope i can make the things. blog get achieved.