I recently ran a one-shot of Superpowered! the Quantum Engine-based superhero setting. It doesn't have a built-in setting, so I made a quick setting and adventure. I wanted something I could use again for any future one-shots. I wanted to go for a Tom Strong, high-tech based supers setting, so I created the city of … Continue reading Zenith – City of the Future
I've been enjoying working on Khonshu Alpha, my version of the Dungeon23 project. Dungeon23 is a project where designers make a megadungeon over the course of a year, creating one new location each day. Here's my original post on the subject. My project is called Khonshu Alpha, a post-apocalypse sci-fi dungeon set aboard a generational … Continue reading Khonshu Alpha – Monthly Update on my Dungeon23 project
Some notes on a modern action/espionage/conspiracy campaign I'll never get around to creating. League of Un-Nations Throughout history, there have been proposed nations that have never come into existence. For the most part, these are curious corners of history, only of interest to historians. Until now… Across the globe, there has been a wave of … Continue reading League of Un-Nations – A campaign world I’ll never create about nations that don’t exist
Over on Mastodon, I found out about the #Dungeon23 project. It's an idea invented by Sean McCoy. Here's his original post on the idea. Basically, each day in 2023, you create a new room or location in a megadungeon. At the end of the year, you'll have a playable setting for role-playing. There's been a … Continue reading Khonshu Alpha – a sci-fi megadunegon project.
Flowstone is a city for my own Undergloom setting (previous post here), though it could most likely be plugged in to any Underdark-style world. I use it for the occasional Black Hack game, but it should work with any OSR-style system. Flowstone lies in the center of a vast cavern that serves as a junction … Continue reading Flowstone – an underground city for the Black Hack, or any OSR game
I’ve been posting a bit recently on the "Cepheus Engine as the New OSR” notion I’ve been playing around with. The idea is that the Cepheus Engine (basically old-school Traveller) should be a lot better known, and would make an excellent core for a OSR-style community of players and developers. My Cepheus as a New … Continue reading The New OSR 4: Blades of Barsoom
I've just run a session of Vaults of Vaarn, the weird science fantasy RPG from Leo Hunt. It's one of my favorite settings, with lots of Dying Earth, post-apocalyptic flavor to it. Vaults of Vaarn #3 To prepare for the session, I used the region generation method from the Vaults of Vaarn #3 zine, which … Continue reading The Labyrinth – a mini-setting for Vaults of Vaarn
I've been working on my submission to the Cepheus Journal fanzine. My plan is to create an adaptation of the 1983 science fantasy movie Krull (Wikipedia / YouTube Trailer) for both the Sword of Cepheus & Barbaric! games. Krull itself was a fairly unsuccessful movie, creatively and financially, with some nice visuals. However, the basic … Continue reading Making RPG stuff from a mostly-forgotten film: Krull
I've been continuing running my ongoing Lumberlands (DriveThruRPG / itch.io) campaign using the Black Hack OSR rules set. It's been fun getting deep into one system and world, after years of just running one-shots. I've decided to post all the new details I've been adding to the fantasy lumberjack setting. The rules are Black Hack … Continue reading Oddities of the Lumberlands – Part II
In 1956, the English writer Colin Wilson released the book The Outsider. It was sort a cultural and literary analysis of so-called "outsider" figures, and served as an early introduction to existentialism. The book received a lot of early acclaim from critics, and Wilson was as feted one of the "angry young men" of his … Continue reading Planet of the Spiders: A campaign idea I’ll probably never get around to.
Polyhedral Nonsense 