Signal Boosts 11/1

Index

RPG Material

Artists

Musicians

Big Books and Board Games

RPG Material

I want to signal-boost a number of products, beginning with five guys who I consider to be my friends (defiantly if need be). I didn't find them randomly, my delving brought me to them because they are very very creative and produce things that I like. Consider that a qualification to my recommendation and then a dismissal of the qualification.

We begin with Patrick Stuart, who's just launched a Kickstarter for a tome containing 99% of posts from his False Machine blog. This collection is to be known as "Speak, False Machine." I first discovered Patrick's writing through his blog, and only later came to Veins of the Earth and Deep Carbon Observatory, which bowled me over just as much as the blog had. The Kickstarter is well on its way to victory- thanks in part to yours truly.

I interviewed Patrick for his previous Kickstarter, Demon Bone Sarcophagus and its meta-series Broken Fire Regime here.

Next, David McGrogan of Monsters & Manuals is nearing the issuance of a 2nd edition of the sui generis setting sourcebook Yoon-Suin. The second edition will contain a great deal of additional content, to include 12 fully-keyed adventure sites. He recently completed a successful Kickstarter for In the Hall of the Third Blue Wizard, a 'brand new OSR-adjacent ‘zine, featuring beautiful art, fabulous old school gaming materials, and weird and wonderful short fiction.' My adventure, Moonrhythm Mire, was acquired for the publication. I consider David my friend, albeit separated by oceans and many decades of age; if you think it might have been nepotism that my adventure got picked up, read the adventure and decide. I'll accept your conclusion.

I interviewed David, partly to ask about his life but also with respect to his recent campaign toolkit, Orbis Immobilis, the Fixed World, Volume I: Dawn in Winter.

Solomon VK of World Building and Wool Gathering has released Punth: A Primer, 'a mechanically-guided setting for tabletop RPGs. It lays out in forty pages the details of a land inspired by dystopian fiction, Near Eastern legends and philosophy of language.'

I find in Punth a kind of hypnotic peace, not derived from saccharine sweetness but from the author’s mood, which you’re steeped in as you read it. It’s as if, going into your reading of Punth, you go into the inner landscape of the writer and can feel his experience of the world, which in the case of Solomon VK seems to be an exploratory calm.

You can find Punth's Appendix N here.

Dan Sumption of Peakrill Press and its associated blog is preparing an artbook retelling of Arthurian myth that is as serious and true to primary sources as absolutely possible. It is called King Arthur vs Devil Kitteh. I want you to look at the art. Once you've seen it, you'll want to bookmark the Kickstarter here.

I also want to highlight Viaticum, which is not a paid product but a harrowing and moving story by Dan Sullivan (Blackout42).

Artists

Next, we move into art. I want to highlight two artists whose work is among some of my favorite being produced today.

First is Evlyn Moreau. You can find her blog here, and it contains a great portfolio of pieces, such as:

Ghost Beast

But I tell you that you are missing out if you don't partake of her Patreon, which can be found here. She produces amazing art at a relentless pace, particularly character art. Her work is very very human without losing its boundary-pushing creativity.

I would like to do a game set in Glorantha employing her art at some point.

Here are a pair of her products that I have:

The Wizard's Inheritance

The Fabulous Mini Guild

Next is an artist that needs no introduction: Scrap Princess. While she produces phenomenal art associated with Patrick's mad genius, she also writes RPG material that is as potent as her visual art. I want to highlight Noofutura, which I read with great pleasure and expect that you will too if you are a bit of a sick puppy. It is 'weird fantasy cyberpunkesque toolbox/overgrown zine/ setting guide / barely coherent vapourware book I wrote for the Mothership rpg.' If you have ever wanted to have the most ghoulish potentialities of Cyberpunk cheerfully explored but feel that most associated content is not being creative enough, you can find Noofutura here. 

Here is her Redbubble; I am a simp and have two shirts.

Musicians

For music, I want to signal boost Chemtrails, always and forever- here's their most recent single:

Big Books and Board Games

I said Big Books but for right now there's just one- I recently read Mutant Crawl Classics and enjoyed it. I'll never buy their goddamn dice but the book has some very effective sections on technologies and AIs, treated as the game's power-imparting divinities. I'm not 100% sold on the game's default group being a band of spear-wielding Neolithic-style hunter-gatherers discovering the remnants of the wasted world, I generally prefer a bit more development in settings- part of the attraction of MCC's post-apoc setting for me is the potential of more really destructive and deadly gunplay, but also the potential for things like budding near-east style empires (with unlimited but eminently one-shottable warriors at their disposal). However, nothing stops you from executing that vision with MCC- save the dice.

Lastly, here are some board games worth looking into FOR AESTHETIC REASONS: 

I want to be clear, of these games I've only actually played Eldritch Horror, Time of Crisis and Advanced Squad Leader. However, all of these games’ mechanics, concepts and art influence my thinking on fictional scenarios. Eldritch Horror and Time of Crisis are two of the best at-the-table games I've ever played. For ASL, find a graybeard to be your guide.