HELLCRAWL

The Haruspex

Based on the Roman practice of reading entrails, this was a classic addition to the Unholy City of Zeb. I'm pretty certain this was the first encounter I wrote for the city.

My Commute: Originality

Today I am discussing the virtues of originality and resonance.

My Commute Episode 1

I live 45 minutes away from my school and drive a lot. It gives me a lot of time alone with my thoughts. Now you can listen to these thoughts about writing and designing TTRPG and adventure design. In this episode I discuss how I got involved with writing TTRPG and how I got involved working with Tim Molloy.

Smoothie Lord

Tim said to me: "Item: vacuum cleaner/smoothy maker - something used down in the sluice"

And I took the ball and ran with it. The Sluice is a necroplasmic tumor beneath the city of Zeb. It is rich in necrotic energy. The discovery of the Sluice actually convinced the Dreaming Princes to go ahead and move the Unholy City of Zeb across the ...

Down by the Docks

Tim says to me: A cruise ship from the Upper Ethereal shows up full of weird shifting aurora borealis tourists. Like sentient light clouds. Is that too weird?
Me: I got you fam.

This tourist will be a really fun NPC. Hopefully everyone can show him a good time.

This is usually how Tim and I work. If I don't already have an idea...

I needed to track all the Wizard Gulp! flavors

In the Painted Wastelands I incorporated a lot of food, drink, and drugs instead of potions. I wanted to encourage that Alice in Wonderland style of play where characters eat or drink things and strange results happen. I almost always prefer magical food over magic potions in my home games. I created a list of all the Wizard Gulp! flavors becaus...

The One True Emanation of Sollopos the Unblinking

Greetings Lost Dreamers!

The way Tim and I work is a little complicated. First, when I wake up in the morning he's usually going to sleep and vice versa. We each take turns guarding the planet from disaster. Also, sometimes Tim will pitch me an idea and I try to take it upon myself to find a way to make it work. This is one of those exampl...

More Gurus from Empire of Bones

Greetings Lost Dreamers!

First, in case you didn't know, The Painted Wastelands PDF is out on DriveThruRPG! If you didn't back us on Kickstarter you can buy the PDF here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/498797/the-painted-waste...

Empire of Bones: Gurus

When Mr. U visits the city of Zeb for the first time, he seeks wisdom from beyond the grave. Instead, he finds only pain and shame. Then he is greeted by a guru on the shores of the river Aboo-Nai who offers wisdom. There is a collection of d20 random Gurus to choose from, here's a few of them. I've currently written about 9 of them.

In Sa...

Empire of Bones Preview

I've been hard at work on the Empire of Bones, the sequel to Painted Wastelands. It's currently 21,000 words long. As I'm working on it I'll post some samples here to my loyal followers. This encounter is based on one stripped straight out of Tim's comics. Mr. Unpronounceable discovers a screaming box and a2024-10-07 01:16:34 +0000 UTC View Post

Launching Your Kickstarter: Part One

Launching Your Kickstarter: Part One

I am currently in the middle of delivering our successful Kickstarter project: The Painted Wastelands. As a teacher, I always feel compelled to help other people. I’m not just talking about students. When I was a first-year teacher, fresh out of college, I was fortunate to ...

Exclusive Painted Wastelands Preview

Here's a preview of our map and Area 6.

Plans within Plans...

Thank you for hanging with me during the Kickstarter. I found that almost 100% of my writing time got eaten up by planning the Kickstarter. However, now that it's over and we are waiting to purchase items and put out the Painted Wastelands, I now have time to write.

Currently I'm writing a little thing for our Spring Line Up. I'm also wor...

The Gallant Goblin gets lost in The Painted Wastelands

I sent preview copies to this awesome gentleman and he did a deep dive into the Painted Wastelands

The Painted Wastelands is LIVE!

I've been working on this project since February! It has taken over my life. Now it is finally here! go check it out for yourself!

Avatar of the Whale God

This creature guards the Temple of the Whale God. He awaits his lords return to this world from swimming in the luminality so that the Whale God can bellyflop into reality at the speed of light.

The temple is an escape room, if you need help just shout “Rutabaga!” And a staff member will come help you (this is a lie, no one is coming ...

Beautiful Hex Map by Tim Molloy

Each of these hexes is a full page encounter. There’s also 4 dungeons.

AEON Ancient Greece Vol 5

Several months ago I handed in this completed text to Sharktopus Games and now it is on BackerKit!

The Lords of Olympus continues my series about playing DCC in Ancient Greece. It focuses on the many gods and goddesses. It is my ode to Deities and Demigods or Faiths and Pantheons for Forgotten Realms. I tried to include as many gods, godd...

Which of these three stickers do you like the most?

Tim is back from Japan and he's been drawing up a storm for us. Which of these stickers do you like the most? I'm trying to figure out which ones to print for the Kickstarter.

The Painted Wastelands Preview

At long last the Painted Wastelands has a free preview on DriveThruRPG! Look upon my works ye mighty and despair!

Limited Edition Gold Foil Cover preview

Because you're my patrons I wanted to share with you our limited edition gold foil cover. Exclusive just for the Kickstarter, it was designed to resemble a sorcerer's grimoire. Something The Diseased One (one of the villains) would keep on his shelf.

THE PAINTED WASTELANDS

Wake up sleepies. It's happening!

The great endeavor I have spent the past several months working on is finally coming to fruition. We have a kickstarter landing page, click this link to be notified upon the project's launch: 2024-05-01 14:33:14 +0000 UTC View Post

Cover Sketch

Tim is hard at work on our cover, which really came together in the past few days. I can't wait to see it when it's done.

The Work

Now that I've finished writing I'm hard at work grinding on completing the Kickstarter work so that we can launch on Kickstarter. I am talking with several companies to produce prototypes.

The Kickstarter will include: 2 covers, 1 regular, and 1 special edition (details to follow).

-22 card Deck of Strange Things, I posted a few of t...

It is done.

Mentally, I'm exhausted. After really pushing myself this week I successfully completed my first draft. It took me two months, but I wrote 68,914 words, and 134 pages. Just like everything I write, there are no orcs or goblins. Everything is new.

The Painted wastelands is a Hexcrawl.

-35 fully detailed hexes

-4 dungeons

Deck of Many Esoteric Things

Part of our upcoming project is a set of 22 tarot cards based upon the Deck of Many Things but with weirder effects. Like for example: The Snail.

The Snail. A snail climbs up an axe handle. When drawn, the character transforms over the course of several days.

Ø  First, the character excretes a ...

The Painted Wastelands Update

The work continues. Everyday I am swinging the hammer and molding this lump of iron into steel. This book is really weird, I feel like it is weirder than almost anything out there in the OSR world. The thing I could closest compare it to is Ultraviolet Grasslands in terms of tone and art work. If you haven't followed @timmalloyart yet you should...

Eternal Depths Heart of Myglia Pt 4

The Heart of Myglia is a rite of passage. The first 3 chambers are dedicated to Myglia's portfolio of growth. This page is dedicated to her portfolio of decay. She is the patron goddess of Shroomen but also the Fungaloids. One is a creature of life, the other is a creature of decaying undeath. 

Secret Project Update

Took a break from writing since I'm on spring break. My parents took my family to Disneyworld which was a great time.

During my break I still wrote anyway because I'm a monster.

The Secret Project is currently at 41,385 words and 92 pages long.

Eternal Depths Heart of Myglia Pt 3

Prototaxites is the last of his kind, an ancient mushroom from 400 million years ago. In the adventure, it's basically a mushroom tree ent. 

In real life, Prototaxites was a type of giant mushroom that covered the earth 400 million years ago. We've found all these fossils and they're quite the mystery! 

This is also an oppo...