Choose an Illustrated One-shot. Also News. (Patreon)

Wherein I talk about technical issues, weather, plague, the OSE kickstarter, and propose a poll of ideas to turn into an illustrated location or module.

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Hello, heroes!

For the poll, go right to the end. For the rest, read on, bienvenido!

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BATTERY

You may have noticed I haven’t posted or updated in a while. There is nothing serious the matter. I have simply taken my laptop to have its battery replaced. It has been warning me that it needs servicing for years, but now that it has started to swell, distending the aluminum body of its housing, well, I decided that needs must.

I took it to the local repair shop, but my laptop is not local, pas coréen, so the new battery must arrive from the far abroad. In one or four weeks.

For a week, I took something of a holiday. For another week, I worked at writing the rules section of seacat. In truth, it went very well. I think I’ve cracked a core issue with how to present the mechanics of scenes and conflicts.

But now that’s done enough and I‘d proceed to layout and fine tuning, and I can’t.

So it goes.

WEATHER

Korea has had its longest monsoon on record. Near daily rain, humidity, tropical nights over 25C, and quite severe floods. We’ve been fine, but the local floodplain park took some damage. For us it’s been interesting, for others tragic.

Tomorrow or the day after typhoon Bavi is forecast to hit the south-western tip of Korea, reaching Seoul by Thursday. We should be alright here, but with megastorms, who knows. 

Let’s hope it will just be interesting. So it goes.

PLAGUE

Right-wing parties trying to bring down the centre-left Moon government, together with a coalition of far-right evangelical churches, have been behind a massive new coronavirus outbreak in a Seoul megachurch. The pastor spread conspiracies that the virus was “a government lie” and also “government terrorism” to hurt Christians. He’s encouraged followers to avoid getting tested before a big anti-government protest the church and the other right-wingers were planning.

Predictably, there was an outbreak.

Now we’ve had new cases in the hundreds every day for the last 11 days and it looks like we’re heading for lockdown. Well done, anti-government right-wingers.

Let’s hope the damage will be minimal and that too many people don’t die and that the typhoon doesn’t compound things too much.

So it goes.

A strange August indeed.

OSE KICKSTARTER

Meanwhile, in more positive news, the Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy kickstarter has smashed through its goals. It’s currently at ~180 kilodollars with 17 days left to go.

This is amazing news and I’m super happy for Gavin Norman of Necrotic Gnome and also Exalted Funeral. It’s a grand success.

Which does also bring me up to a little something I’ll be contributing: I’m writing and illustrating Holy Mountain Shaker. An earthquake adventure scenario very loosely based on the folk myth of the pharaoh fish (faronika) from my homeland.

(hey, look at that - a first try at the Holy Mountain Shaker cover!)

For those who like adventures that fit together, this one will be very at home with Longwinter and Witchburner.

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MAIS ICI, SUR NOTRE STRATOMETANAVETTE? 

STATUS?

Ok, quick breakdown of this month’s novelties:

* seacat ~ around 12,000 new words written, scene and conflict rules nearly complete, need to layout ... oh ... I don’t know. 20 pages? These are still a bit rough, but my approach is to illustrate how the cat (gm) can build different kinds of scenes and conflicts using the game mechanics. I’ve outlined about 7 different kinds of scenes, and 3 kinds of conflicts: psychological, social, and physical. Most of this is examples and “how tos” - the rules themselves are pretty short and simple, no fear, please! Unfortunately, I can’t continue right now because ... no laptop.

My process is to revise and clean up the text as I lay it out. This means I am loathe to share the text in its current plaintext guise. Patience, I beg ye.

ALLORA, HWAT HTEN?

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THE POLL! THE END! THE MEAT ON THE BONZ!

Here we are, welcome heroes to the core of the post!

Since I have limited time left this month, but many modules and one-page dungeons in various states of prepare, I shall take one of those, pretty up the graphics and set it up as a coherent (but simply laid out, one-column) adventure just for you. I estimate it will be no more than 8 pages, 1 overview illustration / map, a few npcs, and a few interlinked locations. I’ll do my darndest to design it for a single-session, minimum-prep game.

I am putting it to you: what shall I finish up and post this month?

1. Dark Prologue - a one-shot module with throwaway characters with which the players “set up” a dungeon location for later in the game. Can be run as a flashback in the middle of a longer campaign. (from ancient aliens to medievalish)

2. God Dies In Denial - a bronze age module where the heroes have to save their people from a vengeful deity. (also works easily with standard, medievalish fantasy)

3. This Kind Plague - a modernish town adventure about a town where people have become strangely kind and friendly. (from 18th century to early 20th century tech)

4. Beautiful People City - a modernish creepy city location where everybody is beautiful and ... a ghoul? (from medievalish to UVG)

5. It Just Stares At The World - a simple time-travel adventure based on Black Sabbath’s Iron Man. This one might be a complete cluster-duck, because I’ve tried to assemble it into a working module three times already. But the art should work.

For each of these pieces I have ~2,000 to 5,000 of words worth of notes, crudely sketched maps, and some drawings. In the next week I’ll turn one of them into a pretty-ish (well, at least illustrated) and functional system-free one-shot.

Then, when I get my laptop back, I’ll do a propre layout.

Sound like a deal? Ok, please vote fast! I need a choice double plus quick. Thank you!

Peace and health, fellow humans, heroes one and all!

—Luka