Ruins Azure: Four No Three City Zones [OGA] (Patreon)

Dear Heroes,

Welcome to the Ruins Azure, where civilization returns once again to the spore-ravaged land, to the ruined land where a false god was uprooted.

Yet, do not weep, for each creative destruction bears the seed of creation, and now there are few places where a well-intentioned (and well-resourced!) traveler could expect such a return on their investment of time, adventuring, and capital.

Do not fret, you are not a slum tourist or a charitinfluencer, no no. You are a welcome guest, bringing revenue and growth, as teaches the Cogflower, to this dilapidated yet developing land.

Please produce your pass at the City Azure Visitor Explication Services Arcology, but do not overstay your visit there, lest the bureau beast consumes you.

This Week's Update

I'm really enjoying this slightly roomier layout for Our Golden Age. It makes the process of both writing and drawing much freer and simply more fun.

For the next step, I'm not sure, I might do the Red Land (with more art!) + Rust Backcountry, or tackle the Orange Land. I've got an idea for a really cool piece of chapter art for that land, but ... well, we'll see. It's a big piece and I can't plan on having a big piece of time just for that.

I've also decided to share more of my art pieces - whether they make it into a final book or not. Some might, some might not. I hope you enjoy them.

Other News

Some of you may have come across a blogpost dissecting how another author stole my words for their own book. I wrote my own bit, illustrating how one page of the copied work liberally lifted from the UVG. In all, about twenty pages of what that author called "generic encounters" are taken directly from the UVG. The work also takes content directly from 17th Century Minimalist by Games Omnivorous and Vaults of Vaarn by Infrabeige. The setting name itself references, without a hint of attribution, A Thousand Thousand Islands, one of the best independent roleplaying works I've seen from southeast Asia. It is possible (likely, even, if these examples imply a pattern) that the author also took from other artists, writers, and designers. The work in question, Unconquered, was kickstarted, raising over $17,000 Canadian dollars and sold for months afterwards.

After the blog posts analyzing the uncanny resemblance of that person's work to the published works of other authors, they took down their pages and accounts, hiding themselves from online scrutiny. This leaves the people who collaborated with them holding the bag: how many of them were also taken for a ride, contributing to stolen creativity? It leaves everyone who bought the cobbled-together works holding fragments of other authors' creativity. As for the original authors, well, our creations were taken and repackaged for profit.

Nice (sarcasm).

If you have the time, I suggest you check out those wonderful creators I've listed. Original voices, creating amazing games and stories and worlds. Infrabeige and Games Omnivorous and Munkao and Zedeck Siew. If you enjoy some of them - share them on, let their voices be heard and names be known.

Magitecnica News

The Magitecnica zine is getting printed and I'll let you know as soon as it is ready! I hope it'll be in time for that wizard, Santaman, to teleport it into some stokkings.

If, if, it takes long enough, I'll try adapt a few more spells from Uranium Butterflies for Magitecnica. I'm thinking of doing the healer and biomancer spells together, to make a biotech wizardry spectacular.

Take care, good heroes, and jolly slightly belated Saint Nicholas' day.

Ho ho ho

—Luka

EDIT: Added the art in a zip file as well, so it's easier to download if you want a minimalist wallpaper ... or something to use in your home game. It's just pictures.