Bath Imaginable

Adventure Design, Storytelling, Reflections

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  • Saga of the Boreal Valley, Part 1

    They stand in the glow of the Damned Seer, a disembodied head and shoulder perpetually in flames. It told them that the future must occur as the stars demand it.

    “The future must occur as the stars demand.” With an inhuman wheeze, the Damned Seer disintegrates into a pile of glowing embers. But the Knights are not alone, together they ride as a Company.

    The Company

    THE MOSS KNIGHT is Carver. Large, muscular, dripping dark hair.

    THE AMBER KNIGHT is Prentis. Gaunt, worn, hungry-looking.

    THE THUNDER KNIGHT is Bart. Boyish and loud.

    “Remember your oath: Seek the Myths, Honour the Seers, Protect the Boreal Valley.”

    Taxes, the end of Spring

    The Company arrived in the Boreal Valley from the south and made for Woodsmoke. Above the horizon burned a green star, bright even in the light of day. There, they met the Envoy, Chider, and the Reliquary Knight, learning of famine and failed hunts. They learned, too, that the Forge Knight—ruler of the Ashen Forge—had withheld his taxes from the King.

    The Company rode toward the star, but their path was barred by intense vibrations from a row of metal spires. Choosing the mountains instead, they met an archer named Araya looking for work. She spoke of the Ashen Forge and its perpetual white smoke, hoping for a war; instead, she was recruited as the Company Squire.

    At sunset, at an abandoned outpost, a crew of hostile workers refused to let the Knights interfere with their labor. The Knights sent Araya to negotiate safe passage, and descended from the mountains into the tundra.

    At night, the heavy steps of a Walking Tower woke the Knights. It guarded a metal spire, its base rooted deep underground according to the stones that spoke to Carver. Bart’s booming voice caused the tower to stumble and fall. The Knights seized the moment and charged on horseback, but the tower regained its feet before they could close the distance. They tried to trip it with rope, but Araya was injured in the attempt. Prentis rode ahead, blocking the tower’s path and holding his ground; he cleaved its legs from beneath it, and the tower fell.

    From the fallen machine, the Company pulled a gelatinous figure and slaughtered it. It spoke only in wet flaps. Carver claimed its glowing star-spear, his spiral tattoos shining silver in its light.

    The Knights tried to investigate the spire, but were driven back by the same painful vibrations. They turned their attention to the strange runes etched onto the Walking Tower, but could discern no meaning.

    “If you are lost, seek the guidance of the Seer in the Ember Cavern”–the Damned Seer’s instructions felt more potent now than ever.

    At first light, they rode toward the star, across the river and into the woods. The forest was a mess of tarnished metal jutting from the frozen ground. In a clearing, they saw twenty villagers from Woodsmoke being marched–hands bound–by three Walking Towers. Above them, the star’s glow turned from green to red, and it began its descent from the heavens.

    Thoughts

    • I’m very excited about finally getting a Mythic Bastionland saga going.
    • I ordered posters of my realm from Staples and it really made the exploration easier to have a huge, full color drawing of the realm in the centre of the table.
    • I printed one for each season, so the players can feel the passage of seasons as their Knights grow older. Stay tuned for further session recaps.

  • Run the Hounds of Hendenburgh in one night!

    Public Domain art from the Hounds of Hendenburgh by Liam Pádraig Ó Cuilleanáin

    I love the Hounds of Hendenburgh by Liam Pádraig Ó Cuilleanáin. In fact, I love it so much that I gave it a mid-century coat of paint and ran it using Electric Bastionland (there’s even a nod to it in my first adventure, the Fading Coast).

    One of the things that makes the adventure an instant classic in my eyes is that it’s a totally open-ended adventure with clear, powder-keg-like stakes. The adventure easily supports a short campaign, maybe 6-10 sessions, if you play up the mysteries and let the players explore and encounter the hounds multiple times. On the other hand, it’s the kind of scenario that makes a really great one shot if you strip away some of the distractions and focus on the dungeon.

    But, I love those distractions. So I had a thought…

    The original map, made with Hexographer

    What if you ran the entire adventure in a single in-game night?

    Like the popular Ravenloft variant Strahd Must Die Tonight!, the players are on a strict real-time clock: in a 4-hour session, they get 3 hours to explore before the Hounds descend. The core module remains largely the same, but with a few minor tweaks, we can really ratchet up the tension.

    1. “Someone you love is dying…”

    For the main hook, the players need an urgent reason to leave the Kryptwood. At the start of the session, they have already secured the medicine required to save a loved one back home. However, due to a streak of bad luck, they find themselves lost in the Kryptwood just as the sun dips below the treeline.

    2. There is No Escape

    The party starts on the road toward Hendenburgh and can explore the Kryptwood freely for the first three hours. However, if they attempt to leave early, spectral hounds manifest to block their path. Their only options are to break the curse or survive until dawn.

    3. A new Map!

    The original map is functional, but it didn’t quite pull me into the setting. For my version, I tried to create a realistic environment while keeping all of the original points of interest in their ~general~ spatial relationship. But yes, I shrunk the forest way, way down.

    Each hex represents roughly 30 feet (or, the distance a PC in most systems can move and still take an action). While some points of interest may seem ridiculously close together–Sly George is sleeping with Martin’s “missing” wife within a football field’s distance, for instance–this scale is designed intentionally for gameplay. Much like how Baldur’s Gate 3 places the Goblin Camp just down the road from the Emerald Grove, compression serves the narrative. Once your players are moving across the map, uncovering secrets, and having back-to-back encounters all in a single night, the tight pacing will far outweigh any realism concerns.

    The Ending

    At the start of the third hour, unleash the hounds. Regardless of where the players are, spawn spectral hounds to relentlessly pursue them until the hour ends. As the sun begins to rise, the hounds disappear, leaving the party free to escape the Kryptwood and save their loved one back home.

    Any steps the players take to break the curse proceed as written in the original adventure, but play all NPCs at maximum intensity:

    • The Coroner: Cold, clinical dispenser of information.
    • The Innkeeper: Anxious and eager to help (I’m dropping the blacksmith love-potion thing). Her sons might be useful in a last-stand situation at the inn.
    • The Miller: Helplessly distraught.
    • Sly George: Peak paranoia, convinced his enemies are closing in.
    • The Crones: Desperate to make a deal.
    • The Pastor: Passed out drunk in the church, needs liquid courage to accompany the PCs.

    I’m running this setup for my group on October 30 as a Halloween Special. Expect a play report shortly after. To prep, I drew my map directly onto a Chessex vinyl mat, but if you don’t want to permanently stain your grid for a single session, I highly recommend printing a poster through Staples. Download my map below if you’re ready to put your players through a 4-hour gauntlet!

  • Director’s Cut

    Judging and rating for the Appendix N Jam was extended to mid-October, but I already feel like I have the feedback I need to deliver the definitive version of my adventure, Warriors of the Bleached Basin. So today, I’ve released the Director’s Cut–a version that exists outside the boundaries of the competition.

    The Director’s Cut isn’t intended to replace my original submission for ranking purposes, obviously. If you’re a jam participant, I recommend not even looking at this until you’ve read and rated my original entry (let’s keep it fair!). But I had planned to move on from this project by the end of September and, unlike the judges, I have no commitments. Picture me as a hooded ranger in the corner of the tavern, sliding forth forbidden lore. I hope you’ll take a look and let me know what you think!

    What’s Changed?

    I added two A5 pages to my entry, inspired by some really insightful critiques of my entry. That’s it, just two more pages. Despite a few people asking about an expanded edition, this remains a concise piece for now.

    I’m thrilled the setting resonated with so many, but those extra locations in the Bleached Basin don’t actually need expanding. That isn’t why they’re there. They’re sparks for your group’s improv: toys that ground the setting in its pulpy science-fantasy roots. The wilderness crawl offers the illusion of a larger world without ruining the intrigue. After all, you don’t really want extra scenes about the Jawas when you’re watching Star Wars for the first time. The focus of the adventure should remain on the explorers–the players–and their encounters with the titular Warriors.

    I also made some major changes to how information is presented. As one Redditor put it, I had “the where mixed with the what and the who.” With two additional pages, I can give dedicated space to both the dungeon key and the villains.

    Thank you to everyone who looked at or rated my original submission, and to everyone who took the time to leave feedback in the comments or on Reddit. It seriously warms my heart to know this community is filled with so many thoughtful creators, and I’m proud to showcase my work alongside yours.

    Check out the Director’s Cut of Warriors for the definitive experience. It’s free right here.

  • The Night Garden

    I’ve added a new room to my adventure, Night Garden of the Dream Wyrm.

    In the original adventure, the Dream Wyrm was meant to appear in any random chamber at the heart of the Night Garden. If I’d had the page count, I would have included a custom lair, so I wanted to share the map art for it now (and celebrate ranking #5 in the jam!).

    Towering mushrooms choke the slick, wet rubble of a once great courtyard; rain gathers in still, dust-covered pools around a tree-covered hill.

    • Mushrooms. Stinging pollen, very flammable. Stray sparks or torches might cause an explosion (2d6 damage). 25% chance/round when Near.
    • Courtyard. Walls are 30′ high, a fountain in its center. Coiled around the hill is the Dream Wyrm.
    • Pools. Covered in the Dream Wyrm’s sleep dust. Offers total cover from this attack when a PC is submerged completely.

    Dream Wyrm
    Elongated body, twig-like limbs, insectoid maw. Carries an evershifting Night Garden in its wake and hoards the souls of those trapped within.
    AC 15, HP 58, ATK 2 rend +8 (2d12) or 1 sleep dust, MV double near (fly)
    S +4, D +4, C +3, I +4, W +4, Ch +3, AL C, LV 12
    Sleep Dust. Fills a near-sized cube extending from Dream Wyrm. DC 15 CON or 1d6 CON damage. Targets who fail by 5+ points fall into a deep slumber until harmed or woken. At 0 CON, targets die
    and rise as a ghost (p. 217) trapped forever in the Night Garden.

    • Elusive. Avoids direct combat. Watches prey from the
      shadows, waiting for them to sleep.
    • Benevolent God. Can see through plants and animals in the Night Garden. Regards itself as a gentle shepherd guiding lost souls to peace. Unreasoning.
    • Vain. CHA checks to deceive it with flattery are Easy (DC 9).

    GM Tip: Keep the Dream Wyrm’s tactics in mind. It isn’t going to stand still and get pounded by four or five PCs. It will likely try to retreat into adjacent rooms filled with other hazards and monsters, but this lair gives you a dynamic boss chamber to launch the encounter!

    You can find the new art in the updated Maps zip folder, along with the updated PDF for Room Cards. If you liked this adventure, let me know with a rating on itch.

  • Back to the City

    It’s been about a year since I visited Montreal and got inspired to make a borough for Electric Bastionland.

    This was my original map, but after I wrote and released two adventures for the Deep Country and Deep Water respectively, I want to zoom in a little bit and think smaller for my borough.

    Dare I say, I want to lean a little *cozier* for this borough. I want it to feel like somewhere the Players would actually want to spend time and invest in between adventures.

    Collage includes art by Master of Claude de France and Emily Noyes Vanderpoel

    Montstatique, the Borough on the Coast

    Nonnegotiables. (1) The entire borough will be visible in a detailed, isometric map. The dollhouse perspective oozes charm, and I want the Players to be able to imagine themselves walking every step of this borough. (2) For the first time, I want to do hand-drawn portraits of each NPCs. I’ve really been into having quotes for NPCs to show off their character, so I’ll put those over each portrait like it’s video game dialogue text. (3) A mystery that involves each major location in the borough, if only in a small way.

    (8) Park and Statue. Brutalist. A monument to nothing, really, but taken care of by the locals (who only work a few hours a week). A man throws a ball for his disinterested hound.

    Montstatique West. A massive warehouse and boardwalk slough into the sea, it’s the home of the Machinists’ Union. A small, sheltered streetcar station in its shadow (the streetcar enters and exits a tunnel to the city and continues southbound toward the harbour–concrete steps into darkness; a steel door to the Underground. A 24-hour grocery store called Kwiki-Stop with two apartments above (tilting balconies overlook the park).

    Central Montstatique. The mountain and a museum at its peak. It’s a collapsing wooden mansion, a radio tower juts out on top. The Mountain Broadcast Compay operates from here, surrounded by steep hills and overgrown, sealed-off ruins. At the base, there’s a park and a statue. A hydraulic bridge crosses the canal (its controls locked inside an operator’s booth). The ruined gondola marks the bike path to the mountain’s peak. There’s a middle tower and hanging passenger cabin just above the trees.

    Montstatique East. At the edge of the canal, there’s a ramp toward the tunnel (a long drive to the Deep Country). Traffic is perpetually backed-up. Baby Cool Boutique is a clothing store and cafeteria popular with the locals. There’s rooms for rents upstairs and a sketchy basement weapons’ dealer below. Further east are ruins draped in beautiful textiles; the homes of local fishers and artisans (they hide many routes to the Underground and the hidden lair of the Canal Syndicate).

    Key Locations

    1. Boardwalk.
    2. Warehouse.
    3. Warehouse Rooftop.
    4. Streetcar Station/Steps to Underground.
    5. Kwiki-Stop.
    6. Apartment A.
    7. Apartment B.
    8. Park and Statue.
    9. Lift-lock.
    10. Operator’s Booth.
    11. Ramp.
    12. Bike Path.
    13. Ruined Gondola.
    14. Abandoned Gondola.
    15. Museum.
    16. Radio Tower.
    17. Forest Graveyard.
    18. Baby Cool Boutique.
    19. Basement Weapon Store.
    20. Ruins/Rooftop Garden.

    Factions

    Mountain Broadcasting Company. Revolutionary youths broadcast weird hypnoses over radio waves. Recently they stole machine parts from the Union. They’re funded by the Syndicate through fronts throughout the borough.

    Machinists’ Union. Consultants ritualistically rearranging the tangled wires of the broken-down gondola and interpreting divine providence from their everchanging conduction patterns. They’re contractually funded by the City of Bastion for another half-century.

    Canal Syndicate. The Canal is ruled by subterranean monster-men hoarding treasure in the Underground. They deal in hallucinogenic river eels and smuggled goods. Recently they sabotaged the Highway Tunnel to try to seize control of the borough.

    The Mystery/Spoilers for an Adventure-not-yet-written

    A body inside the gondola passenger cabin. It’s the Professor, a newly-elected city councilor and a sympathizer of the MBC. He’s found well dressed, but no shoes and no watch. There’s a hole in his forehead, and £125 in his jacket pocket.

    Before he was the Professor he was a regular customer of the Canal Syndicate who tried a new drug called slug. He opted for 100% purity, insisting he could handle it (he could not). The slug moved to his brain, hijacking control of his body. The slug-man was elected Councilor of the borough, and led the MBC. When they upgraded their radio technology, the slug burst from the Professor’s head (at the base of the trail). The Machinists who witnessed it moved the body to avoid any further issues with the locals (and maybe to blame the revolutionary youths?).

    One of the Machinists, a young fisher brought in for his talent with rope, recognized the situation as involving the Canal Syndicate and ran (is still missing?). The Machinists stashed the body on the gondola passenger cabin at the top of the mountain. When the MBC youth discovered the body, they pushed the gondola down (but took the melted shoes and expensive watch). And I want one of the machinists to be a big, big guy who carries machinery on his back while he cycles. He took the body to the top of the hill, leaving deep gouges in the mud.

  • Liminal Horror, at the Shelterwood Inn

    Last night I played Liminal Horror for the first time, opting to run the starting scenario Stopover at the Shelterwood Inn for 3 of my friends. Generally, it went pretty well and after so many years of running Into the Odd-likes, the rules were pretty easy to wrap my head around.

    *I only read the rules once before playing: it seems to me like the main difference was the way the game handles critical damage. In Liminal Horror, critical damage causes wounds that are rolled for on a table (like in Mothership). Damage against a target’s WIL–in this game called CTRL–is referred to as stress and if a PC suffers critical damage from stress they roll on a fallout table and suffer a thematic effect. I was impressed to see that the starting adventure included its own fallout table unique to this scenario, which is something I hope is included in every Liminal Horror adventure.

    All of that is to say that like in Mothership, Liminal Horror PCs are normal people who might panic and break down. This is handled really eloquently with the bones of Into the Odd and, in my opinion, is far superior to the way it’s handled in Mothership.

    Art by Goblin Archives

    I ran the adventure with very little prep, even by my own standards. Specifically, I read the adventure for the first time the morning of my session and then I skimmed it once more about 15 minutes before we played. I didn’t take any notes during my prep; the adventure is so well-formatted I’m not sure what I would have even written if I had.

    I did spend about 30 minutes drawing a more printable map, though.

    Art by Goblin Archives

    I loved the pixel art one included in the adventure, but when I tried to print it with my black and white printer it turned into a formless blob. Like I’ve said before–drawing the map helps me meditate on how I will present the adventure to the players. But still, I made a crucial mistake that cut a lot of the tension from my session…

    The mistake? I made the undercover agents too approachable, when they should have been a deadly threat. A shoot-first, ask questions later kind of threat. Think, the Working Joes in Alien: Isolation.

    *** I’m about to spoil the adventure below but I think if you’re planning on running the adventure, it’s worth learning from my mistake.

    So my players had just entered the A-frame lobby of the Shelterwood Inn. They found the door locked, and one of the undercover agents lets them in. He’s posing as the motel owner, but he’s actually an agent of the bureau here to clean up some Stephen King shit that’s going sideways in the basement. The actual owners of the motel are mold-people now, kind of like in Resident Evil 7, lurking in the dank waters of the cistern below the motel’s basement.

    Art by Goblin Archives

    So the man posing as the owner, Otis, locks the PCs in the Honeymoon Suite. Presumably to keep them out of harm’s way. They quickly broke out and snuck around to the back of the motel. After exploring for a while, discovering Otis is lying about being the owner, and seeing the so-called Sheriff acting really shady, they eavesdrop on a conversation between Otis and Claire.

    Art by Goblin Archives

    This is my missed opportunity: Otis tells Claire that he locked the PCs away, and he insists on making them a meal because he can’t let them go hungry. Nice guy. That was my mistake.

    The adventure directed me to have him lock up the PCs, and that’s a great idea, but how Claire should have responded is this: “Otis, you were supposed to kill them. This is why they shouldn’t send the PR team into the field…” and give explicit orders to kill the PCs on site.

    That would be scarier, and consistent with a clandestine agency bent on keeping more people from turning into mold.

    Art by Goblin Archives

    Once my players caught on to the idea that there was a bigger horror, they convinced the surviving undercover agents to team up with them and torch the big bad–Mr. Roosevelt–with Molotovs and shotgun blasts.

    In the end, we had a great session. My players loved the highway setting–truly liminal, like the game promises, and the novelty of role-playing as regular people in is still really thrilling for most of my players.

  • Public Access, and why you might skip it

    Art by the Gauntlet

    I want to love this game, but there are three things I wish I knew before starting a short campaign–and one reason I was glad when it was over.

    The tldr is this: I have mixed feelings about Public Access, I give 6.5 Odyssey Tapes out of 10. And if Public Access looks cool to you, you should absolutely run it–especially if you’re a new GM or running your first multi-session campaign. If you’re an experienced GM with an established flow and prep style, you might struggle with its rigidity and its eventual dissolve into tonal whiplash.

    1. It’s too much paperwork.

    I spent too much game time flipping through notes. Because Carved from Brindlewood clues are established reactively during play, completed mysteries still held crucial narrative threads for future sessions. Running this from folded papers and napkin notes quickly became a mess, and I repeatedly missed roleplay beats while hunting for buried, player-generated facts.

    2. It’s not actually rules-light.

    Between inventory, Side Character perks, past adventure rewards, Conditions, and Keys, players have a surprisingly large ledger to track. During tense moments, I found myself breaking character to nudge players to utilize all their abstract mechanical resources.

    3. The GM doesn’t get to roll.

    I missed running characters with set drives and concrete failure conditions. Because the game relies so heavily on improv-driven truth, even an NPC’s core nature is fluid until a clue or roll locks it in. I found myself gravitating toward hazards like Darryl Rodenbecker over Side Characters simply because hazards possessed stable, fully realized definitions.

    All that Being Said…

    These design choices are all undeniably intentional. The system gets you 85% of the way to a unique aesthetic with minimal traditional prep. So if you love constructing conspiracy boards and cross-referenced journals, you’ll probably adore it. And for first-time GMs Carved from Brindlewood guidance belongs on the required reading list alongside the Mothership Warden’s Operations Manual.

    Art by the Gauntlet

    Why I’m Glad It’s Over

    I ran Public Access for 10 Sessions. As our campaign progressed, each session yielded less joy for me than the last. Reading this review by Fail Forward helped me identify the source of my dissatisfaction: tonal whiplash. Fail Forward notes that the overarching narrative is “a romp to a degree that no other part of the game is. It’s a slasher at best, and a comedy action-flick in a Spirit Halloween at worst”–and my table proved that right.

    In Session 3, as my players were searching for the Black Leaf Circle, a failed check brought one if its members Godpanther through a staticky, dimensional door. I asked Timothy’s player to make a Day Move to avoid being overpowered by the cultist. Timothy invoked his wallet-chain for advantage, whipped Godpanther across the face, and sent the sorcerer-cultist fleeing in pain. It had an awkward, Coen Brothers/Barry violence to it that was fun in isolation, but it completely drained the cult of its cosmic threat going into future encounters. Later, when two latchkey kids literally stomped the amusement park anomaly from Starlight Kingdom to death, my ability to maintain analog horror-atmospheric tension collapsed entirely.

    Like Fail Forward put it: “it’s the Mystery Gang tripping up an eldritch abomination with a wet bar of soap.”

    Nagging Thoughts

    All of this leaves me with more questions about the medium:

    • Can pure horror ever survive player agency in TTRPGs, or is camp inevitable? When players have strong mechanical tools to fight back or manipulate narrative reality, tension naturally degrades into action-comedy.
    • High-impact moves vs. Slow-burn dread. Analog horror relies on unexplainable, lingering dread. But PBTA engine design rewards high-impact choices and immediate resolution–two mechanics that actively undermine slow-burn fear.
    • Designed to end. I deeply respect that Public Access has a finite campaign arc. Too many games assume infinite modular play. I only wish the game’s finale was designed with the same eerie restraint as its opening act.

    Lessons I’m Stealing

    Despite my bouncing off its rigid campaign structure, Public Access left me with three brilliant design ideas I plan to steal for my next campaign. If anything, playing it reignited my excitement for emergent, serialized play.

    1. Have players define the consequence before they roll.

    This is tailor-made for high-stakes games like Mothership or Into the Odd, where rolling is a desperate last resort or a save against guaranteed harm. Pitching compelling, fail-forward complications on the fly is mentally exhausting for a GM. Asking players “What goes wrong if this fails?” before the dice hit the table completely shifts that cognitive load. If their proposed consequence feels too tame for you, you can always “yes, and…” it to dial up the danger but at least they’ve gotten your gears turning.

    2. Leave structural gaps in your prep for player theorycrafting.

    Leaving mysteries unresolved and incorporating player theories into the lore is S-tier advice that many GMs admire but struggle to practice without a net. Certainly that was the case for me. While the Carved from Brindlewood framework ultimately felt too rigid for my GMing style, its core principle is invaluable: leaving explicit blank spaces in your campaign prep forces the spotlight to remain firmly on the players’ observations and hypotheses.

    3. Reserve two-thirds of session time for predictable, player-driven play.

    The structural contrast between Day and Night phases creates a fantastic gameplay rhythm. During the Day, players drive the action, their plans generally succeed, and they explore their own personal agendas without constant threat. At Night, the dark forces retaliate and failure carries sharp teeth. You don’t need a rigid phase set up to accomplish this. For example:

    • Dungeon Crawls: Safe town prep and wilderness travel serve as the “Day,” while deep dungeon delves become the high-stress “Night.”
    • Sci-Fi Horror / Mothership: Routine maintenance, cargo runs, and shore leave represent the predictable “Day” before things inevitably collapse into horror.

    Giving players a generous, reliable window of low-threat agency makes the eventual turn to high-stakes danger hit much harder, and allows them to express a lot of agency.

  • A Jam packed summer

    Woof. I’m tired. I’ve been rating entries for the Appendix N Jam like a dog.

    Here’s a non-exhaustive list of some of my favorites so far:

    Art by Pietro Longhi

    You might have noticed that most of my favorites are among the best-looking adventures posted. Real 5-star visual designers. Does that make me shallow? Illiterate? Maybe.

    But aren’t visuals also design? And are we not designers first?

    It’s been a little disorienting looking at so many adventures presented in so many different ways. Each one a puzzle box until the moment its designer’s intent reveals itself like so many plump little pearls rising from a bed of muck. Busy pages, low contrast, baffling color choices. Yuck.

    It’s like some designers treat the single page of a jam like an exam cheat sheet: cramming every line from the textbook onto every square centimeter.

    My guy, it has to be legible.

    Why are so many indie adventures so hard to look at?

    I wasn’t really planning on making anything else this summer, I’ve been busy enough finishing my campaign of Public Access (speaking of baffling decisions: why didn’t I read that campaign before committing to run it? But, more on that in another post…) and trying to make the most of the very short summers in my corner of the realm. But, when RedMageGM announced he was hosting a Mystic Wood OSR Adventure Jam based on the Lost Woods/Mirkwood from the Legend of Zelda/the Hobbit I knew I had to join the jam. I’ve already designed a randomized open-air dungeon; I knew I could make something even better by leaning into the fairytale/folklore vibes for this jam. The idea came basically fully formed.

    I knew from the hop I wanted to evoke an old Gameboy vibe. I remembered that in a live stream Chris McDowall referred to Alec Sorensen’s art as “Gameboy colours” so I looked at the botanical borders on each page of Mythic Bastionland for the basis of my palette.

    After drawing the Campsite and Spirit Village, the style guide was locked in, leaving me free to simply draw and imagine what became of this once-great kingdom. The narrative grew naturally from the art.

    I’ve often said that visuals lead my design process, but it actually runs deeper than that. Visuals don’t arrive fully formed but they emerge through a kind of meditation. Spending hours in a state of flow over a single drawing allows ideas to simmer until they feel as grounded and genuine as real-world memories. Drawing the world doesn’t just illustrate it; it makes it real. And once a place becomes real, designing it feels entirely intuitive.

    The adventure is free on itch.io, you can check it out right here. Even if the adventure itself has no appeal to you, I’m sure these 20 map tiles could be arranged into a fun open-air dungeon of your own making.

  • Embrace Cringe

    You know what’s cringe? Falling in love. Telling your friends that you value them. Getting earnestly excited about your hobbies. Being vulnerable with others.

    You know what else is cringe? Asking acquaintances in your life to play ttrpgs with you, and getting over the fear of mixing different groups of people in your life over a shared hobby.

    It’s pretty cringe to go up to someone and ask them what kind of fiction they like, to talk to them about their favourite books and music and movies in an earnest, curious way and then invite them to try a social, collaborative storytelling game. You might have to explain that these games often lean into pulpy, action-movie stakes. It’s just an excuse to solve wild problems we’d never encounter at our day jobs. Plus, you get to do funny voices–you don’t have to, but you can if you want to (I do when I’m inspired to).

    You get to practice being a hero, it’s pretty cringe.

    Art by Claudine Bouzonnet-Stella, Jacques Stella

    If you’re looking for players, you need to ask the people that you know and meet them where they’re at. A lot of them might surprise you. I play regularly thanks to advice from articles like the open table manifest by the Alexandrian.

    It’s pretty cringe to be worried about how you look if you’re doing what you love.

  • Warriors of the Bleached Basin

    My submission to the Appx. N Jam 2026 is now live on itch.io, you can check it out right here. The adventure turned out differently from my initial thoughts once I got to the art phase of the project. I thought it could be a fun exercise to compare how my ideas translated to the page, and dig into why I made the choices that I did.

    I was limited to four A5 pages (in other words, both sides of a single, letter-sized piece of paper), so let’s take a look at each page in order.

    Cover Page

    I knew I wanted a cover page, despite it occupying 25% of the available space. I originally thought I would draw one of the industrialists from Timber Town wielding a fire whipper and keeping a couple of reptilian warriors at bay, but none of those ideas made it into the final draft and when I started diving into public domain illustrations of corals, I fell in love with the alien vibe Philip Henry Gosse’s 1856 illustrations brought to the cover. The font and color contrast helps sell the science-fantasy vibes without many words.

    But there are still words. I wrote previously about the good use of verbs in the Cairn adventure, In a Petal Unlimited, so I wanted to make sure my cover page also provided a clear hook: find the treasure.

    I had wanted to offer six hooks as an opportunity to expand the worldbuilding, but decided not to; I’d prefer more of my precious word count be spent on describing the setting and its inhabitants knowing that an inspired GM could find other implied hooks. I’m a big fan of iceberg theory.

    Dungeon Key

    Originally, I thought the entire adventure would be a wilderness crawl, but after pushing my ideas into the proverbial brown-bag of the back of my mind to let them ripen, I decided that a tight, five-room dungeon could offer a lot of narrative in a limited amount of words.

    I had always planned on there being a couple of adventure locations on the map, but I combined the ancient lighthouse and warriors’ temple ideas into a single location and cut anything that didn’t add to the story.

    I don’t usually add “if this, then that” type text to my adventures, but since this one is designed to be a one-shot I thought it would be fun to add some world-changing stakes. The Ritual also ties in Yager-yugh from the final page, and offers a potential moral dilemma for outsider player characters not endeared to Timber Town.

    Maybe it’s just me, but I find the Sea Witch much more sympathetic than the folks of Timber Town given our real-world man-made ecological apocalypse is already well underway.

    Dungeon

    My favourite thing about isometric dungeon maps, besides their dollhouse-like vibes, is the way they communicate verticality. I really wanted to lean into that with this statue trap, set up by the Warriors to get the jump on anyone from Timber Town (or other nosy explorers) looking to rob the temple or interrupt the ritual.

    The isometric perspective also makes it very clear how all of the rooms connect, which is important when my word-count is so limited. I didn’t have to spend any time describing how a fall from 3 leads straight through 4 to 5; it’s clear in the visual design.

    Back Cover

    This is the first page I finished and it’s actually the closest to my original post. It was while working on the drawing of the Bleached Basin that many of my ideas calcified, while the rest fell away like brittle, grasping fingers of bleached coral. For me, I discovered, the visuals lead. Without the pressure to put my ideas into words, and with hours ahead of me to draw, think, refine, and draw again, the entire setting *develops* in my mind like a photograph darkening to reveal itself.

    I’m most proud of this final page, really, because it communicates so much about the harsh reality of living in this place with very few words.

    Conclusion

    I’m really happy with how this adventure came out, and I’m grateful to the Appx. N Jam judges for taking a look at it. This isn’t something I would have come up with if it weren’t for the imaginative prompt I was provided with and all of the awesome inspiration I was filled with looking at last year’s submissions.