TTRPG Newsletter

RPG Fall 2024

Orange tinted lantern with falling snow, camera lens toward sky.
Orange tinted lantern with falling snow, camera lens toward sky.

This article title is not so creative but hey, I'm gonna give this something worthwhile to read, right?

Reading Points:

  • Reach of the Roach God (Virtual)
  • Desert Moon of the Karth (PBP)
  • You Nameless Scum (Community-voting-based PBP)
  • The Rot King (PBP)
  • List of idle stuff

It had been a while since I posted updates. As usual, I have been focused on doing life stuff and wasn’t able to get back on track lately.

I thought it’d be nice to show some progress for what I had done in the past 3 months so far. Beware, the post is long to read and the reading points are provided above. Let’s dive into it.

Rust red outlined roaches on the darker yellow background, "Reach of the Roach God"
Rust red outlined roaches on the darker yellow background, "Reach of the Roach God"

Reach of the Roach God (Virtual)

I started a new campaign since my past campaigns are on hiatus, which are understandable. Hey, it’s part of the norm, right?

I was excited to explore more of the Reach of the Roach God that allows me to see some snapshots of its motif. Considering how it was structured, I was pleased to rediscover new information each time I reread during my session preps. Sadly, it is a shame to see the spirit of the Reach of the Roach God divorcing with its star-crossed deity, but the generations of the stories stand strong.

Our latest session ended with realizing that an entity was livid and realistic to leave some lingering thoughts behind. This would not be done without watching an old movie, Nang Nak - thanks, the wisdom-sharing spirit! We are looking forward to the next session where we will be learning more about the lake shrouded in a mystery next year.

Desert Moon of the Karth, a monstrous squid-like figure with cliff on right side.
"Desert Moon of the Karth", a monstrous squid-like figure with cliff on right side.

Desert Moon of the Karth (PBP)

I wrapped up the play-by-post (pbp) campaign using Mothership with the module, Desert Moon of the Karth by Joel Hines, Sliverarm. Man, his works amazed me with its faction intratices of the world and I endlessly enjoyed flipping up pages more than once. My pbp format was hybrid where we agreed on playing asynchronously (async) and synchronously (sync) though we ended up going down a sync route near the end.

We started at the seahorse mine where we learned some fun facts about the Wigoy - who wouldn’t want to kill the innocent organism? The party was hired by Colonel Marshall to rescue the trapped Dawnseekers, but they ended up getting trapped by the “little” accidental explosion caused by an unknown source instead. Along their journey, they were forced to confront their fears and anxieties, including intimate moments that created an everlasting impact on their working relationships forever. There was even a moment where a player went martyr out of guilt for what caused the release of the berserk Wigoy. We had a different player who experienced three deaths in a row while the remaining lone player worked so hard to survive only to die in an unimaginable possible way: death by their own panic attack before the cave-in started. Along the way, my group did learn more about the lore of the Dawnseekers, which turned out to be much more interesting than before.

Three faceless corpses hung on the tree, "You Nameless Scum"
Three faceless corpses hung on the tree, "You Nameless Scum"

You Nameless Scum (Community-voting-based PBP)

After not playing for a while, I had an itch as well as a need for more creative juice. Not just that, I needed a serious mental break from managing social media during the day. I decided to look up some sort of “choose-your-own-adventure” (CYOA) game and I happened to find this gamebook, You Nameless Scum by Rynoch using Mörk Borg. Given no experience in running CYOA or even solo-type games, I decided to give it a try with a minor modification where I wanted a community involved with picking options and rolling dice.

You Nameless Scum started with a single character with its sheet and this scum started out with no name. As some choices were made to progress the story, the scum finally gained a title, “Follower of the Shadow Lord” only to die by the ear-piercing wailing of hanged corpses as soon as they chose to attack the oak tree. Ouch. The readers managed to come up with some conspiracy theories about those hanged corpses and..well, wax. The working theory for the wax was the corpse recycling at the moment the scum “tickles” the corpses’ feet and the wax became sentient to pull them in. Another theory about the hanged corpses was the anglerfish approach under assumption that the oak tree being sentient shares consciousness with those corpses.

From what I learned so far, I would say that this gamebook was great for me to run though I still have a long way to go to modify further and fit in the community using voting approach better. If you are curious about how the voting works exactly, check out MeatCastle’s past works in hosting the Play-by-Blog games on Tumblr!

An outlined gemstone on the left side and a bird bone-masked figure with a hood, "The Rot King's Sanctum"
An outlined gemstone on the left side and a bird bone-masked figure with a hood, "The Rot King's Sanctum"

The Rot King's Sanctum (PBP)

After my Mothership PBP campaign ended, my player wanted to tackle the experience of running Old-School Essentials with an adventure, The Rot King's Sanctum by Emiel Boven (prior to new updates with DURF version). I gave them my support as a player and engaged in sync PBP style since it worked best for our table.

My DM was in the process of trying out new RPGs after experiencing a DM burnout from handling the giant red dragon. I provided them with my support though as it turned out, they did a great job running it! Most memorable moments were the copper arm from the grinning statue and the touching moment between the player (son), and the father during the father's monologue. Without going too much detail into it, I can attest that adventure seemed fun to play - check out if you can.

The only twist I experienced was my Magic-User character that I decided to play with the concept of being baker. Sybil Knibbs is a strongarm baker with a good taste in the long-forgotten library, Knowrooting where they would carry their long, hard stale bread like their staff and well, some rations filled with barely not-moldy fresh bread croutons. Their spellbook was the cooking book to read aloud before they could cast a spell. I toyed with the character concept just to add some fun elements to the game except that part where Sybil nearly died once from being stabbed. Never mess with a cultist, for sure.

That's the gist of what I have been doing so far. Hopefully, I'll be able to share more updates soon! Psss...check out the Cougar Crossroad I made for the Twisted Classics Jam.

Stay warm and enjoy the rest of year!

Idle Stuff with different electronic devices, book, and dice
Idle Stuff with different electronic devices, book, and dice

List of idle stuff

Reading

  • Battle Drum by Saara El-Arifi
  • The Ending Fire by Saara El-Arifi
  • The Lotus Empire by Tasha Suri

Video Games

  • Sea of Stars by Sabotage Studio
  • Voice of the Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars by Alim, Square Enix
  • Voice of the Cards: The Forsaken Maiden by Alim, Square Enix [Ongoing]

TTRPG Reading

Ongoing Campaigns

Read more