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Today’s prompt for RPG a Day 2025 is Mystery, and mysteries are hard!

All facetiousness aside, running a tabletop role-playing game mystery can be difficult, and we’ve been trying to do it almost since the start of the hobby.

When I think about mysteries, I think of Call of Cthulhu (CoC). Published in 1981, I first played it in 1988 or thereabouts. My good friend Luis Miranda (whom I’ve mentioned previously in the blog) and I love the game. There were many challenges when playing CoC. Miss a Library Use roll? You don’t get that critical clue. I remember the adventure where we got lost in the forest. None of us could navigate, and we couldn’t read a map or a compass. We were lost in a large and very expansive forest, paraphrasing the musical Spamalot, and when we got back to the mine (I think it was a mine), the cultists had fled, the adventure was over, and we failed.

Play this video for the full effect of the previous paragraph!

This conundrum is by no means exclusive to CoC. Around 2008, twenty years later, I stumbled upon a post-apocalyptic game at a FLGS. I think it was a Gamma Worlds game via D20 Modern, but I may be wrong. There were elements of Fallout as players woke up in a vault and tried to escape. The players kept making roll after roll and missing, unable to find a way out of the vault. Their frustration mounted, and the GM sat there and waited for the players to solve whatever puzzle or combination of actions he had predetermined was the way out of the vault. I stood up and left frustrated, and I wasn’t even playing the game. I can’t imagine the players!

Between those events, I read the Gumshoe system. I picked up The Esoterrorists on my first visit to Gen Con, and while reading it, I wondered: Do we need a system built to run investigative scenarios? Are the problems proposed here real? I had been lucky in retrospect, not to have many games grind to a halt due to a bad roll, but after reflecting upon it, and seeing the game mentioned above, I became convinced Gumshoe was right.

You’d be surprised to know, I’ve never run a Gumshoe based game, despite owning various, The Esoterrorists, Ashen Stars, Trail of Cthulhu. If you want a rule summary, Pelgrane Press provides one here. However, I’ve embraced the philosophy behind the game and not made the clues to solve a mystery depend only on a single die roll. Share the information, let the players interpret clues, and keep the investigation going, which may ultimately solve the mystery.  

Just like Luis Miranda was my classic CoC Keeper, these days my go-to, favorite horror games GM is my good friend and current player at our weekly gaming group, José Garcia. I may have to ask him to run Trial of Cthulhu.

How do you handle mysteries in your games? What’s your favorite rule system or sub-system within a rule set you deal with mysteries? I’d love to read about your experiences and ideas; feel free to share them in the comments or tag me wherever you share them. If you choose to join in the conversation, don’t forget to include the #RPGaDay2025 hashtag so the community can find your contribution.

 This is where we've gotten a royal cult that's forces almost ambushed our party. We pick up from last time here on the blog. This session picks right up from August sixth and now our party is deep in the middle of the wilderness. And then we had guerrilla fighters with short bows looking to pick off our guys. We sniped several of their bowmen and they had our adventurers in a Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

I know what many of you reading this are saying - I already know how to DM! Why do I need to read a book to tell me how to do it better? I've been a DM for nearly 45 years, and I am still learning new tricks.

Today's Deal of the Day is Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master from SlyFlourish on sale for $4 (normally 7.99). I already own this, or else I'd be all over it :)

Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master is a book designed to help fantasy roleplaying Gamemasters get more out of their games by preparing less. Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master uses the experiences of thousands of GMs to help us focus on how we prepare our games, how we run our games, and how we think about our games.

Refined for five years after the release of the Lazy Dungeon Master, Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master is a complete stand-alone book that includes practical steps for focusing our preparation activities on those things that will bring the biggest impact to our game.

Backed by over 6,700 backers on Kickstarter and based on research involving hundreds of books, videos, articles, and interviews with top Gamemasters, as well as thousands of results from Gamemaster surveys, Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master helps us understand the best tips and tricks used by GMs all over the world to bring the most fun to our games.

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By A. Umbral
Cthonic Creations
OSR
Level 1

Beneath the shadowed walls of Crow’s Keep, treason festers in whispered secrets and quiet deals. The war-weary King Uldred fights to hold his crumbling throne, while unseen forces conspire in the dark corners of noble halls. The city’s watchful Reeve has sent word to a handful of expendable operatives—those desperate enough to gamble their fate on a mission veiled in secrecy. Their charge? To infiltrate an uncharted cave deep in the foothills, where a bandit faction has taken root. But steel alone will not be enough. Beneath the carved ruins of forgotten empires, something far older stirs. A hidden temple lies buried under the earth, its walls heavy with serpentine scripture, its chambers thick with the weight of ancient curses. Lady Rinwolde’s network has already reached this place, her spies clawing at long-lost relics of unfathomable power. Blood will spill in the darkness. Trust will be tested in the fires of ambition. And in the ruins where mortal and monster meet, the truth is as sharp as the blades that gleam in the dying torchlight. Will you uncover the mystery before Crow’s Keep collapses into war? Or will you vanish beneath the earth, another forgotten name swallowed by history?

This thirty page adventure uses about four pages to describe about 45 rooms across two levels of a bandit lair/snakeman temple. Abstracted and minimalistic in the dungeon, while trying its best to hit all of the marks of a good adventure. I am generally left confused on the choices made for an adventure outline.

Communicating the vibe of something is hard. I generally push in to hyperbole, trusting that my intelligent, good looking, and humble readers can follow along. In this case, what if you had a Vampire Queen dungeon of 45 rooms over a few pages, that really aggressive minimalism that showed up there. And, then, as preamble I stuck in a modern intro and hex crawl and then in the appendix included a massive rumor table and monster stats and lore and so on. There would be this massive disconnect, right, between the amount of detail that The Main Event has vs the supporting information. It’s not that the dungeon MUST be the main event; it could be a village social thing or it could be a hex crawl thing, with the goal being a small dungeon or some such with The Thing in it you want to get. In these cases it would make more sense for more effort to be spent on the hex crawl or the social village elements or some such. But, if the dungeoncrawl IS the adventure then I must point out the obvious disconnect. COULD you write a five page dungeon that is great inside of thirty pages? Sure. Does this? No.

Ok, you’re level ones and the default hook is that the local reeve is sending you to check out some bandit caves. Seems you’re convicts and you get a pardon if you do well, whatever that is. You’re sent to spy, learn information, and so on. Absolutely nothing in the adventure is going to help you do that, that’s unsupported in every way, but that’s the pretext. You’re taken by a ferryman (with some decent read-aloud, all in italics, alas, but nicely done) across the water to your start point. You’ve got three days of iron rations and he’s coming back for you in five days, no more no less, and not waiting around for you. You’ve got a two day “hex crawl” in front of you till you reach the bandit lair. This is all looking a little rough for level ones … a strict timeline doesn’t really mesh well with the hit and run away vibe of squishy characters. It’s a very structured “hex crawl” in that the DM is essentially rolling for wanderers at the appropriate time but everything else is very controlled. Roll on the weather table. Heal a HP if the night was chill, you enter a mountain hex, etc. The wandering monster table for the dungeon is also a bit more than I expected. “1 Escaped Prisoner – caught by bandits. Could be adventurers, possibly allies.” or “Standing Water in Passage – water pit, 5 feet deep. Slows characters. “ These are both ok things. I’m in a pretty pleasant mood at this point and looking forward to the dungeon.

Then comes the dungeon map. This is a half page thing, full color, mage in Dungeongrapher or some such. Lots of textures and tables and shit on the map. It’s a disaster. Too small, too much detail and overlapping textures. There’s no real complexity to the map, but, also, it’s barely legible, which is a problem.

Next up comes a summary of the various rooms in the dungeon. This is something I sometimes come across. I understand the goal, but I think it seldom works out the way the designer wants. In this case, it’s presented in two column table format. The first table column has a room name and maybe a couple of details why the second table column has a few notes about the room. “Entrance Tunnel” and then “Narrow stone passage littered with old bones of animals. A makeshift barricade with a single guard.” So, sure, that’s fine. Sometimes the first column has a few more details, things that might be obvious to be seen and so on. 

Oh. 

Wait.

That’s not a summary.

That’s the actual dungeon.

Mind you, room two, which I’m about to quote, is INSIDE a cave: “Guard Watchpost – each tower has a Bandit Guard “ That’s the first column. Then column two of the table says “Elevated overlook where scouts track movement. Two small wooden towers.” Repetition. Minimalism. Abstraction. Sometimes monsters (bandits) show up in column one. Sometimes in column two. There are never more than a sentence or so of words. “12 Hall of Murals “ and “Bandits have partially uncovered ancient serpentfolk murals-some have begun whispering in their sleep. “ These are ideas, not encounters. You’re stabbing folks. There’s no infiltration here, there are not supporting notes for that of any type. Stab Stab Stab! Sure that’s fine, I guess. Sometimes. 

How about an EXTENSIVE rumor table! “Whispers from the Past” – “Superstition” “True (Cave Wraiths whisper in lost languages, and some bandits are driven to madness)” Uh. What? What’s the purpose of the rumor title? Am I missing something? There’s two fucking pages of these. I don’t know, forty, fifty of them? Like I said, a minimalism dungeon supported by everything you would want in a lot of detail. But, in a weird fucking way. I’m not sure I know how to use that rumor table. It’s like the heading title is supposed to have more information or something? But it doesn’t? I don’t know.

One of the rooms has a trap. “Door Locked with a simple trap.” That’s it. You want to know what the trap is? Do the work yourself I guess. No order of battle. No infiltration notes. No real tricks or traps, given a definition of what a trick or trap would generally be agreed to. 

Unless you REALLY know what you’re doing, pay attention to the main adventure. That’s where your effort should go. I’m at a loss as to how that can be a mystery, but, there you go.

This is $10 at DriveThru. The preview is seven pages. You get to see the intro, hex crawl, and the first seven rooms. No, that’s not a summary. That’s roughly 20% of the dungeons rooms. Good preview?

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/530730/cursed-blood-and-cold-steel?1892600

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at comics that were published on August 16, 1984.

Legion of Super-Heroes #4: The plan of the Legion of Super-Villains is revealed as they cause Orando to be transported to another universe.  While the Legionnaires back in the main universe are at a loss, Light Lass escapes, regaining her lightning powers once more, and frees her captured comrades. In a life-or-death combat with Nemesis Kid, Karate Kid is pushed to his limited, but assistance from Projectra allows him to destroy the villain's plant-moving device, returning Orando to the mainstream universe--but at the cost of his life. Intense action from Levitz/Giffen and Lightle/Mahlstedt!

Batman and the Outsiders #15: Von Eeden steps in for art duties as Batman and the Outsiders are challenged to a duel against Maxie Zeus and his New Olympians during the 1984 Summer Olympics. Each of the Outsiders is paired off against a different New Olympian for a specified contest, but ultimately it turns to one-on-on combat where the Outsiders are victorious. In the meantime, Batman learns what Maxie is after: all this was so Zeus could provide his daughter, Medea, with a mother figure. He just intended to do it by kidnapping an Olympic athlete. When the truth is revealed, Lacinia agrees to take care of Medea, and Zeus is willingly taken to the authorities.

Blue Devil #6: This is done-in-one that keeps up the humorous tone but doesn't really deal with the ongoing story elements, other than Dan Cassidy getting used to his condition. On the planet Maldor, two ne'er-do-well aliens, Jorji and Lehni (get it?), are running from the robot cops and accidentally go through a transport portal to Earth. There, they mistake Blue Devil for a cop, and get into a brawl at a studio party, until the robot cops arrive and they have to join forces. The Cullins/Colon pairing on art for some reason doesn't work as well in the first few pages, but mid-issue they hit their stride.

Green Lantern #182: In the wake of Hal's resignation from the Corps, he visits the grave of Abin Sur (providing a chance to recap his origin). Meanwhile, the Guardians have no choice but to select a new Green Lantern. It's just in time, too, because Major Disaster attacks a dam, demanding a rematch with Green Lantern. He's angered and confused, and Hal is shocked, when John Stewart arrives as Earth's new protector.
In the Tales of the Green Lantern Corps backup by Cavalieri and Kevin O'Neil we go to the planet Grenda, where Yron is critical of the planet's fallen Green Lantern, Stel, and when the Krydos invade, also its new protector from another world. Yron thinks he could do it better, so he attacks the Lantern and demands the guy take him to Oa. Surprisingly, Yron's tactics work, and soon he's a new Green Lantern! However, when it uses his power in an attempt to save his people, he winds up harming them. This story is really made interesting by O'Neil's art that brings a 2000AD vibe to it.

Infinity, Inc. #8: We're still seeing everything the JSA members gone ruthless are doing, and the Infinitors and other Society members being unable to stop them. Green Lantern takes over the world's broadcasting airways. The Atom fights Nuklon at a nuclear reactor, and the kid loses and is apparently killed. Wonder Woman slaps around her own offspring as well as Hawkman's son before taking Steve Trevor to Paradise Island to save his life. Meanwhile, Dr. Mid-Nite and Shiera Hall search for the Ultra-Humanite, and Ultra makes a call to the Monitor.

New Talent Showcase #11: Well, there are fewer superhero stories this issue and some early (and amateurish) work by some artists that will be well known in a few years. The first of those is Tom Grindberg who is with Newell on a story of a disabled Native American(ish) boy who overcomes his disability and the prejudice of his tribe to become a great warrior after he befriends the horse of his dreams (literally): a black beauty he names Night Mare. 
The next story is a very 80s tale of a low intellectual functioning Vietnam vet who snaps and goes on a rampage after an ambitious journalist wrongly accuses him of having killed a child. It's got art by Breyfogle, but he hasn't developed his distinctive style yet. Then there's a comedic (I guess) detective piece by Timmons and Schwartz that I couldn't get into enough to tell you what happened. There's Nick O'Tyme (again). Finally, we get the follow-up to last issue's superhero story "Still Only Human," which is just as amateurish as last installment. 

Saga of Swamp Thing #30: Moore and Bissette/Alcala continue a slow build with Arcane taking time to explain to Abbie how he came to be in possession of Matt's body and Matt's reality manipulation power. Then he taunts the Swamp Thing and leads him to Abbie--who is now dead.
The most interesting thing about this story is how tied to the DCU it is. The Monitor makes an appearance. Arcane's magical power level is compared to that of the Spectre or Trigon. The Joker even gets a cameo. 

Sgt. Rock #394: In the main story, Rock and Easy get through a remarkable day without anybody dying, including any of the Germans they are in conflict with, despite Worry Wort being sure his number is up. The other stories are a short about pilot who is convinced he's got gremlins, and a tale set in ancient Rome where a group of rebellious gladiators see how a cruel Emperor likes risk his life in the arena in front of a fickle crowd.

Warlord #87: I reviewed the main story here. In the Barren Earth backup by Cohn and Randall, Jinal and friends face difficulties taking the captured Qlov back to the Sky City when they are pursued by a Qlov vessel. They are rescued by the timely arrival of the flying city of D'roz.

Thriller #12: DuBay/Niño sort of rally here at the end, I think, as things wrap up better than I might have expected from the last couple of issues. Or Dubay does. I don't know what's going on with Niño's art here, but it is just not up to his usual standards. Anyway, Lusk and friends are provoking a nuclear war to actually bring about the enlightenment of humankind and Angie seems to be helping them. There's a race against time element as the Seven Seconds work to stop things--and appear to make the bad decision to launch the U.S.'s missiles. Only they don't, because Angie has a plan and has been working Lusk. As the story closes, everyone is hopeful for a world with nuclear disarmament. 
While it's easy to criticize this rump half of the series, the truth is the first half was kind of rough, too. Thriller was always better in conception than execution. Whether with time and a sympathetic editor it could have become something great or whether Fleming's and von Eeden's reach had exceeded their grasp, we'll never know.

 Have you considered that almost everything you accept as fact is wrong?

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Hack & Slash 

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 "A collection of even more Play-Test, Teaser, and Free rulings, Classes, Items, and more for the Barrows & Borderlands TTRPG! This is a living document that will be added to as time goes on!"When it comes to Barrows & Borderlands Rpg, this game's author has been supporting the game from the ground up. Mathew Tapp has been very busy with giving his DM & player's of Barrows & Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

As far as RPG a Day 2025 goes, this has been a very musical year for me. So many prompts immediately make me think of music. The prompt for today is Darkness, and immediately, the Simon & Garfunkel song comes to mind, The Sound of Silence. The first line of the song is “Hello darkness, my old friend”.

In D&D, Darkness is such a classic spell that it’s hard not to think of it immediately. When we played AD&D 2e, my friend Pierre used to keep a Continual Darkness spell (the reverse of Continual Light) cast on a pebble, covered up, and he would uncover it for instant darkness, or throw it like a grenade. Why is Darkness such a popular and often abused spell in D&D, and is that why everyone now can see in the dark?

Globe of Darkness art by InnocentBystander19 on DeviantArt

The use of darkness in Shadowdark is one of the great things about that game. Having played the game twice already, both online, I must admit that treating darkness as an ever-present threat, ready to swallow you at every turn, is pure genius. I may not be a huge fan of dungeon crawls in general, and I genuinely believe the Shadowdark rules can handle more than just the classic dungeon crawl, as evidenced by all the flavors available from third-party publishers.

While it is likely that next time I play a fantasy game, I’d likely use the Worlds Without Number rules, I will probably port some Shadowdark rules, specifically the torch counter and how it handles darkness, to my campaign. I will play Shadowdark again!

Curiously, the first time I played Shadowdark was with the very same Pierre I mentioned above. Like a good-old-time player used to his infravision / darkvision, he resisted the idea that darkness is ever-present, that it holds the peril that will destroy you. While I initially explained it as a game mechanic to enhance the experience, I ultimately created an in-game rationale for the darkness being the danger it is. A threat that proved true when, on the first encounter in the game, the torch was snuffed, and fighting an undead in the dark felt truly horrifying.

I must say the Shadowdark is darkness made right!

If you are curious and want to read an overview of the D&D spell across D&D editions, the Dungeons & Dragons Lore Wiki has a Darkness entry that will give you an excellent overview of the Darkness-related spells. wikiHow also has a page all about darkness, how it works, and how to use it in D&D 5e.

How do you use Darkness in your game? Any stories you want to share? I’d love to read your feedback, so please leave a comment or tag me wherever you make them. If you choose to join in the conversation, don’t forget to include the #RPGaDay2025 hashtag so the community can find your contribution.

Before I go, here is another version of The Sound of Silence I like, this one by Disturbed.

There are some true classics in the early 3rd Edition DCC line of releases, and they are currently on sale.

My favorites?

Dungeon Crawl Classics #51: Castle Whiterock - usually 59.99 - now $5

Dungeon Crawl Classics #35: Gazetteer of the Known Realms - usually 29.99 - now $5

Dungeon Crawl Classics #13: Crypt of the Devil Lich - usually 14.99 - now $2

Dungeon Crawl Classics #29: The Adventure Begins - usually $19.99 - now $2 (I've used this a number of times with OSR rules - 20 1st-level adventures!

Dungeon Crawl Classics #1: Idylls of the Rat King - usually $6.99 - now $1

View the full selection here!

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Saint Terragnis, the Righteous Flame

A legendary knight who is the patron of most lawful humans, as described in the Shadowdark core rules (p. 28). She ascended to godhood long ago and is the embodiment of righteousness and justice.

Clerics, magistrates, and common folk alike still carry torches blessed in her name. Whether in tombs, trials, or the wild places where evil stirs, these flames remind all who see them that justice cannot be hidden in shadow.

Unless noted, each of these special torches burn for one hour.

Sanctifier’s Torch
Effect: While lit, unholy or cursed objects within Near glow faintly white.
Special: The bearer may touch the flame to an object or doorway, consecrating it for the torch’s duration. Any supernatural evil must succeed on a morale check to cross or touch it, even if normally immune.
Lore: Kept burning in the great cathedral where Saint Terragnis was anointed, the Sanctifier’s Torch carries the purity of her oath to the heavens. Clerics and pilgrims bring its flame to bless homes, purify battlefields, and mark sacred ground. In its presence, the air feels cleaner, and even the most jaded feel the weight of what is holy.

Rot-Eater Torch
Effect: Undead in Near lose 1 HP at the start of their turn. Corpses in Near dissolve to ash in 1 round.
Special: Lighting it immediately alerts the nearest undead to its location.
Lore: Bound in cracked bone, its pale, cold flames are kindled from the pyres of battlefields where Saint Terragnis fought. Grave-watchers carried them to deny necromancers the chance to raise their fallen. The light smells faintly of damp soil and carries the weight of final judgment. Lighting one feels like ringing a funeral bell the dead cannot ignore.

Hearthlight Torch
Effect: While lit, provides warmth to all creatures within Near.
Special: May be lit again after one week. When lit in total darkness, the first hostile creature to enter Near must succeed on a DC 12 WIS check or hesitate for 1 round.
Lore: First given by the clergy to remote villages beyond the safety of city walls, these plain torches were blessed so their flame would never truly be spent. A single spark could bring them to life, pushing back the dark long enough for the faithful to rally or flee. Farmers, hunters, and sentries kept them ready by the door, their steady light and heat a simple shield against the night. Many are still passed down in families as both tool and relic.

Torch of Verity
Effect: While lit, any creature within Near that speaks a deliberate falsehood must immediately roll a Reaction check.
Special: On a result of Hostile, the creature involuntarily stops speaking. This effect does not reveal truth directly and does not detect mistakes or misunderstandings..
Lore: Saint Terragnis carried this torch into courts, guildhalls, and war councils, its flame known to still the tongues of liars. Over the centuries, countless replicas were made for meeting halls across the realm. Most are nothing more than well-crafted placebos, their light offering only the weight of tradition. Yet every so often, a torch long thought mundane will flare with ancient power, silencing a lie and changing the course of history.

 Isle of the Torturers By Clark Aston Smith is one of those stories that get's under my skin. It's been awhile since I've worked on our Zothique campaign setting. And this afternoon it was time to crack the Clark Aston Smith books & we came to one of his best in my humble opinion. According to the Wiki entry; ""The Isle of the Torturers" is a short story by American author Clark Ashton Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

Welcome back to RPG a Day 2025. The prompt for today is Path.

Last year, I wrote a series of posts with alternate topics as continuing narration, fleshing out a setting I was stitching together each day. While I had fun writing it, I didn’t think it interested blog readers, and I had little engagement with the RPG a Day community. The lesson for me was that the readers are more interested in topical posts than in lengthy campaign background and setting information, at least in the context of this month’s event.

That’s why I struggled with my idea for today. About two years ago, I was inspired by the idea of a northern mountain pass and a town growing into a city during a great, and devastating war that changed a fantasy world. Why I got to write this, I can’t quite remember. It might have been an exercise in creating a two-page background for a city setting. I do know I had D&D 5e in mind when I was writing it. I put it on the back burner along with many other campaign ideas. But the idea or the path across the mountains stuck with me. So, when I was thinking about what to write today, this campaign idea was in my mind.

For the reasons outlined in the first paragraph, I was reluctant, especially since my plans for day 11 are a character story (you’ll see when I post that make-up post I missed!). Regardless, the two other ideas I started writing about for this prompt went nowhere, and I relented. I am sharing the campaign idea for Valienbern, Pathway to the North. I hope you find it inspiring and helpful.

One more thing, last year I used AI to illustrate my posts. I won’t do that this year. Not worth it. So, forgive the lack of illustrations, now on with the post.

Valienbern, Pathway to the North

By Roberto Micheri

Valienbern was founded along the paths and trade routes between the northern provinces of the Theocracy of Dirsdell and the Jeghanner Holds beyond the Kirgsten Mountains in the frigid north. Nestled in the lush pine-filled valley on the southern slopes of the Kirgsten Hills before they become the treacherous northern mountains. Settled by families fleeing the Dirsdellian heresy inquisitions, they signed the charter of Valienbern in the unclaimed valley in the wilderness.

Before the settlement was established and its charter signed by all the founding families, only hunters, solitary hermits, and the odd tribe of goblins or orcs lived in the valley. There were only two permanent settlements in the valley at that time. Black Hawk Keep was built by the fractured Yregian Empire and still garrisoned by an Imperial Commander, even if no Emperor sat on the Ruby Throne. Watching over the Northern Path, pass north into the mountains, the only safe passage across the Kirgsten Mountains for leagues beyond the river Thall. The other was the forest-covered ruins of the Temple of Basall, around which a small community of elves still clung to their old, forgotten ways.

The original settlement was built by the river Tirin, south of the falls of the same name. In these falls, three streams coming down from the mountains, known as Basall’s Wives, or simply the Wives by local hunters, met to form the large navigable river south. Two days’ march from Black Hawk Keep, Valienbern grew as traders and caravans traveling to and from the north made stops to resupply. In time, it became a meeting point for merchants unable or unwilling to travel beyond the Kirgsten Mountains, as well as for merchants and traders from the north. Locals cleared the forests around town as it expanded, farms grew, and the Mayor and Council of Valienbern shared the prosperity with the citizens.

During these prosperous times, whispers of dangers were first heard in Valienbern. First, a dwarven clan settled in town, claiming that monstrosities from the north had overrun their halls. Then the small-folk migrating inland almost destroyed the crops for that year. Those made to work to compensate the farmers for their thievery settled in town and told of the boiling seas of Esterin in the far south.

In the temple to Basall, the elves howled impure incantations, and from the Theocracy of Dirsdell, the priests of the Dragon Gods sent their dragonfolk servants to destroy the temple once and for all. War raged in the western valley, and the Mayor of Valienbern, a follower of the old Yregian gods like many of his citizens, and under the protection of Black Hawk Keep, declared the city would not get involved in the battle. Construction on the walls of Valienbern began during the war, as the city had grown as far north as the Tirin Falls.

As the elves and the dragonfolk fought their holy war, threatening to set the valley on fire, the Jeghanner Holds fell to the Howling Horde. Led on their march south from the ice fields of Xigeria by the enslaved tieflings of the Broken Moon, hordes of tainted orcs, goblins, giants, and unnatural beings from beyond this world, the horde descended like locusts upon the civilized world.

A gnomish citadel crashed east of Valienbern, and the surviving gnomes and local dwarves put aside their ancestral feuds to protect this bastion of civilization from the impending onslaught of the Howling Horde. They built the city walls and created defenses, utilizing the gnome’s inventions and the Moonstone’s magic to power their once-mighty citadel and protect the city, and all who could make it traveled to Valienbern for refuge. Dragonfolk zealots, mad elven enchanters, and cunning elven scouts joined the city’s humans, small-folk, dwarves, and newly arrived gnome saviors to try to weather the storm of savagery and destruction.

Sieges three times, Valienbern survived, but Black Hawk Keep fell. The Howling Horde never stayed long enough to break the city. They ventured south, pouring over the Kirgsten Mountains, east across the merchant cities of Rudell, and west over old Yregia, destroying all in their path.

The Theocracy of Dirsdell fell, its dragons defeated or routed. The merchant princes of Rudell escaped to the Golden Isles across the sea, never to be seen again. Vechinor, The Gardens of Uruth, and even southern Styxeria fell to the Howling Horde. In the west, the vast grasslands of the Unmei proved too difficult to cross, and the Priests of the Nameless God stopped them beyond the Styxerian desert.

In the Jungles of Numir, the Serpent Kings used their ancient magic and banished the Lich Lords of Xigeria from the world, freeing the tieflings who turned on their old masters and destroyed the Howling Horde from within. Some renounced their old ways, turning their back upon their ancestral heritage. Others led their soldiers to carve out small kingdoms. The tainted and corrupted servants of the Howling Horde spread like the wind, carrying their evil to the darkest corners of the world. Magical creatures set loose upon the world now hunt in the night.

The people of Valienbern only found this out after the destruction and scattering of the horde, and the World-Breaking Wars were over.

It has been one hundred and fifty years since the end of the World-Breaking Wars, and Valienbern once again prospers. Trade has slowly resumed along the old Northern Path. Dwarven realms open their halls in the north. Some kingdoms rebuild on the ashes of the old. Valienbern survived and thrived in these dark times and now stands ready as a beacon of hope in a world remaking itself. Will you protect the city? Will you help it grow and prosper? How will you make your mark upon the world?

Dear reader, do you find this type of post interesting and valuable? Do you prefer topical or informative posts over game stories or content? I’d love to know, so please leave a comment or tag me wherever you make them. If you choose to join in the conversation, don’t forget to include the #RPGaDay2025 hashtag so the community can find your contribution.

I'll have to admit, I hadn't given the Alchemy VTT much of a look before today. I'd heard of it, but with all the VTTs out there, who needs another? Well, I'll have to admit, I MIGHT need to play with Alchemy for a bit, because it seems to be made for RPGs like Call of Cthulhu, which are more dread, mysteries, and theatre of the mind than tactical combat, grids, and dungeon crawls.

Currently, Humble Bundle is offering the Call of Cthulhu Collection for Alchemy VTT for $18. (it includes Masks of Very tempting. I'd love to run some CoC, and apparently, Alchemy is optimized for livestreaming. 

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Here is my first catch-up post for RPG a Day 2025, day 9. The prompt is Inspire. Let me share with you what inspires me as a Dungeon Master (DM) / Game Master (GM).

 I may have written about some of these before, apologies to regular readers, but I wanted to bring all these inspirations together.

As a young DM/GM of course I had read Tolkien’s The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, along with the animated versions of these stories, the movies Excalibur, Conan the Barbarian, Beastmaster, Clash of the Titans, The Never Ending Story, and The Dark Crystal all influenced my concepts of what the fantasy genre was.

However, when I began to play role-playing games, Dungeons & Dragons in particular, three things primarily influenced me as a budding DM/GM. They were the Dragonlance Chronicles, the Elfquest comics, and the LJN AD&D Toys.

I wrote a post about the AD&D toys here in the blog back in 2010. But to summarize, I played with these toys before knowing how to play D&D, and they fired my imagination, teaching me some of the concepts and roles of the game through play. With new versions of these classic toys, the reappearance of characters in official D&D supplements and minis, and all the nostalgia, you can tell I was not the only one inspired by them.

I was into comics many years before RPGs, so it’s no surprise that they inspired me, and the fantasy story of Elfquest was an obsession of mine. The story of the displaced elves, their journey, the new elven culture they encountered, the family relationships, love, and adventure. They shaped my perception of elven society far more than Tolkien and the type of story I wanted to tell. If you have never read it, you can read many of the stories online, for free, here. These books are well worth it, and I own various copies of most of the books.

Lastly, but perhaps most formative and inspirational for me as a young DM, was Dragonlace. I discovered the Dragonlace Chronicles soon after discovering D&D, and the novels, the supplements, and the world-building, shaped how I played D&D and RPGs in general. It inspired the adventures I ran, the stories I created, and the worlds I developed.

Other sources inspired me through the years. My long-running Star Frontiers game, as well as later games, were influenced by a classic comic series, Atari Force! With mini comics included along with Atari cartridges, a comic book series published by DC, and a graphic novel, the stories of this sci-fi universe capture my imagination. Storylines, characters, and the look and feel of the universe influenced my sci-fi games. If you want to read about other comics that inspired me, you can read this 15-year-old post.

Another sci-fi inspiration, but one that continues to inspire all stories I tell, is Babylon 5 and the writings of its creator, J. Michael Straczynski. The world-building, the epic storytelling, the character development, the multi-dimensional characters with realist motivations, the slow-burn of the plot, and the foreshadowing that pays off much later. Babylon 5 is my favorite sci-fi TV series for a reason.

I’ve watched the whole series five or six times now; I read Straczynski’s book on scriptwriting. I’ve read his comics and watched his other works, and his style of storytelling has been an inspiration for me. I will admit that the show’s influence might have led me to focus too much on the storyline, rather than the characters, at one point as a GM, but I like to think I have found a balance between the two.

More recent inspirations include a more eclectic mix of sources. From gaming products, in particular Kevin Crawford’s Without Numbers games from Sine Nomine Publishing, Stars, Worlds, Cities, and Ashes Without Number and all the tools they provide (you can see it by how much Ive mentioned them just this month!), to TV series like The Wire, Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, and the world and politics of A Song of Ice and Fire, and the Game of Thrones series. I often create playlists to inspire my creative endeavors and to create a mood for games. I am frequently surprised by what can inspire me these days.

What inspires you? How do you inspire others in your games? I would love to read your comments here in the blog, or tag me wherever you make them. If you choose to join in the conversation, don’t forget to include the #RPGaDay2025 hashtag so the community can find your contribution.

Day 11? What’s this? Yes, I know I’ve missed two days! Traveling back home after being away for a while due to work, a day-long blackout on the weekend before back-to-school Monday, all combined into the perfect storm, and I missed two days. Rather than wait until I catch up, I’m tackling today’s topic first and will make up the missing days after this. Some upcoming posts will be out of order; I apologize in advance.  

The topic for today, day 11 of RPG a Day 2025, is Flavour, with the “ou” British spelling! Be forewarned, I will be using the more common US spelling below.

When we talk about flavor in the context of a role-playing game, we are often referring to the dictionary definition provided by Merriam-Webster of the word as: characteristic or predominant quality. So, what’s the campaign’s flavor? High fantasy? Sword & Sorcery? Grimdark? Pulp? Hard Sci-Fi? Science-Fantasy?

Flavor in a campaign can be a tricky thing to get right. For some reason, some genres are more flexible and forgiving when you mix flavors. A fantasy campaign can get away with mixing some high fantasy elements with sword & sorcery adventures, creating a distinct flavor. Mix hard sci-fi and some fantastical elements of science fantasy, or a high-power four-color super heroic game with a gritty vigilante thrown in the mix, and the flavor might not be as appealing.

Of course, it has a lot to do with the group. Some players don’t mind the disparate elements of some of the combinations described above, but they often clash. Let me share examples from campaigns I ran.

The Superhero Game

In the late 90s, I ran a Heros Unlimited campaign, a four-color, high-power alternate history game, with a lengthy campaign background, an ambitious time-travel subplot, and the aspiration of my ultimate supers campaign. It was not meant to be. That would have to wait for the Mutants and Masterminds campaign years later. I can’t blame flavor for the failure of the campaign. That falls squarely on me; I was too ambitious and too dependent on alternate historical events, with a group of players who were not as invested in the historical aspects as I was—very different expectations.

The clash in flavor had more to do with the characters. Everybody went for a more classic hero archetype, and one player created a corporate-sponsored superhero spoof. The character ran contrary to the tone and style of the campaign, and it became a distraction for me as a GM and for the other players. The player didn’t like superhero games, but for our next supers game, he created a Mexican Luchador, which wasn’t as much of a problem.

In my experience, superhero games are the most complex campaigns I’ve run when it comes to mixing genre flavors. I’ve played a game featuring a character inspired by Sandman, alongside a Captain America-style patriotic hero. For this particular one, we managed to mix the elements and achieved a satisfying flavor. But other genres are not immune to this. For example…

The Sci-Fi Game

This particular campaign, which I wrote extensively about here in the blog, is the Wanderers of the Outlands campaign (you can click on he previous link to see the first post of 21!). This game was my first long-running Savage Worlds campaign. Still, there were some flavor issues. While the campaign drew inspiration from various sources, including Firefly and Babylon 5, one of the players created a decidedly cyberpunk character. While there were some elements of cyberpunk, the game didn’t lean heavily into them, and the player found his concept not meshing with the campaign’s flavor. This situation occurred years after the first example I mentioned above. We were older and wiser, and the player recognized this, so they decided to create a new character to fit the game better.

One key lesson I’ve learned over the years is to be upfront and clear about flavor, tone, and styles in campaigns. Please don’t presume that the campaign materials suggest it. Tell the players about it, and remind them often during character creation and preparation for the game.

Also, listen to the players. What do they want? A campaign is not simply my game, but our game; I should be able to accommodate the interests and input of the players. Back in the 90s, I understood this, but I didn’t verbalize it or handle it properly. Even then, I believed in allowing players to play the character they wanted and integrating that into the campaign. Since then, I have also learned that this is a collaborative process, and that I, as a GM, and all the players have a voice in the process, and that we should arrive at the proper flavor for the game together.

How do you handle flavor in your games? Do you mix and match flavors? Do you agree or disagree with me? I would love to read your comments here in the blog, or tag me wherever you make them. If you choose to join in the conversation, don’t forget to include the #RPGaDay2025 hashtag so the community can find your contribution.

 

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By Lazy Litch
Lazy Litches Loot
B/X
Level: 4? Maybe?

The Artificer is dead! The Hermit Queen has dispatched you on the royal dragonfly to seize his living arcane weapons before her enemies do.  Deep in the geometric desert, the Artificer’s tower is unraveling: traps are gaining sentience, micro dimensions are fusing, and a ticking mana reactor whispers on the brink of collapse.  The meltdown will soon sink the tower into churning cubic sands. If you fail, another kingdom will wield the weapons to rule for centuries.

This 43 page adventure is full of batshit crazy concepts, with associated opulent descriptive text. Stuffed full, it perhaps needs just a little more room to breathe, the rest of us not being able to handle as much opium AND run the game at the same time. But, man, this thing does channel a vibe! Which means if you think Elmore is the pinnacle of fantasy RPG then you might want to move on …

This is, from time to time, an rpg or adventure that tries to explore a kind of bio-mechanical vibe and/or a luxurious opulence in the setting. Byzantine in the art style, with an implied lore that is, it seems, is very deep. Several of the Monte Cook RPG’s, a few of those Psychedelic Fantasy adventures, Rifts: Atlantis. Heresy: Kingdom Come. They generally fall short of the expectations they set, coming off as bolted on paper mache. This adventure does not fall in to that trap and is one of the more successful translations of that byzantine and opulent deep lore biomechanical vision. But … that also has implications. If the cover were in full colour it would better communicate the vibe of whats inside. As it is that cover communicates a kind of lower-end adventure, as does the Mana Meltdown title. The artwork samples, though, on the DriveThru product page do a much better job of communicating what’s to come.

The Hermit Queen. The royal dragonfly. The geometric desert. Churning cubic sands. How does that fit in to your campaign? The Hermit Queen? “She paints the skies with painful sovereign static; folk flee underground, crawling into tunnel towns to escape the burning noise. A ruby reign: regal, regenerative, and repressive.” You down? You got room for that? Meaning that this is either a one-shot or you’ve gone all Living Room/Bottle City. This is not a trip through the local high fantasy dungeon or even a brief excursion to the coral reef undersea lair. We’re got a fully realized vision here, or at least it will appear that way to the players, and the ability for them to integrate in to the environment, and the loot found to continue during the game as the character return to their homeland, is something to consider. The default assumption is that you are doing this for the Hermit Queen, for some unnamed reason, and thus we’re gonna need to be in a position to have her make that request, at least through her advisors, to the characters. None of which is covered, so, yeah, Dungeon & Dragons Ride, I guess.

We start out with the flight to the prismatic field around the artificers tower. Looks like other factions want the shit inside also! Thus, you’re in a flying race to get there first. You can make some stat checks to do various things to speed up The Royal Dragonfly and/or hinder your opponents. This will determine the order the factions, and characters, arrive at the tower. Or, more specifically, where folks arrive in the timeline of progress that is given. Earlier is better, with the other factions having less time to meddle. 

Oh, yeah, the other factions. We’ve got The Royal Dragonfly “Powered by: Narcissism.” More praise means it flies faster. And its entomologist pilot is jealous of the Dragonfly. So, you know. It’s got a lantern hanging on it’s tail. In case of serious accident you are instructed to trace the run on it. Which immolates the captured fairy inside. And then you sprinkle the dust on the dragonflies body to get a featherfall effect. Jesus H …

Anyway, the other factions is where I was going. One of them is a living weapon. “She travels to the Geometric Desert on top of a vast flying jellyfish embedded with parasitic bone engines. Her presence is announced by chilling sensations in the fluid of characters’ spines.” Also “The jellyfish has a self destructive desire for a poetic end by flying into one of the sinkholes” Uh. The Telemetry Twins, servants of the Far Away god, travel on a “piece of ground where his apostle ascended now levitates and transports the faithful along a precisely calculated prayer path “ Armed with their Suture Cable and Mnemonic Blade. 

I could go on, but, I think you get the idea. I used to summarize my thinking here with “you want realism in a game in which elves shoot fireballs from their asses?” This is perhaps the best implementation of that meaning. AND YOU”RE NOT EVEN IN THE TOWER YET. Inside we to even more abstracted concepts, like The Trap Parliament – “Locked door [spiral steps descend into large circular room] Stone benches [razor thin, floating in concentric rings, some folded into sinister origami statues, others blank with scorch marks], Banners [torn sheets drift overhead, looping in silent orbit], Floor [central speaker’s sigil-podium emits broken voices debating in an unknown language, phrases linger like ghosts semi-visible in the air” Abstraction brought to life to a major theme in this adventure. Obviously. The language used is decent. Very complex ideas are attempting to be described. Razor thin stone benches? Ok. “The tower breaks the horizon, encased in a shimmering prism, held aloft by vast spider tendrils clawing from the cubic sand” Sure thing. What’s cubed sand? Fuck if I know. Let’s hope no one asks and they just bask in the description. And that’s both a strength and a weakness.

In terms of interactivity, we start with that race mini-game, which advances a timeline of events, and then you get to the dungeon proper. The other factions are running around inside, as well as the ghost of the Artificer. And, Death, who is not happy that dude has managed to avoid him and is meddling in the Artificers meddling. Decent fighting inside. A doorway inside of a bag of seeds held by a flesh construct gardener that leads to level one: The Flesh Garden. But to get there, proper, you need to first gain access to the tower. Which means making it through the prismatic field, doing fifteen points in one turn to collapse the field. And then: “two entrances: a light side door and a dark side door. One door leads out the other unless at least one person enters from both sides at the same time.” We can see the patterns here, these are not exactly the most original concepts, but I think they integrate well here. If you need to break through a field, or enter two doors simultaneously then this is the way you do it, not all of those other ways you’ve seen before. It fits, naturally. Some of the interactivity is complex, and none of it has a mural on the wall with a riddle written on it. 

There is a decent amount of support information in the form of reference tables for the DM to work from, random shit, reference material and so on. This is great and shows an understanding of what the DM needs when running the actual adventure. Also, there’s a nice little reference diagram of how the adventure fits together. This sort of framing context helps a lot, getting the DM oriented correctly before the flood of information starts.

I think this is a good adventure, and I’m going to Best it. But, also, I don’t think it’s going to be an EASY adventure to run. There are a lot of moving parts here. The rival factions. The timeline. The special effects in the dungeon. The ghost, and Death fucking with the ghost  And THEN the special On effects for a dungeon level. And then the room. Which is going to have some complex elements to work out in a dungeon full of abstracted concepts. They are, in the end, relatively simple to run, but interesting. But grasping a Memetic Blade and running it on the fly? Those are the things that are a tad more difficult. Magnificent adventuring facade wrapped around what are some interesting interactivity concepts … like a room where copies of the PC’s, each with a part of an object, run away from them in fear of being destroyed. Or, on the more difficult side of things: “Jealous Walls: The more it is used, the more hostile the corridor becomes. Envious of players’ functioning bodies, it begins to create gravitational anomalies in attempts to impale them on bone spikes so it can cannibalize them.” Run that. Oof. 

This is $10 at DriveThru. The preview is 25 pages. More than enough to get the lore, the style, to be influenced by the art, and see more than few rooms and specials. Great preview.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/530305/mana-meltdown?1892600

I've mentioned before how the original Fiend Folio (as compared to the Monster Manual) seems suited as inspiration for sci-fi creatures. In part, I think that's because the inspiration for so many of them seem to lie outside fantasy fiction or myth and legend. They owe their creation to media that would generally be placed in some other genre. 
Here are a few I'm aware of whose origins I think are generally accepted, but I'm sure there are more:

Grimlock 
(by Albie Fiore)
Inspired by the morlocks in H.G. Wells' The Time Machine (1895), particularly their portrayal in the 1960 film by George Pal.

Meenlock
(by Peter Korabik)
While the name likely has its origins in Wells' morlocks again, their portrayal adapts the demonic entities from the 1973 TV movie Don't Be Afraid of the Dark written by Nigel McKeand and remade in 2011 by Guillermo del Toro.

Art by David MattinglyQuaggoth
(by Andrew Torchia)
Their name was possibly coined by blending Sasquatch and Sagoth, a race of ape-like humanoids (serving the "orc" role) appearing in Edgar Rice Burroughs' Pellucidar series, first appearing in At The Earth's Core (1914).

Art by FrazettaQsquip(by Brendan Bulger)Their description matches the ulsio (Barsoomian rat) first described in "City of Mummies" (Amazing Stories, 1941) later fixed up into Llana of Gathol (1948).
Art by Wayne BarloweXill(by Brian Ashbury)Inspired by the alien ixtl in "Discord in Scarlet" (Astounding, 1939) by A.E. von Vogt fixed up into Voyage of the Star Beagle (1950).

If you didn't already know it, Sine Nomine Publishing offers nearly all of its core rulebooks in a "Free Edition" as well as a "Deluxe Edition". The Free Editions are complete games and truly a gift to the gaming community.

Ashes Without Number (Free Edition) is Sine Nomine's post-apoc ruleset, and as you have already seen, the price is right :) (you can grab the Ashes Without Number Deluxe Edition here)

Ashes Without Number is both a game set after the end and a toolkit to help you build the apocalypse you desire. Just as with its compatible sister-games, Stars Without Number for sci-fi, Worlds Without Number for fantasy, and Cities Without Number for cyberpunk, Ashes Without Number gives you an Old School Renaissance-inspired game chassis and a vast swath of system-agnostic tools for designing tragic destruction and desperate struggles.

Within its pages, you'll find...

• A complete OSR game system for building survivors and sending them to face the horrors of their new world, including guidance on blending other Without Number games into your play.
• Genre-specific support for near-future After the Fall tales of social collapse, invasion, and global disasters, Deadlands games of zombie hordes and beleaguered enclaves, and Mutant Wasteland campaigns of post-nuclear adventure in lands of mutant peril and mysterious tech.
• Enclave rules for system-agnostic modeling of competing outposts, tribal villages, and refugee camps, all struggling to survive a world where there is never enough of anything but death.
• Mysterious devices and lost relics of the old world, strange tech for mutant wanderers to discover and misuse in their exploration of ancient ruins.
• Campaign design tools for both crisis-centered games of immediate survival in the face of total societal collapse, and exploration-centered campaigns of seeking out the old world's remnants and recovering them for your home and allies.
• Myriad tags and random tables for building your post-apocalyptic adventures, flavoring your mutant perils, and building interesting ruins and survivor enclaves for your PCs to encounter, all system-agnostic and built with the Sine Nomine touch.

And all of that is in this free version of this game. In the deluxe version, you'll also get...

• Evil techno-wizard rules for building the mad science-sorcerers who plague so many worlds beneath a shattered moon.
• Ash Sorcerers, a class for PCs in a far-future world of science and magic who wield the sinister arts of a half-damnable path.
• Mentalists, a psychic class for those individuals touched with unearthly powers and strange visions in the midst of ruin. This class can also be used as a substitute for the Psychic in Stars Without Number, for GMs who prefer to have more subtle abilities in their games.
• Modular power armor for those knights of the radioactive dust who bear these mighty relics. Voracious in their demands for power and maintenance materials, they still can tip a battle single-handedly with their myriad weapons and fittings.
• Hub settlement rules for fine-grained development of a single enclave by players who prefer to put more focus on their home. Build individual facilities and resources while keeping your population alive in the face of constant privation.

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