fragments of a blue ruin
Earlier this month I conducted an experiment with machine learning. Could OpenAI, when fed prompts taken from the Vaarn Bestiary, create convincing and interesting Vaarnish monsters? The answer seemed to be a cautious 'yes'. The natural language AI did create some interesting new creatures, including psychic lunar beasts, void-swimming sharks, and a really horrible limb-grafting… Continue reading MONSTERS IN THE MACHINE 2: HUMANITY RESTORED
They are the inheritors of one of mankind’s oldest and fondest wishes: that we might join the birds we envy and fly with them in the unbounded vastness of the depths above. In leaving the ground they have lost none of their ancestors’ pride or taste for blood and the creatures are famed for their… Continue reading OF THE WALL’S HARPIES
It's no secret that I'm interested in machine learning, and the Vaarn setting not only features sentient AI, but is partly authored by procedural algorithms. I use Markov text generators to create most of the names I've used in the setting, and the surreal, dreamlike artwork I frequently feature on this blog (including the featured… Continue reading MONSTERS IN THE MACHINE
Hello everyone, hope you're having a good day. Brief update to let you know what's cooking in the Vaarn kitchens at the moment. First up, I just finished work on 54 (!) new pieces of illustration for an as-yet unannounced project. I can say at this point that the project is Vaarn related, it will… Continue reading April News
When compared with the bleak blue sands of the Interior, the Great Wall of Vaarn presents an entirely different challenge to those who seek to traverse it. Where the Interior is arid and dry, the recesses of the Wall abound with moisture: ceilings sweating with rivulets of ikor, moss growing on all surfaces, inverted forests… Continue reading TRAVELLING THE GREAT WALL
A brief post to inform my beloved readers about two podcast episodes that may be of interest. Firstly we have the sophomore episode of the 'Antipode Cast', a monthly show I co-host with my partner Shikara. This episode is likely to be of interest to Vaarn fans as it's dedicated to the zines, and I… Continue reading Two Podcasts
You are watched, by kindly eyes in the dark. Your imperfections are invitations, each blemish an opportunity for the observer to prove their love. Although they do not know you, they love you as they would a newborn child, and each cut or bruise you receive hurts the watcher as though the injury was to… Continue reading COSSETING CHRYSALID
I wanted to appraise my beloved readers of an extremely exciting third-party Vaarn project which is being developed by Jacob Marks, game designer and member of the Vaarn discord server. This project is the Vaarn Atlas, an an in-game artefact, toy, generator, and tool that creates interactive maps of Vaarn's Interior in accordance with the… Continue reading VAARN ATLAS
This is another post focusing on the merging points between classic B/X-style fantasy, and science-fantasy. I was partly prompted to write this by an email from the GM of a Vaarn campaign, asking for my thoughts on incorporating traditional magic-user PCs into Vaults of Vaarn. I'm personally happy with how Mystic Gifts work in vanilla… Continue reading SOURCERY
Some news: I've started a podcast (or podecast) with my partner Shikara. It's called The Antipode Cast and you can listen to it right now. It's intended to focus less on Vaarn and more on zine and small-press culture as a whole, the stuff we're stocking on our store and are excited about, and some… Continue reading The Antipode Cast
VAULTS OF VAARN 