fragments of a blue ruin
A red letter day for fans of my work and weird unplaceable accent: there are not one but two interviews with yours truly out today! First up we have my second guest appearance on module-review podcast Between Two Cairns, where I join Brad and Yochai to review Gus L's science-fantasy crystalcrawl adventure Tomb Robbers on… Continue reading Double Interview Day
Those expecting death to free them from the chains of commerce are severely disappointed. Death does not extinguish avarice, and coins are as valued in Hell as they ever were in life. Gold Piece For aeons, golden coins have been placed into the mouths of the dead to ease their passage into the sunless lands.… Continue reading The Shrike: Currencies and Trade Goods
The bestiary at present doesn't give many examples of what a Vaarnish psychic actually looks like. Here is an attempt to rectify that error. Assume all of these creatures to be telepathic and conversant in Noospeech, although you may not like what some have to say. Psy-Owl Biological / Psychic Level 1 / Armour 14… Continue reading PSYCHIC CREATURES
We are just over one month away from the launch of the Kickstarter campaign for my infernal OSE pointcrawl megamodule, The Shrike. This book will be a modular sandbox adventure setting in a neglected fragment of Hell- a colossal blade dedicated to punishing a nameless God. The Shrike is a heaven-harrowing thorn, a black iron… Continue reading The Shrike: Preview Chapters
A quick update to say that the pre-launch page for The Shrike, my upcoming Hell-themed megadungeon point-crawl setting for Old School Essentials, is now live and you can sign up for an email alert once the funding period begins. This is my biggest TTRPG project ever, almost 70k words in manuscript, and I'm really excited… Continue reading The Shrike: Pre-Campaign Page Now Live
I am excited to finally announce a project I've been working on for two whole years at this point. The Shrike is an all-new OSR adventure and setting book, written for Old School Essentials and published by Silverarm, who have put out adventures like Desert Moon of Karth and Secret of the Black Crag. The… Continue reading Introducing: The Shrike
Ostriel’s secret police and intelligence service. Masters of espionage, sabotage, and assassination. Always alert for threats (real or imagined) against the Queen. The Krypteia have spies and informants embedded everywhere: Ostriel, Sargattea, the wider Wall, and throughout Vaarn. Many of these informants have no idea who they really serve. The organisation’s upper echelon is a… Continue reading FACTION: THE KRYPTEIA
We return for the last (for now) installment of Monsters in the Machine, a series where I riff back and forth with GPT-3 and create monsters for Vaarn based on the stat blocks the AI spits out. Our previous episode saw the AI plant the seeds for several new additions to the bestiary. Now I've… Continue reading MONSTERS IN THE MACHINE 10: THE FINAL CHAPTER
The second annual Vaarn Summer Jam ended on the 30th of August 2023, boasting 23 submissions from TTRPG creators on itch.io. The imagination and enthusiasm emanating from these entries has been really inspiring for me, and it has been exciting to read through them all. As with the last jam, I wanted to use some… Continue reading SUMMER JAM ’23: THE ENTRIES (Part 1)
Each PC may keep one pet. The equipment used to care for the pet takes up one item slot. The pet must consume one ration per day, although what this consists of is dependent upon the nature of the pet. Pets who are not fed for seven days will run away at the first chance… Continue reading PETS AND STEEDS
VAULTS OF VAARN 