fragments of a blue ruin
I run a bi-monthly feature on the Vaarn Patreon called Monster Monday, where patrons get the chance to vote on spark words, which I then use as inspiration for new Vaarn monsters. A recent vote resulted in a tie between the spark words 'echopraxia' and 'pareidolia'. These mean 'an involuntary imitation or repetition of someone… Continue reading MIMICS
Pariahs of Vaarn is a full-colour bestiary zine, consisting of some of the longer creature entries I've been writing for the Patreon over the last few years. They don't fit very well with the shorter bestiary entries I use in the main zine series, so I've decided to give them their own occasional release. I really enjoy… Continue reading PARIAHS OF VAARN #1 RELEASE
Greetings wanderers, I hope everyone's enjoying summer. I wanted to talk about some of the upcoming projects in the Vaarn 'franchise' and how close they are to completion. Currently I have three projects in the pipeline: Pariahs of Vaarn, a compilation zine of the Monster Monday creatures which have appeared on the Patreon since its… Continue reading Summer News 23
The Vaarn bestiary has gotten quite sizable, and it's also scattered around various zines, books, blog posts, etc. The most reliable resource is of course the SRD, but some people like a PDF they can print out and refer to at the table. I've done a quick bit of consolidation and made an A4-sized, complete… Continue reading COMPACT BESTIARY
I was recently invited on Brad Kerr and Yochai Gal's RPG module review podcast Between Two Cairns. As a long time fan of the show, I eagerly accepted, and we spent a lovely afternoon discussing Vaults of Vaarn, the work of David Graber and M. John Harrison, assassinating John Lennon for a second time, the… Continue reading Guest Spot on Between Two Cairns
Following the success of last year's Vaarn Summer Jam, I'm hosting a second annual game jam on itch.io! The submission period will run from the start of June until the end of August this year, making it a true summer event. The returning Summer Jam is a non-ranked game jam, where entrants are invited to… Continue reading VAARN SUMMER JAM ’23
As Skerples and Arnold K have written, you should create threats that ‘attack every part of the character sheet.’ I think this is a solid concept to keep in mind when doing creature design, so I had a stab at it. None of these monsters deal direct HP damage, although they are far more dangerous… Continue reading BEYOND HP DAMAGE
Stratosfolk are the descendants of abhuman worker corps, bred by gene-sculptors to construct space elevators and orbital habitats. Rudimentary human nervous systems fused with living vacuum suits, the creatures have survived the Great Collapse and live as a free people in the highest layers of Urth’s atmosphere. Able to inflate and deflate their gas-filled bodies… Continue reading PLAYER ANCESTRY: STRATOSFOLK
Travel within the Great Wall is profoundly different from travelling the empty wastes of the Interior. This is an attempt to codify the differences, and make them apparent to Referees and players alike. Directions The Wall is a vertical structure. Directions given will differ from the standard four compass points. When giving directions, a denizen… Continue reading WALL-CRAWLING PROCEDURES
I’ve never made a secret of my admiration for the Half-Life franchise, and I wanted to try my hand at converting one of Gordon Freeman’s most famous alien adversaries (which in turn have a literary forefather in a really great Clark Ashton Smith story). The three headcrab subspecies and their respective zombies in Half-Life 2… Continue reading SCULLCRABS
