fragments of a blue ruin
Delighted to announce that Vaults of Vaarn Issue 3 is now available for download and purchase. Find the free PDF at itch.io! Buy the premium printed zine from my Big Cartel store! Soon to be available from other zine retailers! Also available, only on my Big Cartel: a cassette tape containing 30 mins of original… Continue reading VAULTS OF VAARN #3 RELEASE
We're rapidly closing in on the one year anniversary of Vaarn, which I'm defining as the first time I DM'd a game session in my current ongoing Vaarn campaign. It's not exactly the genesis, but it's close (there were two playtests before that session that never led to full campaigns). I decided to go back… Continue reading PROTO-VAARN
The sun is shining, so what better excuse than to run a demonstration of the point-crawl procedures I've been working on for Vaults of Vaarn #3? Join me on a procedurally generated journey into a thirsty, sun-baked blue desert... So the first thing we do is drop a bunch of dice onto a page. I'm… Continue reading VAARN REGION GENERATOR
Strange beings even by the standards of Vaarn, Lithlings are a slow, solemn species with a silicon-based biology that surely originates in a solar system far removed from Urth. They are solitary by nature, concerned mainly with the opinions of other Lithlings, and with the esoteric academic studies they devote their long lives to. Lithlings… Continue reading PLAYER ANCESTRY: LITHLING
The laws of the Titans were subtle and terrible edicts, for held in common amongst those seven mighty minds was the belief that humankind was destined to seek its own destruction, in the same manner that a precious vase dropped from a rooftop seeks passionate reunification with the hard and unyielding ground. The Titan AIs… Continue reading ARGENT SHEPHERD
I've been wanting to make the Planeyfolk a playable ancestry for a while, I just hadn't sat down and worked out how their special rules would function. I finally decided to have a stab at it today. Here are the results. The study of hypergeometry claimed many casualties, for those who seek to unpick the… Continue reading PLAYER ANCESTRY: PLANEYFOLK
Hello everyone, just wanted to let you know that I'm on the latest episode of The Lost Bay Podcast, which is a new show that interviews RPG creators about their work. We talked for ages about science-fiction, writing for RPGs as compared to writing novels, my process as an illustrator, the lore of Dark Souls,… Continue reading Guest spot on The Lost Bay Podcast
Solo play: everyone's talking about it. Well, perhaps not everyone, but it's been on my mind recently. Several people have written to me during the pandemic to say they've used the tables in the Vaarn zines to run solo campaigns, and the idea appealed to me. Really, who needs players? The true GM can challenge… Continue reading VAULTS SOLO PLAY
Let it never be said that fate has no sense of humour, for the only region of Vaarn blessed with vast bodies of standing water is the polluted swamp-sink of Ikor Quag. The foolhardy travellers who drink from the toxic canals of the Quag die in convulsive agony, and even touching the water of the… Continue reading LAMIGATOR
In the last episode, the party fought off a group of spider-women, went in search of a surgeon for Findus' spider-egg problem, and lost Nephew in a bakery. What will happen this week? Our cast: Flim-Flam, a two-headed cacogen. Proficient cook. Fights with twin pistols. Owns a cyborg hawk named Midnight.Findus, a newbeast. Horse-man with… Continue reading VAARN ACTUAL PLAY: EPISODE 21
VAULTS OF VAARN 