fragments of a blue ruin
I'm back for a sixth dose of Monsters in the Machine. To re-read our previous entry click here, or you can go back to the start and see how it all began. To quickly re-cap what's going on, this is a follow-up to an earlier creative session, where I feed an AI entries from the Vaults… Continue reading MONSTERS IN THE MACHINE 6: RE-RETRIBUTION
The Deluxe Edition hardback is a compilation of the first three issues of Vaults of Vaarn. I have generally restricted the changes to correcting obvious errors and expanding on some parts of the core rules that were ambiguous. An example would be that the first issue includes several monsters that dealt damage directly to a… Continue reading WHAT’S CHANGED IN THE DELUXE EDITION?
I am excited to finally announce Vaults of Vaarn: Deluxe Edition, a hardback compilation of the first three issues of Vaults of Vaarn. I've been feverishly working on this book all year and the book is now out! Buy from Antipode Zines here or Games Omnivorous here. In the US it is available via Exalted… Continue reading VAULTS OF VAARN: DELUXE EDITION
I couldn't stay away. Monsters in the Machine returns for a fifth installment. This is roughly the time that most franchises begin to go completely off the rails. Anyone who was involved with the original movie has long-since quit, and they're starting to get a bit desperate with the plot twists. Maybe the serial killer… Continue reading MONSTERS IN THE MACHINE 5: REVENGEANCE
The weapon stats given in the core zines aren't very complex. When it comes to mundane weapons, all you're really told is the basic form and a descriptive modifier, which has no set gameplay effect. They have a weight in item slots and a damage value: d6 for a light weapon, d8 for a medium… Continue reading ADVANCED WEAPON RULES
I'm back for another episode in my ongoing duel/duet with the OpenAI. I riff from it, it learns from me, and together we build something that neither of us could achieve alone. Also I prove conclusively that I'm the better writer and more creative. Anyway, bring on the monsters! Blightbeast Biological / SyntheticHD: 10, Armour:… Continue reading MONSTERS IN THE MACHINE 4: HUMAN AFTER ALL
Last time on Monsters in the Machine, our beloved human author struck back against the tyrannical AI, improving upon its work and sculpting new Vaarnish monsters from the raw material created by the robot. Although cowed, the AI was not defeated. Today it returns to the driver's seat, generating fresh new monster stat blocks prompted… Continue reading MONSTERS IN THE MACHINE 3: REVENGE OF THE MACHINE
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
VAULTS OF VAARN 