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by The rwinder

Introduction

Hello, everyone. After a bit of a delay [1], I'm back at posting about games as I play them, usually with a "let's try out something odd" bent to it. While I have been mostly playing a writing-heavy campaign game I have resurrected, I'm not ready to explain it in full detail, but I did get in a game of the much more lightweight Deck Legends game.

Okay, okay, so I'll also talk about my Arkham Horror progress and give some fragments of progress on that prototype campaign game I mentioned, which is currently making use of Mythic Bastionland as its imagination aid, much as my previous entry tried to do.

Deck Legends - Games 26 to 30: A Family Tree

This time out, I have set this aside for so long I don't really remember all that much, so I decided to make five brand new cards in a chunk and imagine they are all part of an entirely new family of characters [2] who will interlock with what's in the deck already. With that in mind...

Game 26 FOCUS: RAO
RAO, the Avarice Prince of Strange Oddments
Score: 12
:STAR: Gained notoriety as the thief of the BLOOD HOURGLASS, which turned his flesh red
:STAR: Claimed to be the keeper of the lucky feet of BLUE RABBIT
:STAR: Possessed a vial of ETHERION's wispy blood to unleash a disaster when needed
:STAR: Established a booby-trapped hoard in the deepest wastes of MILHANTI
:STAR: Swallowed by MIYU in his black-striped crocodile aspect

Game 27 FOCUS: GLADIUS
GLADIUS, the Gutter Lord of Damnation
Score: 29
:STAR: The raging scion of RAO, who forsook his father's wealth for wild living.
:STAR: Known as the scourge of THE RANCID STEPPE where he hunted any and all
:STAR: Drove his blunt and rusted blade into one of the two-heads of VOSA
:STAR: Suspected to be an avatar of WALP by the Chaos Acolytes
:STAR: Finally caught and drawn and quartered by the armies of THE HORK EMPIRE

A massive score! High score to beat.

Game 28 FOCUS: REDIN
REDIN, the Scholar and Poet Extreme
Score: 6
:STAR: The sullen scion of GLADIUS, who became a priest for several decades in isolation [3]
:STAR: Wrote the seventeen volume work, "Dialogues with BINFARA." Truly dull.
:STAR: Composed "The True History of AGAMARAX," a banned, cursed work
:STAR: Travelled to ZOTH where he lived out the second half of his life as a faceless one.
:STAR: On his death, he left an unfinished if lurid poem about THE MOONCHILDREN

Game 29 FOCUS: MALACCA
MALACCA, the Deceiver Regina
Score: 20
:STAR: The infamous red-eyed bride of KING BAX, who could kill with a glare. [4]
:STAR: Had a strange sway over ETHERION and turned it to victory in wars
:STAR: On her death, she was reveals to be the daughter of the wretched RAO
:STAR: Rumored to have engaged in many trysts with the doughty GROGAR!
:STAR: Reviled THE HORK EMPIRE, always scheming its demise from within

Game 30 FOCUS: CANUSINA
CANUSINA who dreamed of Doom and Dragons
Score: 16
:STAR: The scrawny daughter of GLADIUS, thought slain by blood owls in her youth
:STAR: Became the night matron of THE DOOM PROPHECY when she reappeared
:STAR: Tricked by BLUE RABBIT into telling him the unvarnished "true words."
:STAR: Had one of her hands bitten off by none other than the gnawing VOSA.
:STAR: Dreamed in vain of transformation into a form to join THE SIX SERPENTS

The game has 41 cards in it, although several (11?) are still blank but for their name. Maybe next time I'll turn back to filling in some more of the existing cards that have been around a long time without expansion?

A Slow Progress through The Drowned City

As far as non-make-as-you-play prototypes, my gaming pal and I are still advancing Lucius and Michael McGlen through the labyrinth of The Drowned City for Arkham Horror: The Card Game. I honestly can't even remember the scenarios individually by name or their impacts. They are fun, but they feel very much isolated weird environment puzzle rooms as opposed to an overarching story, but I quite enjoyed playing them in the path we chose.

I also have advanced Michael to have considerable time-manipulation cards in the exceptional variety, so he can hold off killing until needed. Now I finally have the experience to get big guns so he is a strong one note character, but I like the fighting archetype in Arkham, also I think I slightly prefer evasion characters. Lucius on the other hand is hyper competent at clue-getting and evasion, so he almost doesn't need Michael.

Not to jinx things, but he has been preternaturally lucky against treacheries, passing the vast majority of them! I'm sure that'll come back to bite him when luck turns at some point.

It'll probably be at least another month before we are totally through with this, about time to take a harder look again at the "new chapter" and whether that can or cannot meld with the original content. I am still bending toward keeping it separate, but maybe the final previews will tell me one way or the other.

A Halted Campaign

As I believe I hinted across several of my more recent blog posts on the “Make-as-You-Play” blog, I would be turning my attention to resurrecting an old make-as-you-play prototype with some new twists. I have been spending this month play testing versions of it and continually overhauling the rules. While a lot can change about it, I think it’s safe to say it has these features:

:star: It is mindful of the issues I raised on immersion, perspective, memory, and history across various posts.
:star: It is not really about those concepts however…
:star: As far as genre, it is an “overland adventure game.”
:star: As far as specific theming, it is rather malleable, but more on that below…
:star: It involves a lot of writing. So much so, it might be off-putting to most players.
:star: I actually have fun playing it and am willing to keep playing it.

I have played a couple partial campaigns of the game so far, with massive changes to the rules each time. Below is an image of the hex map produced by the first prototype campaign after twenty-four games.

Now, I don’t want to get bogged down in the rules or gameplay description because this is all so much in flux. While the core creative elements remain the same, the mechanisms around them which allow operation of the structured creativity are so much in flux that anything I say might not reflect where it goes. I will describe some of what you see on the hex grid, which is so intuitive to me, but probably looks more abstract to those who haven’t played this for hours and hours.

But first, a slight detour into role-playing games. It’s relevant. This initial campaign drew on the content of Mythic Bastionland as a guiding light. The game does not need a supplemental RPG to be played. In fact, almost every other RPG I have ever seen would take a lot more work to be useful to this prototype in this capacity as an “idea generator” but Mythic Bastionland strikes the right balance between detail, consistency, and procedural generation in a rhythmic fashion that is not too stilted. [5] At any rate, I will later say a bit more about the Mythic Bastionland angle of this prototype on this month’s “Solo Roleplaying Games on Your Table” GeekList, one of the more entertaining corners on BGG.

Anyway, the hexes in that grid collectively form a map. The large shapes in each are terrain familiar to anyone who played Shard Harvest (my make-as-you-play game about “death and magic”) although I did swap plains for lakes. So we have lakes (misshapen circles), woods (lollipop clusters), mountains (triangles), swamps (down-arrows), and hills (triple-buttocks). OK, so the art I used for those last two is at least drawn from the dice for Runebound 2E, which is some of my favorite longstanding game iconography, although that game never had the guts to put those symbols on the map itself.

You’ll note that some areas have Stonehengey dolmens. These are specific site markers, and the sites are connected by a minimum-spanning-tree dotted path, which affects movement.

Perhaps most noticeable, if not legible, are the names in the hexes. The top name of a hex is the name of the overall area. The bottom name in a hex is the name of the site. So the bottom dolmen symbol marks the site of the “Toad Statues,” for example.

Why are so few places named and are there so few sites? These are added slowly by discovery over the course of the campaign. They appear regularly and in the late stages the map has even more detail than this. My second campaign is actually further along in fewer games (just nineteen) but it has more variety.

What I like about these maps (although you can only see one example) is how they invariably take on some interesting character. This map has a big swathe of swamps in the east, including “Wight Bog” as a named swamp. And yes, I know, a bog is not a swamp, but it’s more like a “general wetlandish area” in this case. If we get further into this game on this blog you almost certainly will hear a recurring theme of “don’t sweat stuff that doesn’t make sense…”

Almost by virtue of where things are, you get a sense of what makes regions special. There’s those “Toad Statues”… they are up in the isolated southern mountains, whereas “The Cairn of Faces” is alongside a lake and feels like it is in a much busier, more-traveled part of the world. Or the “Dusk Dolmens” which are on the edge of a vast expanse of hills. My hope is that as other features are added to the map, they further enrich this sense of place and relative place.

There’s also instances of my oft-appearing suits in the corners of most of the hexes, but I’ll leave that a mystery as to what it means for now because it keeps shifting about. Essentially it’s another way to characterize the hexes.

Apart from the map, which is the easiest object to depict, the game consists of a considerable number of different colored six sided dice (okay, like 10 of one color and maybe one of three others), a few markers to track positions on the map, and index cards. This campaign when I paused it to restart with some very big rules changes had seventy-eight index cards created for it. Now, that was an explosion on the order of Deep Future that I wanted to avoid, so it was one reason I reset to try out rules to keep the deck size more manageable… with many unforeseen consequences. But, as you might suspect, these index cards are what holds all the descriptive writing for the game.

This prototype is actually not nearly my most complex game. Among the released ones, that’d probably be Shard Harvest to be honest. It is the most creatively demanding game, but like I said, it’s the kind of game I enjoy playing and am willing to play. It might be a game only for me, but once I get the rules worked out in a way that supports repeat play without tweaks, perhaps we’ll all see. It might go back on the shelf if I can’t get the late game to play nice with the new rules, but it’d be exciting if it did and I could get across a clear and stable way to play that is also expandable and flexible to your own ideas. Nothing delights me more than seeing other people playing my games and coming up with their own creations.

Endnotes

[1] OK, well, I was really posting a bunch of things lately on the Make-as-You-Play Games blog, including a "scoring system" for determining how much any given game is entrenched in the genre. Now we have an "authoritative" means of determining if any game needs the make-as-you-play tag.

[2] All these characters were named with my "find appropriately sized words on random Wikipedia page titles"... not always the best method but it does force me to use names I wouldn't have thought of...

[3] Redin became the priest, that is. Not Gladius. Writing so fast causes all kinds of awkward grammar to persist. But maybe I'll forget and think Gladius did it at some point!

[4] Another one like [3]! Ugh.

[5] For example, I have been thinking (for maybe years now?) of how to do the same thing with Brindlewood Bay without success because, while the game shares some of the DNA with Mythic Bastionland as far as "here's some excellent text fragments to spark good a good game"... it requires a narrower patch in which to bloom and, quite frankly, I think the “reveal” would only be fun if you are talking it out with other people at a table and coming up with something collectively. So it's tough to adapt in a solo context without a kind of re-thinking I haven't been able to work out yet.

by Patrick McElfresh

Busy, busy bundle week, with four bundles and almost two hundred items. This edition of Bundle Watch is brought to you by the letters "O," "L," and "D."

There are old school mega dungeons, new versions of old RPGs, modern takes on old school gameplay, and sorta older supplements. Read on for the details.


Bundle of Holding
:kF::ki::kr::ks::kt:<< these are the links Runs from 1/12/2026 to 2/3/2026

Interested in Mork Borg? Need some more content? This bundle has you covered. This bundle collects a number of dark fantasy sourcebooks, many from Christian Eichhorn's kickstarters, if I've understood correctly.

It's important to note that Mörk Borg is not included in this bundle, so you'll have to come up with that for yourself, if you don't have a copy.

This single tier bundle is $20, and includes Apocrypha, Bone Heart Crusaders aka "Hallowed" now, Monsters!, Refuse; adventure scenarios Death & Taxes, Monochrome, The Factory, and Rat Cellar. Finally, forty hand-drawn maps wraps us up.

:kS::ke::kc::ko::kn::kd: Runs from 1/14/2026 to 2/12/2026

Next up is another shot at the The Halls of Arden Vul series! I've covered this before, and you can check the contents over at Bundle of Holding, or on a previous post. This single tier bundle costs $25 for a bunch of content for your favorite Old School system.


Humble Bundle
:kF::ki::kr::ks::kt: Runs from 1/14/2026 to 2/4/2026

Next up is a nice sized Call of Cthulhu (7th Edition) bundle. Cthulhu isn't exactly my thing, so I don't know a lot about this game. I know CoC is one of the earliest RPGs, and this edition continues the tradition. Seems like a good deal if, like the bundle's title, you're interested in Trying Call of Cthulhu.

Tier 1 - 4 Total Items - $5 USD
• Call of Cthulhu Starter Set
• Doors to Darkness
• Petersen Guide to Lovecraftian Horrors
• Call of Cthulhu the Coloring Book


Tier 2 - 11 Total Items - $15 USD
• Nameless Horrors 2nd Edition
• Call of Cthulhu: Keeper Rulebook
• Gateways to Terror
• Grand Grimoire of Cthulhu Mythos Magic
• Keeper Tips
• Alone Against the Dark
• Malleus Monstrorum Keeper Deck


Tier 3 - 26 Total Items - $25 USD
• Call of Cthulhu: Investigator Handbook
• Call of Cthulhu: Keeper Screen Pack
• Pulp Cthulhu
• Malleus Monstrorum
• Dead Light and Other Dark Turns
• A Cold Fire Within
• Berlin The Wicked City
• Down Darker Trails
• Cthulhu Dark Ages 3rd Ed
• Reign of Terror
• Mansions of Madness Vol. 1
• Petersen's Abominations
• Alone Against the Tide
• Alone Against the Frost
• Does Love Forgive?




Fanatical
:kF::ki::kr::ks::kt: Runs from 1/16/2026:?block: to 3/13/2026

Oh, this bundle might be the one that does me in. If you don't see a post next week, that's what it was.

I would have loved the crap out of this bundle had it existed when I was playing D&D 3e/3.5e...I wanted some of these Quintessential guides, but couldn't find them, couldn't afford them, whatever. I certainly have moved on, but if you're still rocking the d20 system, this is a fantastic deal.

Tier 1 - 5 Total Items - $1 USD
• Monster Encyclopaedia Vol 1: Ravagers of the Realms
• Character Portraits: Fantasy Heroes
• Ultimate Character Concepts
• Ultimate Character Record Sheet
• More Ultimate Equipment


Tier 2 - 14 Total Items - $5 USD
• Ultimate Prestige Classes Vol 2
• Power Classes: Gladiator
• Power Classes: Pirate
• Seas of Blood
• Ships of War
• Gladiator
• OGL Ancients
• The Slayer's Guide to Bugbears
• The Slayer's Guide to Games Masters
• The Slayer's Guide to Rules Lawyers


Tier 3 - 40 Total Items - $10 USD
• The Quintessential Aristocrat
• The Quintessential Barbarian
• The Quintessential Bard
• The Quintessential Cleric
• The Quintessential Drow
• The Quintessential Druid
• The Quintessential Dwarf
• The Quintessential Elf
• The Quintessential Gnome
• The Quintessential Halfling
• The Quintessential Human
• The Quintessential Paladin
• The Quintessential Ranger
• The Quintessential Rogue
• The Quintessential Sorcerer
• The Quintessential Witch
• The Slayer's Guide to Gnolls
• The Slayer's Guide to Goblins
• The Slayer's Guide to Kobolds
• The Slayer's Guide to Troglodytes
• Power Classes: Artificer
• Power Classes: Cabalist
• Power Classes: Exorcist
• Power Classes: Explorer
• Power Classes: Fool


Tier 4 - 101 Total Items - $18 USD
• The Quintessential Barbarian II
• The Quintessential Bard II
• The Quintessential Chaos Mage
• The Quintessential Cleric II
• The Quintessential Druid II
• The Quintessential Dwarf II
• The Quintessential Elf II
• The Quintessential Fighter II
• The Quintessential Half-Orc
• The Quintessential Kobold
• The Quintessential Monk II
• The Quintessential Paladin II
• The Quintessential Psychic Warrior
• The Quintessential Ranger II
• The Quintessential Rogue II
• The Quintessential Samurai
• The Quintessential Wizard
• The Quintessential Wizard II
• The Slayer's Guide to Amazons
• The Slayer's Guide to Centaurs
• The Slayer's Guide to Demons
• The Slayer's Guide to Derro
• The Slayer's Guide to Dragons
• The Slayer's Guide to Duergar
• The Slayer's Guide to Elementals
• The Slayer's Guide to Giants
• The Slayer's Guide to Harpies
• The Slayer's Guide to Hobgoblins
• The Slayer's Guide to Kraken
• The Slayer's Guide to Lizardfolk
• The Slayer's Guide to Minotaurs
• The Slayer's Guide to Ogres
• The Slayer's Guide to Orcs
• The Slayer's Guide to Sahuagin
• The Slayer's Guide to Scorpion Folk
• The Slayer's Guide to Titans
• The Slayer's Guide to Trolls
• The Slayer's Guide to Undead
• The Slayer's Guide to Winter Wolves
• The Slayer's Guide to Yuan-Ti
• Book of Strongholds & Dynasties
• Cities of Fantasy: Skraag - City of Orcs
• Drow War Vol 1: The Gathering Storm
• Epic Monsters
• Encyclopaedia Arcane: Abjuration
• Encyclopaedia Arcane: Star Magic
• Encyclopaedia Arcane: Tomes and Libraries
• Encyclopaedia Divine: Fey Magic
• Infernum: Book of the Damned Vol 1
• Renegade Cleric's Tome
• Renegade Wizard's Spellbook
• Ruins of the Dragon Lord
• Sheoloth - City of the Drow
• Slayer's Guide Compendium
• The Planes: Feuerring - Gateway to Hell
• The Tome of Drow Lore
• Van Graff's Journal of Dragons
• Power Classes: Alchemist
• Power Classes: Assassin
• Power Classes: Hedge Wizard
• Power Classes: Knight


As a reminder, I cover bundles from Monday last week to this last Sunday so I can draft the post in advance. I'll cover yesterday's bundle's next week.

by Rachel

It better come back in time to finish up the video for Composer's Cat!

Game Over On borrowed time...

Happy Monday and happy playing!
-Rachel

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