The Ultraviolet Grasslands are written (63)

The Ultraviolet Grasslands are written. They are complete and finished and ready for editing and later for layout and later for POD and a solid print run. If you’re a patreon supporter, you can get them here, at the WTF patreon. If you’re not, you can get the free introduction at DriveThru RPG. Some people think it’s great. And that’s inspiring.

I finished writing them last month, squeezing in just under the August 31st deadline I had set myself. It took me eighteen months and sixteen updates (I missed a couple of months in between). The UVG isn’t perfect, but it’s good enough, and so, I can say it’s done.

I’ve written a lot about it over these months, trying to promote it while I wasn’t even sure what it was.

In part, it was an exercise, proving to myself I could write a book. In part, it was me writing down the game world my players always end up playing, from the fools who launched the Hand of God against the Rustumani Levellers to the motley zeks from Re-education Asteroid Heroj Stahanov slaughtered by auto-defense cannons on a mission to explore the space hulk Gottswahreliebe. In part, it was me finally writing the world I want to run and play: the kind with mad, months’ long voyages across weird, ancient, ageless, old worlds. Finally, it was a chance for me to put my own art and drawing to work for my own words, like ink puppets twitching on digital strings.

So there you have it: the rules-light psychedelic heavy metal Dying Earth Oregon Trail rpg pointcrawl.

• Thirty large adventure areas, each with random events, encounters, and points of interest.
• Many of them with extra NPCs, random tables, and odd effects.
• All of them with bunches of my art.
• Not enough of them with good maps.
• A rough and ready hero generator.
• A bunch of rules for running a caravan.
• A dodgy set of caravan sheets for tracking them.
• A massive map covering the whole thing.
• A bunch of items and a historic period generator.
• Look, it’s 150 A5 pages of game. It’s thick.

What now?

Now I’m taking a small break from working on the UVG, so I’m writing Witchburner. An adventure set in a small town with a witch problem. It should be ready on the WizardThiefFighter patreon by the end of September.

–/–

The folk call it Bridge. The clerks call it Saint Cleareyes.

Built, burnt, and rebuilt. There has always been at town at this opalescent bridge. Its metal struts resist the weight of years, though the river below it shifts from swift flow to murky mire and back again as it carves its way to the sea.

The town has always been small. Important but limited by geography to always be the pawn, or at best the rook, of either the Western City or the Eastern City.

When the burners come, the natives fly to the thick-wooded hills, like carrion crows from their carcass at the coming of the catamount.

Always the burners leave, and the natives return.

Always some stain of the old days remains in the brooding woods, in the buckled mountains, in the banshee caves.

Always the witches remain.

Remain, and sometimes return. Like this year.

The fish of the river floated upturned upon the water, handprints burned into their putrefying flesh.

A black cat was found, gutted and nailed upon the doors of the Schoolhouse.

A child was born with a third eye, and when he cried, he cried, “Amimam!” The name of the Eater of Virility. The council put the monster spawn to death, as is proper.

The buckwheat wilted black in the fields and the pumpkins bled red under Plum Orchard Hill. It was going to be a hungry winter.

Winterwhite is a dangerous god, and a wise mayor does not play games with the granaries. It is time to call the witchburner.

–/–

Let me end by thanking everyone who has supported me, encouraged my work, shared my patreon, and written in with kind words. Yes, it’s just a $1 to support me on patreon, but it makes a massive difference emotionally and financially. As I’ve written about at length on the non-game-blog.