Witchburner Funeral Edition and the New Year

Happy 2019, world. You’re still spinning, but G+ is rushing for the grave.

I keep meaning to write long posts, to give a proper highlight to the glory that is Lost Pages (I will soon, don’t worry, Paolo!), to emphasize the amazing things available for free in the Dungeon of Signs (The Prison of the Hated Pretender was the start of the Yellow Land, which begat the Rainbowlands, which begat the Ultraviolet Grasslands), to breakdown how Hack Slash Master redefined gaming for me, to write that ode to Grognardia. And then other stuff keeps coming up.

Witchburner is getting printed

I’ve been aware of Exalted Funeral Press for a while and this autumn, after the digital release of Witchburner, we got to talking. Very quickly we realized that we had common interests (*cough* metal *cough* rpgs *cough*) and also rather compatible skill sets. To test them out, we’re bringing a limited edition print run of the book.

It’s a little longer than the original digital release—not because the text has changed but because I’ve added about twenty pieces of art to it and a couple of worksheets inspired by Max’s for his home game with Witchburner (read the AP – it’s fun). It’s also black and white, because, y’know, that’s more witch metal (and also cheaper for a first run).

This is really big news for me. This is the first book I’ve written that’s turning into a physical product!

There’s more news.

WTF Studio is coming online

Over the last year my game-and-art patreon has grown sevenfold. I’ve also become more comfortable working as a game designer, writer, and artist.

I’ve written about this often on my somewhat-rarely-updated-personal-blog. A large chunk of creative work is the confidence that there is some value and meaning to the things you do.

Spitting in the face of any kind of confidence are the tropes of the starving artist and the trope of art, writing, culture generally, as soul food that should subsist on its own, nourished by the muses.

This is complete nonsense.

Nothing has given me as much confidence as people willing to pay dollars to have my art in their lives, and people willing to take their time to write in-depth reviews of my work.

Since I’m now taking my own creative work seriously (finally, I hear you say), I’m setting up my own imprint WTF Studio to publish trpg games. This means that future books on DTRPG and other platforms will be sold under the WTF logo.

I’m still good friends with the Hydra Cooperative, mind you, but since this is now the job … well, time to run it like a job, too.

Last Round at Jeepla’s

And that loops us back to the beginning and the end and the end of G+. That social media network was crucial to my discovering an audience for my work, and I put out the call for others who wanted a small, illustrated memorial to our time on G+. I’ve illustrating a couple score of heroes from those times, and now that they’re nearly finished (a few more to go), I’ll put them up as a small, illustrated memorial zine, to the heroes of Jeepla’s Taverna.

The zine will be free to download from DTRPG (and elsewhere). A memorial and a fond farewell to our OSR social network of choice, and a first publication for WTF Studio. Life from death, beginnings from endings. Per aspera.

Just One Last Thing About Witchburner

One last message about Witchburner. I shared Possum’s kind review on reddit, and a /u/moconnor8 posted a brilliant paragraph that I wish I had written to summarize what the adventure does. Here it is for you.

However, the primary reason (imo) to read Witchburner over other fantasy intrigue material is the nature of the core investigation. The player characters are put into an ethically fraught situation (rather than immediate physical danger). How they handle it likely depends on how the players understand their relationship to the GM’s hook. Many published ‘adventures’ assume that when a character in the fiction gives the party a quest (‘Find the witch!’), it doubles as the GM saying ‘Do this, please, it’s all I have prepped.’ There’s a canned adventure with it’s own arc, and the opportunity for a hard-won, tidy ending. The players need only participate (or even, play along). Witchburner, to its credit, does not operate on this assumption.

(from reddit)

Well, there you go—if you want to pay me to write more stories and games like this, the Stratometaship patreon is the way to go, or by buying my books, like the heavily illustrated What Ho, Frog Demons. Come on over, join the fun, visit the discord channel. We have cookies (metaphorical cookies).