As the social media landscape crumbles, I am seeking refuge here, in this newsletter. I will use it to cross-post from my blog for those of you who, like me, prefer email to antiquated RSS feeds. I will also use it to provide the kind of news about Ultan’s Door Press that I would normally share over social media. But more importantly, I will use the newsletter to share my thoughts and process about the hobby we love.
For those of you who don’t know me, I am the author of the continuing zine Through Ultan’s Door, a tabletop roleplaying zine which explores Zyan, a flying city in Wishery, the land beyond the veil of sleep. I am also the author of Downtime in Zyan, a creative system for handling the activities characters perform between adventures, and the long-running but infrequently updated blog Mazirian’s Garden.
If you want to know what kind of games I like to play and write for, I would describe the playstyle this way. I am interested in sandbox games, with emergent narrative driven by player choice, where the focus is on discovering the unknown and overcoming challenges. And I like to do all that in deeply imagined, evocative worlds. My work and playstyle is most strongly influenced by the Old School Renaissance (OSR) movement that took inspiration from the wild early days of the hobby before things had settled into their staid corporate form. (But, having said that, I am open to other indie playstyles and movements, some of which I admire greatly.)
For those you who have been following me in one way or another for a while, you may wonder where I’ve gone. For the last 9 months, to my great frustration, I had to step back from the hobby because of extraordinary work pressure. I have kept a face to face game going this whole time, but I have had little no time to work on projects and publications. The truth is that I’m still not entirely through those trials and tribulations, but I am, at long last coming back to tabletop roleplaying games in the time that I can manage to set aside.
Here are three projects, at least two of which you probably don’t know about, which I am only revealing on this newsletter for now.
When Dungeon23 launched, I worked with Iko of the Lost Bay podcast to develop a new podcast called Into the Megadungeon. It’s a podcast exploring this largely lost campaign form by talking with the people who know it best: GMs with years of experience running successful megadungeon campaigns. I even have already recorded and edited the first episode. You can expect the trailer to drop in less than two weeks, and the first episode to hit the airwaves in August right after Gen Con. I have a great lineup of interviewee’s for the first season.
I have finished a complete adventure, set in Wishery, but usable in any campaign world, which is (I think) going to be published by a major publisher in the nearish future. I can’t say too much more, but it will be (1) the first published adventure nominally set in the White Jungle of that setting, (2) It turns the highly problematic “looting local artifacts from sacred sites” Indiana Jones style premise of much classic dungeon crawling on its head in a fun way, and (3) it’s an experiment in seeing how far you can design a genuine OSR style dungeon adventure without (exactly) Jaquaysing the dungeon. I got it in 6 months late, so I’m not 100% sure it’s still going to come out with this publisher, but I think it probably will. (I’d be glad to publish it through my press instead, if need be.)
Speaking of Dungeon23, I went on developing ideas for the dungeon I was blogging about for Dungeon23, The Catacombs of the North Wind, long after I stopped being able to write posts about it. After the post about the initial approach to the dungeon, I went on to do tons of research that helped me get a handle on factions, and strange goings on of level 1. I hope to share more of that soon.
That’s my news for now! But stay tuned for more soon. In the meantime, please share my newsletter on whatever platforms you’re on to help spread the world.
I’ll see you in slumberland.