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Despite my best efforts, I am British.  The British Isles are a fascinating place. Over the last two hundred years we have homogenised into a general sense of “Britishness”, but these isles of mine are home to a proud and profoundly strange folkloric tradition stretching back 3,000 years. There is one recurring myth found across the UK that formed the basis of Kingbreaker’s lore: The King in the Mountain. For those unfamiliar, this is a common motif across several cultural tr

The College of Haruspex  Equal part administrative service, funerary firm, library, and religious practice, the ministrants of the College of Haruspex worship the grim-faced Stocktaker of the Dead, who oversees the Cthonic Bureaucracy from his throne beneath the earth. The College is an unusual organisation, overseeing the gathering of information, the production and maintenance of birth and death certificates, and the proper rites of interring the dead, and the enforcement o

The ultimate goal of Kingbreaker: The Crownday Festival is to become one of the eponymous Kingbreakers, a sort of heavenly hitman blessed with eternal undeath and endless resolve and tasked with defeating each of the Six Kings that rule over this land. However, to become a Kingbreaker one must survive a gauntlet of duels held over the course of a single day - the victor of these duels will have proven themselves worthy in the eyes of Providence and will be promoted from a pla

On Dwarves The Long River Kingdoms were the first to encounter these strange beings. Their name for them, Dwa-Phen (which in time and under less sophisticated tongues becomes our crude “dwarf”) has many translations. The most commonly cited translation is “The Earthen Folk”, or perhaps “Children of the Caves”. Some scholars argue it could be translated as “The Armoured Ones”, or “The Old Men of Many Plates”. These translations are suitable enough, to one degree or another. Bu

I’ve been making games for a little over five years now, and in that time my games have followed a fairly simple structure. This structure - which would eventually become the RHP System - is built around two players as they navigate a world that changes with the seasons. This formed the basis of Right Hand Path , Suburban Shaman , and the Gastronomancer , and would eventually be hacked into the multiplayer game We Stalk the Hedgerows .  The thing is, I’ve never been one for c

In today's blog, we dig into the donestre - a manipulative monstrosity found in medieval bestiaries.

Dungeons and Dragons has shifted dramatically in terms of tone over the years. The very first editions of the game were effectively direct lifts of popular fantasy fiction, from Tolkein and Moorcock to Lovecraft and Howard. As the series went on, its tone shifted through space-faring science-fantasy, gothic horror, surrealist planepunk, before settling on its current cosy, fairy-tale, Winds in the Willows by way of Lord of the Rings vibe.  But occasionally, amongst all those

[TW: This post contains discussions of domestic violence, racism, and homophobia.] [SPOILER WARNING: This post contains spoilers for Stephen King’s IT, and as such may reference upcoming plot points in HBO’s IT: Welcome to Derry.] In light of the recent IT: Welcome to Derry TV show, I have decided to go back and re-read the iconic doorstop novel that started it all. Stephen King’s IT is quite possibly the prototypical Stephen King text: A writer protagonist, a small town in M

The year is 1990, and Steve Jackson Games, Inc. is set to publish its debut sci-fi GURPS expansion GURPS Cyberpunk . The genre is still at its zenith: Just two years earlier, Mike Pondsmith’s legendary Cyberpunk TTRPG was published by R. Talsorian Games, which was shortly followed by Iron Crown Enterprise’s Cyberspace and FASA’s Shadowrun ; Test screenings of the Blade Runner director’s cut were in the ether, ultimately leading to a renewed excitement in the franchise; and, w

I have a deep affinity for goblins.  My first ever D&D character was Dirk Cheeto, a character who was half goblin, half slightly larger...

I’m going to preface today’s blog with two points:  Firstly, I am a disabled person. I suffer from a joint disorder that leaves me prone to dislocation and injury, and subsequently I struggle with low energy and fatigue while my body attempts to hold me together. I suffer from arthritis and use a walking stick.  Secondly, I work professionally in the Accessibility and Inclusion sector. I have worked with several organisations to make sure that a given location is accessible t

What is the #freetheforge controversy? Who are Hero Forge, and why has their recent partnership with Darrington Press caused such a stir?

As the seasons shift and the Spirits of Old flit on the peripheries of waking, I felt it’d be a good time to explore the more sinister side of the classic fantasy bestiary. On this blog we have discussed dragons and Derros, and future installments will look at dwarves, elves, giants, and more. But today, on this most hallowed of eves, we'll be looking at the most feared of all beasts and bastards of by-gone days. Today, we shall take a closer look at the dreaded night hag. If

You have been wandering through the Underdark for days now. At least, you’re pretty sure it’s been days: It’s hard to tell, given the lack of sunlight and the ever-present glow of these damned mushrooms. The smell of subterranean gasses float up from deeper, darker levels of this cursed labyrinth, snagging in your throat and clinging to your nostrils. Every now and then, a lizard the size of a horse lumbers by, fixing you in its lazy purple gaze. Sometimes, you think you hear

We stand knee-deep in the spooky season, and “horror” is the word on everyone’s lips. GMs clamour to inject terror into their campaigns, and players long to be thoroughly terrified. The question, however, is how. Horror has been a staple of the TTRPG scene since its very inception, and of all the different flavours of horror that have influenced the hobby, the greatest and most terrifying is cosmic horror.  Horror is a tricky genre. Mechanically, it’s very similar to comedy:

Dragons are not born, you know.  Some claim that they, lizard-like, lay eggs atop volcanoes and or in the dark depths of the earth. This...

Welcome, one and all, to the Sealight Storehouse! Amidst these dusty shelves one might find any number of strange and wondrous items,...

I recently took part in an interesting conversation on Reddit about ableism in TTRPG design. Specifically, the thread was about how to...

I have a confession to make. As someone who cut his teeth on Dungeons and Dragons and Pathfinder, it’s a difficult confession. However, I...

The common signifiers of the fantasy genre are pretty consistent at this point. Dragons are pretty central, as are variably-sized...