Hold On to Your Potatoes

This is your semi-regular reminder that Temple of Doom is the best one.

#TempleOfDoomIsTheBestOne

Drums (Little Bit of)

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Bagpipes (of DOOM)

Self-explanatory.

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Triangle

An attempt to do a picture in the style of Amos Orion Sterns, who did all the class pictures in the LotFP rulebook. Partially successful. Ish.

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I Like Second-Stage-Randomness

There's probably a proper name for this family of mechanics but what I mean by second-stage-randomness is taking a base mechanic that is stable and knowable, and then spicing it up with a layer of random generation. Some examples:

Characters: Everyone knows what a Fighter is, how they work, and what sort of things they can do. But then we modify the Fighter by allowing some randomness in, so then two Fighters may look and act in different ways. Dragon Age and Shadowdark both do this with dice rolls to determine what abilities characters get, from class-specific tables, and I've tinkered with a similar idea myself.

Monsters: The room contains 1d12 orcish Morris dancers! But what if we can roll 1d8 to determine exactly what sort of orcish Morris dancers they are? 13th Age does something like this with its dragons, and there's a similar sort of idea here at I Cast Light! You don't want anything too complicated gumming up play at the table, just a simple modification to the standard monster to stop them becoming too predictable.

(If you're playing a Warhammer-style setting with true Chaos at work you could really lean into this with expanded tables for Chaotic creatures. Maybe even a d1000 table...)

Locations: I've been watching -- but not playing, I don't have the reflexes or time for that -- quite a bit of Nightreign the new Elden Ring spinoff. The game randomly generates some of its content, such as monster placement and type, so that while experienced players will get to know the general shape of the game, there is still some potential for surprises; you may know that it's one of six bosses over in that grove of trees, but which of the six you won't know until you get there. One other thing the game does is reshape the map with a special location that's randomly drawn from a pool; it could be a mysterious city, a snowy mountain, or a volcanic chasm. Players don't know which it will be -- if any; I think there's also a chance of none appearing and the map being "normal" -- until they arrive on the island.

It feels like there should be a way to do something similar in a tabletop role-playing game, although I haven't worked out how yet. You don't necessarily want randomly changing locations on your world map, unless you're using some sort of "chaos zone".

What I like about this sort of mechanic is that while randomly rolling everything can make a game feel arbitrary and meaningless, this gives a stable base but also accommodates an exciting layer of unpredictability. For me it's the best of both worlds, and you can even further adjust it by using bell curve probabilities to make things a bit more predictable.

But not too predictable, eh?

Recorder

Is the recorder the basic instrument taught in schools around the world, or is that just the UK?

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Cymbals

KTANG!

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Buy My Stuff! If You Want!

If you want to support my "creative" endeavours you can do so here!

ART AND WRITING COMMISSIONS | ROLE-PLAYING GAMES | MERCH

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Art and Writing Commissions:

A full page piece of art like this will cost £50 (GBP):

Larger or more complicated pictures, or with extra processing such as colouring or lettering, will likely cost more. Smaller or simpler pieces will of course cost less. Contact me for details.

(I do sometimes offer the original art for sale. Again the price will vary depending on the status of the original piece, so contact me for specifics.)

You can see (many) more examples of my art here.

I also write (see below)! I don't have a specific page or word rate for writing, but I'm always happy to discuss projects and can give you a quote based on the scope of the work. Let me know!

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Role-Playing Games:

Adventure Anthology: Blood: I didn't write this compilation of classic Lamentations of the Flame Princess adventures, but I did draw over 250 new pictures for it! [pdf] [dead tree - Europe] [dead tree - North America]

BEE-WARE!: Non-hostile werewolves just want to be left alone to run their brewing business, except they are werebees. Possibly the highest/worst pun density of all of my books. For Lamentations of the Flame Princess and similar old-school role-playing games. [pdf] [dead tree - Europe] [dead tree - North America]

The Curious Conundrum of the Conflagrated Condottiero: My attempt to emulate a trashy 80's slasher film in the role-playing game format. For Lamentations of the Flame Princess and similar old-school role-playing games. [pdf] [dead tree - Europe] [dead tree - North America]

The Expiration of Barrington Peake: A (sort of) one page (sort of) dungeon. Pay what you want! [pdf] [dead tree - Europe] [dead tree - North America]

Fish F**kers: Fish people and the awful humans that exploit them. Doing my bit to undo Lovecraft's icky legacy. For Lamentations of the Flame Princess and similar old-school role-playing games. [pdf] [dead tree - Europe] [dead tree - North America]

Green Messiah: The Colour Out of Space, except it's also Superman's origin, plus a bit of Swamp Thing and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. For Lamentations of the Flame Princess and similar old-school role-playing games. [pdf] [dead tree - Europe] [dead tree - North America]

Magic Eater: I tried to write an adventure about taking on a mundane gang of bandits, except I added a weird cult and a superpowered glutton. For Lamentations of the Flame Princess and similar old-school role-playing games. [pdf] [dead tree - Europe] [dead tree - North America]

Midvinter: It's, um, mid winter in seventeenth century Sweden, and the players are invited to a special celebration. Vaguely inspired by the film Midsommar, but not a lot like it, because I hadn't seen it at the time. For Lamentations of the Flame Princess and similar old-school role-playing games. [pdf] [dead tree - Europe] [dead tree - North America]

More Than Meets the Eye: The players stumble into a conflict between rival factions of mimics. A very short adventure for Lamentations of the Flame Princess and similar old-school role-playing games. [pdf] [dead tree - Europe] [dead tree - North America]

The Seed: Psychic Doomsday Cultists Semi-Accidentally Summoned an Alien Machine That Is Eating the World and Shitting Out a New One! As "featured" in The New Yorker, my contribution to the Manifestus Omnivorous project. More or less systemless, but easy enough to run with the role-playing game of your choice. [pdf]

Strict Time Records Must Be Kept: The player-characters are poisoned and dropped into a house full of tricks and traps to try and find the antidote before they die a messy death. Zero attempt at realism, maximum effort at fun. For Lamentations of the Flame Princess and similar old-school role-playing games. [pdf] [dead tree - Europe] [dead tree - North America]

Terror in the Streets: You can't do murder mystery adventures in D&D, apparently! Well, no one told me. Children are going missing in Paris in 1630; can your players solve the mystery against a backdrop of political and religious unrest, and the machinations of Cardinal Richelieu? For Lamentations of the Flame Princess and similar old-school role-playing games. [pdf] [dead tree - Europe] [dead tree - North America]

BIG Terror in the Streets: As above, but in a big cardboard box with a map, handouts, paper miniatures, a special d6, and a supplementary book of adventures, Huguenauts and Other Distractions. For Lamentations of the Flame Princess and similar old-school role-playing games. [pdf - Huguenauts] [box - Europe] [box - North America]

Winnie-the-Shit: A blatant cash-in on the source material's entry into the public domain, mashed up with Animal Farm -- not that one -- and The Island of Doctor Moreau for a mini wilderness crawl. For Lamentations of the Flame Princess and similar old-school role-playing games. [pdf] [dead tree - Europe] [dead tree - North America]

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Merch:

I have a selection of clothes, stickers, and the like for sale at both RedBubble and Threadless. I think I get a tiny bit more of the proceeds from the Threadless stuff, but there is a wider variety of items at RedBubble. The choice is yours!