Liminal Ark

It's the hottest day of the year... While melting slowly into my chair today on what seems to be the start of a harsh heat wave here in the Pacific Northwest I was thinking about stories which involve the hottest day of the year trope. Everyone in these stories are exhausted, agitated, and slick with sweat making what ever ordeal they are already going through that much worse. The heat wave is a more sinister version of the more in your face disaster like a hurricane or tornado but eats away at you slowly instead of an explosion of escalating misery. So what's that got to do with RPGs? THE HEAT WAVE Beyond its aesthetic a heat wave can be used as a motivator, a hazard, or even a character all its own in your story. In addition to mechanical ways mentioned here keep in mind that the heat wave is just as powerful as just another layer on top of the current setting. Take care to describe the liminal haze of the crossroads. The odor of rancid sweat or herds of grazing animals. The ...

Best Left Buried has quickly become one of my favorite dungeon crawlers for its quick conflict resolution and survival horror ethos which straddles the line between story games and the OSR (At least for this casual.) My favorite part are the Adaptations which are monster abilities that can also be taken and made into magic items or mutations for the PC's to use as well. This created a dynamic in my games where as the players grew more powerful they became more and more like the monsters they were trying to slay. Love it.  Recently, I've been creating a mega-dungeon inspired by molds, vampires, and Resident Evil which while far from finished has given me more cause to experiment with these Adaptations. Though creating your own Adaptations is a painless process often I end up enjoying a simple reskin or reinterpretation of existing ones just as much. As a demonstration here is a big moldy monstrosity I made for the kitchen section of my dungeon.   THE COOK Theme: Taste. It ...