Liminal Ark

A weekly blog post?! Egad! Don’t look now but I may have actually beaten the rut. From my previous musings on adding modifications to the Underclock you may have seen my interest in the Stalker type enemy endemic to a lot of modern Survival Horror and how that type of foe seems like an obvious fit to way of handling random encounters. So I tried it and it felt a bit…crowded. I wanted lesser creatures that roamed between the buildings, environmental traps, and other dungeon delving horrors which took up quite a bit of space. Somehow I was also supposed to find a way to resurrect locality effects that I had missed from the overloaded encounter die. It was all just a bit much to also add in a chase sequence as an option on the list so I went back to the drawing board. I needed to separate the Nemesis (My big bad unstoppable beasty) from the Underclock without vastly increasing the cognitive load in running a complex hunter creature amidst all the other workings of my dungeon. Then I reme...

Today we’re going to be talking about Fallout in Liminal Horror arguably THE mechanic that makes the game what it is. For those not in the know Liminal Horror is a horror tabletop RPG based on the wide wonderful ruleset of Cairn which is also based on the NSR Ur-Text Into The Odd. It’s light but with enough tricks up its sleeve to make it both fun and spooky enough for The Thing in a Mall or Control: The Megadungeon. I’ve been running Liminal Horror for years now through campaigns, one-shots, dungeon crawls, and city wide investigations. I’ve run every one of the official adventures at least twice and just wrapped up the Parthogenesis of Hungry Hollow so you could say I’m a bit of a fan. What keeps me coming back to Liminal Horror over Call of Cthulhu, Kult Divinity Lost or World of Darkness which I have immensely enjoyed in the past is the game’s defining feature, Fallout. Fallout is how the game dodges problematic tropes of “mental illness bad” found in the games above by drawing in...

Happy almost anniversary. 2024 was a tough year for creative brain and keeping games going both because of player fluctuation and my waning motivation. However, the last month or so has seen a resurgence for me in tackling the myriad of half finished projects while running a new campaign of His Majesty The Worm. The game is wonderfully designed and my last session saw a real workout of the Challenge phase card battle mechanics that really saw my players engage in a way with tabletop RPG combat I hadn't seen for a very long time. As every referee, DM, GM, and Keeper knows that joy is the grease for the gears so the machine chugs on. Dungeon Seed:  The Barrow of the Unrequited Hundreds of feet beneath the ancient elven grove of The City is crypt of fallen martyrs. Elven parents forced to sacrifice themselves to sire children in this new world were entombed here after a civil war amongst the immortals from ages past. Unable to reconcile their differences the council chose instead to ...

It will be no secret to anyone who’s played in my games or spared the slightest glance at my musings here that I’m a big fan of Survival Horror as a genre. So inevitably regardless of what system I’m currently playing we tend to inject some Resident Evil flavor at some point. Inspired by a blog post I saw a while ago (That I cannot find) I decided to take the old school Prima Strategy Guide for the original Resident Evil and use it as a framework to run it as an adventure using Liminal Horror. Now, I love Liminal Horror, its simple but extremely receptive to modification somehow able to hold strong regardless of how many layers of absurdity I add from whatever I’m reading that week. But, if I want to go full Resident Evil, and I do, I had need of a few extra widgets that the baseline lacks. Keep in mind this will be using the Investigator Edition of Liminal Horror you can find here and making liberal use of Luck, Item Tags, Wounds, and Time Procedures. I’ll be getting more in depth w...

I've been going through some stuff. Here's a monster originally made for Kult but adapted to Liminal Horror. May also release the Kult and Hunter the Reckoning versions at some point. Happy New Year! Concept: A creature that is made and exemplifies family trauma. It will raise you up and make you pay for every gift in time while feeding off of your emotional highs and lows. It will isolate and divide and conquer. If one leaves it chooses a new favorite to make the first jealous. Manages a web of drama to keep itself fed. Fawn responses and acting like it wants will keep you safe. It is as powerful as you make it.  Inspirations: Trauma, Barbarian, Silent Hill, The Evil Within, Livia Soprano, Art Posts by @OmegaBlackArt on Twitter, Centipedes from Sekiro, Familial Cycles of Abuse When you fell; you fell alone. When you failed; you failed alone. When you hurt; your pain was a beacon. And the next time your world fell apart; They were there to pick up the pieces. The Parent wants w...

Ever since reading about the Underclock on Goblin Punch I’ve been obsessed with it. A ticking time bomb always in the background of every decision made by the players that they can see and interact with in a more tangible way than any other type of random encounter. In the survival horror style game I enjoy this element of time keeping has replaced my use of one my most well worn tools in the Overloaded Encounter Die. Although still one of my favorite tools the Underclock and its ability to create tension has supplanted it for the time being in my DM toolbox. However, just like with the Overloaded Encounter Die, it does leave a lot of room to interpret, tweak, and hack to fine tune it for a specific feeling. Since my current obsession is with Amnesia The Bunker’s Stalker I thought it could be interesting to explore how we emulate being hunted down by an unstoppable beast like that using the Underclock as an ever sinking hour glass of it’s inevitable arrival. Underclock Additions And T...

ALERT! An Incursion For Trophy Gold We interrupt our regularly scheduled broadcasts to do some self-promo. I've just released a work-in-progress version of my Trophy Gold Incursion, "Maw of the River". Please check it out, spread the word, and most of all PLAY IT! Tell me what you think, love it or hate it. This is the first thing I've ever put together myself and I'm proud of a lot of it. Returning with a normal blog post some time later this week back with Kult or Imperium Maledictum. https://theark485.itch.io/the-maw-of-the-river-trophy-gold-incursion

  Trashed Ballroom Description: An opulent center piece reduced to ruin. Every wall is riddled with countless bullet holes of varying calibers. Catering tables split and splintered covering the marble floor with shrapnel. Smashed chairs covered in dried rust colored blood. All that survives is a single violet banner hanging off of a wedding arch and a grand piano who’s player remains as a translucent spirit. THE PIANIST: Plays music befitting the mood, which upon arrival is a melancholy piece fitting for the gloom but as things change or tensions fray will speed up or slow down his playing. Cannot be stopped unless banished. THE WEDDING MASSACRE At a random time throughout the day the ballroom will slowly begin to heal itself. The arbor will regrow its branches, the chairs will mend, the feast will be remade. Spirits of the former wedding occupants (and their assailants) will return and perform their last moments once more ending with the bullet ridden massacre. The emotions he...

  A sign on the gilded double doors reads, “No weapons, no funny business, tip your waitress.” The Beauxclair Taproom is alive with the sounds of the big band playing and pillars of tobacco smoke rising into the balcony. Shadows dance between the bright yellow spotlights rhythmically strobing across rows of amphitheater seating while cloaked private booths harbor hushed conversations interrupted by the occasional whooping or call for more drinks. On the clamshell stage at the center of it all a crooning siren weaves a song while the crowd moves rhythmically with her every flutter and flourish. THE BAR: The bartenders (Twins with slicked back hair and blue heterochromia on opposite eyes) know everyone’s name and their favorite drink. If you don’t like yours, you are asked kindly but firmly to leave. Can find any liquor you could want here. THE BOOTHS: Private party’s looking to conduct private business for the most part except… A trio of masked Players looking for a few more to...

*What is this? What game is it for? I have no idea. It came in a dream and I think that's what my output for this little project will be. Inspired by the grandeur and mystique of old hotels, The Shining, and the existential dread of what will, what won't, and won't could never be.* The Hotel Lobby The Hotel Lobby is covered in multi-colored pastel streamers and confetti with long ribbons descending from a ceiling so tall its as though the ribbons apparated from nothing at all. Every few minutes the record scratches as the song repeats itself. Hung on the streamers are dozens of partygoers their faces frozen in eerie jubilee some of even holding signs scrabbled with chalk saying “Happy Solstice”, “Enjoy Your Stay”, “You’ll Never Want To Leave”. THE GRAND PIANO A solid gold grand piano with keys inlaid with numerous gemstones cut into the shape of playing cards. The former player lies slumped over head lain peacefully amidst scattered sheet music. If music is played in sequ...