The Lost Bay Podcast is show on and with indie tabletop RPG creators and what's behind their creative processes. You can listen to the podcast youtube with EN SUBS, on major podcasting apps (see links below), or here:
Tuesday, May 25, 2021
THE ZINE OF ZINES - ISSUE 1 - ANNA BLACKWELL
TLB Podcast #5 with guest Anna Blackwell, designer of the solo TTRPG Delve, caver, and more, will be live on Wednesday, June 2.
Until then you can get THE ZINE OF ZINES - ISSUE 1 for free on itchio down here (or consider buying it, to support the podcast). Four A5 pages about caves and night, with a lot of cool links and threads about Malls, and the Hollow Earth, and Dwarf Fortress, and non TTRPG zines + a SECRET FILM + an Anna Blackwell story, adventure sparks, and various TLB info.
And you can also subscribe to the podcast channel and get notified as soon as the episode is live (and listen to the awesome previous episodes) here:
THE STORY OF BURNT RICHES
by Anna Blackwell
(a map, and a chronicle of a Delve game)
-------------------------------------------------
Our goal was simple; find a Void Crystal and give it to the Under-King for untold riches. No easy task but one that would guide our hold as we struck the earth on this new site. The remains of an extinct volcano known as Lava’s Death.
The ground on the surface was fertile and supported a thriving human village near the volcano’s caldera but we were more interested in its roots. We set up the essentials first, a forge for traps, a barracks for our new recruits that hadn’t the discipline to stand guard all day.
At first the hold was forgiving, soft stone gave way to jewels. We built a mushroom farm to better support ourselves as our initial supplies dwindled. We dug deeper and came to a tragic realisation. The volcano wasn’t as extinct as the Geographer’s Guild had claimed. A dozen miners wiped out by a volcanic river and our route blocked. We tried instead to go round and encountered poisonous gas.
With hope wearing thin, we vowed we’d make one more attempt at digging deep and by Oleyrn’s beard did it pay off. A magma shaft led straight into the bowels of the earth, we’d be able to construct an elevator and lower our brave miners down in record time. And the old saying “don’t give up at the first broken pick” proved true again and again as we discovered an underground forest and crystal cavern right atop one another. We would have the wood we needed in a manner of months while the crystals proved to be the incentive needed for clerics, mages, and our greater plans.
While the wood matured and dried, our scouting miners dug into the walls of the shaft, hoping to find more riches but instead we found darkness.
A temple to a crowned spider god, nameless to those who cannot read their web like script. A cleric from the empire was called for in the hopes she would be able to determine if such a blasphemous idol was a threat. Thankfully it seems as if the temple was somewhat benign, merely temporarily infecting our builders with strange ideas. The library constructed so that our newly hired mage could research the temple had spider shaped chairs, the books were kept on a rope web, and we even found Tavia, our architect, trying to make silk wrapped training dummies to hang from the ceiling.
Our other scouting miners seemed to be having more luck on the other side of the shaft as they discovered what could only be described as a wishing well. A deep well surrounded by glittering lights and fairy doors. We can’t blame them for chucking a good few coins in with hopes of love or riches. However, the well was not as it seemed, or it was and someone made a very stupid wish. As the last coin hit the water deep below, it started to overflow like a blocked toilet. Foul swamp water, biting insects, and a great warty toad emerged from the well. The brackish water flowed out and into the depths of the shaft creating a constant foul waterfall upon which the occasional black toad could be seen falling.
We have decided to leave it be for the time being.
Our mage has studied the writings on the statue and translated a spell found etched on one of the pillars so now we have cats. Lots of cats emerging from what they lovingly refer to as a “pawrtal”.
Digging deeper we faced our first fight. A mad dwarf known as Fasi The Hermit, a sculptor who has kept himself alive by replacing his failing form with exquisitely carved marble. His marble skin was tough and while our mage and cleric fought well, holding him long enough for the cats to escape, the hermit made it past. Where his marble flesh was broken, organs made of jewels and stone could be seen underneath. Our soldiers met him in the forge but his skin turned aside every other strike and soon he had made it to the entrance where only our honoured guard remained. They fought to the last till only Raevis the Stout remained.
He has taken Fasi’s face as a trophy, affixing the marble mask to his helmet.
Near defenceless, we retrofitted the mad hermit’s giant statue into a trap for any creature that tries to rise from his lair. We could not have expected what we found.
An ancient rage tahr, a cave goat that the hermit must have been nurturing for centuries. The giant creature was strong enough to break stone apart, it could throw its spikes through iron doors. The giant stone hand of our trap statue was little more than a pat on the head to a creature so powerful.
Raevis alone guarded the entrance as the rest of us fled. The sound of the great beast tearing its way through our hold will forever haunt me. As I chronicle this I remember hearing the rage tahr come to a halt on the other side of the great gates as Tavia instructed us to destroy the keystone and collapse the entryway. It recognised Fasi’s face and for a while Raevis cleverly held the beast at bay.
May all the gods have mercy on us for trapping him inside.
Wednesday, May 19, 2021
TLB Podcast #5 Vi Huntsman - Collabs without permission
Vi Huntsman runs a Crazy youtube channel called Collabs without permission. They do great video reviews of TTRPG zines. In March they shared a review of the game Mothership filmed at Bonneville Salt Flats. It’s a super brilliant review of the game, and it looks amazing, like a short Sci-Fi film.
Vi has been collecting zines for years. We did the interview via a conferencing app. And as we were recording, I could see behind Vi shelves literally filled with zines.
In this episode, we talk about Vi’s collection of Zines, a romanesque encounter with Malaysian designer Zedeck Siew, a Dada clown army, Kickstarter, Mixam, risograph printing, and a possible future of RPG zines.
You can listen to the episode here:
On Youtube, with English Subtitles
Or on the major podcast platforms:
And soon here:
Castbox
Overcast
For more info on Riso, Sci-Fi Zines, cool Zines and more check the ZINE OF ZINES on itch. It's free for you to download, well it's Pay What You Want, if you enjoy the podcast, consider buying it!
Thursday, April 29, 2021
ADVENTURE SPARK TABLES - Broken Luck TROIKA! Zine WIP #4
A quick update on the Broken Luck Troika! zine.
OK, first, I'm not going to make it in time for the Troika!Fest Jam. I'm a bit sorry about that, but I am learning to accept that in order to make good stuff one might need some extra time. Trying to be ZEN about it.
Also, I've learned that to make good stuff one needs to ask for feedback from talented people, and that's what I did. perplexingruins, who by the way did the amazing art of the zine, pushed me to be more creative with the layout. I worked a lot and went from a very boring layout to something better.
example spread
Leo Hunt, author and artist behind Vaults of Vaarn, encouraged me to be more consistent and also more Troikish, and Ian Yusem, the man behind, well, a lot of stuff, had shown me the way to some more foolishness, helped me understand better some Troika! fundamentals, and also asked for more adventure tables in the mood of those that I've already put in the zine.
So I'll allow myself to indulge in table design for a couple of weeks and add more Adventure Tables describing the Gods, the Godly Palace, and its dwellers - Because the zine revolves around five backgrounds of unlucky souls banished or punished by childish and resentful gods.
The goal here is to deliver five backgrounds, a cursed Major Arcana Tarots system (all pluggable into any sphere setting), and suggest a Godly palace/setting. So far I have four D6 tables:
- Which immortal did you piss off?
- The Godly Palace is hidden
- The PCs are in
- And they are
And to those, I'll add:
- To enter the Godly Palace you must (pass a test, fight an NPC, go through something odd)
- Minion Generator
- The Gods are (doing crazy stuff, of course)
- And after a while, The Palace will (more crazy stuff happens, why not?)
- God generator
Wednesday, April 21, 2021
TLB Podcast #4 Chris - McDowall - Electric Bastionland
Chris McDowall is the creator of the RPGS Into the Odd and Electric Bastionland. Both games share a fascinating weird industrial early XXth century setting and have been extremely influential to the indie RPG scene for the way they handle game mechanics. As a matter of fact, if you’ve listened to previous episodes of this podcast you might have heard other designers mention Chris’ games a few times.
In this episode we talk about Fear, a strange fascination with the London Underground Railway, a rural English county nobody knows about, one hundred failed careers, miniature wargames, and Intergalactic Bastionland.
You can listen to the episode here:
On Youtube, with EN subs:
Or on the major podcast platforms:
And soon here:
Castbox
Overcast
Buy Electric Bastionland here:
Or find Chris at his youtube channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQO6EwDBUxOYRR6jcAtv_0A
On his blog
Alec Sorensen's early sketches for Electric Bastionland
Tuesday, April 13, 2021
HOLY DESERTER Background - Broken Luck Zine WIP #3
The Broken Luck Troika! zine completion is getting closer (you can read about why/how I started working on the zine here, and about the KID GOD background here). ETA should be 20 April 2021.
The zine contains
5 backgrounds: Kid God, Holy Deserter, Sun Helmet, Fake Demigod, Roaming Fortune Teller
22 Arcana Major Tarot cards spells + Arcana Tarot combos spells
3 Broken luck tables:
- Which immortal did you piss off?
- Where the Godly Palace is hidden?
- Using the backgrounds as NPCs
Quick Adventure Sparks (triple D6 Table)
Recap of the 13 custom Advanced Skills
AND 8 amazing perplexingruins illustrations.
A soundtrack by spookyrusty.
As a preview here is the Holy Deserter background
HOLY DESERTER
You’re a Holy. A born killer. The most beloved creature of the Gods, breed to celebrate their rituals and defend their name. Long ago you left the Godly Palace to track a treacherous and impious being. You hunt them for years, across countless spheres, until you forgot what or who you were after. Ashamed of your failure you swore never to set foot back in the Palace. Anyways you totally forgot where it is. You’re a homesick deserter. Other Holies will attack you on sight.
Possessions
Owning is a sacrilege. You’re a deserter but you still have your dignity. You don’t even wear clothes. That would be a disgusting and shameful gesture.
Advanced skills
2 Oblivion spit - your acidic saliva induces short term memory loss
3 Maul - your crystal claws inflict Axe like damage
3 Colorshift - you can change your color and that of the objects or beings you touch
2 Spring - when you fall bounce with no damage
Special
You can take your incandescent lava eyes out of their sockets.
Your blood made of inframicroscopic blue crystals is flammable.
You are fluent in Godly tongues.
[EDIT] Been trying some layouts. Nothing definitive yet.
[EDIT END]
Saturday, April 10, 2021
KID GOD Background - Troika!Fest Jam - Broken Luck Zine WIP #2
Quick post. The work on the Broken Luck zine for the Troika!Fest Jam has continued. (it started here)
I've been rewriting some content originally drafted for The Lost Bay, which universe has a pantheon of annoying divinities, giving it a weirder, space fantasier feel. In the process, I've been very much inspired by perplexingruins older drawings.
There should be 4 to 6 six backgrounds, magical Tarots, associated spells, and a few tables to generate unluck. Hopefully, I'll post it to the Jam by the end of next week.
Here is a first background that sets the tone of the zine
[Edit!! and here is a layout page draft, sorry for the multi-updated messy post]
KID GOD
[Edited the 13 April 2021]
You’ve always loved mortals. They’re so funny with all that blood pumping through their veins. They make you laugh and cry, so much. The Holies never approved your illicit proximity with those frail beings. They stripped you of immortality and cast you out of the Godly Palace. Now you too can die, and experience the mortal coil.
Possessions
Cosmic Pajama, covered with perpetually exploding protostars (counts as Medium armor) - Plastic Sun Helmet (toy, looks cool) - Sound Sword (made of the purest of sounds, screams when wielded) - Golden Peaches (1D4 fruits, glow when danger approaches under 20 ft, then rot)
Advanced skills
3 Give life - to small dead beings or objects, they obey you
3 Empathy - what you touch feels what you wish
2 Sense death - in a 1 mile radius
1 Sound sword fight
Special
Your ultrafluid iridescent metallic blood is the most valuable substance in the creation, it heals instantly any wound (2D6 Stamina recovery). You might be hunted for that. You are fluent in Godly tongues.
Wednesday, April 7, 2021
TLB Podcast #3 - Ben Milton - The Waking of Willowby Hall
Ben Milton is behind the popular YouTube channel QUESTING BEASTwhere he does reviews and flip throughs of RPGs and OSR books and zines. Watching his reviews, I've been struck by the constant attention he has for the layout or the design choices of the books, and how these choices might affect the playing experience.
Ben is the author of MAZE RATS and KNAVE, two rules-light RPGs, that had a great influence on the OSR scene. Ben recently published the WAKING OF WILLOWBY HALL, a fairy-tale med fan adventure in a Haunted Manor.
In the episode, we talk about mathematician Edward Tufte, teaching Game Mastering to kids, an angry cloud giant, Ben's obsession with rules, and how a childhood book can affect game design choices.
You can listen to the episode here:
On Youtube, with subs:
Or on the major podcast platforms:
And soon here:
Breaker
Castbox
Overcast
Sam Mameli's early sketches for The Waking of Willowby Hall
Friday, April 2, 2021
A Troika! Detour - Broken Luck Zine WIP #1
> BTW there's been progress on the Troika! zine development, check here <
So I'm taking a short detour from The Lost Bay development.
I've been asking myself a lot of questions lately. Questions that can end into an unsolvable loop, like: D20 or D6? 3 stats or 1 stat? PC backgrounds or tables? I feel that I need to answer those before continuing to write the TLB zine.
As I decided to get to know better Troika!, for that research purpose, the Troika!Fest Game Jam 2021 was announced. So I took that opportunity to dive into the Troika! SRD, knowing that the limited time at my disposal would prevent me from getting stuck at the bottom of an unclimbable too big of a project.
I am reworking some tables first drafted for TLB and designing a small supplement for the Game Jam. The theme is Tarots, not as playing helper tools, but as in-game magical objects. The supplement revolves around an unlucky character, The Roaming Fortune Seller, that can be alternatively a PC background or an NPC (yes, I like the unlucky ones)
There should be 7-8 tables, which is not too much, but enough to be challenging as I am trying:
- to design all the tables in a consistent way
- to imply some sort of micro setting
- to avoid redundancy.
I guess this is my first closed project, as opposed to the open ongoing development of the GM Tools, which is more a work in progress prefiguration of The Lost Bay.
It has been super helpful to read again Crapland by HypatiasAngst, a Troika! super crazy setting, super inventive, super effective in delivering the fictional world. And the same can be said of A man on the road by Ian Yusem, a two-page supplement that delivers a kind of game agnostic great wicked NPC, that I've been studying with attention.
The zine/supplement/whatever will be adorned by several illustrations made by Perplexingruins. And by the way, most of the super evocative drawings I'll use come from the Patreon benefits one gets when supporting him.
So without spoiling the zine, here is the Background description, and a drawing (check the crazy mesh work!). The Jam ends in 27 days, and I'll try to share the zine in a couple of weeks max.
ROAMING FORTUNE SELLER BACKGROUND
You used to chitchat and drink cocktails with the Gods. You told them their fortune with frightening precision. One day you became overconfident and pissed off an Immortal. They banished you from their palace and cursed your Tarot Deck: it’s broken, useless and soiled by weird magic. Now you wander restlessly and can barely predict what you will have for breakfast tomorrow.
Wednesday, March 24, 2021
TLB Podcast #2 - Leo Hunt - Vaults of Vaarn
Leo Hunt is a multi-faceted creator. He wrote four novels, and in the last year, released two issues of VAULTS OF VAARN, a science-fantasy rpg. In this episode we talk about his inspirational sources, the differences between writing a novel and an rpg, game design, the American anthropologist David Graeber, and above all, about the colorful, fascinating world of Vaarn. Check below a few of Leo's original drawings.
You can listen to the episode here:
On youtube, with SUBS
Or on the major podcast platforms:
And soon here:
Breaker
Castbox
Overcast
Vaults of Vaarn is available as a printed booklet from online stores, find the full list here
Or in pdf:
Be sure to check Leo's blog, where you can follow episodes of actual play, and be updated about the creation of Vaults of Vaarn
Leo vampire RPG project, Bloodheist
Leo's research and drawings. Photos by Leo Hunt.
This is the original synopsis of the game.
Thursday, March 18, 2021
TLB Actual play #1
Well actually this is episode #3 of the new campaign, but the game system went through significant changes between #2 and #3, I feel that we landed in full OSR territory only with episode #3, episodes #1 and #2 were more some kind of prologue and fine-tuning sessions.
The party:
Carmin, 16 yo, he. Terror: Being lost. Likes rules. Smells funny and has a strange condition that makes him weak.
Nina, 13 yo, she. Terror: Water. Likes exploding things. Has pretty serious anger management issues.
Nina and Carmin are spending the summer at the Citadel, a summer camp for rebellious teens. During the afternoons they explore the Lost Bay. In the previous episodes, they have visited an abandoned heliport on the seaside and bought tickets for the Arrow, an old bus touring the Marshes. They got the tickets from a weird kid, Jacky. As payment, he asked Nina to help him fight some guy. Nina thinks that's bullshit. Going back to the Citadel just before the sunset, Nina almost drowned wrestling with an electric eel. Actually, the group was crossing the Nameless river, one of the small tributary brooks of the Tears of Apollo, when Catalin (who was part of the group in sessions #1, #2) saw something shiny at the bottom of the river. She tried to grab it, unfortunately, that was an eel. Nina was badly injured and she lost her most precious belonging: a portable chemistry set.
A few days later.
The group is now heading inland, towards the marshes, intending to find the Arrow. The landscape has drastically changed, and the kids are surrounded by small ponds of muddy water. They stop at a dusty road and wait for the Arrow. After a brief moment, the bus approaches. It's an old vehicle. The orange paint of its rusty body is marked by a fading golden arrow. The kids hop in. The laconic driver stinks of liquor, and the bus is empty.
The Arrow hurries through the marshes, drawing a perfectly straight line. It passes by an abandoned arcade game store. It looks like it's never going to stop and as Nina and Carmin start worrying the Arrow brakes suddenly: out of nowhere, a dark figure gets on the bus. Long hair, laced and embroidered full bodysuit, some sort of show costume. It's Phasio (he) a 17 years old kid. He sits not far from Nina and Carmin hiding his features under the hood of his cape. Carmin approaches the guy, they talk a bit. He's the guitarist of The splinters, a punk band. He's late, he's going to a rehearsal and the kids can come.
The Arrow stops in the wetlands, Phasio is in a hurry, Nina and Carmin follow him. They are in the Heart of the Mercury Marshes now. Mud has almost entirely replaced dirt, and water surrounds the tight path that leads to the entrance of an abandoned Opera House. The old building is gigantic, crumbling, and partly submerged by water. The place is both magnificent and decaying. The theatre stalls lay under a broken glass dome, and on the stage the rest of the band, Damien (he), Enna (she), and Gloria (she), are waiting to play music. Nina and Carmin take place on broken theatre chairs, and Damien, the band leader, starts screaming, well, sort of singing. He sounds like broken glass, but the kids seem to enjoy it. A few little cute colored birds fly around Carmin and Nina. They're Rainbow Parakeets. At first, it's just a couple of them, but little by little, bird by bird, they fill the entire theatre flying erratically like annoying insects: the musicians can't play anymore. As soon as the music stops, the birds dive on musicians and spectators alike. They're everywhere, and they're mean. Carmin fights valiantly trying to protect Nina who is totally petrified. She screams in horror and pain at the top of her throat. Her howl somehow stops the birds. The kids take a moment to assess the situation, the parakeets are on the balconies, on the dome, on the chairs, everywhere. There are hundreds of them. Phasio falls on the stage floor, his face is lacerated, he's agonizing in pain. As band members and kids start arguing about what to do next, the birds resume their attack.
Abandoned theatre, photo by Julia Solis
Everybody runs to the closest make-up room. It's tight, messy, windowless, and flooded. Clouds of parakeets fill the room, and the entrance door is blocked by mud and debris. Carmin manages to kill a few birds with his skateboard: they explode in littles puffs of colored feathers. Nina in a heroic gesture pushes aside everybody, and with all her strength tries to unblock the door. Her attempt is a total failure, Nina falls backward and the door opens wide to the terrifying storm of parakeets. Everybody dives underwater and takes refuge under a couple of upside-down floating theatre chests.
Damien seems to know what's happening, the birds were sent by Heroola, his ex. She's pissed off about something. After endless debates the kids manage to return to the stage. They move using the upside-down chests as a turtle shells. The thick cardboard of the chests is almost torn out by the birds, the kids realize that their refuge won't last much longer. Nina grabs two hairspray bottles inside Gloria's stuff, she gets out of the chest and stands in the center of the stage, alone, surrounded by the birds. She sees at the entrance of the Opera House a feminine figure illuminated by the sunset. Nina quickly turns the hairspray bottles into a flamethrower, using her silver storm lighter and, as she whispers the Prayer of St Apollo, she produces a gigantenormous flame that burns the birds to ashes. The mysterious woman standing at the entrance of the theatre runs away followed by the remaining birds.
The kids hurry out of the theatre just in time as the colossal glass dome crumbles into dust. Carmin is in pretty bad shape. It's almost night and Nina and Carmin have to go back to the Citadel, but before parting with the band they all agree to go and see Heroola the next day, and sort things out with her. The birdmaster lives in the abandoned arcade store.
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