ONE DAY WE'LL ALL BE MADE OF RUBBER
THE CRUELLEST MONTH IS UPON US! Cruel, but by no means less loved: all this fecund florabundance and accompanying cloying scent is energising, no matter T.S. Elliot has to say about it. By time of posting, we're ten sessions into our Exiles of a Thousand Islands campaign, recorded as part of the Campaign '26 Challenge , Nathan Bateman's ongoing provocation to bloggers to commit themselves to…
This post is the in the City '26 series and continues our ongoing exploration of the City of a Hundred Gods : Part 1... City Limits Part 2... Gates and Ladders Part 3... Further Along the Ladders Part 4... The Last Ladders Part N.... Navigating the City Part 5... Traders Wake Part 6... Final Traders Wake Wards Part 7... Artisans Quarter Part 8... The Serpent of the Sky Part 9... The Temples of the…
There's been a resurgence of interest in Classic Traveller across the OSR blogosphere of late, with posts from Chaoclypse , friend-of-the-blog VDonut and and a whole... slew (?) of posts from Old Hawkeyes .It feels like a good opportunity to share the expanded system generation procedure I've adapted from a Mongoose Traveller supplement, The Deep Space Exploration Handbook . This expands the…
***THIS POST WAS EDITED, 8th April 2026 *** I'm going to lead with link to The Bad Doctor's most recent post (at time of writing) which has some great advice I'm not going to follow . I mean, I am an actual robot, how am I to escape the destiny of my flesh-shell? As Beyoncé herself once said we are all but bio-mechanoids... and who am I to contradict a Goddess? Now that the basics are down, it's…
This is a report concerning the seventh session of Pariah: Exiles of a Thousand Islands, an old school sandbox game set in [a version of] the world of A Thousand Thousand Islands , as described in a series of zines and seminal adventure Reach of the Roach God , all by Zedeck Siew and Munkao . Campaign '26 is a challenge issued by RPG blogger/man-mountain Nathan Bateman in this post : participants…
This concludes the write-up of a solo-game exploring the Stygian Library , using BLUEHOLME as operating system. The previous post can be read here . Aged philologist and wannabe wizard POLSTRUM had organised a second delve into the STYGIAN LIBRARY after previously failing to retrieve MAZIRIAN’S GRIMOIRE. In addition to his faithful servant, MAREK, he has enlisted the aid of the following…
This post is the in the City '26 series and continues our ongoing exploration of the City of a Hundred Gods : Part 1... City Limits Part 2... Gates and Ladders Part 3... Further Along the Ladders Part 4... The Last Ladders Part N.... Navigating the City Part 5... Traders Wake Part 6... Final Traders Wake Wards Part 7... Artisans Quarter Part 8... The Serpent of the Sky This post examines the…
Campaign '26 is a challenge issued by RPG blogger/epic poetry enthusiast N.Bateman in this post : in short, participants pledge to run or play a game for most of the year. I have sworn a sacred oath to run a PARIAH Campaign using the ATTI zines (and accompanying adventure, Reach of the Roach God ) for the whole of 20026. Previous session reports below: Session 0 Session 1 Session 2 A Yellow Book,…
This is the PARIAH GENERATOR used for the Campaign '26 game I'm running. It's set up to generate either 1d4, 1d6 or 1d8 hit die pariahs, which has a corresponding effect on their likely background, traits and starting gear. As the campaign progresses I'll add backgrounds more tailored to A Thousand Thousand Islands * * * If you want to play with the code the link for the generator is here:…
Campaign '26 is a challenge issued by RPG blogger/epic poetry enthusiast N.Bateman in this post : in short, participants pledge to run or play a game for most of the year. I have sworn a sacred oath to run a PARIAH Campaign using the ATTI zines (and accompanying adventure , Reach of the Roach God ) for the whole of 20026, details of which can be found here and here . Sumatran Tiger caught on trail…
This post is the in the City '26 series and continues our ongoing exploration of the City of a Hundred Gods : Part 1... City Limits Part 2... Gates and Ladders Part 3... Further Along the Ladders Part 4... The Last Ladders Part N.... Navigating the City Part 5... Traders Wake Part 6... Final Traders Wake Wards Part 7... Artisans Quarter I will need to return to the Artisans and add the NINE other…
In a Neolithic proto-Megalopolis where each individual ward has its own deity, it's hard to find a denizen embracing the concept of a single, creator god. But the artisans know, for they carry the divine knowledge that can only be imparted by The Creator . For She made this world through craft and by design, and She shared this power with her children – through her ten avatars. The Mesopotamian…
First session report of this A Thousand Thousand Islands campaign , part of Campaign 26 . Ornamental prowhead figures from Borneo via https://www.artoftheancestors.com/ Players & characters Six players + one GM met on discord at 8pm UTC to begin. Each player had previously generated one youth (in this case adolescent children on the cusp of adulthood, 2 hp each) and an elder (an adult impeded by…
All the hip young bear-bloggers are doing it so why can't I. Don't answer that. Here's my Childhood Appendix N: media I experienced that I feel/fear continues to inform the creation of stuff. In (approximate) chronological order: childhood begins with self-awareness and ends with Urotsukidoji (I'm sorry to say). The Clangers ; Bagpuss... enchanting stop-motion animations for young children Button…
Contrary to popular belief, one can never start the year with too many challenges on the go. So whilst I watch City 26 gathering momentum with almost manic glee, I'm equally excited to pick up the gauntlet cast by N. Bateman in his Campaign ‘26 post . I intend to run a Pariah Campaign (sort of) set in the world of A Thousand Thousand Islands every Thursday night for at least the rest of the year.…
It's 31st December! And I'm sad. Sad because I have left it far too late to produce a something like this or even something like this . Instead, I'm here to talk about this: — ...but also, this: – ! My introduction to the em dash came in 2020, at the hands of either Jarret Crader or FM Geist... or possibly both of them, simultaneously. I'd just crowdfunded Pariah Volume 1 (Volume 2 dropping any…
This continues the previous post: https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2025/12/solo-blueholme-second-delve-part-1-of.html Illustration by Alec Sorenson Aged philologist and wannabe wizard POLSTRUM had organised a second delve into the STYGIAN LIBRARY after previously failing to retrieve MAZIRIAN’S GRIMOIRE. In addition to his faithful servant, MAREK, he has enlisted the aid of the following…
An ongoing project to map a Neolithic proto-Megalopolis, one ward/god at a time. This particular post closes out the city's Breadbasket, poetically known as Traders Wake due to the two major canal basins and grain market. Here is where the tendrils of the city's extensive reach gather the blood they have leached from the land, and here the denizens suck at its acrid teats for sustenance. The…
Photograph of a Rai Stone, unit of currency in pre-colonial Yap (an island in Micronesia) In a recent post I described a procedure or system for modelling a sort-of domain-level play element for Pariah. It uses a heavily abstracted "labour as time surplus" mechanic that I've tested multiple times and (while I continue to tweak it) works effectively while also being fun! I understand fun is…
LAST UPDATED: 7th March 2026 Previously I hinted at details of a new world building/RPG design challenge for 2026 and here it is: welcome to City '26 ! It’s also a “megapost” in that I’ll provide links to anyone else participating who wishes to share their blog: please provide details below or give me a shout on Reddit, discord or Instagram. The participants: A 1920s Midwestern City: New Babylon…
This post is part of a series concerning the City of a Hundred Gods, a proto-Neolithic megalopolis brimming with conflicting factions, a technocratic theocracy and unique encounter tables for each ward. Joseph, Overseer of Pharaoh's Granaries by Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1874) City of a Hundred Gods: The Story So Far Part 1... City Limits Part 2... Gates and Ladders Part 3... Further Along the Ladders…
It has taken me a very long time to internalise the concept of dungeon as "mythical underworld" but now it's so internalised there's not much space left for alternative ways of understanding subterranean adventure spaces.. except as spaces that sit alongside the mythical underworld, one way or another... Interior made with sketchup A dungeon is a dimensional rift. Or rather, a Dungeon is an…
Yeah yeah yeah... I know. Late to the bandwagon, again. But it has come to my attention that Elmcat has mapped the blogosphere! The Big Red Dot is Grognardia, the slightly less big dot is someone called "Jeff" Elmcat explains their methodology in this post https://elmc.at/mapping-the-blogosphere/ . So far as I can tell (and please, do your own research as I am an absolute dolt) they have…
Illustration by Alec Sorenson This continues the revived solo series previously explored in this post: https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2025/11/solo-blueholme-first-delve-into-stygian.html ...with downtime activities detailed here: https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2025/11/solo-blueholme-between-sessions.html The game was originally begun in the summer of 2024 and has recently been…
I began this post last year, with a fairly clear idea in mind of how a Mark-of-the-Odd superhero campaign might work. Coming back to it after... 17 months? ...my ideas are less clear. Some of the issues are discussed the end—genuinely interested in how anyone reading this thinks you can run a superheroes campaign with an OSR mentality... or a "thinking adventures" mentality. Anyways, I'll continue…