Seed of Worlds - writings on tabletop RPGs
Taking on The Nothic's Eye GLÅUGUST 2025 , challenge #2 is from a list by Prime - "Books as treasure. No spellbooks." A list of books that were scattered throughout the Hexcrawl25 campaign: 1. Ruins of the Wild Woods - tree art, frontispiece changes, haunted by a druid 2. Torments of the Blade Dungeon - traps and devices catalog 3. A Guide to Toad Licking - swamp-alchemy and herbalism guide 4.…
Dropping in this 'mid-range' state of the blog update mostly to mark having down-shifted since the end of June from Shiny Links plus two posts a week to Shiny Links plus one. Empire of Crust sounded an appreciated warning - as per their post On the Cancer of Creation for Others - a mere hobby blog such as this, must retain its utility to me. I make not a cent from this, it would be futile indeed…
A macro set of links from returning online - for still more, check out the deep time delve from last week found here or the weekly r/OSR blogroll or check the RPG Blog Carnival . Bloggie-nominated. Originally inspired by weaver.skepti.ch, delinked by request. Save vs TPK gives us Ramanan Sivaranjan Awards for Excellence in Gaming 2026 Familiar Waves writes Thoughts on Ultraviolet Grasslands Whose…
And so we conclude the July 2026 RPG Blog Carnival - our topic was "Small Gods, Saints and minor divinity!" - on my mind was the fun I have had with small gods in my recent campaigns; divinities on a personal scale. This was a double-header hosting with Sea of Stars. Sea of Stars has done their round up - if you have read that already then Advantage on Arcana 'more little Gods' and Taichara's…
Another deep time collection as everything melts around us - links posted on various discords as recommendations when the topic came up. Taking this 'stands the test of time' aspect as a quality filter, here they are. For more, see last weeks collection found here or on the weekly r/OSR blogroll or check the RPG Blog Carnival . Billhook Blog posted The OSR is Dead (again, and again)…
Taking on The Nothic's Eye GLÅUGUST 2026 , challenge #1 is from a list by Phlox - "Water Levels." Inspired by the submerged megalithic structures of Sein Island I was thinking about near offshore ruins and the adventure potential thereof. I talked a bit in the past about who is about in d20 Aquatic powers and dwellers of the deep and some of the things on the deep sea bed including interactions…
Another deep time collection - links posted on various discords as recommendations when the topic came up. Taking this 'stands the test of time' aspect as a quality filter, here they are. For more, see last weeks collection found here or on the weekly r/OSR blogroll or check the RPG Blog Carnival . Rise Up Comus posted A Campaign Where There is One of Anything TRAIPSE wrote 1, 10, or 1000000…
Inspired by Tabletop Curiosity Cabinet's slush pile post for #Dungeon23 below are a dozen or so ideas lying around in the setting. So for #City26 what are the most fun adventure potential things I got? Why go near RT-87? 1. Swashbuckling heist-likes around the cyber-saurs used to train knights. Most iconic has to a "capture the runaway carnasaur" quest. Something that delves into the ogryn…
A deep time collection - links posted on various discords as recommendations when the topic came up. Taking this as the 'stands the test of time' quality filter, here they are. For more, see last weeks collection found here or on the weekly r/OSR blogroll or check the RPG Blog Carnival . modified with the approval of creator Evlyn Moreau One Man and his Dice gives us The Secret Brilliance of The…
Pondering arch-mages again, on the lines of 'what do you do when you get total control of reality' - previous I wrote on their goals, the status flexes of individuals beyond want . Now I have been pondering what kind of casual horrors they inflict on those around them through sheer carelessness and self-absorption without any accountability and way too much agency. d20 regional impacts of careless…
More links from about the internet - for still more, check out the huge set from the previous list found here or the weekly r/OSR blogroll or check the RPG Blog Carnival . Bloggie-nominated. Originally inspired by weaver.skepti.ch, delinked by request. AMONG CATS AND BOOKS shares rootring months later Goblin Archives, Unenthuser & Emo Sludge host LIMINAL HORROR SUMMER JAM 2026 Weeping Stag gives…
In my quest to find data points on how many D&D players there are out there I stumbled upon this " The tabletop gamers’ survey " by Compare The Market - the general gist of which is "there are a lot of gamers out there, have you got insurance for all those out of print RPG books and precious, precious miniatures?" - which fair play, they are transparent in their angle in all of this, respect the…
A lighter set of links as I was travelling - but for more, check out the huge set from the previous list found here or the weekly r/OSR blogroll or check the RPG Blog Carnival . Bloggie-nominated. Originally inspired by weaver.skepti.ch, delinked by request. The Nothic's Eye launches G L Å U G U S T 2 0 2 6 Sundered Shields and Silver Shillings writes Do every challenge in 500 words or less: an…
I grabbed the set of Kala Mandala zines after the Hey Centaur shop went online . These are great zines of the old school OSR glory days - easily earning their shelf space beside any of the greats. We get a great setting in the Playbook and two Art Research zines, further expanded by three juicy adventures - all site exploration with a twist for each. Six books existing in the core set at time of…
Welcome to the new month for the RPG Blog Carnival - our topic for July 2026 is "Small Gods, Saints and minor divinity!" You can find some deeper background on the RPG Blog Carnival on 'of Dice and Dragons' . Write what you like around the prompt or see the suggestions below. This month, hosting is being shared with Sea of Stars - see their launch post for yet more inspirational ideas. If you want…
A lighter set of links as I was travelling - but for more, check out the huge set from the previous list found here or the weekly r/OSR blogroll or check the RPG Blog Carnival . Bloggie-nominated. Originally inspired by weaver.skepti.ch, delinked by request. On a housekeeping announcement, for the rest of this year, I am shifting down to a Shiny Links + one post per week schedule (Saturdays) for…
At the mid-point of the year, asking how the #City26 challenge is coming along. On a pure stats, it is not bad - --% of total hex-count for the year achieved with 50% of the time gone. I have not gotten any of this to table but it has proved a nice distraction during travel of all things. Recall the 'rhythm' of the weekly tasks of this challenge with this guide from Pete of Garblag Games. So far I…
Slothyyyyyyy hosts the Extremely Byzantine 5-Room Dungeon Jam and this is my ashcan entry. I am using an 'out-take' from the d24 woodworm dungeons set. https://itch.io/jam/byzantine-5-room-dungeons. This is the lair of hiver-bugs - a parasite/predator of insectfolk (see Deep Time Monster Groups and Culture of the insectfolk - Beetlescale ) - gnawed deep into the roots of mountains. Trapped within…
A colossal harvest of shiny links - a lot of folk getting extra inspired this past week! If you seek still more, see the previous list found here or the weekly r/OSR blogroll or check the RPG Blog Carnival . Bloggie-nominated. Originally inspired by weaver.skepti.ch, delinked by request. Dungeonfruit shares In Favor Of Repetition slothyyyyyyy hosts posts Extremely Byzantine 5-Room Dungeon Jam…
Standing up from my last campaign my players said something that I was not sure should I feel hurt by - that my last couple of campaigns had the same feel. I thought I ran some fairly different things - Brancalonia - Spelljammer - Hexcrawl25 But I wonder if they feel the same because these players have other very different GMs to compare against so the innate similarities of my DM style…
Finally ran the last session for the main-line of the Hexcrawl25 campaign, so let us do a retrospective Against the Wicked City style since there were a lot of experimental practices running under the hood in this one. Realm of the Reluctant King (Hexcrawl25), 28 Sessions (Jan 2025-May 2026) What it was: Actually a dual-mode campaign with persistent campaign and one-shot open tables running on the…
Shiny links, get your shiny links! If this rich harvest does not satisfy, see the previous list found here or the weekly r/OSR blogroll or check the RPG Blog Carnival . Bloggie-nominated. Originally inspired by weaver.skepti.ch, delinked by request. Null Mana Crystal posts Design Talk - Event Crawling Submystical Aquifer writes OSR Wisdom Distilled A shrike for my dreams shares Breaking a GM star…
Advantage on Arcana gives us this months prompt Cyclopes, Ettins, Hill Giants, and Ogres for the RPG Blog Carnival and asks that we come up with something that makes those named monsters more than varying sized bags of dumb, mean aggression. In much the same was orcs, goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears need a bit of work to distinguish between each other and that mostly being in how they show up in…
tl:dr; fun old school dungeon, menace telegraphed by the corpses of adventurers, bigger than it seems with lots of secrets that can get missed even when players pry into things. Another of the adventures I got when Attronarch sold them off - I did a capsule review of The Hole In The Oak a while back and wanted to expand on the running experience. As per that capsule review - The Hole in the Oak is…
More interesting links from about the net. For yet more links, see the previous list found here or the weekly r/OSR blogroll or check the RPG Blog Carnival . Bloggie-nominated. Originally inspired by weaver.skepti.ch, delinked by request. We Are the Mutants writes Seas of Blood, Rains of Fire: The Post-Apocalyptic Worlds of Early ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ I Cast Light! gives us BEHOLD AND BE NOT…