Dungeon Pets

Dungeon Pets

My second offering for Zinequest 2 is a project that I have working towards for over a year now. It is an offshoot of my weekly monster drawings, but made up of Monster, you can train and take as pets in a D&D game.

I launched the Kickstarter today to see if I can get it in print. You can click on the Dungeon Pets name above, and it will take you to the Kickstart page. Some of what I am going to talk about here is repeated on the KS page.

Dungeon Pets is an RPG art zine full of strange and fantastic creatures that adventurers in a roleplaying game can take on as pets. These creatures are similar to animal companions but have no class or level restrictions in regards to who can be their owners. Just like a house cat or a dog, an adventurer can purchase these pets and, with time, train them for many different takes to make them valuable companions while out on an adventure.

What is a Dungeon Pet?

These strange and fantastic creatures that exist in a living fantasy world. They are not Monsters that attack villages and adventurers seeking gold, blood, or power. But are just cute critters that live in the world who are a bit more amazing than the typical cat or dog. 

One such pet is the Necro-Hamster. These undead critters make the best pets for those who often forget to feed or water other pets. Though many religious groups might frown upon their existence, these cute monsters only use their necromantic powers for the good of their owners.

Sample of the Books Layout:

The zine has few game mechanics. There are rules for training your pet, what kind of skills they can acquire, and rules on pet health. They do not have the standard 5e monster stats but instead are left open for easy conversion to other game systems, only using D&D terminology to help guide a Gamemaster in using these creatures in their games.

Pet Health.

Exploring the deadly regions with your owner can be dangerous. Below is an explanation of how a Dungeon Pets health works.  Every pet has two parts to their health; a select number of Heart Boxes and a Hit Die type, these range between D4 and D12, which are used in place of tracking Hit Points.

This idea comes from Matt Colville's Strongholds and Followers book, but in this case, I simplified the process by making it an HD roll instead of a CON Saving Throw.

Final Thoughts.

The Kickstarter will be going on for 2 weeks and will hopefully be as well-received as The Black Pyramid has been. I am looking forward to a full spring of proofreading and publishing. As the Kickstarter moves ticks long, I'll be making more posts talking about a few of the pets to give you an idea of what to expect from the zine.

Spelljammer is a little disappointing..

Sailors on star lite seas, navigating the black in search of fortune and adventure. Sword and Sorcery in space with D&D style monsters and Tolkien races.
Been thinking of remaking Spelljammer. I've been running a 5e Spelljammer game for a bit now and there some kool stuff about it but there is a bunch of meh in there as well. Fantasy adventurers sailing through space using magic and skill is awesome. I think it's great. But there is also a lot of stuff that sounds cool on paper but that functionally doesn't work out as well as a game element as other possibilities can.

The whole thing with the helms is ... meh. I think there is just another way to do it that might be more interesting.

So with the Helm in Spelljammer, you attune to it as a spell caster and in the original 2e AD&D game, while attached to the helm the caster could not cast any spells and it took 24 hours to attune from the device. Pretty harsh. Functionally, this makes one player unable to play half or more of their character. there is actually a lot more to it than this too.  And there is a lot of holes in how this all works. But essentially, the helm pulls magic from the users and uses it to run the ship. Leaving the port, leaving a planet's atmosphere,  maneuvers in combat, etc all use spells slots to move the ship. 2e didn't have spell slots per se but it basically worked the same way. You burn spell you memorized to move the ship.
 In the game I run, I changed some of this. It took 10 minutes to attune to the Helm and another 10 minutes to unattuned to it. This way they could do something other than being a siphon for the ship. The player still spends spell slots to move the ship though.
Some of the holes I saw as we played were things like, "if I spent a high-level spell slot can I make the ship go faster?" Well, yes and no. In combat, yes. To leave a planet's atmosphere, yes. Any other time... No. Why is that? In spelljammer, space is huge, just like in real life. A spelljammer ship can travel 100,000 miles in a day. No matter what kind of ship you're flying, as long as it is not near a source of gravity, all ships travel at max speeds of 100,000 miles in a day. When a ship gets close to a source of gravity the ship automatically slows down to combat speed.  Guess this is a safety feature built into the Helm. The game doesn't really say. It's ok, that's kind of boring but not a big deal. I mean, space is big, why let travel take longer. The fact the ship moves around because one player is doing something is kind of boring. It's a mini-game for one player. This is not unusual for games from back in the day, but in modern game design, we tend to lean away from making games that split the players into their own mini-games.

Also, I think there is just not enough weirdness in the game. Its essentially, a Seven Seas game in space, as written.

Things I would like to change in my own game:
I would just throw out the helm. I don't want my Sword and Sorcery Space travel to feel like a guy in a cockpit flying a modern aircraft or spaceship. I rather it worked like a Ship. Wher, yes you have a helmsman, who steers the boat, but also works with the crew to maneuver the ship, speed up/ slow down, etc. This takes the Single player mini-game and turns it into teamwork. Everyone gets to play at sailing.

There are two ways I could replace the helm as a power source for the magic of the ship. 1) I could replace it with something that could be managed like any other resource in the game. In the original rules the ship, unless the attune caster was dead, the ship never ran out of power. You were never going to have that worry. I would replace the helm with a Large Runic Crystal. Kind of like FF: Crystal Caravan. it would have x amount of every, depending on the type, and you would refuel at specific areas. mana wells and such. This way you can run out of fuel and get stuck until you're saved or find a way around.


I could also just make the sails magical, they are designed to capture solar winds to move the ship just like ships on the high seas capture winds too move.

Though maybe I would do both. What if your crystal was a power source for that solar wind capturing sails and what also helped create gravity on the ship, create a stable temperature o the ship, and hold the atmosphere around the ship. The sails maneuver the ship around space, while the crystal keeps everyone alive. in the 2e game, everything that left a planet, took atmosphere with it. So if you shot a gnome into space, they would have 15-30 minutes of oxygen left before they would die. The other idea is that everything with mass generates its own gravity. This is all kool, but if your survival is all dependant on a magic crystal, I think it adds an edge of danger to the setting. If it gets damaged nothing is holding you or the oxygen on the ship. Space can be terrifying, so maybe that terror should be put back in the game.

Anyway, These are just some random thoughts on the subject that have been kicking around in my head. Personally, I think this is the problem that you get from taking a cool concept and ramming it into a preexisting game system. You have to make compromises and they are not often good ones.


Edit: Below you can see my Spelljammer page over on World Anvil.

https://www.worldanvil.com/w/high-level-spelljammer-skulldixon

Valentine's and Kickstarter

Last week's monster drawing was a holiday-themed creation. This is one of the times when I break from the norm for these drawings and come to the table with an idea beforehand. When I decided to make last week's monster would be a Valentine's day monster, I pictured right away in my mind an undead cupid and overall I like how it turned out. You can check out the Time-lapse video of my drawing and color this monster over on my Youtube channel.

The Black Pyramid Kickstarter should go live this week. I just received the approval from KS, You can sign up to be notified for when it goes live here. 

The other week I ran one session of The Black Pyramid with a group od Mothership fans and got a bunch of positive feedback, which is always great. We didn't get to finish the mission so at some point over the next few weeks are will get back together and finish the game. The layout is all done and I'm now going through the many hours of proofreading and rewrites. 

When the Kickstarter goes live, I'll be dropping the link everywhere, so keep an eye out for that.

I am also going to be launching another Kickstarter for another zine, one that I have been working towards for the past year. I'm looking forward to this one seeing the light of day finally. This project is another byproduct of my weekly monster drawings and will be a combination of an Art zine and a supplement for roleplaying games with a few rules and mechanics. A while ago I posted about doing layout for this zine and so you can check that one out to see some of what this zine will be about.

the Layout for this is set now. I worked out any of the issues I had and I am now happy with the results. Each pet will be on one page. If they have random roll tables that go with them, they will be on a different page, next to them. So if you get this in a physical copy, then you won't have to turn the page to see the random roll table that goes with them.

You'll note that there is a Color and Black and white version up above. When the zine goes live, as a requirement for Zinequest, the basic version will be Black and white. However, if I raise enough I'll do the zine as a full color run instead.

I'll post a link here and everywhere else when this goes live as well.

The rise of the Batfolk

All art by me, Josh "Skull" Dixon

Batfolk

Another week and another new monster, but for this site, this will be my first post about a weekly monster drawing I made. So I think it's is great that a creature that turned out really well should mark this occasion. I would suck if the first Monster drawing post I had to make for this site was for a monster that I thought was less than what I was hoping for.

The Process

The way I create all my monster drawings usually follows the same process and the Batfolk monster is no different. almost every time I sit down to start drawing I don't have an idea in mind. I come to the board seeking something awesome and see where the session takes me. Some times it is good to let your mind wander and to express itself however it wants. this practice helps you generate ideas that you probably wouldn't have thought of and allows you to stretch and grow as an artist.
Most of the time, when I start, I begin by creating a silhouette. I use a Concept artist technique, where I just create a random shape and from there find the creature or person that the shape inspires me to make. I have many examples of this up on my Youtube Channel, which you can find a link to off to the side of this page. So check them out if you want to see how the random silhouette works in a timelapse video.
Once I find my inspiration, I break the silhouette down into shapes and build out the character from there. I don't stay strictly to the shape of the silhouette, I break out of it when needed, to create a strong character pose.
Once that is done I draw the final version of the creature in black ink and then color the whole thing, staying in a 3 color process for the whole thing. This is not that I only use three colors, but that at most there is a Base color, a Shade, and a Highlight (when needed).

My Thoughts on the Creature

As I draw I usually think about what this creature is, how it moves, what it eats, etc. This all helps me try and reflect this through the pose and some of the characteristics I choose to add tot he creature. So for the Batfolk, I knew I didn't want it to be a brainless creature. So I made it standing upright like a human and gave it clothing and tools. I wanted them to be scary looking, but I didn't want them to be a clique, so I gave them some of the colorings you see in fruit bats. The Orange chest hair for instance. I could have made them a flying race but I didn't want them to be like the Mna-bat from Batman. I imagine if any of their race does fly, maybe its the females. Maybe that's how you can tell them apart. I also thought it would be great if they were vampire hunters and so added Silver jewelry to this guy above. I also wanted to make his head huge just because I love the contrast between that and the rest of his body.

Anyway, hope you like the drawing. This is all thanks to my patron who encourage me to keep up with these drawings by supporting me on Patreon. As well as all you people who give me high fives and heart emojis when I post art on Social Media.
Until next time, Have a good weekend.

The Rise of the Black Pyramid - A Mothership 3rd party Module.

Zinequest

Zinequest 2 is happening right now and fortunately, one of the many projects I was working on fits the requirements of this fun community effort. A lot of amazing RPG zines came out of the first Zinequest last year and this year is looking to be even better. If everything works out, I'll be adding at least one, if not two Zines to this year's Zinquest.

Mothership

The Zine I hope to release first is a module I wrote and designed for the game Mothership, by Tuesday Knight Games. If you have not heard of this game, then you need to check it out. Mothership is a Scifi Horror game inspired by movies like Alien, Event Horizon, and The Thing. Its a game of exploration into the unknown, set in the greatest location of unknown possibilities; space. Here you'll explore derelict ships, strange alien worlds, and confront the horrors you find out in the black and maybe even survive the experience. I feel in love with this game and see so much potential for it. So much so that for the 2019 One Page Dungeon Contest, I designed a one-page Dungeon for Mothership and over on my icht account you can download this one-page dungeon with all the extra Mothership content that was not part of the original submission I sent in for the contest. A lot of people have checked out the one-page dungeon and really enjoyed it and this has inspired me to create more content for this game. 

Enter the Black Pyramid

My next Mothership project is more than a single map. It is 36 pages of Inspiration, Story, NPCs, Random Roll Tables, Artwork, and Three Great Maps ( if I can toot my own horn ;) ) called The Black Pyramid.

The premise is pretty simple but full of possibilities. A large unknown superstructure is found out in deep space. A superstructure that has perfect geometry and recognizable shape of a pyramid. No analysis can be made because it resists any scans. It is so completely undetectable that even navigational systems will never notice its existence until the ship has already crashed into it. Fortunately, for the trucker who discovered it, he noticed the odd patch of black blocking out the distant stars. The module is about the specially selected team put together at the last moment to explore this new discovery. They are tasked with discovering what this structure is and what is inside the Black Pyramid.

One of the best things about the OSR and the RPG Zine is that they encourage people to take their content and use it in any way they want. And this module follows that same tradition. I'm looking forward to releasing this module and seeing what everyone thinks. And I am looking forward to designing more adventures for this game that I can share with everyone. Currently, I am waiting to hear back about the 3rd party product agreement that I sent Tuesday Knight games, but I'll make a post when I put the Zine up on KS. Below you can check out some of the Art I made for this to give you a taste.

All Art by Josh Skul