Random Loot: Issue 5

Imagine I made a pun about it being March and put it in this subheader

Welcome to Random Loot, Loot The Room’s monthly newsletter. You can read previous issues here and support the newsletter on Ko-fi here. Subscribe to get new issues in your inbox! Paid subscribers don’t get anything extra but they do get my gratitude and that’s… something, I suppose?

February saw me taking most of the month off, completely without warning. I had a couple of big freelance gigs wrapping up and when I got to the end of them I found myself feeling pretty burned out. So I let myself rest, and I’m hoping that I’ll be able to hit the ground running again in March now that I’ve indulged some hobbies and taken some time for myself. As of yesterday I also have an official ADHD diagnosis after 5 years of being on waiting lists, and I’m quietly optimistic that getting on medication is going to change my life for the better. We’ll see how it goes!

Anyway, on to the reason you’re all here - the meat of the newsletter.

As always if you have anything you want me to take a look at for this newsletter, feel free to drop an email to chris at loottheroom dot uk. I can’t promise to cover everything, because I want this to be curated and not to just spam links at people, but I do promise to take a look at anything you ask me to look at.

What’s new with me?

• I mentioned above that I’ve been indulging hobbies this month. Part of that was bingeing all of Ti West’s movies in a weekend. I wrote a zine about them called 15 God Damn Fucked Up Horror Pictures and I’ve printed a handful of them. This was a lot of fun and I’ll probably done some more of these. Detritus subscribers also got the PDF, which won’t be available anywhere else.

• Also on Detritus is a post I wrote partway through February when I realised I was in danger of burning out. It’s available to read without being a subscriber, and also contains photos of my notebook with a very hasty and rough draft of an intro adventure for A Dungeon Game that I ran at a small local convention. I’m hoping to turn that into an actual release this month, so keep an eye out for that!

• The Tabletop Gaming Magazine Indie RPG Book Club got off to a quiet but fun start with our discussion of Troika! last week. The next session is on March 23rd at 6pm UK time, when we’ll be discussing SoulMuppet Publishing’s Orbital Blues. You should sign up to it and come along to the chat!

What’s good?

• Yuigaron released a pamphlet adventure for Mörk Borg called Somnolevolence that’s very cool. It takes place in the twisted dreams of a dead basilisk that shouldn’t exist. I haven’t had a chance to run it yet but I’m hoping to fix that this coming weekend.

• The best damn thing in the OSR, Luke Gearing’s Wolves Upon The Coast Grand Campaign, got a massive update. It now has over 500 hex fills parked with weird dark ages inspired stuff. I play in an infrequent Wolves campaign and it’s some of the best fun I have in gaming. This is well worth your money.

• Sivad’s Sanctum released Vault Of Doom, a level 0 funnel adventure for Bastards. This is part of the “Bastardized Classics” range, which recreates classic modules with a modern spin for Bastards. Vault Of Doom is a recreation of S1 Tomb Of Horrors, and it’s excellent.

• After nine years of silence, Straits of Anian posted a new update - a super inspiring post about getting lost in the lands of the dead. This is one of the best blogs around and it’s great to see it returning.

• Viditya Voleti released Longsword, a small fantasy game of questing knights and monster slaying that pulls on Arthurian myth and the Mahabharatan epics. Like everything Viditya does, it’s very very good.

• A new podcast called This Is Your Lifepath launched, chatting to designers about their influences and their life outside of RPGs. The first episode features my good friend Matt Sanders and is a really good listen.

• HyveMind released ASTROLITH, a print and play card game inspired by Space Invaders that I’ve been having a lot of fun with. It’s Pay What You Want, which means there’s no excuse not to pick it up and give it a go.

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As a thank you for subscribing and supporting my work, you can use the code VBYNAFGH to grab 20% off physical books in my store when you spend £20 or more. Enjoy!

That’s all for this month. Thanks, as always, for your attention.