Random Loot: Issue 7

Anniversary edition

April/May are very important months for me. April marks three years since the original release of The Wretched, the game that really launched my career in a meaningful way. And May marks two years since the launch of the Kickstarter for Treasures Of The Troll King, the Mörk Borg adventure that set me up to start making games full time.

I’m not going to labour the point too much here, other than to say that I’m incredibly grateful to be in the position that I’m in. I wanted to mark the anniversaries in some way, and so I’ve arranged for new prints of both of these books with limited edition alternate covers. They also come with brand new stickers, which I’m possibly more excited about than the books!

Clicking either of those images will take you to the product page. They’re both available for £10 each, which is actually cheaper than the price of the normal zines. Don’t ask me why I’ve made that decision, I don’t have a good answer for you.

Both are available in limited editions of 100 signed and numbered copies. They’ll be shipping in a couple of weeks, once the printer has actually managed to deliver them to me (see below for more printing woes).

I’ve put these releases in a category called The Vault, and I intend to use it to do fun things like these alternate covers in future. I’ll only be promoting them here in the newsletter, as a special thanks for those of you who read my ramblings every month!

Now, on to the rest of the newsletter…

What’s new with me?

The short answer is “very little” - other than the two alternate covers linked above. I’ve been busy with commissioned work that I can’t really talk about, but that’s drawing to a close soon. I hope that this time next month I’ll have an update on both Dice Souls and Down In Yongardy for everyone, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

• A new Actual Play stream has started, playing through Winter of Atom for Modiphius’ Fallout RPG. I wrote a huge chunk of this adventure (I don’t think I can quite talk about what exactly I did yet, since it still isn’t released) but I’m really excited to see people actually playing it!

• A Waning Light and REGICIDE fulfilment has hit another delay - this time on the printer’s end rather than mine, not that that’s any consolation for the people waiting for it. The new expected date of arrival at my house is the end of this week (and the Wretched and Troll King alt covers are also in this shipment), so fingers crossed that they actually arrive!

• FEAST has been converted to Cairn! The guide is available for free here. FEAST remains one of my favourite adventures and I’m really happy to see people enjoying it and getting it to the table.

• I don’t have anything to actually show on this front yet, but I’ve been working with Mikey Lombardi on the shiny new web version of A Dungeon Game. More on that front when it’s ready, but it’s looking incredible.

What’s new on the internet?

• Luke Gearing posted a short adventure for Troika! to his blog. It’s very good.

• Snow posted a long postmortem of .dungeon//remastered over on her Substack. It’s a pretty vital read for anybody considering trying to make a living doing creative work.

• Monkey’s Paw Games have released the ashcan edition of Intruders!, a retroclone of the 1974 brown books (plus Greyhawk, if I remember right). It’s something of a rite of passage for OSR writers to write a retroclone, and this one is very good. Don’t ask me when mine is coming out because there’s a very real danger that I’ll drop everything to make it happen.

• Daniel Sell has written an new book! Specifically he’s written an adventure for Troika! called Slate & Chalcedony, and it’s currently available for pre-order over at Melsonia.

• Finally, something not directly RPG related but still worth your time - an essay called “‘lore’ is a trap and will kill your story if you let it” by Doc Burford. It’s a long read but it’s very, very good. If you’re any sort of writer you should set aside the time and take a look at it.

And that’s it for this month! Thanks, as always, for your attention. Don’t forget to grab the limited editions of Treasures Of The Troll King and The Wretched if you’re so incline. I expect (and hope, let’s be honest) that 100 copies won’t last long at all.

Until next month.

-Chris