I previously shared the settlement of Ironhome from the intro scenario for GATEpunk, which sits in the region called The Dustlands.
I did a map for a commission a long time back which was a parched desert land and I really liked the style. I wanted to revisit it for this map and I’m really liking it!
Want the whole map? Grab it here…
You do know that you can subscribe to MonkeyBlood Design in two ways, right? And, it’s really easy.
I promise not to bug you too much. I might send you free stuff, coupons, project notifications, maps, monsters, who knows.
Thanks, Glynn
I’ve been a little lax on the blog posts lately, as I’ve been soooo busy. Mainly with the Bats of Saint Abbans Kickstarter fulfilment, and some work on GATEpunk v0.7. I’ve even commissioned the cover artist as well as some character/race/profession artwork, as well as some playtesting and rules work/updates. It’s going well and hope that the project will be a handy A5 hardback book and some character/reference sheets. Maybe a 100-page count or something like that in the end.
Anyway, I also wanted to do some shout-outs for some projects I’ve got a hand in, or really like the look of (especially with ZineQuest in full swing). So, here we go:
The PDF of this is now available over on DrivThruRPG via Frog God Games. The physicals will be cominhg soon once backers get their meat 😛
I love how the 5E version looks. I believe it’s my best art, layout and cartography work to date. Even if you have the OSR version, it’s worth picking up for the new map as well as the glorious green juicyness of it all.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/346226/The-Midderlands
Cruel attacks by strange dwarves in the Ilorin wood have disturbed the peace of Withgan village. Many fearful and angry people blame their dwarven neighbors, who profess innocence but proudly prepare to defend themselves. The faithful few of Withgan explore the perilous forest, uncover its mysteries, and restore security and trust to their home. These brave adventurers are up against more than ordinary bandits, but rather an ancient and fearsome people. Fantastical creatures, powerful magic, and fabulous treasures await discovery, as well as gruesome death for the unlucky and unwary.
Andrew Sternick
This is a great DCC adventure by Andrew Sternick, which will be up at Goodman Games soon. I did some interior map artwork. If you can’t wait until then… grab it at DriveThru here:
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/342929/The-Fell-Folk-of-the-Moors
An EVEN NEWER Tentacle and Sorcery zine for the DCC RPG #ZineQuest (we’re back)
“It’s terrifying to know that everyone you meet, and every city you visit, will or has already fallen to the Bat whether or not you realize it. Sky-Lasher the Everlasting, Trident of the Sun goes to great lengths to make sure the walls fall as it approaches, as it drinks of humanity’s riches. Pay attention, if you see these things.. The Bat is on its way.” — The Infinite Reach of the Bat God.
Sean Richer
ALREADY FUNDED! The awesome Sean is back with another installment of the wonderful Stratosfiend series. I’m thrilled to be handling layout duties.
Grab it on Kickstarter here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/stratosfiend-2-zine/terror-of-the-stratosfiend-3-a-dcc-rpg-zinequest-zine
A space western sandbox on a tiny moon for Mothership RPG. Harvest the ossified corpses of coral beings and live forever.
Desert Moon of Karth is a space western sandbox adventure zine for the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG.
Karth is a tiny mesa studded moon on the galaxy’s edge. The only way down is an antique space elevator to the lawless boomtown of Larstown; a place surrounded by even greater danger and strangeness in the wastes beyond. Survival or salvation is not guaranteed, partner.
Harvest ossified coral corpses to live forever. Become an involuntary organ donor. Dodge ancient orbital defenses. Explore sand blown ruins. Hunt the fearsome sandsquid. Ride camels through the dunes. Drink whisky until you’ve forgotten your own name.
Karth’s inspirations include Dune, Firefly, Alien, John Carter of Mars, Cowboy Bebop, The Dark Tower, spaghetti westerns, and modern adventures like Hot Springs Island, A Pound of Flesh, Ultraviolet Grasslands, and Slumbering Ursine Dunes.
You’ll find plenty to use for your other sci-fi RPG of choice like Stars Without Number, Traveler, or Starfinder with a touch of back alley stat surgery.
Joel Hines
ALREADY FUNDED! Joel Hines is making a wonderful setting for Mothership. Check it out here. I’ve worked on some maps for this project and cannot wait to see it in the flesh!
Get onboard here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/joello/desert-moon-of-karth
A cyberpunk roleplaying game of corporate violence, artificial intelligence and vampirism. Welcome to 2119.
Towards the end of the 21st century, the third world war, which became known as the Resource War, pushed mankind to the brink of destruction and brought ruin to the Earth’s atmosphere. Small pockets of humanity survived this horrific conflict, eventually forming the eleven metropolises. Initially, these incredible urban constructs were able to grow and prosper through advancements in atmospheric processing and technological innovation, but now cut off from each other, the eleven metropolises must each face their own difficulties and hardships. The Gaia Complex focuses on the largest of these locations; New Europe, a single sprawling city that covers much of what we currently know as mainland Europe. New Europe is a world of street violence, corporate espionage, vampiric uprisings and an overzealous A.I., known as Gaia, which functions as the city’s governor and the protector of its citizens.
This is a game of conspiracy and brutality, where players take on the roles of Mercs; former police officers, hackers and street-savvy dealers who are hired to fight back against the system and ultimately unravel the secrets of The Gaia Complex.
Chris Shepperson
ALREADY FUNDED! Chris has made what looks like a stunning product here, the art is sumptuous. Check it out here. I’ve worked on some maps for this project too. Cannot wait!
Get on to it here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thegaiacomplex/the-gaia-complex-a-game-of-flesh-and-wires-0
Nagara is old, the city is dying, and you are the only one who can ward off the Doom.
City of Flesh is a tarot-based roleplay game where you play one of the Midwives, a person imbued with primordial energy, tasked with staving off the end of the world as you know it. Together with your fellow players and GM, you create the city of Nagara and its unique locations using a tarot deck. Each session your characters inch ever closer to a Doom they’re working tirelessly to prevent, but must inevitably face as the chronicle ends.
The game has the dark horror feeling of a dungeon crawl, while focusing on mechanics that drive in-game drama and push personal stories. You’ll get embroiled in the various wars raging between guilds in the city and try to secure a bit of personal peace, before all your efforts crumble around you. You’ll strive to survive in a city that is literally trying to eat you, and siphon off its power to keep the ones you love safe.
City of Flesh takes inspiration from grimdark fantasy combining it with a feminine aesthetic to create an immersive gore-splattered roleplay experience where you delve into the dreams of a sleeping colossus and tear through fleshy reality to make your own fate.
Steffie & Liz
Im not involved in this project, but have worked with Liz on a couple of projects in the past and Angry Hamster Publishing is on my ‘must buy’ list.
Linkage: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1568822309/city-of-flesh
Lady Ingrade cared for her land and the people who tended to it. But there was always darkness about her. She would provide comfort to a grieving mother one moment and then in the next, demand a farmer be given lashes for having too many rocks on his field.
As she grew older her perceptions of the world darkened to paranoia. Lady Ingrade obsessed about the adventurers that rode across the countryside unhindered. Grave robbers, all of them. That’s when the crypt construction began.
Lady Ingrade feared a filthy group of adventurers would violate her in death. She compulsively built crypts to lure in tomb raiders and dispatch them with deadly traps and creatures.
Upon her death, the wealth she accumulated was not found. Presumed to be dispersed throughout her many crypts or hidden within her true, final resting place. No one is sure what’s within the crypts. Those that enter, do not return.
Tim Shorts
I’m not involved in this project, but I love Tim 😛
Linkage: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gothridgemanor/the-many-crypts-of-lady-ingrade-zine-quest
So, just to close out, I hope that’s a good round up of some interesting stuff for you to support.
Take care, and blog you soon,
Glynn
After some more testing and some things that were buggin’ me…
What is GATEpunk?
A Space-time travelling multi-genre RPG.
Be a Barbarian of the Wastes lost in a sci-fi world.
A Ratkin Steamsniper hunting kills in a fantasy world, or
A Lizardkin Badlands Sheriff keeping order in a Post Apocalytic world.
As a restricted Christmas looms large, the pandemic is still wreaking its havoc around the world, and a Brexit deal remains as far away as it always was, RPGs are a light in the darkness.
So, I’ve been working on a lite RPG that is Creative Commons CC-BY-SA 4.0 by way of a holiday gift to everyone.
Welcome to KILLpunk.
Released in a tentative, unchecked, unplaytested, and half-written format the other day. I’ve now done some refining. I present version 0.2.
Download Hi-Res files: https://1drv.ms/u/s!Asryxq7YIiBZh8VzavplfO1HEtK13Q?e=yk2zRK
These are the printer-friendly versions…
So, the idea I’m having with this is that the party can consist of a motley crew of characters from different genres. For example:
But you can, of course, just play it straight with a party of characters all from the same genre and playing in the same world.
They can traverse through time to different worlds, exploring:
I will provide further examples of the following as it develops:
Here’s an idea of an Archetype, which you can pick rather than building a character from scratch. The benefit of an Archetype is that you can gain additional benefits over scratch-built Characters but, also have some drawbacks.
Arboreal Scouts are primates that have evolved into an intelligent race that once thrived on the jungle planet of Yarroth. They were almost wiped off the face of the planet by the malevolent alien race known as the Oroth, who used napalm to burn the jungles in which they lived.
Special:
The players in JamesCORP’s Mutant: Year Zero campaign have expanded their Ark! See my previous post here: https://monkeyblooddesign.co.uk/2020/10/16/sevens-sisters-ark/
The upgrades we talked about in the previous post have started to be constructed so we now have the additions of:
Check out some screengrabs of the new additions:
You can check out the live-streamed games here: https://www.twitch.tv/jamescorp, And this is where you can see the map reveal, and the players picking their hovels 🙂
Thanks to James and his players!
You can also subscribe to the YouTube playlist here:
Over and out, Glynn
After almost 30 days of crowdfunding, we are approaching the final gates. The Midderlands for Fifth Edition Kickstarter ends this Thursday at 2:42PM UTC+0. The project is now counting down in hours not days!
This may be the best 5E setting book you will purchase this year.
As I write this, we are at 308 backers and just under $12,500 USD in funding (that’s just under £9,600 GBP). As always, I am humbled by the support and pledges offered for what I believe to be the finest third-party setting book for 5E that I have seen. But then, I would say that.
It’s worth owning, even if you have the Swords & Wizardry version, as there is enough difference in its presentation to continue to inspire adventure.
There is still enough time to get on board, and with most of the work completed, it should be fulfilling pretty quickly!
To whet your appetite, here are some secret screenshots from the PDF…
I love post-apocalyptic games. I plan to create my own one day when I get chance. So , I was really excited when James approached me about drawing a map for his Mutant: Year Zero campaign. I’ve run MYZ myself, as a one-shot session for my no-longer-very-face-2-face group, so I understood the gist of the setting.
The visual goal was an Ark–a sanctuary for the player’s characters. It would be based on the actual underground station of Seven Sisters in Tottenham, North London. It needed to have locations for the relevant NPCs and be in a 3D/isometric style usable on VTT. Isometric works best for this as it has a consistent grid for placing tokens.
We would also include ‘upgrades’ to the map such as watchtowers, windmills, generators, lighting, and such for unlocking by the players as they level up their Ark. The basic map would not show these upgrades. I also wanted the map to have an old blueprint feel… (ah! the smell of ammonia!). Drawing in isometric really takes me back to my technical drawing and draughting days!
The thing I love about doing maps like this is having free reign to add some fun little details.
Anyway, feast your eyes upon the Seven Sisters Underground Ark for James.
Check out the live-streamed games here: https://www.twitch.tv/jamescorp, And this is where you can see the map reveal, and the players picking their hovels 🙂
Thanks to James and his players (hey, pookie!) for the opportunity!
You can also subscribe to the YouTube playlist here:
Over and out, Glynn
So far it’s 50% funded in 5 hours! Over 100 backers and climbing!
We are super proud and excited to have this project back on the rails.
If you like 5E and want a sumptuous new setting and bestiary to stare agog at, then this is for you.
The Chewer of Fingers Kickstarter is going strong, but you’ll need to be quick to get these Kickstarter Special Editions as we are into the last 48 hours.
Check out the Kickstarter page here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/monkeyblooddesign/chewer-of-fingers?ref=d1qpzd
Chewer of Fingers is a grim, old-school introductory adventure intended for The Midderlands setting. The adventure is written for Swords & Wizardry and therefore can be used in all retro-clones and old school role-playing games with little or no work.
The encounters in the adventure take place in and around the small hamlet of Fetterstone—a depressing place on the edge of a stinking marsh near the border between the Western Midderlands and Staffershire.
The PCs are heading to Fetterstone because there is a 20-gold quid reward for the capture of an escaped criminal called ‘The Finger Chewer’. He absconded from Middlemoor Gaol five days ago and is believed to be hiding out in the surrounding oft-foggy marsh. The marsh is notoriously dangerous and even the lure of 20 gold quids isn’t enough to entice the locals into its fetid clutches.
Check out the Kickstarter page here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/monkeyblooddesign/chewer-of-fingers?ref=d1qpzd
Many thanks,
Glynn (MonkeyBlood Design & Publishing)
Ascoleth: The Last Great City
£20.00
Midderstore
£25.00
Almost Everything Midderlands Bundle
Original price was: £361.00.£306.85Current price is: £306.85.
Midderzine Issue 4
Price range: £3.00 through £6.00
Midderzine Issue 5
Price range: £3.00 through £6.00
Rancid Canyons of the Floating Death Sheep
Price range: £10.00 through £20.00
