The First Gathox Play Report, with some extra details

So today over at the Gathox blog I posted a brief recap of the first two play reports, from sessions back in late summer/early fall.

You can find that here. 

The group I began the campaign with was of typical size, starting with 5 players, and was comprised almost entirely of players new to RPGs. Only one had previous experience with roleplaying, and the rest weren't exactly the most likely candidates for gaming. This led to a slower character generation process, but provided continual surprise for me, as they chose ways of interacting with each other and the game world that were very different from the modes of play you'd expect from seasoned gamers.

This cost $10 at Target and makes the whole group of first-time players happy.

For example, instead of immediately sussing out clues to the mission at hand, they chose instead to spend their first hours exploring the environment of Gathox, trying their hand at interacting with NPCs and testing out the limits of their characters. Occasional reminders were given that they could attempt whatever they wanted, which really gave them the chance to establish their group dynamic without excessive risk.

Another surprise for me was their hesitation at entering the first dungeon. I chalk it up to first game jitters, as well as a fear of consequences for their first characters. Once they  began to investigate in earnest, they managed to assemble a solid array of clues and intel fairly quickly. Despite this, the players hemmed and hawed at the most obvious entrance to the dungeon before finally throwing caution to the wind.

The beauty of that first mission was the blossoming of the players' strategic mind - upon finding an oil fountain in the first room, they immediately began to devise uses for it. They treated every square inch of the first room as a potential resource, scouring moss from the walls, sampling the crusted mud, stealing hinges off doors. For folks that had never played before, I was really excited at how quickly this habit developed, and diminished not at all across later sessions.

The session ended with the team learning about floor traps - we finished with a cliffhanger where one of the Mentalists in the group fell through one, coming close to death, and the rest of the team trying to decide whether to save him or cut losses.

Too much fun!

My new gaming blog, Gathox Vertical Slum, launches!

Hi folks! I know it's been quiet on this blog for a while, but I've been very busy writing, playtesting, illustrating, and running my new game setting, Gathox Vertical Slum, over the last 8 months. I'd love it if you'd check it out, it will feature everything from play reports to art to fiction and material for use in virtually any old school game. Please check it it out here:

http://mutantsofgathox.blogspot.com/2015/06/in-distance-city-lumbers-and-lurches.html

Thanks!

(A Screaming Boghaz, one of the delightful critters one might encounter in the Vertical Slum while out for a morning kill.)

Joesky Tax: Gutter Gills

I promised that I would pay my Joesky tax for hyping up the book that I'm illustrating, Mike Evans' Hubris setting for DCC. Without further ado, I present to you a thing with which to play, Gutter Gills, in the vein of Hubris as I see it:

Although their origin is lost to antiquity, gutter gills were recently discovered by weak and squishy humans who couldn't handle the mutagenic choking clouds roiling beneath the equally weak cities they continually build. Instead of becoming monsters from exposure, humans could now venture deep below their settlements, seeking out whatever awful things humans tend to seek out underground and providing a rare treat for the hungrier denizens of the mythic underworld.

A set of gills will turn up unexpectedly in a dusty pawn shop at discount prices; or, just as likely, on the head of a deceased explorer. Kings have found them in the boudoirs of their least trustworthy romantic interests, and beggars have been gifted them by classist aristocrats in passing. Only the need for their function can temper the difficulty of their possession.

A few gutter gills refuse to be removed from their wearers, and will choke the poor humans who attempt to remove them. These ornery gutter gills slowly starve and dehydrate their owners, and will attempt to properly strangle their dying owner near to a place they are likely to be found by another human.

Some gutter gills work out a deal with their wearers - daily sacrifices, that is, which can take a variety of forms: bloodletting, bootblacking, smeared tropical fruit, trips to the brothel, fresh heads to choke, and so on. A gutter gill may behave nicely for a few hours or a few weeks depending on the merits of the sacrifice.

Gutter gills absolutely despise cleaning chemicals, and a good bleaching is one of the only known ways to remove a particularly churlish or lethal specimen. While effective, this requires a good dousing which can often drown the wearer or leave them with nasty chemical scarring.

Gnarly Gang Generator

All right, I've been writing and playtesting a new setting, Gathox Vertical Slum, which is a science fantasy faction game with brutal and absurdist undercurrents. A significant part of play revolves around gangs - at first with players interacting with them, later forming their own gangs, and finally engaging in turf war between districts.

A lot of folks have been posting some fun bits and pieces about gangs recently, and I wanted to share a gang generator that I've developed. It happens to be stripped of the setting-specific information which I will be publishing with Gathox Vertical Slum, so you can adapt it to a wide variety of games. It comes with the added benefit of being built off of the structures and motivations of actual criminal organizations from the real world. Research for the win! Here we go:

Criminal Organizations

The following is a multi-die procedure for quickly structuring criminal organizations, which are often key players in larger conspiracies. To generate a CrimOrg, roll a d4, d6,d8, 10, d12, and d20 all at once. The results build off of one another and combine to paint a solid picture of the size, nature, purpose, and flavor of the organization.

1d4 - Type of CrimOrg

1 - Neighborhood Gang - While criminal, their origins are based in social play and mischief. Identities rely on ostentatious bluster or threat.

2 - Mafia/ Tong - Larger families, clans, ethnic or business interests. Initiatory membership, typically featuring discipline and a code of conduct.

3* - Symbolic Alliance - Loose horizontal alliances of gangs or chapters who adopt the same or similar symbols. Umbrella divisions as opposed to hierarchy.

4* - Ideological Alliance - Large alliance of smaller ideologically-aligned groups. Often religious or ethnically homogenous. Most likely to make spectacular displays of public violence.

*Note: The following tables will produce a single sub-goup or cell of the larger alliance in question; simply re-roll the d6 through d20 tables to create multiple cells and sub-groups if you wish to flesh out the entire alliance.

1d6 - CrimOrg Structure

1 - Egalitarian, with an elected boss and/or lieutenants.

2 - Cult of Personality, with a strong, charismatic leader.

3 - Might Makes Right, where leadership is challenged and established based on violence.

4 - Hired Guns, with membership bearing employee status.

5 - Inner Circle, where a central committee of leadership steers the group.

6 - Sleeper Cell, with discrete power distribution and the scope of action is limited.

1d8 - Size and Distribution of CrimOrg

1 - 1 boss, 1 lieutenant, 2d3 mooks

2 - 2-boss partnership with 2d4 mooks

3 - 1 boss, 2 lieutenants, 2d6 mooks

4 - 3-boss triumvirate, each with a lieutenant and 1d6 mooks

5 - 1 boss, 3 lieutenants, 3d4 mooks

6 - Frontman and silent senior partner, 3 lieutenants and 2d8 mooks

7 - Headless: 4 lieutenants, each with 1d6 mooks

8 - 1 boss, 2d3 lieutenants, each with 1d8 mooks

1d10 - CrimOrg Naming Scheme

1 - Honorific, two words. Ex.: Shining Force, Rising Tide, Radiant Fist.

2 - Two word opposites. Ex.: Goodly Scoundrels, Holy Bastards, Burning Sharks.

3 - Outlaw name. Ex.: Pistoleros, Hole-in-the-Wall Gang, The Executioners.

4 - ________ Brotherhood/ Sisterhood.

5-6 - Family name of leader. Ex.: The Muenchen Family, The Jodorowsky’s.

7-8 - Geographical name. Ex.: The Scrape Hill Bandits, The Blood River Reavers.

9 - Business front. Ex.: Talon and Feather Mercantile, The Tanner’s Guild.

10 - Leader’s crew. Ex.: Tamara’s Boys, Agathura’s Raiders.

1d12 - CrimOrg Motivations

1 - Social club/ fraternization.

2 - Defense of territory.

3 - Religious fanaticism.

4 - Hated enemy.

5 - Ethnic/ cultural supremacy.

6 - Class warfare.

7 - Control of legitimate businesses.

8 - Black market entrepreneurship.

9 - Mercenary muscle/ contract work.

10 - Protection of a certain class of people.

11 - General mayhem/ targeted terror.

12 - Reactionary/ revolutionary (against status quo).

1d20 - Points of Interest

1 - Boss has a twin as lieutenant; 50% chance their aims are at odds.

2-3 - Drug addiction runs rampant in the lower ranks.

4 - Members are indentured, and fallen members are replaced by siblings or parents.

5-6 - The mooks are planning a mutiny.

7 - The lieutenants are quietly moving against the boss(es), unbeknownst to their mooks.

8 - The boss is planning to kill and replace the lieutenant(s) as soon as possible.

9 - The gang has recently lost a significant amount of territory/business.

10 - The gang is in it’s heyday, having recently acquired a tremendous resource.

11-12 - Upper management is blind to the machinations of outside forces.

13 - The gang has an extensive network of informants, and is unlikely to be taken off-guard.

14 - Fallen members are martyred and idolized, leading to fanaticism amongst the lower ranks.

15 - All trust has broken down, leading to factionalism.

16 - The CrimOrg is currently planning its most risky operation yet.

17 - The gang is old and semi-defunct, save for one up-and-coming young tough.

18-19 - The leadership is held together by romantic interests.

20 - Roll one additional motivation on the d12 table and roll again here.

Follow-up: Inks for a beastie

Here's the inks, scrunched in between the other work I'm doing, as a follow-up to the previous post.

Sketch-A-Day: A new rough for Silent Legions

As I slowly climb to the top of the work mountain I've piled for myself, I thought I would post this late night sketch that I'm pleased with. Perhaps I'll do a follow-up with the inks later on. This is for +Kevin Crawford 's Silent Legions game.

Ink Drawings for Backers of the Dunes

I recently completed 26 ink drawings for the the top tier backers of the Slumbering Ursine Dunes and wanted to share a some of them below. I've posted two Cave Dwarves and two Warbears for your eyeballs. Cheers!

Sketch-a-day 1/9/14: Small Acrylic Paintings

I took some time last evening when work was done to jump into acrylic painting for the first time. I have a potential show for the First Friday Art Walk in a couple months and I figured I'd start exploring my physical medium options.

 These two landscapes were painted on 5.5" x 8.5" 136 lb. canvas paper with a super-cheap knock-off acrylic set and some beat-up kids' brushes, took about 30-45 minutes apiece, and were a total blast. Hopefully I can crank out some more of these when I get some down time in the next couple of weeks.

This first is roughly from memory from the train ride this past holiday:

This second is an attempt at some land near Augusta:

If you have any solid subject ideas for some natural or not-so-natural mini-paintings in this vein, hit me up. I'd love some input for this experiment!

Bang! You're dead, 2014!

Another WIP for +Andreas Walters , fitting for the end of the year:

Onward and upward.

Sketch-A-Day: Fantasy Factory Town

Here's a ramshackle town sketch I jammed out on the road this holiday season, and I thought I'd clean it up a bit for the blog. I think it would make a solid mini-town or factory compound for a mid- to high-fantasy setting.

This site is waiting to be labeled like a map and put into play. Feel free to use it for such, and if you do, please post a comment or send an email about it.

Sketch-a-day: Client work for 12/26/14

Here's a rough sketch for +Andreas Walters ' upcoming gaming book involving the Cold War and time travel. Cheers!

Set up your fresh Elementary OS install to kick ass for art!

I recently fell in love with Elementary OS when I was looking around for a way to spice up my computing and workflow. After several hours of tinkering and having fun, I decided to write a fairly complete script for installing all the stuff that I need as an artist. Perhaps another artist out there will want to use this on a fresh Elementary OS install as well. If that's the case, go to the link above, download the .iso file, use unetbootin to make a live stick for testing Elementary OS and installing, and then use the script provided below. Here goes!

Copy and paste this script into an empty text file in your home folder, my good Linux user, and then save the file as 'elemosautoinstall.sh'.

 #!/bin/bash  
 sudo software-properties-gtk &&  
 sudo apt-add-repository ppa:versable/elementary-update -y &&  
 sudo add-apt-repository ppa:otto-kesselgulasch/gimp &&  
 sudo apt-get update &&  
 sudo apt-get install elementary-tweaks elementary-wallpaper-collection wingpanel-slim super-wingpanel elementary-.*-theme elementary-.*-icons indicator-synapse firefox adobe-flashplugin vlc ubuntu-restricted-extras libavcodec-extra-53 libdvdread4 unace rar unrar p7zip-rar p7zip sharutils uudeview mpack lha arj cabextract lzip lunzip icedtea-plugin scribus inkscape gimp krita mypaint gimp-gmic audacity openshot -y &&  
 sudo apt-get update &&  
 sudo apt-get upgrade &&  
 sudo apt-get dist-upgrade &&  
 sudo apt-get autoremove &&  
 sudo reboot  
 done  

Now, in terminal, navigate to your home folder, and the type:

 ./elemosautoinstall.sh  

This is going to do a few things:

1) Run the software sources configuration app so you can choose your additional software sources.
2) Add PPA's so you can get some custom stuff for Elementary OS as well as GIMP.
3) Install additional Elementary OS components, some archive management components, and pretty things to customize the look of your desktop.
4) Install some key programs: GIMP, G-mic (GIMP add-ons), MyPaint, Krita, Inkscape, Scribus, Audacity (audio editing), and Openshot (because you wanna make videos of your art process for youtube, right?).
5) Update and upgrade your OS.
6) Reboot.

After all this is done, you can start kicking ass with your Elementary OS install, and start kicking ass with your art!

Merry Grav-Mass!

Sketch-a-day: 12/23/14 - Speedpaints on a Train in the North

Today I found it difficult to draw accurate lines while riding 14 hours on a bumpy train. However, I was able to crank out some rough speed paintings of the highline as viewed from the Empire Builder.

Each illo is a single layer painting done in Krita in 20 minutes or less. First, pre-dawn:

About 2 hours later:

Around 1pm:

Around 5pm, cusp of sunset:

I was happy to make use of some time that otherwise would have been a wash, and I hope you enjoy them. Happy Festivus, y'all!

Slumbering Ursine Dunes - cover sketch!

Backdated sketch - approved pencils for the cover of Slumbering Ursine Dunes, published by the Hydra Co-op.

Sketch-A-Day: 12/22/2014 - Hawk power

A quick hawk study done in Krita - 20 min, 1 layer.

May Art Lottery Winner - Garth Holden

Howdy! It's been a bit since I last posted, owing mostly to a welcome increase in commissions for tabletop RPG publications. In case folks missed it on Google+, Canadian author Garth Holden won the May Art Lottery. His submission:

"A friend of mine was born with a mutable soul. He is an Inuit man and it is
not uncommon for the people of the north to be born with both a human and an
animal spirit. People with mutable souls live hard lives, eventually
transforming over the years from one state of being to the other --
sometimes from animal to human, or from human to animal. My friend is a
world class soap-stone carver and a brilliant man, as well as being a polar
bear. That is the heart for my friend’s dilemma. Is he a man coaxing a
polar bear out of the stone? Or, is he a bear laying a man’s spirit rest
in the stone? All I can say is that this is a real world situation. My
friend does not know if he is a man becoming a bear or a bear becoming a
man. I’ve seen the bear rise up and take him over and I’ve seen the
incredible forms he draws out of the stone. Most of my friend’s works are
transformation pieces."

Garth and I discussed the piece a bit more, and I came to a kind of movie poster image montage solution to his image. Here it is:

I've been working away at improving my inking skills, and this was a successful opportunity to explore that vein of illustration a bit more. I hope folks enjoy viewing this piece as much as I enjoyed working with Garth to bring it to life.

 If you have any ideas you'd like to bring to life in illustration, you can always submit to the Monthly Art Lottery. If you need illustrations executed for your awesome project or publication, feel free to contact me via the info on my profile page. Cheers!

One Vile Pile at a Time, Petty Gods Style

The Petty Gods project, as I'm sure most folks know by now, has BLOWN UP. Greg over at Gorgonmilk shot some emergency adrenaline into the heart of what had been a dead/indefinitely forestalled collection of less than commonly worshiped deities from all sorts of OSR folks. You can get the full story here.

I volunteered my scratching and markmaking, completing a total of four particularly foul or corrupt outer beings thus far with more on the way. My first two, the Twin Blasphemies Nug and Yeb, come from Lovecraft through a number of stories which harbor no physical description aside from 'they look like their mom, Shub-Niggurath.'

So I consulted the Mythos-corrupted scholar Robert Parker, tended to his recommended reading (I call it 'research' to those who question my time management), listened to Robert Price read aloud Joe Pulver Sr.'s channeling of "The Black Litany of Nug and Yeb," followed the faint scent of Mesoamerican mythology from the stories, and arrived at a mixture of Shubby and physical descriptions of the Black and Red versions of the Azteca god Tezcatlipoca (Black Tezcatlipoca and Xipe Totec, respectively).

Now keep in mind this was my personal path to crafting an image for the two, as the illustrious James Mishler is writing up the  full descriptions for the two!

This is what came out:

 I also completed The Beast of Unbidden Challenges, based on an excellent description from Nate, the creator of A Desolate Shrine. Here's the cutie:

Following with the mad, lost god Qu'pan, developed by Richard Iorio II, who runs Rogue Games (Colonial Gothic; Shadow, Sword & Spell).

Full stats and descriptions for these godlings can be found in the forthcoming Expanded Petty Gods over at Gorgonmilk. Cheers!

April Art Lottery - Infected Beasts of Hubris

Mike Evans was the first person to submit an idea for the monthly art lottery when I started back at the end of January, and this month that very first entry was drawn!

Mike runs a fantastic blog over at Wrath of Zombie, and he is perpetually writing gaming material, ranging from system adaptations to original campaign worlds. One of those worlds of his, a grim and grimy sword & sorcery world called Hubris, has gleefully commandeered much of his attention. And it kicks ass.

Mike wanted a Tetsuo: Iron Man inspired plague beast fighting and infecting body guards. When I asked Mike to elaborate, he ended up mentioning The Thing as additional inspiration, and that's when I found the look for the beast. Here's the scene:

Ultimately this beast doesn't have quite as much metal on his body as Tetsuo, but the cancerous ick makes up for the missing industrial ugliness.Cheers Mike!

As always, feel free to keep submitting ideas! The next drawing goes down on the 5th of May.

You can submit here.

Revised: DaVinci-punk Wins March Art Lottery!

***So I got a wild hair going and decided to do some extra rendering on Brett's winning description, so after a long night, here's the revised version, followed by the original blog post. Cheers! - DLJ, 03/17/13 ***

Brett Slocum won the month of March, and his idea for the daVinci-punk genre read thus:

"Think of the outlandish costumes and scenery of the planetary romance novels and movies of the 19-Teens and the 1920s as seen through the lens of daVinci's Florence. This setting is what I call daVinci-punk, and it basically asks the question, 'What if the genius of daVinci met a magical artisan equal to his talents, and then Galileo showed them his telescope?' They of course make a space ship."

So I put some mages inside the Duomo of Florence, imagined that a considerable volume of gearing would be necessary to prop up all the parts of the rocketship, and decided to send a young court-sanctioned explorer out to visit the Moon.

Hope you dig it, keep submitting new ideas - yours could be drawn next!

February Art Lottery Winner!

Amidst all the recent commissions at which I've been scratching away, I finished up the first winning image from the art lottery. +Mike Davison 's request won the first round, so congrats man! Here's the pic:

"Best treehouse EVER!"

Mike had requested a Chaos Marine with mutations boarding a space hulk - and in all fairness I spent almost as much time lost on the Warhammer 40k Wiki as I did actual painting, which added to the fun. I chose to approximate a Plague Marine, because I often make a joyous noise unto the Plague Lord anyhow. It was a natural fit.

Don't forget to keep your submissions coming! All submissions that don't get drawn will stay in the lottery for next month, so no need to repeat yourself. Anything that pops into your head, go for it! The submission button is below, and thanks again!