Owen K.C. Stephens's Blog, page 9

Health Update: Stubbing Your Toe When You Have Cancer

So, let’s start with a short summary of my recent health issues:

In December 2022 I got a respiratory infection.

In January 2023, that became pneumonia.

I had a pulmonary embolism in February 2023, as told in these articles: Part One, Part Two

That brought up a lot of trauma linked to my cPTSD, as told here.

The bleeding I had already scheduled a colonoscopy to look at (which was going to happen in May) got my colonoscopy moved up, and it happened last week as told here.

The biopsy came back on the almost-certainly cancerous polyps, and it’s official. As of March 2023, I have cancer.

We’re working on a plan of care. The medical bills are already piling up, and given I now need to do a slew more testing, see a passel of additional doctors (and there may be a partridge and a pear tree involved in the process at some point,) and then eventually undergo surgery complicated by the conflicting requirements of having to stay on blood thinners through August (or I might die), getting the tumors removed immediately (or I might die), and definitely not being able to have surgery while on blood thinners (or I might die), the cost is going to rise.

Right now my main plan for raising money to cover those bills is this great offer from Bundle of Holding. (The Bundle runs through March 22, 223) It’s a set of amazing adventures by veteran, fan-favorite adventure-writer Ron Lundeen, who was a Paizo Developer and Managing Developer, and now works at Wizards of the Coast. I’ll highlight just two of the adventures — The Skaldwood Blight takes PCs from 1st to 20th level (and includes all the monster stat blocks you need in the adventure itself), and Night of the Skulltaker has a solo edition, which you can play by yourself.

Plus, of course, buying the bundle or spreading that link around helps me pay for my medical care.

So, having brought people up to speed — what’s the deal with having cancer and stubbing your toe?

Well, the general point is that having huge, life-changing, potentially lethal problems come into your life doesn’t in any way reduce the odds you’ll have one of life’s more minor annoyances come along as well.

So, imagine you have cancer. That’s terrible and obviously eats up a lot of your mental bandwidth And then if you stub your toe, that still hurts, and is likely to have you jumping around cursing like a cartoon character because, yes, malignant rebel cells of your own tissue are trying to trench-run-against-the-Death-Star your ass from the inside, but some motherfucker put an ottoman right where your foot was going.

In my first few days back from the hospital for my embolism, I got a rash on my unmentionables. (Okay, I guess technically I just mentioned them, but the closest I am going to get into details here is to go with euphemisms that give me plausible deniability, like “snarglies,” or “The Soggy Bottom Boys.”) That required careful diagnosis, because you can pick stuff up when stuck in the hospital for several days. Ultimately it was ID’d as just one of those insignificant indignities human bodies visit upon us sometimes. Apply Doctor’s Snargly’s Unmentionable Cream twice a day, and it’ll clear up.

I mean, fine.

Now during this time, I was still having trouble just breathing, and even adjusting my position in bed was exhausting, I was trying to recover from the most horrifying medical experience I’d ever had while following complex and sometimes conflicting rules of aftercare to make sure I didn’t have a stroke, and logically the tiny additional discomfort and inconvenience of a rash, even in a no-fly zone, should barely have registered on my quality-of-life meter.

But instead, I kept redlining.

This rash felt like the straw that broke the camel’s back, and kept breaking it every few hours for days, like some kind of Batman villain that was a one-trick-back-breaking pony and needed 52 variant covers of camel-back-breaking to convince fans it was a new major plot development and the camels wouldn’t all be fine within 12 issues, and you should buy 14 of each variant because someday they’ll be worth big bucks like the first Superman comic and won’t everyone look stupid when you prove all your hobbies weren’t useless wastes of money but actually savvy investing and hey at least you have physical objects in exchange for you money if even the Camelbreaker was a stupid villain but it’s not as bad as buying NFTs with Crypto and everyone said Frank was smart when he told us how much money he’d made doing that last Thanksgiving and anyway it wasn’t your fault the cream of wheat casserole you brought to that family meal was cold by the time it got served and Frank just brought a bucket of fried chicken from a drive-thru and Aunt Karen had kept that warm in the oven so it was still delicious when everyone dug in and screw him.

…

Okay, that analogy may have gotten away from me, but you get the point.

So the rash cleared up (thanks Doctor Snargly!), and I got a cancer diagnosis, and surely that was going to be my number one medical concern for the foreseeable future, right?

And, big-picture, it is.

Small picture, I got an ear infection. It’s painful, and annoying, and not only stuffs up my ear so it’s hard to hear, it also makes it impossible for me to wear my hearing aids (hurts too much) so I really, really can’t hear well. And now it’s spread to both ears. Which means it’s just me locked inside my skull with the wailing alarm of my tinnitus and throbbing pain and…

Camelbreaker II — This Time It’s A Haystack. (Yeah, I know, it’s still a dumb analogy. But at least this time it’s shorter.)

I’ve dealt with dozens of ear infections in my life. I know this is temporary, I know how to treat it. (Prescription ear drops… which gets tricky when you need them in both ears since the applied ear needs to be kept tilted up and you can’t do that to both ears at once and yes, I can do one ear and then the other but the doctor says to keep the ear I just applied drops to tilted up for at least an hour and now it’s two hours for the two ears and the drops are twice a day so that’s four hours and also I have to elevate my legs above and beyond times when I am sleeping no less than twice a day for an hour each time and I can’t do that until I lay flat on my back so that’s 6 hours a day that requires me to be a specific position and that’s 42 hours a week OH MY GOD I NOW HAVE A FULL-TIME JOB LAYING IN WEIRD POSITIONS IN BED AND I DON’T EVEN HAVE AN ONLYFANS PAGE TO POST ANY OF THIS TO!)

But it’s harder, now. My personal endurance and calm are already frazzled from recovering from the pulmonary embolism while dealing with the cancer diagnosis. Things like stubbing my toe don’t normally take a big part of my physical or mental reserves, but the total amount of psychic and biological energy these minor ailments require isn’t reduced just because I have cancer. So, suddenly, cold sores, hangnails, papercuts, and other ailments that Doctor Snargly makes strong-smelling, oily creams and salves for have gone from taking a tiny amount of my current reserves, to eating up a big chunk of the tiny amount energy I have left.

Now, normally I wouldn’t have a rash and a double-ear-infection back-to-back like this. This may just be bad timing, or it may be the stresses of the embolism, hospitalization, difficult recovery, and suffering through (most of) a colonoscopy with no anesthesia or painkiller wore me out so I got sick more easily. Or, of course, my entire immune system may be compromised, and it may only get worse from here.

I have a strong support system, and remain confident that ultimately this will all just be fodder for my autobiography. But for now?

It turns out that when you have cancer, stubbing your toe is a bigger deal than you’d think.

Methods of Support
So, a lot of people have offered a lot of support, and I deeply, deeply appreciate it. Currently my primary plan is this Bundle of Holding offer, which runs through March 22. In addition to buying the bundle if that’s your thing, you can boost and share it on social media, which is a huge help. I may end up needing to turn to extraordinary measures, such as a GoFundMe, but I won’t be doing that until I know for certain I have to.

If you want alternative for offering support, I won’t refuse it. You can join or increase your membership tier at my Patreon, or if you prefer do one-time support through my Ko-Fi.

Thanks, folks.

Owen

“Bad Motivator,” An Interview With R5-D4 About Returning to Star Wars

Spoilers Alert

This parody interview contains minor spoilers for Episode 3, Season 2 of “The Mandalorian.”

“Bad Motivator”

written by The Most Interesting Fan in the World

“The SAO (“Sentient Artifical Organism”) actor knows as “Red” famously portrayed the role of heroic droid “R5-D4” in Star Wars: A New Hope. Now with their return to the role in the most recent episode of the Disney/Lucasfilm series “The Mandalorian,” Red’s agreed to join us for a short interview.

“First, Red, thanks so much for joining us. We’re a huge fan of your work, and thrilled to have you with us.”

Beep-toot whiiiiir boop.

“Ha! I bet it is. So, let’s start with some background. You’re best known for your role as R5-D4 in the original Star Wars movie. Was that your start in acting?”

Boop-whoooooooo. Tweetoot beeple pop-whir wheeee. Tootle-doot boop beedple beep.

“That’s fascinating. So after those roles in college and community theater, what took you to Hollywood?”

Weeeee-do dappa deep whuuuuuu dot dep dop doot.

“Really? I’ve gone over your online credits a lot, and neither Dark Star nor Death Race 2000 are ever mentioned. Was the work uncredited?”

Boop-whoo. Deet doot rooooo boople.

“Sure, that makes sense. Have you done a lot of that kind of foley and sound effect work?”

Dwooo-woot woop boop woot.

“Of course, we all have to pay the bills. So, it’s the mid 1970s, you’re doing sound effects for scifi films, and…”

Boop-dootle-beep.

“Sorry, of course. So, to be accurate, sound effects for a range of films and television. And then you get the call to audition for Star Wars. What was that process like?”

Whooop-dooo. Dweeboot deeple whot-whir dweeee. Dootle-doot beep boodple deed. Twooo-dwoot woop roop woot. Deedweee-do boppa dweep dhuuu whot peep duup woot.

“And have you and Mark Hamill kept in touch since then?”

Dwoo-woot dupe.

“That’s always great to hear. Do in A New Hope, you’re in one scene, where you are about to be bought by the Lars family, and then you shoot out sparks and stop moving, and Luke says you have a bad motivator, so R2D2 is taken instead. What was your thought process when preparing for that scene?”

Whirr-hum, beep boop beep boop, whuzz-whirrlpop chirp-doop, beep. Hum squawk pops. Whee-whoo whoosh, oop, fweep-fwop-fwop-fwop.

“Oh, that’s really interesting, So, to you, the Bad Motivator wasn’t about being able to roll around, but entirely about R5 being not being motivated to leave its Jawa home and work?”

Dwee-dwoo dwoosh, fwop-fwop.

“That’s great, and it really shows you got deep into that character, even though you only had the one scene. Do you feel that lack of motivation has been a key part of R5’s personality in the years since.”

Zoop-zoop-zoopity-zoop, zzzzzzzzoooooooooooom.

“Well, sure, the Expanded Universe got pretty weird.”

Plip-plop-plip, chugga chugga woop.

“Oh, I had no idea you were consulted for those comics!”

Whooop-doo. Dwip-dee-doo. Doot-deet beep bop. Throop.

“Wow, nice. It’s a shame that never got past the storyboard stage. So, let’s talk about playing the character again, after so long, You had a few scenes in the first and seasons of the Mandalorian, as well as the Book of Boba Fett. How did that come about?”

Deedle-dop-deep bop bleep duup wop. Zing.

“Yes, it’s clear Jon Favreau is a fan of deep continuity.”

Whizz-whoop-bop. Zwoop… beedle-bop-deet.

“What was it like, being on a Star Wars set again?”

Woop-dwoop-beep-bop. Shwip boop. Dwee-dwee-dwee. Whoop.

“Yes, I imagine is IS a great deal more comfortable than Tunisia, especially for an SAO.

“So you had your cameos, got a few lines, but not much more than that. Did those three seasons of acting do anything to reinvigorate your career?”

Dwoot toot bleed-beep Dalek.

“Oh, wow! I’ve seen all the recent Doctor Who episodes, and I didn’t recognize you in any of them.

“Whooooooooooooo. Bleep deep skeeeeee-tot.

“And was that your first time wearing that much make-up?”

Wee-dleep boppa beep. Twoot zeeple pop-whir beboop.

“It absolutely is nice to be able to expand your range and experience like that. Okay, so you’re seeing some more interest, going to more conventions…who called you to talk about doing a bigger role in The Mines of Mandalore episode for this season?

Wooo-wheeeee. Bleep-boop, whirtle dweep dep booo.

“Oh, I had no idea she’d gone into producing after Return of the Jedi. Did she have any acting roles after 9D9?”

Beep boop dwee tweet toot.

“Yes, I can absolutely see how the skill translates over into producing. So, she gives you the call, and asks if you’ll do another episode. Did she let you know it’d be a much bigger part, larger even than your original scene from A New Hope?”

Beep dweep who-hu-ooo.

“So ‘adventure droid’ got mentioned really early, huh? And what was it like, getting back into this iconic character for multiple scenes, including have some shots where you’re the only character on-screen?”

Dweep-bee-beep. Beedoot beeple zot-zhir dwoooooooo. Boole-boot bot.

“I did notice that. And was that all an expansion of your original interpretation of having a ‘bad motivator’? Or was that in the script when you got it?”

Wheet boop beep-bot-tweeee be-beep. De-do-da-deetle deet, dwoop beboo zoot whee.

‘It’s great to hear you got to be part of that creative process. Any final thoughts you’d like to share with us?”

De-deep wheeple wot beeee-whu huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu… beep.

“Sure. Everyone else seems to be getting a spin-off!”

Methods of Support
A lot of people have offered a lot of support in light of my various recent health issues, and I deeply, deeply appreciate it. There are plans moving forward to try to help cover medical bills and loss of income, and when they’re ready, I’ll announce them here. I may end up needing to turn to extraordinary measures, such as a GoFundMe, but I won’t be doing that until I know for certain I have to.

However, if you DO want to offer immediate support, I won’t refuse it. You can join or increase your membership tier at my Patreon, or if you prefer do one-time support through my Ko-Fi.

Thanks, folks.

Owen

Health Update – The Colonoscopy and More

Here’s the tl;dr – I had my no-anesthetic/no-painkiller colonoscopy. We weren’t able to complete it, but did get about halfway, and it revealed issues I’ll have to deal with, which is going to mean meeting with a lot of doctors over the next few weeks. It’s serious, but we remain hopefully it can all get handled.

For the longer version, CW – blood, cancer, pain, polyps, and poop.

I had assumed my rectal bleeding was unrelated to my pulmonary embolism. Looks like I was wrong.

The prep period for this was difficult because I already tired easily, and going through hours and hours of cramps and body-emptying trips to the restroom was leaving me so shuttering exhausted I had trouble even standing. But I got through it, and got in to the colonoscopy today.

The first half hurt, but was manageable, But there was a point past which the pain was enough to make me unable to breathe, and see sheets of blinding white. Also, my heartrate and blood-pressure kept spiking at that point, soo the doctor and I agreed that was as far as we could go.

However, in the section we could check, I had two polyps the doctor described as “very large, very suspicious.” They could not be removed under those circumstances, but the doctor did get material for biopsy. That said the bigger one was bleeding, and “clearly undergoing changes.” We can’t say they are cancerous until the biopsy comes back, but the GI doctor is convinced the larger of the two is definitely cancerous.

In any case, they have to go.

First, of course, they either are or soon will be, cancer. But, secondly, the gastroenterologist said their size and definition mean they are very likely to be responsible for instigating my blood clots. If we don’t remove them, I run the risk of more and more clots, another embolism, stroke, and so on.

He also noted that these are things that have been around for years. Certainly if I had gotten a colonoscopy at 50, they’d have been visible already. (I cut myself slack due to the pandemic, but still.) And there’s a good chance that if I had gotten one at 45, we’d have seen them then. (When I was 45 the recommendation was still 50… and by the time I was 50, the pandemic was in full swing. I made a call to wait, and it was the wrong call.)

The doctors confirm to me that the fatigue, lack of focus, listlessness, and even brain fog I have been suffering in increasing severity since 2017 are in all probability the symptoms pf the polyps, and the blood clots they’ve been creating. I have been seriously ill for 6 or more years, slowing down, losing jobs, having trouble meeting my own expectations, and we couldn’t ever figure out why.

Well, now we know.

And let me be clear, knowing is huge. No matter how I tried to eat better, exercise more, take more antidepressants, for six years my life has been a slow-and-apparently-inevitable slide into disability. I have been disappointed in myself again and again over the past several years, because no matter how hard I tried, I could not work in the level of volume, quality, or even enthusiasm I expected. My life felt over, and part of my depression was seeing that things always got worse, and my life was losing it’s value to me.

Well, fuck that. I have literally seen the enemy now. I have a cause, and can focus on eliminating it, and recovering. There’s is a fight I can get into, and win my life back.

So, this process is going to go as fast as it can, but that’s still a matter of weeks rather than hours or days. Surgical removal is an urgent necessity… and complicated. I must be on blood thinners for the pulmonary embolism, and I still need supplemental oxygen when I sleep or exert myself. Those factors put the risk of me dying under general anesthesia at around 10%, even for something minor like a colonoscopy, much less surgery. But if the polyps are, as expected, cancerous, we need to get them while they are still stage 1 (assume we haven’t missed that already), so we can’t wait.

There are options, and I will be seeing a cardiologist, hematologist, and oncologist over the next few weeks, as well as my primary care physician. The hospital staff all agreed we’d have to “get creative,” but we can do that. We’ll gather all the info we can, consult, form a course of treatment, and carry forward.

This is, obviously, going to be tiring, time-consuming, and expensive. But my life is on the line, so I’ll handle each of those hurdles as necessary.

And I’ll try to keep everyone posted.

Methods of Support
So, a lot of people have offered a lot of support, and I deeply, deeply appreciate it. There are plans moving forward to try to help cover medical bills and loss of income, and when they’re ready, I’ll announce them here. I may end up needing to turn to extraordinary measures, such as a GoFundMe, but I won’t be doing that until I know for certain I have to.

However, if you DO want to offer immediate support, I won’t refuse it. You can join or increase your membership tier at my Patreon, or if you prefer do one-time support through my Ko-Fi.

Thanks, folks.

Owen

Behold, the S.H.A.R.K. Art!

In my article about producing game products with low-to-no art budgets, I said “If you specifically need art of cybernetical-augmented anthropomorphic sharks with stun-gun-equipped mancatcher polearms… chances are you won’t find stock art to meet your needs.”

And, you know, when I wrote it, that was true.

But NOW, Michael McNeill (productionplatform3@gmail.com) has created this:

So, I suddenly feel the need to name the cybershark mancatcher mercenaries.

The best option I came up with was:

S.H.A.R.K.: Synthetic Hybrids Armed to Retrieve or Kill

Of course, there are other options.

Skirmishing Hyperpowered Advanced Recon Killteam

Special Handling Assets: Roving Knights

Strategic High-Value Assault Relief Key-forces

So, enjoy the weird idea… now fully illustrated!

[Normally my Tuesday posts are Patreon-only, in an effort to increase subscription to my Patreon. However, since this was a follow-up to my big Monday post, it felt unfair to paywall this one. But if you feel moved to Join My Patreon, I won’t object. :)]

The Seminar Files 01: Publishing ttRPG Material With Little or Not Art Budget

The Seminar Files is a new branding of an old idea: to provide the kind of information, thoughts, and answers I would once have given during a gaming convention seminar in a more accessible format. Not every creator or potential creator can afford to go to conventions and industry events to attend seminars, and that can create a barrier to entry that disproportionately impacts lower-income creators, creators with disabilities, creators that don’t feel safe in traditional game industry spaces, and creators in physical or social spaces that don’t even hear about game industry events.

Obviously those are serious issues that won’t be solved just by putting up blog posts–which themselves have some issues with limited accessibility–but every tiny step helps, and my hope is that not only will my own Seminar Files help get information to people who wouldn’t ever have a chance to hear me give it in a live seminar, but that it may encourage other veterans of a range of creative endeavors to also strive to make this kind of advice available in alternative formats.

Publishing ttRPG Material With Little or Not Art Budget

One of the hardest parts of being a one-person shop or small press publisher is what to do about art for a project. Many independent creatives have the skills to write and edit themselves, and can either learn to do layout or find someone who will do layout for a few dollars per page. Often elbow grease or a tiny budget can handle all the text and graphic design elements of a small project, keeping the barrier to entry lower the the bottom position of a limbo competition.

But art? Art is tougher. Good art is (quite reasonably) expensive. Few writer/developer/publishers can do their own art (though there absolutely are a few who can). Several low-to-no budget projects in recent months have turned to AI-generated images, but between the US Copyright Office declaring AI-Generated images not being eligible for copyright in a recent case and a number of companies (Chaosium and Paizo, in particular )declaring their community content programs do not allow the use of AI-generated images or text, that solution is less appealing to many of them.

Way before AI generated images or text were realistic options, publishing on a budget and having decent art was a challenge. But the very fact that challenge goes back decades means there are other potential solutions than AI, and I have enough experience with several of them to speak to their pros and cons. Obviously a lot of this advice can apply to projects outside the game industry, but that is where my own expertise lies, and thus is how I have framed this article.

Let’s look at some specific art-on-a-budget strategies.

1. Stock Art

One extremely cost-effective option is to use stock art for your project. There is a ton of very reasonably-priced stock art available at DriveThruRPG, and there are also professional stock art sites such as Adobe Stock Photos, Shutterstock, and Getty Images. Now, some provisos.

First, read the license before you pay for or use any stock art image. That’s simple for the specialty stock art sites, their licensing is normally easy to find well before you sign up (and they usually have better search engines, though they often have less game/speculative fiction-specific images). For DriveThruRPG the licensing is determined by each artist individually, and sometimes you have to search around a bit to find it prior to paying for a piece. If you can’t find the license, contact the publisher and ask for it.

Second, while many sites have policies stating that AI-Generated images must be marked as such, they don’t all have such rules, and even those that do lack a perfect method of detection and enforcement. In many cases a practices eye can pick put AI-generated images, but it isn’t always as easy as looking for characters with a weirdly large number of fingers. If you need to avoid AI-generated art (either for your own ethical guidelines or licensing requirements of the project you’re working on), you may need to seek out stock images from artists with a recognizable name and track records.

Third, really good, cheap stock art is likely to be used by a lot of projects, which can reduce the impact it has when you use it. There’s no perfect solution for tis, but older stock art is less likely to get used for a similar product around the time you release something with it than brand-new art everyone is excited by for the first couple of months its out. Also, some stock art allows you to modify it, which can increase customization. I personally am a big fan of art patreons that produce stock at and take feedback from backers (such as Dean Spencer’s Art Patreon), produce material anyone can use for free (such as Fantasy RPG Cartography by Dyson Logos), or have tiers that let you order specific images which become stock art for everyone after a certain period (such as Jacob Blackmon Illustration). Those require spending some monthly money, of course, but you still get a lot of visual impact per dollar spent.

Fourth, the more unusual the concepts of your project, the harder it is to find stock art that fits it. If you’re writing a cyberpunk setting, or a list of options for fantasy wizards, it’s not hard to find appropriate stock illustrations to match those concepts. But if you specifically need art of cybernetical-augmented anthropomorphic sharks with stun-gun-equipped mancatcher polearms… chances are you won’t find stock art to meet your needs.

There are a few ways you can handle that issue. First, you can just leave the unique elements of your product unillustrated. That’s not ideal, but a good cover combined with a title and description that spells out what’s interesting about your project is often better than no art at all. Secondly, you can find the coolest stock art that interests you, and write a product that is inspired by that art. Yes, this means writing something based on someone else’s ideas rather than your own, but if you do one such project, you can take the money it makes to pay for more custom art for your next, more you-centric product.

2. Public Domain Art

Want an even cheaper than stock art? Well, then it’s time to look at the Public Domain.

(Art by Gustav Doré, now in the public domain)

Public Domain art is available for anyone to use in any way they want. Of course,  you need to understand what is and isn’t Public Domain,

For finding Stock Art, I’m a big fan of OldBookIllustrations. It’s a big collection, has a search engine, and provides info about artist and publication for each art piece (if known). The British Library has also released a huge Public Domain collection on Flickr, which for my purposes is less well-organized, but has stuff hard to find elsewhere (including maps).

Public domain art has all the subject-matter and style issues of stock art, but as long as you are sure it’s actually public domain, none of the licensing problems. And while a ton of public domain art is woodblock prints from centuries ago, there is other content out there if you look hard enough. Learning some image editor skills can be a huge help in turning what is available into something you can use, and there are good free image editors out there (I often use Pixlr when I just need to crop or touch up something for a blog post and don’t want to take up the time of my professional graphic designers and their greater skills and more powerful tools).

3. Other Licensed Art

In addition to commercial art and public domain art, there are other ways art gets licensed that makes it viable for commercial use. One big example of this is art released under the Creative Commons License, especially the CC-BY license. Most of the notes about stock art and some about public domain art apply here, but the most important one is to make sure you know which Creative commons license you are dealing with, and that you understand it.

4. Skip the Art

Yes, it’s a well-accepted truism that ttRG products must have art, especially cover art. And I believe an attractive cover is crucial to sales, and good interior art helps break up “walls of text” that can otherwise be daunting and unattractive to many readers.

But you don’t have to use illustrations to accomplish these things.

Raging Swan Press is a great example of a successful company that has attractive, informative, and even eye-catching overs with no illustrations beyond their logo. Obviously you shouldn’t duplicate their trade dress, but being inspired by it to create your own illustration-free cover design is a huge budget-saver, especially when you consider the impact of not paying for cover art over the life of entire product lines.

Similarly, there are things that can break up pages of pure text in the same way art does, without actually being illustrations. Chapter and section headers, charts, tables, sidebars, bullet points, scholar’s margins, and similar treatments of text that’s in any way different than the main prose can help break up the visual monotony of page after page of pure text.

5. Partner With An Artist

I’m going to open this section with a quick anecdote.

In 2014 Adam Daigle and I were guests at Comicpalooza, and we spoke about breaking into the games industry in a panel with easily 1,000 attendees. Most folks were interested in videogames, but there was still some basic stuff we could discuss that was relevant for them. At one point, a person wanting to be a writer for video games mentioned they were having trouble making a good impression because writing for a video game fell flat without art, level design, and programming, and they couldn’t afford to pay people to do those jobs just to make a working example of their writing.

Adam asked if there were any artists who wanted to have a sample video game they could use as part of their resume, and dozens of hands went up. then he asked about level designers, and then programmers, and in every case there were dozens of hands. So, Adam suggested, maybe those people should all get together and form groups, each looking to create a small playable example of their work. When the seminar ended, there were circles of people from different disciplines gathering, talking, exchanging business cards, and picking places to go and talk more right there at the con.

The moral of that story is that there are other people who want to break into the games industry, and some of them have exactly the skills you need to shore up your own weaknesses. They may not have the level of polish you’d prefer, and partnering with people means figuring out (and writing down!) how ownership of the end product works, how everyone gets paid, and how creative input is shared, but those are all solvable issues. Again, compromises are going to be called for, but if you work with other folks at your experience and success level it can both serve as a stepping stone to having the budget you need to hire professionals to match your specific vision, and help make contacts (and friend) that may well be a huge part of your process and success in later years.

6. Decide What You Are Trying To Do

One of the pieces of advice that I don’t think is discussed enough is “Decide what your goal is with your work.” Do you want to be a publisher, one-person or otherwise? Great, then work on finding ways to publish material even if it’s not your magnum opus. In that case, for early projects you may have to find stock or public domain art first, and build products around it.

Do you want to be a professional writer, developer, or editor? Okay, then maybe you don’t need to self-publish at all, or should do so specifically for the goal of proving you can do the work, so you can point at that work when asking publishers to give you a shot. In that case you may not need art at all, since you aren’t trying to get work as an artist or art director. Just make sure your text is as clean as possible, and understand that being a professional paid ttRPG writer working for other publishers is mostly about writing the projects someone else wants to make happen, not getting paid to do the projects you want to make happen.

(And if you DO want to get work as a ttRG artist, by all means see if you can find a writer and publisher who is looking for an art solution and partner up with them for a few projects. Just make sure your ownership and cut of the profits is covered in writing when you do.)

Do you just want to publish the one thing you are dying to show the world, make sure it’s true to your vision, and don’t want to turn this into a career or even side-hustle? Well, most likely that means you are a hobbyist, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But if you want custom art, high-quality layout, and someone else to do the boring parts of developing and editing your text, and aren’t willing to compromise or build a line of other projects to slowly build to a bigger budget, you likely are going to have to pay for it. Like most hobbies, publishing at a professional level primarily for fun and bragging rights takes money.

Even if you aren’t sure what your end-goal is, deciding how you want to proceed initially can help you figure out what low-to-no-budget art strategy to begin with. As your experience grows and your goals shift, you can pivot to projects and plans that better match your evolving needs.

Patreon

This post represents more than two weeks work at my current capacity, so I can only manage them if they earn support. If you want to see more longer, more advice- and industry-focused articles like this, please join my Patreon. Even a few folks throwing in less than the cost of a cup of coffee is a huge sign that I should keep making this type of content. (Speaking of coffee, if you’d prefer you can buy one cup worth of support for me at my Ko-Fi.)

Health Update

[Normally my Thursday posts are Patreon-only, in an effort to increase subscription to my Patreon. health updates are an exception — too many people are been too kind for me to paywall an update to how I am doing. But if you feel moved to Join My Patreon, I won’t object. :)]

I’ve been home for twelve days, and though the recovery process is agonizingly slow and rife with pitfalls, I am showing signs of improvement.

First, I don’t need as much oxygen, or need it as often. I was on 5 liters per minute pretty well nonstop in the hospital, 3 liters per minute except when sitting up at rest when I went home, and now down to 2 liters per minute and only when exerting myself or sleeping. I’ve gone through my first tank, and got 3 more tanks to replace it. I’m mostly on an air concentrator (so within the house my life largely revolves around how far my oxygen hose reaches), but need the tanks for doctor visits, which involve a lot of exertion (since “Walking” and “Standing” both count as exertion atm.)

(You don’t have to like it, but this is what Peak Older Game Designer looks like.)

Second, my chest finally stopped hurting 24/7. The doctor’s best guess is that my pulmonary embolism did not permanent heart damage (though “cardiologist” is one of those appoints I have to go to), but for more than a week after my hourlong event gasping for breath while my heart thundered, my chest hurt. Like I had pulled a muscle, but the muscle happened to be my heart.

Having that pain fade is a real plus.

I have having better luck sleeping… but it’s mostly still not long blissful bouts of restful unconsciousness. Part of that is my normal insomnia, part of it is struggling with oxygen cords and having to keep my legs above my heart when I sleep… and a chunk of it is psychological.

When I was discharged from the hospital last week after my pulmonary embolism I knew, at least in vague terms, what the recovery process was going to mean physically. I had no clue what it was going to mean psychologically. How that trauma would blend with my existing issues.

In specific, it’s latched hard onto my cPTSD, and my social anxiety. I keep reliving the experience of not being able to get enough air, my heart pounding, purple creeping into my visions, the sense that I was going to pass out and die, and being unable to call for help.

The nightmares I expected — nothing bad happens to me without leaving a template for my nightmares to build on. But the flashbacks, the fact that catching my breath for just a second sends a shock of panic through my body, *that* is an unpleasant surprise.

One of the most traumatic events of my childhood was when I was lured into the woods by a girl, then ambushed by a camp full of boys who threw me into a ditch they’d dug, pinned face-first in the dirt, and told they were going to bury me alive. I’ve done a LOT of therapy to cope with the feelings of breathless panic that came from having people kneel on my back as I struggled to breathe. It looks like I am going to need more to get over how the embolism stole my breath, and left me shuttering in voiceless panic.

It’s not just a physical feeling, there’s connected veins of betrayal. I was lured into an ambush when I was young, and now suddenly anytime I am short of breath for even a second, I am expecting someone to turn on me again.

Home health has a psychiatric RN coming to see me Friday 3/3, so we’ll see how that goes.

Otherwise my endurance improves, but the improvement is measured in seconds, feet, and paragraphs. With oxygen I can walk 45 feet before getting winded, instead of 35. Showering is a chore, rather than impossible unaided. I managed to sit with friends for 3 hours, though after that i had to lay down. I can write for 10-15 minutes at a time, and manage several such bouts in a day.

I can see the improvements. They are just tiny, and going even a mote beyond them leaves me gasping and exhausted.

But they are improvements.

The “Trippin’ Balls” Monster Template

Let’s say, for no particular reason, that you wanted a way to represent a monster that had ingested a vast amount of narcotic stimulants. The poor thing is almost certainly going to die, but until then it is high as the Abyss and in a drug-induced frenzy that makes it dangerous and unpredictable.

In short, it’s Trippin’ Balls.

So, here’s a template to add to any monster you like to represent one that is Trippin’ Balls. It should work in 5e, Level Up, Pathfinder 1e, Pathfinder 2e, and Starfinder.

(Art by Mosaic)

Trippin’ Balls

Confused in Combat: While it can decide what to do out of combat (though as GM, feel free to have it decide to do some dumb stuff), in combat or similar stressful situations, it’s confused. Like, the Confused condition confused. This condition is permanent in combat as long as the monster is Trippin’ Balls.

Eight-Ball: Whenever the Trippin’ Balls creature rolls an 8 or 18 on a d20 roll, it immediately gets an extra action (even if it’s not its turn), which is dictated by the Confused condition.

Fearless and Furious: The creature is immune to emotion, fear, and demoralize effects. Anytime it has to make a Strength-, Constitution-, Wisdom, or Charisma-based ability check, skill check, or saving throw, it rolls twice and takes the better result. Any time it has to make a Dexterity- or Intelligence-based ability check, skill check, or saving throw, it rolls twice and takes the worse result.

Also, when dealing damage, it adds 1d6, +1d6 per full 5 levels or challenge rating it has

That’s Not Good For You: The creature has half its normal Hit Points (half its Stamina Points too, for Starfinder). However, it has temporary Hit Points equal to double the number of points lost due to this ability. It begins each combat with a full set of temp HP, but each time it’s encountered reduce the number of temp HP it gets by 10% of its original total. 

If it takes additional narcotics, the creature’s temporary HP are reset to full, and it’s true Hit Points are reduced by 10% of its maximum. If it’s HP are reduced to 0, it gets 1d4 more rounds of actions, then its heart explodes and it dies.

Patreon
I have a Patreon. It helps me carve out the time needed to create these blog posts, and is a great way to let me know what kind of content you enjoy. If you’d like to see more more rules inspired by movies, or system-agnostic worldbuilding, game industry essays, fiction, game design articles, worldbuilding tips, or whatever!, try joining for just a few bucks and month and letting me know!

Now On Patreon: Ten Weird Magic Weapon Ideas

Over on my Patreon I made a quick set of weird ideas for magic/fantasy weapons for typical magic-inclusive ttRPGs. They’re system-agnostic concepts, rather than full magic items for any one game. Also, since swords tend to get all the glory, none of these are swords. (CW: Dentistry/tooth stuff. Also, some puns.)

Since my Tuesday posts are currently Patreon-exclusive as an intentional carrot to get more people to join my Patreon, below I just posted one of the ideas as a teaser, and the names for the other nine. (Once my Patreon’s income level has risen to $1,500/month, I’ll both go back to posting Tuesday posts for free here on my blog as well as on my Patreon, and I’ll make and maintain 5e and Starfinder article indexes for my Patreons — the carrot to encourage Patrons to see if their friends want to join).

Preview Weird Magic Item:

B.O.L.O.s: These bolos have eyeballs painted on the weights. When you hit and entangle a foe with them, you can change your visual point of view to be that of that foe, until the foe escapes.

The Patreon article also presents the Beakaxe, Doppledagger, Flintlock and Key, Greatest Overloud Armor Tassets, Kudzu-Net, Personal Trebuchet, Ring Of Invisibility No Not Like That, Serpentspear, and Toothhammer.

Short Fiction: Battle of the Channel

[Following my medical issues of a week-and-a-half ago, I’m going to be digging through my files for content for folks while I recover, and I have no idea how often I’ll post. This may be my only blog entry for the week — we’ll see how it goes.

The early versions of this snippet of fictional history have been sitting on my hard drive since I published Anachronistic Adventures, nearly a decade ago. It was supposed to be broken up as 1-2 paragraph chapter heads for a dieselpunk Second War of the Worlds setting book, which I played with but never got around to seriously developing for publication.

It appears here for the first time.]

From “A History of The Second War of the Worlds. Vol IV, Chapter 11: The First Battle of the Channel”

“Before it can be understood how a flotilla of Armored Rams was expected to hold the Straight of Dover against tripod war machines, and why those expectations were ill-grounded in the reality of the Second Martian Invasion, it’s necessary to understand the design of the Armored Rams as a class, and the Thunderchild in particular.

“Unlike older its namesake, Armored Ram Thunderchild was purpose-built to fight the Martian war machines, though no Earthly designer could have conceived of how much more dangerous the Second Invasion walkers were than what humanity had seen before. Displacing 21 long tons, the Thunderchild-class as a whole had no exposed turrets or smokestacks, as such protuberances would have been nothing but burs for Martian heat-rays to melt smooth in the opening seconds of any conflict. Its exterior was closer in appearance to the bottom of a typical boat, a curved wedge coming to its sharp, heavily reinforced point right at its waterline. Only the massive steel rivets running in long lines along the ship hinted at the thickness of its exterior hull armor, and the armored quarts viewports were nearly impossible to pick out from their metal frames.

“This exterior armor was just one of the Thunderchild’s defenses. The apparently-contiguous armored exterior was, in fact, a series of carefully overlapping plates. Behind that armor were more water pumps than any seaborne vessel had ever carried before, all fed by intakes along the ship’s belly. Combined, the pumps had a capacity of more than 500,000 gallons per minute, sprayed onto the armor from the inside, ready to cool it against the murderous burning of heat rays. The overlapping armored plates running its full 427-foot length allowed steam created by this cooling to escape as quickly as it was generated, and when the ship moved at speed the design was such that air was sucked through the space between the outer and inner hull for further cooling.

“After the outer hull and the radiators and the water-cooling system, thick layers of asbestos insulated the inner hull from the expected hellish conditions of the outer hull dissipating steel-melting temperatures, and then another layer of armor sat behind that. This inner armor was not vented, but instead able to form an airtight, pressurized seal adapted from the French Aigrette-class submarines. The Thunderchild-class was designed not to submerge, but to keep their crew safe in airtight chambers when tripod war machines covered the sea with their villainous black gas.

“The sole exception to this seal was the engine intakes, which drew in air from just above the waterline (assumed — correctly — by designers to be where air would be coolest in a heat ray-enabled battle) and passed it along sealed pipes to furnaces for the ship’s 18 Babcock & Wilcox boilers to power the ship’s mighty steam turbines. While black gas was deadly to any living creature that breathed or touched it, its effect on machines was more a question of greater anticorrosion measures. Having black gas potentially fill sections of the engines that might call for repair necessitated a new class of “smokesuit engineers,” but this was considered a small price to have engines at full power, and a crew safe from the horrors of Martian chemical weapons.

“Finally, carbon dioxide scrubbers and oxygen rebreathers were installed within the ship to form an  “air support system,” ensuring that it could operate in its fully-airtight “buttoned up” state for several hours if necessary under full steam, or for roughly 30 minutes if the ship was forced to run purely on battery power.

“Lacking any exterior guns, the offense of an Armored Ram was twofold. First, as the name suggests, the entire Thunderchild-class was a throwback to ram-armed ships of the galleys of Imperial Rome. The entire construction of the keel and ribbing was to brace the thickest, most heavily armor section of the ship, the ram prow or “beak,” which was shaped to carry the ship’s massive tonnage into and throw any other vehicle it struck, be that naval vessel or walker. Secondly, it carried five 18 in torpedo tubes, designed to fire the Mark VII torpedo, each carrying 320 lbs of TNT. The torpedo tubes were mounted forward, centered behind and under the Ram Beak, well below the waterline and presumed safe from both heat rays and black gas.

“The Thunderchild-class were also called Peaceships (as opposed to Warships), because they were designed exclusively to deal with Martian war machines. Though a Thunderchild could theoretically ram an Earthly battleship, their total lack of heavy guns made them no match for modern naval vessels such as the American Virginia class, English King Edward VII class, or Italian Regina Margherita class battleships. As Martian war machines had never used heavy projectile weaponry, it was believed there was no need to develop tactics for anything other than heat rays and black gas, and while the heavy layer armor of a Thunderchild-class vessel could survive glancing blows from 9-inch guns and ignore smaller caliber weapons, the bigger 12-inch naval guns were able to sink an Armored Ram at ranges in the thousands of yards — well before torpedoes or a ramming run were a threat.

“Thus, when the Martians returned in 1909, it was expected the Thunderchild-class and similar ram ship designs worldwide would be crucial to keeping coasts and waterways clear of 100-120 ft. tall tripods. England invested more heavily in such ships because of the heavy fighting in and around harbors in 1896, and the belief that Martians would focus on disabling the English naval fleet. What no one expected was 250- to 300-foot tall tripods splashing down directly in waters all around England, as well as in its interior, and the English mainland falling to Martian forces within days. And, as Europe watched in horror, massive legions of the much-taller tripods marched towards the Straight of Dover, a narrow barrier between England and France no more than 180 feet deep.

“The Martians would not, it was realized, be limited to walking in rivers, coastlines, and harbors. The new War Machines were taller than the Straight was deep, and could simply walk the 20 or so miles to Europe. Fleets were rushed to the waters, but the taller tripods also had greatly increased range of their black gas canisters and could blanket the waves up to 10 miles away. Traditional warships could not get within gunnery ranges without being choked by the gas, their crews choked by the necrotic substance before a single shot could be fired.

“It would be up to the four Thunderchild-class ships.

“Volumes have been written on the command failures of the captains of the Ligetung, Stormspite, and Taranis, which lead to their destruction. Most of these analyses are unforgiving, placing it as purely tactical error for those ships to have stayed at their extreme torpedo ranges, rather than rushing in to ram foes as the Thunderchild did. However, it must be remembered that Martians had not revealed the existence of either their Kraken tendril-canisters or Scylla tendril-augmented black gas canisters. Had the captains of any of the three ships been alerted to the Martian equivalent of kinetic guns, able to fire whirling masses of sliding plate tendrils that could rips targets apart (and, in the case of Scylla canisters, flood an area with black gas while doing so), they no doubt would have closed range as quickly as possible.

“The more interesting question is why the crew of the Thunderchild bore toward the massed tripods walking across the Straight in the first moments of siting the enemy. True, the Armored Ram ships were conceived as close-combatants, but naval doctrine at the time leaned heavily toward soften up any enemy formation at range if possible. Arguably, it was the captain of the Thunderchild who acted in error despite being the only ship to survive the opening minutes of the battle as a result. Tragically, as there were no survivors, the question of whether the officers aboard were driven by tactical brilliance, reckless battle-lust, or a desire to match the boldness of their namesake from the first War of the Worlds will never be answered.

“Moving at its full 22 knots, the Thunderchild proved a difficult target for Martian canister launchers. Even tendril-enabled canisters bounced off its hull too quickly to gain purchase, and the massive spray created by its Ram Beak-enabled prow may have confused Martian gunners. In its first pass, the Thunderchild sank 4 Tripods with ram hits, and one with a lucky torpedo salvo, and disabled the legs of 3 more, leaving them unable to continue across the Straight.

“But this success was not without cost. The expected heat rays did splay across Thunderchild‘s hull to horrifying effect, literally melting and warping sections of its outer armor and largely destroying its port prow cooling pumps. Worse, each time the Thunderchild rammed a Tripod, the naval ship slowed enough for the walker’s tendrils to grasp and scrabble at its upper hull. Numerous plates were wrenched from true, leaving gaps and weak points in the ship’s defenses, and a few were torn free entirely. Reports of the day claim the Thunderchild remained at full fighting capacity after its initial charge, but careful analysis of photos f the conflict put lie to this claim, which was likely more propaganda than bad intelligence even at the time.

“Even so, the ship barely slowed as it arced around for a second pass, which if not as effective as the first still sunk three Tripods and badly injured two more. Though more than two dozen walkers were involved in the Martian advance against the straight, the legend of the Thunderchild and the tripod’s clear focus on the Armored Ram spurred every British vessel able to float to pick that time to flee across the Channel. For dozens of miles up and down the coast, the few remaining naval ships made dashes for France, along with private craft, river ferries, and even makeshift barges. The exodus continued as long as the Thunderchild could float and fight, and is credited with evacuating more than 300,000 civilians and fighting forces. At the time, this was hailed as a great humanitarian victory, and in the years since we have come to understand just how great the impact to the Martian war effort was to remove the people it would otherwise have literally fed into its War Machines.

“By the end of its second pass, the Thunderchild was clearly in distress. It was visible on fire, and had slowed to less than half its maximum speed–a deadly limit for a ship dependent on kinetic impact to do damage. Pictures prove that at least one Kraken and one Scylla canister had found purchase on its outer hull at last, and numerous eyewitness accounts claim a Kraken tendril mass actually climbed into the Thunderchild midships, where only the crew’s small arms fire could possibly slow it. Wounded, boarded, and burning, no one could have faulted the Thunderchild if it had given quit to the battle, and turned toward France.

“But it did not.

“Whereas its previous attack runs had been the swift jabs of trained pugilists, its course plotted to ensure it deflected from each impact on a vector to bring it ramming into another tripod, the third pass of the Thunderchild was the ponderous swing of a drunken barroom brawl. Its only kill was from a final torpedo salvo that took advantage of a tripod attempting to directly block its path, and the two other walkers it damaged simply had their legs bent from glancing blows from the ram’s flanks.

“Though it managed to steam free of the remaining tripods massing to bring it down through sheer weight of tendril attacks, the Thunderchild was clearly in no condition for another attack run. Nearly half its exterior armor was gone, and in a few places its interior hull was also breached. Two explosions had rocked its starboard side below the waterline, and it listed toward that side as it came around. It moved sluggishly at best, and if any of the remaining tripods had tendril-canisters to spare, they could surely have dropped the deadly writhing weapons on Thunderchild‘s near-wreck, and torn it apart at a distance.

“But in a victory as great as the war machines it sank, the Thunderchild had shown the limit of the new Martian weapons. As horrifying as the Kraken and Scylla cannister-launchers were, their reload numbers within each tripod were limited. Most tripods carried only six canisters of this type, and those with prisoner cages carried only four. The slightly larger walkers later identified as command units could carry eight, but at the cost of not having any of the standard black gas dispensers. After the destruction of its sisterships at distance, and three full circuits of its own through the Tripod formation, the Thunderchild had taken the measure of the Martian’s new armament. If heat rays couldn’t sink it, and the ship showed no sign of going down despite belching steam and black smoke into the air, the Martians would have to tear the Armored Ram apart with their Tripod’s own tendrils, in close combat.

“Legend says the navigator for the Thunderchild was the sole survivor on its bridge by this point in the battle, and he lashed himself to the helm to make a final run into the Martian formation. It’s a heroic tale, and one popularized when the navigator’s wife became one of the most famous naval commanders later in the war. But there’s no way to confirm the story and, indeed, no way anyone could have known what happened on the bridge to begin with. But it takes no legends to acknowledge the bravery of the crew of the Thunderchild because, whether helmed by a lone hero lashed to the controls or a few brave men facing what they knew had to be their end, the Armored Ram turned toward the Tripod formation a fourth time.

“There would be no passing through the Martian forces this time. At no more than 10 knots, the Thunderchild made straight for the tallest of the walkers, and the Martian forces swarmed the point to ensure the ship could not escape again. The Armored Ram can be said to have drifted as much as steamed to the engagement, and was riding quite low in the water. As for what happened once it was surrounded, inhuman tripods using long tendrils to tear it apart and pluck bodies (though living or dead it is impossible to say) from its bulk, perhaps it was an inevitable coincidence given the ship’s damage.

“But a case can be made the timing was too perfect. The moment came just as the last War Machines surrounded the Thunderchild, and applied such pressure to its hull that the keel was heard to crack. It might have been coincidence, but if so the coincidence had timing as good as any lone engineer shut into the ship’s bowels could have hoped for.

“For it was only then the Thunderchild heaved in the water and, with a roar heard on the French mainland, exploded.

“No Martian force attempted to cross the Channel for a full2 days following that detonation. Was it fear that held them at the moment no effective defender remained to stop them? Loss of a commander sewing confusion through their ranks? A need to analyze how a lone ship named Thunderchild had, as a generation before, held them at bay?

“The thousands who escaped to France during those two days did not then, and do not today, have that answer.”

Methods of Support
So, a lot of people have offered a lot of support, and I deeply, deeply appreciate it. There are plans moving forward to try to help cover medical bills and loss of income, and when they’re ready, I’ll announce them here. I may end up needing to turn to extraordinary measures, such as a GoFundMe, but I won’t be doing that until I know for certain I have to.

However, if you DO want to offer immediate support, I won’t refuse it. You can join or increase your membership tier at my Patreon, or if you prefer do one-time support through my Ko-Fi.

Thanks, folks.

Now On Patreon: Wyverns & Warrens Preview — Heroic Moments

Wyverns & Warrens (or “WyvWar”) is my current ongoing attempt to design a short, easy, fantasy ttRPG that still had a depth of options. I’m doing previews of concepts for my Patrons, and open to your feedback.

In today’s Patreon-exclusive WyvWar preview, I discuss Heroic Moments — a gamified version of the adventure fiction trope when someone does something amazing and awesome. The priest calls upon her goddess to unleash the sea itself. The berserker grabs the titan’s greave and begins climbing the towering foe, refusing to be shaken free while slashing at any exposed joint.

Done right, they’re awesome. Done wrong, they’re cringe. Done in a ttRPG, they’re tricky. And today, my Patrons get a peak of how I’ll try to do them in WyvWar.

(“I summon the Strength of the Tides,” Art by иколай Акатов)

Right now that rules preview (and all Thursday blog posts) are Patreon-exclusive, because I need to grow my Patreon to keep spending time writing blog posts and other public content. However, once my Patreon funding level hits $1,000/month, I’ll go back to posting my Thursday posts free for all to see here, AND I’ll create and maintain an index page of all my PF2 articles for Patrons, so they can easily access all my online PF2 content!