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#56 - The Terrible Salt
Adventure #56 is now out, "The Terrible Salt"! This one is a wilderness adventure set in a massively wide tidal flat. Adventurers will face an unpredictable landscape and a swarm of implacable predators—unless they take to the high ground and learn where the threats are.Click through to the blog for the full PDF and full-resolution images.For this one, I was inspired by a long-ago visit to Holkham Bay in Norfolk. There, beyond the dunes is an incredibly deep beach, so wide and flat that when the tide comes in it does so very quickly, ...
The Terrible Salt (WIP)
I'm pecking away at an adventure, this one inspired by the incredibly deep beach at Holkham Bay. There, the tide flows in more than a kilometer over a wide, sandy expanse. As a result it comes in very rapidly, forming little ad hoc streams that join up, swell, and continue moving across the sand.If you're there as the tide is returning, it's surprisingly easy to get cut off and find yourself having to wade back to a dry patch. When I was there in 1997, a warning horn had been installed, apparently so people can collect their toddler...
#55: At the Hour of Death
The lost tomb of Sierk the Carver may have passed from memory, but it's nearer than anyone suspected. But be warned, wizards don't die peacefully. Great danger awaits anyone who arrives at the hour of death.It's been a long, long time since my last adventure—thank you everyone who has been holding on! At the Hour of Death is a classic dungeon crawl: low-level PCs avoiding threats to get away with their lives and a scrap of treasure.Click through to the blog post to download the PDF or the full-resolution map image.As always, thank...
Fundraiser for Evey Lockhart
Hello all! I'm interrupting my long hiatus to ask for your help with a fundraiser. Friend and onetime Trilemma collaborator Evey Lockhart needs help.You may know Evey from her weird, queer, and sad publications like Wet Grandpa. Her old school-adjacent publications are irreverent and creative. She's an ENnie silver winner, and tied for first in the 2015 One Page Dungeon Contest.She's also homeless.For two years, Evey and her family have been sleeping in motels, on couches, and when they have to, in her van. The pandemic has been dev...
The Thwarted Course
Thanks for hanging in there, this adventure location has certainly been a long time in the making! This is my take on the classic ogre-haunted bridge, but with a slightly weird take.Click through to the blog post for the PDF and the full-resolution CC-BY-NC map illustration.As always, thank you so much for your generous support. Also, shout out to new patrons! Despite the fact that I've been on an unplanned post-book/pandemic-prolonged hiatus, your enthusiasm for this project has been a source of joy for me.
Year Zero Engine Kickstarter: 48 hrs left!
I haven't been very noisy about it here, but if you missed the news elsewhere, we've just entered the last 48 hours of the Kickstarter campaign for the fourth Trilemma bestiary: Servants of Memory.This edition stats out the Trilemma Adventures Compendium creatures for the Year Zero Engine, the system underlying for a number of popular hex-crawling/base-building adventure RPGs.We've blown through most of the stretch goals, including stats for a number of magic items, a spread of terrain-specific encounter tables, and playable kin for...
Vote for Trilemma at the ENnies!
Vote for Trilemma Adventures at the ENnies!As I posted recently, Trilemma has been nominated for four ENnieawards! Voting is now live! Best Adventure Best Layout and Design Best Cartography Product of the Year!If you're not familiar with them, the ENnie Awards happen every year at the start of GenCon. Publishers submit their products for consideration, and this year nearly 600 products were submitted for a panel of judges to consider.Along with some other very cool products, Trilemma Adventures Compendium was short-listed in several categor...
2020 ENnie Awards Nominations!
A very cool thing has happened: Trilemma Adventures Compendium Vol I has been nominated for four ENnie awards! The four categories are: Best Adventure Best Layout and Design Best Cartography Product of the YearThis is my first time ENnie anything, so I'm pretty psyched about it! The way the ENnies work is that publishers submit products for consideration, which I did a few months ago. A panel of judges sorts through the nearly 600 entries and makes their selection, and they're put online for the public to vote on.Voting starts on Friday...
Basic/Expert Bestiary on DriveThruRPG
Hey again! The B/X version of the bestiary for the adventures is now up on DriveThruRPG. Like the 5th edition version, this contains 112 creatures from the adventures, but statted up by Johnstone Metzger for Basic/Expert.Also, as with the 5e version, as patrons you're entitled to a 1/3 off discount for this PDF version.Downward!
5th Edition Bestiary on DriveThruRPG
Hey everyone! A bunch of behind-the-scenes work has been completed, and the 5th edition bestiary for the adventures is now complete and available on DriveThruRPG.This is a 182-page PDF, with 112 creatures from the adventures statted out for fifth edition by the incomparable Jen Adcock. Along with the 5e stats, Zé Burnay and I have added 23 brand-new illustrations for creatures like the Dream Eater, the God Unmoving, Ghost Selks, and Shrine Babies.(A 6x9" softcover edition will also be available as soon as DriveThruRPG's pandemic logjam...
The Incursion Egg
Three years ago, a Birevian expedition set sail to solve the mystery once and for all: what lies inside the great glass dome of Never Gap? Puila's cog never returned, and the mystery remains.This month's adventure is a weird one, driven by an image I couldn't get out of my mind: a huge, battered dome of barnacle-encrusted glass, drawing the sea up into it. What could possibly be inside?To find out, click through to the blog post and download the PDF.As always, thank you for your support!
Bottle Sketches
Just a few pencil sketches as I noodle on the bottle-enclowed island. I don't always work this way, but I often let the visuals lead the way while I work out what's actually there.
The Sequence of Deel
High in the village is a village plagued by nighttime poisonings. Victims claim there is a crone who comes creeping in through windows and chimneys to smother and sting them, though none has seen her in the day. If she exists, she is but one part of the sequence of Deel.And we're back! Nailing the compendium took way longer than I thought, but at long last here's a new monthly adventure! Click through to the blog post, or download the PDF directly from here.
Compendium PDF on DriveThruRPG
The compendium PDF is now up on DriveThruRPG. If you somehow missed all my posting about it, it contains all 48 adventures published so far, all remastered and re-edited, while some have been expanded or had new illustrations added.There's also 70 pages of new material: an illustrated bestiary an appendix of magical items ten solid pages of hooks, rumors and secret lore six regional gazetteers tying the adventure locations into a ready-to-use campaign setting a full-color regional map, in GM and player versions a complete index a bonus loca...
New Workspace, Compendium News
Man, I can't believe how long it's been! Since the end of the Kickstarter, I've been steadily at work getting the compendium sorted out. There is literally no task that doesn't explode into ten smaller tasks.The good news is that the PDF is almost done, all 178 pages; just a final few typos to squash and it will be up on DriveThruRPG so it can go out to backers, and up for sale for anyone else who wants a copy. A DTRPG POD hardcover will follow early in the new year, once the hardcovers are shipped.One thing that's made life...
Final 36 Hours
We're now in the final 36 hours of the compendium Kickstarter campaign. This is your last chance to sign up for the limited edition hardcover book.Generous backers ripped through all of the stretch goals I put down, over and over again. We now have only one left: the map pack PDF.This means the book now contains 48 remastered adventures, settlements and wilderness regions, an illustrated bestiary, ahistory appendix, a detailed index, a full-color campaign map, a bonus adventure, and (as of now) 5 additional wilderness regions. Phew!On top o...
Compendium Stretch Goal: 5e Stats
We've unlocked B/X stats, then Dungeon World stats, so now it's time to cue up the big one: 5th edition stats.Is fifth edition your jam? Do you know a dungeon master who would enjoy these adventures? If so, please help spread the word so we can rip the lid right off this can of void worms, and unlock everything.(Also, check out this kick-ass piece of art by Juan Ochoa, the 'Priestesses of Suvuvena' from the remastered The Mermaids' Knot!)
Drawing the Kickstarter Battle!
Hey all, today's post is a WIP video about drawing the comic for the Grinvolt-Dradkin battle in the underground fortress.As you surely know by now, as part of the compendium kickstarter campaign I'm running an illustrated play-by-post in the comments of the campaign itself. Every time we hit a stretch goal milestone, I take all the input from backers to that point and use it to adjudicate the next step of the battle.The backers are trying to seize control of a Dradkin fortress, by playing the part of the axewives of Grinvolt. I'm pl...
Smashing Stretch Goals
Well, four days in and the compendium Kickstarter campaign has been a smashing success, far beyond my expectations. We reached the funding goal in an hour We smashed four additional milestones in the first day At 1:30 am the first night, the 100-retweet milestone was hit as wellThat means that a full six stretch goals have been unlocked: The bonus ‘aftermath’ adventure The regional campaign map Appendix: History, origins of the Underworld, and Seree developments in magic A bestiary of 90+ monsters featured in the adventures OSR / B/X stats ...
The Kickstarter is Live!
The wait is over, the horn has sounded! Grinvolt axewives are now pouring down the stairs to the Dradkin fortress. Who knows how far they will get, or what awaits them in the darkness?The Trilemma Adventures Compendium is now live on Kickstarter. I can't tell you how excited I am that this moment is finally here!What's in the Book? 48 two-page adventures lovingly illustrated with isometric maps Remastered for glorious landscape, revised and re-edited Ten of the adventures get full-page expansions! A detailed index of people, places, god...
Kickstarter Campaign Video Preview
Hey everyone! I'm just two days away from launching the Compendium Kickstarter, and I wanted to thank you all for your support over the months and years.I made my adventures free because I believed that they would be better at marketing than I would be. Your response has been overwhelming.I'm biased, but I think the compendium will be phenomenal. Every square inch has been laid out again (book margins!), and tweaked for clarity. The formatting is all updated and standardized, and the whole thing is being re-edited from top to bottom.The...
Compendium Kickstarting on May 1
As you know, I've been working on a compendium of adventures for.. a good long while now. With your support, I've been redoing all of the old adventures to bring them up to spec for a book. That work is coming to an end.On May 1, I will throw open the gates at the end of the Sun Temple, revealing the long stair downwards. Every backer of the Kickstarter campaign will represent a doughty warrior of Grinvolt in an assault on the dradkin fortress below.Every time the campaign reaches a milestone, I will reveal a new portion of the dradkin ...
WIP - Compilation TOC and Adventure List
Hey all! I've been hard at work getting the compilation ready to kickstart a bit later this year. Oodles of small tasks have crept out of the woodwork (spacer images, supplementary content, indexing the supplementary content, layout for the credits and thank you pages, etc. etc.), but it feels like it's getting under control.Here's a PDF of the table of contents (which is mostly for interest's sake), but there's also something useful now: an adventure list with short summaries of each one.My goal here is to be plain about wh...
WIP Compilation Index
http://trilemma.com/blog/post_assets/Compilation%20Index%20v0.1.pdfI've never made an index before, and to my surprise it's strangely calming, pecking through five years' worth of writing to select the useful terms.This is the result of the very first pass through the adventures. It doesn't include terms from the bestiary or gazetteer entries, and it's pre-edit of any kind. (Or even pre-viewing by anyone who has ever made an index before.)I've tried to draw a balance between indexing everything, and a goofy long index—...
The Mouth of Spring
In every town, village, and hamlet are women who have seen beyond fear, strong enough to push back winter and bring new life to the lands. Their power comes from beneath an old, stone shrine, half-forgotten by the people of today. What secrets are known to those who dare pass through the mouth of spring?Click through to the blog post for the liner notes and the full-res caverns map image, or go straight to the PDF.After looking back on how my style has changed, I was pretty pleased with the map for this one. As you may know, I do maps both trad...
WIP: Spring Caverns
All right, the map is done! All that's left is to scan it and clean it up and.. well, write. This is going to be a cavern system under a shrine to 'Spring', something which is referenced in both the Mermaids' knot and Litany in Scratches.I've been wanting to do another water-filled dungeon that plays with changing water levels.PS. A reminder to anyone who hasn't set their monthly maximums yet, it looks like I might get two out this month.
WIP: Lower Caverns of Spring
Continuing down from the last in-progress picture, these are the lower caverns of spring. I'm having the water drain out of the face in the bottom left. I really like the idea of a dungeon where the water draining out creates different opportunities, depending on the route chosen to descent through it. We'll see how it turns out!
The Raindrinkers
In sudden storms, look for the caravans of The Raindrinkers. They've made their peace with the strange weapons of the Martoi, and from their colorful mud-sleds, call for safety from the skies.This two-pager is either a wandering encounter, or a mobile settlement, depending on how you look at it.Click through for the full explanation and the art downloads, or link straight to the PDF.
WIP: The Spring Sequence
I felt like busting out the drawing table tonight (instead of drawing digitally), and I'm well on the way with a vertically-oriented map, showing a cavern system under a small stone shrine.I have some ideas about how this all fits together, but sometimes I prefer to work that out as I draw, doing concept in my head as it comes out. This is one of those times!The head on the wall is an unplanned callback to the monastery in Litany in Scratches, so I guess I'd better figure out who that is. I'm feeling a tie-in to the Wives of Spring,...
WIP: Kenay of the Yazi Raindrinkers
This month I'm working with friend and guest writer Tim Groth, who has come up with a really cool clan of people who have made their peace with the strange weapons of the Martoi. More soon!
