The irregular column where I share links to the things that inspire me is back!
Today, I’m writing while a third atmospheric river in a week passes over my home state. It offered a new twist, a levee break near where I go shopping and attend Sounders practices. The repair seems to be going well and the flooding there is only bad enough to wet parking lots. Up in the North Sound things are not simple, nor easy. Their recovery is going to take a long time. The communities up there will learn on each other and those of us that can help, because it’s bad.
Working in a field adjacent to disaster prep I’ve given some talks about how RPGs can help people learn what to do in crisis through short games that are D&D adjacent (ability+skill/class, d20). Next month I’m giving a different but similar talk at OrcaCon in SeaTac.
Attendees can find it in their schedule as: Special Event: RPGs as Natural Disaster Prep Tools.
Hurricanes, Earthquakes, Volcanoes! Learn how to prepare using TTRPGs. Themed around community, and helpful for memory retention, these small, educational TTRPG games can help a community prepare for the natural hazards that are impacting them more than ever.
There’s obviously going to be an example about floods, bomb cyclones and atmospheric rivers too. If you are in the South Sound come to OrcaCon. I’d love to meet you.
A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry takes a deep dive, in series, into the lives of peasants. The hard work of the pre-Industrial Age by those nameless families who make up the majority of those humans who have ever lived is modeled and described.
Much of it runs counter to my previously cited works about the amount of leisure time available that should inspire characters to have hobbies.
There is almost no dedicated leisure time during the day. There is a regularity to the cycle, a monotony – each day more or less like the one before it and the one after – one imagines it was comforting to some peasants and deeply constricting to others, shaped by the continuing demands of peasant labor (itself structured by the heavy extraction regime they operate under, which consumes the leisure time they might otherwise have).
But your characters should still have hobbies — even if they are peasants.
- Modern D&D is mostly in a near industrial format that allows for specialization.
- Wide magic definitely enables specialization and light.
- It’s more fun to have.
- ACOUP also points out that days may not have breaks, but weeks likely do and there are fest periods annually.
In any case, for those long days in the fields or the long hours of spinning thread while keeping one eye on the large pot and the other on the tiny tot, our peasants would be looking forward to the next festival, the next feast day, the next major event…
But also, games are common, everywhere.
Ancient Maya game board with unique mosaic design discovered in Guatemala
This board is different than previous finds in that it was built in to the floor in a mosaic rather than on benches or tables. It was large and meant to be permanent.
People like to play games.
Sometimes people play games to avoid thinking about the Apocolypse.
Or to learn about how to behave during natural disasters.
A few months ago this beat wound up in my reader. I still haven’t used it in a game, but need to do that soon.
Now, normally I love to add more dragons to a fantasy world — I prefer Dragons of Wales for my non-traditional dragon art.
What if you wanted an armadillo looking thing with a humanish face smoking something?
The history of oddities that aren’t natural beasts is vast and open to your use. Public Domain Review shared a selection of them recently.
Does your fantasy world include smog-punk goblins, artificers, or take place in Eberron?
You may need Gadgets From A Parallel World by Pantograph.
A tube amp wireless router? A binary code typewriter with only a zero and one? A record player that can play 4 records – vocals, guitar, base and drum – at the same time? These are all gadgets that almost seem like they could exist, but of course they don’t.
The binary typewriter is going into my world right now.
Work passed 300 disaster relief and humanitarian aid NGOs supported for free. I’m proud to work at a place that lives its values and helps humanity. Factal produces free resources for the public too.
