Game Design Hoots 1

I love old school D&D, but I don't want to tie all my work to it. The setting implied or described in Black Pudding is important to me and I want it to have its own original RPG at some point. Of course the Black Pudding Play Book will always be around, but I'm probably going to do another game at some point for the world of Pan-Gea > Yria.

Here's a system I'm mucking around with right now. It's from 1998 or so, before I even got online. It's very basic, which is what appeals to me. I ran it many times back then and it was mostly GM rulings because there was almost no rules written down for it other than this:

Spend 20 points on any kind of traits you like. Roll 1d20 + Trait vs. a target number or an opposing roll. Each adventure you earn 1-3 points and you can spend them to add or improve Traits.

In recent times I've developed the idea further to give it more tooth and grit. I like it.

Of course it's also very possible that the game will use GOZR rules. Right now I'm torn between these two darlings of mine. Story of my life.

But both feature rolling 1d20 + mods vs. a target number so you can call me a basic bitch all you want. It's fine. I own that shit.

Black Pudding Comics?

Been kicking this one around a while. Black Pudding Comics... drawing from the treasure trove of characters and ideas in the zine as well as my other related works (I mean, there are a BUNCH of characters in the Meatshields of the Bleeding Ox section). Why not tell some stupid little stories about those guys?

I don't want to limit the comic to just material from the zine. Instead, the idea is to do comics that riff on the entire meta-setting of Pan-Gea, the whole "mythos" as I like to call it. There's the ancient world of Pan-Gea itself, then the sword and sorcery world of Yria (which is where the zine lives, mostly), and finally the sci-fantasy space setting of ZSF - the Zoa Space Frontier.

So my idea is to do comics of any of these flavors because they all share the same backbone: the Pan-Gea mythos. The gods and demons such as the Sun and Moon and Hunter Raven and the Worm Witch, and so on. These are ideas that have lived in my brain and in my creations for decades. A sandbox to play in. Might as well play, right?

Right now it looks like I have quite a bit of finished material that would fit nicely into the book, mixed with new stuff I'm working on.

Disclaimer: I'm high on the idea right now and it's Saturday night. This could all crash and burn. I'm just daydreaming here. We'll see. 

I mean, look at all these goofy bastards.

 

Black Pudding Play Book

The Play Book is now live! Go forth and dice.

PDF is PWYW (pay what you want). Get if free if you ain't got no money. It's all good.

You can get the hardback + PDF if you're a high roller.

 

BPPB Print Proof

I got the Black Pudding Play Book print proof and it looks pretty awesome. I'm extremely proud and excited about this book!

One tweak: I'm going to adjust the cover art because I don't like how it looks off-centered. It's almost impossible to predict exactly how it will look via print-on-demand, but just nudging it over or something should do the trick.

There are some drawings in the book that appear more gray than black. This is because when I do scans, I usually try to maintain something of the original brush strokes and pen strokes. I like it that way. I'm sure someone will think it doesn't look good, but it's 99% on purpose.

This was a true labor of love. The work was done over the course of years. This really is my personal B/X table book.

I'll post again once it goes live.

 

Notes on BPPB

And what, you ask, is "BPPB"? Well, it is the Black Pudding Play Book, of course.

Black Pudding issue 4 (2018) featured 15 pages of house rules under the OSR Play Book title. Black Pudding issue 7 (2022) featured a 17 page gazetteer and mythos for the world of Yria.

Black Pudding Play Book includes all those pages (with modifications), plus 32 more. It's a 64 page book.

Now, the plan is to simply release it as a PDF and POD on DTRPG. I am not planning a big crowd funding campaign or anything. The world is not good right now, prices are already high, I just don't feel it. I want to put this out there because I love it and I want to share it. The PDF will probably be Pay What You Want, just like the issues of BP have always been. The POD will cost money, naturally.

POD note: DTRPG requires a blank page at the end for their internal use. So the book will actually be 63 pages of content. But there's a random table on the back cover, which was meant to be on the interior. So that is your 64th page.

DESIGN NOTES

I have a lot of design notes, so I'll just keep this one a bit short and to the point, hitting on a few important ones I want to mention before I forget.

• I find that I use both GM and Judge. I won't change that. They are interchangeable.

• These are house rules for B/X. Hacks. I've developed them over a god damn decade now, playing here and there, and noodling about them all the time. They are the kinds of house rules I enjoy using. You might not like them all, and that's fine. You can pick and choose. But be aware that some of them are interdependent.

For example, Thief skills are based on making a Saving Throw plus ability score mod. If you abandon the single Save method, you need to consider which category of Saves to use for these skills, or default to a DC system like modern D&D. It's fine either way.

• Speaking of Thieves. I kept the XP requirements for the core classes unchanged. So Thieves have the lowest requirements. But in BPPB, Thieves are useful. They can DO THINGS. Their skills are good. I gave a balancing nod to this fact by making them a bit less combat-effective. Their to hit bonus is not as good as B/X. But that's ok. If you wanted to be a great fighter, be a god damn Fighter.

• Speaking of shitty fighting... I did not give Wizards much of a combat bonus at all. And I think that's appropriate. But I did give them SOMETHING. I don't see how you could work beside warriors for 5 levels, being in many fights, and not get a little better at fighting. So they do eventually get a bonus.

• I did away with spell levels. I don't need them. I retooled most of the 1st and 2nd level spells (and others) to be level-less. For both Wizards and Clerics.

• Speaking of Clerics... I have never been a fan of D&D Clerics. They are generic. Later editions did a better job making them cool, but still. I honestly favor a game without them. But I did include them in this one and gave them a lot of random tables for customization. They do have to make a Prayer Roll, just in case their gods decline their petition for a miracle. It's only fair. Oh, and Clerics can't heal very much. They can a bit, but not much. I increased the amount you heal by sleeping, which I much prefer.

• Speaking of classes... You can use any BP class you want, or any other class. It's fine. But the classes actually defined within this book are, in order of appearance: Fighter, Thief, Dwarf, Elf, Botten, Cleric, Wizard, Goblin, Lizz, Skeleton Warrior. That kind of represents the most common "adventuring types" found in the setting. There's a table showing the average distribution of classes, and I think "other" (BP classes like Eyeball) are about 5% of the total. But players don't choose based on that. They just choose. Or roll. Whatever.

I'll follow this rambling post up later with more information. The book is 99.9% complete. Everything is done from the cover to the back cover. But I need to give it a few more editorial passes, then put it into the right format and get myself a print copy before I go firing it out into the world. That being said, it will still be at least a few more weeks. Stay tuned if you like this kind of shit. 

Doomslakers to Black Pudding

In 2016 I was fishing around for a zine. I knew I wanted to make one, just wasn't sure what it was going to be. One of my early ideas was Claw Claw Bite, but that title was already taken by a Pathfinder zine, I think. A few days later I settled on Black Pudding.

But before all of that, there was Doomslakers! After all, I already had the blog. I don't remember why I didn't roll with Doomslakers as the title other than maybe I didn't want it confused with the blog. I'm not sure.

But here is the original cover for the first issue of what would become Black Pudding. Of course I used this art for Black Pudding issue 2... I felt like issue 1 needed to have an actual black pudding on the cover, so I drew one.

 

Doomslakers RPG 01

Maybe I'll start blogging about my process for writing this game. It can't hurt.

Very brief background: Doomslakers RPG is the Black Pudding RPG. But it's not based on D&D. Instead, I'm taking the game mechanics from GOZR and hacking them to fit the Black Pudding implied setting of Yria. So... Doomslakers is an original game about the world of Black Pudding whereas Black Pudding zine itself is explicitly catered to old school D&D play ala Labyrinth Lord, Old School Essentials, or Basic Fantasy RPG.

To be even more clear: Doomslakers RPG is not a D&D game nor does it attempt to be compatible with those games. The Black Pudding OSR Play Book still exists in issue 4 of the zine, but I don't have any plans to publish an expanded version of that at this time (though I'll be honest and tell you I spend MANY hours working on one, so don't count it out completely).

Enough of my head canon.

WHAT YOU DO

The game is highly structured in terms of "what you do". It's an adventure game. You play the role of an Agent working for an Adventuring Company (Doomslakers Adventuring Company) to do dangerous jobs for those who can pay. It's a simple conceit. It's a very easy way to frame an adventure. The answer to the question "why are you going on an adventure?" is already delivered. Because it's how you get paid.

There's more to it, and room for Company intrigue and all that.

BACKGROUNDS

I would say the biggest influence on character creation is Troika's Backgrounds. I love that concept so much that Doomslakers is more or less the same exact thing. I even have 36 Backgrounds, such is my love of that character creation system. Most of them are Black Pudding character classes converted to Doomslakers Backgrounds.

CORE STATS

The game's core is characters with 3 basic stats rolling d20s to do things. I like it when the dice numbers go high, so one of the design principles is that it is always better to roll high. I'm trying very hard to never have a situation where a low roll is beneficial.

This means something important. It means there's no roll-under mechanics. This is only important to the most jaded nerds among you as no one else in their right minds would care.

So those 3 basic stats I mentioned... those are your target numbers. If they are high, you need to roll higher. Therefore having a low stat is better than having a high stat. This is outlined in GOZR as well.

The 3 stats are called Action Roll Targets (ARTs)*. Cunning is for thiefy things, Magic is for thinky things, and Prowess is for fighty things. These 3 stats go back to sometime around 2018 when I was working on a game called Dead Wizards, a sword and sorcery thing. That concept morphed into GOZR in 2020. But it is fitting that I return to the original idea since it was also based on the Black Pudding setting.

Sorry... more head canon stuff.

PLAYER-FACING MECHANICS

All rolls are player-facing. I must have picked up this idea from The Black Hack because I was playing various Hacks of that game by 2018. Then I found Into the Odd and was solidly in the player-facing rules camp. To do a thing in this game, you roll 1d20 vs. the ART that makes sense, as outlined above.

BEING OLD AND USING SKILLS

I'm also old. I'm 54 as of this writing**. I like old games. I like some game design styles that might be thought of as clunky or outdated today. I'll dig my heels in and say that a tabletop game cannot technically be outdated because it relies on brains, not computers. That isn't to say its content can't be outdated, but the mechanics... are timeless, my friend.

That being said... Doomslakers includes Skills, which are a bit 90s if you think about it. And they are simply +1 or +2 or whatever. So when you want to punch a bastard, you roll 1d20 + Punching Skill (if that's a thing) vs. Prowess. If you make it, you punch 'em. Intuitive, right?

HIT POINTS VS. LUCK (POINTS)

GOZR uses Hit Points. I like HP. They are simple and direct. But I wanted to challenge myself to avoid HP for Doomslakers. I made this fateful decision a mere week or two ago and it has vexed and thrilled me ever since. And while I did avoid a straight HP system, I do include something like it.

In the current iteration, players have Luck. This acts as both hit points and meta-currency luck points. Attacks against you can be absorbed by spending Luck or you can take a risk on a sort of wounds table roll. It's up to you. You can spend Luck to do cool things, avoid damage, etc. When you run out of Luck, you are dead. Or, as in GOZR, you can choose to survive and be Debased... taking some kind of permanent setback.

I like this approach. There's still risk. You still LOSE something if you run out of Luck. But death isn't the only end game for running out of Luck.

And so on. More later.

*Nothing is set in stone. All the terms discussed herein are working titles and subject to change. But Action Roll Target is literally what they are and so I'm rolling with that for now. In GOZR, they are called Action Classes, or ACs. Which seems to confuse some folks because of AC being Armor Class in other games. But it's the same principle, right? Like a Saving Throw. You're trying to roll a target number.

**Jeez. Best not to think about it.

Black Pudding Thoughts

The covers to all 8 existing issues of Black Pudding.

Black Pudding issue 1 was published November 28, 2016. In a little under a year, it will celebrate its 10th anniversary. And that blows my mind.

The reception of this zine in the indie RPG and OSR gaming world was very warm. It received a lot of positive reviews and excited replies of "nice work!". That sort of positive feedback made me feel very good about what I was doing. And it still does. I am not an artist who makes a living at art. I create things because I need to and because it keeps me from losing my mind. It's a compulsion to go on a journey and the feedback is part of the journey.

So, thanks for all the kind words over the years. I love hearing your stories of getting copies in the mail and I love seeing the pics of them. I love hearing about the classes and monsters in the books being using in gaming tables in places I've never been and probably will never see. It's uplifting in a way I can't express with words.

From the moment I compiled the first 4 issues of Black Pudding into a single volume, I knew there would a volume 2. But beyond that... I had no plans. Literally no plans. No plan to stop, no plan to continue.

But I love creating this zine. It allowed me to explore ideas and explore this weird world I had in my head all these many years, stretching back as far as the first time I ever played a roleplaying game.

I'm not entirely sure where things go from here. I have ideas. I've been quietly working on a standalone Black Pudding (or Doomslakers) RPG, which is loosely underpinned by the mechanics and game system of my other game GOZR. This is a departure from B/X D&D rules, but I feel strongly that it is a necessary change.

And wouldn't it be kind of cool to have a such a game finished for the 10th anniversary? Just an idea.

I'm also thinking about Black Pudding comics.

But these are topics for a later time. Thanks again!

Black Pudding Heavy Helping Vol Two

Black Pudding Heavy Helping Vol. Two is now available!

In this volume you get issues 5-8 of the zine plus some new pages and handy indexes. Everything is arranged into sections, just like in Vol. One, for your ease of use. Because I care about you.

Let's see... what is in this thing? Here are a few tidbits you'll find...

Some comics, character sheets, character classes (alien, flamer, goon royale, rat bastard, etc.), monsters (troglozyte, monstrous toad, octonods, etc.), the wizard Zasto Filistian and his cohorts, many hirelings from the Bleeding Ox (Emma the Sage, Uulf, Chuck the Mucker, Iko Rain, Umber Jon, etc.), adventures (Marigold Hills, Rat Queen, Ghiki's Hole, etc.), a bunch of random tables, a setting (Yria, with its dozen gods and entities, map, city descriptions, etc.), cover gallery, indexes.

There's an 8 page adventure called Underground Down Below based entirely on a lovely map by Evlyn Moreau.

Overall, it's a 127 page black and white hardback you can whip out at your table and use however you like. Great fodder for a sandbox campaign.

Get That Label Off Me

Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Waterson, but you knew that already.

I strongly dislike labels. And yet I recognize their incredible utility.

If I go into a video store (in the past..) and I know I want something cool and fantastic, I can go to the sci-fi and/or fantasy and/or horror sections to find it. I won't find it in the drama section. This is very useful because I'm not in the mood to watch 2 hours about a fucked up romance. I wanna see monsters and shit.

But it's also unfortunate because those labels are boxes that we put ourselves into. Without them, we might explore more territory and be more wildly creative. If I know I'm doing a sci-fi thing then I know I need to check off a few boxes. Maybe that alone is enough to stifle my creativity a little bit.

I dunno.

Here's a label I hate: Gen X.

I'm part of Gen X. But nobody called us that until at least the 90s and I honestly don't remember hearing that term until much later. Nobody talked like that back when I was young. Today... that's all the fuck you hear. It causes us to divide up into boxes based on the year we were born... which smacks of some kinda astrological bullshit if you ask me.

Social mores and pop trends change over time and we can broadly classify them into categories if we want. But there's no bright line between Gen X and Millennials and none between Millennials and whoever comes next. The overlap is staggering, huge.

Until you TELL people which category they belong in. Then suddenly some of them start modifying their behavior to fit it. Suddenly we're being sold products and ideas created by corporations, based on the definitions they've carved out for us. We're corralling ourselves into these dumb, stupid, silly boxes that are useful only for data mining, not for living fulfilled lives.

Here's a label you might know: OSR.

This one is very useful for one big, shiny, obvious reason. It's because Dungeons & Dragons is a trademark. We can't go around putting D&D on the cover of our RPG books, even though they are 100% part of that lineage. So, for better or worse, this label "OSR" has become the stand-in. And that does serve a handy purpose. But it still means we box ourselves in.

And yeah, I know, I know. OSR doesn't just mean D&D. But cool your heels... look around at all the game books with OSR labels on them and tell me how many are NOT part of the D&D lineage, in many cases being entirely compatible with that game. Just because you use OSR to just mean "like older games" doesn't mean the rest of the fuckin' world isn't using it to mean "this is off brand D&D".

Anyway... I feel this boxed in lack of air lately. It's probably why I've slowed down to a crawl with Black Pudding, which has always been an explicitly B/X D&D-based RPG zine... OSR. I'm in a creative head space right now where I don't want to make stuff for D&D. Not at this moment. I have other things I wanna do.

Speaking of... I do have the entire Heavy Helping Vol 2 completed and have had it completed for months. The only stumbling block has been some issues with getting it ready to go up on DTRPG. I'll try to focus and sort that out soon. I know I've promised it to a lot of people. 

Ghoul Prince

I drew this in a sketchbook and meant to include it in Black Pudding 8... but I forgot. Doh! 

BP Heavy Helping 2 is Simmering

Folks have been asking me for years when Black Pudding Heavy Helping Vol 2 would appear. Of course I had to wait until another 4 issues of the zine were in the can before I could even think about it. Now that issue 8 is alive in the world, I can think about it.

I believe this one will follow in the same footsteps as the first one. I'll reorganize the material into the same categories as before. There'll be some new content as well. And I plan to create a comprehensive Black Pudding Index so you can find anything you want in the zines or in the collected volumes. Handy!

Here's the cover art too. First pic is what it will look like, second pic is the original. See, I started drawing it as just a lot of doodling and then suddenly it became the cover art. I didn't think about it up front so I didn't center the text. I had to so some Photoshop hijinks to get the title centered and avoid cropping out some of my favorite bits.

Heres' the original. Notice how that title is off center just enough to piss me off?

Easter eggs on the cover? I think everything is an easter egg, so they're not really easter eggs... it's just what the cover is. From top left, clockwise:

1. Spiders. Because they're cool and I draw them on a lot of stuff.
2. Ninja from issue 5.
3. Rats... because they're in a lot of issues.
4. Arqod Dreadling from issue 5.
5. Rat Bastard from issue 7.
6. Orbii from issue 5.
7. Skulls, because I draw a lot of them.
8. Eyeball, from issue 7.
9. Star Troll from issue 5.
10. Monstrous Toad from issue 6.
11. Sinewy Barbarian from issue 1.
12. Black Pudding. Duh.
13. Eyeballs from issue 7.
14. Rats again.
15. Magic book because I like them.
16. Chainmail Chick from issue 1.
17. Zarp cameo.
18. Worm priest from issue 1.

Anyway... I've barely started putting this thing together so it'll still be a little while.

Another Helping on the Stove?

It's true. I finished issue 8 of Black Pudding, which means I have enough for Heavy Helping Volume 2. Of course I can't just slap them together as-is... I need to remix, organize, adjust, and add-on. This takes time and inspiration. I'm working on it.

Timing? Oh you sly dog. Asking me questions I can't answer! Stay tuned.

Details are thin, but here's where it's going right now.

• All the content of issues 5-8, including the covers.

• Content arranged into categories the same way Vol 1 was organized.

• Maybe a master index of all BP content with the issue and page and the HH vol and page for easy ref.

• Roll up tables! Expanded to include as many classes as possible, monster tables, etc.

• New content. I have some pages in the bag that I could save for issue 9 but I have no idea when that will be a thing so I might just add them into HH Vol 2. 

Doomslakers Zine

Just before I started creating the Black Pudding zine, I fiddled with different names and ideas for the project. One was Claw, Claw Bite!, which I love. But there was already a zine by that name (I think it was Pathfinder-based, if I remember correctly). I thought I went straight to Black Pudding after that, but then I just discovered a hidden, dusty folder from 2016 called "Doomslakers Zine". Had a couple of files in it, including this cover concept.

Of course, this art was used for Black Pudding #2. But I guess I had the idea to call it Doomslakers first. Not sure why I didn't go with that, since it would have aligned nicely with this blog. But I guess I always felt like the name "Doomslakers" wasn't epic enough. I think it's a grand ole name, and kind of funny. But that's just me.

Black Pudding 8

Black Pudding #8 is now live on DTRPG and itch.io!

This moist issue features new classes (death witch, feral knight, goon royal, among others), spells, magic swords, adventures, and weirdo monsters such as the troglozyte. Glorp your copy today!

Hymla the Horn vs. the Eye Am cult

PDF available now. Stay tuned for announcements about print copies, once those details are decided.
 

Lugs and Snow

When I got back into gaming and dived into doing OSR stuff around 2012, I leaned into it pretty hard. I wrote Howler and Winds of the Ice Forest and other bits with a nod to old school modules and a careful eye toward the rules written in Labyrinth Lord. I started a series in Black Pudding called "Adventures in the North", which started in issue 5 and has a bit in issue 6. But it is incomplete and try as I might I cannot bring myself to finish it.

Why?

There's a character class I wrote and turned into a mini-zine for a Gary Con I attended. It was called The Lug. It's basically a big, dumb brute of a guy who has a heart of gold. Essentially Fezzik from Princess Bride. You know the trope. I have often thought I should give The Lug a rendering in Black Pudding, but I can't seem to do it.

Why?

It seems to be because these are relics of a decade ago when I was in a very different mindset. I was just discovering the beauty of revisiting old school D&D and it was shiny and new again. And I wanted to put on the aesthetics of that era. I did work. Then I changed and moved on. I have other ideas now and my approach is very different. I can't put myself back into that mindset.

It was a mistake to start Adventures in the North as a multi-part series. I've never been good at maintaining that sort of thing because my inspirations drift over time. It would have been wise of me to do it as a one-shot adventure location instead of an 11-point mini-setting.

The Lug has the same problem. It was a cool idea at the time, but now I think about it... it feels very liming. Your character would be a one trick pony. You bop people on the head and smash things. 

Black Pudding #7

I'm very proud of Black Pudding. What started in 2016 as an experiment to create the kind of OSR stuff I liked to see has persisted, albeit at a slow pace. This post is about the latest issue, #7.

This issue is a milestone for me because it includes a 16-page gazetteer (17, counting the names tables) setting of my fantasy world of Yria. I had toyed with this idea for a long time, assuming I would have to devote an entire 100-page book to the topic to do it right. In the end, I realized all I needed was a quick-and-dirty GM's guide to the setting. And 16 pages did the trick, at least for me.

It starts with a map, as is often the case. I have a love-hate relationship with maps. They define things a little too much up front for my tastes, but they are also beautiful and inspiring - and the whole point of any Black Pudding zine is to inspire. The Yria map is one that has went through a lot of incarnations over the years, but the one showing up in BP7 is as close to legit as you're gonna get. Hell, in a future edition I might utterly change it. I don't know. Each TTRPG table is its own world, after all.

Next you get a list of the major areas on a d66 table. So 36 areas are given as possible birthplaces
and/or adventure locations. I also include a d20 inspiration table for adventure keywords, something I've always done for myself. I often call these "beats". So when I'm coming up with an adventure to run I might list 3 or 4 beats such as ritual, paranoia, moon, and dead crops. Beats sort of paint the images in your head. The keyword table in BP7 includes words that are essential to the Yria setting. They are not random words, they all have meaning to me. They are deliberate choices.

The next two pages are an actual gazetteer of the 36 locations, ala X1: Isle of Dread. Less is more. I went with broad strokes, planting images using keywords for each location. Instead of describing the government structure and ruling elites of Seapath, I just tell you the vibe: One of the five cities. Serpentine across the mountain pass, ruled by the rich, sought by the desperate. Come to trade, stay to dream. You get an image of the city (serpentine across the mountain pass... it lays like a snake, humped over a mountain). You know who runs the show. You know why folks would go there and something about why they might stay. It seems to be a place rife with corruption, but also full of hope or at least potential wealth.

Next five pages are devoted to the five cities. Yria only has five cities of note. Any other cities are either ruins, cursed, or not very big. This concept is very much in the vein of the "points of light" across a "dark wilderness" motif. That is, I believe, a super-effective way to game*. Each city gets one page with imagery and various tables for what you might see or encounter. The rulers are noted, and a very brief description is given, akin to the 36 location gazetteer style. So if the short description of Seapath from above isn't enough, the one page for Seapath gives you a little more.

The second half of the section is the mythos. This mythos (100% using that term because of Deities & Demigods, the most inspiring D&D book of all time) has been with me for many years. Decades. It underpins almost every fantasy setting I've ever created or tried to create. It is based on one dozen beings, each of which I sketched onto small blue cardboard cards sometime in the early 2000s. Those images appear in the book, though in gray scale of course. The section gives you that list of beings and their general powers, broadly-speaking. Being heavily influenced by Deities & Demigods, I wanted/needed each of them to be corporeal as well as spiritual and eternal. They have bodies. They have stats. You can interact with them.

Rather than giving the specific stat block for each deity, I opted to merely suggest them. Each one is based loosely on an existing B/X monster. So for example Black Wing (death) is based on a giant roc with 300 hit points. Each god is described loosely, focusing on their demeanor and concerns. Some sketch is given of how you would worship them and what their clerics are like. And the final detail, which I really liked, is that each one has some lists of keywords to describe being in their presence. I think that's all you need.

The whole thing wraps with 5 d66 tables of common names, each keyed to one of the five cities.'

In case you ever wondered, this is my favorite thing so far in the series. I realize it isn't exactly the same kind of stuff that made the zine popular. It isn't hand-scrawled, it isn't universally useful. It's very specific to my world. But I designed it as loosely as possible to allow easy access. It is very easy to steal from.

Other things in the issue are more typical of the zine. There are 4 new character classes, one of which is the Rat Bastard. I created that one way back in 2017, which is why it, more than any other, has the tone and vibe of early BP issues. It was meant to go into issue 2 but somehow I left it out. I have no idea what happened or how I missed it all these years. Happy to finally include it.

The other class I really love in this one is the Eyeball. That one is a keeper, for me. And we also get some coolness from contributor David Okum! A handful of monsters and a character sheet round the thing out. In fact... this one features my favorite character sheet so far. I love this one because it is the cleanest and most useful that I've ever created.

*The first proper D&D campaign I was ever in, way back in 1987 in high school, started as a crude 8.5 x 11 map of a town. It was the DM's setting at that point. I think he only knew the town and nearby areas, so that's where we adventured. It grew a bit over time. It's a brilliant way to do a campaign: don't flood the players with information! Just paint the image and start playing.

Black Pudding HHV1 Review

Welcome to the Death Trap has posted a beefy review of Black Pudding Heavy Helping Vol 1. Very nice. Go check it out.

 

Black Pudding Comic

The Black Pudding Kickstarter comes with a two sided poster. Here's one side of it: a comic!

 This comic features our heroes the chainmail chick, sinewy barbarian, and eyeball. This was super fun. I drew it on 11x17 inch bristol, a paper size I haven't messed with in years. Loved the extra real estate.

Black Pudding Reprints

There is a Kickstarter for reprinting Black Pudding back issues and printing the latest issue, #7. Maybe you need physical copies? Maybe your dog ate yours? Maybe you used them so much they fell apart? Or maybe your players ran off with them?

Now's your chance to get all of them in print for a reasonable price and flat worldwide shipping. And a cool A3 double-sided poster! And a cool blank journal!

It's PUDDIN' TIME!

(Ok, that's pretty lame. But I need a catch phrase like "Excelsior!" or something.)

One side of the poster.

The Adventure Journal cover.