Hello and welcome to the Weekly Scroll Podcast.
My name is Ryan and today, October 1st we are kicking off
our first annual. I guess because we didn't do it
last year Month of Horror here on the Weekly Scroll podcast.
So today we have a very special guest.
This is Christian Sorrell, also known as Meat Castle Game Wire.
How you doing today, Christian? Hello, I'm doing very well.
This is a nice break from the rest of my day of writing TTRPG
things. Oh yeah, Well, so since the last
time you were here, I think you've only been on the show as
a as a reviewer once, right? Yes, for the final steps, that's
right because. We talked a lot about that not
very long game, which might happen again today.
Who knows? We'll see.
Yeah, it is like 10 pages, but it's a good game.
It's a great game, very excited. And we got to talk about, well,
one of the reasons you came on to do that is because we
actually got to play together at the exalted funeral Cotton with
Deagon Agarra, which is great, but you've had a lot of changes
since then and even more recent ones.
So for those of I not know who Christian Sorrell is or me,
Castle game wear or what those changes might be, what what?
Who the heck are you? Yeah, I am a real I both do my
own personal projects, and then I am a freelance editor and
writer, mostly in the teacher e.g. space and my kids doing
game design, game development, developmental, editing, all that
kind of good stuff. So yeah, I mean, since I was
last on, I've more or less gone to doing this stuff full time
and doing the work I used to do full time, part time.
And then even more recently, I've moved internationally and
I'm in Canada now, so. I am doing all sorts of weird
things I the whole routine is thrown off.
But yeah, people would probably know me mostly for mothership
modules is most of what my personal projects have been so
far. But I've done some stuff for
like liminal horror and more. Or things like the blood fields
of Black Star Station and there's a goblin on the loose
Sonicer station. Those are two big ones of mine
for mothership, but then I've done dev work and editing and
adventure writing for a lot of other stuff like.
You know, written adventure for Disaster Tourism's Guild that
was in that Kickstarter 1. The thing I'm working on today
that I was doing before, this is an adventure for Triangle
Agency. As part of the recent
Kickstarter, their their mission book that's coming out.
So I've done lots of that kind of stuff.
I've edited for a ton of different people too.
That's the thing that I really like to do.
I have some bigger projects that, once they get announced,
I'm excited to tell people about because I've done a very big old
school essentials. Project recently, and a very
big, more board project recently that aren't mine and I'm just
the editor on them, so I can't announce them.
But when they announce, when they get announced, I'm excited
for people to find out about them.
Yeah, I think that's mostly me. I honestly think at least in the
space that we're in the only person who might have their name
and more books this year than you is maybe Jarrett Crater and
and you might be ahead of him because he got SPI up and going
and and I don't know how much he's been putting but I I feel
like. He put himself like he put his
self-imposed, like slow in like Jarrett was like I'm only going
to do space Penguin stuff. So he like said that he stopped
himself. That might be the only reason I
can catch up. But even that I can only catch
up for like the last six months not lifetime.
It's it's crazy. But still, I mean I feel like
every project is hitting Kickstarter or I'm like, oh this
look, this looks awesome. I'm definitely back in that I
rolled at the end. It was like, oh, Christian
Serrell, me, Kelso, Gamewire, like pretty much everything I've
received this year as your name in it.
So I mean, it's got to feel good though, to to be such a go to
person in the space and to, you know.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, it definitely feels good.
I didn't know going into that sort of opening up freelance how
that would go or not. And I found that I was in
higher. Demand that I thought and that's
been kind of the big learning thing for me the last like 6 to
9 months is that learning like how much of that should I take
such out versus how much of time I should spend on personal
projects? Because like my personal project
stuff is definitely like way been put on the back burner
probably too much. So probably going into the tail
end of this year and next year I'll be going more like also
putting the stops maybe on how many names I show, how many
books I show up in so that I could put out more of my own
books. Because I have you know two or
three bigger projects like that that I was like, those are
definitely going to be out this year.
They're going to be good. But then I got enough interest
from freelance that I was like, well, I'll take these.
These are new people I'm excited to work with new systems, all
that kind of stuff. But yeah, so a good problem to
have. I was kind of worried I would
put myself out there and nobody would be interested.
But but that's the nice thing too, is it's, you know, I mean,
I'm sure you know from. Reading all the stuff and
reviewing all these things that it's like, it's a smaller
community of creators than you think.
And that's the thing that's nice, is kind of like once
you're in there and someone's worked well, you've worked well
together and someone's really happy to always go like, hey, I
know this person is working on this thing.
This person edited for me and it went great.
You should do that too. So that was a big part.
But yeah, I've gotten to work on a lot of.
Fun things in the last year or so, and I'm really excited
people can. Here's the thing people can do
right now, two things if they want to see stuff I've helped
with. I did some dev work along with
another dev editor on the project indicator for Cloud,
Empress the Mothership. It's actually a full standalone
rule set. It started, it's compatible with
Mothership, but it works on its own.
But what the creator of that actually just put the the rule
book on drive through RPG for free?
The rule book is like always going to be entirely for free.
So you can go and download it off drive through.
I am in love with that like system in that world that that
game is in and I was really, really excited when they reached
out to me to to work on that one.
And then I also am part of a mothership bundle hitting
Kickstarter on Tuesday called Outer Rim Uprising with the Lost
Bay and Eco. It's egos like publishing house
The Lost Bay Studio is doing it, and it's a big mothership
bundle, but unlike some of the other ones.
That he's done in the past. This one is all original stuff.
So we all made brand new stuff for this.
I think my stuff is available in the second and third tiers.
There's like sort of an intro tier, a like base tier, and then
the full tier. And I wrote along with Nair, the
artist and the writer for Mothership stuff, did Alien
Armory. It's probably the by Stone
mothership thing. We did a corporate pamphlet and
a rebel pamphlet and they're in universe.
So it's like the corporate visitors guide the thing you get
it like the information desk at the facility and then a
technical manual that's all scrawled and written over for
the thinking fist, this rebel group, these are like neo
Luddites that are trying to, you know, gum up the works and
destroy this facility where they're making genetic drones to
replace workers. But that one was really fun and
that whole package is wild. That's another good example of,
like, the community of people. Coming together and being
awesome. So yeah, that's my launch feel.
Yeah, I'm, I cannot wait for Outrim Uprising and you may at
least those listening may hear and see something about that
coming up sooner than you think here on the channel.
So we'll let you know when that is happening.
But yeah, awesome stuff, Christian, great person, great
freelancer. If you somehow get the chance to
work with him, definitely highly recommend it.
And I get the chance to review a game with him today.
And we are going to be doing Dark Grail.
This is an Arthurian horror role-playing game from Scott
Malthouse of Trollish Delver Games.
This I'm excited for this one. So we're doing, we're doing the
month of horror and the kind of a smaller game here.
Kind of. It's very dense for the 2 pages
that it is, but it definitely leans into horror.
It's it's a micro game, quote UN quote.
But I think we talked about this or at least I, I I said to you
like if this was an A16, it'd be like 20 to 30 pages with a
little bit of art, man. Like, there's a lot on these two
big pages that we're about to look at.
And it feels like a pretty complete system.
Like it doesn't. It's not like you know, honey
heist. Which is a complete system, but
it's like a very, very light, right.
You know, there's like 2 mechanics.
This is like, oh wow, you fit pretty much a whole thing you
said all zines worth into two pages.
Yeah, that's crazy. It's crazy.
It's called a microgame because this definitely has more rules
than a lot of the zines that I've looked there as well.
But so why don't we hop into it and people can see what exactly
we're talking about? So this is dark grail, Arthurian
role play, Arthurian horror role-playing game.
First of all, damn it, I love the cover.
I think it's fantastic. As well it's super vibe the the
the night with this the person in the background and the and
this like fairy creature like hugging them, huge huge fan all
across the board. One thing I will say about the
whole game is it very clearly feels like this is a system
designed to play this game and and was made for this.
I don't think it doesn't feel like Scott made a system.
I was like HM what can I do with it?
Which is really really interesting.
What was your take on? That, yeah, yeah, I think so.
It feels like and we'll see a little bit more as we go through
it. But yeah, I mean, I think it
fits. The mechanics and system that
are there fit really well. Some parts, I think lean into
the sort of theme of it even more, which I really liked.
There were a few bits where I was like, oh, I wish that it
leaned a little harder in kind of you were saying that like
being exactly being tailor made for this because some parts felt
like that more than others. It was like it's kind of missing
this one or two little things but.
But yeah, yeah, I think it's a it's a fun and pretty easy.
It seems to pick up system, but it definitely fits the the
themes I think. Yeah yeah.
So this is, I mean I assume maybe for like a one page jam or
something, I mean, but I guess is a page.
That's why I won't. I guess it is.
I mean this is what it feels like plus the cover.
But as we said before, it's just two pages.
It is denser than it looks, even as I scroll very quickly up and
down. So it's very small on my screen,
but I'm going to read it anyway with my old eyes.
So the introduction to the system, Albion is on the brink
of destruction. Arthur and his Knights succeed
in acquiring the Grail, but it deceived them.
One by one they became afflicted, and soon the darkness
seeped out of Camelot's walls. It has been 10 years since that
hallowed day. Twisted, malevolent shadows that
once stood for valor stalk the wilderness.
Mordred, Lord of Putrescents, seeks the lost Excalibur.
Arthur is joined to Mordred, an unrecognizable, slobbering
pustule. Slobbering pustule is a good
combo of words. That last line is so good to
think. I don't know.
It's just so subversive. I think immediately, like, very
rarely do you see Arthur. I mean, if you read a lot of the
Arthur stuff obviously should happens at the end.
But Arthur is always kind of this like powerful figure and
for it to just be like, for him to just be like, no, Arthur's
gone. It's just a pustule on this
dude's back. Like that's what you get.
The world sucks. Really love that.
Yeah, like you're not going to be able to rely on him or
restore him. Save him or anything like that
probably, right? It's like it's up to your
characters to try to affect anything you can call in back
up. Yeah, you know, I didn't even
think about that. But yeah, I that's a pretty good
way to just be like, yeah, you can't.
This is all you like. There's no, no hero King is
going to save you. That's awesome.
So players take on the role of the afflicted noble heroes who
hold on to a sliver of humanity. Their only hope is to find
Excalibur to shatter the Grail. And then one player is the Grail
master or the GM. They guide the game, make
rulings. I loved.
I love whatever. Like people find a goofy other
way to have GM. Like I was like, OK, yeah,
that's funny. Yeah, the Grail Master or even
like the like, the Dark Masters. You can still be a DM and stuff.
Those are great yeah. So yeah.
One player is the grandmaster, the guy the game make rulings
and control non player characters.
The game uses 6 sided dice. One thing I like about this
whole intro and these two, I think it's a total of what maybe
4 sentences? I listen.
Video games don't start with a what is a video game screen when
you first pick it up? I'm not a big fan of most games
having like a what is a tabletop role-playing game thing.
I don't think most people will be there first time, and I don't
think if it is that they're picking up on their own with
some things. Like I thought with the black
hack, the system that it was, I thought it was that was a really
good thing to have at the beginning of like what is this
and how to be kind of like a beginner gym?
Because I can see people picking up the black hack as like the
first game they might play, but otherwise this is so much more
than enough to just be like you have players.
You have a DM like you roll some dice continuing with the system.
So that's my little spiel on what is a role-playing game in
your books. It's a waste of page.
Base, even if it's more experienced people playing you
wanna have. It's at least nice to lay this
stuff out because there are, you know, it's like there are games
without GM's, there are games with rotating the GM's.
There are games with lots of different dice and just saying
like this is a GM and players game, this uses D6.
You're like, OK, it's almost like when section, you know when
games have like you especially see it a lot in like solo games
where it says like these are the materials you need to play.
It's basically just another version of that saying like,
hey, get a pen, get a tarot deck and a coin.
Now you can play this game, yeah, I mean I think it's
necessary, but I think that it's like this is the this is the
most you need is like 4 lives and then get to the system,
which is exactly what this is. Again, this is described as a
micro game. So it's pretty much just outside
of that those 3 little paragraphs there.
It's pretty much just system from here on out, but so much
flavor is put into the system, which is what I really love
about a game. And it reads like it's the game
you're playing, not like an SRD. And then you get to read like a
Book of Laura at the end or something to try to make it all
make sense. So first thing is tests.
Tests, same thing as checks or anything like that.
Test is when you need to do something that could fail.
Roll the relevant archetype dice plus a test die which is a D6
and take the highest die. So you're rolling multiple die
and you get to pick just the highest number.
There's a couple systems that do like dice pools and you just
pick a higher number, but this one obviously is kind of dice
Pooley, but it's based on different things like your the
archetype and the test I and those come and go as we'll see
you in a little bit. But basically it is just the D6
so it is on one you get a doom, which is everything goes wrong
and you're put in danger. Ignore the highest die for
everyone rolled. 2 to 4 is a complication.
Things don't go your way. 5 is a minor success, things go your
way, but barely. And six is a major success.
Everything goes fantastically. You succeed and then some.
Pretty straightforward make success.
If you extrapolate that into two D6, it's roughly the same as you
know six through you know one through 6 and seven through 9
and 10 through 12. Yeah, these things I was going
to say, this is like. It's hard for stuff to not all
sound like, you know, a nitpick I guess because it's 2 pages.
So I'm like sometimes sometimes a nitpick is, it is just me
nitpicking a little bit. But yeah, the one thing here,
the thoughts that I had was just saying that I think when we are
like talking about sections that are like 2 sentences and being
like, well, sometimes the exact wording can be important.
I'm like the when you do when you need to do something that
could fail. Probably not.
The wording I would have preferred that doesn't
especially like our three. And that feels very like.
So am I supposed to roll all the time?
Or it at least confuses me. It makes me think, like, am I
expected to really be rolling for everything?
You know, like, do I jump this hole?
Do I open this door? Do I open the chest?
You know, those kind of things. And what was the other thing I
was going to say? Oh, and then I think too there's
like. Maybe some potential to I I
didn't come away I think from this part this section it it
comes out a little bit more in the battle section later.
But I didn't come away from this initial part with an idea of
like how brutal or lethal or not the system is.
Because the those wordings of the like fail states are a
little open, which I think could be the intention.
But you know like doom, everything goes wrong and you're
put in danger. Well it's like a one to me feels
like a crit fail so it's like. Should it be like, I take
damage, if that's applicable? Like you get hurt, you get
harmed, you lose something. So that was my other kind of
thought here was being like, oh, I could see this going a little
harder on these descriptions to give me an idea of like how
bad's A1? Is it just you fail and it
stinks or is it like it's bad, you know?
Yeah. I think to your first point, I
do think the test language could be a little different.
I think the like when you need to do something where the
consequences of failure are important or something like
that. I think that's what some people
use a little bit more than just fail, because you can fail
everything. Like I can fail sitting in this
chair, but. Which is a nitpicky way to read
it, but that's what I was thinking.
I was like, oh, I don't have a good idea of how often it wants
me to roll and then. That may just come down to the
table, because especially with those descriptions for how to
kind of interpret the successes, you could be the GM, could be
really harsh, or could be really forgiving.
Yeah, that's true. I don't mind the descriptions as
much a little bit. I totally understand your point.
I feel like if this is a description of just like the
test, I guess it's it gets it comes down to intent.
If it's just the description of the test mechanic, like the very
basic and then it gets extrapolated later in the other
areas. But if it never really kind of
gives those context at all, then that's, you know, then I
completely get that. But if it's just like these are
the core dice and then you'll you'll see it more later, then
yeah. Yeah, and I think we see that
more refined when we get to the battle section later.
Which is doing. It's doing though, taking me the
basic interpretation. Then we're applying it to battle
and it gives, I think, more specific and flavorful
information there. Well, that's the thing too, is
like, I do feel like some of the wording in this that I think
there was clearly intent to keep it to this, these two, you know,
big pages. So there's probably a lot of
editing done to get it down. I've tried to put stuff on like
two big pages like before and I was like, damn, I really got off
a lot of what I wanted to say. So I mean here's the thing, I
would love to see this as as a Zine like we said like if this
was a six, it would be like 20 plus pages and it would look and
feel great or even I mean you could do a full A5 on this, but
I feel like you would need to put a lot more art than if you
just did a six. But I would, I would love to see
it, but we'll see. And I think it would just allow
a little bit more freedom with some of the the wording to be a
little bit more clear I think in that way.
But the grail? Anytime you would make a test,
you may tap into the tainted magic of the grail.
Take any number of dice, parentheses, best to be a
different color to a regular dice in parentheses, and roll
them as part of the test. If any of these grail dice turn
up a doom, and there's no major success, to ignore the
harrowing, to ignore the harrowing Wind goes up by 1.
Interesting. I I think it does take a little
while to get to no heroin. Wind is literally the next
thing. Never mind I I love that.
Specifically, the whole concept of like, you found the grail.
It was not what you wanted. You're all afflicted by its dark
shitty magic now, and you can tap into it and then if it
fails, everything gets worse and worse, which is obviously the
Grail's intent is so clever, I think, to just be like it's it's
the ingrained choice mechanic in a system is it will always
tickle me. Yeah yeah, I think it's it's a
fun risk reward, especially because like as we read on we'll
find out that your the dice pool you have to use is like you are
your stats which are also your HP.
So like adding as you go on and you're going to get worn down
and you're losing essentially dice that you can put into your
pool for A roll. Being like the grail's always
there, you can always tap in. You can always add dice from it
has that real fun like risk, reward and like and you know
intoxicating power kind of quality to it of like you you're
probably going to need this, which I think is also fits.
It's a fun way to fit the theming to of like.
To the ends, justify the means, right?
Or are the means going to get you your end, which is not the
end you wanted, right? Like you're going to push it too
far. Yeah, I think, I think it's
really cool. I like too that it's just like
you can take any number of dice. So it's like you could be like,
we really want this thing to happen, you know, like harrowing
wind be damned or whatever. And that's cool.
I anytime one of the things I dislike the most is when I see
something awesome like this and then there's like a break on it.
It's just like you can use your blood magic until you have one
hit point left. I'm like no no, like let people
kill themselves. Like Destiny.
One of my favorite games in Destiny was the grasp of Malik.
You literally it it uses your once it once it gets past a
certain point and it starts to use your health to keep firing.
And you can kill yourself with it like relatively easily.
And I love that it's so. It's so clever to just be like
it's super powerful but you're dying.
Good luck. It's 1.
That fits, yeah. That fits the kind of like, you
know, this tragic night, like you're playing these characters
that are kind of these like fallen former noble heroes,
right? So it fits that like like.
Yeah, you can think of examples of like, no, we're going to
bring down this great evil and I'm going to do it at my own
cost. Or like the the whole party is
going to defeat it, but we all die anyway, right?
That feels very in the vein that the stories the game wants to
tell. Haring Wind, the grail creates a
magical wind that alters the world.
The Haring Wind begins at one through play it can increase,
triggering afflictions and making Albion more dangerous
increase by one. When a PC dies, a Doom appears
on a grail die, or when the PCs fail a quest and you decrease it
By 1:00 to 3:00, when the PCs complete a quest and a named or
named villain is destroyed, love it, Love it.
I mean, tying all of it in, as we said before, the system and
then the rules and everything. Like specifically to the ways
that you're doing things in games is is just a great thing
to do. And the effects of the hearing
wind on A1 Albion is a regular level of bleak, so everything
just sucks the normal mouth. Yeah, on a two to three, the
girl's powers grow stronger. Increase Afflictions by one, and
we'll get to Afflictions. That's a capital A Afflictions.
On a four to five night usurps, the day increase Afflictions by
one. Food and water is scarce.
Foes gain an extra dye and then on a six, vegetation is ash and
streams are dry. Rolling a one or two counts as a
Doom increase. Afflictions to final stage foes
gain an extra dye. It's great.
It's pretty bad, yeah. I think the thing that's cool, I
like this effects table a lot. You know.
I think I'm probably not alone in that this kind of like, you
know leak dark twisted like the the world has following thing
reminds. Me of like Dark Souls and
Bloodborne, those kind of things, right.
And this this affects thing has the feeling of Bloodborne where
like over the course of Bloodborne you're playing across
the night. Like it's fun to be like, oh the
the the heroin wind gets to four and now it's always dark like
the like the world state is changing, I think in a fun way,
which isn't of course unique to those games.
It's just what I think of. I think of this kind of weak
world, but it's fun to have something that almost is acting
as like. The world state, a day, night
cycle, all those kind of things wrapped into one.
But it's tied to like you could, you know.
Yeah, like because you chose to invoke the Grail in that last
Test you rolled. Now it's always night.
It's cool, yeah. I mean, The thing is, if you
just don't do anything, the harrowing wind doesn't get
worse. Like you are making the world
bad for everyone with your failures.
Yeah, and let's kind of. Like, hopefully you're gonna
make it. Hopefully, you know it's like a
darkest before the dawn thing. Like, hopefully you're making it
worse so that then you can fix it and make it totally better.
But until all vegetation turns to ash, One of the things I
like, and it's not listed in here, but I mean I love D sixes.
I love 2D sixes. Sixes are my favorite.
There are only 6 effects. It's really easy to just throw
down like a black or red dye and use it as a timer.
It's not written in here, but to me when I was reading it, I
don't. It's not implied at all, but
that's where my mind immediately went.
I was like, oh, I would just have like a doomed die or a
herring wind die and like I could just rotate it and
everyone could see what number herring wind was all the time.
So I like that sixes are throughout threes and sixes.
It's all good. So battle.
When committing violence, make a test with the relevant
archetype. Only player's role.
Love that Peyton G M's role. So these are the same levels of
complication, just adapted to battle.
So one is a grave wound, you have taken a grave wound and
hang on death's door. Lose all archetype dice if you
can't, you die. Ignore the highest die for
everyone rolled. I will say there is before I
continue on there is one rule that I felt like is kind of like
you know implied so you get it. But it says if any of these
grailed I turn up a doom and there's no major success to
ignore the harrowing wind. It never says that like a major
success negates a doom except in like that like part there as far
as I remember reading but I I read that is a major success
ignores the harrowing wind. So is that you?
That is, it ignores the doom. I didn't.
I I read, I read it as the Doom because in the test section it
says Doom ignore the highest dye for every one role.
So I took it as if you have a Doom.
If you have a Doom, it's always cancelling whatever the highest
dye is. So if your highest dye is the
three, it's cancelling the three in place of the Doom.
But the heroin wind only goes up.
Basically it's it's more like it's kind of backwards.
The word it's like the heroin wind goes up when you have a
doom. And you don't have a major
success. So if you don't major succeed,
the heroin one goes up. If there's a do, at least it's
how I took it, but only when you get grail dice.
But it is word of the little backwards or strangely, I think.
Yeah. It doesn't say a major success
will negate the doom on a grail dice.
It says it everything's bad unless you get a major success.
So it's just it's just not as clearly specifically saying that
there. It's kind of like you said, like
inverse, but anyway, so. There's a line, yeah.
There's a line later that kind of does the same thing where
it's like if, oh, it's actually right here.
It's it's on grey wound where you know, it's like lose all
archetype dice, which are kind of like your stats and your HP,
like I mentioned earlier. Then it says if you can't, you
die, OK, I get it. So if if I've already lost all
my archetype dye. I just die when I get it gravely
because I don't have any to lose.
But then it says ignore the highest die for everyone role
and I'm like isn't that the normal rules?
Because that rule is already listed right here under doom in
the other column. So that was also an example
where it like confused me be like wait, did I not?
Do I not know how the rule works?
Is this just like maybe a copy and paste or like you know
something that got missed in editing or whatever.
But yeah, that was another example of of the role that.
What dooms do? Questioned in my head.
Coming back up, yeah, I think it is interesting if the initial
test thing is going to give you all the rules and then you're
rolling the battle. I mean it's it's interesting the
way they read it. It says make a test, so the test
rule should apply and if there's anything different you add it.
I don't mind it being a little redundant, but yeah, you could
chop that off and my assumption would still always be the the
the the ignore the highest role for the ones.
Applies. Yeah, so one was a grave wound,
2 to 4 is a minor wound. You take a minor wound.
If you roll the two to four minor wound, you take one, lose
argosite, die, Yeah, And if you can't, you die.
And then a minor success is A5. You deal a minor wound to the
enemy. If they can't, they die.
I think that's the part where I would say like if they can't
take any wounds, they die if there's enough line space there
as well. Yeah, it needs to.
It needs to have the same thing it had for the person is to say
like lose. The enemy loses a die.
If they can't, they die. And then six is a major success.
You deal a grave wound to an enemy having their dice rounded
down, and there's nothing here that says if they can't, they
die. So it's just like if it's going
to be in the one. I wouldn't mind it being
consistent through. I will say one of the only
places that it could really add a little bit more flavor.
If a one is a doom, I wouldn't mind 6 being something called
other than a major success. I wouldn't mind it being called
like a I don't, I don't even know something like holy in
Excalibur or or something. You know, like some.
Yeah, One on test, Yeah, that's true.
One on test is Doom. And then it made just success.
And it's the same thing about it where one is Grave Womb, which
is like, OK, that fits the thing and it's major success.
Yeah. Yeah.
There's there's different elements for that of like
working in a little bit more of that and sort of like
streamlining some of the language here if you were gonna,
if you know it was going to come back through and clean it up or
something. But I like the mechanics of the
battle. System and I I came away
understanding what I'm supposed to do even if maybe I was like
oh that read of the law. Yeah, I mean here's the thing
it's like we are being definitely a little bit nitpicky
but it's very like it. I felt like it was very clear
the whole way through like the parts that were it's it might be
like a little bit like I would have word of that a little
differently. I think it's pretty into it's
pretty easily to to say what it is.
So I still think it's like, like you said, it's it's a great
quick little system and I really enjoyed it a lot.
Yeah, it's only because it's so. It's so streamlined and concise
that 3 words can throw us off right?
You know most other games have read 2 paragraphs, so you
wouldn't think about the three words in the middle paragraph.
Yeah, yeah yeah, Blades in the Dark.
This is not so. Characters.
Every character is an afflicted capital A.
They are between mortal and beast.
Through the game, their afflictions will come into play
in different ways, benefiting and hindering.
So there are 5 archetypes if I can count.
That's the only thing where I was like man.
Everything else is threes and sixes away.
You give me 5 archetypes. A character consists of five
archetypes, each with a list of common ways that archetype is
tested. So you have the knight, so
there's valor, swords, mesas, lances, Spears, brawling and
writing so you can extrapolate more.
Obviously it's not just that, it's just as common ways.
So there's the hunter, wilderness, survival axes, bows,
crossbows, natural medicine and tracking.
There's scoundrel, sneaking, daggers, poisons, acrobatics,
bluffing, intimidation, and slings.
There's the chaplain, prayers, charming demons, holy healing
connections and folklore. And the sorcerer, which is
sorcery, occultism, history, languages, research, and
scripts. Pretty straightforward.
I think it's kind of the four classics, plus a chaplain, which
is, I mean, a hunter and scoundrel.
I think maybe that's the extra one there.
Yeah, I mean I like, I thought that this was kind of cool.
I'm sure there won't be other games that have done it, but
this is the first thing, at least I've experienced in a
while that I could think of where it's like it's fun to just
have the stats be the classes. Like like these would be classes
in a normal game and to have it be like, yeah, 5 stats, Your 5
stats are just like, what would a night be good at?
What would a hunter be good at? What would a scounder be good
at? You know, like that's I think a
fun, self-explanatory way. To make it clear what your
attribute is. So it's like it's also cool
because it kind of means that they apply more directly to
something you're going to do in the game rather than it being
like dexterity. You're good at backflips.
It's like when am I going to do a backflip?
But here it's like Scott, you're a thief.
OK scoundrel, I could be good at something that I would need to
do for them. I thought that was a fun way to
lean into the setting a little and make those pretty self
explain it. Yeah, it's it's great.
Like if you're if you're a night and you're doing nightly stuff,
sure do it like I I like systems that also kind of do like
advantage. Like if you're a thief doing
thiefy stuff, sure, like you're picking a lock.
Yeah, you have advantage on that or whatever like you like.
I don't need to define everything you can possibly do,
you know if you're a thief doing thiefy stuff or if you're 100
doing 100 stuff, like it's pretty clear.
So yeah, it it's it's really nice.
Like you said that it's all you even get rid of advantage and
disadvantage. It's just if you're if you're a
knight, that's you, you get all that stuff.
So archetype dice, that is something that you use.
That is what you get to roll and you get to split 6D sixes
between archetypes to a maximum of three.
And I love that. It can't be everything.
We could split it amongst three of these things.
So you could just throw all three sixes in a night and just
be like I am just a super night, That's all I am.
But if you want to do Night Hunter Chaplain, you wanted to
do 2 Night and a Hunter, I think that's really, really cool.
Like you said, to just kind of further the same thing.
Like if you put all three at night, you can roll your
archetype die thrice. You know nightly if you want to
do that. Well, yeah, I was a little.
Confused about on that wording because I I initially read it as
no archetype can be higher than three, which well I guess it'd
be the same thing right? The same either way.
Not that you could only have a maximum of three archetypes that
you use because it says it says a character consists of five
archetypes. Which makes me think, well, you
could have all these stats. Interesting.
Yeah, I think I. Think it's saying you can't?
Yeah, but I think it's, I think it's trying to say you could you
couldn't take night above 3, right?
But you could have like 2 in night, one in Hunter, one in
Scoundrel, one in Chaplain and one in Sorcerer, that that makes
more sense. Reading it again, I think that
does make sense to a maximum of three.
I think I just read it since archetypes to a maximum of three
is on the same line. I think my brain just went, oh,
only three archetypes. But yeah, I think you're
completely right. You could, since it's six die,
you could put one in each and two in one and just start off
that way. Yeah, that makes sense.
So you get 6, but you can only do a maximum of three on one.
So you can do 3IN Night, 3IN Hunter or etcetera, etcetera,
etcetera. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Still like it. Yeah.
Still. And again, still the whole, the
whole archetype, just doing that stuff is your whole stat.
So the number of dice that you put into it is where you get to
roll, which is great. And then Afflictions, you roll
the D3. So one is a beast.
You are rage Incarnate. As your affliction grows, you
become more akin to a bear or wolf. 2 is the living dead.
You are between the veil of life and death.
As your affliction grows, so does your lust for flesh.
And then three is demon. Your soul is forfeit as your
Affliction grows. You take on a demonic visage, so
you get to put all of your dice into these archetypes.
But then you have to roll to decide your affliction, and the
fliction again is from the corrupted dark magic of the
Grail that you have. So this is basically your stats,
it's your archetype dice and your powers kind of.
But also your penalty is your affliction, which again, super
viby really love it. And you know, you could, yeah,
if this got to be faded on, you could think of, yeah.
You can think of like 10 more for this though, like in our
theory. And so yeah.
I mean when we go to the next page, you'll see it's because it
takes up almost like half of the second page, just the afflicted.
So I think part of it was just to fit the format, you couldn't
have more. But yeah, it leans in.
They lean into, well, even better when we get to that
section, but it's it leans into that kind of like everyone is
sort of this is doomed. Illfaded warrior, right?
Like, like you're, which I think makes you lean into the other
mechanics, like the grail dice, right?
It makes you be like, I'm already a beast, I'm already
turning into a demon, like I should tap into the evil magic
if it helps us do one last good thing, right?
It feels very heroic in that fallen character kind of way,
yeah. But I again, I'd love that you
you can try to do that fallen hero, one last thing and really
just fuck everything up even worse.
And I I really love that. Ask yourself, what maintains
your humanity? What do you regret?
What will you atone for? Who do you fight for?
I I love that thrown in there. It's just like a reminder.
This isn't just mechanics. Like I really, I really like
that to to make you think about you know where you put your
stats and what your affliction is and like really who your
character is and not just a set of stuff on the on the sheet
equipment. For each dye you put into an
archetype, you choose a starting piece of equipment.
So knight gets swords, may spear, Lance, stick, horse, a
sick horse, not a regular horse, a sick 1 Lantern, a dented
shield, battered armor, and two shillings.
A hunter could have a bow, crossbow, axe, healing herbs,
mucky earring, torn armor, and eight pence scoundre.
Could have a dagger sling, a drop of poison, lock pick,
cloak, Flint or three shillings and a chaplain.
Prior book, Holy Cross vestments, tallow candle, drop
of holy water, stale bread, 4 shillings, and then sorcerer,
book of omens, rabbit liver, Pagan symbol, symbol, staff,
pouch of salt, 5 pence. So you know, if you put three at
night, you could get sword, spear and shield if you want.
And that's cool. All right, again, it's it's a
it's cool. It's a fun little way to do it.
I thought that like I already said that I like, I like the
like, oh, your stats essentially are just.
Classes like so it explains why you would roll that stuff for
it. This feels like a really smart
way to do that too. Like you have a three at night,
so just pick three things from the night list, pick two things
from the scoundrel list or whatever.
It's cool. I do.
This was another this was another area where I was like
the little bits of flavor it had made me want more, which once
again it could, you know, caveat with everything I suggest in
this game. It could be the matter of.
If you were trying to stick, I've made a game where I was
trying to stick to front page, front back of the page and you
know you can't fit everything. But like the sick, horse
battered, armor mucky earring, those wanted me, you know those
were were good and made me want it to not just save sword Mace,
you know I wanted like a descriptor for everything.
So I liked the, the, the bit that was there.
It just made me wish that. All the entries are really
flavorful. Like, I don't want to write on
my character sheet that I have a bow.
I want to write that I have, you know, like a hastily repaired
bow or something. You know, it's a little
adjective all there. Absolutely.
I mean, again, I think a lot of it.
The amount of flavor that was put into two pages is fantastic.
But man, I just make a Zine. I want a Zine, armor, and
Shields. You may destroy the armor or
shield you're wearing to turn a Gray wound into a minor wound or
negate a minor wound. So basically break it and you
reduce, which is cool. Healing A natural salve will
heal a minor wound, taking D3 hours to prepare with the right
ingredients and a Hunter test. Holy Tinctures heal a grave
wound fully taking the six hours of prayer to prepare once per
day with a chaplain test, and this has no effect on Affliction
stage 4 or higher. I love that.
That's pretty much your healing is do some roles and take way
too much time. Otherwise, like when you get
hurt, you're kind of fucked. Which is, you know, I love,
yeah. And it's it's cool too, because
we'll see it later when we get into the afflictions.
But it's nice too, because it does.
It is kind of like what you were saying earlier.
It it feeds into the same thing where like the harrowing wind
can kind of, like get worse and get better and your character,
like your physical body, can sort of heal.
You can take damage and heal, but your affliction only can get
worse. Like it.
It's nice that it leans into that.
Like you're always sacrificing something.
You're always going to lose something.
You're just kind of playing to choose how you lose that and
when you lose it, which I think is fun.
So it's cool that it all kind of connects to that same through
line of like you are doomed one way or the other.
It's just a matter of how, Just it definitely hits me right in.
My dark soul didn't even mean that to be referenced.
Tainted weapons. Some weapons have become tainted
by the grail sorcery. They always add a grail dice
when in battle. It is difficult to determine
whether a weapon is tainted, but sometimes they whisper dark
thoughts or wheel their owner into bloodlust.
Good stuff. So I love that If you have one,
you have to do a grill dye, which means everything could
potentially get worse every time you use it.
More just like damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Money comes in pinch shillings and pounds.
With 10 pence to a shilling and 20 shillings to a pound, I don't
get world's doomed. I'm not worried about pocket
change. Yeah, I would say the question I
had with tainted weapons was what's the benefit?
It doesn't give us why you would incur the holy wrath because
because right now, just basically weapons let you
attack. But unless I miss something, we
don't have a reason why A1 weapon would be better than
another weapon. Which made me go like, Oh well
then the first time I used that sword, am I?
And I realize I have to use a grail that I am I just going to
toss it aside? To grab another one?
Or is it meant to be like it's cursed and I can't lose it once
I've used it? You know, like I need a little
bit more there to be like, well, why would a person keep this?
Because it feels like, I mean, it does always add a grail die.
So I guess it it's it always, it makes your chance to succeed
slightly higher and your chance for failure like the worst.
You know, it raises both the good end and the bad end.
But I almost needed it to have one other thing like it lets you
add. You always add a grail dye and
you always add a free stat dye or something like, you know, it
felt like it needed a benefit. I guess for me, the money was
the same thing. I was like, I can't envision
money coming up in this scenario, but maybe.
I mean, I guess I just don't imagine in this world where
things are becoming ash and everything is terrible, like
going to an AN and being like here's 3 pence, you know what I
mean? Like it just, yeah.
But I mean, you know, it's there in this money and it's fine.
If people want to use it, it's it exists and that's cool.
But it's part of the thing. It's part of the thing.
I think generally that I might bring up get later.
When we go through this with with it being a micro game, it's
like typically I think of those like a one page RPG, A2 page
RPG, those are typically like 1 shoddy things or things you
might be playing across two sessions that are really
focused. So I think.
And that's why the money stuck out to me.
If it like you said, this was a Zine, if this was like, oh, it's
a 10 page Zine with like a little Arthurian system in it, I
would be like cool money. That makes sense.
But here I'm thinking like, oh, I'm probably playing this as a
A1 shot away from my existing campaign.
We're not going to use money like I'm sending them into the
dark woods to to track down Excalibur or whatever.
Yeah, so I think that's why it stuck out.
It's just a matter of the form it's in.
Yeah, I mean, I completely agree.
Like I said, it's just, you know, reading it.
I said money, money, who cares? I'm not going to use it.
So then, yeah, well, I have the rule and they're not going to
use it. But also, I mean, and even if
you wanted to later, it's implied in like all of the gear
anyway. So but I think the chain of
weapons thing is really is like you said like if I were playing
this game and I came. First of all it says you don't
always know if you have one so maybe you roll the first time in
the gym. It's like oh Atta grad Ice's
weapons tainted. You're like oh that sucks for
me. But yeah why wouldn't I
immediately just be like well then by like there's nothing
making me hold it. I mean other than like it's cool
and game that's fine. But like you need a little bit
more because I'm not I'm you know I'm not Hunter is generally
the the go getter jump in get us all a killed person.
If I know I have a weapon and I have to use the thing that can
make the world worse all the time, I'm not going to use it
like. Yeah, well, for me it's the fact
that it's the fact that you can always add infinite grail dice
to any roll. So that's what I mean.
It's not really if grail dice were like a limited resource per
session, you have three you can use, and this weapon lets you
use one on every attack. I could get the risk reward of
that. But to me, I'm just like, oh, I
would just rather not use a tainted weapon and then use a
grail dice. So it could use just literally
one sentence being like, what's the bonus?
I mean, there really, there really isn't.
Even just adding, you have to add one.
That sucks, but like you don't have to keep the weapon and
there is no reward, you know, So that's.
What? I mean, it's a little like, oh,
I don't think I couldn't. I wouldn't see players sticking
with that unless I was cooking up an additional.
As the GM, I would since this probably is a one shot thing, I
would honestly I think the easiest thing to just be like
once you've wield A detained weapon like it's just part of.
You. Yeah, yeah, I think that'd be
the easiest and most vibey, most you.
Can even put another little line.
That's like when you know when a player picks up any equipment,
roll a D6. If it's a one, it's tainted,
yeah. So there's just like an inherent
chance of curse? Yeah, something like that.
So yeah, that's good. I'm gonna.
I'm gonna play this and then add that Afflictions.
This is basically like you said, it's it's the whole what would
be like a whole page of this app page.
Afflictions increase in potency as time progresses.
When the herring winds pick up, so too do Afflictions increase.
Note that when the herring wind decreases, afflictions don't
increase. All afflictions begin at one.
The rules to our previous Affliction stage still apply
when advancing. So first we have the beast.
It is a D6. That's again, I understand why
there's five archetypes, but everything else is 3/6.
I want six. I want 6.
Symmetry there. We can have we can have one more
so. I I love this section.
This is my favorite section, I think.
Which one's your favorite of the three afflictions?
I. Mean.
Some of them were wild. So I can read.
I'll take some of the reading off your plate here.
I can read. I feel like you're having to
read everything since I'm you know, I'm just the guest and not
an unofficial ghost. So yeah, beast.
So I went in with like okay, a ring.
Ring piece first. Beast is 1.
You can see in the dark small small patches.
I think it's supposed to be small patches, maybe a fur
sprout from your body. Your sense of smell is
heightened at 2. Your sense of smell is you only
eat raw meat. You emit A foul odor.
Three your face is contorted, fangs jump from your jaw, and
normal people fear you, but you are stronger.
And one die when brawling. Reduce a die when attempting to
do anything involving natural charisma. 4 You have a great
bloodlust that must be sated. You must go out into the
wilderness for one D3 days and devour animals.
Five, you can only speak in monosyllabic words.
Any sorcery you attempt must add double the required real dice.
Six, you are a beast to transform.
You can't talk or cast spells. You cannot use weapons.
Unarmed attacks gain an extra 2 dice.
So reading that, I was like, that's cool, right?
Those are big changes, both role-playing changes and
mechanical changes. It's also cool that when you hit
Max Affliction, you aren't dead. You aren't.
The player doesn't lose control of you, right?
You are just essentially like a werewolf.
In the in the end. But then I thought the thing
that was really interesting was when you go into the next ones
like they aren't balanced in a way that I think is fun because
like living dead sort of sort of similar thing.
It's really more like almost like vampire than I kind of
thought it was going to be. Zombie going in.
It's a little more definitely a hard vampire for sure, yeah.
Yeah. But living dead ramps up a lot
like you. One, your skin is ashing and
your hair is falling out. Two things developing your gums.
You must drain blood from an animal thrice per day, or deduct
or deduct an archetype die for each meal missed.
So already at that point you're like going out to the wilderness
for a day or two to eat at level 4 for peace, you're just eating
animals. This is like, well, I have to
find animals to suck blood out of three times a day, or you
start losing health. But then.
What it's When you get to I think level 5 on the living dead
okay I'll just read. The rest goes three.
Your your eyes are sunken. You can smell a drink of blood
from a mile away for an hour after you fed.
You gain an extra dye and in the architect which is cool during
that 4:00 during the night, your sense is heightened and you gain
an extra dye when fighting unarmed.
Also kind of cool. You lead it and get a little
like beastial as well. But then five feed on adult
humans three times per day, thrice per day, rather than
animals. If you miss a meal you take your
grave wound. You cannot cross cross running
water and holy water. It doesn't matter to you that
one. I was like, that's so that's
such a huge penalty in a in an exciting way.
Like I didn't, I didn't take it. I was like oh wow, that sucks
for the living dead. I took it as like, how are you
supposed to get by? You have to feed feed off 3
people a day. That's wild.
So I thought these were really fun.
Well then and and then it caps off with six.
You are a Glennis Wretch. Natural light burns your eyes
when you drain blood, heal a minor wound.
You take a minor wound if you go within a foot of a cross.
I do think, like you said, it feels weirdly unbalanced in
that. Like it's interesting that the
thrice per day human thing, I would probably drop it to once
per day. And honestly, if I got to that
point I it never says you have to kill the animal or the
person. It just says you have to feed on
them. You would I would just end up
with a fucking chained person to me.
Like a hireling, just blood bag. Or you'd have a party of people
that are because it's like, yeah, if I was the GM I would be
like, you could feed off of the other player character.
They take a light, they take a minor wound and you do it, but
especially once you hit six, where feeding heals you.
It's like, you know, I mean, it's almost like a transfer of
health or whatever. But yeah, like you said, I think
that's probably what I would do too, because it's such a heavy
burden that you would be like or you show up for a fight and then
run off to go find another person.
Sorry guys, my alarm went off. I got to go, I got to go suck
some blood here. Yeah, it's interesting.
And I do think that the I thought it was going to go more
zombie, but it makes sense it's more vampire because these are
like incredibly powerful Arthurian Knights who got
afflicted by something. So if you're going to go
werewolf and demon, I think the zombie would have been pretty
low on the totem pole as far as the undead go.
But I wouldn't mind more of like a like a cool or gas kind of
thing like or even like a white or something versus the vampire
because what I. Thought was like you're going to
be a very powerful undead creature, but not a vampire.
I think the only thing with vampire is.
And I mean, I immediately haven't read a ton of Arthurian
stuff, but Vampire doesn't read King Arthur to me in the way
that, like that does. Like a yeah, you said like a
gast or something, A ghoul feels more in that vein to meet the
vampire. Yeah.
But I did think, I think it's cool how they're they're all
sort of sectioned where it's like most of them are laid out
where it's like at A at a level you hit a pretty big penalty and
then at the next level. You get that benefit from that
because it's like, hey, you have to feed on people and in the
next level it's like, now when you feed you heal this, which
means like you're basically able to heal three times a day or
more, right? If you can get someplace with a
lot of people or something. So that's sort of like a built
in rhythm of like, this sucks If my affliction went up, I have to
deal with this stuff. And now being like, ooh, I like
it it you know, it feels. It fits that same theme I think
of like when are you using the grail?
Are you not leaning into being doomed or not to like, leverage
your situation? But but yeah, I think that one
could have used for a maybe A twist to it that wasn't, yeah.
Vampire, Yeah, I can't. I don't even know when.
I mean, yeah, the vampire thing immediately kind of did Take Me
Out of it because I I go straight to Dracula and not like
the new movie where he was like a night and stuff like the the
regular one. But yeah, Demon was the third
one. It is 6 as well.
You have #1. You have a faint smell of
brimstone that follows you around at two.
You're crossing the threshold of a Chapel deals you a minor
wound, gain an extra die when attempting to lie or seduce. 3
stubby wings sprout from your back, allowing you to fly for a
minute at a time. Holy Water does a minor wound to
you. Your wing for your wings are at
full span, allowing you to fly indefinitely.
Horns form on your head. People avoid you like the
plague. 5 You receive messages from the underworld that you
must act on, otherwise you will be unmade.
I love that you cannot use sorcery to help others.
And six, you resemble A humanoid goat.
Holy Water deals a grave wound, as does going within a foot of a
cross. I like it, feel somatic, feels
holy and weird, which is Arthurian to me.
There's two quotes in this one here and one I think I forgot to
read earlier. The first one was after money,
before we got to the afflictions, it says.
And now I take upon the adventures of holy things and
now I see and understand that mine old sin Hindereth me and
shameth me, which makes sense as you get to the afflictions.
And then this quote says first words the fair knight could
frame were curses on both cowardice and consciousness.
Their vice and villainy are virtues undoing So good little
thematic quotes there, I will say.
I feel like we haven't got to it yet, and maybe I'm wrong at any
point. Does it say how many minor,
major and Gray wounds and stuff we have?
Did I miss like? Because, yeah, so it's based on.
So you know, you get those six dice that you put into the
archetypes at the beginning, and then you.
So when you take a grave, if you take a grave wound, you lose all
those archetype dice. And then if at any point you
need to do that again, you would die.
So like minor wounds, like you basically you're going to, you
have at least six, you could take at least 6 minor wounds.
It's kind of like your stats. Your stats are also your health.
You know, like the number of dice you have in your pool is
also your HP. Yeah, it's kind of works.
And there's no way to get archetype die back, right?
Like you're pretty much no you get.
If you heal back, you can. You can get them back if you
heal a minor wound or a the holy tinctures and like that.
Yeah, I just dumped out for a second.
So your. Affliction always gets worse and
stays worse. There's there's nothing in here
about how you would roll that kind of fliction, yeah.
Intentionally. Yeah.
So sorcery is part of the the
big part of the next one, Sorcery's foes and some safety
tools here. So Sorcery.
Before the Grail was found, magic was a wondrous thing.
Now it is malevolent. Seeking to in the world.
Anyone with a dye in the Sorcerer archetype can attempt
to use sorcery. Dark Grail uses a free form
system that requires the GM and players to decide the price of a
magical effect. Love it.
Seen it elsewhere.
Casting to cast a spell, make a sorcerer test the player.
Casting decides what effect the spell will have, and the gin
determines how many grailed eye to add up to a maximum of three.
A very minor effect like lighting a candle or creating a
light breeze may not need a grailed eye, but healing a wound
or transfiguring oneself may require one or two.
And there are the same things. The major success the spell
works fine. On a minor success, the spell
works, but the impact is lessened.
On a complication, the spell fails and undoom, the spell
backfires. I like it.
I like, I like free form magic. I don't like fancy and slots and
specific things. I like when it's kind of like,
do what you will and I and I enjoy that you can be like, all
right, I want to do a fireball. And the gym is like, oh, well,
that's three and you're like, OK, well, maybe a fire beam, you
know? So I think especially for the
the size of this game, this is the best way to do it.
For sure. It's like don't give us like a
spell list, don't give us whatever.
Just be like if you lean, if you take this stat you can do
sorcery and then what you know you that just allows you to
weave magic in a way that you want in the moment.
I think it's cool because like you said, anything else would
have ended up probably taking up quarter of the table thing and
maybe not for any real game at the table.
You'd end up with like, light chair, light wounds and like
men. And then you're you're you're on
the third page already. Not here.
It's easy to see. Yeah.
It's easy to be like, if you want to heal a light wound, it's
going to be one die. If you want to heal a grave
wound, it's going to be two die, you know?
Easy. Yeah, I feel like the only thing
that really needs to be found that way is probably healing,
because that's what people are going to ask for the most.
You know, so foes. Opponents in Dark Rail are the
various beasts and creatures of folklore and Arthurian myth.
Albite with the dark fantasy bent.
Landslot is a twisted demonic entity with three eyes.
Lady Guinevere haunts The Woodlands as the long Lady.
When creating a foe, choose a number of dice they will have
and a special ability. Their dice are rolled when
attempting any tests and act as their health.
Think about the weapons they may use and any armor they have, the
following or a few examples you can use to get started.
So there's like 4 kind of levels of bad guy here.
The first is a vile imp and then in parentheses it says 2 dice
and claws and beneath that it says a waft of rot and a chatter
of yellowing teeth. And then there is a bullet
point. It says servant won't attack and
afflicted with a demon affliction in stage 3 or more.
Great little step lock. Super clean line of a line of
flavor on it. Everything you need really
really quick and easy. Reminds me a little bit of the
way that Black Heck does them. Yeah.
There's some other system too. I've played that has that same
kind of like enemies are just like a, you know a dragon is a
die is the way that it does it. And I I always really do like
that because it it it tends to there tends to be really no
difference between a lot of those other things is it's like
you know what a monster is going to do the vast majority of the
time. So have it just do that thing
and it'll let me base its other roles off of that stat.
You know, it's like in, you know, in.
In D&D you have a full character sat block for a monster.
You never use that stuff, you know?
So this is a nice stream, light down.
I also think it's cool too to have enemies that lean into
that, like sort of like biomes or archetypes of enemies that
have different relationships to you based on your affliction.
Is really cool too, I think. Like like having this one be
like it is. Deferent to demons, someone with
the Demon affliction. If it's high enough, it's kind
of cool because then you could be like, well, if I push, if we
push the, you know, we we use the grail magic to fight our way
through this area and we push the winds in the wrong
direction, my affliction will grow, which might actually let
me just walk in to this demon temple and get the thing we need
out of it. Like, that's cool, you know?
Like that feels very fun to be like and very like.
I said, very tragic hero. Very like.
No. Like we need the world to get
worse. That I could do this.
Like we need need. I need to get more afflicted so
I can do this. But yeah, is cool.
It's so it's so cool. It's so much fun to just like,
you know, as you said a bunch of times, like the the choice
mechanic low risk reward that's just perpetually through this
and just at some point you could just be like, fuck it, I'm a bad
guy. I don't care.
Like I the world sucks. And if I can save it, cool.
But if we hit, if the heroin wind wipes it all out in our
attempt, you know that that we should have got the girl in the
1st place. I love that.
And I love spell blocks that are like this, that lean kind of
more towards like the ludicrous compendium or like monsters from
Luke Erick kind of thing, where it's just like the most minimal
numbers you can add to something and they just give it some
flavor. And this one, you know, it does
have that little tweak as you said for for the the affliction
stuff. That's it.
The next one is a plague Knight, three dice sword armor.
The infernal buzzing of flies can be heard within the knight
suit and then the special is a cloud of flies.
Reduce a dye to create a cloud of biting flies that act as A2
dice. Foe Lady of the Lake 5 dice
spear bulging eyes, flapping gills in a voice like a drowning
cat. Water rejuvenation, spending an
hour in a lake. Heels, all dice.
And then the Gog Magog 15 dice with a club.
A towering king of giants whose language is that of the
mountains themselves. Their ancient and mighty Gog
Magog cannot be gravely wounded. That sucks.
Was was really cool because it's like you can kill it, but you
would have to do 15 successful attacks because then that means
it can only take a minor wound, which is just losing one die.
And it's like okay that that's a cool way to use the system to
make an enemy. Like it's an endurance test.
If you could kill this thing, it's fun.
The difference, the water rejuvenation one for the lady of
the Lake I was like, when is that?
If they're fighting the lady in the Lake, when is the Lady in
the Lake ever going to have an hour to chill out in a lake at
the bottom of the lake? I don't know.
Are the are the. I imagine it being like a I
don't see, if I ran her, I wouldn't even like have her do
some type of like, all right, I'm in combat versus these four
people. It'd be like a hit and then go
the lake and hit and go on the lake.
Just a constant have annoyance and get the big hits.
But, like, I can imagine her getting a little bit low and
just being like, all right, well, I'm out.
I'll fuck with you next time. And then just like going to the
bottom of the lake kind of thing, because.
I don't think they're going down and find her or do something.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the before we get to
the last part, I think it's interesting that kind of
throughout the entire game the IT doesn't really reference
itself except in the sorcery and the foes part.
Like it never. It doesn't ever say in Dark Grow
you do this. In Dark Grow you do that kind of
like it kind of avoids that. But in the sorcery part, it does
say Dark Grow uses the free form system.
I don't feel like. I feel like that could just be
chopped out. I don't know like.
It doesn't necessarily, Yeah. I don't think it doesn't
necessarily bother me, but it's kind of interesting that like
it's not till almost the end before it kind of does that.
Like Selfridge opponents in Dark Grail are.
You could have just said opponents are various beasts and
it would have been fine, yeah. Yeah, you can almost always just
say the various beasts and creatures of folklore and our
theory and myth are dark and twisted here.
Yeah, I just feel like, I don't know.
I feel like as soon as you say the name of the game, it takes
me out of it when I'm reading it a little bit.
I don't know. I don't know why Safety Dark
Grail is a dark fantasy game with disturbing and often
violent themes. It is in everyone's best
interest to discuss lines before playing and enforcing the X
card. As a rule, Dark Grail does not
include harm to minors. And despite the game being set
somewhere around the 13th century, there is no misogyny,
homophobia, transphobia, or racism of any kind.
You know, like to see it? Gotta have it.
You can't. You can't decide how people play
the game. But it's nice to throw out there
at the intent of the designer. And at least in the current
climate, a lot of people are like, Oh well, I don't know,
playing that super gamer. And it's like, good.
You were the target audience to not play the game, so this would
be perfect. But you know.
Yeah, yeah, I thought. I my only thought, which I I
think it's good to have this included even all for the size
of the format of it, right? You know, like this might be
something I could see being like on the Edge page, but not making
the document because you're trying to save space.
I would probably, if I had only that much only like a sentence
to spend on safety tools. I would probably just point
people towards a resource for safety tools by only thought
like you said, not to cater to, not to imagine that no one has
played, not to cater to people never having played an RPG
before. But I could.
If someone doesn't know what lines and veils or the X card
are, they're not going to know what they are from this.
So I would almost rather have it say like we like like.
You know playing with the safety tools is encouraged search X
card For more information or something.
I don't know. That was my only thought was
that I'm like oh it doesn't really tell you what they are.
I think a lot of us don't need to know again what they are but
we're people who use maybe are using them no matter what.
But yeah I definitely like that that's in here.
I would I would even cut the if it's me.
I would cut the despite the game being sent somewhere around the
13th century, because that's you're just.
That's just ammo. You're giving to the people who
want there to be misogyny, homophobia.
It's like, no, we don't care. Like, I don't even want.
I just want to say, like, that doesn't happen in this game.
I don't care if it's historically accurate to you
doing, It's not happening. But yeah, but I did like that
this was in here because I could see it not making a touch just
for space. Yeah.
I mean, my thing too is like, the 13th century is like, it's
still happening now. So it really makes no.
Like you could just say no at all like.
That too. Yeah, that as well.
Name me a time from the 13th century till now where that
wasn't happening, like any of those things were.
They have 200. Yeah. 200 years from now, the
Rpg's that take place in the 21st century will say this.
The same thing, despite it being a 21st century.
Yeah, but but yeah, so that's the game I I'm, I'm a big fan.
I really, really like this game a lot.
I think that no one that knows me would be surprised that I
enjoy this game a lot speaks right to me.
So let's we we are, we are. We decided let me kick over the
window. We are going to review this
because we don't. We we just got to episode 100
not too long ago when we wrapped up all of our loose ends of all
the things that were unrated, that got rated.
So we're going to rate everything regardless.
So something like this, we're going to rate like a Zine.
So that's what it is. So before, I guess before we
jump into that entirely, just thoughts like how do you, how do
you feel about Dark Row? Well.
I would say my final before I get like overall impression.
I guess my final sort of critique thoughts that we had
around that end section of like foes and stuff was because I
think the format, like I said to me, I think of as being more
like it's a focused game because it's smaller format.
It's probably going to be a one or two shot.
When the sort of game setting up this, their only hope is to find
Excalibur to shatter the Grail, and that Mordred, the Lord of
precedence, is seeking Excalibur is.
I wish that there had been a stat block for Excalibur, maybe
instead of the tainted weapons, and I really wish that there had
been a stat block for Mordred, maybe instead of Dogmagogue and.
Yeah, like like I left. I I left this going.
I really like the core mechanic. I like the stuff that's built
here. But like I actually went after I
read it and looked at the Itch page, it said like, oh, did they
maybe release A1 page like advance your structure or
something here for it? Because it it, you know it's
like, it doesn't. I expected when I started
reading it, I expected there to be that.
I expected to be like, oh, here's here's what happens if I
get Excalibur. What does it do?
Here's. How hard this person is going to
be to kill because we're probably going to fight because
they're also seeking Excalibur. And then it also doesn't mention
the Grail like at all. Which I thought like if that's
the third component, maybe like possessing the grail lets you do
something. Like I said, you know maybe
nitpicks. But I would have, I would have
swapped it would have been. I think it would have helped me.
It would have helped feel like I understood the structure of how
I would play this in a session. In a one shot or A2 shot with my
table if they had those those just little stat blocks of
single sentences like Excalibur lets you double your archetype
die in a fight and it can't be tainted or whatever.
You know some little thing where I'm like okay cool.
That's why we want to go get Excalibur.
This is if do we need to go get the grail that we have the
grail. It's stuff that I could cook up
as the GM, but I feel like in like 3 or 4 sentences on this
page, you know in the, in the rules, the.
Creator probably could have laid it out for me a little bit.
Anyway, that was my last thought on the rules.
I will say for that though, the Mordred part instead of GOG, my
GOG, I feel like that's not even nitpicky that I feel like that's
necessary. I think, like you said, the
point of it is this. He's the biggest bat out there
and you have to fight that. Like having that would be, I
think. I think that's really the most
non NIT Peaky thing in the system so far is that would have
been really nice to have the biggest bad guy on there.
But I think there's a scalabber and the grail though like you I
think at least when when what I were in the introduction.
Maybe I'm wrong, that we've already acquired the GRAIL, the
grails, the problem and we're seeking Excalibur to destroy it.
So I don't mind it, I guess just being like a relic and not
necessarily like have a stat or whatever.
I think it'd be fun, I guess, if you're fighting your way back,
but as far as I imagine, I imagine the grail is just like
in some room. Castle somewhere.
Like you can't even enter the room because it's exuding so
much evil bullshit, and maybe Excalibur lets you wade into
that and destroy it. But.
That, yeah, that the, the specifics about the GRAIL are
the easiest I think to to fill in the blanks on.
And it was just really. Yeah, like you said it was.
It was Mordred and Excalibur I assumed would show up because it
seems like they're intended to be present in every game.
Because, you know, every running of this, those two elements
should be important. You're probably not going to
play sessions of this where you aren't seeking Excalibur or you
aren't in conflict with Mordred, You know, I don't.
I don't see myself playing a slice of life episode of.
Dark Grail for example. But yeah, so that that was when
I thought there was just switching that out and and then
I would be like, cool. I feel like I don't need it in
events that are prepared for this.
I have the structure. You're starting at the ruins of
a castle. You you hurt, you know Excalibur
is here. You need to go get it.
Mordred is going to show up at the same time.
Cool. We've got a session.
So yeah, that was my life out there.
Overall though, I really like it.
I mean I think the core, like I said, those core mechanics are
streamlined enough to fit on 2 pages, but they have enough
depth and risk reward kind of elements to them that it that
feed into the themes of the game That that part to me feels
really flushed out. It it does like you said, I mean
it does lend itself to. I can very easily imagine this
even as like a 12 page thing if they don't.
If it wasn't intended to be expanded greatly or not to fill
it with art, but you could definitely have this be like a 8
to 12 page game and it still feel like bigger even if you
want to put more like foes and those kind of things in.
But even just with what's here and I would be like, yeah, wow,
this has a whole system in it for that amount of space.
So given the the amount of space, I think it's both really
mechanically clean, very thematically on point.
And yeah, it definitely punches way above its.
Weight class I think of a two page game.
Like I said, I'm comparing, you know, you compare it to stuff
like lasers and feelings, honey heist, those kind of things of,
you know that that those are very light compared to this,
which I think is surprising that this fits so much into so little
space. Yeah, the density is really what
what's crazy about it. I mean it is so much and there
could be so much more. I want this to be Zine so bad.
So, so score wise visuals, you know we are.
This is the part that's going to suffer a little bit because of
the format. I absolutely love the cover.
I think it's fantastic. I think in super vibey I think
it says everything that it wants to say and needs to say across
the entire thing. It looks fantastic.
I think that the font choices, the colors, everything is great.
I think the layout is extremely readable.
I mean, obviously anytime you do Black letter, there's going to
be some letters that just don't make sense.
So have fun with that. But visually it's pretty.
There's not a whole lot we can say besides it's, you know,
it's, it's, it's laid out and it's readable.
Yeah, that's what I was going to say as well.
It's like I think the cover is really good, would look great in
a full Zine format. I think overall the layout is
very clean and readable, which especially for something that's
dense, is really what you want. There are a few little like.
Layout, thought, nitpick things I had like the, you know, the
space between a bullet and the word starting is really it's a
big space and then like the the hanging line, the next line down
is starting at the same intent as the bullet.
Like little things that just visually look a little messy to
me. But like I said, we're in
nitpick territory because that's just what we're focusing on.
But I mean overall it's readable.
It gets at the point across like visually, which honestly I would
even say is worth. Has extra merit.
It would be very easy to see these two pages over
complicated, like someone being like, I want to put textures, I
want to put borders, I want to put, you know, little ornate
illustrations around the edge to lean into the sort of medieval
Arthurian thing. And then us coming out and
going, we really can't read this.
This is kind of a mess looking at it.
So yeah, so it's solid. Sure.
You could easily see this as like put on a parchment
background and people please stop putting your stuff on a
parchment background. It does not look nice when you
have like a weathered paper and then very crisp clear black text
on it. Just it's it's not the vibe.
Yeah. I mean you know it's it's I
would say for what it is and the use that it did and since it's a
Z not a book you know we're again, we're judging it as a Z,
not a book. I mean I would 5 is not bad.
It's literally just like bang, average.
If you have nothing good or nothing bad, to say it all, it's
a 5. And I feel like the cover's
really nice and for what it is, it's laid out well.
So I'm feeling like the sixish, like a little bit better than
like, you know? Yeah, 6 is what I had written
down as well for the same reason.
You know, thinking that if we're.
I didn't know. I don't know exactly the
standard you guys try to hold to, but if my standard is saying
that five is solid, 5 is. Not notably good or bad.
You know, like we're we're not doing the video game thing of
like if it's a blow in the eight, it sucks.
Yeah, we're saying that like no five is like 5 is yeah, solid.
And that's what I would say is like a six.
Yeah, I will say, fuck, I I'm going to say that for 10 times
and I'll say 10 times more. I want this to be a Zine.
Let's turn this into a Zine. Let's keep the same vibe.
Some pages could be black with white, white with black.
You get us some gold like you do the put some put some curse
swords and pustules. Let's let's make it a scene
here. Rule set.
I love the rule set. You know I think there are like
one or two things that could be tweaked a little bit.
But overall like I mean considering that almost the
entire thing is rule set, I I love it.
I think it's great. I would play I would play this I
would have this. I super enjoy every everything
is your archetype dice and it's all kind of bounced off of that
like it is your class. It is the number of items you
can have. It is the dice you roll is
everything and that's that's really fantastic.
I think the spells is great. I think the Afflictions I'd
probably tweak a tiny bit and I think Vampire might be you know,
I feel like like we said I think like white or gas or something
like that would feel a little bit more thematic.
But other than that you know, I really, really love this game.
What are you thinking? The same thing I think the real
set is very elegant. It's very well thought out, well
designed by. I mean honestly, reading through
it on my end, my thoughts, my bigger take away or like
negatives I guess for it were like you said, I thought Vampire
didn't quite fit my the the the setting and vibe in my mind and
it was things like me just wanting more like Excalibur info
maybe or the the Mordred. Stat block, right.
Which is to say that I thought the base framing, the structure,
the mechanical structure of the rule set was very good.
It made me just go, oh, I want I wanted these extra things to be
provided for it, but I wouldn't really even put that in in the
rule set. So I mean most of my things were
editing some small editing things like little specific rule
wordings and stuff, but I think the rule set's really good.
So I was thinking like, again, I don't know, I don't know your
scales for but well, but I was thinking like an 8.
Yeah, I actually was thinking about an 8 too.
I mean, if we go five is 5 is fine.
It's solid. It's, you know, not good, not
bad, it's whatever. I think the highlight of this
for me mechanically, like overarching is how well it all
plays on itself, which I really, really enjoy.
There's not really any parts that feel tacked on.
Which is something you never want to see.
I really want to see archetype. Yeah, it's very connected, which
is nice. And yeah, that's the thing that
I think that's the other thing too is like even the the few,
the few smaller gripes that I have are ones that I think if
they were to take you up on the developing it into a Zine, it
would be like, hey, you know get an extra get another edit pass
in there. And if you have time to, if you
have the space, I mean to do like even just a few little like
an example line. You know, like example this,
like those kind of things would really help the few editing
thoughts or like questions I ended up having about the rule
set as I was reading. You could totally iron those
out. So if they did take you up on
that, I think it would make the rule set that's here shine even
more because you wouldn't even have those few points of
contention or those few points of us going.
I wish it also had this, like you said, like I wish.
Maybe there's one more thing here.
I mean, examples of play are so important.
I love them, they're great. And it's not just for getting
people to understand. There's so much flavor put into
this already. Examples of play is such a good
way to add more flavor to the setting and to the to really
display your intent in the way that you would like the game run
as a creator. So having some night like.
A couple levels into Affliction battling like a group of vile
Imps or something like that. It would just really again,
clarify a couple of small little bits, but set off the the, the
feelings even more. So yeah, I mean you know, it's 2
pages I want, I want to see and vibes.
I mean super fucking vibey. I think the cover has a ton of
vibes. I think the language used
throughout is incredibly. I'm good.
I'm never gonna get over slobbing pustule.
It's great. Affliction is good.
Even the even the mechanical bits like archetypes and tests
and stuff like that. I like tests better than check.
I like archetype better than class, you know, like it fits
better. I wouldn't mind major success
being called something different, and I wouldn't mind
the vampire not being there as far as like overall vibes for
me. But honestly, I feel like those
are really drowned out by how much I really love this game.
You know, I loved King Arthur when I was a kid.
I loved all of, you know, Gavin and all of that stuff.
It's it speaks to me a lot. I love the horror aspect of just
everything getting worse because of your own decisions and this
kind of subversion of this story we know is Excalibur and the
Grail and these holy nights being like now you got what you
wanted and it sucked and now everything sucks and you're
making it worse. I don't know.
High vibes for me. I I really love this.
I would play I would I would play this right now yeah.
I think that I think that's what he what is here is is really
good. There were a few points like I
said like I mentioned earlier like the item list and stuff
where I'm like and and that once again the caveat returns that it
could be because of the page limitation when this person was
looking at their full manuscript and having to cut it down.
But it's like, I do think that could have been infused with
more, which especially for these very like gloomy vibey thing is
like I always wanted to kind of bleed out of every possible way.
So it's like if an item description can have it, I want
it to bleed out of there. If a, you know, a stat block can
have it, I want it to come out of there, that kind of thing.
And that's I think a thing where it could be enhanced if it had
some like examples of play, things like that in it too, like
you said, that's where you could really lean it.
You could have your very matter of fact rules description
followed by your very fighty thing after that.
So yeah, I mean, so for me, I think it was what is here, I do
think is really good, but I wanted more I guess as well so.
Yeah, but I mean, here's The thing is for me, if I read
something, I go fuck, this is good.
I want more that up survives for me, but I'm just like, you know,
but So what? What number are you thinking?
Yeah. I think, I think you have a
solid handle on exactly what we're going for for number.
So I was thinking like 7. I was.
I was between the seven and an 8.
I think that what why what are your thoughts?
Well, I mean I think it is one of those tricky things
especially you know it's it's a tricky thing with the format
it's it's text only essentially in Inside the rules.
So it's like there isn't art to add to that vibe thing.
There isn't, which I don't necessarily think it's a
negative but that's why it just makes me lean in on those like
on the specific wording that is there and going like, well, at
times it leans into it. But then at other times it feels
a little, you know, like you know you use like the the
sorcery section for example is very sort of written very cut
and dry. Like given this stuff like
complication the spell fails. Doom, the spell backfires.
Like, what does that like that happen like, you know, it's like
doom the grail turns the magics against you and you suffer full
consequence. You know, like I wanted to have
a little bit like more I want to hit a little harder.
It is because I like what it's setting up which I do think is
positive. So that's why I put into seven
is me going well. I most other than the cover
being very good. Most of the vibes are just being
cultivated by the writing. And right now I think you could
punch that even further even in some of the creatures like like
the, you know, if if everyone's if everything's supposed to be
sort of dark fantasy, Extra Twisted, it's like Gog Magog
sounds like a giant in a normal Arthurian legend.
The imp sounds like a normal imp.
Like a. Why is it different?
Why is it some of them are like the lady the lake described here
is like sounds like a weird catfish thing, which is cool,
but you know. So that's why I was thinking 7,
which is like it's good, I want more, I want more 7 but yeah.
Yeah, I think, you know, and here's The thing is we're, I
mean we're just two schmucks talking about this game as if,
you know, I mean I don't, I don't know what I'm saying, but
you know, Christian actually does this for, you know, for a
living. But you know, we're rating this
not necessarily what it's for to an extent, but also for like
like it's not a Zine, it's not a Zine, it's a one page game.
But the it's dense enough that it could and then in my opinion
should be a Zine and that's why we're doing it that.
So take everything, all of this with a big grain of salt because
I think a lot of the nitpicks we have is really just coming down
to the format and but I think that's you know that's also a
choice that was made to do that as well.
So I I think this feels solid, I think 678687 for this feels
really good. I think if this was a Zine,
those numbers would really shoot up.
And fuck, I want to make this a Zine.
Scott, reach out. Let's make this a fucking Zine.
Like I'll fucking pay for a print run.
I don't care. I love this game.
I really, really, really do. And like you said Mordred in
there, Excalibur in there. Like a pointer hex crawl
adventurer in there. You know it would be so
fantastic. I mean just kind of you know
just this how them paranormal style give me a couple hexes
give me a couple lines and a couple of them and then I can
just I can run my. Beast going through you know to
try to give a scalibre and fight the posture more dress.
It's great. Because it's like a little.
Yeah. Because a little would go a long
way which is a good sign And that means that like the hard
work has been done. Like a good foundation has been
laid. The core bones are good here.
Right. But and like I said very little.
Like even if that that could be like it's like a one page like
you said, paranormal island, paranormal society, whatever the
word is like yeah just a, you know A33 Hecks across grid.
That's like you start here you got to go here to get Excalibur.
You got to come back to get the grail.
Here's more just yeah. It's like you know you can
envision And then the idea being that's kind of the intended one
shot but the system actually has enough theft to it that you
could play outside of that, which I think is cool.
Like it could be you could play a campaign in this.
I guess there's not really advancement but it's not that
kind of game. You're supposed to be doomed,
right? It's more like reverse
advancement. It's like trophy or something,
where you're set up to die, to fall away.
So, yeah, so positive for sure. Yeah, really.
We're saying we want more of it. Which is always give us, give us
more so. So yeah, so this is kicking off
the first day of October and our October Horror month we just
reviewed for a quick recap. Dark Grail, the Authorian horror
role-playing game from Scott Malhaus of Trollish Delver
Gaming. This is a D6 dice pull system
where you are afflicted Knights cursed by the grail.
That did not give you what you wanted, and now you are on a
hunt for Excalibur to break it. You choose archetypes, you put
some dice into those, and those dice are what you roll later,
including grail dice, which can make things worse for you even
as they power you. It also determines the items you
have and most of what you have in general, so it's kind of
classless in that sense. Your afflictions turn you into.
Beasts and cannot get better, you only get worse.
And sorcery is a very broad do what you want and discuss with
the DM the choices of that. Great game, Visual Six, Rule set
8, Vibes 7. It is just a one page game so
when it mind scene it is a Zine. So visually couldn't really give
a lot for that rule set. We both absolutely loved it.
It's great. There are some NIT Peaky bits, a
lot of it coming down to the format and vibes the same thing,
just want more of it giving a total of 21 and that is dark
grail Arthurian horror role-playing.
Christian, thank you so much for coming on.
It's really easy to talk for an hour and 40 minutes about a one
page game when you're talking with Christian, who obviously
knows what they're doing. Where can people find your stuff
and how can they contact you if they need to?
Yeah you can. Everyone can find.
You can find all my everything at meatcastlegameware.com.
It's G AM EWARE that links to all my other stuff like you know
Twitter and my each page. If you search me castle on most
of those things, you're probably going to find it though.
But yeah, that's where I both go.
As for me as Christian Spell, the writer, and also where I put
out my own things projects the best way, I would say if anyone
thought anything that I said here was interesting or
insightful, which maybe there's a small chance that could have
happened. Yeah, you can go to
meetcastle.substack.com and you can subscribe to my newsletter.
I have a it's just once a month and it once a month.
Or if I have a new release, I'll kick out something that I have a
new release. Those only come every two or
three months though, at this point, But I do an RPG free
thing every Sometimes that's like a campaign starter.
It's a optional class for a game.
It's an enemy for more boarding, those kind of things.
And also talk through this kind of stuff, like do a little game
review, do an adventure review, talk about a design issue I'm
running into and something and sort of talk through why it's a
problem and ways to fix it, that kind of thing.
So I think people who like the deep dive on a game that you
have here would probably like what I'm cooking up there, and
it's free. It's great.
I'm subscribed. I can't wait for what's coming
up. I know I've been dropping a.
A combined thing of everything you've done, and I'm really
excited for that. Yeah, this next, well, it's
October 1st today with us recording this, so this month's
issue will be the 12th issue since I started doing the free
thing. A month like RPG thing.
A month is part of it, yeah. So I'm gonna do the first Meat
Castle annual where I combine all those into an A5 scene.
And yeah, so the idea is like basically over the course of the
year I'm kind of making my own little magazine where it has
like this one's going to have like 3 or 4 things for
mothership to system agnostic sci-fi things.
It's going to have a whole game. It's going to have a sunless
space, my like Android inspired micro game, which is an even
more micro game than the one we talked about today in there and
that kind of stuff. So yeah, that's that's the thing
I'm working to put together these next few weeks because I
think that's going to be fun. If for no one else than me,
it'll just be fun to be like, look, all these little things I
made made a big thing. Yeah, no, it's going to be super
fun. I'm excited.
I read it every month. Like I said, I'm very stoked for
the print run that we're going to get.
Of that, sure, that'll be at least a small one.
Like I said, I want to do it just for me.
So I'm like if no one's interested, I'll just print
fifty of them and then slowly sell them or something.
All right. Thank you so much again for
coming on everyone listening TuneIn all month for a bunch of
horror stuff. I have something in the works
and we'll figure out what's going on with that.
But to be quite honest, Hunter, not to be quite honest, Hunter's
gonna be out for the first story weeks of the month.
At least he is going to be moving, which is fantastic to
leave the terrible places in to get to the West Coast.
So we're on the same time zone. So you will see various guests
for at least the first three weeks of October 1st, being one
of our Christiansville that was just here.
You can find all of us, all of our stuff at our link tree, just
like at the weekly scroll there. And that's our episode for
today. Again, Christian, thank you so
much and everyone out there. Have a wonderful day.
Bye.