rootring
rooted in blogs, linked in a ringRise Up Comus · linked by the ring
Posts by Rise Up Comus that other blogs in the ring have linked.
view: picked up recently most linked
Picked up recently
-
A while back, when juggling all the materials I needed to run a game, I had the idea for and mocked up a proof of concept of a hexcrawl dashboard--something that had everything...Linked by the ring
-
I've long been a big fan of kung fu movies, but only recently started dabbling in the core texts by reading a translation of The Legend of the Condor Heroes. This has prompted...Linked by the ring
-
"I would draw some of the great tales in fullness, and leave many only placed in the scheme, and sketched. The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope...
-
When you level up, you gain a random benefit based on your race or class. Here's what goblins get. You can also use this table for folks like half-orcs or maybe even tieflings,...Linked by the ring
-
There's nothing revolutionary in this post, but I think it contains generally good advice and feels worthwhile articulating.When an RPG gives you something generic, a player...
-
When you level up, you gain a random benefit based on your race or class. Here's what hobbits get.You can either roll a d10 for your culture to get a result from a...Linked by the ring
-
Sometimes when you're writing a dungeon room, it can feel like pulling teeth. The empty space and the stocking result of "Trap with Treasure" mocks you.Here's a technique to...
-
When you level up, you gain a random benefit based on your race or class. Here's what elf-friends get.What are elf-friends? Well:The master of the house was an elf-friend—one...Linked by the ring
-
When you level up, you gain a random benefit based on your race or class. Here's what elves get.This is ostensibly for the Middle-earth Hexcrawl project but I think it can be...Linked by the ring
-
When you level up, you gain a random benefit based on your race or class. Here's what humans get.You can either roll a d9 for your culture to get a result from a tightly-bound...Linked by the ring
-
It is 3 AM and I cannot sleep because I woke up with these random mechanics coming into my head. But one of the reasons you keep a blog is to have a place to dump such...
-
Schwew. OK. This turned into a long one. Break!! has the best crafting rules for an OSR game that I've ever seen. Originally, I was trying to borrow them for my little house...Linked by the ring
-
A magic item inspired by Phlox's version, here. Approaching from my premise that +1s are boring magic items, how can I adapt the classic periapt of wisdom?The periapt of wisdom...Linked by the ring
-
0501Southwest: Valley of Eternal CheerSouth: SnomesSoutheast: Jinglebell BarrensRANKIN/BASS PRO SHOP: A pyramid of silver and gold. The single obvious entrance at its base is...
-
0203North: Conifer MountainNortheast: Three CalvesSoutheast: The GrumpusSouth: Gingerbread Village HOUSE OF THE KRINGLES. A snowy landscape in the domain of the Winter Warlock....
-
Back in September of this year, I began a daily writing prompt inspired by this year's reread of The Lord of the Rings and Idraluna Archive's excellent hexmap of Middle-earth....
-
When you level up, you gain a random benefit based on your race or class. Here's what dwarves get.You can either roll a d7 for your house to get a result from a tightly-bound...Linked by the ring
-
In case you missed it, I'm currently running a direct pre-order campaign for my upcoming 100+ room, 5 level dungeon The Castle Automatic. Become an Early Worm now!But what's...Linked by the ring
-
An installment of my hexmap for Middle-earth project. Follow the "Middle-earth Hexmap" tag for all entries in this series.We previously visited the Northfarthing near Long...Linked by the ring
-
A goal with my Middle-earth Hexcrawl project is to capture the feeling I first came to love in Zelda: the feeling of wandering around and falling into a hole and realizing Oh...Linked by the ring
-
Here is a procedure to simulate getting a good night's sleep in the wilderness. An adventuring party will need to perform several jobs around camp. Each job accomplished...Linked by the ring
-
I reread The Lord of the Rings most years, and have done so since I was 12. As I was reading it this year, I was thinking about the physicality of journeys and exploration...Linked by the ring
-
When Warren first had the idea of an Appendix N blog bandwagon, I thought I'd skip it. His Majesty the Worm has an Appendix N section (Dungeon Meshi! House of Orr!...Linked by the ring
-
His Majesty the Worm advocates for the GM to give the players a copy of the dungeon map. In my opinion, this is all positives and practically no negatives. But of all my good...Linked by the ring
-
Weird Writer's prep post has started a bandwagon. I have enjoyed reading people's various modes of prep.As I am preparing a campaign right now (running the Yellow Book of...
-
The cockroachatrice is, like all animals with a stupid name, the result of a wizard's bad sense of humor. Goddamn, those idiots ruin everything.These 1' cockroaches have a...Linked by the ring
-
I don't think I'm the first person to make this observation (as an OSR blogger, I almost never am), but it occurred to me today how useful the saving throw names are for...
-
I have gone on record as saying that making a megadungeon is fun and easy. I wrote a book about it. But I have good news. It's even easier than I made it out to be. I want to...Linked by the ring
-
A while back, I wrote about the tensions between wanting no homework and settings with rich lore (and some potential solutions). Today, I'll write about another solution:...
-
My colleague, Warren at ICastLight, posited that we can embed short-term memory into tables like your encounter table to create a more dynamic or interesting engine for...Linked by the ring
-
As Dan pointed out in his post, the cleric's Turn Undead ability says something about the default setting of D&D: there are undead here. Indeed, for this to be a core class...Linked by the ring
-
What is deconstruction?In 1967, the French philosopher Jacques Derrida published the book Of Grammatology. In it, he reevaluated traditional Western ideas, claiming there is no...Linked by the ring
-
In many RPG books, character creation is right in the front of the book to give the new reader a sense of what the game is about, help them picture who they'll be playing and...Linked by the ring
-
Hello, happy New Year! As we start 2025, I have noticed that many people are spinning up dungeon-creation projects (Dungeon23 continues into its third year, and the Zungeon...Linked by the ring
-
Marcia at Traverse Fantasy had the idea of bite-sized dungeons--six room layouts that contain a normalized array of the types of rooms you can get in procedural generation in...Linked by the ring
-
Here are some equipment packages you can use when generating new characters. The goal is to make it quick and easy to pick some gear based on your motifs/failed careers without...Linked by the ring
-
The Lord of the Rings Adventure Game is one of my favorite licensed Tolkien games. It was released in 1991, and was largely the work of long-time ICE designer Jessica Ney...Linked by the ring
-
With the dissolution of so many things I once enjoyed (Twitter, America, etc.), I'm going to try and start doing more microblogging. Too many of my previous thoughts were...Linked by the ring
-
Here is a puzzle for your next dungeon. I have used it before. It is fun.There is a maze in the dungeon. It has many twists and turns, to say nothing about the zombies. Those...Linked by the ring
-
Who gives a fuck about an Oxford comma?Me. I do. His Majesty the Worm has a vampire in its Bestiary. Here are some variations on that theme to give you some variety based on...Linked by the ring
-
In 2023, like many people, I participated in Dungeon 23. The end result was two dungeons - one based on the tarot (for His Majesty the Worm) and one rambling cozy depthcrawl...
-
I love seeing everybody cooking up new kiths, kins, talents, and other player-facing rules for His Majesty the Worm during the Worm Jam.I wanted to offer a few guiding...
-
Another technique you can use to defeat the tyrant blank page is to make big lists of cool things.Let’s say that you’re working on a dungeon and you’re hoping to create 20-ish...Linked by the ring
-
Like a mutant who has adapted to nuclear-irradiated wasteland and can't actually survive on water that doesn't make a Geiger-counter go nuts, I still go to Twitter. It's...Linked by the ring
-
This is a post about three storytelling techniques I've seen in media - and at the RPG table. InitiationIn initiation stories, the audience is brought into some conspiracy or...Linked by the ring
-
This is a submission to DIY&Dragon's Summer LEGO RPG Setting Jam.The Induction"And you'll note that the people in Peaksville, Ohio, have to smile. They have to think happy...
-
It is well documented in the blogosphere that D&D fantasy produces a shift from fantastic as unique to fantastic as science. For example, in the myths, there is a single...Linked by the ring
-
The OSR space has discussed the importance of framing interesting combats. It has not done the same amount of work to provide concrete advice on running interesting social...Linked by the ring
- CATMAIL #2 AMONG CATS AND BOOKS
- The Bloggies Hall of Fame Explorers Design
- Seven-Part Pact: Combat A Knight at the Opera
Show 1 more
-
Dungeon games have a historical bad reputation of being all about kicking down doors and looting treasure. But even games with the most traditional trappings of bash-n-loot...Linked by the ring
-
Sometimes, I see the question: "How do I run an RPG like a metroidvania/like Hollow Knight/like Blasphemous?" I'm making this blog post mostly so I have something to link to...