(Yeah, I'm sure they already fixed this in later editions. I kinda never absorbed setting fluff past 2e, though. My head is full of TSR-era lore and WotC-era rules. So I'm gonna just do this myself and pretend it's original.)

Anyway, it's enough to help me try out my basic conception of the setting. So, here's what I got on my first roll.

I recently went down a path like that, and it led me to making a web page that kinda-sorta simulates the ancient Mighty Men & Monster Maker—kind of a drawing-with-training-wheels toy, and arguably an analog precursor to video game character customization systems.

However. I'm an admitted simulation sicko, and I've also got another version of that mechanic in mind. It might be too annoying to use at the table due to the small but persistent cognitive load it would add to the already-more-hassle-than-AC armor-as-DR system I proposed previously.

Damage types are a good example of that, making it easy to add verisimilitudinous mechanics like vulnerabilities, immunities, and special damage interactions (such as flesh golems being slowed by heat and cold attacks, but healed by electricity). You obviously don't need formalized damage types for that, but they help you do it consistently: You don't have to argue about whether a ray gun burns mummies if it explicitly does 2d4 fire damage.

I kept everything simple enough to explain right on the character sheet, fearing to scare off my players with a more formal rules document. But I never ended up actually running anything in the system, so I can't say if those very spare notes—or even my own understanding of how the rules should work—were really sufficient.

Anyway, I recently rewatched Lord of Illusions (much recommended, by the way), and the opening scene really made me want to run a grimy, nasty horror game about cults, crime, and the occult underground. So here's a proper write-up of Lucky 6.

Right now, there are only a handful of images there, all photos from over a decade ago. I'll gradually add newer stuff, and maybe even some older stuff. In theory, I could include stuff other than photographs, if I've got anything worth sharing.

But, back in the '00s or '10s or so, there was a lot of TTRPG discourse around the idea that alignment could actually be cool if you treated it as an objectively real phenomenon, a manifestation of some kind of cosmic conflict. That could make a bit more sense out of things like spells that detect alignment, magic items that work differently depending on the alignment of their wielder or target, and maybe even the much-derided concept of alignment languages.

So it's known colloquially as "The City of Wolves", but that name is pretty much a massive spoiler, so on book covers and when told to children the first time, it's usually called "Ellisset and Her Siblings".

So, this is the long-delayed followup to the scrambled spell names post I made a while back. That post took me forever because I attempted to write my spell up not just with 5e mechanics, but in the WotC house style. This time, I'm going to try doing them B/X style (or a loose approximation, anyway), since I'm currently thinking about that edition a lot.

I've been skeptical about the whole paradigm. I've read a lot of OSR folks' apologia on the concept, and some of their ideas worked for me, others didn't. But on the whole I do think I see some virtues there. Three, in fact.