Ben L

Missives from Beyond the Veil of Sleep | Ben Laurence | Substack The tabletop roleplaying game newsletter of Ben Laurence, author of the zine Through Ultan's Door and the podcast Into the Megadungeon. I use this newsletter to share thoughts on the hobby, glimpses o...

I am working on a new series of posts on some simmering projects. I'm also about to drop a whole boatload of resources for Mothership in honor of Mothership Month. You can get all this ttrpg goodness straight to your inbox by subscribing here: ultansdoor.substack.com

I was hoping to do a zine w/ the downtime system I've been developing for my Gradient Descent campaign that uses Prospero's Dream as the home base for Mothership Month. But I couldn't make the deadline! So I'm going to release it as a series of posts on my newsletter/blog. Just like it was 2010!

For those who play Delta Green or modern day Call of Cthulhu, you need to know about the "Shotgun Scenarios", 1500 word or less short scenarios that are submitted to a contest every year. A treasure trove! Start by reading Polygraph and Relief from 2024. fairfieldproject.wikidot.com/shotgun-scen...

Saw this at an antique store. Thought of my friend @grandscheme.bsky.social and @benlaurence.bsky.social when I saw him.

Image with black background of a figure holding a torch in a cave that looks like teeth with the Words Orestruck an adventure by Amanda P. out now

Today my new adventure Orestruck is officially released! Return to the Tannic Forest to confront monstrosities, both magical and mundane.

Itch weirdwonder.itch.io/orestruck
DrivethruRPG www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/5...

@spacepenguinink.bsky.social spacepenguin.ink/collections/...

Astronaut, by Clifford Hooper Rowe, undated.

Finally! I have been lost for a span of time, at least a fortnight, during which Between Two Cairns, the weekly event by witch I measure the passing tempo of my life, was absent.

The Ten People You Would Meet in a Hill Cantons Prison Hello remember me, people?  Insert the usual round of excuses about life, work, the difficulties of this period, etc. But hey I am writing ...

@kutalik.bsky.social's Hill Cantons blog is back with a glorious post. Just look at these charlatans and seedy ne'er-do-wells hillcantons.blogspot.com/2025/09/reme...

I think more people see a substack post. People like the newsletter mailed to their inbox!

The Dream-Ship Captain A Dreamlands Character Class in Honor of Lovecraft's Birthday

James Maliszewski has been doing the most incredible series of B/X classes for a Lovecraftian dreamlands setting, some on his blog and some on his new substack. They're SO GOOD. Check out this one: open.substack.com/pub/grognard...

Pergamino Barocco A weird little spellbook that looks like a weird little spellbook. For fantasy and occult RPGs. System agnostic. Fully weird.

Want a weird spellbook? I got you covered!
The Pergamino Barocco kickstarter is live!
www.kickstarter.com/projects/los...

Stat this lunar pointcrawl

DREAMLAND ADVENTURE

Seven volumes of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. The spines show an increasing crumbling Roman column.

The design of these old covers for Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is amazing

it's striking

YouTube video by Shout! Studios Deathstalker - Official Trailer | IN THEATERS OCTOBER 10

This trailer for the remake of Deathstalker is stupid in the best possible way youtu.be/fAdo8drjc_M?...

Illustration of an humanoid cactus, in the desert, wearing combar geat, with 2 white masks, holding a basket of smaller cacti.

They are a peculiar species that thrive in the arid plains. Telepathic and featureless, they often wear masks to facilitate interaction with humans, and scavenge gear from those who don’t survive the heat.

#osr #ttrpg #art #illustration

Still jealous of Toronto OSR after all these years

YouTube video by Gila RPGs Dungeon Design Course: Day 1

My first video doing the Designing Dungeons course by @riseupcomus.bsky.social is up on youtube!

I plan on streaming each segment of this process. Today was introductions and theme. Can't wait to dive in again!

youtu.be/v4r3N-Mzw3k

A starry hand reaches from Heaveb toward a supplication with a sacrifice.

Drome, Jesse Lonergan

European postal services suspend shipment of packages to US over tariffs Multiple postal services around Europe say they are suspending the shipment of many packages to the United States amid a lack of clarity over new import duties.

Welp apnews.com/article/us-t...

An Open Letter to Kickstarter Creators: Why We, Kickstarter United, Are Fighting for a Four-Day 32-Hour Workweek Dear Kickstarter Creators & Allies, We’re writing to you as Kickstarter United—the union of designers, support specialists, product managers, engineers, and more who power this platform and are h...

It’s time for a fair contract. Our union is fighting to protect what makes @kickstarter.com special, and we need your support. Sign onto our petition to show your solidarity: actionnetwork.org/petitions/ks...

If you're a small press or independent tabletop creator who must soon halt shipments to the US because of Trump's axing the de minimis tariff exemption, I want to hear from you.

email: chase@rascal.news
or, chasewrites@protonmail.com
DMs: open

I have three dark fantasy print bundles left here:
mana-meltdown.backerkit.com/hosted_preor...
Last chance to grab one before next print run

This seems real bad

*watching my crewmate be eviscerated by a xenomorph*

“This is so sad. Mother, play Despacito.”

Last two minis I made for playing MAC Attack which is almost out of time to back here: www.backerkit.com/c/projects/b...

The Dream-Quest of the Old School Renaissance Earlier this week, in the first entry of the ( temporarily? ) revived Pulp Fantasy Library series, I wrote about H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Silv...

I love this post by James Maliszewski about aging in the hobby, and about Lovecraft's The Silver Key, and the way ttrpgs can be a silver key that open a door to our childhood imagination. It's beautifully expressed. Read it. grognardia.blogspot.com/2025/08/the-...

A spell: Wings of Talent, Stone of Necessity. Those who have chosen a life of scholarship, with few ex­cep­tions, lack martial talent, when are not outright puny. For them — for us, dear initiate — the usefulness of a certain "other" cannot be understated. Hire them from the streets, summon them from thin air, or grant the office to an other­wise undistinguished in-law. Call them champion, bodyguard, grog, in some climes kagemusha (when dressed and masked as your double); perhaps porter or valet, but one of uncommon loyalty, able to interpose a comforting bulk between your esoteric talents and the forces birthed of dull matter which threaten them. It is for such loved ones that Zacquetoon, choirmistress and quartermaster of the Serpentine Scholia, formed a potent allegory out of the purest Yellow words of Transmutation. Some will call vulgar the artist's reliance on gross sympathetic principles, but then, consider what the effect can do, and what kind of person it enhances. You must prepare materials, namely: a stone of unitary com­position (that is, not a conglomerate) to be held in your hand sinister, and a pair of birds' wings from a flitting species such as swift or martlet to be bound by a spangled cord to your wrist dexter. Your muscular comrade must be visible, within thirty feet, bipedal, and facing the same direction. That is to say, your eyes must be upon their back. You and them must perform the same arm movements requred by this incantation, while you croon synchronic cadences in the tongue of spells. At the end of this lesson, for ten full minutes by the sand-clock the enchanted champion will strike twice as rapidly with their right hand, and twice as forcefully (that is, doing double damage) with their left, so long as you keep a tight grip on the stone, and keep the wings at your wrist. There is a period woodcut depicting a buff wizard with stone and wings.

"Wings of Talent, Stone of Necessity" is one of the strange spells in our next strange spellbook, Pergamino Barocco.

www.kickstarter.com/projects/los...

woah I haven't seen that one. It's in my queue now!