Epidiah awoke, startled, from a dream

A cartoony map view of an archipelago, with each island more fantastical than the last. There is a farm island, a small island with a smiling tree, an island of overgrown ruined architecture with deer on it. a crystal island with happy ghosts, a tropical island witha thatch roof house and pond, a volcano island, and a forest island with a giant golden skull peeking through. In the water is a whale, a giant purple octopus, and a sailboat with a heart on the sail.

Have I shown you my seven odd islands? Seven magical places to visit with your imagination ✨ Designed as a soft and touchable blanket playmap for all the little ones you know who love telling stories!

Today marks the first day I have ever made it halfway through the Advent of Code.

a screenshot of discords great wrap-up that says "checkpoint unavailable: this happens if you're new here or have privacy settings enabled that limit personalization..." among other things

oh this is very literally a carrot/stick combo to get folks to enable more data tracking and personalization, damn.

Apocalypse World: Burned Over The 3rd edition of the groundbreaking original.

Would you like a #AW3rd moniker for the season? Reply with 1 bit of apocalyptica & I’ll give you one! Because we hit $170k & I’m feeling festive about it.

At $180k, all backers get the “Creator’s Guide to PBTA” pdf for free. 13 days to go!
#ttrpg #pbta

www.kickstarter.com/projects/lum...

I stopped by this week and topped up the playmaps! Heads up: if you are hoping to grab one before the holidays, what's on the shelves is now 95% of my remaining stock.

Minneapolis police chief warns officers: Stop unlawful force by ICE or lose your job Chief Brian O’Hara says he’ll fire city police officers if they don’t intervene when immigration agents use unlawful force.

This is great. Very few people want to go to jail, get disbarred or die for this regime. Make them fight you. They will cave.

www.ms.now/news/minneap...

Woman Hailed as Hero for Smashing Man's Meta Smart Glasses on Subway A New York subway rider has accused a woman of breaking his Meta smart glasses. She was later hailed as a hero.

protect her at all costs

i see your "cellar door" and raise you "roll the bones for the overtone"

Text: Working title: An Apocalypse of Infinite Games Making Your Own RPG the PbtA Way 1st Look Excerpt

2 weeks until the end of the campaign and here's our last(?) stretch goal!

www.kickstarter.com/projects/lum...

*ahem*

Mud Ghost Estate Redux—A Spooky Tumbling Tower TTRPG A spooky tumbling block tower-based TTRPG inspired by Hong Kong folklore; now with revised text, new artwork and extra content!

As someone like, borderline obsessed with the game Dread, this distinctly Hong Kong take by @wharthur.bsky.social looks absolutely irresistable. Don't miss the redux kickstarter!

www.kickstarter.com/projects/wha...

Playing Outside the Mainstream - McFarland Playing Outside the Mainstream Essays on Indie Tabletop Roleplaying Games Edited by Stephanie Hedge Series Editor Matthew Wilhelm Kapell 978-1-4766-9424-5 978-1-4766-5811-7

I wrote an essay on the basics of platforms and indie TTRPGs for this volume, which will come out in 2026

mcfarlandbooks.com/product/Play...

For the Swords-curious! I'll be on Lore Link on Dec 16th to talk about tones and motifs and morals and rogues!

Lore Link Streaming Schedule for December 2025: Tuesday, December 2nd @ 5:00 PM EST - Mike returns to planning a game on stream, this time working on planning a game for the Lore Link Players on Friday the 5th. Friday, December 5th @ 1:00 PM EST - Mike is joined by the Lore Link Players as he runs them through the D&D 5E adventure, Crashing Winterfest by Dump Stat Adventures. Tuesday, December 9th @ 4:00 PM EST - Mark and the Lore Link Players are joined by Justin from Ugli Games for a game of Reel Fear. Tuesday, December 16th @ 5:00 PM EST - Mark sits with Eppy Ravachol to talk about the game Swords Without Master. Tuesday, December 23rd @ 5:00 PM EST - The final stream of 2025! Join the team as they play a laid-back game, reflect on 2025, and talk about what they’re looking forward to in 2026.

Normally, we try to take it easy on streaming in December. Everyone's got a lot to do, ya know?

Yeah, not this year. 🤣

Please, feel free to join us!

A good week for me in ttrpg!

Monday recording AP of Paint the Town Red with an amazing table at @whohurtyouap.bsky.social

Tuesday hosting my monthly First Tuesday TTRPG oneshots night with 3 GMs. I got to run the fantastic Wolfspell by @epidiah.bsky.social

Tonight, my 3-year running home game!

Okay I have one more.

This adventure is full of rust belt anxieties, cosmic wrongnesses, and just a teeeeeensy dash of Omelas thrown in for good measure. And ghosts. So many ghosts.

When you must do without hope, there is always vengeance. Says Skeletor looking like maybe hope has run out.

The Reflection Episode In this episode, Nathan and Eppy reflect on the first year of this podcast, talk about how things change in the doing, and discuss how creating a community is part of the overall endeavor. This leads ...

New ep Wednesday! We reflect on a year of the podcast, talk about how making the thing changes the thing, and survey feedback tools and frameworks to use in play and design.

Listen: unwrittenearths.fireside.fm/28
Subscribe: unwrittenearths.fireside.fm/subscribe
Support: patreon.com/UnwrittenEar...

This means we're now watching our streaming services through Firefox with an ad blocker. Which means the only commercials I see now are:

🤢 YouTuber ad reads
🐅 Lager of Lamot

The former you can just assume are scams, like VPNs or Ground.News or whatever.

We recently rearranged our household a bit to accommodate some long term guests. That process led to a change in how we watch our videos. Where we using to use a Chromecast attached to a TV, now we use my desktop plugged into a smaller TV that I use as a second monitor.

Holy shit!

I'm sharing my early environment concepts for Young Suns over on my blog today! www.portablecity.net/early-enviro...

Wow!

America is a country that will test UBI hundreds of times, get the same radically positive results each time, and still look at it askance, but will also put untested robotaxis on the road because a billionaire threw a shit fit.

So yeah, if you're represented by a Republican in a district that was carried by less than 20 points, tomorrow would be a good day to call and demand that the ACA subsidies continue.

Ah, but I'm making a table. Like an actual table filled with table data.

Are there more invisible wrappers like that? I guess I was assuming any tag could be made visible or invisible.