Latest from the Labyrinth #16
Star-studded Asterion
The wheel of time turns inexorably and with the advent of July we find ourselves face-to-face with this 16th edition of Latest from the Labyrinth.
It’s been a relatively prolific months relative to overall output this year: I began the month by concluding the vaguely UFO/contemporary folklore inspired PARIAH posts with a D12 list of Intelligent Interdimensional Entities. It got a little weird but that’s entirely in keeping with the psychedelic source material: why can’t proto-Neolithic psychonauts hang out with A.Square from Flatlands?
https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2024/06/d12-unexpected-intelligent-entities.html
I continued to play through some solo sessions of Gangs of Titan City, you can read my semi-narrative/semi-mechanical play reports here:
https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2024/06/gangs-of-titan-city-solo-game-session-2.html
https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2024/06/gangs-of-titan-city-solo-game-session-3.html
https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2024/06/gangs-of-titan-city-solo-session-4-2nd.html
You will note that by the fourth post I acknowledge that I’ve had to put the ghost of my PARIAH lunchtime sandbox to rest: it just wasn’t practical to get a table (virtual or otherwise) of players together at that time. I’m determined to find a way forward as I am DESPERATE to get City of Ghosts into good enough shape for us to launch a Kickstarter (or similar) at some point this year.
However, playing Gangs of Titan City solo did encourage me to look at solo gaming with other systems, and I used some of my weird free time to launch a solo delve into Cavegirl’s Stygian Library using retroclone Blueholme as my OS(R). I’ve only written up one post related to this (I try to keep playing and reporting as two separate activities), but you can read my initial thoughts here (and expect play reports to come thick and fast next month):
https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2024/06/blueholme-stygian-library-solo.html
Meanwhile, watching Scavengers Reign encouraged me to have another think about how to generate a psychedelic experience in PARIAH’s Dawn Realm, leading to this very sketchy and rambling post. Please bear with me on this one, it might take a number of iterations but I think this is going to be great!
https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2024/06/developing-pariahs-dawn-realm-influence.html
Finally, thoughts about contemporary animism in last month’s ARIADNE’S THREAD led me to think about how shrines can be used as site-specific spellbooks, and ultimately turned into the post below:
https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2024/06/spell-spirit-houses-small-shrines-to.html
I took one week’s leave from my day job to re-energise and also get some “stuff” done. Some of that “stuff” involved setting up an online shop for Atelier Hwei, but I haven’t gotten round to that yet! In the meantime, you can order print-on-demand copies of my PARIAH stuff at the links below:
PARIAH VOLUME 1
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/311826/PARIAH-Volume-1
ATOP THE WAILING DUNES
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/458091/Atop-the-Wailing-Dunes
SPIRITS OF THE HERE & NOW (a bestiary)
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/463621/Spirits-of-the-Here--Now
I realise that I should also send an invitation out to the Atelier HWei discord. Here’s one!
https://discord.gg/mv9QSGcP
Other Stuff
I’ve enjoyed using Instagram to share and promote the excellent indie & OSR RPG material I’ve acquired over the years, particularly relating to Zinequest 2. Have a look (and a read if you’re so inclined… there’s sometimes little reviews of the games with the posts):
https://www.instagram.com/aloneinthelabyrinth/
Very, very excited to receive a copy of ECO-MOFOS by David Blandy and Daniel Locke. It’s really beautiful. I’ll be making a blogpost all about it very soon, but in the meantime… just go and buy it:
https://iglootree.com/eco-mofos-by-david-blandy--daniel-locke-3927-p.asp
I was fortunate to receive a copy from David as we prepared to play some CAIRN 2e. Without getting too much into RPG taxonomy, Cairn shares a lot of DNA with Eco Mofos in that they have a common ancestor in Into the Odd. I’m not sure if the relationship is parent-child or if they’re cousins, but they’re related. Anyway, Yochai has written a really great introductory Cairn adventure which I ran in that session, Rise of the Blood Olms. It’s available on itch.io:
https://yochaigal.itch.io/rise-of-the-blood-olms
Hopefully I’ll have a print copy of Beyond the Pale in my hands soon, and I’ll be running some more CAIRN with a twist of Jewish Folklore face-to-face. It felt really good to GM my first session at a physical table since running HEART nearly 2 years ago, and Cairn was a great way to break back into it. However, there seems to be some distro issues with Beyond the Pale outside of the US, so I may have to run it from PDF (which would make me sad).
In other Kickstarter news, the eagerly awaited remaster of Cavegirl’s Gardens of Ynn hit the virtual shops a few weeks ago and it is BEAUTIFUL:
Again, cannot WAIT until the physical is in my hands but you can download your own copy in PDF form here (this is an affiliate link):
https://legacy.drivethrurpg.com/product/237544/The-Gardens-Of-Ynn?affiliate_id=767873
Semiurge’s writing this month has been incendiary, and as is fitting with something so incandescent, is visiting the snap, crackle and pop of the quasi- elemental plane of lightning:
https://archonsmarchon.blogspot.com/2024/06/the-quasi-elemental-plane-of-lightning.html
has also been on top form of late, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading this post devoid of context (having missed the background/campaign set up post). The post does begin with a content warning, which I’ll repeat below:Everyone knows that life is suffering and the world is broken. It's just that you're a little more broken than the rest of the world. Or, that's what the world is telling you. The mission statement is that they're going to fix you, but nobody really maintains the pretense on the inside.
Bad things happen inside the Academy, seriously. Violence, dehumanization, indoctrination, forced biochemical and body mutilation. It's some real dark shit. You've been warned.
https://weirdwonderfulworlds.blogspot.com/2024/06/heavens-gate-academy-interodelic.html
Max was assisted by Dan of Lacrimis Draconis in preparing this post and I realise I didn’t previously share the Basquiat Tarot that Dan put together first time around. Basquiat is one of my favourite artists: as the original artpunk it seems fitting that Dan has drawn parallels between him and Scrap Princess. Lots of games are starting to use tarot cards as both randomiser and oracle, so give it an intriguing twist with this incredible deck:
https://lacrimisdraconis.blogspot.com/2024/05/the-basquiat-tarot-v13.html
Finally, Rook is hosting this month’s RPG Blog Carnival, concerned principally with linguistics. I have about 3 posts half-finished linked to this theme, so I’m eager to get at least one of them out before August is upon us!
https://foreignplanets.blogspot.com/2024/06/words-etymology-onomatology-and.html
There was no Ariadne’s Thread this month as the theme (landscape & RPG design) has twisted me in a lot of knots. I have a great deal to say on how these two disciplines my own work, but articulating that in a manner with which I’m satisfied is proving challenging. Probably means there’s some gold there, so I’m going to keep sieving through my mental mud until I find it. If you’re lucky, I’ll even get a second post about something else entirely later in the month.
Until then, that is all.
~ Sofinho