Latest from the Labyrinth #25
Languishing in the labyrinth
To quote Chris Bissette: it’s April, have a newsletter.
Sandbox
No zinis finished this month: mostly this was due to me completing the posts below, thinking I’d have more time to complete the outstanding material for the sandbox before the end of the month. I was wrong.
Alone in the Labyrinth
The blog is the main development space for 4 projects at the moment:
White Chalk, an “almanac” style setting inspired by Neolithic Britain
City of 100 Gods, a “stone-and-sorcery” megalopolis inspired by Appendix N fiction, module B4, antediluvian mythology and the Schwarzenegger Conan movies
The Complete Pariah Sandbox, a re-write of my old school psychedelic animist RPG with built-in setting generation tools and a “starter” setting
City of Ghosts, the semi-mythical Pariah adventure that I never seem to finish
Writing that all down makes it abundantly clear that I’m never going to finish anything if I don’t focus on one thing at a time, but more on that later!
Two posts went up in March for White Chalk:
https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2025/03/white-chalk-cold-moon-almanac-25.html
https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2025/03/white-chalk-crow-moon-212-almanac-25.html
Each posts details the seasonal changes and events in a single six mile hex, including extensive encounter tables. The regional map is actually much bigger, but I’m already struggling with the star map/planisphere so I may have to hold back on expanding this for now.
The City of 100 Gods was expanded further with the remaining wards of the Ladders and their patron deities: I particularly like the notion of ghoul-priests as gangster-landlords and tomb-brokers. Just saying there’s some good shit in my material, though often buried deep.
https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2025/04/city-of-100-gods-410-last-ladders.html
Lastly, relevant to the broader Pariah sandbox/setting is this post regarding The Moon, which exists as both a physical object that can be visited and a parallel plane of existence (which can also be visited). I was hoping this could be squeezed into the zini format for the sandbox but so far no joy.
https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2025/03/the-moon-realm.html
Games
I’ve continued to run Atop the Wailing Dunes as a play-by-post game on my discord server. It’s been fun so far: currently on the third day, with a mysterious sorcerer and his baboon troop attempting to separate the party from their food and valuables. It’s a very slow format for what’s an already glacially slow adventure (I think Nova/Idle Cartulary described it as getting into “the nitty-gritty of travelling every mile-by-,mile”), not helped by my erratic posting schedule… but I think the remaining players are having fun. I know I am!
Bye for now
I’m not going to bore you with any further mental health updates. I’m currently in Vietnam with family, getting eaten by mosquitoes. Doing lots of running in the early hours while everyone sleeps. It’s good, but I’ll be back in the UK soon and facing some challenging times!
Until the next edition,
Sofinho