This is my #nerdy9th post.
So, you know how around the holidays every year there’s some kind of Secret Santa exchange?
In the OSR/gaming world, that exchange comes in the form of Santicore, a swap of adventures, monsters, treasures, NPCs, and ideas that get requested, created, and then published online for everyone to read and use. This year, Santicore is 5 PDFs chock full of tables, artwork, maps, and ideas to use.
My submission is the Golem’s Spa, an underground manufacturing complex for a giant robot, in the Adventures PDF. Here’s what the requestor sent me yesterday by email:
Wow, it looks like you put a lot of work into my Santicore request. Just to let you know I really appreciate it. The complex fits well with my vision and I will have fun working it into my campaign if things go that way.It is a great twist that the Woman of Iron is sentient and witty, now how she acquired that consciousness is the question, as her male counterpart was a big destroying lug controlled by his nine smaller-size metal parts each fused to the body of a different wearer. I like the oozes too, this is obviously a different branch of dwarven civilization that sculpted this area! Lots to think about.
I had so much fun writing that adventure, although if I were going to revise it one more time, I’d include more of the feedback I got from one of my beta readers, who had great suggestions for demonstrating the long passage of time. I’d probably also do a finer edit on the whole thing– I noticed when I re-read it yesterday a couple of unclear descriptions. And hire a map artist, because, unsurprisingly, my maps are terrible.
There is no possible way I will ever make as much money as a game designer as I do writing technical manuals. Getting an email like the one above made my day and put a huge smile on my face.
(I don’t remember what my request was, but I’m pretty sure it was the “torture devices in a dungeon” entry, which is filed in Adventures.)