We're midway through March and already people have shared their creations for this month's RPG Blog Carnival on the theme "Tiny Epics: Small Souls in a Big World!". This community event is ongoing, and I wanted to discuss some people's published content as well as some discussion that occurred around the internet. Share your creations with me early, and I'll do weekend updates in addition to the final roundup on March 31st.
This is a non-exhaustive collection of stories and media that features little folk, whether people or other creatures. I gathered this raw list in my notes due to my interest over the past year in creating my Tabletop Roleplaying Game, Small Souls, which is for telling adventures and scenarios within this genre. Knowing the different kinds of stories that already exist helps me keep in mind the different tales players may want to tell with the game system. This really is a genre in itself, which I didn't fully appreciate prior to this proejct! I think that "Little folk" probably best describes it.
The small ones among us are sometimes overlooked, but they surely have grand tales to tell! This March, let's explore these tiny epics for the RPG Blog Carnival. This is a community event, so we'll ponder some ideas for this theme, then get to creating and start some discussion! Share your creations with me early and I'll do weekend updates along with a final roundup on March 31st.
As with everyone, let alone bloggers, life can grab you by the collar and you just gotta run with it! With my hectic life aside, I feel it is appropriate to set some expectations for what kind of content I intend to write here, along with a brief introduction. Even if it is mostly to motivate myself to check off some boxes in the future, heheh.
I am Errant and I think about many things! In my daily life, I am a computer scientist. I research topics, analyze problems, design mathematical models & develop algorithmic solutions! Here, I will do the same for my hobbies, sharing more freeform thoughts that occur over time as I learn, and revising some pages as a wiki for the refined concepts.
Settlements often serve as a safe haven or a base of operations in traditional roleplaying games, with cities being the most common place for an adventure to occur in a settlement. What about smaller settlements? As part of the RPG Cauldron Secret Santicorn I'm hosting in 2025, which is separate from the typical Rainbow OSR Secret Santicorn, I received a request by Sully Tames to explore making the settlement itself the adventure site.
The town/settlement as an adventure site in itself. What if you never had to leave the tavern to go on an adventure?
Alright! This is a good one that lets me use my research skills to understand what already exists out there and then provide some analysis of patterns and ways to make the adventure stay in a confined location. I use "settlement" to include a single more permanent building than a campsite in the smallest scale and a city in the largest scale.
A Rankin/Bass themed location for a Merry Hexmas based on their 1982 animation of "The Last Unicorn". Where the mountains meet the coastline Haggard's Stronghold stubbornly resits the crashing waves of the Swirly Twirly Sea of Gumdrops.
The last candy cane caribou is somewhere in the North Pole, and is on a journey to find if she really is the last of her kind. This hex is her final destination where all her questions will finally be answered.
I created a Rankin/Bass inspired creature that dwells in flocks among the mountain tops. This creature is the Ramkin, an intelligent yet primitive being with a ram's head and curling horns as well as a ram's hind legs. The ramkin's upper body is like that of a gorilla, muscular and in this case wool covered. Their hefty fists on their gorilla like arms are covered in keratin like their hooves, which protects their knuckles, and they have opposable thumbs with their two large and thick fingers which are plated in that keratin. They can grip and climb with their hands as well as walk and run on them as if hooves.
As part of my Secret Santicorn present for "500poundsofnothing", I researched the concept of undeath where I encountered a claim that "undead" as a term that we recognize today is rather recent as of 1897 from Bram Stoker's "Dracula". I'm sharing what I found. While incomplete, I still find it interesting to consider the use of "undead" as we think of it today.
Another year, another December, another Secret Santicorn present delivered. This time I deliver the present of "The Origin of Undeath" to 500poundsofnothing.
The origin of undeath.
I've split this into two posts. One for some initial research I did on the origins of undeath as a term. And here, the main post including a short story and a couple of initial ideas for "classes" and their abilities pertaining to the type of undeath featured in the story.
As part of Prismatic Wasteland's Rankin/Bass-themed 2025 Merry Hexmas, I've contributed the Powder Plains as a snowfield hex. A relatively peaceful snowfield featuring multiple towns including Snowville, a village of cold elementals which neighbors the Snow Henge. January Junction makes an appearance along with Snowdin, inspired from Undertale. Also features Keh Night Automata and a twisted Cult of Janus.
As part of Prismatic Wasteland's Rankin/Bass-themed 2025 Merry Hexmas, I present the Rime Ridge, a dense mountain range thick with fog that tends to freeze into hard rime ice upon all surfaces. An icey mist covered mountain range inspired by the Misty Mountains of Rankin/Bass's films 1977 "The Hobbit" and 1964 "Rudolph's Shiny New Year".
A jagged mountain range that features a long dormant volcano, Mount Heart, with a frozen spire at its top. The hollowed out volcano that was once mined for its riches and resources is now abandoned. Perhaps due to the dark secrets within its depths?
This is inspired by the Mines of Moria from "The Lord of the Rings" as well as the Rankin/Bass films "The Hobbit", "Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King", "Jack Frost", and "Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July". Extra inspiration comes from Disney's movie Frozen and the 1844 "The Snow Queen" by Hans Christian Andersen.
A Rankin/Bass themed location for a Merry Hexmas. A mysterious fog covered valley with a winding river between the various hills. The headless Chevalier Vert roams the vale from dusk to dawn in search of his lost head. In the mornign he turns to mist and the Jabberwock takes his place, albeit hunting for other's heads to mash and nash and misplace.
Prismatic Wasteland has kicked off the Blogwagon: Hexmas where he calls for bloggers to create multiple hexes within a shared world inspired by the thematic Christmas cinematic universe of Rankin and Bass, such as the stop motion "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer" and the animated "Frosty the Snowman". Rankin/Bass are also responsible for various other animations and stop motion films, including the original Lord of the Rings "Hobbit" and "Return of the King" animated films.
Given this, I provide four hexes to join the existing others, each of which I shall briefly detail here and then later on further refine and develop in their own blog post each following this one.
New Year's Resolutions are ephemeral. Self-reflections chart your course for a journey. Let's revolutionize our resolutions with purposeful reflection.
Around late November to after New Year's Day is a time of purposeful reflection for my friends and I. We dedicate time to consider what we are thankful for, the difficulties we've faced, our achievements, where we are, and where we choose to go in the new year. All this with an ample amount of answering the question, "Why?"! We've been self-reflecting and discussing every new year for the past three years, making this upcoming new year our fourth.
I want to share our process with you.
I've decided to join in the festivities of this November's RPG Blog Carnival. This month's theme is "Feasts and Festivals" in tabletop role-playing games as hosted by of Dice and Dragons.
I will discuss some real world festivals and mythology as sources of inspiration for one of my custom settings, Ophelos.
In the NSR Cauldron Discord, I wrote a community prompt in hopes that I could get a community effort to characterize Granny Jam, a character I made up who specializes in creating magical jams and jellies. Under the pretense of creating magical jam and jelly items coupled with sharing stories of a time when Granny Jam used those jams, I was hoping we would discover the emergent character of Granny Jam and come to a better understanding of who she is as more people shared (made up) stories about her and her wares.
It never took off, but I do love the initial concept of Granny Jam and this idea for emergent characters from collaborative prompts. I wanted to share her here, at least through what I originally wrote up for the collaborative prompts.
It's Christmas in July and I'm delivering a missing present to Kontent Punch from Secret Santicorn 2024.
Oh no, it's Snow!
At first, I interpreted this as make some snow problems to solve, monsters in particular as this is OSR. I later realized that it is "Snow" not "snow" so its a named entity. So here's a 1d4 of cold based elementals and if I come back to this, I'll add some loose concept for a named entity of Snow, perhaps a character or a supernatural spirit.
It's Christmas in July and I'm delivering a missing present to Fairdragoon from Secret Santicorn 2022.
Cities, politicians and/or ministries of the enlightened retro-sci-fi uplifted dinosaur kingdom for a political/intrigue style game
This was a lot to take in for me, but after a bit I got something fun and a terrifying concept for a T-rex with monstrous mecha arms.
It's Christmas in July and I'm delivering a missing present to Ighton of Serene Library from Secret Santicorn 2022.
dHoweverManyYouFeelLike Roadside Inns and their quirks and secrets.
Excellent! I have chosen a d20. I've also chosen to include some taverns or pubs without the expected option of lodging. I have also thrown in a few in-city locations.