Greetings from the edge,
I think the heat must have got to me. Either that, or at my age I have discovered that I’m a raver on the quiet.
You see, I have been listening to a lot of EDM while I write lately. Not because I like it. I don’t particularly. But it is a soundscape I find anodyne, and somehow it tickles the bit of my brain that lets me sit at my keyboard, start hammering away at the keys, and not realise I’ve missed a meal until my Post-it notes start to look really tasty.
I have mostly been working on the Mondragon corner of my homebrew world. I seem to have gone somewhat overboard, as what was meant to be a simple “town with a hidden problem” has become thirty pages of notes and a web of interconnected NPCs and factions, all with their own goals, ambitions, and motivations.
If I keep going like this, I am going to have to self-publish the setting and be damned, even if Inkarnate has glitched and rendered my main maps unusable.
Still, that’s a problem for Future Rob, and frankly, screw that guy.
Mondragon’s whole vibe is a dark and twisted take on the Arthurian mythology that we all know and love. It asks: what if Arthur’s dad was a despot? What if his petty-minded drive for control and his fear of anything he did not understand led him to outlaw magic?
I’m really enjoying working in a part of my setting that has a legitimate “evil empire” to overcome, even if ultimately it is more complicated than rebels good, loyalists bad.
I put an article out on Wednesday about ways to add intrigue by having the quest giver in your next TTRPG be a big old liar. I think it came out particularly well, and you should check it out here.
I’m also trying to write a new article looking at times when the monster had a point and maybe wasn’t the worst thing on screen. Looking at you, Burke from Aliens. I’m hoping to post that a week today, so keep your eyes peeled.
Don’t forget to come back daily for a new useless fact.
See you in the margins,
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