#unhallowed metropolis

[ladyeroway]

Violetta Ashton Talbot

I decided to do a repaint of a beloved character just to see how far I have come. I chose Violetta as she remains one of my favourite ttrpg characters I have ever played.

#violetta ashton talbot #unhallowed metropolis #artists on tumblr

[theresattrpgforthat]

How do you know so many games to recommend? I feel like I’m always scrambling to find games on a certain topic, and itchio’s search function is tricky at best.

Hello friend! I have a few methods, and I think they all tie back to my pretty big obsession with games. Let's take a trip through my indie RPG journey, because this is kind of the result of approximately 5 years of interest.

DriveThru RPG

When I first got into TTRPGs, I didn't have a lot of money (let's be real, even right now I don't really have that much spending money) but I did have a little more time, so I combed the net for free tabletop games. I got acquainted with DriveThruRPG first, and I took everything I could that was free and put it into little folders on my computer. Since then I've realized that I can access my folders through the DriveThru App, so there's much less on my computer and more just waiting to be downloaded and perused.

I also get notifications from DriveThru about deals of the day, and occasionally I just browse the storefront to see if anything catches my eye. DriveThru's navigation system is not great either, but one of my friends does some of his own sifting and has directed me to some real gems. I learned about Pandora London, Swords of the Serpentine, and Savage Worlds this way.

Podcasts

I love TTRPG podcasts but I didn't want to listen to D&D podcasts. I found Fandible first, when I was looking for a play through of Changeling: The Lost. I walk to work and I also like to listen to podcasts when I clean my house, so I usually get through one episode a day. I usually look for podcasts that play in multiple systems, although you'll see a number of podcasts here that focus on just one non-D&D system. Here's a few that I recommend:

Fandible: Just a group of friends who love playing games together. All of them are GMs, and they all GM different games. Jesus is the most adventurous, and is constantly bringing new games to the table. I found Slugblaster, Numenera, and Unhallowed Metropolis through them!

Character Creation Cast: I started listening to CCC last year, thanks to a recommendation from a friend, but I fell in love quick. The hosts focus only on the character creation aspect of games, and they also spend time talking to other gamers about the parts of play that each guest feels is important. I found out about Descent into Midnight, Nova, and Blue Planet this way.

The Gauntlet Podcast: This Podcast no longer releases episodes but I learned so much about safe game play through this podcast. Once a month the hosts would sit down with guests and highlight a game of the month for each of them. Often they would talk about games that they adored even before those games made it to publication. I found out about Brinkwood, Apocalypse Keys, and Poutine through this podcast. I miss it so very much.

I would also recommend My First Dungeon, Party of One Podcast, The Eternity Archives, One Shot, and +1 Forward for exposure to many indie games.

Itch.io

I didn't interact much with Itch.io at first - I thought it was mostly for indie video games and generators - but when the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality came out I went feral. I sorted through each and every page of games in that bundle and put all of the TTRPGs into folders - which I am still refining to this day. As you can see, I get very excited whenever a big bundle comes out, as it gives me a lot of exposure to games that people have made.

I also sort through the most recent additions on Itch every one or two days. I usually categorize my folders via genre and rules system, but I'm currently in the process of curating folders for duet and epistolary games. If I think a tag will help me, I usually use https://itch.io/physical-games/tag-[tag] and then insert what I'm looking for in the [tag]. It doesn't get everything but it gets me started.

Often if a game was entered in a Game Jam, there's a tab that you can click to see other entries in that same Jam. So occasionally I'll browse Game Jams for other games that I might find interesting. And for games that I know that I'm personally passionate about, I have a Games that Intrigue Me folder to flip through for when I'm choosing which game to play, or if I want to spotlight a game that I've been itching to put on a rec post.

Other Avenues

I am actually subscribed to you on Youtube, along with a number of other great reviewers!

The Gaming Table is a wonderful Aussie creator who reviews copies of indie ttrpgs. She started a year ago and already has a truly delightful backlog. I recently listened to her review of Bluebeard's Bride and it was wonderful!

I found 11dragonkid when I was looking for Lancer content and was pleasantly surprised to find other ttrpg reviews for games such as ARC and Gubat Banwa.

I watch A.A. Voigt's and Talen Lee's (@talenlee) mini-essays about games and the pieces of those games that speak to them not just to learn about new games but also to learn about what makes those games matter. I found the videos on Capitalites and Girl By Moonlight very informative!

I also watch Dave Thaumvore for reviews for big-print games (Vaesen, Symbaroum), and Questing Beast for updates on what's happening in the OSR scene (Vaults of Vaarn, Mothership).

I'm also subscribed to a number of newsletters and RSS feeds! Bundle of Holding has a blog announcing new bundles, the Indie RPG Newsletter has some great indie rpg coverage in their monthly updates and associated links, and I have an RSS feed on Feedly for game musings on whatever blogs I can find.

In Conclusion...

Much of my TTRPG knowledge comes from constant osmosis. I talk to friends about games, spend a lot of time on Itch.io, and I'm also finding new games here on Tumblr. I have an RPG server where me and a bunch of my friends play pretty regularly, and I'm constantly introducing them to new games. We finished up our Monster Squad Arc a month or two ago, and we're currently getting geared up for a Galaxy Games arc - this time with games that other players are bringing to the table!

I started sorting games for my own enjoyment - I love having all of my little boxes that I can go back to when I am hankering for my own game. I started this blog because I found there were too many games that I was excited about and I was never going to get through all of them just gaming with my friends.

#asks #mint speaks #thanks for asking this question! #I love talking about my immersion in tabletop games #I also love recommending things

[lightdancer1]

A small preview of the upcoming chapter of The Foolish Sister:

"By the authority of the Guardians of the Universe, you are to surrender and follow me."

The man sat at the table, his hands folded in front of him. Outwardly he seemed a strange blend of Nikola Tesla and an ancient Pharaoh in most ways. His feet were a little.....strange and their echo was not at all subtly wrong. His eyes were pools of infinite darkness.

He placed his hands on the table and turned around and stood up and smiled. Hal Jordan froze.

Hal Jordan.

His voice had been human where others had listened to it, if redolent with the unhallowed secrets of things that mortal minds were not meant to know. That fell apart in that moment, as his grin widened.

I know why you're here to arrest me. The Guardians have discovered my involvement in the events surrounding the follies of the Endless. I know you're one of the greatest of your kind, and as bland as that Danvers girl. A personality that is as empty and soulless as anything I've ever encountered. It takes a fear-god to make yourself stand forth.

He shook his head.

But there's one small problem with that, Lantern. You could bring the full weight of the Monitors or the Presence himself from what you call Heaven down to this place, to this moment, and you would not have sufficient power. I will give you one chance to depart from this place.

And then he sat back down.

"So you confess to meddling with one of the Endless?"

The ring shone and he could see something like a cuff forming around his left wrist and sighed. A flick of his wrist and then Hal Jordan, human being found himself stuck on the ground and facing something that moved in an impossible manner, not within the spaces known to men but between them.

Something neither tendril nor pawed hand whose fingers ended in wickedly sharp claws nor pincer nor bladed edge of a tendril that ripped through space placed itself around his neck and hoisted him up. A face, tendrils, mouth-parts like an insect, a howling void in a shape like a mouth with teeth akin to stars, all of this and none of these spoke in a voice that cracked reality with each syllable.

Begone, servant of Oa.

The power moved itself from him and he was kneeling on the ground in paralyzed shock on a street where streetlights and cars had run like liquid or dissolved in steam, where humans had warped and become something other, things of horn and ivory and fur and chitin, howling bedlam things that began to rampage through the streets of Metropolis.

Before him stood a man, a Pharaoh of the old days with eyes that shone with a golden light like twin jewels. In every way he was an impossibly perfect image of humanity as to the species to which the human frame was an eldritch nightmare of the beyond.

I warned you.

Humming a twisted melody like the whining of a cracked flute and the echoing of bass drums the Crawling Chaos formed a cane in his right hand and twirled it as he stepped away. Beyond the paralyzed Hal Jordan the twisted beasts that were once men roared. Toward them flew the new gods of the new era, against creations of something much older.

#the foolish sister #sandman fanfic #nyarlathotep

[storyweaverstalespinners]

RPG Writeups — Unhallowed Metropolis

[open-hearth-rpg]

#licensedRPGs2013to14 OneDice Abney Park's Airship Pirates

I'd never heard of Abney Park when I first learned of this rpg, but I was unsurprised that they're a Steampunk band. I was surprised that there would be an rpg based on their body of work, but stranger games have happened. The premise has the band transported back to 1906, where they cause a calamity to the timeline. They then arrive in 2150 to find a post-apocalyptic, steampunk, neo-Victorian world with dinosaurs. Like Etherscope and Unhallowed Metropolis it sustains the Victorian tropes into the far future. 

OneDice Abney Park's Airship Pirates takes the OneDice system and applies it to the publisher's licensed line. Previously done with Victoriana's Heresy engine, this stripped down version is still a hefty 172 pages. A little over half of that's given to the setting and sample adventures. So who might be the audience? Players of the previous version who want a light system or new gamers who didn't invest in the earlier line and sourcebooks.

#steampunk #ttrpg #rpg #licensed ttrpgs

[waywardmasquerade]

Came to the end of Fandible’s Unhallowed Metropolis game last night. You people made me cry. I hope you’re happy.

#unhallowed metropolis #rpg #actual play #actual play podcast #fandible

[usmelinuk]

A photo from the Unhallowed Metropolis shoot. This is my favorite RPG.

#Unhallowed Metropolis #tabletop roleplaying #Tabletop RPG

[luckyluckyjesse]

Another of my precious boys 🥰 Jean 💜💙 made him years ago for an RPG called unhallowed metropolis🧟‍♂️ check it out, it's pretty cool

#art #my art #sketch #sketchbook #d&d oc #my ocs #d&d #oc #unhallowed metropolis #oc rpg #rpg

[peculiaroptimism]

So, here I am, talking about how shockingly easy it is to make a harem of monstergirls in unhallowed metropolis, a grimdark neo-victorian role-play game about a zombie apocalypse with a friend, and then this is literally the first and that comes up. God it's bizzarre how quickly information is sold on the internet.

#unhallowed metropolis #homunculus

[anewbiegm]

Not quite Unhallowed Metropolis, but it looks pretty good. Cool music.

#Unhallowed Metropolis #Neo-Victorian #Empyre #CRPG

[ladyeroway]

The wonderful @tessa1972 got me a commission from @redreart of my darling boy Ezra.

I love him so much, @redreart captured Ezra so well I love his expression. My handsome lad!

It makes me so happy to look at him 💙

#ezra gage #such an amazing gift #unhallowed metropolis #ttrpg oc

[theresattrpgforthat]

Any games thematically similar to Fallen London? Blades in the Dark helps me scratch that itch on the tabletop, but there are probably others.

THEME: Fallen London.

Hello friend! So first of all, I’d recommend checking out the free ttrpg Skyfarer, written by Grant Howitt & Chris Taylor, and released by Failbetter Games, as it’s the canonical Sunless Skies TTRPG. So it’s set in the same universe! I’ve talked about it before in one of my Free Games posts.

Now that that’s covered, let’s see what else is out there.

Do Not Fear, by Hella Big Claws.

Do Not Fear is a Forged In the Dark Tabletop Roleplaying game, about accepting the fleetingness of life; and using the strength that gives you in order to combat a growing stagnation.

Fight as a Hunter, a person who has been given a Gift of Bloom; a fungus like infection that allows for incredible strength and regenerative ability; in exchange for subsuming your flesh as you die.

Combat or save the Rusted; living creatures infected by a growing viral stagnation; marbling their bones and rusting their flesh; sculpting them into horrifyingly beautiful creations.

Ascend the Tower; a large, multilayered structure which you call home. Interact with the factions and people within, as you set down roots.

This game is on my to-buy list for sure, as I love FitD games and I’m intrigued by the themes of infection and stagnation that appear in this game. This game is still very much in-progress and so there might be some bugs to work out, but thanks to the Itch.io Summer Sale, this game is currently half-off! Honestly the cover art draws me in as well, and I’m hoping that the designer has more in store where that came from, because I find it very evocative, and I’m interested to see where this game goes.

Beneath a Cursed Moon, by Karrius.

Beneath a Cursed Moon is a Gothic fantasy game that uses a system based on the Apocalypse World engine. Take the role of monster hunters and slay vampires, werewolves, mermen, and more in a game inspired by Castlevania and Bloodborne.

I’m seeing a lot of ties between Fallen London, Blades in the Dark, and Bloodborne, which is why if a game has Bloodborne in it’s list of inspirations, I add it to the list. Beneath a Cursed Moon is a pay-what-you-want PbtA game that focuses primarily on monster-slaying. Because it expects you as a group to create and tailor your own unique setting, I can see creating a space that evokes the same tone as Fallen London as pretty feasible. There are 11 different playbooks to choose from, and a whole section of monsters and monster-creation guidelines that give the GM plenty to work with. You should absolutely check out this game.

Vigilant, by Ill Advised Gaming.

Vigilant is a Gothic Victorian world of monsters and churches and eldritch secrets. Of Blood and Beasts and Hunters. Of Dreams and Nightmares.

Using a combination of rules from Caltrop Core and Powered by the Apocalypse, this should be a pretty easy-to-learn system. You’ll make moves similar to PbtA games, but you’ll roll pools of d4’s, similar to Caltrop Core. Characters also have a shared resource called Momentum, which represent show you can affect the narrative using assets present on your character sheet. Setting-wise, the world of industry is introducing new monsters to a world already fraught with the terrors of the ancient. Your characters are monster-hunters who find themselves empowered by the Covenants: knights, scientists, hunters, and more.

The game is still in early-access, so not all of the character options are available yet, but the setting itself fucking slaps. You should check it out.

Unhallowed Metropolis, by Strix Publishing.

It has been two hundred years since first the outbreak of the Plague, when the dead rose to feed on the flesh of the living. Countless millions perished in the chaos that followed. It was the dawn of a new dark age.

London, the capital of the Neo-Victorian Empire, is a vast, densely crowded city. Beneath the towering walls and crackling Tesla towers, where the fallout of a thousand crematoria darkens the streets, ten-million souls live in squalor. Predators, human and inhuman, stalk the slums and rookeries, preying on the unwary and the helpless. Beneath the haunted streets, resurrection men and body snatchers hock their grisly wares at blood-stained meat markets. Their clients are degenerate ghouls and amateur anatomists who practice the outlawed science of reanimation.

This game inspired by authors such as Mary Shelley and Edgar Allen Poe. It uses a point-buy character creation system, and allows you to play Dhampirs, Mad Doctors, Aristocrats, Criminals and so much more. This is a game about noir tropes, a Victorian post-apocalypse, and zombies. One of my favourite pieces of this game is the character class of the Mourners, who are a group of women hired to stand by the bedsides of the recently deceased, ready to decapitate them at the first sign of re-animation.

If you want to hear an actual-play of this game, the long-standing AP podcast Fandible has a campaign that is one of the longest-running games on their feed. You can hear from their play how much of a dearly-loved game this is.

What Lies Beneath the Darkness, by Cezar Capacle.

What Lies Beneath the Darkness is a gaslamp fantasy game about intrigue and struggle. 

You play as a Horror employed by a faction to expand their dominance over the victorianesque city of Ravenswatch, while you fight to balance the human and supernatural natures that inhabit you.

You will face the dark streets of Ravenswatch performing missions for your faction. You live an internal battle between your human links and your dark instincts, between what you want and what your faction demands.

This is a GM-less game that puts factions front-and-center, with both solo and multiplayer options. The game uses the Push system, which allows you to push-your-luck for better results, with a possibility of going too far, which I really really love. The game is gaslamp-gothic and supernatural, and puts the characters in fraught positions where they must work for more powerful masters, struggling not to fall into their personal darkness. I’m very very intrigued by this game.

Games I’ve Recommended Before

Slayers, by Gila RPGs.

18XX Night, by Deep Light Games.

The Between, by The Gauntlet.

#dnd #game recommendations #tabletop games #indie ttrpgs #asks #fallen london #victorian gothic #horror #monster hunters

[probablybadrpgideas]

Unhallowed Metropolis/Golden Sky Stories crossover

#Fantasy #Horror #Unhallowed metropolis #RPG #Roleplaying Game #Golden Sky Stories #Game Idea

[yourplayersaidwhat]

In-terror-gation

Context: In Unhallowed Metropolis, our party of a Ressurective Doctor, a Kleptomaniac Hobo, an Ex-Deathwatch, an Anathema Mercenary, and a Stripper Damphir have captured a high ranking member of a gang we’re trying to take down and is attempting to interrogate him in RD’s attic.

RD:*Entering the attic after making some sandwiches*“Why are you juggling explosives in my attic?!”

ED:“I’m intimidating the prisoner.”

RD: “You’re intimidating me! Stop that!”

SD:*sitting there eating a sandwich and being useless as usual*“I don’t think he can.”

KH: “ Hey, [ED], think you can juggle more?” *Tosses

#shit my players say #rpg #submission #shareable #famous last words #when in doubt: c4

[gothiccharmschool]

Because my recent Throwback Thursday photo posts have been from my active time in the game industry, I started trying to remember which games I've "appeared" in (be it as art reference or characters based on me). Off the top of my head, and I'm sure I'm forgetting a few:

Vampire: the Masquerade. At least 4 books, and possibly more.

Vampire: the Eternal Struggle collectible card game. 2 different sets, and 2 rule books.

Mage: the Ascension. 3 pieces of fiction, and maybe a piece of art? I don’t have any of the Mage books to double-check.

Immortal: the Invisible War. 2 or 3 books?

Unhallowed Metropolis. 2 books, plus my helping with costumes and makeup.

Any version of Munchkin that has the Gilly the Perkygoth character in it.

And then the games that mention Clovis Devilbunny, because HELLO HE'S MY BUNNY.

Devilbunny Needs a Ham!

Doomtown.

Deadlands.

The game industry in the 90s was ... close-knit. Sure, let's call it that.

[theblackbookofarkera]

Sarkomand

Sarkomand

On the rolling steppes of Ler in the Hazak Khanate lies the city of Sarkomand, a near fabled city built upon Old World ruins. Once the city was a bustling metropolis rife with merchants, poets and astrologers from the world afar. Now the city lies abandoned save a group of sad souls that suffer from the black writhing, a plague known only to Ler. The Black Writhing causes the limbs of its victims to painfully twist and their skin to turn dry and black. Despite their horrific affliction the withered, broken souls are tasked with maintaining the city.

Largely Sarkomand lies in pristine condition despite the barest fraction of population required for such a task. Several times a year the khan’s men send fresh supplies and those newly afflicted with the Black Withering to the city, a tradition that has been maintained for centuries. Upon explicit instructions from the afflicted within the city the khan’s men drop off their wares at set points where they get few glimpses of its mysterious streets. Believing them demon summoners few in service of the khan have issue with this.

The most common question about Sarkomand is the reason it was abandoned - a question veiled in mystery and legend. The tales are fanciful and many some more tenable than others. In my years of traveling this strange realm I have discovered that there are things far beyond the consideration of even the most unhinged mind...sometimes these things pass for truth.

“At night the sick men strike up a cacophony of strange instruments and summon from the tunnels beneath the city of race of degenerate men. Marked with the sign of a forgotten slave god the degenerate men fornicate with the withered. From these unhallowed unions are born monsters that are forced to maintain the cursed city’s streets and high towers. This is the story told to me as a boy by my grandfather...a man that would never lie.”

-Olakar Bojrov, outrider of Khan Orest Pryjzak

#arkera #worldbuilding #low fantasy #conworld #world building #a song of ice and fire #creative writing #dark fantasy #conan #occult #high fantasy #cosmic horror #fantasy world #grimdark #mythology #sword & planet #sword & sorcery #middle earth #dune #game of thrones #world of warcraft #warhammer fantasy #warhammer 40k #bloodborne #dark souls #dragon age #dungeons and dragons #role playing games #sorcery #magick