It's time for another Table Talk update! And while I've got a lot of things going on behind the scenes, this week I wanted to draw folks' attention to a very specific plate that I'm spinning. Because I mentioned this a while back in Gathering The Grimdark (Tying My Warhammer 40K Shorts Together), but I wanted to give my regular readers an update on progress!
And if you haven't read any of my tales of the grim darkness of the far future, the full list can be found at the end of this article.
I've been waiting to start on these for a while, now...
Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my bi-weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.
Lastly, for hundreds of extra articles on gaming, weird history, and for more free fiction, check out my Vocal archive, too!
Expanding My Current Series Offerings (Ogryns and Renegades)
First things first, while I love the grim darkness of the far future (and adding my own little touches to it), one reason these stories come so slowly from me is that these aren't an independent endeavor. When I write one of these stories, it's because I'm working with someone else (usually, though not exclusively, the YouTube channel A Vox In The Void, whom you should follow if you haven't), so I have to take their workload and schedule into account. As a result, folks tend to only get these stories from me a few times a year.
But after some talks, I have the next two installments figured out, and I'm currently working on the first of them!
This tale is something that I'm sure regular readers will be excited for... a new Gav and Bob story! As we draw closer and closer to our own Winter holiday, we're also approaching Sanguinala. And since it's become something of a tradition now, both Paul and myself thought it would only be appropriate for Gav to have a new adventure during one of the holiest days of the Imperium's calendar.
And while I don't want to say too much about our boy Gav's latest adventure (though it is a Warhammer Christmas story, so be prepared for elves to be involved somehow!), I also got the greenlight for yet another tale which will mark the triumphant return of the Old War Hound himself, Crixus!
The third tale in what I guess I'm now calling the Waking Dogs series (the first two are below), this tale will feature Crixus in a fight for his life aboard a World Eater vessel. Turned loose in the gladiator pits, he will face trial by combat... but will he be fighting alone? And what horror awaits in the bowels of the ship that his erstwhile brothers will loose on him after all the death and destruction he has sown among their ranks? Stay tuned and find out in Waking Dogs: War Hounds!
And isn't THAT just a pair of tales?
While I still have quite a lot of other projects that I'm working on, these are the current pieces of fiction I'm planning on finishing up while I try to push the Azukail Games YouTube channel over the finish line to get it monetized. Once that happens it will be time for me to break ground on the audio drama series Windy City Shadows, which will take place in the world of the Chronicles of Darkness! If you haven't heard about it, I did an AMA for it a while back, and I could use all the help folks can give me to help make it into a reality!
My Grimdark Tales (Many of Which Have Audio Drama Versions)
- Waking Dogs- A World Eaters Tale: When Crixus awakens from the haze of the Butcher's Nails, he decides he has had enough of being a dog for one warband after another. The old Warhound is awake, and he means to put down the rest of the World Eaters like the rabid dogs they are.
- Broken Chains- A World Eaters Tale: Crixus settles a grudge with his former brother sergeant... and a part of him that he'd long forgotten is rekindled in the soul of this vengeful renegade.
- Blackest Knights: The debut tale of Kill Team Errant, this squad of Blackshields assists a captured inquisitor, only to find this situation is larger, and more dire, than they'd anticipated.
- The Final Lamentation: When the Black Legion takes a Lamenter prisoner, they quickly realize that the cursed luck of his legion is also their problem when he's present on their ship.
- Field Test: An inquisitor claims to have a secret weapon that can wipe out an entire ork waaaaugh... but no weapon seems to be in evidence. Just her retinue; a Catachan, a tech priest, and a hollw-eyed young man who may be far more than he seems.
- Broken Heroes: A scouting party is trying to recover an experimental piece of ammunition... but they find something far more dangerous when they're surrounded by a swarm of enemies, and they stumble upon an ancient bunker where a terrible weapon has waited to finish what it started.
- Gav And Bob, Part IV: The Emperor's Hand: An adventure of the Imperium's Bravest Ogryn, Gav Smythe finds himself on a world in the midst of a war. When he crosses paths with a strange, black sword, he hears the voice of the Emperor, and knows what he has to do.
- Gav And Bob Part V: Faith And Martyrs: Gav is brought to a shrine world where he speaks with a Canoness Confessor of the Sisters of Battle. She will be the one who weighs his sanity, and his soul.
- Pyramid Scheme- A Leagues of Votann Story (Part One and Part Two): When the Ironbeards hear of great wealth on a jungle moon in an uncharted corner of the sector, they rush in to try to earn a big payday... the danger that awakens, though, might mean they never survive to spend it!
- 50 Two-Sentence Horror Stories, Warhammer 40K Edition: The second installment of my 50 two-sentence horror stories project, this one was quite popular before the algorithm started excluding Vocal links from being shared. Still, check it out if you're looking for some short, snacky scares!
What's Next on Table Talk?
That's it for this installment of Table Talk! What would you like to see next? I'm listening for your comments and votes!
To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Bue Sky, Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter, as well as on Pinterest where I'm building all sorts of boards dedicated to my books, RPG supplements, and greatest hits. Lastly, to help support me and my work, consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron! Even a little donation can have a big impact.
As regular readers of this blog know, it's been about a year and a half since I put out any RPG supplements that used a community creation platform. I talked about this back in Why I Will Have Fewer Community Created TTRPG Products Coming Out back in July of 2023, but for those who don't want to read the older entry, it boiled down to money. At the time I'd been given a raise by Azukail Games for my up-front payment as an author to 2 cents per word for content that wasn't made using a community creation platform like Storyteller's Vault, Pathfinder Infinite, and so on. While I was still completely allowed to write supplements for those platforms, I'd only receive 1 cent per word as an up-front payment... and given that my word count tends to rest between 11,000 and 15,000 words on one of these supplements, that's not a small difference.
In fact, to make up the difference in earnings, one of these supplements would have to sell between 183 and 366 copies (depending on the sale price), just for me to break even with the royalties on the back-end. Given that only about 20% of the supplements sold on DTRPG even break 50 copies sold, and that I can count on one hand the number of projects of mine that eventually broke the 350 mark after years of being on the market, this is a pretty dismal prospect.
So why am I going to voluntarily work on some of these in the coming year?
There is method to my madness...
The short version is that variety is the spice of life, and I can only work on the same genre, style of product, etc., for so long before I need to shift gears and give my brain something else to work on. Not only that, but I had a bunch of supplement ideas that I hadn't gotten to yet, and frankly leaving them dangling is starting to really bother me. I need a change of pace, and I need to work a different set of mental muscles... and I need it badly enough I'm willing to leave money on the table, despite all the storm clouds on the horizon, and the fact that I haven't managed to claw my way up out of the hole I got kicked into over a decade ago at this point.
But before I get into the meat of today's post, remember, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.
Lastly, for hundreds of extra articles on gaming, weird history, and for more free fiction, check out my Vocal archive, too!
Which Platform/Game/Setting Do You Most Want To See?
As hinted at above, I don't honestly believe that anything I write for a community creation platform is going to do the kind of numbers I need in order for it not to be a loss over a different project... but that doesn't mean I'm just going to throw caution to the winds! I've narrowed my current projects down to a relatively short list, and this week I wanted to ask my readers to please cast their votes for what they'd like to see! The options are listed below, but in addition to which platform/game you want to see me make more supplements for, please take a moment to suggest the format you'd like to see (adventure module, 100 list, Baker's Dozen list, list of 10, etc.), as well as any specific suggestions you might have.
And if you made it this far in this week's post, but you're not sure what a community creation platform is yet, I made a video about them a while back on Tabletop Mercenary. So check it out, and if you enjoy it, consider subscribing to the Azukail Games YouTube channel and checking out some of the other stuff there as well!
Option #1: Werewolf The Apocalypse
A lot of folks who know my work at all know me because they found my World of Darkness supplements, and specifically my Werewolf: The Apocalypse supplements. From my 100 Kinfolk Collections (100 per tribe, with something like 1,500 characters or more last I looked), to my supplement Evil Incorporated: 10 Pentex Subsidiaries, I've spent a goodly amount of time in the world of Werewolf.
While I've considered expanding the NPC roster with ideas like A Baker's Dozen of Elders To Encounter (for those who need powerful NPC werewolves), or A Baker's Dozen of Tales to Tell at a Moot (for spicing up these fireside meetings), something that I figured more players and Storytellers would get use out of would be a series of supplements for fleshing out the Umbra in a way similar to what I did for the Hedge in Changeling: The Lost. So supplements like 100 Sights To See in The Umbra, 100 Spirits To Meet in The Umbra, and so on, and so forth would be what I'd work on for this game. At first, at least.
I know Werewolf has had its ups and downs, but folks still grab copies of the supplements I've already written for it, so I figured there's still an audience. And if you're in that audience, and you'd like to see me add to what I've already made for it, make sure you cast your vote below!
Option #2: Exalted
Exalted is a game that I went elbow-deep into a while back, trying to make sure I had all the ins and outs for my character ready to go. While the campaign is currently on-pause, I spun up quite a lot of nonsense while putting together Barabbas the Butcher, and I figured that putting some of it out there for folks to use in their games might be of-use/interest!
For example, something like Whispers From The Void: 100 Messages From The Neverborn might be useful for all the Abyssal players, and the Storytellers trying to help give them a memorable experience. 100 Demons To Find in The Brass City could be helpful for those venturing to hell, or even 100 Gods To Encounter for Storytellers who are looking to fill the corners of the setting with gods big and small to really bring home the strangeness of this setting.
While I know there's a lot of Exalted lovers out there, and everyone has their preferred edition, my hope is to try to make my first steps actually fit a pretty universal mold... and then if folks really want more of this, I'll do my best to branch out into a wider array of options.
Option #3: Call of Cthulhu
While I've worked on my share of Cthulhu Mythos stuff (up to and including my 50 Two-Sentence Horror Stories, Cthulhu Mythos Edition, which has an audio drama version linked in the list), a lot of it honestly seems to have died before it was released. However, two supplements that did make it through editorial and which are available today include 100 Shops, Stores, and Businesses to Find in Arkham as well as a follow-up/supplementary piece 100 Gangsters, Gun Molls, and Goons, which was meant to flesh out the criminal underbelly in Arkham during Prohibition.
I'll be straight with folks, this setting already has something in the works simply because of the ease of putting it together. However, I could expand my scope beyond Arkham, and the Prohibition period, if that's something folks would want to see? Whether it would be something like 100 Rumors To Hear in Lovecraft Country, 100 Dreams To Have In The Witch House, or even something like 100 Cultists To Encounter, allowing Game Masters to flesh out the ranks of their conspiracies and plots.
If you do vote for this option, make sure you make clear which era of the game you're most interested in as well! Also, as a note, this game doesn't have a community creation platform, but Azukail Games does have the ability and willingness to pay the licensing fee for these supplements, so that's why it's on the list.
Option #4: Pathfinder/Golarion
Pathfinder is the game I've played the most, and Golarion is one of the settings I deeply enjoy because I love kitchen sink nonsense in fantasy games. I've only dipped my toe into Pathfinder Infinite twice, though, penning the very popular 150 Sights To See in Absalom (which has gone Electrum due to a popular bundle it was included in), as well as the less-popular but well-loved 100 Books To Find Across The Inner Sea (which includes the story narrated above).
There was a rather drastic difference in the two supplements I put out, and after all the hullabaloo with Paizo changing things around and shifting priorities, I didn't want to be in the midst of working on anything while major changes were happening. But it seems to have mostly calmed/quieted, and if folks wanted me to, I could put out some of the ideas I had to help expand Golarion that much more. While some of the ideas were flavorful, like 100 Rumors To Hear in Sandpoint (because the best adventures always seem to start there) or A Baker's Dozen of Tortures To Endure in Nidal, I also had some more mechanical ideas, such as expanding the Divine Fighting Technique feat to include minor gods, or putting together a fresh hellknight order, complete with their own mythos, legends, and prestige class options should you wish to play one.
If you want to see me return to Golarion, make sure you tell me what kind of thing you'd like to see, and what part of the world you want to see it in. After all, there's so much of Golarion to explore, and I'd like to know which corner you think needs some love.
Option #5: Pugmire
If you haven't played it, you are missing out, not gonna lie!
Pugmire is a game I have a lot of affection for, and it inspired a lot of the direction I went with my own RPG Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic. In short, it's a game set in the far, FAR future where humans are gone, dogs, cats, and other creatures have evolved into a medieval-esque society, and they have all kinds of bizarre adventures in the deeply changed world. It's a load of fun, and while Azukail Games has released supplements for it like 100 Birds For Pirates of Pugmire or 100 Cats To Meet in The Monarchy of Mau I haven't actually turned my hand to this game just yet.
Would folks like to see me expand the NPCs one can find in the city of Pugmire? Would you like rumors, books, letters, or even organizations that could play into your campaign? Because I've had ideas for a while now, but just haven't taken them out of the box to turn them into finished products yet.
How You Can Make Your Voice Heard!
If any of these ideas are something you would like to see, then here's what you need to do:
- Comment down below what you want to see, and be as specific as possible.
- Comment on social media, if you saw this post there. 7 words or more really helps drive engagement!
- Share this post around so that other folks can see it, and weigh in on what they'd like to see!
And once you've done all that, conider buying available supplements from a given setting, platform, world, etc. that I've already put out, and linked in the appropriate sections. While votes are certainly a good way to cast your ballot, supplements that do numbers make it much easier to get projects greenlit by the publisher.
And, like I said, over 130 sales minimum just to break even. It's definitely not easy making a living on this grind.
Also, Don't Forget To Check Out My Own Settings and Games!
If none of the above really caught your interest, I'd like to remind folks I have my own settings and games that I've been hard at work on expanding for the past year and change! So if you'd like to see more of Army Men, or of my Sundara: Dawn of a New Age setting for Pathfinder Classic or DND 5E, then leave a comment requesting more of that! And if you haven't checked out any of the supplements for these games yet, the lists are below!
Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic
A game where you take on the roles of troopers fighting for their homelands in the Plastos Federation against the insectoid monsters of the vespoids!
- Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic: The base book for the game, this is technically the only book you need to play this game... but it never hurts to get some of the others as well!
- Army Men: Threat Assessments: The first collection released after the original game dropped, this supplement is full of new creatures for your squad to have to deal with when out in the field.
- Army Men: Medals of Honor: This supplement introduced the Medals System, allowing players to earn medals for their troopers, gaining unique bonuses and abilities usable for the rest of the campaign.
- Ungentlemanly Warfare: A Baker's Dozen of Booby Traps: Giant bugs and enemy combatants aren't the only threats you'll have to deal with in the field. Booby traps are a serious concern among troopers looking to leave their service with as many limbs as they started.
- Army Men Missions: A Night At Breckon's Beacon: When a squad goes missing while they're on patrol, it's your squad's mission to find them, and bring them home... or to avenge them, if that can't be done.
Sundara: Dawn of A New Age
This is a setting I've been gradually expanding for several years now, and there's a new series of supplements coming out for it in the near future! Sundara can be played on its own, or it can be added piecemeal to your own settings to fill in gaps and blanks so that you don't have to do as much heavy lifting the next time you get folks around your table!
Cities of Sundara
The setting first began with the Cities of Sundara splats. Self-contained guides to some of the larger and more powerful centers of trade, industry, arms, and magic, these unique locations provide plenty of fodder for character generation and plots. Not only that, but each one comes with unique, mechanical goodies for players and GMs alike to take out for a spin!
- Ironfire: The City of Steel (Pathfinder and DND 5E): Built around the Dragon Forge, Ironfire is where the secret to dragon steel was first cracked. The center of the mercenary trade in the region, as well as boasting some of the finest schools for teaching practical sciences, Ironfire is a place where discovery and danger walk hand in hand!
- Moüd: The City of Bones (Pathfinder and DND 5E): An ancient center of trade and magic, Moüd was lost to a cataclysm, and then buried in myth. Reclaimed by the necromantic arts of the Silver Wraiths guild, this city has once again become a place teeming with life. Despite the burgeoning population, though, it is the continued presence of the undead that helps keep the city running, ensuring that Moüd is not swallowed up once more.
- Silkgift: The City of Sails (Pathfinder and DND 5E): Built on the cottage industry of Archer cloth (an extremely durable material used for sails, windmills, etc.), Silkgift is a place that prizes invention and discovery. From gravity batteries that store the potential of the wind, to unique irrigation systems, to aether weapons, the city positively churns out discoveries... and then there's the canal they cut through the mountains that makes them a major center of trade across the region.
- Hoardreach: The City of Wyrms (Pathfinder and DND 5E): A center of power across an entire region, Hoardreach is ruled over by a Cooperation of five different dragons. A place for refugees and outcasts of all sorts, Hoardreach boasts some of the most unusual citizens and creations from across Sundara. Infamous for their sky ships, which require the cast-off scales and unique arcane sciences of the Dragon Works to take to the air, one never knows just what they'll find in this city built atop a mountain.
- Archbliss: The City of The Sorcerers (Pathfinder and DND 5E): A floating city in the sky, Archbliss has been a refuge for sorcerers for thousands of years. It's only in relatively recent years that the city has allowed those from the ground below who lack the power of a bloodline to join them in the clouds. However, while there are certainly amazing wonders to behold, there is a darkness in Archbliss. Something rotting away at its heart that could, if not healed, bring the city crashing to the ground once more.
Gods of Sundara
- Gods of Sundara (available for Pathfinder and DND 5E): In a world with no alignment, and where the gods are often genuinely mysterious forces that are far too large for mortals to truly comprehend, the divine feels genuinely strange and unknown... something that really does have to be taken on faith. This supplement provides a sample pantheon for Sundara, but also provides instructions on how to easily make your own gods in a world where you can't cast a spell and tell whether someone is good or evil.
Species of Sundara
Sundara is filled with creatures that many of us recognize, but I wanted to give greater depth to their cultures, and a wider variety of options. After all, humans always get 15+ ethnicities, languages, and unique histories, while elves, dwarves, orcs, halflings, etc. are almost always left with footnotes, or maybe with a handful of offshoots. So, in short, I wanted to give all the fantastical creatures the treatment that humans usually get in our games.
And there is no human book yet. If readers demand to know more, then I may sit down to pen one... but I figured that humans didn't need to be front-and-center in this setting just yet.
- Elves of Sundara (Pathfinder and DND 5E): Elves are one of the most quintessential fantasy creatures... but if you want to see more than just high elves, wood elves, and elves of the sun and moon, then this supplement has you covered!
- Dwarves of Sundara (Pathfinder and DND 5E): The children of the primordial giants who were meant to fill in the details of the world they'd made (or so the myths say) there are as many kinds of dwarves as their are kinds of giants... and possibly more, depending on who is keeping count.
- Orcs of Sundara (Pathfinder and DND 5E): Supposedly a creation of the elves, none can say for certain exactly how or why orcs have been made. What most agree on is that these creatures are far more than most may think at first glance.
- Halflings of Sundara (Pathfinder and DND 5E): Little cousins to the dwarves, halflings are tough, clever, and not to be underestimated. From living beneath the hills, to taking up residence in the deep forests, halflings in Sundara come in quite a variety!
- The Blooded (Half-Elves and Half-Orcs) [Pathfinder and DND 5E]: When orcs and elves mix their bloodlines with other creatures, the result is one of the Blooded. This inheritance takes many forms, and it can even wait generations before manifesting when the right combination of individuals come together to have a child.
- Gnomes of Sundara (Pathfinder and DND 5E): Gnomes are strange creatures, found in places where the spirit of the land has coalesced and made children of its own. The sons and daughters of the ancient nymphs, they are the stewards of these places, and they change as often as the weather and the land.
Organizations of Sundara
Phase 3 has been going strong, but there's still a few titles left in it! So if you haven't seen them, consider checking out:
- Sellswords of Sundara: With power structures being smaller in scale in Sundara, standing armies aren't often maintained for long. As such, soldiers of fortune are quite common! This supplement contains 10 mercenary companies, their history, uniform, sample members, whispers and rumors, as well as either an archetype or subclass for playing these unique warriors. Grab your copy for Pathfinder of DND 5E.
- Cults of Sundara: Faith comes in many forms in Sundara, and there are as many gods in the Prim as there are dreams in the minds of people. This supplement contains write-ups for 10 cults, their histories, sample members, rumors about them, their beliefs and tenets, and a unique magic item for each. Get your copy for Pathfinder or DND 5E.
- Guilds of Sundara: While cities and villages may be relatively local, guilds are spread across the length and width of Sundara. From professional orders of skilled miners and dredgers, to monster slayers and bounty hunters, this supplement has 10 guilds with histories, sample members, rumors, as well as unique feats one can take to represent the skill and benefits of joining this order. Available for Pathfinder as well as DND 5E.
- Merchants of Sundara: While city states might be the largest form of government you find in the setting, merchants hold an outsized amount of power. From huge mercantile houses, to small brands infamous for their quality as much as for their price, there are a lot of options listed in this particular world building supplement.
Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!
That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!
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For those who haven't been paying attention to every TTRPG supplement I put out, this weekend saw something of a milestone for me. The supplement World's Oldest Profession: 100 Rumors To Hear In A Brothel went live, and it is the third installment in this particular series (behind the previous two supplements A Baker's Dozen of Brothels and 100 Courtesans and Concubines respectively). I don't usually work on series like this, but the runaway success of the first two supplements meant that I had to go back to the well for a third installment.
However, some things have changed since those first two splats dropped. There's some additional challenges I'm facing now, and there's some potential storm clouds on the horizon. So if you're one of the many folks out there who has grabbed one (or all) of these supplements, and were hoping this train would keep rolling a little while longer, this update is going to be important for you.
As always, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.
Lastly, for hundreds of extra articles on gaming, weird history, and for more free fiction, check out my Vocal archive, too!
What Happened Before (And Why There's A Struggle Now)
When the first two supplements from this series dropped, they were met with a rather surprising amount of audience demand. Both of the original supplements went Silver by the end of the first weekend (100+ copies sold), and both of them wound up at Electrum status when all was said and done. Not only that, but both of them spent a rather long time in the top slot of the #1 Bestseller Under $5 on the TTRPG front page.
So what's happened with this latest release?
Well, it went Copper by the end of its first weekend (50+ sales), and though it's made it to the top sellers chart, it's been sitting pretty around slot #5 for the past day or so. There's been a definite slow-down in demand, and the reaction doesn't seem as large as it was for the previous two.
We're going to dig into this a bit.
Now, a lot of this can be chalked up to the changes I mentioned a little while ago in Drive Thru RPG's New Site Isn't Great For Smaller Publishers (Now With Numbers!), but I'll touch on some of the bigger points here. In short, the new site (which was rolled out between the second supplement and the brand new one) has a terrible algorithm that makes organic discovery nearly impossible for people browsing the site. So the only ways people are finding new releases from publishers is if they're on that publisher's newsletter, if they catch them on social media, or if they happen to see a particular product on the top sellers section.
Given that social media of all stripes has been strangling creators' signals, and that getting sales off of FB, Twitter, YouTube, etc., is like wrangling a unicorn, the fact that this installment has done this well is a testament to just how popular the series (if I'm calling it that) has been so far!
With that said, if you're someone who wants to see more installments of this series, then please get a copy of World's Oldest Profession: 100 Rumors To Hear In A Brothel. And if you're one of the folks who has already done that, please leave a rating, a review, and share the link either on your own social media pages, or share the link to this blog instead. I say this because, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter the negative forces the market throws up in my way; numbers talk, excuses walk. If the numbers see a sharp decline, then it will be tougher to justify expanding this particular series of supplements.
This is true not just for the fantasy versions that are already on the market. In keeping with my strategy as a creator, I had been hoping to make sci-fi versions of these three supplements as well, kicking off Galaxy's Oldest Profession. Because whether you're spending your loot from a dragon hoard, or you're suddenly flush with credits after a big corpo job, we all know the kinds of "distractions" that mercenaries, enforcers, and so-called adventurers seek out once they've upgraded their gear and find they have a little scratch left in their accounts.
The OTHER Issue Looming On The Horizon
A lot of my readers might not have dug through the Project 2025 papers, or have been paying a lot of attention to the news lately, but there has been a major push to reclassify a lot of things as pornography, and to make possession or purchase of that kind of pornography illegal. We've already seen this with romance novels that were sold on Amazon and which have been taken down, as well as in state laws restricting access to particular kinds of content.
And while none of the World's Oldest Profession supplements have anything explicit in them (the worst they have is some PG, tongue-in-cheek innuendo), that hasn't stopped other books from getting banned from libraries, or becoming the subject of controversy all over America.
Trying to avoid this guy as best I can.
Because of this, even if I can get a few hundred folks to answer the call and help boost this series, there is every chance that the political winds might decide to remove anything deemed "adult content" from any markets, including the ones offered by DTRPG. So even if I manage to get these supplements expanded, and I get a sci fi version of them up to get a second version of them going, it's possible that something will happen in the next handful of years that will force them to be deleted from the site entirely.
Which is why I'd recommend everyone who likes these supplements download copies and backups of them to be sure you don't lose them in the event they do wind up caught in a purge.
And if you're someone who wants to see this series keep going (short-term or long-term), then please help me get the word out about the supplements that are available, and leave a comment down below telling me which future installments you'd most like to see! Fantasy, sci-fi, or even other genres we haven't thought about branching out into just yet, all input is welcome!
In addition to the supplements themselves, I wanted to remind folks that the silly little introuctory stories inside them get made into audio dramas. The two that are out actually tell a fun little two-part tale set in the underground brothel known as The Pit, staffed largely by tieflings, and a handful of aasimar. The first tale talks about the party cleric sneaking off to have a bit of fun...
And the second story, of course, is what happens when the rest of the party shows up, having tracked him to the brothel. They think he's joined a cult and made a bargain with dark powers, of course, which leads to some rather... awkward interactions.
Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!
That's all for this week's Fluff post. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!
To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!
We've all had that moment in a dungeon crawl where we find ourselves at a door, asking whether or not to open it. After all, doors represent the possibility of risk. It might be trapped. There might be an ambush on the other side of it. There might be a hoard of treasure. Or it might just be an empty bunkhouse, a derelict kitchen, or a broom closet.
However, doors also serve another purpose we don't often think about as Game Masters... they segregate the arenas where things take place. After all, ask yourself when was the last time a monster opened the door instead of the player characters? When was the last time something occurred that drew enemies, curses, or even allies from beyond this current room/location when there were doors present?
While doors have their uses, this week I want us all to consider what might happen if we take a few of them off their hinges, and ask how that would change things in the games we run.
Consider, for example, the archway and its implications.
As always, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.
Lastly, for hundreds of extra articles on gaming, weird history, and for more free fiction, check out my Vocal archive, too!
What Happens If You Remove The Doors?
Consider, for a moment, the humble door. At its most basic, this door represents an action sink; it typically takes some kind of resource for someone to open the door, leaving them unable to use more of their turn (especially if an ambush occurs or a trap goes off once the door is open). It also, as has been mentioned, functions as a kind of boundary (in our minds, if not on the board). Because yes, we might be academically aware that the thin, wooden door isn't going to stifle the sound of a barbarian's roar of bloodlust, or the blast of the gunslinger's weapon, but nine times out of ten it doesn't matter how raucous the combat is. As long as no one opens the next door, nothing is going to come to where the party is because it's out-of-bounds in our minds. Sure, monsters might hear a commotion, but they'll just set up an ambush behind the door, and wait for the party to come to them.
Who knows what the hell is behind these doors?
Now take a moment, and ask yourself what would happen if you put your players in a dungeon that didn't have doors in it... or at least had significantly fewer doors. Perhaps there were once doors, and they've rotted out in the dank. Maybe the doors were smashed out during a previous siege, or maybe the location merely has grand archways that never had doors in them at all. You might have hanging curtains for privacy, or even chains and beads, but nothing really separating one room from another.
Do you have that image clearly in your head? Good. Now ask yourself what kind of dynamic movements this lack of doors offers for your game.
Take your traditional setup for a dungeon, where the party comes in from the south to a big, square room that has additional doors to the north, west, and east. Think of it almost like entering a dungeon in Legend of Zelda. Instead of just dealing with whatever the threat in this main chamber is, unconnected from anything else, your party is now acting in an organic environment. Can they sneak past the goblin guards in the main room, angling themselves into the side chamber? If they begin combat, what will it take to draw the interest of any other forces in the complex? What kind of patrols of monsters exist that they have to be concerned with?
And, most importantly, how will the party (or their enemies) use these open doors to their strategic advantage?
Does the paladin stand in the doorway behind his tower shield, protecting the ranger while they ply their bow? Does the rogue duck into the shadows, sneaking from one archway to another to stab unsuspecting foes in the back, or to fire their crossbow unseen? Does the dynamic space make the ability to shape the battlefield with illusions, smoke bombs, or other forms of concealment more powerful? Does the party genuinely have to contend with size restrictions, using narrow spaces to thwart larger foes, or grappling with smaller enemies who retreat into crawlspaces that leave bigger characters easy prey?
These are all questions we don't really think about when we're sectioning off the parts of a dungeon in our minds, and constructing specific arenas that have specific, laid-out challenges for our players to deal with. But when we open up the entire dungeon, and treat the whole thing as one, connected, Rube Goldberg device that's ready to go off with movements the party can only partially stop, it can become a much greater challenge.
So Where Should There Be A Door?
Now, it's perfectly possible to build an entire dungeon without a single door in it. After all, hallways, thresholds, stairs, and other locations are still perfectly viable locations for traps, ambushes, and so on. However, doors do still serve a valuable purpose, and there are several places they should be. But their presence should feel organic, rather than taken for granted. For example:
- Exterior Doors: These doors keep out invaders as well as the weather. Whether the doors are huge, like castle gates, or relatively small like postern doors, these are meant to be serious barriers that are not overcome lightly.
- Security Doors: Typically found at a choke point, think of the sort of doors you'd find at the entrace to a cell block in a prison, or for gaining access to a deeper part of a castle or fortress. These doors are meant to be defensible, and difficult to pass through without a key, the proper tools, a spell, or some combination thereof.
- Vault Doors: The ultimate door, a vault is the highest possible security. Whether it's defending some great treasures, or it's keeping unfathomably dangerous beings locked away, these doors are typically strong enough that you can't just smash through them with brute force even if you have time to try. They require a combination, answers to a riddle, or even proper spells to open.
Now, other than these big three categories, ask yourself why interior doors are necessary in a given location. Because if access is meant to be free and easy (such as between the back and front of a shop or a tavern), then chances are good there will just be a curtain, or at most a swinging, batwing-style door. The doors of an inn are likely to be closed off to give guests privacy, and the doors of a prison are locked and barred to prevent escape. But will the huts and cottages in a village even have interior doors? Or exterior doors, for that matter? Would an aging castle exposed to the elements for centuries still have doors now, even if it once did? What need for privacy would a crypt have, especially if there was nothing valuable buried inside the vaults? Would a place meant to be open to the public, like a church, have more than a handful of doors to ensure only specific people could easily access specific locations?
Again, whether a door does or doesn't belong on the map is a choice that's ultimately up to you. However, it is worth stopping to ask how we let the presence of doors funnel us into one-challenge, one-arena thinking, which can make an RPG feel far more like a game, and far less like an unfolding experience for your players... good or bad.
However, if you do want to have doors in your dungeons, consider using some of the following resources:
That's all for this week's Crunch post! To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!
To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!
Making a living as a writer of any stripe is hard as hell, and if you want to make tabletop RPGs for a living you have an uphill battle of Sisyphean proportions ahead of you. With that said, I've been in the game for over a decade at this point in my life. I've got nearly 180 products with my name on them, and I've worked for more than a dozen different publishers during my stint as a creator. I've released supplements that were smash hits, and topped the bestseller list for over a week when they came out. I've also released supplements that moved a handful of copies, and then vanished into the void, rarely to be seen again. However, with every year that's gone by I've had a bigger catalog of material, and that has translated to a larger, more reliable set of earnings.
Until this year.
And while there are always going to be fluctuations in the market, changes in what the audience wants, etc., this is far beyond those normal fluctuations. I've recently had my monthly earnings cut in half, and I've been struggling with it for the latter half of 2024. After discussions with other creators who operate on my level, I kept hearing the same stories. So I put my head together with Adrian Kennelly, my publisher at Azukail Games, and we started looking into things.
This week I wanted to explain to folks what we've found, and to present some solutions for those who want to help the creators they love ride out this storm so we can keep making stuff for you and your tables.
The numbers aren't great, I'm not going to lie.
As always, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.
Lastly, for hundreds of extra articles on gaming, weird history, and for more free fiction, check out my Vocal archive, too!
All Right, What Are We Looking At?
Let's take one of my most recent releases, 100 Helpful Hirelings. This NPC list actually performed far better than a lot of my other recent releases in terms of numbers, which landed it on the Top Sellers Under $5 bar on the front page of the site. At the time I checked the numbers, the supplement had sold 58 copies, with 35 of them coming from the Azukail Games newsletter (which is roughly 60% of sales).
Now, that is an outside performer that did better than average... but in the past if I had a supplement wind up on that top sellers bar, it would be because it crossed the 100 sales line in either the first day, or the first weekend. The fact that I got onto that bar with less-than-triple-digit sales tells me that sales are likely decreasing across the board, and showing up on the front page isn't enough to cover the deficit.
If that's the outsized numbers, and something that would be considered a successful release, then what does an average release look like?
Well, I'm glad you asked.
The numbers don't get any better.
Let's take page views. In the past when a new supplement dropped, we could regularly expect 60 page views on it in the first hour. That was what we got when the algorithm was working, and the site was encouraging organic discovery. Now? It takes several days for the page view count to get that high. And this isn't a one-off thing with a couple of supplements... this has been going on for months! It now takes Azukail Games products days to get the kind of views they used to get in a single hour!
As if that wasn't bad/frustrating enough, sales have absolutely cratered for our supplements. Our numbers are down so low because it seems that 90% of new release sales are coming from the Azukail Games newsletter, rather than due to traffic on Drive Thru RPG itself. This is damning in multiple ways, because it means that not only is organic searching on the DTRPG site itself tanked to the point where it is nearly useless, it means that all the social media platforms where supplements are announced (Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc.) also have terrible organic discovery. So it doesn't matter how many places we share our releases, or who we tell about them, a majority of our sales are coming from people who actually open the Azukail Games newsletter and read what's inside.
That's a lot of numbers. But what does that mean for me, personally, as a creator? In short, my sales/royalties income has been cut in half.
Around this time last year, I was regularly pulling in between $350 and $425 a month in combined royalties and affiliate earnings from DTRPG sales. My projection at the time was, if I kept growing the way I had in the past, that I'd be earning between $450 and $500 a month around this time this year.
However, I'm barely pulling in $150 to $220. And given that I already live below the poverty line, that was not the kick in the crotch I needed.
How You Can Help
If you are reading this, you probably can't stop the enshittification of social media platforms, or undo how DTRPG has completely screwed up the ability to connect creators with their potential audience. However, what you can do is choose to plug-in to the creators you care about to make sure that you don't miss any of our releases and updates, and to do your best to make sure you don't have to depend on the random and inexplicable tides of the algorithm to find out when we're releasing stuff.
And if you want to help me out, specifically, please do the following:
Lastly, if you want to hear about all of the releases from Azukail Games, go to the Azukail Games website, and sign up for the company newsletter! It's on the right-hand side of the page.
With all of that said (and I cannot stress this enough), make sure that you stay plugged-in to the creators and companies you actually follow. Subscribing to our newsletter does neither of us any good if it just goes into your spam folder and you don't see it. You don't have to buy everything we release, but every purchase, review, like, and share on social media helps us overcome the algorithm, and try to make up for the damage it's causing to us.
As always, we can't do any of this without you!
Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!
That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!
To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!
There's been a lot of nonsense going on behind the screen recently, so I wanted to take this week's Table Talk to bring some folks up-to-date, and to provide something of a progress report on two current projects. So if you've been hoping for some news on some irons I mentioned I had in the fire, then this should answer some of your questions. And if you're only just now joining me, well, keep reading because I'm going to do my best to provide any necessary context as we go along!
Now, let's get into the details!
Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my bi-weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.
Lastly, for hundreds of extra articles on gaming, weird history, and for more free fiction, check out my Vocal archive, too!
First and Foremost, Progress And Pentex
For those who don't know, I've been making a lot of videos for the Azukail Games YouTube channel for the past several years. Originally used as a place to host the preview videos for several of the company's TTRPG supplements, I expanded the offerings with several shows like Speaking of Sundara (where I talk about my RPG setting Sundara: Dawn of a New Age), Discussions of Darkness (where I talk about the World and Chronicles of Darkness settings), Tabletop Mercenary (where I talk about the business of TTRPGs), and now Tactical Plastic Report (where I talk about my RPG Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic), along with a slew of audio dramas taken from TTRPG supplements I've written.
I've been fighting an uphill battle to try to get the channel monetized for a while, and we were well on our way this time last year... until the algorithm change last Autumn. That absolutely cratered our progress, and sent us several rungs down the ladder. As of my last check-in with Adrian, though, the channel is at 2,825 hours of the 3,000 hours we need to hit in order for us to become monetized.
That means we only need 175 hours of additional watched time on our videos, which is the closest we've gotten so far in this entire saga! It's still a huge chunk of watch time for a relatively small channel, but I'm hoping that I can get some folks currently reading this to help us reach that goal.
As I mentioned a while back in my post Video Essays On The World and Chronicles of Darkness... What Would You Like To See?, I've had a couple of concepts floating around in my head for a little while. One of those is one that I'm tentatively titling, "The Problem With Pentex," because while I love it as an antagonist, and a thematic part of the World of Darkness, there is (in my opinion) something that makes it fit strangely with the rest of the setting. So I wanted to outline the position I'm taking, and then provide some suggestions to fellow Storytellers for how I would handle Pentex, were I to alter the setup and origin of this faction (or just expand it out to encompass a bigger picture).
I've also got a fun little tongue-in-cheek commercial that will be appearing in the middle of the episode. While I'm definitely taking the piss, though, Dubby is a real product, and I do really get a cut of the proceeds if you choose to try it out. All the info for this powdered energy drink is in the video below, so give this a watch if you're looking for a chuckle, or if you want to be one of the first to check out the closest thing to a sponsor any of my videos have had yet!
Up Next, Windy City Shadows!
I tend to bring up this project once a month or so, but it's a big deal to me, and it's something I've been kicking around for a while that feels like it's close to finally moving beyond the idea phase. While I have a full Ask Me Anything about the project, posted below, the elevator pitch is that Windy City Shadows is going to be an audio drama podcast set in the world of the Chronicles of Darkness. Each season will focus on different spheres of this world, but each season will build off the story of the one that came before, dealing with the ripples of those stories as they move across the various supernatural communities. Season One, Grim Promises, can best be summarized as "modern fantasy John Wick," and for a textual rundown check out the blog post Windy City Shadows: A Chronicles of Darkness Podcast Proposal.
For folks who have wondered why I first proposed this podcast a year ago, but nothing has been released for it, well, it's because even if art is offered at no cost to the customer that doesn't mean it's free to make. One of the major things I needed to have in place to help underwrite the project was that the Azukail Games YouTube chanel (where the podcast is going to be backed up and available for folks to listen to in addition to other podcast platforms) needed to be monetized so that these episodes were seen as something with earning potential, instead of just one more thing floating out there on the vast sea of the Internet.
However, since we're slowly closing in on that goal, I have started laying the groundwork for the show's production! During the month of October I laid out the skeleton for season one's 10-episode plan, and I have a script for a preview that I'll be putting together and releasing both on the Azukail Games YT channel, and on the Windy City Shadows podcast channel once we cross that finish line and get the YT channel monetized. And while there are currently some extra projects on my work desk, my hope is to start writing scripts for the show before the year is over, and to begin recording once my current housing situation is settled next year (for those who don't know, I reside in government-subsidized housing, which makes renewing my lease a less-than-straightforward process).
Though I feel like a broken record saying it, this may be some folks' first time seeing these words. If you're interested in Windy City Shadows as a project, or just seeing me continue to make videos in general, please help me smash that goal this month! Like and subscribe to the Azukail Games YouTube channel, but even more than that, go through the archive and watch our videos! Leave comments on the ones you like (or, hell, the one's you don't like), and consider sharing some of them around on your own social media pages. The algorithm is stamping down harder than even before, and the only way we can get our stuff seen at all is by folks like you helping to boost our signal.
Thank you in advance... 175 hours is a lot for a relatively small channel of our size, but with your help hopefully we can surpass it before Thanksgiving comes and goes!
What's Next on Table Talk?
That's it for this installment of Table Talk! What would you like to see next? I'm listening for your comments and votes!
To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter, as well as on Pinterest where I'm building all sorts of boards dedicated to my books, RPG supplements, and greatest hits. Lastly, to help support me and my work, consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron! Even a little donation can have a big impact.
