"Boots On The Ground" Is Out For Army Men (The Potential Start of a New Series)

It's been a few years since my RPG Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic dropped after a successful Kickstarter, and some time on BackerKit. And since it's come out there have been supplements for additional enemies (Army Men: Threat Assessments), supplements for booby traps (Ungentlemanly Warfare: A Baker's Dozen of Booby Traps), the medals system to award players for their performance in the field (Army Men: Medals of Honor), and two additional mission modules (A Night At Breckon's Beacon and Assault on Outpost 13).

However, there has been a request for a particular kind of supplement I hadn't released for the game yet; collections of iconic characters. Because while folks playing the game at home with their friends usually wanted to make their own troopers and squads, there were some folks who wanted to run the game at conventions, or at their local gaming stores. And there were some GMs who thought having premade characters would help get their players into the spirit of the game to see if they wanted to go even deeper.

So I put together what I'm hoping will be the start of a series... Boots On The Ground: Baker Team!

And if you haven't grabbed a copy of it yet, do so today!

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!

A Starting Squad, and An Homage

The idea behind Boots On The Ground, as a series of supplements, is to provide players and Game Masters alike with complete squads of troopers, each of which has its own history and iconography, and where the troopers themselves have motivations, broad personalities, and a bit of history with one another. In short, the supplements are meant to give you everything you need to run a quick and dirty game without everyone needing to dig through the rulebook and spend hours on character creation if they just want to get stuck in and see how the game plays.

I even talked about this a bit in Tactical Plastic Report, Episode 10: Future Expansions For Army Men, over on the Azukail Games YouTube channel.

And because I'm a sucker for a good homage (Assault on Outpost 13 is an obvious callback to the film Assault on Precinct 13, after all), I decided to draw on one of the most famous action movies out there. For folks who can't pin down the tickle in the back of their minds, Baker Team was the elite unit that John Rambo fought with in Vietnam... and the Baker Team presented for Army Men has a similar vibe. They are the ace-in-the-hole team that's sent in to do the dirty jobs nobody else will, and even if they meet their end the brass will consider it a win if they sold their lives for significant enemy numbers.

Originally I was going to put together 5 entire squads in a single book, but the size of that project would have been prohibitive in terms of both time and sheer word count. So to test the waters, I released this first installment of Boots On The Ground to feel out audience response, and to see if more supplements in this line would be something folks would respond to.

So, if this is something you'd like to see more of, pick up a copy of Boots On The Ground: Baker Team today, and leave a rating and review on it once you've given it a read! Also, feel free to tell me which nation you'd like to see a squad from next either in your review, or in the comments below... especially if there's another homage you feel would be right at home in this game of tactical plastic!

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!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel! Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my dystopian sci-fi thriller Old Soldiers, my hardboiled gangland noir series starring a bruiser of a Maine Coon with Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Blue Sky, 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!

Building Your Campaign Setting With The Hollow Earth Hypothesis

If you play RPGs, then chances are the idea of a Hollow Earth is probably not new to you. With games like Hollow Earth Expedition, Adventure To Hollow Earth for Mage: The Ascension, or Terra Incognita, a Hollow Earth setting for Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition, the concept has been explored in a lot of ways. And that's without discussing Hollow Earth in popular fiction, such as the prehistoric Pellucidar.

However, just because an idea is popular, that doesn't mean everyone has heard of it. And if you haven't read the history of the Hollow Earth theory, it's pretty damn wild!

So, this is the Earth...

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!

The Origin of The Hollow Earth

According to the Library of Congress, the Hollow Earth theory was originally created back in the 1600s as a radical way of explaining a natural phenomenon. You see, when sailors would go out on their ships to cross the ocean, they would bring all the tools they had with them to make sure they didn't get lost. Star charts were common, as well as tools that helped them easily locate true north so they could orient themselves accordingly. However, it was noted that sometimes the magnetic needles in their compasses did not point north. They would, in fact, go wandering and become completely useless at certain points.

How could this happen? Well Royal Society member and astronomer Edmund Halley (yeah, the guy whose name is on the comet) had an idea... the Earth was actually hollow!

All right, I'm gonna back up. Tell me where I lost you.

So, the basic idea that Halley proposed was that the Earth we know up on the surface is just an outer shell, and there is actually an inner Earth with its own magnetic poles, and that these two Earths spin freely. This change in relative positioning of the inner Earth interfered with the natural magnetic laws on the surface, which is why the compass needles would sometimes wander for no discernible reason. He even went so far as to suggest that this inner sphere would harbor some kind of life.

On the one hand, this is sort of ridiculous... on the other hand, though, he wasn't that far off. We're more of a Jawbreaker Earth, with a bunch of layers, but the molten iron core does actually shift and fluctuate. This is what causes the magnetic drift that was being observed. That explanation, though, is nowhere near as much fun as the idea of there being an entirely different world inside our own!

Making This Concept Your Own

A lot of Hollow Earth games have a very pulp adventure/steampunk vibe to them, because that's when the concept really hit pop culture awareness. Books, short stories, and movies all trying to capture that pulp era really leaned into the Hollow Earth idea. Sadly, it turns out John Quincy Adams didn't believe it, but an alternate history game where he did, and funded an expedition your characters are now part of is just one inspiration for a Hollow Earth game.

However, if you want to build a really unique Hollow Earth game, I would recommend doing something a little different, and mashing it up with games or genres that we don't usually associate with this kind of setup.

A world without sun, you say...?

For example, is this Hollow Earth a place where all the creatures of horror have their origins? A place filled with vampires, werewolves, the walking dead, and other terrifying beings? Is it instead a place filled with alien races who have lived here far longer than humanity, the center of the world filled with horrors like elder things, gugs, and other Lovecraftian monsters? Did the Earth open up to swallow people at the end of the world in Mork Borg, and now this place is being explored by those who were raised on the poisoned prophecies of the basilisk, finding out there were long-lost truths beneath the surface?

Is the Hollow Earth where this fantasy game has been happening this whole time, and it is through finding the boundaries of this world that our adventurers climb out to the outer shell? And if so, what do they find when they reach the upper crust of a world they thought they knew? Is it the modern world as we know it? A ruined hellscape of frozen wastes representing the edges of Snowhaven? Or something else entirely?

If you've been looking to do something different for your next game, but the previous installment of Using Flat Earth Theories To Fuel Your Fantasy Worldbuilding didn't really scratch that itch, then consider what a Hollow Earth game might look like at your table! Even (or perhaps especially) if the game won't be taking place on Earth at all.

Lastly, before you head out today, consider the following articles of mine as some additional reading/inspiration for this week's post:

- 5 Real Underground Cities To Inspire Your TTRPG Campaign

- 5 Tips For Creating Fantasy Towns and Cities

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!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my Rumble channel The Literary Mercenary! Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my dystopian sci-fi thriller Old Soldiers, my hardboiled gangland noir series starring a bruiser of a Maine Coon with Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Blue Sky, 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!

To Influence Creators, You Have To Actually Support Them

Given that we just had a bunch of elections, I want to describe a political situation that happens in the U.S. among more left-leaning people, and their reaction to power.

So, the Democratic Party puts out its representative. This person is usually pretty unacceptable to those who want meaningful, structural change, and they typically have a bunch of status quo policies. They might be good on one or two issues, and neutral on others, but a lot of folks see them (and not incorrectly so) as a lesser evil. So these voters fold their arms, and refuse to participate until they are given a candidate who is more in-line with what they actually want. When this happens, though, the democrats don't push further and further left to court their votes; instead, they track further toward the American center (the global right) or the American right (the global far right).

The reason for this is that folks who are center-to-right vote reliably, they engage with the process, and they are going to make a more reliable base for that candidate to actually get into office. Yet over and over again folks seem confused why their attempts to punish these candidates drive them toward conservatives, rather than making them more leftist.

In general, this is because if you aren't supporting someone (you aren't voting for them, donating money to them, giving them volunteer hours, etc.) then you have nothing you can take away from them. So your opinion on their platform, what they're doing, etc., is irrelevant because they lose nothing by ignoring you, and it's uncertain that your support would be worth the investment it would take to get you on their side.

This post isn't about politics, though. It's about people who make art, and understanding why your criticism may not be getting the reaction you want from the creators whose work you're trying to shape.

Why aren't they listening to me!?

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!

You Have To Have Leverage If You Want To Use It

I've been in this game for a while now, and I've got over 200 titles with my name on them. I've worked for a dozen or more publishers as a freelancer, and I am (knock wood) still managing to survive. However, this week I wanted to address the connection between consumer behavior (that is to say all of you, out in the audience) and creator behavior (folks like me who are making things for all of you to use, enjoy, and consume).

Generally speaking, your feedback is extremely important to us. And while some of that will be comments on social media, or the reviews of the things we've made, feedback also comes in terms of sales numbers and general audience attitude.

For a specific, let's take the whole OGL situation that Wizards of The Coast stepped in a few years back. They were going to tear down the Open Game License agreements that allowed everyone to use the Dungeons and Dragons ruleset, turn the screws on creators by demanding big shares of their sales, put up walls around D&D, add in AI, force it to go digital, and a whole bunch of other stuff I can't even recall now. And they backed off of basically all of that because people started cancelling their subscriptions, and no longer buying DND 5E materials. The company was bleeding profits, and it was that action from the audience that forced their hand and made them change direction.

If Wizards had been bombarded by messages from people who weren't actually buying their books, or who weren't people with accounts on their digital platform who were telling the company, "Well, I'm not going to give you any of my money now!" they would have utterly ignored it. Because you're threatening not to give them phantom sales that they don't have. But people who were paying the companies' bills closing their accounts and leaving en masse? That got the suits' attention really fast because they were losing actual, measurable profits and the brand was taking a nosedive.

Oh... those numbers aren't good...

And this is a point that I want to drive home to people out there. Creators will absolutely listen to you... but if you're not part of their fan base, if you're not actually buying their books, playing their games, watching their channels, and so on, then they aren't going to change what they're doing just to please you. Creators (and companies) change to keep the support they have, not to roll the dice and take a gamble on support they might maybe possibly get according to unverified accounts online.

Two strong examples of this come to mind for me, personally.

Somewhere between 3 and 5 years ago there was a person on Reddit who raised a big stink about the way I posted in a particular sub. They were very mad about my behavior, accused me of just being in it to make money, and said that he and his entire table who supported me on Patreon were going to delete their pledges immediately. I found that somewhat alarming, worried that I'd pissed off a not-insignificant part of my own fanbase (since I've never had more than 35 paying patrons at a time)... but one day after another went by, and there was no change in my numbers. I even reached back out to the person, wanting to make sure he hadn't deleted a pledge to someone else he'd mistaken for me. At the end of the day, it was just an empty threat made by someone who just wanted me to stop posting in his group.

Another incident came with the recent project I was part of, Night Horrors: Primoridal Peerage. This supplement was met with a lot of flak because one of the major names on the original Beast: The Primordial turned out to be a predator, and it sort of tainted the game in the eyes of a lot of players. To be clear, that person was not involved with this supplement, and the folks I worked with on it appear to be a pretty solid team of people as far as I know. However, there were a lot of comments saying how we shouldn't make anything for Beast, how they didn't play that game and weren't going to buy this. There were event a few folks who said they'd moved on from the Chronicles of Darkness entirely because there were too many problematic designers who'd contributed to the games. At the end of the day, though, the supplement hit Silver status (minimum 101 sales), and there were some folks who liked it despite its pedigree. And the folks who left those comments... well, all they were telling us was that this wasn't a game they were going to play. It apparently never occurred to them they weren't the target audience, so their criticism didn't exactly move the needle all that much.

In Summary... Don't Go All In When You've Got No Hand

It's true that creators and businesses will listen to their fans when they make themselves heard. But you need to have something you can take away from them if you expect them to change their behavior. If you're a member of their crowdfunding audience, people cutting off that support and telling the creator why might get them to change their behavior. If people start unsubscribing from their YouTube, unfollowing them on social media, and telling them why on the way out the door, that might get their attention.

But if you aren't subscribed, you don't buy their books, and you don't support them, then what are you threatening to take away? Because in that situation you're the angry woman loudly proclaiming, "You just lost yourself a customer!" to a store you've never actually bought anything from as you storm out the front doors. If you didn't actually establish a pattern of supporting them, then they lost absolutely nothing when you left.

All right... have a nice day, or something...

Please, if you've read this far, understand what I'm saying. You are absolutely free to support or not support any writers, game designers, or companies you want to. No matter what kinds of products they make, it's your money, and you can do whatever you want with it.

With that said, if you want to actually use your buying power to shape the kinds of products that creators put together, then you have to actually have support you can take away from them. Because you can't give people less attention or fewer sales than zero, so you don't really have anything you can threaten them with if you don't have any skin in the game.

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!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my Rumble channel The Literary Mercenary! Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my dystopian sci-fi thriller Old Soldiers, my hardboiled gangland noir series starring a bruiser of a Maine Coon with Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Blue Sky, 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!

If Your Dice Are Cursed, Consider Building A Character Who Doesn't Roll

I've mentioned this a time or two on this blog over the past decade and change, but I am cursed. Any dice I roll regardless of the method, who handed them to me, or which game I'm playing will give me some of the worse possible results I could ever hope for nine times out of ten. I once rolled so many natural 1s that I started counting them as a streak (I hit 11 in a row before it finally broke, in case you're wondering), and it was one of the most horribly entrancing things I've ever done.

Also, irritatingly, this curse doesn't apply to me as a GM, because all of a sudden my dice wake up and remember how to be lethal when I'm sitting in the big chair.

Anyway, this curse is what taught me to mix max and point crunch any character I make, because I need to be able to actually succeed and participate even if I'm rolling somewhere between a 2 and a 5 for a majority of the night. And while I do take a certain amount of enjoyment in digging through a game to find every bonus and tool I can to help me combat fate (it's why I have an entire Character Conversions archive, after all), there is another solution for folks who are frustrated that their dice won't cooperate.

Play a character who rarely, if ever, has to roll a die to participate in the game.

Oh dearie... I'm not rolling dice. You are. Give me that save, won't 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!

Bonuses, Debuffs, And Controlling The Battlefield

Generally speaking, the sort of character I'm going to describe is going to be a spellcaster (for fantasy games), and likely some sort of psionic or technomancer for a more sci-fi related game. Exact mileage will vary, but keep in mind that this is meant to be a shift in perspective and strategy more than it is a recommendation for a specific particular class in a specific particular game, even if the following examples are from Pathfinder since I feel they make my point concisely.

All right? All right.

Now then, most RPGs that have you roll dice give you a bunch of bonuses and negatives, and you then have to either beat your enemy's roll, or you have to overcome some arbitrary number set as the difficulty. If you're attempting to persuade a door guard to let you into the tavern, you need to hit a certain number on your Diplomacy or Intimidate roll, or if you're swinging a power sword at a chaos space marine you need to have more successes than he has to parry your attack.

These are the situations where a dice curse can be an issue. Because no matter how much the odds are in your favor, there is always a chance that something goes wrong and your action is wasted. You miss your shot, you fail to persuade an NPC to your point of view, and so on, and so forth... and that's really the most frustrating part of things. You just aren't having an effect on the game, and you feel like you might as well be sitting there blowing raspberries instead of wasting everyone's time.

I believe that is where I come in.

One of the most visual examples of the character who doesn't roll, yet can still be the MVP of an encounter, is the bard. Seen across various editions (as well as in the Tactician caste in my own RPG Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic), the bard is typically thought of as a party booster. Their music grants bonuses to their allies, they can inspire courage and suppress fear, and they gain access to spells that can heal allies and hinder their foes even further. And while the enemy might receive a saving throw against these spells, the bard often doesn't have to roll anything (except for how many hit points they give back to an ally).

However, bards aren't the only class capable of this kind of play. Consider a transmuter wizard who is constantly enhancing the attributes of her allies through various buffing spells, or who reveals all the enemies with a well-placed glitterdust spell (which might even blind her foes, turning a fight into a rout very quickly). The sorcerer might have adhesive spittle on-hand, able to entangle a foe and stick them in place so they can become easy prey for the martial members of the party (since entangled foes receive negatives to attack, Dexterity, speed, and several other factors). A witch might have the ability to hex an enemy, forcing them to use the worst of 2d20 rolls when they attack, make saves, and so on, thus allowing their allies to avoid harm, and score more devastating attacks with their own spells.

I talked about more specifics in Vulgar Displays of Power as well as in Don't Underestimate Battlefield Control Spells for folks interested in more PF-centric advice.

With that said, if you want to avoid rolling dice for your character, then some of the things you should build your strategy around include:

- Granting bonuses to your allies (as well as healing), which tend to be automatic successes.

- Debuffing enemies in ways they cannot ignore, even on a failed saving throw (though there may be a lesser penalty on a successful save).

- Shifting the terrain of the battlefield entirely (creating pits, summoning walls, and so on).

An important thing to remember is that this strategy largely requires an individual to step out of the spotlight, and to act as the assist for other players to be the ones who clinch glory. That can be tough to accept, but it is often extremely satisfying knowing that your character is the power behind the throne, and that it is through your efforts that everyone else is succeeding (or at least avoiding death).

Lastly, it's important to remember that you can never remove dice rolls entirely from a character. Even if you primarily boost your allies in their endeavors (both in and out of combat), or your strategy is to force your enemies to work at a disadvantage, you're still going to have to make an occasional skill check, saving throw, etc. Still, there are a great deal of situations where you can absolutely leave a task up to someone else who doesn't have untrustworthy dice... and you can give them an extra slap on the back and a +1 for good luck if you have a spare spell slot!

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

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!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my Rumble channel The Literary Mercenary! Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my dystopian sci-fi thriller Old Soldiers, my hardboiled gangland noir series starring a bruiser of a Maine Coon with Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Blue Sky, 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!

Alice Liddell Is Coming Back To RPGs (And You Should Check Out Her Gaming Work!)

I wanted to open this week's Moon Pope Monday post off with a disclaimer. Alice is my partner, and she publishes most of her RPG content through Azukail Games, which is the same publisher I work with for a great deal of my supplements. However, over the past several years these Monday posts have become a place where I like to shout out fellow creators who need eyes on their work, and who are having a tough time reaching an audience who needs what they're creating.

And if I didn't think Alice's work wasn't great I wouldn't be telling all of you to go check it out. All right? All right. Let's get into it!

Seriously... this title alone is the length of a full NOVEL. You get your money's worth.

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!

So Who Is Alice (And What Does She Make)?

For folks who've never seen Alice's name before, she's an author, a Twitch streamer, and a YouTuber. She's got over 30 titles published for her fiction (I'm biased, but I'd absolutely recommend Succumb to Darkness for folks who like gothic vampires and the French Revolution), and you can check out her channels KHR Arts where she primarily hosts her cozy gaming streams, and Alice The Author where she gives folks a peek behind the curtain and explains the business side of being an author.

And as if all of that wasn't enough, she's making a comeback to RPGs in the near future!

You know, in the COPIOUS amounts of free time she had...

While she's got a laundry list of fresh supplements she's currently working on (I don't want to spoil too much before they're ready), I did want to give her previous work a shout-out, and encourage folks to go grab copies of it for their tables. Because she puts a lot of thought and craft into her supplements, and it's hard as hell to reach an audience these days.

So, check out the following if you haven't yet!

- 100 Stat Boost Potion Recipes: Her longest, most intricate title, this alchemical recipe book goes deeper than more RPGs need... but it is great for inspiration, worldbuilding, and just plain fun!

- 100 Dangerous Plants: Alice's bestselling title, which reached Electrum a while back, this is another great thing for GMs to make their worlds (and encounters) a bit more fun!

- 100 Witches: An NPC list that covers witches of all sorts and stripes, there's inspiration for allies, antagonists, and everything in between in this one!

- 100 Flowers and Trees Sure To Boost Your Stats: A perfect companion to the first entry on this list, this supplement is also a less-expensive title if the price tag of the potion recipes makes you balk a bit.

- 100 Avian Beasts: The odd duck out, pun very much intended, this one hit Copper status, but has had trouble climbing higher. I'd recommend checking it out if you're in the market for some inspiration for your bestiary.

That's all that Alice has available for RPG supplements for the time being, but since I have your attention, consider subscribing to her channels, and watching some of her videos. She's been battling the algorithm on YouTube forever, and it would be a huge boon if she could get one (or both) of her channels monetized. And, best of all, the only thing you have to do in order to make that happen is to click a button!

We're all about supporting one another in this community, so please, check out some of Alice's work and help her keep her bills paid while she works on getting some fresh content to the presses!

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!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my Rumble channel The Literary Mercenary! Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my dystopian sci-fi thriller Old Soldiers, my hardboiled gangland noir series starring a bruiser of a Maine Coon with Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Blue Sky, 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!

"Old Soldiers" Has An Audio Preview (And You Should Absolutely Check It Out!)

Folks who regularly stop by this blog are probably aware of the fact that I have written a slew of space marine fan stories for the grimdark future of Warhammer 40K. And if you're one of the readers out there who has enjoyed The Final Lamentation (my story of a Lamenter savaging a Black Legion ship), Blackest Knights (a story of Kill Team Errant for the Deathwatch), or even my Waking Dogs series (featuring a renegade World Eater), then I wanted to take a moment to let you know about my sci fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers.

Not just that, but it now has an audio reading for the first two chapters from Altered State Adventures!

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!

A New Update (While I Work On Some More 40K Nonsense)

For folks who haven't come across this book before, Old Soldiers is a novel of mine that's been out for some time. In this book we follow Pollux, one of the myrmidon, who is attempting to survive in a world that was not meant for him. A genetic experiment who was one of hundreds of different doomsday weapons created by humanity, these gigantic, albino shock troopers weren't meant to survive their clash with the alien Hyperion... but some of them did. Ghosts of their former selves, the myrmidon have become relics of the past, mostly forgotten by the world they fought for. Pollux is just about to get his life together, when assassins come for him, and the woman he's formed a connection with.

Their bullets weren't enough, though. And when he gets the remnants of his squad back together, they'll tear apart the city until they find the answers that have been buried for far too long.

So grab your copy if you haven't yet!

And I bring this up this week because this is the second piece of mine that's been dramatized by Altered State Adventures. The first one of mine the channel put together was my Warhammer 40K Knight story Broken Heroes, whose video is approaching 10K views as of this reading...

So, you know, go check that out if you haven't!

I've Got Some New Stuff on The Horizon!

While I'm currently getting ready for my last event of 2025, once I pack up and get back home I have plans to settle down and to work on the next installment of the Gav and Bob series, which tells the tale of the Imperium's Bravest Ogryn! I don't know if I'm going to manage to get the next installment done by Sanguinala this year, but I'm going to do my best!

And for folks who haven't come across this series yet, check out this playlist over on A Vox in The Void!

And, of course, if you want to help me make a little extra scratch for the holidays, you can read my contributions to the series directly on Vocal.media:

- Gav and Bob Part IV: The Emperor's Hand

- Gav and Bob Part V: Faith and Martyrs

- Gav and Bob Part VI: The Laughter of a Thirsting God

Lastly, if you've already read these stories, consider sharing them around on your social media site of choice! It's tough to get eyes on these stories, but the more folks who cheer for Gav, the more of these stories I'll be able to put together... so raise your voice, because it matters!

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Table Talk. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my Rumble channel The Literary Mercenary! Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my dystopian sci-fi thriller Old Soldiers, my hardboiled gangland noir series starring a bruiser of a Maine Coon with Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Blue Sky, 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!