#041 - december 2024 TTRPG newsletter
The monthly TTRPG newsletter from Xapur
Pathfinder, Delta Green, Christmas…
What's new at my gaming table?
After finishing the Pathfinder 2E Beginner Box, and getting to know several inhabitants of the small village of Otari during the Founders' Festival, the adventurers decided to take over a fishing camp offered to them by the fishery manager after the basement had been “cleaned”. A smoothly-run affair, despite the ghosts, spiders and other web lurkers occupying the disused premises (for the record, this was the first scenario in the Troubles in Otari book). Then they headed (finally!) for the entrance to the lighthouse, so things could get serious in the Abomination Vaults!
Two sessions of PF2 this month, then, followed by two more of Delta Green, with the mystery of the haunted house finally solved (this was the end of the Music from a Darkened Room scenario). A grueling investigation and a well-deserved rest for Agent Sanchez, the FBI's top investigator - in all modesty, of course!
A little fewer games due to the end-of-year vacations. In my next annual review, I'll look back at 2024 and make a few plans for 2025.
As Christmas presents, I received the book of Cats! the masquerade (a french ttrpg) and a nice dice track - with Cthulhu's head! As well as a new headset, this time wireless, for virtual games and Discord chat. And the illustrated book of Shadow over Innsmouth, I love François Baranger's paintings accompanying Lovecraft's texts.
Latest articles published on the blog
As always, my posts are written in french but your browser may propose to translate them
Back to the fundamentals of old-school gaming with the Principia Apocrypha article, which lists and/or recalls the basic ideas of a genre that interests me greatly, far from the super-heroic feel of the latest editions of D&D (incidentally, I'm going to skip 2024).
Lecturôliste is back on the latest FiveE Magazine, while on the inspiration (and retro-nostalgia) side, I'm continuing the series of mythical G-D-Q modules with D1 - Descent into the Depths of the Earth. Finally, I've translated and made available an adventure I'd already published in English, a tribute to the cover of the first Players Handbook AD&D edition called the Temple of the Demon Idol. For my english readers, it is available on DriveThruRPG and Ko-fi for FREE.
Readings and inspirations
Readings: I've finally resumed reading volume 6 of Steven Erikson's Book of the Fallen: The Bonehunters, which I hope to finish in January. On the comics front, I've read Hellboy's The Crooked Man & the Return of Effie Kolb, a compilation of two previously published stories that inspired the 2024 film Hellboy: The Crooked Man, which never even got a theatrical release in the USA or France! Of course, I'll still try to see it, but the auspices are hardly encouraging.
Creations, tips, shop…
Publications of the month
I made my Patreon page a priority by offering members (even free ones) a Christmas cabin revisited with snowy variations: 8 maps in all.
Then I published the Lava River Bridge, in the style of one of my earlier maps. This has inspired me to create a series of interconnectable maps for... ‘hot‘ adventures. To be continued…
A major task has also been to list all my creations (over 80 to date) in a database, allowing them to be filtered by various criteria (type, environment, level, price etc...) as well as links to places where they can be found online (stores, Patreon, blog). You can access this database here.
Projects in progress
I'm going to finalize my “old school” One Page Dungeon, which I've been delaying writing since I hadn't figured out how to make it conform to my ideas. But I finally got the inspiration on how to proceed.
I've resumed a ‘geomorphs’ project, and should be publishing part of it soon.
I've continued to make progress on the revision of my megadungeon, which is going more slowly than planned, but I'm going to make it a priority in 2025.
I'm preparing a campaign derived from Curse of Strahd and I'm thinking about the game system (Shadowdark?) and organization (open table?).
I'm thinking about a monthly project for 2025, along the lines of #Dungeon23 but not too restrictive.
Lastly, I'm wondering what creations to focus on for this new year so here is a poll!
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my TTRPG blog (in french - but your browser may propose to translate it)
That’s it for this issue, see you soon!
And do not hesitate to leave a message or comment below or answer to the email to let me know what you think of this letter.