5Evo - White Chapel

Limited Adventures newest 5Evo setting/resource White Chapel has been released to backers in digital formats.  The physical version of the setting is currently at the printer and should be out in the wild in a month or so.

Like the previous three 5Evo books, White Chapel is broken into several sections.  The first 9 pages are a comic that set-up the back story of the setting ... which is pretty shallow in my opinion:

"A 5th Edition gaslight adventure to catch Jack the Ripper - Gaslight anti-heroes race to stop the world's most famous serial killer before he strikes again."

The second section is the meat of the book with a pretty moderately sized open-ended adventure that is well written and contains some nice thrills.  Finally the third section is pregens and character creation.

Character creation is pretty simple and very much in the Vain of PbtA games.  Pick a book, pick pregenerated ability scores (or as in normal 5e pointbuy or roll), pick an extra skill and off you go.  Advancement is limited to a checklist of things an Archtype (class) can do.

While the stated purposes of 5Evo are to take 5E rules into new settings and genres, the true appeal is the pick-up and run nature of the variation.  As I mentioned above the Archtype books are essentially PbtA Playbooks and advancement and play are handled all on a single, well-worded and concise single page.  Running this requires a single person to remind people what dice they need to role and that's about it.

Overall the task of the setting is the weakest element of this book, but as with the other 5Evo books it is very easy to shake things up and turn this into a running campaign.

(SIDE NOTE). I wrote this on my phone so advanced apologies for any Grammer/spelling/syntax/ formatting errors.

Mini-Six: Goblin Slayer

Although it is not definite, I may be running a Goblin Slayer One shot for Mini-Six in a few weeks for my daughter, her girlfriend, and a few people from her weekly Adventurer's League group. 

 I'm stoked, to be honest,  outside of P.I.E. I rarely get to play in Mini-Six and especially not in a dark fantasy setting.  So what is, Goblin Slayer?

Goblin Slayer is a Japanese Light Novel series (Think YA but not really) that has been adapted into several Manga and Anime series.  IMDb describes it as:

"In a fantasy world, a lone hero makes his living by exterminating all goblins he encounters. But one day he meets a friend, and his life begins to become more intense.

A young priestess has formed her first adventuring party, but almost immediately they find themselves in distress. It's the Goblin Slayer who comes to their rescue--a man who's dedicated his life to the extermination of all goblins, by any means necessary. And when rumors of his feats begin to circulate, there's no telling who might come calling next.

Humanity has been at war with different kinds of monsters for so long that people are used to it now. For those who want to take part in this, there is a guild of adventurers, where everyone can accept a quest and fight monsters for a reward. Among all those monsters, goblins are believed to be the weakest creatures to fight, which makes rewards for killing them quite minimal. Being alone, goblins are easy to kill, since they are not smart and lack any strategy whatsoever. However, among these stupid creatures, there are goblins that are much more powerful, smarter and deadlier than their small and foolish brothers. Together, they form a power that is able to trouble even experienced adventurers. The problem is that only a few understand it. Goblin Slayer, Orcbolg, or Beard-cutter is underappreciated silver-ranked adventurer, who, for some reason, only accepts goblin-killing quests. What is his story?"

I won't go over my Mini-Six house-rules in this post ... I'm working on something separate for that, instead, I'll just be posting my workup of the main two Goblin Slayer characters:

As the week goes by and time allows I will be working up Dwarf Shaman and High-Elf Archer.

2020 Maybe this will be the year

2019 is behind us and it saw GLG starting to come back to life with the most posts since 2015 (still nowhere near the posting rate of 2012-2015, however) and renewed interest by me - the humble caretaker - in RPG design and Community.  It also saw the Genius Loci Games blog expand to include comic coverage, a renewed focus on indie and semi-professional artists, and some gaming outside the traditional TRPG scene.

2019 also saw me expand into the anime world with the I'm too Old for this Otaku Life blog (that blog will not be following me into 2020 however) and once again begin writing with the LITRPG story Old Man's Game (alternate link) (Chapter 3 coming soon).  It also saw me become more active in PbP communities like Myth-Weavers and running several games in other than popular systems (FFd6, Mini-Six, and S&W: WhiteBox 1st printing).  All in all a strangely busy year despite the production of several adventures staling or being abandoned.

Going into 2020 I have plans ... or to be more precious, I have desires and ideas.  In Brief:

Finish Old Man's Game

Officially Discontinue Patreon 

Continue to develop d6 settings:  Eira |  Mobile Striker: Gungal

Support the blog more fully with daily or mostly daily content.

Part of me thinks I am biting off more than I can chew, however, the rest of me thinks I have set semi-realistic goals this time around.

As always any comments and thoughts are welcome.

Deviant Friday - Neytirix

This week's Deviant is Neytirix, and Aussie digital artist with a wonderful sense of color and cute whose work (even the dark stuff) is utterly endearing.

Neytirix has a pretty extensive youtube following owing to their many, many speed paints set to energetic music.  If anyone is interested, Neytirix can be found on the following platforms:

Deviantart (obviously)
Youtube
Twitch
and Tumblr

Neytirix does do the off-handed commission but only in limited quantities and it is unknown if they allow for commercial use of their commissioned work.

Comics Wednesday - Jane Foster Valkyrie #1

Coming off the heels of her tenure as The Mighty Thor and the events of War of the Realms, Jane Foster - former mantle bearer of Thor and cancer survivor  - finds herself taking on the role of Valkyrie after the former Valkyrie died during War of the Realms and wielding the Gerber tool of Uru weapons "The All Weapon" (seriously, that name is stupid).

Issue 1 finds Jane trying to recover Asgardian weapons and technology that has fallen into criminal hands (see again War of the Realms) and particularly Dragonfang the sword formerly wielded by her predecessor.  This is a big deal because whoever wields the Dragonfang becomes a master of weapons combat, can summon Asgardian horses, and generally becomes a total badass.

Finding the Dragonfang isn't Jane's only issue though.  The life of a superhero has finally caught up to her as the multiple missed workdays, chemotherapy appointments, etc has caused Jane's boss (the hospital director) to re-assign her to a less "stressful" environment ... so no longer is she a trauma doctor she is a morgue doctor with all the wacky stereotypes of such a job following her in the form of her new partner.

Overall, one issue in and I'm thoroughly enjoying Jane Foster: Valkyrie much more than I did her run on The Mighty Thor (I liked the run, but the smaller scale presented here is a nice change of pace).  The scripting is tight, integrates well into the rest of the Marvel Universe and serves as a good way of keeping a heroic character going despite losing her former mantle (unlike the original Thor whose "Unworthy" titles generally sucked)

Artistically this title has the feeling of a more traditional Marvel or DC title instead of the looser indie style / Tumblr style that the publisher has been leaning on in the last few years.  Backdrops are well rendered but not so detailed to detract from the heroes or action.  The character's themselves pop from the page while looking like actual humans (or human adjacent).

All in all, I give Jane Foster: Valkyrie 3 out of 5 swords.  A Really good start but it may run out of steam quickly depending on the writing team.

Deviant Fridays - Vityso

For this Week's Deviant Friday I am taking a look at Brazilian graphic artist Vityso.


Vityso is active on ArtStation, DeviantArt, and Instagram ... although she does not appear to be very chatty and plays her life and profession very close to her chest.

Vityso's style reminds me of the European (particularly the Spanish) artists who are often employed by Holocubierta's Adventures in the Eastmark (I am still said that didn't take off Stateside!) roleplaying game.

There is a timeless quality to this work, something that makes it fit with both the digital era and the traditional ways of oil and canvas.  I would love to see her process as - while I am not artist - I love to take in the ways that artists connect with their work.

Publisher Template for Affinity Publisher

Indie publishing for games can be an interesting trade.  A lot of indie developers - myself included - tend to wear many hats.  We are writers, editors, art directors, layout artists, I.T. and everything else in between.

We are also typically rather broke which means we have to be creative with what we use and what we do.  Some indies have the funds or find ways to afford expensive software like InDesign, while others choose the free options like Scribus.  Still, others forgo layout publishing and focus on simple trade dress that can be easily completed in a word processor.  In the middle of all these options sits Serif, a British software company that has been developing a load of creative and enterprise apps since longer than I care to remember.  A few years ago they decided to slowly start shelving their "Plus" series of products in favor of the Affinity series.

The latest in this crop is Affinity Publisher the successor to Page Plus series of the desktop development software and an affordable alternative to InDesign that sits in a comfortable category between InDesign's beefiness and Microsoft Publisher's user-friendly but limited frame.  As such it is a great pick up and grow application that can get very crunchy as the developer grows with it.

The one thing that it lacks is community support from the Indie developer scene.  In walks Venatus Vinco with his Affinity Publisher Basics, a simple template and how-to on the system for those who use it but feel rather abandoned by publisher suppliers like Fat Goblin Games and Wizards of the Coast who exclusively develop templates and the like for InDesign leaving those who cannot afford InDesign (or don't want to put up with Scribus's "it's not a bug it's a feature") in the cold to figure out from the bottom step how to use a different piece of software.

Vinco's Affinity Publisher Basics comes with a load of fonts, a few template images, the template itself and a Publisher Basics pdf.

The pdf comes with a lot of handy guides like paragraph styling guides, POD guides, image placement, etc.  It is a wonderful overview and starting guide to Affinity's systems.

For the $5.00 it costs I truly recommend this if for nothing else then a Getting started guide to Affinity's systems.