Actual Play Of Mork Borg Part 1

 

Hi everyone! This is my Actual Play of Mork Borg using various supplements. I’ll have them listed below before we get into the adventure. First, I wanted to introduce the cast of the playthrough.

 

Name: Merkari

Class: Soldier

Personality: Noble, Brave, Full of self-doubts

Background: Merkari was a soldier of Galgenbeck but lost enthusiasm for her role when a cult took over the city for a week. The cultists were killed off, but she realized how desperate people had become. She met Eldar, whose very existence staves off the apocalypse. She is determined to protect Eldar with her life.

 

Name: Eldar

Class: Sorcerer

Personality: Sarcastic, Negative, Highly intelligent

Background: Eldar does not know why. Perhaps it’s her innate magical abilities she’s had since she was a child. For some reason, her very existence slows down the apocalypse. Pessimistic and sardonic, Eldar almost wishes she did not slow down the end of the world. From what she’s seen of it, it’s ready to end all on its own.

 

Name: Von

Class: Thief

Personality: Determined, Mischievous, Positive

Background: Von just wants to survive for as long as she can, though she has no purpose in her life that she can think of. She’s lost her friends, family, and Thieves Guild. She wants a purpose and she wants to keep on living, so she joined Merkari in protecting Eldar to stave off the apocalypse.

 

Name: Graft

Class: Priest

Personality: Vengeful, Caring, Loquacious

Background: Graft was excommunicated from her religious order for her open-minded beliefs and “wagging tongue”. She found Merkari and Eldar and believes Eldar may be the key to saving the world. If Graft could help save the world, that would surely one-up those narrow-minded fools who kicked her out of their order.

 

Together these women have formed a group of their own, a sort of family, that calls themselves the Crisis Rangers. They are trying to do what little good they can in a world full of bad. They are hunted by the Cult of Wilted Roses, run by the necromancer Lyganus, who wish to sacrifice Eldar to hurry about the end of the world.

 

Note: I’m using Solitary Defilement, Reclvse, Paths Of Power d44 Classic Classes For Mork Borg, and a few other random supplements to play this version of solo Mork Borg. I’m using four characters to allow for some roleplay between the group and to take advantage of the awesome new classes from Paths Of Power. I also evened out the HP of each character to 6 so that they all have a fighting chance at surviving their first few encounters. I’m also a little rusty to Mork Borg, it’s been quite a few months since I played, so I’ve evened out the HP also so that I could get my bearings as I familiarize myself with the system again.

I am using Solitary Defilement’s rules to make dungeons but I’m using both Solitary Defilement and Reclvse’s tables to generate the rooms. I only have the PDFs so there’s a lot of switching between these but it’s worth it to make a fun dungeon to explore.

I hope you enjoy!

 

Mork Borg Actual Play Part 1

 

Merkari, Eldar, Von, and Graft are part of a mercenary group named the Crisis Rangers. They are trying to do what little good they can in a world full of bad. They are hunted by the Cult of Wilted Roses, who wish to sacrifice Eldar to hurry about the end of the world. Eldar’s very existence somehow holds back the apocalypse, and Merkari, Von, and Graft have sworn to protect her. Their journey starts on the outskirts of Galgenbeck, as they descend into an ancient crypt in search of treasure.

In the first room is a neglected pool with a faded statue no longer pouring water into it. The water is brown and murky. Sitting on the edge of the pool is a Goblin that stands immediately when the women walk in. It draws its knife, no longer able to discern that it was once human, too, after possible decades rotting in this underground dungeon. It charges at Von. It slashes her for 1 HP, drawing blood. Merkari attacks next with her longsword. The creature is faster than it looks; it dodges swiftly and jumps backwards. Eldar also misses with a swing of her staff. The creature laughs at her as she falls over. Von attacks next with her warhammer. It is a new weapon, and she is still getting used to its weight. She, too, misses her strike. Graft has a femur she found outside, having lost her weapon a day earlier. She takes a swing with it; its end sharpened to a point. The point grazes the hardened skin of the Goblin without injuring it. The Goblin stabs at her with its knife, but the femur is good for something. She parries the strike with it.

Merkari takes another swing at the Goblin. She manages to hit the Goblin for 1 HP, drawing blood but barely causing it harm. Still, the Goblin is enraged. It dodges another attack by Eldar’s staff, and from Von’s warhammer. Graft hits the Goblin with the pointy end of her sharpened femur for 1 HP, drawing more blood. The Goblin howls like it has been struck nearly to death and charges at Von again. It really seems to hate her, for some reason. Von, ever light-footed, jumps out of the way of the Goblin’s knife in time.

Merkari swings her longsword at the Goblin while its focus is on Von and chops the blade into the creature’s neck, nearly severing its head. The Goblin falls to its knees, defeated. Von suggests they sever the head completely and take it with them for some quick silver, but Graft reminds her that the Goblin was human once and deserves to be left alone.

There is a passageway to the north. They follow it into the next area. They find an uncanny doorway in the center of the wall at the end of the chamber. It appears locked, but Von has some thieves tools. She successfully unlocks the door, though Eldar points out the door might not have been locked in the first place. Von ignores her, though shoots her a mean look when she thinks Eldar’s not watching. The four women go through the door.

They enter an enormous chamber. The room is dark and silent, as coffins line the walls of the room. They can see a few ritual markings through the darkness, though it is hard to say how long they have been here. There are some blood trails leading to another room to the north that is blocked by a partially opened door.

Merkari tells the women to search the room. The treasure they are looking for, a relic, should be here, or if not, nearby. They search and search in the dark gloam. They find only broken relics, not the valuable treasure with magical powers that they seek. They do find a minor relic, a bottle of wine, unopened, worth at least 100 silver. Merkari suggests that they must follow the blood trails leading into the next room. Eldar is skeptical and says she sense something strong further within.

Merkari is not afraid and leads them into the next room. This next room is tiny, damp, and cold. The women shiver. There is broken furniture in this room, as if someone went mad while sitting on the couches as their loved one was interred here in these crypts. Sitting amongst the carnage, almost unassuming, is the relic that they seek. It looks no more impressive than a trinket. It’s a brooch that allows the wearer an extra spell a day. It was worn by a sorcerer-king in ages past. Merkari and the women aren’t sure how it got here, but it’s almost right where it was said to be by the psychic information broker, Ferin, back in Galgenbeck.

The women feel a rush of exhilaration, the kind that only comes from finding ancient treasure, and prepare to leave. Suddenly, they hear a scream from somewhere further ahead, beyond a door to the north of the room. Merkari immediately heads that way, but Von and Eldar both shake their heads and say it’s none of their business.

Merkari and Graft remind them that they are Crisis Rangers now and that protecting people is part of their business. Von and Eldar exchange a weary look and follow Merkari and Graft through the door into the next area.

The room is small and square and even colder than the last room. There is more broken furniture here as this was clearly an embalming room with a broken table at the center of it. Dead bodies, fresh, litter the floor and a young woman screams as a blood-drenched skeleton swipes at her. The woman falls down, but the Crisis Rangers can’t tell what the woman’s condition is.

Merkari rushes forward with her longsword raised above her head. The skeleton parries her sword with its own shortsword. Whoever this skeleton was in life, it was a talented swords-person. Eldar attacks the skeleton from behind while it’s busy with Merkari and hits it with her staff for 3 HP. Von attacks next with her warhammer, obliterating the skeleton’s skull for 5 HP. The skeleton falls to the ground, lifeless as it should be.

The woman, who introduces herself quickly as Karva, stands up. Her forehead is smeared with blood and she’s covered in dust and bruises but otherwise seems all right. She’s a crypt thief from the look of her, no true adventurer. She explains the dead bodies around them were her leader and the rest of the crew. None survived but her. She points to bones scattered about and says before the Crisis Rangers showed up there was quite a battle. She thanks the women for finishing the battle and saving her life.

She says she’ll give them some silver if they’ll escort her back to Galgenbeck with them. Eldar and Von are against it. They whisper to Merkari that she’ll try to steal the relic. Graft, however, is already embracing the woman and promising her protection for free. Merkari relents and allows the woman to travel back to Galgenbeck with them.

They leave the tomb and the crypts and start the long journey back to Galgenbeck.

 

So that’s the end of the first dungeon in Mork Borg! In the next part, I might try to generate a wilderness journey back to Galgenbeck using Reclvse. I hope you enjoyed this playthrough and you’ll stick around for Part 2!

Actual Play Of Mighty Marvelous Part II

 

Hi everyone and welcome to my blog! Before we get into the actual play, I just want to take a moment and thank everyone for their support of my last Mighty Marvelous Actual Play. Your support has made Mighty Marvelous a Copper Best Seller on drivethrurpg, which is an awesome accomplishment for a budding TTRPG writer like myself.

I hope you all find this part of Glamour Girl’s adventures exciting. I was honest with the dice rolls and not everything turned out how I was hoping it would. The story totally went in another direction than I was expecting! But that’s the fun of playing TTRPGs, isn’t it?

If you want to give Mighty Marvelous a chance at your table, you can purchase it on itchio here and on drivethrurpg here.

And if you're interested in starting the story from the beginning, the first Actual Play of Mighty Marvelous is here.

And now, on to Part II of the Adventures of Glamour Girl!

 

Part II

Glamour Girl spends a few days in downtime, relaxing at home and at the coffee shop. She spends her nights singing in lounges and gets more tips than usual. As she patrols the city of Lukeville after her few days of rest, she runs into Spectre. Spectre is another superhero. In fact, he is the most popular superhero in the twin cities of Lancelot and Lukeville. Glamour Girl knows him well. As far as the newspapers are concerned, they are rivals who compete to protect the twin cities. But in reality, they are actually close friends.

Glamour Girl asks Spectre if he needs help with anything. Spectre says he is investigating the disappearance of a notable politician on the rise in Lukeville and suspects the Toxic Kiss has something to do with it. The Toxic Kiss is a villain whose very touch is poisonous. She is also skilled in martial arts and with various weapons.

Glamour Girl offers to help him look for the Toxic Kiss, but Spectre turns her down. He says he can handle it on his own and Glamour Girl’s time is better spent patrolling the streets and helping citizens. Glamour Girl is a little angry about this but decides to continue her patrol of Lukeville. She and Spectre part ways.

As Glamour Girl navigates the streets of Lukeville, on the watch for trouble, she runs into another superhero, Dragonfly. Dragonfly can fly just like Glamour Girl and the two almost fly into each other. Glamour Girl asks Dragonfly why she is in such a hurry. Dragonfly explains that she is delivering experimental medicine in a cooler to a hospital. It’s urgent that she gets there before the medicine gets too warm. Glamour Girl lets her pass, thinking Dragonfly is always in such a hurry.

As she flies over a salon, she notices a small child no older than eight-years-old wandering around on his own. She flies down and talks to the child to see if he is all right. The child is crying and has been wandering around lost for hours.

Glamour Girl offers to fly him to where he last saw his parents. The child becomes excited and nods eagerly. She flies him to a parking garage nearby where he last saw his parents. A worried couple is frantically running around the garage until they see Glamour Girl with their son. They embrace their son and thank Glamour Girl. Glamour Girl says it was no problem and flies off to continue her patrol.

She sees people running from inside a building into the street and stops. A second later three rotting zombies emerge from the doorways. She shoots a beam of energy out of her hands at a zombie but it dodges with surprising dexterity. It lashes out at her, but she moves backwards just in time. She tries another energy beam at the zombie. This time she not only misses, but the zombie tackles her and rakes its claws across her flesh. The smell of blood stirs up the other zombies and they all turn their attention from the crowd running around in the street to Glamour Girl. Glamour Girl tries to shove the zombie off her with all of her strength. She succeeds and sends the zombie flying at the building. It’s fleshy body squishes against the wall and it falls to the ground, deader than before. There are now two zombies left.

Glamour Girl flies to her feet and prepares as a zombie lunges at her. Despite her best efforts to stop the zombie, it bites her, drawing a little more blood. She shoves the zombie off with all of her strength like she did with the last one and this one goes flying into a car and falls to the ground, unmoving. There is now one zombie left.

This zombie also lunges at her, mouth agape. She jumps backward and the zombie falls on the ground. She braces herself for the grossness of what she is about to do and then squishes the zombie’s head with her boot. This zombie is now deceased, as well.

The crowd around her cheers but she is more concerned with where the zombies came from. She knows of one villain who can raise the dead: The Necromancer.

She has fought the Necromancer before and knows where her lair is. She wastes no time in heading in that direction, despite her injuries.

As she journeys across the city to the old cemetery, the Necromancer’s lair, she reflects back on her first encounter with the Necromancer. The Necromancer had killed a beloved superhero of the city of Lancelot and had revived his corpse as a zombie under her control. Glamour Girl had teamed up with Spectre to take down their old friend. The Necromancer got away that day, but was caught a few days later. Somehow, she escaped the sanitarium she had been sent to and has been on the run ever since.

After a while Glamour Girl arrives at the cemetery and finds a hollow grave that has stairs leading down into the earth. This is the Necromancer’s secret lair.  It had been buried after her first capture, but it appears she had dug it back out after she escaped the sanitarium.

In the first room is a trap; poisoned arrows shoot out of slits in the walls. Glamour Girl dodges all of the arrows and enters the next area. In the next area there are four zombies. They react aggressively as soon as they spot Glamour Girl. They all lunge at her at the same time and she is injured. She pushes them all off with her super strength. The zombies fly backwards but all of them land on their feet by some cruel luck. She shoots an energy beam at one and burns a hole through its chest. It falls limply to the floor. There are three zombies left.

She shoots another energy beam and takes a second one out. There are now two zombies left.

The next time she shoots an energy beam at a zombie, it quickly dodges it. It lunges at her but she moves out of the way in time. She shoots another energy beam at this zombie and it hits its mark, demolishing the zombie. Now there is just one zombie left. She punches it in the head as hard as she can just as it lunges at her and sends the zombie spinning into the wall. She has defeated all of the zombies.

She moves into the next area. It is an empty chamber room and she rests here a while and tends to her wounds from earlier in the day. She then continues into the next area.

In this area is another trap. Bats that have been trained by the Necromancer to attack fly at Glamour Girl’s face. She shoots an energy beam at them and destroys the bats, avoiding the trap. She enters another empty area. In the next room she can hear the Necromancer chanting a spell. She hurries into the final chamber.

In this room the Necromancer is reading from a tome and raising a zombie to un-life. Glamour Girl quickly shoots an energy beam at her but the Necromancer sees her in time to move. The zombie comes to life a moment later.

The Necromancer blasts a dark spell at Glamour Girl that hits her hard and sends her spiraling into the wall. Glamour Girl, despite being dizzy, rises to her feet and shoots an energy beam at the Necromancer, but hits the zombie instead and fries it. Now that the zombie minion is gone, it is just Glamour Girl and the Necromancer.

The Necromancer shoots another dark spell at Glamour Girl, but Glamour Girl’s head has cleared by now and she moves out of the way and runs towards the Necromancer. She lunges at the Necromancer, who does a spin out of the way of the attack. The Necromancer casts another dark spell and hits Glamour Girl square in the chest, sending her flying backwards and knocking her unconscious.

When she comes to, she sees Spectre standing over her. He tells her he captured the Necromancer and she is on her way back to the sanitarium.

Glamour Girl is embarrassed at having to be saved, especially by Spectre, but she is still grateful. She thanks him.

The next day the newspapers say, “Superhero Saved By Superhero? Spectre To The Rescue”. Glamour Girl rips up her own copy of the newspaper and throws it away in her apartment’s dumpster.

She makes a decision then and there that her new Mission will be to find the Toxic Kiss before Spectre does.

 

 

That’s it for Part II of Glamour Girl’s adventures. I’ll post a Part III soon. I hope you enjoyed it! If you did, consider making your own Actual Plays of Mighty Marvelous or any of the other MMUGS games. I would love a link to them to read them!

Also, consider subscribing to my Substack for my weekly newsletter here for updates on my upcoming games, new reviews, and new articles. It’s released every Wednesday.

Thank you all again for your support!

Paths Of Power d44 Classic Classes For Mork Borg Review

 

Hi everyone! Today I want to talk a little about Mork Borg the game, but not in too much detail. That’s for another article. The main point of this article is to talk about a supplement that I enjoy for it by Dungeon Pop. It’s called “Paths Of Power d44 Classic Classes For Mork Borg” and I’ve taken a picture of my lovely copy that I got from supporting it on Kickstarter and posted it at the top of the article for anyone who is curious about what it looks like.

Let me get this out of the way about Mork Borg: I love it. It’s fun, it’s tough, it’s mean-spirited, but it’s got a sense of humor about it too. What I really like most about it are its rules, which I could literally take from the base game and apply to ANY world I’ve created and it’ll fit right in…with one caveat: the classes.

Now let me get THIS out of the way: I don’t like Mork Borg’s classes very much. They are part of that mean-spirit and sense of humor I was talking about, but in play, I just don’t use them. I make my own characters and kind of Frankenstein my own classes from the classes available in the base book or in other supplements.

Or I should say that I did do that, until I received my copy of Paths Of Power d44 Classic Classes For Mork Borg.

There are 16 classes in this supplement, all based around fantasy archetypes. You have the Sorcerer, the Templar, the Druid…you get it. The art for the game is eye-catching, and I found it to be tame compared to some Mork Borg supplements, and I mean that as a compliment. I think most of the art is beautiful to look at and it really gets across the chaotic element of Mork Borg and Mork Borg adjacent game worlds. I love the bold yellow and pink fonts against the black paper, and I love the surprising yellow and pink pages that will pop up after I turn a few black pages. The layout is creative and assertive, and it earns its place as a Mork Borg supplement, although, like I said, I actually found this one a little easier to navigate than some other Mork Borg supplements.

My favorite class is the Necromancer, who becomes more like the dead he/she commands over time. It’s an interesting concept to me that affects more than just storylines, it affects gameplay as well. Whenever you use an Omen, there’s a 1 out of 10 chance you move one step down on a table full of new disadvantages and immunities and modifiers for your character that will change how you play.

All classes are just as well thought out. And I love the additional rules, or optional rules, for your Mork Borg games, that add stuff like status effects. It also adds a rule that you don’t die at 0 Hit Points, you just become Broken. There’s a few more, but I would like you to get the book if you’re interested in this kind of thing, and discover those yourself because this book has much more than just classes, although its brimming with classes and could have gotten away with being an awesome supplement of just that. This book went the extra mile.

This book introduces you to 20 Paths of Power. That’s 20 magic disciplines. And each of these 20 disciplines has 12 spells. They are awesome. I am not great at magic creation on my own, so having access to these many spells for my Mork Borg and Mork Borg adjacent games is a huge boon to me. From what I’ve seen, none are redundant. Each spell brings something interesting to the table. This could have been a separate, albeit smaller, supplement on its own but to have it bundled with all of these new classes and optional rules that make the game more interesting just seals the deal on this being my favorite Mork Borg supplement.

I can’t imagine the amount of work it took to make each class so unique and inspired and each spell matter the way Dungeon Pop did. If you have the opportunity to get a physical copy of this book, I highly recommend it. If you can only get the PDF, I still highly recommend it. It’s a beautiful book to have added to your Mork Borg collection.

This book made me want to play Mork Borg all over again and actually use classes! When I’ve played as these classes, they just felt wonderful and like they make the game even more unique. Side note: I use four characters when I play solo, so I stand a chance of possibly not dying horribly in the first five minutes of gameplay. Playing as four characters at a time also gave me a chance to try out more of the classes presented in this book. I still have 12 more classes to try out! I can tell already I’m going to have fun with them, just by reading each class’s page in the book.

This was a great impulse backing on Kickstarter and that tells me I should follow my gut more when I see interesting Kickstarters in the future.

You can follow Dungeon Pop on itchio here. I’m not sure when they’ll be releasing the Paths of Power d44 Classic Classes for Mork Borg on drivethrurpg or itchio, but the Kickstarter page and Backerkit page are still up. I would be on the lookout for this, maybe by following Dungeon Pop on itchio, for when this becomes available. I feel very lucky I was able to snag a physical copy and use it already. Trust me, as a Mork Borg fan that was disillusioned on using classes, this has changed everything for me about Mork Borg and it’s worth getting.

 

Thanks for checking out my review! I have a Newsletter on Substack that goes out every Wednesday and would love if you’d subscribe so you can keep up with all of my reviews, articles, and upcoming projects! You can subscribe to my Substack here!

My (Lame?) Art Portfolio

 Hi everyone and welcome to my blog! As you all know, I’ve always wanted to be a writer. What you may not know is for a time I also wanted to be an artist. I was pretty intense about an art career for about two years, from the ages of 19 to 21. I had no formal training except for a few high school art classes, but I was determined to learn how to draw and create my own art for my own books.

It’s a little embarrassing now. I had no concept of perspective in art or shadows and light. I was an okay artist without those things, but I was nowhere near the level of professionalism I wanted to be at. I was also stubborn about what I wanted to draw. I never really left my comfort zone of drawing characters or learning how to properly color the characters.

I wanted to show you a few of my better illustrations from that time over a decade ago when I had dreams of making more than just books, but graphic novels and designing the covers for books. I’m proud of this art, but it’s in no way professionally done or something to aspire to, and I know that. But if you were wondering why I don’t just draw my own art for my books, you’ll see why below. I will say those few years when I was determined to be an artist gave me an appreciation for what real artists do and how hard they work at their craft. Art is not just a hobby. It’s a passion and a lifestyle and I totally respect that.

Kal-Arath Review

 

Hi everyone and welcome to my blog! I’ve played a lot of solo games, and I’ve certainly gravitated towards some more than others. One of my favorite RPGs that I’ve ever played is Kal-Arath by Castle Grief, and I wanted to honor it in some way by writing a review of it, a sort of thank you of sorts for all the fun I’ve had with it.

Kal-Arath is set in a sword and sorcery world. Think Conan the Barbarian, though if I’m honest, I like Kal-Arath’s setting just a little better. While in the subsequent years since releasing Kal-Arath Castle Grief has published zines to expand Kal-Arath’s world, the details of the world of Kal-Arath are largely up to you. Overland travel is accomplished by designing a hex map. If you know me, I love hex maps. Creating the setting of a game is half the fun of playing the actual game for me.

Hex map travel is very detailed. You roll for the weather, which is affected by the season you are in, you roll to see if you Get Lost, you roll to forage, and you roll for Points Of Interests and encounters with both hostile and non-hostile NPCs.

I love that I never know what I’ll encounter each day of travel in Kal-Arath. It’s been an inspiration to my own TTRPG games I’ve published that make use of hex maps.

Dungeons are just as fun to generate. You create a pool of d6’s (d6’s are the primary die size for this game, making all rolls super convenient) and each d6 represents an area of the dungeon you will enter. For a large area, Castle Grief recommends 7d6. That seems like a lot, though you could just roll your d6 seven times instead of using seven d6’s at once.

Anyway, you roll the d6’s onto a piece of paper, letting them fall where they may, with the position of the dice to each other representing the layout of the dungeon areas. Whatever value you rolled for your dice determines what you will encounter in that area. It could be empty, a trap, an enemy, an NPC, treasure, or a special room/Boss.

Dungeons are just so enjoyable to generate this way. In my limited experience when I first started playing Kal-Arath, I had never seen a dungeon generation system like this before, and it just seemed so brilliant and quick.

And of course Kal-Arath provides tables to specify what kind of traps or foes or treasures you encounter in the dungeon.

While the Bestiary isn’t the biggest collection of foes I’ve ever seen, it’s certainly big enough for solo games and the enemies in this game are no joke. I kind of made it easy on myself as I chose to go the Four Against Darkness route and make four characters to roleplay as in Kal-Arath rather than just one. Even so, I encountered some foes that nearly wiped out my party.

Fortunately, character generation is quick and easy if your character happens to, you know, die a gory and violent death by a pack of Raptor Lizards. You start by putting four points into five stats that represent Strength, Toughness, Agility, Intelligence, and Presence. All of these stats are really useful when playing solo, so deciding what to focus on and what to neglect is deeply strategic and allows you to create a truly unique character each time.

There are Skills you can learn and lots of magic, though magic is always a risk in the world of Kal-Arath. You make pacts with demons to utilize magic, and this can cause significant harm to your character if the spell you cast ends up failing.

Combat is simple. Attacking and defending is done in a player-facing way, using 2d6+Strength vs 8 to succeed with a melee attack. You use Agility instead for missile attacks, and Intelligence instead for spellcasting.

On the opponent’s turn in combat, you roll 2d6+Agility to dodge.

There’s a little more to combat than that, but I don’t want to give too much away. Just let me say combat is fun, risky, and exciting.

There are tons of tables to roll on which is always a good thing if you’re playing solo. I love the tables in Kal-Arath and have used them to play with in other games.

If you’re interested in Kal-Arath by Castle Grief, you can find it on itchio here and on drivethrurpg here. I also highly recommend getting any supplements you can find for it. It’s already a great game with just this one book, but the supplements and zines for it just make an amazing game even better with more tables and enemies and city generation.

I hope you enjoyed this review! Don’t forget to subscribe to my Substack @sarahsoloadventures for the weekly newsletter that is released every Wednesday!

Mighty Marvelous Is A Copper Best Seller!

 

Hi everyone and welcome to my blog! I recently sold quite a few copies of Mighty Marvelous (available on itchio here and drivethrurpg here) thanks in part to a post I made on Reddit about an Actual Play of the game I wrote for my blog. Mighty Marvelous is now a Copper Best Seller on drivethrurpg! I can’t thank you all enough for the support you’ve shown me!

What is a Copper Best Seller? It means a game has been sold at least 51 times on drivethrurpg. When I first started publishing games, I never thought the games I made with my imagination and my own two hands would sell a handful of copies, much less over 50! That’s an exciting number for me and really motivates me to keep working hard on all of my current projects!

Feedback for Mighty Marvelous has been mostly positive, and I can’t thank you all enough for your descriptive thoughts and honesty about something I created with so much passion.

Everyone who has given my games a chance and left reviews and comments have been wonderful. The TTRPG community truly is a one-of-a-kind community full of strong opinions yet open minds. I’m proud to feel like I belong to this community.

I hope you all will continue to support my endeavors as I move forward with new TTRPGs, supplements, and writing and publishing fiction.

As always, I’m open to comments, suggestions, and questions and you can comment on my blog or email me at sarahrblount@gmail.com and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.

Don’t forget to subscribe to my weekly newsletter releasing every Wednesday on Substack. My handle is @sarahsoloadventures

My Life As A Neurodivergent Writer

Hi everyone and welcome to my blog! I wanted to kind of switch things up today and talk about what it’s like being a neurodivergent writer while also balancing my home life in case it may help anyone else. I know there’s a lot of creative neurodivergent people out there trying to figure out how to balance their creativity with their work and who may also be a little shy about putting their work out there for the world to see. I went through those same struggles at the start and I still go through those same struggles each time I create something new that I intend to be published. Maybe hearing how someone else gets through the process each time will be helpful to someone. I hope!

 

I live a pretty normal life. I have a husband who is a devilishly handsome professional cartographer. He is under contract with NASA right now, which is pretty cool. I have a son who is six years old in kindergarten. He is non-speaking, autistic, a total sensory-seeker, and the brightest light of my life. And I’m a stay-at-home mother who writes novels and tabletop role-playing games, and I happen to have ADHD.

Like my son, I have some pretty intense sensory needs. However, unlike my son, I am NOT a sensory seeker, so our sensory needs tend to clash. It’s something that I, as the mother, just have to deal with because it’s definitely no one’s fault that my son and I’s moods are so sensory-dependent.

 

Getting through our sensory needs and providing him with all the cuddles and tight squeezes he needs is just a part of my day now. It’s thanks to him that I even realized why I had so much anxiety all of these years: I wasn’t taking care of my own sensory needs. I know how to do that now and it’s made my focus and attention way better. Not perfect, and my attention is still pretty bad, but I’m able to live with it now.

 

I always like to say my son saved me, because it’s true. I was a typical edgy, nerdy, depressed teenager who had way too much of what I thought was logic to find purpose in my existence. I wasn’t taking very good care of myself as a young adult, either. I did write a ton of first drafts of novels as a young adult, some of them very good, some of them very bad, but for the most part my younger years were a blur of depression and defeatism.

 

In my mid-twenties I had my son, and my whole view on my purpose in life changed. Now, that’s not a PSA to go have babies to improve your life, because kids are TRICKY! They are difficult, tireless, and loud. But they can also be fun, observant, and interesting…eventually. It takes a few years for them to get from helpless and needy to adventurous and independent. 

 

I’m kind of blabbering on, but basically the point is that when I learned my son was autistic, I learned things about me as well. I learned about sensory needs, about offering reassurance rather than barking orders at kids, and I learned that I was built for parenting my own son, that I had it in me to be his best mom possible, even when it gets hard.

 

Being a good mom is a point of pride for me, because I never thought I had it in me. I was too unfocused, too motivated to become the next Anne Rice or Stephen King. But becoming my son’s mom made me a fun person, a loving person, and a positive person. And I thank him every day for that because it really saved my life for my perspective to change so much.

 

All right, enough of the sweet sappy yapping. My next point is that this perspective change affected everything, including how I view writing. Before, I was making hit-or-miss first drafts because I was only writing for myself. Now when I write, I try to think about how my writing will affect others. Will this make someone happy? Inspire them? Will this story evoke an emotional response?

 

That has improved my writing ten-fold, and has led me down the path to writing TTRPGs (tabletop role-playing games). I want people to find enjoyment from my writing and bring peace and happiness and maybe even something interesting into their lives if only for a little while.

 

I go through a list of hobbies throughout the year. Being ADHD, I tend to hyperfixate on particular hobbies and passions for a while before moving onto the next one. This is how I learned how to make jewelry, sew handmade dolls, and create resin products. But the one part of my life that has always stuck with me is writing in some form. I’ve always known, since I could read, that I wanted to write.

 

Here’s where that gets tricky: Writing requires a LOT of focus and concentration and patience. As someone who has ADHD, I tend to lack in those areas. Like I mentioned earlier, I tend to hyperfixate on one or two things at a time, and while that usually involves writing and writing becomes fun and easy and second-nature to me, there are times when my brain is just not having it and it becomes a struggle.

 

So how do I get past the struggle?

 

Most days, and this is exactly how it sounds: I fight my brain. That sounds a little dramatic, but after forcing myself past the wall of executive dysfunction I try to write at least a thousand words a day. After that one-thousand words, if I still feel like giving up and doing something else to occupy my time and imagination, I do, but usually just the act of writing with purpose gets me going.

 

Another method I’ve used that’s been recommended to me is to set a timer for 5 or 10 minutes and just do what you need to do during that time, and by the time the timer goes off your brain is already in that mode of work that you’ll usually just keep going.

 

Some days, though, are just harder than others with executive dysfunction. I take those days as my break days (being a stay-at-home mom I work on my writing 7 days a week while my son is at school or asleep) and just play a video game during the time I would be writing. I try not to let myself feel guilty about it, because if I do let myself feel guilty, this resting period won’t work.

 

Another thing that helps me write is to keep a cup of coffee or bottle of water and snacks on my desk next to my laptop as I work.

 

I tend to work most of the morning while my son’s at school, and by the time my son’s home from school my mind is wiped out. Spending time with my son recharges me a bit, and sleeping later that night recharges me a lot, and I start work at around the same time every single morning, about 6 am. Staying consistent with my routine really helps my brain to function because my brain will know what comes next and it’ll be ready for it. For example, I’ve done this routine of getting ready for the day so many times that when it comes time to write I’m just ready, not overthinking it, I just get it done. If I hesitate and don’t follow my routine, I tend to overthink what I’m about to write and that just triggers executive dysfunction.

 

A piece of writing advice: It’s better to try to just edit what exists than to try to write it perfectly the first time around. No first draft is going to be perfect without you stressing yourself out to the moon and back.

Writing with ADHD is definitely possible. Don’t let days of inactivity discourage you. Try to experience those days as guilt-free as you possibly can because rest will just recharge you, while stress will drain you. Note that I am NOT a doctor, I am just speaking as someone who has lived with and experienced ADHD.

 

Overcoming jitters when publishing your work is not easy. I’ve published over twenty games and I still feel nervous each and every time it comes to publishing them. Sending out something you’ve created into the world is always scary. The fear of judgement is both real and legitimate. But let me tell you something as someone who’s gotten both good and bad reviews for games that I’ve been so passionate about making: It’s absolutely worth it!

 

Sure, you’ll get some people who don’t understand your work, who may even bash your work. But it’s the people who connect with your project that will make it all worthwhile. And you can be sure at least one other person in this big, wide world will have the same interests as you when it comes to gaming and reading and writing, and THAT is the person you’re making your project for. Because that person who has the same interests as you will find that same happiness in your game or writing or project that you do. You’ll have made someone happy with something you created, even if only for a little while. And that’s always worth it.

 

Writing anything is not a career for money. It’s a career for bringing something joyful or inspiring or interesting to other people. This world craves creativity and originality. People crave something they can connect to or find happiness in. If you’ve ever wanted to publish something you wrote, whether it’s a novel or a tabletop game, you should know it’s not an easy journey, but it’s a journey that’s worth something more than money.

 

I hope this has helped someone. If it has, then I’ve succeeded in what I set out to do today, and that’s always a good feeling. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for me, please feel free to leave a comment or message me at sarahrblount@gmail.com and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.