Glass Bird Games

The Goat and the Bear  - Late 19th century Lubok Nearly there! It's been a busy week, but I spent the last couple of days assembling the secondary tables for the Cyclopean Organ to complement the Depthcrawl Engine . I'm really excited about the possibilities for the Organ's unique mechanics - the Sheet Music and Console Glitches for funnel victims that attempt to bend the Organ's power to their own will. I originally wasn't going to include a "loot the body" table, but given my playgroup's proclivities I'd like to have something on hand. You could easily replace it with whatever you usually use, as it's not terribly specific to the adventure. In terms of Treasures, I went in wanting to try to make my own RAW Cairn Relics. I think they're genius, especially the recharge mechanic. I also tried to introduce magical or mundane items that have built-in prompts for future adventures or arcs or complications for the continuing campaign. That's...

St Joseph's Church, Le Havre, France -  Reginald Van de Velde My work on the Organ got set back a week unfortunately, work and social engagements and all that. Luckily, the jam  deadline also got extended, so I should be good. I've finished the first pass on the main tables, so my plan right now is to get the secondary tables done by the end of this week and then playtest using Xenio's excellent Cairn Funnel rules  until I develop my own funnel procedures down the line. Though progress has been scattered, I feel like I've really gotten a handle on the Organ in putting together these main tables. I still have work to do tightening up some of the entries, and I'm going to be leaning on the treasure and sheet music results to add more of the transformative character development potential I set out as a goal in the first part of these posts. But I'm happy with what I've come up with, and I'm looking forward to running some of my pals through the grinder a...

We're back in the guts of the Cyclopean Organ. Little more stream of consciousness this time as I put together a few more elements to flesh the idea out. Should probably read the first post  if you want to get anything out of my fevered brainstorming. First, I want to get some residents of the Organ worked out. Just because nobody from the village has been into the Organ in forever doesn't mean there's nothing intelligent there. Definitely want to have the potential for minor faction play, so that means at least two current types of residents, and preferably one more minor presence. The Longfolk Originally, I was going to have the builders of the Organ be some generic fee-fi-fo-fum giant types, and leave it at that. But I've been thinking more about the purpose of the thing itself, and its relevance to the curse these ancient big bois left behind before they disappeared from history. I think the Organ was an ultimate expression of their values, both their legacy and the...

The Reluctant Dragon -  Justin Gerard I've been thinking about dragons and such. Creatures. Beasties. Monsters.* Monsters are kinda hard to get just right, especially when it comes to classic fantasy. I always have these two opposing urges. There's a common vernacular, a vocabulary that everyone who's been exposed to fantasy shares. Everyone knows what a dragon is, and frankly most people are bored of the vanilla pantheon of D&D MONSTERS . I don't want to bore anybody! At the same time, if I'm running a relatively straightforward fantasy campaign, I don't want to get too weird or gonzo. I still want the creatures I run to be relatively parseable, even if they're not adhering strictly to the most vanilla version of themselves. I want to play the hits, without things getting stale. I'm not going to run an encounter with 1d6 Beholders with all the dryness that that suggests, but I also don't want to overwhelm my people with neon mecha-eyelords that ...