Glass Bird Games

A Frog Sitting on Coins and Holding a Sphere; Allegory of Avarice by Jacob de Gheyn II Magic Items as worldbuilding is well-trodden ground, I think. What better way to invest players in the history and texture of a game setting than to tie it directly to the ultimate rewards they're seeking out? It's great for the creative process too, giving you something to crystalize off of , whether your world is informing your magic item design or vice-versa. Often neglected, however, is the most humble unit of treasure/experience/endorphin trigger, the coin. Especially in OSR circles, the coin is an ever-present carrot at the end of an outsized stick. It's the end-all be-all of character advancement in any treasure-as-xp system, but rarely used as a vector to reveal hidden information about the larger world and its history, at least not beyond a notable ruler on the obverse face. Lich Van Winkle did some ruminating on this issue in their thought-provoking piece on coins and advanceme...

  Yes, more of them . They're too fun to write, and it just so happens that the campaign I'm working on now has some haunted forest vibes, so I figure these will be useful to me in the near future anyway. Hope you can use these to break your woodsy game (in a good way)! Mug of Good Health , 3 charges - An oversized mug of cracked earthenware. When filled and raised with a hearty toast, everything in earshot capable of hearing must pause what they're doing for a moment and return the toast, raising whatever item they hold in their hand. Recharge - Offer to share a drink with a hostile creature, then convince them to agree of their own free will. Wrenpenny Bit  - A small copper piece in the local style, save the chubby little wren printed on its transverse. Its most recent previous owner always has an instinctive idea of the direction the coin lies in, and in their presence it will let out a chittering birdsong. Sanguine Lantern  - A rectangular lantern with frosted, brown-...

Part Two Here! I've been getting restless as I wait for a chance to playtest the Cyclopean Organ - I'm kind of in a weird spot game-wise right now, a long-running campaign being revived, a couple of other campaigns starting up and all the impatient anticipation that goes along with that. So I've been wanting to work on something  in the meantime, even though my time is limited. It just so happens I had a blast working with Cairn on the Organ, especially the template for Relics. Giving most items limited charges and a specific criteria to recharge them gives you so many cool levers for balance and extra opportunity for flavor. Ever since I first read them I've been fixated on the potential for little recharge mini-quests in my games that can serve as instigators for exciting, dangerous, and silly tangents. Yochai Gal , Cairn's designer, mentioned that he was planning on throwing together a larger list of Relics, and I got excited by the prospect, so here we are. Po...

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...