Glass Bird Games

Inside the Forest, Under the Moonlight - Caspar Friedrich 1830 Once upon a time, as a younger, foolish man (like just over a year ago) I started a blog. There was a lot that went into that and a lot that led up to that, but let's leave it at this: it was something I'd always wanted to do, and getting emotional and writing nerd shit remains something I want to pour myself into for a lot more years. (The next few paragraphs are some more weepy personal blather because apparently this blog also doubles as therapy for me, so feel free to skip down to the title below. TL;DR: here's a project I've been toying with and plan to start working on in earnest.) I set myself some rules/goals/principles when I got started. I called them The Cares of a Carelord , which I still think is a pretty good descriptor. And one of the chief amongst them was the promise to show my work: "I care about showing my work, in every sense...for me it's so valuable to see how the sausage is ma...

Still got a fair amount of work to go on the Lernaean barrows, but here's a quick one, along with some ideas for what to do if the PCs get their asses eaten by the hydra, as they're all-too-likely to do. More soon! The Cursed The tomb of the Cursed is unassuming, apart from the recently-built door secured with a modern padlock. A freshly painted yellow sign hangs from it. It reads: “This tomb is not a place of honor. No highly esteemed monarch is commemorated here. Nothing valued has been interred here. The Curse is still present in your time, as it was in hers. This place is best left shunned.” This tomb is unique in that it’s an actual mound of earth. The dying head has grown weak, and shrunk away from the entrance. Filbert holds the key to the door. He will not lend it willingly. A short passage downward leads to a roughly shaped earthen room. There is no decoration here, apart from a stone sarcophagus. It’s bisected lengthwise, along with the rest of the chamber, by a line ...

  https://oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-faceless-one.html My next barrow in my The Barrows Hunger  project for the Dyson Logs Jam is complete. This is the barrow of the oldest of the Lernaean monarchs, the Lawmaker. Not that he was a real guy or anything - for those just joining, these barrows are the heads of subterranean hydra, disguised by strange biological processes to resemble tombs ripe for the plundering.  Fortunately, this head of the hydra is dead. It was the first to die, in fact, many years ago. That doesn't mean its natural camouflage entirely gave up though. I took this opportunity to introduce the first adversary to the adventure, and give it some hooks that might clue the players at least partially in on what's going on here. I decided to go with Cairn for the system again, as it's what I know and I enjoy writing for and running it. See you in the next barrow! The Barrow of the Lawmaker Low to the ground, as if worn down over the ages Loose ...

It's been a while! Been working and traveling, so I've fallen a little behind on blogging and RPG business in general. To get back into the swing of things, I've started working on my entry for the Dyson Logos Jam ! I've used Dyson's incredible maps so many times for my own games, it's about time I did something public facing with them. Time is still a little short, so I'm going to be posting my progress as mostly stream of consciousness thoughts and raw notes. Please forgive the info density! Stone Head in Sergievka Park - St. Petersburg, Russia As always, I'm incapable of keeping it simple and want to do something different than a straightforward dungeon. After driving through the Dakotas twice in a week, my brain is filled to overflowing with images of tourist traps, dusty "museums" out in the middle of nowhere that have little to offer but gift shops. I'm also missing my open table Barrowmaze game that ran aground about 6 months ago whe...

I've been going feral waiting for my copy of Into the Wyrd and Wild . Anything woodsy is of instant interest to me. The woods have always been a special place in my life, a place that feels safe and welcoming and somehow like home. Weird horror is also very much my jam, though, and it's fun to tweak what feels like a comfortable and pleasant setting into something that's occasionally more sinister. I've also been on an anti-pdf kick lately. It's so much more engaging and feels more special to read things in print than on a screen. So I've been holding off on actually reading Wyrd and Wild until I get the thing in my hands. To help stave off the hunger, I've been developing a setting in my new game inspired by some of my fever dreams about what might actually be in the book. I think it's a lot more fairytale and less spooky than what I know of the book, since I'm also hoping to fold in  inspiration from  Dolmenwood   content. Still mostly pleasant and...

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...