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...

Well, things are a bit fucking bleak today, eh? Let's talk about the end times. Between current events in the US of A, my work on my archeological hearth-fantasy setting , and my revisiting of the storyline of the latest Final Fantasy XIV expansion, I've been thinking a lot about dysfunctional, decaying and all-around disastrous empires and their ends. All of Ben Robbins' West Marches posts are incredibly useful, thought-provoking, and entertaining reading, but my favorite has always been his musings on Layers of History . I'm trying to invoke this especially in the stuff I'm writing lately, and it always helps to have some jumping off points for the Big Foundational Questions of a setting - the character of the ancient people that came before, and the reason they're no longer here. So here's some sparks for the long-gone, half-forgotten kingdoms of your setting. Be forewarned that bad vibes follow. Ruine Eldena, Caspar Friedrich 1825 Roll d4 to determine th...

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...

Boat by the Shore (1888), Torsten Wasastjerna  Death is common in most fantasy games. Whether the PCs are in danger of crossing the veil or are regularly sending the deserving (🙄) monsters of the world to meet their maker, Death is a presence. A character in and of itself, especially when we decide to anthropomorphize it. Gods of death are numerous, and generally of a familiar vein. They are evil, spooky, loaded down with skulls and crows and other on-the-nose paraphernalia. Or they're cosmic and unknowable, dark and empty and unyielding, just barely recognizable as something intelligent. The ultimate void. But death is not an enigma. Not really. It's something, someone who we all know to some degree. Who we will all know intimately, one day. So why should they be sinister, or terrifying? Death is an old friend, awaiting our return to their quiet company. That's why my Death is different.