Glass Bird Games

Like a lot of GMs who enjoy a playstyle divergent from that prescribed by the RPG industrial complex, I often find myself in games with people whose prior game experiences don't exactly mesh with what I'm putting in front of them. They need a little onboarding. They need permission to free themselves of the constraints those past experiences have ingrained in their brains. Specifically, they often need to be reminded that they can do (well, try) anything. This is an aspect of tabletop play that people often reference as unique to the form, but it's not something the reality of play always bears out. This is part of my aversion to meatier systems with special abilities and skill lists and grappling rules and so on: they promote a video-game mindset. Encounters have been placed in the world for you to overcome in the specific way the designer intended, in the manner in which your character is built to overcome them. Pay no attention to the walls of the hallway/railroad - they...

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...

Just a quick heads up that I've published The Barrows Hunger on my itch.io, and it's available for an absolute absence of dollars as we speak! Had a blast writing this adventure despite some technical difficulties that prevented me from completing as polished a layout as I would have liked. That will come down the line when I'm back in the good graces of my laptop, but for now please check it out and let me know what you think! Proud of a lot of the ideas in this thing. Thanks to Yochai and Chris for running the jam, and to Dyson for the maps and everything he does in general. Back to regularly scheduled(ish) posts soon! The Barrows Hunger by Glass Bird Games

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...

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.