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Closing of the Patreon, Future of the Foundry

Hey folks. As the title says, I have made the decision to shut down the Patreon. This may come as a shock to some, or perhaps the writing has been on the wall for others, but I’ve been feeling it coming for a long time, and I think recent life events have put the final nail in the coffin. I had some optimism that I might be able to just take a break and find a new rhythm, but I don’t think that’s…

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Druid Circle: Circle of Infestation

Howdy y’all, and happy Halloween! I had originally intended to do a trio of gruesome subclasses for this year’s spooky season project, but this month has been just one thing after another, so sadly most of my mental bandwidth has been dedicated to other things. But, I still had enough in me to get this long dormant project out the door, so I’ll count that as a win. And don’t worry, those other…

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Been a while since I've heard from folks, so let's throw open the Ask Box! Questions, comments, requests, ask and I'll do my best to answer! As always, keep it clean and respectful.

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Hello! Just curious if you’d ever be interested in doing Warframes as subclasses again. I loved the ones you did way back, and with all the new frames since then, it’s field ripe for harvest. But if you’ve moved on I understand.

Honestly I'm flabbergasted that it's almost been 3 years since my last Warframe subclass, and it wasn't even new, just a rework. Time really flies. Thank you for making me realize that! Yes, I absolutely plan on doing more of them. In fact, I never really stopped working on them, just nothing has ever materialized from it. While it's not exactly what you're asking for, I have a Nidus overhaul in the works for Halloween so that will be out then. After that, I'll see what I can do to shorten that ever growing list of frames.

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Been a while since I've heard from folks, so let's throw open the Ask Box! Questions, comments, requests, ask and I'll do my best to answer! As always, keep it clean and respectful.

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Artificer Specialization: Brewkeeper

Hey folks! Hoped to have this out a lot sooner, but it’s been one of those months. Anyway, it’s here now, and I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. It’s another Pathfinder prestige class conversion that I’ve had stashed away for a VERY long time, so it’s nice that I was finally able to dust it off and release it. Something fun about this particular subclass, for me at least, is the timing of…

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System Spotlight: Marvel Multiverse RPG

Hello everyone, and welcome to another System Spotlight! We’re talking about superheroes in this issue, so time to don our spandex and kick some badguy butt as we take a look at the official Marvel Multiverse RPG, written by Matt Forbeck and illustrated by Mike Bowden! So, I’ll get to the system itself in a minute, but first I want to ramble a bit because I have a history with superhero RPGs. My…

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The Dragon Staff of Maladoria - Session 2: Prologue - Part 2

I appear atop a grassy cliffside surrounded by mountains and dormant trees. The wind howls, and its chill cuts through my robes, sending a shiver through me. Below I can see the entrance to the Dragon Temple, my destination, and a perfect place to shelter from this frigid gale. But before I have the chance to move, the roar of several dragon cuts through the wind. I look up to see three…

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SCP Items: Batch III

Hey folks! Been a while since I’ve done any SCP content (almost a year, in fact), so I thought it was time for another batch of items. This has honestly been one of the most difficult sets to make so far. Some of the effects are just so out of left field and difficult to translate into game mechanics, so there was a lot of compromise and just using the original items as inspiration rather than…

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Feedback Surveys Now Available!

Hey folks! For a long time, I’ve wanted a better way to solicit feedback on my work than just asking for it in comments. So, I’m taking a page out of WotC’s book and making special feedback surveys through Google Forms for each piece of content I produce. Right now I have surveys for the last 9 brews I’ve made, which includes: the Opportunist, Transformation Cog, Behemoths, Slayer’s Arsenal I &…

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The Dragon Staff of Maladoria - Session 1: Prologue - Part 1

Hello everyone, and welcome to something a little bit different. For a long time, I’ve wanted to delve into solo RPGs, and while this isn’t exactly that in the traditional sense, it’s perhaps a decent starting point for someone new to such forms of TTRPGs. This is the Quest Calendar by Sundial Games, specifically the 2021 version, “The Dragon Staff of Maladoria”. This was a quirky little project…

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Roguish Archetype: Opportunist

Hey folks! This took an unreasonable amount of time to get done. I’ve returned to my roots for an easy project with a conversion of a Pathfinder prestige class. Writing it out was pretty simple, but it took forever to get with my brew buddy to get it looked at due to some unfortunate circumstances that I won’t elaborate on for privacy reasons. But then it took even longer to get the final…

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Foundry Fabrications Has a New Home!

Hey folks! I am incredibly excited to announce the launch of something I’ve been working on the last couple of weeks: Foundry Fabrications now has a dedicated website!

For a long time, I’ve wanted a place away from Tumblr that I can call my own, where I can make all of my content easily accessible for everyone, and that can grow and change alongside me. A long time ago, I tried something like that, but it didn’t go well for a multitude of reason. Mistakes were made during that transition that I don’t intend to make again.

The new site will now be my main base of operations going forward, but I’m not going to outright abandon Tumblr like I did before, and Patreon isn’t going anywhere either. As some of you maybe saw, I have the new site set up to automatically send new posts here when I post them, so you’ll all still be kept in the loop should you decide to just stay here and not engage with it, which is totally understandable. And I still plan to check in every once in a while and make posts that are relevant to the platform should I need or want to, as well as respond to comments or questions when they happen.

Speaking of being kept in the loop, something the new site allows me to do is newsletters. Anyone who subscribes to it (which is free) will be notified by email when something new goes live. Eventually down the line I’d like to add more too it like TTRPG news or other content I want to shout out, stuff like that.

The site itself right now is nothing fancy, though I put a lot of work into making it as professional and user-friendly as I can. I’ve no experience in web design and a lot of it was existing templates I tweaked to suit my needs, as I do, so whether I accomplished that is up to y’all. The main goal was to make it easy to find a piece of content one might be looking for, or easily browse everything to see what I’ve made thus far, and that was easy do to with automatic categorization and a search function. It’s basic, but it works.

Because God has cursed me for my hubris and my work is never finished, I have a lot of plans for ways to upgrade the site with new features, various integrations, and ways to monetize my work. Gotta keep the lights and pay for the domain and service somehow. Initially, that means ads, but I’ll be looking into ways to remove them for regular supporters and I bet most of you use adblockers anyway, which I totally get, no judgement here.

That’s about all I have to say. I hope you all like the new site and I would love any feedback you have on it. Anyway, stay safe, don’t forget to love each other, and I’ll see you soon.

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Coming Soon to a URL Near You

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Hey folks! Been sitting on this one for two weeks, done and ready, not wanting to release so close to the Behemoths and just reveling in the fact that for once I have a small stockpile of brews that are done/close to done. It's nice to take a break and not worry about what's next.

Anyway, this is a complete rework of my Transformation Cog item I did a few years back. For those not familiar with the source material or just need a refresher, the Transformation Cog, or T-Cog, is from Transformers and is the organ that allows a Cybertronian to transform into (and scan in later continuities) an alternate mode.

The original version was a reworked version of the Druid's Wildshape feature, with a focus on beast forms rather than vehicular ones. This time, I've gone the other direction and made various types of vehicular alt mode, each for a different purpose and giving you related benefits. A focus of this new version was, as with most of my reworks, refinement of the old idea and simplifying its mechanics to be easier to use. I think I've accomplished that goal, but we'll see how she plays.

I pulled a lot from the Shifter race from Ebberon, as well as the official Transformers RPG by Renegade Games, which is a pretty robust RPG in its own right, though a touch complicated for my tastes (maybe worth a System Spotlight in the future). Eventually, I would love to use this new version as a base for a beast mode T-Cog, and make a Cybertronian lineage that incorporates perhaps an even more simplified version of what I have now. Something to think about.

Anyway, that's it from me, hope y'all like the update! Stay safe, don't forget to love each other, and I'll see you next time.

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System Spotlight: Monster of the Week

Hello everyone, and welcome to another System Spotlight! Today I've got a pulpy game full of mysteries and monsters, so let's split up, gang, and Investigate a Mystery on Monster of the Week by Evil Hat Productions!

MotW is a mystery solving and monster hunting RPG inspired by shows like Scooby-Doo, Supernatural, The X-Files, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. You play as a team of investigators out to solve mysteries and fight evil, usually in short, self-contained or “episodic” adventures strung together into a larger campaign, each surrounding a new mystery or monster, hence the name.

Character Creation

You start by picking one of several “playbooks”, each based on a popular archetype or trope from the genre, such as The Chosen, The Spell-Slinger, The Mundane, The Wronged, or The Monstrous. Think of them like classes in other RPGs. Each playbook has everything you need to make and play that character until their inevitable death or retirement, including character advancement.

Then you pick one from five attribute arrays. There are five attributes (Charm, Cool, Sharp, Tough, and Weird) and each array has some strong attributes and some weaker attributes, with the others being in between.

From there, we can start getting into the real meat of the playbooks by picking moves and other details specific to each playbook. Every playbook has their own set of moves in addition to all the basic moves, which we’ll talk about those later. For example, the Expert has things like “I’ve Read About This Sort Of Thing”, which lets you roll using Sharp instead of Cool when you act under pressure, or the Spell-Slinger has “Shield Spell”, which lets you reduce the damage of an attack when you protect someone. Each playbook has a lot of options so you have a lot to play with.

In addition to the moves, many of the playbook have other special features that are unique to them. For example, the Professional works for an agency that gives you resources in missions, but you have to deal with some kind of restrictions on what you can do, while the Wronged has a background that gives them benefits as well as a connection to the supernatural underworld. Again, there are a lot of fun options.

Finally, you pick from a list of special gear that you can use on missions such as weapons or equipment, then you establish your history with the other characters in your group. This is a fun little activity that really helps to get the group dynamic going. Each playbook has a list of prompts for what each other character could be to you. For example, they could a blood relation, saved you from a monster, act as your moral compass, or maybe you’re really attracted to them. Lots of fun options.

Resolution Mechanic & Moves

MotW is a Powered by the Apocalypse game (huh, two in a row) that uses 3d6 and a few basic moves for pretty much everything. There are 8 moves, each pretty self-explanatory: Act Under Pressure, Help Out, Investigate a Mystery, Kick Some Ass, Manipulate Someone, Protect Someone, Read a Bad Situation, and Use Magic. Whenever you want to do one of those things, roll 3d6 and add any relevant rating bonus or situational modifiers. On a 10+ you do exactly what you set out to do. 7-9 whatever you’re doing is less effective and usually has some kind of downside. But anything under a 7 is a failure and nothing happens. Each move tells you exactly what happens at each threshold, but that's the gist of it.

Each move also has an Advanced effect that can trigger if you roll 12+, but you have to have taken one of the Advanced Move options as part of character advancement, which we’ll talk about in a bit.

Harm & Luck

Running around fighting monsters and thwarting evil is dangerous, so sooner or later you’re bound to get hurt. Whenever you take damage, you subtract it from any armor you have and mark the remainder as points of Harm. Once you mark 4 harm, you’re Unstable, and at 7 Harm, you’re Dying! If you take any more Harm, that’s the end for you and your character is dead. Thankfully, there are plenty of ways to heal in MotW through downtime and certain moves across various playbooks.

But what if you REALLY need to avoid taking a hit, or you just fumbled an important roll, that's where Luck comes in. Each character begins with 7 points of Luck. You can spend luck to reduce the harm taken from an attack to 0 or retroactively change the result of a roll to a 12. Here’s the kicker. Your luck is finite and does NOT come back (except in EXTREMELY specific circumstances that shouldn’t be relied on), and once it runs out, you’re Doomed! A Doomed character is at the end of the line and Fate isn’t happy with your existence. The GM, or Keeper, is allowed to make more and more bad stuff happen to you. Results of failure will be worse, monsters will target you more often, any bad, fate-related things in your playbook will begin to happen, and past decision will come back to bite you at the worst time. Doomed characters don’t last long, so don’t let it get to that point if you can help it.

Character Advancement

Ok, so character creation and actual play are pretty straightforward, and that trend continues with your advancement. You gain experience whenever you fail a roll, and once you have 5 experience, you can pick an Improvement from a list in your playbook. These are things like increasing a rating by one, gaining a new move, or taking a move from another playbook entirely. Once you have 5 Improvements, you qualify to take Advanced Improvements. These are even stronger things like gaining 2 Advanced Moves, changing your entire playbook, retiring your character while they still live, or even regaining one of your spent Luck!

Other Stuff

That’s pretty much everything as far as player-facing content goes, but there’s a good bit more for the GM to dig in to. There is advice for creating your own mysteries, stringing mysteries together in arcs, and running downtime and one-shots, an introductory mystery, suggestions for how to customize your game, and a big ol’ list of inspirational material.

Tome of Mysteries and Codex of Worlds

But if you’re looking for more MotW content (official, anyway), Evil Hat published the Tome of Mysteries and, just this last year, the Codex of Worlds. The Tome of Mysteries is just that, a collection of new pre-made mysteries you can run, while the Codex of Worlds is a full-blown expansion with all kinds of fun additions to spice up your game. There are new rules, special team playbooks that the whole group can use, and entire settings to shake up the game, each with their own rules and mysteries! It’s like a 400-page book and a delight to read.

My Thoughts

So, it took me a while to get into playing MotW. It was my first encounter with an RPG that was more narrative focused in its mechanics than D&D and I struggled to wrap my head around it. My friend was running a long-term campaign in it, so I heard a lot of what went on and the kinds of shenanigans the group got up to, and I was curious. Over the years, he ran a couple one-shots, and frankly I didn’t get much out of either. Something about it just didn’t click with me. But this last Halloween, he ran an SCP-themed game using some of the stuff from Codex of Worlds, and that one finally got me. I don’t know if it's because of my love for the SCP universe or that our one-shot quickly became a four-shot, giving us more time together and less pressure to finish in a timely manner, but that game really made me understand it and appreciate it for what it is. And I like what it is.

So, what do I like? Well for starters it's dummy simple, something that has become increasingly important for me over the years. The basic resolution mechanic is clean, the moves are clearly defined, but open-ended enough for creative uses, and because you’re mostly going to be rolling 7-9s it keeps the game interesting. And I could just gush about the playbooks! I think they’re my favorite part of the games, easy. They’re stupid simple to use, are completely self-contained, and have enough options to make a wide variety of characters but not so many options as to be overwhelming. You can hand a brand-new player a playbook, and they can be ready to play in 5 minutes, maybe 10. I wish more RPGs had their classes laid out like this (if you know any, let me know!).

Another great thing about the playbooks is that because they’re so well-structured, it makes it easy for people to make their own custom playbooks. There are quite a few custom playbooks made by fans online, and several of them are actually available on the Evil Hat website!

So yeah, I love this game and if you’re into things like Scooby-Doo, Supernatural, Buffy, The X-Files, or The Dresden Files, I think you’ll have a good time too. Anyway, that's all for now. As always, stay safe, don't forget to love each other, and I'll see you again soon.

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Hey folks! It took WAY too long to get this out, but it's finally done. Well, technically it isn't done, but I'll get to that in a bit. One weird thing that needs explanation at a time.

So, as one can tell, I didn't just make statblocks for the behemoths, write some lore, and call it a day. I've discovered that I really don't like making statblocks and dealing with all the nonsense that comes with it (CR is a joke, and I'm not laughing). So, in typical Foundry fashion, I tried doing something weird that requires more work and ultimately still required me to make statblocks anyway. Yeah, I'm not smart. 

So I made them templates instead. And while I was tempted to give up and just do the obvious thing since I was just going to end up with stats anyway, making them templates makes a certain amount of sense from a lore perspective and I genuinely think is an interesting idea worth pursuing. Quick lore tidbit, behemoths are likely the result of normal creatures becoming mutated by aether (it's not certain, but there are signs of this origin from what I've read), so a template makes logical sense. So, as long as I pick appropriate creatures for the template examples, the end result will get you pretty close to the behemoths in game. Sure, they're not perfect, but it would be easy to tweak them to better suit your game.

So the other behemoth in the room is there are only 3 behemoths here. I had intended on releasing them all at once. Turns out there's like 30+ behemoths AND 5 basically legendary behemoths. So, I'm splitting them up into their elemental categories, and the legendaries by themselves. I already have the Blaze behemoths written out, so those won't take nearly as long. As I complete each category, I'll update this post and make y'all aware of the additions. By the end, I'll have one document with all of them in it, a brew to rival Flesh & Bone. 

But for now, a quick break to work on something else my ADHD has compelled me to rework. Stay tuned for that. Anyway, stay safe, don't forget to love each other, and I'll see you next time.

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