ladytabletop - Tumblr blog

[ladytabletop]

The thing about wanting to write smart essays is you truly do have to read books to do that, and the thing about reading books is that it is way harder now that I am not 17 and smartphoneless

[ladytabletop]

finally, some good fucking heel

[ladytabletop]

What always gets me about learning about settler colonialism is how once you learn about it you cannot unsee the violence to the land itself. My home state was previously nearly 100% wetlands, apart of the wider Ohio river valley whose biodiversity supported such large populations of hundreds of different species that many contemporary source from settlers describe it as like the garden of Eden.

The Indigenous people who farmed and hunted here (and still farm and hunt in what land they have been able to keep and reclaim) were able to grow miles of upon miles of crops with multiple harvests a year, encouraging this biodiversity by creating forest gardens with incredible amounts of food from staples like corn and squash to local fruits like pawpaws to European imports like apples alongside controlled burns which allowed fields and buffalo ranges to expand.

Nowadays my state is known almost exclusively for its fields of nothing but corn and soy beans. Driving through in between the comparatively small cities you'll see nothing but fields where the plethora of different trees and plants were chopped down mile by mile, the remaining wetlands drained and flattened, and the rich black soils robbed of their nutrients through decades upon decades of monocrop agriculture now preserved through the life blood of petrochemical fertilizers which destroy the surrounding environment.

This process was done mile by mile as the tens of thousands of Indigenous people were killed and displaced by settlers and the US army, the land measured and sold acre by acre to white settlers who raped the land as described, filling the pockets of wealthy land speculators (like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson) who bought the land directly from the government in schemes so corrupt historians have dedicated entire careers to mapping out their dramas.

It's like learning about commodity fetishism and suddenly seeing hundreds of strangers in the products that surround you. Once you learn how the land was destroyed for profit you'll never look at the miles of fields or the cracks in the concrete of buildings built on wetlands or the stench of now obsolete canals built solely for a once boat-dependent economy with no care for the environment the same.

[ladytabletop]

hey whats this about a supposed NSFW expansion for a sandy pug game? ive searched around but havent found anything and i am interested in sloppy

Sandy Pug Games released a game called Monster Care Squad. Its a very cute game about playing as doctors and going around treating monsters from horrible unknown diseases. Its very well put together and I highly recommend it.

One of the really cool things they did with their kickstarter funds though, was set up the Ald-Amura Historical Grant Fund. This was a grant that other game designers could apply for to get some funds to help them make their own expansion for Monster Care Squad. Absolutely INCREDIBLE way to pay it forward, and I really hope this becomes a more common practice going forward.

One of the people to apply for the grant was famous twitter horny poster and THE monster/plant fucker of all time, Leaf Tilde. She created an adventure called The Tangle in the Snarlwood. It includes a new rule that replaces the normal "I'm gonna give the monster medicine to make it all better!" move, with a "I'm gonna fuck this monsters god damn brains out to make it all better!" move.

[ladytabletop]

[ladytabletop]

Eclipse of the Sun in Venice in July 8, 1842 by Ippolito Caffi.

[ladytabletop]

Overcharge⚡️

[ladytabletop]

Have you ever held an eclipse in your hands?

[ladytabletop]

Art by Ami Thompson

[ladytabletop]

Dirk Wachsmuth

[ladytabletop]

Let me put it this way. Y'know how people love Warlocks? Because they come built-in with a character conflict, and that conflict is directly tied to their mechanical identity. It's dramatic, it's interesting, and it basically gives you a real writing prompt where other characters just get a list of stereotypes and a background element like "you went to school" or "you like nature".

There are games where every class is a warlock.

[ladytabletop]

Almost time for Dren to retire which means I get to drag out my new Problem Child

[ladytabletop]

👁🔥The Burnout🔥👁

‘I’ll keep trying, until there’s nothing left of me but ashes’

(This is me these past few weeks. Not being able to draw has been killing me😝 But I’m so happy with my art today!👏😊)

🔸 Art Prints

🔸 Ko-fi

[ladytabletop]

Art by Niels Van Holland

January’s Theme: #DragonPostalService

Presented by CDQ Magazine

Discover the artists of the Character Design Challenge community and the current Theme of the Month in our Facebook Group! And when you repost your design on our Patreon page, you can also win awesome prizes every month and choose the future themes!

RULES | WINNERS | MAGAZINE | BOOKS

[ladytabletop]

@martianworder asked me about this on my Forged in the Dark post, so here we go!

Clocks

So Clocks have been a tool that have been used before and outside of Blades in the Dark, but BitD was where I think they were made really popular.

Golem Clocks designed by cmartins on Itch.io

For all intents and purposes, a Clock is just a track that you fill, but in some cases it's preferred over a track because it fills less space, and it's easy to just draw a clock on a piece of paper to help you keep track of something as you play.

A Clock can be more than just a track. It can be a countdown, a timer, or a representation of a person or faction's goals. The larger the Clock, the bigger task it is. Here are some examples of how you could use them.

A Healing project clock from Blades in the Dark.

A player could have a project Clock that they fill over the course of many sessions. Perhaps they want to research a cure for a vampire virus that is threatening a loved one. The GM would ask them to make a research roll every downtime, and how successful they are indicates how many slices they fill - effectively, how much progress they make towards finding a cure.

Rebellion and Sedition Clocks for Brinkwood: Blood of Tyrants.

A play group might use a Clock to track a common goal, such as winning over a number of anarchists to help take down a mega-corporation. If this is a campaign-long goal, you might use a series of linked clocks to represent the jailbreak you need to assist before you can win over a computer hacker, and then the massive hacking project you need to support before you can overwhelm the corpo servers.

Faction Clocks from Scum & Villainy.

A GM might use a Clock to track the work a Faction makes towards their goal. Every downtime section, they GM might roll to see how successful the Faction is, or simply tick one slice of the clock if the Faction has no reason not to be able to do what they want. If the Faction is allowed to work unimpeded by the PC's, they might eventually do something that changes the world around them, for better or worse.

Mission Clock from External Containment Bureau and Doomsday Clock from Apocalypse Keys.

Clocks might also be used as a timer, to indicate when something terrible might happen, or when the group's time is up. This might be the amount of time before a murderer next strikes, before the haunted house claims another victim, or before the world begins to end. In some games, specific points in the clock (such as halfway, or a quarter of the way through) may trigger special events that give the PC's more information, or remind the group that the pressure is really on.

Clocks for Protect the Child.

All in all, Clocks are a great visual tool to help you and your game group keep track of what's going on in the fiction, and it can also help you keep track of a number of narrative threads in a fairly condensed space. Even if they're not built into the game you're currently running or playing, I think they're a fairly easy addition, and can certainly help with bookkeeping!

[ladytabletop]

Sacred Heart

[ladytabletop]

A commission for Rax over on cohost!

carrd / patreon