Rapping With Thrantrix

Anybody who has watched the Operation Unfathomable Kickstarter video is familiar with that chaos godling and bon vivant (well, maybe just the former) Thrantrix the Ineffable. Now, as you know, Chaos Godlings say the darnedest things, and that Thrantrix is quotable beyond all others. Hydra has a little contest going: Give us your best Thrantrix quotations and we'll collect them into one tome. Also, the very best will go into the adventure as "sample dialogue" the godling might drop on the PCs, so that's the sort of quotation we're looking for: cutting adventurer put-downs, Underworld gossip, incomprehensible cosmic musings, weird worship requirements, gripes about other Godlings, etc.

The top submission will receive the actual model of Thrantrix that appeared in our Kickstarter video, once the campaign ends and a winner has been chosen!

The Winner is

The time has come to announce the winners of the Gimme Your Weird Adventures adventure seed contest. First, off let me start with the usual "it was a really hard decision."  Cliched maybe, but in this case it was, as there were a lot of good entries and comparing such a disparate group was hard.  Many of the entries are likely to make it into the Companion.

Next, I want to give recognize some notable disqualifications.  Two guys did awesome work, but did follow the contest rules, exactly.  B. Portly, Esq. gave a delightfully weird criminal gang in his "The Doors of Deception, or A Drug Quest of Unknown Zamora," but it was really a description of the gang and not an adventure seed.  Gustie LaRu's "The Hell Haunted Roads of Peril County" was likewise great stuff, but was more a locale and random encounters. Don't feel too bad, guys: Both of these will absolutely be used in the book in some form.

One of the best entries was done by my friend and sometimes collaborator, Jim Shelley.  His "The Monster Men of Bludd Manor" was pitch perfect in about every way, but given that Jim did layouts and whatnot on the original Weird Adventures and will most likely have a hand in the Companion, I thought handing him a prize might be a bit of a conflict of interests.  Still, he deserves recognition, and Bludd Manor will appear in the book.

Now to the winners, selected in haphazard conclave between myself and three of the players in my face-to-face Weird Adventures game:

Matthew Schmeer's "Flesh-eating Golems of the Pigeon King" is so off-kilter it took me a while to decide whether it works in the setting or not, but it drew comment and praise from our panel.  It's original--and that's a good thing.

Jack Shear's "Big Trouble in Yiantown" hit all the right pulp notes and pulled in some knowledge of the Weird Adventures setting--plus it struck the panel as being a lot of fun to play.

Congratulations, Jack and Matthew! Email me with your prize preference: gift card or Weird Adventures hard cover.

While I'm not going to name everybody that turned in a great adventure, I want to recognize a couple of standouts that made the final round of selections. Jeremy Duncan's "Glory, Glory, Hallelujah!" teased with a tale of a radio evangelist gone reality-shakingly wrong. John Arendt's "Two Dames and A Diamond" was a a noirish yarn like Black Mask meets Weird Tales.  Steve Sigety's "Murder by Radio" was a compact murder mystery served up with a twist of fantasy.

To all I've mentioned, and those I haven't, thanks for your entries.  Many more than those mentioned here will be hearing from me about including your submission in the Weird Adventures Companion.

The End is Near

The deadline for the Gimme Your Weird Adventures adventure seed contest draws nigh: Monday the 17th. So if you've been procrastinating, get those in!

For some further inspiration, here's Shane "Swords Against the Outer Dark" Mangus's great entry.

A Weird Adventures Companion

As suggested by the current contest, I'm in the early stages of work on the Weird Adventures Companion, a follow to the main book (priced to own at RPGNow).  Other than adventure seeds, it will include more information for players in the world of the City, some new monsters, and some other stuff.  Some of it will be collated from the blog, but there will also be new material.  More to come as the project moves along.

Speaking of the contest, just over a week to go until the deadline.  Get those those adventure seeds in!

In other news, I'll be doing the Dorkland! Roundtable on G+ Hangouts on September 10th.  I'll be talking with host Chris Helton about Weird Adventures.  Check it out if you want to hear me talk about it rather than just reading about it.

Gimme Your Weird Adventures Contest

Back from Gen Con and ready to get to work on a long percolating idea: a companion to Weird Adventures.  To help lazy ol' me generate content, I’m turning to the time honored internet tradition of crowdsourcing--and sweetening the deal with a little competition.

Here’s what i’m looking for: give me your best adventure seed in the in the world of Weird Adventures.  Inspiration from the usual suspects (B-movies, pulp stories, comic books) is always appreciated, but whatever you think would work and highlights the fun elements of the setting. The seed can be for a sorter incidental

I want the entries in the following format:

Title: this should ideally be something pulpy and possibly hyperbolic.  The titles of the adventure seed boxed pieces in the book are good examples--and check out this old post on “weird menace” titles.
Tagline: a one sentence teaser like found on the contents page of some old pulp mags.
Set-up: a brief rundown of how the setting and situation of the adventure.
Highlights: a montage of the interesting/critical things in the adventure--important encounters, possible set-pieces, some evocative sensory fluff.

Ok, here’s a quick example:

“Burial On the Far Side of Hell”
An ancient plea brings the promise of riches and unimagined danger.
The Set-up: In a oddities museum, the PCs happen upon a Native mummy who puts out a psychic plea: “return me to my ancestral grounds for burial, and I'll show you the hidden riches of my people."  What the mummy does not know--and neither does anyone else--is that the road back now cuts through a dangerous stretch of badlands swallowed by a black dust elemental and crawling with black dust zombies.
Highlights: the fury of a malevolent storm; shambling,moaning zombies, all but invisible in the swirling, choking dust; an isolated town with desperate survivors are wholed up; a mad preacher fallen to worship of the demonic storm.

Easy! So give it your best shot. All of them I like will get included in the next Weird Adventures supplement (with full credit, of course), and everyone who’s entry makes the book will get a free pdf.  The best two entries will get either a $10 Amazon gift certificate or a hardcopy of Weird Adventures (whichever their preference).

All entries should be submitted by Monday September 17 at noon Eastern Time.  Email them to me at theinscrutabledr3 on gmail.