YSYP Cottonmouth Ashcan (GLÅUGUST 2026 #5)

Taking on The Nothic's Eye GLÅUGUST 2026, challenge #5 is from a list by Doc - "Cottonmouth your pet system so it is synonymous with one of your settings. Here is what Cottonmouth is and here is one way you could do that"

For this I am attempting to crank over the entire system for Your Sector, Your Problem. It gnaws at me but I think the attempt to Cottonmouth it might force it to a useful place. You could probably retool the guts of this to be a minion-running mechanic for any domain level game. The 'cottonmouth' aspect of it is that the gears and gubbins are all just set up for the 'telling of the tale' debriefing which is happening in world (assuming you survive).

Four things happen during a cycle of play
1. You learn what problems you have in your sector, as per the name
2. You throw your assets at the threat, hopefully suitable ones against your various threats
3. Resolve the problems (or fail to)
4. Recover and maintain your assets - and then debrief on how the whole mission cycle played out.

Phase 1 - for this ashcan your problem is going to be selected with three rolls d12+8 off this d20 sector defense assets table to get three problems.

Phase 2 - you have your starter set of assets - three d20 rolls on the table and assign them against whichever problem you like. Each of your players draws two standard playing cards.
Ace, 2 = Exhaustion
3, 4 = Panic & miscommunication
5+ Hearts = Xeno-shock
5+ Diamonds = Inexplicable Physics
5+ Clubs = Bureaucracy & Bad Planning
5+ Spades = Gear Failure

Phase 3 - Decide whether or not to get involved, add a d6 if a player deploys with an asset and risks death. Roll off between problem and asset.
+4 success, no upkeep
+0 success, upkeep (draw 1)
-4 success, high upkeep (draw 2)
-5 or lower, failure, high upkeep (draw 2)

At this point draw cards from a standard deck for each asset as required by the rolls.

Phase 4 - upkeep - each character can get involved with an asset and play one of their cards. Multiple characters can go after one asset. If the total value of their cards (Jack = 11, Queen = 12, King = 13) is greater than card on the asset, take that card of the asset. Then tell the story of how it all played out, framed as your debriefing to the rest of the characters after everything has been resolved. That debrief has to include
What the asset is
The problem (card on the asset being targetted)
What caused the problem (the threat that put the cards there)
The character(s) involved in fixing the problem.

Do this for all assets. With luck, you have cards in hand that total more than the cards on your assets - just tell the tale of how you fixed it.

If the total of the characters cards do not exceed the value of the problems, characters can roll a save for that category (e.g. Inexplicable Physics) modified by the gap between the cards you have and the problem. Fail and take d6 points distributed across your Grit, Guile and Charm stats.Make the save with disadvantage if you play a card of a different type as the problem.

However that plays out, you still must tell the tale as a debriefing as above with the added element of:
How the character got beaten up doing it
Any remaining problems on the asset

Any assets that go into the next round with cards on them, they lose a dice from what they roll per card remaining.

Characters in this conceptualisation have 3d6 stats (Grit, Guile, Charm) and saves that base of those stats, modified by their 'career' tied either to humans, aliens or terrain, affecting people or stuff. Players could eat a few 'I have no cards, I get stuck in' at d6 damage a pop but not over the long haul.

Design notes

Key revelation, thanks to the in-house testing team, is not to frame this as 'grading roleplaying' but more as assembling the elements that have to be incorporated into an 'upkeep vignette' somewhat like a small round of 'Once Upon a Time'. I think it captures the fun of 'minion running' and the chaos involved in explaining why this xenoarchaeologist (holder of the right cards) was able to fix the BOGEYMAN cybertanks Gear Failure problem caused by their scrap with the Dubious Alien Mercenaries.

I like this better as a 'just tell the tale' rather than 'you must 'win' a roleplaying encounter'. Is this properly Cottonmouthed? Barely - I think in making it a 'talk through how you fixed it' it adheres to the in-world concept of your are troubleshooters dealing with wild things and debriefing your fellows at a particularly bizarre set of .

Shiny TTRPG links #291

We return to standard posting - bundles of shiny links, fresh from the internet! For more, check out the chonky set from last week found here or the weekly r/OSR blogroll or check the RPG Blog Carnival. Bloggie-nominated. Originally inspired by weaver.skepti.ch, delinked by request.

I Cast Light! shares THE OSR IS DEADLY: But Not Deadly Enough To Kill Long-term Play

Spiceomancy shares The JAR

Typebar Magazine posts Revisiting the Past: Can Pulp Save Science Fiction?

RedMageGM hosts writes A Mystic Wood OSR Adventure Jam

Backwards Tabletop gives us To Play Is To Explode

Trick's Tales gives us Jay Dragon (Steve Jackson Games/Possum Creek Games) Interview - Seven Part Pact

Bare Nuckelavee gives us NO ONE CAN TAKE YOUR GAME FROM YOU

Cannibal Halfling Gaming posts The Data on Million-Plus RPG Crowdfunding Campaigns

Roseline posts Why Who You Play With Matters and on building the muscle of Hope

Portalfreaks (GLÅUGUST 2026 #4)

Taking on The Nothic's Eye GLÅUGUST 2026, challenge #4 is from a list by Semiurge - "Some roadfreaks for a passage that isn't a road - canalfreaks, hyperlanefreaks, portalfreaks, etc."

I have a deep and abiding love of 'sliders' type portal-of-the-week campaigns - my two best Planescape campaigns were of this type - so the archetype of weird sods bampfing into a place through some random mystic doorway and then thundering around like bulls in china-shops is one I think can bring joy and novelty to any campaign.

These are the folk that know about and live at the interstices of all the portal networks. They hang around bars and bazaars in Sigil, the City of Glass, Waterdeep, crossroads like that. You get a different bunches working different angles - one around shipping, some around the magical component trade - but the one that most folk think about when someone spits "portalfreaks" are the scouts - the fast riders, the smash-and-grab folk.

The best of them are the absolutely fundamental base layer of the information-broking shadow war, the whole information-is-power part of the economy of Sigil and the outer planes. They are the source of first-hand information, free-lance long-range military scouts. They go and look at stuff, count noses and blades and they come back, nice-and-easy, in and out. In contrast with the spies and all the people who try to shake stuff out of people, they go and eyeball the things you just cannot hide like a giant floating ship or a mustering devil legion.

The nature of engaging these portalfreaks is someone asks a question and then first there is work to get a sense of where might those answers be? Once you know where to look then you want to figure out what kind of portalfreak you want - who matches to the task? They should be one who can get the portal keys, who can get to the locations, knows the routes to do the runs, maybe stealth experts, or maybe something fundamental to their nature like celestials who aren't going to die on contact with the heavens, or tieflings that aren't going to perish in the hells. Everything can be overcome with sufficiently powerful magic of course, but magic costs and why pay for that guys shiny bangle when that guy over there just won't burst into flames on arrival in the first place?

The portalfreaks tend to come in two flavours - the break-and-entry folk who get in anywhere, and eyeball things that are hidden then run off with your secrets - and the all-terrain, survive anywhere scouts that just out-endure whatever conditions they face to witness things that are out in the inhospitable open. Those tend to be experts and surveying ground and counting noses. Some of them run a circuit, selling what they see, others keep their ear to the ground and follow trouble.

The culture of these portalfreaks is very much hung up on having all of the gear. Everything is on you because you're gonna go to a place where there is nothing. Belts and buckles and pouches and bandoliers of absolutely everything strung around them together with a big backpack or mount and pack-mount pairs. One of the big aesthetic choices across most portalfreaks is riding howlers. All of them absolutely swear is the optimal choice but lack any sort of means to support this and say why beyond that a howler is such an ornery mean beast that things just can't really get much worse so you've got that a known quantity.

Another thing that about portalfreaks is the trail of tchotchkes they leave behind. Ranging from that kind of trade a shiny rock for a pair of buttons, weird swap-meet stuff, up to waves of minor kleptomania, they are known for their trail of minor bits and pieces. This has grown out of original practices for disguising what the key to the local portal is. If roses off a nearby bush kept going missing, for instance, people could figure out that roses were probably the key to the portal. If, however, there is a complete mess it is very difficult for anyone to peg any one thing as the portal key, and so it became basic operational security for early common portal scout, before the freaky fully evolved.

d6 Portalfreaks

1. A muscle-sorcerer disguising themselves as a standard fighter; leans hard into 'desert nomad' archetypal appearance.
2. A paladin of a god of knowledge, grizzled and battered with a giant goat mount, viewing it as their divine duty to pry secrets from the hands of evil-doers.
3. A ex-celestial legionairre, never adapted to settled life, continues to tramp about the plains observing things, prides themselves on being able to out-tough anything.
4. Howler-mounted, swivel-eyed wizard, in ragged cloak and battered hat. Jittery when not on the move, impatient to get your question, get their payment and get back on the Great Wheel.
5. Goblin duo, battered old shaman, bundled up in a beastfur, escorted by a weathered warrior only slightly younger, mounted on worgs. Sneaky, subtle and happy to take any gig.
6. Tiefling with a spray of horns, mounted on a howler, both cloaked in reptile skin. Very still and watchful, charming in conversation, prone to slipping away when not directly observed.

The (at least) nine cultures of play (GLÅUGUST 2026 #3)

Taking on The Nothic's Eye GLÅUGUST 2026, challenge #3 is from a list by Purple - "Futility of categorization."

I have been gathering the various '... but also!' cultures of play people have articulated since Retired Adventurer wrote their touchstone post. In addition to those original six, we can add 'Optimizer' culture from Flourite Guillotine, Jeu d'Atmosphere from Taskerland and 'Common Sense Culture' from Elmcat.

My personal framing for this - as in why are some of these not the same thing - is that the culture expresses itself as why do folk sit to table. Trying to be very succinct about this we get:
Classic - play to get deeper into the dungeon / take on greater challenges
Trad (short for "traditional") - play to hear the DMs grand story
Nordic Larp - play to live the character
Story Games - play to collectively tell the story
The OSR ("Old School Renaissance / Revival") - play for the interesting decisions
OC / Neo-trad - play to actualise your characters story
Optimizer - play to "work the rules hard"
Games of Atmosphere - play to immerse in the world
Common Sense Culture - play to get the adventure done

And here is where we return to our topic of "Futility of categorization" in that there is almost certainly finer grades of distinction within Nordic LARP and Storygames - I am sure if I played more of either of those I would be able to offer thoughts on how they should be broken down.

This culture of play intersects with the preferences of the players at your table - take Matt Colvilles 9 Types of Players for just one example. Thow in the GNS model or whatever you like to try and articulate the type of fun your are having and things start to get really complicated.

Much like the exercise of trying to say how many communities are within the OSR is near-futile but expressing that there *are* multiple communities within it is useful; trying to nail down a definitive all encompassing categorisation is going to be very hard and of dubious use, but it is still useful to recognise that different groups sit to table with very different objectives in mind.

Shiny TTRPG links #290

A mixed set of links from my trying to catch up after more travels - for still more, check out the chonky set from last week found here or the weekly r/OSR blogroll or check the RPG Blog Carnival. Bloggie-nominated. Originally inspired by weaver.skepti.ch, delinked by request.

Afraid of Encounters gives us Indonesian TTRPG Blogwagon

Crow’s Corner posts Viennese Games in the 2026 One Page RPG Jam

Patchwork Paladin shares Reading in the Dark

Throne of Salt writes 4 Roads to R'lyeh

Save vs TPK gives us Some Thoughts on My Awards

Level Zero Commoner posts level zero character creation for old school & 5e style ttrpgs

Trick's Tales posts Marja: The City of Roots

Sage's Sanctum writes The Empress' New Spellbook

Save vs Tentacles shares Simple Multi-Phase Boss Fights in Mythic Bastionland

d12 books of the ruin-infested swamplands (GLÅUGUST 2026 #2)

Taking on The Nothic's Eye GLÅUGUST 2026, challenge #2 is from a list by Prime - "Books as treasure. No spellbooks."

A list of books that were scattered throughout the Hexcrawl25 campaign:

1. Ruins of the Wild Woods - tree art, frontispiece changes, haunted by a druid
2. Torments of the Blade Dungeon - traps and devices catalog
3. A Guide to Toad Licking - swamp-alchemy and herbalism guide
4. Unamed folio of beasts - bound in hellhound hide, smoulders
5. Ohlinbella Esoterica - magical theory primer from regional capital, wizard-focussed for human lifetimes
6. Primer of college of Cyuendreil - magical theory of leylines and planar boundaries, written with elven lifetimes in mind
7. Great Tales of Lhirogref - collected stories of the goblin realm of Lhirogref, the 'first people'
8. Marda's Grimoire - travelogue of the region written by a roving curiousity seeker
9. Eternal Compendium - bronze coffer filled with scrolls, encyclopedia from centuries ago
10. Zigli's Parchments - Yew-bound book, written in Abyssal, personal memoir of a time-travelling wizard
11. Fey Pages of Certa - book bound in light-spotted dark fuzzy hide, opens only by starlight, practical Spellcraft guidance
12. Great Red Book - cartographic survey from the time of the elven invasion, mostly sought because the maps are marked with now-lost dwarven sites from the time

Of these, the Great Red Book and the Pages of Certa drove adventure - the Red Book by pointing to sites for treasure and the Scrolls of Certa being used to line up boosts to spells.

Zigli turned up a bit in the background but their parchments were never actually found.

State of the Blog (post #950)

Dropping in this 'mid-range' state of the blog update mostly to mark having down-shifted since the end of June from Shiny Links plus two posts a week to Shiny Links plus one.

Empire of Crust sounded an appreciated warning - as per their post On the Cancer of Creation for Others - a mere hobby blog such as this, must retain its utility to me. I make not a cent from this, it would be futile indeed to get trapped in some sort of content mill mentality *for free*.

Even assuming 2/3 of all traffic is bot-nonsense, traffic surges. Cloudflares boss thinks its 57% for all the internet.

On Writing

I was going to take this as an opportunity to cover off the 'why I write' prompt and then while I was travelling, things got spicy with A Knight At The Opera getting torched.

There were a few who commented on the 'who do you write for' topic - Dungeon Fruit started it, Roll to Doubt and Mightier Than a Sword contributed and I spent a good long time pondering. Mostly, I post that others may have the benefits I had in coming to the OSR blogosphere when I did. I missed G+ by a hair, so my entire experience was the blogs that preserved the thing that was gone. There were lessons learned, tips and tricks that lit a fire under me and so I resolved to chunter along as best I could that I might do likewise.

I recognise I am no genius game designer, nor have I the time to polish ideas up to A-grade on a regular basis. I can document table-fixes and ideas I come up with for my own campaign - the work-log of a journeyman DM - that it might help others avoid some pitfalls or - better yet - be inspired to do something they would never have otherwise come up with.

As part of this I try to fish out and preserve some of the torrent of ideas and discussion that sluice past in the digital abyss of discord - that they might be preserved against its ruin and better found and referenced today.

I had written *exactly this far* when I put down my pen, and between that and picking it up again, one of the great sites of the OSR was deleted (fair enough) and excised from the wayback machine (boo!).

I was very upset but I talked it through with an old friend, a musician, on the topic of a creatives control of their archive. By their views, since noone had paid a penny for any blog posts, none had any claim to them - freely distributed, freely taken back. To bad for those posts of mine that now lead to dead pages, more fool me for not saving down copies of everything. I have no right to any of those writings, I paid no money for them. It still feels like someone painted over a mural that enriched a community because they did not like the people taking selfies in front of it, or locked up a park because 'the wrong sort' were using it.

That blog succeeded in creating a vibrant patch on the internet, one worth visiting and revisiting. Whatever about declaring you were done and hanging a sign refuting those interpretting your works in a way you disapprove, blocking access to all with no warning is not cool, tearing all trace from the archives spites everyone who ever appreciated the place, not just the bad apples who so infuriated the creator. However the creators was/is well within their rights and I will swallow this bitter taste eventually.

One of the masters of our community of practice has been driven off. Now those who come after us will find less. Gems of gaming are still found on blogs ten years defunct or more. What we do not work to preserve, for the wonder and enlightenment of those who come after, will vanish.

I do not know why this has hit me so damn hard, I don't know Dwiz, he has no idea who I am. There is probably something in watching someone run a blog like I might aspire to in my wildest dreams - expansive, interesting, with useful things in there, throwing off ideas that spark inspiration in others - and to find it brought him *no joy*. Grim.