Now On Patreon: Njor Idioms
Yesterday I gave a preview of Njor culture for a fantasy setting. One of the things I often like to do to explore the attitude and tone of a culture is to write up some words of wisdom common among them. Over on my my Patreon, I listed twenty-one common Njor idioms.
Right now the full list of 21 idioms (and all Thursday blog posts) is Patreon-exclusive, because I need to grow my Patreon to keep spending time writing blog posts and other public content. However, once my Patreon funding level hits $1,000/month, I’ll go back to posting my Thursday posts free for all to see here, AND I’ll create and maintain an index page of all my PF2 articles for Patrons, so they can easily access all my online PF2 content!
But here are 3 of those idioms, as a teaser.
Railing against the storm does not stop the snow.
The cleverest fox is still a poor wolf, the strongest wolf is still a poor fox.
Respect your elders. They have survived that which you have not yet faced.
Support A number of folks have asked about helping me cover my medical expenses as I recover from my pulmonary embolism, and prepare to battle my cancer. While I’ll do a GoFundMe if I absolutely have to, and expect there to be more product bundles to raise funds come April, the main way to support me right now is to join (or increase your pledge level) at my Patreon, or make a direct contribution at my Ko-Fi.
Cultures Not Species: Njor Culture
For many years now, I’ve been looking at worldbuilding with cultures and societies defined not by species (ancestry/origin, whatever term your ttRPG uses), but with cultures. Most (though certainly not all) fantasy settings have a mix of species living in most big cities and regions, so why define them as being from specific species-oriented kingdoms? Yes, that’s how Tolkien did it… but that doesn’t mean it’s the best way.
Nor do I feel any flavor has to be lost by focusing on multi-ancestry cultures, rather than monospecies groups. A lot of tropes in fantasy can easily apply to regions, guilds, orders, religions, and sects, rather than being tied to a single species, and much like there are sub-cultures within real world societal groups, we can explore sub-cultures within our larger regional/sectional cultural idea.
Here’s an example, a short beginning sketch of a multi-ancestry culture adapted from several old campaigns of mine where I used from variant of this.
The Njor
The Njor (/niˈɔr//njɔr/)are a culture found in the Northern Reaches, ranging from the Thalassic Ocean in the west (and in some cases settlements within and west of the ocean) to the Barrow-Steppes in the east; and from the zastruga in the north to (west-to-east) the Daggerports, the Midland Kingdoms, Merothia, the Allemarche, Wroklaw, and to Old Belavarus to the south. Note that the Njor are not a unified kingdom, and though the term Njorlands is often used to describe territory largely controlled by Njor groups, its borders with other regions are approximate at best.
Further, Njor groups self-identify into a wide range of clans, tribes, city-states, and domains held by independent chiefs, gyothi, jarls, and kings which are no bigger than typical baronies in the Middle Kingdoms or Allemarche. As personal allegiance is typically more important to Njor than loyalty to a group of government, but loyalty to a broader clan, kith, or sept can overshadow even personal allegiance, non-Njor often find the links of interlocking obedience and faithfulness confusing at best, and actively contradictory at worst.
Common Njor Ancestries
The most common ancestries among the Njor are dwarf, giant, goblin, hobgoblin, human. Less common but not surprising ancestries include elf and halfling. Individuals with mixed ancestries are common and generally not considered oddities, including a large number of giantblooded (with giantblooded goblins often seen as the source of hobgoblins, and giantblooded halflings thought of as the origin of the Stoutist clans of halflings), dragonblooded (who often seem to have draconic influence from some source other than parentage, such as being born on the day a dragon was slain, or marked by draconic constellations when coming of age), and trollblooded (which are generally attributed to the old High Trolls, regenerating giants of great culture and smithing skill).
Not every Njor settlement has all these ancestries of course. Njor underground and mountain holdfasts are often a mix of dwarf, goblin, and hafling clans as their lesser stature work well in tight tunnels where every foot of headspace must be carved from the rock at great effort. Hill settlements tend towards taller Njor ancestries, and those in the most frozen regions lean towards humans and orcs.
Njor Honor
Honor is highly prized in Njor culture, but honor is not defined in the same way by Njorlanders as many other cultures.
Njor honor was defined by Skatti Grandmother Salmon as “Being true to your Way and your Word, and hiding neither in common life.”
While that is self-evident to most Njor, many Te Astran and Allemarchan scholars have spend lifetimes analyzing what it means. In short, a Njor is seen has having a path in their (their “Way,”), which they must stick to the core principles of. A Njor blacksmith is expected to take all smithing tasks seriously, and to never intentionally act to make smithing less famous, less trusted, or less respected by others. Similarly a Njor ruler is expected to look after their lands and their people, Njor thieves are expected to be true to the art of thievery and their thieves’ band, and Njor soldiers are expected to take the art of fighting and warfare seriously and as important and worth doing right.
Note that a Njor being honorable is not the same as being blameless. “You can’t shame a wolf for killing your sheep, but you can’t mistake it as kinfolk, either.”
Njor Virtues
In addition to holding honor (as they define it) in high regard, Njor strongly value cleverness, courage, honesty, luck, martial prowess, sagacity, thrift, and tenacity. Of course often cleverness and honesty are at odds, but to Njor there’s rarely an actual conflict between the two. If someone is extremely clever about their dishonesty, that’s a virtue. If they are prosaic, clumsy, or even just unsuccessful with dishonesty, that’s a personal failing.
The Njor attitude to mysterious powers often varies based on how those powers are presented. If a wizard seems to be a clever sage, their powers are an extension of those virtues. A warlock granted strange powers through no act of their own might be seen as lucky. A cultist who tricks people into being blood sacrifices to fuel their own power could well be accused of lacking honesty and thrift.
Going Wolfing
Life in Njorlands is often harsh, and sometimes the crops do not produce as needed, the cattle are sickly or have suffered too many loses to wild creatures and monsters, the coffers are empty, and trade is poor. If a settlement or even single household is close to the edge of failure, one or more of its members may choose to mark their face with the rune of the wolf, and become a raider in richer lands. The wolf-rune on the face is an indication that the Njorlander is no longer following the path of their normal life, but has become an animal for survival. Known as “going wolfing,” this activity is seen as rational and acceptable, and a Njor is not blames for acting like a wolf when marked as a wolf. By the same token, no one is blamed for treating a wolfing Njor as an animal — killing one on sight is reasonable and not treated as murder, much as killing a wolf stalking your sheep is not seen as murder.
Of course, non-Njor generally don’t care about such distinctions, and when wolfing raiding bands strike down into richer bordering lands to the south or east, the targets of those raids both tend to attribute the savagery shown to all Njor, and to blame the settlements the wolfings came from holding a grudge long after the wolf-runes are removed.
Methods of Support
So, a lot of people have offered a lot of support, and I deeply, deeply appreciate it. Currently my primary plan is this Bundle of Holding offer, which runs through March 22. In addition to buying the bundle if that’s your thing, you can boost and share it on social media, which is a huge help. I may end up needing to turn to extraordinary measures, such as a GoFundMe, but I won’t be doing that until I know for certain I have to.
If you want alternative for offering support, I won’t refuse it. You can join or increase your membership tier at my Patreon, or if you prefer do one-time support through my Ko-Fi.
Thanks, folks.
Owen
Health Update: First Consult With Surgeon
For background: I had a pulmonary embolism in February 2023, as told in these articles: Part One, Part Two
The bleeding I had already scheduled a colonoscopy to look at (which was going to happen in May) got my colonoscopy moved up, and it happened last week as told here.
So, today I saw the in-system colorectal surgeon. It’s not great news.
We will certainly have to remove a length of my colon and intestine. I had hoped that would not be the case. But at least after this, I’ll have a whole new set of “I haven’t got the guts” puns available.
Ideally, I’d get reconnected during that surgery, but my blood supply may not allow it. Which would mean a (hopefully temporary) ostomy bag, but it may not be possible to reach through the fat of my abdomen to hook that up. We wouldn’t know if those could be done until in surgery, and if neither could there’s no good solution. Like, that might mean my death. So for those of you who have accused me of being full of shit, be aware that’s come back to bite me in the ass.
And the surgery really needs to be all-and-done within 2 months, which is not enough time for me to lose enough weight to change the odds on those. Also, the surgeon strongly feels the need for imaging — CAT scans and MRI — so we can determine what stage my cancer is at. So the various doctor’s offices are seeking a facility that can accommodate me. That may well not be in Oklahoma, which means a road trip… with a thrombosis (blood clot in leg), which would make such a trip slow (with frequent stops), and extra-exhausting.
So, yeah, the fact that I am more obese than the health care system is set up for may be the death of me. If so, prepare for a headstone with a giant raised middle finger on it.
These factors mean the surgeon in the health care system I’ve been using isn’t sure his team can handle my case. I may need to transfer my care to the OU health system, which has more facilities and colorectal surgeons. I am likely to be intubated after surgery and placed in an ICU, and OU has better options for that.
I have yet more doctor visits this week, including an oncologist, and after those my surgeon and PCP and oncologist will talk, and form a plan for next steps, which is very likely to include transferring my care to OU, which will mean another round of consultations. The good news is, I now have great excuses of getting out of anything else I don’t feel like doing this week. “Oh, I WOULD clean the gutters, but you know. Cancer. Maybe next week.”
Also, the ongoing need for blood thinners complicates things. The surgeon also made it clear no matter what we do, the process will be “pretty high risk,” which obviously isn’t good news. I remain in high spirits, but admit that weighs on me. But I’m a gamer, I know the odds aren’t everything. I’ve rolled a crit when I needed it before, I’m not giving up on the idea I will again.
I’ll continue to update as new info comes in.
Support
The main way to support me right now is the Bundle of Holding deal offering multiple Pathfinder 2nd ed adventures, which runs through Wed March 22nd. Of course, you can also join or increase your pledge level at my Patreon, or make a direct contribution at my Ko-Fi.
Now On Patreon: Political Structure of My Longest-Running Campaign
Over at my Patreon, I’ve done a quick sketch of the political structure of my longest-running ttRPG campaign to date, the Sovereing Kingdoms. Begun way back, before I was a professional game designer, that campaign had as much stolen material as new ideas, since I wasn’t worried about things like publishing rights, or anything more than providing entertainment for my players. (Which there were many of — the Sovereign Kingdoms actually had many different games set in it — the Heroes of King’s Ford, the Squires of King’s Ford, Czardia, the Court of Aquilanne, Knight’s Watch, my wife even ran a campaign in it called The Emerald Sea.)
Given how long ago I began setting up that campaign, it’s no shock to me that there are lots of things I did then that make me cringe now. But some of the setup still has promise in my opinion, and very little of it is neatly typed up. (I did my campaign notes by pencil in 3-ring binders at the time). In particular, there’s a lot about the core political situation I think still has a lot of promise.
The main powers of the Sovereign Kingdoms were broken into the High Court, the Royal Courts, Religion, and the Guild League. While these were not necessarily equal, none of them could afford to ignore any of the others. I go into the details over at the Patreon, and neither that article nor this preview of it are covered by the OGL.
Right now that worldbuilding sketch (and all Thursday blog posts) is Patreon-exclusive, because I need to grow my Patreon to keep spending time writing blog posts and other public content. However, once my Patreon funding level hits $1,000/month, I’ll go back to posting my Thursday posts free for all to see here, AND I’ll create and maintain an index page of all my PF2 articles for Patrons, so they can easily access all my online PF2 content!
Methods of Support
So, a lot of people have offered a lot of support, and I deeply, deeply appreciate it. Currently my primary plan is this Bundle of Holding offer, which runs through March 22. In addition to buying the bundle if that’s your thing, you can boost and share it on social media, which is a huge help. I may end up needing to turn to extraordinary measures, such as a GoFundMe, but I won’t be doing that until I know for certain I have to.
If you want alternative for offering support, I won’t refuse it. You can join or increase your membership tier at my Patreon, or if you prefer do one-time support through my Ko-Fi.
Thanks, folks.
Owen
Health Update: Stubbing Your Toe When You Have Cancer
So, let’s start with a short summary of my recent health issues:
In December 2022 I got a respiratory infection.
In January 2023, that became pneumonia.
I had a pulmonary embolism in February 2023, as told in these articles: Part One, Part Two
That brought up a lot of trauma linked to my cPTSD, as told here.
The bleeding I had already scheduled a colonoscopy to look at (which was going to happen in May) got my colonoscopy moved up, and it happened last week as told here.
The biopsy came back on the almost-certainly cancerous polyps, and it’s official. As of March 2023, I have cancer.
We’re working on a plan of care. The medical bills are already piling up, and given I now need to do a slew more testing, see a passel of additional doctors (and there may be a partridge and a pear tree involved in the process at some point,) and then eventually undergo surgery complicated by the conflicting requirements of having to stay on blood thinners through August (or I might die), getting the tumors removed immediately (or I might die), and definitely not being able to have surgery while on blood thinners (or I might die), the cost is going to rise.
Right now my main plan for raising money to cover those bills is this great offer from Bundle of Holding. (The Bundle runs through March 22, 223) It’s a set of amazing adventures by veteran, fan-favorite adventure-writer Ron Lundeen, who was a Paizo Developer and Managing Developer, and now works at Wizards of the Coast. I’ll highlight just two of the adventures — The Skaldwood Blight takes PCs from 1st to 20th level (and includes all the monster stat blocks you need in the adventure itself), and Night of the Skulltaker has a solo edition, which you can play by yourself.
Plus, of course, buying the bundle or spreading that link around helps me pay for my medical care.
So, having brought people up to speed — what’s the deal with having cancer and stubbing your toe?
Well, the general point is that having huge, life-changing, potentially lethal problems come into your life doesn’t in any way reduce the odds you’ll have one of life’s more minor annoyances come along as well.
So, imagine you have cancer. That’s terrible and obviously eats up a lot of your mental bandwidth And then if you stub your toe, that still hurts, and is likely to have you jumping around cursing like a cartoon character because, yes, malignant rebel cells of your own tissue are trying to trench-run-against-the-Death-Star your ass from the inside, but some motherfucker put an ottoman right where your foot was going.
In my first few days back from the hospital for my embolism, I got a rash on my unmentionables. (Okay, I guess technically I just mentioned them, but the closest I am going to get into details here is to go with euphemisms that give me plausible deniability, like “snarglies,” or “The Soggy Bottom Boys.”) That required careful diagnosis, because you can pick stuff up when stuck in the hospital for several days. Ultimately it was ID’d as just one of those insignificant indignities human bodies visit upon us sometimes. Apply Doctor’s Snargly’s Unmentionable Cream twice a day, and it’ll clear up.
I mean, fine.
Now during this time, I was still having trouble just breathing, and even adjusting my position in bed was exhausting, I was trying to recover from the most horrifying medical experience I’d ever had while following complex and sometimes conflicting rules of aftercare to make sure I didn’t have a stroke, and logically the tiny additional discomfort and inconvenience of a rash, even in a no-fly zone, should barely have registered on my quality-of-life meter.
But instead, I kept redlining.
This rash felt like the straw that broke the camel’s back, and kept breaking it every few hours for days, like some kind of Batman villain that was a one-trick-back-breaking pony and needed 52 variant covers of camel-back-breaking to convince fans it was a new major plot development and the camels wouldn’t all be fine within 12 issues, and you should buy 14 of each variant because someday they’ll be worth big bucks like the first Superman comic and won’t everyone look stupid when you prove all your hobbies weren’t useless wastes of money but actually savvy investing and hey at least you have physical objects in exchange for you money if even the Camelbreaker was a stupid villain but it’s not as bad as buying NFTs with Crypto and everyone said Frank was smart when he told us how much money he’d made doing that last Thanksgiving and anyway it wasn’t your fault the cream of wheat casserole you brought to that family meal was cold by the time it got served and Frank just brought a bucket of fried chicken from a drive-thru and Aunt Karen had kept that warm in the oven so it was still delicious when everyone dug in and screw him.
…
Okay, that analogy may have gotten away from me, but you get the point.
So the rash cleared up (thanks Doctor Snargly!), and I got a cancer diagnosis, and surely that was going to be my number one medical concern for the foreseeable future, right?
And, big-picture, it is.
Small picture, I got an ear infection. It’s painful, and annoying, and not only stuffs up my ear so it’s hard to hear, it also makes it impossible for me to wear my hearing aids (hurts too much) so I really, really can’t hear well. And now it’s spread to both ears. Which means it’s just me locked inside my skull with the wailing alarm of my tinnitus and throbbing pain and…
Camelbreaker II — This Time It’s A Haystack. (Yeah, I know, it’s still a dumb analogy. But at least this time it’s shorter.)
I’ve dealt with dozens of ear infections in my life. I know this is temporary, I know how to treat it. (Prescription ear drops… which gets tricky when you need them in both ears since the applied ear needs to be kept tilted up and you can’t do that to both ears at once and yes, I can do one ear and then the other but the doctor says to keep the ear I just applied drops to tilted up for at least an hour and now it’s two hours for the two ears and the drops are twice a day so that’s four hours and also I have to elevate my legs above and beyond times when I am sleeping no less than twice a day for an hour each time and I can’t do that until I lay flat on my back so that’s 6 hours a day that requires me to be a specific position and that’s 42 hours a week OH MY GOD I NOW HAVE A FULL-TIME JOB LAYING IN WEIRD POSITIONS IN BED AND I DON’T EVEN HAVE AN ONLYFANS PAGE TO POST ANY OF THIS TO!)
But it’s harder, now. My personal endurance and calm are already frazzled from recovering from the pulmonary embolism while dealing with the cancer diagnosis. Things like stubbing my toe don’t normally take a big part of my physical or mental reserves, but the total amount of psychic and biological energy these minor ailments require isn’t reduced just because I have cancer. So, suddenly, cold sores, hangnails, papercuts, and other ailments that Doctor Snargly makes strong-smelling, oily creams and salves for have gone from taking a tiny amount of my current reserves, to eating up a big chunk of the tiny amount energy I have left.
Now, normally I wouldn’t have a rash and a double-ear-infection back-to-back like this. This may just be bad timing, or it may be the stresses of the embolism, hospitalization, difficult recovery, and suffering through (most of) a colonoscopy with no anesthesia or painkiller wore me out so I got sick more easily. Or, of course, my entire immune system may be compromised, and it may only get worse from here.
I have a strong support system, and remain confident that ultimately this will all just be fodder for my autobiography. But for now?
It turns out that when you have cancer, stubbing your toe is a bigger deal than you’d think.
Methods of Support
So, a lot of people have offered a lot of support, and I deeply, deeply appreciate it. Currently my primary plan is this Bundle of Holding offer, which runs through March 22. In addition to buying the bundle if that’s your thing, you can boost and share it on social media, which is a huge help. I may end up needing to turn to extraordinary measures, such as a GoFundMe, but I won’t be doing that until I know for certain I have to.
If you want alternative for offering support, I won’t refuse it. You can join or increase your membership tier at my Patreon, or if you prefer do one-time support through my Ko-Fi.
Thanks, folks.
Owen
“Bad Motivator,” An Interview With R5-D4 About Returning to Star Wars
Spoilers Alert
This parody interview contains minor spoilers for Episode 3, Season 2 of “The Mandalorian.”
“Bad Motivator”
written by The Most Interesting Fan in the World
“The SAO (“Sentient Artifical Organism”) actor knows as “Red” famously portrayed the role of heroic droid “R5-D4” in Star Wars: A New Hope. Now with their return to the role in the most recent episode of the Disney/Lucasfilm series “The Mandalorian,” Red’s agreed to join us for a short interview.
“First, Red, thanks so much for joining us. We’re a huge fan of your work, and thrilled to have you with us.”
Beep-toot whiiiiir boop.
“Ha! I bet it is. So, let’s start with some background. You’re best known for your role as R5-D4 in the original Star Wars movie. Was that your start in acting?”
Boop-whoooooooo. Tweetoot beeple pop-whir wheeee. Tootle-doot boop beedple beep.
“That’s fascinating. So after those roles in college and community theater, what took you to Hollywood?”
Weeeee-do dappa deep whuuuuuu dot dep dop doot.
“Really? I’ve gone over your online credits a lot, and neither Dark Star nor Death Race 2000 are ever mentioned. Was the work uncredited?”
Boop-whoo. Deet doot rooooo boople.
“Sure, that makes sense. Have you done a lot of that kind of foley and sound effect work?”
Dwooo-woot woop boop woot.
“Of course, we all have to pay the bills. So, it’s the mid 1970s, you’re doing sound effects for scifi films, and…”
Boop-dootle-beep.
“Sorry, of course. So, to be accurate, sound effects for a range of films and television. And then you get the call to audition for Star Wars. What was that process like?”
Whooop-dooo. Dweeboot deeple whot-whir dweeee. Dootle-doot beep boodple deed. Twooo-dwoot woop roop woot. Deedweee-do boppa dweep dhuuu whot peep duup woot.
“And have you and Mark Hamill kept in touch since then?”
Dwoo-woot dupe.
“That’s always great to hear. Do in A New Hope, you’re in one scene, where you are about to be bought by the Lars family, and then you shoot out sparks and stop moving, and Luke says you have a bad motivator, so R2D2 is taken instead. What was your thought process when preparing for that scene?”
Whirr-hum, beep boop beep boop, whuzz-whirrlpop chirp-doop, beep. Hum squawk pops. Whee-whoo whoosh, oop, fweep-fwop-fwop-fwop.
“Oh, that’s really interesting, So, to you, the Bad Motivator wasn’t about being able to roll around, but entirely about R5 being not being motivated to leave its Jawa home and work?”
Dwee-dwoo dwoosh, fwop-fwop.
“That’s great, and it really shows you got deep into that character, even though you only had the one scene. Do you feel that lack of motivation has been a key part of R5’s personality in the years since.”
Zoop-zoop-zoopity-zoop, zzzzzzzzoooooooooooom.
“Well, sure, the Expanded Universe got pretty weird.”
Plip-plop-plip, chugga chugga woop.
“Oh, I had no idea you were consulted for those comics!”
Whooop-doo. Dwip-dee-doo. Doot-deet beep bop. Throop.
“Wow, nice. It’s a shame that never got past the storyboard stage. So, let’s talk about playing the character again, after so long, You had a few scenes in the first and seasons of the Mandalorian, as well as the Book of Boba Fett. How did that come about?”
Deedle-dop-deep bop bleep duup wop. Zing.
“Yes, it’s clear Jon Favreau is a fan of deep continuity.”
Whizz-whoop-bop. Zwoop… beedle-bop-deet.
“What was it like, being on a Star Wars set again?”
Woop-dwoop-beep-bop. Shwip boop. Dwee-dwee-dwee. Whoop.
“Yes, I imagine is IS a great deal more comfortable than Tunisia, especially for an SAO.
“So you had your cameos, got a few lines, but not much more than that. Did those three seasons of acting do anything to reinvigorate your career?”
Dwoot toot bleed-beep Dalek.
“Oh, wow! I’ve seen all the recent Doctor Who episodes, and I didn’t recognize you in any of them.
“Whooooooooooooo. Bleep deep skeeeeee-tot.
“And was that your first time wearing that much make-up?”
Wee-dleep boppa beep. Twoot zeeple pop-whir beboop.
“It absolutely is nice to be able to expand your range and experience like that. Okay, so you’re seeing some more interest, going to more conventions…who called you to talk about doing a bigger role in The Mines of Mandalore episode for this season?
Wooo-wheeeee. Bleep-boop, whirtle dweep dep booo.
“Oh, I had no idea she’d gone into producing after Return of the Jedi. Did she have any acting roles after 9D9?”
Beep boop dwee tweet toot.
“Yes, I can absolutely see how the skill translates over into producing. So, she gives you the call, and asks if you’ll do another episode. Did she let you know it’d be a much bigger part, larger even than your original scene from A New Hope?”
Beep dweep who-hu-ooo.
“So ‘adventure droid’ got mentioned really early, huh? And what was it like, getting back into this iconic character for multiple scenes, including have some shots where you’re the only character on-screen?”
Dweep-bee-beep. Beedoot beeple zot-zhir dwoooooooo. Boole-boot bot.
“I did notice that. And was that all an expansion of your original interpretation of having a ‘bad motivator’? Or was that in the script when you got it?”
Wheet boop beep-bot-tweeee be-beep. De-do-da-deetle deet, dwoop beboo zoot whee.
‘It’s great to hear you got to be part of that creative process. Any final thoughts you’d like to share with us?”
De-deep wheeple wot beeee-whu huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu… beep.
“Sure. Everyone else seems to be getting a spin-off!”
Methods of Support
A lot of people have offered a lot of support in light of my various recent health issues, and I deeply, deeply appreciate it. There are plans moving forward to try to help cover medical bills and loss of income, and when they’re ready, I’ll announce them here. I may end up needing to turn to extraordinary measures, such as a GoFundMe, but I won’t be doing that until I know for certain I have to.
However, if you DO want to offer immediate support, I won’t refuse it. You can join or increase your membership tier at my Patreon, or if you prefer do one-time support through my Ko-Fi.
Thanks, folks.
Owen
Health Update – The Colonoscopy and More
Here’s the tl;dr – I had my no-anesthetic/no-painkiller colonoscopy. We weren’t able to complete it, but did get about halfway, and it revealed issues I’ll have to deal with, which is going to mean meeting with a lot of doctors over the next few weeks. It’s serious, but we remain hopefully it can all get handled.
For the longer version, CW – blood, cancer, pain, polyps, and poop.
I had assumed my rectal bleeding was unrelated to my pulmonary embolism. Looks like I was wrong.
The prep period for this was difficult because I already tired easily, and going through hours and hours of cramps and body-emptying trips to the restroom was leaving me so shuttering exhausted I had trouble even standing. But I got through it, and got in to the colonoscopy today.
The first half hurt, but was manageable, But there was a point past which the pain was enough to make me unable to breathe, and see sheets of blinding white. Also, my heartrate and blood-pressure kept spiking at that point, soo the doctor and I agreed that was as far as we could go.
However, in the section we could check, I had two polyps the doctor described as “very large, very suspicious.” They could not be removed under those circumstances, but the doctor did get material for biopsy. That said the bigger one was bleeding, and “clearly undergoing changes.” We can’t say they are cancerous until the biopsy comes back, but the GI doctor is convinced the larger of the two is definitely cancerous.
In any case, they have to go.
First, of course, they either are or soon will be, cancer. But, secondly, the gastroenterologist said their size and definition mean they are very likely to be responsible for instigating my blood clots. If we don’t remove them, I run the risk of more and more clots, another embolism, stroke, and so on.
He also noted that these are things that have been around for years. Certainly if I had gotten a colonoscopy at 50, they’d have been visible already. (I cut myself slack due to the pandemic, but still.) And there’s a good chance that if I had gotten one at 45, we’d have seen them then. (When I was 45 the recommendation was still 50… and by the time I was 50, the pandemic was in full swing. I made a call to wait, and it was the wrong call.)
The doctors confirm to me that the fatigue, lack of focus, listlessness, and even brain fog I have been suffering in increasing severity since 2017 are in all probability the symptoms pf the polyps, and the blood clots they’ve been creating. I have been seriously ill for 6 or more years, slowing down, losing jobs, having trouble meeting my own expectations, and we couldn’t ever figure out why.
Well, now we know.
And let me be clear, knowing is huge. No matter how I tried to eat better, exercise more, take more antidepressants, for six years my life has been a slow-and-apparently-inevitable slide into disability. I have been disappointed in myself again and again over the past several years, because no matter how hard I tried, I could not work in the level of volume, quality, or even enthusiasm I expected. My life felt over, and part of my depression was seeing that things always got worse, and my life was losing it’s value to me.
Well, fuck that. I have literally seen the enemy now. I have a cause, and can focus on eliminating it, and recovering. There’s is a fight I can get into, and win my life back.
So, this process is going to go as fast as it can, but that’s still a matter of weeks rather than hours or days. Surgical removal is an urgent necessity… and complicated. I must be on blood thinners for the pulmonary embolism, and I still need supplemental oxygen when I sleep or exert myself. Those factors put the risk of me dying under general anesthesia at around 10%, even for something minor like a colonoscopy, much less surgery. But if the polyps are, as expected, cancerous, we need to get them while they are still stage 1 (assume we haven’t missed that already), so we can’t wait.
There are options, and I will be seeing a cardiologist, hematologist, and oncologist over the next few weeks, as well as my primary care physician. The hospital staff all agreed we’d have to “get creative,” but we can do that. We’ll gather all the info we can, consult, form a course of treatment, and carry forward.
This is, obviously, going to be tiring, time-consuming, and expensive. But my life is on the line, so I’ll handle each of those hurdles as necessary.
And I’ll try to keep everyone posted.
Methods of Support
So, a lot of people have offered a lot of support, and I deeply, deeply appreciate it. There are plans moving forward to try to help cover medical bills and loss of income, and when they’re ready, I’ll announce them here. I may end up needing to turn to extraordinary measures, such as a GoFundMe, but I won’t be doing that until I know for certain I have to.
However, if you DO want to offer immediate support, I won’t refuse it. You can join or increase your membership tier at my Patreon, or if you prefer do one-time support through my Ko-Fi.
Thanks, folks.
Owen
Behold, the S.H.A.R.K. Art!
In my article about producing game products with low-to-no art budgets, I said “If you specifically need art of cybernetical-augmented anthropomorphic sharks with stun-gun-equipped mancatcher polearms… chances are you won’t find stock art to meet your needs.”
And, you know, when I wrote it, that was true.
But NOW, Michael McNeill (productionplatform3@gmail.com) has created this:
So, I suddenly feel the need to name the cybershark mancatcher mercenaries.
The best option I came up with was:
S.H.A.R.K.: Synthetic Hybrids Armed to Retrieve or Kill
Of course, there are other options.
Skirmishing Hyperpowered Advanced Recon Killteam
Special Handling Assets: Roving Knights
Strategic High-Value Assault Relief Key-forces
So, enjoy the weird idea… now fully illustrated!
[Normally my Tuesday posts are Patreon-only, in an effort to increase subscription to my Patreon. However, since this was a follow-up to my big Monday post, it felt unfair to paywall this one. But if you feel moved to Join My Patreon, I won’t object. :)]
The Seminar Files 01: Publishing ttRPG Material With Little or Not Art Budget
The Seminar Files is a new branding of an old idea: to provide the kind of information, thoughts, and answers I would once have given during a gaming convention seminar in a more accessible format. Not every creator or potential creator can afford to go to conventions and industry events to attend seminars, and that can create a barrier to entry that disproportionately impacts lower-income creators, creators with disabilities, creators that don’t feel safe in traditional game industry spaces, and creators in physical or social spaces that don’t even hear about game industry events.
Obviously those are serious issues that won’t be solved just by putting up blog posts–which themselves have some issues with limited accessibility–but every tiny step helps, and my hope is that not only will my own Seminar Files help get information to people who wouldn’t ever have a chance to hear me give it in a live seminar, but that it may encourage other veterans of a range of creative endeavors to also strive to make this kind of advice available in alternative formats.
Publishing ttRPG Material With Little or Not Art Budget
One of the hardest parts of being a one-person shop or small press publisher is what to do about art for a project. Many independent creatives have the skills to write and edit themselves, and can either learn to do layout or find someone who will do layout for a few dollars per page. Often elbow grease or a tiny budget can handle all the text and graphic design elements of a small project, keeping the barrier to entry lower the the bottom position of a limbo competition.
But art? Art is tougher. Good art is (quite reasonably) expensive. Few writer/developer/publishers can do their own art (though there absolutely are a few who can). Several low-to-no budget projects in recent months have turned to AI-generated images, but between the US Copyright Office declaring AI-Generated images not being eligible for copyright in a recent case and a number of companies (Chaosium and Paizo, in particular )declaring their community content programs do not allow the use of AI-generated images or text, that solution is less appealing to many of them.
Way before AI generated images or text were realistic options, publishing on a budget and having decent art was a challenge. But the very fact that challenge goes back decades means there are other potential solutions than AI, and I have enough experience with several of them to speak to their pros and cons. Obviously a lot of this advice can apply to projects outside the game industry, but that is where my own expertise lies, and thus is how I have framed this article.
Let’s look at some specific art-on-a-budget strategies.
1. Stock Art
One extremely cost-effective option is to use stock art for your project. There is a ton of very reasonably-priced stock art available at DriveThruRPG, and there are also professional stock art sites such as Adobe Stock Photos, Shutterstock, and Getty Images. Now, some provisos.
First, read the license before you pay for or use any stock art image. That’s simple for the specialty stock art sites, their licensing is normally easy to find well before you sign up (and they usually have better search engines, though they often have less game/speculative fiction-specific images). For DriveThruRPG the licensing is determined by each artist individually, and sometimes you have to search around a bit to find it prior to paying for a piece. If you can’t find the license, contact the publisher and ask for it.
Second, while many sites have policies stating that AI-Generated images must be marked as such, they don’t all have such rules, and even those that do lack a perfect method of detection and enforcement. In many cases a practices eye can pick put AI-generated images, but it isn’t always as easy as looking for characters with a weirdly large number of fingers. If you need to avoid AI-generated art (either for your own ethical guidelines or licensing requirements of the project you’re working on), you may need to seek out stock images from artists with a recognizable name and track records.
Third, really good, cheap stock art is likely to be used by a lot of projects, which can reduce the impact it has when you use it. There’s no perfect solution for tis, but older stock art is less likely to get used for a similar product around the time you release something with it than brand-new art everyone is excited by for the first couple of months its out. Also, some stock art allows you to modify it, which can increase customization. I personally am a big fan of art patreons that produce stock at and take feedback from backers (such as Dean Spencer’s Art Patreon), produce material anyone can use for free (such as Fantasy RPG Cartography by Dyson Logos), or have tiers that let you order specific images which become stock art for everyone after a certain period (such as Jacob Blackmon Illustration). Those require spending some monthly money, of course, but you still get a lot of visual impact per dollar spent.
Fourth, the more unusual the concepts of your project, the harder it is to find stock art that fits it. If you’re writing a cyberpunk setting, or a list of options for fantasy wizards, it’s not hard to find appropriate stock illustrations to match those concepts. But if you specifically need art of cybernetical-augmented anthropomorphic sharks with stun-gun-equipped mancatcher polearms… chances are you won’t find stock art to meet your needs.
There are a few ways you can handle that issue. First, you can just leave the unique elements of your product unillustrated. That’s not ideal, but a good cover combined with a title and description that spells out what’s interesting about your project is often better than no art at all. Secondly, you can find the coolest stock art that interests you, and write a product that is inspired by that art. Yes, this means writing something based on someone else’s ideas rather than your own, but if you do one such project, you can take the money it makes to pay for more custom art for your next, more you-centric product.
2. Public Domain Art
Want an even cheaper than stock art? Well, then it’s time to look at the Public Domain.
(Art by Gustav Doré, now in the public domain)
Public Domain art is available for anyone to use in any way they want. Of course, you need to understand what is and isn’t Public Domain,
For finding Stock Art, I’m a big fan of OldBookIllustrations. It’s a big collection, has a search engine, and provides info about artist and publication for each art piece (if known). The British Library has also released a huge Public Domain collection on Flickr, which for my purposes is less well-organized, but has stuff hard to find elsewhere (including maps).
Public domain art has all the subject-matter and style issues of stock art, but as long as you are sure it’s actually public domain, none of the licensing problems. And while a ton of public domain art is woodblock prints from centuries ago, there is other content out there if you look hard enough. Learning some image editor skills can be a huge help in turning what is available into something you can use, and there are good free image editors out there (I often use Pixlr when I just need to crop or touch up something for a blog post and don’t want to take up the time of my professional graphic designers and their greater skills and more powerful tools).
3. Other Licensed Art
In addition to commercial art and public domain art, there are other ways art gets licensed that makes it viable for commercial use. One big example of this is art released under the Creative Commons License, especially the CC-BY license. Most of the notes about stock art and some about public domain art apply here, but the most important one is to make sure you know which Creative commons license you are dealing with, and that you understand it.
4. Skip the Art
Yes, it’s a well-accepted truism that ttRG products must have art, especially cover art. And I believe an attractive cover is crucial to sales, and good interior art helps break up “walls of text” that can otherwise be daunting and unattractive to many readers.
But you don’t have to use illustrations to accomplish these things.
Raging Swan Press is a great example of a successful company that has attractive, informative, and even eye-catching overs with no illustrations beyond their logo. Obviously you shouldn’t duplicate their trade dress, but being inspired by it to create your own illustration-free cover design is a huge budget-saver, especially when you consider the impact of not paying for cover art over the life of entire product lines.
Similarly, there are things that can break up pages of pure text in the same way art does, without actually being illustrations. Chapter and section headers, charts, tables, sidebars, bullet points, scholar’s margins, and similar treatments of text that’s in any way different than the main prose can help break up the visual monotony of page after page of pure text.
5. Partner With An Artist
I’m going to open this section with a quick anecdote.
In 2014 Adam Daigle and I were guests at Comicpalooza, and we spoke about breaking into the games industry in a panel with easily 1,000 attendees. Most folks were interested in videogames, but there was still some basic stuff we could discuss that was relevant for them. At one point, a person wanting to be a writer for video games mentioned they were having trouble making a good impression because writing for a video game fell flat without art, level design, and programming, and they couldn’t afford to pay people to do those jobs just to make a working example of their writing.
Adam asked if there were any artists who wanted to have a sample video game they could use as part of their resume, and dozens of hands went up. then he asked about level designers, and then programmers, and in every case there were dozens of hands. So, Adam suggested, maybe those people should all get together and form groups, each looking to create a small playable example of their work. When the seminar ended, there were circles of people from different disciplines gathering, talking, exchanging business cards, and picking places to go and talk more right there at the con.
The moral of that story is that there are other people who want to break into the games industry, and some of them have exactly the skills you need to shore up your own weaknesses. They may not have the level of polish you’d prefer, and partnering with people means figuring out (and writing down!) how ownership of the end product works, how everyone gets paid, and how creative input is shared, but those are all solvable issues. Again, compromises are going to be called for, but if you work with other folks at your experience and success level it can both serve as a stepping stone to having the budget you need to hire professionals to match your specific vision, and help make contacts (and friend) that may well be a huge part of your process and success in later years.
6. Decide What You Are Trying To Do
One of the pieces of advice that I don’t think is discussed enough is “Decide what your goal is with your work.” Do you want to be a publisher, one-person or otherwise? Great, then work on finding ways to publish material even if it’s not your magnum opus. In that case, for early projects you may have to find stock or public domain art first, and build products around it.
Do you want to be a professional writer, developer, or editor? Okay, then maybe you don’t need to self-publish at all, or should do so specifically for the goal of proving you can do the work, so you can point at that work when asking publishers to give you a shot. In that case you may not need art at all, since you aren’t trying to get work as an artist or art director. Just make sure your text is as clean as possible, and understand that being a professional paid ttRPG writer working for other publishers is mostly about writing the projects someone else wants to make happen, not getting paid to do the projects you want to make happen.
(And if you DO want to get work as a ttRG artist, by all means see if you can find a writer and publisher who is looking for an art solution and partner up with them for a few projects. Just make sure your ownership and cut of the profits is covered in writing when you do.)
Do you just want to publish the one thing you are dying to show the world, make sure it’s true to your vision, and don’t want to turn this into a career or even side-hustle? Well, most likely that means you are a hobbyist, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But if you want custom art, high-quality layout, and someone else to do the boring parts of developing and editing your text, and aren’t willing to compromise or build a line of other projects to slowly build to a bigger budget, you likely are going to have to pay for it. Like most hobbies, publishing at a professional level primarily for fun and bragging rights takes money.
Even if you aren’t sure what your end-goal is, deciding how you want to proceed initially can help you figure out what low-to-no-budget art strategy to begin with. As your experience grows and your goals shift, you can pivot to projects and plans that better match your evolving needs.
Patreon
This post represents more than two weeks work at my current capacity, so I can only manage them if they earn support. If you want to see more longer, more advice- and industry-focused articles like this, please join my Patreon. Even a few folks throwing in less than the cost of a cup of coffee is a huge sign that I should keep making this type of content. (Speaking of coffee, if you’d prefer you can buy one cup worth of support for me at my Ko-Fi.)
Health Update
[Normally my Thursday posts are Patreon-only, in an effort to increase subscription to my Patreon. health updates are an exception — too many people are been too kind for me to paywall an update to how I am doing. But if you feel moved to Join My Patreon, I won’t object. :)]
I’ve been home for twelve days, and though the recovery process is agonizingly slow and rife with pitfalls, I am showing signs of improvement.
First, I don’t need as much oxygen, or need it as often. I was on 5 liters per minute pretty well nonstop in the hospital, 3 liters per minute except when sitting up at rest when I went home, and now down to 2 liters per minute and only when exerting myself or sleeping. I’ve gone through my first tank, and got 3 more tanks to replace it. I’m mostly on an air concentrator (so within the house my life largely revolves around how far my oxygen hose reaches), but need the tanks for doctor visits, which involve a lot of exertion (since “Walking” and “Standing” both count as exertion atm.)
(You don’t have to like it, but this is what Peak Older Game Designer looks like.)
Second, my chest finally stopped hurting 24/7. The doctor’s best guess is that my pulmonary embolism did not permanent heart damage (though “cardiologist” is one of those appoints I have to go to), but for more than a week after my hourlong event gasping for breath while my heart thundered, my chest hurt. Like I had pulled a muscle, but the muscle happened to be my heart.
Having that pain fade is a real plus.
I have having better luck sleeping… but it’s mostly still not long blissful bouts of restful unconsciousness. Part of that is my normal insomnia, part of it is struggling with oxygen cords and having to keep my legs above my heart when I sleep… and a chunk of it is psychological.
When I was discharged from the hospital last week after my pulmonary embolism I knew, at least in vague terms, what the recovery process was going to mean physically. I had no clue what it was going to mean psychologically. How that trauma would blend with my existing issues.
In specific, it’s latched hard onto my cPTSD, and my social anxiety. I keep reliving the experience of not being able to get enough air, my heart pounding, purple creeping into my visions, the sense that I was going to pass out and die, and being unable to call for help.
The nightmares I expected — nothing bad happens to me without leaving a template for my nightmares to build on. But the flashbacks, the fact that catching my breath for just a second sends a shock of panic through my body, *that* is an unpleasant surprise.
One of the most traumatic events of my childhood was when I was lured into the woods by a girl, then ambushed by a camp full of boys who threw me into a ditch they’d dug, pinned face-first in the dirt, and told they were going to bury me alive. I’ve done a LOT of therapy to cope with the feelings of breathless panic that came from having people kneel on my back as I struggled to breathe. It looks like I am going to need more to get over how the embolism stole my breath, and left me shuttering in voiceless panic.
It’s not just a physical feeling, there’s connected veins of betrayal. I was lured into an ambush when I was young, and now suddenly anytime I am short of breath for even a second, I am expecting someone to turn on me again.
Home health has a psychiatric RN coming to see me Friday 3/3, so we’ll see how that goes.
Otherwise my endurance improves, but the improvement is measured in seconds, feet, and paragraphs. With oxygen I can walk 45 feet before getting winded, instead of 35. Showering is a chore, rather than impossible unaided. I managed to sit with friends for 3 hours, though after that i had to lay down. I can write for 10-15 minutes at a time, and manage several such bouts in a day.
I can see the improvements. They are just tiny, and going even a mote beyond them leaves me gasping and exhausted.
But they are improvements.
Owen K.C. Stephens 