White Chalk: Crow Moon 2/12 (Almanac 25)

The Crow Moon is the second month of the year, according to the Neolithic farmers of the White Chalk Coast . Each month I attempt to update this pariah almanac, with the end result being a calendar for an entire year, alongside supporting encounter and foraging tables, which in turn reflect the seasonal changes.

The first past in the series is here:
https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2025/02/white-chalk-almanac-25.html

The firs month is detailed here:
https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2025/03/white-chalk-cold-moon-almanac-25.html

Further context is provided here:
https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2023/05/white-chalk.html

I've decided to structure the post with the most specific information up front.

Crow by Leonard Baskin (illustration from Ted Hughes' collection of Crow poems)

The Crow Moon is a month of bitter hope. While there are signs that the Spring Princess is on her way (notably the white snowdrops and purple crocuses), it is still a month of frost and snow and cold, wet winds. So optimism is tempered, and prudence prevails. The month is named for the proliferation of jackdaws, magpies and carrion crows feasting on the worms, emerging from the cold ground with faint hope in their tiny hearts.

White Chalk: The Cold Moon 1/12 (Almanac 25)

Each full moon I intend to publish an update to the White Chalk sandbox here on this blog, describing the calendar year of a fantasy proto-Neolithic somewhat parallel to the world in which we live. At the time of writing we have already experienced 2 full moons (14th January 2025 and 12th February 2025), so I have 2 further posts due prior to March's full moon.

To begin I have drawn just one six-mile hex, divided further into 1 mile hexes. You can read an introductory overview in this post:

https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2025/02/white-chalk-almanac-25.html

Draft planisphere for the first month of the year, discussed below

The Cold Moon rise with bitterness: though the shortest day—the solstice—is already passed, the worst of winter is yet to come. The peoples of the Chalk Coast brace themselves for battery by the cruel winds of the north.

White Chalk (Almanac 25)

I'm so poor at keeping up with these annual challenges, so I thought I'd run my own.

Here is a single, 6 mile hex: it is divided into 30 one mile hexes, because PARIAH is a game of overland exploration (among other things). This is a development of White Chalk, itself an outgrowth of earlier proto-Neolithic Britain thoughts.

Initial 6 mile hex, divided into 1 mile hexes.

.

The aim of this post is to provide an overview of a region by zooming into one six mile hex. Over the course of this year, I'll be producing regular posts providing typical events for this region as the game year. These include:

• seasonal movements of birds, animals and humanoids
• weather hex-flower specific to the season/month
• Star charts and astronomical information (meteor storms, eclipses etc.)
• plant and fungi information (foraging for food and medicine)
• human cultural information (festivals, rituals, transhumance etc.)

Like my other PARIAH sandboxes this is set in a fantasy proto-Neolithic i.e. late stone age with many anachronistic elements. Unlike the other setting (City of 100 Gods, Atop the Wailing Dunes, City of Ghosts) the climate is temperate rather than tropical. In fact, the entire map is based on the south coast of England, not least because this particular part of the UK is right on my doorstep—indeed, it is my doorstep.

N.B. This was largely inspired by the many Neolithic sites around Sussex, Hampshire and Kent. If you have come to this blog as an outsider to the weird hobby of RPGs please understand this as a piece of speculative fiction rather than archaeology.

City of Ghosts One Hour Pariah Sandbox Session 5 Play Report

You can find more information about this is series of games in this series of posts, but in a nutshell I was inspired by Luke Gearing's and Pat Eyler's respective one-hour megadungeon sessions to run a weekly PARIAH sandbox during my Friday lunch break. 

Just wanted to add a small note to say:

• I'm having issues with this blog's formatting: I'm aware of display issues, will hopefully get to sort it out this weekend
• This post is mostly a note for current and future players in the campaign. 

This is the fifth play report, with the game taking place on 29th March. Next game is scheduled for 3rd May, though we haven't been able to make quorum in the last few sessions.

Back in the One Hour Pariah Sandbox: City of Ghosts Session 4 Play Report

Following an extended break the City of Ghosts campaign is once again up and running. You can find more information about it in this series of posts, but in a nutshell I was inspired by Luke Gearing's and Pat Eyler's respective one-hour megadungeon sessions to run a weekly PARIAH sandbox during my Friday lunch break. This is the fourth play report. 

The One Hour Pariah Sandbox: City of Ghosts Session 3 Play Report

Portrait of late (Finnish?) Mesolithic man by Tom Björklund,
used as character art for Wren-in-the-Sedge 

Due to time constraints and inspired by Luke Gearing's one-hour megadungeon sessions, I'm running a weekly PARIAH sandbox during my Friday lunch break. This is the third play report. 

Session 1 is here

Session 2 is here

POKEMON ANALOGUE SANDBOX FOR A 5-YEAR OLD KID

 My 5yo child caught sight of this in my feed (on some platform or other): 

ANIMON STORY

...and of course they were immediately curious! They're just getting to that age where they're moving on from Paw Patrol and taking an interest in more varied worlds with higher stakes for the characters: Pokémon and Star Wars being the two franchises most appealing to them at the moment.

The game Animon Story was crowdfunded to great success last year and was recently nominated for  Dicebreaker's Best Roleplaying Game' category (the winner was Women are Werewolves, in case you were desperate to know who won). It is currently available at this link, but I would recommend taking a look at the free playtest available on itch.io before committing the tanks. 

Having looked at the playtest, I was impressed by the bold artwork and simple, double-spread layout (example page below). I printed out the entire playtest on photographic paper and they immediately felt to be of "retail quality", if that makes sense. My kid was suitably impressed.

Animon Story Playtest page, text available from the linked free playtest

However, I felt for the purpose of (gently) introducing my young child to RPGs it was a little too crunchy. To be clear, this is not a critique, just a statement of how my personal preferences didn't align with the game's design intent, and also the fact that "five year old kid" is probably not the game's target audience. I'm also aware that your child might enjoy this level of crunch: in which case, you consider ordering the full version of the game. 

I wanted to try something different: as it happens, Animon Story was an excellent catalyst for a few ideas that my child and I are going to explore further.

The One Hour Pariah Sandbox: City of Ghosts Session 2 Play Report

Due to time constraints and inspired by Luke Gearing's one-hour megadungeon sessions, I'm running a weekly PARIAH sandbox during my Friday lunch break. This is the second play report: track down all related posts at this link  

Between sessions, I posted on the r/osr subreddit (and also on the NSR Cauldron), seeking advice regarding this undertaking. There were some valuable responses which I'll summarise below, before getting into what happened in session 2...

The One Hour Pariah Sandbox: City of Ghosts Session 1 Play Report

Due to time constraints and inspired by Luke Gearing's one-hour megadungeon sessions, I'm hoping to run a weekly PARIAH sandbox during my Friday lunch break. This is the first play report: track down all related posts at this link 

Draft cross-section of the valley

The PCs

• Ugly Evening, exiled for forbidden sorcery and Rotten Antelope, exiled for thieving (both played by J). Ugly evening has a pet, "probably a dog"
• Nimble Goat the spirit-touched victim of a blood feud and Wandering Jackal, the strong girl with double-headed axe, an aurochs and dog (both played by C)
• An assumed "quantum cast" of as-yet unidentified pariahs, on standby for when other players drop in and out of the game

THE CITY OF GHOSTS: SANDBOX & PLAYTEST

A recent trip to Dragonmeet involving actual, face-to-face communication and the rolling of dice instilled a deep longing to get back to the gaming table. Sadly, sitting down with my partner to plan out the next few months it dawned on both of us that our lives are not going to be our own for a very long time. This is the price of having children in a declining former superpower, far from the embrace of a supportive extended family—an arrangement we entered voluntarily and could (in theory) escape at any time, so please don't send your sympathies. Nonetheless the reality remains fixed: no nights off for elf-games.

(Foot note: need an alternative semi-humorous shorthand for the RPGs I play: "elf-games" has the whiff of vanilla fantasy... one that springs to mind was "spirit-games" but that sounds like a Victorian parlour game) 

There's also the matter of this cover image, first shared in this post back in May last year: https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2022/05/pariah-volume-2-city-of-ghosts.html

City of Ghosts cover image by Jef Cox

In short, I have a lot of material ready to go but I want to explore it at the table before releasing it to the world. Fortunately, inspiration was at hand in the form of Ben Lawrence's megadungeon podcast, in which Luke Gearing was interviewed. Turns out that Luke's only gone and been running a weekly online game in his one hour lunch break. Having said that, special mention must go to Pat Eyler aka Foot of the Mountain who has previously shared details of his (face-to-face) lunchtime campaign on his Patreon, which undoubtedly sowed the seed for this latest venture...

Atop the Wailing Dunes: A PARIAH adventure for Zine Quest 4

Since the publication of GENIUS LOCI in June, I've been "teasing" hexes from the sandbox adventure ATOP THE WAILING DUNES.  However, this has been something sitting in my slushpile since last autumn, and I think it now comprises enough material to publish as a complete set.

Partially completed hex map of the sandbox

My original intention was to have PARIAH: CITY OF GHOSTS ready in time for Zine Quest 4, but owing to the commitments of my collaborators it won't be ready in time. However, with so much work already complete on Atop the Wailing Dunes, I thought it would be a good chance to release my little sandbox.

Here's the link to the Kickstarter, now live:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sofinho/atop-the-wailing-dunes

The Ikau Mangrove (a hex for PARIAH)

A four-page pamphlet mini-hexcrawl, part of an ongoing series.


This will be the last of these small-format individual hexes: I'm finding that I want to go into more detail with the actual hex features, but can't because space is being taken up by information repeated from elsewhere. When I put them all together in ATOP THE WAILING DUNES I'll be able to avoid this problem!

If you want a PDF of this to print at home or to use with a text-to-audio programme, it's free to download via itch.io:

https://atelier-hwei.itch.io/the-ikau-mangrove

If all goes to plan, all 24 hexes (with additional notes for sites of interest) will be compiled into a zine for Zinequest 2022. Hope to announce that soon!

Links

Blogposts in this series:
https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/search/label/Atop%20the%20Wailing%20Dunes

All the itch.io PDFs:
https://atelier-hwei.itch.io/genius-loci
https://atelier-hwei.itch.io/hills-of-the-demon-bear
https://atelier-hwei.itch.io/ebua-and-the-spirit-mountain
https://atelier-hwei.itch.io/valley-of-mui-eiru
https://atelier-hwei.itch.io/the-ikau-mangrove

Valley of Mui Eiru (a hex for PARIAH)

 I've been working on making the larger map for Atop the Wailing Dunes more legible, as well as building it up into a more comprehensive sandbox. As I go through, 6 mile hex by 6 mile hex, I'm sharing them here as A4 double-sided zinis, which you can fold enough to make a 4-page pamphlet.

As with previous issues, there is a small map with key to the front, and several paths crossing the hex. The back page contains additional flavour for wilderness exploration, and might provide a template for additional hexes. This is designed to printed on two-sides of A4 and folded in half to make a zini.

A link to a PDF version will be posted here in the coming days.

Other links:

Genius Loci and FOOTHILLS OF THE TEETH

https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2022/06/genius-loci-and-foothills-of-teeth.html

Hills of the Demon Bear:
https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2022/06/hills-of-demon-bear-pariah-hex.html

Ebua & the Spirit-Mountain

https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2022/06/ebua-spirit-mountain-pariah-hex.html

HILLS OF THE DEMON BEAR (a PARIAH hex)

Having recently shared an additional hex for the Atop the Wailing Dunes sandbox (title: randomly generated) it occurred to me that I hadn't posted the second hex in the series, despite it being up on itch already. Anyway, here it is in JPEG format:

I heard a rumour: seeding a sandbox

 

A very silly superpower, now on Netflix. You might be better off playing Molotov College by WH Arthur

This post has nothing to do with Umbrella Academy, and everything to do with how to randomise rumour-mongering in a TTRPG sandbox. Sandbox in this context refers to any open-world campaign where narrative is emergent rather than plotted, though writing that maybe it's better to say it's "character plotted" rather than "player plotted". Anyway, another discussion, for another post.

Heart of the Primal Delve: ANOTHER One-Sheet Adventure Powered by Hex-Flower Tech!

Announcing Heart  of the  Primal Delve, a one-sheet procedural generator made with PARIAH in mind (but easily adaptable to other systems):

PARIAH HEXGEN #15: TEMPERATE BROADLEAF FOREST

Part of an ongoing series last update with MANGROVE:

https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2021/11/pariah-hexgen-14-mangrove.html 

...we now come to TEMPERATE  BROADLEAF FOREST. I feel like I'm making genuine strides towards a comprehensive proto-neolithic psychedellic animist hexcrawl, more than two years after making this initial post.

* * *

PARIAH HEXGEN #14: MANGROVE

I originally included this generator with a continuation post concerning GENIUS LOCI REACTIONS AS ENCOUNTERS but I like it too much to leave languishing as a footnote. I like the revisions to the generator enough to give them their own post. 

Besides which, I should continue on from the series which last covered TROPICAL FORESTS:

https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2021/09/pariah-hexgen-13-jungle-tropical-forest.html

...we now come to THE MANGROVE...

* * *

Spirit of the Wilderness: Second Look at Genius Driven Loci Encounters... and a new hex (mangrove)

Previously I've posted two posts about random encounter generation, both of which within the framework of PARIAH (but easily adaptable to your old school game of choice blah blah...). The first attempt was inspired by Goblin Punch's encounter stew, but modified to accommodate the skills system I'd built into PARIAH (this version was included in the zine). I wasn't entirely happy with it, especially when playing it online and started to think about how I could move things around and create something more coherent but also thematic. 

I googled "Nature spirit - scary" and got this

What then emerged was something based around the Genius Loci reacting to the PCs as they enter and interact with the place in question, usually (but by no means always) imagined to be the local 6 mile hex. A poor reaction leads to more lethal encounters, ba weather, and shitty foraging; the inverse is true of a a good reaction roll. You can read it all here:

https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2021/07/genius-loci-linking-encounters-hazards.html

That post has become one of the most popular on this site, no doubt due to it being featured in an edition of The Glatisant. Nonetheless what was presented was somewhat incomplete. 

This represents an attempt to grant that post a little more polish.

CHERRY -FLAVOURED CHARGEN

Follow-up post to a concept  https://aloneinthelabyrinth.blogspot.com/2021/08/cherry-coloured-funk.html: an Esoteric Enterprises campaign where a party of down-at-heel artists and performers, all tied to the same unscrupulous agent, carry out magical crimes in the esoteric underworld of H-Town. 

What follows is a simple character generator... grab one of each of the standard dice-set (D4, D6, D8, D10, D12) and roll....