Prompt #28 for #RPGaDay2026

Devotion

Okay, this is going to be a tough word to discuss, mostly because I'm not sure how to approach this or where to go with it.  I know in more well-established TTRPGs, there's usually a class or two that have some sort of devotion that entails their entire identity.  For my game world, I don't really have this because it kind of is just...weird...I guess.  

I have a total of twenty-seven classes, of which four have something that could be considered slightly related to "devotion".  Without giving out names (might change them later): there is one who negotiates pacts/debts with spirits, but that is more of a transactional situation; another houses/contains unresolved spirits as a custodian, so this is more like an explicit duty or even co-habitation and not exactly reverence; then there's the "custodial power" class which sees protection as a sacred duty, but this is more directed at guardians/allies/ground things and not a deity; and finally there is the class where it actually has a sense of "devotion" as a possible source of an emotional rupture that releases a mechanic.  Other than these four classes, there's nothing that comes to mind for devotion to anything.

Which brings me to the next topic.  So this year has been my starting year for actually sitting down and getting the work started for my game.  I have my Bestiary 52 goal that is still going strong, albeit I haven't posted publicly over on Mastodon my daily posts about my creatures but Patreon and Ko-fi have been keeping the pace.  I did post this week's and last week's creature entry late, but as I've mentioned countless of times already, I've been super busy with something unrelated to my game that is taking higher priority right now.  Next year is going to be a bit more involved, I hope.  I will continue my Bestiary 52 project, but I might roll it back into a bi-monthly or monthly post (so 12 or 24 creatures would be my yearly target).  To replace it, I plan on introducing another compendium project that goes hand-in-hand with everything so far: a Theogony.  Without giving out too much info, mostly because I haven't gone too far into it, my world will be dealing with deities and sorts.  I figured I should probably create something to contain all of the things.

There's a lot to my world, this is obvious.  I've got devotion to making it a reality for me and others to experience.  The road ahead is still just starting for me. 

Links: 

• Patreon
• Ko-fi
• Mastodon
• Twitch 

 

Prompt #27 for #RPGaDay2026

Hunger

I could talk about hunger in my game, such as making sure my players have food and drink to prevent starvation and dehydration, but I'm not sure if I will actually develop that fully.  It really isn't a high priority on my list of things to do, let alone I'm not sure if it would be worth it.  There's games I've played before where simple life sustenance got really annoying really fast.  I would be out there, running around gathering materials or beating up baddies, just to get a notification that my character was starving or dying of thirst, thus breaking my immersion.  

On the flip side, I do feel like in order to really get into a world, things that relate to hunger and thirst are kind of needed.  That extra milestone that really hammers home the thought process of actually being there, in that world.  A group of players could be tiptoeing past a Warmth-Seeker or even a Rotbringer, when someone's stomach growls and triggers the awareness of the wyrm.  Wouldn't that be a fun event?  Right now, I have food items in one of my vendor's wares.  Since my game operates on expeditions, the players go out on an adventure, return to the central hub, sell their wares, buy things, fix items, then next expedition.  I don't plan on these expeditions to take in-game weeks to complete, but definitely a few days.  

I'm not quite sure how I'm going to handle this mechanic.  I could have a bit more lore-driven situations where the players sit down, have a meal while planning out their expedition while also getting to know each other.  There is also the possibility that they just auto-consume when a day passes and the game just factors that in.  I guess when I get to that point in my game dev journey for this world, I'll have a better idea of how to combat hunger.  There's always a chance to feed a wyrm.

Links: 

• Patreon
• Ko-fi
• Mastodon
• Twitch 

 

Prompt #26 for #RPGaDay2026

Regret

I have a poster of Darth Vader in my room that I never fully opened.  It is titled Regrets that I got from Gamestop with those store rewards before I left USA.  Every day, I see it when I walk in here, ready to do my work one way or another.  It sits on a shelf, next to my Spawn figures, still in the plastic wrap from the mail.  That was ten years ago and I don't plan on ever opening it.

What does this have to do with my game?  It reminds me to not have regrets in life.  I've been through a lot, including a car accident that almost took my life.  That was a wake-up call that life is too short, even more so if you live it with regrets.  No one can make the game I see except me.  If I don't start it, no one will.  This year alone has been full of fun, exciting times for me and this game.  I've got a solid foundation on my local FoundryVTT,  making modules and testing things out.  The five playtesters that have been helping me test things out and providing feedback have been fantastic.  My creativity with my weekly creatures has keep flowing, although last week was a bit weird and this week might follow suit (I've got a major real life thing going on right now which is eating into my time creating those creatures, but after this week that should be back to normal).  Heck, even this month's Blaugust and the #RPGaDay2026 has gotten me motivated to talk about it daily, even when the word prompt was hard.

If I don't make my game, it would be a shame if the world didn't experience it, and that would be a regret.

 

Links: 

• Patreon
• Ko-fi
• Mastodon
• Twitch 

 

Prompt #25 for #RPGaDay2026

Familiarity

I think the word for today's entry is fairly easy to discuss.  Obviously I'm familiar with my game world, but I'm pretty sure most people will be to a point.  Since it is based off of the world in the past, the divergent aspect of that world would strike familiar tones with people — generic buildings, roadways, structures, vehicles, just overall settings.  It isn't set in a "traditional fantasy" setting like the infamous "you all met in a tavern".  My playtesters all met each other informally while they were responding to a bounty board, in which the target NPC was actually trapped inside a mall (a real one, from my hometown — obscure enough that you've probably never heard of it, but it's got a familiarity to me that I like leaning on), too scared to leave due to the Porcelain Seer that was doing it's thing (if you want the full writeup, it's got its own entry — https://www.patreon.com/ches_ge/posts/week-22-monster-159885442).  Next expedition is going to be a little bit similar.  I don't expect my players to be familiar with one another, but I do hope they instill a sense of familiarity amongst themselves as the game progresses.  

As I continue down this rabbit hole of mine, I really hope that I can bring forth some really cool things that other people can become familiar with, even if it is trying to kill them.

Links: 

• Patreon
• Ko-fi
• Mastodon
• Twitch 

 

Prompt #24 for #RPGaDay2026

Distance

I can say my game is a bit of a distance from our reality.  True, the solid base of it is based off of the real world that we all live in, but in the lore there was an incident that happened which essentially changed the world from what we have now.  There's things that exist that we don't have now, either from the past or the future.  That's one measurement of distance, but not the only one I want to talk about.

When I had originally created this game idea, I was told that I couldn't base it off of real places; that cities were copyrighted.  That didn't stop me from working on the idea.  I wanted to work on something that I could associate a distance with.  Turns out, those people were wrong.  Obviously there's some parts of a city that you can't just blatantly recreate, like sculptures or trademarked logos or even the city name, but overall if I wanted to recreate a city I was familiar with, I can.  In doing so, it gives me a point of reference for events and layouts of things that are encountered in the various expeditions.  I mean, the reality of our world right now and the fictional world of my game would change all of those things.  I want to know the distance to provide my players with on how far they need to run away from the nasty creature that is hunting them.  

Take a real stretch of a road I know, such as Prospect Avenue.  I know where one of the bookstores were, the path it took from that place to the mall.  That distance is about 1 kilometer, so more than enough for them to look at utilizing the various buildings that are along the way provide escape options or maybe even a better advantage to fight.  Now my players have a better idea of what they are working with when I can provide them solid descriptions of what they see in the vicinity.

Links: 

• Patreon
• Ko-fi
• Mastodon
• Twitch