Category: The Gauntlet: Our Community

We’d like to do some crowdsourcing for the Miscellany in Codex – Beasts. The Miscellany is called “Three dozen original vampires.” Submissions need to be a single sentence, or 2-3 very short sentences. By submitting here, you’re agreeing to let us use it (you’ll get a credit on the issue). We’re looking for evocative stuff. The purpose of the Miscellany is to inspire the reader.

Importantly, we’re looking for something more original than the typical bloodsucker. Your vampire should have a name and a bit of detail about how they are unique. Questions to consider: Do they feed on something other than blood? Do they have unusual supernatural powers? Are they weak to something other than the trope-y standards (like garlic and running water)? If they are a standard vampire, is there something about their hunting grounds, social class, or physical appearance that makes them stand out from the tropes?

Here are some examples:

“Aisha Derry, formerly Constance Derry, is over two-hundred years old, but appears as a twelve-year-old black girl. Through a network of lawyers and other servants, she has managed to acquire valuable real estate all over the city, but her favorite lairs are the orphanages, where she lives and hunts until the other children start to get suspicious.”

“Billy Hwang is the apotheosis of male beauty. With each cosmetic surgery, he becomes younger, stronger, more intoxicating. His thralls are a cabal of doctors and nurses who spend their entire careers contemplating his physical appearance and how it can be improved upon. Each year, he selects one of them to sleep with, after which he commands them to commit suicide, which they happily do.”

“Tempest Morgan believes that blood is just a metaphor for whatever makes a person get out of bed each day. To that end, she ‘feeds’ on her victims by formulating and enacting elaborate plans to take away the things they cherish most. Her weaknesses are the small things that help people get through their day, such as cat videos and mobile phone games.”

At the Gauntlet, we spend countless hours advocating for roleplaying games, teaching people how to play roleplaying games, sharing that deep and abiding love we have for roleplaying games with anyone who will listen. The amount of time we spend on podcasts, putting together Codex, organizing game sessions, and all the rest, is staggering.

We get a lot of personal satisfaction from doing those things, especially when it comes to playing games, but the vast majority of the benefits–and 100% of the monetary benefits–are collected by the game designers and creatives of the hobby.

Are we a big deal like One-Shot? No. Do we have the audience of Friends at the Table? No. But the benefits, such as they are, flow directly to the game design community (in particular, the indie game design community).

I must insist the game design community start having the Gauntlet’s back. I rarely ask anything of the game design community, and I never use our platform for anything other than to boost indie game designers, but I must insist people start having our back. I have spent years battling bullshit territorialism and tribalism in this hobby and it is exhausting. If you’re a game designer who has ever had a positive association with the Gauntlet and you see or hear people trying to fuck us over, you need to say something. If we boost your game on one of our podcasts, you need to boost our podcast. If we played your game on YouTube, you need to tell people about that video.

I’m sick of this one-way street. The Gauntlet is part of the indie side of the hobby. I insist we start being treated like it.

(I’m turning off comments and re-shares, because I’m mostly venting here, and I don’t have the energy or bandwidth to manage a thread right now. If anyone wants to chat with me privately, you know where to find me).

Codex – Decay is now available!

Codex – Decay is now available in our $4+ Patreon feed!

https://patreon.com/gauntlet

Here is a glimpse of what you’ll find inside.

Under the Heel of Night’s Avenger

This is a Misspent Youth world written by none other than Robert Bohl himself! In this case, your Youthful Offenders are a group of ersatz Batman villains taking on the Night’s Avenger. From Robert: “I had the idea years ago while rewatching Batman: The Animated Series with my son. It occurred to me that in the opening, Batman, a billionaire, is beating the living fuck out of jewel thieves (property criminals). So here’s this unimaginably wealthy guy who’s brutalizing people so that the utterly useless trinkets of the rich are preserved.” This feature contains two fantastic pieces of art by Evan Rowland (one of which is featured below).

Disputationem Maleficarum

This is a Fiasco playset written by Codex’s own Oli Jeffery. In this one, you play attendees of ConClusions, an annual necromancer convention. It was inspired by films such as What We Do in the Shadows, and contains plenty of black humor and social commentary. It features a whimsical/creepy illustration by Evlyn M.

The Big H

This is an original story game by Joshua Fox It’s about a superhero, the Big H, who pursues high ideals, but eventually falls from grace and uses their power to impose their will on the world. The players portray lesser heroes who used to look up to the Big H, but who now have to fight back against the Big H’s corrupt rule. It’s a fantastic little game, and I’m delighted it is making its debut in Codex. It features two pieces of striking art by Jesse Ross, one of which can be seen below.

Gauntlet Daddies #002

This month we get to meet the sexy necromancer, Boner! Boner was illustrated by the wonderful Fabrissou

Three dozen abandoned locations

A collection of derelict buildings, abandoned ships, and lost histories; a miscellany forgotten by the world.

Codex – Decay features cover art by Claudia Cangini (which can be seen below). Editing is done by myself and David LaFreniere. Layout is by Oli Jeffery.