2024

I've got two weeks before the new year and a handful of projects that I would like to get done next year. in no particular order. 

Pedals

• Resolve all the outstanding issues I have with my incomplete pedals.
• Black Mirror Seven
• Aussie Strom (this one is likely unsalvageable)
• Mr.Tea
• Crystal Sword
• Haunting Mids
• Parentheses Fuzz x2
• If possible Electric Lover 
• Pedals to complete in general
• Tone Guard 
• Ascension Device
• Noise Terminator 
• Valve One
• Forrestal Device
• Death By Fuzz 3 Deluxe
• Death By Fuzz 4: Overlord 
• Death By Flaming Lips
• Crimson Device
• Terminal Device
• Dirt Device
• Imperial Lemon
• Death By Octaver 
• Hoof Device
• Elk Device
• Chopper Party Device 
• Poly Face
• Complete prototyping my tone bender. 
• Create at least 5 tone benders. 
• Open Mox/Mock Fx
• Develop the pedal design
• Create video blogs about the process
• Start an Instgram

Music

• Master the P033
• Master the SC1000 MK2
• Learn guitar jams 
• Get music software
• Start recording 

RPG

• Create a mod of cloud empress for UVG
• Get a weekly game running 
• Work on my own setting
• Start reviewing OSR products

Other

• Journal about something everyday 
• Move the Chicago
• Learn how to make decent videos 
• Start a separate Instagram

OSR 24

For me Dungeon 23 was an abject failure. To be fair the whole year was pretty tumultuous. Consistency has always been an enemy for me. Having just finished school I was having a hard time adjusting to a non structured life. Something I am working to change now is how does one live without deadlines. I could create my own deadlines. However, I fear it will be ineffective with out the threat of wasting my tuition. But I am at better place now with significantly more control over my machinations. 

So why did Dungeon 23 fail?

Scope creep

I believe the spirit of Dungeon 23 was not to actually create a workable mega dungeon but to sharpen ones dungeon building skills. Creators were encouraged to just focus on a single room a day. What the heart loves, the will chooses and the mind justifies. Its almost impossible not falling into the perils of mega world building. With in the first week I was planning out which months I would work on which themes of the dungeon. It was going to be a silent hill themed location in which a town summoned a primordial fae god by sacrificing the town beggar. This plunging the town into a fae hell. Each of the four locations was to be based on the 4 tarot suits with the major arcana being god level NPC's and bosses. I would work on each of the locations for each of the four quarters of the year. This quickly demotivated me. The second I skipped a day, a week, a month. It was harder to restart, as I felt I need to go back to make up lost time. 

Eventually I abandoned the idea and started from scrap.

In August I found myself trying again, again ran into scope issues. This one was a lich sewer or some sort. I let myself focus more on the rooms but I still felt myself running to the back of the journal to stat out monsters and write about NPCS.

Time and Space

When I did sit down to work on the project it meant I had time. I felt unfulfilled writing one simple room. And I felt the book did not provide enough space to embellish. I hated flipping to the back of the book to finish writing out the person, object, or monster that I was working on. Also each time passing the failures of the prior month. 

What will be OSR 24?  

I will switch out the Hobonichi Techo for the Hon Techo. The Hon has a grid for each day of the year. Everyday I will create an OSR thing. This could be a monster, a map, a room, location concept, anything really. This will allow me to still work on my OSR skills but doesn't have the constraints of the previous project. I can work on what feels right in the moment. I have space to embellish and explore, but without trigging scope creep. If there is more to an idea I can add onto it the next day. But isn't this just the same a journaling? Yes, but its got more rules. 

Rules of engagement. 

• If a day is skipped it is gone. There is to be no going back. The pain of empty pages needs to be felt. 
• Stealing is ok, its just me and my thoughts. 
• Don't share it with too many people. The second it becomes a performance, the goal will to be to impress, and once someone is impressed the dopamine stops.  
• Also no one cares what you are journaling about. 
• Give your self space to be stupid, there is nothing wrong with stupidity. 

Black Ash Fuzz

I managed to get the Black Ash Fuzz transcribed from a schematic to a breadboard. This is the first time I have been able to do this. The Black Ash is basically a modified tone bender. I might not have the ear for it but it seems like the bias and top pots do nothing. I am looking through some other ton bender schematic to see if there is a different configuration that I would prefer. I figured out that R5 creates most of the Fuzz sound. I tried using a dual gang to control both the R5 resistance and the Fuzz pot. I think the range of the pot was too much because the vast majority of it was a clean signal. I like the idea of adding a pot at R5 but I don't think I should have two Fuzz pots. 

I was fantasizing about making a fuzz octave for my first pedal. To my dismay when looking at the Lizard Queen, the JHS and EH  pedal they just put out is a tone bender octave combo. I might look into other options. 

Either way this will be Mock/ Mox FX first pedal. I think I will call it lavender fuzz or Lavandula Fuzz. I don't personally like lavender all that much but its my wife's favorite sent.

Speak The Fuzzy Lexicon

I just got the PDF copy of Speak False Machine. The absolute banger of a tome by Patrick Stuart, chronicling his 10 years of blogging. Reading through his posts in this format is really fulfilling for me. If every form of reading material was a series of essays with little to no editing than I would enjoy more literature. 

So this is another post about blogging and perhaps a sort of determination. This time for sure I will actually start blogging. What makes this time different? Well I'm not in school anymore, and my hobbies have had time to germinate. But other than that I can only hope the gods of productivity smile on me. 

If I can manage every night I will be sitting myself down and bashing my hands against this keyboard. Hopefully it will result in something useful. Between RPGs, Guitar Pedals, and music I should have some thing on my mind every night. 

Lets talk about what's to come. 

• I do plan on doing Dungeon 24, I don't know how many other people will be doing it, but I feel like its become a sort of pilgrimage. Dungeon 23
• I am working on a clone of EQD Black Ash, basically a tone bender. I am trying to see what kind of mods I can currently do on it. 
• I have found some sources of pressed flower to start my enclosure project. 
• I have some ideas about music I would like to pursue. Currently I am thinking about taking 60s ska and making it dissonant and depressing/ creepy. 

Dark Thriving Fantasy

 

Chapter 1

Listening to Lightning at the Door- album by All Them Witches

https://open.spotify.com/album/4ViTtcecbZ1kjNAkZ4BYNh?si=5XCGho3HR7eN3sGxPltmxQ

I’ve come to a point with my gaming that I want to start exploring my own world. I’ve played in so many other people’s imagination that I feel both inspired and entombed. Awhile back my wife got me a set of world building notebooks. Writing is a difficult venture for me, and creative writing is all the more impossible. But I have been really wanting to flex this muscle and learn how to transmit my ideas into text.

I have a trove of books at my disposal, the mains one that I will be using are,

·         30 days of World Building by A Trevena

·         How to Create History by A Trevena

·         From Sanctity to Sorcery by A Trevena

·         The Ultimate RPG GM’s Worldbuilding Guide by James D’Amato

For specific places I will be using The Ground Itself by Everest Pipkin, and possibly A Quite Year by Avery Alder

For specific items I am going to use Artifact by Mousehole Press.

I feel with all of these I can create a rich world with a lot of lore, but not so much that the lore itself becomes the focus. I want a place I can explore through watching players interact with it.  

I am going to be going through each of the first set of books chapter by chapter all at once, because it makes sense to me. Despite having a lot of reservations on using “how to’s” I will attempt to do them faithfully. I may dip my toes into the Without Number books.

30 Days of World Building

Genre and Setting

I feel like dark fantasy is all the rage these days. It has captured my attention as well as the zeitgeist. Dark Soles has really paved the way for this return. I think my generation is a bit nostalgic, yearning for the Dark Son and the 80’s Fantasy that our parents grew up with. But we know better now to avoid the pit falls of past Dark Fantasy, we know how to talk about dark things without being problematic. I doubt I have the capacity to explore dark subjects without using some problematic trope or misrepresenting a group of people. I will however try to do my best.

So…. Dark Fantasy? Maybe more like dark fairy tale. I, like everyone else am patiently waiting for Gavin Newman’s Dolmenwood. In the meantime, I might have to play in that space myself. I like the idea of a dying earth life setting, but maybe its inverse. Like humans are still on the brink of extinction but because of how verdant everything is. Cosmic horror but instead of it being eldritch beings from the unknown nature itself is the unknown. The world is so lush and alive in a way that brings so much chaos that humans never are able to establish an upper hand.

So… I think Dark Thriving Earth.

So, what of the rules of the world. I think we can add them as we go, but I want to start off with a few.

·         There are no other plains of reality, aside from overlapping. Like the spiritual plane is still in the same world but like on a different wavelength. There can be other planes in this sense, but they all have to have the same physical objects, ie landmarks, buildings. However, said physical objects can be distorted.

·         Without a celestial realm gods and demons exist in the real world as actual things. They arise from magical corruption.

·         Magic; this is something I am still working out but basically there are two streams/ forces of magic in the world. Both have polluting effects and determine what type of magical beings exist in certain areas. There might be more than just two but for the moment there are two. I don’t want to get into MTG territory. At the outset these two streams may appear as opposing forces of good/ evil or law/ chaos. They are not opposing more like just different and are not compatible. Think like oil and water.

·         There are no supreme forces of good/ evil and law/chaos. These concepts exist at the micro level and are subjective.

·         Different hominids can not inter breed. There are some cases that I will clear up later, but basically no half orcs.

I want the world to feel very different but not so out there, that there is nothing relatable. Orcs, goblins, elves, and such will exist.