Ever want to hit an exact location on your enemy in your tabletop roleplaying combat? A headshot, nonlethal blow to the knee caps, or that cursed bracelet on your ally's wrist? Today's Dungeons and Dragons won't give you what you're looking for. As I explore the nuances in combat mechanics for Small Souls, I've been considering Harm, Wounds, and Scars and particularly where they occur on the body. Let's explore opt-in hit graphs, accuracy, and precision with stick figures in TTRPGs, which is my work in progress generalization of "hit boxes" in video games and "hit locations" in TTRPGs.

William of "Half a Worm and a Bitten Apple" is hosting a community event to collaboratively create a realm called "Woland", where 20 people create small regions within a hex map for a Mythic Bastionland game. My turn has arrived and I chose the center hex flower numbered 11, which happened to feature the Seat of Power of the realm! I endeavored to create a Holding worthy of being a Seat of Power of legend! I hope you like Berserk.

As the March of the Tiny Epics comes to a close today, I give one last "Hurrah!" for all those who participated throughout this month. Thank you everyone for participating and sharing your wonderful TTRPG creations and reflections on the theme of "Tiny Epics: Small Souls in a Big World!". You all had great things to share and I'm glad to have read each and everyone of them. Let's celebrate the participants and their creations!

As part of the March of the Tiny Epics, I wanted to add a Small Souls creature inspired by the Becorns of David M. Bird and from a walk in a park. I present to you one of the many flower folk, the Camellia Fairy.

Palleon Press successfully got me monologuing too much in my March of the Tiny Epics overview so here that is to preserve the overview's flow. I clearly have some thoughts on BAYOU's Roots. Good thoughts, and thoughts on what others consider when characterizing their characters in TTRPGs, at least from a general level probably with too skewed a recollection from the popular titles.

After sharing my design goals, I am glad to share the character specification and core resolution mechanic behind Small Souls, and really its underlying generic engine, Soul System. As of version 0.2.0, Small Souls is a TTRPG with a roll-under counted dice pool and two thresholds that determine if those rolled dice are boons, banes, or blanks. This resolution mechanic quantizes the spectrum between automatic success and automatic failure, while providing different parameters to tune for more things to occur as side effects, whether good or bad. It provides a simple interface for players to improve their odds by first improving the narrative situation in their favor, possibly avoiding a roll altogether, or by using their resources to improve their odds or push their luck by rolling more dice. This is a forward moving mixed outcome resolution system that is designed for optional advancement in these abilities for higher level play, if so desired. Let's dive in!

I've been wanting to share my personal TTRPG project here for a while. As I'm hosting the RPG Blog Carnival with the theme of "Tiny Epics", now is as good a time as ever given I started designing for a game within this genre. I started a year ago designing my game called "Small Souls" from which I separated the generic system from the small souls specifics. The relative nature of one's abilities as the scale of the task increases or decreases started in Small Souls, but I found it to be useful as a generic system that emphasizes dramatic tension, informs roleplaying direction, and fleshes out the spectrum of possibilities and agency. Here are some of my macro design goals for the "Soul System", which involves a counted dice pool with "push your luck" resolution mechanics as you pay resources that embody your character's use of stamina or energy. A post on the mechanics as of versions 0.1.0 and 0.2.0a is soon to follow, along with some playtest reflections.

More have joined in on the March of "Tiny Epics!" for the RPG Blog Carnival. This community event is ongoing, and I wanted to discuss some people's shared creations! Share your creations with me early, and I'll do weekend updates in addition to the final roundup on March 31st.

We're midway through March and already people have shared their creations for this month's RPG Blog Carnival on the theme "Tiny Epics: Small Souls in a Big World!". This community event is ongoing, and I wanted to discuss some people's published content as well as some discussion that occurred around the internet. Share your creations with me early, and I'll do weekend updates in addition to the final roundup on March 31st.

This is a non-exhaustive collection of stories and media that features little folk, whether people or other creatures. I gathered this raw list in my notes due to my interest over the past year in creating my Tabletop Roleplaying Game, Small Souls, which is for telling adventures and scenarios within this genre. Knowing the different kinds of stories that already exist helps me keep in mind the different tales players may want to tell with the game system. This really is a genre in itself, which I didn't fully appreciate prior to this project! I think that "Little folk" probably best describes it.

The small ones among us are sometimes overlooked, but they surely have grand tales to tell! This March, let's explore these tiny epics for the RPG Blog Carnival. This is a community event, so we'll ponder some ideas for this theme, then get to creating and start some discussion! Share your creations with me early and I'll do weekend updates along with a final roundup on March 31st.

As with everyone, let alone bloggers, life can grab you by the collar and you just gotta run with it! With my hectic life aside, I feel it is appropriate to set some expectations for what kind of content I intend to write here, along with a brief introduction. Even if it is mostly to motivate myself to check off some boxes in the future, heheh.

I am Errant and I think about many things! In my daily life, I am a computer scientist. I research topics, analyze problems, design mathematical models & develop algorithmic solutions! Here, I will do the same for my hobbies, sharing more freeform thoughts that occur over time as I learn, and revising some pages as a wiki for the refined concepts.

Settlements often serve as a safe haven or a base of operations in traditional roleplaying games, with cities being the most common place for an adventure to occur in a settlement. What about smaller settlements? As part of the RPG Cauldron Secret Santicorn I'm hosting in 2025, which is separate from the typical Rainbow OSR Secret Santicorn, I received a request by Sully Tames to explore making the settlement itself the adventure site.

The Request

The town/settlement as an adventure site in itself. What if you never had to leave the tavern to go on an adventure?

Alright! This is a good one that lets me use my research skills to understand what already exists out there and then provide some analysis of patterns and ways to make the adventure stay in a confined location. I use "settlement" to include a single more permanent building than a campsite in the smallest scale and a city in the largest scale.

A Rankin/Bass themed location for a Merry Hexmas based on their 1982 animation of "The Last Unicorn". Where the mountains meet the coastline Haggard's Stronghold stubbornly resits the crashing waves of the Swirly Twirly Sea of Gumdrops.

The last candy cane caribou is somewhere in the North Pole, and is on a journey to find if she really is the last of her kind. This hex is her final destination where all her questions will finally be answered.

I created a Rankin/Bass inspired creature that dwells in flocks among the mountain tops. This creature is the Ramkin, an intelligent yet primitive being with a ram's head and curling horns as well as a ram's hind legs. The ramkin's upper body is like that of a gorilla, muscular and in this case wool covered. Their hefty fists on their gorilla like arms are covered in keratin like their hooves, which protects their knuckles, and they have opposable thumbs with their two large and thick fingers which are plated in that keratin. They can grip and climb with their hands as well as walk and run on them as if hooves.

As part of my Secret Santicorn present for "500poundsofnothing", I researched the concept of undeath where I encountered a claim that "undead" as a term that we recognize today is rather recent as of 1897 from Bram Stoker's "Dracula". I'm sharing what I found. While incomplete, I still find it interesting to consider the use of "undead" as we think of it today.

Another year, another December, another Secret Santicorn present delivered. This time I deliver the present of "The Origin of Undeath" to 500poundsofnothing.

The Request

The origin of undeath.

I've split this into two posts. One for some initial research I did on the origins of undeath as a term. And here, the main post including a short story and a couple of initial ideas for "classes" and their abilities pertaining to the type of undeath featured in the story.

As part of Prismatic Wasteland's Rankin/Bass-themed 2025 Merry Hexmas, I've contributed the Powder Plains as a snowfield hex. A relatively peaceful snowfield featuring multiple towns including Snowville, a village of cold elementals which neighbors the Snow Henge. January Junction makes an appearance along with Snowdin, inspired from Undertale. Also features Keh Night Automata and a twisted Cult of Janus.

As part of Prismatic Wasteland's Rankin/Bass-themed 2025 Merry Hexmas, I present the Rime Ridge, a dense mountain range thick with fog that tends to freeze into hard rime ice upon all surfaces. An icey mist covered mountain range inspired by the Misty Mountains of Rankin/Bass's films 1977 "The Hobbit" and 1964 "Rudolph's Shiny New Year".

A jagged mountain range that features a long dormant volcano, Mount Heart, with a frozen spire at its top. The hollowed out volcano that was once mined for its riches and resources is now abandoned. Perhaps due to the dark secrets within its depths?

This is inspired by the Mines of Moria from "The Lord of the Rings" as well as the Rankin/Bass films "The Hobbit", "Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King", "Jack Frost", and "Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July". Extra inspiration comes from Disney's movie Frozen and the 1844 "The Snow Queen" by Hans Christian Andersen.