Welcome to the new month for the RPG Blog Carnival - our topic for July 2026 is "Small Gods, Saints and minor divinity!" You can find some deeper background on the RPG Blog Carnival on 'of Dice and Dragons'. Write what you like around the prompt or see the suggestions below.

If you want to join the carnival, write up your own entry and post it in a comment below, send me a link (my username at gmail.com) or ping me on the 'blog-carnival' OSR discord channel or find me bluesky or mastodon. I will gather all the participants into a wrap-up post on August 8th.

For d6 prompts:
1. Talk about how your divine magic system works e.g. Who hears your oath?
2. Describe some of the minor divinities e.g. d14 small gods of the animal-lings
3. Share some shrines or locations e.g. d6 Sites of the Long Wars
4. Tell of aspects of the divine e.g. d8 natures of this quasi-godlike entity
5. Write up a specific god or saint e.g. Small god: Lady Deephome
6. Describe a faction or cult e.g. Commission for the ethical sourcing of construct souls

For my own take, I wanted to revamp my house rules from Who hears your oath? - d100 roll under your level, +10 per factor in your favour.

A lighter set of links as I was travelling - but for more, check out the huge set from the previous list found here or the weekly r/OSR blogroll or check the RPG Blog Carnival. Bloggie-nominated. Originally inspired by weaver.skepti.ch, delinked by request.

On a housekeeping announcement, for the rest of this year, I am shifting down to a Shiny Links + one post per week schedule (Saturdays) for burnout avoidance. We will see how things look as we approach 2027 on keeping/reverting.

Pikliz Dungeon writes The Black Hack 10th Anniversary Game Jam

The Lich's Library gives us Prepping for the next level of a Megadungeon!

Traveler's Rest shares Generating Elevation in a Hexcrawl

The Other Side blog posts BECMI Binders

RPGTrader writes Free RPG Day 2026 Bundle

Rise Up Comus gives us The Secret History of The Castle Automatic

Billhook Blog shares Your Favorite Game (You Haven't Played Yet)

Crow’s Corner posts Table-Tested Review of the “Fomoria” Quickstart

Patchwork Paladin writes Playing the Social Game

AMONG CATS AND BOOKS pens Cultures, not Games

False Machine gives us A Review of Forgotten Realms; Underdark

shifty louts writes Another Reflection on Writing for the Antarctica Jam

At the mid-point of the year, asking how the #City26 challenge is coming along. On a pure stats, it is not bad - --% of total hex-count for the year achieved with 50% of the time gone. I have not gotten any of this to table but it has proved a nice distraction during travel of all things. Recall the 'rhythm' of the weekly tasks of this challenge with this guide from Pete of Garblag Games. So far I have been all over the place - I tend to do these as one ward in a sitting, with time in between spent considering what might be the 'killer hooks' for incomplete wards so I can just sit down and write when I come to it.

Infographic of City26 Challenge by Peter Lattimore

Anyway, in my 'keep me honest' progress tracker stats:
Progress: 36/52 wards completed
Completion vs target: 69% vs 50% target
Population covered: 76%

Inspirations

A touchstone for all this has been "What is life like on a Hive world?" which has been very helpful to divvy out the fractions of who lives in what conditions across the Upper, Mid and Lower parts of the Hive.

Pure inspiration has been these gorgeous old-school Knight Lancers that I recall from back in the day, in particular this amazing upscaled version someone worked up. These are the few actual Knights that underpin the worlds raison d'etre.

Those of course must be accompanied by dino-riding cavalry - these folk are also the primary Law Enforcers within Hive-RT87

Support will come from beastfolk Imperial Guards all in keeping with the oldest lore.

In parallel I have been reading the Warhammer Crime novels to get that sense of the day-to-day, building on previous reading of the Eisenhorn and Ravenor books and a lifetime marinading in 40k lore.

The City - Hive RT-87 Rejoicing Torch

Spires

Knights Martial - planetary nobles, house-keeps, bristling defences, boulevards scaled to knight-parades

Upper Hive

College of Heralds - lineage and inheritance lore-keepers, world use litigation, duel ajudication
Adeptus Munitorium - perpetually swamped in comparative weapons studies as factions scuffle to direct the worlds production
1000 Shields (Knight seneschals, fled nobles, fallen quality) - those with means who fled the fallen nearby hives

Upper Mid Hive

Hive defence fire control (knight-vassals) - seat of the atomantic lances defence web
All Hands (Abhuman efficiency bureau) – talent bazaar; clearing house for mercenaries and all sorts
Infernal cannon maintenance (sarcristans) - most secure workshops of the sacristans maintaining the near lost technologies of the defence web
Optical Masters - Admech Lens Crafters make high performance optics from abundant clay while agitating to make ever bigger laser ones
Central Medicae - where man, beast and beastman are patched together to longer serve the Emperor
Megasaur Mastercrafts - artists and craftsfolk turn megasaur parts into finest luxuries for this world and export

Lower Mid Hive

Promethium works - refineries to process abundant feedstock into promethium
Jet Bike lines - Sacristans hand-craft near-forgotten technologies - jetbikes, imperial robots
Mustering grounds / barracks - beastman regiments forming for onworld training, offworld service
Weapons factories (dispensated non metal) - armours, blades and other works that require as little metal as possible
Dino Servitorisation (mech) - megasaurs turned into industrial machinery
Stonework Specialists - fighting the sysphean fight to maintain the hive structure
Dinochrome - Carnosaur refit (sacristans) where megasaurs are turned into training-rigs and knights-in-waiting prove themselves
Ogryn quarter - dino-wranglers, source of dino-run labour & gangs from 'dead' wasteland ranches
Cold-one scout regiments - house guards, order enforcement, wasteland scouts, Adept. Arbites enclave
The Sieves - ministorum and astra telepathica winnow the population, sifting psykers and heretics out of the workforce
Dino stockyards - minotaur butcherguilds slaughter the megasaur herds that arrive by the shipload
Metal reclamation - hive-breaker yards recycling ruined cities from inland
Knight-parts - macromanufactories; knights and armoured trains, refurbishment facilities for offworld houses
Transhipment hub - focus of the intra-continental maglev lines bringing chunks of abandoned hives in and exporting to the starport
Ministorum - local strains on fanatical abhumans seeking to prove themselves worthy of the God-Emperor through acts of faith
Railheads - the giant rail bringing dinosaur-ships from the southern continents

Lower Hive - description


Bonecraft workcamps - grinding labor to handcarve parts from megasaur bones, squeezed by bone suppliers and predatory acceptance inspectors
Bone reclamation, corpse processing, fleshbees - post-butchery megasaur carcasses sent for scavenging
scalies in deeps + zombies by radioactive archaeotech - the hardiest of mutant survivors
Off-worlder ghetto - for those too strange to be taken by the workcamps, a hub of the cold-trade
Sumpside - abhuman underground railroad, coldtraders - where the paperless arrivals from starport, maglevs wind up
Redemptionists - fanatical beastfolk, eager to prove faith by cleansing with fire any hint of less perfect faith
old ways tribalists / beastman paleoculture - the caverns where the original colony landed hosts beastfolk who cling to the most ancient ways
Slums of the Lost (hives Polaris, FK91) - refugees from the broken hives to sorry or unfortunate to claw into the lower-mid hives
ogryn tallow-works - where worn out ogryns make pilgrimage to be turned into sacred candles
extraction bay slums - clinging beneath the maglevs, above the reactor wastes, but close to patrolled zones above. Safer, not safe.

All told this ccounts for some 3.5 billion souls - out of the 4.6 in the city as a whole. Any one of those wards could be a whole world of adventure to itself.

Round-up of City26 posts

City '26 Launch - outlines the rules of the challenge and my goals to create a hivecity of the old school.

Hive RT-87 Rejoicing Torch - general info + example ward (City26) - gives some layout for the whole hive and delves into the Carnosaur Refit Works - known locally as Dinochrome.

Incentivising challenges with tactility (City26) - talks about the process and about how recycling old boarding passes keeps it interesting and focussed.

Evolving city surroundings (City26) talks about the world emerging around the hive.

Piling high the burdens of ruling #City26 - some historical and high politics background and d20 Reasons Lord Mawcambeth Has An Ulcer.

Dredging old adventures for a campaign #City26 takes a diversion into various megacity adventures for different systems seeking a tone match.

31 40k Hivecity NPCs for #City26 pulls together a selection that represents some of the more interesting adventures hooks walking around the hive.

Getting to City adventures in 26

So far, with a good fraction of the challenge done, the trick ahead is going to be pulling this to table in some form. I need to decide a system, pick which are the most interesting adventures to run - there are campaigns worth of adventure in here unpicking all the knots - and I have a decent idea for a starter one.

With a bit of luck I can get it hacked together, lure some test subjects to an... Imperium Maledictum? Dark Heresy?... table and set them loose. Tempted as I am to roll with Chapter Serf or Warpstar! I think I will stick to the mainline system for just now to give good template adventures to work off while I figure out how to run them myself.

Slothyyyyyyy hosts the Extremely Byzantine 5-Room Dungeon Jam and this is my ashcan entry. I am using an 'out-take' from the d24 woodworm dungeons set. https://itch.io/jam/byzantine-5-room-dungeons.



This is the lair of hiver-bugs - a parasite/predator of insectfolk (see Deep Time Monster Groups and Culture of the insectfolk - Beetlescale) - gnawed deep into the roots of mountains. Trapped within for a very long time, chaos on the surface has finally unmanned the watch-posts and seen the seals broken.

These things are the vampire analogs from a time when everything had exoskeletons and their crushing jaws are their adaption. They are tough, swift and dangerous in melee with pheremonic 'charm' equivalent, and a penchant for whole innards, not just blood. They believe themselves the last 'real' people left alive amidst these disgusting, swarming mammals. Below is a typical lair of theirs, chewed from the bowels of the earth over aeons.

1. Chasm of Echos - screams and cries of historical events reverberate from the deeps as one clambers aound it along perilous ledges
1. - calls for help, lost
2. - clash of battle
3. - screams of ambushed
4. - buzz of hivers flying
5. - tramp of marching feet
6. - crunching of chitin being crushed in the maws of hiverbugs

2. Cavern of Shadows - phosphorescent, dim light
1. - shadows, insectfolk form
2. - bats
3. - illusion-hidden pits
4. - piercers
5. - ropers
6. - uneven-floor trip-hazards onto caltrop-like spiky flooring beyond

3. Labyrinth of Illusions (d6 per dungeon turn)
1. - maze of tunnels with rushing footsteps echoing
2. - charge of insectfolk thralls from illusory corridors entrances
3. - stalking small insectfolk, fire at range and flee
4. - loops with cloaked exit
5. - incredibly obvious trap - for those who do not perceive by sight
6. - lurking insectfolk guards - just propped up shells

4. dominated hives - thrall insect folk living vampiric dominance nightmare
1. - masses and masses of enthralled insectfolk laboring
2. - body-snatcher shrieks if strangers spotted
3. - insectfolk carrying a dead fellow on a ceremonial bier - large bite hole chewed through head
4. - fungal garden growing on dead insectfolk, spore clouds mildly poisonous, soporific
5. - insectfolk paying homage at statue of another bigger, sleeker insectfolk
6. - ceremonially garbed insectfolk choosing from crowd and daubing them with paint

5. myriad of misdirection - very dark, lots of carved statuary, hunting perches, ambush hollows
1. - swoop down from hunting perch, shove off ledge into gulley and follow, grappling
2. - echo-chittering from hollow statues, allows ambush from behind
3. - ambush hollow - statue facing one way, open at the back, snatch someone into opening, block visibility while fighting them
4. - stalking grilles - sneak in close, openings allow stab, domination effect, then withdraw
5. - recently dead insectfolk, chewed open and partially drained, lying in a line in a small grotto
6. - decorated chamber, illusion of gloating hiverbug atop plinth, monologues while real ones leap from niches above door

Notes: I initially had an idea for leaning into the weird and making each room its own byzantine process but decided that just made this whole thing a blogging gag not a useable piece of kit and chose against that. The room themes would have been:
Room 1 - Zocchi dice based encounter table
Room 2 - d1000 fibonnacci sequence
Room 3 - monster of variable properties
Room 4 - variable terrain effects
Room 5 - cross reference the results of all previous rooms to get the 'final boss'
Passages between rooms would have been portals of variable destination

A colossal harvest of shiny links - a lot of folk getting extra inspired this past week! If you seek still more, see the previous list found here or the weekly r/OSR blogroll or check the RPG Blog Carnival. Bloggie-nominated. Originally inspired by weaver.skepti.ch, delinked by request.

Dungeonfruit shares In Favor Of Repetition

slothyyyyyyy hosts posts Extremely Byzantine 5-Room Dungeon Jam

Gorgon Bones writes Guest Post: There's No Crying in Elfgames

MurkMail shares How many words should we use?

afcbrodie posts Of Randomisation and Responsibility

All Dead Generations posts The Tyrant's Hand

Trick's Tales writes Lore and Factions of the Endless Plains (For a Game About the Mongolian Empire)

Beau Rancourt Writings gives us On Difficulty

dungeon doll shares od&d combat maneuvers

Bruce Heard posts Pain, Exhaustion, and Morale in D&D BECMI

Throne of Salt writes Language Dungeon Spitballing

Swan And Raven Studio gives us Make A Manifesto, Damn You

For Want of a Silver Bullet writes Why You Should Write Your Games To Be Played At Conventions

Lonely Star posts Lessons from the trad trenches, or How to structure a scenario

Gorgon Bones writes Bugbear June

Snakebite gives us Worldbuilding only matters if the Mechanics Support the World

Richard's Dystopian Pokeverse shares How I read “theory”

Standing up from my last campaign my players said something that I was not sure should I feel hurt by - that my last couple of campaigns had the same feel. I thought I ran some fairly different things
- Brancalonia
- Spelljammer
- Hexcrawl25 But I wonder if they feel the same because these players have other very different GMs to compare against so the innate similarities of my DM style overwhelmed all other differences? I ran them differently enough to my own perceptions that I got three completely different things out of them but I guess I must reuse parts more than I thought...

At this point I am old and ugly enough to recognise the wisdom of not attempting to make everything unique. "Just Use Bears" is a load-bearing stone on my own personal journey to wisdom.

In the interest of being honest, there are certainly things I reuse
- the campaign world / lore - I have a small handful of players who have popped up in more than one campaign who then recognize some of the tales of the hazards below them or have run into aspects of factions in other guises faraway. This I think is the best kind of repetition, the rest just make my life easier.
- menagerie world / kaleidoscope species - at this point the utility of this 'universal socket' world for open table gaming has been proven and reproven. Variety in the d100 NPC species table that makes "Sword Coast Diversity" look like a klan rally in comparison. Want to be some odd species? No problem, noone even looks sideways at you. Talking goose? Can do.
- opportunity to think around obstacles / no-roll success for good ideas - tell me your sufficiently cunning and creative plan and I'll be happy to say you just succeed.
- one-shot framework (Splinters, Brancalonia) - Brancalonia was 'the money's been drunk, the booze is run out, your patron/landlord has a job for you' with a side order of 'I am assured the dragon is dead this time'. For Splinters it was 'hop through this portal, fetch that bit of wood we need for our ritual' - both worked well to get things rolling.

Within campaigns, but not across them I guess repetition is a motif as well
- For Spelljammer, ship deck plans came up again and again, where most other combats usually happen on some different backing, the fact that of course a fight involving your ship means you break out the same deckplan gets really noticeable after a while.
- NPCs (as per adventure threading) - within a campaign I try to reuse the cast, I have snuck in a mention or two of NPCs from one campaign to another but the differences in tone have never really made 'guest appearances' make much sense.

To return to the specific point of my blogwagon comrades, there are typically four types of dungeon - reliably abandoned and dangerous structures - in menagerie world (on the continent everything has happened on so far) drawn from great buried hazard-strata from the continental history
- ruined temples from the cult purge a few decades back - these are for unquiet spirits, undead, bloody rituals and cults. Shallowly buried threats being dug up by fanatics.
- fortified shrines of the predator queens many hundreds of years ago. There are for running into the petty gods, hideous artefacts, and determined relic hunters looking for war-winning weapons.
- bunkers and fortresses from the first dwarven empires war against the Final Star many thousands of years ago. These are sections of the Apocalypse Archive; for the spooky tense 'this is not a place of honour' crawls through a place where something terrible obviously happened, with lots and lots of grim defenses pointed toward some as yet un-found horror.
- wizard towers abandoned by their masters at all points down the timeline. Wildcards, but always hazardous because wizards.


It bears repeating.


It bears repeating.


It bears repeating.


It bears repeating.


It bears repeating.


It bears repeating.

Finally ran the last session for the main-line of the Hexcrawl25 campaign, so let us do a retrospective Against the Wicked City style since there were a lot of experimental practices running under the hood in this one.

Realm of the Reluctant King (Hexcrawl25), 28 Sessions (Jan 2025-May 2026)

What it was:

Actually a dual-mode campaign with persistent campaign and one-shot open tables running on the same map. 83% of sessions were the main campaign so we shall focus on that here. I will continue to use this as an easy frame for running one-shots.
- An experiment in bringing an old-school techniques to a typically '5e/Trad/one-shots' crowd.
- Pitched as a classic campaign testing a hexcrawl/west marches model where the players tell me what they want to do of a session.
- Running 5e but with old-school XP accrual - treasure recovery, monsters slain (or overcome/avoided), treasure squandered through carousing, hexes explored.
- Run when we had any three players; sometimes allowing a 'ride-along' open-table player

For completeness, the six adventures used for standalones in parallel were:
Waking of Willoughby Hall
Winters Daughter
Hole In The Oak
Home Reforged
Old Man Katan & Mushroom Band
Splinters: Land of the Dead

What worked: