d6 strange cyborgs

I drew these guys for my Patreon. Since I am too busy working on commissions I changed a bit my approach for my Patreon, what I do now instead of working on zines is that I often draw sets of characters or things that my patrons can freely use for their blog, games, zines or other publications.

I eventually want to get back to doing zines as I have multiple work in progress that are well advanced, but right now I am too low on money and I need to focus on drawing commissions.

So if you want to use some hand draw random tables, join my Patreon at 1$ or you can also simply follow my Patreon as once in a while I post stuff for everyone.

https://www.patreon.com/evlynmoreau

PDF versions of my zines

I have put all of my "old" zines in a sharable folder, this include some extra stuff like the doodles map.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/15uisPoVVbS2ztNHSmkrkn4-YQ7r-HAzE?usp=sharing
(The link is also listed on my blog's navigation bar on the right)

The only thing missing are my zines printed in colors that I may still sale in PDF forms: Paper Biome, Doodles Temple and The Doodles Factory in the Skies.

Potoo Island's building blocks

I am taking a break from drawing to work a bit on Potoo’s Island.

So this project is partly based on a joke and on a dream, I don’t really know where I want to go with this, I only know that I love potoo birds and that I want to craft something fun and strange based on them.

So I did some researches on the potoos and I took a good quantity of notes. I want to do something with the legend about the potoo being the spirit of a woman who fell from the moon and who call her moon husband at night.

Since I have no clear directions, I will begin by generating encounters to populate the island and then I will try to make sense of what will emerge. I will try to use the monsters building blocks method I posted earlier.

My building blocks will be things related to the potoo and the island.

Building blocks (d8)

1. Potoo bird 
2. Bugs (beetles, moths, grasshoppers and termites) (preys) 
3. Small birds (preys that potoo swallow whole!) 
4. Falcon (predators) 
5. Monkey (predators) 
6. Shipwrecked humans (who probably messed up the balance or ecology of the island) 
7. Rotting wood, tree stumps and mushrooms (thing that potoo camouflage as) 
8. Something fallen from the moon or the sky (reference to the legend) 

I also wrote some monsters archetypes to combine with the building blocks.

Encounter types (d12)

1. Sentient humanoids 
2. Mutated specialist function 
3. Strange chimera and hybrids 
4. Wild or primordial beasts (ancient ones may speak) 
5. Spirits (linked to a element or concept) 
6. Guardians (linked to a special location, gain advantage or power from it) 
7. Corrupted, cursed or undead 
8. Monstrous hoarder (accumulate stuff) 
9. Mimics, shapeshifters 
10. Deforestation, destruction of the environment 
11. Influenced or affected by a other building block (like falcons trained by humans or a ancient potoo spirit who hate humans) (Roll a d10 on this table to determine archetype and d8 on the building blocs table to determine relation) 
12. Roll two d10 on this table and mix the results, double result give a unique champion encounter with +1HD) 

I also crafted a random table that spotlight traits or aspects of the potoos. I will roll on this table when I need inspiration.

Potoo's aspects (d10)

1. Big eyes 
2. Big mouth, eat things whole 
3. Eerie call, induce fear or sadness 
4. Camouflage 
5. Stillness (or the need to avoid movements) 
6. Nocturnal, sleepy or lazy during day 
7. Eat insects and small birds 
8. Don’t hunt on the ground, mob defense 
9. Mate for life and lay a single egg, camouflaged hidden egg. 
10. Can be cartoony or spooky

I will probably start by generating creatures for each Hit Die I want to feature on the island. Then I will assign HD to areas of the island and craft random tables around these.

My template will probably be something like:

Area HD (d6)

1. Encounter from area’s HD 
2. Encounter from area’s HD 
3. Encounter from area’s HD 
4. Encounter from lower HD 
5. Encounter from +1 HD 
6. Encounter from +2 HD 

I will post next what I will have generated with these tables.

(cartoony)

(spooky)

Evey's book about scarabs magic

If you missed it, check out Evey’s publication about scarabs magic.

Look Beyond the Angry Eye of God, Heathen is available as pay what you want on One book shelve: https://www.rpgnow.com/product/259196/Look-Beyond-the-Angry-Eye-of-God-Heathen

Evey is one of the voices that I hope people will nurture in this new hopeful cycle of old school gaming. She is a bit gross at time (her alignment being cute-gross) but she is also very sensitive and 

her raw and vibrant art is constantly mutating and evolving. 

Remember my old campaign concept about playing a coven of witches using only a specific set of spells? You could totally play that with a coven of witches who secretly studies the books of scarabs. Or if you prefer something more fantasy, the scarabs magic coud be a good fit to use with the Spinetooth Oasis.

Slumber City

This is a contribution for a city generator project that Anxy is working on.
Anxy generated this map using his system with my city set: 

Slumber City

A long time ago, to repel a large invading force, the mages of the city casted a powerful mass sleep spell, they lost control of the spell and now it essence is bound into the city itself. The city now stand at the edge of the waking and slumber worlds.

Truths

• Slumbering: because of the sleep essence infused in the city, people are often dozy and regularly fall asleep, sleeping is greatly respected, waking up someone is badly view.
• Slumberland: the city coexist in the Slumberland, people who fall asleep in the city continue their daily routine in the Slumberland. Work in the Slumberland is considered on the same level as working in the waking world. The farther you venture beyond the city walls the more strange and alien the Slumberland become.
• Sleepwalkers are people who are stuck between both world, they exist in both and do everything in a sleepwalking mode, it is hard to communicate with them in either worlds.
• Architecture: baroque and highly influenced by the strange architecture of the Slumberland. There is a lot of import and export between the two worlds. Sandmen do most of the import and export as they can physically travel between both worlds. Dreams gates can also be summoned but are unstable.

Landmarks d10

1. Gigantic rock carved in the shape of a sleepy moon.
2. City hall build with meteorites stones imported from the slumber world
3. Clockwork dome containing mechanical spheres following the movement of the planets and the stars.
4. Giant clock tower that stopped after midnight, strange events sometimes cause the big needle to advance.
5. Multi story baroque hostel made of beds
6. Slumber sanitarium for the sleepwalkers, immense marble hallways and high coloms.  
7. Quiet lake always reflecting the night sky. Dream creatures can be spotted at night.
8. Royal statues of the sleeping royalty, sleeping beauty style, gigantic sculpted bed.  
9. Giant hourglass building with stairways and offices.
10. Gigantic sleeping monster, felt asleep while invading the city. It dreamself is tiny.  

Neighborhoods d30

1. Sleeperhood, everyone felt asleep during their daily routine. People are paid to take care of them but it is forbidden to move them.
2. Sweet dreams hood, sleeping here give better dreams, higher priced.
3. Nightmares hood, sleeping here give bad dreams, low rent.
4. Boring dreams, sleeping here bring super boring dreams. People develop odd habits.
5. Houses for insomniacs, shunned or pitied by everyone. Paid by city council.
6. Bed crafters guild and prestigious families.
7. Hypnotists convention, lots of little shops.
8. Secret coffee shops, operate like speakeasy.  
9. Sandmen neighborhood. Mysterious but friendly, locals avoid them.
10. Cats neighbors, own houses. Waking a cat is a crime.
11. Dreams selling market, dream gates summoners, sandmen unwelcomed.
12. Runaway dreams and Slumberland refugees. Spontaneous dream gates.
13. Dreams theater, lot of artists, opium cafe, bordello.
14. Dream powder makers. Lots of bakeries.
15. Clockwork craftsmen, lots of clocks and mechanical hourglass.  
16. Academic neighborhood, occult psychology, Slumberland history, astronomy.  
17. Astronomers, every houses have a telescope. Night lights are forbidden
18. Swarm of fireflies, some large ones are sacred, fireflies temples.   
19. Silent neighborhood, noise is forbidden, lots of pianists (who work elsewhere).  
20. Sleepwalker’s families are honored and their house are decorated.
21. Painted shadows on walls. Old woman’s shadows shop. Orphans shadows catchers.  
22. Nocturnal birds market, elaborate cages. Best pillows and mattresses.  
23. Moon masked people own shops, sell selenites goods and services.
24. Windowless houses, people avoid each others. No one speak of their dreams.
25. Best Paprika spices, exported in the Slumberland.
26. Best lanterns crafters and candle makers, frown upon torches.   
27. Force sleepwalkers to wear tiny bells and coloured ritual outfits based on a slumberland monster that haunt the neighborhood.
28. Pyjama market, import silk from the Slumberland.
29. Statues of famous sleepwalkers and Slumberland creatures. Sculptors are highly respected and feared.  
30. Street lamps lighted by a single person who is treated like a king.

Encounters d100

1. Sleepy people disturbing circulation or activities because of their sleepiness.
2. Chain sleep: 1d6 people fall asleep, on a 6 roll a other d6.
3. Someone try to exploit or steal from a sleeper.
4. 1d6 sleepwalkers interacting together.
5. Faded dream self of someone stuck in the waking world.
6. Someone thinking they are still in Slumberland (or the reverse).
7. Helpful or simply pleasant dream creature from a sweet dream.
8. Someone being tracked down by their nightmare (real or imaginary).
9. Someone having too many boring dreams and being full of strange ritualistic habits.
10. Insomniac begging for dream powder
11. Bedcrafters guild members delivering a masterwork bed
12. Bedthiefs heisting a bed, working for the thief guild.
13. Pillows fight, bystanders are horrified for the pillows.
14. Bed crafters apprentices offering their services to repair beds.
15. Depressive Hypnotist, their hypnosis always go wrong in some manner.  
16. Random people under the control of a criminal, delusional or rogue hypnotist.
17. Coffee beans dealers making a secret delivery or city guards looking for coffee beans accompanied by a coffee sniffer.
18. Sandmen speaking their sign language or smoking colorful pipes.
19. Sandmen tracing a dream gate using colored sand.
20. Sandman kid, mother or elder observing the characters.
21. 2d6 cats holding council.
22. Cat with human condemned to serve them for 1d6 moon cycles for waking them.
23. Old cat lady under the cat council’s protection.
24. Dreams sellers trying to catch a escaped dream or nightmare.
25. Someone asking a refund from a dream seller
26. Dream sellers bullying a lone sandman
27. Runaway dream creatures in need of help or hungry.
28. Dream mage and their entourage headed to summon or stabilize a official dream gate.   
29. Guards cleaning up a sandmen’s dream gate. (removing the sand).
30. Lonely dream or nightmare lost in the big city
31. Family of Slumberland immigrant searching for a place to settle.
32. Spontaneous dream gate, very unstable. May lead to bad dream weather.
33. A small dream theater performing in the streets, one of the performer is interested by one of the PCs
34. Misfit group of rogues delivering opium.
35. Sleepwalker teenager running away from a local bordello.
36. Dreamworker selling their erotic dreams for cheap.  
37. Street painter who can paint your dream self or even alter it if you are willing to visit their workshop.
38. Orphan having stolen a dream powder loaf of bread
39. Oh! Oh! A dream powder application or delivery accident, save vs sleep!
40. Someone consuming dream powder to fall asleep.
41. Dreampowder gang using custom powder to steal from people.
42. Jovial dreampowder apprentice bakers offering sample pastries decorated with dreampowder sugar.
43. Orphans working as clockwork oilers, some of them are still very clumsy.
44. Clockwork construx, may be sentient and sad for not being able to dream.
45. Clockwork construx, malfunctioning, damaged or rusted.
46. Clockwork merchant driving a wheeled stand, sell tiny clockwork pets and devices.
47. University students, stressed or distracted by their studies or assignments.   
48. Lonely student being bullied by… (roll again on this table)
49. Teacher of (d6) in need of assistance: 1) occult psychology, 2) Slumberland history, 3) celestial astronomy,  4) dream botany, 5) sleep chemistry, 6) clockwork mechanic.
50. Students distributing their newsletter or journal.  
51. Passionate astronomer trying to install a telescope in a unusual location.
52. Lunaphiles offering to tell your lunar horoscope
53. Mercenaries hired by a biter astronomer to dismantle street lights and other source of light pollution.
54. Out of control light devouring creature summoned by a cabal of occult astronomers to fight light pollution.   
55. Swarm of large fireflies, may follow adventurers for the night
56. Procession of fireflies worshipers with beautifully crafted lantern and fireflies jars.
57. Giant firefly hunting moths and smaller fireflies.
58. Firefly mimic using her light to attract a human mate.
59. Swarm of large moths or other nocturnal insects.
60. Large dream powder moth, grumpy and don’t want to be disturbed.
61. Mothman drinking from dreams.   
62. Pianist needing help moving their piano.
63. Members of the Silence Guild trying to keep people quiet so that people can peacefully sleep.
64. A lone sleepwalker try to join the group, it is hard to communicate with them but they are a good team player.
65. The family of a sleepwalker take good (or bad) cares of them, some people give them offerings (or tax these offerings).
66. People respecting, pitying or mocking a busy sleepwalker.  
67. A drained shadowless person desperately try to stand in the shadow of other people.
68. Escaped shadows playing, running, crying or hunting in the street.
69. Shadow catchers kids tracking down rogue shadows.
70. Shadow grabbers stealing shadows from tourists.
71. Large nocturnal bird spying, hunting, guarding or delivering something.
72. Bird catchers delivering a rare nocturnal bird or trying to catch one.    
73. Large sentient nocturnal bird, talkative during the night and dreaming during the day.
74. Moon masked people doing business in sign language. (1 chance on a d6 of this being about something occult, criminal or romantic).
75. Sélénites, tall alien inhabitants of the moon, speak only in sign and phases language. Probably tourists or scholars but there is a chance on a d6 that they have some occult, criminal or romantic goals.
76. Grotesques moon beasts buying merchandises, eat dream beings and despise Sélénites.
77. Veiled agoraphobe looking for shelter.
78. Paranoiac person scared of imaginary dream beings.  
79. Contagious dream or nightmare that spread like the flu.
80. Paprika imbued dream mage. Protect dreamers and dream beings, helpful but fear their own past trauma or self doubts. Friendly with sandmen.   
81. Merchant delivering paprika peppers to a spice maker. May be targeted by pepper thiefs or small dream beings who love the taste of pepper.   
82. Street dealer selling paprika spice cut with dream powder or dream sand.  
83. Fully geared professional lantern keeper offering their service. Full refund if their lantern ever extinguish.   
84. Magic lantern hanging in some strange location, it prismatic light have strange magical effects.
85. Garden of candles full of oddly shaped candles and moon cakes offerings, dream sprites like to hang out here but there is a chance on d6 that the garden hide a wax homunculi or a corrupted dream being (that devoured the sprites).
86. Sleepwalker brightly costumed as the bogeyman monster.  
87. Slumberland bogeyman in search of a lone prey, the bogeyman is sacred and no one want to hurt it.
88. Spontaneous monster festival because someone spotted the bogeyman, people wear grotesques masks and paint grotesques effigies on their doors.   
89. People having a open door pyjama party, everyone are welcomed if they wear a pyjama.
90. Someone wearing a impressive tailored pyjama or a custom self made one.  
91. Old person transporting a large collection of colorful cloth ballots on their back.
92. Silkworm people delivering their goods, may be targeted by silk thieves, silk eaters or worms hunters.  
93. Strange sculpture, oddly disturbing or calming.
94. Sculptor, feared and respected for their strange powers stolen from the Slumberland.
95. Animated sculpture doing a task for a sculptor, silent, strange movements.
96. Decorated streets lamps, local people are cheerful and more friendly.
97. Street lamp lighter, respected chosen one, geared to ward off light devourers and shadow beings that are maybe stalking them.  
98. Street lamp hosting a colony of life draining glow wisps.
99. Sleepy mage specialized in sleep spells. Work for the city mage guild, apprentices may be assigned to the city watch.
100. City watch investigating a recent serious crime. May use a sleep mage or a sanctioned sleepwalker detective.

Basic boring monsters as building blocks

I am playing on my computer Heroes of a Broken Land, a procedural grid based dungeon crawler and I noted that the monsters were all variations of basic boring creatures like bats, snakes, rats, slimes, zombies, etc… I wondered if it could be interesting to create a monster manual using a limited palettes of creatures as building blocks.

Why? I like low-fi basic stuff and I am intrigued by the thematic settings that may emerge out of these limited palettes. This is just a “lonely fun” experiment but it could be useful to generate local biomes. Well, I guess this link to my love of biomes too.

So for our basic palette I thought of six basic boring monsters types:

1. Flying harrowers: bats, birds, flying bugs 
2. Slow and slimy ambushers: frogs, slugs, snails, leeches 
3. Poisonous predators: snakes, centipedes, spiders, scorpions 
4. Smart scavengers: rats, crows, monkeys (ants?) 
5. Stubborn turtlers: crabs, beetles, turtles 
6. Formless dissolver: slime, ooze, jelly, moss (plants could be fun too)  

We could start with something very generic like:

1. Bats 
2. Frogs 
3. Snakes 
4. Rats 
5. Crabs 
6. Slimes 

Or we could go with something more whimsical like:

1. Fireflies 
2. Anemone 
3. Centipede 
4. Hyena (a bit too big for a basic monster but let's try it) 
5. Trilobites 
6. Jellies 

So then I created 10 types of flavors or types of creatures we find in the monster manual.
(I put exemples in broad order of HD in parenthesis)

1. Humanoids (goblins, orcs, burbears, ogres, giants, titan) 
2. Domesticated beasts (pets, messenger, hunting, burden, war, mount, cattle) 
3. Ferocious packs, lone predators or territorial grazers (wild beasts, from small to gigantic) 
4. Strange chimera (satyrs, harpies, centaurs, pegasus, griffons, manticores) 
5. Artificial construx (animated statues, clockwork beings, golems) 
6. Nature spirits (sprites, faes, blinking, nymph, unicorn, elemental, swampthing) 
7. Watchful guardians (skeletons, gargoyles, medusa, minotaur, sphynx, naga, mummies, beholder) 
8. Creatures of the night (zombies, ghouls, shadows, werebeasts, ghosts, vampires, demons) 
9. Monstrous hoarders (hydra, abomination, dragon) 
10. Mimics (doppelgangers, carnivorous traps, parasites, shapeshifters) 

Now the idea is to mix our palettes of monsters with these special flavors. I think that I would generate 6 creatures for each step of HD.

Generic palette

1HD

1. Hunting Bats (trained to hunt giant bugs) 
2. Tiny Faes riding on Frogs 
3. Cameleon Snakes 
4. Ratfolk Carpenters 
5. Collector Crabs 
6. Slimes Hounds 

2HD

1. Clockwork Bats 
2. Clawed Frogs 
3. War Snakes (warbeasts) 
4. Wolf-Rats 
5. Mule-Crabs (beasts of burden) 
6. Coins slimes 

3HD

1. Bat maidens 
2. Work Toads (beasts of burden) 
3. Snakemen shapeshifters 
4. Ghoul Rats 
5. Mace Crabs 
6. Ectoplasmic Slimes 

…9HD

1. Blind giants with batlikes features, live deep underground. 
2. Titan Toads (grumpy but gentle giants) 
3. The Watcher of the Ivory Tower (100 eyes giant snake) 
4. The Eater of the Deads (gigantic many headed humanoid rat queen) 
5. Old Molten (gigantic steam breathing Crab) 
6. War shamblers (gigantic slimes mind controlled for war) 

Whimsical palette

1HD

1. Blood Fireflies (drain blood with their light) 
2. Shoulder Anemone (pets) 
3. Temple’s Centipede (ivory carapaces) 
4. Laughing sticks (hyena made of tied sticks by witches) 
5. Trilobites Tribe (humanoids) 
6. Jellies Gloves (jellies that wrap around hands) 

2HD

1. Fireflies-Mentis (dog sized nasty hybrid) 
2. Guarding Anemone (dog sized crawling anemone) 
3. Rollers (centipede who roll on itselves and hunt in packs) 
4. Thirsty Watchers (hyena with eyes on their fur, must be summoned) 
5. Mermaid’s Masks (trilobite that sing like mermaids, their shell look like a woman face) 
6. Butterflies-Jellies (shimmering flying faery jellies, dissolve hopes) 

3HD

1. Ghost Fireflies (their ghostly light lure people like will-o-the-wisps) 
2. Shadow-Anemone 
3. Centipede-Gargoyles (take a lot of patience to sculpts the legs) 
4. Trap Jaws (clockwork big jawed hyena who eat metal bits) 
5. Crawling Masons (big land trilobites colonies who form stone structures) 
6. Jellies Ruffs (graft around neck to control host) 

...9HD

1. Balefirefly (demonic firefly that eat souls with it light) 
2. Anemone-Naga (guardian giant anemone-headed snake with multiple women heads hidden inside the anemone) 
3. The Horde (fire breathing giant centipede, named for it thousand legs) 
4. The Laughing Mother (giant centaur hyena woman) 
5. The Elder (Gigantic fossilized undead Trilobite) 
6. Carmina Jellies (vampire jelly that can take a humanoid form) 

Maybe I could use this to generate the biome of the Potoo Island.

The Shrinking Land

I tried to write a more personal post to present my point of view on the cycle of abuses that the author of Vornheim inflicted on a significant part of the OSR, DIY and RPG communities. But I still have a hard time processing everything and the words are difficult to come by.

What I can say is that when I discovered the old school gaming community, it felt like a vast and wonderful land full of friendly and creative people. When I discovered this land I was wounded from a failed attempt at transitioning, interacting with these people helped me to heal and to start drawing again.

But then Z.Sabbath conflictual and controlling attitude started to impact more and more the community, he started putting my friends on trial, labeling them and asking other people to block them and to stop interacting with them. This opened my eyes and I started to notice his gaslighting, controlling and grooming tactics. As the toxic behaviors repeated themselves (including those of others), the land grew poorer, creative people that inspired me a lot left and I had to avoid many community spaces and projects. Z Sabbath befriended many of my friends, including all of my trans women friends and the places where I felt safe were fewer and fewer, the land shrunk under my feet.

Eventually it became too difficult for me to manage my relations with other creators as many of them tolerated or supported him, when I saw that he was playing a leadership role in the G+ diaspora I understood that I could not follow them. And then there was the LotFP photo incident that spotlighted a very transphobic author and the transphobic reactions that followed, including the “I identify as a alien helicopter” post by Venger S that many humored. These things made me feel in a inhospitable place and I could not get closer to my allies as many of them supported the author of Vornheim. So I decided to leave the RPG community… I closed everything and I took refuge on my Patreon and eventually in Shel Khan’s tiny community of artists on Discord.

But the thing is that I really enjoy crafting and publishing roleplaying games material. In January I slowly started working back on some of my unfinished projects but working in exile was not the same, I felt cut away, things felt less meaningful and I had a hard time motivating myself. Now that things seem to change because of some courageous testimonies, I feel like that I can slowly reconnect with the RPG community and feel safe again interacting with other gamers and creators.

This was the story part, I could also discuss how Z.Sabbath toxic and controlling behavior made the old school community a creatively poorer space, especially for people who had different sensibilities. But right now I just want to have fun creating again and to move forward.

I want to move forward slowly and carefully. I am reopening this blog to use it as a archive and I will maybe open a new one to post gaming stuff, but I don’t know yet. I will put back my roleplaying zines on LuLu when I will find some time. I am also accepting some commissions for games related illustrations. Naturally, I still want to work on non gaming related projects, like coloring books, children books, comics and other artsy zines. (Right now I simply work on what seem fun and doable).