Irving Thanks You

Currently Irving is one of our all-time top downloads. Who would have thought that would be the case? Well, at least he's tickled pink, or purple, as the case may be. With all these downloads, we'd love to hear about people's experiences with running an Impressionable Young Shoggoth in your games...

Ibglibdishpan, for Trey

I had a few minutes in-between things so I did a quick sketch of one of Trey's Ibglibdishpan aliens from his Strange Stars series. They're like alien mentats bred to serve a far flung star empire. It's a fun series. Go check it out. Maybe next week, if I get some more time, I'll be able to do something a little more detailed...

Something Wicked...

We are in the final stages of proofreading a peculiar little grimoire of spells for OD&D / Swords & Wizardry and/or any other OSR-Style RPG that combines science, sorcery and a touch of Lovecraft and Clive Barker. It is a collaborative effort between us and two other bloggers and we're rather pleased to see it finally about to be released upon an unsuspecting public...

Bujilli: Episode 58

Previously...
Bujilli and Leeja survived their time in the Arena. They've both been admitted to the Academy. Beatrice Eberhard has been rushed off to Hedrard's offices and Gnosiomandus would like a word with them both before Orientation officially begins...

"You've done well. Both of you." Gnosiomandus sounded distracted. Everyone else was gone. They were alone on the edge of the Arena.

Bujilli stood before the old man. Leeja still held his hand. They had witnessed something profound, he was sure of that much, but he was drastically out of his depth, tossed into the deep end of politics and internecine academic conflicts he knew nothing about. He looked out at the Arena. He disliked this place. It reminded him of the naked belly of a beast. It was cold and empty; no hungry. Waiting.

"You're right, of course. This place will not lie fallow and neglected forever. Nor is it the only Arena established within these walls. Much blood has been spilled here. Not all of it for the better." Gnosiomandus rubbed his gnarly old hands together. They were none the cleaner.

"But why? What's the point?" Bujilli regarded his erstwhile mentor as if seeing him for the first time, a sense of betrayal boiling up from his guts.

"So now you'll want to ask whether or not we're actually civilized. Alas, yes, we are quite civilized. That's a large part of our problem, the root of so many of our many problems."

"I do not understand..."

"An excellent place from which to start. Come along you two. We can share a drink or two while I set the requisite paperwork in motion and perhaps I can answer a few of your questions...though I doubt I can do much about any doubts you may be harboring. This is Wermspittle, not some cosmopolitan metropolis where things work like they ought to, where things didn't crash or get overwritten by malwa--malevolent spirits. Things went sour here, badly. Intensely. But some of us are trying to do something about all that."

"Was there a war then?"

"Many wars. Wermspittle has been surrounded by wars from before it even had a name. Heretics, bandits and outcasts; our unfair little enclave was founded in the midst of a great war. We're no strangers to war, not here. But to answer your question, no...it wasn't so much a war...hmmm...well...hmmm..." Gnosiomandus scowled. His eyes took on an unfocused, glassy appearance as he contemplated what he was attempting to explain.

"Yes?" Leeja prodded the old scholar.

"Ahem. Yes. Ah, let us go to my office. No. My study. I have some rather good brandy that I brought back from Anselgo that you might enjoy. They make it from green peaches. It's quite sour, but something tells me you both have something of an affinity for such things."

Gnosiomandus led the way to one of the arches that slid into view as he approached, just as Sprague and the Head Mistress had done before. A soft golden light flickered across the comfortable, familiar study--the room where Bujilli had first encountered Gnosiomandus.

BLACKNESS. FREEZING COLD. HOWLING WIND. TASTE OF BLOOD.

Bujilli propped himself up. He was sprawled across an uneven, harsh stone floor. Sickly green light seeped towards him from an ornate brass lantern swaying from the crooked arm of a black iron staff jammed into a crack in the floor. Blood dripped from his mouth, matting on his chin whiskers.

He nearly vomited as he sat up. His eyes took a while to adjust.

He was in a cave. Alone.

Crumbly chalk and coarse-ground blue-green salt described a geometric figure, a diagram with seven points. He was at the center of it. The other six lanterns were burned-out. There was a heavy scent of yak butter and incense clinging to the space. As far as he knew, only certain of the Almas used dung as a binder for their ritual incense.

Bujilli didn't need to look out the icicle-fanged mouth of the cave to know where he was.

He knew this cave.

All too well.

His scars itched.

Damned centipedes.

He considered his options.

Going farther back into the cave would take him to a well-worn ledge overlooking a dismal shaft that led deep down below. There were many centipedes down there. Some of them the size of whales. and there were the things that they hunted, or that fed upon them. He'd spent much of his youth as a 'dangler' getting lowered on a harness from rough ropes by his mother's kin. Either his baskets and bags weer full when they pulled him back up, or else they'd kick him back over the ledge and he'd have to start over again.

Bujilli hated centipedes. But he knew how to handle himself around them.

The storm outside was certain to hide his tracks...but they wouldn't need to follow his footprints, not if they could rip him away from Wermspittle with a crude diagram and some shitty incense. Summoned like a demon. Bujilli grinned, making his lips bleed a little more. Then he spotted the bundle next to the lantern post.

Red silk. bound with strips of chitin cut from a medium-sized centipede.

The sigil daubed on the bundle in golden, greasy paint was his name.

It contained a severed braid.

His hair.

"Uncle? Why have you brought me back here?"

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Previous                                                       Next

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Series Indexes

One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six

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Starting Page  |  Central Index

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About Bujilli (What is This?) | Who is Bujilli? | How to Play

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Bujilli's Character Sheet | Leeja's Character Sheet | Cast of Characters

Bujilli's Spells | Little Brown Journals | Loot Tally | House Rules

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Episode Guides
Series One (Episodes 1-19)

Series Two (Episode 20-36)

Series Three (Episodes 37-49)

Series Four (Episodes 50-68)

Series Five (Episodes 69-99)
Series Six(Episodes 100-ongoing)

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Labyrinth Lord   |   Advanced Edition Companion

Revised Geomorphs: Series1 (All Sets)

Here are links to our first series of Geomorphs, originally released through Netherwerks. This first series was something of an experiment and we learned a few things and received some interesting, and helpful feedback from certain of our readers (Thanks Gus, Tim, Porky and everyone else!)

There will be more Geomorphs coming your way soon!
In the mean-time hopefully some of you may find these handy or useful in your upcoming games.

Series 1/Set Zero is available as either a Jpeg or a PDF via our Free Stuff Folder at BOX.
(The handy widget is on the right.)

Series 1/Set 1 is available as a Jpeg or PDF via BOX.

Series 1/Set 2 is available as a Jpeg or PDF via BOX.

Series 1/Set 3 is now available via BOX as either a Jpeg or a PDF version.

Series 1/Set 4 is also available as either a Jpeg or PDF via BOX.

Series 1/Set 5 is also available in either Jpeg or PDF flavor, via BOX.

So there you go: Series One -- six pages, 36 Geomorphs -- all ready to print out, cut apart and put to use in your next game. 

You might also want to take a look at our Cave and Tunnel Hazard tables. We have a few more of those on the way as well...

Not Dead Yet...

I want to thank everyone who has offered their support , encouragement and kind words during the last month or so. I am doing better, much better. I've started writing again, and drawing. I'm finally getting used to the new bifocals. My health has improved quite a bit as well. I'll spare you the details. Suffice to say that I'm raring to make-up the time I've lost and get back on track with all the projects heaped across my desk, and on the floor, etc.

Spring is coming...and it looks like I have a ton of work ahead of me...

It's good to be back.

Happy GM's Day

Today is GM's Day at Drive Thru RPG/RPGnow. Actually, according to their animated gif up above, the whole week is GM's Day...so...okay...anyhow it's a pretty nice discount. And besides most GM's have an almost draconian fondness for tribute, so maybe it might just be in your best interest to pick up something nifty for your GM...just saying...

Beginnings...

Everyone has to start somewhere. I began my first blog (Old School Heretic) after I re-read this particular line from Andre Breton; "The mind which plunges into Surrealism, relives with burning excitement the best part of childhood." Fairly innocuous stuff. For most people. But not for me. I sat back and asked myself what was the best part of my childhood. And I sat. Quietly. For a long time.

I couldn't answer the question. Not easily. Not clearly. Not without stirring up a lot of unpleasantness.

So, like Tyr placing his hand in the wolf's mouth, I stirred things up and went in search of an answer. I dug up all my old artwork that had been packed away, the stuff I had drawn as a kid back when I drew things nearly every waking hour. A lot of it has been lost. Thankfully. But a good bit of it survived. So I sorted it all into piles. One of the larger stacks was stuff I had done in Junior High. The Seventies. I had my first winter without pneumonia back then. One whole winter without getting deathly ill. That was a big thing for me then. Still is, really. I was fortunate to have an incredible teacher take an interest in what I was doing. Mr. Schroeder had me show him all my sketches and doodles. He examined them like they might be hieroglyphs or somehow worth something--my family were fairly outspoken that I was wasting my time. Schroeder did not think that I was wasting my time. He took me to the back of the classroom, showed me the basics of how to use pen & ink, markers, watercolors. That was the high-point of my existence. The happiest time of my life. That would definitely be 'the best part of childhood,' as far as I'm concerned.

I was raised in my grandparent's house, with a folding vinyl door, listening to my grandfather's nightmares every night. I spent nearly every winter confined to my bed with raging fever, fighting to breathe, drenched in sweat, hacking up blood, my lungs increasingly scarred from pneumonia. My heart stopped more than once. They were sure that they had lost me a few times. I still wake-up expecting to be packed in ice or to feel those cold, steel paddles on my chest. There is a good bit of other stuff I used to try very hard to forget or to bury...but you have to take the bad with the good. What happened, happened and I survived. Abuse ends. Eventually. After a fashion. The hateful, hurtful words echo on. And on. But in time it fades, sort of. Becomes less important. Less defining. You never get past it, but you do outlive it, and in my case you get to prove them wrong and go on to live a good life, on my own terms.

I grew up surrounded with other people's regrets and nightmares, on the edge of a swamp, in the clutches of a perpetually bickering old couple who could never fully decide whether they were resigned to having my brother and I around or resentful of our presence. It wasn't like we had too many options. We both tried to run away...but there simply wasn't anywhere to go, and no way to get there. A pointless exercise in futility. So I withdrew into my comics, books and drawing.

Growing up the way I did, my rebellious streak was essential to my personal survival. Being sick so often, getting stuck in my room, sometimes pinned-down in my bed...I began to look upon my time cooped-up in my room as a form of incarceration. I just could never figure out what crime I might have committed to merit the punishment. But it wasn't all bad. I read a lot. Books, books, books...and comic books as well. I was able to scrounge and accumulate quite a collection of dog-eared, ripped or cover-less old comics, often by the grocery bag or box full during the summers when we went to farm auctions. A lot of old farmers really liked comics. I was also able to pick-up all manner of books from the thrift shops when we went into town. We didn't have much. Money was always tight. I did get a small allowance, so I learned early-on how to scrimp and save and wait or do without. Or make it up myself. Maybe it was all those pages and panels of gonzo cosmic art drawn by Jack Kirby that I read while going through a bout of fever, but I started to make up my own stories, drew my own characters, built my own worlds...

My first piece of art sold over summer vacation. I received a check. It wasn't much, but it meant the world to me. My grandparents had to take me to the bank to cash it. I had made money with my scribbling. That changed things. Made it 'real' somehow. The negativity never went away, but they were less sure of themselves. I was also getting taller. Stronger. I didn't get quite as sick, nor as often, any more. They were getting older. The beatings stopped. I finally had my first winter without pneumonia. That was also the year I discovered Tolkein, Moorcock, Zelazny, Heavy Metal (Metal Hurlant), and Dungeons and Dragons...all within a few months of each other.

Old School Heretic arose from some twisted, ugly roots as a way to re-examine and reclaim the good stuff from out of the muck and mire of memory and circumstance. Hereticwerks grew out of that process. For the last couple of years I've systematically mined all of those old drawings, notes, maps and other stuff--the debris of all those years ago. I've re-acquainted myself with it, revised it, reworked it, reclaimed it. I've come to terms with these fragments and figments from out of my past. It hasn't always been so easy, but it has been liberating, and well worth the effort. But I'm done with 'what was,' and 'what might have been,' for now. I'm much more interested in what new things I can come up with from here on out. Moving forward. A fresh start. A new beginning.

I find it slightly funny that here I am writing this, and I'm sick again. I've missed Bujilli, but it couldn't be helped. My health took a nose-dive just after the holidays, but I am getting better. I won't bore you with my revised dietary scheme, nor my renewed exercise schedule, or any of that crap. Suffice it to say I'm back to drawing more regularly. Writing daily. Getting things done. Next week or next month, whenever it works out, Bujilli will return, and so will I.

New stuff.

Yeah.

Lithus Will Continue

Lithus Sector will continue, most likely it will resume next week, barring any further complications and/or health issues.