Treasure Island Reviews

 There are two now posted on Drivethru.rpg. Ringing endorsements for the product all-in-all. Which is great because I don’t do this for the money. It is out there as a living thing. 

Review link: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/437116

Western USR 3rd Edition Full Color PDF Available for Review!

 Here is a link to the new 3rd edition of USR. This is the second of my publications to utilize AI-generated art. What I like about AI-generated art is it allows me to move forward with full-color publications without costing me my monthly mortgage. 

I would love to pay real people to make real things for my books but my stuff has limited appeal and limited revenue potential so throwing serious cash at artwork is not feasible for the VTP. Not that I haven't done it. I truly enjoy satisfaction from paying other DIY'ers cash  money for their contributions to my game books. Feeling connected to a greater hobby world through cash transactions is intention made manifest. But I still want to get books out and I want them to look as good as I can with the time available to me. 

So please download for FREE my finished PDF copy of Western USR. This is the same copy which will be available on Drivethrurpg.com, so yeah, a back door to free product. But please try and play it. Please shoot someone in the face utilizing the RAW, and tell me how it plays. Better yet, write a full on review of actual gameplay and I will send you a free softcover copy of the book with the actual full-color cover!

Shrine of the Keepers Now Available Full Color Hardback

Yes, I have created my first full color publication. Shrine of the Keepers is now available as its own stand alone adventure module. I took the plunge and played around with AI to generate the full color illustrations for the adventure module. Here are some photos of the final product. 

It is 33 pages and by this time the adventure has been vetted for all typos, it is a clean manuscript. Hey, it is even complete with a 5e conversion guide so you can play the adventure with the world's most popular roleplaying game. 

This 33 page adventure is available as a POD publication from Drivethrurpg.com. Get your blood-soaked copy today!

First Professional Writing Gig Now Available: Treasure Island!

Night Owl Workshop has just released the PDF version of Treasure Island Adventure for your old-school roleplaying game. Ostensibly written for their game Freebooters!, the adventure is compatible with all the usual suspects.

What do you get? The Admiral Benbow, breakdowns on all the principle characters found in the novel, city crawling rules and tables for the busy shipping port of Bristol, England, and the complete environs of the island itself. Best of all, you get a solid structure in which to work the novel as a true ttrpg adventure opportunity!  

This is my first "professional" writing gig and I acquired the contract from Thomas Denmark because I responded to his open call for a writer for this project. That's how it rolls in the ttrpg industry. Just force yourself in the room and say you want at it! I'm glad he took a chance on an unknown person because the subject matter is one I hold a great fondness for. I have read Treasure Island numerous times since a kid, so the material I was to write about was very familiar. I have also held up the novel as a master class in pace. The story moves with such a heart-pounding pace I find it a true marvel of excellent adventure writing. I chuckled the first time I learned Robert Louis Stevenson was fond of cocaine. I wonder how much this influenced the "pace" of his writing?

Any-who, I think I nailed it. If you are looking for an old-school adventure on the Spanish Main you may not do better than this obscure output from the Vanishing Tower Press! 

Full disclosure; I tried to complete a second writing assignment for Night Owl and failed miserably. So, first important freelance writing tip I can offer is don't take an assignment that you can't immediately see a "great" idea forming up worthy of a published adventure. I tried to force myself just to "produce" and I don't have it in me. I need to write on something I am passionate about achieving, or I won't get very far. Fortunately, the public is only going to see this output,  buy a great adventure book, and when compared to my other adventure and gaming products find I can consistently put out fun, and useable stuff.

And not all I wrote for Night Owl Workshop made it into this book. I wrote up two cool-ass adventures based on my Renaissance campaign I ran in the Clockwork & Chivalry  setting from Cakebread & Walton. The cartography needed for these two adventures was holding up release of the book so it will be released as a separate adventure package. I'm okay with that. It actually creates two more products I can list to the accomplishments of the Vanishing Tower Press.