declanlowthian

A black and white illustration titled marchesa aphrodite, with shrouded figures on a dock.

Six languages and three dialects

I’m really enjoying the language-themed blog posts going around right now, check them out if you haven’t.  “The Ugg-Tecture of Language” by Playful Void “Quantum Languages for Basic D&D” by Pointless Monument “Thirteen Tongues (Making Languages Interesting)” by Dungeonfruit Inspired by the Dungeonfruit post, I wrote some languages and their special uses. Descriptions or mechanics …

Six languages and three dialects Read More »

The Cyclopean Ruins (pt. 3)

Today I’ll be continuing level 4 of my megadungeon, this one entitled “The Cyclopean Ruins.” In case you missed it, I’m basically trying to create a series of isolated environments, and then I’ll connect them with a mess of passages, overlapping encounter tables, etc. For the first part, I’m just stocking the dungeon. I haven’t …

The Cyclopean Ruins (pt. 3) Read More »

2d6 encounter table

This summer, I was fortunate enough to take part in the School for Poetic Computation’s Worlds in Conversation class, led by Everest Pipkin, Weaver Walker, and Caro Asercion. It was a real boost to my motivation and excitement when it comes to game design, and I’m hoping to be posting more here. Specifically, doing small, …

2d6 encounter table Read More »

Universus, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Love the Difficulty Check

In my last “review” of Universus, I said the following: “I think this game far outpaces the Pokémon TCG in terms of having levers to pull on, and I know I barely scratched the surface of the gameplay.” This was, I know now, a severe understatement. I’ve played a lot more Universus in the intervening …

Universus, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Love the Difficulty Check Read More »