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8.6.23
salt and pepper performance mark one
hello and welcome to my blob. i've been very busy for a long time but quiet about it, except on instagram, and that is a very ephemeral kind of noisiness so here we are.
i've written a tabletop miniatures game about fairies vying for the attention and favor of the fairy king. it's been percolating for awhile, ever since i wrote fairyland, and aims to give an answer to "what do fairies get up to in their free time", ie when mortal adventurers aren't available for their amusement. really it's an excuse to roll up phantasmagorical beings and push them around the table, roll some dice, cause some disasters. max and i tested it for the first time when we were in sedona recording the demon lord tape. it was very fun but immediately apparent that it needed a lot of testing. "i will make a tabletop simulator mod" i said, and it always seemed a very straightforward thing to do except that i never found myself doing it, like many things that require a computer. which! i am so sad about, ambiently! i love a computer. just not lately, at all. except now i am starting to again, just a little bit.
anyway i made a tabletop simulator mod! that is a picture of it up there. it was way harder than i anticipated but also easier, which is how it goes i think when you learn a new ui and there are keyboard shortcuts and conventions that have to be looked up. it is called "salt and pepper performance" which is a confession that i do not know what to call this game, since i have already called an rpg zine "fairyland" and it seems unwise to have two fairylands. you should have one, or seven, or nine, i think.
making this mod reminded me a lot of making a flatgame, especially since macaulay volunteered some fairy item artwork when she noticed what i was doing. (i have not processed it yet; there are thirty-two different fairy items and i'm still pretty slow at getting drawings into the computer) it's really so satisfying to see a picture you drew standing up in a little virtual room.
for our part, max and i had a very fun little test run last night. we played "ask the old one", where fairies have to run to the center of the map to receive fairy wisdom from the old one, and then run away so they don't forget it. it was a bewildering draw, but max almost won. here are some things that happened (i was blue, and max was red):
turn 1: a blue fairy hides, while red fairies run to the center. another blue fairy uses "sleep", and wild magic causes them to explode. a red fairy creates a bog at the last known location of the hidden blue fairy.
turn 2: a red fairy glues a blue fairy to a pillar, but the blue fairy destroys it with "ruin". a red fairy drinks from a luminous flask, revealing the hidden fairy. a blue fairy uses "revert" to strip the magic from the luminous flask.
turn 3: a red fairy uses "sinister foot" on a blue fairy, preventing them from moving right for the rest of their life. wild magic summons a blobby thing, and the two fairies are lost to the cosmos. a red fairy glues a blue fairy to the old one, while another receives fairy wisdom.
blue fairies give themselves over to fighting, wounding two red fairies.
turn 4: a blue fairy blows two red fairies into a stump with "whirlwind". a red fairy makes another bog, and wild magic summons another blobby thing. the wise fairy runs for the edge of the map, but stops just before making their escape. blue fairies kill a red fairy with their teeth and claws.
(the next time we play, i'll take more pictures, so there can be a proper battle report)
the next thing i'm going to work on is making some quick reference cards and fairy roster sheets. every fairy starts with one item and one spell, rolled from d66 tables so it will be nice to just have those things handy instead of ctrl-fing my way through the entire manuscript.
thank you for reading my blobbbbb
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