Recently I have taken to painting miniatures. Specifically, I got the Tyranid Paint Kit and have purchased a few (better) brushes. Here’s a picture of my tiny paint corner on my desk right now:
That the figure in that photo is only half done, but even with that caveat, I’m awful at painting. But as a stretchy dog once said, sucking at something is the first step towards being sorta good at something. I have noticed a couple of things recently, however.
First (and most personally exciting) is that my hands don’t shake anymore. For years I never painted miniatures because I had some leftover nerve damage from epileptic attacks I had when I was a teenager. It wasn’t really noticeable, except when I try to do something that requires very fine detail. At some point in the past couple of decades, however, that went away.
The other thing is that I find my focus during meetings improving while I’m painting. Often when I’m on a call or podcast recording, if I don’t have something I’m engaging with during the call I end up surfing the web or checking Discord, which makes it harder for me to pay attention. Having something I can do with my hands seems to improve my ability to stay engaged in conversation.
… I wish I had some kind of deep insight from this. Instead, all I have are a few weird purple bug dudes. Anyhow, lots to cover again this month, so let’s move on to…
Curseborne!
The biggest news is that Curseborne is now on Kickstarter! This is a return to horror for me, and it’s been a huge amount of work to get this far, but I think it’s going to be an utterly fantastic game. I mean, just look at that amazing prototype page spread!
It’s also been just skyrocketing. It’s only been about a day and a half, and it’s already raised over six digits in funding (in US dollars, at least).
In case you haven’t been keeping track, here’s a teaser of the game premise.
Curseborne is a game about being unapologetic monsters in a world where being monstrous is the least of your worries. In Curseborne, you play as Accursed, descendants of monstrous lineages lurking in a modern world that closely resembles our own. You rebel against the ancient feuds between these entwined families, as well as against the web of curses that bind you, while fending off inhuman antagonists seeking to claim — or reclaim — your power.
The world of Curseborne is full of intrigue, magic, and things that go bump in the night. It’s just like our world, except the reason that things don’t go your way or that bad things happen is that the people are literally living in a world of curses. Some people are cursed more than others, and these are our Accursed characters. They have a particularly large curse that hangs over their heads and makes them more prone to bad things happening to them and around them. The nature of this curse also makes them magical in nature. They have a sense of the thing holding them back, and they can manipulate it in ways that normal people cannot.
Like I said, I’m very excited about this. Swing by the Kickstarter, or learn more at the website curseborne.com!
Releases!
As exciting as focusing on such a big upcoming game is, I’ve also had a couple releases of things I’ve worked on.
The first is one I mentioned last month: Threats & Curs for Realms of Pugmire. The PDF has been finalized, and now the book is live in print-on-demand!
Next is one that slipped past me. I wrote an adventure for the Transformers RPG to be used as the GenCon adventure for… 2021, I think? It was called Winner’s Cup. Anyway, I noticed in the recent Humble Bumble that they had Winner’s Cup in it, and it turns out it’s available on Renegade’s website! That’s my second (and so far, final) contribution to the Transformers game, so if you’re looking for a reasonably light-hearted adventure for your campaign, go check it out!
Other News!
But that’s not all! I have even more news this month!
First off, there’s been a recent devblog about my first Cyberpunk RED project, now titled Tales of the RED: Hope Reborn. And the line developer, Jay, had some very nice things to say about me:
For the first mission, we needed someone with experience. Someone who could deftly introduce not just the campaign but Cyberpunk RED via gameplay. Best of all, someone whose writing could set the stakes for the rest of the book. Eddy Webb (pugsteady.com and realmsofpugmire.com) has a pile of writing and design credits taller than most megabuildings. His breadth of experience across franchises and genres, from the World of Darkness to Transformers to the Walking Dead made him the best choice for the job. Plus, I’ve wanted to work with him for years.
During that, it was also announced that I’m working on a second Cyberpunk RED project, this one focusing on Night City! I was such a huge fan of the original Night City Sourcebook — it was to me what Chicago by Night was to many Vampire: The Masquerade fans. Having a chance to walk the streets of this city again and leave my small mark on things was too good an opportunity to pass up.
I’ve also been doing a lot of interviews! Two of them have come out recently: one with the Awkward GM Corbin, and another with Meet Your Makers. I’ve also been in a Curseborne game with the folks at Red Moon Roleplaying, and the first episode is now live for that.
There are even more things happening that aren’t out yet! There’s so much going on! It’s good to be busy.
My Media
It’s been a while since I’ve been totally into a video game, but right now I’m deeply into UFO 50.
It’s actually a collection of fifty retro games. The frame is that they were all produced by a fictional video game company for a fictional console throughout the 1980s, but in reality they’re fifty games created by a collective of a few indie game designers. But they aren’t minigames — they’re complete. One, for example, is a full JRPG that takes about 20 hours to complete, and a few others are full-fledged strategy games. I’ve had this on my Steam Deck for a few weeks, and I haven’t beaten any of the games yet, although I’m close on a few of them.
Look, there are fifty games on here, so I’ll just show you a few personal favourites.
There are a few games I don’t like as much as others, but plenty of these I have already sunk several hours into each. It is a criminal steal at £21.
Okay, time to get back to work. See you next month!