Games Archives - The Mindflayer

NEW BOOK & COVER REVEAL: DESECRATED EMPIRES

Hello everyone,

I hope you’re safe and well during these weird and unpredictable times. I’ve been hard at work in the creative laboratory, and I can now announce my next project, Dead World: Desecrated Empires, produced in collaboration with fabulous writers Robert Monaghan and Edward Kennard. In addition, we also have a fabulous artist, my own mother Linda Sale, producing some incredible illustrations! Here is a teaser of one I love:

Arcturus, The Black Hand, one of many intriguing characters to be found in Dead World!
by Linda Sale

But what is Desecrated Empires? I’m glad you asked!

Desecrated Empires is the ultimate RPG experience and must-have book for lovers of dark fantasy world-building. Set in the twisted and foreboding universe of Dead World, Desecrated Empires allows you to craft taut and immersivenarrative experiences using its unique, strategic rules-system. The “Era of Empires” story-arc, characterised by blood and betrayal, introduces a sophisticated “Competitive Team Play” model that will unleash the full cathartic power of your role-play campaigns. Take control of an adventurer and create your own unique legend, build a campaign as a Dungeon Master using Desecrated Empires’ omnifarious world-building toolkit, or utilise the special mechanics and tactical nuance of Desecrated Empires’ combat to command armies, build empires, form rebellions, lay sieges, and wage cataclysmic wars in a mythical world.

Features:

11 Races (including esoteric or maligned races, such as Featherfolk, Plantfolk, and Undead); each Race hasmultiple unique origins that create further variation
14 unique Classes, each of which offers a radically different style of play, from classic brute Warriors to masters of manipulation such as Illusionists
Every Class can choose one of two paths, empowering players with even more choice, and meaning there are 200+ potential adventurer Race/Class combinations
A progressive Skills system that allows adventurers to learn further crafts outside of their Class, including Blacksmithing, Alchemy, and Arcana; these aren’t static but also progress as you level and learn.
A unique combat system that eschews the clumsier elements of role-play combat in favour of more strategic and tactical gameplay; imagine the precision of an RTS game inserted into a world full of lore and epic stories.
A Bestiary & Diseasary with 100+ entries, each with beautiful descriptions and in-depth mechanics, including many monsters and characters entirely unique to Dead World’s strange universe.
Detailed lore-descriptions of every item, from the humble “Rope” to legendary artefacts such as the “Bloodthirst Cowl”!
With succinct and precise rules-wording, get your Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide, and Monster Manual all in one explosive volume! No need to buy multiple books.

Here is the epic cover-reveal!

We anticipate Dead World: Desecrated Empires being ready in early 2021! We’ll keep you updated on our progress. Over 97,000 words are written so far, but we have even further yet to go. The whole thing is going to be beautifully produced and brimming with lore and magic!

To get announcements like this even earlier, you can subscribe to my Patreon. In addition, all of my Patrons gain FREE copies of my Kindles / eBooks, including this one!

Games

Dead World: Reborn (the RPG behind Save Game)

samurai with sword standing on sunset background,illustration painting

Hello everyone.

A lot of people asked me "How did you create such a detailed world in Save Game?" The reality is, Save Game is the result of more than a decade of work!

I have been building RPGs and games ever since my wonderful god-mother, Helen, first introduced me to a Dungeons & Dragons game. I played as a warrior, and was pretty useless overall, but enjoyed every second of it. It was such a rich and immersive experience, it blew my mind. Ever since then, storytelling and role-play have been kind of indistinguishable from each other. I use D&D to help me tell stories, and writing novels and telling stories helps me make a better Dungeon Master and player. D&D helps me to hand over the story to my characters and let them decide what to do. Writing novels helps me to create worlds that are more solidly built, and to avoid cliches that are present in so many fantasy adventures.

Whilst I love traditional D&D, I'm never one to do things the easy way. I like to take things apart and rebuild them the way I want them. So, I created my own role-play system, called Dead World: Reborn (due to it having many iterations), which focuses more on the narrative side of Dungeons & Dragons, whilst still providing a logical rules framework.

It occurred to me the other day, that with all the craziness in the world resulting from coronavirus, and lots of people at home looking for ways to spend time and to connect with those around them, whether digitally or under lockdown, that role-play is one of the best ways to do this. Some of the best friends I have are those I spent hours, days, weeks even playing Dead World: Reborn with. They battled, bargained, and boasted their way through what must be tens of thousands of encounters. Their energy, creativity, and enthusiasm made me the writer, and DM, I am today. I cannot thank them enough.

And here they are on my wedding day. From left to right (above): Valthorian The Elf Warrior, Perturabo Lord of Iron, Tydorr The Lizardkin, yours truly, Aron The Avatar, Harragan The Ranger, Ferrus Manus The Smithy, Hugo The Third (below) Kopperberg The Druid, Fulgrim The Perfectionist, Sir Lancelittle, & Sammus The Necromancer

Role-play allows you to step out of your own body in a way that is unique and unparalleled. I've seen people overcome severe mental difficulties during role-play, such as anxiety or even depression, all because the shared storytelling experience facilitates a healing journey. There's a reason why some of the best episodes of The IT Crowd and Community were about Dungeons & Dragons!

So, we're all trapped inside, to a degree (or working on the front lines, if you're in the NHS!), but either way, we need ways to healthily escape and bond. You can play this game with those you're isolated with, or with people over Zoom / online. It's up to you. You don't need much, and in fact, the dice are largely optional; the storytelling mechanics are what's important.

So, I wanted to offer you all the tools to play my special homemade (sometimes called "home-brew") system for free. Below you will find a rulebook download, a character-sheet download, as well as a package containing details of a small campaign to get you started. However, I also consider this game a tool for writers building their worlds. You don't actually have to play the game, but you can use the character sheets and mechanics to determine elements of your story. For example, you can use the character sheets to understanding your hero's strengths and weaknesses, and you can use their "stats" to understand what challenges they can and can't face up to. What kind of opponents might be difficult for them to face-off against? And I'm not just speaking combatively. Role-play encompasses the entire wheel of human endeavour, that's the beauty of it.

But of course, it's fun to play as a game too, and sometimes it can be liberating to free oneself from the onus of creating a novel or screenplay or short story, which at times can feel like "work". Games allow us to be free without imaginations, because the only purpose is entertainment and fun (although the irony is this often leads to great ideas)!

Dead World: Reborn is a dark and fantastical role-play game. Step into the shoes (or claws) of a demon, undead, or rat-person. Wield massively overpowered magical spells. Begin your own epic legend, just like Levi Jensen from Save Game. And remember, it's best enjoyed with friends!

RULEBOOK

Download the rules for Dead World: Reborn. Whether player or potential Dungeon Master, this will help you craft characters and worlds for people to journey through or play as!

Dead World Reborn_D&D5_28032020_JS

CAMPAIGN: ZIGGURAT OF DREADFUL NIGHT

This is a small campaign for relatively new players. The legendary hero Valthorian has journeyed into the dark north. You are tasked with finding him. But what if he has gone beyond even the Ziggurats, a place where dark cultists worship forbidden gods? What could possibly have driven him to do such a thing?

Ziggurat of Dreadful Night_Campaign_online download package

CHARACTER SHEET

To create your Dead World: Reborn character, you'll need a character sheet. Feel free to download and print, or edit via a PDF editor to create a digital sheet.

Character Sheet

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If you've downloaded this game and enjoyed The Mindflayer's whacky worlds, please consider buying him a coffee / tea via his Ko-Fi page. Lapsang Souchong is the favourite beverage of the Mindflayer, and he can subsist on its smokey aroma for many eons; it also stimulates him to create more weird and wonderful games.

Games

Darkness Beneath

Darkness Beneath is an intensive narrative experience modelled on the classic ‘choose your own adventure’ game, using the advanced mechanics of Twine to determine the outcomes of choices made during the game. There are 4 main endings which can be achieved (and many more subtle variations of each one).

Joseph originally planned to write the narrative behind Darkness Beneath as a short story, but he soon realised that the meaning of the story called for a different medium.

‘It’s centrally about the moment I discovered the beautiful irony that all the things human beings turn to alleviate the pains of existence (drink, sex, drugs, unusual experiences) inevitably make the pain grow. The game is designed to teach you that (as well as – hopefully – bring a good laugh). There were so many parts to the story I wanted to include I thought it would be more interesting to create something that allowed people to decide what they wanted to explore and what overlook rather than bombard them with an over-long linear tale.’

You can play Darkness Beneath for free here.