Some of the more neglected deities of the Great Pantheon, a mix of the eclectic, the abandoned, the accidental, and the bizarre. I dare you to choose one of these as the patron of your  next Cleric character. In fact, if you do it, send me your address, tell me which deity, and I'll send you a little drawing!

Or better yet, post your ideas about these deities in the comments. I'd love to use some of them to make a mini-book of these.

The attachment links to a high-res version of the picture.

You can also buy prints and merchandise here:

https://society6.com/product/the-neglected-deities_print#1=45

I am looking for an easy way for Patrons to upgrade their support for a particular creation in order to get prints, books, and other swag. For now, if you PayPal $15 to me at [email protected], I'll send you a mini print of The Neglected Deities (about 8x10) and a copy of the book when  I make them. If you're already a $10 patron or higher, you'll get these things anyway, so don't send money unless you want extras for some reason!

https://rpgcharacters.wordpress.com/2015/07/07/tuesday-map-the-dellorfano-protocols-map-1/

About a month ago, Stacy Dellorfano of ConTessa (who also happens to be one of my very generous Patreon supporters) posted a set of random dungeon generation procedures that I went on to dub “The Dellorfano Protocols”.

1. Start somewhere on the page.

2. Roll two dice (d6 & d8 in this case)

3. Whichever die lands above is the vertical line length.

4. Whichever die lands below is the horizontal line length.

(Or figure out your own way of picking which is which).

5. Roll a die for each wall to see if there’s a door.

5a. If there’s no space for a door, don’t roll that wall.

5b. Create connections to other rooms when it makes sense.

5c. Always have a ‘no door on this wall’ option.

In my case for this one, I rolled a d6 & d8, took which ever die landed on the table above the other as the vertical, and the remaining die as the horizontal.

To prevent long, narrow rooms I doubled or rerolled 1s, 2s, and 3s unless it was towards the end of the page or somewhere where that made sense.

Then, I chose each wall of the room and rolled a d6. If the number was a 5 or a 6 there was no door. Any of the other numbers indicated the number of tiles the hallway should be.

I chose the width of the hallways and their placement on the walls on my own whim or if it made sense to connect to another room, I ignored the die roll and did that.

Where rooms overlapped, I made one room be ‘under’ the other and added appropriate stairs down.

For my first run with the Dellorfano ProtocolsI used a d6 and a d10, rerolling 1s and most 2s. 

I’m going to try a few other dice sets, but I think the optimal method would instead be to use a smaller die with a bonus (so a d4+1 instead of a d6), or something similar to prevent having to reroll.

I then went through and redrew the whole thing in pen, changing the shapes of some rooms, adding details, doors, stairs and so on.

Now we have a dungeon that appears to be natural caves and galleries at first that progresses into worked stone structures and then back into natural and flooded) structures down below. I also included a well in one of the upper chambers that reaches down into the flooded cave below.

There has been a great rush of other maps designed using the Dellorfano Protocols since she released them in June – and she’s linked to all of them that I’m aware of in her Swords & Wizardry collection on Google+ ( https://plus.google.com/u/0/collection/I-MZW )

You can download high resolution copies of this map with and without grid (and released under a free-use commercial license) at the blog post at https://rpgcharacters.wordpress.com/2015/07/07/tuesday-map-the-dellorfano-protocols-map-1/

Memories are weird, but I’m pretty sure I remember the moment I understood what death meant. I have a distinct memory of the feeling, that first realization hitting me hard and then the overwhelming fear in seeing clearly that someday my mom and dad would die. That fear got stronger as I got older, to the point where I would keep myself up nights thinking about them dying. I’d be at home with a babysitter, and I’d be sure that they’d get into a car crash on the way home. I still entertain these thoughts with some regularity, and I’m definitely the kind of person who, if you’re more than 10 minutes late, is convinced that you are dead in a ditch somewhere, full stop. So please be on time if we’re meeting up.

These days, every time I get a phone call from my folks, I’m convinced it’s to say that one or the other of them has died or is in the hospital. Does this make me crazy? I don’t feel crazy. Granted, in the last 15 years I’ve gotten maybe three? four? of these phone calls, out of thousands.

I’m fascinated and horrified by all the different ways somebody can die. A few years ago I was at a dance performance and one of the dance companies was performing in honor of their choreographer, who had died a few weeks prior. He was in his 40s, healthy as can be, and then he had a brain aneurysm. Just like that, he was gone.

(I wrote this song in response to that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6WJWegizHo)

When people have near death experiences, one of the things you always hear about is how much it makes them appreciate life. Getting close to death gives them a new clarity to see all the things they took for granted.

When I think about all the time we spend distracting ourselves - with TV, with mindless internet browsing, with songs, with…stuff - I see it all as a way to ultimately distract ourselves from the reality of death. Put another way - when are we just distracting ourselves from our fears and when are we actually, you know, living? I dunno. But it seems like if one were able to really confront, in a given moment, the very real fact that you or anyone you love could drop dead from an brain aneurysm right now, then maybe you could be enlightened and totally appreciate everything you have. Maybe I’m supposed to embrace mortality instead of fear it.

Now that I have a son, I’ve piled new fears of death on top of old fears. For most of my life, since that first moment of understanding, I’ve feared the death of the people I care about. Now I fear my own death in a way that I didn’t before. I look Jupiter in the eye and think, “Fuck, I can’t leave this boy. I want to be around for his whole life.” My dad’s dad died when he was 18 and it fucked him up. My whole life my dad has said, “Morty would have loved you. You would have really loved my dad.” and since I never knew him, all I could do was sort of imagine what that meant. I wish I could have known him, but I never really felt the loss of him. Since my grandma died before Jupiter was born, I finally understand why my dad used to say that to me al the time. This loss I feel. In my gut. There’s nothing that makes me sadder than thinking about Jupiter will never get to meet Natasha, my bubby. She would have loved him. And he really would have loved her.

https://youtu.be/nM4fGsyyWF0?t=21m20s

http://lumpley.com/index.php/window/installment/16

In this (incomplete) game, you play landfall marines on an alien planet, and my job is to kill the crap out of you!

Derek Sivers is best known as the founder of CDBaby, the first easy to use store for musicians who wanted to sell their music online. He’s also just an incredibly nice, smart guy who writes and speaks and makes occasional videos about entrepreneurship and other interesting subjects.

I was thinking about one of his video’s recently. In it, he lays out what he says is the importance of finding the reason *WHY* you do what you do. Most people, he says, never really bother to figure it out. They go with the flow, or even worse go down a path laid out by some external expectation, be it parental or societal.

Lots of people will tell you to find the *WHY*, but I really like Derek’s take on it. In this video he puts up a list on the screen:

MONEY

PRESTIGE

FAME

LEGACY

FREEDOM

His thought is that you should pick one or two of these (I would add ARTISTIC PURSUIT) and focus on that exclusively, to the exclusion of all the others. I think this is great advice. An example he gives is that movie stars are often not as wealthy as producers, who are, in turn, not as well known as the movie stars. If you want to make money, if that makes you happy - focus on that. If fame is what you’re after, you may turn down things that would lead to more money in favor of trying to accrue fame. He uses Donald Trump as an example of someone who cherishes legacy above all else. He puts his name on EVERYTHING.

Well, as I was laying in bed the other night, it occurred to me that I’ve thought a TON about the *WHY*. I think about it all the time. And the conclusion that I come to over and over is that I have multiple why’s. Many overlapping why’s. I cannot choose just one or two of those things. Bits of each are tightly wrapped up into everything I do.

This is a very similar conclusion/discussion as another blog post I wrote a while back about “picking the basket”. Focusing is not my strong suit. I want it all. I can see why it would be good to focus. I can imagine what it would be like to focus. But I just can’t bring myself to do it.

On other other hand, I’ve wanted to be a musician, to be a songwriter, since I was 12 years old. So in some ways, I have focused on that and I have always been singularly focused on that pursuit. But in that pursuit, I’ve definitely lead myself down a whole variety of paths, some that make me happier than others. I feel like some of my why’s are in conflict with one another. The need to make a living and support my family is in conflict with my desire to try new things and feel like I’m moving ahead creatively.

My main source of income is writing songs for companies. I don’t hate it - there are aspects of it that I really love. I think there is actually something romantic about practicing songwriting as a literal craft. Like being a shoe cobbler. Someone tells me their idea and I make it into a song. It’s not magic, it’s just that I’ve practiced my craft.

But as you all know, I would much rather be able to make a living solely from a direct relationship with fans of my music. That continues to elude me.

Is that because I'm not focused enough on fame, at the expense of everything else?

Hello Patrons! Here's an original song for you off the new album, Besides. ALSO we are opening for Ben Folds on September 16th in SF so if you wanna come see that you can get tickets here! http://www.axs.com/events/280499/ben-folds-ymusic-tickets

Thank you for making all this craziness possible.

Patrons! Check it out - our new video for Cheerleader! This was a fun one to do! Enjoy and share!

Also, #SOON!

PTX

http://lumpley.com/index.php/window/installment/18

Well, despite my own best efforts, plus the best efforts of Paul Czege and Vincent Van Gogh, I've managed to get together a preview for AW2E's battle moves and the rules that replace fronts. Check it out!

http://lumpley.com/index.php/window/installment/20

You might not know this! Freebooting Venus is my current long-term project. It's a freewheeling non-dungeon-oriented fantasy game, powered by the Apocalypse, set on the planet Venus around 100 million years ago, before everything went bad there. It draws on The Dying Earth and Lankhmar, and features some funny takes on the systems of both D&D and Apocalypse World.

Anyhow, Hand to Mouth in the City of Nephthys is a 0th-level kickoff for Freebooting Venus. Check it out.

Thanks, everybody! You kick butt.

http://lumpley.com/index.php/window/installment/21

This might be the best game I've made, except I haven't made it yet.

Thank you, my dear patrons! You're excellent.