Thecava - The_Cava

The first episode of my self-indulgent comic about food and monsters is now available to everyone!

Noah, down on his luck and flat broke, encounters a weird but friendly stranger one night, and accidentally ends up the personal cook of someone not-quite-human.

Episodes 2 and 3 are already up on Patreon, where the comic will be posted as I finish pieces of it. Patrons are currently 7 pages ahead of everyone else.

If you like what I do, please consider chipping in some money so I can keep doing it.

This! I live for this!

I wrote a TTRPG that inspired a ballet in NYC!

The World We Left Behind is a two-player worldbuilding game about exploring a deserted planet and learning what happened to the aliens who called it home.

Your characters will take multiple trips to the planet as they attempt to answer the question “what happened here?”

TWWLB was commissioned by BalletCollective to be used as Source Art in their upcoming 2023 season, THE MOMENT IS IMMINENT. BalletCollective has created a ballet inspired by TWWLB, which is being performed in NYC this fall by dancers from New York City Ballet.

Performance dates are:

Tuesday, October 31 at 7:30 PM

Wednesday, November 1 at 7:00 PM – Gala Performance

Thursday, November 2 at 7:30 PM

Tickets are available here.

A free livestream of the The November 2nd 7:30 PM performance will be available to watch at balletcollective.com/live (this webpage will become available closer to the performance).

TWWLB was designed in collaboration with Troy Schumacher (choreographer) and Phong Tran (composer), who created the music and the choreography for the ballet.

I know that’s kind of the go-to thing to show that a vampire character is “one of the good ones” or whatever but it actually seems a little bit more fucked up for a vampire to steal blood from a blood bank than for a vampire to attack people for blood, at least as long as it’s not the kind of vampire where a bite is instantly lethal like it never stops bleeding. 

People can recover from losing some blood but blood bank blood is constantly in short supply and is reserved for people who imminently need blood transfusion of a specific blood type or else they die.

I keep thinking of the double-edged sword of partial success.

On one hand, they do help move the story forward. On the other hand, coming up with complications every time can be taxing.

That got me thinking: what if we reversed the way we look at partial success?

See, a partial success is usually seen as taking away from a full success. It is a ‘success, but…’.

You start with the assumption that you did the thing, but then you take a step back and inject a cost, a complication, or a choice.

I love it, but it can be overwhelming.After the 6th partial success in a row, you're like: “You convince the prince, but… I don’t know, you twist your ankle or something, I don’t care. Let’s move on.”

I've tackled this problem in different ways. Mechanizing it, hand-waving it, offering prompts and tables… They work, but I kept exploring. And that led me to the idea of looking at partial success from the other end.

What if we did the opposite? What if we started from a failure, and built up towards success with costs? Would it help with narrating partial success if we could pick and choose a few costs to work our way towards success?

So in my current project, I adopted this.

You roll 2d6 and need to get a 10+ (which is hard). If you don't, you can buy your success by spending different resources.

Let's see an example:

With a determined yell, I lunge forward, my blade slicing through the air towards the guard. I roll a 7, not enough for a successful strike. I spend one Vigor, representing the sharp sting of the guard's counterattack grazing my side. I also spend one Gear, as my sword hums with a magical energy. Lastly, I spend 1 Resolve. The guard's strength has caught me off guard, a flicker of fear igniting in my chest. With vigor, gear, and resolve combined, I reach the threshold, turning my near miss into a solid hit.

You see what I see?

It feels like you conquered a hit, instead of having your success tainted by costs, although it is technically the same thing.

Is it just me?

Looking at my resources and spending them as a little puzzle to get to my success threshold made the act of incorporating these costs into the narrative more natural to me.

Perhaps the feeling that you are investing into a success is a more powerful incentive to do so?

Anyway, I thought it was pretty exciting to explore this concept. So much so that it ended up being the core of a new game. And I’m itchfunding it right now!

If you want to see this mechanic (and some of its cool variations) in action, check it out!

itch.io

Against the Wind by Cezar Capacle

A sandbox adventure game in a harsh winterland with a pinch of fairy tale flavor

Things Terry Pratchett Did

Made fun of the “unnecessarily naked/scantily clad woman,” “sacrificial virgin,” and “sexy heroine” tropes in his first two novels.  The first was described as being the most powerful of her clan of dragon-riders and the nakedness was properly treated as unnecessary in a clear parody.  The second turned out to be one of the more level-headed (while not well-educated) members of the party after her initial introduction, and also had a spine and knew (and got) what she wanted.  The third was described as wearing sensible clothes, was pretty but not sexualized at all, and was practical and smart.

Wrote an entire novel to critique the unequal treatment of “men’s magic” versus “women’s magic” in the fantasy genre.  Portrayed witches as just as if not more capable than wizards (when it comes to actually helping people, in particular), and also generally having more common sense than them.  Nevertheless created a little girl character with wizard powers, and had her decide neither wizard nor witch magic was sufficient and develop a new kind of magic all her own.

Included sex workers in his worldbuilding.  Made jokes about them the same way he did every other kind of person of any profession, but was also highly respectful and never critical of these jobs.  Described the head of the ‘Seamstresses’ Guild as one of the most influential people in the biggest city in the world.  Never showed or described in detail any sexual violence, including against these workers.  In fact, made sure to say that anyone in the city who harmed a sex worker would be dealt with painfully, embarrassingly, and/or lethally by two fearsome elderly ladies.  Even his more ditzy stripper character quickly smartened up and learned some true self-respect–not by quitting her job but by realizing she didn’t have to take any shit from men.

Included strong female friendships aplenty.  Included female enemies who were enemies over things other than men.  In general constantly passed the Bechdel Test and not only that, left it in the dust and had way more meaningful and realistic representation.

Five words: Dwarf Women Are All Trans.  More words: And there’s no way to know if some of them were trans in the way we Earth humans would understand it, too, and he clearly didn’t think that sort of genitalia-based gender labeling mattered.  Did not turn his trans dwarfs into a joke, but treated them simply as people–including a scientist/forensics officer in a police department, a prominent fashion designer, and the literal King of all dwarfs (who subsequently came out as Queen).  Portrayed transmisogynists as unequivocally wrong, and had protagonist characters stand up for and protect their trans colleagues and friends.  See also: had genderfluid characters in two of his books and at least one trans man, as well as confirming canonically that there are gay wizards, one of whom is really good at football.

One of his mainest of main characters was a blunt, bad-tempered, prideful old woman who is also good to her core.  Didn’t gloss over her unfriendliness or excuse it, but made her complex and interesting and overall likeable despite all that.  Also had a very amiable old lady character who also had a temper and would throw hands with anyone who’d mess with her family or best friend.  In general, steel-souled old ladies, wow.  Also steel-souled young girls.  

Said he was incapable of writing a weak, wilting female character, and honestly I can’t think of a single one in any of his books.

Please feel free to add to this list with other Things Terry Pratchett Did because I definitely didn’t say them all!

if you’re having a bad day, here’s a cute little marching band