Karl makes stuff

I was recently given a review copy of "Riddle of the Veiled Isles" by Judd from ‪@shortreststudios‬. This adventure was written for Nimble but is easy to translate into other systems.

It has a lot going from it including some excellent encounters, and a great use of riddles in combination with foreshadowing. It's easy to give players clues and hints for riddles, but what is done here is to carefully layer them in so they're not jarringly obvious and out of place.

The insidious effects of being on the Veiled Isles too long are also interesting and help prod your players not to linger too long.

My only gripe is that access to the Isles depends on having access to a cursed ship, which is highly specific and means that some rewriting may be needed if your players don't already happen to have one. As a side effect, it also limits external interference, so you can't, say have a rival group or help from the outside; however altering this is hardly any more work than you'd need to do to drop a module into an ongoing game anyway.

Plenty of good material here for two or three sessions, so two thumbs up from me! You can grab it from www.drivethrurpg.com/product/585446/riddle-of-the-… (Affiliate link)

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 13

Karl makes stuff

In yesterday's stream (youtube.com/live/FCencCb9xKQ) we brought up the rumour that the D&D Cleric's weapon restrictions were inspired by the Bishop Odo wielding a club in the Bayeux Tapestry but neither of us had any solid references at hand. Some quick digging later brought this up, straight up from an EN World Q&A with Gary Gygax himself:

"Actually the cleric was based losely on Bishop Odo, brother of Duke William of Normandy, the fictitional Friar Tuck, and a religious proscription against the shedding of blood." (17 October 2007)
- Source: www.enworld.org/threads/q-a-with-gary-gygax.22566/… retrieved 12 October 2026

So now you know. Now, the historical roots are kind of shaky - clubs and maces can shed buckets of blood, the restriction on priests fighting flipped on and off several times (and was often negotiable) and friar Tuck himself was a dab hand with a sword and buckler - but as far as the inspiration goes, that's where it came from.

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 10

Karl makes stuff

In yesterday's stream I made a mistake about how parries work in Black Death City!

My impression was that they are a reaction to an attack; instead, the fighter who's up next can chose to attack and spend one hit to inflict damage OR spend one hit to try remove one of his opponent's hits. This means the parry roll is way less of a speed bump than I thought it was.

3 weeks ago (edited) | [YT] | 4

Karl makes stuff

Trees are done - just in time for Sunday's stream! Editing the tutorial will take a while though ;)

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1 month ago (edited) | [YT] | 12

Karl makes stuff

The trees are coming along nicely! Just a few more to finish up before basing.

1 month ago | [YT] | 72

Karl makes stuff

Quick work in progress shot of one of the trees I'm working on! Hopefully they'll be ready for the challenge stream on the 27th :) I'll be working on a few others on stream tomorrow.

1 month ago | [YT] | 39

Karl makes stuff

Here's some work in progress. I'm trying to break the foliage curse and made a batch of 8 tree armatures out of wire and toilet paper. This way I have plenty of pieces to experiment on.

Remember our Trees and Vegetation crafting challenge is on for the 27th September! You can find more details on discord at discord.gg/yuAZdMh77

1 month ago | [YT] | 12

Karl makes stuff

The lovely folks at ‪@Elven-Tower‬ interviewed me for their magazine! You can find the interview free at www.patreon.com/elventower/posts/ttrpg-interview-1…

2 months ago | [YT] | 9

Karl makes stuff

Managed to track down the problem with the texture in yesterday's stream! Tl;dr, multiple UV Maps were getting created, but the first one remained the only one active. Sorted this by removing most of the maps and keeping only the latest one.

Regular silliness will now proceed as scheduled.

2 months ago | [YT] | 5

Karl makes stuff

DM Scotty just dropped a surprise EZD6 release! "Grubberkin: The EZD6 Playset of Capricious Cavern Critters" where you play a brood of small, filthy and totally unhinged creatures. I've only skimmed it so far but it looks like a hoot - already checking my calendar to see where I can fit in a game :D You can find it on DriveThruRPG at www.drivethrurpg.com//product/575600/grubberkin-th… (affiliate link).

2 months ago | [YT] | 6