Good Goldenagers!

Happy Force of July, everyone.

Over the last two weeks, I've returned to the main book, Our Golden Age.

I needed to work on a piece of art to switch from editing textboxes, pushing pixels, aligning squirrels, pruning widows, and harvesting orphans, and other terrible layout tasks ... back to, well, creatin'.

Way back in 2023 or so I took a shortcut with the introductory adventure in Our Golden Age. I reused an older piece of art, the Ministry Pyramid, to stand in for the Castle ("castle") in that adventure.

The piece is perfectly fine, but ... it doesn't fit perfectly.

However, I'd put off returning to it, because I knew what it would involve. It would involve days and days of drawing, simply because making a piece of this sort takes a long time.

Well, I pulled up the Our Golden Age file and reviewed it, checked what needs to be done (a bit of writing, a lot of layout and editing) ... and then stopped on this piece again.

Fine, here goes I thought to myself.

I exported a nice big 600 dpi spread, tossed it into procreate and sketched out what I had in mind. Along with space for the middle of the spread in the middle.

I thought I'd take 2–3 days on this piece ...

In the event, the full piece took me about 9 days of drawing to finish. Drawing these kind of wimmelbilds takes a long time, more so if I'm working digitally, and I can only draw for so long at a stretch before my body and brain give up. Now, once upon a time, I would pick up and draw more in the evening ... but these days those are claimed by others.

A couple of times I felt like a complete fool. Why. Why had I done this to myself?

But then I also thought ... well ... this adventure deserves to have a nice piece. It's set up as a skeleton adventure framework that introduces the setting and invites the referee and the players to invent together. It needs a piece of art to tether things together ... that's why.

At least that's what I said to myself.

I've also attached the Castle of Living Stone in full resolution for you to enjoy (see attachments).

I also decided to redo the introduction page from a dry "what this book is about" spread to something that takes proper advantage of the Face of the MKR:

And relegates the introduction to the next page ... so you get to imagine the kinds of adventures you'll run and how the book looks before ... y'know ... I blather about what the book is about.

Anyhow, now that the seal on the second book is cracked and painted over, it's time to tackle that. The next update will either be ... one more of the introductory adventures or the laid out six lands core of the book. One or the other.

Now I have to hurry up and hit send on this update.

Take care, and enjoy your July weather.

—Luka,
Seoul

Good Goldenagers!

Happy mid-June, everyone! I hope you had a lovely weekend. Got some picnics done. Maybe went out and met with friends and did a bit of singing.

Right, enough pleasantries. Off to the work!

It is done. All the spot art. Every last piece [for now]. I still need to finish the index, the inspirations appendix, and the endpapers, so that'll be when I share the "ultimate proofreader version" of the PDF ... but let's not about that. Let's look at the new pictures.

(this is basically the same update as on the stratometaship patreon--so you don't need to hunt pictures in two places)

1 - Character Creation Chapter Opening Spread

Added a cartoon of Onion being re-loaded into a new body. Fully digital work - I exported the spread and added the art where it would fit. Check out that Universal Mind Bus 42.0 neuro-cable! The whitespace is for the text ...

2 - Revised Corruption Spread

The big corruption piece again features Onion! Digital work. This time the merchant hero is unlocking an old psychophagus and gets hit by a blast of concentrated Preserved Mental Miasma ... or something like that. The piece at right is an older piece that I revamped. It's probably not as bad as it looks - that looks like a corruption exorcism in progress. I added a lot more detail to the background livingstone city and covered the pole in mystical writings + a timelost shopping list.

3 - Names Header Spot Art

This piece is for the page on names. Pencil, pen, colored pencil, ink, and white paint. It shews the Giver of Names being presented with a babeling and consulting the Memorial Monument to choose a new name for the new human.

4 - Approaches Spot Art

Approaches! From the page on getting things done--adjudicating different ways PCs do things. Pencil, pen, color pencil, and digital colors. Here we see Pointyhelmet, Poncho, Demiwarlock, and Big Fish observing the approach to an ancient Mineralmaker, a gargantuan fungoid machine that draws minerals from deep within the world for the (absent) gods to use. Holy miners dive into its depths with ancient mantras on their lips to obtain permission to withdraw those rare gifts of Soil.

5 - Unusual Die Rolls Spot Art

Spot art from rolling nuances — some odd dice and mechanics. Pen, watercolor, ink, and digital colors. We see Onion sneaking away with the liquid metal shapeshifting executioner’s blade his quick fingers ‘borrowed’ from the sad space knight.

6 - Ability Generation Page Border Art

Little people for the ability scores page! All digital. Look at all those lovely little character ideas. Also, reminding you when you play that drawing stick figures is FINE. Honestly, I should do a stick figures adventure module at some point where players are animated stick figures fleeing a drowning library or something.

7 - PC Actions Footer Spot Art

An quadruped angel (a type of rook phylake) takes action against the PCs autogolem landhog. Ahem. Pew pew. Blaarp. Pen, micron, color pencils, and digital colors.

8 - PC Actions Facing Header Spot Art

Other actions: "release ancient sleeper". Oops. Pen and colored pencil.

9 - Adjudicating Player Ideas Spot Art

Terrible ideas (stealing the ancient idol that has remained unmoved for a myriad of years). From the section on adjudicating PC (and player) ideas. All digital.

10 - Morale Page Footer Spot Art

"Release the Eater!" Noë, Safir, and Onion take extreme measures to enter the Golden City. Pen, watercolor, and digital color.

11 - Relife Options Page Header Art

Relife options. How to bring back characters whose body has ceased to function, whose head has been saved, whose head hasn't been saved (but they had a canopic jewel that backed up their personality, yay!), or that has been dis-existed. Pen and pencil color, plus a bit of digital color.

12 - Wards Spot Art

Jade mask. Digital. From the wards page. "Item trait: Jade. Grants ward bonus against ghosts and spirits." Jade Mask: Tinkling jade beads also add +1 charisma. +2 ward. 1 st. €150.

You know the € symbol stands for "cash" in the game, right? The rainbowlanders don't call it euros ... the actual reason for this symbol, rather than the ₡ or ₵ is a matter of how easy (or hard) it is to type one or the other. And the cents symbol ¢ just denotes units that are far too small.

13 - Custom Spread Spot Art

Pen, pencil, and water color. Actually used masking tape to get the straight edge here. Fancy, eh? Nothing digital. The armorer presents the Helmet of Goblinhunter to the hero. The hero is not convinced and consults its embodied mechatronic daemon whether the helmet is suitable. Perhaps the hero should not drink distilled spirits while shopping for armor. Oh, well.

14 - Gadgets Page Assemblage

Gadgets, gadgets, gadgets! All digital. From the, well, uh, gadgets section of the equipment chapter. I think the Radiothermal Stove, "Stovey", is probably my favorite.

15 - Spell Demonstration Piece

Spells! Urm. Powers! The Apocrypha of the OS album. Spells include "Can Trip", "Hlod Person" and "Tragic Missile" ... not sure who the green tentacly fellow is. All digital.

16 - Inventing New Powers Spot Art

Inventing new powers. Sometimes things go "Bromf!" ... Pen and digital colors.

17 - Suspended Insight Power Art

The wizard hangs upon a tree of thorns and gains +1 to an ability score for the rest of the day and a cryptic answer to a single question asked of the uncaring void. The answer has a 1-in-6 chance of being immediately helpful.

Overcharge: Gains +2 to an ability score and the answer has a 1-in-4 chance of being immediately helpful.

A totally unique spell that is not at all based on any commonly known mythology! All digital. Except the bunny. The bunny is metareal.

18 - Revised Contents Worm for the Contents Page!

This piece isn't exactly spot art and wasn't precisely necessary, but I wanted to make it. Pencil, ink, and digital colors. The hero and the Giving Worm.

There is a village there, still living as in the days of the Fleeting Gods, its buildings of livingstone undefiled by the pestilence of Muyuk. The house of goods still celebrates the cosmic goods bestowed by the Founder. The house of amusements still replays the seven-hundred procedurally ambivalent tales in 7-dimensional holoreality. The house of milk still sings and the fountain of protein and fats, drawing from organic wellsprings deep beneath the crusted flesh of the land, flows with nourishment. Alas, though the village is living, no humans remain. Only the Giving Worm (L14, humble servitor).

The Giving Worm knows what every human truly wants, and gives ointments and oils to satisfy every desire. Alas, this results in most humans becoming catatonic, satisfied in hallucinatory edens of their own dreaming. Even these humans the Giving Worm cares for, providing them nourishing, protective pods that offer them a full human life span of two-hundred years and four-score of hallucinatory eden.

Dig into the walls of the village and it is full of pods, full of dreaming god-humans, each the lord of their own Eden.

19 - Consumable Items Spot Art

The Joy Good Dispensary. All digital. Stand by for economic propaganda report.

"Welcome to the Joy Good Dispensary! Get your goods of joy here. Satisfy your cargo. Consume. Goods for joy! Behold, material treasures for immaterial pleasures! Take the gift and be a civilized person again! Leave woe and weal behind. Forget the desolatiom. Embrace the munificent plenty. Be good again!"

20 - New Bluelander Path Piece

A re-do of the Bluelander piece. Pencil, pens, and digital colors. I re-did this one because the original Bluelander lady wasn't suitable for a full page piece. She gets a spot art position instead.

That is the lot! Oof. This book has changed from last year ... rather than a retrospective of my old pieces reworked to fit a rulebook, you're getting ... a fully illustrated-up rulebook. I appreciate your patience ... my demanding muse would not permit me to pass off a half-finished book.

됐다!

Next update will be on the other book - the proper book - the OGA. It should be big and nice and shiny. Not these little spot art pieces.

I'll write again from the Book Mines soon!

—Luka,
Seoul, May June 2025

Good Backers. Hello and Happy May.

Wait, it's May? What happened? I thought it was March? This is one of those updates where Luka looks up from the mines and is awestruck by the swift passage of time. Again.

The last two months have been ... trying. In March we started getting our eldest daughter used to the crèche. She enjoys it now. But then we went through 5 different child-delivered colds and viruses in the last 2.5 months. It's been wild.

I won't give you a week-by-week of the last two months. I can just summarize it as work, children, sleep, and snot. Instead, I'll share the state of the books.

...

And, frankly, has been finished since March! I just didn't get the breathing space to do the update. I know, ridiculous.

I also expanded the cover art to encompass the back of the book and adjusted the color scheme from red grass to yellow, giving the ruins a bit more "oomph" ... and fitting it in more neatly with that classic UVG referee screen.

With the layout finished, I added a bit of bonus content here and there.

The remaining action (and it's been the remaining action for like a month) ... is getting the index flip flape uh ship shape.

Along with the index, I am also tackling the remaining spot art (13 pieces left as of 025.05.30) and endpapers.

Yes, I'd planned to recycle some of my old art for the spot art ... but in the end, I decided that if all of the VLG has a proper sprucing, it should also have all fresh art. So here's some of the new spot art:

The endpapers will be styled to (roughly) match the theme of the UVG 2E endpapers - lots and lots of tables in a mind-numbing post-technological array:

I won't belabor you with more screenshots from the VLG. It's attached. The whole PDF! (should be at the bottom in the section labelled exclusive content for backers only).

...

After all those colds (and other friendly viruses), I  needed something more ... fun ... to get me started again, rather than indexing. So I tackled the last of the lands in the Our Golden Age book. The Yellow Land.

I've revamped the section art, so if you want to see that, check the pdf below.

I'm mostly pleased with how this spread came out ...

More ways to destroy the setting. Always good.

And a city, with places to enjoy.

It's honestly a larger job than I anticipated making the design of the OGA and VLG book coherent with one another. Not unmanageable, but definitely something that ... can be a bit of a struggle sometimes (i.e. after the kind of nights where the babies kept one up and days when the sniffles kept one down).

The challenge is also making sure the adventure frameworks play nicely with the locations and the adventure notebook, so right now I'm also restructuring the second adventure (the hollow house), which introduces regions and town and facility generators, to fit with the many cities of the Yellow Land.

I've attached the complete Yellow Lands section. Same place (below).

Fun times!

After finishing the spot art, I'll tackle updating the layout of the remaining OGA lands to match the Yellow and Green Land sections. With that we'll be at ~150+ pages laid out and done(ish-see editor).

...

Folks, I appreciate you bearing with me. The books and extras are coming along—but, the time distortion field of babies is a real thing, one I did not appreciate enough. Honestly, my hat is off to all the parents in the world — y'all are doing the real work.

Here's also the regular reminder for all that want to join me in the book mines — the discord is the entrance. Here's yon fresh link: https://discord.gg/gEcgX2dgUp -- all welcome to the polite tea house at the end of pandaemonium.

I'll write to you again soon. Sooner than the last time, promise. :)

—Luka,
Seoul, May 2025