First monday of the month. 12 o'clock in the Netherlands. The air alarm is sounding. Time for another update!
Things have been moving along according to plan. I've been finalizing Under Mole Mountain. Although honestly, I'm still adding some touches. Max will start layout and illustration on all of it in April.
Under Mole Mountain is a more straight up creature horror adventure than what we're used to seeing in Mausritter. At times I feel like it would be a more natural fit to Mothership than Mausritter, which makes me even more happy that I'm writing it for Mausritter.
A core part of the adventure is about navigating these labyrinthian tunnels dug by the creatures below. A mouse mind is not equipped to understand them. But you will find your mind changing as you go deeper.
Maybe you've heard of depth crawls. They were popularized by Gardens of Ynn and The Stygian Library. There's at least one depth crawl for Mausritter, called Faeflower Grave by Isaac Williams. Rather than navigating a fixed map, the dungeon shifts. If you choose to go deeper, you track your depth, roll a die, add your current depth, and look up the corresponding location.
Under Mole Mountain adds a twist to the depth crawl. Rather than adding your current deth, you add how much your mind has become like that of the creatures of the deep. The more you lean into that, the deeper you can go. But what's worse, the dungeon can shift while you are in it; the tunnels getting redug all around you. That is dangerous. Very dangerous. Because just like how mice are unable to navigate these depths, the creatures below are unable to find their way up. And so you find yourself trapped, going deeper and deeper. Unless someone in your party manages to hold on to their mind and guide you back up.
That's all for now. I've been seeing some cool progress for Crow 'n Jewels as well, but more on that later.
Project spotlight
I like to highlight a cool project each update. In Zine Month, I have two recommendations you shouldn't sleep on.
Burn It All To Light the Way
I like to highlight a cool project each update. In Zine Month, my friend Michael E. Weil is launching his game I have had the pleasure of playing and GMing at our RPG Night in Utrecht.
BURN It All To Light The Way is OSR, but your character is boiled down to 4 tags that define them. Burn your tags to do the impossible, but lose a part of who you are. It's dramatic, it's intuitive and it's mixed with a megadungeon that gets more gonzo the deeper you go. Get this if you'd like to put your players in crazy danger and see how much they're willing to put on the line.
Waco Matrixo is a staple in Mothership land. But I feel like he's getting even better with each adventure he drops. With his latest adventure, the premise alone already hooked me.
"Play as the parasite, not the human - fight for control or burn beneath a dying sun."
