The Queen of Wind & Flame (Adventure for Fatherfog 0e)

 

My second Fatherfog adventure, The Queen of Wind & Flame, is out now! It was made for the first Triptales Fatherfog jam, run by Lionhearth games of TripTech fame!

You can get it here:

 https://xiaofang64.itch.io/the-queen-of-wind-flame

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/582553/the-queen-of-wind-flame-for-fatherfog-0e

The Tale of Princess Iron Fan 

(The following is a little spoiler-heavy if you care about that kind of thing) 

When the theme of the Triptales jam (Burning Mountains/Coast) was announced, there was simply nothing else I could do but a spin on Princess Iron Fan, from Journey to the West. Behind the "main cast," she's maybe the most recognisable figure from the novel (not counting the Buddha and other mainstream religious figures I guess?) 

In the story, the main cast come upon a land that's always burning. Once a year, the magnanimous Princess Iron Fan waves her magical fan and quells the flames, allowing the people to live, farm, etc. Secretly, she has the power to get rid of the fire permanently. But if she did that, it would remove the desperate conditions that keep her subjects loyal to her.

TQoW&F isn't a 1:1 adaptation by any means. However, I've always felt that, through modern eyes, the original tale had an undercurrent of socio-political horror that I wanted to preserve. Underneath the high octane fantasy action in the foreground, there's the commentary on the grinding life of the serfs.

Also, I can't believe I didn't already know this, but I learned in the process of writing this one that the burning mountains featured in the original tale are based on a real place that has these cool statues.

 Journey has always been, and continues to be, an inspiration behind a lot of what I do. One day I'll do it justice with something big!

Double Post: Three Nights at Castle Fear and Shen-Yi: Sunslayer!

  Been neglecting to update on the blog so here's a double-post for two trifolds I made recently, along with some thoughts I had while making 'em!

Get them here!

 https://xiaofang64.itch.io/three-nights-at-castle-fear

 https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/572059/three-nights-at-castle-fear-for-fatherfog-0e

 https://xiaofang64.itch.io/shen-yi-sunslayer

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/570959/shen-yi-sunslayer-a-mothership-adventure 

 

Three Nights, Fairy Tales, and (for some reason) running Tier 4 D&D

 

When Fatherfog 0e dropped, I already had an adventure ready to write. I bashed out 3 Nights in about as many real world nights (not counting sprucing up, art and revisions). It's about a haunted castle full of weirdo undead, and a challenge to win the hand of a noble!

This is because, as it happens, I had already written it! My oldest D&D group are currently coming to the end of 6 years of play, with characters they've followed all the way from level 1 to 20. Our tier-4 campaign (which is 2 sessions from being over at time of writing!) is a bespoke, fairy-tale themed adventure called The Faerie's Last Tale.

The difficulties with running high level D&D have been documented to death, so I won't list them all here. But suffice to say, it's more a fairy-tale themed power fantasy. One quest in particular took inspiration from a lesser known Grimm tale and mouthful, The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was. And it was fun, but it wasn't scary.

As soon as I read through FF0e, I knew I had to convert the quest. An aspect of Fatherfog that I love, but which some people bounce off of, is the way it balanced horror with fairy-tale wackiness. One of my playtesters rolled a starting item that was an immortal fly that can't fly. How can you not love this stuff?! The Story of the Youth is a great example of this balance. It's full of deadly shadows and murderous undead, and yet it's also one of the funniest things I've ever read. My sincere hope is that TKG stays the course on this tone, because it has the potential to really distinguish Fatherfog as a product.

Shen-Yi, Action-Adventure, and Triptech 3

 

For the TripTech3 game jam, I tried something a little different, to mixed results. Shen-Yi is more action-horror, with world-ending stakes (a 3-faction terrorist consortium wants to blow up the sun!) and some clear inspirations from the likes of Star Wars and Aliens (with an s).

 

It's not typical Mothership fare, but it also woudn't work in a less deadly system. At least, I don't think so. Having playtested it a few times, the horror comes out in the deadliness of MoSh's core mechanics, the careful planning, and the inevitable gore-soaked, radiation-rich chaos of the final confrontation.

The other entries TT3 was a treasure trove, as usual, and some of my faves were:

• The Apotheosis Engine: a super creative adventure set on a barren planet with an artefact that brings imagination to life!
• Sol Incarnate: A moody ass race-against time vs. a sun cult, where THINGS hunt you in the dark! Has a tie-in with Shen-Yi!
• Seven Stars Remembered: (the #1 ranked title of the TT3 Jam!) a beautifully illustrated alien dungeon where you build a dice obelisk IRL!
• THE OLD DUST: a sci-fi menagerie/medical horror adventure with. (Also it's based on the legend of the moon goddess Chang'e, lover of the archer Hou-Yi that my adventure's based on!)
• SPACE BEND: Just a damn good body horror scenario where the main danger is getting WARPED out of shape!
   

 

 

FLATLINE for Mothership 1e + Thoughts on the TPK (A late, quick one!)

 

 https://xiaofang64.itch.io/flatline

 https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/562593/flatline-a-mothership-tpk-scenario

YOU DIED. AND THAT’S JUST THE BEGINNING.

...

Your last job went wrong. Everybody died. And then you woke up.

    The afterlife is a white-walled room with some suit who says he’s an “angel,” here to judge your “sins.” Is this Heaven? Hell? Or something worse?

        One thing’s for sure. In this galaxy, NOBODY RESTS IN PEACE

...
Flatline is a trifold sci-fi horror/mystery scenario designed for use with the Mothership RPG 1e (Tuesday Knight Games).

In Flatline, players start the adventure dead, and must discover the truth behind their resurrection. Flatline can be played as a one-shot mystery, or as a continuation of a campaign after a Total Party Kill (TPK)! Plus:

• Unique mechanics for playing a CYBERGHOST.
• A layered mystery; NPCs with conflicting agendas.
• New TECH for dealing with the undead

FLESH, DON’T FAIL ME NOW! (Release + Thoughts)

 

https://xiaofang64.itch.io/fdfmn

 Flesh, Don't Fail Me Now! is my entry into the Lean Green Zine! jam!

FDFMN is a splatstick, body-part-based narrative / journalling TTRPG. Players take the role of decomposing Zombies, seeking the mysterious Sanctuary. Dead as you are, a tiny glimmer of humanity still burns within.

Designed for 1-5 players and 1+ hours, FDFMN is about survival, memory, and FLESHING OUT the details. FDFMN can be played with a Gore Master (GM) who adjudicates the world, GM-Less or Solo.

You can get it now on itch, Pay What you Want! 

  

Brainy Thoughts, Bodily Thoughts

The key unique feature of FDFMN is its body-part based mechanics. Your body parts are your hit points and your stats, rather than a character's avatar and the statistics operating in different abstracted spaces.

 

I stuck on the zombie idea pretty early on, the process of writing was really just me stripping down RPG assumptions until I was left with what you see. 

 

The game is designed to be printed, cut up and ripped apart. Especially the character sheets!

 

The rest of this I'm going to write in a Q&A format, based on questions I imagine someone might ask about the game, but really I'm just adding details I couldn't end up fitting into the pamphlet.

 

You can survive without a brain?

You can survive if you're nothing more than a rotten old leg, hopping along! These aren't sci-fi/Romero zombies, they're more like mythic zombies, or whatever Thing from Addam's family is.

 

Okay but, you can have MEMORIES without a brain?

Sure! Think of it like muscle memory.

Why are brains and guts collapsed into one stat?

Initially I did have a separate "brain" or "intelligence" stat but it just didn't feel right. When you design a game's mechanics, you're communicating, however implicitly, the way you're supposed to play. And having a stat for intellect implies thinking is a big part of the game.

    By combining both features into "guts" I think it communicates better the type of creature you have become. You're driven by instinct to consume, not higher-order thought. The brain serves to direct the guts... to flesh!

 

But can the Zombies communicate with each other?

An interesting question for sure. For the sake of roleplay, I would say it's more interesting if they can. But it's also important that they can't communicate with humans. The game works on the assumption that there isn't any chance of peace between the two groups. So how do they talk?

    Perhaps they talk through untranslateable groaning. Maybe there's a pheremonal aspect to it. I also like the idea that there's perhaps some preternatural way that they can communicate their intentions to each other, some kind of latent zombie telepathy. Its always felt like zombies in films have this. How do they horde up so well? How do they know not to attack their fellows?

 

What were your inspirations?

Wow thanks for the great question, hypothetical person. Various old-school horror films with splattery sfx, but especially Braindead by Peter Jackson. As a kid I also had this weird zombie love-story comic, Fragile by Stefano Raffaele. Finally, one of my favourite games from childhood was PS1's Medievil, in which you play a skeleton whose body is falling apart. You could do things like rip off your own arm to use as a club. In the sequel you could put your head on a disembodied hand to have it walk around like a scout.

    If you like the comedy-gore-horror themes, I also wrote HEAD GAMES, a D&D 5e adventure about losing your head and becoming a pumpkinhead:

https://www.dmsguild.com/en/product/498748/head-games-a-hallowe-en-adventure-about-losing-your-head

 

The Ladder, a 48-Word Game About Money (And a long-winded version)

 

 I partook in a couple of little game jams this past week. First of them was the 48-word-game jam, for which my contribution was The Ladder. You can get the pretty version right here, for free:

https://xiaofang64.itch.io/the-ladder 

But since it's just 48 words, I can also reprint the whole thing, like so: 

MÖBIUS: BUILD YOUR JUNKER

 

MÖBIUS

Build Your Junker

MÖBIUS: D100 RIDE NAMES

 

MÖBIUS

D100 Ride Names

MÖBIUS: D100 RIDE ACCESSORIES

 

MÖBIUS

D100 Ride Accessories

MÖBIUS: HOW RIDES WORK

 

MÖBIUS

How Rides Work 

MÖBIUS: RACE AGAINST GRAVITY ~ Master Post

MÖBIUS

Race Against Gravity

Sci-fi Racing Street Racing Rules for your favourite Sci-Fi RPG

 

XIAO! LONG! BAO! ~ Release + The Inspirations behind my Dim-Sum Adventure!

https://xiaofang64.itch.io/xiao-long-bao
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/546911/xiao-long-bao-a-mothership-scenario

Officially the 1st Rank peer-rated module of the Fall TripTech² 2025 Game Jam and winner of awards for: Most Favorable, Community Select & Thematic Excellence!

Xiao! Long! Bao! is a trendy new grub spot on Prospero's Dream that serves home-made dim sum. Customers agree: Head Chef Uncle Bao makes the best soup dumplings this side of the Milky Way.
    But… There's a reason Uncle Bao keeps his secret recipe so close to his chest, and there’s a reason his competitors are dying to steal it. D’ya wanna learn how the mincemeat is made? The truth will make you sick to your stomach…

Xiao! Long! Bao! is a trifold sci-fi horror scenario designed for use with the Mothership RPG 1e (Tuesday Knight Games). This download includes:

• Trifold PDF in both colour and Black & White for convenient printing
• Map image files, in GM/Player-facing formats, top-down and perspective styles
• Bonus art, including beauty shots of the secret monster and X!L!B!'s mascot, Bao Boy!
• An mp4 of the X!L!B! ad- use it as an immersive TV spot!

New Release: The Worm's Embrace (Schopenhauer and Dealing with the Essential Emptiness of the World)

 

"The Agony of the Devoured creature is always far greater than the Pleasure of the Devourer"

- Arthur Schopenhauer

(Content Warning: Depression, Self-harm, Suicide)

*

Hyperspace is a fickle mistress.

The Noumenal was a colony ship delivering food and medicine that disappeared 6 years ago. 2 weeks ago, it was detected in Rimspace. The engines aren’t turning, and nobody is responding to hails. And yet, systems are online, and the hull doesn’t bear a scratch. It’s up to you and your crew to investigate.

A pitiless Void awaits you, and it has an appetite for Despair. Hold your composure, or you may end up as worm food…

*

https://xiaofang64.itch.io/the-worms-embrace 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/540909/the-worm-s-embrace-a-mothership-scenario

New Release: Monkey King for Mothership 1e (Journeying to the West, Remembering Jane Goodall)

 

The Sales Patter:

When you buy cerebral slickware from Feng-Huang Industries, you’re buying a product that has been through several generations of primate tests before it ever touches human grey matter. That’s the FHI guarantee!

    FHI’s primate test subjects, such as those on the forest moon of Faa Saan, are given ample space to roam in natural conditions. And since last year, FHI has made a zero-euthanasia pledge across all its testing facilities. That's why FHI is considered by industry watchdogs to be the gold standard for humane research practices!

   ... The primates don’t agree.

Download Here:

https://xiaofang64.itch.io/monkey-king

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/538808/monkey-king-a-mothership-scenario 

HEAD GAMES ~ (Spooky Month Throwback! Fun with Gourds and Severed Heads)

 HEAD GAMES, a Hallowe'en One-Shot 

Looking for a hallowe'en one-shot/short adventure you can run at your D&D table? You can nab HEAD GAMES from DMsguild right here!

This is an adventure about losing your head, literally! The mysterious Head-Taker has rocked the little village of Diggerby Hill. Discover their true identity and motive behind their Head-Taking, and enjoy new rules for becoming a Pumpkinhead as well as a new spooky sport: Deathball!

 The Blog Post, Minor Spoilers

 Of all the stuff I've put out on DMsguild, I had maybe some of the most fun brainstorming and running HEAD GAMES. Inspiration comes in bursts and the pieces for this one all fell into place at the right time. It's inspired by stories in which people have their heads chopped off and replaced by a gourd- Sleepy Hollow being the obvious one, but the Mayan Hero Twins legend (in which one gets their head replaced by a gourd) is a specific and strong influence too.

There's something both visceral and comic to me about a story where getting your head chopped off is, like, an inconvenience. It's gonzo and reckless in a way that the D&D rules don't exactly allow for- which is why, of course, it was necessary to make some rules of my own. I gave players the option ahead of time to get beheaded, and thankfully I had volunteers who were willing to give it a go.

 

On another level, I enjoy the flagrant disregard for biology that it entails. The scientific mind insists: you can't replace the head, can you? You can replace everything but the head, right? Because the head has the brain, and the brain is where you are, isn't it? When you defy that logic, you're catapulted into a folkloric mode of thinking instead, which I find to be a more agreeable framework for fantasy-horror. 

 

Plus I had so much fun with these renders! The distressed pumpkinface makes me smile: 

 

  

 

New Release: The Orbital Academy for Gifted Youngsters for Mothership 1e

  

The Sales Patter:

The Orbital Academy for Gifted Youngsters: a 1-million-credit-a-semester prestigious private middle school / satellite space station created by Protagoras Co. All communication went dark 4 days ago.

A rich executive is willing to pay a king’s ransom to extract his daughter from the OAGY. To get her out, you’ll have to face the horrific truth of the Academy. Study hard and check your notes- you’re about to get a lesson in fear!

The Orbital Academy for Gifted Youngsters is a trifold sci-fi horror scenario designed for use with the Mothership RPG 1e (Tuesday Knight Games).

Download Here:

 https://xiaofang64.itch.io/the-orbital-academy-for-gifted-youngsters

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/537352/the-orbital-academy-for-gifted-youngsters 

First Post

 Helllo!

If you are reading this, thanks for being interested enough to check out my link! I'm using this blog mainly to keep a record of all the stuff I write for TTRPGs. If you're interested, check out My Links  where you can also find ways to contact and play games with me.

 Thanks for visiting and stay frosty!