Embarking on this journey...

Will-o-Wisp by Jim Jones

I have had this blog set up and stored away for a few years. My idea was to use it as a space to share monster designs as I came up with them, but I never really got it off the ground. At the time I was reading a number of the first edition Pathfinder Role Playing Game (now in its second edition) books and thought that I could design some creatures and denizens for its adventures and dungeons, but I was honestly having a hard time wrapping my mind around the system. It was pretty convoluted getting all the math and rules to fit what I had in my head (my understanding is that second edition is easier and more fluid). So I just shelved it.

In the following years, I started hanging out on Google+ and reading a bunch (and playing a few) smaller press RPGs. I really fell in love with games like The Warren, Monster of the Week, and Dungeon World; all games using the Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA) role playing engine. Coming up with monsters, scenarios, and items for PbtA games just fit my brain. I shared a couple that I had come up with in various spaces on Google+ and received a pretty good response. 

Flash forward to now and Google+ is gone, though I have saved a lot of what I created there. I am also playing in a regular online Dungeons and Dragons 5e game with my wife and my cousins that we play over Roll20 and I'm starting a regular home game of Dungeon World Pugmire (Edit in March of 2021: it ended up taking a few more months to get there and it turned into a different game) with my wife and kids, and planning an online West Marches-ish Dungeon World Pugmire and Ironsworn and Monster of the Week and Band of Blades (and probably other systems... ) game for a rotating cast of friends who really want to play. 

The Coronavirus Pandemic plays a big part in this, I am sure. My youngest daughter is medically vulnerable and I am extremely lucky to be able to work from home (so far) for my job. All of my kids are taking virtual schooling options and my wife is teaching online. We rarely go out. We order our groceries online and pick them up curbside without interacting with the wonderful workers who make this precaution possible. As of this writing, we have been in very few buildings other than our own home in over one hundred and fifty days. That leaves a lot of time to be in my own head. Games have been an escape. I am hoping writing and monster design will help me in similar ways.

I hope that sharing some of my monsters, artifacts, scenarios, and other tools that I come up with for Dungeon World and Monster of the Week (and any other system that I may get into) will be helpful to you as well. Maybe that will inspire a good night of escapist fun for you and your family or friends. I hope that they can help lead to some great moments and memories. 

If you do end up using them in your games, let me know. I would love to hear about them.

Take care. Be well. Be safe.

Jim Jones

* Edited March 2021 to reflect new reality.