The Steep Mage

By brine
Self Published
Yarn & Bone/Universal

A mage sits in a cemetery, sipping tea while his diggers excavate Lady Veshra’s grave. He must speak only in rhyme lest his lungs collapse. His murdered wife possesses the living to assist his ritual. The cemetery fights back with sentinel crows and grief wraiths. Veshra’s descendant wants the Soulstone inside the coffin… her last asset. Tonight he joins his true love in life or in death.

These twelve pages describe the idea for an adventure rather than adventure. 

I don’t even know what’s real anymore. I don’t know how I got here. Somehow this made it on to my list. I THINK that means someone had to specifically ask me to review it. I know itch is worse than DriveThru and so I don’t go clam digging there. Maybe while I was drugged up? 

It’s just twelve pages outlining the concept of an idea. A dumb ass mage who has to sip tea is digging up a grave to get some magic thing. There are undead in the cemetery, and a ghost-thing, and some other chick shows up with mercs who wants the same thing the mage is digging for. That’s the outline. And it takes twelve pages to do that.

Look, I’m not saying all of the ideas here are bad. One of the hooks has you showing up, as relatives, to rob the grave. “You arrived early to claim it before your “dear cousin” and her hired thugs “ That’s good writing and a decent hook. Or the local official sending you to deal with some chick who he thinks is batshit crazy who insists her ancestors grave is being robbed. As “hired hands” goes at least its got some life. 

And, thus, some of the framings in this are fine, or more than fine. But it never does anything with them. It’s just a collection of motivations and ideas. Heavy on art and whitespace. I can’t emphasize this enough: this is not an adventure. It is a collection of ideas that one could build an adventure from. 

Whoever asked me to review this must have been trolling. I see that the system, Yarn & Bone, is variously describe as world-first, conversation heavy and solo. Who knows. But it also says its compatible with all RPG systems. In the sense that this is just a collection of ideas, yes, it is certainly compatible, just as the OED is as a roleplaying adventure. 

Gentle reader, why have you not shit in a box and charged $5 for it? 

It’s Name Your Price at itch, with a suggested price of $5.

https://casadeocio.itch.io/the-steep-mage