{"id":10449,"date":"2026-06-01T07:41:31","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T11:41:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=10449"},"modified":"2026-05-08T07:43:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T11:43:09","slug":"the-steep-mage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=10449","title":{"rendered":"The Steep Mage"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-preformatted\">By brine\nSelf Published\nYarn &amp; Bone\/Universal<\/pre>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A mage sits in a cemetery, sipping tea while his diggers excavate Lady Veshra&#8217;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&#8217;s descendant wants the Soulstone inside the coffin&#8230; her last asset. Tonight he joins his true love in life or in death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These twelve pages describe the idea for an adventure rather than adventure.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I don\u2019t even know what\u2019s real anymore. I don\u2019t 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\u2019t go clam digging there. Maybe while I was drugged up?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s 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\u2019s the outline. And it takes twelve pages to do that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Look, I\u2019m not saying all of the ideas here are bad. One of the hooks has you showing up, as relatives, to rob the grave. \u201cYou arrived early to claim it before your &#8220;dear cousin&#8221; and her hired thugs \u201c That\u2019s 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 \u201chired hands\u201d goes at least its got some life.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And, thus, some of the framings in this are fine, or more than fine. But it never does anything with them. It\u2019s just a collection of motivations and ideas. Heavy on art and whitespace. I can\u2019t emphasize this enough: this is not an adventure. It is a collection of ideas that one could build an adventure from.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Whoever asked me to review this must have been trolling. I see that the system, Yarn &amp; 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.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Gentle reader, why have you not shit in a box and charged $5 for it?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s Name Your Price at itch, with a suggested price of $5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/casadeocio.itch.io\/the-steep-mage\">https:\/\/casadeocio.itch.io\/the-steep-mage<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By brine Self Published Yarn &amp; Bone\/Universal A mage sits in a cemetery, sipping tea while his diggers excavate Lady Veshra&#8217;s grave. He must speak only in rhyme lest his lungs collapse. His murdered wife possesses the living to assist &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=10449\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-do-not-buy-ever-2","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10449"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10450,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10449\/revisions\/10450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}