Suburban Gothic, free resources, and signal boosting
Hey folks, I hope you’re doing well. I’m writing this post with the assistance of a hot cup of tea because I’ve been struck by a nasty flu. This explains the laconic style of this issue. But don’t worry, this post is packed with cool resources.
Suburban Gothic
I’ve been looking for a while for the right genre wording to describe The Lost Bay RPG. A short combination of words to encompass both the setting and the tone: parking lots, malls, VHS tapes, curses, serial killers, and paranormal beings. Tried series of different wording that felt all too narrow. Until yesterday I randomly stumbled across #suburban gothic on tumblr. It’s packed with cool images, and so many of them hit TLB tone that I’ve decided to adopt it. The Lost Bay RPG is a Suburban Gothic tabletop RPG!
If you’re curious about the game, and would like to get a taste of it, hop in The Lost Bay server I’m setting up 60 minutes discovery sessions, that include character creation and a mini fight to get new players to discover the game: we are expecting you here.
(Almost) Free ressources
If you’re reading this email you’re probably a game master or an indie designer. And you’re often in need of cool illustrations for your character sheets, adventures, games. But you’re on a budget, or you can’t draw (like me), and you don’t want to use AI generated images. Well, search no more: here’s a list of free or affordable art resources for your RPG projects. Feel free to add more in the comments.
Old school revisited 5€
28 Transparent .png images of fantasy creatures and characters you can freely use in your projects. https://roque-romero.itch.io/old-school-revisited.
Weird fantasy and sci-fi $1/mo
by Evlyn Moreau
You can become Evlyn’s patron for as little 1$/mo and this allows to use a gazillion unique illustrations for your publications including, maps, space stations, and some great NPCs. www.patreon.com/evlynmoreau
Feel good fantasy, free
by Emiel Boven
@emielboven.bsky.social free library is insanely packed with cool mostly fantasy illustrations, with a nice eerie-cute vibe, and a fantastic use of half-tone https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1UV63xx3Mue8TbVxImTdBDbzH9uljLmFh Emiel’s library is completely free but you can support their work on their patre*n
Red, black, and white nightmares, free donation
by Strega Wolf van den Berg
@strega-wolf.bsky.social brings you a flesh and blood library of color images released under CCLA - ideal for spooky or nightmarish adventures and worlds. One of a kind artist. stregawolf.art/ccla-library
Retro futuristic spaceships, $5
by Carly A-F
@carlydraws.bsky.social has put together a fantastic retro Sci-Fi spaceship pack - I’m just going to print those and frame them https://carlydraws.itch.io/spaceships-vol-1
Grim fantasy and more, starting 1€/mo
by Perplexing Ruins
You’ve probably seen @perplexingruins.bsky.social's art in many RPG zines out there. Unique dark and misty flavor reminiscent of tales and evocative of high road bandits and unspeakable secrets. Support their patre*n and get access to a fantastic library https://www.patreon.com/perplexingruins
Amanda Lee amazing art, $1/mo
by Amanda Lee
A collection of spot art spaceships, monsters, swords, and weird fantasy. Amanda’s art is uniquely eerie, dreamy, and trippy and ecompasses a super wide variety of genres. One of the most prolific and creative illustrators of the RPG scene. Their Comradery subscription gives you the opportunity to access a large catalog of art for just a buck per month. https://comradery.co/amandalee
Fantasy, dungeons and forests, 1€/month
A patre*n filled with fantasy themed art for your publications! Unique opportunity to get dungeon and forest inspired illustrations from an artist published several times in Knock. Look at that atmospheric lighting! get that vibe! It feels like being there, can you hear the Balrog coming? https://www.patreon.com/bertdrawsstuff
Cyberpunk and sci-fi fever, $50, sometimes on sale
Zach art is adorning some of the most incredible sci-fi/horror/cyberpunk zines out there, including Mothership 1e Warden’s operation manual, The Bloom for Liminal Horror, album covers, comics and more! Zach has put together a pack of 67 art pieces. Follow Zach on itch, he often puts the pack on sale! https://emosludge.itch.io/spot-art
Signal Boosting
Now that you’re equipped with cool art, let’s find you games to play. Once again the season of the year where RPG projects are pouring over the interwebs is upon us. The number of available crowdfunding platforms is multiplying, and it gets increasingly difficult tracking what is happening out there. Lucky for you, today, and in the next issues of The Dispatch, I’ll be helping you detect cool projects in need of funding. Seriously, I think that signal boosting other projects is crucial in maintaining a healthy game space.
Tomb of a Thousand Doors
by Matthew Morris and a huge team of writers and artists.
A gigantic dungeon for Mausritter, and easily adaptable for any Into the Odd hack game. This 250+ room dungeon for little mice adventurers is born from a game jam, and reunites creatives from all over the world. The Kickstarter is burning through stretch goals, and has already unlocked a custom character sheet by Bruno Prosaiko, dungeon synth music, boxed set, GM screen and more goodies. Your definitive dungeon crawling companion for the year ahead of us. The campaign finishes in less than five days, so hurry up, get your reward! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/manarampmatt/tomb-of-a-thousand-doors-a-mausritter-megadungeon
Godspark
by Allen Hall
A dark solo game, in which you roam through the celestial corpses of fallen Gods to harvest Godsparks, fragments of divine power that help you stay alive. Godspark is played with a 52 card deck, and is laid out beautifully. This game is funded, and all stretch goals have been unlocked, including an interesting two player mode. Be sure to check this out, Allen Hall is a rising and prolific game designer, you wouldn’t want to miss their first Kickstarter. I’ve been following Allen’s work in the last year, and I’m super excited to dive into Godspark, a highly replayable game that will hook solo gaming enthusiasts.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mallenhall/godspark-pen-and-paper-adventure
That’s all I got for you today. Actually, I had more stuff to unpack, but my body is busy fighting the flu. Luckily, Laura Elle, supervising editor of the podcast and Skyrealms, gave me a nice box filled with tea samples, and I’ve just realized I can roll a d6 on it. Gimme a sec…. I’ve rolled a 1, a Long Jing, delicate green tea. This is gonna help me get through the winter!
Until next time, stay well!
Iko
A great list of assets! Thank you for this!