The Lost Bay zines in stock, Free 8p Urban Legends framework
The Quickstart and adventure zines available in print! Hell yeah!
Enter The Lost Bay
You asked for it, we printed it! We’re so excited to announce that The Lost Bay Quickstart is available in print, and with it comes a huge selection of The Lost Bay compatible adventures.
40 pages of Quickstart
This forty page zine features rich black and white artwork and was printed on recycled paper in a family-owned, three-generation print shop. It will serve as your guide into The Lost Bay game system and setting, including condensed core rules, three unique Vibes (playable classes) and a spooky adventure. (Caution: live flamingos and alligators. And watch out for hitchhikers!)
Get it here: https://www.thelostbaystudio.com/products/the-lost-bay-quickstart
Here’s the good news:
All TLB zines released today are 15% OFF, including the Quickstart.
If you’ve backed or pre-ordered any of The Lost Bay books, you get a 20% discount on the Quickstart and all the adventure zines. (Check your emails for the discount code)
UNIT DH-17
by Iko
Slasher suburban minidungeon adventure. A small, unassuming prefab suburban house hides terrifying subterranean flesh abominations. You shouldn’t have accepted that babysitting gig! - contains an evil cult generator card PDF!!
Dive deep below UNIT DH-17 here https://www.thelostbaystudio.com/products/unit-dh-17
An absolutely incredible, fully realized piece. This is SO GOOD. — Shooting Crow
Elevator Game
by Allen Hall
Missing people. Strange encounters. Rumors. Whispers. That's just the cost of doing business at Elevator Game. A Chiller deep dive into the underground music scene and the inky world of tattoo parlors. Have you dived too deep? Or maybe not deep enough?
Take a ride on the elevator here https://www.thelostbaystudio.com/products/elevator-game
Diesel Service
by Allen Hall
An Eerie road trip, featuring high speed roads and unsettling gas stations. A mysterious procession of trucks. The secretive Hooded Order. A dark ritual to bring back an immortal from the afterlife. The powerful Cat and Shadow have returned to their fighting, be careful not to become collateral damage.
Start your road trip here https://www.thelostbaystudio.com/products/diesel-service
A note for backers and pre-orderers: Diesel Service is available for early shipping , check your emails!
Most of our TLB zines now come in new plastic-free sleeves, and in my opinion, this is a good reason enough to snag them right now. Check it out, how cool is this?!
Inside The Lost Bay
Urban Legends Framework
I’ve talked briefly in a previous newsletter about TLB exploration procedure, aka Wandering. It’s a pointcrawl where PCs are forced to confront the unsettling and strange Urban Legends that permeate the Lost Bay. Urban Legends are modern myths, they speak to our social and intimate fears, drawing out things long left hidden. They frequently involve frightening characters, daunting events, and uncanny encounters. Though these stories may sound unbelievable, in The Lost Bay all Legends are true. They are one of the main tools available to build TLB adventures. They owe a great deal to Chris McDowell’s Mythic Bastionland Myths. While Chris uses Myths to structure hexcrawls, we’ll use them primarily as the backbone of pointcrawls.
The pointcrawl procedure is simple, easily hackable, and rewards exploration. At its core is the DooM clock. Players roll a check on it for every Turn. If the roll is equal or less to the DooM level, an Urban Legend Omen is revealed. Omens are events or encounters. There are six of them for each UL, manifesting in succession from first to last. If PCs move, the DooM clock ticks and the UL moves to the next Omen. The more you explore the Bay, the more likely you are to confront the Legend, until its story consumes you entirely.
In terms of game design, this means players don’t know where they’ll encounter Omens, but the GM knows what the Omens lead up to and the outcome of ramping up tension. Of course, that’s the condensed version of it. The ULs can be bent and modified both during play as well as during the design phase.
I’ve put together a simple Urban Legend framework. I’m using it to write all The Lost Bay ULs and to GM sessions. It’s lightweight, and you might find it useful as it’s easily adaptable to dungeon crawls or hex crawls.
Mechanics
How does that work?
DooM clock starts at 1
Omens are encountered in successive order from 1 to 6
The last Omen is always an encounter with the MOFO or UL source
Every Turn
PCs can either Stay where they are or Move
If they Move DooM Clock +1
DooM check, if the result is less or equal to the DooM level, the next Omen is triggered (in the arriving location if they Move, or in the node they currently are if the Stay)
If the party looks actively to unveil the UL and finds clues, trigger the next Omen
Urban Legend Structure
What’s in it?
Legend: what PCs know about it.
Truth: the hidden truth.
Why do you care? (d6 table or list).
Omens x 6: Encounters or Events.
Den: Location where the UL originates (Minidungeon, Sub pointcrawl).
Cast
MOFO(s)
Minion(s)
Survivors
Others NPCs
Special Mechanics (if any)
Special NPC(s) Roles, and Mood (if any)
Special Mechanics
They can be and are not limited to
DooM check triggers (find or do something that triggers a DooM check)
Next Omen triggers (find or do something that triggers the next Omen)
Encounters
Have fun and break the framework (that’s the most important rule)
Wrapping up
Dice drop map: throw six to nine d6 on a sheet of paper; these are the nodes
Draw lines connecting the dice dice: these are the paths between your nodes
Populate your nodes: add Locations and NPCs, check TLB kickass one-roll NPC generation procedure
Pick a starting node
Place the Den on a random node
Have fun
Tip
The DooM clock doesn’t have to start at 1. If you want to speed up the pace or play a shorter session, consider starting it at 3 or even more. Starting the DooM clock at 6 means the PCs will encounter Omens each turn.
Gimme the good stuff
As I want to make things easy for you I’ve put together a few resources.
The UL Framework in a Google doc (contains an example UL Abductions)
Free 8 page PDF example UL to run at your table https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1c5vwvRrQxeYY9ylyx7tHbyg4Y0CEBAOo?usp=sharing
Blank Affinity template to build your and print your UL also https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1c5vwvRrQxeYY9ylyx7tHbyg4Y0CEBAOo?usp=sharing
Spreading love and RPGs
Six things you might like about how we ship zines:
We ship worldwide! We want you to be able to enjoy our zines, wherever you might find yourself.
We subsidize part of the shipping fees. Yes, we’d hate for you to have to pay too much just to get your zines.
We do EU friendly shipping, customs prepaid, no hassle on reception.
We offer free shipping above £65!
Your order is processed and shipped, on average, only 48 hours after you place it. We’re just that quick!
Our shipping partner is Carbon NEGATIVE!!! That’s right, the trees they plant reduce more CO2 than they produce while shipping your products!
That’s all we got for you today folks. While you snag your zines we’ll be back and preparing for All Flesh is Surplus, the upcoming online convention that will be hosted in the TLB Discord server this coming October! Keep your eyes peeled, we’ll be announcing the full program shortly.
May the Weird be with you!
Cheers,
Iko & Wren the Forrester