#tektoa — Public Fediverse posts

Adventurers arrive from the sea, looking to explore the Parayan Jungle or hunt dinosaurs. Prospectors search for deposits of valuable mineral ore called viridium. Settlers want to start a new life. A greedy, unscrupulous Company wants to expand into the wild.

This leads to tensions as native tribes are threatened and pushed inland by the settlers. Even worse, there's something sinister and ancient waking up deep within the jungle of #Tektoa, that might destroy natives and colonists alike. 2/2

It's a great feeling when I actually have time, inspiration and motivation to do some #ttrpg writing.

I've been tinkering with a pulp #steampunk #LostWorld setting called #Tektoa for over a year now.

In the last few days I wrote 4 pages of notes about the principal port town of the setting, wrote two rumor tables (for the town and for the wilderness) and then I created random encounter tables for four different bioms.

Look, all of it might turn out to be crap, but it's at least MY crap!

Dirigible "Gigant", used by player characters in my one-shot adventure to deliver medicines over a vast jungle to a faraway mining town. #steampunk #TinyD6 #ttrpg #Tektoa

The session ended with the PCs and the lizard man quietly leaving the fort with the dirigible's engines turned off, releasing ballast and using the wind to fly away into the night.

Oh, and since it took them a day to prepare this plan, they stalled for time by allowing the commander to load the dirigible with improvised bombs in preparation for the retaliation mission. So now they have explosives on board as well. Fun times!

Anyway, my players are the best.

/end #Tektoa

They came up with an elaborate plan to free the lizard-man warrior.

First, party's wilderness expert gathered some narcotic berries and mixed them with wine.

Then party's missionary PC held a special evening mass in the fort to bless the upcoming attack. She used drugged Eucharist wine to disable assembled soldiers.

The plan was also to use dirigible to pry away the bars from the prison cell window. Howerer, then PC sailor simply got the prison guard drunk and took his keys. 5/? #Tektoa

However, PCs got a chance to talk to a captured native warrior - a lizard-man. He says that settlers have been encroaching on native lands for years dsespite earlier promises to stay way. So, the tribes have had enough.

And now PCs have to decide: will they help the commander, the natives, both, or none? 4/? #Tektoa

The fort guards a river - an important travel route for transporting ore from the aforementioned mining community.

The natives have been attacking and burning down river boats. So, commander wanted to enlist PCs and their dirigible to retaliate by bombing the camp of native warriors. 3/? #Tektoa

As for the game, players were travelling above the #Tektoa jungle in their dirigible carrying medicines for sick miners in a faraway community. They began the session by landing in a border fort to spend the night.

What began as a mere improvisation turned into a nice little roleplaying encounter combined with a skill challenge. 2/?

Last night I ran my second game of #TinyD6 #ttrpg set in my homebrew settimng called #Tektoa.

Wouldn't you know: when I actually came prepared for the game, the session went much more smoothly.

It's not even that I got a chance to do anything particularly complex or innovative, but the mere feeling of being ready helped me remain calm and focused during the session. 1/?

The swamps are teeming with vermin, fungi, and disease. Only the reptile folk could call this place home. #Tektoa

In the swamps and jungles of Tektoa, even the plant life craves flesh and blood. #Tektoa

So, last night I ran for the first time #TinyD6 #ttrpg for a group of my friends, set in a pulp/steampunk lost world setting I call #Tektoa.

Players played the crew and the passengers aboard dirigible "Gigant", flying over dinosaur-infested jungle to urgently bring medicines to a distant mining community.

They were attacked by a trio of diablodactyls, but defeated them fairly easy. 1/2

Next week, I'll be running a short #ttrpg adventure using #Tinyd6 rules by Gallant Knight Games.

I'll be running a pulp/steampunk game set in my Lost World/Mysterious Island setting called #Tektoa.

Thanks to my friend @viktorTheBoar I have this neat character sheet for the game. Since we'll be playing online, I also made a fillable PDF version.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MJIld-JoNJXs6tHTOVAPWGpDLyiHeMT5/view?usp=sharing

"Even in the best of circumstances, hunting diablodactyl is a perilous proposition." #Tektoa

"Each evening, we would anchor our aerostat near the mighty, churning river Mudwater." #Tektoa

"It was a giant motherlode of pure viridium!"

#Tektoa

"The town of Viridium Peak was named after a peculiar, valuable mineral. Indeed, the dangerous but profitable mining of viridium is the town’s principal industry."
#Tektoa

"The behemoths battled with savage abandon." #Tektoa

"Treacherous waters around #Tektoa are full of reefs. Jagged rock formations often take on disturbingly organic forms."

"We crossed over the river gorge using a fallen tree as an improvised bridge." #Tektoa

"The giant bird lifted the grown man up as if he were a child." #tektoa

A huge inspiration behind my #steampunk adventure #ttrpg setting #Tektoa are 19th century illustrations of novels by Jules Verne by artists like Édouard Riou,‎ Léon Benett, and George Roux.
They have a very distinctive look: incredibly detailed black and white etchings and lithographs. But the artists aren’t merely replicating reality, they are exaggerating it to make it feel more dramatic. 1/2

https://www.wikiart.org/en/edouard-riou
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:L%C3%A9on_Benett

"Even as we hacked at them with our machetes, vampiric vines squeezed our friend like steel cables." #Tektoa

"Gargantuan trees loomed above us as we cut our path through the eternal dusk of the Parayan Jungle." #Tektoa

"'I’m afraid you shall require a larger watercraft.' observed Brody." #Tektoa

"Equipped with powerful viridium lights, heliograph semaphores help maintain communication between distant communities while providing navigation aid to dirigibles." #Tektoa

"Even as it was hacked to bits, the fiendish octobauk kept clinging to explorers with its powerful tentacles."
#Tektoa

"Peculiar celestial lights heralded our arrival to #Tektoa. Apparently, such phenomena are quite common around the island continent."

While researching cool images for my Victorian pulp adventure #ttrpg setting #Tektoa, I stumbled upon incredible drawings of Maya ruins by British artist Frederick Catherwood. In the 1840s, he journeyed to Central America alongside American travelogue writer John Lloyd Stephens. Stephens' books and Catherwood's illustrations helped introduce magnificent ruins of the Maya culture to the Western world. #art 1/2

https://www.oldbookillustrations.com/titles/ancient-monuments-central-america/

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=frederick+catherwood&title=Special:MediaSearch&type=image

I don't want to jinx myself, but I actually did some writing today? Like, for myself and not for job? And it was enjoyable? And I began turning my semi-coherent cliff notes about my Lost world RPG mini-setting into concrete prose.

#amwriting #ttrpg #tektoa

So, I cobbled my personal mix of #TinyD6 rules, combining aspects of Tiny Cthulhu, Tiny Gunslingers, Advanced Tiny Dungeons, and Bestiarium Vocabulum: A TinyD6 Bestiary.

And yet, basic rules are still quite simple and clear. Whatever over complication there is is solely my fault.

I made a Google Docs document for my players, copying relevant rules. All in all, there's about 30 pages covering combat, equipment, character creation, adventuring... Everything!

#ttrpg #Tektoa

While simple, there's juuust enough crunchiness to it. There are different categories of weapons. There are Traits giving you advantage on certain types of checks. There are simple rules for traps, magic, all kinds of stuff!

The game is light yet robust enough that you can tinker with it. I created my own starting archetypes, equipment list and bunch of monsters, all based on pre-existing material.

As a plus, there are bunch of dinosaur stats already in the game!

#ttrpg #Tektoa #TinyD6

I was even thinking of building my own RPG system, starting with #YearZeroEngine that powers #Vaesen, Alien and Blade Runner RPGs. And then, someone mentioned that #TinyCthulhu was on sale on DrivethruRPG.

I never heard of TinyD6 system before, but I was immediately delighted. In TinyD6, you use the d6 dice, and have to roll either 5 or 6 for a success. If you have an advantage, you roll three d6. If you have a disadvantage, roll one d6. That's pretty much it.

#ttrpg #Tektoa #TinyD6

#FrontierScum seems really fun for one-shots, but I'm not sure I could run a whole campaign using that system.

#OwlHootTrail looks like fun, but it is too much about transposing D&D classes and races into the Western setting.

#SavageWorlds is just a tiny bit too crunchy for me.

I also checked out two setting-appropriate #Ubiquity games: #HollowEarthExpedition and #LeaguesofAdventure, but, for some reason, they just didn't click for me.

#ttrpg #Tektoa #TinyD6

I'm feeling a bit envious of people on dice.camp who keep posting statuses about their ttrpg projects or games or what have you.

While I'm not currently running anything, the thing is... I have a project of my own, too. It's just that... It doesn't feel like something worth writing about.

But since this is a dedicated ttrpg server. Let's give it a try, anyway!
#ttrpg #Tektoa #Tinyd6 #foreverGM