I have circled this book for literally years now. It is an albatross but I'm finally gonna eat it. That's what you do to albatrosses, you eat them up.
I am working at a rate that hasn't been matched since Troika got written. Since the beast is a list, finite, calculable, I can estimate that it'll be on the final draft in two weeks. When that happens it'll be a major relief, a cleared blockage, and allow me to get everything else finish in (hopefully) short order. But I'm alwa...
2020-10-02 22:47:31 +0000 UTC
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If you hadn't noticed my approach to work is to do everything at once and sometimes things escape. This is a map for one of my chapbooks. It will be an adventure/GM guide.
It's an adventure in so much as there'll be content to play, it'll be a GM guide in as much as it'll explain how to use it. Each of those will succeed to different degrees depending on your feelings towards them.
The adventure itself has no real reason, plot, stakes, and so forth. What there'll be is an explanat...
2020-05-30 22:24:03 +0000 UTC
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So here's how it is. Since Troika released I have been stuck doing maintenance. Post, emails, post, accounts, social media, marketing, project management, more post etc. I kinda hate all that stuff, but it's what needs to be done. It's been a year now and I have someone doing my post, someone doing social media, someone doing project management, and there's me doing all the stuff in the gaps. It works ok, pays our rent, but not as well as making some goddamn books.
So yea, been crunchin...
2020-02-20 19:17:31 +0000 UTC
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Getting Troika moving has been a slog. I've been working away on everything except creative endeavours for almost a year now. This has resulted in 11 books for Troika being put in motion. One is already out (Fronds of Benevolence) 2 are written and illustrated, 3 are written, and 5 are in various drafts states.
Troika is doing ok. It's ea...
2020-01-22 01:16:44 +0000 UTC
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These should be universally applied to all possible encounters regardless of attitude or anatomy
PROCLIVITIES
- Keeps a bit of dried alzabo brain in their cheek. Voice changes slightly as they talk
- Chews fragrent bark
- Licka the back of their hands while thinking
- Keeps all their change in their mouth
- Visits their mother regularly
- Politically divergent and argumentative
- Collects religious tracts
- Fa...
2020-01-22 01:02:07 +0000 UTC
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I have this issue with messing with structure. I'll fiddle and fiddle for months and months and nothing much happens. But then a form appears and the writing just pours out into it.
Gnosis may have arrived at a form. Random generation is not what Troika is about. It's about partial creation. Reactive imagination.
.
This is what I'm working with:
.
11 - P!P!Ssshrp
Other Names - Befouler of Ponds, Bloated Toad God, The Waist Wader, The Catcher in the Re...
2019-09-17 15:12:59 +0000 UTC
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Social combat like physical combat is merely an impasse.
I want your things, you don't want to give them, impasse. Fight.
I sneak up on a guy, stab him in the kidney, dead. No impasse no fight.
I want them to tell me where the shops are, they don't want to. Impasse, pry.
I ask them to follow me, they don't mind, no impasse no talky.
We all know how combat in Troika works. Social impasse...
2019-08-30 00:34:20 +0000 UTC
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I've been sitting on this map for a long time. It's time to use it.
One of the chapbooks will be about two extra dimensional towers leeching a sphere dry to the point of crumbling away across the Horizon. The party will try to do something about this.
This map is Cecil Howe's rendition of my scrappy map. In both cases the adventure was written after the map, in respo...
2019-07-24 00:22:39 +0000 UTC
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TROIKA! Numinous Edition has managed to scrape up a Best Writing nomination in this year's ENnies. Right here: http://www.ennie-awards.com/vote/2019/
If any of you feel like voting that would be very sweet of you.
I'll have some chapbooks for you quite soon, and I have to give this ...
2019-07-18 20:48:10 +0000 UTC
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Blog post over here regarding what's up at the moment, including some possibly interesting Troika stuff. All good news I hope.
https://whatwouldconando.blogspot.com/2019/05/not-dead-fungus-and-printing.html
Also chapbooks are teetering on the edge of viewability. Eeee!
2019-05-15 22:56:40 +0000 UTC
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Hello long-suffering patrons, we've finally got to a milestone moment: Troika turned up! We'll have them up for sale either tonight or tomorrow.
Without wasting time, simply put, use the voucher ABOUTBLOODYTIME at checkout on www.melsonia.com for free postage. Because of the overlap with the Kickstarter I can't make this neat and automated, but I'm trusting you to use it once and keep it to yourselves. I'm handling them manually so no harm can be done other than a small...
2019-03-14 16:46:48 +0000 UTC
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PAINTED WARRIOR
Your body is a canvas. When you left your home you left it covered in goodbyes, since then you have been painted in hellos and destinations and peoples. You are a a spray-paint golem, freely following the commands as you interpret them. Some of the goodbyes can still be seen, faded between newer more vivid contributions.
Possessions
- Weapon of your choice
- No clothes
Skills
2019-03-05 00:42:06 +0000 UTC
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SPIDER FINANCIER
Metropolitan travellers might remark on how strange it is to see a Spider outside of a bank teller’s window and you might remark in turn on how insensitive that is. Indeed, the thought that someone could hurt the feelings of a 6ft tall spider never crosses most people's’ minds, but a spider-heart aches like any other. However in truth you do not possess a spider-heart, at your core beats something far worse: the pungent heart of a Speculative Financier ...
2019-03-04 23:26:54 +0000 UTC
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LIMITANEI
The daedal borders of the commonwealth are largely forgotten by the Phoenix Throne, maintained only by inertia and the institution of the limitanei. You were one of the young volunteers of these rural militiae, received the ancient weapons and armour invested in the town since before the Autarchs looked inwards, and been instructed in their basic usage. You grew tired of chasing arctother from the city streets and dreamt of crossing into the silent exterior, so you left ...
2019-03-03 01:29:19 +0000 UTC
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SISTER-BROTHER OF THE MENDICANT ORDER OF St. SELFRIDGE
You wear the bulbous and ballooning habit of the Order of St. Selfridge, you don the many layered wigs, you paint your skin in the Adequate Hue, you receive every donation with an “as it ought to be”, and you buy only the finest oils and dried fruits. To some you are a common beggar, but you know you are an uncommon breed.
Possessions
- Golden begging bowl
- Bulbous habit of St. Selfr...
2019-03-02 22:38:06 +0000 UTC
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GIANT KILLER
They never stop growing. The limitanei can get them young, while they’re wild and reckless with their head still below the treeline, but for anything more they are outmatched and far from the Green Palace. Whole towns are abandoned when a cunning and fertile family dig deep into the hillside, unless of course they are so lucky as to have the benefit of your storied trade.
Possessions
- Large old horse
- Dented metal wagon handed down fr...
2019-03-02 16:40:51 +0000 UTC
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Tumere
Tzarina Dunwicket IV, upon learning of her long expected pregnancy, took to wearing dresses with the a hole in the front through which all could witness the ongoing gestation. It was eventually revealed through a series of public miracles that the occupant of her womb was not in fact a child but a reincarnated archon with no intention of coming out. We all know the story from there. However, to alleviate the Tzarina’s distress the court and all fashionable ladies...
2019-02-28 21:09:33 +0000 UTC
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Illumiere of the Worshipful Company of Lamplighters
Troika nights are brief and have the habit of sneaking up on a fellow, much like the Lamplighters themselves. As night descends so too do the Worshipful Companions, brandishing their polehooks and multicoloured phlogiston torches (each flame’s hue befitting a member's inscrutable standing within the guild). After a brief but intense bout of street violence and tasteful illumination they are gone, returned to their chap...
2019-02-28 17:03:18 +0000 UTC
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Piscimancer
You are a student of the Unweighted Scale and can see beyond the firmament to the piscean creatures that float amongst us, transposed on our dry reality. With effort you can reach beyond and whorl the ethereal waters, but are prone to becoming lost in watching these eidolons when you think no one is looking.
Possessions
- Bundle of 3d6 potent kataponti incense sticks
- Ruby goggles (as ruby lorgnettes but does not require a hand)
2019-02-28 14:30:37 +0000 UTC
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Troika is at the printers. I've hopefully linked you all a raw print document minus endpapers and covers. The finished pdf (which you'll all get) will be hyperlinked and fancy.
Over the next week or two there is going to be a mad dash for content ahead of the books arriving. Brace yourselves
2019-02-18 17:01:34 +0000 UTC
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Mate of the Matross’ Guild
You sat days and nights at the ancient controls of the Autarch’s sky shattering artillery, ready for the word to pivot the canons and fire. At your hands those sleeping machines could wake up and split the world in two, but instead you sat in the dark and monitored the blinking lights that said the Commonwealth’s enemies were still sleeping.
Possessions
Overalls
Iridescent goggles
Lots of...
2018-12-15 23:23:52 +0000 UTC
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Decolator
Schoom off with their head. Woosh watch it go. No one ever took as much joy in their job as you. If the crowd stormed the stage and removed your mask they’d see your beaming face right to the end. But that was then, now you’re out on The Road where no one appreciates a craftsman. Blunt axes and dirty blocks everywhere you go.
Possessions
Snub nosed executioner’s sword (as longsword)
Headsman’s mask: bla...
2018-12-15 22:48:44 +0000 UTC
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Owl Bagger
You would pull on your welly boots just as the sun is rising, every day. You’d walk the quiet streets of Troika with your ladder slung over your shoulder, tapping on doors and asking “bag your owls, guv?”. With a coin you’d climb up your ladder and stuff your sacks with tired owls clogging the gutters and bowing the rafters, or with a dismissive wave you’d be on your way; plenty more where that came from.
Possessions
Rubber boots...
2018-12-12 15:48:36 +0000 UTC
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LANDSCAPE SCULPTOR
You need only run your hands over the undisciplined edges of a stone to feel the land within. It almost flinches from your touch, it recognises your protean powers. You are fond of collecting rocks with potential, who resist you, or show willingness to change and are prepared at any time to throw them down and commit the world to them with chisel and hammer.
Possessions
Assortment of sculptor’s hammers & chisels
D6 interesting large r...
2018-12-11 02:11:01 +0000 UTC
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Horizon Knight
You are the disciple of a roving monastic order committed to the preservation of reality. You once sailed from sphere to sphere inside your hermetic fortress, plumbed the depths of non-existence, fusil in hand, engaging in highly abstract combat with the forces of entropy and psycho-oblivion. However one day on returning from an excursion beyond the black rainbow you found your fortress to be gone. In itself not surprising, the fortress goes where it is needed, bu...
2018-12-10 02:23:38 +0000 UTC
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STAR TYRANT
You crossed the sky on flaming horses, you fought Lord Quasar on the shores of Titan and toppled his Blue Glass Conservatories, you fled the War Sphere with an army of brain-broken star-bastards at your back. You stole the Bridle of Aeons, you touched the Eye of God, you saw it you took it you lost it all over again, you are the Star Tyrant.
Possessions
Bridle of Aeons
Phlogiston Sword
Pistolet, empty
Muscles, rippling
Drastic ha...
2018-12-10 02:17:04 +0000 UTC
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Some of these are new, some of these are old, some of these are double dipping. It's all getting poured in. My records on what's where are pretty bad, and some backgrounds just get lost entirely, so I'll treat it all the same for now.
Pile in.
2018-12-08 18:59:51 +0000 UTC
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Beast Hunter
You are a freelance monster hunter. “Monsters are killed by all sorts of people,” you might say, “anyone with a sword can do it.” Well yes, anyone can do that, just like anyone can step on a rat, but one rat does not end your troubles. Will you then crawl into the thatch and find the mother rats and the baby rats? Stuff them in a bag and nail them to a tree? Most likely not. Likely you weren’t even aware you needed...
2018-12-08 18:58:26 +0000 UTC
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Boiled Egg Trader
Up and down the market you go, up and down with your your pickling pot, your jars and jars and jars hung from colourful cord and clanking. You fancy yourself the finest example of the market’s spirit, a true peddler in the old methods, a visiting saint in this rough parish, shouting your sermon from the pulpit “COME GET YER EGGS!”
Possessions
3d6 jars of boiled eggs
A pickling pot, full of pickled eggs
An egg ladle
Sun hat<...
2018-12-08 15:59:40 +0000 UTC
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Modica don’t recognise the distinctness of the universe from the matter of the Monad, believing that each person, aeon, rock and stream are equal parts of the divine body. When confronted with the violent disharmony of reality they engage in intense didactics. What knowledge has the hair on your head of the hair on your toes? Do we not bite our nails? Consider the glacier in the valley. And so on, so on they go.
Possessions
Plain wh...
2018-12-07 16:06:12 +0000 UTC
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