In last week’s post, I discussed being hard at work getting everything ready for Zinetopia. As I have learned now that I am in a community with all the other Zinetopia people, not everyone feels the same way as I do about having a near-finished product. I guess I’m just a super intense person … which I already knew, but damn.

I think there’s a lot to say on the subject, which I will try to abbreviate as best I can.

A big part of this is that it’s my first ‘showing’, which doesn’t seem to be the case for most of the others in Zinetopia. There are people who are just starting playtesting or locking down concepts, people who are hiring for art and layout, and people with vague plans. Many don’t expect to have a full project ready, and are selling the idea of their game. Also, my game accidentally became a chonk of a zine, in the way that Sophia Tinney’s Kingdoms is a zine, and the others probably have … actual zines that are shorter and easier to get out.

I’m not going to shit on anyone’s creative process, as long as it makes it out of the gate and you’re clear about timelines with your audience, I’m happy. And I’m sure that is what everyone else is focused on: making me, specifically, happy. As they should.

I just know that I will feel much better about myself and my mental state if I get as much done in the forefront as possible, so my actual crowdfunding page looks as good as it can and I won’t have regrets afterwards. The big fear is not making it past the finish line, to put in all this work and have it be for not.

To assuage these feelings, I’ve been focusing a lot on what I want to do AFTER the campaign. I already have 90% of the next game floating in my head, but I’m going to go at a more manageable pace with this one. I won’t talk about it now, because it will surely jinx everything if I do.

For Blightfall, I’m doing a lot of bashing of public domain works, with a couple illustrations of my own. My goal for the next game is to do A LOT more art. So part of the future will be focusing on getting better at illustrating.

But the other thing I’d like to focus on is gaming. The closer Zinetopia gets, the less I am playing so that I can work more. Gross. That’s going to change post-Blightfall. I plan on running the following games, which is actually what this post is about:

Carved From Brindlewood

After playing a game of Carved from Brindlewood at LUG Con, I am ready to dive deep. I want to run them in release order, a campaign of Brindlewood Bay to a campaign of The Between to a campaign of Public Access. And I can’t mention Public Access without calling out the incredible Actual Play of it by The Bad Spot, with GMing by Jason Cordova himself. I might even run some of his upcoming game, The Lands Remaining, if enough of the playtest materials are out by then.

Borg Me

I love this new generation of OSR-influenced games, and I must delve as deep as I can. I have plans to run Crown of Salt by Tania Herrero (she has her own Borg game, Fomoria, crowdfunding in the future, featuring her art and partnering with Johan Nohr for layout), Tephrotic Nightmares by Luke Gearing, the new Down Among the Dead campaign for Pirate Borg, and some Vast Grimm.

Perils & Princesses

I ran a one shot of Perils & Princesses at Dragon Con this year and it was spectacular. There is a campaign called Sweet Revenge I’d like to run, with the inclusion of The Secret of the Night Market. My First Dungeon is running Sweet Revenge starting January 2026, and the MFD crew are going to for sure do an incredible job. I look forward to listening both for enjoyment and to help me prepare my own campaign.

Necronautilus

I HAVE to play Necronautilus by Adam Vass. Have to. This game looks so cool. You play as gaseous Death Agents in a post-death universe, enforcing the rules of Death and possibly remembering your pre-death life. The vibes are out of this world (I’m so sorry for the pun (I’m not)). I even found an additional content zine at my LGS that I snatched up.

One Shots

No cool image. Just know that I want to play/run lots of one shots to experience more systems than just the ones listed above.

This list could change at any moment, based on any whim.

And you can just deal with it.