#rote zine

[roostercrowned]

I heard y'all like SAILING THE HIGH SEAS (and buff butch sailor babes) Launching this right now may not be the best idea I've ever had, but by god, I've done it once before and it's fooled me into thinking I can do anything.

[everywaythatmatters]

RotE dragons my beloved

[heyitsrink]

Resurrecting the RotE/Charlie Brown Crossover Special in honor of FitzChivalry Farseer Friday

I WILL make a zine about the crossover special soon eventually. You can find the original post HERE

[cicide76536]

"We are whole."

[naurielrochnur]

Wtf I am actually posting my art, even though I'm very self conscious about it? And I'm drawing people? (ew). What has rote done to me?(/derogatory(/affectionate))

Anyway, here's one of my favorite scenes, from Assassin's Quest, where Fitz, the Fool, and Nighteyes have a spontaneous water fight in a creek. I added a frog because who doesn't love frogs?

This scene just holds so much joy in a series that is markedly dark and grim. The relationship that we see on page of the Fool and Fitz is forged by suffering and hardship, but I find so much joy in thinking of all the ways that happy, goofy moments like this could also shape that relationship.

I just think our kids should be allowed to get a little bit silly. Is that really too much to ask?

[mellowthorn]

The fitzloved zine by @roostercrowned arrived today and it is absolutely gorgeous!! All the details from the envelope to the tapes to the design of the zine itself completely blew me away. Not to mention the amazing art and writing by everyone involved! 💛💛💛

[izzi-illustrates]

Would folks be interested in a Realm of the Elderlings/Fitz & the Fool zine of my fanart? I've been going a bit nuts drawing various characters/ships/rooms recently and was wondering if anyone would be interested in seeing them all together...

examples of Farseer stuff I'm drawing: Patience x Lacey, characters in their rooms, Kettricken (lots of Kettricken), Farseer family tree, Burrich x Molly, Fitz x Molly x Beloved, and more!

[chronotsr]

Pre-G1 Modules, part 2 - Palace of the Vampire Queen and DK1-3

Asterisk 1: The first standalone module, Palace of the Vampire Queen

(Another proud DND tradition, evil woman with her tits hanging out, representing here. This adventure is by Pete & Judy Kerestan, the operators of Wee Warriors.)

I'm trying really hard to not get TOO bogged down in exterior details to the adventures themselves, but a small preamble about Wee Warriors. Wee Warriors was a little company that was born to publish DND supplements. They were one of many, there were many zines and magazines and fan supplements going around, for example Judge's Guild forms at roughly the same time. They worked with TSR after a while to publish these things, so they were unofficial-but-official in a weird way. Early DND culture functions less like a business and more like a hobby community. Most of the early DND people knew each other in some capacity, it's only when DND got really far away from Lake Geneva that distinct cultures started forming island effect-style.

Good enough, let's keep going.

Our preamble gives us the basic of the adventure, dwarf island harangued by vampire queen, the undead keep abducting people to eat their blood. Conspicuously absent is any kind of information about a suggested level or party size.

It's cute, right? The styling is so welcome and loving in a way that TSR products will not have for a long, long time.

It's very rote, lots of very basic traps and stocked rooms. Not much to see he--

T-telepathic kittens that improve your morale? This is one of those moments where you just instantly know. The hobby isn't as different as you might thing. This is the exact sort of adorable shit you'd see on one of those big streamer shows. We all love our cats. They are our strength.

There genuinely isn't much to say about the rest of the module, other than that there is a shocking amount of child murder. There is an evil castle with a vampiress in it and you gotta go whack people til you can claim the reward money. About the most interesting twist you'll find in here is that there's a fakeout queen, and that the genuine queen will immediately take the (unnamed) dwarf princess hostage to secure her escape. I do appreciate that, if you're going to make every room just be a combat encounter with loot in it, the decision to make the key a table with room/creatures/max damage/description is sound. I'm kind of surprised this table-style key never caught on, given the 'doom monster closets' design that typifies a lot of early DND.

I wish that there was a great revelation waiting here for you, that the first non-TSR adventure was a forgotten classic? But it's really not. It's some monster-stocked rooms with the rare trap, and a vague preamble. Temple of the Frog showed a lot more creativity. I am kind of strangely fond of these lovingly inked maps though, it makes me long for hand-inked maps again. The Dungeon Master's Kit product line continues for two more entries (The Dwarven Glory and The Misty Isles) to form a soft trilogy.

Bonus Round: Skimming the rest of the Wee Warriors Dungeon Master's Kits

So the thing about the DK product line is that it's not very interesting. But since I had to get a copy, I'm making it your problem by talking about them more.

Everything about this room fascinates me. There is so much going on here that isn't explained. And then you keep going to room F7:

Again, nothing is fucking explained. The monsters are in conflict because why not? There's actually a great idea in here, (although again, why is child murder so prevalent?)

There are wisps of interesting narrative here, but all that's actually presented is like…the end-state? "Evil high priest who is abusing a tragedy to push his agenda" is a solid plot point. The idea that returning the treasure can cause conflict is great. But also, holy shit 500k gp diamond. That's enough exp to max your character in one fell swoop???

Moving onto Misty Isles, this is more of a…. setting than a module per-se. There's some implied plots I suppose. Here's some of the weirdest things:

The leader of the dwarves on one island is implied to be gay, which is a strange decision given how we don't have any other practical information about him, and has melted all his gold into one pile

A profit-prophet who gives oracles for bribes

Many, many dwarf seems to have access to actual modern day machine guns?

A band of monks are looking for a girl stolen by zombies. Why….did they steal her? Why is there hope of rescuing her? They're zombies, they're going to eat her!

I cannot do this justice myself:

That's….that's a lot. You want to randomly roll for nearly 600 magical objects? Sometimes designers Simply Say Words. The "My PC is the most bestest guy ever and could never be defeated" stories you hear people whinging about take a very different context when you realize there's just, GMs running around handing people literally 600 random magical items. Eventually you're going to roll and get the best items in the game. Note also, literally zero way of detecting any of the traps.

This random paragraph implies the existence of gamemaster-less play, a thing I guess could hypothetically exist with the degree of randomization, but. What?

Absolute queen shit. You go succubus lady! And the fairytale logic is cute cus, if the party got mad when they found out about this, they could always give her weight from some magic bullshit, like turning her into lead. Oops!

And it just goes on and on. There's a Cthulhu reference, there's a party of fighters who casually want to rape women (why were 70s gamers like this), the obligatory slavery character, et c. It's not the first setting released for DND, there are multiple people in front of this, I believe Empire of the Petal Throne won overall [fuck MAR Barker, nazi scum], and City State of the Invincible Overlord certainly predates it by a year. In 2024, it's a pretty tedious read. It reads like a list of ideas, because it is. There's some maps, but the maps are very sparse.

[kipperlillycopperkettle]

wip snippet ask game

was tagged by @grasslandgirl my beloved fellow mutual in long unfinished fics and a million wips <3 thank you so so much for tagging me <3333333 this is also only my fic folder bc otherwise this list would be a million times longer and it's already long enough. also stealing from sav and putting the fandom in parenthesis next to the titles. also i chose not to include the wip titles that got asked last time that i have made absolutely no progress on in the last year and two months because i have made no progress on them and have nothing new to say about them :(

“Rules: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it! And then tag people! This isn’t just for writing either. Sketch titles? Comics? DnD campaigns? If you have an unfinished project, it counts!”

bad ends for hardwon & moonshine (naddpod)

marvel fic (thg)

bad kids parent issues

never tasted as sweet a poison as you have. (thg)

d20 rarepair zine original (d20, acoc)

i fought and fought hard and i should've died. (thg)

callieder fic (naddpod, c3)

i know there's something waiting for us in the light. (d20, tuc)

penny fic (d20, the seven)

die trying right now. (incryptid)

and it's hard to be at a party when i feel like an open wound. (d20, spyreverse thg au)

delly tribute au fic (thg)

fig & being a tiefling (d20, fh)

the bad kids road trip (d20, fh)

please tell me someday i'll at least be able to sleep. (d20, spyreverse thg au)

thg daemons (thg)

cashmere fic (thg)

the kind of radiance you only have at seventeen. (thg)

i spend nights stitching up the loose threads of my soul. (d20, spyreverse thg au)

patia fic (exu calamity fic)

fate is to all appearance more unavoidable than unexpected. (thg)

evil pete fic (d20, tuc)

we must be killers. (the old guard)

i can take a hit i ain't scared of the pain. (thg)

let's raise a glass to all the people you're not speaking to. (d20, aso)

everyone thinks that they're too young to die. (d20, spyreverse thg au)

pamelia fic (d20, acoc)

haymitch fic (thg)

[first house discord exchange fic] [*this is not the actual name of the doc i just needed to redact it for spoilers reasons bc i can't talk abt it yet] (tlt)

katniss sole victor au (thg)

cytherea and pro (tlt)

only code it knows is rote survival. (thg)

og lyctor secret history (tlt)

caramanda (d20, acoc)

kasya fic (d20, acoc)

my titles are so simple (unless i actually manage to name the fic before i finish it) mostly bc i have a million docs in my google drive and i want to be able to find what i want to write quickly. i say this as though half the time searching a character's name won't get me to the doc i want faster than digging through my google docs but still

tagging: @cav-core, @dubiousfruitsalad, @browncesario, @aberfaeth, @nakdraws, @thelongestwalk, and anyone else who wants to do it (this means you who is reading this) <3333 also if i tagged you and you don't want to do it do NOT feel obligated mwah love u <33333

[cyberphuck]

I'm ostensibly in a ROTE Liveship Traders zine but I have literally no idea what to draw. I'm afraid that everyone's gonna do Amber, Jek, Wintrow or Reyn so I'm trying to pick lesser known characters but what if EVERYONE is doing lesser knowns and I'm drawing people I'm not super into for no reason?!

[roostercrowned]

as always the final outcome will be subject to MY WHIMSICAL CAPRICIOUS WHIMS but play along with me here

[paunchsalazar]

I love your art a lot and particularly your RotE art. Do you have a store or are you ok with people printing your work for personal use or using them as pfps with credit?

thank you so much!!!!! 🫂 I don’t have a store for prints or anything (though I do have a ko-fi for some zines) but I am totally fine with printing work for any non-commercial use or using it for pfps! thank you for asking!!!

[heyitsrink]

Fool's Fate but make it Death Metal

Inspired by yet another unhinged RotE discord convo from a while back.

[daggerzine]

Silent Command (zine, issue #5)

Mike Appelstein, who did zines like Writers Block and Caught in Flux in the 80s and 90s, is back in the zine game after a long layoff. This is his 5th issue in a few years and he seems to show no signs of slowing down (we hope not)

In this new, digest-sized issue, Mike has interviews with indie pop soon-to-be heavyweights Lightheaded and Parsnip. There’s also a fantastic interview with Margarita Vasquez Ponte who spent time in some pretty classic Scottish indie rock bands (Shop Assistants, Rote Kapelle, etc), a piece on Mike’s remembrance of his high school talent show (his band got gonged) and more.

This my favorite issue of S.C. yet and again, I sure hope he continues.

www.silentcommandzine.andcamp.com

[stevensavage]

But Really, What Format?

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve's Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

As a writer, I find my use of format almost automatic.  This book is only an ebook, this book ebook then print, my print always 6”x9”, and so on.  I’ve recently been experimenting with zines and magazines, which is refreshing for getting me slightly outside my comfort zone.

When I speak about writing, I can easily rattle off the usual formatting advice.  This as an ebook, this as a picture book, audiobooks can be great but are risks, etc.  There’s so much that is “the usual,” and I didn’t see it until I read Joe Biel’s People’s Guide to Publishing.

In time I’ve come to realize that a lot of us writers choose formats for any reason but actually meeting the goals we have.  There’s so much expected, so much taught rote, and so much that supposedly works I don’t think many of we writers put thought into what format works best.

For instance, for years I focused on my worldbuilding eBooks.  They were fast, easy, and I figured the books were a quick read.  It was much later when I looked at physical book sales and considered how my audience may want to reread that I considered physical copies.  I could imagine half a shelf taken up in an indie bookstore with just my stuff.  I imagined how people might gift five or six of my small books to a friend.

But I just did ebooks because, uh . . . well simple stuff is supposed to be ebooks, right?  I didn’t ask the questions we should all be asking:

What are my goals?

What does my audience want?

The formats we choose should reflect those goals - and honestly, your goals should be first.  I mean if you don’t want to physically format a 200 page color photobook I sort of get it.  But at least consider it.

When it comes to formats, we writers should ask what really meets our goals.  Yes, you could format a book on Amazon, but if you’re only going to sell local maybe just print off 100 copies at a local shop.  You could do an elaborate print book, but maybe your audience wouldn’t pay $75.00 for it - but would love a $10 ebook.  Maybe, as Biel noted (and inspired me) you just want to do a zine, or a magazine, or something else.

You also don’t have to do every format.  I’m thrilled we’re in an age where people have stopped saying everyone needs to do an audiobook.  Sure you probably want an ebook and a physical book, but maybe not - and maybe not hardcover and softcover or whatever.

This was a refreshing realization.  As I plan the next stages of my writing career now that I’m like 40 books and more in, it helps me see many more options ahead of me.  Free of “format assumption” I can see the many choices I have.

I just have to make sure I am really aware of my goals.

Steven Savage

www.StevenSavage.com

www.InformoTron.com

[vintagerpg]

I posted about the Insectiary, a wee little zine full of awful bugs, by Andre Novoa and Pipo Kimkiduk last year. This is their follow up, a quite tall zine (5.5” x 11.5”) about awful plants, called the Plantiary (2021).

Novoa gets right to the point in the short intro, casting this as a tribute to both the mysterious Voynich Manuscript and the fictional books imagined by Jorge Borges. Ostensibly, these 20 plants are intended for some flavor of D&D, but in practice, they’re really more an exercise in glorious weirdness and creative collaboration first. Any sort of utility is secondary — that is a feature, really. It gives the zine its energy. Anything else would be too calculating and rote.

As with every Games Omnivorous publication, it is both gorgeous looking and feeling — the odd shape feels neat in the hand, the paper is thick, the printing lush. And the plants themselves are horrific but beautiful, a combination you can see in something like a pitcher plant, but here dialed to 30 on a 10 point scale. Your players will not enjoy encountering any of these plants.