Blogwagon Announcement: Appendicitis N

If you have a blog, blog about what influences your design on September 8

My friend at the Traverse Fantasy blog suggested “there should be a bandwagon where it's appendix [initial] for oneself.” By this, it is meant that everyone collect a list of inspirational media (books, movies, comics, video games, what have you) that impact your design, inspired by the original Appendix N at the back of the 1979 Dungeon Master’s Guide for D&D. Another (valid) interpretation of this prompt: if you name starts with a letter between A and P, you can riff on the appropriate appendix listed in said 1979 DMG. The Council decided that this Blog Bandwagon would be held on September 8 which is International Literacy Day. Go forth and write!

Mini-Roundup:

This month, I wrote about Killable Peoples on the Prismatic Wasteland blog, what types of humanoids are valid targets of violence in games and what it says about the setting of those games. This inspired a few responses: Monsters, Metonymy, Metaphor from the aforementioned Traverse Fantasy, Equal Footing Monsters from Seed of Worlds, and Are irredeemably evil creatures necessary for D&D? from Hexed Press. Here are some other fun posts about monsters I’ve read in the past month or so:

• You Fell for the Great Drow Psyop from Crypickeyway

• Weird Horror Investigation: Vampires Aren’t Real from Githyanki Diaspora

• Thoughts on Undead from Grinning Rat

• Let's create a monster in Cairn 2e! from Delving Wolf

• And of course: so many posts about dragons

Also in the monster theme, my Lego Rock Raiders as Space Horror post featured the Rock Monster as an entity for Mothership RPG. Just a reminder, you still have a month to write and release something (anything really, the criteria is quite broad) for DIY & Dragon’s Second Summer LEGO RPG Jam. Go do that, then get cracking on your Appendicitis Post.