Rev. Andy 🐺 🌿 🪱 @andy@mentalhealth.social

My #introduction toot!

I'm Andy and I'm the admin of mentalhealth.social.

My interests are covered in my profile. On #mentalhealth I've briefly known the Black Dog in the past and work hard to keep him on a leash. My wife lives with #BPD bundled with #anxiety and #depression (though has a grip on all of them) and her illnesses are one of the things that drive me to be so passionate about #MH support and care. Which is why I set up this Masto instance; a safe place to socialise and chat. 👍

Had lunch at the garden centre. Returned with 2x Scotch Bonnet, 3x Hinnonmaki Red Gooseberry bushes, some Rosemary, an Astrantia, a Sambucus and a huge Choisya. 😂 #PlantLife #Gardening

Eeek. Playtesting and Session Zero today for Perihelion. Stacks of character sheets, notepaper, giant bag of D10s, pencils, printed rulebook, Deezer playlist downloaded and nibbles all packed. Nervous! #RPG #GameDev #Playtesting

Now what have I forgotten...

GET IN! Greater Manchester represent. #esc

I usually despise #Eurovision but having it playing in the background this evening has been pleasant. Probably because something...something... unity and positivity during a geopolitical shit-show... something.

It's still a trippy pile of psychedelic nonsense, though. #esc

Finished my first playthrough of Citizen Sleeper. That was really enjoyable. Great writing, lovely art and music, and the RPG mechanics (clocks and dice pool) worked really well. Highly recommended if you want to immerse yourself in a deep, character-driven, cyberpunk/posthuman narrative RPG.

Ordered plug plants for the next 12 months, supplementing what we're growing from seed. The season is well underway. Our strawberries are growing WAY too fast in this warm, wet UK weather. Onions and garlic are doing well. We have spuds planted out and a dozen tomato plants I'm acclimatising slowly.

Snuck some lemongrass, habaneros and cayenne into the order as well. We have shelves of pickles still from last year, so I think this year I'm going to make lots of chilli jam.

#gardening

217 incomplete pages off to the printers. TODOs, spelling mistakes, blank pages and all. I'll treat it as an exercise in imperfection.

Rough breakdown (excl. padding):

- 64 pages for the rulebook introduction, basic world setting and background, and character creation
- 100 pages for rules (everything from core mechanics through combat to hacking and AI)
- 33 pages of gear and toys

The fluff is still being written.

Playtesting starts this weekend! #RPG #GameDev #GameDesign

Covered in bitumen and hoping that the (second attempt at a) summer house roof I just finished putting on is going to survive the night.

The felt is nailed in with 15mm clout nails and stuck on with bitumen, blood, pain and anger, so it fucking better. I'll get some battens tomorrow.

@Jo weeded and bedded in the spuds I've been chitting for the last six weeks. All in all, a productive day.

Staying away from feathers until I can get in the bath for a soak. 😂

#gardening

Some screen dumps from my in-development free #TTRPG Perihelion, laid out with Affinity Publisher and with thanks to all the lovely people who mark their amazing artwork as #CreativeCommons.

Not TOO bad for a fella with very little artistic skill, even if I do say so myself.

It's been a shit day. Self medicating with take out kebab while trying not to piss myself laughing at the mental health jokes being made by Taylor Tomlinson on Netflix. 😂

@Gina Gotta see how hot the compost is! You can buy specialist thermometers with long probes and the dials look a bit like that.

Oh my, things are busying up aren't they? I should probably spend a little time refreshing the mentalhealth.social info page and stuff like that.

Grumble, grumble. All you lovely new folks coming into my federated timeline and tooting your amusing and heartwarming messages. I remember when things were quiet 'round here!

Writing really helps my mental health. I'd forgotten how much.

I love world-building and creating headspaces for people to explore. Since rediscovering my energy and applying myself to my latest #RPG project (linked), properly, for the first time in decades I've written almost every night.

I've just hit 200 pages. This feels like a milestone. I suspect once "finished", I'll be looking at ~300 pages PDF. This feels good. Next month: playtesting

https://dozywolf.itch.io/perihelion

#writing #mentalhealth

After eight years (albeit two of them COVID), we've finally finished our D&D 5e campaign and succeeded against Tiamat.

The finale included a hand-built scale model of her on a scale map that filled the hall we game in. Cuz that's how we roll (role?)

Next month we start playtesting my hard sci-fi #RPG starting with session zero 😎

A slow, four hour wander in the Peaks. We walked the Dragon's Back, a set of bizarre limestone "spines" the stand out and are often cited as the only true peaks in the Peak District. They're also rather steep and require a proper climber's scramble, especially if you go off piste as we did. Good fun. Exhausted. In pain. Going for a bath now. It's hard being almost-fifty. 😂