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

Inspired by a silly meme I saw on r/WitchesVsPatriarchy I decided I needed a weekend off from chores and to do something fun.

So I wrote a short, collaborative (or solo) storytelling #RPG. Which is totally out of my comfort zone. But I've enjoyed doing it immensely. Just finishing playtesting at the moment then I'll shove it on my Itch page.

Think Buffy and The Craft meets Stranger Things.

#GameDesign #GameDev #Writing

One of the better pieces DALL-E 2 spat out when working on faction logos for Perihelion this evening. In this case, Obsidian Dragon, a loose affiliation of spacers and ex-Khalasi working with other rogue and insurgent factions against the Commonwealth and the Orbitals. #RPG #GameDesign #AIArt

Trying to re-up my Plant Science knowledge (a subject I started a degree in and dropped out of after two years, some three decades ago). A bit of biochemistry, plant physiology and environmental science before I start buying more academically focused texts. #books #biology #biosciences

Onion and garlic harvest is done. I'll let them dry out for a week or so and then plait them. Should do for a while! And now we have space for the winter brassicas. House is also now vampire-safe. #gardening #subsistence #harvest

Now I've got into the DALL-E 2 beta, I've been working on some more art for my #RPG rulebook. It's coming along pretty well, and I'm pleased with the results.

Plus, there's something cyberpunk and disturbingly meta about a hard sci-fi RPG that addresses concepts such as AI rights and includes art generated by an AI that I'm not paying. Hey, at least it made the credits page! #GameDev

Harvested my vermicompost. Learnt a few lessons on better managing the wormery in the process, but overall I'm pretty pleased. Around 5kg of compost from nine months of food waste. Go worms!

Don't be fooled by the trug, that's sixteen shop-sized (paper) bags of potatoes we've just harvested and put in a cool, dark place. Enough for the next three months at least.

Replanted with 10x Bulls Blood, 10x beetroot, 10x Mizuna, 10x turnips and 10x lettuces. Also planted 10x peas and 10x brussel sprouts in pots for when we free up space. 😂 #gardening

Reaping the benefits of all the warm, wet weather. We have so many strawberries, more ripening every other day! In a week where I can feel the depressive feelings encroaching, this lifts me. Dad would be proud. #gardening #harvest #food

Pretty happy with the updated design for the layout of my #RPG. A bit more spacing, encouraging me to tighten up the text, and crisper lines.

134 litres of water storage and planters fed by capillary action. Yeah baby. #gardening

Why Iove living in the North of England. Quick short cut back through the fields after popping in to see my parents.

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.

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. 😂

Tweaking some layout and design elements for the first 58 pages (which is basically character creation) of my #RPG Perihelion. The character sheet was pretty bland before, it feels like it works a lot better now I've tied the blue into the main document scheme. #GameDev #Design

Fuck Texas. Fuck Conservatism. Fuck Nazis. Banning books is only second to burning them in the list of things that make me fucking angry.

I've been working on an improved layout for my RPG rulebook. Just about finished with character creation, barring some placeholders and I started playtesting some of the core mechanics (and found issues!) last weekend. It's coming along well. #GameDev #RPG #Writing

The timeline is done. There are seven pages of edited and laid out text to accompany this. 😆 I think I'm going to take a well-deserved break for the rest of the day. Probably. #GameDesign #RPG #SciFi

Experimented with a longer fast this weekend as I feel I'm hitting a plateau. It wasn't too difficult and that first meal yesterday lunchtime was mindful as fuck. Next weigh in is Wednesday so we'll see if it's made much of a difference.

If it has, I'll probably include a 36-40 hour fast each week from Thursday evening to Saturday morning. With how fucking busy my work is, I doubt I'll even notice Friday. 😂

#IntermittentFasting #Health

I stumbled across artflow.ai over breakfast and that's me sorted for, well, forever, when it comes to RPG character portraits. Introducing "a stubbled space captain".