The summer of the Century Brood passed.
Farmerlings and cloudlings prepared for winter on opposite sides of the Spread,
As the 29th expedition retreated upwards and the Imago went back to places unknown.
Then Winter came, and all travel became a folly.
The Cloud Empress Winter Jam explores what the winter season looks like for the Land of Cicadas. As winter sets into our real-world northern hemisphere, all that's needed for inspiration is to look there. How are the travelers faring in these times? In what ways is winter even harsher in the Lowland Wastes? And what opportunities does that bring for those keen enough to seize them?
Requirements
These are the requirements to join;
- The module should adhere to the Cloud Empress 3rd Party License terms.
- The module should somehow incorporate the theme of winter.
- The module may contain no assets without permission; this includes AI art.
Suggestions
The jam is intended for anyone interested in creating a module, whether you've done so before or not. If you've never done so before, jams like these are a great opportunity to start. There's a community of people motivated to help eachother, and Worlds by watt has even provided Cloud Empress templates just for the occasion.
Looking for a direction to inspire your module? choose or roll 1d5.
- A winter Hunt & Gather table,
- A winter Encounter table,
- A winter Weather table,
- An adventure within an isolated settlement locked for winter,
- An adventure venturing through the absolutely brutal outside.
Are you excited to join, but unsure of something? Please reach out. I reserved time during the jam to help out (potential) contributers, so please make use of it.
Your contribution can be a standalone module, or you can write is as part of a collaborative setting called Upsilon City; please check out the jam forum and let us know what you'd like to make either way!
Cloud Empress adventure templates
Affinity publisher 2 Cloud Empress layout assets are provided by worlds by watt at the top of the Cloud Empress Third Party page. There are three layout styles available of varying sizes to fit the scope of your module. Using these templates is entirely optional.
- A one-page template (comparable to the one-page expansions from the official monthly CE newsletter).
- A trifold pamphlet template (comparable to the format of the official solo rules).
- A booklet template (comparable to the format of the official adventure booklets).
How to write literary adventures for Cloud Empress & beyond
To support the Winter Jam, watt gave a seminar at The Weekly Scroll. If you want to write for Cloud Empress, this is a great primer.
Additional resources
These resources are not particular to Cloud Empress, but of use to anyone wanting to turn their TTRPG idea into a module they can share online.
- TTRPG Creator Resources Masterpost is a great overview of general TTRPG creator resources.
- My curated list of free public domain TTRPG creator tools on Itch.io, including an A4 trifold pamphlet template for Google Docs, Microsoft Word and Canva by Hugh Lashbrooke.
- Public domain art resources, a TTRPG blogpost by Exeunt Press. See also Part II.
- Explorers Design has great blogposts on TTRPG layout design.
- How to Photobash Art for your Zines, a Youtube video by Chaoclypse. See also Noise Dystopia Machine, a photoshop tool for this method.
- Snippets from official Cloud Empress materials in which winter is mentioned, to inform your module.
- CC BY 3.0 game icons at Game-icons.net
Rewards
Worlds by watt will provide up to 20 random game jam entry creators with Cloud Empress patches.
Jam on!
That's it. Just press 'Join' and get involved on the jam's Community page and on the #ce_fan_content channel of the Worlds by watt Discord server. People are sharing and commenting on eachothers' works already.
This jam was inspired by the Cloud Empress campaign of the RPG Night Utrecht, featured in the official Cloud Empress October newsletter. The campaign's calendar synchronises with that of the real world, so when winter came, we wanted more winter content. This excited us so much to get creative that we wanted to share our jam with the wider Cloud Empress community. We hope we succeeded in passing on our excitement, and look forward to see what everyone comes up with.
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