itch.io

Gorgeous art, memorable creatures. I can’t wait to try this.

My one suggestion is to lighten the background for the “dark blue on blue” portions (like the index, or d66 oddities table) as it’s way too dark to read when printed out (at least on a B&W laser printer!).

Keep up the good work! Always happy to see more great Vaarn material. :)

Thank you!

Yay! Thanks for coming back to revamp JItU. Excited to hear about your new adventures, but glad to see one of my favorite games on Itch get a final(?) update. :)

Happy Halloween!

Thanks for the update! I really appreciate it.

Would you please provide some sort of changelog? I have the POD version, and would like to be able to print out a little page of errata I can tuck in the back of the book. :)

Aha! Thanks for the reply. Glad to hear you’re still updating both pages! :)

Oh! I didn’t back the Kickstarter, I purchased GLAIVE from the Tesladyne account here on Itch: https://tesladyne.itch.io/glaive

(Sorry, I may have misunderstood. :D)

Hi there! Has that mass email gone out yet? I just want to make sure it didn’t wind up in my spam folder.

(I previously purchased the GLAIVEv2 (tesladyne) version.)

Congratulations! So nice to see this game evolve. I can’t wait to get my mitts on a hardcopy.

Woohoo! Congratulations on the release of FIST: Ultra Edition! :D

Couldn’t have happened to a nicer project! Like I said in the review, I want more. More. MOAR!!! :D

FIST: Avalon takes the game in a new direction, adding layers of complexity and chivalry. This is one of those FIST supplements that add so many new rules and features, I’d probably want to try it out as a player, just to get the hang of things. But I think I get it, and what I get, I definitely like.

What does it mean to be a knight? Virtues! Courage, Generosity, Nobility, all that jazz. You pick a Virtue and a Vice, but what’s interesting here is your Vice isn’t chosen from a list of sins. Instead, you pick another Virtue, one which you most struggle most with. Following your Virtue or Struggling with your Vice leads to Advancement, a la Roles. I would absolutely love it if the entire party each picked different Virtues, but all had the same Vice. So everyone’s bopping along, feeling good and Knightly, until some poor villain asks for Mercy and then… blam! Vice activated, my friend. It’d be the Team Attack of personal failures, and I for one want to be part of it.

I like how you gain War Dice for succumbing to your Vice. I like how Origin Traits can only be selected at creation, tying you to the land you were born. I like the Valeborn Origin – ’tis not music that tames the savage beast, ’tis I! I also like the regular Traits: Acrobat (which allows you to save a floating +2 modifier on a dodge), Bastard (is basically a Thief), and especially Beastwarden, which furthers my descent into starring in a shot on video adaptation of Beastmaster.

The layout is clean and ready to print. The artwork consists of medieval woodcarvings, which feels 100% appropriate. It’s a little thing, but I sort of wish the logo had a more Arthurian take on the “FIST” logo, perhaps a medieval font with a knight’s gauntlet, something like that.

It’s interesting to see FIST: Avalon arrive before Mythic Bastionland. I wonder if we’re on the verge of an Arthurian Renaissance. You hear that, Pendragon, all high and mighty? FIST is gunning for your throne!

I can’t believe this doesn’t have more ratings! First of all, what a great concept. There’s plenty of stuff for Solo and Duet (1 GM & 1 Player) games and scenarios out there, but little support for a table with one GM and two players. It might not be common, but trust me, the “two player” format is fun.

Continuing my praise of the concept: I really like the Agent / Sidekick dynamic, especially because the Agents are presented as perhaps a little bumbling and propped up by a Sidekick who probably gets far less credit than they deserve. This is a kind of story I could see used in a film, but have never encountered in a TTRPG, so hats off for the premise.

Lastly we have the graphic design, which – wow. The cover reminds me of a Baz Luhrmann title sequence, or a British Invasion pop music album cover. The interior carries the color scheme through.

All that good stuff, plus resources to make running the game easy, like a printable map and custom character sheets. I haven’t run it yet, but this looks like a lot of fun. My one request would be higher contrast character sheets with black text instead of the gray, but that’s a small quibble.

Oh, I almost forgot, love the flowchart style maps and clear “For Your Eyes Only” (something I’ve written to myself in my own notes)!

High praise indeed, kumada1!

“Even if you’re a veteran FIST GM, you can learn something about the game from reading this”

That’s so nice of you to say! I found myself thinking about it days later.

Thank you for spotting the typo, it has since been fixed. :D I hadn’t thought of running the scenarios in other systems, but you’re totally right! FIST is so easy and rules lite, you can hack the scenarios all you want without breaking anything.

Thank you for the kind words! I admit, I was a little worried about the different scenario formats. (ABANDON is a fairly straightforward, easy to run, Doom-inspired level complete with keycards; HOARD is random table funhouse chaos, and FLUFF is a mini-sandbox with a lot of freedom on how to proceed.)

Ultimately I decided this should be a tool to help Referees find out what works best for them, and by offering different takes on what a scenario could be, it might help them find their own preferred method. It sounds like this came across, which I am releived and happy to hear!

Just want to say I adore this title/thumbnail. Talk about an insta-download.

Edit: “Will be available in 2 hours.”

Gadzooks! The insta-download has suffered a 2 hour delay. :D

At least once per FIST Ops Jam, someone releases a PDF that is going to save me a whole lot of trouble. This time around, it’s Christian Livinus, whose H.A.N.D.S (History Analysis and Narrative Direction System, natch) neatly handles (eh? see what I did there?) shared narrative worldbuilding with your players. This is something I was planning on doing, so it’s a real treat having everything waiting and ready to go.

First you establish the foundation: emerging technology, people being left behind, paranormal creeping in. Then on to the present: elements of modern society, a major superpower, and (my favorite) create an ominous headline from this era. Then it’s on to the foundation of FIST itself: legacy operatives, key figures, assets and locations.

Shared worldbuilding might seem like an alien concept to some, and as such it can seem a bit daunting. Through use of large headers, ample white space, and eye-catching, playful illustrations, the process seems simple to grasp, easy to understand, and downright do-able.

If I had to ask for one addition, it would be a bonus PDF with a sort of Actual Play example from the author’s own playtesting. Even though each world is going to be fine-tuned for that particular game’s players (as it should be), it’d be nice to see the results of a pre-game H.A.N.D.S. phase, if only to daydream about until you can use it for your own game.

H.A.N.D.S. is sure to get your players into the game world, hitting the ground running with maximum buy-in. Hats off for the included Zine spreads and printing instructions PDF.

I’m a horror fan (as you can probably tell by now), and I’m happy to say, OUTER SELF’s cover gave me pause. The portrait in the top-right corner is downright creepy, and I actually zoomed in to try and tell if I could detect any signs of manipulation. Whether or not the photo is doctored is irrelevant. What’s important is, it’s unsettling. Not in a jump scare kind of a way, more like something fished out of an uncanny valley.

Outer Self Photo Studio is a mission, one of 52 planned for “Mega Mall 23,” a spin on #Dungeon23 I can fully get behind. They’re set in a middle American mall that has slipped deep into liminal territory.

The Mission Synopsis is straightforward: a witch bargained with a demon, trading souls for eternal youth. I’m not sure why, but I found this darkly funny: “She is only [Insert player count here] souls away from filling her quota and gaining incredible power.”

Layoutwise, this looks exceptionally easy to run, one of those missions you could practically bust out at the table and run without reading it all the way through. I mean, don’t do that – never do that! But sometimes… you gotta. And if you gotta, I highly suggest a scenario with a smart layout like this one to make things easier for your desperate brain.

I do find the text a little hard to read. It’s perhaps a wee bit narrow, especially the colored text, which doesn’t offer enough contrast against the white background. Maybe just setting it to bold might help.

OUTER SELF follows a control panel layout, with paragraphs careful not to stretch across multiple pages. There’s a photo collage map, three and a half pages of room descriptions (a photo studio, a dark room, galleries, etc.) and all the NPCs are collected together, complete with character portraits. And I really like that the items have photo art. It reminds me of a graphic adventure from the 90s. I wanna click the dagger and drag it on the camera, just to see what happens.

If OUTER SELF is a sign of things to come, then sign me the hell up.

This project is so top secret, I didn’t even know what to expect! Waiting inside are six new enemies to drop into your FIST campaign, presented in a clever slideshow format.

Enemy statistics are sprinkled across the flavor text, which helps give context and insight into the design decisions. For instance, Ratmen “forgo armor and are sickly in appearance(0 Armor 3hp)”, and the Tin Man, a homage to Bioshock’s Big Daddy, has a “modified diving suit (3 armor) but seem to be sturdy even without it (8hp)”. It’s neat! But I’d also love to see those stats combined at the bottom, as a simple statblock for easy reference.

The writing could maybe use a second pass, and I say that as someone whose writing could usually use a second pass. There are typos and a few rough lines, but the important thing is, there’s nothing to keep the enemies from being useful.

Finally, there are notes on how to roleplay enemy tactics (lizard people attack targets even if they’re not the most effective, etc.) something I always appreciate in a Bestiary.

In my personal headcanon, every game of FIST should begin with a proper 80s movie Mission Briefing scene, complete with intel slides flickering across a wall display. If that sounds like something you’d like to try, “TOP SECRET F.I.S.T EYES ONLY” has you covered.

“it is the 1980s and you are dead.”

Thus begins NO BONES ABOUT IT, Richard Kelly’s ode to speed, skeletons and family. Make no mistake, this is no simple set of chase rules – it’s a standalone game! In videogame terms, a total conversion. NO BONES is the DotA to FIST’s Warcraft III. (Though there are rules for exporting NO BONES characters back into FIST.)

The new stats are FAST, ANGRY, DEATH and FAMILY. That last one was a surprise, until I realized, of course, the Fast and the Furious influence is evident. Having people you care about isn’t optional, it’s a part of the character building process. FAST handles racing, ANGRY throwing a punch, FAMILY protects those you care about, and DEATH works a bit like a saving throw and reveals supernatural insight. Vehicles have a symbiotic relationship with PCs, adding their stats and sharing damage. While driving, if you’d be reduced to 0 HP, you can bail and let your ride die in your place. There are new powers, my favorite being RATTLEBONES, MURDER of CROWS, and CALCIUM RESERVES.

The writing is confident and sharp. I particularly enjoyed the in-character introduction: “Alright, fresh kill. Here’s some things you need to know about yourself. You’re a REVENANT.” It’s hard to pull off, but when you manage (like Richard does), it’s like the old days of Shadowrun come rushing back, with all its bravado and weird slang. That opening monologue sets the mood, the tone, and most importantly, actually puts you in a skeleton’s shoes. “Sensations are blunted,” and even a blow to the shoulder is numb buzz. But adrenaline – you feel that plenty.

I firmly believe every game should ship with a scenario. “The Better Part Of Valor” is a perfect example of what a skeleton racing game should look like. It’s about a meet hosed by BLACKBIRD, who may or may not be a Revenant himself. It doesn’t go where you’d expect it to, and by the end, there’s a “Where to Go From Here” (always appreciated). If I had one request, it’d be for an example of play, illustrating how a standard car race might play out. The included scenario is great, but I want more!

The layout is clean, single column. Typography is mostly Space Mono, a typewriter style font. That and the two-tone black and white clip art really makes this feel more like a truly authentic zine than a PDF. It’s the sort of thing that could have been photocopied in the back of a copy shop and hand-stapled before being passed around friends after school. Authentic, but still highly readable onscreen. Some of the art looks pulled from a 30s horror comic, and I’m especially partial to page 23’s “Death careening toward the viewer” and page 5’s “Spooky Lady Drives a Wacky Racers Twisted Metal Mobile.”

NO BONES ABOUT IT seems like a lot of fun. It takes what could have been a one or two page add-on for FIST, and expands the concept into a full game, brimming with ideas. Despite being all bones, this project has a lot of heart. <3

“it is the 1980s and you are dead.”

Thus begins NO BONES ABOUT IT, Richard Kelly’s ode to speed, skeletons and family. Make no mistake, this is no simple set of chase rules – it’s a standalone game! In videogame terms, a total conversion. NO BONES is the DotA to FIST’s Warcraft III. (Though there are rules for exporting NO BONES characters back into FIST.)

The new stats are FAST, ANGRY, DEATH and FAMILY. That last one was a surprise, until I realized, of course, the Fast and the Furious influence is evident. Having people you care about isn’t optional, it’s a part of the character building process. FAST handles racing, ANGRY throwing a punch, FAMILY protects those you care about, and DEATH works a bit like a saving throw and reveals supernatural insight. Vehicles have a symbiotic relationship with PCs, adding their stats and sharing damage. While driving, if you’d be reduced to 0 HP, you can bail and let your ride die in your place. There are new powers, my favorite being RATTLEBONES, MURDER of CROWS, and CALCIUM RESERVES.

The writing is confident and sharp. I particularly enjoyed the in-character introduction: “Alright, fresh kill. Here’s some things you need to know about yourself. You’re a REVENANT.” It’s hard to pull off, but when you manage (like Richard does), it’s like the old days of Shadowrun come rushing back, with all its bravado and weird slang. That opening monologue sets the mood, the tone, and most importantly, actually puts you in a skeleton’s shoes. “Sensations are blunted,” and even a blow to the shoulder is numb buzz. But adrenaline – you feel that plenty.

I firmly believe every game should ship with a scenario. “The Better Part Of Valor” is a perfect example of what a skeleton racing game should look like. It’s about a meet hosed by BLACKBIRD, who may or may not be a Revenant himself. It doesn’t go where you’d expect it to, and by the end, there’s a “Where to Go From Here” (always appreciated). If I had one request, it’d be for an example of play, illustrating how a standard car race might play out. The included scenario is great, but I want more!

The layout is clean, single column. Typography is mostly Space Mono, a typewriter style font. That and the two-tone black and white clip art really makes this feel more like a truly authentic zine than a PDF. It’s the sort of thing that could have been photocopied in the back of a copy shop and hand-stapled before being passed around friends after school. Authentic, but still highly readable onscreen. Some of the art looks pulled from a 30s horror comic, and I’m especially partial to page 23’s “Death careening toward the viewer” and page 5’s “Spooky Lady Drives a Wacky Racers Twisted Metal Mobile.”

NO BONES ABOUT IT seems like a lot of fun. It takes what could have been a one or two page add-on for FIST, and expands the concept into a full game, brimming with ideas. Despite being all bones, this project has a lot of heart. <3

This papercraft lighter is just about the coolest thing I’ve seen all month. FIST needs cool handouts just like any other RPG, and here’s a handout you can actually hold in your hand! The cherry on top is the instructional video, which is super helpful for the wretched souls for whom the written word conveys little in the way of meaning. Give me a choice between watching a video tutorial and reading a manual, and I’ll shove you aside to load up the video in a heartbeat.

My one request: I want more! A whole inventory of papercraft spycraft!

Thank you!

Hello! It says Monolith was updated yesterday (26 December). What changed?

Wow, this is quite an update! Is there a print version in the works?

Oooh, right! I somehow missed the trinkets. Thank you!

Looking forward to more Nightcrawlers! If I might make a humble request, would you please consider adding a Mummy? That’d help tick off the last few Universal Monsters, along with Invisible Man, I suppose. :)

Just a bit of feedback: I really like the monster creation guidelines, but are there any plans to include more abilities in a future update? Just imagine! d20 or even d66 Interesting Abilities. You’d be unstoppable!

Yay! Thank you!

Thank you!

Unfortunately, it looks like the update deleted everything but the core PDFs.

The old version was a 217 MB ZIP that came with all sorts of things: an MP3 soundtrack, maps, character sheets, color player location handouts, and the Zine PDFs themselves.

The updated ZIP (3rd Printing) is only 64 MB, and doesn’t even come with characters sheets. :/

Note: This has not been updated with new content, but if there’s interest, I’ll certainly go back and update it!

Consider me interested. :D

You know, it’s the darnedest thing. The Additional Classes (RELIC_v3_Characters.pdf) looks correct, there’s a hyphen after “lights.”

But when I highlight and copy the URL in Adobe Reader, to paste to my browser address bar, it pastes without the hyphen, like so:

throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2018/02/all-lightsin-sky-are-wizards.html

Incredible disappearing hyphen!

My guess is, maybe Adobe Reader thinks that URL is a hyphenated word, and it’s “reassembling” the word when I copy and paste, not knowing the hyphen is part of a URL.

Edit: Yes, it looks like this is actually a thing reported to Adobe Forums already! Just a weird little quirk of PDFs, I suppose. https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-discussions/end-of-line-hyphens-delete-when-copying-text-from-adobe-acrobat/td-p/9952973

Thank you for looking into this, sorry for any wasted time. Keep up the good work!

Hello! I just ordered Desert Moon of Karth + PDF from Exalted Funeral, as soon as they got it back in stock. Unfortunately, it looks like Exalted Funeral’s digital copies are outdated.

Instead of Desert Moon of Karth 1E Digital.pdf, I got Desert Moon of Karth Digital.pdf. It’s the same with the “Spreads” PDF. I couldn’t find a version number, but the copyright says, “1st Printing. (C) 2021 Joel Hines”.

Do you know if the new batch of Print copies at Exalted Funeral are updated to 1E? And would you please double check if they have the latest digital files?

Thank you!

Ambulatory is one of those words that just makes me happy. This looks like it’d make for a memorable game. Well done. :)

Oh, gosh, this is embarrassing. I do have the latest v3, but I somehow opened up my old copy of v1.1 instead! Yes, I see now v3 doesn’t even have a page 72. Nevermind, then! Thank you for catching that. :D

This project is coming along nicely, great work! I liked Glaive, and I like this too. :D

I did find a small typo. Page 72:

https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2018/02/all-lightsin-sky-are-wizards.html

should be:

https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2018/02/all-lights-in-sky-are-wizards.html

(You’re missing the hyphen after ‘lights’).

You are level 1. Choose a name and answer: Why have you chosen to adventure? Why are you working with the others in your group?

This is just a beautiful step. I’ve added this as a house rule in the past, and it’s great to see it built into a system.

Actually, reading through this document is like reading through a “things I like to see in RPGs” highlight reel. Very well done!

Hello! Is the print version on Amazon being kept up to date with the Small Changes updates on the PDF?

Huzzah! It’s finally here! Looks great, can’t wait to try ’em out. :D

I literally came here to ask this! I’ll order a copy the day it’s available. Promise. :D