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Monster At My Desk will be launching a Kickstarter in late 2025 or early 2026 and I am currently trying to build up an email list to find and gauge support for my upcoming game Tails From The Bramble!

Tails from the Bramble is a rules-light roleplaying game about woodland critters facing crises. Inspired by 90s animated films from my youth, players take on the roles of woodland creatures trying to survive forest fires, predators, and human expansion, all while navigating the politics of neighboring brambles. Mixing cozy slice-of-life moments, community ties, and tense survival, Tails from the Bramble invites players to weather each crisis by leaning on the strength of their fellow critters.

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Totally, I'm not directly familiar with SotDL's mechanics. I likely won't be able to tackle that immediately since the current module is taking longer due to work and family stuff. but I'll keep you posted. might be nice to take a break from the module and work on a corruption mechanic for the GM resources. I'll post here as things move along.

Thanks for asking, short answer...

Possibly?

As it is,  the stress and trauma rules stand in for old-school "Insanity" mechanics. Things like corruption weren't directly part of that old-school until much later, so if you are using a setting that has corruption, you can track that on the stress tracker and simply roll on a corruption table from that setting to determine if you gain physical corruption instead of the panic & mental trauma that is included with the current rules.

However, I am finishing up a campaign model (see draft below) that sets up the characters as bounty hunters in the old world. After that, I was thinking about a follow-up campaign model that would allow for more of a Call of Cthulhu vibe, I might try to include physical corruption as part of that. Have to think more if it's going to be a good fit. 

It's not my goal to remake all of a certain product but rather to provide the tools to help make those worlds more accessible and empower GMs and Players with paired-down rules to fit any low fantasy world.

blunderbusses are a hybrid of pistol and carbine. I’ve used the carbine stat block but shorten the range by half

hey that’s great please do. Drop a link here for anything you publish!

get well bud!… not for the print… just in general… hope you get well soon

For that one, I sketched from fanart as a model, then added effects and cropped out most of the sketch. I am fairly confident that there is no IP issue with Red Hook since there is no suggestion of endorsement nor is there a suggestion of it as being "The Highway Man" and wasn't modeled off any art from the actual game. The fan art that I sketched from was 3.0 CC. I don't know if a sketch of a 3.0 CC model counts as fair use or if I'm clear but I'll reach out and see how they feel about it.

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Single Page File added with minor updates and corrections!

the closest I have been able to condense it is to the quick reference at the end. If that works I’ll upload those as a separate sheet!

Hi DMGM - I didn't answer your first question. Since the mechanics are relatively similar, you can pull monsters from games like Zweihander or WFRP. I'll be posting NPCs tonight and Basic Fantasy Creature (Dragons, Orcs, Trolls) in the next two weeks. 

hi to be clear this was a Warhammer/Zweihander/mothership hack. Translating wfrp or Zweihander monster should be straight forward

Hi Folks -life has been crazy and I'm glad I've had a few people reach out asking about supporting A Grim Hack with additional content. Long Story Short I've had a lot projects scrapped because I simply couldn't pull them together. Life got in the way after that. I'm going to set up an additional project or two in the next week where I can start actually uploading additional content A Grim Hack. First Peace will be an introductory Adventure, followed by individual entries for a bestiary. These PDF will be updated regularly and free. My goal will be to create enough content that I can start creating additional Zines for publication. Will have the first project page up later this week or next, and work on setting up a regular cadence. Thank you all for your patience.

Hi - Thanks for the feedback. The goal right now is to upload 2-3 resources here on itch as free PDFs. they are excepted from the larger print version I'm trying to work through. Unfortunately, time isn't on my side, so finishing up is a bit difficult. I'll post here once they are up. It will include monsters and conversion guidelines. 

yes! I have two adventures written , and a setting doc. Going into layout at this point. Basically life got much in the way this year but, so that there is something out there I may drop the text of the adventures in a project here for free and then keep working on the publishing doc. Thanks for your patience and interest!

No worries - I think I would like to do an update to the PDF soon to correct some small things like that.

on the Combat page (4.2) there is a section for Opposing Attacks. that you can use body to defend (Oppose the attack) and attack that fails it's opposed check is unsuccessful and thus no damage is caused. The value of opposing with Strife or Speed is that you defend/dodge and can inflict damage back/move but these are at a penalty 

Correct - That is something that I should have caught. The -5 and 00 should be switched. Magic Variants are suggestive; the charts are moving around as an indication that things are increasingly unstable as you move toward strange magic, Its the first time I've wanted to explore more free-form layout ideas but still wanted it legible.

good call. I removed that page with 4.0 from the EF version to be safe. but it's still here for the itch version.

"A Grim Hack is Set up under Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0).  Please take what I have here and hack it to bits, write adventures for it, or do what you like."

In short, please; infringe, hack, steal, and trade with others. It's my genuine hope that folks who have wanted to write adventures/modules for big name d100 systems will find AGH a viable option to write their adventures with Ratfolk, Kaos, and overthrowing the fascist empires. Nobody owes me nothing and I just want to see more creators tell their stories in low fantasy, grimdark, grubby, and perilous settings! My only ask is that you do your best to be inclusive and intersectional so that anyone can tell their stories.

Hi, thanks for the comment. So the goal of the book is to get players up and running quickly. All the rules are focused more on the players and what they can do; less on any particular setting. Though aspects or themes of settings are mentioned because AGH is meant to hack into any setting. That being said, I'm currently working to introduce things like NPCs, Monsters, and Weapons (artifacts) through mini-settings like what you might see with "Pound of Flesh" or "Visitors Guide to Rainy City". 

I'll drop some updates this week to give folks some line of sight of what I'm working on.

Core actions can be used for a second attack or second movement. The intent is for the GM to measure that out but effectively a core action can be used for a second attack. It kind of plays out that way anyway because attacking someone usually prompts a reaction so you can technically force a target to use all their actions reacting to attacks. so the intention was for core actions to allow flexibility and supporting actions as a buffer.

Hey glad to hear it! and yes!

Part of the logic behind character creation came from my frustration with enemy combatants in DnD where bland prebuilt nobodies were pitted against heroes. In A Grim Hack making an NPC is as easy as... rolling up a character! 

But here are some suggestions based on what have done:

1. Quick Basic NPC: Start all stats at base 30. Roll 1d10 for  2 chosen Stats. Roll or Pick 1 Occupation. Roll  1 Ancestry and pick a trait . 0 Grit
2. Quick Tough NPC: Same as Basic. +5 to selected Stat. Hone 2 Skills. Pick additional Trait. 1 Grit (Use only when taking action against a PC).
3. Quick Reoccurring NPC: Same as Tough. +1 Grit (Can be be used to hurt PCs or get away).
4. Villainous NPC: Same as Reoccurring: but add 1-3 levels of advancement.

Tweak for what feels right but the basic idea is that NPCs should be similar to the characters without bogging down the game with everyone having Grit used constantly.  In the system above I always start with that base of thirty because I can make up NPCs on the fly if I need to. Those that do well (and survive) in an encounter may grow along that progression if it seems appropriate and they stick around.

Another trick I like is to approximate Stress for NPCs.

At the start of an interaction roll a d10 + 9. If the NPC has a setback or gets hurt roll against that score. Failure means they want to extricate themselves from the situation. Critical failure may result in panic (your discretion).

I really haven't Codified these but, I am using these as a model for the mini-setting for A Grim Hack which will have a short Bestiary (because of course), and NPCs including agents for different factions.

I Hope this helps

thanks for the question. Added some info

Straight forward d100/2d10 system where you roll under stat+skill and look at the degrees of success. 

sure thing let me check

Hi, Thanks - I'll share some stuff in the coming days

Man 13 days ago I set this up and have been doing furious edits since and well as a few more visuals. I am getting close and if I can I will release tomorrow on day 14

Me too :)