Stillfleet. Blister Critters. Danse Macabre. The system that underlies these games and others is unique for being "medium-crunch": super easy to learn, highly extensible. At heart, you roll 1 die (d6 through d12, depending on the score) and try to get a 6. The powers are narrative. And your pool of grit goes up and down as you burn points to boost rolls and use those powers. But that's just the beginning…
What can you do with a truly modern system? Find out this summer! We have guest judges awarding prizes to a bunch of categories. We have commercial-friendly third-party licenses for all of our games. We have a ridiculously lovely community of players and GMs. What are ya waiting for?
Hi everyone! This summer, we're running our second-ever game jam, with amazing guest judges, prizes, third-party licenses, and a system reference doc (SRD)! If you enjoy Blister Critters and have an idea to share, please consider joining the jam. We'd really love to see more amazing Blister Critters material. Thanks!
After a year of playtesting the draft rules for artist Ethan Gouldini's bespoke isekai-adjacent fantasy game using the Grit System, we've refined them and managed to cage them in an official First Zine (number one of several). If you like portal fantasy, high-magic fantasy, urban/modern-ish fantasy, cozy/queer fantasy, lots and lots of non-evil skeletons, and/or magical cars, please check it out.
Pick up the The Sometimes Kingdom 🜸 Zine 01: Monsoon ☞
Just look at this gorgeous spread of spell words! The magic system is fun, intuitive, and infinitely extensible.
Look out for more SK zines with new rules and character options 🔜
Here is a bit more art by Ethan Gouldini that doesn't even appear in SKZ01 but probably will at some point. There's just too much art for a single zine! We're mad with art-power! And labor power! Come a journey with us, folks—try out The Sometimes Kingdom and bring earth and your next fantasy setting into conversation with each other. We swear, it's worth it.
Did you know we're also running a prize-dotted Grit System Game Jam with commercial-friendly third-party licenses for all games, including The Sometimes Kingdom? Yeaaah, buddy, that's right: you can start hacking the spell-forging rules right away. Come on down and jam with us!
Dear voidfriends—wow, it's been a while since we published the Stillfleet Core Rulebook. We are very proud of this massive effort and the community it spawned. Stillfleet is still one *the* best sci-fi games out there, all in. (In fact, now we're on Worlds Beyond Number!?) That said, in the years since the CRB, we've published several new games, each tweaking, extending, and pushing forward the Grit System.
To celebrate this fact, we are about to launch a summer-long jam—the inaugural Grit System Game Jam. We now have commercial-friendly third-party license for all games (including Stillfleet) and a free system reference document. The jam will be judged by amazing guests, all of whom are great indie TTRPG designers themselves. *And* we're offering multiple prizes, including cash + a print run of a zine.
If you have a cool homebrew idea for a Stillfleet venture, setting, item, NPC, power list, etc., please consider joining the jam. We appreciate all entries, big and small.
Thank you for your support over the years. Engaging with the Stillfleet community has been an absolute joy and honor. See y'all at the jam!
Designed for Danse Macabre: Medieval Horror Roleplaying using the Grit System but useful for all players of medieval TTRPGs (OSR games, D&D, Borg games, Knave, Cairn, Into the Odd, etc.), this zine features great art and writing by Danse Macabre creator Christopher Pickett.
How does quintessence alter the body horror of the game? Find out as you read through these well-researched and actually interesting medieval weapons, books, clothes, and curios.
If you enjoy Danse Macabre, please consider leaving a brief positive comment to help others find the game—or just to let the artists know you stopped by. We really appreciate every reader, player, and Chronicler (GM).
If you are into medieval TTRPGs, trying out Danse Macabre, looking to bring more gritty realism (and some abbey cats) to your D&D/OSR/Borg game, or just a fan of well-written adventures (featuring early mechanical horrors, zombies, shapeshifting undead nobles, the English! the dread English! and so forth), please check out Unsunken: Paris Below.
It's in-depth, full of art and maps, and really about as weird as it can be while still hewing to the original idea of a Parisian mega-dungeon based entirely in real French history and myth. (Plus mutant zombies.)
If you enjoy the campaign setting/dungeon/new underground rules, please let us know in the comments! We are a very small TTRPG-design studio, and we appreciate every single player/reader. Thank you!
Check out the Guide if you have any version of Danse Macabre, or if you run other medieval TTRPGs. This book features a host of guest writers exploring different settings, dozens of excellent black-and-white illustrations in an old-school style, and many sparks to help you GM memorable and lethal medieval horror games.
If you like the book, please tell us in the comments! We really appreciate everyone who takes the time to check out our games.
This Grit System game is jam-packed with intuitive rules for brutal combat, 300 unique mutation powers (you become more potent—but less human—each time you die and rise again), real medieval weapons, memorable demoniacs (mutant zombies), and true death-granting relics—all drawn from history. The art is amazing. The alt-history (year = 1390) pulls the world away from "clashes of civilizations" and toward cosmopolitan, fortified city-states filled with zombie-genre scheming. And the game is 100% #HumanMade.
We (Stillfleet Studio) are a small indie TTRPG-design studio. We appreciate everyone who checks out, downloads, plays, and/or reviews our games. If you like the look/feel, feel free to drop a kind comment or join us on Discord to chat or jump into a one-shot. Thanks!
FYI, we have just launched our third full game—Danse Macabre: Medieval Horror Roleplaying, a dark historical fantasy TTRPG. Please check it out if you enjoy Blister Critters!
While they look different, both games use the same system, are about building community in the face of apocalypse, and feature rad art by indie illustrators! Please consider supporting us:
FYI, we have just launched our third full game—Danse Macabre: Medieval Horror Roleplaying, a dark historical fantasy TTRPG. Please check it out if you enjoy Blister Critters!
While they look different, both games use the same system, are about building community in the face of apocalypse, and feature rad art by indie illustrators! Please consider supporting us:
FYI, we have just launched our third game using the Grit System—Danse Macabre: Medieval Horror Roleplaying, a dark historical fantasy TTRPG by Christopher Pickett and the Stillfleet Studio. Please check it out if you enjoy Stillfleet! This game is also dark and political, but in a completely different way, being set on earth in the year 1390.
Dear Critter Comrades—we have hired our buddy Linnie Schell from Twice Rolled Tales to write a zine-length, plant-themed starter-adventure zine. This will help new Packs start playing Blister Critters, the world's greatest cartoon mutant-animal eco-apocalyptic suburb-crawl tabletop roleplaying game! (Phew, need a breath after that one.)
Check out the new pilot-episode zine >
Isn't Anthony Grasso's art and design just plan byootiful? I would *definitely* watch the animated show based on this TTRPG…
This one features a full-on adventure with NPCs and readaloud dialogue and whatnot. It's the perfect companion to the Blister Critters Boxed Set or Blister Critters Rulebook!
We're excited to be working on a full version of the system reference document (SRD) which will be a webpage, free PDF, and inexpensive print zine. Until then, we created a short version that fits on one front/back letter-size sheet.
Major thanks to Anthony Grasso—creator of Blister Critters and graphic designer of Danse Macabre: Medieval Horror Roleplaying—for squeezing all of this information into eight columns in a highly readable format!
Link again to the Grit System One-Page System Reference Doc >
TTRPG fans, we are proud to offer your an awesome new game by Will Savino, published by the Stillfleet Studio: Gunless Gauchos.
It's a non-colonial Western fantasy game with no games. It's one legal page long. It's rad. Check it out (PWYW/free!), and tell us what you think!
