The Mutant Insurrectionist: Talking about zines

Okay, here's an awesome new thing I made for Gathox - it's a zine. I'm gonna post the link first, so you can go get a copy, and then I'm going to talk about this zine and other zines.

If the image link doesn't work for you, click here. 

The Mutant Insurrectionist

I haven't made a zine since the 90's, when I was going to all-ages shows in my old hometown and first figuring out how to use words and pictures. And honestly, I've enjoyed making this so much more than I expected and at least as much as I did when I was a kid. 

First off, the zine has gameable bits from my home campaign. Almost everything has been used at my table by myself or by players, and I know that they work. The Mutant Insurrectionist contains adventure seeds presented in the form of newspaper classifieds. There's also unique items, a fresh spell, a new class, a new adventure location, some hirelings, the dungeon encounter table I included in a previous blog post, and more.

Second off, since this is a zine, I get to play with the content in ways I couldn't for other books. The jokes can be overt and very much on the nose:

While I certainly included a generous portion of humor in both GVS1 and GVS2, there was no room in there for cheeky mock editorials featuring pickled pigs' feet and casual violence. Likewise, there was no room for diegetic hireling advertisements:

These brief, playable experiments get me stoked on the freedom of making things for their own sake, and I think that excitement shows through in the results. One of the key choices I made early on was to treat the authorial voice as if the zine existed in Gathox - it's a publication put together by the pompous and exploitative Turtle Tattlers Union Local 386, who has essentially cobbled together news bits and advertisements from around the city and repackaged them for their own profit. Sure, they've added some of their own content (mostly marks they've unsuccessfully attempted to hit), but by and large they're engaging in that laissez-faire casual theft which defines the attitudes of so many gangs in Gathox. 

Another facet of The Mutant Insurrectionist being a zine is that the pressure is gone of having to make 'the perfect thing.' Not that I've ever made a perfect thing, but the point of the zine is to experiment with the presentation of things I've made for Gathox and share those results with other folks. It's not meant to win any awards, it's meant to entertain readers and give me a chance to test new ideas. I love it, and I intend to make more of them.

Zines are good: go make the thing

Why a zine? Why not just put more content together in a bigger book? Why not atomize what you've got into individual blog posts?

Sure, I could have spent a year or more making tons of this content in the quiet recesses of my spare time, eventually toiling over a big tome of miscellanea. Honestly, that sounds daunting and I'd likely bog down on it. At the other end, I could have turned it into 20 blog posts, but I truly doubt I would have tied those ideas together in a cohesive manner. 

The zine is the right length for keeping things tight, keeping the gears moving, and continuing to make the thing. Should I attempt to write an interview with a wizard who wrote what essentially amounts to a glorified Pong spell? Make the thing. Should I write real estate advertisements for gangland territories? Make the thing. Making the thing is the answer to having ideas - ideas are a dime a dozen, but a thing made is an idea with follow-through.

I want to make the thing.

From the Mutant Insurrectionist: Interview with a Cosmic Doctor

So I'm starting a Gathox 'zine called The Mutant Insurrectionist, featuring news snippets, gang territories, new items/spells/classes/monsters, playable locations, and absurdist advertisements. Here's a news snippet from the monthly magazine for the rich part of town, which includes a custom 1st level Mentalist spell:

Excerpted from the Vaclavellian Digest for the Month of Morning Fog:

. . . and after bypassing the Riddle of Chitin in Cheery Orchard, our crew finally caught up with renowned Cosmic Doctor, Arimena the Parallelizer. What follows is a distillation of that momentous interview.

VD: My god, I've never even seen a Zhezhn before, let alone pass through an entire grotto of them . . .

AP: I'm sure you haven't!

VD: The thrumming down here is turning the stomachs of my crew, and one just had a seizure from the pulsing lights. Any way you could dismiss those . . . things?

(AP smiles wryly and emits a series of polyphonic grunts - the Zhezhn phase through the floors and our sickness subsides.)

AP: You're a daisy for coming down here. What can I do for you?

VD: We're writing a feature on the Deflector fad. The spell's being used for new toeball game variants, public duels, drinking contests - it's on fire! How did you develop your namesake spell?

AP: And here I was, thinking you wanted a sneak peek at my Doppleganger Invasion manuscript! (chuckles) So anyway, in my travels I noticed a trend - each technologically advanced species eventually develops 'lightbox' technology, and shortly thereafter devises games for lightboxes.

VD: You're talking about face-screens?

AP: That's what the Mokron call them, yeah. The true marker of an advanced civilization is developing a lightbox game wherein two opponents compete by passing a dot back and forth using lit up lines or paddles. If a player sends the dot across the box and their opponent does not return the dot with the paddle, they score a point. Each advanced civilization across this galaxy has developed this game independently. I don't even waste my time trying to communicate with species that haven't developed it somewhere in spacetime.

VD: So this lightbox game inspired the spell?

AP: Yes. The Deflector is a three dimensional representation of one of those paddles, useful for deflecting incoming attacks. It works even better than the game version, because it automatically rotates around the body to intercept strikes or missiles. I wanted to make sure that even the least experienced of Mentalists could access the spell.

VD: There's been a glut in the market recently, so many scrolls of Arimena's Deflector are available on the cheap. There are even variations with custom colors and pyrotechnics! Did you think you'd set off a sea change in the spell market?

AP: Well, if you can cast at all, folks on the surface take notice pretty quickly. If you don't seek the protection of a gang, and sometimes even if you do, as a Mentalist you have to watch your back at all times. The Deflector is a great way to put up real resistance against a team of ruffians trying to steal your wizard brain for their boss. It makes sense that the Deflector is making the rounds, and I'm just chuffed!

VD: You should be! We risked life and limb to get the scoop on the Deflector, because our audience loves the spell so deeply. We'll be offering a briefing on your Deflector alongside this interview in the next issue of the Vaclavellian Digest. I want to thank you so much for your time, Arimena!

AP: Thanks for the house call, Vaclav! Here's a Gate back to the surface . . .
(air ionizes, lights pulse rapidly)

VD: No, wait! Aaaagh!


Arimena's Deflector
Spell Level: M1
Range: 5' radius
Duration: 5 rounds

This spell conjures a rotating quarter-globe paddle of thin, crackling magical energy which can quickly move around the caster to intercept physical attacks. The Deflector can automatically intercept up to 3 +1/lvl attacks per round. The Deflector requires an opponent's attack to first overcome the Deflector's AC of 5 before rerolling a To-Hit caster’s AC. Lasts 5 rounds.