Verdigris Press

09/26/2025

I dropped a new game on DriveThruRPG today.

This is an urban fantasy game that I've been working on (off and on) for quite a while. I feel like I finally have it right.

It's a small game, just 13 pages of game text, about 5000 words. But it has a powerful little engine inside it. When I have some time, I'll probably add a setting to it and raise the price a bit. Pick it up now for $5 and you'll get any updates I make later, for free.

At the Seams: a quiet urban fantasy rpg - A little urban fantasy game that starts with both feet firmly planted in the mundane, everyday world and slowly pulls back the curtain to reveal the supernatural. There's no setting here. It's assumed you've read urban fantasy novels or watched urban fantasy...

02/04/2021

MODES is on sale as part of The Great Traveller Sale on DriveThruRPG, in case you wanted to save a whole quarter on it.

Definitely check out the 1000+ Traveller- and Cepheus Engine-related products on sale this week (link to the sale in the comments).

MODES: Object Quality System (for use with the Cepheus Engine Core Rules) - Any object in your world can now have MODES, five qualities describing its maintainability, operation, design, extensibi

02/02/2021

Hey, remember me?

I have written 25 pages of a new Cepheus Engine product, "Old Ships Never Die," and I'm currently working with the inestimable Mike Leonard to get some starship art and some deckplans for a new 400-ton Scorpion-class salvage starship.

This new product will contain rules for:

* the problems that old ships have
* creative financing for starships
* salvage operations
* the new Scorpion-class starship, with deck plans
* an adventure that ties this stuff together

I still have more writing to do, but it's well underway at this point, and everything has been playtested already.

05/22/2018

I wrote a bunch of words for a "Hacking" guide for Cepheus Engine. It's not close to done yet, and I really ought to playtest it somehow.

Anyone want to make some characters and play out some skill challenges on Roll20 some night?

05/07/2018

Cepheus Engine fans! Traveller fans! New product out today!

$1 gets you...

MODES:

Any object in your world can now have MODES, five qualities describing its maintainability, operation, design, extensibility, and security. By giving an object MODES, you give it additional character.

Is it more likely to break down? Is it easier to use? How hard is it to adapt or reconfigure?

Inside, find:

* Descriptions of the five MODES.
* Rules to generate them quickly.
* How to use MODES in play.
* Special rules for breaking down systems with many subcomponents.
* How to price objects with MODES.
* Simple rules for PCs to discover an object's MODES.
* 20+ templates (like "well-maintained") to quickly apply MODES to an object.

These five pages of Open Content are for use with the Cepheus Engine core rules, or other fine 2D6-based science-fiction role-playing games.

MODES: Traits for Objects (for use with the Cepheus Engine Core Rules) - Any object in your world can now have MODES, five qualities describing its maintainability, operation, design, extensibi

03/23/2018

I'm waaaay overdue for an update.

A year after "opening," I have two products on DriveThruRPG.com: The Knack Hack (three different skill systems for The Black Hack RPG) for $1 and Mirrorrim: The City of Brass (a kick-ass setting for D&D 5e) for $0 (pay what you want). Both continue to get sales (well, the first sells, the other gets grabbed for $0 and occasionally a dime or something).

I also have a LOT of products in unfinished states. Just watch, I'll get a bunch of them done all at once and flood your stream with new stuff.

The Urban Fantasy Hack (as seen in the FB page's header) is basically "done" but it sucks, and I won't publish something that I know sucks. I playtested it and it fell flat on the floor. I need to punch it up and revise it.

Hacking Elves... is another supplement for The Black Hack, but its advice is generally useful to fantasy game GMs. It teaches you how to disassemble a species/race/origin (elf) and reassemble it in new ways to get new things. It has lots of examples of new kinds of Elf classes for The Black Hack. It's written and edited and needs some further development. Honestly, I could probably finish it in a few hours, but I've been distracted by other things. Like...

I've written half of a book called Looking For Group, which teaches you how to organize an online game, since so many people seem to be asking how to do it (in FB groups, anyway).

The Gray Hack is yet another supplement for The Black Hack. This one takes TBH play out of the dungeon and into the world, with rules for hex crawls and planar travel, factions and social scheming, elf and dwarf race options, and a knack system. It's about half done.

There might be a world supplement for it. Cough. Yes. No, really, it's called that. That's about a quarter written.

I want to get some of my Cepheus Engine (2d6 SF) stuff out there, too. I've been running an adventure set in my Independence 2776 universe (imagine dropping the circumstances and events of the American Revolution into a bunch of space colonies). With a little work, it could be a product, but it needs a flashy cover, and I've begun talks with an artist for it.

I have another setting called Main Sequence that turns all the Traveller tropes on their head and presents something totally different, yet scratches some particular SF itches I have: cyberpunk / transhumanism, The Expanse, Dark Matter... It's a pile of notes and discussion emails right now.

Mirrorrim is in its 25th playtest session. That's my setting for D&D 5e. I have two large dungeons (150-200 rooms each) that I could develop into a product with a little effort. There are new rules for the playtest group that would make great material for a source book. I'm not really sure what I'd add to the free Player's Guide I gave out for free, but if I thought about it, I could come up with a GM's Guide with secrets and advice and more city information.

I've also developed a ton of material for a new fantasy setting, Towerlands, which is my "white whale." It's not ready for consumption or even playtest yet.

So that's what I've been up to in my silence.

My goal is to develop products that work together, so that they help sell each other as a brand. That's why I'm doing a bunch of stuff for The Black Hack, or why I'm focusing on D&D 5e for my fantasy settings, or why I'm doing Cepheus Engine products. That's three distinct product lines that should have 3-5 products each at the minimum.

10/24/2017

Got a first draft of this done last night. 22 pages. 5700 words. Six new Elf classes for The Black Hack.

It's more about HOW to hack a race to get something interesting -- with lots of examples -- than just a splat book.

Needs an edit and some clipart to fill out a few empty columns, and then it'll hit DriveThruRPG for $4.

06/20/2017

Hi! Anyone reading the MIRRORRIM PLAYER'S GUIDE?

What are your favorite parts of the setting?

06/18/2017

If you've already downloaded the product from DriveThruRPG.com or one of its OBS affiliates, there's an update there for you.

Apparently, I totally messed up the "Summary of Racial Options" table. The update includes a fix for that and some other smaller problems.

Thanks to Daniel Miller, who combed over the document for problems.

06/18/2017

As a peek behind the curtain, here are the sales stats for Verdigris Press for the month of June.

Note that THE KNACK HACK went live in March. MIRRORRIM went live on Thursday, June 15th (three days ago).

I am making nearly as much for my FREE game as I am for my $1 game.

Main reasons, as I see it:

1. Free is really "Pay What You Want." And it's Free RPG Day, so that's drawing traffic to DriveThruRPG.com.

2. Mirrorrim is a 5e supplement, which has a bigger market, and I even posted a link to it on the D&D 5e group here. The Knack Hack is for a game with a much smaller market.

06/15/2017

This is now available at DriveThruRPG.com! Link in the comments.

This preview contains player-focused teasers for the setting, but a creative game master could use what is here to build their own campaign and dungeons.

MIRRORRIM is a huge, ancient desert city-state built on top of a megadungeon.

Mirrorrim contains thousands of years of secrets and wonders, buried beneath the city streets in sealed-off caverns and tunnels—the city’s “megadungeon.” As dungeon explorers, you’re in grave danger. First and foremost, the city’s government forbids you to enter this dungeon. After that, you’re in danger from the monsters and traps that fill the dungeon’s halls. (And fear of those monsters escaping is why the city forbids you from tampering with the dungeon.)

Inside the book, you'll find 57 pages of content focusing on the setting and character-generation options:

* The city of Mirrorrim, its legal system, and points of interest.

* Short descriptions of the better-known dungeons and the laws that try to keep you out.

* Organizations that your character might interact with.

* A brief treatment of how magic is different in this world.

* A little talk about modern and ancient languages.

* A list of unique names for Mirrorrim characters.

* Information on the 14 racial options in the setting, with complete write-ups for the new ones.

* Discussions of class options and how they fit into the setting.

RACES

Some of the best stuff in here lies in the unique takes on races, even the usually-familiar ones.

Elves live less than 30 years and make pilgramages to the Great Tree to store and retrieve racial memories. Dwarves are literally made of stone. Gnomes see into the spirit world. Halflings are a survivor slave race who have evolved to eat less, take up less space.

You can play Djinni: air elementals enslaved to a magic lamp. Or mean-spirited Efrit fire elementals. Gnolls are PC races, and they're shrewd, socially clever "pack" people who function well in cities. Ratlings are small rat humanoids, surprisingly well cultured and impeccably dressed.

Want really weird? Gargoyles are living statues from a local neighborhood, who have come to life, but still feel a pull to that part of the city. Flamenku are flamingo kenku from the desert who get their nutrition from a weird, blue algae.

Even humans come in two varieties in Mirrorrim: Commoner and Noble.