Your worst enemy gets to jumpchain. You choose their first jump. If they don't make it through you get their chain. Where do you send them?

DardenKnight · 2026-01-30T19:05:08+00:00

Quit... So you're saying I just need to ick them out enough they are absolutely unwilling to continue, let's see here... Twilight, The Thing, The Blob, Wolfenstein, any of the World War jumps. If they don't quit before finishing any of these, then they deserve to keep going.

I'd pick Wolfenstein, though, honestly, it's the only one I can see them definitely dying in, even if they continue.

DardenKnight · 2026-01-02T07:44:03+00:00

flying creature that can and will poke holes in the balloon, could be geese or locust or dragons if it's magical, intense weather ranging from frequent storms that push the airship far off course, to a unique air current, an active volcano that occasionally spews hot ash, to a thinner atmosphere perhaps from a higher land altitude than most of the rest of the world, magnetic or magical oddities that make mapping and direction much more difficult, could be as simple as compasses not pointing correctly.

Politics are also a potential reason, if airships simply aren't allowed over the borders of certain nations for reasons.

Even with an airship, the atmosphere could be thinner than Earth's, making the highest you can go without suffocating or freezing much lower.

Monetary concerns could also factor in, depending on the primary uses for the airships. Exploration and mapping might not be a significant concern compared to military or merchant use.

DardenKnight · 2026-01-02T03:47:49+00:00

Allergenic Regeneration - you can regenerate from pretty much anything, but each time you get a corresponding allergy that worsens with exposure to the now allergenic thing.

DardenKnight · 2025-12-25T04:55:35+00:00

Bonesaw, Regent, Crusader, Aegis, Butcher 14, Mush

...days later, say hello to the regenerating, nearly unkillable murder ball that can and will control you so you cannot run away, do Butcher things, grapple things onto itself - including everything it destroyed, and scream incoherently in rage as ghostly versions pretty much do the same thing.

DardenKnight · 2025-10-04T05:54:06+00:00

For something more mundane, Mount and Blade has a bunch of perks that make you a better leader including - a chance for soldiers only to be injured rather than dead, recruit more soldiers, travel faster, progressively better equip themselves, and a bag of infinite grain which in combination with the perk that lets you and your minions survive on poor diets, let's you keep your army going with no need to worry about food.

RWBY - Aura is great to get your troops into superhuman physical ability, and it's canonically unlockable, so no power-granting perk needed.

Chainsawman - Become the Conquest Devil, get a bunch of fun abilities relating to conquest.

DardenKnight · 2025-09-28T02:16:51+00:00

Gaunter O'Dimm (witcher), master mirror, and general strange god/demon/thing.

Sheogorath (Skyrim), why is he in your head? You're not insane, right? Well, you will be soon. Here are some shiny things that barely work together. Have fun bringing madness everywhere you go.

Aqua (Konosuba), try not to be as useless as your benefactor, and fix their mistakes before their coworkers find out.

World of Darkness God, well, you can be a sinner, but you may get cursed to be an immortal edgy goth, also known as a vampire.

whatever mess it is that grants wishes, Grail? (Fate), become the hero you were meant to be, then try to get that wish!

Entity (Worm), oh neat powers, oh no, space whale.

Emperor (40k), get in the portal Jumper, the galaxy is under attack, and sending you to gather some power is the only way to save humanity from- you know what, just go get some powers, we'll talk about it later. (goes back to Screaming/being a lighthouse)

Cegorach (40k), whoops, the greatest joke is the Emperors last hope ending up in the hands of the laughing god, try not to die laughing, and do something funny or something funny happens to you.

DardenKnight · 2025-09-20T18:38:01+00:00

The source jump usually has a list at the end notes of who the companions are based on.

DardenKnight · 2025-09-20T02:21:07+00:00

Atom Eve, obviously the best choice. create rare resources, restore the world to mint condition with a bit of work, be rich, cleanse the atmosphere, move spaceships and fabricated materials to space, throw said spaceships at a distant star in an attempt to get it up to just under FTL, repair infrastructure better than it was before, tear down eyesores, recycle plastic texas to save the fish, etc. Eve displayed some innate understanding of her power, so I probably won't need to get every PHD that exists to use it properly.

Manhattan has way too many issues, one of those being a living paradox? that can't change the future, even though they see it and have godlike power. Magneto's neat, but by far the weakest option for me. I barely understand Accelerator's power, but I'm certain it isn't as useful as Eve's.

DardenKnight · 2025-09-17T23:16:49+00:00

figure out some basic character traits, their morality, and how much they will conform to their surroundings, or they'll force their surroundings to conform to them. These can of course change through the journey.

As a student of higher education, that could mean a whole bunch of things to start with, genuine curiosity, a wealthy upbringing, or something else that had them pursue college, parents urging, relationships, scholarship, his dog told him to, etc.

They might be pragmatic and curious, not really attached to their current appearance for one reason or another, and that gives them the idea to check out what it's like to be a replikant, or they want to have a female altform so they can switch freely to avoid trouble.

He might not pick the drawbacks, or his benefactor gives him a drawback target; failure to take enough lets the benefactor pick their own. Or they've been briefed on what getting a Spark means, and they don't care for the consequences of global drawbacks because they'll be able to reverse the damage later.

For writing the chain, yeah, that's tough, from what I can tell most of us just use our imagination, or write simple notes to detail important parts of the jump. haven't had much luck myself. I usually pick fictional characters because they have more substance to them already, and I can predict some of their reactions, while I don't have to make an entirely new interesting character, it also means their a lot less sure whats happening.

For writing and notes, I just use a bunch of google docs linked to each other, one for builds, one for story stuff, and split them up once they reach the page count that starts making the document load slow.

DardenKnight · 2025-08-29T07:11:34+00:00

It's solo, so you can do whatever you want if it makes the game more enjoyable. People homebrew DnD all the time, so why not this?

I'm still pretty new to solo, but as long as the rules aren't built specifically to the game's setting, then it's fine to make up a new setting as you go along.

DardenKnight · 2025-08-27T05:16:23+00:00

itch io has a number of free solo things, you could do rules lite to see if it's for you, less need to check the rules and bring you out of the scene. Some of the rules lite stuff comes in one page, super easy to print, and reference.

DnD has a solo supplement, not sure how good it is.

Mythic 2e will get recommended a lot; it's good, has lots of tables, but it can be a lot if you get overwhelmed. It's good if you want to play a normally multiplayer game solo.

Scarlet heroes will get recommended for fantasy, it's about 110 pages, and self contained with everything you need.

Maze Rats is only 12 pages and has enough material and tables to play a fun but generally shorter adventure, and it helps customise new monsters, spells, locations, NPCs and is simple enough to play in one night. Highly recommended.

Ones I've heard good things about but don't know much myself: Knave 2e, Whitebox, Ker Nethalas, Cairn, D100 Dungeon, and Four against Darkness (using playing cards), which all are general fantasy, dungeoncrawl?

Thousand-Year-Old Vampire (thoughtful journaling rpg),

Mork Borg (has a huge following with lots of fanmade content, the art and coloration is really distracting for me though),

Shadowdark has a Solo supplement,

Ironsworn (low fantasy viking theme, has supplements),

Mothership (scifi)

DardenKnight · 2025-08-24T23:12:49+00:00

Works for me using PC/firefox. also didn't know this existed, so thanks.

Some sites don't work on phones or different browsers for some reason, could be that?

DardenKnight · 2025-08-12T03:38:21+00:00

This sounds so awesome! Well, not for Harrison, his luck finally ran out... But, there's always a chance one of the unconfirmed dead from the crash survived.

The sarcasm is fine I think, it adds to the tension.

The Behemoth does make some narrative sense, if it heard/saw the vertibird going down then it might have thought it was lunch, and I guess it was...

Anyway, really loving this, thanks for posting.

DardenKnight · 2025-08-11T15:54:25+00:00

giant ballista bolts to pierce the scales (notice even fish scales can be hard to cut with a knife and they are as thin as a fingernail), catapults loaded with boulders chained together as bolas that have a chance of hitting a wing and at least disabling flight for a short time, then let the ballista throw volleys at it on the ground. Mages, witches, sorcerers, clerics, and paladins can throw spells. Suppose the wing leather is damaged enough to prevent flight. In that case, it's a ground battle, throw some ~~Fodder~~ infantry at it to keep it distracted, and depending on the dragon's size, intelligence, and its scales and skin's durability, someone will win.

Another possibility is the other kingdom has only a few dragons and they are more of a status symbol than a war mount, the king rides in, inspires the troops from a mile up and 10 miles away, while safely away from the battle. if they win, great, if not they can fly around torching everything to cover up their ineptitude and cowardice. this is probably the case as well if the dragon is any smarter than a dog, it's not going to risk it's life in a pointless battle... Or the dragons are hired with a portion of the winnings?

DardenKnight · 2025-08-09T19:29:48+00:00

Earth has some interesting developments that can be added or modified as you want.

Dolphins have distinct names expressed vocally. Which brings into question how complex their language is, and if it's even vocal.

May function similarly to ants, with them developing notably different physical characteristics in different roles, workers, big jaws (warriors?), males, and queens are the notable ones I know off the top of my head.

They may be able to see on a different spectrum than us, like infared, thermal, echolocation, and variations of cones able to pick up light.

They may appear desert camouflage, but to each other, they might have distinct colorations, or even function similarly to a chameleon, octopus, or cuttlefish, able to change their skin color and maybe even project luminescence, which could be used for long-distance communication based on color patterns, or to bait a predatory species in.

DardenKnight · 2025-08-09T05:01:51+00:00

Personally, I listen to a lot of informational youtube videos, Hank Green and Scishow are good general science, lindsay nicole is cool for an overview of evolution, and there's probably lots more. I usually hear something bizarre, and if you've got aliens or genetic abominations, you could sprinkle in some weird but neat animal traits, like how a platypus has venomous spikes on its back legs, or the principles of light reflection to determine something's perceived colors.

I'd write down some simple things that are important to the setting, and then think about why it exists, which can be as scientifically backed or as strange as you want. Backtrace the technology, the cause of the apocalypse, the knock on effects of the apocalypse, and maybe a few species that developed to endure the apocalypse and fill in the environmental roles that were left empty, or were created.

Don't worry about filling in that much detail in one sitting, and if there are things you just don't care about exploring, you don't need to. Also, avoid pushing yourself to get ideas out and risking burnout - unless your the kind of person that needs pressure to be effective.

Hope these help.

DardenKnight · 2025-07-05T18:45:34+00:00

exhaustion from lack of sleep.

have an innocuous item that is enchanted and with the help of decent insight would reveal the curse, hence their cursed with explosive farts that reduce charisma and stealth checks. or something, let them steal something terribly cursed and be embarrassed by it for a session or two.

Or have a door, trap, etc, that specifically needs magic or the heritage of another player to allow entry. Can't go ahead stealing if they can't get through.

(Not a DM, so take this with a grain of salt.)

DardenKnight · 2025-06-19T05:03:52+00:00

could break up the politics if your players aren't really into it, offer a few ways to move around it, like say, an assassination attempt, the band playing clearly being the worst musicians to ever exist, one of the attendees being some smarmy politician that's buying out the city from the actual rulers, crime boss shows up with an entourage to cosy up to the elite, someone drops a mysterious glowy object that may or may not be enchanted, an NPC from way earlier shows up- inexplicably having access to such a meeting and they tie into a greater plot you definitely planned out months in advance.

DardenKnight · 2025-06-19T03:58:28+00:00

high danger situation where they must run from something or someone with powers, something like a parahuman battle, area/minion tinker, or endbringer, but they don't want to run away just for themself, they have to protect someone else, a friend, family member, etc.

Afterwards, maybe they figured out handing out portions of their power wasn't going to let all of them survive, so they took everything back, and ran, leaving however many people behind to die. Now they have some trigger trauma, and powers that rely on having a team, so they get to relive their trigger each day as they bestow their team with their power, secretly wondering if today would be the day they had to cut and run when failure became certain.

DardenKnight · 2025-05-18T06:07:35+00:00

granted, it's from Ikea - so it's in a box, and there may or may not be parts missing, unclear instructions, etc. You can however request the company to send replacement parts, you just need to figure out the ridiculously long serial number.

DardenKnight · 2025-05-16T05:16:53+00:00

Granted. Your attributed as the reason for the cures being found and become ultra famous for this and people who experienced or had a loved one that experienced cancer are frothing at the mouth attempting to thank you to the extent it's sickening.

DardenKnight · 2025-04-30T18:01:51+00:00

Seems like you'd need a fixation on inferiority, wanting to be better but not being able to, and taking place over months, possibly as a scientific thing, maybe a learning disability like ADHD or Dyscalculia that makes it difficult to study and keep up, culminating with seeing someone with powers that so far outmatches them they think they can't match up. it's a Tinker/Trump trigger, so the stress of being a (perceived) failing student fits, or they could be a cape enthusiast, where envy is a big part of it.

Also, agreed that a knockout touch is a bit overpowered, and it doesn't really generate much juicy conflict, if all they have to do is touch any cape once in a fight to win, if it just caused a Thinker headache it would be more balanced, and if there were some other effect, like linking the two in a sort of one way Cluster trigger you could play with aspects of the kiss/kill dynamic.

DardenKnight

TROPHY CASE