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That sounds totally fine to me!

Rules-as-written, I don't think this is clearly defined. All Classes can currently have a Pale Self. As for a more classical depiction of the soul, that's up to the GM.

The Caretaker is a nurse, or is at least themed around medical care.

The Victim is a final girl, and orbits around slasher movie tropes.

The Innocent is closest to, like, a gothic heroine. They're pure and strong of character.

The Victim and the Innocent tread slightly similar territory, but the Victim is about luring monsters and fighting back and the Innocent is about support and self-sacrifice.

By using the Break part of the Specialty, I would rule yes, but I would also understand GMs that rule no on using it with Scars and Malices.

I realized immediately after writing this that there were still some issues with the text. I've revised the PDF to better clarify how surgery tokens work. Current version is 12.12.24a.

Two total. The suppression doesn't remove Scars.

Changes made!

Old Wounds now can no longer be be triggered off of things like bleed or Specialties with a damage cost, so Scar accumulation should be way more normal. Also the cost for Reconstructive Surgery has been split and dropped---it costs much less when just addressing the HP loss. Also Scars reduce Abilities much less often.

The goal with Scars, for groups that choose to use them, is to slow down HP / Ability accumulation over a long campaign. Characters that get hit a lot will still average +1 HP and +.5 Ability per two investigations, and Scars won't affect Specialty gain or finances or any of the other ways investigators have of becoming stronger, so they shouldn't mess with the pulp tone too much.

The current version of the PDF is 12.12.24, and is uploaded.

Thank you for catching this issue!

With Scars, the goal was to offset some of the HP and Ability Points players get from clearing investigations. But I think you're right, it's currently a bit too extreme. I'll do a rework.

Attempting to answer this question made me realize there were a ton of problems with Limb Cavity, and so I have reworked it both for clarity and to scale back its ability to do wild stunlocking via grapple. The new version of the PDF is 12.11.24 and can be downloaded via the normal means.

The intent with Limb Cavity is that it's a burst of unarmed attacks and then you suffer bleed. You can combo it with stuff like Crook's Heavy, and you can use its attacks to grapple as per the normal grappling rules, so it's a little too strong for just a 1 Action 1 bleed cost.

Oh! I'm @sprintingowl.bsky.social on Bluesky, but if that's not an option I can try to figure out another point of contact. 

Oh, I'm SprintingOwl on social media, Bluesky and Twitter.

Yeah. The nature of designing this game over a long period of time has made it so that some Specialties lag behind others, and also made it difficult to patch older books due to the layout software.

You could lean into this by making it so that when you gain a Specialty, you roll randomly on that Class's Specialties chart, but it's also perfectly fine to issue spot buffs if a Specialty doesn't feel interesting. I think the ring giving a small damage bonus on spells could be good, and also having it teach you a spell when it breaks.

Yeah, I think this might fall into the subgenre of ttrpgs as Machines That Hurt People.

It will definitely tend to produce stories about struggle, contextualized through lower energy MMO chatter, and if the group lets their thoughts drift to heavy matters it can turn very sad very quick.

I do think it's possible to play it with the problems being more wacky and low stakes, or to tell a more serious-toned digital adventure story along the lines of .Hack, but by default this might be an unhappy game.

This is open to the group's interpretation. I'd intended human-sized, but you could easily give them dragonfly steeds and beetle courtiers and the like.

The tagline is "seven strangers and one familiar face", so there's a little bit of justification for it, but mostly I wrote an extra class very late into development and didn't want to change the title.

My work here is done.

Secure your breakfast!

Sort of the opposite. Those games already exist, so I was trying to intentionally write in a different direction so as not to step on their toes. They ended up still being an influence, but more in terms of defining what Strays wasn't going to be.

The Thing About _____ Is is a TTRPG adaptation of the I'm On A Boat music video.

The PDF is 9 pages, with a clean business infographic style layout.

The writing here is uncommonly sharp, burrowing into corporate synergy-speak, parasitizing it, and hatching humor from inside.

Gameplay-wise, this is a solid party game. It has simple turn-taking and guns-and-butter style building yourself up or sabotaging others, but it constructs all of this around having to give weird narrative justifications based on whatever random thing your manager has become infatuated with at the moment, as you try to wrangle your way into an employee of the week vacation.

In terms of layout and usability, this is also a banger. The Thing About _____ Is does a really good job tutorialing its gameplay through a text conversation on the side of each page. I don't think I've seen this kind of running color commentary tutorial in anything else outside of the Dresden Files TTRPG, but it's a really good technique and it works excellently here.

Overall, if you want a small icebreaker rpg for a group that either doesn't play any TTRPGs or that plays a *lot* of TTRPGs, this is an excellent pick. It isn't often that I get to call something a The Office TTRPG (positive), but this is that. It's smooth to play, easy to learn, and produces good comedy and just-sweaty-enough gameplay to make everyone feel like they have stakes. If you're a designer, I'd strongly recommend checking this out. And if you're not but you've read this far anyway, I think you'll like it too.

Yep! There's a few in the indie that are explicitly designed to be played during other games. At the moment, I cannot remember their names, but I've definitely seen some. And there's also a few (specifically fishing ttrpgs) that slot into other campaigns pretty easily even if they're not intentionally built to interact with other systems.

Oh heck I didn't see the link until now. Updating my game page accordingly!

A John Carter game in the engine would be really neat! I feel like it could easily be its own spinoff, in sort of the same way Pharmagothica is. I don't currently have any plans to make anything like that, but I'd love to see it.

I have considered doing something more Conan themed, and I may do a Conan-style Class in the next Seven Strangers, but I have no ideas if/when I would ever get to something like this as a full supplement. A proper hollow earth would be really fun.

You make good stuff! People are kinda inconsistent when it comes to leaving reviews, even on stuff they really like, so I'm always happy when one of my reviews reminds a designer that their rpgs are solid.

This sounds really cool to me! I do have some plans to do supplements that flesh out the existing cults, but nothing in this style or on this scale. I like that it makes the gameplay a little more overtly factional. It's an interesting dynamic for the game.

This is a really interesting concept! I do have some plans to do supplements that focus on wilderness exploration, but nothing this comprehensive, nor anything that focuses on the fae. And I really like the idea of integrating animal PCs more into the game.

This sounds really neat as well! I don't currently have plans to make anything like this, and the closest in what I've already published is Pharmagothica.

Whoah. So the expansions I'm currently considering are one that adds to the Artifacts list a bit, Seven Strangers 3, something that goes into a bit more detail on some of the cults, and then a couple more scenarios.

Mythic Twilight sounds really cool. The idea for legacy play is excellent, and I really like it as a counterweight to how Miseries work. I don't currently have any plans to write anything like it.

You can definitely use that mindset to kill it, as long as it runs out of summons.

As written, this is up to GM interpretation. I'm generally fine with fire damage stacking to an extent, but there's only so much fire that someone can be on. The Meat Seam is also not particularly flammable---molotovs thrown on it will burn for a bit, but it won't take stacking d4 damage per Round forever.

Now, if the players excavate the Meat Seam and pour gallons of gasoline on it and set it on fire, that's different. That would do more significant damage, as would methodically dynamiting it. An organized and determined military could kill the Meat in a day, with some casualties.

Thanks!

Yep! An injected PC is also affected by Graven Repellant, although I would rule they test Stability instead of Morale.

Extremely valid question! I didn't specify in the module, but I would rule that there are two on the first floor, two and a half on the second floor. Similarly, you can assume that there's linen closets, a pantry, and other functional but unexciting rooms in the mansion even if they're not specified in the bullet points.

As a Fool, you have to take Fortune's Fool during creation. I think I'm going to try and patch this, since currently it's better for non-Fools than for Fools.

For the Skinflint, Pinch Pennies causes your max Omens to change as your savings change. So if you gain $1,000, +1 Omens. If you then lose that $1,000, -1 Omens.

These sound cool! I didn't have plans to do the full tarot, but I definitely like the idea!

Yep! You can take any one Specialty when Getting Better, including one of the two core Specialties for a different Class.

Rules as written, Fortune's Fool can be taken later when you have more Hit Points to convert. However, it's possible this might be disruptive to normal play. I am very okay with GMs putting a cap on the number of Omens it can give, or ruling that it is available during character creation only.

Thank you! I'm a huge fan of tactics jrpgs and wanted to see if I could do something bite-sized in that style.

I'm definitely interested in  releasing more Classes, and the ones you've suggested all fit the genre. I've also got some other ideas for Classes that bring in more supernatural elements or that fold in the works of other writers (Poe, Howard, etc.)

There's a lot of Cthork content in general that I want to write, I just need a scheduling window in which to cook on things. I'll try to aim for later this month.

In the meantime, if you're interested in writing your own Classes, I'd be happy to link from this page to anything you create. There haven't been any third party Cthork supplements yet, but I'd love to see the visions other creators have.

Dismiss Into Figment is better at handling small, mortal targets than big complex things. Thus it's not quite a silver bullet for gods (nor can you do something like target the earth and dismiss humanity from its history.)

King In Yellow is also a tricky target for this spell, because he's already got a very loose relationship with reality.

I'd say that you can use Dismiss Into Figment on people or places to erode their relationship with him, and that you could use it on him to temporarily redact small parts of his lore, but also that he can recover from the effects of Dismiss Into Figment over time as his nature repairs the gaps in the fiction.

If multiple casters simultaneously hit him with Dismiss Into Figment while in Carcosa, that would take a serious chunk out of him. Similarly, if a large number of casters repeatedly spammed Dismiss Into Figment on Carcosa itself, they could try to break the association between Carcosa and the King and potentially free the city (even if this wouldn't guarantee the King couldn't just re-take it.)

For the Dusty Sachet, this is open to GM interpretation. I think I'd rule that it has a slower progression than normal pollen lycanthropy, that way the player doesn't finish turning into flowers between investigation 2 and investigation 3. But the disease will finish its course unless cured---whether by drinking the sachet's tea or by some other means.

Dismiss Into Figment is a little weird, since it affects Toughness. You ignore the Toughness part when it's used on NPCs and monsters, since they don't have Toughness, but otherwise it functions the same way. That said, it only affects a piece of a target. You would need to rapidly and successfully cast a lot of it in succession to whittle away at a god. With enough casters and hit points and a chained down god, you could do meaningful harm to it, but you would need a significant population dedicated to the task.

The Briefly Turn On You DR 16 that Haints created with Leash The Departing Soul have is the difficulty for them to attempt to hurt you. So on a 17+ they can throw an object at you or try to terrify you. The GM rolls this whenever they judge appropriate.