Games

• RUNE
• Slayers
• NOVA
• LUMEN
• HUNT
• REAP
• LOOT

I've got a wide variety of RPGs for you to check out.
Click the buttons to learn a little bit about some of my favorites.
You can find all of my games on my digital store.
You can printed copies of my games on my physical store.

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Games

• First Contact
• Jaywalking

I've begun writing some fiction based on my games! As I write more I'll add things to this collection.First Contact: NOVA short story of the first Spark making contact with an enemy faction.
Jaywalking: Corvid Court micro story.

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HIRE ME

I'm available to hire for both game consulting and commissioned writing.If you'd like to add me to your upcoming TTRPG project, click this link to learn more, and send me an email at gilarpgs@gmail.com

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Thank you

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• Okay

The Slayers 1.5 update is rapidly approaching, and now it's time to give a brief breakdown of some of the changes to expect. If you're unfamiliar with the Slayers 1.5 update, you can read more about it here.Without further ado, here are the changes and updates:Editing!
Slayers now has been edited by a real professional. Will Jobst, who I have been lucky enough to work with in the past has edited the Slayers core rules. Now they will read much more clearly than they did before. Go Will!New Art & Layout
With the update, Mike Rieman, of Dust and Slayers Almanac fame, will be giving Slayers a whole new style. Expect updated layout and art throughout, bringing the world of Slayers to life. Here is a teaser, with his new cover image, an homage to the original.Those are big, and very necessary changes. Now let's get into some of the specific rule changes and updates you can expect to find in 1.5:
General Combat Changes
Every class now has a "Ready Action" that they do when combat is started. The Tactician already had this, and the Gunslinger to an extent with loading up their bullets. Now each class has a clear action they do to get themselves ready to fight a monster.
Move no longer counts as one of your two actions in combat. Every Slayer can make a free Move, at any point in their turn. This will encourage Slayers to move around a bit more, and feel free to use Skill & Quick actions instead of just Moving and Attacking.
It's a lot harder to die now! I've never been a fan of character death. Now Slayers are downed if they reach 0, and can be healed to get back in the fight. A Slayer only dies if they are already brought to 0 HP, and then are hit again.
Blade Changes
New Ready Action where the Blade gets to start a fight in a stance.
Gunslinger Changes
Ready Action is now explicitly loading the gun
Increase Harm per hit to 2 instead of 1. Allows the Gunslinger to keep up with the Blade in lethality without nerfing the Blade.
Trigger Limit is gone! It wasn't fun, so now it's not a thing anymore! The advances related to Trigger Limit have been replaced.
Runes that used to deal no Harm now deal 1 Harm in addition to their effect.
Arcanist Changes
Increase Speed die to d6
Increase starting known spells to 4, giving them some more variety
New Ready Action is choosing a favored spell for the fight. You don't mark corruption when using the base version of the spell, only when you boost it
Monster Changes
General tweaking of wording and numbers of monsters to make their effects clearer.
Formatting of monster statblocks has been improved for usability for the GM, including a reference that all monsters get a free Move action.
Monsters now have three clearly distinct effects: Passive, Actions, Reactions.
Passives used to be called Ongoing.
Note on monsters using skill die of d6 in the very rare situations where you might have them roll a skill.
More advice on making monsters.
District Changes
Wording for NPCs, factions, and rumors has been clarified.
More interesting or enticing rumors have been set up, creating a more unified feel for all of the elements of the district.
General Overall Changes
Clearer examples provided in text.
Cleaned up presentation of the ideas in the GM section.
Reference Page updated to reflect changes in document.
Character sheets updated to reflect changes.That is a basic rundown of the big changes to expect with 1.5! As you can see, this isn't a shift to the "2nd Edition" of Slayers, but instead a refining of the core game. I'm incredibly happy with the changes, and thankful to Will and Mike for making this possible.Revisions are done, and Mike will complete the art and layout early-mid 2022. For everyone who owns Slayers, you'll see your file updated on itch.io when the update is complete! That's all for now, let me know your thoughts on the patch notes on Twitter or Discord!

• Corvid Court
• Drifters
• HUNT
• LIGHT
• LUNA
• NEST
• NOVA
• NULL
• RUNE
• REAP
• Score
• Slayers

Chapter 1 – Helios
Recon Report: DT8Voyager: Ech0Classification: Priority 1NOTE: Keep this under wraps for now. The last thing we need is a damn panic. – The Director“During a routine mapping trip in the Dusk, Tau Region, Subzone 8, I encountered something I’ve never seen before. Subzone 8 had been mapped the week prior, and wasn’t scheduled for recalibration for at least a month. But reports of a malfunctioning probe had me deviating from my assigned route to investigate.Upon arrival, I found that the probe had not been destroyed, as we typically find is the case from interference from the local fauna. Instead, as I approached the probe, it triggered a high powered and concentrated EMP.Records show my HUD was deactivated for approximately 12.36 seconds. Despite visuals being compromised, the audio recording systems of my Spark remained functional. Listening back, you can hear the sounds of some…thing approaching my positioning 3.54 seconds after the initial blast. I was then knocked to the ground by a substantial force.10.1 seconds after EMP detonation, my Spark activated the Supernova failsafe, despite vital systems not reaching a critical state. Immediately afterward, my HUD was restored. I found the probe still in place. However, it was restored, no longer malfunctioning. I left the probe in place, but recommend an immediate followup excursion for its replacement, with backup from the Warden division.My Spark sustained no noticeable damage from the experience. However, initial scans show an attempt was made to access my system during the blackout. Reports show the attempt was unsuccessful, but I am requesting a full diagnostic scan upon return to Helios.Something is out here, in the Dusk. It’s smart, fast, and somehow has the ability to completely overload the systems of a Spark. Until further notice, I recommend suspending all Voyager activity in Tau Region.”The report sat open on every screen in the room. Nobody dared to speak first.“Where is this pilot? Echo?” The Forge asks, rubbing sleep from his eyes. The head of Spark development has barely had time to rest these days.“Echo is currently in a debrief room downstairs. He isn’t going anywhere.” a voice responded from across the room. A woman stood studying away from the rest, her eyes moving quickly between three different screens. The Map was in charge of the Voyager program at Helios, and prided herself on always knowing where her pilots were, on and off mission.The silence enveloped the room again. This time, four agonizing minutes passed by before anyone spoke up.The head of Helios’s defenses, the Director, finally spoke up, looking from her screen towards the Forge. “I don’t understand how this is possible. Who or what can sneak up on a Voyager? What is this, stealth tech? We don’t even have that. And if Helios doesn’t, who the hell does?”It was true, if Helios didn’t have it, it seemed impossible to imagine another city that would. No other settlement matched Helios for size, of course. But where Helios excelled most was in its sunwell. Built around the largest known sunshard, and reinforced with a network of smaller wells all across the Heliopause, its energy output allowed Helios to rapidly develop the latest technology on all of Obron.Most of the smaller settlements didn’t even have a Voyager, still using the original frames that would later inspire the Spark suit. Helios had an entire team of Voyagers, the first of what was supposedly a long line of new models. These pathfinders regularly went out into the Dusk and map it. They knew the area better than most. The thought that something, or someone, could get the jump on one of them left everyone in the room with a sick feeling in their stomachs.The leaders of Helios sat in silence.Chapter 2: Sparks
Echo walked through the machine shop, watching the technicians at work. Most were doing their best to repair busted frames. The robots were effective at collecting materials in the Dusk, but that just made them walking metallic targets.A technician pried the scorched chest of a frame off and threw it in a clatter to the ground.Hellions, Echo thought to himself. The fire-obsessed raiders hadn’t attacked Helios directly since the advent of the Voyagers, and so they turned their fury to the frames.In the back of the shop, behind heavily guarded and reinforced doors, was where the Forge worked on the next Spark model. Nobody was sure what the new model was going to be. Droves of hacked up frames were regularly carted out of the room, so whatever it was, it was mean.It didn’t matter to Echo, he could never dream of being anything but a Voyager.“Back already?” a voice called out from behind a pile of repurposed scrap. Echo looked over to see Zen, the only tech that Echo trusted with his suit.“I’m just as surprised as you are. Hours waiting in that debrief room and then they let me go without a word. Next thing I know, there’s a mission chip waiting for me in my room.”Echo holds out the small device. It was soon discovered that communication deep in the Dusk was essentially impossible to maintain, and so the Voyager project had mission chips developed. They had all the information the pilot might need for their trip. Just slot it in your suit’s helmet, and you had Helios command in your head, as if they were there with you out in the wastes.“Any idea what it is?” Zen had moved themself over to Echo’s Voyager suit and started making some adjustments.“Better question, any idea what the hell could do this to a Spark?” Echo pointed at the razer thin cuts in the armor plating.“Well, it wasn’t Hellions. There’s not a speck of ash or scorch anywhere to be found. No bullet holes either. The cuts? They’re so thin, Echo. They don’t look like a beast’s claw would do it. They feel precise, intentional. I haven’t the faintest clue what could do it.”Echo frowned.“But…I did notice something. You know when you got back, you said something might have accessed your suit? Well, I checked, three times. Each time the suit came back clean. Too clean. See, it didn’t even register the access you would have had at deployment yesterday. Your suit registered as if it hadn’t been deployed in a week.”Zen stopped for a moment, cursing under their breath as they rummaged through a scrap heap. They pulled out a small box. Echo knew it well, a diagnostic tool for Sparks. Except the hull on this one was bloated out, as if something was breaking it apart from the inside.“Something did access your suit, Echo, and tried to clean up behind itself. In the process they left a little gift for anyone who might go looking.”Zen threw the blown diagnostic device to the ground, and it was only then that Echo noticed the bandages across their hand.“If they, whoever the hell they are, want to play dirty, then let’s get in the mud.” Zen said as they finalized work on an attachment to the suit that Echo had never seen before.Chapter 3: The Dusk
The Dusk is a difficult thing to define. It starts when you reach the edge of the light and warmth of a sunwell, when the dark and cold starts to set in under the eternally violet night sky. For Helios, the Dusk had been pushed back further and further each year as the city expanded, the Heliopause forcing back the dark.The Dusk twists and changes, never exactly the same when you walk it. That made the work of the Voyager project especially difficult. Despite that, nobody knew it better than Echo. When he reached the edge, and the faintest rays of the sunwell were absorbed by the void, the mission chip that had been left for him chirped. Echo’s HUD lit up, and his briefing began.Echo, we want you to return to the damaged probe where the…incident took place. Look for any hints as to what might have attacked you and report back. I repeat Echo, find intel and return. This is a scouting mission, and yo-The briefing cut suddenly. Echo ran diagnostics as a precaution, though his Spark didn’t report any damage and there wasn’t anything in the environment he could detect that would cause the disruption.Shrugging it off, Echo started the long and lonely walk back to Subzone 8. The Tau Region was a relatively quiet part of the Dusk. Very few settlements of the world before the nova event were out there, or if they were they had been completely obliterated. As such, Voyagers wouldn’t typically run into anything like Hellions. The raiders preferred areas full of scrap to add to their metal amalgamations they would occasionally throw at the walls of Helios.No, the Tau Region, as far as anyone knew, was largely a deadzone. But that didn’t make it something Helios could ignore. If any remnants of old humanity had been wiped out there, it would have been because of a sunshard hitting the surface nearby. And there was nothing more precious on all of Obron.He hadn’t been paying attention, letting his mind wander. The loud thud in the air and vibration in Echo’s feet broke his daydream, and he immediately set his Spark to a low power mode. The lights across his exosuit dimmed, allowing him to more easily blend into the environment.In the distance Echo saw a massive form slowly walking by. It stood easily as tall as the walls of Helios, stomping one foot slowly in front of the other, trudging along on for massive legs. Its head lifted, looking in his direction. Six massive appendages, which looked like tentacles, bloomed from where its face would have been. They writhed in the air, and Echo’s enhanced sensors heard a sort of “sniffing” sound coming from the creature.“Well, that’s not what got me, but that…that’s something else.” Echo muttered to himself. His Spark was designed to create a running recording of his trip every time he deployed into the Dusk. He quickly added a few notes and tags to the recording and packaged it for priority analysis when he got back home.Checking his map, the probe wasn’t too far from where he was now. A few more minutes and he’d be there.Chapter 4: Second Encounter
Echo sighed in frustration. The probe was there, exactly as he had left it. There were no obvious signs of tampering. He knew he wouldn’t find anything, but he had to try.He began his scan of the area, angry that he hadn’t done this after the incident. But he had been rattled that day, and he gave himself a moment of forgiveness.The Voyager system began scanning his surroundings through a variety of different processes. Infrared sensors for picking up visual phenomenon beyond his abilities, while the sonar system pulsed from his feet, quickly compiling to a three dimensional image in his HUD.He turned the display. Very few creatures of the Dusk came near the probes. They were designed to emit repulsive sounds and smells that drove away most Dusk fauna on record. And if anything got too close, the probe would flash bright lights, startling and blinding anything lurking in the dark.Which is why Echo froze when he saw the prints near the probe. Two feet, right next to the probe. No approach, just there and gone.He immediately expanded his search to the nearby area, replicas of the footprint overlaying the environment. After minutes of nothing, he got a hit. Again, a small pair, there and gone again. Whatever it was could either jump incredible distances, or fly.The path of the prints wove through the Dusk. Echo found himself stopping by two more mapping probes along the path before finally ending at a small rock formation. A small collection of rocks had collapsed down onto one another, creating a makeshift shelter, and just outside the entrance of it were a pair of footprints.Whatever was coming in and out of here was much smaller than Echo. His Spark suit grated against the walls of the rocks as he pushed inside.The inside of the shelter was a dizzying display of lights and metal. Display screens and computers were hooked up to one another through a spiderweb of cabling. Echo only recognized about half of the technology in the room. Some of it might have been scavenged from ruins, and hadn’t been cataloged yet. But that didn’t seem likely.The displays projected a typography he was unfamiliar with. He couldn’t read it, but some part of him knew it to be a language. Whoever was living here was unlike anything he, or anyone at Helios, had ever met.However, one of the cobbled together computers was tech he knew well, and he immediately attached a datacord to it. His system took a moment to interface with the machine, but soon he was able to start pulling data.About 30 seconds into the process, the room exploded in light. Echo’s system was completely overwhelmed as hundreds of tiny pieces of highly reflective metal rained in the air, blinding him temporarily. The Spark’s HUD quickly adapted and Echo could have sworn he was surrounded by a razorstorm of feathers.In that moment of surprise, Echo was hit hard from behind. Falling forward, the datacord disconnected from the machine and Echo turned to see his attacker.It was small, maybe half the size of him. Small, and adorned with armor painted a midnight black, the figure crouched to the ground, ready to spring forward again. It’s metal boots dug into the soft earth, and Echo noticed they weren’t boots, but shining talons.Instinct kicked in. The Voyager immediately marked the target, so that it wouldn’t be able to sneak up on him again. The creature lept, and suddenly Echo was face to…beak with it. Its armored helmet covered its features, but a horrible cawing bounced off the rock walls surrounding him as a beak-shaped helmet smashed into his visor.The two tumbled to the ground. The creature lashed out at Echo, thin claws peeling through the thick armor of his Spark. He knew that at this distance, and in this enclosed space, the creature’s speed would get the better of him.Echo’s suit was designed with tiny thrusters to help him navigate tricky terrain in the Dusk. He fired up the thrusters on the front of his suit, pushing back the creature and giving him a moment to think.DEPLOY? blinked in his display, and he realized Zen’s modification to the suit had detected the dangerous situation and was preparing itself.With a thought, Echo confirmed the action. His suit went into low power mode again, blending into the shadows of the shelter as he rolled to the side.But the creature didn’t follow him. Instead, it drew a small blade from a sheath and lunged at where he was just standing. Where the hologram projection of him was, taunting the creature to attack it.He only had a moment to act, and he took it. Echo forced his way through the entrance of the shelter and got a few paces from the rocks before turning. The frustrated caws of the creature followed him, and he saw it was in quick pursuit.With the mark in place, Echo activated his suit’s missile system. Tiny explosive pods launched themselves from his shoulder and immediately buzzed through the air towards the marked target. Before it could react, the creature and the rocks around it exploded in a red fury that momentarily brought light to the Dusk.Echo finally breathed again.Epilogue
In a locked office, the Director looked at the data that Echo had brought in. It had largely been encrypted in ways nobody in Helios had ever conceived of. But some of it was salvageable, and that was displayed on a large datascreen along the wall. She sighed as she signaled for another meeting.The council of Helios sat in silence, again. Projected on the wall was a map.Lined up with their own maps, it matched up perfectly with the topological layout of the nearby Dusk regions. However, there was one major difference.Small nodes had been highlighted on the map, the incomprehensible script Echo had described written alongside each.It didn’t take long for them to realize what it was. It was a map all right. A map of every known settlement outside of Helios.

Dedra never got a day off. As head of staff of the Kelburn estate, she spent most of her waking (and sleeping) hours within the manor walls. Occasionally she’d be sent out for an emergency errand, but that was the extent of it.But today, she was free. Mr. Kelburn was away from Nest on business, and Mrs. Kelburn took the kids down Trunkside in the Elm district to visit family. Dedra was going to make the most of this day.There was a cafe a few blocks from the estate that she’d always wanted to visit. The coffee had a vibrant reputation and the pastries in the window always looked so perfectly put together.As she sat down and took her first sip, all of the weariness in her bones washed away. She would take her time with this cup, savor it all day long if she could.Placing the cup on the table she glanced up and did everything she could from gasping aloud. Sitting at a table in the corner was a man with a wicked smile, cut ragged across his face from ear to ear. It wasn’t the smile she noticed though, no, it was what he was wearing. The long jet black coat had a distinct blood red seal on the lapel.The Court.What was he doing here? Did nobody else care??Trying to avoid lingering on him too long she went back to her cup. It tasted bitter now but she drank it anyway.“Excuse me, may I sit with you?”She knew who it was without needing to look up. He stood there a moment waiting, then sat.“My name is” and then there was this cawing sound that echoed in Dedra’s head. She blinked, thought for a moment to ask him to speak again, but didn’t dare. When she finally peeled her eyes from the abyssal drink in her hands, she looked upon his face.Everyone in the cafe was watching, but they were too polite to stare. But Dedra knew.He knew.And then he smiled again, and the warmth returned to the drink in Dedra’s hands. In the blink of an eye, hours passed by. Customers came and went, cup after cup piled up on the table between them.As if coming out from a deep dream, Dedra looked around to find the cafe was completely empty, not even the staff remained. What time was it? Then she remembered she was sitting across from a Court agent.For the first time in the day she worked up the nerve to look him directly in the eye. He wasn’t smiling anymore, he wasn’t even looking at her. There was a notebook in his hands and he was scratching out something on the page.“You’re a Jay, aren’t you?” Dedra asked quietly.The man nodded, too busy in his notes to look up.“They say you can do things with your voice, mess with people’s minds. They say you can mimic someone’s voice, even their face.”“It’s true. It takes a bit of work, studying, but it can be done.” His voice was soft, barely above a whisper.“Anybody?” Dedra asked.“Anybody.” the man said, as looking up from his notebook, the wicked smile pulled across his face once more.---
The next day Dedra got to work at the Kelburn manor bright and early. Given the day’s tasks to the staff, she took a moment to rub the sleep from her eyes.“Dedra, Mr. Kelburn would like to see you in his office when you have a moment.” said one of the manor’s messengers, already hurrying off to their next stop.“Wonderful.” Dedra said, looking at herself in the mirror, a ragged smile crawling across her face.