Weeds biome expansion + CE review

New art of the Cloud Empress’s strange transformation in the Living Lands

Nice words from Technical Grimoire

“Aside from the art, what impressed me most was the writing. It was evocative and terse, the way an RPG should be. But more than that it was…melancholy. Not in a grimdark or maudlin kind of way. More like an old man refusing to tell a painful story.” — Technical Grimoire

Technical Grimoire the publisher of games, Clink, Lowland County, and more recently posted a play report and review of their experience with Cloud Empress. I don’t know Technical Grimoire, so I’m humbled by the kind words expressed. It’s always thrilling to find people on corners of the Internet playing and enjoying something I’ve created.

Preorder Cloud Empress Life & Death

This is a reminder that you can still preorder the Cloud Empress Starter Box or Life and Death box sets from the Backerkit preorder page.

The Weeds biome expansion

Now onto the free monthly Cloud Empress expansion content! I’m currently working on a set of terrain/encounter tables to support revisiting locations in the Lowland Wastes. Here’s the entry for The Weeds in the Land of Cicadas setting expansion. You can download all of the newsletter expansions here.

cw: cannibalism, blood & gore, injured insects 

1d20 Descriptions

1. A Cloudling officer, saber drawn, leads six soldiers through a dry creek bed explaining the principles and tactics of catching a Farmerling insurgent. 

2. Two Cloudling soldiers play "five-finger filet" on a crate near a fire. The dagger dances between fingers. Then the soldier's hand slips and knicks her ring finger. Blue blood drips from the wound. Both soldiers look at the blue blood confused and astonished.

3. A single-room prairie home shimmers on the grass like a mirage. A Wanderling moves to the back of the house to hang a basket of translucent laundry. 

4. Four Farmerling militia members tow a huge sea mine they intend to place in the nearby river in attempts stop the 29th Expedition’s water travel. 

5. An immaculate sunset seems to slow time in coats of magenta and crimson.  

6. Three Farmerling children climb a Cloudling tank yelling orders to one another and firing imaginary rifles until a Cloudling officer using a rolled-up map begins swiping the kids away. 

7. A Cloudling supply truck and a four soldier press-gang search the countryside for unsuspecting Farmerlings and travelers to recruit into military service for the Emperor. 

8. Wanderling ghosts emerge from the tunnels of a trench system beckoning travelers to join them in the darkness. 

9. 1d10 Huskers pry flesh from bone in their ritual feast. The manic Huskers walk on all fours and hop about like crickets in celebration. 

10. Full-grown Imago swarm overhead in the hundreds or thousands headed to war. The scattered tall grasses nearby provide cover, but each tuft can only fit a single full-grown human.

11. The Cloudling supply cart halls dozens of crates filled with poisoned blue pills. The Two soldiers guarding the rear occasionally pry into a cracked case tossing a few blue pills into each of their mouths, hopeful the guards driving the packsquabs ahead won’t notice. 

12. Hundreds of craters fill a stripped field – the place feels otherworldly. A few remaining trees shine white in leafless, barkless desolation like chewed bones. The wind howls through empty ordinance shells littering the dirt. 

13. Two full-grown Imago feed on twelve human corpses with unusual blue blood wounds. The more the Imago coat their mouths in the blue blood the more the bugs twitch, wretch, and begin to die.

14. A Farmerling handcart filled with piles of straw and 6 honeymelons sit seemingly abandoned. A Broken Bread saboteur hides inside the cart and two more watch from a stony ridge. The militia members hope to ambush Cloudling pillagers. 

15. A full-grown Husker in chitin armor is being scolded by his elderly Farmerling mother. No son of mine will take part in these rituals! The Husker slowly undresses while stammering excuses. 

16. A recently killed Imago leaks chalk-forming fluids from a hole made by a tank shell.

17. The sway of prairie grass splits in the hands of a frantic Lordling. Jinx the Spirited screams for help – lost for days in the tall grass. Despite Jinx’s predicament, they act demanding and often interrupt mid-sentence. 

18. Prince Bug flies through clouds silhouetted in black and followed by hundreds of Imago. The ground itself rumbles in fright at Prince Bug’s presence. 

19. Order of the Broken Bread initiates scale a trench wall, running towards a veteran saboteur who holds a stopwatch. 

20. Two teenage Farmerlings with fishing rods climb from the embankment of the nearby creek with a small basket of river fish. The teens look at strangers sheepishly hiding the catch behind their backs. 

What I’ve been reading & playing

• Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson

• Lancer by Massif Press

• Warframe (Had to put this down again because of how consistently lost I got in the game’s levels)

• Tides of Rot (album adventure) by The Dead Robotz, Brian Yaksha, & Karl Druid for one of my favorite TTRPGs Frontier Scum

• My Method Actor (album) by Nilifur Yanya

That’s it for this month, expect more biome encounters in October! Let me know what biome you’d like to see me expand next!