The Japanese TTRPG scene is extremely wide and varied and deep. We get games from it periodically (Ryuutama, Shinobigami, Maid, Golden Sky Stories, Floria) but we don't see anywhere near the whole scope of the scene, and barely a fraction of the indie.
Indie publishers like Malstrom are working to bridge the gap between scenes, translating titles from EN to JP and JP to EN. They've already brought the big indie titles Nova and Liminal from the English speaking indie to the Japanese speaking indie, and now they're bringing Pray By Letter from the Japanese speaking indie to the English speaking one.
I was an early reader for Pray By Letter's translation, and I think folks here might love it.
Pray By Letter is an epistolary rpg. That is, two players take on characters and write letters to each other, focusing on a problem in their characters' lives. Each player has a hidden scoring criteria, called Milestones, which can be completed if the other player says the right things. Each character also has branching endings, which are affected by their milestones.
The tone is soft but earnest, and the game is extremely willing to lean into tragedy if that's what the players want.
A bunch of scenarios (called playsets) are included in the core book, and the overall feeling of the game is the same sort of distant-but-close that you get when you're friends with people who live far away.
Community copies are currently available, and I'm crossing my fingers that this title does well as I'd love to see a bunch more translations from the deeper Japanese indie.
An epistolary TTRPG for 2 players to create a miracle.
So.... I was at a concert tonight (also my birthday, happy thirteen to me!) and I saw the drummer from Maelstrom (Malstrom?). Both me and my sibling are in agreement that he looks like beast boy. Sorry for the poor quality, I'm new to this.
This is a character of mine Iāve been developing for a while, and I finally decided to draw him! He is an Outcode character named Malstrom, AKA The Chaos!Virus! Heās my chaotic bean
More Info about him below!
You can make fanart if you want with credit to me, though I doubt youād want to idk
He came from an AU that was abandoned by its creator to rot, but instead of slowly disappearing, the world began to thrive. Without a creator, the universe no longer had anything restricting it. There were no rules that bound this world. The reset button would pass from person to person, and many times the code of the world was tampered with. The only thing that confined them was the world itself. They were unable to escape the universe until one special day. The sans of that world was messing with the source code and ended up deleting the AU. Since he was the last one left, the Reset button was given to him but instead of using it to restore his world, he decided to let the world stay dead. They had been through thousands of resets, every single one different from the last, but this was the first time he had been opened up to the worlds beyond.Ā
He used the leftover pieces of code from his universe to change the Reset button into the Alter button. He changed his outfit and named himself Chaos. From there, he began to explore the multiverse.Ā
He became quickly disappointed with the other universes. They all seemed so bland compared to his world, and so he began experimenting. He hates boring stories, and wants to make them more interesting, more in a prank sort of way, or just making something too serious a crack story. sometimes though, his sense of humor can become twisted. If you try to stop his fun, his scary face comes out. He wants to infect other Sanses to spread the fun.Ā
Ā he sort of sees his work as a rebellious act against the creators that left him to rot. He takes away their control of a world and changes it to his liking.Ā
He is a virus, sort of like the Trickster virus, and he can infect other sanses
Whenever he uses the button, it drains him of energy, especially if he tries to use it on outcodes. Heās only ever used a few times on fellow Outcodes, and it was hilarious
He doesnāt care about anyone really, except for Blue. He is really great friends (friends, not anything more) with blue, and really likes his AU.
He only puts his hood up when heās seriously pissed off, and itās only happened a few times before, the most recent when he found out error had trapped Blueberry in the Antivoid. You see him with the hood up, you better run.
He is a neutral character, and only gets involved in situations if they benefit him. He has been part of the Bad guy squad before but has also been friends with Ink.Ā
He doesnāt care about morals and does whatever he sees asĀ āfunā
He originally named himself Chaos, but after finding out that some others had that name, he changed it to Malstrom, But heās also known around the Multiverse as the Chaos!Virus
Whenever heās going to infect somebody, he will reveal hisĀ āscary faceā (the one with the tongues and the completely colored eyes), and his soul will move down to the hole in his left hand. from there, all he has to do is grab someone elseās soul, and it will infect them.Ā
Many times, the infected Sans will sign things in wingdings with the left hand, spelling out things likeĀ āHelp Meā orĀ āControlledā
since he canāt easily use the Alter button on Outcodes, he instead loves to play pranks on them, especially on Nightmareās squad and Error.
He can become invisible for up to 30 minutes, and that comes in useful for a lot of pranks, but sometimes he will forget heās invisible, and so when the time runs out, he will appear out of nowhere, inadvertently jump-scaring those around him.Ā
Ā His scarf can actually hold things, sort of like extra hands, but can also be used as a weapon.
unfortunately, he canāt infect people who already have a virus/parasite in them, so there canāt be any Fresh!Chaos. thatās just too much for the Multiverse to handle
Personality/characteristics?? : very energetic and eccentric! He likes to be bothersome, and bug other people. He doesnāt care about other peopleās feelings and will ask really insensitive questions. Do not give him sugar. Acts really happy even in a bad situation. He has nothing to lose, so why not act like it. Heās just here for the fun of it. The only time he acts at all serious is when someone tries to stop him from having his fun.
So thatās everything about the Chaos!Virus. Iāll be drawing some other infected sanses soon, but for now, enjoy the boi!
Ā
Malstrom have announced the release of two new Eurorack modules, the Mandrake kick drum synthesizer, and the Arkan dual voltage polariser. The former divides itself into Hit and Body sections, each of which offer a variety of sound shaping tools, whilst the latter provides users with two identical bi-polar VCAs equipped with features that promise to make the module a go-to modulationā¦
