Sky Pirates of Castile, Part 1: Contesa Alejandra & Writing One-Shots

Since Talk Like a Pirate Day is fast approaching, and RPGNow/DTRPG is having a pirate sale (check the banner above), I guess I should also start talking about the other setting I promised to discuss.

Sky Pirates of Castile is a trilogy of adventures written for a mini-con.  The premise is simple: the adventures of the crew of a pirate skyship in a setting reminiscent of both Age-of-Sail Spain and Cromwell's England, as they seek revenge and treasure and get in over their heads politically.  It taught me some lessons about writing for one-shots and convention scenarios, and it was a lot of fun no matter how many times I ran it.

Indie games fans may note some similarities to the award-winning Lady Blackbird, which is complete coincidence - the first game of Sky Pirates ran back in '06.

Setting Design, or, Why I'm Probably Not Old School

As you can tell by the list over to the right, I read a lot of RPG blogs, many of which have some kind of connection to that nebulous school of thought called the "Old School Renaissance".  They're a continuous source of interesting thoughts and inspirations, but there are times when I'm brought up short by the vast gulf between the Old School and…whatever mishmash of schools I have wound up as.