This week’s guest is game designer, writer, sensitivity reader, and editor Jacqueline Bryk. We talk about her background in diplomacy and how that fits into how she designs games, TTRPG safety tools as a language of communicating with each other, and her surrealist fiction zine The Pinesorrow Collection, Vol. 1, a love letter to atmospheric storytelling.
We discuss her LARP games like Send N00ds and solo games like Just A Little Time, I Have No Railgun And I Must Scream, and Butterfly On The Wheel, and her upcoming A Thousand Yards Of Lace, a hack (with permission) of Thousand Year Old Vampire.
Follow Jacqueline: https://linktr.ee/rufflejax
MD 236 Basilica of the Last Bout w/ Jacqueline Bryk
This pugilist’s mausoleum is a gothic cathedral with rich textiles, details of gold and precious metals, a checkerboard floor, a large chandelier made of stainless steel championship belts. In the center of the room is a boxing ring. Inside of the ring, on a dias, is a coffin. Inside the coffin is the corpse of Eva Slaughter “The Red Reign of Pain,” a yoked goth-girl boxer who sold her soul for a championship.
The Devil himself is sitting in a sticky bubble-gum couch on a hell-rift in the floor. He lets you know that if someone doesn’t step up to marry Eva’s ghost, that he’ll happily drag her soul to hell. This is her last shot at getting out of the contract.
The Funeral Mourners: An eccentric cast of boxing champions, wearing cultish robes, black veils and boxing trunks, stand in a circle around the ring, each on their own glowing rune-inscribed tile. One member of this bloodsport coven is hanging Eva’s championship belt when you arrive. They all stomp one foot in unison when you arrive, and turn to face you. They give their last words, each one emphasizing how someone needs to step up and marry Eva’s ghost so she can have a good afterlife. They then look at you, as though telling you to do it, then gesture to the only open floor rune remaining to complete the circle.
Ghost Marriage: If you choose to go through this ritual, you’re bound to Eva’s ghost, who rises, dukes up, from the coffin. A wispy ghost ring wraps around your finger, tethering you to your new ghost wife. If you accept the responsibility to take care of Eva, you have to keep up her name by burning effigies of money and other items for her to use in the afterlife. Make offerings daily, or she’ll haunt you. Do well and have a nice romantic haunting, otherwise you’ll get slow-hand-punched by your new wraith wife.
Art: Tiger Wizard Words: Steve Albertson
Story by: Andrew Bellury, Steve Albertson, Jacqueline Bryk
Appendix N: Diplomacy (board game), Spawn & The Violator (comic book), Call of Duty (video game), Fabio (romance novels), John Waters, second chance romance novels, Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher, Robot Jox, The Lily and the Horn by Catherynne M. Valente, Edgar Allen Poe the boxer, Bluebeard’s Bride RPG, ghost brides, Jupiter Ascending, Mike Tyson’s Punch Out, Ronda Rousey, Rowdy Roddy Piper, Ghost (film), Ghostbusters.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Dungeon Cats is a rules-light, casual TTRPG by our own Tiger Wizard. The pre-launch page is now live on the Epic Level’s Kickstarter! Click the “notify me on launch” button to make sure you don’t miss out!
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We’ll be be at PAX Unplugged in Philadelphia from Dec. 1st-3rd. Dragon Warrior will be running games in the space set up by our pals at the Alexandria RPG Library at the RPG Library in Room 108B! Event Tickets will be available in-person, starting at 10:00 AM on morning of the event.
Dragon Warrior will be running OSE: Old School Essentials – Mad Dungeon Rooms from the Epic Levels Mad Dungeon podcast on:
Fri, Dec 1, 2023 at 10:30 AM – 2:30 PM
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Sat, Dec 2, 2023 at 10:30 AM – 2:30 PM.
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Two new poster adventure maps are now available for purchase at Exalted Funeral.
The Worm that Glows based off of season one, episode 11 with Jenna Marie of Chaotic Click Clacks with amazing artwork from Oh! Oozi.
Oh! Oozi is also the artist and co-creator with Steve for their Image comic book Ghost Spy.
Headkicker! The Musical based off of season one, episode 19 with Brian Shutter of Neon Lords of the Toxic Wastes with front side artwork from Mustafa Bekir.
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Thanks for listening to Season Two of the Epic Levels Mad Dungeon podcast, where D&D hip hop group Epic Levels and a guest create a system-neutral, playable dungeon room using improv, comedy, and lifetimes wasted on roleplaying games.
You can support us via Patreon for early episode releases, bonus map content, extra art, access to our discord server, and lots of other exclusive goodies.
Get nerd merch and stay up to date with socials: HERE
Mad Dungeon is hosted by Andrew Bellury, Steve Albertson, and produced by Zach Cowan.
Theme song by Epic Levels and beat by Inner Resting.
© 2023 Epic Levels. All characters in this adventure–even those based on real people–are entirely fictional.