This week’s guest is Brad Kerr, writer, editor, game designer and co-host of the podcast Between Two Cairns. We start off talking about the Swords and Wizardry (Mythmere Games) game Brad and Steve played with Matt Finch at Gary Con. Brad gives us his hot tips on building a good module:
- Fun interactivity: Give players weird toys to play with. Make a dungeon a weird playground.
- Be original.
- Give your dungeon a little freak for your players to hang out with.
We talk about his work with Necrotic Gnome (Old-School Essentials Starter Set & Old-School Essentials Demonic Grimoire, Carcass Crawler), The Dream Shrine (a dreamworld escape-room adventure module), Hideous Daylight (a pen-and-paper adventure module of sun-soaked horror. Compatible with Old-School Essentials and Cairn), Temple of 1000 Swords (a tarot inspired TTRPG dungeon-delve for OSE, Sun Bathers (Old School Essentials – Adventure Anthologies Vol. 1), about a messed up temple on an island.
And we ran out of time before getting to his Wyvern Songs (a high-fantasy adventure anthology for OSE), Demon Driven to the Maw (a party-crawl adventure for Cairn), Fabien’s Atelier (a puzzle dungeon adventure module for Cairn), and Head Puncher! (a competitive dice & doodling game of injury and humiliation).
Follow Brad: Website – Bluesky – Itch – Between Two Cairns
MD 408 – Terra Cotta Dream Thieves w/ Brad Kerr
The Terra Cotta Dream Thieves (TCDT) are a break-dancing rock band of brownish-orange fired-clay monsters. They’re multidisciplinary artists (music, painting, performance, dance, etc…) who rampage through a town, grabbing people and dragging them across a PPP, painting with their blood and gore. People are nothing but paint to them. Their medium is destruction.
The act of creating a PPP, the design of the painting on the PPP, and the display of the projection behind a musical performance is the gestalt of their art, a tapestry of horror. Whoever has the most ghosts in a PPP is the current TCDT leader.
The PPP (Psychedelic Projection Pillow): This magic item is a pillow made of rock, yet it’s incredibly comfortable to sleep on. A process of smashing a humanoid body against this rock is called ‘Blood-Painting,’ as gory sacrifices are necessary as material spell components. They smash heads into a PPP to slam folks dreams into it. If one gets blood-painted and survives, their dreams are stolen into the PPP and they’re unable to get a good night’s sleep or recover any used spells. If one is blood-painted and dies, their ghost is locked into the PPP. Smashing a PPP returns the stolen dreams to their owner, and releases the ghosts trapped within.
Uses of the PPP are as follows:
- Dream Projection: all of the stolen dreams and ghosts’ memories merge together in a psychedelic mélange of images and color. The TCDT use these projected images as the background for their rock concerts that they perform for nefarious and infernal art fans. A target hit directly with a dream projection must save or become hypnotized.
- Ghost Glean: When you sleep on a PPP, you commune with the ghosts trapped within and may attempt to glean information that they knew in life. Some collectors want a specific PPP to get information from a specific ghost. Some collectors want a PPP to use offensively, to ghost a rival, and then glean their secrets using the PPP as a medium.
PPPs are highly valuable art objects, but they’re incredibly unethical to own. The price goes up based on the amount of dreams and ghosts locked into the PPP.
Art: Tiger Wizard Words: Steve Albertson
Story by: Andrew Bellury, Steve Albertson, Brad Kerr
Appendix N: Delicious in Dungeon (manga and anime), Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), The Cell (2000), Inception (2010), The NeverEnding Story (1984), The Rock (1996), The B52’s “Rock Lobster,” Predator (1987), Jefferson Airplane (band), Buffy the Vampire Slayer, MtG ‘Blood Artist,’ The Judgement Night soundtrack (1993).
ANNOUNCEMENTS
PAX Unplugged : Hang out with Tiger Wizard and Dragon Warrior Nov. 21-23. Tiger Wizard will be manning the Exalted Funeral booth, and Dragon Warrior will be running his Mystic Punks adventure Thrill Kill Ministry in the Alexandria RPG Library room everyday at 10am.
Tails From the Night Market: Tiger Wizard’s project for Mausritter Month, co-written and co-illustrated by Tiger Wizard and Joey Royale from Get Haunted Industries. Sign up now to be notified when it launches along with all the amazing Mausritter creators this November.
Tiger Wizard’s new Patreon: Super fun mini dungeons delivered to your inbox or mailbox on the regular.
Dungeon Cats: Tiger Wizard’s Ennie nominated, rules-lite TTRPG where you play feline adventurers is now available at Exalted Funeral. Delve into lush carpeted dungeons to vanquish giant rats, demonic dog spawn and the half-full food bowl. Fight with claws, purrs and advanced reflexes for the treasures contained within. You only have 9 lives. Live them adventurously!
THE MEGA DUNGEON MEN EP: Our TTRPG fantasy meets hip hop album, The Mega Dungeon Men EP is now available on all streaming platforms. It’s an intense dose of nostalgia and comedy for geek-minded connoisseurs of gaming & fun with features from nerdcore legends Mega Ran and MC Frontalot.
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Thanks for listening to Season Four of the Epic Levels Mad Dungeon podcast, where D&D hip hop group Epic Levels and a guest create system-neutral, playable content 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.
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Mad Dungeon is hosted by Andrew Bellury, Steve Albertson and produced by Zach Cowan.
Music by Epic Levels and beat by Jay Domingo.
© 2025 Epic Levels. All characters in our adventures–even those based on real people–are entirely fictional.