Art Grimoire is available now!

I wandered off from working on the big story I'm writing for a while. There are elements of the story that make me sometimes need to take a break, and there's been a lot of research. As a fun side project, I created a solo journaling game/art journal of sorts. 

(cover of Art Grimoire by LK Nesse)

Art Grimoire is available on itchio and through my ko-fi. It's the same price, and available as an epub and pdf in both places. 

If you aren't familiar with a solo rpg, it's essentially a tabletop roleplaying game that you don't need a group for because the game is designed for one player and no need for a game master. You need a sketchbook, d6 and d20, and a deck of playing cards (no Jokers) for Art Grimoire. You'll probably want at least a few sheets of extra paper for tracking sanity (I'll explain that in a minute) and maybe working out a few rough ideas before they go in the sketchbook. Excuse me, I mean the grimoire.

The game guides you through creating a character who is a sorcerer who is a member of a weird, and often silly, cult. You choose your sorcerer's name. I didn't give the name a lot of effort and just decided Casty McFireball would work. There are a few other details you choose on your own. When you get to the name of the cult and patron entity, the dice start making decisions for you. That's how Casty McFireball ended up in the Respectable Union of Servants of Spicy Kn'alg of the Eternal Balance. 

As I said, weird and often silly.

This game doesn't have a big story that you play through. The game is building the sorcerer's grimoire. Character creation is to give you an idea of who this sorcerer is so you can approach working on the grimoire from their point of view. The dice and playing cards randomize things so that you don't know what you'll be drawing and writing before you start doing it. No need to plan ahead for what to create in your fantasy art journal next! This can be helpful for anyone who wants to work in a sketchbook or art journal, but just feels overwhelmed by deciding what to draw, paint, sketch, or make collages of. The way things are randomized in the game, no two grimoires will be the same even if done in the same style by the same player/artist.

(A fantasy map drawn in a sketchbook with dice, a large rusty key, and a white stone carved as a skull resting on top of the open book.)

I learned from creating this that I really like making fantasy maps when I have a little direction instead of just a blank page. The game information can simply be followed by doing exactly what the prompts say, or there's also plenty of room to make some choices on how you want to do it if you have some ideas on how you want style and organization in the grimoire.

Art tasks are Mysteries, and there are six types: maps, bestiary, herbalism, Smaller Spirits, Greater Entities, and Sigils, Symbols, Glyphs, etc. Because of how the prompts are randomized for each Mystery, I have no idea how long it could take to get every possible combination. You just keep building the grimoire as long as you want to, and it's easy to take some time of not doing anything with it without feeling lost when you come back.

(Illustrated entries in a sketchbook for a live hairball called Little Ball o' Trouble, and what looks like a garden gnome but is known as a Garden Thief.)

You'll be building your own fantasy world by following the prompts. It gives you a starting point, but you decide what something looks like and what notes to make about it while in character as the sorcerer. My sorcerer makes notes on things about history, observation, and local folklore. Your sorcerer might make notes for spells and rituals.

Let me give you a little warning about sanity. Engaging with the Mysteries will do things to your sorcerer's sanity! The game explains how to track that. Your sanity can never be higher than 20 points, and never lower than one point. As it goes up and down, this will sometimes change what your sorcerer is documenting in their grimoire. Mysteries have different instructions for when sanity is in a lower range. 

I'm going to keep Casty McFireball's grimoire going. I've got the pictures I needed for getting the game out there, but now I want to keep doing it because it's fun. I have a sketchbook (affectionately called my "weirdbook") that I work in to give myself breaks from writing in a way that keeps my creativity flowing. Doing the grimoire entries is faster and doesn't require that I already have something in mind. There are days when that's easier for me than the weirdbook, and I still want to see how the map turns out when it's finished.