Jonathan Newell
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edweirdian.bsky.social
Jonathan Newell
@edweirdian.bsky.social
Weird fiction, fantasy cartography, monsters, roleplaying games. Academic credits include A Century of Weird Fiction, 1832-1937. Games credits include Genial Jack, work on Dolmenwood. He/him.


patreon.com/c/beardeddevil

https://bearded-devil.com/
Pinned
I have big news! I've launched a Patreon for the Hex setting, including monthly maps, fully-illustrated installments of the Hex Guidebook, a playtest version of The Hex Hack system, and an archive of older high-resolution maps. Subscribe here: www.patreon.com/c/beardeddevil
Bearded Devil | Patreon
Fantasy roleplaying games and maximalist maps.
www.patreon.com
Fluxcats are strays who fed on the magical trash and mutants of the Midden, Hex's eldritch trash-heap.
November 18, 2025 at 1:13 AM
Sigil spinners are dangerous Hexian predators who lust for mage-meat. Capably of draining wizardly knowledge from their prey, they instinctly weave spells into their webs, laying elaborate eldritch traps for future victims.
November 3, 2025 at 11:07 PM
Happy Halloween everybody!

I've got a new entry in the Hex Guidebook series detailing the necromantic district of Shambleside. Breathe in the reek of embalming fluid and old leather; sip sangwine from Bastien's Blood Bar; bet on the zombie fights in the Rotting Ring. The night beckons...
October 31, 2025 at 5:18 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Newell
I've also created an OD&D hexcrawl.
www.patreon.com/posts/od-d-h...
Not every hex is keyed, but major locations are included, treasure is pre-rolled, and some emergent factions and quests are ready to go.
October 24, 2025 at 4:18 AM
Like a water weird, but smaller, meaner, and heavily polluted by alchemical runoff. Introducing the puddleweird.
October 21, 2025 at 4:55 AM
Everyone's heard of owlbears. But what about leechbears?
October 6, 2025 at 10:32 PM
For today's Monstrous Monday: the ideologeist, a ghost with unfinished political business, haunting the body politic.
September 29, 2025 at 7:57 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Newell
A great review by Tim for Wargamer about The Grim and the Dark, a documentary about the #Inq28 scene, Blacheitsu, etc. Looking forward to watching it. It also sounds like a great introduction to the scene.
Napoleon Dynamite's Warhammer documentary is a glorious guide to grimdark gaming
In 'The Grim and The Dark', Napoleon Dynamite actor Jon Heder journeys into the grimdark indie scene beyond the border of regular Warhammer 40,000
www.wargamer.com
September 18, 2025 at 11:07 AM
Reposted by Jonathan Newell
Queue the Pacific Rim soundtrack: MAC ATTACK is out. (As a PDF, anyway.)
September 22, 2025 at 6:14 PM
I have a new free post up on my blog and the Bearded Devil Patreon, the first in a series of Monstrous Mondays. This entry describes the clever little necromantic assassin-bugs known as earwights. My plan is to eventually build up posts like this for a bestiary book.
September 22, 2025 at 6:15 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Newell
My hundredth one-page roleplaying game is HAPPY BIRTHDAY GOAT GIRL.

You are a goat girl, most beautiful and dangerous creature, and it is always your birthday.

Patrons get it a week early here: www.patreon.com/posts/138800...
September 16, 2025 at 1:54 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Newell
The best RPG has been made, we can all go home and rest now.
My hundredth one-page roleplaying game is HAPPY BIRTHDAY GOAT GIRL.

You are a goat girl, most beautiful and dangerous creature, and it is always your birthday.

Patrons get it a week early here: www.patreon.com/posts/138800...
September 21, 2025 at 5:01 AM
September 20, 2025 at 7:58 PM
I have big news! I've launched a Patreon for the Hex setting, including monthly maps, fully-illustrated installments of the Hex Guidebook, a playtest version of The Hex Hack system, and an archive of older high-resolution maps. Subscribe here: www.patreon.com/c/beardeddevil
Bearded Devil | Patreon
Fantasy roleplaying games and maximalist maps.
www.patreon.com
September 20, 2025 at 7:04 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Newell
We need to stop calling the four humors thing "pseudoscience." There's too much evidence for it in culture, it's real.
September 6, 2025 at 4:12 PM
Minitower, wake and bake, acid-washed, contact trace,
Patient zero, thirtysomething, beta-amyloid.
Yuppie flu, guanciale, steampunk punditocracy,
Pravastatin, lovastatin, off-label lipo.
MW's Words First Used In Print in your birth year is your personal We Didn't Start The Fire:

commoditize compact disc
core inflation de-stress
closed-captioned
first world problem
female genital mutiliation
laser disc laser printer
hip-hop space elevator
...

www.merriam-webster.com/time-travele...
Time Traveler by Merriam-Webster: Words from 1979
See which words were first recorded in 1979. Or search for other words by the year when they were first used.
www.merriam-webster.com
September 2, 2025 at 6:50 AM
Reposted by Jonathan Newell
I made a couple of little videos for the Pergamino Barocco kickstarter. Have a look at the Red Prototype as it... unfolds?

www.kickstarter.com/projects/los...
Pergamino Barocco - the Red Prototype
YouTube video by Lost Pages Books
www.youtube.com
August 15, 2025 at 4:13 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Newell
"Wings of Talent, Stone of Necessity" is one of the strange spells in our next strange spellbook, Pergamino Barocco.

www.kickstarter.com/projects/los...
August 8, 2025 at 12:21 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Newell
socialist vampires. that's it, that's the pitch. that's what my book is about merrittk.itch.io/vampirocene
Vampirocene by merritt k
A climate horror novella
merrittk.itch.io
August 23, 2025 at 11:18 PM
Bill's game Restore the Warp has a very cool loose setting with a lot of great quirks, like a plethora of terraformed planets dating back so far no one is quite sure which of them is Earth and a planet that got cut in half. Lots of procedural mechanics for generating worlds and scenarios on the fly.
The earliest drafts were a lot wider open, influenced by open campaign settings like Starfinder's Pact Worlds or @edweirdian.bsky.social's Hex.

But I was also trying to do zero-prep and collaborative world building. It was slow and messy, as we spent a lot of time discussing what existed.
July 16, 2025 at 9:02 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Newell
The ashcan for my science fantasy ttrpg is public! Fight an interstellar invasion and heal the god of the stars in Restore the Warp: Ashcan Edition!

billtherad.itch.io/restore-the-...
Restore the Warp: Ashcan Edition by billtherad
cosmic drama, personal struggles
billtherad.itch.io
July 14, 2025 at 2:46 PM
Omne Vivum Ex Ovo. A dungeon I'm working on for students at my college. A few of its levels pictured here.
June 14, 2025 at 12:05 AM
Reposted by Jonathan Newell
My friend made a completely diegetic book on blood magic.

230 pages of magic, theory, and lore
3 world maps detailing the setting
33 blood sorcery rituals + magical circle diagrams
135 illustrations & 24 diagrams
3 unique runic alphabets
3 historical timelines + a detailed family tree

IT'S FREE
After an absurd amount of work, I’ve digitized the Jagged Missal—a massive LARP ritual tome on blood magic—and I’m beyond excited to share it! 📖🩸

www.reddit.com/r/LARP/comme...

#larp #roleplaying #magic #spells #props
February 15, 2025 at 12:58 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Newell
Love me an underwater dungeon!
Sharky is in its final 48 hours of funding, and I’m so excited to get this crazy, underwater dungeon delve with secret-laiden seaside village into your hands! www.kickstarter.com/projects/die...
Sharky
A fantasy roleplaying adventure module
www.kickstarter.com
February 12, 2025 at 10:54 PM
Gormenghast for me, I think. Like, it's also a favourite but it's got so much in it. The Gothic, yes - dust and cobwebs and horror and murder and ruins. But also it's fantastic, otherworldly, it creates a different world. And then there's the language itself, ridiculously maximalist and ornate.
What are people's most ARCHETYPICAL novels? Not your FAVORITES per se, but the ones that best exemplify your tastes in novels, distilled into a single work?

Mine is probably Susanna Clarke's "Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell."
December 27, 2024 at 11:14 PM