This is a special, off-cycle Missive because earlier this week, I announced some big personal news:
Starting in October, I am transitioning my current full-time day job to part-time work and will be taking up TTRPG writing, editing, publishing and freelance work full-time!
I am available for writing, editing and game development work starting NOW.
While I’ve primarily done adventure writing so far, I will be branching out across both personal and freelance projects to broaden my experience with all types of work in the TTRPG space.
For a number of reasons, right now felt like the right time for a big-time change in my personal priorities and how I’m spending the majority of my time:
My wife and I are planning a move to Canada (within the next 6-9 months) so I knew my current job already had a time limit (and didn’t support an international move). Building up my personal publishing projects as well as a fairly steady stream of freelance projects is work that I can continue doing during and after a move, regardless of our location.
My current job was really crushing me with stress, overwork, burnout and I had hit the upper limit of the kinds of work I was interested in doing there. I knew my time was limited there for my own mental health.
Looking back at the support I’ve seen over the last year and having several conversations with industry folks at GenCon made me think now was the time I could really give it a chance - with enough runway to build up to something great.
My grandmother recently died and had me thinking about time and life and that whole thing. I didn’t want to get to the next chapter of my life (possibly having kids, possibly living in another country, growing older every day) without having giving my lifelong dream of writing full-time a real, proper shot and by spending more and more time doing work I am not particularly passionate about.
It’s an exciting and scary thing trying to give the thing you’ve dreamed about for so long a real go, because it means you can fail in a way you can’t when it’s all just in your head. But, I could also succeed and that seems worth the shot.
CURRENT FREELANCE PROJECTS
I don’t want to say too much since these aren’t my projects, but I wanted to at least tease some of the freelance work you will see coming from me over the next several months.
Cyberpunk Pamphlet Adventure
Pamphlets were how I got my start in all of this so it’s exciting to see folks wanting me to create this style of adventure for their game. This is the first deadline on my docket, and I’m digging into it this weekend. It’s a vertical-focused delve down into a lost undercity datamine in search of valuable, centuries-old data. While I won’t be doing art/layout for this one, I have some fun initial ideas for unique map and text placement.
It’s for a cyberpunk game that’s going to be seeing a big reprint soon. Ideally, this will be launching alongside it (sooner than you’d think)!
Mothership Corporate Horror Prison Break Adventure
This adventure is a heist/prison break adventure in a twisted corporate hellscape coming as part of a bigger zine from an existing Mothership publisher. It’s got a lot of moving parts to it that I’m working to have come together in really tense and exciting ways: strict security protocals, hostile architecture designed to keep you from doing what you are working to do, an array of NPCs with a wide web of knowledge and allegiances capable of helping or hindering you greatly as you move deeper into the adventure and weirdness hiding in the dark corners of the corporate power structure.
This will most likely be appearing in the wild early next year!
Stone & Sorcery Sourcebook
This is easily the biggest project of the bunch. It’s a full-on bestiary and rules sourcebook focused on hunting, gathering and crafting for a system I’m extremely excited about!
The base game’s creator and I collaborated on the basic structure of the book itself which I think is going to be LOADED with valuable things for GMs to bring to their table. This is going to be more than just stat-blocks and a brief description. We’ve got adventure hooks, unique morale and motivation tables, legendary beasts and custom craftable items for every entry. It’s also a book that should continue to live alongside the system as it continues to grow into the future which is really exciting (and is an honor to be a part of).
This is likely the furthest out of the bunch as it’s going to be a full-on zine (with art, layout and more) so I can’t give much of a timeline but I’ll be hollering about it when it’s announced/released!
It’s been so exciting to put out initial feelers about getting into freelance work and to already have this kind of support from other creators in the space. I’m stoked to be able to really dig in to this over the coming months and grow my list of projects!
Beyond these current contracts, I have my next big personal project in its nascent stages, plus a jam entry or two, as well as some possible collaborations with other really rad creators in the space all coming up over the next 6 months or so. It feels like a busy and bright future which is such a nice feeling after the last few, really tough years.
If you’d like to chat about what I can do for a project you have in the works, please reach out! I’m going to be available in November for more contract work and it never hurts to plan ahead!
You can find all my contact info HERE.
I’ll be back mid-October with the next freebie, how the transition from part-time to full-time has gone so far, and a more in-depth look at wrapping up printing and fulfillment on The Bloodfields. Thanks, as always, for reading!
- Christian