TOWARDS BRÜTTELBURG
4 months ago
– Fri, May 01, 2026 at 11:27:25 AM
TOWARDS BRÜTTELBURG
The farmlands surrounded & fed Brüttelburg, the biggest city in the eastern provinces of the Würstreich. She knew little about the city except that good people should avoid it. Despite those feelings, or maybe because of them, she felt drawn to it.
The road wound its way through the fields & soon she saw the top of Brüttelburg looming in the distance & mountains further to the east of that.
The city was archaic & abnormal, a majestic merger of rock formations & man-made construction topped off with a series of towers that looked to hold rounded furnaces that belched pink smoke.
Brüttelburg was layered in three parts like her sister’s wedding cake. Each stratum had a massive, monstrous maw that served as an entry to that area. Wide stairways led up & through each of these mouths. Brüttelburg was more than just a big city, it was a sepulchral, pulsating megalopolis, a living thing.
As Mina wound her way on the road to Brüttelburg followed by Rudolf, through collapsed stone battlements & enormous megalithic structures placed there by some forgotten race the city filled more of the horizon.
Flag-topped, pointy towers jutted out of the top & red shingled roofs covered every surface that sheltered the city from the weather. Mina found herself staring in awe at the city, It looked like it had been summoned out of the ground. She couldn’t believe the immensity of Brüttelburg. It was the biggest thing she had ever seen.
Mina approached the first step of the entrance, past clusters of peddlers selling their wares & every other kind of person slowly making their way inside. She was reminded again of the city’s enormity, losing count of the wide, stone steps as she made her way in.
Occasionally the air would shift out of Brüttelburg & the smell of concentrated, cramped people, human & animal waste was almost overpowering. The stench stung Mina’s eyes, she tried to breathe only through her mouth to give her nose a break. The summer sun was cooking the filth. Rudolf sniffed the air furiously, it was almost too much for the dog.
Brüttelburg was the oldest, biggest city in the Würstreich. It had been built on the ruins of an ancient, alien structure. The epic & imposing masonry had a feeling as if it was grown or magically manipulated & then filled in & built on top of by the newer occupants.
The city had an eldritch, mysterious, tomb-like nature to it. The tribal Valhal avoided the place calling it “die Krypta”, letting it lie dormant for centuries. Emerging from the Valhal, the Würst actively dismissed what they saw as any kind of superstitious motivation so they claimed the city as their own.
Once inhabited, Brüttelburg grew rapidly. The city operated as a Bulwark for the spread of Imperial power. The Würst stood on the shoulders of giants & discovered many of their secrets.
From Rats in the Rathaus, forthcoming in the Weird Stories of the DUNGEON DEGENERATES by Sean Äaberg, series coming soon!
Brüttelburg was built on the ruins of a more ancient city & civilization that the Würst Empire won’t acknowledge. Brüttelburg is divided into three layers: The Understadt, The Middenstadt & The Obenstadt. Under, Middle & Over. These layers of the city correspond roughly to the classes that dominate each, but there is a little bleed over.
Under the city is a messy labyrinth of tunnels which begin as the Understadt Dungeons but quickly give way to a series of sinuous ancient tunnels carved into the stone that are too complex & convuluted to be controlled. Because of this, the passageways are home to unnumbered abominations that make their dwelling in the dark.
THE UNDERSTADT
The Understadt is the home to teeming throngs of the underclass & their fleas & lice. The Unterstadt contains most of Brüttelburg's factories.
The light of the sun never reached this forlorn, claustrophobic area & fresh air was just as rare. The scum & filth of the Würstreich coalesce there, filling that soupy recess in the cyclopean ruins, an urban abscess.
The Unterstadt is damp & stagnant, choked with the smoke from constantly burning torches. It is made out of rotting ghettos, blood soaked slaughterhouses & indefatigable factories that spew as much smoke & pollution as they do products.
Some areas have been flooded, others taken over by things that see in the dark & have mouth’s full of sharp teeth, others collapsed & empty.
The Empire viewed it as a lost cause & do not patrol the Unterstadt. This lawlessness allowed for both Goblins & the pagan Gütter to carve out niches for themselves.
Gangs & private security patrol the streets making it secure if you belong & dangerous if you don't. The Unterstadt also contains several graveyards, because they refused the fees & indoctrination into the Imperial Necropolis.
The Understadt does have running water, piped up from the springs that have been accessed by the tunnels under Brüttelburg but it costs money, so it is not as common as it could be.
Your average Understadt peasant eats a diet heavy in beer, sausages & bread with little vegetables, finery or variation.
THE MIDDENSTADT
The Middenstadt is a more refined, restrictive zone above the Understadt. The Middenstadt is much more organized & less chaotic than the Understadt. The streets are lined with neat & tidy shops that cater to the whims of the Würstreich’s middle class who cling to their precarious position with surprising ferocity.
It is because of this devotion to their station that the Middenstadt is more heavily policed than the Understadt & the Oberstadt. This is insisted upon by the Middle Class Würst that occupy the Middenstadt to keep the rabble under control & keep their position in the pyramid secured.
There are state police & private police to maintain order in the Middenstadt. The Understadt is policed by the Schläger, who are basically glorified thugs devoted to law & order that they enforce happily with their truncheons & the Würstreich law: The Fleishwolf.
The law is so Byzantine that no one can be fluent in it, but the gangs of Schläger are lead by an UberSchläger accompanied by book dwarfs that are chained to the Fleishwolf & a lawyer (Blutsauger) that reads from the book to whoever is being punished. When punishment has been dealt, the whole affair is sealed personally by the attending UberSchläger.
Your average Middenstadter eats a diet heavy in actual identifiable cuts of meat, circular pretzels called Orobrotzel, beer, cider, wine & spirits, vegetables, baked goods & even breakfast & desserts.
While the Middenstadt is safer than the Understadt, it is not without its controlled chaos. The Middenstadt has its own varieties of drugs & the ubiquitous Scratch, while used is looked down upon.
The residents of the Middenstadt go whole hog on a variety of festivals because they can afford to & they have plenty of steam to blow off & extra income to blow. There are also frequent fireworks displays that echo the Würstreich’s military power for all to see.
KURBISMORD
Sports are popular in the Würstreich, the more violent the better! A game called Kürbismord is unique to the Würstreich.
Kürbismord is played with two teams of 13 players with an active on pitch team of 7 going up against each other on a field & trying to get a pumpkin into a well in the center of the field with their feet, hands, whatever.
Points are scored by the team landing the pumpkin into the well, but it is not frowned upon to seriously injure the opposing team. The game ends when the pumpkin breaks, so games can range from seconds to hours in length.
Rival supporters have petty street fights over these sporting events, while the matches erupt into riots in the Understadt with entire blocks being torched & anything that is not bolted down stolen & everything clean, dirtied.
THE BOMBAST
Würstreichers love the drama & spectacle of the Bombast, an opera-like event where fantastically costumed singers & accompanying orchestras perform a narrative piece of music depicting a glorious mythological epic or a tragic love story.
Cannons shoot food & small presents into the audience, enormous pipe organs belch out colored smoke, crackling fireworks launch out over the crowd’s heads & there are even some surprises all in the confines of enormous theatres which are also called Bombasts. While everyone loves the Bombast, only the Middenstadt can support the operation of its own Bombast theatres.
THE OBENSTADT
The Obenstadt rises high above the Middenstadt. It is very difficult to enter the Obenstadt & once you’re in, it isn’t heavily policed although private guards are on call all the time.
The Obenstadt is dominated by the Alchemical Towers. Towers that hold are topped off with spheroid laboratories that peer down over the city & belch pink smoke.
The Obenstadt is full of well-tended gardens, meandering pathways & the manors of Brüttelburg’s elite. The heads of church & state live there in comfort separate from the rabble they rule over.
Your typical Obenenstadter eats a diet heavy in the finest cuts of meat, beer, wine or spirits & fresh vegetables, some are so decadent that they try the fad diets that arrive from the West of the Würstreich.
Food & other, less mentionable things are imported from far & wide to satisfy the limitless hungers of the ruling class.
It is helpful to think of Brüttelburg refining itself upwards, the dungeons on the bottom are a hellish maze where anything goes & they are ruled with an iron fist, the Understadt is a cramped hive of sweat & sewage, the Middenstadt has more elbow room & better taverns & the Obenstadt is wholly untouched by the rabble below, in fact there are whispers that they want to replace humanity altogether.
My goal with LowLife, a DUNGEON DEGENERATES TTRPG is to deeply explore the Würstreich & the surrounding lands of Bödengärd. A role playing game allows for that kind of dialing into the detail that isn’t possible with the linear confines of a board game.
We’re down to the final hours of the campaign & my goal at this point is to build the nest egg so that I really concentrate on this project this summer & dump my best, undivided energy into it. So, back & share this project & thanks for allowing me the privilege of producing this work.
X SEAN
THE THING IN THE FILTHWAYS
4 months ago
– Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 09:23:59 AM
Olaf & Max are the central characters used as an example in LowLife, a DUNGEON DEGENERATES role playing game.
Turds, trash & body parts bobbed in what once passed for water. Rats watched from the shadows. Their cold, reflective eyes glinted in the weird light that emanated from Max’s hand.
The waste from the massive but clean & orderly city of Überheim flowed into the Filthways below. The stagnant air was humid, septic. Olaf & Max tried not to breathe deep, fearing that something nasty would grow in their lungs. They had to stop to catch their breath but gagged on the thick, miasmal stench. The dull eyes of the dead-again Alive-Again stared wide & empty.
They had just finished chopping through what seemed like hundreds of the Alive-Again. Their already rotting bodies gave way to Olaf’s cleavers like butter & the pieces went flying.
The walls dripped with condensation & a foul mold grew in the cracks. Even with their high ceilings, the tunnels felt controlling, ominous, like the veins of a rotten animal.
The Filthways of Überheim were a disgusting contrast to the prosperous & peaceful polis they served. “As above, not so below this time.” Noted Max.
“You’re right, but I prefer this to above.” Said Olaf wiping the syruppy, black blood of the Dead-Again off his face.
Max wasn’t comfortable around weapons & didn’t want to stand in front of anything where confrontation loomed. He had barely gotten over the shock of having his nice, presentable clothes drenched in the stinking muck.
Max was more than content in staying back & lighting up the stone walls of the sewers with the weird magical light he was able to conjure. His nose trickled blood as he concentrated.
Olaf, on the other hand, lived for the feeling of his blades going through flesh & bone. He was very comfortable with the accompanying mess. It meant he was doing what he was supposed to do.
If Olaf swung hard enough & at the right angle he could chop through the bone too. It was extremely satisfying to dismember body after body, it reminded him of his job as a butcher.
He quietly muttered an old butcher’s poem he learned while still an apprentice. “Your blood, my blood, does it matter? It’s all meat. Everything is good, as long as the knives cut.”
“Poetry at a time like this?”
“You look like you’d like poetry.”
“I’m too nervous for poetry.”
As they waded around the corner they came face to face with the thing that had been pulling the unwary into the sewers & dismembering them.
The creature was horrible, a mix between a crab, a hairless chimpanzee & a very angry man. The thing made a nauseating blubberous, bubbling sound. It clamped its claws & chewed the air as it waited to engage the two.
“A face that a mother would leave at the edge of the woods.” Said Olaf.
“Poor bastard.”
Max & Olaf braced themselves.
In that moment the creature concentrated, it looked almost civilized, like it was trying to speak…
We'd like to hit 666 backers for this thing! It just seems right. So please, share this project with your people, on your socials, reddit. Discord, email list, wherever. Let's build the horde & gain the number of the beast!
THE SNAP BACK
4 months ago
– Wed, Apr 29, 2026 at 10:27:30 AM
The first thing I thought after learning that I had had a stroke, was, “This doesn’t happen to me.” I was partially paralyzed, on oxygen, intubated, with hoses coming out of my head, my groin, my stomach. It was a lot.
Being intubated, I couldn’t speak so Katie came up with a letter board that I would use to communicate. I had to point to letters with the arm that could still move & hope that whoever I was talking to could keep up with me.
Later, after learning from Katie & various doctors about the situation & how dire it had been, we came to the conclusion that avoiding the stroke was impossible & that the lucky thing about it was that I was still alive & even though I had died & basically every bodily system failed on me. Most of them came back online.
I never got a concrete “why” I had the stroke. No one, not the doctors or informed family could give me a definitive answer. I know that I had a number of factors but they lacked the overarching narrative that I always look for, that I always create.
Around twenty years ago I read Richard Cavendish’s book “The Black Arts”. This was probably the best overview on magic I have seen. His theory that all magic is essentially "black" because it is rooted in the human desire for power, selfishness & the manipulation of reality really stood out. He argues that the distinction between "white" & "black" magic is largely illusory.
I was thinking about Richard Cavendish’s concept that the Universe corrects, frequently overcorrects for the bending of reality that is required for magic & then I found myself struck down, in the hospital, immobilized.
This idea resounded to me, & especially after I had the stroke. I saw that all the magic I did in Eugene in order to be successful probably led to a massive “Snap Back” which resulted in a stroke which killed me & reduced me to zero, after having been at 150% for a decade.
I didn’t put it together while I was doing it, but I was using myself, my hard work as the necessary energy to trade for being able to bend reality. I was my own sacrifice, burnt offerings.
I don’t write about my occult practices/studies very often because it is so easy to dismiss them as insane ramblings or wishful thinking. However, I am trying to be honest here, with you. Centrally, I don’t “just believe” these things because I want to. No, I have witnessed these things in my life.
I began toying with pragmatic magic when I started to understand how luck worked & saw my own luck increase as I performed certain tasks. I threw away any pennies that I found, I burned incense as an offering, I found the patterns in reality & emphasized them, I used the same numbers, words, colors, repeatedly.
I gave back to the Universe an appreciation for creation, in turn I increased my lucky breaks. It was small things, like parking spots opening up for me, police leaving me alone, timing being perfect, being able to find things without looking for them.
Eventually, I started seeing the characters in my art appear in reality, repeatedly. It would make sense that each artwork was a spell.
Science grew out of occult studies, because understanding the nature of reality went against the teachings of the Catholic Church. If we go back to Francis Bacon & Isaac Newton we come to the truism of physics that every action has an equal & opposite reaction.
Space is a closed energy system. The Snap Back is an inescapable law of esoteric physics. I warped the probability around myself to draw in luck. With that energetic shift, I created a vacuum of probability. The stroke was simply the universe rushing in to violently equalize the pressure.
While I was writing the magic system for LowLife, it wasn’t coming from conjecture or just as some kind of nerdy world-building exercise, it was an attempt to put into words what I have actually experienced.
Ultimately, anyone offering an easy way out, a magical fix, or a sudden stroke of luck is selling you a debt that will eventually be collected with interest. The Snap Back is the reason life, that LowLife is a grinder. Every time someone tries to rise above their station using unnatural means, the world breaks their legs.
A million years ago I was given a shout-out in a Punk zine that talked about not seeing me at shows for a bit. The writer talked about the candle that burns bright, burning out faster. That was thirty years ago, I was 18.
However, this isn’t a cautionary tale of flying too close to the sun. I still think that you need to run the engine ragged & really push it, it’s just very important to know that you end up doing real damage.
X SEAN
LOWLIFE SOLO RULES OVERVIEW
4 months ago
– Tue, Apr 28, 2026 at 11:53:15 AM
Solo roleplaying has the ability to be a transformative medium of exploration. It can be a kind of fantasy jazz that encourages improvisation & even syncopation (synchronicity) over the old fantasy tropes that keep this thing grounded. This update covers the method for converting party adventures for solo (Würstmeister-less) play. SO-LOW play introduces a method for creating freeform, self-generating solo adventures that reveal themselves as they go along. It is an undeniable truth that assembling a consistent gaming group is the most difficult obstacle to this hobby today, which is exactly why solo gaming has flourished. It’s not the local church-mums or concerned parents, people don’t want to commit. To engage in grit, grime & gristle of LowLife on your own, you must remember that this game is ruthless & unpredictable. The solo engine isn't just a neutral referee; it actively enforces the tone & pushes the player into the muck. Playing LowLife solo is a solitary act of occult transformation. Much like the hermetic philosophers who recognized that the observer & the universe are deeply intertwined, you must occupy both the microcosm of the character & the macrocosm of Bödengärd. To play solo, you must be your own Würstmeister. This means you alone carry the responsibility of describing the world, inventing dialogue & applying the mechanics to maintain immersion.
FUCK AROUND & FIND OUT In solo play, players can sometimes freeze up, overthinking their next move because there is no GM forcing the action. You must overcome your hesitant tendencies & embrace the adventure, savor the unknown.
THE WORLD WANTS TO BE EXPLORED: The solo player earns more experience specifically by engaging with unknown, dangerous, or gross elements of the world. If they poke a throbbing fungal mass, pick a fight with a heavily armed mercenary, or try to jury-rig a broken piece of tech, they mark XP - even if they fail the roll.
FAILING FORWARD IS MANDATORY: The game never stalls out. Something always happens. A table of consequences ensures that a failed attempt always changes the situation. You didn't just fail to pick the lock; you broke your tools, alerted a patrol, or triggered a trap that alters the environment.
RUDIMENTARY RESOLUTION The internal engine of LowLife relies on the Ask, Answer, Test loop. When playing alone, you must have your internal Würstmeister execute all three steps.
ASK: You, as the player, declare your character's intent.
ANSWER: You immediately shift to the Würstmeister perspective to set the stakes, the scene & the difficulty. This is the most dangerous step for a solo player. You must remain fair, just & logical. It is incredibly easy to confuse keeping yourself (the player) happy with serving the gritty, objective truth of the narrative. You must allow your character to suffer if the logic of the world dictates it. You must learn to enjoy fate.
TEST: Roll a standard d20, attempting to roll less than or equal to your target number. A natural 1 remains a critical success, hitting the target number exactly is a success with complications & a natural 20 is a catastrophic fumble.
EXPLORING THE IN BETWEEN LowLife relies heavily on open-world exploration, a sandbox state referred to as the "In Between". Because you lack a Würstmeister to surprise you, you must lean heavily on systematic randomization.
LIVE THE CHAOS: In solo play, the narrative is driven by you & populated by a series of charts that dictate what is actively happening in the world. You cannot control the outcome; you must embrace this endless stream of randomness and channel it into the story.
SUPPORTING CAST (NPC) GENERATION: When the dice dictate that you encounter an entity, do not rely on your own biases. Roll on the Central Casting oracles, rolling multiple times to create a multifaceted & contradictory character.
DEFINING MOTIVES: Immediately assign the Supporting Cast an Intent & a Faction to quickly frame their behavior & interests.
ZOOMING IN The cities & subterranean snarls of Bödengard are just as, if not more important than the characters that inhabit the world. Each location is a living, breathing, stinking organism. Because of this, there are Oracles devoted to expanding & exploring the cities & the dungeons. The Oracle determines the types of buildings found in the habitations, what is kept in them.
I LOVE LIVING IN THE CITY: Bigger cities get more rolls on the STREET LIFE Oracle. Some, like Bruttelbürg keep going, you never stop exploring. Other towns have a small number of buildings worth your time.
MAZES & MONSTERS: Dungeons are a catch-all term that encompasses confusing crypts created to keep things hidden or hinder them from escaping, sewers that keep the waste moving away from the city & more. These present a series of Characters, Objects & Happenings in an enclosed network of passages & compartments.
STRUCTURING SOLO ADVENTURES Without a Würstmeister guiding you through their narrative or a pre-written adventure, you need an Oracle to tell you yes, no, but, maybe, & an engine to generate immediate, localized goals.
MISSION FRAMEWORKS: Use the provided Mission themes to give your character immediate direction. Because you are acting alone, missions like scavenging for resources, uncovering neighborhood secrets, or smuggling contraband through hostile territory provide excellent, low-prep focal points.
EMERGENT STORYTELLING: These individual missions act as localized elements within the broader, overarching structure of your character's Adventure. Allow the consequences of one mission - such as the Heat you accumulate, the Factions you disrespect & the Degeneracy you gain or lose - to naturally dictate what mission you must undertake next.
RUMORS AS HOOKS: The player starts with a handful of half-true rumors. They choose a rumor to investigate, which gives them a specific goal, but the solo engine continuously throws obstacles in their way, forcing them to adapt and survive rather than just follow a linear path.
A reminder that these are the initial, unrefined concepts going in to the solo game. Now is probably the best time to lend your voice to what sounds good, what sounds bad, what you'd like to see, etc. I am interested in pushing the boundaries of solo play!
x SEAN
RETURN TO FANTASY
4 months ago
– Sun, Apr 26, 2026 at 09:20:48 AM
I was struck the other day about how there is a massive Role Playing renaissance happening right now & there is no unified voice for it. Just a lot of scattered voices online. I decided to bring those disparate elements together. I talked with Katie about starting a new magazine & she rightfully pointed out that doing a project like this right would take over our lives & do I actually want to devote myself to a publishing project like that again? (For those that don’t know, we published PORK magazine covering Rock&Roll, Weirdo Art & Bad Ideas from 2011 to 2018. The magazine provided a big tent for these things to be united by.) The easy answer was no, the number of personal projects I’ve got piling up & ideas that need to be explored in the future keep on growing. So I had the idea of Die Wurst expanding into that role. In that way, I’m doing the opposite of Dragon & White Dwarf, going from being wholly devoted to DUNGEON DEGENERATES to expanding our content to fantasy gaming in general. Katie gave me the go ahead so here we are. I’m opening up Die Wurst so that about half of it is dedicated to other works of fantasy gaming & the other half is dedicated to DUNGEON DEGENERATES. But first I need to establish a vision.
RETURN TO FANTASY
Fantasy, when done right is an act of channeling something raw, mythic, buried deep in everyone’s psyche. It is not a mere genre, but a meeting with something primal that is inside all of us. It resounds.
The desire for escape is a constant & natural part of life & therefore we should seek to benefit the audience & the audience should seek out fantasy that conceals useful life lessons, common patterns in life or historical narratives that are suppressed or unheard. We should uncover & seek that which exposes.
The works should allow the audience to see the world anew, restoring a sense of wonder by presenting familiar things in an unfamiliar light, provide a legitimate means of escaping the hardships of reality, offering solace & respite & delivering joy through meaningful change.
Fantasy should be built off of ideas from the real world & provide insights into the machinations of that reality. The intent is that a more comprehensive understanding of the world can come about through the use of these Fantastic & Escapist pursuits.
The works form a triangular relationship between the source, the channeler & the audience. The work falls flat if these parties aren’t respected & understood.
The channeling of material should be understood as sacred & not hindered by the boardroom & shareholders.
The channeler must understand themself as an imperfect tool that needs constant improvement, like a spring that can get overgrown with weeds. Thus, more & better ways of bringing things from the Source & documenting them for the audience must be used, always.
Fantasy has been divided into numerous genres over the years. Science Fiction & Horror were birthed from it. People want to create more & more specific genres until the new confine is thoroughly explored & then they move on to something new. They leave the genres discarded in their wake until enough time passes by & the ideas seem fresh again. I encourage genre destruction & an attempt to just create, without too much attention to the increasingly nichefied attempts people make in this world. Make it good is the rule, don’t worry about the grotto it fits into.
