Casting Shadows

Today’s Sunday prompt for #RPGaDay2022 is called Style Sunday and it asks us to share cover art. As we did previously in the event, we invite you to contact a random (2-9) number of your friends to keep the flame of RPG inspiration and admiration alive. If you reached out earlier, they will hopefully already be thinking of playing one or more different games with you, so if any of those original tags wind up getting treated to some cool RPG cover art, it should keep those fires burning until your people can contact their people and pencil in some potential schedules.

Oh wait… that’s what we do with strangers. We’re not talking strangers here; we are talking friends.

Hopefully, life will allow you to game with the friends you hope to game with, and that the art you share will make someone’s day. If you are lucky, they will respond with art picks of their own! If you are blessed, it could lead to a game!

I just thought of an idea (which is unlikely to work, but a person has to have dreams) about a thing to do on the podcast for this prompt. If you are curious about the idea, check out the Casting Shadows podcast!

Let’s begin with the roll. In many cases, I have found that the roll should precede description if for no other reason than to prevent the peril of premature imagination. For fun, and because I can, I will roll 5d9 and take the average, for an epic average of this range of numbers.

I was going to roll them as a pool, but as I thought about it some more, I realized there would be so much more tension in 5 single-die rolls…

Is it possible that the meaning of epic has been downgraded to frequent use, like awesome has? The last roll made up for it, though. You don’t usually see such repetition in a randomizer.

The results were a stunningly disappointing 1, which was followed by a high-average 5, then a second 1 and a second 5, before finishing out the set with a 9. Incidentally, that is the first 9 I have rolled on any of my d9s. The average, for those who have not already calculated it, is therefore 4.2 which positivity demands we round up to 5!

Do I have 5 actual friends? Do I have 5 actual friends that I can reach via social media?

Wouldn’t you like to know!

So, let’s get to the good stuff, shall we? What cover have I chosen to share?

Sometimes a great cover is the best part about a book, but this is one of those cases, like Lazarus in the anti-matter corridor between universes, where the contents and cover are locked together in an eternal struggle over which is better. Thankfully, we here in this universe can enjoy both without a titanic, endless struggle.

Tomorrow: Who would you like to see participate in #RPGaDay?