346: prison, dead, maybe even happy
Hullo
Humble
Ash Friday
January (eek)
Running
Criminally
Links
Bye
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There’s presently a Kieron Gillen bundle on Bundle of Holding, collecting all the books I’ve written for Image*. This includes, all of WicDiv, all of DIE, Ludocrats, All of Phonogram, We Called Them Giants and the first trade of The Power Fantasy. It’s Pay what you want, and to get all nineteen books in the pack, you’ll presently be paying £13.38. At least, it was that when I checked it when writing this bit. Cripes.
Basically, if you’re thinking of jumping aboard DIE: Loaded? This is a great way to get up to date. If you want to try out The Power Fantasy? Yet again, great. If you want a Christmas present? PDFs probably can be given as presents now. If you just want digital copies for easy reference, or to sit undisturbed in a giant Dropbox folder of things you plan to read one day? We got you too.
I’m not sure why I’ve started italitising titles in this newsletter. I’m sure it won’t last.
*Except Three. That’s out of print.
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I was thinking I was doing really well today, ahead on everything, and then I remembered… oh, yeah, Newsletter. Doh.
The reason why I wanted to definitely wanted to get out this week is we’re one (count it!) days before the end of the month, and the ceremonial sending out of the second Script Club.
The Second Script Club is going to be DIE #1.
I’m still deciding which of the many drafts to send – there’s some big changes between them in the details. I suspect I’ll try and go as late as possible – Ash went through four names, and at least one was actively terrible.
Script Club, for those who are new, is the no-more-than-monthly Premium subscription to this newsletter, to pay for the costs of running it and generally supporting the extended writing I do. Every month I’ll send out a script, or similar length of writing. I’ll tell everyone what the script will actually be before I send it, so you cancel if it doesn’t appeal, and re-sub later.
TL;DR: $5 for a no-more-than-monthly newsletter, which includes a script. Give me coins.
Since starting this, I realised that the previous newsletter is in the archive, visible to people the second they sign up to premium. Which makes me believe if you do subscribe, you’ll get last month’s WicDiv #1 too. I could remove it from the archive, as I’d rather leave it as an extra free one, and a taste of what’s being offered if you do subscribe.
Oh – when you upgrade, it’ll say it’s a payment per day – which it means it tries to charge your card the day I send out a newsletter. I’m not trying to coat you down for a daily $5.
Thanks for the support – I cannot say how much I appreciate it. I mean, I can. I just did. It just doesn’t really sum up the appreciation.
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January Image Solicits are out! I’m not even sure if I did the December ones? Oh well.
DIE LOADED #3
Creators: (W) Kieron Gillen (A/CA) Stephanie Hans
Alt cover: Maurgerite SauvagePrice: $3.99 | UPC: 70985304496300311 | Product Code: 1125IM0282
In-Store Date: 1/14/2026
Did you ever wonder: “Was Sauron’s mum sad? She had such hopes for him.” Here, we venture into a world where a broken mother guards the ruins of her son’s downfall. Can anyone survive?
POWER FANTASY #15
Creators: (W) Kieron Gillen (A/CA) Caspar Wijngaard
Alt cover: Letizia Cadonici
Price: $3.99 | UPC: 70985304061301511 | Product Code: 1125IM0350
In-Store Date: 1/21/2026Wherein we discuss theoretical utilitarian arguments like, “Oh no! The kid in the Omelas hole has got a nuke! Runnnnn!”
Pre-order and all that malarkies. If you don’t know about either book and want a description, here’s the lowdown on The Power Fantasy and here’s the one for DIE: Loaded.
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I actually had a little time write something for Old Men Running The World, on something I’ve wanted to do for a while. It was originally going to be just a big list of the iconic mechanism in a game I love, but – as that’s going to step on the 101 Favourite TTRPGs list – ended up chewing over specifically what turns me on about a game enough to get to a table. It starts like this…
What Makes Me Want To Run A Game?
Or, to give it its true clickbait title, “Why I have absolutely no interest in running 7/9 of the games Quinns Quest has reviewed.”
You see, you can tell I’m a Jedi Knight Still Pining After His Age Of Lightsaber, because if I was properly clickbaiting I’d say “Why 7/9 of the games Quinns Quest has reviewed bore me to tears” but I can’t, because that’s not true.
They don’t bore me to tears. I watch them and think “that sounds great” or “Vaesen exists”. I love hearing Quinns talk about them. I love their strengths and weaknesses and ideas. I like to consider them. I would certainly play in a game of any of them, if there was someone who wanted to get them to the table.
It’s just that I have absolutely no desire to run 77.777 recurring of them.
A friend gasping at my absolutely overkill Vaesen meaness led me to quickly making this to describe what appears to be our guiding critical aesthetic.
Bloggers. They are the worst.
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Actually, apart from the usual TPF and the Second Issue of DIE, I want to mention something unusual in the December solicits, which I’ve written for. The Giant Size Criminal #1. Ed asked me if I had an interest in writing a Criminal RPG module. I said yes, and then had to chew over what that actually looks like.
It’s a short, six-page story game RPG, where you play a small group of criminals gathered around, playing cards after a successful heist. The game alternates between you in the moment, around the table, and flashbacks revealing the stages of what went down and how. Narrative control is decided by playing cards, with the high card getting narrative control – and the suite of the dealer’s (GM) card deciding what sort of challenge they’re overcoming. Hearts being personal, Clubs being connections and who you know, Diamonds being challenges of resources and money and Spades being a challenge of violence (As in, carry you bury someone.) In the end, if you individually beat the dealer in number of hands won, you get narrative control of your epilogue. Otherwise, the Dealer decides where you end up - prison, dead, maybe even happy.
However, there’s a twist to it – at the end of the game, before the epilogue, the remaining cards in your hand are judged like a poker hand. If you beat the dealer’s hand, your secret objective happens. If you don’t, it don’t. The Objectives are things like “you’re a mole: you get enough information to take everyone down” and “You’re hunting a mole: if there’s a mole, you get to whack them.” This leads to a cascading endgame, and ideally someone gets shot in the back of the head by their best friend from childhood, after ripping everyone’s money off to pay their gambling debts.
You know. Criminal stuff.
It’s a short RPG, playable in 1-2 hours, and is basically me mashing together elements of the Paragon system games, Fiasco and boardgames like The Resistance.
It was fun to do, if a challenge – but I also had a good excuse to read all of Criminal again. You really do appreciate what it is when you read it all in one go.
Anyway – pre-order that if you want it and/or a giant size special of Criminal, designed to welcome folks into the book.
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I’ve been chipping away at Lindsay Ellis’ latest public video since it dropped, and I finally finished it. The Unforgivable Sin of Ms Rachel which is about the history of children’s educators, empathy, Gaza, genocide and complicity. It’s really strong, and left me a mess. It’s as a drive to gain money for the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund, and you should support if you can.
October is nearly over, and I don’t think I linked to my October at Image Comics piece? This is in the back of TPF and other image books, where I look at what’s dropping from Image. They should all be available, so go nose.
The Great Software Quality Collapse on how software has become as terrible as it as. It starts with “The Apple Calculator leaked 32GB of RAM” and builds from there. Of many insights, that the energy crisis is made even worse by this level of incompetence. A calculator burned that level of energy.
The early DIE: Loaded reviews are coming out. Here’s Graphic Policy’s.
Threee crowdfunders from friends of this satanic parish. First Rachael Smith’s lovely Napcomix is getting a collected edition, which you can back here. Secondly, Rian Hughes is doing a beautiful design book exploring all the fonts he’s made. It’s called Typeractive, and I have to applaud. Finally, Gerry Duggan and Garry Brown are on Hiatus with Falling In Love On The Road To Hell and are doing an oversized art book collecting the Garry’s inks.
Wargames Atlantic reveals that their founder has been working under a nom de plume, tells the whole story of why, and is revealing so now because they can finally afford to pay back a kickstarter that swallowed all the money, none of which went to him. If you’re going to do it, this is how you do it.
RPG journalist, critic and designer Rob Weiland died since we last wrote. Here’s Wyrd Science’s euological piece about him.
Cannibal Halfling loved DIE RPG when they first run it. Now they ran it again, and went even harder. I’m glad that DIE is coming back with Loaded, as it gives us a chance to point at the RPG some more – I’m really proud of the game, and what people have done and found with it.
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There’s only one thing harder than doing an Image book in comics. It’s doing two image books. DIE: Loaded is at the printers, as is TPF 13. DIE: Loaded #1 and TPF 14 are handed in at Image. As such, there’s a load more moving parts than normal. As well as finishing writing TPF 15, there’s also making decisions around backmatter. And writing it. I’ve been putting off DIE: Loaded’s backmatter for a while, but actually had fun writing some stuff – including the first DIE RPG rules I’ve written in ages. It’s some extra Godbinder rules, and the first God-profile of the main DIE gods – this time, writing up the Bear. It has stuff like this...
He is the archetypal idea of nature as the all-powerful enemy of civilisation. Everything went wrong when people made roofs. The Bear doesn’t just shit in the woods. He shits wherever he wants. He would bury civilisation in shit, as he knows from dung grows flowers, and flowers are awesome. He is the god most likely to buy you a drink, and not mind if you don’t buy him one back. He is the god most likely to nut you after too many drinks. He’s the embarrassing older relative who is too encouraging of your sex-life.
And generally find myself channelling Grant Howitt, which is probably Bear-influence.
I am not quite entirely back to normal after the break, but I’m getting there. The to-do list still has some tasks from before the break, but they’re disappearing, and my main thrust is moving ever-forward. I’ve been writing TPF 16 today, which is the end of that first movement, before we decide what’s actually next.
I’ll probably save this for the next issue coming out, or perhaps next week, but we have seen a lot of The Power Fantasy chat online, which was really good to see. Our trade sales have always been solid, but they were 600% of normal last week, for example. It could be the word of mouth thing? It could be orders after the second trade coming out? It could be something to do with the Humble Bundle? It’s impossible to work out.
DIE: Loaded orders were solid too – solidly in the area of what I was expecting, so thanks for those who pre-ordered and the attention of retailers.
Next week will be some more TPF check in – and between now and then, I suspect a bunch more plotting. I want to actually nail down the second arc of DIE: Loaded fully, and see exactly what the 16+ breakdown of TPF actually looks like, in more detail.
I also may start writing a new thing. We’ll see.
Oh – and I finished running my previous RPG campaign (The Between) and started my current one (Mythic Bastionland). This is the players’ map from the first session.
I looked at this and thought “this is exactly what my mum thinks RPGs look like.”
See you next week, and before next week for the Script Clubbers.
Speak soon.
Kieron Gillen
Bath
30.10.2025