My neighbourhood was Charter Hill, and I co-wrote the Upper Marina entry. Some mandatory locations bridged the 2020 setting and RED in 2045, and I researched what was still around in the time of the Cyberpunk 2077 video game. This was a highly collaborative project, with writers swapping ideas to give a sense of cohesion across the neighbourhoods, under the guidance of RTal's JGray, the Cyberpunk RED line editor.
I've always maintained GMing is basically cat-herding, and RTal dropped their cyberpet DLC "Your New Best Friend" while I was brainstorming, so Marbles, the runt Obsidian Ocelot was born. I'm a lover of mysteries, heists, and ticking clocks, as they focus players' minds wonderfully. MM is a non-canon scenario, that had to balance the reaquirements of working with Loke's maps and RTal's intellectual property. I was able to make the few required alterations and both parties seemed satisfied with the final result.
The Forlorn Hope was a legendary Edgerunner bar in Cyberpunk 2020. This campaign takes it to a new home after the destruction of the original. In Welcome to the Neighborhood, I was asked to give Woodland Park life, with five mini scenarios in the same word count as everyone else's one. I loved the challenge, and populated the locale with interesting people to meet, get to know, and beat the tar out of. Also shops, a night club and killer palm trees, because I can find inspiration anywhere, including the weirder end of foreign news sites.
In Did Someone Say Murder? I collaborated with N Jolly to convert The Witcher's Investigation System to Cyberpunk RED. We determined our workload split, and included a "how to" build and run mysteries, alongside illustrative samples. Chasing the Rabbit brings roller derby to Night City. I detailed the history leading to the formation of the city's league, described the current top teams, their logos, methodologies and any rivalries, and wrote the opening short fiction. Like all the DLCs, these were locked to a tight deadline.
Ahead of the release of the Curseborne RPG, the writers on this project pitched short stories to illustrate the different factions. I opted for The Dead, and set up a three-stranded story; the supernatural narrator in the present, the past, as told by an elderly woman she takes an interest in, and a future where a wealthy man is tormented by something he doesn't understand, tying them together at the climax. Curseborne is an urban fantasy game, so I really drove home the normality of the world before layering on the weirdness. I'm particularly happy with the non-supernatural evil of the maintenance man.
I wrote the fictions opening each section, using Glynnis Var Treharn, a new POV character. The lore around Mages and Priests I extrapolated from the Witcher novels, and the video games from CD Project RED. The deities of the Continent combined book references with their real world historical and mythological analogues. Finally, I produced character bios for several of the Mages of Note, as described by Glynnis. Everything needed to be cleared through both RTal and CDPR, as licencees and holders of the IP.
To accompany Loke's crowdfunder, I used the maps from the two books to create Fulci's Folly, a dungeon focusing on puzzles, designed originally as one big escape room, where the PCs entered through the exit. This was dual-statted with D&D 5thEd and Daggerheart, which gave me the welcome opportunity to build my knowledge of the latter game. I used the SRD, core rulebook and Homebrew Kit to ensure I matched the required style and language of Daggerheart.
Taking the title as a prompt, I came up with a dungeon bash that took PCs into a hazardous situation deep below the surface. I researched the risks of caving, subterranean waterways, and just how dark it can get, and used that to produce encounters that fit the environment, with branching routes to reach the climax. I realised I'd be tripping potential phobia territory, so made sure that the GM would have options to get the players where they needed to go without unnecessary trauma!
I was given free rein with this project, using the associated Kickstarter maps, and came up with a treasure hunt point-to-point chase. The maps informed the encounters, and let me really vary the environments, imposing additional peril on top of the rival factions. I do like a high-pressure situation, and framing this as a treasure hunt caused by a long-dead, mendacious bard gave me the opportunity to write some truly awful (intentionally, I swear) poetry.
The conceit behind this book is that the Danger Gal databases have potentially been corrupted, and all available analysts are reconstructing their records. With permission, I decided my character voice would be British, and put everything said by her regarding the desperately-in-need-of-therapy Trauma Team Squad NC4-2 in UK English, while mechanics and stat blocks were in the default American English.
This indie game got two edit passes. First, Localisation. This is a steampunk game set in an alternate Victorian London, so I flagged anachronistic and US terminology. The client wanted to leave some incongruity intact, but this let them pick and chose what to keep. The proofreading pass to catch the usual layout hiccups, typos, and grammatical errors also showed a number of issues related to the file conversion process. Flagging those as well as the usual problems meant the client could correct them ahead of their deadline, though a second proofreading pass would have been ideal.
This combined copy edit and proofreading passes for A Bucket Full of Popcorn-Flavored Kibble. I used to freelance in QA for a company translating Japanese light novels, which let me develop my skills. In this case, I made sure that the scenario held together, and that nothing had been erroneously removed in the edit. Then I proofread the material, looking for typos, widows and orphans, and spelling or grammatical errors. I enjoy the creativity of writing, but the puzzle-loving part of my brain can really get its teeth into in-depth editing.