James Cavin Writes

Thanks to an unexpected bout of insomnia last night, I am currently operating with approximately 3.5 hours of sleep. I also have 39 pages of rambling, incoherent, hand scrawled notes for something called The Cleverest Beast , which apparently felt very compelling in the wee hours of the morning. I have transcribed those notes here because, you know, why not? Without further ado, I give you the deranged ramblings of the Hyde-esque antimatter alter ego who apparently takes control of my faculties once I cross the insomnia event horizon: Here beginneth the account of Zombie James According to an interesting article sent to me by a friend, Franz Kafka believed that insomnia (from which he suffered most of his life, in case you couldn't tell from his million yard stare and/or the fact that everything he wrote was a waking nightmare) was a great artistic tool. I don't know how much I wish to base my life on Kafka's (for one, I'd like ...

I've got another bit of madness for you! For some reason, I've been in kind of a swordfish mood lately… (Is this what being trapped in an artistic rut* feels like?) *On the plus side, my swordfish-themed-cover-art-skills seem to be improving. Anyways, this one's definitely a rough draft, so if there's anything that feels like it ought to be cut, just say so! Without further ado... At 3:37 PM, Thursday, 37 years ago, the stuffed swordfish over the mantle piece began to weep. The tears were black, slightly viscous, and described by those present as smelling strongly of sandalwood and turpentine. When the tears had not abated by 4:42, but had instead begun to pool on the hearth in what threatened to be a permanently-staining manner, Madame Z_____________ sent for the priest (the local gendarmerie and Madame Z_____________'s lawyer having already been summoned but failing to arrive in a timely manner.) The priest...

See Part One here! Time to break some more table tops! (and also my face...) Note: If the following diatribe here is a little confusing, it’s probably because of the probable microconcussion that I probably gave myself this morning when I walked straight into the corner of the bathroom wall as I tried to grope my way blindly to the toilet at 4:23 a.m. (I still haven't cleaned up all of the blood.) Side note: if my most noticeable facial scar comes from trying to pee, I'm going to be very put out. Anyways, on to being terrible and cursed and wretched! Last time I talked about this super janky little “Dark Souls style cursed kingdoms of the wretched and undead” minimalist RPG system that I threw together for Garbage Fountain, and I promised the 1.25* of you who actually read the post that I was going to upload rules next time, and behold, next time is here. *We lost .25 due to tariffs. So, without further ado (or cranial trauma) here’s how you ...

This is but Part One - See Part Two here! Let's break some tabletops! (By applying videogame narrative design tactics!) The theme of this garbage fountain was "Ghost," which got me thinking about all sorts of old, weird ideas that have been bubbling around in the back of my head, alongside commercial jingles from 1992 and a vague sense of unease about the approaching heat death of the universe. Anyways, under the duress of creativity, I decided to once again cheat on videogames and dabble in the forbidden waters of tabletop. (If videogames wanted faithfulness and fidelity, she wouldn't lay off half the workforce every 16 months.) Plus, the infamous Drive-thru RPG (world-renowned for both being the largest tabletop RPG storefront on the Internet and also committing unforgivable spelling crimes against the Honorable English GH) was having a weird contest, and if there's one things that I love more than ignoring the appro...

In the chaos-infested realm known only as James's Garage, one man faces the tide of empty cardboard boxes, forgotten furniture, old shoes that only kind of fit, abandoned bicycles, a bag of some unholy abomination labeled "s'mores flavored coffee" left by an old roommate and slightly mauled by a wild animal that lived in here for a little bit, what might actually be a dead possum (presumably deceased because he ate the s'mores flavored coffee), and more old shoes (marked by a trickling trail of evidence that seems to support the previous hypothesis)… One man prepares to PURGE. Our first opponent appears… It's a Waterstained 8 Foot Wide Furniture Box from the COVID years! Waterstained 8 Foot Wide Furniture Box Alignment: Plague Hitpoints: 250 Special: Waterstain might actually be non-negligible quantities of dying possum poop. Furniture Box uses EAT UP AN UNNECESSARY AMOUNT OF SPACE FOR FIVE YEARS. G...

Some more Vim for you, fresh from the fetid jungles of the imagination! ( Read Part One here. ) Stave spoke to me. I thought I was dreaming at first, in the clearing where we had fled after giving up the cavern to the tide of serpents. (I saw them writhing on the carcass of the water beast as we retreated: squirming by the dozen into its open mouth.) Mist rising off the Fell masked our movements, though we heard the creep of creatures all around, and the grunting, croaking breaths of great shapes that loomed darkly in the fog. Three times we would have left Stave to run, but Slightly tried to drag him by herself, silent and wild eyed, and Honest would not leave her also. Once, we heard the whispered voices of the luparii, and the rumbling growl of whatever answered, and we pressed our faces to the mist-soaked mulch that makes the forest floor and lay as still as corpses (which well we soon may be) until they passed us by, two light of foot and...