Every month I try to release something special for the incredible people who support my work through my Patreon campaign. Generally this is something small like a short adventure framework, or a selection of hand-drawn hexpaper sheets. Last month it was a new edition of the classic Dyson’s Delve mini mega dungeon, and the latest release is a 10 page digest-sized booklet for generating (or cherrypicking ideas for) standing stones.

I have a mild obsession over standing stones.

As a kid I loved exploring the forests around my home – dreaming of finding something incredible, but happy to find the stone foundations of an old building, a line of rocks that were once a fenceline, and a clearing in the woods around a huge stone that didn’t rise above the rest of the area, but prevented trees from finding root.

While the woods themselves provided a lot of interesting spaces (trees come in many shapes and sizes, and fallen trees make enormous changes to their spaces), it is the stones that held my attention.

We didn’t have a magalithic culture in the region where I spent my childhood, so circles of stone set to mark the sun, natural thrones, and obelisks covered in strange runes are all elements of fantasy to my childhood. These things then turn up repeatedly in my fantasy games, and often show up on maps when I find an area needing something to break up the monotony.

Thanks to the Venomous Pao, who runs a blog called Strange Stones that is probably at least partially responsible for this document’s name (I’ve had the name stuck in my subconscious forever). And while I’ve avoided reading it recently prior to working on this, Wormskin issue #4 also contains a random dolmen generator by Gavin & Gorgonmilk. I’ve avoided going back to it while working on this – but did read it when it first came out in 2016 (I gladly have all the Wormskin issues in my old school bookshelf).

All my Patreon-Exclusive releases are available to all who support me on Patreon. They remain up for about six to eight months and some may become commercial releases roughly a year after their initial exclusive release.

So if you’d like a copy of Strange Stones, my Patreon Campaign is over here.