I have been doing this for twelve years now. Writing against RPG-a-Day. Against. Again and again. Every day, every August, since 2015. Most often on my own, sometimes collaboratively with others here on d6ideas or across different (German) blogs.
2015: ArtifactaDay
2016: Loot-a-Day
2017: Rival-a-Day
2018: Ad-Blog
2019: RPG+Ally+a+Day
2020: Not One Step Back
2021: Veteran-a-Day
2022: The Thousand Titles of the Cat Emperor
2023: Sommerverdichtung (German only)
2024: CampaignConceptaDay
2025: A-Piece-of-History-Every-Day / Calculating World(s)history
And now? The German next door neighbours at Kritischer Fehlschlag have issued the rallying cry “Crime Scene” (German).
But here? After twelve years of doing this dirty work? There is but one possible answer:
The Dirty Dozen.
Interpreted via the lense of the so called Dirty Dozen of persistent organic pollutants such as DDT and dioxins (although an earlier thought was the likewise so called Dirty Dozen of biological weapons and this might still colour some of the entries).
One-hundred-and-fourty-four poisons and pollutants (in the widest, freest sense). Twelve each for twelve systems. Thirty-one days. Twelve years. Against RPG-a-Day. Again.
Before was things the bridge will do to an environment, this todays is things being done to the bridge (on the bridge) as an environment.
- Night – persisting nights, discarded by their builders, thrown away, garbage nights, collecting, clotting
- Time deviations – time stretches and contracts aling the bridge, that is but the nature of the bridge itself, traveling along it is traveling through eternity, but not always (not ever) are these effects controllable, travelling leaves dirty stains upon time, time sticks to the traveller who carry it with them, the dust of aeons spread along their path, contaminating where (when) they arrive
- Star rust – Radiation events, cutting and breaking through the bridge and its inhabitants
- Caustic blocks – the very material of whole sections of the bridge, eating into those who walk and live upon it
- Crystal structures – alien matter, seeded or spilled across the cosmos, now growing, clinking, over pillars and along spans
- Algae blooms – clogging up cisterns, caused by a universe of effluent under the light and heat of billions of suns