Matthew John | Yuigaron

@yuigaron.itch.io

1750 Followers 644 Following

UK TRPG designer. Writer of 'Sworn by Ghostlight' and 'The Cold Dark' and loads of nasty little dungeons you can die in. TRPGs: yuigaron.itch.io/ The Cold Dark (Print): https://pandiongames.com/products/the-cold-dark

Silhouette of Colossus #5, called Avion by the fans, a large bird like colossi with a long tail.
Silhouette of Colossus #3, who the fans call Gaius, who wields a sword like appendage.
Photograph of vertical cutaway map of a dungeon called The Abyss, drawn on a calendar day by day, room by room. All of the negative space has been filled in with black ink. The rooms are a mix of human body parts, insects, teeth, liquid shadow, and spirals.
Two YouTube video thumbnails side by side on a recommended feed. One video is about the true size of Elden Ring's map without the fog and such and features the statement "it's smaller than you think", and the other asks the question "is Elden Ring TOO BIG???"
A one page stat block for the Revenant found in the Misadvent Calendar. A silhouette of a man with yellow eyes walks out of a blizzard towards you.
One of many "Graphic Design is my Passion" memes with really wonderfully bad graphic design elements.
Magenta text, saying "Summer Sale Nearing it's End over at yuigaron.itch.io". Beneath are thumbnails for 12 games.
Shadow When the Sisterhood were put to the sword, they took with them the knowledge needed to sever the shadow from the dead, and so too did they take the knowledge needed to destroy them. HD 2, AC6, # 2d6 Special: Damage as small melee weapon. If Defence Save failed due to rolling under the Shadows HD, permanently reduce STR by 1. Cannot be killed, reforming once more in 1d6 days.
A spread from The Book of Gaub with two spells detailed. One is a curse that causes actual horrible wounds that no one around the victim can see, and the other is a curing spell with more ways to suffer as a result of it than just heal up.
Character creation rules for a system I'm working on.
Itchio yellow frog icon and the text 'good'.
Cary Lewes portraying Westley from The Princess Bride, blonde hair slicked back, thin moustache, pointing a sword at the camera so that it is out of focus. He has a determined look on his face. Large white text says the quote, 'to the pain,'
The physical book for the TTRPG Full Send by Laurie O'Connel. A pack of themed tarot cards have been placed atop the book. A green and orange sew/iron on patch depicting a climber and the text Full Send rests upon it.
Black background, white and grey text saying: The Somniferous Wylds A mist shrouded forest of eternal sleep for Wyrms of Tier 3
Daily dungeon room that is shaped like a foetus. The text says, "The SHADE was born here, leaving behind a negative space where it's body grew. In the socket where the eye once grew is the Sclera Shield."
Matthew dressed up as Earl Harlan. Wearing a beige/tan shirt covered in a collection of patches with a purple necker chief held by a painted yellow iris eyeball. Unseen are vivid purple trousers.
3 sections of a dungeon cut-away map. The rooms are made up of fossils and bone and beetle shells. It's called The Abyss. The negative space of the dungeon is coloured in black.
Badly cropped Guild Wars 3 logo.
The silhouette of a dead soldier with sword and shield creeping towards you through a blizzard.
A quick and dirty mock-up of a front cook for a book. A cracked and broken moon hangs heavy over the silhouette of a city on a hill. It bleeds Ghostlight like heavy mist through the streets. The title Ghostlight drips like a bad Goosebumps title.
The Spider-Man 2 and PlayStation 3 logos, one above the other. They use the same font. Both owned by Sony.
Digital mock-up of The Cold Dark.
Two TTRPG hardback books, Fe Borg and Hedge, both written by A Couple of Drakes, placed on a grey blanket.
Light brindle coloured lurcher chewing on a green and yellow knotted tug toy.
An image of one of those big circle ships made of sci-fi magic in star Trek named like NC1234 or some such flying probably a little too close to a planet but who knows. Text in the style of a show title says, "I've never watched a star trek".
Digital mock-up of an internal spread explaining part of the rules of The Cold Dark, partially covered by another copy, turned to the front cover (which displays a black treeline and dark purple sky and the title in large bold and gold letters).
Near identical side by side images of the moon through the grime smeared, dusty window of the Artemis. In the foreground of each there is the reflection of the photographers hand, and behind the moon the earth and then the stars. The effect for sighted individuals when they cross their eyes is that they can see this in 3D due to the slight differences in the distances between both images.
Digital mock-up of the front panel of Misery's Keep, all toxic yellow and black. Art shows the keep in barren land, and a block of text in a black box describes the approach.
A digital mockup of the pamphlet module Somnolevolence on an obnoxious magenta background.
Pages torn from a book, lying on a seaweed scummy beach or estuary.
A full page from Reach of the Roach God detailing how Character Stat Blocks work.
Cloudkill Level 5, close, 6 turns. A cloud of poisonous vapors appears where you cast it and moves slowly away from the caster (unless affected by wind). Any creatures with or fewer HD caught in the cloud must make a Saving Throw or die.
Cheeky crow peers in from left side of photo. In a cute pink font, the words "The crows are here".
A digital mockup of the pamphlet module Somnolevolence on an obnoxious magenta background.
The zine Salt, Spit & Silver from Johan Nohr laying next to the free Pit Trap zine and a sticker.
Everyone has a series of pips that can be used to activate Abilities and Spells etc. For example let's say everyone has 5 Action Pips. Combat begins and you have maybe 1 filled up begin with. Normal attacks fill the gauge by one Pip, but Abilities and Spells take one or more Pips to activate. Powerful Abilities and Spells use more Pips. It becomes a choice then between when to do the big cool thing or juggle between attacks and low level abilities/spells. I'd use Into the Odd attacks for this. No one likes missing when you make a normal attack and in this if you're choosing to just attack you're not doing a Big Cool Thing, so they should just automatically hit. But that's okay. Big Cool Things should also feel like a reward you build towards. Certain ‘classes’ could start combat with more Pips filled. others could have an Ability that gives their own Pips to others, basically supporting them. No MP cost/spell levels. A more powerful version of a spell should just cost more Pips. Perhaps each Pip is worth 5 points. Instead of each attack filling a Pip, you instead fill the bar based on the damage you do. Higher dice weapons can fill more at once, faster weapons with multiple attacks fill the bar faster. This more granular version of the system seems to feel better because it's about the damage dealt. Weapons have more to say about how much it fills. Might be a class ability that reduces the number of Points required down to 4, filling the bar faster. Spending a Pip reduces the points by 5. Example Class Let's use a system like Into the Odd. Roll 3d6 for each. Strength Dex Will Roll 1d6 for HP. Roll for class giving starting gear, like Cairn, as well as modifiers to the above rolls (like Mörk Borg). Perhaps your gear is what grants most of your Abilities, whilst your class augments you? Fighter Attributes; roll Str+2, Wil-2. HP; roll 1d6+3. Starting Ability; Spend 1 Pip to make a second Attack. Starting Gear; chain armour (1), helm (1), longsword (d8).
A digital mock-up of an invitation for an evening of Cocktails and Dinner with Ebenezer Stoneshire at Stoneshire manor on the night of October 13th, laying atop an envelope.
A table of three columns, labelled 'Will Definitely Happen', 'Chance to Happen', and 'Will Not Happen'. Under the Chance to happen column are the following rows. Blank Space does not take Harm (4 times): A discovery is made: No progress is made up regional event, if any: avoid regional hazard, if any: return safely with everything you carry: avoid relevant consequences from the session (twice).
A boomer-esque photo of my laptop screen showing a section of unrelated text. The cursor is just barely visible because it's cutting out the text of a letter 'e' very slightly.
Baby Yuigaron in a graveyard, some time in the early naughties. 3 quarter profile angle. Beardless, with long brown hair, chipped black nails, and smudged eyeliner, with a black barb wire choker and black leather coat. He rather potentially has his hands and to his face, fingers on his chin in a 'thoughtful pose'. Cringe.
Actual photo of the above mock-up, full of wrinkles.
Front view mock-up of a t-shirt using the full text of The Great Gatsby to create a silhouette cutout of a woman in 20s Finney next to a staircase holding a glass of alcohol. A bubble shows a close up of some of the text.
Tobias Fünke, a character from Arrested Development, a balding man in glasses and a vertically striped white and grey dress shirt is giving an audition for an advert for a fire sale. He has his hands out wide, holding onto a script. His mouth is wide open as he delivers an overly acted rendition of the line "We're having a fire sale."
A dungeon drawn into a Muji Monthly Notebook. Each day's square (give or take) is a different room. This level's theme is an old, forgotten monastery and a saint's final resting place.
A screenshot from Dark Souls 2. A skeleton lies amongst rubble next to a castle wall. A message from the game, left by another player, says, "don't give up , skeleton!"
RETURN TO DRANGLEIC 2026 Create a new character & play through the game. Engage in co-op and PVP as much as possible along the way. Leave a message that reads: "don't give up, skeleton!" by the Majula bonfire. Be generous when rating these messages! DARK SOULS II SCHOLAR OF THE FIRST SIN February 27th – March 13th SOTFS recommended. All platforms welcome.
A sickening yellow and void black trifold pamphlet with A5 panels. The centre panel displays a crosscut section of The Hive, whilst the panels either side of it contain text for each cavernous void within it.
The inside of the PSVR2 headset showing the lenses and a bright light coming from the right eyepiece.
A collage of four toys from the 80s still in their packaging, called BREATH BLASTERS. They look like rubbery plastic dog toys, which you squeeze and a foul smell emits from their mouth. From top left to bottom right we have: Dogbreath: Mackerel Mouth: Deathbreath: and Ms Morningmouth.
Jughead
Digital front cover of The Cold Dark.
An item from Dark Souls, with a picture of vague stuff and debris. Text reads, "Rubbish: Rubbish with no value. Who in their right mind would bother carrying this around? Perhaps you need help."
A playstation 5 controller next to a climbers chalk bag.
A screenshot of a section of the itchio Payment Pending section showing a payment 'in review' that was created 28 days ago.
View of the side of a faded black roll top backpack. A few patches can partially be seen on the front, but the focus is on the three running down the side. The top one is a yellow oval with an angler fish and the number 44 (from the Mothership module Knowledge Asymmetry). The middle is a patch for the game Eat the Reich. The bottom is the Mörk Borg logo, white on black.
Several sheets of stickers for the duo/solo TRPG Dead Belt.
Several patches related to TRPGs ready to be sewn to a backpack that already has some sewn on.
A dungeon drawn up one chamber per day on a daily grid calendar.
Schrödinger's cat, but the cat has been labelled SYSTEM.
A muji monthly notebook calendar grid, each day containing a room or feature of an expanding dungeon drawn in side view.