A Tale of Two CCG: Fight Card Showdown and 5 Minute Waltz

A pal of mine, who happens to be a really decent game designer, has put together not one but two card games. Both are available now on DriveThruCards, and I honestly recommend them. We play AD&D 2e together on the weekends, and I had a chance to play both of the following CCG (Collectible Card Games) with him.

The first is called Fight Card Showdown, and features a deck with enough cards for two players. I played on Tabletop Simulator, though I have a physical copy, and truly enjoyed it. I even won (against the creator)! 

Each character has special abilities you can use, and each card you draw works as an element in your action phase. For example, an UP and DOWN arrow can be combined to perform a specific action your character has. Play is very akin to most card games, with a draw and discard phase and a limit to the number of cards you can have in your hand. The art is also downright cute in the best of ways. It's not necessarily meant to be, but it's charming in its style.

Interestingly, you can attack high and low (as well as mid), so it is not just like a game of War where you trade blows and draw cards. There's a bit of strategy to it, but not so much that it becomes a slog. I played over Tabletop Simulator and we had a blast with it. Altogether, the runtime is about an hour. It could have gone longer, or ended earlier, had I known how to play before we started. But that's the best way to learn a game, if you ask me!

The second CCG is a play on Solitaire with a truly artistic flair. 5 Minute Waltz: A Swan's Sonnet is a solitary card game based on dance moves. Not unlike the aforementioned Fight Card Showdown, a lot of the play is similar to traditional card games in that you have a hand of cards and you draw a card each round, and so forth. However, the purpose of the game is to draw and combine the right cards to perform dance moves. You want to exhaust the cards entirely to end the game, which took me a little over 30 minutes.

The gameplay is fast and fun once you get used to it, and I found myself in that same state of zen you get into playing Solitaire or Tetris, which is rare for me these days. I don't know that it improved me in any way, but I forgot how much fun that kind of focus is. Plus, I was learning dance moves and terms I did not know. Not much of a socialite I, again, do not know that this improved me in any way. I simply had fun. It would be a really cool game for anyone who dances, though.

5 Minute Waltz: The Swan's Sonnet and Fight Card Showdown are available exclusively on DriveThruCards.com. Also check out Stormforge Productions on DriveThruRPG.

© The Weirding, 2026

Kingdoms Release

I just released a new book for HERO Games (Hall of Champions) called Kingdoms. It brings the 6^th-Ed. Kingdoms organization system to 4^th-Ed., but it does a lot more than that: It turns the Kingdoms system into a full-fledged Location and Faction system, and the HERO system into a bonafide wargame. 

I beefed-up Mass Combat, detailed some Kingdoms, added a Maneuver or five, and a lot more. I did not go much into Bases, as this whole project is predicated on the material from The Ultimate Base (which you need to use this book), which covers that subject exhaustively.

Some other cool things: You can play it solo, you can play without a GM (solo or with a group), you can play cooperatively or competitively, and your PC can establish their own Kingdom while remaining an active PC. There are also new Characteristics, Maneuvers, rules for Kingdoms and Mass Combat, and a whole lot more (I keep saying that because I'm lazy and bad at marketing).

I did my best to include the information I personally need for Locations and Factions when playing - things like Structural Integrity of buildings, the Tech Level of the place/group, levels of Crime, their progress toward their chosen Goals, et al. But I did not just stack my own factions subsystem on top of it and call it a day - I already had that, and released it to everyone for free a few years back (it's no longer available for free, sorry, and this is not entirely the same system) - I spent a good deal of time on this one. Future releases will depend on this book; you will need it to fully utilize the Kingdoms line of releases I have planned.

While entirely optional, I've used this book just like I do any other HERO Games book for months now. I find myself constantly opening it to check this or that, as I'm making Kingdoms for everything. I'm on a bit of a Kingdoms kick, sure, but my point is that it was a really worthwhile endeavor, and I hope everyone who buys it thinks the same.

I did the cover in pencil and scanned it without inking, then colored it on the computer using GIMP and Krita - which is how I usually work (although I'm inking more now - still learning, of course). I realize that AI is copying it without paying me, but there's not much I can do about that. 

Anyway, I think it turned out really well. That's a dramatized stance, but the grip on that sword is very real. And exactly 0 AI was used in the production of this supplement.

I should note that although I lean on the Fantasy genre pretty hard in this book (it's arguably going to be used for that genre more than others), Kingdoms is for use with any genre and edition of Champions/HERO. It's a location and faction system as much as it is a Mass Combat system, so it's useful for any scenario featuring a location or group. In fact, several of the upcoming Kingdoms supplements I'm working on are for non-traditional or non-Fantasy genres, including my own HERO campaign setting, The Flats. Which is already out and available for you to purchase. You should buy it!

For those who got the book early, I am aware that the Table of Contents was screwed-up but I don't know why. I have fixed it, but if you got a copy that has the messed-up one, please re-download the new version (v2). I'm so sorry, but I've looked at this book for so long that I completely missed that before releasing it. (I knew there had to be at least one big mistake I missed!) Some other edits were necessary but I'll update it in a few days, after I've had another chance to go over everything.

But yeah, this is what I've been doing while I've been away. And I don't expect to return to regular posting anytime soon, as I've already moved on to other projects. However, I do intend to keep posting sporadically. And thanks for reading, youse geese!

© The Weirding, 2026

Xentrix - Allied with the Enemy

 

Xentrix - Allied with the Enemy

The first song from Xentrix in about 35+ years. And it rocks!

I'll have even better news shortly - hopefully by the end of this week! I know I've been quiet most of this year, but I've been hard at work, and I am eager to show it off. Until then...

© The Weirding, 2026

What I'm Doing, Pt. 976758

 

I never know what to title these entries; the whole blog is what I'm doing, reading, watching, whatever. But I haven't posted in a while because I've been working on new material that I plan on releasing this Summer, or around there anyway. I'll post more about it when it's released, but I made a landing page for the first entry.

I somehow wound-up in the Feldmanosphere. I ain't even mad about it. 

I watched a shit-ton of movies, but I don't remember much of most of them. I was working while watching them, but older movies "stick" even if I'm multitasking, and the more modern fare just washes right over me. Most of them were B-raters, anyway.

I remember The Last Witch Hunter, though. It was decent - decent enough that I watched it twice, actually. Another surprise was I, Frankenstein which is not that great, but is awesome to look at. That may be what I'm missing with the more modern movies, since I'm listening to them more than watching them. I dunno; I'm pretty sure that modern movies and TV is just bad.

I'm still working on expanding The Flats, but I have to publish this book I'm working on first so that you have the system behind the write-ups, going forward. I plan on including the Mass Combat (Fantasy HERO) write-ups, but the Kingdoms system largely replaces Mass Combat. In fact, that's what this new project is about. You need The Ultimate Base to use this new supplement, but it's totally worth it!

I finally broke down and bought a Wacom tablet. I'm really excited about it, though the drivers won't install on my outdated Macbook, which is a shame because I'd hoped to dedicate that computer as an art screen. As it is, I mostly just read on it; Skim is a Mac-only PDF reader and it is, for my money, the best there is. I use Okular on Windows and Linux (but it's available for Mac, too). I had to install an older version of Krita on my Macbook, and have to use a workaround to launch it, but it works!

 I really want to share some of the art I've been doing lately, but I need to develop a workflow for defeating AI - if that's possible. My work isn't the best or anything, but they're definitely scraping anything and everything online. At the very least, I want to make it more difficult for them to do so. I know I already have art on the website and on DriveThruRPG, but I'm more mindful of it now. I also got black and gray-toned paper, and now the digital drawing tablet, so I'm really excited to do some new stuff. I have a program that's supposed to mask images from AI, but I haven't even installed it yet, so I don't want to share it (I don't know if it works, and it could destroy the pictures, I just don't know yet).

Oh! I think I may have a cool T-shirt design - not a promotional tool or anything, just a great design. I'll post more about that later on.

I started playing Champions Online back in January. I absolutely love it! I've been playing HERO since the 1980s, and I constantly forget that the system now straddles several media; there's the tabletop roleplaying game with which I am most familiar; the free, open world video game; the comic books; the Champions MUSH... whoever's running the show over there at HERO Games is really doing a good job, as far as I'm concerned. Half of my life is wrapped-up in HERO Games at the moment, and I ain't even mad about it.

I have a max-level monkey. He's an explorer and adventurer - former chief of his tribe, before it was decimated by VIPER. I'm just playing the free version, but I love it. I'm hoping to free-up some space on the PC so I can check out Neverwinter, too. I made a character for the MUSH and installed a great MUSH client, but I haven't gotten to play yet because I've been so busy.

I got a new desk and moved the drafting table upstairs, so I now finally have my dream home studio office. Once I get everything in-place, I hope to ramp-up production and actually get some stuff out the door more than once a year! 

Okay, I'll be back (hopefully soon) to promote more shit. You should buy it all!

© The Weirding, 2026

Castle Rat - Wizard

© The Weirding, 2025