Progress Journal, June 2026
Greetings Mythicists and happy June to you! I hope you're keeping cool if you find yourself on a warm part of the planet, and that your Player Character mages know spells like "Bigby's Instant Air Conditioning" if they're feeling the heat too!
Here's what's going on around here:
Mythic Magazine #67 Articles
The poll is complete and the winners are chosen! The next issue will have "Conceptual Adventures" and "Emerging Powers" in it. I have to admit, when that content poll launched I really thought "The Dimension Crafter" would win, and I thought "Conceptual Adventures" would be somewhere in last place. But, you all surprised me!
It's not that I think "Conceptual" is a bad idea. In fact, I'm excited about it, it's really a very different way to play using the same tools. I just didn't think that idea would float since it was difficult to describe with such little space. Sometimes when I put an idea on the poll, like that one, I'm afraid there's not enough room on the line to write what it's really about. I'm glad that one won, it's going to be fun :)
"Emerging Powers" will also be a blast. That's a film genre I love, the "I'm just a regular person but OH LOOK I suddenly can do something amazing, what is happening to me?!" trope. One of the first shows that comes to mind for me is the first season of Heroes. This is a narrative concept that gets used a lot in one form or another, such as a young mutant developing their powers or a naturally gifted mage who has never been properly trained. An important element of this, in my opinion for a solo game, is that you, the Player, do not know what power is emerging. Maybe even after it starts to manifest, you may still not know, until it emerges in its full glory.
Success? Check!
Micro Mythic editing has moved on to the One-Page Success Check chapter. This one-pager is Micro's task resolution system. It uses a Ranks approach familiar to you from various Mythic Magazine articles. This one also contains the system's combat rules, which takes up a mere 1/3 of the one page. Combat has been microtized!
Micro Art
The image above is a recent one by Jorge for Micro Mythic, which brings us to 95% done when it comes to artwork. There are a few places still to fill in, but it always feels good when the art is in place as that can sometimes hold a book up. This time, the art is done before the editing is complete, so that's good!
And that's about it! I didn't have much to report this month, but projects are moving along so I'm pleased with that.
Happy adventuring! :)
Comments (5)
With the ranks for your Success Check section - is this based on what you had in the magazine article 59? This one has a rank table from 0 to 19+ along with a rank randomizer and a small table with context rank shifts. While I think about it - the extensive 19+ rank system was always a bit too much for me. When I was using Mythic Fate Chart as a basis for action resolution, I think I was starting everything at 50/50 and then adding and minusing based on narrative elemements - much like tags or attributes are used in other systems. Having to come up with a number in a large range feels difficult, but bumping up and down via a list of factors you can reason about seems easier to do when you don't have pre-generated challenges. So basically, start with 50/50 and then just apply rank shifts up and down accordingly. The creature is bigger than me (-1), but I have a gun (+1) etc... Scene level - this scene I want to be more difficult so I apply a -1 to all challenges. Environmental - this is a steep incline (-1). After going through it all you end up with a challenge baseline which you can then apply new rank shifts to as the challenge progresses (injuries, temporary set backs, environmental complications etc..)
Hi Patrick :) Yes, the Ranks in One-Page Success Check follow the 0 to 19 range. It also has a Rank Adjustment table, which is the same as the Rank Randomizer. It also follows logic similar to what you're describing with Context adjustments: +1 Rank for each important advantage you can think of, -1 Rank for each important disadvantage. While the range of Ranks is pretty wide, One-Page Success Check reduces the granularity by only enumerating Ranks 0 through 8. Those are the "human" Ranks, where most characters will land in. The higher Ranks are generalized for larger scale things and are grouped into general Great and Epic categories, with a single Rank of 19 sitting at Majestic as the highest possible Rank in the game universe.
Jorge nails it out of the park with his artwork once again! How much of Micro Mythic is left to edit? I'm really looking forward to it's release. I'm certainly curious to see how Conceptual Adventures works. As for Emerging Powers, honestly I'm still struggling to wrap my head around the Event Crafter. A lot of cool stuff does seem tied to that system, so I'll definitely have to take another look at it sometime.
I'm going to take a different approach to the Event Crafter with this issue, because I don't think you're alone in not being sure how to fit it into your adventures. In addition to the Event Crafter sheet itself, I'm going to include a few other side rules and mechanics that will make it operate, hopefully, more seamlessly within an adventure. As far as how much is left to do on Micro Mythic, we're currently in the first editing phase. The book process is: write the entire first draft; do the first edit of the whole book (which is a heavy edit); have Mel, my line editor extraordinaire, go through and make their edits and suggestions; and then the final edit which is a polishing pass to make sure any of the preceding edits didn't break anything. So, first draft is done, which is by far the biggest portion. We're 1/3rd through the first edit. Mel follows after that, then the final polishing edit which is the fastest portion of all of this. I'm not sure what this means in calendar time, but as far as I'm concerned it's 75% of the way done as far as the heaviest lifting goes.
EMERGING POWERS WON! Fun fact, one thing that first attracted me to Mythic was the idea of finally getting to play out the story of my wild magic urban fantasy OC who's been floating about in my head for nearly a decade. Needless to say, this might be my most anticipated Mythic article so far!