A Body of Work (w/ Emily Allen)

You can support this show on Patreon⁠⁠!

In this episode, we talk to Emily Allen, the game designer behind Dying Stylishly Games. She's best known for her two now classic OSR adventures, the Gardens of Ynn and the ennie-award winning Stygian Library, which popularized the depth-crawl format. Both of which are now republished in new editions from Soul Muppet Publishing. She’s also designed Dungeon Bitches, a violent sapphic PbtA game about trauma and survival and the Yellow Curtain, a weird meta-storygame inspired by the King in Yellow. And then this year, we got Black Death Rising, an OSR-ish game of religious horror amidst the black plague where you can play vampires, werewolves, homunculi, changelings, ghouls, grotesques, ghosts, and waifs. And fight fascists, demons, and intelligent rats.

Emily Allen’s blog: https://cavegirlgames.blogspot.com

Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/cavegirlpoems

Games on drivethruRPG: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/publisher/8182/cavegirl-productions

Emily’s Games:

Wolf Pack & Winter Snow (2017)

The Dolorous Stroke (2018)

Gardens of Ynn (2018)

Stygian Library (2018)

Deep Morphean Transmissions (2019)

Esoteric Enterprises (2019)

Dead Girls in Sarkash Forest (2021)

Dungeon Bitches (2021/2022)

The Wounded, Hungry and Forgotten (2022)

Black Death Walking (2022)

The Yellow Curtain (2024)

Black Lung (2024)

Black Death Rising (2025)

Show Notes:

Book of Revelations

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure

Games Mentioned

Stars without Number

Beyond the Wall

Miseries & Misfortunes

Vampire the Masquerade/World of Darkness

Lacuna by Jared Sorenson

Mork Borg

Empire (larp)

If you liked this podcast, check out the weekly Indie RPG Newsletter