The Bloodsoaked Boudoir of Velkis the Vile

Click here to download “The Bloodsoaked Boudoir of Velkis the Vile” by Nick LS Whelan

I made a thing! It’s a free adventure called The Bloodsoaked Boudoir of Velkis the Vile, available on DriveThru RPG. The Bloodsoaked Boudoir started life as a section of my Dungeon Moon campaign. My players loved Velkis and his Boudoir, so I’ve written them up with all the info you’d need to include them in any campaign setting.

The art was done by my (at the time) 17 year old brother Ronnie Whelan. It’s got an old school, DIY feel to it. Like the best of Arneson’s doodles in the original three little brown books. It’s a good fit for the adventure.

So, funny story.

My players killed Velkis multiple times and raided his Boudoir in its entirety way back in December 2013. This module was written by the end of January 2014. The art was all completed and delivered to me by sometime in March 2014 at the latest. During this period I told more than a few blog readers that I had a PDF coming out ‘in the next month or two.’  Meanwhile, this project sat on my hard drive rotting away as I put off the dreaded task of making a pdf.

I’ve got this bug in my thinking where I feel like any time I don’t spend writing is wasted time. So if I need to spend an entire day learning how to use Scribus, piecing together pages of work that I’ve already written, then at the end of the day I’ll feel like a failure. It’s ridiculous. No matter how much I write, my writing is worthless if it’s just sitting on my computer.
A couple weeks back, I committed myself to working on more small projects. Finally getting Velkis out the door is the first step in that commitment.

So go download Velkis. Read it. Run it. Tell me what you think of it because mom and dad didn’t love me enough and I thrive off of the affirmation of others.

Reviews

“Bloodsoaked Boudoir is not an arrogant product, it’s small and can fit into another game with some ease, while still being interesting enough to give an evocative sense of it’s authors sort of game and game world that is different enough from the standard ‘orcs in a hole’ fantasy adventure to provide interesting ideas, and leave a reader with the sense that maybe they wouldn’t have thought of it themselves. With all these advantages the author is happy enough to simply publish his work as a pay what you want PDF, rather then promote it and clamber for your cash.” –Gus L. of Dungeon of Signs

“I keep playing the Trogdar lyrics in my head. Velkis the Vile is a man. I mean a undead man. I mean a demon man. I mean an evil wizard man. I mean … well. He’s a mystery … and that’s a good thing. NOT putting ah ard label on something, or describing it fully, or explaining the whys and hows of everything leaves room for mystery and that’s a powerful technique. The DM’s own imagination then run rampant and fills in the details. People call him “the undead man.” RUmors says he’s a demon or an evil wizard. All we know is that he’s tall, gaunt, sunken features and eyes that bulge. The entire description of him, from physical appearance to his speech patterns and topics is great and gives you an IMMEDIATE vibe of how to play him.” –Bryce Lynch of Ten Foot Pole.

2 thoughts on “The Bloodsoaked Boudoir of Velkis the Vile

  1. This is pretty cool stuff. I love Velkis’ ability. I sort of want to do a hexcrawl where every hex is another insane wizard, so Velkis is definitely on the pile.
    Or like, a hex crawl where there is a distinct pattern to the hexes.

    1. It’s funny you should mention that, because I’ve had similar thoughts. I could see myself writing a bestiary style book with 1 wizard per 2 pages. Along with art and a little backstory / current motivations, each would have some notes on their stronghold, minions, unique spells, etc.
      A hex crawl where the hexes have a pattern would be amazing. Some kind of message spelled out that grants the players some secrets of the gods if they do enough mapping and figure out the code.

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