Hi, I'm Miriam Robern, and I make books and games and things.

...or at least, I used to. Then I got a day job. Now I make things on the odd weekend when I have the spare bandwidth. My projects aren't dead, they're just... sleeping. (And some of them are, admittedly, dead asleep.)

In any case, this website is a repository of my various works, a sort of "one stop shop" and... ahem... digital graveyard for my creative ambitions. I can guarantee it will only ever be updated sporadically.

I am not presently available for hire.

If you'd like to interact with me online, you can find me via the fediverse or support me on patreon.

 

Being Samantha Masters

Samuel Masters isn't a trans girl!

He's just... pretending to be one for... reasons.

He's escaped his boring life and suffocating family to come visit the Columbia University campus and the Big City with his cool, hot, older cousin and her two dads. But he sort of accidentally told them that he's a transgender girl.

Now in order to experience all the things that he's never got back home, Sammy's got to put on his big girl pants and lean in to the charade.

Certainly nothing will go awry while he is Being Samantha Masters...

This novel is a loving homage and disreputable sequel to the eggfic classic Being Christina Chase by Admiral Krunch. It's sort of taken on a life of its own, at this point, though...

This is an ongoing fiction project, vaguely novel-shaped:

The New Girl at Uskweirs Manor

Amelia Wright has come to the notorious and scandalous Uskweirs Manor, hoping that its lord, the Viscount Ashbourne, can help her live the life she's always wanted... that of a woman.

As an English major, I often read pastoral novels and wondered why there were no queer people at all these garden parties and country balls. Where were all the queers at? So I decided that the queers were all at better parties, being held at Uskweirs Manor, and started writing a novel where a young girl finds her way into those parties.

This is an ongoing fiction project, sporadically updated. The most current compilation can be found here:

Keystone Fantasy Roleplaying

This is a fantasy roleplaying game without a corebook: a collection of plug-and-play resources and adventures that gamers can use in their home games.

Keystone Fantasy Roleplaying focuses on human stories of falliable characters confronting complex problems, where compassion is as viable a strategy as violence.

Keystone Fantasy uses the superlative Cortex Prime Roleplaying Game as its chassis. It is compatible with whatever bells and whistles that you'd care to use, and supports you in adding its own bells and whistles to the mix.

All Keystone titles are available via itch.io:

Cortex Prime Resources

These are some handy resources that I put together to make playing Cortex Prime easier.

All are free downloads on itch.io:

Dolls and Other Childish Things

My wife got me a cabbage patch doll as a solstice gift this year. I’m 47 years old. I started bawling as soon as I opened the package. This… is a complicated story.

I could summarize the whole story with a short, reductive tl;dr:

my wife got me the cabbage patch doll that I never got to have as a little girl.

But that summary is reductive to the point of inaccuracy. Because I did have a cabbage patch doll when I was a little girl. And also, at least by some folks’ understanding, I was never a little girl. I’m a transgender woman (just in case you somehow got here without already encountering this detail) and I had and still have really supportive parents. But as amazing as my parents were and are, they weren’t my whole childhood. It takes a village to raise a child, after all, and if the village is the super transphobic 80s (and 90s), well… the child gets a huge dose of transphobia. And more than anything else, I think, transphobia complicates things. Like it profoundly complicates this story.

So let’s start this story, not at the beginning, but near the end. Because it’s that kind of story...

You can read the whole essay here.

Primed for Murder

Councilwoman Delores "Dee" Seiste--businesswoman, politician, and pillar of the community--lies dead at your feet, murdered at the hands of one of you, her dinner party guests. Her mansion sits on a private island in Noddasinquol Strait and the ferry isn't due for another hour. The police have been alerted by the mansion's security system and will be on that ferry. You'll need to figure out who among you is the murderer before the authorities get here or else you're all going to jail.

One of the player characters is the murderer, but none of the players know which one--even the player of the murderer. Much like a certain board game owned by a giant multinational megacorporation very capable of suing me to kingdom come. Ahem.

Over the course of the game, you'll do what you probably expect from a murder mystery game: you'll uncover secrets and find clues and piece together theories and accusations.

However, you'll also be rewarded for giving the other players loads of reasons to suspect your motives. When everybody is sketchy, anybody might be the murderer.

But in the end, somebody will be revealed as the murderer. It might be you! Or you might be the one who figures it out. It's all a big surprise. There's no prize for being the murderer or uncovering who the murderer is. This is a roleplaying game; the goal at the end is just the excuse for the journey to get there.

So sit back, relax, find various ways to make yourself look hella suspicious, and enjoy the ride.

Primed for Murder is available as a free download at itch.io.

Lavender Marriage

London, 1899. The Lord and the Lady are in an intentionally arranged marriage to cover the fact that one or both of them is queer, with both the Lord and the Lady enjoying extramarital relationships with lovers more to their liking. All of this is completely and totally unacceptable to Society's standards. Both the sham of the marriage as well as the two affairs must be kept secret or else everyone involved will be ruined.

The four of you will play four primary characters: the Lord, the Lady, the Lord's Lover, and the Lady's Lover. You will also play the host of secondary characters that make up their world and with whom they interact.

This is a GMful tabletop roleplaying game for one session, or for as long as you can keep the sham going...

Lavender Marriage is available as a free download at itch.io.

Void Vultures

Fight Space Monsters. Take their Space Stuff.

Ten years ago, the powers of Earth and their many solar colonies erupted into vicious, system-wide war. With terrible weapons at their disposal, both sides reduced every planet and moon to irradiated dustballs. Years of mass starvation and deprivation later, survivors strain out a living by scavenging what remains on derelict ships, stations, and bases. We, the "heirs" of Earth, have become vultures of the vast, lonely void. We pick over the carrion of a golden age of plenty, when Humanity had the luxury of building whatever we desired.

I'm a scrapper--a salvage expert, if you want to be polite, but I answer to void vulture, scavvy, kender, station-stripper, magpie, even shitpicker. I draw the line at "junk monkey," though, so watch it. My mates and I board half-destroyed orbital stations, weapons platforms, anything that has some glimmer on it. We bust open the doors, tackle remnant security measures, and plunder whatever's left on the hulk. Sometimes, folks or...things take up residence in these old bones, so we deal with them, too.

Our townships, the people we do this for, never ask questions. They need our salvage to keep flying, eating, and breathing. Maybe someday, if we get enough provisions, we can boost our way to the colonies in Alpha Centauri. Between you, me, and this bottle, though, that's pie-in-the-sky bullshit, a bedtime story to let the kiddies sleep at night. I'll be pretty damn happy if we knock over a planetoid and set ourselves up for the rest of our miserable lives, not have to keep diving in the black. Girl's gotta dream.

Void Vultures is a fast-paced, tactical game of killing space monsters and taking their space stuff. It is powered by the Rulsleit system, a pick-up-and-play set of simple rules. Void Vultures plays in three to four hours for three to seven players.

This Pay-What-You-Want bundle includes the core Ruls of the Void, adventure supplement Derelicts of the Void, setting expansion Horrors of the Void, mecha expansion Dreadnoughts of the Void, and adventure The Lost Expedition.

Void Vultures is available as a pay-what-you-want download at itch.io.

The Vicious Crucibles

This trio of titles are both standalone games and a perspective-shifting campaign that you can play in any order.

There is a whole lot happening in Verdigris Valley, the borderlands between the Kingdom of Kotalia and the high steppes of the Pashuan tribes. There is a bandit queen, an invading chieftain, a love triangle, an arrogant frontier lord, a vengeful wife, and a grumpy old farmer. Oh yes. And a terrible beast called the Broodmother. All of whom are about to go through the Vicious Crucible.

The Eburnean Tower has stood for centuries as a symbol of arcane learning, sorcerous power, and the dominion of man over magic. Tonight all that will be challenged. Rivals, saboteurs, and the Tower's own ruthless students all threaten this bastion of scholarship and arcane power. Something has got to give, and there is no way to know what will survive this Vicious Crucible.

The wealthy city of Villa Argentate is not having a good day. The tax that maintains its charter has gone missing. The new captain of the guard is still getting used to her job. Traders, gangsters, and priests brawl in the streets over tangled conspiracies and accusations no one seems able to unravel. And the duke has just begun bombarding the walls. The entire city is about to go through a Vicious Crucible.

The Vicious Crucible series provides complete games of print-and-play materials that require absolutely no prep to put into play. You get:

There's also a set of cardstock minis that you can print, cut out, and glue together if you get particularly ambitious and/or crafty.

All the Vicious Crucible titles are available via itch.io:

Sons of Liberty

Have you ever had Alexander Hamilton wind up your clockwork power armor, then jumped out of Thomas Paine's ornithopter, and landed in the middle of the Battle of Yorktown to punch General Cornwallis in the face?

No?

Well... would you like to?

Sons of Liberty is a roleplaying game like no other. Take on the role of the Founding Fathers to kick ass and take names for truth, justice, and the American way in the only Roleplaying Game of Freedom and Badassery.

The game's fast-paced card mechanics ensure high-action madness and revolutionary heroics. If you are playing Benjamin Franklin and you aren't swinging an electrified kite over your head to clear the streets of redcoats, then you are playing it wrong.

This is the kind of roleplaying game where you have to call a break to catch your breath.

The game works best for four to six players (including the Tory player GM-like role).

Sons of Liberty is available as a free download at itch.io.

Full Light, Full Steam

"Mister Hastings, direct the batteries to take aim on the battleship and inform the engine room we will need full light and full steam. It's time to show these pirates what for!"

The Solar Powers ply the ether of the Greatest Sea in steam-powered ships, protecting their colonies and trading posts on distant planets. None is greater than the British Empire -- and none has more to lose. Join the Royal Astronomical Navy and protect the rights and prosperity of the greatest nation on earth.

This was the first full roleplaying game I published... and it shows. But if you'd like to indulge in some steampunk space opera that's uncomfortable but not quite critical of colonialism and shackled to a truly baroque dice mechanic, well, strap in!

Full Light, Full Steam is available as a free download at itch.io.