I made a comic book for my D&D Group

I briefly mentioned this at the beginning of last month, but as I was cataloging my new D&D group's journeys, I started to get the idea that I could produce a kind of comic book. The goal wasn't to mass distribute it and sell it on shelves, but rather I just wanted to hand them out to these new friends I had made.

It all started with a blog that I called Thotham's Journal. As most know, keeping notes and writing about your D&D character's adventures isn't anything new. I (and countless others) have done it a bunch before, and in fact my old DM encouraged it by handing out Heroic Inspiration for anyone willing to write about their journey. Because of that, it became almost second nature -- of course I'm going to write about my adventures!

I was also using AI to produce pictures to go along with the blog posts. (I've already discussed my struggles with AI art at length.) I didn't really need help with the writing department, but what I did use AI for was to stop me from being so long winded. It was not uncommon for me to throw down 750 to 1,000 words to describe a play session, and honestly, once I started looking at making a comic book, that just wasn't going to work. So I also asked AI to condense my posts down to about 350 to 400 words so they would still be readable and fit on one page.

When I first had the idea, I actually tried to make a standard comic book out of our adventures because one play session really could have been stretched out into one entire comic, but explaining word bubble orientation, keeping character details straight, and directing character positioning is actually pretty hard to do with AI. It's like I'd describe a small change I'd want done to an otherwise great looking comic page spread, and it would just bungle and change a handful of other things in the process. 

So I went back to my original thought, which was . . . hey, current AI may not do great making comic page spreads, but it is actually pretty good at making simple storyboard panels! It reminded me of the old Prince Valiant comics in the newspaper from when I was a kid. They worked kind of similarly in that there weren't really word bubbles, instead it was a lot of text with storyboard pictures. THAT, AI could pull off.

Once I had all my storyboards made and words condensed down to 350-400 words per page, I could have a page of text on the left and a storyboard picture on the right as you thumbed through the comic book. The inside cover was a tribute to the players of the game, the game store for hosting, and the GM for making the adventure. The first page was my character as a level one Rogue. The back inside cover was my character now as a level 4 soul knife rogue. 

When I was at a local bookstore I had seen a number of local comics for sale and on the back of several of them was a company called Ka-blam. When I was searching for a printer, Ka-blam was in fact one of the top results and looked to be a great company to work with. I love that they will cut some of your costs by letting you put their ad on the back page of your comic book. 

To be honest, they were amazing to work with. I had used AI once again to try and produce my full pdf, and as per usual, AI had bungled a lot of the finer details like continuity between pages and keeping enough safe space between art and edges per the template that Ka-blam had provided. They contacted me before printing and raised some concerns about the art being too close to the edge.

At that point I took all the artwork to Microsoft PowerPoint and placed the pages by hand because I had had enough of messing around with AI to try and get the last bit done. After exporting the .pdf, I sent it back to Ka-blam, and a few days later they had printed out 12 high-gloss copies of my comic book and shipped it to me for around $55.

Honestly, I'm incredibly happy with how it turned out, and being able to hand these out to the other players and the DM as a gift to commemorate our adventures felt really satisfying. I guess more than anything, I'm happy I learned so much about the process of just printing and preparing a comic along the way. Perhaps if I had $1,000 to pay a really good artist on Fiverr to make a comic book for me, I'd do it, but this was good for what it was: a fun commemorative item and a learning experience.

Happy Dueling!

Asian Buffet with a side of Cancer

Happy start of Blaugust!  I don't know why I signed up for this. It's not like I don't have a billion other things going on right now, and I usually don't sign up unless I'm dead set on posting EVERY FREAKIN' DAY. That may be different this year. We shall see.

For today, I don't know, just thought I'd talk a bit of real life. I posted to my friends on Facebook a couple days ago, just a random goofy video.

"I've been watching a lot of Mullet Review lately, and when my co-worker magically found a coupon for City Buffet in Roy, it felt like . . . serendipity? kismet? synchronicity? My co-workers and I went there for lunch and I went there for the memes. (I'm really not going to eat at this same buffet until I get food poisoning.) Thankfully, I did not get food poisoning. I did eat waaaaay too much, however. On Yelp this has 3.3 stars, on Google it had 4.2 stars. I'm leaning 4.2 stars! We gooning and there was pizza!  Side note: Tomorrow is chemo day!  Wish me luck!"

As it turns out . . . it WASN'T chemo day yesterday. My oncologist told me that we're just going to go back to regular immunotherapy for now and that the 3 (4 with a break) rounds of my 2nd cycle of Chemo should have accomplished what he wanted to do with it, which is kick start my immune system again to continue fighting the cancer.

I fully thought I might have 3 more rounds of Chemo to look forward to (or dread) this time around. I was incredibly upset that the cancer came back, but I'm starting to realize that this is going to be kind of my new normal for a while.

While my goal may be NED (No evidence of disease), the reality is (so far) I'm in it for a long fight where we do this stuff . . . bounce back and forth, trying to control and contain. Wait for new treatments. Try new stuff. Fight it off as long as we can. It's in the lining of my lung and it's a sneaky type of cancer.

Long story short, I'm not going to feel like crap next week. Immunotherapy is pretty chill in comparison. I might be a little tired, but I'm not going to be poisoned (whether from chemo or Asian Buffet).

Thanks for reading, and go get some Asian Buffet -- do your own Mullet Review for the day!

Happy Dueling!

Here's to Bel!

So I just learned a couple days ago that Belghast died of complications from chemotherapy while fighting cancer. Man, it really shows you how checked out I am from blogging these days, but with the Blaugust event coming up, I stumbled into the unfortunate information. That said, I feel like I need to pay respects, even if its belated!

First, I really appreciate the example of his drive! Blaugust alone really cast a long shadow, and I feel it brought a lot of welcome attention to nerd and game blogging. Long live, Blaugust! I've participated multiple times myself, and he really started a unique community that is continuing on now without him. Honestly, it's pretty cool that the torch for Blaugust 2026 is still being carried! Good on those who are intimately involved. You rock!

Second, when you look at his last post on Tales of the Aggronaut, Man, look at that, he posted right up until the end. Round 7 of chemo, July 1st, a post on PoE 2 mapping, and (as from what I'm understanding) then the next day he was gone. Just floored. His dedication was top tier!

On a personal level, I have two thoughts. One, the similarities between our situations is uncanny in a way. He had a different, more aggressive, type of cancer than I do, but with my own battle going on still, it brings it all home to me. Two, just to be honest, I think Belghast was one of those that I don't know if we always saw eye to eye on things; we ran a bit in different circles; and yet we played similar games and did similar things. He loved MMOs first (much like me) and also ARPG games, but whereas he was really drawn to the hardcore complexity of Path of Exile 2, I was pretty turned off from the game.  On the other hand, I could play Diablo IV for what it is and fully enjoy it, but Bel was critical of the game (for what it could be). 

People come to the TFN blog for old Wizard101 information, nostalgia, or to be simply entertained by me doing dumb stuff like building Turkey Bases in Dune. The truth of the matter is, if I was a developer for a game that Belghast was playing, he would be one that I'd tune into for more critical opinions on the game that I needed to hear. He was good at what he did, and so yes, a bright light in the blogging community has gone out, and it is definitely notable here on TFN. Sorry it has taken me so long to note it!

Here's to Bel and Happy Dueling!

A dose of real life: Chemo, Xeriscape, Poetry, Birthdays, and D&D!

Well, dang, it's been a hot minute hasn't it? It feels like a good time to update you all on what's going down in the life of Tom. Let's get to it.

First up, the cancer . . . I'm doing chemo again, and I'm back in a regular three-week cycle:

- Week1: Get infusion on a Friday, Feel like garbage from that Saturday through Tuesday. Bounce back Wednesday through the first Friday.

- Week 2: Avoid people while I'm immune compromised. I'm working from home, and I stay in my little bubble.

- Week 3: Life is good! Kick in those steroids on Thursday and brace myself for "the suck" of week 1 all over again.

Bring it Chemo x 2!

As for other trial prospects, my oncologist and I decided to skip the BiPave trial I was looking at in case insurance didn't come through. Currently I'm hinging secondary bets on Daraxonrasib getting wider approval. It's got some funky possible side effects, including bleeding from the pores of your face, but it targets my particularly difficult kind of KRAS cancer mutation. If worse comes to worse, there's always that!

Next up, I gotta talk about my front non-lawn, y'all. I've been having EXTREME stress about my front lawn ever since we moved into the new house and I realized that it was a bark chip nightmare full of weeds and old grass that was never fully dealt with. 

Knowing that it was a huge point of stress for me, my wife turned to my father-in-law, and he hooked us up with a family-loan so we could get it redone in xeriscape. 

It turned this:

So stressful to look at for me

. . . into this:

Night and day

One less thing to worry about is good for my soul. I couldn't be happier about it.

Thirdly, my apologies to my acquaintances who hate AI -- sincerely -- but I discovered that I could use it to build a mobile game I pitched to my old company. I talk all about my internal conflicts about it in my last post. 

I'm now on my sixth prototype build of the game with a roadmap to launch on Android and possibly PC. It's been something I've been able to work on after hours and during my chemo recovery. I wish I had the money to pay and artist and a programmer to help me tag team this game, but ChatGPT it is for the time being. It's been incredibly enlightening. 

Poetry Slammers is becoming real!

Fourthly, I can't believe my youngest turned 17. Remember when I announced his birth all the way back when? Crazy. Such a good kid. Going to watch him play the mellophone in the local 4th of July parade tomorrow.

I like how I appear taller than him in this picture . . . I'm not.

Finally, I've been playing a lot of ye old dungeons and dragons. We finished up our first three-month long campaign and now we've shifted tables to a new DM. They gave us the option of rolling up new level five characters, but I've decided to just stick with good ol' Thotham my soul knife. 

To those ends, I've printed up a comic book of his adventures (again, with the help of AI), and a short run of 12 copies will soon be delivered to me so I can pass them out to the people I played the game with and have a couple copies for myself. So fun to give them all some kind of memorabilia of our time around the table.

Yup, pretty AI looking. Fun to make though!

So there's all the news that's fit to print about me. I'm now two years into my journey here back in Utah, and it's been a weird ride so far. Thanks for reading and as always . . .

Happy Dueling!

Using AI to make a game -- There's no money in poetry

 Ok, y'all, story time and a bit of a follow up post to me being conflicted about using AI for art. 

*cough*

Yeah, I went full on dark side here and decided to try my hand at making a game with AI's help. The first time I tried this was about a year ago when I wanted to make a VR game in Unreal, but that failed miserably since, I'll be honest, my experience in Unreal is pretty small . . . like 3 months of dev time and a week of game jam. The platform I'm best at making games in is Unity. I used that for about five years to do mobile game development (AND Battlebows VR development) at both KingsIsle and WIMO.

Continuing with story time (sorry, I know this is a long build up), I have a friend at work, and she was talking to me about how her father uses AI to develop little apps and things as a hobby. That discussion combined with a discussion with my old boss from WIMO (who also gave AI a shot) got me really thinking . . . if these guys can do it and have success, I should be able to as well!

And so . . . I started solo dev working on a game. It's a game that I've had in my back pocket for several years, in fact, this game had even made a top 10 list for being presented to our CEO as games we felt we could easily make and be profitable. Long story short, when the CEO saw my game pitch, he was flabbergasted by it and saw no possible way that this game would make money . . . and so it died there . . . but it didn't die for me!

I mean, he's right of course, it's a hyper casual game and the only way it's going to make money is if it became hugely successful around a very niche topic of poetry. As Robert Graves said, "There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money, either." 

. . . and so, no one in the world would make this game but me (much like no one in the world would make Button Bombers but Andrew Stout), so I might as well do it while recovering from Chemo. I threw on a blanket, sat in my computer chair, and shared my game idea with ChatGPT and I started chatting with AI about how to make this prototype, my overall vision for the game, and how it could help . . . and especially how it could help given I failed using ChatGPT to build my last game.

You know what? Where ChatGPT might have struggled horribly with VR about a year ago, it excelled at coding scripts in C# for a 2D mobile game made in Unity. Does that mean I'm vibe coding? Or am I just letting AI code for me?) Now, will it give the game a blackmark for being made with AI? Probably? I believe you have to mark your game as being made with AI in any storefront, but I haven't investigated that far or even determined if I'm going "store front" yet. But, this game never had a hope of being made otherwise, and again, there's no money in poetry anyway . . . .

So while I'm not really ready to share the details of this project just yet, I guess just know it exists and I'm on Version 0.03 of my prototype. I've shared the download link with a select few, and I'm gathering some feedback as I make my game.

Give me time and you'll be sure to hear more about it here on TFN.

Happy Dueling!

Windrose and the jumping puzzle.

After beating Windrose, we kind of all fizzled out of the game, but I was still fleshing out my new island home. I had moved away from newbie island and left a strange sculpture as a goodbye. 

Goodbye old newbie house!

At my new home, I decided to build a floor that stretched all the way across an inlet and land lock a couple of my old boats in museum style. After that, I started building up my crazy triangle houses into kind of a crazy triangle house village. 

I love my triangle houses!

After THAT, I realized how much fun I was having building nerd poles ala Minecraft style building.  I kind of couldn't believe it just worked, but if you stand on a pillar and start putting down more pillars while jumping, you can take yourself up high into the sky with no fear of taking falling damage. Back in the day, this was the best way in Minecraft to leave large markers of where you were in the world when you found something important.

Nerd pole construction then turned into building an obstacle course ala a Roblox style obby. After running way up into the atmosphere and giving myself a platform for staring into the sunset, I started looking down on my blank canvas.

Don't ask me how the physics work, Pirates don't care about physics.

MAN, there's so much you could do here, and what else would a rich pirate do but order crates and crates of wood to make a pyramid maze balanced on a nerd pole? 

Definitely not a trap . . .

So there you have it. Windrose may as well be dead for us now, but someday we'll return, and when we do, my house area will be ready for the ultimate house party!

Pirates love geometry though. It's all about Arrrrcs and Angles!

Happy Dueling!

Rambling about Real Life, D&D, and a side of AI Art

You know, I seem to have lost my passion for blogging about video games lately, which is pretty unsettling. I mean, I know what's changed, but I don't know why my writing here on The Friendly Necromancer just doesn't excite me right now.

Random thoughts for context:

• The constant drip of cancer in my life is incredibly loud, and I don't know if it's made me naturally more reclusive?
• I don't want to be known as Tom, the dude who has cancer, but I guess it's too late for that. It's part of my story now.
• My new job isn't as satisfying as my old one, but I really love that I'm able to provide for my family. I'll take having a job over not having a job any day of the week.
• I'm just not thinking about video games as much anymore.
• I enjoy playing, but why does blogging about it feel exhausting at the moment?
• I mean, I have been blogging a bit, but just not here on TFN . . . and that's the more exciting thing that's been going on. I'm blogging about a weekly D&D game.  
• That said, the blog I'm working on now reeks of AI art because I'm not an artist, I never have been and I feel guilty about using AI. ARGH.
• (I think in bullet points sometimes.)

Sigh. Ok, let me break down that brain dump . . . for my own sake:

Cancer -- Gosh dangit. Having cancer really sucks. There's the physical pain, but there's also the trouble of just going for infusions, money woes, mortality considerations, and just everything else. It's just a part of me now, and I can't escape it. The recent relapse made me realize that I'm far from being through the woods. This is going to be a lifetime battle.

I'm working on an album of music where my cancer story is the major theme, but it's slow going lately.

Job -- Gosh dangit. I'm just not passionate about my job now. It's just . . . a job. I do it well. I like my coworkers. I like the importance of what I'm doing. It's just not games nor blogging material. I mean, I probably could start a blog about Project Management for a government contractor, but it'd be kind of lame. I've learned a lot but . . . 

I think someone out there might be saying, well, go get another job in the games industry then! Um, it's not that easy, plus the recent cancer diagnosis makes me feel like I can't put myself under that stress and uncertainty right now. It's a bit of a drag, but best to stay put.

New blog -- I'm playing D&D on Wednesday nights at a local game store! That's right, I actually found an interesting group, and rolling dice once a week with people around a table is really fun. I'm playing a goliath rogue, a walking paradox: the sneaky giant, Thotham. I love him!

AI art -- Gosh dangit. I mean, I feel a bit bad about this. I hate the idea that I'm using AI and being part of the massive social problem in front of us. On the other hand, AI art has made leaps and bounds from three years ago, and it's only getting better. 

As I type that, I hear a cacophony of voices saying, "Yeah, better at stealing other people's art." You're right. You're right. And that's why I feel guilty.

Exhibit 1 -- Back in 2016 I was playing a D&D game with my family, Jeff Toney (an artist from work), and his daughter. We had a lot of fun, and I started a blog back then called "Althea and Company." Althea was the name of Jeff's daughter's character. She was a DPS monster.

I would draw a short three-panel comic to accompany the blog post. Obviously, I don't have a lot of talent when it comes to drawing, but Jeff seemed to love my little three-panel comics that went along with the post.

Now with AI, I'm able to take a sketch like that and fully flesh it out into something kind of cool. That new comic now looks like it could have come straight out of Dragon Magazine, and all it cost was a piece of some random artist's soul, my little sketch from 2016, and 10 minutes of AI time. 

So now if you drop by Thotham's Journal, my new D&D blog, it has all my writing (I didn't use AI to write any of that), but the art is all AI. I will say that after using AI to make a bunch of storyboard panels, I am finding that telling AI what to draw is a bit like trying to creatively direct an incredibly talented 5-year-old with a continually melting crayon.

I've always been more of a storyteller than an artist. If I was rich, I could imagine dropping 100 bucks on an artist to hand-draw me a cartoon to go along with a blog post, but I'm far FAR from rich . . . so AI it is?

But what about Windrose -- Oh yeah, we finished what's available to play in that game, and I have lots of thoughts, but I just got blocked wanting to write about it. I don't know why. Maybe because Tipa already covered it? (She's still excited about blogging about vidja games, but where's my passion?) I guess I could just start typing and see what happens.

Anyway, I'm torn lately, and a bit blocked. I'm still here. I'm still writing. I'm still playing and enjoying games, but I'm also questioning my old passion. I guess more than anything, I just need to force myself to do it more often -- even if it is a rambling post with no central point. 

Happy Dueling!