Three weeks journey north of the Emerald City, past the phylake guardians of the Garden and along the Upper Green River, you lucky traveler will find the quaint settlement of Boneyard tucked away in the colossal ribcage of a lost titan erupting from the base of the Moon Mountains.
The town itself is a smattering of mismatched homes, hovels, and halls clinging to gargantuan bones that help shield the yardsfolk from wind and gamma-blizzards. Its populace is no more than a thousand souls in all, ranging from ossular garnet barons roaming their calcified villas, to plaque-punks that snap their fingers down the myriad alleyways looking for trouble or a good time. Notably, not a single marmotfolk can be found in town. Perhaps the locals don’t want competition?
The Yard exports elderbone in tightly controlled quantities due to its heightened arcane properties, as well as lunar iron, a durable metal that glows in moonlight, which flows much more freely from near-limitless deposits at the far edge of town. The Yard also sports a bustling marketplace of adventurers and questrons that peddle a wide range of goods, sundries, and relics from ruins beyond the Mountains. Surely it’s all ethically sourced?
Each morning at first light of dawn, a grand bronze bell rings down from the tallest spine-spire, both to bring good fortune to the yardsfolk as well as to renew the aural aegis that protects the town from cloud spirits that occasionally roll down from the Mountains after an especially turbulent oneirostorm. Hopefully there’s not a coven of 1d8 hedge-shamans (L3, chanting & preening) nearby plotting the bell’s destruction as an act of vengeance! Hopefully they’re not two days travel west along the mountain caves in a hidden grotto marked by an ancient cairn! Surely they don’t have 1d6 dream-feast hounds (L1, snarling & gliding) keeping a tight watch on the front entrance.
Weather and Fortunes.
Frigid winds blow down from the bluffs and mountain crags north of town, resulting in lavender snow-drifts during the rainy season, which can sometimes be more than half of any given year. Luckily you packed your best winter coat, right? If not, a local will gladly price-gouge you one.
| d20 | Fortunes in the Yard |
|---|---|
| 1 | Whoops! You’re mistakenly hexed with countless osteophytes in your legs by a hedge-shaman who was trying to curse a local baron. -1d4 to your choice of Agility or Endurance and walking about yields extreme pain until cured. |
| 2 | You get caught in the middle of some minor gunfire between local teen gangs. Save or take 2d6 damage. They quickly scatter to the wind, but will surely return days later. |
| 3-6 | A heavy gust of wind slaps some snow into your eyes. The next day, you awaken with a severe case of pink eye and suffer (—) on social situations for 1d6 weeks. Gross! |
| 7 | Two heavily armed horse-fellas (L5, buff & gruff) approach the caravan loudly, convinced one among you is their bounty: an escaped ultra. They have no qualms about testing their theory out the hard way. You may be able to talk your way out, but it’ll be tough! |
| 8-11 | The caravan marches through corrosive snow-banks, eating away at the soles of your shoes. Mark them with a usage box and if they are marked again, your poor shoes completely fall apart. Perhaps a peachy-cobbler could nurse them back to health? |
| 12-15 | It’s extra chilly, but you stave off the cold and travel uneventfully about town. |
| 16-19 | Much to your surprise, you’re one supply short as a spinal-tap-rat engorged itself upon your food stores. Continue to feed and care for it, and you’ll likely make a life-long friend. |
| 20+ | The streets are jam-packed with yardsfolk zooming around town! You hesitate to step out into a busy crossing when something odd catches your eye. Perhaps peeking out from a beat-up trash bin, you spot the unmistakable visage of an oldtech gizmo. It’ll need some tender love and care to get working again. Perhaps a day of tinkering? Difficult test to master. On failure, you still determine how to use it, but it’s bit quirky. Work with the referee to sort out those pesky little details. |
Encounters amidst the Bones (d6).
1. A troop of 1d6 cestus-sporting ivory monks (L1, wobbling greenhorns) stumble out from Caesar’s Saloon looking to scuffle, scoot, or boogie. Maybe all of the above, hm?
2. Detective (L3, undying & scrappy) with a ghost-gun, currently tracking down a noöspheric hand-mirror that reveals the location of nearby fantascience once per month.
3. Walton, an egg-cultist (L3, lucid & limber) is proselytizing and looking for new doves to join his flock. He cries out the divine truth of the World-Egg and the horrors beyond. Dare ye join him? (Don’t do it. Surely?)
4. Smiley rat-queen in a shiny plastiweave coat. 2-in-6 chance that she can predict your future. If so, roll a d20 and replace any single roll with the result as you see fit, both friend or foe. Otherwise, the referee gets to roll the d20. Fancy your luck?
5. A gaggle of 1d6 gunpunk-mages (L1, rebellious shit-shots) tagging the Bones with graffiti and obscenities, 1-in-6 chance that it is a truth pertaining to a local baron. Hell yeah brother!
6. A rogue golem (L4, run-down & anxious) on the lam from the Emerald City. He’s on his way to Memory Lane, a strange time-lost town a four week journey north past the Moon Mountains and through the Tortoise Trench. Hunters are hot on his heels and time is quickly running out.
Rogues around the Ribcage (d6).
1. Old Griff, a retired bounty hunter moonlighting as sheriff (L4, deeply tired), looking to deputize any gun-hand with gumption and grit. He keeps a stocked bounty board and a packed jail.
2. Prosciutto, a golem butcher with a mullet & denim vest (L2, iron chef) slings a mean beef rice at his popular food stall in the marketplace and doesn’t take no shit from no one. Chowing down at the stall sets you back €20, but grants you +1d6 to Saves for 1d6 weeks and a quick trip to the loo.
3. Gahn Zoh the bird-man lawyer is currently taking new clients! Sleazy, but dangerously effective at litigating in the ministerial circuit courts down south. He owns a fancy villa carved into the Bones that overlooks much of the town.
4. Pontifaxis Equinoxis Mauricitanio is a learned gentleman dwarf recruiting for an expedition north into the Gelwain Mythmount, which requires at least ten weeks journey north past the Mountains through perilous woods, seas of red-mist, barren fields, and sneaking around the great Lunar Birch. He promises riches beyond comprehension at minimal risk. What could go wrong? Good luck!
5. Mimi, a diluted calico lord (L5, unhinged & scrappy), is currently wrestling with a litter of dog-heads (L2, hangry & hellbent)! Should you befriend her, she can teach you feline magicks such as her signature Stormcat Pounce. Click me for more options!
6. Silt, a lonely chamelon-lady, perpetually sat on the edge of a great clavicle stares off at different regions of the sky simultaneously. She seems to clutch at a peculiar leather-bound tome and sighs on schedule like clockwork. Perhaps it is a spell-album or a private diary hidden from prying eyes.
Northward ho!
If you made it this far, thanks for reading! About a year ago, I started drafting a zine for a micro-setting you could attach to Luka Rejec’s Vastlands setting as outlined in his works. Admittedly, I didn’t get very far and goofed about quite a bit in 2025 trying to craft my own fantasy heartbreaker without much success, fearing my work was too derivative. That said, every new year provides new opportunities and I hope to actualize some wisdom I gathered along the way and publish the zine.
Huge shout out to my ride-or-die Cody for providing the art displayed above and being a kind friend. I’ve stolen his ear many a nights when I’ve been down or worse…excitable. He’s an absolute rogue, a quick 20 mins B&W sketch and he hit a home-run. You can find more of his work here.
Special thanks again to Luka Rejec, as I reference concepts from Ultraviolet Grasslands 2e, Our Golden Age, and the Vastlands Guidebook. The town nameplate at the start of the article also utilizes the custom Our Golden Age font he created. Quite snazzy!
I penned the working title of the project as Zur Wilds and the Ring-Realms and the scope is approximately 15 new sites to explore, much in the fashion of Luka’s UVG, as well as some optional rules and new traits, powers, and items. Maybe 50-60 pages max. Even though I haunt these familiar halls again a year later, it strangely feels as if it were days ago that I was here writing. Creatively, I think (hope?) that’s a good sign. Only time shall tell, my friends. My next blog post will be one of two locales beyond the Moon Mountains: Tortoise Trench or Ghostlark Woods.
Now to find my notes…
