If you haven't checked out the new zine, you can find it here
So the main thing I've been working on is (shocker) Bleeding Sin. I released a zine back on halloween with the core rules and I'm happy with that but the rules still need a few adjustments. The zine itself isn't really going to be out of date outside of a few things, but I think some stuff needed to be reworked and clarified. Most of the work I've been doing on bleeding sin has been related to making it look neater and more understandable. Plus just updating some of the older looking are and weird wording in a few spots. Plus I added a bit more flavor to a few rules. I've renamed team's to "Covens" because I though it sounded more unique, and I've renamed a few elements of blood type rules to sound more interesting. Just flavor stuff really. I've also added a section with some lore and a little kitbash tips page, just to help people looking to know what size certain models should be and inspire some kitbashing ideas.
There has been one major rules update however, and that's to faction abilities. I've completely gutted them, and there's a very simple reason why.
I hated them.
I didn't realize it until I played a test game at Arcancon in November, but Faction abilities went against my entire design philosophy for factions, as they are meant to be more passive elements that you choose before the game and your blood ability is more active. This was the case for factions like hunters and dreg infection, but for the church and guardians, they were way too active for my liking. Something you had to constantly keep track of for no apparent reason. Bleeding sin is already not super simple, keeping track of your blood, stress, any statuses you're suffering, your blood ability, plus what each unit has equipped can be overwhelming for new players, which is a little bit by design. The complex nature is supposed to overwhelm you and force you to make bad decisions that will bite you later. But having faction abilities that you have to babysit constantly is a step too far for me. Having them be more passive and show up every now and then feels far better. There's a second issue I had with them though, they don't really flow naturally into the coven creation process. Coven creation is split into 4 parts, and "customize faction ability" isn't one of them. Where would it fit in anyway? You can't do it when you pick a faction because you don't know what your units are yet and thus some don't work (ex, hunters, fleshmelders, etc) but when I had people do it after they bought equipment it just felt like extra stuff tacked on.
I hated them.
I didn't realize it until I played a test game at Arcancon in November, but Faction abilities went against my entire design philosophy for factions, as they are meant to be more passive elements that you choose before the game and your blood ability is more active. This was the case for factions like hunters and dreg infection, but for the church and guardians, they were way too active for my liking. Something you had to constantly keep track of for no apparent reason. Bleeding sin is already not super simple, keeping track of your blood, stress, any statuses you're suffering, your blood ability, plus what each unit has equipped can be overwhelming for new players, which is a little bit by design. The complex nature is supposed to overwhelm you and force you to make bad decisions that will bite you later. But having faction abilities that you have to babysit constantly is a step too far for me. Having them be more passive and show up every now and then feels far better. There's a second issue I had with them though, they don't really flow naturally into the coven creation process. Coven creation is split into 4 parts, and "customize faction ability" isn't one of them. Where would it fit in anyway? You can't do it when you pick a faction because you don't know what your units are yet and thus some don't work (ex, hunters, fleshmelders, etc) but when I had people do it after they bought equipment it just felt like extra stuff tacked on.
A little WIP look at the new rules for city guard, they are completely different now
From all this, I decided to turn faction abilities into "Faction Arsenals", which are special upgrades and features you can buy for your faction, that define them in their own way. This, theoretically, kills 2 birds with one stone, as it both makes if flow into the purchase supplies part of coven creation, while also helping with a common issue of players having too much leftover CC at the end of creation. Plus, if a player does not want to add complexity to their coven, they can simply not purchase any, and now their coven has less rules to keep track of. Some factions still have kinda in depth arsenals, but I've taken the liberty of marking all factions and blood types with either simple, intermediate, or complex to warn players before they pick one.
Anyway, outside of that, I've been writing a lot of lore and making a lot more artwork for the game, I wrote the lordic sermon below the other day and I plan on using it as the opening for the book. I think it sets the mood pretty well.
Sermons are depressing in Thorian
I want to work on more page borders and backgrounds for the pages to make it look less like a google doc, but it looks like I'm going to have to import the file into Canva or something and do the work there, which could take time but I hope it's worth it for the final product. I may be ditching the whole "pretty vs printable" versions thing in favor of a good middle ground that fits both. But we'll see.
Another major thing I'm working on in relation to bleeding sin are updated team sheets and graphics. So I had this idea for how to make tracking blood and faction abilities easier, inspired a lot by how board games solve this problem. I've started creating these little blood type sheets that list your curses and rituals, and help track your blood ability and blood dice. They look something like this
Place 1 dice in the pool for each blood dice you get, so when you spend them you literally pull from a pool of them
The next major update for bleeding sin after this quality of life update will be for the Campaign mode, which I've done a little bit of work on and want to preview a bit of how it will work and how close I am to finishing it.
The main things to know about campaign play are this - it's unforgiving, it's unfair, and it's unrestrained. Units will die forever very often, and anyone who doesn't escape will be lost permanently. Injuries last between games, and units don't heal between games unless brought to a Clinic. The monsters of the world will grow in difficulty as your team gets more powerful, and as more sinful acts are accumulated, more otherworldly horrors will reveal themself. Akin to Bloodborne's Insight, players can accrue Sin during games, which will expand their mind for better and for worse. Every faction will have it's own out of game actions, hunters can teach and grow their own school, dreg infection can spread disease and take over other player's teams, fleshmelders can barter and sell goods to other players, and the church can perform ceremonies that other players can attend to gain buffs. A campaign in Bleeding sin is structured much more like an rpg campaign than a traditional campaign for a wargame, and your relationships with other players is key to your survival as a coven. Basically, it's chaotic, it's in depth, and it's very, very bloody.
I hope to have it done some time first quarter 2026, I wanted to have it done in january but I want to push out the quality of life update first before I do it. All the rules designs are done I just need to hash out specifics, like what each table will involve, how certain Sin numbers interact, how factions carry out their ideas, etc. It's still got a bit to go, but It's getting there. Once that's done I want to run some sort of 1 day event for it, do a little narrative, invite some friends, etc. Locals (you know who you are), keep an eye out for that in the coming year, because I want to battle some homies in my game.
Those are the main things I'm working on in the Bleeding sin front, but I have plenty of more darkeaten related stuff to share.
Firstly, I've been working on some lore video/speeddraw content recently. I've started recording myself drawing some stuff for city guardians and I plan to do a little video where I talk about their lore and talk though my design process over a speeddraw of it. the artwork is almost finished but here's a little look at them.
(Left) City Guardian of Toris (Right) City Guardian of Agota
Speaking of lore, I've been trying to work on this thing called "Agota Archival files" for a long while now, and I think in 2026 I really want to push forward with some of them. The idea of them is that they are exploratory files written by Aldia Dwyer of the Agota Archives, and involve a look both into how the archives work as well as a deeper dive into the groups he is discussing. Knowledgeable readers will remember Aldia as the guy who died under mysterious circumstances underneath Toris, well he's got a larger role in the setting than you may initially think, which will be slowly shown in these files. These are meant to take place in universe, and thus some elements are censored and altered by the church, which can be revealed by highlighting them with your mouse (though some may require deeper investigation). I want to make them a staple on this site, acting as a sort of wiki for lore on a certain faction and how they work, just because most of it is very split up currently. I'm getting pretty close to finishing the one on pyromancers, but I've been working on it very on and off for a while. I may just finish up a few then release them all at once, just to make the archives have a bit of bulk to them from the start.
A snippet from the one I'm working on, related to Pyromancers
I want to take the rest of this time to talk about a bunch of stuff I didn't talk about when it happened, for one reason or another, starting with something really sick that I got to do with the help of a very good friend of mine.
Over October, my friend Durzin ran a kitbash contest for both bleeding sin and necropolis, in partnership with me. I feel really honored that he came to me to do this, and it was really fun to see all the crazy things people made, so I'm just gonna share them here
Saint Dorotea Isabella Gatica and Entourage by Lazurus_Adeodatus
The first place winner! Laz hit this one out of the park, and his lore is extremely killer, Dorotea is a total badass and deserving of the saint title for sure.
I didn't get to post the whole warband here because it's split up into a bunch of images, but they are all similarly awesome, and ludwig himself has such a great look to him
The Cold Moon Coven by AGoodBLT
This one is super creative, using the blood theme with coldblooded creatures like lizards is such a genius idea and I'm kinda punching myself for not thinking of it before. Plus having the little guy wear a sun mask is so smart
The setup on this one is crazy, check out the post to see it because it's sick. The backdrop and color scheme really sells it honestly, especially the cold blue whites.
The Court of the Gilded Crescent by By_Bolter_and_Blade
This one is jaw dropping honestly, the models capture the vibe perfectly, and the lore for it is next level, it genuinely inspired some stuff I'm working on for a later update. Amazing work here man, you nailed it
Canis Lupa by Brothers_of_Rotburg_st
The posing and look of this model are so sick, and it's elevated to the next level once you check out the lore for it. Lupa is such a cool character, and he explores the Dreghunter concept in a very cool way.
Check out all of these people's stuff, they're homies and really cool people for making stuff like this. The lore on these are especially amazing, there's a lot of great storytelling here which you can find on their posts. I wanna feature more kitbashes on here, so if you make something for Bleeding sin, send it to me! I'd love to feature it in a later blog post. Again shout out to Durzin, the coolest guy around, for setting this up. He's like a big reason why I have the motivation to keep doing stuff so check out his insta and youtube channel, he's the truest of the true homies.
I plan to do another kitbash contest some time in the future, maybe around when the campaign update comes out but who knows, so keep an eye out for that.
On top of that, I got to test my game at Arcanecon! I made a custom scenario and board for it, plus I updated the game to add some new mechanics. It went pretty well all things considered, but definitely a lot of flaws that revealed themself as the game went along, lots of stuff I hadn't been able to test, and lots of rules I didn't account for. Happy I did it, it's a good learning experience for when I inevitably do another one of these.
Shout out to the players, I don't know all your @s but I know VeganBoyJosh and DeathCapStories
I'm pretty happy with how the board came out too! I made it all in my dorm by myself, and it's the second ever board I've made so it's very rudimentary. I went through a lot of revisions on it and messed my finger up pretty bad with some scissors at one point, so it has actual blood put into it, which I guess is fitting. At a certain point I was going to write a whole blog post about the nightmare that creating this thing was, but I deliberated on it for too long so now I don't really see it getting done. But just know it was a mess and my dorm room was a disaster area after it was done, I'm still finding pieces of popsicle sticks in my shoes. I want to make more boards in the future, but I don't have any space to store them atm, so more boards is kinda off the table for the time being.
A little shot of the board populated with some dreglings
That's pretty much all! I want to post more on here in the new year, since I don't post on social media much anymore I'm thinking of just using this to show my sketches and ideas and talk about them very briefly, stuff I would do on insta or something like it but not anymore. Maybe I'll make a little section for just my sketches and rambles, just a collection of small posts that don't mean much. Okay that's it, hope to see you guys more in 2026!
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