Interview: J Yamil's When The Sky Comes Looking For You

The Weird Frontiers airship adventure we deserve!

When The Sky Comes Looking For You is a 50-plus page zine adventure for level 2 Weird Frontiers characters, written by J Yamil. Calling all fans of cowboys and Cthulhu! Your party is hired by a loan-shark luchador to track down a debtor. This leads you all to an airship on its way to the Near. Can you escape in time?

Airships, cowboys, and loan-shark luchadors? You know I’m sticking around for that! I got a chance to chat with the writer of this wild ride. Keep on reading and find out more!

Tell us a bit more about the adventure. It seems like it leans towards the pulpy side, but what style of adventure are folks in for?

YC: Definitely a pulpy "dungeon crawl". I am a big fan of noir films where characters are multi-layered, you might have a sympathetic villain or anti-hero. With this adventure, I wanted to introduce possible villains for future adventures or the seed of overarching mystery. Each game table will gravitate to what interests them more.

Do you have a fun story or anecdote from playtesting the adventure? What's your favorite "area" or "scene" in the adventure?

Last summer, I sent an ashcan version of the adventure to a couple of Judges (or GMs) for playtesting. There is a certain room with bugs that has emerged as a "favorite". Judges reported that players would immediately run out of the room once they witnessed what happened there. I am considering designing an adventure with the bugs.

What's your RPG origin story?

I started with 3e and as a subscriber to Dungeon magazine. In high school, I had a class where the teacher left or was fired (can't remember) and we ended up with a substitute for the entire semester. He let us spend our time however we wanted and my first RPG campaign was born. I remember I played a ranger that was killed by a troll.

You've also got a couple pamphlet adventures as add-ons. Tell us more about those!

I wrote those in order to prepare for writing this zine. Similar to the way fiction authors used to start with short stories then move on to novels. The two pamphlet adventures are Maiden, Mother & Crone and Repentless. They are system neutral. I play-tested them at conventions using DCC rules. My suggestion is to run Maiden, Mother & Crone as a funnel while Repentless is a level 1 adventure which is sort of backwards from how they read.

Thanks for sharing with us! Anything else that you'd like folks to know about?

I wanted to say that I was blown away by the artists' submissions. I have attached one by Christopher Torres. He was one of the artists that worked on the Weird Frontiers rulebook. The image is of the loan shark luchador himself, Cesar Judas. Thanks for having me, I am a subscriber so I was blown away when you reached out. I am looking forward to The Conquest of Chaos!

What’s the wild Weird Frontiers adventure you want to see next?

What Else Is Going On?

The Wanting Wizard

The Wanting Wizard is a DCC-compatible zine by Ink Slingers Association. I’m writing one portion of the zine, plus doing editing and layout.

The Conquest of Chaos

A levels 0-5 campaign path for Dungeon Crawl Classics! Six adventures inspired by the classic GDQ series take the PCs from humble beginning to fighting the primal forces of chaos and saving their world from certain doom!

The Cult That Never Was

A funnel that starts at a funeral, but then gets weird.