Cthos

It occurs to me I never did an intro post. Hi, I'm cthos (also Alex) and I've been doing tech professionally for a long time and now I'm doing a lot of #ttrpg design and writing and stuff. I blog tech over here: alextheward.com I blog ttrpgs here: cthonicstudios.com And itch here: cthos.itch.io

Jonathan Sims and Nichole Goodnight absolutely knocked the acting out of the park in this, if you have somehow not played it yet.

Finally made it to Powell’s! So cool to see The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2026 out in the wild! (I swear I’m smiling)

Happy three year anniversary, kids. I hope the other side of the cabin door is everything you ever could have hoped it would be.

Stories by: A.L. Goldfuss, Alix E. Harrow, Isabel J. Kim, Kari Maaren, Kristina Ten, Marika Bailey, P.C. Verrone, Sarah Langan, Stephanie Malia Morris, Wen-yi Lee, Alex Irvine, Alex T. Singer, H.H. Pak, KÃNYIN Olorunnisolo, Nadia Radovich, Naomi Kanakia, Ray Nayler, Rich Larson, & Thomas Ha (x2!)

relevant xkcd in these CA times xkcd.com/221/

You want your (Evil Hat's) quarterly sales volume tabulation? I gotchu. Public facing quarterly numbers tabulated at docs.google.com/spreadsheets... Quarterly numbers archive (ten years deep) at drive.google.com/drive/folder...

Ayyyy you can't get an ISBN for AI-generated books any more in Canada 🤙 "International Standard Book Number" is a unique 13-digit number near the barcode on a book that identifies each edition of a book. It's used by libraries & book stores to manage collections. www.canada.ca/en/library-a...

🎉ta-dahh🎉 #aceattorney

I love it when my outlook is slightly more cautious, which I say completely literally, and not as a euphemism for screaming “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!!! Everyone invested too much in fucking data centers!!” like Chef Carmy from The Bear

Evil Hat organizing an all-weekend actual play of their currently funding ttrpg "Rangers of a Broken World" is fantastic; you get a chance to see a bunch of different tables and takes on the game. Having 1 AP? Great. Having 6???? That's pretty fantastic. www.backerkit.com/c/projects/e...

Everyone in short fiction is underpaid and this was just one small step towards addressing things here. The drive ended successfully, but the goal is ongoing. If you subscribe today or tomorrow, it goes to the next cycle of increases until the job is done. clarkesworldmagazine.com/subscribe/

On behalf of everyone at Clarkesworld, we would like to thank all the subscribers who joined during our recent subscription drive. Because of you, we've been able to give all our staff and contributors a raise for our 20th anniversary.

They took Ilhan’s PASSPORT?! Um

I watched Florida taken apart by corrupt rightwing governors who destroyed so much. Oregon might not be perfect, but it has a functional government that has preserved many human rights other states have lost. Please don't take that for granted-- reelect Kotek as governor. Hold fast.

Look, AI-detection companies do the worst thing you could possibly do: They do a loop between training and the test set, until they get the test set right. And then they pretend that generalizes That's iterative p-hacking. It's making the numbers look better, while the results get worse.

Still trying to understand how Napster got shut down, but Anthropic is going public and still hasn’t paid us authors yet after stealing our work.

New: I pulled the Character ai bankruptcy documents. They show: - They were spending $14 million/month on compute alone at a time their revenue was around ~$1 million/month - Currently losing $9 million a month - They admitted they enshittified & that it didnt work www.404media.co/character-ai...

I left X *because* I had a large following. People told me I was the reason they were staying on there, and I didn’t want to be responsible for 100k+ people sticking around for abuse, CSAM, and Nazis. Simple as that

its #IndigenousPeoplesDay here in the US, so i wanted to shout out some Indigenous creators from Turtle Island who are making some wonderful, interesting, and transformative #TTRPGs :)

politely requesting donations from cinephiles to support the physical copies i'm picking up for an upcoming spooky season double feature ko-fi.com/keftiu

Hi, I’m a sighted alt text user! Here are some reasons I use it: - Slow Internet on an airplane - I’m over 40, I have no idea who that celebrity is - Bluesky broke images again - My vision sucks and that text is too small to read otherwise - Conveys further context and authorial intent

One or more human beings are responsible for the code they wrote, and those are the people who should be held accountable. These programs are not acting “on their own”

I really hope my publishers are not doing this. Fairly sure they are not.

Annalise, not just for vampire stories!

Great chance to post my all-time favorite headline

Asimov's SF Magazine (@asimovssfmag) is now trying to force artists into predatory contracts where they steal away all rights. If you're a creator of any type, yes including authors who would like to be published by Asimov's, you should run far, far away.

Dressmaker is a masterpiece.

Some of you have been asking whether or not Vivaldi is affected by Chrome’s #AI API, which some websites are using for tracking purposes. The answer is straight-forward: no. ✌️ We disable all the Gemini-related code bundled in Chromium, effectively preventing websites from using this API in Vivaldi.

Blippo+ rules, flipping through alternate world channels with a real time story is such a cool idea.

Anti-Prime Day starts…NOW! 🥳 Today through midnight on 10/7, enjoy free shipping site-wide, all while supporting local, independent bookstores.

The kickstarter for the new Microscope is live! I can't wait to see what you make with the new edition www.kickstarter.com/projects/lam...

I am thrilled and proud beyond measure to support the amazing workers who create and design the games I and my loved ones have spent a lifetime playing. I implore everybody to sign the petition and signal boost the campaign as far and wide as we can!

we fucking loved it, even when there was basically nothing on it, and let me tell you something else: we loved it because of human connection, human diversity, human creativity. WE DON'T NEED A SINGLE THING ANY OF THESE COMEMIERDAS HAVE MADE AND TRIED TO SELL US IN ORDER TO HAVE A GREAT INTERNET.

yelling SISTERRRR at the other Bluebeard's Bride players like people who play 40k Space Marines yell BROTHERRR

There's a defeatist vibe rn and I think there's an inevitability feeling washing over us. There is no inevitability. If you're in a position to speak up against the direction the industry is taking, I'd say now is the time to do that. I certainly try because I cannot be fired and it does help!

Thanks everyone, that's the sales goal achieved!🎉🎉🎉 Got a big grin on my face. Last time I hit the goal was the 2025 summer sale so this means a lot to me! Looking forward to seeing how the texture assets are used. There's still over four days left as well.

It's Steam Autumn Sale, and both Scarlet Hollow and Slay the Princess are up for grabs! Get two 90+ metacritic, overwhelmingly positive visual novels for a little over $25 if you buy 'em together.

Both of these games are such great October vibes - Scarlet Hollow especially so.

Microscope is probably the most imagination-inspiring game I've ever played. I'm thrilled Ben is ready to publish his second edition.

Missed the Backerkit? We're T-6 days before the release of Designers & Dragons: Origins in stores, on DriveThruRPG, and at the @evilhat.bsky.social web store.

👉 Free Art for Three Days 👈 I’m not pointing any fingers...but if you are, then I have made the perfect stock art bundle ^^ Free download for 3 days. Free for personal and commercial use. www.patreon.com/SilverGlass/... or ko-fi.com/s/f9cdee8279 Tell your friends! #ttrpg #stockart #lineart