Last chance to hammer a nail in the coffin!
Just a few days left to get Tumulus Issue 6 "Hammer a nail in the coffin." at a discounted price as part of your subscription. After June 1, it will only be available as a back issue.
Four times a year, Tumulus takes a single theme and explores it from every angle: design theory, game history, mechanical analysis, playable games, and exercises to spark your creativity. Read it with pencil and dice at hand.
Tumulus Issue 06 “Hammer a nail in the coffin.” is the current issue for a few more days — vampires, skeletons, ghosts, haunted houses, and the undead:
Assignment: TPK: Design a game where the players are already dead.
The dangerous dead: Exploring the historical and archaeological roots of killing the dead, including D6 Revenant Prevention Methods.
Bosman’s typology of player death: A model for the death of a player’s character in tabletop and video games.
Markov chains for restless spirits: Creating mechanisms with memory for escalating ghost attacks.
Vampires & secret societies: A selection of vampires and the esoteric orders associated with them.
Haunted houses of insufferable gloom: Read about one of the earliest ghost stories written by Pliny the Younger, and generate a haunted building with bleak walls and vacant eye-like windows.
Vampire mechanisms in Blood Borg: Five thematically-integrated mechanisms for gutter punk bloodsuckers, including an interview with creator Adam Vass.
Diceless skeletons destined to lose: Exploring narrative design vs. resolution mechanisms in The Skeletons.
A place for all my corpses: Operate a cemetery, bury the dead, and make money. A fully playable game that is “incomplete by design” with exercises to improve it.
And this issue comes with a printed Blood Chapter bookmark.
The next issue is set to be published in June 2026, which is just a few days away. Once published, Issue 07 “Slay the dragon.” will be the default starting issue for new subscriptions. It includes a dragon generator and two playable games, one of which is about passive-aggressive dragon roommates.
Tumulus back issues
You’ll still be able to get Issue 06, but only as a limited quantity back issue after June 1, 2026. In general, when those are sold out, they are gone.1
Subscribing saves you over 30% on the cost of each issue.
Choose your four issues
When you subscribe, be sure to select the four issues that you want to include with your subscription. This is especially important when renewing to avoid getting duplicates.
- E.P. 💀
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Although there might be a reprint of Issue 01 “Do not trust robots.” in the works due to small initial print run and popular demand.
NOTE: The original message had an error and called "Hammer a nail in the coffin" Issue 7. It's actually Issue 6. It's been corrected.
Bit of a long shot, but is there likely to be a way to grab some back issues of Tumulus at this weekend's UK Games Expo?