Modrons, Mephits & Mayhem
by Tim Bannock
Tim Bannock is the author of Modrons, Mephits & Mayhem, an original adventure written for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. Level 5–8 characters will have the chance to explore what they think is an abandoned research facility, not knowing that danger and excitement awaits within. Bannock is the author of many DMsGuild titles. Read below to learn about his inspiration and writing process.
What inspired this adventure?
Modrons, Mephits & Mayhem was inspired by three things: my love of the Myst series of video games, my love of Planescape, and my way of developing adventures, which is simply to work off of a list of my “little-used” monsters and figuring out a way to make use of them in a scenario.
Modrons, githzerai, and several elemental creatures were on that list, so then I just expanded elementals to include mephits and couatls and a few other guardian creatures, and then I had to include a dragon. Because this is Dungeons & Dragons, so all of my adventures will include a dragon in some way, shape or form.
What is your writing process?
I write…somewhat haphazardly, for the rough draft. I’ll take some general notes on the creatures, develop some relationships, and then just start writing, stream of conscious. This forms my rough draft, and is almost without exception a combination of a notebook I write in and Google Docs. The docs then get fleshed out into a second draft after I’ve decided on how to turn the order of events, locations, and all that into chapters.
Once it’s done there, I use that for any playtesting (I have two groups, one of which is a non-continuous campaign, so I’m free to just insert and run whatever I want). Then an editor (and potentially a layout artist, depending on the product) gets me to the final draft, which is done my Word templates for layout purposes. I’m trying to learn InDesign so I can get out of using Word, because that’s a terrible habit, but I do this all for fun, so the investment of learning InDesign is going slowly.
Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?
Aspiring writers need to write, and they need to finish a work. Which might mean that the thing doesn’t feel finished, and maybe someday will be revisited, but the point is if you just write snippets here and there, or you endlessly rewrite a thing but never put it before an editor or — better yet — the public, then you’re not a writer, in my opinion. That’s someone doing a hobby. A writer has deadlines, even if they are self-made deadlines. A writer receives and works with feedback, whether from an editor or from readers or preferably both plus playtesters, layout artists, and more.
Aspiring writers need to write, and they need to finish a work.
So: write. Finish something. Even if the world seems to hate it, keep doing it as long as you enjoy it, because there’s somebody out there that might want it. As I primary example, I’ve gotten some fairly negative feedback about a couple of my earliest releases, but I still got hundreds (and in one case, thousands) of downloads. Those silent masses appear to like or even love the work, because they’re still marketing it for me and telling people about it. The negative feedback helped me improve the products; it did not knock me out of the game, or slow me down.
Where can people learn more about you and your work?
My website is neuronphaser.com and is full of advice, resources, a few reviews, and so on. It’s mostly D&D, but there’s some other RPGs in there. Which is a great segue for my other big project: the Cortex system, formerly known as Cortex Plus and Cortex Classic, but now (soon to be launched) Cortex Prime.
I have a setting/rules hack for that called Head Shot that’s all about the zombie apocalypse, and I’m writing two more hacks, one that will be super cool, and one that will be dark and dramatic! They are available at DriveThruRPG through the Cortex Plus Creator Studio program run by Magic Vacuum Design Studio in conjunction with Margaret Weis Productions.
Get Modrons, Mephits & Mayhem on DMsGuild.com.
