Chris Bissette

I'm an award-winning writer and musician from the UK. My solo journaling game The Wretched was one of Tabletop Gaming Magazine's 'Best Games of 2020', spawning hundreds of new games based on its Wretched & Alone engine.
I love narrative and storytelling and thrive when given the opportunity to present players with new and surprising ways to create memorable emergent play, whether that’s through adventure writing, monster stat blocks, or creating new systems for wholly unique experiences.
Email me today and let's talk about what I can bring to your project!

• Email me

• Twitter
• Email
• Itch.io

"The road into Steyside crosses a bridge over a slow-moving river that’s more like a thick, muddy ditch than an actual waterway. A narrow crack in the riverbank opens
into caves that local children explore from time to time. Recently, travelers have complained of a foul smell wafting up from the opening and strange tracks in the mud. Now a merchant caravan has vanished, and one word sits heavy on the lips of the townsfolk - trolls.
The villagers drew lots, and your motley crew has been selected to head into the caves and save anybody they can. It’s time to do what all good villagers do in a crisis - grab pitchforks, form a mob, and put the monsters to the blade."

"Whenever the adventure calls for a random encounter, or when the party stops to rest inside the caves or lingers in one spot for an extended period of time, roll a d10 or choose one of the encounters below:
1. A crude painting covers the walls - a tentacled creature tearing the sun from the sky. Characters who inspect it must succeed on a DC 12 Wisdom saving throw or take 1d6 psychic damage as they are gripped with visions of a dying world.
2. The air is filled with a low buzzing that echoes around the characters, with no discernible source.
3. The ground is coated in thick, hot feces.
4. A low rumble shakes the caves and chunks of rock fall on the characters. Each character must succeed on a DC 10 Dexterity saving throw or take 1d6 bludgeoning
damage.
5. The sticky, stinking substance in the entrance passage (area 2) that touched the characters’ skin begins glowing softly. All characters still coated in it must succeed on a DC 12 Constitution saving throw or become poisoned for the next 10 minutes.

Hacking the terminal in the security booth reveals1. the unit belongs to Odratek, a shady arm of Fideistic Transformation tasked with expanding the singularity into physical space.
2. video footage of you, carrying out this same job a month ago.
3. access codes and plans to a warehouse in Mosscroft, complete live feeds from the RCDs of key security personnel.
4. detailed notes about your planning meetings for this heist, time stamps of your entry to the building, and a live map showing approaching SecOp drones.
5. a window spewing endless lines of ancient script, a glimpse into a deep part of the Old Internet that the New hasn't managed to swallow yet.
6. details of a known breach in the Wall, an influx point for daemons and... other things.

Eva Stamps, a bus driver and contestant.
Shaved head. Purple lipstick. Multiple piercings in each ear and one eyebrow. A solid black bar tattooed on her upper bicep - presumably covering an older, unwanted tattoo. When Eva isn’t driving the number 53 Faversham Circular, she’s knitting, visiting the old folks at the nursing home, and cooking up sweet treats in her kitchen. She knows nearly everyone, because nearly everyone gets on her bus at some point during the day, and she has nary a bad word to say about anyone.
Quote: “Some people look at me and get a bit intimidated I think, but I’m just a big friendly bear when you get to know me. Seeing people laugh and smile is what gets me through the day, and I try to bring a bit of that to everyone I meet.”

Niduk’s Banquet
Scent of fresh blood. Crumbling masonry.
• Collapsed roof - the floor of a buried building above has fallen into thesewers. It slopes at a steep angle.
• Rotten, broken furniture in a pile at the base of the slope.
• Scattered corpses, some fresh, some less so. All have been torn apart and chewed on.
• Niduk is here, feasting on something that was once a goblin.
Search the broken furniture, D4:
1. A black marble. It soaks up blood from fresh corpses. If smashed
it reanimates those who it has ingested.
2. A brass key nearly a foot long. One of the teeth has broken and is
nowhere to be seen.
3. A long piece of wood banded with metal and spiked with rusted
nails. (D8, 25% chance wounds from the nails become infected)
4. A goblin’s arm, animate and violent.
HP 2 Morale - Ropy skin -d2 Claws d2
Special: Small and fast, attacks and defense are DR14. If it hurts you it
will pass on the goblin curse.
Niduk the Ravenous: If you have hurt him already, he remembers. Does not like fighting in the sewers - will make every attempt to return to his chapel and his treasures.

Treasures Of The Troll King
An adventure for Mörk Borg, successfully Kickstarted in 2021 with 1,126 backers. I handled the writing, layout, and majority of the art (two pieces were provided by Johan Nohr), and created the Kickstarter trailer video.
"Someone told me that this one didn’t suck. They were right. [...] It delivers hit after hit, creative elements and interesting situations of diverse scope." - Bryce Lynch, Ten Foot Pole.

The Wretched
A solo journaling game of space horror played with a microphone and a tumbling block tower. Hugely influential, this game spawned hundreds of new games based on its Wretched & Alone engine and made multiple year-end lists including Shut Up & Sit Down and Tabletop Gaming Magazine.
"The Wretched characterized the hope that we might make it to 2021 and beyond." - Chase Carter, Dicebreaker.
"You remember that scene at the end of Alien where Ripley blasts the xenomorph out into space? The Wretched is what comes after that and it’s atmospheric, frightening, and downright brilliant." - Anna Blackwell, Tabletop Gaming Magazine.

Reivdene-Upon-The-Moss
A folk/religious horror adventure written for B/X, Mörk Borg, and 5th edition D&D, released in daily instalments throughout December 2021. The challenge of this project was to split it into chunks that were a satisfying standalone read while also building into a coherent adventure, unveiling the mystery at the heart of Reivdene to customers as the month went on while still giving them enough material to be able to run the adventure without waiting for the entire release cycle to be complete.
"My phone warned me it was out of battery but I couldn’t stop reading. Chris does an amazing job taking some familiar tropes and adding a flavor to make everything feel cohesive. This ability to leverage the familiar is a fantastic way to keep your players engaged. [...] I cannot wait to put this in front of my players!" - Customer Review.

A Dungeon Game
A lightweight OSR dungeon game about decentering violence and solving problems through cunning and creativity.
"a dungeon game essentially takes the dungeon-crawling sword and sorcery gameplay of classic DnD and boils it down to its purest, most intuitive form." - Coleman Gailloreto, ScreenRant
"Somewhere between an OSR parody of D&D as roleplay default and an earnest attempt to show how paper-thin the walls of the hobby monolith can sometimes be." - Chase Carter, Dicebreaker, on the 1st edition.

When Summer Dies.
The first part of a promotional campaign for an adventure release at the end of 2022. I shot the footage, composed the music, performed the voice acting, and edited the trailer.

Lord Of Chains.
JVC Parry comissioned me to create a trailer for his Kickstarter campaign for Lord Of Chains. This involved editing a piece of music from the band Wormwitch to the right time and working with pre-existing assets to convey the tone and themes of the adventure.

Unquiet Dark.
A Kickstarter trailer for Unquiet Dark, a game of eldritch horror and mystery in the jazz era. I used art assets provided by Ignacio Santander-Alfonso, writing the music myself.

Treasures Of The Troll King.
A trailer for the Kickstarter campaign for my adventure Treasures Of The Troll King. The only element in this trailer not created/performed by me is the cover art and art of Niduk, the Troll King, which were created by Johan Nohr.

The Hunted.
A teaser for the pre-order campaign for my folk horror storytelling game The Hunted. Due to a lack of internal art I made heavy use of stock video footage, replicating the feel of a movie trailer. I recorded a slowed-down cinematic cover of a pop song ('Monster' by The Automatic) and performed the voice acting as well as creating the video itself.

The Wretched.
A trailer video for the crowdfunding campaign for the reprint of The Wretched. I used stock art elements and my own soundtrack, plus a voiceover from an Actual Play provided by Alex Clippinger.