One Room One Shots - Preorders

September 2026 Update - Creating An Encounter
28 days ago – Sat, Sep 05, 2026 at 08:17:58 AM

Hello everyone, welcome to our September update! 

This month Matt is going to discuss how he works on his encounters, discussing the inspiration for the One Hour Encounter we unlocked during the Kickstarter - The Barrow Smith. 

We have continued the usual writing, play-testing and editing in the background, with some exciting new art pieces getting started that we can't wait to share when ready.

Creating A One Hour Encounter 

One Hour Encounters are a little different to design than the encounters in regular adventures, even though they may share all the same gameplay elements and play-time. 

One of the first things that really helps with the structure is picking a suitable location. A good location fits with the story in a way that will guide players on the path you want them to take, without the need for volumes of description, and also helps inspire ideas for running the session without extra guidance. 

The Barrow Smith is based on a historic site that is twenty minutes from where I live, a place called Wayland’s Smithy. This neolithic barrow was constructed over 5000 years ago, and can be freely explored today if you happen to be passing by! The whole site is very atmospheric, and would have been considered old, even in medieval times.

These photos are from the English Heritage webpage for the site, and if you are passing through Oxfordshire I highly recommend checking it out! 

The story goes that this was the home of Wayland, a Saxon god linked to metal working and smithing. Inspired by this, I liked the idea that this barrow would be where local smiths would be buried, to continue to work with their god when their spirit has moved on. 

The Barrow Smith provides a thematic story for your party to acquire a magical item, dealing with a cursed spirit and the fey who make the barrow their home. When researching for the Haunting of Stump-Tree Tavern, I read several local legends about grave sites and barrows, and found that they were often linked not just to sprits, but also fairies - such as in The Fairies of Hackpen Hill. So now we have a cursed spirit haunting the barrow, and fey creatures who nest there and have been disturbed by the spirit, acting as the primary antagonists to the players. 

With a location, an NPC to interact with and help, fey creatures to fight and a story that is contained, yet dramatic, I then make sure that there are several opportunities for skill based moments beyond combat to take place. In this encounter, that is helping the sprit of the smith forge one last item, heating his forge and collecting the materials required. A great way of judging if an encounter will work within a short space of time is looking to video games with dynamic gameplay events, such as Destiny 2 (RIP) or Diablo 4. As you explore, you find an event that can support any number of players, they usually include some dialogue and a task to complete besides just fighting waves of enemies, and while the One Hour Encounters provide more role-playing and narrative moments, if they could work as one of these types of in-game moments as well, then you've got a solid short encounter!

Play-testing is tricky, as I have to play with multiple group sizes and also different kinds of players, to gauge how well I've timed the encounter and if it provides enough entertainment and challenge. The first play-tests for The Barrow Smith clocked in at one hour and six minutes, a great success in my opinion! I can then move on to fine tuning the elements, moving interactions about or condensing them into one thing - less is more as my old lecturer would often tell us. 

As mentioned, this encounter will tie directly into our 2nd level adventure, Haunting of Stump-Tree Tavern. While the curse mentioned in the encounter can be tailored to whatever you need, it is written about a smith who once forged weapons used to harm nature, which gave birth to whatever now terrorises the people trapped in the tavern. 

A  Little Preview 

We plan to share more on the Haunting of Stump-Tree Tavern next month (just in time for the spooky season!), but for now here is a tease of our brand new cover art for this adventure, so look forward to the full reveal soon! 

I'm sure nothing bad is happening at this tavern...

Stay safe and be kind everyone! 

August 2026 Update - A Deep, Deep Dive...
2 months ago – Mon, Aug 03, 2026 at 11:04:34 PM

Hello everyone! 

For this month's update, Alex is going to take you on a deep dive into how he manages the art development of the project, as well as revealing our previously teased illustration for the Hydra of the Deep.

We are also excited to say that relevant backers will be receiving a notification from BackerKit very soon with a download of the Temple of the Forgotten Depths play-test! 

Temple of the Forgotten Depths was the first adventure created for One Room One Shots, and is aimed at a party of level 5 characters. It's a big adventure in a unique location, with some wonderful mythological creatures and an epic boss battle to wrap it all up. 

We are excited to share this play-test with backers of All-In and above, and look forward to reading your thoughts and feedback on this adventure - it's quite different from Tomb of Grief! 

But now, over to you Alex...

Art Development on One Room One Shots

Hello! Alex here. We've met before, as I mostly write or edit these updates! However, when I'm not updating you on our current ongoings, or editing Matt's monotonous lists into a coherent (and interesting!) update, I'm also the Art Director for No Short Rests! So, it's time to remove my editor's cap and place upon ma tête la béret of Art Direction, we can dive right in...

The Hydra of the Deep

The Hydra of the Deep is our boss monster for Temple of the Forgotten Depths, and was designed way back when Matt was first attempting this venture solo.

The original concept art was done by Harvey Passfield, who also worked on the Coral Abomination and Drowned Ones, and he did a fantastic job at capturing a really unique creature. Unfortunately, Harvey had to leave the project early on and we never got to work together, but we knew we really wanted to keep the spirit of his ideas when developing it further. 

As with many self funded projects, cost is always a rather large hurdle to overcome, so we've had to go about the design process of our initial adventures a bit arse about face (to use a British idiom). Where we would normally develop this concept much further before going into illustrations, we really had to prioritise art that would actually sell our adventures first and foremost.

I contacted the fantastic Martin Mottet about producing an illustration for our adventure where we wanted to capture a 'moment in time' of the Hydra about to burst forth upon a group of unsuspecting adventurers. So, what does that look like I hear you ask? Well, in this instance, it starts with a brief.

I try to be as specific as possible with the brief where needed. For this illustration, we already knew what the temple would look like in terms of layout, thanks to the battle map design. We also had Harvey's concept art and Matt's adventure descriptions. Having said that, I also like to give artists as much space to add their own vision, so whilst I provide a lot of reference, I won't always hold super close to it if it begins to interfere with the image.

As you'll see, for this brief I provided some thumbnail sketches to Martin to get an idea of the kind of tone or action we were looking for. These aren't always necessary, as you'll see later, but for cover images (or as this was very early in development at the time, a double page spread) they really help us focus on what is important. We tend to discuss the type of image we want between Matt, Gareth and I before we engage with an artist. When we have an idea of what we're looking for, I'll do a few sketches and then find the right artist for the job.

In regards to the Hydra for this image, we knew we wanted it to still remain fairly obscured, not giving too much away. I wanted Martin to hint at the size of the beast, but we didn't really have the funds to figure out all of the details of it's full form yet - plus it wasn't important for this illustration either as we were going for a specific narrative feel. 

I won't go into too much detail about the back and forth between the artist and I for this illustration, as we can go into that for our next image, but you can certainly see the development from these initial images and the final, gorgeous work from Martin.

And here we are, post Kickstarter where Martin's incredible work, along with many of our other artists, allowed us to reach the funds we need to do things a little more properly!

Which means we can now finally design the Hydra's full form! Every good D&D manual needs a nice boss illustration, and our books are no different. Whilst we want to include as many beautiful narrative illustrations as we can, we also want to make sure that we have gorgeous artwork of the enemies and allies as well.

For this, I reached out to Israel Botelho, a fantastic creature artist and who's work had already inspired the type of image I wanted for our book.

Once again, I supplied a brief with our references for how the Hydra has appeared in the book so far. However, this time I also included an example of how the page layout will look, along with a placeholder of a previous piece of Israel's art to give him an idea of how I want the page to flow.

Israel came back with some really cool and unique ideas for how the Hydra could look, along with in-depth descriptions of his thoughts. It's always great to work with artists that get fired up about the briefs we provide, and we've been very fortunate that all of ours have shown the same level of passion for what we're working on.

We bounced back and forth a bit, to make sure we were both on the same page and had a direction we liked, then he came back with his first round of sketches.

Above, you can see the initial ideas and Israel's thoughts and explanations, below, you'll see my paint over for the direction we liked best. Paint overs are the easiest way for me to communicate ideas and changes to the artist, without a constant back and forth of text and interpretation. Here, I loved the flowing, sinuous design that felt primordial, yet still eel-like. I wanted to connect the heads to the body a bit more visually, so I suggested the inclusion of long tendrils seen on deep sea angler fish. I also wanted to add a long dorsal fin that ran along its back to give it some more thickness (so thicc...) to really sell its biology as being specific to the sea. I want it to look like it could survive on land, but not for long.

One of Israel's additions that I really liked, were the primordial limbs, harkening back to the classic image of a hydra, yet specialised for a totally different environment. This is obviously different to Martin's design, where if you look closely, he gave the Hydra plesiosaur-like flippers. This is a good example of not being precious over design. Martin's image is narrative, and works to provide viewers with a tone of the adventure. It doesn't have to be perfect and I think of these illustrations as being more like a player's 'minds eye' type image. This is how it should feel to play our adventure. Israel's art on the other hand should feel more like a bestiary image. This is what the Hydra looks like, a snapshot of it in its element.

Of course, from here, Israel worked up that design into a finalised sketch, which after a few minor amends, lead us to this...

This fantastic artwork now takes its rightful place next to the stat-block for the Hydra of the Deep, spread across two pages in all its monstrous glory. 

I hope you've enjoyed this peek behind the curtain, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the Hydra itself in our play-test adventure! If you have any questions about the Art Direction process, please ask below and I'll try to answer as best I can! 

Until next time!

July 2026 Update - it's HOT!
3 months ago – Tue, Jul 14, 2026 at 08:28:01 AM

It's very hot...

Hello everyone, we hope you are all doing well and - for those like us in the UK - have managed to survive the scorching weather we’re having 

Play-Test Feedback & Changes 

Following the play-test and UKGE, we’ve started to get feedback on the play-test which has all been really positive to read! 

Some of the recurring themes: people love the background lore to Tomb of Grief, groups are able to run the adventures within our estimated time and enjoy how easy it is to run the adventure direct from the book thanks to the layout. So, golf clap for Alex - huzzah!

"Within 4hrs! Which is a first for me and a one shot!" 

- A Very Happy Camper (Hamilton) 

What this feedback has allowed us to do is really start fine-tuning the adventure, going through with a fine-tooth comb and picking out those little things that work, but could be improved. For example, we’ve realised that we use multiple amulets providing very similar effects within Tomb of Grief. We'll be changing one of those items to a ring, as well as altering the items stats to provide more interesting and unique benefits (or detriments!), and changing the location it can be found to make more narrative sense.  

This may seem like a minor thing, but changes like this help us look at our other adventures for similar occurrences and ensures that these main adventures are as streamlined an experience as possible! 

Beyond the Tomb of Grief play-test, Matt has been focusing on internal play-test and rewrites for the different encounters that take place during the Flayed Performer. These are, on average, clocking in at around 30 minutes each; which considering the variety of encounter (and all the chaos the players inevitably cause!) is a really great achievement. (Matt clearly wants his own golf clap here...)

New Artwork! 

This is the really exciting part of the process, and something we love sharing, but as with all of our illustrations it takes time to produce these high quality pieces. We do have a lot currently in the works, but we wanted to share a tease for one particular new piece that we're very excited about!

Right at the top of our list for must-have new artwork following the Kickstarter, was a full creature illustration for the epic Hydra of the Deep. This giant monster has been featured in several illustrations already, but never fully revealed. We can't wait to be able to share this stunning beast in all its glory, illustrated by the incredibly talented Israel Botelho. 

Next update, we'll take a deep dive into art development, and a new digital play-test surfaces as the Temple of the Forgotten Depths nears release to relevant backers! 
 

UKGE Battle Report
4 months ago – Tue, Jun 09, 2026 at 09:34:30 AM

Post UK Games Expo

As we have only ever attended UKGE for a single day previously, it was a little daunting getting to be an exhibitor for the entire weekend! 

We arrived Thursday to setup our stand, constantly changing our layout (and getting to experience the emptiness of the halls before the doors open), before attending the UKGE press show. From then on, it was non-stop all weekend - talking about the project, making new friends and seeing old ones. 

We won’t go into the full details here - unless you would like an in-depth analysis of what we did, how it went and what we would do differently next time (sound off in the comments if that update interests you!) - but needless to say, it was an amazing weekend and we achieved everything we hoped and more. 

It was also amazing to meet some of you lovely backers in person - including our very first backer on kickstarter, as well as a few surprise backers from people within the industry whom we admire greatly. It was also very beneficial (mostly for Matt!) that having a stand meant we were restricted in how much we could go and spend while in attendance. 

We also discovered the perfect icebreaker to connect with other companies and stands by doing a walk around with our replica of Grief’s End, the Red King's sword, letting people pose for photos and finding out more about the different businesses in the process. It was very entertaining seeing people start to immediately execute each other, or knight one another. Probably a lot to unpack there…

There are so many people want to call out from the weekend, so here are a few that really helped make our first UKGE a success:

Band of Badgers - the Badgers were the first group outside of our friends and family to really support and encourage No Short Rests! on the path to publishing, so it is always a pleasure to see  them at any event. 

Midnight Tower - producing some truly wonderful campaigns with beautiful illustrations, they have been an amazing source of advice and encouragement and we really don’t get to see them enough! 

Elliott from Inkblade Publishing - on a similar journey as us, Elliott is working on the fantastic Gothica: Plagueworlds 5e source book and was in attendance to say hello as he takes a well deserved break from writing. 

Our neighbours in hall 4 Dungeons & Dyslexia - always a pleasure to chat to Adrian, he was in attendance supporting and selling books form independent publishers unable to attend or get a stand of their own, and he did an amazing breakdown of his own experience with UKGE on his YouTube channel. 

We definitely feel like we all levelled up the past weekend, and having these in-person moments with the community really highlights why we decided to start this journey in the first place.

We've added a full gallery of our favourite pictures on our Discord if you'd like to check them out!

Adventures Ahoy!: Temple of the Forgotten Depths is now live on Youtube!

Part two of D&D on a Boat is now live on our YouTube channel, so do check it out as it was an absolutely hilarious adventure with a wonderful cast. We are working on making some shorts of our favourite moments, but as with all things this takes time. 

Having two of our adventures recorded has been a great way of showing that what we are working towards, epic adventures in a single session (to quote our marketing), is very achievable, and proof that any kind of group is able to take our books and run with them.

Tomb of Grief Play-test 

The Tomb of Grief play-test is in full swing, and we’ve already started to receive the first bits of feedback. Everything has been amazingly positive so far, and we plan to share a more in-depth insight into the comments received, and what changes we may make, in future updates. 

So keep the feedback coming and don't forget to check out our Discord channel if you'd like to discuss the play-test both with each other, and us personally.

And remember, keep those blades sharp adventurers, as there'll be plenty more fish in the sea with our next update!


 

No Short Rests! For the Dead - 10% Discount Code
4 months ago – Mon, May 25, 2026 at 09:39:02 AM

This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.