Today we talk to Nick Palmer from Red River. They just published a new TTRPG adventure collection for the 2026 edition of Cypher , The Chaos Uncovered trilogy.
You can follow their games here:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61580832899919
https://www.instagram.com/redriverrpg
Let’s talk with Nick!
Hi, thanks for chatting with us. Let’s get right to your latest TTRPG project; The Chaos Uncovered trilogy of adventures. Can you first describe it for us?
Thanks for having me! Sure, I’d love to…The Chaos Uncovered Saga is a trilogy of urban fantasy adventures for Cypher: The Hands of Chaos, The Eyes of Raja, and Cult of the Rat Lord.
It all starts with the player characters being witnesses to the kidnapping of a beloved local. Following that trail draws the them into competing factions, a dangerous relic, and a growing threat in the sewers beneath the streets of the city. There’s a mixture of investigation, exploration, roleplaying, and combat, with player decisions shaping how things unfold.
The Hands of Chaos is the Tier 1 introduction to the saga. The other two books are each Tier 2 adventures that explore different branches of the fallout from The Hands of Chaos. Unlike most “trilogies”, they run parallel to one another, as opposed to being sequential.
The backdrop of it all is the City With No Name, a gritty fantasy city with enough detail to feel alive, but enough flexibility to fit into a GM’s existing setting.
It’s quite a bit of work! Each book is 50-60 pages. When you began the project, did you know it would be this large a scope?
Absolutely not! When I started, I thought I was only writing one adventure! As The Hands of Chaos developed, characters and factions that initially seemed peripheral developed their own agendas, small mysteries connected to larger ones, and at some point it just felt like the story needed to be fleshed out to a satisfying conclusion.
By the time I finished that first adventure, I had the beginnings of three. The other books grew out of the consequences of the first story and the questions it left open. Then as I found myself waiting for the release of the new edition of Cypher, I started working on the Roll20 versions of the adventures as well. None of that was part of the original plan.
The publishing side also involved a lot to learn: playtesting, artwork, layout, licensing, VTT development, and figuring out how to turn something written for my own table into something another GM could pick up and run.
Is this your first published project? What made you decide to publish your adventures?
Yes it is my first published TTRPG project. I’m a longtime GM, since the late 80’s, and like most GMs I’ve always dreamed of putting my own work out there, but was always intimidated by the process. Today though, with self-publishing easier than ever, I decided to see what would happen if I actually tried to publish the kind of adventures I enjoy running.
The project grew out of a Ptolus campaign that I ran for more than two and a half years. I fell in love with the city, its factions, its conspiracies, and that feeling that the players could turn down almost any alley and find another story.
Initially, I wanted to write an adventure for future Ptolus campaigns, but learning that Ptolus itself wasn’t covered by the open license (Monte Cook Games’ Open License) pushed me toward creating something independent that could also fit into other published fantasy cities, and even other GM’s homebrew settings. That idea became the City With No Name.
The adventures are written for the Monte Cook Games’ Cypher game. How did you decide to use that system for these adventures? Monte Cook Games just released their new version of Cypher (replacing the previous Cypher System) this past August. Did you anticipate writing for the 2026 Cypher when you began writing this project?
Well, I found Cypher through my experience with Ptolus. I bought the 5E and Cypher System bundle of the setting. I had heard of the Cypher System but had never played it and knew very little about it. Once I dug into it, I was immediately drawn to its fast play, flexibility, and how it emphasizes narrative play and player choice. I like how it lets me keep the game moving and respond to what the players decide to do.
That suits these adventures because the characters might investigate, negotiate, sneak into somewhere, or start a fight. They’re dealing with people and factions that have their own motivations, so I wanted room for different approaches and unexpected outcomes.
That being said, I didn’t plan to write the saga for the latest edition of Cypher. It actually wasn’t until I had finished writing them that I ultimately decided to wait and publish for the new edition. It just made more sense to use the latest ruleset, and though I was eager to finish, I think waiting helped push me to put out a better product(s) in the end.
How did you get started in TTRPGs?
I got started in Jr. High when my best friend ended up getting a copy of the old D&D Red Box. We sat down and started reading through it, learning for ourselves on how to play. We started with us just making random tables and filling homemade dungeons with monsters and treasure, then murder hobo’ing them the best we could. It wasn’t until we found others that were playing that we discovered the role-playing side of the game. Our group kept growing over the years and we slowly started expanding our campaigns to other games and genres.
Are you primarily playing and running Cypher? What other games do you like?
As for my home groups, I have a couple. We primarily play through the use of VTTs, just because life has separated us over the years. Most of us cut our teeth on D&D, so we’ve played a ton of that over the years, from 1st to 5th editions. We’re also big fans of settings like Cyberpunk, Deadlands, & Shadowrun. Over the past couple of years, I’ve managed to persuade everyone to try Cypher, which has been a big hit. Right now I’m playing in a Firefly inspired game, using the Cypher rules and also playtesting the various things I’ve been writing, all of which are Cypher-based.
The format of these adventures outlines scenes in a framework, and separates clues and discoveries from the scene set up. It reminds me of Mike Shea (aka Sly Flourish)’ 8 steps of the Lazy Dungeonmaster. Was that an inspiration for the adventure structure?
I would say that it had a little influence, as did the formatting of Cypher Shorts. Mainly, the structure just comes from what I want in front of me when I’m running a game. I want to understand the situation: who the important people are, what they want, what they’re willing to do, and what happens if nobody interferes. Then I want some room to play around with it all.
Separating clues and discoveries from the scene setup makes that information easier to find and use when the players do something unexpected. I want the GM to understand what the characters can learn without having to follow one exact sequence of events.
There’s a framework to support the GM, but there’s room for a minor NPC to become important, an enemy to become an ally, or even a passing detail to turn into an entire session. It’s moments like that, that make running games fun.
Are you going to any game conventions where people might be able to play your games?
As of now, I plan to put together some short form campaigns, using the Chaos Uncovered Saga, here locally and through the Cypher Unlimited discord community. As for conventions, I haven’t made any plans. I guess we’ll see how well the adventures are received and go from there.
What else haven’t we asked you that you’d like our readers to know?
I’d like to recognize the artists whose work helps bring these adventures to life. The books feature human-made artwork from a range of talented artists and illustrators. Their different styles give the city and its inhabitants a lot of character visual identities.
I also want GMs to feel comfortable making these adventures their own. Put the City With No Name into your setting, expand the factions, follow the NPC your players become attached to, and see where it goes. I’d love to hear what happens when other groups play through it. Please feel free to share your experiences with all of us on our facebook page.
Lastly, I guess I just want folks to know that this is just the beginning for Red River RPG. We’ve already started working on a couple of new projects, Order of the Holy Reviled, which I debuted a sample of at this year’s CypherCon. Its also a Cypher-based project set in post–World War I Europe where condemned, cursed, and monstrous people are forced into service by the Church to fight a hidden supernatural war. It explores faith, duty, moral compromise, and whether redemption is possible for people the world has already written off.
I’m also working on P.H.A.D.E. to Black, another Cypher setting, set in a reality twisted future. It’s our own take on a cyberpunk and shadowrun like world.
Both projects give me opportunities to explore different ideas, and I’m looking forward to sharing more as they develop.
For now, I’m just excited to get Chaos Uncovered into people’s hands and hear what happens at their tables. After spending so much time creating these adventures, seeing what other GMs and players do with them is something I’m really looking forward to.
Thanks Nick! It’s great to see people developing for Cypher. If you’d like to do a Q&A here, please send an email to sh**********@***il.com. We’d love to hear anyone’s opinion from new players to grizzled veterans.
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