The Speaking Squid

Thank you for your support.

Be excellent to everyone.

-Ceph

Sunday, April 26, 2026

The Minish Cap: A little clock with a big personality

A little clock with a big personality

Compass: Link can find a compass in each dungeon in The Minish Cap. Like most Zelda games, the compass shows where treasure and bosses are located within the dungeon where the compass was found. Finding the compass is usually the reward for solving a puzzle or succeeding in a difficult combat encounter.

The story goes that this clock is from the estate of a noble who died while under a witch’s curse. Apparently, the noble was cursed with a beastly form, but the servants were all transformed into furniture and housewares, ever bound to the fate of their master. This clock is probably just a regular clock, but it does seem to linger on 3:41 and 8:18 when the hands seem to make a mustache on the clock’s face.

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The first time shows a mustache, why do you think I picked the second time I did?

As I write this I am almost done with the line art for the items from Twilight Princess. That set of drawings has taken me more than two years and I am so close to being done I can actually sense progress. I’ll still have to color all the drawings, but we are almost through and that is an amazing feeling.

How to support me:

Thank you for your support.

Be excellent to everyone.

-Ceph

Sunday, April 19, 2026

The Minish Cap: Our last piece of bread

Our last piece of bread

Brioche: These tasty loaves can be purchased at the bakery and heal a single heart when eaten. Some of the loaves are baked with a surprised kinstone piece inside, which means you should hew with care until you are sure if there is a friendly rock in your food or not.

I know this is our last piece of bread, but we need to know the way back to the edge of the forest so we can find our way home once we find the snipe nest dad sent us after. He said that us going after the snipe nest will solve all of our families' money issues so it’s bound to be worth a lot. Maybe we can ask whoever lives in that strange looking hut in the clearing up ahead.

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My vast collection of item cards includes a lot of these odd ones that people always ask, “why would anyone need that?” I love randomly picking some item cards to spice up loot drops in my games and getting one of these weird ones. Sometimes I have a great idea, sometimes my players have a great idea, and sometimes it just get stowed in their shared loot for so long that I come up with a “the vault has ants” plot because they stored a crumbling slice of bread.

How to support me:

Thank you for your support.

Be excellent to everyone.

-Ceph

Thursday, April 16, 2026

Zine: You owe me an apology

You owe me an apology

I made this zine to process my feelings around a really negative set of experiences I had with someone.

Feel free to copy, distribute, share, remix, etc. as you’d like.

The Ko-Fi link is pay what you want, so you can download a printable pdf or png for free.

I ruminate with my feelings if I don’t talk about them, journal, or externally process in some way. This zine is the culmination of talking, journaling, and doomscrolling through those big feelings.

Releasing this zine into the world is a sort of exorcism to facilitate moving forward from the harm.

I’m not open to the questions about what happened or with whom.

Check out my socials for more zines and a bunch of item cards that are nothing at all like this.

How to support me:

https://pdimagearchive.org/images/124bc9e3-b4a6-4cab-bf61-14aca0d35152/

Thank you for your support.

Be excellent to everyone.

-Ceph

Made in Photoshop and Procreate.

All background images are from the public domain as linked below.

Cover:

Mori Yūzan - 1903 - Hamonshu

Page 1:

“She is under an evil enchantment and I am delivering her!” - Jay Van Everen - 1922

https://pdimagearchive.org/images/f46cb444-093c-4d2e-9e35-d03f387572d9/

From

Mighty Mikko: A Book of Finnish Fairy Tales and Folk Tales

Page 2:

Villa Mondragone with plans of the pleasure garden. - Georg Andreas Böckler - 1664 - Architectura Curiosa Nova

https://pdimagearchive.org/images/e5465c78-b678-4c5b-8f15-04e558000a19/

Page 3:

Young Shoots of Horse–Chestnut - Karl Blossfeldt - 1928 - Urformen der Kunst

https://pdimagearchive.org/images/625d36b1-a57c-4acc-a8b4-ba1e168542a5/

Page 4:

Crystallized Carbonite of Lime, lenticular-equiaxed (Calx carbonata) - James Sowerby - 1802–17 - British Mineralogy

https://pdimagearchive.org/images/87dd8451-b4b0-4d75-92ec-8b00f6139734/

Page 5:

The Path to the Moon - W. T. Horton - 1898 - A Book of Images

https://pdimagearchive.org/images/e3f4a917-6de6-40f2-816d-ab0e3c35e9bb/

Page 6:

Illustrative plate from Nehemiah Grew’s The Anatomy of Plants (1682). - Nehemiah Grew - 1682 - The Anatomy of Plants

https://pdimagearchive.org/images/2ff14ca8-9fb0-431c-9970-bc917a0265ae/

Back and general background:

Plate 5 - Francis Bertody Sumner - 1911 - Journal of Experimental Zoology

https://pdimagearchive.org/images/2380f44b-5f47-4f24-a2fe-63a84c045801/

Sunday, April 12, 2026

The Minish Cap: A dragon’s fang

A dragon’s fang

Bomb Bag: Link must have a bomb bag if he can safely carry the explosives needed to clear cracked rocks from his path. Link is given his first bomb bag by a Picori after he successfully delves into the first dungeon of The Minish Cap, the Deepwood Shrine.

This dragon tooth was pulled from the melted armor of a would-be dragon slayer. While the adventurer’s corpse is long dead, the tooth remains hot to the touch, imbued with a mote of the immortal dragon flame. Now that you have the errant tooth, you must safely escape the ashen wasteland without earning the dragon’s ire.

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How to support me:

Thank you for your support.

Be excellent to everyone.

-Ceph

Sunday, April 5, 2026

The Minish Cap: A tragic wishing well

A tragic wishing well

Blue Rupee: This lustrous blue rupee is worth 500% the value of its simple green cousins. Five rupees can’t get you much, but they quickly add up for Link during his travels since he finds them in grass, dirt, rocks, chests, rewards, and gifts.

This used to be a wishing well that folks from all over would come to and try to sway the whims of fate. One tragic night, a person was drowned in the wells auspicious waters. Ever since that night, the well has been cursed and the surrounding lands haunted by vengeful spirits.

New child adjustment continues. Not a lot of sleep over here. If you want to help, find someone who is going through a difficult transition and offer them help without the expectation of a thank you.

How to support me:

Thank you for your support.

Be excellent to everyone.

-Ceph

Sunday, March 29, 2026

The Minish Cap: An unlucky coin

An unlucky coin

Blue Kinstone: When Link meets people during his travels, some offer the chance to fuse kinstones as a sign of friendship. Fusing kinstones brings two broken pieces of a single stone token back together. Link must have the matching kinstones a person wants to fuse. Fusjg blue kinstones often unlocks a great treasure or reward to aid Link in his adventures.

This coin was minted when the gods walked along the people. This coin was given the face of the fierce protector, who eventually betrayed the people to serve his own ends. Now the coins bear a warning against trusting the duplicitous deity.

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Big ole life changes recently. Got myself a new kiddo and a whole lot less sleep.

How to support me:

Thank you for your support.

Be excellent to everyone.

-Ceph

Sunday, March 22, 2026

The Minish Cap: A hut perched atop a chicken leg

A hut perched atop a chicken leg

Big Wallet: Big wallets are upgrades to the total amount of rupees Link can hold at once during his adventures in the Minish Cap. He can buy one, earn one through kinstone fusion, and is given one as a reward from a Great Fairy. After Link gathers all three, he will be able to carry a total of 999 rupees.

All the people living along the edge of the forest know the story of the witch and her hut that stalks through the woods on a great pair of chicken legs. When the hut settles on a new roost, it settles down onto the ground, hiding its great legs and appearing like an unassuming refugee nestled in the darkness of the deep woods. While the witch is not necessarily evil, she is rarely kind, and her gifts always come with conditions, so it is often wisest to avoid the house entirely if you spot it in your travels.

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If you were to randomly draw this from a loot deck, I’d probably say it was a carved token in the image of the hut or I would say you haven’t found any item, but something or someone has noticed you and then find a way to introduce the baba yaga or another witch or hag into your game.

I love hags as characters and influencers. Ravel Mazewell was one of my favorite parts of Planescape: Torment. I always look for ways to sneak hags and covens and witches into my games and worlds.

Speaking of hags, Kristi Noem did immeasurable harm to families, one very impactful way to help ease some of the suffering she directed is to donate funds to rental assistance programs helping people pay their bills while hiding from the government. You can donate to a community assistance fund supporting neighbors in Minneapolis here.

How to support me:

Thank you for your support.

Be excellent to everyone.

-Ceph

Sunday, March 15, 2026

The Minish Cap: An empty crown for we need no kings

An empty crown for we need no kings

Big Red Rupee: Here it is, the biggest, baddest, most highly valued rupee of them all. This big red rupee is worth 200 rupees and is almost always found as a reward for solving a puzzle or fusing a particularly rare kinstone.

When the Prophet of Amber stormed the capital and seized control of the bureaucracy, they commissioned this crown and declared themself a king. The fearful and foolish believed the prophet, but most of the people recognized the lies for what they were and rose up. By the time the crown was ready to sit on the head of the king, the land had no king, and the prophet had no head.

Thinly veiled allegory.

Support families harmed by ICE pay rent in MN here.

How to support me: