Tales from The Floating Vagabond

HalfSparkle led the team that published the long-awaited second edition of the classic drinking-themed comedy roleplaying game by Lee Garvin.
Core Book & GM Screen
HalfSparkle singlehandedly laid out 150 pages of text, art into a full-color core book, then adapted the most-used tables for a GM screen.
Page Layout & Character Sheet
HalfSparkle hand-illustrated the visual elements of the character sheet as part of the game's gritty, nostalgic brand.
Promotional Website
Building this site led to experimenting with timing animated web content to the rhythm of a joke.
Game World Logos
The game features many tongue-in-cheek unions, for which HalfSparkle designed many logos.

The Delivery:

Master gamesmith Lee Garvin created Tales from The Floating Vagabond in the early 90’s, and the ludicrous genre-mashing roleplaying game centered around a space bar in an asteroid field became a cult classic. I fell in love with it at the Experimental Role-Playing Laboratory, a mini-convention I founded in 2002 at Carleton College.

When I met Lee two years later, we hit it off like a buddy comedy: the cynical veteran writer and the wet-behind-the-ears artist looking to make her mark. Lee graciously took a chance on me and we enjoyed collaborating on his games for fifteen years.

In 2013, Kickstarter enabled Lee to raise money for a second edition of the game. Unfortunately, he became ill shortly after the campaign’s conclusion and never fully recovered. Medical bills devoured the funds and Lee died suddenly in 2019.

Four of his friends, myself and three writers, managed to recover some of his files and set out to finish the game for him. We spent thousands of hours writing, editing, designing, debating, coordinating, and learning more than we ever anticipated. In 2023, we finally published the digital edition of Tales from The Floating Vagabond on DriveThruRPG, followed by the print edition in 2025.

Completing my friend’s vision was exhilarating, frustrating, bittersweet, and one of the greatest privileges of my life. I love being the art director for Vagabond so much I rebrandedHalfSparkle to offer my services to others like Lee: the writers, game designers, and creative people who enrich our world.