All Work and No D&D Makes Homer Something Something

I have a problem. I haven't played an RPG in about a year.

Circumstances in my life are such that I have precious little free time. Now that I've written one book of RPG material, the hook is in me to write more. I find it incredibly rewarding. But it is a much slower process than developing material for a personal game. Using my free time to write has cannibalized my ability prep and play. I assume this problem is not unique to me.

So right now, larger projects are not working for me. The scope I have in mind for the next Brechewold book is beyond my capacity especially.

Here is my new grand plan:

• I've been working on a much shorter adventure. For now, let's call it Death Rides the Black Rain.
• This will be the first in a series of short adventures re-imagining my Malara setting in a more sci-fantasy vein.
• I will release these on DriveThruRPG, with versions for Knave and LotFP. My goal right now is to do six over the next three years. We'll see how that works out.
• Once all six (or whatever seems good to me in the future) are out, I will crowdfund or find a publisher for a fancy anthology. It will include a seventh adventure and whatever additional material feels right to make the book the definitive statement of this setting.
• Hopefully I will be able to work on The Red Ledger of Brechewold in the background during this process and launch into it wholeheartedly afterwards with some momentum behind me.

I hope this means I will get to play far more often and that these shorter projects will develop my skills to meet the challenge of Red Ledger.

Here's the intro to Death Rides:

In d8+6 days comes the monsoon.

This is the vital fact. It consumes the thoughts and toils of all who prepare for it. For the monsoon in the jungles of Krok brings toxic rain, and everyone knows that under its cover, they come.

They haunt the thunderheads. Beings beyond life and death, they are sustained by the poison rain on their skin and the blood of the living. These vampyr have blighted the jungles since the monsoons turned toxic in ages unremembered by men. Until the skies clear, the inhabitants seek refuge under the dome city of Jaar.

The dome was not built by men. It was built by the mighty langur-men when their kingdom spanned Krok. After they died out, the humans moved in, and the city-state of Jaar came to be ruled by a dynastic royal clan. But after the death of the previous monarch left a boy prince on the throne, a military junta led by Colonel Arça Uto stepped in to act as “regent” - a coup d’etat in all but name. 

The Colonel has grown more paranoid with each passing monsoon season, now focusing on the defense of the city against the vampyr to the exclusion of all else. This has allowed the Glaziers’ Guild, always a powerful force in a city that depends upon its glass dome for survival, to run roughshod over the rest of the citizens, extorting them dearly.

Into this hothouse, enter three things: an ancient message deciphered by necromancers, a pox-scarred agent of collapse, and the party.