A Box Inside a Box

I got something very cool in the mail.  I got my storage box from Brave Halfling Publishing.  I got the Mullen version with the purple worm eating someone whole. 

It looks so shiny and cool.  Of course when I got it out of its mailing box I promptly whacked it against the side of my printer.  No dent though.  Whew. 

Can you see the little guy inside the purple worms mouth?  He ain't having a good day.  Bottom right, fighter is high tailing it outta there.  Even lost his sword.  Newb.  Mage is blasting the shit out of it, but they are going right through the worm and look to be getting close to their buddy inside.  Sometimes it doesn't pay to have friends.  Upper left another fighter is strolling behind.  Something tells me he's just going to go through his party's pockets for loose change after this battle.

But what does one do with such a good looking box?  Well you put stuff in it of course.  Let's take a look.

Look at that, it fits two stacks of zines side-by-side perfectly.  Big stack of Loviatar, little stack of Crawl!  Hmm, but I see something else in there.

ZOGORION, Lord of the Hippogriffs!  And what's that.  Oh yeah, my editing copy of the 2nd issue of The Manor.  Hugo looks good in yellow.  Working on the polish tonight.

But all good photographers have assistants.  Tonight Bug volunteered with the lighting and composition of the shots.  Al thought she didn't last very long.

She got sleepy half way through and decided it was time to take a nap.

Good help is hard to find these days.

Great Finds at the Halloween Store

It's that time again when all those Halloween stores pop up in abandon store fronts.  Whisk and I went into one and I scored two very cool things and she got something for herself.  First off, I got a sign, "Zombies next 200km.  Love it.  It's hanging over my desk right now.  It suits the season and the fact we recently got the first season of The Walking Dead on BluRay it fits right in.

The second thing I scored was skull dice.  I got two sets of four.  How could I not get them.  I think they are a mandatory buy for any gamer.

Game night.  Third session.  It should prove to be an interesting one.  We left off with two of the three players getting showered with rot grubs.  I know I ended the session at the right time when all the players cry out at the same time.  Okay, one more picture of those beautiful dice.

Final Edits for Blackmarsh...Done

Edits for Rob Conley's, Blackmarsh project for Brave Halfling Publishing'a Delving Deeper Box Set is done.  Last night Rob and I did a final read through.  It took a couple of hours, but we got it done and I think Rob has another fantastic land to share with everyone.  The final read through is done out loud.  I read the manuscript and this way we catch small typos and find a few sentences that can be tweaked, switched around or explain an idea better.  After working on a project for a while its good to smack it on the ass and send it out the door.

Gaming Week Just Got Better

Last night Rob from Bat in the Attic blog, came over and we did an old school trade. I gave him the Greyhawk Folio and maps for Chaosium's Thieves' World Box set. This is one of those gaming gems I've been looking for for many years. So I am excited to finally add it to my collection and use it in the future. They Greyhawk setting I have never been much of a fan. The maps are great and luckily I had an extra set of those (have no idea where I got them from), but the folio I never used and because of its odd size was a pain in the butt to store on my shelf.

Always being a lurker in the free stuff over at RPGNow, I found this very cool adventure called Orc Hunt from Tabletop Armory developed for the Pathfinder system. The adventure is only two pages long and there is no map and because of the situation presented a GM can easily plug it in damn near anywhere in his campaign world. I won't go into details because you should go download it for yourself. It's free remember.

Yesterday I wrote about the White Box and provided pictures of what is included. Today I wanted to do a short review on the adventure that is included, The Vile Worm of the Eldritch Oak. Love that title. Sounds like Roger Corman should be making the film. The map is great like I said yesterday. All around this a cool little adventure that is easily plugged in anywhere. I won't go into any details,so as not to spoil any surpirses. But when you get your White Box (not if you should) you're going to be pleased with this little addition.

And finally, I guess Alex and all the judges will be announcing the winners of the One-Page Dungeon Contest. So I am looking forward to see if I placed of not. Either way there are a ton of good adventures to use now because of this contest.

Pictures of the BHP White Box

As requested by Paladin, pictures of Brave Halflings White Box.



Here is the box itself. Very cool artwork on the cover and along the sides.









All the books splayed out including the table of graph paper and the dice that are included along the top. The d4 is hiding in shadows above book 3.





And finally the adventure that was included. Love the map in this one. Excellent job Andy Taylor. Actually kudos to the whole crew. Thanks for the hard work.

A Good Week for Gaming

The week started off with a bang when we had out regular Monday Night Group (minus Rusty Battle Axe) exploring the underworld of the city and eventually exploring an abandon mansion on the outskirts. The fights were mismatched, we handled them easily, but it was fun to explore the old mansion. Always check the fireplaces for loose bricks. I found a hidden treasure after hidden treasure. It finished with us taking down the main guy (he's remains alive as of this blog, but no promises next week). And I got to web one that tried to run away. I am much happier when I get to web someone. Can you name the module we went through by the cover art?

The next day I get a package from Amazon. I bought GURPS Mysteries and HackMaster Basic. I've only just started to read both and I am thrilled with both of them. The initial work in the GURPS Mysteries is fantastic. Lisa Steele has done an amazing job explaining the different sub-genres of mysteries and how to convert them into a playable adventure. HackMaster is interesting and with all HM products funny as hell. I really loved the attitude and fun the original HM had, but didn't like the time it took to create a character. HM Basic does reduce the amount of time, but I think I will need to tweak it. They've reduced the classes and races down to four. No more Battle Mages or Gnome Titans. Both of which I enjoyed, actually HackMaster got me to liking Gnomes. But this is easily fixable with my tweaks. The honor system is something I am still not huge on, but it would be interesting to find a way to make it work like Glory does in Pendragon. My favorite thing about Hackmaster is the randomness of stats of D&D, but the skill sets that are more like Runequest. The hybrid of a system I am working on slowly is going to be a Frankenstien Monster created from bits of AD&D, GURPS, HackMaster, C&C, S&W throw in a some Pendragon and a dash of Pathfinder.

Then yesterday my White Box came in Brave Halflinf Publishing. I'd forgotten about the adventure that came with it so that was a nice surprise. And as promised it had a colorful set of dice included. I'm excited to sit down with all my new gaming stuff this week.