And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

This one right here does.  This rough beast came in yesterday and from what I read this has easily become my favorite tome of critters.  I really enjoy the touch of the lairs and the general commentary on each horror.  It goes beyond a mere physical description.  I'm sure many of you out there got a copy or at least peeked at the PDF, if you haven't indulge yourself.  It is worth it.

The only problem I had with the book was it came dinged up.  It doesn't appear to have been damage when it was shipped from FGG, but when it was shipped to FGG.  On the back cover mine has a big gouge and two corners of the front cover are bent slightly.  I'm not really too fussy about the condition of my books, but if its going to get damage I would like that privilege to do it.

But aside from a few scuffs and dings, this beast of a book is money well spent.

Into the Dark Lands Session 3 Notes

The System: AD&D with very few home brewed rules
The Dungeon Master: That would be me
The Players:
    Grim, halfling thief, 2nd level (Brian)
    Boog, half-orc fighter, 1st level (Rob)
    Corum, human cleric, 1st level (Rusty)
    Dickson, human fighter, 1st level (NPC)
The Locations: A Goblin Den, the fort, the forest

The second session left off with Corum and Grim in a shower of rot grubs.  The curtain that Grim pulled down was a patchwork of flesh.  Grim was quick to smash the four that fell on him.  Corum needed to burn one off him.  After they destroyed the rest of the squirming mass the players investigated the statue inside the room.  The body of the statue was made of stone, the wolf head was made of wood and was removable.  Behind the statue were two more wooden heads, one was of a bird and the third was a goblin.  Boog took all the heads.

The players continued to explore the den and found the temple.  Before they entered, Boog was charmed by a Goblin Lord.  Upon entering the temple a melee with four black goblins commenced.  My black goblins are 2HD creatures so they put up a good fight.  Dickson nearly died from bleeding out, but the party managed to stabilize him.  At the end of the fight the goblin lord appeared.  Boog began acting strange and agreeing with everything the goblin lord said.  The goblin lord explained he wanted to speak with them and form an alliance or at least a truce with the people of the fort.  In exchange he would make sure his goblins made no more attacks on the fort and would allow them passage through the forest without harassment.  He would also provide information about the area.  As a show of good faith, the goblin lord permitted Grim to keep the glowing sword he found last session and what power it possessed.  The sword can detect enemies.  Since I'm not using alignments I just change detect evil to detect enemies. 

On their return trip to the fort Grim saw a guild symbol scrawled in the dirt warning of danger.  Grim stealthed around the path and encountered Mo, a halfling thief, one of Waldron's men.  He hinted at not being to thrilled with Waldron and warned Grim that the traps they got from Bear were on the path and that Waldron was waiting to ambush them.  The party went around and avoided the situation.

The party informed Sterling of the Goblin Lord's offer.  He didn't see how turning it down would benefit them or by agreeing to it they would not lose anything.  In the morning one of the farmers and one of the adventuring mages had joined Waldron's ranks.  He is promising people women, gold and land. 

With the return visit to the Goblin Lord he informed them that one of the villages, Cason, would be attacked soon by the enemies of the goblin.  The hobgoblins.  He offered one of his black goblins as a guide.  They encounters a patrol of four hobgoblins and the fight was bloody on both sides.  The party retreated to a nearby cave to recover from the fight.  This is where the session ended.

So the currently plotlines are the overview of the fort dealing with the hostile environment, currently the hobgoblins.  Then there is a social conflict with a faction (Waldron's Men) breaking away from the fort and causing problems.  The area of story/plot that is lacking is the personal story lines, but that is something the players are developing.  Three sessions in and its been a lot of fun.

Mail Call: A Thief in the Night

Yesterday I received David Chandler's second book in his Ancient Blades Trilogy, A Thief in the Night.  It was a nice surprise.  I want to thank David for the book and I look forward to reading it.  But, I'm gonna buy the first book in the series, Den of Thieves, before I get into it.  It might be my first book I buy for my Kindle. 

My mailbox has been brimming with great stuff lately.  With Loviatar coming monthly and counting the minutes when the Tome of Horrors arrives. 

The Fuckits

Writing is a struggle, sometimes.  Each one of us has a place or two where the fuckits hit.  Mine is when I get close to finishing a project.  When all I need to do is reread, polish and fill in the cracks.  This is what I've been fighting through in the final parts of Start Adventures.  When the fuckits hit, those voices in your head tell you who cares if it gets finished, you can put it off until tomorrow.  Does it matter if it gets done?  There are more important things to do like getting the dishes washed, mowing the lawn, folding the clothes and the wife...well, the wife is the one that tells you those things need done.  (Before I go any further Whisk would like everyone to know she never puts housework before my writing and she doesn't.) 

My latest problem was I thought I was much closer to being done than I thought.  I had written all the parts.  Even added a tavern and a short adventure.  But as I went through the edits I felt the tavern did not match the tone or voice of the other parts.  It was bland.  Too vanilla for my tastes.  Then I realized the book would benefit from having a new monster and magic item section.  That finish line got a lot farther away.  So I stalled. 

I love writing.  Whisk will tell you I get in a pissy mood if I don't.  But like most writers I have an amazing knack for avoiding the project I need to be working on.  The 360 and Netflix are wonderful for this.  But with the new campaign I'm running something sparked in me to get going on Starter Adventures again.  I rewrote the entire tavern and I like it a lot better now.  The other thing I've been messing with and not getting done is sending Rob the maps I need done.  That in part was due to my scanner being a pain, but now I've got it up and running (knock on simulated wood). The campaign has forced me to produce each week.  We've had three sessions so far and I've written up the general theme behind it, a campaign starter for the players, details of a fort with over 100 people, the land around it and one adventure.  The players are heading into a second part now so I'll need to get that complete before next Monday.  And this is what makes writing great, once you get going, the energy spent on getting the writing done returns to you stronger than before.  It builds on itself.  You see results and the next thing you know the fuckits are in the rear view mirror.

So in short....I caught a bit of the creative constipation, but I'm feeling much better now. 

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.

Sleestak Sunday, The Lost Pictures

A few weeks ago I showed you this photo of Monet's interpretation of "Sleestak in a Field".

Little did I know there were three paintings in the series.  I think these paintings capture the pastoral life of the sleestak with an amazing amount of feeling.  Here are the other two in the lost series.

Loviatar Looks Great in Orange

Christian has done it again.  Issue #3 of Loviatar is great, but this entry isn't going to be about the gaming content.  Most of us know Christian is top notch in that area.  What I want to focus on is the small editorial.  The two strong points he made there that I agree with and what makes this zine different from all the other offerings out there.

First, he is committed to print only for the zine.  I don't know if this makes it financially difficult to ship it across seas, but I do like that he isn't not going PDF because he wants to know who is enjoying his zine.  Plus, getting good stuff in the mail is always great.

Second, everything in the zine is written by Christian and how he explains it is almost poetic. I feel that the zine's identity comes from the personality of its creator, and should reflect his or her ideas, visions and quirks.  In that respect, a zine is an extension of the writer.  Accepting submissions changes that, moving the zine author from role of creator in the job of editor.  I like that it will remain a one man show and this is what sets it apart from the other excellent old school magazines out there accepting submissions.

If you haven't gotten a subscription yet than I suggest you do.  It is money well spent.  Now on to another one man show.  It can be done with flair and fun.  Well done Christian.  Looking forward to future issues.

Redesigning an Adventure

What do you do when the players return to a lair/den/dungeon/ruin several times?  What do the inhabitants do?  What changes are made from visit-to-visit?  In my current 1st edition campaign the players have been tasked with finding and clearing a goblin warren.  The first attempt the players (Boog, a half-orc fighter and Grim, a halfling thief) entered they fought two goblin guards near the entrance and had to return afterwards due to Grim's injuries.

They came in from the north and just managed to get around the first two turns.

The second time the players entered the goblin warren (this time they had Corum, human cleric along).  They didn't notice anything different.  The first time around they hid the bodies of the goblin guards hoping to not alarm the whole den.  This time they got into a huge fight of ten goblins, one of the goblins alerted the area by pounding on the alarm. But an unfortunate event occurred, Boog critically hit Corum in the head with a mace.  So again, the party had to leave.

The room is where the battle took place.

In their most recent return to the Goblin Warren the players found it very quiet.  The bodies of the goblins had not been moved.  After a short time they did encounter a dark goblin better armed and better armor.  They were able to explore more.  They entered the small room to the north explored it and to end the session Grim torn down a curtain.  The result, Grim and Corum had a small shower of rot grubs fall on them.

You can see the players have only explored a small section of the dungeon. 

So the players have entered the dungeon three different times.  The original adventure was designed for the party to go in and do their damage.  Now I have to rethink the encounters.  What has changed?  I can't discuss in detail what I did since the players are continuing their adventure next Monday, but changes have been made from the original.  One of the things I needed to do was go through each room and see what population remained.  See what rooms would be changing and which ones would remain the same.


As a DM, I always enjoy these kind of challenges, when things don't go as planned.  And I would be remiss if I did not mention that the players have been great.  Their enthusiasm and excitement for the game makes me want to go the extra mile.  I think all of us are enjoying the process of rediscovering the system that got us into this hobby in the first place.

Mount Sleestak Sunday

It is only a matter of time.

What I Am Using Tonight to Whip Up an Adventure.

I'm currently working on an adventure for my group.  Yes, not doing it last minute.  I'm a little shocked myself.  I may need to check my temperature.  No Rob, Brian or Rusty I will not be revealing any surprises here.  I drew my own map on graph paper.  The books I am using to help create it is the DMG pages 217- 219 have some great tables for a little inspiration for the rooms.  1ed Monster Manual.

And I have a couple of old school products at my side for this one also.  JB's B/X Companion and Zzarchov's Neoclassical Geek Revival.  I'm putting their products and ideas into action.  I highly recommend both of these. Why?  You can tell these guys have lived with what they wrote.  Where one expands on existing rules the other developed new micro systems within the game.  The last thing I am using is Chaotic Shiny Productions Treasure Horde Generator.  I did a review on this one a while ago and it still kicks a lot of ass.  I'm using it right now to assist in making some magic items and something else I can't mention here.

So this adventure is a whole conglomerations of products spanning over 30 years.  Pretty cool.  I hope to create an adventure that my players will enjoy.  Now I need to get off here and get back to the adventure.  After the players are done with the adventure I'll post it here.

9-16-11 Nebie Blogger Award Winner

It's been a while since I've given one away and not for the lack of great blogs just the simple fact that I've been trying to write a bit more, work has been busy and two new puppies have invaded the household.  But I came across this blog and thought it deserved some recognition.  An old school blogger with a GURPS 4E tilt that I can appreciate.  And from the author notes has co-written several GURPS products.  There are several interesting links.

So please go check out...

Dungeon Fantastic

Congrats to Peter Dell'Orto, I look forward to reading many of your blogs to come.  Please take a look and support his blog.  It will be time well spent.

Critical Miss Table

Here is the critical failure table as promised.  Players I'll send you a copy tonight. 

1. Weapon Breaks, if it is a punching or kick attack it is broken and unusable for 2-4 weeks. If the weapon is magical the weapon falls where anyone can grab it.
2. Harm Self, half damage.
3. Harm Self, full damage.
4. Harm Ally, half damage.
5. Harm Ally, full damage.
6. Lose Weapon, lose 1 attack.
7. Lose Weapon, lose 1 attack.
8. Lose Weapon, lose 2 attacks.
9. Lose Weapon, lose 2 attacks.
10. Lost Weapon, no idea where it went will need to use another weapon for this combat.
11. Hurt Arm, half damage for the rest of the combat.
12. Hurt Arm, -1 to hit for the rest of the combat.
13. Hurt Arm, -2 to hit for the rest of the combat.
14. Weapon Stuck for 1d3 rounds.
15. Knock Out Self.
16. Knock Out Ally.
17. Enemy Gets Free Attack.
18. Injure Arm, unable to use for 1d4 days.
19. Harm Ally, roll on critical hit table.
20. Harm Self, roll on critical hit table.

Critical Hit Table (Yes, Another One)

There are a lot of critical hit tables out there, some where around one critical hit table per 2.375 gamers.  Well for my Into the Dark Land campaign I made another.  I like my critical hits to mean something, but keeping it simple.  Splishy. splashy when the halberd hits the goblin guts.

1. Maximum Damage
2. Roll Double Normal Damage, roll normal damage the x2*
3. Roll Double Normal Damage, roll twice as many damage dice*
4. Exploding Dice
5. Exploding Dice
6. Roll Random Hit Location - if damage does more than half the creature's max hit points that limb/head is severed
7. Roll Random Hit Location - hit location is crippled, if the head is hit that the person/creature is blind
8. Add 1d4 to Damage
9. Add 1d6 to Damage
10. Add 2d6 to Damage
11. Horrible Wound, this wound continues to do d6 of damage each round until healed
12. Target is Knocked Unconscious
13. Blow Through - if there is another target within striking range the player may attack again
14. Increase Damage by One Die Type (a d4 would be a d6, a d6 into a d8 ect...)
15. Roll Normal Damage, but Reroll All 1s
16. Roll Normal Damage, but Reroll All 1s
17. Knock Opponent Back 1 Square for Every 4hp of Damage
18. Add 1d10 to Damage
19. Add 1d12 to Damage
20. Roll Twice On This List

*Strength Bonus and Magical Bonuses to damage are only counted once.

I'll post the Critical Failure table later on when I can format it to the blog.  It went all wonky when I tried to paste it in.  My players haven't even seen this chart so it will give them something to look forward to next week.

Game Session Story

I know many do not like to read fiction on the blogs so I am not going to post what I wrote.  Besides its over 3500 words and that is too long of a blog.  Here is a download  for those who wish to read.  Warning though, this is a first draft.  I did this for my players and anyone else who might be interest.  I didn't go over it so typos will be abundant.  I'm just doing this as an interesting way to track the campaign.  It's a pretty good reenactment of what occurred during our game session.  I'm sure I have not gotten everything right and I know I took some liberties, but for the most part its our session in a short story (and maybe serialized) format.

If you have a long day at work today or waiting around in the doctor's office or ate a bad burrito it may help to pass the time. 

You can find it here.