The Manor Sells its 200th Issue

The Manor has sold 200 issues.  Thanks to everyone who helped and especially those who took a chance and bought a copy.

Review: DELVE!

Johnathan Bingham comes out swinging with his premiere issue of DELVE!  It weights in at 42 pages plus a cover so it can beat up any other zine out there.  It double the size of its closest competitor.  Let me state the obvious.  The art is fricking awesome.  I've always been one of Johnathan biggest fans, but I think this is his best work yet.  I love the cover, a sorta collage of what you'll find inside.  I would love to see a version of this picture colorized by Daisy.

DELVE! is an intense adventure that takes the players into a cross genre situation with your typical critters like undead, mages and big bugs, but there is a technological slant that really makes it different from the usual adventure.  While Johnathan is not known for his writing he will be after this.  This adventure well set up, laid out and written.  This adventure can probably be finished with one session, two on the outside.  But its packed.  He has a lot of cool details insert for you to make use of in your own campaign.  Along with the adventure is a substantial amount of new monsters, magic items and spells.

Why am I being vague?  Because I don't want to give anything away.  I want you to buy it.  You can buy it from Johnathan for five bucks (look for the drop down box on the right side) or get it on RPGNow on PDF.  I say go for the print. He'll only have a limited amount and isn't fun to have something some one else doesn't.

Review: Loviatar #12

Happy birthday Loviatar.  What an achievement.  Twelve issues in twelve months.  Not too shabby for a one man show.  I am only beginning to understand the amount of work it takes to get out an issue and there is no way I can see myself having the same production level as Christian.  Now on to the 12th zine.

This one weights in at 20 pages with the always atmospheric cover art by Jay Penn.   It's broken into four parts; Introduction, a GURPS werewolf, a Vampire (the Requiem) cop, and a BRP pair of dudes and one scary book.  Mixed in with these are QR codes that add a multimedia experience to his zine.  I'm glad he added the addresses because I don't have a smart phone or whatever it is you need to use them.  I think its a kick ass idea, one he's used in past issues.

This issue is heavily leaning toward characters and their situations.  Christian is great at capsulizing the people in his game.  He gives them subtle details that really make them easy to role-play if you choose to use them in your game.  

I'll end with the beginning, the introduction.  Christian is planning on shaking up the zine a bit.  He plans on having it become more of a personal.  Which I think will be a very interesting change.  He said he doesn't want to try to emulating an issue of Dragon every month.  Well for my money, I'll take a Loviatar over a issue of Dragon Magazine any time.  Except maybe the issue with the anti-paladins. 

Corpse Flies: A Repost for OSR Monster Month

Corpse Flies
HD: 1/2  AC: 14  Dam: 1-2* 

The smell of corpses was thick.  Same smell came from the flies.  Those goddamn flies.  I'd never seen such large flies before.  Black as night and as large as a man's clenched fist.  Their bite is like someone driving a nail through your flesh.  Don't let too many of those latch onto you or they'll drink you dry before you can collapse to the ground. 

Bury the dead.  Burn the dead.  If one fly finds a body within a few days you'll have hundreds of them.  For some reason they don't bother with animals.  Just people. 

I've heard of some getting bit by a single corpse fly and getting sick.  Very sick.  The corpse cough.  An old priest told me to wash out the wounds with rancid beer.  I told that old priest beer never lasted that long enough around my house to go rancid.  He nodded like I was being a amusing child and told me to flush out the wound as soon as I could.  He then pulled back a blood splattered sheet and showed me two people suffering from corpse cough.  Gaunt and mindless.  They just laid there and moaned until the cough was on them.  The cough jerked their bodies and blood sprayed from their mouths.  The priest told me to stay clear of the blood.  Then he thanked the gods that this would be their last day.  Said the corpse cough took a couple of weeks to eat a man from the inside.  Nothing but suffering.  Goddamn flies.

A Good, but Quiet Week at the Manor

Quiet, but not silent.  Look at the excellent items I got in the mail last week.  I was going to do a review of them, but decided each needed its own spotlight so I'll do individual reviews of each one.  In short, they are all very good. 

Gaming is back on Monday nights.  We're taking a break from the d20 world and tossing 3d6s around for GURPS.  One session in and we're playing a small group of mercenaries in a land that resembles a mixture of King Arthur and The Game of Thrones.  And sprinkle in some LOTR also. 

Wednesday nights are gearing back up this week.  Trey is adding a couple players for his Weird Adventures campaign and we're switching from the Pathfinder system to the WaRP system.  I have no experience with WaRP.  Looking forward to seeing how it works.  And to get into more trouble and explore that wonderful City of Trey's.

Sales for the Manor continue to do well.  I think the first issue of the Manor is creeping toward a 150 sales.  And the second is slowly climbing toward a 100.  Not quite there yet, but its been interesting to see how many PDFs of Knowledge Illuminates has sold because of the Manor. 

Starter Adventures is pretty much laid out.  I'll be sending it to a couple proofreaders this week.  Then grab a few pieces of art from Jason and it should be good to go.  I'm hoping to get it released by the end of August. 

Well, time for work.  I'm looking forward to rolling some virtual dice tonight. 

SIB

You choke on your morning coffee as an odd shadow passes before your kitchen window.  Too many late nights playing video games and the large extra cheese pizza you devoured has slowed your reflexes so by the time you get to the window whoever, whatever made the shadow was gone.  Being in the country its not unusual to see wildlife wandering through, but this was different. Must have been a cloud.  Maybe the wind blew the tree branch around. 

The toaster clicks and your Pop Tarts jump into view.  You grab them and regret it as they burn your finger tips.  Not wanting to do dishes you toss them on a paper towel and head back to the kitchen table.  But as you turn you drop them to the floor as a black reptilian head looks directly at you through the window. 

Before you can move you feel something hard on your shoulder as another one pushes you to into your chair.  Nearby you hear a high pitch whirl like the sound of an old camera that just took a picture.  A short hiss burst out of the creature's mouth as it looks to the floor at the fallen Pop Tarts. 

That's when you noticed they're dressed in suits made of black.  The light seems to slide off the material making it difficult for you to see any details.  Except when you glance into their face and feel your body involuntarily tremble.  All those horror survival video games should have prepared you for this. 

The high pitch whirling sounds gets louder as another one of the creatures comes into view holding a concave circular object that changed colors.  The slight ache you felt is now intensifying to the point where you eyes go blurry and the colored light from the object can be seen even with your eyes closed.  You feel the pressure in your building.  Your stomach lurches and the undigested remnants of the extra cheese pizza erupt from your mouth.  Some where you here a disgusted hiss and just a brief sense of satisfaction.

When you wake up your inside a net hanging over a pit with smoke rolling out.  You struggle to free yourself, but as you do a low horrific growl comes from the pit.  You see something coming out of the pit.  You scream, but you don't get to finish it. 

Map Time!

 

I'm going to bed so here's a map.  It's an old one.

You Gotta Check This Out

Dylan over at his Digital Orc blog has put out his first print product, The Veiled Invocation.  He's done a great video presentation to show off what he's done.  The layout looks nice and there is a lot of stuff packed in the 36 pages.  Not only did he write it, he did all the maps and illustrations.  He included a lot of interesting Easter eggs for his readers to find and if you figure out the grant puzzle there is a $10 RPGNow reward.

If you need something cool to come in your mailbox head over to Digital Orc and claim your copy of The Veiled Invocation.   At $3.99 USD you can run a mini campaign from 1st to 6th level.  Not to mentioned getting paid to play if you figure out the puzzle. 

Bat in the Attic is Buying

As I mention before I finished the edits on Rob's latest adventure.  Well over on his blog today he annoucned as a thank you to me, he would buy anyone who asked a copy of The Manor or Knowledge Illuminates.  So if you've had The Manor or KI sitting in your shopping cart head on over to Bat in the Attic and hit Rob up.  So far no one has taken him up on this offer.  Come on!  Get off your electronic butts and get something free.  Where have all the mooches gone?  I know Boric G could use a 3rd or 4th copy.

It's a pretty cool offer from Rob.  One I didn't expect.  Thanks Rob.  Now get to those edits.

Edits Are Done!

Editing is one of those jobs that is a grind.  Tonight I finished editing 90 pages of Rob Conley's upcoming adventure Scourge of the Demon Wolf.  There is a ton of stuff packed in that adventure.  I edited 90 pages of text.  I tried to break it up in smaller bites, but that didn't work out so I took big gulps and got it finished.  We'll go over it again once he does the layout and goes through the edits.  Just double checking that numbers match and are there.

With that behind me I can move onto my next endeavor.  Getting Starter Adventures complete.  I need to get a couple of pieces of art, of which I need to figure out what I need and then do I finally read through.  I'm shooting for mid to the end of August to get it done.

While I'm doing that I've got some stuff for the next issue of The Manor to write down.  I need to get it out of my head and on paper.  I've had a couple of idea banging around up there for a while. 

And lastly, the Monday night gaming group begins a new campaign.  Looking forward to it.  And I think this Wednesday Trey is starting up his Weird Adventures game again so I can break out Boris and has a shotgun full of fun.

Sleestak Posters

A couple of awesome posters by Tom Whalen.  One of my excellent readers let me know about this.  I'm sorry I forgot who it was.  I believe it was Doc Grognard at Crawdads and Dragons. 

I like the green one better.  Green is a sleestak's natural habitat. 

More Map Porn

A map a drew a while back.  Simple one.  The circle in the middle is a tower and grayish, discolored land around it is a field of bone dust.  I still need to detail it and write in the names.  I'm using a hex map to draw on I got a couple of tablets of them.  When I use them I really need to make sure the colors are strong otherwise the dark hexes take it over.

Grognardia Speaks

Sales for The Manor leveled out over the past week.  Which worked well since I am working on an editing project and work, blah, blah.  Won't bore you.  Then I open up my email and its full of orders this afternoon.  What the heck?  People ordering both issues which is great.  But what's with the spike.

I should have know.

James Mal did a review of the first issue of The Manor.  Thank you James for the review.  Each time someone does a review on an issue it equals to sales.  So basic math would tell you more reviews equals more sales.  But James brings a credibility that few of us bloggers can match.  I'm not sure if he likes this nickname, but he's kinda like the Oprah of the OSR.  He likes something people buy it.  I apologize ahead of time James for the comparison. 

The review gives you an excellent run down of the contents.  The only mistake I saw he did not include the excellent Poetry Slam by Rusty Battle Axe and the accompanying picture from Johnathan Bingham.  Good stuff.

Thanks again James.  Second issue will be headed north tomorrow.  And those who listened to James' sage advice and ordered copies, they will be headed your way early tomorrow.

Some Things I Learned from My AD&D Campaign

I started the AD&D campaign last September.  I wanted to use my old books and play the game I grew up with.  I played it as close to the original rules as possible.  I wanted to see how the old system held up and if I still liked it as much today. 

First thing I learned is I much prefer ascending armor class.  Eliminates the use of the matrix tables.  It also gets a little confusing when you have some that are trying to use THACO.  I've never played a game where THACO was used, but found out it does not match the matrix table in the 1st edition DMG.  I've never played 2nd edition or ever bought the books.  Having ascending armor class with 'to hit' bonuses for high levels is the way to go for me. 

Second thing I found I didn't like were the five saves included in AD&D.  There were so many situations where a save was called for, but did not fit into any of the categories.  I made some approximations with what a situation may be comparable to, but it still was a stretch most times.  I don't like the single save roll either.  Where as I've never played 3.5 and only Pathfinder recently, the Will, Reflex and Fortitude save make the best sense to me.  Those three options can cover almost any situation.

Third thing was I don't like a high magic campaign where magical items fall out of monsters butts when you kill them.  Sure I could have toned it down, but I was trying to play like we played back in the late 70s, early 80s.  There was a column on the character sheet just for magic items.  While I did switch it up with the type of magic items.  I used more unique items and sometimes the players discovered their powers and sometimes they didn't.  I prefer a low magic campaign where if there is a magic item it has a name and history.  Not number 4, +1 sword. 

Forth thing was the monsters.  I ran this campaign with lots of different critters and monsters, but I prefer the monsters to be like the magical items.  A monster with a name and history.  So when you do encounter a critter you better bring your lunch, its gonna be a fight.  Not just a quick glance at the Monster Manual..."okay, I need to use my +2 axe to hit this one and has anyone got any silver?"

Fifth, I don't really like the experience point system all that much.  I would prefer to streamline it and make all the classes need the same amount to get to the next level. 

Now you would think with all these things I didn't enjoy myself, but I did.  It was very cool to break out the DMG, PHB and MM and not just refer to them, but actually use them.  Dialing up an old style AD&D campaign was a lot of fun.  The players did an excellent job of keeping the story lines moving and solving problems.  Would I do it again, hell yeah.  But next time around I would do what any old school gamer would do, house rule it to fit what I like.