Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts

Thursday, January 9, 2020

Review: Brimstone Angels: A Forgotten Realms Novel

Back in 2011 Dungeons & Dragons 4e Essentials was out and Wizards of Coast was putting it's full efforts behind it.  To help expand on their 4e and Neverwinter properties WotC turned to relatively new author Erin M. Evans to turn in a tale about tieflings and warlocks, two of 4e's more popular additions.

The result of her efforts was the first novel in the "Brimstone Angels" series, also titled Brimstone Angels.  The six-book series spanned two editions of the D&D game (4th and 5th) and help define what tieflings, warlocks, Dragonborn and even devils, succubi,  and Asmodeus himself.  But it all started with a tiefling girl named Farideh with mismatched eyes and her twin sister Havilar.

Farideh is a tiefling and since publication, she has become something of a poster girl for tiefling warlocks. But that is getting way ahead of myself.  Farideh and Havilar were abandoned outside of the walls of their village, they are adopted by a Dragonborn warrior (who has a past) Mehen.  Mehen is a good father to the two girls, although no amount of warrior training prepares him for raising teenage girls, especially tieflings and teens at that.  In the Forgotten Realms tieflings are new and twin tieflings are considered to be a bad omen.  That soon enough comes true as Havilar finds an old book and attempts to summon an imp.  Farideh has to jump in, she is more familiar with magic, and the girls soon realize they have bitten off far more than they can deal with.  They summon the cambion, Lorcan, the half-human and half-devil of the Invidiah, the leader of the Enriyes.   To send him off Farideh agrees to a pact with him and becomes his warlock.

Summoning the devil has other consequences, including burning down their home and getting them kicked out of their village of refugees (Arush Vayem).  They then go on an adventure where Evans treats us to a *new* Forgotten Realms.  I say new because unlike other Realms books where you can play spot the Extra Special Guest Star, this is a trip of normal folk, or in this case, three unknowns that happen to be a Dragonborn and his two adopted tiefling daughters.  Evans plays the family dynamics expertly.  Mehen obviously loves and worries about his girls.  Havilar is closer to his sensibilities having picked up the glaive and become and fighter like her father,  but it is Farideh that has him the most worried.

In addition to that dynamic, there is the Farideh-Lorcan relationship which gives us the best "Will they or Won't they" dynamic since Maddie and David (Moonlighting) or Ross and Rachel (Friends).  I won't spoil it, but I will say I am very satisfied with it.   Evans knows how to write characters, she would be fantastic in a game.

All this time there is a great story and impending apocalypse that could change the face of the Realms and a prophecy about the Brimstone Angels that will change the politics of Hell itself.  So no small stakes here, so no small feat for the first book.

The background story is great and a ton of fun, but truthfully it is the characters that will make you want to read the next in the series.  Lorcan is devilishly fantastic, Havilar just wants to beat things, Mehen wants to keep his family safe and Farideh is caught between them all.

As "gamer fiction" the book does a great job of explaining some of the quirks of 4e. Such as why are succubi devils now? Why did erinyes change? What happened to Hag Countess of Hell? Why is Asmodeus a greater god now?  What is the deal with Rohini? Well, not all these questions are answered right away, but they are dealt with.

What I loved about this book, other than the characters, of course, was that you didn't need a ton of Realms knowledge to enjoy it.  But in truth none of that matters, there is enough of Farideh, Lorcan, and Havilar to enjoy.    It is also a good introduction to the Forgotten Realms if you are like me and ignored the Realms for the last few decades.

It's a great start to a great series.

Legacy

Brimstone Angels was the first of six books that spanned from 2011 to 2016, and like I said, two editions of Dungeons & Dragons (4e and 5e).  The books had a huge effect on the direction of the game at least in terms of how warlocks could be played.

One needs to look no further than the Player's Handbooks for both editions to see the effects.


There in the Dragonborn names are Mehen, Farideh, and Havilar. 
There are other cases where text from the books, in particular interactions between Farideh and Lorcan, are used to flavor text next to the warlock entries. 

As I go through the other books I will try to remain spoiler-free, but apologies if an odd one slips by.

Links
https://smile.amazon.com/Brimstone-Angels-Forgotten-Neverwinter-Paperback/dp/B014S2IWTQ
https://dnd.wizards.com/products/fiction/novels/brimstone-angels
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Brimstone_Angels
http://slushlush.com/
https://www.facebook.com/brimstoneangels/

Saturday, December 28, 2019

5 x 5: End of the Year Top Fives. Novels

Another Top 5 list.  Today, Novels.

Bram Stoker Dracula



JRR Tolkien Lord of the Rings



Douglas Addams Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy



Anne Rice The Vampire Lestat 



Umberto Eco Foucault's Pendulum



Wednesday, December 11, 2019

Next Projects, the OSE Witch & Warlock

Work has been busy as hell and I had a couple of other unexpected projects dropped on my lap.
What's that mean to you?  Well a long story short, that means my next scheduled release is going to be late.

Granted. These were all self-imposed deadlines.  So the only one here who is upset about this is me.

My next two books will both be for Gavin Norman's Old School Essentials.

I am extending my Back to Basic celebration a little into 2020 where I hoped to also publish a few books for D&D5.  Ah well.  This gives me time to give these two projects the more attention they deserve.



So what can I tell you now?

The Craft of the Wise: The Pagan Witch Traditions


This book follows the same series as the Daughters of Darknessthe Cult of Diana, Children of the Gods, and the Pumpkin Spice Witch.


This book covers the Pagan Witch Tradition and it is really about 75% done.  It has a bunch of new spells, a lot of new rituals, some new monsters.  I also talk about spell creation, magic item creation and running a Pagan campaign.  I talk about how the witch is a better fit with druids, barbarians and bards than magic-users do.  I am also working on a few more covens.  If you have any of those books then you have an idea what this one will look like.

This book is overtly compatible with OSE but it also harkens back a little more to the B/X sources.  You can probably see where it is going based on my posts since Halloween.  This book will also have more of an "Advanced Genre Rules" feel to it.

I wanted to post this on the Winter Solistice (ten days from now) but I am not going to make that. So instead look for an Imbolc (February 2) release.  It will be a "Letter-sized" or 8.5" x 11".  Aiming for 64 pages.

The Warlock for Old School Essentials



This book will present a new Warlock class for Old-School Essentials.  This book will fit more with the "Core Fantasy Rules" of OSE and I'll present some options for "Advanced Fantasy".  It will be largely compatible with my other Warlocks and the spells can be used by witches or warlocks.

The idea here is that both books will be complete unto themselves but also can be used to complement each other.  This one is not as far along.  I was aiming for an Imbolc release and I think I will stick to that.

This book will be "Digest sized" or roughly 6"x9" or 5.5"x8.5".  I need to check what DriveThru supports.

There will be lots of new spells (at least 60) and new invocations.  Not sure if there will be any monsters or not.  Likely it will not have any demons since they really don't fit the feel of OSE or B/X.

Right now this book is only about 45% done.  Aiming for 32 or 48 pages.

I am disappointed I am not going to make my dates, but I think it makes for better books.

Thursday, November 28, 2019

Mail Call: Old School Essentials

It's a great Thanksgiving for a lot of reasons.  But today I am thankful for getting my copies of Old-School Essentials.



The box is sturdy a heck. Very surprised by that.



The new books compare favorably to the  B/X Essentials books.


The only things the boxed set is missing is dice.  Luckily I had some that look like they would work great.


Really looking forward to playing this one!

Monday, November 4, 2019

Monstrous Monday Review: D&D Creature Catalogs

Something a little different today as I wind down from that crazy October.
One of the things I wanted to do with my "Back to Basic" year was also to get some more reviews in for some the basic era products I enjoyed the most and for the products that also contributed to my love of the game.  These would both be products by TSR and third party products of the time and of more recent years.

Since today is my day to post about monsters I wanted to hit two products that really enjoyed back in the day.

Now I have gone on and on (and on and on) about how pivotable the AD&D 1st Ed Monster Manual was to my life in RPGs.  So much so that I would later pick up any monster book that came out.   I loved AD&D and played it all throughout my High School days and beyond.   But it was Basic D&D, in particular, the B/X flavor of D&D that was my favorite.  I wanted a Monster Manual for that game.  Eventually, TSR granted my wish.

AC9 The Creature Catalog (1986)
The Creature Catalog (AC9), came out in 1986 and was produced in conjunction with TSR UK and it would be one of the last books to do so.  It shared a name with a series in Dragon Magazine (Issues #89 and #94), which led to some confusion on my part, but that was soon displaced.  A bit of a background story.  My then AD&D DM had grabbed this and let me borrow it. He knew I was a fan of D&D (Basic) and a fan of undead monsters, of which this had a lot of.  I immediately started pouring over the book and loved all the new creatures in it and new versions of some that I considered "classic" by then.   For example, the Umber Hulk (MM1) and the Hook Horror (FF) now shared an entry under "Hook Beast" and the Umber Hulk was now called a "Hulker".  Given the time I just decided it was obviously the same beast and just called that in my version of Mystara and my DM kept Umber Hulk for his version of Greyhawk.  Simple.
Grabbing the PDF a while back I was hit by all these memories of flipping through the book and that sense of wonder came back.  Monsters that I had used in games and have since forgotten about came rushing back to me.
The PDF is a scan of the original book, so the quality is not 100%, more like 80% really.  BUT that is not a reason not to get it. The text is still clear and the pictures, while not high-res are still legible.  If nothing else the "imperfections" of the scan match my imperfect memory of the book.  So point 1 for nostalgia purchase.  The book itself is 96 black & white pages with color covers.
There are about 150 monsters here (151 by my quick count). Some should be familiar to anyone that has been playing for a while, but there are also plenty of new ones that reflect the differences in design tone between D&D and AD&D.
This book is separated by (and bookmarked by in the pdf) sections.  The sections are Animals, Conjurations (magically created creatures), Humanoids, Lowlife, Monsters, and Undead.
There are a lot of fun monsters here, many have made it into later editions of D&D, in particular, the Mystara Monstrous Compendium.
The index is very nice since it also covers all the monsters in the various BEMCI books for a complete picture of the monsterography of the mid-80s D&D.
If you are playing old-school D&D or a retro-clone of the same then this is a great little treat really. The book also has guidelines on where to put monsters and how to make alterations to the monster listing for a different creature.  In fact a lot of what I have seen on some blogs and forums over the last couple years about how to "play monsters" has been better stated here. Yet more evidence that there is really nothing new out there. That and people don't read the classics anymore!

DMR2 Creature Catalog (1993)
The next Creature Catalog (DMR2) came out in 1993 for the D&D Rules Cyclopedia. Most of the same monsters that appear in the Creature Catalog AC9 are here. In fact, a lot of the exact same art is used.  The net difference is this book has 158 monsters.
This book is the more customary 128 black & white pages with two, color covers.  The monsters in this version are all listed alphabetically.  This is also a much better scan and a print option is also available.
This book was designed for the Rules Cyclopedia and not BECMI the rules are 99% the same and thus both this and AC9 can be used interchangeably.  DRM2 Creature Catalog came out at the same time as the AD&D 2nd edition Monstrous Compendiums so the layout and style reflects that.  The color trim here is red instead of blue.
This PDF does bookmark every monster entry and since all monsters are listed together it is easier to find what you want here.  Missing though is some of the advice in the earlier AC9 version.
But like the AC9 version, this is a fantastic book to use with your classic games or retro-clones of them.
In both books you won't find demons or devils since they were not part of the D&D world of Mystara, but that is not a big deal.   For me, the loss is nothing compared the amount of undead both books have.  Some of my favorite undead monsters to use to this very day made their appearances in these books.  Elder Ghouls, Death Leaches, Dark Hoods, Grey Philosophers and Velyas still rank among my favorites.

If you are only able to get one then opt for the DMR2 version for the better scan quality.

Thursday, October 31, 2019

It was 20 Years Ago Today...

All apologies to the Beatles, but it was 20 years ago today that I released my very first witch book on the internet.


It was a "netbook" back in the days before the OGL and when TSR would go after everyone for even talking about D&D online.  This really put me "on the web" as it were.  Of course, I also published it under my pseudonym of "Web Warlock" at the time since I want to keep my "game" writing separate from my (then) Academic writing.

Today I am celebrating the release of The Basic Witch: The Pumpkin Spice Witch Tradition and the last couple of hours of the Kickstarter for NIGHT SHIFT.

It has been a really fun game design carrer. That little witch book I published while sitting in the hospital after my son was born got me into working with Eden, doing some of the D&D 3e playtests, and then a lot more.  But 20 years ago was when it all really started. Also kind of fitting it was 40 years ago that started playing this game to start with!





Tuesday, October 22, 2019

New Pumpkin Spice Witch cover

I am having a weird day.

So let's do something fun.  Here is the new cover for my upcoming Pumpkin Spice Witch Tradition book.




The "Pumpkin Spice Witch" is by the super talented Silveztra.  I'll be featuring more of her art later this week, but here is a sneak peek.




I can't wait for Halloween!!


Wednesday, October 16, 2019

Halloween Sales at DrivethruRPG

It's that time of year again!  DrivethruRPG is holding its annual Halloween Sales!


I have a few books up for the Spookiest Season!  And I have Witches, Vampires, Demons, Werewolves, and Ghosts!



One of my newest books, The Classical Witch Tradition for Basic-era Games.



It's companion the Mara Witch Tradition.


My pride and joy, Ghosts of Albion!


Another "Basic Era" book, this time Werewolves as a Playable Race/Class.




And for those that love Swords & Wizardry White Box, The White Witch Tradition.

Check these and many other titles out till Halloween!

Thursday, September 26, 2019

Children of the Gods The Classical Witch Tradition POD is Live!

This one took WAY longer than it should have, but now I finally worked out all the issues and can announce that the Print on Demand version of  The Children of the Gods The Classical Witch Tradition book for Basic Era Games is now live!


Designed for the BLUEHOLME™ Journeymanne Rules this new book explores:

  • The witch class and four new combination classes
  • Guidelines for playing any species of witch
  • Six witch covens of the Classical Tradition
  • 120 Spells and Rituals for witch characters
  • 24 Monsters to challenge or be allies
  • 29 magic items and six artifacts
  •  Three Non-player character witches from pages of mythology


It is a companion to my Cult of Diana: The Amazon Witch for Basic Era Games.  Designed to be used with the BLUEHOLME™ Prentice Rules.


I don't have a Print on Demand version of The Cult of Diana yet.  Similar issues.  If you want one those, let me know!

All of these books are part of my "Back to Basic" series I have been doing all year.


Each one is designed to cover a particular Witchcraft Tradition and to also take advantage of the rules presented in each of the respective Basic Era retro-clone.

Here are the books so far.



and coming soon



Tuesday, September 17, 2019

Update on The Classical Witch

Yesterday I got my 2nd round of proofs back from DriveThruRPG on the Classical Witch POD.

So far the cover looks fantastic!


But some of the interior art doesn't.



I have an idea about what is going on.  I fixed it, but now I still need to wait for another proof to arrive.

Such is the glamorous life of an independent game publisher.

I hope that third time is the charm on this one and the next proof will be fine.


Tuesday, September 3, 2019

The Children of the Gods: The Classical Witch for Basic Era Games

The next book in my Back to Basics series is now out!

The Children of the Gods: The Classical Witch for Basic Era Games



Old Gods Rise! 
“Who knows not Circe, The daughter of the Sun, whose charmed cup Whoever tasted, lost his upright shape, And downward fell into a groveling swine?”  - John Milton

Sumer. Egypt. Greece. Rome.
These are the foundations of civilization. Where mythology, religion, and magic collide in a fertile land.

It is a time of Gods and Witches!

This book introduces the Classical Witch Tradition. Witches from the ancient time of myths and legends.
  • The witch class and four new combination classes
  • Guidelines for playing any species of witch
  • Six witch covens of the Classical Tradition
  • 120 Spells and Rituals for witch characters
  • 24 Monsters to challenge or be allies
  • 29 magic items and six artifacts
  • Three Non-player character witches from pages of mythology
Fully compatible with BLUEHOLMETM and other Basic-Era games.

Fully compatible with other witch books from The Other Side.

Print on Demand copy available soon! 
Just waiting on my proofs.

Also, check out my other Back to Basics witch books, The Daughters of Darkness for Basic Era Games and The Cult of Diana: The Amazon Witch for Basic Era Games.




Sunday, July 21, 2019

Christmas in July Sale!

I have a lot of books on sale in DriveThruRPG's Christmas in July sale.
Yes, it is 100+ degrees heat indices outside, but DTRPGs thoughts are to Christmas.


You can even get my newest book, The Daughters of Darkness, on sale.


If you have grabbed one of my books here is a great time to finish up your collection.

Coming soon, "Children of the Gods. The Classical Witch Tradition".

Tuesday, June 4, 2019

Daughters of Darkness: The Mara Witch for Basic Era Games in Print

It took me a while (work and a couple of dumb mistakes in editing) but my latest book is now out in print!

Daughters of Darkness: The Mara Witch for Basic Era Games


It looks great and even better when paired with the Witch for Basic Era Games.


100% compatible with that book.  Also compatible with my Swords & Wizardry line of books.



I will share some details about the books so you can see things like spell overlap (spoiler: some version of Bestow Curse appears in every book).

I will send out codes for a discounted print copy for people who already bought the PDF.