DriveThru RPG March update

So normally I would be posting the codes to get some cheap PDFs at DriveThruRPG/RPGNow and then a code to get something for free.

Well today I got an email from Sean Fannon of OneBookShelf saying they have not had the time to get the codes up but instead would like to direct your attention to the relief funds they are running for Japan and New Zealand.

I have always been a fan of DTRPG's relief programs.  You can get a lot of PDFs for a great price, some I might have ever tried before, and the money raised goes to help those in the most need.  The amount of money that gamers tend to raise in this is also fantastic.
So again I would like to direct your attention to these fundraiser products.

Japan is experiencing one of the worst natural disasters in living memory, I think it behooves us to help them anyway we can.

Ronin: Oriental Adventures - JAPAN EARTHQUAKE RELIEF EDITION
Get this product for half off with money going to help the relief efforts.
This is a great book and reminds me a bit of the better GURPS supplements out there; dense with great information and full of ideas.
The product also includes a coupon for GeeklyClean.

Japan Disaster Relief - Red Cross - $5 Donation
This is a straight $5 donation to the Red Cross.

ICONS: The Aotearoa Gambit
Proceeds go aid the earthquake efforts in New Zealand.

I have been impressed with the generosity of the RPG community before and I expect to continue to be impressed.

DriveThru Reviews: Books of Magic

Some magic books reviewed.
Most of these are older books, but they could still be used with Pathfinder or even converted to a retro-clone.

Dark Ladies: Villainesses in RPGs
A collection of femme fatales to sick on your players. From the subtle to the savage this are not your typical "Bad Guys". From myth, legend and folklore and sometimes even history.
These 17 are not your typical "monsters" but fully developed NPCs.
My only issues are with some of the choices for feats or skills, but that is what you get sometimes. If you need a good NPC and what something different, then this is a good choice.
For d20.
4 out of 5 stars

Internet Arcana
You can never have too many spells. Internet Arcana culled the best of the of OGC spells and put them one easy to use book. The format is for 3.0, but it would not take much at all to convert these to 3.5 or Pathfinder or even "downgrade" them to your favorite retro-clone. Not a "must have" but certainly a worthwhile purchase.
4 out of 5 stars

A Touch of Magic
11 great looking graphics to use as NPCs or characters in your games. They are all CGI and approach more "pinup" than character, but it is fantasy after all. There are also paper minis to use as well. For the price not bad at all.
4 out of 5 stars

Dweomercraft: Enchanters
This one is a bit of a mixed bag. There is a lot of fluff, which is fine really, but I might not ever use any of it. The cover art is great, the interior art, less so (though not bad). There are some new feats that are good and some new gods. The best part though are the spells. There are a good number of useful spells here. Plus some interesting tomes and magic items.
It might take some tweaking to fit some of the background information into your game, but there is still enough here to make it worthwhile to buy.
4 out of 5 stars

Necromancer's Legacy - Gar'Udok's Necromantic Artes
An interesting little book. Full of all sorts of necromantic fun. There are spells, some creatures, an NPC and magic items.
There are also some new races and a bunch of background material on these necromancers.
I bought it for the spells and the monsters.
4 out of 5 stars

Behind the Spells: Vampiric Touch  and  Behind the Spells: Sanctuary
An interesting idea. The "Behind the Music" or "Ecology of" a particular spell. It gives you some fluff and background material on how the spell was created and used and even has a couple of newer spells. This will not be everyone's idea of a good supplement, but certainly helps keep the magic fresh and interesting in the game. Plus it is a great idea for researching new spells or even finding "lost" spells.
Every spell has a story, this one costs you a buck-50.
4 out of 5 stars

The Primer of Practical Magic
Designed for the Dying Earth campaign setting there is a ton of material suitable for any fantasy d20 game. Scores of new spells (most with suitably fantastic names), magic items and prestige classes. The magic items are pretty interesting and there are a number of magical books to be had as well. There are even a few new creatures and feats thrown in for good measure.
There is an interesting appendix on the Dying Earth world, but you don't need it to get the full advantage of this book.
The spell component price list is very useful to have as well.
4 out of 5 stars

Season of the Witch: Episode 10 Teaser

Episode 10: Through a Glass Darkly

Introduction

Willow and Tara were standing in front of a full-length mirror. Willow was looking very pleased, Tara looked uncomfortable. Tara was wearing a simple black skirt and blue sweater. The sweater's neckline plunged to reveal some cleavage, not much, but enough, and in a way to make her neck look longer. The skirt itself was cut a mid-calf above her knees.
"I don't know Will." Tara said after looking at herself from a couple of different angles.
"What? You look beautiful." Willow admonished.
"But is this appropriate for dinner with your parents. I mean they are coming here to give us their stamp of approval, and I want to make a good impression. I don't want." Willow covered Tara's lips with a finger. Then replaced it with her own lips.
"First. You look beautiful. Second. Mom and Dad are both in town at the same time anyway. Third. We don't need their stamp of approval. Fourth. You look beautiful."
"You mentioned that one twice." Tara said with a crooked smile.
"Because it is true." Willow turned Tara around to face the mirror. "You are a young, beautiful woman. You should let the world know and see."
"But I have never been very comfortable showing off so much." Tara said, then a side long glance. "But if you had your way I'd be in corsets and mini-skirts all the time."
"Well not all the time." A slight raise in Willow's voice and the innuendo was clear. "So, I like girly-girls, and you girly-girl are hot."
"You really think I am hot?" Tara said still looking in the mirror. "It's weird, I never could see myself as hot." Fade into the mirror.

A flash in the same mirror, only now it is dark and there is no reflection.
"It's weird" said Tara. "I can't see myself and yet I still know I am f**king hot."

Tara was standing in front of the mirror. She was wearing a flimsy blue blouse that barely covered her chest. A black lace bra pushed her pale cleavage upward and showed off her assets well. The bottom half of the blouse was unbuttoned to show off her navel ring against pale skin. The black leather skirt was split almost up to her hips, offering a just a tease of what might lie beneath. The dark red lipstick she was wearing contrasted so sharply with her pale skin that her lips almost seemed black.

"Now. To get what I want." She turned from the mirror to a small table covered with lit candles, an athame and a cup. The cup looked like it was filled with blood. She picked up the athame and slid it into a sheath in her boot.
She reached down to grab a sheet of parchment and a picture.
She read the spell with a hand placed on the picture.

Coming soon.

DriveThru Reviews: Fantasy Heartbreakers

The term "fantasy heartbreaker" is a term coined at The Forge to describe a then new breed of fantasy games that were very detailed, but obviously not far from the root game that spawned them, D&D.  To me Fantasy Heartbreaker games always come across as someone's house rules of D&D or how they would have made D&D.  Now sometimes they are supposed to be a game in their own right, a supplement to another game or in the case of more recent years, an OGC/d20 ruleset.

Most times the rules are nothing more than D&D with a different coat of paint, though sometimes were are treated to something new.  Take Pathfinder.  It is basically a Fantasy Heartbreaker that cleaves very close to the original source.  So close in fact that it even has some of the same staff on it as the 3.x version of the D&D rules.  Plus it gives a few new things.

World of Lykarnia

World of Lykarnia certainly feels D&D-ish.  There are 6 traits that map perfectly onto the 6 standard abilities of D&D. There are skills, classes, levels, the standard races. Everything we expect in a FRPG.  The equipment list the same weapons we have seen dozens of times. Granted I am not expecting much there.
A couple of things I felt were odd.  The table of contents is huge, even for a 169 page book.  I think the author could have collapsed a level or so; give us the broad categories, not ever thing to a Level 3 Header.  Secondly the book starts off with (Chapter 2) with an example on combat.  We don't even know what some of the words being used are (Spirit Score?) but we are supposed to follow along?  Didn't like that.
The system is a simple d10 based one, not all that different than Unisystem or True20 (with a d10 instead).  I found that more interesting since I could use this with Unisystem fairly easy (Characters are even ranked 1 to 5 on their traits).  The magic system is interesting, but the spells are not all that different than what can be read in the Basic D&D books.  I do like how they were grouped into classical elements.
The bit about psychotic disorders seemed way too modern for a fantasy game to be honest.
The monsters are just descriptions with their stats at the back of the book in a big table.  Like OD&D.
There is a introductory adventure in the back as well, which I thought was a nice touch.
The author obviously put a lot of work into this book but there is nothing here that we have not seen already.
The included JPG map is very nice.
I give it a 3 out of 5 stars.

Tome of the Lost Realms Players Handbook

Released not long after the world had heard about 4th Edition, Tome of the Lost Realms does what Pathfinder also sat out to do, extend the life of the 3.x ruleset. Also like Pathfinder, this is a massive book at near 480 pages. The fonts and typography are meant to bring another Realms to your mind I am sure.  The realms themselves are interesting as far as that sort of thing goes. the races section is rather large with all sorts of fantasy races, again many we have seen before. The same classes as 3.x/Pathfinder, with the Warlock replacing the Sorcerer in all but name.  There are skills, feats, equipment and spells just like 3.x but it is hard to tell if anything here is new or not since there is so much of it.  The Section 15 of this book leads me to believe that there is a ton of stuff in this book above and beyond the SRD, but nothing jumped out at me.
In the end this is 3.x or maybe 3.6.  It is not quite Pathfinder and it has not moved past it's D&D roots to be completely unique either.
I gave 3 stars out of 5 since there is nothing really new here.  But the price puts it at a fifth of the cost of Pathfinder, so maybe 3.5 out of 5.

I think the issue here is that if you are going to make a new fantasy RPG you have ask yourself what are you giving us to overcome D&D-inertia.  What is new, interesting or otherwise different than before.  Retro clones will start to fall into the same issues, if they haven't already.

The Young Ones for Ghosts of Albion

Being sick made me think of the Young Ones episode "Sick" and that made me realize I had not posted my Ghosts of Albion stats for the Young Ones here yet.  So without further ado.

The Young Ones

Once in every lifetime
Comes a love like this.
I need you and you need me.
Oh my darling cant you see.

The young ones,
Darling were the young ones,
And young ones shouldnt be afraid.

To live, love
Theres song to be sung,
For we wont be the young ones very long.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meioyAthGDw

(Character descriptions stolen from Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Young_Ones_%28TV_series%29 )

Rick: Oh no, the front door's exploded. Vyvyan.
Mike: Vyvyan.
Vyvyan: Vyvyan, Vyvyan, Vyvyan. Honestly, whenever anything explodes in this house it's always 'Blame Vyvyan'.


Neil Pye
Name: Neil Pye
Alias: Neil the Hippie
Played by: Nigel Planer
Type: Pacifist Hippie

Neil: Oh, look, I know, I know, why not put "boomshanka"?
Mike: Ahh... that's hard to tell, Neil. What does it mean?
Neil: It means "may the seed of your loin be fruitful in the belly of your woman".

Life Points: 25
Drama Points: 10

Attributes
Strength 2
Dexterity 2
Constitution 1
Intelligence 3
Perception 4
Willpower 4

Qualities
Hmm...he is the only one that cleans the house. Hard to Kill (though he does manage to get killed) 2, Natural Toughness.

Drawbacks
Emotional Problems (Depression, Severe; Fear of rejection, Severe), Bad Luck 3, Honorable 1, Humorless, Mental Problems (Delusions Sleep will give you cancer, Severe; Obsession pacifism, vegetarianism, Severe; Paranoia Deranged) , Outcast, Resources (Miserable),

Skills
Acrobatics 0
Art 2
Computers 0 (he hates technology)
Crime 1
Doctor 1
Driving 1
Getting Medieval 0 (Pacifist)
Gun Fu 0 (still a Pacifist)
Influence: 0
Knowledge 3
Kung Fu 0 (yeah)
Languages 1
Mr. Fix-It 3
Notice 3
Occultism 2 (only because he has a personal devil)
Science 1 (limited to Natural Sciences)
Sports 1
Wild Card

Neil Pye, the hippie, is a clinically depressed, suicidal pacifist, vegetarian and environmentalist working towards a Peace Studies degree. He is victimised by other housemates (especially Rick and Vyvyan) and forced to do the housework, including shopping, cleaning and cooking. He is never acknowledged for it unless it goes wrong.

Neil is pessimistic and believes everyone and everything hates him, a belief which is mostly true, though he does have some friends, two hippies, one also named Neil and one named Warlock. He dislikes technology (except for videos) and speaks out for Vegetable Rights and Peace. He is a chronic insomniac, believing that "sleep gives you cancer".

Neil wants the others to feel sorry for him, or even just to acknowledge his presence. His attention-seeking antics range from repeatedly banging himself on the head with a frying pan to attempting suicide. He claims that "the most interesting thing that ever happens to me is sneezing". This is because whenever he sneezes, it causes a large explosion.

In the second series his parents (who appear in the episode "Sick") are revealed to be upper middle class. They are conservative Tories who look down on Neil for starring in such a disreputable comedy series.

He also says 'heavy' a lot.

Neal in Modern Games: Neal is still living in the house and working on his Peace Studies degree. He does not know that the other guys have left, since they never told him, and thinks they just have been avoiding him for 25 years.


Rick
Name: Rick
Alias: Prick (the p is silent), The Peoples Poet, Rick the Complete Bastard
Played by: Rik Mayall
Type: Communist Bastard

Rick: Neil, the bathroom's free. Unlike the country under the Thatcherite junta.

Life Points: 22
Drama Points: 15

Attributes
Strength 2
Dexterity 2
Constitution 1
Intelligence 3
Perception 2
Willpower 2

Qualities
Is complete and utter bastard a quality? If so Rick has it in supernatural levels.

Drawbacks
Adversary (Vyvyan), Emotional Problems (Easily Flustered; Fear of rejection, Mild), Bad Luck 1, Mental Problems (Coward, Severe; Cruelty, Mild unless it is directed towards Neil then Severe; Delusions is charming and intelligent, Severe; Obsession Cliff Richards, Severe; Paranoia Severe; Zealot(communism, socialism, Rickism), Severe), Resources (Miserable), Talentless/Dullard

Skills
Acrobatics 1
Art 2 (he thinks its 5)
Computers 0
Crime 2
Doctor 1
Driving 0
Getting Medieval 1 (but it refers only the medieval police state he is living now)
Gun Fu 0
Influence: -2
Knowledge 2
Kung Fu 1
Languages 1
Mr. Fix-It 0
Notice 1
Occultism 0
Science 2
Sports 0
Wild Card

Rick is a self-proclaimed anarchist who is studying sociology and/or domestic sciences (depending on the episode). Rick writes poetry and calls himself "The People's Poet".

Rick is a hypocritical, tantrum-throwing attention-seeker who loves Cliff Richard. Rick tries to impress the others with his non-existent wit, talent and humour. He verbally insults (and often physically assaults) Neil at every opportunity. He fights and bickers with Vyvyan and often attempts to impress Mike.

Rick is also vegetarian and wishes all men to love each other like brothers. However, he rarely does anything that can be attributed to brotherly love.

Rick is portrayed as unlikeable and so self-absorbed that he believes he is the "most popular member of the flat" even though his housemates hate him (Vyvyan describes Rick's name as being spelled "with a silent P"). Despite the fact that the other members dislike and disregard Rick, at one point he is heard to say that they "really are terrific friends."

Believing himself to be the 'People's Poet' or the "spokesperson for a generation", Rick often greatly exaggerates or lies about his political activism and class background and is exposed in the final episode "Summer Holiday", when it is suggested he comes from an upper class, Conservative background.

While he perceives himself as an anarchist, he is actually very fond of ideals produced by Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky and states his interests in them in several episodes. However, he claims to have a dislike of Margaret Thatcher, as is noted by his efforts to threaten her with a bomb in the eponymously named episode "Bomb." This is also noticed in "The Young Ones Book," first published by Sphere Books, wherein negative references are made to both Thatcher and The Conservative Party.

Rick speaks loudly and cannot pronounce his "r"s.

Rick in Modern Games: Rick died in 1985 before receiving his degree in a student protest march. Rick thought it was for an anti-Thatcher march, but it instead was to protest the replacement of Coke with New Coke in the student commons.
He is now haunting a castle in Scotland that houses a magic school.

Vyvyan Basterd
Name: Vyvyan Basterd
Alias: Vyvyan the punk rocker
Played by: Adrian Edmondson
Type: Anti-social Bastard

Vyvyan: What we need is a large consignment of very hard drugs.

Life Points: 49
Drama Points: 15

Attributes
Strength 5
Dexterity 2
Constitution 4
Intelligence 3
Perception 3
Willpower 2

Qualities
Fast Reaction Time, Hard to Kill

Drawbacks
Mental Problems (Anti-Social impulses, Deranged; Cruelty, Deranged; Obsessions, Mild; Paranoia, Mild; Recklessness, Deranged), Resources (Miserable),

Skills
Acrobatics 1
Art -1
Computers 0
Crime 3
Doctor 2 (he is pre-med after all)
Driving 2
Getting Medieval 4 (practically his middle name)
Gun Fu 1
Influence: 3
Knowledge 3
Kung Fu 2
Languages 1
Mr. Fix-It 2
Notice 1
Occultism 1
Science 2
Sports 3
Wild Card

Vyvyan is an orange-haired, mohawked punk rocker and medical student. He is extremely violent and regularly attacks Neil and Rick with pieces of wood, cricket bats and other large objects. He never harms Mike, whom he respects. He despises Rick more than he does Neil, taking every opportunity to insult and attack him. For example, when Rick, Mike and Neil meet his mother at a bar in the episode "Boring", he calls both Neil and Mike his friends, but not Rick, whom he refers to as "a complete bastard." Ironically, the antagonistic relationship between Rick and Vyvyan makes them all but inseperable; by a wide margin, the two spend more time together than apart or with the other housemates.

Vyvyan owns a yellow Ford Anglia, with red flames painted along the sides, and a Glaswegian hamster named Special Patrol Group ("SPG" for short) which he is very fond of, although SPG is also frequently subjected to Vyvyan's extreme violence. His mother is a barmaid and former shoplifter who before "Boring" had not seen Vyvyan in ten years and has no idea who his father is.

Vyvyan displays feats of inhuman strength on occasion (moving entire walls with his bare hands, lifting Neil above his head in a fight with Rick, biting through a brick and even being decapitated and re-attaching his own head), and eats just about anything; televisions, dead rats, cornflakes, or cornflakes with ketchup.

Despite being a homicidal maniac, Vyvyan seems quite sociable and creative; In one episode ("Flood"), he has developed his own potion to transform a person into an axe-wielding homocidal maniac (he claims "it's basically a cure...for not being an axe-wielding homocidal maniac...the potential market's enourmous!"). He has more friends than the others but apparently "he doesn't like any of them." He frequently causes havoc or damage such as wiring the doorbell to a bomb and adding a 289 CID Ford V-8 engine to the vacuum cleaner which proceeds to suck up the carpet, the floorboards and a friend of Neil's (the vacuum also prompted one of the few clashes between Vyvyan and Mike; when Mike admonished Vyv not to use it anymore, Vyv replied by calling him a "poof"). Disturbingly, Vyvyan also appears to be the only member of the group with a driving licence.

Vyvyan in Modern Games: Vyvyan became a very successful plastic surgeon.


Mike
Name: Mike
Alias: "the Cool Person"
Played by: Christopher Ryan
Type: Con-artist

Mike: Neil, have you upset the neighbors?
Neil: No, I've blown them up.

Life Points: 26
Drama Points: 15

Attributes
Strength 2
Dexterity 3
Constitution 2
Intelligence 4
Perception 4
Willpower 5

Qualities
Charisma 1, Criminal (Con Man)

Drawbacks
Covetous (Greedy, Desperate; Lechery, Serious; Ambition, Desperate; Conspicuosness; Serious), Mental Problems (Anti-social, Mild), Resources (Miserable),

Skills
Acrobatics 1
Art 2
Computers 1
Crime 5
Doctor 1
Driving 0
Getting Medieval 1
Gun Fu 2
Influence: 6
Knowledge 3
Kung Fu 1
Languages 1
Mr. Fix-It 2
Notice 4
Occultism 0
Science 1
Sports 2
Wild Card

Mike was the odd-one-out of the four. He is the assumed leader of the group, despite his diminutive size, and does not involve himself in the battles between the other three. He makes puns, which are either deliberately cheap or humorous but over-celebrated.

He frequently utters confusing, profound-sounding phrases which baffle the others (for example, when asked by Rick if he stole his apple, Mike replies "Well, if you're gonna sin you might as well be original."). Mike is supposedly the ladies' man of the bunch and brags about his prowess with women, although he is eventually forced to admit his virginity to the others in "Nasty." Though he is a virgin, as are the rest of the housemates, he makes every attempt at wooing the opposite sex, being quite forward and unsuccessful.

A con artist, he always has some kind of plan to make quick money such as renting out Rick's bedroom as a roller disco and soliciting bids for the unexploded atom bomb that fell into the house. Mike attends Scumbag College only nominally as he has blackmailed his tutor and the Dean of the school for grants and apparently passing grades. In "Summer Holiday" he muses "I think I'll ask for one of those Ph.D.s next year."

While Mike often does things at the expense or detriment of his housemates, he rarely expresses the sort of open hostility that the others do, and seems to cause them trouble only when it benefits him, rather than out of sadistic joy. He has, however, managed to nail his own legs to a table, and knocked Neil out during a game of cricket, albeit unintentionally. We only see violence inflicted on him once (at the end of the "Living Doll" video, when Vyvyan knocks him unconscious with a hammer).

Mike in Modern Games: Mike bought and conned his way to a seat on the House of Lords where he was instrumental in working on the committee to elect Mr. Harold Saxon.

Sick

Hey all.

Blog posting will be a bit slower this week.  We are going through some virus here at home.  I am sick and so is my youngest.

Upcoming Projects

I have been very busy over the weekend.

In addition to all the normal stuff I do (work, being a dad, being a student, doing this new consultant gig) I also finalized some projects I hope to get out to you all soon.

The playtesting and writing is done for the most part, the longer editing process is now underway.  All three of these products are related and each one has different focus and a different goal in mind.

Without further ado...

The Witch

A Class for Basic Era Games

This book is designed to be used with Basic era games, such as the Basic Set and Expert Sets as well as the clones they inspired, Labyrinth Lord, Basic Fantasy and so on.   I am not making it explicitly compatible with any version/edition/brand but instead making it something that can be used with any "Basic" game circa 1978-1983.

The book features the witch class, as well as traditions, hundreds of new spells, tons of new magic items and even some monsters to use in your game.  Plus plenty of ideas to use in your game and material for other classes.

Right now there is just too much material in the book to make it a viable download/book for a basic game.  So editing is on going.

I am hoping to have this ready by Halloween.

Eldritch Witchery

For Spellcraft & Swordplay

This book was announced a bit ago for Jason Vey's Spellcraft & Swordplay, though it should be fine with any Original Edition game clone.

This witch is actually a bit different than the Basic Witch.  This will have two classes, the Witch and the Warlock, present a couple of new races, monsters, as well as a bunch of new spells and magic items.

This book will also feature demons and devils and new magical combat options.










The last one (no picture yet) is an untitled Pathfinder options book.
I might actually have that one done first.


So that is what I am doing.  Comments? Questions? Suggestions?

Zatannurday: Justice League of Amazons

Tuesday was International Woman's Day and I celebrated with a post of some women from DC doing what they do best over on the Wonder Woman blog, Amazon Princess.  Here is another all female team-up with Wonder Woman and Zatanna.

A couple of pics from the comic "Justice League of Amazons" from 2001.  Typical end of the millennium eco-friendly story about eco-terrorists or something.   It looks like it was an excuse to show off some skin.

Mind you I have nothing against that.

Season of the Witch: Episode 9

Episode 9: Web of Lies

January, 2005
Sunnydale

Willow and Tara are back in Sunnydale. Cordy wants to report to the Elders so she orbs out. Bob wants the girls to continue their mission, but they tell him they have other things that they need to do first. The town is very quiet. Since the destruction of the hellmouth nexus in the Dragon and the Phoenix, supernatural activity is at all time low. Their friends are all away on various errands of their own (and thus not appearing in this episode). Some things are as they left them; the Bronze is still closed, but there is a new bar in town, “Hanger 61” that is a converted airplane hanger.

Tara needs to go to campus to pick up her transcripts so she can apply to grad school. Willow joins her.
On campus they notice that people are starring at them a lot. At first they think it is because they are holding hands, but it is more than that. They decide to stop a student, who gets too flustered to talk. Finally they get someone that can speak them, but all he wants to know is if they are doing their webshow tonight. Confused they ask for details and get a url. Back at home they try it out, but first Bob interrupts by saying that outside of small pack of vamps there is nothing on this town, no demons, no ghosts, nothing. It is like the metaphysical equivalent of a ghost town, pardon the pun. By this time the site loads and it is a pay porn site featuring Willow and Tara and a bunch of other naughty witches! The site is very x-rated and there is a notice that tonight at midnight PST there will be another free show.

Willow hacks in immediately and tracks down the source to a rundown hotel outside of town. The go there to discover Amy and Beth have been using glamours to disguise themselves as Willow and Tara. But that is not the worse part, Amy and Beth then proceed to use magic to kick Willow and Tara out and they put up a shield even they can’t get through.

Willow and Tara head back to the house where they hit the books and the computers. They discover that recently a lot of young men have been admitted to the ER with symptoms of massive dehydration. Normally this might stand out, but the supernatural activity is so low that it is accepted as the norm. Willow coordinates the times admitted and all happened within six hours of Amy and Beth’s free broadcasts. Tara is able to determine that the symptoms perfectly match that of a succubus attack.
Eventually they piece together enough information that leads them to believe that Amy and Beth are somehow using succubi (most likely the other girls) to drain people over the web. Since they are drawing from an audience of thousands they only need a little bit from each, though some are more prone to succubi attacks. Willow checks the subscriptions and it seems the largest audience ever is due tonight. And midnight is just a few more hours away.

CUT SCENE

A young woman gets off a bus. She is wearing a long heavy coat that seems out of date as well as too much. She walks away from the bus after conferring with a piece of paper in her hands. He movements are not unnoticed as a solitary vampire begins to follow her. A nearly imperceptible signal and soon more gather.
The young woman, no more than a teenager really, moves forward, headless of her surroundings. She turns down an alley and the vampires close in.

“Not so fast little lady. Don’t you know it isn’t safe to walk the streets alone?” Laughs as she looks around only now seeing her mistake.
“I am afraid this will have to cost you. An' here we only have one price for everything.” The vampire switches to game face. The woman squints at the vampire and says “Kyuuketsuki?” The lead vampire looks confused then suddenly bursts into flames. Soon the gathered crowd one by one bursts into flames. They scream and soon there is nothing left but ash.
Unaffected the young woman goes back to looking for her address.


Cordy confirms that there have been succubi in the area. Tara asks if the pact they made with the Mormo and Lilim will extend to Succubi and Cordy say she doubts it as succubi are fiercely independent. Bob returns and tells the girls that something has killed the last pack of vampires in town. He doesn’t know what it was, but all that was left was ash.

The cast plans to assault the run down hotel just before midnight, reasoning that Amy and Beth will need the shield down to get the essence from their web broadcast.

They get to the hotel and prepare their attack when they are all stopped by a ring of fire. Willow is able to dispel it with ease (more ease than I wanted her too) and soon they are confront by the young woman from the cut scene. She doesn’t talk to them but attacks with magical bolts of fire. Willow and Tara are able to dodge them (thanks to the then new magical dodge rules we had made for Ghosts), but Bob is not so lucky. He is hit and it hurts. Not a lot of damage, but enough to know that he can be hurt. The girls attack with magical strikes of their own, but they seem to have no effect. They do notice that with every hit the cross the girl wears around her neck glows green. Cordy orbs in, grabs it and orbs away (but not as far away as she wanted). A magical bolt from Willow sends the girl (Robin) down. In the attack though they missed their chance and the barrier has been down for several long minutes.
They burst into the hotel room expecting to see the live show, but instead they seem Amy and Beth glowing as energy is pouring into them. The Succubi are standing around the webcam and drawing the energy from it into the other witches.

Amy and Beth monologue a bit while getting ready to fight. The sucbubi are drawing magical essence from the viewer via a computer that Amy found when she went to go recruit the three nerds to help in her revenge plans. Not finding them she found all this equipment and a huge stash of net porn. Amy joined her a couple months back; she had left home right after Willow and Tara did and came straight here. Amy and Beth get all the magical boost from the viewers, who are dying now, and the succubi get all the souls. There is no need to film this time as the succubi are feeding each viewer their own personal show via illusion.

What begins is a Battle Arcane from the Ghost of Albion rules. Amy and Beth vs. Willow and Tara. Of course I have Amy and Beth more powerful. The battle begins and goes for a few turns. Cordy and Bob are busy fighting off the succubi. The entire time Amy taunts Willow telling her about all the people that are going to die.

Robin wakes up and comes into the hotel room. Willow tells her to destroy the computer, Willow and Tara can’t break the Battle Arcane and Cordy and Bob can’t get near it. She doesn’t seem to understand, so Tara repeats it in Latin first and then Japanese. Getting it, a lance of flame launches out and destroys the computer, webcam and the link. Amy and Beth power down and Willow and Tara get in their last blow rendering them unconscious. The succubi then “shimmer” (demonic teleportation) out, escaping.

Tara quickly runs up to the prone girls and cuts a strand of hair from each to perform a binding spell. She binds Amy’s and then Beth’s powers. Willow joins the spell, and Robin gives her aid, speaking the incantation in Latin.

There is a tense scene where Robin is looking Willow and Tara up and down. Tara tells her they don’t want to fight anymore, they just wanted to stop these two. Cordy orbs between them and tells her if she won’t believe them, believe her. The girl, stunned to see a Whitelighter again this time bows her head low. She tells Tara she was only following orders from her Superiors. The orders were simply, go to Sunnydale, find the two most powerful witches and bring them in alive if possible or dead. But if the witches have a Whitelighter such as Cordy, then they can’t be evil.
Robin tells them who she is working for, Solomon HQ, but knows nothing else. She says she can’t go back to Rome empty handed, so she decides to take Amy and Beth with her. After all, she says, they were more powerful. Willow, in a fit of revenge, glamours Amy and Beth to look like her and Tara respectively. Saying, well they wanted to be us so badly.

The equipment is all destroyed and the Cast leaves before the Solomon pick-up team comes to claim Robin and the fallen witches.

Back at home Tara is watching the news and there has been a rash of ER cases, which authorities are claiming is due to the college dorm food. Willow is online searching. Cordy reports back that Solomon is the real deal, a group of witch hunters dating back to King Solomon himself. She says that they only hunt evil witches and have been focusing on that. Willow hacks into their databases and discovers that the order to get them came from the highest levels and their names were mentioned specifically in the order, but were ordered to be removed when field agents got the assignment. She discover that the request to have them “bagged and tagged” came from Morgan, the leader of the Witches Committee.

Notes:
Lot going on here. Robin of course is Robin Sena from Witch Hunter Robin. I had been wanting to do another assassins go after Willow and Tara episode, but only have the assassin turn sides to help them. The setting up of Amy and Beth was one of those things that came up in the writing and it fit so well I had to use it. I had plans to use them again after this, though originally this was going to be a double episode.

Robin taking out the vamps was snark on my part. The original series spent so much time and energy in the kill and here comes my guest star who can kill them WITH HER MIND! Yeah, snark.

Again we have Willow and Tara performing the finale magical spell with another witch. This time it is Robin for 3 witches, before it was the Charmed ones for 5. We still have 7 as one of magical numbers to go. Plus a binding cast by three witches (“The power of three times three”) is very powerful.

The Witches Committee sent Robin after them, feeling that Willow and Tara were not going to do what they wanted. Again more doubt on their real agenda. Did they stop them thinking they were going to close the portal and that is what they wanted, or did they try to stop them thinking the girls were going to open it up and they didn’t want that.

The astute will notice a lot of things here that later made it into the Ghosts of Albion rules. Obviously the Battle Arcane (“Magical Duels”), magical dodges, philosophies got their start here, and the spell “Barrier Reduction Bolt”. This is also where the primary offensive spells “Azure Wave” and “Energy Dart” came from.

I brought in Amy, Beth and succubi, and really underused them all. I only had vauge stats for succubi since I didn’t see them as combat monsters. The pairing of Amy and Succubi pleased my Tara player who had once commented that Amy was probably half-succubus anyway.
The succubi were all named after various TV critics that claimed killing Tara was a good idea back in S6.
No. We were not bitter at all. For the record they were Amy, Wendy, Wanda and Kristen (the twins), Kitty and Candy. Sure not “demonic” names, but it worked. A prize if anyone can tell me who these people were.

The main feature of this episode was though the girls had come home, this was not the same place. Their friends were gone, the places they hung out were gone, even the supernatural creatures were all gone. And to top it all off the one thing new in their lives, the “mission”, followed them home and almost killed them. The Awakening was not waiting for them.

"Hanger 61" is an homage to this alternative bar I hung out at in the late 80s, "Hanger 9", which was an airplane hanger, and this dive goth bar "611" I was at in the early 90's.

The "massive dehydration" line was an in joke.  Alyson Hannigan was doing an interview (for Jay  Leno I think) years ago where she mentioned she had worked at a video store for a while.  She talked about this customer who would come in and rent this stack of porn every morning and return them the next day for another stack.  She said she always wondered why he wasn't dehydrated or something.


Up next: What is scarier than facing vampires, demons, hell gods and ancient timeless evils??
Having your parents over to dinner to properly meet your lesbian lover.

Japan Disaster Relief Fund

Another disaster today.  This one is the earthquake in Japan.

You can donate $5 to the American Red Cross via DriveThruRPG.

I Explore Characters

I am presenting this as snark free as I can and I am not holding it up as an alternative to any other type of exploration.  I simply want to share my point of view.

I explore characters.  Lots of them.

Those folders are full of characters for over 100 different games, though the bulk tends to be d20, Unisystem, all editions of D&D, Mutants and Masterminds, BESM and various others.  At last count I had stated up at least 40 witches from movies, books and TV.  A few supers and 30+ years of D&D characters.  Some are 1 page in length, most weigh in around 5 pages, I have some that are 20+ pages of one character for one system.

I also like to explore the same character over and over again in different systems.

Here is my folder for Willow and Tara.  The expected ones are here, d20, Unisystem, all the above, plus GURPS, Alternity, dozens of different horror games, a few supers, BESM (all versions), Little Fears, Warlock, all the World of Darkness variants (I have them Sorcerers, Verbena, and new WoD Mages), Kult. Name the game I bet it is here.  It's close to 400 pages.

Tabbed by genre.

I guess I am not part of the OSR and more part of OCD.

Return to the Tome of Horrors

Frog God Games, which is from what I can tell Necromancer Games minus Clark Peterson, will be releasing TWO new versions of the wildly popular Tome of Horrors Complete.


http://www.talesofthefroggod.com/index.php/products/the-tome-of-horrors

This three book series was full of old school monsters from the like of the first Edition Fiend Folio and other sources and let them free thanks to the magic of the OGL.

Well the flumph is free once more and the the Complete book has the creatures from the first three books in one cover. It's all been updated to Pathfinder in one book and Swords & Wizardry in another.

I have the three original books and have updated a few of the monsters on my own, so I do find this rather interesting. But I am not 100% sold on it all yet. Looking at FG's products it looks like the same standards that we used to see at Necromancer are still being used. Their publications for both Pathfinder and for S&W look great. So really there is no reason to assume that this product won't be worth every penny. Except, I have them all now. I can use them almost as is for Pathfinder, and retro-scaling them should not be an issue.

I think I am going to wait on this one till I see some reviews.

This is a Test

This is just a test. Trying out some new software.

Del.icio.us : blog

Page Views

According to Blogger Stats my page with the highest amount of page views is not anything from the OSR, witches, Willow & Tara, Zatanna or the Hex Girls.

Coming in at 65,967 page views (between May 2010 and right now) is my Xena and Gabrielle page.

My Warrior Princess can take your hot elf chick in a fight any day. ;)

My highest ranking "OSR" pages are either about vampires or goblins.

My next post will be about an adventure featuring Xena and Gabrielle fighting vampires and goblins in an old school dungeon crawl.  The Hex Girls will provide the sound track.

Please contact me if you want me to mention your OSR product in this post.  Extra for a link back to your online store.  (just kidding of course.  unless you actually give me money...)

Season of the Witch: Episode 9 Teaser

Teaser for Episode 9: Web of Lies

Willow on a webcam, wearing only g-string and shear teddy and sitting on a bed: "Ever want to know all those dirty little secrets we keep here in Sunnydale? Ever wonder what we really do in those young wiccan meetings? Well Join me and my very naughty girlfriend (Tara crawls into the scene dressed similarly and begins to nuzzle Willow's neck) for our totally nasty, totally live web show tonight at midnight. I promise you it will be magic.
Join all of us, Young Amy (a very innocent girl joins them on the bed), we don't know how old she really is, but we do know she taught us a few things, and the nasty twins, Kristen and Wanda (two girls, twins, crawl on to the bed to join the other three). Join us tonight at the witching hour of midnight for the show. And leave the credit card in your wallets boys, this show is free!" (All the girls begin making out with each other). Willow stops in the middle of a three way kiss, "see you tonight."

Willow and Tara in their living room watching the action on the computer screen in utter horror.
A pause then Tara says "What the fu--!?"

--

CUT SCENE

A young woman gets off a bus. She is wearing a long heavy coat that seems out of date as well as too much for California. She has auburn hair that is tied up in elaborate pig tails and wears an unflatering pair of half-moon glasses. She walks away from the bus after conferring with a piece of paper in her hands. Her movements are not unnoticed as a solitary vampire begins to follow her. A nearly imperceptible signal and soon more gather.
The young woman, no more than a teenager really, moves forward, headless of her surroundings. She turns down an alley and the vampires close in.

"Not so fast little lady. Don't you know it isn't safe to walk the streets alone?" Laughs as she looks around only now seeing her mistake.

"I am afraid this will have to cost you. An' here we only have one price for everything." The vampire switches to game face. The woman squints at the vampire and says "Kyuuketsuki?" The lead vampire looks confused then suddenly bursts into flames. Soon the gathered crowd one by one bursts into flames. They scream and soon there is nothing left but ash.

Unaffected the young woman goes back to looking for her address.


Friday. Episode 9: Web of Lies.

Review: Vampyre Kisses

So I read a lot of horror and modern supernatural books. I like to talk about them here.  Not all of them are something I want to use in a game, most are just fun to read.  Here is one of the fun ones.  Might not be your taste, or it might.

Ok stop me if you have heard this one before. Human girl meets mysterious guy who later turns out to be a vampire! Girl has some vague destiny, vampire has eating disorder, things get in their way of true happiness…lost you yet? Well none of this applies to “Vampyre Kisses”.

“Vampyre Kisses” is a new book from brand new author Elizabeth J. Kolodziej. Yes, Faith is a human girl with a destiny, but she is also a witch, the last of her kind. Trent is a vampire, but he is not your average brooding Baranbas, Angel or Edward. He has a destiny as well and if anything he is just anxious about it. Fate has thrown these two together and together they hold the fate of the supernatural creatures of Kolodziej’s world. Not related to anything, but I kept imagining Faith looking like Fiona Apple. Nothing in the text lead me to that, just the first woman that came to mind.

Yes. There are things in this book we have seen before, not just creatures but plots and circumstances. The difference here, and it’s the difference that makes the book worth getting, is that Kolodziej’s world is very rich and detailed (sometimes too detailed, but I’ll get to that). No Trent is not a Sparkler, he is a vampire, but he is cut from the modern cloth of vampires and more to the point he wants to be more. Faith could have been just another vapid little Gothamite doing 9-5 and partying, but she knows early on there is more going on than just that. In lesser hands these characters would have been annoying characters, or rather caricatures, but thankfully they get much more interesting as the tale weaves on. It is told from the point of view, alternately of both Faith and Trent. Kolodziej does a great job of giving us the proper voice for each character and it is rather easy to hear that voice in your head. There are complications galore including a romantic rival in the form of a werewolf.

A minor criticism, in the beginning of the tale Kolodziej has so much to tell us that she tends to over tell it. I see this as exactly what it is; she was very excited to tell her tale, had all these ideas and wanted to get them out on to the page as fast as she could. It did slow down as the story progressed and a good rhythm was established. Though every once in a while we are hit with a lot of information. While I am calling this a “minor criticism” it is also part of the book’s charm. The author has so much to say and has built up the myths of her world that she just seems excited to tell it all to us. That’s what future books are for.

The book does read like the first book of so many authors, so the pacing is odd at times and there are odd word choices here and there, but that is all something that will work out. Once the pace though is set and the story begins in earnest then you want to keep going and learning more. The book reminds me a bit of the first “Anita Blake” book.

The mythology of this book is well thought out and great care is given to it. Kolodziej is building a world here, not just a novel. I bet if you asked her she could tell you 10 generations of Faith’s ancestors, names and all. Even if she can’t, the book feels like she could.

Admittedly I am not the target audience for this sort of tale. I prefer my vampires darker, my witches more mysterious and werewolves as ravaging beasts. That all being said there is a good tale here and an interesting set of myths. This could very well be the start of a new series of modern supernatural novels that everyone will be talking about, and if not it is also an enjoyable read and in the end isn’t what we want? Kolodziej shares her world with us and we all enjoy it.

I am pleased to hear there is a second book coming. She has built up a lot mythology here and there is plenty for a lot of books.

Lost my Projects Drive

Damn.

I work on a lot of projects.  Maybe too many to be honest, but they help keep my sanity.
So imagine my horror this morning when I could not find my projects flash drive.

IT's a tiny thing really.  8 gigs, black.  But on it were WORLDS.  It had my drafts to a couple of Old School projects I was working on. It had my complete draft of my "new" old-school campaign world "Eire".  Dozens of characters for a few different games. About 2  gigs worth of PDFs. A few reviews of some books I was reading.  Some new adventures for Ghosts of Albion.

Nothing I can't replace or rebuild in time, but irritating all the same. Well the review I have to restart from scratch and the three books I only have the last backed-up versions.

Not at all happy this morning.

Review: The Nameless City

Mythmere Games, who gave us Swords & Wizardry, have recently published a new adventure and I decided to download it.  I am very happy I did.

The Nameless City is built in the same vein of the old TSR S-Series, the same that gave us Tomb of Horrors and The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth.  The adventure is for higher level characters, 7 to 10, and the adventure is certainly a deadly one.

The adventure itself is something of a cross between a dungeon crawl and an H.P. Lovecraft story (the Nameless City in fact).   There are plenty of degenerate lizard men, a cult to a forgotten god ala Lair of the White Worm, undead galore and of course dinosaurs and crazy snake-people cultists.

While there is nothing per se new here, it is all put together in a rather interesting and fun way.  Yes this adventure is dangerous.  The first room is enough to kill most parties and they have not even gotten into the city yet.
There is a bit of "old school ecology" here, ie monsters seem to be here for the sole purpose to be killed, but that is fine really and the adventure does give reasons why everything is in the place it is in.
The maps are nice, but I like mine a bit larger, but that's fine.
The plot is thin, but more robust than most of the old school modules it emulates and it does, I think, exactly what it was setting out to do.

What do I like about this?
Well the obvious and acknowledged nod to both Lovecraft and the dungeon crawls of old are nice.
Killing undead is always a plus in my book.
Loved the desert setting.  Investigating pyramids is always a blast.
Snake-People as secretive cultist like bad guys pretty much moves anything to the top of my list.

So this adventure succeeds for me on many levels.

I would have liked some more art sure, but what is there is very useful and the rest I guess is up to me and m players.  Again, bigger maps would have been nice.

The Nameless City comes in two flavors, S&W Complete or Core Rules/OSRIC version and a S&W White Box Version.  The rules are the same, except where needed and the monster stat blocks differ.  Of course either version should work well with any version of D&D or it's clones you desire.  Heck even with a very, very minor amount of tweaking I bet it would work well with 4th Edition, Call of Cthulhu, Savage Worlds or even Ghosts of Albion.  If I were Mythmere games I'd be looking into a CoC version myself.

The Nameless City is fun adventure and one that can be run in an afternoon or so.  And for the price it is a steal.

• The Nameless City: Swords & Wizardry Complete or Core Rules/OSRIC version
• The Nameless City: Swords & Wizardry White Box version

5 out of 5 stars

Willow & Tara: Mutants & Masterminds 3rd Edition

Willow & Tara: Mutants & Masterminds 3rd Edition

I have been on a Mutants and Masterminds 3.0 kick of late.  I like M&M and I love the new 3rd Edition game.  So really it was only a matter of time before I tried out my favorite witches in the new system.

I have done Willow and Tara before for Mutants and Masterminds 2nd Ed. But my write-ups were straight conversions of Unisystem and that might not have worked as well as I thought.  So with this I went back to who and what the characters are and stated them up from the ground up.  I kept many of the same powers and skills, or at least tried to.

"Willow and Tara" by David Reynolds

I set the girls at PL 10.  I did PL 11 previously with 2nd ed and they ended up being really super-powered.  Granted, that is fine for me, but I wanted to see what I could do with PL 10 and going by the book.    Willow has more powers/spells under Witchcraft, but Tara still has her healing ability and minion in MKF II.

Given that this is for the 3rd edition version of M&M and I was working on a 3rd season for Willow and Tara called "Generation HEX" I am going to combine them together into one.  Only fair really since Generation HEX's genesis was in my attempt to add more M&M and BESM style play to my games.  In this case this Willow and Tara share a lot of the same history as the ones in my Unisystem games. It is 2011 and they are still together, celebrating 10 years as a couple.

Don't know if they are living in the same world as Justice, but I'd like to think so if I can figure out how, but they are certainly living in the same world with Tarot.

For the purposes of a game I would want them (or at least Tara) be teacher(s) at the local School for the Gifted.  For M&M 2nd ed this would be Claremont Academy and I still like that idea.

Willow Rosenberg
PL 10
Strength 0, Stamina 1, Agility 0, Dexterity 0, Fighting 0, Intellect 6, Awareness 4, Presence 2

Advantages
Artificer, Attractive 2, Benefit, Wealth 3 (millionare), Equipment 1, Extraordinary Effort, Inspire, Languages 4, Occult Library, Ritualist, Skill Mastery (Expertise (Magic)), Teamwork, Well-informed

Skills
Expertise (Magic) 14 (+20), Expertise (Science) 12 (+18), Insight 4 (+8), Investigation 4 (+10), Perception 2 (+6), Persuasion 1 (+3), Ranged Combat (Arcane Blast: Blast 10) 1 (+1), Sleight of Hand 1 (+1), Technology 10 (+16), Treatment 8 (+14), Vehicles 1 (+1)

Powers
Magickal Senses: Senses 8 (magic, Awareness: Magical, Counters Illusion: Magical, Detect: Magical 2 (ranged), Postcognition (Limited): Touch, Radius: Magical; Affects Insubstantial 2 (full rank))
Telekinesis: Move Object 4 (mystic, 800 lbs.; Concentration)
    Throw Object: Blast 2 (Alternate; magic, DC 17; Diminished Range)
Witchcraft: Magic 12 ([10 active, 30/38 PP, 3/r], DC 25; Affects Insubstantial 2 (full rank), Multiattack)
    Arcane Blast: Blast 10 (Alternate; DC 25; Distracting, Noticeable (Light flare))
    Astral Projection (Alternate; Activation: Move Action)
    Computer Link: Other Communication 5 (Alternate; Sense Type: Computer Link; Linked (Remote Sensing: Remote Sensing 13))
    Flight: Flight 10 (Alternate; Speed: 2000 miles/hour, 4 miles/round; Concentration)
    Forget: Mind Control 1 (Alternate; mind, DC 11)
    Glamour: Illusion 5 (Alternate; magic, Affects: All Sense Types, Area: 30 cft., DC 15)
    Magic Sheild: Force Field 20 (Alternate; +20 Toughness)
    Remote Sensing: Remote Sensing 13 (Alternate; Affects: 2 Types, inc. Visual - Vision and Hearing, Range: 30 miles; Linked (Magickal Senses: Senses 8) [4 extra ranks]; Concentration)
    Telepathy: Mental Communication 5 (Alternate; Advantages: Extended distance with Willow; Distracting)
    Teleport: Teleport 10 (Alternate; 4 miles in a move action, carrying 50 lbs.)
    Veil: Concealment 10 (Alternate; All Senses)

Equipment
Ritual Tools 1, Cell Phone (Smartphone), Computer

Offense
Initiative +0
Arcane Blast: Blast 10, +1 (DC 25)
Forget: Mind Control 1 (DC Will 11)
Grab, +0 (DC Spec 10)
Telekinesis: Move Object 4, +0 (DC 14)
Throw, +0 (DC 15)
Throw Object: Blast 2, +0 (DC 17)
Unarmed, +0 (DC 15)
Witchcraft: Magic 12, +0 (DC 25)

Complications
Prejudice: Jewish Lesbian Wicca
Relationship: Tara

Languages
English, French, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, Russian

Defense
Dodge 3, Parry 0, Fortitude 5, Toughness 1, Will 7

Power Points
Abilities 26 + Powers 65 + Advantages 20 + Skills 29 (58 ranks) + Defenses 10 = 150


Tara Maclay
PL 10
Strength 1, Stamina 1, Agility 0, Dexterity 0, Fighting 0, Intellect 3, Awareness 5, Presence 2

Advantages
Animal Empathy, Artificer, Attractive, Benefit, Wealth (well-off), Equipment 3, Extraordinary Effort, Inspire, Languages 4, Minion 2, Occult Library, Ritualist, Skill Mastery (Expertise (Magic)), Teamwork, Well-informed

Skills
 Expertise (Horse Riding) 4 (+7), Expertise (Humanities) 8 (+11), Expertise (Magic) 10 (+13), Insight 8 (+13), Investigation 5 (+8), Perception 2 (+7), Persuasion 2 (+4), Ranged Combat (Arcane Blast: Blast 10) 2 (+2), Sleight of Hand 2 (+2), Technology 2 (+5), Treatment 8 (+11), Vehicles 1 (+1)

Powers
Magickal Senses: Senses 8 (magic, Awareness: Magical, Counters Illusion: Magical, Detect: Magical 2 (ranged), Postcognition (Limited): Touch, Radius: Magical; Affects Insubstantial 2 (full rank))
Mystic Healing: Healing 9 (Activation (move action), Limited (Touch only))
Telekinesis: Move Object 4 (mystic, 800 lbs.; Concentration)
    Throw Object: Blast 2 (Alternate; magic, DC 17; Diminished Range)
Witchcraft: Magic 11 ([9 active, 27/35 PP, 3/r], DC 24; Affects Insubstantial 2 (full rank), Multiattack)
    Arcane Blast: Blast 10 (Alternate; DC 25; Distracting, Noticeable (Light flare))
    Astral Projection (Alternate; Activation: Move Action)
    Flight: Flight 10 (Alternate; Speed: 2000 miles/hour, 4 miles/round; Concentration)
    Glamour: Illusion 5 (Alternate; magic, Affects: All Sense Types, Area: 30 cft., DC 15)
    Magic Sheild: Force Field 14 (Alternate; +14 Toughness)
    Remote Sensing: Remote Sensing 12 (Alternate; Affects: 2 Types, inc. Visual - Vision and Hearing, Range: 16 miles; Linked (Magickal Senses: Senses 8) [4 extra ranks]; Concentration)
    Telepathy: Mental Communication 5 (Alternate; Advantages: Extended distance with Willow; Distracting)
    Teleport: Teleport 10 (Alternate; 4 miles in a move action, carrying 50 lbs.)

Equipment
Apartment, Athame 1, Car, Cell Phone (Smartphone), Computer

Offense
Initiative +0
Arcane Blast: Blast 10, +2 (DC 25)
Grab, +0 (DC Spec 11)
Telekinesis: Move Object 4, +0 (DC 14)
Throw, +0 (DC 16)
Throw Object: Blast 2, +0 (DC 17)
Unarmed, +0 (DC 16)
Witchcraft: Magic 11, +0 (DC 24)

Complications
Prejudice: Lesbian Wicca
Relationship: Willow

Languages
English, French, Gaelic, Greek, Japanese, Latin

Defense
Dodge 4, Parry 0, Fortitude 4, Toughness 1, Will 8

Power Points
Abilities 24 + Powers 67 + Advantages 22 + Skills 27 (54 ranks) + Defenses 10 = 150


Minion - Miss Kitty Fantastico II - PL 10
Strength 0, Stamina 0, Agility 2, Dexterity 2, Fighting 1, Intellect 1, Awareness 1, Presence 1

Skills
Athletics 2 (+2), Close Combat (????) 1 (+2), Deception 1 (+2), Insight 1 (+2), Perception 3 (+4), Stealth 4 (+6)

Powers
Fly: Flight 2 (Speed: 8 miles/hour, 120 feet/round; Wings)  - MKF has wings that fold up on to her back and stay hidden unless she is using them.
Luck Control: Luck Control 1 (Negate Luck) - she is a black cat after all.
Mental Link: Mental Communication 1 (Sense Type: Telepathy; Limited (only with Willow and Tara))

Offense
Initiative +2
Grab, +1 (DC Spec 10)
Throw, +2 (DC 15)
Unarmed, +1 (DC 15)

Complications
Quirk: Lazy
Quirk: Curious

Languages
Cat, Telepathy

Defense
Dodge 2, Parry 1, Fortitude 0, Toughness 0, Will 1

Power Points
Abilities 16 + Powers 8 + Advantages 0 + Skills 6 (12 ranks) + Defenses 0 = 30

All in all I like them, but would like to hear what the experts have to say.

Tara gets the car (specially designed hybrid Subaru Outback), apartment and MKF II on her sheet to spread the points around.  Willow is brilliant and the most power witch on the planet maybe, but she considers Tara to be just as potent.  Both girls have Wealth, in my games Willow sold her software company, Red Witch, and remained on as their paid consultant.  This gives her freedom to work when she wants and still have money. Red Witch makes the world best computer security systems; and all have a back door that only Willow knows how to access.

In my WitchCraft game, Tara has more Essence or magical energy than Willow does, not sure how replicate that here.

Note: That fantastic bit of art up there is from David Reynolds, one half of the brilliant ShadowGirls comic team. 

International Woman's Day

Note: I am cross-posting this on the Wonder Woman blog, Amazon Princess as well.

Today is International Woman's Day.

While I think that is great thing I have to ask why more than half of the population only gets one day?  Shouldn't women get Spring and Summer and men get Fall and Winter?  Anyway I am not here to debate. William Moulton Marston envisioned a world where women would be more highly regarded than they were in his own time (and even than they are now), but failing that at least we can honor his ideals on this day with a picture of one his greatest creations; Wonder Woman.

From the DC Women Kicking Ass and Girls Gone Geek.

Don't see Fire, Ice or Zatanna in the pic though. Oh well it is still awesome.

Finally got my Expert Set!

So here is a story and it is a familiar one.   Young boy in the early 80's playing Atari and listening to Thomas Dolby gets the gift that will change everything, the D&D Basic set.  Later, with his well earned and saved money he buys the D&D Expert set.  Life is pretty good.  Advanced books follow.  Boy becomes a young man and moves away to college.  Books are taken in some moves, left at parents in others, many years later that milk crate of D&D books, including those once prized Basic and Expert sets (and a crap ton of AD&D hardcovers) have disappeared.

Sad tale to be sure.

Well no more, because after years of looking (albeit not very hard) I finally got a decent looking Expert set.

The box has some wear, yes, but let's look inside.

The books themselves are in fantastic shape.  Almost mint I would go as far to say.

Much better than the one I had (bought a couple years back),

The box also had a near mint AD&D 1st ED DM's screen and a full booklet of AD&D NPC record sheets.

Of course now I have four copies of X1, Ilse of the Dread; three of them in near mint condition.

This was pretty much the last thing I wanted to buy.  Now my long lost collection is complete again.  Well, I don't have the Dungeon or Wilderness Survival Guides, but that's fine.

They Don't Write 'em Like that Anymore

Back when I was in college I got a call from my mom, she was at a yard sale and someone was selling all their old Dragon magazines.  It was a box just full of stuff from like issue #35 on to #140 or so. Most were there, but a couple were missing, all in all about 100 issues.  Asking price, 10 bucks.
A while later I was able to get my hands on some old White Dwarf magazines, issues #1 through #50.  Most of them were there as well but not all of them were in great shape.
But beyond the quality of the magazines and how much (or rather how little) I paid for them, reading them was pure joy.  Even if I was not actually playing the versions of the games they were talking about (this was during the 2nd Ed era and into the 3rd Ed one) they were still fantastic.  Some stuff was good, some was bad, but all of it was earnest and just plain fun to read.

I get that same feeling while reading Oubliette.

I just picked up Issue #5 and I have others, but this issue really gave me the same feeling as reading a newly discovered fan magazine from the late 70s. There is nothing that stands out as special to me in this issue, it is just the whole package that I enjoy.  It was interesting to see the Monstermark system again, having seen it in my collected issues of White Dwarf and still not getting it. I liked the "advanced" vampires too.

The art is very evocative of the old school style seen in Dragon, White Dwarf and The Dungeoneer magazines.

I hope we can see more from The Oubliette!

Exploring Characters

So one of the latest (or am I two weeks too late on this one) mantra is "We explore dungeons, not characters."  In the immortal words of Tony Stark from Iron Man "is it too much to ask for both?"

I like exploring characters.  I guess this means I am a "role-player" more than I am "Dungeon Crawler".  I like to explore my characters, figure out what makes them tick.  I'd rather loose to a monster in way that advances the plot or characterization than kill the monster and get the treasure in what was otherwise a roll of the dice.

I guess that is just one more hit to my old-school street cred.

Reviews: Can't Sleep, Clown Will Eat Me edition

Some reviews while I can't sleep.

Legends of Excalibur: Arthurian Adventures HC
I picked this up at the same time I did the True20 version.
This is one of the best Arthurian legends games I have read in a good long time. The text is very readable, the layout is very well done and the maps are fantastic.
The use of the d20 system here is nice, but lacks the elegance of the True20 version.
You do get a number of very good feats and prestige classes here though so that evens it out some.
If you are a fan of Arthur in any of it's many re-tellings then this is a fantastic game to own.
5 out of 5 stars.

Fantasy Women Clipart JPEG 7
20 clip art images to use in your games. All are 3D "poser" style computer images, so their utility for certain styles of play might be limited. But all in all they are not bad and the price is fine.
4 out of 5 stars.

Solid! The d20 Blaxploitation Experience
A very interesting take on a little traveled genre in RPGs. While the rules are firmly within the d20 Modern ruleset, there are bit of interesting crunch here and there to make it worthwhile. But where this game shines really is as a guide to the Blaxplotation film genre and history. If you want to run any type of game, regardless of the system, set in the 70’s then this is a good place to start.

Damnation Decade

I have a love/hate relationship with the 70s. I grew up in the 70s and have good memories of them. Loved classic rock, hated disco. Loved the new age occult revival, could have cared less about some of the other stuff. I grew up then, but consider myself a child of the 80s.

Damnation Decade though is the pure raw distillation of everything 70s, good and bad, into one awesome game. It is a historical game, in the same way Ghosts of Albion is about 1839. Damnation Decade takes a wrong turn in 1974 down a dead end. The world is sort of like ours, yet also very different in some key respects. Damnation Decade is also quite possibly the one RPG product to ever tacitly or implicitly illustrate that things under President Ford could have been a lot worse that what we really got. Reading through Damnation Decade is at the same time a trip down memory lane and an exercise in identifying puns and analogues to our real world. Green Ronin: did we really need a world where folk singer Edmund Fitzgerald sings about the Wreck of the Gordon Lightfoot? But I guess you are forgiven by giving us the first RPG product to feature a real Fantasy Island.

It reminds me of Solid!, which is also about the 70's. If Solid! is Parliament, then Damnation Decade is Grand Funk Railroad. Damnation Decade though gives something that Solid lacks; memorable NPCs. Sure if you can get past that most of them are amalgams of 4 or 5 70s figures, for example Humboldt Suede is not just a bad Hugh Heffner rip-off, he is part Hugh Hefner, Bob Guccione AND the Son of Satan. Though some are original enough to be useful outside the 70s atmosphere; Theramin Hunker for example could work well (maybe even better) in 21st Century games full of conspiracies.

Damnation Decade works great as a d20 game AND it has a True20 appendix that might even be better.
Plus that cover rocks.
5 out of 5 stars.

Bunnies And Burrows
The premier RPG of playing something other than a human or anything humanoid. It is basically "Watership Down" the role-playing game, but there is much more to it than that.
It would be disingenious to review it with modern eyes (it is nearly 35 years old now) but it has a very good skill system, and one of the first to be honest. Since the characters are rabbits, there is not much in the way of combat and instead a focus is placed on solving problems and role-playing.
5 out of 5 stars.

Dreaming Cities: Tri-Stat Urban Fantasy Genre

Dreaming Cities was one of the first attempts I had seen of putting together a good Urban Fantasy game that was not also trying to do horror. Sure we had Urban Arcana for d20 and a few others, but this one felt a bit different to me. At least at first. So the real feature of this game is the background information and how they make Urban Fantasy work for them.
The game system itself is Tri-Stat which at this point was mostly the same as BESM 2nd Ed-Revised and SAS. If you know the powers and rules for those you have the same things here.
The real meat for this game comes in only around page 70 when we see how to apply these character rules into archetypes to work in Urban Fantasy. Many seem cribbed from other versions of Tri-Stat/BESM/SAS games, but that is fine.
The rest of the book talks about how to make an Urban Fantasy game work. Like the treatment SAS gave the 70+ year history of comic book heroes, DC tells about the modern urban fantasy genre. There is a quite a bit of crunch mixed in with text on how a modern society deals with things like magic, pixies, zombies, demons and dragons and visa versa.
GoO and Tri-Stat are gone, sad to say, but this game is still worthwhile and has a lot going for it. If you play a modern horror game or a modern supernatural one where magic and supernatural are still hidden, then this is a refreshing little breather.
IT’s not D&D with guns and computers mind you. It is however something very fun.
The rules suffer the same pros and cons as SAS, BESM and the rest of the Tri-Stat family. There is not a lot here that is new in terms of rules, just new ways to use them.
The text is clear and the art is very good.
4 out of 5 stars.

ION Guard

Bash! Edition
ICONS Edition

If you need a reason to buy BASH or ICONS then this is it. At just about 60 pages this supplement presents the Intergalactic Ordinance Network Guard or ION Guard, an intergalatic police force defending the universe from all sorts of bad guys.
Yes we have seen this before, but the the presentation in this book is so enduring you ignore the obvious DNA of this product and just pull on your ION Fist, say your Oath and protect the Galaxy. NPCs are detailed as well as bad guys for you to fight. The layout of the book is awesome and I honestly can't say enough good about it.
Dislike: would have liked to see more bad guys.
5 out of 5 stars.