D20 Dark Ages: D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge

I have been following d20 Dark Ages for quite a while now.  To celebrate 40 years of D&D Stelios is hosting a blog hop in February and I am joining in!

http://d20darkages.blogspot.com/p/d-40th-anniversary-blog-hop-challenge.html

I think it is going to be a lot of fun to do AND to read what everyone else has to say.  In truth you can pick over the last few years of my blog here and find my answers to most of these.  But getting them all into once theme and place will be nice.

So go to his blog, sign up and start working on your posts!

Ghosts of Albion: Shaniezak demon

Been going through a lot of my Ghosts of Albion materials.  Seeing if I would like to run anything for Gen Con.  One adventure I have ran in the past and would love to try under different systems is "Obsession".
I could run it under a different system each night...

Well I am not likely to run it under Ghosts of Albion anymore and it would not really work under the OSR rules.  Since I running to a meeting here in a bit, here is a demon for you that would work for any game.

I am not embarrassed to say that this was one my influences on this adventure and demon.  I thought Astrid Plane was hot.

Shaniezak Demon

“This creature at first reminds you of a fetal human.  Its wrinkled pinched face, bald head and fat features bring to mind a cherub, only this no angelic child.  Its eyes are a black with orange irises, set in a head that seems too heavy for its unseen neck.  Two fat arms extend for it like normal, but its own obesity has made the thick digits of its hand all but useless.  Its skin around its upper body is a sickly yellowish hue, like it had been soaking in bromide wash, tuning dun brown as moves down.  Its entire body is covered in a sheen of foul looking slime.  Where its legs would have been has fused into a single thick fluke that noisily slaps against its host.  Tufts of black hair appear hear and there on its body. Most disturbing though is its maw.  Starting from it’s sternum down to its malformed waist is a gapping maw. Slime issues forth from it as it suckles against the body of its host.  Its head has turned nearly 180 degrees around in order to peer at you though it’s damned hellfire orange eyes.

The entire creature brings to mind the working of an insane artist asked to make a portrait of a child.  Instead of a mother and babe we get this abomination and its host that is no more than a bag of skin over bones.  It starves while the Shaniezak gets fat.”

- From the Journal of Tamara Swift

Long ago the Shaiezak demons were banished to lowest parts of the Nether Realms where they fed on the waste and offal of other demons. There they were to be forgotten, but sometimes these disgusting parasites are summoned to the Earthly realms to cause havoc.

Shaniezak (demon enhanced human)
Ghosts of Albion
Type: Possessed human
Attributes (numbers in parentheses are original values): Strength 7 (3), Dexterity 3, Constitution 7 (2), Intelligence 2, Perception 3, Willpower 7 (2)
Ability Scores: Muscle 20, Combat , Brains 12 (9)
Life Points: 69 (30)
Drama Points: 2
Special Abilities:  Emotional Problems (Cruel), Emotional Problems (Obsessed with someone), Hard to Kill, Increased Life Points, Magic Immunity, Unattractive (1)

Shaniezak (demon enhanced human)
Basic OSR
Armor Class:  5 [14] (aura of protection)
Hit Dice: 6d8+12* (39 hp)
No. of Attacks: 2 fists
Damage: 1d4+2 (x2)
Special: Makes saves vs. Magical attacks as Wizard 10
Movement: Twice base creature
No. Appearing: 1
Saves As: Wizard 6 (10 vs. magic and spells)
Morale: 12
Treasure: Special: The Shaniezak possessed human will collect trinkets from their victims or the focus of their obsessions.
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
XP: 450

The Shaniezak appears at a demonic parasite attached to a host body.  It gives the host certain powers, strength, increased health and magic immunity but feeds the darker emotions of the host; fear, envy, hate and obsessions.  The demon prompts its host into greater acts of violence and depravity to feed off of fear of the victims and the frustrations of its host.

An Exorcism spell will remove the demon, but kill the host in the process.  Since the removal of the demon always kills the host many opt just kill both.

After Happily Ever After

Writing about witches I read a lot of fairy tales. Trust me, the real ones don't have Disney-style endings.
If you are here you already know that.

But did you know that sometimes it is even worse than that?

The Glass Slipper Confessionals deal with life with Cinderella after her divorce. And presently it is cracking me up.

Here are the first and last episodes just to give you an idea what it is like.






Yeah things are rough for Cindy and Tink. Vodka and pixie dust.

They join other Unreality Shows, BAMF Girls Club and Adult Wednesday Addams.

Watch and enjoy!



Yeah I might need help.

White Dwarf Wednesday #93

Before going back to September of 1987 for White Dwarf #93 I want to mention that White Dwarf in its present incarnation will become a weekly magazine.  The Press Release was just posted today over at Games Workshop. So an interesting time in the history of WD.

Today's issue features the first Warhamer 40k inspired cover.  When you get right down to it, WH40k is pretty much everything White Dwarf ever did in one game. It's fantasy (like WH, D&D and RQ), it is Sci-Fi (like Traveller), it is horror (like CoC) and it is minis.  I guess it really is no surprise.

Mike Brunton delivers his last editorial urging folks not to read editorials and instead read the rest of the magazine.

Open Quest hits us with five Games Workshop related products.  Block Mania and Mega Mania are board games, Death on the Reik is a supplement for WH, The Talisman Dungeon a board game expansion and GW's reissue of RuneQuest Monsters.  The Talisman Dungeon board game expansion is an interesting one to me since I recently did something similar to my own sets of TSR's Dungeon game (not related).  Also covered are a couple of TSR aAD&D books. The I3-5 Desert of Desolation series (which Jim Bambra liked a lot) and Treasure Hunt a "well crafted and truly creative" adventure from TSR. Something that Carl Sargent says is a rarity these days.  There is a board game called "Chase" from TSR as well.  Mike Brunton calls it easy to learn but easily one of the hardest games to play (in a good way). It sounds interesting but I don't recall it all.

Awesome Lies discusses how soon you will be able to see your own local GW store! There is mention of TSR releasing Car Wars books, I am not sure if that is a typo or something that never came to pass. More on the New Infinities and TSR troubles.  One bit of interest to me is a mention of the GW Dracula game.  Later released as The Fury of Dracula. I rather enjoyed the plot behind this one, 8 years (7 in this article) later Dracula is back and fighting the original hunters.

Critical Mass covers more books, but the only one I had read on the list was Wielding a Red Sword by Piers Anthony.  I also had a number of issues with this book, though not the same as the review.  I tried to read Mirror of Her Dreams, but gave up and decided that Stephen Donaldson just isn't for me.

The first feature article is a Tournament Adventure for AD&D. Getting Away From Most Of It is designed for 8 characters of levels 2-4.   Interestingly enough the idea here is the characters are on vacation and have motivations while they are here (to get a tan, to get drunk, to buy/get souvenirs).  It is a bit tongue in cheek, but the fatality rate looks like it will be pretty high. The adventures are pressed into returning a minor artifact to a demon and they only have 2 hours to do it. That is 2 hours of real time.  Looks like it would be fun with the right people or even in a convention setting.

Vances Evocation of Arcane Delight covers, what else, the "Vancian" magic system of D&D.  The author, Simon Nicholson, states that the magic of Jack Vance is far more interesting than what we typically know of it in AD&D.  Reading through this I am motivated (again) to do more with my *D&D spells and motivated (again) to read the works of Jack Vance.  Spells should have cool names and, well, magic about them. This is one (of 100s of) thing CoC gets right.

The main focus of the issue is next, a huge color supplement/advertising for Warhammer 40,000.

Some miniatures awards are next.

Eureka is a smaller adventure for Warhammer Fantasy.  Though it is overshadowed in my my mind by the next adventure.

"Letters from a Foreign Land" easily wins the golden WTF award for concept.  It is an adventure for Warhammer Fantasy, Call of Cthulhu and MERP. Imagine the Venn Diagram of that. What can possibly be the spot where all three overlap.  And why not just throw AD&D into the mix while you are at it! This is one of those adventures I would want to run just to be able to say I did it. Granted, this is not a crossover, but a triple-stated one.  Still though.  It is a decent size and would take a couple of sessions to run.  If it were smaller, say four hours, it would a fun thing to try at GenCon, running it under a different system each night.

'Eavy Metal covers painting.  I new painting minis is hard, but there are lot more steps here than I ever knew about.

All The Lonely People gives us some NPCs for Judge Dredd.

Sound Familiar? discusses familiars and pets for your FRPG. While nothing I haven't seen elsewhere, it is a nice treatise on familiars and how they can be used.

We end with letters and ads.

In general I have to say the articles are improving. Everything is actually better quality than it was in the last two years.  Yes the focus is shifting, but it mirrors what was going on in gaming at the time too.  At this point in 1987 I wasn't playing much myself. Though there is an interesting note. I introduced a friend to the game around this time and her character later stuck around in my games as an NPC that became a vampire.  That character is still being used in my games today as the only known human to have ever been cured of vampirism.

I keep expecting each issue to have less and less that interests me, and that is roughly true, but the issue themselves have been quite good.

Come Endless Darkness,Part 2

So yesterday I posted this great idea I had for adventures for my kids for their 1st Ed game.
I *thought* I had a cool original-ish idea.  Well...not so much.

It was pointed out to me (thanks Sciamantis!) that this was already done in a series of 2nd Ed adventures.

• 9570 A Darkness Gathering
• 9571 Masters of Eternal Night
• 9572 Dawn of the Overmind

I must have had some knowledge of these, at least in a broad sense.  I don't own them and they date from my D&D hiatus of the late 90s.  They are written by +Bruce R Cordell, so that gives me confidence but otherwise I know very little about them.  Anyone have any experience or knowledge of these?  I'd like to know more about them before I start cruising  Half-Price Books and eBay for them.  They are not up on DnDClassics.com yet.

That also brings up a larger issue.  I am using modules in my game here to give my kids a shared experience with other gamers.  B2 is a rite of passage, the GDQ series is equally iconic.  These are things they can talk about with others.  Hell I don't even need to describe them, I can just say B2 or GDQ. 

But these other adventures are not the same are they?  They might be great, they might even be perfect for me, but if I didn't even recall them then how much of a shared experience can they get?

Come Endless Darkness

No. Not the Gary Gygax book, but related.

I have been thinking a lot about the 1st Ed AD&D game my kids are in now.   They love play 1st ed more than 3e I feel, but what is missing from this game, at least how I initially conceived it, is an epic arc.

In this campaign the characters are going to get involved in something huge, something world changing.  Since these characters are the sons and daughters of their 3e characters I also want some thing that alters the feel of the game world to help explain the shift in rules from 3e to 1st Ed.

So I am going back to an idea I had years ago that I originally wanted to try for 3e.  It was going to be called Shadow Earth and bits and pieces live on in my other products and posts.
I am planning to blot out the sun.
This was something that I toyed with now and again and thought it might make for a good plot. It was also one of the ideas I threw out later on as an idea for my "no big bad" game Season of the Witch.

The idea is a simple one really.  The vampires, drow and mind flayers* (or maybe the mi-go have not decided yet) join forces to blot out the sun.

The PCs discover part of this plot after they bust up a slaving operation being run by vampires (A series).  Unlike like other games though, the bad guys succeed in their plans and the sun goes dark.  While the big powers of the world are meeting to discover how to reverse it (and thus not able to help out their offspring) the new generation is sent off to investigate reports of giants attacking a village nearby (GDQ).

So yes I am using modules with this.  I figure I have come up with say about 100 unique adventures over the last 35 years or so.  These allow me to ease some of the heavy lifting AND also to give my kids a shared experience with other gamers.
Here is the plan so far.

• B1 In Search of the Unknown, levels 1-3 (played at Gen Con 2012)
• B2 Keep on the Borderlands, levels 1-3 (playing now, will include a shrine to an evil god of chaos)
• T1 Village of Hommlet, Intro-levels (might not use now, depends on how the Temple of EE fits in)
• L1 The Secret of Bone Hill, levels 2-4 (maybe)
• X2 Castle Amber, levels 3-6 (the MiGo plot)
• A0 to A4, levels 4-7 (the vampires get their victims from the Slavers)
• A5, The Last Slave Lord, levels 5-9 
• I1 Dwellers of the Forbidden City, levels 4-7  (snakemen - minions)
• C1 The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, levels 5-7
• G123, levels 8-12 (drow)
• D12, levels 9-14
• D3, levels 10-14
• Q1, levels 10-14

They are currently going through Tomb of Horrors under 3e, and I am thinking of running Expedition to the Barrier Peaks under AS&SH.

The idea then will be that the PCs discover the plot and have to destroy the device blocking out the sun on Lolth's plane.  IF things work out and we have more time or they want to go on then I *might* work in the old H4 Module, Throne of Bloodstone and redo it a bit to give them a second part to destroy.

Things I have not yet figured out.  I would love to use my Ophidians in there somewhere.  I should really since they a cool race and work well.  I will have to use my take on Demogorgon then as well.

Mindflayers seem like a no brainer to me which means I should really investigate why I am using them.  I think they should be part of a more Mythos-like mindset.  Their goal of course is to enslave the entire world.  But do they have a demon lord they answer to? Not likely.  Given this many factions I need to figure out their motivations.  Why? Well that will tell me how the players will be able to succeed.
Maybe the Ophidians are in league with or controlled by the mind flayers.

I want to give them an epic. I want this to feel like opera; like all three parts of Wagner's Ring Cycle.
At the end I want to be able to look over the table at their faces and know they know what it is to shake the pillars of Heaven.  I felt that when the I was done playing in the "Dragon Wars" in 1988 and again when I ran "The Dragon and the Phoenix" in 2002-2004.

Regardless how epic it might be, it will be fun.

Mega-Dungeon!

We are big fans of the board game Dungeon around here.

My kids love to play it and have even gotten their non-gaming cousins into it.  I have several copies including two copies of the original 1975 version in slightly different boxes.
So last night we tried something we have been wanting to try for a while: Mega Dungeon.

We decided that there are secret doors between the two dungeons and you can teleport from any chamber to any other chamber.  Wizards get twice the amount of spells and magic swords can "stack" so if you have a +1 and a +2 sword then you have +3.  We also used minis instead of pawns cause that is more fun.
The monster rolls are on a d12 instead of a 2d6.  A roll of "1" means the player gets another attack.  We also require twice the amount of gold to win.

So far it has been a lot of fun.  We are continuing later today.

Ultimate Witch & Warlock

Been sitting on this one for a little bit but now has come the time to talk about it.

I am currently working on a new project with Misfit Studios called "Strange Brew: The Ultimate Witch & Warlock" for the Pathfinder game.

You can read my first post about it over at Misfit Studios blog.
http://misfit-studios.com/blog/uncategorized/tim-brannan-strange-brew-ultimate-witch-warlock/

The idea with this began a long time ago as a way for me to update my old Liber Mysterium to D&D 3.5 and to include what I felt was some of the best OGC.  That project never materialized, mostly because I switched focus to instead produce The Witch and Eldritch Witchery.

Recently I began talking to an old friend Christina Stiles.  We had worked together on Buffy and a few other projects for Eden and generally ran in the same circles.  She was looking to update her old Citizen Games book Way of the Witch and thinking about "getting the Coven back together" and adding me on as an editor/designer.  I had mentioned to her that I had already done most of the work she was wanted to do.  We got to talking and soon The Ultimate Witch was born.

Again the idea was to take work I had done (now close to 500 pages), edit it, combine it with the best witch-related OGC out there, and recraft it all for Pathfinder.  The goal is to have a one stop book for all everything you need to play a witch character in Pathfinder.  Not just new spells, but hexes, backgrounds, new uses for old skills, magic items, feats and backgrounds.

I am not ready to release too many details, but this book would be the spiritual successor to both Liber Mysterium and Way of the Witch.  Neither of which are available in print anymore.  It would also update a lot of great d20 witch material, some of which has no equivalent for the Pathfinder game.

Now there are a couple of really obvious questions.
First what is in this book that is not in my other books? Simple answer is "a lot". When working on the first draft of what would become the Ultimate Witch I converted it over to "Basic" for The Witch.  What didn't fit or I could not convert I threw out.  All that stuff is back.  I don't want give the impression that it was thrown out because it was bad. Some of it, like feats for example, just didn't work. Others there were no good rules for with the way I saw the Basic Witch, like 9th level spells.   Plus the d20/Pathfinder system gives me a lot room to work on things too.  Some of the OGC I want to use did make it's way into The Witch and EW, but only the stuff I had used in playtests and my own games.  With the Ultimate Witch a lot more great stuff is going back in.  In particular the OGC from Way of the Witch.
I am also being joined by others on this, so the vision is not mine alone (that would be dull!)

Another question is why do this?  I mean I do have two books I am really, really happy with and proud of.  Why go back to well?  The answer here is again a simple one.  I like the Pathfinder witch, but she could be so much better.  As it turns out I have those things on my hard-drive.

So stay tuned.  I'll have more to say on this and how I plan to have a Witch and a Warlock classes.

PWWO: Magical Theorems & Dark Pacts + The Witch

Here is one of my first "official" Plays Well With Others posts.

Recently I spent some quality time with Dyson's Magical Theorems & Dark Pacts.

• Magical Theorems & Dark Pacts
• AS&SH and Magical Theorems & Dark Pacts: Plays Well With Others

Well I rather enjoy this book and I have been looking for more ways to use it. It occurred to me while reading over the Pact Bound and Enchanter that many of the spells would work great with my Witch class and a number of my spells would work great with these classes.

So I went through the book and my book and figured out which "witch" spells would work good for the MT&DP classes.  You can see the fruits of my efforts here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aus4EyYHejOidFlsQVhVUVJPcDhIYWpoQ1RyYmFQMXc&usp=sharing

All my witch spells and the MT&DP classes, with levels.  I want do the reverse later as well, which new MT&DP spells can be used with the Witch.  If you pop into that sheet you might actually see me working on it live.  I am getting rather fond of Google Drive for collaboration.

Dyson is also talking about his book today, looking at some of the Elven classes and subclasses.   Worth checking out and adding in a bunch of new spells.

This book also works quite well if you use his "d12 subclasses" idea.  Here are his tables for the Wizard, Cleric, Enchanter and Elven Warder.

I could do something like that with the Witch, using the Traditions as a guide.

1. Amazon: +1 to all hits, able to use a sword, spear and bow as weapons. See also. 
2. Aquarian (from the Witch)
3. Classical (from the Witch)
4. Craft of the Wise  (from the Eldritch Witchery)
5. Faerie (from the Witch)
6. Family (from the Witch)
7. Gypsy (from the Eldritch Witchery)
8. Maleficia (from the Witch)
9. Tradition of the Magna Mater (Great Mother)  (from the Eldritch Witchery)
10. Venefica: Bonus to creation of potions, poisons and balms.
11. Eclectic: Mix
12. Choose one or make up a new one.

Certainly works for me.

World of Calidar: Kickstarter final hours

A fast one this morning.  Bruce Heard's World of Calidar Kickstarter is in it's final hours.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ambreville/world-of-calidar

It has blown past all it's stretch goals and it should be a fantastic product.

It looks fun as hell and might just be the thing you need for your game.

White Dwarf Wednesday #92

White Dwarf #92 comes to us from August 1987.  About this time I was headed off to college and my game playing took a slight hit. It would pick up again soon, but my game went for a change after this.  Interesting for me is the change White Dwarf was also going through as well. Something due to the time or just my perceptions?  Likely just me.

The cover is by David Gallagher. It has a vague Warhammer feel to it. The editorial is a rambling affair about how demons in RuneQuest are not real.  I may sound a bit glib here, but this was big deal here in the states just a few years before this.  Later in this issue we discuss more demons in RuneQuest.

Open Box covers the new Stormbringer RPG and RuneQuest (Advanced RQ).  Going back to my idea of "Plays Well With Others", Elric, Stormbringer and RuneQuest were always games I liked mixing up and together. The reviews are positive, as expected.  Also reviewed is the Ghostbuster adventure Scared Stiffs. I liked the idea of the Ghostbusters game, I just never got the chance to play it much.  Graeme Davis enjoyed it.  Also reviewed is the Miskatonic U. Graduate Kit, which is a product I always thought was fun but never used as much as I like.  DA3 City of the Gods for D&D continues the Blackmoor series.  I13 Adventure Pack I is not actually part of the I series, more of the REF series.  The general tone here is that WD is bored with D&D in general at this point.  I can't say that I blame them.  TSR at this point was in a bit of a rut.

Awesome Lies gives us the latest rumors.  The draft of West End Game's new Star Wars game is discussed. It is fast to play and the play-testers hummed Vader's theme while playing.  Cute.  Also covered is the new non-TSR D&D adventure from Gary Gygax's new company New Infinities.  I am not sure if this ever came out or not. I am pretty sure it didn't and my 20 second Google Search found nothing.  I do remember the dust up over Gary's and GDW's "Dangerous Journey" and TSR.

Three page article on how to work for Games Workshop. Sorta tongue in cheek, sorta serious, has me scratching my head.  Was GW needing a lot of people at this time?

For the Warhammer Fantasy article we cover familiar ground; the psychology of Elves, Dwarves and Halflings (and Gnomes).  Long one and and an interesting read, but there isn't anything new here.  Dwarves are stereotypical drunks and so on.  A load of missed opportunity here if you ask me, especially if you consider the page count given to it.

Clarifications and Errata for the game Chainsaw Warrior.  Anyone play this? I have never heard of it.

The "Featured" article is Demons and it is for RuneQuest 3rd Edition.  I always rather liked the demons in RQ, they felt a little different than the ones in D&D and therefore had to be better.  At 12 pages it goes into some detail. Most of the demons presented are unique and could be ported over to any game.  Back in the day I would have worked out every detail of them to make sure their power was on par with their RQ counterpart. Today I am likely just use Balor stats and work from there.   A lot of interesting creatures though.

Rescue the Paladin is an AD&D adventure for 5-8 players with characters level 6-8 by Carl Sargent.  Interestingly enough it states it is NOT designed to use Unearthed Arcana. Though it is the first mention of "THAC0" I have seen in WD.  Instead of classic rescuing the princess, this is rescue the Paladin, Sir Lawrence Le Bon (I didn't make that up).   The antagonist is of course a woman named Janni who is a "witch in all but name".  The PCs have to defeat her before she "violates Sir Lawrence's vow of chastity".   This one would have been a hard sell to my group back then.  AS can be expected I find Janni far more interesting than pretty much the rest of the adventure.  But hey. That's me.

A couple of pages of Warhammer errata.
'Eavy Metal gives painting advice.
Thrice Upon a Time in Mega City 1 has three mini adventures for Judge Dredd. Again they look good in fact with a little tweaking they could work as hooks for a Mutant & Masterminds game.  It also had me thinking that a Judge Dredd / ShadowRun crossover might be fun to try.  Not that there is anything like ShadowRun in these to be honest, but it got me thinking all the same.

Letters and Small ads end this issue.

So the romance between D&D and WD is very much over and WD is just still mentioning D&D because they still have all the same friends.  Still a lot of interesting things in this issue and the new style is really starting to come into it's own here.

Plays Well With Others

Starting a new semi-regular posting thing here.

I love all sorts of games. I love buying games. I don't always have time to play the games I want or I like things from one game and other things from other games.  So I tend to mix things up a lot.

Plays Well With Others will be my you-got-peanut-butter-on-my-chocolate (or fish fingers and custard) posts where I take two or more books or games and mix them up to my tastes.

I have done some things like this in the past here already.

Witch Girls Adventures + WitchCraft RPG
Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea + Magical Theorems & Dark Pacts
Cortex, Savage Worlds and Witch Girls Adventures

I am sure there are others. I know I combined Star Frontiers and Traveller in the past and talked about it briefly.

I have some more here to post soon. Hope you all enjoy.

d20 Dark Ages: D&D Blog Challenge

Stelios V. Perdios  over at d20 Dark Ages is going to be hosting a D&D themed blog challenge for February.

It is worth checking out.
http://d20darkages.blogspot.com/2014/01/d-40th-anniversary-blogging-challenge.html

Tentative list

I am going to be on board of course.  I love things like this.  I am also looking forward to seeing what everyone else does as well.

We get some grief in the old OSR for being nostalgia soaked.  Some of that grief is actually warranted. But this is a big anniversary moment in the age of this hobby of ours and a little self reflection is fun and appropriate.

Now if I can only remember everything I did!

DriveThruRPG New Year, New Game

DriveThruRPG is running a sale for the new year.  Get that game you wanted but didn't get for Christmas and now get it at 50% off.

Over 80 games to choose from so get there now and find your new game of the year.

The Day the Earth Froze

Bring me the Sampo!!!

Sorry, wrong "Day the Earth Froze".

My fridge says it is -17 outside and it is supposed to get colder.

No today is for many the first back to work day of 2014.  Here in Chicago all the schools are closed so I am in my home office on Frankencomputer trying to work.

I was going to work on my project plans for 2014 today but dealing with snow, dangerous ice and trying to work remote is putting a cramp in that.

Plus it is too damn cold to think.  I went out to shovel the end of my drive and in five minutes I went from "this isn't too bad" to "this is fucking awful!"  Can't wait to start complaining about the heat again.

As soon as my brain defrosts some I'll have something intelligent to say.

Zatannurday: Young Justice

I have been thinking about Young Justice for a bit and I have wanted to pick up the new YJ video game Legacy for a while.
Anyone else play it?





Zatanna-YJ by ~jadenwithwings on deviantART


Young Justice Legacy count down 08 by ~riyancyy777 on deviantART


Zatanna. From Young Justice by ~derianl on deviantART


Zatanna 2 by ~derianl on deviantART

Celebrating 40 Years of D&D (or 35)

So here we are 2014.

So far it is cold (-6 outside as I write this).  But it is also something of a banner year. It is the 40th Anniversary of the Dungeons and Dragons game.  The original D&D game, the one hand assembled by Gary and family came out in 1974, but exactly when did it do that?

Well Jon Peterson over at Playing at the World has some pretty good ideas.
http://playingattheworld.blogspot.com/2013/12/when-dungeons-dragons-turns-40.html

With some pains taking research and the skill of an archaeologist he has unearthed a number of artifacts from the time between June 1973 and July 1975 to narrow down the exact date.

I did not start playing then.  My start was a little later. Again, hard to pin it down exactly but I have always said December of 1979.  That is the first time I read over the Monster Manual and played a game of D&D during recess consisting of the MM and a bad 7th generation Xerox of Holmes.  I would not get my own copy of the rules till later, but it is the Dec. 79 date that sticks with me.

We have quite a lot to look forward to really.  D&D 5th edition will be out this summer.  You can now go to your FLGS (and many Barnes & Nobles) and buy pretty much any edition of D&D you want.  DNDClassics.com has gobs of PDFs. Plus there are still plenty of retro-clones, near-clones, what-if clones, Castles & Crusades and Pathfinder.

I am sure there will be plenty of reflections on D&D over the next year leading up to Gen Con; we are a nostalgia soaked bunch really.  But that is fine. Spending some time reflecting on where we were is not a bad thing. As long as we keep moving forward too.

Mage: The Ascension (Revised) FREE

DriveThruRPG has the PDF of Mage: The Ascension (Revised) free today.

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/199/Mage-The-Ascension-%28Revised%29?affiliate_id=10748

I always rather enjoyed Mage. I thought it was a great idea and a lot of fun to play as characters with world-breaking powers.   I just hated players getting so caught up in all the stereotypes and not trying anything new with their characters.  Plus some of the Technocracy stuff didn't really make much sense.

In the end I preferred WitchCraft and Mage: The Sorcerers Crusade. But I still enjoy this game a lot.

First Poll

My first poll produces some fairly predictable results:

*D&D (B, 1, 2) or Retro-Clone	56 (70%)
D&D 3.x/Pathfinder	34 (42%)
D&D 4	12 (15%)
D&D 5/Next	5 (6%)

Though what I wanted to get out of this was not just how many people responding played what "generation" of games, but how did they compare.

D&D3/Pathfinder ended up higher than I expected. And I will admit I was surprised that D&D4 even got as many as it did.

Thanks everyone who participated.  I'll be doing so more in the future.

2013 in review / 2014 preview

Seeing lots of year end / new year posts this week and that is always fun.

For myself, I'll keep it brief.

Highlights of 2013
- Eldritch Witchery was published in October and the Witch continued to sell very well.
- I got to play a lot of games this year which is always nice. 3.x and AD&D1 with my boys, the occasional Basic game and I even ran AS&SH.
- I also got to play in ongoing Pathfinder game and an occasional D&D4 game this year.  I am playing the same character (basically) in both games so it gives me the chance to compare and contrast the systems in a way I like. Which I also find fun.
- Got to play some Settlers of Catan again, which I enjoy.

On the other hand I am not sure if I networked as much I as I would have liked and I was slow getting involved with Google+ for the most part.
I did not get as many reviews in this year as I would have liked. Some at DriveThruRPG, a few at Amazon and one or two at RPG.Net.

Looking Ahead to 2014
- I have a few Victorian age supplements coming out which should be a lot of fun.  Not for Ghosts of Albion but for Gaslight.
- I have a big project starting up soon that I'll be talking about a lot here.  Nothing I want to say yet.
- White Dwarf Wednesday will draw to a close in 2014.  I am not planning on replacing it with anything just yet. The above mentioned project will prevent that.
- Looking forward to Gen Con this year and D&D5.  I am not as excited about it as I could be, but I will certainly be buying it.

I might not (still undecided) do the bloghops this year. The April A to Z or the October movie marathon.  I do have posts I could do for A to Z, but April is going to be busy for me and I didn't see the increase in traffic or interaction as I had in the past. Plus it is a lot of work.  A recharge might be in order.

I will be doing some 80s Sword & Sorcery movie marathons though.  Not sure how those will work out, but it could be fun.

Until then, have a safe New Years Eve and here's to a great new 2014!

Warlocks, part 2

Over the past week I had the chance to run an AS&SH game and loved it.  My only request to my players was for someone to play a Warlock character.  That was also really fun.

I have never really considered the warlock much. But I have been thinking a lot about the warlock as a class in D&D of late.  There is a Warlock in Eldritch Witchery. It is a type of Wizard basically. I liken it to "Wizard Grad School" to be honest.  They use the same spells as the witch and gain a few extra powers.

The AS&SH warlock is something more akin to a swordmage.  We see something similar in D&D4 Essentials Hexblade.  In general I liked the D&D4 Warlock.  They were a class that wanted quick access to power and none of the work that Wizards had to do.  That was a fine role-playing excuse, but not something that played out in the rules.  Warlocks gained powers just like the Wizards did and had no more or no less requirements.

The Warlocks in Fantastic Heroes & Witchery are another sort.  It is a chaos aligned wizard and has a lot of the same features really.  It uses the same xp per level tables, same HD and same spell progressions.  The FHW Warlock does gain some power, similar in many ways to my own witch, but at a cost.  On the surface this doesn't make it much different than a wizard, with a different selection of spells.  What makes this class, and really this book, different are the selection of spells (the book has 666) and the additional rules for acquiring magic and casting spells.  Adding this material makes the Warlock a much more interesting character.

The Pact-Bound in Magical Theorems & Dark Pacts is another warlock-like class.  Again the idea here is a class that takes a quick path to power for a price, usually to an other worldly power.

There is a similar one in the pages of the ACKS Player's Companion.

In the 3e era we have a couple of "warlocks".  There is a warlock in the Complete Arcane and the witch in Pathfinder, which always felt more like a warlock to me.

Somewhere at the intersection of all these warlocks is the one I want to play.

These are the features I am looking for:
- spontaneous spellcasting
- same spells as the witch or at least some sort of connection
- pacts with other worldly powers that grant the warlock power
- shortcuts to power, so they should get more spells faster, but maybe fewer as time goes on.
- some idea of corruption. Warlocks should be unnatural and not part of this world anymore.

Going to be playing around with this a lot more in the new year.

Warlocks

Just a quick one, still out and on the road.

What do you all think about warlock classes?

I know of a number of different ones, AS&SH, D&D4 and others.  What are your favorite ones and why?

More on this in a bit.

2013 Game of the Year

2013 was a great year for gaming personally.  I got to try out a lot of old things, which is fun, and had a chance to try out some new games as well.  I got to play a lot of Basic and 1st Ed AD&D with my kids, do a little more with 3e, started both a Pathfinder and 4e game.  The Pathfinder game kicks up again next year and I just got a notification about my 4e game just two days ago (on Tuesday, so I guess this post was premature).

But of all the games I tried out only one really grabbed me this year.
Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea.

Today we played a very Howard inspired "rescue the princess before the Old God is awakened" sort of deal.  It was fun and I borrowed a lot from Spellcraft & Swordplay and Call of Cthulhu for this one.
We had an Atlantean warlock, a Keltic Bard, Kimmerian fighter and a "Norse" Cleric.  It was a lot of fun.

For my money it is the best of the "Dark Fantasy" games on the market right now.
I hope I get to play it more in 2014.

If you don't yet have this game then you are really, really missing out on some fun.

Classic Christmas

Every year for Christmas I ask Santa for a game item that I am not likely to buy for myself.  This year I asked for the limited edition Original D&D reprint boxed set.

Well I must have been a good boy.

The new books came in large wood box with dice and a nice felt bottom.  Plenty of room if I wanted to add a copy of Chainmail (curiously absent from this).

The books compare favorably with the originals.  Save for the covers they are authentic reproductions of the originals.  Though having the "Dungeons & Dragons" logo/titles in different colors would have been a neat touch.

Can't say I like the newer covers better.

Gods, Demi-gods and Heroes has the biggest changes.

Missing are the Conan and Elric mythos; which makes sense really.

I am pretty pleased with this set to be honest.  I'd love to run an old-fashioned OD&D game with them someday.  I have been dying to do something like a John Carter/Barsoom game using OD&D.

How abut you? Did Santa Orc (or Krampus) bring you anything nice this year?

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays from The Other Side

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from the Other Side!!
Here are some of my favorite "modern" Christmas songs.

Alas, 4E

2013 will go down, at least for me, as the year Fourth Edition of Dungeons & Dragons died.

It was an ignoble death. When 1st ed gave way for 2nd ed there was a feeling of renewal mixed with an attitude of it was a change for the better.  When 2nd ed was replaced by 3e there was a feeling (again in my mind) of a reboot, a new era.  4e always started out on the wrong foot.
Many complained it was too video game like, albeit from many that had never actually played it. Others complained it was too soon (though it was shown that we do get a new edition every 8 years or so).

We are now all gearing up for D&D Next and I hope that they don't end up calling it that.  What will 6e be called? D&D The Next one after that?

There is a lot to like about D&D Next and I am looking forward to it.  But I can't help but feel a bit of remorse for the loss of my D&D4 game.

I will not lie. I had fun with 4e.  I loved the books and the fluff and I *will* be recycling as much as I can for whatever I do next. Whether that is Next or even Pathfinder.

I did pick up 13th Age which was described to me as a "4e Retro-clone" . It's not exactly that, but there are some really nice ideas in this to bring 4e closer to 3e and it addresses some of the complaints I have heard about 4e.

While 4th Ed might be retreating to the back of my gaming list I am not done with it.   There are few things I wrote for myself for 4e that are going to see the light of day under different systems.  I had created a number of new Warlock pacts that I would love to expand on and even some materials I wrote for a Witch class before WotC published their own.

So it is not good bye really.  Besides I can still use all those minis, tiles and monster tokens.

All I Want for Christmas is...

It's the weekend before Christmas!
It is also the first (full) day of winter.  Traditionally my wife and I give each other gifts on this day.

What are you all hoping Santa (or Krampus) leaves under your tree this year?

I am hoping for an OD&D boxed set.

How about you?

Zatannurday: Zatanna in Black and White

Today is the first day of winter!
How about some Zatanna in black and white.



Pinup- Zatanna by ~RudPatrocinio on deviantART


Zatanna by ~Crimson-Wraith on deviantART


Zatanna Zatara by *TerribleToadQueen on deviantART


steampunk zatanna by ~Cross4 on deviantART


Zatanna by ~ManuelPreitano on deviantART


Zatanna Zatara by ~SilveiraJrArt on deviantART


ZATANNA by ~LORENA-CARVALHO on deviantART


Zatanna Zatara by ~ElizabethBeals on deviantART


Back to Zatanna by ~Thegerjoos on deviantART


Zatanna by ~AsheDalmasca on deviantART


Zatanna!! by ~Jawn-Lee on deviantART

Ok. I could not say no to this one.


Tel Ti Wons~! : Zatanna by ~Lossien on deviantART

The Power of the Witch & Witchcraft: Myth and Reality

A great little video from England in 1971.

Talks about witches and witchcraft but gets it all confabulated with satanism.  It does feature noted witchcraft experts Alex Sanders and Doreen Valiente.

Still though, exactly the sort of thing I would have been watching in the 70s and 80s when I was gaming and playing wizards, priests and witches.




Another one from around 1998 is Witchcraft: Myth and Reality.




It is a bit more even handed.

Watch these and you will get an idea of the sort feel I wanted in The Witch and Eldritch Witchery.

Skylla: Pathfinder Witch

I have been playing around more with Pathfinder and the witch class from the Advanced Player's Guide.
So the Pathfinder witch has come up here before,

• Pathfinder Witch overview
• 4e vs. Pathfinder vs. OSR
• Witch Books, the d20 Years
• Witch Books, Pathfinder
• Pathfinder Witch
• Hex (Skylanders) for Pathfinder

Now I have some more hours playing a Pathfinder witch logged I feel like I am getting a better feel for her. So far I do like the class more than I initially did. But there still some things about it that are not particularly "witch-like" to me.  For starters I don't like how covens are handled at all.  And there is no ritual magic to speak of.

There is a lot of things I want to do with the Pathfinder witch. I think there is a lot of potential here. Some things I can live with, others I might need to re-write. Many things I can fix with a suitable skill choice, a feat here or there and some old-fashioned roleplaying.  Case in point here is Skylla as a Pathfinder witch.

Skylla in Pathfinder
The Pathfinder Witch gives Skylla the chance to try out a different repertoire of spells.  Since care was given to make sure there was not a lot of overlap in the Witch and Wizard spells in Pathfinder.  Her Patron gives her access to some "divine" like spells which is a nice touch.  Given her background I thought Deception would be nice, but I could have picked Wisdom as well.
I went with the Hero Lab version to focus on the materials that are just from the Pathfinder books.
Pathfinder also allows me to detail her skills a bit better and give her some background traits.

She stacks up nicely to her other counterparts, though more spells and powers.

Skylla

Female Human Witch 7
CE Medium humanoid (human)
Init +0; Senses Perception +3

---

Defense

---

AC 11, touch 11, flat-footed 11 (+1 deflection)
hp 30 (7d6+1)
Fort +2, Ref +2, Will +6

---

Offense

---

Speed 30 ft.
Melee dagger -6 (1d4-1/19-20/×2) and
   quarterstaff +2 (1d6-1/×2)
Special Attacks hexes (cackle, disguise [7 hours/day], misfortune [dc 15], slumber [dc 15])
Witch Spells Prepared (CL 7th; concentration +9):
4th (1/day)—scrying (DC 16)
3rd (2/day)—tongues, arcane sight
2nd (4/day)—invisibility, detect thoughts (DC 14), levitate, burning gaze
1st (5/day)—inflict light wounds (DC 13), hypnotism (DC 13), chill touch (DC 13), sleep (DC 13), charm person (DC 13)
0 (at will)—daze (DC 12), detect magic, light, read magic

---

Statistics

---

Str 9, Dex 11, Con 10, Int 15, Wis 12, Cha 11
Base Atk +3; CMB +2; CMD 13
Feats Arcane Strike, Brew Potion, Craft Wondrous Item, Deceitful, Spell Penetration
Traits magical talent, scholar of the great beyond
Skills Bluff +3, Diplomacy +1, Disguise +8, Fly +4, Heal +5, Intimidate +8, Knowledge (arcana) +12, Knowledge (nature) +7, Knowledge (planes) +8, Knowledge (religion) +4, Perception +3, Spellcraft +12, Stealth +2, Swim +0, Use Magic Device +4
Languages Abyssal, Common, Elven
SQ patron spells (deception)
Combat Gear Staff of charming; Other Gear Dagger, Quarterstaff, Ring of protection +1, 148 GP

---

Special Abilities

---

Arcane Strike As a swift action, add +1 damage, +1 per 5 caster levels and your weapons are treated as magic for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.
Cackle (Su) As a move action, extend the duration of other hexes by 1 rd.
Deliver Touch Spells Through Familiar (Su) Your familiar can deliver touch spells for you.
Disguise (7 hours/day) (Su) Can change own appearance, as disguise self but with longer duration.
Empathic Link with Familiar (Su) You have an empathic link with your Arcane Familiar.
Familiar Bonus: +3 to Appraise checks You gain the Alertness feat while your familiar is within arm's reach.
Magical Talent (Mage Hand) (1/day) (Sp) Choose one 0-level spell - it becomes a 1/day spell-like ability for you.
Misfortune (1 rd) (DC 15) (Su) Foe in 30 ft must take the lower of 2d20 for rolls (Will neg).
Share Spells with Familiar Can cast spells with a target of "You" on the familiar with a range of touch.
Slumber (7 rds) (DC 15) (Su) Foe in 30 ft falls asleep for duration, or until damaged or roused by ally (Will neg).
Speak with Animals (Ex) Your familiar can communicate with animals similar to itself.
Speak With Familiar (Ex) You can communicate verbally with your familiar.

---

Raven
Female Raven
CE Tiny magical beast (animal)
Init +2; Senses low-light vision; Perception +10

---

Defense

---

AC 18, touch 14, flat-footed 16 (+2 Dex, +2 size, +4 natural)
hp 15 (1d8-1)
Fort +1, Ref +4, Will +7

---

Offense

---

Speed 10 ft., fly 40 ft. (average)
Melee bite +7 (1d3-4/×2)
Space 2 ft.; Reach 0 ft.

---

Statistics

---

Str 2, Dex 15, Con 8, Int 9, Wis 15, Cha 7
Base Atk +3; CMB +3; CMD 9
Feats Skill Focus (Perception), Weapon Finesse
Skills Bluff -1, Diplomacy -1, Disguise +4, Fly +10, Heal +3, Intimidate +3, Perception +10, Spellcraft +6, Stealth +15, Swim +6, Use Magic Device -1
Languages Abyssal
SQ improved evasion

---

Special Abilities

---

Flight (40 feet, Average) You can fly!
Improved Evasion (Ex) No damage on successful reflex save; half on failed save.
Low-Light Vision See twice as far as a human in low light, distinguishing color and detail.

Hero Lab and the Hero Lab logo are Registered Trademarks of LWD Technology, Inc. Free download at http://www.wolflair.com Pathfinder® and associated marks and logos are trademarks of Paizo Publishing, LLC®, and are used under license.

The Hexes are nice, I like how they work not just on paper but in game play too.
This version also forced me to think more about her skills than previous versions.

One thing for sure I am going to need to try out some more Pathfinder witches to get a proper feel of them.

Other Skylla writeups

• AD&D Magic User (6th level)
• Spellcraft & Swordplay Warlock (7th level)
• Dragon Magazine #20
• Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea

The Odyssey

No. Not Homer's epic exactly.  Well. there is an epic here. But let me get to that.

This Odyssey is an epic through the generations of video gaming consoles.
You can read more about over the Trollish Delver blog (also home of Trollish Delver Games).

In Odyssey you travel through the history of the gaming consoles, so each level is the next generation. The graphics get better and better and more difficult.

I played it a bit this morning instead of getting my Pathfinder post ready. It is fun and addictive.
But what I really liked was it's sense of history.  Like old RPGs I also like old technology.  One of my side projects is to get this older computer I am calling Son of Frankencomputer up an running and putting on a bunch of old computer and console emulators.

Odyssey is really a bit like a retro-clone.  It emulates earlier modes of play, it just does it one step better than the OSR crowd by progressively getting better/more detailed.  Though one could argue that while computer and console software has demonstrably gotten better over the years, RPGs maybe not as much.  D&D Next for example might become the biggest "retro-clone" on the market.

In any case Odyssey captures the same spirit of the Old-School movement and for me that is enough.
It also happens to be fun. Which is important to me at least.  It is epic in the sense that you have to pass through all the levels of video game generations to get to your goal.

Terrible time though for me to find a new video game. I need to be ready for Spring term by the end of this week!

New Poll

I have set up a new poll, the first of a few.  I want to get a better idea what games everyone is playing.

This first pool is a simple D&D Editions one.  Your choices are:

*D&D (B, 1, 2) or Retro-Clone (Original up to 2nd Ed, all clones fit here.)
D&D 3.x/Pathfinder
D&D 4
D&D 5/Next

You may choose multiple choices. Even that gives me some information.
You can expand on your choices here if you like.  I am not interested at the moment in what you are *not* playing, but what you are playing.

The *D&D/Retro-Clone category is huge. Yes. But I am going to split that one out later.

So have it!  Tell me what you are playing.