This Old Dragon: Issue #117

Time to return to the dusty, mildewy box under my desk and see what issue of Dragon magazine is on top.  In some ways, I like that these issues don't have covers (removed by the previous owner), while I do remember what issue numbers have what material inside, most I have the visual clue of the cover to help me remember.  In this case, if I had seen the cover first I would have known, now it is more of a surprise for me.

This issue, #117, comes to us from January 1987.  At least that is what the issue says on the front page, the page footer tells us this is January 1986.  Oops!   It is 1987 though. I am in my Senior year at High School getting ready to go off to the University. I have no idea yet, but life is gonna change for me in wonderful ways.  But that is still to come. It is January 1987. The number #1 song on the radio is "Everybody Have Fun Tonight" by Wang Chung. In the theatres, the #1 movie is Eddie Murphy in "The Golden Child" and on the shelves and game tables around the world is #117 of This Old Dragon!

The cover is one from Jim Halloway, one of my favorites of his.  

It is 1987 and things feel different at Dragon. For starters, Kim Mohan has now been gone since November and Roger Moore is now the EiC at Dragon (and I think Dungeon as well).  You can feel the change in terms of letters, profiles, and even the new games. I'll get to these all in turn.  I attributed this back then to the rise of prominence of the Forgotten Realms, but that was just an outward manifestation of what was happening.  In less than a year Gygax, Mentzer, and Mohan had all left TSR.  The current "Sage in Residence" would fall to Ed Greenwood. 

Letters covers the items bothering gamers of the time.  We have one wanting the Cthulhu and Melniboné mythos back. Sorry dude. Another wants more DragonQuest material now that TSR owns it. Also sorry dude.  We are given a nice list of Dragon issues that have DragonQuest material: #49, 57, 78, 82, 86, 89, 92, 96, and 97.  So we at least have that.

Big ad for Hawkmoon.  While I did not play the game I was HUGE in the Eternal Champion then and would finally get my hands on the Hawkmoon books at college. 

People in the Forum are STILL debating over the "mostly nude" cover from Dragon #114.  

Ad for the Science Fiction Book Club. Show of hands, how many of my readers got books from them?  I can count at least 4 or 5 I had bought from this ad, or one like it, back in the day.

Our first article is The Elements of Mystery from Robert Plamondon.  An interesting short article about adding the thrill of the unknown back to your game. 

Ah, the math geek in me is very happy to see this article from Arthur J. Hedge III.  What are the Odds covers the probabilities of the Unearthed Arcana's Method V of rolling up characters.  I love that he proudly tells us that the tables were generated on a DEC VAX computer using a program written in C! You can do the same now on any computer that can run a spreadsheet program. Or even in Google Sheets. The tables are great and he introduces a new terminology in dice rolling.  So Method V for humans allowed you pick your class first and then roll up to 9d6s in your prime attribute to find your score. Hedge's notation would have this at 9d6s3 or "Roll 9 six-sided dice and choose the best three rolls".  For what is considered standard in many games then is 4d6s3.  I kinda wish it had caught on. BTW in the 9d6 here are 10,077,696 combinations with an "18" resulting from 1,796,446 of them for a P=0.17825960.  

Feuds and Feudalism comes to us from John-David Dorman. It is a short article on, well, basically reminding everyone that Feudalism is a thing in AD&D. 

Travis Corcoran streamlines the tables for AD&D combat on the heels of Unearthed Arcana in Condensed Combat.  If you are playing AD&D and really love the weapons vs. AC matrix then I highly recommend finding a copy of this. My issue here is not the chart or how it was intended to be used, I think the intent was right. It was with how it was used in every day play.  While the AC is a nice shorthand, the table would have been better served by putting the Armor type down. So instead of "AC 5" on the chart is should say "Chain Mail."  The author DOES make an effort to help clear this up and that makes the chart more useful. 

Need to know how much Alchemical equipment costs? How about a couch? Robert A. Nelson has these for you in The Dungeoneer's Shopping Guide. Obviously a nod to the recent Dungeoneer's Survival Guide.

Adventure Trivia is a 100-question trivia quiz for AD&D.  Answers are on page 88.

Friend of the Other Side Vince Garcia is back with A Touch of Genius as a way to actually use the characters' Intelligence score in training.  It is certainly a workable system.  There is also a bit on using Intelligence to modify saving throws against Illusion. Nice touch really.

 TSR staffer Penny Petticord, whom we will meet later, covers various Unearthed Arcana-related questions in Sage Advice.  Not the first time. Not the last time either.  These largely cover the Cavalier class. 

Mark Feil gives us The Ecology of the Anhkheg. It features some color art, which is nice. I always had a soft spot for Anhkheg.  I watched the movie "Them!" with my dad as a very young kid.  They are giant monsters, but driven by instinct and not really evil. These guys always remind me of them, or Them, as the case may be. 

Expert on all things Illithid Stephen Inniss is back with three new monsters. Hounds of Space and Darkness deals with three different types of dogs adapted to their new environments. Two used by the Gith (Kaoulgrim and Szarkel) and another, the Xotzcoyotl or "Bat-faced Dog", I am totally disappointed I never came up with myself!

Fun without Fighting from Scott Bennie covers different sorts of games and role-play that are not combat. These include Romance, Business, and Organizations.  These are great ideas of course but in 1987 other games were doing this.  AD&D was starting to play catch-up in the industry they started.

Thomas M. Kane reminds that followers are a thing in The Forgotten Characters.

I mentioned above that our new Sage in Residence at Dragon has fallen to Ed Greenwood and his alter ego Elminster.  He is up with By Magic Masked a great little piece on magic masks. I know these were used in the Forgotten Realms and I have made a few of my own, but this is a rather good article and frankly, there should be a mask slot (maybe it used with head) in modern D&D-like RPGs. 

This is followed immediately by Bazaar of the Bizarre. How do we know we are dealing with a new TSR now? This one covers magic rings.  I am kidding of course...mostly.

Over the years I have come to associate the Bazaar articles with the Forgotten Realms. Feeling that these items would mostly be found there as opposed to Greyhawk or the Known World.

Switching gears, More Power to You gives us new skills and powers for Champions.  The article is copyrighted to Leonard Carpenter. I can't speak to the value of the article because I have never played Champions.  Seems like a big hole in my RPG career I know. 

In quite literal switching gears we get Tanks for the Memories by Dirck de Lint (also copyrighted) which gives us tanks for the Car Wars game. I also didn't play this one, but I don't consider that a big as a miss as say Champions. 

Thomas M. Kane is back with Roughing It, or the Wilderness Survival Guide for Top Secret. It is rare that we get a Top Secret article that was not written by Merle Rasmussen. Outside of the game-specific detail it could work with almost any modern RPG.

Now here is something interesting. We get a Villains & Vigilantes article written by the late Stewart Wieck of White Wolf fame. The article, Even the Bad Get Better, discusses how villains can gain from their criminal experience.

Ad for White Dwarf.

James Ward and Harold Johnson discuss the new Gamma World 3rd Edition in Gamma III.  This also includes some basic conversion guidelines.

The Role of Books covers the then-current batch of SF/F books. Of particular interest to me is their review of the first Silverglass book. At the time I am not sure if it was known that author J.F. Rivkin was not only a female author but was in fact two different female authors working together. There is a new author's edition out now published by one of the authors and it has been on my TBR pile for a year.  

TSR Profiles covers artist Clyde Caldwell (with Alerelean model Jeanne Stanley) and writer/RPGA Cooridnator Penny Petticord. 

TSR Previews gives us what we can expect in the coming months.  I can't be certain from memory, but I feel like some of these products never saw the light of day. We do see what I think is Frank Mentzer's last contribution to TSR in I11 Needle. There is also Petticord's C6 The Official RPGA Tournament Handbook. 

Nice big ad for the upcoming Wilderness Survival Guide. I kinda wish I knew where mine had gone off too. 

The Game Wizards discusses changes coming to Dragon Magzine columns. Namely changes to the Game Wizards column itself.  Michael Dobbson, Jeff Grubb, and Jim Ward all mention new products and projects they are working on.  With the recent turmoil at TSR, I wonder if this wasn't an attempt to ease fans and customers into being assured that everything was all right.

Small ads in the Gamer's Guide. Convention Calendar lets us know what is happening in the start of the 1987 con season,

Snarf kills a dragon with a revolver in Snarf Quest. We get to the Wormy comic and an arc we would not see the conclusion of.

An absolute ton in this issue with no real central theme.  

I can't help but think that the overall message here was "everything is fine at TSR, things are changing, but everything is fine."  Or am I projecting with knowledge of what I know was going on behind the scenes and nearly 35 years of hindsight?  Who knows from casual reading? 

Not an Earth-changing issue, but a solid one all the same.

#RPGaDAY2022 Day 25 - Where has the character been?

I suppose for the purposes of this #RPGaDay I should have started out with just one character.  But where is the fun in that?

So the Werper family began in Mystara, Glantri to be exact. I know clerics in Glantri. But when I moved over to AD&D 1st Ed my DM and I merged our worlds (me Mystara, him Oerth) Glantri changed a bit.  Since then Johan the III was trapped in Ravenloft and thought to be lost. Johan the IV was the first ever to travel to the Forgotten Realms. All of them have been to Abyss to fight demons, their sworn enemies and Johan II even ended up in London in the 1980s.

Likewise, Larina has been EVERYWHERE.

But I love a good plane-hopping adventure.

War of the Witch Queens will introduce my kids to my favorite playground, the Multi-verse. They have already been Krynn, but didn't know it yet.

100 Days of Halloween: In Nomine Superiors: Lilith

The second game that many draw on for Lilith is the classic In Nomine.  I spent a lot of time with this game in the very late 90s. Right around 1998 to 99 when I was looking for a new modern supernatural game to play.  There was this one, World of Darkness, and the ultimate winner, WitchCraft. Though I used ideas from all three in my WitchCraft games then.

In Nomine Superiors: Lilith

PDF. 43 pages. Black & White art.

This document contain notes and stats for both the In Nomine RPG and GURPS: In Nomine. By extension, it could be used with any GURPS game.  Despite the publication date (2005) I think this is all for GURPS 3rd Edition. But I could be wrong.  Just checked, yes GURPS 3rd Edition.

This supplement features all the strengths of most good GURPS supplements. That is there is a ton of information here, some stats, and a lot of great fluff.

This one also gives us the history of Lilith and what she has done in her immortal life. In the In Nomine game she seems to be one of the few immortals that can move between the devils and angels with some relative ease.

While I have not touched In Nomine in over 20 years (much to my own disappointment) there is a lot of great material here and makes want to dig up my old copy (if I still have it). In any case, true to the nature of GURPS this booklet can be used just about anywhere. There is nothing here that could not say be combined with Revelations of the Dark Mother. Where there are contradictions...well only Lilith herself knows the truth and true to her nature there are likely to be thousands of contradictions. 

While this might not have the art that RotDM has, it does have plenty of game material. 

Lilith should be wonderfully complex in any game and this supplement helps with that.

#RPGaDAY2022 Day 24 - When did you start playing this character?

Again, more than one character means more than one date, but that is cool.

For Sinéad and Nida it was in January of 2021 that I rolled them up, making them some of my newest characters. Though both had concepts prior to this and Nida at least had a name.

For my others, well I got in the habit early on to put the date I made the character on their sheets.

Johan I was 1/9/1980
Johan II was 1/30/84
Johan III was 1/2/86
Johan IV was 9/13/2000
Johan V was 6/13/2008
Johan V Pathfinder version was 2/19/2011
JohanVI D&D Next PlayTest 8/17/2012, converted to 5e proper on 9/13/2014

Larina, despite all that I post about her, was not my first character.  She was created on October 25 (or 26), 1986.  I have been saying October 25th forever, but some details on her sheet lead me to believe that it was more like the 26th. 

While every new edition means the next in line for the Weprers, Larina moves between the editions.  Advantages of being a quasi-immortal witch.

100 Days of Halloween: Revelations of the Dark Mother

Time to get down with some OG World of Darkness.  So much that has been written about Lilith in RPGs can be traced back to two sources. This is the first.

Revelations of the Dark Mother

PDF. 126 pages. Black & white art. 

Once upon a time, White Wolf focused more on plot and background. 

This is a crunch-lite, fluf-heavy book that deals with Lilith, the mother of all Vampires (so to speak), and maybe Mages as well in the original World of Darkness. 

This is nice since I can drop it into any other game I like and it is a great background. If you have any interest in the subject of Lilith then this is a fun read.

This was written by Phil Brucato (with additional authors) who is pretty much the expert in everything Mage. So from the start you know this is going to be some deep WoD material. 

The art is by Rebecca Guay, Eric Hotz, and Vince Locke with the covers designed by art director Aileen E. Miles. I call this out because the art in the book is really quite good. Even given that this is 20+ year old book. Every portrait or portrayal of Lilith is evocative. You are captured in Lilith's tale in these and makes this more than just another game book. This book feels like a coffee table book (in the best possible way) that happens to be connected to a game world.

It is stunning and still a work of art all these years later.

Oh, Oh Shelia!

Busy day at the day job today (Fall term is starting) so a quick one today.  I picked up the Icons of the Realms: Dragons of Stormwreck Castle minis over the weekend. I mentioned these back in June and had hoped they would at least include the thief Shelia.  Well...they didn't.

 

I do like the way they all look.

I was never a big watcher of the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon. I worked on Saturdays and often missed it. BUT I picked up the DVD boxed set back in the early 2000s and my kids LOVED it. It was the set with the 3rd Edition stats for everyone.  

You might notice that this set is missing Bobby, Uni, and Shelia. I will get to that in a bit.  It does include someone just labeled "Cleric."

I can't help but think that this Cleric is none other than Aleena.

The outfits are not perfect. And I thought I read somewhere that Aleena was a blonde. But this certainly works.  I have been using Aleena as the Patron Saint of Adventurers for a while now.  Though like the D&D cartoon, the D&D Red Basic set for BECMI was not something I was into then.

Since Kelek was in the D&D Cartoon and Skylla was supposed to be they seem to work well with this set.

Oh Shelia

I said I did not watch the D&D cartoon much, but I was aware of it. I can't help but wonder if the red-headed girl with a penchant for wearing purple and hoods in 1983-85 didn't somehow influence my red-headed witch with a penchant for purple dresses and black hoods in 1986?  I honestly can't say.

In fact, I did even think about it until I scored this D&D Cartoon "kids" book at my local game auction.  It is called "The Witch's Spell Book."

The basic plot is you have the Golden Wood by finding Agnes the Witch's Spell Book. For reasons, only Shelia can read the spell. You would think Presto, but no it is Shelia. 

Now not to go out on a limb too far, but those that make Shelia an initiate witch?  It would in my games. She is 13 in the show, the age witches often "hear the Call of the Goddess" in my game worlds. (BTW this is what makes Larina special, she heard the Call at age 6.)

But sadly I don't get to add Shelia to my War of the Witch Queens yet. But all is not lost thanks to Hero Forge!

I could get the print from HeroForge and for the Invisible Sheila download the STL and print her here at home in clear resin.  Like I did for my "Ghost" of Aleena.  Click on the pictures above to buy your own from HeroForge.

I think we have some clear blue resin still.

If Shelia has a theme song then Aleena should too.  It kinda works. Or maybe this one, if I go with the idea that she was a blonde. At least the timing of all three is right for me. 

So that only leaves a question for me.  Should I introduce Shelia to my War of the Witch Queens campaign?  I might need to revisit the dual classing or multi-classing rules from OSE Advanced.

They do all fit on my shelf rather nicely together.

#RPGaDAY2022 Day 23 - What situation are they currently in?

Going off of yesterday's post here is what is happening. 

Phygor is "exploring the world." That is code for I don't know what I am doing yet.

Johan is still in the Demonweb with the other D&D 5 characters.

The OSE characters are all NPCs in the "War of the Witch Queens."

But let's talk about my AD&D Second Ed characters, Sinéad and Nida.  These characters are still rather new for me.  The stats I posted are not the ones I am playing. They are still both 1st level, and they are not in the same game. Well. At least for now.

We are trying out all different editions of D&D here and these will be my return to AD&D 2nd Ed AND my first real introduction to the Forgotten Realms.

Of the two I have only played Nida once. Sinéad is 1st level, but I have not taken her on any adventures yet.  Right now there is not a lot to tell them apart save that Sinéad is a half-elf and might be the daughter of my last AD&D 1st ed character.  Not sure about that one just yet. Though I do think I am getting a grasp on who they might be.

Nida, Witch of Rashemen

Sinéad, half-elf Bard/Wizard

The current situation right now is me needing to move them forward. 

100 Days of Halloween: Lilith

Continuing my mini-dive into Lilith in various games.

Lilith

This book is by RPG luminary Ken Hite.  It is only nine pages but it presents some background on who Lilith is including her "Herstory" (look if you don't know who Lilith is and why "herstory" is FAR more appropriate than "history" then I can't help you.)

We get an overview of her time in Babylon. A bit on the Burney Relief (the cover takes its cue for that) and how they are working under the assumption that it is Lilith or Lilîtu. (Personally, I like the idea that it is Ereshkigal.)

After this there are sections on what Lilith is doing in various Pelgrane Press games like Trail of Cthulhu, Night's Black Agents, Esoterrorists, Mutant City Blues, and the Dying Earth RPG.

Wonderful concept.

The zip file comes with PDF, MOBI, and EPUB versions of the book for ease of reading.

There are very few historical characters you could do a product like this with, so I really admire this choice.

 

Monstrous Mondays: Monster Manual IV (3.5)

While I have a lot of goals I pursue in my various Monstrous Mondays, be it the creation of a new monster, adaptation of a monster from another source, or a review, my goal with the various Monster Manuals is to see if there is growth or even refinement of the monster entries.

This can easily be seen in the AD&D 1st Edition monster books as each, Monster Manual, Fiend Folio, and Monster Manual II, builds on the other adding refinements to the stat block.  The same can be said for the 4th Edition books.

I would like to be able to say the same for the 3rd Edition books. Certainly, we saw improvements from MM1 to MM3, but those were largely due to the change in the rule system; that is 3 to 3.5.  

I am particularly interested in these sorts of changes now that we are on the verge of One D&D from 5e.  One sec, need to sip my Kool-Aid.  Ok.  Better now.

All is well and good, but what does that mean for the 3.5 Edition Monster Manual IV?  Let us find out.

Monster Manual IV (3.5)

For this review, I am only going to consider the PDF from DriveThruRPG. I had owned this in hardcover largely due to the Blue Dragon on the cover (my oldest loves blue dragons) but it was auctioned off when I downsized my 3e collection.

PDF. 226 pages. Full-color cover and interior art.

This book does show some refinements and evolution. There are about 140 some odd monsters with a bit greater detail than previous ones. Often the monsters come with other details like a lair or use as characters. 

Among the monsters here the ones I found most useful were the Avatars of Elemental Evil, the Balhannoth, some new demons, a few new drow types, some more lizard folk (I can't help it, I love those guys), some more orcs, the Spawns of Tiamat is rather fun too, and some new Tuan-ti.

There is not a lot of undead here, only 6 new monsters. 

The biggest feature though is that all monsters are now on a "1 monster per page" layout, or span multiple whole pages like 2nd Ed and 4th Ed.  This increases the value of the PDF in my mind and now I am not that sad I sold off my hard copy.  Yes, today is the first time I have looked at this since then.

In many ways this book is superior to the Monster Manual III, layout just being one of them.

#RPGaDAY2022 Day 22 - Who is your current character?

One thing I never quite understood was the assumption that anyone has just one character at a given time. I have dozens!  I might be playing them all, but they are there.  Here are some of my favorites.

D&D 5e

This is my current 5e character, Johan Werper the VI. He is a cleric/paladin. He is the great-great-great-great-grandson of my first ever D&D character Johan Werper, the Cleric.  Johan the First was followed by Johan the II (Paladin), Johan III (Cavalier), Johan IV (Cleric, Prestige Paladin 3e), Johan V (Paladin, multiclassed feat Cleric, 4e) and to the new generation.

It has been a real joy to have a multi-generational arc for my characters and great to play with this concept of the Lawful Good paladin across all generations of the D&D game.  Each has given me something slightly different and all have been a blast to play.

Some of my other characters for 5e that jump between PCs and NPCs are Tayrn Nix,  Half-elf Warlock (Fey Pact), Celeste Holmes, Human Wizard (Sage), Cassandra Killian, Human Sorcerer (Divne Soul), Jassic Winterhaven, Gnome Bard (College of Lore), Sasha, Cleric (Knowledge Domain), and Áedán Aamadu, Human Druid (Circle of the Land).

Old School Essentials

Some of my OSE include the druid couple Asabalom and Maryah and my Pagans Lars and Siân.  

AD&D 2nd Edition

I have two I have been working with. I was just telling my oldest last night I need to pull them out again and do more with them.  Both are AD&D 2nd Ed interpretations of a Witch, Goodwife Sinéad (Witch Kit) and Nida (witch of Hala/Witch of Rashemen kit)

DragonQuest

My character for this game is still Phygor. 

--

Of course, I do have to mention my iconic witch Larina, who gets stated up in every game I play.

100 Days of Halloween: Rebirth: Caine and Lilith

Another Lilith to consider tonight. This time for a D6 game.

I had this desire a while back to give the D6 system a try. I was thinking of something to do with vampires, and likely include Dracula and Lilith.  So I bought this back then. 

Sadly I never got out of the "wow this would be cool" phase.

Rebirth: Caine and Lilith

This supplement is for the Shadow Sprawl D6 RPG.  It says it uses the Epic D6 system but if you are familiar with any D6 system then you can figure this one out.

It is set in a world like our own but ... you get the idea. Hey. No stones being cast by me, this is a world I come back to time and time again both to play and design games for.  Right on down to the Morpheus font on the cover.  

This supplement adds a number of new features to the game, in particular things from the history of vampires in this game.  Since they are taking the "Cain route" here there are a few pre-historic weapons added.

We get backgrounds and stats for Caine and Lilith.  Caine was made into a vampire by Lilith.   Also we get some of Abel's line including a son and his wife.  Also there are dryads here for reasons I am not entirely sure of.

There is a quick start for the game playing in this prehistoric time when Cain and Lilith still prowled the night. So a nice touch there. 

Several points for some new ideas, but some other ideas have been done many times before.   Still though, a fun read.

#RPGaDAY2022 Day 21 - Setting Sunday: Share an intriguing detail from a game setting you enjoy

Setting Sunday!

It is said that AD&D Second Edition was the king of settings and campaign worlds.

One I always found interesting was the AD&D 2e setting Red Steel. 

Essentially "Fantasy Australia where even the rocks can kill you." Credit to TSR for trying something so new so late in the game development.

I always liked the idea and wanted to explore it a lot more, just never got around to it.  Though with my Mystoerth setting I could likely find a place for it.

Another great 2nd Edition setting was Masque of the Red Death, an attempt to bring AD&D to the Victorian Horror genre. For a while, this was my absolute favorite setting even if the system (AD&D 2nd Ed.) never really worked well with the setting (Victorian Era earth). 

In both settings there are things in the world that can corrupt the PCs.  And as it turns out both are red.

In Red Steel it is the dust and rocks, but there is also the red steel to protect you.

In MotRD it is the eponymous Red Death, the evil force that haunts Gothic Earth.

Both came out at similar times and I have to admit I wanted to explore more connections between the two other than the superficial. 

See what I mean when I said I could just play D&D and never run out of ideas!

100 Days of Halloween: Lilith, Demonqueen of Vampires Boss Stats (5E)

Now for something a little different. You can't spend all the time researching witches like I have and not run into to Lilith.  I have always been fascinated with the character, so much so that she is on the cover of two of my witch books; Eldritch Witchery and Daughters of Darkness.

So yes. I am a fan.

I thought I would look into some products that feature Lilith in one form or another. Tonight I will start with a 5e version of her. 

Lilith, Demonqueen of Vampires Boss Stats (5E)

PDF. 7 pages. 1 cover. 1 OGL. 5 pages of content.

This is pretty much what it says on the cover.  We get some background on Lilith, altered to fit D&D. 

Included are a CR 5 monster, Spawn of Lilith, and Lilith herself a CR 25 Medium Undead Fiend.

There are details about her lair and tactics. There are some adventure hooks added as well.

For just under $2 not a bad deal at all. 

The OGL statement does not indicate how much of this document is Open or PI. 

Not at all bad if you want/need a quick Boss-Level demon to fight.

#RPGaDAY2022 Day 20 - How long do your games last?

I used to play for hours and hours on end. Now I find I can only do about 4 to 6 hours at a time.

That is fine because I also feel that is the sweet spot of gaming too. Enough to get you deep into whatever you need and not too long to overstay the feeling.

100 Days of Halloween: #30 Magic Tools (PFRPG)

Going back to Pathfinder tonight with some (28) magical tools for all classes not just witches.  

#30 Magic Tools (PFRPG)

PDF. 13 pages. $2.95. 1 cover page, 1 title page, 2 pages of ads, 1 page of OGL. 8 pages of content.

A collection of 28 tools for Pathfinder characters.

The tools are varied from a Brass fastener to a spoon to gloves.

Each one has an associated skill attached to it and what magical aura it gives off. It describes the item/tool, what it does, how it looks and there is even some lore attached to each item.

While built for Pathfinder, it could be used with any version of D&D really, with some tweaks. The Lore is good and the effects can be translated easily.

#RPGaDAY2022 Day 19 - Why has your favorite game stayed with you?

 Why has your favorite game stayed with you?

Well if we are talking about Dungeons & Dragons then I think it is because of all the endless possibilities. If I only ever played D&D for the rest of my life I don't think I would run out of ideas.  There is always something more to be done, some new dungeon, hex, or plane to discover and explore.

Maybe that is why it has also been the king of RPGs for nearly 50 years.

100 Days of Halloween: Witch Tools Stock Art

More stock art tonight and some very useful ones at that. I have used all of these in one form or another in my own work.

Publisher's Choice -Equipment: Witch Tools

From Fat Goblin Games. $3.83. ZIP file.

This collection includes six TIFF images of a cauldron, hat, a wand, a broom, book, and a shrunken head.

Witchcraft Tool Set - Illustrations - Stock Art

From Nono.  $5.00. PDF.

Instead of separate image files this one is presented as a pdf. Less useful when using the images, but easier to evaluate them all at once. This one has 42 images, including knives, candles, brooms, cups, crystals, herbs, and wands.

Witch items

From Queen. $2.99. JPG/PNG files.

This one is presented as a set of images on one JPG and one PNG file. The images are all featured on the cover.  There is an included license.

The Launch of One D&D

Today Wizards of the Coast announced the next phase of D&D with the code name "One D&D."

The playtest is being run out of the D&D Beyond Environment, so you will need a Twitch account to get access.

https://www.dndbeyond.com/one-dnd

The first playtest packet covers Character Backgrounds/Origins. 

What do we know so far?

The new core rules will be backward compatible with D&D 5 to the point of all existing D&D 5 materials work with the new rules.  This fits my prediction that rules were going to be closer to something D&D 5R or Edition 5.5.

They will be taking feedback, giving people time to playtest first. 

The new edition/revision will have new core rule books.  There will be a closer tie to the books and D&D Beyond as well as their own new digital service.   [source]

Wizards will also be including more features for inclusivity, so among other things I expect more species options as PCs and dropping the default alignment for characters, but maybe not necessarily so for monsters.  I think we have seen some of these changes for monsters in the Spelljammer Monstrous Compendium and Monsters of the Multiverse.

So to me, this feels like the changes 2nd ed did to 2nd ed revised, 3.0 did to 3.5, or 4e did to Essentials. 

Beth Rimmels over at ENWorld has a complete coverage of what is going on.
https://www.enworld.org/threads/one-d-d-takes-5e-to-new-digital-places.690754/

In any case, it is going to be fun to see where this new D&D goes.

Grabbed the playtest. Looks like we get a "Primal" spell source for Druids now. No Goblins though as a playable species!

#RPGaDAY2022 Day 18 - Where is your favorite place to play?

Where?  That is easy.

My game room.

 It is not as decked out as it could be.  I need a new table and the kids need to clean it up after they game, but it is mine and it is very comfortable. 

100 Days of Halloween: Publisher's Choice - Colin C. Throm (Baba Yaga)

More stock art tonight and this one is a treat, some Baba Yaga.

Publisher's Choice - Colin C. Throm (Baba Yaga)

Another one I bought a while back but I have not had the chance to use this one yet.

Though looking at it now I think I have the perfect place for it now.

I mean really, who wouldn't to have Baba Yaga in an adventure or book?

#RPGaDAY2022 Day 17 - Past, Present, or Future? When is your favorite game set?

Well, I have a lot of favorite times for games. But I have to say in general. 

Yes.

I know total cop-out answer.

I love my D&D and fantasy set in the past. I am a sucker for anything in the Victorian era and at last count, I think I own every Victorian RPG out.  Though I am looking forward to getting my BlackStar game going again.

So I guess yes. All the Above.

100 Days of Halloween: Fantasy Witch Stock Art

More stock art today.  This is another great one from Daniel Comerci.

Fantasy Witch Stock Art

I am sure I have used this one somewhere, but I can't recall where.  It is a great piece. She could work well as a witch, warlock, shaman, druid or about anything really.

I remember seeing this one and grabbing it right away.

Other great pieces include:

• Fantasy Mermaid Water Spirit Stock Art
• Snow Wizard Stock Art (wish I had this for the Winter Witch book!)
• Blood Elf Woman Stock Art
• Crystal Shaman Stock Art
• Dragonborn Druid Stock Art
• Drow Warlock Stock Art
• Druid Woman Stock Art
• Male Elf Cleric Mage Stock Art