Getting Basic

Getting ready for Palace of the Vampire Queen this weekend.

Got my books, the adventure and five (soon seven just in case) B/X characters around 5^th-7^th level.
I still want to stat up a witch character just in case.  Just need to throw some dice into that pile and I am ready to go.  I might make the vampire queen a witch with the Gypsy tradition. Mostly because I have had "Sign of the Gypsy Queen" by April Wine going through my head ever since I have started working on this.

Two copies of the adventure, Palace of the Vampire Queen.  Since it is 5 levels and I only have 4 hours the kids will get some rough maps.  From the previous survivors, besides the Queen doesn't mind unannounced guests...for dinner! (sorry. couldn't help it.)

Good, old fashioned dungeon crawl with empty rooms, treasure just laying around random monsters and the big bad at the end.  Gonna party like it's 1981!

Return to the Tomb! Part 2

Like I reported Friday I picked up the "new" Dungeons of Dread.

The format is the same as the new AD&D book reprints.  It is a reproduction of the S modules interior from the late 70s/early 80s.  Unlike the Realms of Horror, the 1987 compilation of the the S series, these are exact replicas.  The book has been re-paginated to accommodate the newer format.

The pages are a bit glossy and remind me of the newer D&D 4 books, like Tomb of Horrors below.

You might not be able to see this as well, but the print on the new book is darker and a little less clear.   The picture of the Aludemon was the worse example I could find.   It's not bad, just a little harder to see the details.

The portions of the modules that were "pull out" like maps, the visual guide to Tomb of Horrors and Expedition Beyond the Barrier Peaks and the new monsters and spells booklet for S4 are all bound in int he book.  The 87 Realms of Horror had it as a seperate booklet.

So what is the verdict?

Well it's mixed.  The S series were "my" modules.  These are the ones I ran in my group in High School and I recently had so much fun with them when I took my kids through White Plume Mountain and The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth.  One day I will take them through the Tomb of Horrors, I have a copy for every edition of the game and certain the Barrier Peaks.  So yeah, I love these crazy ass adventures.
But this book is not the best way to the run them.
It's a great book for the 40+ year old geek that enjoys reading these things. I love that these books are getting made.  I also enjoyed the new introduction by  Lawrence Schick that gave some insight to the writing of the modules.

Honestly I think the best modern form of the old modules are the ones you can get from DnDClassics.com.
I can buy the PDF for cheap and print out what I need.  Often I print out player's maps and I usually print out a page per sheet (not a page per side) so I can write notes on the blank backsides of the pages.   I can then through the whole thing in a 3-Ring binder with any other material I need (such as monster page from the Tome of Horror).

Still though.  I am still considering getting the others.  I know the A series is up next.  I never owned copy of the original modules so I might get that.  I have not seen the GDQ modules on the products page, but I grabbed the PDFs.

Still though. Tomb of Horrors in it's original 1st deadliness.  That's gotta be worth something. 

Palace of the Vampire Queen

Next weekend my friend Greg is hosting a mini-con for his D&D group, the Streamwood Dungeoneers.  My son plays in his group every weekend, so I was asked to prep and run an Old School adventure.
Greg wanted to give his players, the Gen Con experience since none of us are going Gen Con or even Gary Con this year.

I had a bunch of ideas, but I wanted to play to my strengths.  At first I wanted to do Ravenloft, but that would take to long.  So instead I am going to run Palace of the Vampire Queen using Basic/Expert D&D and my Witch book.

I have been dying to run this since I first scored a copy about three years ago.
This is a classic adventure and has been talked about on various blog before. Here is Grognardia's take and a bit from Jeff's Game Blog.  To be able to run this in a Con like setting is going to be a real treat.

Since that 2010 post I have picked up another copy from Pacesetter (not sure if it is the same Pacesetter that did 1st Ed Chill).

The module is thin.  Not just in size but in terms of plot too.
I'll give the kids some background and I might develop the character of the vampire queen more using my Basic Vampire supplement (which is free by the way).  She is a self-styled vampire Queen in my mind.  So not Akasha or even Marceline.

But in truth it is going to be a simple dungeon crawl with lots of undead and a big bad at the end.
Just like like to old days!

Zatannurday: Bloodspell

A recent posting on Paul Dini's Facebook page got my attention.

A draft cover for the oft delayed Zatanna/Black Canary team up comic.

 Joe Quinones is doing the art and I have featured some bits from him before but here are a few more from his blog.

I like Zee's mystical robes here.

Hopefully we will get to see this soon!

Return to the Tomb!

I'll detail this more, but wanted to share this now.

I am going back to the Tomb of Horrors.

I got the new Dungeons of Dread today.
Here is the history of my S4 collections.

Back coverleaf (not the cover itself).

My hardbound editions.  Yes that is a hardbound version of Realms of Horror which was out in 87.  No you didn't miss out on something, it was only softcover.  I had it hardbound at a local book boundary.
The 87 Realms of Horror was a redo, the new Dungeons of Dread is the original modules in presentation.
The last is the 4th Ed update of Tomb of Horrors.

Again. More later.

Sympathy for the Succubus, Part 3

Image source, but I have this figure too. 

An update to my Part 1 and Part 2 of my Sympathy for the Succubus.  Been reading a bunch on the Succubus and how she fits into the D&D game specifically. She has an odd place really.  A sex-demon in a game that downplays sex in favor of violence.

Ecology of the Succubus
The succubus can play the ultimate temptress. Typically we see the succubus as an agent of power in the game and that is certainly true for the latest edition. For D&D 4, we have the Ecology of the Succubus and the authors' blog, http://stevesgamerblog.blogspot.com/2012/11/fallen-angels-ecology-of-succubus.html.

There is another the Ecology of the Succubus from the late lamented Kobold Quarterly Magazine #21.
For 4th edition.  This article is by Sersa Victory and feels slightly longer (hard to say given the different formats), but there is a still a lot of useful material here regardless of the game you are playing.

They both used similar elements tot he succubi I have presented here in my blog and in Eldritch Witchery.  No big surprise there, we are all drawing from the same myths and legends. Both try to do some mental gymnastics to cover the change of succubi from demons to devils. Both work rather well, but I took a different approach myself.

For Pathfinder there is Mythic Menagerie: Demonic Harlots
Six new sub-types of Succubi for your Pathfinder/OGL game. Plus new magic, feats and plot devices for using succubi in your games. No rules for Succubi PCs, but nearly everything else is here.

For D&D 5, it looks like Succubus might be headed back to being demons.

Good Succubi
Succubi have always been a favorite of many gamers.  So it is no surprise that every so often we get a "Good" Succubus.  From D&D 3 we had Eludecia, the Succubus Paladin.  I liked her story and wish WotC had done some more with her. This link for example, makes her a Paladin of Heironeous. She appeared in the adventure, Legend of the Silver Skeleton [PDF]. I would use her as something like a Kwai Chang Caine character.  Roaming the lands, maybe incognito, trying to do the most good she can.

Nobility and Eros: The Noble Succubus
Love is a disease.  At least that is how the succubi might feel if you use this supplement in your OGL games.  The Noble Succubus (not 100% sold on that name, but it does work and I can't come up with anything better) is a succubus that has become infected.  She is no longer a demon, but a creature with a soul that feels.  In a sense a "good" (if chaotic) succubus.  The role-playing options here abound.
There is plenty of background information that can be used and plenty of hooks into various game worlds including modern, sci-fi and the standard fantasy.
The real meat though is in the crunch on what the differences between the Noble and Demonic Succubi and how to use Noble Succubi as characters.

Myself, I would make them much rarer, and still have it be a process that maybe one in 100 Billion succubi could go through.  I also think it would be interesting to have a Noble Succubus and for whatever reason choose to remain evil.  That would be an adversary worth having.

Succubi and their Kin
I have also been doing a lot of generic demon research lately.
101 Greater Demons to Summon
101 Lesser Demons to Summon
101 Names of the Devil

For a buck you get a list of 100 demons. There is a name and description. Culled from a variety of sources such as the Lesser Key of Solomon, the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum and others.
It also has tables for various demon aspects and motivations. The information here can be found elsewhere, but for a buck, you are getting it all in one place and formatted. It can be used with any game that has demons. There are no stats and nothing in the way of measuring the power of one demon to the next, but that is not what they are advertising here.  Great if you need new, random demons.

One of the great things about working on so many projects it has given me the chance to recast the demons as I like.    I am very excited to get some of the things I am working on into your hands and I hope you enjoy them too.

Sympathy for the Succubus, Part 1
Sympathy for the Succubus, Part 2

Sympathy for the Succubus, Part 4

Zombies....

I think. I just got out of a 4 hour long meeting to find a ton of email waiting for me and only a taco to help me deal with it.

Be back when I can actually think.