Another Clone, but is this the Rosetta Stone?

There is another retro-clone game out on the market.  Fantastic Heroes & Witchery.
http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=63759

Now, while I enjoy clones I am not sure we need yet another one.  So I took a look at this.

FREE PDF: http://www.dcrouzet.net/temporary/Fantastic-Heroes-Witchery_screen.pdf

Print: http://www.lulu.com/shop/search.ep?type=&keyWords=dominique+crouzet&x=-1004&y=-8&sitesearch=lulu.com&q=

First it is really attractive has some great layout and some very cool old-school art.

Plus once I started reading through it I recognized the art and finally the name of the author/artist.
It was made by an old friend Dominique Crouzet.
Dom had helped me back in 2000 on the original Netbook of Witches and Warlocks.  We had also submitted a game world (Shadow Earth) together to WotC.  They went with this other world, Eberron.
(Some of what was to be Shadow Earth lived on in Eire and in Eldritch Witchery).

What I think is best about this game is in how it tries to be the middle ground between the pure old school games of Basic and 1st/2nd eds, but also the newer 3.x games and the OSR games.
Critics will say there is nothing at all new here. Sure, but that misses the point I think.

What we have here is a game framework that can either be played as a game (and it looks like it is a fun one) OR used as a Rosetta Stone when translating other game products.

Dom put a lot of work into this.  This isn't some "cheap copy and paste job on Lulu". It is a fully playable game with ideas that are very familiar and some new ones as well.

The current PDF is free and there are print versions on Lulu.
And it is pretty much 100% compatible with The Witch.  Just use the Wizard advancement table and replace "Signature Spell" with "Ritual Spell".

EDITED TO ADD: Dom actually uses The Witch as an example on page 393.  He says:

Lets take for example the witch class from The Witch by Tim Brannan (this is a PDF ebook available on rpgnow.com). In this case you could distribute its special abilities as follows: “Least, Herb Use” at 1st level; “Lesser” at 3rd level; “Minor” at 5th level; “Medial” at 7th level; “Major” at 9th level; and “Superior” at 11th level.

I completely concur!

I wish Dom nothing but the best on this!

Winter is...well not here just yet

I tried. I did. And I failed.

I tried watching Game of Thrones and didn't make it past the first 4 episodes.  I might try again.
I just tried reading the book and only got about half-way through it before putting it down in favor of picking up the Hobbit again.

This weekend in Illinois was a good metaphor for this. Winter had been coming then it was in the 60s (with tornadoes) all weekend.

Recently I had been a big Conan kick thanks to +Jason Vey and I was impressed on how good they were now reading as an adult than when I tried reading them as a kid.  I had hoped that GoT was going to be similar in that respect (better than I remembered).  No such luck.

Though I love the imagery of a long winter coming after a period of long summer, I would have thought the people of the world would have been more anxious about it's coming.  Maybe in later books.  Still though I could not help but think this was the same planet from the 4th Doctor's Key to Time episode, The Ribos Operation.  Something I am planning on using in my current AD&D game.

Maybe I should try to reread Jack Vance now.  I actually enjoyed what little I read of the Dying Earth books.

Return to the Keep

We got a chance to get back to the Keep on the Borderlands and the Cave of Chaos today.  They cleared out one cave system and high-tailed it back to the keep to report on the growing threat.  The characters took some time to heal, regroup and restock.

The NPCs that had been travelling with them will come back, the Cinco Hermanos (the Keep is modeled in my game after Spanish missons and castles, so everyone in the Keep speaks Spanish).  They have also picked up a couple of other characters. An assassin pretending to be a thief, a healer (NPC) and a Forester (or maybe an Unseen).  The Healer and the Unseen are classes from Magical Theorems & Dark Pacts.  The wizard of the group is going to drift more towards Pyromancy so I am going to let my son use the Pyromancer spells from Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea.   This will work out well since I am gong to start drifting towards my "older, bolder, colder" world that AS&SH supports.

They have not run into Dr. Zabaza yet, but I'll keep you all posted!

This group doesn't have a name yet.  I'll need to figure something out.

Spamming Hyperborea

So I was going back over some AS&SH posts in prep for today's game and I saw this as a comment:

I am Alan from Finland and I have always look forward for this day to tell the world about the the great powers of Dr.Zabaza. This great man called Dr.Zabaza was able to bring back my lover who left me, And within the space of 48 hours Dr.Zabaza brought my lover back and since then my love life have been more lovely and peaceful than i ever had. You can also strengthen your relationship or get your lover back by contacting Dr.Zabaza on zabaza.logan@XXXX.com or call him on +XXXXXXXXXXXXX and i assure you that you will get a better relationship after the help of Dr.Zabaza

You can read the original here: http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2013/11/my-weekend-in-hyperborea.html

I think Dr. Logan Zabaza needs to become my next evil NPC.  Obviously some sort of evil wizard. Given that "Alan" is from Finland maybe some LotFP influences should be added!

Zatannurday: Injustice Videos

I'll admit I have not been keeping up on Injustice: Gods Among Us.
But I figure with everyone so excited about the release of the PS4 (I am not getting one yet) I'd see if this is something I still want to put on my Christmas list.

In my research I found these great videos of Zatanna and some Zatanna game play.



Here is a long one, Zee vs. other magic using characters. The bit vs. Raven was neat.
The players don't know much about the character...but that is fine.



Still though. I want this game.



This one is a walk through of Zatanna's ladder to defeat Superman.

Skylla: Spellcraft & Swordplay: Eldritch Witchery

For my first conversion of Skylla I wanted to start as far back as I could while still using a proper "Witch" class.  Plus I want to do something that is more similar to a "wizard" class.  For those reasons I am choosing to use Spellcraft & Swordplay (since it is very much like OD&D) and the warlock class from Eldritch Witchery.

A few conceits.
- While the original Skylla was 6th level, I am going to stat all my versions as 7th level.  The reasoning is that a lot of my witch classes gain a power at 7th level and many others have at lease one power by that point.
- I am also working under the assumption that Skylla began as a good character, either as a good witch or a good magic-user/wizard and then soon became evil.  By 6th level she is unrepentant chaotic evil.  So her initial options as a character would be the ones a good character might choose.
- I am keeping her same stats, but I am going to rearrange them so her Prime Attribute always has the highest value (in this case 15).
- I am going to try to give her the same or similar spells from her original stats.

Skylla from Eldritch Witchery
I choose the Warlock class since it seems to fit my narrative of her. Warlocks are "betrayers" and evil typically, but they don't have to be.  You can use Eldritch Witchery to make a good Warlock.  Evil just happens to be easier.  Also Warlocks are an advanced class of Wizards (Magic-Users) so it fits.

She belongs to the Goetic Lodge. Figured that it was the best choice to fit a character that wanted to seek out more magic.

Skylla, 7th Level warlock (Goetic)

Strength: 9
Dexterity: 11
Constitution: 10
Intelligence: 15*
Wisdom: 12
Charisma: 11

Hit Points:  25
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
AC: 3 (Ring of Protection +1)

Occult Powers
Familiar: Elemental Sprit
7th level: Summon 6HD Elemental to do her bidding (typically she likes fire and air)

Spells 
First: Charm Person, Light, Read Magic, Spirit Dart
Second: Detect Invisible, Knock, Levitate
Third: Bestow Curse, Slow, Wizard Lock
Fourth: Elemental Armor

Magic Items
Ring of Protection +1, Dagger +1, Staff of Enchantment, demon helm (+1 saves vs. demons and charming magic, +1 AC)

Some rearrangement of spells but still comes close.  There is no Staff of Commanding in S&S, but there is the Staff of Enchantment which fills the same niche.

Eldritch Witchery in Print

You can now get Eldritch Witchery in softcover print format.

Get it in print at DriveThruRPG.

Makes for a great Christmas gift!