I am interrupting this A to Z Challenge to talk about my newest book. The first part of "Strange Brew" is now out. This book features Warlocks for the Pathfinder game.
Sorcerers are born into it. Wizards spend their lives in rigorous study for it. Witches gain it through devotion to their patron. But some who seek power are unlucky enough to have been born mortal, with no access to or desire for arcane education; ordinary people who know little of witchcraft’s ancient traditions. Unlike witches, who are called by their patrons, warlocks seek out powerful beings to grant them the power they crave or desperately need.
That power can now be in your hands.
Included in these 30 pages is the new Warlock class for the Pathfinder RPG.
Also inside are new rules on Grimoires, the ancient and living texts of warlocks.
Details on new warlock pacts, including unique powers and spells.
I already talked about the Epic Level adventures for D&D4. The Paragon adventures were the middle of the road ones, for characters level 11-20. (The Heroic Tier was for adventurers of level 1 to 10).
The Paragon level represented heroes as the movers and shakers of the world. The heroes that the common folk knew by name or at least by reputation. The threats are greater for these guys, but the rewards are also higher.
These adventures continued the fight to learn of Orcus' plans against the Raven Queen.
It also is the level that the stress of D&D4 became really apparent. In other versions of D&D these are levels where the threats begin to change and then become cosmic. We see that here too, but really the combat system of D&D4 was just more of the same slog.
I liked these adventures in concept. I still do in fact. Maybe someone out there has converted them all to 1st or 5th Edition. I could see a nice conversion using the current 5th edition adventure series format. 1st to 20th level. It also would not be too difficult; you could easily cut out a third of the material above to create something that would work better for 5th edition. The monsters would have to be cut down in number as well. I would also cut some encounters out all together. Work in the errata and tighten up the Orcus plot a bit more. It could work.
I guess I just really want to get some use out of my 4e materials.
There are other "O" series out there, but the only one I owned was OP1, Tales of the Outer Planes. It was designed to support the Manual of the Planes, one of my favorite D&D books. The Outer Planes are home to gods, demons, devils and weirder things like modrons, gith and slaad. All the myths of the world can be found in the planes...somewhere. The outer planes are very much part of many of the adventures I have, or will, talk about here. H4, Q1, these all take place in the outer planes.
OP1 Tales of the Outer Planes has 11 adventures on various outer planes and 17 lairs. The adventures are all small and the lairs are just that, a lair. I got this book because I was so enamored with the Manual of Planes. Sadly, or fortunately depending on your point of view, 2nd edition came along and got rid of the demons and devils (at least for a while) and made most of this book obsolete.
I also remember hearing back in the day that a lot of people also just didn't like it. I felt it did not live up to the hype to be sure, but I never thought it was bad. I rather enjoyed the "Castle at the End of Time" and "An Element of Chaos".
When I run H4 Throne of Bloodstone, this would be a good book to have next to me. Just in case!
The new Doctor Strange trailer came out this week.
Doctor Strange is easily my favorite Marvel character.
I liked the idea of this brilliant man of science and medicine thrown into a world he couldn't understand at first.
Plus all that 60's and 70's occult vibes to the early comics and art by Steven Dirko? Yeah that is right up my alley.
Now we have our first trailer out and I am excited as hell.
Looks like we are sticking pretty close to the classic Dr. Strange origin story here too.
Benedict Cumberbatch is opting for an American accent here, which tracks with Strange's character as being a New Yorker. Tilda Swinton makes an interesting choice as The Ancient One, but a good choice in my mind. Plus we get Mads Mikkelsen, Chiwetel Ejiofor (as Mordo no less!), and Rachel McAddams...that is some top-shelf acting talent.
This is going to rock.
I hope though they keep the horror and occult themes I loved about this comic.
Say what you like about the failed Peter Hooten movie, it was some scary shit for 1978 TV.
Although I also thought these were called the N series because the first one was written by Douglas Niles.
The idea behind the N series was to provide yet another set of adventures for starting players. It makes sense really. You will have far more low-level characters than high-level ones.
Of these, it is N1 that interests me the most. It is ranked as 19 of the top 30 greatest adventures of all time and Douglas Niles was an author I have grown to respect over the years; especially for his contributions to AD&D. Plus for me this module was published in that "Golden Age" of adventure design in 1982 when so much great stuff was going on.
Against the Cult of the Reptile God is also the unofficial name I give to my "Second Campaign" adventure series. These adventures include:
Of the N series, N1 is the best known to me. I have read through it many times and always wanted to do something with it.
I started playing N3 once, back in my college days, but I don't think we got very far.
N4 Treasure Hunt is an interesting one since it is the only AD&D adventure I know of that has the characters start at 0-level. Very interesting choice if you ask me and maybe something I should try for my "Second Campaign".
For people reading this and have no experience in gaming, these are all great places to start. Well except for N2 and nobody likes that adventure!
The Masters series of adventures were created for the BECMI version of D&D. Typically around here I have BECMI as roughly synonymous with B/X D&D or "Basic D&D" well....the M or Master Series is around to remind me that this is not really the case.
So a bit history.
The first Basic Set was authored by John Eric Holmes in 1977. Gamers often call this "Blue Book Basic".
The next Basic Set was written by Tom Moldvay and was followed by the Cook/Marsh Expert Set. These books are collectively known as B/X.
The next set would be the last "Basic D&D". It was written and edited by +Frank Mentzer and included the Basic, Expert, Companion, Masters and Immortal sets. Also known as BECMI.
Each set detailed more levels of the game; 1-3, 4-14, 15-25, 26-36, and Immortality, respectively.
The Masters set and M series of modules were designed for experienced players and characters of 26th level and higher.
The simple matter is few characters get to this high of a level and often when they do the DM usually has their own adventures for them.
M1 Into the Maelstrom is a cool adventure with flying ships which became some of a fasination for +Bruce Heard. If I were to play this one I would naturally have to include material from Bruce's own Calidar, In Stranger Skies setting. Or set it in Calidar...hmmm this gives me some ideas. M3 Twilight Calling is from the creative mind of the late Tom Moldvay. Tom is something of a celebertiy in my home games. Every adventure I have run of his my family likes. Likes enough to ask who wrote it. After saying Tom Moldvay for the third time (Castle Amber, Isle of Dread, Lost City, Secret of the Slavers Stockade...). It is my favorite M series module and has the players go on a plane-hopping adventure to finally get to the Plane of Nightmares. I have often thought it would make for a perfect "Final Adventure" for any party. M5 Talons of Night by Jannell Jaquays is also fun, and really deadly adventure. I grabbed it becuase of the dragon on the cover. If M3 is the finale for my "Come Endless Darkness" game then M5 should be the finale of my "Dragonslayers" game.
Plus, it always reminds me of this song.
I mentioned H4 with it's 18-100 level range, and it is deadly. But that adventure is just really a scaled up 20th level adventure. These adventures are qualitatively different.
I am just disappointed that they are not available yet on DriveThruRPG as PDFs, though I am glad I have mine.
I was a fan of Len Lakofka way back in the day when I first discovered his work in Dragon Magazine.
I think it was his articles on the Gods and Goddesses of the Suel Empire that read first. Especially the one on Wee Jas. Or it could have been his article on the Death Master NPC.
But in any case it was his L series, the Lendore Isles, that most people know his work.
Module L1, The Secret of Bone Hill, is a classic for a number of reasons. First it was Lakofka's first foray into module writing. There is was plenty of background detailed in this module as well, a lot for what amounts to an introductory module.
The typical hack-n-slash or kick in the door plot is given over to what really amounts to a mystery. The adventure section itself is actually only a small part of the adventure.
I also think it was that Bill Willingham cover. I made character based on that magic user.
I got the chance to run my kids through this at Gen Con 2014 and we had a great time with it.
I had planned to run L2 Assassin's Knot, which is a great follow-up to L1, but time did not allow it. By the time I had calculated all the XP the characters were ready for something else anyway. Which is too bad, there is a great murder mystery in L2 that my youngest would have loved.
L3 Deep Dwarven Delve was completed at the same time as the first two adventures, somewhere around 1979, however it would not see publication til 1999 for the D&D Silver Anniversay Edition set. I have never actually owned or even read this one. A fact that was lost on me till I started working on this post! In fact the game it was written and published for, 1st Edition AD&D, was no longer in print and 3rd edition was on the very near horizon. Even the company, TSR, was no more having been bought by Wizards of the Coast.
(eta I checked and I did buy it on PDF at some point)
You would think that 20 years is enough to keep a guy out of the gaming biz. Well Len then released the next installments of the Lendore Isles adventures on the old-school gaming forum Dragons's Foot.
I have ready through these other adventures and I can't help but feel that they might work great for Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. They have the same feel to me and think they would compliment each other very nicely.
