Kickstart Your Weekend: Gods, Monsters and Superheroes

A couple of good ones today.

First up is a tactical miniatures game with some fantastic looking minis.

Theosis: Godslayer

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dreamcraftgames/theosis-godslayer?ref=theotherside

This one has some really awesome looking minis.  I know nothing about the game itself, but that is fine.  It looks cool.

Yes. That is a 120 mm base.

It looks fantastic and ending soon.

Also ending soon is a new supers game and I do love Supers games.

Sentinel Comics: The Roleplaying Game

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gtgames/sentinel-comics-the-roleplaying-game

This one looks really fun and I like the art. The game play looks pretty easy to pick up as well.

Want to see how it plays?  Grab the Sentinel Comics: The Roleplaying Game Starter Kit on RPGNow/DrivThruRPG.

Featured Artist: Iren Horrors

Todays featured artist is some I have been stalking for a while because I absolutely love her art.

Ksenia Svintsova, aka Iren Horrors, is an artist from Obninsk, Russia and she has a great witch-punk style that I love.  She describes her style and art as "Dark, gothic, witchy illustrations" so of course, I am going to notice her!

Honestly, there is not a single piece she has done that I don't 100% love.

I think I need that one on my wall as a print.
https://society6.com/product/triple-goddess1216191_print?sku=s6-8947550p4a1v45

And there is at least ten times more this amount that I love.  In a perfect world I'd get her to do the art for a witch and horror-centric D&D 5 book.

You can find Iren Horrors online at:

• Twitter, https://twitter.com/Iren_Horrors
• DeviantArt, https://www.deviantart.com/irenhorrors
• Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/irenhorrorsart
• Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/irenhorrors/
• Society 6, https://society6.com/irenhorrors
• VK, https://vk.com/irenhorrors

Please check out her sites!

Dungeons & Dragons: Stranger Things Edition

I woke up and saw this on my newsfeed this morning.

So far I have only seen this at Entertainment Earth and Amazon.
https://www.entertainmentearth.com/product/stranger-things-dungeons-dragons-roleplaying-game-starter-set/hse3702

https://www.amazon.com/Hasbro-Stranger-Dungeons-Dragons-Roleplaying/dp/B07G5X6N5P

https://comicbook.com/gaming/2019/02/13/stranger-things-dungeons-dragons-starter-set/

But I hope my FLGS will have it.

I think it looks great, and if it can get some more people into our hobby then fantastic.
Think of all those people watching Stranger Things and wanting to get into or back into D&D.

It is for 5th edition, but that is the current edition and the one they are most likely to find things for.

This will be a good chance to try out my Zoomer archetype in a perfect setting!

NOW I have already heard cries of "selling out" may I remind you of these:

D&D has been "selling out" since the early 80s and no one was more aggressive in the pursuit of licensing agreements than Gygax himself.

Review: Realms of the Crawling Chaos

One of my favorite Old School books has been Realms of the Crawling Chaos by Goblinoid Games.  It's a nice blend of both D&D Basic-era (via Labyrinth Lord) and the mythos of H.P. Lovecraft.  We get a little bit of Call of Cthulhu and the Cthulhu Mythos from Deities & Demigods.

Available as a PDF and softcover for years it is now out in hardcover for backers of the Advanced Labyrinth Lord Kickstarter.

The book looks fantastic, as to be expected.

The hardcover book is 60 pages worth of material and deals with running a Lovecraftian-inspired game of horror fantasy.
A few new races are introduced for a Race-as-Class style game with notes on other classes to use in an advanced game; Sea-Blooded, Subhuman, White Ape and White Ape Hybrid.

Next, are some new magical formulae and some new spells all based on various Lovecraft sources. Enough to sprinkle into various dammable texts for the players to find AND then really get into trouble with.

We come to the monsters and all the old favorites are here. Comparing them to other sources of similar monster will give you plenty of differences in stats, which is a good thing really. Players who are familiar with other books should not have knowledge their characters do not.

A small section on Eldritch Artifacts, a staple of many of Lovecraft's mythos stories.

And finally a section on Psionics which differs from other books/games.

We get some appendices on Eldritch tomes and an artifact generator.  Appendix 3 covers the use of these psionic rules in Mutant Future. And Appendix 4 covers the stories and books used.

We end with the OGL section.

If I have one complaint there are no rules for sanity or madness. A fair staple of many Lovecraftian games.

The book is awfully fun and is full of great ideas.  If you are a fan of Labyrinth Lord and Lovecraftian tales then I would most certainly grab this.

For me, this is has been the "missing" part of both my BlackStar game and War of the Witch Queens.  I say "missing" but I have had the PDF forever.

This is actually a HUGE part of my BlackStar game.  This plus Starships & Spacemen So I am going to talk a little about in the frame of reference of that game soon.

I am Going to Talk about Zak Today and Then Never Again

Yesterday Mandy Morbid, the former girlfriend of Zak Smith/Sabbath, and one of the members of his group of D&D players made famous by his blog and his show "I Hit it With My Axe" posted a letter to Zak on her facebook page.

You can, and should, read it here: https://www.facebook.com/amandapatricianagy/posts/10215845527064252

It's long but read the entire post. Come back here when you are done.

Back?  Good.
Or maybe not good. That is not a post that should make you feel good at all.

I want to say upfront I believe and support Mandy, Jennifer, and Hannah in this.
I wish them all nothing but the best and healing. They deserve that and more.

Now I have defended Zak in the past. I have lauded his works here and on social media.

Well, now I am condemning him for his abusive behavior and his violations, both physical and mental in terms of trust.

I apologize to you all, my readers who take the words I put down here and trust that I have vetted and verified them all.  I try, but in this, I failed.

Mostly I want to apologize to Mandy herself for giving support to someone that used that support as a means of coercion or control. Had it not been for people like me giving him vocal support he likely could not have done the things he did for as long as he did.

Don't expect to see any more support for Zak here.  I only wish I had seen all of this sooner and done more. I won't mention him here on these pages after this post.

We need to do better as a community. So I am starting with me.

Edited to Add: Satine Phoenix, who was/is friends with both Zak and Mandy has posted this.
Edited to Add 2: Vivka Grey has also added her experiences and how they confirm Mandy's side of the story.

Kickstart Your Weekend: Cade's Big Book o' Booze

Justin Ryan Isaac is a good friend of The Other Side blog.  His own blog, Halls of the Nephilim has been cranking out good stuff for years.  Now Justin is joining the ranks of Kickstarter Creators and his first go is out now.

Cade's Big Book o' Booze
An alcohol related zine for use with 5th edition fantasy.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1988380379/cades-big-book-o-booze?ref=theotherside

It looks like a fun collection of new rules and items for your game.
Featuring:

• The "Intoxicated" condition and what it entails
• New alcohols for your fantasy game to add some flavor (pun-intended) to your campaigns
• New equipment and weapons, including the formidable dwarven battle mug
• Cade's Bar Guide: a list of materials/ingredients found in the game world and how to use them to make the ultimate cocktails 
• New magic: spells and magic items 
• New monsters to face, including the b'ooze and the dreaded bad beer elemental
• NPC stats for Cade Ashworthy, the titular planehopping halfling 
• And more... 

I have to admit a plane-hopping halfling got my attention!

Though if it doesn't have "Beer Goggles" (improved the Charisma of any you view through them) then a golden opportunity has been missed!

Check it out! And lets help make Justin's first Kickstarter a success!

Featured Artist: Clyde Caldwell

Doing this one a day early. This one, again, might feel like a cheat, but it really isn't. Not to me anyway.

Maybe even more so than Elmore, Caldwell has been responsible for some of my all time favorite covers of D&D books and of Dragon magazine.  Between his contributions to the Mystara / Known World Gazeteers to the covers of Ravenloft products.

This one from the cover of Glantri Gazeteer is one of my absolute favorites. I have to think that the red-headed spell-caster had some influence on my own Larina.

Not from any book but I do love this image.

Now, this is from a book, the Celestial Steam Locomotive by Michael Coney, and one of my favorite books to be honest.

One of my favorite adventures.

One of my favorite covers of Dragon.

Larina certainly got her name from Laurana. I came up with her while reading the Dragonlace books.

And of course Strahd himself, from the cover of Ravenloft and Ravenloft: House on Gryphon Hil.

Great stuff really. I love his work.

You can find Clyde Caldwell on the web.

• His website, https://clydecaldwell.com/
• Twitter, https://twitter.com/clydecaldwell
• Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clyde_Caldwell
• Books on Amazon
• Books on Noble Knight Games