Friday, March 4, 2022

TTRPGs for Trans Rights in Texas!

In a move that shocks no one, Texas (and it is always fucking Texas) Governor Greg Abbott signed an order to classify medical transitioning for transgender youth as child abuse.   Again, I am not surprised because just like his abortion doctor bounty of a while back the purpose here is not to protect the children (as a state that ranks 34th in k-12 education and 43rd in infant mortality they obviously don't care about real children) but instead about bein cruel. 

I say this and can't stress this enough, Fuck Texas

Thankfully there are still good people. And there are an absolute ton of them over on Itch.io

I don't spend a lot of time over there and I don't sell my RPGs through there.  It is a very indie sort of scene and I have found some good things there but I don't really "click" with the place.  That's fine we both can still live very happily.  But in this one case, we are in 100% agreement. 

Creators on Itch.io are offering up a bundle of TTRPG PDFs to support trans rights in Texas. 

TTRPGs for Trans Rights in Texas!

TTRPGs for Trans Rights in Texas!

https://itch.io/b/1308/ttrpgs-for-trans-rights-in-texas

You saw that price right.  For $5 you get 493 games!  That is just a fraction more than a penny a game.

If you find 10 in that lot that you like then it is still a deal.

The funds will go to support two organizations: Transgender Education Network of Texas (TENT) and OrganizaciĆ³n Latina de Trans en Texas (OLTT).

Many, many kudos to Rue (ilananight) for setting this up.  

As you can see this is already past its funding goal with a month still to go!  Given the markdown of these games, I think it would be great if they got 10 times their goal!

So spare a Lincoln (that's $5 for everyone outside of the US) here and support a very worthy cause. 

Thursday, March 3, 2022

Happy Birthday to the Other Side from Laura Guldemond

While this week is not my "blog birthday" it is the anniversary of my first website called The Other Side, of which this blog is the continuation.  In celebration, I thought I would get myself something fun for it. 

So here is Laura Guldemond, lead singer of The Burning Witches to welcome you to my site!


I have to say Laura was an absolute sweetheart to work with!  I knew I wanted to get a Cameo of someone to mark the occasion this year and she popped up in my searches and I knew she was the one.

Laura Guldemond

I rather enjoy The Burning Witches and have featured them here before on a Friday Night Videos segment. 

So with that. Welcome again "where all witches love the Other Side!"

Links for Laura Guldemond

Wednesday, March 2, 2022

New NIGHT SHIFT Content from Elf Lair Games

Night's Companion
My *other* publisher, Elf Lair Games, has been putting out some great free content for all of February in support of the new Night Companion and I would be remiss if I didn't share or point some of it out to you all.

Click on the links below for more information.

The Order of the Dragon

This is a holy order of knights set to defend Christianity from Muslim incursions.  Vlad Dracul was a member, but when he became a vampire the order shifted focus to destruction of all vampires and hunting of the supernatural. 

The Divine Order of the Sisters of Orleans  

A sister organization to the Order of the Dragon created by and in the name of Jeanne d’Arc.  They have also survived to the modern day to fight supernatural threats.

Folk Horror

Jason gives some advice on adding Folk Horror to your NIGHT SHIFT games.  This part was left out of the core rules. 

The Mandragora Book Store

Our old friend from the Eden days Derek Stoelting has been part of NIGHT SHIFT from the start.  He is up with more information on the location mentioned in the Quick Start Kit

Supers

A couple of good posts on Supers including how to create street-level supers in NIGHT SHIFT using the Inventor class.  Followed up by adding supers to a fantasy style RPG, with NIGHT SHIFT as the translator.

This naturally branched out to and from the next two topics.

Cyberpunk and how NIGHT SHIFT, or more accurately O.G.R.E.S. is a great Rosetta Stone for all sorts of old-school play. 

Finally we get some discussion on the Fighter class.

I also have more NIGHT SHIFT goodness for you all coming up including some more weirdness from Valhalla, AK and a new feature I am working on called From the Editor to support my Weirdly World News NIGHT WORLD from the Night Companion, and GenHEX from the NIGHT SHIFT Core Rules.

So keep an eye out here and on the Elf Lair Games blog for more material for Jason, Derek and myself.

Monday, February 28, 2022

Monstrous Mondays: The AD&D 2nd Ed Monstrous Compendiums, Part 3

MC 11 Monstrous Compendium Forgotten Realms II
I am continuing my dive into the AD&D 2nd Ed Monstrous Manuals and today I am reviewing three that are nominally under the Forgotten Realms umbrella.  

There is no doubt that the biggest game world for AD&D 2nd Edition was the Forgotten Realms.  I was fairly anti-Realms back then.  I felt it was a cheap imitation of Greyhawk and I was a little irritated that Greyhawk got pushed to the side.   The 3rd Edition Forgotten Realms setting book did a lot to change that for me and now, especially with my investigations around my This Old Dragon posts, I have come to better appreciate the Realms for what they really are, not for what I thought they were.

That all being said I still bought Realms-related products like these because, well, I love monsters.

MC11 Monstrous Compendium Forgotten Realms Appendix II (1991)

My series This Old Dragon has served me well for this one since many of the creatures here have appeared in the pages of Dragon Magazine, most authored or edited by Ed Greenwood himself.

This PDF is listed at 64 pages + the dividers. The interior art is all black & white with blue accents. The list price is $4.99. There are a total of 76 monsters (with sub-types) here Alaghi to Tren (a troglodyte/lizard man crossbreed).  The Peryton, one of my favorites from the original Monster Manual finally makes its 2nd Ed debut here. Likely due to the "Ecology of" article. I went back to look over some old favorites, namely the Saurial.  I always kind of liked the Saurial since there had been some articles in pop-science magazines about what would a humanoid race evolved from dinosaurs look like.  I was a big fan of the Silurians and Sea Devils from Doctor Who and this was the "Paranoid 90s" when X-Files was about to reign.  So reptiloids, dinosauroids, and more were on my mind.  The entry here says that "Saurials are not native to the Realms, but originate from an alternate Prime Material Plane."  This reminds me of what authors would later do with the Dragonborn in the Realms; have them come from Toril's twin planet of Abeir.  I see in more recent Realms lore they are still from an unknown realm but I like this idea. 

While these monsters are "generic" enough to be used anywhere, most (like the Saurials above) are tied a little more to the lore of the Realms, so extracting them can be done, but they will need some edits.

MC13 Monstrous Compendium Al-Qadim
MC13 Monstrous Compendium Al-Qadim Appendix (1992)

The Al-Qadim Monstrous Compendium had been the only product I ever purchased for the Al-Qadim setting back when it was new.  Again the reasoning was I loved monsters. But while reading it over I discovered there was a very interesting setting here.  

Like the Kara-Tur setting, Al-Qadim was pulled into the Realms. It was added to the Realms quickly after its release but the campaign setting box was designed a bit more for a general placement anywhere.

This PDF is listed at 74 pages and has a $4.95 price tag.  The art is typical for the time color covers and color dividers with black & white pages. Interestingly the accent color here is gold and not blue.  Ravenloft used red so I wonder how it would have been if all the settings had a different accent color to help separate them.  A dark-gray for Greyhawk, burnt orange for Dark Sun, and so on. 

There are 58 monsters from Ammut to Zin. This includes a large number of various Genie/Gin types. 

Divorced from their setting the monsters certainly lose some of their best flavor, but I do plan on using these in a desert-based campaign I have coming up and I think they will work fine.

MC6 Monstrous Compendium, Kara-Tur
MC6 Monstrous Compendium, Kara-Tur Appendix

Kara-Tur did not begin as a Forgotten Realms land. Quite the contrary it was designed to be used as part of Oerth in the 1st Edition Oriental Adventures.  This Monstrous Compendium brings the creatures listed in the 1st ed book, and more, into the 2nd Edition game. 

This PDF is listed at 64 pages (more with binder dividers) and a price tag of $4.99.  The cover and dividers are full color (including Easley's Oriental Adventure cover) and the interior art is Black & White. There are 76 monsters from Bajang to the Yuki-on-na.

Interestingly enough the Eastern Dragons from the Original Fiend Folio are not here.  They appeared in the MC3 Forgotten Realms one, but I thought they should appear here instead.  Likely to solidify the claim of Kara-Tur in the Forgotten Realms or maybe to give the 3rd MC some popular dragons.

There are some very unique monsters here. This is one of the few that I keep separate and do not integrate into my larger monster sets.

We are at a point with the Monstrous Compendiums where we get a bit of overlap.  For example, the Ashira (MC13) has a lot in common with the Hamadryad (MC11).  And the Black Cloud of Vengeance (MC13) is very much a larger, more evil version of the Tempest (MC11).  


Which is which? You tell me.

This is not a surprise, there are over 2100 monsters created for AD&D 2nd Edition, there are bound to be places where they overlap.

The scans for all are pretty crisp and clear. I certainly can see printed out a couple of pages and using them in a smaller binder for a specific AD&D 2nd Ed campaign.  Like I have said before, these PDF are fulfilling the promises made by the Monstrous Compendiums in the 1990s.

Friday, February 25, 2022

Kickstart Your Weekend: ZweihƤnder, Sands and Old School Fun

A bunch of great Kickstarters this week so let's get to it.

The Valley Out of Time series for S&W DCC MCC

The Valley Out of Time series for S&W DCC MCC

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/science-wizard/the-valley-out-of-time-series-for-sandw-dcc-mcc?ref=theotherside

This one looks like a lot of fun. Has a whole "Lost World" vibe to it and I love that shit. It was already planned for DCC, MCC, and S&W and now with the first stretch goal Pathfinder 1st Edition.

Zweihander Fantasy Horror RPG Starter Kit

Zweihander Fantasy Horror RPG Starter Kit

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zweihander/zweihander-rpg-starter-kit?ref=theotherside

I don't know a lot about ZweihƤnder. I know it is a clone in a sense of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying.  So I have been told to try this instead of Warhammer.  Creator Daniel Fox also takes credit for (rightly or not) taking down The Trove so that is a good thing in my mind.

This starter kit looks like a lot of fun and I think I am a good choice as a customer. 

The Sands of Despair: a D&D 5E and PF side trek

The Sands of Despair: a D&D 5E and PF side trek

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dlimedia/the-sands-of-despair-a-dandd-5e-side-trek?ref=theotherside

Recent seismic events unearth a long buried tomb in the desert, and the locals fear that a long dead tyrant's last words may come true.

Sounds fun to me! Plus I have been wanting to do more desert adventures. 

And the big one of the week!

Old-School Essentials Fantasy RPG Box Sets

Old-School Essentials Fantasy RPG Box Sets

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/exaltedfuneral/old-school-essentials-fantasy-rpg-box-sets?ref=theotherside

Ok we all know what this one is. It's the biggest kid on the OSR block right now and after 2-3 days it is sitting on half a million dollars.  Not too shabby really.

I have everything for this already. But damn this is attractive.

Enjoy!

Thursday, February 24, 2022

The Legend of Vox Machina

My family finished watching the Amazon Prime series "The Legend of Vox Machina" from Critical Role and honestly it was a lot of fun.

The Legend of Vox Machina

It was funny, exciting, and really just a lot of great gamer humor without feeling like gamer humor.

A big problem I have with most gamer-related fiction is you can often, as I say, "hear the dice rolling in the background."  Not so with this.  Yes there are the expected name drops, the occasional mention of a power (Grog wanting to "rage") or a spell (Keyleth saying she can only do that one once a day) but that all took a backseat to what makes any bit of fiction good; good story and characters you can care about.

I have not listened to any of the Critical Role episodes, but my oldest LOVES them.  So we backed the Kickstarter and honestly, we have been very pleased.  He let me know later how the animated series differs from the actual play episodes.  So now I do want to go back to those older Campaign One episodes and listen to them all.

Also not since the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon has D&D seen this much success in a televised medium.  Amazon already renewed it for a second season before season one even premiered.

It has met with critical success, including a 100% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and a 94% audience score. 

Whether you are a fan or not one thing is certain, Critical Role is one of D&D greatest achievements in terms of getting more people interested in our little game.  Born out of an odd combination of Pathfinder and D&D 5 the World of Tal'dorei has also seen quite a bit of success in the D&D 5 printed world with three (soon to be four) books.

Critical Role books

In addition to the series, the actual play episodes, and the gaming material there are comic books, action figures, clothes, and gear.  There is even a 1/6th scale statue of the characters Vex and Vax from Vox Machina coming out.  You know for a fact if there were statues of Keyleth and Jester coming out they would never be able to keep them in stock. Yes even at the nearly $200 price tag.

When was the last time one of your campaigns did all of that?  Ok. I do have 1/6th scale versions of two of my own iconic witches. No, I am not going to share how much I spent on them.

So the show was a lot of fun, maybe a touch adult for some, a lot of swearing some nudity, lots of gore. But seriously, does no one remember gaming when they were 14? 

I wish them the best of luck and hope for their continued success. 

Wednesday, February 23, 2022

What *IS* Blackmoor in my World?

I have been reading more of the late Jason Zavoda's posts about his "Blackmoor Land of a Thousand Witches" and I have wanted to do something with that.  This got me thinking about some ideas I had had for 4e Blackmoor.  Which then got me thinking about my world in a larger sense and how Blackmoor really is the keystone of my Mystorerth world.  

Even before I adopted James Mischler's name for it I was playing in a combined Msytara/Oerth world (and I kinda regret not calling Oestara now).   My world was Mystara/The Know World, my DM's was Oerth Greyhawk.  The central common feature was Blackmoor.

Blackmoor, Dave's version

But what even *IS* Blackmoor in my world now?

It has always been some sort of Shangri-La like place of High Magic and High Tech in the Mystara books and place of post-apocalyptic destruction in Greyhawk. 

So I am going back to the sources, the original Blackmoor.

I read on good ole Wikipedia (the unofficial Splat Book for every RPG) that the original Blackmoor campaign setting "include(ed) ideas from The Lord of the Rings and Dark Shadows and applied the Fantasy Supplement rules from the Chainmail game." That sounds like my games!

Blackmoor CY576

I also went the best Blackmoor sources on the net, Havard's Blackmoor Blog and the Blackmoor Archives.

To be blunt there is an absolute ton of material in both of those sites to keep me busy for weeks.  But there are a few key points there AND I have Harvard and fellow Mystoerth enthusiast Mathew Fenn to thank.

So I don't need to connect Mystara Blackmoor to Greyhawk Blackmoor physically because they are the same place separated by time.   Harvard tells us that MBlackmoor is set "4000 years in Mystara's past."  For me that means there are two Blackmoors indeed.  Same location, but somehow when their magic-tech devices exploded it trapped a bubble of Blackmoor in time (-3426 CY to be exact) so the PCs can still get to it if they know how.    In this respect Blackmoor become my Atlantis, or at least the Atlantis like the one depicted in the Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee) story The Time Monster.

I have always wanted an Atlantis.  A mythical land/realm destroyed by a cataclysm, maybe one wrought by hubris, BUT there also be enough survivors so we know what the tale is/was.  My version of Mystara's "Known World" has so many different sorts of people living in it because they are the descendants of refugees of the Blackmoor explosion. 

I'd also like to learn more about what sort of "Gothic Horror" and "Dark Shadows" elements were part of the original Blackmoor.  I am not sure that Dark Shadows fits in well with "magic-tech superpower" but it would with the post-apoc Greyhawk-era Blackmoor.  

Blackmoor in the World of Greyhawk

Map by Daniel Hasenbos, Courtesy of DHBoggs

Blackmoor today is more like what the Greyhawk Gazeteers say it is.  But I also want to add bits of Hyperborea to my version of Blackmoor for that full post-apocalyptic feel and justify high powered magic tech still existing.  Hyperborea's Atlanteans might be what I need to complete this picture.

In any case I do have a lot of reading to do and figuring out what it all means for my world.

Matthew "Matteus" Fenn's map

Map of Mathew Fenn

So. What DO I know? Well in no particular order.

  • Blackmoor is north.  For the Flanaess it is about as far north as you can go before reaching the Black Ice.  
  • The Black Ice is black because Blackmoor blew up. 
  • Prior to the explosion Blackmoor was a cosmopolitan utopia. All the races lived and visited here in seeming harmony (there was still tensions here so not all wine and roses) and art, science, and magic were celebrated.  I want it's past to be "far too good to be true" but in fact true.  That is the tragedy of Blackmoor. 
  • The differences between the Mystara map of Blackmoor and the Greyhawk version is due to this explosion.
  • I am reversing the names of the sea near Blackmoor.  In the past is was known as the "Icy Sea" now it is called the "Black Sea" and it actually black and full of weird mutated sea creatures.
  • If there was ever an "Innsmouth" for my world it is here.
  • There WILL be ways to travel back in time (or outside of time) to Old Blackmoor.  This will be my chance to pull out some time travel ideas and break my "no time travel in D&D" rule.  In fact it should be the focus of an adventure at some point. 
  • Blackmoor of today is considered to be a haunted and desolate land.  The tales of Blackmoor's rise and then destruction are akin to our tales of Atlantis.
  • "Not since Blackmoor" is a saying meaning a very, very long time ago. 
  • The land is filled with random magic effects and other strangeness.  The barrier between realms is the weakest here.  So this is also where eldritch horrors are most likely to appear. 
  • I might try to use the "Temple of the Frog" in some manner, obviously I am going to use this as a cult center of Tsathoggua.  I would change many elements of the adventure, but certainly go with the maps and some of the science fantasy elements.
  • I still have to reckon my "Monks come from Blackmoor" notion.  Like I said then these might be psychic ascetics cut from the 70's occult revival cloth.  That would fit with the idea that monks were introduced in the Blackmoor supplement and the Mystics from the D&D Basic/BECMI/RC line. I need a good psychic mystic class to cover them. I have written a bit on Mystics[1][2][3] in the past, so I am sure there is something more I can do with that. 

Obviously I have a lot to consider here. And a lot more to read about before I could come up with any sort of good idea.  My ultimate goal here was to myself to a point where I could talk about Jason Zavoda's "Blackmoor Land of a Thousand Witches" but I am not even close to that yet.  But I can at least see the road map from here.

Links