Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Summer Solstice

The sun stands still at 12:16 pm local time.

To celebrate here are the posters boys of the original old school Rush.
Time Stand Still.

Voting: Tell DTRPG About Your Character

Drivethru RPG is into the final stages of their Tell Us About Your Character Contest.

You can vote for the finalists here, http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/rpg_character.php?affiliate_id=10748


There are some pretty cool characters here.  I voted.

Congrats to all the finalists so far.

Monday, June 20, 2011

More Reviews at DriveThru

Here are some more reviews of some products I have gotten from DriveThruRPG recently.
Have bought too much recently.  But these struck my fancy.

Fantasy Heroines Set
I love these paper minis from Arion games and this package is no different. I bunch of little paper people for your game. There are heroines of every class type here and the "cheese cake" factor is minimal (the paladin for example is in head to toe armor). Some mounted and some tri-folded versions as well.

There is only one thing missing from this package are full sized (or even half sized) page versions of the characters to print out and use with a character sheet. That would make these perfect in my mind.
4 of 5 Stars

Greek Woman
Two hi-res pieces of art (the same, one in b/w, the other in sepia) to be used with any project personal or commercial.
A very good piece.
5 of 5 Stars

Doctor Who: Aliens and Creatures
An excellent source of new things to run away from!
Actually this is a great product, full of all sorts of monsters, aliens and other creatures primarily from the new version of Doctor Who (but some old favorites are still there).

There is also an adventure book with two ready to go adventures using these new creatures; and plenty of ideas of how to use the others.
Some printing will be required for the cards, but that is minimal.

The same level of art, design and layout given to the core game is here, making it one of the more attractive games out these days. Perfect for the Doctor Who gamer and the Doctor Who fan alike.
5 of 5 Stars

Eden Studios Presents: Volume 3
While it doesn't come out as often as I would like, each issue of ESP is worth the wait. In particular here are Jason Vey's conversions of WitchCraft Gifted to be used in the Cinematic lines like Buffy or Ghosts of Albion.

More Cinematic Unisystem spells for Buffy/Angel (and Ghosts of Albion or Army of Darkness).

If you play Unisystem games then this is a great resource for you.
5 of 5 Stars

Book of Races
This book is filled full of new and interesting races, many of which are not your typical fantasy fare. While not all are great there are some gems and I appreciate the overall effort. There are races, new feats and paragon paths for 4e (not Essentials, but easily updated).

The art does tend to be all over the place and some of it is not great. But for half price and the chance to do something very different than the typical elf-dwarf-halfling trifeca, this is a good choice.
4 of 5 Stars

F-211 Copperhead
This is actually pretty awesome and one of the best things about PDFs. For one price (and lot of printer ink) I can have a fleet of little paper spaceships.
The design is very cool, brings to mind both the Vipers of BSG and the X-Wings of Star Wars, so that is a plus.
My suggestion is to take your time and let the paper dry before gluing. I smudged my first one.
5 of 5 Stars

DRAGONSHIRE: City Ruins
More cool print and build models from FDG. I love using 3D props in my games and I love the idea I can print out as many as I like. At just $4 (and printer ink) I can build an entire destroyed village.
5 of 5 Stars

Hero Happy Hour Presents: The Sheen (ICONS)
This might well be the most awesome product I have ever paid under a buck for.
You don't get many pages here, but you get alot. A "ripped from the tabloids" personality that can be a snap to play. All the Icons stats you need, a background, awesome art and a little paper mini to use in your game.
All for less than you would pay for a Mt. Dew out of a vending machine.

I just don't want to see more like this, I want to see LiLo and all her awesome powers of...well something I am sure.

Worth it for humor alone.
5 of 5 Stars

Sunday, June 19, 2011

The Dragonslayers vs. The Lost Caverns of the Tsojcanth

Today the boys wanted to play some D&D for Father's Day.  Really, how could I say no?

So we wrapped up the last bits of the return from White Plume mountain.  The boys went and visited Crazy Omar to collect their reward.  Omar got Whelm, as he wanted.  They traded Blackrazor for an equally notorious weapon from my world, the crossbow "Bessie Mauler" (yes, yes stolen from the Riftwar Cycle, but to be fair I stole it from my old DM and I had no idea he had stolen from somewhere else).

I also wanted to point out that they now had a crowd following them wherever they went.  After all they were the heroes that freed the Silver Princes and defeated Dragotha.  They are a long way from The Caves of the Stinky Goblin (the first adventure of the Dragonslayers).  I wanted them to feel like heroes.

Of course now they are a day's ride to the Horn of Iggwilv.  Omar has told them that great treasure awaits them in Iggwilv's lair.  They are free to keep the spell books, but Omar has his sight on "Iggwilv's Greatest Treasure" something so precious that she "wrapped in in gold".   Well Omar, or the boys yet, don't know that the rumors of the greatest treasure are referring to Drelzna and she is wrapped in gold.  Gold armor to be exact.

The made it up into the mountains.  They know there is a Gnome kingdom located in the mountains and they have just been abused by a group of Stone Giants tossing boulders at them.

I have had S4 forever and it is great to finally get a chance to run it.  I am using the original AD&D 1st ed version of this, along with the Iggwilv's Legacy update from WotC from 2007 (no longer online) and will include the Lost Temple of Tharizdun IF it seems like a good idea.  This adventure should take us well into Gen Con.

There is a blue dragon in this adventure and one in the next one I am planning, Death's Ride.  I am going to make them the same blue dragon.  It would be good to give them a reoccurring enemy.  And who better for the Dragonslayers than the Huge Blue Dragon Korbundar?

I am not planning on having them run into Iggwilv just yet.  Mostly I am torn on whether or not to make into a witch (one of my versions) or make her into a wizard.  She did study with the Circle of Eight and she does seem to be in every respect a wizard.  The easiest thing to do is cheat and wait till I am running 4e and just make her into a Warlock/Wizard multiclass.  A person of such history would be great to have in my games.  Wilva though is not a do-er, she is a manipulator. She has pawns.  I think this pic sums her up best.


I still have my Big PlanTM in motion for 4e and Iggwilv is a part of that.  So she is manipulating the Dragonslayers now to get them in place for her take over of the Abyss.  Turns out it will be their kids, but she can wait.

I just don't know if I can!  I want to play this all now!

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Been Caught Stealin': Free RPG Day

In case your forgot today is (was) Free RPG Day.   Took the boys to my our favorite local game store and here is our haul.


We each got two things, the limit.  But it is a good set of things.

I might use them all together.  No idea yet.
They are all high quality products.  The DragonAge one is the thickest, the D&D and Pathfinder ones are full color, DCC really does look very, very old school, only with better production values.
The AFMBE one (the only non-D&Dish thing here) is really fun of course.
The d10 is also very nice to have.

All are intro adventures so not really good for the Dragonslayers at this point, but when we start up again with 4e I can certainly use them.

Zatannurday: Picture Round-up

I have a bunch of Zee pics laying around so I thought today would be a good time to post them and their sources.

First up from the Comic Knock Outs tumblr site:


by Da Xiong


by Stephane Roux

by Jeremy Bastian

And this one, but no idea where I got it from.


by Dave Hoover

Friday, June 17, 2011

Harry Potter: The Deathly Hallows, Part 2

This is going to be great.
The scenes where knights come to defend the school is exactly how I imagined it would be.




And there is this,  http://www.youtube.com/JKRowlingAnnounces