100 Days of Halloween: Limited Edition Pumpkin Spice Wampus Country

For the most part, my 100 Days of Halloween has been about all the witch or spooky stuff I need to get some reviews done or just stuff I like. Typically everything has been languishing on my hard drive for years.  But not tonight's entry.  I bought it just for this because it looked fun.

Limited Edition Pumpkin Spice Wampus Country

PDF. 30 pages 

From the product page,

A Halloween-and-Harvest compilation of articles from the Wampus Country blog, suitable for use with classic fantasy games and related nonsense. Within, you'll learn the dark arts of sucromancy, punch ghosts, explore death masks, and more.

Yeah sounds like something I would like really.  

These are all articles collected from the Wampus Country Blog which has been out there doing its thing for 11 years.  So they are quite upfront with what to expect, but the new format and layout of this PDF is worth the price really.

The articles are a mixed (Halloween) bag, including Candy Magic and Bone Magic. There is a great section on creating random witches, which I really liked. A Ghost Hunter monk subclass. 

The art is Halloween ephemera so it is all rather appropriate. 

It is a rather fun collection of articles to be honest and to have them all in one place for an easy download is worth the price of the PDF easily.

100 Days of Halloween: Clipart Critters 338 - Witches Trio

If you are beginning to think I bought every bit of clip art or stock art with "witch" in the title, then you would likely be right.

Clipart Critters 338 - Witches Trio

Another great one from Bradley K. McDevitt. It features a trio of witches over a cauldron under a full moon while a cat looks on.

Very spooky and puts me in the mood for fall.

I have to admit I enjoyed it so much it is going to be in my very next project.  But more on that one later.

UPDATED: It is now part of my A5 version of my Basic Witch: The Pumpkin Spice Witch Tradition book.

100 Days of Halloween: Witch from Artikid Arts

I bought a lot of stock art. Some I have used, some I haven't. I am really, really disappointed in myself that I have not used this one anywhere yet.  I need to fix that.

Witch from Artikid Arts

From Luigi Castellani.  It features a dead or zombie witch on a broom. Love it. Has a real "American Witch" meets "Living Dead Girl" vibe to it.

The cat and the ripped fishnets are a nice touch.

100 Days of Halloween: BlaszczecArt Stock Art: Halloween Witch

More stock art tonight.

BlaszczecArt Stock Art: Halloween Witch

This one features a long-haired witch riding a broom.  Had to grab it. I am not sure where I will use it yet, but I will certainly find a spot.

100 Days of Halloween: Troll Witch

Quick one tonight, some stock I rather enjoyed.

Troll Witch

A cool bit of art from Daniel Comerci.  It is labeled as a "Troll Witch" and that works for me. 

I used this one for my Winter Witch book and it is rather perfect to be honest.

100 Days of Halloween: Children of Midnight: Coven Quickstart

A bit of a different game tonight. Felt I needed a bit of a palate cleanser. The DriveThruRPG page says "Children of Midnight: Coven Quickstart is a gender inclusive urban fantasy Forged in the Dark table-top game. Players take the roles of Wyld Witches and their Familiars who form a Coven for mutual support in a dark and harsh modern world."   Sounds interesting. Let's get to it.

As always, to stay objective I will be following my rules for these reviews.   

Children of Midnight: Coven Quickstart

PDF. You get six files with this:

•  GM Session Notes
•  Quickstart Consent Form
•  Starting Undertaking
•  Quickstart GM Cheat Sheet
•  Children of Midnight Coven Quickstart Grimoire
•  Children of Midnight Coven Quickstart v1.3

In order, the GM Session Notes are exactly that, a form for recording sessions.   The Consent form is similar to others I have seen before. Green, Yellow and Red indicators on what all the players think on various topics. Starting Undertaking is a three page document with an overview/background on the game rules and the world.  Quickstart GM Cheat Sheet is a 6 page PDF with various guidelines and rolls used in the game.  Children of Midnight Coven Quickstart Grimoire is a colorful 2 page character sheet.

Children of Midnight Coven Quickstart is the game proper. This is a 40 page PDF.  It uses a system called Forged in the Dark that I am not entirely familiar with. The authors are Gavin and Áine Moore. For 40 pages there is a lot of material here. The font is a little small, but I can put this on a larger monitor than what I am using now. 

There is an absolute ton going on in this game. There is lore. There are detailed NPCs with photos and social media. I honestly feel I need to do some more research into this game before I can even properly review it.  So since this is a quickstart, I feel a quicky review right now is good. But really there is a lot of promise here.

To get a better feel I'll certainly need to play it, but I like what I am seeing so far.

100 Days of Halloween: The White Vale: Sex Starved Witch,Alien Horrors,& Dark Secrets

My goal here is to review, or at least talk about, all the witch products I can get my hands on. Mostly for my own benefit, I am a self-admitted fan and all, but to also share the products I enjoy and think are good.

Today is not one of those days.

Now. I try to avoid ripping into products. There are plenty of bad products out there that you will never hear about from me because frankly, I would rather talk about products and books I like. 

The White Vale: Sex Starved Witch, Alien Horrors,& Dark Secrets

PDF. $4.00. 10 pages. One cover, one title. 4 pages of art. 1 map. 3 pages of content.

So yeah there is this title. 

I am not sure what this is supposed to be. Is it an adventure or a location? Hard to tell. The art is...sub-par to say the least and mostly terrible to be honest.  There is no witch mentioned, but there is one pictured, though it looks really amateur. 

It has an "Adult Content" warning for the previously mentioned "witch" art. 

No. This is pretty bad.

100 Days of Halloween: Sade Stock Art

A long time ago I picked up a bunch of stock art for my witch books.  I never got around to using all of it.  I might one day. But until then here are some reviews/overviews.

As always I will be following my rules for these reviews.

Be-witched Stock Pack

10 High-res CG images of witches.

I like Sade's style and I would love to find more places I could use this art. 

I used some of this art for the Sisters of the Aquarian Order.

Fae Folk Stock Art Pack

A cute little frog-fae girl. 7 images, beautifully done with transparent backgrounds.

Girls of Fantasy #1

6 images, three different figures with a transparent or detailed background each.

The art is good and I am glad I bought it, I just need to find a good use for it.

Moon Witch Stock Pack

The art is good and hi-res. Not sure why it is called a "witch", "moon elf" would be better. I had been using these for characters in my old D&D4 game.

Arch Druid Stock Art Pack

Good art for a character concept. The variety of images/poses are good.

Unnamed heroes #2

Nine images of the pictured hero.  Works great as a noble or other important NPC.

The art is very good.

Dawnbreaker Stock Art Pack

Fantastic works of art. Human (or half-elf) cleric/druid girl in a variety of poses and backgrounds. 3 with backgrounds and 8 without. She wears armor and carries a staff. 

There is no attached license though the main page says for commercial or personal use. The lack of a clear-to-understand and read license is a bit of a downgrade for me, but if you are looking for art for your own personal use then this is a 5/5.

Sorceress

8 image files of a redhead sorceress.  Various poses with transparent backgrounds.

She is partially armored and carries a staff.

100 Days of Halloween: In Nomine Superiors: Lilith

The second game that many draw on for Lilith is the classic In Nomine.  I spent a lot of time with this game in the very late 90s. Right around 1998 to 99 when I was looking for a new modern supernatural game to play.  There was this one, World of Darkness, and the ultimate winner, WitchCraft. Though I used ideas from all three in my WitchCraft games then.

In Nomine Superiors: Lilith

PDF. 43 pages. Black & White art.

This document contain notes and stats for both the In Nomine RPG and GURPS: In Nomine. By extension, it could be used with any GURPS game.  Despite the publication date (2005) I think this is all for GURPS 3rd Edition. But I could be wrong.  Just checked, yes GURPS 3rd Edition.

This supplement features all the strengths of most good GURPS supplements. That is there is a ton of information here, some stats, and a lot of great fluff.

This one also gives us the history of Lilith and what she has done in her immortal life. In the In Nomine game she seems to be one of the few immortals that can move between the devils and angels with some relative ease.

While I have not touched In Nomine in over 20 years (much to my own disappointment) there is a lot of great material here and makes want to dig up my old copy (if I still have it). In any case, true to the nature of GURPS this booklet can be used just about anywhere. There is nothing here that could not say be combined with Revelations of the Dark Mother. Where there are contradictions...well only Lilith herself knows the truth and true to her nature there are likely to be thousands of contradictions. 

While this might not have the art that RotDM has, it does have plenty of game material. 

Lilith should be wonderfully complex in any game and this supplement helps with that.

100 Days of Halloween: Revelations of the Dark Mother

Time to get down with some OG World of Darkness.  So much that has been written about Lilith in RPGs can be traced back to two sources. This is the first.

Revelations of the Dark Mother

PDF. 126 pages. Black & white art. 

Once upon a time, White Wolf focused more on plot and background. 

This is a crunch-lite, fluf-heavy book that deals with Lilith, the mother of all Vampires (so to speak), and maybe Mages as well in the original World of Darkness. 

This is nice since I can drop it into any other game I like and it is a great background. If you have any interest in the subject of Lilith then this is a fun read.

This was written by Phil Brucato (with additional authors) who is pretty much the expert in everything Mage. So from the start you know this is going to be some deep WoD material. 

The art is by Rebecca Guay, Eric Hotz, and Vince Locke with the covers designed by art director Aileen E. Miles. I call this out because the art in the book is really quite good. Even given that this is 20+ year old book. Every portrait or portrayal of Lilith is evocative. You are captured in Lilith's tale in these and makes this more than just another game book. This book feels like a coffee table book (in the best possible way) that happens to be connected to a game world.

It is stunning and still a work of art all these years later.

Oh, Oh Shelia!

Busy day at the day job today (Fall term is starting) so a quick one today.  I picked up the Icons of the Realms: Dragons of Stormwreck Castle minis over the weekend. I mentioned these back in June and had hoped they would at least include the thief Shelia.  Well...they didn't.

 

I do like the way they all look.

I was never a big watcher of the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon. I worked on Saturdays and often missed it. BUT I picked up the DVD boxed set back in the early 2000s and my kids LOVED it. It was the set with the 3rd Edition stats for everyone.  

You might notice that this set is missing Bobby, Uni, and Shelia. I will get to that in a bit.  It does include someone just labeled "Cleric."

I can't help but think that this Cleric is none other than Aleena.

The outfits are not perfect. And I thought I read somewhere that Aleena was a blonde. But this certainly works.  I have been using Aleena as the Patron Saint of Adventurers for a while now.  Though like the D&D cartoon, the D&D Red Basic set for BECMI was not something I was into then.

Since Kelek was in the D&D Cartoon and Skylla was supposed to be they seem to work well with this set.

Oh Shelia

I said I did not watch the D&D cartoon much, but I was aware of it. I can't help but wonder if the red-headed girl with a penchant for wearing purple and hoods in 1983-85 didn't somehow influence my red-headed witch with a penchant for purple dresses and black hoods in 1986?  I honestly can't say.

In fact, I did even think about it until I scored this D&D Cartoon "kids" book at my local game auction.  It is called "The Witch's Spell Book."

The basic plot is you have the Golden Wood by finding Agnes the Witch's Spell Book. For reasons, only Shelia can read the spell. You would think Presto, but no it is Shelia. 

Now not to go out on a limb too far, but those that make Shelia an initiate witch?  It would in my games. She is 13 in the show, the age witches often "hear the Call of the Goddess" in my game worlds. (BTW this is what makes Larina special, she heard the Call at age 6.)

But sadly I don't get to add Shelia to my War of the Witch Queens yet. But all is not lost thanks to Hero Forge!

I could get the print from HeroForge and for the Invisible Sheila download the STL and print her here at home in clear resin.  Like I did for my "Ghost" of Aleena.  Click on the pictures above to buy your own from HeroForge.

I think we have some clear blue resin still.

If Shelia has a theme song then Aleena should too.  It kinda works. Or maybe this one, if I go with the idea that she was a blonde. At least the timing of all three is right for me. 

So that only leaves a question for me.  Should I introduce Shelia to my War of the Witch Queens campaign?  I might need to revisit the dual classing or multi-classing rules from OSE Advanced.

They do all fit on my shelf rather nicely together.

#RPGaDAY2022 Day 23 - What situation are they currently in?

Going off of yesterday's post here is what is happening. 

Phygor is "exploring the world." That is code for I don't know what I am doing yet.

Johan is still in the Demonweb with the other D&D 5 characters.

The OSE characters are all NPCs in the "War of the Witch Queens."

But let's talk about my AD&D Second Ed characters, Sinéad and Nida.  These characters are still rather new for me.  The stats I posted are not the ones I am playing. They are still both 1st level, and they are not in the same game. Well. At least for now.

We are trying out all different editions of D&D here and these will be my return to AD&D 2nd Ed AND my first real introduction to the Forgotten Realms.

Of the two I have only played Nida once. Sinéad is 1st level, but I have not taken her on any adventures yet.  Right now there is not a lot to tell them apart save that Sinéad is a half-elf and might be the daughter of my last AD&D 1st ed character.  Not sure about that one just yet. Though I do think I am getting a grasp on who they might be.

Nida, Witch of Rashemen

Sinéad, half-elf Bard/Wizard

The current situation right now is me needing to move them forward. 

100 Days of Halloween: Lilith

Continuing my mini-dive into Lilith in various games.

Lilith

This book is by RPG luminary Ken Hite.  It is only nine pages but it presents some background on who Lilith is including her "Herstory" (look if you don't know who Lilith is and why "herstory" is FAR more appropriate than "history" then I can't help you.)

We get an overview of her time in Babylon. A bit on the Burney Relief (the cover takes its cue for that) and how they are working under the assumption that it is Lilith or Lilîtu. (Personally, I like the idea that it is Ereshkigal.)

After this there are sections on what Lilith is doing in various Pelgrane Press games like Trail of Cthulhu, Night's Black Agents, Esoterrorists, Mutant City Blues, and the Dying Earth RPG.

Wonderful concept.

The zip file comes with PDF, MOBI, and EPUB versions of the book for ease of reading.

There are very few historical characters you could do a product like this with, so I really admire this choice.

 

#RPGaDAY2022 Day 22 - Who is your current character?

One thing I never quite understood was the assumption that anyone has just one character at a given time. I have dozens!  I might be playing them all, but they are there.  Here are some of my favorites.

D&D 5e

This is my current 5e character, Johan Werper the VI. He is a cleric/paladin. He is the great-great-great-great-grandson of my first ever D&D character Johan Werper, the Cleric.  Johan the First was followed by Johan the II (Paladin), Johan III (Cavalier), Johan IV (Cleric, Prestige Paladin 3e), Johan V (Paladin, multiclassed feat Cleric, 4e) and to the new generation.

It has been a real joy to have a multi-generational arc for my characters and great to play with this concept of the Lawful Good paladin across all generations of the D&D game.  Each has given me something slightly different and all have been a blast to play.

Some of my other characters for 5e that jump between PCs and NPCs are Tayrn Nix,  Half-elf Warlock (Fey Pact), Celeste Holmes, Human Wizard (Sage), Cassandra Killian, Human Sorcerer (Divne Soul), Jassic Winterhaven, Gnome Bard (College of Lore), Sasha, Cleric (Knowledge Domain), and Áedán Aamadu, Human Druid (Circle of the Land).

Old School Essentials

Some of my OSE include the druid couple Asabalom and Maryah and my Pagans Lars and Siân.  

AD&D 2nd Edition

I have two I have been working with. I was just telling my oldest last night I need to pull them out again and do more with them.  Both are AD&D 2nd Ed interpretations of a Witch, Goodwife Sinéad (Witch Kit) and Nida (witch of Hala/Witch of Rashemen kit)

DragonQuest

My character for this game is still Phygor. 

--

Of course, I do have to mention my iconic witch Larina, who gets stated up in every game I play.

100 Days of Halloween: Rebirth: Caine and Lilith

Another Lilith to consider tonight. This time for a D6 game.

I had this desire a while back to give the D6 system a try. I was thinking of something to do with vampires, and likely include Dracula and Lilith.  So I bought this back then. 

Sadly I never got out of the "wow this would be cool" phase.

Rebirth: Caine and Lilith

This supplement is for the Shadow Sprawl D6 RPG.  It says it uses the Epic D6 system but if you are familiar with any D6 system then you can figure this one out.

It is set in a world like our own but ... you get the idea. Hey. No stones being cast by me, this is a world I come back to time and time again both to play and design games for.  Right on down to the Morpheus font on the cover.  

This supplement adds a number of new features to the game, in particular things from the history of vampires in this game.  Since they are taking the "Cain route" here there are a few pre-historic weapons added.

We get backgrounds and stats for Caine and Lilith.  Caine was made into a vampire by Lilith.   Also we get some of Abel's line including a son and his wife.  Also there are dryads here for reasons I am not entirely sure of.

There is a quick start for the game playing in this prehistoric time when Cain and Lilith still prowled the night. So a nice touch there. 

Several points for some new ideas, but some other ideas have been done many times before.   Still though, a fun read.

100 Days of Halloween: Lilith, Demonqueen of Vampires Boss Stats (5E)

Now for something a little different. You can't spend all the time researching witches like I have and not run into to Lilith.  I have always been fascinated with the character, so much so that she is on the cover of two of my witch books; Eldritch Witchery and Daughters of Darkness.

So yes. I am a fan.

I thought I would look into some products that feature Lilith in one form or another. Tonight I will start with a 5e version of her. 

Lilith, Demonqueen of Vampires Boss Stats (5E)

PDF. 7 pages. 1 cover. 1 OGL. 5 pages of content.

This is pretty much what it says on the cover.  We get some background on Lilith, altered to fit D&D. 

Included are a CR 5 monster, Spawn of Lilith, and Lilith herself a CR 25 Medium Undead Fiend.

There are details about her lair and tactics. There are some adventure hooks added as well.

For just under $2 not a bad deal at all. 

The OGL statement does not indicate how much of this document is Open or PI. 

Not at all bad if you want/need a quick Boss-Level demon to fight.

100 Days of Halloween: Witch Tools Stock Art

More stock art tonight and some very useful ones at that. I have used all of these in one form or another in my own work.

Publisher's Choice -Equipment: Witch Tools

From Fat Goblin Games. $3.83. ZIP file.

This collection includes six TIFF images of a cauldron, hat, a wand, a broom, book, and a shrunken head.

Witchcraft Tool Set - Illustrations - Stock Art

From Nono.  $5.00. PDF.

Instead of separate image files this one is presented as a pdf. Less useful when using the images, but easier to evaluate them all at once. This one has 42 images, including knives, candles, brooms, cups, crystals, herbs, and wands.

Witch items

From Queen. $2.99. JPG/PNG files.

This one is presented as a set of images on one JPG and one PNG file. The images are all featured on the cover.  There is an included license.

100 Days of Halloween: Publisher's Choice - Colin C. Throm (Baba Yaga)

More stock art tonight and this one is a treat, some Baba Yaga.

Publisher's Choice - Colin C. Throm (Baba Yaga)

Another one I bought a while back but I have not had the chance to use this one yet.

Though looking at it now I think I have the perfect place for it now.

I mean really, who wouldn't to have Baba Yaga in an adventure or book?

100 Days of Halloween: Fantasy Witch Stock Art

More stock art today.  This is another great one from Daniel Comerci.

Fantasy Witch Stock Art

I am sure I have used this one somewhere, but I can't recall where.  It is a great piece. She could work well as a witch, warlock, shaman, druid or about anything really.

I remember seeing this one and grabbing it right away.

Other great pieces include:

• Fantasy Mermaid Water Spirit Stock Art
• Snow Wizard Stock Art (wish I had this for the Winter Witch book!)
• Blood Elf Woman Stock Art
• Crystal Shaman Stock Art
• Dragonborn Druid Stock Art
• Drow Warlock Stock Art
• Druid Woman Stock Art
• Male Elf Cleric Mage Stock Art