Dragonslayers: An Epic Epic of Epicness

So after my Book of Vile Darkness enhanced version of S4:The Lost Caverns of the Tsojcanth, the characters all for the most part hit 20th level and frankly I don't want to stop.

So I am pouring over the Epic Level Handbook now.  This is not something I used back when I was play 3.x, and it has taken this long for the boys to get to this level.  I have some issues with it, for example the editing seems bad in places. But man this book is just full of great ideas.  Some of which would be great for Epic Level Play in D&D4 or 20+ level in D&D Bacic/BECMI.
Really it is kind of a fascinating book.  It takes the rules into places the original designers I don't think expected, but yet there is such an enthusiasm for it that it makes the reality of a 30-level D&D4 a no brainer.

They have not leveled up yet, they are still in the caves.  I am merging the 3.x rewrite of the LSotT with the Forgotten Temple of Tharizdûn.  I now have the temple far, far underground where the dengerate Norkers dwell and keep millennia old rituals alive to a God no one remembers.  There will be demons, monsters of pure chaos and all sorts of evil.  Maybe even a rogue Brain Collector.  Love those guys.

To keep the sense of evil, dread and most importantly fear, I am still going to use the Book of Vile Darkness (both the 3.0 and 4.0 versions) but I'll also include some elder scariness from the Epic Level Handbook too.

The idea here is to build to something big, apocalyptic even.  That is why I bought this thing.

The Mage Knight Apocalypse Dragon to stand in for the full Goddess form of Tiamat.  That is the 3.x era Aspect of Tiamat and the 4e Orcus.   I am not sure how powerful she is going to be, but I am expecting HP in the low 1000 area, at least 30-35 HD and enough magic the stomp a small city-state.  I want it to be so epic that the boys will tell their own kids one day.  Just like the time that my characters had to defeat Orcus in the original H4 Throne of Bloodstone back in that far off time of 1987 and that mystical land sages once spoke of, Southern Illinois.

But since I also want to make all the battles leading up to this one epic in feel I am also reading other's play experience with these two modules.

Beedo over at Dreams of the Lich House has a great post on his group's battle in the Temple of Tharizdun.  This is a great run down and shows that all in not quiet in this so-called Forgotten temple.  James of Grognardia gives us his retrospective as well.  What both bloggers offer me is something I already knew, but was glad to see it all spelled out again.  The Forgotten Temple is not a simple dungeon crawl. Sure it looks like one, but it isn't one. This is alien horror.  This is Lovecraft meets the Satan Pit.
There is no over ridding goal to this adventure.  This is uncovering a plot and then running the hell away. I'll give them chances to acquire some magic items, even face some ancient, eldritch evils.

If I ever do Tharizdûn it will have to be even bigger than the Tiamat battle.


Tharizdun. Now there is name.  You don't need to know anything else about this guy other than his name to know he is up to no good.

In Gygax's Oerth he is the next best (worst) thing to Satan.  He is the Source of All Evil, to borrow a page from Charmed.  He is the biggest baddie there is.  I'll take his "Satan" aspects and his "Thasaidon" aspects and maybe even pepper in a bit of Lovecraft for good measure.

Links I am currently reading for "inspiration".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forgotten_Temple_of_Tharizdun
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tharizdun
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clark_Ashton_Smith_deities#Thasaidon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghaunadaur#Ghaunadaur
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elder_Evils
http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Tharizdun
http://www.canonfire.com/wiki/index.php?title=Tharizdun
http://www.canonfire.com/wiki/index.php?title=Elder_Elemental_Eye
http://www.canonfire.com/cfhtml/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=968
http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2008/11/retrospective-forgotten-temple-of.html
http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2010/08/pulp-fantasy-library-dark-eidolon.html
http://ulmo.mux.net/greyhawk/tharizdun.html

Anyone else run an Epic level game?  Or take on the Temple of Tharizdun.

Beware the Sales of March

Today is the first day of March.  The beginning of March is always a good time in the gaming world for me.

It means spring and spring mean that Cons are coming up.  It also means the Games Plus spring game auction.  If you have never been please make the effort to go.

It also means the GM's Day sale at DriveThruRPG.

There are a lot of deals this time around.  I noticed more that a few that were at 40% or more off.

Great time to grab that game you always wanted.

Old Maps

I love old maps.  Especially ones from the dawn of discovery when map makers had equal parts of skill, imagination and daring.  Sure I would not want one in my GPS car system, but for my game table?  Yes Please!

Here is one I was reading today while waiting for something else.

That's Taprobana.  An island in the Indian Ocean.
Sure we have an island there now anyway, Sri Lanka, but Taprobana is cool.  It is an island of wizards, fakirs and shamans.  A place to go to learn the highest magics, the most ancient of all arcane secrets.

They also have tea.  Which is a plus.
I just need to find a place for it in my own world.

White Dwarf Wednesday Issue 7

Sorry for the interruption.  Here we are back to Issue 7 with the start of the new full color covers.

White  Dwarf covers always had a "Heavy Metal" feel to them for me.  The magazine not the musical style, though both are accurate.  This cover was no exception.
Plus this cover, half naked girl with sword and space helmet riding a dinosaur just screams OD&D to me.  I love the little lizard dude pointing the way.

This issue is larger than the past ones by 4 pages.  Growth it good, even if it looks like most of those new pages are ads.  But ads are good too, since to me the ads of WD and Dragon were just as good of an indication as to what was popular or at least had the money to buy the space.  There were many games I looked at the ads and later HAD to have.

We have bit on feudal economics in Chivalry and Sorcery (by one of the authors of the game), but certainly fine for any FRPG.

Next up is a huge update to the Fiend Factory.  This feature is about to hit it's apex and there a plenty of new but familiar creatures to be found here.  We have the Necrophidius, the Rover (a large round creature that, um, rolls), a Living Wall (which later became the Stun Jelly) , Volt, the Gluey (which thankfully later became the Adherer), Squonk, Eye Killer, Witherweed, and the Withra.  All are complete with Monstermark ratings too.  What I find interesting here are not the ones that made it in to the Fiend Folio, but the ones that didn't. They don't seem any worse or better than the others.

Ripped from the blog posts of last week are carrying capacities in Treasure Chest.  They are split out by male and female.  Oddly enough they are listed in terms of kg (kilograms) instead of pounds or even "coins".  Though they do state at 1kg = 100 gp.

Yet more on the Asbury system of experience rewards.

Open Box reveiws "The Warlord Game", "The Thieves of Fortress Badabaskor", "Bifrost, Vol. 1", "Lords and Wizards" (Overall 6), "The Sorcerer's Cave", and "Cosmic Encounter" (Overall 8).

WD gives us a section of the Greenlands Dungeon called Lair of the Demon Queen.  Which is a just a quick encounter really with a couple rooms.  Perfect to add into a game or "collect them all!"  Though I can't recall if there ever were more articles on this.

A special guest in the form of Gary Gygax writes about the Proliferation of Magic Items in D&D.  If you didn't know already, old school games are typically low-magic affairs.  None was more low magic than Gary himself it seems.  While his advice is good, and certainly germane to any old school blog, it's not my tastes since I tend to run a magic rich game.

The issue ends with some ads.

All in all the future is looking good for WD.  It has found a nice stride here in's toddlerhood.

Blogroll broken

Like many of you, my blogroll seems to be broken.

I can't add or remove blogs from it.  Shame really, I had found some new blogs I hoped would be nice additions.   Anyone figure out how to fix it yet?

Conspiracy Y?

Reading a book about conspiracy theories and how they can be easily debunked.
But it has me in the mood for a serious Conspiracy X game with heave doses of paranoia, subjective reality and black ops every where.

Might have to try that sometime.

Marvel Heroic Roleplaying

Well unless you have been living under a rock this last week the newest, hottest game on the market right now is Marvel Heroic Roleplaying from Margaret Weis Productions.

It is kinda-sorta billing itself as the spiritual heir to TSR's old Marvel Superheroes Game  (aka FASERIP).
The new book out is called "The Basic Game" , obviously meant to recall the "Basic Game" of MSH and there is even a forward from Jeff Grubb.  So MHR has a pedigree, of sorts, but how does it stack up to it's forefather?

Well...

I will be100% honest here.  The rules took me a bit of reading, re-reading, asking other players and spending some time on RPG Net to understand.  AND I Am still not 100% sure I got it right.

I have played around with Cortex+ before.  I like ti for what it is and I'll admit I was a little concerned when I heard that the Marvel Game was going to use Cortex+.  I like it for Smallville and Leverage where drama is important. I even suggested using it for a Modern Supernatural game, but I was not sold on it as a Supers game.

At this point I should point out that "Supers" might not be a good genre for this game.  After all, "Supers" is not even in the title at all and the assumption here that everyone has powers of some sort.

In many ways this game is exactly as my friend Greg describes as the "Antithesis of the OSR".
This game is about building characters, the relationships between them and the drama.  Which, if you think about it, is kinda what Marvel Comics is about.   Does it matter really what the Hulk's strength is?  No.  Just that he is really damn strong.  Can he pick up a tank and throw it?  Sure if the Watcher (the GM, I kinda like that) says he does then he does.  That simple.  If it is a challenge, say can he out punch The Thing or Thor, then that is a different matter.

I think back to a scene I remember reading years ago.  Spider-man teamed up with the Ghost Rider to catch a common foe.  They are obviously very different kinds of heroes and they have their own way of doing things.  The bad guy was actually not essential to the story, so much so that I can't even recall him.  But the issue was more about their contrasting styles and more about how Spidey was horrified when Ghost Rider used Hell Fire on a bad guy.    This sort of thing is perfect for these rules.

So I am going spend some time this week with this game and looking at the support information out there and how one can use this game.

My opinion of the game has gone up since I first picked it up.  So who knows where I'll be by this Friday.