Wednesday, November 20, 2019
Review: AC1 The Shady Dragon Inn
AC1 The Shady Dragon Inn was one of the first accessories for the BECMI flavor of the D&D game.
This book also has the distinction of being one of the first Print on Demand books that Wizards of the Coast would release for the old TSR catalog.
The book also has special interest to me since it features the stats for one of my favorite characters Skylla.
I will be reviewing both the PDF and the Print on Demand versions.
The book is 32 pages with color covers and black & white interiors. The print version is perfect bound; so no staples. The scan is sharp and clean and PoD version is easy to read.
The book features the titular inn, but really the main feature of this book is the collection of NPCs. Designed to be a bit like the original AD&D Rogues Gallery. This product though is a little more robust. The Shady Dragon Inn write-ups include some background on who these characters are, more than just a collection of stats. Maybe indicative of shift between the AD&D and D&D lines.
The characters are split by class. In each case, we get a dozen or so individual characters of Fighters, Thieves, Clerics, Magic-users, Dwarves, Elves and Halflings. with art by Jim Holloway and Larry Day. While the art helps, each write-up includes a brief description. This all covers roughly two-dozen pages.
There is another section of "Special" characters. These are the ones with TM next to their names. Such notables as Strongheart, Warduke, Kelek and of course Skylla.
There is a bit at the end about the Shady Dragon Inn itself along with some pre-gen adventuring parties based on level. A great aid for DMs that need some NPCs.
The Print on Demand version includes the maps to the Inn as part of the print. The main PDF does not have them, but they can be downloaded as a separate file. There are PDFs and image files to print out to use with minis. So with some minor tweaks, you can use this with any version of D&D you like. The characters inside can be converted to 5e easily enough.
Ignore the saving throws, and recalculate the base to hit as 20 - THAC0. I find that 22 or 23 -THAC0 actually works out a little bit better for 5e.
The maps are set to 1" = 5', so D&D 3, 4 & 5 standard.
The Print on Demand versions do not come out to 1" exactly, but when you buy the pdf you get the maps as files to print on your own.
While this book lacks the numbers of NPCs the Rogues Gallery does, it is superior in every other aspect. Starting in an Inn might be a D&D cliché, but a product like this makes you want to embrace the cliché anyway.
The Print on Demand version is fantastic really.
The maps are part of the book, not detachable, but that is fine really.
Here is the spine. It is Perfect bound. No staples.
Various shots of the text. It appears the same as the early editions. Maybe a touch fuzzier, but nothing that I consider a deal-breaker. Barely noticeable in fact.
How can you tell this is a new print versus a really, really well kept original? This page. This is the same sort of page found in all DriveThru/OneBookShelf/LightningSource books.
Note how the bar code is not an ISBN one.
Thursday, November 30, 2023
Into the Forgotten Realms: Baldur's Gate 3 Characters (and HeroForge minis)
When Ed Greenwood was exploring the Realms in the pages of Dragon, he had a guide, the Sage of Shadowdale Elminster. Elminster told him stories of the Realms and was the intermediary between his world and ours.
But Elminster, like Ed, was an expert on the Realms. I am not. I am not even good. I am an enthusiastic novice with no idea how much I am trying to bite off here. So. I also need a guide. But my guide has to be as naïve as me so we can discover it together.
Generally, for these explorations, I have characters on hand. When I was writing about vampires and undead it was my Paladin Johan. When it is magic, the occult or witches, it is my witch Larina. They are great characters, but neither is appropriate here. Neither has anything to do with the Realms for starters and I need a native.
So introducing (again) Sinéad. She is a half-elf from the Moonshae Isles and her elven mother claims to have ancestry from Evermeet. And...that is all I know. Fun right? Now to expand her out I used her as a character in Baldur's Gate 3 and of the many games I have played of it I liked her run the best.
As I progress through the material and books I am taking the literary license of having her tell me what she shows me as my guide, munch in the same way the Ed has Elminster. Plus it feels like a fun little nod to Ed and Elminster as well.
Sinéad
What do I know about her? Well looking back at my 2nd Ed idea I know she is a magic-user of some sort and a Bard. Given some of the material I have read I also like idea she has wild magic, something she is not quite capable of controlling. This is why she leaves home. She needs a reason to go away from a loving family after all and I am not reverting to the trope of dead parents.
This worked great in my run with her in Baldur's Gate. But I'll get to pencil and paper details in future posts.
Since I had such a great time with her and I'll be using her in tabletop games next year I couldn't help but get a new HeroForge mini of her as an early Christmas present to myself.
Sinéad from HeroForge |
Not too bad really. Here is how she looks on the HeroForge site AND in Baldur's Gate 3.
I rather like how she came out. Of course, I had to do two of my favorite characters from the game, Shadowheart and Karlach.
I rather like how they all came out.
And Karlach:
Yeah. If I am going to do this, then I will do it right.
I am also doing runs with Skylla and Kelek in BG3. Those have also been fun.
Thursday, September 10, 2020
This Old Dragon: Retrospective, The Wizards Three
"The Game Wizards" by Jeff Grubb, Dragon #153
"Magic In the Evening", Dragon #185 (56), September 1992
The spells include "Bloodglass", "Fistandantilus's Firequench", "Thultaun's Thrust", "Barrier Reaver" and "Dragon Breath". Magic items include "Helping Hands" and "Spell Mirror".
Gary loved my portrayal of Mordenkainen, which was a great relief to me at the time. Dalamar vanished because of publishing timing: we didn't know his fate in Margaret and Tracy's DL novels at the time, so had to sidestep. (And the series was an editorial assignment.)#Realmslore
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 10, 2020
Tuesday, October 19, 2021
Thoughts on "The Wild Beyond The Witchlight"
It's An Adventure, Not A Source Book
Unlike Van Richten's Guide, or any of the other "name" books, this book is designed to be an adventure first and a source guide second. The guide part comes into play for the setting, the Feywild D&D's version of the lands of Faerie, but that is the situation the adventure finds itself in. The key piece here is the Carnival.
There are some "crunchy" bits here. But most of them deal with the adventure and its surroundings themselves.
There is a Non-Combat Solution to the Adventure
I have seen some complaints about this online and the question I have is "why are you complaining?" I applaud the designers for trying something new. I have often longed for a good adventure that you can get through without combat and get through on skill and cleverness alone. Yes, D&D is a combat game and yes the monsters in this book still have stats, hitpoints, and alignments. So you could very well murder hobo your way through it. OR you can be more intelligent about it and try to get through it without combat. I understand though that some gamers are not up to that challenge and might never get there.
The NPCs
I wanted this most of all for the NPCs. I now have 5e stats for my beloved Skylla along with Kelek, Warduke, and more. I actually want to get into the NPCs in a future post. But I want to start with I am remarkably pleased with how the 5e versions of some classic villains (and let's be honest, the bad guys were always more interesting) turned out.
And then there are the new NPCs and among them is one of my favorites. Thaco the kid-hating clown. I began my D&D playing LONG before "THAC0" was a term used except informally. And I have to say this about Thaco.
I think he is fucking hilarious!
Are they poking fun at a certain set of Grognards, many of which are actually younger than I am? Very likely. But look, if you can't stand a little poke like this then maybe you stay off of the Internet for a while. I have seen some insane and stupid shit like "oh WotC is making fun of us" and "I won't buy their books." Well, they might be, get over it, and their marketing data shows that only 5% or so of their sales are to people age 45 or over. WotC is approaching $1B in sales now. Not Hasbro. Wizards of the Coast.
I am going to tell you this now. WotC does not NEED the old-school gamers anymore. They need to cater to the Grogs and the sooner they drop that bowing in fealty to a group that doesn't even buy their product the sooner they can move on to serving the people that buy their product.
Our season in the sun is over and that is ok.
Plays Well With Others
There are some obvious callbacks to older D&D here and that is always fun. It also makes adding more material a little easier with that hook.
Want to know more about the League of Malevolence or Valor's Call? Simple grab a copy of Quest for the Heartstone and use it as an introduction. Need an inn to stay at? Why not The Shady Dragon Inn? I reviewed it a while back and it works fine with 5e, you just need to redo the characters. Well, guess what TWBTW has? Yup. Again, some more about that in a bit.
Given that this place in the Feywild you could easily add, and I say get a great benefit from, the Tome of Beasts series from Kobold Press. Tome of Beasts and Tome of Beasts II both have a large number of Faerie Lords that would work very well here as well as a fair number of fey creatures.
If you are like me you also will look at this product and think, yeah it is great and all, but it needs more horror. Say along the lines of "Something Wicked This Way Comes" or "Carnival of Souls" or even "Freaks"
As it turns out the answers are not that far away over in the Demi-plane of Dread. The AD&D 2nd Ed Ravenloft product Carnival has what you need. There are many parallels between both traveling carnivals and their relationship to their respective planes. Sadly, Carnival is not set up as a Print on Demand yet and print copies are super rare. But the PDF is on sale and the "new" scan is 1000x better than the scan WotC used to give out for free on their website back in the 2000s.
The Wild Beyond the Witchlight has a lot going for it and is something I would love to use. I might even convert it over to an old-school ruleset, say like OSE.
Monday, December 15, 2014
Skylla: D&D 5th Edition
http://www.dungeonsdragonscartoon.com/2009/08/skylla.html
http://www.dungeonsdragonscartoon.com/2009/08/yugol-and-curse-of-stone.html
It seems even more fitting that I try her out under the latest version of the D&D rules.
I always knew I wanted to try her out under the 5th edition rules and I wanted to wait till I had a better grasp of those rules.
Well now I do; give or take, and I wanted to see how she stacks up. But 5th edition gives me an interesting choice. Do I stat her up as a Wizard or as a Warlock? Both have their advantages.
The Wizard of course is closer to the source stats of Skylla. The Warlock is really closer to the concept. I suppose in truth she would have started out as a wizard and her desire for more power lead her on a path towards becoming a warlock. I investigated both and it was educational.
In both cases I started with her same base stats and made her level 7. In each case her primary stat was 16 (Int vs. Cha) and reversed for the 11 (Cha vs. Int). Though I mix up Wisdom a bit in there as well.
Skylla's Background
For her Background I chose "Sage" since that deals with finding knowledge. For Skylla knowledge is power. She was a former Wizard's Apprentice (Ringlerun) now turned to chaos and evil.
Personality Traits: "I am convinced that people are trying to steal my secrets."
Ideals: "Power. Knowledge is the path to power and domination."
Bounds: "I sold my soul for Knowledge." (seems perfect)
Flaws: "Unlocking an ancient mystery is worth the price of a civilization."
Skylla
7th Level Wizard, Female, Chaotic Evil
Strength: 9 (-1) [-1]
Dexterity: 11 (0) [0]
Constitution: 10 (0) [0]
Intelligence: 16 (+3) [+6]
Wisdom: 12 (+1) [+4]
Charisma: 11 (0) [0]
Proficiency Bonus: 3
AC: 12 (Cloak of Protection, +2)
Hit Points: 34 (d6)
Skills
Acrobatics 0, Animal Handling +1, *Arcana +6, Athletics -1, Deception 0, *History +6, *Insight +4, Intimidation 0, *Investigation +6, Medicine +1, Nature +3, Perception +1, Performance 0, Persuasion 0, Religion +3, Slight of Hand 0, Stealth 0, Survival +1
Common, Elven, Draconic, Abyssal
School of Enchantment
Spells
Cantrips: Light, Mage Hand, Poison Spray, Ray of Frost
1st: Charm Person, Detect Magic, Magic Missile, Tenser's Floating Disk
2nd: Knock, Invisible, Levitate
3rd: Hold Person (2nd level spell), Fear, Lightning Bolt
4th: Dimension Door
Skylla
7th Level Warlock, Female, Chaotic Evil
Strength: 9 (-1) [-1]
Dexterity: 11 (0) [0]
Constitution: 10 (0) [0]
Intelligence: 12 (+1) [+1]
Wisdom: 11 (0) [+3]
Charisma: 16 (+3) [+6]
Proficiency Bonus: 3
AC: 12 (Cloak of Protection, +2)
Hit Points: 38 (d8)
Skills
Acrobatics 0, Animal Handling 0, *Arcana +4, Athletics -1, Deception +3, *History +4, Insight 0, *Intimidation +6, *Investigation +4, Medicine 0, Nature +1, Perception 0, Performance +3, Persuasion +3, Religion +1, Slight of Hand 0, Stealth 0, Survival 0
Common, Elven, Draconic, Abyssal
Pact of the Tome
Patron: The Fiend
Invocations
Book of Ancient Secrets
Armor of Shadows
Agonizing Blast
Mask of Many Faces
Pact Powers
Dark One's Own Blessing
Dark One's Own Luck
Spells
Cantrips: Chill Touch, Mage Hand, Eldritch Blast, +Light, +Poison Spray, +Ray of Frost
1st:
2nd:
3rd:
4th: Fire Shield, Wall of Fire
So, I like how the Warlock version plays out in terms various powers and role-playing elements. In particular I really like her pact. The wizard though has spells closer to the base version of Skylla. Also since the wizard's primary stat is Int, her skills are better overall as a wizard.
The Pact of the Tome sorta fixes some of this, she can take some wizard spells as a ritual.
I want to try out a few more warlocks with different pacts to see how they play.
Tuesday, September 21, 2021
Post Gen Con Updates
Other Side Publishing
Fiend Folio II
This one has generated a LOT of discussions. But here are my goals for it.
- This is just a project for me. Not publishing it.
- I am doing it to get a good feel of monster evolution from OD&D to AD&D and from the late-70s to the mid-80s. The "Sweet spot" of old-school gaming. This will inform me on how to build better monsters for the Basic Bestiaries.
- I need to get in some Adobe Indesign practice. This will give me that.
Basic Bestiaries
These are moving along nicely BB1 has 250 monsters in it now, which is by all measures a good number. But I want to do some more for all the volumes I have planned so I can ensure a common look and feel across them all. I am happy with what I have here and I am really looking forward to getting these out.
The High Witchcraft Book
What I have been calling my "last" witch book has been left on its own for so long it has mated with some other files on my hard drive and given birth to ANOTHER witch book! Yeah, I have enough material now for two books. Those are a little later in coming. I want to make sure I am not just putting out material because I have it, I want it to be good. The second book will come out first more than likely with the High Witchcraft book retaining the notoriety of being the Last Witch book.
Gen Con Brilliant Idea #1
My family and I got to play a LOT of games together over Gen Con. Something came up during play that I think will be great. Thankfully a lot of the work has already been done by my for other projects. This project will complement the Basic Bestiaries, but one is not required for the other at all. I am keeping this one close to my chest for now.
Personal
September Sales
WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE???? My sales are like 4x to 5x what they normally are! I looked at the sales and thought it had to be wrong. I rechecked the math and yeah. My only guess is that it is because Halloween is so close people are looking for horror-themed materials for their games.
So. I spent some money. Well...I spent a lot of money.
The Wild Beyond the Witchlight
Classic D&D characters? the Feywild? Creepy ass carnival? Creepier clown named Thaco? HELL YES! Honestly, there is so much fun stuff here. It portrays the feywild as it should be, equal parts light and dark, beautiful and terrifying, whimsical and deadly. And often all at once.
There is just so much here. Stats and backgrounds for Kelek, "Charmay", Skylla, and more! Personally I LOVE want they did with the Charmay/Skylla confusion. A slightly different twist than my own, but one that works well enough.
Temple of Elemental Evil
Going from 5e doing Old-School to Old-School going 5e. I also grabbed the Temple of Elemental Evil today.
This one is so massive it will need its own post.
Since I was in an old school mood I also grabbed the Codex series for Castles & Crusades.
The Temple will be the end cap to my 5e campaigns. So this is going to be great really.
And on top of everything else, I actually lost some weight over Gen Con!
Thursday, November 15, 2018
Featured Artist: Eugene Jaworski
I have seen his art in a lot of D&D related groups and in particular in D&D Fantasy Art on Facebook. He has a style that recalls the old days of the D&D game and he is certainly a fan of that era. In fact, it was his version of the classic D&D character Skylla that first got my attention.
I loved it so much I bought a print of it for my game room.
He has also done Kelek the evil Wizard.
Love the giant wolf he is on.
And Red Sonja,
But the ones I really love are his series of painting of his original goddess Numora.
According to Eugene,
She was a goddess from a home brew campaign that I ran a couple years ago. Numora the Whisperer of Secrets. Very enigmatic.She reminds me a little of my own Nox, Goddess of the Near Dark. Even down to the shadow cats (Gloamings in my world) and walking around barefoot. 100% coincidence, of course, we have read a lot of the same books.
You can find him here:
- The Art of Eugene Jaworski (Facebook)
- Neothera | Eugene Jaworski (DeviantArt) Where you can buy prints like mine!
- The Art of Eugene Jaworski (Patreon)
- The Art of Eugene Jaworski (Website Gallery)
- Eugene Jaworski (Instagram)
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Grognardia Book Shelf Meme
Victorian Age games.
One of my D&D shelves; core rules from 0e to 4e, plus Pathfinder. Circa July, 2012.
Below are binders of characters, bottom right is my son's shelf.
More Character sheets. Though the tabbed binder in backwards contains various OSR PDFs that I printed.
Various horror anthologies with witch minis.
Another view of the horror short stories, you can also see various d20 horror games I am reading currently below. The White Box is the special Edition of Spellcraft and Swordplay.
Current research books for The Witch. 4e below that and various demon and devil minis above.
Another organization of my upper D&D shelves.
And of course...
My Eden/Horror shelves. I have other horror games, but these are the ones I am playing/reading now.
And my witches meeting up in the Charmed Ones' attic in San Fran. Zatanna is showing off by floating.
The large red book came from an AD&D Action figure, I thought it had belonged to Kelek, but I can't seem to find it online.
I don't have any pictures of my Sci-Fi/Doctor Who/Star Trek shelves. You might recall from this post that all my superhero games have been sent to the lower shelves along with BESM, White Wolf games and other modern and non-horror games.