#Dungeon23 Tomb of the Vampire Queen, Level 8, Room 20

 Taking the first exit on the left the corridor begins to rise up and out of the water.  This leads to a circular room covered in slime (the ordinary kind).

There are several evil looking, but normal-sized toads in this room but nothing else.

#RPGaDay2023 Favourite PUBLISHED adventure

 I have a few, to be honest. Sometimes I run them as is, other times I alter them. But one of my all-time favorites has to be the original I6 Ravenloft.

I grew up on a steady stream of Universal Monsters, Hammer Horror, and Dark Shadows. That's my Appendix N. So an adventure set in pretty much the Hammer Hamlet where I get strange locals and have to fight a vampire? Yeah, that is what D&D was to me.

Ravenloft was TSR's great experiment.  Take the central monster and make him a fully realized character.  Seems odd to ask to do this now, but back then, that was crazy talk.  Gothic Horror in Heroic Fantasy?  Crazy! But it worked.   Sure, Strahd can be thought of as a poor man's Dracula, but he has since become his own monster.

I know some old gamers bemoan "The Hickman Revolution," as it it called, but I loved it. Ravenloft was a literal game-changer for me. Finally, an adversary worth fighting and a REAL vampire too, not the D&D one. 

Original, 25th Anniversary Edition, Print on Demand

I even got my original module from 1983 signed by Tracy Hickman.

I have run this one a lot and even in other game systems. It is a lot of fun.

#Dungeon23 Tomb of the Vampire Queen, Level 8, Room 19

 The corridor continues on and opens up into a larger cave that is filled with water.  Some areas are 3' deep and smaller characters need to be careful.

 This room has seven Lacedons hidden under the water. These creatures are aquatic ghouls and use the same stats save that they swim instead of walking on land.

There are three exits from this room.

#RPGaDay2023 Favourite game SYSTEM

 Favorite game system? Well, I have two, but they are related.

NIGHT SHIFT with O.G.R.E.S. and WitchCraft with Unisystem are not just my two favorite games but also my favorite game systems to use.

Both let me play my favorite sort of game; a modern urban supernatural horror one, but they are both systems I like and have written for professionally.

NIGHT SHIFT is largely a love letter to both Old-school D&D and to WitchCraft. 

I love them both.

#Dungeon23 Tomb of the Vampire Queen, Level 8, Room 18

 Room 18 is a corridor leading down and away from Room 17.  As the party walks down and on the corridor is filled with dark stagnant water.

The water reaches about 2 to 2½ feet deep. 

Creatures can be felt brushing up against the legs of the party, but none are easily seen, and none can be caught.

The corridor is about 25 feet long and opens up into Room 19.

Aventuras en la Marca del Este

I have been learning Spanish all year and discovered how wonderful the RPG "Aventuras en la Marca del Este" is. I spent the earlier part of this year reading over the rules (the best I could) and then sorta forgot about them.

Well, I want to give a shout-out to the Italian blog Castelli & Chimere (Castles & Chimeras) for reminding me about it today and that the Basic Set (Caja Roja, "Red Box") was free.

You can get yours free here as well. 

This game is a Spanish language version/edition of the great BECMI Red Box Basic using Labyrinth Lord as a base. Though it has far more style than just a simple clone.

It was translated back into English as Adventures in the East Mark - Basic Rule Set (Red Box), and it is also great, but the original has such a cool vibe and feel to it.

The site that supports the game, Codex de la Marca, has an absolute ton of free material. Enough to keep me busy reading for months on end. 

The official site even has some material, including a Castles & Crusades SIEGE Engine version of the same rules. 

In addition to the Red Box, there is a Blue Box (Expert), Green Box ("Advanced" or Companion/Masters), and a Black Box (Masters/Immortals).  Each also includes a campaign guide for the East March campaign setting.  I really wish I could find physical copies of all these sets, they would be a lot of fun. 

Libro de Brujas?

Does this mean I'll do a "Libro de brujas" (Book of Witches) sometime in the future? I am going to have to say yes. It would make for a great "final project" for a Spanish class and really test me on what I think I know. I have also been reading a lot about Basque and other Iberian peninsula area witches of late so it would be fun to try,

To keep with the same spirit of all the Aventuras en la Marca del Este releases, I would have to make it free. Maybe keep it to a tight 32 or fewer pages.

This idea is still very far away. I need to survive verb conjugation first!

In the mean time I'll keep brushing up on my skills (such as they are) and having some fun and joy of learning something new.

#RPGaDay2023 FUNNIEST game you've played

 Part two of Favourite Con MODULE / ONE-SHOT is also my FUNNIEST game you've played.

This one I was at Gen Con a few years back. The adventure was a Buffy/Charmed/Supernatural crossover using the Buffy RPG rules. So naturally, I had to play. Sam and Dean were grabbed quickly, and there was no way in hell I was playing Xander. But that was all fine, the character I really wanted was Piper from Charmed.

I had an absolute blast. Piper was, at the time, the snarkiest of all the sisters. So playing her was great. Ended up with the most Drama Points at the end of the game.  In the course of the game, I burned through about 5 drama points, but I also had earned 6 for role-playing. Of course, having seen every Charmed episode gave me an advantage.  I wish I had remembered the GMs/Director's name because I would have easily gone to one of her other games.

I still have my Piper character sheet here somewhere, and it was really fun. The GM even had taken out the Buffy logo and put the Charmed one in its place.

We all spent our whole time laughing.