Feed aggregator

The chicken house of Baba Yaga is often seen marching through the the De Media Silvis & all sane folks avoid it. "Mayhap I shall find curious adventure - mayhap my doom awaits me. But better death than the ceaseless and everlasting urge, the fire that has burned my veins with bitter longing." -Robert E. Howard, "The Hills of the Dead" Captain the darkness it took the men & then the Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

Priestess of Delphi (1891) by John Collier 

Hello friends! Note that I’ll be at PAX East next Thursday, so there likely will be no post next week.

The Fury of the Lords of Life and Death is a potent prayer given to first-level clerics. But perhaps it doesn’t quite fit the concept of your character? Just for you, here are seven alternative prayers for your cleric.

Choose one blessing. Your cleric knows this blessing in place of Fury of the Lords of Life and Death. Your cleric may use this blessing once per phase. Breadth determines who gets the advantage dice. Each blessing has a duration of one turn.

Blessings Dowsing Rune

With a prayer to the Water Witch, the invoker ties a blindfold about the eyes and uses a forked stick to feel the way to water.

Dowsing Rune Effect

Grant advantage to Survivalist tests for locating potable water.

Factors

Advantage (start counting at 2): +1D, +2D, +3D
Breadth (start counting at 1; self is free): Other person, small group

Gift of Hospitality

Spilling a libation of mead to the ancestors and spirits of hearth and home, the invoker lays a blessing upon the hearthfire.

Gift of Hospitality Effect

Grant advantage to Cook tests when cooking for friends, family and guests (who have properly invoked the Rites of Hospitality). Strangers must first be made friends or acknowledged as guests or the blessing automatically fails.

Gift of Hospitality Factors

Advantage (start counting at 1): +1D, +2D, +3D
Breadth (start counting at 1; self is free): Other person
Diners (start counting at 1): Family and friends, guests

Heike’s Cunning Needle

Calling upon the Jotunn Heike, who surreptitiously uses her needle to unweave threads from the Skein of Destiny, the invoker causes locks to spring open and bonds to come undone.

Heike’s Cunning Needle Effect

Grant advantage to Criminal tests for picking locks and slipping bonds.

Heike’s Cunning Needle Factors

Advantage (start counting at 2): +1D, +2D, +3D
Breadth (start counting at 1; self is free): Other person, gang, guild

Inspiring Aura

With a shout, the invoker calls upon the Lady of Valor to steel hearts and minds.

Inspiring Aura Effect

The subjects of this invocation gain advantage to Will tests to resist fear and terror or recover from the Afraid condition.

Inspiring Aura Factors

Advantage (start counting at 2): +1D, +2D, +3D
Breadth (start counting at 1; self is free): Other person, two people, small group, warband

Merciful Balm

With a gesture and word, the invoker begins to glow with the inner light of Hyresti, Lord of Mercy; no spirit of disease or plague can stand before Hyresti’s gentle light.

Merciful Balm Effect

Grant advantage to Healer tests to treat fevers and illness.

Merciful Balm Factors

Advantage (start counting at 2): +1D, +2D, +3D
Breadth (start counting at 1; self is free): Other person, enemy

Poison Tongue

Smearing honey on lips and tongue, the invoker’s words begin to drip with sweet poison.

Poison Tongue Effect

Grant advantage to Manipulator tests when goading someone to betray their family, friends, followers or those to whom they owe loyalty.

Poison Tongue Factors

Advantage (start counting at 2): +1D, +2D, +3D
Breadth (start counting at 1; self is free): Other person

Winter’s Winding Path

Intoning a prayer to the Lady of the Winter Hunt with eyes closed, the invoker allows their skis to take them where they will.

Winter’s Winding Path Effect

Grant advantage to Pathfinder tests when in the wilderness and lost places.

Winter’s Winding Path Factors

Advantage (start counting at 2): +1D, +2D, +3D
Breadth (start counting at 1; self is free): Other person

"The widow insists there are demons in her house. She hears them at night in her root cellar, and now they call out to her. But she is old and nervous and her mind often plays tricks on her. Two men, their heads fully sheathed in large, black hoods, dig quickly in the darkness of the cellar. The hole grows deeper as their shovels bite into the earth. "This will teach those meddlers their place,"Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

The post 1280 appeared first on Looking For Group.

"Swamp creatures! They surround you now as you move slowly through the gurgling muck. How will you reach Quagmire now? Each day, the hungry sea swallows more of the ancient port city. A fierce fever ravages its people, and now - these foul monsters! Their beady eyes glimmer from deep within the tangled vines. Are these the creatures that have blockaded the city, turning away the ships that are Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

Here I am, sitting at my desk, about to go properly deep into my inboxes. While I worked a little bit every day that we were away in Lake Louise it wasn’t enough to stop the inbox glacier from creeping ever larger, and today I’ve made coffee, set everything to “ignore” (including the house, which looks like a stampede of bison went through) and put my phone in a drawer.  Me and this inbox are going to tango till one of us drops, and it’s not going to be me. Before that particular dance starts though, a quick waltz with you lot. I keep saying to myself that I’ll blog as soon as I’m done with (insert absolutely unfinishable task here) so today I’m reversing it. You first, then once more into the breach, dear friends.

When last we saw our heroine, she was sitting in a hotel room, tapping out a blog post surrounded by skis and mohair, a combination that isn’t nearly as odd as it sounds, despite the infrequency of the mix.

My complete inability to demonstrate any sort of monogamy to a knitting project continues unabated, and so I’d taken five (5) projects with us for a seven (7) day holiday. Just think about that for a minute.  That means I thought I’d finish almost a project a day, while skiing six hours a day. I took two pairs of socks, a sweater (adult, only half way through the front) a cowl and a shawl. (The shawl and sweater never even made it out of the suitcase.) Both pairs of socks saw active duty (still in progress please stand by) and the cowl sort of turned into two cowls and I finished one on the flight on the way there, and almost the other.

Yarn: Canon Hand Dyes, Ombre Cowl Kit in Agatha Lace (70% mohair, 30% silk) Pattern, Ombre Cowl Hood.

Other than the part where I left a muppet’s worth of mohair fuzz everywhere I went, I loved making that cowl so much that the minute I finished (and despite having another two projects with me on the plane) I started another smaller one with the leftovers from the first one. It won’t be as big as the first, but still a proper cowl, I think.

It was bliss. Plain knitting, round and round, no pattern no fuss, 2 strands held together… It was knitting as comforting and cozy as a cup of hot soup.  I breezed through it completely, and it turns out it was perfect ski knitting.  The needles were big and blunt, and the yarn light as a cloud, so I felt fine about asking Joe to carry it in his pocket so that I had it to knit during skiing.  I worked on it at lunch, on the gondola, the lifts (if it was warm enough to take my hands out of my mittens.)

Upon reflection, it was this knitting/skiing combination that made it possible for me to finish any knitting at all, and I feel sure that if I cared less about the well-being of my husband, and worried less about the catastrophic consequences of him taking a spill down a mountain with Signature stiletto needles in his pocket, I probably could have finished the socks too.

Feel the love, Joe.

"Dripping and dolloping into view comes the latest issue of this old school RPG zine chock full of nasty goodies for your classic fantasy games! In this issue you'll see ipzees and orbii, you'll learn aromatic charms, you'll find weapons of magic, many strange people will offer their services for your adventuring party, and you will absolutely encounter some cackling ice witches." So I'm Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

"A band of blood thirsty villains has been raiding a variety of worlds & our heroes have stumbled across one of their auctions. The heroes have managed to sneak aboard one of the blood thirsty pirates ships. Will they free the slaves?! Or die in the attempt!?" My player's PC's have run run afoul of 'Skulled Faced Formorian' pirates (in terms of Castles & Crusades these are Hill Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

A friend of mine tonight at a local gaming hole told me about an OSR sort of retroclone inspired by Lamentations of the Flame Princess & Swords & Wizardry called Crying Blades. Specifically he told me about an interesting 'pay what you want' adventure that I might want to checkout called The Tall Witch.  The plot sounds simple enough;'A mysterious witch is about to be born and threatens the Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

Back in the dawn of the old school era during the dark halcyon days of Nineteen Eighty Four in various Dragon magazine issues one of the most influential & yet least talked about book series was winding its way through hands of gamers. I'm speaking of The Arcanum  2nd edition  a part of the Atlantean Trilogy this was one of those third party Advanced Dungeons & Dragons products that Gary Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

So yesterday I wrote a bit about one of my favorite Basic D&D modules "X5 Temple of Death" By David 'Zeb' Cook. Already I'm taking some heat about it from the usual OSR scholars because I combined it with Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea.  Now yesterday I combined the module with the world of Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique. But there are a wide variety of reasons Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

The post 1279 appeared first on Looking For Group.

"Sent on a desperate mission into an unknown land, you must seek out one called "the Master" and his Temple of Death. There is little time to waste, as you must act before the Master's armies destroy your homelands. But to complete your task, you must battle fearsome guardians, travel through a hostile kingdom, and discover the secret of the Master. Can you survive his defenses and win? "Well Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

Cover to the David Perry edition[REVIEW] The Sea of Vipers (2018)by Kyle MarquisSelf-published (kinda)
The foremost duties of game materials are to be inspiring and useful. Wilderlands of High Fantasy, Judges Guild’s setting is both: it is dynamite for the imagination, while remaining laser-focused on inspiring you to run a game. It does not always live up to its promise (its citadels and castles are a list of numbers; sometimes the randomisation shows through; not all parts of it are of the same quality as the core regions), but the idea is pure, and it continues to be inspiring after more than 40 years after its publication.
The Sea of Vipers, available for free online, is a modern-day campaign setting which captures some of the magic of the Wilderlands as seen in its original, cryptic and sketchy incarnation. It has a gimmick: it was originally published as a series of Twitter posts. That does not inspire much confidence. Twitter, generally speaking, is worse than useless – it actively makes our lives and world worse – but in this rare case, it serves a good purpose: it imposes a limit and structure on the setting information. The same way Judges Guild was struggling with primitive publishing technologies in its day, the author of The Sea of Vipers had to conform to an externally imposed, arbitrary character limit. In both cases, the creative tension has resulted in something intriguing, and perfectly structured for the needs of a game. (Note, there is a cool gazetteer-style online document here, made by David Perry – it is mostly excellent, except for using a different version of the map where all hex entries are off by one row).
Like its JG predecessor, this is a ground-level hex-crawl setting, with the barest minimum of overview information. A one-paragraph introduction, a list of three different pantheons, and some notes on power structures serve as a general framework (two pages of text with a very breezy layout, with room left to spare), followed by a hex-by hex description of the overland areas found on a 64x33 map sheet. These hex descriptions are one-liners; they consist of a hex code, a letter code for terrain type, and the hex description itself. Together, they describe a fantastic archipelago spread over two larger, two smaller, and maybe two dozen tiny islands.
The Sea of VipersThe strength of the material lies partly in this structure, but the reason it has a zing is due to the author’s command of the written word. Consider the intro:“The Sea of Vipers lies south of Gandavor. Since the rise of the Technogogic Implementer, who promulgated new theories of magic, the fractious, traditionalist Rootborn magicians have opposed his unification schemes. After years of low-key hostilities, the islands’ magicians agreed to a Conclave Arcane, but the Implementer betrayed them and spoke the Word of Serpents, which killed hundreds of Rootborn, devastated the Island of Tamera, and triggered the Word-of-Serpents war. The Rootborn fought back, but they had already lost, and now the Technogogic Implementer’s five satraps, the Enthroned, rule the islands.”It is obscure, and it does not go into the particulars, but reading this much should already give you everything you really need to plan and run a campaign. The same sure hand is in evidence in the hex entries. For instance,

• 2902 H Quartz hills create a tree made of moonlight on the 1st day of the crescent moon with magical healing quinces that grant prophecies.
• 2903 HD Temple of Kell. The Archifex seeks the intelligent sword KODMOS (2801), which can yank out a person's skeleton (fatal) and control it.
• 5402 LF Well full of martyrs' heads. Its water is poison to all save the righteous, who gain great powers and then die within 333 days.
• 0516 DH DEAD LEOPARD HILLS. Leopards destroyed by the Word-of-Serpents; all that remains are their spots, teeth, and hunger.
• 0523 D Lair of VEIS, Serpent of the Unclean Dance. Causes mania, tremors, the vomiting of worms; treasure includes the MANUAL OF SWANS.
• 0524 D A bolt of lightning frozen in the sly, glowing faintly. All who touch it die; scorched avians and flying machines litter the dunes.
• 5305 LF Elf demagogues argue the cultural significance of ear-sharpening cream. The issue is obscure; opinions are mandatory.
• 1401 LF GOLGAMMANNAH, CITY OF PAINTED HANDS, pop 800. Near-ruined port city. Created magically as a glory, melting with so few to admire it.
• 1402 P Herd of 22 displaced Bigby's Hands thunder across the plains, stalked by a small pack of 4 Mordenkainen's Hounds.
• 0722 D An aarakocra desert druid cultivates mellified raptors, drowning birds of prey in honey to create potions of healing.

A lot has been said about terse expressiveness, expressive terseness and tersive expressness (never mind the rest, it has become a meme), but this is how it is done. The contents are mysterious, irrational and dreamlike – dreamlike in the sense that disparate elements are connected in ways that defy rational explanation but make a sort of deeper sense, and also dreamlike in the way it all feels like the images of a kaleidoscope, filled with strange colours and shapes. This is not an easy effect to reach; and you can see the parts where it does not work out.
Island of Alu PanSometimes randomness is just randomness for its own sake, or it becomes lame by trying too hard. This problem can also be seen in The Sea of Vipers. For example:

• 0913 D Broken 50' jade hoop once served as the phylactery of a storm giant lich. Nomads fear the jade's "poison light."
• 2623 LF URMISH, the THRONE OF ANTLERS AND IRON. Has a 50' WICKER BEAR stuffed with drugged bears and ready to rampage if anyone ignites it.
• 3131 P Wereseacucumber sea elf has fled his sahuagin masters to study Thousand Gut Style martial arts under the intestines of Du Mu in 3028

Here, the hex entries are not dreamlike, just dumb. There is in fact a point where AWSUM becomes too much. A long time ago, in edition wars now far away, the excesses of 3e were sometimes illustrated with the example of Thri’Tard the grell Monk, and some of these examples feel like good old Thri’Tard with a new lease on life. This impression is strengthened when the stranger-then-strange hexes keep piling on. The setting is thus utterly weird, without a baseline of normality. The Wilderlands works so well because it is an internally consistent Dark Ages / Late Antiquity setting with fallen flying saucers and mermaid palaces – the basic texture is what makes the weirdness stand out. Here, plate-armored gorillas (3823) live right next to a now-bodiless flowering treant who controls a dracolich (3924), and a fox-headed hydra seeking the foxtail flywhisk of the Throne of Antlers and Iron (3723). And I picked this hex cluster entirely randomly. The Sea of Vipers does not really have any normal inhabitants. Its dial is always cranked up to at least 9, and often 10 or 11.
How could you use this supplement? I envision a game that’s purely focused on hex-crawling and discovering this strange setting. There is not much to the hex entries without investing a ton of work into them, so the best way not to exhaust them is to keep moving. So you’d have something out of Marco Polo’s travels, Seven Cities of Gold or Italio Calvino’s Invisible Cities – lots of travel, quick engagement with the contents of various hexes, and moving on to the next place to see new sights. You could be traders looking for exotic and precious goods, messengers, bureaucrats sent to create catalogues of the archipelago’s wonders for the Technogogic Implementer, or your usual band of roving conquistadors and murder hoboes. You could also thin out the hexes just a little to let it breathe a little – perhaps keep every fifth or sixth one, the ones you personally like the best.
With all the previous criticism in mind, I really like this setting. The good parts are full of imagination and wonder, and while randomness is the key principle, there is a cohesive vision (or at least aesthetic) behind it all. It is also supremely game-friendly, and a good take on the organising principles behind the Wilderlands. Well worth a look.
Rating: **** / *****

"To arms! To arms! The battle lines are drawn as desert men and inhuman tribes wait poised to strike on the fertile and rich lands of the east. The call has gone out through the civilized lands. The armies have been raised to match the invading foes from the west. Nobles and peasants have joined swords to greet the foes.  But Fate or Chance has decreed another role for a small few. No gloriousNeedleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

I drew a Skull Mountain on the back of my badge since half the time it would flip around
So I made it back to Gary Con!

The first time I went, two years ago, I had great fun playing in games run by former TSR employees or associates (Merle Rasmussen, Dave Megarry, Tom Wham, Dave Wesely) and attending events (Horticultural Hall reception, Charity Auction). This time I leveled up to GM, signing up to run two sessions of my Zenopus Dungeon sequel, In Search of the Brazen Head of Zenopus. 

I arrived one day earlier this time, on Thursday, flying into the Milwaukee airport. MKE is a nice small airport, and the only one I've ever been to with a used bookstore, and a good one at that, with a bunch of shelves of old SF/Fantasy paperbacks, including many Appendix N authors. I didn't have time to stop there on the way in, but I did on the way out (I'll show what I bought later).
After picking up my rental car, I drove west to Lake Geneva, a pleasant trip on the highway once you get out of the area around the airport. Snow was everywhere unlike two years ago when it was held in late March. As I neared the town on a country road I stopped at a random deli, Shavers, for a sandwich. I looked for cheese curds in the fridge but didn't buy them since I wasn't sure when I would be able to get into the room I was sharing (smart move, as it turned out to be after midnight).
Once at the hotel I checked in to Gary Con registration (behind Erol Otus...!) and picked up my GM folder and black GM cup. This year's cup design features a stylized Aboleth, a Lovecraftian monster that first appeared in I1 Dwellers of the Forbidden City:


Gary Con XI cups. Source: Gary Con FB group?
My first event was a card game, Jasmine: Battle for the Mid-Realm, run by its creator Darlene, perhaps best known in D&D circles for drawing the legendary World of Greyhawk maps. She did all illustrations for this criminally overlooked game herself, and released it in 1982. I featured one of the cards on my blog last summer. The story elements of the game tie into her comic strip of the same name that ran in Dragon magazine.


Playing Jasmine: Battle for the Mid-Realm 
Darlene is still has original copies of the game for sale, and I picked one up from her last June at at the North Texas RPG Con, but hadn't had a chance to play it, so I thought this would be a nice way to learn the game. The game is for 2-4 players and has four factions, and I chose the one for Jasmine:
The Jasmine Faction. Source: BGG, photo by Hawklord
Each turn you can rearrange your faction cards between battlefield and fortress stacks, and they stay there until your next turn. You draw a random card from the deck and then take an action, which can involve playing a card or attacking another player the cards in your battlefield stack. It was quite fun, and our game featured lots of twists and turns. Despite losing Jasmine to death near the beginning of the game, I managed to bring her back and somehow ended up winning the game...!

Also playing in this game was Paleologos who I've corresponded with for years on Dragonsfoot and by email. Astute readers may remember that he designed my go to map for Portown. We also played in each other games and generally had a great time chatting throughout the weekend.


The Harrison Ford lineup. Source: me
After dinner I missed my scheduled evening game due to a time mix-up on my part, but was luckily able to jump into my pal Scott's Savage Worlds game. Scott always comes up with great concepts for his con games, and this one did not disappoint. In "Harrison Ford's Theatre", every player takes on the role of a Harrison Ford character from a different movie. I was Richard Kimble and joined Han Solo, Indiana Jones, Rick Deckard, Jack Ryan and the Air Force One president as we traveled from scene to scene from the movies trying to figure out why were all together (edit: for this game, since we had an extra player he added Alexei Vostrikov, the captain from K-19: The Widowmaker). It was a lot of fun, with a great group of players who got into character (one wore an Indiana Jones fedora). If you are wondering about the cards in the pictures, they are used for initiative in Savage Worlds. 


The Harrison Fords in the Death Star Detention Block! Source: me
Next up --- Day 2: Zenopus, Boot Hill and Discovery of the Unknown!

 WG4 The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun is one of my all time favorite modules hands down, there is so much occult bleakness and darkness set within the bounds of Greyhawk. Perhaps the over all sense of menace and dread hanging over the temple itself.  WG4 The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun is flat out creepy and dangerous even more so then the Tomb of Horrors. I dug out my copy of  WG4 as soon Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

Sometimes you've got to back off of something to really appreciate it such is the case of recently with  Bloat Games SURVIVE THIS!! Vigilante City -Villain's Guide PDF. This book clocks in at three hundred pages of OSR super villain goodness so in other words this is the Dungeon Master's Guide for the SURVIVE THIS!! Vigilante City Rpg.This is the DM tool kit book for the SURVIVE THIS!! Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

There are adventures that scream to be run and Beneath The Comet  is one of those, it packs a bit of everything in one pot but it makes the pot steaming and piping hot with Hyperborean sword and sorcery action set against the celestial events of the adventure. Today we take a look into the background, setting, and much more with Beneath the Comet. Grab The Adventure Right Over  HERE Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

Sjøtrollet (The Sea Troll) by Theodor Kittelsen, 1887 

Hello friends!

In the Icelandic sagas, draugr are malevolent beings. It was said that you could tell who was likely to become a draugr in death because they died sitting up — in other words, alone as a miser rather than in bed and surrounded by loved ones. Sea-draugr are something else again. Though they share many characteristics of their land-based ‘cousins’, the tales seem to reflect the loss and guilt felt by those left behind when their loved ones were lost at sea and unable to be laid to rest with their ancestors.

In these stories, the sea-draugr often seek to return home and take up their old lives, only to be refused and shunned by their living families. The living are left with feelings of guilt and shame from these encounters, while the dead must return to their frigid, watery graves.

The sea-draugr play an important role the Bridge of the Damned adventure, so here’s a first look. What do you think?

Sea-draugr

These spirits of the drowned long for the warmth and comfort of hearth and home, but it is forever denied them. They lack the sheer malevolence of other draugr, but their terrible loneliness draws people wounded in heart and spirit like a lodestone, where they, too, succumb to the embrace of the waters. Sea-draugr are revenants: rotting, bloated, blue- or black-skinned corpses with flesh picked over by fish and crustaceans.