Feed aggregator

Worlds of High Adventure
(Non-Final Mockup Using Cameron Hawkey's Cover Art)
“Heavy is the head that wears the crown! In role-playing games, the position of the gamemaster carries the most responsibility, as it is a formidable task to entertain and challenge an entire group of players from session to session while preserving the game’s continuing appeal and mystery. Fortunately, the tricks and techniques required for gamemastering are easily learned with a little practice, and perfected through continuous play. All it takes is a lively imagination, sound judgement, and a pinch of ambition.
This volume provides guidance and time-tested techniques emphasizing the practical side of gamemastering to assist in fulfilling these ambitions. Building on the philosophy of classic adventure gaming, and focusing on player agency, gamemaster creativity, and fast, open gameplay, it offers comprehensive guidance for running old-school games, and designing adventures, campaigns, and game worlds. The book provides not only advice, but also a rich toolset to help both during preparation and at the table: procedures of play to facilitate a smooth game experience, a broad selection of monsters and magic items, as well as a large set of random generation tables to inspire gamemastering creativity.”
After all kinds of delays that took a year and then some, I am happy to announce the forthcoming release of my book, Gamemaster’s Guidelines Beyond Fomalhaut. This is going to be a large, comprehensive guidebook focused on providing practical advice on designing and running old-school adventures and campaigns, from basic philosophy to tested design methods and a whole lot of supplemental material (including optional rules, monsters, treasure, and random generation tables). You may have seen some of the book’s contents on this blog in less polished form; this volume has a lot of that, but most of it would qualify as new for the international reader.
The book will be a 292-page, illustrated hardcover retailing for $60. We are currently at the point where final proofreading is coming in, the cover design is being finalised (what you see above is my sorry mockup superimposed on Cameron Hawkey’s outstanding cover art), and we are gearing up for printing and binding. It is expected that copies will be available in mid-October, and if things go well, as a debut release at Cauldron Con 2026.
Antique Mysteries and Dark Magic
What it isIn modern old-school gaming, despite a generous supply of solid materials, there is a conspicuous absence of reference books to help people learn gamemastering from the ground up, or pick up additional techniques beyond the basic level. There is solid guidance out there, but an accessible, detailed how-to is mostly missing. The main game systems in circulation are rather laconic on this matter, focusing on rules and “stuff” rather than guidance in their GM sections. The reasons for this are partly historical: when this thing started in the 2000s, the people involved were assumed to be old hands who knew the AD&D DMG and the B/X rulebooks inside out, and didn’t really need more than what those works and some forum discussion couldn’t provide. Over 20 years later, this is no longer the case – there is a lot of information out there, but much of it is disorganised or tucked away on obscure sites; likewise, as old-school gaming lost its focus, a lot of its assumed knowledge base became muddled and uncertain. OSRIC 3 is an excellent game aid where explaining the rules are concerned, but it is not a book focused on telling you how to be a GM, or how to improve your skills.
Gamemaster’s Guidelines, whose first version was released in 2008 as the GM’s booklet for my old-school RPG, Sword and Magic, seeks to fill this gap. It is intended to supplement your ruleset of choice (OSRIC by default, but easily applicable for other old-school systems), and focus on the practical side of gamemastering – the nuts and bolts of running a game, creating various types of adventures, managing a larger campaign, and designing fantastic settings. It gives readers the basic and advanced techniques, as well as a complex view of how the pieces fit together, and how to make it your own (which is the natural and really fun part of it). It follows the philosophy of Classic Adventure Gaming with its focus on campaign-level play and high player agency, and the Judges Guild tradition of sandbox campaigns and sword & sorcery-flavoured adventure gaming with a hint of weirdness. It is not exhaustive, but it is intended to provide a full picture.
As all good things, it is also something with a personal stamp – not entirely the D&D of Gary Gygax and Bob Bledsaw, although indebted to both and standing on these giants’ shoulders. It is what we have made of it over years of play. Therefore, the book also presents optional rules that have stood the test of time in our campaigns, discussions on world design the way we have enjoyed them, and creatures and magic items that came from these games too, along with a bunch of random tables which served me and my friends in numerous campaigns. Ultimately, your game is yours, and it is up to you where you take it. This is where we did.
"A-ha! I knew it had a section on
summoning the Colour Invisible to Man!"
What’s in itGamemaster’s Guidelines is organised into nine chapters as follows:
I. Guiding principles: A primer for CAG-style play, thoughts on sword & sorcery as a distinct style of fantasy, and sources of inspiration (calling it “Chapter I” is a bit less mysterious than “Appendix N”, but we will live).
II. Gamemastering: This chapter offers an introduction to basic and advanced GMing techniques. It discusses “invisible” issues such as effective descriptions, questions of time management at the table, improvisation, and so on. It offers advice on common problems cropping up in a game, as well as different game styles and how individual player preferences can impact the campaign. It considers issues of simulation and verisimilitude (along with their limits), how to run NPCs, and matters of game balance and the level of challenges. Finally, it offers simple, robust tools for harnessing randomness for creativity.
"Now was that Blade Venom, Type III, or Purple Worm Extract?"
III. Optional rules: The chapter is a collection of rules drawn from our games. These are fairly small, modular rules that can be adopted piecemeal into your own game. The section adds simple combat options including abstract positioning and pursuit rules, and a simple mass combat system (with naval and siege options). It offers options for experience and magic, including notes discussing the interpretation and extension of common spells, the role of divinations and illusions (both prominent in our campaigns), as well as magic item creation. Survival rules, poisons, disease, and a bunch of traps round out the chapter.
IV. Adventures and campaigns: The book’s largest section, encompassing the adventure styles you can find in classic adventure gaming. It offers a general discussion on open—ended scenario design and player agency. It offers guidance and procedures for location-based adventures including dungeons, wilderness exploration (with a variety of approaches from journeys to point-crawls and hex-crawls, and procedures which interface with them), and cities. In all cases, it focuses on what is gameable, and how to focus design work on actual play. It also delves into the conundrum of situation-based adventures, which tend to have an often justifiable bad rep in old-school circles, and discusses how they can be used well in our paradigm. The chapter closes with an in-depth discussion on constructing and running larger-scale campaigns, and how to do so without being overwhelmed. This section thus discusses issues like the information economy, why you need STRICT TIME RECORDS, and bottom-up sandbox design.
V. Fantastic worlds: This chapter delves into creating game-friendly settings, the implications of fantastic societies, with a discussion of level demographics, civilisation vs. wilderness, the role of magic in a fantastic society, the dreaded magic shop issue (something the book supports), and so on. A larger section deals with religion, and how characters can sacrifice to, defeat, and perhaps become gods. A shorter section rounds out the chapter with a discussion of variant fantasy settings, from prehistoric milieus to the weirder end of the post-apocalypse.
VI. Taxes & death: This is a slightly more complex rules module offering basic domain management guidelines. It comes with procedures for taxation, regional development, construction, and army upkeep. It is not a “deep” system (as they say, “ACKS already does that”), but it is one which can be run in a reasonably pain-free way if your players happen to become the lords of a small city-state or satrapy.
The Floating Fungus is Introduced
to a Company of AdventurersVII. Monsters: Again, one of the book’s larger chapter. It offers a large section of 255 monsters, about half familiar, and half new. Some of the new monsters have appeared in my zines and modules; others are bound to be new to anyone who did not play in all my campaigns, and I don’t think any of you have. The chapter duplicates some entries from OSRIC and Monsters of Myth (so there are stats here for orcs, mothmeres and gelatinous cubes, although it takes liberties with common monsters like ghosts or dragons, and introduces variants for others).
The reason for this duplication (which I ruminated over a lot during development) is to offer a complete on-hand resource, but particularly because the book also includes a very large, complex set of random encounter tables which use this particular monster selection. In the proud tradition of AD&D’s Appendix C, it includes tables for wilderness encounters for various climates and terrain types, as well as ruins, seas, cities, and the Underworld (as in the kind of massive megadungeons which stretch deep downwards into the depths of the earth). We have played the hell out of these tables over some 20 years (and they have developed gradually), and this together forms the “implied setting” of the campaign.
The chapter also includes a large section of typical NPC stats for human encounters, a fun one-page section for generating adventurer parties (which I am incredibly happy with), and notes on monster customisation.
VIII. Treasure: As the name implies, this is a whole bunch of magic items, again mixing old and new, and rounded out by a bunch of random tables. These items are usually on the lower and middle part of the power scale, with an emphasis on “tricky” items with odd powers and interesting drawbacks – even some cursed items which can be fun and useful! There is a lot here, from the sword of lions (which rusts in the hands of a cowardly user, but is restored in the hands of the bold) to the figurines of the lesser lords (tribal fetishes offering their own idiosyncratic advice) and the pendulum of graves (which divines a grave’s contents when swung above it). Of course, this book would not be an EMDT production without a selection of technological devices, so those are here, with rules for laser pistols, but also the weirder edge of sinister future technologies such as reversal, a horrible serum inducing rapid reverse evolution, and the doctrinator, a device implanted in the skull to compel correct behaviour. The chapter includes its own treasure generation system, and tables for jewellery and exotic goods.
What is Over here?IX. The omniscient oracle: The book’s final chapter is a selection of random inspiration tables, all of them thoroughly tested. There are tables for adventure locations (e.g. “Desolate Crypt of the Damned City”), dungeons (both subsections like “the Hiding Place of the Gloomy Horror” and individual rooms like “the Grandiose Garden”), and wilderness sites (such as “the Scintillating Ravine” and “the Hidden Grove”).
Tables are offered for exotic ruins (such as a ruined step-pyramid once used as a garden, and now as a refuge), islands (such as an island with a lake and several streams, covered by strange mists, and hiding plantations and lost statues, as well as a garrison), and weird civilisations (such as a depopulating, militaristic society striving to achieve a bucolic utopia, plagued by mysterious disappearances and ruled by a cadre of philosophers).
Tables for curiosities include some usable to stock places like laboratories or temples (e.g. with drapes, an orb, and braziers), some to generate archaeological rubbish (going from broken pottery to the wreckage of great machines), and some to discern the functions of magical things (e.g. a benevolent oracle), or random teleporters and gateways (e.g. to a similar, but subtly different reality).
There is a table of 100 curses (including the Curse of the Fire-Worshippers, which draws the character towards all manners of fire, and compels their worship), carousing complications (e.g. gaining an influential, but very temporary friend), and downtime events for missing characters (e.g. being challenged to a duel, or finding a trail to a treasure).
How it can be orderedThere are simple answers and, regrettably, complicated answers.
Outside the US, the book will just be available from my Bigcartel store, as well as partnered stores. If you are in the EU, there is a small but non-zero chance that the EU has effectively destroyed its single market and all small, independent webshops therein with a retarded environmental regulation a few days ago. If this is the case, and the regulation gets enforced instead of withdrawn, then EMDT is a dead company walking, and so are most small RPG publishers in Europe, along with all other small creators selling custom jewellery, art prints, or handmade baby clothes. I sincerely hope it is not enforced. It is some insane shit, the kind that defines modern Europoor politics, and makes you wish for the return of the Habsburgs.
No! Don't Do It!
There Will Be Ways to Buy the Book!Inside the US, things are a bit more complicated. As you might be aware, the US introduced postal tariffs on foreign countries late last August, which, as a side-effect, basically eliminated commercial mail from Europe in a way that has not been restored in the one year since. My working assumption is that it is gone for good. Commercial packages became available again earlier this year, but the only affordable shipping option in this category is EMS, which has a lower threshold of $75. I will be opening up my store to US orders with the publication of Echoes From Fomalhaut #15 in late August, but it will be a flat $75 whether you buy this book, you buy one zine, or you buy every damn thing I have for sale. (I’ll cover the difference if it is higher – EMS scales up decently well, and arrives quickly). That’s not great, but what can you do.
Furthermore, the book will be available from Dark Future PDX in Portland, OR. They are a small, friendly old-school game store who have accumulated a good rep, and I am happy to note that they carry my stuff. So buy with confidence – if you buy from them, you are eligible for free PDFs as always. There may be other distribution partners too in the future.
If you come to Cauldron Con, I may have advance copies available through the organisers. See you there!Preview – Dungeon adventuresFinally, after all this long talk, here is a 12-page preview of Chapter IV’s section on dungeon adventures, discussing mapping, encounters, and gamemastering procedures. Enjoy!
Gamemaster’s Guidelines Beyond Fomalhaut – PREVIEW (11 MB PDF)
"I ain't afraid of no Level V encounter table!"

 ORBITAL STATION: LEKTRA-09 (DEEP-SPACE BIO-RESEARCH & RECREATION HUB)Lektra-09 is a decaying, medium-class orbital habitat slipping out of a stable Lagrange point. The environmental controls are failing, coating everything in hot, humid moisture, crimson bio-gel, and suffocating neon haze. The station operates on low auxiliary power, creating severe visibility limits and fluctuating Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

Welcome to Day 18 of #RPGaDay2026. As I explained in my Day 0 post, I’ll be creating NPCs based on the day’s prompts and the week and day modifiers presented in the infographic below.  Check out that post for further details.

Today’s combination: Directness (Prompt) + Instinct (Weekly Modifier) + Full of Grace (Weekly Modifier) + Cyberpunk (Genre)

Here is today’s NPC.

Omen (Fantasy Name Generator used for the name: Cyberpunk (nick)name generator)

Omen’s reputation as a jacker who can slice through any corporate security node is almost as legendary as her lack of tact. She calls it directness; those who deal with her call it rudeness. She only began taking contracts a few years ago, but her reputation quickly grew as she completed increasingly daring jobs. She never goes on physical runs and is rarely seen out in the city, but when you need a system cracked, “Omen is your gal.” Or so she constantly reminds everyone.

She will point out the flaws in your plans, your lack of forethought, or your poor choice in cybernetics with little regard for social norms or your feelings. However, she rarely fails at a job. She chalks her success up to unfailing instincts and the blessing of whatever higher power might be listening. Omen is quick to tell you that she’s “just that good, and being full of grace never hurts!”

With clients she doesn’t know or trust, she communicates exclusively via encrypted messages. When her instincts give the green light, and you’ve earned her trust—not an easy feat—Omen might welcome you to her “sanctum sanctorum,” a heavily secured ops center where she practices her digital sorcery.

Omen has scrubbed her real identity from all digital records and answers to no other name. Her base of operations is protected by a heavily chromed bodyguard she affectionately calls “her brother,” though they obviously share no actual relation. The place is rigged with state-of-the-art neural computers and servers, its walls covered in religious imagery and paraphernalia from dozens of faiths. As she puts it, “One or more of these has to be blessing me at any given point.”

Thanks for reading; I am looking forward to your RPG a Day 2026 post, comments, and conversation. If you want further information about #RPGaDay2026, be sure to check out Autocratik’s blog.

A Spanish version of this post is available at the Desde la Fosa Facebook page.

See you all tomorrow!

The post Video of the Day – Doctor Who: The Two Doctors, 1985 appeared first on Blogtor Who.

Doctor Who: Circuit Breaker #2 doesn’t reach the idea’s full potential, but is another chapter of strong emotional growth for the Fugitive

 

There’s a recurring problem for viewers and readers of pretty much everything. Among other things, it effects detective novels, big screen movie series, and, yes, Doctor Who. It’s where, amid all the anticipation as the plot unfolds, sometimes even just from a trailer, they begin to predict how it will all play out. Only to express disappointment when, at least to them, the reality isn’t as good as the version in their heads. Usually, that’s a failure to embrace a piece of art for what it is, rather than it’s not. However, in the case of Dawn of the Daleks from Titan Comics, in refusing to follow the obvious path laid out by Circuit Breaker so far, it risks not making sense at all.

To recap this year’s multimedia epic so far, various objects connected to the Doctor have been materialised in modern London. UNIT’s Osgood has realized that not only does their strange energy pose a threat to reality, but their removal from where their proper place has corrupted, perhaps even erased, the Doctors’ very existence. Only a Doctor from before the earliest timeline meddling can intervene to put things back where they belong. Enter Jo Martin’s Fugitive, on a reluctant mission to save both 21st century Earth and her own future selves.

 

The Daleks, Kaleds, and ancient Skaro of Dawn of the Daleks is scarcely recognizable as the versions from Genesis

Within those parameters, her latest mission, to return a Time Ring to its proper place on ancient Skaro, promises to be compelling. After all, this must surely be the one the Fourth Doctor depended upon to escape in Genesis of the Daleks. Where the small acts of its theft would have had a massive impact on the entire future history of the universe. Instead, writer Dan Watters goes in a completely different direction. That wouldn’t be a problem, though, if his alternative was more satisfying.

The Time Ring is treated as a simple McGuffin. How and why it wound up on Skaro isn’t important, nor are the consequences of it being there, or not. Moreover, this ancient Skaro is barely recognizable as the one we saw before. Our setting is within a generation of the genesis of the Daleks, since many of the characters still remember it, yet Daleks are everywhere rather than entombed for a thousand years. Those characters are Kaleds living in a high tech utopian bunker beyond Davros’ wildest dreams. They’re also remarkably lovely people, the script forgetting that even the pre-Dalek Kaleds were a deeply racist, fascist society.

 

The Fugitive’s reverse scavenger hunt is increasingly incidental to Circuit Breaker, as it continues the awakening of the Fugitive’s compassion

These changes are all in service of Dawn of the Daleks’ real focus. Even though the Doctor completes her actual mission early on, she finds she can’t simply leave the Kaleds to die. Instead, she does everything possible to save them, and begins to earn her own personal reasons for hating the Daleks. If Circuit Breaker generally hasn’t done as much with the reverse scavenger hunt aspect as it might have, it’s the Fugitive Doctor’s personal evolution that has been this series’ greatest success.

As brusque as the Fugitive can be, she always finds some excuse to help others. She simply makes increasingly unconvincing claims that it’s just part of her self-serving agenda. But here, particularly after her experience in The Deadliest Weapon, she’s beginning to set aside that pretence and admit that she just thinks it’s the right thing to do. It’s her first time even admitting that to herself, perhaps.

This more sensitive side is supported by Sami Kivelä’s art, which is the best he’s done for the Doctor Who titles so far. It’s as vibrant and energetic as ever, but swaggers with added confidence. He beautifully captures Jo Martin’s likeness too, complete with the subtle contradictions in this incarnation. A woman who, like in the early days of Peter Capaldi’s run, perhaps tries not to care because once she starts, she’ll care so much it will devastate her.

Relatively speaking, Dawn of the Daleks is the weakest entry in Circuit Breaker so far. It’s also the weakest book among recent Titan Comics. But so long as you’re prepared to not worry too much about missed opportunities, it’s still a worthwhile, imaginative step along the Fugitive’s difficult road to becoming the Doctor we know.

 

Doctor Who: Circuit Breaker #2. Cover by Nipuni (c) Titan Comics Doctor Who: Circuit Breaker #2

The Doctor Travels To The War-Ravaged World Of Skaro As She Battles The Daleks With The Fate Of Their Kaled Forebears At Stake!

You can find links for buying in the US, or from Forbidden Planet in the UK here.

 

Circuit Breaker continues with Don’t Blink, free to read on the UNIT website from the 17th of August

 

 

 

The post REVIEW: Doctor Who: Dawn of the Daleks appeared first on Blogtor Who.

 Running T1-4: The Temple of Elemental Evil (AD&D 1E) using Adventurer Conqueror King System II (ACKS II) creates an extraordinary sandbox campaign. ACKS II excels at domain building, mercenary armies, economic mechanics, and granular dungeon crawling—making it a perfect fit for Hommlet, Nulb, and the massive mega-dungeon beneath the Temple.

PORTLAND, Ore. 08/17/2026 — White Sky, Vol. 1 by longtime, critically-acclaimed comic book and video gamewriter William Harms (two-time BAFTA nominated Mafia III, International Horror Guild Award finalistImpaler), fan-favorite artist…

SIGN UP FOR THE CAMPAIGN’S PRELAUNCH PAGE BY CLICKING HERE! Crusade Comics’ groundbreaking miniseries is now collected into a premium-formatted, oversized, 240-page hardcover Omnibus edition featuring the Art of War’s…

At our 107th live show (courtesy of the East Meadow Public Library), Comic Book Creator Jay Huwer joins Mark as our guest

TARANIS: THE THUNDERLORD #7 In “Reflections,” a brand-new foe takes a swing at the God of Thunder as Mirror Man makes his grand debut! What are this mysterious villain’s true…

OutlineWriter/Artist: Michèle FischelsPublished: 2024 by Reprodukt The art, while I guarantee it won’t be something everyone appreciates, often manages to carry the story through wordless panels and pages. That is…

If you’re tracking the origin of the American superhero genre, you’ll find that one path inevitably winds back to Paris. Much of American popular culture seems to have been anticipated…

Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro opened the Disney Legends Awards Ceremony in a sold-out arena event filled with memorable tributes, musical performances, and moving moments from iconic creative talent and visionaries.…

The online gaming worlds now revolve around seasonal events. They transform routine playtime into something enchanted, joyful, and exciting that unites everyone. Envision discovering new surprises every day when you…

By Arman Bohn
Distropilis Goods
OSE
Levels 1-3

A town, overrun with rabbits and on the brink of starvation, offers its only clue to the source of its suffering: a book known  as the Tome of Tog. Locals claim the titular mage has been a nuisance for years. The pages of the book have been torn out, save for a map that leads the party on a winding, hallucinogenic path through a dense wood to the TOMB OF TOG.

This 24 page adventure presents eleven rooms in a wizards Challenge Dungeon. With Grimtoothian machinations the party faces snarky challenges with no rewards. As challenges go they are ok, but I loathe the subgenre and the suspension of pretext so much that it’s hard to say much nice about this.

 Yeah, so, arrogant wizard makes a challenge dungeon. You defeat all eight rooms, one for each school of magic. You then face the ninth school of magic. Your reward is a map to another Tog dungeon. That’s the ONLY reward. Good luck leveling. So, this is one of those “have an experience” hippy mork borg dungeon “activities” instead of a D&D adventure. If you’re in to this kind of shit, then, yeah you. I’m not. I want to play a game. A game in a campaign. And I’m using the words game and campaign very explicitly. I acknowledge, though, that a significant number of people DO engage in RPG’s as an activity. So, if you are a l000ser, is this adventure for you?

Yeah, I mean, probably. There’s no real pretext here for adventure other than “the wizard did it”, which is the lame ass meme. [And, as a rant, I would like to mention something here. “What happens when someone is gifted with a wellspring of power but is completely incompetent?” That’s not a fucking wizard. That’s one of those fuckwits who are born with power or make a pact with an entity to get power. Some kind of power fantasy YA novel bullshit crap where you’re A Special Flower. Wizards wrest knowledge from the universe through hard work. Also, wizard is my favorite of the three classes …] 

Ok, so, interactivity. You gotta go through each of the nine rooms. They each have some kind of challenge devised by the wizard. The challenges are going to be framed with a certain wryness. So, in the clearest example, to get in to the dungeon you have to answer a couple of riddles. The riddler begins with “ Here, we celebrate the glory of Tog the Inexorable, Tog the Impossible, Tog the Immutable, Tog the Intangible. Who is the greatest wizard of all?” The answer, of course, is Tog. That’s funny. Ok, humor is subjective and _I_ find it funny. There’s a bit of a wink from the designer in this. It never quite falls in to being a joke adventure, which are all shitty as fuck. It instead remains in the realm of those early adventures like Dungeon of the Bear and Grimtooth. Not in a deathtrap way, or punny way, but with a kind of hint toward both. 

The first room, “Illusion” is a good example. When you go in you are immediately turned invisible (and, of fucking course, the fucking door slams shut behind you. Fucking challenge dungeon bullshit.) Bound to the room is a VISIBLE stalker. Who is depressed. “Unable to see its victims, the creature has suffered countless humiliating encounters. It now uses small talk as both a form of therapy and a method to pinpoint the location of intruders.” It’s taken the normal encounter and kind of turned it ninety degrees, yes? Is it s a gimmick? Absolutely. But, it’s a challenge dungeon. 

The rest of the encounters replicate this kind of obtuse encounter type. Things are more than a bit askew in here. In terms of a challenge dungeon it is certainly in the realm, if we squint hard enough, of Tower of Gygax. The dungeon throws the players off balance in various ways, with a little (snark?) mixed in. I am MUCH more down for this type of challenge dungeon than a simple series of skill checks and combats. There is an air of Grimtooth room traps about the place. Not really traps, but in the setup of the rooms. And this includes a couple of meta things, like “Each player must secretly write down a single word describing their character’s current emotional state, without discussing it with the other players, and pass it to the GM.” Which then builds an Emotions Golem in the room. I always raise my eyebrows at the emo stuff, but this is a decent implementation of it.

Formatting is meh. The background of the pages are a beige parchment color with the text being light grey and the font something with some flourishes and varying stroke weight. This combines to make things harder than it should be to read the thing, but it’s not impossible. When some words show up in italics it’s a pain though, given this combination. There tends to be a little read-aloud section offset in a darker grey, and then a longish section of DM text that explains the room, with several very short paragraphs following that expand on things. It does an ok job, a little subpar, and is on the edge of being a pain but not quite there, especially given the obtuse nature of the rooms. 

So it’s a challenge dungeon, maybe most similar to White Plume with just a little meta and snark thrown in. Maybe “the California Style” will be recognizable, and never really goes full on jokey or too meta. I’m allergic to all challenge dungeons, but if I were looking for one for a one shot sort of thing as an activity this one WOULD come to mind, chiefly because of the askew nature of the challenges.

This is $8 at DriveThru. The preview is eight spread pages (the PDF is spreads also. ARG!) so you get about thirteen pages of content, enough to show a large portion of the dungeon. A brief perusal will show the Grimtooth Rooms as diagrams, and the PDF is more than apt in showing you what to expect, so good preview.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/573505/tomb-of-tog?1892600

Proud Keoland is the oldest of the human nations of the Flanaess. Though diminished from its greatest glory, its rulers never bowed to lords of the Aerdi in the Great Kingdom. Its warriors have been successful in the main in protecting the land from invaders, though they have been powerless against the folly of its kings.

Keoland's origins are in the migrations following the war between Ancient Suel and Baklunish. Suloise refugees, harried by the humanoid warbands and reavers of their own people, fled across the Crystalmists and settled in the fertile basin formed by Sheldomar and Javan Rivers. The Flannae population of the region was small, owing to the depredations of the humanoids and a plague brought by earlier waves of Suloise fleeing war and destruction. The remnant Flannae and scattered demihumans were pushed to the fringes by the newcomers who sought to create a unified Suel kingdom but were thwarted by conflict with others and their own fractiousness.

In another century, Oeridian Keogha tribes swept into the region, scattering the encircling humanoid tribes. The Oeridians came in friendship to the Suloise and demihumans alike, but they brooked no disagreement with their intention to share the land between the rivers, and they expanded rapidly, soon claiming hegemony over all the human settlements, as they began to intermingle with the Suel peoples.

Eventually a monarchy was declared with the old Suloise town of Niole Dra as its capital. Over time, it would come to dominate the entire basin. This was not accomplished solely through conquest, however. Keoish kings shrewdly made allies of the demihuman lands Ulek and Celene.

The people came to embrace Nomism in the main (though pockets of folk religion still exist). In fact, it is possible the belief system may have coalesced here with the blending of Suel and Oeridian beliefs. Saint Cuthbert is the patron deity of Keoland, and the land's churches are adherent to Velunan doctrines and traditions.

Periodically over the centuries, Keoish kings have succumbed to dreams of empire. Such ambitions have tended to fare poorly beyond the two rivers. Indeed, Keoish entanglements elsewhere allowed the Sea Princes to gain a foothold to the South and lost the kingdom control of the Yeomanry. 

Though Keoland is currently at peace with its neighbors, it may be that it is being weakened by enemies from within. The ancient and entrenched noble houses game and scheme to see their house ascend the throne. Humanoid bands and human renegades lurk within the Dreadwood and the expansive [as in bigger than Ireland!] Hool Marsh. The coastal marshes rely on a brisk smuggling trade and secretly deal with the piratical Sea Princes.

Keoland's real world inspirations are perhaps not as distinct as many of the eras in the Aerdian East. The Mediterranean climate suggested by Anne Meyer's maps brought to mind for me the Iberian Peninsula. That might make the Keoish Oeridians the Vandals/Visigoths. On the other hand, it's position on the map, and its use of light cavalry reminiscent of the turcopoles are reminiscent of Byzantine Empire.

Welcome to Day 17 of #RPGaDay2026. As I explained in my Day 0 post, I’ll be creating NPCs based on the day’s prompts and the week and day modifiers presented in the infographic below.  Check out that post for further details.

Today’s combination: Intensity (Prompt) + Instinct (Weekly Modifier) + Fair of Face (Weekly Modifier) + Superhero (Genre)

Here is today’s NPC.

Orothos (Fantasy Name Generator used for the name: Superhero name generator)

When a hero needs to know whether a person is telling the truth, they call upon an old ally in the city: Orothos. He appears as an older man wearing a worn-out white blazer and a painted porcelain mask of a fair-faced young man, holding court in his private room at the Ruby Club.

Some say he was once a celebrated hero; others insist he is a retired criminal. No one is quite sure, but Orothos is known for his wit and uncanny powers of observation. The intensity of his words disarms the most hardened individuals, and his instincts rarely fail. He never tortures or physically harms those he interrogates. Instead, through conversation and sheer will, he sifts through the lies to uncover the truth.

Orothos’ abilities are indeed unnatural. He can peer into the souls of those he speaks with to determine their sincerity. However, every time he uses this power, the person wearing the mask ages preternaturally. This is because Orothos is not the man, but the mask itself—the ceramic vessel for the spirit of a former hero.

He wants to escape his porcelain prison but has not deciphered how to do so in all his years of captivity. He uses his investigative powers to maintain contact with the city’s hero community, hoping someone might eventually help him find a way out. Until then, he changes host bodies whenever his current wearer grows too old to continue.

Thanks for reading; I am looking forward to your RPG a Day 2026 post, comments, and conversation. If you want further information about #RPGaDay2026, be sure to check out Autocratik’s blog.

A Spanish version of this post is available at the Desde la Fosa Facebook page.

See you all tomorrow!

The post Video of the Day – Doctor Who Night: The Daleks, 2026 appeared first on Blogtor Who.

Andy Mangels returns for a deep‑dive into his decades as a comics historian, writer, and editor, bringing fans more behind‑the‑scenes stories from one of the industry’s most knowledgeable voices.

A conversation with Peter Kuper on his bold political art, Kafka adaptations, and nearly three decades of Spy vs. Spy.