Tabletop Gaming Feeds

 To inject the Arduinian "Techno" class into the mechanically precise framework of ACKS II, we must translate a character who relies on high-tech gadgets, firearms, and cybernetics into the game's 4-point Class Construction system.  This blog post picks right up from Integrating Adventurer Conqueror King System II (ACKS II) with the legendary, chaotic, and maximum-gonzo DNA of DaveNeedleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

In the last few years Shadowdark has conquered the hearts and minds of many TTRPG fans by storm. I am pretty sure it even pushed Old-School Essentials of its throne. Everyone is talking about it, writing material and having a lot of fun. But for some reason I dismissed the game pretty early. Looking back I don’t really understand why I didn’t give it a chance. I actually don’t even remember why I dismissed it. Was it the random character creation? Was the massive hype driving me away? Was it because I had invested a lot of money in OSE already?

It was probably a combination of all of this. But eventually I gave it another chance. Why? That’s kind of a funny story. From time to time I get the urge to dabble in game design. One of the white whales which I keep hunting is a D&D variant of my own. Over the years I have looked at countless retro-clones and none of the games out there had everything I wanted from my “perfect” old-school D&D game. There was always at least something missing. So I started working on my own. Since I like milestone levelling and 5th Edition’s advantage/disadvantage mechanic, I looked at 5th Edition as a basis and started removing and rewriting stuff to make it as simple as Basic D&D. In the beginning I still had a skill system, but I quickly realised that it wasn’t a good fit for what I wanted to achieve. So I decided to use broad “backgrounds” which fulfill a similar role. I also wanted to get rid of Vancian magic and eventually I decided a roll-to-cast system would be a great fit for an OSR-adjacent system. Since I prefer theatre-of-the-mind I replaced ranges in feet with more abstract range bands: Close, Near, Far. And without realising it, I had reinvented Shadowdark.

At some point, I had doubts this amalgamation of ideas would actually work, so I looked at similar games for inspiration: Vagabond, Nimble, and eventually Shadowdark. The more I learned about Shadowdark (I hadn’t read the full rules at this point), the more I realized that my ideas were so close to Shadowdark that it would be easier to write a couple of house rules for Shadowdark instead of basically reinventing it.

There’s one caveat: I haven’t run or played Shadowdark yet. But I plan to do remedy this in the near future. My wife agreed to give a one-on-one campaign a try and I think ShadowRim (which is basically The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim with the serial numbers filed off) might be the perfect setting for us. Alternatively I have a couple of ideas for a sandbox campaign about a cursed estate somewhere in the borderlands. Whatever we end up playing I am pretty excited at this point!

What are your thoughts on Shadowdark? When did you first discover it and why do you like (or dislike it)? Please share your thoughts below.

By Peter D Gray
Self Published
5e/OSR
Level ... 4?

Farmer Jebsom has a problem – half his farmhouse, along with all of his family fell into a sinkhole that appeared beneath his farm’s foundations.  Now he is desperate to get his wife and children back from the mysterious depths and is willing to give 20% of his farm to anyone succeeding in returning them to safety.

This seven page backstory uses one page to describe nine rooms in a tunnel complex full of bugs. A general overview with a lengthy backstory and terse tunnel chambers result in an IDEA for an adventure rather than an adventure proper.

I am less than thrilled with every aspect of this adventure. There is an extensive backstory here of a wizard noble dude, exiled, back, with a gang of like fifty doppelgangers, his revenge in getting ankhegs in to a village to disrupt the farms, and then his use of a giant burrowing monster to undermine a former rival farmers fields. You’re in the village to clear out an ankheg infestation. That, alone, seems weird. It’s all very nonchalant and no one seems to care much about rampaging monsters. But, whatever. Then farer bob runs in to the tavern noting that his wife and kid fell in when a large portion of his house collapsed in to a sinkhole. Again, no one seems to care much. There’s an off-hand comment that the village priest wants you to wait a day to go save them so that the farmer can recover enough to tell his tale. None of this makes any sense to me. The casual monster infestation that no one cares about. No one really caring about a member of the communities family being in trouble. The priest urging you to wait a day. This is not how people react. I get it, we’re hiring adventurers to solve our problem, but this immediately drags me out of immersion. Things would have gone much better with some local involved and framing this as a village crisis. They won’t even form a militia because the farmers don’t want their hands away. It’s just this super long backstory and irrelevant detail to set up this absurd situation that just results in “you’re hired to …” 

And then there’s a evil noble mage and his doppelganger gang. There’s a note that they are replacing people, but nothing more than that. Evil Dude gets a stat block and you find letters in the tunnel, and evidence, tying him to whats going on … but nothing more. No reactions. No evil dude lair. That’s it. The amount of backstory and time spent on him, and the gangers, would make it seem like this IS the adventure. But it’s not. Nothing is there.

The actual adventure is nine keys in a tunnel. This amount to “you enter a room and some bugs are there to attack you.” You can find the missing family. While YOU take between 4d4 and 8d10 damage from collapsing tunnels, they are ok. And, no details about what makes a tunnel collapse or anything. You can also find some dead doppelgangers with the letter from the evil noble. Yeah.

I find this so frustrating. At best you get an outline of things that could be going on. There is almost no specificity. The actual dungeon encounters are less interesting than Boggems, NO! From Legion of Gold. “Hey, heres this long backstory of stuff that could be happening. Now here’s nine rooms in some tunnels with bugs” 

I get it. I get the vision. But nothing in the adventure is supporting that vision. Not even this review. OSR. Pffft. 

This is $2.50 at DriveThru. The preview shows you the first two pages of baccktsory. Enjoy that.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/569215/beneath-twin-pines-farm?1892600

 Working on my upcoming Parsulan campaign, in Greyhawkian fashion, I've done some flags/banners for some of the nations I've written up. These mostly done with Armoria, which is a great program but limited in terms of its assets and functionality.

The Lightbearer Republic
Kamazot
Durendine Confederation
Mayura

 Adapting Edward Ludwig’s 1957 atomic-horror classic The Black Scorpion for Barrows & Borderlands means merging 1950s creature-feature panic with a dark, radioactive fantasy frontier.Rather than treating the monsters as generic giant bugs, we preserve the film’s unique surreal atmosphere—inspired by Willis O'Brien's jerky, nightmare-inducing stop-motion animation—and weave them into the Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

You meet new people every day! The efforts to re-engage with the gaming community—both locally in Puerto Rico and the larger online sphere—for my 40th anniversary as a gamer have been incredibly rewarding. It has ranged from reconnecting with old friends to meeting completely new people, some of whom live right here in Puerto Rico but whom I had never met before.

Such is the case with the subject of today’s interview. Axel6748 contacted me through my Bluesky account (‪@sunglar.bsky.social), and I’ve really enjoyed getting to know them and seeing the content they are publishing for Shadowdark. When I announced I was looking for Puerto Rican creators working in the TTRPG space or related endeavors, Axel6748 kindly reached out. I am incredibly thankful for their time and kindness!

Introduce yourself! Who are you and what do you create?

I do keep my real-life identity anonymous, but I go by Axel6748 online, and I am a Puerto Rican tabletop role-player and Game Master. Lately, I have been working on Shadowdark content for a free monthly zine called The Menu.

In the future, I hope to start a blog to talk about TTRPGs, Anime, Indie Games, and other Nerd/Geek topics, as well as self-publish my own material and supplements for Shadowdark and whatever tabletop system I like and find passion for.

How would you describe your art or creative endeavor?

My creative process is whatever sparks my interest. Sometimes I want to create a theme because I have an idea in my head, and I like to use random tables and word banks to generate ideas for adventures, modules, or classes.

How did you discover TTRPGs?

Man, how did I discover TTRPGs? Well, mainly through pop culture growing up, such as cartoons, and my cousin playing 3.5e D&D. However, I really got into 5th Edition around 2016 to 2017. I was originally going to play 4th Edition, but the game sadly never happened. That led me to learn 5e and meet wonderful people!

Do you actively play TTRPGs? What are you playing?

I have been playing 5e D&D as well as Shadowdark; d20 dragon fantasy games are my comfort zone.

What do you want to play next?

I want to try out some of the lesser-known systems, such as Goblinz by The Ugly Goblin, Tactiquest by level2janitor, Trespasser by tundalus, and a few others. I also want to try bigger systems like Draw Steel (specifically that Night Shift Demon Division 3rd-party supplement).

What projects are available, and what are you working on next?

As of now, I only have one free class on my Itch.io page called The Bravero, and I’m working on The Menu. I’ve released 3 Adventures (one B/X compatible, two Shadowdark) and a few Shadowdark classes.

Where can people get your projects?

You can find my stuff on my Itch.io page, my Bluesky, and my upcoming Tumblr Blog (and possibly Substack too) via my Carrd!

• Carrd: https://axel6748.carrd.co
• The Menu Zine (May 2026 Issue): https://the-menu-zine.itch.io/the-menu-may-2026
• The Bravero Class: https://axel6748.itch.io/bravero

Thank you, Axel6748! Be sure to check out the links provided to explore their content. See you all next Sunday!

 In ACKS II, commerce isn’t just a background transaction; it is a mechanical pillar driven by the Market Class of a settlement. When your players roll into a high-tech, insular Sword and Planet city-state (a Jeddakate) looking to liquidate ancient artifacts, high-grade radium, or forbidden bio-serums, the transaction is governed by supply, legality, and the reach of the local ruler's secretNeedleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

By Fabricio Garcia
Kobold King
OSE
Level 3

The adventurers will face an ancient mage trying to free his soul from it’s bindings in his tomb. The group has 10 sessions to reach the tomb, where they can stop the ritual or join Kaeloreth’s quest to rein the region again. In the tenth session, Kaeloreth completes his ritual and now possesses a new body. He send his undead thralls to slaughter 3 Sylvandur population, each death gives him more power. As sessions progress, the common enemy will start to change from wild life and monsters to Kaeloreth’s undead soldiers.

This 93 page adventure uses nine pages to present a small trial dungeon. Whatever the intent was is lost in its incomprehensibleness.

This is an EASL adventure, and while the EASL is thick in this, I don’t think that’s the main problem, so I’m going to ignore it.

I don’t really know what to say about this. It’s a mess. It’s trying to present a small region with the central focus being a dungeon/tomb with ye olde “ancient dude trying to return to the world.” He’s in a tomb that is a simple “challenge dungeon” with a number of rooms in which you face “challenges”; my least favorite type of dungeon. There’s a timeline, based around adventuring sessions, with the concept of escalating stakes introduced for each session the party takes to complete the adventure, rather than a strictly daily countdown. 

I guess I should start with the format. Or, maybe, file type. It’s done in Obsidian, a markup tool. I downloaded the app and installed it, but still couldn’t get the files to open. It appears to have a rather steep learning curve. I THINK it’s just a system of hyperlinking. I think. There’s also a single column PDF that contains everything in the markup app, I think. But, even though I’m looking at the adventure in a non-optical manner (the PDF) I still don’t think that’s the issue. 

It’s just … abstracted? I don’t really know what to say except “a mess”, but that would imply it’s not organized. But I think it IS organized. It’s just not supporting anything. 

I THINK what is meant to be going on is that the party is charged with STOPPING THE EVIL and they end up in a small town. There they meet some NPCs and get mini-quests that forces them in to the region and then they get more information and find the tomb and stop the big bad. 

The best example I can cite to relate the issue is the mini-quests. At the end of the adventure is a list of NPC’s. One of the NPC’s has this in their description ”His son is late to return home. He went to the forest at morning (This happens on the first session). He start searching for his son on the second day.” [sic]  So, to put together the mini-quests you’re going to have to reference all of the NPC’s and what they want done and where they are. I don’t see how this is possible in gameplay, given their quantity. That means you’re going to have to essentially take so many notes that you would be rewriting the adventure. His kid, later in the NPC’s, has the description “Cerabino is lost inside the forest. He got distracted when he found Living Cave entrance. He can forage for berries and water but monsters can ambush and kill him. “ There’s no mention of the kid anywhere else, and certainly not in the living cave. So … you stick him in it? IE: you have to put together each of the mini-quests on your own. There IS no supporting information.

The living cave, proper, is procedurally generated. Roll a d12 and maybe get “6 Forgotten gear (CHA or attract the owner ghost) “ You gotta wander the cave till the DM rolls a a twelve so you can find the tomb entrance. And it changes every time, since it’s living and procedurally generated each time. This is tedium. And, again, not very well supported. One of the two central locations is essentially not described at all. 

Challenge dungeons, the main tomb, are their own problem. You know the whole “door slams shit and figure out what you are supposed to do” thing. And there’s no map. Well, there is one, but it’s not keyed (maybe that is fixed with the markup file?) And then, the big bad has a 4HD fireball he tosses. At level 3?! WHat is that, 14/7 damage? Ouchies. 

And the room description, what there are of them, are full of asides and backstory. “The manor don’t clean or fix itself inside this room. This was caused by a bad spell from Maliel – Corrupted Witch while she researched a way to preserve Nermanik – Human Mage’s body.” With victorian laundry lists of trivial contents and extensive room exists and the like. 

The rooms and descriptions, the dungeon and towns, the quests, the entire plot … it’s all abstracted. There’s no real summary of how the thing is supposed to work together. There’s no real support for any aspect of it, except perhaps the main dungeon, and even that is written almost like it’s a generic/universal adventure. It has abandoned all conventional aspects of layout and organization, but not replaced it with anything better. It’s as if the designer had not seen a published adventure before and didn’t know to do, but didn’t have an idea anyway on how to organize it. 

I’m open to this being an Obsidian issue, solved by it, but I don’t think so. The lack of a summary that makes sense, and the lack of support for the various areas just seems missing.

This is $2 at DriveThru. There is no preview.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/567830/kaeloreth-s-tomb-mini-scenario-pdf-markdown-obsidian-ready?1892600

It's hard to write a good setting. I'm working on Dead Wizards and when I hit a struggle point, I like to grab books off my shelf and take a peek at how other people handle setting.

Random pulls...

Fever Swamp by Luke Gearing and Melsonian Arts Council is a thin little hardback that reminds me of a kid's book in how it feels to hold. I remember assuming this was a Troika! book since it was Melsonian, but no... this is OSR. And nowhere in the book does it ever explain what it is. There's no "use this with x game" statement. No... the inside covers are tables and the book just kicks off and never stops until it runs out of pages.

Only because I know OSR shit and I know D&D do I know this is that kind of book. I see little short stat lines for monsters with AC, HD, ATK, etc. There are two new character classes and their HD, XP, and saves are based on other classes. They mention Specialist as one. The game this is probably originally written for is Lamentations of the Flame Princess, which has the Specialist instead of the Thief.

Anyway, the setting is presented in little bursts and in tables and hex descriptions. It is a hex crawl kind of thing. There are not walls of text explaining the history of the region. Little bit here, little bit there, mostly delivered through tables and hex descriptions.

Takeaway: Getting straight to the meat of it is pretty nice. 

Yoon-Suin by Noisms is a table-heavy setting. Most of the setting is implied through copious amounts of writing written from the perspectives of people in the world. And the rest is mostly random tables. But it's a lot. The book kicks off with The Journal of Laxmi Guptra Dahl, a 28 page affair written in first person as the author explored the region. Now... I'm not a fan of prose-heavy RPG books. The reason I haven't knocked myself out trying to collect all the D&D Gazetteer series is because they're just too god damn heavy handed on the writing (we went from the minimalist X1 setting info to the maximalist Gaz series!).

But Yoon-Suin is very special. I'll happily take notes from how it is arranged. Mainly the way it uses random tables to do most of the work... an approach I took with GOZR.

Takeaway: Random tables build setting more evocatively than descriptions, in my opinion.

Anomalous Subsurface Environment ASEI by Patrick Wetmore is a self-described "gonzo" adventure location set in a kind of future post-apocalypse with all the trappings of Mad Max meets Waterdeep. This sucker is at once weird and sci-fantasy and also OSR as all hell. It's set up and presented in the classic way that old TSR modules were done. You get an overview to explain what it is, then he just goes straight into a X1 Isle of Dread style Gazetteer-lite, 40 page setting description. It's a beefy but compact read. This is a whole ass setting laid out just so you can have a place for PCs to be before they go down into the megadungeon.

Takeaway: You can just tackle the setting bit by bit, with short descriptions of what is needed and whatever history is necessary. You don't have to avoid all that shit if you don't want to.

Yeah... so what have I learned tonight? That I have a lot of game books written for old school D&D type games.

Also, just do it. Dead Wizards isn't a D&D game, but it is an adventure fantasy game. At minimum, I have to explain the overall setting, then drill down into the specific elements that are super important, then I can hand wave a bit and use random tables to give the Judge the tools necessary to flesh out the rest. That's how I like to do it. 

 

 Smashing the 1990s comic book energy of Survive This!! Vigilante City into the grimy, transgressive biopunk landscape of Red Room’s New Flesh creates a stark, unsettling tone. You are essentially taking the vibrant Saturday morning cartoon tropes of X-Men, Spider-Man, and TMNT and dragging them through a David Cronenberg and William S. Burroughs meat grinder.In this campaign frame, the Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

I've been listening to the audiobook of The Bird That Drinks Tears, the first book in the epic fantasy series Heart of the Nhaga by Korean author Lee Youngdo. The book was written in 2003, but this is the first time it has been translated into English. I'm only about a third of the way through, but I've been enjoying it so far.

In a world divided into the northern and southern realms by the Line of Limit, band of three individuals from the north, representative of the three races of that region, must go into the jungles of the south, the sole domain of the fourth race, to bring a member of that race (because, as an oft repeated adage says: "three handle one") back to an ancient temple for...well, as far as I've gotten, that hasn't been explained, but I'm sure it's world-saving stuff

One of the things I've liked about the series so far is the world-building. There are gigantic skyrays with ruins of a forgotten civilization on their backs, and dragons that are part plant, part animal, but the four races are one of the most interesting aspects. 

In the north, there are humans, of course, which are more fractious than other races, but also more numerous. They don't seem to have a nation-states or empires now (indeed, no one in the north seems to now) but they once did.

The Rekon are giant, avian humanoids. Most of the art I have seen depicts like humanoid roosters, which fits, I guess. They are immensely strong and skilled warriors and craftsmen. Each Rekon has an individual Calling, a life's work they strive to achieve.

The Tokkebi are sort of goblinish (though maybe not short like typical goblins), certainly mischievous and magical. They are able to control fire and create illusions from it. They are nonviolent but have no fear of death because if their body is killed, they continue on as spirits.

In the South live the Nhaga who have gotten the most detail so far. They are cold-blooded, reptilian humanoids who are fierce defenders of the trees of the first and only eat live prey. Their hearing is poor, but they see heat and talk to each other by a sort of telepathy called nireum. At the age of majority, they have their hearts removed and so become nearly immortal and hard to kill as they can regenerate. Nhaga society is divided into matriarchal houses where adult men are only ever visitors to help the women conceive children.

Anyway, it's been good so far. Interested to see where it goes.

Fan art for the series by artist Sangheon Nam

 Yes, absolutely. In fact, Adventurer Conqueror King System II (ACKS II) and Original Dungeons & Dragons (OD&D) share the exact same mechanical DNA.Because ACKS II is built on the foundation of the classic Basic/Expert (B/X) tradition—which itself was a direct stream-lining and evolution of OD&D—the two systems are highly compatible. You can easily lift elements from one and dropNeedleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

 Bringing Kulan Gath—the ancient, world-conquering sorcerer from classic pulp and comic fantasy—into The Sword of Cepheus 2nd Edition requires building him as a high-tier, existential threat. Because Cepheus 2E uses a 2D6 + Skill + Characteristic DM mechanic, a high-level sorcerer's power comes from a massive intellect, devastating Eldritch spells, and his signature magic item.Here is the Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

Says here I have published 2,161 posts on this blog. About three a week since August 2011. All but eight have been reviews. Let’s post a ninth, shall we?

The tenfootpole is a place of crap. Full of shit and worthless writing about it. A monument to the hubris of man that stinks like a trash container full of dead squirrels sitting the June heat for a week.

What it is not is an outpost of the great internet hype machine. But the hype machine has made a foray, testing the borders of the volcano lair. You see, Greg Gawron, Founder, Advanced Fantasy Games, has responded to my review of The Lost Tomb of Kazcuk Mot the Undying. You can read the response for yourself, or simply rely on my cherry picking. Fear not gentle ones, while there is no bad publicity, I have no great conceit here. Nothing matters and the tilting of windmills must be done, as Camus says, in spite of the results.

Our goal was to hit the market with a fun and challenging adventure that sets a new standard for Old School formats, use of cool artwork reflective of the earlier days of D&D, and other traditional things like a removable cover, blue map, challenging encounters, 12 point font for easy reading in low light, and more. However, we didn’t just put extra effort into the module itself, we also made a commitment to our customers with a quickly delivered product immediately after the Kickstarter closed. Also through our timely communications, packaging, shipping, and little details needed to earn their business again and again.

We see here, the Advanced Fantasy Games creed. This line is a nostalgia play. It is an appeal to nostalgia, no doubt to those middle aged people who have a fond memory from their past about D&D. And now have money to spend. It’s a member-berry. And, note, as a major selling point, the commitment to a quickly delivered product, timely communication, packaging, shipping, and other little details needed to earn the repeat reader business. Great for your fucking revenue stream, eh? Lots and lots of shit mentioned there isn’t there? Oh, hey, wait. Do you think it’s weird that not much is mentioned about the ACTUAL ADVENTURES? I mean, i don’t. Why would he write a decent adventure anyway when the focus is clearly on the repeated buyer.

Let us look now at the comments about the adventure that Greg Gawron, Founder, Advanced Fantasy Games, specifically called out to us, as convincing testimonials as ” direct messages received from our customers:”

“Just wanted to let you know I received my copy in the mail today and it looks fantastic the art print is getting framed and hung in my game room. Thank you again. I can’t wait to play it.” – Eric F.

Eric F. there didn’t say anything about the adventure. Eric F. got his in the mail. Eric F likes the art print and the way it looks. Eric F didn’t actually say anything about the adventure though, did they?

“Well packed. Carefully packed. Thanks Greg!” – Bill A.

Bill A there likes your packaging. Both well packed AND carefully packed. That certainly means a fun night ahead, right? The correlation between “I literally received it in the mail” and “a great adventure to run at the table!” is obvious, no?

“Layout is beautiful and so fantastically readable, Greg, great job!” – DTFA

A vote for reading the adventure from DTFA! I’m sure there will be many future readings of the adventure as well! And, well, layout, sure, right?

“OMG! This is awesome! Thanks Greg!” – SJ

Hey, it’s awesome! Weirdly nonspecific though. I wonder what was awesome. They seem very excitable. Maybe they think Applebees is awesome also? No specific comments about the adventure.

“Just got mine today! Love it!” – Steve J.

They got theirs. Presumably in the mail also, although, I must say, the lack of noting HOW they received it does raise my eyebrows more than a little. I do hope that the trend here is obvious, and was obvious from the second quoted one.

“I was lucky enough to get to play test and let me say it brought me back to my childhood and how much fun the OG of D&D was and still is very challenging and so much fun… Thanks.” – Vincent F.

Sounds like someone had a good DM. That’s great! I wonder if they actually played this adventure though? Or something else? Awwww, look, a direct reference to an aging person wistfully looking back at he lost days of their youth.

“Now, after having given it a 1st “Read Through” I must say, Excellent Work! Well Done! This is a great little adventure that will serve as a perfect introduction to OSRIC/AD&D, especially with the pre-gen characters. Thank you! I’ll be looking forward to the sequel.” – Joseph Y.

Maybe the closest to an actual comment about the adventure. Again, very non-specific about what is excellent and what is well done. At least they, unlike everyone else, actually read the adventure?

“Just got mine in the mail and I couldn’t be happier! Really nice job, and ahead of schedule.” – Rob H.

The take away here, for everyone actually writing good adventures, is that no one gives a fuck about your quality. They care about getting it in the mail and ahead of schedule. Well, presumably tat’s the baseline anyway. I should hope that writing something good raises the floor a bit in what one can expect … as long as you deliver it. And Early.

“I have to say this was one of the fastest campaign completions I have ever seen!” – Aaron T.

Again and again and again, we can see the important of commerce and not anything actually related to the adventure.

“I received mine today – looks great!” – JBCTCJoe

And again.

“I received my physical copy in the mail this week! It arrived in great condition, your packing skills & package nomenclature (DO NOT BEND) precede you, Greg! 

What the fuck is obsession here? I guess you can make $6k a month slopping out adventures as long as you ship it with a DO NOT BEND on it.

The module itself is a work of old school trade dress & format beauty & I cannot wait to dive into it! Thank you so much for this!” – Robert W.

Our final comment. An appeal to nostalgia.

Do you think it’s weird that NOT ONE PERSON commented on anything specifically about the adventure? It was all delivery and nostalgia trade dress. I think its weird that not one person said anything about the adventure. I also think its a lot weirder that Greg Gawron, Founder, Advanced Fantasy Games, selected those quotes to post. “Great commerce!” huh?

The post ends with Greg Gawron, Founder, Advanced Fantasy Games, making a direct appeal to marketing their latest and hyping it and noting that they are a good DM. That’s what it means when you run an adventure and people have fun. That you are a decent DM, at a minimum. Or, you don’t know what polite people look like. But, no, let’s remain optimistic and take you at face value, that you are a good DM.

I don’t really give a shit man. You’re just another in a long line of slop artists churning out nostalgia crap for an aging population that doesn’t actually play D&D anymore but just reads it. It’s their money. They can do what they want with it. Make your money. But let us not pretend you are producing anything decent or for any other reason than cranking out the old bank account. Not on this site.

"The end of the road. A lonely fort stands on the banks of a mighty river. It is here the hardy bands of adventurers gather to plan their conquests of The Hill, the hulking mass that looms over this tiny settlement.""The Hill is filled with monsters, they say, and an evil witch makes her home there. Still, no visitor to The Hill has ever returned to prove the rumors true or false. The thrill of Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to the end of Crisis! This week, I read the comics on sale on June 20, 1985.

Hex #1: Here at last is the series that's been teased (in the pages of Jonah Hex, at least) for the past few months. Fleisher and Texeira have Jonah Hex plucked from the 19th century and brought to some unspecified, post-apocalyptic near future (far enough away that capes and big metallic shoulder pieces have come into fashion, though). Hex was brought to the future by rich geezer, Borsten, who collects historical warriors--quite literally. He promptly escapes, though, and winds up teamed with a woman wasteland raider named Stilletta. He falls in with her gang of Road Reapers, who raid settlements to steal water in the radioactive deserts in the vicinity of Seattle. Hex has his doubts about the morality of all this, but before he can formulate a plan, fate steps in. Someone has tipped off the next target, and there's an ambush, and the gang's leader Falcon takes a dislike to him, so Hex winds up on his own with a stolen hover cycle and a costume out of Road Warrior. Then he almost has a head on collision with a Vietnam-era military helicopter!
Westerns were at an ebb in the early 80s and sales were apparently poor on Jonah Hex, so with post-apocalyptic films a fad in the wake of Mad Max, this new direction makes some sense. As a kid, I hadn't been a regular reader of Jonah Hex, but this title got my attention for its subject matter and the dynamic art of Mark Texeira.

Batman and the Outsiders #25: Barr and Davis have most of the Outsiders out of costume this issue as they go about the arrangements for the wedding of Metamorpho and Sapphire Stagg. Meanwhile, Halo is becoming part of the religious cult community she had stumbled into and doesn't notice anything sinister at first. She misses when the father of Brother David visits the community to try get his son to return home, and he's surreptitiously drugged by "Brother Abraham's" second in command. We learn later that he's a general working with "Star Wars," but I'm sure that's a coincidence.
Ultimately, David asks Halo to marry him, and he plans for them to leave the community. The cult leaders catch them, and Brother Abraham is revealed as Kobra. He recognizes Halo as a member of the Outsiders. Under threat of David's death, Kobra forces her to reveal Batman's secret identity. 

Blue Devil #16: Mishkin/Cohn and Kupperberg/Maygar continue the Vanquisher story from last issue. Marla,in the hands of the Vanquisher, Verner's chauffeur, Vance, whose brain is being affected by his super-suit, has to figure out a way to get him to calm down and keep herself out of danger. When the Vanquisher isn't reacting to unreal enemies, he starts to get rational. Then Dan shows up and almost blows things, but Marla quickly clues him in, and they've got things settled down when Kid Devil shows up and again stirs things up. Ultimately, Vance returns to his normal self, and Marla agrees to a date with him.

Green Lantern #192: Engelhart and Staton/Patterson spend most of this issue giving some background on Star Sapphire and her relationship to Carol, explaining how we got to this point. I don't know Star Sapphire's history well enough to know if any of this is retcon or not. After Star Sapphire tells her story, she leaves Hal and travels to Zamaron. Green Lanterns John Stewart, Katma Tui, and Dalor, following some Zamaron raiders, arrive on Zamaron in time to witness Star Sapphire's coronation as the new queen.

Infinity, Inc. #18: Either the Thomases are trying to make the Helix into a big deal or this issue is padded, because in addition to getting the Helix's origin (as victims of illegal in utero experimentation) and a fight between them and Infinity, Inc., we get a whole sequence of them robbing a store for "humor" and to showcase their powers and personalities. There's also a pin-up of them in the back of the issue. McFarlane is still leaving a lot of space in the layout that he's filling with character logos instead of just making the story panels bigger. Anyway, the issue ends on a cliffhanger or two with Jade poisoned with Mr. Bones's cyanide and the Harlequin confronting Thorn.

New Teen Titans #12: Wolfman and Woch/Tanghal give us a ghost story as Nightwing's and Cyborg's encounters with a ghostly little girl lead the team on an investigation that uncovers a murder of a family by the mob 50 years ago in Dick's apartment. It's not a bad bit of investigative storytelling, but it seems sort of out of place in a superhero team book. It would have worked better as a solo Nightwing story.

Sgt. Rock #404: Kanigher and Kubert bring us a reprint from Our Army at War #158 in 1965 repackaged with cool new Kubert cover. It tells the story of Rock's first meeting with the Iron Major, who's a bit of a different character here (commandant of a prison camp thanks to his injury and prosthetic) and pretty clearly intended to be a one-off. We also get an interesting detail about Rock's past: He and his brother were originally paratroopers involved in a test of gliding techniques to reduce mortality in cases of parachute failure over water. In a test of these techniques in a jump from the Golden Gate bridge, his brother Josh (Josh Rock?) is killed. Strangely, Josh calls his brother "Rock" throughout the flashback instead of "Frank." I wonder if Kanigher envisioned Rock as the Sargeant's first name in 1965? 

Saga of Swamp Thing #40: Moore and Bissette/Totleben bring us a feminist werewolf story. Swamp Thing follows Constantine's direction and goes to Maine where a woman named Phoebe has been transformed into a wolf creature under the moon by the lingering anger of the Pennamaquot Indian women who were forced to stay in a lodge while menstruating on the site where Phoebe's house is now located. Swamp Thing speaks with her but is no match for her rage. Ultimately, she kills herself on a knife display in a supermarket. Constantine shows up again, and Swamp Thing angrily tells him he's going home to Louisiana, but that's exactly where Constantine wants him to go.

Warlord #97: I reviewed this issue here.

Superman Annual #11: This is the second Moore scripted Superman story this month, this one with art by Gibbons. It's certainly the more famous of the two, having been adapted to an episode in the first season of Justice League Unlimited, and being reprinted as soon as 1988 in Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told. Interestingly, like the DC Comics Presents story, it involves Superman being taken over by an alien, non-animal organism. 
Batman, Robin, and Wonder Woman arrive at the Fortress of Solitude for Superman's birthday to find the Man of Steel seemingly insensate with an alien plant attached to his chest. This is the work of Mongul, who steps up to explain that the plant can psychically project a person's heart's desire, trapping them in a dream. While Wonder Woman fights Mongul, Batman and Robin try to remove the plant. Meanwhile, Superman experiences a world where Krypton survived, and he has a wife and child there.
With help from his friend's and his own force of will, Superman escapes the dream, though losing his son is emotional wrenching. Batman is briefly caught in his own dreamworld, but Robin saves the day, throwing the plant on Mongul before the alien can defeat Superman in a fight.


Who's Who #7: We finish off the D's here with a number of characters that haven't appeared a lot. Dr. Regulus last appeared in 1982 in Legion of Super-Heroes #286, while Dr. Psycho appeared in an arc in'82, but last showed up in Wonder Woman #325 earlier in '85. Dr. Thirteen had a run in Ghosts in 1981 and was last seen in a bit part in Batman #354 in '82. The others are more obscure, except for Dolphin who gets a sultry illustration by Dave Stevens and did appear as one of the Forgotten Heroes. 
Then, we're into the E's. There are bit players from now-ended titles: Earthworm from the never-satisfactorily solved storyline in the Huntress backup stories, and Eradicator from Supergirl. Then, Easy Company gets a 2-page spread by Kubert. The Eclipso entry has art by Gibbons, presumably because he drew him recently in Green Lantern. Elongated Man shows up in a costume he hadn't yet worn in the comics ny Infantino. With end the issue with two F's, one of which is Fastback from the Zoo Crew.

 Classic BECMI (Basic, Expert, Companion, Master, Immortal) and Rules Cyclopedia D&D typically utilize a nested 1d8 / 1d12 system for wilderness and dungeon generation. However, compiling those monsters into a flat, true d100 percentile framework makes running spontaneous classic hex-crawler sessions drastically faster.This photo came from Wayne's books in the article, 'BECMI Dungeons &Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

 Building a Sky-Ship (or Sky-Galley) using Warriors of the Red Planet (WotRP) within the framework of ACKS II turns a simple vehicular purchase into a major logistical, engineering, and financial project. This blog post picks up right from Building The Red Planet Empire - Mixing Warriors of the Red Planet (WotRP) with the Domain-level Architecture of ACKS II RpgIn ACKS II, large Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

By David Hay
Third Castle Games
OSE
Levels 1-3

Travel from sun-drenched beaches to dense jungle trails, over vine-rope bridges and up volcanic cliffs. Encounter lizardmen, the living dead, diabolical cultists and worse. Find magical items, gold and perhaps some glory too. Or at least a good tale to tell, should you make it to the taverns of Hardwind Harbour. But don’t tarry too long – for dark smoke belches from the volcano and the earth trembles. Where will your party be when it erupts?

This 74 page adventure uses about 55 pages to describe sixteen points of interest, and some of their dungeons, on a tropical island you are shipwrecked on. It’s pretty good for what it is, combining some ok formatting and a more situational approach to the adventure. I wish the overall situation on the island, how it works together, was addressed just a little more.

Oh no! You’re shipwrecked on a topical island! You probably find your way to the pirate town and there you probably find out it’s a lot harder to join a pirate crew than I thought. The island, while it has a map, is laid out like a pointcrawl. Each location is either self-contained or has a small complex/’dungeon’ attached to it. A couple of caves, a town, a necropolis, ye olde volcano temple, and so on, each with between eight to, say, eighteen locations in them. 

Ostensibly you are trying to get off the island, and many of the paths/leads go to the pirate town where you can bargain with the pirates. There’s pirate intrigue in the town, of course, and everyone wants something in order to help you out. But, also, there are other things about. You can find a small rowboat at one beach, and you see a much smaller island offshore, and it has a ship on it. A cursed ship, as it turns out. Do you know how to sail? Do you know how to recruit sailors to man a cursed ship? 

And, thus, we see a larger kind of more traditional hex crawl sort of thing going on in this adventure. In those more traditional hex crawls there are generally resources and wants/needs from others that the party exploits to fulfill their needs. They are generally not explicitly noted, with perhaps a few linkages explicit but in most other cases the party comes up with some crazy thing to do to exploit hex Y to do something in hex X. And this adventure, while a pointcrawl, does much the same thing. There ARE explicit linkages between the sites, Bob wants you to deal with the cult or Frank needs their crew found before they can do THE THING. But there are more than enough resources, and weirdo things going on, that the party can exploit things of their own design as well. This is good. The designer has written the adventure to present situations, expanding that to also present some more traditional crawls, and that situation-forward writing is what enables the more free-form non-linear gameplay. And, as the adventure reiterates a couple of times: “oh, and don’t forget to make the volcano explode!” 

The more traditional “dungeons” are decent, as well. Underground passages to swim to are a great example of a kind of hidden area of a dungeon that a party paying attention to can discover to get a reward/danger. A bridge over a chasm … and exploring the BOTTOM of the chasm is another example of that. Something a little oblique but obviously present, that the party can poke their noses in to. It’s the ol “cave behind the waterfall’ thing that I love so much. There are also rope bridges over a valley, complete with a corpse hanging from it and wild baboons on it. Or crack in a sea cave floor with an old rowboat, rickety, spanning it. The old “sarcophagus with something inside banging on it to get out’ thing. The rooms, much like the hexes, generally have more than one thing going on in it and many times the dangers are telegraphed well. A pool with luminescent seaweed, and when you go fucking around inthe pool you find out its strangleweed. Well, the DM told you the fucking seaweed glowed, did you think it was just window dressing. For that room, in particular, there’s a sandy floor with footprints, a pool of water, with the underground passage, a howling sound coming from somewhere and then that seaweed, and it’s all handled in one column rather than droning on and on. 

As that column note implies, formatting and word count here is pretty spot on. There’s a little sections at the top of an entry that could be read-aloud or inspiration, with some bolded words that reference bullets deeper in the description. A couple of sentences for each bullet, and two to three for the read-aloud/summary. It’s easy to scan and easy to locate information. There is a case of three of information being presented a little late, with something more critical to the action being presented later in the description/bullets. If there’s an ancient red dragon in the room then maybe get to that part sooner rather than later, yes?

I do want to call out something I rarely do: the art. More than once in this I thought some associated art pieces did a GREAT job of bringing the room better to life, which is what I think ALL art in an adventure should do. I understand this is subjective to some degree, but I know it when I see it. Tommaso Devitofrancesco and Gary Trow are credited with the interior art and one/both of them did a good job. “This large room is filled with magnificently sculpted statues standing in rows. At one end of the room war relics are displayed – trophies taken from the Old Empire’s defeated foes. Mosaics depicting famous victories festoon the walls.” This is accompanied by an art piece of greek-style warrior statues on plinths that really brings home the scale of the room. It’s one of the few times that good art in an adventure made me want MORE art pieces to do the same for EVERY encounter. (Which I’d probably then bitch about, but, whatever.)

There’s not a lot of padding in this thing. A few pages of pre-gens and one page of magic items at the end. The preamble before the keys are focused on wanderers and other pertinent information. Still, I wish perhaps the ‘summary’ information was just a little more in depth. A better overview of the various linkages between sites and perhaps a bit more about … campaigning? Hiring a ship, living in town, a sentence on expeditions … this is an expansive adventure and the support for that part of the play could have been better. The whole “jungle vibe” thing doesn’t really come through much at all. I think this is related to the pointcrawl nature; the immersive jungle setting doesn’t come through because the journey to the next time is essentially abstracted in a point crawl. That doesn’t have to be bad, but it needs a little attention, I think, to bring the journey part to life. The sites feel weirdly disconnected, which I guess makes sense give the pointcrawl nature. But, as I said, the designer must then remedy this. And the lack of travel time issues almost certainly strengths this abstraction and minimizes the jungle vibe. 

Still, a pretty decent adventure. I’m happy I found it and happy to see what the publisher does next.

This is $16 at DriveThru. The preview is nine pages and shows you the entirety of the starting point/cave complex. It’s a good representation of the encounters to be found, and shows off the nice Glynn Seal maps. 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/552809/escape-the-devil-s-eye?1892600

Only seldom is the summit not shrouded in clouds, but on that rare day when it is visible, it's easy to see how the mining town in the high valley below gets the name Silver Peak. The pinnacle is forever sheathed in ice and snow that doesn't retreat with the change in season thanks to maddened elemental fae, forever enraged at some ancient insult.
In the glaciers that run like deep, blue veins from summit there is para-elemental ice that resists melting for long periods. If another reason to mine the Dagards beside rich stories of thaumatite and occasional manastones was needed, the arcane ice provides it. The ice is the simplest and most widespread means of refrigeration and cooling in Parsulan, and until magitechnologists rediscovered the means to make it, the Ice Barons of Silver Peak were the supplier of that ice.
Each of the ice magnate families controlled territory around Silver Peak, which was mostly neutral ground as it was a necessary resource exploited by all. Their workers lived there, and it was everyone's haven from the periodic assaults by monsters and Fomori. 
In addition to periodic attacks by hostile creatures and thunderstone eruptions that can blast a miner (or part of them) high into the sky, ice mining carries unique hazards. When they take notice of intruders (which is only occasionally but often enough to be a risk), the fae turn their anger on them. Miners have had their blood frozen in their veins or had the ice winds of a blizzard blasted into their lungs. Sometimes the fae animated crude physical forms to attack. 
These assaults have only gotten worse, perhaps, since the Ice Castle was uncovered. In the last century, the miners delved too deep and stripped a layer of ice so that the structure encased within it came into view: a castle of soaring towers and fanciful battlements. No one knows who built the castle or what became of its inhabitants.

Since the Castle was revealed, the fae have become more active. Now they howl down from their usual haunts into the valley in the winter, creating unnatural cold. They are also more aggressive toward miners.
There are other strange things. People swear they see inexplicable tracks leading down form the castle, and then there is the weird music that sometimes drifts over Silver Peak.
Fewer miners are willing now to take the risk, and then there was the miners' union and demand for fairer wages and better protections. The ice barons have dwindled in number and influence, but the most tenacious of them have over time joined by intermarriage into one clan, the Stonehearts.