Written Sketches

I recently started using Day One, a journaling app that’s sleek and fun and has a popup feature whereby the app tells you, “Okay, write something.” I’ve been using it mostly for sketching — a pa[...]
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Verdan Incognita I

On Verdan, the “Civilized World” mostly consists of Eurasia – and not all of that. Much of the southern reaches of Africa, and the North and Eastern reaches of Asia, remain partially unknown. Much of the vast, [...]
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A canticle for leibowitz

And what makes you think the Memorabilia is completely free of pap? Even the gifted and Venerable Boedullus once remarked scornfully that about half of it should be called the Inscrutabilia. Treasured fragments of a dead[...]
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News from Around the Net: 3-FEB-2012

February!?! Where’d January go? Geesh! Here in Colorado, the snow started to fly last night and we are in the first real winter storm in 2012. What does that mean for yours truly? Not much really… I work from[...]
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Quadrotor Swarm: Evil? or am I just being paranoid

Don't you just hate it when someone invents something with the best of intentions and all you can think about are it's potential evil uses.[...]
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Doomsday Preppers Premieres February 7

The newest in a recent line of apocalyptic reality shows (Apocalypse Man and The Colony), National Geographic channel brings us Doomsday Preppers, premiering February 7.From the website:Doomsday Preppers explores the liv[...]
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[Beyond Dragon Age] Mystara Adversary Compendium I

Dragon Age Oracle collaborator and AGE System wiz Byron Molix hits it out of the park once more with his new project, the  for AGE. You will remember that Byron is the author of Mystara: The Known World, a campaign sett[...]
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A Twist in Time: Alternate Histories in RPGs

The latest iteration of my superhero campaign has just gotten underway. Being set (mostly) on an alternate-history Earth, it holds a number of elements that may be of interest to readers, especially if I explain the thin[...]
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My points of light…

Who knew that former US President George H. W. Bush was a Game Master, and a groundbreaking pioneer at that! He spoke about points of light campaigns in 1989 almost twenty years before D&D 4th edition. What’s that[...]
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Photo: Machu Picchu Temple of the Sun

The Machu Picchu Temple of the Sun, an Inca ruin from the 1400s. Its dry stone construction still stands to this day. Photograph released into the public domain by Fabricio Guzmán. [...]
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Verdan Arcanis – Technology and Magic II. The Biological Sciences

To continue with the state of the sciences on Verdan… On the biological side, the structure of the body is reasonably well understood, as are the nature of physically-based diseases (a few seem to be lux-based in n[...]
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EN World Review – Review of They Shall Be Paid In Coin of the Realm by Taurus Twelve

Happy Humpday, fellow gamers!  We’re halfway to the weekend, and this week cannot get over soon enough to please me.  I’ve got not only my regular local Friday night game this week, but also my bi-monthly D&D [...]
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Kubo

Through luck and courage, Kubo saved the day and managed to kill the half efreet.[...]
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Dungeons of Adel: The Hellmouth

One of the Arch-Dungeons of Adel, the Hellmouth is a member of a family of massive, seemingly living spaces that exist beneath each Nation of Adel (and the Abyss Isle and Noshiki), their exact positions shifting, shrinki[...]
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A to Z of UK RPG in the 80s: J is for Judge Dredd

2000AD hit the newstands in 1977 and its most popular and longest running character, Judge Dredd debuted in Prog 2.  The vision of writer John Wagner and artist Carlos Ezquerra, Dredd is a product of late 1970s pop [...]
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Verdan Arcanis – Technology and Magic I

The presence of magic has had two effects on the development of science and technology. It makes it MUCH easier to test things and to sort out what’s going on on an immediate, local, level. You want to look at somethin[...]
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Iz

I was listening to Canon Puncture the other day and they talked about the new segments they want to do and started thinking back to the player characters in my games, the ones I remember best. Let me tell you about Iz th[...]
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Tuesday Magic Item – Dragonpoint

Our contact was furtive, more so that usual for a dealing in black market magical weapon, which said something.  One he was certain that we were unobserved and he had lit a ward candle.  “Let me see the money,[...]
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3 abreast in a 10′ Corridor: Photographic Evidence from J E Holmes

Jeff Rients recent post jogged my memories of playing with old school 25mm minis and this plate from Dr Holmes' book "Fantasy Role Playing Games" seems to support it.  Citadel and their 1 inch plastic bases have a l[...]
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I Need Help: An Appeal

The long and short of it, is that I’m in trouble. I’ve hit bottom, and I don’t know what to do. I’ve exhausted all other options. I want to ask for your generosity and empathy. I’m uncomfort[...]
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Introducing: Blazing Spear

High time to pull back the curtain, I think.Blazing Spear is the tentative name for an original bronze age weird fantasy setting I and two others have been working on since early 2011. There are numerous influences (from[...]
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No Assembly Required: Wobet

Welcome to the January 2012 Edition of No Assembly Required, a monthly column that provides DMs with a ready-to-use monster for a Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition campaign. The monster can... Read more »[...]
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How to write a free RPG – Chapter 8: Publish

Finish your game. Finish your game. Finish your game. Stop procrastinating and finish it. The act of creation can be exciting and a struggle but if you don't finish it, you'll never know if it was any fun to play. Publis[...]
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Book Review: Unusual Suspects: Guide to an Interrogation Session by Robert Oglodzinski from Library of Ancient Scroll

When I started working with Robert Oglodzinski a few months ago, I reviewed Walls Can Talk, which collects a few “legends and adventure ideas” for fantasy and horror games. The layout, done by Michael Wolf (S[...]
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Inspiration Viewing – A Bad Day at Black Rock

A Bad Day at Black Rock is fascinating movie set in 1946 in the small, isolated California town of Black Rock.  The train stops and a man gets off, a stranger to the town.  This is notable as this is the first time the[...]
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Switched at Birth – An Origin Story

A good background should help define who the character is, especially early in the adventurer when he’s relatively inexperienced. Your PC’s backgrounds should do more than just provide him with skill bonus or a free [...]
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Spellbooks as Physical Accessories

Over at The Tower of The Archmage, Tim posted some inspirational images of spellbooks.  In my campaign world, The Lands of Dual, I've always insisted that players whose PCs are spellcasters, create their own spell b[...]
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Supplement Review: Caves & Caverns (PFRPG) by Creighton Broadhurst and David Posener from Raging Swan Press

Just about every fantasy campaign I’ve ever played in has involved a cave system or cavern at one time or another. And though I’m a fan of dungeons, I really like it when there’s more of a natural eleme[...]
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Verdan Arcanis – Historical Development

Mankind’s early Eurasian history on Verdan resembles events on Earth relatively closely up until around the Age of Discovery. Yes, Verdan has some magic, and even relatively minor magic has an impact – but wh[...]
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Ancient Scroll’s Secret Room: To Punish and Enslave (or “Being Lawful”)

Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. - Albert Einstein One who breaks an unjust law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who wi[...]
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Taug (TOOK) Maciver

Vagabond Scottish Tinker with a knack for inventing things out of scraps (4)Former priest seeking redemption (3)Self-sufficient outdoorsman (3)Taug Maciver is a failed priest from Inverness-shire, Scotland who left for A[...]
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Verdan Arcanis – Basic Magic

With the Star Wars game winding down thanks to some exceptionally clever maneuvering by the players, it’s time to start setting up the next one – and, thanks to a series of player votes, it’s going to be the Ba[...]
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Deviant Friday – Marcio Takara Edition

Marcio Takara has a way with tiny - I've featured his tiny superheroes before as being great for folks looking for cheap paper miniatures of superheroes for their RPGs. He's also pretty slick with larger fare, with a cle[...]
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New Monster – Deep Miner

DEEP MINER A sickly green glow lights the corridor as an emaciated specter of a dwarven miner emerges from the wall.  The wreckage of a dwarven soul mutters to himself, his eyes unfocused until he sees the gold ring on [...]
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The Art of the Small—Fluff here! Get your hot crunchy fluff here!

…this info…invit[es] the DM to seed his adventures with references, clues, and mysteries pertaining to the party […], or for players at the table to press for the meanings and leanings behind such... [[ This is a [...]
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They don’t sparkle, period!

I know I am late to the party, the Vampire the Masquerade 20th anniversary celebration was last year. But I did not catch the anniversary bug until this year. My relation with Vampire is a complicated one. I was in colle[...]
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News from Around the Net: 27-JAN-12

Hope everyone has had a good week! Mine has been interesting… We’ve been dealing with getting some water damage assessed and fixed in our house after a small overflow in an upstairs bathroom resulted in a fam[...]
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Arkham Horror begats Call of Cthulhu

Being down three players last night (Dan Dan the Power Game Man is overseas for awhile, Little Ben has to take a month or two off suddenly, and Big Ben had a cold), we decided to finally play Paul’s copy of Arkham Horr[...]
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EN World Review – The Breaking of Forstor Nagar by Rite Publishing

Greetings good Readers and fellow D&D gamers! Today is the first day of the DDXP convention down in Indiana this weekend, and I understand that some of us have had a chance to try their hand at D&D Next.  In f[...]
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Myriad Characters: Athael, Angel Coordinator

Authorizing extermination of all Class: [ADELIAN] lifeforms in the vicinity. Fulfilling the Directive. All non-Human life is to be purged.  Should any show signs of willingness to cooperate, exterminate them as well. Ad[...]
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The Compact: Post-apocalyptic Campaign

Michael’s recent post about his upcoming campaign has lit a fire under me to work on a couple of campaigns I’ve had on the backburner for a while. He always tells me I should post about my game sessions, campaigns an[...]
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The Gassy Gnoll: What Makes a Location Fantastic (RPG Blog Carnival)

Once in a while a question crops up via a RPG Blog Carnival topic that makes me scratch my head and ponder for a bit. And yes, before you ask, most Gassy Gnolls are predominantly pondering people. We like to ponder just [...]
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The Chronicles of Heavenly Artifice Session XXXIX – Gates of the Third Circle

Hala’s little reverie hadn’t taken up much time – although she would like to know what caste her bondmate was… After twenty thousand years there was no easy way to find out much about who’d had your exa[...]
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Tuesday Magic Item – Venturer’s Friend at Court

First crafted by the bard Rufus Friend of the Commons for a delegation of simple villagers to the court of the King; a keen-eyed dwarven venturer sniffed out the magic behind the commoners’ excellent manners and co[...]
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World Building and the Campaign: How Far into the weeds?

So, I have a gaming group and I'm digging the whole DMing thing again.  As I've mentioned, we are running through a heavily modified version of Keep on the Borderlands using OSRIC.  So far, we've explored a bit[...]
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How to write a free RPG – Chapter 7: Testing

Your game needs to be tested before it’s devoured by the general public. Testing ranges from simple mechanics tests all the way through to a full blow campaign play test. If you do not have a group to test with and can[...]
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My 10 Favourite Sci-Fi Posters

Thanks to Davis Chenault for his post highlighting the IGN 25 Top Sci-FI Posters.Here's my top 10 (in no particular order) with some alternate versions thrown in for good measure:1. MAD MAXOriginal Theatrical Poster UK P[...]
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The Chronicles of Heavenly Artifice Session XXXVIII – Out of the Umbra

Sadly, despite Mr Montagues calling them in, the Nocturnals hadn’t been able to help out with the analysis much; there was just no way of knowing what WAS “normal” for a young primordial! Nobody even knew how they [...]
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Listen to Your Characters

As a follow up to my previous post, "Let Your Campaign Talk to You", I've been thinking about new ways to approach developing character backgrounds, and looking at various techniques from literature and televis[...]
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More details on my new campaign

On the weekend my girlfriend worked on the campaign world for our upcoming Shadow, Sword & Spell game. I am actually very happy with the result so far and aside from a proper map I have almost enough material for th[...]
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