Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day: (D100 table of Items)

I've been down with a kidney stone for the past week or so, but in honor of Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day, I put together another d100 table of magical item ideas.  Now in keeping with my views on magic of course most of these sound cursed, but I think that some of them could be quite beneficial.  These are just the item names and would need to have stats made up for them for either S&W or whatever game system you prefer, but hopefully some of you will find some inspiring ideas in this list.

If you enjoy this, be sure to check out these free resources:

1,001 Weird and Wacky Adventure Ideas

and

1,001 More Weird and Wacky Adventure Ideas

Miniatures Monday: Delayed

Sadly, Miniatures Monday has been delayed this week due to an issue with a rather nasty kidney stone.  I'll look to get back to posting as soon as I'm feeling better, since right now painting requires being able to sit up for longer than I can manage.  Until then enjoy some of my weak artwork in color. :-)

Happy 40th Anniversray to the Holy Grail

Wow.  I can't believe that it's 40 years old.  That would make me...more than 40 years old. ;-)  After all of these years I still love this movie, and I've seen Spamalot twice.  It just never get's old.  I feel Happy!

Weird Adventure Idea Wednesday

Well, here we are again, with another weird adventure idea!  This one sounds like a bad idea all around!  I think we might want to hire an NPC to light that lamp...

Adventure Idea:

On a bracing autumn afternoon you happen upon a friendly vicar sitting on a boulder beside the road.  The vicar explains to you that 4 weeks travel to the east, deep beneath the Ruined City of the Depraved Vivisectionists, lie the Befouled Sewers of the Vengeful Gods.  It is whispered that hidden there is the Flesh Melting Lamp of the Ruined Adjudicator.  But beware, for the vicar warns you that the Brotherhood of the Iron Eye makes its lair in those dreaded sewers!

If you enjoy Weird Adventure Idea Wednesday, be sure to check out these free resources:

1,001 Weird and Wacky Adventure Ideas

and

1,001 More Weird and Wacky Adventure Ideas

Miniatures Monday

In today's installment of Miniatures Monday, we see a heavily armed and rather grizzled warrior charging from the cover of the forest.  I think this guy may have mugged Don Quixote and stolen his armor.

Review: Star Wars RPG Adversary Decks

     So the first time that I ran FFG's Edge of the Empire, I found myself wishing for an easy way to represent enemies.  As you know, Edge of the Empire and the rest of FFG's Star Wars games use special dice, so it's necessary to roll different amounts of differently shaped and colored dice for different opponents depending on their stats and skills.  Now this isn't that hard, and once you get to know the system it's not too bad to figure out, but it can be tricky for GMs that are new to the system.  What I found myself doing was writing down the opponents then doing crude sketches of the dice so that I quickly knew how many combat dice to roll for Thug #1 or Slaver #2.

     When I came across these Adversary Decks at my FLGS I was pretty excited.  I imagined that they would have all of the things that I needed for an encounter in one easy place.  We'll talk about whether or not that turned out to be the case a little bit later.
     First, let's talk about the cards.  There are three decks currently available; Scum and Villainy which has an assortment of smugglers slavers, and bounty hunters; Citizens of the Galaxy, which has things like droids, dancers, and various administrator types; and Imperials and Rebels, which has your various Imperial and Rebel soldiers, leaders, and pilots.  The front of each card has a large full color adversary picture on the front along with all of that individual's stats and skill.  The back of each card lists the adversary's talents, abilities, equipment, and a descriptive writeup to provide some flavor.

Adversary Deck Front

Adversary Deck Back

     I think that these cards were a great idea, and the art is top notch, but sadly, they have what I think is one big drawback for the novice GM, and that is that it is still necessary to figure out the dice on your own.  So, a Hired Thug with an Agility of 2 and a Ranged (Light) skill of 1 would roll... "Hmm, I'll need to figure that out" to attack.  I think that it would have been great to have represented at least the adversary's combat skills in format that was used in the Edge of the Empire Beginner's Box adventures, which used the dice symbols along with the skill ratings.

How I wish they had done them

     Many of the cards have plenty of space on them for it, and I think it would have been possible to have shortened the ones that didn't.  It's really a shame that they didn't do this because I think it would have made these cards a must have for all GMs who are new to the system.  When I compare the Star Wars Adversary Cards to my recently arrived Far Away Land RPG Creature Cards: Series 1, I have to say that the Far Away Land cards are more useful to me as they provide everything that I need with no needs for extra calculations.  But then I'm kind of lazy. :-)

     Overall, I'm going to give The Star Wars Adversary Decks a 3 out of 5 rating.  They are a good idea that could have been great if they had just included the dice symbols.

Weird Adventure Idea Wednesday

Well, here we are on another Wednesday, and just like a bad penny, another weird adventure idea has turned up!

Adventure Idea:

On a starry night you have a chance encounter with a pious friar on an overgrown footpath.  The friar explains to you that 23 days walk to the northwest, beneath the Crater of Blasphemous Bones, lay the Melting Caverns of Transcendence.  It is reputed that there is hidden the Eternal Saw of Silence.  But beware, for the friar warns you that it is said the Amorphous Mutant of Decay engulfs all who dare enter that forbidden place!

If you enjoy Weird Adventure Idea Wednesday, be sure to check out these free resources:

1,001 Weird and Wacky Adventure Ideas

and

1,001 More Weird and Wacky Adventure Ideas

Spy Games: Or good rolls for bad results

     This really makes me want to play a game of Danger International, or Top Secret. :-)
     Back in the day, the day being the early 1980s, we would take the occasional break from dungeon delving to explore a more modern genre, the espionage game.  Now back then, in the area where we lived the two options were TSR's Top Secret and Victory Games' James Bond 007 RPG.  I can't recall exactly why we played Top Secret, but it was probably the fact that it came out first.
     Now I secretly suspect that my group favored Top Secret even over D&D.  I was a lot more into fantasy than the rest of them and I think they found the world of spies and saboteurs a bit more cool.  It was after all the Cold War.   In any case, Friday evenings would often find us knee deep in some spy shenanigans.  The players were employees of the M.S.O. which stood for the Mysterious Spy Organization, headed by the mercurial spymaster known only as J.  The Mysterious Spy Organization was famous for it's ever moving headquarters, which was once found to be hidden in secret tunnel concealed beneath an ice machine in the middle of the desert.
     The party consisted of Keith, who was the most straight up James Bond type spy, Ross, who really liked to shoot guys (more on this later), and Len, who would probably have sold out his mother to the enemy for the right price.  Now Top Secret, unlike D&D had hit locations, which were the source of endless amusement to us, particularly to Ross.  Ross's character always carried a 9mm P-08 Luger, and he shot everyone in the foot.  The left foot.  This was not intentional, but rather just the way that he rolled.  In order to determine hit location, the players just had to make a simple percentile dice roll modified by certain factors like movement and cover.  Ross had the dubious luck to frequently roll in the 98 to 00 range, which is generally a range associated with good things like head shots and critical hits.  Not so in Top Secret though, for in that system, the range was reserved for the lowly left foot.
  We had a lot of fun with that game, like the time that Keith's character beat the party's recurring nemesis Nelson to death with the porcelain cover of a toilet tank.  The there was the time when Len, in order to prove his loyalty to the villains during an infiltration mission, shot Keith in the head.  And of course, there were all those villains who were found limping after being shot in the left foot by Ross.
     Our adventures weren't terribly original.  Most of them happened in casinos, or remote alpine ski resorts, or exotic Caribbean islands, and were thinly veiled rehashes of our favorite spy novels, but we had a blast.  Man, those were some good times.
     So who else has some fun spy adventure stories from their youth that they would like to share?

Miniatures Monday

It's Miniatures Monday once again, and this weeks we see two wolves prowling outside of a humble peasant cottage.  Those poor peasants!  Last week they had a brigand, and this week they have wolves.  They'll be lucky to be here by next week.

Far Away Land RPG Creature Cards: Series 1

These arrived in the mail today!

And they are splendid!  Everything about them from the artwork to the presentation is fantastic.  They will make setting up encounters even easier than it is now.  Just the other day, I picked up the three adversary decks for FFG's Star Wars game, and the these cards for Far Away Land are by far and away a superior product.  Also, I love the orange skull motif around the border.  Well done!

Weird Adventure Idea Wednesday: Today in color!

It's Weird Adventure Idea Wednesday again with another adventure idea to hopefully spur your imagination!  Man these things just keep happening, and this one happened in color.  This week's adventure idea requires a perilous crossing to a rather curious sounding place.

Adventure Idea:

On a steamy evening you run across a raving swordsman on a forgotten trail.  The swordsman loudly declares to you that 2 weeks travel to the north, across the Gorge of the Eyeless Serpents, was built the Throbbing Sepulcher of Mysteries.  It is whispered that there can be found the Harrowing Steel Arrows of Blinding.  But beware, for the swordsman cautions you that it is reputed the Revolting Colossus of Darkness haunts that place!

If you enjoy Weird Adventure Wednesday, be sure to check out these:

1,001 Weird and Wacky Adventure Ideas

and

1,001 More Weird and Wacky Adventure Ideas

Also, if you prefer the black and white artwork, I'm including that as well.

Iron Kingdoms Campaign Update

To keep Dan in the loop. :-)

     So when last I left off, our intrepid band had just captured the prime suspect in the warehouse break-ins and had been promised by our friend Sgt. Hill that we could question him at the jail when he regained consciousness.
     Voldrag the Doom Reaver was late in arriving at the jail (I missed last week), and when he got there, he was greeted with a scene of tremendous carnage.  Five grey cloaked individuals lay dead, and the prisoner was holding his leg, having had the tendons cut during some torturing by the party...  Additionally, two of the party's elves had vanished, and the gobber had gone off to buy some coal for his steamjack at some point.  We have also acquired an alchemist named Trayjo.  Voldrag was sad at having missed such an epic battle, as he's always one for a good fight.
     The prisoner, who is named Davin revealed that he was hired by a woman named Tyla Helden to search for a necromatic relic, and that she was currently staying at the Smoke and Stack Inn.  Davin the prisoner asked to be freed, or at least provided with a weapon to defend himself as the grey cloaked guys had been sent to kill him.  Instead, Mallik the gun guy inexplicably shot Davin in his other leg, the one that hadn't had its tendons cut during torture.  The Doom Reaver was pretty weirded out by this, and he's a Doom Reaver...
     The party returns to the headquarters of the Illustrious Brass Anchor Trading Company to speak with Diera, our employer.  While selling the goods acquired from killing the grey cloaked assassins, we learned that one of them was none other than the renowned rifle guy Thurston Sale.  No way that one will come back to bite us.  No way.
     The party journeys onward to the Smoke and Stack Inn, where we meet up with our old friend Rel Venik, the manager of one of the robbed warehouses.  Rel seems pretty disturbed and took the party to a back room where he revealed that it is him that Tyla Helden was seeking.  He then proceeded to relate to the party a wild story that involved The Five Fingers, a group called the Black Guards, a place called the Shatter Stones, some undead, some caverns, and a mysterious priest who gave him his wild tattoos.  Now all of this had Voldrag thinking, "I've got to check this place out!"  Alas Voldrag's adventurous musings were cut short, for during Rel's tale, an evil curse was activated that began closing up his eyes, nose and mouth threatening to suffocate him!  It was super creepy, and despite the party's best attempts to save him, Rel sadly expired, but he did leave a note.

     Upon inspecting Rel's body, the party discovered that parts of a map were tattooed on him in various places.  The party copied down the map, then left the Smoke and Stack with his body, by pretending that he was drunk.  We ditched his body and returned to the Smoke and Stack Inn to search a room that we had the key from, having relieved one of the dead grey cloaked assassins of it.  The room turned out to have nothing of interest, so we returned to the bar where while chatting with the bartender, the party revealed that they were seeking Tyla Helden and were in the employ of the Illustrious Brass Anchor Trading Company.   No way that one will come back to bite us.  No way.

Free Map: Colorful Caves

     Here is a small map that I drew on a rainy day several months back for use in a game that I still haven't gotten around to running.  Originally, it was a black and white map on graph paper.  I've since taken the time to color it, and am pretty happy with how it turned out.  It's got some standard cavern things, stalagmites, an underground stream, a waterfall, a fountain with an eerie green obelisk, and of course some giant mushrooms. :-)  
     Fell free to take it, use it as is, or change it however you see fit.  Stock it with monsters, treasure, and nefarious traps, or stock it with unicorns, rainbows, and spun sugar.  Whatever you fee like.  So break out your favorite roleplaying game rules, whether it'sTunnels and Trolls, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Far Away Land or anything else you're in to.  If anyone does use it to create ann adventure, please feel free to link to your creation in the comments area, I'd love to see your work.

If you enjoy this may, feel free to check out the rest of my blog for more stuff:  

Miniatures Monday

In this week's Miniatures Monday, we see a fellow standing outside of a stone cottage, but why is he there?  Is he a harmless peasant on his way to a day of labor, or is he perhaps a brigand waiting to waylay the unsuspecting dwellers within?  I'm going with brigand, what do you think?

Weird Adventure Wednesday Redux (An experiment with color)

In glorious color

Cleaned up

Original Scanned image

I decided to give color a try in my Weird Adventure Wednesday illustrations, so I loaded one into Gimp and played around a bit.  I cleaned up the graph paper lines from the original hand drawn image, then colored it in.  I did it quickly, and I missed a few spots, but overall I'm rather happy with the results.  I think that the color adds to the cartoony feel that I'm going for.  I'm not sure that I'll be doing color illustrations regularly going forward, but I'll probably slip one in from time to time.  So what does everyone think?  Do you prefer color or black and white?