Free PDF Download: New BX Character Class - Half-orc

Almost a year ago, I mentioned that the Character Class Codex would include a half-orc, which I saw as a way "to fill in the BX need for an assassin (but using a race class to do it)."

This statement last year was not how I envisioned a BX half-orc, it was how I'd already written it. Yes. This class has existed for about a year, and I'm just sharing it now. That being said, I do believe I made this an option during my "Cold Fingers of Fate" game at NTRPGCon this past year (and IIRC, somebody actually played it; I just don't have my notes from the game handy to confirm).

Enough of my jibber-jabber. Onto that link...

Click here to download the
Half-ord character class PDF.

Really Old Old-school Artist: Austin Molloy (aka Austin Ó Maolaoid, AóM)

Many of you may notice that the art of today's featured artist Austin Molloy (1886–1961) bears a striking resemblance to illustration legend Harry Clarke. So it may come as no surprise that Molloy was friends with Clarke; they met at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art (now named the National College of Art and Design) as students, then Molloy went on to teach there. Tell me the last image below doesn't reek of Harry Clarke.

Molloy (aka Austin Ó Maolaoid, AóM) had a pretty prolific career, serving An Gúm (The Scheme), a government initiative in Ireland started in 1925 to publish books in Irish, as his main client for many years. All the images below pre-date 1925, but many of them could have been done in the last 40 years by someone like Russ Nicholson (specifically the boy fighting the hound, or the Grummsh-looking mother-effer below it).

I can't remember exactly how I stumbled across his work, but I do know it was during a recent "Archive.org expedition" (what I call those times I sit front of the TV with my feet up, my laptop in my lap, and I just keep poking around Archive.org until I find something relevant-but-previously-undiscovered-by-me).

SO DIG THIS STUFF!!!

New Oe/1e/BX Monster: Ambler

This is something I drew a while back and shared on Google+ as an illustration only.
Now it's a fully-statted creature.

An ambler (a contraction of the words “armored” and shambler”) is an elemental creature created from the massive sphere of armor and weapons located at the center of the Demi-plane of Electro-magnetism. When one of these anomalies escape their home plane (e.g., ported in by a powerful magic-user), the ambler appears as a shambling mishmash of mismatched pieces of armor in a vaguely humanoid form with 1-4 usable limbs, each of which has a 75% chance of holding a small-to-medium weapon (hand axe, dagger, 1-handed sword, etc.). Because producing an ambler requires it to be summoned (as opposed to being conjured from existing material), control of the ambler is not automatic, nor will it serve any creature (even its summoner), so it will not follow orders unless compelled to do so my some additional force (e.g., a charm or control spell). The ambler can understand any language that was possessed by the previous owner of any piece of armor used in its composition, or weapon it holds (usually this will include common, dwarvish and elvish, though it is not unheard of for this to also include halfling and orcish; other languages known are at the discretion of the DM but is suggested that there be a 90% chance of the ambler knowing any common language, 30% for any uncommon language, 10% for any rare language, and 1% for any very rare language, assuming the language in question is spoken by species that normally wears armor). The electromagnetism in the ambler is so strong that should a successful melee strike be made against the ambler by a normal (i.e., non-magical) weapon made of a magnetic metal (e.g., steel or iron), there is a 50% chance that the weapon will become “stuck” to the ambler, and useless by the attacker. Amblers are affected by protection from evil spells, and can be returned to their home plane by dispel magic, but can also be dealt with using extraplanar dismissal or banishment. If dismissed or banished, any weapon stuck to the ambler will be transported with it.

Oe/1E STATS FREQUENCY: Very rare NO. APPEARING: 1 ARMOR CLASS: 0 MOVE: 6" HIT DICE: 5-8 % IN LAIR: Nil TREASURE TYPE: Nil NO. OF ATTACKS: 1-4 DAMAGE/ATTACK: 1-6 or by weapon SPECIAL ATTACKS: Nil SPECIAL DEFENSES: +1 or better needed “to hit” MAGIC RESISTANCE: Standard INTELLIGENCE: Low ALIGNMENT: Neutral SIZE: M-L PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil Attack/Defense Modes: Nil BX STATS ARMOR CLASS: 0-3 HIT DICE: 5-8* MOVE: 60'(20') ATTACKS: 1-4 DAMAGE: 1-6 or by weapon NO. APPEARING: 1 SAVE AS: Fighter:5-8 MORALE: 10 TREASURE TYPE: Nil ALIGNMENT: Neutral

One Crazy Summer

Well, I haven't sailed in any regattas to save a singer's grandfather house, or been buried up to my neck on the beach beneath a guy in a folding chair eating chili, but it has been one crazy summer.

Nothing terribly bad, mind you, just a summer full of distractions. Just as summer began (you know, during the week of NTRPGCon), my wife quit one job, started a small re-sale business during June, then took a new job at the end of June. That meant a lot of furniture moving for me (3 carloads out of her old classroom, 3 carloads to the antique mall/mercantile space, and 2 carloads to her new classroom). July and August saw me dealing with a small, but annoying medical thing (just a small sore on my leg that is taking forever to heal properly which is eating up my schedule with trips to the wound care specialist). Not to mention a super-hectic workload all summer-long; in addition to a couple of sizable paying projects, I've been working with a couple of start-ups with a personal ownership stake. (In the 16 years I've been working for myself, I have never before contributed time to start-ups for two reasons: 1) I have heretofore not had faith in any of those proposed to me to be successful, and 2) the motto of all designers should be, "Fuck you. Pay me." However, the 2 start-ups in question are: 1) both being started by past clients who have brought me a lot of business/income, and 2) I do truthfully believe in the possibility of their success.)

So that brings me to the real point of this blog post... I'M BACK BITCHES!

My wife is back on a regular school-year schedule, which means I'm back on a regular schedule. I've already got three new blog posts loaded for the upcoming week, and Welbo and I are back full-force on the final preparations for Steve Marsh's Shattered Norns 5e book. And for those who've been waiting patiently, we'll soon be adding a batch of the Classic Edition GM Screen for sale on the New Big Dragon Storefront.

It's good to be back!