Valley of the Five Fires Microgame Update

Over the weekend, I finally received my beta print chits/counters for the Valley of the Five Fires microgame. Superior POD is seriously backed up right now, so the chits I'd hoped to have for the NTRPG Con (on June 6th or 7th) just arrived Saturday (June 21st). Even the expected date was more like the 10th or 11th. Knowing the chits would take a while to get here, I delayed finishing up the edits to beta version of the rules, but given the chits are here now, I suppose I can finish this up by end of week. Give me another week or so, and I'll put out the official call for playtesters. (BTW, feel free to express interest here, but please understand I will probably only cull testers from the "official" calls when they happen.)

Free RPG Day: Free d30 Potpourri

As promised yesterday, here are some new d30 charts free for download...
1) d30 Gnoll Encounters
2) d30 Disturbing Sights/Visions, Foreboding Events, and Dark Prophecies
3) d30 Misc. Magic Items: Capes, Cassocks, and Cloaks

Yes, it's a true potpourri of d30 goodness... a little bit of everything (encounters, details, and treasure). To download them from MediaFire, click the title above each pic.


d30 Gnoll Encounters


d30 Disturbing Sights/Visions, Foreboding Events, and Dark Prophecies


d30 Misc. Magic Items: Capes, Cassocks, and Cloaks

Free d30 Charts for Free RPG Day

I know I've been quite remiss in my normal d30 Friday downloads around here, but I guarantee you I've been working on a bunch of new d30 charts. So tomorrow, in honor of Free RPG Day, I will be posting several free d30 downloads here for your gaming pleasure. (I need to look through what I've done and decide which, but there will be at least 3.)

1$ gets you: a new character class, a starter level adventure, over 2 dozen NPC encounters, 3 magic items, and more!

... BUT ONLY UNTIL TOMORROW (Thursday, June 18, 2014)!

Right now, the PDF of issue #2 of the The Dragon Horde zine is on sale for $1 at RPGNow.

Those of you lucky enough to attend the NTRPG Con know that I had print copies of The Dragon Horde zine #1 and The Dragon Horde #1 a week and a half ago. Well, now issue #2 is available to the general public in both PDF (from RPGNow) and in print (through the New Big Dragon Marketplace). Unfortunately, I'm still working out international shipping, so print sales are limited to domestic (US) shipping only. (But give me a couple of weeks, and I think I'll have the international thing worked out). Issue #1 has been available as a PWYW PDF for quite some time, but it is now available in print (also at the New Big Dragon Marketplace).

And as usual, when you buy through the marketplace, I'll send you a coupon for a complimentary PDF copy from RPGNow (to the email address you use at the marketplace).

So what's inside this Nordic-themed issue of The Dragon Horde?

• The Monster Roster: Linnorms (Oe/BX/1e information for 6 types)

• The Long and Short of the Viking Longhouse (with several sample maps)

• Here's the Thing... (folkmotes and fitting them into your adventures)

• The Völva: A New NPC Character Class - including several new spells
(part seer, part shaman, part wanderer... all woman)

• Vifillmein: An Adventure for Characters Levels 1-3

• Dealing with Level Drain (a host of alternatives to "by the book" level drain)

• The Houses of the Mark: NPC Encounters Adapted from
William Morris's The House of the Wolfings (NPC encounters for nearly
2 dozen tribes and their most important members)

• A Trio of Norse-inspired Magic Items

And because it's a half-legal size, that means you get about 25% more content than a digest-sized zine with the same page count. Just check it out for yourself...

Dragon Horde Zine #2 Now Available in Print & PDF

Those of you lucky enough to attend the NTRPG Con know that I had print copies of The Dragon Horde zine #1 and The Dragon Horde #1 a week and a half ago. Well, now issue #2 is available to the general public in both PDF (from RPGNow) and in print (through the New Big Dragon Marketplace). Unfortunately, I'm still working out international shipping, so print sales are limited to domestic (US) shipping only. (But give me a couple of weeks, and I think I'll have the international thing worked out). Issue #1 has been available as a PWYW PDF for quite some time, but it is now available in print (also at the New Big Dragon Marketplace).

And as usual, when you buy through the marketplace, I'll send you a coupon for a complimentary PDF copy from RPGNow (to the email address you use at the marketplace).

So what's inside this Nordic-themed issue of The Dragon Horde?

• The Monster Roster: Linnorms (Oe/BX/1e information for 6 types)

• The Long and Short of the Viking Longhouse (with several sample maps)

• Here's the Thing... (folkmotes and fitting them into your adventures)

• The Völva: A New NPC Character Class - including several new spells
(part seer, part shaman, part wanderer... all woman)

• Vifillmein: An Adventure for Characters Levels 1-3

• Dealing with Level Drain (a host of alternatives to "by the book" level drain)

• The Houses of the Mark: NPC Encounters Adapted from
William Morris's The House of the Wolfings (NPC encounters for nearly
2 dozen tribes and their most important members)

• A Trio of Norse-inspired Magic Items

And because it's a half-legal size, that means you get about 25% more content than a digest-sized zine with the same page count. Just check it out for yourself...

A Recap of My Time at the NTRPG Con

My time at this year's con actually started nearly a week before. I was doing things like getting print copies together of Dragon Horde zines #1 and #2 (BTW, #2 will be available this coming Monday at RPGNow, and print will be available on both starting the same day), picking up the 2nd print run of the d30 Sandbox Companion from the printer (I do these in batches of 50), getting my sign from FastSigns, etc.

Wednesday night, I trucked it over for the pre-con events. There was some sort of HP event finishing up at the hotel, so instead of being in the atrium, the pre-con events were relegated to wherever space could be found. Our game of Battle Royal (under the direction of Frank Mentzer) took place in the bar (which was about as noisy as you'd expect, being full of patrons, and what with the Hewlett Packard karaoke festivities echoing from the nearby ballroom). But we did our best. Battle Royal is a sort of mix of traditional wargaming and RPGs. Each team was an identical group of D&D PCs which battle it out in an ever-changing arena until you capture the ring and return it to your starting pit, or you kill the other team (whichever comes first). We got a late start (several of the special guests inbound flights were delayed, including Frank's), I was not staying in the hotel that night, and had a 45 minute drive home, so I cut out about 12:30. They didn't go much longer after I left. Although the battle didn't finish, the arena was in a position such that everyone was trapped/blocked from where they needed to be (and who knows how long it would have been until the walls moved to allow passage).

Thursday morning started with me loading up the truck and heading back across town just around lunch time to get my table set up. I got to spend a good part of the afternoon at the table, meeting folks and hawking my wares. Then, Thursday night meant Part I of "Night's Dark Terror" with Steve Winter. It's always a slow start at con games, as all the players get the feel for each other. And "Night's Dark Terror" started simply and slowly enough, but had a nice rhythm by the end of the night, to be continued with Part II on Saturday morning.

Friday morning was my obligatory Metamorphosis Alpha game with Jim Ward. If you recall the events of last year, I died in one Jim Ward game, and survived in the other. It was the shame of surviving like a chicken last year that sparked my thought for this year's game... I would alternate;y be brave and cowardly (I wrote it off to a split personality). This allowed me to have fun doing stupid stuff (remember, Jim doesn't kill characters, characters kill themselves) and still have a chance of surviving. It was a blast, and I survived (though barely). I know take a moment of silence to remember my fellow coming-of-age tribesmen who perished in the attempt to prove themselves worthy as adults in the tribe.

Friday night was easily my most anticipated game of the con this year... Frank Mentzer's 1974 OD&D game. We relived the experience of the dawn of D&D, including monsters we had not memorized from the Monster Manual, the inclusion of hobbits before they were an intellectual property concern, and character classes that did not include the thief. Long story short, we investigated a small cave/dungeon complex with hobgoblins and goblins, and faced a final battle with an animated table (yes, an animated table). Earlier in the game, my magic user had found a diagram of the table with notes in a strange language. And when I discovered the diagram in a book, the conversation went something like this...

Me (to other characters): "Should I use my read languages spell now or later?"
Frank (smiling, astounded): "You actually chose read languages?

Look, the spell wouldn't have been on the spell list, even way back then, if it didn't get used. 2-out-of-3 of the adventures I write almost require the ability to read languages. It's a good back pocket spell, even if your 2nd-level magic user only gets 2 spells (the other was a sleep spell that was pretty much necessary). So I did actually choose read languages, and I showed my character sheet to prove it. Turns out, that was the saving grace for our party. When we met the table (and it started attacking, doing up to 4 strikes per round), and I read the diagram, Frank pulled me aside to let me know that all I could make out was that the table was possessed by elemental evil. I related that to the party and we attacked accordingly. Once we saw what the cleric's holy water did, and one of the fighter's oil/torch attack, getting the air (from a small device we retrieved earlier) and dirt (scraped from a couple of boots) returned the table to being just... well... a table. The "Table of the Elements." (Yes! That's the goofiness that, to me, is woven through the earliest days of D&D). Easily one of the coolest experiences I've ever had gaming. And it's got me jonesing to run a White Box game or two.

Saturday morning was Part II of "Night's Dark Terror" with Steve Winter again. No need to go into details here. It was a good game, and the module is very cool, has some great plot points, and some very interesting encounters. When I got home from the con to find out this is the inspiration for the starter adventure for D&D5, it does not surprise me.

Saturday afternoon was the auction and presentation of the Three Castles award (which I am still overwhelmed with having won). Saturday night was to be Shiverwhen with Michael Curtis. But only about half the group showed up, and we were all pretty beat. So we mutually agreed to forego the gaming. The activity moved to the bar with Welbo, Eric Tenkar, Erik's wife Rachel, James Aulds and myself having beers and shooting the shit and relaxing.

No Sunday morning gaming for me, but I did get to sit at the table with my wife Terri, and meet a few more folks, sell a few additional copies of Valley of the Five Fires, and then pack up and head home (after lunch at my wife's favorite Tex-Mex place as a "thank you" for her time helping me at the con").

Among the notable conversations I had while sitting at the table... Steve Marsh and J. Eric Holmes's son Chris. Both very cool. Plenty of time talking with others as well, though I wish I'd gotten to game with Tim Snider.

Okay, that's about all I've got for now, except that I left the con with a couple of new project ideas. More to come as they may/may not develop.

A very special set of "Thank You's"

Now that I've had a chance to get back from the North Texas RPG Con and take a bit of a breather, I still continue to be humbled and honored by the choice this year for the judges of the Three Castles RPG Design Award to recognize Valley of the Five Fires. It was a true passion project that I thought would go generally unnoticed, but it is also a project that couldn't have happened without the help of others. Unfortunately, only one name is allowed on the entry, so only one person is officially recognized. That's why I'd like to take this opportunity to thank several people, without whom this module would never exist.

First, I'd like to thank my wife for her appreciation of my interests (even if she chooses to remain generally ignorant of them), and for the schedule she keeps (she tends to go to bed early, leaving me plenty of time for said interests).

Second, I'd like to thank my editor and creative collaborator David Welborn. He's the guy that acts as sounding board and realist, and the guy who reads the stuff and says, "Huh?", then makes me rework it. I'd also like to thank his kids for keeping him so occupied during the editing process for the d30 Sandbox Companion. If it weren't for the fact that I was waiting on him for feedback on the Companion, I wouldn't have been looking for anything to occupy me in the meantime. He also took it very well when I doubly loaded him with the tasks of editing the d30 Sandbox Companion AND Valley of the Five Fires. (Yes. Valley of the Five Fires happened simply because I was waiting on the d30 Sandbox Companion to be reviewed/edited.)

Next, I'd like to thank William Dowie over at Ramblings of a Great Khan for hosting the Mongol Adventure Contest that got my juices flowing for the setting. Oddly enough, I don't think I actually ever submitted anything to his contest (though I shared some monsters and NPCs for those submitting to use as they saw fit). When the assignment is a "one-page adventure" and you end up writing an entire setting, it kind of restricts your ability to enter such a contest.

Finally, I'd like to thank the judges that gave their time to judge the contest. Imagine having to give up the time it takes to thoroughly read and review three submissions (including Bill Barsh's Blood Cult Boxed Set from Pacesetter Games, and Zach Glazer's Whisper & Venom Boxed Set, which are both outstanding products). So thanks to Jeff Dee, Steve Marsh, Dr. Dennis Sustare, and James M. Ward for their time.

As the week goes on, I will recap some of my favorite moments from the convention and share those with everyone here. But for now, I have to get back to those non-RPG-related projects that languished while I was out for the con.