I thought I had parameters set for this to go on sale on Wednesday, 6 January, for Epiphany, but something got goofed up. C'est la vie.
Magi study the hidden signs in the stars, in dates, dreams, and the movements of both smoke and fire. They understand that time moves not in a straight line, but rather in a great circle encompassing numerous aeons before all that is passes away only to return and repeat itself. Most creatures, unaware of this cosmic cycle, live the same life over and over again, but not the Magi.
Through their art, Magi read between the universe's lines in order to divine what is both the past and the future at the exact same moment. Armed with this knowledge, Magi can exert subtle but real influence on events, changing what was to come.
The Magus is a new character class for Swords & Wizardry. Also included are 12 new spells.
I thought I had parameters set for this to go on sale on Wednesday, 6 January, for Epiphany. C'est la vie.
Magi study the hidden signs in the stars, in dates, dreams, and the movements of both smoke and fire. They understand that time moves not in a straight line, but rather in a great circle encompassing numerous aeons before all that is passes away only to return and repeat itself. Most creatures, unaware of this cosmic cycle, live the same life over and over again, but not the Magi.
Through their art, Magi read between the universe's lines in order to divine what is both the past and the future at the exact same moment. Armed with this knowledge, Magi can exert subtle but real influence on events, changing what was to come.
The Magus is a new character class for Swords & Wizardry. Also included are 12 new spells.
In case you missed the announcements on G+ and Facebook, I've a few new, free PDFs of content for 1E AD&D ensconced in my Google Drive. Enjoy!
The Abbey of St. Martin: A short adventure.
AD&D Monsters: Alp to Xana: A dozen new monsters.
AD&D Monsters: Apsara to Zebez. Three dozen new monsters.
The Bard: Alternate class for 1E AD&D.
The Recondite Frontier: Campaign region.
Sveti Gardarkena: Another campaign region.
I'm starting a 1E AD&D campaign on 10 January. As part of character creation, I put together these house rules, and also purchased Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures (abbreviated BTW hereafter) and Further Afield by Flatland Games solely because I'd heard good things about that system's character creation process.
Going Beyond the Wall
During this Christmas season, I hosted a dinner-and-gaming night featuring spaghetti and BTW. I'd prepped by printing out a blank village map, a spooky scenario pack (from the free Across the Veil addon), four character sheets, and a list of playbooks (click here for a sample playbook).
Nota Bene: As you explore BTW products, you'll quickly notice that most of them are free. Flatland Games sells the rulebook and rulebook expansion (linked two paragraphs above), and then offers playbooks, scenario packs, et cetera, for free. Nifty!
BTW Character Creation
We started with character creation. Each player picked a playbook from the list, and then I printed only those playbooks. The soon-to-be created party of adventurers included a halfling outrider, a landless noble, an elven highborn, and a student of the dark arts. Next up, the players made up their PCs. Character creation was a snap. The only confusion came from players not reading their playbooks carefully.
Each playbook (and there are more than 30 published by Flatland Games) follows the same format. A playbook starts by giving some background information for the character being created. For example, the Assistant Beast Keeper playbook starts with, "The old witch in the village took a liking to you when you were still young, and you now keep her animals for her. While what you do may seem inconsequential, the witch seems to consider you to be vitally important, and favors you above all others. You dream of a more exciting life." The playbook then tells the player what his character's starting ability scores are. These ability scores are the very familiar Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma.
After this, the player rolls the appropriate die on each chart to answer a question about this character. These questions cover childhood, known non-player characters, background events, and so forth. Each roll modifies ability scores, perhaps gives a skill or class ability, and so on. With a bit more than a half dozen rolls, the players end up with 1st- or 2nd-level characters (some playbooks lead to more experienced starting characters) complete with basic backgrounds, skills, spells (where applicable), starting equipment, et cetera. All of the characters know each other, and each has even shared some sort of life-changing experience with another character.
BTW offers three character classes: warrior, mage, and rogue. Each playbook feeds into a particular class or multi-class. For example, the Village Bear above creates a warrior-rogue. Three classes seem a bit limited, but the inclusion of multi-class options widens the field, and the playbooks do a good job and making sure no two warriors (for example) are the same. This really hits the Old-School groove well. In AD&D, what made two fighters different from each other wasn't their class abilities, but instead was the backgrounds and personalities created by the players.
Based on my one game session, BTW's best feature is character creation. Hands down. No contest. I fully intend on using BTW playbooks (with some minor tweaking) for character creation with my upcoming AD&D campaign.
Let's Make a Village
After this, we put together a quick map for the Village of Lambsheim. Character creation includes village creation. Playbook prompt players to add elements to the village map. These elements focus on both non-player characters and locations. With our table of four players, Lambsheim started as a mostly blank piece of paper and grew into a village with eight important locations and eight important non-player characters.
All-in-all, character and village creation took about an hour. We ended up with four developed heroes and a pretty good idea about the heroes' village, to include some village history that was at least implied by the results from the playbooks.
The Call to Adventure
While the players did their thing, I perused The Opened Veil Scenario Pack. BTW bills itself as offering something other OSR games do not, namely the "tools to play the game almost immediately and with little prep" (to quote the main rulebook). The books elaborates, "Using special Character Playbooks and Scenario Packs, a group of players with a single gamemaster should be able to play the game with absolutely zero prep in about three to five hours, from making characters to tasting a glorious success or a bitter defeat." Our game session found this to be accurate, but with a caveat about the Scenario Pack. BTW requires little prep so long as someone else has done the prep required for a Scenario Pack.
Nota Bene: Even if the gamemaster does have to put together his own Scenario Pack, the format for such is less work intensive than, say, writing a standard adventure. (For example.) A Scenario Pack also requires far less reading than a standard adventure, and each Scenario Pack lends itself well to a more improv style of play that has built in hooks to get the players motivated.
Back to our session. As necessary details, such as nonplayer character names, emerged from the use of playbooks, I filled in the blanks in the Scenario Pack. Once my tables were completed, a few rolls of the dice generated the specifics of the adventure we would play. I had the hook, the source of the problem, the nature of the problem, and hints about complications and solutions. The Scenario Pack even included some player-generated recent events. Ready to go, we started the game in the inn (of course!).
The scenario played out as a combination of undead street fighting, a haunted jail mystery, a town drunk with looted coins, a betrayal between noble families going back two generations, several watchful spirits, a pack of zombies in the barrows, and a short but brutal fight against an ambitious wight.
The Short of It
All in all, the players had a good time. Everyone agreed that the character generation system was the highlight of the game. Kerry, who played the student of the dark arts, complimented the magic system's distinction between spells, cantrips, and rituals (although rituals did not come up during play). The game's systems for combat, skills, and saving throws are easy to grasp and should be at least almost instantly familiar to anyone who has played OSR-style games (or the original games that inspired them).
BTW's system for cantrips, which work as regular spells but require an ability score check to avoid negative consequences, has found its way into my AD&D house rules. So too has the skill system. The rules expansion, Further Afield, includes rules for starting a "player-driven campaign" that is a "shared sandbox." I've skimmed these rules. I like them, and they too will find their way into my AD&D campaign.
In short, the campaign creation rules are like a larger-scale version of the village creation process, but with the added wrinkle that elements added by the players to the world function as bits of character knowledge subject to degrees of inaccuracy. Just because a player's gifted dilettante rogue-mage thinks there is a ghost-haunted tower near the foothills a few days to the north doesn't mean that character's knowledge about the tower or its location is entirely accurate. Degree of accuracy is determined by an ability score check using either Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma (depending on how the character acquired the knowledge).
Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures is a great game. Our playtest included good times, good food, and I spent more time cooking than I did prepping for the game.
Astounding Archetypes: Bloodhand Gang presents five new archetypes for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Players may adventure as a dragon warrior (fighter archetype), jotunkin (barbarian archetype), telekinetic monk (monk archetype), warp thief (rogue archetype), and yo-yo magus (magus archetype).
If you're a GM, unleash the Bloodhand Gang on your players' characters. Each villainous member of the mercenary Bloodhand Gang is a fully detailed NPC. The Gang utilizes all five new archetypes. Bloodhand Gang members run from CR 7 to CR 10 and equal an EL 14 challenge.
Dear GM: Are you tired of naughty adventurers? If so, unleash Krampus on them. After those awful murderhobos have been stuffed in Krampus's wicker basket and baked into sinfully tasty meat pies, your campaign world will be a happier place. Gruß vom Krampus! includes four short PDFs, each one providing game statistics for Krampus for four different game systems: Dungeon World, Fate Accelerated Edition, the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, and Swords & Wizardry.
Ho, ho, ho-zzah!
Dear GM: Are you tired of naughty adventurers? If so, unleash Krampus on them. After those awful murderhobos have been stuffed in Krampus's wicker basket and baked into sinfully tasty meat pies, your campaign world will be a happier place. Gruß vom Krampus! includes four short PDFs, each one providing game statistics for Krampus for four different game systems: Dungeon World, Fate Accelerated Edition, the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, and Swords & Wizardry.
Ho, ho, ho-zzah!
I’ve started a new project based on William T. Cox’s whimsically delightful Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods, originally published in 1910. Here’s an excerpt:
The gumberoo (Megalogaster repercussus) lives in foggy regions, especially near wooded ocean coasts in northern climes. Fortunately, gumberoos seem to be rare, but this might because this beast prefers “to remain in hiding most of the time in the base of enormous, burned-out cedar trees, from where it sallies forth occasionally on frightful marauding expeditions.” A gumberoo is always hungry and attempts to devour anything that appears to be food. “A whole horse may be eaten at one sitting, distending the gumberoo out of all proportions, but failing to appease its hunger or cause it the slightest discomfort.” A gumberoo resembles a coal-black, almost hairless bear. Its skin is “smooth, tough, and shiny and bears not even a wrinkle.” In fact, a gumberoo’s hide has amazing elastic properties. “Its elastic hide hurls back with equal ease the charging elk and the wrathy hornet.” Fire, however, proves to be a particular effective weapon against a gumberoo, but care must be taken, for these beasts tend to explode when burned.
HD 4+1; AC 2 (17); Atks 2 claws (1d4), 1 bite (1d6+1); SV 13; Special elastic hide, fire vulnerability; MV 9; AL C; CL/XP 5/240
Elastic Hide: Any attack from a physical source, such as a sword or an arrow or a claw, may bounce off the gumberoo’s elastic hide without inflicting any damage. A gumberoo is permitted a saving throw against these attacks. Success means it takes no damage. If the gumberoo’s saving throw die roll equals 18-20, the attack rebounds to inflict normal damage to the attacker.
Fire Vulnerability: Any time a gumberoo is attacked with fire from any source, it must make a saving throw. Failure means the gumberoo explodes, inflicting 4d6 points of damage to creatures in a 10-foot radius. On the plus side, the gumberoo dies.
Ean Illiam's Cavern Stores for Dungeon World is now available for purchase. Huzzah!
Aquatic Depths & Denizens is available for purchase. Woo hoo! I've accomplished something!
Find what you're looking for in Ean Illiam's Cavern Stores. Fully compatible with Dungeon World, this campaign location includes these excellent features:
* Cartography by Matt Jackson that includes blank spaces
* Not-too-complete descriptions of the cavern stores
* Two adventure fronts
* Stats and descriptions for the people, creatures, and animals found in the stores
* Pictures of the major and minor NPCs
* Lots of helpful sidebars, including questions to ask and blanks to fill in, as well as new magic items and tables for randomly generating NPC names, types, instincts, and knacks
Ean Illiam's Cavern Stores is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
As I’ve blogged about a couple of times, Matt Jackson, career enlisted man and gamer and mapper extraordinaire, has been raising funds for the Wounded Warrior Project. His efforts under the title Maps for Heroes reflect both the best of both military tradition and of our disparate, often cantankerous community of gamers.
I served eight years in the U.S. Army. But for the grace of God, I could’ve ended up a wounded warrior, especially if I’d decided to make the military a career, which was a serious consideration until I decided on taking my honorable discharge and getting into teaching. However much I do to help others, I can always do more.
So, here’s some more. From now until the time Matt reaches his $1000 goal, 100% of the sales from these four OSR PDFs goes to Maps for Heroes: The Quid Novi? Collection, That’s a Goblin!?, Rantz’s Fair Multitude, and Rewarding Roleplaying. At this link is a PDF with more information about these titles as well as links to discounts for each of them. The codes never expire. Use them. Share them with your friends.
Huah!
Aquatic Depths & Denizens is ready for playtest release!
This OSR PDF focuses on adventuring underwater. It includes rules for swimming, drowning, fighting and spellcasting under the waves, five player character aquatic races, an assortment of aquatic spells, and a plethora of marine monsters. Download your copy and playtest today.
Of course, helpful folks who playtest the PDF and/or provide feedback receive credit in the final PDF. They also receive a free copy of the final PDF, providing I have an e-mail address. To further sweeten the incentives, playtesters/feedbackers may also select any single PDF from my on-line catalog to receive for free (again providing I have an e-mail address). My email address is mark at spesmagna dot com.
My on-line catalog.
Optional Skill Resolution Rules presents a flexible system for resolving skill checks usable with Swords & Wizardry (and likely compatible with other OSR games). With OSR2, the Referee and players define a character's skills based on race, background, and class. No skill lists restrain those choices. Do you want your Magic-User to be a ladies' man? There's a skill for that. Do you want your Paladin to have studied Forbidden Cults? There's a skill for that. Download the playtest version of these rules today and see if they work for your game.
Of course, helpful folks who playtest the PDF and/or provide feedback receive credit in the final PDF. They also receive a free copy of the final PDF, providing I have an e-mail address. To further sweeten the incentives, playtesters/feedbackers may also select any single PDF from my on-line catalog to receive for free (again providing I have an e-mail address). My email address is mark at spesmagna dot com.
My on-line catalog.
Here's the playtest version of Astounding Archetypes: Bloodhand Gang. Presented in the PDF are five archetypes: dragon warrior, jotunkin, telekinetic monk, warp thief, and yo-yo magus (my personal favorite). I originally featured these archetypes on my website. I've tweaked all five a bit here and there, trying to clear up unclear rules, streamline class features, et cetera. I've also put together one villain for each archetype.
I eagerly hope for your feedback, which can be sent to mark at spesmagna dot com. Huzzah!
Spes Magna Games hasn't done much lately, and little of what's been done has related to the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Well, that's changing a bit pretty soon-ish. I’m going to try and finish Astounding Archetypes: Bloodhand Gang. This PDF will be a return to Pathfinder material for Spes Magna Games. It features five new archetypes, one each for barbarian, fighter, magus, monk, and rogue, plus five villainous NPCs, one for each archetype.
Unfortunately, my goal of getting Astounding Archetypes done by this coming Monday, 3 December, ain't gonna happen. Not enough time left, and I've got other things that must take priority, such as the jazz cafe luncheon my wife and I are going to Sunday afternoon.
Still, work has progressed, and I figured it wouldn't hurt to put a preview out for folks to take a gander at. So, permit me to introduce Catarina Rocha, member of the Bloodhand Gang.
In other news, it's been a while since I as productive with Spes Magna Games as I have been this Thanksgiving. So far this week, I’ve managed to get:
1. Metro Gnomes on-line for sale.
2. The Quid Novi? Collection on-line for sale.
3. Rantz’s Fair Multitude on-line for sale.
4. The Amphitheater of the Continuum on-line for free download.
Huzzah!
More Old School gaming goodness from Spes Magna. :)
Thirty pages of Old School gaming material found in Rantz's Fair Multitude, including new magic items, monsters, spells, and other goodies to reward and challenge your players.
Huzzah!
Metro Gnomes is a short, beer-and-pretzels scenario for the free RPG Geodesic Gnomes. Get your copy today before the universe runs out of electrons.
Metro Gnomes is a short, beer-and-pretzels scenario for the free RPG Geodesic Gnomes.
When I started Spes Magna Games back in 2009, I also started Quid Novi?, a twice-monthly e-mail newsletter of gaming goodness that eventually became a monthly PDF of gaming goodness which has now fallen by the wayside. The Quid Novi? Collection includes the 10 individual PDFs as originally published.
About 80% of the content in The Quid Novi? Collection is for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. You get two short adventures, and curses, diseases, magic items, haunts, monsters, giant lilypads, spells, and a Psionics domain for clerics. The other 20% of the collection was written for Old School gaming, and includes two short adventures as well as curses, magic items, prismatic mists, monsters, deadly mushrooms, and spells.
Caveat emptor: If you were a Quid Novi? subscriber, you've got no reason to buy this collection. You already received all of these PDFs for free. The zipped file for sale includes 10 separate, bookmarked PDFs.
In other news, for my day job, I teach 5th grade at Aristoi Classical Academy, a small classical liberal arts charter public school in Katy, Texas. Being a charter school in Texas, we do not receive the full funding from the state that a traditional public school receives. (For example, we receive no monies for facilities.) Consequently, my salary at Aristoi is thousands of dollars a year lower than it would be in a traditional public school. Now, mind you, I'm not complaining; I'm simply informing by way of a preface.
One of my fellow teachers, who has fewer years experience than I, has hit a difficult patch. Rick and his wife have three daughters, ranging from elementary school to high school. They live in a rough neighborhood. His house has been burgled more than once. One of his daughters has been a victim of violence. Rick needs to get his family out of that neighborhood, but moving, as I'm sure you all know, requires money.
I want to help my friend and co-worker, and I figured that Spes Magna Games might be a good way to do this. For the entire month of November until the end of 2013, 100% of my Spes Magna sales will be donated to Rick to help him get his family to a safer neighborhood.
Curious about The Accordian Files? Ask me questions, please.
Curious about Ars Natatoris? Ask me questions, please. Also, check out this 4-star review at DriveThruRPG.
Curious about That's a Goblin!?. Ask me questions. You can also check out this 5-star review at DriveThruRPG. :)
Are your players unimpressed by goblins? Do they yawn and roll their eyes when these common monsters show up in your game? Then catch your players off guard with That's a Goblin!?. This Old School supplement presents 23 goblin mutations, 15 fey goblin abilities, 3 goblin subspecies, and 6 goblin tactical specialties. Mix and match to create scores of different goblins!
That's a Goblin!? also includes Tributary of Terror, a mini-adventure taking place within Reyr's Well, a detailed fantasy hamlet suitable for just about any campaign world.
Consider these genres: fantasy, science fiction, western, horror, and high school melodrama. What are the iconic villains for each genre?
Fantasy: black knight
Sci-Fi: HAL
Western: land baron
Horror: serial killer
High School: killjoy teacher
Dive into adventure with Ars Natatoris! This brief and free product presents swimming and drowning rules compatible with a wide range of OSR games.
Says Megan R., Featured Reviewer, "Despite disclaimers about going for playability rather than realism, this has captured most of the niceties of aquatic exploits quite well, and unless you have a troop of Navy SEALs for a party should cover at least casual waterborne activities as an addendum to your chosen ruleset."
Soon to be released, That's a Goblin!?, Spes Magna's first OSR game supplement. Written as compatible with Swords & Wizardry but usable with other OSR fantasy RPGs, That's a Goblin!? introduces ways to make your game's goblins different.
The free preview PDF at this link presents 23 random goblin mutations. The final version of the PDF in the works includes not only the goblin mutations but also goblin types, tactics, weapons, and stat blocks for sample goblins.
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I established Spes Magna Games roundabout December 2009. Between then and now, I've written and published almost 20 gaming PDFs, mostly for The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. On average, I guesstimate I've made about $25 a month from the sale of my PDFs. That's not a lot; I'm in no danger of retiring early, but that's okay. I run Spes Magna Games because I love the hobby.
Those of you who follow my site know that I teach at a small, open-enrollment public charter school in Katy, Texas. I've been there three years. Aristoi Classical Academy strives mightily to offer tuition-free the sort of classical education normally available only in private schools charging several thousand dollars a year per student. As far as I know, we're the only public school in Texas that offers a classical education.
A few years before I started teaching at Aristoi, the previous administration irresponsibly took out way too much debt in the form of bonds. The school's debt situation the year before last was bad enough that the Texas Education Agency could've shut us down. This year we're no longer in danger of being closed because of bad debt. Our current administration has worked heroically, and this year our debt has been reduced by about $1.4 million dollars (approximately half of the overall debt). We did this by cutting some salaries, freezing others, streamlining costs, eliminating overhead, consolidating jobs, et cetera. About a half a million dollars was saved through these efforts.
The state education commission has been so impressed by Aristoi's financial and educational accomplishments that we have been approved to expand our enrollment from 325 to 440 students for the upcoming school. We've also been green-lighted to add a 9th grade class for the 2014-2015 school. To fully meet the needs of our incoming, larger student body, we need more space. Aristoi's school board and administration have a plan to grow the school's facilities.
Part of that plan includes raising $550,000 for construction and purchasing adjacent, undeveloped land.
At Aristoi, we don't teach to a state test. We educate the whole child, mind, body, and spirit, and seek to fill the students' hearts with great tales of heroes such as Jason and Argonauts, Don Quixote, George Washington, Stuart Little, Sherlock Holmes, and Frederick Douglass, to name just a few. I know classical education works better than traditional public education for many students because I've seen the difference it can make in the lives of children, including my own.
I've been a gamer longer than I've been a teacher, and I've also seen the hearts of gamers in action. We gamers know the value of education, the importance of friends, and about the wonders of imagination that can be inspired by great stories. So, here I am, asking for donations. But I'm not forgetting the lesson I learned from First Lieutenant Freehill while I was stationed at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. I'm not asking anyone to do something I'm not willing to do.
Spes Magna Games has donated $50 to Aristoi's indiegogo campaign. I'm asking you to donate one-tenth of that amount just one time. Help us at Aristoi inspire our students to aspire toward lives of heroic virtue.
Thanks for your time and attention.
Over at EN World, I've rebooted my used-to-be monthly Pathfinder monster-making contest. Rules are below. You can post your entries here or there, but polling to determine the winner will happen at EN World.
Huzzah!
The Rules
Hello! The goal is to create a monster for the picture of month. This month's picture perches expectantly near you here.
1. One submission per entrant. Previous entrants have had their entries linked to below, and all of them are still in the running.
2. Post a complete stat block and fluff text for the creature depicted at the link above in this thread using the standard format for PF monsters. Also, include at least two plot hooks for the monster.
3. Your work must be your own and cannot use anyone's Product Identity or Closed Content material.
4. The deadline is 19 January 2013. After this, all entries are considered final.
5. A winner will be chosen via a poll set up in another thread. This poll will remain open until approximately the end of January.
6. All entrants retain rights to their submissions.
The Prizes
1. The winner chosen by poll gets to brag about how awesome his or her monster is.
2. The winner will receive a $5 gift certificate to DriveThruRPG. Reception of the gift certificate is contingent on me having a valid email address for the winner.
Previous Contests
#1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5 | #6 | #7
Well, I'm ahead of schedule for the first Quid Novi? of 2013. I'm still going to release it via email list on 19 January, which gives people plenty of time to sign up so as to not miss out.
What do you get with this first Quid Novi? Well...
* Sarpashana Station, a short adventure for Stars Without Number (but adaptable to other Old School systems).
* An Awful Affliction to curse foes of deceit's god.
* The Bazaar of the Bizarre, introducing two new items, one for Stars Without Number, the other for Swords & Wizardry.
* Chance Encounters, including Stars Without Number and Swords & Wizardry stats for one monster and two NPCs.
* A Treacherous Terrain to threaten adventuring spelunkers.
* Words of Magic describing a new Swords & Wizardry cleric spell.
* Required Reading, a collection of links to some of the best blogposts I've found recently.
Quid Novi? arrives in your inbox in glorious PDF format, complete with bookmarks and hyperlinks. Best of all, Quid Novi? is always free to subscribers, and Quid Novi? subscribers always can get 33% off Spes Magna Games products purchased at Paizo.com.
For Swords & Wizardry:
Blitzkringler
Hit Dice: 4
Armor Class: 4 [15] (8 [11] unarmored)
Attacks: Two-handed sword (1d10 plus 1 point of lightning damage)
Saving Throw: 13
Special: Immune to cold & lightning
Move: 12
Alignment: Lawful
Challenge Level/XP: 5/240
Blitzkringlers are a mysterious race of lawful warriors who inhabit arctic regions. When dealing with those who are nice, blitzkringlers act benevolently. Against those who are naughty, blitzkringlers can be terrible. The red-and-white suits of fur and leather worn by blitzkringlers are equal to chain armor. Blitzkringlers prefer to fight with two-handed swords. Any metal weapon wielded by a blitzkringler inflicts an extra point of lightning damage with a successful hit.
(Pic at this link.)
I’m gearing up for a new year of Quid Novi?, my (allegedly monthly) newsletter. This is the fourth year I’ve been writing this gaming resource, and I hope to do a better job with it in 2013 than I did in 2012. The focus for Quid Novi? is shifting away from Pathfinder/d20 System to old school RPG clones with special emphasis on Stars Without Number and Swords & Wizardry.
Quid Novi? will feature an assortment of, well, features, including:
* Awful Afflictions: New curses, diseases, and poisons to torture your players’ characters.
* Bazaar of the Bizarre: New items to augment your villains and reward victorious heroes.
* Chance Encounter: New monsters to claw/claw/bite those who try to steal their stuff.
* Treacherous Terrain: New terrains and traps to befuddle your players’ characters.
* Words of Magic: New spells for casters of all classes.
* Recommended Reading: New links to some of the best RPG blogposts I can find.
Subscribers also get a 33% discount on all Spes Magna Games PDFs purchased at Paizo.com. Free subscriptions to Quid Novi? can be processed at this link.
Hello!
I'm thinking my next project will be available in both PDF and print-on-demand. I know how to do the former, but I'm largely clueless about the latter. What are good sources/resources that I can study to figure out the ins and outs of PoD publishing? I'm specifically looking for quality vendors, information about layout and pricing, et cetera.
Thanks!
Hello!
Well, for the few of you who pay attention to Spes Magna Games, it's probably become obvious that I've not done much that's Pathfinder-related lately. My heart's just not in it like it was. Please don't misunderstand: I still think Pathfinder is a great game, and that the folks at Paizo are first-rate at what they do. The problem isn't Pathfinder; it's me.
On the plus side, Spes Magna isn't closing up shop. Rather, I've shifted focus to a different game system, specifically Sine Nomine's excellent Stars Without Number. I'm developing Tiamat's Throne, sci-fi/fantasy setting using the Stars Without Number core rules.
If you're curious, I've got several rough-draft excerpts up at my website.
The Croaking Priestess and her boggard followers run a brisk business trading magical potions for sacrificial victims. Local marshfolk have suffered the predations of wicked swamp denizens long enough. They need adventurers to head into the muck, assault the Swamp Isle, and finally put an end to the Croaking Priestess's evil.
The Swamp Isle of the Croaking Priestess is a short adventure suitable for clever and tough 4th-level characters. It's current available at DriveThruRPG for a mere $0.99.
As autumn approaches, so does the end-of-year holiday season. What goes better with a holiday get-together than good food and great gaming? Nothing that I can think of.
To help with your holiday gaming entertaining, A Medieval Holiday is on sale for a mere $0.68 from now through 10 September 2012.
This printer-friendly PDF has holiday decorating and entertaining tips, enough recipes to create a three-course medieval banquet, and the trencherman, a Pathfinder-compatible prestige class who parties as hearty as he fights.
Get a head start on your holiday planning today!
Trekking to the Side features two short adventures originally published for Quid Novi? subscribers in June and July 2012. "The Ruined Fort" is suitable for 5th-7th level PCs. "The Coming Storm" is suitable for 9th-11th level PCs. In addition to the short adventures, this printer-friendly PDF includes a new monster, new haunts, new afflictions, and more.
"The Ruined Fort": Years ago, after the margrave refused to offer homage to the Old Man of the Rocks, Fort Caergwyn and its defenders were destroyed in a night of lightning and violence. The margrave now wants to reclaim Fort Caergwyn, and he needs brave adventurers to make the trek to the ruins and put to the sword any monsters that might be calling the place home.
"The Coming Storm": Eadwig's Tarn, a peaceful mountain village, has again been targeted by lurkers in light. These evil fey have abducted several locals for sacrifice in horrid rituals. The village councillors need brave adventurers to make the trek to an ancient dwarven scriptorium to defeat the lurkers and free their captives.
Available at Paizo.com and DriveThruRPG for a wee bit less than $1.
In my continuing efforts to clear my desk of PDFs that have languished in limbo since my heart attack, at long last Dodeca Decor is available. Huzzah!
What will your players do when they see claw marks on the ceiling? Find a dead three-headed snake? Detect a thick, reptilian odor?
These are just three of more than 144 details that Dodeca Decor randomly adds to your game, all contained in 13 printer-friendly PDF pages. Dodeca Decor presents more than a dozen tables that add decorative elements, interesting features, and level-appropriate challenges to your cleverly constructed dungeon crawls.
Get yours today at DriveThruRPG. Once the upload process is finished at Paizo, I'll post that link as well.
Starting this Friday through the end of June 2012, all Spes Magna Games PDFs here at Paizo are on sale for 25% off their regular price.
Huzzah!
Whew! I might actually be on a roll. Two PDFs released in two weeks. :)
A to Z is a collection of Spes Magna Games blogposts written during the April 2012 A to Z blogging challenge. All 26 blogposts have been subjected to revisions, edits, and other improvements. The end result is a 40-plus-page, printer-friendly PDF featuring fluff and crunch such as:
* Alternate rules for channeling energy, energy drain, exploding dice, jumping, monks, outsiders, and x-ray vision
* Bromantic poetry
* GM advice about how to motivate your players to be more invested in your game
* Luck, a new ability score
* New archetypes, one each for the magus and the rogue
* NPC villains such as an awakened psionic gorilla
All of this and more can be yours for less than a cup of gourmet coffee at both DriveThruRPG and Paizo.com.
I need playtesters, this time for a short side trek kind of adventure for four to six 4th-level characters ready for six encounter areas of evil monsters just begging for adventurers to kill them and take their stuff!
The Swamp Isle of the Croaking Priestess pits the PCs against a boggard army led by the Croaking Priestess herself. The PDF includes full stats for the Croaking Priestess, links to d20pfsrd for quick rules references, tips for running the adventure, and a cross-section map of the isle.
If you want to give The Swamp Isle of the Croaking Priestess a playtest run and provide me with your keen insights, please email me at mark at spesmagna dot com. I'll be assembling my playtester list over the next few days, and should have the playtest PDF sent out by the end of this week.
Let the blood flow, and don't fall off your lilypad!
At long last!
Dodeca Weather helps restore the noble d12 to a position of respectability and importance by making it the randomizer that determines your campaign's weather from day to day.
This printer-friendly, 20-page PDF presents a plethora of tables that help GMs determine daily weather by taking into account season, climate, altitude, and terrain. Dodeca Weather consolidates and expands weather rules in one location. It also includes a reproducible weather worksheet to help organize weather in weekly blocks.
And you get it all for less than $1.00.
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