terraleon's page

About terraleon

I once beat Zeb Cook in a Greyhawk Trivia Contest. I lived on a desert island for two years while I was an officer in the US Air Force. I like to brew my own beer, make my own chinese food, and fence saber; although I do none of these as much as I would like anymore. Premises guarded by man with shotgun three nights a week-- you guess the nights. While D&D's a first love, 5th edition Ars Magica is my greatest love and 1st edition Cthulhutech my secret mistress. L5R taught me you can lose initiative without ever needing to roll and I like the old-school vibe of Savage Worlds. I danced with 4E, but find I have more opportunity to play 5E. Numenera is just plain fun, and Trail of Cthulhu is entertaining. Pathfinder remains a hearty staple. :)

I've been doing professional game design since late 2007. Before then, starting in about 2006, I wrote adventures for Living Greyhawk, primarily for Keoland, Ulek, and the Sheldomar Valley. You can find my work in issue #7 of Kobold Quarterly, I wrote "Dwarven Airships" and the web supplements, "Templeforge Skycasters," "More Dwarven Airships," "Action:Skill Challenge (4E)," "Action:Failure (4E)," "The Frostfang Yeti (4E)," "The Deathspittle Bombardier (4E)," and the deadly "Passage of Devouring Waters." My entry for King of the Monsters was Kankodraa, Scion of Dagon. I wrote "Ticking Hounds and Clockwork Hunters" in issue #10. They've let me review books for issue #16, #17, and #20, and issue #17 also had my piece on trophy heads. The website won the Silver ENnie and the magazine won both the Gold for Best Writing and the Silver for Best Accessory, all in 2009. The website won the Gold for Best Blog in 2010. My finalist for the Lost Magic contest was Necromancer's Retort. I also did a piece on 4E fumbles for Enworld, but you'll need to be a subscriber to see it. Or ask me.

You can find my work in the ENnie-winning (2009 Silver for the E-book!) Tales of Zobeck, where I wrote "Redcloak Ruckus." I've even got a bit in the d20 Zobeck Gazetteer and the Dwarves of the Ironcrags. I worked on Halls of the Mountain King, where I wrote "Roots of Madness," contributed to and playtested other portions. I led the 4E conversion for that project, too. I also contributed to the Pathfinder conversion of Imperial Gazetteer, where I hammered away at mechanical bits like spells and items, flavor text and stat blocks for the monsters, and (in a point of special pride) designed the PC darakhul option. I contributed to both Courts of the Shadowfey and the web supplement-- I think Knuckletooth's one of my favorite characters, and you can get the pathfinder conversion here. I wrote the dreamburning mechanics in Coliseum Morpheuon, I was the designer for Breaking of Forstor Nagar, I wrote "Grandmother's Fire" for Tales of the Old Margreve, I designed the Aware Arcana in the Book of Monster Templates and wrote a Pathfinder anthology of urban crime/steampunk/noir adventures, Streets of Zobeck (2012 GOLD Ennie for Best Adventure!) and its web supplement.

If you sit on the side of the screen without all the enjoyable art, you might want to take a look at 101 Boons, a project I spun up for Rite Publishing and Pathfinder, but it could translate to other fantasy systems with very little heartache. I worked with the incomparable Matt Banach and Clinton Boomer on a 5-room dungeon intended to complement Coliseum Morpheuon. Think of it like Pathfinder Inception. I contributed a good deal to (and in particular, most of the stat blocks) the new Pathfinder Zobeck Gazetteer. Zobeck's almost like a second home to me at this point. ;) I've got a good six spells in 1001 Spells, which was a little something. You can also find at least a baker's dozen of my handiwork in the Midgard Bestiary for Pathfinder and a half dozen or so in the Bestiary for 4E. I helped with some editing and conversions for Adventure Quarterly #1. I contributed some bits and pieces to the Midgard Campaign Setting and the huginn(tengu) bloodline in their FREE preview.

I was the developer for Journeys to the West and led The Pirates of the Western Ocean. I quietly guided The Martial Arts Guidebook for Rite Publishing. I helped run Legends of Midgard, and contributed a couple of personalities and incantations to the final mix. I was developer and cat-herder for Midgard Tales, where I also wrote "To Resurrect the Steigenadler." There's a skosh of my stuff in 101 Legendary Curses that came to me by way of Ars Magica. I've been playing around at custom work in HeroLab, too, helping coordinate the Midgard Iconics and spinning up a few of them.

I also contributed quite a bit to Deep Magic, (2014 Judge's Choice Ennie!) including the section on incantations, the piece on Words of Power, the Animist, a couple spells, a few sample NPCs, and some bits on constructs. If you want to try a walk on the undead side, I wrote the Advanced Races: Darakhul Ghouls supplement from Kobold Press, building off my work in the Imperial Gazetteer. Misfit Press put out my piece on Wereblooded, if you want to be a little more wild, as a part of the Bite Me! book on Lycanthropes. I have a Pathfinder Society adventure (4.5 stars and 20 ratings!), Port Godless (#5-07), and the folks over at Gygax Magazine published a PFRPG piece on fetishes and trophy items in issue #3(related to the KQ web articles here and here with a hat tip to Mike Welham). I helped judge the 2013 Monarch of the Monsters contest on Kobold Press.

I contributed to Plunder and Peril and to Faces of the Tarnished Souk. My contribution to Occult Adventures was the ritual magic section. I contributed four monsters to the 2016 Ennie-award winning (Gold for Best Monster) Bestiary 5 and I wrote the spiritualist archetype and some of the incantations in the Occult Player Companion. I contributed a healthy bit of magic and technology to the Rhune setting from Storm Bunny Studios for their setting book. I also helped out Brian Suskind on their adventure, the Aelven Agenda. I'm one of the primary authors of the 2016 Ennie Winning (nominated for Best Cartography and won the Silver for Best Setting) Southlands, from Kobold Press. (Which made Endzeitgeist's Top Ten of 2016 in Pathways #57!) The associated Werelions pdf (with the excellent Brian Suskind) is now in the wild. The Southlands Bestiary is also out, and you'll find a skosh of my stuff in the kickstarter-exclusive 11 Arabian Nights; Golamesh is perhaps my second favorite NPC. He and Nicktail are in a dead heat. The recent PFRPG release of Halls of the Mountain King is a conversion of the OGL adventure, my first collaboration with Brandon Hodge. I was the developer for the 5E adventures Last Gasp and Tomb of Tiberesh.

For 2016, I completed the conversion of Wrath of the River King. Several of the NPCs are my personal handiwork, going back to the 4E version; Wickerbell's one of my favorites. I played Chief Bottle Washer and Head Playtester Catherd for the 5E Tome of Beasts and Book of Lairs. I regularly coordinate Gencon (and other convention) games for Kobold Press and for AAW Games in 2016. I have three upcoming adventures in the pipeline for Louis Porter Jr., one for Zombie Sky Press, and I helped with one in Adventure Quarterly #8 from Rite Publishing. The sandbox adventure in In The Company of Dragons, Extended is my handiwork. I have two essays in the Kobold Guide to Campaigns and Plots (And it won the Silver Ennie!) and a couple entries in the Baby Bestiary 2 by Metal Weave Games. You'll find my article on cultural necromancy in Pathways #62.

In 2017, I helped found and run Design Camp where we worked on The Celestial Host and are planning a new project for the fall. I also worked on Crisis at Falling Springs Station with Brian Suskind, as well as Bloodlines & Black Magic for Storm Bunny Studios. I did development for Kobold Press' 5E & PFRPG convention adventures (and their upcoming 5E collection, Midgard Sagas), did the PFRPG conversion of their High Magic and Red Portal material, and ran playtesting for Midgard's 2nd Edition. I also worked on Gods & Goddesses for Jetpack7, and wrote for Metal Weave Games Lost-Souls-ian Project. You can find some of my material in Pathways #67. It was accidental, but some of my work ended up in the latest edition of the New Paths Compendium, and you can't beat those Death Feats.

2018 was busy; I led playtesting for Kobold Press' Creature Codex, I wrote about the Cloven Nine in Warlock #2, and helped out with bits about Enkada Pishtukh in Warlock #1. I've got bits in the new Midgard Worldbook, and the Midgard Players Guide. I've been working on the conversion of the Silver Box for Storm Bunny Studios, and have two projects for this year-- a portion of the Shadowlands manuscript, and a big manuscript for Kobold Press. I might be working on some Starfinder, but I haven't heard back on that yet.

I'm quite proud of my RPGSuperstar-disqualifying work in Ars Magica's Antagonists. It's a book that could translate to any fantasy RPG, though, just in case you're curious. It's packed with 10 adventure opposing enemies ripe for short story arcs or longer sagas. I worked on a book about the Provencal Tribunal, Between Sand & Sea (which is a book on North Africa and the Sahara), and Lands of the Nile, which is all about Egypt, Nubia, and Ethiopia. The last Ars book I contributed to was Dies Irae, a book of doomsday campaigns, released in April 2016. It is likely the last Ars Magica book for the 5th edition line. Maybe not, we'll see.

I've also contributed to/helped edit issues #1-20 of Sub Rosa Magazine, an Ars Magica fanzine for Fifth Edition. Issue #8 even includes an interview I happily conducted with Paizo's Lisa Stevens. Issue #13 was released in 9/13 and full of great stuff for House Diedne. Issue #14 was released in 2/14. Issue #15 was released on 9/14. Issue 16 was released on 3/15, and covers a number of alternate Ars Magica period settings. Issue #17 revisits Provencal Tribunal. (1/16) Issue #18 offered a bevy of fantastic creatures of Mythic Europe. (03/01/16) Issue #19 came out (2/10/17), with new worlds. Issue #20 came out with a theme of "Secrets & Lies."

I love reviews; I think they're a great way to provide feedback and share what you thought about a particular project. However, I like reviews more when they're well written. What constitutes "well written?" I've ranted about that over here.

If you dig Middle Earth, you might enjoy these machinima episodes I wrote. Here's the first, the second, or the third. They were a lot of fun to write and have a combined total of about 2.3 million views.

Once upon a time, I was selected to be a Google Glass Explorer. I used it to show you Gencon, in the Coolest Virtual Gencon Project Ever which allowed me to document Virtual Gencon 2013.