Random conversation that lead to this blog post.

I was discussing with one of my friends about our "out of the abyss" campaign the other day.  Eventually we will be going back to it, probably after we finish up killing strahd.  He had mentioned that he feels he is going to need to do some subtle rail roading to get us back on track.  As well he plans to level us up, hand wave to eighth level.  I think we are currently at 5th or something.  The gist is "we have been adventuring on and off, and have since leveled up".

I have no idea if he is going to read this post, but I have a few thoughts on it, some of which are personal and some of which are more straight and to the point (common practices).  Obviously it's his game, and he can run it exactly the way he wants.

First off, I've done a bit of hand waving as far as levels are concerned, but honestly it takes away player agency, the reward of having survived and a job well done. In my next fifth edition campaign I won't be doing that at all.  (that goes for old school games as well).  The players will level as they collect enough experience, end of story.  I don't much care for CR levels, but I'll obviously not throw super scary monsters at them.  Of course the world is a big place and not all monsters are at your level.

This practice of the hand wave rubbed off on another player.  After having played a few sessions of "abyss" and got leveled up by a hand wave.  The player played in a old school session with me, and after 2 sessions he was looking for the hand wave from me.  Obviously different DM, different game entirely.  That said it should not be an expected thing. And honestly though what is the rush? It's D&D campaigns go on for years.

Now onto rail-roading.  As most of you know railroading isn't a practice that happens often in old school games, (mostly because the game is different).  We all know that despite how much you plan and prep, nine times out of ten the players will blow holes in that plan anyways.  Which is why attempting to run a module exactly as written probably rarely works.

For me if there are encounters that I would like to see happen to keep the game going, I will figure out a way to work them in.  Or if I had a cool dungeon I wrote up and the players don't take the bait, it's relatively easy to work it in.  Bearing in mind that the players don't have access to behind the screen, the world map were you carefully placed the dungeon miles away from the players current location.

I can say though, that I've honestly rail-roaded players before and probably will do it again.  The last time it happened I honestly couldn't think of any other way to get them into the dungeon, so I forced a weirdness on them.  The players were standing over a portal leading to a alternate dimensions.  They hadn't quite decided what they were going to do.  I didn't have a lot else prepped.  So the one hireling npc with them jumped into the portal!  Yup that's a lot of hand holding.  Looking back on it now, what could have worked was a demon coming thru the portal and grabbing someone, maybe they got pulled in, maybe not.  Maybe the demon pulled the npc in? Who knows, but that would have been better.

That being said it's pretty easy to just re-write bits and make it work, as long as your creativity is clicking that day.  As well I think that more you play, the more you DM, the better you get at it.  You get comfy and just figure it out.  I have personally been wanting to run a big open sandbox, while it can be a bit overwhelming if you do some reasonable prep it's not that bad.  As stated before I'd love to run black marsh, and there is no end to modules & adventures you can find out there to pop into a open sandbox world.

Just came to a random conclusion

That the Blue Baron is in fact Billy Corgan (well the on stage persona he plays).  Actually I may have come to this conclusion previously.

If you watch the video for Zero and Stand inside your love there are elements of masquerade in them.  As well "ava adore" posted below.  The song and album (adore) pull some inspiration from the movie "crash".

I intentionally used a font from Mellon Collie and the infinite sadness within the book because it A. looked cool, and B. I guess for a bit of throw back, head nodding inspiration.

I find it mildly interesting that the influence happened almost subconsciously.  Another project I was working on (which I still need to finish) I quoted a line from a pumpkins song.  As well the whole project was based around the "trip to the moon movie", which was a inspiration for the video for tonight tonight as well. (at least aesthetically anyways, I can't pretend to say that it was in fact inspired because I'm not a member of that band obviously).

I do rather enjoy pulling different personalities and characters out of pop culture, fiction etc and using them in D&D.  At some point I would like to use "Uncle Vernon" from Harry Potter.  I would probably use him as a rather oafish orc.

Ozymandias from the Watchmen is another perfect villain.  Actually just the way he is would be a perfect fit for some rather evil lord.

You can download "An invitation from the blue baron" here.

And here are d20 unique bad guys. 
Tired of the typical bad guys? Here's a d20 table with some strange ones.

1.  Vegetarian Ogre Tribe.
2.  Three Eyed Skunk Man Hybrid with a penchant for nice perfumes.
3.  An Honest Trader, with a dark secret.
4.  Insane Cult Leader, believes the world is flat.
5.  Crossbreed Dinosaur & Robot that is self aware.
6.  Punk Rock Minstrel Pixies.
7.  Piranha Men that can breath on land, and fly!
8.  Enraged Princess stuck between two planes of existence, appears as a shimmer.
9.  A demon who likes to spend time gardening.
10.  Vampire with a lust for collecting rodents.
11.  Old knight who was betrayed by his squire. 
12.  A monk who learned to bend time.
13.  A balding sorceresses looking for a wig of Chimera hair.
14.  A goblin tribe famous for their cheese, their herd of cows has been stolen by an unruly Minotaur.
15.  A human thief who has had his arms magically replaced with tentacles.
16.  A deposed lord with a major gambling addiction.
17.  A witch who made a pact with a evil allicorn. 
18.  Giant who spends most of his time building a fort made entirely out of large trees from nearby forest.
19.  Pirates trying to return an evil treasure.  (whoops stole that one!)
20.  The ghost of murdered bride (her husbands father was the murderer!).

RIP Zagnap

Just going thru my google drive and re-organizing things, deleting etc.  I found this little gem.  Zagnap a druid I created for our "out of the abyss" session.  Here is his bio.

Zagnap comes from a small svirfneblin mining community located north of Daggerdale, (however deep underground).  During a exploratory search of the underdark far from the community he was separated from his group.  Zagnap searched for his group for days, finally coming upon them, they had been slain by a group of monsters.  None were left alive.  Seeing the harsh realities of leaving the confines of the community, Zagnap decided that it was best to see what else was out there.  His adventurous spirit took over.  Carrying with him a staff he made out of a old petrified toadtool, his leather armour & sling made from the hide of a Rothe, he stepped out into the underdark in search of answers.  Answers to the world below.  He set out to write a book about the “Underdark Ecologies”, detailed within is plant & humanoid life.  As time went on he stumbled upon a meeting between a very select group of residents.  “The circle of the 5”, a Underdark druidic order made up of a variety of races.  All of which follow the teachings of Segojan Earthcaller.  Zagnap is currently an initiate of the order, and will not be officially inducted into the circle until one of the five dies.  

And here's the details of his untimely death.

$1.25 Minis

In the interest of being an el cheapo Canadian, I stopped at Dollarama yesterday to grab some minis.  I was looking for the cool coloured rock crystals that you see at gaming stores, but I was only able to find ones that had 2 different colours.  I had read somewhere that using the rocks for your spells slots in 5e is a handy technique.  I managed to find these fun little building blocks instead.

When I get some time I'm also going to number the blocks with a felt pen, which should make combat infinitely easier.

Awhile ago we played in our "out of the abyss" game, and we had got the DM some pathfinder minis for his birthday.  (one of the PF boxes).  While most of the monsters are pathfinder specific demon things, what the DM did was just use them as props/minis basically.  The idea was that creature on the card had nothing to do with what we were actually fighting (picture is a stringy looking demon, we are fighting orcs).  What I found though was the colour coding was crazy handy for tactics and keeping track of things.

As I stated in my post the other day on this:

Player:  "I attack the orc"
ME:  "which colour?"
Player: "the red one".

That combined with my home made battle mat I've been using since I started, should make combat relatively easy.

I'm excited.

Update on MF campaign:  Well yesterday evening got away from me, I managed to re-read a lot of the rules in the book.  Reading thru the monsters and gear I got a few ideas here and there for scenarios.  Yesterday afternoon I made a quick hex map with hexographer.  I may just have to wing the whole situation.  The good news is we are going to go thru character creation which should take a bit of time. Chances are the procrastination is going to kick in, and I'll be writing the night before.

I've got less than a week to plan.

Knowing me I'll put it off to the last minute.  Looks like our old school group is going to meet in about week.  The kicker is that we won't be playing the fantasy campaign as the DM doesn't have a lot of time to work on things (due to exams).  So we will be starting a mutant future campaign.  Of which I don't have a helluva lot written.  Well it's written, just in my head at this point.  I have a few little maps and other ideas prepped.  So operation consolidation and cohesive begins this evening.  (Or at least hopefully, i tend to procrastinate this shit to the day before).  I'm going to use wizard dawn and create a good 10 adventure locations and then plop them into a hex map.  I have a town home base (in my head) and a pile of factions already. 

Should be fun!  Can't wait to run the game!

Session 8 - Ransacking the warehouse - Curse Of Strahd

Caution may contain some spoilers.

Yesterday was a helluva a lot of fun, we managed to role play, fight monsters and explore!  All of the things that make up a typical D&D session.  None of them being too much, which is always good.

When last we left off we had just polished off a bunch of twig blights and holed ourselves up in the warehouse of the winery.

As per usual Von Richten (or whatever aka he goes by) buggered off, leaving us to our own devices.  

We explored the basement of the winery, finding not a lot of interest, other than some rather creepy ravens, and vats of wine.  One of our players decided to fill himself a few bottles of wine for later.  (malltov cocktail).  During the exploration our thief had the hardest time trying to open any type of chest, door etc.  At one point one of us said out loud "you are by far the worst thief I've ever heard of!'  To which the thief replied "yes but you have heard of me!"

At one point while checking out a rather large room, we heard footsteps coming towards us.  Our wizard Nym cast fake fire illusion, and the bad guy failed his save and buggered off.

After a bunch of exploring and splitting the party, Nym encountered a druid and charmed him.  The other 2 players found a bedroom with a secret door.  Nym brought the druid to the bedroom, and we decided to kill him.  Nice thing was the druid and Nym both had these strange twig blight wands, once they were destroyed no more twig blights! woot.

My character tends to have A.D.D. and wander off and fiddle with things.  At one point I was fidgeting with a spigot on the wine vat in the hopes of possibly breaking it and filling the room with wine.

We decided to camp in the bedroom for the night and barricaded ourselves in.  The next morning we woke up and found Von Richten dead on our doorstep.  Being murderhobos we looted his corpse.  During that looting we found a raise dead spell.  My Cleric just barely raised him from the dead.  (Most of the day my dice rolling was exceptionally mediocre, thankfully I made this one, barely.  The green dice pictured above rolled really well last session, but not this one. )

Another extremely funny thing I just remembered.  And I'm not even sure what the specific chances of this happening are, but we had to all roll initiative at one point, and all of us rolled a 9 with modifiers.  3 of the 4 of us rolled 7's and had mods, one of us rolled a 6 with mods.  and the DM rolled a 19, which is also midly strange.  Anyways, if someone wants to do the math go right ahead.

Alright so Von Richten is alive and well, and wants all of his stuff back.  We are sad haha.

A few more hours of exploration and we find ourselves in the basement.  Getting ourselves into the basement was rather odd.  My character just decided to wander down their first as he tends to wander.  Our thief wanted to ride a barrel of wine down the stairs yelling YEE HAW!  and the rest followed behind.

And there is a very large pissed off tree with green eyes.  A fight ensues.  While we all wanted to fireball the beejeebus out of this tree, that idea seemed like a bad plan.  Since we are supposed to be saving the winery and not burning it to the ground.

We did however light off a few malltov cocktails at the tree, once we remembered that our fighter had a decanter of infinite water, which we could use to douse the tree after it died.

The rather scary looking huge tree finally met its maker, we found 3 holes in the basement floor. and so ended the session.

Apparently we level up next time.

And as a side note, my cleric has become somewhat boring to play, and I'm hoping he gets killed off soon.  I'd like to play a paladin samurai in barovia at some point haha.

F.I.E.R.C.E. (Freakishly intelligent evil regurgitating carnivorous entity.) - New Labyrinth Lord Monster

F.I.E.R.C.E.

(Freakishly intelligent evil regurgitating carnivorous entity.)

No. Enc:  Unique

Alignment:  Chaotic

Movement: 40’ (10’)

Armour Class:  0

Hit Dice:  8

Attacks:  3 (Bite/Claw/Claw)

Damage:  1d8/1d6/1d6

Morale:  9

Save: F8

Hoard Class: XIV

XP:  1400

The F.I.E.R.C.E is an abomination created by two evil mages who were in competition with each other.  Both of the mages were trying to create a hybrid guard dog type monster.  During their experiments something went horribly wrong (or so the legend goes) and the F.I.E.R.C.E was created.  This as much information as historians could gather, as all notes on the monster were gobbled up along with the two mages.  

This monster is a cross between a large worm, dog and a small dragon without wings.  It is approximately 15 feet long, with a large mouth filled with razor sharp teeth.  It smells of death and vomit.  Because of its underdeveloped digestive system it spews forth an acidic regurgitation once an hour.  This acid is a wave about 4 feet wide, and usually spills forth fifteen feet.  (The acid does 4d6 damage to anyone in the general vicinity).  

The F.I.E.R.C.E is a ruthless killer, using its large bite and claws to defend itself.  It is incredibly slow and often will hide in shadows and darkness waiting for unwary prey.  

The extremely busy cartographer

I've often wondered exactly what Dyson Logo's resume would look like, at least as far as the last 3 or 4 years is concerned?

Dyson Logos 

Somewhere In Canada 

Previous Job Experience 

Doesn't matter, look below. 

Current Job Experience 

Drawing Maps for 4 years professionally

Honest to God! That's gotta be the coolest thing in the world in my humble opinion. If you can't tell I'm crazy envious.  

I have to say Dyson has basically changed the game as far as cartographer goes in our industry.  If you don't know, he has an awesome patreon where people pay him to draw maps.  He puts all these maps up for free on his blog for home use.  In the last few years I've seen more than a fair share of adventure modules coming out with Dyson maps in them.  Which just increases the awesomeness of the brand. 

Geek & Sundry just published an article with some of the best cartographers, and guess who's on the list? 

So you might be wondering why I'm posting about Dyson? Well he just released the latest Dodecahedron Cartographic Review For 2016. 

Here's the info: 

Another year of maps! 107 pages of maps with annotations curated from the maps posted to the Dodecahedron throughout 2016 (basically all the maps posted except for the My Private Jakalla maps which are still not complete).

The Review is available in two formats. The main emphasis of the release is an 8.5 x 11 inch spiral-bound book offered through Lulu. As spiral binding isn’t available through OBS, this is only available through the Lulu storefront. This $18 print edition includes a coupon code (on the first page) for you to buy the electronic edition for $2.50.

The PDF edition is available from RPGnow and includes not just the bookmarked version of the print-edition PDF, but also a digital appendix that includes the maps without the annotations making them easier to print for your games.

Lulu Link:
http://www.lulu.com/shop/dyson-logos/2016-dodecahedron-cartographic-review/paperback/product-23114854.html

RPGnow Link:
http://www.rpgnow.com/product/208042/2016-Dodecahedron-Cartographic-Review

Now If you are already jumping in your seat to grab the new review, if you don't already have the previous two years, here are the links. 

2014 Cartographic Review

2015 Cartographic Review 

So honestly what the heck are you waiting for? Get the book, heck get all 3 if you don't have them.  I've often started working on a map, just to go "wait a sec I'm sure Dyson has a better one, I'll go take a look".

*Please note, I posted this up because Dyson is an awesome guy, not because I'm getting a kick back, grab the book if you like maps.  Cheers

The Bloodless One

The Bloodless One

No. Enc:  Unique

Alignment:  Chaotic

Movement: 90’ (30’) 

Armour Class:  -1

Hit Dice:  10

Attacks:  3 (2 Claws/Head Butt)

Damage:  1d8/1d8/4d8 

Morale:  10

Hoard Class: XV

XP:  3100

Spells: 5 (1st level) 4 (2nd Level) 3 (3rd Level) 
The Bloodless One is a rare lesser demon of the abyss.  It normally appears as a nine foot tall humanoid covered in coarse hair.  It's face is remarkably evil, with large protruding teeth and curved goat horns atop its skull.  It's purpose upon the plane of men may vary (see motivations table), it is however called into being by worshipers from time to time.  Upon it's arrival The Bloodless One will confiscate a lair from other chaotic humanoids, and or it's worshipers, demanding tributes and sacrifices in return for powers and spells.  What makes the Bloodless One different from most demons is that it prizes above all else loyalty, if its worshipers do as it asks it will go out of its way to return the favour.  

The Bloodless One has the ability to cast magic, and in some cases will bestow spells upon it's worshipers.  In combat the Bloodless One will protect itself by sending it's minions after anything that threatens it.  From the sidelines it will cast offensive spells, and when it has to it will head butt and claw at invaders.  The Bloodless One is so named because it does not in fact bleed, when wounded a deadly toxin will be released causing 2d6 damage to anyone in a 30 foot vicinity (allow a save vs poison for half damage). This will happen every single time the monster is hit.  Covering oneself in blessed holy mud will negate the effects of the toxin poison released by the bloodless one. 

To summon the Bloodless One one must do the following: 
*Spend 4 days and nights in prayer
*Sacrifice unwilling creatures each day
*Burn the hide of a dragon 
*Boil the remains of a once great lord/king

1d8	Motivation
1	To destroy the children of the one that previously vanquished it.
2	In search of a deadly relic from ancient times.
3	To go to war against another evil demon/dragon.
4	To cause suffering and harm against a college of mages who have used him in the past for nefarious means.
5	Extremely hungry for gold coins, which aids in digestion.
6	To topple the races of man, plunging them back into prehistoric times.
7	To acquire the knowledge to open the abyss forever.
8	To find an extremely comfy couch to spend eternity on.

Back in the saddle! with a bunch of cool stuff!

I'm back! had a nice relaxing vacation and know I'm onto more RPG stuff.  Below are a bunch of cool products that have come out in the last few weeks.  So of which you may know about some of which you may not.

FANTASTIC! EXCITING! IMAGINATIVE! Volume One

I contributed to this awesome holmes inspired mag (added one cool table).  You can get it for FREE right here.

Dr. Holmes himself said the game was "fantastic, exciting, and imaginative." We all hearily agreed then, and we all heartily agree now. Still under the spell of that blue-covered book all these years later, we created a plethora of new elements to inject into games run with those rules (or honestly, any similarly straight-forward such rules).

Herein you will find well-over 50 new ideas for your game — all of it inspired by the art in the original book! New spells, new magic, new monsters and threats, new directions to explore, and plenty of twists on the classics.

Warm up your dice — Adventure is here! 

VISCERA

The awesome +Andy Bartlett wrote a set of cool rules addons for Fighting Fantasy.  You can check out his post here:  http://drbargle.blogspot.ca/2017/03/viscera-v10.html

And download the rules here;  https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bx10ahCQFRH2X1VkZU1NWHR0ZUk/view

Speaking of fighting fantasy, there is another cool set of rules that came out latetly called " Trokia!"  I had a chance to download the rules but haven't had a chance to read them other than a quick look over. 

Troika! is a complete role playing game, giving you everything you need to create characters and lead them through the hump-backed sky towards adventure.

The game is a response to decrepit UK RPGs. A "retro" RPG rebuilt without sentimentality, corpses of darlings litter the streets.

You can download it here: 

There is also a free artless version here: 

The B/X Warrior

More than simply a fighter, the warrior class has access to talents drawn from a wide range of archetypes, all integrated into a single class. Berserkers & swashbucklers, thugs & knights, paladins & rangers, gladiators & skalds. No need for all of those specialised sub-classes any more!

Within these pages, you will discover:

• Complete advancement tables for level 1 to 20.
• 36 adventuring talents.
• Themed packages of talents for a quick start into the game.
• Rules for song magic and dabbling in arcance secrets.

Download it here: 

Stalker Island

The infinitely productive +Tim Shorts just released a cool looking adventure for Swords & Wizardry light.  You can check it out on Tim's patron here. 

Stalker Island was created for my sandbox using the Swords & Wizardry Light system. I'lll have more information about the sandbox soon.  

Possible hooks for Stalker Island:

• Cave found during hex exploration. Hey, the party finds a big ass cave, they're going in. No need for a hook.
• Skulks travel to civilized areas to get supplies. One of the homesteads believes there are bandits stealing chickens, grain and ale. 
• The skulks take a prisoner to grow another shank shrub to plant along the river banks for better protection. 
• A young skulk has a crush on one of the local girls. He visits her at night. She believes he is a ghost. When the party is called the parents mention their daughter was talking to ghosts.

Demon City

If you have been living under a rock you might not be aware that +Zak Sabbath has a cool Patreon going for demon city.  He has posted a neat mechanic for task resolution here. 

Journeymanne Rules

And finally Dreamscape Design has kicked off work on the Journeymanne rule set for Blueholme, which expands past 3rd level.  You can check it out here. 

Journeymanne is simply a much-expanded version of the Prentice Rules. Character levels cover 1-20, so you don’t need the Prentice Rules to play. Characters can be of any species, referee permitting – we found medusae a bit tricky in play, but generally there are no technical problems in introducing any type of creature to the party. Character classes can be combined to create new classes like that old favourite, the fighting magic-user. There are also, of course, a lot more spells, a lot more creatures, and a lot more magic treasures. In addition, the rules have been expanded to cover high-level stuff like moving beyond the Underworld to adventuring in the Realm and in the Wilderness, and player characters establishing their own strongholds.

RE: In response to the darkside of this hobby (loneliness & sadness).

In case you are wondering "What the heck?".  This post stems from a few sources, first the original video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHjScERTulI

And here is a reply from +Samwise Seven RPG https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UinUBnB0jkE&t=133s

and +Eric from Bloat Games https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBuT-YsRGdk&t=106s

The videos do shed a positive light on the topic.

Here's my 2 cents.  First off I grew up during the 90's "Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness" era.  I remember talking to a friend once about the 90's and he said the following "I'm amazed we got out alive".  Mostly in reference to the massive amount of depressing music.  Alright, that was a wee bit of a tangent.

My personal opinion is similar to Eric & Sams, I don't find the spare time part of the hobby depressing whatsoever.  Honestly it gives me something to do, something to think about, especially when I'm doing menial tasks.  As I've often stated I walk to work in the morning, and that is my time to think about RPG things.  And then promptly post a blog about them when I get to work.

This post isn't about the darkside of forums and shit slinging (see the next post on that).  This is really about the time GMs (and players to a degree) spend sitting at home coming up with ideas, reading, creating.  And how sometimes it can be a bit depressing I guess, when as an introvert you aren't really doing anything (ie playing the game).

Honestly I really enjoy this aspect of the hobby.  And its really funny how inspiration might strike.  Watching a movie, talking to a random person at the bus stop (that guy would be a perfect NPC!)

As an example this morning I was thinking about the movie "The Island" with Ewan Mcgregor, and how it could be a interesting idea to attempt to incorporate into a mutant future campaign, or maybe a traveller world.

I guess if I can somehow wrap up this ramble, I'm always thinking about things, working on the hobby, and I have never seen it as a downside.  In fact I think it gives me some purpose.  Prior to getting back into RPGs I spent an inordinate amount of time on the internet essentially doing nothing, and playing video games for hours on end.  Now I've worked on a ton of cool projects, released some adventures myself, I'm playing in 2 RPG groups.  It's been a wonderful change for me.

That's my 2cents.

The blog is going to be on hiatus for a bit, I'll be back in a week or so.

Slinging Feces on the internet

Honestly slinging crap on the internet has got to be the stupidest past time that was ever created.

My personal opinion is as follows in regards to people who publish games:

1.  Is the product cool?
2.  Do I have the money?
3.  Will the product enhance my players gaming experience?

If all of those are a yes, I'm buying it.

Further to the slinging of feces.

Is the person who wrote the product a "this thing" or a "that thing".  Or were they accused of "this thing or that".

I don't honestly care, see above #1,2,3.

Just my opinion, social media can be the strangest thing. And in some cases, while it is a wonderful thing for community it can be extremely damaging.  Walk a mile, and treat people the way you would like to be treated.

I am fully aware that this post really has nothing to do with gaming per se, as far as cool tables and random shane things, however it was on my mind this morning. There is far too much of this crap that goes on. And I wanted to state my opinion that I give no shits haha.

RE: If you could only play 6 RPGs, what would they be?

I noticed this video the other day from Eric Bloat. Since I don't do youtube videos I figured I'd just post the answer to this question in my blog.

So 6 RPGs that I can't live without. 

Basic Fantasy RPG - This game does pretty much everything I need, and could easily be scale-able to any type of game I would like to run.

And since BFRPG does everything I need, I honestly probably wouldn't need any extra games with me.  That said I think I would bring a few extra games for flavour.

Original d6 Star Wars, Classic Traveler, Advanced Fighting Fantasy v2.0, mini6 (because you can basically make any game out of it), And a binder with a bunch of retro clones (Lab Lord, Blueholme).  I know the last one is a total cop out, but whatever it's my blog.

What would be extremely helpful is a huge book of random tables and one rpg.  And If I had room in my duffel bag I'd throw some paper minis in there.

Speaking of desert island, I'm off to warmer climes very soon.  So the frequency of posts is going to go down for a bit.

Go on and roll some dice, I'll be back in a week or so.

Pre Generated Characters For "An Invitation From The Blue Baron"

Here are a few pre-generated characters for use with "An Invitation From The Blue Baron"

I used my "d100 mildly plausible backgrounds for old school characters" table. 

Every character also received one minor magical item.
You can download a pdf of all of the pre-generated characters right here.
You can download a pdf of the official character sheet here.

Beshi (Elf Cleric) 1st Level 

STR 5

DEX 12

CON 8

INT 9
WIS 14
CHA 3

AC 7 (Leather armour) 

Club (1d6) 

Spells: None

Background: Cartographer
Magic Item: Giant Finger Nail Clippings - A large sack containing Giant toenail clippings, adds a +1 to attack and damage rolls for a day.

Equipment: Backpack, rope 50', holy symbol, vial of holy water. rations

Kumba (Human Cleric) 1st Level

STR 10

DEX 12 

CON 15

INT 10
WIS 9
CHA 17

AC 7 (Leather armour) 

Mace (1d6) 

Spells: None 

Background: Terrible hunter, nearly starved.
Magic Item: Rusted Straight Razor - If a player shaves their legs with this, it will allow them to swim and breath underwater for an hour.
Equipment: large sack, tinderbox, 6 torches, holy symbol, rations

Taran (Elf Fighting Man) 1st level

STR 12

DEX 12 

CON 6

INT 10
WIS 9
CHA 15

AC 7 (Leather armour) 

Short Sword/Short Bow (1d6) 

Background: Drowned a family member.
Magic Item: Leather Barf Bag - this bag contains exactly what you think it does.  When the contents is poured out, it will allow a character to fly for 1d4 rounds.
Equipment: rope 50", 6 torches, wolfsbane, tinder box, small sack, rations

Mida (Dwarf Thief)  1st level

STR 18

DEX 13 

CON 9

INT 11
WIS 19
CHA 5

AC 7 (Leather armour) 

Club (1d6) 

Background: Veteran of war
Magic Item: Pixie Finger - When carried in a pocket, the player will receive a +5% bonus to experience for the rest of the day.
Equipment: 10' pole, backpack, 50" of rope, rations

Mako (Halfling Magic User) 1st Level 

STR 15

DEX 16 

CON 9

INT 13
WIS 13
CHA 5

AC 9 (no armour) 

sling/dagger (1d6) 

Spells: Magic Missile

Background: Made a pact with a witch.
Magic Item: Polka dot accordion- when played this accordion will not only make your toes tap, it will cure one person of poisoning.

Equipment: rations, flask of oil, tinderbox, small sack.

Bala (Human Fighting Man) 1st Level

STR 13

DEX 10 

CON 7

INT 14
WIS 11
CHA 11

AC 7 (Leather armour) 

Short Sword (1d6) 

Background: Swindled a high ranking mage.
Magic Item: Dagger Of Ghostly Tidings - This dagger on a successful attack will create a ghost from the past of the monster.  Allow a saving throw at -2 , if failed the monster flees in terror.  (could be a relative come back to haunt them).  

Equipment:6 torches, tinderbox, rations, large sack

Chomba (Human Thief) 1st Level 

STR 13

DEX 10 

CON 11

INT 14
WIS 13
CHA 13

AC 7 (Leather armour) 

Dagger (1d6) 

Background: Lost all gold in a bad bet.
Magic Item: Plate Of Haggis - When i digested the player receives a kilt which acts as plate mail for 1d4 rounds.  
Equipment: rations, large sack, 10' pole.

Mwiri (Human Magic User) 1st Level

STR 4

DEX 6 

CON 7

INT 14
WIS 10
CHA 9

AC 9 (no armour) 

Staff (1d6) 

Spells: Charm Person 

Background: Was a travelling merchant.
Magic Item: Tome Of Remembering - Allows a magic user or cleric to remember 4 extra spells Lasts one day.
Equipment: backpack, rations, mirror, garlic.

d20 Somewhat Unique Bad Guys

Tired of the typical bad guys? Here's a d20 table with some strange ones.

1.  Vegetarian Ogre Tribe.
2.  Three Eyed Skunk Man Hybrid with a penchant for nice perfumes.
3.  An Honest Trader, with a dark secret.
4.  Insane Cult Leader, believes the world is flat.
5.  Crossbreed Dinosaur & Robot that is self aware.
6.  Punk Rock Minstrel Pixies.
7.  Piranha Men that can breath on land, and fly!
8.  Enraged Princess stuck between two planes of existence, appears as a shimmer.
9.  A demon who likes to spend time gardening.
10.  Vampire with a lust for collecting rodents.
11.  Old knight who was betrayed by his squire.
12.  A monk who learned to bend time.
13.  A balding sorceresses looking for a wig of Chimera hair.
14.  A goblin tribe famous for their cheese, their herd of cows has been stolen by an unruly Minotaur.
15.  A human thief who has had his arms magically replaced with tentacles.
16.  A deposed lord with a major gambling addiction.
17.  A witch who made a pact with a evil allicorn.
18.  Giant who spends most of his time building a fort made entirely out of large trees from nearby forest.
19.  Pirates trying to return an evil treasure.  (whoops stole that one!)
20.  The ghost of murdered bride (her husbands father was the murderer!).

A bit of nostalgia

As usual every morning I got thru my memories on the blue social network, and I came across this.

Since that time (4 years ago!) my cousin in law has acquired massive amounts of dice, ran a few games as a DM using BFRPG, and is now playing in 3 campaigns! Our old school one, a 3.5 game and our 5e game! Awesome sauce.

Latetly another friend of mine on the blue network has been posting some awesome dice shaming pictures, which is leading to more discussions about D&D.  This is also good!

If I remember correctly the first game I ran for Kurt and my Wife was "Keep on the borderlands" using BlueHolme.  It was a fun evening.  They started out as murderhobos the first few games.  But quickly got the hang out role playing.  Which has lead to a bunch of sessions where we have basically talked for 3+ hours!

If you haven't watched "The Reward" yet, it's posted below.  Great flick.

And now on to other bits of rambling.

I've decided to drop my mutant future campaign planning for the time being.  I think the next time the old school group meets, we will probably continue with our current campaign, which is totally cool with me.  While I did complain a bit about Famine In Far Go, after a secondary read, I think it would make for an interesting one shot when the time comes.

In the mean time I am going to work on a one shot 5e adventure.  As you know we have been running Curse Of Strahd, and it's been a lot of fun.  However I'd like to have something prepped for whenever our DM gets a bit pooped out.

The other DM in our group has been busy running a campaign online, so his head is filled up with that.  Had a brief discussion about returning to the Abyss, but I think he has enough on his plate currently.

Now that "An Invitation From The Blue Baron" is basically complete, I've been slowly wondering what my next project is going to be.  Before I completely put the Baron to bed, I'd like to re jigger the layout for a black & white 8.5x11 print.  Mostly because for myself that's the easiest thing to print at home, and I'm guessing there are a few other people like that out there as well.  In the next little while I'm going to prep a file for lulu so I can print a few of them (original 6x9 version).

So the next project is one that has been driving me nuts for a very long time.  I think I'm going to start by re drawing maps, and then do a wholesale re-write.  I'm not promising anything, but I really need to finish that darn mega dungeon.  I feel like I'm in a good place now to tackle it.  The other thing that I would like to do, is to attempt to do all the art.  This is going to mean that I'm going to have to grab a "how to draw" art book and start drawing, throwing those out and drawing some more.  This is a good thing! It's a hobby, so I'm going to friggin learn how to do this.  Because this project has been an on going thing for so long, my brain has had enough time to marinate and figure out things, specifically what sucked balls in the initial draft, and what was somewhat cool.  Having just finished working on the Blue Baron, I found myself really enjoying writing with Blueholme in mind, so this project maybe specifically for those rules.  Obviously we will see how it goes, but I did find it quite easy to write for it.

I should note, that the purpose behind the Blue Baron was to do something creative, with a collective group of creative minds.  To a selfish degree it was a way of  kicking myself in the ass.  See this post.  I am extremely happy with the results.  And it has given me a much needed boost.

Alright that's enough for me this morning, have a good one!

Shane

DOWNLOAD - An Invitation From The Blue Baron

HERE'S THE DOWNLOAD:  https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-hlnlR7qn5XSjRiS0FHSnBWYkE

This wonderful forty four page adventure that you hold in your hands was written for Blueholme Prentice rules ™.  The book was a collaborative effort between some of the brightest minds in the Old School Role Playing community.  Detailed within this book is a twenty two room dungeon, new monsters & spells, and all kinds of interesting twists.  The Blue Baron holds his masquerade party annually, and because of this we have added a pile of random tables, which should easily allow replaying this adventure with different results! Grab a few sets of dice, some pencils, paper and few friends and delve into the masquerade.

Invited Guests Include:

Tim Shorts: http://gothridgemanor.blogspot.ca/

https://www.patreon.com/gothridge

Michael Thomas:  https://dreamscapedesign.net/

James George:  http://www.oldehouserules.com/

Matt Jackson:  http://www.msjx.org/

https://www.patreon.com/msjackson

Thaumiel Nerub:  http://cryptofrabies.blogspot.ca/

https://www.patreon.com/cryptofdoom

James V. West: http://doomslakers.blogspot.ca/

Dyson Logos:  https://rpgcharacters.wordpress.com/

https://www.patreon.com/dysonlogos

Shane Ward:  http://3toadstools.blogspot.ca/

Michael Wenman: http://vulpinoid.blogspot.ca/

Goblins Henchman: https://goblinshenchman.wordpress.com

Steven A. Cook: https://dndborderlands.blogspot.ca/

Mike Evans: http://wrathofzombie.wordpress.com

Venger As'Nas Satanis: http://vengersatanis.blogspot.ca/

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1575519826/trinity-of-awesome-returns

A bit of disturbing news has crossed my desk.  It seems that a plot may in fact be a foot.  While I would like to detail all of the information within this letter, I would prefer to speak with you in person.  A fortnight from today, please meet me on the stairs leading to the dungeons of the Blue Baron.  I hazard to guess that you haven’t been living under a rock, and know full well that every year the Blue Baron throws a rather distinct masquerade ball.  Obviously you will be compensated for your efforts.  Consider yourselves cordially invited.

– Nohj (Wizard of the court).