Mappi Monday: Forgotten Ruins of the Middle Hyborian

For some time now, the minds behind the acclaimed military-space-opera novel series Galaxy's Edge, Nick Cole and Jason Anspach, have been working on a fantasy setting. There's not a great deal of information yet, although some bits can be gleaned from the Facebook page and the dedicated website. For example, yesterday the former revealed this amazing map:

Discovery of the Day

While noodling about on eBay this afternoon looking for cheap copies of old Conan modules, I happened across the most interesting thing - a book called Conan and the Prophecy, published by TSR in the '80s as part of something called "Endless Quest" books.

Probably not by the Bond actor.

Further investigation shows that this was a line of choose-your-own-adventure type books taking place in various TSR properties - mostly Dungeons and Dragons, but also including Star Frontiers and a total of three Conan books.

Details of the plots are a bit on the scarce side, but what information is available suggests that these books are based more on Arnold Schwarzenegger than Robert E. Howard. To be fair, though, this was pretty much right when Conan the Barbarian was first released, so this is to be expected.

Less expected is the pair of Tarzan books that are also part of the Endless Quest lineup.

Unless I missed something rather major, the presence of Lord Greystoke is something of a puzzler. Edgar Rice Burroughs is, of course, in the famed Dungeons & Dragons  Appendix N, but for John Carter and Barsoom, not Tarzan's Africa. I actually can't think of any RPG that's based on Tarzan particularly, though his archetype often comes up as a character option in pulp-genre games. I've only read a few of the Tarzan novels, but there's enough of them that now I'm wondering if it would make a viable setting (and what you would do there besides be Tarzan). I do know he visits Burroughs' version of the Hollow Earth at one point, but again I can't recall a Hollow Earth setting that is Pellucidar, specifically, rather than just being heavily influenced by it.

Sadly, all five of these books seem to be quite rare and expensive now, I know I'll be keeping an eye out at garage sales and thrift stores for them. Like their digital descendant eBay, you never quite know what you might uncover . . .

This New Conan Game Looks Promising

Earlier this morning, news broke from Modiphius that later this summer they will be releasing an officially licensed Conan RPG. Details are sparse, though it is described as using a "2D20" system, which I am not particularly familiar with (apparently it's the system Modiphius uses for another of  their games, Mutant Chronicles). However, it sounds like the writers are making an effort to hew as closely as possible to the original Robert E. Howard stories, which is good. The Hyborian setting has always struck me as an excellent one for roleplaying in - one almost suspects that Howard himself would have been an enthusiastic player, had such games existed during his life - and while there are any number of good games for playing in the genre, it's been a while since there's been an official Conan product. I'll certainly be keeping an eye on this game's further developments.

Dungeons And Dragons - 1930 Edition

From Doug Anderson at Blue Boxer Rebellion comes images from the long-lost true First Edition of Dungeons And Dragons:

OK, that last bit is a fib, it's not actually a period product. It looks like it could be, though - the pulp-magazine aesthetic is right on. And as if that badass-looking T. Rex-inspired dragon wasn't enough, Doug imagines how the line would continue to develop, with some familiar-looking names attached - for example, we see an alternate versions of two classic adventures with the attached bylines of A. Merritt and Robert E. Howard:

You just know that second one was playtested with Conan as a PC. And finally, of course, it's not truly D&D until you have a Monster Manual:

One can only wonder what the rules looked like . . .

A Trio of Hypothetical FAE Campaigns

Although I'm a big fan of the Fate system, one thing about it I've never been able to properly visualized is how the advancement/character improvement mechanics are supposed to work. It is, of course, perfectly valid to play without having this feature, but I suspect there are a great many who are used to it.

Today, however, I came across not one, not two, but three different examples of how the process could work, using fictional characters as an example. Interestingly, all three use the Accelerated version of Fate, though the examples are applicable across all Fate variants.

First off, we have Luke Skywalker. Posted by Sketchpad, this example breaks each Star Wars movie into three parts, giving examples of various Milestones and even a Major Consequence (that hand-chopping thing). Also of interest to me was the last Stunt taken by Luke - "+2 when I forcefully defend myself from relatives" is, in terms of movie plot, useful exactly twice, one of which inspired Luke to take it. Presumably when the campaign continues this will get changed, but it's an interesting example of how fluid Stunts can be, as when as you read the rules they seem much more permanent.

The other two examples come from a newfound blog called Station53: the first is Batman, by Mike Lindsey, which uses Batman: Year One to show how Milestones can be used to tweak character concepts; and Conan by Reagan Taplin. This one is, in my opinion, the most impressive, as it uses all the Conan stories to build an ongoing picture of the Cimmerian's journey from thief to king. It's also kind of amusing to see the "Sneaky" and "Careful" approaches switching back and forth as one or the other become more important.

All three of these are well worth reading, as they make the prospect of a longer-term Fate campaign a much more graspable concept.

Sean-izaakse shows us the outcome when the latter two characters meet.