Adventure Lookup - Intriguing DM Tool

I'm a big sucker for lists and databases, and my recent discovery of Adventure Lookup is squarely in that wheelhouse. It is, in essence, a big list of adventures for the various versions of Dungeons & Dragons - from the Basic set to 5th Edition, with options for Pathfinder, Dungeon Crawl Classics, and various OSR rulesets. But not only is it possible to filter the list by system, but by player level, setting, publisher - even by what treasure is included or what kinds of monsters there are to fight.

Once an adventure is located, most entries will have some kind of indication of where it can currently be obtained - often a direct link to DriveThru or some other host (However, many that were originally from Dungeon magazine just have the issue number, and only a couple include a link to the Internet Archive Dungeon collection). After that, well, it's all up the the DM . . .

Blog Zeitgiest Roundup: Pulp Middle-Earth

Perhaps it was the release of the Players Guide for Cubicle 7's official 5E Dungeons & Dragons Middle-Earth adaption* at the end of August, but it seems to me that in the last month or so there's been a lot of good discussion in the vein of playing Tolkien's masterpiece with a decided Howardian bent.

While some had explored similar ideas earlier this year, it was really Trey at From the Sorcerer's Skull that really kicked things off, with his post "Middle Earth with More Pulp":

"Know, O prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Númenor and the gleaming cities, and the years of the Fourth Age, there was an Age undreamed of, when realms of Elf, Man, and Dwarf lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars. . . Hither came Aragorn of the Dúnedain, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a ranger, a wander, a chieftain, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the thrones of Arda under his feet." 

- The Red Book of Westmarch

Pitch-perfect bit of writing, that. And I'm not the only one who thought so, as Joshua Dyal at Dark*Heritage was inspired enough to not only dig up some of the most perfect artwork for a project like this, but to brainstorm some of Middle-Earth's pulpiest bits of history.

Frank Frazetta's Gollum

As the month went on, both Josh and Trey revisited the idea specifically to address what to do about the non-humans - Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs (Hobbits being lumped in with the Big People) - and come up with some pretty neat ideas.

Finally, at Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque CJK points out something very familiar in what's supposed to be a Lovecraftian symbol:

Oh, Ftghan.

Which brings up, at least to my mind, a whole other point - Howardian Tolkien is one thing, but Lovecraftian Tolkien? Quite another. From a slightly different perspective Gollum seems very ghoulish, for example, and just what is up with that thing Watching the Doors of Durin, anyway?


*Disclaimer: This, as well as most if not all other links to DriveThruRPG on this blog, go through an affiliate link that pays me if you click it and then buy something.

It's Dangerous to Go Alone

Art by Tyler Edlin

Poking around the other day on the Giant in the Playground forum, I happened across a neat fan supplement for using the latest edition of Dungeons & Dragons to run games set in Hyrule, the setting for Nintendo's Legend of Zelda series of video games. Presented in two books, the author - GitP poster "ninjadeadbeard" - has translated many of the races and items from those games into 5E terms (which are, to my eye, easily translated into the OSR game of your choice), as well as concocting a more group-centered version of Hyrule for your band of adventurers to explore.

This is presented as a post-Triforce era with a number of factions vying and intriguing for control of Hyrule - some inspiration from Game of Thrones is obvious, and probably inevitable. Still, the setting is reinforced with plenty of plot hooks, which are worth a look no matter what system you're using, and it's always interesting to see how somebody else interprets a setting like this. Particularly useful, I thought, were the Triforce-themed alignment system and the thoughts on using D&D classes in the world of Hyrule.