Start Your Month Off Right

. . . with a selection of fantastic architectural expansions from the Schusev State Museum of Architecture, discovered via Subterranean Design:

Dwarves on the March

Art by DusanMarkovik

There's been quite a bit of discussion lately about a certain Dwarf-themed RPG Kickstarter that's been, well, failing to live up to its awesome-sounding premise. Happily, I didn't end up being one of the now-disappointed backers, but from time to time I've pondered the idea of an all-Dwarf fantasy game - I'm quite fond of them, even if they can get a bit stereotypical. Such a campaign would probably involve either the building of a new Dwarven stronghold (ala Dwarf Fortress), or the rather similar activity of resettling a previously abandoned one (ala Balin in Moria in between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings).

If that project ever gets off - or under, as the case may be - the ground, there have been a few interesting resources lately being posted around the 'net that would be worth consulting.

The first and most amazing of these is "Beards & Beers: All Dwarf Campaign Generator" by Jack over at Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque. Nine different random tables are involved, either d10 or d12, mostly describing clan trappings that can be used to combat a bit of the Dwarven sameyness that tends to crop up.

Possibly inspired by this, we have the d100 Dwarven Dungeon Dressings table from Elfmaids & Octopi, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. I'm particularly intrigued by the thought of traps that only affect those taller than Dwarves.

This one is from a month or two ago, but Dyson's Dodecahedron has the d12 Dwarven Subclasses list as part of an ongoing series of Subclass posts. And of course, while you're over there you should check out the maps for which Dyson is deservedly famous (the Mapper's Challenge, in particular, looks like some maps I've seen of Moria. Hmm . . . )

Via Subterranean Design

And of course, I have previously mentioned the Random Clan Feud Generator hosted at From The Sorcerer's Skull, just the thing for giving the PC Dwarves a break from endless battles against Goblins, Orcs, Kobolds and Elves.

Actually, that gives me an idea - so you have a huge, semi-abandoned dungeon your player's clan of plucky Dwarves are intent on colonizing. Why, if there's any benefit in doing so, wouldn't other clans -especially of course, Those Guys that the PCs have a particular problem with - want to do the same? Have the players generate their clan with the Beards & Beers rules, do the name for the antagonist clan, stick them both in the same dungeon - sounds like a pretty Dwarvish campaign premise to me.

FATE of the Empire

Well, I promised to let you know when the non-Kickstarter versions of Fate Core and FAE* were available, and it seems that "when" is "now".

No gorillas, but that creature on the punk-witch's shoulder could be a tiny monkey.
Or a ferret, it's a bit hard to tell.

As promised, the PDFs are priced at "whatever you want" - the link above has links to download ZIP files of both games (in addition to various character sheets and other miscellany), free and clear. After that, this page explains how to use Paypal to donate your chosen price directly to Evil Hat. Or, if you prefer, the games are also listed at DriveThru - also pay-what-you-want, with suggested prices of $5 for Fate Core and $2.50 for FAE.

Coincidentally, I recently came across another Kickstarter project that uses Fate Core as the ruleset for a particular setting - in this case, the steampunk world of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences novels by Tee Morris and Pip Ballantine. In particular, the novels follow the adventures of two agents of the titular Ministry, which protects the British Empire from the strange and bizarre - which, refreshingly, has here more of a mad science/conspiratorial slant to it than a supernatural one.

Unusually, The Ministry Initiative project is working on funding both an RPG and a fiction anthology, each available separately at different pledge levels (there are of course levels that combine the two). Time will tell if this approach was a good idea - with just over a week left, the project is only about half funded. Still, I thought the two two novels written thus far were pretty good, and the X-Files/Warehouse 13 type setup lends itself particularly well to tabletop gaming.

*That's short for Fate Accelerated Edition, folks!

Monster Hunter Interdimensional

The other day, Tim Knight of HeroPress made a post showcasing various adventuring parties from fantasy films and television shows. This in turn inspired Mike at Really Bad Eggs to make a similar list of the various cinematic versions of the Three Musketeers. That in turn got me thinking, about other often-gamed genres that lend themselves to ensemble casts. As I've recently been reading over the backer PDFs from the Monster Hunter International Kickstarter*, well, this was probably inevitable:

The B.P.R.D.

The Ghostbusters

The Scooby Gang

The Other Scooby Gang

Angel Investigations

The X-Files Unit

The Winchester Brothers

Blade & The Nightstalkers

*Which came out great, incidentally. When it's available for purchase I'll be sure to mention it again. 

The Cheap, The Free, and The Winnable

In a confluence of a few different events, it looks like a pretty good week for OSR fans in general, and Swords & Wizardry fans in particular.

First off, DriveThruRPG is spotlighting the OSR all this week, and is offering 15% off the dozen best-selling titles with the use of the following coupon code: OSRF711F2 . The available titles range from the classic D&D Basic rulebook to recent interpretations such as Adventures Dark & Deep, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperboria, and yes, Swords & Wizardry Complete and its Sword-&-Sorcery spinoff, Crypts and Things. There's also a smattering of non-D&D-derived products, such as Classic Fantasy for BRP (for all your Lovecraft/Tolkien mashup needs!).

Not to be outdone, Frog God Games has put their entire Swords & Wizardry line on a similar 15% off sale - most interestingly including their recently released Razor Coast setting books. Swords & Wizardry Complete is, of course, on their list, too - no word on whether the two discounts stack, but if they did Complete would come out to just a hair over $7. A real bargain, if you need that book, but both sales end next Sunday.

While I was reading up on the various retro-clones affected by the above, I happened across the website for North Wind Adventures, the publishers of Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperboria. On it, they offer a number of free downloads to support the game, and while some seem to be specific to the Hyperborian setting, others - particularly the "Random Sword & Sorcery Adventure Generator" - look useful for any game in the genre.

Finally, for the next couple of days Tenkar's Tavern is hosting a "Favorite Character Death" contest, with various OSR-compatible publications from Neoplastic Press up for grabs. Not only that, but the company's most well-known product, Teratic Tome, will be put on a bigger and bigger sale the more people enter - and if enough people enter it, too, could become free.

Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day Roundup

Wow.

The vast outpouring of support for Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day was remarkable to behold. I'm not sure if anyone has a complete listing of everything that everyone posted - though Erik Tenkar has surely made a heroic attempt - but here's some of the offerings that particularly caught my eye:

I'll start this off by mentioning Gothridge Manor's "Mini Manor" adventure Screams without Faces. It is noted to be a "mature" adventure, and truth be told it's a bit more so than I usually prefer. That doesn't stop it from being very well put-together, not to mention filled with interesting ideas. Other adventures worth checking out are Call of the Xul from Lost In Time, Harnly's Hole from Rended Press, and The Vile Worm from Arcana Creations.

From No School Like The Old School we get a workup for a Lovecraft-inspired Sword & Sorcery setting, plus Swords & Wizardry versions of two races iconic to 4th Edition D&D - the "Chaos-born" and "Dragon Kin". Another new race, the Brokkans, comes to us from the appropriately named tehbadger, who has a free copy of Swords & Wizardry Complete to bestow on someone who shares a badger-folk character sometime in the next few weeks.

On the class side of things, over at Fear No Darkness we find rules for a Werebear (along with a variant Thief and a handsome-looking character sheet), while Tim Brannon shares some S&W-compatible updates for his Witch-class project.

Of course, tricked out new adventurers need something to test themselves against, and many S&WAD contributors were greatly obliging in this regard. One of my favorites is from Semper Initiativius Unus, which gives us stats for (among others) the Vespertilian, or Lunar Bat-Man. And just in case you find your character in that most annoying of situations - a grapple - Hex Generation has some very lightweight grappling rules just dying for a playtest. 

Last, but not least, iDungeonCrawl brings us a S&W GM screen that condenses various useful tables onto just a few easily-referenced pages.

And this was just a small selection of the mass of creativity and generosity revealed by Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day. Personally, I think a huge thank-you is due to all who participated, especially those mentioned above.

Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day Is A Go

Spearheaded by Erik over at Tenkar's Tavern, for the rest of today there will be a huge number of blogs posting about the Dungeons & Dragons retro-clone Swords & Wizardry. A full blogroll of the participants can be found at 2,000 Coppers, though I don't know how long that list will be up.

A product of Frog God Games, S&W comes in three different varieties, each in increasing complexity: the White Box Edition, the Core Rules, and the Complete Rules. The latter of these is also the basis for the recently-revealed and highly useful SRD.

Though there are many similarities to be among all the various retro-clones, Swords & Wizardry has a few tweaks that I especially appreciate. Firstly is the support for both ascending and descending Armor Class - I get that the descending system was the original and most people who actually play are used to it, but as a newcomer I find the latter easier to grasp.

Another interesting thing about Swords & Wizardry is the way that, for character building, Race is semi-detached from Class. I say semi-detached, for while S&W offers a bit more flexibility than the traditional Race-as-Class systems, it's still not quite at the level of later editions that allow any given combination, no matter how wacky. Of course, that's just how the rules are written, and with a bit of creativity it's perfectly possible for a player or Referee to account for any combination their heart desires - indeed, Swords & Wizardry make it easier to do than many other retro-clones.

Anyway, as a way of encouraging folks to check the system out there's a couple of coupon codes for 25% off Swords & Wizardry products out there, for use today only - for Frog God Games the code is SWApprDay, while for the SRD Store it's SWAD252013. There's lots of products beyond the basic rulebooks available at the reduced rate at both sites, so if there's something Swords & Wizardry-related you've been waiting for, today's the day to pick it up. Also, again, there's over a hundred different blogs discussing Swords & Wizardry today, and you can read all of them from over at 2000 Coppers.