Finally….The Blood of the Dragon, 1st Draft complete

Finally its all come together and the first draft is done 🙂
Girls, Boys and wild things of all ages I proudly present….

The Blood of the Dragon

“Under a land shrouded in volcanic ash punctuated by rocky spires that tear at the sky they say the Great Dragon sleeps.  Tyanos the Black, Trickster god of the long dead Hu-Pi people stole their blood and bottled it for his insane delight. As drink of the gods it confers immortality to mortal man, but at what terrible price?

The very quest for this elixir is insane. A trip into a harsh and unforgiving land of the Spires, a poor and bandit ridden weird land, inhabited by the likes of Black Joop, Nigus the Headless and the Mother of Hydra. Names that should send a shiver down your spine. So pick up your sword, down the last of your ale to steady any nerves and stride off towards a great adventure amongst the rocks that defy the sky.”

What this Module contains

Blood of the Dragon is a short introductory adventure set in the ancient and ruined lands of The Spires.

  • A Rough Guide to the Spires
  • Adventure: The Lair of the Battle Apes
  • New Monsters – The fearsome Battle Apes.
  • Drunken Debauchery! – Optional rules for getting the characters into trouble and losing their hard gotten gains in-between adventures, from the poison pen of Colin Chapman (author of Atomic Highway)

Off to proof and a small amount of art commission, tentacles xed for a May/June release 🙂

Finally here’s the cover

Harken ye to Witchport!!

Brian Isikoff has announced his OpenQuest supplement “Whispers from Witchport, Vol I: The Bleak Coast” coming this December.

From his website Witchport Whispers

What is the Bleak Coast setting?

The Bleak Coast is my setting for vaguely West Coast Lovecraftian, swords & sorcery toned fantasy adventures. I’ve been using it, roughly, for the past few years as background for various games, including Labyrinth Lord with Realms of Crawling Chaos, Swords & Wizardry, Crypts & Things, and OpenQuest. I enjoy using it, wanted to develop it and thought others might enjoy it as well. Mythos’ inspired, S&S noir-ish fantasy … what’s not to like (unless, I guess, you’re not a fan of any of those ;) )

It’s meant to be a flavorful region that can host a GM’s campaign as the main sandbox, drop into a larger campaign, or simply be kit bashed for use as a GM needs. I envision the setting as half-baked – it has more flavor and suggestion, and every GM and playgroup should develop and finish it as they like and need.

What is Witchport?

Witchport is one of the three major cities – or townships – in the Bleak Coast region. It’s a particular favorite of this author and GM. Witchport is the dirty fingered city of the three – it’s my Sanctuary, Lankhmar, Kingsport and Vornheim, all rolled into one.

What Bleak Coast products are on the Release Schedule?

The first planned release – currently in development – is “Whispers from Witchport, Vol I: The Bleak Coast“. This book will provide the setting basics and resources including gazetteer, factions, original cults, bestiary, npcs and more. Whispers from Witchport is being developed to support the OpenQuest system. The current release date is December 2012.

Stay tuned for future updates, and thanks for reading!

~ Brian

5th Edition? Roll yer own!

I must admit to being distinctly uninterested about the whole D&D 5th ed “D&D Next” affair.  Wizards of the Coast lost my gaming dollar once I realised they wanted me on a new edition tread mill after 3.5, which I never got the same gaming mileage from than say 1st Ed, Basic/Expert or even 2ed.   Even without the fiasco of Monte Cook leaving the project, its very unlikely that I’d invest.

You see I’d much rather ‘roll my own’* 5th Edition from various bits of Open Gaming Content and my own common sense additional rulings. This is pretty much what I did for Crypts and Things, but only more so to make my own version of the Class Based Worlds Favourite RPG.

  • It would be heavily Old School in tone and most rules
  • The four core classes (Fighter, Thief, Cleric, Magic-User) with additional classes I like (Ranger, Druid, Paladin, Bard).
  • Races (Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Half-ling, perhaps Half-Orc BUT no fecking Half-Elves)
  • Ascending AC from 3.0.
  • From Araskia’s Sword and Sorcery rules, I would take the Skills system (but tie it to a separate Skill number rather than Saving Throw),  the Sanity System and possibly weapon damage by class.
  • Keep the Vancian magic system – which for me is one of the big selling points of D&D.
  • Have a more class based XP system, like 2ed , or even NO XP AT ALL!

And as much fun spells, monsters and magic items that I could cram in a 6″x 9″ US trade paper back of say 200-300 pages 😉