Lulu.com has a 30% off coupon through Cyber Monday. When you go to the Lulu website, the coupon code is at the top of the page.
If somehow you mise the code, it is: SAVE30
Now, I could list and link to a bunch of OSR related releases, but it's been done already by many others, so I'm going to send you to OTHER sites that have done the work and deserve the traffic.
Enjoy your holiday weekend and God Bless you all :)
The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern.
You can catch the daily Tavern Chat podcast on Anchor, YouTube, or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar
It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of audiobooks, but damn, they are usually cost-prohibitive. So when audiobooks pop up on Humble Bundle, I'm all over it. Currently, Black Library has a Voices of Heresy Bundle - you can get four titles for as low as a buck, or 23 titles for 18 bucks. Being that a single title can often cost 18 bucks, this is a bargain and a half.
The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern.
You can catch the daily Tavern Chat podcast on Anchor, YouTube, or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar
It's Thanksgiving here in the United States, and there is much that I am thankful for.
Let me get this out of the way, right out of the box - I am happy for my health. After the trifecta of hospitalizations in 2020, I have taken steps to turn my poor health-related habits into better ones. I've lowered my A1C by three points, my weight by about 50 pounds, and have changed my diet to a much healthier one. All it took was pneumonia, sepsis, and congestive heart failure (followed by four stents). Take my advice, correct your course earlier than I did :)
I am thankful for knowing the friends that I have lost, and those I will likely lose in the coming weeks and months. As painful as the losses are, there would be an emptiness in my soul were I to have never known them.
This is especially true for Doug Rhea, who touched more lives than anyone I know. I have cemented more friendships because of Doug and the convention he founded, NTRPG Con, than can be counted on my fingers and toes. Rest well Doug, you more than earned it.
I am thankful for the opportunity to give back to my community, not just where I live physically, but where my heart is, the gaming community. In a few days we'll be kicking off another OSR Christmas celebration, and it wouldn't be happening without all of you.
Most of all, I am thankful that you, my readers, my viewers, and my listeners, allow me into your lives for a few minutes each day. There can be nothing more gratifying, nor more humbling, than that simple amount of trust in me that you have shown over the past decade and more.
I thank you all :)
Tenkar
May your Thanksgiving be blessed with the comfort of family and friends, near and far.
Sometimes it's the little things that please us most. Other times, it's the large things that make us smile. Today, I'm happy and smiling because of the amazing selection of RPG titles in the Black Friday RPG Bonanza Humble Book Bundle (say THAT five times fast ;)
In the Black Friday RPG Bonanza Bundle, we have releases from Troll Lord Games (C&C Core rules and more, as well as 5e World of Airde adventures), Frog God Games (Bunnies & Burrow Core book and more, as well as 5e), Goodman Games (DCC RPG Core Rules and adventures), and Kobold Press (5e and System Neutral).
The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern.
You can catch the daily Tavern Chat podcast on Anchor, YouTube, or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar
It was about a week and a half ago that I was bitten by the Arduin bug. Sure, I'd owned the initial trilogy of three little books for a number of years, an eBay acquisition that I briefly leafed through and promptly put away. Who actually reads everything in their gaming collection? ;)
The print in the originals was too small for my older eyes. But when Emperors Choice announced they were rising like a phoenix and Arduin was going to be distributed again, I brought those books out of their place of hiding.
And quickly remembered I couldn't read the small typeface with anything coming close to comfort.
I found I did possess a copy of the Arduin Trilogy in PDF, likely acquired via the generosity of my readers and their use of The Tavern's affiliate links (see how useful they are?). I started reading that easy to read, thank the gods for a font size my old eyes can enjoy, PDF, and I was hooked. Line and sinker.
George DeRosa of Emperors Choice reached out to me to discuss Arduin, as I had mentioned Arduin on the YouTube side of The Tavern. He told me what I had barely scratched the surface, and if I wanted, he could send me a small package of Aruin goodness, as they were processing a large number of orders, and adding one more to the process wouldn't be an issue. I excitedly said yes, expecting a book or two from the "odds and ends" pile.
Instead, what arrived is pictured above.
I have enough to occupy my Aruin fever for months, likely years even.
As it currently stands, I intend to have some articles covering the crunch - classes, monsters, magic, and more, here on the blogside, and discuss Dave's various essays within the pages of Arduin on the YouTube/Anchor side of things.
If you have topics you want to be covered, here or on the Cast, let me know in the comments below.
The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern.
You can catch the daily Tavern Chat podcast on Anchor, YouTube, or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar
Following the amazing success of the Maps Extravaganza Humble Bundle, we present the Maps Bonanza, featuring Fractal Terrains 3+, a powerful world-generator and editor. Whether it's starships and solar systems, entire worlds, historical maps or fantasy floorplans, this treasure trove of assets and apps has what you need for your cartography. Plus, your purchase will support Carbonfund and Oceana!
The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern.
You can catch the daily Tavern Chat podcast on Anchor, YouTube, or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar
Well I had plans for this weekend, plans for my time and my money.......but, well you know...shit happens.
Usually it's the bad kind of stuff that gets in your way and ruins your weekend, but every once in a while it's an actual fricken opportunity. Saturday was one such opportunity and I just had to go for it.
I like to think I have a couple cool collectibles, but some of my crap....er stuff, I mean collectibles are kind of hidden away and if you can't see something & enjoy it, does it really exist?
One of these tucked away items is an old HackMaster promotional poster that was never really for sale, but sent out to game stores to push the upcoming (2001) Player's Handbook. I've seen them for sale for around $30 every once in a while (Noble Knight, eBay, etc). Thing is outside of one on display at the KenzerCo office, I've never seen one that hasn't bee folded up for shipping to a game store.
That made my rolled poster, that had been sitting in a tube for a decade or two, a bit on the rarer side......is it valuable? Meh, but to me it is.
The big problem, until Saturday, is that it's a huge poster... a hair over 35" x 24". This makes it kind of a pain in the ass to frame up nicely. I was planning on purchasing some frame chops and getting some glass cut, but if I wanted any kind of matting that was going to be... problematic., and really expensive. Unless I go to a custom glass shop, I can't do glass and plexi is going to cost $90-110. The frame will run $55 before shipping, which will be high since it's considered "oversize". With matting I'm probably looking at $200 for this poster, and that's for plexi, not glass like I'd prefer.
Fortunately for me, somebody had some custom frames made at Hobby Lobby (actually multiple somebodies) and then didn't pick them up. A trio of HUGE wooden/glass frames were marked down from $240 to $67.
Hell yes!
I didn't plan on buying some frames and matt boards, digging out my matt cutter and framing supplies, and nervously do the math and cut out some HUGE matts....but I did and now I have to find a place to display one of my favorite RPG collectables.
Simple Sopwith Triplane
-
I'm experimenting with a drastically simplified model, a Sopwith Triplane.
Absolutely minimal detail, and nice chunky easily printable struts and
thing...
The Doom of the Dark
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By Patrick StuartFalse Machine PublishingTunnels & Trolls A mysterious Inn
at the end of the world, an evil sorcerer, a talking shadow on the wall, a
door ...
DF Felltower - Rumors running dry
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We're scheduled for Felltower on Sunday. But I've hit a bit of a wall for
rumors. The PCs have repeatedly hit the same area over and over. There
isn't much...
[Fanzine Focus XLIV] High Passage Number Two
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On the tail of Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of
the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial
publication...
Zothique, the Dying Earth, and Yog
-
Last week I talked about the Dying Earth. Since this is last Monday before
I get back to my Mirror Mondays, I do want to hold up another mirror, even
if...
Recommend a 'Read Everything By...' Project
-
Some years ago, I read more or less everything that HP Lovecraft wrote and
blogged about it.
Years later, I read more or less everything Jack Vance wrot...
Justice Union - Collective Vigilance
-
It’s a tricky thing, justice. Best method I’ve found is making sure
everyone feels both ends of the stick at some point in their life, just to
give them ...
Development of the Majestic Fantasy RPG, Part 1
-
I just shipped off the draft for my Scourge of the Demon Wolf, 2nd edition,
to my editor, and I am resuming work on my next major project, the full
versi...
Vanishing Blogs From The Old Days
-
There are so many RPG related blogs on every genre and category of RPG.
Periodically I discover that another blog is no more when an app on my blog
reports...
Subscribe to Dragonne
-
Dragonne is the free journal of BRW Games, featuring referee resources,
random tables, design articles, previews, and news for fans of old-school
fantasy r...
Single saving throws
-
It's been a while now that my D&D-style games have used a single saving
throw.
Original D&D's saving throws, with their more concrete categories like
spel...
Beating the Planetary Blues...
-
World building is a central tenet of tabletop gaming, and it certainly
illuminates the sheer immensity involved in a living planet. Vast
continents spann...
Murder mystery
-
The local adventurers guild named "fernleaf and associates" is basically a
sleuthing agency. The patron is an older elf named Flynn fernleaf. He
pays wel...
The Common Store of Monsters
-
I am slowly grinding my way through the re-writes for Veins of the Earth.
As part of the re-write I have re-organised the ‘Pariahs of the Earth’
monsters ...
Young Washington and 1753
-
I saw Young Washington last weekend and absolutely loved it. If you know
me, you know the Revolutionary War era is my favorite time period. I have
always f...
The Old School (Hyperborean) Renaissance
-
Are these poorly-masked adventure hooks? Yes, yes they are.
For the last century a peculiar fever has gripped the learned societies of
Marlinko, Kezmaro...
Micro-Adventure - #114 RATS!
-
Dungeon tropes are a thing to embrace, not to dismiss. It's simple to
handwave the storm the orc infested tower to save the princess, evil wizard
in a t...
Moldvay Basic D&D now Available in Print
-
Just a quick note that (finally) Moldvay Basic D&D is available in POD from
DTRPG – previously, only the Cook/Marsh …
Continue reading →
Abstraction in My Liege,
-
I think the aspect of *My Liege,* that could potentially put off the most
people is its lack of accounting granularity. It does not track Court
wealth in...
Consolidated AD&D Weapon Characteristics List
-
Having spent the last few days down a research rabbit hole, I ended up
compiling a chart of AD&D weapon characteristics, adding some "missing"
entries an...
Referee Sabotage
-
It is an old saw that players are bad at executing their plans. Imagine
this common scene: the party have some big job that requires planning;
perhaps robb...
The March 1636 Lantern is Published
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Okay, The March Lantern is available. Those fast on the draw may have
noticed that I mistakenly published it as free access for 56 minutes. I
was just so ...
On a Happy New Year
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We are about to experience the most social upheaval since industrialization.
What will that look like in sixty years?
Sinless is starting it's third yea...
Mutants and Wizards
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Heya folks, long time no see.
I've just started working on something new called Mutants and Wizards. It's
going to be an OSE/OSR post-apocalyptic game t...
Rob Kuntz at Lucca Comics & Games 2025
-
If you are planning a trip to Europe (like right now) and wish to catch up
with me in person, make sure to book a detour via *Lucca Comics & Games*,
...
How do you do piracy… in SPACE!?
-
Interstellar space travel in Iridium Moons was always going to be a form of
hyperspace jump like in Star Wars or Traveller. Simply because it’s the one
for...
A long overdue hobby update!
-
Welcome back to the Vault everyone! 2025 is going by in a blur; I last
posted in February, almost started a post in March and now it's the end of
May. W...
Playing at the World 2E V2 Arrives
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With the release of its second volume, the second edition of *Playing at
the World *is finally complete. The two books combined total well over
1,000 ...
Writing playlists for all occasions
-
Hello again! Going off the idea of inspiration elaborated on by the prior
post, I also have music playing while I write my various games and fiction
pieces...
The Tarot of Pips
-
Somewhere in your dice collection is a die like this one, the humblest of
dice. Although you don't know it, this small white die carries with it a
secr...
Pirates and Necromancers, a Play Report
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Over the Thanksgiving weekend we did a lot of gaming ranging from
“off-table” domain level stuff to some solo adventures to spell and magic
item rese...
*'s in SpaaaaaAaaaace
-
A lot of SF (including a certain 2D6 RPG grandaddy) deal with ancient
aliens taking humans from Earth and dropping them, fleas and all, on one or
more w...
Last move - to self-hosting!
-
As my vote regarding Substack in the “marketplace of ideas”, I’m moving to
self-hosting.
I’m now at (and hopefully staying for a long time at)
Blog: ht...
Clean Your Room
-
Looking back at my little blog here. That last post… wow, I was having fun
playing WOW Classic! That was August of 1999 and I was having a blast… it
was ...
The Worm Ouroboros
-
The Worm Ouroboros is a proto-fantasy (the in the genre sense) novel by E.
R. Eddison, originally published in 1922. It is an amalgam of mythological
tradi...
Steve Jackson Interview
-
James Maliszewski recently did an interview with Steve Jackson over on his
Grognardia blog. Steve chats about the beginnings of The Fantasy Trip and
upcomi...
ToAD Monster of the Week: Crocoman
-
Now that I'm back doing the blog thing I thought I would use Tome of
Adventure Design to create monsters for The Black Hack.
Using the monster tables in th...
Strange, Dangerous, and Inhuman: The Fey and Fairie
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When I was a boy I loved fairy tales. Jack and the Beanstalk, Puss in
Boots, Rumpelstiltskin - I devoured all of it. My fascination that there
was a strang...
Dungeons & Dragonmead Fall Schedule
-
*As you know, I run public classic Dungeons & Dragons games at **The Loaded
Die**/Metro Detroit Game Night's Board Game Nigh at **Dragonmead**, in
Warren...
Fiction in Airhde
-
On a whim this weekend, I picked up some fiction off the TLG store. *A
Houseless God & Other Tales* and *The Mirrored Soul & Other Tales*, both by
the T...
Ravensburg Reboot: Streamlined City Map
-
I mentioned in my last post how I was tweaking and reworking parts of my
Ravensburg setting. Today I streamlined the city map. The old map had lots
of redu...
The Withered Crag available now
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I just enabled the sale of the PDF version of The Withered Crag at
DriveThruRPG a few minutes ago, and the custom print version will be
available startin...
Annihilation Rising Goes live
-
The latest in Fail Squad Games’ Quick Kick projects has gone live and needs
your support!! This project is only running 11 days and ends on 5/28/2019!
...
James's Celebration of Life
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We could not have asked for a prettier day for James's service. It was a
bit chilly and windy but gorgeous. A heartfelt thank you to all that joined
us tod...
Trap Tuesday: A step back
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I will get back to Tomb of Horrors soon. I found a topic that was
interesting enough to take a break. While interacting in a 5E group on
Facebook I talked ...
Let's Talk About Pacing!
-
The idea, I think, is that the RPG is ultimately about the long game. Even
rolling back to the early days of Basic & Expert, the goal of the player
was...
Profane and Profound Prep Part 2
-
This is part 2 of my work to edit my magic items for a DMsGuild release,
along with adding cursed items along the way. Here is part 1. Bone of a
Saint 8000...
Please, I don't do paid advertisements - don't ask.
-
A little note since people have asked me about this. My video channel's
*not* an advertising platform, so I'm not available for hire if you want to
promote...
New website!
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Slowly but surely, all the content here will make its way — in updated
form! — to my new website: timbannock.com. For fairly obvious reasons, that
site wil...
Please Update Your Link!
-
If you're seeing this, it means your link to the Greyhawk Grognard blog is
out of date.
Please update your link to www.greyhawkgrognard.com (RSS feed is
h...
Total Sales for WB:FMAG
-
Hi Folks,
It's been a long time since I provided an update for the sales of White
Box: Fantastic Medieval Adventure Game.
*LULU*
Print: 396
PDF: 433
*OBS*...
How can We Destroy this Campaign World?
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d12
1. You must trick a bard into strumming the *Chords of Fate* on the *Lute
of Annihilation*
2. Legends tell of thermonuclear weapons beneath megadunge...
Mord Mar - Session 5
-
We had another successful delve into the dungeon yesterday. The delvers:
Moira, the Magic-User
Radovan - Human Cleric (of Odin?)
Khazgar Stonehand - Dwarf ...
Bundle of Fantasy Age
-
Bundle of Holding: Dragon Age/Fantasy Age: Available until March 12. PA
Presents: Fantasy AGE Freeport live play Green Ronin in 2018 The Fantasy
Age RPG ma...
New Free PDF Module: The Hyqueous Vaults
-
A new dungeon module—written in celebration of OSRIC's 10th Birthday—by
Rebecca Dettmann, Allan T. Grohe, Jr., Jimm Johnson, Matthew Riedel, Alex
Zisch, a...
Swords & Wizardry Light: Session # 6
-
Two months after our last session (thanks to things like 8th grade finals,
a 4 year-old's birthday and party, Father's Day, etc.), we finally had our
next ...