I'm a huge fan of the Drinking Quest series of releases. I have a complete collection of the prior releases, and even if they don't get as much use as they should, I always bring a box to every convention, "just in case" ;)
I find it impossible to have enough Drinking Quest. You can snag the newest release in the series, Drinking Quest: Belch of the Wild, for about 25 bucks USC - this includes a physical copy of the new game AND print and play PDFs of the new game and the six prior releases. Heck, you can snag all 7 games in print for about 75 bucks.
The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. The Tavern DOES NOT do "Paid For" Articles and discloses personal connections to products and creators written about when applicable.
DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern.You can catch the daily Tavern Chat cast on Anchor, YouTube, or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar
For those that don't know, James Shields did the cover for Swords & Wizardry Continual Light, and James did the cover for the (as of now) unreleased revision, titled Continual Light. I own a number of originals of James' original work, and I love his stock art. When I can focus on my small hobby publishing again, James' art will have a prominent place.
Needless to say, I backed the MACE Volume #002 Kickstarter at the ALL THE STOCK ART level, not just to support a creator and artist whose work I truly enjoy and who I personally respect, but because I know it will be top-notch.
You can back MACE Volume #002 for just the zine for as little as 10 bucks, but 75 gives you 45 pieces of stock art and the zine in print plus PDF. I know what I did :)
The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. The Tavern DOES NOT do "Paid For" Articles and discloses personal connections to products and creators written about when applicable.
DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern.You can catch the daily Tavern Chat cast on Anchor, YouTube, or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar
A dead simple, OSR homage to The World's First Fantasy Roleplaying Game.
Not every Kickstarter I highlight is one I think will fit my style of gaming, let alone fit the style of my gaming group. Six Hack is just such a game - interesting enough that it deserves an audience, but that audience likely isn't me or my group.
You can back the Six Hack Kickstarter for as little as 2 bucks for the draft of the rules, or for 10 bucks you get the draft, and later, upon completion, the professionally laid out final copy, complete with mini-setting and adventure for 10 bucks.
Six-Hack is a simple set of guidelines for roleplaying in the spirit of The Original Fantasy Roleplaying Game (1974). It pays homage to that classic game, but introduces some modern sensibilities, as well. For example, it includes a unified action resolution system, an Action Point economy, templates for creating mutable monsters, and an abstract commerce system. It further includes some tried and true advice for Referees (referred to as "Game Masters" in many systems). Finally, it also kills some so-called "sacred cows" - for example, there are no longer any ability scores (or ability score modifiers), alignments have been replaced with player-defined moral codes, and Experience Points have been replaced with an encounter economy.
The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. The Tavern DOES NOT do "Paid For" Articles and discloses personal connections to products and creators written about when applicable.
DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern.You can catch the daily Tavern Chat cast on Anchor, YouTube, or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar
The Hydra Cooperative Bundleis one of the few bundles where I own nearly a complete collection and still plan on snagging the collection. 9 titles for 14.95 can't be beaten. Some of the best OSR releases one can find in a single bundle.
Adventurer! This Hydra Cooperative Quick Deal gathers tabletop roleplaying supplements and modules designed by the talented creators in the Hydra Cooperative publishing alliance. Drawn from five early Bundle of Holding offers (2015-2020), these inventive and strikingly packaged titles show graphic inspirations ranging from art nouveau to pulp magazines to Atari game cartridges to Gold Key comics. And the modules themselves are just as flavorful: Face a Zombastodon during the Yambor soldier-bear pilgrimage across the Slumbering Ursine Dunes. Dodge mile-long grubs and Bonegrinders outside the bio-transmogrification Vat Complex of the Eld. Visit the Prismatic Peak of Mount Geegaw in seearch of the Whim-Wham Stone. Run scams and con games with Frantisek the Checkered Mage or Jarek the Nagsman at Marlinko's Ebon Horse Fair. Save the Village of the Gleaming Fins people from Skelephants or the immense pale crocodile called the Bachelor. What Ho, Frog Demons!
The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. The Tavern DOES NOT do "Paid For" Articles and discloses personal connections to products and creators written about when applicable.
DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern.You can catch the daily Tavern Chat cast on Anchor, YouTube, or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar
Index Card RPG (ICRPG)is currently sitting on my physical pile of "shit to read", but I think after reading the description of today's Deal of the Day, I'll be reading it when I return from the Poconos ;)
Xeno Dead Zone(both a stand-alone game AND an ICRPG supplement) is today's Deal of the Day. Normally 4.50 in PDF, but until tomorrow morning it is on sale for 1.80.
XENO DEAD ZONE is a one-stop solution to scratch your itch for a night of great gaming in the world of deadly space predators and the badasses who fight them.
This package is power packed with rules and resources for ICRPG players and GM's.
-Play in XDZ mode: a GM-less board game ruleset
-Play in classic ICRPG mode: 9 new classes, Xeno and vehicle stats
-Dynamic Mission Objectives and Ecalations in any mode
-A huge collection of print-and-cut standees
-Tokens for use in your favorite VTT
-32 map building cards and door standees to assemble your game map with flair
Expand your ICRPG multiverse to include the deadliest creatures in the spaceways!
What Happens When Your PCs Crash the Economy by Pumping Too Much Gold Into It?
The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. The Tavern DOES NOT do "Paid For" Articles and discloses personal connections to products and creators written about when applicable.
DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern.You can catch the daily Tavern Chat cast on Anchor, YouTube, or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar
I'm not a huge 5e fan, but I've come across some hacks that made the unwieldy (in my opinion) system bearable. Mythgarther was the prior high watermark to my eyes. From what I've read of BEOWULF: Age of Heroes, we may have a new contender.
“BEOWULF: Age of Heroes is a vast treasure-hoard that shows how you can hone the rules for 5e to make them cut like the edge of a long-seax and sing like a Scop.” – Francesco Nepitello, designer of The One Ring Roleplaying Game
One of the oldest recorded stories in Western Europe, Beowulf is the ultimate tale of hero vs. monster – and now a dramatic, 5e setting.
Discover a fierce background of wild seas and savage monsters, of meadhalls and of heirloom swords that bear legendary names. Gain Followers, take Inspiration from unique Portents, and use our specially crafted tokens to guide your voyage along the Whale Road.
Play the ‘Hero’ class, and choose from six sub-classes based on your ability scores. You can be the mighty Bench-Breaker, the wily Riddle-Reaver, or the sturdy Ox-Blooded. And you can come from a range of setting-specific backgrounds: you might be the Chosen One, or Adrift and seeking answers. You may be an Avenger, or of Noble Blood.
Written and illustrated by a team of industry veterans, led by Jon Hodgson, (The One Ring, D&D, Warhammer Historical) BEOWULF: Age of Heroes features 272 pages of beautifully illustrated mythic setting, and evokes a legendary age of tales, poems and song.
Described by fans as the ‘best hack of 5e ever made’, and by games designer Will Hindmarch as something ‘really magical’, BEOWULF Age of Heroes is uniquely designed for duet play: one Hero and one GM (though it can still be played by a group). This means it’s very easy to get a game going and to keep it going, and it’s especially ideal for play over the internet.
With its feet firmly in the world’s favourite role-playing game, BEOWULF has been very carefully forged to follow the folklore, flow and feel of the original poem.
The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. The Tavern DOES NOT do "Paid For" Articles and discloses personal connections to products and creators written about when applicable.
DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern.You can catch the daily Tavern Chat cast on Anchor, YouTube, or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar
I try not to take too much advantage of my ability to post here, but......if you can't abuse your position slightly to help out your friends.....
...actually this is a bit of a win-win as the MACE Volume #2 Kickstarter is a cool Zine of monsters that James Shields is producing. I'm a big fan of his black & white style and have several pieces of his original art. $15 for a print and digital copy of the Zine is a fair price and it's some great art. Getting new monsters is almost always a good thing, for GMs at least.
I haven't received my physical copy of MACE #1, but it's probably in my stack of mail I have to go through. The digital copy though....I'm pretty impressed. The digital copy I got with my backing was actually three digital copies.....three! I know, I know, you're probably thinking "Duh, even I know how to make a copy of a digital file...."
MACE #1 came to me as three distinct digital copies: a Low Res version, a High Res version, and a printer-friendly High Res version. I really wish more....publishers (?) did this. I was going to try and show the differences here, but the subtleties would be completely lost on a web/screen viewing, which is a shame.
All too often these digital copies are not far removed from the PDF sent to the printers, maybe cut back to not show cut lines and bleeds, but otherwise the same. Having three different versions, all fully bookmarked by the way, shows that James expects people to....I don't know, actually use the product. Being able to easily go to and then print off a single monster is a nice nod to the end-user that is sorely lacking in the average gaming PDF.
Check out James Shields' MACE Volume 2 Kickstarter if you get the chance....
Free GM Resource: Some Good Old-Fashioned Map Porn
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[image: Free GM Resource: Some Good Old-Fashioned Map Porn]
I've been a little *obsessed* with Kingdom Come Deliverance (KCD) this last
couple of weeks. N...
Let's play some Fuckin' D&D, part III
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Chronicles of Stone & Blood – Part IIAfter clawing their way out of the
ossuary’s grip, the Saintly Bastards returned to Greymire with battered
limbs and q...
Monstrous...Tuesday? Ghost Lights for Daggerheart
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I am still trying out Daggerheart and having a lot of fun with it. I
thought I might try to make a new monster. So here is yesterday's "Ghost
Light" as ...
Super simple XP system, take 2
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My "super simple" system ended up sounding a lot more complicated than I
intended.
After trying to create a formula to match monster XP with gold XP, I
r...
On the Ghost Incentive
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I *hate* being told "I'm playing wrong."
My favorite part of tactical infinity is the idea that you *can* douse a
fire elemental with a decanter of end...
[NEWS] July 30% off site-wide sale
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Now 30% off!
I am pleased to announce that, starting from July 1 and ending July 20, I
will be holding a site-wide sale on all currently available EMDT pr...
Music Monday - Reflection
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The monstrous Springtrap from Five Nights At Freddy's 3 has recently been
added to my latest obsessions, Dead by Daylight. I haven't done a Music
Monday po...
Loopy Tombs
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This poast was inspired partly by reading James Holloways 'Tome of Tombs'
- a zine of Tomb creation which you can find here;
https://james-holloway.itch...
Magic Items Are Gone for Good - Except for Arbiter
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When a magic item is sold in Felltower, it's gone. Lost. Gone for good. It
disappears from the game - you can't sell something now and get it back
later. I...
Miskatonic Monday #359: The Kangaroo Route
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Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha
and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s
masterpiece of...
Three Witches
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By Michael RobinsonRutibex"OSR"/5eLevels 3-5 Greetings Adventurers! Embark
on an exciting hex crawl adventure in the new module – Three Witches!
Explore a ...
Where do I get my alignment oaths?
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I'm rewriting my homebrew rules on alignment again. At each level, a
character can take an alignment oath, which gets them a gift and makes them
more fan...
Community Greyhawk – Grey Grimoire Issue 5
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The Grey Grimoire is a pdf fanzine produced by a number of well-known names
in the Greyhawk community. It clocks in at 31 pages, and has 10 articles,
rangi...
Into the Majestic Fantasy Realms, Last Day!
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My Kickstarter for Into the Majestic Fantasy Realms: the Northern Marches
is now in its last day!
Link to the Kickstarter
Random Party Generater
Everyb...
Traveller is Retro-Futuristic
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Traveller is an endlessly fascinating game to explore in the 2020s. Its
first release was only three years after Dungeons & Dragons, but unlike
D&D, which ...
Excavating My First Fantasy...
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I've been a fantasy buff going way back; but my introduction to the genre
came by way of a non-fantastical source: dinosaurs and prehistory. Not
surprising...
What to do on a Gaming Break
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It's summer again. Well it's supposed to be but with temperatures lingering
around 40 it doesn't feel like it. Most summers I take time off. A couple
mon...
I come from the land of the ice and snow
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So I got a wild hair and created 81 pages of demographically accurate
random birthplace charts covering every hamlet, village, town, city,
castle, and...
Easy Tracks in Blender
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There's an add-on for Blender called BagaPie, which adds a whole lot of
functionality in various arenas (scattering etc.). The one that is most
useful ...
A long overdue hobby update!
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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...
Dark Tower (1979)
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From the back cover:
*An Ancient Evil* has overtaken a once holy shrine. Thus, a sleepy mountain
hamlet becomes a focal point for mysterious disappear...
Progress With My Card Game
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On February 9, 2018 I was struck with inspiration for a card game idea that
I brought to Gary Con 10 and play tested away most of the rough edges. I
had th...
Pulp: Adventure Location: Trindade & Martim Vaz
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History is fractally interesting. Start examine any event, or following any
citation, and interesting facts emerge. But some places, for whatever
reason,...
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 ...
Blogs on Tape season 6 has begun!
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Hi everybody! Its been a minute. How are you? Everything is awful all the
time? Horrors never cease? You’re being driven mad by the weight of the
unfathoma...
The Hungering Dark
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Go into the earth, and reality will walk alongside you.
Walk further, and you will eventually be walking alone.
The world is plastic down there. Tar Lat...
Articulations
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Creating house rules, custom rules specific to a local group or campaign,
has been common throughout the history of D&D. What makes an effective
house rule...
Writing playlists for all occasions
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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
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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...
It's been a bit
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Hey everyone, I hope you are doing well! I've had a lot going on and
haven't had much time to blog lately. Heres a recap of gaming events and
other st...
*'s in SpaaaaaAaaaace
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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!
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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...
This is an Important Game Mechanic
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*"That's the GM's Regional Map from my AOWG. And it's a damned good
regional map. It's not a good map for a Simple Homebrew Campaign. It does
some s$&...
Clean Your Room
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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 ...
Steve Jackson Interview
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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
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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
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*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
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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
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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...
And Now the News Draft Download on Patreon
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It's self-styled Throwback Thursday and *having just released the 34-page
draft booklet of Hill Cantons news to my Patreon backers* I am going to
indulge m...
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
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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!
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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
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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!
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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 ...