Feltothraxis The Dragon Looks at Carocoa (and Dungeonmorph Dice)

Yep, Feltothraxis is back and he's got some help this time.  Ashley the Cat and Boo Boo the Psychic Police Bear are there for the assist.  Together, they take a look at Carcosa and some Dungeonmorph Dice.

Enjoy!

Switching Gears to the Unknown and the Weird

I've been delving fairly heavily into Carcosa during my previous bed bound two days.  It was probably the prefect way to first really read Carcosa, as it made the sick stuff seem even sicker and otherworldly.  I haven't looked that closely at the rituals, as I suspect they won't come much into use except as tools for NPCs, plot hooks and the like, but I did start to poke around the Hex Crawl, and there is much to like.  I'll return to Carcosa later.

In the meantime, I've been spending more time reading the Isle of the Unknown, which is a more standard fantasy style Hex Crawl.  Much to like here.  I could run a campaign using this fairly easily with what I've reads far.  (Carcosa would be much harder for ME to run without some heavy tweaking - but that's me.

I've also spent some time with the Weird Adventures from Trey Causey.  This is actually fun to read!  I'm not saying that reading RPG material isn't enjoyable, but Trey works well with the Pulpy source material. He had fun putting this together and it show.  More when I've gotten thru more.

Off the next two days (thanks Doc!) so expect me to get some more non-feverish reading done. I still don't know which came first: me reading Carcosa or me getting sick ;)

Crap, I need to get back to building my LotFP Bard class too!

Carcosa Has Kicked the Crap Outa Me

Alright, maybe not literally, but I've been mostly bed bound today, the day after I opened up the Carcosa hardcover for some stay at home reading.

Must have been one of the rituals I read (not that I was feeling all that great yesterday - its the reason I took off).

I just noticed there is a very slight, almost imperceptible color tint to the pages that changes depending on the section you are reading. Very cool.

And yes, the psionics section looks very workable, as long as you leave that daily random roll shit. Blows away the AD&D version of my youth. I always figured it was thrown in due to some otherwise empty pages in the back of the book.

Posted from my iPhone. Hot diggity dog!

Review - Carcosa - Part I - Impressions

The Look.  The feel.  Heck, touching the Carcosa book gives one a special feeling.  I said it before and I'll say it again, James really put together a nice package.  But how does it read?

Geoffrey McKinney writes well.  The imagery he draws with his written word compliments the art and the physical presentation (assuming you are reading a dead tree copy and not a PDF).  He writes over the top, and he writes it well.

The ideas presented are the key here.  Carcosa (so far - I've yet to reach the halfway mark) is one of those rare products where the parts are worth more than the sum.

I don't see myself running a campaign where Hit Dice and Weapon Damage are decided at the beginning of every battle - it adds too much randomness, too much bookkeeping, especially in the OSR corner of the hobby, where streamlined and basic is generally considered better.

Would it work as a diversion if the PCs get sent to an alternate dimension?  Definitely.  This is one of the reasons I think Carcosa is worth more for it's parts - as a toolbox / sourcebook hybrid - than a campaign setting of it's own.

Geoffrey has similar feelings, or at least expects a large number of readers to feel the same:

There is no right or wrong way to use Carcosa. Please
feel free to add to this book, or to delete or change anything
within. There is nothing in this book (or anywhere else) that
is “official” Carcosa. Following are only some of the possible
ways to use this volume:

ЖЖUse it as-is for a ready-made campaign.

ЖЖThe player characters in your regular campaign have
been transported by a curse to a terrible location:
Carcosa.

ЖЖUse Carcosa as a change of pace or for one-shot games.

ЖЖCherry pick contents (whether monsters, the psionics
system, the dice conventions, various encounters, the
sorcerer character class, or etc.) to use in your regular
campaign.

ЖЖSimply read the book as inspiration for your own
creations.

Above all, enjoy yourself.

There's a lot of stuff to borrow and steal.  I'll try and hit on it in the next part of the review.

Snuggling Up With Carcosa

I woke up this morning, realized I felt like crap, called my boss and took the day.

After trying to stay in bed as long as humanly possibly, the following hat up by a nice bath, I've decided to spend the rest of the afternoon in bed, under the sheets and reading Carcosa.

I'll either get better or die trying ;)

NYC Temperature Swing Is Worse Than the Carcosa HD Swing

Saturday Night / Sunday Morning I had to pick my son up from the police precinct he volunteers at as an Auxiliary Officer. He got off after working New Years Eve at 1:45 AM. I drove over in the pair of shorts I had been bumming around with. It was warm enough.

Today I woke up to 12 degree weather. I really REALLY need to break out my winter jacket ;)

I felt like a fighter that woke up to D4 HD in Carcosa (thanks to Dreams in the Lich House for pointing out this Carcosa quirk - I noticed it in my reading, then put it aside and forgot)

I was completely unprepared this morning ;)

Carcosa (and Isle of the Unknown) Have Landed!

I guess there is an advantage to living in the Big Apple - I get Raggi's stuff from the other side of the pond relatively quickly.

Now, I've been slowly pouring over the PDFs of both Carcosa and Isle of the Unknown for the last few weeks.  They were impressive, but with so much else on my plate, both on the virtual review pile and at work, I never really gave them a solid look.  I have the dead tree versions in my hand now and I am beyond impressed.

Raggi (and of course, the writer of these two releases, Geoffrey McKinney) has added two amazing books that I'll be happy to pass around at the next Gathering of Fools, so as to show my friends the quality works of independent RPG publishers these days.

Carcosa is printed on high quality, parchment lile paper.  At least, that's what I'm calling it, I have no expertise in the field of paper.  Unlike Vornheim, I don't have to go blind trying to read it.  First printing of 2000 copies.  Woot!  I am very excited to snuggle up with this.

Isle of the Unknown uses a stiffer, smoother paper.  Why do I care about paper when 90% of my RPG purchase are in PDF?  How the f' should I know?  The full color artwork is on just about every page.  It looks good and feels good.  I'm going to need to break out my book light for these.

Carcosa includes a fold out map / periodic table / entities and ritual key on a thin glossy cardboard.  Isle of the Unknown includes a poster of the cover / keyed map of the Isle of the Unknown on the same type of paper / cardboard.  Pretty neat.

We also get maps for the two books printed on a vinyl / latex thingie (think of one of those maps thorn into you Ultima / EQ game box, but not on cloth).  The hex numbers aren't easily readable, but  these are more novelty then anything else, so that's forgivable.  All in all, an excellent surprise in the mail today.

I'll follow up with reviews over the next week or two.

Latest Distraction - Star Wars: The Old Republic

Yep, I have my pre-order early access and spent a good part of this evening playing.  It looks like it should be fun as Bioware is involved and in general, they know how to tell a story.  They haven't done a MMORPG yet, so I'll withhold final judgement but it looks promising.

On that note, I'm going to spend some time digging into my Carcosa PDF right now.  James pointed out some technical good ins in the PDF that I hadn't noticed at first glance and I want to check them out.  Sanity roll...

The Carcosa PDF Is Pretty Damn Good!

There, I said it.  Jim did a very good job with the hyperlinks in the Carcosa PDF.  I've been clicking and clicking.  And clicking some more.  Artwork looks pretty too.  Now if I can only read the text and make my sanity roll...

Yes, I just ordered the Isle of the Unknown and Carcosa in hardcover from Raggi's site.

My peek last nite at Isle of the Unknown was my reviewer copy.  I was impressed with my short look, but I'll be putting time into reading these two over the weekend.  I have a feeling they will both require more then a mini-review to do them justice.

Hopefully I won't come out too scarred from the experience ;)

LL Advanced Edition Companion in Hand

Lulu is a much better, if more expensive, option when I pay for FedEx instead of USPS.  My Labyrinth Lord Advanced Edition Companion in was awaiting me at my front door when I arrived home.  Which is really good, as depending on the weather report I listen to the "snow event" that is going to be arriving in NYC is going to deposit anywhere from 6 to 16 inches of the white stuff, and that will probably mess up any deliveries.

I must say it looks "damn purty" in hand.  Excellent match to the Revised Labyrinth Lord book.  I already know the contents are great... can't wait to put this pair of books to good use.

Have Carcosa in my "digital" hand.  Definitely formatted to be printed and used as a digest sized book.  Just 2 classes in this setting: Fighting Man and Sorcerer.  Sorcerer does everything a Fighting Man does, plus all the extras.  So, why be a Fighting Man?  Anyhow, need to do more then skim this.  It's only 40 odd pages so it shouldn't take too long.

If only I had the type of job that allowed one to stay home on "snow days".