Kickstarter - Into the Majestic Fantasy Realms, the Northern Marches (By Rob Conley)

Alright, let me start this by saying Rob is one hell of a great person, and I'm proud to call him a friend. Some people talk about giving back to the gaming community, but Rob walks the walk. Look at Rob's hexcrawl, BlackMarsh. Not only is it free to download, but it is free to use in your own projects. Rob simply "gets it."

Now, let's take a look at Rob's latest Kickstarter, Into the Majestic Fantasy Realms, the Northern Marches.

Now it's time to expand the frontier once more with The Northern Marches, and to reveal more of the world that Blackmarsh belongs to: the Majestic Fantasy Realms.

Each regions of the Northern Marches brims with ancient ruins, forgotten magic, and factions fighting to shape the future. The Ring Islands, the Forsaken Desert, the forest of Les Gigantov, the Great Glacier, the Black Marshes, the underwater realms of the Grey Sea, all await adventurers willing to brave their dangers and plunge into their mysteries.

Together, the Northern Marches span over 100,000 square miles, divided across four 12" by 18" maps overlaid with a numbered hex grid for easy reference. Its factions, characters, histories, ruins, lairs, and cultures form a rich tapestry, creating a living world that players can visit as their characters while seeking adventure.

And yes, Rob is releasing the new setting material to the gaming community under the CC-BY 4.0 license, to be built upon as needed.

This Kickstarter funds the art and editing for the following. 

• A 200 page Guidebook - A detailed reference to the Northern Marches in the hexcrawl format. It covers the region’s history, religions, cultures, and locales, along with a brief overview of the larger world of the Majestic Fantasy Realms. 

• Travel Rules and Encounter System - Included in the guidebook is an expanded version of the travel rules originally presented in How to Make a Fantasy Sandbox. It adds greater detail to overland journeys, caravan travel, sea voyages, and adventuring in the underwater realms of the Northern Marches. 

• Five 12" by 18" Referee Maps - Four maps depict the major regions of the Northern Marches: the Great Glacier, the Wild North, Blackmarsh, and Northport. Each includes settlements, terrain, islands, ruins, and lairs. The fifth map combines the corner areas where the four regions meet. 

• Five 12" by 18" Players Maps - These maps show the geography of the Northern Marches, but only include settlements and locations commonly known to the public, perfect for use at the table without revealing hidden details. 

• Two 12" by 18" Overview Maps - The two maps combine the four individual maps into a smaller overview of the entire Northern Marches. One for the players and one for the Referee. 

• Setting Reference Document - Text and markdown documents with the text and maps of the guidebook will be released under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license (CC-BY 4.0) for use in your own projects and worlds.

I'm backing at 60 myself, and I backed one minute after it went live, and I'm only backer #8 ;P

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Free OSR - Blackmarsh (Sandbox Setting by Rob Conley)

Truth in advertising - I've known Rob Conley for over a decade and consider Rob a close friend. Blackmarsh is an OSR Sandbox and one of the finest sandboxes ever written. Coming in at less than 40 pages, it packs a campaign worth of adventuring within its relatively sparse pages. It should be noted that Blackmarsh is also available in soft-cover for 6.99 and hard-cover for 11.99.

In the days when man knew only the working of stone and fought for their existence against the orc and the goblin, the sky turned to ash and down fell the fiery mountain onto the land. The world tore open and the grey waters rushed in. Those who survived the impact were lost as boiling clouds rushed out in all directions leaving a wasteland in its wake.

The Mountain That Fell left a gift; magic. Near and far, those of learning and strong of heart discovered new powers to shape the world. In the desolation around the Smoking Bay the adventurous found viz, magic in physical form. And there was more, scattered amid the landscape were strange artifacts and stranger creatures that survived The Mountain That Fell. For a time men, dwarves, orc, goblins, and other races braved the dangers and fought each other in the wastelands. Then the elves came into Blackmarsh expelled the feuding races, drove the monsters out, and healed the land.

In the present day, many come to Blackmarsh to harvest viz, kill monsters, or seek the strange artifacts left by The Mountain That Fell. The only force that stands against the wilderness is the Blackmarsh Rangers. Anyone who is willing to defend the land and its people are welcomed into their ranks. Powerful kingdoms outside of Blackmarsh are beginning cast a covetous eyes toward the land's riches. Will the adventurers of your campaign become wealthy and powerful? Or will their bones join the many that have sunk into the swamps?

Blackmarsh is a complete, ready to run setting for your campaign. It can be run as its own setting or an expansion of your existing world. Contained in Blackmarsh are 17 geographical entries, 78 described locales, and one detailed town; Castle Blackmarsh. Each entry provide one or more adventure hooks to use in your campaigns.

Rob's Note: If you can afford it the hardcover print option comes with two blank pages in the front and three blank pages in the back that you can use for handwritten notes. The inside covers are also blank. The printing process for hardcovers wraps a heavy paper protector between the covers and the first and last pages of the book.

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 Rumble or YouTube - Tenkar 

Free OSR - Blackmarsh (Setting)

When I found my way back to active gaming, it was initially as a player. It wasn't long before our then-current DM for the 5e Early Beta playtest felt he was burning out, and asked me to take over the DMing reigns. I was nervous, as it was well over a decade (at the time) that I had run a game session, let alone a campaign, but I dove into it eagerly. My ruleset of choice was AD&D 1e / OSRIC and my setting was the excellent sandbox, Blackmarsh. The rest, as they say, is history.

In the days when man knew only the working of stone and fought for their existence against the orc and the goblin, the sky turned to ash and down fell the fiery mountain onto the land. The world tore open and the grey waters rushed in. Those who survived the impact were lost as boiling clouds rushed out in all directions leaving a wasteland in its wake.

The Mountain That Fell left a gift; magic. Near and far, those of learning and strong of heart discovered new powers to shape the world. In the desolation around the Smoking Bay the adventurous found viz, magic in physical form. And there was more, scattered amid the landscape were strange artifacts and stranger creatures that survived The Mountain That Fell. For a time men, dwarves, orc, goblins, and other races braved the dangers and fought each other in the wastelands. Then the elves came into Blackmarsh expelled the feuding races, drove the monsters out, and healed the land.

In the present day, many come to Blackmarsh to harvest viz, kill monsters, or seek the strange artifacts left by The Mountain That Fell. The only force that stands against the wilderness is the Blackmarsh Rangers. Anyone who is willing to defend the land and its people are welcomed into their ranks. Powerful kingdoms outside of Blackmarsh are beginning cast a covetous eyes toward the land's riches. Will the adventurers of your campaign become wealthy and powerful? Or will their bones join the many that have sunk into the swamps?

Blackmarsh is a complete, ready to run setting for your campaign. It can be run as its own setting or an expansion of your existing world. Contained in Blackmarsh are 17 geographical entries, 78 described locales, and one detailed town; Castle Blackmarsh. Each entry provide one or more adventure hooks to use in your campaigns.

Rob's Note: If you can afford it the hardcover print option comes with two blank pages in the front and three blank pages in the back that you can use for handwritten notes. The inside covers are also blank. The printing process for hardcovers wraps a heavy paper protector between the covers and the first and last pages of the book.

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  

Announcing "The Ugly, the Bad & the Good" series of upcoming posts - Oh, and Rob Conley's Blackmarsh will be the default setting

I've been toying with the idea of a series of posts offering up NPCs and creatures ever since rewatching The Good, The Bad and The Ugly earlier last week. I enjoy writing such, and I really do need to use my large library of stock art ;)

The kick in the ass was Rob Conley updating the licensing of Blackmarsh earlier today (probably the best, streamlined OSR setting available, and Blackmarsh is free in PDF, 5 Bucks in Print). I've decided to set the series of The Bad, The Ugly & The Good posts in Blackmarsh, or at least, The Tavern's version of Blackmarsh.

I'll be using the Swords & Wizardry rules, but I may experiment with also using descriptors for those that want to use then with non-clone / classic D&D rulesets.

Alright, back to work. I've also been tasked with a write up of Tenkar's Tavern by the end of the year. I'm heavily leaning towards a transdimensional tavern.

Oh, there's an affiliate link above. If you buy Rob's work in print, I get a quarter. Hey, it adds up!

Reference Library for My Upcoming ACKS Campaign

My Adventurer Conqueror King System campaign will be kicking off two weeks from today and I'm trying to make sure I have all of my pieces in place.  Therefore I have assembled my "Reference Library" if you will.  For those following at home, it consists of the following:

ACKS Core Rulebook - Kinda obvious, I know, but figured it deserved a mention.  Not much in the way of house rules (Max HP, 3d6 and arrange as you want - we are using the ACKS Online Character Generator)

ACKS Player Companion (GaryCon Edition) - this has only been released to Kickstarter supporters, but I've included it in the mix.

Blackmarsh - sandbox setting for use with Old School systems.  Free in PDF at RPGNow.  This is where my smaller "mini-sandbox" is being placed.

Hex 000 Series from Loviatar Zine - Christian's excellent sandbox series from his zine.  This will form the core of my mini-sandbox.  BTW Christian, how about rereleasing the Free City of Haldane in print?  Pretty please?  Can't find my copy anywhere :(

Tome of Adventure Design - if I need a random table, I can find it here.  If I need some tools to spark my creativity, I can find it here.  Not sure if I'd be picking this up if I didn't already have it just for this game, but I do and it will see some good use.

Toys For the Sandbox Series - not all of them are a good fit for the campaign setting I'm working on, but some should fit fine and others may need some work to fit.  just for the sheer number of plot hooks and personality filled NPCs could keep my running for months.

LotFP Grindhouse Edition Referee Book - one of Raggi's best pieces of work, I'll be keeping this nearby me as I work on some plot hooks and set encounters the PCs may find in their travels.  This book is almost worth buying the whole set.  As I already have it in both dead tree and PDF, it will see much use.

Random Esoteric Creature Generator For Classic Fantasy RPGs and Their Modern Simulacra - talk about a long ass title.  One of Raggi's earliest works and one of his most useful.  I'm definitely going to try to keep the PCs (and their players) honest, and this should be an excellent tool to keep them on their toes.  I already had this in PDF from RPGNow but would have bought it again.  It actually was my plan to, as I'd heard nothing but good about it, and forgot I picked it up years ago (when I had no game to GM)

This doesn't include the dungeons that the PCs my find / get drawn to / investigate / etc.  The above listing is pretty much System and Setting and Tools.

On the 11th Day of Free Holiday Swag, My Bartender Gave to Meeeeeee... Blackmarsh, a Free Campaign Setting

If you've been around this corner of the blogosphere, you probably already know about the Bat in the Attic blog.  You might have missed his utterly awesome sandbox campaign setting: Blackmarsh.  It's free, works well with any of the OSR games (and probably even the newer stuff the young kids are playing these days.

If you don't have it already, grab it now.  Really.  Right now.  Not later, as you might forget.  It's that good.

From the blurb:

In the days when man knew only the working of stone and fought for their existence against the orc and the goblin, the sky turned to ash and down fell the fiery mountain onto the land. The world tore open and the grey waters rushed in. Those who survived the impact were lost as boiling clouds rushed out in all directions leaving a wasteland in its wake.

The Mountain That Fell left a gift; magic. Near and far, those of learning and strong of heart discovered new powers to shape the world. In the desolation around the Smoking Bay the adventurous found viz, magic in physical form. And there was more, scattered amid the landscape were strange artifacts and stranger creatures that survived The Mountain That Fell. For a time men, dwarves, orc, goblins, and other races braved the dangers and fought each other in the wastelands. Then the elves came into Blackmarsh expelled the feuding races, drove the monsters out, and healed the land.

In the present day, many come to Blackmarsh to harvest viz, kill monsters, or seek the strange artifacts left by The Mountain That Fell. The only force that stands against the wilderness is the Blackmarsh Rangers. Anyone who is willing to defend the land and its people are welcomed into their ranks. Powerful kingdoms outside of Blackmarsh are beginning cast a covetous eyes toward the land's riches. Will the adventurers of your campaign become wealthy and powerful? Or will their bones join the many that have sunk into the swamps?

Blackmarsh is a complete, ready to run setting for your campaign. It can be run as its own setting or an expansion of your existing world. Contained in Blackmarsh are 17 geographical entries, 78 described locales, and one detailed town; Castle Blackmarsh. Each entry provide one or more adventure hooks to use in your campaigns.