Bundle of Holding - Dyson's Delves

Just to clear this out of the way. Dyson and I do not get along. The story is long and likely uninteresting to the vast majority, but neither of us makes any secret of it. That being said, Dyson's maps are an amazing resource for the harried GM, and his Commercially licensed maps are a great service to the small publisher.

Note, with some work, you can find everything in this Dyson's Delves Bundle at Dyson's Dodecahedron blog.

Adventurer! This new Dyson's Delves Bundle presents hundreds of hand-drawn maps by master cartographer Dyson Logos suitable for tabletop fantasy roleplaying games. Famous in the Old School Revival community for his distinctive crosshatching style, Dyson has drawn maps for publishers including Wizards of the Coast (Candlekeep Mysteries, Glory of the Giants), Kobold Press, and dozens more. He's released more than a thousand maps and dozens of adventures free on his Dyson's Dodecahedron blog (funded by his successful Patreon campaign). The maps are unlabeled and (usually) in printer-friendly black-and-white. Many maps include gridded and no-grid versions. Most of them are provided in both .PDF and in high-res .PNG image files for use with VTTs (virtual tabletops) like Roll20 and Owlbear Rodeo.

You can download all these maps for free from the Dodecahedron blog, but this new offer gathers them in convenient collections Dyson has self-published through his ZERObarrier Productions imprint. And several of these titles grant royalty-free commercial licenses, so you can adapt them for your own published adventures.

For just US$9.95 you get all six titles in our Starter Delves (retail value $51.50) as DRM-free ebooks, including Dyson's Delves I and Dyson's Delves II; three installments of the annual Dodecahedron Cartographic Review – 2014, 2015, and 2016; and the Commercial Compass Rose Pack.

And if you pay more than the threshold price of $20.94, you'll level up and also get our entire Deeper Delves with eight more titles worth an additional $55, including three annual installments of Dyson's Commercial Map Archive – 2021, 2022, and 2023; four monthly installments from late 2023 of the Map Archive's successors, the Cartography Collections – August 2023, September 2023, October 2023, and November 2023; and Strange Stones.

The maps and images in the three Commercial Map Packs and the Commercial Compass Rose Pack are licensed for royalty-free use in your own published works. All the maps in the other titles are licensed for personal use only.

Four of these titles (total retail $33.50) – the first Dyson's Delves volume and all three Dodecahedron Cartographic Reviews – have appeared in one or another of three previous offers from 2014-2017, all in our Old School Revival series: OSR 2 (Nov 2014), OSR 4 (Nov 2016), and OSR 5 (Nov 2017).

 

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Day Three of OSR Christmas - "You MUST Delve In!" (Print Copies of Dyson's Delves I & II)

Is it really Day Three of OSR Christmas? Yep, it is! heh

Before we get to today's main event, there is a prize I must award here at The Tavern:

 +Forrest Aguirre  email me at tenkarsDOTtavern at that gmail thing and I'll get that $10 RPGNow GC to you.

So, what is today's OSR Christmas Offering?

+Dyson Logos is gifting his stellar Dyson's Delves. Amazing maps, excellent adventures, all for you. How do you get your chance at such goodness?

Here's Dyson in his own words:

I'm giving away print copies of Dyson's Delves I & II as part of +Erik Tenkar's 12 Days of OSR Christmas. 

But I'm also using this as a chance to collect new uses for old maps - to produce an additional resource for people who are using the blog and who want an idea or seed to go with the maps.  

So to enter, you need to find a map on the blog and propose another use for it. A quick adventure seed or idea of how it could be used. At the end of the day (or tomorrow morning depending on how sleepy we are) one entry (possibly 2) will be chosen randomly to receive print copies of Dyson's Delves I & II. 

This contest is open to entries from anywhere in the world, so get on it!

Oh, and if comment on this very post here at The Tavern and answer the following question - What... is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow? (the answer matters less than your creativity, but thw gift receiver will still be chosen randomly ;) you'll have a chance to snag another $10 RPGNow GC. Entries close for the GC when the next OSR Christmas Post goes live - probably on Wednesday, as I'm working a double Monday into Tuesday.

Don't forget to click on the OSR Christmas pic in the upper right corner to bring you to all of the OSR Christmas posts. There are other offerings from earlier that are still collecting entries, so you may have a Very Merry OSR Christmas!

RPGNow Deal of the Day - Dyson's Delves II - 4 Bucks in PDF

As an OSR gamer, the RPGNow Deals of the Day are kinda hit or miss, but when they hit the OSR sweet spot, they hit it well.

Dyson's Delves II gives you a campaign worth of dungeon maps and inspiration for a mere 4 bucks - at least until the price goes back up tomorrow.

This is what you get:

More adventures and maps set under the earth for old-school fantasy roleplaying games (OSR games).

Dyson's Delves II contains over 140 pages of maps and adventures featuring the unique mapping style of Dyson Logos.

Seven full adventures fill out the beginning of the book, followed by 44 additional dungeon maps each with a page for the GM to key and make notes about each dungeon.

The adventures in this volume are:

Trouble at Imp Brucke - strange goblins and stranger things challenge characters of levels 6-7
The Screams From Jedder's Hole - something has started screaming from under the main temple in town in this adventure for levels 4-5
Cavanaugh's Hall - a small site-based encounter around old ruins for levels 7-8
The Ruins of Corvel on the Mount - a science-fantasy delve for levels 6-7
Goblin Gully - a true classic adventure with one hell of a final bite for levels 1-2
Atarin's Delve - a dungeon turned into the headquarters of a team of unusual bandits for level 4
Valley of the Red Apes - a collection of 5 smaller site-based encounter / adventures set in a valley overrun with carnivorous red apes including:
Ziggurat of Rhissel the Morning Lord (level 6-8)
The Secret of Jen's Hall (level 5-6)
The Cliffside Stronghold (level 5-7)
A Devourer Most Foul (level 5-7)
The Silver Obelisk

OSR Christmas - Day 8 - Delve Twice Times Two, Won't You? (Print - International)

Day 8 of OSR Christmas is special, and is running concurrently with Day 7.

+Dyson Logos is giving away two sets of Dyson's Delves in print to anywhere in the world, although I suspect if you are in some Antarctic Outpost you may be waiting a while for delivery.

So, that's Dyson's Delves, Volumes 1 & 2, as a set, going to 2 lucky gift receivers.

Woot!

Now, you know what to do, right?

Add a comment to this post and sometime after noon on December 26th two random commenters will be drawn to receive the above gifts.

OSR Christmas 2014 - Day 5 - Miniature Delvers in Two Volumes (US Shipping Only)

Alright, we have two bundles up for grabs.

The first bundle is a set of Dyson's Delves Volumes 1 and 2 donated by +Tony T (there will be more Dyson's Delves given away on a later day.)

The second bundle is a set of five miniatures donated by +Boric Glanduum  - a human cleric with a tome on a stand and 4 male elves in heavy plate and big ass swords.

Now, you know what to do, right?

Add a comment to this post and sometime after 800 PM tomorrow night (NYC Time) two random commenters will be drawn to receive the above gifts.

Current events in NYC may delay me, so this post may remain open longer than expected, but don't delay - comment now!

(these gifts are only shipping to US mailing addresses)

I'll be sending out the mailing addresses to the Day 4 gift receivers to the donor tomorrow - so if you haven't emailed me yet, please do so.

Bundle of Holding - Old School Revival +2

This is, admittedly, a very nice collection of OSR gaming in the latest Bundle of Holding:

Dyson's Delves I contains a campaign worth of adventures and maps. You literally would need nothing else but your choice of rules and some dice.

Labyrinth Lord and the Advanced Edition Companion - these are the versions with art. It's B/X D&D with some AD&D added in with the AEC.

People of the Pit - an adventure published by Brave Halfing. I don't know enough to talk about it really.

Death Frost Doom 2e - I enjoyed reading the first edition, although I never ran it. Haven't really looked at the update.

Lesserton & Mor - I found it very reminiscent to the classics Pavis and Big Rubble for the Chaosium edition of RuneQuest, which is a very good thing, as I played the shit out of that.

River Knife Trilogy - Includes Evil Wizards in a Cave, which I have heard of, but never actually read.

Scarlet Heroes - looking for some one on one or perhaps two on one gaming? can't put together a full group? This s the system for you. +Kevin Crawford did an amazing job with this set of rules.

Looking For a Bargain Price on "Dyson's Delves" in PDF?

Hell, I have the dead tree version of Dyson's Delves and I'm hankering for the PDF for easy integration of the maps into Roll20 (and I really don't want to write in my dead tree version).

Dyson is working with the Delvers podcast to offer a 25% discount on the Dyson's Delves PDF.

More info at the Delvers Podcast site. While you are there, listen to the podcast. It's the best produced "real play" podcasts I've listend to.

Dyson's Delves (Hand Drawn Maps) Now Available in PDF!

I have the softcover version of Dyson's Delves and it rocks hard. There is so much I want to do with the included maps, but I can't bring myself to write in the book. Additionally, I want to use the maps in Roll20, and scanning them just isn'r feasible for me.

These problems are now in the past, as Dyson's Delves in now available in PDF.

I can't print out the maps I want to use, write all over them and then upload the original maps to Roll20.

Yep, I'm happy as a pig in shit :)

Sharpen Your Pencils - Big Contest Announcement Coming Next Week!

+Dyson Logos (Dyson's Dodecahedron), +Mark Hassman (Mithril & Mages) and little ole' me will be kicking off a contest next week. Yep, three websites, one frickin' awesome contest!

The only hint you are getting right now is the picture above.

The prizes are generous, the contest should be a blast and in the end, everyone, even our gaming community will be the winners.

You know what? You may not need to sharpen your pencils, but you will need to stretch those fingers of yours and get your creative juices pumping.

Details to come...

Dyson's Delves in Hand! Dungeons Maps for the Win!

Yep, I had my soft cover version of Dyson's Delves delivered today (the turn around time at Lulu seems to have shortened considerably).

Holy shit but it rocks!

In case no one told you, it includes a mini-mega dungeon. No, I'm serious. The first included adventure is 11 levels deep, about a dozen rooms or so (give or take) per level and balanced from start to end for levels 1-6. I may just have to put my AD&D 1e group through it even though they are mostly level 4 - I guess blowing thru the first few levels could make them nicely overconfident. Did I mention it has wandering monster tables for the mini-mega too?

It has a total of 5 detailed dungeons PLUS 45 additional levels for you to fill in the details. I may not need to open any other adventure or map out anything else for the rest of this campaign... and the next...and the next ;)

Totally worth the investment. Even Ashley thinks so ;)

Come the New Year there should be a nice contest to announce with the help of Dyson himself. We'll probably start working on the details after Christmas. Stay tuned :)