The Tavern's Book of Mundane Majiks - Page 1

Remember how I was musing about mundane spells last week? Well, I've been putting some together. This is the first installment. If you want to add your own, add them to the comments below and I'll share them on a later post. Note, your comment must include the following statement if you want it to be shared "I agree that the attached text may be released under the OGL" followed by the name you want credit under. If we get enough entries I'll have them put together as a PWYW release on RPGNow.

Consider the following to be written with the template you should use if you choose to share.

Venerated Wine
Spell Level: Cleric, 1st Level
Range: N/A
Duration: 24 hours or until consumed

This spell will fill a wine flask, decanter, jug or other vessel with up to a quart of weak, watered down wine. Usually used in religious services, some clerics keep this spell memorized out of personal necessity.

Magic Wisk
Spell Level: Magic User, 1st Level
Range: 10’
Duration: 20 minutes per caster level

This spell summons a wisk that is used to whip eggs, milk, cream and other dairy products. It will follow the caster’s directions until given newer ones.

Mullon’s Restorative 
Spell Level: Magic User, 1st Level
Range: Self
Duration: Special

This spell will remove the symptoms of a hangover (but not any lingering intoxication). It also provides a +1saving throw vs poison for 4 hours after casting. The reverse of this spell imbues the recipient with the effects of a proper hangover (-1 to all rolls for 4 hours). A successful save will negate.

Kelvan’s Comfortable Repose
Spell Level: Magic User, 1st Level
Range: 5’
Duration: 8 Hours

This spell summons a water-resistant sleeping bag. If used outdoors in temperatures between 45 and 95 degrees Fahrenheit, with light rain or less, the user will receive the benefits as if he or she had slept in a bed in town.

The above is released under the OGL

"This work features art by Daniel F. Walthall, found at: drivethrurpg.com/product/181517, available under a CC BY 4.0 license: creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"

New Release - Midderzine Issue #1 (Midderlands / S&W / OSR)

This popped up in my Facebook feed last night and I nearly lept out of bed to share it. Of course, that never happened as sleep overtook me ;)

In any case, I'm picking up Midderzine #1 in Print & PDF - because I can't wait on the mail to come to me...

This is a fanzine for The Midderlands campaign setting for old school games. Although The Midderlands was written for Swords & Wizardry Complete, it works with all the old school games and retroclones with little or no conversion. Hell, you can even adopt it for any fantasy roleplaying game. 

Within this issue you can find news articles, information about locations, NPCs, monsters, races, classes, oddities, spells, flora, fauna, and just about anything to do with the Midderlands, the Haven Isles, and further afield.  

IN THIS ISSUE: 

• More fodder for your ‘The Midderlands’ OSR campaign setting.
• Rumours from The Haven Gazette.
• Details on the village of Stonecastle.
• 3 new monsters: The Catvile, Gloomrat, and Devil’s Goat.
• The Crowmaster class.
• New Oddities, Flora, and Fauna including: Catvile Spittle, Demonfeathers, and Plague Flies.
• Jim Magnusson: The Scandinavian Artist Sensation.
• And more…

Midderzine #1 is $3.92 in PDF

Midderzine #1 is $9.14 in Print - Shipped (converted from 6.75 British Pounds)

Yep, PDF sales use an affiliate link. Put some beer in your bartender's fridge. :)

State of The Tavern - Juggling Balls of Continual Light

Swords & Wizardry Continual Light has sold over 300 PDF copies in 48 hours at OneBookShelf's two storefronts. Wow. Simply wow. Thank you.

Proof copies of SWCL should arrive from CreateSpace tomorrow and if all goes well print on demand copies should be available at Amazon by the weekend. The plan is to also have a few dozen signed and numbered print copies of SWCL available for sale at the Frog God booth at GameHole. I can only bring what fits in the carry on, so numbers will be limited.

Files for OneBookShelf and Lulu will be worked on this week, so figure a few more weeks before print on demand is available at those sources.

More immediately, the monster and magic item releases from September should be laid out and sent to backers by the end of the weekend. Work begins on The Tavern funded adventure this week also. Hope to have that up by GameHole.

Folks have asked about Torchlight, the Swords & Wizardry Magazine. Now that Swords & Wizardry Continual Light has released everything else should start falling into place. I'm aiming for a January release for the Torchlight PDF, but in any case I expect print copies to be available at GaryCon in March.

Clan & Hammer is something I'm excited to start working on beyond my initial notes. Its my dwarven RPG built off of Swords & Wizardry Continual Light. Probably not much will be done there until the first issue of Torchlight is mostly done, but sometimes the muse decides on its own ;)

I am ever grateful for the support I've gotten from the community. Your feedback on the SWCL Beta and SWCL Pre-Release Candidate was invaluable. If you haven't grabbed a copy of SWCL yet, do so. Its PWYW, so there's no reason not to.

If you get a chance, please leave a review at RPGNow, even if its critical. Reviews are the bread and butter of success. And spread the word. The more copies in the wild, the more potential third party support for Swords & Wizardry Continual Light.

Which reminds me. I need to put SWCL together as a .doc file for those looking to hack it into other genres and such. Adding that to the list ;)

Yes, thats an affiliate link above. When you use The Tavern's affiliate link to make your RPGNow purchases, a small portion is forwarded to The Tavern and supports work like SWCL.

Pocket Creatures - Simareans - Ghost Walkers (Swords & Wizardry / White Star)

Art by Sidney Sime - Public Domain

"They swarmed like locusts yet seemed t' have a "hive mind" like ants. With barely a sound they descended upon Kraven's Hamlet, devouring the living, leaving just gnawed upon bones.  We seen them only when the sun went down. Don't know where these "Ghost Walkers" came from. Some called them the undead, but they lacked the weaknesses of those foul creatures. No, these are the Un-Living, as our priest soon learned. He was the first of us to fall. I am not proud that I abandoned my companions, but I am alive. They, sadly, are not."   Rathman Breckt, Manipulator of the Magical and Mechanical Arts, sole survivor of The Gathering of Fools adventuring party.

Simerians, often referred to as Ghost Walkers, are a dangerous site to see. Much like locusts, they come from seemingly nowhere, descend upon a location, devour all they can and leave. They aren't a conquering force, nor one of destruction, as buildings and such are left more or less intact in their wake. If it weren't for the bones left behind, no one would be able to guess the fate of the prior inhabitants.

It appears that the Ghost Walkers have a 7 year cycle of inactivity, followed by a month or so of feeding, following by 7 more years of no signs, no nothing. Where they are between feeding cycles, no one know but it is assumed that they are either in some form of stasis or another dimension all together. No Ghost Walker has been found alone, in stasis or captured alive so it is all conjecture.

Ghost Walker swarms number from 50 to 500, with the usual number in the 100 to 150 range. Ghost Walker bodies rot quickly in sunlight and few dead specimens have been recovered to study. Apparently needing neither water nor air and immune to extreme temperatures, small swarms have been known to attach themselves to starships for interstellar travel.

Simareans / Ghost Walkers

ARMOR CLASS   4 [14]
HIT DICE   2
TOTAL HIT BONUS   + 2
ATTACKS   2 x 1d6 (Claws)
SAVING THROW 17 (immune to fire / cold attacks)
SPECIAL - Hypnotic eyes. Instead of attacking, may use eyes to stun opponent. Save or no actions for 1 round. Save every round after first round until successful to negate effect.
MOVEMENT - 15 Ground

OGL

(I'm hoping to get the first Pocket Creature Collection in PDF to Patreon Backers this weekend, with another following in 2 weeks or so. Print copies to the high end backers next weekend if all goes well. Slowly adjusting to my overnight tours ;)

Talk Like a Pirate - Razor Coast Titles 50% Off Today Only

Damn. Never ending day of sales today. Good thing I already have everything thus far or I'd be going broke ;)

Frog God is offering all of their Razor Coast titles at 50% off, today only. Swords & Wizardry and Pathfinder flavors.

Use the coupon code: PIRATE-DAY

Alright, nap time before tonight's shift ;)

The First 56 - Peeking Into the White Star RPG - You'll Burn Your Eyes Out! (Part I of II)

As I mentioned in last night's post, +James Spahn (writer) and +Jason Paul McCartan (layout / editing) gave me a sneak peek at the first 56 pages of the soon to be released White Star RPG. It's pretty much the first six chapters.

Chapter One is the introduction and the basic attributes. The six ability scores you've known and loved since 1974. Bonuses for high abilities go up to + 2. I like that James bakes an assortment of "House Rule" options right in. The assumption is that GMs are going to tweak the shit out of White Star to make a system that fits the campaign they envision - James just gives some examples.

Chapter Two is all about character classes and races. The four default classes are Aristocrat, Mercenary, Pilot and Star Knight.

     Aristocrats are leaders. You want a class that gets a bodyguard and hanger-ons at a later level? This is the one.

     Mercenaries are your brute force. Heavy armor. Heavy weaponry

     Pilots are... pilots. I love the Jury-Rig skill. It's like temporary HP for a starship. If you don't get things fixed before them temp HP are gone, you could real'y be screwed.

     Star Knights are the lightly armored Paladins of White Star. Their way is simply The Way. They get some mystic power, but those aren't detailed until Chapter 7 :(

     Alien Brutes are your Chewbacca's and Igoo's (Herculoids Cartoon.) A Mercenary in fur ;)

     Alien Mystic - Be not. Act not. Do not. Roll Nat 20 You Do.

     Robots - We all know what robots are. Danger Erik Tenkar! Danger!

Chapter 6 is where the starships reside. Yes, we are talking starship combat (we'll come back to chapters 3, 4 and 5 tonight or  tomorrow morning.)

Starship combat is much like ranged combat between characters. To hit rolls, AC, max range and even hit points. It will feel very familiar even if there are some significant tweaks (Shield Strength comes to mind.) There are 9 ships included in the core rules. My God, what a ripe niche to expand upon.

You can modify your starship with tractor beams, proton missiles, Faster-Than-Light drives and a whole lot more.

White Star is very much a toolbox. Perfectly fine to run as is but so easy to modify and tweak for your own vision.

Chapter Three covers equipment, Four covers playing the game and Five covers personal combat.

Tavern Closed for the Night - Reading the First 59 Pages of White Star (S&W WhiteBox SciFi RPG)

Just got sent the first 59 pages of +James Spahn 's White Star RPG. STOP

Installing to tablet. STOP

Falling in love for the first time all over again. STOP

Will update in morning after torrid sex reading in bed. DON'T STOP ;)

(I'll yammer in the morning)

edit: even the preview I have is bookmarked! woozah!

A TPK Avoided, But Not Without Sacrifice (2nd session of The Caves of Ortok)

Last week the Saturday Night Swords & Wizardry group had their first session delving into the Caves of Ortok, an adventure soon to be forthcoming from +Jason Paul McCartan . They nearly killed two PC's bungie jumping off of a statue on a small island, killed a giant crab, found the caves, got ambushed and finally held position inside the small cave complex as they and the sahuigan deeper inside decided on tactics. Not bad for a night of gaming.

Last night, the party made their move.

They sent the thief in invisibly to take out the shaman as the magic user slept the front lines followed by the monk (also invisible) and ranger charging in. It was brutal.

The thief rolled a nat 20 on his backstab and opted to take maximum damage for the crit, which was then multiplied by three. Not quite down but severely wounded. Sleep took out 2/3's of the sahuigan front line, but they held. There was no where to run to and they were fighting for their prince's life.

The party won initiative, and the magic user finished off the shaman with a pair of magic missiles. The only problem for the thief is he was now facing the prince and his captain BEHIND what was left of the lines. There would be no help coming anytime soon.

Invisible monk couldn't hit the broadside of a barn those first few rounds, so he remained invisible and his opponent couldnt hit either. Damn near comical.

The thief fell and damn near bled out before the party was able to stabilize him (rubbing ointment and shoving potions down his throat). Actually, the magic user, who wadded into combat like a pro and the monk (finally visible) where each a single hit away from falling. Even the hit point tank of a ranger was brought down by half. It's one of the few times the players truly feared a TPK. Heck, even I started thinking about "the next campaign" ;)

The thief lived, but using the ACKS rules for going below zero HP, he was found to have taken severe damage to his head, mouth and vocal cords. Never again would he speak a spoken work, and thus he retired from adventuring, to be replaced by a cleric.

Yes, holy shit! Both the "A Team" and the "B Team" added clerics for the first time to their ranks. Go figure. It must be serendipity.

Afterwards, the players figured out how to open a secret door they found in the caves, and proceeded into Ortok's chambers.

I'm going to gloss over much of this part, so it should remain a challenge to others who may adventure within, but I literally laughed so hard when the monk traversed a hallway that was presumed to be trapped by literally climbing the walls. Upon reaching the other side and being instructed to use a spike or two to secure a rope high on the far wall so party members could follow suit and avoid the floor, he informed them he had neither spikes nor hammer. Come to think of it, he lacked rope too. Which kind of defeated the party's plan which they had discussed before he made his way across. Simply priceless ;)

Yes, a damn fun time was had by all.

Mini Review - Tome of Horrors 4 (S&W Monster Book)

I'm a big fan of The Tome of Horrors Complete for Swords & Wizardry. It's a hefty tome, but it adds so many options for OSR styles gaming as far as monsters go, it's almost indispensable. Almost. The price is a horror for many, even if the hard cover includes a PDF copy in the price.

Did I mention my wonderful cat knocked a glass of water off the desk and onto my copy of The Tome of Horrors Complete below? That was a year or so ago. Damage was minimal and obviously she (the cat) still lives.

ToH Complete isn't so complete anymore, with the addition of Tome of Horrors 4. $44.95 for the print + PDF (and 5 bucks for the Pathfinder version and 50+ pages - Pathfinder certainly can be a bloated system). Is it worth you dollars?

It depends.

Are you a completist? If you own ToH Complete, you'll certainly want ToH4.

Are you a monster junkie? This is a well presented monster book with awesome art and an adventure seed for each monster.

Are you writing your own adventures for you group? You can keep them on their toes by introducing monsters from the ToH series.

Are you running a published campaign / series of modules / megadungeon? Much less valuable for you.

ToH4 is very well done and is worth the price for me, but it may not be for you. It's a bit of a niche product. Monstrosities is probably the monster book to start with if you need a basic monster book for your OSR campaign.

A Step Closer to the Rest of My Life

Last night and today was Pre Cana, the ritual Catholic test of stamina / prior to marriage class.  The future Mrs. Tenkar and I survived (which wasn't easy, as Rachel's broken foot and sprained opposite ankle really hampered mobility, but I digress).

Last night's history lesson was fairly convoluted... I'm sure the priest knew where he was going but I didn't (and I was a history major).

Today, the couple that gave the class were very nice, although the wife's accent was heavy enough that I drifted off to gaming thoughts when she read or spoke.  Probably not what the big guy upstairs wanted from me, but the other option was breaking out the iPad, and we were told that was verboten right from the start... sigh.

In any case, I was wondering if an Illusionist class could be built for the Swords and Wizardry rules within the OGL.  I know there were reasons the class was kept out, which boiled down to not being able to stay true to the original D&D class within the bounds of the OGL, but just like the Bard class, there has to be a viable and acceptable variant out there, even if I have to write it myself.

Then I bounced to the question of "what exactly would make Tunnels & Trolls more acceptable as a traditional group RPG?"  Would it be a setting?  Sandbox or detailed local setting?  Maybe an adventure path.

I got my certificate AND I did some gaming brainstorming.  Not too bad a day ;)

Good Food, Good Friends - Now Where's the Game?

Last night I had dinner with some old friends in memory of one that we lost on 9-11. It appears that all the OSR games I've distributed at the multiple Gathering of Fools over the past few years have finally paid off. It looks like folks are itching to start playing using Fantasy Grounds or some other Virtual Table Top. Not sure what my game of choice will be - C&C, S&W Complete and ACKS are all contenders. C&C has the advantage that I've given out copies of the Player's Handbook to to everyone on the group over the years and there is a very complete FG2 add on for the system.

It was good to see my friends and their wives at a time when we really needed each other to recharge our emotional batteries. We communicate multiple times each day via mail and the occasional G+ video huddle, but nothing compares to hugs and ass grabbing at an upscale restaurant in Manhattan - it even better when you can embarrass the women folk with your actions ;)

Oh, and Holy Crap! The Jets won!