New Big Dragon One Buck Sale! (D30 DM Companion, D30 Sandbox Companion, Basic Psionics, More)

I don't know for how long the prices are going to be in effect, but as of this moment, New Big Dragon's entire catalogue in PDF is either a buck or it's free.

+Richard LeBlanc does some amazing work and is one of the pillars of OSR creativity.

If you don't already have the D30 Sandbox Companion, D30 DM Companion, Basic Psionics, Creature Compendium or Valley of the Five Fires, now is your chance to get them for a buck each.

There are other goodies. Petty Gods: Revised & Expanded Edition is free (I wrote two of the Gods within) as are other releases.

Go, help yourself to some OSR goodness.

Remember, all purchases using The Tavern's RPGNow affiliate links puts 5% of your purchase price into The Tavern's coffers. Don't leave that money on the table for the greedy corps! Tip your barman!  ;)

Flash Giveaway - Sword of Air - Print (Swords & Wizardry) - 24 hrs

Today we're giving away Sword of Air (432 pages), in Print, for Swords & Wizardry. I picked up a signed copy on eBay a while back, so I'm giving away my copy from the KS.

Here are the rules:

1 - I'm only shipping to the US, but anyone can enter. If the winner is randomly picked from outside the states, they will get a $10 RPGNow Gift Certificate and the physical prize gets bumped to the 12 Days of OSR Christmas

2 - You need to leave a comment below to enter. Thats pretty much it.

   2a - You could go to last night's post and give some feedback for art choices for Swords & Wizardry Light.

   2b - You could go to the Swords & Wizardry Complete 3rd Printing KS and back for a buck, which gives you the rules in PDF and all the stretch goals in PDF (currently Strange Bedfellows, the new cover as an art poster and Deck of Treasure) This also allows you to choose in Print add ons. If you do back, add a comment to the KS page stating to the effect that The Tavern sent you ;)

3 - Your comment must be made prior to 0750 AM Eastern Time, Wednesday, October 12th, 2016

Good luck :)

edit - obviously 2a and 2b are completely optional ;)

For those asking "What's so special about Sword of Air?"

The Lost Lands is the home campaign world of Necromancer Game's and Frog God Game's own Bill Webb. This campaign has been continuously running since 1977. Many of the adventures published by Necromancer Games and Frog God Games are directly inspired by this campaign. They have evolved over the decades, and more material continues to flow from it as the dice keep rolling. 

Sages and wizards of legend speak of the Lost Lands—many of the players who have lived and died in Bill's campaign over the years now have a place in history (in the books).

Cher the dwarf, Flail the Great, Bannor the Paladin, Speigle the Mage, and Helman the Halfling are well known to the fans of Bill's work. This is the game world, and these are the adventures in which the players of these famous characters lived and died. Hundreds of players over the past 35 years have experienced the thrills and terrors of this world. The Sword of Air is the centerpiece of the Lost Lands.

Currently, this epic tome consists of several parts:

1. The Hel’s Temple Dungeon—kind of like Tomb of Horrors on crack. This six-level, trap-and-puzzle infested dungeon formed the basis of Bill's game through his high school and college years. Clark Peterson’s very own Bannor the Paladin spent several real life months in the place, and, sadly, finished the objective. This is where the fragments of the fabled Sword of Air can be found…perhaps.

2. The Wilderness of the Lost Lands extending to the humanoid-infested Deepfells Mountains and providing detail about the nearby Wizard’s Wall. This so-called “wall” was raised by the archmages Margon and Alycthron harnessing the Spirit of the Stoneheart Mountains to raise the land itself, creating a massive escarpment to block invaders from the Haunted Steppes. These archmages are actual player characters from the early 1980s who live on in the legends of the Lost Lands. Over 70 unique encounter areas are detailed, and each one is a mini-adventure in itself. New wilderness areas may be added based on bonus goals described below!

3. The Ruined City of Tsen. Legend has it the city was destroyed by a falling meteor. This place forms an aboveground dungeon area the size of a city, with over 100 detailed encounter areas. It’s a very dark place…even at noon.

4. The Wizard’s Feud—This campaign-style adventure pits the players in a long-running series of intrigues and battles between two archmages. Which side will they take? Their actions all play into the overall quest, and could well determine which side wins. Law and Chaos are not always what they seem, and if the wrong decisions are made, the entire ordeal could fail. Remember, one of the wizards WANTS Tsathogga to win.

5. New monsters, new demons, new spells, and new rules for various aspects of play.

6. The Tower of Bells. This dungeon is the result of the workshop Bill ran at PaizoCon 2013, where the participants assisted him in building an old-school dungeon. Visit the tower and discover the secrets of the “artist” within. Beware: those entering may never come out!

Flash Give Away Coming Tomorrow - Something about Air and a Sharp Weapon...

Well, our first gift receiver is in the land of Ice and Snow (Canada) and the cost to ship is ridiculous (which is why I note that it is US only for the physical prize - others get a $10 RPGNow GC)

Which means Quests of Doom 3 may come back up in this round of giveaways OR it may get punted to OSR Christmas. I'll be filling the OSR Christmas Box later this week, so there will be teasers.

Talking about teasers:

That may very well be tomorrow's flash giveaway. I'm not sure if I'm going to run it for 12 hours or 24 hours. It will kick off in the morning, possibly early. Rach has stated a desire for tea in the morning before she heads to work, so I may be rolling out of bed earlier than is my current habit. Whenever I wake is when the post will go up.

It's Time to Start Thinking "OSR Christmas"

December will be here before we know it and that will mean it will be time for the gifting holiday known as OSR Christmas.

This year, we are going to do things a little differently, which should hopefully benefit everyone, gift givers and gift receivers.

This year it is going to run for 12 Days straight - December 13th to the 24th.

Each of those days I'm going to be giving away AT LEAST a $10 gift certificate to RPGNow. The amount and number of gift certificates depends on how well The Tavern raises funding between now and then, but that is the bare minimum. The Tavern will also be giving away a box of RPG Christmas Cheer on December 24th (ships only to the US - sorry). The value of the box will be significant. Details will follow as we get closer to the holidays.

In addition, publishers and other bloggers, fans, whatever should email me their gifting plans and the days will will be running on, what they are gifting, any restrictions, so forth. When The Tavern's gift goes up links to all other gifting for that day will be part of that post. This puts the gift giving and the traffic where it should be, in the hands of those doing the gifting.

Something I'm experimenting with this season is Amazon Affiliates. The potential funding added to The Tavern's budget is quite high, although the few times I've added it to The Tavern's website I've seen less than stellar results. Still, if you plan to shop on Amazon, the extra monies will go directly to the OSR Christmas gift giving. Quite simply, you have the opportunity to add value to the gift pool by doing something you are already doing.

As we get closer there will be follow up posts to get the various details locked down as well as how we will handle gift givers that don't have an online location of their own to give their gifts from.

Soon. Very soon.

And the Winner of Quests of Doom 3 in Print for Swords & Wizardry is...

I do love giving stuff away. Rach loves it too, as my gaming collection keeps growing and I am loath to downsize it. Giving away some of the duplicates I've collected over the years doesn't hurt and keeps the collection from growing too fast ;)

So, who gets the Quests of Doom 3, in print for Swords & Wizardry?

Sir Corvus, step forward! Email me at tenkarsDOTtavern at that gmail thing. Let me know if you want it inscribed "From the Tenkar Games Collection, 2016" ;)

I'll need a valid US mailing address. Shipping probably won't happen until next week as I have a few more things to give away and would like to make as few trips as possible to the post office.

Remember, by backing the current Swords & Wizardry Complete KS for a buck you are in line to get some sweet loot in PDF ;)

A Nearly Six Year Old Just Owned Me With Dungeon Building

This weekend I've been cleaning and organizing my gaming material. At the same time, I've had uncle duties. Shannon found some Dwarvenite and some minis and decided she was going to build dungeons. The minis (monsters) were to protect the treasure (gold) from folks trying to rob her dungeon. She wanted to include riddles, traps and secret doors. I kid you not.

If nothing else, this solidifies the idea that public play should include terrain and minis.

As a side note, at not quite 6, Shannon is now insisting that I teach her Dungeons & Dragons. She wants to be a bearded wizard. As far as I know, she hasn't seen any of the LotR or Hobbit moves ;)

Found an Unopened Ebay Box From 2003 - MageKnight Minis - Perfect for When I Kick off the S&W Public Play

Digging deep into a closet that I never dig deep into, I found the following:

It was unopened, so I had to open it. It felt like Christmas.

Inside, this is what I found:

I never played MageKnight, which is where I think these minis come from (Wizkids on the bottom) but I do recall buying some random commons with the idea of using them with D&D and the like. Nearly 13 years later, I find it. Literally 2 days after I posted about public play being the key to bringing folks into the tabletop RPG Hobby.

I tend to run my RPG sessions mostly "theatre of mind". Maybe minis for matching order. Even while running games via a VTT such as Roll20 and using tools like Fog of War, I tend not to use virtual tokens. I do, however, understand the value of "visual bling" for public play.

I had planned to use some of the Legendary Realms dungeon terrain that I already own for the upcoming Swords & Wizardry public play sessions, but I figured the minis would be unpainted Reaper Bones. Now I'm thinking I should hunt on eBay for bulk commons of pre-painted minis.

Yep, this shall work well for next spring's public play sessions. The owners of Legendary Realms have already given me the green light. We just need to finalize day and time as we get closer.