Adventures on the 7th sea – Campaign specifics Part I

In any rpg campaign there will be "home rules" reflecting The flavor and tone of the campaign, the specific rule changes and, (of course) a Dungeon Masters preferences and prejudices- Adventures on the 7th sea is no different.  here are a few of the notes I have jotted down (all subject to change of course).

 Character Races

The races I chose for the campaign reflect what I consider to be the more “down to earth” races available in 5^th edition (The exception being the Genasi). In my campaign the Elves stay in the Fey realms, though they do cross the veil from time to time and seduce the occasional maiden (Which accounts for the inclusion of the Half-Elf).

The Races available to PC’s are

Dwarf

Halfling

Human

Genasi

Goliath

Gnome

Gnome, Deep

Half-Elf

Half-Orc

Character classes remain as they are. however, the gods that clerics and paladins serve are of the Deities represented in the area.

Deities

The lists below are a sampling of the deities used in the 7^th sea campaign. these are deities that were not covered in the current 5th edition of the players handbook.  As the player characters come into contact with other peoples I expect this list of Deities to grow.

Sumerian Gods

God	Alignment	Domain	Symbol
Enlil, Ruler of the gods	NG	Tempest, War	Pickaxe
Enki, God of Rivers and Oceans	LN	Nature	Ibex
Inanna, Goddess of Love and War	LE	Life, War	Shepard's staff
Ki, Goddess of Nature	N	Nature	Iris
Nanna-Sin, God of the Moon	CG	Light	Jet black axe over the moon
Nin-Hursag, Goddess of the Earth	N	Nature	Blue-white diamond
Utu, God of the Sun	CG	Light	Radiant sun disc

Babylonian Gods

God	Alignment	Domain	Symbol
Anu,  God of the sky, Ruler of the gods	LN	Tempest, Nature	Gold sun partially blocked by a gray cloud
Anshar, God of darkness and the night	CE	Trickery	Black Sphere
Duaga, Ruler of the devil world	LE	Death	Ruby Mace
Girru, God of fire	LE	Nature	Fire enwrapped axe
Ishtar, Goddess of love and war	N	Life, War	Female hand grasping a blue crystal rod
Marduk, God of cities and storms	LN	Knowledge, Tempest	Blue-white diamond
Nergal, God of the Underworld	NE	Death	Dark-skinned man holding a jet black shield
Ramman, God of Storms and Thunder	N	Tempest	Lightning bolt through a storm cloud

Aegyptian Gods

God	Alignment	Domain	Symbol
Anhur, God of war	CG	War	A cord
Apshai, God of Animals	N	Nature	Praying Mantis
Geb, God of Earth	N	Nature	Earth Hieroglyph
Seker, God of Death	NG	Death, Light	Hawk headed mummy with an Ankh in his right hand
Serket, God of venomous creatures	N	Life, Trickery	Scorpion tail
Shu, God of the Sky	LG	Nature, Light	Female hand grasping a blue crystal rod
Tefnut, Goddess of storms and flowing water	LG	Tempest, Life	Lioness Head
Konshu, God of the Moon	NG	Life	Crescent Moon

And coming soon...

Star Frontiers /5th Edition D&D conversion

I just ran across a 5th edition conversion for the TSR Star Frontiers game. Star Frontiers has always been a favorite of mine. Unfortunately I've only been able to play it a handful of times in the last 30+ years that its been around, but thats about to change. Thanks to Micheal Long a blogger on Tribality who wrote a great series of articles on converting Star Frontiers to 5E D&D. The articles have been gathered up, expanded on, and published in issue 11 of Frontier Explorer.

Star Frontiers /5E is a perfect mini campaign for my players to explore when we are ready to take a break from slaying dragons but still want to stay with the same ruleset. Many of the old modules are online and there has been  a great deal of fan support for Star Frontiers over the years in the form of at least two publications that I'm aware of - Star Frontiersman and Frontier Explorer.

 I really hope Micheal continues the series and adds more support for his 5E conversion. For now, a hearty thank you Micheal Long for your efforts!

Moving forward with Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition

After over three decades with AD&D 2nd edition I have finally decided to complete the switch to a new edition-sort of.

I announced yesterday to my friday night online gaming group that our current 2nd edition game has come to an end and on December 5th we will be converting to 5th Edition. With that announcement I finally end my relationship with 2nd edition. But were still friends, because frankly 2nd edition has yet to meet its match for sheer volume of settings.

the publishers of 5th edition have stated that they intend to avoid inundating their customer base with new books every month as they had in previous editions. Instead, it appears they are taking the "Mr. Coffee" approach to releasing new material- one slow drip at a time. Frankly , when it comes to my hobby, I love being inundated. 

Publish as much as you want. Of course, I'm not going to buy all of it, but I'm a big fan of choice.  And its because of that "slow-drip" approach that I will keep visiting my 2nd edition collections for late night hook ups. Al Qadim, Kara Tur, Ravenloft, Spelljammer, Planescape, Birthright, etc. they are still too sexy to just drop - especially when 5th edition is refusing to put out.

So next month I finally join the 21st century gaming scene, But, you never forget your first love.

Using Volo's guides from 2nd edition AD&D for 5th edition

I've read quite a few blogposts about folks using their 2nd edition AD&D Forgotten Realms material as a setting for the new 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons. It makes sense to me given how much old Realms material I have around here.    Many of the folks point to the 1st edition of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting and others advise using the second edition specific setting. Amongst my favorite resources are the Volo Guides.

The Volo guides are like a Fodor’s travel guide for the Forgotten Realms there are five Volo guides to various sections of Toril and one guide dealing “With all things Magical”. The guidebooks are packed full of real places that adventurers frequent in games- taverns, inns, brothels, shops, and places of interest (like haunted keeps and such).  Just about every entry has some kind of hook ripe for development into an adventure.  Before you know it your characters will have a list of favorite places to stay and shops to frequent in between dungeon crawls and tomb robbing.

Volo's guides are also a wonderful way to plan out down time for characters. for instance, if a character in your game needs a suit of plate armor, you can quote a price from the players book and be done with it or you could tell the player that the best plate armor in the sword coast can be found at a shop called The Halls of Hilmer on the street of bells in Waterdeep, thus a desire for plate armor leads the character on a journey to the most fabulous city in the Realms.

I find the information in them much more useful than stat-blocks for Uber-NPC's that I'll never use in my campaign These guidebooks have become the most referenced material I have on the Forgotten Realms. And speaking of stat-blocks, the guides have very little in the way of rules or stats, it's all about the flavor and feel of the establishment or locale, which makes it a smooth transition to 5th edition.

You can find almost all of them at RPGnow (it seems that the guides to the North and Baldur's Gate II have yet to be released).

Volo’s guide to Waterdeep

Volo’s guide to the Sword Coast

Volo’s guide to the Dalelands

Volo’s guide to Cormyr

Volo’s guide to all things Magical

Icewind Dale Enhanced Edition is coming soon!

I am a huge fan of the enhanced Edition Series of AD&D adventures that are being re-released by Beamdog. My sons and I have had many hours of enjoyment with these games. I'm happy to see Icewind Dale finally getting the "Enhanced" treatment. At the pre-order price of $19.99 you get a lot of game for your dollar.

Check it out at:
The Icewind Dale website

The great storage room clearance!

Comic Con won't be cheap.  So I figured waht better time to get rid of all the extras and doubles and Goodwill finds that have been stacking around here in the house. so check my stuff  HERE on Ebay. I'll be posting more and different stuff in the coming weeks, like this....

A Dicey Time Online

We took Dicey Tales through its pace as an online game using Skype and a web-based dice roller.  The result was a very fun and satisfying session. We didn't need to use a mapping program, thanks to the abstract sort of way that combat works in BoL. I was very satisfied that the non-combat rules held up well and it only strengthened my belief that Contacts is one of the wisest Boon choices in the game.  The adventure ended on a cliffhanger note and we plan to continue once we can coordinate our schedules.

Great Pulp game find!

I took a quick trip to the comic shop today. no real reason just burning some time. I picked up a couple of titles and lo and behold I found a game. Now my comic store is usually strictly comics, but every once in a while they pick up a few RPGs in a large comic buy. In this case it was an old classic from yesteryear. Justice Inc.

That was a cool find in itself. But as every true Pulp Gamer knows: when you find a Justice Inc. box you have to look inside for one of the "Holy Grail's" of Gaming -"Lands of Mystery".

Now, "Lands of Mystery" was a supplement for running a "Lost World" pulp setting. It was written by Champions Guru Aaron Allston, and is considered one of the best gaming supplements ever written.

Dare I hope?

Would it be there?

Yer damn skippy it would!

There it was, in all its glory and in pristine condition too!

And all for $7.99

It was a good day.

I WILL be going to Comic-Con 2011!!!

My wife and I just got our tickets!
It will be our first time there. This year I'll be going as an atendee, next year I might just have a table!

Woo Hoo!!

A Dicey Tales adventure anyone?

My buddy Conan and I are gonna play a little BoL Pulp using the rules from Dicey Tales tomorrow. We'll be using Skype. we have room for about three others.

We are going to start at about 1:PM PST.
You need a copy of BoL and Dicey Tales #1

The game should last about 4 hours. If anyone else out there is up for a quick pickup game let me know!

Just little bit more pimping on my Blog and then we'll get back to Wednesday girls.

For a limited time I put Legends of Steel -Barbarians of Lemuria Edition and Legends of Steel - Savage Worlds Edition, on sale for 30% off at Lulu. 

LoS /BoL is a hardback and LoS / SW is a softback.

This is for a limited time only (the next few days anyway).  

I happen to be in a good mood (see Dicey Tales).

It's up for sale!

Check it out HERE

Pelinore

Greyhawk, Toril, Ravenloft, Krynn, and the rest, you thought you knew them all eh?   But how many of you have heard of Pelinore?  Chances are unless you’re either from the U.K. or a die-hard TSR fan you may not have heard of this tiny campaign world that appeared back in the 20^th century circa 1984.  It made its first appearance in a TSR U.K. magazine named Imagine, so I figure that makes it an official AD&D world (in my book anyway).  Luckily,a PDF recently made its way into my hands that collects a little over a years’ worth of articles on Pelinore, and now I make it available to you, using that most wonderful of services:  Dropbox.

The articles are as follows

July 84- a new world

August 84 – The city league

September 84-The Wynd

October 84 – Law and Order / North Docklands

November 84 – The city League/ Pablo Fanquays Fair

December 84 – The city league / The Arena

January 85 – The city league/ Gibbet street/ Guilds

February 85 – the big wide world

March 85 – The city league / the old bastion

April 85 – The cornucopia

May 85 – the Gods of Pelinore

June 85 – The county of Cerwyn: Burghalter

July 85 – the gods of the domains

August 85 – The city league/ monument square

September 85 – The city league / the Asylum

I just ran across my old TSR Conan character

I loved playing Khoraj. Nothing flashy about him, just a cool head and a steady arm in a fight.  I always thought of him as being a friend to Conan during his days as a Turanian officer. 

The fun I had playing him was what propelled me to help set up the LoS: ZeFRS Edition.

Getting the word out on ZeFRS

So ZeFRS is out. It’s currently in the top ten Hottest sellers at RPGNow. I sent out a bunch of free copies to “Friends of the Lair” I’m hoping they will give it a read, and eventually posts something on their blog or favorite message board. Word of mouth my friend, that’s what, spells success in our medium. So if you’re in any way interested in Swords & Sorcery gaming please give it a look.

In other Legends of Steel news, I heard from Chris Rutkowsky the other day. He ran a BASH Fantasy: Legends of Steel game at Dundracon last weekend. He said it was a great success and the players at his table really liked the game. I’m waiting for a few more pieces of art and then layout of LoS for BASH should be out later this year.

Finally...ZeFRS is out!

After months of writing and years in production, the PDF for the Legends of Steel: ZeFRS Edition has finally been released. It's been a long haul, and to be honest, until I reread the PDF the other day I had forgotten how cool a system ZeFRS is.

Zeb's Fantasy Roleplaying System or ZeFRS is a reimagining of the original Conan© Role-Playing game written for TSR® by legendary game designer Dave "Zeb" Cook over a quarter of a century ago. Mark Krawec, with the permission of the original author, has brought this classic game back to life. And now, Evil DM Productions brings together ZeFRS and the latest edition of its critically acclaimed Legends of Steel campaign world to let you trample the kingdoms of Erisa beneath your sandaled feet!

Legends of Steel: ZeFRS Edition contains the complete Legends of Steel Campaign world and an LoS-adapted version of the ZeFRS rules engine.

Get $3.00 off Through Monday!

Use coupon code: 

Heading down the Path

The Minions have played Basic D&D, Star Wars, Heroscape and Heroclix. I’m now going to try and bring their roleplaying up to date using Pathfinder. Despite the fact that I consider Dungeons and Dragons THE definition of a Roleplaying game, I’m drawn more to Pathfinder than I am to 4^th ed. D&D. Besides I already own a couple of the Pathfinder books, whereas I don’t have any of the 4^th edition books, and if there is one thing I have plenty of is books. 

Ive been on the lookout for a series of modules to run them through and I decided to go through the series set in Falcon's Hollow to start.

Dicey Tales status report

I’m currently at work on the last part of the manuscript a South Seas adventure titled “The Perils of Bonaga Bay”, after that it’s off to layout.

The first issue will include the basic guidelines to create a pulp era character using the Barbarians of Lemuria rules. It will also contain two adventures.

“The Horror in Jade”, written by Pat Dixon, is a supernatural adventure tale that takes place in San Francisco.

“The Perils of Bonaga Bay” is a straight forward adventure tale that takes place in the South Pacific.

I currently plan to have DT#1 ready for purchase at RPGNow by the end of February.