Strange Doings in the Sultan’s Charnel House Grimalkin is here! Lo! The corpse of poor, departed Scholar Zubayr, washed up on the shores of the River of Sand, lies in the charnel house… destined to become dinner for a cult of cannibals. Though distasteful in the extreme, this isn’t your concern—except that Princess Karima Gamila, …
Grimalkin: A New Adventure for Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Read More »
Under the City presents opportunities to add new layers to your urban adventuring… Lada’s Temple stands prominent among the city’s buildings, made all the more visible by a gilded marble statue perched atop its vaulted roof. The statue is of Lada, the goddess of love, beauty, and fertility. A sheaf of wheat is braided into …
Welcome to the table. Tonight, my players split up across the town, and unfortunately, each wound up involved in deadly assassination plots. For a GM, a session like this may sound like a nightmare—multiple simultaneous fights across a split party. Yet as the night developed, I discovered an effective way to get the players to …
The Far Side of the Table: Who’s Telling the Story Here? Read More »
Welcome to the table. This is the final part of a three-part installment of The Far Side of the Table about “teching” your game. In earlier parts, we discussed how you can use projectors to digitize the table and how GMs can turn tablets and cellphones into roleplaying opportunities. In this article, I focus on …
The Far Side of the Table: What’s on the Horizon Read More »
Upgrading the Game: “Teching” the Table There is an enormous amount of technology that can be added to the table. Initiative trackers, digital character sheets, rulebook PDFs, and virtual dice rollers make up a small number of possible additions players or GMs may use. Throughout this installment, I work to describe my own adventures in …
Pernicious Template (and 3 examples) Pernicious Creature (CR +0 or +1) Creatures with the pernicious template live anywhere evil fey are found. Pernicious creatures acquire the physical characteristics (such as green feathers, fur, or scales, and red spots), locomotion, and feeding habits of the pernicious platypus. A pernicious creature’s CR increases by +1 only if …
“Click! Now What?” Our heroes find themselves standing in the Tangle, a sprawling market square filled with local merchants and their patrons. Before them sits one of the city’s grand masters, Lady Rena Ambar, master of brewers. She waves them to join her at the small plaza table, topped with fine foods. Welcome to the …
Fantasy Transmutations of Medieval Urbanism Deep, exhaustive knowledge of the functions, shapes, styles, structures, and topologies of the medieval city is, irritatingly, not enough to guarantee the birth of places as unique, believable, and awe-inspiring as, say, Tolkien’s Gondor. Such feats of the imagination are indeed rare, but knowing where to draw upon, not being …
Medieval Urbanism: Fantasy Transmutations of Medieval Urbanism Read More »
Adventures from English Literature Lord Dunsany’s (1878–1957) works have been cited as sources of inspiration for the most famous fantasy roleplaying game since its first edition in the late 70s. His short tales, in particular, are really “fantasy” in the modern sense: most of them follow the “hero’s journey” model, involving young brave adventurers involved …
Dunsany & Dragons: Adventures from English Literature Read More »
So you want to create your own campaign for your players? You want to craft adventures with thrilling action, compelling characters, and rich plot hooks? With cliffhangers and twists, treachery and redemption, complexity and surprises around every corner? A living, breathing world to explore with your friends? We want to help you do just that. …
Writing a Better Homebrew Campaign: Linear and Nonlinear Worlds Read More »
The Egg Thief: The Purloining Pernicious Platypus While visiting a provincial festival, an eccentrically dressed man wearing a leather helmet and goggles approaches the PCs. His name is Halm Hogarth, and he takes the PCs aside, saying he needs their help with an investigation. A large number of chicken eggs have disappeared from several farms …
The Frying Pan or the Fire? Welcome back to the table. In this session, the adventurers accidentally found their way into a nest of 6 vampire spawn that I had prepared for later in the story. The adventurers were all level 3, each vampire was level 5. My players were destined to lose. What do …
The Far Side of the Table: The Frying Pan or the Fire? Read More »
The Labyrinthine Realities of the Medieval City City planner and historian Lewis Mumford famously recognized the essence of medieval urbanism in “the secrecy and the surprise, the sudden opening and the lift upwards, the richness of the carved detail.” It is that very essence, along with the mysteries fantasy tradition has constructed within it, that …
Medieval Urbanism: The Labyrinthine Realities of the Medieval City, A Designer’s Primer Read More »
Part 8, Captured by the Monks of Leng Woe and calamity! Imagine the worst that might befall a traveler, and that thought pales in comparison to what has happened to Agosto and I! Desert duststorms drove us Northward for three more days in clouds of choking grit and sand. But on the fourth day, the …
Midgard Expanded: The Travels of Lucano Volpe, or Captured by Monks Read More »
So you want to create your own campaign for your players? You want to craft adventures with thrilling action, compelling characters, and rich plot hooks? With cliffhangers and twists, treachery and redemption, complexity and surprises around every corner? A living, breathing world to explore with your friends? We want to help you do just that. …
Writing a Better Homebrew Campaign: Different Ways to Tell Your Story Read More »
A Collection of Dark and Daring Adventures What happens when adventurers become the owners of a brothel? When a roguish associate asks them to attend an oligarch’s masquerade in his place? What lurks in the Cartways besides kobolds? And what will you say when another thief tells you the only way to find a treasure …
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