Tabletop RPGs
Session 33 The old monastery stood in a clearing of the forest, the smell of wood-smoke in the air. They approached, knocked at the gate to the courtyard and getting no response they entered a well-maintained garden, next to a couple of doors into the monastery itself and a smithy. This close they could smell the smoke more strongly, and could hear what sounded like heavy pounding or knocking against a door, or maybe doors, from inside. Carefully looking through
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Session 32 Abandoning the cold room with the vials of frozen blood, the heroes ventured down in the lift once more, further below, entering a workshop of some sort, with dissected remains on tables, a small laboratory with a microscope and slides, and a corner with mirrors on the wall. Doors led out, one made of iron, the other wooden. They avoid the mirrors, having heard stories of such bad magic associated with such things. They kept away from the
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Several lair maps today, for the were-folk: -bears, -rats, -boars, -wolves, -tigers.
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The first lair map of the new year is a cavern lair of cavern locusts.
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Sessions 30-31 Our heroes retreated back to the relative safety of the Wall, camping out and setting guards through the rest of the day and night, recovering from the battle. They debated whether to leave or go back, and ultimately decided to return to the ruins, to see what was going on as much as anything. They once again sneaked up to the ruins of Ravenscar and discovered that many of the dead fir darrig and worgs had been animated
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My final book of lairs- Book of Lairs: Dungeons– is now live on Drivethru, just before the year ends. This is the last book I’ll be doing of this ilk. Maybe my last RPG book ever, not sure yet. Even thinking of stopping the semi-professional creation of maps, since it’s a niche market and there are so many map-makers out there now, and many are much better than I am. So, my plan for 2020 is to do something different.
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A bunch of lair maps today: giant lizards and lizardmen.
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This week’s map is the tower lair of a lamia.
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Today’s map is the lair of a warband of Hobgoblins, a military outpost.
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The autumnal leaves drifted down from the trees surrounding the ruins of Ravenscar, yellow, red and golden colours that created a pattern across the muddy, grassy slope that lead to the mud-filled moat that surrounded the ancient keep. Along the ruined walls nothing could be seen, and the only clue that there was anyone inside was the faint drift of smoke that floated on the breeze from inside the courtyard. The party of adventurers moved into the cover under the
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Session 28 Outside the tomb, in the mid-afternoon autumnal day, Ratkin mentioned to Alf that when the Lady mummy came out, she ventured into the lightning chamber and returned with the magic armour and sword. He didn’t see precisely where she went, since he was keeping out of sight, but it got Alf thinking: maybe there were other items to be found, hidden away in some secret room that they had yet to discover. He convinced the others it was
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Three maps for three monsters: lairs for hippogriffs, hoarflesh, and a hydra.
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Two sessions worth before tonight’s game. First session was largely fighting and retreating, but last week’s was predominantly role-playing. One thing we did do was ignore the mummy rot, as it didn’t feel right. It was still a tough fight without it. Session 26 & 27 Alf clashed with the mummy, his magic spear being one of the few things able to wound it. Magnus, thankfully, was able to lob magic missiles at the enemy, while the others stood terrified
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Two maps this week, for the lesser and greater variants of the Hell Hound.
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This week’s map is the lair of a bunch of harpies, making their nests in the hollows created by piles of rocks.
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The next map is a Shire of Halflings.
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Session 25 After the worgs disappeared back to the ruined keep, the party broke camp and decided to simply skirt around the ruins on their way to the tomb of the Lord Inquisitor. They hiked a couple of miles and camped for the remainder of the night, then travelled through the surrounding hills, avoiding the ruins, and made their way back to the river and the crumbling Wall that crossed it. Remembering the griffon they encountered last time they passed
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Session 24 In Appleby the heroes bought time at a smithy and, after deciding melting it wasn’t going to work, set about smashing the basalt statuette: they succeeded in shattering it, but when it broke a spirit was let loose, whispering it was ‘free, free at last’ before disappearing into the sky, last seen heading NW towards where the ruins of Ravenscar lay. Oops. Then there was a knock at the door and a Wordsmith (the local priest, officially the
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The next of the Lairs & Encounters maps is of several nests on the sloping cliffs, where griffons lair.
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Session 22 & 23 In Appleby, the heroes took some time to purchase goods, healing potions from a local herbalist, and some more history about the Raven King. They also learnt about an ancient ruined temple on the far side of the immense orchard that gave the large market town its name. That location corresponded to one of the marks on their map, showing where another of the raven statuettes could be found. Before setting off, Magnus took the quartz
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I’m a few sessions behind, so I’ll post this one to finish off the adventure in the outpost, and then another covering the rest of the sessions. Session 21 The giant statue came to life and immediately attacked, its heavy stone fist knocking Alf and Willow to the side, while it stamped on the floor and shook the room, causing the others to stagger and stumble. Magnus kept his footing and managed to let loose with a magic missile that
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But, what about the others? We know there are more! Well, yes, there are a few more, although none have sold well enough to be a best seller of anything. These, however, are the rest of my current work. I have my final book of lairs due out in the new year, currently creating it and posting it spread-by-spread on my Patreon site. There are three more, two books of lairs, and an adventure for The Black Hack that I
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This next adventure was a commissioned piece of work, for both the writing and the maps that come with it. It is currently a Best Silver Seller. Ruined City of Cyfandir From the site: From the imagination of designer and cartographer Simon Forster, creator of the Book of Lairs and the popular OSR blog Sky Full of Dust, comes a new adventure for characters levels 5-7. Two hundred years ago, the elven capital of Cyfandir fell to the savage assault of the Great Dragon Aisoth,
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My third adventure that has proven, sort of, a success is currently a Best Copper Seller, and received a mixed review; but one that I’ve taken as a challenge to improve, probably towards the end of the year, or to the start of 2020. Spire This is a setting/dungeon based around the Spire and the surrounding town. It is fairly large, 168 pages, and is my longest (both in page count and how long it took to complete) work yet.
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This next adventure is a Best Copper Seller and was my first one, I think, and I revised it with artwork and better maps after the first version that gained some ground. It has some lovely illustrations by Jim and Josefin Magnusson. Mischievous Monsters Mischievous Monsters is another adventure location, and was again a recipient of a review by Bryce . It is set around an attack against an inn, with a timeline of events, some NPCs, and a few
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