"Where in the infinite layers of the Abyss have you been?" (Plus BX GM Screen PDF, plus Fifty Fiends, plus BXΨ GM Screen, plus free BXΨ stuff. Oh my!)

With summer gone and hardly a peep from me round the interwebs, I'm guessing a few of you might be wondering, "Where in the infinite layers of the Abyss have you been?"

The short answer is, I've been crazy busy—and unfortunately not with RPG stuff.

The longer answer includes: 1) picking up a summer design class to teach (which is on a shorter, and therefore-more-demanding, timeline than a Fall or Spring class), 2) having a (thankfully) heavy roster of client work (always good for a freelancer), 3) spending an inordinate amount of time with my wife prepping our house to get it on the market (we're talking about 2 near-Hoarders-level estate sales and innumerous trips to Catholic Charities to donate the stuff we didn't sell), and 4) looking, looking, and more looking for a new house. We haven't moved yet, but we've got a contract on the house we want, and are closing in a possible sale of our current house. (St. Joseph, pray for us.)

In the meantime, I've been hired to temporarily fill a full-time design communication professor spot for the 2018-2019 academic year at the college where I've been part-time teaching for the last twenty years. Except for still having a good amount of freelance client work going on, this is actually a really good thing for my schedule. I have to keep office hours, but those hours aren't always consumed with class-related work.

And now, thanks to Labor Day weekend, I've had the opportunity to get some files prepped (that have otherwise been languishing unattended). This should help clear my RPG workload to focus back on Steve Marsh's Shattered Norns and figure out the best way to birth the final product into the world. So there's a lot of stuff to talk about...

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Old School Adventures™ Accessory FX1: Fifty Fiends

From the cover...

Extra-planar beings come in many forms, and for outsiders hailing from the lower planes, almost every one of them comes in some shade of evil. From the vicious malevolence of the demons of the Abyss, to the merciless schemes of the devils of Hell, to the psychopathic sadism of the yamadutas of the Naraka, the planes provide an unending parade of cruelty, immorality, corruption, and depravity.

Collected herein are 50 fiends from the darkest reaches of the outer planes, including the Abyss, Hell, Naraka, Pandemonium, Limbo, the Dreamlands, and the Beyond (a terrifyingly remote place of madness, aberration, entropy, and pure chaos.

This book is designed for use with classic (BX/BECMI/LL) editions of the world’s original role-playing game, and with Old School AdventuresTM Accessory PX1: Basic Psionics Handbook. It additionally provides information on dual-axis alignment, the planes of existence, languages spoken throughout the planes, and descriptions for a number of planes- and fiend-related spells and magic items.

Available as a $1 PDF from RPGNow >>
Available in print for $9.95 + shipping from the NBD Storefront (US only) >>
Available in print for $9.95 + shipping from Lulu.com (best int'l option) >>

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Old School Adventures™ Accessory GM1a: Games Masters Screen PDF Pack

This is a PDF pack of the various components that were part of the physical screen kickstarter.

• Five art panels (including cover) featuring artwork by the legendary artist Arthur Rackham
• Seven GM screen content pages with all the pertinent information any Classic (BX/LL) GM needs to run their game.
• 8 Master Character Sheets (1 Generic Sheet + 7 Class-specific Sheets): Each of the 7 class-specific character record sheet contains the most pertinent information each player needs (e.g., notes on which types of weapons & armor may be used by the class, additional experience earned based on prime requisites, and special abilities like clerics' turning and thieves' abilities). In addition to the 7 classic character class sheets (cleric, dwarf, elf, fighter, halfling, magic-user, and thief), an 8th "generic" sheet is usable by any character class.
• Spells Record Sheet: This record sheet is usable by any spellcasting PC, and includes places to list each known spell's name, range, duration, and area of effect, as well as other pertinent notes.
• Character Record Log: This record sheet provides a place to write the information a GM needs for up to 6 PCs or NPCs, including the basics (name, class, hp, level, AC, etc.) as well as ability scores, saving throws, equipment/inventory, and other notes.
• 8-page Cleric Spell Handout: The cover of this digest-sized piece notes spells gained by level, and the inside includes all the key information (e.g., range, duration, spell notes, etc.) for all the cleric spells contained in the classic red and blue rule books (plus a few additional core spells from other early editions).
• 12-page Magic-user Spell Handout: The cover of this digest-sized piece notes spells gained by level, and the inside includes all the key information (e.g., range, duration, spell notes, etc.) for all the magic-user spells contained in the classic red and blue rule books (plus a few additional core spells from other early editions).

Available for $10 as a PDF bundle from RPGNow >>

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Old School Adventures™ Accessory GM2: Basic Psionics GM Screen Pack

A few of you were lucky enough to pick this up at this past June's NTRPGCon. Now it's available in print exclusively from the NBD Storefront (includes a complimentary PDF).

2-panel (4-page) Referee's screen designed for use with Old School Adventures™ Accessory PX1: Basic Psionics Handbook. Includes the key information any GM running BXΨ needs at their table, including: the psionic combat sequence, the psionic and attack mode combat matrix, psionic-related attack and saving throw modifiers, saving throws for mystics and monks, chakra attainment charts, PSP costs for discipline use, psionic conversions for adapting creatures and characters from other editions, and key information related to psionic items, magic spells that mimic psionic affects, and how psionics interact with relevant magic spells. [Printed on 110 lb. cover stock.]

5 Individual Card Stock Master Character Sheets (1 Generic Psionic Character Record Sheet, 1 Mystic Character Record Sheet, 1 Monk Character Record Sheet, 1 Disciplines Record Sheet, and 1 Modes/Conditions/Disciplines Record Sheet. [Printed on an 80# uncoated cover stock.]

Also includes the new limited edition "Psi" button.

Includes a PDF copy of everything included in the print package (sent as free download code from OBS to your email address).

Available in print for $9.95 + shipping from the NBD Storefront (US only) >>

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Old School Adventures™ Accessory GM2a: Basic Psionics GM Screen Pack (FREE PDF!)

Referee and player materials designed for use with Old School Adventures™ Accessory PX1: Basic Psionics Handbook.

Includes the key information any GM running BXΨ needs at their table, including: the psionic combat sequence, the psionic and attack mode combat matrix, psionic-related attack and saving throw modifiers, saving throws for mystics and monks, chakra attainment charts, PSP costs for disciplines and modes, psionic conversions for adapting creatures and characters from other editions, and key information related to psionic items, magic spells that mimic psionic affects, and how psionics interact with relevant magic spells.

Also includes the following BXΨ Character Sheets: 1 Generic Psionic Character Record Sheet, 1 Mystic Character Record Sheet, 1 Monk Character Record Sheet, 1 Disciplines Record Sheet, and 1 Modes/Conditions/Disciplines Record Sheet.

Available as a FREE PDF from RPGNow! >>

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Okay. That does it for now. (As if that wasn't enough for a while.)



(Comments are now locked due to consistent spam comments on this post.)

Another one of those updates about where I am on everything...

Since the header for this post says it all, I'll just dig into the updates...

Basic Psionics Handbook
Close to having the final monster descriptions done. This week I wrote up the descriptions for the following: ki-rin, limbo gish (OGL githzerai), mind thresher (OGL mind flayer), neothelid, opinicus, ro'tha, shedu (lesser & greater), and all the zzlahds (OGL versions of slaads, including red, blue, green, gray, black and white; the white is an addition of mine). By the way, the ro'tha (prounounced ROH-tchick-chah, based on an African dialect) are based on the intelligent wooly rhino concept that Steve Marsh wanted to include in the Cook/Marsh Expert rulebook, but caught shit from Erol Otus on it, so the idea was dropped. As I've been working on it, I've been passing drafts to Mr. Marsh and getting his input on them. (How cool is that?)

Creature Compendium
As I've mentioned before, most of what's left here are some illustrations. This week I did the following illustrations and got them into the layout: dunter/redcap goblin (this is like the 4th time I've redrawn this one, and I'm FINALLY happy with it), hyrcinian bird (a small bird that "glows in the dark"), the jogahs (3 types in 1 illustration; again, this is one I've redrawn several times; I'm still not super-happy with it, but feel like it's as close as I'm going to get for now), and the lympago (a.k.a. mantygre).

New Character Classes
I'm almost finished with a new Egyptian priest class I'm tentatively calling the "wenwet." It's actually part magic-user and part cleric (e.g., they have the ability to heal, create illusions, create dimension doors, part water, move earth, etc.) It's actually intended for Dragon Horde #4. I know what you're thinking, "Did I miss Dragon Horde #3? Nope. Still working on that one too, but I already have satyr and faun classes slated for that issue. Besides, I'm looking at Dragon Horde #4 being an Egyptian-themed issue that will support adventure extensions from The Ogress of Anubis. BTW, later this week, I should have a few more animal classes to post to the blog. I'm continuing to collect the BX/LL animal classes into one volume for later release tentatively titled the Animal Class Codex. This will hopefully be accompanied by a sister BX/LL volume called the Character Class Codex which will include the various classes from the zines (the völva, the chroniclist, the satyr & faun, amd the wenwet), along with the beastmaster that appeared on this blog, and a few BX/LL NPC classes I've been working on in the "background" (a scribe and an alchemist, and possibly a sage). There's also an outside possibility this latter volume will include a couple of others (yet to be revealed).

BX DM Screen
I actually finished laying this out a couple of weeks ago, but I need to sit down for a few dedicated rounds of proofreading. With any luck, the kickstarter for this will be launching early October. There are going to be a lot of little extras as part of this, but will reveal all that later.

Playtesting Cubed

Over the weekend, I had a chance to do three things...

First, I had a chance to run a rough/partial playtest of the adventure from the upcoming second issue of the Dragon Horde zine. I, constructed the space to be entered from three different entries. The party found one of the two "back ways" in, and (in the process) skipped a lot of information about what was in store for them. However, on the fly, I turned a wandering monster encounter with an NPC cleric into a chance to both put the PCs on their toes and reveal a lot of backstory. Enough so, that I'm reworking the write-up to provide for this eventuality (should the DM choose to use it).

Second, I finally got to try out Roll20. I'm still learning how everything works, but even on the fly it allowed me to quickly map some areas while play was on a restroom break. And the fog of war feature is truly invaluable. It's still not as seamless for me using a dry erase marker and miniatures on a laminated grid, but I know that I'm also not using Roll20 to its full abilities yet (e.g., tracking player stats, etc.), but I'll get there pretty quickly (I figure another couple of sessions and I'll be up to full steam). This brings me to...

Finally, this was my first real opportunity to use the "beta" version of my BX DM Screen. I was afraid the text might be a tad small, but so far legibility has not been an issue.