Dwimmermount Kickstarter in it's final days

The response to James Maliszewski's Dwimmermount Kickstarter Project has been pretty amazing. As the funding drive enters it's final days it nearing it's third bonus goal of $40,000. If it reaches it then they will be able to make a book of illustration similar to those found in Tomb Of Horrors and several other older edition modules.

I played in Dwimmermount briefly as part of a play by post game over on the Original Dungeon & Dragon forums. I found it an interesting place, that felt like a huge dungeon should. Moreso it accomplished this without the dreaded infodump.

Two levels were released to Kickstarter backers and they confirmed for me that the final product is going to be very nice to have. Even I don't run the dungeon as is there were a lot of good idea in there that I can use elsewhere in my campaign.

So if you haven't backed Dwimmermount yet, check out the play by post and James' blog over on Grognardia and see if this is interesting to you. I would sure would like to have that book of illustrations to look at and use.

UPDATE: With 38 hours to go the Dwimmermount kickstarter project got over $40,000 dollars. So it looks like they got what they need for the Map Illustration Booklet!

The Seven Dwarves

That time I posted about my miniatures I was in the midst of painting my props stuff and orcs. I finished those and now started on new batch. This time I picked to paint all my unpainted dwarves. I just finished my first batch of seven.

The flash didn't light up things enough so here is some close ups.

One with a wicked looking pick axe thing. The sky blue of the shield means he is a paladin of High Lord, the soul forger of the dwarves.

A dwarven Border Warden  with an axe. The traditional helment gear of the Warden has a red tassle to honor Rosmerta the Battle Maiden and the Sky Blue band shows their allegiance to the High Lord.

One of my original Grenadier Miniatures. These days I use this guy for a Dwarven Runecaster or Ironmaster. He has one long beard.  The green stone is a powerstone designed to store viz so that his runes and charms last longer. He smokes a meerscham pipe tinted golden brown from heavy use.

Tin can Dwarf Lord. In 3rd Edition GURPS his PD and defense was beyond belief. Probably because of  Tin Can Orc. The golden mask is a dwarven war mask designed to strike terror into the hearts of the mountain orcs.

Dwarven Thief outfitted in the latest fashion from City-State. He wears a green feather plucked from a successful cockatrice kill. I think he is an original Grenadier figure.

Dwarven Cleric with a broken off Mace. I just say it is a holy symbol or something like that. The Red robes means he is a cleric of Rosmerta the Battle Maiden, the dwarven avatar of Mitra. The sky blue bonnet pays respect the to the High Lord the head of the Dwarven Pantheon.

A Dwarven Adventurer armed with a Knight Killer Crossbow. With a +4 to hit accuracy bonus and 5d4 damage don't mess with him! To bad it takes nearly 6 rounds to reload.

As you can see I like to come up with little stories about why the figures are what they are. They help me figure out which colors to use. The hardest thing was trying to figure out their hair color. I don't know why but I got a mental block when it came time to pick. The next batch of seven will be mostly original Grenadiers that been waiting to get painted since 1980. That will take care of the dwarves leaving the unpainted halflings and gnomes. There are two interesting figures in that bunch. One a Gnome King with his throne a tree stump and one that is two halflings with one standing on the shoulders of the other.

One new technique I used was a pin dipped in a color to do things like their eyes and spots.

Delving into AD&D:How often you charge.

AD&D DM Guide is legendary in that you could read it today and still find something new that you missed the previous 99 times you read. I been running into this while particpating in Tim of Gothride Manor AD&D Campaign. I decided to collect these periodically into a series labeled Delving into AD&D. 

Page 66 DMG
You can only charge once a turn
If you set a polearm with a point or a spear  against a charging opponent and hit you do double damage.

More specifically once you charge you can't charge for 9 more rounds.

Lost Book of Magic Table of Contents

For those interested here is the Table of Content I planning to flesh out in the Lost Book of Magic.

Men & Magic

Introduction
Characters (Clerics)
Cleric (Specialization)
Characters (Magic-users)
Magic-users (Specialization)
Characters (Rogues)
Mountebank (Specialization)
Mountebank (Additions)

Races
Viridians

Magic in the Wilderlands (additions)
The Arts of Magic
Magic Spells by Art
Cleric Spells by Level
Magic-User Spells by Level
The Dominion

Monsters & Treasures

Monsters
Faeries
Men(Magic-users)
Men(Mages)
Men(Wizards)
Men(Artificers)
Men(Rune-casters)
Men(Theurgists)

Magic Items
Portals
Viz
Wolds
Magic Item Creation

Underworld & Wilderness Adventures

Order of Thoth
History
Traditions
Institutions
Hierarchy
Order of the Viridian Eye
History
Traditions
Institutions
Hierarchy

Order of the Trehaen
History
Traditions
Institutions
Hierarchy

Order of the Tree
History
Traditions
Institutions
Hierarchy

Order of Thor
History
Traditions
Institutions
Hierarchy

Order of the Forge
History
Traditions
Institutions
Hierarchy

Order of Set
History
Traditions
Institutions
Hierarchy

Locales
Guild of Arcane Lore (City-State)
Damoraxes Workshop (Gormmah)
Circle of Meath (Werewood)
Circle of the Fountain (Loshain)
Hall of Ragnar the Bold (Croy)
Hammer’s Forge (Thunderhold)
Brotherhood of Malnar’s Flame (Viridistan)

The only new Mechanic I am introducing is stuff that effect one's caster level. I.e. things like how many d6s a fireball can do and any other level based effect that are in spells. Obviously will have a bigger impact in a AD&D campaign more than a OD&D campaign. The main reason for this is that magic poor and magic rich regions are a feature of my campaign. If your caster level goes to zero you can't cast spells.

I am also going to focus on ready made NPCs in the Monster & Treasure sections. Outlining typical members of each order. And in the Wilderness and Adventure Section I am going to create ready made locales that hopefully most people can use for their own campaigns. There will be maps of course.

I am shooting to complete this by October or November

Dragonsfoot & the Retro-Clones

Dragonsfoot just opened a new section for Simulacrum Games like OSRIC, Labyrinth Lords, Swords & Wizardry. So if you have anything you want to share contact Steve Yates (steve@dragonsfoot.org). 

Mongoose 2300AD Mini Review

Bought and read the Book. This version of 2300AD is just OK. It biggest issue is that it is not worth $50, maybe $40. The biggest plus is bringing the 2300AD to the Traveller game system. The second biggest plus is that it is a way better and more useful summary of the 2300AD world than the original core rulebook. Although the omission of Kaefer stats, an alien race, is weird.

The biggest downside is that the physical book doesn't justify the $50 price tag. And the deckplans for the starships are stupid. Why? Because there is no anti gravity out side of continuous thrust or spinning up a module. All the zero-g sections are laid up like Classic Traveller style deckplans with chairs, beds, and table instead of configured for zero-g conditions like on the International Space Station, Salyut, Skylab, and Mir.

At this point I would only recommend getting the $30 PDF. It is worth $30 for the Traveller conversion stuff including starship creation. You can then buy the originals at http://www.farfuture.net/cdroms.html for $35. If you don't own Mongoose Traveller get the mini rulebook not the big full size rulebook. In fact I recommend their entire line of mini-rulebooks over the big books due the quality problems of their main books.

Eldritch Enterprises releases

Eldritch Enterprises is a gaming company that partners Frank Mentzer, Jim Ward, Tim Kask, and Christopher Clark. They formed last year and been relatively quiet. Now they have finished their first four product and have released them as PDFs on RPGNow/DrivethruRPG. They are:

Dark Outpost
Lich Dungeon - Level One
Snakeriders of the Aradondo
Forest of Deceit 

I haven't had the chance to review them yet however there is one cautionary note. If you look at the previews (for example Lich Dungeon), you will see that they chosen not to use the OGL and use a very odd stat block format. That wouldn't be so bad but it also takes up as much space as a d20 style stat block. So you should read over the previews first to see if this a deal breaker for you.

Frank Mentzer said Eldritch is talking to the publishers of the various retro-clones so in the future the situation may change.

Update: Frank has posted a link explaining how the stat block works.