Tenkar's Tavern: Some How, Some Way, THIS Will be Making it's Way to "The Gut" in Rappan Athuk

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Some How, Some Way, THIS Will be Making it's Way to "The Gut" in Rappan Athuk

This a a piece of art by Nicholas Cloister of the Monsters By Email website / soon to be subscription service. He was kind enough to allow me to peek at some additional pieces of his work. The stuff is amazing.

Anyhow, my party will be entering "The Gut" in our next session of the Rappan Athuk campaign I'm running, which is kind of like a huge underground "highway" between sections of the megadungeon.

I don't know what this guy will be doing there just yet, but he looks intelligent enough to have a purpose.

I guess I have a week and a half to figure out what that purpose is although I am open to suggestions ;)

5 comments:

PriddayJanuary 29, 2013 at 6:54 PM
It looks like it wants the cobra to bite him. So maybe a venom injection is beneficial in some way--or induces effects, like a drug. Or maybe it's venomous to bite and the cobra will die from biting it!
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AnonymousJanuary 29, 2013 at 7:21 PM
To me, he looks like he is in total control of the situation, almost like some sort of "Reptile Master". A wizened old caretaker of such creatures, the picture looks like he is totally empathetic, almost a father figure...pretty cool stuff!!!
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Matt FinchJanuary 30, 2013 at 12:39 PM
This is totally, exactly, the kind of thing you'd run into down there. Right now I'm working on the Underdark connections that ferret around Rappan Athuk, and my head is into the weird. I love this thing.
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Why "Swords & Wizardry?"

Believe me when I say I have them all in dead tree format. I have OSRIC in full size, trade paperback and the Player's Guide. I have LL and the AEC (and somewhere OEC, but I can't find it at the moment). Obviously I have Basic Fantasy RPG. Actually, I have the whole available line in print. Way too much Castles & Crusades. We all know my love for the DCC RPG. I even have Dark Dungeons in print, the Delving Deeper boxed set, Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. BOTH editions of LotFP's Weird Fantasy and some dead tree copies of the Greyhawk Grognards Adventures Dark & Deep

I am so deep in the OSR when I come up for breath it's for the OSR's cousin, Tunnels & Trolls

So, out of all that, why Swords & Wizardry? Why, when I have been running a AD&D 1e / OSRIC campaign in Rappan Athuk am I using Swords & Wizardry and it's variant, Crypts & Things, for the second campaign? (Actually, now running a S&W Complete campaign, soon to be with multiple groups)

Because the shit works.

It's easy for lapsed gamers to pick up and feel like they haven't lost a step. I can house rule it and it doesn't break. It plays so close to the AD&D of my youth and college years (S&W Complete especially) that it continually surprises me. Just much less rules hopping than I remember. (my God but I can run it nearly without the book)

I grab and pick and steal from just about all OSR and Original resources. They seem to fit into S&W with little fuss. It may be the same with LL and the rest, but for me the ease of use fit's my expectations with S&W.

Even the single saving throw. That took me longer to adjust to, but even that seems like a natural to me now. Don't ask me why, it just does. Maybe it's the simplicity of it. At 45 52, simplicity and flexibility while remaining true to the feel of the original is an OSR hat trick for me ;)

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Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Some How, Some Way, THIS Will be Making it's Way to "The Gut" in Rappan Athuk

5 comments:

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