There Was a Metallic Demon in My Mail Today!

I'd like to give a huge thanks to Rafael Chandler for sending me copies of both the Metallic Tome and the Demonic Tome. Holy shit but I've got lots of good reading to accomplish in the next few days.

You can grab the pair in print at Lulu. PDF copies can be found at DriveThruRPG (14.99 for the Metallic Tome, PWYW pricing for the Demonic Tome).

Combined the two make for an awesome resource for a modern OSR game in a John Constatine like setting.

Demons feed on innocent souls and obliterate cities. Human victims are possessed, devoured, and damned. Unfortunately, the world's last line of defense is a group of ultra-violent cannibals wielding unholy magic.

They needed a hero. Instead, they got you.

Demonic Tome is a sourcebook for old-school role-playing games set in the modern day. It includes new spells, monsters, magic items, and setting information.

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Pollution chokes our seas, nuclear war has destroyed our cities, and worst of all, guitars are illegal. Surveillance satellites monitor our every move. Conformity is the law! There is only one thing that can save us: METAL.

Metallic Tome is a sourcebook for old-school role-playing games set in the modern day. It's inspired by heavy metal music. Created by the reprobate who wrote the Teratic Tome.

Features include: 

• New character alignments, including Awful Good, Chaotic Player, and Neutral Vague
• New starting equipment, including department store mannequin, 4 scorpions in a shoebox, and an audio cassette recording of Nuclear Assault's "Survive"
• New Cleric spells like Necrotic Blasphemous Desecration, Interval of the Devil, and Party Hard
• New Magic-User spells like Power Word Mosh and Air Raid Siren
• Strange new foes, including asbestos elementals and nuclear dragons
• Wondrous magic items, such as the Brigandine Loincloth and the Revolver of Lordly Might
• Random tables to pad out the last few pages

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Kickstarter - Midderlands 5e

Back at the start of the pandemic, we had an earlier attempt at Kickstarting Midderlands 5e. It was horrible timing. No, six months later we are still in the midst of the pandemic, but questions of personal financing have mostly resolved. Now we have a second chance at a D&D 5e Midderlands. 5e players best take notice, this is a setting like none other.

I own the Swords & Wizardry version of the Midderlands, the expansions, and every other Kickstarter Monkeyblood has published in the interval. Glynn simply does amazing stuff and I'm excited to see the Midderlands open up beyond the OSR to the latest edition of Dungeons & Dragons with the Midderlands 5e Kickstarter.

Quick note: Midderlands 5e is being published and distributed by Necromancer Games, a sister company of Frog God Games. I am affiliated with Frog God Games as I work the table at conventions and wrote Swords & Wizardry Light. All that doesn't change the fact that the Midderlands is awesome!

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Deal of the Day - Eldritch Tales: Lovecraftian White Box Role-Playing (Swords & Wizardry)

Sometimes you find a game you are just itching to run. Eldritch Tales is one of those games for me. Its what you get when you cross the comfort of Swords and Wizardry with the horror of Call of Cthulhu. I really need to hack some of this into Swords & Wizardry Continual Light.

Until 11 am Eastern, October 2nd, 2020, Eldritch Tales: Lovecraftian White Box Role-Playing is half off -  a mere 3.49. Do it! Your players will alternatively thank you and curse you ;)

Aeons before man arose from the primordial mire, ancient creatures descended from the stars or stepped through dimensional passages to inhabit the Earth. Whilst many of these Old Ones have since passed into inactivity, the secrets they carried with them have been shared with man and now terrible cults haunt the fringes of modern society. These ancient terrors thus still menace mankind and, if the prophecies are to be believed, the Old Ones shall return to reign again over the Earth!

Eldritch Tales: Lovecraftian White Box Role-Playing in an OSR rule set with its roots in the Original version of the world's favorite RPG, but instead of exploring musty dungeons, characters in Eldritch Tales investigate Mythos horrors in the 1920s! The setting and background are based on the cosmic horror tales of Howard Phillips Lovecraft and other members of his writing circle. 

Within the pages of Eldritch Tales you will find four character classes representing many classic pulp archetypes, occupations, rules for insanity, spells, monsters, esoteric tomes, artifacts, a starting scenario, and setting material, as well as advice on using Eldritch Tales with other White Box games. This game is compatible with Swords & Wizardry White Box and other OSR games.

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Coinage in Fantasy RPGs - Why So Large?

 

One thing that has irked me since my early days of gaming was the 10 coins to a pound ratio in AD&D. Even in my teen years it seemed outrageously large, and I vaguely remember an issue of The Dragon from the early 80s discussing such.

Above I have a pic of some Roman coins and a US Quarter. One pound of quarters gives you 80 quarters, so a coin in AD&D is the weight of 8 quarters I (2 bucks of coins jangling in your pocket)

At 10 coins per pound, a gold coin weighs in at 1.6 ounces. That's roughly $3k in today's dollars.

The denarius (Latin pronunciation: [deːˈnaːrɪ.ʊs], pl. dēnāriī [deːˈnaːrɪ.iː]) was the standard Roman silver coin for about 450 years (211 BC to 244 AD). There were 72 denarii to the pound of, though by the end of its mintage that had lighted to 96 to a pound or (and lighter still at the end).

So, 100 coins to the pound isn't a stretch, its historically accurate. Certainly more realistic.

So, why 10 coins to the pound in AD&D 1e? I'm guessing to make retrieving the spoils a worthy effort. I just don't see the need for such heavy coinage and never have.

What are your thoughts?

Further thoughts at tonight's podcast:

https://anchor.fm/tavernchat/episodes/E846---Are-Coins-in-ADD-Too-Heavy-eke117

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Announcing the Old School Gaming Forums - Embeddable Everywhere :)

As many of my readers know, I've been looking to upgrade The Tavern website for a while. Part of that mission was to find a forum provider that was easy to embed in a Blogger powered blog. Why Blogger? Because if it works on Blogger, it will work on ANY website.

But why does it have to work on any website? Quite simply, the concept is to have a forum that can be accessed from any blog or publisher website that joins the community. Just drop a few lines of code into a Blogger widget, drag the widget beneath your posts and Bamn! You are hosting the same forum as a dozen other sites. Literally, all doors lead to the Old School Gaming Forums. :) Yep, that is the direct link, but you can see the embedded forums below the posts on this page.

Want to add the Old School Gaming Forums to your blog or website? Use the code below:

<a class="muut" href="https://muut.com/i/old-school-gaming">old-school-gaming</a> <script src="//cdn.muut.com/1/moot.min.js"></script>

If you add the above to your blog or website, let us know in the comments below. It is kinda baren at the moment, but its only hours old. It needs you to come fully to life.

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Deal of the Day - Monster Stand-Ins (Paper Minis) {Inkwell Designs}

Most of the sessions of Swords & Wizardry Light at various conventions have been with the Mouth of Doom 3d printed dungeon. I learned to appreciate the use of miniatures, which I sorely lack. Pogs are useful but get lost in the 3d terrain. Printable minis would have been awesome and extremely portable, as well as affordable. Normally 9.95, you can snag Inkwell Designs Monster Stand-Ins (Paper Minis) for 1.99. perfect for the frugal DM ;)

Monster Stand-Ins is a PDF of creature miniatures.  Print as many as you need!  Over 350 images (originally 250+) cover all the most common creatures (orcs, skeletons, goblins, etc.) as well as many uncommon creatures such as a devourer, vegepygmies, and sahuagin. Most of the more common creatures come in several versions--get a kobold as a melee fighter, an archer, a shaman, or a buffed-up leader.

The PDF also includes many animals & insects (horses, cats, dogs, lions, bears, bees, bats, rats, etc.) and over different 50 PCs/NPCs.

The back of each creature is a silhouette of the front. Each mini is available with or without a label.

As much as possible, creatures are grouped on pages of similar creatures to make printing easy.  (If you need hobgoblins, you'll likely want goblins.)

Each mini has a front and back on the same side of paper and when folded: Small creatures are 1.25" x 1", medium are 1.5"x1", large are 2"x1.5", and huge creatures are 2"x3" and a few are 4"x3".

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Painting Day (allegedly) at the Game Store

 

News flash: I suck at painting minis.

I've actually done a good, I dare say great, job painting some of my minis in the past, but evidently miniature painting is a perishable skill and my expiration date came and went sometime in the last five years since I last painted something.

I could show you pics of minis I'm proud of, but I'm also lazy and they're roughly stored away in another room, and this post is more about my recent, shitty paint job.

My local comic book store, that has a decent RPG selection, was hosting a miniature painting event and I scored a spot in the event. For better or for worse I also had forgotten about this event and I had a date later that day so instead of painting it in the store, where I could watch a painting video, I took it home to paint where I figured I could use my personal painting "stuff" as well. A bit of a double-edged sword. If I was more skilled, having my own setup to use would have been optimal, but since I'm not.......that painting guide would have been useful.

The kit was $20 and had a Manticore mini, two brushes, and a selection of paints. I do wish there was a painting guide, but the idea was to watch the video........so a URL to the video would have been awesome as well. That way, even in the store I could watch on my phone and rewind/fast forward at my leisure.

One good thing about being at home with the mini was that mine had a severely cupped base, which I could easily fix at home with some hot & cold water before supergluing it to a thicker base of my choice.

I didn't use most of the colors in the kit, choosing to use a few colors and mix on my own. Luckily there was a generous quantity of paint in the pots, easily enough to cover the entire fig with each color if wanted. I think of the Manticore as a top-tier (but not #1) apex ambush predator, so I wanted a more muted color palette than what the picture on the box implied. I did try to do some subtle thinned down coloration using a drop or two of paint and a bunch of matte medium. The main body was one color with this thin opaque darker reddish-tan color on top and a lighter yellowish on the underbelly. I thought it'd look cool to have that color darken and extend to the base color used in the wings and the tail.  I did the same thing with the "veins" on the wings. I think it was a good idea, but I didn't pull it off.

Instead of using the wash supplied, which I should 120% should have done, I tried making my own and effed it up so bad. How bad? Yeah I went and tried to wash it off in the sink bad. I got most of it off, dried the mini with a hair drier, and then watered down my wash even more and re-applied. Meh....

I felt rushed, because of my date, but I personally think I needed the pressure or I would probably gotten little more than basing done. 

Overall though I loved the idea of a painting event at a game store and I really hope that this can be a more regular thing. The store gets the traffic, you get a social event with other like-minded players\gms\whatever label you use, and you get to brush-up on your panting skills (pun intended). I've already started getting my supplies together and am setting up a painting desk in my office just for working on terrain and minis.

I really hope WotC keeps supporting this type of thing. I do hope though that they pick a better intro mini to work with. Something with fewer tight spots (that tail) and fewer mold/flash lines. Still, you got to pick a cool mini to get people in the door.