Over the last week or so I’ve been working on Battle Magic. I’ve already got 50 or so new spells + another batch from Nathan Baron ( author of the upcoming Empires Rising ) + spells from the Legend SRD which aren’t already in OQ.  That’s before I even start looking at ‘classic’ RQ sources for inspiration. My overall objective with the magic system is to make it less ‘whiffy’ and more fun. My players have picked up on the fact that there’s spells in there like Fanaticism that don’t do a great deal, and are in fact superseded by their Divine/Sorcery counterparts (Berserk in this example).  This isn’t new to OQ, in the previous example the players said “magic has always been a bit crap in RQ”.  In OQ1 I did a partial job of ‘fixing’ the magic system, but I was sensitive that I wanted backwards compatibility. This time round I’m less concerned.   Sorcery and Divine are getting similar overhauls and extra spells.

As well as finally making my mind up on the contents/scope of OQ2, which I’ll post here when I’m done, I’ll also be considering whether or not I do a IndieGoGo preorder. Would that be something folks would be into?

The Blood of the Dragon

“Under a land shrouded in volcanic ash punctuated by rocky spires that tear at the sky they say the Great Dragon sleeps.  Tyanos the Black, Trickster god of the long dead Hu-Pi people stole their blood and bottled it for his insane delight. As drink of the gods it confers immortality to mortal man, but at what terrible price?

The very quest for this elixir is insane. A trip into a harsh and unforgiving land of the Spires, a poor and bandit ridden weird land, inhabited by the likes of Black Joop, Nigus the Headless and the Mother of Hydra. Names that should send a shiver down your spine. So pick up your sword, down the last of your ale to steady any nerves and stride off towards a great adventure amongst the rocks that defy the sky.”

What this Module contains

Blood of the Dragon is a short introductory adventure set in the ancient and ruined lands of The Spires.

• A Rough Guide to the Spires
• Adventure: The Lair of the Battle Apes
• New Monsters – The fearsome Battle Apes.
• Drunken Debauchery! – Optional rules for getting the characters into trouble and losing their hard gotten gains in-between adventures, from the poison pen of Colin Chapman (author of Atomic Highway)

Off to proof and a small amount of art commission, tentacles xed for a May/June release

Finally here’s the cover

From his website Witchport Whispers

What is the Bleak Coast setting?

The Bleak Coast is my setting for vaguely West Coast Lovecraftian, swords & sorcery toned fantasy adventures. I’ve been using it, roughly, for the past few years as background for various games, including Labyrinth Lord with Realms of Crawling Chaos, Swords & Wizardry, Crypts & Things, and OpenQuest. I enjoy using it, wanted to develop it and thought others might enjoy it as well. Mythos’ inspired, S&S noir-ish fantasy … what’s not to like (unless, I guess, you’re not a fan of any of those )

It’s meant to be a flavorful region that can host a GM’s campaign as the main sandbox, drop into a larger campaign, or simply be kit bashed for use as a GM needs. I envision the setting as half-baked – it has more flavor and suggestion, and every GM and playgroup should develop and finish it as they like and need.

What is Witchport?

Witchport is one of the three major cities – or townships – in the Bleak Coast region. It’s a particular favorite of this author and GM. Witchport is the dirty fingered city of the three – it’s my Sanctuary, Lankhmar, Kingsport and Vornheim, all rolled into one.

What Bleak Coast products are on the Release Schedule?

The first planned release – currently in development – is “Whispers from Witchport, Vol I: The Bleak Coast“. This book will provide the setting basics and resources including gazetteer, factions, original cults, bestiary, npcs and more. Whispers from Witchport is being developed to support the OpenQuest system. The current release date is December 2012.

Stay tuned for future updates, and thanks for reading!

~ Brian

You see I’d much rather ‘roll my own’* 5th Edition from various bits of Open Gaming Content and my own common sense additional rulings. This is pretty much what I did for Crypts and Things, but only more so to make my own version of the Class Based Worlds Favourite RPG.

• It would be heavily Old School in tone and most rules
• The four core classes (Fighter, Thief, Cleric, Magic-User) with additional classes I like (Ranger, Druid, Paladin, Bard).
• Races (Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Half-ling, perhaps Half-Orc BUT no fecking Half-Elves)
• Ascending AC from 3.0.
• From Araskia’s Sword and Sorcery rules, I would take the Skills system (but tie it to a separate Skill number rather than Saving Throw),  the Sanity System and possibly weapon damage by class.
• Keep the Vancian magic system – which for me is one of the big selling points of D&D.
• Have a more class based XP system, like 2ed , or even NO XP AT ALL!

And as much fun spells, monsters and magic items that I could cram in a 6″x 9″ US trade paper back of say 200-300 pages

I’m talking James’ Raggi the Fourth’s Lamentations of the Flame Princess Indiegogo.com pre-order campaign for his upcoming “Monolith from Beyond Space and Time” & “The God that Crawls”  modules.

• Lamentations of the Flame Princess IndieGoGo.com Campaign

4 Days to go at time of writing, and just under $800 to reach the Goal. Thralls of Sorcerer Under Mountain go pledge! For I know what a shot in the arm, a pure vindication of what you are doing a successfull IndieGoGo.com campaign is from the one I ran for Crypts and Things end of last year.

Personally I’m a huge fan of LoTFP and what Jim’s doing. It would be safe to say that there would be no Crypts and Things without LoTFP, so it was a no-brainer for me to put my money down.

C’mon four days to go lets push it over the edge

For all you folk who have been bitterly disappointed by the recent Conan movie

C&T has now been out about three weeks, and has been selling quite nicely. Its definitely joining the ranks of the likes of OpenQuest as one of D101′s steady sellers.

Critical response to the game, especially in the light of it being released alongside Adventure Conqueror King and joining the similar (but not the same) Genre space as Lamentations of the Flame Princess, has been a good mix. From the frothy “OMG I LOVE THIS GAME SO MUCH”, to the nicely balanced “There’s bits I don’t like, but there’s bits I do like”. I’ve also had a nice stream of complementary emails and comments, which warms my jaded Game Designer heart

I’m very glad I gave C&T a very definite BRAND and a different vibe to regular D&D, especially looking at the long list of OSRIC modules which all seem to tribute AD&D of yore.

One of the most gladdening things to happen post C&T release is that Rik Kershaw Moore, author of The Company and a long time Call of Cthulhu keeper (member of the Kult of Keepers who ran the UK Cthulhu Nationals) has picked up on the game , loves it and is writing a scenario to run at Continuum 2012. I’m sure with a bit of arm twisting I should be able to get him to write it up

Blood of the Dragon is literally down to the last couple of adventure locations. Its a short, around 20 pages, but sick little module – with a short gazeeter (for those of you that want a bit more setting detail) and an adventure featuring a short weird lands trek and a mini-dungeon, which is weird and quite deadly. While short the whole thing is meant to act as an intro adventure for new players and Crypt Keepers. Also its 100% compatible with other OSR games, so if you just want to grab a butt-kicking S&S adventure to run with your favourite RetroClone go fer it.

Finally I’m immensely humbled by the positive reaction that the game has gotten. Especially some of the ongoing blog posts and mentions. There’s a lot of material on my Hard Drive that could become C&T product, and the obvious love the game is already getting pushes to make sure that becomes a reality

Swords & Stitchery – Old Time Sewing & Table Top Rpg Blog

EdOWar’s Blog

The Space Cockroach’s Hideout

DriveThruRPG.com buyer review – a very nicely balanced review in that the reviewer doesn’t like some mechanical aspects of the game (specifically the old school To Hit Tables, although C&T also has Ascending AC) but doesn’t let this get in the way of recommending the game overall

Thanks to all of you have taken the time to write these reviews.

Print from Lulu.com

• Hardcover $40

• Softcover $23.50

Pdf from DrivethrouRpg

• Pdf $12

More information

• Crypts and Things webpage