Some Nice Things About the OSR

Emmy Allen has encouraging things to say about the OSR. It's nice to hear encouraging things. Also, she makes really killer stuff.

A Trolling We Will Go

Here is a one-page adventure location or encounter for your old school gaming fun. This will appear in the inevitable Black Pudding #6, which is still a long way from being complete.

With this I decided to go larger on my canvas size, trying to make a denser page. Although the zine is printed at A5 size, I always envisioned it being magazine size, or 8.5 x 11 inches. Like the Heavy Helping edition.

Gary Con XI GM Shirt

Another Gary Con GM shirt finished up!

The Fat Lady

I've been a little out of sorts lately. It's easy for me to get derailed. My blood father died, I got sick, day job was leeching my mind, and G+ is going to die. Not to mention my mother's continuing health problems. Add it all up, throw in watching Game of Thrones for the first time... I'm lucky to be getting any work finished at all. But I am. I have an active playtest of the Rabbits & Rangers RPG going on for Monday nights. I'll be sharing more about that in the coming weeks. I've been finishing up some commissions, including work for the new Advanced Labyrinth Lord single volume, Gary Con XI GM shirt design, and other bits here and there. Somewhere along the way I've found time/energy to knock out a few new ideas for Black Pudding #6. Here's one of those ideas... the Fat Lady old school character class. She rocks!

This is hand lettered on a large digital canvas. Typically for Black Pudding I've been working on 8.5 x 11 inch canvas. I've decided to go larger so I can get more detailed and tighten up my pages. This means I'll be a bit slower at putting out new issues, but I hope the quality will be kicked up a notch. As per my wont, I won't stick to this 100% across the board. I'll throw in odds and ends and do what I like or else I won't be doing it at all. No compromises. This is my shit.

Download here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1WO7Q712FR92XGwGb6rKY6tuV0B3y7v5Q

Rub It Review: Al-Qadim

I have only played in a single game set in Al-Qadim and I have never ran any games in this setting. I didn't own a single Al-Qadim book until just a couple of years ago. But I remembered my play experience from 1994 quite fondly and I fell in love with this campaign world... so I started collecting it all. I'm still working on the collection, very slowly, as a casual hobby.

Anyhow. I've already said a lot about Al-Qadim in other posts. For this mini review I'm just going to link to all the posts I've made so far talking about Al-Qadim.

It's so damn good. Even though it has it's flaws... which are almost exclusively related to rushed production and recycling cover art and what-not. But on the whole...

https://plus.google.com/u/0/+JamesVWest/posts/WPed4KGepnb

https://plus.google.com/u/0/+JamesVWest/posts/8WvWK2D6snu

https://plus.google.com/u/0/+JamesVWest/posts/66wkWB9u1ux

https://plus.google.com/u/0/+JamesVWest/posts/HhpqdB2SZNK

https://plus.google.com/u/0/+JamesVWest/posts/STkSxc1wCVE

https://plus.google.com/u/0/+JamesVWest/posts/BWeRRUtALSA

https://plus.google.com/u/0/+JamesVWest/posts/CKzLpFoB1q4

https://plus.google.com/u/0/+JamesVWest/posts/ScCeHD191gu

#al-qadim
#salt
#djinn

Troll Bridge Sketches

I worked on a new one-page module called A Trolling We Will Go. It was inspired by the old fairy tale of the three billy goats gruff. Plus I just love classic D&D trolls. Here's the troll, Urnt, as a work in progress.

And in Urnt's river lives a lot of very angry fish. In fact, each person slain by the angry fish becomes and angry fish.

Rub It Review: Dyson's Delves I

+Dyson Logos has been doing adventure maps for years. And they are iconic. So iconic, it's very easy to rip him off and maybe not even know it. That's because he has perfected a craft of simplicity.

Dyson's Delves I is a 152 page book you can score in paperback or hardback from Lulu (link below). From the back of the book: "Being a collection of cartography and detailed adventures hand crafted by Dyson Logos, cartographer and explorer."

One-third of of the book is a series of detailed adventures, generally taking up 2 pages each with a map and keyed area descriptions. In the OSR spirit, these adventures are scripted, merely keyed. The stats are given in classic D&D terms (basic/expert). The adventures are for low level PCs ranging up to level 5-6.

All of these delves are part of the same quasi-megadungeon and you can string them together into an epic crawl or use them individually.

The rest of the book is a series of awesome maps with blank lines for you to fill with your own adventures. Just write in the book, dummy! It's POD.

Obviously the thing that makes this book great is Dyson's actual maps. They are just nice to look upon. They are works of art from a person who as mastered their craft. They demand to be explored. But in addition to that, the keyed adventures herein are pitch-perfect for a good old game of D&D where you roll 3d6 in order and die at zero hit points. You can pop this book out at the table without any preparations and run a game, no problem.

http://www.lulu.com/shop/dyson-logos/dysons-delves-i-revised/hardcover/product-21797916.html

https://rpgcharacters.wordpress.com/maps/

Dyson don't screw around. His maps are featured in the latest D&D 5e offering from Wizards of the Coast, Dragon Heist!

http://dnd.wizards.com/products/tabletop-games/rpg-products/dragonheist