Bonus issue of the Hobbs & Freinds of the OSR zine

Now you can find my entry to the contest run on 'Hobbs & Friends of the OSR' and 'Gaming & BS' on the bonus issue of the 'Hobbs & Freinds of the OSR' zine. The PDF compiles the six entries that participated, along with some grat art.

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/217531/Hobbs--Friends-of-the-OSR-Bonus-Issue-1

It's a PWYW and all proceeds will go to get art for future zines. 

I want to thank contest organizers +Jason Hobbs and +Brett B for the awesome prizes. I have already received by mail the PDF version of the 5e game supplement 'The Book of the Tarrasque' from Encoded Designs. 

Also I'm eagerly waiting for the printed version of the Greyhawk book to arrive to the mailbox. I've been a World of Greyhawk fan since ever, so that book is doubly appreciated!

OSR Encounter Contest winner

I have just finished listening to the last episode (#13) of the Hobbs & Friends of the OSR podcast. Yes, right out of the oven exclusively for Patreon supporters. In there, my friend and Metal Gods colleague, +Jason Hobbs announced I am the winner of the 'OSR Encounter Conterst' he co-organized with Sean and Brett from Gaming and BS RPG Podcast. 

Thanks guys!

EDIT (July 5th): I have just listened to the latest episode (#147) of Gaming and BS RPG Podcast where the announcement was also made.

Also all entries will be published in a special edition of the Hobbs & Friends zine.

Seraphim Caligari

+Adam Muszkiewicz set up a new game on Tuesdays, 'Murder Gangs of Ur-Hadad, games of skullduggery and filth on the streets of Ur-Hadad', using the Blades in the Dark set of rules with his own characteristic approach.

The crew is a [Cult] -- the Last Adherents of the Sensate -- devoted to an alluring but sinister demon (the Sensate) that occasionally manifests itself in the real world. They are assisted by a gang of Elite Adepts, cultists of a scholarly and scientific (occult?) bent. The cult operates out of a perfumerie and aromatics shop (secretly an alchemical shop) in a middle-class neighborhood in Ur-Hadad, where they operate a workshop as well as a secret ritual sanctum. 

The cult operates in territory that belongs to the Swaggernauts, but their strongest relationship is with the Bloody Successors, who helped the cult set up their shop (and attendant workshop and sanctum) after the cult's shipments of teleaphrodisiacs were interrupted by adventurers. In the process, the cult ended up attracting some followers away from the Cult of the Gloaming Deeps. Due to their connections with the Swaggernauts, the pawns of the Faceless Vizier openly distrust the cult.

Seraphim Caligari grew in the pirate city of Port Scourge where his family ran an apothecary shop. It was there he met a woman named Caixalla when she entered the business seeking certain off-the-list substance. Seraphim discovered she was in fact "as much a prophet as a purveyor of fleshly delights" in the words of his elders, but sought to learn about the occult from her anyway. She refused at first, but Seraphim took the risk and played the blackmail card. After an attempt on the life of a notorious pirate captain took place, and the victim showed the unique effects of the drug used, Seraphim knew who was behind the attack. She then agreed but made an obscure augury about Seraphim’s future in Ur-Hadad. Years passed and he became in charge of the family business. During that time he learned all he could from Caixalla, until she uttered a bleak prophecy about an impending doom on Port Scourge. Scared by her prediction Seraphim he closed the shop and took a ship out of Port Scourge to never return. Once in Ur-Hadad he and others founded the Last Adherents of the Sensate cult, became acquainted with certain figures (Bloody Successors) and managed to open a perfumes and aromatics shop...

My son's first D&D game

My first adventure

Last weekend Ivan, my 6 years old son, asked me if he could play with me what I had played the previous weekend with his cousin Mat. "I want to explore a labyrinth too!" he said. Of course I obliged and brought out the 1983 D&D Players Manual to run the solo adventure. I printed a character sheet for him and then he rolled some 3d6 for the stats. He added the numbers (with little a help) and wrote down the results. Since he wanted a miniature, I took out a box with some 3.x era plastic ones and he spend some time choosing one. He finally selected an orc raider. "Now you have to give it a name and write it down on the character sheet. What's his name?" I asked him. "It's Monster, his name is Monster." he said. OK, it was character after all.

Monster

I let him choose a d20 and a d6 from the die coffer and let him know one was to roll attacks and the other to roll for damage. "How many lives does Monster has?" he asked. "Well, he has only one." I replied. "Only one!?" he complained and looked a bit dismayed. "But he has 8 hit points!" I added quickly and that seemed to be alright for him so we carried on. 

Dungeon entrance

Monster was ready to investigate a labyrinth that was near the town where he lived. I showed him the Elmore drawing of the entrance. "This is the way of the dungeon. Do you dare to explore it?" I asked him in a theatrical voice. "YES!" he said excitedly.

I described him the room with the statue and three exits, and then gave him three choices (listen carefully, explore the room or go through one of the exits). He decided to go down one of the exits...and found two goblins! Combat unfolded with various hits and misses, near tears when Monster got hit and loud cheers when Monster hit the goblins, until he decided to flee back to town. "Because his health bar was too low." he explained. 

Monster didn't find any treasure on his first foray into the dungeon, but he was alive to go adventuring another day! 

Drawing my first dungeon!

After that, he decided that he wanted to run and adventure for me. So, while he drew his dungeon and chose miniatures to populate it, I rolled my character. Then I chose a miniature, named it Marshal and was ready to play. The first room of his labyrinth also had a statue in the center and several exits. I stopped to listen and he told me I could hear a conversation in hushed tones. When I decided to investigate, two statues (that weren't there in the initial room description!) lowered their swords blocking the passage, and a couple of orcs appeared and attacked! I was lucky to defeat both of them. I asked him if they had any treasure on them but there was none, so I took their weapons and went back to town to heal and sell the loot. 

Soon I was ready for another delve into his dungeon. This time I found a room with a "yeti monkey and a dread guard guarding a big chest" that attacked immediately. I lost initiative and the monkey went first. He rolled a natural 20 and grabbed a d10+d4 for damage! 

He TPK'd me on his first game as a DM. I couldn't be more proud.

Playing D&D with my nephew

The first time I played D&D with my nephew Mat was more than a year ago. You can read about that here. After that, we played again on a couple more occasions but I forgot to blog about them and I don't remember when they were. Then we played again last weekend.

D&D next generetion

Let's do some recap...

Session I (14/11/15)

At the end of our first session his group, composed by a fighter, an archer and a magic-user, saved their village from the attack of a necromancer and his skeletal minions. It was a bitter victory because the magic-user died, so they were to go into a quest to revive him. 

Session II (??/??/??)

The session begun at a near town where the local cleric revived the magic-user, but in exchange asked the group to retrieve a holy relic from the ruins of a nearby abbey. The group searched the ruins and found a flight of stairs going down. Mat decided that the group would go downstairs to explore, so I took out a sewer's battle mat from Dragon magazine. Since I wanted to introduce the concept of resource management, I told Mat to write down that each of his guys carried three torches and, as he explored,  I would ask him to cross one out from time to time. He quickly realized he needed to leave some for the way back to the surface or be forced to navigate the place in total darkness.

WoG Cultists

The group set forward to explore a series of abandoned rooms, corridors and sewer tunnels. First they fought and killed a giant rat that thought they were an easy meal. Then some black tentacles with purple suckers emerged from the stagnant water and tried to grab them. Finally they found a couple of identically clad cultists. While one hold them off blocking the walkway, the other fell back to their lair. After defeating the first cultist, Mat came with the brilliant idea of having one of his guys to pose as the dead cultist! 

At that point I asked him to check his torches and he realized he had about half left. He had to decide to press forward or go back. After pondering the situation for a moment Mat decided to stay. The fake cultist moved to find the lair while the rest followed a bit far behind. He managed to trick the remaining cultist into opening the door and they stormed the place. With the last cultist defeated they searched the room and found, not after the thief narrowly avoided a poison needle trap, the relic along with some treasure. 

With that they made their way back to the surface with the risk of running out of light sources.

Session III (??/??/??)

I decided to start this session by rolling stats for the characters and make character sheets for them. I used the 1983 D&D Basic Rules and ran the adventure that comes in the Dungeon Masters rulebook. This was a huge step for Mat since we haven't used any sheet or stats for the party. We used just a d20 to roll the attacks and saves, and to roll damage a d4, d6 and d8  for the magic-user, thief, and fighter respectively. He was really excited about it, because the game took a whole new dimension for him.

I ran the adventure almost 'as is'. In the combat with the carrion crawler, the thief got paralyzed and Mat kept asking if he was dead, but I wouldn't tell until the end of the combat. After the thief recovered, the group went to check the entrance to the ruins and found it was guarded by some kobolds, which Mat renamed as 'dog-men'. The kobolds, sorry, dog-men, were defeated without much effort and their bodies looted. He's a quick learner.

The group then went to explore inside the castle ruins. I was glad to see that Mat remembered the light sources drill from previous sessions. While exploring a bedchamber some zombies emerged from the closet and the cleric attempted to turn them but failed. By that time he had to go so we left the battle for next time.

Session IV (20/05/17)

Braaains!

Last weekend we picked up where we left last time, so we just rolled initiative! The group didn't have much trouble getting past the zombies. After the combat Mat asked 'Where's the treasure?'. 'If there's any treasure, you have to find it.' I replied. 'This is not like a tablet or cell phone game where the gold coins are floating on mid-air.You have to search, you have to tell me you search, otherwise I'll assume you do nothing.' I added. He chew on my words for a bit before he decided to search the place where the zombies came from. He was delighted to found some treasure there (I didn't put it there, it was in the adventure).

After that they came to a room full of crates and boxes with a lonely large box in the center. Mat sent the thief to open the large crate, only to be surprised by another zombie! The cleric failed the turn check again, so the fighter closed in to end the threat.

Exploring further they encountered more dog-men (kobolds) and Mat wanted them to follow him. I secretly made a reaction roll (uncertain). 'They look hesitant. What do you do?' I asked him. 'The fighter will put down his sword and shield, and motion them to come closer.' he said. 'The  kobolds look at each other and slowly get near you.' I told him. Being an evil DM, I was planning to surprise the party (hey, the strongest member have put down his weapons!) when Mat said 'I give them some meat!' That did it. 'They eat the meat hungrily. You now have a group of five kobold following you!'. Looking forward to play again!

OSR Encounter Contest - The curse of Vagrot the Blue

Today I sent my submission to the OSR Encounter Contest, 

"Since he settled, some time ago, in the ruins of an abandoned abbey atop a nearby forested hill, Vagrot the Ogre-Mage has extracted a weekly tribute from the village of Galdorum under the threat of razing the place to the ground. "

You can get the PDF here or in the Downloads section.

(Image is Public Domain)

OSR Encounter Contest

The Gaming and BS RPG Podcast  and Hobbs & Friends of the OSR crews are organizing the 'OSR Encounter Contest'. Check it out!

https://gamingandbs.com/osr-encounter-contest/

My entry to the contest will be available soon in the Downloads section.

Xaxum Lano

After the death of Fonso the Remarkable by a gelatinous cube, I rolled another character for the Dwimmermars game. I hope it lasts more than a couple of sessions!

She's Xaxum Lano, a young Tellurian tomb robber that, having heard the news about the doors of Mount Dwimmer had opened again, decided to explore the place in search of any rich treasures of yore that might replenish her depleted finances.

Raised and trained by DontoYuul, leader of the Plunderers, after her parents death, the skinny little girl proved to be very useful and profitable since she could fit through places that other didn't. Along the way she had to endure many things, both physically and emotionally, and though being a pretty face, she's short-tempered and got a sharp tongue. She recently left the gang with a promise of revenge, after learning that Donto was responsible for raid where her parents died.

S 9, I 7, W 12, D 16, C 10, Ch 6

Fonso Barsali

Fonso Barsali is my character on DWIMMERMARS. That's where +James Maliszewski's Dwimmermount meets ERB's Barsoom and it's run by +Adam Muszkiewicz. 

Fonso is a Greco-Roman wrestler of Roma origin, but also fugitive anarchist who joined a gypsy circus as a strongman to avoid being arrested. With the intinerant troupe he travelled all over Europe and reached Paris just in time for the 1889 Exposition Universelle.

Once there, he managed to be among the first people to ascend the Eiffel Tower. As the lift went up, and everyone on board admired the exposition, that covered the Champ de Mars, the Trocadéro, the quai d'Orsay, a part of the Seine and the Invalides esplanade, it accelerated with a flash to speeds never known before. The next thing was everyone waking up, naked, on the barren lands of Tellus.

STR 16, INT 14, WIS 6, DEX 13, CON 7, CHA 5

Obituary: "RIP Fonso the Remarkable. What les gendarmes couldn't kill, a gelatinous cube could. Fonso stood shoulder-to-shoulder with his blue Tellurian men-at-arms to the very end. If only any of them had survived to praise his virtues!" - Adam Muszkiewicz

Sir Ferdinand de Monte Vidi

Sir Ferdinand is a Knight that regularly travels to the Jousting Fields of the Axe Lands to participate on the various jousting events, meet new people and compete for the chance to win OSR prizes.

"A charming young Knight from the Southern Kingdom, clad in leather armour, Sir Ferdinand stands confident by his warhorse waiting for the joust to begin. A squire, also in leather armour, looks after his lance and kite shield bearing his colours. His retinue of five men-at-arms armed with clubs, guard the camp keeping the curious at bay."

Check the rules of the game here.

STR 11, INT 8, WIS 11, DEX 7, CON 13, CHA 15, HP 4, XP 475

Knight's Station 7 (Bachelor)
Starting Armor (+2) Boiled Leather (AC 8)
Starting Shield (+1) Reinforced Kite Shield (BF# 1)
Starting Horse (+1) Light Warhorse 0/+1
STARTING SQUIRE (+1) F1 5 8 Boiled Leather, Dagger, Sword
STARTING RETINUE (+3) 5 Men-at-Arms (0 Level) Armed with clubs

Statistics:

2016 St. Valentine Tourney - 2 won, 1 lost

2016 Summer Festival of Riverjun - 1 bye, 1 lost

2017 Spring Tourney of Gulltown - 1 lost

Gwynn Woods

Gwynn Woods is my character in the Warhammer 1st Ed. campaign run by Craig Brasco  via Google+ hangouts. It is set in his home-brew world of Urlund, a low-magic, Game of Thrones style setting, with different houses forging alliances or scheming against each other. He's a woodsman pursuing a career as a scout for one of this houses.

Race: Human

Alignment: Good

Height: 6’ 0”

Class: Ranger

Age: 24

Career: Woodsman - Scout

Gender: Male

Fate: 2

Stats: M 4, WS 38, BS 43, S 4, T 3, W 7, I  33, A 1, Dex 27, Ld 24, Int 33, Cl 40, WP 38, Fel 29

Skills: Speak Urlander, Very Resilient (+1 Toughness), Sixth Sense, Nightvision (2d6 yards), Concealment Rural, Follow Trail (+10 to Initiative), Identify Plants, Set Trap, Silent Move Rural, Specialist Weapon - Two-handed Weapon, Spot Trap, Secret Language (Ranger). Animal Care, Secret Signs (Scout).

Atacius Lightfoot

Atacius Lightfoot is my character in Michael Shorten Dark Ages campaign run on the Rizzoma platform. It's a revamp of an old campaign that Michael used to run over the now defunct Google Wave.

He's a littleling (halfling) thief from the Direlands that had to leave his homeland, because of a feud with another littleling who falsely accused him of a crime,  and traveled to the Southern port town of Skalfier in search of a new life. There he has found friends, adventures, wealth and, in the village of Appleton, a place he can call 'home'.

Michael Shorten commented on his blog: "Gabriel plays a curious, no-fear (sometimes) littleling (halfling) to the fullest, and when I tempt him with coins, I can feel that 'aw man, do I/don't I?'"

You can check the development of the game here.

UPDATE: The game runs on a Discord channel since September 2019.

Str 10, Dex 11, Con 13, Int 9, Wis 9, Cha 7  

Patreon

I support the following content creators on Patreon:

• Castle Greyhawk. An ongoing fanfiction webcomic by Scott Casper and +Mike Bridges.
• Drink Spin Run. An RPG talkshow podcast by +Adam Muszkiewicz and +Donn Stroud.
• Hobbs & Friends of the OSR. +Jason Hobbs & Friends are creating RPG podcasts, zines, and other RPG related material

Please consider supporting them too!

One Page Dungeon Contest 2017

I have sent my submission for this year's One Page Dungeon Contest. It is called 'Crypt of the Lost Hymns' and it's inspired on the +Metal Gods of Ur-Hadad DCC game, set in the World of Ore. I want to thank the Metal Gods crew for the inspiration and +Jarrett Crader for the suggested edits.

“In the vast windswept plains North of Ur-Hadad, the First City of Men, a lonely barrow is the only landmark for many miles around.”

You can click on the Downloads button above to get it.

Time to dust off this blog

I've been neglecting this blog for way too long. Almost a year and a half without posting! I guess it's because most of my online activity is now on G+.  

Let's recap what gaming-ralated events had happened since last post:

• +Drink Spin Run - An RPG Talk Show Podcast awesome t-shirt finally arrived. (Mar. 2017)
• Received +Diogo Nogueira 'Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells' RPG after the first one got lost in the way. (Feb. 2017)
• Got my Sons of Gygax t-shirt. (Feb. 2017)
• Received +Doug Kovacs Sketchbook. (Nov. 2016)
• Received a WayneCon t-shirt and swag from +Wayne Snyder. (Sep. 2016)
• Revamped my 1-on-1 PBeM-style Greyhawk 5e campaign on Rizzoma.com. It is set in the Phostwood forest after the occupation of Tenh by the Stonefist barbarians and the forces of Iuz. My only player leads a band of warriors that make guerrilla warfare against the invaders.(Aug. 2016-present)
• Received an AS&SH boxed set I bought from +Michael Curtis. (Aug. 2016)
• Received my copy of 'Null Singularity' by +Steven Bean. (Jan. 2016)
• Also received +Richard LeBlanc CC1 - Creature Compendium that I won on the OSR Christmas Giveaway. (Jan. 2016)
• Received Taylor Frank's zine 'Dungeon Lord: The Wayne Con' issue. (Dec. 2015)
• Received some 'It's Wizard Time!' stickers from +Wayne Snyder. (Nov. 2015)
• Ran D&D for my nephews! (Nov. 2015)
• +James MacGeorge send me a copy and a t-shirt of 'Black Sun Death Crawl'. (Late 2015)

Also I've been playing a lot of games on Mondays/Thursdays on Google+ hangouts. Mainly it's been DCC, but also Traveler, Delta Green, Maze Rats and Black Hack. On 'Wednesdays of OSR' I've ran another Greyhawk 5e campaign, this one set in the Yeomanry/Sea Princes area, play-tested +Craig Brasco's Above Snakes RPG and also played Torchbearer and Runequest 6.

I'll try to post more frequntly from now on.