Otherworld Miniatures Dungeon Adventurers Indiegogo Project

If you're an old school gamer like me or have at least been following the antics of this thing we call the OSR, chances are you already know about Otherworld Miniatures and their lines of classically-inspired monster miniatures for D&D. I, myself, own several of their hobgoblin minis which saw much use during the great Hobgoblin War of Stonehell Dungeon.

What you might not know though is that Otherworld Minatures is launching a line of Dungeon Adventurer minis and is currently running an Indiegogo fundraising campaign to put them into production. Assuming you still have some funds left and haven't jumped on the anti-crowdsourcing bandwagon yet, you might be interested in throwing a few bucks into the kitty on this one. I've got to say the "Henchmen and Hirelings" set sounds pretty sweet to me!

Let’s Talk “Of Unknown Provenance”

I had a revelation this week: I suck at self-promotion. I’ll talk your ear off about whatever cool widget or book that’s coming down the pike that has my attention, but when it comes to plugging my own work, I need a PR guy. A media assassin. Harry Allen, I gotta ask him.

This satori luckily coincided with the fact that I did an interview for Jennisodes to help plug “Of Unknown Provenance” and the rest of my upcoming projects. I’ll provide a helpful link once it goes live, but, in the meantime, let’s take a closer look at “Of Unknown Provenance” and the madness behind the method. Maybe once you see what’s going on in my head, you might be willing to help turn it from a flight of phantastical whimsy to an actual dead tree thing.

First of all: provenance. It’s not a word that gets tossed around a lot, so a definition is in order. In short, provenance is the chain of ownership behind an item. In the art, archival, and collecting worlds, knowing the provenance of something is extremely invaluable when determining its worth. Was that painting owned by a dear friend of the artist? Was is purchased through legitimate channels or did it just appear one day on the market without documented ownership? Establishing a clear provenance is very important in legitimate dealings and collecting, so already you have an idea that this adventure concerns people, places, and things not at all concerned with how they got their paws on the items in question.

When James approached me to participate on the project, his orders were pretty loose. In fact, they boiled down to “do whatever the hell you want if it’s cool.” Now, that’s a constraint I can work with! So with that direction in mind, I started brainstorming. Do a dungeon crawl? No thanks, been doing too much of that with Stonehell and I need to expand my horizons. Hex crawl? Extraplanar adventures across time and space? Again, not really that exciting for me at the moment.

The hackneyed old phrase in writing is “Write what you know.” As some of you are aware, I’m an archivist by trade when not churning out RPG books and it’s a career and institution that doesn’t get a lot of play. I think that outside of the Nick Cage “National Treasure” film, I can’t recall the last time either archivists or archives got a fair shake in popular entertainment. And so, I decided to correct that.

Archives, like museums, are repositories of items and documents with “intrinsic historical value.” They’re places to stash stuff you want to preserve, but don’t necessarily want to lock away forever. A place to keep the grubby hands of the everyman away the good stuff and let those qualified to handle and appreciate it do so under controlled conditions. As John Constantine once said about the British Museum, “It’s where they keep the loot.”

As we all know, loot and adventurers go together like gin and tonic, so the concept of introducing such a store house—combined with my own experience in the trade—seemed like a natural fit. Riffing off that idea, I started thinking about the final scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark, the GURPS supplement Warehouse 23, and the Sci-fi series Warehouse 13. What red-blooded, greedy adventurer wouldn’t want a chance at prying open some of those crates and seeing what might be worth taking? OK, I think we’re on to something here.

James Raggi has also been charting a different course for Lamentation of the Flame Princess as of late, setting-wise. From my view, he’s been moving away from your standard pseudo-medieval fantasy setting and looking towards the 15^th and 16^th centuries, a time when rampant imperialism and the subjugation of anyone unfortunate enough to live in an area possessing value to those empires was commonplace. That tied into the concept of a storehouse of esoteric loot. After all, once the caretakers of such cultural artifacts have been exterminated, who’s left to keep their “quirks” under control? Best to stick those things somewhere safe until somebody can puzzle that out. I’ll also now break a cardinal rule of writing and design that states you should always obscure your sources by saying that Blue Oyster Cult’s Imaginos album, specifically “Magna of Illusion” plays an important role in defining my course for “Of Unknown Provenance.”

Those of you familiar with my Stonehell know that I’m very big on modular design, and not what one usually means when referring to “game modules.” I enjoy telling a big story, but I also realize that not everyone wants to listen to the whole tale, preferring only to take the chapters that interest them instead. “Of Unknown Provenance” will reflect that same design philosophy.  To accommodate that goal, I found myself drifting back to the old horror/sci-fi anthologies of my youth: Tales from the Dark Side, The Outer Limits, The Twilight Zone, Amazing Stories, Friday the 13^th: the Series, and even Freddy’s Nightmares. “Of Unknown Provenance” is an homage to those shows, featuring a central adventure “plot” (for lack of a better word) comprised of several smaller vignettes that twine together to give the players multiple views of what’s happening at the Night Archive. So, if you’re the referee and have no interest in the big picture, there’s going to be lots to loot from this adventure. I’ll even provide the dotted lines for you to cut along when you take out your mental scissors.

I’m still not settled on an “appropriate for PCs of levesl X through X” for the adventure and won’t be until the fingers hit the keys and start exploring the Archive, but likely this one’s going to end up in the “PC sweet spot” of 6^th-8^th level.

You can hear me talk some more about “Of Unknown Provenance” once the Jennisodes podcast goes live, but in the meanwhile, I hope I’ve given you all a little peek at what to expect from the adventure. If this helps you decide you want to make “Of Unknown Provenance” a reality, hop over to IndieGoGo and make a contribution. My thanks go out to everyone who’s already contributed based solely on my name and the thumbnail description I provided. Hopefully you and the rest of the gaming world will get a crack at the Night Archive and discovering why it’s the uncertain things that make life so interesting.

Wanted: 265 Fans with $20 to Spare

There's been some talk going on in the ether about James Raggi's massive July crowdsourcing campaign. Some are sure he's mad, others believe he can pull it off. Me, I'm certainly hoping that the later faction is correct because I really want see the funky ideas I have for "Of Unknown Provenance" see the light of day.

Over at Lamentations of the Flame Princess blog, I read two comments that made my afternoon:

"The names he has writing adventures are "famous" in their own rights. Does Monte Cook have 300 fans willing to pay $20 for his adventure? Does Michael Curtis?" -- Ramanan Sivaranjan

"Of course a Michael Curtis + LotFP module would sell 300+ copies over a reasonable period of time." -- Guy Fullerton

So the question remains, and only my readers and fans can answer it: Are there 265 of you would plunk down $20 bucks for a printed copy and a PDF of "Of Unknown Provenance" and make the adventure a reality? You've got 25 days to make it happen. If it does, know that I remain deeply humbled and honored that you folks would give up the cost of a movie and snacks for me.

Of Unknown Provenance on IndieGoGo

James Raggi has kicked off a campaign to get nineteen adventures for Lamentations of the Flame Princess RPG funded in the month of July. The would-be authors of these works runs the gamut from industry professionals, up-and-comers, and a few wild cards one wouldn’t expect to see lending their names to a roleplaying game supplement.

One of the names that falls somewhere in that range is my own. Provided the funding is achieved, I’ll be writing an adventure entitled “Of Unknown Provenance.” They say write what you know, so I decided to use a forgotten, near-legendary repository of items with intrinsic – as well as pecuniary—value as the adventure’s framing device. It’s also my nod to certain anthology shows like Tales from the Darkside and Friday the 13^th: The Series. The teaser is as follows:

In certain occult circles, sorcerers still trade tales of the Night Archive. Known as a repository for artifacts deemed too perplexing or too dangerous for mortal minds to safely comprehend, the Night Archive was a vault of wonders tended by the devoted few who dedicated their lives to the custody of the macabre and inscrutable. But history, like the weird inks that stain arcane grimoires, is prone to fading and the Night Archive slipped into the mists of legend. 

Now, as the stellar wheel turns above and the sign of Herthas rises once more, rumors spread that the location of the Night Archive is again known by Man. The fate of its collection and the caretakers charged with its keeping remains a mystery, but for those who deduce the vault’s location, a treasure trove of magic surely lies for the taking…

I’m really looking forward to penning this one, so please, if you’re interested in seeing it brought to life, consider kicking in to help fund the adventure. While you’re doing so, check out the rest of the adventures currently up for funding and see if they also pique you’re interest. Both I and the rest of the authors would be extremely grateful.