Owlbears of a Different Feather

I just got hipped to this post over at the ArtOrder blog thanks to the webcomic Darths & Droids. It seems that back in September of 2009, ArtOrder has a competition to redesign the owlbear. The entries range from the noble, to the silly, to the outright creepy. As someone who likes alternate takes on old classics, I found the submissions to be excellent design fodder for the next time the players run across D&D’s favorite hybrid. Do yourself a favor and check them out.

Stonehell Campaign Map

Over at The Savage Sword of Scadgrad, there has been a player’s map posted for scadgrad’s online MapTool campaign. Done in the style of “your crazy, adventuring uncle left this to you on his deathbed,” the map shows just how easy it is to drop Ol’ Stony into any campaign world. Check out the post here.

And speaking of megadungeons, Kesher’s posted a great quote over at the Original Dungeons & Dragons Discussion forum, having found it at The Alexandrian. Having been working on and running Stonehell for more than two years now, I both identify with this remark and heartily agree with it.

In many ways, I feel like a megadungeon becomes the DM's character. And I play my megadungeon much like I would play a PC. Before play begins, I don't really know what my megadungeon is going to do: But my random encounter tables generate 2d4 anubians just after the PCs raid the depths, and I know the anubians have sent a team of assassins to hunt them down. Black-eyed cultists are holding a ritual on Level 2 and I suddenly know the sin day they're celebrating. Lizardmen show up in the anubian sections of the dungeon and I know tensions are erupting between their tribes. Then the minotaur shows up to determine why tribute is not being paid and... and... and...

And a story gets told.

Ten Things I Wish I Bought Back Then So I Could Have Them Now

Since it’s the time for holiday wish lists and general greed, I’ve been thinking about what I really wish I could have as gifts this year. These presents are not realistic by any means, but since I’m a simple man and all I really want is the new Social Distortion album and for somebody to destroy Mumford & Sons so I never have to hear “Little Lion Man” ever again, it’ll take a theoretical flight of fancy to finish stuffing my stocking.

Limiting myself to 10 items for 2010, they are, in no specific order, the gifts that I wish I had bought for myself back before they went out of print or became incredibly expensive to procure. Almost all of them are pure nostalgia fodder. I’ve specifically left role-playing game books and other supplements off the list as they represent an entire category of their own, one considerably longer than ten items.

10) A set of official Wraith: The Oblivion Dice. When it comes to role-playing games, I’m not a completionist except for two titles: Gamma World and Wraith: The Oblivion. I’ve mentioned that I own every Gamma World edition since its debut. I also have the majority of W:tO stuff. Nevertheless, the dice set never made its way into my possession. I think most of the run of these ended up in a landfill somewhere because they‘re impossible to find, even in the dark alleys of the internet.

9) A Dragonbone: We used to mock this thing mercilessly back in the day, not only because of the adolescent hilarity found in anything called a “Dragonbone,” but because we figured how lame were you if you couldn’t be bothered to actually throw some dice? (An opinion I still have.) Now I want one for simple nostalgia sake and to be able to “whip out my Dragonbone” the next time I’m at a convention and the guy next to me is using a friggin’ iPhone app instead of real dice. I’d show him some hard-core, old school boneage!

8) A Gryphon Games Miniature Case: Another cool product from the back pages of Dragon. I couldn’t paint worth a damn back then, but the idea of having what I imagined to be a massive treasure chest to keep them in was too cool to not want. These things didn’t leave so much as an electronic ripple on the Web, making me think that their plywood construction and brown leatherette covering failed to hold up to the passage of time.

7) A few pads of Armory 1/10” x 1/20” Graph Paper: I posted about this stuff back in October. I haven’t got much of it left, but if I had known then how much this stuff still instills me with a sense of pleasant nostalgia and memories of happy afternoons drawing dungeon maps, I would have bought a pallet of the stuff back in the mid-1980s.

6) Dungeons & Dragons Computer Labyrinth Game: I remember playing this as a kid and I wasn’t all that impressed with it after a few rounds with it, but I never had one of my own: a fact my friend Greg used to lord over me. Alas, that hole in my psyche can never be healed and this is just a vain attempt to fill that emptiness.

6) Kenner’s Alien board game: I actually owned this as a kid and it probably contributed to the irrational fear of xenomorphs that still plagues me to this day. The fact that there was a children’s board game published that was based on an R-rated move with a rape subtext still boggles my mind. Blame the Star Wars merchandising machine for this one. I’d love to have this in my closet again—even though the idea of an actual Alien in my closet makes me lose bladder control.

5) A carton of assorted Presto Magix transfers: Only tentatively gaming-related as some were historical or science-fiction in nature. I can’t even guess as to how many of these I bought at the corner variety store in my youth. Each came with a fold-out background the depicted some exotic vista and a sheet of color transfers that you rubbed over with a pencil to affix to the background. It allowed any kid, even the ones like me who couldn’t draw worth a damn, to create cool action scenes, provided you didn’t mind them not actually performing any actions.

4) A complete set of the Gregg Press Fafhrd and Grey Mouser books: I mentioned in a previous post that this edition was my introduction to Leiber’s famous twain. I own scattered editions of more recent vintage, but to have the orange cover books from the 1970s on my shelf would make me a happy man.

3) All of the Grenadier AD&D miniatures boxed sets: Grenadier’s D&D minis and this game will forever be entwined together in my brain. I owned only a few single pieces in my youth, but each time I saw an advert for them in Dragon or encountered someone who owed these pieces, usually exquisitely painted, made me think I wasn’t getting the full D&D experience. I started refurbishing some of my old miniatures just before the “Out of the Box” game and was reminded that, as clunky and chunky as Grenadier’s early work was, those pieces remain the epitome of game miniatures to me.

2) A vintage set of Crossbows and Catapults: True story—In 1983, my brother and I were playing a game of “Crossbows and Catapults” on our bedroom floor. At the precise moment one of our walls (I forget whose) went crumbling down under a fired disc, a tremendous explosion rocked the neighborhood. Although we initially believed we had somehow unleashed Armageddon by means of a siege warfare game, our father quickly (and somewhat disappointingly) informed us that the Grucci Fireworks Co., located in the next town over, had exploded. That remains one of weirdest moments of synchronicity I've ever experienced in my life and I’d like to have a set again so that my brother and I could possibly destroy other local landmarks.

1) My true #1 is something I’d rather keep to myself. Suffice to say it would require a little bit of time-travel and whole lot of “I wish I knew then what I know now.” The best things in life aren’t things, you know. Barring that, however, how about a complete run of original ROM the Space Knight comic book series? I'm sure it wouldn't stand up to my memories of it, but I remember the Dire Wraiths as being pretty bad ass, largely due to the fact that they regularly killed folks, which was pretty radical for a comic book at that time. I never owned the ROM action figure, but the books had a big impact on my development...which probably isn't a good thing to reveal.

Visiting the Kinan-M’Nath

Into the whirlpool
Where matter vanishes
Degenerate star
Arm of Orion

An iron sun
The forbidden circle
Anti-matter is the
Black horizon

Blue Oyster Cult, “Heavy Metal: The Black and Silver

Now that visitors know what to expect once they arrive in the Uncertain Lands, how exactly do they get there? For this, we must turn to the sages of the ages, who, in their ink-spattered wisdom, have determined that there are four known methods of transportation between the Kinan-M’Nath and other worlds.

Method #1 – Spell Craft: Perhaps the easiest method of world travel, this method is restricted to those who have achieved mastery in magic, have discovered a magic item capable of cross-world travel, or can pay someone to provide these means of travel for them. In general, spell craft travel covers cross-world travel achieved by use of astral projection, gate, limited wish, plane shift, and/or wish, or through magic items such as an amulet of the planes, a cubic gate, or a well of many worlds. The benefit of this method is that the caster or item user has some control over where they arrive—provided they have some familiarity with the lands of the Kinan-M’Nath.

Method #2 – Realm Storms: Highly unpredictable, those arriving in the Kinan-M’Nath by way of a realm storm seldom do so willingly. These planar tempests tear the boundaries between worlds, although they appear to be nothing more than extremely strong thunderstorms to those caught in them. More than one party of adventurers has sought shelter in a cave during a realm storm only to emerge after it ended and find themselves in a completely different world. Some powerful mages and learned sages can predict where and when a realm storm may next appear, but finding such an individual and meeting their price is an adventure in its own right.

Method #3 – Etheric Mists: Like realm storms, etheric mists are a supernatural event. They are even more unpredictable than the storms, however, and some sages believe that etheric mists are examples of Fate in action. Appearing as a smoky gray fog, etheric mists are cold, thick, and damp, restricting sight to a mere 5’. Alien noises and weird echoes sound from the depths of the mist, and an occasional phantasmagorical shape can be barely discerned. Etheric mists appear without warning, even on the sunniest of days. They envelop travelers completely, last anywhere from several minutes to several hours, and, once they dissipate, leave the wanderers in a new land.

Image by Stefan Poag. Please visit Knucklebones.net for more of Stefan's wonderful work.

Method #4 – Hangways: These permanent gates were created in the dim past by unknown hands for indeterminable purposes. Appearing as 12’ diameter stone hoops, hangways are typically found suspended horizontally between four massive supports and dangling 10’-12’ above the ground. Usually a set of free-standing stairs or a ramp leads up to the edge of the hoop, allowing travelers easy access to the 8’ diameter opening in the hoop’s center. The air inside this aperture shimmers as if hot, although the temperature is the same as the surrounding atmosphere. Although hangways share the same general appearance of horizontal hoop hanging from supports, details vary from place to place and world to world.

Image by Talysman. Please visit Talysman's blog, The Nine and Thirty Kingdoms, for more.

Hangways, sometimes called “hopgates” due to their method of egress, allow free travel between worlds to specific locations. Unlike the less predictable methods listed above, hangways remain in fixed locations and provide access to a matched site on one or more alien worlds. Use of the hangway is a simple matter of hopping through the horizontal aperture and falling between worlds. The traveler lands unharmed on the floor underneath the other hangway’s matched hoop on a new world. Travel between world can only occur by stepping through the topside of the hangway’s hoop. Attempts to reenter a hangway from below are always unsuccessful.

Image by Talysman

While the majority of hangways are keyed to a single location, some allow access to multiple planes. Hangways with multiple connections are usually time-based, meaning that a single hopgate will connect to one place during a certain time of the day, week, month, or year, and connect to another at an alternate time. Sometimes manuals, instructions, carvings, etc. are found near these types of hangways, but this is not guaranteed. Adventurers intending to travel via hangways should research their chosen hopgate carefully before embarking on their journey.

Hangways are the most common planar gate found in the Kinan-M’Nath. At least two are known to exist within the boundaries of Stonehell Dungeon; others can be found in forgotten places (both indoors and out) across the Uncertain Lands. The most recent wayfarers to arrive through a functioning hopgate are the members of The Society of Planewalkers, currently operating out of Blackpool. These outsiders purportedly originated in the Lands of the Rotted Moon and have displayed talents and traits unusual to the Kinan-M’Nath. Whether they will become a force for the Weal or the Woe remains to be seen.

A Note About the Duration of Stay: Visitors to the Kinan-M’Nath should be aware that their method of travel to the Uncertain Lands may have an impact on how long they remain in that world. Etheric mists and realm storms are notorious for carrying a person or persons between worlds only to return them to their place of origin days, even hours, later. And while spell craft and hangways almost always allow for unlimited visitation, even these methods have been known to abruptly fail, resulting in the traveler’s sudden departure from this realm. In other words, the referee has full control over the length anyone visits his campaign, making it much easier for a guest PC to suddenly fade away and return to his own campaign world if needed at the end of a session.

A very, very heartfelt thanks to Stefan Poag and Talysman for taking the time to contribute their talents to an unconventional idea dreamed up by me on a whim. Your contributions are greatly appreciated!

Thankful for Small Things

If you’ve been following the progress of my Labyrinth Lord campaign, you know that hobgoblins are the current “big bad” of the dungeon. Prior to the missions against the hobgoblin redoubt, I discovered that I was grossly lacking in hobgoblin miniatures. I made one attempt to solve this by making a lowball bid on a slew of WotC’s pre-painted hobgoblin minis on eBay, but someone wanted them more than I did. As a result, I decided to go for quality over quantity and made my very first purchase of Otherworld Miniatures, namely Hobgoblin Warriors I. A lot of good things have been written about Otherworld’s metal and I can say that I heartily agree with those statements. It might be my imagination, but the pieces felt heftier than your average metal mini. I was very impressed with my hobs—enough that I purchased another two sets (Hobgoblin Warriors IV and Hobgoblin Guards I) to bring my total number of orange-toned Asian goblins up to eight, which should be enough to carry me through most encounters (although the Hobgoblin Command Pack looks pretty sweet and it’s hard to resist).

These guys have shown up in the background of certain photos and video from the game sessions, but I thought they’re worth a closer look. The camera work is a little shoddy, but I pretty pleased how they came out—especially since painting minis is a fairly new activity for me.

While Otherworld’s pieces make them, in my opinion, the go-to source for new classic miniatures, there are of course other manufacturers out there. In my own game, Mars Markus is portrayed by a Mega Minis Guthrie Grenadier recast, for example. Nevertheless, I wanted to make a case for Center Stage Miniatures. Center Stage went through a bad patch a little while back when its owner left the business in less than capable hands while he was undergoing military instruction. He came home to find the business in ruins and has been doing his best to rebuild goodwill and make right all that went wrong. Originally, Center Stage was to do a line of official Swords & Wizardry minis, but that’s no longer to be now that S&W is moving in other directions with new partners. The S&W line has been, ahem, “recast” as Fantasy Encounters. Fantasy Encounters are all 25mm pieces from molds that were manufactured “back in the day” and are again available at good prices.

I did business with Center Stage before the whole kurfluffle and my interaction with them was nothing but professional and satisfactory. I would do business with them again in future should their pieces again meet my needs. I’d likely wait until I needed several minis and go for the flat shipping rate to make the most of my savings. You can check out their renewed website at centerstageminis.com.

The two pieces I purchased were Evil Cleric and the just returning Evil Champion W/Runesword. You can see my efforts to bring them to life below.

The OSR has been largely synonymous with retro-clones and new adventures compatible with old editions, but let’s not forget that there can be more to these games than just the books and dice. Companies like Otherworld and Center Stage are making it easy for those of us who couldn’t afford a Grenadier boxed set back in the day to nevertheless acquire some pretty cool, classic-looking pieces and I, for one, am extremely grateful for that.

Pretty Pictures from the End of the World

I don't often indulge in this sort of behavior, but, if you're like me and currently weighing your options regarding a post-apocalyptic roleplaying game, I suggest that you take a few minutes and peruse the images here. It's a great collection of forty-five apocalyptic vistas collected from various Deviantart creators. You're bound to find something to get your toxic waste crockpot a'bubblin'.

Alternate Links to Free Stonehell PDFs

I was alerted today that there are some issues downloading free PDF files from Lulu and that my own Stonehell Dungeon preview and supplement one are amongst those affected. So, until Lulu fixes the problem, I'm hosting both of those files on my Mediafire site. You can find them each at the links provided below:

UPDATE: Lulu has since corrected the issue and the below products can be downloaded again at my storefront. However, I will continue to host the PDFs on my Mediafire site as well, so the below links should remain good barring any unforeseen changes. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Stonehell Dungeon: Down Night-Haunted Halls Preview
or
http://www.mediafire.com/file/057h6hcm89hhmnl/sh_preview.pdf


Stonehell Dungeon Supplement One: The Bandit Caves
or
http://www.mediafire.com/file/il7vtd7nb96k2m8/sh_supplement_one.pdf

Engaging the Weird Gear

I’ve been very neglectful of my tertiary web project, Secret Antiquities, as of late. I’ve been more concerned with getting projects finished, running Watchfires & Thrones, and playing in the radiation for next year’s Gamma World campaign. It is October, however, a month that has historically been one of great creativity for me and an all-around enjoyable time of year.

To celebrate October and to train myself to be more attentive to my weird history project, I’ve challenged myself to make thirty-one posts over on Secret Antiquities between now and Halloween. I’m trying to formulate some parameters for my planed GORE project in 2011 and I need to flail about wildly for a bit to find where my creative boundaries lie. Therefore, what will be appearing over on that blog is a potpourri of strange ideas, intellectual artifacts, and dream relics come to light. I can’t promise everyone’s going to be a Maserati of creativity, but hopefully the signal-to-noise ration won’t suck too badly.

Stop on by if this sort of thing sounds like your cup of ichor.

The Return of the Much Missed Mr. Driver

For those of you who remember the creative endeavors of Scott Driver, the mind behind the blogs, “Wilderlands OD&D “and “The World of Thool”, the time to rejoice is upon you. Scott’s started up a new blog dedicated to his latest world setting, Mandragora or The Mandrake March, which can be found here. Scott’s eschewing weird fantasy this time around to concentrate on his other inspirational love: fairy tales. I’m certain that I share the sentiments of many of you when I say I’m eagerly awaiting what Mr. Driver comes up with in his blog's latest incarnation.

A Peek Inside the Dungeon Alphabet

My favorite group of Spanish bloggers, Adventuras En La Marca Del Este, has done a photo review of The Dungeon Alphabet. If you've been curious as to why so many people have been praising the artwork within the pages of that tome, check out the review here for some fine examples of the artwork of Otus, Easley, Roslof, Mullen, and others (whom I can't identify only because their work is not signed, not because of a lack of talent and distinctive style).

Then go kick yourself for not buying a PDF copy during GM's Day.

The Eldritch Frontier Wiki

I've gone ahead and made my Obsidian Portal site for the forthcoming Eldritch Frontier campaign open for viewing. There are still a lot of little details that need to be added and the whole thing needs to be gone over with an eye for typos, but my goal was to have it up today.

Looking it over, I get the impression that it doesn't quite convey all that I have in mind for the world and seems a little too vanilla in places. The spice will have to wait because I'm certainly not going to tip my hand before the campaign even begins. A lot more will be revealed in time and the campaign's atmosphere will certainly be much more palpable around the table when dice start clattering.

Wiki is here.

John Dee Would Have Approved

Yesterday, I met with the two guys who will likely form the nucleus of my proposed Eldritch Frontier campaign. We all seem to share similar gaming backgrounds and expectations for the campaign, which is a good thing for this soon-to-be referee. Trying to organize a gaming group from scratch is hard enough without personality and goal conflicts coming into play.

As we left the store, I was asked if I could put together a background sheet for the campaign so that the players would have a handle on the setting before play began. Uh-oh. It’s amazing what you forget to do when you’re doing the pre-game shuffle and juggle, isn’t it? I hadn’t thought of putting such a PC prep sheet together, even though I’ve done so in the past for other games.

I got home and started to try and arrange something that was at least moderately informative without being akin to a dry collegiate thesis. Unfortunately, I discovered that although I know a lot about the campaign setting, I don’t have it all that well organized in my head or in my commonplace books. I know where everything is, but, unless you’re me, it’s difficult to access. I started to go off on tangents while writing the prep sheet, making the damned thing much too long and overburdened with information for my purposes. I deleted the whole thing and decided to start anew.

However, before I began again, I suddenly remembered Obsidian Portal. I had looked half-heartedly at the site in the past, but, since I wasn’t running a regular game, it didn’t capture my attention at that time. Now it might just serve my purposes.

After a little hesitation, I’ve since created an account over there and I’m in the process of putting together a bare bones wiki that contains the necessary player background for the game. Having never had any experience working with a wiki, I’m discovering both the allure and the danger of putting one together for a campaign. The world-builder in me loves it, especially since creating one on Obsidian Portal is turning out to be such a snap to do. But I can also see how some game masters can burn themselves out by trying to create the ultimate campaign world reference wiki before the first dice even hit the table. Having had my brush with overbuilding the campaign world, I’m not likely to fall into the same trap twice, yet it remains something to be cautious of.

Once I get the basics in place, I’ll be publishing the wiki for public viewing. When that happens, I’ll post a link here so that those of you who are interested can check it out and play along vicariously from home.

I will admit that I remain somewhat hesitant about committing too much campaign information to the web. I am a Luddite of minor repute, having lost enough of my writings over the years to power failures, corrupted data, and the like to be 100% at ease with the wiki being the sole repository of my game notes. I’m composing everything on my home PC where I can back it up before cutting and pasting it to the web. Obsidian Portal has no reputation for losing data as far as I know, but I’m simply too paranoid to do otherwise.

Dungeon Alphabet Review on Grognardia

For the two people out there who somehow missed it, Grognardia has reviewed The Dungeon Alphabet. That review can be found here.

Words Not Known By Your Spell Check

The website The Phrontistery has an interesting article in its archives entitled “From the Dungeon to the Dictionary.” The author, Forthright, discusses the role of D&D and Gary Gygax on modern English usage. Did you know “magic-user” is the only non-trademarked word he’s credited with creating? Check out the article for more

More Shilling from Yours Truly

There was a small bump of posts in the blogosphere today regarding books with my name on them. One of these days, I won’t have anything to plug, I promise you. In the meanwhile, you can read A Paladin in Citadel’s review of Stonehell Dungeon: Down Night-Haunted Halls here and then wander over to Spell Card! for a peek inside and some words about The Dungeon Alphabet.

Three Things About the Dungeon Alphabet

In no particular order, here are three bullet points regarding The Dungeon Alphabet:

On February 4th, 2010, the next issue of Realms of Fantasy Magazine hits the newstands, and a review of The Dungeon Alphabet will appear in that issue. I expect to spend that morning standing on the curb with the blind newstand agent, awaiting a bale of Realms of Fantasy magazines hurled from the back of a passing truck.

Zachary Houghton of the RPG Blog II awarded a gold medal to the DA as Best Fantasy Product of 2009. If such accolades continue, I'm going to have to get my chainmail tuxedo dry-cleaned as a contingency.

Lastly, and most importantly if for no other reason than it means that hype man Mike Curtis is getting close to ending his stint, according to the recent news on the Goodman Games website, The Dungeon Alphabet has been sent to the printers. While there are few certainties in this life, if all goes well, we're looking at mid-January for the book to reach the shelves of your local games' bazaar. But, just in case trucks are attacked by Zuagirs, maybe you should pre-order your copy now to be safe and get entered in the drawing to win a copy of the book autographed by Erol Otus.

Custom Handwritten Fonts for Your Campaign World

For many years now, I’ve been labeling the various maps of my campaign world with a specialized style of handwriting I call “Shaky Hand.” It is a purely creative adornment, but one which makes my maps easily identifiable as my own fantastical creations. In addition to Shaky Hand, I’ve created a customized alphabet or three to use in ciphers, lost languages, and other alphabetical conundrums. Like Shaky Hand, these alphabets reside in my commonplace books when not needed, requiring me to reproduce them by hand each time I need to create the various player handout or other props that I sometimes use.

Over the break, I discovered fontcapture.com, which converts handwriting into True Type fonts. The service is free and requires only that the creator have access to a PDF reader application and a scanner. With these, he can upload a sample of his own handwriting that is then quickly turned into a True Type version. Although intended for signatures and other personalized forms of correspondence, if you’re like me, you quickly see the role-playing applications this service provides.

Intrigued by the possibilities, I took fontcapture.com out for a trial run. The process from start to finish only took about five minutes, and I now have two versions of my custom alphabets available for use in Word and Photoshop, which is pretty much all I foresee myself ever needing it for. The more perfectionist-types might find the process takes a little longer as they fiddle with their handwritten font sheets to produce the cleanest and most uniform version of their handwriting, but even ten or fifteen minutes of fine tuning will leave you with a completely unique font for use with your own role-playing game creations for years to come. If you enjoy making maps and other player handouts, and want a little spice to flavor them with, you must give fontcapture.com a try.

I’m Back…Sort Of

I don’t know about you, but that break went by fast. At this point, I’ll take any free time I can get my hands on and, despite sharing my downtime with my birthday (which becomes less and less about me each year) and a national holiday, I did grab a few afternoon naps to try and fill in the bottomless pit of sleep deprivation I carry about with me. After managing to squeeze in a Toshirô Mifune triple-feature, it wasn’t too shabby of a temporary vacation.

Although I intended to have a period of relatively design-free time in my immediate future, I plan and the universe laughs. I’m currently working on a new project for another party, and I expect this to take up a decent chunk of my off-hours for the foreseeable future. Since this project isn’t for me, it gets pushed to the top of the “To Do” list. Once I’ve got a fair handle on it, I’ll be back to addressing concerns closer to home (like this blog). In the meantime, I’ve got a few posts scheduled, but I can’t see myself getting back into a regular schedule until after the holidays at the very earliest. I ask for your indulgence in this regard…again.

Stonehell Dungeon is still continuing to sell. Although it wasn’t my intention to release the book to coincide with the beginning of the holiday shopping season, I won’t knock that happy coincidence. To those of you’ve who bought copies since I last extended my gratitude, “thank you.” I’ve read your comments and emails, and, even if I don’t respond in person, I’m extremely pleased that so many how found the book to their liking and thankful that you took the effort to let me know.

I know I’ve been lacking about updating my blog list. Since I’ve started this digital endeavor, there’s been quite a few OSR blogs that have risen and fallen, and I’ve been meaning to bring my list up to date to reflect the casualties and reinforcements. I’m long overdue, but I hope to do some culling and adding in the near future. If you’ve contacted me in the past and I’ve failed to include you, have patience – your time is coming.

Updated Update

The files are again available. While doing some research on the various file-hosting alternatives offered by you fine folks, I rediscovered that I had a Mediafire account stemming back from the time the Open Game Table was being assembled. Since it was still valid and several of you had suggested Mediafire as an alternative, I went with them. If there are no problems with the files hosted there for the next several months, I'll likely keep any future crazy, homebrewed files there.

I believe that I found all the dead links and updated them to reflect their new homes. It's conceivable that I may have missed one or two, so if you do stumble across a non-working link, please drop me an email or leave a comment here so that I can make the correction. A complete list of all the files currently available can be found at http://www.mediafire.com/poleandrope.

I again thank you for your patience during the chaos and hope that it remains the exception around here and not the rule. My further thanks to everyone who made suggestions or offered temporary hosting services over the last two days.

Files in the Ether Update

Well it appears that unless I wish to pay Orbitfiles $60 a year to upgrade my account, I can't link to any of the files currently residing in my non-public "shared" folder. Considering that I don't make any money off of my crazy .pdfs posted here, that's an additional cost I can't justify in this economy.

Some alternative options have been suggested and I'll be exploring those in the next few days. In the meantime, all the links will remain non-functional. If you really, really need to get your hands on one of the .pdfs, drop me an email at the address listed to the right and I'll try to work something out. Sorry for the inconvenience.