Going back to Room 2 and taking the center passageway this leads to an area where lava is flowing from somewhere above.  The floor is covered in lava and only a thin walkway of stone is visible. 

A Thief my use their Move Silently skill to cross, but since they are not trying to stay silent, only step carefully, they can add a +40% to their chance of success.

Other characters can move across only by being careful. Their base chance of success is their Dexterity score times 5%. So a character with a Dex of 10 has a 50% chance of success and one with an 18 has a 90% chance. Characters wearing metal armor have a -15% penalty.

Falling into the lava causes 4d8 hp of damage. 

There is another passageway on the other side to Room 9.

This one is still going on, and I really want to see it get funded!

Wasted Lands: The Dreaming Age Role Playing Game

A tabletop RPG of cosmic horror, swords, and sorcery in a savage lost epoch, 1000 years after the Old Ones fell to their eternal sleep.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jasonvey/wasted-lands-the-dreaming-age-role-playing-game?ref=b0ulif

I have been talking about this Kickstarter a lot and will continue. Please check it out and give Jason your support.

Both books are written. Both have gone through edits and playtest notes. Jason is doing the layout now. 

It looks great, and I see it as replacing D&D on my table for the foreseeable future. You really need to check it out. 

PLUS there is now FREE Quick Start rules with a brand new adventure ready for you to download. All you have to do is click on the link!

If you can't pledge please share the word of this great game.

Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #4: Violence for Votishal is a scenario for Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and the third scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set. Scenarios for Dungeon Crawl Classics tend be darker, grimmer, and even pulpier than traditional Dungeons & Dragons scenarios, even veering close to the Swords & Sorcery subgenre. Scenarios for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set are set in and around the City of the Black Toga, Lankhmar, the home to the adventures of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, the creation of author Fritz Leiber. The city is described as an urban jungle, rife with cutpurses and corruption, guilds and graft, temples and trouble, whores and wonders, and more. Under the cover the frequent fogs and smogs, the streets of the city are home to thieves, pickpockets, burglars, cutpurses, muggers, and anyone else who would skulk in the night! Which includes the Player Characters. And it is these roles which the Player Characters get to be in Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #4: Violence for Votishal, small time crooks trying to make a living and a name for themselves, but without attracting the attention of either the city constabulary or worse, the Thieves’ Guild! The job in this scenario is a night spent prowling around a temple on a murder investigation.
Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #4: Violence for Votishal is a longer, location-based scenario which should take between two and three sessions to play. Designed for two to three Player Characters of Fourth Level, it opens with them being approached by a gagged priest. The priest passes them a message to go to the temple of Votishal the Silent—a god dedicated to silence, self-improvement, discipline, and getting what one deserves—on the Street of the Gods. Worship of the god has been on the increase of late and so it has come to occupy the second-best temple on the street. However, its priests and worshippers have been driven out of the building due to their high priest having been murdered, followed by other priests on subsequent nights. The Player Characters are hired to enter the temple and catch and deal with the murderer when he returns that night. The priest—who only has a few minutes to speak according to the tenets of his faith—promises to pay well, but not before presenting the Player Characters with their first problem. The temple is now locked to prevent robberies with it now being vacant and non-priests cannot have a key. So, the Player Characters will have to break into the building in order to investigate and stop the murderer. This being Lankhmar and the Player Characters being thieves, this is not really a problem, but it must be a first, being paid by a client to break into his own building!

Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #4: Violence for Votishal is all about the temple to Votishal. This is a large, two-storey building with connected sewers and catacombs below. Over half of the scenario is dedicated to describing the building and its contents, including the floorplans for each storey. Numerous means are given for the Player Characters gaining access to the building, including via the sewers, and once inside, they find a baroque building dedicated to silence. They will also find that someone has got their before them and like them, is taking advantage of the quiet and the fact that nobody else is meant to be in the temple. There are thieves and assassins—and given that is the City of the Black Toga, their presence should be anything other than a surprise—skulking in the halls and rooms of the temple in their search for valuables and victims respectively. Yet, there is also something else, something whose presence suggests that the temple and worship of Votishal is more fractious than their gagged and silent façade suggests. It all lends itself to an eerie atmosphere, the hallowed silence inside the temple walls contrasting with the hubbub that the Player Characters are used to out on the streets outside.

As the Player Characters explore and investigate the temple, the Judge is provided with some great set pieces that she will definitely want to include if she can. For example, an attempt to garrote a Player Character from the floor above, which is not intended to kill the Player Character, but provide a fraught cinematic scene. There is also an encounter with the main threat in the scenario where breaking the silence will get the Player Characters into deadly danger and lastly with the ratfolk of Lankhmar, also seen in previous scenarios for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set. Primarily an exploration and investigation scenario, there is relatively little roleplaying in Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #4: Violence for Votishal in comparison to earlier scenarios, such as Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #1: Gang Lords of Lankhmar and Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #3: Acting Up In Lankhmar. Thieves will be in their element, especially as the Player Characters explore the building and begin to discover some of the secrets that the priests of Votishal have been hiding within the walls of the temple.
Unfortunately, Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #4: Violence for Votishal does have a quite complex background, not all of which may become apparent during the scenario. However, for the Judge, the back story becomes more apparent as she reads deeper into the scenario. The description of the temple of Votishal is quite detailed, so the Judge will need to pay careful attention to these details as part of her preparation. There is advice for the Judge in terms of hooks for getting the Player Characters involved, roleplaying the primary antagonist for the scenario, and adjusting the scenario to be run with four or five players rather then two to three. The scenario ends with an epilogue listing possible adventure ideas based on the discoveries that the Player Characters might have made in their exploration of the temple and expulsion of the various intruders.
Physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #4: Violence for Votishal is as decently presented as you would expect from Goodman Games. It is well written, the handouts nice and clear, and the cartography decent. The floorplans of the temple would work very well on a virtual tabletop with their secrets and numbers excised.

Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #4: Violence for Votishal is a solid edition to the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set. It is not as exciting or as fun as the earlier Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #1: Gang Lords of Lankhmar and Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #3: Acting Up In Lankhmar, instead a situation that owes much to the traditional style of play of Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. However, mix in the religious and criminal elements of Lankhmar—and Votishal, in particular—and what you have in Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #4: Violence for Votishal is an eerie, even creepy ‘temple crawl’.

You have been put in charge of the circus and are determined to put on the best series of acts and performers possible in order to wow the audience and make your circus the best. However, the running order has already been set, but you might be able to pull the performers you have out of that order knowing that they will outperform the previous act directed by a rival circus. If that is not possible, then you can scout the previous act and hire its best performer to join your circus, slotting into the running order you already have. Sometimes, you can even scout the previous act, hire its best performer, slot them into your running order, and have them perform immediately to really outdo the previous act. Do all of that enough times, and your circus will undoubtedly be the best!

This is the set-up for Scout, a quick-playing card game from Oink Games. Like nearly all of the Japanese publisher’s games, the game is small, tightly packaged, and comes with simple rules, but delivers terrific game play. The game was a Spiel des Jahres nominee in 2022 and won the Origins Award for Best Card Game in 2023. It is designed for two to five players, aged nine and up, and can be played in about twenty minutes. It is also easy to teach, plays quickly, and it can be enjoyed by the casual gamer as much as the veteran. In fact, its simplicity makes it a good family game whilst still providing a challenge for the experienced gamer. Plus, it is incredibly portable. That said, its theme is about as thick as the canvas on a worn circus tent, but then every card is named, such as ‘Anthony the Clown’ or ‘Jennifer the Bicyclist’. So, there is a personal touch to the game—just about.

Scout consists of forty-five cards, twenty-three Scout Tokens, thirty Score Tokens, five ‘Scout & Show’ Tokens, a Starting Player Marker, and a Game Manual. The forty-five, brightly coloured cards are numbered from one to ten, not once, but twice—at the top or bottom of the cards. In fact, the cards do not have a top or a bottom as such, because they are intended to be played with one number at the top. Notably, the numbers at either end of a card are never the same. This is important because a player can choose which way a card is orientated and thus which number is on display at certain points in the game. The game consists of a number of rounds equal to the number of players. Once the round have been completed, the player with the highest score is the winner.

The game’s key mechanics are ‘Hand Management’ and ‘Ladder Climbing’. Unlike other card games, Scout limits the degree of hand management a player can conduct—adding or playing cards in his hand, but not arranging the order of the card. ‘Ladder Climbing’ has the players attempting to play better cards or sets of cards than those currently on the table. In Scout, this is sets of the same value or runs of sequential number.

At the start of the round, adjustments are made for the number of players and the cards are shuffled and dealt out so that everyone has a hand the same size. A player also receives a ‘Scout & Show’ Token. Here appears the first wrinkle in the play of Scout. When a player receives his hand, he looks at it in order to see the numbers at the top or the bottom. Having done so, he choses one or the other. What he cannot do is change the order of the cards in his hand. The order will not change throughout the whole of the round unless he either plays cards or adds a card to his hand. This has two effects. It constrains what he can play, but it also gives him the foundation of something he can build upon to create a better hand and hopefully outscore his rivals.

On a turn, a player has a choice of three actions— ‘Show’, ‘Scout’, or ‘Scout & Show’—of which he must do one. To ‘Show’, he plays a set or run of cards. A set is multiple cards of the same number, whilst a run is a sequential series, but when played that set or run must be better than the cards in play on the table. If this replaces the current set or run of cards on the table, the player picks them up and adds them to his score pile. To ‘Scout’, the player takes one card from those on the table, which come from either end rather than the middle and adds it to his hand. When he does so, it can be added to anywhere in his hand and with either number. With careful or lucky choice of a card from a ‘Scout’ action, a player can begin to build a bigger set or run of cards in his hand that will hopefully be better than that on the table in another turn. A ‘Scout’ action also scores a ‘Scout Token’ for the player who played the current set or run of cards on the table. The ‘Scout & Show’ combines both actions and is the most powerful action in the game. Each player begins a round with a ‘Scout & Show Token’ which is turned in once a player decides to do a ‘Scout & Show’ action. Once handed in, a player cannot do another ‘Scout & Show’ action, so it is a one-use action.

Play continues until either a player has played all of the cards in his hand or a player plays a high enough set or run that no-one else can do anything else except the ‘Scout’ action and play passes back to the player who played that set or run. Each player determines his score for the round. This is equal to the number of cards in his score pile and ‘Scout Tokens’ he earned in the round, minus the number of cards in his hand. The player who played the last set or run does not have to deduct points for the cards in his hand. Play continues like this until a number of rounds equal to the number of players have been completed.

Scout is simple to play, but it has a surprising amount of depth and requires a bit more thought than at first glance. The inability to rearrange a player’s hand is frustrating, but it presents a player with a challenge as he is forced to ‘Scout’ over and over in search of the right cards that will enable him to create the best set or run that he can. The double and differently numbered cards make this less of a challenge and add some flexibility in the choices available to the players. Also, as a round progresses and better and higher sets and runs are played, the players will potentially—as long as they are on the end of a set or run—have access to the better and higher cards that they need and can acquire via a ‘Scout’ action. Playing a good set or run early on in the game can be devastating as the other players are likely to be unable to outdo it with the hands they have, forcing them to ‘Scout’, and if they all ‘Scout’, the round is over, forcing them to score negative points because they have been unable to play cards from their hands. However, the right card from a ‘Scout’ action or the right card and then cards played with the ‘Scout & Show’ action can be devastating when done at the right time. Plus, a player can benefit when it is not his turn, because if another player does the ‘Scout’ action and takes from the set or run of cards he played, he scores points for doing nothing. So, there is balance between the luck of the cards a player begins a round with and the choices he makes as round progresses.

Where Scout suffers is in the number of players. It is designed for two to five players, but at two players, the players do very little more than ‘Scout & Show’ actions most of the time. It is not as engrossing or as challenging as games played with more participants. It is thus better with three players, but with four or five, it becomes a great game. Then there is the theme, which is really neither here nor there.

Physically, Scout is, for the most part, well presented. The card quality is decent, but it is definitely worth sleeving the cards for repeated play. The Scout Tokens, Score Tokens, and ‘Scout & Show’ Tokens, plus the Starting Player Marker are all bright and cheerful and on good stock cardboard. The rulebook though, is a bit small and a bit flimsy.

Scout is great game. It would be an almost perfect game were it good to play with two players. It is not, so it is merely great. Easy to learn, easy to play, challenging enough to win at its play length, and easy to transport, Scout is a great addition to any games collection and a great go to filler game.

 The far right corner of room 6 has another lava tunnel that leads to a bright light.  It is also getting hotter as the party moves down.

The tunnel ends in another one of the magical portals that plagued the upper levels. This one leads to firey Hell-scape that appears to be the Elemental Plane of Fire. The heat is becoming so great that even if the characters have magical protection, they can feel the effects.

Fire creatures can be seen on the other side, Fire Nymphs, Burning Bunnies, and mephits mostly, but none appear to want to come over any more than the characters should feel like they can enter.

I mentioned the collection I got from my old DM and a few Dragons in it. As it turns out, this is the only one I had not done a "This Old Dragon" for. So. Let's go back nearly 40 years ago this month to a very different time. "When Doves Cry" by Prince dominated the airwaves, But I am sure I was listening to a lot of "Piece of Mind" by Iron Maiden. I was going through Module A1, mixed with a lot of Grimtooth's Traps. I had seen Ghostbusters about a dozen times by this point and wanted more and more horror in my D&D games. On the shelf was Issue #87 of This Old Dragon!

I am very certain that when this issue was new I was at my DM's house for his birthday (which is today by the way!) playing some D&D.  This might have even been the rather infamous session where I was carrying my D&D books in one hand, a large chocolate shake in the other and I tripped falling face first into and through their storm door. Made a huge mess. Thankfully (or maybe this was a sign), I did not have glasses yet.

On to the magazine at hand.

I will freely admit this is not one of my favorite covers. After seeing so many great covers from this time period, this one felt too "Cartoony" to me. Granted, it works with the article inside quite well, that is not something that can always be said about Dragon.

Kim Mohan's Editorial is up first. It covers the very dangerous ground of TSR's/Dragon Magazine's relationship with Tolkien Enterprises.  Basically saying there isn't one and they can't really say much more than that.

Letters section covers PBM and DragonQuest questions.  One of the great things about these older Dragons was how willing they were to cover other games. 

Nice big ad for the James Bond 007 RPG. Still, one I have never played. Another ad for Lords of Creation later on. I also never played that one but wanted too.

Forum asks questions about the Elemental Planes and Monty Haul campaigns.

Our first real article is from Dragon mainstay Katharine Kerr. Here we get Part 1 of her series Beyond the Dungeon, covering everything outside. She largely focuses on movement here for AD&D. But also what the characters should expect to find and what they are not expected to know.

Shaun Wilson is up with one of my favorite Ecology of articles, The Ecology of the Dryad. I do admit that after reading this article, I considered what it would take to have a Dryad PC race option. It lacks some of the style and personality of the Ed Greenwood articles, but it is still quite good. In fact when I had my own copy of this magazine, I cut this article out and stuck it into my AD&D Monstrous Compendium.

Len Lakofka is back with the next installment of Gods of the Suel Pantheon. This time we get Kord and Phaulkon.

The Legacy of Hortus is our cover story. The author is the same as the cover artist, Jack Crane. This covers a wide variety of fantastic plants that honestly should be used in any addition of the game. Some are whimsical, like Beebalm (a plant we have in our garden), but this one grows its own bees and cowslip with the face and heads of cows. Others are bit on the nose, like Foxglove and Dandelion. But all are rather fun. 

In Reviews, we get Jerry Epperson's opinion on the Tri Tac Stalking the Night Fantastic. Personally, I rather liked the game, but I am a fan of the source material. We both agree that the game's list of encounters is great. 

We get two centerfold sections here. The first is Whiteout, a Top Secret game adventure by none other than Merle Rasmussen himself. Like the James Bond RPG, I never played, or really even read over, Top Secret. I am no judge of this adventure but it does look fun. It is quite detailed and I could use it for other games. It is part three of a three-part series of adventures. Anyone who played it should let me know how it was/is.

Our other center section is the games listing for Gen Con 17. Lots of AD&D games listed but I am also seeing a lot of Car Wars. Some Chill, James Bond, Star Frontiers, and even some D&D.  Crazy that is all used to fit inside of Dragon.

John E. Stith has our fiction section, Simon Sidekick. Interestingly enough, it is a science fiction story about a personal AI assistant. Wow! Have you ever heard of anything so advanced Siri? How about you Alexa or Cortana?

This Dragon is early enough that we still get a proper Ares section.

Kim Eastland has Freeze! Star Law! for law enforcement officers in Star Frontiers.  Pretty good article to be honest.

Luna: A Traveller's Guide is another part of the "Luna" series Ares had been running. This one is naturally from Marc Miller. I think I need to go back sometime and collect all of these and do a special on them for Sci-Fi month. That could be fun. 

Jim Ward shows he is not be outdone and has A Field guide to Lunar Mutants for Gamma World.

Roger Moore answers some StarQuestions about the Universe game.

Nice big ad spread for the FASA Star Trek line. It is also old ads like this that make me realize how lucky I was. Illinois had, and still has some great hobby shops. They have 29 listed here. That is over 4.5 times what California had, and twice what all the neighboring states had combined. 

Gamer's Guide covers the small ads. Always a treat to look at.

Couple of pages of Wormy. Dragonmirth has the short-lived Tal an Alan comic. A three pages of Elmore's Snarf Quest.

So a good issue, but more memorable for the time period rather than all the content. 

 There is a large chamber beyond Room 6.  This room is wide and open, and small flames can be seen leaping from fissures in the floor and walls.  

Embedded in the walls are several uncut rubies. They are worth 1d8x50 gp each but if taken to a gem cutter their value will increase 1d4+1 times.  There are 5d20 such rubies here, but removing them causes 1d4 hp of damage due to heat and flame for each ruby removed.

There is one other chamber to the rear of this one.

 This past weekend I went down to my old hometown to see my family for my mom's 80th birthday. She is honestly doing great, and it was a pleasure to see all my family.  I even got the chance to run into an old friend, Jon Cook.

Jon and I met in Jr. High, we both played saxophone in the school band. But it was D&D that got us to be friends. I had been playing around with my very rudimentary knowledge of D&D at that point, Jon had some AD&D books and, like me, the B/X books. So we spent our time in band class when she should have been practicing rolling up characters.

We decided to meet up because he wanted to sell me his collection!

How could I say no?

Not a huge collection, but a really great one to be honest.  It shows our strange, eclectic blend of AD&D 1st Ed and Basic/Expert D&D in a way that only 1981-1983 could produce. 
I am pleased to get all the Monster books, and it has given me an idea for some edits to Basic Bestiary. Getting his copies of B4 and A1 really took me back too. Especially his weird blend of A1 with his idea of a worldwide assassin's guild. It was also the scene of one of my first character deaths!


I think I might be most thrilled with these dice.  Those orange dice came with MY Expert set. Jon and I traded since his set came with blue, and I wanted blue. Now I have them back. They are going to go into my "Halloween" set.
Those armory dice markers are a rare treat.


Some art books that my youngest brother is going to hold on too till I see them next. He called these "Elmore Porn."

The Lejendary Adventures are like new, and I can't wait to try them out!

Another DM's screen!

Some more Dragons for This Old Dragon.  ETA: Looks like the only one I have not done here is #87.

And the infamous Grimtooth's Traps. Gods I hated it when he would pull out this book.

I can add all of these to his minis he sold me a couple years back.

Those are the real deal lead minis.  The last one was the mini I had used for my cleric Johan Werper, but back then he had a blue robe and white hair. He also had a hand. No, I did not paint him myself.

This is all rather fantastic to have.

I have already added some of these to my collection, others have gone into my "extras" pile for when people come over to play (an extra Player's Handbook is always welcome), and some others have been claimed by my youngest.  He already called dibs on the B/X books and adventures along with the Traps book. Pity his poor players.

Tomorrow is his birthday, and I know he will use the cash to buy some more train gear. This was his previous hobby before D&D and the one he and his son are really enjoying together now. 

So Happy Birthday, Jon! 

Thank you for all these books, the memories of going through the A Series with your crazy ass traps, and our own blend of Advanced and Basic/Expert rules. Your books have a loving home where they will get used all the time!

 Going back to Room #2 and taking the next left leads to room where the party can smell the strong stench of brimstone.  Fires can be seen flickering in the tunnel and the party can feel heat.

Inside the room is a sight the party is not prepared for.

Inside the room are three Burning Bunnies.

These creatures are the Elemental Plane of Fire analogs to the common rabbit.  They are here eating coal and sulfur. Thus the smell.  Like regular bunnies, they are quite scared and mostly harmless.

Picking one up (if you can) causes 1d8 points of fire damage. When scared (which is all the time), they will explode. This is how they get back to their home plane. The explosion causes 2d8 points of fire damage to anyone within 5' of the rabbit. This behavior has given them the nickname Boom Bunnies.

In an interesting side effect of their diet, the Burning Bunnies leave behind 1d3 small diamonds worth 10 gp each as their "droppings."

They have no other treasure.

 This is a bit late, but one of my birthday gifts finally came in.

I got the three core D&D 5 books in Spanish. I have been taking Spanish all year and wanted an RPG to read. So my wife an kids got me these. The Player's Handbook was back ordered and I just got it. 

Now to practice my Spanish some more!

For Father's Day, in addition to having some of the best smoked food and strawberry pie my kids have ever made for me I got this ridiculous toy.

Yup. A 3.5" USB floppy drive for my retro computers. I have to decide now if I want to mount it or leave it free to use elsewhere.

 Following the lava tube past the hellhounds, it gets hot. The party enters a large room with glowing rocks. The floor is cooling (but by no means) cool, lava.  Inside "cooling off" there are three Fire Nymphs. 

The nymphs look tired, but they do not attack. Nor do they attempt to charm. The floor is too hot to wal across and the nymphs move further back. 

They will ask the party what they want, and try to figure out if they have a ruby or diamond of good size (50 gp). They will say they missed their opportunity to get back to the Plane of Fire and are stuck here. If the party has a ruby or diamond, they can use a ritual to get back home. The gem will be destroyed though in the process.

If the party coporates with them and lets them have a gem. Then they should receive the same XP as if they had defeated them.  If there is a party member with Charisma of 16 or higher they will offer a "Kiss of the Fire Nymphs" to the party.  This will grant anyone who receives it a +1 against all saves vs fire and fire magic for 24 hours.

If the party chooses to attack the nymphs, instead they will use all their burning hands attacks and try to charm anyone onto the lava floor. Grant the party only 1/2 the normal XP for defeating the fire nymphs in combat.

 It's a warm one out today (and I am posting remotely after visiting with my mom on her birthday) so let's get a conversion in shall we?

Here is a Fire Nymph from the Tome of Horrors now for Old School Essentials.  An update to my 5e version.

Nymph, Fire

Armor Class: 5 [14]
Hit Dice: 2* (9hp)
Attacks: 1 x magic (charm) or burning hands (1d6 damage)
THAC0: 18 [+1]
Movement: 120’ (40’)
Saving Throws: D10 W11 P12 B13 S14 (4)
Morale: 6
Alignment: Neutral
XP: 25
Number Appearing: 1d4 (1d6)
Treasure Type: D

This creature appears as a very attractive and beautiful female with long, flowing fiery-red hair. Her eyes are pale blue and her skin is lightly colored with a cinnamon hint to it.

A fire nymph is a very beautiful creature that dwells on the Plane of Fire. It is akin to the nymph and dryad, though its origins obviously lie elsewhere. Fire nymphs rarely visit the Material Plane, though mages are known to request their company on occasion. A fire nymph is most easily summoned on Midsummer's Eve where they can walk about and interact with mortals and other fey. A fire nymph usually wears translucent robes of white or ash.

Fire nymphs can charm like a their terrestrial cousins, but they can also cast a burning hands spell three times per day. Additionally, they have immunity to fire and take double damage from cold.

Summoning a fire nymph is relatively easy but not without dangers.  The nymph's passionate nature causes her to move from one emotional extreme to the next very quickly. When a fire nymph is angry, her hair will burst into flames.

Also, due to their passionate nature, there are many gifted pyromancers that claim to be the offspring of a wizard and a fire nymph.

Fire Nyphs are also known as Pyroeads in some arcane circles.

Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...

The Miskatonic University Library Association brand is no more, alas, but what we have in its stead is the Miskatonic Repository, based on the same format as the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—
Name: Camp Hollow LakePublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Daniel Stephens

Setting: Modern day New EnglandProduct: One-shot
What You Get: Twenty-Eight page, 2.15 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Summer camp clichéPlot Hook: Sometimes the best thing to do is buy into the clichés and run with them.
Plot Support: Four pre-generated Investigators, seven handouts, two floorplans, one map, and two monsters.Production Values: Reasonable.
Pros# Fully embraces the Summer camp clichés# Multiple inventive mini-scenes of unnamed students getting slashed# Easy to adjust to the nineties, eighties, seventies, or sixties# Scopophobia# Phonophobia# Aichmophobia

Cons# Needs a strong edit# Another summer camp slasher stalker horror# Non-Mythos scenario# Unlikeable pre-generated Investigators# Fully embraces the Summer camp clichés# A runaround until the solution can be found
Conclusion# Another summer camp slasher stalker horror with all the clichés# Unlikeable pre-generated Investigators who deserve to die, but sadly the scenario drags their time to die out until the climax

In Room 2 there are five round passageways that lead out.  They look like old lava tubes and are larger than the one the salamanders came out of.

On the first tube on the left the party will come face to face with the three large mastif-like hounds. They are large, vicious, and on fire.

These are powerful Hellhounds. 

One has 7 HD, and two have 6 HD. They attack the party.

 The area at the bottom of the stairs is an oval-shaped natural cave. There are small openings in the walls where fires can be seen. In one of the larger holes to the left of the stairs a glow can be seen. The glow, and the heat, grows stronger by the moment.

From the hole emerges a large lizard-like creature, a Fire Salamander. 

There are two in total, they crawl out to attack the party. 

They have Treasure Type F x2 hidden in their lair. 

Lucky for None: A comedy-horror game could almost be said to not be a roleplaying game. This is because its mechanics amount to about three rules. Those rules consist of character generation, which is a single roll, an action mechanic—roll high and add a bonus from the character’s occupation, and then roll for just about everything in the game—mostly bad things and random things. It consists mostly of tables, each with thirteen entries—for good reason—which the players will roll as play progresses. The entries act as prompts, which can be used in two way, either as a group of players, or as a single player, who records his character’s reactions or actions in a journal. The nominal setting for Lucky for None is the village of Grimhaven, which is about to be beset by dark, strange things. In fact, they will be beset by a rash of dark, strange things and bad things to the point where they die or wish they had. Standing between them and the strange events are the Player Characters, residents themselves. The setting for Lucky for None is nominally the village of Grimhaven, located on the coast of Monshire. So it has a quaint British feel to it. That said, it can easily be adapted to other settings.

Published by Beyond Cataclysm Books other notable aspect to Lucky for None is that it uses a thirteen-sided die or ‘d13’ and only a thirteen-sided die. The number thirteen proliferates through the whole roleplaying game. Every table uses the thirteen-sided die, the village has thirteen locations, and events take place every thirteen minutes in real time. The game begins with a roll on the ‘Village Problem table’. This could be ‘sky’ and ‘hunger’ or ‘local government’ and ‘size’. The players develop the actual problem from these prompts, and then create a character. This again, is a simple a roll on ‘The Character Table’. This can be a Labourer, Barkeeper, Child, Mayor, Farmer, or Police Officer, and each has an associated skill. For example, the Mayor has Leading, the Police Officer has Securing, and the Labourer has Building.

To undertake an action, a player rolls the die and consults ‘The Action Table’. The outcome ranges from Absolute Failure to Absolute Success. If a Player Character has a skill related to the action, he can add two to the result. He also has two Luck Points. These can be expended to each add four to the roll, but if used up completely, he is out of luck and all rolls are made at disadvantage.

Of course, rolling a thirteen-sided die means that bad things above and beyond what is normally rolled whenever a player rolls thirteen. On ‘The Character Table’ this means that the character has an occupation and associated skill, and is also personally afflicted by the Village Problem. On ‘The Action Table’, it means that the action has been an ‘Absolute Success’, but also requires that the player roll on the on ‘The Bad Things Table’. This develops a ‘Vibe’, ‘Who It Affects’, and a ‘Severity’. For example, ‘Asphyxiation’, ‘A loved one/another PC’, and ‘Death, explosive’. In addition, Events are rolled or every thirteen minutes of real time on ‘The Events Table’, which give a ‘Location’, ‘Incident type’, and ‘Severity’. For example, ‘Church’, ‘Disease’, and ‘Inconvenient’. In general, the higher the roll, the worse the effect…

Play continues like this until the last and thirteenth Event is rolled and its effects play. The game is then over. The minimalist storytelling rules do intrude upon play, of course, most obviously in ‘The Bad Things Table’ and ‘The Events Table’, but between that, the players are free to discuss and develop the world around their characters, and how first the Village Problem, Events, and then Bad Things affects them, the locations in the village, and the residents. The story of this near constant cavalcade of catastrophes should play out of this as series of disasters and consequences that compounds each other, over and over, building and connecting as it progresses and the Player Characters react to everything around them.

That then is all there is to Lucky for None: A comedy-horror game. At least mechanically. There is an ‘Important and Useful Facts About the Number 13’ table and an ‘Alternative Village Problem Table’, but both are extra additions beyond the core of the game. There is an example of play and tips for the Game Master, both of which are actually useful.

Physically, Lucky for None: A comedy-horror game is a cleanly presented, vibrantly red booklet. It is simply written, very easy to grasp, and thus bring to the table. A combined ‘Character Sheet & Disaster’ is included, which sits in the middle of the table.

Lucky for None: A comedy-horror game is a one-session torrent of terror in which the Player Characters are inundated with issues and deluged with difficulties. It is an impossible situation, a dirty disaster drama of ridiculous proportions, played out in a single session or recorded in a dreadful diary, all good for a refreshingly farcical folly in between playing other roleplaying games. Or just good for getting your hands on a ‘d13’.

 The passageway beyond the opening on level 6 leads to long, long stair going down.

Giant visages of the soulless damned are carved into the walls on either side of this massive staircase. The detail is phenomenal and you swear it looks like they could reach out and get you. 

The air here is hot and quite fetid. The heat seems to come from everywhere, and even the rocks glow with a soft hellish light.

While on this level humans, elves, forest gnomes, and halflings will suffer a -1 penalty to hit due to the heat. Dwarves, deep gnomes, and others accustomed to the deep caves of the nether dark suffer no penalties.

Nothing gets me in the mood for working on a campaign or writing new material quite like a good playlist.
My memories of old-school gaming are inexorably linked to old-school rock and metal. In fact back in the 1980s we would stop our games if a particular video, mostly Iron Maiden or Judas Priest, came on MTV.
So here is a playlist from Jason Vey, author, and lead designer for the Wasted Lands RPG currently in Kickstarter.

Enjoy!

Halls of the Blood King is a scenario published by Necrotic Gnome. It is written for use with Old School Essentials, the Old School Renaissance retroclone based on the version of Basic Dungeons & Dragons designed by Tom Moldvay and published in 1980. It is designed to be played by a party of Third to Fifth Level Player Characters and is a standalone affair, but can be easily added to a campaign by the Referee. What it primarily needs is a world where vampires are known about, either as actual threats or legendary ones, and perhaps an old tale about a vampire hunter having gone missing a century ago. Since it involves the vampires and the undead, if the scenario is run using Old School Essentials Classic Fantasy, then a Cleric will be useful, and possibly a Paladin if it is being run using Old School Essentials: Advanced Fantasy. Unlike the earlier, official scenarios for Old School Essentials, such as The Hole in the Oak and The Incandescent Grottoes, it is not a suitable addition to the publisher’s own Dolmenwood setting. The scenario is also notable for winning the 2021 ENNIE Award for Best Adventure and the 2021 ENNIE Award for Best Cartography.
The Halls of the Blood King appears once a century, on night of a blood moon. It stays for that night and then is gone. It is home to the Blood King, the the first vampire, and on this night, as he does on nights like this on other worlds, he calls all of his children from across the lands to come pay him both homage and what they owe him—blood tax. The appearance of the Blood King and his mansion is a temporary stain upon the land where it appears, its baleful influence spreading fear and terror as every vampire in the land descends upon it and the lands and villages nearby... Several reasons are suggested why the Player Characters might want to break into the mansion. This includes rescuing any villagers who have been kidnapped from nearby, merely wanting to loot the place, or looking for a specific magical item known to be in the possession of the Blood King. Perhaps the most interesting are having the Player Characters seek revenge for a vampire said to have been lost in the halls of the Blood King—whether because one of their number is descended from the vampire hunter or they are hired by a descendant, or because they have been receiving the desperate dreams from a princess imprisoned by the Blood King, imploring them to rescue her. It is also possible to mix and match these hooks too.

The Halls of the Blood King follows the same format as the other scenarios for Old School Essentials. This includes an overview, which covers history, rumours, and a complete list of the adventure’s treasure by location. What sets it apart is two things. One is a time limit. The Blood King’s mansion is only present for one night. If the Player Characters stay too long, who knows what world or plane they will end up on? The other is a single page of vampire details, this included to save space from having to repeat their abilities in every monster entry, but it also makes it a handy reference for the Game Master—especially as it is reprinted on the inside back cover. Included at the end of the long list of their capabilities and unfortunately for the Player Characters, few vulnerabilities, are several alternatives to the Energy Drain ability, which leeches Levels, Experience Points, and Hit Points from an afflicted Player Character. Options include ability damage, permanent Hit Point loss, and a global penalty levied on all actions. Also included is a breakdown of the various factions and their relationships in The Halls of the Blood King, and it is here that the scenario begins to shine.
The factions in the Blood King’s begin with the Blood King himself, bored and disdainful, but under the right circumstances willing to see the Player Characters as more then a food source. Around him is his court and its guests, several of them quite alien, but all wanting something, and in many cases having something to hide. His daughter—who of course, is the one sending dreams to the Player Characters of an imprisoned princess—plots with a desperate vassal and other allies to supplant her father. His mother—or is she?—now a Banshee, lurks, seeking recognition by her son. Below the mansion, the Blood King’s pet, the Blood Spider Queen, grown big and fat on diet of blood, wants her court to be the equal of his. Elsewhere, the vampire hunter, thought lost a century ago, hides out behind a barricade of traps, waiting for an opportunity to strike at the Blood King... All of these factions want something and see the Player Characters as a means to strengthen their hands. Some will prove to be the allies the Player Characters need to survive The Halls of the Blood King, others not.

What this all means is that The Halls of the Blood King is not an adventure at which to go full tilt. Players and their characters wanting to rampage their way through the halls and room of the Blood King’s mansion, will first face guards with flesh-ripping blades and then the vampires themselves. The immunity from mundane weapons, the charming gaze, and the ability to drain Levels combined their numbers means that the vampires are too tough to face directly—and that is for Fifth Level Player Characters, let alone Third Level. Instead, the Player Characters need to find a less direct way to deal with the Blood King and his vampires. The scenario provides several, including gathering information, finding certain important items, and of course, creating alliances. Whilst there are opportunities for combat in the scenario, what this means is that The Halls of the Blood King is much more of a social and roleplaying scenario than it looks at first sight. Whomever the Player Characters decide to ally with, they have a chance to really change the status quo at the Blood King’s court.

Physically, The Halls of the Blood King is as well presented and as organised as previous scenarios for Old School Essentials from Necrotic Gnome. The maps are excellent with excerpts used on every page where individual locations are described. The location descriptions use the same sparse, almost bullet-point style seen in the other other scenarios with key points in bold. There is plenty of rich detail in those descriptions though, such as Shadow Hounds that are as “Dark as night” and “Long and tall but very lean (as if stretched)” and dungeon stairs “Made of rough hewn stone (looks like a stone beast’s gullet).” All of which makes the scenario very easy to use from the page. What really stands out is the artwork. Done in rich blues, purples, and reds with yellow highlights, it echoes the style of Philippe Druillet in his depiction of Michael Moorcock’s Elric of Melniboné, making The Halls of the Blood King have more of a baroque look than a gothic one.
The Halls of the Blood King is not without precedent, all the way back to Palace of the Vampire Queen from 1976. Of course, it would be remiss not to compare The Halls of the Blood King with its more well known precedent, I6 Raveloft. The Halls of the Blood King is a far less grand affair, in every sense, lacking the Gothic romance backstory of I6 Ravenloft’s Count Strahd von Zarovich and the love of his life, his former sister-in-law, Tatyana, and the epic scale of his castle. The lower scale has advantages, the mansion having less room for the seemingly endless swathe of the undead to be found in Ravenloft, making both exploration and accessing the social aspects of The Halls of the Blood King that little bit easier. It also means that The Halls of the Blood King is no mere imitation, possessing an atmosphere and sense of horror that is its own.

More social minefield than gory bloodbath—though it has plenty of potential to end that way—The Halls of the Blood King is a genuinely challenging adventure, presenting a highly detailed and atmospheric vampire lair in which the Player Characters will have to tread very lightly if they are to survive, let alone succeed.

A couple of Kickstarters close to my heart today.

Wasted Lands: The Dreaming Age Role Playing Game

A tabletop RPG of cosmic horror, swords, and sorcery in a savage lost epoch, 1000 years after the Old Ones fell to their eternal sleep.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jasonvey/wasted-lands-the-dreaming-age-role-playing-game?ref=b0ulif

I have been talking about this Kickstarter all month, and now it is live. Please check it out and give Jason your support.

Sherwood: The Legend of Robin Hood 5E

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/sherwood-the-legend-of-robin-hood-5e#/

Adam Thompson, brother of the late Jonathan Thompson, has taken over Battlefield Press and plans to get Jonathon's unfinished work completed.  And I, for one, could not be happier.

Jonathan was a great guy, and he had such a love for RPGs and everything about them. It is great knowing that there are still guys like Jonathan and Adam for every crappy person in this biz you meet.

I have only gotten to know Adam over the last few days, and he also seems like a great guy.  I can think of nothing more fitting than getting all of BPI's projects out there for gamers to enjoy.

Sherwood, here is something that should have been a no-brainer. Robin Hood, for D&D. Yeah. Let's make this one happen!