Dragons at Dawn Supplement I is out!

DHBogg's just announced the release of the first supplement for his Dave Arneson inspired game Dragons at Dawn. Named Supplement I: Twighlight, the description at Lulu reads:

Supplement 1 is a broad ranging expansion of the Dragons at Dawn retro-tribute fantasy role playing game honoring the first years of adventure role playing as envisioned by gaming pioneer Dave Arneson. The contents include character class variations, alternate combat tables, new spells and rules for governing magic, expanded information on skills, morale, wilderness adventuring and a whole lot more!

 Click here to order a hard copy or buy the pdf. You can talk about supplement I with other fans as well as the author at the Dragons at Dawn section of the OD&D74 forum, or at the new Arnesonian Rules Section of the Comeback Inn.



-Havard

Individualizing dwarves

Alright, they have already been all over the blogosphere and forums, but I wanted to have the dwarves on my blog as well. Is that too selfish? While some have expressed worries about the length of beards or that these dwarves somehow don't look right, I actually like that Jackson is individualizing the dwarves. It may even be good for the hobby that these films are challenging our often stereotyped views of demihumans. How many battle axe wielding Gimli copies have not appeared in your D&D games? How many Elven archers?


Kili and Fili

Oin and Gloin

Nori, Ori and Dori

Bofur, Bombur and Bifur




One of the things done to differentiate the dwarves seems to have been the emphasis on the difference between noble born dwarves and those bred in the west:

"While most of the Company of Thorin Oakensheild is related to the royal and noble line of Durin, Bofur, his brother Bombur and their cousin Bifur most definitely are … not. Born and bred in the West, descendants of coal miners and iron workers, they have joined the Quest for the Lonely Mountain partly to seek their fortune and partly because they were told the beer was free."

 Back to Blackmoor.



-Havard

Arnesonian Rules Discussion

The other day I mentioned Adventurer Conqueror King System, and I have previously talked about the excellent Dragons at Dawn RPG. These are two of several games looking back to the way Dave Arneson ran his games. Because of this, we have added a new section to the Comeback Inn for discussing the RPG rulesets Arneson wrote or contributed to as well as systems attempting to follow this tradition.

Check out the discussions, sign in and participate here.

IMG Source


-Havard

Where is the Piazza?

Some of the readers of this blog have been having trouble finding the Piazza (D&D Worlds Forum) recently. The Piazza has moved to new servers, and while it will eventually get its old web adress back, it is currently found on a temporary URL:

http://79.170.44.80/frasi.co.uk/thepiazza/bb/



Img source


-Havard

Fred Funk's World

Hard core Blackmoor fans and followers of my blog will know that Fred Funk played the Orc King in Dave Areson's original game. As I have previously reported, Fred sadly passed away in January. Over the last few days, many of Fred's friends have joined the Comeback Inn sharing stories of Fred and also of the game he DMed.

Interestingly, Fred ran his own D&D game, set in a world of his own creation, which he even had a Player's Guide created for. The setting is uniquely imaginative and clearly shows Fred's roots in the Minnesota Gamers group. You can read more about Fred and his world here.





-Havard

Adventurer Conqueror King

After spending last week on a Mediterranean beach, I am now back to making updates here again!  So what have I missed? Well, I recently found out about this project called Adventurer Conqueror King that does look interesting. On the one hand it may seem like yet another OD&D retroclone, but I do like the focus on supporting play across the whole range of levels in the campaign, including what they call "Arnesonian barony building". The scope seems to be wider than many D&D variants out there, perhaps reminiscent of the BECMI approach. Having Blackmoor enthusiast Tavis Alison involved also doesnt hurt from the point of view of this Blackmoor Blog.

Read more about the system and how you can help make it come to life here.




-Havard

Paizo is 9 years

Getting into an anniversary groove here. Paizo is 9 years today. I have never gotten into playing Pathfinder, but I have been buying some of their books, just because they look so damn good.
Happy birthday Paizo!

-Havard