The Bodendrucker

The Bodendrucker, a monster from AC9 the Creature Catalog, which from the description sounded completely silly. A Huge elephant with multiple trunks and feeding on purple worms. But then I saw the image above.



-Havard

Last Fantasy Campaign About to Conclude

The epic Blackmoor PbP campaign hosted at the Comeback Inn is reaching its final stages. Have the heroes managed to save Blackmoor from the destruction of the Egg of Coot?

Read the details of the final part, called After Blackmoor, here.



-Havard

Blackmoor Weekend!

Playing Blackmoor. This weekend. Live with my old friends around the table.

Dont expect to be online much :)

Not really what my players look like, but maybe in some metaphorical sense...

-Havard

Thorn's Blackmoor: Monsters of Thorn's World That Was

It is time for this month's guest entry for my blog and a new visit from RobJN who takes a look at the monsters of Thorn's Blackmoor:

Aside from Beast Men, there were relatively few non-human menaces in the North. The summer months saw the yearly influx of sahuagin from the southern shores of Skothar. While most of the fey-folk avoided Men, bands of Red Caps and Satyrs were known to cause trouble to those straying too far from the roads and trails through the woods. Pixies and sprites were more mischievous than malicious, more a nuisance than threat. Occasionally, giants would stray from the Stormkiller mountains, but for the most part kept to the peaks in their near-constant war with the Dwarves.

The rising of the Egg of Coot some time around 4030 BC (970 in the Calendar of the North) changed all that.

Some sages posit that the different so-called monstrous races were results of selective genetic strain manipulation by the Egg. Mountains and forests became home to the spidery, spindly offshoot that became known as goblins, while “orcs” were nurtured for work and fighting in the hills. 

Over the decades, more and more specialized species began to spring up, and the Men of the North could not help but notice the consistency in appearance and types of monsters that crept into their lands: bigger, hairier goblins that had some modicum of discipline, yapping, dog-like humanoids that skulked at the fringes of the frontier towns. When pies cooling on windowsills went missing, or a piece or two of the day’s washing disappeared, parents could not easily discount the excuse of “it was a kobold.”

One of the most terrifying creatures to lumber forth from the Realms of the Egg, though, was the troll: ten feet of ravening destruction, a mass of claws and teeth housed in a thickly-muscled, rubbery-skinned hide. Nigh indestructible, the wounds of sword and pike and axe closing moments after landing, limbs seeking to keep fighting even when severed, they were nearly the undoing of the armies of the North.

Scholars tell of Uther singlehandedly fighting off a trio of the beasts, but recent accounts recovered from Uther’s lost personal diary reveal that he was not alone, but traveled with the twins at the time. His account tells of Rowena and Leansethar attacking the creatures in a fury that bordered on madness. It was through their battle that Uther learned of the trolls’ susceptibility to fire, and it was after that point that every squad patrolling along the borders of the Realms of the Egg were equipped with pitch and flame with which to edge their weapons upon encountering the great, lumbering monsters.

The deep, nearly-psychotic hatred between the Sidhe and Trolls seems to originate from these years before the Great Rain of Fire. Were trolls the result of experimentation done by the Egg to blend Beast Man and Sidhe stock? The waning of the numbers of the Sidhe in the North, and growing numbers of Trolls could have been coincidental… but the two events may also be inextricably linked.

Rob’s blog and website chronicles a bit of a darker take on the Mystara presented in the D&D Gazetteers. Thorn's Chronicle is posted semi-regularly on the Mystara board of The Piazza.

-Havard

Jenell Jaquays on Mystara

Jenell Jaquays working under the name of Paul Jaquays has been working in the gaming industry as an artist, writer and editor since the 1970s. Some of her early modules such as Caverns of Thracia and Dark Tower are legendary as are may of her paintings, most notably the cover for the AD&D boxed set Dragon Mountain by Colin McComb.

Cover for the Odyssey Savage Coast book, revising the Red Steel line, released electronically only.

For Mystara Jaquays worked as an editor/developer on products like Gaz5: The Elves of Alfheim, PC2: Top Balista and M3: Twilight Calling. She also did cover art for many of the AD&D Mystara and Savage Coast products, including Karameikos: Kingdom of Adventure, Glantri: Kingdom of Magic and the Joshuan Almanac. Jaquays has fond memories of this work:

"I always enjoyed the Mystara (or Known World) setting. I was privileged to be able to edit a couple of the Gazeteers, write and edit adventures for it, and later be the line artist for the Mystara and Red Steel product lines. Good times."

Some sketches and unfinished pieces for Mystara products can be found at her website. 




-Havard

IMG Source

M.A.R Barker (November 3, 1929 - March 16, 2012) Rest in Peace

Dave Arneson (left) and Professor Barker

I am saddened to learn that Tékumel and Empire of the Petal Throne creator Muhammad Abd-al-Rahman Barker has passed away as reported on the Comeback Inn by Chirine Ba Kal.

Called the "Forgotten Tolkien" by Gary Gygax, Professor Barker was a close friend to Dave Arneson and the two consulted eachother on various gaming projects. My thoughts go to his family and friends.




-Havard

Eldritch Ent Announces New Releases!

Entritch Ent., the new company owned by Frank Mentzer, James Ward, Tim Kask and Christopher Clark just announced some of their upcoming releases:

"Arriving next week at GaryCon: The FIRST FOUR releases from Eldritch Enterprises Ltd.: "Dark Outpost" SF adventure by Jim Ward and 3 Fantasy adventures: "Snakeriders of the Aradondo" by Tim Kask "Forest of Deceit" by Chris Clark "Lich Dungeon (Level One)" by Frank Mentzer. [...]
Eldritch products will all be sneaking out via the Usual Outlets, both Paper & PDF, in April 2012. Specific sales options (sites & costs) tba. We except something along these lines for paper versions: Dark Outpost /or/ Lich Dungeon Level 1: $20 (+ tax & shipping) Snakeriders /or/ Forest of Deceit: $15 (+ tax & shipping) Got more products abuilding, too. Keep an eye out for more info about the First Four and More from Eldritch Ent.">Arriving next week at GaryCon: The FIRST FOUR releases from Eldritch Enterprises Ltd.:

"Dark Outpost" SF adventure by Jim Ward

and 3 Fantasy adventures:

"Snakeriders of the Aradondo" by Tim Kask
"Forest of Deceit" by Chris Clark
"Lich Dungeon (Level One)" by Frank Mentzer
Jim and I did larger ones (80 pages or so); Tim's & Chris's are about 40 pages each.
(Tim has been tied up with the convention gigs, and Chris is doing double duty running his own company, Inner City Games.)
Eldritch products will all be sneaking out via the Usual Outlets, both Paper & PDF, in April 2012.
Specific sales options (sites & costs) tba.
We except something along these lines for paper versions:
Dark Outpost /or/ Lich Dungeon Level 1: $20 (+ tax & shipping)
Snakeriders /or/ Forest of Deceit: $15 (+ tax & shipping)
Got more products abuilding, too.
Keep an eye out for more info about the First Four and More from Eldritch Ent."

 I have been waiting a long time to see more material from Frank Mentzer especially and I am really curious to see what kind of products Endritch Ent. comes up with :

-Havard