Second to last F. Paul Wilson's book...

FPW is one of my favourite authors, ever. If you just count those who are alive tomorrow, he's definitely in top 3. 

The Keep was one of those books that defined fantasy to me. And then I discovered Repairman Jack, and the idea of an urban mercenary who is forced to fight the unnamed horrors from the pages of Secret History of the world was cool. And there were bits of real life in the stories that made them better - the dirty secrets of modern "psychics" and cults. 

The Upwelling is the penultimate book that he had written. 

The last one should come out this autumn. 

It's like those tales about master swordsmiths who create their finest blades before retiring forever. The Hidden duology is F. Paul Wilson's last. 

It might turn out to be his finest. 

Anyways, you can now buy The Upwelling, first book of The Hidden. 

And keep your eyes open for the second book, Lexie. 

Thinking of more LotFP-compatible stuff...

Fact: Ursula Le Guin was one of the great ones. That goes without saying. 

Fact: Le Guin's magic in Earthsea is cool. It is very non-Vancian mechanically (in the D&D fire-and-forget meaning), but also very Vancian in the mood (wizard of the Dying Earth desperately try to recover lost spells, out of which only about a hundred are still known; wizards of Earthsea spend years finding out a single word of True Speech - not that I think of it, "The Dying Earthsea" sounds like a good adventure title). A wizard talks to the world in the language of creation, and the world listens. 

Which is why I'm now working on a tribute adventure, with a new class and magic and probably a magic item or two and all that jazz. 

And it's probably going to be somewhat like silver bestseller All Dogs Go To Hell which you can buy here, and the magic items are probably going to be along the line of Magic Item Collection and Generator which you can also buy here. It's a little something that I like to call creative style. 

 

Another TCTC Con...

Last weekend I was at Terminal City convention, hosting some Lamentations of the Flame Princess games. 

Tried out Becami's adventure, The Black Chamber, which turned out deadly but not before I unleashed some creative spellcasting violence. The Referee, Austin, wrote a bit about this year's game and a bit about last year's game that I ran, you can read it at WatcherDM. And maybe buy some stuff while you're at it, "Dragons&Dragons" sounds like a good title. 

I ran my murder-investigation LotFP adventure, and it seemed to work fine, different from the playtesting but still enjoyable. 

Also I got to use The Collection and Generator. The players used the Snake Mantle to talk to the Nagadusa, and were so not ready for the snake poetry slam that followed (and smart enough not to challenge the Nagadusa to a staring contest, unlike some people I used to know), but rolled high and thus succeeded. And they killed a horrible creature that possibly was inspired by Donald Trump. 

That's it with the advertisements for the week, let's get back to work. The Convulsium will not write itself. More on that later.

The greatest horror game ever is here.

That's pretty much it, folks. 

DEMON CITY can now be bought, both in printed format and as a PDF. 

I've had the PDF for some time now, and I'm really happy with how it's designed.

It's pure poetry, in the sense that it's strange, follows its own rhyme and reason, and has a really high information to volume ratio.

For example: explanation of how to play takes a couple pages, and it's presented as an "Actual Play" situation. The players make decisions, forget about stuff, remind each other about the stuff, and face the consequences. It's very comprehensible and fun to read. 

Character generation is smooth and bright. 

The art is gorgeous. It's Zak Smith at his best, and Shawn Cheng also at his best. Linda Tirado added to it, too, text-wise.

There's a bestiary of sorts - descriptions of the many kinds of monsters and horrors and what they do. 

There're adventure seeds presented as movie posters, which is a great way to do this thing. 

There are rules for how to play monsters as PCs if you're into it, and frankly, who's not into it? 

My favourite part of the game is, like I always say, how easy it is to play it in the Here and Now. We played it in war-torn Ukraine, as members of local territorial defense unit who are called upon to investigate stuff that the police has no time or desire to deal with, and it felt very natural, the real bits of the city around us naturally flowed into the game. Later we played it online and the game took place in LA and it still felt natural and living. 

It's a great game.

You should get it. 

The Magic Item Collection and Generator is now live for sale

So this is the thing that I made. 

What's it good for? 

The Collection contains 30 magic items that I wrote up, more or less original. Some are weapons, some are clothes. Most are weird. Some are almost definitely cursed.

The items in the Collection are grouped into five categories. When you need to quickly and randomly give your players some unfamiliar magic loot, roll a d6 a couple times, and there you go. 

The Collection was designed to be useful at a physical gaming table. So if you print it out on both sides of a Letter-sized page, and fold it along the marked folding lines, it should look like a booklet or bookmark, call it what you like. 

 

Here's me using it as a bookmark for Zak's Compendium. 

And then there's the Generator on a separate page, in case you need to quickly whip up some new magic item. You'll need a d4, or, if you want to randomize it more (and/or despise d4s), a d4, d8 and d20. 

I playtested it, it's fast and efficient, and comes with four curses that can fall on whosoever picks up the magic item. It's compatible with LotFP and, I suppose, any other OSR game and old school D&D. If you like it but something doesn't fit your game, let me know and I'll think of something to fix it - or hack it yourself, which is the proper way.

You can buy it for whatever price you want in here. 

Have a good game in the new year. 

Space Frontier

 Among other things, we playtested a game of space western. 

While the obvious secret ingredient is "playing with good and fun people", there are also some mechanics that made the game fun. 

Like: 

Setting the playground. A desolate world where everyone you meet is a survivor with some specific talents and possessions that helped them stay alive, and the scars left by their day to day struggles; and every location has some meaningful features that can be used to your advantage or disadvantage. 

And: 

Picking the toys. Every item that the PCs can have in their saddlebags is meaningful. You can pick simpler things and have slightly more of them, or just one-two really fancy trinkets. 

Also: 

You have your gun, your knife, and your robot horse. Each is personalized. No six-shooter in the world is like yours. They all have special features and flaws. 

Plus: 

The stats and skills, which are an effective fusion of D&D and Demon City. 

And finally: 

The showdown dueling rules. A deadly game of "rock-paper-scissors", only more nuanced and flexible. 

My character's life was, in the end, saved by his trusty magnetic boots. 

And Gooseman was his name. 

Coming soon.