Tree Maze of the Twisted Druid For Free, Yo

At the end of last week I dumped a major project monkey off my back, by finishing the draft version of my mini-sandbox, the Slumbering Ursine Dunes. It's clocking in around 26 dense letter-sized pages that feature a wilderness pointcrawl, two dungeons, a Chaos Event generator, and a metric crap ton of new monsters, spells and items.

Expect to see a modest little Kickstarter next month to pay for fancy pants art, maps, editing and other costs (only going to do this when I have a near-publishable draft in my sweaty little hands.)

Punchline is I am feeling great, so here's something free for y'all, the infamous Tree Maze of the Twisted Druid. The two sessions playing through it were hella fun (at least on my end) even if the finished product felt more bad-bad and good-good then the intended good-bad, so this is the sound of my shoulders shrugging. You get what you paid for it.

Download the module here.

If you do run it (what's wrong with you?), drop me a line, feedback is the best reward. And if you really want to be a mensch and make your mother proud, you can make a $2 suggested donation over here at Autism Speaks. 

But if you don't...well...I guess that's cool. It's not like it's chump change compared to what you spend on Steam or that pricey crappacino or whatever. (And why don't you call? We never see you anymore.)

Holiday Freebie: By This Axe

Last year I posted my medieval small battle rules as one of my holiday freebies, this year--while I am not quite finished--I have a revised playtest version of its fantasy cousin, By This Axe I Rule!, available for your Tin God lead-pushing pleasure.

If you are one of the 30 who received the last version a couple months back, there have been a few changes: a cleaning up of vestigal/unclear rules and expanded sections on how you can run monsters and make your game classic D&D compatible. 

A big thank you to Patrick W at Bugbears for Breakfest for his cool, firm hand as editor.

Email me at kutalik at the gmail dot the com for the 18-page PDF file.

Also a reminder that the Point of Light contest will be closed very shortly as it hits noon here. The entries are all quite awesome and I urge readers to check them out here. 

Hill Cantons Compendium, Extended Dance Mix

Whine and ye shall receive.

After my last round of public wool gathering about how blog content seems to float away into the ether—and my general preference for dead plant matter media—Kenneth the Often Slain (in the Austin iteration of the Hill Cantons), did me a highly generous turn. Taking a number of non-Domain Game related posts he spliced the related content with the Hill Cantons Compendium, my previously-released compilation of quirky home-campaign variants, into one 30-page package.

Getting beyond the first page of HC setting fluff and house rules there is a truckload of other stuff that may be of value for other tinkering souls playing Classic D&D/Labyrinth Lord-style games including such things various and sundry as:

• Five variant Classic D&D/LL-compatible classes: the Mountebank, Feral Dwarf, Lankmarian White Wizard, Half-Ogre, and Black “Halflings”.
  
  
• A variant experience point system, character death, magical research and retainer/follower system.
  
  
• Variant rules for Charisma, reputation, and simple attribute checks.
  
  
• That previously much harped-on character background mini-game with quick random equipment charts.
  
  
• Simple expanded options for killing and being killed.
  
  
• New weapons and armor and some simple variant rules.
  
  
• Zero-level character generation and play rules.

In keeping with my usual personal disdain for things commercial, you can find it for free here on Lulu.

(The at-cost print version is available here.)

Flavors of Fear Freebie

Jack Shear has released an excellent 44-page rundown on 13 horror-inflected "weird fantasy" campaign settings. The booklet is designed for LotFP but it is generic enough that it will likely work in most classic fantasy rpgs.

Particularly interesting is how much emphasis he places on neglected setting elements like mood, common foes, overarching themes, literary/cinematic inspirations, and matching soundtracks even.

Download it for free here.

Tékumel Interactive Fiction Game

Another freebie PSA before finishing the “real” post of the day. One of the denizens of the Tékumel Interactive Fiction Gameemail list has released a “choose your own adventure” style online game as part of an interactive fiction contest. 

It's a fun little pastime with a few paths based on your choice of Tsolyani patron deity. It's oriented to a general audience, but it seems to need some working knowledge of M.A.R. Barker's estoteric setting to appreciate fully.

You are supposed to play the other games in the contest before voting so as not to disqualify the creator.

Web version available here.

Hacking Warhammer Fantasy

“Welcome to a fantasy world where the men are Baldrick, the dwarves are punk, and the dogs are small but vicious. Welcome to a world of bawds, grave robbers, excisemen and witch-hunters; a place where 'Blather', 'Flee!' and 'Mime' are legitimate skill choices; and where all material on the insidious threat of Chaos is officially interchangeable between settings.”

So begins Small but Vicious Dog, a 36-page Classic D&D “hack” of everyone's favorite dark and grim game Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. (Hack being what the cool kids call mashing up one set of rules or setting assumptions with another rule framework).

Blogging fellow traveler Chris from Vault of Nagoh blog released the free-to-download hack yesterday. I am certainly not the first to report on this in our small little circle, but I am happy to tally it under the holiday freebie PSA category.

Having read most of it this morning, I have to give a hearty thumbs up—and at free what are you waiting for? To download it (and give some props to the man) click here.  

The New Encounter is Out

Issue four of the Classic D&D fanzine Encounter is out and I feel totally unabashed in pimping it to readers. (This time around I didn't contribute anything, so I am free and clear of “enlightened self-interest”.)

Why do I like it so?

Well, for one it's free (the right price) without being cheap. The downloadable PDF is first-rate with a nice crisp, three-column layout. Cover and interior art is evocative and well-placed. Editing is tight and the magazine overall feels like it breaks free of the kitchen-sink info-glut common with our side of the hobby.

More importantly, the content quality is quite good too and getting better with each issue. This issue has a number of highlights: a Dark Crystal campaign setting write-up (yes, the weirdo muppet fantasy movie, Dark Crystal) by Encounter editor Jesse Walker; an excellent streamlined set of rules for running D&D for young kids by local Texas boy Jimm Johnson; and a nicely-done article on using Norse-myth-inspired dragons.

Download it here.

Free and Painless RPG File Hosting

Now time for a public service announcement. Brad of Skull Crushing for Great Justice has offered us all a great gift: free hosting space for your DIY RPG downloads, images, and other online file needs. Anyone who has been annoyed by Mediafire and the other less-than-stellar options for handing downloads will undoubtedly find this of great use (or at least they should).

Scoot over to his blog here to find out how you can opt in. 

To ameliorate my glaring hypocrisy (see yesterday's post), a real only-somewhat lazy post is coming later today.  

Judges Guild Universal: the Full Monty

Today I wanted to go ahead and post the remainder of the JG Universal System so the readers can take a gander and form their own opinions of its potential as the skeleton of a variant D&D.

Emphasis on skeleton as it's clear that while a number of mechanics are hinted at none are actually presented--which, of course, is the perfect opportunity for all us kit-bashers and homebrewers.

(That's a nudge to the rest of you, I am plenty busy with the Domain Game.)

Fortunately for lazy old me it looks like the gnomes over at the Acaeum saved me the bother of typing and formatting. You can download the standard boilerplate presentation here. 

Interestingly, a second d20 version was put out in recent years by JG that can be found here. 

Goblinoid Releases Free Text Downloads of Labyrinth Lord Editions

In a coup for inveterate rules home-brewers, Dan Proctor has released free downloadable text versions of all three editions of Goblinoid Games' LL editions: Labyrinth Lord (the core Classic D&D clone), Advanced Edition Companion (the AD&D 1st-ed. clone), and Original Edition Characters (0-ed. clone).

The downloads can be found here.

One of the reasons I continue to support LL (besides inertia) is the line's relative modesty and openness to customizers. For one, I plan on using these text versions to their utmost limits--cutting and pasting the various bits I have accumulated as house rules over the past two years directly in and using the laid-out charts and tables as template for my own changes.

I hope others do the same in the mad charge of DIY creativity that I predict for this year.  

Another Free Holiday Gift: Medieval Miniature Battle Rules

Yesterday I released a free download version of my revised D&D/LL rules variants, today in honor of Festivus I'm putting up the second edition of my set of medieval mini rules, Swords & Shields (formerly the Dogs of War), as a free download here.

S&S should accommodate skirmishes or small-scale mass battles up to 100 figures and is intended to provide a quick, simple, and bloody tabletop game. For those familiar with historical medieval mini rules you are getting a rules set where, like, D&D's mom Chainmail got it on with Ral Partha's Rules According to Ral and had a doltish love child. Hey, you get what you pay for.

Currently, I'm also working on an old school D&D-friendly fantasy supplement that adopts and blends some more crazy love-beast influences from David Sutherland's Legions of the Petal Throne  and my old favorite Heritage rules set, Knights and Magick.

The complete, revised rules will be packaged with my quixotic domain-level rules supplement, Secret Project X. Shhh...

If you ever do find yourself letting the blood of little lead men flow with these rules kick me some feedback. Always appreciated.  

Hill Cantons Compendium of Classic D&D/LL Rules Variants

I finally finished this morning the latest, supposedly-greatest compilation of half-baked house rules and variant systems that I've been tinkering with in our current Labyrinth Lord campaign over the last year or so. (Pictured above, courtesy of the public domain, is the cover illustration from the late, great Russian folk artist Ivan Bilibin). 

Things revised or added in this version (beyond copy edits and minor mechanical adjustments):

1. The revised Mountebank class.
2. The revised Lankhmarian White Wizard class.
3. A new appendix that includes the full version of my alternative character generation system including a new variant ability generator and a revised random starting equipment list .

If you are looking for 28 pages worth of tinkering madness you can download the PDF here. 

Free Crimefighters RPG Download

A little bird told me that you can freely and legally download Crimefighters, the 17-page (how's that for rules lite?) pulp-era rpg from 1981 I mentioned yesterday. And since little birds and the Internet are both always correct you can find it here.

Also Happy Thanksgiving one and all. 

Free Tekumel Paper Minis

While I am on the whole point-out-free-cool-stuff-to-download kick here's another.

The Genie's Lamp has a nice well-designed--and surprisingly wide--range of paper Tekumel monsters and characters to download for free on their website. The ru'un, an automaton guardian-type critter, pictured to the right has a sweet Erol Otus vibe to it.

A nice cheap way to spice up your own tabletop game session with outlandish pulp fantasy creatures. (Hill Cantons players avert ye eyes.)

Darklands Free Download and other Fun Stuff

Yesterday I mentioned that the 1993 computer game Darklands was an influence on my current campaign setting. With a little lazy Google research I not only found that the game still has a devoted fan following, but that also it is in that fuzzy grey area of intellectual property rights that some term abandonware.

Long and short is if you want to while away some time on a cool old pixelated sandbox crpg here is your chance to download it free. Pick up a free download of dosbox too to get it running while you are it.