The Rocklands Beneath the Temple Ruins - 1PD 2011 Entry

Hi all,

Here's a look at my 1PD entry for 2011.  You may recall that I've been making upcycled dungeon tiles using these designs.

The entire dungeon/cavern/adventure is mapped using the excellent Rocklands 1 and 2 sets from Kev's Lounge.  Check those out if you haven't seen them.  There's a lot of good stuff over there!

Kevin Berry (the Kev of the Lounge) has even provided an additional tile to be used as the statue (the star in the picture above).  It is included in the adventure.  Big thanks to Kevin for his help with this!

You can download the adventure here.  Enjoy!

In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming

Bought my grandson Matt this cool Lego Atlantis: Gateway of the Squid model.

He put it together by himself tonight and his dad sent me this picture.  I hope he had fun and I hope it isn't in pieces the next time I'm over there...  :)

I thought I'd post it here because it looks like the mind flayer with the magical trident and the cthulhoid monster are going to make a quick meal of the two scuba divers.

Poor dumb, dead bastards...

HD Randomizer Spreadsheet

Just saw this cool resource over at Lord Kilgore -- it's a page of random d6 and d8's (basically 1 HD) with little circles for tic marks...  Very cool!  Exactly the thing I need when I'm running battles at the table!

Being unable to resist tinkering, I thought, wouldn't it be cool to have a random sheet that would be random every time I print it?  Wouldn't it be cool if I could change the die?  d4, d6, d8, d10, d12?

Well, I mocked it up in the Google and here it is:  http://tinyurl.com/hdrandomizer


Here's a screen shot:

Head on over there and download yourself a copy if you think it would be useful!

Thanks again to Lord Kilgore for the inspiration!

DungeonMorph Dice

You've probably seen this elsewhere, but just in case you missed it -- behold the wonder that is/are RANDOM GEOMORPH DUNGEON DICE!

Joe at Inkwell Ideas has a Kickstarter going.  He's trying to get pledges to get these dice made.

I'm already a supporter.  If you're a gamer, these dice are TOO COOL not to have them in your bag.  If you're an Old School DM, you MUST own these dice -- how could you not?

Go over and check out the Kickstarter.  Pledge if you can.  We've got to get these dice made!

In Memoriam - John Eric Holmes (1930 - 2010)

It has been a year since Dr. Holmes passed away.  As is often the case, when someone passes away, you develop an appreciation of their legacy.

I started playing D&D back in 1980 and I began using the Holmes Blue Book.  (Of course it wasn't called that back then, it was called just D&D)

My friend Brian invited me over in August of that year after I had just returned from spending the summer away.  He had discovered the game with friends that summer and he wanted to share it with me.

I went over to his house and I made up characters.  Brian had made a clever change to the rules for my first adventure; no attributes.  I just picked classes, equipment and rolled up HPs, then we got on to the adventuring.

As I recall, we did some preliminary exploration of eponymous Keep on the Borderlands.  I "met" some of the characters there, such as the Castellan.  I didn't know what a keep or castellan was at that point.  Dictionaries and encyclopedias held a large place in my future reading time...

Eventually, Brian handwaved the trip to the Caves of Chaos and we were there.  In fact, he handwaved the whole idea of the CoC.  We started at K, "The Shrine of Evil Chaos!"

Brian mapped the whole thing as we went along on graph paper.  He stuck the graph paper to a cardboard box with tape and we used thumbtacks to represent the party and the monsters!  It was a battlemap BEFORE there were battlemaps!  Brian was a visionary!  :)

I remember using the thumbtack for "Berserker" my fighter, to indicate that I was "peeking" around the corners of hallways to see what was there.  It was great fun and the exploration was the thing.  I know we fought monsters, but it was the excitement of "what was up around the bend" that was so great.

Thank you Dr. Holmes for making that day possible and for all the exciting days of adventure since!

PS: I'm almost done reading "The Maze of Peril."  At some point in the future, I'll post a review.

An Oddball Minis Find...

I like to buy stuff at the dollar store and at Goodwill when I think it has a reasonable chance it can be used as a mini, or with minis.

Today, I purchased a pretty well used copy of "Life: Indiana Jones Edition".

I have no intention of playing this game EVER, but there are some cool plastic bits that I harvested.  They're a bit small to use with human/orc sized 25mm minis, but I'm thinking that they are PERFECT for use with my kobolds and goblins.  It will be an actual visual reminder that these little guys can crawl in holes that humans have trouble in.

Here's are pics of the bits:

Here's a HeroScape viking with the holy grail, shankara stones, and ark of the covenant.  These would be pretty cool treasures to base an entire campaign around!

Here's that viking with the rocky terrain from the game.  The slots are a bit narrow for my viking.

I will be doing some serious modding of the rope bridge.  There are four Indy's with the game; I might paint one or two as adventurers...  

You can see a D&D goblin in the back/right.  He fits in the terrain grooves just fine.  Those pesky humans had better stay out of his way!

Sorry

Hi everyone,

In my haste and enthusiasm, I've done a bad thing.  I apologize to tsojcanth for inappropriately borrowing/reposting his work.  There's no excuse other than my excitement over the idea.

I've deleted the offending post and I've apologized to him at his site.

Sorry again.