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Art of the Genre: Orcus

Art of the Genre: Orcus

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Sutherland keeps it 'real'
Sutherland keeps it 'real'

Orcus, Prince of the Undead. He’s an ancient legend, more so than any D&D text, but for the purpose of this article I’m going address the Gygaxian version and not the Etruscan.

Why Orcus? Well, because I’m upset with Orcus, that’s why. I feel like the big fella let me down. Once, back in the long, long, ago, I got the original AD&D Monster Manual, and in those pages I found the section on Demons and was captivated by it.

Here stood the tentacle-armed Demogorgon, and slime-spurting Juiblex, and the flail-wielding Yeenoghu, Demon Lord of Gnolls, but of all of them, Orcus jumped out into my imagination because he was so drastically different.

Orcus was this fat demon with a wand [I mean really, what self-respecting demon lord carries a wand?] He had the cloven hooves and legs of a goat, a beer belly, and the head of a ram. He wasn’t cool, or epic, and certainly wasn’t someone who would fill you with fear, but the reality in his visage gave me pause.

Simple but effective, I promise
Simple but effective, I promise

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Andrew Zimmerman Jones Reviews Pathfinder Supplements

Andrew Zimmerman Jones Reviews Pathfinder Supplements

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pathfinder_rpg_core_rulebook_coverPaizo publishing’s Pathfinder RPG is both familiar and innovative, as it brings the best of Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 into a fresh new approach. In this review, I explore the core rulebook and a couple of their supplements, explaining why you should look into the game system if you haven’t already.

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Core Rulebook

Jason Bulmahn
Paizo Publishing (575 pages, $49.99, Aug. 2009)

Pathfinder Module: Crypt of the Everflame

Jason Bulmahn
Paizo Publishing (32 pages, $13.99, Sept. 2009)

Pathfinder Adventure Path #25: Council of Thieves (1 of 6): The Bastards of Erebus

Edited by Sean K. Reynolds
Paizo Publishing (92 pages, $19.99, Aug. 2009)

Reviewed by Andrew Zimmerman Jones

Your first look at the massive tome that is the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Core Rulebook can be a bit intimidating. I first ran across it piled high on a mountainous table at GenCon’s Paizo Publishing booth in summer 2009 and, I admit, I wasn’t even sure what it was. Yet another fantasy roleplaying game? Elves, dwarves, and halflings? It sure didn’t seem worth much attention, and I didn’t really get what all the hype was about.

Then I realized what it was… this was my old mistress, Dungeons & Dragons v3.5, all dressed up in a new outfit and ready to go out on the town again.

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Art of the Genre: D&D Basic Boxed Sets

Art of the Genre: D&D Basic Boxed Sets

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‘Basic’, it’s a term I always took as a kind of derogatory statement regarding the type of D&D that I was first introduced to. I mean, why wouldn’t someone think that since there was an ‘Advanced’ version of D&D out there with all those wonderful hardcover books?

Everything you need is right at your fingertips!
Everything you need is right at your fingertips!

Well, that might have been the case, and eventually I would convert to those lofty hardcovers, but in my fundamental and formative years I played from a ‘box’ that provided everything I needed on my path to adventure.

I have a special love for TSR’s Basic rules and the boxes that provided them. They are kind of like a browning picture of you riding a bike before the world was more than school and what to play afterward. I’m reminded of simpler times when there weren’t multiple editions of the game, when the internet wasn’t weighted down with reference materials for feats, powers, prestige classes, and the like.

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Andrew Zimmerman Jones Reviews Goodman Games Supplements

Andrew Zimmerman Jones Reviews Goodman Games Supplements

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fhfangfistsongWith the release of Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition, there came the opportunity for independent game companies to introduce whole new lines of products that focused on expanding the gaps left in the core materials presented by Wizards of the Coast. In this review from Black Gate #14, I look at supplements from two of these product lines, published by the fine people at Goodman Games, covering various races and character classes.

Since the review was written, Wizards of the Coast has filled many of those gaps with their own materials, such as the D&D Player’s Handbook Races series, which includes the official supplements for both the Tiefling and Dragonborn races.

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Art of the Genre: Star Frontiers

Art of the Genre: Star Frontiers

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Star Frontiers Alpha Dawn Cover Copyright WotC
Star Frontiers Alpha Dawn Cover Copyright WotC

It’s summer intern time here at Black Gate L.A., John having flown in Sue ‘Goth Chick’ Granquist to help break them in. She’s not in love with the beach and the sun, but I must say seeing her in a black one-piece, Jackie-O glasses, and a hat right out of Vampire Hunter D, I had to take a shot with my iPhone because Ryan Harvey [who was struggling with a deadline instead of taking in some sun] would have never believed it otherwise.

That picture, snapped at a moment’s notice, got me thinking about technology and the crazy almost science fiction world we live in. When I was in junior high, way back in the early 80s, my love affair with D&D was in full bloom, and TSR was expanding its brand with new genres like the 1920s prohibition classic Gangbusters, the Bond-like Top Secret, and my personal favorite the space opera Star Frontiers.

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Andrew Zimmerman Jones Reviews Shard RPG

Andrew Zimmerman Jones Reviews Shard RPG

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shardI first discovered the Shard RPG at GenCon in 2009. Despite being one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever seen, I was instantly enthralled by the premise. If the review below wets your appetite, then you can get more information (including a free Welcome Booklet download) from the Shard RPG website.

Shard RPG Basic Compendium

Aaron de Orive and Scott Jones
Shard Studios (352 pages, $39.99, August 2009)
Reviewed by Andrew Zimmerman Jones

One of the pleasures of going to GenCon is to stumble upon some of the small press games, which are like little treasures sprinkled throughout the dealer’s room. The last time I went, one such treasure was Shard, a game with a spark of originality that is rarely found even in the gaming industry.

Don’t get me wrong, I love traditional fantasy settings and even love the permutations where tradition is turned on its ear, such as the way mythical creatures are portrayed in White Wolf’s World of Darkness line.

But still, there’s something to be said for a game that doesn’t rely on mages, elves, vampires, werewolves, and so on as the basis of their originality.

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Art of the Genre: Tolkien in B/W

Art of the Genre: Tolkien in B/W

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orc-300With all the news that The Hobbit has begun filming, my stalwart partner here at Black Gate L.A., Ryan Harvey, has been spending his days reenacting the Battle of Five Armies using mini-figs he’s collected since before the release of the LOTR trilogy. Although endlessly funny hearing him deliver Thorin’s final speech to Bilbo over and over again, I forced myself out on the seaside balcony to watch surfers and come up with this week’s blog.

All the cinematic excitement reminded me of my own days in Tolkien’s realms, the reading of his novels just the cusp of my experience as I delved deeply into Iron Crown Enterprise’s Middle-Earth The Role-Playing Game in 1986. MERP, as it is more affectionately called, became the second leading RPG sold in the 1980s, and although miss-management and rather daunting licensing dealings with the Tolkien estate finally resulted in the games dissolution and the company’s bankruptcy, the body of work put out by I.C.E. in a little over a decade remains the Middle-Earth canon for all role-players who truly take the genre seriously.

It was in these pages I was first introduced to the art of Liz Danforth. She, and fellow femme fatal Gail B McIntosh, were constants involved in the supplements of the game along with perhaps the least remembered but unlimitedly talented color-cover man, Angus McBride [1931-2007] who in my opinion will always be THE visionary of what Middle-Earth should be.

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Art of the Genre: Special Critical Hit

Art of the Genre: Special Critical Hit

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Homage
Homage
Two weeks ago I posted a small piece on the passing of Jim Roslof. Afterward I spoke to several people concerning some kind of tribute art, but nothing developed until I came across an idea for The Critical Hit concerning Jim.

So, this is both my, and Jeff Laubenstein’s, tribute to Jim and his body of work. For all you old folks out there, you need no introduction, but anyone else, I’ll post the original art we’re referencing as well.

This tribute to Roslof can be seen as perhaps a threefold homage, co-authors David C Sutherland III passing away in 2005, and Gary Gygax in 2008. Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits debuted in a tournament edition for Origins in 1979. It was scripted by artist/writer Sutherland and completed by Gygax before being turned into the culmination adventure of the G-1-2-3, D 1-2-3 adventure path.

A cut above. The classic Q1.
A cut above. The classic Q1.
The adventure revolves around a party going into ‘the demonweb pits’, the 66th level of the Abyss controlled by the Drow goddess Lolth. There, they must overcome her minions, deal with the labrynth of corridors and gates involved, and finally deal with Lolth herself. I’ve had the pleasure of DMing this module once and playing in it twice, and for me I think it is a wonderful end to perhaps the greatest set of gaming modules ever produced.

Today, Fleetwood the Fighter and Grumbltash the Wizard, along with three trusty NPCs, have fallen into the same scene as that fateful party in 1980. I’d say wish them luck, but it looks like Fleetwood is familiar with the module and monster stats already…

Anyway, I’d like to say once again to Jim, David, and Gary, thanks for all the fond memories!

The Dying Earth RPG Available Again

The Dying Earth RPG Available Again

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the-dying-earthPelgrane Press has announced that one of my favorite role playing games, The Dying Earth, is available again after several years in limbo.

The Dying Earth is, of course, based on the famed fantasy books by Jack Vance, including The Dying Earth, The Eyes of the Overworld, Cugel’s Saga, and Rhialto the Marvellous. The RPG was written by Robin Laws, John Snead, and Peter Freeman, and originally published by Pelgrane Press  in 2001.

I’ve never actually played The Dying Earth role playing game.  It appeared after I moved from Ottawa to Chicago and left my gaming group behind, and before my three children stopped throwing the dice at each other and got old enough to game with. So why is one of my favorites?

Because there’s plenty to enjoy about The Dying Earth RPG, even if you never use the rules to guide your dice arm. The support materials were superb, especially the accompanying magazine, The Excellent Prismatic Spray — whose contributors numbered Gary Gygax, Robin D Laws, Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook, Keith Baker, and many others — and which published seven fat issues before following the game into limbo.

beyond-the-mountains2Much of the content of the magazine and the additional support material were written in studied imitation of Vance’s witty and erudite style, and made terrific reading.

Who knows why the game was out of print for so long?  A licensing issue, most likely.  But it’s finally back, and Pelgrane has wasted no time gearing up the presses again, releasing the first new supplement in several years: Beyond The Mountains of Magnatz by Ian Thomson, a picaresque series of adventures for Cugel-level characters:

You may have thought your adventurous rogues trapped in the barren north until the sun went dark. But no, the former Lords of Cil are on the move again. The adventurers must evade becoming victim to the ancient menace of Magnatz in the sinister town of Vull, progress through greater and lesser challenges, both natural & magical, as they struggle across the savage mountains, explore strange hospitality in the valley of the mighty Pharesm, and survive lands populated by an army of basilisks, before winning free to the civilized lands of the east.

Our recent coverage of Pelgrane Press includes:

When the End of the World is a Mercy Killing: Cthulhu Apocalypse for Trail of Cthulhu
Mythos Expeditions for Trail of Cthulhu
Experience the Epic Madness of Eternal Lies for Trail of Cthulhu
June Page XX Available — get the latest Pelgrane Press News
Accretion Disk for Ashen Stars
The Justice Trade for Ashen Stars
Some Mysteries You Don’t Want to Solve: Exploring Dead Rock Seven for Ashen Stars
Out of Space for Trail of Cthulhu
Ashen Stars by Robin D. Laws
The Dying Earth Role Playing Game

The Dying Earth RPG is a 192-page hardcover priced at $29.95.  Beyond The Mountains of Magnatz is a 96 page PDF, and sells for $9.95.  Both are available at the Pelgrane Press website.

See all of our recent Games coverage here.

Pathfinder Tales: “The Walkers from the Crypt” by Howard Andrew Jones

Pathfinder Tales: “The Walkers from the Crypt” by Howard Andrew Jones

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pathfindertales_360Howard Andrew Jones’ four-part story “The Walkers from the Crypt” has now been posted in its entirety at The Pathfinder Tales site at Paizo.com:

Elyana had no time to waste educating the young bard. There were but a few minutes left before the hounds would reach them.

She’d caught sight of the animals almost a half hour ago as she and her four companions fled across the grasslands of southern Galt. The seemingly inexhaustible hounds had slowly gained on their horses, and the party had finally picked out a rise from which to make a stand.

Vallyn gazed apprehensively out at the wedge-shaped formation of hounds sprinting forward through the high grass. “How can they keep running like that?”

“They’re dead,” Arcil said in his low, smooth voice. “They need neither breath nor rest.”

Pathfinder Tales are complete short stories set in the detailed world of Golarion, home to the Pathfinder role playing game. Novels released under the Pathfinder Tales brand include Prince of Wolves by Dave Gross, Winter Witch by Elaine Cunningham, and Plague of Shadows by our own Howard Andrew Jones. Pazio has also begun presenting complete tales set in the same setting on their website — including pieces from Monte Cook, Ed Greenwood, Dave Gross, Richard Lee Byers, and others.

“The Walkers from the Crypt” features the continuing adventures of Elyana, Vallyn, Stelan, and other characters from Howard’s new novel Plague of Shadows, in a complete standalone adventure. Read more about Plague of Shadows here.

You can read Part One of “The Walkers from the Crypt” here, and all four parts are now available at Paizo.com.