[Free Battlemap] T Intersection with Fountain and Improvised Abatis

This could easily be connected to the previous map I posted via the stairs at upper left.

[Free Battlemap] Dungeon Entrance with Debris and Altar

A pile of junk at the entrance and a small altar evokes the passage of adventurers who have gone before you...

Northern Crown, Rediscover'd

Nine years ago, Atlas Games published Northern Crown, my alternate-America RPG. People have been bugging me for years to update the game. Now I'm happy to tell you it's coming back in a Pathfinder-compatible edition from Battlefield Press.

From the Atlas Games site:

Today, we’re announcing an agreement with Battlefield Press that allows them to bring Northern Crown author Doug Anderson’s vision of legendary North America up to date. They’ve shared with us a plan to combine the two existing Northern Crown volumes into one complete book, and in the process, update all material to the current Pathfinder rules. In addition, they plan to detail the Southern continent and create a new creature compendium for the setting.

Rock Opera '79 Ruleset is Here DOWNLOAD IT NOW

My game of rock rebellion is available for playtest. Core rules, 4 sample rock star sheets, and a Top 100 sheet to track your band's rise to fame. Grab a few decks of standard playing cards and get rocking against some sample minions, menaces, and bosses.

Downloads here:

Core rules
Rock star sheets
Top 100 sheet

Sample rocker sheet. What's your sign?

[Preview] Rock Opera '79 Char Sheet

One of twelve default rock stars bundled with the game.

[Free Cutaway Map] Dungeon View with Crypt and Sinkhole

I drew this map today especially for new friends of the blog. Enjoy!

Saturday at the Castle with Gary

The Higgins Armory Museum in Worcester, Massachusetts closed its doors for good a few weeks ago, and I'm in mourning. A steel-clad Art Deco-Gothic castle, it held the largest collection of medieval arms and armor in the Americas. I'm going to miss taking my kid there -- they had a great interactive  area where you could try on helmets and armor, build giant block castles, and play dress-up. I'm stunned that they couldn't secure more public money to keep going. The only silver lining I see is that the bulk of the collection is heading down the hill to the Worcester Art Museum, but it won't be the same, of course.

I once spent a rainy April morning at the Higgins with no less a personage than Gary Gygax. It was 2003, and he had been invited to the armory to do a seminar on medieval weapons with Jeff Forgeng, one of the Higgins curators. About 30 of us waited for him in a dimly-lit chamber of the castle, with rain pelting on the windows. And waited. Finally he showed up, profusely apologetic -- he had failed his save against Worcester's spaghetti bowl of a road system. He settled into a kingly chair and the show got on the road. As the curator gently pulled answers out of him, Gary absently leafed through a century-old Bannerman's weapon catalog he'd brought along -- "Hmmm, here's a halberd, oh, they have a fauchard." He was grandfatherly and soft-spoken and candid. He said that when they were developing D&D, he used all the exotically-named pole arms to provide flavor, though he doubted that mechanically they were much different from one another in use. When someone asked him about the fundamentalist anti-D&D movement in the 80s, he grinned and said, "There's no such thing as bad publicity."

We took a stretch break and he went outside to smoke a Camel.

When he came back he did an autograph session. It was a bit like going to see The Great Oz. My wife said, "Gary, my husband is a really stingy DM. Can you do something about that?" He called for a scrap of paper and wrote "Good for 10,000 XPs — Original AD&D only!" She actually spent it on one of her characters as soon as we got home.

And here it is.