I have been flying under the radar for a while now,
and haven’t had a news in a long time – so here it goes: what has EMDT been up
to?
***
Baklin in PDF
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Baklin: Jewel of the Seas |
First things first: Baklin: Jewel of the Seas is now published in PDF at DriveThruRPG. The proper thing to say on the se occasions is to note that the release was late, and that’s correct – Baklin took its time to emerge from campaign materials, session notes, and stuff that was just made up. How to translate a dynamic place like a city into a manageable, GM-friendly setting guide? Baklin’s answer is to focus on locations, personalities, and conflicts which can generate mini-adventures if the players choose to interact with them, and which are connected in a loose fashion: enough to get the sparks going, but not to entangle the poor GM and his players in a web of cross-references. And Baklin also has three dungeon levels; some of them explored, some never seen. Yes, cities with extensive dungeons beneath them are as sure to come up in my games as mysterious stone faces, eccentric mini-states, and giant frogs: they have continued to fascinate me through my life. This one is, I think, a locale that offers an interesting combination of the mundane and the fantastic – there is a bit of the criminal underworld down there, and a little bit of the proverbial mythical one (with a capital “U”).
Baklin also serves as the capstone of the Isle of
Erillion mini-setting which has been serialised in various zine issues (mainly Echoes
#02 to #05). That is not to say there are no more adventures from
that campaign left (one is set for Echoes #08), but the main
cornerstones of Erillion are all released: a primer, the wilderness hexes, and
the main towns are all out there. From here, we will venture in different
directions.
- One will be the lands of Kassadia, a domain of colourful
city states built on a Roman Empire that dwindled into irrelevance but never
fell. Kassadia, once a label on the map of Erillion, was really co-created by
Istvan Boldog-Bernad; first through Armand the Scumbag, his Assassin character,
and then In the Shadow of the City-God, set in one of Kassadia’s ancient
cities.
- The other direction will go towards the northwest
of Erillion, to the Twelve Kingdoms: a set of warring domains, neither twelve
nor true kingdoms for the most part. This is a cold and unforgiving land, but
also one of weird beauty and curious customs: it draws on sources like
Lyonesse, The Lords of Midnight, Smith’s Hyperborea, and others.
- And of course, the City of Vultures is not yet
finished: its secret societies, its surroundings, and its strange Underworld
realms shall be explored in due time.
***
Castle Xyntillan back in print
Castle Xyntillan ran out of stock sooner than
expected as sales suddenly spiked after the Questing Beast review,
but the book is back in print in a third printing, and available from my store.
The module’s first printing consisted of 500 copies; the second, 400 – as
numbers go, I am happy with them.
***
Das Froschgottkloster
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Abenteuer #08 |
The third thing concerns a most prestigious
development (monocled parrots optional). Abenteuer #08, the German
adventure gaming magazine, is set to feature my module, Cloister of the
Frog-God; and more than that, it is set to be printed and distributed by
EMDT. For those not in the know, Abenteuer
is an occasional magazine for and by German hobbyists hewing close to the
“traditional”, or “old-school” side of the RPG world. Not unlike Hungary, the
German role-playing hobby is centred around games focusing on detailed,
quasi-realistic settings with a lot of historical and cultural detail, and the
people around Abenteuer, like EMDT, represent a sort of counter-current
to that. The current issue of the magazine is a guest issue, featuring
international contributions: from Jeff Rients comes Dundagel – could this be
one of the main dungeons from his Wessex campaign – and something about potion
machines? That sounds utterly Rientsian. Likewise, Asen, from Bulgaria, brings
an article titled “Melee” (or so I think). And then, the Cloister (also
featured on the cover by Kelly Coleman).Cloister of the Frog God is kind of a patchwork module that came together
from the bits and pieces of my unpublished 2006 Tegel Manor manuscript. Since
Tegel was quite dead at the time, I started thinking about reusing my original contributions
to the module for something new – maybe as articles for Knockspell or Fight On!
magazine. At the same time, Bill Webb was starting on a new edition of Rappan
Athuk, and asked me if I wanted to contribute something to it, perhaps
using these materials. This was a start. I took the figurative scissors to my room
key, and reversing my usual development process, drew a dungeon around the
existing encounters. A once mighty, now partially ruined and semi-abandoned
cloister complex came from two mini-dungeons once located in the wilderness
around Tegel; the three-level catacomb complex underneath came from the manor’s
dungeons (the original module treats these as very simple monster listings, so I
had quite a lot of original stuff to work with).
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Tumula the Marshman, Proud (?) Father |
The finished dungeon is a long ridge with two
intact parts of the original cloister complex; one inhabited by a much
diminished but still terribly dangerous group of frog-worshippers, and another
one where a great evil has been set loose to cause terrible devastation. The
ridge itself is crisscrossed with tunnels, forming what may be called an
“inverse B2” – several alternative entrances leading inwards towards a set of
core areas, making the dungeon generally accessible, but some sections still
out of the way due to the multi-level maze of the rooms and passages. The
dungeon provided a good opportunity to create a collection of strange tombs,
each with different tricks, monsters, and furnishings. Memorably, the test
party spent a lot of time climbing the outside walls and rooftops to “hack” the
structure they were infiltrating without having to fight its guardians, and
they eventually succeeded in triggering a localised Frogocalypse, which served
as a good conclusion to wrap things up.So Cloister shipped, got published as a chapter of
the big 2012 Rappan Athuk book (where few people have found it among the mountains
of other stuff), but this was not yet the end of the story. Something about the
frog theme was still kicking around in my head, and in 2016, I ran the
adventure in a form that was half Frogocalypse Now-style boat ride through
the surrounding marshlands, and half dungeon crawl in the Cloister ruins,
culminating in a deadly battle with a procession of frog-cultists, and the
assassination of their leader, Abbot Grosso. Then, the wilderness section was
reused again in 2018 as a standalone game for the original Cloister team (still
following?), resulting in Against the Frog, the eccentric swamp crawling
scenario finally published in Echoes #04. Rotar the Raftsman (a haf-orc)
was reunited with his incredulous and ancient father, Tumula the Marshman (the
same player’s old character from the earlier adventure), and a new plague of
frogs was prevented from devastating the nearby lands.
The storied life of the module now enters another
chapter: after Rappan Athuk (dungeons), the Hungarian edition (dungeons
and wilderness), and Revenge of the Frogs (wilderness only, different scenario),
Das Froschgottkloster is set for imminent release, featuring more frogs
than you can shake a stick at. How many frogs? At least 666 frogs, but
potentially even more. And that’s a lot of frogs.
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The 2018 Hungarian edition |
***
Echoes From Fomalhaut #08
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The Sullogh are Coming! |
Yes, almost a year has passed since Echoes #07,
and this is the kind of occasion when it is time to check if the body still has
a pulse. It does! Other projects have demanded their due while this was sitting
on a back burner, but it is now fairly safe to say Echoes #04 will be a
mid-March release. This zine will feature Castle Sullogh, the penultimate
adventure from our Erillion campaign, and one that tested the
resourcefulness of a powerful group of 7th to 9th level
characters. It is a place that may be accessible – and its treasures and
secrets most attractive! – to less powerful PCs as well. You place the bait,
and get to watch them reach for it. You will also get to meet the charming
Sullogh and their masters, who will all be happy to have you for dinner.Where some things end, some are set to begin: Yrrtwano’s
Repose, the first adventure drawn from the cold lands of the Twelve Kindoms
will be included here. And from the City of Vultures, the fantastic wilderlands
around the sinful city-state – detailing the hex map whose player version was
included in Echoes #06. The eighth issue will also be the first to
feature two map sheets, and I hope that, seeing them, you will agree it should
not be the last one.
***
Helvéczia
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Not the Helvéczia Boxed set |
My picaresque fantasy RPG is proceeding towards a Spring
release. The rulebook is complete and almost ready to print, with all indices, tables
and illustrations in place, multiple rounds of proofreading (for which I am very
grateful – it is the kind of work that is invisible if done well), and only
waiting for the endpapers. The cover – and what a cover! – is in. The
supplement still needs translation for one of the adventures. The hex maps are
done; a players’ overview map is being worked on. The boxes for the boxed
version have been designed, but not yet manufactured. It will come in a heavy-duty
box that will stand up to prolonged use, and inflict 1d6 damage if used as a mêlée
weapon. For Christmas, I released Casemates and Companies, a Hungarian B/X-based
game, and we used this opportunity with my printer to do a smaller test run
with boxes. It all worked out well, so we are going in.This is a project with a lot of moving parts, but
every so often, another part is locked in its place, and the working bench gets
less cluttered. Now it is close to empty. April? Could be April. A more
detailed preview will follow in March.
***
Shipping increases
“Last comes the black soup.” This is a saying in Hungary, originally referring
to coffee, and meaning “bad news last”. Last year, postage increased slightly, in
a way I didn’t feel like annoying customers with. This year, the increase,
while not radical, is a bit steeper, and comes with added paperwork on non-EU
orders – or you can let the Post do it, and increase postage further. I decided
to do the paperwork – electronic data entry stuff, not too bad – and go with a
smaller shipping price increase. So here is how it is going to look from now:
- Any quantity of zines, Europe (incl. UK): $6.00 to $6.50
- Any quantity of zines, worldwide: $7.00 to $8.00
- Hardcovers and boxed sets, Europe (incl. UK): $20.00
to $23.00
- Hardcovers and boxed sets, worldwide: $25.00 to $28.00
 |
Let There be Order |
These are still flat rates, so ordering one zine
will set you back as much as ordering ALL zines and pamphlet-sized modules (they
may ship in multiple envelopes, but a large order deserves a discount). There
will be one exception: the
Helvéczia boxed set is going to ship alone,
because it will weigh right below the 2 kg (4.4 pounds) postal weight
limit after packaging, and if you add just one zine, shipping suddenly jumps
from $28 to $60 or so.In summary, I will go with a small price increase,
you will start seeing custom form stickers on your envelopes, large and heavy
supplements will be a bit pricier to order (but hopefully well worth the price).
Death and taxes, ladies and gentlemen!
These changes will come into effect after the first week of March, so if you'd like to buy something with the lower shipping rates, there is still a week for that.
 |
The Fruits of Endeavour |
I posted a big long thing here about my experience running the Cloister as a campaign for the better part of the past year, but Google appears to have eaten it? I will repost again after Tuesday’s session, which should be our last. Grosso had been pretending to be our captive for the majority of our time here, but once he realized we had sealed in the frogpocalypse forever, he fled and force fed the elixir to one of the druids guarding him. Our wizard has him trapped in some vines he cast Plant Growth on as he is fleeing across the ruins to a boot moored at the inner cloister. It will take a while for the rest of the party to catch up. Should be an epic final showdown. Thanks for writing a great adventure. Looking forward to sharing more about it when we are all done!
ReplyDeleteA great adventure, and it’s very cool to hear that will get its own publication and not be buried inside Rappan Athuk as an extra.
I would be interested to hear about it!
DeleteMake sure to copy your post before submitting it. I have lost a lot of detailed comments I have made thanks to blogspot's issues. (And I would have lost this one, too, if I didn't!)
My write up was too long to be a comment, so I posted it on my blog. Hope you enjoy reading about our adventures in your creation.
Deletehttp://www.omegadungeon.com/2021/03/cloister-of-frog-god-write-upreview.html
Thanks a lot! This was an excellent read.
DeleteCongratulations on all your endeavors! 900+ copies of Castle Xyntillian is a massive success! And I am the proud owner of 1 copy, plus a "super rare" manuscript version. :)
ReplyDeleteStill waiting for the "Thief lessons applied to D&D" article, hehehe.
Cheers!
Yeah, that's big. I initially printed 500, thinking it would last a few years for the long tail sales - and got pleasantly surprised.
DeleteI still owe you the Thief post... and others I have been procrastinating on for a while.
Stay well! .)
@Omega, very interested in your exploits in the Cloister!
ReplyDeleteDo you have a link to a website or something for the german zine "Abenteuer"?
ReplyDeleteI tried seraching for it online... though as "Abenteuer" simply is "adventure" you get like a million results, none which lead to the zine :(
Note the dot, it is pronounced Abenteuerpunkt: https://hofrat.rsp-blogs.de/abenteuerpunkt/
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete@Grützi: I think our most recent efforts at building the 1e-scene are the most noteworthy. We have a 50+ player Co-DM'd Campaign for hop-on-hop-off gaming, FLAILSNAILS style. let me know if you can be interested in such things. We area also always looking for collaborations!
ReplyDeleteI cannot help but brag a bit about Tumula, immortalized on the cover of Echoes #4. Well the sinister family secret is out now, so here's some trivia: he's modeled after Uncle Matula, a wise old wilderness dweller and father figure to a pair of city lads from the Thoreau-esque educational Bildungsroman titled "Tüskevár" ("Thorn Castle", actually a pretty cool name for a Turkish-age ruin covered in thorns, according to legend). The book was mandatory reading back in grade school in Commie-era Hungary, or maybe even now, who knows... but come to think of it, it features treasure hunt and even a short dungeon-delving episode. Sadly I can't recall any killer frogs, but Rotar the Rafter, my second PC down the line also got his nickname from a protagonist there (one of the boys is called Rafter as well, for he likes to boast on imaginary river raft adventures).
ReplyDeleteWhen translating, Tumula was my favorite character! Good job, V!
ReplyDeleteGreat news all around - congratulations on your earned successes
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete@Settembrini:
ReplyDeleteThanks for the informations, I'll take a look at all this ;)
Generally speaking I'm interested in collaborations... though time and other obligations limit my capacity in that regard (as for everyone else I imagine ;) )
If you feel disoriented by Retro Clones or 5e, there is always a song to listen to, if time is of the essence:
ReplyDeletehttps://soundcloud.com/benjamin-aka-flann/ich-spiele-feat-hassran-beat-by-bielefeld-bass/reposts
Also, if Podcasts are your thing, we have a lot of 1e content: https://pesa-nexus.de/category/zock-bock-radio/
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteFascinating. I wonder what any of that has to do with OSR or gaming.
DeleteVery interesting ideas, Kent. I will just note here that I am ethnic German on my father's side - a mixture of Zipser, Burzenländer and Banater Schwabian - and I am not interested in your newsletter. Behave, or begone!
DeleteNow that was weird.
ReplyDeleteWill an English version of the Cloister be translated from the Hungarian EMDT publication, or do I have to get Rappen Athuk in order to read it? I heard very positive comments from friends who have played the module.
ReplyDeleteRappan Athuk is still in print (more correctly, it is in print again with a 5E edition), so I do not wish to cross the wires. Maybe some day. RA itself is worth owning although I will confess that I think its best version is the original three-booklet release (and you will never need more than the first two). At least until Bill publishes a facsimile edition of his original typed manuscript.
DeleteI like all the dungeon levels in the first two Rappan Athuk modules. I also like the following levels from the third module:
Delete9: The Lower Temple of Orcus
9A: Caves & Caverns--The Hydra's Lair
9B&C: The Well of Agamemnon
10: The Lava Pit
10A: The Giant Cavern
11: The Waterfall and Akbeth's Grave
I missed this update, somehow, Gabor, and just saw it over on mewe (of all places!). Great to hear that things are continuing apace, and I'm really looking forward to the all of your new titles =)
ReplyDeleteAllan.
MeWe is not dead! Worthwhile things are found there if you pay an occasional visit. .)
Delete