Just a reminder for folks. Tomorrow is a Sunday and that means tomorrow morning at 10 Eastern The Tenkar's Tavern Discord Server will be hosting the weekly RPG Breakfast Club.

What we do is try to get some movers and shakers, or designers & makers, to come and chat via voice. Sometimes we lock the voice chat down for the first hour so they can cover their topics, sometimes we don't. It's up to the hosts and I expect I'll be as surprised as you are.

Here's tomorrow's lineup:


And here's a link to the Discord Server:

Have money left over from Black Friday? Thad has a new patch for you :)


The new “Moon Wizard” patch is available now! All OSR patches are high quality with 100% embroidery coverage, an iron-on backing, and a hot cut border. For your gaming backpack, messenger bag, dice bag, hat, polo shirt, battle vest/jacket, anything! Can be applied with fabric glue, stitching, self-adhesive Velcro. Cover with a cloth before ironing on.

To order ANY patch send $6 per patch to: paypal.me/thaddeusgmoore


Free Shipping worldwide from the USA is included in this price. Please make a note, specifying which designs you would like when you send payment. Ensure your shipping address is correct in your PayPal account info. Thanks to all of you in OSR community for your camaraderie and support.

For help contact:
THADDEUS dot G dot MOORE at GMAIL

The Midderlands logo by MonkeyBlood Design (Glynn Seal) is used with permission. http://monkeyblooddesign.co.uk/The-Midderlands

The OSR blue map logo by Stuart Robertson is made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/.

I thought it was strange when the deal with FIG (to help turn Gary's IP into video game properties) was announced, there was no website for Gygax Games.

Now, there is a website for Gygax Games and no mention of the FIG deal.

Wonder if a certain lawsuit has something to do with that omission...

http://www.tenkarstavern.com/2018/04/more-thoughts-on-gygax-games-fig.html

http://www.tenkarstavern.com/2018/05/a-month-later-still-no-gygax-games.html

http://www.tenkarstavern.com/2018/08/gail-gygax-says-desanto-suing-for-30m.html

https://player.fm/series/tavern-chat/episode-78-news-how-did-i-miss-gail-gygax-getting-sued

Frog God Games wants your support for our first holiday adventure in over a decade -"How Orcus Stole Christmas!". Designed for lower-level characters both joyful and triumphant it has a wickedly humorous take on  classic holiday tropes. Yet it is still a perilous adventure full of the unexpected. Beware festive monsters, find joyous and jolly magic items and face an iconic villain with a holiday twist. 

O, Come All Ye Faithful....to Newville! 

This low-level adventure introduces the players to a contained wilderness environment known as Newville. It is designed to fit into most traditional fantasy campaigns, The open nature and local environment can extend the adventure across multiple sessions. So beware the danger behind the joyful cruelty of the enemies and their pathetic holiday slaves! 

It’s up to a small band of brave heroes to save Christmas this year, and without their unwavering Christmas spirit and willingness to face the cruelties of both winter and a twisted aspect of the great Demon Prince, they’ll never discover How Orcus Stole Christmas... 

Can the player characters discover why Orcus Claws is waylaying the town of Newville?  Will they survive the climb up cruel Mount Strumpet with its cannibal reindeer and treacherous avalanches? And for the love of Christmas, why are all these damn News singing all the time?! 

Inside the finished release you will find the following-

• An adventure which can be integrated into an existing campaign as a brief (yet twisted) celebration of the season.
• New and festive creatures which have a tendency to kill and/or feast on itinerant characters that are not prepared for danger amidst all the dark humor. 
• Joyful magic items with heartwarming powers.
• An description of the village of Newville, the demeanor of the News, plus exciting rumors about the surrounding valley. The valley is thought to be full of adventure.
• The author's manuscript was  bursting with bloody sarcasm and holiday humor.
• A visitor who arrives in the night upon a magical sleigh.

As I type this, Tegel Manor Returns! launched a mere 2 1/2 hours ago. I was notified when it launched, peek from my phone and saw zero backers and zero dollars pledged. If I had been home, I could have been backer #1. Right now, it has 139 backers and over $17k raised (of a $15k goal). To say this is a huge deal is an understatement - this is going to hit numerous stretch goals :)

I'm in at $50 - Swords & Wizardry version - Print plus PDF with the six-panel poster map.

Here's some info from the Kickstarter page:

First published in 1977, Tegel Manor is the oldest of “Haunted House” adventures in fantasy roleplaying, and probably the very first megadungeon ever published. The Manor is a sprawling edifice of 250+ rooms filled with tricks, traps, puzzles, monsters, and situations both humorous and horrific. The huge manor house has been the curse of its owners, the Rump family, for generations – no matter how many times they have tried to get rid of it, the ownership manages to come back to them. 

If you’ve already seen the 1977 version of the Manor, there’s a lot more for you to learn in this updated and expanded 5E (and S&W) version of the classic. This printing contains expanded descriptions of the rooms, new areas, new monsters, new magic items, and much more, all with spectacular color illustrations. 

At the start of the Kickstarter, the book will be a perfect bound softcover, but if we get 250 backers purchasing an edition of the book, it will be upgraded to hardcover, free of charge! 

In addition to the Manor itself, this book contains: 

• A 4-level dungeon under the Manor, fully detailed.
• The Temple of the Frog and the Monastery of Garm, as well as a full length new adventure-The Sanctum of Madness!
• A detailed handling of Tegel Village, the wilderness area, the black dragon lair and even the pirate lair and tower along the seacoast.
• All 100 members of the Rump Family are described and detailed, and many even have portraits done!
• Over a 15 new monsters and dozens of never before seen magic items!
• and one more thing...

The Map of Tegel Manor 

The map was revolutionary to gaming when it was introduced.  Our cartographer is the famous Alyssa Faden — we’ve gone all-out on quality for this project.

Alyssa Faden, map goddess and Frog God favorite, has been working on making the Sine Qua Non of Fantasy Gaming Maps. Using details from both the original and the newly written material each room now reflects the chaotic, creepy and often violent nature of the Manor. This is done at an incredibly high resolution which will keep the minute details she captures visibly pleasing when zoomed beyond what is normal in online games or projection based set-ups. 

Its ACTUALLY Black Friday now. Let's see what sales have been added to the mix. Prior posts are here and here.

KenzerCo



Kenzerco's 2018 Hack Friday [CyB3rMonday] Sale

Thanks for checking out our annual mega-sale. There's values across the board with a majority of products 50% off for the shopping holiday weekend (Friday through Monday).

All orders of $50 (in merchandise) will receive a free copy of a Bundle of Trouble. $100 orders will get two. (The specific volume is determined by stock on hand.)

Note that this page has special product listings we prepared especially for you (below) that exceed even these savings! Other highlights follow:

• We've added discounted media mail shipping options for hardcover books
• "Classic" print editions of KoDT are 80% off
• Previous edition Aces & Eights products are 80% off
• All Casualty Counters are 75% off. These very kewl fallen battle figures make a great stocking stuffer for the gamer in your life.
• HackMaster bundle/shipping specials are an awesome value if you want to pick up multiple core books

Troll Lord Games


Stacking "percent off" doesn't usually add up as well as you think it might but by my math, $20 to $50 becomes 46% off and over $50 becomes 52% off. Still HUGE discounts at The Trolls.

Jeff Talanian


Time for some Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerors of Hyperborea fun :)

Pacesetter Games & Simulations



OSR adventures and minis are the Pacesetter specialty.

35% off sitewide with coupon code: Black18

Yep, part two of the OSR Black Friday Sales listing is here. Where shall we start?

Fantasy Grounds


Fantasy Grounds licenses are 25% off (if you opt for a monthly subscription, there is no discount)
Fantasy Grounds is one of the premiere and longest running Virtual Table Tops around.

Kraken Dice



We all like dice - its one of the reasons we are gamers. Kraken Dice is offering discounts up to 50% on some sets. Note, some sets may be out of stock.

R. Talsorian Games


Damn, but The Witcher looks damn tempting...

Alright, there's some more going live tomorrow...

PRINT - Save 40% on almost everything – and 20% on the rest! Read on for details!
Today is that infamous dark day when all consumers go insane! Black Friday! (Yeah, we know it’s Tuesday…what’s your point?) 

Nonetheless, it’s our biggest sale of the year! Well, it’s really our only sale of the year, but who’s counting? 

The sale is 40% off all Goodman Games books currently in stock, except leather bound items. That means you save 40% on DCC modules, all the variant covers, all our Fifth Edition Fantasy products, Into the Borderlands, Mutant Crawl Classics, Judges Guild, Metamorphosis Alpha, Xcrawl, and Age of Cthulhu. Plus the PDF editions of all those. Plus all the other book titles we forgot to mention! 

And then everything else in our online store is 20% off. The “everything else” includes leather bound books, third-party DCC publications, specialty dice, appendix N reprints, and all the other accessories. 

When you check out, just use one or ALL of these coupon codes (multiple codes are accepted): 

• Code GGblackfriday2018 to save 40% on most Goodman Games items in our online store! 

• Code 3PPblackfriday2018 to save 20% on most other product in our online store!  

• Code LEblackfriday2018 to save 20% on Limited Edition Goodman Games items in our online store!

PDF - From now through Cyber Monday, Goodman Games is offering 40% off every PDF we sell on DriveThruRPG. 

It's that simple. So once you're done with that turkey and sitting back to relax - or fighting off sleep, as the case may be - swing by our product page and check out the deals!  

The 40% sale applies to every PDF we publish: DCC RPG adventure modules. All of our Dungeon Crawl Classics from other rules sets, like 3E adventures, 4E, or even 1E. Mutant Crawl Classics. Fifth Edition Fantasy. Tales From The Magician's Skull. Age of Cthulhu. Xcrawl. Our huge line of 3E products - or even our line of 4E products. Our licensed lines like Metamorphosis Alpha and older lines like DragonMech. And many of our systems-neutral, stand-alone favorites like The Dungeon Alphabet, How to Write Adventure Modules That Don't Suck, and others.

Palladium

Palladium has 3 BIG Sales going on this weekend 

1. Palladium’s Black Friday Sale is NOW thru Tuesday – Our Black Friday and Cyber-Monday sales start right now. Almost ALL Rifts® books and metal miniatures are on sale starting NOW through Tuesday, November 27, 2018. 

2. Palladium PDF Sale NOW till Tuesday morning on DriveThruRPG.com – Most Palladium PDFs are available at a 33% discount for awesome savings – offer ends Tuesday morning, November 27, 2018. 

3. Christmas Surprise Packages have been delighting gamers for 20 years. Each book is signed by me and available staff and freelancers if you want autographs. I do not believe I have sent out a Surprise Package with less than $95 worth of product – most have been closer to $100 or more! Our holiday season gift to you. And if you are lucky, you may be able to turn items from ONE Surprise Package into gifts for 2-3 gamers in your life. With only four weeks till Christmas, time is starting to run out, so please tell everyone you know! Offer ends December 24, 2018. 

4. Plus a sale at Kevin’s Ebay store – http://stores.ebay.com/kevinstoys-artandcollectibles – though technically not a “Palladium sale,” you can find original art by Charles Walton II, Kevin Long, and other artists, as well as Palladium collectibles from my (Kevin Siembieda’s) personal archives, signed books, one-of-a-kind book negatives, action figures and toys, all on sale now through Tuesday. 

DriveThruRPG / RPGNow

You can save 33% on over 47K PDF titles at DriveThruRPG / RPGNow, including our very own Swords & Wizardry Continual Light. I'll try to get some Tavern Picks posted tomorrow (Friday)

There are some affiliate links above. Keep The Tavern in fresh beer by using our affiliate links.

Tonight is a Wednesday Night, and that means its time for our weekly Tavern Chat. If you've been following events in gaming for the past week or so, you can be assured there will be no lack of topics to talk about.

Oh, and Black Friday sales have started. Maybe we'll even have some geek picks :)

Tavern Chat is held every Wednesday Night on the Tenkar's Tavern Discord Server from 9PM Eastern until... While mostly a voice chat, there is an associated text channel and participation in the chat is certainly optional - many just listen and offer feedback via text.

See Y'all tonight:  https://discord.gg/uUggWP

I found this waiting in my email this morning.

Dear publisher,

Starting in February 2019, all elements of the RPGNow tool pages and storefront will redirect to similar pages on DriveThruRPG.

You most likely know this, but since RPGNow and DriveThruRPG first merged as businesses back in 2006, they have shared all the same tools and digital inventory. On the front end, they looked and behaved like two separate sites, but essentially they have just been two faces of the same site for many years. The only real differences were the color schemes and logos.

You might have some questions about the coming change, so we’ve done our best to anticipate and answer them below.

How will this affect me?

In most ways, you’ll be unaffected. Your entire catalog of titles from RPGNow is already listed on DriveThruRPG (as it always has been), and you can log in to DriveThruRPG using the same account(s) you’ve always used on RPGNow, just as you could before.

Even your old bookmarks to pages on RPGNow.com will still work: They’ll automatically be redirected to the same page on DriveThruRPG.

What about sales reporting? Will my past sales be combined?

Yes, as far as sales records and your titles’ metal rankings, we will be merging those together.

Starting in February, your sales records will show combined sales of each title across both the deprecated RPGNow site and DriveThruRPG, together. The number of unit sales will also be combined, so if you had metal rankings for titles on one or both sites, there’s a good chance you’ll find that your rankings on some titles will have increased on DriveThruRPG.

What about my Publisher Promotion Points and marketing impressions?

No worries. Your Publisher Promotion Points (PPP) are already shared across sister sites. They are compiled by publisher, not by site.

If you have used your PPP to purchase site impressions for banners or featured product messages on RPGNow, you will also be reimbursed, commensurately, for those expenditures on DriveThruRPG.

Why is this happening?

Here’s the big picture: In the 12 years since RPGNow and DriveThruRPG merged, the growth of RPGNow has tapered off constantly, while DriveThruRPG has continued to grow strongly, year over year, since it launched in 2004. We’ve reached the point where RPGNow rarely draws new customers or publishers and sells less than one-tenth the volume of titles purchased on DriveThruRPG.

To be honest, we have known this moment would come for years now. We’ve just finally decided it’s time to put the RPGNow brand out to pasture.

If you look at the two storefronts, RPGNow has always had a stronger OSR and smaller publisher presence. This does not bode well...

Remember how I was musing about mundane spells last week? Well, I've been putting some together. This is the first installment. If you want to add your own, add them to the comments below and I'll share them on a later post. Note, your comment must include the following statement if you want it to be shared "I agree that the attached text may be released under the OGL" followed by the name you want credit under. If we get enough entries I'll have them put together as a PWYW release on RPGNow.

Consider the following to be written with the template you should use if you choose to share.

Venerated Wine
Spell Level: Cleric, 1st Level
Range: N/A
Duration: 24 hours or until consumed

This spell will fill a wine flask, decanter, jug or other vessel with up to a quart of weak, watered down wine. Usually used in religious services, some clerics keep this spell memorized out of personal necessity.

Magic Wisk
Spell Level: Magic User, 1st Level
Range: 10’
Duration: 20 minutes per caster level

This spell summons a wisk that is used to whip eggs, milk, cream and other dairy products. It will follow the caster’s directions until given newer ones.

Mullon’s Restorative 
Spell Level: Magic User, 1st Level
Range: Self
Duration: Special

This spell will remove the symptoms of a hangover (but not any lingering intoxication). It also provides a +1saving throw vs poison for 4 hours after casting. The reverse of this spell imbues the recipient with the effects of a proper hangover (-1 to all rolls for 4 hours). A successful save will negate.

Kelvan’s Comfortable Repose
Spell Level: Magic User, 1st Level
Range: 5’
Duration: 8 Hours

This spell summons a water-resistant sleeping bag. If used outdoors in temperatures between 45 and 95 degrees Fahrenheit, with light rain or less, the user will receive the benefits as if he or she had slept in a bed in town.

The above is released under the OGL

"This work features art by Daniel F. Walthall, found at: drivethrurpg.com/product/181517, available under a CC BY 4.0 license: creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"

Here's the elevator pitch:

This is an old-school sandbox adventure for the basic version of the world's most popular fantasy RPG. Explore the wilderness and the three detailed dungeons around the human outpost of Fort Perilous. 

On the border between wilderness and civilization, Fort Perilous stands, keeping watch and holding the forces of Chaos at bay. Your heroes find themselves in the fort, drawn into the battles between civilization and monsters, between Law and Chaos.

This module is primarily a sandbox setting – that is players and GMs are not required to stick to any particular storyline. It is loosely along the same lines as the classic B2: The Keep on the Borderlands where there is a base where adventurers can rest, heal and sell loot. 

Beyond the fort there is an area of borderlands that contains a number of locations of interest to adventurers (see chapter 2). Four of these are detailed in subsequent chapters though others are only briefly mentioned and can be fleshed out by GMs if they so wish.  

So, what do you get for the price of a slice of pizza?  Sandbox, a couple of dungeons, a safe (relatively) starting location for the PCs and some new cleric spells.

Do you have the quality of a Frog God module? No, but you don't have that price tag either. If you simply want bang for your adventuring buck, I don't think you can do much better than Arrival at Fort Perilous at $2.20 in PDF.

Affiliate links keep the lights on here at The Tavern. Above is an affiliate link. Let's keep the lights on ;)

Art by www.critical-hit.biz

Johan Sprecht, Minion of Chaos

Once upon a time, as stories often begin, Johan Sprecht was a pious cleric of law. His downfall was quick though because after finding his first sample of Vis, a magical substance that can be expended in place of a memorized spell, he felt the compulsion to find more and more. Johan could never find enough to satisfy his urge and found himself sacrificing other party members in his quest for Vis.

One night, as he thrashed around in restless sleep, a voice asked him "what would you give to be free of the curse of Vis?" He answered "Anything!" Thus it was that his soul was sold to a Lord of Chaos. He mutated quickly into the creature displayed above and is even more driven in his quest to find more Vis, as it is no longer a curse but a quest for his Lord.

Johan wanders the Blackmarsh in search of Viz. Sometimes he will pay to acquire more. Sometimes he will kill to acquire it. All that matters is that he finds it.

Johan Sprecht is a 5th level Cleric of Chaos. He is +1 hit and damage due to his high strength. In addition to a weapon attack, Johan can bite for 1d6 damage each round. His mutations allow him to regenerate 1 point of damage each round so long as his HP total is a positive number.

He has spells appropriate to that of a 5th level cleric. Armor Class is 2[17] and his Hit Points when fully healed are 29.

OGL

BlackMarsh

I've been toying with the idea of a series of posts offering up NPCs and creatures ever since rewatching The Good, The Bad and The Ugly earlier last week. I enjoy writing such, and I really do need to use my large library of stock art ;)

The kick in the ass was Rob Conley updating the licensing of Blackmarsh earlier today (probably the best, streamlined OSR setting available, and Blackmarsh is free in PDF, 5 Bucks in Print). I've decided to set the series of The Bad, The Ugly & The Good posts in Blackmarsh, or at least, The Tavern's version of Blackmarsh.

I'll be using the Swords & Wizardry rules, but I may experiment with also using descriptors for those that want to use then with non-clone / classic D&D rulesets.

Alright, back to work. I've also been tasked with a write up of Tenkar's Tavern by the end of the year. I'm heavily leaning towards a transdimensional tavern.

Oh, there's an affiliate link above. If you buy Rob's work in print, I get a quarter. Hey, it adds up!