Savage Worlds Deluxe - Available Saturday, June 25th!

[ note: this is taken directly from Pinnacle's main page. Due to the large announcement about Pinnacles participation in Origins and Shane Hensley being the guest of honor, it's easy to miss... so we've re-broadcast it here!]

This Saturday is all about the new Savage Worlds Deluxe, the new edition of the core rulebook. This 160-page, full-color, full-size hardback provides the complete Savage Worlds rules, updates and new material, new art, more examples, an expanded Setting Rules section, and Designer Notes to give you an insight into the development. Making its world debut this Saturday, you can get your hands on it in a number of different ways:

• Buy Savage Worlds Deluxe PDF on CD Saturday at Origins:
  You can grab the PDF of Savage Worlds Deluxe on special limited-edition CD at the Studio 2 Publishing booth at Origins. Be the envy of your gaming neighborhood and lord it over your friends.
  
• Preorder Savage Worlds Deluxe Saturday:
  Starting Saturday, you'll be able to preorder a physical copy of the book on our web store for delivery as soon as full stocks are available (currently expected by September, with possible prerelease copies at GenCon). You can also preorder the print book at the Studio 2 Publishing booth—preorders at the booth include free domestic shipping, as well!
  
• Get the Savage Worlds Deluxe Preorder Bundle Saturday on the Web:
  If you can't be at Origins and just can't wait for the books to arrive, this bundle is for you. You'll get the physical book shipped directly to you as soon as stocks are in and—more importantly—you'll receive the PDF immediately! Oh, and you'll get a discount, too! How can you beat a deal like that?
  
• Get the Savage Worlds Deluxe Mega Bundle Saturday on the Web:
  You want more? You got it. The Savage Worlds Deluxe Mega Bundle includes everything in the Preorder Bundle, plus the Savage Worlds Action & Adventure Decks, including all the promotional cards! Like all our preorder bundles, these special deals are only available until the books are in, so act fast!
  
• Download the Savage Worlds Deluxe PDF Saturday on the Web:
  If you can't get your limited edition CD at Origins, the Savage Worlds Deluxe PDF will be available on our web store starting this Saturday with all the other web store options. ["Saturday" for the web store will look an awful lot like approximately Friday at midnight Eastern US Time, by the way.]

Don't let time pass you by—get your copies as soon as you can. If nothing else, you can cut down on how long your gaming buddies can be all smug about their copies, and isn't that what really matters?

We at the Savage Troll can't wait!

Review - The Savage Worlds Horror Companion

Savage Worlds Horror Companion
by Pinnacle Entertainment Group
Publisher:  Studio 2 Publishing, Inc.
Price: $19.99 (Print), $14.99 (.pdf DriveThruRPG)
Pages: 144

Pinnacle Entertainment Group released a new member of their Companion series for the Horror genre. This work joins the Super Powers and Fantasy Companions as suplements to the Savage Worlds rules set. Like the others in the series, the Horror Companion is in the smaller Explorer’s Edition format.

One important note: this rule book does not stand on its own. It is a supplement. You must have either the Savage Worlds Deluxe Edition or Savage Worlds Explorer’s Edition in order to fully utilize this product.

The Horror Companion contains generous amounts of artwork, reference tables, encounters, character additions, and equipment for all your Horror genre needs. It’s information-packed pages contain rules and setting advice to recreate Horror/Super Natural adventures in the Victorian worlds of Bram Stoker and Mary Shelly, the modern slap-stick humor of Ghostbusters, the serial action/horror adventures of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the star-spanning terror of H. P. Lovecraft's creations, or the futuristic nightmare creatures of the Alien franchise all packed in 144 pages.

Character Creation

In the Savage Worlds tradition of Fast, Furious, and Fun; the Horror Companion jumps right into character creation. Savage Worlds is one of the best game systems for replicating the theatrical adventure one finds in movies and novels. To that end, the work includes a number of customized Edges and Hindrances to allow for characters pulled straight from the movie house.

The new Edges and Hindrances for your players and NPCs include:

Hindrances

• Angst
• Bleeder
• Bullet Magnet 
• Cursed
• Combat Shock
• Doubting Thomas
• Jumpy
• Screamer
• Slow
• Touched
• Victim

Edges

• Relentless
• Fanaticism
• Exorcist
• Necromancer
• Master Necromancer
• Talisman Craftsman
• Monster Hunter
• Sound Mind
• Tower of Will
• Hardened
• Occultist
• One of the Chosen
• Visions

If your campaign is a little more powerful, you can also have non-human characters and NPCs. Be warned, they will be distinctly more power than the humans. If you plan on running a mixed character group, you might want to consider starting humans as Seasoned while starting other races out at the Novice rank.

Character Races

• Angel 
• Demon  
• Dhampyr - half vampire
• Patchwork Man - like the Frankenstein Monster
• Phantom - ethereal 
• Vampire
• Werewolf
• Zombie - has a thing for fresh meat.

The Tools of the Trade

The Horror Companion equipment section was truly a joy to read. I was pleased to see Ghostbuster-style equipment present. Other equipment mimicked that found in movies series like Blade or Underworld. Below is a partial list of equipment found in this section.

• Atomic Ghost Hunting Pack
• Ultraviolet Grenade
• Garlic Bullets
• Silver Nitrate Bullets
• Ultraviolet Bullets
• Ghost Trap

Fear and Loathing in Gaming - Setting Rules

The Setting section adds horror tinted ideas to create custom styles of play. Your game setting might have a horrible price for magic, people splatter when killed, heightened magical effects based on the calendar day,  or the fact that immoral behavior is a serial killer magnet.

For the Lovecraft fans, the Horror Companion includes a Sanity attribute which measures the character’s Spiritual toughness. It starts at half the character’s Spirit+2. Carnage, super natural terror, and forbidden knowledge lower Sanity while triumphing over evil, rest and relaxation, and psychotherapy heal it.

If a character’s Sanity drops too low, they are odd in some way and pick up a negative to their Charisma. If it drops to zero, they get the joy of rolling on the Psychosis Table. Luckily, the rules allow for Sanity healing, so your characters might be brought back from the brink.

Other setting rules include

• Forbidden Lore - containing information “Man Was Not Meant to Know”
• Rituals and the Price of Failure - magic in horror settings isn’t often as easy or available as fantasy settings. The Ritual rules contain some variations to simulate this in game terms. Rituals that fail carry special consequences. Depending on the setting, Villians may use Sacrifices to power their evil Rituals and spells.
• Signs & Portents - Horror often includes foreshadowing from a fortune teller or dreams. The Horror Companion includes a Portents Table to help the GM determine the value of the visions or advice. Unlucky characters receiving a fortune of Doom may have their Bennies removed for the rest of the game.
• Wards & Binds -  an important aspect of Horror is the ability to ward against evil or bind an unstoppable being, so the Horror Companion has rules governing these aspects including how such a creature breaks free.

Magick

Much like the equipment section, the Horror Companion contains new powers to simulate popular Horror fiction. In addition, powers derived from Dark sources may drain sanity if the caster rolls a critical failure. Even if your character does not have an Arcane Background, they may still be able to cast spells via Rituals (see setting rules, above).

Some of the new powers include:

• Banish Entity
• Bind Entity
• Consecrate Ground
• Corpse Senses
• Drain Years
• Enhance Undead
• Grave Shroud
• Grave Speak
• Nightmares
• Spirit Shield
• Strength of the Dead
• Summon Demon
• Summon Spirit
• Suppress Lycanthropy

The Horror Companion also contains a list of Arcane Items for inclusion in your game. Some of these items are cursed, others are ancient and unique, while still others can be made with the proper ingredients. The items include:

• Bandages of Anubis
• Frankenstein’s Laboratory
• Hockey Mask of Terror
• Sacrificial Knife 
• Voodoo Dolls

http://frankensteinia.blogspot.com/2008/09/frankensteins-laboratory.html

What’s a Horror adventure without terrifying creatures to fight, overcome, or evade? The Horror Companion doesn’t disappoint with a list of mundane and super natural beings for encounters. They aren’t all monsters. Some are people like Vampire Slayers or Occultic Investigators that might help your characters when things go bump in the night.

• Dark Man
• Collector Demon
• Pazuzu
• Dreamreaver
• Evil Clown
• Haunted Car
• Haunted Portrait
• Mad Scientist
• Serial Killers
• Stuffed Animal Fiend
• Chinese Hopping Vampire
• Were-Creatures

The last section on Game Mastering guides the GM through a setting creation by describing the various genres of Horror. Before starting, the GM needs to decide the Horror style to use including: Action, Greater Evil, and Dark.

• Action settings involve lots of combat where the characters wade through monsters, kicking super natural butt and taking names. The heroes are more akin to fantasy settings than helpless teenagers running way from a serial killer. Fear rules are rarely used in this style of play.
• Greater Evil settings feature super natural creatures as far above us as we are above ants. The human race is an insignificant speck in the universe and all their technology is useless against being of cosmic power. Heroes are normal men and women who are drawn into the dark to keep mankind safe from the greater cosmic horror. Fear and Sanity rules dominate this style of play with the characters struggling to stay sane.
• Dark settings are somewhere between Action and Greater Evil settings. In this case, there may be monsters that are easily killed but others, like vampires, are difficult and take planning. Fear rules are used often but the Sanity rules are de-emphasised. Things are scary but not mind bending.

After the GM picks the style, they must decide on an era of play. Will the campaign be in a Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Modern, or Historical era.

• Fantasy is a well worn path with which most gamers are familiar. It’s also likely the hardest to separate from a classic fantasy campaign. The Ravensloft modules can be easily transformed into Savage Worlds using a combination of the Fantasy and Horror Companions.
• Sci-Fi campaigns are another setting players should be familiar with. Aliens or Warhammer 40K would both do well Savaged using these rules. Likewise I could see moving the Horror Companion rules into the existing Savage Worlds Necropolis setting.
• Modern is another era setting that would be easy to implement. Thanks to the Internet, maps and locals are easily found and used for game purposes.
• History era settings are probably the hardest to create. The GM will need to spend a good bit of time on research to get the story-telling touches down to make the players feel like they’re in the time period. That said, the Victorian time period has many game supplements available including Space 1889, Rippers, and Deadlands. Other historical settings include Weird War II, Pirates of the Spanish Main, and Solomon Kane.

Conclusion

I enjoyed reading this supplement cover to cover. It’s packed with ideas, statistics, and other content to help GMs and Players create a fun (or scary) Horror campaign. While the content isn’t as extensive as other Savage Worlds horror supplements like Realms of C’thulhu or Rippers, it contains more than enough to get you started on a lenghthy campaign.

As a side note, the fact that the Creature list includes Pazuzu and Dark Man entries made me wonder if Wiggy’s been in my computer since those are the creatures I used the Thomas Gunn Detective Stories of The New Moon Murders and Prescription for Revenge.

On the up side, the Horror Companion gave me lots of idea’s for my third novel. After all, isn’t the reason we game to tell good stories and have fun? That’s what the Savage Worlds Companion series is all about.


Related Products
Savage Worlds Deluxe Edition
Savage Worlds Fantasy Companion
Savage Worlds Super Powers Companion

Sweet Spots for the Time-Crunched Gamer: Savage Worlds

In this week's Sweet Spot's article, we take a look at Savage Worlds and how this "Fast, Furious, and Fun!" game system can be a Sweet Spot for the Time-Crunched Gamer.

This article originally appeared in The Dice of Life

Pimping Savage Worlds

This month's RPG Blog Carnival theme is 'Pimp a Game' and there seems little doubt as to the subject of our entry. Savage Worlds remains our go-to system of choice for its flexibility and playability across every genre we've tried. Its combination of fast combat resolution, flexible powers system, and easy character management make it perfect for the time-crunched gamer.

When I was young and single I had time to dive into endless tomes and supplements finding that just right combination of abilities and skills for my character concept. Too often, however, I was playing someone else's character concept that I had to shoe-horn an idea into. Still, that was fine. I had time and friends.

Interview with Arc Dream Publishing's Shane Ivey

When I review of a product, especially one as interesting as The Keberos Club, I want to know more of the people behind it. Most game makers wear many hats and have family lives to balance with their RPG endeavors. So why do they do it? In Shane Ivey's case the answer is simple: for love of the game.

Beside adoring all things Cthulhu, Shane Ivey is a writer, editor, and webmaster. He is responsible for the official Web site of Delta Green, and helps out with The Black Seal. He spent years as a play tester and occasional writer for Pagan Publishing before launching Arc Dream Publishing with Dennis Detwiller. He founded the popular science fiction Web zine RevolutionSF, with contributors including Joe R. Lansdale, Michael Moorcock, Jhonen Vasquez, Caitlin R. Kiernan and many others. He also works as webmaster for boardgame publisher Avalanche Press.

Recently he and Dave Blewer converted ENnie nominated The Kerberos Club into the Savage Worlds system. Tales from The Savage Troll caught up with Shane shortly after Gen Con.

Five Savage Worlds Titles for $5

DriveThruRPG.com announced a sale on five Savage Worlds titles for $5 in the Savage in September Sale. There's something here for everyone.

Weird Wars II

"In the horror of war, dark things rise, and World War II is history's greatest conflict. The Japanese stalk the jungles of Southeast Asia. Carriers battle in the South Pacific. Tanks trundle across North Africa. Planes duel over England. The Nazi blitzkrieg conquers most of Europe with a genocidal madman at the controls. Prepare to battle the evil of the Axis powers and the hideous things that rise in their wake. This isn't just war-this is Weird War!

Weird War II contains everything you need to run horrific World War II adventures with the Savage Worlds game system: new powers, Edges, Hindrances, weapons, vehicles for all the major powers, an Adventure Generator, dozens of Savage Tales, new monsters, and an operational-scale Plot Point Campaign that ties it all together."

Shaintar

"Sean Patrick Fannon’s vision of Epic High Fantasy comes to life for Savage Worlds in this all new iteration brought to you by Evil Beagle Games.

"The heart of any lasting and memorable roleplaying campaign is the setting. Is it vivid? Alluring? Full of mysteries, as well as straight-ahead challenges?

If the answer is “Yes” to all of these, you are in good hands.

SHAINTAR is deep in “good hands” territory.

Just paging through the Players Guide makes you want to play, and it’s genuinely hard to create a boring character using this book; everything works together to make your Hero interesting. And that’s even before you get to the four detailed Major Enemies lurking in Shaintar. Or the rules for alchemy, or the tantalizing glimpses we get of the Black Lantern and Grayson’s Grey Rangers . . .

A winner. Get this book." -- Ed Greenwood, creator of The Forgotten Realms®

Savage Worlds fans will find a lot to love about Shaintar: Legends Arise:

• Eleven distinctive Races with many specialized Racial Edges for each.

• Over 60 new Edges, including Professional, Combat, and Power Edges.

• Expanded options for magic, including Applications for Sorcery, Extended Casting, and more.

• New and expanded rules for Alchemists and Artificers, as well as personalized magic items.

• Setting rules like All Out Move, the Deep Magic, and Lead from the Front.

• Information about the many nations and factions that drive the stories of Shaintar.

• A complete Timeline featuring thousands of years of Shaintar's history.

• A Denizens section with many dozens of characters and monsters, as well as five new Monstrous Templatesand templates for changing almost any Denizen to any of the eleven Races.

• An expanded Weapons, Armor, and Gear list for epic fantasy gaming, as well as a Resource system to replace "counting coins" for wealth management.

• Extensive advice about Game Mastering an Epic High Fantasy setting.

• Three Legendary Tales, "Countering the Terror," "Red Store Rising," and "Return to Honor, Return to Glory."

Anyone seeking Epic High Fantasy adventure will enjoy this book, as will anyone wishing to add lots of great new material to their Savage games!

This book covers Novice through Veteran Rank gaming. The upcoming Shaintar: Legends Unleashed will cover Heroic and Legendary play."

Interface Zero

"Welcome to the Future!
Didja Bring Your Gun?

Are ya Wired?

Wanna crash a corp Domain?

Interface-Zero, is the first book in the Interface-Zero Cyberpunk Setting by Gun Metal games. IZ brings your Savage Worlds game up to speed with the dark, frenetic world of 2088.

Within the pages of Interface-Zero, you can match wits with ancient triad lodge masters, anarchist hackers and digitalized corporate moguls. Thwart the machinations of the New Chinese Mandarinate, or the Theocratic North American Coalition. Stare down the end of your gauss rifle at or match nano-woven steel with ganglanders, gene-spliced hybrids and borg shock troopers.

Life is fast in 2088. If ya wanna survive, you need to be faster. Don't worry Ami, we got ya covered. Fast Furious and Fun cybernetic rules enable you to create any type of cybernetic implant or bioware modification you can imagine!

Interface Zero hooks you up with everything you need to hack a computer network or derezz an enemy hacker in 2088. But watch out, omae; ghost into the wrong system and you'll get fried faster than your food vat can spit out NUTRIpaste!

Interface Zero is a game without barriers; a setting where you can be artificially intelligent robots, vat-grown simulacrum, transgenic hybrids or just plain old flesh and blood humans. You can jack into the world around you and program it to suit your needs. You can implant cyberware in your body, interface with machines, fly hover craft, golemmechs, jump bikes and even hover tanks and Low Altitude Vehicles complete with the latest weapons and cutting edge VTOL or anti-gravity propulsion systems.

You can assume the roles of shadow operatives who rage against the corporate machine, private detectives cut from a noir-inspired cloth, fearless, larger than life heroes piloting mecha in a futuristic, transhumanist Japan- even survivors gutting it out in a post-apocalyptic wasteland filled with mutant horrors or AI-spawned mechanical nightmares are viable concepts in Interface Zero. Interface Zero is more than just a game setting, it is a toolbox you can use, adding or dropping whichever elements you wish to create the sci-fi game world that you and your friends want to play in."

Suzerain

"Suzerain is an Origins Award Nominee from the Savage Mojo design house (who brought you Shaintar and Gamescapes, and are Origins Award winners for Deadlands Reloaded). This edition of Suzerain is written for the Savage Worlds rule system (SW:EX rulebook required), expanding the core rules in a number of key ways - a new approach to races is just the beginning.

Suzerain takes characters from one world to another or even to another time. History and fantasy, past present and future - they are all your playground now. Gaming groups just became...

...a pantheon in the making.

Inside the covers you'll find:

• All the universe background you'll need to run games in any time, any place.
• Over 50 new edges, hindrances and powers.
• Stats for over 100 new NPCs and monsters to use as allies and adversaries.
• A vastly expanded system for characters once they hit Heroic rank, with plenty of emphasis on the Legendary experience, and introducing a whole new rank - Demigod.
• 30 scenarios including a campaign spanning the three main eras of a character's development - Novice, Heroic and Demigod.

Where most Savage Worlds settings finish their campaigns, Suzerain is just getting started. With Suzerain a Novice character can expect to battle his way up to being a true Hero of the universe, to meet deities, and finally to become a god himself!

Product Contains: A 196 page full color, hi-resolution PDF. It is a large download file and art intensive. Also included for the same price is a print friendly version."

Thrilling Tales

(our review)

"Grab your fedora and your ivory-handled .45s and get ready for the adventure of a lifetime as Thrilling Tales unleashes the pulse-pounding excitement of the pulp magazines and cliffhanger serials of the 1930s and 40s into the Savage Worlds rules system!

This exhaustive guide to the genre features a timeline of the 1930s, information on pulp-era weapons & vehicles, a guide to pulp villains including Nazis, the Thugee and Perils of the Orient, a Random Adventure Generator, and a complete fifteen-chapter Plot Point serial campaign, The Crimson Emperor!

Be sure to also check out The Thrilling Tales Adventure Bundle -- six pulp adventures for Savage Worlds, at 50% OFF the regular price!"

Savage Worlds/Maptool Oneshot Game 4/19

Occasionally I run Savage Worlds/Maptools Games to show off both products.  You can read my gaming history, how I found Savage Worlds, and why I use Maptool in other posts on my blog. In a nutshell, my discovery of Savage Worlds and Maptool allowed me to game again. To repay that debt, I run One Shots for other folks who, like myself, have limited time but a great desire to maintain the hobby of their youth.

Interview with Paul 'Wiggy' Wade-Williams of Triple Ace Games

Paul "Wiggy" Wade-Williams is one of the most prolific writers in the gaming industry. If you don't believe it, just Google his name and count the products he's authored. Wiggy has played RPGs for over twenty-five years and has been a published author since 1998, having written for Atlas Games, Eden Studios, Britannia Games Design, Kenzer & Co., Pinnacle Entertainment Group, and Green Ronin.

He and his wife of seven years, Maggie, live on the Shetland Islands where life is slow, the community spirit is strong, the folk are friendly, and the scenery is beautiful. While not participating in the annual tradition of burning a Viking Longship, Wiggy serves as the creative director for Triple Ace Games, producing such titles as Hellfrost, Daring Tales, Necropolis, Sundered Skies, and Wonderland No More.

Recently, Wiggy took time out of his busy production schedule to answer a few questions for The Dice of Life.

Announcement: Savage Worlds Deluxe Edition

Pinnacle Entertainment Group recently announced the printing of Savage Worlds Deluxe, a full-size, hard-bound edition of its award winning rule set. Available this August, the 160 page book expands, clarifies, and corrects the original Savage Worlds: Explorers Edition.

Priced at $29.99, the Deluxe Edition includes:

• Design notes from the creators
• All new One Sheet adventures
• Expanded Setting Rules and designer notes on how to apply them in your game
• New Situation Rules such as Interludes and Dramatic Tasks ( i.e. bomb defusing )
• A complete rework of the Chase Rules
• New Spells and changes to existing Spells
• New Social 'combat' rules for things like debates and trials
• Errata and rule updates

The Savage Worlds Deluxe edition is completely compatible with SW:EX (see note from Shane for details). All new rules will be made available free on the Pinnacle web site within a few weeks.

Pinnacle Entertainment Group could have come out with a new edition, changed more for the rules, and slapped a 2e on the cover forcing everyone to either continue playing SW:EX or switch over to the new edition. Instead, (and this one of the reasons I love Savage Worlds and the Pinnacle Entertainment Group) they produced the hard-cover rule book many of their fans requested AND released the new rules to the web free of charge. That's one of the many reasons its our go-to system for time-crunched gaming here at The Savage Troll.

Related Links

SWD Announcement Thread on peginc.com

SWD Unofficial FAQ

Savage Worlds on The Savage Troll

Current Interlude Rules

SW:EX on DriveThruRPG

Kickstarter is new for Pinnacle, but not Savage Worlds

Pinnacle Entertainment Group used Kickstarter for its latest project: Deadlands: Noir.  A very active support base pushed the project well past it's $8,000 goal in a matter of hours.  Kickstarter fits well in with the close community feeling of Savage Worlds.  While this is a new direction for Pinnacle, it's certainly not new for others in the Savage Worlds family.

I am no longer a Kickstarter newbie.  I've supported 6 projects and enjoyed them all. I have, however, started to see some interesting differences in the various approaches. With Pinnacle entering the fray, I'm both excited and a bit quizical.

Note: This blog is only concerned with the gaming projects on Kickstarter with a special focus on Savage Worlds projects.

Savage Worlds Lite for Kids

seemslegit.com

Recently I began searching for a RPG for my seven year old. He's a highly imaginative young man and I hope I to turn my love of RPGs into something enjoyed by the entire family. Wiggy, from Triple Ace Games, recently posted he ran a cut down version of Tales of the Fabulous Four at a local school that went well.

He used a simplified version of Savage Worlds. After some thought I realized Savage Worlds is the perfect candidate for a Kids RPG. It's already Fast, Furious, and Fun so, with a little modification, it should fill the bill nicely.

Interview with Shane Hensley, Creator of Savage Worlds

When I began writing for The Dice of Life, I wanted to make the blog a source of ideas and inspiration for the time-crunched gamer.  The idea struck me that interviews with some of my gaming heroes would fill this requirement nicely.

I have to admit I was nervous reaching out to Shane.  You just never know who's on the other end of the email.  As it turns out, Shane is one of the nicest and most helpful guys in the gaming industry.  He's also an undead, giant fish. (well, he can dream, can't he?)

Dungeonlands: Tomb of the Lich Queen for Savage Worlds. Freebie's and more!

Dungeonlands: Tomb of the Lich Queen for Savage Worlds by Savage Mojo - freebies and more!

I missed Dungeonlands: Tomb of the Lich Queen when it began as a kickstarter for Pathfinder and Savage Worlds.  I'm sure I saw Pathfinder and left it alone since I don't play that system.  When it hit DriveThruRPG I noticed it was also for Savage Worlds. Taking a second look I saw that also included a few freebies one of which was a free module Dungeonlands: Into The Black bonus encounter for Savage Worlds by Shane Hensley. Anything with Shane's name on it gets my attention.

The work is essentially a 7 page full color teaser: the Cover, 2 pages of the encounter, and 4 pages of Suzerain adverts. Fair enough! The encounter is a great nasty Toparkil; a darkly enchanted undeadish aquatic lurker.  It reminds me of the Watcher in the Water by the magic back door to Moria in Lord of the Rings with some very nasty differences.  Put this critter in a deep dark pool in your dungeon and let the fearful fun ensue.  And did I mention, it's free?  Smartly done. I was now curious.

What is Dungeonlands: Tomb of the Lich Queen?

Dungeonlands is a line of old school killer dungeons for the award-winning Pathfinder and Savage Worlds roleplaying games. And if you're not into tabletop RPGs, we've got some cool things for you too.... 

• Pathfinder version starts at level 15.
• Savage Worlds version starts at Heroic rank.
• Over 20 rooms and monsters detailed in each 96 page book with tables and map tiles to randomize the dungeon layout and encounters.

To investigate further, I went to the Kickstarter site and watched the pitch video and listened to the 4 songs on their page. The cinematic score and animated art told the story of the evil Lich Queen, the captive angel Anat, and the death of all who tried to rescue the angel. It seems to be a new and different Tomb of Horrors for a new generation? It even has a Lich!

Dungeonlands: Tomb of the Lich Queen, part 1 of 3

129 pages for $19.99 in pdf.

"Savage Mojo's realm of fantasy maiming, centered n the Lich Queen's abode. This old school killer dungeon is split into three parts, and LQ1 Tomb of the Lich Queen is the first part of that trilogy."

Set within Mojo's Savage Suzerain, it appears to be a setting within a setting and feels like the most dangerous and dark challenges in the old school vein. All the old school feel updated with fantastic art, full set of dungeon tiles, and it's own epic soundtrack.

I love the invitation: "Enter...and die!"

Strangely, there is a full length sample preview in case you have any doubts to what you are getting. Nothing is withheld. Some of the character illustrations looked to have jumped off Pathfinder's own covers, left hand dominant weapons and all! The setting feels very comfortable and tickled my old school memories with plenty of rooms randomly created on the fly. This is helped along by some free sets of bonus encounter tables, encounter cards, and tomb cards (see a few sections below).

Dungeonlands: Dungeon Tiles:  63 pages $14.99
Amazingly, a 63 page full preview of all the dungeon tiles is available to view. At 24 cents per page, it's a remarkable deal.
Cartography: Alida Saxon
Illustrations: James Denton, Jason Engle, Alida Saxon,
Design: Aaron Acevedo,
Layout Aaron Acevedo, Mike Chaney.  $14.99

Using the tiles (from pg 2): Encounter tiles 1-31, Final Encounters A-D, and The Long Stair conincide with the encounters found in Dungeonlands: Tomb of the Lich Queen. Encounter 25 was skipped intentionally, it's not keyed to a specific location.  Classic tiles 1-26 are for creating your own dungeon or any time a random result is desired. A great set of tiles and easily usable for your own set of random dungeon building.

Dungeonlands Original Cinematic Score to set the mood was a nice addition.
40 minutes for $9.99 on DTRPG
Individual tracks in order can be seen here on Alex Cottrell's Bandcamp.com site with short samples. Alex's music reminded me of the best of the soundtracks for many fantasy TV shows and some movies. I much prefer the classic orchestrations with driving drums, horns, strings, and choral elements. For me, music plays an immense role in my enjoyment of the movies I watch.

The blurb from DTRPG:  Channelling old school movie soundtrack like the original Conan the Barbarian, Alex has created a soundscape that's special for roleplay groups in Dungeonlands, but also epic in scope... making it perfect for most roleplay settings, whether high fantasy or otherwise. If you ever wanted to get into the mood for a game session, play the Dungeonlands soundtrack and let Alex dial up your heroism meter to 11!

There are several free modules to help draw you into Dungeonlands.

First up:  Tomb of the Lich Queen bonus Material (Savage Worlds) Free!, 3 pdfs, 48 pgs of goodies. Contains:

• TotLQ: Tables - 11 pages of Monsters (and their stats), Treasure, Traps. Many items are unique to DL so its fun reading.
• TotLQ: Tomb Cards: 23 pages of cards and their covers. 30 encounter cards, 4 final encounter cards (A-D), and 19 generic cards with full color tiles (like geomorphs). 
• TotLQ: Monster Cards - 14 pages: 24 cards of monsters with original art. Several are main encounter characters for TotLQ but I can see using them for generating some random fun. 

These were obviously projects from the Kickstarter but make great give-aways to gain interest. Excellent art and layout.

 

More products to flesh out the Dungeonlands campaign

Dungeonlands: Heroes And Servitors.  58 pages,  $9.99 on DTRPG
This is not your standard book of Pre-gens. It has the pre-gens but also has evil, twisted versions of the characters as well. Interestingly, the characters have been drawn from all over the Suzerain universe. That means their Edges and Hindrances will often be specific from the other realm from whence they came. There is a section in the back that has all the various Edges & Hindrances unique to these characters, often from settings yet to be published.  It also includes a pre-made dungeon encounter for each so quite a bit of content which justifies the $9.99 price.  I could have seen this as a freebie as well but my guess is the page count pushed them to keep this a separate product. This is definitely a good product for the Suzerain line but would take some work to see it make sense in any other use.

Dungeonlands: Isle of Paxectel. 144 pages, $29.99 - companion maps to Tomb of the Lich-Queen.  Blurb from DTRPG: Picture an island in the ocean, with ruins, a mysterious cave, and a portal from…who knows where. Maybe there are harpies on the highlands, bugbears on the beach or arachnids in the ancient temple. What people find is up to you, but we can guarantee you plenty of inspiration where every square inch of the island is beautifully crafted by master cartographer Alida Saxon. And we’re talking about nearly 7,000 square inches of island in nine parts, each the size of most map sets!

Interestingly, the DTRPG title leaves out the "c" in Paxectel but the module is a whopper of a set of maps with a price to match. The "7,000 square inches" of maps means you get all the locations on the island for the Lich-Queen adventure.  This is the 9 volume set of maps condensed into one volume from the Kickstarter.  For those intenting to play thru the campaign, I see these as huge time savers and for visual folks like me, a necessity. The price is high to me. I appreciate all the work that went into it and how clearly it helps give a tangible layout in the adventures, but I'd have said $19.99 at most. Also, the Savage Mojo style of map art is very usable but not high art or detailed in any sense. My assumption is they are digitally made but they appear to have been painted with broad strokes. Stylistically it works, it's just not detailed and it's broad stroke style also move me to say that it shouldn't be
$29.99.  I'm a map person so I see maps as necessary to convey the space as well as aid in any potential combat distances/areas.  For those who don't use maps, this is one to skip.

Dungeonlands: Fear of Life.  17 pages, $1.99 - Illustrated Story by Matt Forbeck
The final product in this review is the illustrated story written by Matt Forbeck who, you may remember from Brave New World and the formation of Pinnacle Entertainment Group with Shane Hensley to publish Deadlands. Yup, that Matt Forbeck.

The story shares how two adventurers, Lexa & Skargar, team up and descend into an ancient tomb... and discover the horror that is the Tomb of the Lich-Queen.  It's a short story and doesn't spill all the beans but gives a nice introduction.  The illustrations are well done. It seems to be quite a bit of art for such a short story. There are other works of fiction in the DL setting mentioned in the Kickstarter. I didn't dig for those and some will come as deliverables in time. I believe these works of fiction help further the life of the setting. They also share one of many visions of how the setting breathes giving inspiration to GMs on how to run their adventures.

Last Words

The Dungeonlands project represents a huge amount of work. The primary work that tells the story and lays the ground work for the "dungeon" is very well done. Excellent art and maps clearly convey the setting Savage Mojo created to extend their Savage Suzerain property.  I had that same "we'll never get out of this" feeling that my very first Tomb of Horrors conveyed all those decades ago. I keep referencing the old Tomb of Horrors but there is no direct connection other than the name "Tomb", a Lich, and a really difficult dungeon to conquer. It successfully captures that same feeling and sense of challenge that indelibly marked itself in my brain.  The additional cards, tables, monsters, treasures, setting material, music, and maps all contribute to a richly designed offering.

REMEMBER, the Dungeonlands: Tomb of the Lich-Queen is only part 1 of 3. Semi-spoiler: The dungeon seems to randomly re-arrange itself. If you take out the Lich-Queen, there's more to do!

If you are a Pathfinder person, not sure how you got here but there are Pathfinder links for all the products as well.

Keep it Savage!

Shane Lacy Hensley visits San Diego, shares stories, ideas, and drops some hints!

Shane Lacy Hensley, creator of Savage Worlds, visited one of San Diego's FLGS: Game Empire on Saturday, May 4th.

At first I tried to think of an event in San Diego that would merit such attention. Was it a Deadlands tournament at Game Empire? No, they had flyers sharing Shane's visit up for the past two weeks but no mention of anything other than the visit.

Was it the Gaslight Gathering, a Steampunk convention with a gaming room open all weekend? No.

So what was it?

Well, at 1pm I discovered Shane was just here to visit his old gaming buddy from College, Richard Speakman. Luckily for us, Richard asked if Shane wanted to visit his favorite gaming store and Shane said yes bringing free Deadlands Comics for Free Comic Book day to boot.  He also wanted to sit and visit with the local Savage Worlds Fans. 

Once we all had our game books signed, Shane sat at the big middle gaming table and answered  questions, listened to our ideas, and shared stories. Before we get to some of the new fast, furious, and fun stuff Shane shared, I had to ask Richard if he had any stories from the old days. 

He offered "How about the first Deadlands session?"

"Excellent", I said. "Tell me!"

Here's the recap:   Back in 1990-91, Shane, Richard, and several others were rpg gamers and college students at Virginia Tech. They liked Westerns but there weren't other wild west games other than Boot Hill . So Shane created his own western adventure for his group but it wasn't like Boot Hill.

The adventure was tough by anyone's standards. One by one each of the characters died. The game ended after the last character took a dirt nap. Shane told them "Don't tear up your characters. Bring them back with you next time."

"It was then we discovered 'the Prospector' and what it means to be Harrowed," Richard explained. And thus began one of the most successful independent gaming lines of our time and the motivator for Shane to create Pinnacle Inc in 1994.

Q&A (a very abbreviated assortment as I could remember)

Question: Are there any types of games you think Savage Worlds doesn't really fit?
Answer: Not really. If you wanted to play a game like GURPS, where there's a rule for everything then SW probably isn't the game for you. Settings give you the freedom to customize so its as flexible as you want.

Question: How do you handle puzzles within a game without bringing the game to a halt when a player just doesn't get it?
Answer: That's not a rules issue but a GM fiat. You'll have to judge how it moves the game along. If it stops it, maybe just a simple roll to see if he figures it out, then move on.

Question: What was going thru a Kickstarter like and would you do it again?

Answer: It was great and unlike many others, we made money on it.  We're looking to do another at the end of the year (see below).

Question: What are some upcoming projects now you're full time again at Pinnacle:

Answer (in no particular order):

• Weird War: Rome
• Weird War I
• Sci-fi Companion
• A NEW Savage Worlds Sci-fi Setting coming to Kickstarter at the end of the year. If you liked Star Frontiers, you'll love this. ( I cannot wait for this. Our old gang loved Star Frontiers)
• A Solo Savage Worlds adventure
• And so much more in Deadlands!

Then Shane asked us questions:

Question: Do you guys like big books or smaller ones?
Answer(s): Me: I like the big books as I like to read thru the wealth of stories. Others(the majority): Prefer smaller books as they're easier to carry around. Simple rules sets allow us to create our own extended parts of the settings.

Question: Do you all want more rules about using downtime to add to character back-stories?
Answer(s): Various yesses and comments on the positives of interludes. More is better.
Shane follow up: Well, good. Because we've got some of that coming.

[My apologies for all the great ideas and conversation I didn't capture. Anyone else that was there, please share!]

Some fun Trivia
I couldn't end without sharing a personal bit of trivia I discovered: Did I mention Shane speaks Russian?  Part of his Master's in Special Operations included Russian. After discovering his MA in Special OPs, I mentioned my degree was a BA in Russian and my grand dreams of working in the State Department. He quickly asked "Vwi govarete pa-rusky?" "Da, plo-ha, govaru pa-rusky!" I responded*. The guy is just plain cool.  [* You speak Russian? Yes, badly I speak Russian!]

Last Thoughts

"What's This?!!? - Our own homebrew setting of course!

Shane shared that the friendships in gaming are what it's all about. Richard and his old gang at Virginia Tech created great memories and were a large part of his future career. One of those friendships was why he made time to come out and visit.

I shared how our old gaming gang began in the late 1970's and we have kept in touch ever since. Although I left gaming in 1989, the friendships endured over time and distance.

In 2007 we discovered Savage Worlds Explorer's Edition and Maptool, We've been gaming ever since. Most of the old gang meets virtually with some new blood added as well.

Our new group has members from New Jersey, 3 parts of Texas, me in So. California, and our GM in Washington State with heavy Canadian overtones, eh.  It was fun to show Shane our home-brew campaign that is now 227 pages of blood, sweat, and tears by our GM, John Riggs. We've had a blast saving the world and kicking Nazi butt.

I can see why so many folks who meet Shane comment on what a great, down to earth guy he is. I can't say enough good things about him. Who takes a couple of hours of personal vacation time to visit the local gamers and just sit and visit? 

Thanks Shane! You rock.