Free RPG Art from Devin Night

Our friend Devin Night recently posted that he's had a busy month. The great thing about Devin being busy is that he shares the spoils of his creativity with samples of his artwork. We encourage you to visit February Work on his blog. It comes with 18 illustrations and 16 new tokens for personal use in your favorite Virtual Table Top (VTT) or other online game.

Also note that Devin will do custom tokens for hire. We've used him several times for our online Savage Worlds games and story illustrations. He's quick, professional, and understands the needs of VTTs and authors. Devin also provides free artwork to open source products like MapTool giving those projects a much needed boost.

So drop by, snag some stuff, and support Devin in his endeavors. He's one of the good guys.

Related Links for Devin Night:
Devin Night Interview
Products on DriveThruRPG
Immortal Nights - Site containing token store, professional illustrations, illustration school, and more.

Win Free Stuff

DriveThruRPG is kindly offering a 20% discount on some products for readers of DriveThru affiliates, such as The Savage Troll. Check out the products below. If you decide to purchase any, use the code DriveThruApril at checkout to receive your 20% discount.

Savage Worlds Fantasy Companion [Pinnacle Entertainment]

Realms of Cthulhu [Reality Blurs]  Review

Karma Roleplaying System Core [Bards and Sages] 

FantasyCraft [Crafty Games]

Fat Dragon's Dragonshire Deluxe [Fat Dragon Games] 

Paths of Power (Pathfinder System) [4 Winds Fantasy]

Spycraft: Real American H.E.R.O.es [Crafty Games]

Fellowship of the White Star Campaign Book [Thenodrin Presents] 

Ninja Burger RPG (2nd Edition) [aetherial FORGE] 

Heavy Gear Blitz! Locked & Loaded [Dream Pod 9]

Hero's Handbook: Dragonborn [Goodman Games]

Splicers RPG [Palladium Books] 

Noir Knights (Savage Worlds) [Savage Mojo]

As a bonus, anyone that comments on a post between now and June first will be eligible to win a $10 gift certificate to DriveThruRPG. The only criteria is that you be a follower of this blog (see friend connect in the side bar) and you have a DriveThruRPG account.

A Savage Thanks,

Keith and Derek

Free RPG Day - June 18, 2011

FREE RPG DAY - June 18, 2011

by Derek Brown

In case you missed it, Saturday, June 18th 2011 was FREE RPG Day. Participating games stores gave away a adventures and quick start rules to promote our favorite hobby. One item in particular caught my eye. I'm a Savage Worlds nut and Pinnacle offered The Wild Hunt as their free RPG. I couldn't stand the thought of something I couldn't buy slipping thru my fingers. It's a great intro for a newbie to Savage Worlds. 

[note: at the last minute, Pinnacle has posted The Wild Hunt online! The link above is to a pdf.]

There were over a dozen publisher participants this year and here was the lineup of freebies:

• Amarillo Design Bureau
  Sample (1 per box), Prime Directive Adventure "Starship Aldo" (both d20 & GURPS)
  
• BlackWyrm Games
  Sample (1 per box), XDM Adventure: "Laser Squid Nemesis"
• Blue Panther
Sample (1 per box), Dice Tower
• Chessex
  Silver (4 per box), Commerative Dice For Store Owner
• Eden Studios
  Silver (5 per box), All Flesh Must Be Eaten Quickstart & Adventure
• Exile Game Studios
  Bronze (3 per box) ,Hollow Earth Expedition Quickstart & Adventure
• Fantasy Flight Games
  Gold (10 per box), Black Crusade Quickstart and Adventure
• Flying Buffalo
  Sample (1 per box), Tunnels & Trolls Solo Adventure, "Rescue Mission"
• Goodman Games
  Silver (5 per box), DCC RPG Quickstart
• Green Ronin
  Gold (10 per box), DragonAge Quickstart
• Paizo
  Platinum (15 per box), "We Be Goblins!" Pathfinder Adventure
• Paradigm Concepts
  Bronze (3 per box), Arcanis RPG Quickstart & Adventure
• Pinnacle
  Bronze (3 per box), Savage Worlds Quickstart & Adventure, titled "The Wild Hunt"
• Q-Workshop
  Silver (5 per box), Unique Elven-themed Dice
• Stone Tablet Games
  Bronze (3 per box), Aspect Quickstart Adventure
• Troll Lord Games
  Sample (1 per box), Castles & Crusades Quickstart and Adventure
• Valkyrie Games
  Sample (1 per box), Stellar Horizons Quickstart
• White Wolf Publishing
  Gold (10 per box), World of Darkness Quickstart
• Wizards of the Coast
  Platinum (15 per box), "Domain of Dread: Histhaven" D&D 4th Edition Supplement to the box set "The Shadowfell: Gloomwrought and Beyond"
• Mayfair
  Free Bonus Item, Settlers of Catan: Catanimal Variant rules (single page paper insert)

I live in Southern California in North County San Diego. It's the most temperate area of the continental United States keeping an average temperature of 70 degrees with beautiful, blue skies. It's paradise! Which is where one of my Favorite Local Game Stores is located. Paradise, or, as their name implies: Pair - A - Dice Games.

I arrived at 9:55am and there was a line of 40-50 already. Rob, the owner of Pair-A-Dice, was out side giving instructions for Free RPG Day:

1. One "freebie" for anyone
2. A second "freebie" for Pair A Dice Games Royalty Rewards members
3. A third "freebie" if you bought $10+ of product in the store. 

I took the opportunity to buy "Daring Tales of the Space Lanes Compendium One" That qualified me for my 3rd freebie.

When I picked up the Daring Tales Compendium, there was a group of kids going thru the Pinnacle section. One was going thru the Savage Foes of Solomon Kane!  Wow, at his age I was playing Monopoly, Sorry, and Clue. I didn't get into DnD until I was 16. So many kids are into the collectible card games that it was a pleasant surprise to see one looking at a real RPG. 

I ended up getting 3 freebies and spent some time with fellow gamers. Some folks had driven

quite a distance as Pair-A-Dice was the only San Diego store participating. One gentleman just moved here from the east coast and was getting back into gaming. He purchases a pile of books so I can see how Free RPG Day was a clever idea.

 A little bit of excitement above and beyond getting freeies occured when a crew from the Pixelated Geek podcast. They interviewed those of us in line, including yours truly, and asked which freebie we wanted and why. I shared that I wanted to make sure I got the Savage Worlds product you couldn't buy! The big guy in the green shirt ran the camera/recorder, another gentleman did the interviews, and a lady ran around taking pictures everywhere. I can't wait to see their show.

Right down the road from Pair-A-Dice games is the 15 screen Krikorian Theatre and Green Lantern has opened. "In brightest day...in darkest night, no evil shall escape my sight. Let those who worship evil's might, beware my power, Green Lanter's light!!" I enjoyed the movie quite a bit.

You couldn't have planned a better Geek Gamer Weekend.

Savage Worlds: The Wild Hunt Mini-Review - Free Adventure for Free RPG Day!

Savage Worlds: The Wild Hunt
by John Goff

Cost: FREE! - and you can't buy it anywhere
Pages: 16
Includes: Adventure, 6 pre-gens, 33 figure flats, and the SW Test Drive rules.

The Wild Hunt (no spoilers here, just hints)

Thanks to Pinnacle listing this on their main page, I was tempted to go to FREE RPG Day again this year. I didn't want to miss getting something you literally can't buy or get any where else.

[note: actually they just posted a link to the pdf. I've linked to it above. dmb]

From the introduction: "The Wild Hunt is a modern-day horror story set in the tradition of a Saturday-night horror movie. In it, the players find themselves unexpectedly stranded in a rural town in the American Midwest and on the wrong end of a curse more than a century old. With their very souls on the line, they must avoid an unholy horde of unrelenting hunters determined to add the heroes to their host." So starts the the adventure....

The bus you're in starts to have electrical issues and stops in the Hamlet of Ebernburg. As fate would have it, a curse that arises every 10 years is about to occur and if you're not careful, you may be a recurring part in future risings. A minor European noble family founded the town in the early 1800s. A surviving son gone mad, love gone wrong, and a curse all make for a fun fright fest for 6. The premise reminds me of a very twisted, modern mid-western take on the 1932 classic "The Most Dangerous Game". However, the twists in this scenario make for a much more dangerous adventure!

The adventure is fully fleshed out with a good list of characters and pre-gen'd Wild Cards. There's a page and a half of Tri-Fold Figure Flats and a custom copy of the Savage Worlds Test Drive Rules.

For horror fanatics, I see this as being the quintessential beginner's guide for Savage Worlds. It was also one of the slickest full color productions and completely met the Free RPG Day suggestions for the free products. Adventure, Test Rules, and even paper figures. Pinnacle should be proud of their offering. They spared no expense and it shows. There were some other free offerings but they were all 12-24 pages in black and white with only the adventure. Pinnacles full color adventure complete with rules blew them all away.

Pinnacle updates their web site on Tuesday. Last Tuesday, the 14th, they put up a perfect set piece for this adventure. They literally provided you the bus you rode in on. Between the figure flats in the book and the bus at Pinnacle, you've got a quick set up for horror that us time crunched gamers love to find.

The Wild Hunts fits well with the horror theme of the Troll's June offerings. We'll have to prep more for next year's "June Gloom" theme (a story for another time).

Until next time, this is the Savage Duck, signing off.

Space 1889 Pregen Character Paper Minis (Free)

Our friend Scarecrow has been at it again. He's created a new set of paper miniatures for use with Pinnacle's Space 1889 pregenerated characters.

You can download the PDF from his Crow Stuff page.

He has other Space:1889 paper minis as well that you can find on the Pinnacle Forums.

The characters above are meant for Space 1889: Red Sands, Their stats are available on the Pinnacle download site for free at 1889 Red Sands PreGens.pdf

Thanks Scarecrow for making this available to the Red Sands players.

Related Links:
Space: 1889 on The Savage Troll
Review of Space: 1889 Red Sands

Review: Anderia Map (Free)

Product: Map of Anderia

Rule System: Generic
From: Britannia Game Design LTD.
Price: Free
Artist: Andrew Cowley

We come across free stuff from time and like to let our readers know about it. The map of Anderia is free from DriveThruRPG.com and should be usable in any of your Virtual Table Tops like MapTool or as a handout for your players. Thanks for Britannia Game Design for making it available.

To extract the Map for a VTT, import it into GIMP, select the the map region, then Image->Crop to Selection. The map has a 100 pixels per inch resolution and is about 15"x15" so you'll need to scale it down if you want to print it for a handout.

Space 1889 Paper Models (Free)

Mayhem in Paper is a web site devoted to 3D, Space 1889 paper models. It has over 30 kits of liftwood ships, iron clads, forts, mesas, and tanks. VTT users could easily GIMP these into Savage Worlds chase tokens.

You can find more of these gems at Squirmydad's Page-o-Creations and Ramblings under the download section.

Related Space 1889 Links:

Space 1889 - Red Sands Review
Space 1889 Links Page
Space 1889 on The Savage Troll
Space 1889 Pregen Characters (The Savage Troll)
Space 1889 Pregen Character (Pinnacle)
The BIG Space 1889 Product Bundle - contains every Space 1889 product from GDW for $50

May Giveaways @ DriveThruRPG.com

Thanks to everyone who visits our little corner of the time-crunched blogosphere. DriveThruRPG was kind enough to give its reviewers discounts to pass along. This month, they offer a 20% off on the following products. Simply use the following coupon code at checkout: MayDaysAtTheDriveThru2011


If you want the complete set of games for free simply be the following three people all at once

1. Have a DriveThruRPG.com account. It's easy and free.
2. Be a follower of this blog using Google Friend Connect and add your picture to the list of beatific blog followers under "BECOME A FOLLOWER. WIN STUFF" section in the side bar to the right.
3. Be one of the people leave a new comment on any post before May 21st, 2011. I'll randomly pick a winner from all the commenters. 

Review: Map of Berem Town (Free)

Product: Map of Berem Town

Rule System: Generic Fantasy
From: 1191 AD Publishing
Price: Free
Author: Domagoj Rapcak
Artist: Domagoj Rapcak

This free, hand-drawn map for a generic medieval fantasy setting has one feature I wish all map makers would learn: PDF layering. In this case the PDF allows the descriptive text to be turned off for printing a player view. I wish the location numbers were on separate layers as well but that is a minor quibble.

The map of Berem includes sixteen points of interest including:

1. Town Entrance
2. Riverside Inn
3. Town Hall
4. Playground
5. Smithy
6. Marketplace
7. Windmill
8. Temple
9. Alchemist
10. Barracks
11. Lord’s Manor
12. Tavern
13. Harbor
14. Lake
15. Monastery
16. Tower

I like this map a great deal. It's pleasing to the eye and lets the GM make the map his own. Kudos to Domagoj Rapcak and 1191 AD Publishing for making it available for free.

This map is free from DriveThurRPG.com.