greenbirdrpgs

[greenbirdrpgs]

Gaming Update No.1

Over the last few months I've been playing more D&D than ever before, even more than in my teen years. We have two campaigns running in slightly different systems: D&D5e and Old School Essentials.

5e players have adjusted well to the Old School Essentials re-writing of B/X and its different play style. So far we have explored The Jeweler's Sanctum, which is an adventure that accompanied last year's Kickstarter.

It took three sessions to play through it (roughly 3-4 hours each session). Within the first session the adventurers met, picked up the job and started to explore the dungeon. After dealing with some traps that are nicely signposted they started to explore the first few rooms. Now, this is a 1st level adventure and the monsters are generally very weak, but there is one beast in here that, if it is handled badly, will almost certainly kill one adventurer. Guess what? It did. The illusionist dragged a cape that was covered in Yellow Ochre Mold off of a chair and was hit by an explosion of spores. Fortunately, pre-game, I suggested that everyone make two characters, just in case this kind of thing occurred.

How to introduce a new character. With a 15 minute aside, a bold dwarf had found the sign asking for adventurers, talked to the gentleman who had the job, and started on their way into the dungeon. What a coincidence that this occurred shortly after the Illusionist choked to death... very handy for all concerned.

However, then they were attacked by centipedes, whose bite renders an adventurer stricken with poison for up to ten days. Utterly brutal. A little DM work around here, a Goblin Shaman in a nearby market was able to provide a cure for this, but at a price. This proved to be an invaluable contact later on, when most of the party were poisoned by randomly encountered centipedes.

The game was a success though. After three sessions they had found most of the loot and explored the entire place, although they didn't manage to figure out the story behind the random noises.

They also developed a healthy respect for giant centipedes. As a reward they were provided with a large tome, which had a treasure map tucked inside. They took the bait and traveled to the place depicted, a sullen forgotten hamlet. Once part of a wealthy estate, now decrepit and bereft of economy. In a field behind the ruins of a manor house, stood a pyramid tomb - the folly of Tun the Younger.

Here treasure lay, somewhere beneath this strange building. They prised open the door and found a large sarcophagus. Lifting the lid revealed a descending staircase.

Now, after their last adventure, they got wise and bought themselves a large variety of adventuring tools, including a 10ft pole. With a new sense of caution, they explored the rooms below, falling foul of both traps and then having a brutal fight with four skeleton guardians. Woe befell them, as the cleric suffered a mortal wound on the first round of combat, just before he was going to use his Turn Undead ability.

The group decided to re-seal the tomb and flee back to town to lick their wounds and find new allies.

[greenbirdrpgs]

This is, frankly, terrifying.

Great Goose – Medium monstrosity, unaligned

Many savage beasts wander the lands the scattered tribes of filiodons and mothbirds call home – primal monstrosities stuck in an everlasting ice age and battling for the scarce resources their freezing world involuntarily provides. Only the most reckless ones succeed; only the sturdiest prevail. Born to hunt and driven by bloodthirst, the great goose combines both of these primeval qualities. While it isn‘t necessarily the largest creature, the feathery apex predator dominates the barren icy plains and snowy forests. Mothbirds worship the great goose as a harsh but just incarnation of ferocity – a living symbol of the cold world they live in.

🔮 If you like my work, kindly consider to support me on Patreon to gain access to monster pages, tokens & artwork of 170+ of quirky creatures, items and potions.

[greenbirdrpgs]

Fighting Fantasy was one of my first experiences of RPGs and an introduction into ergodic literature. Unfortunately, I have never managed to convince a group of players to take up playing an Advanced Fighting Fantasy game. Very intrigued by Warlock! Traitors Edition, which seems to do a similar thing, but has a huge amount of support.

Fighting Fantasy? That’s for babies. This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we look at Advanced Fighting Fantasy, the full-fledged RPG rules derived from the (not really for babies) Fighting Fantasy gamebook series. There are three delightful volumes - Dungeoneer starts things off with dungeons rules, Blacksand! takes players to the city streets and Allansia explores the great outdoors. Lots of fantastic art by John Sibbick and Russ Nicholson, plus a lightweight and versatile system with a surprising modern legacy! 

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Forever DM to Player!

For years I was the 'forever DM', since my mid-teens in fact, which is a long time ago now. We started with Basic, moving to 2nd Edition for a long time, and then onto 3rd. About this time, I got more into music and spent many years touring and releasing records, but come 2013 I moved countries to Latvia.

One of my partner's friends asked me one day whether I'd heard of this game called Dungeons & Dragons. I was kind of surprised, but this kicked off a conversation I'm still having to this day.

I ended up DMing a one-shot in 5e for a few friends, with only one of them having played before. This turned into a campaign that petered out in the way these things do... But converts were made.

The amazing thing was I kept discovering people who had heard of the game, but not played. This was unlike when I was a teenager and no one knew of this game, apart from a tiny handful of individuals who spoke about it in hushed tones.

More campaigns and one-shots followed. Friends were made. A little group of us got together and started publishing homebrew material on the DMsGuild. However, I'd still not actually played as a player in D&D5e, being the one always networking, organizing and DMing. That is until a few weeks ago, when that first friend, who asked if I knew what Dungeons & Dragons was, started to talk about running a game. I jumped at the opportunity to play, and I'm very glad I did because he's running a neat little mystery adventure. I'm hoping that once we finish this adventure, he'll want to do more, so I can take my Kenku Rogue to new places with their new found group of chaotic friends.

In the mean time, I'm waiting for the Necrotic Gnome kickstarter to drop the Old School Essential rules through my letterbox, plus a new OSR adventure from Harry Menear called The Beast of Borgenwold. Exciting stuff!

[greenbirdrpgs]

Who doesn't need this tiny friend in their D&D campaign?

Hug Slug – Tiny fey, unaligned

Like most recently discovered creatures arising from the deeper caverns, the hug slug displays an absorbing array of quirky qualities. This slowly gliding fey proceeds to raise its arms while producing an oddly squeaking symphony once getting close enough to its unsuspecting “prey”. In fact, the hug slug shows absolutely no sign of ill will or aggression – the strange blend of helplessness and harmlessness rather invites to pity the whimpering creature. The actual intend of the hug slug is unknown; according to the rare documented encounters it simply seems to appreciate being carried around. Caution, however, is highly advised – the powerful slime the creeping critter secretes is said to be just as mysterious as itself.

🔮 If you like my work, kindly consider to support me on Patreon to gain access to monster pages, tokens & artwork of dozens of quirky creatures as well as potions and items based on the monsters’ lore.

[greenbirdrpgs]

How To Support Indie TTRPGs

A lot of indie ttrpg people are coming back to, or trying out tumblr for the first time. For better or for worse (I'd argue worst lol), twitter has been the main marketing tool and driver of sales for a lot of indie people. Whether or not twitter is going to completely fade away, who knows! But it's never a bad idea to take some eggs out of that single basket.

So what does that have to do with tumblr? Well, if you see a post about an indie ttrpg (games, art, podcasts, streams, design, whatever!) give it a reblog! Same as you'd do for any cool art, gif, video, or music!

Want to take it a step further? Go check out that person's links (which related, to all the posters out there, make sure your links to your itch pages, drivethru pages, personal sites, etc are handy!) and here's the crucial part, if you think something is cool, buy it! Indie ttrpg stuff is nearly always wildly underpriced (which is a convo for another day), so chances are you can find something that's within your budget.

If you can't buy it, bookmark it for later! Also, it's super common for itch.io creators to have a pool of community copies freely available for their games. Take one! Check out the game! If you like it, buy it later! If you grab a community copy, an extra cool thing you can do is leave a 5-star rating!

I would love to see the indie ttrpg sphere flourish on tumblr, but that can't happen without support! So show your favorite indie ttrpg creator some love, and also go exploring to find some new favorites!

[greenbirdrpgs]

Poor Xorn, it just wanted a tasty snack.

A Xorn snacks on some tasty treasure, despite the pesky dwarves. Spot illustration for Old School Essentials.

[greenbirdrpgs]

Salty encounters on the high waves

Every now and again, we release something on the ol' Dmsguild. Usually, it's a pack of ideas that a DM can weave into their adventures with a small degree of effort. We understand it is tough having to constantly come up with fresh ideas and this is where we step in.

Our latest endeavor is 50 random encounters for sea voyages. Each one a contained encounter that either can be a touch of colour or fleshed into a mini-adventure.

As normal with us, it is PWYW.