A Reporting Correction on Monsters of Myth - Welcome Back Christian - And I got one of my Grails! + other Stuff!

D'oh!

When I posted my Unboxing Ceremony for the New Black Blade/Usherwood OSRIC imprint, I mistakenly said that they had a new imprint of Monsters of Myth as well.

While Black Blade is currently selling Monsters of Myth, these latter are Lulu printings. Thanks Jon for correcting me, here.

Welcome Back Kotter! :)

I mean, Christian.

Been on Something of a Spending Spree

I've picked up more dead tree gaming stuff in the past six weeks than I think I purchased all last year! This month is my birthday and I'm seriously toying with trying to get a White-Box! If I see the right auction on ebay, I'm going for it!

And Speaking of Grails, I Got one of Mine!

A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled across an ebay auction getting ready to end. The high bid was still cheap and I decided it was time! With less than a minute left, I put in my high bid and crossed my fingers. The Gaming Gods smiled upon me and with shipping, I paid just under $30. The Mail Gods soon delivered this 3rd printing of The First Fantasy Campaign!

It's in beautiful condition! Almost perfect!

Which means I'm reticent as hell, to handle it! :)

I can't make out the numbers in the map hexes at all. And it's a "magic eye" trick to make out that cover image! It's a dude that looks like Hermes, surrounded in flames. I've read that it's supposed to be a fire elemental.

As for the material itself, it looks like Bob called Dave and said "I wanna publish your campaign world. You've got 48 hours to get it in the mail!" And then, Dave gathered his notes, typed out anything not already typed, organized the pages a bit and mailed it in. In other words, It's Perfect! :)

Prepping for Greyhawk! Some Help from Rob Kuntz

Ooh! Rememeber that Loot! deal I reported on last month? A hell of a deal! With shipping I got all this for $20.98!

Plus a flyer, which looks cool enough that I put it in a cheap wal-mart frame to hang on the wall! The modules were all new & shrinkwrapped! Maze of Zayene #3 has some hard crease issues, but I'm ok with that, considering I got em for a steal! They actually came from Noble Knight, which still has them available for the regular price.

"This epic series of modules was originally written for the World of Greyhawk by Gary Gygax's co-DM Rob Kuntz. Rob Kuntz published credits also include the original "Greyhawk" supplement, "Gods, Demigods & Heroes," "Legends and Lore," "Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure" among others. This series was originally set in the Great Kingdom as the party prepares to assasinate King Ivid the Mad but soon discovers the archmage Xayene is at the root of the King's madness. Soon the characters find themselves desperately trapped in the labyrinthine wake of Xayene's web of deceit.

"After leaving TSR to found Creations Unlimited, Rob Kuntz took this Greyhawk module and transferred it to his own campaign world of Kalibruhn. To protect his work from TSR he changed the game statistics and names, e.g., King Ivid is King Ovar, Xayene is Zayene, etc. All are minor changes that can easily be altered to transport these modules back to their proper setting. The statistic and spell changes are pretty minor and are identical to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons in most respects. Indeed, the series claims to be "compatible with the most popular ADVANCED FRP game system(s)" :-) How's that for a thinly veiled reference?

The four Zayene modules are each 32 pages long and from my quick glance through, look really good! 

The Garden of the Plantmaster is 72 pages long and doubles as a source-book for "...creating and stocking fantastic gardens and forests." Haven't read this one yet, either, but it looks impressive! 

And Speaking of Noble Knight:

Noble Knight Rocks! While some of their prices are a little ka-ching!, many are quite reasonable and when you factor in the excellent service, shipping speed and honest, forthright descriptions, they're often a superior choice to the sometimes irritating ebay game. I ordered this pastel T1 on June 30 and it arrived in my PO box on July 5! Not bad for media mail, over a holiday weekend! 

It's a solid copy, the only major defect is a name in ink at the bottom of the first booklet page. Which, Noble Knight disclosed on the item's sale page. I was ok with that, though. So, I'm happy with my T1. It's the first pastel module I've ever owned. 

With shipping, NK charged me a little less than $25. It would have probably taken me several weeks to beat that price on a decent pastel T1, on ebay. And even then, it probably wouldn't have been by much. Pastel T1's are fairly hot items. The Green Cover ones usually don't go cheap, either and while I haven't followed T1's on ebay for long, they're often suffering from detached inserts and a lot of other defects. T1 modules, in general, seem to have seen a lot of play. I'm not surprised! This is the exact sort of thing I prefer to hunt for on Noble Knight!

Canada Mail is Fast!

Or, it's just those Mail Gods, being nice again. I posted on June 27 about copies of the free DCC Starter on ebay. Got it yesterday, all the way from Canada! The seller still has copies available for $4.99 + 4.00 shipping to the US and Canada. I don't know if that's still the cheapest on ebay. Search for Dungeon Crawl Classic Free RPG Day 2011 Starter and that should take you to game_keeper's item page. 

Call me old-fashioned, but I'd rather shell out $8.99 for a print copy than $4.99 for the pdf. And I'm with Drance on this one. I know times are tough, but I think it's kinda bizarre that Goodman Games would charge for this pdf, when everyone else is giving away their Free RPG Day pdf's. 

That said, I think it's a snazzy little game book. Definitely worth heading to ebay for, if your local store didn't participate. 

I Never Thought I Would be Saying This...

So, 2nd & Charles, the most awesome used bookstore in the multi-verse, sent me a coupon and with said coupon I got these for about $3 each!

Not the most highly regarded 1e HC's but for that price I wasn't going to let them just sit on that shelf! They now have a nice home, sitting cozily with my other AD&D HC's. 

And now, I'm hunting ebay for the cheapest, decent copy of The Wilderness Survival Guide I can find. Because, it's the only 1e HC I'm missing and The Collector isn't going to let that sort of thing go!

Some Appendix N type Goodness!

Well, Jack of Shadows is mentioned in Appendix N, anyway. I checked and didn't see C. L. Moore, though she gets a passing mention in Moldvay Basic. And when it comes to Conan pastiches, I recommend John Maddox Roberts over Robert Jordan, any day. 

Unpacking Ceremony - OSRIC - Black Blade/Usherwood Pub. HC Imprint

I got mail, today! I love getting packages in the mail!

I've erased the return address. It's from Jon Hershberger and Black Blade Publishing!

The first thing that is readily apparent, is that Jon packs like I do! I have, on a couple of occasions, of late, received stuff from publishers who think that throwing a book into an envelope is enough to protect it during shipping. It's not! Thank you, Jon!

Of course, I know what it is, sandwiched between that cardboard. On Wednesday Night, I sent Jon a Paypal payment, for a copy of the Black Blade/Usherwood Publishing Hardcover imprint of OSRIC! $26.00, plus $11 for Priority Mail, to my zip code. The price on the package listed the shipping cost as $10.95. As you can see, Jon earned his .05 cent handling charge! The Black Blade site is not currently processing Paypal payments and is misquoting shipping charges, so anyone who's looking to order one of these, will need to email Jon for a shipping quote and payment instructions. 

There were three more layers of wrapping, I think. And above, we see the unveiling of the cover. Woo-hoo!

OSRIC has an ISBN! Cool! This is not POD, by the way. It's an actual print run, of 300 copies.

Here we see the BB/U hardcover imprint, sitting atop my Lulu hardcover copy. The Black Blade/Usherwood imprint is thicker, wider and taller. Better paper (70#). Better binding.

There's more. 

Those blank pages, that are green in the pdf and grey in the Lulu version? They've been replaced with new art! From Jon's post on K&K:

- we've added additional art selections from John Bingham, Steve Robertson, Mark Allen, Peter FItzpatrick, Peter Mullen, Brian Thomas and Jim Holloway;

- Jason Zavoda's expanded index is four pages long, and there's now a two page index of tables and charts following the index; and

- we've upped the grade of paper for the book to 70# (not a sexy change to OSRIC, but it does add to the quality and the 'heft' of the book); the hardback OSRIC is going to weigh in at just over 3 pounds when it's done.

 I haven't checked through it all yet. The K&K thread, contains a lot of info. This imprint contains all the known errata up to February 11, 2011.

Snazzy Red Endpapers, too!

For $26.00 + shipping, the Black Blade/Usherwood printing of OSRIC is an awesome, awesome deal! 

The book is absolutely cool as all hell!

It costs .80 cents more than the Lulu B&W HC.

Reviews: Eldritch Weirdness Compilation – Books Three to One

Eldritch Weirdness Compilation – Books Three to One by Matthew Finch. Black Blade Publishing. Available in Saddle-Stitched Print for $9.00 and in PDF for $3.50. This review is from the PDF version, which I purchased a few weeks ago.

“Eldritch Weirdness Compilation Books 3-1 is a compilation of the third through the first books of Eldritch Weirdness for Swords & Wizardry, 0e, and other old school fantasy roleplaying games. Embrace the strange, and Imagine the Hell out of it. New spells, methods, ideas, and tables for magic user characters. This is a good resource for PLAYERS as well as referees.

24 pages”

The Eldritch Weirdness Compilation is comprised of three short booklets, which serve as a resource for players of Magic-User characters and their GM’s.

Book Three, features ideas for expanding the work of the Mage, beyond the idea of spells and into working with power sources, like Ley Lines and a couple of similar concepts. Also, material on Summoning and Binding Elemental Beings is given, along with some Random Tables, to help flesh out the role-playing experience of working with these creatures. There are a lot of splendid ideas in Book Three, which Player’s and GM’s can take and run with, to the limits of their imaginations. My favorite part is the section on Summoning Elementals, which adds some needed creativity and flair to the concept, beyond what is usually found in the diverse variations of the game. 

Book Two is a collection of Random Tables, designed to generate ideas for new Spells, Magic Items and so forth. Each table features a collection of 100 Adjectives and 100 Nouns, both starting with the same letter of the alphabet, so as to achieve an alliterative effect. There are eight such tables, granting results like “Bloodthirsty Breeze,” or “Giggling Guillotine.” These are a lot of fun and as he has shown in several books, Mr. Finch has a singular gift for creating Random Tables.

Book One features 30 new spells for Magic-Users. In his introduction to the Compilation, the author writes that he put the books together in descending order, because he thinks that spells are the least interesting bit, when it comes to magic in RPG’s. Whether or not you share Mr. Finch’s opinion, the spells collected here are far from uninteresting. Evocative, Weird, Imaginative and Macabre, are words that come to mind, when thinking of Mr. Finch’s spell designs. One of my favorites is Salamander, which kills a victim by exploding his head in a burst of flames, as a product of summoning an out of control Salamander. That’s Cool!

This is a spiffy Old School supplement, chock full of creativity, inspiration and pure gaming goodness! I thoroughly recommend it.