Veteran Issue Pay What You Want Download now available

The download train continues for fans of the Lair of Sword & Sorcery Adventure Game
(LOSS for short)

This one is a biggie, literally. More pages, more art, more text, more maps, more rules, more everything than the other books.

This issue Really took the LOSS game and it's Demonboard and really showed everyone what you can do with a great looking 3d dungeon made from Dollar Store materials, combined with a ruleset and setting built from the ground up for fun fast adventure gaming.

Quick setup and barely any prep time from the Demonlord(Gamemaster in LOSS parlance) gets you in the game in minutes, especially with the accompanying free adventures at The Lair of Sword & Sorcery HUB.

You can get your download of the veteran issue at the hub at the usual page Buy Lair Online

The Download is powered by Gumroad and can also be accessed here: LOSS Download page

Feel free to send any thoughts reviews etc to spookyroomproductions@gmail.com

Thanks for Reading!

~Ripley Stonebrook

Veteran issue now for sale online!

Issue 3: Veteran Issue of Lair of Sword and Sorcery on Sale online.

Okay everybody, here's the big one, the Veteran issue is now available here on the Lair of Sword & Sorcery site.

Full of great things to take your Lair game to the next level (ha sorry for that).

Included are the Veteran rules for heroes, the detailed followers rules, as well as the Fame and Favour rules for heroes.

Also included are piles of material for the Demonlord, detailing all the little things they need to know to run their own Lairs.

Enjoy everyone, run and get your copy today at this link: Buy Lair Now!

~Ripley

Veteran Issue of Lair in stores Now!

Veteran issue is finally here.

• This is the big one, had to add 4 pages for all the content. The Lair Veteran system, the Fame and Favour system, the Follower rules and a little taste of Sorcery.
• As well as new weapons, armour, and combat rule.
• A host of enemies to attack the poor heroes.
• Guidelines on running a full Lair.
• And more, so much more.
• An expanded background of the whole Winterlands area with update maps of all the new and mysterious locations.

With this issue the Lair of Sword and Sorcery is now a full game. For those of you who have been waiting to see if we got this far, we certainly did!

The issues are available now at Heroes beacon and within a few days will be available here on the site.

I won't be jumping right into the Sorcery Issue just yet. That's another whole monster, and a double issue at that, one for players, one for Demonlords.

Next up on the publishing schedule is going to be some other stuff though.

First will be "Temple of the Blind Burrower". The first Lair campaign (Story in Lair parlance).
That one will be available for free download as well as in print.

After that will likely be the "Book of 50 Lairs". Which will also be a download, possibly a print edition as well, I haven't decided on it's final format yet. This will essentially be a book full of maps, ready to be populated with suggestions on the use of each one.

My own campaign will hopefully be chugging along happily by then and will probably throw up the next couple of projects as we start attacking the Sorcery rules and put them through the playtest meat grinder.

Also on my Radar is a Lair album of "music inspired by lair". It's an idea that's been floating around since before publishing the game and I think it's time to start locking that down. It will be a free download available somewhere so if anyone has been inspired by Lair and has some music that maybe doesn't fit in just anywhere else, then send it along.

So I'm off to enjoy regular life for a little while and actually get to visit some other peoples sites and read other peoples stuff.

I'll send out another post when the New buy links are up for Issue 3!

~Ripley

Veteran issue heading to Layout!

Last call for anyone hoping to get any material into the Veteran issue!
Art is finished and all the articles are edited.
Tonight I start the might task of Layout, witness my copy/paste prowess!

I've got a few pictures to take on the weekend of the upgraded Demonboard and some great new toys to show off.

I got some great new minis from the Michigan Toy Soldier Company. Historical minis have been on my radar for some time now but I never realized just how cheap they are till I sat down and decided to drop 20 bucks on some. What with online sales I got 180 minis for 25 dollars. Even with extra shipping that's fantastic.

I wish a store around here carried these lines, I could buy a box a week.

The other great thing about Sword and Sorcery gaming is that all the Historical minis fit in perfectly. grab a few bags of animal toys from the dollar store and you can game to your hearts content for pennies.

I even picked up a box of "Gallic Command" minis that came with druid type looking guys. So now I have some great Sorceror minis in scale with the rest of my guys.

It's also nicely nostalgic to be playing with real 25mm scale minis again. You can fit 3 of these guys in a 1 inch square! I may tinker with the combat rules to take this into account in my own games. Chokepoints be dammed my guys are comin at cha!

~Ripley

Lair is lookin a little old school...

Rockin the blue Marker!

Just had to post this one. It'll be popping up in the Veteran issue. I wanted to do some marker shading and the blue one was the only one light enough to work. Kinda makes me wish the interior art was actually in colour.

Just for reference here is how it will appear in the issue.

The pencils and inks for the issue are officially done! Off to the old painting board!

So anyone who is working an any art for the current issue you've got probably about a week before the Veteran issue goes to layout. 

I know it's been a long wait but soon you too will be able to spend those precious Veteran points.

For those of you playing now who didn't notice there is a "get you by" veteran points reference in the "Articles of Interest" section so you can start awarding points now and the players can spend them when the issue comes out.

Rock on Crazy Wizards!

~Ripley

Veteran art is moving!

Veteran Art is really moving!
Grabbed a blue marker today to shade some of the inks and it's a real shame the issues are in black and white.
Big blue areas of colour filling in linework is feels just so...right.
I try to attack every picture with the words "Awesome", "Kartharka", and "wizard van" in my head.
Results vary but some of the stuff cooking along now is really hitting my sweet spots in between "bitchin cool" and "my that's a fine rendering of some sword and sorcery action".

Long weekends coming so maybe we'll be moving to painting by next week!

Issues really coming together, I won't be foolish enough to stick a date on it but soon, soon...

May you all strike platinum and retire to the Summerlands!

~Ripley

Veteran. Cover. Finally. Done...

Sorry for the lack of activity of late but I've been working on the cover for the Veteran issue, and it's been a doozy.

Many years ago I stopped doing these big elaborate pieces as I'm still quite slow with painting and they take way too long.

But I got sucked in by this one, it was just turning out too good.

It's the first time I've actually gone through the whole reference image thing in a long time as well. Was just looking for some good pics of tigers and I got sucked into doing a "real" painting once again.

Originally I wasn't going to use the line work you can see if you zoom in but I found the painting was straying a bit too much from the Kartharka feel I was going for and so I decided to leave the last render pass undone and added the linework back in and darkened it up.  Gave it that look that I prefer to use for Lair.

Hopefully things will get back on track now after taking almost a month on this monster.

So enjoy the cover and worry not, it's all written and I'm just moving on to the simpler interior art now.

Back to regular life...

~Ripley

Another Quickie

Just to let you all know...
I'm not dead, and neither is the game.
Quite the contrary,
I've been working on the cover for issue 3 and it's kind of become a whole thing right now. Taking way longer than usual since I'm trying a new technique and while it is indeed awesome looking it is taking way longer than my usual 2 or 3 days of work, it's been about 3 weeks now and while the end is in sight it's not feeling close yet.
So everything is sort of on hold till this monster is all done, sorry folks the muse calls.

This is why I don't generally do "big" pictures like this anymore...

At any rate enjoy and new posts will be coming soon...
Promise.

~Ripley

Another quick Update

Just a quick shout to let you know that indeed, noone is dead here at Lair.
Veteran issue, Sorceror issue still underway. The blind Burrower is wrapping up this weekend so that will be appearing soonish (prepare for pictures of fearsome toys). Mostly it's been all art for the last week as well as hacking out the beginning of the next story.  I just need enough to introduce them to the new town, get the story started and let them have a little downtime

There may be some trouble with the Targ a comin if they aren't too careful, and the sages will definately have a lot to say about what's coming next.

The game tends to Alternate between Roleplaying heavy nights and action heavy nights once the adventure begins, but this one is a bit more "mysterious" and so they may have a little bit of leeway before everything ramps up.

Signing out from the Real World Winterlands...

~Ripley

Throwing weapons and bows

Bows and throwing weapons.

In Kartharka bows and throwing weapons are no mere "backup" weapon, doing minimal damage, being used only by people in the back of the party.

Throwing weapons aren't just the holdout weapon when all else has failed.

In Kartharka bows are just as powerful as any hand to hand weapon, not the fall back for the low level character whose hit points are still too low to mix it up in "real" combat.

In the world of Kartharka the bow, spear, and throwing axe are powerful weapons.

Doing the same damage as their hand to hand counterparts along with many other benefits.

In Lair of Sword & Sorcery you may "shoot through" a square with a friendly in it.

A group of 4 hereos facing a group of 10 men with bows is going to be cut down before they even make it to hand to hand combat.

An arrow to the neck will indeed kill you.

In Lair of Sword and Sorcery there are no "hit points".

Instead a hero has "Endurance". During combat a hero loses endurance as they fight. This represents the hero getting tired, their enemy learning their fighting style, small nicks, cuts, and bruises.

Even if a hero "wins" a combat in Lair, they still lose endurance. No hero can fight forever without getting tired.

However there is no loss of endurance when firing a bow or throwing a dagger.

A hero can fire arrows all day without tiring.

This means that most heroes will also carry a missile weapon of some sort to get a few attacks in before the press of hand to hand combat begins, to take out as many of their enemies as possible so that they are not overwhelmed in a press of enemies.

There are also no "Weapon Proficiencies" in Lair of Sword & Sorcery. Any hero can use any weapon. They may use the Veteran rules to increase their abilities with weapons but there are no "classes" to limit which person can use which weapon.

So yes, Bows good, everyone grab a bow and use it..

~Ripley

Call for Art!

It's official, its time for anyone who wants to get any art into Into issue 3, "The Veteran Issue", to get into gear!

I'm putting the deadline at two weeks So get your art in before March 27. 

Any sword and sorcery art would be greatly appreciated. It does not necessarily have to be specific to the Lair of Sword and Sorcery Roleplaying game.

Just send your scans, files, or what have you into spookyroomproductions@gmail.com. They'll most likely be printed in Black and white so no colour required but if they are in colour that's fine too.

Sketches are also fine to submit, crude doodles from notesbooks also okay as well.

As long as your Kartharka spirit is flying then it will shine through!

I am way behind myself on the art front what with getting the campaign up and running so I'm off to the sketchbooks too!

Have a great weekend everyone, I'll try to post all the stuff I've been promising over the next couple of days.

Stay wild and crazy, take care of your takkets and oil your blades cuz comin' soon is the Veteran issue!

~Ripley

Hard Writing Done, more updates soon...

All the hard writing is done for the Veteran Issue

First draft is ready with all the rules, background, skills etc.

Still have to take another pass through to edit, rearrange and add some more Kartharka Flair.

But it's all officially if the molding stage now.

So, I can continue with the community updates, the campaign reports, some more articles on gameplay, and a whole list of other things I have to post about.

Hopefully come the weekend I can put a big dent in my "things to post" backlog.

Going straight into Art now for the next week, but luckily I have a few people willing to step up and submit some art.

Of course you never know how much of that will come through in time for the issue...

I also need to come up with a few things for the characters to do after they finish the Blind Burrower campaign. I have an idea for a couple of things on their way back home to Stroh Branoch, but I don't want to give too much away.

I also wanted to send out a big thanks to +Adam Muszkiewicz for the shoutout at +Drink Spin Run - An RPG Talk Show Podcast  as well as Dispatches from Kickassistan.

Much thanks!

For the rest of you, hold tight, more awesomeness is coming! 

~Ripley

I was supposed to...

Had plans to do my usual lineup of weekend posts, campaign reports etc but I'm choosing to go dark to get some real headway on the Veteran issue, sorry everyone, lots of material for the upcoming week but with so much material to go through I need to actually get some rough notes turned into real writing.
Currently on the block:
Veteran issue
Sorcery issue (this one will have a demonlord version and player version yipes!)
The Temple of the Blind Burrower Campaign
Plus a few other things I don't want to let out of the bag yet.

So patience folks as I hack some awesome out of the boredom of writing stuff down.

~Ripley

Campaign continues...

It's almost friday!

The official Lair of sword and Sorcery Campaign continues tomorrow.

The hapless heroes will be tackling the first Story written for Sword and Sorcery, "Temple of the Blind Burrower".

It will be available for free, either here at the site or elsewhere once we've played it through and I've had time to polish it.

Another true test of the games rules as the party has tripled in size since last week.

Luckily the Lair of Sword and Sorcery Veteran system has a built in ranking system to calculate party strength which is used for balancing encounters. 

So can my written scenario take on triple the amount of heroes? Yep, I can calculate the number appearing in the encounter on the fly, including the bosses etc.

Love it.

I'm more worried about how many chairs I have...

Play reports should be up on the weekend (even though I owe you a few from last time still).

Writing continues, the Veteran issue, Sorcery issue, and the Temple issue are all being written concurrently (Sorcery slides across all 3 so there you go)

I off to conquer!

~Ripley

Veteran Points (To get you by)

The following is straight out of the issue 3, The Veteran Issue.

Since the issue won't be out for a little while yet (it's coming, it's coming), I thought I would put up at this guideline for earning Veteran points.

That way your players can start earning now.

They won't be able to "spend" them till the issue comes out but at least they won't be "wastingtime".

Enjoy everyone.

The Lair Veteran System

or

What are Veteran Points and How do I get my filthy Paws on them?

The Lair of Sword and Sorcery  Veteran system is what the players use to increase their heroes  abilities.

Whether it become better fighters, more powerful sorcerers, or more influential politicians.

The players receive Veteran points for accomplishing difficult tasks or at least surviving dangerous ones.

You can receive points for surviving battles, defeating enemies, succeeding at a scenario, or accomplishing other difficult tasks.

They should also receive Veteran points for doing amazing things that make the game more fun, whether it be their hero attempting and amazing maneuver in the middle of a combat, coming up with an amazing plan, or even dressing up like their heroes.

The Specific Rules

A player gains 1 VP immediately after any of the following things occur

Survive an encounter with a group of Enemies of Equal or Greater Rank (calculating the Rank of a group is covered later)

Survive making a death roll (this is on top of “survive and encounter with a group…)

Beat a scenario (complete the scenario objectives)

Succeed at an impossible task (an impossible SOTA roll) which would have caused harm to the hero if it failed

The player has an impressive Roleplaying moment which impresses the rest of the group

Dressing up as your Hero earns you 1 VP. (Leave the sharp things at home kids)]

And that’s it. The DemonLord is free to also award VP for anything which they deem worthy or it.

What you don’t get VP for is for looking for trouble. If you decide to take on the city guard who obviously outpower you, and they arrest you but don’t kill you then you don’t get a VP for “Surviving and encounter with a group of enemies of greater rank”

If you knew for a fact that the guards would kill you and you still chose to attack that may be a different story but a good rule of thumb is if you have nothing to gain by attacking then you don’t get a VP. It is up to the DemonLord to make the call when the heroes go looking for trouble.

Quick Issue 3 update

Just wanted to do a quick update on the status of issue 3.

The writing is well ahead of schedule and I am now up to populating and stating up the fierce denizens of the Winterlands.

Frost Bears and lighting cats, and maybe a few two legged enemies.

Since the writing is blasting full steam ahead I am putting it on hold and flipping back into art mode for the next couple of weeks, maps and pictures and tables oh my!

Also going to finish writing up the next Scenario so the players can all have a doozy of a time pitting their wits against a little fiendish sorcery and otherworld craziness.

I also had an epiphany on how to write good quality Sword and Sorcery scenarios for Lair. I realized a few key things that I do when writing them up and this should appear in an article of interest soon.

Luckily the group and the campaign is caught up to the basics of the game and we can now start hacking away at all of the rules appearing in the Veteran issue.

So far the rules have held up to actual play with a little bit of tweaking to the ranking system coming out in the Veteran issue, and one big rule change to the Sota rules which will be appearing there. 

I should have a post written for that one soon just working on a rules specific wording for it.

It will also appear in the issue for completeness sake.

So enjoy, get your own band of heroes together and start having fun. Make the Winterlands your own, fill it with what works for you.

~Ripley 

Site Redesign

New Look for the Sword and Sorcery Hub

Under Construction

The site redesign is all up and functional.

A few things have been rearranges, all of the background info is now on the "World of Kartharka" page. Links at the bottom will take  you to expanded background now instead of a seperate link for each on the menu.

The menu is now at the top of the page and the right of the page now has the quick action buttons.

Now that the redesign is done I can start dropping in all the new content, there will be quite a bit added to the page so I will be posting as I add the material as well as where you can find it.

Alot of great new things from issue 1 and 2 are going up on the site along with perhaps a little teaser of issue 3.

So come on by and leave a comment on how you like (or don't like the new site)

ps. there are a couple of places that only have placeholder text at the moment, the parts that complained about the most will get updates first.

~Ripley