Prepping a "dungeon" for Lair

I've been trying to prep this next group of scenarios in Lair and I keep going round and round. If this were D&D, or OSR, or something other similar I would have done my usual.

Spend a couple of weeks prepping the Setting, maps, background, basic feel of the areas in the land.

Then I would spend about a week coming up with some content that's a little different from the norm.

After that I'm usually set up enough that I can run a game on Friday and over Saturday and Sunday I can prep the next week's game.

This type of thinking is how I set up the Background of Kartharka when I first started it up (It has grown considerably since then) and how I set up the Adventures for it.

This is also how I set up the Blind Burrower scenarios (coming soon, soon).

But now that I'm starting on the next one I'm finding it difficult to do that.

I've gone round and round and spent weeks and weeks trying to figure out how to do something that takes a couple of days in a couple of hours.

Lair is about quick and dirty fun

I wanted Lair to be something different, something where the DemonLord can scrawl a few notes on a page, do a quick hand drawn map and the system will pick up the slack. I wanted the demonlord to have use their time to come up with awesome villains and weird traps, not spend their time filling in pages and pages in a notebook.

I wanted Lair to be Low Prep and quick.

So I thought that maybe the key was the format of the scenario.

I took my usual adventure preparation, reformatted it to a Lair scenario, and bam! It was indeed what I was looking for. Didn't have to go over my notes as I played, everything was right where I needed it when I needed it.

But that wasn't enough.

With the next game I was now thinking that since I was going to publish these I should try to come up with a way of laying out the maps better than just pictures of my own demonboard. I then found that the only thing that took longer than laying out all my maps on the Demonboard and taking pictures of them was doing all that and laying them out in a design program. It got very complicated quickly as I felt limited by only laying out what I could definitely build on the the Demonboard. 

So I ended up with something which was far more limiting and constrained then just having fund with blocks and cardboard on the table, I started to say things like, well it's okay if everything looks pretty similar, I mean I do only have blocks and cardboard.

That's when I knew I was on the wrong track.

The same went for the scenario design, exciting adventures ended up becoming a list of enemies on the board with some stats.

I kept saying things like "Well I guess they can fill in the blanks as they go" or "a good Demonlord would know how to prep this for actual play".

These are not the kind of things I wanted in my game and I just didn't want to live this way. Spending weeks doing what used to take me days, and limiting what my choices were to make them easier to publish and write up.

Nope, I might as well chuck the whole thing at that point and go play video games instead.

Back tot he Well

What I did instead was look to something else I already had.

Those of you with a keen eye may have noticed Lair is published by "Spooky Room Productions".

That is because I was originally working on a Horror Roleplaying game in the same vein as Lair turned out to be.

The big difference for that one was that I didn't have the DemonBoard yet. For that one I had envisioned a book full of full size hand drawn floorplans.

I also had some templates made up for my own use. Single double sided pages, on the front was the map and the basic plot points of the adventure, on the back was the map key and the stats for the "monsters".

I had done this to keep all the separate sections of the "mansion" well organized so that I would have all the information I needed for each specific location.

Anyone who has run a good horror roleplaying game will know that usually all the info is piled at the front of a scenario and the maps and keys at the back forcing a good gamemaster to either prep well and know the adventure inside and out, or make a lot of notes for each area detailing what needs to happen in each.

So I pulled out those templates, filled in the new headings for what I needed for Lair and BAM! I had exactly what I needed to create a Lair scenario in half an hour. That's what I was looking for in Lair and I had the damn thing stashed on the shelf all along.

But wait there's more!

As I've been writing this blog I've found more and more that Sword and Sorcery centred fantasy roleplaying has far more similarities to Modern Horror Roleplaying games than it does to classsic fantasy Roleplaying games.

In Lair and similar Ilk, Sorcery is mysterious, dangerous, powerful and corrupting. 

I had a few articles planned on pointing out all the similarities and the actual way of thinking about Sorcery in your fantasy games. But I hadn't thought about the format of presentation of the books and more importantly how to present it to the players during in game play.

This all came together this week as I realised one important thing. You have to plan an adventure for a sword and sorcery game in the same way as you would a horror game. They are very different breeds, the horror game less focused on the cut and thrust of combat and more on investigation, planning, learning.

But what if you changed the one important difference between the horror game and the fantasy game?

In most horror games combat doesn't work. You need to know the spell, the background info that will tell you to burn the painting, when the stars will be right, where the evil cultists will meet.

But what if Combat did work? If you really could just strangle the evil cultist before the ritual completes, or actually slay the evil monster conjured up with 3 feet of burnished copper blade?

Well then my friends, I think you would have Sword & Sorcery, in the true vein of the original Conan stories. What if you think of Conan as a reaction to these occult detective stories of the time, thin effete scholars who walk into a room with mystic words waving their arms about and lighting candles. (Solomon Kane may be a more apt response but not as useful for a fantasy game).

So if this is true, then instead of writing pages of notes for what will happen, and when, and when certain events will be triggered lets look to an old friend of the horror game prepper.

The flowchart

Horror preppers often make up a flowchart of the entire adventure as there are often a lot of moving parts.

So I made up a quick flowchart template I could fill in on the fly for Lair campaigns.

Now there are a lot of people out there who will begin to scream "railroading" again, and I hear you. Many feel the bane of the horror game is that if you do not do 1, then 2, then 3, then everyone dies.

Or at least the adventure never happens.

Well us horror people have been fighting that stigma for years.

Good adventure design will involve multiple "hooks" to get the players involved, use the "three-clue" model for every important plot point, where the same thing can be accomplished 3 different ways and in a game where all the characters can go insane half-way through you get used to characters doing random things and going "off the rails". 

Let's also look to the another big difference between Sword and Sorcery and Modern Horror. If the bad guy actually succeeds, no big deal. So the Sorcerer has summoned a demon of unknown power. It's no worse really than the lord one province over amassing an army of thousands of men to invade your town.

Things happen, the heroes move on to the next town, hopefully they will live long enough to maybe come back and take the bad guy out later.

To sum up...

Yep, I've got my scenario template, my flowchart template, a new way at looking at scenario design and I think I'm going to throw back a couple of beers tonight and see if I can set up a campaign in the time it takes to watch a Conan movie. And if I'm successful then I think Lair has a long future in my life. If not, maybe, I'll give that horror game another whirl...

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

50 Posts, 5 months, 900 views, 12 pages, 2 issues, one Campaign and 2 great special offers!

Karharka Lives and Breathes

Well it's been a wild ride from it's small start last October.

Starting with this little blog and a dream Kartharka was dragged kicking and screaming into the world.

The Lair site has finally reached 50 posts of updates, background, rules and fun.

I've kept up the dream for 5 months, the sites gathered 900 views.

Over 12 pages of content have been added on top of the regular posts.

2 issues of the magazine are out, including the Combat issue, allowing people to finally play the game.

And at least one Campaign has begun, hopefully the first of many that I will hear about.

I would like to thank all of those who come by, repost content, +1 content, comment, and even buy actual issues of the game.

Without you I couldn't have done it.

There are a few of you out there who are really going above and beyond to help out and when more details arrive I will be posting that as well.

I'd also like to thank the great folks over at Heroes Beacon here in Saint John, New Brunswick (Canada) for stocking the game.  The first of many I hope.

I want to get as many people out there playing as possible so I call out to you now.

I have some copies I would love to send to people, so if you have a site of your own and review games, contact me at spookyroomproductions@gmail.com with your details and I will get some copies into your hands. The supply of review copies is limited to the first 10 I hear from so send in your details now.

I would also love to get more copies into retailers stores so if you are a retailer or know one well enough to convince them to carry it, then send me your details and I will send you off an introductory retailer pack containing 5 copies of issue 1 and 5 copies of issue 2. You may keep one of each for yourself and supply the rest to the retailer. 

The only caveat is that you must post a review of the game online at someplace like rpggeek.com and that you supply us with the contact details of the retailer and a picture of the game on the shelves.

I would say that's a pretty great deal so this one is limited to the first 5 people who send in their details to spookyroomproductions@gmail.com.

Buying and Selling in Kartharka

Well our band of heroes had an amazing windfall in their first game scoring 28 gold pieces.

A fantastic sum of money in the Winterlands.

In Lair of sword and sorcery once you "buy some arrows" you are assumed to "have enough arrows" for your missions.

Not bothering to track all of these resources means that heroes don't really need to spend a lot of money, which is good because everything is expensive.

Earning a whole gold coin would take a miner weeks of hard labor, and the expense of travelling, living, tools and boarding eat up a portion of that as well.

This means that a gold coin is worth alot.

Lair of Sword and Sorcery does not generally have lists and lists of equipment, detailing prices, availability, weights, and other things.

If a Hero wants to buy something he will generally have to have it made to order. Merchants do not tend to have 30 chairs lying around in stock on the showroom floor.

Merchants tend to trade in raw goods, like metal, cloth, tools, the things you use to make things. 

To get something the hero goes to a craftsmen who will make something for them.

Buying regular Gear

Usually the price for anything will be One gold.

 Want to buy a bronze sword?

(the winterlands are for all intents and purposes a bronze age society)

The price is one gold.

Want to buy a dagger?

The price is one gold.

Want to buy a piece of cloth Armour

The price is one gold.

Then the hero waits for a few days and the item is available.

If the hero is in a rush, or is rude, the price doubles.

If the hero has a good camaraderie score they may get a discount. A +1 is good for a 25% discount, a +2 is good for half price (always round up). It doesn't get any better than half off and the merchants will rarely be willing to trade for "half a gold piece" so it may be a good idea to order a couple of things when getting the discount.

A negative camaraderie will cause problems as well. A -1 will double prices, a -2 will quadruple it. It doesn't get much worse than that but the craftsmen may make them wait up to a week for their items if their camaraderie is worse than -2.

These prices will get them a serviceable sturdy and plain version of the item.

A sword will indeed have a blade and a handle. It will not be pretty but it will work.

The cloth armor will indeed stop a blow But don't ask for it any color but brown and it's going to be one size almost fits all.

When a group of heroes is shopping they may try to elect the one with the highest camaraderie to do the shopping and this will work up to a point.

But if someone is buying Armour or weapons the craftsmen will want to see the person the item is meant for. They need to make measurements, consider the weight and distribution and discuss balance.

This means that the surly and mean fighter is going to have to meet the craftsmen

In this case the hero with the high camaraderie will act as a go between and their combined camaraderie will be used to consider he price.  A +2 and a -2 will cancel out meaning they will pay the normal price.

If the hero with the high camaraderie is known to be part of a group then the craftsmen will automatically consider them to be buying for these less than nice people and will again consider the camaraderie of the group when stating their price rather than just the buyers camaraderie.

Buying special gear

If the heroes have any special requests for their item it will add at least an extra gold to the standard price.

Specifying colors, cuts, special insignia are all considered special requests.

If the hero is asking for something to be completely custom made then the price will skyrocket.

For example if the want a standard sword, 1 gold

Standard molds can be used and their is no customization.

A standard sword with a bronze pommel in the shape of a wolf, 5 gold

A standard mold can be used and the craftsman can make he pommel by hand

A standard sword with an imperial style crosspiece, 10 gold

The craftsman can use a standard mold for the blade but must make a new mould for the pommel

A Hunzar jungle style scimitar with  a Hunzar style pommel and crosspiece, 20 gold

The bronzer will have to make all new molds and will need to consider the balance and mix of metals for this bizarre weapon.

Hiring Help

Hiring some men to travel with you and protect your back is a costly venture.

To hire a standard man whose stats are all zero (except the usual 6 endurance) will cost 1 gold per week.

They will have their own food and camping supplies.

If they are expected to fight more than once per week they may ask for an additional gold piece per fight per week.

The will have one weapon each and 3 pieces of armour.

The hero may buy them additional weapons and armour which they will use during their employment which will be returned when their contract is completed.

Usually these people will be hired in groups. This means that if one of them dies the heroes may not "loot their corpse" the other men in the group will either distribute their belongings or take them to sell and give the proceeds to the dead mans family.

At least they will usually tell the heroes that that is their plan.

To hire anyone with better stats than the average man is a costly process and will often involve hiring from one of the mercenary companies found in Stroh Branoch.

Lair of Sword and Sorcery Campaign begins, Part 2

This is a continuation of the Play report of the first Lair of Sword and Sorcery Campaign.

Read part one here Part 1

The heroes enter the city of Stroh-Branoch!

One of the characters has decided that their hero will follow the path of Sorcery!

Not knowing where to start (none in the land of Kartharka does) they head straight for the sages hall.

They present themselves (and their +2 ccamaraderie and a pile of gold) to the sages at the hall.

It is agreed that they may begin their training on a trial basis for 1 month. They are allowed to stay at the Sages Hall, begin their tutoring in the history and sciences of Kartharka, and are given access to the library of the sages from which they begin copying as much of their lore as they can (getting a head start on a library for their demense, see the forthcoming veteran issue for more details on that)

After the month is passed and the "bodyguard" has healed their serious injuries the sages present a problem to the would be scholar.
His money has run out. To continue his studies for another month he will have to pay more (which he hasn't got) or run some errands for them.
He accepts the challenge and is tasked with picking up some papers and items from the small sages hall located in the hamlet of Throm at the top of the valley of Fangs.
The bodyguard spends a large part of his ready cash on an almost full suit of Kartharkan plate.
Knowing that this is likely not to be as simple a task as it seems (remember the bandits on the road from earlier) the novice sage decides to enlist the help of some muscle from the local bar.
Spending the rest of their money they recruit 5 dangerous looking thugs to escort them to Throm.
And it's good that they did. While camping int he forest that lies before the great Wulf's Way road they spot a babd of men with torches approaching from the distance.
They quickly break camp and make for the woods to hide.
Luckily they find an abandoned cabin there to make their stand in and another epic battle ensues.
These men are the remainder of the bandit troop, and picked up their trail soon after they left Stroh-branoch.
The heroes again use tactics to their advantage, fortifying the cabin with traps and defending the doorways to great advantage.
The bandits do break in briefly and are able to kill one of the dangerous thugs but the heroes are unscathed.
They continue on to Throm with no further problems.
There they find the local Sages Hall abandoned, though the innkeeper has been entrusted with the key which he gladly gives to the novice sage since he bears the amulet of the Winterlands Sages (temporarily).
Entering He finds the Hall indeed empty, and the library locked, needing another key.
Luckily on the lectern is left a note, to any sages who may enter the hall.
I did not have time to prep the exact wording of the scroll but it begs any sages who enter to read the scrolls left behind and follow the sages into the cursed woods (pronounced Curse-edd of course).
The exact message of the note and the details of the scrolls will have to wait until the following game in two weeks as I had absolutely nothing prepped other than literally 10 lines jotted down for the first string of scenarios.
Something like "Road, attack, Stroh Branoch, travel, cabin in woods...' and then a couple more lines for the next scenario but that's a secret.
All in all a huge ssuccess campaign started and characters made on the fly and well into the first string of scenarios
What will they encounter next? Well they have seen a lot of Sword so far...
I believe they may finally get to the other half of Lair next time!

Next up will be a series of posts on the nuts and bolts of what specifically happened, and why, including a few rules tweaks, additions and other meddling bits of minutiae.

Ps- The continuing saga of our poor heroes will be detailed here in the posts as well as being archived in a permanent section here on the site soon

Some Thoughts on Lairs

Was doing a bit of reading yesterday (Where do we find the time?) on the state of D&D in 5e.
I will preface this article with something you may not know from the tone of the site.

I love D&D.
I'll just put that out there along with the fact that I think 5e has the potential to be the best system since the Cyclopedia.
Do the math, look yourself square in the eye, face some hard truths and you'll agree, the Cyclopedia was the best flavor of D&D every produced. If it had been supported in the same way as the boxed sets in the 80's it would never have gone away (instead of being viewed as a gateway drug to "Real D&D")

Today I want to talk about Lairs.
For the last year or so I've been hearing alot of talk about the 5 Room Dungeon, and with 5th edition alot of talk about Lairs, encounters, and experience point Math.

I know these longer rambling posts tend to get skipped over a lot so I'll just put the main point up front here.

Lair of Sword and Sorcery is built from the ground up for "Lair" Encounters.

Those of you who know what that means will be interested enough to read on. For those of you who don't, in a nutshell "Lairs" represent the way people have been playing D&D all along if the DM is doing their job right and everyone is having fun.

History time, skip to the heading about "Lairs in Lair" if you already agree.

Go to your first edition handbooks, look in the Dms guide for how to make up your own Dungeon. Remember back to how we thought of "Dungeons" way back in the day. Not any particular published dungeon but that one that we all have striven for, the one we read about in the comic book ads for Dungeons and Dragons, the ones we imagined when we read the rules for Torch Duration, and when buying Iron Rations.

The massive sprawling, multilevel monster dungeon, where players went in level one, fought enough 1 hd monsters to level up, then went to level 2, fought enough 2hd monsters to get up to level 2 and so on.

Each level increasing in size to have enough encounters to level up again, with parts being added on periodically to keep things "fresh", wandering monster tables, "to keep you from wasting time", 

Huge randomly generated monstrosities with encounters in "30%" of the rooms, oh and don't forget to map everything, even in that massive 70% of barren nothingness or your party will become "lost".

We all dreamed of playing or running one of these behemoths, but the fact is, if we ever sat down to actually play it, it always came off a little pretty poor, unless the Dm really did his job.

And what was that?

In the huge warren of a dungeon you find a door, opening it you find a pile of bedding, a monster is about! Now that the players are on their toes they enter one of the two doors leading from this room, It's a cave with 3 orcs sitting over a cook-pot, interesting,

They kill the orcs, find that the pot doesn't contain anything and so go back and go through the other door, Here they find a fourth orc, about to butcher some poor adventurer for the stew pot. The kill the orc and question the adventurer. 

This brave knight had been on a quest to discover the great lost sword of whosiwhatsit, held by a brave knight venturing here to kill an evil cleric who's run off with the churches jewels. 

Careful searching of the rooms reveals a few coins and a letter from said cleric saying to meet him at the usual place by the well. Wait a minute there was a well just outside this door says one of the players. So they wait, kill the cleric but he does not have the treasure. They follow his trail around the corner to another grouop of rooms.

These rooms are clearly an evil temple, Finding a secret passage near the altar they brave their way to the inner sanctum, narrowly avoiding a fiendish pit trap in the dark.

In the inner sanctum they accidentally release a fiendish devil fromt he pits whom the evil cleric worshiped. 

Luckily they discover the magic circle in the floor which protects them while their cleric using a chalice found in the stolen churches treasure, banishes the demon.

The NPC gathers up his churches belongings, there is of course plenty left over for the players.

They killed some orcs, a mid level evil cleric, and even defeated a minor demon, depending on the system they will get xp for the gold or avoiding the pit trap as well. Not a bad haul.

They got to figure out some clues and the whole string of encounters was wrapped up in a single night, an accomplishment.

What they just defeated was a 5 room dungeon, or what could be considered the Lair of an eveil cleric and his minions. Just because it happened int he middle of a sprawling megadungeon does not change it one bit.

Now say you start that story off with an hour of wandering monster rolls, mapping endless empty corridors, tracking torches and rations on your character sheet, and then do the same thing on the way out.

Would that make it more or less fun? A good Dm would have handwaved all the bit at the beginning and the end saying "You are now at the place you left off last time", and at the end he would handwave again saying "you make it back to town safely".

All well made Mega dungeons are really just a series of  "Lairs" or 5 room dungeons strung together along a theme. The "dungeon" was originally just an easy way to get right to the adventure without having to write alot of backstory why the characters would be encountering this band of orcs and a cleric, "They're in the Dungeon" is all they needed. If this happened in the wild on a road the Dm would have to do alot of story crafting, once it's in a dungeon it's all readily accepted by the players.

Look at all the original modules, you would get a wilderness map which players would tromp through to make the trip to the dungeon more interesting (each dungeon does need a bit of history and backstory) but when you got there it would be a tower with 3 levels with 10 rooms each, half of which were empty, or to look at it another way, three 5 room dungeons each one harder than the next.

Lairs in Lair

In Lair of Sword and Sorcery the players all gather together and play a "Scenario". Every scenario takes place in a "Lair". The lair is laid out on the Demonboard, either all at once (for a "Skirmish" type scenario, ie a pitched battle between two groups) or one room at a time for a "Blind" Lair.

The Demonboard is a fixed size, no single Lair may be larger than the Demonboard.(22x28 squares).

At the end of one Lair they may find the entrance to another but all the action for this lair will occur on this one Demonboard.

The main difference between Lair of Sword & Sorcery and other Roleplaying games is that each Lair has an accompannying scenario which states some basic rules for this Lair (the same Lair may have different a different scenario if the players return to it however)

Each Lair must have the following things:

Scenario Objective:

This is what the players need to do to "Beat" the Lair. They may know the objective when they begin or it may be a secret which they have to discover within the lair.

Reward:

The lair must have a reward for beating it. If the Objective is killing the evil cleric the reward could be something simple like recieving his treasure. Or it may be something less tangible like recieving a blessing from the noble knight they saved, or they may be allowed to stay at his temple and recieve training, or the temple may owe them a favour to be cashed in later.

Sometimes the Reward could be something as simple as not recieving the punishment for failing, which is a reward in itself.

Punishment:

If the characters are not able to defeat the Lair then there will be a Punishment. This is a huge difference between Lair and other Roleplaying games. In your typical dungeon if you don't feel like going in the dank tunnel under the altar to see what's inside you can just leave. Or you can decide to go back to town, get a couple of strong lads and healing potions and come back to defeat the demon.

There is little sense of urgency to pressing forward in the dungeon.

In Lair things are different.

The Players are always in a Lair for a reason. The backstory will usually provide this but the punishment rule reinforces the urgency of the dungeon. The evil cleric may have kidnapped the children of the town and will sacrifice them if the players are not able to stop him first.

The punishment also need not be that dire.

In the evil cleric example above if the players decide to leave the lair without pushing on into the passage beneath the altar the next time they return they will find the passage has been entered by someone else, likely other orcs, and stripped of it's treasure, meaning the Knights temple will never recover their sacred relics. In this case the punishment was the lack of any reward, which is acceptable, though the temple may be a little standoffish to them in the future.

Special Feature:

Every Lair is Sword and Sorcery needs a special feature.

It will usually be tied into the Scenario Objective and possible the reward and punishment as well.

It is the mighty set piece of the Lair and will not have appeared in any Lair before (thought it may be reused later but not as a special feature). Every special feature requires rules for the players to interact with it.

In the Evil Cleric example the Special feature may be the "summoning room" that they enter. The rules would be that when any player first touches the circle the demon is summoned (demons are not special features, the room itself is). Another rule would be that the demon cannot enter the circle so the players are "safe" while there.

The players would not be told this when entering the room, finding out the special features rules is the biggest fun of the game.

Special features may be an incredibly devious trap or lock with many levers to pull, may be a special raised platform the final enemy hides upon dumping boiling oil on the players, a special item, a special creature, anything which the players have not encountered before. 

Ideally the rest of the Lair will be built around and lead up to the special feature.

By specifically stating that each Lair must have a special feature and that each special feature must have rules made up pertaining to it it actually takes a lot of work off of the Demonlord (DM in Lair parlance). Because frankly each dungeon should have something special, something unique, It doesn't have to be fantastically original, the oil dropping example above shows that a simple difference, with some rules attached to it will bring an ordinary encounter up to an epic battle with the players have to come up with whole new strategies to accomplish what would ordinarily be a straight up fight.

Using these in other games

These basic rules, Objective, reward, punishment, and special feature, can be used in any encounter, dungeon or lair in any game system you like. Simply applying these strategies when building your own D&D encounters make the sometimes tedious and boring task of crafting encounters fun again, and the reward punishment system may breathe new life into a campaign grown stale.

Please leave any Comments you may have positive or Negative I'd love to hear what you all think.

~Ripley

Super Quick Update

Lair Update!

Had a great weekend when we were supposed to start my own Lair campaign. But blizzards, life, everything got in the way so we played boardgames instead, 7 Wonders, Space Fluxx, A mythosy dice game, and classic Robo Rally.  Fun was had by all even though we weren't playing Lair (gasp!).
Some copies are now on their way to Halifax, more are going up North just as soon as I get them shoved in an envelope (the free ones take a little longer for me to get around to shipping) and some have wended the way south across the border.

The Veteran issue is plugging along with a final table of contents in place (a bit of Sorcery just barely made it in). I've switched from Indesign to Scribus and so am spending a couple of weeks before laying out this issue setting up the templates, this will force me to actually get some more art done as it gets put to the side pretty quickly once I start banging out rules.

Why the switch? I got's my reasons! But seriously, I'm transitioning to a completely open source workflow, The hope is that once this thing really starts picking up steam it will be easier to share these files around with other people to take off a bit of the workload and not everybody is rocking the full Adobe Creative suite.

Speaking of art I've got to go get started on the Cover.

PS you can buy Lair online now, check out the link on the Menu.

Rock on Crazy Blood Reavers!

Buy Lair Online!

Buy Lair of Sword & Sorcery Online!

Well this is the big one everybody, the accounts are all setup and you can now buy your issues online.

You will see "Buy Lair Online" now appears on the menu, just follow to place your order.

All the info for shipping etc is on that page.

I'll also have the retailer options set up on that page soon as well, we're well on our way to getting in stores near you!

Get your issues and start your own games today, join the forces of Kartharka in our quest to put Awesome back in Roleplaying!

~Ripley

Cover for the Combat issue!

Behold! The cover of Issue 2, the Combat! issue!.

After seeing the last issue on the shelves I wanted a bright bold cover for issue 2. One with a classic over the top kind of Sword and Sorcery Image with really lush colours, 

Originally I had wolves attacking our poor hero but since it was a night scene the whole image was bathed in ghostly blue moonlight.

 I wanted bright vibrant colours so I set those babies on fire!

Enjoy! As you can see this one is dated for January so if all the photos come together in time you should be seeing it on the racks this month.

~Ripley

Post Hoiday Update

And We're Back!
Hope everyone had a Mighty Christmas!
Work has fired up for issue 2 again and good news for my group,

I'm working on the first round of adventures.

The Tales of Wild Adventure Issue!

They will be a series of Introductory scenarios for beginning characters taking place in the area of the treacherous Valley of Fangs.
All within a weeks travel of Stroh Branoch they will be a way for the group to get to know the world of Kartharka and the dangers it holds. The first 5 scenarios will likely be published as it's own issue either before or after the Sorcery issue.

"Role playing" guidelines
It will also include guidelines for "doing things in town" and doing things with people "other than attack".
This issue will include things like interacting with the local shops, encountering people at the inn, on the road, or even finding a friendly in the middle of a Lair.
Experienced Role players would not require such guidelines but I want Lair to be an inclusive game for all those people who always wanted to try Role playing

games but felt that it was either too difficult or that the people they found took things "too seriously" to be fun.

Issue 2 is Written!

So let it be written, so let it be done!
All of the copy text is written for Issue 2 "The Combat Issue!"

For all fans of Sword and Sorcery The complete Lair of Sword and Sorcery Rules will be appearing in this issue.

Features include:

• Character Creation
• Equipment
• Roleplaying and Combat mode
• Combat rules
• The SOTA rules (Something Other Than Attacking)
• Background for The "capital" of the Winterlands Stroh-Branoch, with map and key features.
• Character Sheet
• Amassing your figure collection.
• The Lair Skirmish game
• An introductory scenario with tips for beginning Demonlords

The art for this issue is half done so if you would like to see your art in this issue you had better send it in to spookyroomproductions@gmail.com.

Issue 3 will be the Veteran issue, containing rules for:

Pushing your characters to the next Rank,

Balancing the enemy forces for the Demonlord, 

A list of some animals of the Winterlands both helpful and harmful

Issue 4 will tentatively be the long awaited "Sorcery" issue. And will likely be the first "forked" issue, With one version being for the players and the other for the Demonlord.

The "forked" issues are published at the same time, with the players info in a players copy of the issue and the Demonlords info in the Demonlord copy. They will both have the same issue number but with a P for players or D for Demonlord next to the number on the cover.

Concurrent with the regular run of Sword and Sorcery will be a special "Lairs" supplement, containing 10 Lairs to be used for either the Lair Skirmish game or as full blown adventures for your heroes.

Also in the new year my own group of players will be starting their own journey to fame and glory, Their exploits (as well as their advenutures) will be published on a semi regular basis as well in the special campaign issues of the Demonlord fork of Lair of Sword and sorcery. 

Let the adventure begin!

Sword and Sorcery Versus Fantasy Part 4: Magical Healing

See the previous 3 parts of Sword vs Sorcery in the previous posts..

Now we tackle the last Trope of Classic Fantasy Role playing.

Magical Healing

In Most Fantasy role playing games, whether on computer or pen and paper, one of the most fantastic elements (ie hardest to believe) is magical healing. Whether through potions, magic items, spells, or innate magical abilities, "magical" healing is everywhere in most fantasy games. The concept of the

Healing "potions" that players can buy at the local market is now considered normal in any game.
The reason this has gone on for so long is because, hit points, or damage points, or life points, are all fairly abstract systems which take into account fighting ability, endurance, luck, as well as a characters physical size and strength.

Even though characters have more "hit points" as they go up in levels, game masters found out that if characters are not fighting enemies of equal toughness the players would feel no excitement, due to there being no risk of death.

So the enemies get more hit points as well, or the characters fight more powerful monsters.

The problem with this system is that after the first fight the characters would have to go back to town and rest up for weeks to get their hit points back. And so Magical healing was born. Now characters could plow through a whole nights worth of encounters one after the other, by the end of the night their healing spells and potions were used up and they would head back to town with their treasure and tally up their experience points.

As you can see this type of fight-treasure-town cycling is what leads to alot of the mechanics and "game balancing" rules of the d&d system.  That is because the main conceit of D&D is that there are large underground dungeons, close to town, where you can move through 10 to 20 of the rooms in a night, Each of those rooms will have an encounter or a fight, but when the characters decide to leave they are free to go.
More than that all of the other creatures in all of the other rooms will happily sit in their own space waiting for the characters to arrive in their room instead of all of them converging on the characters at once.

Now lets look at a sword and sorcery version of an adventure.
We'll use the classic Conan short story "The Tower of the Elephant" (I'm not going to look up any specifics, so if my details aren't quite spot on at least you'll get the gist of it).

First Conan hears about the tower at a tavern, that there is a huge amount of treasure inside as well as a huge sorcerers gem which is the source of power for the Towers Owner, some wizard guy.

He decided immediately to break in.

So immediately he has an objective, get the gem, and any other loot he can carry. He is warned that there are terrible guards keeping others from doing so (explaining why this place is in the middle of the city and unlooted).

He also has a time frame, he cannot enter, look around, leave, and come back again. He has to complete this "adventure" in one night of game time.

He enters the garden surrounding the tower. There he meets another thief who joins him, there are now two people in the "party".

They meet some lions as their first "encounter". Now ordinarily these lions would rip them to pieces and this would be the end of the adventure but the other thief has a mysterious powder that puts them to sleep.
Note here, this advanced thief does not have a lot of hit points and is therefore able to fight the lions, he has the right connections to get this powder to defeat the lions, something a thief would not have when he begins his trade.

The first encounter over they now climb to the top of the tower to avoid the guard who wait by the front door. They do this with a super strong super light rope the thief has acquired or made, again through his connections and knowledge.

Now they are at the top of the tower.  The other thief enters the door first but is killed instantly falling back outside the door.(he was bit once by a venomous spider, doesn't matter how many hit points he had he's dead)

Conan decides to brave the room anyway and enters.

Inside is a "Giant" spider. We're not talking something the size on elephant, or even a man, but the size of a dog.  But Conan has been warned by his friends death that the spider is poisonous so a single bite will kill him.

So Conan is forced to dodge and run about the room avoiding the spider until he picks up a chest and throws it at the spider squashing it dead.

So Conan loses no "hit points" and the spider is instant killed not by an attack per se but by being squashed by a bit of room furnishing,

Conan then continues on and meets a big elephant headed guy, they talk for a bit the elephant guys asks Conan to put him out of his misery and take the gem down to the evil wizards guy.

Conan kills him takes the gem, gives it to the wizard, the wizard is sucked into the gem, The tower collapses and Conan escapes, probably with a few gems he grabbed from the spider room.

And that's it. Conan did not deal a single hit point of damage nor did he take one.

That is because a sword and sorcery story is short, there isn't time for a large labyrinth of varying bizarre rooms and endless scenes of the heroes fighting yet another group of bad guys in yet another room.

Sword and Sorcery lends itself well to short episodic adventure and without needing to rely on a lot of fantastic additional add ons to make it all work.

Making it perfect for a night of roleplaying fun.

But expand what you think of sword and sorcery because yes there are swords but there is also definitely sorcery.

All of the fantastic creatures, spells, monsters, wizards, sorcerers, rooms full of treasure, lost cities, dragons, underwater tombs, and races of terrible lizard men, all of these are sword and sorcery too. It's just how they are used that is different than fantasy. In Sword and Sorcery the fantastic is, well, fantastic. It is not everyday, everyplace, regular stuff.  And doesn't that make it more fun?

~Ripley

Demon Board Upgrade! (continued)

I promised an update on the clay blocks...

The dollar store clay worked out great.
It's called "Natural Modeling Clay"
Features are "dries naturally".

I honestly thought there would be some difference between these and the salt dough blocks but other than having to let the clay dry out a bit before working it the experience was the same.

If the clay is too wet it will deform when you pull it out of the mold, but just leave it out to dry for a bit, reworking it occasionally, and it's just fine.

You seem to get about 15 blocks out of a package so about 2 packages would be equivalent to a batch of salt dough. At $1.25 per package they are a great deal.

So if you're just getting started and don't know if you will bother playing the game for long, use the salt dough blocks or just card walls.

If you've stuck with your salt dough blocks for over a year and find that they are getting too soggy or misshapen from storage than go ahead and upgrade.

I decided to hold off painting until after the holidays (just too much going on, running a business, wife and kinds plus 4 birthdays all in one months is a little much) But I should find a bit of time to have everything up and ready for the new game, and if not I'll just use the card walls, I've got plenty.

Also busy finishing off issue 2.
The combat rules are all written up in a real format as opposed to my usual bullet points in my notebook.

Now moving on to the included skirmish game to help teach the combat system.

I am also possibly going to include the first Scenario in the issue (or Lair as I call them) It all depends on how much room I have left after my usual rambling.

~Ripley

Demonboard upgrade!

I am currently upgrading my Demonboard. My Salt dough blocks have served me well for a couple of years now but I'm now getting around to making a new set out of modelling clay. I found a good source for natural clay at my local dollar store  and was able to get enough to complete a set for 5 dollars. I'll post more pics after the weekend of the upgraded blocks as well as some tips for working with natural clay.
This is all to prepare for my group of heroes starting their new game.
I'm excited to start the group off in the new time period of Kartharka, The previous game took place 40 years before the current time period in the tumultuous time of troubles. A band of heroes struck off to make their fortunes but ended up changing the face of the Winterlands forever.It was a heady year for the Winterlands with rumors of strange beasts being dragged back from the wilds, the gods returning to the mountains and sorcery flowing through the town of Stroh-branock like water.
But after their brief time in the sun they ventured forth on their greatest challenge of all...never to return.
Look to future issues of Lair to follow their mighty exploits!
Before I upgrade my board here's a few more pics of what it looks like now.
All of the details how to make a demon board in a single day (or weekend if you like it fancy!) are in issue 1 of lair "The Demonboard Issue"

Behold the Winterlands

Beware the Mountains!

For all brave heroes ready to begin their life of adventure behold the Winterlands background page on the menu bar.

The most brutal of Kartharkas realms the Winterlands are the most ripe for the hero bold enough to grasp adventure by the neck and wring forth their fortunes.

Feast on this new background material and add thy comments!

~Ripley

Hero Record Sheet Exposed!

Blasphemous Sorceries have conjured forth the Lair of Sword & Sorcery Hero Record sheet.

Hero creation is fully detailed in the upcoming issue 2, "The Combat Issue".

Follow the "Hero Record Sheet" link in the menu on the side to check it out.

You may not have the rules yet but feel free to draw up your own sheets, scan them, and send them in. Lair of Sword and Sorcery is all about do it yourself gaming and for you rogue heroes scouring the land for adventure, it all begins with the record sheet.

~Ripley

Spirit of Kartharka!

Behold!  All you adventurers in the bloody steppes of the world of Kartharka!
Posted on the menu is the new "Spirit of Karharka" link.

Click it with mighty abandon to learn more of the Spirit of the game "Lair of Sword & Sorcery",
reprinted from issue 1 of Lair of Sword & Sorcery.
You'll have to read issue 1 to find out what's up with the spooky wizard and his demonic friends.  Beware the Spooky Wizard!

On a completely unrelated note thanks everyone for checking this page out, we hit 100 page views.  Thanks to all you Mighty Adventurers!

Issue 1 back from the printers

Thanks everyone for visiting, glad to see some interest in the game.

I'll be posting more of the background during the weekend along with some colour photos from the issue.  

The interior printing is black and white but some of the photos deserve to get seen in colour so I'll be posting a few of them here.

Within the next week I hope to have copies in at least one store.

For everyone on the Web I am looking into a way to order copies.

I'm not interested in the usual print on demand or pdf download system, I want people to buy copies off the racks covered in fingerprints with bent covers. The game is printed in comic size format so it can sit comfortably on any retailers shelves that carry comics.

So if you're friends with a retailer have them contact me and I'll be glad to supply them through mail order. Pricing etc should be set within the week.

Background Setting Page

If you look to sidebar you'll see a new page titled "Background".
Follow the link for the first published Introduction to the world of Kartharka (the Lair setting).
Comments appreciated, but be warned, if you send in awesome ideas for the world they may end up in the books at some point,
And so might the criticisms so enjoy.

~Ripley