Dispatches Volume 2!

Dispatches Voulme 2 has hit the virtual shelves!

This volume focuses on articles related to adventure design. Although these articles use the excellent Dungeon Crawl Classics system, the general principles are adaptable to almost any game system.

This volume includes:

• Basic Adventure Design
• Using the Table to Your Advantage
• Advanced Adventure Design
• Killing Fields
• How Much is Too Much?
• Working For a Living, and
• Your Dungeon Crawl Classics Monster Manual

Appendix N Alert

If you are in the Toronto area, and especially if you are in the Annex, you may wish to check out Zoinks! Music and Books on 1018 Bloor Street West. I was there last night, and saw a number of Appendix N works...unfortunately mostly ones I already had. But there was a copy of Jack of Shadows there, at least last night, as well as several works by Michael Moorcock, Jack Vance, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and even a Jack Williamson. There were two Thongar novels remaining when I left, a fair bit of Zelazny, and more.

If you are in the area, and looking to fill out your Appendix N collection, it may be worth a stop.

Their phone number is 416-913-8827.

They are having a sale from August 20 to August 21, but some of these harder-to-find works may have disappeared by then!

What is the DCC Trove of Treasures?

If you haven't noticed it yet, I have started a companion blog, DCC Trove of Treasures, which exists solely to catalogue and talk about all of the products available for the Dungeon Crawl Classics system. I am interlinking it with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Product List, so that, eventually, when you see a product listed you will also be able to check out what's in it, what it is about, or what I thought about it.

Once I have gone through the (ever-expanding) list of products, I'll start to add links to product review for every product, if I can find them.

The idea is that you will eventually have a "living" document available to help discover things you might have missed, avoid the products that won't meet your needs, and give feedback of your own in the comments.

I just posted the first issue of Crawling Under a Broken Moon. Going in alphabetical order, that leaves me with a lot of Umerica, followed by a lot of Crawljammer. That isn't a chore. That's a privilege.

(Oh, and that picture? If you haven't heard, an expanded version of Angels, Daemons, and Beings Between is coming out. In print. From Shinobi 27 Games. It's a real cause for celebration!)

Mathoms Have Been Sent

They are out in the wild now.

Just Came in the Mail Today

This Year's Mathom is Ready to Go!

In accordance with this post, I am sending out a free adventure tomorrow.

The requirements were (1) post a review, (2) link to that review in the comments, and (3) send me your email address so that I can send you the adventure. I posted back in January to give people plenty of time.

Three people managed to do that this year.

There are days that I wonder why I bother.

Pick It Up at GenCon

If you are going to GenCon this year, there is a lot of Dungeon Crawl Classics goodness to be had! 

I will be at home, celebrating the half-century mark, but I will be there in spirit. And there are a few products appearing for the first time this convention that I am proud to have had a hand in.

First off, DCC #72: Through the Dragonwall, puts your PCs through their paces. This is the second stand-alone DCC adventure I've had published through Goodman Games (The Dread God Al-Khazadar appeared earlier this year).

Harley Stroh's Journey to the Center of Aereth is also coming out, and Joseph Goodman asked a few of us to help put out a companion piece: The Lost City of Barako. Mostly, this is the work of others, but I managed to sneak in three monstrous denizens nonetheless. Both of these modules are must-haves. Journey is as good a work as Harley has ever produced, and you know that Harley Stroh consistently produces great work.

From the depths of the Aereth you can soar into the heavens, entering the Crawljammer universe of Tim Callahan's excellent zine. And then, I guess, you can plumb back into the depths....but this time the depths of Saturn. The Vault of Ash, sequel and second half of The Weird Worm-Ways of Saturn, gives you a chance to see how the other half dies.

Whereas Weird Worm-Ways gave you the chance to make Saturnian Ape-Man characters, Ash gives you Martian Skeleton Men.
















Moving along, the Goodman Games GenCon 2016 Program Guide features Death by Nexus, which I had a hand in crafting. That is not the best part of the Program Guide, though, because it also includes, among other things, a 36-page-long full-color illustrated interview with legendary TSR artist Erol Otus, a new 0-level funnel Not In Kansas Anymore, the Gen Con 2015 spell duel tournament Way of the Dagon, a generation method for 1970’s 0-level characters, and a new patron.




Finally, there is the new XCrawl adventure, Anaheim Crawl, which I did the DCC conversion for. The original module, by Goodman Games superstar Brendan LaSalle, is more than a little challenging, and the DCC version is no less.



My contributions to GenCon are meager in comparison to the plethora of good stuff Goodman Games has in store. Check out the Goodman Games site for more information. Or better yet, drop into their booth at GenCon. I'll be envying you from afar!