fifth advent is closing in

The work on this religious detective sandbox set in the lands of Aenglum are delayed but not forgotten. How, when and what? That I can't say but you will get a glimpse on one of the illustrations from it. This one is made by my wife +Josefin Magnusson and her sweet diffrent style is always inspiring for me and my own creations. Oh, how I lack her patience! :)

P is for Postcards

MoRe PoStCaRdS!

---The number of postcards I sent, before the patreon project, could easily be counted on the fingers of just one hand. Now I must say it is both a fun privilage and hard work that let me send a couple of postcards each month to some awsome people out there in the world.---

---But very soon it is december and christmas is upon us, and I must do something fun of it all. Therefore I will change the rules of the patreon a bit and make the theme fitting with the holidays, I will also have guest-writers on the cards whom will decide the stats and flavor texts on the cards. In the celebration of christmas we must have some community gathering to all of these, even if there are the 15 coolest people in the patreon club, the cards will be found in lesser resolution here on the blog.---

---So, in my world, december will be a fun month full of christmas cards!!---

Oh, how fun if more of you were to send a christmas card!

---If this become a reality I also intend to get them out to the public to order so you can send christmas monsters to your relatives and friends!---

---I have reached out to some of you as writers of these cards and two awsome people jumped on this christmas train!---

Merry Christmas!

Final Days

"Hell is overflowing. And Satan is sending his dead to us. Why? Because you have sex out of wedlock. You kill unborn children. You have man-on-man relations. Same-sex marriage. How do you think your god will judge you? Well, friends, now we know. When there is no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth." 

- Teleevangelist, dawn of the dead 2004

It will be some Rotworld this evening. I have no preparation at all but who gives a damn when the end is near! All I know is that zombies are cool and need to be shot in the head. Rules and game will mostly be character driven sandbox survival with a lot of horror and cruelty.

I should ask some of you the details of american national guard and what equipment they have. I guess for the mood it is best to put the story in good old USA cause 99% of all zombie flicks are from there and that setting is totally workable. Would be cool to put it in sweden but we do not have guns, people or that bad foundation to build upon - we are not densly populated, have robust houses and it would not be as fun, The US it is.

319,000,000 zombies are more fun than 9,000,000 zombies.

ok, some points to figure out:

• what type of zombies should I use? (I'm leaning towards a mix between the fast and slow and with some varieties, not really liking the exploding bloater. I don't want them to fast either. A most is the aim for the head tho.)
• What started it all? Do people know this? (No, of couse. Some clues should be prepared in news and rumors)
• Where should the players start? What will they encounter? 

"Dr. Millard Rausch, Scientist: [on a TV] They use... consume maybe 5% of the food available in the human body. With that small amount, the body is usual intact enough to be mobile when it revives.

TV Commentator: What are you saying? Are you saying...

Dr. Millard Rausch, Scientist: [interrupting] It is worth saving? Is a bite victim worth saving? For all I know, it's the brains that are already dead. It's the idiots that are still alive.

TV Commentator: You can't help us deal with your calm illogical ways...

Dr. Millard Rausch, Scientist: Illogical hell! I'm showing you a way we can up the food supply 20 times.

TV Commentator: Food supply for who?

Dr. Millard Rausch, Scientist: For a whole specimen that is walking around out there in increasing numbers, we should...

TV Commentator: Are you saying we should FEED them? The bite victims...

Dr. Millard Rausch, Scientist: What else are you going to do with them? Give me an alternative.

[various arguing among the studio audience is heard in the background]

TV Commentator: You scientists are supposed to come up with a way of solving this problem rather than feeding the opposition? It doesn't make any sense.

Dr. Millard Rausch, Scientist: Well, I can think of another alternative. Since these things seem to congregate in heavily populated areas and since we have not touched upon any of our nuclear resources... why don't we drop bombs on all the big cities?

TV Commentator: You're not serious?

Dr. Millard Rausch, Scientist: I am deadly serious! What are the choices? They won't run out of food, that's the problem you see. And they won't run out of food as long as we're still alive."

-Dawn of the dead 1978

The Block: Illustration 2

this is called "Some players are stuck in the 90s"

And then with sound!

The Block: Illustration 1

Court with the Muschroom King

Had to stop working on it cause it ate all the time. :)

Music in background: Apotygma Berzerk

The great drawing and writers block

My life is god damn awsome. BUT I have this block that prevents me from beeing creative, be it a quick dose of fall depression or a strange worm eating my brain.

That is why I hereby give a promise I will make 10 ugly, sweet, good, bad or otherwise splendid or disgusting illustrations and put on the blog today. A real trolly day that is and if you can't stand it it is just to close your eyes, block me or come kill me. (I rather not want to be dead tho)

Ok, off to do numro ono!

Third postcard: The undead/braindead Dwarf

A third card got loose on the population. This one is public and all but for the next card the card will be kept secret till they arrive at their destinations. I will make it this way once in a while to keep the suspense among the subscribers. So as you will see this card will be the last one for yer eyes in a week or two, who knows? ;)

And man created the Angel

Alternate Art of the created angel. I'm not sure how I want them and a few versions are starting to show up and I may or may not redo the whole concept. We'll see

The created Angel

"They were a proud and faithfull people. They worshiped their gods and their messengers. But one day they got this feeling they were not listened to. They realised they had not seen their gods for many years and no signs or nothing, just that silence. But they were a crafty people. They had the means to help their gods. Yes, they created their own god machines. Cause if they only were pure in their sould the machines would be pure and holy. But the poor people would soon know better! They would learn the hard way that they could not cheat the gods."

Why do it kill people?

1. The Angel hunt for sin and all man is sinfull!
2. The Angel need to feed on the pure and so they must hunt the innocent!
3. The Angel just hate mortals and will cleanse the world from this filth!
4. The Angel hunt the evil and will only hurt a creature full of sin!
5. The Angel only attack when he feel threatened!
6. The Angel is very territorial and he has a big territory!

How does it communicate?

1. The Angel does not speak, only stares at people with lifeless eyes!
2. The Angel speaks with an heavenly voice!
3. The Angel speaks as an old recording.
4. The Angel speaks as a chorus
5. The Angel speaks very mechanicly
6. The Angel does not speak, but he can scratch messages with his claws

Does it fly?

1. No, the angel uses his wings to cut people up!
2. No, the wings are just for show!
3. No, but they are a great when shielding against attacks!
4. Yes, but the wings seem to have nothing to do with it!
5. Yes, somehow those blady wings does make him fly!?
6. Yes, and he flies very gracefull as a dove at dawn!

What does it eat?

1. Meat
2. Souls
3. Oil
4. Diamonds
5. sorrow
6. Happiness

Where does it live?

1. In a ruined clocktower
2. In the ruins of an old city
3. It is wandering around the wastland
4. It is hiding in the temple
5. It stands as a statue in the cemetary
6. It lives in a cave in the mountain

The first two monster pages

It all started a bit better than I thought it ever could. 11 people supporting this project and making it a reality! What a bunch of totaly awsome group of heroes! The second card goes into the mail tomorrow and I need to slow down a bit so not to spoil all the fun to fast!

Here I present to you the first two pages supported by patreon and soon in a mailbox close to you.

The Shreak serpent is a screaming sea monster that will scare the hell out of a group of heroes on the sea.

When the Tri-pods arrive to any gaming world the end of that world is near! How this one didn't make it into the original monster manual of your choice is beyond me! ;)

Thank you all whom have supported this project! And I hope you all stay whit me for many cards to come! :D

T.L.M.M.P.P: Attack of the tri-pods (from behind the mountain)

(from space? from the underworld? From another dimension?)

The second page is showing an fantazy Tri-pod war machine whatever that is!?
(the map making genious +Simon Forster choose the theme)

This picture may be on the second page of the lost monster manual page postcard. A patreon project you can find over HERE

I hope to hear some response of the first card soon and hide under the table if it is to awfull :P

Lost Monster Manual: The First monster!

So the first monster is born and the lost monster manual has a first page (postcard)!

The Shreak Serpent!

Ok, it is not actually ON the postcard yet and the above is just a protoype so I could have it in my hands and feel it if it was good enough. And I must say I am satisfied with the border and +Josefin Magnusson helped me out as always. (One could not wish for a better wife! I really love her!)

I'm still not at 100% done and posted but I am allready thinking of what will be on page #2 and whom are to choose that theme!

Oh, the satisfaction! :D

The lost monster manual page postcard

Heh, if you missed it I made the crazy idea a reality and a handfull of stalwart heroes have jumped on to the train as patreons of this project!

+Daniel Sell got to choose the first theme and it is on its merry way! If it will be the above wip "shreak Serpent" we'll see. But I think it would look good on a postcard, what do you say?

The patreon site is found - HERE
A good article on OSR today about all this is found - HERE

I'm really looking forward to put my teeth in this project!

The Lost monster manual postcard

I get these cool postcard maps from +Simon Forster. This really sparks ones imagination and yesterday I got this idea of "The lost monster manual" postcard project.

Lost monster manual postcard

The above postcard is just an example of how they could look like. I wonder how many would be intrested in receiving cards like those? Could it be maintained by patreon and could one get enough income for the stamps required?
If I were to patreon this the low dollars really would be the online version to print yourself and those whom provide that little extra would get about two postcards a month with strange monsters with stats and all to throw at players. Some bonus cards a year providing random encounter tables and stuff?

Leave a comment if you would like this project to take off or if you think this is the most stupid idea in the history of the universe! Well I like all kinds of comments! ;)

Convention time: Fifth Advent

"It is said that every age is born a great evil to the world. Several hundred years ago, at the Fourth Advent a group of heroes of the holy temple, managed to imprison this darkness. Our noble god and protector Aeidmar has watched over us, and time after time, given us the power to stop this darkness from ever breaking free.

But now, after many years, the day has come when the oracles has seen the signs and warned us that the darkness once again can wake up, that the fifth Advent is finally here and, if that is the case, time has come for humanity to finnaly face the end of days.

But then again, the temple has put together a group consisting of the greatest champions of goodness and faith, and these are now on a mission to Cloister hill, the place where the Lord of Darkness is fettered, and they are to make sure everything is secure, that the ancient oracles must have read the signs wrong, and so the sigils are intact!

Fifth Advent is an investigatory small dungeon crawl set in the world of Aenglum but can easily be converted to fit into most games of your choice. The characters will belong to the classes of temple guardians, priests and witch hunters. The theme is that of religion, detective work and crawling into confined spaces. The pregenerated classes can also be changed so to fit just about any group hired by the temple to do its bidding. This is foremost written as a convention adventure tho hence the way this is made." - the text from the convention folder. (or actually as it say in the booklet )

I got to play two sessions of Aenglum: Fifth Advent this weekend. I were to play today to but there was to few players this early in the morning.

How did it go? The first group only scratched on the surface and just had to go to the one area that I really wasn't a hundred percent finniched with. It is a sandbox tho so it was just as much improvisation as anything but I think they had a good time.

I had to do a handout 1 minute before start and laminated all the character sheets that had a certain look to them. This turned out good and before running it or releasing it I must write together some more handouts.

This is how the sheets turned out.

If running with laminated sheets and handout the feeling of having a few papers in stack in this thin shape was quite cool.

a typical handout in Fifth advent.

I'm looking forward to running fifth advent further with some of the players in the future and it is always cool to see the decisions people make. They all knew it was a sandbox but I see a pattern of maybe human behaviour or the fault of modern gaming that they make almost the same decisions. Nah, they were maybe just following orders? Need to examine this further in future groups! ;)

And the maps of +Simon Forster in this adventure is awsome and need to be remarked on once again! ;)

Art of today: A mystery of Sigils lost

This weekend I will DM an adventure earlier mentioned on this blog, "the Fifth Advent". Today you will get to see one of the illustrations from this;

It is a dark religious mystery sandbox that take way to long time to play for a convention but what the hell, it will be fun and I'm looking forward to it! :)

(oh, it contains maps from +Simon Forster so it is destined to rock! ;) )

Fourth time is a charm?

I hope you haven't missed the awsome Noh-Cha classbook released a short while ago! It was the fourth time I made something and the second (ok, third maybe) time it showed up in a product that people actually pay for. (Just Art as of now but maybe some text in the future??)

Oh man, that look good. :) (link) Jason McCartan did a really nice classbook!

Oh, that one look good to! (link) I haven't read it yet but I am really looking forward to seeing this in the mail any day now! And I hope to work for +Tim Shorts again as he is a nice fellow!

It is really fun to work with the OSR society! Sweet people everywhere you look!

Fun times at the minicon Cavecrawl ("Gröttröj")

I must say I was positively chocked this saturday as I arrived to the minicon just some minutes walk from home. This minicon "Grottröj" (when talking to someone outside sweden I call it Cavecrawl even tho it should be something like CaveBrawl but that sounds even more strange. A great many things sound strange one way or another, a whole generation of swedish Roleplayers pronounce Orc the wrong way as Drakar och Demoner just had to add an H, Orch. [Or-sh]), was attended by a whole frigging army! I guess we were like 25 people or something! I must have missed the fact that the OSR are a whole lot bigger than I thought it was. First time I was at Grottröj we were like five people, and now in a year that number was four or five times bigger!

Playing "the temple of the mad Monkey god-king" (el tempelguldet som det heter egentligen.) 

It was great fun meeting a lot of people sharing the same intrests as oneself. I got to play two diffrent games. The first adventure was a strange encounter with a spaceship where all kinds of psycadelic things happened. This adventure will be released later on, "Proteus Sinking".

My best moment this day was playing Svärd och Svartkonst with a bunch of players that together created f***ing harmony in the universe, nah, but I really liked it.

I played a colonial drunkard whom got fooled out of his drinking in this "bangladeshy" city (colonial india setting sort of). Accompanied by Bobby-Tommie "the undying", a mutant with snake underbody, and a fragile scholary wizard. Even if I had been the lowest of ranked officers in the army they insisted on calling me captain, and the monkey gods know that a captain he was this last days of his life. The group made out for the jungle in search of the temple of the monkey god, with promises of gold and riches!

And what happend? Oh, we all die of course. This was a real tragedy! A TPK just because the captain had some phobia of snakes!

Last but not least I got to play my own adventure (at least for a few hours. It was getting late) and had a blast. This will be played even more the coming weekend at KlossCon and then we see what happens.

If you are swedish you must check out Svärd och svartkonst review of Grottröj

Monster: The Deamon Hamsterdog

The great old wizard Haeglunn experimented on animals to create the most dangerous animal to be known by man. He was feared by the local populance cause of all the misstakes that had escaped his cages and found their way down to the village. Eighteen Sheeps and a cow had lost their lives to these abominations! How long would it take before a human had to put his life on the line?

The village were almost ready to revolt when one of the more dangerous creatures were let loose. Haeglunn were really really bad when it came to locking the doors of the cages! The most dangerous animal known to man slew a lot of people and left no witnesses. The great adventurers arrived to the scene only to find that the great animal were afraid of them and run to the woods.

Ok, the truth is that the real killer had allready run away in hunt for some other prey while the poor creature called the deamon hamsterdog had just escaped and came to the scene of the slaughter only to be found by the heroes! He ran away in fear and got the infamy not deseved. His poor face on a hundred posters offering tons of gold in reward for the innocent head on his neck!

No. Attacks: 1, HP: 2d6, Att: +1 (1d6 horns)

Art of today: Lanterns Light

Sometimes you draw some illustration and they just go sour on you. At a first glance I guess some people think this look good in some way but the truth is that I just think this picture have 29 faults and the fake light is just one of them. ;)

I have posted very little on the blog lately. I have been writing on some adventure for KlossCon and it really just consume all the time I have when not at work. This above picture is actually one of many lunch-break pictures I make. The lunch is often a small drawing session for me and it is both relaxing and fun.