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May 23, 2013 / Kobold Staff / Leave a comment
Avarice, gluttony, and wrath. The seven sins dangerous enough to be called deadly are now collected under one set of covers, with all errata and some expanded text to make these Sin Monsters as complete and dangerous as they can be.
The Monsters of Sin Collection includes
- 21 new monsters thematically tied to one of the seven deadly sins,
- 7 templates to bring that sin out in monsters and NPCs,
- complete notes on using sin in any fantasy world,
- 7 Embodiments of Sin to challenge the greatest heroes!
The Monsters of Sin Collection is suitable for multiple levels of play and can be used in any existing setting and campaign, or it can be combined to create a campaign of Sin. Go beyond ordinary monsters, and challenge your champions with threats to mind, body, and spirit!
Available now from Kobold Press!
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May 23, 2013 / Peter von Bleichert / Leave a comment
Gnolls have slaughtered their way to gaming infamy, and they are a favorite of gamemasters (GMs) and players alike. This article can be used by GMs to round out this age-old monster, or players can use it to create new characters. The following gnoll variant is formatted for AGE—though you can convert the material to your preferred system easily enough—and is specific to the Midgard campaign world.
Gnoll Cultist
Gnoll cultists have little patience for rituals, viewing torture and slaughter as ritual enough. Often, their devotion belongs to their assumed creator, the demon Mordiggian (also known as Vardesain), patron god of the ghouls. Other cultists revere Anu-Akma, Aten, Bastet, Horus, Ninkash, and Thoth-Hermes, and they seek out converts, prey, and slaves. Cultists wear symbols of piety, such as the eye of Mordiggian, the sistrum of Bastet, or the wedjat eye of Horus, and they use appropriate weapons, such as the flail for followers of Mordiggian and daggers for others, with many of the cult’s warriors having affinities for axes.
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May 22, 2013 / Frank Gori / 3 comments
“Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
In many tribal societies, the chieftain leads the social hierarchy (along with sometimes a council of elders), the hero leads war parties, and the shaman serves as spiritual leader. The tribal shaman is sometimes the only member of a tribe with magic, and he or she often serves a conduit to the spirit world.
Given the debate that preceded this week’s article (and its rebuttal), I reiterate once more that gaming is at its best when we mix familiar elements with new—use nostalgia with a twist. My gaming table is happiest when they expect the same old encounter and instead face something similar but different. Make your players respect the old hat monsters again, and I assure you your gaming table will be better for it. Join me after the jump for my last tribal template the tribal shaman (CR +3).
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May 21, 2013 / Wolfgang Baur / 34 comments
This blog hosted “Penny Dreadfuls: Against the Nostalgia Fetish in Fantasy Roleplaying” yesterday, a pleasant-but-perhaps-confused rant against nostalgia in roleplaying game design, and in favor of progress and modernity. Maybe I’m just old enough to see the upside of the conservative worldview, but let me be the first to say “bah, nonsense!” and offer this brief rebuttal in the voice of reason. I fully realize that in doing so, I can expect to insult every active gamer in a slightly different fashion than Mssr. Hebert did.
Yes, roleplaying games in general and Dungeons & Dragons and the Pathfinder RPG in particular do revel in the antique, the ancient, the dusty tomes—as part of the genre, and as a focus for world building. But this is hardly a fetish for nostalgia or a clinging to the outworn and lackluster rules of yesterday. It’s just part of the character of its novels and settings. Fantasy RPG fans also like Renaissance fairs, medieval weapons, and tales that lean toward sagas and hero-quests. Comes with the territory.
Steady Improvement
But RPG fans preferring antique game design? Not at all, and to the contrary. Most gamers are happy to recognize and embrace a core of functional, pleasurable, and workable rules, rather than chasing after every gaming fad and novelty.
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May 20, 2013 / Neal Hebert / 36 comments
Ever since the announcement of “D&D Next”—or, to translate marketing-speak into actual English, Dungeons & Dragons: 5th Edition—more than a year ago, Wizards of the Coast’s efforts to unite the disparate tribes of fantasy roleplaying enthusiasts under one system of roleplaying has been contentious at best. Fans of disparate—and mutually exclusive, in some cases—styles of roleplaying have been contesting and debating the merits of each edition to assess whether elements of that edition should be included in the Frankenstein’s monster that is Next.
The results have been ugly, retrograde, and entirely predictable. Wizards of the Coast’s promises of modularity and freedom of choice have all been silenced by the advent of the unelected “But that’s not D&D!” committee that lurks on every forum. Its members revel in speaking out against progressive design, clutch tightly to every mechanical cow in the event that someone, somewhere might believe it sacred despite its age or dissociation from the remainder of its herd, and rejoice in purging the unclean from the hobby because of their conviction that there is only one ideologically acceptable way to pretend to be an elf.
Theirs.
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