The Wilds - Into the Storm

Missed a turn last week, and there was a bit of chaos as a result. After the first fight with the beastmen the party was pretty beat up. With a second group approaching fast, and a swirling mass of black storm clouds forming over the big old elm tree to the north, they're desperate to find a way out of the predicament. After trying to sneak southwest to gain a positional advantage, the party realizes they've been spotted. They decide to try and use the oddly compact and stationary storm to cover their retreat...

The Sword of Bees

This is the sword Raúguey, from my Labyrinth Lord Wilds game has. Figured I'd post it here, since he finally discovered what it does.

Sword of Bees
This two-handed sword is plain but quite sharp. It has the following characteristics:

• +1 weapon
• It emits a low buzzing, humming sound when used in combat.
• Any natural 19-20 attack roll causes a swarm of bees to swirl out of the weapon's blade, surrounding the struck foe. These bees cause no damage, but distract and blind the enemy, who suffers a -2 penalty on all actions, and a -4 morale penalty for three rounds.
• Any natural 1 attack roll causes a swarm of bees to attack the wielder as above.
• Bees are glittering gold unless a fumble is rolled, in which case they are a sickly green.

The Sword of Bees is one of seven items found in Items of Power Volume Three, available on DriveThruRPG.

The Wilds - Mayhem in the Fields

As they enter the sixth round of the fight, the party is worried. Several party members are down, including Grit, and Raúguey is badly wounded. There's some shouting about spells as combat continues against the last four foes. Also I've discovered I've been handling spell-casting incorrectly so far as timing in the round, so that'll be fixed as we move forward...

The Wilds - Blood on the Grass

Battle is joined, the trap is sprung, how will things go for the plucky adventurers? Signs point to blood, and there's more trouble waiting in the wings. Let's see how it goes...

The Tombs Virtual Dungeon Map

The Tombs is now available on DriveThruRPG!

The Tombs is a ready-to-fill dungeon map for use with virtual tabletops such as Roll20 or MapTools. This complex contains over sixty rooms and corridors, including a small shrine complex, visitation rooms, living quarters for the tomb attendants, a secret tunnel complex, and, of course, many many tombs and crypts.

This product includes six versions of the 200 foot by 200 foot complex map rendered as JPG images (150px per square, 40x40 grid squares):

• Unkeyed player's map with no grid.
• Unkeyed player's map with grid.
• Keyed player's map with no grid.
• Keyed player's map with grid.
• Keyed GM's map with no grid.
• Keyed GM's map with grid.

The GM's versions of the map shows the location of all secret doors in the complex.

I hope you'll check it out, or take a look at the entire catalog. Thanks for reading!

The Wilds - First Contact

After a hurried, whispered planning session, the group scatters to lay an ambush for the whatever-they-are creatures trying to set the tree on fire in the distance. The general idea is to spread out and funnel the enemy toward the campsite by lighting a fire. Locky gets fire duty, while the missile-equipped spread out to either side in a loose V formation. Let's see how it goes...

Stepping Up

I've been working on some geomorph tiles recently, and as part of that process, I've been trying to develop a good technique for layout down stairs with appropriate shadows to indicate descent/ascent. This is a before/after (left and right respectively) shot of my first and second attempts at this process. I posted the first on the G+ Map Making in Games community, and got some excellent feedback there.

The changes:

• A different method of laying down the base shadows. The overlay layer I used in the first version was producing an over-saturation effect.
• A second harder shadow near the back of each stair tread to sharpen the edges.
• A very faint highlight on the front edge of each tread to make them pop.
• A gradient shadow to indicate depth, using the revised method.
• A doubled shadow on the lower floor to better match the shadows on the lower stairs.

You might be wondering what this is going to be used for. Well I can offer a hint: