I’m proud of you, Kid

I spend a lot of time on this blog talking about pretending and today I'd like to take a moment to say something real. I'm proud of you. I know what it's like to get up at 3 am to go to a job you hate; to get yelled at by people who couldn't give…

Enjoy the Things You Enjoy, without Apologizing for It.

One of the things that I've noticed recently, online, is that there are some people who want you to feel bad about enjoying the game the way you want to play it. They will loudly, and incessantly, berate you about liking D&D 5e. They'll demand that you play other games instead of doing what you…

Gods of the New Sun: Shaw

The next god of the New Sun is Shaw. Shaw is a god that kind of fills a big void for me that's often missing when you look at the brief lists of gods that often appear in the Player's Handbook. He's there not so much to pick one side or the other, but for…

The Gods of the New Sun: Nwt

The second god I created was Nwt. I wanted someone who could stand in stark contrast to Geb and so this is what came out: Nwt by Charles Akins When I started working on the illustration for Nwt I wanted to draw someone who was confident and felt like she could hold her own against…

The Gods of the Book of the New Sun: Geb

One of my favorite aspects of creating a world is building up the gods. I don't know why it is, but it's something that I've always loved. To that end I've begun working on the pantheon of the New Sun. Meet Geb. Geb, by Charles Akins Geb was the first god that popped into my…

The Book of the New Sun

Recently, I started talking to some friends about beginning a new campaign. Several of them had heard of Dungeons and Dragons, though only two of them have played before. So I'm treating this as a new experience for everyone involved and that means that I need to treat it like my first time DMing again,…

The Curious Evolution of Morgan Ironwolf

Morgan Ironwolf first appeared as line in the 1980 Dungeon Masters Adventure Log as seen below: Character Log example from Dungeon Master's Log Here Morgan Ironwolf appears, alongside other player characters, as an example for the Dungeon Master in how to accurately record an adventure using the log system that TSR was attempting to get…

Making Clerics Distinct

One of the great problems I find with clerics is that they're largely all the same. A lot of the sameness comes from the way that Dungeons and Dragons presents the class. Little wonder too, as they're trying to provide a class that will be appealing to the greatest number of people across the largest…

The Beauty of Saying, “I Don’t Know.”

One of the things that I love about reading older role-playing game materials - whether they're old books, magazines, or zines - is that so often you can tell that the authors have no pretense at being "right." More often than not, they're likely to begin talking about any topic by hedging what they say…

How Many Cows Are There, Really?

Changing Pasture by Anton Mauve Occasionally I find myself slipping off into a bit of minutia when it comes to the worlds I'm playing with in my home games. This morning was just such an occasion. I had been working on a scene my players would be encountering in the countryside when I noted that…

A Desert of Glass

Recently I ran across an article, An ancient exploding comet may explain why glass litters part of Chile, by Freda Kreier and it kind of captured my imagination. The article is a fascinating look at this twisted glass that covers about a 75 kilometer long corridor within the Atacama Desert in Chile. I find myself…

Backgrounds, or, Who Even Are You?

You've rolled your character, arranged their ability scores to your heart's desire, and picked out their class. You've filled their inventories; picked out their spells, feats, and powers. You even managed to pick out a name before the game began. But who are they, really? Idylls of the King by Gustave Doré What made Boethius…

Let’s Talk about Al’Akbar of the World of Greyhawk

Unless you're really into the world of Greyhawk it's unlikely that you've encountered the demi-god Al'Akbar and the True Faith that surrounds his worship. So let's talk a little bit about that. The Palace Guard by Ludwig Deutsch The first mention of Al'Akbar came in the Strategic Review Volume 2, No. 2 from April 1976…

Greyhawk: Where We’re All Against the Giants

One of the things that I find so fascinating about the world of Greyhawk is how so many people choose to live on the shores of they Nyr Dyv even though it's got terrible storms, sea monsters, disappearing islands (that just as suddenly reappear), pirates, and all manner of unnamed dangers. Yet people keep on…

Dungeons, and Walmart, and LJN? Part 3, The Shady Dragon Inn

The world of LJN would have been an interesting footnote in the history of Dungeons and Dragons were it not for TSR attempting to make something more from the line. In 1983 TSR published AC 1: The Shady Dragon Inn. Ostensibly the Shady Dragon Inn was nothing more than a collection of non-player characters (NPCs)…