Dang!

Dang! Looks like Hero Games is pretty screwed. They're cutting their full-time staff down to a total of ONE, which isn't a good sign. I really hope they can come around again, they've managed to return from the dead before, but I wouldn't bet my life on it.

Creepy Critter

All I know about this thing is that it's a bat of some kind, and that it creeps me out. Enlarge it to human-size, and you have a creature of nightmares.

And here's another: a leaf-tail gecko:

Hirelings from Planet Algol

Read this.

It's the first time I've seen anything written from the point of view of the hirelings. It's great.

The Very Excellent Screen of Fitz

I've made several DM screens in my time, as I've moved through various rule-sets and their various editions.

The first one I ever made was made of very heavy card (Whakatane board, for those who know what that is), lovingly illustrated on the players' side by me in pen and ink and coloured pencil, and like all of them until the Age of Computers, the DM's side assembled from photocopied tables from the PHB and DMG. It took me many, many hours of loving work.

That one was eaten by a dog. I was not happy.

This one consists of four sheets, 210mm square, in a concertina fold, the whole lot held together with white (off-white, really) cloth tape. Previously I've mounted the printed sheets on heavy card; this time I just laminated them back-to-back and taped them together, and it seems to be quite sturdy enough for use, and will fold a lot flatter.

It's designed for my ultra-houseruled version of Swords & Wizardry. There's really not a lot in S&W that the DM has to have constant reference to; there's so little to the rules that they're pretty easy to remember, so I've had to pad out these four sheets to get enough stuff on there to fill them up.

The outside — the players' side — has been decorated with an assemblage of Dyson's excellent dungeomorphs, slapped together with the aid of the also excellent Dave's Mapper.