Emergency Update

Hey Games Fans, some of you are aware of that death of my mother recently, and some of you are not.  This is an official (ish) notification and we will be closing down for at least the end of the year to take care of family things and making sure that we honor her appropriately and celebrate the holidays with her spirit in mind. 

This has shaken all of us deeply, and it will take time for us to recover from the sudden shock of her untimely passing.  As things get back to normal, we will start creating articles again.  Thank you for wishes, thoughts, prayers, and condolences in this time of tribulation. 

Matthew Wilkins

Zardoz the Magnificent

2018 (A flash forward)

Hey Game Fans, it’s that time of year again and we’re going to take a look at some new ideas and thoughts for what we’re going to do around the office for 2018 to keep bringing you spectacular content and new ideas about gaming. We have a cyclical relationship with games, and what that means to us is that we go through a cycle of engagement and disengagement with the games we love. This means we sort of lose track of them and pick up new, shiny things that we are interested in, and we’re in the middle of several of those cycles as we speak. So what does that mean for 2018?

Archetypes List for LakePort

So we’re off to the races compiling a list of additional archetypes (or notes on how to incorporate them) for use in our Lakeport setting. These will include but are not limited to:

The Year of Battletech

If you read this blog often, you know that we’re huge fans of Battletech (in all of its many wonderful forms), and 2018 is looking like a banner year for the franchise. With new starter sets for the board game in the works, two new computer games slated for release, and a host of other developments on the horizon, it’s a great time to be a fan of giant stompy robots fighting over a Game of Thrones esque feudal system. Let’s talk a little bit about some of the developments and see what the future holds.

Humans of Lakeport

Hey Game Fans, we’re back for the last part of our feature on the races for the setting of Lakeport.  Today we’re going to look at humans, and their two primary cultures, the Lakefolk and the Horse Lords. These represent a mechanical issue with the way we’ve wanted to present Lakeport. There’s an internal discussion on whether or not they should be a subrace or a background.  

Mechanically, the Lakefolk and the Horse Lords are the exact same people with very few differences in their stats.  Their changes are minor, and focus on specific aspects of their culture and the primary conveyance they use to get around the world.  However, if we make them a background, we take away the ability for a Player to make a Lakefolk Artisan, or a Horse Lord Noble.  We pigeonhole them into their specific culture instead of giving their culture the same breadth of options that the other cultures can select.  

So we’re going to present these options as subraces (which are usable with either configuration of human from the Player’s Handbook).  This is presented as an augmentation to the information provided in the Player’s Handbook, and the subrace represents additional cultural traits exclusive to the Horse Lords and the Lakefolk.  There are other smaller groups but these lack a unified culture that pulls them together.  The full range of heights, weights, complexions and descriptive elements from the Player’s Handbook are available.  Let’s take a closer look at the Horse Lords and The Lakefolk.

Dire Turkey

Happy Thanksgiving

The Dire Turkey is a mega sized version of the common fowl that can be found in natural settings throughout the world.  Unlike their smaller cousins, Dire Turkeys are not afraid of humanoids.  They come in two primary forms, a large bird, roughly the size of a horse, and an even larger bird that gives an elephant a run for its money.  These birds are quick, and move through their native environments with practiced ease.  Hunting the larger birds is a rite of passage for giants in some climates, and they can be surprisingly hard to catch.

World Anvil (World Building Resources)

Hey Game Fans, we’re back with a look at another gaming resource for your world building needs.  World Anvil is a new resource for World builders and authors.  It features a variety of tools and functions for the world builder and gives you a place to collate all of your resources in one easy to find reference spot.  It’s system agnostic, which means you can create the specific entry for a critter or a location, and then in the same entry put in stats for whatever system you’re planning on using.  Let’s take a closer look, and we’ll show you the world anvil approach to our Lakeport setting.