Breakdown: Phlick's Sketchbook

In the irregular 'Breakdown' feature, we take found art (usually historic illustrations) and translate them into something Wampusified.

Burgess Phlick was a well-known illustrator and sometime portrait-painter who died several years ago when his rowhome in River-Town was raided by a street gang (the Sweet Dandies).  His long artistic career produced numerous newspaper and penny-dreadful illustrations as well as a series of stunning landscapes; but of interest to us tonight are the drawings from his personal journal.

Some of his subjects were provided by Phlick's extensive travel across Wampus Country, in search of inspiration.  Others, however, are presumed to be a product of his heavy drug use; so well-known were his hallucinogenic proclivities that in some restaurants it is still customary to say "Phlick it up" by way of ordering extra mushrooms.  Sadly it is impossible for us to know whether Phlick, who was not magically trained, ever actually managed to send his mind to other places, such as the Midnight Sea or the Lands of Death - but some of the things he drew certainly suggest the possibility.

Left: Oorb Cracknettle.   Right: The Bat-Parson.

Oorb Cracknettle is one of the more severely mutated Lakeborn; luckily for him, one of his aquatic features is a pair of patagic wings beneath his man-arms, which appear to be a converted set of tentacles with skin stretched between them.  These winglets give Oorb the power of flight - well, more like controlled gliding, really - which has made his career as a second-storey fish (burglar) all the more remarkable.  Oorb displays no fear of heights (as one might expect of a fish), and he has perpetrated any number of daring heists over the years.  One time he leaped from the top of the clock tower on a five-dollar bet - and managed to circle the town once before alighting to collect his money.

The "Bat-Parson" was an eccentric priest named Rainville Fleurdemerde, but he preferred to be addressed as the Right Reverend Fist-of-Bats.  This oddball claimed that he had been given a vision by a divine creature resembling a bat-headed giant, and instructed to spread the word of the Bat and prepare defenses against the "surging of the serpent-men" (whatever that means).  Mostly the Bat-Parson ran up and down the street, flapping his "wings" (made from umbrellas) and ranting about the coming snakey apocalypse.  On two occasions he was caught in the courtyard of the River-Town School For the Blind, having climbed over the wall for the purpose of teaching the children to echolocate; he is no doubt responsible for the School's current policy whereby children who say "Ping!" get caned.  The Bat-Parson died alone and unloved in a gutter; but a recent expedition to the City of Mazes reports of a large stone statue there which is not unlike the beast in the Bat-Parson's vision.

Left: Hercule Gavial.     Right: The Contessa DeZebra.

Hercule Gavial is a respected sleuth who hails from Frogport, but has retired to River-Town in his dotage.  Twas he who solved the "Mystery of the Inside-Out Prostitute" as well as the mildly-famous "Case of the Six-Handed Murderer".  A few story-papers were printed detailing his exploits, likely embellished.  These days he spends most of his time drinking juleps on the porch of the Journey's End Hotel.

Equally interesting is the Contessa DeZebra, who may or may not exist.  Burgess Phlick wrote of her in his diaries, describing her as a "vibrant, dignified woman of a zebra", and the two dated for the better part of the artist's forty-third year.  According to Phlick's account, their relationship advanced in a predictable way, growing more serious until finally the Contessa confessed to him a secret which caused an argument and ended the tryst.  If the Contessa did exist, she was perhaps an exotic barbarian woman, or were-zebra or some sort of centaur; the illustration may be interpretive.  It's also entirely possible that Phlick ate a ton of mushrooms and started dating an actual zebra.

Left: Chief Zoort.   Right: Beasticus Gropp.

Chief Zoort, according to Phlick, was the lord of a tribe of savage (yet noble) elephant-men who lived under his sink.  On multiple occasions Phlick told friends that he could crawl under the sink and appear amidst a field of pink grass, where a cool breeze blew across a vast savannah under twin suns.  Zoort apparently told Phlick that everything he knew was a lie, the sky he could see was naught but a cage, and also that he should bet all his money on the double-zero at the leftmost roulette table next Friday.  The artist followed that third instruction, but lost a great deal of money, beginning a downward spiral which led to longterm depression.  Even in the days before his death, Phlick could be heard muttering something about elephants not knowing their left from their right in an [expletive] pocket dimension.  Investigations of Phlick's kitchen after his death yielded nothing.

The fierce battle-lord Beasticus Gropp, however, is definitely very real, and still alive today - in a manner of speaking.   A nasty, brutish sub-man, Beasticus led a life of brigandry, rising to command his own group of raiders-cum-mercenaries known as Gropp's Gut-cutters.  In this new role as a leader, Beasticus served several masters - whoever could pay best, and was willing to put up with the Gut-cutters' unscrupulous and murderous tactics.  On his last mission, however, Beasticus was turned to stone by a catoblepas.  Those who dare press their ear to his cold granite chest can hear a faint heartbeat - within his man-shaped mausoleum, Beasticus Gropp yet lives.  His followers have mostly scattered, but a few still hold hope that they will find a way - a sympathetic wizard, a bribe-able witch - to return their General to life.

The Platypus Factor

The G+ game of Wampus Country has been going pretty well of late, and I hope it'll continue to get better and better.  At this point I pretty much have a 'core' group of four players, with other FLAILSNAILS PCs joining on a rotational basis.  Just last week, we had another new player and PC, a Wampus-native illusionist of all things, so we'll see whether Abel (a failed novelist) ends up as part of the perceived-to-be-core crew or what.

The central focus of the party so far seems to be the lovingly-named Charnel Caves of the Necronauts, an old tunnel complex full of catacombs and such, one entry to which was hidden beneath the zombie beaver dam.  They've made two delves into the Charnel Caves - one into an ossuary where they faced a skelemental (quickly dispatched thanks to James Ironwall's magic spear vs undead); and the second, into the catacombs where they faced the Ghost Brides.  Now, the Ghost Brides themselves were all mortal death-cultists, but their leader, one Phineas Gristle, was a quite insubstantial gentleman.

Like all wise first-level-average adventurers, they ran the hell out of there.  But not before the cleric, Ornibus Jones, (rightly) thought it wise to use a scroll they'd just found - a scroll which seemed dedicated to banishing all things ghostly - at least temporarily - but also contained an unspecified curse effect.  Ornibus intoned the ancient syllables, and the spirit of Phineas Gristle hot-footed it out of the room.  Wary of his imminent return, the PCs beat feet.  A few rounds later...Ornibus had the head of a platypus.

Now, some players would have gotten upset about this.  Maybe not most FLAILSNAILS folks, as they're pretty gung-ho by definition, but some whining was definitely in the realm of (historic) possibility.  Thankfully, my Wampus Country players are awesome, and everybody rolled with it.  If a silly curse is a feature and not a bug, something's going right.  I hereby dub the ability of a gaming-group to roll with the punches in good spirits to be known as 'the Platypus factor'.  Either a player has it or they don't.

The player of Ornibus even went so far as to figure out how to superimpose a platypus-face over his own in the Hangout app - for which he duly received xp, of course.

The next session, the PCs decided to put a return to the Charnel Caves on hold in order to get their poor, unhygenic madman of a cleric un-cursed, which, sad to say, required a trip to see the Stump-Witch and frightening some meandering pink elephants.  Ornibus seemed relieved to have his 'real' face back after a witchy session of flesh-cutting with pinking-shears...but now the Stump-Witch has a nice sample of Ornibus' blood.  Wonder if that might come up later.

Returning to the sleepy frontier town of Thistlemarch, the party assisted some tailors with a rat problem - well, more accurately, a "bunch of rats in a man-suit" problem, and managed to slickly talk said businessmen into sponsoring Horvendile Early for an upcoming gambling tournament.  I'm desperately trying to figure out how I want to run that gambling tournament, but really looking forward to it.

More importantly, perhaps, the PCs now have a house that's ostensibly theirs, the former owner being either missing or eaten by rats (we're not quite sure which just yet).  Nothing wrong with a home base for low-level PCs, even if it stinks of torched rats.

What's next?  Presumably a geared-up return to the catacombs to kill the ghost of Phineas Gristle!  And at some point after that, collegiate wizard Chauncey Woolstrike needs to do a favor for a completely different witch...so it'll either be a trip to Saltvale or tangling with nasty little devil-fairies.  Something to look forward to, indeed.

This Earth, This Excavator!

Dave "Doomsdave" Morris (he of the koardinal bear) sent me some notes on a very Wampus-y prospecting wizard, along with some spells from his grimoire and a monster.  With Dave's permission, I have tweaked that a bit, added some stuff, and present the below.  All puns and allusions should be credited to Dave, and exhortations for him to keep writing and drawing stuff should go in the Comments section!

The wizard Geb-i-Haaz is long dead, but his legacy of earth-related magic lives on through his legend and the several copies of his magnum opus still in circulation.  Geb-i-Haaz, also known as the Mad Prospector, was very talented with sorcery related to the elements, particularly earth and air; perhaps there was no stone- or dirt-related spell he had not mastered.  The wizard spent the bulk of his life in the mountainous wilderness, digging for gold, platinum, rubies, diamonds, adamantine, mithral, and who-knows what else.  His wizard name (also written as Gabi Haze in some sources) is taken from extradimensional sources; he chose the name, his apprentice tells us, after locating a planeshifted pyramid buried deep beneath Big Eagle Mountain, in which he found marvelous secrets of earth-magic.

Locals referred to him as "tetched in th' head" for his eccentric ways, Geb-i-Haaz was occasionally willing to lend a hand to his neighbors.  However, when he was approached to join in the fight for Cadaver Canyon during Grandpa's War, he demurred.  The Mad Prospector was rumored to have constructed an extensive series of interlinked mine shafts, a subterranean labyrinth in which to store and protect the treasures he'd dug up over decades.  When Geb-i-Haaz finally passed on, his book The Miner Texarcana was located (or perhaps inherited), and copies have been circulated in the years since.  Although it is not supported by any material in the tome, legend has it that Geb-i-Haaz developed for himself a sealed spelunking suit with an air supply provided by a bound air elemental; this slave-elemental also powered the wizard's harpoon-gun, with which he defended himself.

One of the few extant photographs of the  Mad Prospector.

THE MINER TEXARCANA OF GEB-I-HAAZ: a manual of elemental digduggery
This quarto-sized volume is bound in muleskin and stitched with wampus-gut.  The cover is embossed with a sigil depicting a pickaxe crossed by a shovel, superimposed on a square surrounded by a unicursal heptagram.  A complete and accurate copy of this tome will include the following sections:

Theories of Earth Elementalism - contains earth-magic theory and notes on creatures of the earth-elemental plane.

Secrets of Claim-Jumping - Geb-i-Haaz knew a thing or two about taking from others, and having things taken from him; studying this chapter intensely for two weeks will increase a thief's skills one level permanently.

Practical Mineworking - several chapters on digging, bracing, mining, and the like.

The Miner Texarcana also contains a number of spells.  Some of these are explicit in the text and included by Geb-i-Haaz; these are explained below.  In other cases, those who discover a copy of the book may find notes on other earth-magic spells written in the margins or upon the endpapers.

NEW AND VARIANT SPELLS IN THE MINER TEXARCANA

Ore Dowsing (level 2, duration 1 turn) - The sorceror attunes himself to the nature of the earth and stone around him, and is able to discern veins or deposits of precious (gold, silver) or useful (iron, copper) metal.  The ore-sense is 100% accurate within a 30-foot radius; accuracy decreases 10% per extra 20 feet thereafter.

This Ain't Gold (level 2, duration 24hrs/special) - After casting this spell, the wizard may bite or lick an item of treasure to estimate its value within plus-or-minus 10%.  The ability lasts for 24 hours after casting the spell, or until the wizard has evaluated 10,000gp worth of items, at which point the effect expires.

Cave-In (level 3) - Functions underground only, as the dweomer calls upon earth-spirits of the deep.  The caster targets an area within line-of-sight and mentally triggers a cave-in displacing d4 cubic yards of earth/stone per level of the caster.

Handy Lil' Fellers (level 3, duration 24 hrs) - This summoning spell calls forth 1d6 Lesser Excavators per level of the caster (see monster description below).  The Excavators will dig as instructed, and can remove up to 10 cubic yards of earth/stone per day.

Lesser Excavators (very minor earth elemental creature)
HD 1     Attack/Save As: F1
The small, ball-like excavators are native to the planes of earth and related realms; they are spherical and crimson, with goggle-like eyes and tiny feet.  Excavators thrive on stone and earth, and can eat their way through it at a remarkable rate; it is for this reason they are summoned as digging assistants.  Although they are normally calm, excavators encountered in the wild can become vicious at a moment's notice.

Geb-i-Haaz, in spelunking-suit, defends himself against a wild Excavator (artist's rendition)

Mascot Monday: Hound-priests of the Vicelords

This entry is a thematic follow-up to the previous post regarding dogfolk.

From time to time, particular dogfolk rise to prominence in the Wampus Country, either through their noble or nefarious deeds.  One such case is that of two dogs from the same litter who have come into wealth and some measure of fame by virtue of their devotion to their gods; these are the Hound-priests of the Vicelords.

The Vicelords, as most are familiar, are tutelary spirits of decadence and consumption - demon-angels of alcohol, tobacco, gambling, greed, and envy.  These Lords of Vice are unnumbered and typically referred to in the plural, as a group.  They have had many mortal servitors across the ages - panderers, hedonists, purveyors of zymurgical sorcery, and the like.  But perhaps none are so unusual as this pair of Hound-priests.  Both are dogfolk, possibly of distant Boxtoon extraction, but sharing the long snout, white coat, and small eyes typical of their immediate family line; and both are favored clerics of Vice.

Reverend Tater (Chaotic cleric 6) celebrates the Vicelords though excess; he is often drunk and throws lavish parties which feature binge-drinking, drinking games, gambling, and orgiastic revels.  Known throughout River-Town for these affairs, the Reverend Tater has a sprawling network of contacts, including both legitimate businesspersons and criminal enterprises.  He has made himself a thorn in the side of the Scorpion Cult, often sauntering into their casino (the Silver Scorpion) on a Saturday night and drawing a crowd by means of his celebrity; he then "moves the party" elsewhere, taking scores of customers with him.  He has a dark patch over his left ('sinister') eye.  Tater can cast any of the alcohol-related spells from The Arcane Abecediary as cleric spells of the same level.

Reverend Sureshot (Chaotic cleric 5) elects to worship the Vicelords through consumerism and profit; greed is both his motive and his chief weapon.  Sureshot maintains a small inner circle of merchant-cultists, each of whom is sworn to "The Goal" - an esoteric self-help concept suggesting that a business can also be a man and an idea simultaneously.  It is Sureshot's dollars which Tater often spends; the less-public brother may also be the brains of the operation.  He is well-known as both venture capitalist and ruthless loan shark, and occasionally butts heads with the cultgang known as 'the Smileys'.  Reverend Sureshot's coat is purest white, but he has crimson circles, a cultic symbol, tattooed and painted around his left eye.

RUMORS REGARDING THE HOUND-PRIESTS (d6)
1 - It only seems like there are two of 'em.  Really, there are seven, and the other five are in hiding, biding their time...
2 - Reverend Sureshot takes on dog form as a convenience; in private, he is a massive, winged monstrosity with slavering fangs and cloven hooves.
3 - If Tater bites you while you're drunk, you wake up as some kinda were-dog.
4 - Reverend Tater ain't really a priest - he sold his doggie soul to some devil or another in exchange for popularity and legendary boudoir skills.
5 - The hound-priests both have the ability to summon wolves out of the air - wolves made of dollars!
6 - Sureshot is already planning to become a lich.

Reverend Tater, in the midst of one of his epic parties.

Reverend Sureshot stands triumphant on a carpet stained with the fresh blood of cult-sacrifices.

Tater prepares to execute a callgirl who has seen too much.

Improv, Prep, the the Realms Inbetween

It may have something to do with a background in improv theatre, or working now as a teacher, but here's my confession: I am not a prepper.  I may, in fact, be a bit of an anti-prepper.

When I get ready to run a game, I don't have a stack of notes, flowcharts, printouts.  I don't have sticky-notes attached to the sections of the rulebook I know I'm going to need.  Mostly I have a handful of scrawls and - if I'm lucky - a vague map.

I don't get much enjoyment out of that kind of prep-work, I'm afraid.  Haven't in years.  It has something to do with time-crunch (and time-management choices), and years of reinforcement that "the way I do it" seems to work fine.  Now, don't get me wrong - when I'm running a tight mystery, I still have more notes than I would for a farcical sandbox romp, but I'm still on the lighter end of GM prep.  What I do enjoy is the language bit - working out NPC names that 'sound right', picking out NPC voices - and the imagery bit, thinking up descriptive phrases and turning them around in my mind for later use.

When Martin from Engine Publishing was looking for folks to review Never Unprepared: The Complete GM's Guide to Session Prep, I pinged him.  "If you're looking for a review of the book from a longtime GM from the minimal-prep/anti-prep camp, I might be your guy."  He kindly sent me a pdf of the book, but I feel now like the 'anti-prep' bit was over-the-top.

See, here's the thing - and it's a thing some people can't wrap their head around - there are different kinds of GM preparation.  It doesn't have to be hours poring over rulebooks and drawing maps and NPC relationship diagrams and all of that, yet that's the sort of prep that gets folks to say they're "primarily improv GMs" and create this (false?) dichotomy.  Even most improv-based, on-the-fly GM types are constantly doing 'prepwork' - brainstorming, recombining ideas, following scenarios to logical or illogical conclusions, envisioning set-pieces, reading for brainfuel, practicing extemporaneous description, and so forth.

In other words, the problem with the "prep problem" is the definition of "prep".

The good news is that Phil Vecchione, the author of Never Unprepared, totally gets that.  Now, improv-prep (for lack of a better term), only makes up one piece of the techniques and explorations in the book, but it's given a lot more credit and leeway than most folks have bothered with.  That's a good thing.

What Never Unprepared gives us is a breakdown of the stages of GM preparation, discussion of kinds of prep, and some talk about encouraging prep in a way that matches your own GMing style.  As a mostly-improv guy, there were some parts I know I'll get more out of than others (brainstorming & selection, the creativity heat-mapping which I'm totally trying this week, etc).  But while I read through the book, I was also thinking about a pal of mine from work who's a newbie DM for his 3.5 group.  He can use every damn page in this book; not just because he's a newer GM, but because he's a computer guy who likes process and procedure and organization (a bit like Vecchione himself).  And that's key - knowing who you are, your own GMing style, will go a long way toward helping you figure out what bits you can improve.  It's very easy for us to evangelize the bits we're good at (I'll gladly talk your ear off about the importance of on-the-spot creativity, memorable NPCs, doing funny voices and the like), but the fact of the matter is that good GMs draw from a whole range of techniques and are willing to practice self-improvement in all categories - even the ones they don't use as much.  (As I keep telling my adult students, it's wonderful to know what you're good at, but you can't leave it there.)

It makes total sense that different GM personalities will not only GM in different ways, but also prepare in different - sometimes contradictory - ways.  My work-buddy is never going to be confident running his game unless he feels like he has well and truly prepared.  He needs weapons at his fingertips, short-sheets, rules citations, printouts of the monsters, spare maps in case the party goes a-wandering, etc.  That's his personality.  Conversely, I won't feel confident running my game unless I understand the vibe of the setting, the general layout of the city, some of the cultures that I can play around with; and I want to know the NPC names and motivations ahead of time so I can flesh out personalities and voices in my mind (sadly, never on paper).  I can wing NPCs on the fly, but they're never as satisfying to me.  Which means I actually do prep, and I actually prefer some prep over 'pure pulling-from-the-arse on-the-fly improv'.  I keep ingredients in my head instead of in a notebook, but I still prepare those ingredients to make the cooking go smoother.

Never Unprepared is good.  No, it's really good.  When somebody recommends Robin's Laws, I roll my eyes a little, because I didn't much care for it.  But I like Never Unprepared; it's so full of good ideas and techniques that even if you don't use some of them right now, you might want them when you reread the book next year.  You heard me, reread it next year.  You'll change, your GMing style will change (even if only slightly), or perhaps you'll put down the game you're running now and switch to something a little different... regardless, a reexamination of your own process is in order, and Never Unprepared is a good start of that inward look.  The book is an easy read with a friendly tone, you can blow through it in an afternoon.  And you should, even if you're an experienced GM.

As I read through the book I kept coming upon bits where I reacted internally by thinking "this is nice, but I already know this part".  But then I'd examine the point more carefully and then realize "okay, I knew that...but I'm not actually doing it in practice, am I?"  I found excellent reminders of things which I know to be good-practice, but which I wasn't actually doing.  The techniques in Phil's book are sound and worth looking at, regardless the GM-experience level of the reader.

Perhaps that's the crux of my favorable recommendation, then.  I am an improv-heavy prep-in-the-brain GM, and have been for 25 years; I play lighter, old-school games in a semi-sandbox fashion; and I got great stuff out of Never Unprepared.  And at the same time, I want to give a copy of this book to my logical, procedural, robot-brained buddy newbie GM who's running every-splat 3.5 for his rather twinky-CharOp group...because I think it will help him, as well.  I still owe him some posts on on-the-fly creativity and "yes, and" principles, but the point isn't to turn him into me, or convert him from a paper-prep GM into a brain-prep GM.  The purpose of any GM advice is to provide options, tools, and techniques to help each GM develop their own style, their own bag of tricks, and to build confidence.  Never Unprepared can help with that.

It's A Dog's Life

Although there are plenty of mundane, non-speaking dogs in Wampus Country - in use in all the usual ways as guardians, companions, etc - of more interest, perhaps, are the talking dogs.  Numerous subspecies of semi-bipedal sentient dogfolk make their home in Wampus Country; in many cases the different phenotypes also share a culture and consider themselves to be a tribe, clan, or 'pack'.  Regardless, all dogfolk can interbreed with both other breeds of dogfolk, and mundane (non-talking) dogs, leading to a great variety of canine types in the region.  Many dogs are absolute mutts, with a mix of dogfolk and "plain old dog" blood on both sides of their family tree.

The two best-known breeds of dogfolk are the savage Poggles and the honorable Boxtoons, as their interactions with civilized folk are the most polarizing.  Poggles attack merchant caravans and raid farms; Boxtoons, on the other hand, enlist in human armies and work jobs in town.

POGGLES
The best known of the dogfolk are the poggles, who live in substantial numbers in caves and dark forests.  Poggles are quite small, with smashed faces and eyes that appear to be on the precipice of leaping out of the creature's skull; they are generally black and tan.  They are backward, animalistic, and barbaric and can be quite dangerous en masse; however, on occasion one or two poggles are stolen from their pack and attempts are made to 'civilize' them.  While poggles adapt to technology easily and can be intimidated or cajoled into compliance with social norms in the short term, eventually they seem to return to type and degenerate back into vicious little devil-worshiping ankle-biters, as they are in the wild.  Many poggles are indeed Chaotic, and poggle shamans tell tales of a time in the distant past when they, the poggles, ruled the world by secretly influencing and controlling the powerful and wealthy in human society.  Some yearn for a return to a poggle-dominated world.

BOXTOONS
The squat but brawny Boxtoons do not display the Poggles' natural ability with traps and pitfalls, but they are loyal and friendly and can make great allies.  On many occasions young Boxtoon warriors have signed on as mercenaries, soldiers, or trouble-shooters, and every Boxtoon appreciates a good uniform.  Their pack mentality is strong, inculcating in them a solid sense of hierarchy and duty.  Boxtoon coats are typically black-and-white or a red-brown brindle, although all white Boxtoons are known.  The Boxtoons tend toward Law.

"Stubby" the Bounty Hunter operates between Thistlemarch and Frogport, making money on the small cases human manhunters overlook.

Childless, Mr. & Mrs. Houfbracket left their not-insubstantial wealth to Mr. Houfbracket's loyal valet Snowflake.

This boxtoon, known as "Boatswain Bitey", has served on various rivercraft  for nearly a decade.

Dogfolk look like dumb dogs to those without keen eyes; this has led to unfortunate incidents of oppression.

"...and then I fired muh pistol right at th' critter's face --"
"Yes, Howard, we've all heard the story a hundred times."
"BITCH, PLEASE."

The first council meeting of the Inter-Regional Organization for Canine Welfare and Social Progress (Revolutionary Committee); their declared goal was to 'explore advancements toward a unified canine nation according to modern progressive principles'.  Moments after this photograph was taken, the meeting fell into chaos when an anti-progressive poggle threw a basket full of sausage in through a window.

The white Boxtoon on the right demonstrates his breed's famous loyalty by assisting a friend in need.

Note: all Wampus Country dogs count as kobolds for most rules purposes, including "can I play a...?".

ENnies, You So Crazy

The ENnie nominations came out this weekend; you can find them here.

Compare that to the list of submissions, here.

Now no doubt some folks elsewhere will grouse about the absence of things like Weird Adventures or Carcosa on that nominee list.  Or pretty much anything OSR-ish.  I'm not going to complain about those particular products not being nominated, for two reasons: one, someone else could probably speak to those better than I, and two, their respective authors aren't out whinging about it (Trey is too classy and Raggi too 'because F U', I suspect), so who am I to steal their thunder?

I will, however, whine a little about Secret Santicore being left out.  There's a nice little pic of it on the right-hand side there, you can download it for free.  It's 100+ pages of short articles, adventures, random tables, illustrations, maps, and NPCs for use with all sorts of games.  Primarily OSR-type-stuff, but not all of it, and much of what's in there is easily adaptable to something like 3.5 or Pathfinder.  I was disappointed that Secret Santicore wasn't nominated for Best Free Product, and that's probably natural.

But it did get me thinking.  If the mighty Santicore wasn't in the judges' top five for 'Best Free Product', what was?  I had to see these things that left the gift-swapping beastie in the dust.

So I downloaded all five nominees for that category, and I've been reading through them.  Let's take a look.

Broken Chains
What is it?  A 32-page "preview adventure" for FFG's 40K roleplaying line that highlights the (then-) upcoming Chaos version of the game.
Is it pretty?  Yeah, of course, it's FFG and 40K stuff, of course it's got more of that same art and design.
What all's in there?  Short how-to-play summary, four pregenerated characters, and a 16-page adventure.
How's the adventure?  A handful of captured heretics bust out of stasis on an Inquisition ship to find that they've been asleep for centuries and their captors' vessel has floated way off course and the crew's descendants have gone feral.  Certainly a decent enough "let's get this party started" kick-off scenario.  The PCs have to deal with the Carrion Queen and her feral minions as well as a handful of Inquisition types who also (of course) have just popped out of stasis.  It's fairly railroady, but offers advice on how to push just the best bits of the adventure so you can blow through it in a single session (which makes sense to me for a preview adventure).  There are exactly zero maps of the ship in the adventure.

We Be Goblins
What is it?  A <20-page one-shot adventure for Pathfinder, meant as a preview of sorts for the 'Goblins of Golarion' supplement.
Is it pretty?  Of couse it is, it's Paizo.  It has little Paizo goblins everywhere.
What all's in there?  Four pregens and a short adventure.
How's the adventure?  The conceit of 'We Be Goblins' is that, um, you be goblins.  The PC goblins go after a possible store of fireworks on a beached boat, and in the process deal with some animals and a feisty goblin druidess.  It's cute if straightforward; there are funny names for everything, and there's a decent goblin-y vibe going on.  At least there are a couple maps in this one.  The takeaway: goblins dig fireworks, who knew?

Shadowlands Conversion Guide
What is it?  A ~30-page supplement introducing (very briefly) the Shadowlands campaign setting, along with the rules for adapting "standard Pathfinder" to the Shadowlands milieu.  You know that stack of campaign notes you handed your players that one time so they could make characters 'your way'?  It's that.
Is it pretty?  Yeah, it looks kinda like a Paizo Pathfinder product, which makes sense if you're doing third-party PF stuff.  Expectations and all that.  Some pretty continental maps, although there's a lot of ground covered in those maps.
How's the content?  The Shadowlands Conversion Guide covers everything you'd expect it to.  Here's the Shadowlands, here's the schtick.  Here's what our elves are like, and our dwarves.  Feats, racial powers, gods of the setting.  That kind of stuff.  I was hard-pressed to find something in here I wanted to steal, though.  One thing that caught my eye (ha!) was a bit about how spellcasters in this setting have glowing eyes, and the color of the glow indicates how powerful the mage is (ie, what level spells he or she can cast).  I thought that was pretty different, and there's a Paranoia gag in there somewhere.

Words of the Wise
What is it?  An eleven-page mini-adventure for The One Ring.
Is it pretty?  Sure, it's Cubicle 7.  Modern design, looks sufficiently Tolkien-y with the trade dress.
What all's in there? Just the mini-adventure.
How's the adventure?  There isn't much to it.  PCs go hunting, get jumped by orcs, have an audience with the elves, then fight orcs until Radagast shows up to save the day.  No, really, that's the way it's scripted.  There are no maps, but there is a nice drawing of an orc.  I don't have other One Ring products to compare this to, but I suspect it's meant as an aid for a new GM (sorry, 'Loremaster') -- either that or One Ring products are crazy wordy.  And railroady.  "So, gang, what did you think of that introduction to the One Ring game?"  "It was fun until NPC Theatre ended the scenario."

Dragon Age Quickstart Guide
What is it?  A ~35-page quickstart and adventure for Dragon Age.
Is it pretty?  Yep.
What all's in there?  Condensed rules and how-to-play, short adventure, five pregenerated characters.  What is it with only including four or five (usually four) pregens in quickstarts?  Can't you throw us six characters and tell us to pick four?  Sheesh.  Also includes a presumably-quite-useful summary page for use in-play (tables and such).
How's the adventure?  Big props for explicitly letting the pregens purchase extra gear.  Other than a few setting-specific notes (Elves are servants here!  Tee-hee!), the adventure is a straight-up escort mission for a noble.  There's a missing rope-bridge to be dealt with on the journey, some humanoids to fight, and a potential kidnapping scheme, followed by a giant owl (with a pretty cool illo, I must say) and more humanoids.






So here's the deal. What we have here are some decent, but not earth-shattering, quickstarts and mini-adventures, and every last one of them is quite nice-looking. I certainly have no beef with any of the publishers or their contributors. But really? An eleven-page mini-adventure is "better" than a hundred-page supplement? It can't just be the looks of the things - Secret Santicore looks fantastic and holds its own against any of these products design-wise, although some of the art may be tickling a different aesthetic.



A few ultimately-meaningless but cathartic rantish points:


* Secret Santicore has almost as much goblin-centric content as 'We Be Goblins'. Which just goes to show you how much gamers dig goblins, I guess. And, in fact, all that gobliny stuff in SS could be used quite easily with 'Goblins of Golarion', by the way.




* Secret Santicore contains more maps than any of the nominated products, two of which don't have any maps at all. Are maps out of fashion now? If you're running the Dragon Age adventure and want to locate the Arl in a castle, use the castle in Santicore. Ditto if your PCs want to track the darkspawn (or the orcs in Words of the Wise) back to their caves -- there's a cave complex waiting for you in Santicore.




* Vast swaths of Secret Santicore are statless or nearly so and could be used to fill out some of these anemic, boring railroads that are passing as mini-adventures. If you need extra encounters while your One Ring characters are tromping through the woods, they're in Santicore. If you want killer plants and mutant freaks to add to your time-tossed ship in Broken Chains, guess what? They're in Santicore.




Okay, that was cleansing. Done now.