Arcana Rising: An Urban Fantasy Roleplaying Game

I've been slowing working up a review for the excellent Teratic Tome, but in the mean time check out Arcana Rising: An Urban Fantasy Roleplaying Game by John Berry, the guy behind Hulks & Horrors.  In fact, Arcana Rising is "powered by Hulks & Horrors."

Like Hulks & Horrors, Arcana Rising pushes an old-school style rule set and game style (i.e., dungeon crawling) into a new setting.  So, I think this is more of modern-day dungeon crawling than, say, a Shadowrun-type game.

He has a pretty reasonable target for his Kickstarter, so take a gander.

Two good reasons you should fund Hulks & Horrors

There is less than 12 hours to go to fund Hulks & Horrors.

Two Good Reasons to fund H&H

1. Mother lovin' Hovering Squid player characters

2. Freakin' psionic bearmen

Hulks & Horrors vs Stars Without Number

I'm pretty excited about the Hulks & Horrors game and hope that it funds.  One reasonable question gamers have, though, is why should I sign up for H&H when I can get Star Without Number for free?

The short answer is that H&H is really meant to take on the "dungeon crawl" theme and put into space, whereas SWN seems to take a broader approach. H&H creator John Berry addresses this here: link.  He is also fielding any questions you might have at TheRPGsite forum here: link

Dungeon Crawling IN SPACE: Hulks & Horrors

James of Grognardia fame mentioned Hulks & Horrors on Google+ yesterday.  It takes the old school dungeon crawl and tosses it into the blackness of the void.  The sales pitch sold me, so I'm in.


Just when I thought I reached my saturation point on Kickstater/IndieGoGo projects, this pops up!

The contribution levels are very reasonable, so I went it.  Give it a gander.

Castles & Crusades Players Handbook Kickstarter

The Trolls are gearing up to release the 5th printing of the Castles & Crusades Players Handbook (Note: 5th printing, not edition), and have kicked off the process with a Kickstarter project.

No rules, but errata will be added.  The big deal for this printing is that it will be full color, a first for the Trolls.

Give it a look. The Trolls just added some great bonus rewards:

BONUS REWARD #1: When we reach $3500.00 all the PRINT versions of the Players Handbook will be autographed by Steve and Davis Chenault.

BONUS REWARD #2: When we reach $4000.00 we'll add an EXTRA Players Handbook to everyone who has pledged $40.00 or more. This will be unsigned, allowing your autographed copy to avoid the game table abuse! [Steve Chenault has said this printing will retail at $30, so that means that since this benchmark has already been hit, you get two of the new PHs for $40.00. Not too shabby].

BONUS REWARD #3: When we reach $5000.00 everyone who pledged $40.00 and $75.00 will be able to add one adventure module of your choice to your package! Everyone who pledges $125.00 and 150.00 and more will be able add 2 adventures to their package. Everyone who pledges $175.00 and above can add three adventure modules to their package.

Bonus Reward #4: When we reach $6000.00 the project is fully funded. At that point everyone who pledged over $125.00 will receive an exclusive signed, numbered full color print of the new Cover on matte board. Signatures will include The Brothers Chenault, Peter Bradley and the rarely seen Mr. Mac Golden.

Crypts & Things has arrived!

Surprisingly, it's not digest-sized (the excellent Wilderness Alphabet shown for scale)

Ah yes, I received a Valentine's Day gift from Newt Newport today: my hard-copy of Crypts & Things.  This Swords & Wizardry variant is damn sweet and is a nice mix of Conan, Leiber, and Lovecraft.  In short, it feels like this: link.

For some reason, it seems to have flown under the OSR radar (at least compared to other S&W variants).  It's definitely worth checking out.


I mean, how can you not like a game that has art like this...

 ... and includes an Appendix M listing music like this!

Troll Lord Games try another Kickstarter-style Pre-Order

TLG has another Kickstarter-style pre-order up: Rune Lore.  This one isn't through Kickstarter, but they have it set up the same way (see the reasoning here: link).  Worth a gander for any fellow C&C fans:

Troll Lord Games gives Kickstarter a Try for a New Monster Book

Troll Lord Games has had a Classic Monsters book in the works for quite some time. Today, they just announced they are releasing it via Kickstarter.  This should be an interesting experiment.  I don't recall seeing another game company do this (hobbyists and such, yes, but not an entity's whose bread and butter is the game product).

Crypts & Things: Conan, the OSR way

There are a ton of retro-clones out there, but I couldn't pass up on this one.  Crypts & Things tweaks the Swords & Wizardry rule set for some Conan-style greatness. If nothing else, it should be useful as source material for my C&C hex crawl, which has a nice sword and sorcery vibe going for it.

It's available from IndieGogo site, some kind of Kickstarter clone (I can't tell any differences).  I chipped in $30.00 (and that includes S&H) for the softcover edition. Hopefully, he reaches the goal.

DiceCAM - Use your real dice for online play

I was browsing Kickstarter today and came across DiceCAM.

In short, you roll dice in the box, a camera in the box can read the dice rolls and, ta-da, no need for an online dice roller.

I don't play online myself, but I know that it's pretty popular, especially with ConstantCon going on.  I did have two players roll up their characters online for my in-person C&C campaign via an online dice roller and that just didn't feel the same.

Anyhow, just figured I'd give this thing a plug as it seemed pretty cool.