Dungeon-A-Day Cartography: Fane of the Sea God

in

These past two weeks, I had the opportunity to contribute a pair of dungeon maps to DungeonADay.com, as a guest cartographer for the Fane of the Sea God areas. For those who don't know, Dungeon A Day came from the mind of prominent  Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition designer Monte Cook of Malhavok Press. Posting one encounter/room per day, 5 days a week, it's about to reach dungeon level 16, not including side quests and related encounters. It is a subscription based site, so you won't be able to see my work (unless you subscribe, of course). In this case, the maps are heavily influenced by Dungeon A Day's established style, by their regular cartographer, Ed Bournelle of SkeletonKey Games.

Super Genius Games took over the day to day content handling of Dungeon A Day late last year.  Charles Ryan (former Wizards of the Coast Brand Manager, among other credits) recently joined the effort, and wrote the Fane of the Sea God areas. It's been good to work with Charles (for the first time) and Stan! on the project. 

Dungeon A Day is an 3.5 Open Game License project, and they recently added Pathfinder stats to their encounters. Those interested can either subscribe to the service, or I believe they are selling individual pdfs of some of the early levels. See the site for more information.

 

Star Wars Wednesday - On the Other Side of the Galaxy

in

Sometimes I wonder just how many people have been involved in creating the vast Star Wars universe we know now. The sheer number of writers, artists, model makers, costume designers, sound editors, CGI artists, game designers, musicians and more is just staggering. Sometime after they move on to other things, we as fans and creators eventually wonder what they're up to now.

Last week, an old RPG name resurfaced in an interview in the first issue of D6 Magazine - Bill Smith

Read More

Star Wars Wendesday - Jedi Jumpbike

in
This past week saw the conclusion of the Clone Wars' "Mortis" trilogy, which I commented on in last week's Adventuring in the Tree post. The final episode was very good, and Knights of the Old Republic fans should definitely check out Filoni's comments on characters originally planned to appear in the episode...and why they ultimately did not. This week I'll do a 180 from the philosophical gaming environment and talk about a new take on some existing tech that caught my attention in the episode - a collapsible speeder bike.
Read More

Star Wars Wednesday - Adventuring in the Tree

in
No, this week's title has nothing to do with Wookiees or Ewoks, unless you want it to. It ties to something Clone Wars Supervising Director Dave Filoni said in the commentary of the Clone Wars episode, Altar of Mortis. For those who haven't seen it, and no spoilers here, the Mortis trilogy delves in to the supernatural side of the Force way more than usual. It's something we've really only seen in the extended universe, and reminds me more of the Knights of the Old Republic era or some of the scenes in the more recent Fate of the Jedi novel series. Anyway, Filoni said to his writer to treat the episodes like they are all within the tree* from Empire Strikes Back, and that they're full of metaphor and, I presume, illusion.
Read More

Star Wars Wednesday - Backyard Hoth

in
So, I'm a few hours early, but here we go. Today was a snowday for most anyone here in the midwest, thanks to the snowmageddon/snowpocolypse/etc/etc/etc dumping massive amounts of snow, closing interstates, and shutting down anywhere people would want to go today. I could go on about how the latest Clone Wars episode is very interesting and I'm looking forward to the how this develops and oh by the way Sam Witwer was in on the epsiode and so forth...but instead, I give you this, from my backyard:
Read More