I was on a forum, posting about the Coming of Winter sale…and a short discussion started–“we need something new..” and I wrote a response and well…figured I should probably write it here. Its a little early as our full 18 prong attack isn’t quite ready but I figured the six of you should know what we are up too. So…copy/paste here, cause I’m lazy!

“2e? Do tell!”

Well…that was eventually the question…so here is the answer of what we have been up too:

“We are doing a full embrace of For Gold & Glory with our own optional ruleset, Journal of Nevermore, that is compatible with that system–and starting a 2e Movement!. I’m still baffled why these guys wrote a solid 2e ruleset then bailed and didn’t really do anything with it, so we want to beef it up.

Jon and I are finishing up a Deities book, full of priests (i.e. specialty priests), new spells, etc. for the World of Yulara (which houses Dragonback Mountains, Vermillion, etc)–about 80% done. Also doing last bit of editing of a dwarf, gnome, human kit books (3 different books) which include different skills, specialty priests for demi-humans, and spells—all focused mainly in the Dragonback Mountains region, will be starting a half-orc and half-elf kit book as well, and we got a book of 5 different types of monks that needs editing and some more playtesting, freebie regional guide for Dragonback Mts (where most of our adventures are), etc. It’s stuff we have been working/picking at/playtesting since 2017 that’s finally making some headway in getting done.

We are also working on some adventures–which even though we will be doing 2e, our adventures will still have the 1e flavor like always (not so story driven like usual old 2e stuff). I’m finishing up a druid adventure that I wrote back in 2018–trying to get Del Tiegeler to help me with a complicated plant map for it (I think he forgot about me so need to ping him), I got a Part 2 of the Tar Pits of Bone Toilers about half way written–which is a different dimension adventure to the Marrow Ravine as characters go through the Maw of Ghormaug, I have a short, low-level elvish mine adventure I have in mind that I want to bust out that I came up with while hiking the Lost Coast, and Jon is just starting to work on a low level adventure.

Ray’s adventure–Death-Maze of the Sorcerer Kings (previously called Beware! The Cult of the Cannibal King!) was in a No Artpunk book, but he has expanded it 3-4x—instead of a just a dungeon that was found in No Art Punk, he has created a huge city adventure for high levels for OSE. Guys—I think this one is really good! Has a great city map that we will make a limited run of posters for. He found a few great artists too (that I’m hoping to hire at some point). He’s been working/playtesting at it for awhile and I’ve edited it twice and starting to get into layout mode for that. He is also finishing up an additional expansion for it. This one will be a Kickstarter attempt to pay for all the art–hopefully in a few months. Here is a sneak peak of the city map.

It’s been fun working with Ray and others, but Death-maze will probably be my last adventure for a while working with others and outside systems (OSE, etc.). Time to stop asking for a seat at the OSR table. 2e was never really invited—and that’s fine. We’re the red-headed stepchild, and we’re ready to make our own Movement.”

So yeah..thats the message. I may..probably…do another dramatic message when we really kick off the movement, but the six of you deserve to know what’s up first and know we are a bit hellbent on bringing in the 2e glory…with For Gold and Glory.

Ogre Crisis!!…err..no.

Veggie and I move bravely into the cave, climbing 5′ tall CLIFFS and pits and whatnot. I try to slow the excited warrior down…I mean, the rest of our party was still outside, probably gathering arrows and looking for a fabled broken chest full of COPPER…I knew that this would have Ghemel’s attention…so the two of us might be by ourselves. I heal myself and him quickly…but he was bored..ready to move forward. I…wait!! what was that? Ohhhhh a gobby!! running from us. While Vlastimeer tries to light a torch, I squint my eyes and shoot the running goblin in the back! and it falls down, dead….hey, no judgement here..none of this ‘honorable stuff’…it was dark and stuff.

I got a little excited. I fucking hate gobbies. Ugly, smell bad….and waste the air that they breathe. ‘The only good goblin is a dead goblin.’

Anyways, yes, we see firelight straight ahead and ignore other passages and we finally get a reeeealllll good look in the room. 7 ogre females, several pregnant orc ladies, a few stinky dick-faced goblins…basically a room full of titties…..err, scuse me, this is a PG-13 blog.

Veggie gets some wide eyes and turns to me “we should probably go back…..” I’ll be honest, he was only talking to the hair-fur on my beautiful dwarf ass. I was out of there!!! Rocks were shattering all around us as I was climbing back up the CLIFFS and luckily Veggie decided to help me up, once he realized I was in full agreement to what he last said.

Apparently we passed Izzy…who was hidden (see the sneaky bastard on my left?), doing gods know what. The lil gnome had a knack for finding treasure though. I had joked he was like bait on a fishing rod–we just cast him inside the dungeon, we feel a few nibbles and pull him out thought one of his weird doorways. Not sure he understood…he is always so cheerful…especially when he talks to burrowing creatures and whatnot, but only to eat them and add the fur to his cloak….crafty…but also nasty!

Anyways…we make it outside, after getting bashed up a bit by thrown stone, heal up and regroup with all the others. We decide to camp below with the miner…Larvin…the Mighty? We get there, tired…bloody…out of breath (well, I still have my breath, but Veggie’s silent henchman–honestly I forget his name–Hansel? but he don’t speak…but he can BREATHE REALLY LOUD). Surely, the female ogres who could probably kick our ass wouldn’t wander 100 yards to our camp…..we gambled.

We realize then that we were missing a horse. The genius Larvin begins to weave a tale, about a mad-eyed human with only a loin cloth entering the camp….gross. Larvin gave him food, drink….and then the bedraggled man mounted on Veggies horse and vowed to find us to help us! Larvin was awe-struck with the man’s courage…only later, with several hints from us during his story, that the man stole our horse. It was Draven!! son bitch was still alive! I was ok with this…the man was pretty useful…but wtf is he doing? Veggie got pissed, bought Larvins’s mule—err rented it..and Veggie, Talon, and Loud Breather set off to find the horse because apparently it’s Veggies mistress or something…he cared deeply for it. Humans are weird.

Ghemel and I looked at each other and shrugged. Figured we had time to mediate, concentrate, think about shields and skills….and hopefully, maybe new 2nd level spells (nope!! sigh…our DM is most merciless) and we wait with Bunnion, Izzy, Larvin and the chatty Yurin….and wait….and wait……listening to Yurin and Larvin….a new age goes by….still no new spell level…

Meanwhile Draven finds some river dwarves and convinces them to give him a guide, named Giint and float on a boat to Oakvale….He trades the horse for the boat…not a few hours later does Veggie show up, spending 25 gp on the horse that was stolen from him….Draven’s whereabouts are unknown. Oh..and there was also an annoying dwarf that asked a bunch of questions–dem river dwarves are something! but he was eventually shut upped..(is that a term?). Not sure since I wasnt there, but pretty sure Giint was happy as he felt ogres may descend upon their camp at any time! Stay tuned for future adventures of Giint the River Dwarf (but probably not).

The cool group…ya…the ones with dwarves in it who were waiting……..well, we got attacked by curious yetis. Lucky timing too, as I was about to throttle Yurin to make him shut up. The yeti came in hard, immediately dropping Yurin and Bunnion–although..ok…BANNION did use a new wand he found and blasted two of them with lightning!! That was cool…but ya, anyways he gets smacked down in one hit and so does Yurin, which made me consider giving the yeti a gold or 2 for the blessed silence..finally!….Izzy was way up in a tree and kept opening his weird portals and yetis falling through them. Raining yetis!! hell yeah! He tried to stab them with his little dagger while they fell to the ground, it was kind of amusing cept I had to focus on fighting and didnt get a good look at any wild-eyed, falling yetis…

Ohhh..and speaking of daggers, we did find a magical dagger off one of the previous ogre bodies. Talon decided to keep it…vowing to use it in battle…ya right…I was dubious about this…Ive seen him fight. Inwardly, I labeled him “the wind’s bravest warrior”, with all of his running and trying to shoot his bow. Maybe effective, but the boy, Yurin….he had the better shot if I’m honest (but I secretly like Talon better because he doesn’t talk so much). But I don’t come to this blog to spend my time embarrassing anyone…no sir…honest…

Anyways, most of the yetis run away, cept for the one that Izzy continually dropped through his portal–a never ending hell..and Ghemel finally decapitated it.

The next morning, the rest of the party arrived…not sure where the mule went. They mumbled something about a white dragon….great!!!…I’m looking forward to getting to Oakvale, resting, praying…maybe staying put!! We shall see…but I do miss some quiet connection with my god…being in camp with yabbering Yurin doesn’t count….

Finally…when we all gather…we discuss entering the ogre cave once more. I sorta hope the female ogres just have run off….dont get me wrong, there is no sympathy here….it’s just that…well…..they smell…..very poorly….ugly…..*dwarf ramblings*