Tag Archives: fantasy

Deity Contest is Closed….

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I wanted to thank everyone for their deity submissions! The judges will be checking out the entries and discussing/deciding the winners soon. Will hopefully post results this weekend!

Artist: Enmanuel Martinez “Lema”

Random

What else is going on? It’s freakin hot outside and its melting my brain! And human rogues just have a huge disadvantage over demi-human rogues…mainly in the case of infravision. How is my human rogue supposed to sneak ahead and scout if I can’t freakin see?

This is what my character…Dubs Bollocks faces right now deep inside the War Tunnels under Coppercore. We got trounced by numerous goblins, kobolds, and even 1 troll. We had a little help from an NPC party of dwarves, but it was a slugfest–and we survived. But now we aren’t sure what to do…if we rest where we are at, we will probably get attacked. If we rush for the surface, we have to go through the kobold tunnels again and they always have some ambush/trap going on….and we all have 1-2 hp each.

So the decision was to have all the Level 2-4’s stay put and send my 1st level rogue and one of the sneaky dwarves off to find this crazy dwarf who has sealed himself off from all the danger…and attempt to ask him if we can stay inside his little domain or if he has healing potions…or something…..what’s the worse that could happen? Not many in the party trust the dwarf, and some don’t like him at all, but Dubs is also a river fisherman and that seemed to click with this ol dwarf, as they had discussed fishing stories so he is hoping for the best. But of course…he has to make his way over there safely first.

The sneaky dwarf is fine…he can SEE. So he can be all sneaky and whatnot…but not my guy…and since he is a fisherman, he has self-proclaimed his new nickname for this venture as “Bait” as he lights a torch. I’m not sure he is going to make it or not, but I do know that he would try. Not because he cares if the party lives or dies (they are a bit of a snotty lot, don’t ya know…I think I can get away with saying that as none of them read this blog, I don’t think?…) BUT, because the party has picked up a bard or skald in the group and he can’t go back with his tail between his legs—the bard would destroy his reputation with his stories! So off he is going….

So cheers to the human rogues out there….they live a tough life! You can bet 5 gold on Dubs living…he’s good for it!

Kickstarters?

Beware the King of the Cannibal Cult!: I just got another email from Ray…author of Peril in Olden Wood. He is ready for another round of editing….he also claims he has 3 pieces of art so far and he is trying to get a few more before the well is dry and we go for some support. Ray has been working diligently on his new adventure–Beware the King of the Cannibal Cult! It’s only about 218 pages so I guess my next few weekends will be busy….and it’s for high levels! Level 10-12 for OSE. I must say–it’s quite good and I’m excited to see it go out there. It’s a city adventure with a ton of things going on that will test any high level group. I’m sure Ill be talking about this more later on.

Slyth Hive: A few people have asked if a POD will ever come out for this adventure, which is currently just a PDF on Drivethrurpg. I believe Prince is adding to the adventure a bit and hoping to do a Kickstarter for more art at some point. But I’m waiting on him to make the call. This is also a high-level adventure…levels 14+ for OSRIC.

Exclusive

The Merchants had a discussion about being exclusive with DrivethruRPG. There are a few benefits of doing so. We have had a few of our adventures up on Lulu and Itch.io, but they haven’t received much traction. For example, with Itch.io, I think in 5 years we have made about 20$ in sales. I thought about expanding to Amazon and a few other places, but we are such a small, mostly unknown outfit, that I’m not sure it’s worth the effort. And it’s a ton of effort to put our stuff (33 or so adventures) up on multiple storefronts. So we may only have our stuff up at Drivethru in the near future, fyi.

That’s it for now…stay tuned for the Deity results coming soon!!!!

The Best—Slyth Hive

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The PrinceofNothing, master of word and prose, has received ‘The Best’ from Bryce Lynch over at the 10 Foot Pole: https://tenfootpole.org/ironspike/?p=9160

There are not many high-level adventures out there….actually…GOOD high-level adventures. Usually I see instead of 1 dragon, they add 3 dragons to make things more difficult. While that can certainly make the situation more difficult, I always felt it took away from the awe and savagery of the dragon–I guess I’d rather see a ramp up of a single dragon’s abilities and power rather than just slapping in 2 more.

Another challenge is why are the characters going on an adventure when they are that high of level? Wouldn’t they be defending and ruling their own keeps and they send their minions to do the dirty work? Do all high-level adventures have to involve saving the world to make it feel epic? I think setting up a good adventure hook would be challenging.

Personally, in all my years of playing D&D, I’ve never really played a character much pass 9th level or so. I think it’s because I like the struggle of the low levels…the danger…and once my mage gets fireball at 5th level, for whatever reason, I feel like I won the game or something. So there are a bunch of spells and abilities I’ve never used except maybe by the monsters as DM. So I don’t want to appear like I’m bashing published high-level adventures out there–I think they would be very challenging to write, but I do give a sigh when I see the usual (adding more monsters of the same kind, preventing spells/abilities from working, etc.).

Anyways, I didn’t write Slyth Hive but I did work on the layout. I remember one of the first encounters is a shitload of animals and I thought, here we go again–just adding numbers to make something more dangerous for high levels….but as I delved deeper into the adventure, I became pleasantly surprised. Complex environments and interesting foes as well as ever-changing/adapting enemies to keep players on their toes…(sorta rhymed there…). I don’t know if as a player or DM, Ill ever run through a high-level adventure, but if I did, I would be down for going through or running Slyth Hive as it has the type of challenges I would be looking for with a high-level character. Another would be Geir Loe Cyn-crul by Andrew Huso. It’s a bit combat heavy with some additional monsters–but I liked the vibe when I read it.

Anyways, you can purchase Slyth Hive at DrivethruRPG. Prince has hinted at a Kickstarter to get more art and at that point we would offer a POD version (buyers of the PDF now would get the updated PDF).

Deity Contest

We have had a few submissions trickling in….the deadline–June 4th approaches!!!

The Coming of Winter Released and Past Patreon Musings

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We are proud to release The Coming of Winter to the masses. A huge thanks to all our Kickstarter backers to get this behemoth off the ground! It is packed with 3 main adventures for levels 2-5 with a winter theme. Explore snow covered mountains, crypts, glaciers and even inside huge waterfall icicles! There are a bunch of other scenarios and mini-dungeons for the party to get in trouble with while they explore the wintry Dragonback Mountains. Now on DrivethruRPG: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/473203/the-coming-of-winter

Past Patreon Musings

A long time ago, I had a Patreon called Malrex’s Modules. I would put together an adventure within 30 days for my backers. Some of these adventures were on the shorter side, but most were mid (28+ pages) to longer! Putting adventures together was a bunch of fun despite the deadline, but I don’t think it’s sustainable for a main reason: The quality can go downhill quickly. There wasn’t enough time to edit, read throughs and play throughs to make sure the content made sense, and the art was stock art–which some is quite good, but stock art doesn’t always capture the scene correctly.

It was my intention to spend more time on them, clean them up, play test them and maybe even get a few pieces of original art….but then the whole OGL fiasco happened, and I panicked. I wanted to make sure the adventures could see the light, so I published them quickly and only in PDF form.

There is only a few that I will spend more time on—Ice Needles of the Cryoptera and Winter’s Blight (formerly Ice Troll Cave), which are both in our Coming of Winter release. I also held on to the Cellar, which we actually just finished playtesting. Ill be editing and fixing it up for when we release Coppercore. You can follow along and even watch us go through the playtest on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMercilessMerchants-yx8pd

Or watch us live on Wednesday nights: https://www.twitch.tv/mercilessmerchants

I keep dying…I think I’m on my 5th character? oh well…anyways….

The result of my Patreon adventures, actually worked out pretty good. I learned a lot about layout on my own as well as practicing to put together an adventure in very little time and trying to make it good and worth the money of my backers. Over at the 10′ pole lair of Bryce Lynch, he has been busy reviewing some of my past Patreon adventures. He gave two of them The Best:

Scorchfire! https://tenfootpole.org/ironspike/?p=9097

Standoff at Sandfell Sea Fort https://tenfootpole.org/ironspike/?p=9120

And Tar Pits of the Bone Toilers got a No Regerts: https://tenfootpole.org/ironspike/?p=9124

Also, awhile back, another one, Winter’s Feast received a No Regerts as well: https://tenfootpole.org/ironspike/?p=8479

And The Caper of Lanjin Kettlespin received a little wrath: https://tenfootpole.org/ironspike/?p=8591

Overall though, not bad for putting together adventures within a month. But I dont think I will reopen my Patreon as I do care more about the quality of an adventure and don’t want to risk it with a 30 day deadline.

But I have received some questions, mainly about Tar Pits of the Bone Toilers. One question asked if I planned to rework it and do another editing pass, etc. The second question is if I was going to do a Part 2.

I’m still mulling over if I would do another editing pass for Tar Pits. I think with this hobby it comes down to that there is no incentive except pride. If I spend more time on the adventure, which quality is important to me….I just don’t think anything would happen to it…I mean, would people actually re-read it or replay it? Is it something that customers want to see? Would it get a second review so I can learn more? Would more people buy it even though its been in ‘The Void” now (shelf life is usually about 3 months, then everything slows to a crawl). Editing and reworking an old module usually leads to new layout as well and it can be a boring, long task, although adding to the adventure can bring in some fun…but is it really worth taking away creative time on working on something new? I’m still mulling it over because…..

Of the second question–will there be a Part 2? In my off time, which, isn’t a lot of time, I’ve been trying to brainstorm Part 2 for the Tar Pits of the Bone Toilers. I’m debating on the title but it may be The Marrow Ravine. And, with the success of the Coming of Winter Kickstarter, I was even able to get some original art that I was thinking may be the cover (the Maw of Ghormaug).

I have some ideas…this adventure will be a challenge because it will be in a different dimension which opens up a whole bag of chaos on how things work and whatnot. It also would give me a reason to re-edit Tar Pits–mainly because I would set the adventure in Uzuduum, which is a jungled continent near Vermilion. We got the world a bit fleshed out so I’d want to explore that a bit more for Tar Pits and give it a place in our world. I could also re-look at the review and see if I can clean things up….reviews are like gold because you can really learn from them.

I’ve rambled, and this has actually generated another idea for a blog post that I wouldn’t mind discussing. But that is for another day.

-Malrex