Apparently, the ogre ladies and pregnant orc company did not leave….the party entered and took no prisoners. Hacking ogres and orcs alike…maybe they let one orc female go? I’m not sure as I was not there (as a player)…licking my own personal wounds of Covid. But I watched the stream…made comments when I could…and apparently, we won/or survived, which is basically the same thing in D&D! So that is always a good thing.
It sounds like Larvin still wants to claim this mine and the party is interested in that as well–as long as they get a cut….but myself, Khazrik Cinderbrand–well as you know, if you have been reading along here on my adventures on this blog—AND you have read all these posts right?!!!
Well then you can probably understand why Khazrik has a moment here and realizes a great opportunity—to step away from this adventuring group where he has almost died twice and join Larvin and claim this mine! Hints of coal are in this mine…and if there is a solid coal supply, well then I can enact the secrets of my Ash Brothers and create machines for mining and defense for this mine! This mine could be an excellent stronghold/outpost for my Axeholme kin who visit and it could help protect Farholme, our main supply chain to civilization.
I mean..the others are talking about tracking down the horse thief Draven and dealing with small creatures wearing red boots (The Willowmere Vagabonds adventure)….why the hell would I want to tangle with that when there is a GREAT source of profit and potential with this mine?! Larvin seems ok….perhaps I could become the miner foreman with a greater take on coal….this path seems to please my god, at least that’s how I feel.
So for those who read this blog—you know my character’s actions…before the rest of the party, for sadly–and seriously, it IS sad, I don’t believe they read this blog….But I guess they will realize soon enough when I introduce my new character (thanks for the magic items suckers!)
Khazrik has feelings don’t ya know!
So I shall bring in a new character. Hopefully, for you gentle readers, it will be someone as talkative as myself, Khazrik so you can keep reading this ill-tended blog….but no guarantees…If you want Khazrik to stay…say so in the comments!! Ill probably ignore them though.
THE LIGHT WE CARRY—AND THE PATH WE FORGE
I just watched an excellent video on the importance of light in dungeon exploration–how something as simple as a ‘torch’ defines tone, danger, and discovery.
It reminded me why I fell in love with 2nd Edition D&D—and why I’ve chosen to walk this different path. Watch the short video here.
Resource management: torches, oil, rations, spell component–these have always been the heartbeat of tension. Modern systems, like 5e, often discard it as tedious bookkeeping, a chore if you will. But that slow burn of scarcity makes every choice matter!! And it’s part of the thrill of the game in my humble opinion.
The torchlight flickering low. The fighter debating whether to press forward. The cleric’s last candle sputtering in the dark….
That’s storytelling born from the mechanics themselves. This is why Dungeons & Dragons is not your ordinary ‘board’ game and why it has so much potential–creativity thrusted to the roof by talented Dungeon Masters.
2e understood that survival wasn’t just a rule–it was a language of fear, sacrifice, and meaning. Darkness wasn’t an obstacle. It was a stage.
Some call this the OSR ideal. I call it 2nd Edition done right.
We’re planting our flag for For Gold & Glory and its compatible ruleset, Journals of Nevermore. And yes–we’ve heard your statements—2e has been called the red-headed stepchild of the OSR. Forums, Reddit, threads. So be it!! The Merciless Merchants embrace that exile. We like orcs, goblins, traps, resource management, and terrible odds–because danger still matters and running away is always an option. We like THAC0. We like consequence!
While some have drawn their borders and turned their backs on 2e, that’s fine. Let them keep their line in the sand. We’ll keep the torch. And use that torch to light our bonfire.
For Gold & Glory and Journals of Nevermore aren’t asking for a seat at the OSR table anymore– we’re building our own! Same roots. Different soil. Where danger still lives, light still matters, and 2e still burns bright.
Several new books and adventures are coming in 2026–each carrying the grit, heart, and soul of 2nd Edition. Stay tuned!
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.
Artist: Spaghetti Questor
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.’
Bah…close enough!
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.
Getting ready to climb a CLIFF after a successful, stealthy, scouting mission.
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…
The dwarves are most impressed….
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*
Taking a slight break from the harrowing journeys of Wytt…poor fellow. I enjoy reading his adventures and feel pangs of guilt sometimes as GM…but then that goes away…
ANYWAYS! Can we talk about the Death-Maze of the Sorcerer Kings for a moment?
Death-Maze of the Sorcerer Kings
Steel your nerves and sharpen your blades… it’s coming soon!!
Ray Weidner—designer of Peril in Olden Wood and purveyor of finely-honed OSR mayhem—has been deep in the dungeon mines, hammering out every twist, trap, and terror for his latest adventure. Every encounter is polished. Every room was scrutinized. Every sentence… sharpened to a razor’s edge.
I may have mentioned it before, under its working title, Beware! The King of the Cannibal Cult! But now it returns to its roots: Death-Maze of the Sorcerer Kings
Does that name ring a bell? It should—this was a standout entry in Prince of Nothing’s No Artpunk III contest, where it turned heads and earned high praise. Now, it’s bigger, deadlier, and more refined—ready to hit your table and test your players! Complete with a huge sprawling city surrounding the legendary Death-Maze, full of trouble for your PCs.
Classic swords & sorcery vibe? Check. Lethal dungeon crawl? Absolutely. Twisted factions and ancient sorcerous evil? You know it.
Keep your eyes peeled. The doors to the Death-Maze creak open soon… and few who enter will ever see daylight again.
Like the art? Well, there is tons more, thanks to the talented Angus Wood of Jantiff Illustration. I’m excited to layout this beast with these spectacular art pieces. Did I mention this was for OSE and for levels 12-14??!!! Coming soon to Kickstarter….
In Other News…
Every so often, Jonbar escapes to chase his stories across the table onto the blog (poor Wytt)… but lately, the lash has been steady. Old projects—some forgotten, some merely dormant since 2017—are stirring again. Soon, new works will emerge, threads woven together to form the first glimpses of something larger. The shape is still in shadow, but the foundations are settling. I’ll say no more… except this: by 2026, the quiet will end and a new Movement will begin.
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!!!!
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
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:
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.
The Merciless Merchants 