Spacemaster Companion 2 now a ‘Silver Pick’ product

Posted on April 20, 2016 by colinice

Spacemaster Companion 2
Spacemaster Companion 2 has just become a silver pick product on RPGNow. Followig this great achievement we wanted to take the opportunity to thank everyone who has bought and supported this and all Iron Crown Enterprises products over the years. You guys are the best!
 
With only 6% of products on RPGNow ever reaching the level of ‘Silver Pick’, it is a great testament to Spacemaster and its fans that the Spacemaster Companion 2 how now joined this very elite club.
 
If you haven’t already got a copy of Spacemaster Companion 2, you can pick it up for just $7 from RPGNow.
 
 
Spacemaster Companion 2 – A Spacemaster 2nd edition supplement
 
Spacemaster Companion 2 is a must for any serious Space Master: The Role Playing Game player. It contains material for both Gamemasters and players, focusing mainly on new equipment and technology. At the same time it offers a completely unique psionic rules system as an option to the standard Space Master psion system.
 
Space Master Companion 2 includes:
 

  • New professions such as the Bounty Hunter, the Combat Engineer, the Smuggler, etc.
  • An entirely new and different system for using psychic powers called PsiFire.
  • New rules for Cybernetics
  • Hundreds of new weapons and devices to add to your Space Master game: new grenades, armor, personal equipment, drugs, variant rifles & pistols, and genetically-engineered organic equipment.
  • Miscellaneous rules covering radiation, engineering skills, medical skills, force fields, new attack tables, and even a few new psion lists.
  • New attack table for Power Tools, new critical tables for Power Tools and Power Armor.

    •  
    Buy it now at RPGNow >>
     

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Roleplaying adventure hooks

Posted on April 15, 2016 by colinice

 
Looking for inspiration for your next roleplaying adventure? Then look no further! We’ve put together these three adventure hooks to give you some ideas for your next gaming session. Enjoy!
 
 
The hideous farm
 
A hidden farm is discovered to be cultivating zombies to hunt for sport, but what to do about it…
 
Synopsis
 
People have been disappearing from local towns and villages for months and now the adventurers are called in to investigate. Whilst searching the forest they come upon a farm hidden from view. This is no ordinary farm however; they are cultivating zombies. Wealthy landowners and adventurers are paying good money to be locked in the farm’s expansive dungeon with these hideous creatures and hunt them or die trying. With so many zombies to hand, the farmers will be difficult to stop but with the areas great and good frequenting the farm, perhaps there are other ways to put them out of business.
 
 
Euzhor’s school for young adventurers
 
A prestigious school for adventurers hides an awful secret
 
Synopsis
 
Having made quite the name for themselves, your adventurers are invited to teach at Euzhor’s school for young adventurers. All seems normal until a hidden door is discovered. Behind the door is a quivering wreck of a man, unwashed and wild-eyed with huge gashes in his dented armor, he is clutching a large piece of freshly mined mithril “will this buy my freedom? Please? I wanted adventure, but not like this…”
 
 
Water, water, everywhere
 
They thought the bad weather was just bad luck, but now the river banks have burst and there is no escaping the unstoppable torrent.
 
Synopsis
 
Lying in a low pass between two mountain ranges, the village is used to bad weather, but slightly upstream the sun is beating down while a torrential downpour torments the villagers. As the adventurers arrive the river bursts its banks and the village is flooding. Any chance of escape is now cut off. The adventurers must find the reason for the downpour or they and the remaining villagers are sure to be drowned.
 
 
Previous adventure hook posts:
 
Adventure Hooks #1
 
 
If you think you could turn one of these adventure hooks (or one of your own creation) into a full blown adventure module for publication, we’d love to hear from you – Get in touch >>
 

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Director’s Briefing – April 2016

Posted on April 1, 2016 by colinice


If you would like to receive the Director’s Briefing straight to your inbox each month, you can sign up to our mailing list HERE.
 
 
Welcome
 
To the fifty-ninth Briefing and the fourth scheduled Briefing of 2016. This briefing will feel very HARP-centric but even if you are not a HARP gamer, stay the course – there is unexpected good news for Rolemaster and Shadow World fans at the end.
 
RMU
 
Nagging, nagging, nagging. Stay the course, please.
 
Shadow World
 
It’s springtime in Virginia, so I am gently nagging Terry on various projects, while he endures the allergies.
 
The crowdsourced (or more accurately team-created) adventure module is moving gently from initial ideas to more concrete elements as its team figure out what makes sense and what does not. I am looking forward as is Terry to seeing a full outline in due course from them. Obviously this is a bit of good news for Shadow World, but it’s not the big piece of unexpected good news for Shadow World. Stay the course, please.
 
Rolemaster Software
 
As we mentioned last month, Max created a new dataset for the ERA suite, which covers the Armory in both an RMSS/FRP edition and a RM Classic edition. Terry prepared some faux cover images for both datasets, and both products are now on sale from OneBookShelf. Another piece of really good news for Rolemaster support, but this is not the unexpected piece of good news. Stay the course as there is more to come.
 
Buy ERA for Rolemaster The Armory RMFRP >>
 
Buy ERA for Rolemaster Armory RMC >>
 
HARP Wishlist
 
Last month, I indicated that we were working on a first wishlist for HARP Fantasy of new sourcebooks that we would like to commission freelancers to write for us. Note that this is the first wishlist and over time we will be adding more potential titles to the list, so don’t despair if nothing on the first list piques your interest.
 
The entries on the first wishlist are in alphabetical order:
HARP Martial Arts (support for martial arts characters)
HARP Strongholds (where I would expect to see a good selection of stronghold layouts)
HARP Subterfuge (which we would expect to see support rogues, thieves and similar, just as Martial Law was for the fighters and College of Magics expanded magic).
 
As indicated last month, we need formal proposals. The formal proposal must include a detailed outline, that is a proposed table of contents that indicates your intended chapters and the sections within each chapter. If you have never written a rpg rulebook or supplement for us before, then you need to also submit a sample section (500-1000 words of prose and rules). If you have written a HARP or Rolemaster product in the past either for GCP or for an older incarnation of ICE, I don’t need to see a sample of your writing.
 
We would like proposals in by the end of May so that we can review them in early June. If there are no proposals for a particular title, or if none of the submitted proposals make the grade, then we will leave the project on the wishlist and hope a good proposal arrives at some future date (and we will regularly review the proposal submissions)
 
HARP Bestiary
 
My A5-sized notebook joined me on a number of train journeys during the months. I have wrestled with the costs of the new abilities for the Elementals, worked out skill lists, went back to their abilities again and revised some. Then worried about how powerful the Elementals might pan out to be and struggled with mechanisms to ensure close parity. For instance, it seemed unlikely that Elementals would be wearing armor so where could I give them some DB? Earth Elementals could receive Tough Hide, a Water Elemental in ice form similarly but then it would need a talent for switching from water to ice, and what about Air and Fire? Very messy, likely to lead to significant Element inequalities. Then I got clever – the Elementals could acquire DB through skill rather than talents and since Elementals are imagined as delivering elemental damage through “unarmed” attacks, Chi Defense suggested itself as the DB mechanism. So Elemental Warriors are not Fighters, but are actually Monks! A very simple spreadsheet that my tablet apps could handle and I could crunch numbers. HARP monsters have to pay for their stats and talents as well as skills with DPs. Crunching the numbers and after paying fair and balanced DPs for their innate talents, skill totals were looking too low, so I boosted the levels and the revised crunching then made sense. Twenty pages of handwritten notes later and the Elementals chapter is essentially complete.
 
And the really good news bit?
 
So you stayed the course. Let’s repeat the key phrase – the Elementals chapter is essentially complete. That means I can stat Earth Elementals. That means I have the complete set of monsters for Robert Defendi’s Who Saves the Savior scenario. That means that we can finally complete The Guild Adventurer #4 with its four Rolemaster scenarios (statted for RMClassic, RMSS/FRP as well as HARP) and its Shadow World scenario.
 
Which means I have statted HARP Earth Elementals, I have all the monsters for all the scenarios and I have already sent The Guild Adventurer #4 to Terry for layout.
 
There’s the piece of unexpected good news you weren’t expecting.
 
I said that this would be a year of persistence and perseverance, and when there’s enough persistence and perseverance, there are new products as the reward. This is the first reward.
 
Until next time
 
So what’s next? My goal for April is to perform a full editing pass on the HARP SF adventure module (The Poseidon Gambit) and to tackle the Demons chapter for HARP Bestiary. The former will allow Joel Lovell to bring his module to completion (another reward). The latter involves writing a handful of new demons, specifically an imp or familiar demon, a succubus/incubus, and a demon lord, and converting the material from the Demons chapter in the Something Wicked manuscript to compatibility with the current HARP Fantasy rules set. So off for some more persistence and perseverance. The next scheduled Briefing will be in May.
 
Best wishes,
Nicholas
 
Director, Guild Companion Publications Ltd.
 
 
If you would like to receive the Director’s Briefing straight to your inbox each month, you can sign up to our mailing list HERE.
 

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ERA The Armory – Out Now

Posted on March 29, 2016 by colinice

ERA Armory RMFRPIt is with great pleasure that Iron Crown Enterprises is able to announce the launch of two brilliant new add-ons for the Electronic Roleplaying Assistant (ERA) e-support package. Ladies and Gentlemen, meet ERA for Rolemaster RMFRP The Armory and ERA for Rolemaster RMC Armory.
 
If you haven’t yet tried the ERA package, you can download it for free from RPGNow.
 
ERA (Electronic Roleplaying Assistant) is the ultimate companion for Rolemaster campaigns. Using ERA players can create their characters using a step by step wizard, then level them up and configure all the details in terms of stats, skills and special abilities, even override the automatic calculations. Afterwards, they can be added to a running campaign in the adventuring module. From there, the game master can control all aspects of the game: resolve maneuvers, resistances, resting, and of course, spell casting and combat.
 
No adventure is complete without some gritty combat. Blows must be dealt, and damage resolved. While the free base ERA product comes with 2 sample weapons and 3 critical tables, ERA The Armory comes with much more.
 
ERA The Armory RMCWhen a simple broadsword no longer cuts it, and the old mace no longer krushes it, the time has come for a different set of tools.
 
With this package you get the 54 weapon attack tables from The Armory supplement for Rolemaster, along with the 7 critical tables required for them.
 
Before they get close enough, throw Shurikens, Boomerangs or your own Nodwick henchman. From behind the front lines, use a Military Fork or Man Catcher. And when things get close and personal, switch to the offense with a deadly Katana, or go defensive with a Sai.
 
ERA is compatible with Windows, Mac OSX and Linux.
 
Buy ERA for Rolemaster RMFRP The Armory >>
Buy ERA for Rolemaster RMC Armory >>
 
Also available for ERA:
 
ERA base package (Free download)
ERA for Rolemaster RMC Character Law
ERA for Rolemaster RMC Spell Law
ERA for Rolemaster RMC Arms Law
ERA for Rolemaster RMFRP Core and Character Law
ERA for Rolemaster RMFRP Spell Law
ERA for Rolemaster RMFRP Arms Law
ERA for Shadow World RMC
ERA for Shadow World RMSS/FRP
 

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Monster – “The Easter Bunny”

Posted on March 27, 2016 by colinice

The Easter Bunny‘The Easter Bunny’ is a rare and terrifying creature that lurks in the woods and is rarely seen outside of its nest. Storytellers tell of adventurers who have accidentally stumbled upon the creature’s nest and have barely escaped with their lives.
 
‘The Easter Bunny’ lives in the woods, in clearings far from any tracks and paths. It builds a nest of grasses and small twigs upon which it sits all day and all night. The only reason it will ever leave its nest is to go thieving. ‘The Easter Bunny’ has been known to travel for days to find a victim, searching stealthily across all manner of terrain until it finds one. It is searching for other monsters, other animals. It is searching for eggs.
 
Once it has found a suitable victim, it will use all its stealth and trickery to steal an unhatched egg and carry it away to its nest. Once there, it will continue to incubate the egg until it hatches and then ensnare the creature using its mental attacks to make it do its bidding.
 
If you could catch ‘The Easter Bunny’ alone, it would be relatively easy to overcome. Unfortunately, it is never without its retinue. All manner of egg-born creatures call ‘The Easter Bunny’ master, from lizards and birds to dinosaurs and dragons.
 
“Father Time” HARP Character profile >>
 
Appearance
‘The Easter Bunny’ is one foot tall and although it walks on all fours like other hares and rabbits, it is capable of walking on its hind legs as well. Its fur is thick and dark, blending with the shadows as it searches for its next minion. It has dark, black eyes and large, sharp incisors along with muscular legs built for jumping and kicking. While the creature is more menacing than normal rabbits and hares, it is not terrifying. Many have mistaken it for an extremely large rabbit and approached it before being chased off or killed by its retinue.
 
Adventure Suggestions
An adventurer believes he has captured the elusive ‘Easter Bunny’ but now, as night falls, he requires help to defend against the creatures that will come looking for it. If the group can slay the creatures that call it master, ‘The Easter Bunny’ can be kept safely imprisoned and cause no more harm. If they can’t… Death comes to all.
 
A trade path needs to be built through the local woods but builders have come across a clearing which is home to a very strange assembly of creatures. The land owner calls in a group of adventurers to investigate the strange gathering and evict the creatures. By force if necessary.
 
A learned man of dragon-lore has noticed a small group of juvenile dragons acting strangely in some nearby woods. He requires an escort through the woods to get closer and investigate what might be behind their strange behaviour.
 

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Eidolon: City in the Sky softcover now available!

Posted on March 3, 2016 by colinice

Shadow World: EidolonIt has been a long time coming and fraught with problems throughout, but Iron Crown Enterprises are truly thrilled to be able to announce that you can now buy Eidolon: City in the Sky in softcover format from RPGNow!
 
To celebrate its arrival we’re offering a discount on both the softcover and hardcover versions of Eidolon for the first two weeks of March.
 
Buy it Now >>
 
Shadow World: Eidolon: City in the Sky
 
The palace-city of Eidolon floats in the sky above the northern coast of the great continent of Emer, hovering arrogantly over the sprawling canal-city of Sel-kai below. Eidolon is a place of magic and wealth: a beautiful marble, crystal and glass metropolis which is the capital of the powerful economic city-state. It is also the haven and hub to legendary skyships: vessels which sail the winds.
 
Meanwhile, earthbound below, Sel-kai residents toil along the stinking canals, doing much of the work to support the elite residents of the sky-city.
 
But there are new dangers to Eidolon and her sister city of Sel-kai: nearby nations threaten war, and mysterious powers have arisen, coveting the wealth and power of Eidolon.
 
Eidolon Contains:
 

  • Detailed color city maps of Eidolon and Sel-kai.
  • Descriptions of more than 250 individual businesses in Sel-kai and Eidolon, many with layouts.
  • Price lists for items, services, lodging, and transport.

Second Edition Adds:
 

  • A complete layout revision with new material added throughout the book. 100 more pages in all!
  • A timeline advanced several years, including crucial new events.
  • Many new Adventures, set in Sel-kai & Eidolon.
  • New skyship and watercraft info, including ship plans.
  • New details about the inner workings of Eidolon and Sel-kai: society, celebrities, and scandals!
  • NPC stats for RM2/Classic and RMSS/RMFRP.

Get your copy of Eidolon: City in the Sky now >>
 

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Rolemaster Fantasy Weapons – Now a Copper Pick product

Posted on February 25, 2016 by colinice

Rolemaster Fantasy WeaponsA huge thanks to everyone who has bought and support Rolemaster Fantasy Weapons! We’re very proud to announce that this great little supplement has now reached the status of ‘Copper Pick Product’ on RPGNow.
 
Less than 10% of products on RPGNow are rated as ‘Copper Pick’ products and we’re excited to see another product reach this level, especially after the recent success of the Rolemaster Combat Minion – Rolemaster Classic Edition which has now progressed from ‘Copper Pick’ to ‘Silver Pick’.
 
If you haven’t done so already you can pick up Rolemaster Fantasy Weapons for just $3 from RPGNow. It contains information and attack tables for sixteen new weapons for RMSS/RMFRP.
 
 
New weapons include:
 

  • Baw
  • Chakram
  • Chegain
  • Cabis
  • Dag
  • Ge
  • Ikasha
  • Irgaak
  • Kalta
  • Kynac
  • Long Knife
  • Long Kynac
  • Saren
  • Shangkana
  • Typh
  • Yarkbalka

Buy it now at RPGNow >>
 

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Roleplaying adventure hooks

Posted on February 19, 2016 by colinice

Looking for inspiration for your next roleplaying adventure? Then look no further! We’ve put together these three adventure hooks to give you some ideas for your next gaming session. Enjoy!
 
 
A feast to forget
 
The winter festival is a time for fun and family. This year however a spate of sudden illnesses and deaths following the feast requires further investigation.
 
Synopsis
 
It is always hard to remain impartial in an investigation, but when the chief of the local constabulary is a suspect and half the town is ill or dying, outside help is required. The custom of each household bringing a different dish to the feast has never caused problems before. Now PC’s will need to find out who ate what and discover if it was just a poorly cooked dish or something more sinister.
 
 
The hunter becomes the hunted
 
Young hunters will always try to out-do each other in terms of the size and ferocity of their catches. What started as friendly rivalry has now grown out of control and one of the young hunters is missing.
 
Synopsis
 
Three young men are always trying to outshine each other in terms of hunting prowess. Their catches have become bigger and more dangerous as the weeks and months have gone past, but now one of them is missing and a distraught mother will accept any help available to find her son and bring him home. That is unless he has already tried to bite off more than he can chew.
 
 
All creatures great and small
 
Something weird is going on with the animals and an evil presence is looming in the woods
 
Synopsis
 
A small village has quickly become established as a local trading post and is growing fast, wood from the forest is needed for buildings but something is wrong. Animals of all shapes and sizes have been disappearing, running away from owners and attacking anyone who tries to stop them. There are many who say that the spirit of the forest is angry. Others say that a shaman that lives in the woods is angry… and is gathering an army.
 
 
If you think you could turn one of these adventure hooks (or one of your own creation) into a full blown adventure module for publication, we’d love to hear from you – Get in touch >>
 

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Rolemaster Combat Minion – Now a silver pick product

Posted on February 16, 2016 by colinice

Rolemaster Combat Minion SoftwareIron Crown Enterprises are thrilled to announce that the brilliant e-support product Rolemaster Combat Minion – Rolemaster Classic Edition has now reached the status of ‘Silver Pick Product’ on RPGNow.
 
Under 6% of products on RPGNow receive this accolade and we’re really proud to have another product achieve this level of success. A huge thanks to everyone who has purchased and supported the Rolemaster Combat Minion and all Iron Crown Enterprises products.
 
If you haven’t had a chance to check out the Combat Minion, you can try the app for free at www.web.com.au/rolemaster/minion. The free web app includes six combat tables: Broadsword, Short Bow, Shock Bolt attack tables, and the Slash, Puncture, Electricity critical tables
 
Rolemaster Combat Minion offers a quick and easy way to manage combat encounters. It streamlines the entire combat process, including initiative, combat calculations, attack and critical tables. It can be used on any desktop PC or tablet with a normal web browser.
 
The Rolemaster Combat Minion – Rolemaster Classic Edition license unlocks the entire Rolemaster Classic set of attack and critical tables.
 
Features include:

  • Your own database of PCs, NPCs and monsters (create/edit/clone)
  • Initiative sequence fully automated
  • Attack results calculated by the software with full table lookups
  • All wounds applied, tracked and saved by the software
  • Encounter log showing the entire sequence of combat actions
  • Save and restore your database of PCs/NPCs/monsters
  • Create and install custom attack and critical tables

 

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Director’s Briefing – February 2016

Posted on February 4, 2016 by colinice

Welcome
 
To the fifty-seventh Briefing and the second scheduled Briefing of 2016.
 
We persist and we persevere.
 
RMU
 
Dan Henry has stepped down from the RMU development team for personal reasons. Joining the RMU development team are Graham Bottley (who is the author of Rolemaster Rome among other rpg works) and Jonathan Dale (whose character creation spreadsheets many of us have come to rely on). Graham is already labouring on the todo list for Spell Law, whilst Jonathan is supporting Matt with Arms & Character Law and Joeri with Creature Law, including migrating a number of races from Creature Law into Arms & Character Law to enrich the core set of player-character races.
 
Shadow World
 
Somehow the master softcover print files for Eidolon got lost at the Lightning Source end of the process again. As Lightning Source have now changed their cover specs very slightly, we’ve adjusted the cover and reuploaded it. Hopefully this will be third-time lucky.
 
Contracts to arrange for the return of The Orgillion Horror and Alchemy Companion are with Tim Taylor.
 
Brian Hanson has been in touch to indicate he’s closing in on the next full draft of Priest-King of Shade.
 
Software
 
There have been a series of updates to the ERA software package and its datasets, notably in terms of the inclusion of additional Shadow World material such as Loremaster and Navigator spell lists.
 
There have also been further updates to the AutoHARP suite, and I have supplied David with the relevant material from HARP Folkways so that a Folkways dataset can be ready for simultaneous release with the pdf.
 
HARP and HARP SF
 
In HARP Bestiary, I have completed the text of the Elemental chapter, so the only part of that left to do is the actual stats. As soon as I can get a couple of evenings, I will get the stats resolved. I have donated the creatures which were originally intended to be Elemental planar creatures to other chapters. I have already seen John’s reconstruction of the Flamedarter and I am very happy that I made the right decision to delegate these. John, by the way, has completed his Dragons chapter; once he reconstructs the other extra monsters, he will be onward to Lycanthropes.
 
Jon Cassie added some culture tables to HARP Folkways for the GM whose inspiration is flagging on how to differentiate cultures in his or her setting.
 
For HARP SF, I have a substantially complete draft of The Poseidon Gambit to review.
 
Until next time
 
Back to more persistence and perseverance. The next scheduled Briefing will be in March 2016.
 
Best wishes,
Nicholas
 
Director, Guild Companion Publications Ltd.
 
 
If you would like to receive the Director’s Briefing straight to your inbox each month, you can sign up to our mailing list HERE.
 

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