We’re VERY pleased to announce that yet another Iron Crown product has received recognition on RPGNow as a Copper pick product. This time we are celebrating Shadow World’s Quellbourne: Land of the Silver Mist.
You can pick up Quellbourne: Land of the Silver Mist as a pdf for just $5 at RPGNow.
Quellbourne: Land of the Silver Mist
Set sail for the Land of the Silver Mist, where treasure and undead alike rest uneasily in the ruins of Quellbourne’s capital city, Quellburn. Overcome by the forces of the Unlife centuries before, the rugged Mannish population of this fog-swept land struggles to survive, battling pirate bands of Ice Krals and raiding Trolls, as they mine for gold and silver. Fortune hunters will find Quellbourne bountiful, if they can avoid being sacrificed to the Spider Goddess, Hrassk. Equallt fatal are the Destroyers of Galtoth, a cult of men dedicated to destroying everything – even the island they live on!
Riches and tales too fabulous to be believed lure adventurers to Quellbourne’s battered coast. The bold may find a map leading to an “abandoned” silver mine, now home to denizens best left undisturbed. After outfitting themselves on the brawling streets of Kelfour’s Landing, fortune-seekers might prowl the ruins of Quellburn, uncovering centuries of gold and booty. Or sail to Trelkinaark to challenge the formidable and plunder-laden Krals in their homeland.
Thanks to everyone who bought this classic Shadow World module and to everyone who continues to support ICE products old and new!
Quellbourne: Land of the Silver Mist now a copper pick on RPGNow
What I thought of… Nod
Nod by Adrian Barnes is an interesting take on an apocalypse survival story. There is no plague, no monsters destroying mankind, just the simple ideas that the vast majority of humanity can no longer sleep. Structured society slowly crumbles as people lose their grip on reality and ultimately their lives.
Nod
Paul is a writer who lives in Vancouver with his wife Tanya. Life is good. That is until one day he wakes up and his wife hasn’t slept all night. As it turns out, she isn’t the only one. The vast majority of the human race hasn’t slept and cannot sleep. Without sleep, cracks begin to show in society and Paul is forced to try and out-survive these ‘awakened’ people as they slip slowly towards madness and the destruction of the human race as we know it.
My thoughts
I really enjoyed Nod. While there are a lot of apocalyptic novels out there, this one felt different. The survival story itself isn’t that different, nor is the style of writing particularly ground-breaking. It is the subject matter that kept me enthralled. Such a simple premise and yet such an interesting one: What would happen if no one could sleep?
One of the book’s strengths is that it doesn’t attempt to tell the story of the world’s demise due to this sudden inability to sleep. It tells Paul’s story and though you do finish the book wondering what might have happened elsewhere in this slowly declining world, it isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
My main complaint about the book is that there are times when the main character feels a bit passive. As someone that has been able to sleep, he is not privy to the psychosis that the vast majority of the other characters are undergoing and though there are some really good explanations of this slowly disintegrating world, there are moments when it all feels a bit slow.
As a role playing adventure
There are some very interesting themes in Nod that would translate well to roleplaying. The book sets a very strict timeline on how long a human body can survive without sleep, so from the very start Paul is simply trying to run out the clock and survive. Also, the moral implications are interesting. These people are innocent, they’re sick and confused so how do you defend yourself against them if they attack? Is killing them ok? They’re eventually going to die anyway so perhaps you’re doing them a favor. All very interesting ideas to explore in a roleplaying adventures.
Final thoughts
I like this book. I think the premise outshines the execution however. I like the idea of an apocalypse caused by something as seemingly insignificant as a bout of insomnia. The book is good and well worth a read but failed to blow me away.
Rating
7/10 – A good book worth reading but not a game changer
If you have read the book and would like to give your thoughts on it, take part in our forum discussion. The next book in our ICE book club will be ‘The Dinosaur Lords’ by Victor Milan and will be reviewed in November. If you would like to give your thoughts on The Dinosaur Lords before the next review, you can do so in the forum.
Famous spaceship speed infographic
Here’s something for all you Spacemaster and HARP-SF fans, an infographic showing the top speeds of some of the most famous spaceships both in reality and in science fiction. A huge thanks to everyone at Geekologie where I discovered the infographic and to those at Fat Wallet who created it.
Enjoy!
The Order of the Iron Crown – July round-up
The Order of the Iron Crown is a select group of fans that have made it their mission to promote Iron Crown Enterprises’ products at game conventions and in game stores around the world. The Order was set up to allow us to better help those who want to promote our games and to reward them for doing so.
This month we’ll be reporting on what members of the Order of the Iron Crown have been up to during June AND July (as I was have been away and need to catch up on publicly thanking all these wonderful people).
As it started in July, I will be including GenCon in this OIC round up. A huge thanks to everyone who went to GenCon and ran and played Iron Crown games. Here’s a run down of what the Order members have been up to:
The Rolemaster Blog
Peter R continues his brilliant Rolemaster blog. Over the past couple of months he has added no fewer than thirteen new articles on his blog including explorations on the various different creatures in Rolemaster and his thoughts on the new Rolemaster playtest.
The Guild Companion
This month Order of the Iron Crown member Peter Mork wrote an article for the Guild Companion E-zine entitled Cultures of Metal Age Kur – An overview of the non-human cultures on and under the Levensild Sea. for which he has earnt yet more OIC points.
GenCon Demo
This year we sent OIC member Bruce along to GenCon with a pile of swag and an official Iron Crown T-Shirt to run a game of High Adventure Role Playing (HARP). By all accounts it was an absolute success (you can actually read the full account on the Iron Crown Enterprises blog. The game went so well that a number of the players have already signed up to the Iron Crown Enterprises mailing list. A huge thanks to Bruce for running such a great game and bringing new players into the ICE family.
Thanks to all of our Order members and to everyone who has helped support them and us throughout June and July. If you would like to learn more about the Order of the Iron Crown, you can visit the Order of the Iron Crown webpage or click the banner below.
If you believe you are due some OIC points, please get in touch and let me know. I do my best to keep up with everyone’s efforts but an e-mail outlining what you intend to do/have done to earn points is always well received.
Crowdfunding a lifesize Minas Tirith
There is an indiegogo campaign underway to build a lifesize Minas Tirith in the South of England.
Cold hard facts about where the giant city will be built, how it will be built and quite what will happen once it has been built are sparse, but the campaign is looking to raise £1.85bn to build a complete, lifesize copy of Tolkien’s famous city from Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Jonathan Wilson who set up the crowdfunding page writes “We are an ambitious team of architects and structural engineers who are passionate about creating a beautiful, inspirational and fully-functioning replica of Peter Jackson’s depiction of Minas Tirith, as seen in his Lord of the Rings films.”
The campaign runs for 60 days (48 left at the time of writing) and offers backers the chance to have guided tours around the city, be commemorated in plaques, name streets and even buy property depending on the size of their pledge.
The sceptic in me isn’t sure that they’re going to make the £1.85bn. The child in me wants to own a home in Minas Tirth. If only I had a few thousand pound to spare.
Realise Minas Tirith on Indiegogo
Kingdom of the Desert Jewel now a copper pick on RPGNow
As much as we love our newly released products, we love our ‘vintage’ collection just as much. We love it when an old classic reminds us that it is that…a classic. This month, the classic Shadow World region module Kingdom of the Desert Jewel has become a copper pick product on RPGNow. We’d like to thank everyone throughout the years who has bought and supported this product and the entire ICE product line.
For those of you that haven’t purchased, read or heard of the Kingdom of the Desert Jewel, you can pick it up in pdf format for just $5 at RPGNow.
Kingdom of the Desert Jewel
Over the ages, the people of Gethrya have built a great and orderly society ruled by benevolent kings and blessed by the gods. Here, revered priests and astrologers define the way of life, but perils old and new threaten this stable order. To the untamed east, bloodthirsty reptilian monsters known as Obanshi prowl the wastes of the Chavad Mountains. A troublesome race of gem-eating rock dwellers serves the Mountain King, whose weath is stupendous – and well-guarded! Beckoning to all adventurers is the wealth of kings buried in tombs deep in the desert, where most fear to travel. In the ancient and blistering Kingdom of the Desert Jewel, you can quickly make a name for yourself – or die trying!
Kingdom of the Desert Jewel includes:
- Complete and detailed descriptions of local rulers and races, environments and governments, including powerful NPCs, beasts and the soldiers of the Royal Legions.
- Maps, diagrams and sketches of places of adventure, including 4 pages of color maps of the region.
- 10 detailed adventure locations and sites of mystery and danger, including 4 underground strongholds and two urban settings
- Ready-to run adventures for characters of various levels.
- Assorted GM aids, including Encounter Tables, NPC listings, Beasts and Poison stats, and much more!
Thanks again to everyone who bought Kingdom of the Desert Jewel, thank you for your support, we hope you enjoy it!
Iron Crown Enterprises at GenCon
I’m sure you can’t have missed the fact the end of last month (and the beginning of this one) was GenCon. This year a number of forum members attended the huge convention in Indianapolis including Order of the Iron Crown member Bruce Meyer.
Bruce very kindly agreed to give us a run down of his time and his games at GenCon:
Here is my summary of the HARP events that I ran at Gencon. Sometime in the next few days I will post the characters (with backgrounds attached) to the vault when I get the chance to create the PDF’s and add the background pages. I would recommend reading those (once they are posted to get an idea of the characters). Please note that some things may be mixed between the days because I could not remember who played what character each day.
The characters: I created 9 characters total for these events. They were Bamur “Bam-Bam” Hognar the tank (Dwarven Fighter), Ulanya Hyanda (Elf Ranger), Tychon (Elf/Gryx Warrior Mage), Sami Nosreshaw (Human Swashbuckling Thief), Soltus Immarndi (Gryx Monk), Pang (Human Mage), Amabo-Te (Human Cleric of Atreyu) Thulan Nae-Remam (Dwarf Harper), and Tolima Ruldabrard (Halfling Thief). I had plans for at least two more (a Vivamancer and a Rogue) but didn’t have time to make them and their perspective backgrounds.
The first day (Thursday) started out slow because I only had three players. Luckily the one familiar with HARP said he could run two characters and ran both Amabo and Pang. The other two (a couple) ran “Bam-Bam” (Dwarven Fighter) and Sami. The game turned out pretty good and they had lots of fun and I ran the easy version of the game. Another thing about this game is that it was in Room 314 of the JW Marriot which is in the back corner of the JW and there are no bathrooms close by. At the end of the game I had to go to the bathroom so bad that I went back down to the 2nd level and had to use the family bathroom as the male bathroom was all the way at the end of the hall! Needless to say they really need to put some air freshener in those bathrooms as I am sure the next person to use it would attest to!…lol.
The Friday and Saturday games were much better as I had 5 players in both games. If I remember correctly on Friday They used Bam-Bam, Ulanya (Selene), Soltus (Elatar), Pang, and Sami. A little history about Pang is that he tends to be somewhat of a jerk when doing things like casting spells on unsuspecting characters when he thinks something needs to be done. It was in this game that Pang finally got a little taste of his own medicine when Sami (who was suddenly given the ability to fly up into the fog when they noticed the shadowy form in the fog) flew down directly behind the mage and spooked him…the shadowy form (demon) had flown overhead at right about that time and offered a little bit of his fear affect…lol.
On Saturday the players selected Bam-bam, Pang, Amabo, Sami, and Ulanya. It was on this day that I believe was the hardest day as at least three of the players used up all their fate points. And there were only 3 left amongst the other two players. I also made this particular game a little more difficult than the others by adding 3 more skeletons to the mix. If it wasn’t for the one playing Amabo finally realizing that he had a spell that may work to hold the demon in place we might have had a pretty gruesome death (after the person playing Tychon had used up all his fate points). On the first day the demon simply got away. On the subsequent days the demon was killed by the party. They did take out the necromancer (Cedric) on all three days. On the first day one player fumbled their lore roll and swore that Cedric was a famous comedian. I do not remember how they took him out on the first day but on the second day it was concentrated effort. On the third day I believe it was solely Pang who Killed Cedric at just about the time the rest of the party took out the demon. He had teleported into the doorway when he noticed the glow from Cedric fumbling his acid ball attack, he then cast air bolt (choose air for his elemental focus) and discovered he was able to absorb most of the damage due to magical enchantments (but stunned him). He then cast dispel magic on Cedric to try and remove any magical enchantments (and it worked) then just started electrifying him to death. All in all everyone seemed to have lots of fun on all three days!
If I am able to attend next year I plan to stagger my events at different times so I have more time in the event hall to browse and walk around.
A huge thanks to Bruce and to everyone else who attended Gencon and ran ICE games. If you’re planning on attending a convention and running ICE games, get in touch and we’ll see what we can do to help.
Director’s Briefing – August 2015
Welcome to the fifty-first Briefing and the eighth scheduled Briefing for 2015.
RMU beta 2
Beta 2 continues its public playtest. A number of changes have been made already as a result of playtester feedback. Rather than upload a set of pdf fragments for these, a revised Arms & Character Law has been issued. As additional improvements are made to this and the other three RMU core books, we will issue revised pdfs if appropriate.
Again, thank you to everyone who has participated in the playtest discussions. All feedback is gratefully received. Keep reading and playtesting.
HARP
Some time ago, I acquired two books in Dave Duncan’s A Handful of Men quartet. This is actually the second quartet set in the world of Pandemia, the first being A Man of His Word. Having no particular desire to hunt down second-hand copies of the other six books, particularly since I am trying not to buy more physical books (as the half of my book collection formerly in Ireland is now in Cambridge), I checked the ebook stores and was able to purchase the complete set of eight books for my Kindle. The two paperbacks have been donated to charity and I have read all eight novels in the last few weeks. The Pandemia world has an interesting magic system where knowing words of power grants their possessors abilities – one word makes a person an occult genius with one skill, two an adept who can master any skill that they see, three a mage capable of temporary magic, four a sorcerer whose magic is permanent – read the books to learn what happens with five words. The other interesting feature of the world are the races – the cosmpolitan imps, the belligerent jotunn, the proud djinn, the artistic elves, and others – dwarves, gnomes, merfolk, fauns, anthrophagi, trolls and pixies – and all those with very mixed heritages as all races on that world are interfertile. That helped rejuvenate my sources of inspiration and I returned to the only chapter of HARP Folkways still requiring editing. I have thus been able to revise the racial abilities of the eleven exotic new races introduced in HARP Folkways and to tweak the six new cultures presented. HARP Folkways has therefore completed editing and I am now commissioning its artwork.
In addition, I have resumed my own writing on HARP Bestiary. I have extracted the Undead chapter from my Something Wicked manuscript, rewritten the introductory sections to be compatible with HARP Fantasy, and reordered the existing text. The Undead chapter was written to match the headings of Monsters: a Field Guide, e.g. Myths and Misconceptions, Treasures, etc. HARP Bestiary has a different set of headings, namely Description, Lifestyle, Abilities and Combat, Background and Adventure Notes, so reordering has involved moving paragraphs and individual sentences around, rather than simply ensuring an alphabetical order of the Undead (Lament follows Ghoul but precedes Lich). I need to add more text in certain places and then revise MaFG templates into Bestiary overlays.
Shadow World
Eidolon got held up on the last couple of illustrations. As I am away for a few days in August, I expect that it will be mid-August before we release.
Until next time
My priorities for this month are continued writing on HARP Bestiary and the RMU playtest. The next Briefing will be in August.
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.
ERA for Rolemaster Classic now a copper pick!
All three modules of ERA for Rolemaster Classic are now copper pick products on RPGNow!
We’re thrilled to see that so many people have bought and enjoyed Arms Law, Spell Law and Character Law and would like to thank everyone who has bought and supported the entire ERA product line.
For those of you that haven’t yet had a chance to try ERA, you can test it for free by downloading the ERA for Rolemaster application from RPGNow. The application comes with sample races, professions, spells, attacks and criticals which can then be expanded by buying complete data sets for both Rolemaster Classic (RMC) and Rolemaster Fantasy Role Playing (RMFRP).
About ERA for Rolemaster Classic
ERA (Electronic Roleplaying Assistant) is the ultimate companion for Rolemaster campaigns. Just by running this free application players can create their characters using a step by step wizard, then level them up and configure all details in stats, skills and special abilities, even overriding 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.
Players can also oversee the current status of their characters as the adventure progresses, simply by accessing the application with their mobile devices. This also allows them to check all known spells with full descriptions, current skill values and more. Inventory and game master-to-player communication also have their own systems.
Arms Law, Spell Law and Character Law offer complete data sets to allow gamers access to the complete set of rules, tables and data to run their Rolemaster Classic campaign.
Thanks again to everyone who bought ERA for Rolemaster Classic, if you enjoyed it why not consider ERA for Rolemaster RMFRP Core and Character Law, ERA for Rolemaster RMFRP Spell Law or ERA for Rolemaster RMFRP Arms Law for just $9.95 each.
What I thought of… Guild of Dungeoneering
It took me a long time to figure out what to review this month. I originally wanted to review a board game but I quickly came to realise that all the games I own are either featured on Will Wheaton’s ‘Tabletop’ or are products of kickstarter. So instead I decided to review a computer game and I knew just the one. I have seen a few mentions of ‘Guild of Dungeoneering’ recently and thought it a perfect opportunity to buy it and give my perspective on this very… individual game.
Guild of Dungeoneering
Guild of Dungeoneering describes itself as ‘a turn-based dungeon crawler with a twist’. Forbes Online described it as ‘a cute little card-based RPG’. I would describe it as a cute, turn based, deck building, dungeon crawling RPG with a number of funny twists.
In ‘Guild of Dungeoneering’ you are the master of The Guild of Dungeoneering (duh!). Your main goal is to build the biggest and best guild ever. To do this you need to expand your guild building by accumulating wealth. To accumulate wealth you have to (you guessed it) loot dungeons. Unlike other turn-based RPGs, you don’t take charge of the dungeoneer to achieve this looting, instead you build the dungeon around him, using the selection of cards you have available and hope the he does as you wish.
‘Guild of Dungeoneering’ is currently available through steam and gog.com for £10.99.
My thoughts
You can’t help but love the way this game looks. The rough, hand drawn appearance gives the game a great quirky (and slightly dark) feel and lends the whole game an air of childish fun (a theme that continues throughout).
It’s not just the games look that is so pleasing either. When I first downloaded the game I scoffed at the fact they also offered the game’s soundtrack to download for £5.99. “Why would anyone want that?” I thought. My playing of the game has genuinely been slowed by my not wanting to miss a single song. Throughout the game, as you build new rooms in your guild, conquer fearsome monsters and (sadly) watch your dungeoneers be conquered by even fiercer monsters, you are accompanied by a bard who sings little ditties praising (or mocking) your achievements. Much like the games look and feel, these ditties are often dark, sinister and hilarious.
As much as I love the soundtrack, there is an air of Brave Sir Robin’s bard about it. After two hours game play I still find it funny but I’m pretty sure that sooner or later I will echo Brave Sir Robin’s “That’s enough music for now, lads” as it probably will start to grate on me, but that’s why computers were built with volume control.
The game play is simple but deceptively difficult. You upgrade your building by looting gold from dungeons. Building upgrades offers new guild members or other add-ons that can be used whilst dungeoneering. When you are in the dungeon, you are at the mercy of your guild member’s whim. You build the dungeon around them and coax them with loot and monsters, but ultimately you have no control over what they do.
Combat is a simple card based mechanic. Which cards you have in your deck depends on which guild member you are using and which items you have equipped. In the first few levels it was disastrously easy to defeat enemies and I figured that maybe the combat system was what let down an otherwise fine game. I soon realised however that it got harder, a lot harder. Two hours in and I think I have ‘lost’ six or seven guild members to various dungeon monsters. The idea is that you need the loot to improve your stats to be able to take on the bigger monsters. The problem is that even WITH the loot, you sometimes get duff cards. On top of that, you may know you’re not ready to take on ‘the boss’ but your guild member doesn’t.
My ONLY real gripe with the game is its price. It is a really fun game but pretty two-dimensional in terms of aesthetics and gameplay. That’s not a bad thing. I for one love quick and easy games. I rarely have the time for anything too big and time consuming but like the excitement that a good computer game can offer. The problem is that there are some really great games for mobiles that are free or very cheap. As good as this game is, it doesn’t really offer much more than those mobile games, so why the big price tag?
Final thoughts
All in all this game is very fun and very simple. You won’t lose hours of your life playing it for extended periods of time because beyond expanding your guild building and killing monsters/being killed by monsters, there isn’t a great deal to do. It is however great for killing the odd half hour here and there. There are times when you want something big and flashy and times when you just want something silly and fun. This is the second one and as far as silly and fun games go, this is a good ‘un.
Rating
7/10 – A great game to quietly enjoy but not a blockbuster.