Caver, Ho!

My favorite acquisition at Origins was my Caver mini from Severed Books. Because he's a real one, Justin from Severed Books brought one just for me.

Originally introduced in Caver and Cube Book 1, Cavers are a combo of familiar, fantasy mech, and mobile base of operations. They've also been features in Stone Over Sky and Darkest Rock. While all three books are compatible, Stone Over Sky is system neutral and Darkest Rock is designed for Mork Borg. Both books included at least one new Caver class. 

The minis are solid af. They are 6.25 inches tall and way about 2 pounds. They have two caps on top that can be removed to conveniently place minis (see below). I LOVE my Caver, but haven't had him painted yet. I'm not good at painting, so I will probably have a friend take a crack at it.

While I'm still working out details my next game will include a Caver. If I stick with Heroes of the Borderlands, then I'll probably go with my idea that the cultists' base is actually a caver. If I don't I was thinking it would be fun if after going to the canyon and defeating evil, the party find a random new cave. If I don't go with a Borderlands game, it's no sweat. Caver's can be dropped into any setting that includes powerful magic. The game will be a 5.5 one and I think the new Bastion rules will be perfect for customizing the interior of the Caver.

If you can't tell I'm excited. Have you ever used anything like this in your game? Would you be interested? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Origins 2026 Photodump

In no particular order, here are some pics I took at Origins.

This is Matt from Forever Stoked Creative and his shirt is dope!

The Columbus Pride parade was Saturday and locals decorated the Arnie stature in front of the GCC.

Brandon from Wet Ink Games is such a great human being. Love him!

If you love 80's/90's sleeze, you HAVE to check out Brian Shutter's work.

Doug Schute is an aspiring force of positivity in the gaming space. 

With signs like this, its easy to see why I love Wet Ink Games.

Edwin Mullavey is an amazing artist and GM I met through Lurking Fears a few years back.

This gargoyle at the Mythic Legions booth is so cool.

I brought a lot of props from my personal collection for my Honk Legions game.

This is James, aka Jimmy D. He's an artist and geek I've been friends with since 7th grade. Love this guy. 

It was wonderful seeing Mr. Dragonbane himself, Jonathon Myhre.

Justin Sirois is a friend and inspiration. It was so cool to see himi again and meet his family.

Mike and Andy from Limitless Adventures are real class acts. They are the reason I've been able to go to Origins the past few years.

I spent so much money on 1st and 3rd party Pirate Borg stuff from this booth.

Caught Matt from Wet Ink Games and Brian from Creature Curation filming a game jam vid.

My kid and I before we left for the con Wednesday. I was so happy we went to Origins together this year.

Origins 2026 - Overview

Origins Game Fair 2025 was fantastic! I went with my kiddo and we both had a lot of fun and made great memories. While it’s nice to stay at a connected hotel, they can be pricey. That’s why we stayed at the Worthington Motor Lodge. It’s a no-frills motel about 20 minutes from the convention center. It’s clean, the beds were comfortable, and I saved 600 dollars by staying there. If you just need a clean place to stay while in Columbus and don’t plan on spending much time at your hotel, I’d say it’s a great value and worth it.

We were able to attend the convention as exhibitors this year thanks to Andy and Mike from Limitless-Adventures. I ran several sessions of their upcoming game Further Adventures TTRPG. The system is fast and streamlined. It hits the perfect sweet spot between free-form narrative games and classic crunchy systems. The GM describes a session, the player reacts with their action and make a roll based on their skills. A cool feature of the system is rather than a bunch of bonuses or negatives added to die rolls, there is a dice progression system. For example, of rolling an extra 1 to your d6 roll, you would roll a d6 instead. This works the other way too, as die can be dialed down as well. The Kickstarter launches at the end of July and there are several sessions being ran at GenCon. Y’all definitely need to keep an eye on this one. 

I also ran two sessions of The Honk Legion. I went all out with this one. Since it was demon clown themed, I had several circus props for the game. I also used Laffy Taffy to represent heroic inspiration and made folks read one of the awful jokes from the candy when using it. Both groups successfully turned Chookles-Chookles lieutenants against him, though in different ways.

As far as con swag goes, I may have went a little overboard of the Pirate Borg and Pirate Borg adjacent items I didn’t have. I also snagged a few DCC books.  My most exciting purchase was my Caver mini from Severed Books. I’ll talk more about it and the books related to it later this week. Speaking of Severed Books, it was so great to Justin Sirois of SB. He’s an amazing artist, excellent writer, and all-around beautiful soul.

I’ll do another post later today or tomorrow with sharing pics.

Origins Bound!

Good morning all! While I do have to go to work for a bit today, I'm working a short day. This afternoon my kiddo and I are are heading to Columbus for Origins Game Fair. This year's theme is cyberpunk, which isn't my thing, but could still be cool. I've got a few posts scheduled, but no real new game content this weekend. If you are attending the con, look for me at the Limitless Adventures booth (22110).

Can't wait to share pics and stories from the con with everyone.

I Want You For The Honk Legion

I will be running two session of The Honk Legion for Lurking Fears at Origins. This 5e adventure is set in a twisted carnival full of demon clowns. It's laugh out loud funny and totally absurd. My sessions will be Thursday and Friday morning at 9:00 AM. The Thursday session is full, but four of the five spots for the Friday session are free. Here are some props and decorations I’ll have at the table.

Also if you wear a medium or smaller shirt, Hot Topic has an awesome Honk Legion shirt on clearance.

Origins 2026

Only had a few pre-scheduled posts this past week due to arthritis pain in my hand. I still have a little  swelling and pain, but I can type again. 

We're about a month away from Origins Game Fair and I'm getting psyched. Unlike the last few years, I will be attending the entire con. While I didn't get a convention center connected room, I have booked a nice room at a nearby hotel. Thanks to my friends at Limitless Adventures, once again I'll be going as an exhibitor. Stop by their booth and say hi. I'll also be running short sessions of their upcoming game. I believe this will be the first time its ran at a con.

I'm also running two sessions of 5e for my friends at Lurking Fears. If you want some crazy clown action sign up for one of my sessions of The Crooked Moon: The Honk Legion. It should be an absolute blast.

I'm excited to roll dice and see friends I only get to see at cons. Will I see any of your wonderful faces there?

Origins 2025 and 15 Years At The Halls

The 50th Origins Game Fair is currently happening. While I was unable to do the whole con, I was able to attend yesterday. I thought I'd share some pics and highlights.

I was able to attend this year because of the Andy and Mike from Limitless Adventures.  I spent most of the day hanging out at their booth and laughing. I also had dinner with them and Eric Bloat and his delightful wife, Jaime. After dinner I ran the DCC adventure The Arwhich Grinder. It was fun and ended with a stupid TPK. 

It was fantastic to see Justin from Severed Books. It's been 3 or 4 years since I saw him last. While I didn't buy too much at the con, all of my money was spent on Justin's art and the wooden minis Severed Books has released. I've wanted some of these minis for a while and now that I have them, I need more. 

I always have to give a shout out to my fam at Wet Ink Games. Brandon and Matt are fantastic dudes. They are intelligent, creative, and kind. I truly appreciate the "No Nazis At The Table" sticker. These cats have never been afraid of offending folks that need to be offended. Plus, they had my friend Edwin working their booth and running games for them. 

Also as you probably guess from the title, my first post was 15 years ago today. There have been many times when posting has been sparse and best, but I'm happy that I still create and share on here. 

#RPGaDay2024 - Day 19

"Sensational session"

I've ran several sensational sessions at Origins since joining up with Lurking Fears, but I feel like talking about the time I ran Wasted last year specifically. This DCC-compatible "hicksploitation" adventure by Tim Snider is fantastic. Take a fantastic adventure and a group of players wanting to let loose and have a good time and you have an excellent formula for a fantastic session. The players were all good sports and willing to play the hillbilly stereotypes up without being too offensive about it. One of the thieves in the group had the snake handler occupation and the character's player had an uncle that actually was a snake handler. Needless to say, he did an excellent job roleplaying the character. I think one of my favorite moments in the game was when one of the warriors was killed. The party gave the corpse some of the cursed liquor (as they realized it had the ability to turn people into zombies). I had the player to make a DC 20 luck roll. He made it so I allowed the character to be brought back as a zombie under his control. I just copied the zombie stat blocks and gave them to him. He really got into it and was hilarious. He didn't speak in character for the rest of the session, just mumbled and moaned. Everyone had a great time. 

I found out the session actually inspired two of the players (father and son) to run their own sessions at Origins this year. 

#RPGaDAY2024 - Day 8

 "An accessory you appreciate."

 

Though we'd chatted online before, I officially met Justin from Severed Books at Origins 2022. I loved the stuff he was releasing and he seemed really nice online. I'm happy to say he was just as cool, IRL. We talked for a while and I bought a few things. When I came back to his both later I noticed a really cool Warduke skull dice bag. I asked how much and he told me it was the last one and I could have it. He didn't need to do that, but he did and I really appreciate it. It made my day. That's why my Warduke skull dicebag is an accessory I appreciate.

If you've never checked out Severed Books, you should. Follow them on Facebook and pick something up from their Etsy shop.

Carcass Crawler #1

I was unable to find any cool OSE books at Origins so I decided to check out Exalted Funeral. I ordered Carcass Crawler #1 and The Pyre of Kaylon Moss. I also got a cool Mystic Punks trading card that looks like early 90's Marvel trading card. If you aren't familiar with Carcass Crawler, it is the official zine of Old-School Essentials. 

One of the coolest features of this issue of the zine is six new classes. Who doesn't love new classes? My guess is people that don't like fun. I kid... The authors actually discuss how some groups don't like having too many classes and while I don't agree, I get it.  What are these new classes? They are: 

• Acolyte - these religious zealots have divine abilities, but aren't traditional divine casters. They have six divine skills (which replicate magic abilities), can create and use divine magic items, and can heal with touch. The divine skills are percentile based skill checks (like thief abilities)
• Gargantua - "Big Siblings of Humankind" gargantua are 7 1/2' tall humanoids, they are able to open barred doors better than the average adventure, like giants they can also hurl rocks, gargantua are essentially D&D's goliaths.
  
• Goblin - as I mentioned recently, I love goblins!, members of this humanoid class gain an AC bonus against creatures larger than humans, can detect construction tricks, have infravision, can move silently like thieves, and have an affinity with wolves (which they can ride)
• Hephaestan - these demihumans have mental powers, have bonuses when listening at doors, can knock folks out by putting pressure on nerves, and look similar to elves.... yeah you guessed it these are OSE Vulcans. Okay, now that I think about it the name is a give away too...
• Kineticist - these warriors can use mental powers to harness force, the have enhanced AC, mental defenses, honestly they feel like Jedi to me 
• Mage - these students of the arcane are similar to acolytes, they don't cast spells on their own, but can create and use magic items (including scrolls), they have innate mage armor, can heal and allow a new saving throw against a negative effective, and can imbue mundane staffs with arcane magic when they wield them

The previously described gargantua, goblin, and hephaestan are given racial statistics if you choose the race and class are separate rules from Advanced Fantasy.

The zine introduces rules for black powder firearms. There is a basic discussion of firearms, rules for who are proficient with what types, new specialists adventurers can hire, as well as equipment listings and rules for specific types of guns and accessories. I've toyed around with running some OSE Freeport and these rules will be very useful if I do that.

There are a few new optional rules to modify your OSE games. There's a new rule that introduces combat talents. These are six new fighting style/combat tricks that give fighters new flair and help them differentiate from their peers. These are reminiscent of the Battlemaster fighter subclass abilities from 5e. Another new rule is d6 thief skills. The author admits that "fixing the thief" is a very common old school rules tweak so he presents an alternative to the standard percentile skills. In addition, there are some discussion of adjudicating thief skills. These are guidelines and rulings related those class abilities. One thing I really like is a discussion of whether a non-thief can attempt the skill and what their chances are.

I am extremely pleased with this zine. The content is very useful and I got it at a great price. I was able to snag print and pdf for five bucks because it from EF's Reanimated section. That means it has some sort of imperfection. Honestly I don't see any noticeable issues with my copy. I definitely want to pick up the other two issues. If you're interested Necrotic Gnome's product page will direct you to where you can snag it.

Big Sword #1: Graves & Groves

Graves & Groves is another Dungeon Crawl Classics zine I picked up at Origins. The zine is a collection of material related to undeath and nature. The are several artists, but all of the art is great. I like that the table of contents is on the back cover, but isn't presented in a boring manner.

The zine starts with a discussion about party composition. In DCC its really important for a party to have the four core classes: warrior, cleric, magic-user, and thief. While Some classes, can fill-in for the roles (don't have a warrior, a dwarf is a good substitute), other classes (like the cleric) don't really have a substitute.  The two new classes presented are the Ranger (warrior/thief) and treefolk (warrior/cleric). While treefolk don't seem like a classic pc race, the author sites ents being listed as part of the "free peoples" of Middle Earth to justify their inclusion into the game. 

Downtime isn't something really discussed in DCC. Like the many classic fantasy stories that inspired it, adventures typically just go from adventure to adventure. I think downtime is a fun part of gaming, so I appreciate some thoughts and rules for adding it to your DCC game. 

Keeping with the nature them, there are two pages worth of herbs presented. Each herb has a name, location it can be found, and what effects the herb has. One page includes seven legendary herbs. They are powerful ingredients and can be used to inspire adventures and grand quests. The other page includes 12 mundane herbs, which includes the information mentioned above and DC for finding them. 

There are three new nature-based spells. The first can be used by clerics. The other two are for magic-users. The new Treefolk class can use all of these spells. My favorite of these spells is Chimeric Graft which allows you to graft an animal body part onto another creature. 

The zine also includes undead related pc material. Death isn't a rarity for DCC PC's. However, it's not the end. It is possible that the character can rise as a Revenant to gain revenge. This is done by a roll, which is modified by different things related to the character's death. Revenants gain powers to help them get their revenge. The other character option is dhampir. With a judge's permission a player can have their character be born as a dhampir (which comes with powers and weaknesses). It's also possible to become a dhampir through other means during play. 

There is a six page toolkit to help judge's create vampires. While DCC isn't a game of balance, there are some relatively balanced vampire creation rules. I like this personally, but you don't have to use the point-by power system if you don't want to. 

One of my favorite parts of DCC is patrons. Graves & Groves includes patron stats for the Prime Vampire. This includes the basic tables you need for a patron; Invoke Patron check results and Patron Taint. It also includes three new patron spells. 

This is followed by a fourteen page hex-crawl adventure called Vow of the Vampire. There are maps, charts, and everything you need. There's even a really cool magic sword. The adventure is primarily designed for level 1 characters, but can be played as an extended adventure with a large 0-level party. 

The zine ends with a mini-bestiary that goes with the natural and undead theme. The Giant Newt is my favorite new monster just because it has a really annoying, but fun ability. The Fungal Zombie Spider sounds fun. Shambling Moss isn't anything new, but doesn't have a pre-existing DCC equivalent. We also get two different npc Treefolk statblocks, and template rules for Revenant.

The book ends with a treefolk starting occupation chart.

There's a lot of great new content for your DCC game here. I think it plays really well with Nightworld, Macabre #1, and Vampire Blood. Grab your copy today at the Goodman Game Store.

Goblins!

This past Friday I attended Origins Game Fair in Columbus. My original plan was to run games with Lurking Fears, but due to things earlier this year, I had to stop my commitments. However, thanks to my friends at Limitless Adventures, I was able to go for a day at no cost. As usual, most of the money I dropped was at the Goodman Games booth. Over the next few weeks I'll review some of the items I picked up. 

Today I'm going to talk about Goblins!. This is a 16 page zine for Dungeon Crawl Classics. The writing is easy to understand and the art is classic OSR/DCC style. It presents goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears as DCC classes. Each class has all abilities and things you'd need to make a character, including three tables (level, titles, and starting occupations),

Goblins are stealthy little buggers. They can backstab, sneak, and hide like a thief. They have infravision which helps them see in the dark. One of the most interesting traits they have is bad luck charm, which is the opposite of the halfling's good luck charm trait. They can spend their luck to lower the rolls of other creatures they can see. Also, like halflings they regain some spent luck overnight.

Hobgoblins are strong fighters. Like warriors they have deed die and can perform Mighty Deeds of Arms. Hobgoblins have an interesting trait because they are trained in formation fighting. Allies standing next to the hobgoblin gains a variable bonus to their AC.

The final class is my favorite goblinoid, the bugbear. They are large size which allows them to do feats of strength smaller adventures couldn't dream of. They are also experts at being in charge. They can command others to take actions, sacrificing their own. They can howl orders at allies and buff them in similar ways to D&D bards. Finally, despite their size bugbears gain climb, sneak, and hide like thieves. Having infravision, they can also see while doing so in the dark. 

I can see some fans of the DCC not being into this zine. "Monsters are unique" is a key point of DCC. However, I've never really seen goblins as monsters. They are humanoids, so I put them somewhere between humans/demihumans and monsters. Personally, I grabbed this one because I love goblins and I've been thinking about using DCC rules to play in some established settings, like Freeport or Greyhawk. This would be a great resource for doing that.

Grab your copy of  Goblins! today from the Goodman Game store today.

Origins 2023 Recap

I had an excellent time at Origins this year. Figured I'd do a recap with pictures.

I ran 8 four hour sessions with Lurking Fears. These cats are amazing. They're friendly and just all around amazing GM's. Initially known for running Call of Cthuthlu, the group has expanded and we run games for several publishers including Chaosium, Wet Ink Games, Free League, Bloat Games, Mongoose Publishing and a few others. We also let our players vote for session MVP's which allows them to pick some great prizes donated by our sponsors. We are also an open and inclusive group. 

I ran six different adventures over the course of the con (using 5 different systems). My Wasted session was awesome. The group had a blast even if one was turned into a moonshine drinking zombie. The Arwhich Grinder is always a blast. I had folks that played in my session last year bring it up when the say me. A few folks in my session were from (near) back home, which was cool. They even got my email address and stuff so they could look for my games next year. I didn't run my planned Dark Places and Demogorgons adventure (because I'm bad and haven't finished it), but I did run two session of the upcoming DP&D OSE adventure Yer Gonna Need A Bigger Boat. Both groups had a lot of fun and one of them fell in love with the game, which is really why we run things. I also ran two sessions of a new to me game, Necrobiotic. It's a fascinating game that I don't think I can do justice here. Check out the games page and expect a review in the future. I was gifted a physical copy of the book and am looking forward to diving into it. I ran one session of Survive This!! Zombies! 2nd Edition. I used the old All Flesh Must Be Eaten adventure, Coffee Break of the Living Dead. I had an amazing group that come up with some great tactics I'd never seen before. My final session was Valor Knights: Chaos at the Hooper Dam. Going to be honest, it wasn't good. I didn't remember the rules as well as I thought I did and got my times confused and ended the session early. Most of the players still seemed to have a good time, but it was definitely the black mark on my gaming record (and the surveys we do show that).

Honestly, the highlight of the convention is always seeing friends that I normally only get to see at places like Origins. My Lurking Fears fam is amazing, but I also got to hang out with Matt and Brandon from Wet Ink Games, Dieter and Judge Jen from Goodman Games, and even had dinner with the two handsome gents from Limitless Adventures.

Speaking of Limitless Adventures, I had them sign my copy of Carbide City #1. 

I had a pretty decent haul (and didn't spend nearly as much as the images make it look like).

• Three smaller DCC releases from Breaker Press Games: two tri-fold encounters for their Stennard setting and a new class
• The Hangman's Garden DCC monogram, honestly mainly just snagged it because my dude Dieter wrote it
• A collection of amazing looking Magic the Gathering tokens from a local Columbus artist, Andrew Thompson. 
• I snagged the last copy of the DCC Free RPG Day adventure thanks to Judge Jen.
• Already talked about Horror: A Roleplaying Game and will review The Diner soon.
• Snagged several Free RPG Day books, including Dragonbane, which I knew nothing about but am super stoked for and will be posting about soon. 
• The Horror at Fort Orc'igin is a 5e tournament style adventure by DMDave Publishing that was an Origins 2023 exclusive and (obviously) inspired by The Thing. I plan on reviewing it at some point.
• Mork Corp was described by the author as the worst Mork Borg zine ever, so I got. When characters die they go to Mork Corps, an infernal company. There's content. It's funny. No Country For Old Kobolds was a free book I got for buying the zine. It's a Powered By The Apocalypse game I'm donating to the campus Nerd Club.
• I love Pirate Borg. Grabbed a tri-fold navel encounter and a map/adventure for the system. Also snagged the 5e version of game's bestiary because I love 5e pirate stuff. 

• I've had the pdf of Teenage Mutant Dirtbags for a bit, but wanted it in print. I love TMNT and the game is simple and fun. Also got a preview of the Storypath Ultra from Studio 2 Publishing when I snagged it. 
• Had to get my Origins d6. Also grabbed the GoeyCube business card which is also a 5e item card.
• Ultra Pro released some legendary dragon stat cards for Free RPG Day. 
• I know have two different Doug Shute trading cards. Doug is the US Free League Con guy and runs Victory Condition Gaming.
• More Free RPG Day stuff. I love that there's a Transformers/GI Joe crossover adventure. 
• Finally I love patches and got the 2023 exclusive Vast Grimm patch. 

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So yeah, my Origins 2023 rocked. Can't wait for next year's!

My Origins Event Schedule

If you're attending Origins next week, you should hop into one of my games. There are several open spots in each event. For more information about the con head here.

Origins 2022

My plans were somewhat last minutes as far as deadlines are concerned, but I've decided I am going to Origins this year. I'm going to experience the con in a new way. Instead of just going to play and shop, I'm going to be GM'ing eight four hour sessions for Lurking Fears. I'll post my schedule when it's finalized but it looks like I'm going to be running the following:

Never Going Home - The Lamps (3 sessions) - Going to be honest, while I know Never Going Home and the adventure is in the core book, I'm not sure what this adventure is about. LF run con games for a few companies and my friends at Wet Ink Games (Never Going Home's publisher) asked if they could run some games. The con is in June so I have plenty of time to learn more.

Dungeon Crawl Classics - The Arwich Grinder (3 sessions) - I've talked about this 0-level funnel before. I think it's my favorite written for DCC and I've ran it a few times. It's gory, gross, and a blast.

Country Meat-Grinder Classics - The Hellson Horror (2 sessions) - CMGC is hicksploitation DCC and I'm all about that. I haven't actually ran this one, but it seems like a blast and Tim Snider did a great job with the adventure. I may add some Country Crawl Classics elements to it.

Anyone else heading to Origins this summer?