Neoplastic Press or Nerd-Crush, You Decide

I need an easy one today, I’m trying to also get something together for the Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day on Wednesday, so I’m going to do a bit of gushing about one of my favorite small-press writers.

Teratic Tome Cover
Teratic Tome Cover

Rafael Chandler publishes gaming materials under the name ‘Neoplastic Press‘. This is an imprint full of freaky, creepy stuff that I have to admit describe worlds I wouldn’t want to live in.

Visit in an RPG, though? Where monsters are monstrous, heroes are heroic (and probably die anyway, hopefully protecting their people), and sheep are… okay, jumping over the wrong joke.

I’d seen Rafael’s posts on Google+ from time to time, until one fine day he posted the cover to a book he was working on.

Yeah, the one to the right. Looks pretty reminiscent of an older time long ago, and pretty badass cool, right?

You really should see the full cover. Click on (more…) below to see why this immediately got so much attention.

Teratic Tome

Teratic Tome Full Cover

As you might imagine, this immediately got a lot of attention. Old-school, no, classic style cover, with something bigger and badder than anything Gary ever came up with. Yeah, I said it.

So, having been blown away by the cover and impressed by what I’d seen of the sample material, I bought the hardover Teratic Tome from Lulu. And got the PDF for free because Rafael’s pretty cool like that (but if you don’t buy the hardcover, you can get the Teratic Tome PDF from DriveThruRPG).

This is, hands down, one of my favorite supplements ever. I’ve even written a review for Teratic Tome, and I want to write a book myself where I apply what I learned from Teratic Tome to otherwise common monsters. I can’t really describe how great this book is here without repeating what those two posts say, so I suggest just reading those two posts.

Roll XX and Roll XX: Double Damage

Roll XX Cover
Roll XX Cover

Roll XX is another book Rafael has put together, containing almost a hundred d20 tables covering a broad range of topics spanning several genres. It too has a badass cover; the small image here really doesn’t do it justice. Roll XX is also available as a paperback from Lulu.

There is also a sequel, Roll XX: Double Damage, that is about 30 pages. I have not yet acquired a copy, but plan to on my next DriveThruRPG order. The only way I can come close to keeping a handle on how much I spend there is to only buy every couple of weeks, so regretfully this one got wishlisted rather than purchased immediately. I would have included a picture of the cover of that one too, but it seems it’s too big for the memory allocated to this host. Like the others, Roll XX: Double Damage is available at Lulu in softcover.

Which is part of why I’m likely to move in the next couple of weeks (moving house and having to rehost a couple of other servers is the primary driver there, but I’m mildly frustrated here and might move everything).

Other Products

I’ve only listed the products I’ve actually looked at and/or plan to buy. I have picked up a couple other of Rafael’s books but have not yet had a chance to read.

I’m also angling to get a copy of a module he’s working on right now, to run as a blind playtest with my Saturday night group. So far I have always played in the group, but I’d like to run them through this.

After all, Erik Tenkar took us through a DCC funnel, it might be fun to run him through one.

Oh, it’s not DCC, and it’s not for 0-level characters?

Don’t bring a character you want to keep around, then….

15 Comments

  1. Nerd-crush. Definitely nerd-crush.

    It sounds like this might be more of a 0-level bowl than a 0-level funnel. “Funnel” implies that something’s likely to come out at the bottom end! :-3

    I would write something for the S&W appreciation day, but (a) I haven’t played it, and (b) I’m unlikely to find anyone to play it with between now and then!

    • Could be as simple as a random table suitable for S&W or something, it doesn’t have to be deep.

      I haven’t played it either, in fact I’ve hardly even read it!

      I was thinking of exploring an alternate layout scheme for the book, or part of it, but realized that what I was thinking of probably won’t work. I’m still pondering what to do instead.

  2. Thanks, Keith! I truly appreciate it. The positive response to Teratic Tome has really inspired me — I’ve been working on my version of Unearthed Arcana (it’s called Exhumed Errata, and it’s nasty).

    Just wanted to note that while I worked on the Roll XX books, they were a group effort — a member of my gaming group is going to be adopting, so the rest of us wrote the first book to raise money for the adoption costs (which were considerable). Then the six of us wrote Double Damage together, and we’re toying around with ideas for the third book… :)

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