Okay, so this one went up earlier than expected, I forgot how far ahead I’d set it.
Ah well, I should have time to catch up this weekend.
The RPG Blog Festival: Fantastic Locations wrapped up this week. Over forty submissions from twenty sites, a pretty good turnout overall. It was time-consuming (part of the reason I lagged so much on Links of the Week this month) but I had a lot of fun. I expect to host another one, maybe later this year.
Game Resource
The On-line Reference Book (ORB) for Medieval Studies
The On-Line Reference Book (ORB) for Medieval Studies is a collection of information regarding the middle ages. I stumbled on it via the section on Medieval English Towns.
I haven’t had time to look at it too much, but it looks like it could be useful.
The SCP Foundation
The SCP Foundation was formed to ‘Secure, Contain, and Protect’. In the words of ‘The Administrator’:
Mankind in its present state has been around for a quarter of a million years, yet only the last 4,000 have been of any significance. So, what did we do for nearly 250,000 years? We huddled in caves and around small fires, fearful of the things that we didn’t understand. It was more than explaining why the sun came up, it was the mystery of enormous birds with heads of men, and rocks that came to life. So we called them ‘gods’ and ‘demons,’ and begged them to spare us and prayed for salvation.
In time, their numbers dwindled and our numbers rose. The world began to make more sense when there were less things to fear. Yet, the unexplained can never truly go away, as if the universe demands the absurd and impossible.
Mankind must not go back to hiding in fear. No one else will protect us, we must stand up for ourselves.
While the rest of mankind dwell in the light, we must stand in the darkness to combat it, contain it, and shield it from the eyes of the public, so that others may live in a sane, normal world.
We secure. We contain. We protect.
Something like a cross between Call of Cthulhu and Men in Black, and a likely resource any time you need something weird or inexplicable.
B/X Blackrazor
JB wraps up monsters in Land of Ice (Monsters, Part 4) with the Snow Viper, Southlander, Troglodyte, Valkyrie, Viking Warrior, Witch, Woolly Mammoth, and Wraith.
Then, he gets into the ‘good parts’, with Land of Ice (Treasure, Part 1).
Blood, Sweat, and Dice
Matthew Brenner describes a way to apply Skill Challenges — Needle in a Haystack. I like his this fits, and I may want to see how it would work with the alert mechanism from Mongoose Press’ Classic Play: Book of Dragons. A synthesis of the two approaches might prove interesting.
In Like Flynn
Flynn describes how to convert the aboleth, an OGC monster, from RSRD rules to Traveller. I don’t play Traveller, but this post is a good example of how easy it can be to convert between similar systems.
Marauders of Ig
Christopher shows how to Make do with Limited Resources, with nine tables of alternate materials to replace standard metals.
Of Dice and Men
Whiskeytangofoxtrot expands on the New Takes on Old Races with some More Races of Delraith. I like how he takes something familiar and changes it enough to make it more interesting, providing new flavor to go with it.
Shatterworld
Niccodaemous is back with Aeros, God of the Air, completing the gods of the (Hermetic) elements.
The Armchair General
ArmChairGeneral describes how he quickly handles Roleplaying Combats, incidental encounters primarily there to set tone or provide information rather than be a tactical challenge.