Gods of the Earth (a first-level module for Dungeon Crawl Classics by Julian Bernick) is a Norse-themed adventure in which the PCs must stand vigil for a dead jarl and protect his soul from powering a ritual intended to raise the forces of Chaos.
The adventure starts with the PCs stumbling upon a funeral celebration which leads to their conscription into the main plot. The funeral offers some fun opportunities for roleplaying, but clever PCs may also use the time to gather clues about what’s really going on. The main part of the adventure takes place in a subterranean liminal space between death and life where the PCs encounter strange creatures, puzzles, and a glimpse of what awaits the world should they fail. Bernick does a great job of making the encounters feel epic while still approachable for a band of first-level reavers.
I play-tested this adventure with the author and enjoyed the bizarre creatures and visions of the underworld setting. I also ran this module for my regular weekly group, but re-skinned it with an Egyptian theme to serve as a prelude to Goodman Game’s DCC version of Dark Tower. They enjoyed the modules challenges.
If I had one criticism, it would be that the Norse theme isn’t as prevalent in the middle of the adventure, making it feel somewhat disconnected from the introductory material. It’s also easy for the PCs to discover the identity of the villain attempting to bolster Chaos’ forces, but to miss their motivations and the finer points of their plan. My players don’t mind not encountering every facet of a module’s story, your mileage may vary.
While some judicious prep will help Judges run this module, Gods of the Earth is straight-forward enough to be played in 3-5 hours and is worth a look as a start to your next campaign.
I’m a latecomer to the sword and sorcery (S&S) subgenre of fantasy literature. Growing up in the 80s and 90s I read Tolkien, Dragonlance and the Drizzt novels, and plenty of other high fantasy books. It’s only later in life that I’ve come to delve into Leiber, Howard, Moore, and other early fantasy writers. They’ve helped me to understand the importance of Appendix N and how it shaped early fantasy RPG rules and tropes.
Jeremy “Father Goose” Shuman’s Pulp Heroes draws on those inspirations to help bring a more solidly sword and sorcery approach to Dungeon Crawl Classics characters. The zine is not a full setting book. Rather, it’s designed to help players and Judges craft their own swords and sorcery tales in a setting of their creation or utilizing other published settings.
Designed to support DCC Lankhmar and other third-party DCC publications, Shuman tweaks the character creation process to focus like a laser on S&S tropes. This includes a completely updated character creation process that utilizes the “Sezrekan method” (roll 4d7 for attributes, dropping the lowest roll), a custom occupations chart, new Birth Augers, and new Benisons and Dooms.
The zine also reintroduces 0-level PCs into the DCC Lankhmar system by including 0-level class features for S&S settings. The zine removes both the cleric and thief classes and reskins the the demihuman races: elves become cultists, dwarves become soldiers, and halflings become assassins or pirates. Each class then starts at 0-level with a couple of the normal class features. A smattering of additional rules rounds out the zine, including Beginner’s Luck and new AC options to better reflect S&S characters who don’t wear the heavy armor of high fantasy.
If I have two criticisms of the book it would be the typesetting and the lack of a table of contents. The font is a little small for my aging eyes, and the font justification shifts randomly, which I find distracting. And while page numbers are cited in the character creation overview, a table of contents up front would help users find specific rules more easily.
Those complaints aside, the content is fantastic and will be a boon for anyone looking to infuse their DCC campaign with classic sword and sorcery adventuring. Pulp Heroes is a worthy addition to the pantheon of DCC zines!
My friend Luau Lou had me on his podcast This Ol’ Dungeon to talk about my history in gaming, designing for Dungeon Crawl Classics, and my current projects:
Give it a listen, and if you like Lou’s style be sure to subscribe to the podcast!
I’m pretty picky about purchasing resources that purport to add to your game. I’ve been burned by more than a few that, when push comes to shove, I’ll never actually use at the table, either because they’re too cumbersome or because they do something I can just as easily do myself.
On the other end of that spectrum, C. Aaron Kreader’s 101 City Encounters is a book I can’t imagine running a city campaign without. Designed as a sort of mega random encounter table, the book offers a variety of interesting vignettes and situations a party might stumble across while traveling through a fantasy city. Some are relatively mundane (a funeral procession, a request for help unloading goods from a ship), while others offer tantalizing hooks that could lead to their own mini adventure (a carrier pigeon is killed and its note taken, a red devil appears and disappears leaving strange runes where it stood). Each entry includes suggestions for running the encounter and possible follow-ups.
101 City Encounters also includes a simple system for tracking a PC’s reputation in the city with a variety of groups: the Thieves’ Guild, nobles, the townsfolk, and religious temples. Higher ranks grant various benefits from each group, while lower ranks can cause problems when the party has to deal with the group in question. The system offers just enough detail to be helpful without becoming onerous to the Judge, especially with the inclusion of a custom reputation tracking sheet.
Although compatible with DCC RPG, the book is light on stats and can easily be adapted by a competent Judge to other fantasy systems.
101 City Encounters has already benefited my games and is highly recommended, especially if you’re running a DCC Lankhmar, Planescape, or similar campaign.
A Fairly Odd Tale (12n-4p Eastern Time): A band of hapless adventurers is sucked into a book of fairy tales and must use their wits and cunning to make it out alive! I’ll be kickstarting a print run of this module later this year. Come get a sneak peak!
Museum at the End of Time (7p-11p Eastern Time): The Rite of Passage is a generational custom, and the PCs’ future position and rank within their society is largely determined by the quality of artifacts brought back to the tribe! This 0-level funnel is one of my favorite adventures to run at cons!
Last week I was invited to chat with Stefan Surratt and Matt Robertson on Rules As Written, the show that dives deep into the Dungeon Crawl Classics rulebook. They had me on to talk about third party publishing, hirelings and henchmen, and why you should be making more morale checks!
I arrived in Indianapolis in the early afternoon and got my vaccination status verified. I wandered down to the stadium and must have passed my luck check, because I later found out I shouldn’t have made it down there without a badge. In the stadium I beheld the wonder of the Wizard Van in all its glory! Then I met some of the Goodman Games’ judges for a group photo before picking up my GM badge. On my way out the door I ran into Alexi and Leah Sargeant of Cloven Pine Games! Alexi was kind enough to sign my copy of The Great Soul Train Robbery.
Thursday
I started Gen Con with a session of Savage Worlds, a game I’ve heard a lot about but hadn’t played before. It was a 1950s Stargate-esque scenario; I played a military medic escorting a scientific expedition to another dimension where we saved a some villagers from being sacrificed to a hideous beast. I found Savage Worlds very quick to pick up, but a little swingy for my taste — the exploding dice mechanic makes every roll a lot more tense than I expected.
After a quick trip through the exhibitors (where I picked up some Goodman Games exclusives) I met up with my friend Luau Lou for lunch before setting up for my session of The Museum at the End of Time. I only had three of five players show up, but they had a great time traversing the Taboo Lands and descending into the titular museum.
Friday
In the morning I ran a second session of Museum which included a woman who came with her husband — it was her first RPG, ever! In the afternoon I ran Luau Lou’s module Seekers of the Un-K’nown, a Mutant Crawl Classics romp that may or may not be based on a classic D&D module. I was a little nervous since I hadn’t run it before, but it wound up being a great session with some memorable moments including mounting spears on a hover bike and befriending the robotic security guards by tending for a damaged unit.
Saturday
Saturday morning I ran a session of my Dungeon Crawl Classics module A Fairly Odd Tale. I’ve been honing this adventure for a year or so and I think I’ve got it to a solid place — enough so that I plan to publish it sometime next year. I had a mother/daughter pair at the table and they may have been my favorite players of the convention!
My Saturday afternoon game was canceled, so I took the opportunity to grab some classic fantasy novels from the Goodman Games booth and headed back to my room to get some rest.
Sunday
Sunday morning was supposed to feature a session of Star Trek Adventures, a game I’ve owned for over a year but never had the opportunity to bring to the table. Unfortunately only two of us showed up, so I wandered the exhibitors hall, picked up a few more items, and then went to the Goodman Games raffle. Unfortunately I didn’t win anything, but I had fun seeing all the prizes and watching people delight at their wins.
Final Thoughts
I had a great time! I haven’t been to Gen Con in 10 years, and this is the first time I ever ran games there. Being with other DCC/MCC fans made it super easy, and Goodman Games was very supportive (they brought afternoon snacks around to all their judges!). I was also grateful that all the games I ran were in Lucas Oil Stadium — it wasn’t nearly as loud there as in other spaces, so even though we all wore masks I never had to strain to hear people.
I intentionally didn’t hang around for a lot of evening events; I tend to be susceptible to con crud, especially when I overextend myself. This seemed to work out really well, as by the end of the con I still had plenty of energy. I may ad an evening event or two in the future.
Welcome to Eastwood presents a clever sandbox location — a mysterious Old West town that, through the vagaries of magic or technology, can be dropped into any campaign — for players to explore and interact with.
Like Museum at the End of Time, combat isn’t the only danger in the town of Eastwood. Without giving too much away, PCs can become enamored of the various opportunities and encounters, failing to realize (until it’s too late) that they’re trapped in the town. The more they attempt to peek behind the scenes, the more bizarre — and perilous — the situation becomes.
This includes a clever resource management component the Judge must handle concerning PCs’ ability to leave. Normally I’m not a fan of putting additional work on the Judge, but the module comes with a handy tracking sheet, making the task less onerous. The adventure also comes with an appendix detailing various features of the “town,” including random encounters, new artifacts, and new creatures.
The module is well laid out and illustrated throughout, giving Judges a taste of the town’s atmosphere and inhabitants. The map is especially nice and makes a good handout to give the players once they have the lay of the land.
I’ve had the opportunity to both play the module with the author and run it for my regular MCC group. Both times we had a blast as the PCs came up with theories as to what was happening and who was puling the strings of Eastwood.
Welcome to Eastwoodis a 28-page 1st- or 2nd-level module compatible with both Mutant Crawl Classics and Dungeon Crawl Classics. It was written and illustrated by C. Aaron Kreader of Studio 9 Games.
Event tickets for Gen Con Indy go on sale this weekend! I’ll be running four games:
Museum at the End of Time – Thursday, 2p: During your Rite of Passage, you stumble on a monument to the greatness of the Ancient Ones. Will you find glory and treasures for your tribe or the bitter sting of failure? A 0-level funnel for Mutant Crawl Classics.
Museum at the End of Time – Friday, 9a: During your Rite of Passage, you stumble on a monument to the greatness of the Ancient Ones. Will you find glory and treasures for your tribe or the bitter sting of failure? A 0-level funnel for Mutant Crawl Classics.
Seekers of the Un-K’nown – Friday, 2p: Brave the dreaded Lands of Boom to rescue members of your post-apocalyptic tribe! Can you discover the secrets of Quartum-Q and its inhabitants? A level 1 Mutant Crawl Classics adventure.
A Fairly Odd Tale – Saturday, 9a: A band of hapless adventurers is sucked into a book of fairy tales and must use their wits and cunning to make it out alive! A new 2nd-level DCC adventure; younger gamers welcome!
Ethereal Gary Con will be running online March 24-27, 2022! Game tickets go on sale tomorrow; I’ll be running three games at the con:
Museum at the End of Time (Friday, 7p ET): The Rite of Passage is a generational custom, and the PCs’ future position and rank within their society is largely determined by the quality of artifacts brought back to the tribe! A zero level funnel adventure for Mutant Crawl Classics; pregens provided.
A Fairly Odd Tale (Saturday, 10a ET): A band of hapless adventurers is sucked into a book of fairy tales and must use their wits and cunning to make it out alive! A 2nd level Dungeon Crawl Classics adventure; pregens provided.
The Sunken Temple of Set (Saturday, 6p ET): To the east of the village of Mitra’s Fist is a secluded temple, partially flooded and shunned due to a deific curse. But now a host of evil resides in the once sacred edifice which plots to thwart the efforts of good in the region. Is your band of seasoned heroes up to the challenge of exploring the sunken temple? D&D 5e; pregens provided.
