Legacy of the Soul Flame

We have a new RPG on Kickstarter that we wanted to let you all know about!

Legacy of the Soul Flame is a noble-dark roleplaying game campaign setting of undead, snow & ice, exploration, and blood-ties. 

This is a 420-page full-colour deluxe roleplaying game of exploration and survival that takes place on a frozen-over continent filled with undead. It fuses concepts found in traditional fantasy settings with modern and technological twists, a touch of horror, a dash of genealogy, and a small pinch of archaeology for taste. 

Explore a vast continent of stark beauty filled with detail and lore. Use the magic of your birth right – your soul flame – to combat the undead that riddle the lands and that humanity barely holds in check. Dig beneath the snow and ice to find remnants of a lost technological age, and determine what happened to the elves and the fey.

The product has already been featured on Geek Native, and over this weekend there will be a Q&A open session with Randomworlds (To join: www.tinyurl.com/randomworlds-discord) (Saturday 1/May at 3pm Central // 9pm UK time), and a recorded interview for Mildra's YouTube Channel on Sunday. 

Hope that you like this one and will consider backing it: much of what you see here on Warpstone Flux is supported through our hobby business and we would gratefully appreciate any and all pledges that our readers can make. 

Happy for additional reviews (feel free to get in contact) and would appreciate amplification of this one too if you are able. 

Digital Art

It has been a modest amount of time since I last updated the blog here. In part, the reason for this has been health related, and distinctly the most recent UK lockdown due to Covid-19. Such things cannot be helped and they are what they are. 

Hopefully we will resume more frequent posting soon.

In the meantime, I have been (re)teaching myself some digital art techniques (alpha channels, selections, layerings and so forth) and produced this design. I'm intending to use it in a forthcoming roleplaying publication. More on that exciting development in due course. 

Hope that my regular readers are all doing well. 

Dark Sun Reviews: Thri-Kreen of Athas

In a similar way to Elves of Athas, Thri-Kreen of Athas expands on the player character insectoid race to provide a rich smorgasbord of background materials and roleplaying opportunities for both players and dungeon masters alike to feast upon. 

The background materials commence with an in-depth analysis of the psychology, physiology and biological nature of these insect creatures coupled with their basic mentality -- clutch, pack, and nation. This, combined with their daily "hunt" mentality set this race apart from all others on the planet. 

Much of the middle of the book is taken up with rules. Clearly these are not present day Dungeons and Dragons rules, but they can certainly be adapted if a Dungeon Master has the time and patience to do so. For instance, there are some easy ones to consider such as the innate ability of Thri-Kreen to perform large leaps thanks to their powerful legs. This would be easy to translate. Their antennae however, is open to some amount of discussion and interpretation as to how they should be handled (blind fighting analogues being more obvious). 

The final few chapters of the background deal with the nations of Thri-Kreen, ranging from those that have settled in to the human cities (e.g., Raam and Urik), to those who belong to the scholar group of Kreen. This gives a good set of divergent ideas to any player to run with in order to better characterise their character. Along with some NPCs, a fold out poster, and a genuinely interesting and intriguing (plus open ended) mini-adventure called the Taste of Fear, this book has a lot of materials inside its pages, including possibly expanding beyond the known regions of Athas that have already been documented elsewhere. 

All this said, none of the materials in this book are necessary for playing Thri-Kreen or for Dungeon Mastering them. The core game materials are enough, and enigmatic enough, that players should feel very content with them. However, for the dedicated Dungeon Master or player, this is a rich gold mine to be used widely and freely. As such, I'm giving this tome a mighty 4 out of 5 stars. Very enjoyable. But by the same token, very highly specialist with no real need to purchase it. 

Dark Sun Reviews: Black Spine

Today is the restart of a short series of role-play reviews of the old Dark Sun materials. This series was commenced a very long time ago but I never finished it out. Hence the next few posts scheduled by me will consist of a series of reviews of the remaining materials. The Dark Sun tag can be used to follow and access the previous materials in this line up. 

The first thing that I want to mention about Black Spine is that it is supposed to be a follow on from the previous adventures in this "series": Black Flames, Merchant House of Amketch, and Marauders of Nibenay. The only problem is that this series is anything but. It is a series of adventures that lack a connection or joined-up thinking between them. There is very little to no motivation for a player character group to follow the plot lines as specified in these adventures. 

Secondly, this is an epic scale adventure, along the same lines as Dragon's Crown. It is technically a series of adventures and subplots that commences with an operation to protect a Slave Tribe and eventually winds up with the player group facing an other-dimensional invasion of Githyanki forces. However, the set up for the first adventure (protecting the Slave Tribe from marauding Gith) is rather weak overall. There's no point in the adventurers participating. Hence there has to be some set up here to help the group think that this is what they want to do, or some railroading in this direction. Apart from this, the adventure proceeds very nicely from a skirmish, in to a large battle that one is recommended to use the second edition Battle System for, through to an exploration of the Gith's base camp. 

Enacting vengeance upon the Gith, the players then discover a metal mine, and eventually a lost city of the Gith - Yathazor (As well as a powerful psionicist Gith leader). Eventually this leads to the Nightmare Gate - a magical portal for the Githyanki to move their troops to Athas. Naturally by this point, the player characters might see that it is in their best interests for this invasion to not happen. But really - would it be any worse than living under the yoke of the Sorcerer-Kings? I do wonder why no one ever questions this. 

Personally, I like the fact that there is an extra dimensional threat, and the build up to discovering it. However, why hasn't a Sorcerer-King or a Dragon already thought this through or detected it? Would it not be better that this is some machination of a wheel within a wheel for the Dragon to make one of his rivals weaker somehow? That's just my take on it. The adventures themselves are largely linear in format. Although there is not as much rail-roading as in other adventures (or as much "you are now slaves!"), the linear nature of the plot means that it feels a little bit constrained in parts. What rescues it is the sheer scope, epic scale, and audacity of the plot line itself. It cannot be underscored enough what this book provides: three lots of 96 page books (288 pages in total), coupled with fold out maps and everything else. With work from a dedicated Games Master / Dungeon Master, this adventure can be turned in to something special along the lines of Dragon's Crown. 

Overall, I would give it just under 4 out of 5 stars ... hence I'm rounding it up to 4 out of 5. Good overall, but not as strong as others in the series, and features far too many Gith in the absence of anything else. The lack of a lead up is also a big problem here.

One Hundred Planets

As my long term readers will be aware, we run a small home company that deals with roleplaying games and accessories. Yesterday, we released our new 105-page long title "One Hundred Planets". The pitch is below. I'm running an advent here as the profits from this enterprise directly fund the purchase of my copies of the Horus Heresy and provide you guys with the reviews and many of the other things associated with Warpstone Flux … which means my wife is a whole lot happier with me spending money on hobby goodness!

One Hundred Planets.

Descriptions of planets in a some resources can be limited. Perhaps a planet is randomly rolled on some chart or other and found to be an ice world. Sure, but that's usually not nearly enough to base a roleplaying session around without some serious work on behalf of the person running the game.

So, maybe its an iceworld, but its melting? Again, very nice, but why is it melting? What's causing it to melt? How about: its a melting ice world that a villainous commercial enterprise is trying to exploit for mineral wealth contained under the ice. This is now getting much better. Heck, there are almost plot hooks here.

One Hundred Planets takes the idea of having a much more detailed description of planets and combines them with plots hooks, physical data, and much more.

For each of our 100 planets, we give succinct details about the parent star of the system (based on real astronomical data), and physical data of the planet in question (its mass, orbital parameters, how long one day is on the planet, its surface gravitation, indigenous life, the number of humans on the planet).

This is followed by a thorough physical description of the planet. Most of the planets are rocky terrestrials in nature, but there is a huge variety contained therein. Whether they experience quakes, the ecosystems and the atmospheres of these worlds are all discussed within.

Under `Planetary History', a detailed sketch is made of the human side of the planet. Was it settled by colonists from the Empire?; does a Guild own it?; are there robots there? These and more are discussed and many include elements of science fiction, although where possible most have been strongly bedded in real world physics.

The political status of each world is briefly touched on: who rules it and what is currently happening are frequently noted.

Finally, for each and every planet, plot hooks are given. The median number of plot hooks for each world is two, but many planets have three distinct plot hooks to take advantage of. These, combined with the real world (nay: real Universe) data, are what makes this volume very distinct. They are ready made hooks for player characters to jump in on and have a purpose to directly associate with the planet in question. With little work, the person running the game in question should be readily able to adapt these to their own play styles and group dynamics to make for entertaining and interesting gaming sessions.

Finally, it is worth noting and highlighting that all of the descriptions contained within have been written without any particular game system in mind. This ``system agnostic'' presentation drive means that the contents of this volume can readily be exported to any given game system that the players desire.

One Hundred Alternate Realities

Switching over to roleplaying games for today's post, and a bit of self-promotion. My company (Sequestered Industries) released this publication a couple of days ago: One Hundred Alternate Realities.

So what is it all about?

Firstly it is a roleplaying game supplement that is written for any roleplaying game where alternate realities are going to be in play. As such, its not a gaming system in and of itself. But what it can do is provide many ideas for player characters and games masters who want to explore a multiverse of possibility. Perhaps the player group regularly steps through portals to alternate times and places. What would happen?

You step through the portal and emerge in a world where…

Vampires stalk the dark night looking to drink blood!

But that's been done a lot. Let's switch it up!

Instead of blood, let's substitute magical items. Suddenly the player character party that's carrying a plethora of magical items looks like very attractive prey to these alternate reality vampires.

In One Hundred Alternate Realitie, we give a wide range of alternate realities and a selection of nouns that can be substituted between each reality.

Organized as a d100 chart the book is not just a one-liner per entry affair. On the contrary, each of the possible alternate realities is explored in a more detailed manner with possibilities outlined for the consequences to society and a few plot hooks thrown in.

The types of alternate realities include:

• magical realities (e.g. what happens if spellcasting only runs in selected families?);
• different physical planes (e.g. humans live on a cattle-like creature of gigantic proportions); 
• supernatural realities (e.g. ghosts live with mortals on a regular basis); 
• superpower realities (e.g. what happens if ordinary citizens possess superstrength?);
• psychic realities (e.g. telepathic mind controllers are in charge of humanity); 
• surreal alternate realities (e.g. when people go to sleep, they wake up in other people's bodies in the morning); 
• deities stalk the mortal realms (e.g. what happens when the gods have been cast out of the heavens?);
• apocalypse realities (e.g. self-aware computers torture humanity);
• alien contact (e.g. what happens why sympathetic humans shelter refugee aliens?);
• technology has radically changed reality (e.g. what happens if tractor beams are everyday objects?).

These descriptions all contain material that can be swapped between each other to create even more exotic and random alternate realities.  

This book is presented in a system-agnostic manner and is can be used with almost any roleplaying game if a GM needs to build a novel alternate reality of Earth or elsewhere in the multiverse.

I'm very happy to also report that following publication a few days ago, this publication has debuted at numb 31 in the top 100 of roleplaying products in RPGNow (as of the time of writing). Hope that you find this useful and enjoyable. Comments and enquiries most welcome.

Astulae the Roleplaying Game

In today's post, I am releasing part of the first chapter of my own roleplaying game, Astulae. Its just a "taster". I hope that you like it; questions and comments are certainly welcome.

Product Link: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/141686/Astulae

Overview.

Roleplaying games have a long tradition of using dungeons – often vast underground locations that are filled with monsters to slay, potential treasure to acquire, traps to be disarmed, and glory to be sought. As playing groups mature, questions about such dungeons grow. Why were they built? What is the ecosystem like? How can so many inherently evil creatures live side-by-side without any friction whatsoever? One stock answer to these kinds of questions leads to concepts such as powerful wizards controlling everything inside their dungeons. But this is not without its own issues either. What is the motivation of the powerful wizard? Madness, or some grand master plan?

Astulae is one coherent answer to these questions, using a unique type of dungeon format. In a nut-shell: imagine that your dungeon is not a series of rooms connected together with cobweb-ridden corridors deep underground, but instead, it is a collection of pocket dimensions gathered together from many parallel realities that are inter-connected by a labyrinthine system of portals.

Additionally, Astulae is a nod to mega- dungeons that appeals to the hack and slash style of dungeon exploration of yore. But it need not be used in the typical “adventurer seeks treasure and dragons to slay” manner (although there is, intentionally, a dragon sitting on a pile of treasure in one particular location to cater to this). There are many plot hooks scattered throughout this work and these may play the primary driver behind any Astulae adventure. With a friendly player group, the GM can provide many hours of entertainment within the Astulae exploring many possibilities.

Finally, Astulae can be used in combination with almost any other setting. Since it explicitly connects to many realities, almost any campaign setting can logically find an entry or exit to this novel mega-dungeon.

Setting.

Astulae (a plural) is Latin for “splinters”. At a basic level, each “room” in Astulae is a splinter of reality taken (and sometimes frozen in time) from across a grand ensemble of possible parallel realities. Somewhat akin to pocket dimensions, each Astula (singular) can have its own laws of physics, its own peculiarities, and sometimes: its own denizens – some benign, some deadly, and some incomprehensible. In some Astula, magic and technology can coexist side-by-side, and in others both are strongly suppressed. Further, many Astula appear to be in a state of decay: slow, or otherwise. In turn, each Astula is connected to another via a (two-way) portal that ultimately creates a large ensemble of “rooms” to explore and navigate between – a mega-dungeon in many respects, but not a traditional one. But the configuration is not stable. Portals can be re-routed to other Astula. And new Astulae are added to the ensemble over time to create entirely new pathways and loops through.

Portals. 

Each “normal” Astula typically contains three or more portals (sometimes referred to as windows, gates). These can take many forms: literal doors, small gaps that only polymorphed (or size-changed) characters can fit through, and even hidden gateways (e.g., built in to a set of drawers). Frequently, they appear as swirling vortices of black, purple and blue colours (the colours are not meaningful unless the GM determines otherwise). Other times, they are just “normal” doorways that the PCs can see through into the next Astula. Some are simply a circular gap in space – not until they step through such a gateway will the existence of the portal become obvious. In almost every case, they have well-defined boundaries (such as door frames, or the branches of a tree that curve back on themselves to form an oval) that defines the extent of the portal.

In normal circumstances within a given Astula, one door will lead back to where the player characters (PCs) came from. The other two (or more) doors will lead onward to new Astulae. Which ones they lead to are up to the GM. As a suggestion, the choice of a portal to the “left hand side” (whichever orientation that is!) of the PCs will lead to an Astula that is thematically similar to the one that they are in, whilst portals to the “right hand side” head to more deviant Astula. PCs are encouraged to pay particular note to the orientation of left and right (through making note of which portal they came through in to a particular Astulae), so that they don’t get confused.

Uncommonly, there will be many more Astulae leading off from a given Astula, each using a different portal. These are noted in their descriptions, but the GM is free to improvise on existing Astulae. Many of these extra sets of three portals are at right angles to the other ones. For example, there may be a vertical set of three portals, and a horizontal set of three portals. The vertical ones can be employed as ways in which to translate to a different theme of Astulae.

Etiquette around portals between Astulae natives – the collective term for the people that exist within the Astulae – is mixed. Most groups realize that if they want to freely use portals, then they must allow others to do likewise. Therefore agents of the Mandated Cabal faction (described elsewhere) rarely prevent Brown Clerics (another faction) from using portals in Astula they’re interested in, so long as their own opera- tions go undisturbed. But both would likely be opposed to agents of the Red Telepath wanting to destroy the self-same portal. In the case of flickering portals (those that only open for short periods during the day), Astu- lae natives will sometimes gather in groups nearby waiting for them to appear and gos- sip about the news of the day. In some cases, portals are closely watched. Other portals have been taken over by small conglomerates that charge PCs to use them.

Genre.

In principle, the Astulae setting can be used as almost any genre desired. The GM is free to use only a small subset of the Astula described in this tome; hence it could be totally restricted to a traditional high fantasy ideal, with a good versus evil meme scattered throughout. Or it can be played as a modern era psychological drama to great effect. That said, Astulae is principally intended as a multiple reality and parallel worlds gaming journey. It has some darker undertones scattered throughout, and tensions bordering on outright conflict between various factions (both real and perceived). Further, facets of horror, insanity, control, manipulation, strangeness and conspiracy feature in an array of the locations described. Of these, the sense of being the “outsider” is one of the chief memes associated with this setting. It will show up again and again to the PCs as they frequently look out of place compared to the Astula they enter and their abilities and knowledge appear highly strange and disorientating to others.

Astulae RPG in New Year Sales!

Astulae, the roleplaying game of alternate realities megadungeon, is now on sale at DriveThruRPG and RPGNow.com until 12/Jan/2015.

Here's what one reviewer said:
I found this game to be very intriguing and the concepts contained within to be new and fresh. The idea of parallel dimensions is not a new one, but there are enough unique aspects of this RPG to make this feel new, in particular the effect of magic and technology between the dimensions. The book itself has a huge amount of information for a GM to create some awesome adventures for their players. I like the fact that it does not tie a GM down to any particular play scheme, however there will inevitably be some work for a GM to do in mapping across thing such as player classes etc, to the classes described in the book. This would be no small undertaking for any GM, although in the appendix it does give an example game system to use. However I feel that this is also it's greatest strength and will allow great flexibility for adventuring.

This is the cheapest it'll be for some time, and an expansion has already been penned and will be released in a few weeks time! Hope you enjoy!

Astulae - a new RPG

With equal measures of pride and trepidation, today I've published my first roleplaying game. Its called "Astulae" and I'm selling it via DriveThruRPG at http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/141686/Astulae.

The image to the side is the front cover of the book. Clocking in at over 200 pages, this has been a real labour of love that I've undertaken in my (extremely limited) spare time between moving houses, and between when my young children are finally asleep in their beds and me being asleep on the kitchen table through exhaustion! Its taken about a year to write up, polish, source the images, and typeset the whole thing. 

I hope that some of you out there might like it (Christmas time gift or stocking filler perhaps?! lol!), perhaps at least recommend it to your friends who might enjoy it or "like" the Facebook page for it: https://www.facebook.com/sequesteredindustries. I'm also prepared to hand out free copies to reputable reviewers as well!! (just send an email using my warpstoneflux gmail address).

What's it all about then?

In a nutshell: Its a campaign setting in a twisting megadungeon of alternate realities. 

Imagine that your dungeon is not a series of rooms connected together with cobweb-ridden corridors deep underground, but instead, each “room” is a splinter of reality taken from across a grand ensemble of possible parallel realities. 

Every Astula (a room) can have its own laws of physics, its own peculiarities, and sometimes: its own denizens – some benign, some deadly, and some incomprehensible. In some Astula, magic and technology can coexist side-by-side, and in others both are strongly suppressed. 

But many Astula appear to be in a state of decay: slow, or otherwise. In turn, the Astulae are connected to one-another via portals that ultimately creates a large ensemble of realities to explore and navigate between – a mega-dungeon in many respects, but certainly not in a traditional sense. The configuration is not stable. Portals can be re-routed to other Astula. And new Astulae are added to the ensemble over time to create entirely new pathways and loops through. Will you enter and find a way to profit? 

This book itself is the campaign setting for Astulae and features over 100 highly detailed pocket dimensions (Astula or dungeon-like rooms) across 7 genres (High fantasy, Futuristic, Medieval, Nature, Outlandish, Urban and Waterside), 20 factions or persona who run through these Astulae for your PCs to join with or oppose, almost 50 altered laws of physics and reality or oddities to further flavour each Astula, 36 unique dressings per major Astula genre to further dress the contents of each room, 8 large-scale meta-plots to launch at PCs, and a suggested d6 rules system for groups who don't wish to use the contents in a rules-agnostic manner or adapt them to their own favourite rules set. And that's before all the flavour text and over 70 unique pieces of artwork scattered through the book that can be used as plothooks or inspiration! Jump in to Astulae to plough its depths!

Dark Sun Reviews: Marauders of Nibenay

This Dark Sun adventure follows on from Black Flames and Merchant House of Amketch only in the sense that the required level for the PCs has increased. To make these three (or four if one includes Black Spine) a proper series, there really needed to be more plot arcs. This was achieved (albeit not at a high quality level) with the original Freedom - Road to Urik - Arcane Shadows series. 

As per the title, the adventure is set in and around Nibenay. The set up starts with the assumption that the PCs are there somehow. This could fit in naturally with any number of plot hooks or trading adventures. Regardless, they will be approached by either the Veiled Alliance, or the Templars of Nibenay to aid them in a raid / ambush for them. Although there is a refreshing appearance of choice, the path through the adventure is the same either way, whichever faction the PCs wind up working for (and even more refreshingly: they can choose neither and still be on track for the adventure). 

Suddenly: something happens! The raid gets derailed by the Sorcerer-King attempting to wipe out the Zwuun - an entity described in Veiled Alliance who is opposed to the King. Lightning arcs across the palace and the surrounds. Then there are earthquakes, acid rain and in general: end of the world style apocalypse on the city-state of Nibenay as a result. Runaway magic turns the dead (stored in underground crypts in Nibenay) in to zombies and creates nasty flora that also want to kill the citizens and PCs. The Veiled Alliance and the Templars put aside their differences and try to figure out what is happening. And the faction associated with the PCs takes them to the King's palace to try to locate the Shadow King himself and figure out what is happening. 

Although there are plenty of details about the palace, the PCs can largely bypass this and head straight for the inner citadel. Therein, they find the King engaged in a silent psionic battle with the Zwuun, whilst Siemhouk (an NPC noted in several books) looks on. The PCs basically have to protect Seimhook whilst she attempts to calm the Zwuun and various nasties including elementals attack all around. Should they win, Nibenay might re-think his approach to the city and become more engaged. Or it might go back to factional warfare. But the former is probably more interesting given that something similar happens after the Prism Pentad has taken place.

The strong points of this adventure for me are the open ended nature of the introduction, coupled with the apocalyptic state that the city-state winds up in and how the PCs attempt to solve the crisis -- very epic. The negatives are that it should be more grand and sweeping. An introduction to the Zwuun, some familiarity with Seimhouk, etc., should come before all of this adventure ideally so that it can build up more slowly. Its not brilliant, no where near the epic coverage of Merchant House of Amketch for instance, but it is good. So 3 out of 5 stars from me. Possibly 4 on a good day with a bit more preparation and build up. Worth running, unlike some of the other adventures.

Dark Sun Reviews: Merchant House of Amketch

This is technically the follow-on adventure to Black Flames, but there is little overall meta-plot or character arcs to support this. The only real nature in which it is a follow on is that the PCs are going to have to be higher levels. But that is about my only complaint. Merchant House of Amketch is a shining light of an adventure for Dark Sun in my opinion - possibly better than Road to Urik or Dragon's Crown even.

The overall plot concerns the shaqat beetle: an insect that is able to inhibit psionic power. Naturally, orders like the Veiled Alliance want to know more about this. But the real power in the plot is the story telling. It involves the PCs without railroading them severely as other Dark Sun adventures are want to do. Instead, it starts out steadily with the Veiled Alliance (or others should you wish) asking the PCs to investigate the beetles. They know that Amketch is transporting heaps of them. This naturally leads to them being hired by the Amketch merchants for a little job: caravan guard duty. And then a little undercover work!

Aspects of the adventure can tie in really well with the Dune Trader supplement as the PCs figure out the life of a trader and the Merchant House. But investigating the beetles turns in to a much more interesting plot line when the caravan master is revealed to be a House Shom (a rival house) agent!  He also drugs the wine of loyal Amketch agents. Shocking! And so very Dark Sun.  Undoubtably the PCs won't do what the GM wants after that. But the adventure caters to that -- and in some respects encourages it as it likes the idea of the PCs trying to stage a rescue mission for anyone of their number who gets captured by this agent (etc.). This is so very refreshing compared to the BANG! you're all slaves meme problem in adventures like Arcane Shadows. 

Eventually, the PCs will head to Balic (assuming they're still interested in the beetles -- which they should be because if they got in to the wild it'd be a serious issue!). Infiltrating House Shom (or by other means), they track the origin of the beetles to Kalidnay. There, a nefarious defiler is bonding regular beetles using ancient bio-tech to create the psionic damping variety. Will the PCs be able to stop the defiler driving the beetle trade? Will they release the beetles in to the wild (a threat that is actually made at one point)? Will they follow the adventure linearly or go their own way? 

This adventure has everything for me: intrigue and adventure coupled with the potential to save the world from a great threat that has just been exposed. So its 5 out of 5 stars from me. Run this adventure as is unless you have a good reason to swap out a named NPC. Go with the PCs wherever they want to take it (most of which is anticipated by the adventure notes). Use random raids as desired to push the PCs back in the right direction. Even throw the desert at them. This adventure has it all, and the potential to be spun out in to an epic.

Dark Sun Reviews: Black Flames

This adventure module for the Dark Sun campaign setting seems to be cast from the same mould as Freedom in many ways. This ranges from the constant railroading, through to a general lack of rewards beyond gaining the hatred of some powerful NPC(s). So, right from the outset, I was underwhelmed by it.

The plot is simplistic to be fair: its a quest for a maguffin. In this case, a powerful scroll located in the ruins of Yaramuke and the Black Oasis. And the NPC wanting this item just happens to be a neo-dragon that the PCs have never heard of. Firstly: Dragons are supposed to be rare. Secondly, they're powerful. So why can't this guy just do it himself? Well, it (retroactively) turns out that there is a (never mentioned anywhere else in the canon) magic barrier preventing evil people from taking it without losing all but two senses (hearing and touch). 

My strong advice is to totally replace this random dragon with a favourite NPC villain from your own campaign. I'd suggest Malignor (see Arcane Shadows suggestions too) or someone similar.

At the outset, the PCs are assumed to be travelling the desert. Which is a nice alternative to BANG! you're all slaves meme that infected previous publications. The big bad NPC then conjures a sandstorm to isolate the PCs, deprive them of water (because there's no Water Clerics in the PC group with a bit of luck?) and then have his undead (but seemingly normal) minions offer the PCs water from the Black Oasis. Which will kill them unless they do his bidding. Seriously: he's that bothered to not do this mission himself despite his own power.  That's why a good GM will replace this big bad NPC with someone a bit more interesting. 

The second part of the adventure is actually nice. It is non-linear to a certain degree: the PCs are able to explore the ruins of Yaramuke in any which way they please. Its therefore almost a bit of a dungeon crawl, but Dark Sun style! But this is railroaded when the Sorcerer-Queen of Raam shows up -- she also wants the scroll at a coincidental time to the big bad NPC -- and all fire works erupt between the two. Naturally, in such a high level fight, the PCs should be little more than pawns and should get out of the way to avoid a splattering. Either way, these two powerful NPCs will end up not liking the PCs.

In the third part, the ruins collapse, and fleeing, the PCs must try to free themselves of the curse of Black Water by negotiating with the local druid. Whilst getting through all the zombies that have previously died of the curse. A revenge attack by the Big Bad NPC then finishes off the adventure. But I would strongly recommend that encounter for a much later time!

Beyond that, the format of the adventure is still in the spiral bound books that make a ruination of the card container they come in. Hence overall, I'm not overly impressed with the adventure. It has some good points, and with work (especially the replacement of the big bad NPC and hopefully their latter escape) could work reasonably. Better than Arcane Shadows and certainly way better than the worst of the lot: Asticlian Gambit. But not much better than Freedom without significant work (which I've recommended above). Overall, 2 out of 5 for me -- don't run it "as is": plan ahead and change the script and overall plot, but retain the non-linear middle parts. 

Random Name Generator: Greek Sites

Today, I thought I'd try something a bit more adventurous. Following on from the various random name generator lists I've been toying with, I thought I'd have a go at trying to make a Greek sounding random location name generator.

From the outset, I'm going to emphasise that I'm not a native speaker of Greek!! I do have some classical training from many many years ago, but overall, I'm not going to vouch for how "Greek" these names might or might not come out as sounding to native Greek ears.

Here's the idea. Take an element from the first column (Element Alpha) and combine with EITHER an element from the third column (Element Omega), or an element from the second (Element Beta) AND third column (Element Omega).

Element Alpha	Element Beta	Element Omega
A	Ac	A
Ab	Acter	Aca
Ach	And	Ae
An	Apo	Age
Ar	Bae	Ana
Cary	Cae	Des
Chry	Che	Dos
Cor	Chi	Dus
Dec	Dan	Ene
Ele	Delt	Essa
Eur	Den	Gora
Ger	Er	Ia
Gy	Geth	Inth
Hera	Hen	Kis
Ill	In	Kos
Ith	Iph	La
Kas	Ko	Lis
Leb	Lan	Ma
Lor	Mak	Me
Me	Man	Mos
My	Mo	Nae
Nau	Na	On
Ol	Nar	Os
Pan	O	Phon
Par	On	Pia
Pha	Phi	Polis
Pre	Phla	Pylae
Pser	Re	Ros
Ptol	Ron	Rya
Rho	Sil	Sos
Siph	So	Tas
Sy	Ssa	Tha
Sy	Sta	Thon
Ta	Th	Tia
Tau	Tor	Tis
Tha	Ve	Tus
Ther	Y	Us
Thra	Ymp	Ymna

Using this format, I'm able to generate names such as: Olympia; Rhodes; Caryanda; all of which are real Greek places, as well as invented others which are reasonably pleasing to my ears: Pserphlathon; Medeltus, Olmakene, etc. Enjoy!