Knights Hawks Minor Update

I received a message on DriveThruRPG a while back asking why Colonial Troopers: Knight Hawks was not available on POD. I was a bit surprised as I thought it was up there. Nope. Not there. So I tracked down the files and went through the grueling song-and-dance DriveThru makes you go through to get a POD book up. Proof arrived today, and it looks great. So it is up now.

Since I had to make a new proof, I went ahead and did a very light edit of a few niggling little issues. Minor grammar here and there, and none of the beasties had XP values. So I fixed that. You know, when you start changing things, it can quickly snowball. One sentence can flow over to the next page and mess up all the formating on the pages after. Since I was at it, I cleaned up some of the graphics to be a little more "on brand." Before I ended up doing more, I called it done and published it.

It is still the same edition, and I'm updating the PDF so those of you who have it will get this little minor update.

Colonial Troopers: Knight Hawks is a light starship combat supplement for the Colonial Troopers RPG. It can also work as a standalone system for most original edition-compatible games. It has tabletop starship combat rules, starship descriptions, space mining-colony adventure locations, and a collection of space-bug beasties.

Stephen Fabian Appreciation

 We should appreciate Stephen Fabian's contributions to Dungeons & Dragons more.

Stephen Emil Fabian Sr. (January 3, 1930 – May 6, 2025) was an American fantasy and science-fiction artist who only became a professional artist at the age of 44 after losing his job. Despite being a self-taught artist, he became a widely known illustrator in the science-fiction and fantasy market, and was given a World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2006 at the age of 76.[1]

The first recollection I have of Stephen Fabian's work was in the Ravenloft hardcover book published for 2nd edition AD&D. For whatever faults 2e may have, the settings were the best published work TSR was doing in the late 80s and early 90s. And in particular the Ravenloft campaign setting book is outstanding and captures the feeling of gothic horror if you want that in your fantasy game. Which I often do.

I imagine if Fabian had been doing work for TSR in the late 70s or early 80s before the Easley, Elmore, Caldwell, and Parkinson era, we may have the same fondness for his work that we have for Dave Trampier. His compositions and storytelling are really remarkable, and he has an excellent classic swords & sorcery quality to his illustrations.

Most of his published work is black & white, but the examples of color he has are outstanding. I'd like to have seen much more of this.

There are a couple of good collections of his work. Ladies & Legends is available in hard and softcover. It is one of the treasures in my art book collection. I think at first I wasn't blown away by it, but his work has grown on me over time, and I think it's long overdue that we recognize what an outstanding artist he was in the field.

1. Wikipedia - Stephen Fabian

Parkinson's Cavalier Art

 The pen and ink drawings of the Cavalier in Dragon #72 by Keith Parkinson have drawn criticism by some. They said he should stick to painting. However, since I got this issue, I have always enjoyed these drawings. A warhorse-riding cavalier elf maiden? That's really awesome stuff. I appreciate the vibe and how bold the inking is.

In his Art of books, Keith acknowledges that he's sometimes struggled with drawing. I'm inclined to like these because I'm a big fan of Parkinson's work, and I have a special fondness for ink drawings. Other than these, there aren't many instances of him working with ink. DL3 Dragons of Hope are the only other examples I can think of off the top of my head.

It's obvious that the Cavalier class is overpowered. At times "game balance" didn't really seem to matter much to Gary, but it wasn't as out of hand as Paladins are! He had a talent for focusing on the cool aspects of things while ignoring or waving away the power levels. Nevertheless, you can't help but think that the cavalier is a fantastic idea for a class.

Side note: I got tired of only finding low-rez jpegs online of these illustrations, so I went to the source issue and scanned in hi-rez versions to post here.

Celtic Legends Character Sheets

 

For those enjoying the Celtic Legends books, here is a simple character sheet done in the classic B/X style but formatted for a half-sheet. The hue of the green is the same as the Irish flag.

Celtic Legends Faeries & Spirits

Celtic Legends Gods & Druids

Celtic Legends The World of Eire

On a side note, someone asked about the order of the Saving Throws on this sheet. I explain it here: Saving Throws by Edition, Unified

Book of Valkyries (OSR Edition) print copy available

 The print-on-demand edition of Book of Valkyries made it through the approvals gauntlet and is available at last. If you've been waiting for this, you can also get the Print + PDF combo.

Print & PDF are available here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/559961/book-of-valkyries

If you are curious, here is a preview video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0kzJLhBwHY