June 2020 Patreon Rewards

Did you know I have a Patreon? Yeah, I know everyone does. Why should you support this one?
Every month I provide behind the scenes material on games being developed for Night Owl Workshop, as well as providing high resolution files of my art that can be used as wallpaper for your computer and phone.

This month the rewards were Skeggold Valkyrie of Axes and new western themed character classes for your favorite OSR game. It is part of a Western mini-RPG inspired by the classic Boothill and meant to work seamlessly with Warriors of the Red Planet as a prelude to the A Princess of Mars adventure.

Just 3 bucks a month gets you this incredible deal, cheaper than a fancy drink at Starbucks and you know you'd buy these on DriveThru RPG for $5 or so anyways! Click on the link below:

APoM Design Diary #17 - Korad

One of the city ruins the green martians take John Carter to is Korad.

The Barsoom Wiki describes it like this:

Korad is a dead Martian city that was once belonged one of Barsoom's greatest nations. It was a center of culture and commerce, built upon a natural harbor surrounded by magnificent hills. When the seas began to dry Korad was abandoned, and as happened to many of the abandoned cities, it was soon taken over by one of the green hordes, in this case, the Tharks. As it is with most dead cities upon Mars it had a population of White Apes.
Bordering its central plaza is a magnificent structure of marble inlaid with gold and brilliant stones, with a canopied entrance one hundred feet in width. Its inner walls decorated with wondrous murals, paintings, and mosaics showcasing scenes of ancient Barsoom.

On my live stream twitch.tv/thomasdenmark I did this painting of Korad. It's still pretty rough and could use a lot more refinements. But it is a start.

I live stream weeknights at 9pm PST, you are welcome to join and watch me draw and talk about D&D.

APoM Design Diary #16 - Dak Kova

Dak Kova
Green Martian, Warhoon, 5th level Fighting Man
Armor Class: 5 [15]
Hit Dice: 6+6
Move: 120'
Attacks: longsword, and shortsword or pistol or tusks
Damage: 1d8, and 1d6 or 1d12 or 2d4
No. Appearing: 1 (unique)
Save: F5
Morale: 7
Treasure Type: A
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
XP Value: 700
Social Status: 12
Str: 12 (+0), Dex: 12 (+0), Con: 16 (+2), Wis: 15 (+1), Int: 10 (+0), Chr: 8 (-1)
Equipment: longsword, shortsword, pistol (x2).
Dak Kova is a Green Martian from the horde of Warhoon. He was a Jed until he challenged and killed the Jeddak Bar Comas and assumed leadership of the Warhoons. The conflict resulted from a disagreement over the fate of John Carter following his capture by the Warhoons, though Dak Kova had regarded Bar Comas as weak and unfit to rule and needed little excuse to usurp his position.

Bar Comas had much the better of the battle, as he was stronger, quicker, and more intelligent. It soon seemed that the encounter was done, saving only the final death thrust, when Bar Comas slipped in breaking away from a clinch. It was the one little opening that Dak Kova needed, and hurling himself at the body of his adversary he buried his single mighty tusk in Bar Comas's groin and with a last powerful effort ripped the young jeddak wide open the full length of his body, the great tusk finally wedging in the bones of bar Comas's jaw. Victor and vanquished rolled limp and lifeless upon the moss, a huge mass of torn and bloody flesh.
- A Princess of Mars, Chapter 18, Chained in Warhoon

APoM Design Diary #15 - Woola

Woola

Calot

Armor Class: 6 [13]

Hit Dice: 6/40hp

Move: 120' (360' burst)

Attacks: bite

Damage: 2d10

No. Appearing: 1

Save: F5

Morale: 12

XP Value: 600

Str: 18 (+3), Dex: 18 (+3), Con: 13 (+1), Wis: 9 (+0), Int: 5 (-1), Chr: 12 (0)

Equipment: n/a

Woola is a calot and the loyal hound of John Carter and his family. Calots are about the size of a Shetland pony, with ten short legs and a frog-like head, and a small amount of bristly "hair". They are the fastest creatures on Mars. He can perform bursts of speed for 2-8 rounds of 360' per round, and requires an hour of rest before performing a burst again.

Woola was once a guard-dog for the Tharks at Korad and was assigned by Sola the green martian because she feared for Carter's safety since Korad was infested with white apes. Carter misunderstood Sola's intent and attempted to run away and was startled to find Woola was faster than him. So he leapt to a second story window, but was grabbed by a white ape. In the struggle he was pinned down by the ape and was about to be smashed by another apes cudgel when Woola intercepted and tore at the massive creature. Carter returned the favor by grabbing the cudgel and smashing the monstrous ape's head in and saving Woola.

Carter showed affection to Woola by petting his head, and never before having experienced kindness Woola became his loyal companion. After John Carter was forced to leave Mars, Woola became Carthoris's pet and later that of his younger sister Tara.

Dragonlance the Musical!

Dragonlance seems nearly forgotten in all the recent 80's nostalgia. The original series called The War of the Lance ran from 1984 to 1987. Exactly the years I was in high school. So I was in the prime demographic for the adventure modules and novels.

Margaret Weiss posted an image on her Facebook and mentioned it was from the Russian Dragonlance Musical. That was immediately intriguing. So after hunting down more information about it I came across the entire play on YouTube. And found several images online. The costumes  are clearly recognizable and not too bad. The set though is very minimal and relies on lighting to hide that fact.

Turns out there are several versions of the musical you can find videos of, each with different actors performing the parts. I didn't do an exhaustive review to see which was the best as I enjoyed the first one I stumbled across well enough.

Wizards of the Coast seems to have pretty much forgotten the Dragonlance line and nothing new has really come out since 2010 as far as I can tell. In retrospect the novels aren't necessarily the greatest literature of all time and is highly derivative of Lord of the Rings. At the time the novels were immensely enjoyable, though they come across as a little naive and cliche by today's standards. But I do think the second trilogy, the Time of the Twins is much more original and tells a rip roaring story of a mage and his quest for power. Despite it involving time travel, which is annoying enough especially in a fantasy novel.

Its kind of funny to think that most of the performers probably weren't even born yet when the books came out. That makes me feel old.

The musical is interesting, a Netflix series with high production values would be even better. You can watch the entire musical with subtitles on YouTube. It's not that bad and has some really good moments if you don't mind opera: