Spider-Man for Strands of Fate

3 January 2018 | 9:52 | Stats, Strands of Fate | No Comments

One of my favorite multi-genre RPG systems is Strands of Fate, by Mike McConnell of Void Star Games (also makers of the transhuman cyberpunk RPG Nova Praxis). It’s the only version of FATE that ever really clicked for me. Over the New Year’s holiday, and while sick the last few days, I’ve fooled around with […]



Twenty Quick Questions for your Space Opera Campaign Setting

3 December 2017 | 15:52 | Ponderings, Wormholes & Waystations RPG | No Comments

  Many space opera games have a built-in or implied setting, but some don’t. The original Traveller LBBs existed before the Third Imperium, and the Frontier in Star Frontiers is at best a sketch before Zebulon’s Guide to Frontier Space. Based on the inestimable Jeff Rients’ blog article, Twenty Quick Questions for your Campaign Setting, […]



Welcome to the Waystation

17 November 2017 | 10:27 | Earth-Omega Setting, Five Free Cities Setting, Metagene RPG, Old School Gaming, Personal, Ponderings, Wormholes & Waystations RPG | No Comments

To make my wife less nervous about apex predator lawyer-enabled megacorporations, my space opera game is now renamed to Wormholes & Waystations. As before, it will include appendices for kitchen-sink fantasy gaming in my Five Free Cities setting, in an appendix called Advanced Bugbears & Ballistas. It’ll also have a four-color supers setting, based on […]



The Viskani and their Blasphemous Beliefs

8 April 2017 | 15:43 | Five Free Cities Setting, Old School Gaming | No Comments

Viskani, the Fallen Sorcerous Slave-Lords “I have the thing you requested. But don’t seek me here again, for I won’t be this way again in your lifetime. What’s that? Now that your need is met, suddenly you have questions, you worry and distrust? Don’t let it trouble your mind, for it troubles mine no longer. […]



Adventurers of the Five Free Cities

1 April 2017 | 8:36 | Five Free Cities Setting, Old School Gaming | No Comments

So, murderhobos, right? In any society, you’ve got your caravan guards and monster hunters, wandering merchants and clerics, and your scholars looking for lost lore. If they work together, there’s usually a reason; they were brought together by one of the cities to explore some ruins, or they’ve been commissioned to investigate some threat, or […]



Religions of Eparra

25 March 2017 | 8:49 | Five Free Cities Setting, Old School Gaming | No Comments

About Religions The (Relative) Importance of Religion Religion is important to many people of Eparra … but not equally important. The Way of Nature makes few demands on its adherents, other than that they accept that they are part of a grand telluric cycle, the cycle of the seasons. The people of the Five Free […]



Life in Gwaethyr and the Five Free Cities

18 March 2017 | 8:13 | Five Free Cities Setting, Old School Gaming | No Comments

The Five Free Cities are a traditional kitchen-sink fantasy setting, with influences from many D&D settings and Appendix N sources. It’s a post-apocalyptic mishmash of Bronze Age culture meeting invading aliens struggling to keep at least an Iron Age level of development. Magic is rare but powerful, and monsters are rare enough to be noteworthy […]



The Tower of the Cackling Conjurer (W&W / AB&B Adventure)

11 March 2017 | 13:01 | Five Free Cities Setting, Old School Gaming, Wormholes & Waystations RPG | No Comments

Long ago, the Fraternal Order of Cinnabar sent one of their scholars, Frabdan Wald, to investigate the crumbling ruins of the Temple of Mukram in the city of Viskan. He returned with most of his men dead, driven insane by the secrets he had seen. Now he crouches in a tower in the Trackless Forest, […]



Beneath the Ruined City of Viskan (W&W / AB&B Adventure)

20 February 2017 | 13:36 | Five Free Cities Setting, Old School Gaming, Wormholes & Waystations RPG | No Comments

This is a full one-level dungeon for my Five Free Cities setting. This version of the adventure is for the Advanced Bugbears & Ballistas (AB&B) setting from my Wormholes & Waystations RPG (playtest version available here https://goo.gl/NYrsAN), but I’ve run this for Dungeon Crawl Classics with almost no changes. Click to view the map! Link to […]



The Testament of the Last Viskani

12 February 2017 | 18:40 | Five Free Cities Setting, Old School Gaming | No Comments

Honored Ones, this parchment was found in the Thieves’ City, in one of the old bases for the Seal of Red and Black on the border of the Onyx Desert, not long-abandoned. It’s assumed that the text is not complete, for there are editorial remarks in the margins and whole sections have been struck out […]