I picked up one of the first copies off the Create Space press. The quality of the book is fantastic. The layout is gorgeous. Not that I expected anything less from Bryon but I was beyond happy. Each of the individuals has a backstory along with the drawing. Wheels, Garrett, and myself are featured close to the end since we were rounding out the last portion of the first 50. I have no complaints. First time my ugly mug showed up in a book and I’m a MF’ing zombie. Sweet.

Prepare Yourself

Download (PDF, 31.93KB)

Next on the list was the over zealous approach to magical equipment for Non-Player Characters. The NPC code is utilized not only by the Monster Stocker but also by the NPC Generator. The original code used a fixed constant as a multiplier based on character level. The result was a lot of magic in far too many results. The replacement is an exponential function to significantly increase the odds high level NPCs have magic while eliminating many spurious results for lower levels. Additionally, the average magical bonus for equipment was changed to be more inline with charts.

Overall, the changes create far more useful results. The DM can always tweak up as desired but constant need for reduction was annoying. Erring on the low side is far more useful than being prolific.

The realization nothing will come of the effort is not new. The notes sat patiently. Words on paper feel no rush to be consumed. They just are. Weeks later, I realized those words were lists. Annotations of tables and charts looking for an outlet. My pen wasn’t about to expose new knowledge. The words themselves were the discovery.

What to do with them? Hide them again under a pile of other paper? Nay, they were to be hidden amid other letters. I loved word search puzzles as a kid. The same era when the original tomes were scribed into lists. So I began something and while it can never be complete, thirty weeks of word search puzzles begin on Wednesday. The first 17 are derived directly from the LBB’s. Thirteen more were extracted from Greyhawk – Supplement I.

The Horrendous Heap of Sixteen Cities!

Extending above a haze of reeking steam rise sixteen peaks of garbage magically transported from sixteen different cities. It spreads, like an ever-growing fungus, across the landscape, encompassing and corrupting nearly fifty square miles. Hideous flies, crows, and vultures circle the piles, perpetually avoiding garbage falling from magical portals thousands of feet in the air. Giant rats, skunks, maggots, and other manner of repugnant beasts scuttle about the surface, surviving off the offal. Underneath, giant worms crawl through the debris. Periodic explosions reform the horizon. Some cultures call it “Sheoal”, others “Kol Katta”. All, however, use the common vernacular “The Heap”. And everywhere its name is synonymous with “Hell”.

THE HORRENDOUS HEAP OF SIXTEEN CITIES! is a sandbox fantasy adventure. Contained within are original and terrifying monsters, maps of The Heap, and multiple adventures for months of play.

17 New Monsters
3 Maps
5 Detailed Non-Player Characters
More than 25 Original Illustrations
7 Plot Hooks

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The Horrendous Heap is available now on RPGNow.

“Welcome to Mortiston, USA” is a multi-system zombie apocalypse set in an “average” American town. The setting is licensed for five different RPG game systems. All game stats are included for immediate integration into any game of Outbreak: Undead, Savage Worlds, The Modern Path for Pathfinder, Rotworld and OGL Modern. Mortiston needs heroes who can step up to the challenge, or only the dead and the damned will walk the streets, or something far, far worse…

The Kickstarter project’s goal is to get the book printed not to develop and release it. The work is already completed — something quite unusual for a project. Plus it supports multiple systems out of the box including ROTWORLD, which I like but have yet to play. If you are familiar with any of the systems, it would be trivial to convert to another system you’d prefer for the game.

As of this writing, the project is a mere $89 from fully funded. The books will be released in June. A release date within a month is instant gratification in the project world. Like most, Mortiston offers many levels of support are available with oodles of extras.

If you’ve been considering a zombie game but holding off due to a lack of a setting, this project could be a perfect match. Give it a look.

The price for Given Names from Medieval and Ancient Times and Surnames from Medieval and Ancient Times returned to non-sale pricing of $0.99 and 0.89 respectively. Alternatively, the Medieval volumes can be purchased as a bundle for $1.58.

Sales since the launch of the products have surpassed expectations including twenty two copies of the bundled volumes, ten copies of given names, and eight individual sales of surnames. The sales were sufficient to load up on some stock art to adorn the interior pages of the secret project for June.

Finally, the free Treasure Book on Demand was downloaded 185 times, dwarfing the for sale products. The book has always been free and will remain so. The release was intended to raise awareness of the Labyrinth Lord™ utilities available from Mithril & Mages to an audience who may not have seen them. Finally, TBoD was the only product to be rated and was pegged at 5 stars.

As with most things, the site has taken time to build and even longer to find an audience. I’m quite happy with the results of the last year although I have been slacking for the last few months. Over 12 months, nearly 26,000 unique visitors came to the site resulting in 225,000 page views (69000 unique). Statistics are notoriously biased but I took the information from Google analytics with my own visits removed.

Visits over 12 Months

Page Views over 12 Months

Both curves are moving up and to the right. If the site were a stock, I’d be retiring on the returns. Who could complain about that? I appreciate all the visitors who have found my efforts useful in the last year. It is humbling to know I’ve aided so many different people in such a short span. I hope you found what you needed or the inspiration to create something based on chaotic results.

Here’s to next year, we’re going to surpass a 100K page views in a month. I can feel it.. Thanks again to all the visitors and individuals who have made it possible thus far.

Yesterday, the local telco decided I didn’t really need an active line. Somewhere amid other repairs, my phone line got disconnected and out went the internet connection. Trivial to fix but it took 15 hours before they got to the repair. A fair amount of muttering occurred yesterday. Hard to finish coding anything when half the files are inaccessible. Note to self: keep even prototypes committed to the code repository.

Given the time wasted awaiting the DSL repair, I’m just going to spend the afternoon working code and watching a bit of barbecue. One the menu for this evening is stuffed pork loin smoked with freshly cut crab apple. The store had ripe mango available so I’ll glaze it up with mango-jalapeno sauce at the end.

Mark’s Stuffed Pork Loin

1 Pork Loin (as big as you want)
1 Apple
1/2 Onion
3 Celery Stalks
1/2 cup Brown Sugar
1/2 tsp Cinnamon

Dice apple, onion and celery and put into a bowl. Increase or decrease the amount depending on the size of the pork loin. Sprinkle with cinnamon. Add the brown sugar and mix well.

Split the pork loin three quarters of the way along the long side. Fold open. You may want to leave the ends of the pork loin uncut to aid in keeping the stuffing from falling out. Fill the pork loin with the apple/onion/celery mixture. Fold closed. Using cotton cooking string, tie the loin back together. Place strings every couple of inches.

Apply dry rub to tied loin. Refrigerate for 1-2 hours. [I just prepped it and then went to get the smoker going.] Place loin on the smoker and baste every 45 minutes. Cook at 250 degrees for 5-6 hours. Apply glaze for the last 20 minutes of cooking. I’m using apple juice for basting with a jigger of brandy.

Just over an Hour

I better invite some friends for grub tonight. If I don’t, I’ll be eating pork loin for a couple of days.

Yesterday, I published the Labyrinth Lord Treasure Book on Demand as a free product. Based on feedback from the original consumers and posts on other sites, the TBoD is useful to many people. The book is neither pretty or ground breaking. Simply put, it contains treasure lists for the time challenged game master.

So why release it as a free product on a commercial site?

Two reasons – 1) I suck at marketing and 2) links from others confirm my ineptitude. The latter comments have included such gems as “great stuff but the guy doesn’t post anywhere – we need to get the word out”. I cannot disagree. I feel completely uncomfortable visiting sites only to promote what I’ve done. The entire idea of starting an account for the sole purpose of self promotion makes me shudder. I have the same feelings on social media sites. Those I use to connect with other like minded individuals — not spam them with my latest and greatest thought.

Tossing a free product onto a commercial site full of cool titles is likely to get lost in the noise, right? Not to mention its from a completely unknown “publisher” of gaming products. I trusted DriveThru to provide marketing. My trust was not misplaced. In fact, I had to start filtering sales notifications.

Bat Guano Crazy

Granted, these are free product notifications. My best day of hits on the same generation system is far less than the sales in a single day. I’ve long known Mithril & Mages was not known by the majority of the Labyrinth Lord community. The magnitude of the difference is shocking.

Oh yeah, those free books? They are marked page by page with the web address. I might still suck at the marketing front but a few more folks know about me.