Role-Playing News about Dragon Storm, Blood Gems, Crypt Crawl and more...

At OhayoCon

2012-01-29T12:07:00.001-08:00

It has been a great con! Thank You!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

The problem of a fertile imagination

2012-01-20T18:31:00.001-08:00

We have just a single set of the old tattoos, and Sue has it with her at the Con (Epic Confusion). So, I am here remaking them to fit the new 2.0 way, which is a magic item needs to be playable without having to lay your hands on a spell card to make it work.

The tattoos are pretty straight forward and convert by shortening the text to fit in the box, but they work the same.

The tricky one is the Mark of the Shadows. The user is sliding into the shadows between the physical and spirit worlds and using it to see into both the physical world and into the spirit world, yet they are in neither, so they can not effect either, or be effected by either. It makes this tattoo into a way to survey enemy camps, bases or rooms, or to gather information. This is different than the classic spell, but I can fit it on a card. GM's will need to use 3.14 to make specific calls that will come up when the card is used, but that is what we have GM's for.

Are these shadows a nice safe place? Well, what happened to those who failed to get back out? Plus I know there is at least one monster in there with you. Their are also totally alien native shadow creatures in there. Wherever there is a space, something uses it. It may not turn out as slick and safe as you want. For the time being we are going to let the GM populate the shadows with creatures from their imaginations, just be aware, we will be adding some "stuff" in the distant future.

I have no idea what I could write on a card to help the GM, and the player, understand that chaos can strike anywhere.

Try this:
When someone enters Shadow Walk, by tattoo or spell, have them run into a crying man sitting on the floor. He watched his wife and family grow old and die, he watched his children, grandchildren and more, live and die. He watched the vast majority of the world die in the storms and wars after Deathday. He is mad, he wants just one thing, and that is to get out of the shadows so he can die too.

This should give the player an idea that all is not well in the shadows. I do not have a solution to the mans problem, but if a player comes up with a good, creative idea, let them get lucky and succeed. In my games good role-playing trumps dice rolls.

Conventions and Dragon Storm Con 2012

2012-01-15T12:53:00.001-08:00

We have been getting questions about the dates for Dragon Storm Con 2012. We have them. July 20th to 22nd, 2012.

Link to Dragon Storm Con Page, with, of course, Membership information.

We also have the 2012 Con schedule up and posted. There will be, as usual, additions to the list.

Here is the Link to our Con page.

Skype and Dragonstorm gaming

2012-01-13T10:09:00.001-08:00

For some time now Christina Nixon has been running a Google Group dedicated to arranging, and discussing, Skype Dragon Storm games.

I am a member of the group and I watch the updates with a lot of interest. Skype allows people to play DS on a regular basis, even when spread across the country. The one thing I can say about these games is that they have some great GM's running these games. People are having fun.

If you are interested you can go to the google group site and apply for a group membership. Just tell Christina how you discovered the group, and see what happens.

This is the link to the google groups page.

Shifter Affinity, a beta talk.

2012-01-04T08:23:00.001-08:00

Shifter Affinity is one of the many beta sets you can find on the Dragon Storm RPG Beta Page. Which, if you have not looked in a while, you can follow this link to take a look.

Shifter Affinity represents the Character learning more about themselves and the body they have acquired. Characters who do not bother to do the research on their shifting abilities will live a happy and fulfilled life without it. However, some character concepts require special abilities not shared by every Tom, Dick and Sandy around the table. It is something you use to personalize a character and build in skills not common to all shifters.

When building a memorable character you will want to look carefully at the cards and consider which ones will enhance your characters.

The first is the Adopted Form. This card allows a character to use forms not normally available to them. For instance, you may be running an Elven Unicorn. The Unicorn can shift into Farilan Elf. You may envision an Elf character who can shift into any Elven form. You would "Adopt" the Haskalad Elf from the Griffon and, with a second Adoption, pick up the Dragons Ebony Elf. Now you have an elf shifter who is different than the other elves.

The second card is Mind-to-Minds. If you have the concept of a versatile leader who deals with many different groups, you can use Mind-to-Minds instead of sharing a Link with the Vermite beggar on the corner. While most characters are not going to consider such an act, your character just might want to. The problem is that you need to know yourself, by having Shifter Affinity, to get this ability.

The third character intensive card is Gender Switch. We have left this a little vague so that players can mold it to their character concept. I have seen characters who switch due to external events that the player envision, just a fun character idea. I have a character who learned this because he is a wanted man in several places and gets recognized. Therefore he has places where he is a she. How, and why, you use such a card is up to you.

Next we have the Form Affinity. With this one the character becomes a quick shifter. In the blink of an eye they can flash to a new form. run into the alley and poof, you are new. If you are wearing common farmers garb and little distinguishing equipment. Well, you just might get away with it.

Affinity Defense is going to be a little more difficult to explain why the character took it. This is something that you may see the blustering tough guy using, another idea is playing in my mind, but I do not see it clearly enough to explain it right now.

Affinity Cloud is something you would look at for characters that spend time scouting out neutral and Jikadell territories where the bad guys would be looking for fresh meat on a regular basis.

This set is still short a couple of cards. So, we will keep our minds and eyes out for more cards that work here.

**********

I am going to add a small piece of historical information here that is only slightly involved with these cards. In ancient dragon clans a couple would expect to have two children. One as the father and one as the mother. They would switch genders to trade places. The other problem is that a pregnant dragon can not shift until after the birth. That means 30 months locked in to a single form.

The child is born live and after six months is forced in to a Stone Sleep to grow up and be taught by spirit teachers. Depending on the child they will be out of the Stone Sleep in just 50 years as a young adult ready to go. Many mortal scholars have mistaken the Stone Sleep for eggs. Now that the ancient dragon society is gone many mistaken myths have grown up, and there are few dragons around to correct the mistakes. Even fewer care if the mortals get it wrong. Now I find myself wondering why the spirit who told me this keeps laughing. Could this be wrong? We may never have absolute certainty. The chaos unleashed by the Deathday Massacre is a plague to historians.

Happy Holidays, One and All!

2011-12-25T07:41:00.001-08:00

Whatever Holiday you enjoy, I hope it has gone well.

I am also pleased to hear that the nasty Santaspawn and his eight mad Taur were turned back last night. Now we can all enjoy this day.

Mark

Now, let's welcome the singing Dragonets!

2011-12-21T08:01:00.001-08:00

All right everyone, give them a big hand! Ok, I have been working on a Dragonet set for the GM to enjoy, so here it is, just in time for Christmas and New Years games.

What you have here is eight varieties of Dragonet. There will also be a couple more variations that the Raptors have bred, but those will be with the Raptors. The CP total is in the parenthesis. What you see are the working notes for coming up with the total.

****************

Dragonet Information
Dragonets are native to Grandilar. This means they have been exposed not just to the Warp Storms since Deathday, but also to the ancient Od and Warp storms. These mystic pressures have caused a series of mutations within the race.

Dragonets that are named as Warpspawn may also be used by the GM to fill out the bad guys flying with Dragon Storms.

GMs are free to add features, including Health Cards, to these Dragonets to keep the players amused, confused and nervous. As usual the GM determines which features are warp features and may be Purified.

The basic Dragonet includes a price as they are sometimes available to be pets or familiars.

Poison Dragonet
CP= 22+14+27. (69)
STR= 1, COR=2, DEF=3, SPD=3, WIS=0, HP=30, CAP=1 max
Animal, Warpspawn

Fire-breath, Ind/F (L1R). (2d6) 200 feet, Magic Damage.
Flies.
Poison Tails, Ind/F (L3R). Melee, Poison Damage.
Warp features optional.

Dragonet skeleton
CP= 14+14 (28)
STR= 1, COR=2, DEF=3, SPD=3, WIS=0, HP=10, CAP=1 max
Undead, Animal

Fire-breath, Ind/F (L1R). (2d6) 200 feet, Magic Damage.
Flies.
Reforms once per day.

Dragonet Zombie
CP= 14+37 (51)
STR= 6, COR=2, DEF=3, SPD=2, WIS=0, HP=66, CAP=1 max
Undead, Animal

Fire-breath, Ind/F (L1R). (2d6) 200 feet, Magic Damage.
Flies.

Dragonet Spectre
CP= 30+14+16 (60)
STR= 6, COR=2, DEF=3, SPD=4, WIS=0, HP=30, CAP=1 max
Spirit, Animal

Fire-breath, Ind/F (L1R). (2d6) 200 feet, Magic Damage.
Flies.
Materializes once per six hours.
Luck to hit. Roll 2d6, 7+hits.

Frozen Dragonet
CP= 18+4+12 (34)
STR= 1, COR=2, DEF=3, SPD=3, WIS=0, HP=18, CAP=1 max
Animal, Warpspawn

Cold-breath Ind/F (L1R). (2d6) 200 feet, Cold Damage.
Flies.
Warp features optional.

Three Headed Dragonet
CP= 22+27. (59)
STR= 1, COR=2, DEF=3, SPD=3, WIS=0, HP=30, CAP=1 max
Animal, Warpspawn

Fire-breath, Ind/F (L3R). (2d6) 200 feet, Magic Damage.
Flies.
Warp features optional.

Phase Dragonet
CP= 22+27. (79)
STR= 1, COR=2, DEF=3, SPD=3, WIS=0, HP=30, CAP=1 max
Animal, Warpspawn

Fire-breath, Ind/F (L1R). (2d6) 200 feet, Magic Damage.
Flies.
Phase, Ind/F. Roll 2d6 when attacked. 7+ it teleports 50 feet. All attempts use Ind.
Warp features optional.

Classic Note:
The Phase Dragonet will need to have a lower CP. It will have fewer phases in Classic and will be easier to catch than in 2.0.

GM Beta Updates

2011-11-18T18:53:00.001-08:00

Susan is away at Midwest Furfest and I thought I would surprise her by posting these new GM Betas.

I have been doing a lot of local GMing lately, so I have been able to look over what I am using and putting them in a series of sets for the GM.

The whole idea with the different cards is to try them as they stand and then to begin combining them in new and unique ways. It gives the GM a chance to keep the players off balance.

You are going to find a couple of new Warpspawn races hidden in here. We already have the Wakana who are like Werewolves. Now we have the Drako who are Dragon clones and Gnomes who are patterned off of the Gargoyles. These new races are getting the Dragons and Gargoyles upset. They just think it is warped and they are taking offense. All fun from a GMs point of view. Getting some very good role-playing out of this.

Since they are new I have posted the new GM Betas at the top of the page. You can go here and have a look.

At Ucon!

2011-11-12T09:43:00.001-08:00

We are at the Ucon game Con, and set up.

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Location:E Srv Rd,Detroit,United States

On the way to PentaCon

2011-11-04T04:59:00.001-07:00

Got started at 8. We shall see how long it takes.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Dodging and Ranged Attacks.

2011-10-30T10:59:00.001-07:00

Dodging Ranged Attacks.

One of the goals we had in writing the Dragon Storm 2.0 rules was to avoid absolutes. This ties in with our desire for the GM's, and players, to be free to create new situations and answers. Sometimes it is difficult for our minds to grasp that there are no absolutes in Dragon Storm. The laws of the universe are flexible in ways meant to create the feeling of Chaos and wonder. You can never be entirely sure of anything.

One result of this theory is that people keep looking for absolutes. This has occurred in regards to Dodging Ranged attacks. We left this ambiguous. Dodging ranged attacks is generally not possible without a special ability, but that is not always true. Too many possibilities exist for us to be able to make an absolute rule. It will be up to the players to suggest they may be able to Dodge and the GM's to judge if it is possible. If you are in the open and someone shoots an arrow at you, you have a problem. If, however, that attacker is lobbing boulders at you, well, you may be able to Dodge. There is no way to construct a world rule that covers all ranged attacks and dodging, therefore we did not bother.

The bottom line is that dodging ranged attacks depends first on whether you have a special ability to, and secondarily, on the exact situation you are facing. Your chances will be decided by the GM applying rule 3.4, your role-playing, and the situation.

Mark

New Werewolves and More!

2011-10-28T18:47:00.001-07:00

Way back last summer, remember back that far? We had a Con called DSCon 2011. Members and Supporting members received a special set of cards with their memberships. GM's even got Two sets. We do not want those who could not get to the Con, or are new to the game, to be left out. So, from time to time we will selling these sets at Cons or here on the web. Right now is one of those times. If you want these special cards, just use this link and buy a set. We will have a few sets available at PentaCon, Ucon and Midwest Furfest in the next three weeks.

The 2.0 Werewolves have officially arrived. The big bad forms are here, and melee, well Werewolves do melee. There are now real reasons to take that Great Wolf form as some abilities only work when you are in an Animal form. Like the Dragon there are now abilities that improve as you work your way through the different sized shape shifting form. You can go to the revamped Werewolf Page and have a good look by following this link. You are going to want to scroll down to the Downloads section and have a good look. There you will find the Get to Know Your Werewolf PDF, you should read this! We have PDF's of the new cards to examine, and even play with if money is sparse right now. Towards the bottom of the page you will find a way to buy a set of nine identical cards. Handy when there is a card you just keep using.

The new Beta page is filling up with potential cards of the future. You can consider the Witchcraft and Witch specialty cards, Herbs, Clan Swords, Gargoyles, and a series of specialty cards that could appear. Keep in mind that everything here is a Beta and there may be changes before publication. We leave it up to our players to track the changes to their own characters cards. Just follow this link and you will arrive at the Beta page.

Now that we are starting to see the Holiday Season on the Horizon we are adding Greeting cards to Susan's Cafepress shop. We are going to be focusing on Cats and Dragons for the cards. If you are wondering what cards to send this year, take a look at Susan's cards by following this link.

OK, that is it for today.

Greeting Cards!

2011-10-25T18:27:00.001-07:00

We have Greeting cards available on Cafepress. Check them out!

New Familiar Place!

2011-10-17T16:03:00.001-07:00

I posted this weeks Familiar Place. You can find it here.

New Betas!

2011-10-15T18:29:00.001-07:00

OK, I have posted the New Clan Swords Beta and the Gargoyle Beta cards. Time for people to start playing with them and try them out. You can use this link to get to the Beta page.

Susan is at the Furfright Con this weekend. She has several new prints for sale there. You can see, and order, the new prints on the Etsy site. Summon Fox, Leap Away, Alimeeta and Earth Wolf are the new works.

We have started creating some holiday cards in the cafepress shop. You can look them over at the Cafepress shop. I will be adding more images here over the next few days.

Have Fun!

Herbal Beta posted. Progress update.

2011-09-28T09:53:00.001-07:00

I have posted the Herb Beta cards on the website. You can hop on over and download them any time you want.

Werewolf Status. I am doing the final layouts for the cards and Sue is getting art done for the cards. They will definitely be available in less than a month. Production starts this weekend.

Gargoyle Status. The Gargoyles have gotten a good going over. I need to incorporate a number of tweaks based on input we got and then they will be ready to post as Beta cards. Last night Sue almost missed her turn as a Garg because she went first, with an initiative of 7. Gargoyles are either slow, or very thoughtful, considering everything going on around them before deciding where to apply their power.

Item Status. I am going back over the specific sets and tweaking them to get like things in sets. It will not be exact, but vaguely organized. This is a high priority job and will follow the Werewolf in the old To Do list.

Witchcraft Status. We have gotten additional comments on the witch cards and they need tweaking and updating. Over all they are looking good.

Wizardry/Shamanism Status. These are moving forward, but we have to finish the Witchcraft first. The form the other magics take will be based on the format of the witches. We have some interesting side magics under consideration, including a Necro Apprentice set and Prismatic set.

Rogue Status. The Rogues are taking a good deal of consideration. Mathew has created an excellent work own the Rogues and we are looking at the cards as well. Part of what is slowing the Rogue work is that we did not lay out a proper background for them the first time, we will try to make a different mistake this time.

Hadley's Safe House. This is an starter guide and set of adventures for Dragon Storm. I am trying to pry out the time to finish writing this one, but something always seems to come up. I think we really need this book, so I will find the time.

Susan has started writing her adventure book. She has run these and now is starting on the writing.

Fantasy Cat Art App. We are programming an art app for the iOS environment. It is going good and is teaching us the basic skills we will need for doing gaming apps.

Familiar Place. This is Susan's ongoing comic that appears first in the local Flint Comix paper. After publication we are getting them posted on the web, but here is another one of those jobs that requires time and scheduling, not what I am best at.

Other Web Comics, yes, we will.

Cafe Press. I am slowly getting more items up and available. Every couple of weeks I get a couple of free hours and get something new available.

Etsy Art Shop. I had a burst of work this summer on the shop, but further additions are going slowly. sigh.

Other Dragon Storm Races. We are moving on several of these at once. It is taking time because we are doing them as a whole to make abilities mesh between the different races. Some, like the Griffon and Pegasus, need the full magic system in place before we can do them.

Storm Hunters. Now that we have given the GM's a good set of Storm cards to work with the creation of Storm Hunting as a character side job makes a lot more sense. With the new aids my players are seeing little Storms almost every week.

Scout and Warrior Sets ship!

2011-09-22T21:06:00.001-07:00

I have just finished packing the Pre-Orders for the Warrior and Scout sets. They will be posted in the morning, Friday.

These two sets, including the Special Order Individual card ability, have now been posted on the Universal Page. They are off the Pre-Order page.

We are working on the Werewolf set. I expect they will ship around the time of FurFright, so Sue can have them at the Con. Pre-Order page.

The red art box on the Scout cards gave the printer fits, so the next run will have a green border on the art. So, if you are tracking variations, one is on its way. I guess it will indicate a "First Run" marker.

Elethay 2.0 added to Betas

2011-08-29T17:53:00.001-07:00

The Elethay cards have been around for a while so all they needed was tweaking to put them into the 2.0 Earth magics.

In general we called all earth/physical world driven magics Witchcraft, because Witchcraft is the best known of those magics. This has caused some confusion and we wanted to clarify those issues in 2.0.

Witchcraft, Nightwitch (Coven), Elethay, Jikadell, Elementalism and Reaver are all stand alone magics. Only the Shrouds and Warlock are dependent on Witchcraft as a foundation. Obviously an experienced character can wind up with several of these.

Elethay now has an Anchor to represent the training and to give characters access to the Elethay cards. We made this a very inexpensive Anchor so it would be easily compatible with Classic cards.

This also meant a rewrite of the Universal Elethay cards as well. None of those cards now include the actual use of Elethay cards, but they qualify to learn them. We lowered the CP of the Elethay Acolyte so after buying the Elethay Anchor, it still costs 4 CP. The Elethay Priestess got four extra HP to compensate for having to add the Anchor. That also means the Classic cards are nicely compatible with 2.0.

The Elethay Extras sheet has the new Background and the Universals for this, plus it has the "ninth" card from the existing cards. It is a small start on another set, but with peoples submitted ideas and our own, there will eventually be another set.

As for the spells themselves, we tweaked them to fix some of the common complaints about the classic versions, but they stayed pretty much the same.

The old Elethay Guide is there as well. It has been touched up, but is not completely updated. No real sense in doing that until we get the cards finalized. It does give a good sense of playing an Elethay.

You can download and read the Elethay cards for yourself.

Mark

Updated Reaver

2011-08-28T09:00:00.001-07:00

I updated the Reaver Anchor to clarify that Reaver and Warrior do not combine. It is an either/or choice.

I also clarified that Elethay, Reaver, Nightwitch, Elementalism, Jikadell and Earth Devotion, are stand alone classes of physical magic that are not included with Witchcraft and no longer require Witchcraft first. More mix and match to increase Character personalization.

Earth Devotion will cover a special Faith in the world. Dealing with Earth spirits (called shades), however it will be a year or more before we get back to that one.

Elementalism will also get a 2.0 upgrade in the distant future. The spells, abilities and Elementals will stay as they are, but the organization will get modified. We will break it into Fire, Water, Earth, Air and Exarch sets. In the meantime, Elementalism works fine in 2.0 as it is, so use it. Each will have a cheap Anchor so a character can build up there knowledge of Elementalism over time culminating with being an Exarch.

Mark

-- Posted From My iPad

Dragon Storm Market Updated.

2011-08-19T14:52:00.001-07:00

I have made several changes in the DS Market. Player Sets are subdivided, Build your character, Pre-Orders (with stuff to pre-order, and a release schedule!), New Beta Page that happens to have the new Witchcraft spells on it.

If you are ready to go look, here is the Link.

The idea is to get it up and see what is broken, get it fixed, and put out a newsletter Monday with the announcement.

I did not put up the Pre-Orders for the item sets yet, I am hopeful we can add two more and make it a five set release.

See, and you thought I was just working on Etsy!

Etsy Print Updates

2011-08-12T21:49:00.001-07:00

Sue is off at IFC and having a good time.

I am here catching up our Etsy Print Shop.

Tail Percher is new in the Whimsical Cat Section.

The Griffitts Section of Etsy has been updated.

I am just about done with today, you can have it back now.

Back from GenCon

2011-08-09T07:03:00.001-07:00

We set up in the artshow at GenCon as usual. It was four days of fevered activity. We sold a lot of art, so I spent the evenings making prints while Sue completed commissions. Over all it was a very good weekend.

I am always glad to see our friends and was thrilled to meet Mathew and Christina from the east coast skype group. Michael Copeland ran a ton of DS and did a great job. Between Cope and Matt it looks like we got several new players. Thanks!

Wizard Wagon was selling DS on Saturday and Sunday and did a good job. Too bad we could not get that arranged earlier.

There was a lot of excitement at the con and people were happy with the new areas for the con.

I spent most of my time on my feet and right now my legs are expressing the opinion that I need to learn to sit more.

Time to finish unpacking, I have to get Sue ready to hit the road early Friday for another Con.

-- Posted From My iPad

DS at Gencon

2011-08-06T06:57:00.001-07:00

Wizard Wagon at booth 1309 has the Dragon Storm 2 book and some boosters. Go see them.

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When at a Con

2011-08-05T14:00:00.001-07:00

Guys should avoid loudly bragging about your "huge" helmet, while walking through the exhibit hall. The snickering girls should be a clue.

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Second day at Gencon

2011-08-05T07:59:00.001-07:00

Morning at the con. I need more coffee.

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Updated Beta PDF's

2011-07-30T18:06:00.001-07:00

I have gotten some great input on the new PDF's in the market. I went through and made a number of modifications and reloaded the PDF's. The Player Sets Page is here.

I added some simple 2.0/Classic notes on the Character Builder sets.

Robert Thomas made a nice one page PDF of the 2.0 rules. We should share it. Here it is.

OK, trying to rest before the big push for GenCon.

More Beta PDF's

2011-07-30T08:30:00.001-07:00

I added three PDF's to the Character Builder section of the Web Store. The Way of Series, Boons and Bloodlines.

The page is here.

I also corrected the Hot and Cold Stones, Light Globes and Chocolate. Thanks for checking these and letting me know!

Web Store Additions

2011-07-29T19:41:00.001-07:00

I added the PDF's for Item sets 407 and 408. Fixed the link to the Warrior Final Beta sheet. You can see it all here.

Updating the Web site

2011-07-28T16:11:00.001-07:00

After the great DS Con and Origins release of 2.0 it is time to clean up the web market and make it easier to order. I have put up a new front page and rewritten the market pages. (Yes, Sue has promised me a new logo, but she is really busy with art commissions and assignments.) You can take a look here.

I am afraid that the Free Stuff and Conventions pages will have to wait until we get back from GenCon to get spiffed up.

Right now the Player Set page is really long. The next step there is to have another layer that will break the Player Sets down and make them easier to find what you want.

The Werewolf has moved to a final Beta status, and the pdf's are now in the market being prepped for printing. I have tweaked the cards based on the excellent comments I have gotten from people. I saw several people using the new werewolf at DS con. Everyone should take one last look at them to be sure they are alright. I also touched up the Get to Know your Werewolf PDF to account for the changes.

The Valarian's got a new PDF of the powers that be. Not much in the way of changes there. I put it up as a sheet of cards that people will really not need many of. I am "thinking" about the next Valarian PDF set. Who knows when it will appear.

The Warrior has moved into the Market. It, and the Scout, are in a Final Beta status as well. That means they need everyone to take a last look and check them out for us.

I added two new sets of basic items to the market. (405 and 406). The items in 405 actually got numbered and entered into my Card List, so they are very close to publishing and I ran a few sheets to test the print system. 406 should get the same treatment soon.

Let me see, what else. Oh ya, on the Starter page are a couple of sets of Training cards to help teach new people. These are the result of suggestions from Demo GM's looking for a way to get the basic rules into the hands of the newbs.

I have printed and done a few sets here to get the sold out cards ready to ship with web orders.

OK, I am done here. I need to get to work. I am going to try to hit skype a little more often for those that have questions, or comments on the new PDF's.

Thanks to Lee and Tim for their comments about DS Con. Sue and I had a great time as well, and I agree with your kind words for the GM's, Mark R and everyone who came to play.

DS Con Good. Starting to think on next year.

2011-07-25T19:22:00.001-07:00

Sue and I had a great time at the Con. Sue ran three games and played in three. I ran five games and played in one. Good times.

I enjoyed being able to actually talk to people I like. At most cons I am to busy taking care of details and business to get to talk much, but at StormCon I can relax and enjoy the company of friends.

We had 37 paid attendees, so we had a total of 40 people at the home of Mark R. That is pretty close to the limit for his place. We will have to think about what to do for next year.

It was successful enough, and fun enough, that Sue and I are going to talk about doing a second small DS Con next year. Just a pipe dream, we will see.

The Con sets went over well. We will be offering them for sale on the site for $18.00 a set later this year. We not only gave attendees sets, but sold quite a number of them. I have only five sets left right now, i thought we would have more left, so if you want one email me and we will make arrangements.

-- Posted From My iPad

Set up for Dragon Storm Con 2011

2011-07-21T12:16:00.001-07:00

We took our "stuff" down to Mark R's place for the Con and set everything up. We even added a black index box that says "pay here" for people to pay when we are gaming, eating or just not there.

Sue will be taking orders for commissions at the Con, but she will not be doing the art at the Con. She will be doing them next week after the Con.

Now to try to get the Werewolf cards done for showing off. We have to get on the road early in the morning. I am running at 9AM. They should be dead by 9:30 and I can get a morning nap.

-- Posted From My iPad

Dragon Storm Con Prep and more

2011-07-20T18:42:00.001-07:00

Dragon Storm Con is this weekend! You can still sign up as a Supporting member, at least until Thursday evening, and get the Con special release cards shipped to you next Tuesday.

I have been working on getting the final Beta sheets done for the Warrior, Werewolf and Spirit Judges to show at the Con. I found myself loosing focus this afternoon, so I am not sure how much will get finished.

The Spirit Judges are GM cards. These are nasty Necromancers who use a nasty version of Shamanism they have perverted. Maybe a few of them will even take the time to learn shamanism, who knows. What actually spurred these guys in to beta form was the ongoing work on Shamanism itself.

What I did do for relaxation is to work on the Market pages. Specifically I got the Player sets organized, listed and up in a way that it will be easier to find what you are looking for. You can check out the page here.

Posted new versions of Werewolf Beta cards.

2011-07-16T20:37:00.001-07:00

Just uploaded the new Werewolf card versions on the download page! Here they are.

Food at Dragon Storm Con 2011

2011-07-10T18:19:00.001-07:00

Several people have contacted Mark Rosenberger asking about what food will be at the convention!

This is what Mark sent to me. I think the easiest way to pass on the information is to post it right here for starters.

Here is the tentative menu, subject to change based on the number of people coming and what food can be bought.

Friday Lunch: Sandwiches

Friday Dinner: Spirali and Sauce, Itailan Sausage or Meatballs, Garlic Bread

Saturday Breakfast: Ann's baked Eggs and Potatos, Canadian Bacon, Ham

Saturday Lunch: BBQ Pork Sandwiches, Corn on the Cob

Saturday Dinner: Mark's Korma Chicken with Safron Rice

Sunday Breakfast: Ann's Baked Eggs and Potatos, Canadian Bacon

Sunday Lunch: Leftovers, Sandwiches, and Soup

Sunday Dinner: Catch as Catch Can as most people will be leaving, there are several places that deliver

There will be the usual snack table open 24 hours / day: usual fare is cookies, fruit and nut bars, gummy dinosaurs, and animal crakers. There will also be the microwave soup and pop corn stand in the basement that will be open during gaming hours.

Also put these notes up, though most of the regulars already know these rules:

* This is a house, not a convention hall, try to treat it that way. Please open all soda cans over a sink and report any spills immediately.

* The cats are not allowed outside. Ozzie (the white monster) will try to sneak past you; do not let him.

* Please leave the bathroom doors open and the seats down when you leave. Not only will the humans appreciate it, but so will the cats.

Gamemaster updates, Preping for DS Con, Recovering

2011-07-08T21:09:00.001-07:00

I have made my way through the GM card sets, adding art and a few more comments on the sets. In addition, we have listed the Wakana marauders set and the Mighty Madspawn Set. It is always good for the GM's to have some ammo for the really big parties. The page link is here.

We have decided on the DS Con card set and Sue is getting the artwork done for them. I want these cards. If you want a set sent immediatley, but you can not attend the Con, you can get a supporting membership, that way you get a set. We will make the set available at a later date, but it will not be cheap. The Con Page is here.

The DSAnnex will be at StormCon. As you know they sell Individual cards from Kanchaka and Dragon Storm. They have the last of the Deluxe cards as well. Go take a look at what they have. If you email them with your needs they can bring an order to you at the Con.

Almost as soon as the pressure of getting 2.0 out the door and arriving home from Origins/Anthrocon Sue and I fell in to a stupor. My body decided that I need pnemonia to set me down good and hard. The Doc gave me some interesting meds, I am working very slowly, but feeling better every day now.

Just getting a handle on the world

2011-06-29T17:39:00.001-07:00

It is slow going but I am getting dug out of the confusion that came in the wake of the Origins/Anthrocon weekend. I have it all sorted and stacked, now to deal with it all.

I have a stack of stuff to ship, that will take care of the morning. Then I will need a big long nap. In the afternoon I will deal with the jungle that is surrounding the house. In the evening Sue and I will spend time hammering out the final draft of cards for StormCon.

For now all I can do is make my way to the box of donuts and stare at the wall for the rest of the night.

Good Night and Good Gaming!

-- Posted From My iPad

We are back at the Secret Clanhold

2011-06-28T07:38:00.001-07:00

While it is true that the Necros laid many a trap for us over the Anthrocon/Origins weekend we managed to avoid them!

Everything went extremely well over the weekend, at both conventions.

Sue got great assistance from Ann and Steel at Anthrocon, our thanks to both of you!

At Origins Kirk, Tim, Lee, And Mala were great. Could not have done it without them. Many thanks to all!

The 2 launch went off very well, we even sold out of a number of the new sets. We will be getting those reprinted for StormCon, plus we will have a few new cards as well.

A couple of glitches were revealed in the cards, and we will be getting those fixed. Nothing major, so easy to do. We will be adding RST to some of the monster cards so they can not be returned by drinking Vales.

I will be spending today unpacking and putting everything away so we can do a good inventory and plan what to produce.

Wednesday will be a big shipping day.

That is it for today.
Good Night and Good gaming to all!

-- Posted From My iPad

At Origins

2011-06-23T06:25:00.001-07:00

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

We are at Origins

2011-06-22T18:16:00.001-07:00

Everything is in the booth and we are mostly set up.

I will be working with a good group. Looking forward to it. Thanks to Ann, Lee, Tim, Kirk, Mala, Mark.

See you all in the morning!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

On to Origins!

2011-06-22T04:52:00.001-07:00

We are up.
We picked up the new DS 2 Rulesbook yesterday.
It looks look

Staving off exhaustion, barely.

Excited and going to Origins.

Remember that Sue will be at Origins Thursday and the on to Anthrocon on Friday!

-- Posted From My iPad

2.0 Book Pre-Orders! Guild Clan Update.

2011-06-02T17:13:00.001-07:00

The Dragon Storm 2.0 RPG Book has gone to the Printer. We will be picking the books up on the way to Origins/Anthrocon. We will have the Pre-Orders with us at the Cons. Let us know if you want to pick yours up at AnthroCon from Sue. The official shipping day will be the Wednesday after Origins/AnthroCon.

You can go here and order the book right now. Pre-Order price is $20.00. They will be $25.00 at the Cons.

Ann just sent me a Guild Clan update, and I posted it. You can go to the Guild Clan Roster by following this link.

Now that Susan's 2.0 rules are done I can get to work on the many details that need to be done and put in place for the Cons.

Found this, but not what I was looking for.

2011-05-26T07:58:00.001-07:00

I was in search of the piece that was written for the back cover of the Second Edition book. I have not found it, but I found this.

I keep writing story snippets and never know what to do with them, so here it is.

Proper Stranger, by Mark Ellis Harmon

I saw the kid coming, he was surprisingly good for a youngster. He was a little scrawny, but he had potential. Redhead, slight beard starting, and a nasty sword affixed to his back. I kept my eyes closed and waited to see what he would do. I heard the blade leave the sheath.

The kid finally spoke: "All right old man, don't move, or I will take your head off and put it on my belt."

I could not help it, I was impressed with his brass. "Ok, you got the jump on me, what do you want?"

"I want to know where that Dragon went. He flew this way yesterday, and I want him. He burned my hamlet, killed my master, and I owe him something. I need to pay the dragon what he deserves."

Now I am revising my thinking, this kid is just plain mad. "When you find the brute, what are you planning on doing? You do realize how big and nasty that one is."

"Yea, but that does not matter. I have a surprise for him. I am going to look the son of a bitch right in the eye, and let him have it."

"So you think you can kill a dragon?"

The kid looked me straight in the eye and spoke. "Hell no! I want to thank him for killing the necro and setting me free. Besides, he is my dad.. I want to breath fire too."

I smiled, This one was going to be a good kid.

Pre Convention Postings continue

2011-05-25T16:24:00.001-07:00

We are starting with the Gamemaster and the Dragon in our Second Edition Book and cards, but that does not mean we are forgetting about the other shifter races. To prove that I am posting our Beta Werewolf material on the Downloads page for people to take a look at. Plus, I am going to post the Get to Know your Werewolf notes right here.

Get to Know your Werewolf.

©Susan Van Camp and Mark Ellis Harmon

Werewolf Design Notes:

These notes are based on the Beta cards and are not yet finalized.

Werewolf Forms that could be "Adopted" by other shifter races:

Dog Form, Fox Form, Wolf Form, Human Form.

Werewolf Senses:

The Werewolf cards focus on the sense of Smell. For Sight, sound and touch skills the Werewolf can learn the Perception Anchor and add those. The Perception Anchor bonus of +2 would apply to Distinguish Scent and Keen Nose.

Werewolf Form Enhances:

Note that these may only be used when the Werewolf has activated his/her werewolf senses by shifting into any form, including human. A bit odd, that human inclusion, but we are dealing with werewolves.

These Enhances do not have to be played when the werewolf first shifts, they may be combined at a later time. It increases their flexibility. Watch the timing duration of these when you activate them. Leap Away and Regenerate only last about five minutes ( C ). That means ten rounds. In regenerating after a combat that amounts to 10d6 healing.

Werewolf Role-Playing cards:

Distinguish Scent, Keen Nose, Distinguish Scent, Werewolf Hunt, Canine Empathy, Wolf Stalking and Sense Location all have serious role-playing potential.

This means we expect that the players will want to use any, or all, of these in creative ways during adventures. We endorse stretching the rules, and even ignoring the rules to play unique uses. The GM will, of course, determine the results, difficulty and uses using the 3.4 GM ability.

Howl of Rage:

Howl of Rage cards are tied to the forms of the Werewolf. You can always use smaller Howls, but not the larger. That really does mean that a Prime Werewolf can do all three in a round, if they have enough "things" to perform them.

The Classic Howl of Rage is still a valid card. We will not be creating special rules to deal with specific cards. We expect players to use their cards within the spirit of the game as a fun role-playing game. Carrying the Classic Howl and two of the new Howls will be common for higher CP characters.

Werewolf Slashes:

These cards are tied to the size of forms. We expect players to be able to play any of these to support other cards like Channel Healing, no matter what form they are in. These qualify as STR Enhancing cards.

Summon Cards:

Gamemasters will need to work with players on these cards. Some players will want to be able to Summon all three and use three Boon slots to do so. Other players will want to carry just the most powerful Summoned Wolf available. GM's are encouraged to use 3.4 to allow characters to drop the earlier Boons and have just one, if that fits the character's personality.

Note that a Summoned creature uses two IUK per round. That means that they get a Movement and an Action each round and the character summoning them has eight "things" they can do in a round. They are most commonly seen when the character is playing Solo, or in a small party, or when the character needs the extra attack.

What are "Special Items" mentioned on forms?

Players have an interesting way of claiming to use ropes, saddle bags, belt pouches and belts to create gear for their dogs. We left this vague so that players and GM's would feel free to improvise. Good place to use a homemade proxy.

Classic cards and the Werewolf:

Taking a quick scan of the cards it looks like only Slash and Fangs of the Wolf are Enhances and everything else requires a "thing" to activate them. As far as (IUK) requirements of Classic cards, we leave that in the hands of the players and GM. Do what feels right and fair.

Werwolf Background overview:

Werewolves have been recorded throughout written history, so they have been a known Mortal shifter for a long time.

Most werewolves are Human Werewolves, but everything is possible.

Throughout history Dragon Clans used Werewolves as a "police" force because they can speak and use items. The legends of Werewolf raids, and their visual similarity to wakana, make mortals "nervous" of them, at best.

Werewolves are best known as nasty melee fighters, getting up close and personal with their enemies. Werewolves can, like everyone else, be magic users, scribes and anything else, but they are known as warriors.

Werewolf Sizes:

Players will want to take these in to account when they hear the description of spaces available as the GM describes them. If you have any doubt about forms you can use, ask your GM, be sure to include your size in the request to help the GM decide.

Standard Werewolf. 6'3" to 6'9" tall. 200 to 250 lbs weight.

Greater Werewolf. 7'3" to 7'9" tall. 275 to 325 lbs weight. Great Avatar's add another foot in height to account for the wing tips.

Prime Werewolf. 8'3" to 8'9" tall. 350 to 400 lbs weight.

As we approach Second Edition a few hints at random

2011-05-24T13:39:00.001-07:00

The new rules will have several appendixes, and below you will find two. This one is dear to everyone's hearts as it concerns using Classic cards in Second Edition and rules adjustments.

With Marcon coming up this weekend, I thought it best to start answering questions now.

Classic cards and Second Edition:

Classic cards are happily accepted in Second Edition. There are a few cards that will need to be watched, but they blend well. Players are expected to use common sense and the spirit of Dragon Storm to play nicely. If a GM determines that you are abusing the game, being unfair to other players, or have no common sense, they will ask you to stop using some cards in their games.

1. Banned cards: Make it Independent.

2. Modified Cards:

Dispel Magic: Limit one per round.

Teleport: Limit One per round.

Dual Strike, Dual Action, Defend and Cast, Slice and Slide, etc.: May not be combined with any cards. They now stand alone.

3. Either Or Cards. Use Classic Anchors and cards or Second Edition Anchors, but not both. You can mix and match from the list. As an example you could use Classic Masteries and Second Edition Scouting.

Classic Cards Second Edition

Weapon Masteries or Warrior, Archer sets.

Perception or Perception Set

Scouting Anchor or Scouting set

Knowledge Cards or Philosopher set

Language Cards or Linguist Set

Familiar Cards or Companion Set

Bloodline Cards or Bloodline sets

Form Affinity Boon or Form Affinity Anchor

4. "Way Of" cards. A Character may acquire one different Way Of card at Lifeline 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, and 18. These will eventually reappear in Second Edition.

5. What is an Enhance card?
Enhance cards must be combined with an Action, Movement or Independent. They improve your contest number. They do not count as "things" when counting ten things.

When using Classic cards apply this test to see if a card is an Enhance:
Does the card stand on its own, or must it be played in combination with another card to work? If it stands alone it requires a "thing" to use it. An example is Good Moves. It stands alone, it costs a "thing" to play it. Those that can not stand alone, like Dragon Claws and Boosted Moves, are Enhancements and do not cost a "thing" to play.

While we may have opinions on these cards, the final judgement is between you and your GM and how you are using the card. If you need to contrive a sophisticated argument for a card to be an Enhance rather than a "thing", it is probably not an Enhance, it requires a "thing" to use it.

6. Dropping Bloodkin Cards:

We are dropping the Bloodkin cards and folding them into the other racial cards and Anchors. We do not think using Classic Bloodkin cards will affect game balance. Go ahead and use them.

7. New, more powerful Forms.

Second Edition shifter forms are more powerful than Classic Forms. We recommend that you change them over by buying the new forms or by making Proxies of the new forms.

8. Classic Character Cards.

Classic Character cards, including commissioned cards, are Second Edition ready, use them.

9. Storm Rider Guild Cards.

We accept them in Second Edition, but you are always limited by the ten "things" rule.

10. Grandfathering card changes.

Any Warden/GM will be glad to help you replace Classic cards with Second Edition cards. There is no time limit. There is also no requirement that you change, just play within the DS framework and you will be fine. You may only want to use the new cards with new characters.

11. Cards with changes between Classic and Second Edition.

A number of cards have moved from Universal into an Anchor, had stat changes or have new guides for use. We will not be doing card by card rules. In most cases just use the card you have. In the other cases, use your own sense of fair play. If the GM wants to read the card, hand it to her, she can apply 3.4 if she wants. You may want to bring chocolate to sooth the GM.

Overview of Rules changes between Classic and Second Edition.

1. Each player is limited to "ten" things per round.

Action and Movement may be performed without a card, however, all additional "things" require a card to be played to access them.

2. Terrible Two.

A natural roll of two on a 2d6 roll is always a failure. No, you can not get out of it.

3. Exploding Dice.

When rolling 2d6 a 10, 11 or 12 explodes. Roll again and add the result. Yes, the second roll may also explode. A Terrible Two stops exploding dice, but does not negate the result.

4. Characteristics may only be added to a single roll once.

You may only add STR, COR, SPD, or WIS once to a roll, no matter what the combined cards say.

5. We have defined Enhance cards.

Cards like Dragon Claws did not have their own term, they do now.

6. We dropped the term Ace.

Cards are now Enhance, Independent, Action or Anchor instead of being lumped together.

7. Magic Items and Terrible Two.

When a magic Item has a related Terrible Two it misfires. That means it drains and needs serious repair. Your GM will happily decide what you must do. In general a week in Od will do the job of repair.

Yes, there are some updates!

2011-05-23T18:36:00.001-07:00

Susan and I will be in Columbus for Marcon next weekend. The last couple of Cons have been excellent for sales, but they have trimmed our art print supplies. I spent a long weekend getting prints and badges created for the show.

I have posted a series of PDF's on the Downloads page for Second Edition. You can check them out here. The actual changes between Classic are few, but significant. I am really excited about the new "stuff" we will be able to do with the changes in place.

The GM cards are getting a handy overhaul. Now you get to create your own landscapes in ways that could not be done before. This way you can create areas that really are chaotic, new and fantastical. You have more freedom in showing what those nasty Dragon Storms have done to the world. Speaking of Dragon Storms, there is a whole set of cards you can use to build your very own Dragon Storm. Don't forget to add a couple of warp features to the storm, gotta keep the players on their toes.

I did get the weekly Familiar Place posted. It was rather late in the day, oh well. I got backed up here at the Secret Clanhold.

Now, I need to spend a few hours getting the final edit done on the rules, I will be able to do the layouts as soon as Sue finishes the cartoons for the book.

For now, Good Night and Good Gaming!

Updated Great Change Forms

2011-05-19T18:37:00.001-07:00

We have just about finished the update of the Great Change forms.

The PDF's are on the downloads page. Scroll down and you will find them.

The first major adjustment has been the increase in card points for Greater and Prime forms. The second adjustment is that the Greater forms now require the character to have the Seeker Lifeline to take them and the Primes require the Seasoned Lifeline before they may be taken.

We are working on hammering out the Form Affinity set of cards as several of them affect form selection. The Form Enhancement cards also effect form usage and will be in the second Valarian set. Just use the current ones until we get their.

That is it for now. Good night and Good gaming.

Weekend Round Up

2011-05-07T17:54:00.001-07:00

I am slowly recovering, but my work time is still limited.

I got an updated Second Edition FAQ on-line. It includes several questions about how to deal with Classic cards and Characters in Second Edition. You can read it here.

I have also updated the Classic Dragon Storm page. I added PDF's for the Dragon Storm and Kanchaka cards. These are made directly from the original press sheets, so they are awkward, but they are available. If you have other requests, be sure to let me know. I will do the best I can to put it together. Check out the growing Classic collection here.

Everything else I have been doing is mundane prep work for the Second Edition release and supporting Sue's Art business.

Good Night and Good Gaming!

Dragon Storm RPG Friday News

2011-04-29T07:13:00.001-07:00

Later today we will be heading down to the Penguicon convention. Should be fun.

Item Set 401 is now available in the items section of the Market Place. There is also a link to the sets web page with the listing. The Pre-Orders have shipped.

That brings us down to two Item sets still on the Pre-Order page. Sets 402 and 403. Magic Items. We are focused on the item sets for the moment because they work for both Classic and Second edition.

The Pre-orders we are getting are extremely helpful in keeping the cash flow regulated. Thank You! More people placing Pre-Orders would be very good.

I have been fighting off the allergy attacks sent at me by the necromancers. Those pesky enemies have discovered a way of slowing my work to a crawl. It is keeping me away from the hours sitting at the computer. However, it has caused the mind to meander, and you can see the result on my daily blog. I posted two longish meandering talks on the blog this week.

Good Night and Good Gaming!

Thursday Dragon Storm Update. More happening!

2011-04-21T18:37:00.001-07:00

Susan sent me tha last piece of art for the Lifeline Set. I made the PDF, individual pics, wrote web comments, guideline and the card text file. Now you can go to the page and find out all about it.

She also sent me the last card for the Valarian Set, Two Dragon Sets. I will try to get one done per day for the next few days.

I started a page for posting the Classic Deluxe cards in PDF's for those looking for them. We have so many links on the Downloads page it easy to miss the additions. So here is the start of the Classic page. If you have specific needs, let me know and I will put that on the top of the list.

For those who missed it, we have started taking Pre-Orders for the newest Magic Item set. It is #403. These were previously published as the NFS items. What to do with a price of NFS caused a lot of confusion, so we put a price on them. I doubt that anyone who has one will sell it, but they do know what it is worth.

I have spent a good deal of time this week working out a way with local shops a new way of publishing small numbers of cards. That means we will be able to do slower selling sets on nearly an on demand system. It will also allow us to create a system for buying individual cards for $1.00 each. With Second Edition I am laying out the card files in a way that we will be able to get our hands on the cards and make you a set of nine cards for $9.00. You will be able to pick the cards you want in the set. The Classic files are not set up to do this, so we will not be able to go back and do those, sorry.

Good Gaming and Good Night!

Monday Dragon Storm News and Round Up

2011-04-18T12:23:00.001-07:00

It has been a very interesting week around here, so let us take a look.

We finished the web page for Magic Item Set 403. Powerful items that were in limited supply as NFS items. I then promptly posted the set for Pre-Orders. You can get to the page here. I am glad to say that at least one person found the link last night when I posted in to Twitter.

I posted the web page for the Universal Set 302. I am not in a big hurry to rush these to the printer. Since the old cards work for Classic and Second Edition and there is still a supply of DS and Kanchaka Universals around, why hurry?

I also posted the web page for the Universal Set 303. Like the previous set, while we still have the DS and Kanchaka Boosters, there is no hurry.

The Weekly Familiar Place web comic installment has been posted.

I am happy to mention that we are still getting player card submissions. You can check them out here. If you want your ideas to be read by us and other players, you can go here and submit your card idea.

We had a good show on saturday at the Flint Comix Con. It was held downtown Flint and was fun, we even got to teach a few people about DS.

That is it for today, Good Luck and Good Gaming.

A Little Slow in Posting Updates

2011-04-14T08:26:00.001-07:00

I will be getting on track for updates next week. It has been a very full week here, but not much to direct you to.

I posted the web page for Set 301, Channel 01. It includes the Guidelines, notes, sheet PDF, but no individual pics yet. The art is almost done, Sue has sent me two of the three pieces and just one to go. When I get the rest of the art I will post pics and replace the PDF.

We will be assembling and prepping a number of sets for second edition, as we get them done I will post them for proxy use. As fast as the old cash flow allows we will send them off to the printer for the actual cards.

The taxes are almost finished, and once that is behind me I can get more sets worked on.

Sue has also sent me the Second Edition rules to go through and begin layout work on. As with everything, this will take a longer time than I would like. My first time through took about twelve hours. I thought I would be able to do the whole thing in a day or two. The truth is it will be a week or two to get through it all. sigh, that life for you.

I can say it looks really good. Once I get through it I will be doing a full FAQ on Classic to Second Edition card usage. We have identified one Classic card that breaks Second Edition, several that will need to be used thoughtfully, and that is about it. Common Sense will have to be applied to Classic cards to determine if they are an Enhancement or use a "thing", but that is something you and your GM can judge in seconds, especially since the GM is always right in DS.

The Enhancement test is: Does the card stand on its own, or must it be played in combination with another card to work? If it stands alone it requires a "thing" to use it. An example is Good Moves. It stands alone, it costs a "thing" to play it. Those that can not stand alone, like Dragon Claws, are Enhancements and do not cost a "thing" to play.

The banned card is Make it Independent. It absolutely screws up what we want to do with making big "Ka-Boom" cards for high CP characters and Cast.

Thoughtful cards I am not ready to go into yet. You will have to be patient.

This also means that we can slowly release the Second Edition cards over time. By now everyone knows that the original DS and Kanchaka cards are dwindling and we can not reprint them, so we need new cards to sell. We believe we have a 1 to 2 year supply of the older cards, therefore we have 1 to 2 years to get Second Edition fully operational.

And one more note on the rules. +WIS bonus does not have a ceiling, but you can only add it once to a single contest roll. The add only once applies to all Stats.

Now, back to work.

Wednesday Dragon Storm Update.

2011-04-06T10:49:00.001-07:00

Prepping for FCN, taxes and a gut disagreement are slowing things down, but we do have a few new things since Monday.

Started getting the finals done on some of the GM cards. Set 600, GM Storm creation cards, has its own web page, PDF, Guideline and more. I better do the Channel set next, players need some anti-storm weapons at hand.

In this set you can see the Dragon Storm way being expanded. Like characters and cast the storms can now be assembled and role-played by creative GM's. Plus, you have more playable Storm information than ever before.

I just talked to the Printer and Set 401 DS, magic potions will be hitting the press in the next few days. That means we have 10-14? days before it arrives here and the Pre-Order deal drops and it goes to individual sales. You can see the Pre-Order page here. I also increased the initial order, thanks for the Pre-Orders, they really help.

I asked players for Feature ideas, and I am happy to say we have gotten some excellent ideas. I have been posting them on a regular basis, go look. I am focused on the Features at the moment, but all sorts of ideas can go in the hopper. If you want your thoughts on cards available for Sue and I to pick over, you should submit them.

It is also time for me to remind everyone that Dragon Storm Con is July 22nd to 24th. You really should go check it out and sign up. If you want the special Con cards, but you can not attend, get a supporting membership and get the cards. I am not sure how we will make these available later, but we will find a way. We are not going to make them exclusive, but they will not be easy to get either.

If you missed it, we posted the Second Edition Starter/Demo Human Dragon Character. Scroll down and you will find a basic character generation and rules you need sheet you can give to new people. This is the Link.

I have been posting links to new DS sheets and works in my twitter feed. You can see it to the left on the blog page. If you have a twitter account I should be watching, let me know about it.

Monday Dragon Storm Updates

2011-04-04T17:34:00.001-07:00

I have gotten less done than usual today. My gut and I are having a disagreement, so I am taking it easy. Luckily I have the Tuesday and Thursday games set already and since we will be at a Con this weekend I will not need to prep a Saturday game. It does mean this will be a slow week.

I got the latest player submitted cards up on the beta blog. Good stuff! You should look at them.

The Monday Familiar Place web comic has been posted.

I spent the day doing mechanical tasks, catching up the second edition card list. I will be posting the initial list in the next couple of weeks. It is the list of the cards that have made it far enough through the creation, play, edit, re-edit and finalize stages.

I have also started sorting tax papers. *sigh*

Sunday Morning DS Round Up

2011-04-03T08:33:00.001-07:00

What has happened this week? First of all I have discovered why I am not getting full webpages up for the new DS card sets. It takes at least full days work to get each page ready to go. So that is just about all I have gotten done in the past week.

I moved the links to the newest web pages for sets to the top of the Downloads page. This is the link to the page.

The starting/demo character has pictures of all of the cards with notes by each. When you scroll down to the bottom of the page you will find the set PDF's for download.

I have also included a shortened Character Creation and Rules you need for new players. It prints out as a single page. I put this up in an RTF format so our Warden GM's can either print out a couple for reference, or modify it to suit your needs.

Sue created a new Character sheet layout based on the rules she is writing. She provided an example and I laid it out. When done I created a PDF of the Character sheet and put a link to it on the Starting Character web page. If you are looking for a good long/detailed character sheet there are a number of people who have created them. Glenn put one on the Dragon Storm Group on Facebook.

Each of the card sets also include a simplified Guideline RTF. I did them this way so that it would be easy for me to update the Guides to cover new questions as they come up. In some places I have even made reference to some of the changes that affect Classic cards. I really can't get too deep into that until Sue finishes the new rules.

On some of the sets I have added an experiment. There is a buy button for the PDF's. Let's see how that works.

You may have noted that I am doing updates on Twitter, and Facebook, as I complete tasks. Both are quick to do, so I am. If you need the Twitter or Facebook links, check on our links page.

I asked for Feature ideas earlier in the week and players responded, Thank You! These are the ones I got up. There are a couple more good ones I need to post, and you should see them Wednesday.

Now, links to the new set pages:

Card Set 100. Human Dragon Starter/Demo. Lot of info here.

Card Set 102. The rest of the Dragon Characters. We now have ten races. Yes, this process will be repeated for each shifter race.

Card Set 200. The first Dragon Abilities sheet. It looks like we have four total Dragon sets on the way through the pipes. The fifth set is partial.

Card Set 400. Magic Rings. Now in the Market for ordering. The new versions do not need another card with them to work. They now stand on there own.

Card Set 401. Magic Potions. We are going to be doing a lot more with items as we go along. This is the first potion set. You can pre-order these, they are in the market.

Card Set 402. Magic Items. Nine all new items. Not as powerful as the old NFS items, but good stuff. You can pre-order these in the market.

Over the next couple of weeks, we have a convention and taxes to deal with. That means getting more than a day or two for DS is going to be tough, but keep an eye on the twitter and here for updates.

Set 401, Magic Potions gets its page!

2011-03-30T14:54:00.001-07:00

I am trying to play a little catch up here and get some of the web work done. I completed the Set 401 Magic Potions page. It has the card pictures, notes, PDF to download and the Guideline.

I have gone to a quick and easy RTF Guideline with numbered points. I had wanted to do something more elegant, but there is just not the time to do it. Let me know how those work for everyone.

Set 401 is already at the printer, and is available for Pre-ordering. Several people already have and I need to up our initial order on them. Go ahead, order five sets for yourself, unless you already have.

You have probably noticed that we are focusing on new Items for Second Edition. You, and we, still have the classic items, so there is no real sense in us hurrying to do more of those. All of the old items still work. The Magic items are the only ones that will even need a second thought on how they work.

Remember the old NFS items? We are just about ready to put the Second Edition versions of them up. I am hoping next week.

Sue has sent me a long list of commission printing to be done, and the kitchen is calling for a clean up crew, so I will be off DS for the night. In the morning it will be a long grocery run taking up time. I will be getting back to DS sometime tomorrow afternoon.

Good Night, and Good Gaming!

Magic Item Set 402 is available for Pre-Orders.

2011-03-30T09:16:00.001-07:00

I have sent the set off to the printer, therefore we are taking Pre-Orders.

I have made a web page that has the pictures, guideline and PDF all on the page for you to look at, mull over, and then order.

Speaking of placing your Pre-Order, here is an ever so handy link to go do just that.

I want to mentiong the Dragon Storm 2011 Convention as well. We are working on the special cards to be included with the memberships. If you have not checked out the Con, or have not bought a membership yet, you should go to the page and do that.

Features Arriving!

2011-03-30T07:07:00.001-07:00

I asked for Players to submit new Feature card ideas, and they did. You can look at them right here.

Thank You, and keep them coming. Submission Link here.

Now that we have opened the ability to proxy cards we can web publish a lot of cards for the GM to pick through in creating "situations".

I am happy with the submission system. I can go online and by searching for the right type, like Features, I can see all of your ideas at one time. Play with them, put them in a card and send them off to Sue for a yes/no response. It also means that I can actually find the ideas that have been submitted. Works good. Keep doing it.

Game went well last night. They did not like Granny in the steam bath with all of her Warped Labrynith Cats (On Cast 13, you can download them now, scroll down). Ten of the little ugly furballs dancing in, striking, then dodging away. Only the Exploding attacks really hurt them, but it gave nice cover for a Prime Madspawn that looked like a sweet Granny. Granny had the not yet web published "Uses Witchcraft" feature, used Split Actions to attack twice, regenerated like crazy and well. It was about a 600 point encounter. The Steam in the room started things off with 2d6+2 Heat damage.

Now, on to the next project.

The Feature Hunt

2011-03-29T07:47:00.001-07:00

It looks like I need Eight Features to finish out another sheet. Look over the GM Features on the Download page. If I am missing something from the past, post me a note here.

If you have a Feature you have enjoyed using, submit it as a card idea, and we will see what happens.

Monday, and more Dragon Storm!

2011-03-28T16:00:00.001-07:00

I sit down at the computer to put up information in the blog about three times a week, yet I never know what I am going to do until I start typing. Everything here is the first rough draft of thoughts about the game and what we are doing.

The problem is I have a few hundred thoughts, cards, ideas, stories and scenarios bubbling around in the brain. For the cards I did a quick check to see where we are at. I have just over 1600 cards in the computer for DS and probably twice that many in notes. I am never sure which ones people are interested in, so I just make my best guess. I put some time into prepping for tomorrows game and that caused me to touch up the little Labyrinth cast members I have been using to test the players. They are not much individually, but since the party is running over 600 CP, I can use a dozen of them and throw in some fun features. With the new Exploding dice these little monsters actually get to hurt the characters. Anyway, I added the cast 13 sheet to the downloads page. Scroll down to the new GM cards and check it out.

When I am prepping for a game I sometimes put cards for encounters in nine card sleeves for easy access. I have really got to get some more of the card holders from Tim, those work sweet for a GM. I put together a couple of the sheets in the computer and added them at the bottom of the GM cards on the download page.

Oh ya, I remember what I was here for, more new potions that are in the pipeline:

The Strength and Speed Vales are two more that have longer durations. They work best if you know you are not going to be needing healing or recharge vales. As you recall drinking a potion cancels any operating potions.

On Wednesday I believe that I will be announcing new sets available for Pre-Order. So get ready to place orders. It should be the Magic Items we showed a couple of weeks ago (Algar's and Karvac's items) and the first two Basic Universal sets for Second Edition.

Thanks to you guys I am also going to have to increase the order for the Common Potion set #401 at the same time. It really helps us for you to order these as we send them off to the printer, Thanks!

Sunday Updates

2011-03-27T15:27:00.001-07:00

Sue and I went to Animarithon on Saturday at Bowling Green as an experiment. Anime Cons, even one day ones are well worth going to, but we are tired.

The new Cast GM cards we posted got Doug to send in his Goblin ideas. I posted them on the DS Beta Blog, go look. Glad to see creative fun stuff from the players! Thanks.

I added a PDF of GM accessories cards. The new sheet is the Smiling GM cards we have been using, plus the Unknown Interference card. Scroll down to the GM PDF's for a look. I like giving these out during the game, it reminds me to give bonus experience for good role-playing.

Friday brings DS Potion talk

2011-03-25T14:28:00.001-07:00

There is a new Potion rule in Second Edition that I should make you aware of.

Basically you can only have one Potion working at a time. This will not affect healing potions and the like because they work in a flash and are done. Some of the other potions you will be seeing here last for a longer time. The Chameleon Vale below works for a variable amount of time (V). However, if you were to drink a Healing Vale, the Chameleon Vale would instantly drain, poof, done. As with all character abilities and items it will be the players responsibility to keep track of their own goods.

We are preparing to head down to Bowling Green in the morning for a one day Anime Con. It is an experiment, just to see if it is worth it. I have been in contact with their game room person and I will have Demo space in the game room.

A Latent Question

2011-03-24T10:14:00.001-07:00

What to do with the Latent Shifter concept has a potentially simple solution, but I would like some input from you.

The Latent Shifter is someone who has strong enough Dragon's Blood to be a potential shifter. The Latent cards really should wind up giving a character the same stats as one that starts as a shifter. If this blood is already strong enough to become a shifter, then they should be drainable, maybe not as good as a real meal for a necro, but maybe an appetizer?

So, how about a single card that is attached to a shifter character, rather like a Flaw?

Any thoughts?

Wednesday, Newsletter Ships!

2011-03-23T17:06:00.001-07:00

The March 2011 Newsletter has issued forth from the Secret Clanhold. (Time to do a happy dance! Just imagine me dancing. Aren't you glad there is no video.)

If you are not signed up for the newsletter, but you want to get ahold of a copy, you can go to the newsletter page and download a copy.

If you are signed up for the newsletter but you did not get it, I may have a bad email for you. Then I need you to go and fill out a form with your correct email. I will get Mocha on those updates right away.

If you are not signed up for the Newsletter, or the Guild, you can do both on the Guild Site.

I have gotten myself distracted by these blasted Orcs. I now have 20 cards that I can't properly evaluate because I need the Dragons and Universal combats to compare them to.

Friday I think you will be seeing the start of the next Potion set.

Monday, and more Dragon Storm!

2011-03-21T12:26:00.001-07:00

We will start off with the news that we received the new Set 400 from the Printer. We shipped the per-orders. We posted the set as available individually in the Market place and added an Items page, take a look. It took just over five weeks to get the cards back from the printer this time.

Set 401, Potions, is now available for Pre-Order. You can go here and place your orders now.

I posted the newest Familiar Place Monday Comic. It is here.

For those of you who have been wondering what we will be doing for the GM's, I have posted some GM PDF's for downloading. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and check them out. If you have any comments, please send them to me at mark@marksmysteries.com. If you have any card suggestions for the GM, here is the link to the card submission page.

So, for now, Good Night and Good gaming!

Friday Dragon Storm RPG Update

2011-03-18T07:23:00.001-07:00

Time for the last three magic Items in this set.

This is a very good one handed blade at +4 STR. Once per day (L1D) the wielder can add a +20 melee attack. Just the thing for a finishing move. The blade recharges each adventure day at Dawn (DWN). If the wielder rolls a Terrible Two while using the blade the magic function will not work again until the weapon is "repaired" .

One nice feature here is that the blade shifts with the user. That means that shape shifters do not drop the sword. It is not usable in a form, but you do not drop it. A Werewolf, Gargoyle or any Avatar may choose not to absorb the item and use it, since they have hands.

Having just covered the DWN, L1D and Shifts with user on the previous card, I will only say, they appear here as well.

The Spirit Pipe is a good item for the role-playing aspects of the game. It also allows non-shaman characters to get information from the spirit world. GM's can take advantage of this type of item to pass on information characters may have "missed" as they went along.

These items are all intermediate Magic Items. We are working upward from the simpler magic rings and potions to more powerful Magic Items. In the process we noticed that we need more magic items.

We have gotten far enough along in the rules and cards to be able to create the Second Edition Items. There have been a lot of interest in the NFS items we published. A rework of them is on Sue's desktop for her editing.

Now for a little advertising:

Card Set Pre-orders are here. We are getting good responses. Keep ordering!

Registration for the Dragon Storm Con 2011 is open. Check it out and register. The earlier we know how many special card sets to arrange for, the better It appears to be taking a month to get the cards back from the printer, so we will need some serious lead time.

I have begun a new series of pages related to the Second Edition Cards sets. The only one working at this moment is the Item Set 102. I will get these done by using my spare time on this project. Go take a look.

Wednesday Dragon Storm Updates

2011-03-16T18:39:00.001-07:00

I have started a new project. I do that a lot. Anyway, I am putting together a page for each set of cards. I have managed to complete exactly one page so far, you can see it here.

On the bottom of the page you will find individual card PDF's. Our printer is creating a new layout system, and during that conversion process I have a PDF. Since we have folks who want their computers to speak the cards, I decided to add the PDF's at the bottom of the page.

For today's cards we have three more "intermediate" magic items. These are all Karvac's magic items. Karvac was an Archer and a scout. Her twin sister, Algar was a warrior. Friday's update should include Algar's items.

The twins expended a huge amount of experience to create the original's of these. Today Ritualists work with volunteers to create a few of these copies each year.

Sue has the art assignment on these and when she gets those completed we will be printing this set.

Monday Morning RPG and Comic Updates

2011-03-14T09:11:00.001-07:00

The Monday Morning Familiar Place Web comic is up! Go take a look.

Pre-Orders being taken for the new Potion Set. The page is here. We are expecting the Magic Rings in any day now. If you did not pre-order yet, you can still do so.

Dragon Storm Con Registration is open. Plan on it, Do it. The link is here.

We have some new Magic Items to start showing. Sue is working on the art for these.

When using a reusable Magic Item, like these books, and you get a Terrible Two the item drains and will need to be reactivated before it is available again. It fails, but you will get it back.

Magic books connect the intrepid adventurer directly with a Philosopher Spirit. Useful for both players and GM's.

Different Spirits specialize in different times.

There are many copies of each of these books, which means that Don, Newt and Ann are busy spirits.

Necromancers like to have one copy of these books for themselves. I am afraid that the Philosopher's can not tell if the knowledge they disperse is going to a good or bad person.

Necromancers want to keep knowledge out of the hands of everyone but themselves. That means when they hear of one of these books they try to find and destroy the book.

Enough for today, next update Wednesday.

Sunday Evening Upload!

2011-03-13T18:05:00.001-07:00

There are five new Second edition Sets on the content page. You can find them here. It includes the Perception, Scouting, Philosopher, Street Smarts and a new Magic Item set.

I am waiting to here from Susan's Spirit messenger. When I do I will be driving down to Detroit to pick her up. Sounds like she had an excellent convention, but she will be tired.

Sunday News from the DS Secret Clanhold.

2011-03-13T07:57:00.001-07:00

Pre-orders are now being taken for the new Potion set. You can check out the contents by downloading the PDF and decide what you want. Just follow this link to check it out.

The printer tells me that the Ring set will be here this week. When they arrive the set will be moved to the new Items section of the market and they will be available individually for $4.00 each.

We have been getting reservations for the Dragon Storm Con 2011. If you have not checked out this special Dragon Storm event, follow this link and check it out.

Susan is currently at Furnal Equinox and is having a good time. The Con is going well.

Here at the Clanhold our water heater has decided to give up the ghost. Rather than be hurried into buying a solution, we are trying the old fashioned washbowls, boiling water and all that stuff. It is, so far, an interesting experience in going back to the "good old days". I do not recommend going back to the old ways.

I have been tweeking the Guild site, trying to make it easier to find the different options available. You can check it out here.

The DS Content page has had a few revisions. We are slowly adding the PDF's for the Second Edition. The changes in the game still allow the old and new cards together, however, you may need to add a little common sense in the conversion. I am sure that DS Players and GM's can easily cope with it. The link to the page is here.

That is it for today, I need to get back to card editing. This process is much slower than I would like it to be.

Tuesday brings Guild updates and more GM hints.

2011-03-08T07:36:00.001-08:00

I completed a Clan Roster update that arrived in my email from the hard working Councilor Ann. I also broke out more of the link buttons to make it easier to find information on the Guild pages. Go take a look.

Gamemasters and Multiple attack tracking in Second Edition.

Among the basic Universal cards Split Action and Kick both provide additional attacks in a combat round. For most creatures, and characters, these are the only ways to get additional attacks. Each of these cost 4 CP. This means that if you want a wakana to run up, kick and hit twice it will cost 8 CP to do so. If you are keeping track of extra experience on a scratch sheet you would write down 8 for later experience.

If a Character, or cast, gains the Warrior Anchor they will be able to access the Hit 'em Again card and get a fourth attack. This one is also 4 CP. The GM will want to be careful here, because giving our Wakana above a fourth attack costs the 4 CP and the 10 CP for the Warrior Anchor to make that fourth attack. You will need to add 14 to your scratch pad for extra experience.

Gamemasters can use these CP adds to create anxiety in the characters without having the cards actually with the bad guy. This should be used to heighten the game. Normally bad guys should be limited to three attacks, with the fourth attack being unusual and used only against higher CP characters.

The simple surprise of a Skeleton swinging twice can keep the characters on edge. Use this GM shortcut to keep the characters sense of danger and chaos ramped up.

As a side note, shape shifters will have a fourth attack built into each of them. The dragon's Tail strike is an example, and it also comes into 4 CP. The CP cost is being kept consistent across the game, making the GM's job simple.

A Dragon, or other shifter, who is also a Warrior will be able to attack five times. Within the design we will be trying to keep that as the top limit.

Tomorrow I will look at shortcuts deploying bad guy archers.

Good Morning Gamemasters!

2011-03-07T10:12:00.001-08:00

Gamemasters have a lot of details to deal with during an adventure, and I have a tip to pass along.

Health Anchors. Making your bad guys tougher.

A GM should have a set of health anchors handy during the game. If the players are having to easy of a time running merrily through your bad guys, use your Health Anchors.

These cards are universal cards and they can be played as easily on the bad guys as they are for Players to buy for the characters. The only detail to be careful of is to make sure you add the card points for any of the Anchors you use to the players total experience gained for the evening's play.

Numbers.

With the new exploding dice numbers count in ways they never have before. Skeletons are low CP value and they have a chance at having an exploding dice attack. What difference does it make to you, or your necro, if the characters blast six, 12 or 18 skeletons. If your dumb skellies get one, two or even three exploding attacks in, they can do some damage before they are splinters on the floor.

Zombies are also nice for this, and they can take a few extra hits. If the zombies are not tough enough, add six CP and 12 HP to them from your handy Health Anchor.

A few Haskalad archers can always be fun to through into the mix. They like to hang back and fire at good guys, that is what they do.

A Scratch pad for Experience notes:

When I am running a bunch of easy to destroy bad guys I keep a piece of scratch paper handy. On that paper I simply write down the experience for the skeleton as they are destroyed and add it all up at the end of the night.

I also jot down the experience from the Health Anchors I used here. It all winds up in the same pot, so why not just put it all down together.

I like to keep experience points from scene changes on the same pad. When they enter a warp bubble, find a ruins, whatever they stumble across. Individually these events do not add up to much, but over the course of an evening they can add up to 30 or 40 experience for non-combat activities. When they are in a Hamlet or village these points can jump up to 80 to 100 points. Remember, we count for dealing with the surroundings. Snitches, merchants, scouts rumormongers, beggars and a lot of other incidents can become experience.

Dragon Storm Second Edition Universal Cards Posted.

2011-03-06T08:52:00.001-08:00

I have posted PDF's for the first two Universal skill sets for Second Edition DS. You can go download them, make proxies, and use them right now.

The Universal skills in these two sets are basic survival skills available to everyone in the Stormlands. They are excellent cards to add to young characters as they learn the world around them. As characters grow they will have access to more powerful versions that are "unlocked" by acquiring Anchors.

From a design point of view these skills give us a foundation on which to build the more powerful skill cards that are acquired through training and buying Anchors.

One question I know we will see is: "What happened to adding Characteristics to skills?" Skill cards unlocked by adding Anchors do add Characteristics.

I have several additional Anchor sets in hand that Sue has returned to me for final tweeking. You will be seeing them appear over the next 2-4 weeks.

Right now I will go work on the first nine Valarian Second Edition cards.

Friday DS Update

2011-03-04T09:38:00.001-08:00

Sue has dumped a vast number of card sets back into my lap. That means I need to slowly go through all of them and get them ready for posting. So, new samples will be waiting a couple of days.

Talking Enhance Cards:

We are going to have to explain the Enhance cards carefully. People are still temped to try to play them as a stand alone card. Enhance cards never stand alone. By themselves they have no power. They need to be combined with an Action or Independent to be used.

We have always had that problem with people wanting to play Dragon Claws as an extra attack. The advantage of labeling the Enhance cards is that we can now point to a "Class" of cards that must be combined to be played.

That means that when you are studying the cards everything that says Enhance needs to be looked at closely.

This weekend I am going to assemble the press sheets for the starting character and for the Potion set and send them off. I will be putting up pre-order information as soon as they go off to the printer.

The Ring set is being printed and we will have them soon, then I ship the pre-orders and put the set into the regular listing at full price.

Now, back to work.

Thursday Update, More Potions and content update

2011-03-03T08:16:00.001-08:00

I have added Second Edition card files to the content page. You can go and download them anytime you want. The Starter/Demo Character, Starter Item sheet, Magic Rings and Magic Potions are up now. Watch for more.

The Second Edition rules have returned from myself back to Sue. The first Appendix, The GM and Items, has been added for editing. We are making good progress. Next time I get them back I will be able to lay them out in publishing format to see better what we have.

Now, let us look at the next three potions.

In the new rules to be able to use your 8 Independents, you will need a card to play. This is a card and qualifies. So when you have no Ind ability cards to play, you can drink a potion.

We are also adding a way for characters to get experience when their enemies use Magic Items. Sue's idea is that we use a 10 to 1 ratio. So, if the necro drinks one of these during combat their will be an extra 7 experience points added to the players pool of experience.

Magic Meals. Now how much better can life get.

I really want to write an article about the starter character. I hope to do that this evening.

Tuesday DS Updates.

2011-03-01T06:51:00.001-08:00

Today is a short update. We are continuing the potion set today.

In the Second Edition rules you will need a card to use to perform your eight Ind's. For young players that means they will have time to drink potions. Higher CP characters will have spells and abilities to use, so they will be drinking fewer potions than the kids.

Magic Coffee! Way to go.

The GM is going to have a number of different Tox cards to use, so expect a lot more need for these potions. Dragon Storms, warped lands, and occasionally the monsters will have the tox.

OK, that is it for today.

It is Monday! Again

2011-02-28T08:35:00.001-08:00

Sometimes I feel like Monday comes every week. I know that can not be true, but what can you do. Anyway, I have posted the Weekly Familiar Place Web comic from the artist Susan Van Camp. Spread the word, tell people where to find Familiar Place.

Now, let me see what else is in the bag. All these scrolls here in the Secret Clanhold must have, ah yes.

The Farmers Spirit. Old Simpson Jebry had died. It was, by all accounts, a natural death of old age. Not a unique way to die, but not usual either. All of his life he had heard stories about the world "out there", and he had dreamed of seeing it.

His spirit lingered and he floated slowly along, taking in the sights on his way to the void, for he did not have the power to survive long as a spirit, he was just taking the long way to his final end. He spied a tigrean barbarian who was carrying a bone. The barbarian was treating the bone well. It had been very tasty meat.

Old Simpson thought that he would follow the barbarian for a time and moved into the bone. When the barbarian was looking for healing herbs, Simpson saw one. When the barbarian finally threw the bone away, Simpson guided it next to the Healing Herb. The barbarian was perplexed at the bones odd flight and investigated. He found the herb. Being a superstitious sort, he picked the bone back up as he gathered the herb. The bone thanked him in his mind. This took the barbarian by surprise.

He proceeded to question his fellow travelers about the bone, asking them if they could hear it talk, they could not. He started to hand the bone to one of his fellows, and the bone spoke again.

"What? You are giving me away?" He snatched the bone back and finally asked the bone what it wanted. "Me, I want to see some of the world before I go on." So, the barbarian put the bone in his pouch and they travelled on.

As a GM I am always looking for ways to give players a little feel for the oddity of Grandilar and the spirits. In this case I watched how the player was role-playing the character, and he was doing a good job of it. So, I threw him a bone, literally.

Next, we have the new cards for the day. Potions will be the next set that we publish, so let us get a look.

The first thing we need is something to put the potions in that can be attached to a belt and allow for easy use. Yes, there will be magic versions coming along.

In Second Edition we are going to clearly distinguish between diseases and the Tox. They act the same, but they are not the same. The Tox needs different treatments than diseases.

This is another of those, "We need this in the game" cards that duplicates a Classic card. We recommend that Classic Vales of Refreshment use two IND to consume, because you get two cards back. It will be up to the players to track that. GM's already have plenty to do. If you forget, oh well, it is a game.

All right then, that is enough for today.

Dragon Storm and SVC Weekly Update

2011-02-27T07:55:00.001-08:00

It has been an interesting and busy week here at the Clanhold. Everything is progressing towards a full DS 2nd edition. I wish there were a way we could do it all at once, but that is beyond our abilities. *sigh*

Sue is getting regular updates on her Fur Affinity account. Many of these are commissions she is completing.

She is also posting to her regular art Blog. If you are tracking her art, this is a good way to do so.

And here at the DS blog we have been showing off a number of the new cards for DS as they approach completion. I have been posting these to my Flickr account as I go along. If any of you out there have a Flickr account I should be following, let me know.

If you want to read some of my crude comments about the ongoing card exposures, go back through the last few days on this blog.

I have been getting regular Etsy updates done as I go along. Stop in and see what prints are available. It will probably be a couple of weeks yet before I get really caught up on that.

Susan's Familiar Place Free Web comic is still getting regular monday updates. If you have not been following along, you can start from the first issue and catch up. What we are learning here will get us ready to do a Dragon Storm comic on a regular basis as well.

I have started reworking our content page to include, mostly, just the finished 2nd Edition sets. The ones on the content page are ready for Proxies. We will print as soon as we can arrange it. The printed ones, like the Ring Set, will be in the market. There is a PDF attached in the market so you can proxy the cards as needed, or order them when they are available.

Which reminds me, the printer is nearly ready to ship these to us, so the time to get the special price on the Ring Set is coming to a close soon.

We are getting a good start on people signing up for Dragon Storm Con 2011. Have a good look at your calendar, check out the information, and sign up so we have an idea of how many will be attending.

If you want to keep up with everything we are posting to the web, follow me on Twitter at markellisharmon.

I also post on Facebook. You can find my account here. Because I have the Guild mailing list I can not use the handy FB search functions to find you. I am far too paranoid to risk your emails, so I don't search for others.

I did not get the last three Lifeline cards up here last week, so here they are:

We have none above Nine, but if it becomes necessary to put them up as a PDF for Proxies, we could do that. Ten will be at 1,500 CP.

That is is for the weekly update, enjoy!

Friday Update, Starting the Lifelines

2011-02-25T07:36:00.001-08:00

If you are confused by the order of Thursday and Friday Blogs. Apparently we have been the victims of a nasty time shift a Pylos Agent slapped on the Secret Clanhold.

Here are the first three Lifelines..

Thursday update, more Lifelines

2011-02-25T07:31:00.001-08:00

The next three Lifelines. Elder, Esteemed and Grand Elder are here.

Lifelines are designed to work within Second Edition to give characters bonuses for their experience. The numbers on this series is are designed specifically to integrate with the Second Edition HP improvements and the 10 things rules. They also give a visual record of your characters LLB and Boons limit. Handy to have right there with your character. Classic players will want to stick with the old Lifelines, these will be out of whack for Classic characters.

Tomorrow we will have the final three Lifelines. Right now I need to get to work on that Astral Belt magic item you have never heard of.

Wednesday Update

2011-02-23T10:36:00.001-08:00

We had some pure 2.0 games yesterday, they went very good. We started with just the new Starter Dragon Characters. After watching the groups play we will be switching out three cards from the set and putting in different ones.

That means no new cards today, I am busy doing revising work, so well, on to it.

There is going to be some confusion about Enhances, but there always has been. How many times have we all seen people want to attack with Dragon's Claws or a Werewolf Slash. Now we have named the Enhances so we can deal with them.

Should be back to cards tomorrow.

Good Morning! More Street Smarts for you.

2011-02-22T07:38:00.001-08:00

Today we will finish looking at the Street Smarts. Sue is upstairs right now giving these another run at editing, so I am sure there will still be some tweaking before publishing.

Basically this takes the old rumormonger Human card and opens it up to the world. Yes, vermites can now spread stories, but the GM may modify roll just because few people trust a Vermite.

Once again, this card is designed for town use. Finding a trap in the wilds takes a different skill set. Although it would be worth checking to see if you can use it in an abandoned temple. Maybe, see your wise and wonderful GM. (Did you bring chocolate?)

This will be an easy contest in a hamlet you know well, but in a new place, well, there is that GM MOD to use to simulate that.

Looks like the humans are going to need some new skills. Haggle is going to be available to everyone who knows the streets. I am thinking that the butlers buying for the rich will have street smarts, but the rich will be taking the Aristocrat cards.

This is a card that covers a lot of territory in a few words. Players will be using this one in all sorts of creative ways. Just be sure that as you suggest unique uses, do not expect the GM to recall what she agreed to today. It may not work tomorrow.

Street Smarts Anchor and the associated cards.

2011-02-21T08:07:00.001-08:00

To start this off I want to let you know that the weekly Familiar Place Web comic has been posted. You can go look at it here.

Street Smarts. Many anchors in Classic DS lead to a series of cards that can be played. That is how we did Magic, Valarians and many others. Street Smarts takes this approach into the skills area. It means that their will be fewer Universal cards, but that is no big deal, there will still be plenty.

These cards not only create a series of logical cards, they also create a way of adding a knowledge base to your characters that fit their personalities. Not all characters will be studying the street life.

Obviously these skills are aimed at use in town. If you are looking for the wilderness versions, wait for the Scout.

Another street skill of value.

Valarians will naturally be hesitant to use this skill, but sometimes it may be a necessary skill.

GM's will want to take a look at these skills. Using them on Cast members will let you fill out the world nicely. Personally I am just using the base anchor as a feature on my street cast. I am a little lazy. It also means I can gobble up the extra anchors from multiple sets to use as GM cards.

Tuesday will see the other five cards in the set.

This week in Dragon Storm and Art by Susan Van Camp

2011-02-20T08:47:00.001-08:00

We had an interesting week of samples for people to look at this week. So, here are some links to tie it all together.

We officially announced the Dragon Storm Con 2011. We are getting sign ups for both supporting and player memberships. I also upped the bonus for being a GM. Sign up. Spread the word. It will be fun.

There have been some upgrades to the Guild site. It is easier to find the character update forms, the guild membership and Clan rosters are updated.

I have made a Flickr Set of Pictures that have all of the GM cards from the week. These should be set up so you can download them and make Proxies. Yes, we need an awful lot of art before these are ready. You can also bet there will be some tweaks of the cards before they are published, but they are close.

I also created a Flickr set of the Character starter cards. These cards are pretty well set, but there will be a couple of changes. As I am going through Sue's new rules I discovered I will need to add the first Lifeline card and a Bloodline card. We are going to go with the Ravenwing. You will be seeing these cards next week. OK, I just added the Bloodline and the Lifeline to the Flickr Set. More on Bloodlines next week.

On the 2.0 rules, Sue has sent me the rough. I am doing the edit. I have finished the Player section and very soon I will be heading for the GM section.

I finished updating the Dog art section of the Etsy store. I am almost guessing that no one has actually seen all of the dogs in one place, until now. Their is also a Flickr Dog Set on my Flickr account.

The Wolves and Werewolves section of the Etsy shop is updated. These pics are just plain fun. I also made a Flickr set of these.

The cats and kittens on Etsy are getting an update. That will be ongoing this week. I will be throwing in a few other things, like dragons just to add some variation.

I have created a commission section on the Etsy store. There is just one so far, but they will be growing.

As I have been working I have started putting up a Twitter announcement with each. My Twitter account for work is markellisharmon. Go ahead and follow, I won't mind. I do try to answer private messages.

I have also been putting updates on my Facebook page. This link takes you to my profile, where you can do the friend thing. I am too paranoid about security to open my address book to FB and look for people. After all, I have your email addresses and I do not trust any of them.

Looking at this week in Dragon Storm, I am getting tired already. I better get back to work.

More GM Terrain Features

2011-02-19T07:34:00.001-08:00

Today we have a few more GM terrain features that relate to people, their places, their ruins and anything else related to the world itself.

Combining a Mountain, Frozen weather, a couple of hamlet ruins, a warped site or two, an inhabited Hamlet with a General Store and a Roadside Inn gives a background for the search for the ancient Ravenwing Villa that is rumored to be here. Of course, the fact that the rumor came to the Valarians through a spy employed by a necromancer as a researcher, means their is competition for the goodies.

These are not terribly common in lightly populated areas, but there are always a few Jikadel Missionaries who want to spread the word. They have some very interesting ways of confusing people and getting them to surrender their freedom by offering to protect them from the nasty Shape Shifters.

These spots are frequently the remnants of a Dragon Storm that came through at some time in the past few years. Areas with regular Dragon Storms have lots of these. A wonderful meeting spot for warpspawn, mad spawn and other ugly cast members.

A lot of hamlets have merchants around. These are normally locally owned establishments that rely on the good will of locals and traveling merchants for survival, so they are open to new faces.

Roadside Inns pop up at hamlets and even in the wilds. They are found at crossroads and any where else that people may need a nights sleep.

Tomorrow will be round up day.

GM Terrain Features

2011-02-18T06:56:00.001-08:00

We have even more Terrain Features for you.

The basic idea is that you start with one of the basic Terrains we showed a few days ago and add as many Terrain Features as you need to be able to run the area as you want to. So far we have looked at the land itself. Today we start taking a look and the population of the area, and anything they have left behind.

Small and semi-permanent farmer, hunter homes. These are common in the lands. They also tend to lean towards Elethay. Jikadell requires a bureaucracy and enforcers to enslave the locals and it is not profitable to do it in such small places.

Of course, hamlets, being too small to overcome some of the dangers of the world, are abandoned on a regular basis. There are more ruins than hamlets. The troubling fact is that something made them leave, and it may still be nearby.

Hamlets usually have an Elethay Shrine. One, or more, of the locals works in the fields and is an Acolyte. Low overhead religion. Being a religion of Faith and Freedom Elethay is clearly different than Jikadell's Power and Greed religion.

When a hamlet is abandoned, so are the shrines.

OK, these are all over the place. Outside hamlets, maintained, abandoned, ancient, old and new. Nothing good gets up and wanders out of a burial ground.

One of the changes here is that we are taking the scene cards apart and using the ideas from them as Terrain Features. The adventure "hooks" from the scene cards will be making there way into the actual 2.0 rulesbook to help give the starting GM some ideas for adventures.

That is it for today.

More on the Dragon Storms of Grandilar

2011-02-17T08:19:00.001-08:00

I am running behind schedule today, but I have packed most of the shipping for today's run to the post office. Guild memberships have been updated, and cards are shipping. The orders of the week are packed. I have a couple of art packages to prepare yet, but that should not take more than half an hour.

Dragon Storm Con 2011 Update: We have started getting memberships and supporting memberships. This is a good thing. As soon as you know that you will be coming to the Con, make your way to the page and buy your membership. If you can't attend, be sure to buy a supporting membership so you get the cards.

Now, on to the days GM Storm cards:

The Storm that is most common in the lands. They will burn out when they leave there Warped homelands, but the damage they can do while winding back down to a Hopper is a big deal.

The Mantle that a Flyer grows is a painful layer that obscures what is going on inside the storm.

Here it is. The full Dragon Storm. To take one of these out is nearly a campaign of its own. Some of these have held together devastating the lands for a year or more.

Wrapped around the Nexus the Outer Core is a barrier that must be fought through to reach the Nexus.

There, that is it for today.

Dragon Storms, A first look.

2011-02-16T07:39:00.001-08:00

Let me see what I have here. Ah yes, Dragon Storms. It has come to my attention that these wild dangers have been neglected over the past 15 years.

In Susan's edit notes to me on these she points out that these storms are going to need a serious treatment in the Guideline for them. That means use these with the idea that your understanding of them may change. Chaos, embrace it.

The earliest storm seed. These pop up in many warped areas, but few of them find the fuel they need to advance. Having said that it is dangerous to leave them. Wild madspawn have been seen to find additional warp fragments and feed these to make them grow.

The second stage of a storm. Again, many of these fail to go on to the next stage. They may well have the side effect of creating a warped pocket on the land that can continue for decades. It is best to snuff them out early.

For those of you who are curious, Proto storms do occur underground in the clanhold ruins of the ancient dragons. Especially where several ancients were killed and drained. Finding one of these in an underground room is, well, distressing.

Now the storm has become free of it's anchor to the ground. It has enough size and power to begin moving. It is naturally drawn to warp sources to continue its growth. It is a very good idea to end them before they grow further.

In my own campaign the young characters stumbled across several Bare storms, then a couple of Proto storms and now they have a couple of hoppers bouncing around making trouble. Someday they will have to deal with these.

This is the core of a hopper and up. Yes, it has it's own Madspawn. It just keeps getting tougher.

Storms also have features. The most common of which is this virulent form of the Tox. In my case I like to put this on both the storm and the nexus. Oh what fun!

The Tox is another concept we have not gone into very well. For myself I have always played the Tox with a generous use of 3.4. The effects, timing and power of the Tox is chaotic. However, we will be giving GM's more tools and examples.

Just as a note. The Tox acts like a disease, but it is not a disease, it is a Warp thing.

Tomorrow you will get to see the other four Dragon Storm cards.

Gamemaster Terrain Features

2011-02-15T07:29:00.001-08:00

Today I want to show off more of the new GM Terrain Features.

The idea here is to create a set of generalized features the GM can add to the world, bringing travel itself forward as a part of the adventure. Susan has created a chaotic world of Normal, Warped, Od and Wasted lands. Yesterday we covered the basic land forms and the magic features.

What we are looking at here is how that can actually affect the weather. These Features can be used for a number of situations. Underground Warped labyrinths may have rooms within them that are warped, and frozen or an isolated tower ruins that is filled with Od and wild windstorms and has extreme temperatures. Use these to build the idea of the chaos swirling around the characters when any extreme, be it Od, Warped or Wasted, is around.

Take note that most of these do not yet have art. Darkness Prevails is the exception. At last, I are a artiest!

Dragon Storm Con 2011

2011-02-14T15:58:00.001-08:00

I have posted the February newsletter. In it you will find the announcement for Dragon Storm Con 2011. This is the summer con with three days of Dragon Storm playing.

Everyone who plays DS should look at the information by following this link.

Make sure you pass the word around to everyone. I know there are people out there we are not reaching. Talk to them, spread the word.

. There is a $15.00 supporting membership available. Supporting members will get the convention only cards mailed to them. You can get the cards by attending or by supporting.

We want as many players and as many GM's as we can get. If you are willing to run one to three games, there is a discount in the membership for GM's. The earlier we have a GM head count the easier it will be to layout the games.

Now I am going to repeat the link for you to follow.

It appears that there are about a dozen of you people out there that have changed your email addresses, or Mocha got them wrong, so you did not get the newsletter.

I have added a form on the Guild site where you can change your address. Then I have to make sure Mocha gets the changes entered. I will end with a picture of Mocha at work:

Familiar Place Updated and GM Cards

2011-02-14T09:02:00.001-08:00

The weekly Familiar Place comic has gone up. Follow this link to read the latest. At 26 in a row we now have six months up!

Now, on to the GM cards. This is the first nine Terrain cards. We are making the new GM cards full mix and match. It allows the GM more flexibility when creating their adventures.

That gives six basic types of land. The GM can, and will, use their descriptions to create variations in the minds of the players.

Next we have the Magic levels to combine with them.

This is the "low" magic places around the Stormlands.

The bad magic concentrates in particular areas. Dragon Storms have the effect of spreading these zones. To simulate a highly warped area the GM may well put two of these on a place to get the effects they are looking for.

The areas of pure magic are rare nowadays. Many more existed before the ravages of the Deathday massacre reversed the warped and od in many areas.

Tomorrow I will post the next nine Terrain Features cards. We will be getting into the weather.

The starting DS RPG character items

2011-02-13T07:15:00.001-08:00

Everyone loves "stuff". This is the starting stuff. We have set up the new starting backgrounds with enough money to have all of these items.

A new item to carry potions in and make them accessible. This will lead to more new potions.

The new basic healing potion.

An upgraded healing potion.

Something to wear. Wardrobes will need improving. Who wants to be seen as a Farmer forever, well maybe a shape shifter who wants to stay hidden.

An old favorite. Makes me want to do a "luggage" set of cards.

Drinking, something we all do. Yes, you can refill this with water.

A missile weapon. We have made it work more simply. The effective range is still rather short.

A weapon that is very commonly seen around the stormlands. Easy to find. Most characters will want to replace it.

And the belt you have seen.

I have made a Flickr gallery of the 27 starter character cards. You can follow this link and look at them all.

If you have a Flickr gallery I should be following, please let me know!

Tomorrow I will be starting on the new GM cards, starting with the Terrain and Terrain effects cards.

The Dragon Cards in the new starter character

2011-02-12T07:19:00.001-08:00

I will start with another plug for people to go order the new Ring set. The link to the order page is here. We have had good response so far. Thanks!

Now on to the Dragon part of the starter set. The idea is to have a nine card dragon section. The basic starter will come with the human Dragon character. Each of the different races will also have a nine card set, so it will be possible to vary the sets and put in, as an example, the nine card Werecat set instead.

Once again a Pic of the character.

The basic form has gotten a serious upgrade. They may be fragile still, but they can defend themselves.

Even the Miniature Dragon gets a small upgrade.

Dragons shift into a lot more forms than any of the other races.

An upgraded self healing.

In the spirit of more firepower.

Fire. Each Firebreath has a L1R restriction. That means Limit One per Round.

More Fire. Just one per round, but there are several to use once per round.

And even more Fire.

Dragons will breath fire. The new fires grow with the forms. The bigger the form, the bigger the fire. Notice that a larger form can use the smaller fires.

Tomorrow comes the equipment. I have also created a Flickr gallery for the starter character. You can see them here.

That is it for today. More to do.

More new starter character cards

2011-02-11T10:16:00.001-08:00

The starting character is going to have a total of 27 cards. I already posted the character and background that comes in the starter set. The belt from yesterday will be in the starter too. Many of these cards are familiar, but may have changed. You will need to look close.

Here is one that should bring visions of healers walking a battlefield looking for those who need help.

A long time favorite. Everyone on worn torn Grandilar needs a way to find places, paths and trails. Commerce demands it.

Improved. Notice that this is an Enhance. That means it must be added to something else and that using it does not cost a "thing" to use it. A popular card. One of the Dragon Storm Con 2011 cards will be similar, but useable at any CP.

The central Boon for the game. This is the jump off card to adventure, combat and the entry into the fight for freedom.

What can be said.

A little love for the archers too.

This is one of those cards that are essential to make the game work, so there will be Second Ed and Classic versions.

This one is a needed Second Ed card, but it will cause some Classic confusion. It is the Second edition version of both Dual Action and Dual Strike. There will be other ways of getting that third attack in Second Ed.

New Ring Set. It has gone off to the printer. If you did not get over and get the PDF downloaded, or place your pre-order, follow this link.

Order the Ring Set Now!

2011-02-10T10:15:00.001-08:00

I have sent the ring set to the printer. Now we will have a special until they arrive.

You can order Five of the sets for $15.00. You could even order two of the specials and get 10 sets for $30.00. or more.

Now that you are all excited and ready to help us pay the print bill, you can click this link and place your order.

Tomorrow we will be returning you to your regularly scheduled pictures of cards. I think we will post the new potion set over the next few days.

All right, I relent. I will put up an item pic.

There has always been a shortage of mundane items in DS. This belt comes with the new starter character. I posted it now because the Potion Pouch (among tomorrow's pics) will make more sense with a belt in your mind. That sounds a little Od.

And three more rings makes a nine card set

2011-02-09T07:44:00.001-08:00

Here we have the next three Magic rings.

This is as close to a get out of jail card as we get in DS. This is where you have to start looking at that funny line of text under the picture. It requires your Action to activate a Teleport Ring. Teleporting is not so easy. There is also the (L1R) in there. That means you can try only one of these per round.

Now is the time to point out the new card numbering in the lower left of the card. We actually have cards that are numbered as Magic Items. Why? because they are not just regular items, they are Magic Items.

This one is new. You will find that with the new Exploding Dice skeletons have become dangerous once again. GM's will be adding a lot more little bad guys into the encounters, they are not going to do a lot of damage, but they now can hurt you, so you have to take them seriously.

The other trick about skeletons is that they do reform if you do not free them. It may take a week, or even a month, but they will be back to annoy someone.

The plan at this point is to get these cards assembled on a Printer sheet and send them off to be printed.

I will be putting up a special order button for the set. From the time I send it to the printer until they arrive here the Sets will be 5 sets for $15.00, after that they will be $4.00 each.

Three more Magic DS RPG Rings

2011-02-08T07:01:00.001-08:00

Yes, the march of Rings continues.

One of the questions we debated here at the Secret Clanhold was the CAP on Rings. The truth is that everyone ignores the CAP on the rings once they are on your characters fingers.

DS is meant to have a lot of roll your own rules, so we did not want to get into a special subset of rules that cover ring CAP. The only reason for the CAP is so that when a merchant is carrying these things they have a CAP of some kind, otherwise someone is going to try to say, but I can carry a billion of these, they have no CAP. Therefore they have a CAP and we have GM's armed with rule 3.4 to deal with the rules lawyers.

This is a mighty handy ring for a shifter. You might think wearing one would say "Hey, I am a Shifter!" The truth is that a lot of Necro's and mercs wear these just to brag that they bagged a shifter who had one. It is usually a lie, but then what would you expect from a Necro?

Here is another handy ring. Remind me to tell you about the scout that a group hired to help them track down some bad guys. One of the characters gave the scout her Wizard Wings ring. Turned out the scout was an Apprentice Necro, and escaped using the ring. There is one angry Valarian out there now.

That is it for today. Tomorrow we have the final three rings in the set.

Magic Items, more DS RPG progress

2011-02-07T07:47:00.001-08:00

Sue and I got yet more work done over the weekend. She sent me the ninth ring picture and I got the set rolling. I wrote the Guideline for the ring set and Sue will be rewriting it wednesday. Shortly after that I will be getting the set off to the printer.

My plan is to post three of them a day for the next few days. Yes, I am jumping all over the place with the cards.

The first thing that is different is that the rings now stand alone, the rules are on the card. In the past the rings only made sense if you had the appropriate spell card as well.

The spells on the cards no longer exactly match the actual spell. They are just a little weaker than the real thing. The question of whose WIS to add to the roll is gone. Now it is set on the card.

We have reduced the CAP on the rings. Now that we are switching to the decimal system we have more flexibility on items.

I also got the weekly Familiar Place Web Comic uploaded. http://familiarplace.myonlinecomics.com/ Go check it out!

Now, get out there and get some gaming done!

The basic character for 2nd Edition DS

2011-02-06T08:00:00.001-08:00

Part of what Sue needs to be able to write the new rules is to have the new Basic/Demo character completed. I have it in close to prepared. The new Basic character will have 27 total cards in it. This will give the character enough cards to create variety and to be able to grow the character.

Once Sue has the rules well on their way I will need to go back through these cards to make sure they match the rules. I doubt that will require much change, but there will be some.

The basic character will be the Human Dragon. The game is called Dragon Storm, so it makes sense to start with a Dragon. Many of the players in the game will be humans, so we will start with the human. Classic Characters will slide into the new edition perfectly, so older personalized character cards all will work just fine.

We will also be creating a series of other Dragon Characters that can be switched into the starter set by adding a new character race. Over time there will be Tigrean, Das Karr, Dwarf, Farilan Elf, Ebony Elf, Vermite, Vorn, Foxwings and Canine Dragon characters available. Yes, that is a nine card set.

Backgrounds are getting a full make over. One of the things we want to do is to increase the text size on all of the cards. Backgrounds have a lot of text. To get the larger text size we are dropping the art from the background cards.

This card also has the new "Enhance" label in the card type line. Enhance is both new and old. Enhance cards are added to whatever is appropriate. They have a "0" timing and therefore do not count as a "thing" to activate them. The reason I say this is old is because cards like Dragon Claws exhibit the same functions. What we are doing is labeling this category of cards so we can explain it. It will be very easy for GM's and Players to figure out which Classic cards are Enhances and use them. If any questions come up, your GM will use rule 3.4 to decide.

One other note that I should mention is the new card numbering system. Characters are Characters. You get one. Backgrounds are Backgrounds. You get one.

That is it for your morning card update. Enjoy.

The Gamemaster Terrain gets new flexibility

2011-02-05T07:20:00.001-08:00

Everything is connected. For Sue to create the GM section on the rules she need the cards to do it with. DS is built on the idea of combining building monsters with a base card and then adding all sorts of wicked extras to them as features. The Classic terrain cards are an exception to that style. In the Second edition we are going to expand the possibilities for the GM.

1. The first GM set will include six basic types of terrain. One of these is the Broken Lands.

Notice that we have increased the Experience points for terrain. Traveling should be a learning experience.

2. The GM can add features to this land, just as they would for the cast members. The first fun addition is warping the area. This one will also be in the initial basic GM set.

We can see that the experience has risen to a total of 16, so far. By combining these we have also changed the rates at which cards recharge.

We are, as usual, expecting the GM to use rule 3.4 to vary everything to suit their campaign needs, nobody in DS slavishly follows the rules, or, at least, they shouldn't.

3. In the past we have made clothing and items which protect from cold and hot, but we never really gave the GM good tools to work with. So, we made them a feature the GM can add. Frozen will be in the second GM set.

The experience just keeps climbing. 24 total experience so far.

4. Now that we have a Broken, Warped, Frozen area we can continue, if we so desire. I think I am going to add a Dense Fog to this place. Oh what fun to be a GM.

Gee, visibility dropped. Experience grew.

5. Flexibility can go even further. What if an area is extremely warped? Give it two Warp features and the Warp damage climbs to 2d6+4. Not something you would do to young characters, but experienced characters need a challenge as well. We may add some of these "Greater" danger cards as downloadable PDF's in the distant future.

6. Classic Terrain card notes. You have them, use them as they are and add the new features. Just make it fun.

Normally I will be posting just a card or two as we go along. Today I wanted to add enough of this set to give everyone a feel for the expanded terrain options in second edition.

First step done. The Wolves of Susan on Flickr

2011-02-02T11:39:00.001-08:00

I have finished a wolf gallery of Susan's wolves on Flickr. You can check out the images here.

The next step will be to get all the different size prints up and available in the Etsy shop.

-- Posted From My iPad