Finally got NOD #4 published on Lulu.

In this issue of NOD: A sandbox hexcrawl with more than 200 encounters, 50 new monsters inspired by European folklore, a pantheon of deities inspired by the Dacians and Thracians and two dungeon adventures – one for low-level parties and the other for mid-level parties. Plus – the next installment of our serialization of George MacDonald’s fantasy classic, Phantastes.

Print is $10
E-Book is $3.50

Use the coupon code “AUTUMN” to get 10% off – I’ve entered the September sales contest.

Also – I have my outline for Mystery Men! on the “Free Downloads” page of my blog. Its in google docs, and this is where I’ll be writing the game. I probably won’t touch the outline for at least a couple months while I finish PARS FORTUNA and prepare NOD #5 for sale, but I’ll hit it hard around NOV/DEC. In the meantime, feel free to send me ideas, suggestions and criticisms.

Enjoy Labor Day folks!

I think I have a cover, so that ain’t bad – now I just need content! The cover image is a cyclops painted by Odilon Redon, a French symbolist painter who, it can safely be said, did not foresee his work appearing on the cover a RPG supplement.

I’m about 75% complete with writing the fourth issue of my non-award winning gaming magazine. Articles will be …

– Eastern Venatia – sandbox with 200+ encounter areas

– Gods of the Golden Sea – a pantheon of deities inspired by the Thracians, Dacians and other assorted -acians

– Medieval Bestiary – a couple dozen monsters based on medieval folklore

– Phantastes – a couple more chapters of the classic fantasy story by George MacDonald

I’m also including two medium-sized dungeon crawls – The Ruins of Timulus and the Pleasure Palace of Izrigul, both located in the Eastern Venatia sandbox.

I’m hoping to get this thing out by Sept 2 before I take a mini-vacation to the land of my ancestors – Ottumwa IA. Should probably clock in at 110-120 pages.

I’ve just put NOD #3 up for sale here as a print magazine for $10.00 and an e-book for $3.50. This one comes in at 122 pages – about 34 pages more than the last two. Articles in this one are:

Beastmen of Nabu – 13 race / race-class / monsters for your game.

Gods of Nabu – A pseudo-Egyptian pantheon of 37 gods and goddesses with 9 new spells

The Nabu Wasteland – a sandbox hexcrawl with over 150 encounters and many new monsters

The Elementalist – a magic-user who casts spells by commanding elemental spirits

The Druids of Nod – a new take on the druid class for Old School games

Phantastes, Part II – second part of our serialization of George MacDonald’s fantasy classic, with annotations for gamers

Okay – looks like I’ll definitely have this up by Friday. Here’s the cover I’m going with …

Artist is Frantisek Kupka (1871-1957), a Czech artist. The painting is called Resistance, or The Black Idol, from 1903.

I’m almost finished with NOD #3. I have a little bit of writing left to do, some editing, some art to add, a few mini-dungeon maps to finish drawing and a cover image to find. Looks like this one will come in at around 120 pages, so the price might increase a little, at least on the print version. Slated articles are:

Nabu – The sandbox covering the eastern half of the wilderness map that first appeared in NOD #1 (free download just to the right). This time, there are about six mini-dungeons with maps. This sucker weighs in at almost 80 pages.

Gods of Nabu – A pseudo-Egyptian pantheon – around 20 deities and a few new spells.

Beastmen of Nabu – 13 bestial humanoids statted up as monsters, races and race/classes + art by Charles LeBrun.

The Druid – The druid done for S&W. I’ve made some alterations since posting it on the blog, mostly in terms of the spell selection and the special abilities.

The Elementalist – A magic-user who commands elemental spirits.

Phantastes – Second installment of George MacDonald’s fantasy story, along with annotations for role-players.

The plan is to publish by this Friday.

If you would like to purchase a hard copy of NOD #1, it is now for sale here at $9 cheap. The download is still free, and should work via Lulu though it doesn’t seem to appear on the product page (I’ll have to look into that tomorrow).

I’m working on getting NOD #1 on Lulu, both as a free download and a hard copy one could purchase if they were so inclined. I’ve actually ordered a hard copy for myself to see how it looks – so far, my cover redesign using their system is not thrilling me, though my own cover design didn’t thrill me either.

NOD #2 is about half finished. I need to finish some writing and editing and add some art. If anyone out there is interested in throwing in an advert for something, let me know. So far, contents look like …

– Ophir – with about double the encounters that were here on the blog – this will be the feature of the issue

– Trade Goods – I’ve done some heavy revisions on the trade goods post and added a Trader NPC class to round it out

– My article on weapon abilities, plus some info on armor, plus some art depicting many different kinds of weapons (the art is taking a while to produce, bit I’m liking the way it turned out)

– Thief and Assassin classes

– Scientist class, along with some sample inventions of different sizes

– A preview of three race/classes from PARS FORTUNATM

-A serialization of George MacDonald’s Phantastes, a story about a man wandering the lands of Fairie – I’m going to include “pop-ups” in the story with stats and other RPG-related ideas for using the literature in your game. I’m hoping to do this with other public domain adventure and fantasy stories as well.

– The “Urban Adventures” and “Wilderness Adventures” blog posts, cleaned up a bit

– The “Books & Scrolls” post, also cleaned up a bit

– A collection of magic candles

– Maybe, if there is room, a narrative naval combat system I worked up a while back – it lets the players take control of naval combat and is accessible to people who know next to nothing about naval wargaming.

I might be forgetting something, but that gives you an idea. I’m hoping to have it ready for download and print on Lulu by the 14th

For the blog, I’m going to continue posting material on Nabu, including the southern chunk of the map and its encounters and an article on the beastman tribes who dwell along the River of Death. I’m also going to post druid and illusionist classes, along with spells. Then, maybe I’ll take a poll and see what chunk of Nod people want to see next – south into the jungles of Cush, north into the hills and forests of Venatia, etc.

JMS