Testing and waiting

Along with the print test I ordered for the new adventure, I created a print test for a spiral bound booklet of character sheets!

The sheets are double sided, and the back of a character sheet provides room for background, more equipment, more spells/skills and a box for a character portrait--the reverse side has the same border Dave created for each respective character class (Adventurer/Wizard). These are A5 sized sheets roughly half a U.S.page, landscape format.

The cover artwork for the character sheets is licensed from the extremely talented Luigi Castellani--who is also working on new unique illustrations for future HOW projects!

Once the print tests are back, and any necessary changes are made, these will be released on Lulu. I'd expect to go live in about 2 weeks.

Quite soon

As I mentioned earlier in the year I worked ahead a bit on two projects so I could keep new product coming this year as I grind away on some other HOW projects.

So In the next few days I will have a new adventure module available!  It will also include simple HOW rules for turning the undead!

I am focused on getting the Terrors and Treasures book done this year.  I think its a more necessary core book to the game than Blades & Black Magic.  That being the case, the terrors and treasures book will be the next big core release for HOW...and it will happen this year! Thanks for you support and thanks for your patience, I endeavor to make each release worth the wait!

Worth the wait

I was happily surprised to see in my email today the finalized character sheets for Heroes & Other Worlds!  Dave has done a masterful job of creating hand drawn gems that capture all the magic and adventure that Heroes & Other Worlds represents to me and I hope to you as well.

Now for the decision to release them for free or not.  This was a great investment as Dave's incredible work is truly worth every pound sterling, but it was not cheap.  So do I put them in a book and charge for them or just give them away as a free download? While I may eventually do a booklet version for sale, it felt wrong not to share them with you now and for free.

So I am posting them as free to download in hopes you will use them, play the game, and let other friends and gamers know about Heroes & Other Worlds. 

Most especially this is a personal THANK YOU from me to you. Thank you for having made your own investment in time and money in trying this little game. 

Please enjoy the character sheets use them in your home game and thank you very kindly for your continued support!

Official Adventurer sheet

Official Wizard character sheet

20% sale now

Hey a fine fellow (Christopher Bernardi) let me know there is a code to get 20% off on Lulu for a limited time!  

Through June 23, save 20% on Lulu.com's premium and standard print books with promo code JFS20.

Cold as hell

Image Source 4Fumiaki4

From the frozen regions of Briarmoor they have arisen.  Some say they are the restless spirits of the betrayed from the Age of Titans.  Others say necromancers in a hidden enclave are experimenting with new types of undead, powering them with frozen souls from an icy realm of hell.  The how and why matter not to those faced with bone chilling visage of Ice Skeletons.

Ice Skeleton
(#1d6+2) ST9 DX9 IQ2 MV4; AR-4, DM 1D6+2 (Cutlass OR Spear) or 2pts ST by frostbite touch, no AR protection from touch. SP: FT, IA, Frozen TR:none

An ice skeleton appears a a blue tinted, with ghostly blue flame emanating form its eyes and mouth. It crackles as it walks due to being covered in a thick icy coating. This coating creates a strong armor protection.  In addition the touch of a ice skelton deals frosbite causing 2 ST damage, no armor protection.

The ice skeleton takes 1/2 damage from fire based attacks but takes double damage from smashing attacks from clubs, hammers and blunt weapons. Ice skeletons are immune from sleep spells or the attacks of darts, bolts or arrows.

The ground skull of an Ice Skeleton can be packed into a double skinned wineskin keeping the liquid within at near freezing.  bag loses power if bag is burned, ruptured or ever completely emptied.  Swallowing or inhaling freshly (1 hour old) ground skull powder causes 2d6 damage immediately to the consumer, no AR protection.

BONUS TO HOW PLAYERS FROM ERIK MENARD!
Erik created an outstanding double sided HOW character sheet he has graciously shared with us all!  Download it for free here! Kudos to Erik on creating a brilliant character sheet and thanks for sharing it!

What if...and then it happend

Mr. Bill Watterson returned to illustrating a comic strip for a brief 3 days this week.  In the ultimate "What if?", we see what happens when for a few brief panels the genius returns. 

I cannot begin to describe the love I have for Calvin and Hobbes nor the respect I have for Mr. Watterson's commitment to integrity in managing his creations and doing it his way.

The (potential) dollars did not matter when it came to offers of animating, licensing, and basically exploiting his creations. How many people could (would?) say no? Yet he did and that has made all the difference.  So enjoy this all to brief "sighting" and wherever you are Mr. Watterson, thank you for sharing Calvin and Hobbes with us. 

Keep on exploring!

100 Wonders Worth Exploring

Telecanter, over at Telecanter's Recedng Rules, did a series of posts on adding wonders to your sandbox.  So what defines a wonder?  Something different, unique, or fantastic that would be mythical in our own experience in this world.  I am a fan of the grim and gritty fantasy experience, but I still think there is room, no a real need, for the strange and fantastic to perplex players and add a sense of fantasy to the game.

So I put together a booklet of all of Telecanter's 100 Wonders Worth Exploring.  If you print the PDF in booklet form it will fit nicely with the rest of your Heroes & Other Worlds game books!  So if you are building a sandbox and want to add a little something wondrous for your players to discover, Telecanter's work is an excellent resource! You can find it in the Heroes & Other Worlds downloads and can  download it here! 

Other World: Cidri

Tim (of HeroPress fame) and his group have established a blog to chart their Heroes & Other Worlds campaign in a re-imagined Cidri!  Check out their Chronicles to Cidri blog and follow along in their adventures!

Naval gazing

So I have just about wrapped up the naval rules for HOW.  They are more conducive to the RPG style of play rather than trying to build a full blown tactical mini-game.  I know some folks really want a full tactical mini-game, but in my own experience the adventurers wanted to do one of three things: Close to board the other ship, escape the other ship, just sail to the next location.  None of those things, except boarding, really need a map and figures and even then it is easy to play it out using standard man to man combat rules. 

That being said, I know some folks are still searching for, or really want a tactical ship to ship game. So let me point you to a couple of options.

First is Ram Speed, from Metagaming! Yes there are still sealed copies availble for $10 (+S&H) from Decision games.  No idea how many they have so if you want one, get after it!    What is Ram Speed?  Well you can read a review here! In fact Decision Games has a number of still sealed Metagaming classics including the fantastic sci-fi game Warp War...and a little game called Dragons of Underearth! The shipping is steep, but it may be worth it to get these classics brand new!

Second is a cheaper and simple little game you can construct yourself out of mini match boxes called War Galley by Thomas Lofgren.  The rules are short and FREE! If you have those small match boxes it can be a very fun little diversion.  You can download the rules from the HOW downloads section of this website.

Also as the previous two posts dealt with maps, I wanted to share two with you.  First is the Dwarf Land map that Adam (ewookie) placed a hex grid over.  Second is a revised/updated map of Barbarian Prince from Dwarfstar Games. So if you need  a new hexcrawl map to be inspired by both are up for download now!