Katsushiro's Castle: Level 1B The Rat's Nest

I have completed part 1B of level 1 of the Mad Shugenja's dungeon. It can be found here, and in my download section. This part is more of the same of part 1A, with Ratling's dominating this area and not much in the way of "special" encounters. I hope to get a little more creative with parts 1C and 1D.

Now I need to put some more work into R&R...

Katsushiro's Castle: Level 1A Lair of the Rat King

I have completed my first 1 page template for my Ruins & Ronin mega-dungeon project, and it can be downloaded here. This level is home to the Rat King (a Nezumi-oni or Ratling from my upcoming project - the Ratling was actually created by Skathros on the S&W forums). The level is mostly dominated by the Nezumi-oni and their giant rats (as seen in the wandering monster tables). Though a few Mushroom-Men are exploring here as well (they will be laired more on levels 2 & 3 most likely).

I am working on this to get me more motivated to complete my R&R work for S&W, I hope to have these rules completed by the end of May/beginning of June. If you want to submit anything for this project (Ruins & Ronin) feel free to drop by the S&W Forums and look for the special project thread. I can use the help.

Swords & Wizardry 2nd Printing is now available.

Thanks to the hard work of Matt Finch and the crew, the 2nd printing of Swords & Wizardry is now available in both a hard cover & soft cover format. There is also, of course, the free PDF available here. Be sure to check it out and drop in at the Swords & Wizardry forums to discuss...

On a Megadungeon roll...

I have read enough about megadungeon's lately that I decided to blow the dust off of my Mad Shugenja dungeon and complete the maps for level 1. I really want to try out my Ruins & Ronin rules for S&W and what better way than a trip to the Mad Shugenja's dungeon? The images here show the full floor layout of level 1 and my crude drawing of how the 1st level interconnects with levels 2 & 3. I have no begun stocking level 1 yet, but that is my next step. I am pretty happy with my level 1 layout so far - not too bad just using DungeonCrafter.

Turning Japanese...

As I get closer to being ready to release my Ruins & Ronin setting for S&W, I am getting the itch to run a campaign using these rules. I have started maps already of my Japanese-like megadungeon called "Katsushiro's Castle", now I have started work on my local area campaign map. I stole this map from the PanzerBlitz game (a classic of AH war games), and I think it will work rather well. The central location will be the frontier castle-town of Goma, it sits along the north west borders of the island empire of Ryuku. It's western borders are defined by the Juro Swamp - a black and dismal place thought by many to be haunted.

Flame & Shadow

While reading kesher's latest entry on his Sandbox Empire blog, he had a player show up with a balrog character. I think this is just awesome, I have always loved the imagery of the fight in Khazad-dum between Gandalf the the mighty creature of "Shadow and Flame". Kehser was nice enough to link to this post on the OD&D forums about the character class, which I took and ported over to Swords & Wizardry. It was hastily built, so if you see any typos, I am not surprised. Now I am thinking of how cool a 1st Age Middle Earth game would be, though it would require some shoe-horning to allow elves and balrogs to adventure together - ok maybe that idea is not so good - but I do want to see one of these in play.

Here is a link to the S&W version of this character class.

Third time is the charm...

I have re-worked my Ruins & Ronin character classes for the third (and hopefully, last) time. I dropped the Yamabushi in favor of a more powerful (and costly to level) Shugenja class capable of both divine and arcane magic. I have added the Sohei (partial spell-using) warrior-monk and the Yakuza. The Samurai also some some changes this time 'round and I think I like it in this state. That is the last time I tinker with these (unless I get some good feedback) classes, as I am not progessing like I would have hoped. Thanks to the S&W Forums, I have added a few new monsters to my supplement though I still need work there too.

So, if you have time, and feel like looking at some character classes, download my pdf's and give me some feedback (comments or email are fine - you can email me at trampled.dwarf AT gmail.com).

SAMURAI
SHUGENJA
SOHEI
YAKUZA