Steve Zieser - RIP

For those of you that have followed my blog for some time you are aware of the Our Favorite Artists posts that I have done in the past, well today I am sad to inform you that Steve Zieser, one of my favorite artists and an interviewee for the site has passed away after a ten year battle with cancer. 

Steve helped to inspired me to get back into art after after seeing his wonderful cover for the Labyrinth Lord Referee screen and his many other D&D themed pieces. I will always be thankfull to him for the inspiration and for taking the time to answer my questions.

My heart is heavy to hear of his passing, my condolences to all his friends and family, you are all in my thoughts and prayers.

See Steve's interview: HERE

Steve's Art Blog: HERE

Stop on by his Facebook page and leave a few kind words: HERE

Otherworld Miniature Labyrinth Lord Level 2 Miniatures Complete! **Image Heavy Post**

The gang's all here!

I finished up my Otherworld Miniatures Level 2 figures yesterday.  I'm happy with how they came out, though the pictures are a bit fuzzy.  Sorry for the quality of the snapshots, I think my lens is messed up, it would not focus and everything came out really dark.  Hopefully you still get an idea of how they look, these are great miniatures with loads of detail!

More pictures after the break!

The rest of this post is picture heavy, enter at your own risk!

Dwimmermount has arrived! (Review) - UPDATED

Its finally here.

In April 2014 the Dwimmermount Kickstarter campaign was successfully funded to the tune of $48,756 with an initial goal of $10,000.  I am not going to get into all the drama that followed but it has taken several years for the final product to arrive, and boy it's a beauty.  Autarch did a fantastic job putting this together.  There are two versions available; Labyrinth Lord and Adventurer Conqueror King.  The version I have and am reviewing today is for LL.

This is a BIG, MEATY book, it's 408 pages of deep, dark adventure.  I have not had a chance to read all the way though this beast yet, its going to take some time.  I recieved three books; the adventure book, an illustration book and map book.

Dwimmermount on the left, Dungeoneer's Survival Guide on the right, River the cat in the background.

Lets get started with the Map Book.  This includes a wilderness map of the area surrounding Dwimmermount, the town of Muntburg and two page maps of all of the Dwimmermount levels.  Also included are the dungeon era illustrations and a four page side view of the entire dungeon.  Its all in black and white and is perfect bound.  The maps are big and easy to read, overall a very usable book.

Nice big maps.

Next up is the Illustration book.  This book is half the size of the map book, so roughly 8.5"x5.5".  It has a very nice color illustration on the cover that is printed on a very interesting material, it almost feels like a velour but is a paper.  I find that I keep rubbing the material, its very nice.  Inside are 44 black and while illustrations from various locations around the dungeon.  The likes of Jeff Dee, Steve Zieser and Erol Otus grace the pages, its a really nice book but I find myself wanting it to be a full sized 8.5"x11" booklet, the pictures are just to small for my liking.

Love that cover!

The illustrations are fantastic but should have been bigger!

Last but certainly not least is the main adventure book itself.  It starts with a very extensive table of contents and then its into the good stuff.  Chapter One covers the area around Dwimmermount.  Chapter Two covers the history of the dungeon.  Chapter Three is all about adventuring in the dungeon, everything from common knowledge of the dungeon to rumors and adventure seeds.  The following chapters cover the town of Muntburg which serves as the home town for adventures into Dwimmermount.  The Factions get a chapter and then its into the individual levels, one chapter each for a total of thirteen.

Following the levels are the appendices, all 91 pages of them!  They cover new magic items, new spells, new monsters, rival parties, the four worlds, Azoth and the secrets of the Turms Termax.  There's some really good stuff in here, lots of fun spells and monsters to throw at your players to keep them on their toes.

I'm really looking forward to digging  further into this book, it looks fantastic and varied enough to keep things fresh.  Unfortunately my issue with this adventure is the same I have with all mega-dungeons, I will never have the time to run this all the way through from start to finish.  One-shots are how I have to roll, my gaming time is limited these days so something we can start and finish in one or two evenings is best.  I'm sure I could use bits and pieces of this for smaller adventures, it may be the only way I get to use it!

Lots o' adventure!

If you have an itch for an epic mega-adventure, Dwimmermount will not steer you wrong.  It's a lot of material and is a steal at $10 on RPGnow.com for the .pdf.

Five beer steins out of five!

UPDATE 08/31/2014: I received an email from the Kickstarter campaign today, it stated that the Wilderness Map and Dungeon Tracker are also complete and shipping, I will update the  review once those two items have arrived!

Otherworld Miniatures; Labyrinth Lord Level 2!

 

My new Otherworld miniatures arrived today and I'm super excited!  As you can see above they come in their own case (Feldherr I believe) with a sleeve wrapped around the case.

Each miniature has its own slot, there are two levels in the case.  My only complaint would be that many of the bases do not have slots which means I will need to cut them myself.  This is different from the first set which all had pre-slotted bases.  Some of the figures also have VERY tall tabs at the bottom which will need to be sliced in half to get them to fit in the bases.  Unfortunately the material is quite thick, its going to take some elbow grease to get them cut.  Other than those minor complaints I am very pleased with the set, the sculpts looks awesome and I really like the giant ooze!  More pics to come as I get to work on these later this week.

New Labyrinth Lord Miniatures on order!

 

Well this morning I ordered the next set of Otherworld Miniatures made for Labyrinth Lord.  I'm very excited for this set, it comes in a Feldherr case and includes the following minis; 3 Gnolls, 3 Ghouls, 3 Zombies, 4 Troglodytes, 2 Shadows, 3 Large Crab Spiders, 3 Berserkers, 1 Green Slime, 1 Yellow Mold and 1 Evil Magic User.

I'll make sure I post some pics once they arrive and again once I start painting.  Hope you all had a great weekend!

Labyrinth Lord & Fantasy Miniatures

Pig-faced Orc Commander and two of his minions.

I promised you guys some pictures of my Labyrinth Lord figures by Otherworld Miniatures, so here they are.  These figures are fantastic, the sculptures are great and they are solid minis.  I just finished painting the Level One box set not to long ago and will be purchasing the Level Two set sometime in the near future. 

I highly reccomend these guys, they have several box sets that come with their own carry cases, level one and two monsters and also heros, demi-heros and henchmen.  Well worth the money if you like old school minis!

The rest of this post will be picture heavy, have fun!

 

Pig-faced Orc archer and flail dude.

Trio of Hobgoblins.

A swarm of ugly ass Goblins.

I love the Kobolds, bad mofo's!

Creepy Centipedes.

Fire Beetles, I elected to leave off the feelers, they were a bit fragile.

The Rat Pack.

The rest of the pack.

The Stirges are freaking awesome!

Close up of the Stirges.

These are not the Skeletons that come with the set, but I like them :)

Again, not an Otherworld miniature but still a bad-ass Bugbear!

Booty shaker view.

Keeping busy

  

Heya folks,

Just wanted to drop a quick post, things have been busy here and its been a while since I have been on the blog.  I've been neck deep in the World Cup the last few weeks, I'm currently watching the Netherlands/Mexico game.  That's not to say all of my gaming has fallen by the wayside, I have made a little time to work on some miniatures. I finished up painting my Labyrinth Lord Level One box set and am currently working on some 20mm Marines for Skirmish Sangin.  Above is a picture of my painting setup, its a cheap folding table from Target planted squarely in front of my TV (and the World Cup).  Below you can see some close ups of the miniatures I am working on.

I'll try and post a few photos later this week of the completed Labyrinth Lord miniatures, I'm pretty happy with how they came out.  Take care and GO USA!

Marines and Delta Forces primed and ready for paint!

Marines get their first pass with the base uniform color.

New Barrowmaze Crowdfunding on the Horizon

Hey folks, 

I just wanted to pass along the news that Greg over at Discourse and Dragons has announced he will be running a new crowdfunding campaign for Barrowmaze Complete starting in January 2014.  This new book will combine the two existing Barrowmaze Dungeons into one mega-module and will include new material, art and layout.  The amazing Erol Otus has been tapped to do the new cover.

I already own both Barrowmaze and Barrowmaze II, they are both amazing products but I would be willing to contribute to a new combined module.  The best news for me is that he is currently working with the guys over at Otherworld Miniatures to produce a Barrowmaze box set, awesome news indeed!

The original announcement can be found here: Barrowmaze Complete

Barrowmaze II Update

Barrowmaze II is close to completion of funding, make sure you stop by and support this project.  Right now its $200.00 shy of meeting the Barrow Mounds Generator goal, and if we can get $7000.00 (or another $1200.00) then there will be a separate Tomb of Horrors style illustration booklet!  Lets not miss out on this!

If you do decide to pledge take a careful look at the pledge options as most of the good stuff starts at Crypt Knight or higher level ($65.00).  If you do not already own the first Barrowmaze (and why not?!), then pledge at the $100.00 level, you will get BM2 and signed copy of BM1!  

Crack those wallets open people, lets get this thing funded! CLICKY HERE!

Questions about OGL

 

I am planning on writing a short adventure called Valley of the Umber Hulks but I have a question about the open gaming license. I believe that Umber Hulks are one of the monsters that do not fall under the OGL as they are considered to be an icon of the D&D system. Does this mean that I am not allowed to use them in an adventure created for another system, let's say Labyrinth Lord? If I only plan to distribute the adventure free of charge does this change anything?

I'm a little confused on how this would work, any help figuring this out would be much appreciated!

The Origins of Labyrinth Lord

The Black Gate has a nice interview with Labyrinth Lord creator Daniel Proctor up HERE.  Head on over there to find out how my favorite retro-clone was created and the inspiration behind it!

Barrowmaze II funding is up!!!!

Hey folks, the Barrowmaze II funding project just went up on Indiegogo.  Head on over and check it out and help get this project completed!

Linky is HERE.

Dwimmermount: Kickstarter Project - 60 hours left!

Hey folks, I just wanted to give a shout out to James Maliszewski's Dwimmermount project.  I'm sure many of you are aware of this upcoming product, but for those of you that are not, James has created a huge mega-dungeon that is currently being funded on Kickstarter.  Head on over and check out the project here:  Dwimmermount: An Old School Fantasy RPG Megadungeon.

There are only sixty hours left on the pledge drive, and the project is a little less than three thousand dollars short of the $40,000 bonus goal, so if you have not put your money in, now is the time to do it!  Also check out  Grognardia one of the best Old School Blogs out there and home of James Maliszewski's old school musings.

My Favorite Artists - Steve Zieser

I am pleased to announce that for today's Our Favorite Artists post I had the pleasure of interviewing none other than Steve Zieser.  Steve has created most of the art for the Labyrinth Lord books, including the covers of the main rule-book, the Advanced Edition Companion and my personal favorite the LL Referee Screen.  Steve was nice enough to take a few minutes out of his busy day to answer a few questions for us at The Drunk Umber Hulk.  Without further delay here is the man that illustrated my favorite retro clone, Steve Zieser!

• First of all, thanks for taking some time out of your day to speak with me, please introduce yourself and give us a brief bio:  

Thanks, Jason. I grew up on a farm outside Cedar Rapids, Iowa and was the middle of 5 kids. Growing up on a farm, there wasn't a lot to do other than farm work, so I had time to do a lot of reading and doodling. I was an okay student, but would rather have been drawing or reading fiction than doing schoolwork. I loved art classes, and would have rather stayed there all day than work on other subjects. My father fully supported my artistic endeavors, and encouraged me to go to art school. I , however, was young and decided to go to tech school for Radio/TV Broadcasting instead. Afterwards, I worked at a tiny country/western station in southern Iowa for a few years and learned exactly how poorly paid people in the radio business could be. So, I decided to go back to school, and ended up at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa, and entered the Roman Catholic Seminary program there. (Can you tell I can't do things the easy way??) However, since I kept dating girls the whole time, I had to make a choice and I ended up transferring to Clarke College, where I majored in Studio Arts focused on Printmaking and minored in Religion. I spent a number of years kicking around after college, doing a lot of odd jobs such as working record stores, photo labs, and even selling knives door to door. I eventually settled down building furniture with my Dad for a few years, getting married to my lovely wife in the meantime. Eventually, my Dad decided to retire and I needed a more steady job, and I ended up working for Van Meter Inc, where I have been working happily for the past 7 years.

Premium 1st Edition Books

Wizards of the Coast will be releasing new versions of the original 1st edition core rule books some time in the future. When I first heard the announcement I was very pleased that 1E AD&D would be available to a whole new audience. I like the cover art that they designed, they are a nice nod to the original covers with an updated look, I think they look sharp. The books are going to cost $34.95 for the Players Handbook and Monster Manual and $44.95 for the Dungeon Masters Guide. I was initially going to pick up a set but at those prices I cannot justify spending close to a hundred dollars on books I already own, especially if they are not going to be updated in any way.


Hopefully with their release a whole new generation of players will be able to enjoy the version of the game that I started with so many years ago. Personally I am going to stick with my favorite new retro clone, Labyrinth Lord. The days of spending my hard earned money at Wizards of the Coast are a thing of the past.

Stonehell Dungeon - Review

Stonehell Dungeon is an old school mega-dungeon by Michael Curtis. When I say mega-dungeon, I mean MEGA-dungeon, this is one huge adventure packed into a 134 page book. Stonehell is a fantastic product that can be purchased at Lulu.com, there are also a number of other suppliments available for it which I will discuss a little bit later on.

The first eleven pages start off with some general information on Stonehell which give the GM a bit of back story and get him caught up to the current situation, there are also sections on customizing the dungeon and dungeon rumors, then the a dungeon proper starts. Each area or level is shown as a whole and then divided up and dealt with separately. For instance, there is a Surface Level master map and on the following page is the Surface Level overview which provides basic information regarding the maps and then a Surface Level monster list. The next few pages take that master map and break it into separate sections, now instead of the Surface Level Master Map we have levels 0A-Canyon East and 0B-Canyon West, each a smaller section of the master map reproduced and shown with more detail and additional notes, new monsters and new magic item stats. The levels are divided into four quadrants, so you get one overall map that shows how everything fits together and then four small maps that include all of the details you need to run the dungeon. Quadrent example:

The layout is certainly not pretty, it fact I found it to be very cramped and a little tough to read in some sections. That said, I cannot image any other way that this could have been put together without it being 300+ pages, there is SO much information crammed into this book. There is enough material in this book to run a campaign for years, it really is am amazing product. The art is sparse but good, I don't think they had much room for art, this book is all about content. There is a very handy Dungeon Dressing and Container Contents Appendix in the back of the book with 100 separate entries, it seems very useful especially for a dungeon of this size. There are new monsters and magic items sprinkled throughout the book, it would have been nice to see them all pulled together under a New Monsters section, but they are all referenced in the Index under Monsters, New for quick look up.

As I mentioned earlier, there are several suppliments for this dungeon, they can me found here: Michael Curtis Lulu Store. They include a free Stonehell Dungeon Preview, a free Brigands Cave adventure with new monsters and the $2.99 Buried Secrets supplement, which includes adventures for low level characters.

This is honestly one of the best OSR products that is available right now, its packed with information and lots of usable material. Even if you do not intend to run the entire adventure, the individual quadrants can be broken off and used separately in any campaign of your own design. If you do not own this product go out and get it now!

My Favorite Artists - Stefan Poag

Our Favorite Artists is going to be a recurring interview with some of the best and brightest RPG artists out there.  To start things off we are speaking to artist Stefan Poag, you may have seen some of his recent work in the fantastic Labyrinth Lord mega-dungeon, Barrowmaze.  Stefan has also done work for a number of other projects including books and magazines published by Kenzer & Company, Goodman Games and Expeditious Retreat Press.  His artwork has a great retro style that brings me back to my younger years.  I'm glad he was able to take some time to speak with us!  Without further ado, here is the man himself!

• First of all, thanks for taking some time out of your day to speak with me, please introduce yourself and give us a brief bio:

I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, after a childhood in (what was then) West Germany. My mother is German and my father was a teacher of German and a Medievalist, so we always had lots of books of medieval art around the house. At some point, I think my mother started buying a series of illustrated Time-Life books through the mail on different cultures through history --- 'The Neanderthals,' 'The Norsemen,' 'The Byzantines,' etc., and I spent a lot of time looking at those as well as the books of medieval illustrations, plus I loved the Japanese monster movies and TV shows like "Johnny Socko" and "Ultraman" that they used to show on the local UHF channel. A grade school friend of mine, Eric Piccione, and I used to draw our own 'comic books;' his favorite subject was "The Pirate" (a swashbuckling superhero with a cutlass). I don't think the Pirate had any special powers; I think he was just really bad-ass and would swing around on ropes, dodge bullets, etc. My favorite was a hero called (cough) "Ivanhoe." Ivanhoe was secretly an ordinary dude who worked in an office, but he had a special ring with a secret compartment in it that contained a button. When things went bad, the office guy pressed the button and thunder struck and he turned into a guy with a cape and a weird-looking octagonal helmet and a sword and a big "I" on his chest who could fly through the air and shoot bolts of lightning from his eyes. I don't think I had any explanation as to why he was called 'Ivanhoe' or where the powers came from --- my friend Eric, however, was having a great time drawing "The Pirate" and I wanted to do it, too. I barely graduated high school and slacked my way through college and have worked a series of menial jobs, usually doing some kind of creative thing on the side, then got into doing commercial photography (mostly shooting pictures of stuff for newspaper advertisements). My significant other, Annie, got a teaching job in Michigan and we have been up here for years. The bottom fell out of the local commercial photography scene and I got burned out on that, after doing a few other things I am now a literacy tutor in Detroit Public Schools, trying to help high school kids improve their reading skills. Given what a bad student I was, this is kind of ironic, but I always enjoyed reading so this is a good fit for me.

Barrowmaze - Mega-Dungeon Extraordinaire

To my surprise and pleasure, Barrowmaze arrived in the mail yesterday. I purchased it from RPGNow.com in hardcover format, but its available in several different forms, softcover, hardcover and both soft cover and hardcover including .pdf's for a few dollars more. Barrowmaze is an old school dungeon for use with Labyrinth Lord or other comparable OSR products. The first thing that struck me was the cover, its of a group of adventures in a crypt/dungeon looking area, and they all seem to be in a bit of trouble (except the mage). Its a great looking piece by artist Stefan Poag who also did a large number of the interior black and white illustrations. Really great art that's reminiscent of some of my favorite old school products.

Barrowmaze is a mega-dungeon, it contains over three hundred encounter areas and eighty four pages of adventuring goodness. New monster stats, spells, random encounter tables and several pregenerated characters are all included. Its a lot of adventure of a decent price. Having recently also picked up StoneHell mega-dungeon I must say I prefer the format of Barrowmaze, it seems a bit less crowded and easier to read.

Another reason to love this dungeon is the enormous amount of undead included, if you don't like undead this adventure is not for you! Clerics are a must here, more than one would be very beneficial. Being an old school dungeon it's tough and deadly, expect to be running from some encounters and expect death and mayhem from others. A party of careful adventures should do well here though, plan ahead and have the right tools for the job and you can get far.

Make sure you stop by the Barrowmaze blog: Barrowmaze They have lots of added content on the site, including hex maps of the Barrow mound, session reports, character sheets and my favorite; Meatshields! The Classic Fantasy Hireling & Hernchmen Generator. All good stuff that is quite useful.

Overall I'd give Barrowmaze a solid 9 out of 10, its a great product any Labyrinth Lord will love!

Oubliette Magazine - Lots of Gaming Goodness for a Great Price

I recently purchased and received Oubliette Magazine and I could not be more pleased with my purchase. I received issues one through four as a single compiled book and separate issues five through seven. This is a wonderful fanzine put together by Peter Regan that focuses on old school role-playing (with a particular focus on Labyrinth Lord). Each issue is filled with wonderful hand drawn art and a number of articles:

Monster Club - All manner of monsters, tricks and traps.

Various adventures for characters of all levels.

Mouse Watch - A Mouse Guard-esque comic.

Tales from Hell - A comic following the exploits of several Kobolds and their buckets

Goblin Quest - A larger paneled comic following several nasty little goblins.

Articles - From the the various of uses of a 10ft pole or how to grief a Paladin, really great stuff, the meat of the magazine.

The Song of Sithakk - An epic dwarven story.

I would highly recommend Oubliette Magazine to anyone interested in old school gaming, its a great purchase thats loaded with goodness! The eighth issue should be out this spring, once its available you will be able to purchase issues four through eight as a compiled book (like current issues one through four). I'll post a link on the left of the page so eveyone can go check them out, don't forget to support their blog while your there!

First!

So I finally decided to start a gaming blog. The reasons are many but I'll stick to a few. I love gaming, in all its many forms. I've been playing board games, role playing games and computer and console games for many years now. I intend for this blog to be a cornucopia of gaming related stuff, I will cover whatever my current interest is. This is a way for me to reach out and connect with other gamers as well explore different types and styles of gaming.

My current obsession is OSR, or Old School Renaissance. I have been playing versions of D&D for many years now, I started with the 1st edition set and played through second and third edition. I never quite made it into fourth edition as I was so tired of purchasing the same core books over and over. I have enjoyed every edition that I have played, but lately something has changed. The rules heavy third edition has started to seem clunky and over complicated. I longed for the earlier days of simple gaming, a stripped down system in which the story is more important than the rules. I discovered that there are many other gamers out there that also pined for the good ole days of gaming and that there are a number of systems that support the old school rules. OSRIC, Swords & Wizardry and Labyrinth Lords are the three I looked into. Ultimately I fell in love with LL. it's such a beautiful and simple system, but the addition of the Advanced Edition Companion really sold me. I love that the AEC is completely optional but adds most of the stuff I loved from 1st edition AD&D. Paladin, check. Rangers, check. More spells and equipment, check and check. Crazy weapon speed factor rules and rules for specific weapons vs different levels of armor class, nope. Its a simple system that includes just enough but not to much. I'll be posting more on this later though!

I hope you all enjoy this blog as much as I am going to enjoy writing it. It is probably going to be a bit eclectic, covering old school gaming, board games and the newest video games. Take care and roll high!