The Manannan Effect (Divinities & Cults II preview)

Work on Divinities and Cults, Volume II, is nearing the home stretch. In celebration of it, here is a sample of the final draft of Manannan Mac Lir, Lord of the Seas and the Ways Between. 

He may not settle the debate as to whether the correct spelling really is 'Berenstein Bears' or 'Berenstain Bears', but the Otherworldly flavor of he and his clerics will certainly help.

Free Copies of Divinities and Cults Available (for Gaming Stores)

Over the next couple of weeks, we will be sending free copies of Divinities and Cults (Swords & Wizardry Edition) out to Friendly Local Gaming Stores. 

If you own or know of a gaming store that would like to participate, let us know.

Night Skies Over Valhallow: a Bestseller

The marketing campaign went well. NSOV got to rank #15 in Metaphysical and Visionary Fantasy, among a number of other things.

Remember, if you like an author's work, make sure you leave a review on the website where it's sold. It helps to promote the book to other readers and authors (yours truly included) really like that.

Updated Cover for Night Skies Over Valhallow

In preparation for a new marketing campaign, I got Rachel Bostwick to update the cover for Night Skies Over Valhallow. It looks good.

Otherwise, I have been working nearly non-stop on finishing writing the third novel in the series, as well as getting the art done for Divinities and Cults II. Both should be ready by the early fall.

This Dangeous Book

Yes, role-playing game books have been accused of being dangerous. And yes, Divinities and Cults can be quite dangerous in particular. How, might you ask? Because it just might slay any boring ideas you might have about your RPG cleric!

Tired of having your cleric heal, heal, heal all the time? Find out what else your cleric can do with Divinities and Cults. No, you won't give up your soul by reading this book (probably), but you will certainly immerse your characters in a more believable, interesting, and mythologically holistic magical paradigm.

Even though role-playing game books aren't supposed to be dangerous anymore, it doesn't mean they don't have to be. Right?

We've Got You Covered

Here's the revamped cover for Divinities and Cults, Labyrinth Lord version. Curtis Lyon did the redesign, though cover art is still by Luigi Castellani, of course. I commissioned it to help better tell it apart from the DCC RPG version. I think you'll like it.

I'll be uploading the revised pdf soon to DriveThru RPG too. Enjoy.

Shamans in Div Cul II

Divinities and Cults II carries on the tradition of including some class variants and options to pick from. One such choice will be the Shaman. If you'd like to use these primitive spiritualists as a distinct class variant of a cleric, then:

* Replace some of the spells from their Divinity’s spell list with more spiritual spells, such as Protection from Evil (1st), Augury (2nd), Speak with Dead (3rd), Exorcise (4th), Plane Shift (5th), Summon Aerial Servant (6th), and Astral Projection (7th)

* Eliminate their ability to wear metal armor

* Replace the cleric ability to Turn with the shamanic ability to become ethereal for up to 1 round per day per level squared (1 round at 1st level, 4 rounds at 2nd level, etc.)

The Middle of Night Skies

 

I'm finally starting to get some reviews for my first novel, Night Skies Over Valhallow. If you haven't read it yet, I suggest you check it out: it's really a classic gamer's novel and only 99 cents on Amazon. Though the story is meant to appeal to a wider audience and includes some philosophy and social commentary, the meat of the book is written from the perspective of a long-time classic roleplaying gamer, such as myself. 

Writing novels has been different than writing roleplaying game books like Divinities and Cults. The former requires having a cohesive plot, whereas the latter does not. By the way, one great tool I've discovered while writing intensely over the last year has been the "Speak" tool in MS Word. Using it to have text read back to me really helps me catch those many little typos that can come up, especially after writing for many hours a day. I use it on pretty much everything I write now, since either my mind ends up moving faster than my fingers or reality keeps shifting on me (and thereby alters the words I've written). 

Anyway, one review remarked on the middle of Night Skies and how it was strange. Keep in mind though that this Weird Fantasy element of the story has an important context based on one of the main characters in the book. I don't want to spoil the plot, but I also wanted to point out that those engaging in Gygaxian-style dungeon crawls often encounter *weird* things and that was part of what drove the middle of Night Skies, making it a little more in that vein, rather than more purely Tolkien-esque. 

Regardless, if you enjoy my roleplaying game books, check out my novels, and vice versa.  In both types of books, I include the myriad of topics that interest me, while (hopefully) still providing a classic quality product. All my books actually draw from the same world, but that would be a blog post for another week.

Make Those Casting Rolls!

Divinities and Cults offers the option of bringing Casting Rolls into your Classic Roleplaying Game (DCC RPG already has spellchecks, so this article mainly applies to the Labyrinth Lord and Swords & Wizardry versions). So why was this optional rule included?

Magic doesn't always work, or at least, it shouldn't. When a fighter swings a sword, he has a chance of missing, even of really screwing up the attack (if one is using critical fumbles in the game). Why shouldn't the same apply when a cleric or a wizard is casting a spell? And we're not just talking about someone hitting a spellcaster and disrupting their spell in melee. Consider this: why would harnessing mystical and eldritch forces be more reliable than shooting a bow and arrow at someone? If you don't need Casting Rolls to make magic work, then it is!

Not only does having a constant chance of spell failure add to the verisimilitude of magic in the game, but it is also what makes gaming more fun. Always being able to cast one healing spell after another without fail can really take the *magic* out of casting spells. And the same applies to other spells that might seem more like magical rituals: what would happen if the ritual went wrong? Now that's interesting.

Unlike other casting systems though,  Divinities and Cults doesn't stray too far from classic spells. Casters still cast the spells we've known about for the last 35 years, except with the twist that they may not work when you cast them. And Divinities and Cults also has options for using Boons and Elaboration, but that will remain a topic for another article.