Adventure Secrets

There are always a few things in our adventures that are taken from the real world, maybe even someplace we’ve been, and then modified slightly to be used as the basis for a town, castle, etc. Our thought in doing this was to add realism and another layer of interest to our work. We also thought it would make a fun game. We’re wondering if anyone can figure out what place we used as the basis for the Fort of Fire and Ice in the Blackstone Tomb adventure?

Blackstone Tomb is Here

The day has finally come; we've launched our first full-length adventure, Blackstone Tomb.

In the depths of Black Mountain there’s a secret. Hidden for a generation Castle Blackstone’s Tomb lies waiting for redemption.

Years ago a dark wizard used the tomb to practice his evil magic. He desecrated the resting place of Castle Blackstone’s heroes and used their bodies, practicing spells to reanimate the dead. When his crimes were discovered, Southern Realm soldiers captured him, but not before many of them died. The few who survived worked to seal the tomb and keep it a secret.

It’s up to your adventurers to discover the secret, bring the tomb back to light and restore the honor of those who still rest there.

To purchase the adventure follow the link on the right to visit DriveThruRPG.

Happy adventuring!

Welcome, and Thank You

If you’re landing here because you’ve downloaded one of our titles from DrivethruRPG we want to sincerely thank you for choosing our adventures. Our goal is to constantly improve and to create rich and interesting adventures that are fun to play. We would welcome and comments or feedback that would help us to this end.

Thanks again and we hope to see you back soon.

On The Horizon

Through the mists of imagination there’s a new continent on the horizon, a place some say is called the Land of Arvum. Tales tell of a place of diverse landscape, countries with rich histories, people of varied races and the home of many fantastic creatures. And for those with a stout heart, a place that promises to be a land of adventure.

In a small corner of this land lies a village, more like an outpost, on an old road near the edge of a vast forest called the Guardian Woods. The people that live there are friendly, but don’t let that fool you, they have to be tough to survive in this place. This is where your adventure begins.

Our fist full-length adventure, Blackstone Tomb, promises to deliver some dark tales, mysteries to discover and challenges to overcome. This is your introduction to the Land of Arvum and a country located there called the Southern Realm.

Release dates to be announced soon.

Adventure Shorts Launched

We did it! Our first set of short adventures, written for the new fifth edition of the world's most popular roleplaying game are now available for sale. We’re also offering one of the encounters included in the set for free, as an introduction.

Visit our R&D Adventures publisher page on DriveThruRPG.com to download the free adventure or purchase the full title.

R&D Adventures on DriveThruRPG

If you're playing edition 3.5 please let us know, we have a version written that we could make available.

Adventure Shorts Coming Soon

We are hard at work completing a series of five short adventures to be released after the New Year. Each of the adventures can played as stand-alone encounter in a single gaming session or incorporated into an ongoing campaign. Two separate versions will be available, one for third edition and one for the new fifth edition. As a teaser here are the titles: Abandoned Mine, Ambush, Black Tower, Forgotten Tomb, and Old Cottage. Stay tuned for more information on release dates and where to buy.

Is it Realistic? Right down to the weapon.

In our adventures we always strive for realism, even though it's a fantasy game. We're always asking ourselves, questions like: Would this monster or animal really live here? How would the weather affect the PCs in this situation? If a wizard has set a magic trap could he have used the spell to set that trap at his level? What would that weapon really look like?

As you’ll come to find out as you continue to read our posts, we're very visual. It’s really helpful and fun for us to visualize the game environment on many different levels of detail, from the layout of a town, down to the appearance of a specific weapon. In our game universe we imagine the world to be as it was in the Middle Ages in Europe. We don’t mind if players choose weapons or gear from any period up to the renaissance (excluding firearms) but we like to visualize them, as they would have actually been, for realism. We can appreciate other people’s artwork with spikey armor or unusually large, ornate swords but we prefer a more realistic approach.

I guess you can call us old-fashioned, or unimaginative. We think visualizing the game this way brings a level of realism to a game of otherwise unlimited fantasy. When thinking of all the potential for imagination with fantastic creatures, powerful magic, forgotten places, and strange characters there has to be part of it that relies on real world rules.

When creating or drawing a special weapon for an adventure one of our favorite web sites for doing research is My Armoury.com (http://www.myarmoury.com). It contains a massive amount of information on weapons (and armor) of all types. There are also forums and reviews about their physical properties. You could literally spend hours, days or months looking through all the information available on this site. After doing some research it’s much easier for me to create a weapon using information from a specific period about its dimensions, proportions, and physical characteristics. Again, this is because it's fun and interesting to mimic real designs.

Something else that’s really fun is naming special weapons. Once we’ve determined what special properties the weapon has it's fun to come up with a name that describes what it does. For example, one of the weapons we created was a holy short sword with the property of giving +2d6 extra points of damage to all enemies of evil alignment. We decided to call it Light Bringer, but didn’t stop there. To add another layer of interest we used Google to translate the name into German and came up with Lichtbringer. This extra layer adds a special quality to the game experience. If you remember in the Fellowship of the Ring when Elrond translates the ruins on the blade of Glamdring as, “Foe-hammer that the King of Gondolin once wore” it made the weapon seem that much more special.

When used sparingly through your adventures you can award your players a few very special items that could become heirloom quality pieces in their character’s collection.

Note: This weapon has no relationship the the sword of the same name in the novel series A Song of Ice and Fire. It just goes to show you that it’s a challenge to come up with an idea that someone hasn’t thought of already.