HOT Sale at Flames Rising RPGs!!

Normally I don't pimp businesses (unless it's my FLGS) on this blog, but there's a great, big heckova PDF sale on Flames Rising's RPG Now storefront. They're having a "Twenty for 10" sale (that's 20 products for 2010). Word to the wise: the sale ends January 7.

There's some seriously good swag to be found there--many at more than half-off the cover price. Lest you all think me a sellout (I wish!) here's a few choice items that piqued my curiosity:

• Dragon Warriors RPG (I’ve heard great things about Dragon Warriors lately)
• Dungeon Crawl Classics #51: Castle Whiterock (This is a compendium of adventures from Goodman that’s usually $60)
• Hero 6th "2010 Special" [BUNDLE] (Isn’t this the Champions game engine?)
• MT MegaTraveller Core System [BUNDLE] (Original price is over $70!)
• Mouse Guard Roleplaying Game (Was JUST talking about this on Narmer’s blog)
• Cooper’s Compendium of Corrected Creatures: [BUNDLE] (lots of OGL 3.5 monsters)
• Starblazer Adventures (I think I’ll have to get this one, in print it’s usually $50 in hardcover and 600+ pages of ideas, great illustrations, and even has a comic included!)

This is just a sample, there's lot's more Traveller and Twillight stuff plus Deadlands made the list and how can you not love an old west RPG?  

With all the new OSR products coming out in the last month, and a few more on the horizon I feel like I'm going broke. But then this damn sale cropped up and there's only 3 days left--what's a guy to do?!

Huge props to DeForest over on Narmer's blog Dynasty Zero for the tip!

UPDATE: I purchased the two in green yesterday, lot's of great material, I'm quite pleased!

Hey, you've got your SCIENCE in my FANTASY!

No, you've got your fantasy in my sci-fi!

There's a lot of talk lately about the resurgence of the old-school or the old school renaissance in RPGs and a call to return back to the roots of science fantasy. In fact some are calling for an escalation of these efforts (which I whole-heartedly embrace BTW). Apparently some people are squeamish about mixing the two, barring a few one-off exceptions. Which, to be honest, is understandable. Especially if you're trying to create a world where technology can't come in and trump your magic system or where an omnipotent race of aliens can easily annihilate your meticulously crafted medieval analogue world. For some, it was less of an issue, but most seem to be more comfortable keeping sci-fi and fantasy separate.

It occurred to me however that if you started with a sci-fi universe and sprinkled in some magic or low-tech, then people don't seem to mind. Mysticism and lasers seemed like two things too good to pass up.

Case in point:
...or so we thought, before 1999. But isn't it funny how (essentially working backwards in a sense) it's easier to think of a sci-fi world in the broad strokes of fantasy, than to try and upgrade an ancient world into a larger universe.

Food for thought I guess. Thoughts?

The New Frontier!

So this JUST arrived from the mailman not even 5 minutes ago. I saw the post over at Grognardia and had Star Frontiers on the brain for sometime. Yeah, I've already downloaded all the PDFs of the remastered SF books and modules over at StarFrontiersman.net and StarFrontiers.com. And all of his supplement issues. But what I really wanted was the box set...so I could stare at it. That's not weird is it?

Art for Unproduced Stormbringer Animated Movie

Image: Wendy Pini via Boing Boing (click pick to visit book online)

So this is pretty cool--apparently, Wendy Pini, the artist behind the Elfquest series attempted to get Michael Moorcock's Stormbringer made into an animated feature back in the 80s. While the movie didn't happen (obviously) Richard Pini, (her husband and Elfquest's co-writer) brought the book to the web and you can click through the illustrations. While I can't say I've counted myself an Elfquest fan, the artwork is quite wonderful. Huge props to Boing Boing for the story. Pini also recounts the effort to get the film made.

A word to the wise, the book's website may take a moment to load (it did for me anyway) as a little timer pops up in lower right corner between pictures, so be patient!

Enjoy!

From the Vault: Green Dragon Lurker

Just a quick post to show off my all-time favorite dragon figure. It's just a plain, green dragon with an old school feel because, well, it's old! It was included in the Forest of Doom playset made by Dimensions for Children (DFC) in '81.

It was part of the Dragon Riders of the Styx series (so I'm told). Reis over at Geek Orthodox did a lengthy post on the whole series a while back, so I'll let him fill you in on the details. Some of the photos over there weren't holding up when I checked, but here's hoping they are back up. Here's an alternate set of photos just in case (scroll down a bit).

Anyway, who can resist this little guy? What a great pose!