The year is off to a great start, and it just keeps getting better. We've got SEVEN new products in our online store this week, giving you a great selection of material to kick off 2020. We've also taken a look at J.R.R. Tolkien and his work in two different articles timed with his birthday. Plus, we've got news about this year's convention season, a look at Hammer Horror and how it affected the Cleric class, a reminder for our Road Crew, and also a plea to help out Lou Zocchi in a time of need.
For newsletter subscribers, we start with a preview of one of this week's new releases: a third-party preview of the
Obscura Zine! We also update you on some Kickstarter news—including a new
DCC Kickstarter from Psychoda Press—and a cover preview of the upcoming
Metamorphosis Alpha adventure. And we top it all off with what we're reading right now!
Let's get to it!
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COME MEET US ON THE ROAD!
Coming soon to a location near you.
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- SCARAB, Jan 17 - 20, Columbia, SC
- PAX South, Jan 17 - 19, San Antonio, TX
- FrankfortCon, Jan 25, Frankfort KY
- Indy Storm, Jan 31 - Feb 2, Indianapolis, IN
- DunDraCon, Feb 14 - 17, San Ramon, CA
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NEW IN OUR ONLINE STORE: DCC THIRD-PARTY PRODUCTS, OSR ITEMS, AND NEW SPANISH TRANSLATIONS OF DCC MODULES
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It’s the first release Wednesday of 2020! And we’re kicking it off right, with seven new releases in our online store!
From updated material to translations of classics to material for your
Dungeon Crawl Classics
game, this week has a little bit of everything.
Let’s see what’s in store! (In more ways than one…)
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Obscura is a zine about the old school spirit in RPGs.
Here we’ll talk about games like
DCC RPG
,
Sharp Sword and Sinister Spells
,
Solar Blades & Cosmic Spells
,
Dark Streets & Darker Secrets
, bring to us new rules, monsters, tables, spells, etc., and we hope, so many other games that focus on this classic style of gaming.
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This issue contains:
Product Spotlight, Spell Review, New Magic Items, New Monsters, three med-length encounters (“Craghorn Hills”, ”The Sea God’s Halls”,”Lair of the Bloody Fists”), THREE Full page comics “Dungeon Delvers” (artist, Travis Hanson), and an interview with Douglas Niles (TSR author and game creator).
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The Bailiff is an assistant to your existing Judge’s Screen, with things like Emergency Nouns, a NEW Birth Augur Chart especially suited to one-shot games, Inspirational Place Names, Weird Weather, some recurring monsters, and more!
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DCC RPG MASTER ZINE INDEX
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A digest-sized topical content index of all third-party-publisher produced
DCC RPG
zines. This Index is updated annually.
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DCC #70: JEWELS OF THE CARNIFEX - SPANISH EDITION
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This is the Spanish language edition of our classic adventure from our publishing partner Other Selves.
Set amid the sprawling decadence of Punjar, Jewels of the Carnifex offers low-level adventurers a chance to plumb the mysteries beneath the city’s soiled streets, explore forgotten crypts lavished with weird artifacts, and – for the quick and daring – claim the lost Jewels of the Carnifex!
Bonus Adventure: This module also includes the bonus adventure Lost in the Briars, by Brendan LaSalle — an exciting romp through the woods — woods controlled by an evil treant intent on completing a diabolic ritual!
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DCC #82: BRIDE OF THE BLACK MANSE - SPANISH EDITION
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This is the Spanish language edition of our classic adventure from our publishing partner Other Selves.
After hundreds of years, the last of the holy wards has fallen. Tonight a storm crashes against the ancient manor house and forgotten spirits rise from the muck and mire. As the adventurers arrive to explore the Black Manse, Mammon calls for his winsome bride. He will leave with a soul at the end of the night. The only question is: Whose?
Bonus Adventure: This module also includes the bonus adventure Floating Oasis of the Ascended God, by Stephen Newton! In this level 1 adventure, the player characters are sent to a floating island where they encounter bizarre underlings of an absent deity!
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This is
Silent Titans
, an adventure, a game, a work of art, a mystery, a book of post-singularity dream-imagery.
It’s an Adventure.
Silent Titans
includes an overland area isolated by mysterious phenomena, a central town, a scattering of settlements and five unique non-Euclidian dungeons. Brave the strange environment, investigate the dungeons, get the treasure and you can escape. If you are familiar with the general conventions of old-school play or light d20 mechanics, you should be able to expand Silent Titans to any of the main OSR systems.
It’s History.
Silent Titans
is set in a world wracked by time spasms and dimensional collapse. In its geography, society, environments, and characters are warped or alternate versions of the Wirral Peninsula in North West England. Driven through this like needles through skin, are terrifying shards of a distant, ruined, high-technology reality whose broken weapons and poisonous ontological waste has been dumped and hidden in its own past. It has both sword fights and robots.
It’s a work of art.
Silent Titans
combines the fervid, intensely vibrant, Escher-like artwork of Dirk Detweiler Leichty and the strange dream-vision prose of Patrick Stuart on every page. Its dungeons are also heraldic glyphs, its monsters and characters sprawl across double-page spreads like the figures of an illuminated gospel from a fallen post-singularity world.
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SNEAK
ATTACK
PEEK
newsletter exclusive!
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A LOOK AT THE OBSCURA ZINE ISSUE ONE
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One of the latest releases at our online store is the new
Obscura Zine. This old-school zine is specifically meant to go along with games the likes of
Dungeon Crawl Classics, and we think it's a great new addition to the zine genre.
So much so that we have arranged to give you a sneak peek at the first issue! Below you'll see a link to some of the interior of
Obscura Zine Issue One, and we've also got some of the artwork for you to click on to get a better look.
Check it out!
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WHAT WE'RE READING
newsletter exclusive!
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ROY KRENKEL: FATHER OF MODERN FANTASY
By AndrewSteven Damsits and Barry Klugerman, IDW Publishing, 2019
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by Joseph Goodman
Roy Krenkel: Father of Heroic Fantasy
does an excellent job of showcasing Krenkel’s pen-and-ink work. He was famous for his architectural and city scenes, his dinosaur art, and his beautiful and curvaceous women. But he is most famous for his everlasting devotion to illustrating the scenes of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Countless images of John Carter and other ERBian heroes populate Krenkel’s oeuvre, and any Appendix N fan will find dozens of scenes they recognize immediately.
Roy Krenkel is the greatest fantasy artist you’ve never heard of. He was a prolific artist with pen-and-ink illustrations numbering in the tens of thousands, yet only a small portion of that body of work was ever published. He constantly re-worked his images, and “over-drew” his assignments, frequently delivering more art than a publisher could print. Krenkel’s work on “Cities and Scenes from the Ancient World” many decades ago is absolutely gorgeous, but until I bought this new biography I did not know just how many scenes he had drawn in excess of the assignment. Much of that “overflow art” is printed here for the first time.
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A testament to Krenkel’s skill as an artist and teacher is the number of modern artists who count him as a friend and mentor. The list is humbling, including of course Al Williamson, Jeff Jones and Frank Frazetta. Frazetta’s entrée into book cover painting (which eventually led to his breakout gig painting Conan covers) was due to Krenkel. Krenkel was painting Edgar Rice Burroughs covers for Ace paperbacks and asked his publisher to give “the new kid” Frazetta a shot. Some people say the early Krenkel Ace covers look like Frazetta. It’s the other way around: the early Frazetta Ace covers, among his first published paintings, look like Krenkel’s work that came before. The influence is clear and obvious. Only later did Frazetta develop the personal style he’s now famous for.
If I have one complaint about this volume, it is the failure to include Krenkel’s amazing color covers for the Ace paperbacks. Books on Frazetta number in the dozens, whereas a book on Krenkel is a once-a-decade occurrence (if that). I feel his Ace paperback covers are worth reprinting, even if they were reprinted “only 8 years ago” in the Vanguard work on RGK. I keep a stack of the Ace paperbacks in my office, just to stare at the covers every so often, and they really should have been included in this volume so those new fans who discover Krenkel this way will see them. If you enjoy this book, also find a used copy of
RGK: The Art of Roy G. Krenkel
(by J. David Spurlock, Vanguard Publishing, 2011) so you can see his Ace paperback art. Regardless,
Roy Krenkel: Father of Heroic Fantasy
is an excellent tour of the fabulous work of a great fantasy artist, well worth the price. You can spend a long time in your imagination on each and every page.
Postscript: You can also find a good selection of Krenkel’s ERB art in the recent “Edgar Rice Burroughs 100 Year Art Chronology” from Troll Lord Games. Going on memory but I believe many of his ERB book covers appear in volume 2 of that series.
Reviewer’s note: To fill out the contents of this volume, I present here some photographs of a few Krenkel covers from my own personal collection. Enjoy!
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KICKSTARTER NEWS
newsletter exclusive!
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ROUNDUP OF KICKSTARTER NEWS
What's happening with ongoing campaigns
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If you've back our Kickstarters, you always get the latest news related to them, even long after they have ended. We always want to give our Kickstarter supporters the latest news related to anything they've backed.
Case in point: we have just released the cover art for the upcoming
Doom on the Warden
book to backers of our previous
Metamorphosis Alpha Kickstarter, Epsilon City
! This new adventure by James M. Ward is self-described as "Tomb of Horrors in space." Goodman Games is publishing
Doom on the Warden
and it will launch in Kickstarter form soon.
In the meantime, head over to the Kickstarter page for the full view of this amazing artwork that you see teased above!
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THE FORGOTTEN RITES OF THE MOLDERING DEAD
New DCC Kickstarter from Psychoda Press
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The folks behind
The Lesser Key to the Celestial Legion
are back with an all-new release that is fully-compatible with
Dungeon Crawl Classics
!
The Forgotten Rites of the Moldering Dead
explores the world and the role of the dead and undead in new ways. The creative team of Donn Stroud and James A. Pozenel, Jr. bring you some great new material for your own game. Here's what they lay out on the Kickstarter page:
Like
The Lesser Key to the Celestial Legion
,
The Forgotten Rites
will be filled with tables, original art, and old woodcut illustrations. Unlike
The Lesser Key
, this book focuses on the dead, un-dead, and death. It will contain generators for the following and much more:
- Death Processions and Funerary Marches
- Burial Practices and Entombment
- What Grows Where the Dead Rest
- Emissaries of Death
- Random Powers of the Un-Dead
- Appearance of the Un-Dead
- Adventure Hooks AKA "The Smell of Death Surrounds You"
The Kickstarter is already funded, but there are still stretch goals to obtain. Head on over and help them reach those goals today!
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SUPPORT LOU ZOCCHI AFTER HIS FIRE
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Lou Zocchi is an innovator, a creator, and an icon of the industry. And right now he needs our help.
Over the past weekend, Lou’s property broke out in a fire. Fortunately, no one was hurt and his house was spared—but his garage was not. That garage served as the warehouse and headquarters for his company, and it has left him in dire need. Lou makes his living by traveling to shows and selling the product that was stored in that garage, and right now that future needs help.
A GoFundMe page has been set up to help Lou Zocchi, and we ask you to take a moment to go and give what you can to help him out. Every little bit helps Lou rebuild and restore his life. Please, give what you can.
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ANNOUNCING OUR 2020 CONVENTION SCHEDULE
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Last year we went to more shows and events than ever before. And this year, we’re blowing that number out of the water.
The 2020 Goodman Games Convention Schedule
is now live! We are currently scheduled to attend thirty-nine —yes, thirty-nine —conventions in 2020. Mathematically, that’s a show two out of every three weeks! This is the perfect way to meet up with, play games, and even purchase merch from the Goodman gang! And we’ll be all over the country, attending from Seattle to Atlanta, LA to Boston, and every place in between!
Oh, and we’re not just limiting it to one country, either. Once again, Goodman Games is going international! For the second time, Goodman Games will have a booth set up at the UK Games Expo!
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READ MAGIC WITH MICHAEL CURTIS: FRODO LIVES
by Michael Curtis
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For more than forty years, people have gathered together to play games casting themselves as fantastical heroes facing off against terrible monsters in order to gain wealth, glory…and experience points. Fantasy roleplaying has impacted the arts and entertainment in ways unimagined by the hobby’s creators, influencing everything from video games to Hollywood movies and popular television series. But fantasy roleplaying did not emerge Athena-like from the minds of Gygax and Arneson. A fortuitous chain of events led to the emergence of
Dungeons & Dragons
and the roleplaying hobby as a whole. Foremost among the events that brought us to where we are today is the story of a hobbit, a ring, and a trilogy of illicit paperback novels.
Fantasy fiction was in poor shape in the 1950s and 1960s. The golden age of the pulp magazines like Weird Tales was over, a victim to both wartime shortages and the rising prominence of science fiction. Lovecraft and Howard were both dead, and
Clark Ashton Smith
had stopped writing his wonderfully evocative fantasy tales. Fantasy had been shoved aside by the atomic bomb and Sputnik...
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HEY ROAD CREW: KEEP RUNNING GAMES
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The battle isn’t over. The calendar may have turned, and the year is new, fresh, and exciting—but the fight isn’t done. 2019 is over and done with—which means it’s time to start fighting in 2020!
If you are a member of our
Road Crew
(and if you are running any public games of DCC/MCC/anything Goodman, you should be!), just because the date has changed does NOT mean that you should be holding off on running games. True, we have not yet announced the details of the 2020 season of the Road Crew promotion, but your games are already important!
The “game count” reset on January 1, so you should be submitting back at game 1 from now on. Don’t worry, you won’t miss out on any cool swag—once we announce the 2020 Road Crew we can catch you up on any swag you’ve missed.
So let’s get this year kicked off the right way: by running lots of games! Get out there and run some Dungeon Crawl Classics at school! Have a Mutant Crawl Classics party at your local pub! Have everyone at a park join in on a DCC Lankhmar event! They all count, and will get you on the road to getting your swag...
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FILMS OF HIGH ADVENTURE: HAMMER FILMS AND THE CLERIC CLASS
by Bob Brinkman
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The year 2020 marks the 62nd anniversary of the Hammer Horror film
Dracula
. Why is this so important? You can thank
Dracula
for the creation of the cleric class, and the Hammer Horror series in general for influencing several aspects of
Dungeons and Dragons
(and later the
Dungeon Crawl Classics
role-playing game).
The history of Hammer films is as mysterious and convoluted as the history of gaming itself. Founded in 1935 as Hammer Productions, the original incarnation went bankrupt and was later revived in 1938, going on to become Hammer Film Productions in 1948 with the release of
The Dark Road
. So, depending on your reckoning, Hammer Films has just celebrated either 70 or 80 years. The other big anniversary, and one with a decidedly important impact on our hobby, is the 61st anniversary of Hammer’s
Dracula
(also known as
Horror of Dracula
), starring Sir Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. This is where the cleric comes in...
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ADVENTURES IN FICTION: J.R.R. TOLKIEN
by Chris Doyle
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John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on January 3, 1892, in what is now South Africa. His parents, both English, had re-located so his father could accept a promotion with his current employer, a bank. He returned to England at the age of three, but his father succumbed to fever and never made the journey. Tolkien was a soldier (in the First World War, eventually reaching the rank of Lieutenant), a poet, a linguist, a professor, and most notably a writer. He is best known for authoring
The Hobbit
and
The Lord of the Rings
, literary classics that helped define the genre.
Prior to penning these classics, Tolkien became the youngest professor at the University of Leeds. There he pursued translation, medieval studies, and private tutoring. He was also an acclaimed lecturer. In the 1920s, he spent six years translating Beowulf from Old English to modern English, which included adding hundreds of pages of his own commentary. This work would heavily inspire his later writing epics, yet he never published it. In 2014, his son, Christopher, edited and published the translation nearly 90 years following its completion...
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OUR FULL 2020 CONVENTION SCHEDULE
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Want to know where we'll be in 2020? For your convenience, here is our full 2020 schedule to peruse!
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- SCARAB, Jan 17 - 20, Columbia, SC
- PAX South, Jan 17 - 19, San Antonio, TX
- FrankfortCon, Jan 25, Frankfort KY
- Indy Storm, Jan 31 - Feb 2, Indianapolis, IN
- DunDraCon, Feb 14 - 17, San Ramon, CA
- Dreamation, Feb 20 - 23, Morristown, NJ
- ConNooga, Feb 21 - 23, Chattanooga, TN
- Pax East, Feb 27 - Mar 1, Boston MA
- Gamicon, Feb 28 - Mar 1, Cedar Rapids, IA
- GAMA Trade Show, Mar 9 - 13, Reno, NV
- GameStorm, Mar 26 - 29, Portland, OR
- Gary Con, Mar 26 - 29, Lake Geneva, WI
- Whosyercon, Apr 10 - 12, Indianapolis, IN
- Long Island Tabletop Gaming Expo, April 18, Garden City, NY
- Lexicon, Apr 24 - 26, Lexington, KY
- Round Table Con, Apr 24 - 26, Sharon, PA
- Furry Weekend Atlanta, May 7 - 11, Atlanta, GA
- ACD Games Day, May 20 - 22, Madison, WI
- MomoCon, May 21 - 24, Atlanta, GA
- KublaCon, May 21 - 25, Burlingame, CA
- UK Game Expo, May 29 - 31, Birmingham, UK
- North Texas RPG Convention, June 4 - 7, Dallas, TX
- Origins Game Fair, June 17 - 21, Columbus, OH
- RageCon, June 26 - 28, Reno, NV
- ConnectiCon, July 9 - 12, Hartford, CT
- Gen Con, July 30 - Aug 2, Indianapolis, IN
- Dragonflight, Aug 14 - 16, Seattle, WA
- DragonCon, Sep 3 - 7, Atlanta, GA
- Pacificon, Sep 4 - 7, Santa Clara, CA
- Alliance Open House, Sept 11 - 13, Fort Wayne, IN
- Queen City Conquest, Sept 11 - 13, Buffalo, NY
- Con on the Cob, Oct 2-4, Richfield, OH
- RinCon, Oct 4, Tucson, AZ
- Save Against Fear, Oct 9 - 11, Harrisburg, PA
- Gauntlet Con, Oct 24 - 27, ONLINE
- Gamehole Con, Nov 5 - 8, Madison, WI
- Metatopia, Nov 6 - 8, Morristown, NJ
- U-Con, Oct 13 - 15, Ypsilanti, MI
- PAX Unplugged, Nov 20 - 22, Philadelphia, PA
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GET YOUR HOLIDAY MODULES NOW!
We've put them in one place to make them easy to find!
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Are you looking for the perfect gift for your dungeon master or the perfect module to play with your gaming group over the holiday season? Well, we have the solution for that! Here at Goodman Games, we have a whole page dedicated to
Holiday modules
.
So whatever
horrible tortures
glorious gifts you would like to lay upon your players we have you covered.
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Looking for a great game this weekend? Always remember to check out our
Events Page! Below is an excerpt of what is available in the next few days, but for the full schedule click on the image!
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