Land of Phantoms

And for all your patience and support, as well as a nod to this fairly awesome holiday and my return to the Land of Phantoms, here's an entry from the upcoming Volume 2. It's a preview of a monster in TA/TG. A new, yet familiar, take on an old standby -- The Demon! Demon Init +3; Atk necrotic scratches +8 melee (1d3 + 1 Sta; Fort save vs. DC 13 or permanent) or poltergeist activity; AC 17; HD 5d8; HP 25; MV fly 60’; Act 1d20; SP cold spot (if detected), manifestation, incorporeal, immune to non-magical weapons, possession, undead; SV Fort +6, Ref +6, Will +6; AL C. Demons are malevolent, incorporeal spirits that embody the darkest and most evil demimondes of human existence. Unlike Demons in the Dungeon Crawl Classics roleplaying game , a Demon in Transylvanian Adventures starts out as a spirit entity. The initial goal of these demonic spirits is to possess and inhabit a mortal body to enact their will in the material realm. The act of possessing a mortal form creates a ...

I'm baaa-aaaaack. First off, I apologize for the hiatus. I've had a lot going on in life and time to work on TA/TG was unavailable to me. Things have been corrected now (or so I think) and I should have a little bit more time on my hands. That said, the idea at this point is to split TA/TG into 3 books. The reasoning for this is that I can release the first book much sooner. It will still be a decent-sized book (easily over 100 pages, possibly over 200). But the rest of the "first book" that I'm working on appears to also be in the 200 page range. So rather than release 2 books (with a delay of 3+ months on the first release) with one book in the 500 page range, I'm planning to release 3 books. The difference between pricing a 500 page book and a 150-200 page book is sizable. So this will allow me to keep the cost down, which is important to me. The first book will be a sort of "Player's Handbook". It will contain all the classes (except th...

Could you post a short description of what TA/TG is exactly? I know it's set in transylvania and has guns, but what is the tone of the setting? Is there Christianity? Are the adventures as "over the top" as the standard DCC senarios? What is the setting and the campaign going to be like? Mark Brantingham posted this  on the blog and I think it warrants some answers. Could you post a short description of what TA/TG is exactly? TA/TG is two books: Transylvanian Adventures and The Transylvanian Grimoire .  Transylvanian Adventures contains character classes, charts, rules addenda, a hexmap, a sample adventure, monsters, adversaries and advice for playing in a Hammer Horror style campaign using the DCC ruleset.  The Transylvanian Grimoire,  at this time, features more adversaries, monsters, a couple more charts, a few more classes as well as an entirely new spellcasting system and collection of spells for use with Transylvanian Adventures . I know it's set in tran...

grald_the_hunter over on the DCC/TA-TG forum requested that I do some blogging on the status of Transylvanian Adventures' doneness. So here I'm including the Table of Contents with some notes on the status of each of the sections. In future blogposts, I'll go overly briefly what each chapter contains, as well as highlighting which portions can be used independently of TA/TG. Player's Sections I: Introduction - (done, under review) II: Rule Enhancements   -   (done, under review) III: 0-Level Adventurers   -   (done, under review) IV: Character Classes   -   (done, under review) V: Equipment and Wealth   -   (done, under review) Judge's Sections VI: Skills   -   (done, under review) VII: Magic   -   (done, under review) VIII: Transylvania - (redrafting, about 80% done) IX: Campaigning - (drafted, needs redraft) X: The Hexmap   -   (drafted, needs redraft) XI: Monsters and Encounters - (outlined, nee...

I jest but this is the first thing a player asked me when investigating the classes during a play test of Transylvanian Adventures . "The Redeemable? What is he? A coupon?" The Redeemable is the rogue with a heart of gold. These swashbuckling ne'er-do-wells fly through life on a chandelier, leaping from adventure to adventure inspiring admiration and envy among all those who cross their paths. You've Met This Guy/Gal Before The Redeemable is ubiquitous in almost every genre of fiction. From Han Solo to Flynn Ryder to the Dread Pirate Roberts. He (or she) is the rakish rapscallion out to clear his name, right a wrong or party hard and have his name writ large in the book of legends. How Does One Buckle a Swash? The Redeemable is VERY lucky. The Redeemable climbs better than the DCC Thief. In fact, her Climbing Class Feature is called "Like a Spider Monkey". Yeah, I'm rocking that. Just when you think the Redeemable is down, she can pull ...

About a month ago, I stumbled upon a very good post by someone on the intarwebs that goes by the name of Melan. It gave me a lot to think about and I'm sure anyone interested in Transylvanian Adventures likely would find his post interesting as well. Melan may not know (or remember) me but I know of him. We've communicated a bit on various RPG forums, including the Troll Lords forums during Castles & Crusades' early days and whatnot. So I would not think that his post is directed at me (or my game) specifically. But I think it raises interesting points. Transylvanian Adventures , in the Setting chapter, points out explicitly that what it deals with is the pop-culture representation of Transylvania -- which has no basis in reality. None. Zip. Zilch. Even vampires are more Slavic than Transylvanian. Look it up. I can wait. Here's a few other things that TA/TG does that maybe will help Melan and those who share his viewpoint feel a bit better about  Transylv...

Last Friday, we did another playtest of TA/TG. It went well but I felt it dragged in spots. Here's some notes from what went down: The Good I made a point to put the characters (all 1st level at this time) into a really tough fight that might've dropped a typical 1st level party. One did get dropped (which illuminated a couple of other issues I've noted below) and the party all rolled terribly. They made it through the encounter but just barely.  I felt this was important because I didn't know how much more powerful characters in TA/TG were compared to DCC. The answer? They're roughly the same. I wouldn't say it's a 1:1 sort of thing. But a similar party of characters in DCC would've had about the same amount of difficulty with the encounter as the TA/TG group had. Leveling up was a love-fest. Everyone liked it. A couple of options were identified that deserved another look-through. But everyone commented on how simple and awesome gaining a leve...

In response to some suggestions from Liu Jen Hao over on the Goodman Games TA/TG forum, I posted a lengthy response detailing how to work with disruptive players in a game of Transylvanian Adventures. In short, TA/TG is much like any other roleplaying game. I don't know of a single game where the nightmarish nihilism of Chaotic Stoopid couldn't derail an evening of play. A lot is covered over on that lengthy response. And I suppose a lot can be gleaned from it that's completely unrelated to the matter of disruptive playing styles. I'll try to summarize here: Transylvanian Adventures does not have any "genre enforcing" mechanic outside of the default awarding and penalizing of Luck as described in the Dungeon Crawl Classics rulebook. Alignment is expressed (usually) by a character's position in relation to ruling elite of the time period. Lawful, Neutral and Chaotic can have different applications to each of the classes with the chief concerns o...

Gloria Gaynor FTMFW! The Survivor’s life has been shaped by tragedy and misfortune. These individuals are pariahs among their own kind, possessing an oddness about themselves formed by their encounters with the most primal and ancient of horrors. You Got Something Against Beyonce? (No, not really) The Survivor has sparse (yet prominent) representation in Gothic horror. I mean, she's there in the biggest of the big influences (Mina Murray in Dracula ). But you don't see her much anywhere else. There always seems to be someone that's victimized by the guy in the black and red cape. But they aren't always as super-charged as Mina was in the end of Bram Stoker's Dracula . And this Survivor is really freaking super-charged. Okay, Make Me Care The Survivor is a class (perhaps the only class) I gave considerable thought to pulling out of Transylvanian Adventures for good. It just wasn't inspiring me. And if it wasn't inspiring me, then how could I sha...

It's hard to imagine that the marketing blitz for Transylvanian Adventures began over on the DCC RPG forums . It seems a long time ago. I suppose it was. Just since that thread started a whole lot has happened in my personal life. But that's a blog for another time. I still seem to be doing okay, even with a rough 6-8 months behind me. And TA/TG keeps rolling along. The interest in TA/TG, meanwhile, has been inspiring and humbling. I do appreciate everyone who takes the time to follow that gargantuan thread on the DCC forum and reaching 5000 views is amazing. In gratitude, I wanted to share something out of the books and asked over there what you all would like to read about.  grald_the_hunter was the first on the scene and asked about multi-classing in TA/TG. So here goes... Talking about multi-classing in TA/TG is complicated. It's slated to be included in the Grimoire -- which is still in development/ideation/awaiting draft. So I'm putting to pix...

Introducing the Theorist... On the cusp of the new trends in Metaphysics and Science, the Theorist experiments with all manner of alchemy, steamworks and revivification to test the boundaries of what is known. Fhtagn? The Theorist isn't easily found in movies and fiction upon which Transylvanian Adventures is based. Much like the Charger, the Theorist attempts to fill a role for the sake of making the game fun. In short, the Theorist is the magic-user of Transylvanian Adventures . The Theorist is the only class that casts "spells" in a similar manner to how a Wizard or Cleric might cast a spell in more traditional fantasy roleplaying games. But that's not all. The Theorist is more versatile than a traditional Magic-User. While the types of magic in Transylvanian Adventures is anything but set, The Transylvanian Grimoire will likely present Theorists with the capability to cast world-shattering Rituals, concoct recondite Potions and create arcane fabr...

Into the fray with the Charger… The Charger is a stalwart warrior seeking to sharpen himself against the whetstone of destiny. The Charger chooses not to back down from any adversary and pursues the thrill of battle for its own sake. Whence fore the Charger? Most people who are familiar with the tropes of Hammer Horror and Gothic Fiction are probably scratching their heads right about now. Where exactly did this Charger notion come from? The Charger is the only class with such a conspicuous absence from the books and movies upon which Transylvanian Adventures is based. Up and down. Left and sideways. No Chargers. Why is that? The reason for the Charger involves another tenet upon which Transylvanian Adventures stands: playability. It became noticeable early on in Transylvanian Adventures' development that there was a hole in the spectrum of classes. Transylvanian Adventures lacked the prototypical "I hit them with my axe" class. During playtests with DCC, I...

Without further ado, the Hunter… The Hunter is a person who is singularly devoted to finding and slaying creatures of the dark. The Hunter possesses a driving vendetta against the supernatural and unmatched skills dedicated to their destruction. What the Hunter Does In a nod to some of the derring-do that Peter Cushing laid down as Dr. Van Helsing, the Hunter gets Mighty Deeds and is quite good at them. The Hunter can cast rudimentary rituals and also turn the unholy, although the Hunter is not as good at either as the Polymath. The Hunter starts out with a good selection of weapon trainings -- the best in the game. And the option to become a sort of weapons master is definitely open to this class. The Hunter is always alert and is rarely caught off-guard by the forces of eeeevil. The Hunter is a master at infiltration and sabotage and has a nifty little MacGuyver sort of ability that is one of my favorites in the game. The Hunter is armed with a weapon of unique a...

With Great Power… The Half-Breed is one of the more interesting classes when it comes to abilities or "class  features". What separates it from other classes is that its class features and upgrades can be chosen randomly. They don't have to be. But for some players, there's an element of fun in not knowing what the Half-Breed can do. The only other class that has this element of randomness available to them is the Exotic -- who can randomly add Exotic Weapon upgrades in the same fashion. There are a few common abilities that all Half-Breeds share. All Half-Breeds can jump farther and move faster than normal humans -- a class feature I've called "Spring-Heeled Jack" for now. All Half-Breeds have low-light vision and are the only class to have that ability in TA/TG. All Half-Breeds have also picked up a Sneak Attack/Backstab ability in the last re-write that should be familiar to most. The flagship of being a Half-Breed, though, are the abilities it...

Continuing from Part I yesterday, I'm finishing up with some text from the Transylvanian Grimoire that deals directly with the Half-Breed's worldview and place in society. This is something to consider in terms of the Half-Breed's relationship to the party and the world at large. And the Half-Breed's alignment plays the greatest role in defining it. Here's a snippet from the book: Having lived outside of human society for most of their lives, Half-Breeds often exhibit an unhealthy ignorance or disregard for its mores and laws. But Half-Breeds are not necessarily malign. In fact, it’s rare for Half-Breeds to fully embrace their dark side. Lawful Half-Breeds are those who were found and raised in seclusion. Generally in a monastic order of some sort. By nature, Half-Breeds are uncomfortable around religious iconography but some religious sects have successfully trained them to be monster-killing machines. Neutral Half-Breeds comprise the majority of their kind....

Okay - I will go into this. I would like a more detailed blogpost on the Half-Breed and their possible interaction with the rest of the party. Would the class be playable in a Hammer-like setting? After all - you are a monster of some sort and the more devoted members of the party would probably still kill you. Also more info on the monster powers and being half-something etc. Is this chosen at attaining first level or not? -- Zdanman I solicited topics for a new blogpost on the DCC Transylvanian Adventures forum on the Goodman Games website and Zdanman came through with a good one. Zdanman wants more information on the Half-Breed and I can't blame him. The Half-Breed is one of the most enigmatic classes in The Transylvanian Grimoire. Here's why Zdanman's question is a fantastic topic for a blogpost The Half-Breed is the only class in Transylvanian Adventures that qualifies as non-human. It's sort of a demihuman class/race but, before we grow too concerned about a...