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From the desks of Free League Publishing.

Pre-orders with bundle discount and immediate PDF access are now live for the thrilling new expansion alongside Evolved editions of earlier ALIEN RPG fan favorites Today, Free League Publishing announced a slew of new upcoming releases for ALIEN The Roleplaying Game Evolved Edition, headlined by the cinematic adventure Operation Leading Edge and an accompanying Miniatures Set, all published in partnership with 20th Century Studios.

These items are now available for pre-order in the Free League webshop with immediate PDF access ahead of their Q4 release, alongside a new dedicated dice tray for the ALIEN RPG and Evolved Editions of the fan-favorite cinematic adventure Chariot of the Angels and the major campaign books Colonial Marines Operations Manual and Building Better Worlds.
Fans who pre-order a least 5 of these new products in the Free League webshop qualify for a 20% bundle discount (deducted at checkout). More information about each title is available below.

 Here is a mutated variant of the classic pack-hunting dromaeosaurid, ready-made for the rules-light post-apocalyptic settings of Cepheus Atom.The Rad-Stalker (Mutated Deinonychus)The Rad-Stalker is a terrifying twist on pre-collapse cloning experiments gone wrong, further warped by centuries of background radiation. They are larger than their ancestors, measuring roughly 4 meters long, Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

Today, Free League Publishing launched a pre-order for Invincible – Superhero Roleplaying. The official tabletop RPG, based on the groundbreaking comic book and animated tv series Invincible, and voted one of the most anticipated RPGs of 2026, will be officially launched on July 30 at Gen Con and in hobby stores everywhere. Pre-orders in the Free League webshop give immediate PDF access.

The launch includes no less than five items, all detailed below.

Also, fans going to Gen Con can sign up to play the brand new adventure Superhero Season. This intense 2-hour thrill ride throws the heroes into a deadly predicament as a massive bounty is placed on their heads. Tickets are going fast but there are still some slots left on Saturday. And even fans who don’t play can get printed booklets of Superhero Season at the Free League booth #2449.

© 2026 Skybound, LLC. Based on the comic book Invincible® by Robert Kirkman, Cory Walker and Ryan Ottley. INVINCIBLE and any related logos are registered or otherwise protected trademarks of Robert Kirkman Inc. All Rights Reserved.

 The Pre-Cataclysmic age of King Kull is a brutal world of crumbling obsidian towers, ancient serpent cults, and blood-soaked bronze. For a Sword of Cepheus (2nd Edition) campaign, navigating the untamed wilderness of Atlantis or the decaying cities of Valusia requires a unique blend of weird science-fantasy and raw grit.d100 Prehistoric & Sword & Sorcery Monster EncountersThese Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

I thought it would be fun to craete a file card a day for Army Ants. Today we start with the character Mary used during our play-testing sessions...

By Fabricio Garcia
Kobold King
OSR
Level 3

Bugbears are attacking the dwarfs on their way up the mountain to make offerings to their god. A group of elf scholars came to the region to study the presence of bugbears in such remote region and they are stopping the dwarfs in their attacks against the bugbears. Furious with the lack of offerings and prayers. The dwarven god is eminent to turn away from the region and allowing monsters to roam free. The PC’s can seek the god absolution on the dwarfs instead or even make them leave the region and help the bugbears in taking the region and put their gods in power of Altuvia.

(This is a PDF but there is an Obsidian markup file. Again, I tried to install obsidian and get it going to view it the way it was meant to be viewed, got it installed, but again couldn’t figure out how to view/work with the markup file)

This sixty page adventure describes … I don’t really know what it describes. A political situation? A couple of dungeons surrounding a political situation? It’s all just general ideas, with few specifics, and almost certainly worth no time. And yet, I find the premise intriguing in a weirdly real-life cynical way.

The marketing blurb is essentially correct. Some dwarves were driven above ground by oozes attacking their mines. They have no ore. They are trying to get ore from their cousins but the elf lands are in the way and  “Now the dwarfs wait for the complicated and unhurried elf politics allows the ore transport.” Noice! And, now, some bugbears have moved in to the region. Their attacks are preventing the dwarves from getting to their temple to honor their goddess. This WILL eventually cause her to abandon them and then the bugbear god will move in to set up shop, which is the EXPLICIT plan of the bugbears. IE: preventing the dwarves from worshipping their goddess so she’ll abandon them and their dude can take up the mantle of the region. But, now, also, with the bugbears showing up, some elf researchers have shown up and have a manor home in the wilderness where they’ve set up base. They want to study the bugbear migrations, which they find unusual, and are preventing the dwarves from attacking the bugbears. If we think of the eves as having superior technology/gods/magic/armies, then the position of the dwarves becomes quite interesting. Piss off the local elves and maybe influence the larger political “ore from our cousins” thing? Are there local dwarves acting as guides to the elves, or, maybe, nearby halflings that trade with the dwarves but also sell their services to the elves? The analog of an asymmetric power relationship, and the consequences to all parties, it quite interesting. The elves WILL, through their good natured scholastic meddling, cause the dwarves to be wiped out and the bugbears to take over the region. Do they care? Will they be wiped out also? This is all fucking magnificent. The comparisons to real life are obvious.

And almost nothing of substance is in the adventure. Some of what I described is present in the adventure. Some of it is shit I inferred, like dwarf collaborators or halflings, or other linkages. But, also, beyond a simple overview, essentially matching in context and length what I described, there is nothing of any of this present in the adventure. The individuals, the timeline, everything else, none of it really is related to the overall situation described. Yes, the bugbears want to kill and maybe an elf , described, wants to study shit. But these kind of grand machinations, or even minor machinations, are just not present in the adventure. At best you’ll get an NPC description who has a quest like “I want some elven wine.”

For it being sixty pages there is remarkably little specific to point to. The dwarf mines have a map, but no key, just instructions to roll on random tables. But, even then, I’m not sure I can make heads or tails of the map. Are the rectangles rooms? Or are those just hallways that meet up? What are the grey lines? And then the map of a ruined manor is not keyed, with just things like “Bedroom 1 : The room to the left of the corridor” Creature amounts and mundane treasures, including potions and scrolls are just not present, explicitly so, fitting in to some “for use with any system” statement. I can’t fathom ever doing this in an adventure. 

This is SO open ended, SO non-specific that it amounts to just the overall situation description, some NPC descriptions that don’t tie in very well, and site descriptions that are almost as vague and non-specific as you can possibly have and still call it a site description. You’re going to have to wing, and add to and expand everything. I get it, we do some of that when running a game. But there is SO little direction here, so little that is specific, that this amounts to very little more than napkin notes and ideas of what could be going on in various places with various people. In sixty pages.  I think I’m done with Kobold King. 

This is $2 at DriveThru. There is no preview. 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/569519/bugbears-in-the-mountains-markdown-mini-setting?1892600

My mission: to read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to the end of Crisis. This week, I'm looking at the comics that were on stands in the week of July 4, 1985. 

Crisis on Infinite Earths #7: This double-sized issue was heavily advertised in the previous month. Given that the number of crossovers also pick up this point, it feels like at over halfway done, Crisis is really getting started in earnest. Most of the issue, though, is Lyla explaining the retconned history of Krona and the creation of the multiverse to a group of heroes assembled from each of the 4 Earths. Then, Pariah tells his part in inadvertently releasing the Anti-Monitor. Blue Beetle is amusingly cast in the roll of testy, brass-tacks guy, and keeps telling them to get to the point.
The point is that a selection of the most powerful heroes form the Earths are going to take the battle to the Anti-Monitor, using Alexander Luthor as a gateway There seems to be the pattern of selecting the real heavy hitters, but also people with matter transformation or light powers, so we get 2 Supermen and Supergirl, of course, but also Firestorm, the Ray, and Dr. Light. Most of the team is tied up with fighting rock monsters of some sort, but Dr. Light and Superman make it to the Anti-Monitor's central machine being used to merge and annihilate the worlds. I don't recall that has his plan before, anyway, Anti ambushes them and starts beating Superman to death, but Supergirl hearing his cries, rushes to the rescue. She pounds the Anti-Monitor into his machine and keeps pounding him, telling Dr. Light to get Superman away. Supergirl manages to destroy the Anti's armor, but she's distracted for a moment to yell at Dr. Light to get out, Anti strikes back and bathes her in anti-matter.
Supergirl dies, but the machinery is destroyed and the Anti-Monitor has to flee. Dr. Light is inspired by the heroics she saw and vows to be less selfish. Earth-One Superman is, of course, devastated. The issue ends with a memorial for Supergirl one Earth where Batgirl eulogizes her friend.
This was a well-done issue and sort of sets the style of how "big character deaths" will be handled in events in the years to come.

DC Comics Presents #86: This is a Crisis crossover issue, Kupperberg and Hoberg/Hunt bring back a villain from Kupperberg's Supergirl run and give us a view of Supergirl's time just before Crisis #7. In fact, her emotionally supporting her friend Batgirl in Crisis #4 is portrayed again in this story. With the weird storms in the skies as a portend of doom, Supergirl and Superman are distracted by the unusual appearance of twin black holes in a certain sector of space. When they investigate, the Supergirl foe Blackstarr emerges from one of the holes. At first, they think she's the cause of the cosmic upheaval. Supergirl is quicker to be convinced otherwise than her cousin. Blackstarr for her part, views Superman as the culprit due to a misreading of the spacetime. Kara has to keep the piece until the other two see their errors, and they are all able to join forces, buying the universe a little extra time against the anti-matter wave pushing on it. Blackstarr disappears and Superman and Supergirl precede to the next, uh--Crisis.

Fury of Firestorm #40: Conway and Clark/Akin/Garvey bring Ronnie to graduation day. While Firestorm makes an appearance there isn't a super-villain and very little in the way of superheroics. Instead, Ronnie first has to deal with accusations of cheating (his grades have gotten better, but its due to absorbing knowledge from Stein when they were in gestalt) which he overcomes by taking an oral exam, and the bullying of Cliff Carmichael, which he conquers by not being so reactive. His newfound maturity helps to patch out a disagreement with Doreen. The two plan to go to Vandemeer College--but so is Carmichael. Firestorm also gets served notice Felicity Smoak is suing him, and Ronnie and Stein meet Ronnie's Dad's new girlfriend--Smoak!

Hex #2: I picked up this issue as a kid, but it was the last one I would get for a while. I think the place I usually bought comics didn't carry the title, because most of the covers I never remember seeing. Fleisher and Texeria/Janke pick up where the 1st issue left off, and they keep a breakneck pace up pretty much the whole issue. We rewind to the skies above Vietnam to meet the troops in the helicopter that almost crashes into Hex. He helps the survivors out of the wreck, and while they are on the run from Borsten's soldiers, the information Hex has allows them to piece together a bit of what is going on. One of the soldiers, Harris, is black, and is a bit hostile toward Hex due to his Southernness, understandable given the events of the era he came from, and Hex's Confederate uniform. They still manage to work together to stay alive though. When, Stiletta reappears and offers them help breaking into Borsten's complex to get them home, they all jump at the chance.
It's all a setup. Two of the soldiers are killed by a trap, and Harris susses out Stiletta is a robot leading them into an ambush. Hex and Harris have to fight their way out, but Harris is caught behind an energy fence. Hex can't get to him, so the other soldier tells him to get out, which Hex does. Again, he's on the run on a stolen motorcycle in the desert.

Justice League of America #243: Conway and Tuska/Machlan continue the story from last issue. Aquaman and Mera return to the base to find the team gone to Canada. Meanwhile, Vixen frees the group put in a hole under a boulder by Amazo, and Martian Manhunter and Gunn explore the mystery of how Amazo got out the Fortress of Solitude and what he's up too. They learn of prospector Jake MacGregor's grudges and obsessions, now assumed by Amazo. Ultimately, J'onzz confuses Amazo by appearing as MacGregor, giving Aquaman the opening he needs to defeat the android.
In the aftermath, Aquaman announces he's leaving the team to save his marriage. He seems an abrupt exit, but I think Conway realized that the King of the Seas was a poor fit for the idea of a more street level team based in Detroit. 

Tales of the Teen Titans #58: Wolfman and Patton/Tanghal finish up the new Fearsome Five story. Most of the issue is the fight between the Titans and the Five, accentuating the theme of the Titan's teamwork allowing them to hold their own against their more powerful foes. In the end though, it's Jericho that really saves the day for them, and so at the end of the issue they officially make him a member. 
The Fearsome Five is also likely hampered by Psimon disappearing. He's whisked away by the Monitor to appear in Crisis on Infinite Earths #1. 
Victor undergoes surgery to make him Cyborg again due to his injuries, and the team rallies around him to show their support.
The editorial tells us this is the last original issue of Tales. Reprints will begin with the next issue, starting with a reprint of the new Teen Titans first appearance.

Vigilante #23: Kupperberg and Smith/Mitchell continue the story from last issue, but slow things down to deal with Marcia's and Adrian's relationship. There's a strange storm in the sky (the Crisis most likely) as Marcia demands answers from Adrian about what's going on. And honestly, it's overdue. It is difficult to sympathize with him because he's been behaving so erratically, so Marcia has every reason to think he's mentally ill. And she might be right! At first, he's able to convince her to give him more time, but when she catches him with a gun preparing to look for the killer Vigilante, he's only option to keep her from walking out is starting to tell her the whole story.

 Arriving at the iron docks of Krag-Ghar is a jarring sensory assault. The humid air smells of sulfur, stagnant lake water, and melting pig iron. Huge, soot-stained chains dangle from the cavern roof to steady the suspended stalactite city above, while the green glow of phosphorescent moss reflects slickly off the carapaces of the Chitin Regime guards. This blog post picks right up from&nbspNeedleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

From the halls of Gen Con


Last month, Gen Con fans chose the name. Now we’re excited to reveal the beer behind it. Introducing Rage Quit, the Official Beer of Gen Con 2026. Rage Quit is a light and crisp cherry and lemon-lime ale created by Sun King Brewery.Along with the official can art reveal, Rage Quit is shaping up to be the perfect companion for summer gaming, convention adventures, and long days spent exploring the Best Four Days in Gaming.Attendees will be able to enjoy Rage Quit throughout Gen Con weekend, including at the Gen Con Block Party beginning with Wednesday’s Kickoff and continuing through Sunday.Check out the official Sun King x Gen Con page for more information leading up to Gen Con, including Sun King Block Party updates, brewery happenings and more.

Veteran World of Darkness publisher and former White Wolf business development lead joins Renegade to help steward its rapidly expanding RPG portfolio ?Renegade Game Studios is an award-winning publisher of tabletop games and roleplaying games, known for brands including Heroscape, Axis & Allies, Vampire: The Masquerade, G.I. JOE, Transformers, and Power Rangers. Most recently, Renegade launched the Dungeon Crawler Carl Roleplaying Game, which became the most-funded game in BackerKit history.De Vir brings more than fifteen years of experience in roleplaying game publishing, licensing, and business development, with deep roots in the hobby.Early in her career, De Vir founded Biblioteca Oscura, the Spanish-language licensed publisher for various World of Darkness lines. Under her leadership, the company published more than 35 titles and ran a V20 crowdfunding campaign that became the fifth most-funded crowdfunding project in Spain across all categories. She also distributed the Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Deluxe books across Europe after founding the V20 Europe initiative, and produced a 1,200-person Vampire: The Masquerade event in Madrid.Recently, De Vir has held business development and partnerships management roles at Paradox Interactive and White Wolf where she led the international expansion of World of Darkness roleplaying games across languages, territories, and licensing partners. She also co-created and spearheaded the Storytellers Vault, a community content platform that opened new ways for fans to create, share, and publish material for World of Darkness. She is also an advocate for the ethical use of AI through the AI Ethics Alliance, which she founded in Brussels. Through this alliance, she works to shape responsible AI practices by connecting education, governance, and cross-sector collaboration, with a focus on helping organizations and communities understand and adopt AI in ways that are ethical, inclusive, and socially beneficial.“Dhaunae has spent her career building real, lasting communities and partnerships.” said Scott Gaeta, President & Publisher at Renegade Game Studios. “Our RPG business has rapidly expanded, and Dhaunae is exactly the kind of leader we need to help steward that growth while strengthening the relationships that make these games thrive.”“I am thrilled to join Renegade as Director, RPG Brand,” said De Vir. “I have spent much of my career working with roleplaying communities, licensed worlds, and passionate fanbases, so this role feels like a natural next step. Renegade has shown real care for the brands it publishes, and I am excited to help grow these lines while honoring what makes them meaningful to players.”De Vir’s arrival comes as Renegade continues to grow its RPG division. With upcoming 2nd Editions of its Hasbro RPG line just announced, the EXODUS RPG in partnership with Wizards of the Coast and based on the upcoming video game from Archetype Entertainment, and as it prepares to release the Dungeon Crawler Carl RPG based on Matt Dinniman’s smash hit LitRPG series of the same name.Fans should also look for an announcement very soon about a new franchise joining the Renegade RPG line-up.

 Welcome back to the steaming, perpetual overcast of Cytherea! Adapting this setting for the Cepheus Engine (and classic 2D6 sci-fi systems) means swapping generic fantasy descriptions for explicit mechanical hazards: Endurance (END) checks, Survival skill throws, vacuum/hazard suit tracking, and raw UWP-style planet side dangers.The untamed, hostile wild of Pulp Venus — where planetary Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

By Dinko "Salty Nick" Galeti?
Salty Nick's Tavern
Generic/Universal/D&D
Levels 5-6

Strange phenomena plague the land: saltwater rain, shared dreams of a tide covering the land, shallow puddles reflecting deep, strange oceans. Some people have even fallen into puddles and disappeared entirely. The epicenter of the phenomena has been traced to the mausoleum of an eccentric who believed the whole land was once under the sea. Whether to stop this, explore it, or just to loot the tomb, the players have arrived to the mausoleum.

This eleven page adventure uses two-ish pages t describe about five-ish rooms in a mausoleum being invaded by an aquatic entity. There are hints here of sophisticated play, and maddeningly abstracted text that somehow is also wall of text. The theming never comes through well and it’s hampered by it use of a 5e style guide.

What can i say, I found the title appealing. Alas, there are no hills or screams, much less SCREAMS.

Some dude really thinks the world was underwater at some point. He has a massive tomb built, is buried in it, and then his belief in that idea is so strong that a water-plane entity uses the belief to try to force its way through to our plane. 

There’s an interesting concept in this adventure in the way it handles illusion. Basically, the tomb is full of illusions, or, maybe, altered realities, but the adventure uses the word illusions. Before the first room you make a choice, after talking to the dudes friendly spirit, as to if you believe his theory or not. If you do believe then you treat the illusions as real and the non-illusions as illusions. If you do not believe then the illusions are illusions to you and the real dungeon is real. Like one of those scifi episodes where half the cast is out of phase or some such.  Some of the sections of the dungeon are filled with water, and there are shafts, so if you believe then you can swim up a shaft, and things like that. (And need water breathing!) The concept is haltingly implemented and not leaned heavily into, but the idea is an intriguing one. 

There’s one or two spots where the some interesting things come in to play. The standard “clear the rubble away” thing in one room has the note “Clearing it without precautions causee another collapse.” Excellent cause and effect there and a lack of punishment for players who are not on autopilot. In another section, where you meet the dudes spirit at the start “How to summon Sutton’s spirit is up to the PCs. As a rule of thumb, spending a resource such as a spell slot should work. Actions such as meditating on the bench or lighting the statue’s pipe reveal that the spirit wants to manifest but is struggling to.” Again, pretty decent old school sensibilities. Nothing prescribed but some direction to the DM to have some latitude in their judgements. This is akin to something like the Bless spell being a good catch-all for solving many problems. Rulings, not rules, yes? I suspect, from this, that the dude is a decent DM. 

But author …

There are a few quibbles here before the major issues. We’re told that people are missing, strange things going on, etc, and “The epicenter of these phenomena has been traced to Lubber’s Rest” with nothing more beyond that. In spite of the intro background, which is non-trivial, this is essentially just a site in the middle of nowhere for you to explore, even though “the PCs arrived to Lubber’s Rest with hopes of stopping these events and finding the missing people.” So, the framing to support the intro is just not present. At all. Which would be fine if the intro didn’t imply that it SHOULD be there. We’re just looking at a site.

But, more than that, there are some issues with the presentation and abstraction. The “5e template” was used here. This means sections of italics that are longer than they should be. This means long paragraphs of text with little in the way of formatting to help you scan the adventure. You’re digging through A LOT of text in this, with little to separate things and help you locate information. It is, I think, an issue with Wall of Text, even though there are line breaks and some bullets, there’s not section headings or bolding to help a DM figure out where to look for what. And that’s a major problem. 

Second is a frustrating amount of abstraction and things simply left out. You will run in to weird symbols that are being used to help summon the aquatic planer entity … but no mention of destroying them. And this is theme, the lack of even minimal guidance for things you WNT to fuck with. When you combine this with the amount of text used to describe and denote other, trivial things, it makes you wonder why the emphasis was placed where it was.

Eleven of the rooms are simply abstracted away. Roll on a table to add a couple of features and then roll on a table for an encounter. An encounter like “Aggressive illusory creature swims in. (Submerged rooms only)” Uh. Ok. And, yet, here’s room nineteen “Contains a heap of rocks, with 4d8 embedded raw rubies. Dumped here by thralls.” This is aggressively terse. Was there not enough room in the adventure for the other rooms, given the terseness of this one? And no value for the rubies? 

And, further, note the lack of evocative text. Nothing about a tomb or aquatic/semi-aquatic environment comes through here at all. And this is par for the course in the adventure. There’s a hefty intro. There’s a hefty appendix. But the actual rooms are terse without actually giving much of an impression at all.

What’s a DM to do? There’s little favour here. And I can roll on a table out of a book.

This is Pay What You Want at DriveThru with a suggested price of $5. The preview is ten of the eleven pages, so, a decent preview. You can see both the wall of text in the rooms at the beginning as well as the overly terse ones at the end, and the lack of specificity and lack of formatting to help locate information.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/569157/the-hills-have-screams?1892600

In one word: fun! Allow me to elaborate further.

Puerto Rico has not always participated in Free RPG Day. Gaming Zone participated in 2014, and the Puerto Rico Role Players were there.

Free RPG Day 2014 at Gaming Zone

Paladin Books and Games in Isabela participated a few years ago, though I was sadly unable to go.

Puerto Rico has seen a boom in FLGS (Friendly Local Game Stores) in recent years. There are many CCGs, but post-pandemic, we have also seen growing interest in TTRPGs. One of these stores, Titan Games, has been participating in Free RPG Day for the past few years.

I participated in 2024, running Savage Worlds. Last year, I was not in Puerto Rico for the event, but this year I was ready to participate.

Free RPG Day 2024 at Titan Games, Caguas

The gaming community in Puerto Rico really came out in force, and both Titan Games locations in Caguas and Río Piedras had several tables playing TTRPGs. There were games of:

• D&D 5e
• Daggerheart
• Star Wars: Edge of the Empire
• Mothership
• Mörk Borg
• Vampire: The Masquerade
• And my own Shadowdark table!

I ran Kneel Before the Goblin King by Joseph R. Lewis, a great short adventure that will be part of a crowdfunding project for print copies in July. I printed out the map, used the random online character generator to create pre-gens, got a player cheat sheet from Etsy, and ran four friends through a deadly Shadowdark adventure.

It ended up in a TPK (Total Party Kill). Incredibly, I had never had a TPK in a session before in my 40 years of gaming. Even when I tried to create an adventure just to do that a few years ago for D&D 5e, I had never wiped out the entire party. A first time for everything, I guess! We had a lot of fun.

Allow me to share a video about the games played, the fun we had, and the loot I grabbed:

I am thrilled I got to spend the day with friends, make new ones, and meet other members of the community. I am delighted to see the Puerto Rico TTRPG community thriving. Thanks to everyone who participated, and to Titan Games for supporting the community.

I mentioned Paladin Books and Games at the beginning of the post. The store may no longer be there, but the former owner, Mario Vélez, has a very active community of gamers who share reviews and meet up for games. You can find The Gaming Dragons on Facebook and on YouTube.

I hope you had fun on Free RPG Day, in whatever form you got to celebrate the day. See you all at Free RPG Day 2027!

My gaming group got together last night and did our first session of our Parsulan campaign using Nimble. Basically, we completed character generation and did one combat to try out the rules. A faerie beloved by a village they happened to be stopped in is kidnapped by goblins and the party went after them. They took out about 10 of them, but the group with the faerie got away.

The system worked pretty well. Despite our unfamiliarity, it certainly went faster than 5e would have.

Besides the Nimble rules, the players used the Local Experience tables I had come up with for the various important places. These are the characters:

g'Mbalisto (Tug): A dwarf Oathsworn (a Paladin, essentially) from the Lightbearer Republic. He's also been a gladiator in Mayura in the past.

Pan(demonium) (Gina): A darkling Songweaver (bard) from the Durendine Confederation. A forrmer rabble rouser and busker.

Frea (Andrea): A human (thought changed into a more felinoid form by a curse of a wizard of Abraxad) Cheat (thief). 

Tamarra (Kathy): A human Shepherd (a cleric, more or less) from the Lightbearer Republic. Her parents died in the Kakharoth Wastes.

Aelarion (Bob): Human Stormshifter (the stuff people like about the druid). He's from a small town near the Dagard Mountains.

 Here is a d100 random encounter and prompt table designed specifically for the Adventurer Conqueror King System Imperial Imprint (ACKS II). This post picks right up from Integrating Adventurer Conqueror King System II (ACKS II) with the legendary, chaotic, and maximum-gonzo DNA of Dave Hargrave’s Arduin Grimoires - Converting The Techno PC Class To ACKS II Part IIBecause ACKS II Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

Welcome back to my Sunday interview series, dedicated to interviewing Puerto Rican gamers and creators. Today’s post is a personal treat.

It is a great honor and a happy occasion to talk with my good friend and fellow GM, Mario. I knew who Mario was before I met him. I knew people who played with the “Cayey Game Master” (Cayey is a municipality in Puerto Rico), but I don’t think we met until 2009, when we started organizing the Puerto Rico Role Players.

2009 meeting Mario in person for the first time!

He joined the Facebook group early on, and we had a lot to talk about as longtime GMs, contemporaries, and people who had played similar systems for many years.

Puerto Rico Role Players’ first GM Workshop at John Does, circa 2012.

When we had our first informal gatherings to meet other members of the Puerto Rico Role Players, he was there. He’s been a staple of Geeknics and events. I even got to play in one of his mythical Mariotóns (day-long marathon gaming sessions with dozens of players!).

The Mariotón I played in back in 2010.

While we don’t see each other nearly as often as I would like, I am always happy to see Mario!

When I reached out to gamers and creators for interviews, Mario was kind enough to answer my questions for this series. I am thrilled to write this and am always happy to call Mario a friend.

Let’s get to the questions.

Introduce yourself! Who are you, and what do you create for your adventures?

My name is Mario Agrait Rodríguez. I am from Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico. I have two kids; one is 29 years old, and the other is 9 years old. The older one is a GM and has his own group. They both started playing as soon as they learned not to put the dice in their mouths and to roll them for the first time.

Mario, circa 2009

I love cinema, literature, and crafting my own game scenarios and scenery. I have been Game Mastering since 1986, when I discovered AD&D and OD&D. We have been playing in the Mystara campaign world since we started, first using 1E and then moving to 3E.

The way I like to work is by keeping my campaigns moving forward, well-documented, and feeding them with players’ ideas and contributions. Each new campaign has all the previous campaigns as background. They can even cross paths with old characters. For that, I have been using Obsidian Portal, a wiki-type service, since 2011. All my campaigns are there.

The other side of gaming that I love is crafting terrain and props. We use miniatures and crafted scenery to play large battles. I love painting and crafting my own scenery. My players also love miniatures and help with my crafts.

How would you describe your art or creative endeavors as a GM?

I allow myself to be inspired by everything: poetry, literature, popular culture, current events, history, comics, TV series, movies, and even dreams. I follow an organized path to assemble all ideas into something coherent that works inside the campaign or as a new campaign. They know everything they think can and will be used against them.

When I tackle an idea, I ask simple questions like: “Will this fit my campaign?” “How can I use this idea?” “How can I make this interesting to the players?” “How can I tie this idea to previous material?” Then I move to bigger questions. I feed from my players’ brains like a Mind Flayer!

Mario and his players. Artist rendition.

Another trick is to study the material you are using and try to fill in the blanks before the players ask for something you haven’t prepared. Whenever I can, I review what I have created and add information. I complete missing data such as genealogy trees, character descriptions, gear stats, new spells, and much more.

How did you discover TTRPGs?

This is possibly one of the weirdest RPG stories I know:

1. A boy named Eric was into reading Science Fiction and Fantasy and wanted to play D&D. His mother gave him the Red Box OD&D set as a gift. He didn’t have anyone to play with, though.
2. The boy named Eric decided to give his neighbor, Luis, the Red Box OD&D set as a gift.
3. Luis took the boxed set to his friends, and they learned to play. Luis didn’t want to be the DM, so he gave the Red Box OD&D set to Ismael as a gift.
4. Ismael became the DM and continued playing when he moved to another city to study at the university.
5. Ismael and I met at the university. We were from different cities. He showed me the game and gave me the Red Box OD&D set as a gift. I then became a DM.
6. I moved to another city and met a boy named Eric, who had wanted to play D&D all his life but didn’t have anyone to play with. He became my friend and one of my players.
7. My friend Eric was the first owner of the Red Box OD&D set I used for playing. See event #1.

Mario and Eric are on the left of the picture, at El Gremio in Cayey, December 2025.

Do you actively play TTRPGs? What are you playing right now?

My group and I played OD&D for more than 20 years, and around 2002, we switched to 3.0. We have adapted some rules from 3.5 and Pathfinder and added our own house rules into the mix. We found the 3.0 system good for customizing characters, especially for experienced players (some members of my group have been playing with me for 30+ years).

We also play other games: Space: 1889, d20 Modern, d20 Future, d20 Shadowrun, DC Heroes 3rd Edition, and Gamma World 4th Edition. I’m the GM on these campaigns. Some of our players are GMs on their own campaigns, playing d20 Modern, D&D 3.0, 3.5, and 5E. I also used to play Star Trek by FASA and Shadowrun 2nd Edition, and I still have the manuals.

We are currently playing d20 Shadowrun, but it is very possible that we will move back to D&D 3E shortly (depending on the feedback from players, as they are having tons of fun with SWR), and I’m already working on the material for the next D&D campaign.

What projects are you currently working on?

Painting like a hundred minis. That is a story that never ends. Crafting different terrain and new buildings, an inn with removable floors and furniture. There is a telescope and a planetarium to add to the old wizard’s library and laboratory. And there is a small tree house for gnomes. I also just finished crafting a scabbard for my younger one’s plastic sword.

Where can people see your projects and learn more about your games?

On Facebook, our group is called “Stray Dogs Role Playing Gamers”.

Here are the Obsidian Portal links for my campaigns:

• Tales from Mystara: https://d-d-3-0-tales-from-mystara.obsidianportal.com/wikis/main-page
• Gamma Rifts: https://gamma-rifts.obsidianportal.com/wikis/main-page
• Into the Shadows: https://d20-shadowrun-into-the-shadows.obsidianportal.com/wikis/main-page
• Justice League – A Better World: https://justice-league-a-better-world.obsidianportal.com/wikis/main-page

Any closing thoughts?

My players are the biggest highlight of my campaigns. I am very honored to play with them. I think that, on my part, the biggest achievement of my games is still having the capacity to surprise players after all these years. Something that makes them come back for more. It is either that, or they have some secret desire to get new psychological scars each week!

Some of my best GMing advice: Concentrate on the story over the rules, and on the players over the rest. Once you commit to a gaming date, don’t change it; be consistent. Take the time to hear your players’ ideas and to incorporate them into the world. And take time to rest your mind, by playing other games or by taking a vacation from gaming.

Playing with Mario, December 2025 at El Gremio in Cayey.

And finally: Keep rolling those dice until the day you die!

 Navigating the dark expanses of a Cepheus Engine campaign should never be entirely safe. This comprehensive d100 table provides an array of cosmic phenomena, navigational dangers, and systemic crises to challenge your crew. This blog post picks right up from here A Massive D100 Random Space Encounters Table for Cepheus Engine rpg & 2d6 Old School Science Fiction rpgsMechanics are Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

My friend Joe the Lawyer and I are having a live discussion about the Northern Marches, along with other OSR and RPG topics, tomorrow, Sunday at 5 pm Eastern Daylight Time.

I hope you will join us. Feel free to ask Joe and me questions during the livestream. If you are unable to make it, post your questions in the comments on the post or video, and I will try to answer them.

Into the Majestic Fantasy Realms the Northern Marches

 Integrating the sprawling, chaotic, and infamously lethal mega-mansion Tegal Manor into Hyperborea requires shifting it from a traditional funhouse dungeon into a surreal cosmic horror anomaly.In this adaptation, Tegal Manor is an ancient, shifting megalith built over a localized tear in reality. It doesn't just house ghosts; it drifts across space, time, and the bizarre alien dimensions Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

By Stephen Green
Moonwhisper Magic
OSE
Level ... 3?

The world is shattered, the wizards are gone, and the sea swallows the ruins of their age. Scattered across the waves lie the broken islands of a forgotten empire places of fire, frost, and ancient magic. Among them stands the Isle of Ruk, a frontier of black sands, steaming jungles, and secrets buried beneath volcanic stone. […]  The wizards are dead. Their secrets are not.

This 64 page adventure uses about seven pages to describe about fifty encounters in two dungeon on an island, with all of the supporting pages being abstracted worldbuilding. There’s a whole lot of generalizations and could be’s in here with actual encounters and locations that don’t come close to realizing the designers vision, I suspect. 

This is an island with a couple of towns on it, a barrow field with sixteen locations, and a three level dungeon with about 45 or so rooms. With got this world where WIZARDS fucked up, they are all gone now but the world is blanketed in ice except for these volcanos around that keep things warm. A pretty decent number of pages is used to describe all of this, although it plays little to no import on the adventure. It’s just an island with a couple of towns and a couple of adventuring locations. The ice and volcano doesn’t really come through much. There is a volcano/volcano cultists/fire spirits, especially in the main dungeon, but that theming is still not really present at all.

The main town is described in a somewhat interesting way, at least in the keys for it. “1. Church of Foki has a large cauldron and offers free food for all.” That’s the first line for the temple location, in bold, as a kind of a location header. It’s an interesting way to embed the crux of the location in to the key title, allowing you to know immediately what the main thrust of it is. There’s a related concept with dungeon keys that I sometimes talk about, where instead of “11.” or “11. Bedroom” you put something like “11. Mildewed Victorian Bedroom.” In that instance you are framing the room encounter, preloading the DMs mind, so they interpret what is to come in the description with a “Mildewed Victorian Bedroom” mindset. It’s not exactly consistently used in the town descriptions, but it is present in places and does a great job when it is present.

The rest of the adventure is much murkier in its descriptions. 

There’s this abstraction going on, a bit different than other abstractions I generally see. It’s written almost like a regional guide that introduces mysteries without explanation. This is pretty consistent in the overviews of the various areas, which do seem to take up the bulk of the adventure. It comes off with a hefty lean to the purple side of the spectrum. “Thin wisps of yellow smoke coil lazily from the darkness within, carrying the acrid tang of sulphur and old fire. The mountain air snatches them, pulling them apart and scattering their scent into the breeze, but the trace remains a lingering reminder of whatever festers in the depths beyond.” That whole last sentence, with the snatching and scattering and festering in the depths beyond. It’s clearly going for inspiration for the DM, but there is FAR too much of it, especially considering the depths beyond don’t really live up to the concepts introduced. It certainly feels like the bulk of the adventure is made of these general overarching theme writing sections that meet more novelization rather than turning in to something concrete. 

This can then be contrasted with the actual location descriptions in the adventuring sites. “3.7 Firedrake (1) has made its lair here.” That’s not much of a description, eh, for a festering depth? Or, for another one “Black stone walls. In the middle of the room is an ancient ashy corpse. A Shadow (1) preys on adventurers.” A little more to this, but still not really living up, I think, to the vision the designer had in their minds when putting this down to paper. 

And then there are a few out of place things present. One room on the second level has a table and two chairs and a wardrobe in it. And a sad eyed bard sitting at the table drinking. Uh … there are fire spirits. Fire cultists. Gomens. Shadows. And dude is just sitting there in his cups? A dungeon population table can help inspire us to encounters but it does needs to be placed in context. Lost his party? Just hanging out for funsies? Refuge from a cult? The framing here, or complete lack of it besides him drinking in a room with a wardrobe, just is out of place. Minimal keying would have the DM making things up, as they would if populating from a table. A word of two of context would allow the DM to riff. I’m not really sure what to make of something so seemingly out of place. “Uh, there are a bunch of civvies on level eight of the balrogs lair having a format dance? Uh …”

There’s just this disconnect. The page count is devoted to the world and generalized framing that is leaning purple while the actual dungeon keys are less than thrilling in the capacity they serve. The vision presented in the world building never really comes to pass.

This is $5 at DriveThru. The preview is four pages and doesn’t really show you anything, just a brief overview, this is what an RPG is type of things. We need some meat in a preview to understand if the product is right for us.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/568698/dungeon-module-isle-of-ruk?1892600