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Stygia - Serpent of the South, an near-naked romp with Conan

Conan Mongoose

I love Conan. I love Howard’s Conan, I love the Milius Conan, and I love Mongoose’s RPG of Conan. Why? Probably because of boobs, swords, and high adventure, and yes, it could actually be in that order.Today, I’m going to look at the Mongoose release of the D20 Edition of Conan with Stygia – Serpent of the South.I picked this book up at GenCon in 2008 in one of those ‘Buy 1 get 3 Free’ booths where I basically made my entire Conan collection save for the core book which I already owned. It is a great supplement, filled with...

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Gamma World D20 Player's Handbook, oh what could have been...

D20 modern Gamma World Jeff Laubenstein Tim Truman

Rolling D20s for Gamma World might sound odd, considering how the system has evolved over the years, but because of the D20 boom of the early 2000s, there is a rather substantial Gamma World edition based around the mechanic. Today, to continue my Gamma World series, I’m going to look at the art of the Sword & Sorcery’s release of Gamma World D20. Based on the D20 Modern core rules by Wizards of the Coast, this edition is a nice collection of rules that feel a bit forced and not as lovely as I’d like considering the source material.The artwork,...

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Aspect Book: Earth from the Exalted game is lovely in its own way

Exalted UDON White Wolf

Ah Exalted… the game that could have been. Today I’m going to take a look at the artwork for Exalted’s Aspect Book: Earth, and I’m going to tell you right off I like it.Why? Hell, I don’t know. Maybe because I’ve watched a good deal of anime in my day, all the way back to trading bootleg copies of Akira and Dirty Pair in college on VHS before the Internet existed. Maybe because I like the work of Eric Vedder who I first found in the pages of an Exalted book years ago. Maybe because every once and a while...

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Runequest Deluxe Edition [1993] was a rehash with a classic cover and not much else

Runequest

I must apologize, first for my epic failure in finding the artist I’m going to speak about today, and even more so for the ineptitude of Avalon Hill and Chaosium for their lack of artist credits that clearly identify the cover work. Now that I have that out of the way, I’d at least like to feature the cover for Runequest Deluxe Edition [1993], as well as the product itself.The cover, much like many Middle-Earth Role-Playing books of the same period, used an incredible watercolor painter to create this universally recognized and sublime piece of artwork. The only indicator of...

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M1: Blizzard Pass was a solo adventure I could never finish

AD&D Modules Jim Holloway Tim Truman TSR

I’m not really sure when I got M1 Blizzard Pass, but I’m going to say it was on a shelf at the local Kmart in about 1984. At the time, I had the Red Box, very little ability to understand what it was trying to tell me, and no gaming friends. Thus, the appeal of a solo adventure seemed perfectly reasonable.However, like most Choose Your Own Adventures I tried over the years, Blizzard Pass wasn’t for me, especially considering I HATED playing thieves at the time which was the class required to run it solo.That said, I’m still captivated by...

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