Astorian Map

I thought I'd give you all a little treat; I've just finished the map for my personal setting, Astoria. This is the setting that will be detailed in the World of Lore supplement, which probably won't come for a while. Please enjoy and give me some feedback.

Small Thing Coming Soon

Just thought I'd let you know that soon I'll be releasing a small and optional document for my Heroes of Lore companion.

A few months after the fact, I'm pulling a George Lucas and doing some re-edits. Mostly all of these changes have a basis. I only really have four I have problems with; the rest are still pretty good.

1. Pactforger - Kind of like a 4e Warlock. Replaces the Psionicist because I am writing the Psionics of Lore supplement.
2. Wild Mage - Relic from 2e. Replaces the Scholar because the Scholar was just really boring in my eyes. Wild Mage is much more interesting and unique.
3. Small update on Shaman text. Basically describes that they use their powers through a spirit animal, but that's it. This was always the intention, it was just never really clear.
4. Cultist - Update on mechanics and flavor. Upon further review, I realized the Cultist was basically like my Inquisitor variant except with more spells. Now the Cultist can inherently cast some pretty potent spells at low level (Bolt of Glory or Unholy Smite), making them somewhat like the Invoker of 4e.

I'm not releasing a whole new document, but rather a companion document. Thus, if you really like the old Scholar and Cultist, you can keep them in your game. It's coming out probably extremely soon.

Small Updated on Releases

So, as you know I currently have a few projects going on. They are

1. Pulpwood!
2. Races of Lore
3. Psionics of Lore
4. World of Lore

Sadly, Pulpwood! is on the backburner because school makes it hard to write fully fledged games. Supplements are much easier to do, and I can polish them off in a few weeks/a month or two.

Not too long ago, I said I would release Psionics of Lore before Races of Lore because it seemed like a much easier project. This was before I decided to convert most of the powers present in 3.5's Expanded Psionics Handbook. I'm on the Es right now, but it is long and tedious work.

On the other hand, all the mechanics for Races of Lore are done. It's just a matter of writing out all the background for the races.

World of Lore is in its infant stages, as I am still developing the setting and fleshing it out. I have some broad strokes, but now I need to get down to specifics.

So, what can you expect from these supplements?

Races of Lore - 12 new races to fill your fantasy game of choice with. From the aquatic Tuloids to the plant-like Spriggans, from the insectile Trinoks to the crystalline Welgs, these races will color your world and provide fair and balanced options for players.

Psionics of Lore - This is gonna be a big one. 3 psionic races (the half-dwarves, maenads and the kith-yang), 4 psionic classes with variants (the wilder, warmind, psion and soulknife), a giant list of over 200 psionic powers and a bevy of new psionic items to fill your campaign with.

World of Lore - My own high fantasy setting, Astoria. Enter a world inherited from ancient races after a mysterious war sent giant constructs ravaging across the lands. Discover the mysteries of the crysts, gigants and monoliths as you plunge through ancient tombs filled with strange magical technology, deal with courts full of lizardmen nobles and try to forge a new civilization on the backs of the old one.

Hope you guys are excited! I am.

Another Replacement Variant and Playing 4e with B&T

Intro
So I've been looking into D&D 4e for a while. It's nearing the end of its lifespan, and while it remains endearing in some aspects, there are just other aspects I can't wrap my head around. I really favor the classes and races, but I don't want to go through learning all these new things just to play a new edition.

So I decided "Why don't I find an easy way to take the main tropes of 4e and transfer them over to Blood and Treasure?" And I've basically been passively doing it ever since I wrote Heroes of Lore.

Classes
Here is the list of classes in 4th edition and B&T's equivalent, either in terms of pure class or as a variant. These include any classes from Dark Sun, Eberron and Forgotten Realms.

Ardent = Wilder (Coming soon in Psionics of Lore)
Avenger = Inquisitor (assassin variant)
Barbarian
Bard
Battlemind = Warmind (Coming soon in Psionics of Lore)
Cleric
Druid
Fighter
Invoker = Cultist (Cleric variant)
Monk
Paladin
Psion = Psion (Coming soon in Psionics of Lore)
Ranger
Rogue
Runepriest = Runecaster (barbarian variant)
Shaman = Shaman (druid variant)
Seeker = Scout (thief variant, original B&T)
Sorcerer
Warden = Warden (ranger variant)
Warlord = Marshal (fighter variant)
Wizard
Artificer = Artificer (MU variant)
Assassin
Swordmage = Warlock (sorcerer variant)

The only thing missing is the warlock, which I have a quick variant for here. The warlock is a Magic-User variant, and if I could re-write Heroes of Lore, I'd replace the Scholar with this variant. Since "warlock" is already taken as a sorcerer variant, let's call the variant a pactforger.

Pactforger - new variant

The pactforger does not get his magic from study or by being born with it. Instead, a pactforger establishes an agreement with a magical creature in order to gain some of their magic. The pact could be formed with celestials, infernals, elementals, creatures from beyond the veil, dragons, fey or any other inherently magical creature. The pact is almost never spoken of, especially in terms of what the pactforger offered for his power.

A pactforger can inherently cast bestow curse once a day by tapping in to the primal bond of their eldritch pact.

Races

Further, you can easily emulate mostly all "core" races as well. These are races from the 3 Player's Handbooks and the setting books for 4e's three settings.

Dragonborn - Taninim (Coming soon in Races of Lore)
Dwarf
Eladrin - Gray Elf
Elf
Half-Elf
Halfling
Human
Tiefling
Deva - Aasimar
Gnome
Goliath - Juggernaut
Half-Orc
Shifter - Ferals (Coming soon in Races of Lore)
Githzerai - Kith-Yang (Coming soon in Psionics of Lore)
Minotaur
Shardmind - Welgs (Coming soon in Races of Lore)
Wilden - Spriggan (Coming soon in Races of Lore)
Mul - Half-dwarf (Coming soon in Psionics of Lore)
Thri-Kreen - Trinoks (Coming soon in Races of Lore)
Kalashtar - Maenads (Coming soon in Psionics of Lore)
Warforged - Automotons
Changeling - Doppelgangers
Drow - Drow
Genasi - Primals (Coming soon in Races of Lore)

Now some of these aren't exact. The Trinok is not exactly like a Thri-kreen, but it is my answer to the classic  ant-man. If I ran Dark Sun with B&T, I'd use the Trinok. The same goes for Maenads and Kalashtars, but their case is a little different. Though they were separate races once upon a time, they both share a very similar theme and even physical appearance, so I decided to mash them together. If you'd rather have Kalashtars as a separate race, it would be pretty simple to adapt.

End

So that's really the short answer to my quest for 4th Edition on B&T. Seems easily doable, and I hope you guys can take a couple cues from it.

A Replacement Variant for B&T

Since I am now writing Psionics of Lore, I realize that the Psionicist variant for the Sorcerer in my Heroes of Lore book has no real place any longer. It is fine if you want to have psionics play a minor role in your game world, but I feel like I am kind of cheating you out of a variant.

So to make it up to you, I decided to make a new variant to replace the Psionicist, and it's a relic from AD&D 2nd edition: the Wild Mage.

I mostly did it in honor of the release of Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition, which features a brand new Wild Mage character.


Wild Mage

Wild Mages tap in to pure, unbridled and primal magic. Far beyond the energy of elemental magic, wild magic is unstable, chaotic and random as it lies in its constant state of imbalance. Wild Mages try to harness this chaos, usually leading them to be quite strange and random in personality.

Wild Mages get one less spell per level. Instead, they can tap into the primal wild magic three times a day. When they access wild magic, they choose a spell and then roll a d20. The result of the roll determines at what effective level the spell was cast. For example, if a 5th level Wild Mage casts a spell and rolled a 20, the Wild Mage would effectively be considered level 7 for purposes of determining spell effects and damage. The table below details the level modification

1-4          -2
5-8          -1
9-12          0
13-16 +1
17-20 +2


The drawback to this is that every time a Wild Mage uses one of her taps, she must make a Will save. If she fails, she must roll on the Wild Magic table, located on p. 21 of the Treasure Keeper's Tome.

Another supplement for B&T - Psionics of Lore

Psionics are often an iffy subject in D&D. Some love them, some tolerate them and others hate them with a passion. Dark Sun is built entirely around psionics, and 4e has now made psionics as core of a system as magic.

So for B&T, I have decided to do the next thing and create a psionic supplement for the game, tentatively known as Psionics of Lore.

What's so great about this? The Expanded Psionics Handbooks for 3.5 falls under the SRD. That means, legally, I can take mechanics straight from 3.5 without risking legal backlash.

For sure, Psionics of Lore will contain the Psion, Psychic Warrior and Wilder classes. John State, creator of B&T, has already made an excellent Soulknife, and I'm trying to see if I can throw that in there. I've added some things to a few classes to make them more interesting, such as a trance ability for the Psychic Warrior. I will also most likely include some psionic items, such as psionic tattoos, and some enemies as well.

Now, I do run across a dilema I hope some of you can weigh in on

The list of psionic powers is huge, with about 300 in total. These are 300 "spells" that are not in the B&T core book, except for a few like Ego Whip and Mind Thrust.

I have managed to put together a smaller list composed of about 95% B&T spells, but I don't know if that would really kind of sacrifice the flavor of psionics. I could convert the SRD powers, it would just take a longer time. What do you think would be a better solution?

Either way, I hope for this supplement to be released soon, probably before Races of Lore. Stay tuned!

Coming soon - Races of Lore!

Do you like Blood and Treasure? Did you like my previous supplement for it, Heroes of Lore? Then you should be excited for Races of Lore!

Races of Lore is my newest supplement for Blood and Treasure. In it, I detail 14 new 20-level races to include in your B&T, or other retro-clone, games! Some are adaptations of old favorites, and some are brand new!

Discover the regal grimness of the ancient Gaunts! See the animalistic focus of the Ferals! Witness the unbridled strength of the Durga!

I am also considering adding how to make the other monster races presented in B&T go up to level 20, but that's up in the air.

All coming very soon! Stay tuned!