Not that long ago I told you to check out the revamped, no-key map of Dweredell that Andrew Shields had photoshopped. And today I’ve got more Dweredell-related content, this time coming from Fictive Fantasies.

One of the cool things about Dweredell is that it’s a dying city: Three hundred years ago it was a teeming metropolis; the last city on the road to the great dwarven kingdoms of the east. But when the dwarven kingdoms fell, Dweredell lost its glory. Two centuries of decay have taken their toll, leaving the Outer City a wasteland of abandoned buildings that are now home to squatters and roving gangs.

The fellow over at Fictive Fantasies sent his players into the Outer City to explore Sezaran’s Dwarfhold, a ruined building in the old Dwarven Quarter that was now occupied by drug addicts and giant spiders. The PCs rooted out the spiders… and took over the dwarfhold as a base of operations!

Sezaran’s Dwarfhold

You should head on over to Fictive Fantasies to get the full story and larger maps and other cool stuff.

On a personal level, what I love about this sort of thing is discovering awesome new stuff about something that I created: I didn’t know dwarfholds had been built within the walls of Dweredell. I didn’t know who Sezaran was. I was previously unfamiliar with dwarven ash trees. And I’m really curious about the dwarven monastic orders looked like.

My original essay on the Three Clue Rule has been translated into Czech for an awesome-looking fanzine:

Direct Link (PDF) / Facebook Page

I’ll be honest: I can’t read a word of it, but I think it’s pretty cool nonetheless.

Monte Cook’s Numenera has recently been dominating my gaming table: I’ve run twelve sessions of it for three different groups in the last two months and it seems to be a hit with just about everybody. I’ve posted some cool stuff about it recently, so you may already be aware of this.

What you may not be aware of is that Monte Cook and Bruce Cordell have joined forces to create another game using the same engine: The Strange is a multi-dimensional romp in which your characters will change depending on which world they’re currently inhabiting. It’s generally conjuring up images of Torg, Planescape, The Matrix, and the best parts of Amazing Engine. But it also feels like it’s got its own unique little vibe.

They’re currently running a kickstarter for it and I’m mavening for it pretty hard: They’re currently at $351,130 as I write this, but they’ve got a stretch goal at $360k to release an additional 96-page adventure supplement. Since I’m generally a pretty big fan of adventure designed by Cook and Cordell, that’s something I’d really, really like to see happen.

If you’re interested in just taking a peek, you can drop $25 to get PDF copies of the core rulebook and the Player’s Guide. But the real juice starts at $80 (when you get a copy of the rulebook plus PDFs of all seven books that have become part of the kickstarter at this point). There are a bunch of other pledge levels and add-ons, but the next significant plateau for me is the $200 level (where you get printed copies of all seven books). But I’m also going to take a moment to pimp the Superfan packages, which currently look like this (but will continue to improve as more stretch goals are met):

I just recently upgraded my pledge to the $450 MCG Superfan level: It’s getting me 16-18 titles at an average price significantly lower than retail. But, on top of that, I’m also getting the $120 limited edition, the short story collection, decks of cards, and a plethora of pretty awesome goodies.

I’m very, very close to upgrading my pledge by another $200 to get both Superfan packages. I’m not saying it’s something everybody needs to do, but I’m really looking forward to receiving a steady stream of awesome RPG products for the next few years.

Recently found something of interest over on the Wizards forums: Session Zero.

The thread itself never really took off, but:

(1) There are some good links to be followed.

(2) The specific term “session zero” strikes me as a useful one.

Exactly what the session zero for a given campaign will look like — and the things it’s trying to achieve — is likely to be quite variable. But the basic idea that there’s usually work to be done before “go time” in the campaign is a valuable one which frequently gets overlooked.

Roles, Rules, and Rolls has a really great Matrix of Precious Stones — complete with pictures! I don’t know about y’all, but my treasure hordes tend to be disproportionately filled with a half dozen or so “common suspects” of questionable interest. I’d much rather have the scepter of the mummy king topped with a fluted facet of snake skin jasper rather than generic emerald #191.

Roger’s post is also a great example of how you can find all kinds of gaming resources by just scrounging through your every day life (often with little or no effort required to alter it).