Rended Press

The title of the post says it all.  I'm just beat and creatively dead at the moment.

There's a whole bunch of free stuff on Paizo's site if you know how to search for it--mostly free supplements for the Paizo run of Dungeon and Dragon . This is my favorite freebie from the above link.

So I've been digging around (again) on Wizard's website and I came across this little gem: Barrel, Crate, and Sack Generator If you download the zip archive and unzip it to a directory, you get a lot of little toys to play with. Unzipping the file will create a directory with the name "BCS." Open the file "index.htm" inside (note: it looks terrible in Safari. Use Firefox or Chrome, and make sure your pop-up blocker is disabled.) Okay, you can go to town generating barrels, sacks, and crates of stuff. Neat enough. But wait! There's more! Notice the calculator button? Click it. Coolnesss! A calculator window pops up! Notice the little "Dice Roller" button. Click it. Coolness! A little dice roller pops up on the page. Oh, what is this "more dice" button on the dice roller? Whoa! It takes you to a full version of the dice roller I blogged about way back when . But that's not all. Go back to that directory on your hard d

You are a dwarven warrior with slight psionic abilities. You have broken out of the depths of a dungeon and are now stumbling through the collapsing sewers beneath the evil lich’s keep. You have no armor—you are dressed in rags, your head is bare, and your feet are unshod. You are carrying a flaming torch in one hand and in your other hand is a rusty battleaxe you wrested away from a guard during your escape. As you turn a corner, floating towards you in the dim light is this: What do you do? Write out how the encounter could play out in the comments below. Keep it to as much as the comment box will hold. Make me laugh to get all the bonus points. (And yes, this is really from the midterm exam I gave this afternoon)

EDIT on August 29, 2012: I'll be removing the files this weekend. I've had them up for a while, so if there's anything you want to grab, get it before Friday, August 31. A couple posts back I asked about free fan-created gazetteers and campaign primers. Since then, I've scoured the web and my hard drive and collected a whole lot of files worth posting in one place. I've included a few free players guides from game publishers in this collection, too. I did not pay any attention to system here--there are a lot of d20 and 4E material mixed, as well as fan-created material for existing D&D campaign worlds. All in all, there is around 500MB of material. You can peruse it here. I'm only going to keep this public for a week or so, and then the link will expire so that I can clear out the space in my free Dropbox account. Of course, if you join Dropbox via this referral link , you can increase my storage space so I don't have to take this off

Go check this out. Now! Minoqaur - An Adventure Puzzle Game for QR Codes

Here's another Wayback Machine link for you, this time for WOTC Star Wars RPGs. I can't verify which are original/revised d20 and which are SAGA, so download and sort them out yourselves! http://wayback.archive.org/web/*/http://www.wizards.com/starwars/downloads/*

From the mid-90s, I bring you The Ultimate Bag O'Beans , a community project from the 2e era which was compiled from one of the old D&D fan listservs (at least, that's what I can dig up about it). The link is to a zip file containing the original netbook in ASCII and two PDFs I created, one using a 10-point monospaced font and the other using an 11-point monospaced font. I didn't fancy it up at all, although I am sorely tempted to import it into Word and make it more screen & print friendly. Still, I figure with the ASCII file, you can format it to your heart's content. And from 2008, I bring you The Bag of Beads , a community project from the old Goblinoid Games forums ( old thread linked here ). Major props to the dude who uses the screen name "kipper" at Goblinoid Games' new forums for getting this file to me. You can find the new Goblionid Games forum here , where discussions about Labyrinth Lord , Mutant Future , Rotworld , Starships &

The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine archive of WOTC's free file downloads under the www.wizards.com/dnd/files directory

This blog is officially two years old. That is all.

So, other than the list of Mystara stuff I've already posted , what free setting gazeteers are out there? I don't care about rule system--just what created worlds are out there. There's Zak's list, of course . But what else is legally and freely available in terms of fan-made or indie-produced world/campaign/city/etc. settings? I got a list started, but I'm too lazy to sort through my link list and download folder right now, so let's just see if we can get a list started. List 'em in the comments, please. EDIT: Let's stick to stuff in PDF or other easy to download and print formats--stuff that's downloadable for offline use. There is obviously too much on blogs to even begin to list. EDIT #2: My Google-Fu was weak. I didn't even think of using the word "homebrew" in my searches. So, here is a link to get me started: http://wiki.rpg.net/index.php/Homebrew_Campaign_Settings

Why, lookie here: http://d6holocron.com/downloads/

UPDATE: Paypal changed their policies. Hmmm. Seeing as how a lot of OSR stuff is "adult" in nature, you all might be interested in all this: "Under pressure from credit card providers, Paypal has put in place a policy that it would no longer process payments for ebooks that contained themes of rape, incest, beastiality and underage sexual content." What does that mean for us? Think Carcosa . Think Vornheim . Think Lamentations of the Flame Princess . Think of any self-publisher writing a module or zine that features an adventure involving, say, an orc raping a captive. Or a witch and warlock who happen to be brother and sister and have to participate in a summoning ritual by getting it on. Okay, gross example, but . . . essentially any fictional (that's MADE UP) written account of such things is at risk of not being processed for payment. That, my friend, is censorship of the marketplace. They specify "ebook" in the above quotation, but what

I'd like to see a compendium of all the Mystaran Gazetteers: GAZ1 Grand Duchy of Karameikos GAZ2 Emirates of Ylaruam GAZ3 Principalities of Glantri GAZ4 Kingdom of Ierendi GAZ5 Elves of Alfheim GAZ6 Dwarves of Rockhome GAZ7 Northern Reaches GAZ8 Five Shires GAZ9 Minrothad Guilds GAZ10 Orcs of Thar GAZ11 Republic of Darokin GAZ12 Golden Khan of Ethengar GAZ13 Shadow Elves GAZ14 Atruaghin Clans Dawn of the Emperors: Thyatis and Alphatia All of these in one big volume, one right after the other, including the maps from inside the covers, would suit me fine. Anyone know if something like this exists? Anyone? Huh? What? EDIT: Not exactly what I was looking for, but take a look at these: Mystara: The Known World ( alt link ) Mystaran Adversary Compendium I Codex Immortalis The Mystaran Armoury History of Dragonkind Newbie's Guide to Mystara Orc's Head Peninsula/Savage Coast PDFs Big Ass List of Fan Gazetteers Big Ass List of Italian Myst

Looking for some cool paper minis? Then this link just might have you covered . I was purusing Bhrotiz's Toybox , a great blog with lots of resources for Flashing Blades , Savage Worlds , and Mercenaries, Spies, and Private Eyes , when I stumbled upon this link to some of his older paper minis. If you click on the pictures, you can download around thirty ZIP archives containing some sweet jpgs to use as minis. And if you rummage through his blog, you'll stumble across some other great resources, too.

(click to embiggen) This is a comic that appeared in April 2011 in the student newspaper at the college where I teach. You can check out the artist's website here. This comic appears in issue 5 of her collected work, which you can download on her site.

There's gotta be something in the water! The OSR is exploding with announcements for print zines. The two newest are Crawl! and The Manor . With these two additions to the list I previously posted , are we starting to see the death of the gift economy and a rebirth of the fan economy? Does the free PDF fanzine still have a place? Is this explosion of zines more evidence of our nostalgia for the gaming days of years gone past? Is it evidence of our renewed love for the game? I have more questions to ponder, but I think I'll stop there. I'm not complaining about the renewed interest of pay & post paper zines, of course--I see these publications as a net win for the hobby. Folks who put in the time and effort to create a physical product that arrives in the mail need to be compensated for the material and postage costs, at the very least. And man, for a few bucks an issue, you get a lot of stuff to drop into your game--all for literally less than the cost of a sugary