Monday Metal - Maiden!

I love Iron Maiden, plain and simple. They're my favourite band of all time and they will never be replaced. From Steve Harris' beautiful lyrics to the triple guitar onslaught, Maiden are amazing through and through.
So today I celebrate Maiden with a song from the immortal 'Somewhere in Time' played during their Somewhere Back in Time Tour.

Enjoy.

Weapons of the Uber-Awesome

Sometimes when you want a guy dead you want to do it in the most mind-bendingly awesome way possible with a weapon that will make your enemy's long distance relatives spontaneously wet themselves. But right now your warrior has to make do with a lumpy broadsword made out of troll fillings that you deperately want the wizard to enchant, but he's been a douche about it because you used his staff for firewood.

Well fear not for I have forced my less-than-minimum-wage paid minions to spend the night in the forge creating a bunch of kick-ass and game breaking weapons for you to have fun with.

Greatsword of Pegasus Wings Dice: 6, Str:21, Dex: 18

This doozy has two wings that shoot out of it on command to a) confuse the crap out of that Orc, and b) allow you to hang on for dear life as you soar through the air. Weee! When you want to summon the wings you much cry: "Wings!" If anyone tried to be a smartarse by replying: "I can't see Paul McCartney anywhere," the sword with unleash a Take That you Fiend on whoever said it. Treat flight the same as Fly Me, except the duration is an hour.

Fairy Skewer (Medium Self Bow) Dice: 4 (or 60 against fairies), Str: 15, Dex: 15

Fueled by the hatred of Navi from Ocarina of Time, our resident warlock enchanted this bow to enable it to destroy fairies. Man, that guy hates fairies. When firing at a fairy the bow always hits and does 60 dice of damage.

Worldcutter (Double bladed axe) Dice: 20+10, Str: 40 Dex: 15
Special damage: 6/Zappathingum

This is one big-ass axe. What's more is that if you roll 6 sixes the Worldcutter's damage dice are tripled.

Rock 'Ard Spear (Boar Spear) Dice: 4+2, Str: 13, Dex: 8
Special damage: 2/Medusa

When jammed into your enemy, the Rock 'Ard Spear has a chance of turning him to stone.

The Grim Reaper (Scythe) Dice: 4+2, Str: 30, Dex: 54
Special damage: 2/Death Spell #9

Stolen from Death himself (we really should find somewhere to hide), The Grim Reaper has a chance of instantly killing anything it damages.

Freaks and Geeks explains D&D

Aside from the skewed representations of D&D players, this is a pretty good advert for roleplaying.

Two years on - E.G.G

July 27th, 1938 - March 4th, 2008

We miss you, big guy.

Blashyrkh Campaign Setting

As you are probably well aware by now, I'm a huge metalhead. One of my favourite black metal bands, and indeed one of the greatest black metal bands of all time is Immortal. To Immortal everything is grim and frostbitten. They have carved out quite a niche in the genre known for its foul shrieks and dissonant riffs; a niche that focuses on winter itself.

The coolest (ahem) thing about Immortal is the mythical kingdom they have created through their lyrics: Blashyrkh. This kingdom is subjected to an eternal winter where everything that resides in it is both grim and cold.

Now this got me thinking of how much of a kick-ass campaign setting Blashyrkh could be for your game. There is enough material already to get started, with creatures such as the winterdemons and the great god who rules over the kingdom.

So I'm going to do it.

A little background for starters. Blashyrkh is reigned over by the Mighty Ravendark or 'the Oath of Frost'. Ravendark is the great god of all things winter and sends out his minions, the winterdemons, to do his bidding. Winterdemons take many guises, so this gives me free reign over their design. Both band members Abbath and Demonaz are both winterdemons, possibly of a higher status than others, so can be incorporated into the game as immortal generals or demigods.

The denizens of Blashyrkh wage an epic war against the creatures and peoples of the south, all of whom are not grim and frostbitten.

I plan on expanding the mythos created by the band and flesh it out into an interesting and, hopefully, an awesome campaign.

TrollsZine #1 hits the cybershelves

Today saw the inaugural issue of what I hope will be the most awesome T&T zine ever. TrollsZine made its way onto Drivethrurpg.com today in all its free glory, ready to download and marvel at. After having a sneak peek at some of the articles over at Vin's, I have the feeling that TrollsZine won't disappoint. I've just downloaded my issue so I'll have a gander and report back to you soon.