Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Adventure Updates

We're making excellent progress on The Carnival of the Damned! David has created an extraordinary amount of useful content, but with great word count comes great responsibility, and the sheer volume of text has required me to keep my editing nose to the grindstone. Happily, the major initial editing pass is now complete.

Now that I've poured over every word, I'm more convinced than ever that judges will find it a useful toolbox of ideas for their campaigns. Yes, there's enough content for days of tournament play, but it's trivial to carve out your favorite bits to fill whatever time window you have available. David's final task is to compile tips and tricks for utilizing the adventure in a variety of circumstance: knowledge that could only be picked up on gritty battlefields like GaryCon and DragonCon. I think judges will find the information very useful.

Finally, David has just signed up to run The Carnival at GenCon under the Purple Sorcerer banner! Now I'll have another reason to be depressed while watching all the fun in my Google+ stream. He hopes to see as many of you there as possible: the goal is to have print copies available at the event.



One reason I'm excited to get The Carnival of the Damned into the proofing and printing stage is that I'm itching to complete Against the Vortex Temple. The graphics, cover, and page designs are all complete; all that remains is to finish writing the darn thing! All my recent editing has fired me up to get back to writing myself. I have a good feeling that things will come together quickly.

I'm looking forward to an exciting summer!

Saturday, May 2, 2015

Everyone Needs a Little Smile Now And Then...

I'm thrilled to announce that Purple Sorcerer Games will be publishing David Baity's twisted The Carnival of the Damned, a Dungeon Crawl Classics adventure designed for both 'next serf up' tournament style play and as a traditional 0-level funnel!


Carnival of the DamnedPlayers who have experienced the adventure at conventions like GaryCon and DragonCon know it's packed with surreal horrors: characters find themselves trapped in a mist-shrouded carnival in the dead of night, tasked to rescue scores of village children who vanished after returning home from a magical day at a seemingly innocent carnival. Nightmares come to life as players move deeper into a mad environment ruled by a dark power, struggling to survive corrupted versions of carnival oddities like the Hall of Mirrors and Tunnel of Love.


For judges, the adventure can fill many needs: David has crafted over 30 intricately detailed encounters and dozens of random threats. There is enough content for days of tournament play, or judges can select a smaller collection of favorite dangers for a quick funnel session. For sandbox-style play, judges have the option of extracting individual encounters whenever a twisted challenge is needed. There's even a haunting backstory for those looking to integrate the adventure into an extended campaign. 


Illustrated with a host of creepy images from artists Todd McGowan, Danny Prescott, Stan Reed, and Simon Todd, the 96+ page digest-sized adventure has entered layout and final editing and should be available in print and PDF this summer. I think you'll love it!


And there's clowns. Lots and lots of clowns.


(You can learn more about the adventure, David, and tournament style play by listening to the latest episode of the awesome Spellburn Podcast.)