Author: Jon

Fantastical Ideas Series

Over the past year, I have been collecting ideas for quests and characters that could be used in roleplays. The context or system wasn’t so important, just that the idea was original.

I’m now in a position where I can format and publish these ideas in a series. From Urban-based adventures to Rural (mountains, forests and swamps). The latest in the series add an extra layer – they are items and characters, but each comes with its own quest idea as well.

These are all available now on DrivethruRPG and links are in the GM Tools page. I’ve had a lot of fun creating them and I hope that players and GMs get a lot of enjoyment out of playing with these ideas in their campaigns!

Fantastical Ideas for Urban Encounters

My final product of the year is for any RPG system.  This is a project I started last year where I created ideas from random words and allowed the flow to create a scenario.  This is the first of what I hope will be a series of books.  The Urban Environment is always a rich bed of encounters – wherever people mingle, drama will inevitably follow!

This book contains sixty different Urban-themed ideas that can be added to any story-based scenario. Perhaps a Games Master is running a campaign at home for a group of players and needs to give them a mystery to solve or they simply want their town or city to have some added flavour. You can even combine the ideas together to form complex societies or mysteries for the players to investigate.

Fantastical Ideas for Urban Encounters is available on DrivethruRPG for $3.99

Discount
If you would like to give the ideas in this book a try, you can get a $2 discount if it is ordered before 2020.
Here is the discounted price (effective until 1st January).

Happy Holidays!

A New Festive Adventure!

Another busy month in the workshop has resulted in a festive adventure suitable for parties both new and experienced.  I really wanted to work on the format of the adventure and not add too much detail.  I feel that the module should be both accessible for the Dungeon Master and allow both them to add and embellish characters and plot as they wish.  The more comfortable and confident the DM, the better it is for the players. 

So, what is going on in The Low-Elves: A Festive Tale?

Two Low-Elves thought they were unique among their kind, but after their father’s death, his will reveals that he had other siblings.  Now, they are desperately looking for adventurers to help fulfil their father’s dying wish; to bring the family together again for the Winter Festival.

This adventure has been designed specifically to give the Dungeon Master an easy-to-use guide for running the adventure, including travel encounters, locations each with concise details such as information to gather, venues to visit and plots to untangle.  Finally, stat blocks which are clear and easy to understand. 

  • Four locations to explore
  • Random Encounter tables for four different terrains
  • Low-Elf Player Race
  • Encounters for Low-Mid level parties (1-10)
  • Creature Encounters with Challenges ranging from 1/4 to 7.
  • Twenty Festive-themed Magical Items (Uncommon to Legendary)

The stage is set, now it’s up to the Dungeon Master and the players to fill it with magical moments!

The Low-Elves: A Festive Tale is available to purchase from the DM Guild.

Stag Party: For the Bachelor who has Everything.

This Autumn/Fall I have completed my biggest D&D module to date! Many cafe visits drafting out ideas and online researches for creature stats later has resulted in a 72 page product!  This wasn’t my initial intent, but it’s funny what happens when you go with the flow!

The module is a stag party/bachelor party.  Bold and daring adventures are wanted to give the man of the hour an unforgettable, life-enhancing experience!  Barathol Hemilsduke is an impressive human being, engineer and philanthropist and this weekend, he is finally getting married to his childhood sweetheart, Erta.  His friends wish to give this most prized bachelor a send-off to remember, but what to do for a man who has achieved so much and who already has everything he needs? 

That is why they are entrusting the success of this event to wild and wily adventurers who have seen the world and are prepared to take risks. who better to surprise Barathol and give him the most thrilling night of his life.  So, there is spending money and a reward waiting for the right group of mercenaries prepared to take their test and take Barathol on the stag party of a lifetime!

This module contains the following:

  • six self-contained adventures – the brothel, pub crawl, pit fighting, the grand ball at the palace, the college of magic and the Iste Rae Festival – providing plenty of options and replay-ability.There is also a final section where memories and experiences start to get messy!
  • Rules for getting drunk as the PCs will need to avoid dropping to -5 Sobriety Points and falling unconscious.
  • 33 different alcoholic beverages to sample!
  • 42 different ready-made NPCs with stats, abilities, actions, Challege Rating and XP
  • NPCs are created for low (Levels 1-4), mid (4-8) and high (9-12) levelled parties.
  • Treasure Options including tables for searching, trinkets and magical items for the DM to choose from and the PCs to find.

The Stag Party (with discount) is available to purchase from the DM Guild.

Journey into Twilight


I was recently asked to design an adventure suitable for a eight children; one that wouldn’t have any violence but would require puzzle-solving and have fun treasure. This is how ‘Journey into Twilight’ was born. The most taxing task part was eliminating violence as that so often drives the player vs opponent encounters. But it was fun to provide a framework around Non-Player Character encounters without getting bogged down with the usual stats, skills and special actions. This was much more about the player options and how the NPCs might interact with them.

I tried to keep the quest simple, but ended up creating 15 pages of notes, table options and maps. There are puzzles to solve, decisions to make and strange creatures to catch. Although there are no turn-based combats in this module, there is plenty of danger. And of course, there are fun items to find and fantastical experiences to remember!

If you are interested in giving it a try, please do let me know how you get on. I hope you have a magical time!

Journey Into Twilight is available to purchase from the DM Guild.



Crystal Spires Mine

My latest product has been tried and tested by my RPG group. The Crystal Spires Mine is a D&D 5e quest full of treasure, strange encounters and intrigue! The mining complex fulfills the local Baron’s material needs. Normally, outsiders are not welcome to just drop into the ‘industrious heart’ of his realm, but it seems there is one particular job that is so dangerous, he does not wish to risk losing any more of his employees

The experience of DMing this adventure went very well and because plot could be adapted to other scenarios, it seemed perfect candidate for a D&D module. I think the sentient mine cart was a particular favorite of the group!

It is available on Dungeon Masters Guild for $2.99. If you do play it, I’d love to know how you get on, what worked well and where you tweaked it.

Single Player RPGs

For the last few months I’ve been busy on various projects, but I’m pleased that this collection has been completed.  I decided to base each roleplay on a person I knew and customize the scenario to their tastes.  It has produced some very unique story lines that I think will be fun to play!

  • Strictly Barnum – your character aims for the leading role in the famous musical version of PT Barnum’s life story.
     
  • Bingo Book Express – your character has a grand plan to combine buying a fleet of used cars and deliver the bingo book orders in one epic trip across the UK!
     
  • Hiking the Camino – from southern France to western Spain, this trip will take plenty of endurance, spirit, and many drops of alcohol and non-eco decisions if your not careful!
     
  • The Diplomat – the elections in Colombia are threatened by foul play from Carlotta Gadhafi and her party.  You are determined to ensure a fair fight!
     
  • Football: A Town’s Tale – When a local team causes a stink by being too arrogant and difficult to live with, you decide to bring back the old boys and local park kids to teach them a lesson!
     
  • Much Ado About EU – With the UK about to go down the EU drain, it’s up to you, a Shakespeare fanatic to ring in the changes at Westminster! 

The system is simple; a single d6 die is used to roll for challenges and each challenge is based on two core stats (different for each story), such as Improvisation or Charm.  There is an opportunity to use a second d6 for certain rolls depending on what items the player has decided their character has on them – this provides variation and improvisation to the game.  The games were inspired by the wonderful one-pager games of Grant Howitt  and choose-your-own-adventure books of Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone that I enjoyed playing in my younger days.


All of these single player RPGs are available on Drivethru RPG.  If you do play, please let me know what you think.

Character Diaries – Honour

Character image created by brianvadell.

I recently had the pleasure of reprising a character for Part 3 of the Jungle of Nocturnal Madness – a very inventive roleplay taking place in a land where chaos has taken hold and many ancients secrets lie in the jungle. Here is my character’s take on the events:

Extract from The Diary of Sir Rengar

Karunam is a curious city, built like a societal pyramid with the poor inhabiting the outside sector (sector 3), those with good financial and social status in the second sector, and the masters of the city at the very top, literally, of the city in Sector 1.  I appreciate the hierarchical order of things as it means everyone knows where they belong in order for society to function.  This is good so long as the foundations are strong.  However, we have heard strong rumours of corruption and have witnessed the poverty and slavery of Sector 3 with our own eyes.

Since I have arrived, I have helped the two Drow siblings Missiozin and Nel handle matters with their Father, who is the leader of some sort of order.  He has the same chaotic but kindly spirit of his offspring.  He appears to want change for the good of those around him and at the expense of the Masters who run the place.  I feel very conflicted working with him, as although he tries to improve peoples’ lives, he takes on contracts for unnamed clients to rescue prisoners.  This sounds distinctly dodgy to me!

Still, they needed my strength and I am very lowly thought of in this strange place, so I took it on.  Working with a mage, we allowed ourselves to become gaseus forms and squeezed through gaps to get into this prison.  Once in we found a heavy door barring our way.  I attempted to use my strength and started to force the door open, only for the wee mage to finish the job with one hand!  My feeling of inadequacy was complete!

We didn’t find our target (Someone called Gabbot) but instead found a large Earth Genasi who I vaguely recognised, as if from a past life.   He was chained up and seemed unhinged.  We decided to break him out and hoped that he could help us navigate the mines.  Once released, he took to wearing his chain as a sort of garment and called himself ‘The Unchained’.  What had we let ourselves in for?!

We followed him as he wondered through the tunnels, attacking anyone he came across.  His thirst for vengeance made for a busy journey but eventually we found a chamber with many bound prisoners.  They claimed that they didn’t know what they were meant to be digging for.  The whole operation seemed very suspicious!  We released them and deciding they were our burden now, we looked for a way out.  We also found a ‘death room’, and my wizened colleague recognised Gabbot among them.  We wondered further up the passageway, but my comrades were blown off their feet by a well place fireball!  They spoke of three ogres and a deep pit.  I prepared a spell of my own, but upon my gaze the image melted away and only a mage was left.  Our mage took the bull by the horns, if I may say so, and polymorphed the chap into a snail!  I made to snatch it up, but it disappeared and suddenly I felt a blade cut my leg.  An invisible fiend!  The Unchained launched his ranged metallic rings and they wrapped around the sneak as if it were a Christmas tree!  I sat on him whilst they finished him off.  As for the snail, we named it Sally. 

We reported our mission to the client, who thought it was an utter failure.  Not so!  We rescued many slaves and recruited the services of ‘The Unchained’!  Back out in the open,  Sector 2 was celebrating the Festival of the Orb.  The orb is an object kept in the middle of the city (in Sector 1) and is said to be incredible.  I have already felt a strange euphoric feeling more than once that is uncommon for me outside of dealing out righteous justice.  We stopped at a tavern to allow The Unchained his first drink in many months.  In this premises, I learned that the Beast Games were being held at this time, where warrior and beast would do battle for glory.  Interesting but not relevant to our current mission.  Then, a keen young man in a guard’s uniform approached me asking if he could join us our party.  His name was Mano and it seemed he wanted to redeem his honour after he was acquitted for a crime he didn’t commit.  My heart went out to the chap and I felt I had found a kindred spirit in this strong city.

We entered the Beast Games taking on creatures found in the jungle.  Mano was a very useful fighter, striking well with every strike of his longsword.  Finally we faced off with a giant lizard, which could fire a strange chained weapon from a distance.  We quickly closed the gap between us and dealt with him from close range.  Through the blood and the sweat, it was warming to hear the crowd shout our names as if we were worthy of their support.

The best was yet to come.  We were escorted through the city by Mano’s fellow guards and handed off to special guards in Sector 1.  There we entered the palace, which was magnificent with its shiny marble domes and archways.  All the while the euphoric sensation was growing inside of me that was much greater than winning a bout with a beast.  Finally we were in the presence of the orb itself… word cannot describe the joy and majesty of the thing.  Let us just say that I have been positively scarred for life!

I left the rejuvenated Mano as he re-joined his regiment and sought out my adventuring companions.  I found them as guests in the house of a rich merchant in Sector 2.  It seemed he wanted our services to discover some artefacts from the jungle.  This wasn’t all that strange, as gold and steel were uncommon in the town but could be found in the ruins and temples beyond.  My companions didn’t seem to trustworthy especially when we were to be ‘escorted’ by five rough-looking mercenaries. 

On our way to the docks, we stopped by the market for supplies.  Nel made a break for it, setting a chain of events in motion.  A fellow paladin in the party stood up to the mercenaries whilst the others made a run for it.  I decided to drink a gaseus form potion and disappear from view.  I admit that I didn’t want my newly-boosted reputation to be tarnished by being seen to be fighting in the marketplace.  I feel ashamed by this – it was not the act of a brave paladin, more the excuses of an egomaniac!   Fortunately for me, the others dealt with the mercenaries and we were able to get away.

And so we find ourselves in the jungle once more.  I am delighted to renew my travels with Sgt Pepper, the loyal Water Genasi soldier from Karinspire.  I am also here with two highly intelligent scholars who are keen to get to the bottom of why the original society that built the temples crumbled.  We are looking for a little-known temple that may hold the answers we seek.

Story-Noir

For a recent one-shot, I was co-GM and we wanted to provide a 1920s setting.  The idea was always going to be gangsters against cops in America during the prohibition on selling alcohol.  There was a twist, however.  What if a new gang was active in town, one that had grander plans…

This was the challenge we set ourselves.  So I came up with a system inspired by other one-shots I had watched, including Dungeon World, Impulse Drive and the one page roleplays created by Grant Howitt.

The idea behind the system was to keep the structure simple.  I structured it around two types of dice.  A d12 for carrying out an action, and an additional d6 if the player has a Skill they can apply to that action.  Each player has a Life Force score, representing the number of hits or attacks a character can take.  Then there are five Core Stats that are added to any action, depending on how mentally strong, knowledgeable, charming, agile or physically strong the character is.

The players made their characters beforehand and quickly learned their way around the system, asking to apply skills and rolling their actions in turn.  This enabled them to carry out their teams objectives whilst investigating the new gang.  The final twist took them by surprise however.  They tied a cult leader to the fiancé of a nouveau riche gentleman and made their way to his mansion.  The chemical effects of the spiked drinks and the tragic history of the building brought into being the summoning of an otherworldly monster who tore at all in his path.  They managed to send the alien beast back to the furthest planes from which it came from, but not before it could drag one of the gangsters with it. 

The system proved successful, being both easy to use and working with the theme; that of 1920s America.  As for a sequel, it’s difficult to follow that plotline and I think we’ll pick a different story and a different theme for next time.

If interested, Story-Noir is available to use on a ‘Pay What You Want’ amount.  If you do play, please let me know what you think.