Rise of the Drow: Collector's Edition Kickstarter

Another Kickstarter I designed has launched! AAW Games' new Rise of the Drow: Collector's Edition combines the best-selling, 5-star, ENnie-nominated Rise of the Drow book series into two massive 600+ page, collector's edition hardcover books for 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder RPG.

Rise of the Drow is a mega-adventure over 600-pages in length and takes your characters from levels 1-20. In addition to the main adventure, you can use Rise of the Drow to run multiple campaigns set entirely underground!

What you'll find inside this massive tome...

Rise of the Drow: Player's Guide, The Darkness Arrives (Prologue), Descent into the Underworld (Trilogy book 1), Scourge of Embla (Trilogy book 2), Usurper of Souls (Trilogy book 3), Rise of the Drow (expanded version), The Commander of Malice (Epilogue). You'll also see new settlement sections for Rybalka, Embla, Stoneholme, Vethin's Hold, Jorumgard, Fungi Forest, the drow city of Holoth, and tons of brand-new content we hope to unlock via stretch goals! 

The long awaited conversion to 5th Edition for Dungeons & Dragons fans...

Rise of the Drow: Collector’s Edition contains revised, updated, and all-new content for the adventure and setting. The same expanded and updated content is included in both the D&D 5E and Pathfinder RPG versions of the Collector’s Edition, both PDF and print.
The D&D 5E Hardcover pledge level available to backers is funding a high-quality offset print run of the 5E version of the book. This is the first time that Rise of the Drow content has ever been available for 5th Edition.

With a limited number of Pathfinder RPG backers, we can't justify an offset print run but we don't want to leave our longtime Pathfinder friends in the dark, so we've figured out a way to do a Print-on-Demand version which will be available for PDF backers at cost + S&H from DriveThruRPG.com.

Umbravania ~ Adventure Series in Mini-Dungeon Monthly 5E Zine

Umbravania logo I designed for the series.

The new Gothic Horror series of adventures I am writing for AAW Game's Mini-Dungeon Monthly 5E Zine (5Ezine.com) was covered in the projects update earlier this week.

You can read the full update by clicking here. Or, find out more information about this oldschool-style one-color print RPG adventure zine created especially for 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons.

This place is a dark land of gothic horror. It exists in between the tides of time, beneath the shadows, and apart from the ordinary. The mysterious fog that links the normal world with the terrors herein is a mystery, but you know with incontrovertible certainty that you have come to a place of tilted reality.

This series of non-linear Mini-Dungeons riffs off of well-known classic horror themes and applies a new twist to those beloved tales. Each is a stand-alone adventure, but as a whole they bear witness to the denizens and locales of the weird and eerie realm known as Umbravania.

The first installment in the series, “The Whispers in the Hollow” delves beneath the roots of the soul, where dark secrets lurk between incoherent thoughts and fear swells from the unknowable.
While experimenting with antediluvian occult rituals, a dark magician accidentally summons something ancient. Devil nor demon, but a primordial entity – something from before when the stars were wrought from cosmic fire.

Now beckoning tongues never intended for mortal perception wrack the magician and denizens from a nearby village with lingering confusion and madness.

Are the adventurers bold enough to brave the unknowable whispers and delve into the magician’s dark lair? Can their minds withstand insanity as it steals deeper into their psyche? If they falter, who knows what terrible fate awaits them?

AetherCon CFWR Miniatures Competition Badges

I created a new series of promotional badges for the AetherCon Online Tabletop Gaming Convention's CFWR (Cleric, Fighter, Wizard, Rogue) miniature painting competition. These will be for competing miniatures companies to display the participation and/or placing in the final contest results.

Each year various miniatures companies submit their best painting themed miniatures to the contest, and attendees to the convention vote for their favorites. There's a huge prize bundle for those participating.

Mini-Dungeon Tome Publication in Spain

I found out today that Paco Jean of G*M*S Magazine will be translating AAW Game's "Mini-Dungeon Tome" for publication in Spain.

This is exciting news to me, because I think it's the first time my writing has ever been professionally translated to another language for publication.

February 2019 Exclusive Dungeon Crate VTT Map Set Released!

My exclusive February 2019 virtual tabletop map set for Dungeon Crate is ready to roll. Subscribers can find a new VTT map set and other digital goodies in every month's digital crate (included as part of the monthly subscription). Check out DungeonCrate.com to find out more about getting a monthly box chock full of amazing tabletop RPG resources mailed directly to your doorstep.

Subscribe to Dungeon Crate to get your monthly

Weekly Dungeon Map #006 ~ #sundaydungeonmaps

Weekly Dungeon Map #006. A new map released every Sunday on Twitter by @jmason333. #pathstoadventure #sundaydungeonmaps #vtt #cartography #maps

Follow me on Twitter for weekly content updates! 

Get the high-resolution VTT map files by clicking here!

Weekly Adventure Hook #006 ~ Grove of the Green Father

Adventure Hook Index Card #006. A new card released every Saturday on Twitter by @jmason333. #pathstoadventure #adventurehookcards

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Grove of the Green Father

After a violent volcanic eruption, the Kingdom of Alturae lies in utter ruin. Entire villages buried under ash and pumice, forests scorched asunder, and farmlands completely consumed by carmine lava flows. Once the dust settled, and the undulating ground once again slept, more than two thirds of the kingdom had been destroyed. With nearly all resources eradicated, the Alturaen culture seemed destined to vanish. However, a single hope remains. Ytoreth, the king’s advisor and lore-keeper believes there is an artifact that can restore their lands and save the people – the Verdant Staff.
 
Legend tells of this staff that births flora and foliage wherever it strikes, and with such magical powers, it could be used to quickly restore the decimated lands. The myth details how the staff, once used by an ancient nature goddess, was entrusted to a druid known as the Green Father. Ancient long before the time of the tale, the old Druid took the staff deep into the mystical forest of Neverwoode and was never heard from again. Ytoreth has tasked the adventurers with locating and retrieving the staff.

The Neverwoode is avoided by all travelers. It is a wyrd place of primal magic and forgotten spirits. Those who dare enter are rarely seen again. Those who manage to return tell tales of labyrinth trails, living forest canopies, and an ever-changing woodland.
 
First getting to the druid will prove to be a challenge as the shifting rivers and forrest surrounding his grove are protected by enumerable undines, nymphs, dryads, and sylphs that allow no one to freely pass through their territory.

The Green Father is located in a grove at the center of the forest, now so ancient that his human body has grown, from bust-down, into the trunk of an elder oak that helps to sustain his life. The staff is located within the tree’s trunk, and can only be removed if the adventures can either kill the old druid or convince him to sacrifice his life for the good of the people of Alturae. If engaged in battle, the ancient oak encasing the Green Father uproots and becomes an ancient ent under his control.

Weekly Dungeon Map #005 ~ #sundaydungeonmaps

Weekly Dungeon Map #005. A new map released every Sunday on Twitter by @jmason333. #pathstoadventure #sundaydungeonmaps #vtt #cartography #maps

Follow me on Twitter for weekly content updates! 

Get the high-resolution VTT map files by clicking here!

Weekly Adventure Hook #005 ~ Shadows in the Sewers of Urville

Adventure Hook Index Card #005. A new card released every Saturday on Twitter by @jmason333. #pathstoadventure #adventurehookcards

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Shadows in the Sewers of Urville

The city of Urville has become overrun with rabid rats. Verminous swarms of fur, claw, and teeth. The city’s food stocks have become tainted by feces and decay, and waterways are littered by the floating corpses of drown rodents. Many abandoned the city when the plethora of filth-related diseases arrived, migrating their families to nearby cities and villages. However, many longtime residents remain, struggling to survive and rid themselves of the seemingly never-ending populace of vicious, biting varmints.

The adventurers arrive to the city to discover its calamity and are asked by Virgil Lovingood, the city’s mayor, to assist. The denizens have discerned that the rats are coming from the sewers beneath the city, but have been unable delve deep enough to find their source. The mayor hired one team of mercenaries to take care of the problem, but after entering the sewers, they were never heard from again.

In truth, the source of the infestation is a psychic wererat named Henrik Helmson, though the name he prefers is “Lord of Vermin”. Henrik was passing through Urville in his human form when he was wrongfully accused of committing a murder. Tried and convicted, he was sentenced to spend the rest of his days in the city’s dungeons. Henrik broke out of his cell, converted several guards and fellow inmates into subservient wererat thralls, and escaped into the sewers.

From beneath the city, Henrik utilizes his psychic abilities to control the massive population of rats, and is hell-bent on casting the city that imprisoned him to ruin. His escape and plot are unknown to the denizens of the Urville due to the utter chaos that erupted with the rats arrived. The adventurers can discern the truth and identify their enemy by disabling any of the wererat thralls; Henrik’s psychic connection to each fades when they are severely injured and near death.

To end the infestation of rats in Urville, the adventurers will have to delve into the deepest reaches of the city’s complex sewer system, cut their way through countless rabid rats, and raze the lair of the Lord of Vermin.

Mini-Dungeon Monthly 5E Zine Kickstarter

Another Kickstarter project I designed and am involved in just launched! Check out AAW Games' "Mini-Dungeon Monthly" a monthly RPG zine for 5th Edition D&D. Part of the Kickstarter #zinequest initiative, backers can snag a yearly subscription to this new zine modeled after the classic RPG zines of yore. PDF with print option, and some amazing stretch goals including super high-resolution full color virtual tabletop (VTT) maps for every adventure in each monthly issue, digital NPC/Monster tokens, and more!

I've done the cartography for these adventures as well as writing 1 to 2 adventures per issue. It's an exciting throwback to oldschool RPG zines with a modern 5E twist.

Click here to check out the Kickstarter for this project! Or, visit 5Ezine.com for more information.