It is with great pleasure that I announce that this blog is now active and live.
What is it?
Well we have been told several times that we need a more active presence on the internet and this blog will allow us to do periodic updates and keep in contact with the fans and supporters of the Ice Kingdoms.
This site has several entries in it already to make it worth scrolling through as soon as it goes live (which it should be by the time you are reading this). We plan to have several regular articles (probably monthly or so for each) and a fairly regular update on the main blog (weekly if we can lol).
We will cover news, interesting stories and tid bits about the Ice Kingdoms.
Our feature articles will be written by myself (CS Barnhart), Grant Hoeflinger, Caleb Congrove, and RW Stenberg and we may get a guest writer here and there.
Grant will be writing Adventures of the North! A series of articles that take you deeper into the Ice Kingdoms, covering locations, people, events and cultural phenomena. He begins us this month with a look at Thanelaw and how you can use it in your games.
Caleb will be writing Ungainly Swordsman, discussing his interests in Old School Gaming, his experiences and random thoughts about the Ice Kingdoms and games in general.
RW will stop by now and then to profile a piece of art or one of our artists.
I will delve deeper into the Ice Kingdoms ranging from stats of new monsters to entries for new playable races (the Eski/Gnomes are currently available in my area). This will include previews of upcoming material and general discussion of the state of the Ice Kingdoms.
Overall we hope to provide you a peak at our setting and make you feel welcome in the Frozen North.
Friday, March 31, 2017
Tuesday, March 7, 2017
In the beginning (Part Two)
So I decided to make my own setting. The issue for it was quite simple. Which setting? I have many floating around in my head. Science fiction. Alternate history. Fantasy knights. Fantasy vikings. Fantasy Egyptians. And so on.
I decided to go back to the first AD&D campaign I ever played in, went over the notes of twenty odd years of gaming in that setting and pulled out key elements that would work for developing a setting that didn't interfere with the campaign we had played or any future material for that world. I centered on a terrain feature, the Land Bridge, and one obscure not I had scribbled on a map in college. The Ice Tribes of Thrar.
Other references to Thrar had it listed as "Home of the Ice Kings" and other elaborate titles involving the terms Ice or Frozen. From this I decided to use The Ice Kingdoms.
Immediately it became vikings. But I wanted some Lieber and Howard, so I threw in Conan, Fafhrd, Red Sonja, Grey Mouser and more. I borrowed from Russian, Arthurian, Finnish, Irish and other mythologies and legends. Then I added a firm layer of D&D. But I didn't have a system.
I thought about just going 3E or Pathfinder. But my heart always belonged to old school 1980s/1990s D&D and AD&D. I was tempted by OSRIC and Labyrinth Lord and even by adapting my own version. But then I found For Gold and Glory. A little known clone of AD&D 2E. No real support, no real fan base to speak of. Free PDF for the rules, cheap print options. Everything I needed. FG&G would do quite nicely.
I created a Facebook page, invited my gaming buddies to join and started crafting legends, stories, tales and entries for the book. Eventually I had 40+ pages of typewritten cultural and game notes and rules. I hit the OGL content to grab some information to mold for my gods and clerics, some extra spells and monsters. I hired a few artists from Fiverr to start designing the feel and look of the Ice Kingdoms and the maps. I hired some writers, most notably Chris Lites, James M. Ward and Moses Wildermuth to shape the material into the book that eventually was produced. I had old friends and new friends work as editors. I had enough after a year of so to do the Kickstarter and here we are.
Here we are.
The Adventure Begins.
Monday, March 6, 2017
Reviews
While not always 100% perfect, we have generally received good to great reviews with most issues revolving around personal preferences and tastes not outright dislike or disgust.
Here are some of our first reviews for those interested.
These reviews, and future reviews, will all be stored (in link format) on our reviews page.
Wednesday, March 1, 2017
Now Available: Into the Mournwood
Featuring the art of David Newbold, Cory Gelnett, Sayu
Gonzales, Eric Kempher and more.
The Hagwood has long been avoided by rational men, even
thanes dare not walk the woods. Only the desperate, the insane, and the dark
souls of Pohjola travel the paths of the forest by choice.
But destiny calls the brave and the fool.
The greedy and the heroic.
Can you face the dangers of the haunted wood?
Will you save the lost travellers?
How far will you go...
Into the Mournwood?
Into the Mournwood is
the second adventure set within the Ice Kingdoms, written by industry legend
James M. Ward, Into the Mournwood thrusts a band of adventurers into the dark
and evil forests haunted by savage orcs, curses, zombies, canibals and the most
feared monsters of the Thanelands, the hags of the Mournwood.
Into the Mournwood can be used as a stand alone adventure or
as part of an ongoing campaign and the adventure module can also be used as a
campaign guidebook by Game Masters to set further adventures in the Haunted
Forest.
Don’t forget to get our earlier releases.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)