This Year

This year was devastating for me. My wife Mona, the love of my life, and my partner in all things, died on September 13th. Everything else pales in comparison. My kids lost their mother, her parent's lost another daughter. I lost my best friend, the only person who really understood me, the only woman I ever really loved.

I have tried and failed to adequately write about Mona since she died, she deserves to be written about, but I can't make it work yet.

I am told that in a few more months things will become marginally better for me, but it's hard to see right now.

I moved back up to Oswego county, the snowiest place on earth. I plan to start a new D&D campaign in the next few weeks, if I can find players. I need to find something to keep me busy, and I have tons of material from prepping my last campaign down in the Valley. We had just started playing when Mona died. She played the night she went into the hospital for the last time, it was the second session of the campaign, and the first had been a character creation, "session 0", that was a Friday night. If she hadn't gone into the hospital we'd have played my "Jigoku" campaign the next day, Saturday; we'd played 1/2 a dozen sessions of that one. Her character was a Mongol princess there, initially leading troops in their invasion of Japan, I think if that game had continued, if she hadn't died, it would have been truly epic, and one of the best characters Mona ever played.

Yesterday marked 15 weeks since my Mona died and it still doesn't feel entirely real to me, I am lost without her.

Thank You All

I am humbled by the support of the OSR community for myself and my wife Mona in our time of need. Since being made aware of her gofundme for her expenses, the OSR community has helped to push us over the 2/3rds mark, meaning we'll get to pay off all of our impending bills.

I probably waited too long to ask for help, we lost our house in late 2014 after she'd been out of work for about 9 months, too sick to do much of anything. Our youngest was still in high school then. We moved to Mona's hometown, from mine, after the end of that school year. Ember suggested it, so her mom could be around her family and oldest friends for her recovery period, despite the fact that she would be spending her senior year of high school in a new school. I love the house we are renting now, it is very nice, but it's not the same as the one we owned.

I have been selling my gaming stuff on Ebay since just before we moved to keep us afloat financially, but the cherries of the bunch are long gone, so that's more or less dried up. I've held a few things back, for sentimental reasons or because I still use them, and I've picked up a few bargain priced items in this time too, often for resale.

I am saddened by the fact that her art career was just starting to pick up during her initial recovery time. Richard LeBlanc held a couple of pieces in Petty Gods for her when she had her initial surgery and the complications kept her in the hospital for weeks. This led to her collaboration with Timothy Brannan, although she was already sick again by then.

Anyone that won a contest I held here, or requested a refrigerator magnet from me probably got an envelope that had been “Mona-ed up” by her, usually a dragon or something drawn on the envelope.

In light of this newest news from the oncologist yesterday, where we were told the odds were not in her favor and the option to just stop treatment and focus on her comfort was discussed, and she chose rather to fight, even though it would probably shorten her remaining lifespan, I would like to ask everyone to keep her in their prayers, if they are the praying kind, and I'd like to thank all of you for rallying to her cause.

Here are some pieces of her art- 

These first two she did for "Petty Gods"

The next three she did for Great Khan Games

She has always loved to draw mermaids

And Fairies

The odd dragon here and there

And a Valkyrie

And a photo of the lady herself, during her initial recovery in 2015

Lastly, a link to the gofundme I set up for her

OK, maybe it wasn't the last blog post.

I have a couple of different campaign worlds I am working on right now. One of them is my 30+ year old world that I have worked on and run games in since I was in junior high- my Garnia campaign. I have worked on it with my BFF Darryl since the early 1980s. We have both run games there. We have both contributed significantly to the canon. Originally I was the idea guy and he was the cartographer, but that fell by the wayside almost immediately when I outsourced several lengthy eras of history to him so we could have back story; which, as I recall, was a bit of advice from an old article in The Dragon. We're older and better at writing now, both of us have taken a lot of college level history. I was a history major with a minor in medieval and renaissance studies. I forget what he did as an undergrad, but I know he was working on a masters in US history at one point. So I have tons of material, mostly in my brain, but a lot of it written out, that I could share. Garnia started out as a pretty generic D&D (AD&D) world, and it still is, but it has a lot of historical baggage added on too. So it makes me feel a little constrained when it comes to creating for it, and I am not sure that a lot of it would translate well to other campaign settings, as it is a heavily Celtic influence world (with a few other cultures thrown in around the world for diversity).

Then I have my new “Shattered Empire” setting that I started writing last December or maybe January. I started writing that world as a more D&D-ish setting for my (then) new Swords & Wizardry campaign. The campaign kind of went on hiatus while my wife was in the hospital and getting radiation, then we moved across the state, so I don't actually have a play group anymore. But I kept right on writing stuff up for it, I was inspired and it's all new and shiny to me. I started writing it up for Swords & Wizardry Complete, used Delving Deeper as another sourcebook for inspiration and played one session of Labyrinth Lord there, so I am pretty sure it works for any OSR game, or the original D&D (or AD&D) game. This was the elevator pitch emailed to my players-

“My primary working thesis is that I want this to feel like 1970’s D&D, something I was only there for the tail end of. So I jumped in and did some research on 0e and it’s retroclones Swords & Wizardry and Delving Deeper.

What I came out of that with was that 0e was just as much about science fantasy as it was about swords and sorcery, there are Androids, Cyborgs and Robots on the monster lists. Gygax, Arneson and crew didn’t limit themselves to just standard fantasy fare. “Expedition to the Barrier Peaks” was not a fluke, it was fairly standard for the game at the time. So too was the almost forgotten art of the (mostly randomly designed) mega-dungeon.

There is a strong “Arthurian” vibe to the overland encounters. Randomly you will almost certainly be challenged to a joust by some knight or other noble, just to prove yourself. There is an entire separate rules section covering jousting, something pretty much lacking from later editions.

Robert E. Howard’s “Conan the Barbarian” was a much larger influence than Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings”; all Gygax seems to have lifted from Tolkien’s work were the Hobbits, Ring-Wraiths and Ents. Honestly, pulp fantasy and sci-fi elements are practically exuded from the games metaphorical pores.

Early D&D was set in a post-apocalyptic world, not necessarily post-nuclear holocaust (although it could be), but like a fantasy version of Europe in the period immediately after the fall of the Western Roman empire.

In retrospect, my own style of DMing tends to amplify the weird, post-apocalyptic tone of early D&D.

So I started working on a campaign world that would reflect these ideas and I first came up with the city of Dusk, then Helltown. Here, in this setting, you will find Sir Thomas Mallory, Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, an abundance of pulp era science fiction and a curious bit of actual history. Feudal lords and noble knights abound in the rural areas, evil priests and sorcerers scheme everywhere, the cities are invariably decadent and corrupt, noble savages batter the ramparts of civilization, but so too do armies of Undead, and the lands between the civilized areas are untamed, howling, primeval wilderness filled with nature spirits, savages, monstrous creatures and demonic hordes. “

Would you play a game in this setting?

Anyway, it's been a lot of fun to write stuff for, and I think that stuff I wrote for this setting would need not too much tweaking to fit most people's campaigns. So the only thing stopping me from starting my new blog now is lack of a cool name. I am wracking my brain to find something that says something that reflect both my personality and the flavor I am going for. No more ramblings; concise, content oriented, OSR.

Petty Gods

At the risk of just copying what everyone else (or so it seems) has already posted- Petty Gods: Revised and Expanded edition has been released into the wild. You can get the free PDF here, or the at cost premium softcover here, or the at cost case-wrap hardback here.

I am particularly pleased and proud because my lovely wife Mona has two illustrations in the book:

Timothy Brannan's Nox-

and Syla-

Meaning that she shares art credits in the same volume as the legendary Erol Otus.

Steppe Warrior Class

I feel like I should put this link here too-

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/144238/Steppe-Warrior-Class

This is a newly edited version of the class I presented here a couple of years ago, and the inaugural "product" for Great Khan Games. I have plans for more stuff, that is not older content, in the near future.

What I have been doing lately...

Since last year, I've picked up a ton of OSR stuff in print- ranging from Expeditious Retreat Press' "Malevolent and Benign" to Lamentations of the Flame Princess' "Player Core Book: Rules and Magic", I also bought a whole lot of miniatures, mostly WWII and Ancient Romans and Gauls/Britons, for use with my B/X WWII game (still in early development) and 43 AD respectively. I also did something I expressly stated I wouldn't do, I bought the new Players Handbook (and the starter set, but even at 1/2 price I think it was a waste of money).  Oh, and I completed my 3rd edition Legend of the Five Rings RPG collection, and started on the 4th edition with the core rulebook.

Now, the new D&D surprised me, after Gen Con everyone was all raving about it, so curiosity got the better of me and I order it on Amazon, I haven't had a chance to look at really yet, because my lovely wife Mona has been reading through it.  Oh, and I also bought a ton of Pendragon stuff, from 1st edition through 5.1, I kind of felt like I had to when I found "The Great Pendragon Campaign" for a mere $60.00US in a game store in Germany, 1st (only?) printing, mint condition. I actually want to run some Pendragon now, but I haven't figured out how to go about it. I am considering PBEM because my gaming group has grown up and gone to college and moved out of the house. I only have my youngest, Ember, left here now and she'll be gone in a couple of years.

I suppose I should have seen it coming, this isn't the first time I've lost pretty much my whole gaming group because they grew up and moved away. The last time it was my brother Jon's friends, he's nine and a half years younger than me, so I was in my mid-to-late twenties when I ran AD&D (2nd edition, they were oddly reticent to play 1st edition) for those lads. Eventually I switched to 3rd edition, but they were mostly gone by then. I ran Hackmaster (4th edition)  for a while after I gave up on D&D, really it's the first retroclone though, right? Anyway, my oldest two children have moved on, although John is forced out of the dorm for holidays and between semesters, so I see him then. Ashli calls a couple of times a week usually.

 In theory I am still working on a super-hero genre RPG based on Joshua Guess' book Next (and it's impending sequels), but I haven't really been doing much of anything but playing "Civilization 5", "Mount and Blade" and the "Panzer General" clone "Panzer Corps", and by playing Civ5, I really mean working on a mod. "Mount and Blade" is great, because it's a sandbox RPG, but I became mightily peeved with it on Sunday when my saved game corrupted, why didn't I think to do alternating save slots? I tried starting over, but that kind of blows. I am accustomed now to being the most powerful lord in my Kingdom, who single-handedly  brought the other four Kingdoms (OK, one is a Khanate) of Calradia to their knees, commanding armies of 4-500 elite troops. I was an axe-wielding god of death, now bandits can beat my ass and take me prisoner.

"Panzer Corps" continues to please though, it has all of the good turn based strategy of "Panzer General"- even the maps look the same and the controls are identical, but the scenarios in the Grand Campaign are different enough from PG to be fresh and challenging.

Anyway, it's late here and I am rambling, so I'll just mention that I also got a couple of different flavors of "Swords and Wizardry" and bought everything available for the "Basic Fantasy" RPG. I am going to sign off for tonight and I'll try to start posting more again. Before I was blogging about gaming almost every day, but when you take year off the habit gets broken, now I have to reinstate it.

It's been over a year...

It's been over a year since I wrote anything for this blog, and it was a sit spotty for about a year before that. I tried to keep things going for a while, but I was much more greatly affected by the death of my sister than I could have ever imagined. I've really screwed up my credibility by failing to deliver prizes to a bunch of contest winners, for which I have no excuse. I still have all of the prizes, and if I owe you one, and you are still reading my blog, contact me and I'll get them to you.

I haven't really gamed at all for roughly the same period of time, but now I am in a better place and want to DM again. I am thinking Lamentations of the Flame Princess, mostly because I want to step out of the generic quasi-western European fantasy D&D mold, while still actually using a game system I am familiar with. I picked up a couple of the modules for it, and I had a few more and a pdf of the Grindhouse edition (and Vornheim) but when my last computer finally died, at the age of eleven, I lost my LotFP stuff, but they have a free version available on RPG Now/Drive through RPG, so I guess I'll print that out. Anyone in the Northern Central NY area want to play?

I am also working on another RPG based on Joshua Guess' Next with my long time collaborator Darryl Cook and my lovely wife Mona AKA Saint Mona the Patient, who keeps me out of jail. It's good to be working on projects again, but Darryl really has the lead on this one. Baby steps back out into the world. Speaking of Darryl and me working on RPG stuff together, 43 AD is now available in print on demand format on LULU, we play-tested it and edited it, the author is Paul Elliot, the man behind Zozer Games.

James Raggi- my wife would like to do some art for you.

I guess that's all I have to say for now. I know it's been a while, and you'd think I'd have more, but I've had a rough couple of years. Be well everyone, and I'll try to make this a regular thing again, but I am a little out of the loop right now, so I need to do some catching up on OSR related news (I could really not care less about the new edition of D&D)

Roman Adventure Contest- Prize Update

A quick update for the contest.

My lovely wife Mona has graciously offered to provide commissioned character portraits for 1st-3rd place winners. Many of you are already familiar with her work, as it has been featured on my blog before and on a couple of other OSR blogs. There is also a link to her Deviantart gallery to the left. So get out there and get busy writing, for the Senate and People of Rome!

Mongol Month Draws to a Close

It's a little sad that this month didn't produce a better contest than it did. I was really trying to use it to springboard back into writing and really caring about gaming after my sister died. I spent most of the month though either sick or just depressed still and didn't really promote the whole Mongol thing or my contest particularly. As I write this I am 5 ½ hours from the submissions deadline and I have one short adventure here. I am afraid that I am going to have to call the contest off for lack of participation and interest and I am going to take a hiatus from blogging until I get my self more straight.

To be honest, the holiday season is probably going to be rough for me, so I don't imagine I'll be posting much in December. I have a plan for January though, so I hope that taking December (mostly) off will recharge me and give me the break I need to get my self together.

In the meantime, I still have like 50 of those refrigerator magnets; so anyone who wants one should just send me a SASE to-

William J. Dowie

32 Risley Drive

Mexico, NY 13114

If you already requested one and didn't get it, it's because Mona has been swamped, so this is just easier. Sorry, they probably will lack the art.

I'll be lurking around and reading OSR blogs in the interim, I just don't really have anything to say right now.

Fight ON!

Art Showcase

I found a bunch of my wife Mona's art scans on a flash drive today, so I thought I'd share.

Two of the more chaste fairies are based on my daughter Ashli and her friend Machele, and the Valkyrie is also my daughter Ashli. The Full Tilt is our SCA baronial newsletter and that cover was nominated for a Blackfox award, the only newsletter in our kingdom so honored that year. The Mermaid is a real crowd pleaser. Freyja was drawn for a Norse Pagan magazine I think. The slutty chick with the whip was on a bet. The Dragon was her first, just to see if she could. Slutty Red Riding Hood just amused her. She is sick today, apparently an allergic reaction to her antibiotics; so I didn't get to start my 43 AD game today like I planned. Now it's looking like Sunday if she's feeling better.

A Wee Update for Today

I spent most of my day at doctors appointments for myself and Ashli, so not a whole lot got done here today. I got some cool stuff in the mail though.

This Crab Army Expansion, for instance, is pristine; the shrink wrap was taken off but the miniatures are still in their protective plastic wrapper, and the seller included an extra copy of the rulebook, which is nice.

Same seller, I already had one of these, but I figured if I got it on the minimum bid and saved on shipping it'd be worth it. I did and it is. Also in pristine condition, better than my other one.

These guys I am actually a little worried might be beyond my ability to put together. My hands are huge and manual dexterity is not one of my great strengths, great strength is. Fortunately, my lovely wife Mona has volunteered to do the job for me, although if it goes like her volunteering to paint my miniatures this may take a while.

I also got this from Amazon, I may be over-preparing for my 43 AD/Warband dual campaign. My busy appointment schedule this week means I'll have plenty of reading time while I am in waiting rooms though, so I guess that's a plus...

Some Productivity Today

My wife and I, OK, mostly her, have been more or less renovating our kitchen, that weeks long activity is nearing completion. Out of that I got a new set of shelves in my office area, which is pretty cool because I always need more shelf space. My wife may have other plans for these shelves, but I am claiming them in the name of the empire!

I also hashed out, with my chief co-conspirator Darryl, a bunch of little things that have been bugging me about my Garnia campaign world this morning; so there's a sense of achievement for you right there! The whole thing ends up changing from a more generically Celtic flavored medieval fantasy world to a really Iron Age/ Dark Ages Celts with Magic added kind of a thing; meaning that a lot of the work that I thought was finished has to be rewritten, but I think it makes for a more flavorful world.

Oh, and it's not just Celts, there are other Human cultures represented there too. Spread across one mega-continent, one small continent/very large island, and several island chains we have various ethnic groups that have been brought here to the Realm of the Sidhe for whatever reasons whichever court of Sidhe saw fit to bring their particular group over. I talk about it more on my other blog, and there's another multi-planar war aspect to the whole back story, but you get the gist of it from this.

I also got these miniatures in the mail today. I was surprised because the seller said he was going to be out of town and not shipping anything until the 7th. I must have made it in just under the wire before he left.

I had bid on these before I got the first Celtos miniature that I won. I might consider more monster types like the Fomorian, but the Humans are a wee bit too fantasy for my tastes. Which I guess begs the question, where do you go for Wizard and Priest types when you are using mostly historical ranges of miniatures? Monsters I can grab from anywhere, although I have my preferred companies. But if I have a player that wants to be a Female Cleric in the setting, pretty much any part of the setting? Finding any females in armor is difficult, but not impossible. Finding one with the limited Cleric weapon set, much tougher*. Female Wizards? They're pretty tough to find too, assuming I want the females in the party to match the males in how "fantasy" they look.

*Although I tend not to be a stickler for enforcement, I'd rather do damage by class than by weapon type. For the sake of argument, assume I am strictly enforcing D&D weapon bans.

Kind of an odd day today

I woke up this morning at 5:00AM with my left side more or less paralyzed, it kind of freaked me out a little until I realized I wasn't having a stroke, but in fact somehow my left side had managed to "fall asleep". I knew I was OK when my face was fine and it was just my arm, torso and leg that were numbed, needless to say my wife was at first concerned, and then unimpressed and kind of cranky that I woke her up so early. She went back to bed, I shambled around until I got my blood flow and feeling back, by then I was good and awake, so I just made coffee and started the day.

At about 9:00AM my mother called to tell me they had a bunch of Lab Coats in my size at the Dollar store in Oswego. I was skeptical, because my mom usually buys me stuff that doesn't fit me; this has been going on since I was in high school; but I said to go ahead and give it a shot anyway, since it was only a buck. She bought me two, because they came in white and light blue, and I'll be damned if they don't fit. Why the dollar store in Oswego has a supply of giant sized Lab Coats I could not even venture to guess, but now I can use it to infiltrate all manner of places I am not supposed to be :) I actually just periodically put it on and wandered out of my office and told everyone assembled that "I needed some more test subjects".

The weather is changing and I can feel it in my bones and with a sinus headache that you all would not believe. I never take medication for pain, my philosophy is that if I do, then I might build up a tolerance to the medication and it won't work if I really need it. Today I have been taking double normal human doses of Ibuprofen just to keep it at a level I can live with. I guess it didn't help that I had to do a lot of driving around today too, I swear that minivans are designed for the wee folk. There's no head room, especially when entering or exiting the vehicle, and no leg room while driving. Ye Gods, but I miss my old Impala, she was the best of my truly bad-ass cars. I sold her to my brother and he killed her in something like a month. But when she was mine, she was fast and had enough room inside to stretch out, she was a pleasure to drive. She was fast and beautiful and had enough space in the trunk for four full grown men. I'd never be able to afford to drive the poor thing anymore, gas prices being what they are, she had an Oldsmobile 350 rocket (I got the engine out of a '75 Cutlass) with 4 barrel carburetor under the hood. This is what she looked like-

Anyway, I finally got the rest of my order from Warlord Games in the mail today, here are their pictures from the website-

Mona did manage to snap off the standard at the bearer's hand though when she tried to straighten it. We also had to get every available Mastiff, because we have a Mastiff here. Her Name is Harmony, she is quite elderly, nearly 12 years old now.

I also got this package from EBay, which I won mostly just the things I figured would be a bargain because I'd be saving on shipping, the Vikings were the only thing I won that I really wanted, the rest was just cheap and I figured I'd find a use for it eventually.

These are Black Tree Designs "Unarmored Vikings with Swords", perfect for my current B/X D&D game.

These shield transfers are all Templars, 4 packs for smaller shields, 4 for larger. I got them all for $1.00.

These are Old Glory Ancients, obviously, Hoplites advancing, which I do not currently have any real use for, I just figured since they were cheap and I'd be saving on postage anyway.

The stuff I really wanted from this seller went into a bidding war that got too rich for my blood.

I also finished "The Mongoliad- Book One" today. I am torn as to what to read next, but I am thinking it's probably going to be the "Small Business for Dummies" book that I ordered because I want to start a small business, and I figured a "For Dummies" book would tell me in plain terms whether or not it was a viable option. They've never led me astray before, I am a smart guy, but there are topics I don't know anything about, they are a good way to start learning.