Ave Caesar! A Contest Update

I just want to reiterate all of the contest rules and prizes here and announce that I am extending the submissions deadline until the end of January rather than the Ides, because, while the Ides sounded cool, don't think it gave enough time with the holidays in the way.

So here we go-

The contest is to write an Ancient Roman Empire themed adventure for early edition D&D, AD&D or one of their popular retroclones. One Page Dungeons are fine, but I have had people need more space, so short adventures are acceptable too. I am willing to accept anything you are willing to submit, up to and including huge hex-crawls; every adventure will be judged on it's own merit.

The fine print- I intend to publish these submissions to the web as a free series for the OSR community, if you want to opt out of having me give your work away to everyone, mention it in your submission email.

All adventures should be submitted via email to me at williamjdowie AT gmail DOT com by midnight on January 31^st EST. I will then email them to the rest of the judges.

The good stuff-

Everyone who submits an entry, or really, really wants one gets a refrigerator magnet. So far the magnets have made it to Europe and Australia, as well as all over the USA, let's see how many continents and countries we can hit while the supply lasts! Just send me your postal address with your submission and my wife will mail it out within a few days, unless you live in Maryland or Germany, in which case I will have to nag her for weeks.

Grand Prize-

PDF copies of 43 AD and it's supplement Warband, courtesy of Zozer Games.

8”x10” Canvas Print courtesy of easycanvasprints.com

Roman Numeral D4(x2), D6(x2) and D10(x2).

One commissioned Character portrait courtesy of Mona Dowie.

Second Prize-

PDF copy of 43 AD courtesy of Zozer Games.

Roman Numeral D4, D6(x2) and D10.

One commissioned Character portrait courtesy of Mona Dowie.

One Old School 1984 Ral Partha Roman Legionary lead miniature, unpainted.

Third Prize-

PDF copy of 43 AD courtesy of Zozer Games.

Roman Numeral D4, D6(x2) and D10.

One commissioned Character portrait courtesy of Mona Dowie.

Prizes may be updated, as I am constantly on the lookout for more sponsors and I am not averse to opening my own vault of gaming goods if I think we need more submissions.

New Contest

In keeping with Mongol Month the theme of the contest is Mongols*- the twist is that the Mongols should be the heroes, not the villains that they are generally portrayed as. This doesn't really preclude there also being Mongol villains, but I'd like to see some Mongol heroes for a change.

The format is short adventure- not necessarily a One-Page Dungeon style format, but it can be, although I'd like to see more "wilderness" type adventures to take advantage of the Mongols horse archery skills; but I am not limiting people to a single page this time around.

This is a real chance for you all to show how much you know about the Mongols (or learn something new) and win some cool prizes for doing something fun!

I definitely intend to compile all of the entries into one file after the contest for ease of download, just an FYI for anyone contributing an adventure, if you are uncomfortable with me redistributing your work please mention that when you send your entry and I'll leave yours out of the compilation, otherwise I will assume that you read this and are OK with my redistribution.

As before, I will send everyone who enters the contest a cool refrigerator magnet. For some of you this will be a second or fifth, but I still have a bunch, so while supplies last they're up for grabs.

As to the other prizes, I haven't decided yet, because I am waiting to hear back from potential sponsors, but if nothing else I'll come up with something good from my own collection probably for the top three this time.

I'd also like to recruit a couple more judges for this time around, last time the contest was really close and I think the points might spread out a little more if the adventures were graded by more people

EDIT- it probably couldn't hurt if I told everybody where to send their submissions, my email address is williamjdowie AT gmail DOT com, sorry about that omission. 

*I suppose I should point out that the "Mongols" should be a D&D facsimile of real world Mongols, based on their culture, with their names and social structure, mythology, etc. This gives a little more room for the fantasy part of fantasy role-playing.  

One Page Dungeon Contest Winners

Deep into Mongol Month we have finally gotten the results from the last of the judges and I tallied them up today.

Before I announce the winners of my top three prizes though, I'd like to share where I got the cool prizes from - all of the magnets, both refrigerator magnets and bumper sticker magnets I got from BuildASign.com . They specialize in banners and signs, but were able to meet my magnet needs easily and I am most pleased with their product, both in price and quality, and the service, which was speedy.

They have a sister site easycanvasprints.com that I can see myself using in the future too.
In case everyone doesn't remember what the magnets look like, here they are again -

Once again, I'd like to thank everyone who participated in the One Page Dungeon contest, all of the judges agreed that it was really tough to choose a winner and the top three were separated by a single point each.

Third place and a cool bumper sticker style magnet goes to Richard J. LeBlanc Jr. of New Big Dragon Games for "Þrymjahellir" which is available for download at his Save vs. Dragon blog in both one and two page versions.

Second place and another bumper sticker magnet goes to Gustie LaRu of the "Dungeon of Signs" blog for "Hel's Crow's Final Rest", which is available here.

So, the grand prize, the big, bumper sticker magnet and a choice of old TSR modules from my collection goes to Bard Bowman of the Clash of Spear on Shield blog for "The Dødsbakken", available here.

Congratulations to the winners, and I have to say this was great fun. I really look forward to next time.

Now, because it is Mongol Month, I feel I need to at least give you all a bit of trivia, so here you go- The Mongol Empire was the largest land based empire ever seen on the face of the Earth. It encompassed the bulk of Asia and part of Europe. The last ruling direct descendant of Genghis Khan was deposed by the Czars in the mid-18th century, more than five centuries after Genghis Khan died.

Mongol Month Continues

With Viking content - I DMed my "Vikings of Dvergrholm" campaign yesterday after a month long hiatus. The PCs (and 1 NPC) left the Dwarven village of Nordlund and headed out towards the ancient Dwarven fortress (mega-dungeon) that they are supposed to be liberating as the focus of this campaign. The entire thing almost got sidelined when they got a random encounter with a pack of wolves, that's a tough encounter for a first level party and there were nine wolves encountered. The wolves also won initiative and attacked on the first round, taking down two of the party's Fighters, although this is an almost entirely Fighter based party, so pretty much no matter who got hit it was likely to be a Fighter. Viking Campaign Sourcebook rules in effect limited choices and the only Magic-User in the party had already died in the first outing. Nobody else wanted to play a Magic-User because they were limited in their spell selection by school. They beat the encounter ultimately though and then had to turn back for town, empty handed, to heal up and try again later.

The second go was much easier. They had no random encounters on the way to the dungeon and didn't get lost or stumble across any planned encounters. When confronted with the choice of three identical entrances though, they chose the one on the left, because they didn't think to ask the Dwarves for anything more than directions and these Dwarves don't really volunteer a lot of information; so, of course, it was one of the two trapped entrances, but not the worst. In fact, you might not consider it a trap at all under different circumstances, but it did lock them in the dungeon with no way back out (they don't have a Thief to pick the locks, or any excavation tools), and the only way forward took them to the third level of the dungeon.

Once they got down to the third level they discovered that their entrance was in the back of a tiny room and it was a secret door on the dungeon side, so it's really more like a secret escape tunnel from the third level to the surface, but it unfortunately locks automatically when the doors close and the doors close when the next door is opened, if you haven't already manually closed them or made some provision to jam them open. Anyway, they left their tiny room and entered the dungeon proper and immediately got a random encounter with five Ogres, which you would think would have smeared a first level party, but in a 10'x10' corridor they could channelize the Ogre's approach and only one at a time could move to attack. The party easily used superior tactics to defeat the Ogres and the Ogres refused to fail morale checks, and thus kept coming on to the slaughter. All five were dead in three rounds of combat, but Mona's character Grimhild did crit the leader on round one for 23 points of damage, one-shotting him after he missed her. Two rounds later, she did the same thing again to the last one.

We wrapped up the session after that, we had started late and ended a little earlier than usual, but it was a pretty good time and we had a ton of awesome food to go with our game too. Maybe I should get a picture of the food Mona makes for the game sometime?

Anyway, in other Viking news, I hope to announce the winners of the OPD contest I ran last month tomorrow. I am waiting to hear the results from a couple of judges still, then I'll tally up the points and declare the winners. Good luck to everyone, and thanks to everyone who participated.

I also got this stuff on EBay, just to use as inspiration for my Viking campaign, I don't remember if I shared the pics with you all-

Now, something related to the Mongols just to keep my theme for the month. Did you all know that Genghis Khan invented the concept of diplomatic immunity? The Mongol Empire also strictly adhered to a practice of religious freedom and tolerance.

Just One Day Left

There is just one day left to get in on the Viking themed One Page Dungeon Contest I am running here, in 24 hours no more submissions will be accepted. Win cool, old TSR stuff from the Khakhan's hoard as a prize or a cool car bumper sticker style magnet! Or both! Every entry gets a free refrigerator magnet!

This has been a public service announcement from the Great Khan to the old school gaming community.

I know this'll come as a shock...

...especially to everyone that knows me, but I took a "Which Star Trek character are you?" quiz, and this is the result-


Your results:
You are Worf

Worf 80% Spock 60% Uhura 60% Mr. Sulu 60% Jean-Luc Picard 60% Chekov 55% James T. Kirk (Captain) 45% Will Riker 45% Geordi LaForge 40% Mr. Scott 30% Beverly Crusher 30% Deanna Troi 30% Data 29% Leonard McCoy (Bones) 25% An Expendable Character (Redshirt) 0%

You are trained in the art of combat and are usually intimidating.

Click here to take the Star Trek Personality Quiz

I am slowly getting back into the swing of things here. I am mostly playing catch up, reading blogs I haven't read for the last couple of weeks and I did try out a new RPG last weekend, it was pretty good. There's still time for anyone to enter the One Page Dungeon Contest, and I have plenty of magnets left.

The Great Khan's One Page Dungeon Contest

This year's theme is Vikings. Specifically I am looking for Viking themed stuff I can plug into an existing mega-dungeon as a sub-level or as a stand alone mini-adventure. Feel free to spread the word to your gaming friends and on your own blogs.

I buried the lead when I mention the contest as a possibility the other day, and I got a lukewarm response as a result. I also didn't mention where to send your One Page Dungeons to, so you can email me directly at williamjdowie AT gmail DOT com. I still managed to get one volunteer judge, so I am looking for a couple more and I need some submissions.

Apparently the sweet refrigerator magnets weren't enough to make you leap at the opportunity to show your creative talents, so I have decided to up the ante and throw in some genuine old school swag, I am going to open up my gaming vault and let the top three winners take a pick from my module collection - it's heavy on 1st edition AD&D modules, all are used, there are a few doubles and a couple of "super-modules". I know the complete A, S & D series are there, and the combo versions (G-D-Q, S1-4) and Q1, T1; plus a whole bunch of Mentzer Era D&D modules, mostly Basic and Expert, some higher level. I also have one 3e module, Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. Some of them are in pretty rough shape, some are in damned good shape for their age and the fact that they were opened up and used at all. Probably the ones that held up the best were the "super-modules", "Queen of the Spiders" and "Lankhmar: City of Adventure" both look pretty good.

So, I'll be accepting submissions starting now and running through October 1st, everyone who enters will still receive a refrigerator magnet (while supplies last, after they come in, provided you send me your postal address); so let's get out there and show all the creative talent the OSR has to offer!  

Remember When I Said I Wanted To Get Some Magnets?

I found a place with reasonable prices and ordered some today. Here's what they look like-

Refrigerator Magnet.

Bumper Sticker Magnet.

What do you all think? Who wants one? I was thinking contest. Since this blog is "Powered by OSR", I was thinking of showcasing the talent of the OSR for everyone I play D&D with; so how about a One-Page Dungeon contest? Viking themed, since that's what I am running now, and either stand alone or able to be plugged in as a part of my mega-dungeon as a sub-level. Sound good?

Now, everyone who enters will get the refrigerator magnet, the top 3, chosen by me and whoever else volunteers to be a judge will get the cool bumper sticker magnet.