The Revelation of Mulmo Tentacled Edition

The Revelation of Mulmo Tentacled Edition is a 4th level adventure written by Daniel J. Bishop and illustrated by David Fisher. Cartography is by David Fisher and Tim Hartin of Paratime Design. The publisher is Shinobi 27 Games.

Disclosure: I am the author and have an editing credit.

There is another version of this adventure, released by Dragon's Hoard Publishing. So what is the difference?

The most obvious difference is that the Tentacled Edition is in print. In addition, David Fisher is a better layout designer than I, and layout is consequently much improved. There is some additional editing for clarity. There is also some new art and a bit of new cartography. Finally, there were three partial patrons in the original (Gloriana, Faerie Godmother; Mab, Dark Queen of Faerie; and Mulmo, He Who Whispers Forgotten Secrets), two of whoM (Gloriana and Mulmo) appeared fully fleshed out for the first time.

On the other hand, the original version included all of the additional patron information you might need to run the adventure, because I did not assume that the judge would have access to Angels, Daemons, and Beings Between (or have access to it at the table).

A video review of this adventure is available here.

Death comes to us all….But what price are you willing to pay to bring back one you have lost?

In The Revelation of Mulmo: Tentacle Edition, brave adventures risk magic, monsters, and the passage of time itself to bring a fallen comrade back from the dead.

This module describes a fallen elf hill, with descriptions of 60 locations, additional patron information, and FOUR new spells. It makes use of patron information from the DCC RPG Rulebook and Angels, Daemons, & Beings Between: Extended, Otherworldly Edition by Shinobi 27 Games.

If you are wondering how to make patrons more active in your campaign, this is the adventure for you!

Get It Here!

The Revelation of Mulmo

The Revelation of Mulmo is a 4th level adventure written by Daniel J. Bishop and illustrated by David Fisher. Cartography is by Tim Hartin of Paratime Design. The publisher is Dragon's Hoard Publishing.

Disclosure: I am the writer, and am credited with Layout and co-credited with Editing (along with David Fisher).

This adventure was written as a perk for the Indigogo campaign that brought about the original run of Angels, Daemons, and Beings Between. I have written about that elsewhere, and will not be going over old wounds here, but I will talk a little about how the project came about.

Specifically, the idea of an elf mound adventure arose from reading (or re-reading) Appendix N fiction. I also wanted an adventure that could potentially bring a dead PC back to life - it is coincidental that Harley Stroh's masterful Blades Against Death arrived half a year earlier, also was for 4th level characters, and also offered a way to Quest For It in order to beat death.

To say that this is a big adventure is an understatement. At the time it came out, it was the longest adventure for Dungeon Crawl Classics that was available. In order to make it as good as I possibly could, I ended up directly paying David Fisher for art above and beyond what the publisher could afford. I think that it was worth it, both in terms of the original presentation, and in terms of my continuing association with David Fisher and Shinobi 27 Games.

I have written about this adventure here.

What may not be immediately apparent is that there are references to various Appendix N elves worked throughout the adventure. Some are obvious; some are not. In fact, there is a reference to elves from every Appendix N work I had read at the time that included them. This, in turn, makes The Revelation of Mulmo especially connected to Angels, Daemons, and Beings Between Volume 2: Elfland Edition. I would be hard pressed, at this point, to list them all.

The lunar creatures are inspired, in part, by Edgar Rice Burroughs and H.G. Wells, as well as early ideas about lunar inhabitants. It may be noted that the lunar creatures, as well as the Scrying spell, are Open Game Content.

This adventure was also influenced by two adventures written by other authors, who deserve acknowledgment. The Tower of the Stargazer, by James Edward Raggi IV (Lamentations of the Flame Princess) has a telescope that can send you elsewhere; The Revelation of Mulmo has a telescope that can bring things from elsewhere to you. The Blasphemous Brewery of Pilz: Extra Stout Edition by Dylan Hartwell includes a "Sword of Inebriation" that gets more powerful based on the players (not the characters) drinking. This was an inspiration for Alemourn, the Drunken Blade.

Because Shinobi 27 Games obtained the rights to an expanded print version (The Revelation of Mulmo Tentacled Edition), the only pdf version available is through Dragon's Hoard Publishing.

Get It Here!

Raven Crowking Presents Gary Con X Special

Raven Crowking Presents: Gary Con X Special was written by Daniel J. Bishop. Art is by Daniel J. Bishop (cover), Relapse, Justin Osbourn, and Gary M. Stolz. The publisher is Raven Crowking.

Disclosure: I am the author, cover artist, and publisher.

As the opening note says:

"It had been my intent to fill this up with new material, but I ended up moving house between February and March, which took up a considerable amount of free time."

Consequently, much of what was contained herein came from blog posts on Raven Crowking's Nest. These items are:

• Breckinridge Elkins 

• Leviathan

• The Fatal Feast

• Walkabout Thing

• Badgers for DCC

• Rooster-men

There are also a few bits that are not directly related to blog posts:

• C. Main Burial Chamber on page 10 is a description from an unpublished 3rd Edition adventure I wrote for my home game, which was run at Golden City Comics (now long closed) in Toronto.

• Ghost Ships on page 13 is from my background notes for the Lakelands campaign. Both gray phantoms and burning ships are actual types of ghost ships that people in the real world have actually claimed to see.

• The map on page 14 is from some uncompleted adventure. I found it during the move...perhaps one day I will key the area.

• The three pieced on page 15 are also from the Lakelands campaign. The first is from a play session write-up. The second is a room description from the Tower of Amoreth the Arcane. The last is from my campaign notes describing an area the PCs were traversing with a few NPCs.

Although this product is no longer available, most of its contents are, as indicated above.

Raven Crowking Presents Gary Con 2017 Special: Items of Magic

Raven Crowking Presents Gary Con 2017 Special: Items of Magic was written and illustrated by Daniel J. Bishop based in part off material from the Goodman Games Forums and suggestions from Heather Bishop and Jace Schulz. Additional patron material from Angels, Daemons, and Beings Between, published by Dragon's Hoard Publishing, Daniel J. Bishop and Paul Wolfe authors, copyright 2012. The publisher is Raven Crowking.

Disclosure: I am the author, illustrator, and publisher.

Gary Con IX in 2017 was my first Gary Con. Wanting to do something special to commemorate the occasion, I created a small print "Special" that I could hand out at the Con. Within were 18 magic items and the patron information for Radu, King of Rabbits, which related to the Iron Carrot of the King (one of the magic items therein). I also printed out the magic items to pass out to players at games I was running.

A number of these items were based on player requests for a game I ran on the Goodman Games Forums. Several magic items from this product were printed onto cardstock and distributed to players at Gary Con X as well.

Example items:

• Rah‐Neld's Ray Gun: Can fire a blue‐white radiance at targets within 120', causing 1d10 damage on a successful strike and doing critical hits as a warrior of equal level. In the event of a natural "1", instead of a fumble it must recharge, and cannot be used again for 24 hours.

• The Servant of Madam Daemona: This ivory doll is a foot high. It comes to life at night, and can perform one simple task each night, such as polishing armor, sharpening weapons, etc. Whatever it performs this task on gains a bonus of the judge's choice (usually +1) on the following day.

• Headstone of the Zoogs: This ancient tombstone is heavy, requiring two hands and a Strength of 14+ to carry. It comes from the Enchanted Wood in the Dreamlands. When its owner feeds it with his own blood (equal to Spellburn usable by any class) the tombstone's heading changes to answer any question. The answer can only use 1 word per point of Spellburn, and is correct 75% of the time. When not in use, it reads "Richard Upton Pickman, 1768‐1927".

This item is no longer available, although some of the content can be found in Angels, Daemons, and Beings Between or on the aforementioned Goodman Games Forums thread.

Raven Crowking's Birthday Mathom 2017

Raven Crowking's Birthday Mathom 2017 was written by Daniel J. Bishop with cover cartography by Daniel J. Bishop. The publisher is Raven Crowking.

Disclosure: I am the author, cartographer, and publisher.

The post offering this item, and giving the requirements for receiving it, appeared on 4 July 2017. Only two people received a mathom from me that year.

For a discussion of mathoms, see this listing.

Let's look inside.

Faerie Encounters: This is an article, which first appeared in Dragon Roots Magazine, issue #3. The original material was written for 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons, and much of the d20 System references have been removed to make the article more useful to the aspiring Dungeon Crawl Classics judge.

Addictive Substances: Describes three substances your PCs may encounter, which are addictive. Faerie Fruits are as described in "The Goblin Market" by Christina Rossetti. The other two items are ones that PCs (or their foes) may seek out, despite their drawbacks.

Leyworms grant the user increased ability to connect to ley lines, and thus a bonus to spell checks, in exchange for an increased chance of spell failure. Zurgâsh, or “blue fire” is an addicive fungal substance manufactured by orcs. It trades intelligence and speech for increased prowess - effectively, it gives a reason why some orcs seem to violate common sense by not sounding the alarm as soon as an adventuring party appears.

Those familiar with The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien may recognize that "zurgâsh" is actually partly built of the Black Speech of Mordor, wherein "gâsh" means "fire".

Evensong: This is a poem, which was first published in the now-defunct Fables online. You can still find it here.

This product is no longer available, although, as indicated above, some materials within are still available in one format or another.

Raven Crowking's Birthday Mathom 2016

Raven Crowking's Birthday Mathom 2016 was written by Daniel J. Bishop with cartography by Daniel J. Bishop. The publisher is Raven Crowking.

Disclosure: I am the author, cartographer, and publisher.

The post offering this item, and giving the requirements for receiving it, appeared on 14 January 2016. Included in the post was this text:

Here’s the cool part: I am going to start writing the adventure in June. SO…up to an including 1 June 2016, you may also include in your comments something you would like me to include in said adventure, and I will try to include it. Remember, this is a free project, so don’t be surprised if you don’t end up with 17 patrons just because of the comments. Keep it reasonable…but be inventive.

For a discussion of mathoms, see this listing.

Nobody suggested anything they would like to see included in the comments, so I did a conversion of Temple of the Golden Ape. The original material first appeared in Dragon Roots Magazine, issue #1. At that time, the material was written for 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons. All material was reworked for Dungeon Crawl Classics.

Stephen "Snake" Newton provided a short mini-review of this mathom here.

This product is no longer available, although, as indicated above, the 3rd Edition version can still be purchased from the publisher.

Raven Crowking's Birthday Mathom 2015

Raven Crowking's Birthday Mathom 2015 was written by Daniel J. Bishop with cover cartography by Daniel J. Bishop. The publisher is Raven Crowking.

Disclosure: I am the author, cartographer, and publisher.

The post offering this item, and giving the requirements for receiving it, appeared on 28 July 2015. I provided a preview (the calot) here. I tried to drum up more interest here.

For a discussion of mathoms, see this listing.

This year's mathom included twenty entries for Barsoomian creatures, a discussion of bringing your PCs to Barsoom, nine lunar creatures, and three entries for campaign worlds alien or mundane.

Terrestrials on Barsoom: A single page article that describes how characters are affected by moving from Earth to Barsoom.

Barsoom, as every Dungeon Crawl Classics player and Judge should know, is Edgar Rice Burroughs’ fantastic version of Mars. Transferring PCs from a terrestrial orb to Barsoom is as
easy as failing a saving throw in a cave, while Mars is appearing visibly through the open cave mouth, or having a TPK under the night sky. Instead of dying, the PCs feel drawn to the red planet, where their bodies (but not their armor, weapons, or other goods) appear unharmed.

Unfortunately, the last paragraph on page 1 is a holdover from the 2014 mathom, describing a creature in The Ruined Keep (the lurk).

Denizens of Barsoom: Write-ups of a full score of Edgar Rice Burrough's creatures from Barsoom. These were: the Apt, the Banth, the Calot, the First Born, Green Barsoomians, Hormads, the Kaldane and Rykor, the Kangaroo Men, Lotharians, Malagor, Okar, Orovar, Plant Men, Red Barsoomians, Sith, Therns, Thoats, the Ulsio, White Apes, and Zitidar.

For comparison, read Crawljammin’ on the Red Planet: a Barsoom Bestiary by Jon Hershberger, in The Gong Farmer's Almanac 2016 Vol 6.

Some Creatures From the Moon!: Creatures from These creatures, from The Revelation of Mulmo, which were marked as Open Gaming Content in that product. As noted in the mathom, "some of the description of the Invisible Lunar Creature, and none of the description of the Fungal Wasp Swarm, is in Area T8, although it is referred to, so caveat emptor...although the intent was to have these OGC. The others are completely and utterly in the clear! Please use them!"

Creatures included were: Invisible Lunar Creature, Tiny Moon Calf, Selenite, Lunar People, Lunar Centaur, Graceful Wormfolk, and Fungus Creature (which includes the aforementioned Fungal Wasp Swarm).

Parting Shots: This was three additional creatures: The Ironroach Swarm (which later appeared in The Gong Farmer's Almanac 2016 Vol 3), the Siren Bush, and the Trusk (which may be related to the anvar of The Dread God Al-Khazadar).

This product is no longer available, although, as indicated above, some of the content is.

Raven Crowking's Birthday Mathom 2014

Raven Crowking's Birthday Mathom 2014: The Ruined Keep & Additional Materials was written by Daniel J. Bishop with cartography by Daniel J. Bishop. The publisher is Raven Crowking.

Disclosure: I am the author, cartographer, and publisher.

The post offering this item, and giving the requirements for receiving it, appeared on 29 July 2014. As I said in that post, "These are just some fun things that you can get for free because sending them out helps me celebrate the passing of another solar rotation. And because the DCC community is great."

For a discussion of mathoms, see this listing.

This year's mathom included:

The Ruined Keep: This is one of two scenarios originally written for Raven Crowking’s Fantasy Game (RCFG), the “fantasy heartbreaker” I was writing before I switched to Dungeon Crawl Classics. I converted it to be used as a funnel for 12-18 0-level characters or 1st level adventure for 4-6 PCs.

Somewhere beneath the ruined keep lies the Oracle of the Crystal Grotto. The judge need only allow the PCs to learn this, and give the PCs some question that they need to answer, to hook them into the scenario.

If running a 0-level funnel, the PCs’ village may be suffering from an incurable plague, with the Oracle being the only hope of succor. If the PCs are in the early stages of the plague themselves, it will lend a certain piquancy to their mission.

If running a 1st level adventure, the judge may let slip that the Oracle can answer questions about  some treasure that the PCs discovered, or that the Oracle can lead them to spell knowledge or put them on the right track to obtain something else that they desire.

This adventure was reprinted in the Sanctum Secorum Episode #31 Companion: Jack of Shadows.

Bonus Material from Appendix N Authors: This material was compiled from various Appendix N sources and given DCC statistics. Included are:

• Chu-Bu: Minor god from Lord Dunsany (“Chu-Bu and Sheemish”: Saturday Review, 30 December 1911).

• Sheemish: Another minor god from Lord Dunsany (“Chu-Bu and Sheemish”: Saturday Review, 30 December 1911).

• Tree Spirits of the Vosges: From Abraham Merritt's “The Woman of the Wood” in Weird Tales (August 1926), I used my write-up for them almost exactly in Through the Dragonwall, which was intended as an homage to Abraham Merritt.

• Wind Whale: From Philip José Farmer: The Wind Whales of Ishmael (Ace Books, 1971). Careful readers will note a similarity with an encounter in the Appendixes of The Portsmouth Mermaid.

• Aerial Brit: Foodstuff (kind of), also from Philip José Farmer's The Wind Whales of Ishmael.

• Namalee: A character in Philip José Farmer's The Wind Whales of Ishmael, which may be used as an example of how characters can be transcribed without using standard DCC classes.

• The Purple Beast of the Stinging Death: A monster you do not want to encounter, also from Philip José Farmer's The Wind Whales of Ishmael.

• Zoomashmarta: Another god, also from Philip José Farmer's The Wind Whales of Ishmael. Because this god is an idol, as are Chu-Bu and Sheemish, it may be interesting to the reader to compare Dunsany with Farmer.

• Bloodsucker Creeper: Another monster from Philip José Farmer's The Wind Whales of Ishmael.

• Stone Tortoise: Another monster from Philip José Farmer's The Wind Whales of Ishmael.

• Air Shark: Another monster from Philip José Farmer's The Wind Whales of Ishmael.

I have given Bob Brinkman blanket permission to use almost everything in this mathom for Sanctum Secorum Companion volumes, so hopefully these will appear in a The Wind Whales of Ishmael volume at some point. 

Additional Monsters: Dungeon Crawl Classics statistics for the behir, blindheim, hippocampus, and wyvern, using alterations I had made to the creatures for RCFG.

This product is no longer available, although, as indicated above, some of the content is.

Random Esoteric Creature Generator (Honorary)

The Random Esoteric Creature Generator for Classic Fantasy Role-Playing Games and their Modern Simulacra was written by James Edward Raggi IV, with art by Doug Kovacs (cover), Brad McDevitt, William McAusland, and David Griffith. The publisher is Goodman Games.

The Random Esoteric Creature Generator was not written for Dungeon Crawl Classics, but it gets an honorary listing as it is specifically mentioned in the core rulebook as a suitable tool for creating unique and mysterious monsters. It is certainly capable of doing so, and I have used it on several occasions to brainstorm creatures which could then be developed in DCC products. In fact, I keep a file of creatures generated from this (and other) sources to use as inspiration when the need strikes.

Sometimes you know exactly what you want. Sometimes you need a little prodding. Sometimes, knowing exactly what you want is actually detrimental to the creative process. Does that burial cairn really need a barrow wight in it? Or should you go with something else?

(I have also made use of The Metamorphica by Johnstone Metzger, and published by Red Box Vancouver, for similar purposes, but I find The Random Esoteric Creature Generator easier to use. See also The Monster Alphabet, the Monster Extractors, Monster Mod Cards, and the core rulebook itself for your creature generation needs! And I am sure that I have neglected more than one source of unique creatures in the foregoing list!)

Looking to instill a little fear in your game? Then look no further!    

Nothing brings the thrill – and terror – of discovery to a game like new monsters. Faced with the unknown, mighty-thewed heroes tremble in their hauberks, wizened wizards fumble with their spell books, and even the most audacious of rogues hesitate before plunging into battle.

Nevermore worry that your players have memorized every monster’s stat, power and weakness. Nevermore resort to tired fantasy clichés, and worn out monsters fought a thousand times before. The Random Esoteric Creature Generator ensures that each monster your PCs cross is unique, unexpected, and best of all – unknown. With an unlimited number of horrific combinations, this is the last monster book you will ever need.

Bring terror back to the table with the Random Esoteric Creature Generator!

Get It Here!

Raven Crowking's Birthday Mathom 2013

Raven Crowking's Birthday Mathom 2013: Hizzzgrad, Daemonic Lord of Crawling Things, was written by Daniel J. Bishop and illustrated using public domain art using Wikimedia. The publisher is Raven Crowking.

Disclosure: I am the author and publisher. I was responsible for layout and design.

On 22 April 2013, I announced the first birthday mathom (although I didn't use that term, I did reference the hobbits' tradition of giving away presents on their birthdays in J.R.R. Tolkien's masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings).

Mathom isn't really the correct term for a gift one gives on one's birthday. It is actually an old gift, of forgotten usage, that continues to be passed around the neighborhood because one is unwilling to just throw it away. It comes from an older word, meaning a treasure. The reader will have to decide whether or not any of these mathoms are treasures, or just something old and not very usable!

In any event, the email that went along with this mathom read:

My dear people. My dear Goodmans and Purple Ducks, and my dear Brave Halflings and Mystic Bullls, and Thick Skulls, and Land of Phantoms, and Purple Sorcerers, and Stray Couches, and Chapter 13 Presses, Dragons Hoard Publishings, IDD Companies, and also my good producers of DCC material that I welcome early to the fold....May you soon produce some great products!

Today is my forty-seventh birthday! I hope you are enjoying yourselves as much as I am. I shall not keep you long, I have called you all together for a purpose. Indeed, for three purposes! First of all, to tell you that I am immensely fond of you all.  I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve. 

Secondly, to celebrate my birthday. Thank you very much for coming to my little party. 

Thirdly and finally, I wish to provide you with Hizzzgrad, Daemonic Lord of Crawling Things, enclosed herein.  Although not released under the GG DCC license, may you use him to the consternation of players and judges alike for a long time to come!

I have no Ring.  I have no nephew named Frodo to pass it on to.  This is not Goodbye, despite my cribbing from Bilbo.  I hope that you will continue to support these little projects for a long time to come.

Thank you!


Daniel J. Bishop

This first mathom was a complete patron, which was later edited a bit an included in Creeping Beauties of the Wood. As a result, although the mathom itself is no longer available, the content is.

Races of Porphyra: Ith'n Ya'roo

Races of Porphrya: Ith’n Ya’roo was written by Daniel J. Bishop and Perry Fehr, with art by Gary Dupuis. The publisher is Purple Duck Games.

Disclosure: I am listed as an author. Effectively, I did a Dungeon Crawl Classics conversion from material created by Perry Fehr.

You are the towering scion of generations of admixture between the fierce northern yeti and the humans who dwell near their lands. Close to seven feet tall, with shaggy white hair covering all of your body save face and hands, you sport a slightly curved, serrated horn growing from each temple. Your eyes are solid blue, and glow faintly in the darkness. You are more human-like than Prophyra’s yeti, with only a wide, bestial-toothed mouth marring otherwise human features.

Dwellers in the cold northern lands of Porphyra, the Ith’n Ya’roo may be included in any Dungeon Crawl Classics campaign with a frozen region, such as the Forlorn North of Frozen in Time. Although they might look a bit like the wampas from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, they have their own distinct culture and niche in the game.

Included is information for 0-level ith'n ya'roo (including a 1d10 occupation table), and two classes: The Ya'roo Hunter and the Ya'roo Mystic. Two appendixes provide unique disapproval for ya'roo mystics and languages for ith'n ya'roo characters.

Ith'n ya'roo hunters are stalkers with great strength and considerable stealth. While they get a Deed Die (as do warriors), they take a penalty if using it to perform deeds requiring any type of finesse.

Ith'n ya'roo have a spiritual connection to bones, and this is particularly reflected in the abilities of the ya'roo mystic. Most difficult is the requirement to have a bone remnant to cast a spell on any living target: "This does not need to be a bone from the target itself, but could be from a compatriot, an ancestor, a descendent, etc. In the case of a spell like animal summoning, the bone remnant need merely be from the animal species to be summoned. The bone remnant is in addition to all other spell components, and is not consumed by the casting." They can also create arcane tattoos on other creatures.

Come listen, ya’roo, ya’roi, to my tales of the warm lands to the south… From the harsh regions of the ultimate north comes a race indifferent to cold, spurning fire’s warmth, skilled in bonecraft and bearing their own natural arms and armor- brother to the yeti, yet curious to the green lands south of the Cold Water, meet the savage Ith’n Ya’roo!  A new race for the popular Dungeon Crawl Classics tabletop roleplaying game, Races of Porphyra: Ith’n Ya’roo from Purple Duck Games, by Daniel Bishop and Perry Fehr introduces these intriguing people, and contains all you need to play a 0-level novice ith’n ya’roo, who can adventure his way to become an ith’n yaroo hunter, with his bone weapons and skills in taking down fell beasts, or an ith’n ya’roo mystic, with his shamanistic spellcasting, arcane tattoos that protect his tribal fellows, and the chants of the bones of friends and foes, drawing them on to glory!

Get It Here!

Races of Porphyra: Erkunae

Races of Porphyra: Erkunae was written by Perry Fehr and illustrated by Brian Brinlee, Gary Dupuis, Matt Morrow, and Tamas Baranya. The publisher is Purple Duck Games.

Disclosure: I have an Edits/Feedback credit on this product.

You are of an ancient, corrupted humanoid race with pointed features and pale skin, somewhere between elf and man. You have the taint of creatures from other dimensions in your blood. You hail from a bizarre city that covers most of a large island that was the center of a grand empire in ages past, but is now slowly sliding into decadence. You seek to prove yourself to the ancient powers of pure Chaos, which gave boons to your ancestors in the dawn of time. You are able to call on the primal forces of nature and Chaos, to achieve magical and military domination.

This product is based upon the existing canon of Porphyra, as written for Pathfinder, converting the original to a Dungeon Crawl Classics compatible race class. The erkunae are pledged to Chaos, and are particularly adept at summoning based on pacts made with various Animal Lords and promises made to beings of other worlds. In this, they are very similar to Michael Moorcock's Melnibonéans (which would seem to be a direct influence).

An appendix, Realms of Summoning, includes information on the subjects of various Animal Lords (Mrowra, Queen of Cats; Kannimorg, King of Bats, Bears, and Wolves; B’kakaaw, Queen of Birds; Sheytherax, Emperor of Reptiles; Biloop, King of Sealife; Moolineha, Queen of the Hooved; and Zezzberuiz, Queen of Insects). This appendix provides statistics for several new creatures, but has no further patron information on these entities.

The second part of the appendix, Summoned Monsters from the Myriad Worlds!, provides summoned creatures from the Age of Legends, the Cold-Blooded Empire, and the Dark Depths, as well as those who serve the Goblin King and the Death-Walkers. Again, some new monster statistics are provided.

Finally, the appendix includes Pledge to Chaos, a level 1 spell that acts as "the cornerstone of erkunae culture, the regularly renewed ritual that maintains their ancient, but constantly re-enforced pacts."

The product lacks a 0-level occupation table for erkunae, but otherwise provides everything you might need. The suggested use is that, "If a roll on Table 1-3: Occupation indicates a 34 (Elven Forester), 38 (Elven Sage), 69 (Hunter) or 90 (Squire), the player may choose to play an erkunae commoner", which seems reasonable enough to me. It should be noted that including the erkunae exactly as written presupposes some qualities of the world and the multiverse in which that world exists, but it shouldn't be too hard to either place the city of the erkunae somewhere in the world or eliminate it altogether. Nor dies Biloop need to be named Biloop. Likewise, Shevtherax may be one of many Animal Lords concerned with reptiles.

In the ancient mists of time the ancestors of the erkunae, neither elf nor man, made sorcerous and dire pacts with the Beast Elders of long ago, and promised their souls and the souls of the race, down through the eons to the capricious Lords of Chaos, unknowable beings of mercurial whim. With innate spells of summoning and controlling beasts and monsters, and gaining power through beseeching the Chaos Lords themselves, the erkunae ruled their sphere of influence for millennia.  Their influence has waned over the centuries, and today they mostly brood and squabble in their fantastic and warped Misty City of G’sho’laa’n’rr, which sprawls over an entire island.  But under the strength of a new Opal Throne Emperor, they could be great again!  The dragon-riders could fly once more to dominate the world…

Get It Here!

Inferno Road

Inferno Road was written by Wayne Snyder, and perhaps some others who are not as clearly indicated as writers in the credits. Art is by Doug Kovacs and Wayne Snyder. Other people involved include Jarett Crader, Harley Stroh, Reece Carter, Jason Bossert, Meredith Spearman, Jim Skatch, Terra Frank, and James MacGeorge. No publisher is given.

So what do we have here? Another bit of hooliganism akin to Country Crawl Classics, where your PCs begin play as grubs in hell, aboard various strange vehicles, trying to steal the Devil's wives on Inferno Road.

All PCs have two past lives, which they can access to manifest stuff related to those past lives. All PCs have a Prince of Hell as a patron. PC grubs become subgrubs when killed, and can be consumed as though they were souls. Consuming souls makes you stronger, and can allow you to take on demonic forms.  Or you can burn souls like you burn Luck. If you fall off the convey, a "dreg wagon" coming behind scoops you up and shoots you back into the game.

Apart from that, everything is art and detail, until you realize that there is no way to win, no way to lose, and the end is just going to be walking away from the table. Like Sisyphus pushing his boulder, your PCs are trapped in an endless loop of Inferno Road. In a way, this is as nihilistic as Null Singularity or Black Sun Deathcrawl. You just might not notice that right away because you're having too much fun.

Nonetheless, there is some usuable stuff here for a more mainstream Dungeon Crawl Classics game. The Random Vehicle Generator can be used to create things for hell gangs across Umerica or the future of Mutant Crawl Classics, for instance, and the demonic forms could be things your PCs end up fighting on a remote volcanic island.

Another real possibility (and one that I favor) would be to run Inferno Road after a TPK, where each PC has one previous life as a recently-deceased party member (not necessarily with the same player), and one randomly rolled past life. The PCs then have to simply find a way to escape the scenario (which the players will have to devise, and the judge rule on, because the product certainly doesn't include one). Escaping the scenario is the first step to fighting their way out of hell...perhaps in demonic forms, or perhaps taking human guise once they reach the world of the living.

The roars of the betrayed Dark Lords shake the foundations of hell. The Grand Architect of Evil is enraged. Satan shakes his chains and the whole of hell shakes with him.

Above you on the black cliffs stands your master, a black prince of hell. The beast thrusts its arms into the sulfurous air and howls along with its lord and master.

The ground shudders and your pit boils and froths. You and your ilk are cast up in a great hissing geyser. There is a terrible shriek and a thunderous flap of leathery wings as you are snatched from the air in the stone talons of some horror made of lies and murder. Thou sound of your master's mocking laughter echoes as you are borne away.

I have no idea how you can obtain this item, unless you manage to track down one of the miscreants responsible for it at a convention and pass your Luck check. EDIT: You can contact Doug Kovacs or Wayne Snyder to get on their list for the next printing.

The Dweller in Dreams

SH1 - The Dweller in Dreams is a 0-1st level adventure written by Scott Hill with illustrations by Brett Neufeld (cover), Matt Morrow, Keith Curtis, Rick Hershey, and William McAusland. The publisher is Purple Duck Games.

Disclosure: I have an Editing and a Development credit for this product, and I am a Patreon.

This is a relatively recent release, at the time of this writing, so I will avoid spoilers as much as possible. The adventure makes use of a dreamscape, and begins with the PCs as children. Ian Fleming's Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is an obvious influence, although it is the darker parts of the movie that inform the adventure.

The Dweller in Dreams is given a full patron write-up herein, which could potentially be used in conjunction with PC or NPC wizards and elves. The adventure suggests four additional hooks for further adventures, and could easily be used in conjunction with Through the Cotillion of Hours and Stars in the Darkness to create a dream-centric theme running behind a Dungeon Crawl Classics campaign.

This adventure could easily be adapted for use with Transylvanian Adventures, Dark Trails Weird Frontiers, or the Brimstone of Black Powder, Black Magic.

“In Ravenhollow the fog is black, if the Dweller doth catch you, you won’t come back!”

Children’s rhymes, notes from beyond, mysteries and madness are waiting for you in the tiny hamlet of Ravenhollow, where a group of souls have been taken through time and space and left in the bodies of children, to face the peril of the Dweller in Dreams, a demon threatening the realms of all who would foolishly summon it. Dare you try to survive terrifying town, fearsome forest, and harrowing haunted house to defeat the demon Dweller and return to reality?

Get It Here!

The Drain Chamber 2

The Drain Chamber 2: Doug Kovacs Sketchbook 2017 was written and illustrated by Doug Kovacs, with additional writing by Harley Stroh and Wayne Snyder. The publisher is DougKovacs.com.

Disclosure: Only 100 of these were printed, and I have #27 because Doug Kovacs kindly held it for me to purchase at Gary Con X.

As with the first Drain Chamber, this is primarily a vehicle to celebrate the wonderful art of Doug Kovacs. Also, as with the first Drain Chamber, I am going to focus on the content for Dungeon Crawl Classics. Despite this, anyone who is not inspired by looking at Doug Kovacs' art has no soul. Even the life drawings this man does make my creativity sing. The Green Man/Faerie art (reminiscent of Alan Lee's work) is amazing.

The directly gameable content is The City of Punjar: The Bazaar of the Gods by Harley Stroh and !!Warlands!! by Wayne Snyder. The first of these offers tables to use "when an exiled cleric is in search of absolution, the party is desperate to remove a hex or curse, or the judge simply decides to challenge the indifference of his godless characters". The second is two tables for a Dungeon Crawl Classics setting: Ancient Warlands Sauroid Slave Camp Over Heard Rumors and Doom Vaults Random Terrain Features. A note in one of the illustrations says "Look for Warlands in the Hobonomicon". Gaming content totals 4 pages out of 24 (plus covers).

This book includes gorgeous sketches, and some inks, from various Dungeon Crawl Classics and Mutant Crawl Classics products, as well as work done for other products and for no product at all. There is a two-page spread of art created for Inferno Road.

The Drain Chamber 2 was a limited run product. If you were unable to get one during that run, I cannot tell you where to get one now. Pay attention to ebay, I guess, and pay attention to DougKovacs.com so that you don't miss The Drain Chamber 3.

Crawl-thulhu Issue 1

Crawl-thulhu: A Two-Fisted Zine of Lovecraftian Horror Issue 1 was written by John Potts and illustrated by Todd McGowan. The publisher is Discerning Dhole Productions.

This is the first issue of a zine seeking to combine the Lovecraftian Mythos and two-fisted pulp action in a 1920s milieu...which means that you might even survive with most of your sanity intact! Not that you should count on it in this issue, wherein you create 0-level characters and go through a funnel adventure.

Let's look inside.

Introduction: Standard fare.

Pulp Action in the 1920s: Because this zine is focused on Dungeon Crawl Classics-based play, your PCs may survive.

New Rules: There are some new rules that bring the flavor of the Mythos and the era to the table. These are:

• Luck is for the Sane: You have Sanity instead of Luck. After 0-level, there are ways to restore Sanity. When you run into Mythos creatures, or catch glimpses of the true nature of the world, you make a Sanity Check and might go insane. Going insane doesn't end the game for you, though, except in extreme cases. When you fail a Sanity Check, you roll an Insanity Die of various sizes to determine what happens to you.

• Firearms: It's the 1920s. They have guns. You can have guns, too.

Fight Against Impossible Odds: This is a section on how to create 0-level characters for the Crawl-thulhu setting. There is a section on Common Names in the 1920s, which adds to the flavor of the game, Occupations, and Celestial Alignment. Celestial Alignment replaces a normal DCC character's Lucky Sign, and can not only modify certain preset rolls, but results in a +1d Action Die shift on rolls against creatures related to the indicated planet/star regardless of your actual Sanity. Otherwise, the modifiers are based on your current, not your initial, Sanity.

A Horrible Day at the Dunwich Fair: What is a new Dungeon Crawl Classics milieu without a funnel adventure to start you off in? This adventure is an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's The Dunwich Horror (which the judge should read), and sees the titular creature rampage across Dunwich.

Commune with Yog-Sothoth: The first spell that the PCs come across, and it reveals how casting will work in the Crawl-thulhu milieu. Casting it requires a Sanity test (check), as one might expect. A natural "1" causes you to lose the spell and your mind (all Sanity). Failure causes Sanity loss, and the spell is lost for a whole month rather than for a single day. The Insanity Die size is the Crawl-thulhu version of spell level.

Next Issue: Slated to contain six classes, skills, magic, and information for setting up Crawl-thulhu campaigns. That's pretty ambitious for a second issue, and I would not be surprised if part of that appears in a third (or even a fourth!) issue instead.

A Crawl-thulhu character sheet is also provided.

Okay, with that out of the way, let's talk about this product in relationship to existing Dungeon Crawl Classics materials. Could you run a Crawl-thulhu scenario using Transylvanian Adventures, Dark Trails Weird Frontiers, or Black Powder, Black Magic as an engine? Every indication suggests that you can. You could even mix and match the rules you prefer.

The funnel, A Horrible Day at the Dunwich Fair, has a lot in common with The Arwich Grinder, which is also based heavily on H.P. Lovecraft's work. You could easily run the funnels together as part of a larger scenario, if you liked, either converting the Crawl-thulhu materials to standard Dungeon Crawl Classics or vice versa.

There are quite a few other Lovecraftian resources for Dungeon Crawl Classics that might be usable with Crawl-thulhu. Probably the most apropos of these are Lovercraftian Monsters for Dungeon Crawl Classics and The Thing That Should Not Be, both by Jon Hook, and both in the Goodman Games Gen Con 2017 Program Book.

Welcome to Crawl-thulhu, where you will scour quaint, corrupt towns and forgotten catacomb for cults and monsters bent on the downfall of humanity; sacrifice your sanity to cast reality-bending spells that your mind was never meant to know; travel to strange, alien dimensions and planets; and put your body, mind, and very soul on the line to keep the Great Old Ones’ plans on hold so mankind can live another day. Crawl-thulhu requires ownership of the Dungeon Crawl Classics rulebook.

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Country Crawl Classics

Country Crawl Classics was written by Reece Carter, Jarrett Crader, Anthony Fournier, Christian Kessler, Jason Kielbasa, Doug Kovacs, Matthew Schmeer, Wayne Snyder, and Noah Stevens. Illustrations are by Dan Domme, Anthony Fournier, Doug Kovacs, and Evey Lockhart. No publisher is listed, which is probably for the best.

"It's the ear 21XX and all you got is a whole buncha Misery. Canada's been nuked, there's a wall to the south, and the Midwest is a dirt farm. You and your inbred, good fer nuthin' kin have learned to subsist on Fundo! and mutant alligator meat, all the while suckin' down booze and eatin' whatever pills you can find. Elvis is everywhere, rhinestones are all the rage and every honky tonk across the blasted hellscape of the USA has a jukebox in the corner playin' another somebody-done-somebody-wrong-song. Saddle up yer electric horse (if ya got one, that is) and ride out into the future that is the past of 1970s America in all its horrible glory! Welcome to Country Crawl Classics!"

Herein you will find a 0-level funnel where Jimmy "Chickenhead" Van Dell, your honky tonk piano player with a mutant cur and a glass eye gets eaten by cannibals or space vampires....which is okay because he constantly smells like shit, he's addicted to space blow, and his cheat'n heart never quits.

You might stop to see LIVE! NUDE! CHUPACABRAS! and wrassle a barr while whiskey slush rains from the sky. It's all fun and games until the bar closes, or you end up at Flammable Hospital.

This is a seriously messed up product, although it is also seriously funny, and the Misery Die is actually quite brilliant. It's a bit like a less nihilistic version of Black Sun Deathcrawl or Null Singularity. Don't expect a campaign or a storyline that passes beyond your miserable end...although in this case it will be a hilariously miserable end.

I have no idea how you can obtain this item, unless you manage to track down one of the miscreants responsible for it at a convention and pass your Luck check.

Angels, Daemons & Beings Between Volume 2: Elfland Edition

Angels, Daemons and Beings Between Volume II: Elfland Edition was written by James A. Pozenel, Jr. with supplemental writing by Mark Green, Daniel J. Bishop, and Paul Linkowski. Art is by David Fisher (including cover), Doug Kovacs, Stefan Poag, Stephen Thompson and Bruce Worden. The publisher is Shinobi27 Games.

Disclosure: I wrote the forward and a backer patron for this product, and was a patron of the successful Kickstarter campaign. The author also kindly mentions my blog in his introduction, and says "While all the research broadened my horizons, it was some of Daniel Bishop’s words in a blog post about patrons that ended up informing my work the most."

This is a massive book, containing 13 full patrons (including three backer patrons), four demi-patrons, and more. Let's look inside!

Foreword: Standard fare, which I wrote.

Preface: More standard fare, but which tells you how the author chose to approach him material.

Introduction: Here we get into the first real meat of the book, with discussions of the Faerie Court, Faerie Mounds, and the relationship between Elves, Patrons and Religion. Anyone familiar with folklore, or the more folklore-derived elf-types in Appendix N literature, will be more delighted than surprised by this material.

Patrons: The book then jumps into the 10 full patrons James Pozenel devised for the book. They are:

• Balancyrs, The Changeling Prince: "Balancyrs is a changeling, the result of the union between an elf and a troll. When a changeling is born, magic is used to give the infant a form. Sometimes they appear as a human, others an elf -- the possibilities are virtually limitless and governed by the spellcaster’s aims and whims." 

• Ehawol, The Fallen: "Ehawol was once a powerful elf renowned for his prowess in crafting and enchanting. He hungered for arcane secrets and hidden lore until his obsession led to him being consumed by the influence of demonic powers."

• Finngolric: "Finngolric is a patron to orphans, the poor, vagabonds, and thieves. While none of these roles are commonplace in traditional elven communities, there are times and places where Finngolric is able to entice elves to follow his particular call to freedom."

• Hollura: "Hollura is sometimes called the Good Mother. She is knowledgeable in protection, healing, and herbalism. She is said to have created the Fey Rune of Healing, a secret that she has shared amongst the elves."

• Ioelena: "Ioelena is a powerful, female, elf mage who dwells in the fey realms of Elfland. The Lady of Flame and Fate is a powerful pyromancer, summoner, diviner and an expert in manipulating fate itself. Ioelena’s symbol is the phoenix and it is rumored that she may even be related to the mythical beasts."

• Lumgolit, Demon Queen of the Spider Pits: "Lumgolit, The Demon Queen of the Spider Pits, The Dark Weaver, is the patron supreme amongst the fallen race of the black-skinned dark elves. Her cruelty is renowned and she sows discord between her followers and enemies alike."

• Setanda: "Setanda is a lusty, brave half-elf/half-faerie who enjoys competing, battling, or contesting anything dangerous or difficult. Many think he is easily provoked, capricious, and erratic, but for Setanda all challenges are to be confronted and conquered."

• Sintar, The Knower: "Sintar is often just called by his epitaph: The Knower. Both Sintar and the King of Elfland are considered as twin patriarchs of the elves. One is the lord and guardian of the Fey Realms; the other its spy and sage."

• Volundrar: "Volundrar is a master craftsman and enchanter without peer. He practices his arts in solitude, yet it is rumored that there is an abnormally malicious side to the being called the Strange Smith. It is common knowledge that the Weird Worker was imprisoned at one time by a powerful king and forced to make fine trinkets and magical items."

• Yvrion: "Yvrion is warden of sacred forests, master of the hunt, paragon of the elven bowman, and swordsman supreme. It is well known amongst the Faerie Court, that Yvrion is a close ally of the King of Elfland. He is bold and quick to take action, at times even rashly."

Lumgolit has the distinction of being mentioned (although not by name) in the core rulebook: "the demon queen of the spider pits tires of her servants being misused by mortals and takes notice of the caster, who finds himself beset by arachnid opponents at all turns (judge’s discretion) for the next 1d7+1 days – these spiders, both mundane and demonic, attack exclusively the caster and clearly seek to punish him" (page 196). The dark elves are mentioned on pages 56 and 320.

Demi-Patrons: Demi-patrons were first described in CE 5: Silent Nightfall, and later appeared in Angels, Daemons, & Beings Between, having been further (and independently) developed by Paul Wolfe. These are beings, not as powerful as full patrons, who may nonetheless aid spellcasters. This volume contains four.

• Alboran, The Red King: "Alboran is the mightiest of the faeries in the area of Noc Marb. His charges are the brownies, leprechauns, sprites and fairies who inhabit the area around the ancient hill."

• Dahudmorgan: "Dahudmorgan is queen amongst the sea-faeries who inhabit the haunted and rocky shores of Menegond (Thousand Rocks). During the day, she hides underwater in her magnificent golden city or in one of the natural caves or grottoes in the sea-cliffs surrounding her home under the waves. At night, she sits on one of the rocky islands that stretch along the coastline, combing her beautiful, long, golden tresses and singing."

• Menelotera, The Devil Bloom: "The thing called Menelotera or Star Devil Bloom descended from the heavens ages ago near the elven community of Dorondil. The community retrieved the fallen plant from its crater and nursed it back to health. They placed the blasted plant in a porphyry urn and grew worried as its condition improved."

• Reidmar, The Deathless: "The absence of his soul renders him immune to the laws and traditions of the Faerie Courts. Death will not take him and the Faerie Courts fear him. It only remains to see what Reidmar will do next."

The book also contains six Appendices.

Appendix A: Magic Item Generator: This appendix allows the judge to create unique magic items easily, and with interesting results.

Appendix B: Elven Mercurial Magic: This is not a full set of mercurial tables, but offers replacements for the "No change. The spell manifests as standard." results from 41-60 in the core rulebook. It differentiates results in many cases between normal and dark elves.

Appendix C: New Classes: This Appendix offers two new fey classes: Elven Thief of Finngolric and Faerie. The Faerie in particular offers a good treatment of the basic concept:

"You are a tiny, mischievous sprite. The big people call you the Fair Folk, the Gentry, Little People or faeries. You live in mounds or great hollowed trees in secluded, sacred forests and hillsides. You live to torment or treat the larger races if they stumble into your territory. Little children dream of finding you but those who do may regret it. Sometimes kind and helpful, at other times known to play mischief (or worse) upon mortals, their actions, taboos, and customs can seem inscrutable and confusing."

Goodman Games published The Complete Guide to Fey for the 3rd Edition of Dungeons & Dragons. That work offers some insight into creating and running faerie creatures that this class does not, but this class reads like a distillation of that work into Dungeon Crawl Classics sensibilities. I think that the author did a very good job here.

Appendix D: New Spells: The book offers two new spells: Glamour and Invoke Nature's Spirits. Both are level 1 spells.

Appendix E: Patron Revelation Sheets: "These Patron Revelation Sheets are for the bonded wizards and elves in your campaign. The players may keep track of results from invoke patron or the patron spells they’ve been taught. The player can also record patron taints and other long term effects from their extended contact with supernatural beings."

Appendix F: Backer Patrons: Three backer patrons are included in this volume. They are:

• The Faerie Ring by Mark Green: "The Faerie Ring is a collective of faeries. Individual faeries are magical but not hugely powerful, however, when gathered together, their power is multiplied many-fold."

• Gloriana, Faerie Godmother by Daniel J. Bishop: "Many of the faerie folk take a sidelong interest in human affairs. Often, this interest lasts but for an encounter, but sometimes a faerie becomes interested in mortals for their entire lifetimes, which is still a fleeting interest in the aeons-long existence of the fae. Such a creature is Gloriana, who sometimes aids Wizards and Elves, and has become the godmother of several mortal children - both with, and without, a formal Patron Bond spell."

• Tand-Alv, the Tooth Fairy by Paul Linkowski: "For a millennium three powerful lich kings have maintained a permanent portal between their realm and the elf lands. Tand-Alv, the unfortunate regional ruler where the portal materialized in, has vowed to stop the undead forces from gaining a foothold in the elf lands. Realizing that a traditional elf army is dangerous to use against the liches because the fallen elven warriors could be used by the liches to add to their undead army, Tand-Alv found an unusual solution. She created an army of giant snails and slugs to fight off the undead hordes."

Gloriana first appeared in The Revelation of Mulmo, and was first fully developed in The Revelation of Mulmo Tentacled Edition.

As with the first volume, there is permission to use these patrons in other products included in the Usage and License Information section.

The fey are an ancient race of elves, faerie and other mischievous beings, their origins lost in antiquity. Ever questing for the esoteric secrets of magic and of the universe itself, elves have long sought to connect with the architects of their kind. Serving and bargaining with fey patrons of old is a means to this end.

Angels, Daemons and Beings Between Volume 2: Elfland Edition unleashes the hidden patrons of Elfland. From fey barbarians and vagabond thieves to vile demons and alien vegetation, this tome shines light on 14 [sic] new patrons of distinct fey character. With accompanying spells, spellburn, patron taints and the rituals required to commune with these patrons. This volume is a must for your campaign’s elves… and wizards, of course!

(I count 13 new patrons and 4 demi-patrons. I think the solicitation text was meant to include the 10 patrons and 4 demi-patrons written by James Pozenel, but if so they are under-selling the product.)

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The Quarrymen

The Quarrymen is an adventure by Duncan McPhedran, with art by Duncan McPhedran and Stanley Anderson (cover). Cartography is by Dyson Logos. The publisher is The Zorathan City State Press.

A level (or level range) for this adventure is not provided, and Dungeon Crawl Classics is not overly concerned with balance, but I would peg this as perhaps suitable for 3rd level characters. Your mileage may vary.

The writing is very old-school, with read-aloud text in italics, stats in bold, and important sentences underlined for quick scanning. Judges are forewarned that this scheme is not followed with 100% fidelity, but it works well enough to help guide you through the adventure. Read-aloud text may be broken up within a given paragraph. In essence, this is similar to having read The Keep on the Borderlands back in the day, and marking up Gary Gygax's writing for easier scanning during play.

The monsters are also old-school, so that even where they are renamed to prevent infringing IP, you have no problem discerning what they are. There is, nonetheless, plenty of DCC-style action, even if you can identify what you are facing. And by then, it might be too late anyway....

Although this adventure has been around for some time (it hit RPG Now on May 16, 2016) and is a Pay What You Want title, I haven't uncovered much discussion of it online, so I am loathe to offer spoilers. Suffice it to say that there is an excellent use of magic items, which will offer much amusement to the judge and much consternation to the players, and that long-time gamers will likely prefer flight to fight once they discern the true nature of "the Creature".

(The magic items also echo the romances and les chansons de geste of the medieval jongleurs to good effect.)

For years there have been legends of a lost ancient complex hidden deep within the town quarry, and it seems that the local quarrymen have now stumbled upon an entrance to it. Long thought lost to the ages, little about it is known for sure, although rumours are now flying through the town.

Sixty-six quarrymen took the opportunity to enter the complex opening and take a look around, but they have all since disappeared.

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Purple Sorcerer Free DCC Tools

Purple Sorcerer Games is owned and operated by Jon Marr. While I don't have any direct credits for the free online tools provided by Purple Sorcerer Games, it is reasonable to assume that Jon Marr is involved with their creation as well as making them available. You can look here for a full list of patrons who backed the creation and update of these tools, by year.

The number and quality of free tools Purple Sorcerer makes available is astounding. As a judge for open gaming events, I make frequent use of the 0-Level Party and Upper Level Character Generators, and so does almost everyone I have ever played a convention game with. It is unusual indeed not to be handed a character sheet created by Purple Sorcerer Games! Likewise, The Sorcerer's Grimoire makes printing out spell sheets for elves, wizards, and clerics a breeze.

As a writer, I have made use of the Demon Generator, the Dragon Generator, and even the Unique Monster Trait Generator. These generators give you the raw material to craft a specific being to fit your adventure's needs, without having to roll dice and look up tables yourself.

The available free tools, at the time of this writing, are:

0-Level Party Generator: Whip up four 0-level characters in a flash. Options allow you to choose Occupation Source from over 30 lists, filter out non-humans, decide how stats and hit points are rolled, create tournament sheets, use one of several Lucky Sign house rules, or simply create a blank sheet to roll your own. If you need to make 200 gongfarmers for your convention games, you can do that as a single file. If you want them to be suitable for your Drongo or Beyond the Silver Scream adventure, you can do that too.

Mutant Crawl Classics 0-Level Party Generator: Similar to the 0-Level Party Generator, this allows you to create 0-level characters for your Mutant Crawl Classics games. There are fewer options for Occupation Source right now, but the Genotype Filters do allow you to specify No Pure Strain Humans, No Plantients, No Manimals, and/or No Mutants. For fun, I clicked all of the filters, and it still gives you characters - they just do not list genotype!

Upper Level Character Generator: This creates characters from levels 1 through 10 for the standard Dungeon Crawl Classics classes. Because it uses the same occupation lists as the O-Level Party Generator, it will allow you to create an opossuman cleric, for instance, although the Class information does not exist at this time to create a character leveled in the opossuman race-class.

The Crawler's Companion: This is discussed here. Recent upgrades are discussed here.

The Sorcerer's Grimoire: Generates spells for your wizard, cleric, or elf, complete with mercurial effects and patron information. This last is not limited merely to the Dungeon Crawl Classics core rulebook, but includes patrons from the first volume of Angels, Daemons, & Beings Between as well as those published in various Purple Sorcerers Games adventures.

Demon Generator: Create up to 20 demons at a time, from Type 1 to Type 6. The generator can also randomly determine Demon Type, so that if you generate more than one at a time, you can get a mixture of Demon Types.

Random example:

Dog Demon (Type 5)

Init +6; Atk Kick +12 melee; AC 24; HD 14d12; MV 50'; Act 3d20; SP Drain ability score +12; Spells (Consult Spirit, , Runic Alphabet, Fey | spell check mod: 14) +12, Spells (Consult Spirit, , Runic Alphabet, Fey | spell check mod: 14) +12Target Save 23, demon traits; SV Fort +14, Ref +12, Will +12, AL C.

Trait: Scaled

Standard Type 5 Demon Features
Communication: Speech, telepathy
Abilities: Infravision, darkness (+20 check)
Immunities: Immune to weapons of less than +4 enchantment or natural attacks from creatures of 9 HD or less; immune to fire, cold, electricity, gas, acid;
Projection: Can teleport at will to any location, as long as not bound or otherwise summoned; can project astrally and ethereally
Crit Threat Range: 16-20

Dragon Generator: From the tiniest pseudo dragon to the greatest godlike dragon, this generator can create up to 20 at a time. Again, you can randomly determine dragon size, so that you have a mixture of various types of dragons.

Random example:

Large bronze dragon

Init +16; Atk claw (x2) +17 melee (1d8); bite +17 melee (1d12); tail slap +17 melee (1d20); AC 26; HD 16d12 (105 hp); MV 60; Act attacks d20, spells ; SP see below; SV Fort +16, Ref +20, Will +16; Al N.

Breath Weapon: Type (Electricity); Save (Ref 26); Damage (As dragon’s hit points or half with save); Shape (1-4 line forks, width 5’, total length 3d6 x 10’)

Level 1 Spells: Ward Portal, Ropework, Charm Person
Level 2 Spells: Invisibility, Scare, Spider Web
Level 3 Spells: Transference, Consult Spirit, Haste

Martial Power 1: Damage reduction. The dragon’s tough hide reduces the damage of all blows against it by 1 point.
Martial Power 2: Fast reflexes. The dragon’s Ref save is increased by an additional +4.
Martial Power 3: Amphibious. The dragon can breathe water and swim effortlessly.

Unique Power 1: Spider climb (at will). The dragon can climb any surface as if it were a spider.
Unique Power 2: Light (at will). The dragon can bring full light of daylight into an area of 30’ radius. Target any spot within 100'.
Unique Power 3: Locate object (1/day). The dragon can locate an object known to itself. It receives an unerring sense of direction toward the object and the approximate distance. The range of this ability is: up to 100 miles on this plane.
Unique Power 4: Wall of fog (1/hour). The dragon can summon a wall of fog at will. The wall is up to 100’ x 20’ x 100’. Within the fog, targets suffer -4 to all attacks and move at half speed.

Mercurial Magic Generator: Add your Luck modifier, and the generator will do the rest. Up to 50 results can be rolled at a time.

Sword Magic Generator: Toggles allow you to choose the spell check result, the caster's alignment, the caster's Intelligence (up to 22!), the caster's level, and how many swords you want. Except for that last toggle, all can be set to generate random results. Up to 20 swords can be created at a time.

Random example:

+1 Dagger (Roll: 51)

Alignment: Lawful
Intelligence: 4
Communication: Simple urges

Bane: Golems (Beacon of hope; allies within 100’ engaged in battle against bane gain +2 bonus to all saving throws and morale checks)

Power: Detect certain creature type within 1d10 x 100’ (e.g., spiders, dragons, goblinoids, men, etc.)

Scroll Generator: Create up to 50 scrolls. You can select for wizard spells, cleric spells, or a random mix of types.

Random example:

Spell Type: Wizard
Scribed on the Scroll:
     Level 1: Force Manipulation
Mechanism: Spell check must be made by reader, at a +2 bonus.
Unique Trait: Signed by creator, in his own name, with the notation that, 'This scroll is the property of the creator. All others who use it shall be subject to a curse.' (Or something similar.)

Unique Monster Trait Generator: Choose un-dead or humanoid (or random) and generate up to 50 unique creatures.

Random example:

Type: Unique Undead
Description: Ashen-skinned and gray-eyed
Trait: Resistant to spells (50% chance of any spell not affecting it)

Useful Charts: Useful Charts for the 0-level DCCRPG Enthusiast is an excellent, free resource that I personally bring to all of my games. You can download it here.

Paper Minature Tips: Purple Sorcerer Games adventures all include printable paper minis. Apparently, A Gathering of the Marked has almost 100 of them. Purple Sorcerer Games has kindly made two videos available to help you get the most from this resource.

You can support Purple Sorcerer Games in offering Free Tools here, by purchasing an adventure, a T-shirt, or a direct donation through PayPal or Dwolla.

Beginning in the early days of the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG beta, Purple Sorcerer Games has created free tools and helpers to make it as easy as possible for new and experienced players to get into the game. We're thrilled that so many DCC players from around the world rely on these tools, and look forward to building new utilities for years to come!

We create a number of free tools and helpers to make your Dungeon Crawl Classics experience as streamlined as possible. Tools include the 0-Level Party and Upper Level Character Generators, and the Ennie-Award winning Crawler's Companion.

Access Them Here!