Tales of the Valiant

A collection of 44 posts

Actual Play

We're Back...

This past Wednesday night, we returned to our actual play, Norrøngard Unscripted, after a hiatus of a couple months. We stopped to go away and finally finish our Empire of the Ghouls campaign (a great, book-length adventure from Kobold Press). We didn't want to stream the last chapter

David Bowie

David Bowie & the Problem of Puzzles

David Bowie died 10 years ago today. He would have been 79. Yesterday was his birthday and the 10 year anniversary of his final album, Blackstar. With the blessing of time, I can look back and say that's truly one of my favorite albums of his and consequently

Actual Play

Various and Sundry

The Thrones & Bones actual play, Norrøngard Unscripted, returns tomorrow after our 2-week hiatus, picking up where we left off. Last episode, "A New Day in a New Town," saw our heroes tasked by the jarl of Oslendholm to investigate a mysterious portal that had appeared in the

Dungeons & Dragons

Two Books, One Adventure

Greetings. Copies of the two latest Thrones & Bone books are showing up in the wild now, as backers of the recent Kickstarter receive their rewards. But both titles are now for sale to everyone on DriveThruRPG. The first is Fury of the Forsaken. From lead writer Richard Pett (WotC,

halloween

The Undead Are Unleashed

Happy Halloween! A time when the dead walk the earth. And so a perfect occasion to announce that Fury of the Forsaken is out in the world! The PDF and Hardcover just went up for sale on DriveThruRPG, along with a token pack. And the Deluxe Edition of the VTT

Dungeons & Dragons

Bense: The Ideal Nordic Setting

I created the city of Bense way back in 2012, for the story that became the novel Frostborn. While other cities in Norrøngard were built on more exaggerated premises—Herkeby is a giant ring fortress, Frekrheim is a lake town—Bense is modeled very heavily on the real world Viking

Actual Play

Proof Copies, VTTs, LivePlay, GameHole Con

Yesterday, I got the proof copies of The Bense Trilogy from the printer. This is the hardcover compilation of three previous separately published adventures, Banner of the Bull by Yours Truly, Keeper of the Drowned by Brian Suskind, and Troll of the Town by Kelly Pawlik. It also includes new

TTRPG

A Rundown of TTRPG News

As I am furious working, nose to grindstone, on the final stages of production for the Fury of the Forsaken Kickstarter (now available on the Backerkit Preorder Store, please check it out), I want to take a moment to shine some light on some other tabletop roleplaying game news of

Dungeons & Dragons

The Calendar of Norrøngard

I wanted to let you know about new resource for your Thrones & Bones games. A fantasy calendar now exists for the land of Norrøngard! I've been working on this for a while, but I finally have it in shape that it's good enough for public

Dungeons & Dragons

Asking Your Opinion

This week, the PDFs of Fury of the Forsaken and The Bense Trilogy went out to our Kickstarter backers, along with the token packs for same. The VTT Map Pack from Heroic Maps is also going out soon. And I've started work on the files for the print

Dungeons & Dragons

The Finish Line is in Sight

Fury of the Forsaken and The Bense Trilogy, together presenting four adventures that for a Tier I campaign arc, powered by Tales of the Valiant and fully compatibly with either the 2014 or 2024 Dungeons & Dragons rules, should release the PDF editions to Kickstarter backers within the next two

YouTube

Two Videos of Note

Hi all Yesterday, two videos went up on the Lazy Wolf Studios YouTube Channel. First, I posted a page-by-page walkthrough of Kobold Press' Game Master's Guide. I'm a really big fan of Tales of the Valiant, which I think is currently the best expression of

Actual Play

We're going off script...

Last Wednesday, we played the second half of the 5th level Tales of the Valiant adventure, Tomb of the Frost Giant. And with that, three of my five players have now played through everything that is currently published or forthcoming for Norrøngard. (The bulk of it was played before we

Gen Con

Post Gen Con & Battle Posts

I recently attended my second ever GenCon and the first convention anywhere in which I played RPGs at the con. Held from July 31st to August 3rd in Indianapolis, GenCon pulled in around 70,000 people, but for all that, it wasn't the mad house I expected. In

Gen Con

Xmas in July, Gen Con, and Backerkit Preorders, Oh My!

First some news! It's Christmas in July on DriveThruRPG. Every Thrones & Bones title from Lazy Wolf Studios is on sale for 30% off now and for the next seven days! If you've ever wanted to pick up our campaign setting, for example, you can get

Dungeons & Dragons

BFRD in the CC!

Hi all, There's a bit of industry news that dropped this morning. It's exciting for folks who make roleplaying game content, more so than those who aren't creators, but it still impacts players in some interesting ways. The thing that enables third party publishers

Actual Play

Tomb Raiding...

Last night we played Tomb of the Frost Giant. Our intrepid crew got most of the way through the adventure, but we left off on a cliffhanger (literally) and we'll finish next Wednesday. We nearly had a TPK in the first encounter, but, as they so often do,

Moonbeam

We're Back

Yup. Our valiant heroes are back tomorrow night for another actual play in the land of Norrøngard. We'll be playing Tomb of the Frost Giant, a one-shot (maybe two shots?) adventure for 5th level characters set in the frozen land of Norrøngard. We'll be steaming this

Dungeons & Dragons

Lou's Labyrinth

While I was away, my favorite TTRPG publisher, Kobold Press, brought out their Labyrinth Worldbook and its companion volume, Labyrinth Adventures. The Labyrinth is Kobold Press' new "campaign overlay", a connective tissue between worlds like the Infinite Staircase or Sigil or the river Styx, or any number

Actual Play

Back, if Not Quite in the Saddle

Hi all, I'm back from a wonderful trip to China—Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Changsha—and, unfortunately, down with a bad case of Covid (courtesy of the Tokyo transit system, best guess). So that's why the radio silence of late. However, things are still moving forwards. The

Actual Play

Kickstarter ends in 48 Hours!!!

Wow. We've got just 48 hours to go in the Fury of the Forsaken Kickstarter! Thank you everybody for getting us here. Kickstarters can be stressful, but we're having a blast, and co-author Richard Pett and I are grateful for all the support. It's

Dungeons & Dragons

Sorting the Ingredients with Gnome Stew

Today I am a guest on the Gnome Stew podcast. I sat down with host Jared Rascher to talk all things Thrones & Bones. Jared has played several Norrøngard adventures and has actually read the novels too. This resulted in an informed discussion that encompassed the whole of Thrones &

Dungeons & Dragons

Campaign Builder: Castles & Crowns

I have a pattern of buying a lot more RPG manuals than I will ever read. I like having a big library of my interests, and I do pull them down and refer to specific parts of books as needed for the things that I'm working on. But,

Dungeons & Dragons

More artwork from Fury of the Forsaken

Ksenia Kozhevnikova is an amazing artist whose work features heavily in Fury of the Forsaken, the book length Thrones & Bones adventure on Kickstarter now. Today I want to share more of her fabulous art with you all. We'll look at another bird's eye view of

Dungeons & Dragons

Two New Add-Ons

Two new add-ons just went up for the Fury of the Forsaken Kickstarter. One is the hardcover version of the Player's Guide to Norrøngard, giving you everything you need to create a Tales of the Valiant-style character for the land of the ice and snow! Tales of the