The above is my favorite Hyborian Age map that's been done to date (despite the fact that it has "HYBORIA" in huge letters at the top--pet peeve of mine). Click the map for a full-sized version over at http://hyboria.xoth.net .

The Races of the Hyborian Age Part I Fans of other versions of Hyborian Age role playing will note that my racial divisions disagree with some of the others--particularly Mongoose's, which is an exceptionally detailed breakdown of races, sub-races, and pseudo-races. For OD&D, I think it's best to keep things simple. I will, however, be adding Zingarans to my initial list of races, as on second thought I think they deserve a separate writeup. I will not be doing detailed writeups of societies and cultures here, as these can be found in Mongoose's The Road of Kings sourcebook, which is an invaluable and largely system-free resource to anyone wishing to run an Age of Conan game using any system. Aesir/Vanir: Hailing from the lands of Asgard and Vanaheim respectively, the Aesir and Vanir are actually offshoots of a single common race, the Nordheimr, and thus share many of the same racial characteristics. They tend to be a broad and muscular race, the Aesir sporting b...

The Age of Conan: OD&D in the Hyborian Age Introduction OD&D is, despite what some have argued, a prime system for running adventures in the Hyborian Age. As with any fantasy world placed into a pre-set rules system, however, it requires a few tweaks to the basics. Let's start with the rules needed. Using these rules requires ownership of the OD&D boxed set, plus Supplements I and II. Ownership of Chainmail is highly recommended, as the combat system for Hyborian Age OD&D is drawn from Chainmail. Ownership of supplements III and IV is helpful, but not required so long as the DM has a strong working knowledge of the Hyborian Age. I will, however, be referencing these supplements as they have pre-existing write-ups for Hyborian Age gods, monsters, and heroes. Ownership of the 6 issues of The Strategic Review can be helpful for the inclusion of new character classes, but isn't strictly necessary. For setting information beyond the brief sketch I'll give h...

Rossika is complete. From here I'll move on to notes about running a Hyborian Age game (Age of Conan) using OD&D. When that's complete, I'll go back to the Wasted Lands.

Just so you all know we haven't dropped off the face of the Earth. Life happens, as it tends to do, and sometimes brings with it chaotic schedules and a general feeling of burnout that is detrimental to a one-man operation like ELG. I'm not closing up shop--far from it, I still intend on releasing all the stuff I advertised. But I'm taking a short break to recharge the mental batteries. Been focused too much on producing gaming material for other people instead of doing it for my own enjoyment. The down time should be brief; hopefully by September sometime I'll be back on track.

Rossika is a vast stretch of largely featureless steppes. The terrain is mostly scrub grass, and the climate extreme. There are two seasons in Rossika: hot, humid summers, and bitterly cold killer winters. A low mountain range separates Rossika from Ashurii and Hastur, insulating Rossika from some of the conflicts that occur in the West. However, copies of The King in Yellow have made it through the mountains and into Rossika from Fennokarelia and the Barren Steppes are not immune to the poison of entropy and madness that afflicts that pallid kingdom. There are three major trade kingdoms in Rossika: Veps to the central north, Mari in the northeast, and the Great Kingdom of Khazan spanning an area in the south equal to that of Veps and Mari combined. The west is dominated by tribes of barbarians who practice a horse culture. Of these barbarians there are two distinct racial types: Kossaki and Hunni. The Kossaki tend to remain in the steppes and flatlands and are of a duskier h...

When I complete the writeup for Rossika, I will have completed the pseudo-European and -African continents. After that I'm going to break from the Wasted Lands to explore the Hyborian Age for a bit. That's burning at me, and after Rossika I think I've got a really nicely serviceable campaign area for sandbox play. That's not to say I'm done with the Wasted Lands completely--far from it. When I finish the Hyborian Age I'll come back to it and cover Lemuria, Mu, Atlantis, Thule, and Fortriu in a chunk. The final chunk will deal with Cruithnia, Huitzilopochtitlan, Yuggoth, and the ruins of R'lyeh. I hope everyone's enjoying the sandbox thus far. There have been almost no comments on any of the writeups...

I'll preface this by saying I'm a fan of ability checks. Always have been. I also understand and appreciate the ultra-light rules approach of OD&D. The more systems you bolt on, the more of a Pandora's Box you open up, risking making OD&D something it's not. Up till now most (okay, all) of the systems I've toyed with herein were modifications of existing systems (Chainmail for combat and Saving Throws, for example) rather than the addition of new ones. However, I'm considering an Ability Check system. "Why?" cry the traditionalists. "Why would you do something so... new school with OD&D!?" A very valid question. And the simple answer is, because it works and doesn't hurt the game. It allows me to adjudicate pretty much any situation without resorting to judgment calls and DM fiat with which my players may vehemently disagree. So long as a system doesn't hurt or slow down the play, I'd argue, it's not neces...

The Realm of Hastur is a blighted realm of pure, alien sickness and madness. If Ashurii is decadent and corrupt, Hastur is debauched and entropic. If Khem is a paragon of law and civilization, Hastur is one of chaos and violence. The land is jointly ruled by two mad kings who some say are living embodiments of the Ancient One, Yhtill. The land in Hastur is entirely blighted. Grass and trees are yellow or brown, and even the people appear jaundiced and sick. The streets themselves are coated with sickly yellow dust or pale green slime (some of which may actually be Green Slime--the monster). Nothing grows, which leads one to wonder what sustains the inhabitants. The King in Yellow is the supreme ruler of Hastur and lord of its capitol, the jaundiced city of Carcosa, while The Phantom of Truth lords over the city of Aldebaran. The Yellow King, also called the Last King, is seen only as an emaciated figure wearing tattered yellow robes that seem to blow as though in a desert wi...

As promised, we have released the Deluxe edition of Monstrous Mayhem. This version contains only the material that did not make it into S&S Deluxe (which is still a pretty hefty page count!) In addition, we have added "Thug Rules" (also popularly known as "mook rules") to the mix in the Appendix. Because the Thug Rules were not available in the original MM and I am loathe to make people buy the same product twice to get all the rules, we have made the Thug Rules available as a free download (which also includes collected errata for the first and second printings of S&S). Now the bad news. I was able to discount the softcover and e-book versions of this slightly (though not as much as I'd hoped), but not the hardcover edition, which is already priced so low we could never hope to have it in stores (seriously, we make *very* little off of the hardcover versions of these books). This is the down side of dealing with Lulu and their high "production c...

For those who lament the editing and typographical errors in micro-press games, and those who complain about price points (though we've had none of the latter thus far), take a look at James Mishler's Adventures in Gaming: The Doom of RPGs: The Rambling , which breaks it down in fantastic detail.

It's become clear that my actual OD&D rules blogs get more attention and comments than the sandbox stuff does. Are people actually interested in the Gazetteer of the Wasted Lands, or would people prefer I switched to something a bit more familiar--say, the below-mentioned OD&D Hyborean Age thoughts I've got boiling in my brain?

Despite Lulu's suckage, the Spellcraft & Swordplay Basic Edition is now available. The basic edition of the popular retro fantasy game contains a streamlined (but complete) version of the rules and character progression to level 3, this 48-page book is a perfect introduction to the new class of old school, ideal for introducing new players to the game, or for just having an extra set of rules at the table! A gift to our fans, Spellcraft & Swordplay Basic Edition is FREE as an e-book, and can be purchased in a saddle-stitched, 8.5 x 11 booklet for $7.00.

Seriously. I hate Lulu. Their "manufacturing costs" are outrageous, their shipping rates are insulting, their customer service questionable. If anyone from Onebookshelf is reading this, PLEASE, I BEG YOU, get your PoD services up and running. Many of us in the indie game are waiting with baited breath for that day. I'm tired of feeling like I'm gypping customers when I have to charge them $7.00 to purchase a saddle-stitched book that's only 48 pages long (and that's without making any profit for myself).

I should probably refrain from posting my thoughts on this until I'm done with the Wasted Lands Gazeteer, huh?

I discovered an unfortunate formatting gaffe in the columns on page 126 of S&S Deluxe today, which really should've been caught in proofing but just wasn't. Shit happens, but it pisses me off when it does. Anyway, the gaffe has been fixed. If you've downloaded the e-book, please re-download (Remember: it's FREE through Friday!) and if you've purchased a hardcopy, I have made available a PDF of the offending page, fixed, which you can cut to size and stick in your book, with my deepest apologies. Sorry for the inconvenience.

I am thinking along the lines of a more Robert E. Howardesque version of sorcery. The class would be called "Sorcerer," and replaces both clerics and magic-users. Sorcerers have the fighting capability and saving throws of magic-users (save that they gain +3 to save vs. any kind of magic), but turn or control undead as clerics and have the hit dice of clerics. The magic system is as laid out in Chainmail , using Spell Complexity, with slight modifications. 1. The Complexity of any given spell is its level. An interpretation of the system: Chainmail gives 3 values (Negate, Delay, Immediate) for 2d6 roll results. I've always assumed these as ranges. Thus for a Seer casting a level 1 spell, 5 or below fails, 6-7 is a delayed effect, and 8+ is immediate. An easier way to list this would've been "6/8" for Delayed/Immediate target numbers, but who is to figure out the intricacies of Gygax and Perrin's minds? 2. Sorcerers are still restricted as to the maxim...

Since we here at Elf Lair didn't have our product ready for Free RPG Day, we would like to, as a gift to our fans, make the Deluxe Spellcraft & Swordplay e-book available FOR FREE from Wednesday through Friday of this week. No strings, no catches: Wednesday, July 8 through Friday, July 10, head over to the Lulu store, and download the Deluxe edition of S&S for free! This promotion will be followed by (as soon as I finish cleaning it up and designing a cover) the Spellcraft & Swordplay Basic Set, which will be 100% FREE in e-book format, and available in print for a very nominal cost. The Spellcraft & Swordplay Basic Set is a stripped-down (but complete) version of the rules, allowing for no Elite Paths and only the first three levels of play. It is 48 pages and 8.5 x 11 in size. The Basic Set will be free in e-book format, permanently. We've had TONS of requests for a free starter kit version of the rules, and we've listened. I hope to have that availab...

They say you can't please everyone, and as Elf Lair takes steps towards growth into an actual publishing company, I'm finding more and more that's true. Since the Deluxe Edition came out, I've had a few complaints that I'd really like to publicly address. The crux of these complaints are twofold: 1. Some people don't want to download errata and/or have it posted on our forums. They want me to give them a free PDF of the updated game. 2. Some people are outraged(!?) that we didn't smash Monstrous Mayhem in its entirety into the Deluxe Edition of Spellcraft & Swordplay . Now, these complaints haven't exactly been legion: there have been four, to my count. But these four have been exceptionally public, and at least one of them is from someone who previously was a vocal supporter of ELG. I do like to try and maintain a good public face, so I would like to address the complaints here in hopes that I can be clear in Elf Lair's policies and the rea...

Just updated the Gazeteer with the deities of Ashurii...probably one of the most complex pantheons I've yet compiled. I say "compiled" because this is all drawn from real-world myth, not fiction (though I've certainly fiction alized it for my own purposes!) Enjoy.