Got my Stygia book back from the sorcerer's player this week, which means I'll be adapting the spells from that and the Black Kingdoms book, to add to Secrets of Acheron, after which I'll see about doing full spell tables and then post it. Just wanted to give you all an update.

The party began its exploration of the City of Kings. Much more combat today--they had run-ins with a pack of great black wolves, anthropomorphic crocodile-things, and pygmies, and witnessed fishmen swimming in the canal and odd, carnivorous, climbing, ape-things. The Hyperborean was taken down by a lance from a Nightgaunt. They encountered a young man named Zar'Wik, who is apparently the son of the old man they found on the sea. The boy is treacherous, however, and after kidnapping a young stowaway the crew found, set up two ambushes for the party. The party have now resolved to shoot him in the leg to sell him on the slave market next time they see him. They went on to discover a number of bodies that are less than a year old, all of whom seem to be the remnants of a shipwrecked crew that Zar'Wik killed or set up to die, and they learned a bit more about the island from a journal found on one of the dead bodies. In addition, they found a number of weapons stamped with a ...

In Hyborian Age OD&D, mass combat (like all combat) is resolved using Chainmail. I am currently updating my Secrets of Acheron booklet to include rules on battle magic, amongst a few other tweaks. Here's the rules for battle magic until I finish and update the whole PDF. It's really not much different from standard spellcasting--it just takes place on a larger scale. Battle Magic Sorcerers are perhaps the most feared of presences on a battlefield, and rightly so, for they can wreak utter havoc with enemy forces, from enshrouding them in impenetrable mists to summoning demons or poisoned miasmas to destroy foes en masse. Battle magic, it may surprise some, is not much different than standard sorcery—the scale is entirely different and such spells take far longer to cast as a result. This section will explain how to wield magic in mass combat. Casting Battle Magic Every aspect of a battle spell is larger, from the area of effect to the damage dealt, to the time it tak...

One of the better known and most comprehensive (in my opinion) sites out there devoted to Robert E. Howard, the Hyborian Age, and swords-and-sorcery in general is The Cimmerian. The bloggers over there recently did me a great honor when they mentioned my OD&D Conan hacks in the same breath as a Hyborian mod for Civ IV and a set of Wargames Foundry miniatures, to demonstrate the point that Mongoose (or whoever gets it next), should they regain the Conan license, has a "hard act to follow." It seems my foray into Howard gaming and scholarship has garnered notice from some notables out there (Dale Rippke commented a few days ago on another blog I did regarding his Hyborian Age geography theories ). I find this surprising, humbling, and an honor. Hopefully what I do in the future will continue to be worthy of comment.

Ran my first session of Age of Conan yesterday, which was also my first ever session of OD&D, after the two years or so of scholarship I've engaged in with the game. The freeform aspect of it is going to take some getting used to--all of us are used to "roll x skill or ability" for everything, but I think I did a good job learning to just say "yes." Example: "Do I hear what they're talking about over there?" "You set yourself up to keep an eye on them, so yes, you hear everything." "What about me?" "You haven't set yourself up to watch them, and you are at a different place in the tavern, so let me see. [rolls die] Nope, you don't really catch it, but you do notice that odd group gathering at the table. You can attempt to position yourself to hear better." "I do so." "Now you can hear them. You also notice another patron--a large Hyperborian--has moved closer, apparently for the same reason...

I have uploaded the FINAL (Crom willing) revision of Age of Conan. Changes in this one: 1. The revised Bard class is included (the one in TSR is way too spellcast-y for Conan) 2. Cleaned up a bunch of typos (anyone notice that all through Zingara's race writeup it keeps saying "Zamora"?) 3. Corrected the Sorcerer spell list and listed detecting of magic as a function of the class rather than a spell 4. Removed reference to Hobbits, Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, and other D&D-isms from the combat system rules. 5. Cleaned up and clarified saving throws. Aside from an extra piece of filler art on the last page, I think that's about it. As always, it's at http://www.grey-elf.com/dnd/

I've put together a DM screen for Age of Conan. It's 3-panel (front and back) and I designed it for my MasterScreen. Unfortunately, MasterScreen isn't made anymore, and since this is portrait it won't work for the Savage Worlds one. With the arrival of The World's Greatest Screen, which is a 4-panel, I added a fourth panel to fill it out. It has expanded combat guidelines and some common monster stats. It  works nicely. Or you can just print it all out on card stock and put it together (a bit of glue, scotch tape, trimming, and lamination would do the trick). Anyway, here it is. Enjoy. http://www.grey-elf.com/AoC-DM-Screen.pdf