Plundergrounds 6.5: Plundered Pages 1 (Free!)

Download: Screen - Booklet 

This 32 page zine compiles all the extra materials for Plundergrounds released to date, with revisions and lots of new content.

Inside you'll find:

• Items, locations, monsters, NPCs, and effects that supplement the themes in issues 1-6 of Plundergrounds. 
• Maps for Ape City and Kazarak, drawn after those issues were released. 
• Fan-sourced content, like cool breath attacks and hoard curses for dragons, a plethora of dungeon doors, and three sample entries for ...
• The Alpha World challenge! A creative exercise for making up more interesting fantasy settings.
• Toolbox essays and commentary that were cut to make room for more adventure content. 
• A dwarf shrine (move, spell, and item) that was first published in The Gauntlet Codex zines: https://www.patreon.com/gauntlet.
• Brand new material centered around art that I commissioned but which went unused, including… 
• A new map-based one-shot adventure, The Giant's Rest, featuring flora and fauna mutated by a magic pool and a dead giant's skeleton.

Plundergrounds 6: The Black Gate

Plundergrounds is a series of theme-forward zines devoted to Dungeon World adventures. Each 24-page issue features a new and different setting with enough content to keep a group of players happy for 1-5 sessions.

Character death is a part of Dungeon World and the Last Breath move is one of the game’s signature elements. But what if death were the focus of a session or three? What terrible purpose would cause characters to journey in Death’s realm? What strange things lie beyond the Black Gate? How would they escape Death’s greedy clutches?

Journeys into the underworld are as old as literature, literally. Gilgamesh enters the land of the dead hoping to bring back the secret of immortality. Odysseus, desperate for advice, sailed to the edge and poured out libations to the seer Tiresias. Finding himself lost in the dark valley, Danté navigated the rings of hell to find a way back out. And those are just a few stories from Western culture. Look up Yudhishthira, Izanagi and Izanami, the hero twins of the Maya, Kaknu, and King Gesar!

“Appendix N” works for this issue are:

The Earthsea Trilogy (books, 1968-72), Ursula K. Le Guin. In Earthsea, dead spirits go to a dark valley under strange stars. That was my starting point.

City of the Singing Flame (short story, 1931), Clark Ashton Smith. I have always loved stories about magic portals and this story haunts me with its alluring, immolating column.

The Passing of the Grey Company (chapter in Return of the King, 1955), J. R. R. Tolkien. The tone of Aragorn’s ride to call out the oath breakers is so freaking awesome!

What You Carry (200 word RPG, 2017), Evey Lockhart. First line: “Awaken and fall through the bottom of your grave.” It’s amazing; read it and others at https://200wordrpg.github.io.

To purchase this issue, visit the Plundergrounds Back Issues page.

Plundergrounds 5: The Far Erinyes

Plundergrounds is a series of theme-forward zines devoted to Dungeon World adventures. Each 24-page issue features a new and different setting with enough content to keep a group of players happy for 1-5 sessions.

The Far Erinyes is a crossroads - something that I think every GM can use. It's a city that sits at the nexus of several adventure worlds:

In This Issue  

• The Olvani Spire is an island-city where people from all over the known world might run into each other. However, it's also at the edge of the known world and a secret world lies inside of the spire, so it might also be a place where people go to get lost. 
• Of course the seas that surround the Erinyes provides grand opportunities for sailing adventures, and...
• The Luminferous Ether is a jumping off point for sword-and-planet stories; swashbuckling in fantasy "space."
• Finally, the mysterious world under the waves awaits those who might attempt to invade the realm of the Tritons!

In this issue you'll find lots of great questions and impressions to get things started, new monsters, new mini-systems, lots of quick NPCs, and three dangers in which characters might become embroiled.

To purchase this issue, visit the Plundergrounds Back Issues page.

Plundergrounds 4.5: Pack World (Free!)

Download: Screen - Booklet

This 20-page free zine is a system-neutral, collaborative, campaign frame. It was originally intended to be part of issue 5, Rakka's Raiders, but the concept was a pet project for me and I wanted it to have its own space.

Pack World will help you quickly generate a campaign setting about a "pack" of riders who are devoted to each other and to their remarkable animal friends. Inspiration comes from The Dragon Riders of Pern and Elfquest.

Please! Feel free to share this post. I'd love to see it get into a lot of hands.

Plundergrounds 4: Rakka's Raiders

Plundergrounds is a series of theme-forward zines devoted to Dungeon World adventures. Each 24-page issue features a new and different setting with enough content to keep a group of players happy for 1-5 sessions.

In This Issue  

• The Beast Rider compendium class, for animal lovers and characters with trusty mounts
• Chasing, fleeing, racing, and stunt moves for riders
• Rakka’s Raiders – a military campaign in which characters take on the role of beast riders caught between a tyrannical overlord and the empire that stole their tribal land
• Demon Engines: war machines powered by bound demons
• The Mad Bomber compendium class, because sometimes you just want to blow something up!

To purchase this issue, visit the Plundergrounds Back Issues page.

Plundergrounds 3: The Hoard

Plundergrounds is a series of theme-forward zines devoted to Dungeon World adventures. Each 24-page issue features a new and different setting with enough content to keep a group of players happy for 1-5 sessions.

This one is all about dragons, their strange hoarding compulsion, and the ecosystem that develops around/within their unique lairs.

In This Issue  

• The mysteries of elder dragons revealed!
• Three hoarding dragons and their incredible lairs: Salucidiar's toxic wasteland, Balthazorial's flotilla of wrecked ships, and Lord Moamaug's vast catacombs.
• Blood-sucking dragon crabs and other nasty hoard denizens!
• The many uses of dragon blood.
• The Staff of Ariol Graymane (a powerful relic and magical mcguffin for tying together the disparate hoards)
• A toolbox on developing place-as-character.
• All with art by Juan Ochoa, Karl Stjernberg, Sean Poppe, and yours truly

To purchase this issue, visit the Plundergrounds Back Issues page.

Plundergrounds 2: Kazarak

Plundergrounds is a series of theme-forward zines devoted to Dungeon World adventures. Each 24-page issue features a new and different setting with enough content to keep a group of players happy for 1-5 sessions.

Kazarak! Last of the ancient, underground citadels to fall. No dwarf will willingly speak its name. Its story harbors a dark secret and with its demise a portion of dwarf history and culture was forever lost. What treasures, and unspeakable horrors, lie buried in the ruins?

In This Issue  

• Explore an abandoned subterranean city.
• Meet Hillar Rockboots, dwarf archaeologist.
• Encounter rust monsters, xorn, and derro!
• Fight a petulant wizard, the inhuman mistress of a deadly garden, and a thoroughly evil ... rock?
• Witness a world-ending battle between titans!
• Eye-popping art by Sean Poppe, Karl Stjernberg, and Jim Jones!
• D8 Dwarf Twists
• The Risk Die
• Establishing Questions

To purchase this issue, visit the Plundergrounds Back Issues page.

Plundergrounds 1: Ape City

After a seemingly endless climb on crumbling stairs, spiraling up through a chimney of rock, you emerge into blinding sunlight. Before you lies a massive plateau. At its center, a great lake is surrounded by a peculiar city of glittering domes, spires, and elevated walkways. The architecture, obviously not conforming to human measures or logic, causes a vague unease in the recesses of your brain. Who built this ... monstrosity ... and when? Who or what might still live here?

A solitary hooting noise is your only warning before a mob of hairy figures crash out of the brush around you, flinging nets over you and your friends.

In This Issue  

• Grizel Farstrider, keeper of secrets
• Intelligent apes
• Gladiator battles
• An insane dimensional portal
• Rules for ape characters
• Weird alien technologies
• Pteranodons with laser eyes
• Movie trailers for dungeons

To purchase this issue, visit the Plundergrounds Back Issues page.

Sinister Solstice

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This was my first attempt at a Dungeon World starter. It's a two-part Christmas themed adventure in which you may or may not thwart the plans of the evil ice elves and raid Kringle Castle.

Citadel of the Goblimites

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Citadel of the Goblimites is a 1-page map/DIY adventure.

Dungeon World Monsters A to Z

Monsters A-Z

This alphabetical listing of Dungeon World monsters is compressed into “stat block” format. Stat blocks follow this formula:

Creature Name: tag1, tag2, tag+, special quality. Instinct: to whatever. Moves: move1, move2, move+. Weapon (damage, tag1, tag2, tag+) n HP, n Armor.

The descriptive text of each has been omitted.

Twine for Dungeon World

These tools, designed with Twine, automatically handle some random elements from the Dungeon World game.

Random GM Move
This utility hands you a random GM move. The default version combines general GM moves with dungeon moves, but you can separate them and get a suggestion for each type with one click.

Random Steading
This utility creates a random settlement, per the Dungeon World book. You can choose the basic size, e.g. Village, Keep, etc., or get a completely random one. I'm still testing this one BTW, so just ignore the "Debug" section.