Best character sheet EVAR!

Tavis Allison, over at the The Mule Abides, just posted the character sheet (front & back) he created for his ODD game.


I. Love. It.

You. Will. Too.

Work in Progress: Fantasy Supplement Simulacrum

The working title for this document is PRIMORDIAL ODD. I started working on it, as the picture indicates, over two years ago, but now am finally primed to finish it.

Right now it's still written as if the user will be accessing the original Chainmail rules, but that'll change soon---I'm working on redoing the appropriate tables.

My goal with this is not to create a clone, per se, but instead a game heavily inspired by Chainmail's Fantasy Supplement. Some of the data and progressions in the combat tables will be modified, and I've thrown in a couple of things that have nothing to do with the original (like the characters' Stories, and Grit), but seem to fit the spirit of the whole.

I'm happy to field comments, questions, hate-mail, etc., either here or here.

The Fantasy Supplement Must Be Cloned

I started a discussion on the ODD board wondering what it would take to "clone" the Fantasy Supplement from the Chainmail rules. We'll see how much conversation it generates, but a lot of great archeological work has been done by the community, and collected, clarified and elaborated on by D.H. Boggs, Jason Vey, and Finarvyn.

However, right now I'd say the work can't go a whole lot further. To use any of the materials generated so far, you need the Chainmail rules, more specifically the three tables at the end of the Fantasy Supplement. And, of course, the legal pdf of Chainmail was discontinued along with the rest of the original D&D supplements when WotC decided that it was terrified of pdf pirates, which makes it pretty hard for anyone who's new to the discussion to follow along.

Which leads me to the title of this post: The Fantasy Supplement must be cloned. I mean this in the vein of the retro-clone explosion, as a continued way of exploring the hobby's past to generate a robust present and future, at least in part by drawing new players into the game. However, these rules aren't covered in WotC SRD, which is what has made so many retro-clones possible.

So, help me out. How do I clone the Fantasy Supplement in a respectful, non-litigious format?

So, you want some monsters?

These are my new Monster Manuals. I'm not kidding. They are the most gorgeous, awe-inspiring works of monster art I've yet encountered.

Here are some images from Book 2:

They contain monsters from all over the world, some weirder than Hecuba, and some good 'ol Fantasy Gaming standards like bugbears, griffins, hydras, mermaids, basilisks, frost giants, kirin, weretigers, will-o'-the-wisps, minotaurs, succubi, vampires, werewolves, harpies, manticores, trolls, unicorns, gorgons, kappa, cockatrices and centaurs. And mongolian death-worms. And moth men. And reptoids. You get the idea.

Find them here: Beasts! (now in softcover!) and Beasts! Book 2

Sorry, oh my players, but the Long Tombs are going to be Terra Incognito indeed...