The New Death and Others, Free for limited time.

Not to long ago I mentioned a book called The New Death and others. It's filled with short stories that are somewhat inter connected and rather amusing with a fairytale like feel but darker.

So if you want a free copy from amazon here is the link http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005Q8Q8DY

On a side not I find it difficult to be motivated to put any quality work into my blog ever since my Windows vista snippet tool stopped working. I tried making it re-install but that didn't fix it. It just wont let me save the image I snip.

A New Death and Others

James Hutchings recently asked me to do a review on his book "A New Death and Others" I unfortunately haven't finished reading it yet, not because its a bad book, mind you. In fact I have enjoyed its fairy tale like aspects many of its stories have had so far. I do look forward to reading more of it, so expect a larger review to come.

The book is available for $0.99 for the kindle at Amazon where is has received an average of 3.5 stars from four reviews, and from Smashwords where it has received 5 stars from one review.

(note; even the lower star reviews spoke positively of the book.)

A Twist on Orcs

In my new Kurahast Campaign I am hoping to only introduce new or different monsters or takes on monsters. I am still in the planning phase of the campaign but I want to avoid goblins for now so I decided to mess with Orcs.

My idea I came up with randomly was to have an Orc race that was originally made like Homonuculus' and also add in some elements from animated objects, IE their hardness and ability to have different limbs.

I used the Legends and Labyrinths monster creation tool to start out with for the Stats. It has not been play tested but I tend to fix rules and costs and they come up in game.

So here it is.

Orc

Small Construct
CR 1/2
HD: 2d4 (4)
Hardness: 1
AC: 13 (10 +2 dex +1 Size)
Attack: Claw +2, Dmg 1d4
Fort: NA  Ref: +3 Will: +3
Size:  Small
Speed: 30 walking, crawling, or hopping,
Str 10, Dex 14, Con NA, Int 8, Wis 8, Cha 8,
Climb +4

Flying Orc

Small Construct
CR 2
HD: 3d4 (6)
Hardness: 4
AC: 13 (10 +2 dex +1 Size)
Attack: Claw +4, Dmg 1d6+1
Fort: NA  Ref: +5 Will: +3
Size:  Small
Speed: 10 Fly 50
Str 10, Dex 14, Con NA, Int 8, Wis 8, Cha 8,

Spot +5

An Orc is a pig or gargoyle faced construct shaped from a mixture of black clay, ashes, mandrake root, water, and one pint of the creator’s own blood. The materials cost 50 gp.  Creating the body requires a DC 12 Craft (sculpting) check or a DC 12 Craft (pottery) check.

After the body is sculpted, it is animated through an extended magical ritual that requires a specially prepared laboratory or workroom, similar to an alchemist’s laboratory and costing 500 gp to establish. If the creator is personally constructing the creature’s body, the building and ritual can be performed together.

An Orc with more than 2 Hit Dice can be created, but each additional Hit Die adds +2,000 gp to the cost to create.

Additional Limbs may be added for a cost of Y² x 1000 gp, Y equaling the number of Additional limbs. These limbs can add benefits like an extra attack or a bonus of +10 to speed.

The Creator of an Orc does not normally become its master as the ritual is intended to create a chaotic evil creature of destruction.  They can and will pick up weapons to use if they find them and work better than their claws.

New Blog

For various reasons I didn't want to go with word press. So, I have moved my blog to blogger.com and simply re-posted my recent posts. I'm hoping to never need to move my blog again though. Not that it was hard or anything but I would hate too have too if I had tons of posts to move.

Edit: Now that I have moved to blogger.com I'm loving its actualy funner and quicker for me. Google is such a useful company.