Ahoy there, adventure fans! Episode 70 of the Icosahedrophilia pocast launches a new adventure, “Desert of Desolation,” played on September 26, 2009. Please listen now or subscribe via iTunes, Zune, or plain old RSS. This episode features the following segments:

• Weighing Anchor: Erika Lieberman of Sonic Legends calls for your initiative roll.
• The Staging Area: I briefly describe the situation at the end of “The Sands of Time, Part 6,” and refer listeners to the “Story Thus Far” episode for summaries of the campaign to date. In the last couple of episodes, our heroes came upon a ruined sailing ship—half-buried in desert sands—called the Sundered Oath. To no one’s surprise, the adventurers got into a conflict with the belligerent ghostly crew. At the end of part 6, Lithian’s well-timed bluff brought an end to the hostilities.
• The Weather Report: Unable to sustain Lithian’s lie convincingly, the crew of the Broken Promise once again find themselves battling the ghostly crew of the Sundered Oath.
• The Prop Shop: I describe the 3D cardstock model that I created to represent the half-buried Sundered Oath. Since the title of this adventure came from a D&D Miniatures set that is now out of print, my FRP Games pick of the episode is the D&D Miniatures Legendary Evils set, which you can purchase from FRP Games by the booster or by the case.

I hope that you enjoy “Desert of Desolation, Part 1,” and that you’ll return when the campaign continues in “Desert of Desolation, Part 2″!

I have more to say about this …

Let’s do this, adventure fans! Episode 69 of the Icosahedrophilia pocast presents the concluding segment of our adventure “The Sands of Time,” played on August 29, 2009. Please listen now or subscribe via iTunes, Zune, or plain old RSS. This episode features the following segments:

• Weighing Anchor: Tracy Hurley, a.k.a. Sarah Darkmagic, calls for your initiative roll.
• The Staging Area: I briefly recap “The Sands of Time” parts 1–5, and refer listeners to the “Story Thus Far” episode for summaries of the campaign to date. In part 5, our heroes came upon a ruined sailing ship—half-buried in desert sands—called the Sundered Oath. To no one’s surprise, the adventurers got into a conflict with the belligerent ghostly crew.
• The Weather Report: The PCs’ clash with the undead crew of the Sundered Oath continues.
• The Prop Shop: I describe the repainted Hoard Scarab Larva Swarm miniatures that I forgot to mention in the last session and give some credit where credit is due for the boat-in-the-desert setting. My FRP Games pick of the episode is the Savage Worlds Customizable GM Screen, which is actually useful for any game, and is the GM screen I use at my table.

I hope that you enjoy “The Sands of Time, Part 6,” and that you’ll return when the campaign continues in “Desert of Desolation, Part 1″!

I have more to say about this …

A storm is brewing in western Karvahl, adventure fans—a sandstorm. But before that storm blows in, our heroes must navigate the Taworri Desert, where—in episode 68 of the Icosahedrophilia pocast, presenting “The Sands of Time, Part 5,” played on August 29, 2009—our heroes will stumble upon one of the desert’s best-kept secrets, and perhaps a key to the deeper truths locked within Jacques’ dreams. Please listen now or subscribe via iTunes, Zune, or plain old RSS. This episode features the following segments:

• Weighing Anchor: NewbieDM calls for your initiative roll.
• The Staging Area: I briefly recap “The Sands of Time” parts 1–4, but refer listeners chiefly to the “Story Thus Far” episode for summaries of the campaign to date. Part 4 focused mainly on the PCs’ stab westward into the Taworri Desert, and was dominated by a somewhat clunky skill challenge that carried that travel forward.
• The Weather Report: Jacques gets déjà vu as the crew of the Broken Promise travels into the same canyon that Jacques envisioned in his dreams of death.
• The Prop Shop: I explain a bit more of what I was trying to accomplish story-wise with the dream sequence and some other elements of the campaign, and I mention again our use of the Sea Wyvern map from Dungeon #141 for the Broken Promise. I also describe some of the repainted miniatures used in this play segment. See relevant photos in the extended show notes, but you might want to wait until after you’ve listened to the episode, or some surprises may be spoiled. My FRP Games pick of the episode is the Warriors of the Ghostlight Fen expansion for D&D HeroScape; in the Prop Shop segment, I explain why.

I hope that you enjoy “The Sands of Time, Part 5,” and that you’ll return for the continuation in “The Sands of Time, Part 6″!

I have more to say about this …

During the two weeks spanning May 9–22, 2010, I reviewed the following products for DriveThruRPG:

• Arcane Library by Spellbook Games. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I downloaded this product, and I can’t say that was I pleasantly surprised. (Read more at DriveThruRPG.) ★★
• Civilians 2 by Runestone Entertainment. The preview to this product shows exactly what you’ll get: eight printable stand-up miniatures, each in color and black and white. (Read more at DriveThruRPG.)
• Dungeon Bundle 1 by Empty Room Studios. Empty Room Studios scores a big hit with this bundle, which includes three sets of dungeon tiles, two sets of stand-up doors, and a helpful mounting and cutting tutorial. (Read more at DriveThruRPG.) ★★★★★
• Dungeon Tiles – Volume 1 by Greywood Publishing. With its new Dungeon Tiles line, Greywood Publishing seeks to enter a fairly crowded market, and Volume 1 makes for a somewhat disappointing initial foray. (Read more at DriveThruRPG.)
• Gamescapes Story Maps: Ice Realm by Savage Mojo. “Ice Realm” provides you with twelve 8″x8″ tiles that you can print and assemble to form a 24″x32″ surface of ice or snow. (Read more at DriveThruRPG.)
• Gamescapes Story Maps: Lair of the Necromancer by Savage Mojo. The dark, foreboding mood of these printable dungeon tiles is perfect for the titular necromancer’s lair. (Read more at DriveThruRPG.) ★★★★
• Gamescapes Story Maps: River of Souls by Savage Mojo. When printed out and assembled, the twelve tiles that make up the “River of Souls” form the widest river I’ve seen in any printable or preprinted terrain set to date. (Read more at DriveThruRPG.) ★★★★★
• Gamescapes Story Maps: Scaling the Great Dragon by Savage Mojo. If you want a set of printable terrain tiles that will allow to run a combat encounter on the back of a reddish-gold dragon, this is the product for you. (Read more at DriveThruRPG.) ★★★★
• Little Buck’s Fantastic Visions #1: Sci-Fi Mercenary by Scaldcrow Games. The “sci-fi mercenary” presented in this product is certainly well-drawn, and one can hardly quibble with the price. (Read more at DriveThruRPG.) ★★★
• Modern Floorplans: Adnap Memorial Gardens by Fabled Environments. Despite a little silliness in the name (“panda” spelled backward), this product delivers exactly what it promises. (Read more at DriveThruRPG.) ★★★
• Power Pics Villains 8: Huge Robot by Mesozoic Press. As the saying goes, “It is what it is.” (Read more at DriveThruRPG.) ★★★
• Pulp IV Set by Arion Games. This set of pulp-era figures lives up to the standards set already in the Arion Games line of printable miniatures. (Read more at DriveThruRPG.) ★★★★
• Quartermaster: Riddle of Steel Item Cards by LJP Design. Like the first set of Quartermaster cards, the “Riddle of Steel” set offers 21 printable item cards, focusing mostly on armor and weapons, with a few other types of items included. (Read more at DriveThruRPG.) ★★★
• Selorian River Crossing by UNIGames. While the artwork in this set of printable props isn’t as attractive or “realistic” as the art that one can find in similar products, the author/artist has gone to a good deal of effort to provide a robust package rather than just a single prop. (Read more at DriveThruRPG.) ★★★★
• Super Crusaders by Crusader Game Books. Bringing a new game into an already-crowded genre requires that you offer potential players something new or fresh, something they don’t really get with other games. Super Crusaders seeks to be an easy, flexible system for superhero role-playing, but it offers no compelling reason for players to choose it over the other, more professional supers RPGs currently on (or soon coming to) the market. (Read more at DriveThruRPG.) ★
• Tailslap! #1 by Unicorn Rampant Publishing. Tailslap from Unicorn Rampant Publishing aims to join the growing ranks of third-party 4e magazines. Although issue 1 does show some promise, Unicorn Rampant will need to improve the quality significantly in order to gain and hold readers. (Read more at DriveThruRPG.) ★★★
• The Lumberman’s House by Lord Zsezse Works. With several different wall and roof styles to choose from, this product actually gives you nine variations on a single small house. (Read more at DriveThruRPG.) ★★★★
• Troll Bridge by Spellbook Games. Trolls charging toll to let travelers across a bridge is a classic fairy-tale trope, and Spellbook Games offers to bring this trope to your fantasy role-playing game in this short product. (Read more at DriveThruRPG.) ★
• Vampire Sanctuary by Candarin Fall Productions. “Vampire Sanctuary” is an ambitious project, weighing in at 71 pages of dungeon maps and miniatures-scale tiles. (Read more at DriveThruRPG.) ★★★★
• Wilderlands of High Adventure: 100 Street Vendors of the City State by Judges Guild. I don’t play Castles & Crusades, so I can’t really comment on the appropriateness of the crunchy bits in this sourcebook. (Read more at DriveThruRPG.) ★★★★
• Zenmidar Island Adventure Map by Wydraz. If you need an island to drop into your fantasy campaign world, you can save yourself some time and effort by dropping less than a dollar on this map set. (Read more at DriveThruRPG.) ★★★

Yes, that’s a lot of reviews. I went on a bit of a binge, in an effort to reduce my “waiting for reviews” queue. That queue is still pretty long, actually, but it’s shorter than it was.

In Stormhaven, numbers formed out of consecutive digits—numbers like 67—are considered to be auspicious, and generally unlucky. Will that superstition hold true for the crew of the Broken Promise in episode 67 of the Icosahedrophilia podcast? You’ve been holding your collective breath, adventure fans, wondering how the adventure could possibly run for three more hours despite a TPK at the end of part 3. Once you pop “The Sands of Time, Part 4″ into your favorite MP3 player, all things—well, some things, anyway—will be revealed! Please listen now or subscribe via iTunes, Zune, or plain old RSS. This episode features the following segments:

• Weighing Anchor: Ed Katayama, proprietor of my friendly local game store, A Hidden Fortress in Simi Valley, calls for your initiative roll.
• The Staging Area: I briefly recap “The Sands of Time, Part 3,” but refer listeners chiefly to the “Story Thus Far” episode for summaries of the campaign to date. Part 3 ended with a total party kill …
• The Weather Report: No, I’m not going to tell you here. Listen to the episode already!
• The Prop Shop: I explain why things worked out they way they did. I also described my use the free downloadable Skill Challenge Tiles available at the Dazed (Save Ends) blog, and explained why I probably won’t use them much, if at all, in the future. The discussion of skill challenges included references to the Tome Show’s recent double-header of skill challenge episodes and the skill challenge resources offered at the At-Will and Critical Hits blogs; I should also have mentioned Dungeon’s Master. My FRP Games pick of the episode is the Player’s Strategy Guide, new from Wizards of the Coast.

I hope that you enjoy “The Sands of Time, Part 4,” and that you’ll return for the continuation in “The Sands of Time, Part 5″!

I have more to say about this …

It’s time to execute Order 66, adventure fans! Oh, wait. That’s a different franchise, a different RPG, and a different podcast. You’ve been eagerly waiting for episode 66 of the Icosahedrophilia podcast, presenting part 3 of “The Sands of Time,” recorded on August 29, 2009! Please listen now or subscribe via iTunes, Zune, or plain old RSS. This episode features the following segments:

• Weighing Anchor: I call for your initiative roll myself on this momentous episode.
• The Staging Area: I briefly recap “The Sands of Time, Part 2,” but refer listeners chiefly to the “Story Thus Far” episode for summaries of the campaign to date.
• The Weather Report: The PCs’ battle against a trio of beholder-riding mind flayers comes to its thrilling conclusion.
• The Prop Shop: There’s not too much to add to episode 64′s Prop Shop with regard to miniatures, maps, and such, since we just continued the same battle. My FRP Games pick of the episode is Paizo’s new deck of GameMastery Face Cards: Enemies.

I hope that you enjoy “The Sands of Time, Part 3,” and that you’ll return for the continuation in “The Sands of Time, Part 4″!

I have more to say about this …

I’m not quite sure how I did it, adventure fans, but I managed to publish episode 65 of the podcast without posting the show notes. That episode featured part 2 of “The Sands of Time,” recorded on August 29, 2009! Please listen now or subscribe via iTunes, Zune, or plain old RSS. This episode features the following segments:

• Weighing Anchor: Aeryn “Blackdirge” Rudel of Blackdirge Publishing and Goodman Games calls for your initiative roll.
• The Staging Area: I briefly recap “The Sands of Time, Part 1,” but refer listeners chiefly to the “Story Thus Far” episode for summaries of the campaign to date.
• The Weather Report: The PCs continue their fight against a small band of beholders and mind flayers. Nothing too demanding, you know.
• The Prop Shop: There’s not too much to add to episode 64′s Prop Shop with regard to miniatures, maps, and such. My FRP Games pick of the episode is The Plane Above: Secrets of the Astral Sea, WotC’s latest D&D supplement.

I hope that you enjoy “The Sands of Time, Part 2,” and that you’ll return for the continuation in “The Sands of Time, Part 3″!

I have more to say about this …

During the week of April 4–10, 2010, I reviewed the following products for DriveThruRPG:

• Quartermaster Campaign Items by Louis Porter, Jr. Design. “Quartermaster Campaign Items” offers very fine illustrations of 21 objects that characters might encounter in any fantasy game. You can actually preview all of the artwork on the product page, so that you can see for yourself before you buy how good the artwork is and the range of items represented. (Read more at DriveThruRPG.) ★★★
• Asian Dreams by Jack Walker for Sonic Legends. If you use background music at your gaming table and your game involves any type of calm oriental setting—from Rokugan to Chinatown—you’ll want to add “Asian Dreams” by Jack Walker to your soundscapes library. (Read more at DriveThruRPG.) ★★★★★
• Arabian Bazaar by Christy Carew and Erika Lieberman for Sonic Legends. Music, sound effects, and subtle lines of dialogue blend perfectly in this soundscape with music by Christy Carew and sound effects by Erika Lieberman. You can hear the shuffling of animals, the haggling of customers with merchants, the exchange of coins—all carried along beautifully by an exotic melody. (Read more at DriveThruRPG.) ★★★★★
• Country Village by Erika Lieberman for Sonic Legends. Lull your players into a false sense of security with this lush, gorgeous piece from Erika Lieberman. The music and sound effects evoke a beautiful meadow full of blooming flowers, chirping birds, and playing children. (Read more at DriveThruRPG.) ★★★★★
• Imperial City by Jack Walker for Sonic Legends. Exotic without necessarily suggesting a specific culture, this track could lend an air of mystery to any urban setting that’s outside the PCs’ norms. To me, the music seems to blend Middle Eastern and South Asian themes into a whole that transcends both. (Read more at DriveThruRPG.) ★★★★★
• Wild West Saloon by Jack Walker for Sonic Legends. This soundscape by Jack Walker delivers exactly what it promises: the ambience of a stereotypical Western saloon. (Read more at DriveThruRPG.) ★★★★★
• Big City by Matthew Steckler for Sonic Legends. This soundscape is very well executed and displays exceptional production values. However, it seems to me rather limited in its scope. (Read more at DriveThruRPG.) ★★★★
• Old Watermill by Lord Zsezse Works. The artwork for this product is wonderful, and it’s not too difficult to put together. The designers have added significant value by providing alternate versions of some components so that you can customize the model. (Read more at DriveThruRPG.) ★★★★
• Battlemap for the Old Watermill by Lord Zsezse Works. The artwork on these battlemaps is really superb, and the publisher has added significant value by providing day and night versions as well as 1″ and 1.5″ versions. (Read more at DriveThruRPG.) ★★★★
• Monsters of the Game Mat: Total Chaos by Cerberus Illustration. If you use printable miniatures, you can take your collection to a whole new level with this set of intricate designs by Cerberus. This set includes many D&D standards … (Read more at DriveThruRPG.) ★★★★★