Dungeon of the Tormentor now on DriveThru RPG

 Greetings Adventures!

Out new adventure, Dungeon of the Tormentor, is now available in .PDF on DriveThru RPG. A second level adventure with 36 pages of dungeon crawling goodness for Goodman Games' Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG. If .pdfs are not your thing you can also pick up a PHYSICAL copy (if you live nearby Austin Texas that is!) at Card Gurus in Pflugerville, TX, Rogues Gallery in Round Rock, TX and Game Kastle in Austin, TX. 

For the rest of the world, DOT will be available soon from Goodman Games. Watch their Wednesday new releases for more info!

Announcing the Release of Dungeon of the Tormentor

 Greetings Adventurers!

Back from the printer I'm proud to announce the release of the Dungeon of the Tormentor for Dungeon Crawl Classics. This exciting adventure will soon be available through Goodman Games, DriveThru RPG, and some FLGS in Central Texas and perhaps Chicago! 

This is a 2nd Level adventure for the DCC RPG from Goodman Games. From the back:

A princess has been kidnapped by an evil necromancer who plots to overthrow the kingdom. Your heroes must brave the horrors of a ruined temple and find the entrance to The Tormentor’s dungeon. Once inside, can your band of intrepid adventurers survive the cunning traps, undead horrors, and dastardly minions to defeat the necromancer? Can you save the princess and save the kingdom? A level 2 adventure for Dungeon Crawl Classics, inspired by the hard rock and heavy metal of the 1980’s.

The Pipeline is Finally Moving!

 

Greetings Adventurers!

There has been some great news for us here at Hydra Hobbies. The Dungeon of the Tormentor has just been approved by the Dark Master himself at Goodman Games and we are about to send it off to the printer. Currently, the last pass has been completed and I believe that it is ready for print. After the physical copies are sent off to Goodman Games I'll be releasing the .pdf on DriveThruRPG. Furthermore, I hope to get our Pay What You Want adventure starting location The Hamlet of Tellos out to GG for approval this weekend and once we get the go ahead that one will be put up on DriveThruRPG as well.

As a teaser here is the cover for 'Tellos:

Next week I'll be jet setting off to Wisconsin to further help out my Mom then making stops in Chicago to visit my brother and Melbourne, Florida to wrap up some financial dealings before returning back home to Austin. Once I'm back I'll be stopping at the printer to get 'Tormentor rolling. So expect a September release date for The Dungeon of the Tormentor. During my trip I hope to begin revising, re-writing, and converting The Ruins of Castle Mondu Kotch for DCC. In the meantime, get your swords oiled up, prepare your prayer beads and study your spells adventurers.

I Know It Has Been Awhile

 Greetings Adventurers!

I'm sorry that I haven't been posting much in the last few months. I know, I know. Things here at Hydra Hobbies have been in a bit of turmoil. My father recently passed away and I'm now become the caretaker of his estate. This means my new job is to deal with all of the properties, investments, accounts, military vehicle collections and massive amount of STUFF my father acquired over the decades of collecting and thrift store blitzes. To say he was a hoarder is to put is mildly. Not only that I'm dealing with BOTH my grandparents estates as well. Included into my Dad's stuff is a house and a six flat apartment complex in Chicago which is thankfully being renovated by my brother who has recently moved there, which is one less worry for me. And yes he is de-hoarding that location as well.

To this end I have been hopping back and forth between my home here in Austin, TX and the properties in Northern Wisconsin and Chicago. By properties I mean four full warehouses and a home. All of which are full to the brim with stuff. Some junk but much of it a collection of very unique items. These include model trains (an over 50 year collection), full sized train memorabilia (yes, this includes a full sized caboose!), lots of tools, construction equipment, heavy machinery, and (the cherry on top) several military vehicles dating as far back as World War II (one of them is a full sized fully operational DUKW, possibly used on D-Day during the invasion of Normandy.) Oops! I forgot to mention the collection of militaria such as field gear, uniforms, hats, helmets, weapons and accessories, including many world war two era weapons systems (yes one of them is a non-functional 60mm Nazi mortar!) and other assorted military hardware.

I'm also helping take care of my Mom, who is blind and has mobility issues...after all she is 84. I'm helping her deal with all sorts of financial and tax issues as well as organizing/de-hoarding her house so that she can actually get in and out of it. This has been quite a job. To say I haven't had time to work on Hydra Hobbies projects is an understatement. 

For those of you still with me here I do have some HH news progress. The Dungeon of the Tormentor adventure has been fully edited and laid out with art and cartography. It is fully playtested and I recently got the cover delivered by the wonderfully talented Kennon James. It needs one last read through, some small tweaks and checks (for rules stuff) and some minor layout fixes (like adding the cover and getting the stupid page numbers to line up!) and it will be ready to go off for approval to Goodman Games, then hopefully off to the printer!

Here is the beautiful cover art as a teaser to wet your appetite for this crazy heavy metal inspired adventure. 

Next up is a PWYW supplement of a small village called The Hamlet of Tellos, for DCC of course, This product will be available on DriveThru RPG and is designed as a starting point for any adventure that does not include a town or city as a base to begin at. That one is written, fully laid out, has art and cartography and has had a deep pass from my wonderful editor, Ben Klima. Sadly, I have not had the time to incorporate his suggestions, fixes, and adjustments. I will need about another 40 or so hours to get that bad boy done and then off to GG for approval. 

In closing, Hydra Hobbies (ie Me) will be attending TFest gaming convention in Pflugerville, Texas this August 7-9. We aren't big enough for our own booth but we will be hanging out at the Goodman Games booth with my good friend Matt Robertson. I've been too busy to prep to run any playtests at the con but I will be playing in several games as a player at the Con. Stop by the GG booth and pick up a copy of  Tower of the Mad Mage Mazdor. I'll be happy to sign your copy as well as chat with you about our upcoming releases and maybe even join you for a game, if I'm lucky enough to get a seat. If you haven't gotten your badge yet I suggest you do so today as the open game seats are rapidly filling up. I wasn't even in time to get a slot to attend Matt's game: Golden Idol of En-Tridar!

Feast of the Cyclops Con and some BIG Announcements

 Greetings Adventurers! Well, I’m back. The surgery went well and now I’m recovering from a week in the hospital. I’m home now and it’s nearly been a month since my open-heart surgery. It’s been a rough road in recovery and I’m in a lot of pain, but it is manageable. It’s been a bit hard to concentrate and work on my writing but I’m getting better each day. Sadly, it’s also hard to paint minis due to the pain in my chest so that is on hold as well. The big news here at Hydra Hobbies is that I’ll be playtesting some upcoming adventures during the online Feast of the Cyclops Con put together by Goodman Games and my good friend GrapeApe. This means that the cat is out of the bag, and the BIG announcement is the first two products from Hydra Hobbies for DCC. The first being The Tower of the Mad Mage Mazdor™. It’s a first level adventure for DCC and will be the first product for HH. TMMM is fully written, laid out, has all the art complete, proofread, edited, and nearly ready for submission to GG. This will be the final playtest before publication. I’ll be putting up a product page soon here on the blog and it will include this one AND the next big announcement: The second product! 

The second product for HH will be The Dungeon of the Tormentor. This one will be a 2nd level adventure for DCC, and I’m nearly finished writing it. Feast of the Cyclops Con will be the first official playtest of this one (other than when it was run as a D&D 3.0 over 20 years ago.) Both adventures will have pre-gen characters available right here on the blog for those who sign up to play. I have the TMMM pre-gens complete and just need to set up the page here on the blog for them. I’ll be working on the pre-gens for DOT this week and should have those up soon as well. Hopefully I’ll finish writing DOT before Feast of the Cyclops Con that starts Nov 14th.  I would say I’m about 95% complete with the writing. I hope you will join me for this very inexpensive online convention hosted by Goodman Games.  If you do sign up for any of my games not only, will you get playtest credit, but I will send you a copy of the .pdf and a physical copy, upon approval from GG and publication. Registration is open and games are filling up, so if you do plan to attend, I suggest you sign up soon. I’ll be posting my review of the new D&D Starter Set: Heroes of the Borderlands soon and then after that I’ll have the review of the beautifully illustrated The Adventures of Conan tabletop game. AND a little teaser: The next review will be for a newly reprinted Space Empires 4x from GMT Games (and all three supplements) which I’ve punched out the chits and clipped them (well over a thousand chits!) I’ve gotten this one to the table and had a fun solo play. This game is deep and has so much to it, yet the rules are surprisingly simple. More on that later. 

Well brave adventurers there is lots to do, and the clock is ticking. I’ve got a whole lot of cardiac rehab ahead of me and in between that a lot of prep work to get these two playtests to the table. I hope to see you online for Feast of the Cyclops Con. Until then sharpen your sword and battleaxe and be ready to slay some enemies!