3 level tavern encounter now available on roll20 complete with interior, exterior day and night, blank map and separate furniture so you can build your own, and NPCs to serve, interest, and brawl with your players! All sized out in roll20 and ready to play immediately, and it can be used in any other virtual tabletop as well <3

The Twilight Tavern Battle Map

Today we have a new tavern battle map for you to download! Complete with bar, accommodation, and cellar. While we're at it, what's your best tavern name? :)

→ Download it here today!

Dragon magazine 156, April 1990

Saw this while looking through some old Dragon magazines and White Dwarfs. Me and my group thought it was pretty funny. Something tells me they were probably teenagers, I wonder if they still play.

Among all the many strange and forgotten old RPG things I have come across during the course of this project, I think Gamelords, a Maryland-based publisher that operated from 1980 to about 1984, is my favorite. They’re probably most remembered for publishing Traveller zines by the Keith brothers after FASA stopped supporting the game, but I love their generic fantasy material (and the D&D derivative game Thieves Guild) the best.

This is an early product, The Compleat Tavern (1981), which was published in digest/zine format and includes a cardstock tavern floorplan and some furniture tokens (which seems ambitious for a company of this size at the time and I guess anticipates Tower of Magicks!). It is, as the title suggests, all you need to present a tavern in your game, and more, perhaps even too much (in all seriousness, the page and a half on sex workers is handled OK, especially for the period, but I could still do without it).

The mechanics here remind me of Midkemia’s city books, except applied to a business instead of a city street. There are lots of tables to build clientèle and to move them in and out according to the time of day. There are rules for rates, advice for running the rumor mill, games of chance, a method for charting and running inebriation and a specialized system for bar brawls. Most of these rules are too complex for me to ever consider using them, but I like seeing them and their methodology laid out for me.

The pub games is a welcome addition, even if I don’t need rules for simulating dart matches. I’ve had a lot of groups go to a lot of taverns to move the plot along or to rest, but never for the reasons I’ve gone to a bar — to chat, to hang out, to generally experience some nightlife. I never considered coaxing players into arm wrestling matches or dice games at the tavern, and I might still not for reasons of expediency, but this makes me pause to think about it (and gives me some ideas on how to handle it), and I appreciate that.

They are Very Professional. These two would get along. Everybody would hate that. WHEEZE (except Klee who would get a second older brother whether Wolfwood agreed to it or not)

-NO ROMANCE INCLUDED-

Our adventure begins in a tavern (Kevin Siembieda illustration for "Rumors at the Wayfarer's Inn," a 32-page D&D adventure set in the City State of the Invincible Overlord and its environs, in Pegasus 11, Judges Guild, December 1982)

Down at the tavern, trying to cast funny spells

People eat it up and it seems to go well

Summon funny images and sound off funny noises

Getting giggles from the girlses and some chortles from the boyses

All it gets is pocket change and a free ale pint or two

But all is fair that gets free drinks and inspires women’s woos

Forgot I never posted this anywhere. My D&D character, Buck, in a bar fight with a goose.

Wizard: "I cast fireball!"

Barbarian: "I cast the chair! Into his FACE!"

Cleric: *mutters* "We'll all be in casts by the end of this..."

They're all good, depending on my mood...

I made another Law Edit 🫦🫦🫦💅💅💅💅💅✨️✨️✨️

Hope you lovelies enjoy ~~♡♡♡

The Seaside Bar Battle Map

Download our newly released map: the Seaside Bar. It could use some more patrons... And perhaps a repairman! Nevermind that, what would you name it?

→ You can find it here!

Once a border watchtower, this structure was abandoned and fell into disrepair as the kingdom's borders expanded. As the frontier receded, the wilds tamed, and trade routes grew, the site became ideal for other purposes. It now belongs to an innkeeper, who has repaired and expanded upon the original stone tower. Weary travelers can stop in for a hearty meal and drinks, and comfortable rooms are available for those with surplus coin.

+++

This five layer* 25x25 map is available on my Patreon in high-res PNG and VTT files, without watermark, in night/day + grid/gridless variants. 

*Includes a cellar, not pictured in preview.

Some isometric maps and tokens in action! Available on patreon and roll20!

Mini Dungeon: In too Deep

After dicing with a gold-toothed traveller at the local alehouse (or rummaging through his neglected pack) the party find themselves in possession of a treasure map covered in notations which points them in the direction of a disused mine someways outside of town and a haul of bandit treasure resting somewhere at its bottom. Half way through their delve the party realize the layout of the mine has changed and that the entrance is nowhere to be seen. In a peal of scribbled laughter the map rewrites itself, welcoming them to the underdark and offering a few riddles that may contain hints on how they might escape.

As it turns out, Garl Glittergold, god of mines and hardwon fortunes has taken a shine to the party and their antics and has decided to deliver them a test. If they're lucky, steadfast, and above all clever they should be able to make it back home and earn the gods favour in their future adventures. The map may take them on a short jaunt through the depths, into the face of an emerging crisis, or upriver to a foreign port whereupon they must make their own way back.

Maybe they'll even make some friends along the way.

Art