Tales of the Goblin Horde & The Goblin Warrens

Last month's Tricube Tales micro-setting was an introductory scenario for the Drakonheim setting, so this month I thought it would be fun to base one on my own Saga of the Goblin Horde setting: Tales of the Goblin Horde!

“For time immemorial, goblins have been mercilessly hunted down and murdered by the so-called “civilized” humans, slaughtered in droves for the entertainment of bloodthirsty adventurers. But everyone has their limits, even the underdogs.

The pathetic goblins who eke out a living near the human lands are weak and timid, the aggression bred out of them through generations of culling, with only the most cowardly among them managing to survive. But the goblins of the western tribes are another matter entirely, as the rapidly encroaching scourge of human civilization is about to discover.

You are ferocious goblin bosses from the Redfang tribe, leading your gangs on a series of dangerous missions against the humans and other enemies. Chief Bignose is confident you won’t let him down!”

I published Saga of the Goblin Horde for Savage Worlds back in 2017, and I even won a Silver ENnie Award for it, but I've also used the setting for several other projects. It was the basis for a 200-word RPG called The Goblin Warrens, as well as Hightree Warren for Gold & Glory, and the Wiseguys crossover The Gobfather (which was in turn referenced by Goblin Gangsters). And of course, the work-in-progress Swift d12 Quick Start uses Saga of the Goblin Horde, as will the full setting book once I've finished it.

I've previously discussed converting Saga of the Goblin Horde to Tricube Tales, but now that I'm releasing a new micro-setting every month, I decided I should do the job properly! Unlike the other Tricube Tales micro-settings, this one actually adds some new mechanics (via gang tokens), and includes additional guidelines for turning the one-page RPG into a full campaign.

Another Jam...

Earlier this month, I also decided to update, reformat, and republish The Goblin Warrens for the Pleasure-not-Business Card RPG Jam, which was an interesting challenge! Business cards seem to be a pretty good size for 200-word RPGs.

Customizing Stock Art

Originals here and here.

As I've mentioned in the past, it can often be difficult to find stock artwork that matches your specific needs. However, commissioning lots of custom art can rapidly become expensive. That is why I like to "cheat," by selecting the stock art first, and then designing various monsters and adventures around it. Unfortunately, that isn't always an option.

Two days ago I released The Gobfather, a new crossover mini-setting for Saga of the Goblin Horde and Wiseguys, and for this product my normal approach of choosing the artwork first simply wasn't an option -- I needed a whole load of goblin gangsters, and I couldn't actually find any matching stock art. Nor could I afford to commission custom illustrations.

So I took my "cheating" to a whole new level: I chopped up a selection of different stock art images, resized and recolored them, and then I stuck the various pieces back together, creating my own unique illustrations. I used Photoshop, but you could just as easily use GIMP, or some another image editor. 

I decided to use artwork by Rick Hershey of Fat Goblin Games for my customized illustrations, for several reasons.

Original here.

First, Rick has an absolutely huge selection of very reasonably priced artwork to choose from, and when combining images it's essential they all have exactly the same style.

Second, the Fat Goblin Games license is very generous in terms of what you can do with the art (many artists don't allow you to modify their artwork at all, let alone chop them into pieces and reassemble them).

Third, I find the artistic style Rick uses easy to modify. I think this is mostly due to the black outlines, and a comic book style that tends to be more forgiving of minor mistakes.

Finally, of course, Rick draws lots of goblins! That's actually why I used so much of his art in Saga of the Goblin Horde, and it was nice to keep the same artistic look in The Gobfather.

To modify an image, I first duplicate the layer, then I zoom in and start cutting away the parts I don't want. I'll do this several times so that different parts of the image are in separate layers -- I might have one layer for the eyes, another for the mouth, another for the hands, and so on.

Originals here and here.

If the image has a thick black outline, I'll select that with the magic wand and copy it to the top layer, as it'll often help conceal minor discrepancies in the lower layers caused by cutting.

Not every part of the image needs to be cut cleanly, only those that will be visible in the final image. For example, I didn't usually pay much attention to the necks, because I knew I'd place a large goblin head over the top.

However, when images are combined, it's important they match up exactly. That means a clean edge on any parts of the image that will be visible, with the new component precisely rotated and resized to match the main image.

You can also use a fade-to-transparent effect to overlap two images (such as when I placed a new nose on Don Bignose's face). Other images should have a slight overlap, to avoid a gap between them -- for example, when I added Chip Chop's head, I placed it behind the suit collar and then cut away the suit.

This approach is also very convenient for changing colors, as it means that (for example) I can make the skin green without changing the color of the clothing, or darken the suit without changing the brightness of the steel knife.

Changing the proportions of an image is something that should be handled with great care, and I try to avoid this whenever possible. I did do it for one of the goblins, as I needed to turn a tall thin crime boss into a short goblin -- but I removed his hands first, replacing one with a larger duplicate of the original hand that also kept the original proportions, and the other with a goblin hand from another image.

Summary

While I don't have the skill to create my own art from scratch, it wasn't too hard to modify existing images, and I think the results were pretty good. This process obviously requires a fair amount of time, so if you can afford to commission custom art, that's still the better option. But if you're on a shoestring budget, and can't find the exact stock art you need, this is definitely a viable alternative.

All of the artwork in this blog post is by Rick Hershey. Publisher’s Choice Quality Stock Art © Rick Hershey / Fat Goblin Games (www.fatgoblingames.com).

Tricube Tales: Using Saga of the Goblin Horde (and other Savage Worlds settings)

Back in March, I released a One Sheet RPG called Tricube Tales. The reception was pretty lukewarm, but from the little feedback I did receive, it was clear the rules needed some detailed explanations and lots of examples. Then DriveThruRPG started promoting their new Phone PDF format, and I thought "Why not? Tricube Tales is designed for low-prep gaming -- and having it on your smartphone would be pretty convenient!"

So I expanded it to around 5000 words, adding examples and explanations along with optional rules for different genres, and last week I published it as a 38-page Phone PDF. I made the full PDF available as a free download, but for $1 you also get the tablet version (at 4:3 screen ratio with higher-resolution art) and a Word document (I've released the system under the CC BY 3.0 license, and the Word document is easier for copying the text into your own products).

Check it out if you haven't already: Tricube Tales

Of course, as soon as I published it, I was asked how Tricube Tales could be used with Saga of the Goblin Horde! So here's how I would do it (note that most of these guidelines could also be applied to other Savage Worlds settings):

Action Resolution

Trait rolls in Savage Worlds are usually made at +0, -2 or -4. In Tricube Tales, I recommend treating these as easy, standard and hard challenges respectively (so +0 or higher is "easy", -1 to -3 is "standard", and -4 or lower is "hard").

Resolve Strength or Vigor rolls as brawny challenges. Resolve Agility rolls (or skills linked to Agility) as agile challenges. Resolve Smarts or Spirit rolls (or skills linked to either attribute) as crafty challenges.

While Tricube Tales doesn't have individual skills, it does use character concepts to define scope of knowledge -- for example, if Saga of the Goblin Horde calls for a Tracking roll at -2, that would be treated as a standard crafty challenge, but characters without an appropriate concept (such as hunter, tracker, scout, etc) would lose a die from their roll.

Combat

For combat encounters (including Quick Combat and Quick Skirmish), use the Hack-and-Slash genre rule from Tricube Tales. It should be pretty easy to eyeball monster stats using the SotGH bestiary as a reference.

Chases could also be resolved mechanically in the same way as combat, the difference is you're trying to escape from (or catch) your opponent, instead of defeating them.

Optional Initiative: If you're a diehard fan of the Savage Worlds initiative system, you could easily use it for Tricube Tales instead of the normal narrative-based approach: PCs normally draw one card each turn, but they may spend a karma token to draw a second card if they have a suitable perk (or draw two cards use the lowest by using an appropriate flaw). Monsters typically draw one card, but if they're particularly fast or slow, the GM should draw two cards and keep the highest or lowest. If a PC draws a joker, the difficulty of all their rolls this turn is reduced by 1; if a monster draws a joker, the difficulty of all rolls made against them this turn is increased by 1.

Goblin Gangs

Minions are usually abstracted away in Tricube Tales, but they're a major part of Saga of the Goblin Horde, so I recommend adding a new mechanic for them: Gang tokens. Each player starts with three gang tokens, and they can increase this maximum with advances in exactly the same way as karma and resolve (i.e., every second advance can be spent on a gang token instead of karma or resolve, up to a maximum of six). Gang tokens are usually recovered at the beginning of each adventure (unless the boss has the opportunity to recruit replacements during the session, at the GM's discretion).

Meat Shield: If physical damage from a challenge roll would lead to the loss of one or more resolve, the player can spend one gang token instead.

Shenanigans: At the beginning of each scene, you can recover one karma token by rolling d6 on the Shenanigans table and narrating an appropriate effect.

1. A gang member injures you, intentionally or otherwise. Lose one resolve and one gang token (either you kill them, or they flee).
2. Someone killed your flunky, or perhaps the foolish goblin killed themselves. You lose one gang token.
3. Your minion is drunk, hallucinating, unconscious, or busy doing something else. Put the gang token to one side, you can't use it again for the remainder of the scene.
4. The gang member causes a distraction. The Game Master should increase the difficulty of one challenge this scene by +1.
5. The little runt does something stupid. The GM should introduce an appropriate complication during this scene.
6. Your flunky does something useful for once! You may recover one resolve token instead of the normal karma token if you wish.

The SotGH "Loner" Hindrance isn't a very good fit for Tricube Tales. but if you really want to use it (perhaps for converting an existing character, such as Kronan Halfblood from the archetypes PDF), treat it as an optional extra that players can choose during character creation if they wish:

Loner: This boss doesn't have any gang tokens, and can never gain any. However, they begin with 4 karma and 4 resolve tokens, instead of the usual 3.

Goblinoid Races

Each goblinoid race has a specific advantage that can be used like a perk, and a disadvantage that can be used like a quirk. Use the descriptive text from Saga of the Goblin Horde to get a better idea of what each race is like.

Bugbear: Huge (perk) and vicious (quirk).

Goblin: Nimble (perk) and small (quirk).

Gremlin: Inventive (perk) and small (quirk).

Hobgoblin: Militant (perk) and proud (quirk).

Half-Human: Strong-willed (perk) and hated (quirk).

Magic

If you want magic to feel like Savage Worlds, use the Spell Lists option from the Magic & Psionics genre rule in Tricube Tales, except each character starts with three spells instead of six, and must spend an advance to gain each additional spell. Use the flavor text from the Savage Worlds powers and trappings as a guideline for determining what your character can do.

However, I'd personally suggest keeping things simple: allow players to choose a general style of magic, such as pyromancy, shamanism, etc, and pick one Magic Limitation for it. Don't bother tracking individual spells.

Gear and Knick-Knacks

Equipment is abstracted in Tricube Tales, and I don't recommend changing that. Players can make a note of their knick-knacks for flavor purposes if they wish, and even incorporate them into the descriptions of their actions, but don't bother applying specific mechanical effects.

If a player desperately wants their knick-knacks to provide an actual bonus, ask them to take a perk for it (one perk for all their knick-knacks should be sufficient, there's no need to take a separate perk for each knick-knack).

Other Rules

Earning Bennies: SotGH adventures often suggest awarding Bennies for certain achievements during a scene. It is generally recommended that you don't award karma in these cases, or the players will probably earn too many tokens, and then won't need to use their quirks.

Interludes: You don't really need a deck of cards, the player can just make up a short story in return for a karma token (this can temporarily take them up to one token over their normal maximum). However, if you're using the Saga of the Goblin Horde Countdown Deck anyway, the player could draw 1-3 cards and use their saga symbols as inspiration for the tale.

Dramatic Tasks: The challenge requires 5 effort tokens (usually at standard difficulty), and the player must remove all the tokens in 5 turns. If you're using the Countdown Deck and want to spice things up a bit, draw a card each turn, and on clubs the difficulty increases by 1 for the turn (don't be tempted to treat failure on clubs as a critical failure though, it'll be too risky due to Tricube Tales' lack of rerolls and cooperative rolls).

Social Conflicts: The challenge has 5 effort tokens (usually at easy difficulty), and the player has to remove as many as possible in 3 turns. The number of tokens removed indicates the margin of success.

Summary

Savage Worlds is a rules-medium roleplaying system with a strong emphasis on combat, and abstract rules for handling a variety of other situations. If you enjoy tactical combat using minis, it's great, and would be one of my top picks.

Tricube Tales is a rules-light roleplaying system with unified mechanics and a focus on narrate-based gameplay. It draws inspiration from games like Fate, Blades in the Dark, Risus, Tiny Dungeons, and Blood & Bile, and it's designed to be very fast and easy to play.

I think you could certainly use Tricube Tales to run Saga of the Goblin Horde, particularly for one-shots, but the emphasis would be more on the story and player narrative, and far less on game mechanics. Combat would take a backseat role, becoming just another type of challenge for the bosses to overcome -- it would be a bit like running Saga of the Goblin Horde in Savage Worlds, except treating every combat encounter as a Quick Skirmish.

An Axe to Grind: Christmas One Sheet

Here comes a chopper to chop off your head!

Chip, chop, chip, chop,

the last goblin is dead!

A couple of years ago, a goblin crew hijacked a flying sleigh belonging to a mysterious red-robed sorcerer, and unceremoniously tossed him overboard. The jolly fellow was dashed upon the mountains below, leaving nothing but a stain to mark his passing.

A few days ago, a dyslexic human witch accidentally brought the red-robed sorcerer back from the afterlife while attempting to summon the devil. After breaking free from the ritual and killing the witch, the sorcerer headed west into the goblin lands, seeking revenge!

Every year, I release a new Christmas-themed One Sheet for Saga of the Goblin Horde – Sanguine Solstice in 2015, Sleigh Heist in 2016 and Season's Beatings in 2017. Here is the adventure for 2018:

Get it here: An Axe to Grind

This One Sheet is a direct sequel to Sleigh Heist and Season's Beatings, although it can also be run as a standalone adventure. The Configurable Map has also been updated.

Custom Wild Dice from Chessex

A couple of years ago I ordered some custom Wild Dice for Saga of the Goblin Horde, but I've been giving them to players when I run games, and recently ran out. This time I decided to order some from Chessex instead, and the new dice finally arrived (after being bounced back and forth by customs).

I have to say, I really like the new dice. The company I used last time weren't able to include very fine detail (they had to remove the text), and also had to convert the image to an outline, but Chessex were able to produce exactly what I wanted. You can see a comparison of the old (top) and new (bottom) dice here:

I've already given away the first die -- my son wanted one for his own collection!

I have to say, one of the things I really love about Savage Worlds is all the props. Custom cards, dice and Bennies really make the whole gaming experience feel more polished, somehow.

I wonder what other props I can come up with...perhaps a custom GM screen? :)

Saga of the Goblin Horde: Quick Start version 16

It's now been over six months since I released the last version of the SotGH Swift d12 Quick Start rules, but I've been working on this update for a while -- it adds eight additional pages and includes many changes to the rest of the document, incorporating feedback from several playtest sessions (including a very cool urban fantasy adventure ran by Manuel Sambs, using Swift d12 as a generic system).

Download it from here.

Summary of changes:

• Removed the ability check descriptors (such as "perception-based guile checks"). These were a mouthful to describe, and the game feels more intuitive without them.

• Briefly clarified how opposed ability checks work.

• Streamlined advancement (dropped experience points).

• Renamed the "abilities" to "attributes" (because of the introduction of talents).

• Added three talents (Athletics, Perception and Stealth). Arguably they could have been left as part of the attributes, however they come up very frequently during adventures, and it makes it easier to reference them if they're listed separately (if I just wrote "Guile check" instead of "Perception check", I'd then have to clarify that it was related to perception, so that players knew which Feats or Flaws applied).

• Added "Backgrounds". These are inspired by games like BoL and SotDL, Backgrounds represent broad skill categories (one might compare them to the way Common Knowledge works in Savage Worlds). I feel this is a good compromise, as it gives the characters more diversity without needing to track individual skills.

• There's no longer a once-per-session cap on Flaws, instead you can now invoke them as often as you like, however you can only recover spent Karma Points (so you can't stockpile over your starting quota).

• Rather than "Loner" being a special case, there's now a category of "Handicap" Flaws. There are also suggestions for changing Flaws during the campaign.

• The "defend" action now provides twice the normal benefit when using a shield or buckler.

• The "run" action now provides you a +2 damage bonus if you move at least 3 squares before attacking. In effect, it doubles up as a charge maneuver.

• There's a small section about "Prepared Actions". This was necessary to avoid scenarios where someone steps out from behind cover, takes a shot, then ducks back again -- if there was no way to interrupt them, it would be impossible to ever shoot them back.

• Clarified what happens when multiple complications are triggered at the same time, and added two examples of complications (friendly fire, and unstable devices).

• If you "delay" during initiative, you can take one simple action as if it were a free action. Previously this cost a Karma Point, which meant there was no incentive for Mooks to ever delay. Now, it gives you a -2 penalty to your standard actions, and you have the option of spending a Karma Point to eliminate the penalty for rush/delay.

• Added a section on mounts and vehicles.

• Taking a free attack against a foe who withdraws from close combat now causes the attacker to become Staggered. This makes it more of a tactical decision, and avoids the scenario where 8 foes retreat from combat, and you get a free attack against all 8 of them.

• Chases now use Athletics when on foot or mounted, and Agility when driving a vehicle.

• Renamed "Fast Skirmish" to "Quick Skirmish", so the rule has the same name as the Savage Worlds version of SotGH.

• Character creation now has a page on Backgrounds, and the Flaws have been slightly revised. The Feats have been redone (there's now a much larger list), they are now defined by category, with simple requirements and rules for stacking. There's also two pages on Spells.

• The introductory adventure and pregenerated characters have been updated to reflect the new changes.

I'm now fairly happy with the latest rules, they smooth off the rough edges from the previous version (such as descriptors, lack of skills, the magic system, etc). Although there will no doubt be additional refinements in the future, I now feel comfortable starting work on the generic Swift d12 rules.

Saga of the Goblin Horde: Silver ENnie Award!

I entered the ENnies for the first time this year, submitting both Blood & Bile and Saga of the Goblin Horde. While I didn't expect to win anything, I figured the extra exposure (from being included in the submission list) might draw a little more attention to my work.

With 514 submissions from 251 different publishers, and only 5 nominations in each category, the competition was pretty fierce. So I was both surprised and honored when Saga of the Goblin Horde was nominated for "Best Free Game" by the judges!

Sadly I wasn't able to attend Gen Con in person, but I watched the live stream, and was very excited when Saga of the Goblin Horde won a Silver ENnie! The Gold ENnie Award went to Todd Crapper, for his excellent High Plains Samurai: Legends -- you can see the full list of winners here, and watch the recording of the award ceremony here (Best Free Game starts at 23:37).

As far as I can tell, this is the first time a Savage Worlds fan licensed product has won an ENnie, and I hope it will encourage more people to take fan products seriously. It was also the only Savage Worlds product to win a 2018 ENnie Award (although this is certainly no reflection on those other products, as they had to compete with some much bigger industry names).

I know there are veteran game designers who pick up loads of awards, but this was the first product I'd self-published on DriveThruRPG, and the ENnies really help draw attention to my work. Even though Saga of the Goblin Horde is free, I do sell related products (like the Configurable Map and the Countdown Deck), and have plans for many more in the future, including the Swift d12 version of Saga of the Goblin Horde.

Of course I couldn't have done it without the support of my fans, so I'd like to give a huge thank you to everyone who voted for me! I'll also be releasing the new adventures I ran at Savage Con as soon as I've finished writing them up.

Savage Con: What a Ride!

At the weekend, I had the opportunity to attend Savage Con, the UK's only Savage Worlds convention. It was a pure gaming event, with three time slots on Saturday and two on Sunday, and three different games for each time slot. All of the games looked good, so I had to pick carefully.

I drove up to Redhill with an old friend of mine (Steve), and as he didn't have much experience with Savage Worlds (or know most of the settings), he decided to sign up to the same games as me. Unfortunately I came down with a rotten cold just before the con, and lost my voice, but I gave it my best shot! Here's a quick breakdown of the games I attended.

Saturday

Game 1: Deadlands - The Taxidermists Tale

Owen Lean is a Savage Worlds freelancer who has worked on a number of different projects. While I never really got into Deadlands, I've heard a lot of good things about this particular One Sheet (which he wrote for Pinnacle), so I jumped at the opportunity to join his game.

We had an absolute blast! Owen provided a selection of pregenerated characters with strong ties to each other and the adventure (he really should release these for other people, they're a perfect fit for The Taxidermists Tale!), and the players worked well together as a team.

While Owen has a natural knack for GMing and improvisation, and obviously knew the adventure inside out, I think we still managed to give him one or two surprises! But he just rolled with it, and kept the Bennies flowing, even when I shot the Big Bad for 6 wounds!

Game 2: Punted in the Bonce

Think "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" meets "Only Fools and Horses". This adventure was written by Alexis Hunt, but it was run by Nikk Lambley (both are hosts on the TTT Podcast), and he did an amazing job.

Steve said this was his favorite game at the con, because he understood the setting, and knew what sort of things he could do. I think this was probably my favorite as well, by a narrow margin—although all of the GMs were top-notch, and I'd be very hard pressed to choose a favorite, the party dynamic we had in this particular game was a perfect fit for the scenario.

There were five players, with nobody dominating the group or taking a backseat role, and we were able to reach a reasonably quick consensus on how to execute our heist (and because it was a sandbox game, it really was entirely our own plan). Nikk is really good at doing different NPC voices, and he reacted to our plans without trying to lead us in any particular direction. I think his GMing style would be a perfect fit for a more freeform game like Blades in the Dark.

Game 3: Aliens vs Rednecks

Another humorous game, this one co-written by Alexis Hunt and Eric Lamoureux, and run by James Clarke (who is also a host on the TTT Podcast). The PCs are aliens attempting to kidnap a pageant winner from a small redneck town, as they need her DNA to save their planet.

James did a fantastic job of GMing—his NPC voices and impressions were hilarious, and the adventure had all sorts of twists and turns, with some very memorable scenes (such as riding on a lawn mower with a zombie, and licking a corpse during a funeral). James also created some really cool thematic props, and added a truly disgusting conclusion to the adventure.

I really enjoyed the game, but with just two players (Steve and I) it didn't have quite the same group dynamic as the earlier games. With one or two more players, it would have been perfect.

Sunday

Game 1: Saga of the Goblin Horde

On Sunday morning I ran Saga of the Goblin Horde for Alexis, Nikk, James, Pete and Steve. In retrospect I should have insisted that the louder players sit at the back of the table, so I apologise to Pete for not always responding, but I hope everyone had fun.

Most of my One Sheets take me around 2-3 hours to run, depending on the size of the group, and this time I had a 4 hour time slot. So I decided to prepare three adventures, and just squash them down as needed on the day, depending on how much time I had left. The adventures were connected to each other, and I will release them as a three-part mini PPC when I get the chance to write them up properly.

The first adventure drew inspiration from heist movies such as The Italian Job and The Bank Job, except it involved stealing a Hand of Glory rather than money, so I called it "The Hand Job". The second adventure was called "Hole of Glory", and involved using the Hand of Glory to gain entrance to an underground lair. The third adventure, "Mourning Wood", was a treasure hunt in a haunted forest.

Game 2: Lankhmar - Bob the Slob and Clobber Job

Although I backed the Lankhmar Kickstarter, I never read the original novels, so to me it's just another fantasy setting. I mainly signed up because I wanted to be in one of Alexis's games—and he certainly didn't disappoint!

The adventure involved tracking down and capturing a man named Bob the Slob, who had apparently ripped off the thieves guild. In theory a simple job, but of course it ended up being far from simple to execute, and as you can probably imagine (with Alexis as the GM) we got up to all sorts of shenanigans—from the rake who seduced seven women at the same time, to the toilet grappling scene, to the brutal rooftop chase, all supported by Alexis's funny NPC voices.

At the conclusion of the adventure we turned the tables on our employer, and managed to trick the thieves guild out of a huge sum of money. But of course Alexis couldn't leave it at that, so he told us that several months later we were assassinated in our sleep, after the guild discovered what we'd done :P

Summary

Steve and I had an awesome time, and really appreciated all the effort that went into the organization and planning of the event. I've been running and playing Savage Worlds since 2010, but this was the first time I've had the chance to play (as opposed to GM) a face-to-face game in English.

Saga of the Goblin Horde: ENnies voting has started!

I've published a lot of content for Saga of the Goblin Horde, but I couldn't have done it without the support and encouragement of the community. I hope I can count on your support once more in the 2018 ENNie Awards, as Saga of the Goblin Horde has been nominated for "Best Free Game", and there is some stiff competition!

Please don't forget the other Savage Worlds products that are up for nomination, either: The Seven Worlds Campaign Book (Best Adventure), Up to Four Players (Best Website), and Holy Crap: The Great Sects Change Operation (Best Supplement and Best Writing).

You can vote here: ENnies 2018 Election

To celebrate the nomination, I've also decided to release some bonus material for the setting, starting with the Goblin Princess archetype, which you can download here.

Enjoy, and thank you for your support!

Saga of the Goblin Horde: Nominated for an ENnie Award!

At the beginning of May, I saw a message about the final submission date for the 2018 ENnies, and in a spur-of-the-moment decision, I submitted Blood & Bile and Saga of the Goblin Horde. I nearly didn't bother, as I'm still very new to self-publishing, and there's a lot of fierce competition from other high-quality products -- but I figured I had nothing to lose, so I went for it.

This year there were 514 submissions from 251 publishers and creators, more submissions than any previous ENnie. So it came as a big surprise (and a great honour) to discover that Saga of the Goblin Horde has been nominated for "Best Free Game", alongside four other excellent products: Esper Genesis, High Plains Samurai: Legends, Modos 2 and Forthright!

The voting opens on 11th July and ends on 21st July, and the winners will be announced at GenCon on 3rd August.

Commission artwork: Describing what you want

Jiaxingseng recently wrote a blog post about his art development process, and included the description he gave to the artist. It's an interesting read, and somewhat different to the way I handled my goblin princess commission from Rick Hershey, so I thought I'd post my own description for comparison purposes:

The basic concept is a fairly classic swirling-dress Cinderella: http://www.thefeministwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Cinderella.jpg

However she's a goblin instead of a human, and her slippers have pointed steel toecaps (this is important because one of the adventures is a spin on the classic Cinderella story; instead of leaving her slipper at the ball, she leaves it embedded in someone's head during a brawl).

She should have a golden ball in one hand, like that in the classic "Frog Prince" story: http://theblogofteresa.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/the-frog-prince-story-1.jpg

In her other hand, she should have some sort of oversized vicious-looking blade. My initial thought was something that looks similar to the "chopper" from your Assorted Items Vol 1 art pack, which would be resting across her shoulder a bit like this: http://wallpapers.boolsite.net/srv11/Images/Wallpapers/JeuxVideos/SoulCalibur/SC_ Siegfried_02.jpg

Her skin color should be roughly a similar sort of green to the goblins on my archetypes cover.

Eye color should be yellowish (yellow-green or yellow-orange is also fine, but not red, as I'm intentionally trying to distance my setting from the Pathfinder goblins, who are usually illustrated with red eyes).

My preferred dimensions would be roughly 5.5 to 6 inches high, and 4.5 to 5 inches wide. That's ideal for a full sized internal illustration, while a slightly reduced version will still be wide enough to look good on the cover.

Other accessories and embellishments would be at your discretion, the important thing is that she should look like a extremely dangerous goblin version of a fairy tale princess*, and have the steel toecaps and golden ball for the adventure tie-ins. I could envision her having a light blue dress splattered with blood, perhaps with a spiked collar and bracers, but I'll leave that up to you to decide, depending on what you think looks best.

* She isn't really a princess in the traditional sense though, she's a chieftain's daughter, so please don't add a crown.

Rick then provided me with a rough sketch to make sure he'd covered the basics:

I replied with some further detail:

The sketch looks great, the only thing I would ask is that the sword be made longer (perhaps increase the blade length by 50%). The pitch for the first adventure is as follows:

The Princess and the Peabrain: What happens when a foolish ogre kidnaps a goblin princess from her tower, only to discover that she'd been locked in to protect others, rather than for her own safety?

I envision it as a sword she took from the ogre, so it would be far bigger than a typical goblin weapon - probably a similar length to a human sword, but much wider (just like in your sketch). The princess is monstrously (supernaturally) strong for a goblin, but still a fairly normal goblin height and build, so the sword would look particularly big in her hands.

The goblin scout in your goblin mega-pack has a distinctly female face and posture, despite being very obviously a goblin. If possible I'd like to capture a similar sort of quality, so she appears almost dainty, further emphasizing the massive sword.

And then just two days later, Rick sent me the finished illustration:

Chronicles of the Goblin Princess is still planned, but it was unavoidably delayed (I had to postpone it until I've published my Swift d12 system). I've already used the artwork in my Countdown Deck though!

Jumping the Bearsharktopus: One Sheet

A Redfang scout recently discovered a huge mound of bear excrement deep within Shadowglade Forest. For reasons that are probably best not discussed, the scout decided to thoroughly examine the dung, and found it contained the bones of several sea goblins, as well as a fishing net and even a small anchor! Has the legendary Bearsharktopus finally woken up again, after decades of hibernation? And more importantly, what does the great beast taste like? Chief Bignose wants to know!

Last week I released the Saga of the Goblin Horde Countdown Deck, and I thought it might be nice to write up some examples of how to use the saga symbols on the cards. But I always find it difficult to write hypothetical "actual play" scenarios, so I decided to turn them into a proper One Sheet adventure instead.

Get it here: Jumping the Bearsharktopus

If you want to follow the progress of Saga of the Goblin Horde, please don’t forget to sign up to the official Facebook group!

Saga of the Goblin Horde: Countdown Deck

The Saga of the Goblin Horde Countdown Deck has been released! It is available on DriveThruRPG as both a free Virtual Tabletop asset and a printed deck.

As well as being a thematic Action Deck, the cards offer three additional features:

1. There are four jokers, and each has a suit. This makes the game even more crazy, and also makes it quicker and easier to resolve situations where multiple people draw a joker (you can use the suit instead of having to make an opposed Agility roll to determine who goes first). It's also handy for situational rules like Interludes, which reference card suits but don't actually define what a joker does, or the Kickball rules in SotGH, which were designed with the Mutation Deck in mind, and therefore take into account the possibility of jokers with suits.

2. Each card has a prominent "countdown number" at the top. You can use these to determine turn order as normal, from highest to lowest, without having to reference both a rank and a suit. The idea for this was based on observing how many people get confused over which suits act first when the ranks are a tie (even many experienced players will sometimes pause for a moment to work out whether hearts or diamonds go first).

3. Each card has a "saga symbol" at the bottom. These symbols are improvisational prompts; an "elephant" symbol could represent any sort of herd creature, or just something big, or it could be interpreted as strength, stamina, wisdom, memory, loyalty, etc. Likewise the "torch" symbol might represent fire, knowledge, destruction, heat, light, exploration, and so on.

The symbols can be used for all sorts of things - they can be used instead of (or in addition to) the suit for Interludes, or as inspiration for downtime activities, or to add additional flavor to the adventure generator (draw one card for each of the five scenes), or for fleshing out complications during a chase or dramatic task, and so on.

Saga Symbols

Here are a few quick examples of "boastful tales" based on drawing three cards, the highlighted words correspond to the saga symbols at the bottom of the cards (note that the specific order doesn't matter, the idea is just to take three symbols and turn them into a story):

One day you were fishing along the shore of Windpoint Island, and lost track of time. A storm was coming in, so you set off along the causeway. But before you could reach Axehead Cove, a massive sea monster rose up from the ocean, and attempted to devour you. Fortunately you managed to cast your fishing line at it, lodge your hook in its lip, and then surf back to shore!

Long ago, you took a fancy to a lovely maiden from the Stonefist tribe, after witnessing the vicious beating she dished out during a friendly game of Kickball. You headed into the Longtooth Mountains to woo her, but her brothers learned of your plan, and you had to fight them all single-handedly!

A mushroom farmer once gave you a swig from his hipflask, and the hallucinations drove you crazy! You sprinted deep into Twilight Wood, fleeing predators that only you could see, and ended up climbing to the very top of the tallest tree in the forest. When you finally regained your wits, it took you several hours to get back down to the ground!

Saga of the Goblin Horde: Configurable Map

Every so often, someone will contact me asking where abouts on the Saga of the Goblin Horde map a particular adventure takes place. Although I did work out approximate routes when writing the adventures, I didn't bother recording the information, so I usually end up sketching a rough route on a map every time someone asks.

Well, I finally decided to mark up the official routes, using PDF layers so the user can enable whichever adventure they're currently running. I also added the place names and territory labels (adjusted slightly so that they no longer overlap), along with the title and compass, hex grix, and territory fog. The result is a high resolution map that can be fully configured simply by toggling different layers.

Download it here: Configurable Map

Here are a few examples of how the map can be configured in Acrobat Reader, by selecting the "layers" tab on the left side of the screen, and choosing which layers you wish to display:

Displaying the route for Bone of Contention.

You can also display multiple routes at once if you wish.

Tribal territory.labels can replace or be combined with place names.

Creating a print-ready PDF

In December I provided step-for-step guidelines for printing Saga of the Goblin Horde through Lulu. In this post, I'll show how to prepare your own print-ready PDFs using Scribus. If you're using InDesign or some other desktop publishing software then you'll have to find the equivalent options, and if you're printing through DriveThruRPG you'll have to do further investigation for handling colors, but this should at least get you started.

Cover

For Lulu and DriveThruRPG (and I presume other print-on-demand services) you have to upload covers as separate image files - either one for the front cover and another for the back cover, or a single image for a wraparound cover. You'll have to prepare these images separately, they will need bleed areas, and there may be a maximum file size (for Lulu it's 10 MB). The specifications (and usually image templates) should be provided by the printing company, and will depend on the size of your book, and the type of cover.

The covers should also be removed from the PDF, otherwise they'll be printed again inside the book. But make sure this doesn't change the page numbers, otherwise it may cause confusion when people discuss your book online, and reference certain pages. The approach I used was to replace the cover with a title page for the print-ready PDF; a title page didn't seem necessary for a normal PDF, but it's common in a printed book, and it meant I didn't need to fiddle around with page numbers.

Transparency and Resolution

It seems that print-on-demand cannot print transparent images. If you really need a transparent image (such as the watermarks I use in Saga of the Goblin Horde) you'll need to create a custom background image for it. But the final PDF will need to be flattened, and I found the quickest and easiest way to do this was to set the Compatibility to PDF 1.3 (which doesn't support transparency).

You should also make sure the resolution is correct. For screen use I always set the DPI to 150 (it keeps the file size down without visibility reducing the quality on the screen), but a print-ready PDF it should be set to 300 DPI instead.

Bleed

When a PDF is printed, the pages are not trimmed with 100% accuracy, so it's important to add a bleed area - that means any background and illustrations that normally touch the edge of the page should extend beyond it for a short distance. Lulu requires a bleed area of 0.125" on each side, but other printing companies may be different.

To set up the bleed area in Scribus, press "File" then "Document Setup", and on the "Document" tab you can set your bleeds (note that these are larger than 0.125" in the screenshot below, I'll explain why later):

When you press the "Save as PDF" button, on the "Pre-Press" tab you must also make sure the "Use Document Bleeds" checkbox is checked.

Colors

Print-on-demand uses CMYK, and you'll also need to factor in things like ink coverage, solid blacks, overprint, etc. However this isn't something I've worked with yet, because Lulu prefer you to upload RGB files, so they can convert it themselves. This obviously makes the process much easier if you're using Lulu!

However if you want to generate a CMYK (or grayscale) PDF, you'll need to use the "Color" tab when you "Save as PDF". Make sure you also check the "Convert Spot Colors to Process Colors" checkbox as well, as you won't be using spot colors for print-on-demand.

Margins/Gutter

Saga of the Goblin Horde is US Letter size (8.5x11"), but for printing on Lulu I needed 0.125" bleed on each side, meaning the PDF had to be 8.75x11.25". However when I printed the book I found the text was a little too close to the gutter (the part of the page that connects to the spine), so I increased the page size to 9x11.57" (retaining the same proportions) and then reduced the PDF back down to 8.75x11.25" using a tool called jPDF Tweak. This shrank everything on the page, giving the final print-ready PDF slightly wider margins on all sides.

Note how the page on the right has slightly larger margins.

Open jPDF Tweak. On the "Input" tab, press "Select", choose the PDF you wish to work on (it may take a while to load). You can then press the "Page Size" tab, check the "Scale Pages" checkbox, and set the desired page size (you'll have to convert from inches to points). Then go to "Output" and press "Run".

Once you've generated your new PDF, make sure you open it and scroll through it (on one occasion it corrupted my file, and there was an error when I tried to view the last page). You should also right click on the open file and select "Document Properties", to make sure the dimensions are correct.

The final PDF should now be ready for printing, but make sure you print a sample copy for yourself (so you can check the physical product) before releasing it into the wild. Good luck!

Saga of the Goblin Horde: Quick Start version 15

Several friends have started converting their Savage Worlds settings across to Swift d12, so I've recently been splitting my time between the Saga of the Goblin Horde Quick Start rules, and a generic version of the core rules.

I've also been working on a small side project called "Blood & Bile", which I'm hoping to release later this month. However I wanted to release a small update to the Quick Start first, as there are a couple of playtests planned for this week.

Get it here: SotGH Quick Start

The changes are to the "Stunts" and "Conditions" sections on page 16. The original full-sized Swift d12 PDF included mechanics for disarming, grappling, intimidating and taunting, but they were left behind when I streamlined the rules. Now that I've decided to stick with the lighter version of the system, I've decided it's about time to bring those other mechanics over - so I've merged them into the stunt rules.

Saga of the Goblin Horde: Plans for 2018

Last year I successfully published the Savage Worlds version of Saga of the Goblin Horde, and even created some print-ready PDFs for those who wanted a physical book. However I still have many more plans for the setting, and some new goals for 2018, so I thought I'd give a rundown of what I'd like to achieve.

Savage Worlds

New One Sheets

I've already written 11 One Sheets for Saga of the Goblin Horde, but I'd like to publish some more, at least one every couple of months. Here are some of the adventures I'm thinking of releasing this year:

Day of the Fungids: When I was younger I watched a TV show called "The Day of the Triffids". Based on an earlier novel, it was a bit like a zombie apocalypse, except with mobile carnivorous plants called "Triffids". In fact the main reason I added fungids to Saga of the Goblin Horde (and why I called them fungids) is that I wanted to create a parody adventure inspired by the Day of the Triffids!

Gift Horse: Inspired by a piece of stock art (a mutant horse). A mysterious admirer gives Chief Bignose a gift, a strange horse-like mount named "Trojan". And of course the chieftain accepts the gift without question, because that's the sort of thing Chief Bignose does.

Hail to the Beast King: In the setting book, I mention that "Former members of the Treebiter tribe also speak of a beastfolk king, who apparently lives deep in the Great Forest, where he rules over all manner of exotic breeds." That's not a throwaway comment, it was foreshadowing for an adventure I planned to write.

Honey Plot: Inspired by a piece of stock art (a man with a beehive humpback). Bugbears love honey almost as much as regular bears do, and a crazy druid beekeeper has decided to use his unnatural talents to set traps for them. This adventure will give me the opportunity to expand the lore on bugbears, as they don't get much coverage in the main book.

Island Vacation: The gazetteer in the setting book mentions that a "mysterious little island has also been spotted several times in different locations near the coast, appearing then disappearing from one day to the next." This refers to an adventure I'd originally planned to include in the main setting book, but which I will instead release as a One Sheet.

Action Deck

A few weeks ago, +David Garrett asked if there was a deck of cards available for Saga of the Goblin Horde. I'd originally planned to create a Campaign Deck, but later scrapped the idea. However I did quite fancy having a custom deck, and there was apparently some demand, so I started brainstorming - I wanted the cards to offer something special (beyond simply being a deck of playing cards), but unlike my work on the Mutation Deck, I couldn't explicitly reference Savage Worlds, so I had to get creative.

I've now come up with a design, and hope to finish and publish the deck in the near future. Technically it won't be a Savage Worlds product, but I imagine that's what most people will use it for.

Swift d12

Although I will continue to support the Savage Worlds version of Saga of the Goblin Horde with the release of new One Sheets, most of my efforts moving forward will be focused on my new system, Swift d12.

Quick Start

The Quick Start rules are now up to version 14, but I'm still playtesting and tweaking them. I have notes and feedback that I still need to incorporate, such as revised stunt rules, the magic system, and so on, and I still need to add some better examples of playing the game. But overall, the core mechanics are fairly complete.

Full Setting

Once I'm happy with the Quick Start, I'll start converting the full setting over from the Savage Worlds version. I'm hoping this won't take too long, but it will still involve quite a lot of work. Probably a few months.

Adventures

Although I will obviously convert the One Sheets, I also have plans for a few larger adventures, including Chronicles of the Goblin Princess, and Tales of the Technolich. These will only be available for Swift d12 (as I hope to sell them), but I'll offer conversion guides for anyone wishing to run them with Savage Worlds.

Generic Rules

After I've published Saga of the Goblin Horde, I plan to release a generic Swift d12 roleplaying system, with an open license for other publishers. This will also incorporate the expanded rules I've been working on, such as vehicles, firearms, etc, but hopefully the full rulebook should only be about a dozen pages (it's designed to be a pretty streamlined system). I hope to release this by the end of the year, and it will provide the foundation for my projects in 2019.

Gaming Conventions

I've never been to a gaming convention before, but I hope to attend one or two this year!

Genghiscon 41

Christopher Landauer asked me if I'd be interested in attending Genghiscon 41, and I was certainly tempted, but it would be a very long trip, and I had a lot of other things going on at the same time (such as moving home). Fortunately David Garrett has stepped up to represent Saga of the Goblin Horde, and he will be running two games this year!

Modena Play

Gio Dal Farra has invited me to Modena Play in April, and it's not too far to travel, so I'm planning to visit! This will be my first ever gaming convention, and I don't speak Italian, so I hope they go easy on me ;)

ShaCon

Some friends of mine attended ShaCon last year, and they had a blast. I couldn't make it due to other commitments, but I'm hoping they'll run another one this year (I just hope it doesn't clash with my friend's 40th Birthday party, because I already promised him I'd join him at a zombie shopping mall!).