Too much to process... What have I done to myself? What was I thinking? I went out and had The Gamer's Warf get me all three of the Tome of Beasts books. I received a little performance bonus from work and this is what I've done with it. Now I'm suffering from an overabundance of monsters. What we're looking at here is 10 lbs. of beastly goodness. These three tomes come in at 1,260 pages of monster hunting possibilities. That's something like 1200 beasts, give or take, I'm not going to actually count them up. I haven't done much beyond flip through these three big books. They're each over 400 pages of beasts. The pages are glossy, the books well made, the art is good, and the monsters are plentiful. I'm not going to go through each entry and critique what I like and what I don't. There's too much. Too many things to look at. I image that these books are going to be a source of content for my games that will slip in slowly and over time as I ...

I saw these dice on Etsy and thought they would be perfect for Walton Glaives, Investigative Wizard Extraordinaire & Abjuration Savant. But they were expensive and I couldn't justify the purchase. Still can't, but I got into a mood and bought them anyway. The fact that they offered a 11-die set was the kicker. They're very wizardry. These are the Sapphire Blue Astrology Dice Set by CrystalMaggie on Etsy. I picked them up on sale, 25% off, but they still cost me $85. Which is more than I paid for the beautiful metal Die Hard Dice I picked up a few years back. I can be a spendthrift, but dice are not a thing that should cost a lot of money. The dice arrived today, so how does the reality of them compare to the website? The first three pictures are from the website and make the dice look stunning. The pictures above are just me snapping a couple quick shots with my phone, they look less stunning, but still nice. I added the grey d20 in there to show that these dice are sli...

We use the Cyberpunk themed version of these Loke books in our game and they work really nicely. So I was inspired to buy myself some and of course I went overboard and bought three two-book sets. These aren't quite as large as the Cyberpunk maps, the giant books are 12x16 inches and these are 12x12 inches, but that still makes for a good size map. 12x24 if you use the two page spread or 24x24 if you combine two books as Loke intends them to be used. The quality is good. The art is fair. The usefulness... well, time will tell. I'm excited to use them and can envision a whole bunch of possibilities. Besides, each one of them comes with a blank grid map to increase their versatility.  I picked up three of the 2 book sets; The Dungeon, Castles, Crypts & Caverns, and Towns & Taverns. Like I just mentioned, each is a 2 book set of paired map sets. Meaning they can combined or used alone, depending on your needs and wants. You get 40 maps in each book, one per page or half th...

I have used a Chessex vinyl battle mat for years and outside of ruining a few of them with the wrong markers, have had no complaints. But as I've played more and more in public spaces the one thing I've noticed repeatedly is that identical tables do not line up identically when you push them together. And the more tables you bring together, the greater an issue this creates. This is not ideal for a supple and luxurious rolling battle mat. They much prefer a uniform level surface. This is true of the cheaper rolling mats and the large folded poster sheets as well. Even the folding stiff mats get wonky when the table heights don't match up. So, I started looking for options. These Andvari Battle Boards by GSM seem like they'll span the ridge without too much flex and solve at least part of the problem. I picked up the 9 board Mega Pack to give them a try. I don't know that I've found the ideal solution, but these ridged battle boards will work well with the foambo...

I'm still working through season 2, so no spoilers. Please. Today, I picked up copy of the roleplaying game based on the podcast, Old Gods of Appalachia. This a horror podcast written by Cam Collins and Steve Shell that debuted on October 31, 2019. The show is produced by DeepNerd Media and is distributed by Rusty Quill. If you care about that kind of stuff, I'm not sure I do. Anyway, the podcast was adapted into a role-playing game by Monte Cook Games. I really like the podcast, the ideas behind the stories, and Monte Cook Games tend to make pretty good stuff, so I have high hopes. I've been looking at this particular copy of the game for several months. Today, it decided to come home with me. Each episode of the podcast uses a combination of narration and audio drama to tell historical fiction stories based on Appalachian folklore. The stories are original fiction that draws on a mix of history and folk tales for inspiration and address strange things from witchcraft to t...

 Amazon delivered a couple packages of dice to my door today. Not sure why I'm buying as many dice as I am lately, but I really like the 11 dice sets as opposed to the usual 7 dice sets and both of these orders were for a pair of 11 piece sets.  First off, I'll show you the set I was eagerly anticipating. One set of black and white dice and one set of red and black from Sumind Store. These came with small felt bags for each and I think they are really good looking dice. I was less excited by this second set, but I was looking for 11 piece sets and this double set fit the bill. The red/black dice look a lot like the above dice, but they have tiny gold flecks in them. These are CiaraQ dice, and I've bought and enjoyed them before. These also came with a pair of black drawstring bags. I can say that I like them more than I expected too, that dark green is particularly nice. Now, I need to decide which characters to assign them too...

 I blame the wife for this purchase and any other purchases that result from her showing me how much "D&D stuff" is on Temu . Mostly it's dice, but there are a few other things of interest. I needed some dice for Brett's Cyberpunk RED game so I ordered two sets of these, which leaves me extra, but they've got the right color scheme to feel apropos. These are Two sets because I wanted 5d6 and 2d10 with the single digits and even with it being an 11 piece dice set, I still won't get what I want from one. The brand name of these is LHSQIOQIO, but I don't know if that's the store name or the manufacturer. Just because the price was dirt cheap, I bought this 5 set of dice. They're just the usual 7 piece dice sets, but I paid less for them than I did for the single set I bought at the hobby store last time. I like the look of these, the color mix is nice, they're very legible, and they all look good with the gold lettering. The website says Allri...

All the social media hype about the Dungeons & Dragons product hitting the discount outlets was mostly not something I was interested in. The stuff they were offering was either product I didn't want or had never heard of, but I was next door to Ollie's today and figured I'd just take a little look see at was on offer. They had some D&D stuff like action figures, the campaign packs, and a board game. Nothing I wasn't expecting. No surprises. I couldn't bring myself to buy the Dragonlance Warriors of Krynn game for $9.99, but at $2.99 each buying both of the Campaign Cases seemed like a fair trade. I'll show you a picture of the contents, but I'm not going to waste much digital ink describing them or their content. You can see what comes in the boxes in the pictures above. The boxes are cool looking and hold all the stuff that comes in them. Handy. You get a bunch of bases/tokens in the creature box and some dry/wet erase boards in the terrain box, bu...

There is no reason for me to buy this thing. I have a perfectly functional dice tray that I don't use. I have a folding dice tray that I carry in my DM kit. I don't need this thing, it's too long, and too expensive. Having said that, please take my money. I present to you the Tray of Rolling, officially licensed Dungeons & Dragons dice tray by Ultra PRO. It'll cost you $20, for a good looking box with no lid. It doesn't even come with a cheap set of dice. This enormous thing has a premium leatherette lining debossed with the D&D ampersand logo on the inside and a red foil logo on black exterior sitting on non-slip pads. It's a whopping 13.5 inches long by 6.5 inches wide with a 1-inch wall height, you're going to be taking ups some serious table space with this accessory, but it will save the table from all those sharp edged metal dice you're throwing around. It is a good looking dice tray, but damn, Ultra PRO has my number. Is it really the perf...

I do not know anything about tarot cards or tarot reading. I don't have any other tarot decks or plan to use these for readings. I bought them because they're D&D branded, because they looked nice, and possibly as a game aid. Having written all that, let me give you my thoughts on this deck. Starting with the box, the outside is nice looking and seems sturdy enough to last for years. The inside is fitted to the booklet and has a pocket for the deck with a nice ribbon to help extract the cards. The packaging is quite nice. The cards themselves are a little on the thin side, but not bad. I'd have liked them to be a little heavier stock, but they do have a good 'feel' to them. I really like the art on the back of the cards and the art on the face is very nice. They’re giving us a 78 card deck and each card is fully illustrated. The style is different from typical D&D art, but is very nice and feels right. Because this is a D&D product, each card...

Cool, playing card holder. I'd never seen a thing like this before. I know, I live in a cave with my head buried in the sand, what can I say. Whatever, my mother had one of these she was using as we played cards during our Florida vacation. I thought it was brilliant and it keeps your hands free for grabbing drinks and pretzels and whatever snacks you got. I was so impressed that I ordered a set of them as soon as I got home. Set of 4 Playing Card Holders by Yuanhe : Hands Free Cards Holders for Poker Parties or Family Card Game Nights. I'm sure there are dozens of companies making similar things, but these are the ones I bought. I think they're pretty sweet and a useful game accessory that I wanted to share with you. They come in a set of four, each a different color (red, green, black, and red). My mother has her name on her's. I put my logo sticker on mine.

I love this idea, question cards (150 of them) to spark discussion and create connections between the characters in your campaign. The idea is simple, your party of adventurers make camp or roll into the tavern, everybody draws two cards and the character development begins. But will it work? Seems like it should, but players have a way of taking the wind out of my sails when it comes to clever ways to improve the game. The cards are divided up into six categories: Past, Present, Companions, Dreams, World, and Hypotheticals. These are subjects for discussion and discovery. Use two, use three, use them all, you decide. Everyone draws two cards, one for their character to answer and one to ask another players character. Roll around the table until everyone has had a chance to ask and answer their questions. Everyone gets to know the characters better, maybe bonds are made or strengthened. And there you go, one boring night around the campfire turns into a fabulous session of roleplaying ...

I have a tip for you. I saw this on Facebook, in a YouTube video, or somewhere. It's not my thing. Credit goes to someone else. When using a regular palette to paint my miniatures, I often put too much paint out. But using these fidget popper things works just as well, gives you a smaller pot, and makes clean up a breeze. You let the paint dry, pop the pot, and your dry paint comes right out. Easy peasy. I have three of them, which is probably two more than I need, but excess is kind of my thing. Also, if you take this tip find a fidget popper made of silicone to guarantee the paint wont bond to the plastic. My football shaped one is just plastic and it doesn't work near as well as the round silicone ones. Oh, and try and find white, the colored ones sometimes make the paint color look off and I forget which is which.