James Maliszewski posts
Posts: 129
Files: 80
Preview: More from the Gazetteer
In my earlier preview, I shared with you a PDF of the article I recently submitted for publication in a future issue of Fight On! It's an overview of a much larger and more detailed treatment of the Eshkom District, one of the twenty such districts that makes up the Empire of Inba Iro. I intend Eshkom to be a ready...
Preview: The Eshkom District
At the start of last month, I posted a black and white map of the Eshkom District, one of the twenty such districts that make up the Empire of Inba Iro. I also mentioned that I was in the process of writing a gazetteer of the district to be published in the next issue of Fight On! Having recently finished the gazetteer...
The Vaults Beckon
Here's a beautiful new image by Zhu Bajiee, depicting a quartet of adventurers exploring the Vaults of ba-Hanvala in the Eshkom District.
The Eshkom District Map
This is a complete map of the Eshkom Districtof the Empire of Inba Iro, a region bordering on the Ga'andrinrealm of Tlar. The map presented here is the black and white version of the full-color map I've teased on Grognardia. I'm in the process of writing a gazetteer of the district, a cut-down version of wh...
Operation Resolute
This is an alternate presentation of the information found in this blog post, one that's a little more consistent with the US Army Operations Order (OPORD) format.OPERATION ORDER (OPORD) 00-11: OPERATION RESOLUTECLASSIFICATION: FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLYHEADQUARTERS, UNITED STATES ARMYJOINT CHIEFS OF STAFFDATE: 28 SEP 0...
Down with the Sickness
It looks like, despite my best efforts, that I may have fallen prey to the dreaded con crud. Mostly, I've just got a stuffy head and runny nose, but it's still not fun. I've been drinking lots of liquids and generally taking it easy, so my productivity isn't as great as I'd have wanted. Fortunately,...
Gamehole Con: TSR History
One of several panel discussions I attended was devoted to the history of TSR Hobbies, moderated by Mike Mearls. The panelists were, from left to right: Mike Mearls, Jeff Grubb, Ed Greenwood, Steve Winter, and David "Zeb" Cook. As you might expect, they had a lot of great stories to tell of their time and at th...
Return
I am now safely back from Gamehole Con. I had a blast, seeing old friends, meeting new ones, and playing games. I plan to do a series of posts on Grognardia about my time there, but I will likely have some additional thoughts and musings I'll share here with you (as well as more about the development of Secrets of ...
A Jalaka Warrior
Among the rules changes in the latest draft Secrets of sha-Arthan is the disentangling of race and class. I'll explain my rationale for doing this in another post late, either here or – more likely – on Grognardia itself. A consequence of this is that I'm more explicit now about the varietyto be found among...
More Artwork
Here are some additional character illustrations from the Secrets of sha-Arthan Player's Manual. I hope to be able to share an updated PDF of the character classes before the end of the month, but I make no promises. Regardless, work continues to proceed, albeit slowly.
Alternatives to "Scion"
I'm in the midst of completing a new draft of the player-oriented material for Secrets of sha-Arthanand I've decided to broaden the concept of the scion class. As I originally imagined it, the scion was a aristocratic dabbler who'd taken up a peripatetic existence, wandering sha-Arthan in search of diversio...
Gamehole Con 2024
Though I've not yet finalized my plans, it's looking increasingly likely that I will be attending Gamehole Con in Madison, Wisconsin in October 2024.If I do go, I'd love to meet up with any patrons who might also be attending. I was already been thinking about doing a public playtest of the latest version o...
Quick Update
I wanted to quickly let everyone know that real world concerns and responsibilities continue to distract me as they have since the middle of the summer. Consequently, I am pausing the Patreon for October. Consequently, no one will be charged for this month.I hope that things will settle down in the next few weeks and I...
Friday Feature: Best Laid Plans
Well …The summer has been moving a lot faster than I'd expected and it didn't prove nearly as free of distraction as I'd hoped. Myriad real life matters, some pleasant, some decidedly not, have made a mockery of my grand plans.That'll teach me.I probably won't catch up completely till early Septem...
Discord Oddities
I'm not yet certain what has happened, but the Discord server seems to have suffered some sort of failure. There are presently no longer any channels of any sort. I'll spend some time looking into the matter to see what might have happened. In the meantime, know that I am aware of the situation and will rectify...
Friday Feature: Revised Sorcery Preview
Work on the revised drafts of Secrets of sha-Arthan continues at a solid pace. While I might not yet quite make my self-imposed deadline of the end of this month to complete the revisions of the player-oriented material, I do feel confident that I'll certainly have the revision of the equipment and vehicles chapter...
Ironian Names
One of the things to which I'm quite committed in Secrets of sha-Arthan is the inclusion of lots of random tables to aid both players and referees in understanding and making the setting their own. I don't want sha-Arthan to suffer the same fate as, say, Tékumel: being seen as an inaccessibly exotic setting th...
Character Generation Draft 3.0
The final revisions to the draft of Chapter 2: Character Generation are now complete. If you are interested in taking a look at them, you can do so via the link provided below. Likewise, if you would like to provide feedback on the material, the same guidelines apply as those posted here.There are several new bits in t...
Friday Feature: Revised Character Generation Preview
I'm nearly done with my revision, expansion, and overall clarification of Chapter 2 of Secrets of sha-Arthan, which focuses on character generation. Used in conjunction with the material presented in Chapter 3, you'll be better able to generate a character for the game, though some important material, like equi...
Feedback on the Character Classes Draft
I would very much like to receive your feedback on the latest draft of the character classes chapter for Secrets of sha-Arthan. In order to make this easier for me, I would like to ask that you send your feedback to me via email to the following address: jdmaliszewski@gmail.com. It would also make things simpler for me...
Character Classes Draft 3.0
As promised, I've completed updated draft of Chapter 3 of Secrets of sha-Arthan, which describes the available character classes.I'll be detailing the way I'd like to receive comments/questions on the draft in a separate post later today. Once that post is made, feel free to share your thoughts with me.In t...
Friday Feature: Revised Character Classes Preview
The revision to the character classes for Secrets of sha-Arthan is nearly done. I'll be spending the weekend going over the text to remove out of date references and terminology, along with making sure that all the information I want to be there actually is there. That said, I am certain there will still be plenty ...
Friday Feature: Playtesting Secrets of sha-Arthan
As I mentioned last week, playtesting of Secrets of sha-Arthan will likely begin this summer, starting next month (I hope). Before doing that, I'll be sharing the latest drafts of the player-oriented material – character generation, basic rules, spells – during this month, with the goal of weeding out all the w...
A Grognardia Shout-Out
The blog gets a mention in the third paragraph of this article at The New Yorker by Ed Park – most unexpected!
The Secrets of sha-Arthan and the OGL
As many of you are no doubt aware, there are credible rumors that Wizards of the Coast is not only introducing a new version of the Open Game License but also "de-authorizing" the previous version (1.0a) under which a great many old school RPGs have been released. If true, this could necessitate a certain degre...
Unmade Martinet
I just received final versions of the Unmade illustrations that I had previously promised I'd share with you. Unsurprisingly, they're most excellent, like all the artwork I've commissioned for The Secrets of sha-Arthan. I'll being present full write-ups of each of the three main types of Unmade in the f...
Happy New Year!
I wanted to take a moment to wish all of my patrons a Happy New Year and to thank all of you for your support over the past year.Here's hoping that 2023 will be a great one for all of us.
Friday Feature: The Vaults of sha-Arthan
The Onha word saya (literally "refuge") first appears in Tithio Vasan's The Wonders of the Past in reference to the legendary Vault of the Makers. He describes the site as "a vast, subterranean sanctuary grown by the Makers from the clay of the True World and extending downward into her very heart."...
Friday Feature: The Unmade
The Unmade (or Omajya in the Onha language) are the unnatural servitors of the Unmakers. Transformed by iniquitous sorcery, the Unmade are frightful demonstrations of where the Unmakers' nihilistic philosophy leads if unchecked. They are also a potent threat to the civilized peoples across sha-Arthan (except the co...
Unmaker Prophet
In last week's Friday Feature, I wrote about the Unmakers and the threat their secretive cults pose to the peoples of sha-Arthan. In future posts, I'll provide additional details, but, for the moment, I wanted to share an image of an Unmaker "prophet," which is to say, a cult leader.This particular prop...
