Fantasy – On the Tabletop

Urmalk the Boundless

February 20, 2026February 21, 2026Aron ClarkLeave a comment

Prisma Gothic filter of the Echoes From Fomalhaut No. 12 players map

Open Tables

Packing for DunDraCon 49 last weekend I grabbed a few copies of Holmes & Clark in the off chance of organizing a pickup game. Leafing through a few adventures eventually settled on Urmalk the Boundless as I had run it a few months earlier at North Texas RPG con.

This is a fine little adventure for levels 3 to 5 offering an outdoor sandbox location and an underground dungeon. The outdoor area has some very interesting keyed locations though much of the exploration here is done though a series of random table roles.

I had such a fantastic time running this adventure at DunDraCon I was committed to doing so again as soon as possible.

Random Tables

The exploration in Urmalk the Boundless is driven by random tables, a series of d10 rolls with some conditional modifiers applied to these rolls. A little fiddly at the table and a prepared list would likely help streamline the play experience. In support of that effort I prepared a Google Sheet to generate these results quickly and consistently, available here.

Real Tables

Some thoughts on running Urmalk the Boundless:

Provide the PC with the highest Wis some rumors
PCs approach the Necropolis from a random (1d4) direction
The Necropolis is 1d6 hours form the nearby town
Provide the players a token to show there position on the map
Mark off explored locations with more tokens on the map
Mark the DM map with location of keyed monsters so that it can be understood if they will be draw by a nearby commotion
At North Texas RPG Con ‘25 we had as few as 2 players all the way up to 12 at one point, this was an epic session easily over 10 hour, Jeff Dee joined us in the final hours and that was a real highlight
At DunDraCon 49 my badge read “Can’t we just play D&D?” A buddy gathered a group and we explored the Necropolis for about 3h
Have at least 6 pre-generated characters so players can jump in quickly

da’Worm & Co.

September 8, 2024March 16, 2025Aron Clark5 Comments

What’s all this, then?

I’m very pleased to announce a new line of miniatures, which I’m affectionately referring to as da’Worm & Co. I’ve always wanted Wormy miniatures and none were ever produced, so I’ve made my own.

Set 01 is priced at $40 each + at cost shipping ($9 for domestic US) and includes:

Wormy himself with cigar and pool cue options
Ace, cyclops
Hambone, cyclops hound
Irving da‘Imp

Contact me by September 28th to place your order, after which time no additional orders will be accepted. That means Set 01 is available in very limited quantities.

Please note: this is strictly a fan based – at cost effort, and offered for direct sales only. Funds raised will recover sculpting and casting costs, any remaining funds will be used to produce additional masters for this line, which again will be sold at cost. Shadow cat anyone?

These miniatures are hand sculpted, cast in metal, and are designed to scale with classic 25mm and modern 28mm miniatures. Photos should provide a good sense of scale.

To keep our supporters up to date we now have a newsletter distributed via e-mail and archived here.

Newsletter 01.pdf Download

Newsletter 02.pdf Download

Newsletter 03.pdf Download

Newsletter 04.pdf Download

Five-O

January 27, 2024July 10, 2025Aron Clark3 Comments

Fifty – I’m Fifty

Today I’m celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons. I’m 53 myself this year and my experience with the game goes back over forty years. It’s strange to consider how this one game of imagination has impacted me on the whole, and I’ve written some about that here:

A Gift

My fascination with The Lichway adventure continues and today I’m happy to release a new copy edit of the adventure. Tomorrow I’ll run this adventure for a friend’s birthday celbration.

You can download this copy edit here.

Print Copies

The last of the print copies were distributed at North Texas RPG Con ‘25. There is a small chance that there are still a few copies still at Black Blade Publishing. That means there are 99 copies in circulation + my own personal copy. There are no plans for another print run.

Acknowledgement

My own copy edit of The Lichway is not the first, there is a very fine effort from 2023 which you can find here. Please let me know if there are other such efforts so they can be linked here.

Holmes & Clark

May 28, 2023September 30, 2024Aron Clark6 Comments

Original artwork by Justin Russell – link tree

In 2019 I started running Basic D&D using the Holmes Blue Box, I’ve written about that here. During that time my games were heavily house ruled with ideas that addressed how I wanted the game to work at my table. As new players joined in my open table games I committed to convert these house rules to something that more resembled a traditional rulebook.

It was an interesting, if not difficult, project producing a complete rpg rulebook. Even when this project was informed by concepts that are now familiar within our hobby. My guiding principle in this work was to produce an accessible reference to my interpretation of the game; simplifying concepts and to perhaps offer something new.

2020 and the quiet years that followed allowed me to run more games using these rules, all the while shaping and refining the presentation. What exists now is something that matches my original vision and these rules have been tested in well over a hundred sessions with dozens of players.

This work which I’ve termed “Holmes & Clark” is offered here without charge. Print on demand copies are made available at cost. My hope is that others will pick up these rules and attempt a game like D&D that is not overly complicated with expense or minutia, and rather; enjoy a fantasy adventure that can propel the imagination and excite the mind.

Google Drive Folder – includes the following:

Google Doc of the Current Release
PDF w/o gutter offset
PDF w/ gutter offset
PC Control Panel
DM Control Panel

At Cost Lulu Print on Demand:

Softcover – w/ gutter offset – current Lulu price $4.50
Hardcover – no longer available, sadly Lulu cannot produce an acceptable full-bleed color cover.
We now have a Discord server! Please get in touch if you would be interested in joining the conversation there, or find the link in the rule book.

Preview Pages

Update Nov 10

Jason Conerly of the Nerds RPG Variety Podcast has be on as a guest recently to talk about ol’ school games and the Holmes & Clark rules in particular. You check out that episode here.

The You Tuber “Hex Pressed” has done a read through (flip through?) of the Holmes & Clark rulebook. Check that out here.

Update Sep 30

Even AI shares its opinion on Holmes & Clark, find that 10m podcast here.

Advanced Bundle of Adventures

April 9, 2023April 10, 2023Aron Clark4 Comments

Peter Mullen cover for AA16 w/ Prisma Gothic filter.

In January of 2023 Bundle of Holding offered a large collection of Advanced Adventures, these being originally designed for AD&D 1e / OSRIC.

Always on the lookout for the next adventure for whatever campaign I’m currently running this bundle was irresistible, especially when a few comments on Redit mentioned how good some of this work was. SOLD!

However, the collection was delivered as 43 (!) separate pdf files without great detail on PC level range for each. So I set these aside without much attention.

3 months later I was starting to cast around for the next adventure for my bi-weekly Saturday game and went back to this collection, creating an index of sorts to better facilitate my review.

That index is available here. Perhaps others will find it useful as well.

As an aside – if you’ve run or played in any of these adventures I would love to hear your feedback about them. The google sheet above is shared with “commenter”privileges.