Wieliczka Salt Mine, Galicia; ARTIST Name: Rocault, Jules; BOOK Title: Les merveilles de l’industrie, vol. 1; Author(s): Figuier, Louis; Publisher: Paris: Furne, Jouvet et Cie, 1873
I’ve been running a bi-weekly game for a group of regular players for the past 5 years. This year we’ve been engaged in a historians’ exercise of AD&D 1e “rules as written”. Anthony Huso has been our librarian who has introduced us to this Herculean effort, though our own study of the text has been rewarding as well. In fact, i have been publishing my own AD&D 1e learnings here on this blog when I have something worthwhile to share.
We are playing Huso’s epic “Castle of the Silver Prince”. This campaign begins at level 0 and includes all the nuisanced AD&D stuff: training, weapon speed, combat segments, percent based reaction rolls and more.
The campaign does refer to an abandoned ruby mine as an adventure location, but is unkeyed. As our play moved closer and closer to the ruby mine I experimented with actually keying an AD&D 1e dungeon.
You can find that key along with some notes on how I approached the work here.
You can find a summary of our campaign events here, recorded an managed by Archivist AI.
Trinity College Library, Dublin, Ireland britannica.com w/ Prisma Gothic filter
In March ‘26 I read Matt Schumer’s “Something Big Is Happening”, which encouraged me to explore AI more than scratching I had been doing at the corners. Copilot, Notebook LM, Gemini Gems are all things that I had experimented with; most as search without ads, research primers, and custom agents to help shape complex messages.
Schumer fired my imagination in his descriptions of software development through natural language and the concept of machines building machines. Here was an opportunity (for $20 a month) to try my hand at building software applications that I dreamed of as a washed up CS undergrad who happily cut over to history. Like many of my technology adventures I apply them to my hobbies first to help me learn their practical and professional applications.
I started big, I mean really big. Why not build a tool that could be used to play Holmes & Clark solo. I wrestled with context preservation, establishing design principals, project instructions, false declarations, and genuine hallucinations. It was great!
I scaled back in some areas, established a framework that is improving results, and in support of my regular AD&D 1 Eeeeeee game tinkered with some Claude.ai skills to serve my immediate needs and produced:
DMG Appendix A – Random Dungeon Generator – in progress
DMG Appendix C – Random Dungeon Stocking – done
DMG Appendix C – Random Party Generator – done
DMG pg xx – Random Gems & Jewelry – done
Custom Magic-User Spellbook Generator – supporting PHB, UA, and Wizards Spell Compendium via data sourced from What’s In Your Spellbook (thank you Delta) – done
The spellbook generator is based on principals I’m using to define higher level characters, where spell and magic item selection are significant blocking points in my preparing for play quickly.
Here’s a sample library of spellbooks & user guide, both prepared in just a few minutes by the Claude.ai skill that could produce trillions more in whatever combination might be of interest.
Please let me know if there is any interest in reading more about how I’ve been experimenting with AI or if the above skills might be useful to you too.
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
The Google Sheet in actionExample table produced w/ afore mentioned Google SheetThe player map in actionNorth Texas – Aron Clark, Tim, Glenn, and Jeff Dee DunDraCon – Aron Clark, Jerry, Dave, Mike, Dan, Peter (who I’ve been gaming w/ for 40+ years)The plays the thing…
yep, this is a thing. . .Painted sample by R. Wheeler
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.
Set 01 AssembledCompared w/ 25mm Grenadier Compared w/ 32mm WardukeContents of Set 01 Painted by M. WhiteIrving w/ kit bashed nose and teeth, by M. White
Newsletter
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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:
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.
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.
Ever wonder what treasures are hidden away in the hoard of the Halfling Master? Dig into this blog for news, ideas, reviews, and other in depth information about anything surrounding the OSR, TTRPGs, and Miniatures hobbies. No piece of loot is too small or insignificant to be explored.
On the Tabletop 