The first step in recovery is admitting you have a problem… I started buying bestiary supplements to use for inspiration in my games, but how many does one really need? Don’t ask me how many monster manuals, bestiaries or world books I have—I just don’t know. Really. No clue. One thing I do know, though, is that I have to STOP!

The sad thing is it is really not a money thing. Maybe it should be. But gaming is a relatively cheap hobby. I don’t have a motorcycle, or a boat, or blow lots of cash on golf clubs or green fees. I buy little books that help creative folks out and spark creative joy in me.

No, the real reason I have decided to stop buying these things is that I have come to change the way I create monsters, and even think about them. I am moving away from copying monsters from sourcebooks and supplements, or even using monsters as whole species.

I’m getting to the place where I see all monsters as unique things or creatures. Yes, some creatures will exist as whole species, but I’m beginning to think that should be the exception, not the rule. The monster in that dungeon should be “THE monster,” not just another minotaur or basilisk.

With that in mind, I already have more than enough sources for inspiration to create singular monsters, or even ones that are just small groups. Give them some stats and away you go. Make the monster feel like it belongs in your campaign setting or adventure and run with it.

So, I’m sorry, creator of yet another Tome of Monsters.” I have to start breaking my addiction at some point—and I think it will start with you…

Marc #roleplaying #worldbuilding

I saw somewhere online that someone was trying to write up a spell each week. That made me think of the Dungeon 52 Challenge that went around last year—and I wondered if I could do that with spells, too.

Converting Spells or Creating New Ones

I have been gathering spell lists from various games for a few years now, intending to convert them to Blades & Black Magic. Now that I have moved on to Barbarians of Lemuria, I want to convert them to that game.

The question is whether that is something suitable for this challenge, or do I need to do 100% completely new spells?

That’s a fascinating question, and I think the answer is a mix of both. Working out spells for a Swords & Sorcery game or setting narrows down the list of possible magics a bit, and it also focuses you on how those spells are described.

On one hand, most of the classic spells laid out in games like Dungeons & Dragons or The Fantasy Trip are geared towards dungeon crawling—very much tactical in use and feel. Not all, but most. On the other hand, Swords & Swords literature and games are much more geared towards magics that drive story—major plot devices, etc.

So the question about simply converting simple spells from other games is not all that simple. Yes, you can do that with common spells that all sorcerers would need to be worth their salt. But it is the more complex, deeper spells that really are the ones you want to convert or come up with. Those are the ones I want to play with and post here.

Full Disclosure

I have tried this before—and failed. I tried the Dungeon 52 challenge and found it very hard to maintain the focus of doing this every week, week after week. Yeah. With all I have going on in my life, and my own personal weaknesses, I just find it hard to keep that focus for that long.

I’m not going to make any promise that I will make the whole year doing this. Nope. But I am going to promise that I will try, and come up with some cool spells for Barbarians of Lemuria along the way.

I’m going to post a spell a week here on this website, in BoL terms. Most of them will be conversions of spells from other games, but I will post a few new ones, ones that are my own. A great number of spells in various games are all really just the same ones, duplicated for in that game’s terms. I am going to try to add something new to each—and some possible variations that can make them different or more interesting.

We’ll see how this goes. All of these spells are completely free, and free for anyone to use. The only thing I ask is if you use one of my new spells in a published game, you make a note that you got it from me. But really—have fun. As much fun as I will behaving coming up with them!

Marc

#roleplaying #barbariansoflemuria

(Originally published on untold-realms.com on 2/14/2025).

I recently decided to change from using Blades & Black Magic as my fantasy gaming ruleset to Barbarians of Lemuria. My first love in roleplaying was The Fantasy Trip, so I really love that style of game. But… I think it is time to move on.

Why I Am Making The Change

The biggest reason I am making this change is because it is pretty obvious that Blades & Black Magic has become an orphan game. I want a game that is actively supported, with a real community. I have never really found that with Blades. I love the game, but I don’t see us fans getting anything more from the author.

I considered just going back to The Fantasy Trip, and talked it over with a good friend and gaming buddy. Still… I love the magic system in BoL, and would have to house rule it to bolt it on to TFT. I don’t mind house rules, but that is just not something I wanted to do right now.

And then I thought: why not just jump in the deep end and use BoL itself? It really does have the swords & sorcery feel that I wanted to do fantasy gaming with, and the rules can pretty much be used as-is.

Another thing: it is a 2d6 system. I already use the Quantum family from Stellagama Games for my SF gaming, so this was not a real stretch. The more I thought about it, the more it just seemed right.

What Do I Want?

Damn good question! I want a game that fits the way I want to play, has an active community and is at least somewhat under development or active support.

Like I mentioned, I think BoL fits my style of play, from mechanics to tone and feel. It is not what I would call rules light, but it is definitely not crunchy, either. I would call it “clean.”

The rules also are also very fast-playing. The game emphasized story and fast play, not bogging down in modifiers for every different action. That really works for me as a solo gamer.

BoL also has a fairly active community. There is a forum for players and the original developer shows up occasionally. It is not as active as say, the Steve Jackson forums, but it is a lot more than I had with Blades & Black Magic.

Finally, the game is still being supported. The rights were just sold to a new company, Ludospherik, who has published a new edition, the Mythic+ edition. I sprung for the print and PDF versions and was very impressed. The artwork is amazing, and really helps capture the feel of the game—much more than AI-generated crap or cartoonish drawings. They are also converting some of their French language adventures into English, so I have that to look forward to coming out.

What Next?

I have started working on my Sands of Sakhrat swords & sorcery kitchen sink campaign again, so I am converting the NPCs I have created there into the BoL format. I’m looking at how I planned to do magic in that setting, and how I can fit that into the rules of BoL. The artifacts and spells I had written up for B&BM, using my house ruled magic system taken from BoL, I am fitting back to, well, BoL.

I have already cleaned up my existing repository of creatures and their reference material to use BoL (I have not converted them all, just reformatted my notes!) At the same time, I also went through my conversion of the creature traits I borrowed from Best Left Buried. These will all be folded together. I’ll start publishing them here when I get them done.

One thing I have started looking at was some of the other rules/supplements that come from BoL. One of them, Barbarians of the Aftermath, has some rules for mutants and “arcane radiation.” I think I might be able to use those in Sakhrat—it is a post-apocalyptic setting as well as swords & sorcery.

Anyway, I am pretty excited about this change. It’s a big one for me, but I think it will be the right thing to do for my style of gaming. I’ll let you know how it turns out!

Marc

#roleplaying #barbariansoflemuria

(Originally published on untold-realms.com on 2/7/2025).