A new release!

Hello and welcome to the official CritFail.Press Newsletter!

Checkout what’s been happening at CritFail.Press this week in the Map Monday and Weekly Article below!

If you have any suggestions or comments feel free to send them to mike@critfail.press.

DAGGERzine Issue 02!!

I’m excited to announce that we’ve released the second issue of the DAGGERzine (finally).

I know it’s taken us a long time to get here, we go over that a little bit in the intro of the Zine.

Suffice to say, life as it often does, finds a way…. to derail TTRPG projects.

But we’re back, hopefully. We’re trying to do it. In little bits. Bear with us.

Today, on the blog.

So, because of this release, I thought it makes sense to talk about what’s inside it just a little bit.

The second issue of the DAGGERzine is much bigger than the first issue, but it follows the same format.

We’re going to look at the five different sections that make up the issue and give a little synopsis.

The first section covers exploration and new modes of play. The next section looks at the adversaries included in this issue.

The third section is on Environments and the  fourth is what we call the Adventure Frame, a short outline for using the included Adversaries and Environments to support the theme.

And section five includes some magic items, and other interesting loot that GMs can include in their games.

The theme of Issue 02 is desert adventuring, exploration, and survival; a pretty big contrast to Issue 01’s nautical and sub-nautical play.

But let’s get into it.

Section One

Exploring the desert has a lot of things in common with exploring any other adventure environment, but there are also some things that are very unique to the desert.

First off, deserts themselves can be pretty dynamic.

You can think of endless, sprawling sand dunes, like the Sahara Desert, all the way to rocky deserts full of spiky cacti that bloom for a month in a sea of colors and are actually full of life, like the American Southwest.

While a case can be made that arctic deserts also exist, we’re saving those frosty locales for another issue.

So when navigating these desert environments, one of the common themes, however, though, is the intense heat and absence of water, especially surface water.

Also, sometimes these environments can be exceptionally difficult to navigate.

Section One focuses on these two components, employing existing game mechanics to create a system that requires management of one’s personal water supply to mitigate the deleterious effects of the extreme heat.

The other part Section One, as mentioned, covers exploration, getting lost in the desert, finding your way across the sands, and how attaching an adventuring party to a caravan can lead to the greatest chance of success and survival across the wastes.

Section Two

Section Two contains a big list of adveresaries that can be found throughout the desert.

While the available list of adversaries in the Daggerheart Core Rulebook and the Daggerheart SRD are formidable, and many interesting and compelling options exist, there are also a number of standard fantasy tropes that have not been included in the game yet.

Thanks to the flexibility of the 5.1 SRD and the 5.2 SRD released by Wizards of the Coast we have access to some of the monsters that might be missing from the Daggerheart Core Rules at this time.

So those that are befitting of a desert environment have been included. 15 new adversaries are available for your Daggerheart game in this issue of the Zine.

Examples include the Lamia, Mummies, the Mummy Lord, and creatures feared throughout all desert environments: sandworms.

Section Three

The Environments section, like the previous Issue of the DAGGERzine, includes several themed environments that can be coupled with the standard environments presented in the Daggerheart Core Rulebook and SRD to build out your adventures.

The eight environments included in Issue 02 are the Caravansarai, Oasis, Wadi, Mirage, Shifting Sands, Worm Corpse, Cataracts and Trapped Tomb. These environments are strongly themed for desert exploration and adventuring and even contain some suggested story beats or concepts.

Of course you are free to change these or modify them to suit the needs of your campaign. They’re really just meant to spur your imagination.

Section Four

Now that we’ve laid out some enemies and locations, our Adventure Frame, Section Four, puts them together to create a small story.

Smaller than a Campaign Frame, the Adventure Frame is not meant to detail an entire setting that you might play in for an extended period of time. It could certainly be extrapolated out into such, but instead provides an example of how to tie the disparate components of this Issue together to create something playable and fun.

In this instance, the PCs have to stop the return of an ancient emperor, now an undead tyrant bent on reclaiming all of his lost empire The PCs will start at the Caravansarai, a sort of safehaven under assault from the dead. Then they will have to trek across the desert in search of the source of this evil and put an end to it, discovering interesting locations and NPCs along the way.

Section Five

Section Five contains a short list of fourteen (14) items of note or renown that can be added to your campaign.

There are five weapons, two pieces of armor, six pieces of loot and one consumable that can be provided as rewards, treasure or fortuitous finds for the adventurers as they roam about the desert.

Many of these items have desert themes or significant use in the hot, dusty environments where they may be found.

In the end, this latest Issue of the DAGGERzine took me a little while longer to make due to some external pressures in my life, but it ended up bigger than the first issue, and I’m okay with that.

I’m really happy with the volume of content and how it creates a more cohesive and useful package to anyone who purchases it.

A free preview is available on DriveThruRPG and if you like what you see or you liked the last issue, I would absolutely love it if you would check this one out.

I’ve already begun work on Issue 03. This time we’re going to move from dry arid deserts to lush forests, full of fey creatures and more powerful adversaries for PCs to overcome.

Can’t wait for you to check that one out.

So stay tuned to the CritFail.Press blog and make sure you’re subscribed to the CritFail Post, our newsletter, so you never miss out on what’s happening.

See you next week.

– Mike.

Map Monday

Last week, we shared the second level of the Dwarven Mine from our adventure Depths of the Dwarven Mine.

This week we delve deeper and see how the two different branches of the mine vary in use and purpose and the secret connection that exists.

In the adventure proper, the two different mine tunnels are experiencing different threats, which we’ll touch on briefly. Of course, you can use this map however you’d like!

The upper portion of the map (Areas 3A, 3B, and 3C) were all abandoned in hurry as the threat from the deeper parts of the mine worked its way upwards. Area 3A is a large cavern that once had an active ore seam the dwarves worked until they exhausted it. Now it connects tunnels to both Level 2 and Level 4 of the mine.

Area 3B is where raw ore is stored before being sent topside. A secret tunnel connects Area 3B to Area 3F.

Area 3C was once a barracks or common room that has been destroyed by the terrors from below. A secret tunnel ascends from this room to the Redoubt on Level 2.

Area 3D was a similar chamber to Area 3D, but noteably all the steel mine cart rails have gone missing. In this adventure they have been devoured by Rust monsters.

Area 3E is a small mess hall with a secret passage up to the Redoubt and a small latrine in the back, Area 3F. One of the stalls in the latrine is actually the entrance to the secret tunnel to Area 3B.

Lastly Area 3G was a similar ore storage room to that of Area 3B, but once again, the rust monsters got to this room as well leaving only wooden track ties and dust.

You can download the map here, and don’t forget to sign-up for the CritFail.Post if you’d rather get Map Monday’s sent to your inbox…on Friday’s.

-Mike