Friday, October 30, 2015

Rulah, Jungle Goddess, joins NUELOW's line-up

In 1947, daredevil Jane Dodge vanished while flying her plane over Africa... and that's when her life really began.

NUELOW Games has just released the first volume in a new series of comics/rpg jungle adventure books--Rulah, Jungle Goddess. It's a series that occupies a middle ground between the straight-up adventure stories found in our Judy of the Jungle titles, and the fantasy/horror-tinged tales in The Three Lives of Fantomah books, as Rulah battles foes who are both natural and supernatural.

Rulah, Jungle Goddess contains the story of how Jane Dodge became Rulah, as well as three other adventures that sees her battle Nazis, evil priests, and monstrous harpies. In addition, it features OGL d20 Modern rules that are geared toward letting players make characters who are living gods and goddesses like Rulah... and even ones who have supernatural powers like Fantomah. (The game section has a new starting occupation, two new talent trees, and several feats fit for a living goddess.)

Click here to see previews of Rulah, Jungle Goddess, or to get your own copy at RPGNow. You can also get the book from DriveThruComics by clicking here..

The OGL d20 Modern rules in Rulah, Jungle Goddess make great additions to the material presented in Modern Basics: Jungle Action, and they're fully compatible with all the feats- and talent tree-based d20 superhero mechanics that we've published.


Monday, October 26, 2015

HAPPY 68th BIRTHDAY TO HILLARY CLINTON!

Former Watergate investigation staffer, former lawyer, former Senator from New Yrok, former Secretary of State, present candidate for President and wife of a former President--she's Hillary Clinton and today, October 26th, we're celebrating her birthday!

Instead of giving Hillary a present--she's the woman who has everything but her own slippers with the presidential seal on them--we're giving one to you! For the next 24 hours, we're selling the Hillary Clinton Birthday Bundle! It contains ROLF!: The Rollplaying Game og Big, Dumb Fighters, two ROLF! battle scenarios where a lucky gamer gets to take on the role of Hillary herself (the ROLF! classics Bill Clinton Meets a Girl Scout and Super Muslim Bros.) and two other releases that feature ROLF! game stats for her greatest foes--the Girl Scouts from Jupiter and Donald Trump! With the material included in this bundle, you will be able to create your own ROLF! battle scenarios with Hillary fighting for truth, justice, and her way--and the way to 2016!

Click here to see previews of the individual products in the Hillary Clinton Birthday Bundle--or to get it for yourself. The bundle is 47% what it would cost you to get them separately.


Sunday, October 25, 2015

More of the Immortals

Art by Storn Cook
The latest release from NUELOW Games--Secrets of the Immortals for the d20 System--complies and expands upon material that first appeared on this blog. Secrets of the Immortals contains everything you need to include Immortal characters in your d20 System-based roleplaying game--the Immortal character template, how it is obtained, and feats exclusive to Immortals, and information about a race whose highly advanced, spacefaring civilization is to a large extent built around the Immortals and their activities.

If you saw the original posts here on the blog, you could probably tell what the main source of inspiration was the sort of Immortals who travel about in vehicles that are bigger on the inside than the outside. This post provides a feat that lets you add ones to the mix that are similar to ones who have names like Connor or Raven or McCloud while adding a second race to the mix of aliens who also have Immortals at the center of their culture.

Like the Secrets of the Immortals book, all text in this post is released under the Open Game License and may be reproduced in accordance with it. Copyright 2015 by Steve Miller.

NEW FEATS
These feats is available only to Immortal characters who meet the prerequisites. It may be chosen under any circumstance that the character selects a feat.

Sense Immortal [Immortal] 
You can sense when you are near other Immortals.
   Prerequisite: Immortal Template, Spot 4 ranks.
   Benefit: When you are within 60 feet of another Immortal, the GM tells you you feel as though something is "off" or as if "someone just walked over your grave" or some other statement to show you are sensing something unusual. Upon making a successful Spot skill check (DC15), you can identify the source of your unease--another Immortal. If the Immortal is out of your line of sight, you know exactly where he or she is. (The sense of unease ends as soon as you recognise the other Immortal.)
   The sense of unease also ends if the Spot check reveals some other threat or mystery that draws your attention.
   Note: GMs may or may not be calling your attention to another Immortal. Sometimes, it's something entirely different that's going on. Whichever is the case, the sense that something is wrong is dispelled once your attention is caught by something in the area.

Art by Permission of OWC
There Can Be Only One [Immortal] 
You absorb the extra life force in other Immortals you kill.
   Prerequisite: You must have used the Pool of All at least twice.
   Benefit: When you kill an Immortal and are within melee range when he or she dies, you make a Fortitude save (DC20). If the check is successful, the Recreation Process happens to to you instead of the Immortal slain, and you gain 1/2 (round up) of the lives the now-dead Immortal had remaining. If the check is unsuccessful, still go through the Recreation process, but you only gain a bonus feat and suffer 2d6+the number of lives the now-dead Immortal had left, as the energy is blasted into the universe.
   Special: Upon selecting this feat, you may replace any single other feat you possess with another feat from the Immortal feat group that you qualify for. If the replaced feat was a prerequisite for other feats, you lose their benefits until you have the prerequisite again.

NEW CHARACTER RACE: THE CAEDENS
The Caedens are a race of feline humanoids who first encountered portals to the Pool of All when they when were at an Iron Age stage of development, at a very clannish and war-like stage in their history, and still very much in touch with the predators they had evolved from.
   While Caeden civilisation as a whole has left the barbarism of their ancient history in the past, the Immortals among them keep the predatory side of their nature very much alive. While Caeden Immortals are the first to come to the defense of their own people, they habitually see other races as prey to be toyed with--either with mean-spirited games of intellectual one-upsmanship, or through tests of strength and battle prowess. They also delight in hunting other Immortals, be they of their own race or an alien one. They hunt them for sport, and to enhance their own immortality, as the Caedens long ago discovered the dark ways through which one Immortal can steal the Recreation of another and make it his or her own. Some Caedans have accumulated hundreds of lives by killing other Immortals.
   For millenia, the Caeden Immortals have been hated and feared by other Immortals, but they have slowly been abandoning their predatory ways, as they have come to realise that only by banding together with other Immortals will they be able to stand against the most serious threat the galaxy has ever known: The life-destroying and increasingly powerful Anaki.

Caeden Characters
Caeden characters are generated in the same fashion as Humans in your preferred d20 System variant, with the following changes:
   Racial Bonus: When created, Caeden characters gain ability bonuses of +2 Strength and +1 Charisma. They are naturally powerfully built and agile.
   Bonus Feat: Caedens must choose Athletic, Agile, Jump, or Run as their bonus feat during character creation.

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If you found this post interesting or useful, check out Secrets of the Immortals by clicking here. If you like the content of this blog in general, please consider supporting the creative efforts of myself and other NUELOW Games contributors by getting some of our releases. You can see the entire line-up by visiting our shop at DriveThruRPG.

 (By the way, I also designed a different set of immortality rules that works with NUELOW's superpower system of feats and talent trees... you can see that material by clicking here.)

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Two new templates for the OGL d20 System... and comics!

The latest in release from NUELOW Games is in perfect keeping with the season of October, as it loaded with ghosts, werewolves, and general weirdness.

Art by Bernard Bailey and Dave Berg
Ghost Woman... Also Featuring Spooks contains two early works from Dave Berg, best known for his gentle ribbing of American culture in the pages of MAD Magazine, a tale from Bernard Bailey, and two new templates, a talent tree, and feats for d20 System that bring new twists to life and death .

The Berg stories tell the tale of a college professor who, after being murdered by an embezzler, returns to Earth in spirit form to fight injustice. The story from Bailey, featuring ghosts, undead werewolves, and the origin of a monster hunter, manages in eight pages to present a sketch of a game setting more interesting than many source books manage in 80.

The RPG material is by Steve Miller, who worked on the Ravenloft gothic horror game setting. It includes a template that allow player characters to remain in play even after they've suffered a final and irreversible death, a template that introduces a new kind of werewolf that more closely resembles the ones of folklore, and a new talent tree and feats that support the templates. (Talent trees are used in the OGL d20 Modern game, but the templates and feats are usable in any RPG that is based on the d20 System.)

Ghost Woman... Also Featuring Spooks is available at RPGNow and DriveThruComics. Click on your preferred site to see previews or to get a copy.




Monday, October 19, 2015

NUELOW Games offers the world an apology

We're sure you've all heard about the flying city that appeared in the sky over China. It looked like this:



There have been all sorts off theories posited regarding what that is. Some say it was a Fata Morgana. Others say a dimensional portal opened, and we got a glimpse into an alternate reality. Yet others say that China was experimenting with highly advanced laser holographic projection technology, or that they've created a flying city using anti-grav technology.

The Sorceress of Zoom.
Portrait by Bradley K. McDevitt
All of those theories are wrong.

The truth is that what everyone saw was the City of Zoom, the dimension-traveling home of the Sorceress. And we apologize for the panic and confusion it caused.

NUELOW head-honcho Steve Miller was discussing with the Sorceress what to include in the third volume of our Sorceress of Zoom series. During that conversation, Miller was munching on one of those black Halloween burgers from Burger King. He mentioned that eating one reportedly turns your poop green, and the Sorceress decided she wanted to acquire some to feed to her minions. Miller, unfortunately, referred to Burger King as "B-King" and the Sorceress thought he said "Peking."

We apologize to the world for the panic this has caused. We apologize specifically to the hundreds of Chinese citizens that were abducted by the Sorceress in her search for black hamburgers, especially those she temporarily turned into komodo dragons or bowls of egg drop soup.

Miller has promised that he will never interact directly with the Sorceress again, but will instead leave all communications with her to Chuck  Norris or L.L. Hundal. Please don't sue us.

For more insights into the truth behind the flying city that appeared in the sky above China, read The Sorceress of Zoom and The Sorceress of Zoom: Down to Earth from NUELOW Games. During 2016, we plan on releasing a third volume in the series. The Sorceress has asked that we include rules describing her in the OLG version of the Traveller game system. It's her favorite, because characters can die during creation. You can read sample pages from the existing books at the Shades of Gray blog by clicking here.

See Previews or Buy at DriveThruComics
See Previews or Buy at DriveThruComics.

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Two new releases in the 'NUELOW Stock Art Collection'

There are two new releases for the NUELOW Stock Art Collection, our series of low-cost, royalty-free art covered by a license so generous you can use the covered material for almost any conceivable project. Whether you need something to illustrate your home game, your website, or that grand RPG you've designed, one of our genre-focused art packs may contain just the art you need. And our low prices make them even more attractive.

Art by Everette Raymond Kinstler
NUELOW Stock Art Collection #12: Restless Spirits focuses on the vengeful dead, as brought forth by illustrators Everette Raymond Kinstler and Lee Elias.

Art by Maurice Whitman
NUELOW: Stock Art Collection #13: The First Americans is our first to focus on the western genre, specifically Native Americans in this case. Most of the art in this set consists of great drawings from Maurice Whitman, but there are also a few that have been adapted from NUELOW Games' Warrior Maiden Starlight by Ralph Mayo.

Each set comes with a  PDF that carefully indexes each illustration included in the set. Most of art files are included in both 72ppi and 300ppi resolutions, the latter being good for many print projects.

Friday, October 9, 2015

The Staff of the Flesh Golem (for D&D/d20 System/OSR games)

Here's a magic item that was made up on the spur of the moment as I ran my D&D game today.

Staff of the Flesh Golem
This staff acts as a +4 weapon when wielded against flesh golems. It functions as a +1 weapon under all other circumstances.
   Once per day, the user can summon a flesh golem by striking the staff on the ground and shouting, "To me, my minion!"

A sorceress prepares to use her staff of the fesh golem. (Photo by Bexxin)
   The summoned flesh golem appears in a cloud that reeks of sulfur and embalming fluid. It follows simple commands from the summoner, and will fight to defend or to get him or her to safety even if the summoner is unable to issue that direct command. The summoned flesh golem exists for up to six hours before vanishing in a puff of putrid-smelling smoke. If destroyed, it vanishes in the same fashion.
   The Staff of the Flesh Golem can be wielded by any character that can cast spells.

(The text in this post is released under the Open Game License. Copyright 2015 by Steve Miller.)

Wednesday, October 7, 2015

Another Doomsday That Wasn't...

Damn it. It looks like we're going to have to pay our bills and visit with the in-laws this weekend after all. Another end-of-the-world prophesy has failed to come to pass. (The latest one was April 23, 2018.)



This post was originally made in response to a failed End of the World prediction a group called the eBible Fellowship. Their founder, Chris McCann, claimed the world would be anniahlated on October 7, 2015--a date he came up with after the world didn't end on his previously predicted doomsday in May of 2011. You can read all about him here.

Although my disappointment in still having to figure out where to get them money to pay my bills is threatening to throw me into a deep depression, I will instead return to pounding my keyboard and designing game material and writing fiction. The first item in this renewed existence is a d20 System feat celebrating the powers of Chris McCann and his fellow doomsday prophets (profiteers?).

The text in this post is presented under the Open Game License, and it may be reproduced within its terms. Copyright 2015 by Steve Miller.

The Doomsday Prophet feat is suitable for just about any RPG using the d20 System as its foundation. The reference to a Wealth bonus is a d20 Modern specific mechanic. It can be ignored or  replaced with whatever mechanism that exists to grant characters bonuses to treasure earned.


DOOMSDAY PROPHET [Bard, Cleric, Dedicated Hero, Charismatic Hero]
You regularly predict the end of the world... and you continue to be taken seriously when it doesn't come.
   Prerequisite: Cha 15, Do As I Say, Not As I Do feat.
   Benefit: +6 to all Bluff and Diplomacy checks. Make a doomsday prediction (Bluff check DC 18). If successful, your Wealth bonus increases by +2 until the Date of Doom arrives. The date must be within one year of the day you make the prediction.
   If the world doesn't end, make another Bluff check (DC22) to revise your prediction and give satisfactory reasons for why you were wrong the first time. Your Wealth bonus remains if the second check is successful. When the new date arrives, you can roll another Bluff check to revise the date yet again. If the check fails, you lose the Wealth bonus.
   You can only make a completely new Doomsday Prediction every 12 months minus your Charisma bonus.
   Special: Whenever you make a Doomsday Prediction that fails to come to pass, the bonus provided by this feat is reduced by one point. When the bonus is reduced to 0, this feat is replaced with the Deceptive feat.

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