Need a Valentine's Day palate cleanser?

Whether you want to get the sticky-sweet taste out of your mouth because you're bitter, or because you want to prepare for what's to come on this Day of Celebrating Romance and Love, we have just the collection of stories for you to read!

Art by Basil Wolverton

Weird Romance, the latest release from NUELOW Games is a collection of short horror, humor, and fantasy tales that are all tinged with the rosey color of romance. These stories were produced by great talents such as Steve Ditko, Dick Giordano, Basil Wolverton, Sam Schwartz, and others. They are well worth your time and money, whether you are just looking for some great reading material or have an interest in the lesser-known works of men who helped build the foundation upon which modern sequential storytelling rests. In addition to the great comics, the book also features a series of tables with which you can randomly generate a love interest for a player character in just about any RPG syste, (It wouldn't be a NUELOW Games release if we didn't toss RPG support in with the comics!)

You can get Weird Romance at RPGNow, DriveThruRPG, and DriveThruComics.

And for good measure, here's a trio of Valentine's Day-related adventure seeds...

* A cleric (or otherwise spiritual character) is awakened in the night by a small, winged humanoid--Cupid! He is being hunted by a group of cultists who want to eliminate love and romance from the world, clearing the way for the return of the Great Old Ones. Cupid is begging for the character's help and protection.

* A sworn and very deadly enemy of a player character suddenly wants not only a truce but also a romantic relationship with him or her. If rebuffed, the enemy will start to make life hell for everyone around the character until he or she accepts the offer of love. Investigations reveal that Cupid missed a shot his magic arrowand has caused this trouble. The party must find the demigod and get him to lift the spell. (In the end, the enemy, if the situation is handled correctly, could end up as an ally of the party, due to residual effects of the magic;)

* Cupid is distraught, because his female counterpart has been abducted by persons unknown. He demands that the party find and free her, or he will not inspire love and romance in anyone every again.

Piper Perabo (cos)playing Female Cupid

The Staff of Steves - a magic item of great power and wonder!

Once upon a time, Steve Miller went to lunch with two luminaries from the gaming industry. While gnoshing on tasty vittles, one of them observed, "Everyone at this table is named Steve."

So was born the legendary League of Steves. (Or maybe the Stint of Steves, or Sleeve of Steves... a Facebook poll about what to call a gathering of Steves did not lead to a clear answer. But it did lead to the inspiration for the most brilliant magic item you are likely to ever to include in a campaign.)

The Staff of Steves

From an idea by Kairam Ahmed Hamdan & Bradley K. McDevitt. 

Design by Steve Miller. Copyright 2015 Steve Miller.

Text in this post is presented under the Open Game License and may be reproduced in accordance with it. 

The Staff of Steves is a powerful item that either comes into existence through a random convergence of supernatural circumstances, or is created by a secret cabal of artificers, drunken fairies, or... well, who knows how they come into being. Like the presence of Steves in the world, the Staff of Steves just is.

This Red Shirt will survive because he has a Staff of Steves.

The Staff of Steves takes many forms, but it is always a slender item, at least five feet in length... you know, a staff. It's specific appearance can be anything from an ornately carved oaken staff to a curtain rod. It has the following game effects:
* Acts as a +4 weapon for purposes of overcoming a target's damage resistance.
* Acts as a +2 staff for purposes of attack and damage rolls.
* Grants a +4 bonus to AC (or Defense Rating) when wielded by a character named Steve.
* Allows its wielder to cast Charm Person 3 times per day (6 times per day if wielded by a character named Steve).
* Allows its wielder to cast Create Food and Water 3 times per day (casts Feast if wielded by a character named Steve).
* Allows its wielder to cast Stinking Cloud 1 time per day (but only after Create Food and Water or Feast has been cast at least once).
* Allows its wielder to read sheet music with unfailing accuracy.
* Allows its wielder to summon a random number of Steves once per day. The Steves are all 3rd level Experts (or similar NPC class), with 15 hit points, armed with clubs or similar blunt objects (1d3 points of damage), and have one or more skills (+6 to the d20 skill check) that is helpful to the wielder. The remain with the wielder, defending and assisting in any way they can (cooking, cleaning, doing paperwork, performing rock music, running roleplaying game sessions, assassinating heads-of-state, boosting of ego) for three hours, until dismissed, or until slain. The number of Steves appearing is 1d6+2.
* It allows a *player* named Steve to have his character reroll 1d6 failed actions per game session. (Rolled at the beginning of the session, as soon as the dice come out. The result must be confirmed and recorded by the GM. If the Steve forgets to roll immediatey, this effect does not apply ).

Note: "Steve" can be male or female, as it can be short for Stephen, Steven, Stefano, Stefanie, Stephanie, and all other variants you can think of.

(If you were amused by the Staff of Steves, please consider supporting Steve (and NUELOW Games) by getting some of the OGL d20 items I've actually put some effort into. Some of them even work in straight games. Click here to see the listings at RPGNow.

On sale now: 'The Curse of Egypt'

The Curse of Egypt offers up more OGL d20 feats designed with the goal of incorporating the supernatural and magic into settings without having full-fledged spell-casting classes or magic items on the shelves of the local Wal-Mart or in the police department's armory.

Cover for The Curse of Egypt

The 14 or so included OGL d20 feats give PCs and NPCs access to limited spellcasting abilities, and other supernatural powers, that are treated like special gifts from the Egyptian gods, earned either through service to them or through ancient bloodlines reaching back to antiquity.

The book also contains three classic horror comics shorts that tell tales of mystical forces of Egypt colliding with the people of the modern age. Guess who wins? One of the stories features art by the great Steve Ditko, while the other two are by creators whose identities are lost to history. (We think the work resembles that of either Don Heck or Don Perlin, but neither appear to have done work for Ace Comics, the original publisher of the stories in question. Whoever drew them, they can serve as inspiration for your own RPG scenarios... as well as simply being great reading.

Click here to see previews of The Curse of Egypt, or to get your own copy.

S is for Silver Lady

Silver Lady [First appeared in Space Adventures #42]

Art by Steve Ditko

The Venusian known on Earth as the Silver Lady is celebrated by the military intelligence services on three planets--Venus, Jupiter and Mars. She is a life long member of the interplanetary militant movement Girl Scouts of Jupiter, but she generally relies more on the hypnotic powers of her race instead of brute force.
   In 1961, the Silver Lady was sent to Earth as part of a joint Venusian/Jupiterian/Martian mission to curtail Earth's expansion into the rest of the solar system, while at the same time hindering the development of weapons and technology that could effectively defend against the eventual Jupiter-led invasion of Earth.
   The Silver Lady began her mission by securing a job at a television station in Florida. Through the power of mass-media, she used her alien mental powers to weaken the minds and resolve of the male engineers and scientists working on the American space program at Cape Canaveral. She soon ran afoul Captain Atom, a superhero in the employ of the United States federal government. He didn't take the threat she posed completely seriously, so he deposited in Russia where she could, as he put it "work her mischief" without harming American efforts.
   Throughout the entirety of the Cold War, the Silver Lady was trapped behind the Iron Curtain. She didn't mind, however, as weakening one superpower's space program was the same as weakening another in the eyes of her commanders. By 1995, she had made her way back to the United States, and once again plied her seductive alien ways to weakening American efforts in space exploration and technological development.

SILVER LADY (Female)
Brawn 18; Body 16; Brains 5.
   Traits: Alien, Hive Mind, Nimble
   Combat Maneuvers: Basic Attack, Dodge, Hypnotize, Seduce, Web of Healing.
   Important Stuff Worn/Wielded: Space Cape (Armor, absorbs up to 1 point of damage), Thigh-high Boots (Armor OR Leggings, absorbs up to 1 point of damage). Dagger (Deals 1 point of damage).

A new comics/rpg hybrid for 'new comics day'!

Comic readers all across the land know that Wednesday is tthe day new comics arrive at the store. Well, we actually got our act together here at NUELOW Games, and we've released a new comic book on New Comics Day!

Feary Tales is our latest addition to our line-up of comics/rpg hybrid books. It contains six short horror stories, all twisted adaptations of fairy tales, and most of them from the brilliant mind of Steve Ditko (in his pre-Marvel Comics days).

For RPG gamers, it presents an all-new race of monsters--the Faery Ghouls. They can be dropped into pretty much any d20 System game you like, although, like most NUELOW OLG material, they are designed foremost for OGL Modern. The book also contains Tom Thumb is lost, a single-player mini-game.

Feary Tales is available at all the usual outlets. You can click here to see previews, or to get your own copy. It is presently on sale for 25 percent off the usual price, as part of the ongoing Christmas in July celebration! (The discounted price is good until August 1.)

NUELOW Stock Art Collection #4 now available!

We've just released our latest collection of artwork from our archives for your enjoyment and publishing projects.

 NUELOW Stock Art Collection #4: Scenes From Yesterday's Future: contains 38 color and black-and-white drawings, most of which have been adapted from the covers of Gold Age comic book such as Planet Comics and Space Adventures. Click on the link to see previews of the set, or to get your own copy and start adorning your website or retro sci fi projects with illustrations by Joe Doolin, Dick Giordano, and others.