DDOCentral

If we set the wayback machine to nearly a decade ago, there’s essentially a full year where I posted nothing but geomorphs to the blog. Behind the scenes I spent a couple of months working on geomorph concepts to figure out what format worked well enough that it was not too apparent when you moved from one geomorph to the next.

I was originally going to work with Erol Otus’ “Geomorphic Mini Dungeon Modules” format of 11 x 11 with entrances in the sixth square on each side, but it was way too obvious when you moved from one to the next – it felt like you were exploring geomorphs instead of a cohesive map.

After about a dozen designs, I settled on these 10 x 10 geomorphs with entrances on squares 3 & 8. The design caught on and there are thousands of geomorphs available on the net that…

If you’ve been in any conversation with me where the Deck of Many Things came up you’ll have heard me “wax poetic” about the many ways in which I dislike said item (aka the Deck of Many Campaign Endings).

That said, I’ve always been irked by most representations I’ve seen of the deck. Mostly over a nit-pick.

“Each [card] is engraved with glyphs, characters, and magical sigils.”

Fans of retro video game music have heard all of the same classics over and over again, which is why in today’s episode of Retro Reprise, ChaosConstant and Syp dip into the more unknown titles of the Sega Genesis library for tunes that you may have overlooked! From the tense atmosphere of Warsong to the futuristic music of Pulseman, this show might have your new favorite track waiting to be discovered.

Retro Reprise Episode 18: Obscure Genesis Games (show page, direct download)

• Intro
• “Kingdom Knight” from Warsong
• “Soltype” from Alien Soldier
• “Wily Stage 1” from Mega Man: The Wily Wars
• “An Old Sad Dance” from King Colossus
• “Neo Tokyo” from Pulseman
• “Stereo Protect” from Pulseman
• “Splash Down!!” from Ristar
• “Midnight Greenhouse” from Knuckles Chaotix
• Outro

Psychedelic Cellar of the Stone Giants

Up in the hills there’s a small river cave where a pair of stone giants have set up their own private grow-op to supply themselves (and a few shamans and priests back “home”) with giant-scale psychedelic fungus.

The “psychedelic cellar” itself is well protected in giant terms. Stone bars block access along the river to all but the smallest of would-be thieves (halflings could be an issue), and the door to the cave is kept under lock and key. The easiest access to a would-be thief is to work their way up the icy cold stream that feeds the mushroom cave. At the tightest point, this requires about five feet of travel underwater where the cave ceiling is only an inch above the stream’s surface at best.

Of course, enterprising thieves could slip in and out of the cave this way to steal human-use…