Vox Arcana Podcast - Blog

This is a great, weird book, if you're willing to do some work.

  Is it possible? Can it be true? Can an OSR D&D adventure game utilize the Age of Sigmar as its world? "But William," I hear you cry, "AOS is high fantasy! There are angels and demons doing battle across countless battlefields! How can you possibly be considering such an idea?"

  If you saw Neverland and decided to keep on scrolling, you'd be making the same mistake I made. This game came out of nowhere. I first learned of it from a Questing Beast review, and I was hesitant to click because my interest in Peter Pan (and Neverland in general) is nonexistent. I saw the number of views on the video and thought it must be worth watching.

Our wonderful (and tragically lost episode of) Vox Arcana, detailed the Lost Mines of Phandelver adventure for 5e. We discussed how to really utilize all of our best 5e tricks to make the adventure great. While recording, I realized the entire thing could easily be cut-and-pasted into my personal D&D world. It’s an easy, fairly low-stakes adventure that involves some exploration, and it would require minimal modification to work in my game.  Spoilers for the adventure from the D&D Beginner Box, originally released in 2014. Here is what I would change: The name Phandalin is silly, and worst still, very recognizable. Let’s call the little mining town Dalin, which has an Irish feel. Let’s make all of its woodsy citizens speak with an Irish brogue. The adventure itself is already set up as a series of situations, so let’s lean into that. A local wizard is on the hunt for a lost spell forge, and will pay any price to find it (it functions as a 20,000gp library) . He’s hired hobg...

  The Age of Sigmar is a vast and epic place, but I find the constant epic-ness exhausting. I also want to know what it’s like to actually live in such a world as this. After some reading, watching and listening, here are some of the major themes I’ve observed Technology Level: Although the original Warhammer was essentially set in the Middle Ages, Age of Sigmar is more like the Renaissance, after an apocalypse. Massive Space: The “world” is made of 8 separate realms, best thought of as themed planets. These planets are practically endless; I imagine an Earth-like planet with the radius the size of the sun. This means that local travel is impractical, and it’s easier to travel via portals. Portals: The 8 planets are connected via thousands of portals. These portals make travel fast, easy and safe, and effectively “shrink” the size of planets. They vary in physical size and destination. Some have been sealed. Some have been hijacked by chaos. Massive cities: The constant danger of...

  I’ve become interested, once again, in Hot Springs Island (which remains one of the greatest published products I own ). Who knows when I’ll get to run any form of D&D again, so I’ll just have some lonely fun for now.