Foreven: So Where Does The Rose of Death Stand

Incase you haven’t heard, High Guard came out for Traveller this week. I’ve said previously that we’re almost done with the first volume in the Foreven Worlds: Prelude to War Adventure Path, The Rose of Death, but that we are waiting for High Guard’s release so we can make sure the new ships and the space station in it are up to spec. So now that its out and we’ve had a chance to compare the final version with the playtest version we designed our materials off of, where are we. …

Well …

Certain key parts of our space station changed. So I’m redrawing parts of a 1,400 ton space station. No problem. 😉

So, we’re adjusting. We knew this was a possibility so we’re ok, but it will delay the final version longer than we would like. Have no fear, it’ll be out soon. Next week, we’ll be starting previews. Look forward to the cover artwork as computer and phone wallpaper.

Basically, this is our first adventure path, and we want to take a little time to make sure we get it right.

UPDATE (8/19/19): Well crap. The part that I thought was changed was just in a place where I was not looking. It wasn’t changed; I just missed it. So now I have to put the map back the way it was. I’m glad I had not finished the changes, but I wish I had saved a copy of the original. Oh well.

5 By 5-Star Reviews

We got in a flurry of new 5 STAR reviews lately, and we’d like to share them with you. The first two are for the D66 Compendium 2. We represent them both here in their entirety!

This first one is by Richard N.

I purchased the first compendium some time ago and found it to be an awesome tool for helping with adding flavor to my campaign. I use it at least once or twice every session and when I am preparing. So when I saw that the 2nd was out I snagged it right away and was pleasantly surprised to see that they “kicked it up a notch” this time around. Not only are there pages and pages of names for everything from people to pets to famous space battles to recreational drugs, they have added D66 Event tables for careers to use during character creation! And they are awesome! I would highly recommend this (and the 1st one!) to anyone who has ever had that moment when a player asks “So, what is the name of….” and you drew a blank.

This next one is by Daniel C.

I was looking for some new Events to use. I asked for suggestions and was told this was what I wanted. So I came and bought it. I was not disappointed in any way. Not only did it have an event table for “Life Events” but also had events for each of the core careers in the Traveller core rule set. Some of these are great background ideas. Add to that the book has many more tables that will be quite useful I am sure. Overall this product was well worth the price I paid for it. I would strongly recommend this to any Traveller GM. I am glad I added this to my collection.

Download the 5-STAR rated D66 Compendium 2 today at DriveThruRPG/RPGNow.

Next we move onto a pair of Deadly Delve Adventures for Fifth Edition. The first adventure is a 5-STAR review for Rescue from Tyrkaven and is by Ismael A.

Firstly, the background for the adventure is very well written, and seeps out character and flavor. It was plainly well thought out and very developed. It is excellently layered with a hook that does not belie the true nature of the adventure, and a twist that should keep player interest throughout the endeavor. Good setup and thorough execution of initial hook. Also, there is good characterization of various expository NPC’s that promises a memorable session if a GM is willing to act them out.

From the first encounter, it seems like encounter design and balance are well done for the sensibility of 5th edition. The initial combat is meant more as a test of the character’s sensibility than their combat prowess, and could lead to some interesting decisions later. Statistic blocks are handled rather nicely, and are concise and readable. The next few encounters are a bit standard, and probably a sync for a 2nd level party to deal with, but it really builds up the atmosphere, especially with the special glyphs that seem to permeate the enemy lair. Room and encounter design do a nice job of setting the tone of the adventure by slowly introducing a creepy undertone.

There are interesting little details peppered within the room descriptions of the enemy lair, including some interesting moral choices regarding enemies that do not resist or fight.

The inclusion of a new creature (the negative energy elemental) is refreshing, and a bright contrast against the relatively mundane hobgoblin foes, as well as foreshadowing the nature of the lair itself.

The methodology for controlling the number of creatures in a later encounter was interesting as well; depending on player actions, they could fight more enemies at once, or fight a few with more enemies entering per round. This seems to reward players for circumstantial actions rather than punishing them for making an unknowable mistake.

Ultimately, the adventure is very short, and could serve as an excellent set piece to be fit into a larger campaign. There are a lot of loose ends presented within here that could either be tied to your campaign, or simply expand the adventure to interesting directions. This adventure will most likely take your 2nd level group to 3rd level (depending on how many there are in your party), so that makes it ideal for moving your characters into an ideal starting point for a full on campaign (given that the accepted wisdom states that adventurers are more sturdy and defines at level 3).

All in all, this excellent and short adventure is a showcase of an excellent understanding of 5th edition design and low level balance! 5 stars and my royal seal!

Ismael A also wrote a 5-STAR review for Deadly Delves: Along Came a Spider.

Disclosure: I received a review copy of this product.

Along Came a Spider is an excellent and unorthodoxed adventure. It lets spiders take the center stage as the villains for a low level adventure, rather than as the rabble and fodder that are encountered incidentally on the way to the true threat.

This product is chock full of spiders, of all sorts. You have a young ettercap, swarms of spiders, and even a few new spiders designed just for this book. The adventure starts out pretty straight forward, but begins to take a strange and interesting twist. I won’t say much for fear of spoiling, but I was impressed with the adventure, and I can’t wait to run it.

This adventure is thorough, and has some varied locations. This is definitely an excellent introductory adventure. It is balanced to help survivability, as it is a bit of an issue for 1st level players in 5e. It also has great sensibilities for adventure design, such as appropriate traps and encounters as well as appropriately low ability check and save DCs to ensure you don’t hurt or hinder the players too bad out of the gate.

All in all, this book benefits from the author’s considerable talent and understanding of the system and of adventure design. This is an excellent 5th edtition module, and I look forward to seeing more! 5 out of 5!

That is not the only 5-STAR review we have for Along Came a Spider. This one is short and sweet coming from Howard B.

While not a sandbox adventure, this has interesting twists that will keep your game interesting.

Download these and other Fifth Edition releases today at DriveThruRPG/RPGNow,  Paizo and the OpenGamingStore.

JBE 2016 Mid-Year Update

Everyone ready for GenCon? I’ll be following all the developments from here in New Jersey. I hope everyone there has a safe trip and posts lots of notes to social media about the seminars since I will be following them like fiend.

So what is going on with Jon Brazer Enterprises right now? Well, you probably noticed, not much. Here’s why: 1) my day job. About a year ago, my day job gave me a new project that pretty much owned my soul for most of last year, pushing all other day job projects to the side. That ended a while ago but since then I have been playing catch up, still keeping me busy. It has only been in the past few months or things started to settle down. While I had enough time to finish JBE projects that were already turned in by writers, I lacked the ability to be organized enough to get new projects started. 2) I got married. Back in April I married my best friend and love of my life. But as anyone who is or has been married knows, you’re kind of a mess for organization around that time. I recently uncovered a few major errors (i.e. forgetting to pay various people) that I wouldn’t otherwise make. I hope I corrected everything by now, but I don’t know for sure. We’ll see. 3) Over committing myself. The last problem is purely my own. I committed myself to various projects and did not budget sufficient time for them, even without the above two. So I have been cautious to not add anything that added to my already full schedule, at least until after I finish up various projects. So where are those projects:

  1. Deadly Delves. The top priority for me right now is a 9th level Deadly Delves adventure for Pathfinder. Richard wanted to head this project up and he has been doing a smashing job with it. He wanted to do a sizable dungeon with a bunch of great authors, where they each took a few room and make a truly memorable adventure. The single biggest part we are waiting on right now is the part that I said I would write: the city outside. It has got lots of plot hooks for adventures that can be done before, during, or after. Last week I told Richard I was almost done, giving him an estimated number of words to go. Since then, I tripled that estimate and have completed only half the parts that I wanted completed. Inspiration particles hit me and I just kept writing. And yes, we plan to convert this over to Fifth Edition sometime, but no time table on that as of yet.
  2. Foreven Worlds: Prelude to War Adventure Path. The first adventure itself is done and is in layout. We are still working on the back sections for it. However, even if we finished it today (which won’t happen) we’re still waiting on the release of High Guard since we need to make sure that our new ships match what is done there. Odds are, High Guard will be out first, but you never know. We eliminated the new vehicles from this book so we do not have to wait for the Vehicle Handbook as well. All those vehicles got moved to the back section for second adventure in the series: State of Chaos, written by fan favorite Traveller author, M J Dougherty.
  3. Book of Heroic Races. As much as I hate to admit it, work on Advanced Gillmen keeps getting pushed aside in favor of the above two projects. The first draft is more than half completed. Once it is done, however, we are going full steam for the Advanced Compendium, which is mostly completed.

Future projects: I only started looking towards the future again in the past month. To that end, I got two new Deadly Delves adventures commissioned and I expect they will be out sometime next year. Our first fifth edition monster supplement came out recently and we expect to follow up with more in the near future. I actually wrote quite a few monsters between the game’s release and the OGL for it coming available. Now we’re working to put them together into themed monster supplements. I expect we’re know when the next will get released roughly the day before you do.

The last thing we are working on a website redesign with an online store integrated. If you click on our Online Store, you will see all our titles and can click on the title you want and it will take you to where you can buy them. A few of PDF titles, you can buy through Paypal, straight from us. It will take us a while but eventually all of them be available at JonBrazer.com.

That is about all I have for the moment. If there is something you are looking forward to, please leave a comment below and I will be sure to address it.

Last Day of the Christmas in July Sale

Its the last full day of the Christmas in July Sale. Now is the best time to grab many of our PDFs while they are 25% off. That is just about every single PDF we have. Be it a Pathfinder book on settling a wilderness rules like the Book of the River Nations, monster books like Book of Beasts: Monsters of the Shadow Plane, adventures like the Deadly Delves: Reign of Ruin, or player races like Book of Heroic Races Compendium.

Or if you are want Traveller, get the d66 Compendium and the D66 Compendium 2, vehicles like the Foreven Worlds: Vehicles of the Frontier, careers like Player Careers Pack 1, monsters like the Creatures of Distant Worlds Compendium, or  fighters like Mech Tech ‘n’ bot: Fighters and Small Ships.

Players and Game Masters of Fifth Edition can get adventures Deadly Delves: Rescue from Tyrakven and Along Came a Spider and the races in Book of Heroic Races: Player Races 1 at a great discount right now.

13th Age GMs will enjoy getting 25% off of Book of Beasts: Monsters of the Great Druid, or an adventure like Deadly Delves: Reign of Ruin, or NPCs like Age of Icons: 100 Lich Queen Agents.

Don’t forget everything else we have on sale right now on the Christmas in July Sale going on right now at DriveThruRPG/RPGNow.

Sale: One Day Only $2 Sale on Pathfinder, Traveller, 5e, and 13th Age

Book of Beasts: Legendary FoesToday only, we are running a $2 Sale on all of our items currently on sale that normally sell for more than $4. That is a minimum of 50% off the regular price and as much as 80% off. That’s right, you can get our PDFs that are normally $10 for the rock bottom price of $2. This mean for Pathfinder you can grab for $2:

d66 CompendiumFor Traveller, be sure to grab:

For 5th Edition, don’t miss out on:

For 13th Age, download right now:

Don’t forget everything else we have on sale right now on the Christmas in July Sale going on right now at DriveThruRPG/RPGNow.

Traveller: Christmas in July Sale for the D66 Compendium 2

d66 Compendium 2Like we talked about yesterday with our 5e releases and the day before with Pathfinder, our Traveller releases are available now for 25% off for the Christmas in July Sale. We have a wide array of Traveller books on sale now at DriveThruRPG/RPGNow that you should grab right now. Act fast since this sale end on July 29th. Right now, you can you can get a great price on:

Grab these great deals today at DriveThruRPG/RPGNow.

5e: Christmas in July Sale, Until the 29th

Book of Heroic Races: Player Races 1Hey 5e Fans. Like we said yesterday with Pathfinder, today starts the annual Christmas in July Sale at DriveThruRPG/RPGNow. It started earlier today and will be running until July 29. We have three excellent products for Fifth Edition on sale now.

  • Those that want to play a new race should check out the 5-STAR rated Book of Heroic Races: Player Races 1. These fun races will give your players exciting options for some time to come.
  • A great way to start off your campaign is the 4-Star rated Deadly Delves: Along Came a Spider. This 1st-level adventure is a great way to start off a creepy campaign for your players. Those that hate spiders, like me, will remember this adventure for a long time to come.
  • Continue your campaign with the 5-STAR rated Deadly Delves: Rescue from Tyrkaven. This 2nd-level adventure starts the players off with hunting down murdrous hobgoblin and ends up having the players take on the servants of a long-forgotten deity. Even though the Pathfinder version of this adventure came out first, it was written for Fifth Edition.

Grab these great deals today at DriveThruRPG/RPGNow.

Sale: Christmas in July for Pathfinder

Deadly Delves: To Claw the SurfaceIts that time of year again! The Christmas in July Sale at DriveThruRPG/RPGNow will be starting on 21st of June (tomorrow!!!) and running through the 29th. JBE will have quite a bit on sale for Pathfinder this year. If you wanted anything of ours, this is the best time to pick it up. Here are a few of the highlights:

Add everything you want to your Wishlist at DriveThruRPG/RPGNow today so you don’t miss a deal.

Foreven Worlds: The Army of Unity

Foreven Worlds Prelude to War The Rose of DeathWith the 1st issue of the the Foreven Worlds Adventure Path, Prelude to War: The Rose of Death coming together, I thought I would talk a bit about what is inside. The center of the adventure is the adventure, of course, but what else is inside. One of things I am putting the final touches on now is details on a group called the Army of Unity.
Who exactly are the Army of Unity you ask and what bearing do they have to do with the adventure. The Army of Unity are a group the players are being sent to interact with, and possibly strike a blow to them. So we are including an article about the organization, telling about what the group actually stands for, what is their history, how wide spread are they. That last one is important since we all know player characters have a nasty habit of blowing things up far more than any game master can foresee. By talking about how widespread the group is means that even if the characters make an enormous kaboom, the could still encounter members of the Army of Unity that want a little payback.
The Army of Unity started off as a peaceful group in the Cornathian Empire having illegal narcotic-fueled orgies known as psisight. Not only is this drug illegal for its addictive properties that are a detriment to the user’s long term health, it grants minor psionic powers to its users for a limited time. Since all psionic activities are illegal in the Cornathian Empire, the police force were far from gentle when arresting members of this group, and they choose to fight back, becoming an army.
The adventure itself is written to not require a map of the station, but since some gamers love using maps and even more love looking at and studying maps, I created the map of their secret asteroid base. Below is the (nearly completed) floor plan of Decks 1 and 2. Check it out. I hope you like it.

Deck 1 and 2

Starfinder: Aliens In Spaaaaaaace

About 2 years ago, I walked out of Guardians of the Galaxy and said, “I want a raccoon race in my sci-fi games.” I liked Rocket, but I would rather him be a race rather than a one of a kind creature. So I asked my favorite artist to do a few drawings, and that is where this image came from. Man, do I love it!

Aliens are going to be a cornerstone to any Starfinder game in the way that fantasy races are to Pathfinder. So for the next installment in my ongoing series about what kind of Starfinder setting would I make, I would like to talk about some of the alien races in it. Of course there will be humans, androids, lashunta, and ratfolk in there, as well as any other race in the core rulebook, but I just have to add my own (if it is not already in there). First one will be a raccoon race. A nice scrappy race that is all about nocturnal life. That’s them. So they should be a crazy, go in guns blazing little guys. I also need to add seedlings in there. You know where I am going with this so I am just going to stop here.

But what else should I do with races: change the flavor of the core races. As I have said many, many places, I always prefer Dark Sun to the Forgotten Realms. Give me a cannibal halfling any day. So how would I change the core races: during the great war that plunged the once great StarRealm into darkness and ruin, the lashunta saw their world bombarded by asteroids by the Cycrom Collective (the cybernetic undead). The lashunta, as a result are scarce in numbers and many of the older generation have gone insane with grief. The younger generation tend to be either exceptionally practical, having grown up taking care of their parents all throughout their childhood, or are angry extremists, wanting revenge on Cycroms for robbing them of a life they can only dream of now.

That is as far as I have created at the moment. If you enjoy this series, please let us know, tell a friend, and sign up for our Starfinder newsletter to stay up on all our latest articles.