Review & Commentary On 20 Minor Magic Items by James & Jodi Moran Mishler For The Fifth Edition of the Worlds Most Popular Fantasy Rpg

"20 Minor Magic Items contains 20 items of lesser or least magical sort, designed to be given to lower-level characters. Most of the Minor Magic Items listed herein are common or very common items of minor, lesser, or petty sort."




"One common or two very common items from this booklet can be substituted for any one common item from the standard treasure lists.

The 20 items are:

Adamantine-Chased Armor
Ammunition of Ready Recovery
Belt Pouch of Plenty
Crown of the Goblin King
Grenade of Wonder
Healing Salve
Holy Crackers
Instant Armor
Locket of Memory
Pastries of Provisioning
Phantasmal Pipe
Ring of Invisibility, Lesser
Ring of Truth
Ring of Warding
Rune Weapon, Lesser
Shielding Shield
Talisman of Resistance
Talisman of Protection
Thieves Tools Nonpareil
Tome of the Master" 

 There are two things dungeon masters can never have enough of & that's monsters or magic items. Now over the last couple of months I've been playing an on & off reoccurring PC in DM Steve's Amazing Adventures 5th edition game. And here's where 20 Minor Magic Items by James & Jodi Moran Mishler  comes in very handy! 

This has been a campaign based around 70's & 80's classic horror & fantasy movies. As a DM in rotation that hasn't happened due to work conflicting schedules with several of our players so I've had to sit on my hands for the moment. So over the last couple of months I've been quietly learning the 5th edition AA. And getting into the back drop adapting certain fantasy world NPC's. Among the things that I keep encountering is having interesting occult items that can be useful but not campaign wrecking. 20 Minor Magic Items by James & Jodi Moran Mishler clocks in at six pages of items with several wrinkles or hooks that could be exploited by the DM. 
A good example of this is the Crown of the Goblin King which plugs directly into today's Jim Henson inspired blog entry; "CROWN OF THE GOBLIN KING Wonderous item, common (requires attunement) This splendiferous, ostentatious device is a headpiece patched together from various flashy, gaudy, and tacky bits and bobs, none of which have any actual value. When you wear this crown you have advantage on all Charisma checks when dealing with goblins; unfortunately, you also suffer disadvantage on all Charisma checks with dwarves." This item could be a major plot hook while being a very minor magic item as the goblins of Fey will not recognize a new goblin king without it. And with a bit of hand waving these magic items could easily be dropped into a Castles & Crusades game with little or no modification at all. 

And  20 Minor Magic Items by James & Jodi Moran Mishler  is filled with exactly these sorts of  minor magic items. While they won't break the campaign they can & will make it memorable. For a dollar 20 Minor Magic Items is a wise investment that will give far more in the long run of a campaign.

20 Minor Magic Items by James & Jodi Moran Mishler Is Available Here

Session Report One - High Tech Mysticism & High Caliber Adventure campaign - Amazing Adventures Fifth Edition - Influence of the Jungle Tomb of the Mummy Bride By Levi Combs From Planet X Games

 Tonight's Amazing Adventures fifth edition session picks right up from last week's zero session. 

A player hand out printed from the papers recovered from Mr.Smithers the town historian. 
The photo was marked with the following;"Wehrmacht officiers, 1941. Unidentified site, picture from the personal archives of Dr. Henry Walton Jones, Jr." 
The following artwork is used without permission from Andrea Bonazzi

The players are poking around the old Morley mansion & came across the town historian's belongings?! Mr. Smithers had set up a makeshift room inside the old mansion & they found a bunch of classified papers from WW II & a four foot high jar. The jar began to move & out bust a swarm of thousands of  tiny hand like creatures that crawled towards the PC's!? There was an odd disembodied cackling that came from off in the ether. There were a series of photographs, an oddly annoited & noted map of the seas around South America & a journal in archaic German!?!  The same Wehrmacht officiers appeared in front of a dire looking jungle tomb in the South American bush! Smithers himself isn'r anywhere to be found?! 

The PC's decided to press deeper into the Morley place & discovered a secret tunnel passage that led down into tunnels running below the Morley place. In one of these the PC's came across a dug out room with an alchemist lab set up within it! And there was a rather nasty blood splatter across the floor & green ichor mixed with it. None of the player's PC's touched the foul bubbling stuff mixed with the blood. 
We drew tonight's game to a close rather early because of work schedules for tomorrow morning. 

A few take aways from tonight's game of slipping in the adventure  crow bars of Jungle Tomb of the Mummy Bride. Amazing Adventures fifth edition has the classic Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition's or Castles & Crusade's alignment system in full effect. Running away is always an option esepcially for OSR style adventures. 
The PC's also have run into a little sip of paper that contained the following; 
 "Keep women, thrones and kingly lands,

Grant me—to work all mankind dole

To cleave their skulls and split their hands,

To kill the body, damn the soul." 
Keep women, thrones and kingly lands ...
by Robert E. Howard

They have no idea what this verse means but their about ready to charter a plan to South America near a little fishing village where  Mr. Smithers was staying at some months ago. 

Character Workshop & Zero Session - Now With More Tomb of The Mummy's Bride By Levi Combs From Planet X Games

 
"Tales of the cursed pyramid and the sleeping tomb of the Mummy Bride have long been a traveler’s tale, passed along by wayward explorers and greedy plunderers alike. Deep within the verdant jungles of the south, amidst a Green Hell of impenetrable jungle, savage cannibals and ancient myth, lies the shattered remnants of a once-powerful civilization and the terrible gods who ruled over them. Rumors swirl of untold riches and un-plundered magic for those brave (or foolish!) enough to claim it. Will your players survive… and what will be left of them?" 



We've closed up shop for the moment on the Veterans of the Supernatural Wars rpg mini campaign for the moment. So we're in the planning stages for an Amazing Adventures 5th editions rpg campaign romp. Except we've already got a fifth edition AA mini campaign already on the run! This one takes place in 1965 when a group of adventurers is looking into the legends of the Goblyn Glass. 

This goes back several months & the fact that we had a group of players go through Goodman Games Classics Reimagined #2 Isle of Dread . The isle appeared off the South American panhandle. The problem?! A complete party wipe on the isle & its chain of mini islands. 

So where does this leave Jungle Tomb of the Mummy Bride?! The fact that this undead dark lord is on the rise on this Earth! But what's the connection to small Connecticut town of Bingham?! We'll there's a ton of connections with the town historian Mr. Smithers whose family has a strong ghoul strain running through it. This family line slides in with the witches history that  interconnects with Skirmisher Publishing's ' Games  Mythos Guide To New England '

Mr. Smithers has several artifacts in his possession that have deep ties to the Mummy Bride herself. Smithers has consulted the renowned occultist John Grimlan whose recently comeback into the world of the living.  John Grimlan is the occultist  from the classic horror story by  Robert E. Howard' called 'Dig Me No Grave'. The U.S. army has the Goblyn Glass at the moment. 

Now things are starting up again at the old  Morley Manor property. There's been several disappearance in & around the old place. And Smithers has had the where with all to call in the player's PC's. Now however Smithers has disappeared! 

Mythos Mail Call - Campaigns, Cthulhu, & Ancient Rome?!

Now we've talked about grabbing some of the rarer rpg books that have come out since 2018. And since our group is now going to focus on running an Amazing Adventures Fifth edition campaign for a change up. 


 So we decided to get down & dirty with a bit of that old Call of Cthulhu goodness. But with an OSR twist or two. Cthulhu Invictus by Golden Goblin Press  is for Seventh edition Call of Cthulhu & it is glorious! But but you've already got 43 AD  from Zozer Games by Paul Elloit?! Yes, we do & its the superior game in almost all ways. Because its focus is on both historical & cinematic Celtic & Roman period historical influences. 

Cthulhu Invictus by Golden Goblin Press is focused solely on fighting the Cthulhu mythos within the Roman Empire. The game adapts quite nicely all of the focus within this unto itself. And the book is printed in the United States not China like Chaosium books are. And in good conscious can not condone the multiple human rights violations of China. Nor ignore the stance of CCP's stance on Hong Kong where family of ours  resides. So while we  own several Chaosium CoC books our group's  stance is firm. This is about as political as this blog entry gets. Anyhow frequently DM Paul & co. have been bothering me about running Jason Vey's Amazing Adventures rpg. Now this isn't fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons at all. So shelve half of the preconceptions of that game. 
This is going to be an out and out supernatural or occult ho down with both New England & Mythos overtones. This is something that we started with Veterans of the Supernatural Wars Rpg by Elf Lord Games. But the focus within that Mythos campaign  is in a completely different direction. Then this campaign. The second book we grabbed is pure OSR And that's The  Worlds Without Number rpg.  That's a whole separate blog entry unto itself coming up. 

Quick Review & Commentary On Amazing Adventures 5E Wild Stars by Michael Tierney, & Jason Vey For a Wild Stars Old School Campaign

"Seventy-Five-Thousand Years ago, mankind first migrated into space and colonized the planets circling the brightest stars in the night sky, creating the region of space known as the Wild Stars.

They are yours to explore!

Based on the long running comic books series by Michael Tierney: of the same name!"

 So one of the books that's been in our hands for a long while now has been the Fifth edition book by Troll Lord Games called Amazing Adventures 5E Wild Stars by Michael Tierney, &  Jason Vey. 

Now before you unsubscribe to this blog because, 'Oh my God he's reviewing a fifth edition book?!' Amazing Adventures 5E Wild Stars  is pretty much stat less & really given over to the Wild Stars campaign setting history, the comic book adventure plot, & some of the twists & turns of the comic book itself. The layout, artwork, etc. are up to Troll Lord standards. This isn't a huge book book clocking in at forty six pages. But you have to understand Wild Stars premise, big ideas, characters, etc. that this series put forth. 

Of course I've already seen the grousing from those certain quarters of gaming, 'Oh I wasted my money', 'Its too short of a setting book', 'this is simply a rehash from the coming books', yup I already heard it from the usual local quarters which I ignored & doubled down by grabbing the Wild Stars: 35th Anniversary book with a really sweet discount. 

So what is Wild Stars all about?! Well its basically an alien invasion series mixed in with high concept time travel, FTL, cosmic gods, science fiction weirdness, & a lot of good old fashion Pulp style adventure. But what really sold us on this setting was the crabmen artwork! 

Now where have I seen these guys before?! Hmm Oh yeah the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition Fiend Folio! That's right I love crabmen for dungeons & adventures! 

 Amazing Adventures 5E Wild Stars  takes all of these elements & distills them down into an actual usable format & form me this is the draw. Will 2021 be the year that I run a Amazing Adventures 5E Wild Stars  game campaign?! Maybe!? The jury is still out on this but I can say that for me grabbing Amazing Adventures 5E Wild Stars  was well worth it. Here are some reasons why:

1. The Wild Stars campaign setting can link up with almost any OSR or campaign setting. The point by point adventure adjunction works nicely. 
2. Michael Tierney is a proven writer with a track record going back for a long time in my comic book & fandom reading. So I know what I'm in for. 
3. The Wild Stars setting has lots of adventure possibilities & flat out works. 
4. Jason Vey does excellent game design & writing so anything with his name on it is an automatic buy. 
5. Tierney understands monster ecology & does a nice job with his elements. 
6. This is a Troll Lord product & it can be ported over into Siege Engine rpg play 
7. The stat less approach means that the Wild Star setting can work for the advantage of the dungeon master. 
8. Non linear approach to adventure design works well with my games. 
9. Adventure element pick up works like a snap for me with experienced players. If you don't know what we're talking about here go read Wild Stars to understand. 
10. Possible crossover with other OSR & Old school AD&D first edition or older D&D adventures. And yes it could easily be adapted to original Traveller or Cepheus engine. Perhaps Cepheus Light could work easily..