Coming Soon: Attack of the Frawgs! By Thick Skull Adventures

[ThickSkullAdv]

I'm excited to announce that Thick Skull Adventures has written a new Level 0 module specifically for Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG and will be ready to ship when DCC RPG goes public!

Coming in 2012: Attack of the Frawgs!

There is panic in the village of Sagewood!

Frightened villagers have come forward saying they’ve seen strange grotesque green creatures peering at them from within the woods. And now, a local trapper has returned from Dead Goblin Lake reporting that he and his partner were savagely attacked by one of these hideous creatures—he barely managed to escape and he fears that his partner may not have been so lucky. The townsfolk feel something must be done, but with no local militia the call is sent out: “Is no one brave enough to take up arms and dispatch these creatures before they kill again?”
Your party of farmers, laborers and commoners must make your way to Dead Goblin Lake, search for the missing trapper and see if you can root out and destroy these creatures that are menacing the village!



Attack of the Frawgs! is a new adventure designed specifically for Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. It has been designed for 8-14 0-level characters but can be easily adapted for 1st-level characters.

Rules: Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game
Writer: Stephen Newton
Art & Layout: Catherine Harkins
Front Cover Frawg: Andrew Harkins
Cartography: Stephen Newton

Check out The Website: http://www.thickskulladventures.com/pro ... he-frawgs/
Follow us out on Twitter @ThickSkullAdv: https://twitter.com/#!/ThickSkullAdv
Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Thick-Sku ... 5850426571

[Geoffrey]

I'm happy to see this module--the first announced 3rd-party DDC RPG module--scheduled for release in March.

My question: How is this module different than the countless D&D modules that have been published over the last 4 decades? Other than using DDC RPG mechanics, what makes Attack of the Frawgs stand out? Will the module have all-new monsters and magic items? Or will the module include old stand-bys such as orcs, +1 swords, etc?

[goodmangames]

Awesome! Welcome aboard. I'm looking forward to this. Bring on the Frawgs!!

[finarvyn]

That's a cool cover, too! My group can't wait to take on the Frawgs!

[ThickSkullAdv]

@Joseph and @Marv – thanks so much for the appreciation! As you guys well know, bringing one of these to market is a big pile of work and my hope is that it gets enjoyed by as many people as possible.

@Geoffrey, thank you as well for the well wishes. The short answer to your question “How is it different from other modules over last 4 decades” would be: all new monsters, interesting storyline and setting, fun writing and it has a great story arc and antagonists with the Frawgs and their implements. No orcs. No vanilla +1 weapons.

The longer hopefully more interesting answer: obviously there would be no Frawgs without the previous 4 decades of work to build upon. The adventures I write are homage to the types of modules I enjoyed playing most, and those were largely modules of the 70s & 80s: Against The Giants, Egg of the Phoenix, Temple of Elemental Evil, Dwellers of the Forbidden City, etc. If you read some of the reviews for my first adventure (Haunting of Larvik Island) many folks spoke about how it was very story-driven and had a great old-school feel wrapped in 4E rules.

With my modules, I’m trying to create large campaign arc whose adventures can be enjoyed independently but building towards an interconnected larger epic story that becomes more interesting when played together (similar to GDQ series). I provide players with settings and pantheon that will be interconnected. In fact, much of the story for Frawgs came out of a planning I’d done for Larvik2. This larger campaign has new gods, new religious artifacts, and heaps of new settings and monsters that are being introduced with each new adventure. I sincerely hope that folks give it a chance and hope they come back for the new adventures to continue the adventure!

PS: I’m also going through a “re-master” of the Haunting of Larvik Island for DCC RPG. Saying it’s a “conversion” does not do it justice as I'm taking the time to really pace the story in a way that it was originally envisioned. I'll be making a similar announcement when that re-mastering is closer to completion.

Thanks!
-S-

[Geoffrey]

Wow. This sounds really good. Thanks for the details!

[ThickSkullAdv]

Thick Skull Adventures Update:

Frawgs Update: My partner in crime, the lovely Ms. Catherine Harkins, is working on the one-sheet for the module for adverts. I've drawn 2 of the 3 maps which will be included using Campaign Cartographer 3. I've also done the first edit of the Adobe InDesign layout; once I do my first pass, Cat comes in and waves a magic wand and the InDesign file goes from looking like a plain-old Word doc to something magical. She's like Cinderella's fairy godmother that way. I'm confident all will be finished to allow us to align shipping with the Spring 2012 release of DCC RPG.

Haunting of Larvik Island (re-master) update: as I mentioned in a previous post, I'm now re-mastering "Haunting of Larvik Island" (aka Larvik 1) for DCC RPG. This adventure (long ago in its infancy) started out as an AD&D adventure for my home group so going through the re-master for DCC is like slipping on a comfortable pair of jeans. I've converted all the monsters to DCC format, and now going through and and giving it fresh polish, and tweaking here and there as I've since done quite a bit more work on the mythology of this 3-1/2 module adventure arc. I'm hoping this can be complete by 3Q 2012.

"Larvik 2": I'm still in the writing phase of this module, and it's looking to be as big, if not a bit bigger, than Larvik 1 (so about 40 pages). The entire outline for the adventure written, and I'm about 1/2 through the writing of all the text. This one will probably be ready in 2H 2012 as well as I would still need to do all the playtesting, layout, etc.

Through it all, we continue to play DCC RPG on game night (including being lucky enough to playtest an upcoming GG adventure) and talking about what it is we like about in our favorite RPG adventures and how do we, "... do more of that!" as we write.

I'm very excited about the release DCC RPG, and I think you should be too

[ThickSkullAdv]

hi,
i am excited about the module!!

Thanks Messki678. My graphic designer is doing layout as we speak! It looks really good. Looking forward to launching soon.

[MrHemlocks]

Only one other creature I enjoy bashing more than monster frogs and that is mushroom men

[finarvyn]

Frogs have a special place in my heart because the first "module" ever published was in Blackmoor, OD&D Supplement II. It was a little adventure called Temple of the Frog, which legend says was based on the fact that Dave Arneson found some sort of frog-shaped planter pot and used it as his giganto badguy.

Gotta love dem Frawgs!

[ThickSkullAdv]

Just got the first draft of the final layout (is that a contradiction?) of Attack of the Frawgs from Thick Skull Adventure's layout wizard Ms. Catherine Harkins! As with our first module, she's done a fabulous job creating a cool atmosphere on the pages with her graphics and style. Love that woman.

And speaking of loving, here's a pic of my daughter and I in front of the cool DCC RPG retro poster that was hanging at Game Kastle during their flea market last weekend!



You can read more about the flea market that and the latest on Attack of the Frawgs on the Thick Skull the blog.

[finarvyn]

Any update on when this module will be released? Some guys on the Blackmoor boards have been curious....

[ThickSkullAdv]

Any update on when this module will be released? Some guys on the Blackmoor boards have been curious....

Excellent! Glad to hear there's some interest. I've been out of the country on business travel for the last week so I'm just getting caught up.

Cat (Cat being Catherine Harkins, my good friend and graphic designer) has been busy doing the layout for Frawgs. At last writing it was almost completely done, I had just found a couple of last min tweaks I'd asked her to make. She and I are going to be at a hockey tournament this weekend so I'm not sure if we'll get to those edits or not. Once it's done I'm going to send to Joseph for final approval.

So all that said: the .PDF version I suspect will be up at RPGNow.com probably in the next 2-3 weeks, and the print version probably a bit later.

Thanks!
-S-