Dedicated to the Dragon Age Dark Fantasy Roleplaying Game and to the AGE game system.
April 1, 2012
AGE System, Creatures Beyond Dragon Age, Contest, Monsters Leave a comment
March Monster Madness: the AGE System Monster Design Challenge has come to an end!
Thanks to all who participated this year. I will be gathering the entries and reading through them. You can find a preliminary list of contestants by perusing the comments to the opening post.
The winner will be posted up on April 11, 2012.
Good luck to all.
March 8, 2012
Adventures, AGE System, GM's Corner, Reports Campaign Journal, Dragon Age Origins, Play Report 3 Comments
With this series I’m continuing to chronicle my Dragon Age RPG conversion of the Origins storyline. This is a recap of our second session of that storyline. Unfortunately, the game was cut short due to a small fire breaking out in my bathroom (everyone is okay). Here is a link to part 1 of the series. We pick up our recap in the Korkari Wilds…
Having defeated the darkspawn and collected their blood, the party next wanted to see if they could find their horses. Some tracking and searching led them to the corpse of one of the horses, it seemed to have been eaten by blight wolves. The wounds were fresh enough to scare party into thinking the pack of wolves may be nearby, so they marched on deep within the Wilds. While searching for the horses, the party’s rogue spotted what looked like a small tower or ruin off in the distance, and they figured that would be as good a place as any to search.
Game bit: The horses were never meant to be found, they were spooked and for me that was the last of that. They insisted on finding them, so I indulged them in some rolling for searching. This led to high rolls and the opportunity to have them find the ruins.
They arrived at the ruins, and started searching and looking around. The Avvarian caught something from the corner of his eye, he said it looked like a pony sized spider that stopped to look at them and quickly went into the trees and out of sight. The party decided to remain vigilant, but weren’t going to go searching for spiders, as they had a job to do. They found a trap door and a set of stairs that went down into the ground, so the mage lit a small light in his hand and down they went.
Game bit: The spider was my way of introducing Morrigan, she knew that they were here and was watching them.
March 6, 2012
AGE System, Creatures Beyond Dragon Age, Contest, Monsters 11 Comments
Get ready to channel your inner Dr. Frankenstein as we launch March Monster Madness: the AGE System Monster Design Challenge!
During the month of March we are running the 2nd Annual AGE System Monster Design Challenge.
This year the theme is FREEFORM: create any monster you want for the AGE System! It can be large, it can be small, hairy, spiky, scaly, winged or slithering. It’s up to you! To enter, create your monster, post it to the official thread on the Green Ronin forums, and post a link to your entry in the comments below.
Contest runs from March 1-31. Voting on the best monster runs from April 2-7. Winners to be announced on April 9.
Start practicing your “It’s Alive!” cry of victory and may the best demiurge win.
February 24, 2012
Adventures, AGE System, GM's Corner, Reports Campaign Journal, Dragon Age Origins, Play Report 7 Comments
So I’ve decided that my Dragon Age campaign will switch to following the story line (albeit a bit altered) of the videogame. My 5 players are level 5, and we’ve gone through most of the published adventures, which I believe springboard nicely into getting noticed by the Grey Wardens. I wanted to chronicle my conversion of the video game unto the tabletop, so I’m going to do it here at the Dragon Age Oracle, the web’s best place for Dragon Age content outside of Green Ronin’s site.
I’ll pick up the story after finishing the adventure included in Set 2, “The Autumn Falls”. There, they caught the attention of the Nevarran Grey Warden Commander, who instructed them to go to Ostagar and meet The Ferelden Commander, Duncan. Behind the scenes, Duncan already knew about this group of people because they had helped stop a Darkspawn assault on the Avvarian village of Redhold, and had defeated a Desire Demon in Denerim. Duncan was waiting. The party’s journey towards their fate would begin in the port city of Amaranthine, where the ship bringing them from Nevarra back to Ferelden docked….
February 23, 2012
AGE System, Creatures Campaign Setting, Design, Download, Dragon Age Origins 2 Comments
We have posted before about the amazing fan work done by a group of Australian Dragon Age fans who created a series of books known as the Esoterica of Thedas. Since posting the initial links, they have finished all three volumes and revised them, then moved the files to a different location. I have received a number of emails about the broken links so I went ahead and contacted them to get new links for you.
You can now download all three volumes of the Esoterica of Thedas from these links below. Enjoy them for the great labor of love they are and for how much more of Thedas they bring to the Dragon Age RPG. All links are to PDF files.
Download:
February 21, 2012
AGE System Green Ronin, Playtest 1 Comment
Green Ronin has now released the Open Playtest document for the Dragon Age RPG Set 3, covering levels of play from 11 to 20. Having gotten a great response to their open playtest of Set 2, and knowing the limitations of licensed material, they have gone ahead and released a good amount of the material to be featured in the third and last set of the Dragon Age RPG. To quote their post:
If we could publish Set 3 tomorrow, we’d do it. Because we can’t, because it’s not ready, we’re repeating what we did for Set 2 and stress testing this new set by getting your input on it. This is our open public beta test of many of the game-mechanical aspects of Set 3, including rules for advancing Player Characters all the way to level 20!
Inside you’ll find an assortment of new components for the Dragon Age RPG, from talents to specializations, from spells to monsters. This all represents a sizable portion of the Set 3 manuscript—but still only a portion. So don’t fret if you something you were looking forward to in Set 3 isn’t in here—we’ve got a few surprises in store.
Remember, please, that only playtest responses emailed to the address in the package, with signed release forms, can be considered. We can’t count forum posts, blog posts, tweets, or similar messages as official playtest feedback. We’d appreciate it if you sent your serious critiques to us directly and remember that this is a work in progress.
So head over to Green Ronin and download the Set 3 Open Playtest today and start leveling up!
February 2, 2012
AGE System, Creatures Beyond Dragon Age, Campaign Setting, DnD, Download, Mystara 2 Comments
Dragon Age Oracle collaborator and AGE System wiz Byron Molix hits it out of the park once more with his new project, the for AGE.
You will remember that Byron is the author of Mystara: The Known World, a campaign setting that brings the classic D&D world to the AGE System. Now Byron unleashes a collection of 112 classic creatures perfect for the Mystara setting or any fantasy world. The creatures in the compendium follow the alternate rules set up in the Mystara campaign document, but they can be easily converted back to “default” AGE with very little adjusting.
Follow the link below, download your copy of the Mystara Adversary Compendium I, and bring a classic adventure-gaming monster back to your table today. My favorite? Two words: porcine orcs!
Download:
January 26, 2012
Advice, AGE System Backgrounds, Design 1 Comment
Do you enjoy the Dragon Age RPG? Wish you could invent your own Backgrounds? Do you think this is a short introductory paragraph? WHO CARES!? Here is my official “How To” on creating your own Backgrounds. More
January 23, 2012
AGE System, Creatures AGE of Terror, Beyond Dragon Age, Diablo, Magic, Monsters, Spells 3 Comments
In the Diablo games, the player’s character is often faced with large hordes of enemies that they need to quickly defeat before being overwhelmed. In order to help support that in the AGE system, I’ve been tinkering with monsters with low health that heroes should be able to easily defeat in 1 or 2 hits. The first set of monsters I’ve worked on using these ideas are the fallen ones which often appear in large groups early in both Diablo and Diablo II. The basic fallen one is a minion-type monster that is likely to fall to a single blow, but it can be paired with more powerful champions and shamans.
I’m interested to hear what other people think about this approach, so please leave comments with your opinion on the concept.
The fallen, impish terrors created by Baal, have emerged from beneath the monastery in Tristram and spread throughout the Western Kingdoms. The small demons, sometimes referred to as carvers or devilkin, are often encountered in large packs that roam the countryside seeking to murder and ransack. These packs are often led by shamans who have mastered several basic spells that allow them to hold sway over their less intelligent kin.
January 20, 2012
Reviews Dragon Age Origins, Green Ronin Leave a comment
In 2010, Green Ronin first released their Dragon Age RPG box, reminiscent of the old cardboard box sets released by TSR back in the early years of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. In Dragon Age RPG Set 1, we were introduced to the world of Thedas, the Blight, and the core system rules (the AGE System) for adventuring in Ferelden (for character level 1-5). One year later, Green Ronin released their second Dragon Age boxed product, Dragon Age RPG Set 2.
Like its predecessor, Set 2 ships in the same sturdy cardboard box and contains some familiar contents:
New to this edition are the cardboard reference cards for your players containing access to the game’s Spell Stunts, Combat Actions List (Major / Minor), Combat Stunts, and the newly added Magical Mishaps, Exploration and Roleplaying Stunts tables.
The most anticipated addition to Set 2 is the inclusion of the Grey Wardens; something notably absent from Set 1, and lamented by players and fans of Bioware’s CRPG, which featured Grey Wardens prominently. Where the GM’s guide contains historical information regarding the Blights, and the rise of the Grey Wardens to combat them, the Player’s Guide will cover rules for creation and play of a Grey Warden character.
