Developments

The past month have been a quiet one here at the Valley of the Old Ones blog, this is with good reason, however creative work on my game setting has not stopped.

First, the reason for the slow down - I have started a new position as an Assistant Professor in the School of Computer Science, at Columbus State University, in Columbus Georgia.  This involved not only a change in job locations, but also a major move (across 4 states) for my family.  But the move is done, and we are slowly getting things in our new (great) house settled.

Second, the creative work HAS been continuing, and I will begin posting again this week.  This has been in four areas.

• First, I have finished out rooms 11-41 of the Web of Ostigaar dungeon.  Some great surprises there, and once I am finished I plan to gather the whole adventure into a pdf and post it as a downloadable product.  

• Second, I have been gathering up the materials for the Cult of the White Shadow adventure, and am planning to enhance it somewhat (including the map and key to the estate that the dungeon is attached to, and some NPS stats), and also package it as a pdf file.  

• Third, I have been working on wilderness encounters for the whole Darkearth Plains region of the Valley, where these adventures are located.  The far eastern portion of the Darkearth Plains were developed when I discussed the various settlements of the Storm King Barbarians and their holdings, but the rest of the region have a very distinctive feel.  It is a cold region (more-so in the north, but true throughout), and the local flora are very similar to the last major ice age on Earth, especially in North America.  There are not only the typical late-Pleistocene era animals (megatherium, wooly mammoth, saber cats, wooly rhino, etc), but also some distinctive fantasy variations of these (dire sloth, frost rhinos, etc), and an approximation of fantasy neanderthals (the Shagmen of the Aghanz Hills).

• Fourth, I have resurrected an old dungeon that I wrote up a very long time ago, the Bear Caves of the Mad Dwarf.  It features, among other things, some most excellent undead bears, a crazed dwarf jongleur, and a shrieking gargoyle.  I am writing this up, and setting it in the Valley of the Old Ones setting, and also to submit it to an online project collecting content featuring interesting skeleton encounters.  Skeletal Cave Bears will count for that, I hope.  Especially when they have the ability to phase through walls.