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25 June 2010

Today’s Tabbloid
PERSONAL NEWS FOR riorio2@rogue-games.net

ROGUE FEED ROGUE FEED

Another Conan Pic The New Rogue Games website


JUN 24, 2010 11:01P.M. JUN 24, 2010 05:02P.M.

This one, again, came to my attention from the official Robert E. Howard The new website is up. At least on my end.
forums.

ROGUE FEED

Website Move Underway


JUN 24, 2010 02:33P.M.

www.rogue-games.net is currently down. We are moving to a new host.


We should be up by the weekend.

No one panic.

If you want to access it you can go to: http://rogue-


games.squarespace.com/

I’m uncertain if this image is from a movie poster or some other promo
image or what, but it’s clearly heavily photo-manipulated. Again, I have ROGUE FEED
very mixed feelings about the look of this. I can only say that it’s certainly
a dynamic (if peculiar) image and a departure from the way Conan was REVIEW: Advanced Labyrinth
portrayed in the John Milius film. Whether this means it’ll be any closer
to Howard, I don’t know. Lord Screen
JUN 24, 2010 11:28A.M.
Once again, time will tell.
Back in the day, you weren’t really a referee if you didn’t use a screen of
some sort to hide your maps, notes, and sometimes dice rolls from the
players in your game. Consequently, I owned a lot of such screens, my
favorite being the Dave Trampier-illustrated Dungeon Master’s Screen
published by TSR. When I started up my Dwimmermount campaign in
early 2009, despite my willingness to draw heavily upon my own gaming
beginnings, I never once seriously considered using a referee’s screen.
Part of it was simple practicality: referee’s screens traditionally take up a
lot of space, space I didn’t have to spare at my dining room table,
especially when I laid out the dungeon in Hirst Arts blocks. Another part
of it was philosophical, for lack of a better word; my refereeing style
these days is much more conversational, so a screen between me and the
players would be an impediment rather than an aid.

Still, I took great interest in the appearance of the Advanced Labyrinth


Lord Screen designed by Shane Mangus. One of the really fascinating
things about the old school renaissance is the way that older

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Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR riorio2@rogue-games.net 25 June 2010

“technologies,” of which the referee’s screen is certainly a prime ROGUE FEED


example, are being embraced again and improved upon. I may not use
referee’s screens myself but that didn’t mean I wasn’t interested in seeing First Official Conan Pic
how someone approached the concept in 2010. You can see what Shane JUN 24, 2010 10:12A.M.
did below, thanks to this cool little embedded Scribd application.
According to a post on the official Robert E. Howard forums, the first
Advanced Labyrinth Lord Screen (v1.02) authorized photograph of Jason Momoa as the Cimmerian from the
upcoming Marcus Nispel-directed film. You can see it below:

As you can see, Mangus has packed a lot of useful information onto three
8½” by 11” pages. Pretty much all of the tables and charts you’d need in
play can be found here, along with others that are helpful but hardly
essential. That’s something previous screens have done too, but what I
like about this one is how easy it is on my aging eyes. I don’t find the
charts difficult to read and their arrangement is quite logical, so that, for
example, all the combat charts are on a single page. It’s a small thing,
admittedly, but small things are important when considering aids for
running a roleplaying game.

The Advanced Labyrinth Lord Screen is, of course, intended for use by
referees running Labyrinth Lord campaigns that make use of the
Advanced Edition Companion, but it’d work just as well in campaigns
that don’t make use of the AEC. It’s available as a free downloadable PDF
(the link is above), so you’ll need to print it out for yourself onto sheets of
cardboard to use of it as a screen. Of course, you could do like I have and Purist quibbling aside, I can’t complain overly much. Momoa certainly
simply print the pages off onto paper and keep them handy as a looks more like my conception of Conan than Arnie did, but then my
reference sheets for use at the table. I’m still unlikely to use a referee’s main beefs about this film haven’t been centered on Momoa (though, to
screen at my table, but I always have a use for well-done reference sheets be fair, I really have no idea if he’s got the acting chops to pull off this
and Shane Mangus has produced some of the best I’ve seen for use with role). If the rest of the film were similarly “good enough,” I’d consider it a
Labyrinth Lord. I’d love to see him make some follow-ups that use a victory. I don’t have high hopes in that regard, based on what we know of
similar format but include things like spell lists or quick monster stats — the movie so far, but it’s possible the script and story are better than has
a kind of modern day Ready Ref Sheets. been reported elsewhere, so I’m doing my best to adopt a wait and see
attitude, even as my gut tells me that I’m going to be sorely
Not that I want to pressure him or anything ... disappointed.

Presentation: 9 out of 10
Creativity: 7 out of 10
Utility: 7 out of 10 ROGUE FEED

Get This If: You play Labyrinth Lord and want to cut down on the time Grognard’s Grimoire: Cloak of
spent looking for charts while playing.
Don’t Get This If: You don’t play Labyrinth Lord or possess a the Ulfhethnar
photographic memory. JUN 24, 2010 09:05A.M.

The text in the quote box below is hereby designated Open Game
Content via the Open Game License.

Cloak of the Ulfhethnar: This cloak is made of an intact wolf


skin, carefully removed according to a well-guarded occult
formula. When worn, the cloak grants the wearer the ability
to turn into fearsome half-man, half-wolf creature. In this
form, the wearer retains his normal hit points but gains an
armor class of 4 (even if this is worse than his ordinary armor
class), the ability to bite for 2d4 points of damage, a

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Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR riorio2@rogue-games.net 25 June 2010

movement rate of 180’ (60’), and an immunity to normal


weapons, being harmed only by spells, silver, and enchanted
weapons. While in wolf-form, wearers can use normal
weapons and cast spells. Wearers of the cloak are not not true
lycanthropes and are thus unaffected by wolfsbane. Likewise,
they cannot transmit lycanthropy to those they attack,
regardless of how much damage they inflict upon them.

The cloak of the ulfhethnar has one additional quality that


makes it very attractive to the immoral and degenerate. For
each hit point of an intelligent being slain and eaten by the
wearer while donning the cloak, he extends the length of his
current age stage (see Advanced Edition Companion, p. 23)
by one day. There is no limit to this extension, meaning that,
with the regular slaughter of intelligent beings, a wearer of
the cloak of ulfhethnar can prolong his life indefinitely. There
is an additional cost, however. Every time the wearer
transforms himself into wolf-form, there is a cumulative 1%
chance that his alignment will shift permanently to Chaotic
and regard all intelligent beings as little more than potential
fodder for his increasingly ravenous appetite. A remove curse
spell cast by a Lawful cleric of 9th level or higher can reverse
this effect.

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