[Gencon 2025] After Action Report Part 2

Parts 1 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

Thursday

Thursday started early as I had to carry everything a mile and a half to the stadium. It was quite a long haul. I had so many things to carry. Lucky for me, I split the miniatures for the specials into "what I need Thursday" and "Later," with the size of the two sets being roughly the same.

Before that first slot is always a worry... Will ALL the GMs show up? What will people think? Will everyone show up? Will we be able to seat everyone with a generic? What will the overall vibe be?

Well... All this worry turned out for naught. Everyone showed up and the morning was off to a roaring start.

Now a fun thing... Mike-B showed up at the doors of the stadium for his badge and I waited for him at the tunnel. Then, to our devices stopped connecting: no text, no calls, no messenger... Lucky Steve-E was there to save the day!

The evening slot was lighter in ticket sales. A mixed blessing. However, since the adventure had a lot of social interaction, this turned out to be a blessing because it allowed everyone to get more involved in the adventure, as each table got to do more things. There were SO many things to do.

When GMs asked "How can they do it all?" The answer was a simple "They can't."

Players have a way of surprising me when I write these types of epics. They make choices that, at first leave you perplexed, but after a moment stir the creative juices going and push the setting into new and excitig directions. This is one thing I love about writing these epics specials...

Then bed and sleep.

I survived Day 1.

Friday

Day 2 started somewhat differently as I got a later start and miscalculated the time it would take me to reach the room... A late start put me on the back foot to get everything ready.

But once everything got rolling, I settled down and slept on a chair.

The afternoon and evening came by without much to report...

EXCEPT.

During the evening's Parting Shot, there was a moment when I had an NPC betray the PCs in a very opportune moment. I was both worried and stoked for this secret reveal.

As the discovery happened, two people reacted aloud with "Oh fucker!"

That filled me with dark, morbid joy.

Parts 1 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

Tarsyn: Lost Holy City - Now Available in print and pdf

Crusaders Victorious! Tarsyn Liberated!

The wait is over — Tarsyn: Lost Holy City is here. This richly detailed mini-setting blends the grandeur of Arthurian legends, the fervor of the Crusades, and the mystique of a holy city lost beyond the veil of worlds.

The Story So Far

Ten years ago, the Holy City of Tarsyn fell to a crusading host determined to free it from foreign occupation and restore the Vaspianic faith to its glory. Their victory was short-lived. The city’s rulers, cursed by a power beyond mortal reckoning, were transformed into First Ones — ancient beings of conquest and domination.

And then… Tarsyn vanished. Somewhere, in the far-flung reaches of the multiverse, its towers gleam under alien suns. Its knights now ride across strange realms in search of the road home, their banners still proud, their faith unbroken.

What Awaits Inside

The Tarsyn Campaign Setting brings your table a complete, ready-to-run world filled with intrigue, honor, and danger. Inside, you’ll find:

• Three new character races
• Three human subraces steeped in the culture and history of Tarsyn
• Thirteen new class archetypes for every style of champion, zealot, or knight-errant
• New backgrounds, magic items, monsters, and NPCs to fill your adventures with rich detail
• Rules for running tournaments — from jousts to melee — plus extensive guidelines for in-game research, archives, and scholarly discovery

Whether your players want to defend the faith, uncover the city’s mysteries, or navigate the dangerous politics of a people in exile, Tarsyn offers fertile ground for epic storytelling.

Compatible with both flavors of 5th Edition.

Available Now

The Tarsyn Campaign Setting is available in multiple formats:

• PDF — DriveThruRPG
• Print & Kindle — Amazon.com

Rally your party, sharpen your swords, and prepare to ride for the Lost Holy City. The road to Tarsyn begins now.

[Gencon 2025] After Action Report Part 1

Parts 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

Before Gencon

As usual, Gencon started back in September when I asked the FOE GMs who wanted to write an adventure. This year, many new faces joined the writing crew: Brandon, Chris, and Rees joined veterans Bill, and Rebecca.

To my great joy, they all wanted to write something in different settings, which would limit my workload in each setting. Yay!

I spent most of the year writing the sequel to my first novel, which will be released "soon." Rebecca and I collaborated on the creation of Tarsyn, a new mini-setting for FOE that mixes elements of the Crusades with Arthurian Legends.

How each adventure came together is its own journey. I did a lot of text tightening and turning combats into more dynamic encounters. Oh and removed boxed text. A lot of boxed text.

I got particularly stuck on one of the specials. Despite re-writing it 4-5 times, the result always ended up... Blaaah. It felt uninspired, repetitive, and not something I wanted to actually finish writing. A few hours of video chats got me back on the right track and the story into something I was excited for.

Wednesday

I woke up early, excited to leave. I discovered that something was wrong at work. I diagnosed, and sent as many notes to my team as I could. I had expected to leave everything dont and finished but I didn't have time to get everything done.

After finishing to pack for the con, I left to pick up Thor. I stopped at McD for coffee and food andoff we went. Up I-24, then I-65.

The trip was uneventful, were it not for the scolding heat and my AC on the fritz... (again). Still we made good time, checked into our hotels before heading to the convention center. I obtained the badges, realized I forgot a few people, but I got this quickly resolved.

I was rather worried because this that the first time. FOE was not in the Hyatt/ Marriott/ JW Marriott, but in Lucas Oil Stadium, home of the NFL's Indianapolis Colts. I had several questions about the layout, the location, the amenities, and how far it was.

Well... we could not get into the Stadium that night, leaving questions for the morning... The ongoing tradition at FOE is to eat a good meal at Denny's before the start of the con. The tradition continued this year with Brandon and Joe joining us. Chris, Matt, Rebecca, and Zhan made a quick stop to say hello.

Back at the room, I turned on the TV but was asleep before the commercial ended during AEW.

Worries about the reception of the new setting...

Parts 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

[DM's Guild] Real Housewives of Ravenloft goes Platinum!

The Real Housewives of Ravenloft has reach a milestone and is now a Platinum Best Seller on DM's Guild.

It has been a few years since I first published the Real Housewives of Ravenloft and it has been my best-selling product of all time. This is a way to add a mystery AND an opportunity to work WITH Strahd and advance the story.

It is one my players talk to me, over five years after we ran it.

Good Memories...

It is also part of the Ravenloft Bundle on DM's Guild.

[Olympia Novel] The Bloody Notebook Released!

The Bloody Notebook is the first book of the Olympia Chronicles, a new book series of fiction book set in the world of Olympia. Inspired by, and using, Greek Mythology as a base, this brand new self-contained story tells of a warrior, named Arakos, from another world who comes to Olympia and seeks to discover about his origins and where he comes from.

He is joined along the way by a band of colorful characters including a grumpy wizard, a singing Spartian, a barbarian woman, and a con artist. These characters create a tapestry that was fun to write and see how their relations evolved as the story unfolded.

This is my first novel, and the first time I have really enjoyed my own fiction. The Bloody Notebook is a love letter to Ancient Greek stories, and the eternal truths they contains.

The Bloody Notebook

Arakos is a warrior from another world with no memory of how he came to Olympia. A blood-stained notebook filled with names and places he does not remember is his only tie to his past. After losing his only friend escaping a doomed city with a woman he dislikes, he sets out to regain his memories. On his travel, he encounter a colossus of a man, giants, gods, demigods, the Great Oracle, a sorcerer, and a witch. Are his missing memories worth reclaiming, or do they protect him?

The Bloody Network is available on Amazon and DriveThruRPG.

For a full PDF experience of the world of Olympia, you may get The Bloody Notebook as part of the Olympia Bundle.

[Olympia Campaign] Eleusis and Opyros

The heroes press on. They again their ship is victim of a time-distortion. After breaking it again, they made it into Eleusis, which they found besieged by a Titan army, blocking the Isthmus between the lands of Athenion and Aeolia.

They offered to sail some refugees away, in exchange for payment, sending one of their own to sail them away (someone wasn't there that day).

In town, the PCs discuss with the soldiers and their strategos, General Kassandros. The strategos struck a deal with them to help each other. He will arrange to draw the enemy force away, allowing the PCs a chance to take out Opyros, the Titan of Flame who is leading the enemy army. They gather rumors and learn that soldier's weapons cannot hurt the Titan.

In the morning, the Athenian cavalry maneuvered to draw the enemy vanguard away, leaving the PCs a straight shot against Opyros. They found an area where dead soldiers littered the ground.

Another mega-battle with the Mythic Titan damaging the party, but they managed to defeat him just in time before it destroyed them.

[Olympia Campaign] Time Stands Still

While out at sea, one of our heroes suddenly notices something strange... their ship seems to be passing along the same stretch of coast. Someone is playing with the timeline, somehow...

Making landfall, and discuss whether to continue on foot or by sea. That's when Enyale, the Titaness of Rage appears with several of her worshippers. Follows a massive battle where the Titaness destroys the shield guardian, damages the Good Vibes in a deadly battle where she pounds the heroes. After several close calls, they manage to defeat and bind her using the ritual found in the Vault of the Jade Prince.

The second picture shows the cultist emptying in pants in the middle of the action...

[Olympia Campaign] The Bridge

Our heroes reunited in the village of Kolkis where they shared their separate adventures, trying to understand the significance of what they found.

They met with the Athenian generals who requested their aid in defeating the Titan army. But our heroes chose to press on to Delfos and their main quest as time became ever-more pressing.

They decided to head back to their ship. Below is when they were ambushed by an hydra and some cyclops. The hydra withdrew but the cyclops gave them a good run for their money.

They ended the day at their ship, the Good Vibes...

[Kinda Book Report] The Red Star Vol 2

A dieselpunk Russia? Yes! A post WWII what-if tale? Yes! Interesting weapons? Yes!

I'm in.

But what I got was a wonderful sketchbook from a talented artist and a story that's hard to follow and in the end... unsatisfactory.

If this had "40k" or "Warmachine" on the cover (Khador especially), I would have rated this higher. But I'm tried to make sense of the plot, the characters, what happened before. But no. I had to read and massive two-page spreads (remember the sketchbook comment) with bits of text spread across the page.

Never heard of this? Yeah, there's a reason.

Tanks falling and people getting shot - or not. I didn't care. Then this goddess-like appears to talk to characters who I don't know. Oh yeah and there are non-linear timeline in parts of it all.

I got ripped off by the local library, having paid 2$ for this!

1/5. Garbage.

[Kinda Book Report] New Mutants 2019 Vol 1 by Marvel Comics

So you should know by now that I like the X-men! The New Mutants were a title I never got into as a child (mostly because I had to limit the number of titles I could follow). But I really liked the team and wanted to read more. They inclusion and crossover with the X-men were cool. However, there are no cheap omnibus I found...

Until this one I bought second-hand from my local library.

This is everything I hate about modern comics: Simple, predictable storylines. Shallow characters. Lack of context.

Most of the book the team "fights" against a website called "Dox" that outs mutants and their location. The first beat features a group of unknown meeting another group of unknown. No introduction to the characters or their powers. There is a lot of existential sitting around and talking. Then when the action (finally begins) there is killing aplenty.

WTF???

The only resolution we have is when the Black King (Sebastian Shaw) meets a cartel boss and slags him. The NM are nowhere involved!

The art is good. Is consistently good, but with a shitty, incoherent, and uninteresting plot. Meaningless action resolved without reason and without any forethought by the team. They're there and shit gets resolved. One time Magik arrives and teleports them all out before they get into any real trouble. It's trash.

Because of the art, I will give it a 2/5.

[Kinda Book Report] The Ships of Minos by Maciej Slomczynski

I got this book off Amazon. From the cover, I thought the author was "Joe Alex" but nope. The style within gave me the impression of a book written in a completely different language where not only the story build up but the beat itself had a different vibe. Not bad, but definitely different.

Now, this is the story of a young man from near Troy who is captured by merchants from the Levant, taken to Syria, and from there to Egypt.

The characters have surprisingly little depth and move from one place to the next in a very functional way and little in the way of internal conflicts. We are in a realm of action.

Where this book fails mostly is in setting expectation. With a title like "The Ships of Minos", you'd expect something maritime. Or that has to do with Minos. Or that deals with Crete/ the Minotaur. If you answered "Yes" to any of these, you'd be wrong on all accounts. There are two sea voyages but they happen between chapters. The only Greeks beside Whitehair, our protagonist, appear right at the end. At that time when you wonder "how is this gonna finish?"

A few things this book does real well include the descriptions of Ancient Egypt, its religion, odd religion (the faith of Sobek in particular), and the relations between the nation of Egypt and its neighbor. Another thing I found interesting was that our protagonist does not speak Egyptian and does not develop an understanding suddenly. The scenes are sometimes shown from both sides when relevant.

So this book was... not great. Will I read book 2? Nope. Did I hate it? No.

2/5 easy.

[Olympia Campaign] Vault of the Jade Prince

So this week was special. Since ActionMan and I were busy on our regular Tuesday night, I offered the team to split into two and run two distinct games.

After their escape during the Battle of Megara, our heroes ran away to find a place to rest. But they were stuck between the Athenian army fighting the white dragon Anemokrystos on one side and the forces of Nyssara and her titan forces.

The other group, composed of Aleksi, Cenathon, and Logius. This group escaped Megara in decent shape, having spent some resources but nothing a short rest couldn't get them going. Caught between two armies, they avoided getting involved.

However, when a wounded Athenian soldier called out to them for help, they learned that the Titans were digging "something" and that a Titaness was involved.

"If they want something, we don't want them to have it." So they went to see what it was about and they discovered the story of Jade Prince and several tools that might help them against the Titans. At a cost.

[Olympia Campaign] Temple of the One-Eyed Oracle

So this week was special. Since ActionMan and I were busy on our regular Tuesday night, I offered the team to split into two and run two distinct games.

After their escape during the Battle of Megara, our heroes ran away to find a place to rest. But they were stuck between the Athenian army fighting the white dragon Anemokrystos on one side and the forces of Nyssara and her titan forces.

One group, composed of Arboros, Celeste, Leth, and Topsia ran into a small olive grove where they caught their breath. They needed a place to rest as several of them were pretty tapped out on resources and low on hit points.

Without much luck until Arboros spotted men trying to hide in a nearby. They followed them down a gully where they fought the bandits and explored a small complex which turned out to be the Temple of the One-Eyed Oracle.

They left with a new item and information how to avoid the Athenian army.

[Olympia Campaign] Battle of Megara

Finally, our heroes reached the village of Megara where they met and confronted Nyssara, who offered to pay them to stay away. She offered the fantastic sum of 500,000 drachma (1dr=1sp). Our heroes knew that the chosen oracle of Apollo was nearby, in which house she was (the one with the pebble on top).

So after they used their powers and abilities to determine there were several fey (nymphs) in the ice blocks, a dragon in the ice block in the center of town (the one over which Nyssara stood), that the target house only held one woman each. And that the pillars had dampening magic.

They engaged negociations somewhat successfully, obtaining to be lodged so they could rest and discuss some more. Nyssara ordered the "oracle house" to be cleared and given to the PCs. The guard entered and left with a woman.

Now as a surprise to the group, I contacted Piper who had to bow out due to other commitments to be the oracle. So her character was Apollo's chosen. Her appearance surprised everyone. We have been in contacts for weeks at that point, with me going "They are almost heading to Megara," "Almost," "Not this week," until finally. I think everyone was surprised.

Topsia's appearance (Piper's character) changed the situation and our party went on the offensive, casting a 3rd-level inflict wounds did end the diplomacy phase. The party locked down Nyssara long enough using a variety of abilities: silence, fog cloud, and earthen grasp (from an item) as they made their escape with Topsia.

But I was not done yet... I had another surprise.

While the PCs were involved with their own issues, the Athenian army launched its attack against the village. Every turn, the PCs had to deal with the artillery barrage from their "allies."

So for a few rounds, they ran around fought a Titan-troll as they escaped. They engaged the guards.

That's when I revealed the white dragon Anemokrystos flew out of the fog cloud. It landed on the stone archways, holding two women in its claws. The party recognized NPCs from their own background... And he crushed them...

When I described what the dragon landing on the stone archway, I used the phrase Like spandex in a Wal-mart.

Tense moments in the end where poor Celeste had to choose between taking the body of her sister or rescuing Leth the cleric of Hades.

Tense stuff.

You can get the Olympia Bundle, including the setting, novels, and adventures for the setting. Get it here.

FOE at Gencon 2025: The Events

With Gencon event selection just around the corner, I wanted to let everyone know about FOE's events. This year again, FOE is offering 50 tables, which will be held at LucasOil Stadim (where the NFL's Indianapolis Colts play).

This year, FOE is offering games set in Akhamet, Olympia, Ozaka, and for the first time, in Tarsyn, our upcoming setting. Every night and Sunday, there will be specials.

But enough with the boring stuff... The Events, I conveniently made a link of all events currently available.

FOE at Gencon