Barbaric Frontier Campaign Book

Since I've lost all the data about Barbaric Frontier, I've begun to rework it. Now I have around 50 new hex descriptions and the blog entries. I won't make a Barbaric Frontier Compendium as I've mentioned before. Instead I'll publish for free a campaign book in vein of Blackmarsh by Rob S. Conley. Here's a first version of the cover:

Graphic inspiration vol. XII

Song of Blades and Heroes rooster

Here's rooster sheet for the Song of  Blades and Heroes I've made, maybe it'll be useful for someone(click on the image to download).

Barbaric Frontier encounter table I

score	encounter
1	Pack of wolves
2	Bear
3	Barbaric Tribe
4	Beastmen Herd
5	Brigands
6	Wyvern
7	Trolls
8	Cockatrice
9	Moose
10	Giant Spiders
11	Boar
12	Nothing
13	Living Aurora
14	Dwarven Mercenaries
15	Deers
16	Mob of peasant rebels
17	Deer herd
18	Wild Horses
19	Nordmarkian deserters
20	Skraeling hunting pack

Graphic inspiration vol. XI

Cossacks and Tartars: Cossack class

Cossack

Prime attributes: Strength; Constitution

Hit Dice: d8

Cossack in the XVII century is more of a life style than an ethnicity. Roaming around Dzikie Pola heavy drinking and pillaging is their daily routine. Some are hired into the magnates’ private armies, some live in siches during warmer seasons and in winter havens during cold ones. Most of them are of eastern slavic descendancy, however even some tartars, polish nobility with infamy and englishmen occur among their ranks.

Level	Experience	Base „to hit” bonus	Hit Dice (d8)	Saving Throw
1	0	+0	1	14
2	2,000	+0	1+1	13
3	4,000	+1	2	12
4	8,000	+1	2+1	11
5	16,000	+1	3	10
6	32,000	+2	3+1	9
7	64,000	+2	4	8
8	128,000	+2	4+1	7
9	256,000	+3	5	6
10	384,000	+3	5+1	5

Bad reputation: Notorious for their rebelliousness and pillaging are subject to -1 modifier while rolling on the reaction table.

Alcohol resistance: +2 bonus in saving throw vs. alcohol

Expert infantryman: Cossack gains +1 bonus either to hit or damage roll while fighting with pole arm against mounted opponent. If He succeeds in his to hit roll, the cavalryman must make an immediate saving throw (substract Cossacks Strength modifier from the roll if any). If the opponent fails, then he falls from horseback.

Dwarven leader

Dwarves of the Barbaric Frontier

Physical description

Dwarves are small stout folk, very stubborn. Standing about 4' with muscular body. Males grow long beards  

and moustaches. Females grow long hair usually braid them. Their hair color range from black, through red to light blonde.

Social structure

Dwarven society is divided into kins(or houses)-kvikmyndahúsum(house name is made of the name of its protoplast and suffix -ætt; e.g.: Snorri-ætt). Dwarven society is matriarchal, despite the fact that kin's name is derived from male ancestor's name. As for marriage - dwarves have polyandry(many husbands for one wife).

Religion

Dwarves revere their holy ancestors, great heroes of the past. They do not possess any kind of priest-caste, all religious rituals are cultivated individually, though it often happens in so called “houses of remembrance” dedicated to ancestors of whole dwarfdom. Skalds sing songs of past and deeds of their ancestors during religious festivals.

Relations

They try to avoid contact with any other races except for exiles from their society who live among humans. Dwarves have long history of struggle against underground monsters. Elves are not their enemies, but they are suspicious in relations with them. They are outrightly hostile towards beastmen, skraelings and for most of the barbaric tribes.

Male names: Ari, Baldur, Brynjar, Eyvindur, Fannar, Hakon, Halldor, Haraldur, Hinrik, Hrafn, Pall, Sindri, Snorri, Sverrir, Tryggvi, 

Female names: Asdis, Brynja, Eydis, Frida, Halldora, Hildur, Pala, Svana, Svanhildur, Unnur, Valdis, Vigdis.

W.I.P map of the Known World of the Barbaric Frontier campaign

Favourites

Following Big Lee, Angry Lurker and Bard, I'm presenting my favourites.


Period: Early modern history of central, eastern and southern Europe, great migrations period and dark ages.

Scale: 28 mm and 20mm(1/72), first one for its availibility and second for its low cost.

Miniature rules: Song of Blades and Heroes, I love rules-lite, DIY troops and army lists.

RPG rules: Swords & Wiardry Core Rules (4th printing), stripped down d20

Miniature manufacturer: Grenadier(currently sold under Mirilton)-love their barbaric range.

Book: Edgar Allan Poe's Weird Tales and poems, Jacek Komuda's stories about Jacek Dydyński, Gene Wolfe's Shadow of the Executioner, R.E. Howard's the Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, Feliks Kres' Księga Całości

Art: Frank Frazzeta, Alfonse Mucha.

Barbaric Frontier miniatures

Okey, this time I'd like to present my newly painted figures for the Barbaric Frontier campaign. Sorry for crappy photos.

Cossacks and Tartars: Tartar class

Tartar

Prime attributes: Dexterity 13+(+5% experience bonus); Wisdom 12+(+5% experience bonus)

Hit Dice: d6/level; +1 hp after 9^th level

Some of them are descendants of the Great Horde members who settled in Lithuania around two centuries ago and pledged allegiance to the Commonwealth, others are allies of the Crimean Khanate. Some of the former gained nobility in exchange for their service to the Commonwealth. Most of them are Muslim, however some converted to Christianity(especially tartar nobility).

Level	Experience	Base „to hit” bonus	Hit Dice (d6)	Saving Throw
1	0	+0	1	15
2	2,500	+0	2	14
3	5,000	+1	3	13
4	10,000	+1	4	12
5	20,000	+1	5	11
6	40,000	+2	6	10
7	80,000	+2	7	9
8	160,000	+2	8	8
9	320,000	+3	9	7
10	640,000	+3	9+1	6

Horse archery: No penalties while shooting the bow while on horseback.

Born in the saddle: No penalties to HD roll after rest on horseback.

Expert archer: +1 bonus to either hit or damage roll while using bow. This does not apply while on horseback.

Lasso mastery: +1 to hit roll while using lasso.

Muslim: -1 on loyalty checks and reaction table involving Christian npcs.

My perfect 5 ed.

Well after WOTC's annoucement, I'm thinking how my perfect 5 edition would look like. I love B/X dnd format,  
I would like to see it in 5 ed, Basic dnd would be compatible with pre-3.x editions, and expert supplement would be compatible with 3.x + editions.

Graphic inspiration vol. X

Cossacks and Tartars

I'm a roleplayer, a wargamer but first and foremost I'm a avid fan of history of Central and Eastern Europe especially late XVIth to XVIIth century. From military to history of customs, economics and social life. Combining this with my love for rpgs I've played a lot of campaigns of Dzikie Pola. Meanwhile I became enamoured with the concept of old school gaming, especially sandbox play. So I've decided to create a game that will encompass my two loves, that is, old school gaming and history, thus the concept of Cossacks and Tartars was concieved. 

The game will be set in the south-eastern frontier(today's Ukraine) of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth(abreviated PLC for further convenience) during reing of Vasa dynasty in PLC. This time frame encompasses most of the cossacks' revolts and makes this game more viable for play. My biggest inspirations are history itself, Sienkiewicz's trilogy(that is with Fire and Sword, Deluge and Pan Wołodyowski), Harold Lamb's Khlit's Adventures and books of Jacek Komuda(not translated to english) and R.E. Howard's Solomon Kane. However my Cossacks and Tartars for most of the part will be a historical game, it will include some supernatural elements, like alchemy, sorcery, witches, pagan cults, maybe some cthulhu mythos.

The rules are in their alpha version and need some playtesting, but here are bits of rules which for 100% will be in the final version:

- rules based on the Lamentations of the Flame Princess and Swords & Wizardry Core Rules 4th Printing

- classes: fighting-man, soundrel, cossack, tartar

- rules for social status

- new equipment and rules concerning use of the blackpowder weapons

- new combat options

- rules for drinking contests

- extensive list of adversaries, those mundane and supernatural

- brief history of PCL, its customs, conflicts, social structure, military and fashion

Barbaric Frontier hiatus and news from the WOTC

Well in one week I'm going to have finals at the university(psychometry yuck) so I need to spend more time studying. As for the second I hope WOTC will make D&D 5th edition more like B/X or at least BECMI DnD, and forsake the legacy of 4th and 3.x editions.

Graphic inspiration vol. IX

W.I.P. of the map of the Nordmark

Nordmark will be the first place in the Barbaric Frontier, where I hope to run a google+ game in the late February. Still this map lacks names of the settlements and neuvolkian villages. The good thing about losing all my data about BF is that now I'm tweaking it to my current tastes, i.e. more conanesque, more in style of the Bossonian March and Cimmeria especially. So expect more hills shrouded in mist, creeply quiet coniferous forests. Hundreds of torchlights in the horizon, serpentmen sneaking around Neuburg.   

Sorry for my poor english.