James Maliszewski

Down with the Sickness

It looks like, despite my best efforts, that I may have fallen prey to the dreaded con crud. Mostly, I've just got a stuffy head and runny nose, but it's still not fun. I've been drinking lots of liquids and generally taking it easy, so m...

Gamehole Con: TSR History

One of several panel discussions I attended was devoted to the history of TSR Hobbies, moderated by Mike Mearls. The panelists were, from left to right: Mike Mearls, Jeff Grubb, Ed Greenwood, Steve Winter, and David "Zeb" Cook. As you might expect...

Return

I am now safely back from Gamehole Con. I had a blast, seeing old friends, meeting new ones, and playing games. I plan to do a series of posts on Grognardia about my time there, but I will likely have some additional thoughts and musings I'll shar...

A Jalaka Warrior

Among the rules changes in the latest draft Secrets of sha-Arthan is the disentangling of race and class. I'll explain my rationale for doing this in another post late, either here or – more likely – on Grognardia itself. A consequenc...

More Artwork

Here are some additional character illustrations from the Secrets of sha-Arthan Player's Manual. I hope to be able to share an updated PDF of the character classes before the end of the month, but I make no promises. Regardless, work cont...

Alternatives to "Scion"

I'm in the midst of completing a new draft of the player-oriented material for Secrets of sha-Arthan and I've decided to broaden the concept of the scion class.

As I originally imagined it, the scion was a aristocratic dabbler...

Gamehole Con 2024

Though I've not yet finalized my plans, it's looking increasingly likely that I will be attending Gamehole Con in Madison, Wisconsin in October 2024.

If I do go, I'd love to meet up with any patrons who might also be attending. I wa...

Quick Update

I wanted to quickly let everyone know that real world concerns and responsibilities continue to distract me as they have since the middle of the summer. Consequently, I am pausing the Patreon for October. Consequently, no one will be charged for t...

Friday Feature: Best Laid Plans

Well … 

The summer has been moving a lot faster than I'd expected and it didn't prove nearly as free of distraction as I'd hoped. Myriad real life matters, some pleasant, some decidedly not, have made a mockery of my...

Discord Oddities

I'm not yet certain what has happened, but the Discord server seems to have suffered some sort of failure. There are presently no longer any channels of any sort. I'll spend some time looking into the matter to see what might have happened. In the...

Friday Feature: Revised Sorcery Preview

Work on the revised drafts of Secrets of sha-Arthan continues at a solid pace. While I might not yet quite make my self-imposed deadline of the end of this month to complete the revisions of the player-oriented material, I do feel confide...

Ironian Names

One of the things to which I'm quite committed in Secrets of sha-Arthan is the inclusion of lots of random tables to aid both players and referees in understanding and making the setting their own. I don't want sha-Arthan to suffer the sa...

Character Generation Draft 3.0

The final revisions to the draft of Chapter 2: Character Generation are now complete. If you are interested in taking a look at them, you can do so via the link provided below. Likewise, if you would like to provide feedback on the material, the s...

Friday Feature: Revised Character Generation Preview

I'm nearly done with my revision, expansion, and overall clarification of Chapter 2 of Secrets of sha-Arthan, which focuses on character generation. Used in conjunction with the material presented in Chapter 3, you'll be better able to ge...

Feedback on the Character Classes Draft

I would very much like to receive your feedback on the latest draft of the character classes chapter for Secrets of sha-Arthan. In order to make this easier for me, I would like to ask that you send your feedback to me via email ...

Character Classes Draft 3.0

As promised, I've completed updated draft of Chapter 3 of Secrets of sha-Arthan, which describes the available character classes. 

I'll be detailing the way I'd like to receive comments/questions on the draft in a separate post...

Friday Feature: Revised Character Classes Preview

The revision to the character classes for Secrets of sha-Arthan is nearly done. I'll be spending the weekend going over the text to remove out of date references and terminology, along with making sure that all the information I want to b...

Friday Feature: Playtesting Secrets of sha-Arthan

As I mentioned last week, playtesting of Secrets of sha-Arthan will likely begin this summer, starting next month (I hope). Before doing that, I...

A Grognardia Shout-Out

The blog gets a mention in the third paragraph of this article at The New Yorker by Ed Park – most unexpected!

The Secrets of sha-Arthan and the OGL

As many of you are no doubt aware, there are credible rumors that Wizards of the Coast is not only introducing a new version of the Open Game License but also "de-authorizing" the previous version (1.0a) under which a great many old school RPGs ha...

Unmade Martinet

I just received final versions of the Unmade illustrations that I had previously promised I'd share with you. Unsurprisingly, they're most excellent, lik...

Happy New Year!

I wanted to take a moment to wish all of my patrons a Happy New Year and to thank all of you for your support over the past year. 

Here's hoping that 2023 will be a great one for all of us.

Friday Feature: The Vaults of sha-Arthan

The Onha word saya (literally "refuge") first appears in Tithio Vasan's The Wonders of the Past in reference to the legendary Vault of the Makers. He describes the site as "a vast, subterranean sanctuary grown by the Makers from ...

Friday Feature: The Unmade

The Unmade (or Omajya in the Onha language) are the unnatural servitors of the Unmakers. Transformed by iniquitous sorcery, the Unmade are frightful demonstrations of where the Unmakers' nihilistic philosophy leads if unchecked. They are ...

Unmaker Prophet

In last week's Friday Feature, I wrote about the Unmakers and the threat their secretive cults pose to the peoples of sha-Arthan. In future posts, I'll provide additional details, but, for the moment, I wanted to share an image of an Unmaker "prop...