Swords Against Madness

Miria, Edryk, Kale, The All-Knowing, and the Squid set sail across the Astral plane and discover that it is anything but empty.

This episode uses a mix of planar travel rules found in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Dungeons & Dragons 3.5e, and the D&D3.5e Planar Handbook, as the players travel across the Astral Plane.

It also features a monster from Dungeons & Dragons3.5e: The Elsewhale.

Elsewhale

Elsewhale: HD: 16; AC: 6 [13]; Att: bite (4d8); SV: 4; Special: plane shift, adaptation, telepathy; MV: swimming 18, flying 18; AL: Neutrality; ML: 9; No. Appearing: 1d3; CL/XP: 20/2,4,400

Elsewhales are magical cetaceans that can be found on almost any plane. They wander the multiverse endlessly in pursuit of their own ineffable ends, devouring astral krakens and other planar creatures. They can sometimes be bribed to carry small groups in their mouths from plane to plane.

Elsewhales Originally appeared in the Dungeons & Dragons Planar Handbook.

Adaptation: An elsewhale immedatiely adapts to any ambient hazards of a plane, anything within 1′ of the elsewhale’s hide is likewise protected. An elsewhale can create a bubble of breathable hair that can last for 4 hours in its mouth.

Plane Shift: An Elsewhale can cast plane shift at will.

Telepathy: An elsewhale can communicate with any creature within 100′ that is capable of using language.

Music in this Episode

From the Free Music Alliance:

King Edward by Mister Smith (CC-BY) from the Free Music Archive

From Pixabay:

“Opus 7” by Christian D

“Psychedelic Atmospheric Dream Guitar” by Sonican

“Stylish Blues Rock (Wild West)” by Brightest Avenue

“Outlaw’s Reckoning” by Moodmode

“Psychedelic Atmospheric Dream Guitar” by Sonican

“Dark Ambiental Experiments” by Natarjan Connection

Western Duel Rock by Abydos Music

“The Collapse” by Alexander Nakarada

“Dark Pagan Ritual Chant” by DOMARTI-LAB

“Saffron Skies” by Lumine Wave

“Sands of Alba” by Lumine Wave

“Culprit Massacre” by Alexander Nakarada

“Crystal” by Tyler Gill

Awesome Pink Floydish Guitar by Palle1958

“Acidcore” by Jumping Bunny

A summary of Episodes 21-29.

Swords Against Madness episode 30 is a summary of the plot from episodes 11 through 19. An opportunity to catch up on the plot or just refresh your memory. It adds nothing to the main plot-line.

Cast

This episode includes performances by:

Jon Cohen from Tale of the Manticore

Music in this Episode

From the Free Music Alliance:

King Edward by Mister Smith (CC-BY) from the Free Music Archive

REVELATION by Soularflare (CC-BY) from the Free Music Archive

From Pixabay:

“Acidcore” by Jumping Bunny

This is a special bonus episode of Swords Against Madness featuring my new TTRPG, Undeadwood: Weird West RPG. Follow the Lost Soul Carson Swift, as he tries to help a bounty hunter track down a stolen item, only to be dragged into a battle between a powerful land-owner and a dark cult of alien mystics.

This episode is played using my Undeadwood: Weird West TTRPG system, and its dark, American folklore-enriched setting of Wonkatonkwa County.

The game is available on DriveThruRPG.

You can also learn more about it through the game development podcast, Dead Man’s Dice, and on my weblog: Welcome to the Deathtrap.

All music and Sound Effects are courtesy of Pixabay.

Miria, Edryk, and Kale finally reach the place where the All-Knowing believes there is a means to travel to the planes. The object they discover is far stranger than anything they could have imagined.

In this session I reference the amazing role-playing game Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG from Goodman Games. DCC catches the strange psychedelic vibe of the books that inspired D&D – and Swords Against Madness – better than any other game on the market.

It also borrows some rules for planar travel and plane shifting from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition to fill in the gaps in the Swords & Wizardry rule-set.

Magic Item: The Wizard Van

The Wizard Van is an enchanted 1974 Ford Econoline with air-brushed fantasy art on the sides and comfortable couches in the back. It is fuelled by magic-user spells. Each level of spell cast into its Flux Capacitor provides two hours of fuel. The van can shift to the Astral Plane by using 2 hours of fuel. It can also fly at 55 miles per hour, but has a ceiling of 50ft. and consumes twice as much fuel.

Some Inspiration

I mentioned the song Wizard Wagon by Glitter Wizard; if you want to check out this awesome (if explicit) song, you can hear it here!

Cast

This episode includes performances by:

Jon Cohen from Tale of the Manticore

Owen Rideout of The Boy in the Submarine

Music in this Episode

From the Free Music Alliance:

King Edward by Mister Smith (CC-BY) from the Free Music Archive

AI Generated Pieces:

Fire up the Wizard Van by Doughnut Elemental (That’s me!)

From Pixabay:

“Stylish Blues Rock (Wild West)” by Brightest Avenue

“Outlaw’s Reckoning” by Moodmode

“Night Detective (no beats)” by Amaksi

“Deep Forest” By NNChannel

“Psychedelic Atmospheric Dream Guitar” by Sonican

“Acidcore” by Jumping Bunny

The party may have destroyed the Dread Silkworm, a half-giant-caterpillar-half-god monster… but there are still more creatures devouring the juju garden, and a mission to fulfill.

This episode opens with rounds 8-14 of a brutal gruelling battle! The Dread Silkworm may have fallen, but it is far from the only threat that the party was facing!

This is an AI-free episode of Swords Against Madness.

Cast

This episode includes performances by:

Jon Cohen from Tale of the Manticore

Music in this Episode

From the Free Music Alliance:

King Edward by Mister Smith (CC-BY) from the Free Music Archive

Used with special permission:

Combat Cookie Tin by Jon Cohen

From Pixabay:

Aggressive Metal (Sinister) by Brightest Avenue

Cybertech (Tense News Background) by Tune Tank

“Stylish Blues Rock (Wild West)” by Brightest Avenue

“Outlaw’s Reckoning” by Moodmode

Magical Ritual Shaman Amazonian Indian by Denis-Pavlov Music

Night Detective (no beats) by Amaksi

Interstellar Dark by Lumine Wave

Undeadwood: Weird West RPG

Sometimes folks head out West, and just fall off the edge of the world. 

They end up here. Wonkatonkwa County. 

They just show up, confused, frightened, missing a year off their life with no idea where it went. A place full of walking dead, prehistoric monsters, black magic.

t takes a special kind of grit to make your way here. You gotta be crazy, or nearly so just to make sense of what you are seeing. And if you weren’t crazy before, circumstance will be happy to oblige you.

Best thing to do is get yourself a gun, and sober up the preacher so that he can give it a proper blessing, then find yourself something to hold on To. A bible. A bottle. It don’t really matter which…

After all, You ain’t in Texas anymore.

Undeadwood: Weird West is a dark weird west game that doesn’t take itself too seriously. It embraces some of the stranger, more offbeat elements of American Folklore. Along with the devils, ghosts, cursed treasure, and mad scientists, you can expect to see hodags, jackalopes, and thunderbirds. My goal is to play a game that has all the action and grit of a pulp Western story from Lariat or Triple-X, but fused with the humorously macabre of The Addams Family or Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Played using 2d6. And featuring work from some of the greatest artists to ever grace the pages of pulp western magazines.

Now available on DriveThruRPG