Tag Archives: 13th age

13th Sage: How to Customize Monsters – The Human Thug

When you need a new monster in 13th Age, customizing an existing monster is a great option. For this post, we’ll turn an existing monster—the human thug—into a variety of guards from across the Dragon Empire by adding a single, distinctive special ability. Player characters in 13th Age (and almost every other RPG) tend to […]

Crown of Axis Cover

A funny thing happened on the way to the Crown of Axis arena. Wade’s request for a cover image featuring two powerful female gladiators had been executed in style by Aaron McConnell: original sketch For a change, Aaron decided to hand-paint the piece, old school instead of digital. That turned out to create a delivery […]

Call of Chicago: The Helm of Dungeon-Switching

“I could but tell them how I had just emerged from dungeon and jacket in the morning, and without rhyme or reason, so far as I could discover, had been put back in the dungeon after being out only several hours.” — Jack London, The Star Rover The only problem with dungeon crawls is there […]

13th Sage: Soldiers of the Wizard King

In my home campaign, our heroes found themselves transported back in time to the rebellion against the Wizard King—though as they discovered later, they were actually trapped in a living dungeon’s memories of that era. These were some of the foes they encountered: brutal enforcers of the Wizard King’s rule. It’s possible these miscreants will […]

13th Sage: Overseer of the Eye Mother

A lot of us with a long history of d20 fantasy gaming have shiver-inducing memories of the first time a certain grinning, many-eyed monster absolutely demolished our group of adventurers. Sadly, that iconic monster isn’t available under the OGL; but the concept is so compelling that a lot of fantasy RPGs have taken it in […]

13th Sage: Pirate Ghosts

Halloween is nigh, so I’m going to stat up some spooky monsters—in this case, pirate ghosts! These restless undead might haunt the Iron Sea coast, the rivers of the Fangs, or the Midland Sea around Necropolis and Omen. You can find all sorts of ghosts in the 13th Age Bestiary, from the Petulant Never-Was to […]

13th Sage: How to Use Backgrounds in a Modern Setting

A 13th Age GM recently asked for advice on using Backgrounds in a modern setting. At first I didn’t see the problem—”Former circus performer” should work the same in the modern world as it does in the Dragon Empire, right? But when I really gave it some thought, I saw the difficulty. “Former circus performer” […]

13th Age T-Shirt Slogan Competition Winners

Thanks to everyone who sent in their fun 13th Age t-shirt slogan ideas! Rob Heinsoo and I read and discussed them, and together we chose our three favorites. Grand Prize goes to Tim Baker: “Well, that escalated quickly.” Second and Third Place go to Michael Keon: “Ask me how 3 + 4 equals 13” “I […]

13th Sage: Lands Beyond the Dragon Empire

The Dragon Empire’s potential for rich stories and adventures isn’t even close to being exhausted—its various regions are left half-finished so GMs and players can have fun filling in the blanks, but we envision it being culturally, ethnically, economically, agriculturally, culinarily, and religiously diverse. Approaching a town on the sunny southern coast you might find […]

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