This week we bring you the method by which I have restocked Nightwick Abbey while running it. I find this is important to making the dungeon feel alive - or I suppose undead - as well as being able to utilize 3 levels for as long as I have.
It also features a piece of art by Huth that I think may be the apex of human achievement in any medium.
Art and layout by Chris Huth.
This week we bring the infernal genius - in the original sense - of Nightwick to life! Armadeus, Emperor of Lies, Corrupter of Hearts, Self-deluding Master of the Damned! The inevitable part II of the secret history should clear up why he more than any other demon has power within the abbey.
Art and layout by Chris Huth.
It's a tomb that answers questions! It's one of the oldest rooms in Nightwick (surviving from a 2010 version whose maps I can't use anymore for Reasons). I haven't had anyone go there recently though. Shame that.
If you visit it yourself, let me know what it says!
Art and layout by Chris Huth.
This week we present a portion of the secret history of the World of Nightwick. This one might be a bit self-indulgent but I hope it helps give some sense of the tone of the setting. The next part is geared specifically with the game in mind, but this is chronologically earlier.
Art and layout by Chris Huth.
While the referee can arrange the geomorphs however they like - and indeed they are meant to be recombinable because of the moving nature of the dungeon - in my head there has always been a default arrangement for where they start play.
I originally intended for this to be in one of the first posts about how geomorphs work, but Huth wanted to wait until he had maps drawn of all 36 geomorphs. That time has still not arrived, but I was asked by one of you fine patrons what the default o...
These are some halls. They have bones!
Art and layout by Chris Huth.
This week we bring you the lord in charge of Nightwick village and his home, which dominants the village itself. No prize if you guess who it's based on.
Art and layout by Chris Huth.
Here are a couple of combat rules I use in my campaign that I think add a good deal of flavor to the setting - especially due to the increase in the need for prosthetics. Any worried these would remove precious lethality from the game can check out Warren's infographics of the online game over at https://icastlight.blogspot.com/2022/04/nightwick-abbey-purple-eater-of-peop...
2022-05-01 03:00:09 +0000 UTC View Post
This week we offer a geomorph! One of the players I've had said he has nightmares about one of these rooms. Weird!
Art and layout by Chris Huth.
2022-04-09 04:17:16 +0000 UTC View Post
Today we have kind of an odd entry whose double-stuffed-ness I hope will make up for the lack of posts in recent weeks. Huth had misremembered my having a pumpkin headed monster in the World of Nightwick and done an illustration for it before I told him that it didn't exist. So he made up his own and placed it in the World.
Really it's two monsters and a new spell.
Art and text by Chris Huth.
This week we present another geomorph: The Great Crypt. It sure is spooky!
Art and layout by Chris Huth.
And now the final post of February: Warlocks! These represent the leaders of the cult of Armadeus which exist within the dungeon (and there is also so more info on that in this week's post too!)
Art and layout by Chris Huth
2022-03-01 01:13:14 +0000 UTC View Post
Now for a "monster" that's been appearing in the dungeon since level 1. These cultists of the pit serve their dark masters' in their aims within the strange abbey.
Art and layout by Chris Huth.
First I'd like to thank all of you for being so patient this month. Huth's bout with Covid and my own living situation troubles made most of this month fairly difficult for us to work on Nightwick stuff, but we will at least be releasing three more things this month, starting with this week!
This week we present Berserkers! Obviously an old favorite of D&D but they have a strange role in the cult of the Baroness (found mostly on level 1 and 2b of the dungeon) so we thought they wer...
This week we present another village location and (potentially quest giving) NPC: Halfdan the Black. Find out the secret of his familiar!
(If you're in the Thursday game you might wanna hold off on reading this one).
Art and layout by Chris Huth
I realized fairly recently that we had failed to put out a collected version of 2B, known to the Nightwick Regulars as "the Baroness level." We have corrected this.
There should also be more substantive posts soon but I am currently dealing with changes to my living situation as well as loved ones with COVID and my loyal partner Chris Huth is currently dealing with COVID himself.
Art and layout by Huth.
This week we offer you another geomorph which features the last monster I posted. What a coincidence! We're rapidly approaching the end of my original plans for the book, but more on that at a later date.
I realize we missed a week, which is entirely on me. There are some changes going on in my living situation that I'm still dealing with but hopefully those will be sorted out shortly.
Art and layout by Chris Huth.
This week we offer one of the most deadly monsters on level 3: a ghoul drifted down from the outer spaces and then travelled to the abbey from the Desert Lands. The vault weaver has killed a number of the more cautious players in the abbey.
Art and layout by Chris Huth.
This week we present some advanced versions of the Blind Dead which are found on level 3, and perhaps deeper levels. These are the animated remains of Sword Brothers who had taken the full oaths to become knights of the order before the abbey fell.
Art and layout by Chris Huth.
My current game on Start Playing (link in the comments) has made it where I have needed to accelerate working on the player bits of the book. That combined with the insistence of my artist and layout person, who has played in Nightwick for 9 years, that I should make a version of the dwarf class that better represents the established facts of them in the setting has led to this post.
Art and layout by Chris Huth.
I made a decision early on in the development of Nightwick that I wanted elves to be too weird to be player characters. I needed something to replace their niche in the character options and I reached for an old folklore idea (that's replicated in my favorite issue of Hellboy). Note that I am using changelings in the sense of the quasi-fairy children of human parents, not the pseudodopplegangers of recent D&D.
Art and layout by C Huth.
2021-11-11 14:42:46 +0000 UTC View Post
I apologize for the paucity of posts as of late. My wife and I are currently in the process of moving to a different state and my attention has been unfortunately elsewhere. Thankfully Huth stepped up and was able to do a geomorph. Unfortunately two monsters on it have yet to be detailed on here but I hope to have entries for them shortly.
Also, if you were interested in the Nightiwck online game but thought the jump to Great Duke of Hell was too far, you can check out my game at Start ...
2021-11-03 07:31:49 +0000 UTC View Post
Wait this post is... familiar. Oh right. I did it on my blog a bit ago. Well we thought it would be good to do a layout for it for the book and to add some art and content for particular familiars based on the Kings of Hell in Nightwick.
Art and layout by Chris Huth.
This week we bring you another geomorph: the catacombs! They're haunted by the ghouls and knight of armadeus we posted earlier in the month. Spooky!
Art and layout by C Huth
This week we present a World of Nightwick version of a classic monster. It's also one which is common on level 3: the ghoul.
Art and layout by Chris Huth.
When I was first writing Nightwick Abbey it became clear to me that the dungeon would require demons of lower hit dice than those found in OSE and similar games. If a Type I demon was the lowest level demon they could fight, how was I to maintain the diabolic dread of Nightwick Abbey. The answer was to create a new hierarchy based on the peerage system that occurs in works such as the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum. Knights then represent the lowest level of the diabolic peerage and are influenced ...
2021-09-14 19:55:25 +0000 UTC View Post
This week we introduce the external entrance to level 3. This lies in the graveyard described in the earlier post describing the upper works. The relative danger of this area compared to the other entrances led to my regular joking that "nobody wants to go into the graveyard."
Huth actually sent this one to me a few days ago and I forgot to post it so that one's entirely on me. He did the art and layout.
Here we present a discussion of the Demon Lords of the World of Nightwick focusing specifically on those that have an active presence within Nightwick Abbey itself. Unfortunately for the sons of man, others exist - though luckily few are as puissant as those described here.
Art and Layout by Chris Huth
This week we offer a monster that is infamous among the groups that have played in Nightwick. I have always referred to them in the Broken Dead in my notes, though the longest running Nightwick group refers to them universally as "wheelie boys/bois." Even once the characters were well above them in terms of HD, their roll attack is still dreaded.
Art and layout by Chris Huth.
First of all, let me apologize for the absence of posts the past few weeks. For two of them I had various challenges related to medicine and finding a job and more recently Huth was knocked out by his second dose of the Covid vaccine. We had planned on at least doing a combined 1 and 2, but Huth noted that the document is large enough that it is growing close to being the final product. That, at least is good news.
But we're up and running again now, and this week we bring you an ...
2021-08-08 19:22:19 +0000 UTC View Post