|
|
|
 |
| Other comments left for this publisher: |
|
|
|
|
|
I'm getting rather sorry for the Moon Dragon Inn. Every time I turn round, there's something or someone invading their cellars and a cry going up for adventurers to clear them out (again). Think I shall roll up a locksmith/security specialist character and go round to advise the innkeeper on how to make his cellars impregnable once and for all!
In the meantime, however, the search is on for some 'veteran' characters (3rd-6th level if your chosen game system uses levels) to come and rid the place of a wight. Or maybe more than one, the barmaid who spotted it (or them) is incoherent with fright.
The cellars have a standard layout, as used in all the MDI product line, and a lot of the text is standard too - explaining the generic outline of critters that might be there, the trap mechanisms used by the landlord to defend his precious stuff and so on. Specific to this adventure is what that precious stuff is (it's varied according to the relative might of the adventurers required for this week's problem) and details of who or what is prowling around uninvited.
Good as ever for a nice evening's 'dungeon crawl' with the prospect of a well-earned pint or two afterwards upstairs at the bar. It's almost like playing a round of golf and retiring for drinks in the clubhouse...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Here is another romp through the cellars of the Moon Dragon Inn, this time aimed at novice characters (1st-4th level if you're using a level-based ruleset) who are asked to investigate after another customer mentions to the innkeeper that it looks like the storm cellar door has been broken into. This quite naturally alarms the innkeeper, one Bear Killer, as he's got lots of valuable stuff down there as well as a brewery and his ale supplies!
So it is a nice contained area for new-minted characters to investigate. There are traps a-plenty - Bear Killer has set them to keep folk away from his treasures, and warns anyone going downstairs even on legitimate business that if they see a 'Keep Out' sign it means just that! Assorted low-level monsters have indeed got in and are wandering around, so provided the characters stay in the parts they're supposed to visit, they ought to be able to gain valuable experience dealing with them.
Notes are provided on who has snuck in, with advice on making suitable selections from the monster books of your chosen system. There is also a page of details about Bear Killer's valuables should the characters ignore the 'Keep Out' signs, and the traps they'll risk should they be foolhardy enough to do so.
Happy prowling!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
This is a fun turn of events to enliven a quiet night at the local tavern: the bar tender comes up from the cellar panic-stricken because the place is crawling with ferocious lizards! The characters are enlisted as exterminators and off they go...
There's a comprehensive map of the extensive cellars under the Moon Dragon Inn (or if you don't have than, under whatever tavern you choose!) with a second page giving one-line descriptions of the contents of each chamber. There are notes about selecting suitable creatures from the game system of your choice, some choice traps (which don't seem very relevant but maybe those pesky lizards scuttle off into areas not intended for visitors and conscientious exterminators will follow them...) and treasure listings.
A simple side-trek adventure for a single session's play, intended for reasonably experienced but not overly powerful characters (4th-7th level if it's D&D or similar that you play), nicely put together and capable of being run with minimal prep time if a quick 'crawl' is what you and your players are after!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Ignore the young lady in very uncomfortable underwear on the front cover, this is actually a beautifully-drawn and clearly presented large inn! It presents considerable scope for relaxation between adventures or even as a place to have adventures - especially if you enjoy interaction as well as brawling.
The inn is quite large although on one floor, with a large tap room complete with a stage for musical performances. Hopefully the piano has been invented in your game world, as there is a large upright one there ready for passing bards to play. There's a range of seating from bar stools to tables for varying numbers and booths with bench seats.
Behind the bar, there are storage areas, a large kitchen and the landlord's quarters. The kitchen has a long table for prep work and several stoves as well as a fire-pit for roasting meat. The innkeeper has a double bedroom, a spacious lounge area and a private plunge pool complete with a fire place.
Accommodations vary in size but all rooms seem nicely-appointed. They range from single rooms (with chest, desk and wall mirror) to suites with a double bedroom and a living room complete with sofa. There are also four-bedded rooms provided with a table and chairs as well as a chest at the foot of each bed, likely resting place for adventurers.
The height of luxury, the place even has a swimming pool complete with changing areas and even a diving board!
Outside, near several of the doors, there are 'outhouses' - despite the swimming pool, indoors plumbing does not appear to have been invented and relief must be sought outside.
The GM is provided with 'room inventory sheets' to note anything of significance that guests to the inn have in their rooms, and there is an example one filled out. These are, however, of the print out and scribble on variety rather than form-fillable.
Overall a very nice inn. Hopefully my characters will be raising a glass of ale there soon!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
When one goes to one's favourite tavern, it is preferable to be able to quaff one's ale in peace...
Here is a generic, system neutral 'dungeon-crawl' style adventure involving clearing a fairly complex inn cellar of all the unwanted visitors. The landlord (or someone) keeps quite a lot more than barrels of ale down there, but it's been overrun and someone - read the characters - gets hired to sort things out.
There is extensive discourse about how to fit the various creatures (and traps) into whatever game system you are using. It will possibly work best with early versions of Dungeons & Dragons or one of the 'Old School' fantasy systems, but ought to work with any fantasy system that you have to hand. Naturally, you will need to put in some prep work to have the appropriate game mechanics for monsters etc. before you begin (or be confident in either remembering them or looking them up quickly in whatever bestiaries you have for your chosen system).
The actual 'dungeon' comes as 2 pages - a nice clear coloured map and a key with single-line notes on each location down there. You won't need more, the map shows what is in each location well enough for you to explain it to your players.
One nice touch is that the explanatory notes on traps actually has a diagram of how they work. Nice for the mechanically-minded, and easy for you to describe and to check if someone saying he's checking for traps has looked in the right place, or disabling it has actually done so. Naturally, most of us do this by die-roll, but you can make some vivid descriptions.
A neat little package that should supply an evening's entertainment for you and your group, with fairly minimal but necessary preparation.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Just what is says on the cover. 2013 calendar.
Each month is presented as a "Wall Calendar" and "Desk Calendar". So 50+ pages.
Models are the same as other products, but new poses and shots. Also the models names for each month are listed.
For 5 bucks (or under 3 on sale) its a great deal.
There is some scantily clad women but still more tame than similar products.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
EDITED.
Ok so I grabbed this because it came up in a search for "Drago art" not sure why, there are no dragons in it. That was something of a disappointment, but I kept on going, after all there are a 150+ pages here.
The art varies from semi-serious, to cheesecake. It is all photos with fantasy style trappings and backgrounds. There are some topless women here (and me, fair is fair), but it is all of an artistic sort.
There are not many images here I can use in my games, but the ones that I can seem perfect. There is an African-American male vampire in this is perfect (and they must have also thought this since we get a couple of him), but my opinion was changed with the picture of the "witch" on page 101. Again it is a case of the right thing at the tight time for me. NOTE To publisher: I appreciate the names of the models, but is there anyway to knwo what page they are on? Ok, just who is the model on page 101?
The models are all attractive and we get a variety of types, genders and ethnicity here so that is certainly a plus. One of my first thoughts was there are a lot of good visual images here for a Ravenloft game or some other dark fantasy.
There are also 24 pages of "character sheets" featuring the various models (again the witch on 101 is back on page 150), plus a blank and a back page. Suitable really for most games, but certainly a FRPG in mind.
So while it was not exactly what I was looking for and I also like to buy art I can reuse somehow, I can't fault the publisher any of those.
Great fro printing out and using in a game as a visual aid. Or if there is a character you really want to detail then it's perfect if the character you envision is here.
NOTE To publisher 2: maybe small thumbnails of the pictures on the character sheets might be good on your website? That way if someone sees something they like they have a good reason to buy this.
In truth you get a ton of images for $5 (when on sale). Can't really complain about that.
EDITED TO ADD. You can find some of the images on their website. The vampire I mentioned is there, but not the witch I am fond of.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Got this for another character of mine. It looks perfect and for a buck it is a steal.
The picture is hires and huge.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
I picked this up because I saw it in another SSD product and it is perfect for a warlock character I have in D&D4.
Plus it was under a buck.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
The Succubus looks tired of posing for this very simple composition. While the Succubus is very attractive in the face and her body, svelte, the composition as a whole leaves me wondering where is the rest of this portrait. Something's missing.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
This product was a disappointment. I all honesty I could have made better maps with MS Windows Paint program. The maps are highly pixelated & the fonts look like old MS-DOS system font (on a 16 color monitor). With just a bit of effort these maps could have been so much better. A cleaner font, higher resolution images, etc. I am just very thankful all I am out is the $7.50 sale price. I would never have paid $30.00 (the non-sale list price at the time of my purchase) for this poor a product. I will NOT buy from this seller again. Like the old saying goes: fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Fantasy art photos with digital manipulations.
Not bad really, cut from the same cloth as Heavy Metal.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Overall, this is a good product. I will definitely be using it. The only problem is that the battlemaps have numbers on them, which would normally only be on the overview map. So I will either have to edit the pages in photoshop (a time waste that I was trying to avoid by purchasing this product), or I will have to just accept that numbers will be on the battlemap.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
I’ve always been a fan of cheesecake fantasy artwork. Of course, that’s to be expected, as I’m pretty well the target demographic for such material. For better or for worse, images of scantily-clad sex-fantasies go hand in hand with fantasy (and, to be fair, other genres as well) and I appreciate it when such artwork is released. I suspect that it’s in that spirit that Stainless Steel Dragon released Reflections of Voldaria, a collection of fantasy-themed pictures of sexy women.
Just over a dozen pictures make up Reflections of Voldaria. I was tempted to abbreviate the title as RoV, which is the file name of the PDF of these images; I’m not sure that’s correct, however, as the storefront calls it “AoV,” which was slightly confusing. Which is it?
As I said, the pictures are released as a single PDF, which while not bad is still somewhat inconvenient if you want to manipulate these pictures in any way. Sure, you still can, but it would have been much easier if there had been a collection of individual JPG or PNG files. Still, I have to give the book credit for having full, nested bookmarks so that you can at least easily zip to each page.
The book is surprisingly forthcoming regarding the mechanics of these pictures, telling you the best way to print them out and the dimensions of the images. This is the text that you see on the book’s storefront, but it’s actually the bulk of the introduction.
The bulk of the twenty-five photos here have some sort of photo-manipulation, usually of the background. In this area, there is some slight room for improvement; while the artist clearly tried to minimize a sense of disconnect between the foreground and background images, it still comes through. The scenes feel flat in most cases, as small things that you couldn’t name but still register reinforce a sense of disconnectedness…I imagine this is due to an intrinsic understanding that we all have about how lighting and shadows should look were people actually in the areas depicted.
Each picture has a full-page lead-in, which is an entire page that gives the picture’s title and a two-stanza rhyme describing the picture. This was my biggest complaint about the book – not that the rhymes weren’t very good (though there were some real groaners), but that so much space was wasted with these intro pages. What’s here could easily have been tacked on as a caption to each image, rather than being set in the middle of a huge expanse of white space. There’s just so much more that could have been done to fill it. Personally, I would have loved to have gotten game stats in these pages, as this would have (more than) doubled the book’s practical usefulness; now you have fully-illustrated NPCs!
In regards to the subjects of the photographs, virtually all of them are beautiful women. The rare male does show up, but it’s always in conjunction with a girl, and the guy is always dressed in practical outfits. By contrast, most of the women are nearly-naked, save for the occasional girl in a chain shirt. Personally, I had no problem with this whatsoever, not only because I like sexy women, but also because I find it impossible to complain about “realism” and “verisimilitude” when most fantasy has magic and other perfectly viable explanations for why an adventurer could go around wearing almost nothing and still have a high degree of bodily protection. If you could have a magic spell that protects you as well as a full suit of armor, without the weight or maintenance that the latter requires, then why not?
Having said all of that, there are still some legitimate critiques to be made here. For one, all of the characters are clearly posing for the camera; there are no “action shots” of people engaged in adventuring. A few of these take this to an extreme example, as there’s a close-up of one woman’s face, while a different picture offers us a close-up of a girl’s thong-clad ass. Again, not a big deal, but there’s not even a pretense of this being anything other than blatant sexiness.
Overall, I enjoyed Reflections of Voldaria, but that’s because, as I noted at the beginning, I’m the sort of person who’ll forgive a lot if it means I get to look at sexy, scantily-clad girls. If examined in a technical sense, there is a lot of merit here – the photographs are fairly professional in the sense of the shots conveying what they’re meant to. It’s when you move beyond the technical aspects of the actual photographs of the girls that we see the need for improvement. From the photoshopping to the lack of image files to the huge tracts of white space, there’s more that could have been done in how these images were packaged.
Still, if you’d like to reflect on some lovely ladies, you could do much worse than to check out the Reflections of Voldaria.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
Publisher Reply: |
|
Thank you for you feedback. I appreciate any constructive thoughts that might help me produce a better fantasy photo ebook, I am new at this, and totally open to constructive criticism. You know, for a 4 star review, you seemed to have lot more negative things to say about this ebook then positive, so I am guessing it had some redeeming value, that some how got left out of your review.
Just a few quick notes to address your concerns.
First, I think this book is exactly as described. I should not that 11 of the 25 pics presented here are “pure” photos. No photoshopped backgrounds, thus any flatness/wrongness you see or think you see, is what you would actually see if you actually took a picture of woman on rock with her reflection and the sky behind her in the water. (As I did, with the Lady of the Lake picture and ten others pictures.) Also, most of other shots have clouds or mist for their backgrounds, which by their very nature seem impossible to make flat. However in future works, perhaps I can try to bleed the fog into the foreground more, but then it looks more like smoke then fog. (This is something most other photographers don’t do, but I will consider it, if it makes my work better then theirs.)
Second, yes, as describe, there are lots of woman who are scantly clad, and yes, it may mean they are wearing magical armor as you suggest, (My thought sometimes.) or it could mean you are seeing them, as if across a campfire or in a leisure moment. (Perhaps pausing to make a decision which in many cases was my intent.) Anyone, who has worn real armor, even just chainmail, knows it is heavy and uncomfortable, and generally only those people engaged in actual combat would be caught wearing it for more than hour. Please note, action shots may come when I release a book called the fighting women/men of Voldaria.) This book, was about “reflections,” and thought, hence its name. “Reflections of Voldaria,” or moments of introspection - if you will. I am sorry if you didn’t get it. After your insightful review of my 2012 Calendar, I would have guessed you would have seen it. (It is about art, not action, not sex nor about adventuring,) But your not alone, the first reviewer of this work didn’t get it either. Which saddens me, because that was my primary objective when creating this work, and it seems like everybody missed it. FYI, AoV stands for Age of Volondor, of which RoV, Reflections of Voldaria is the world that surrounds Volondor, and is a much overdue visual supplement. Hence, the 2 names depending upon where you see them, those familiar with AoV would not be confused.
Third, in regards too white-space, this is, after all an ebook, thus no trees were killed in its creation, and the white space can easily be skipped by anyone who wants to see just pictures. It should be noted some photographers, consider the use of white space as a way to understate their work in an artistic way. (There is a big difference in fluffing up a page count in a game book by adding too much white space, and showing artwork with no distractions on the opposing page. Modeled somewhat after a Boris Vallejo coffee table book I once bought.) FYI, I did consider labeling each title on or under the work, but thought that it distracts from the quality and feeling of the picture, and I am somewhat sure some other critics would find fault with that.) Yes, the poetry was as campy as anything Stan Lee might say to introduce people to his Marvel universe, and I am sorry for that. (And it was described as such.) I meant simply to put each picture in the context of Voldaria. (My world and game system, and these are just the first of many images I am offering to give my gamers their first look upon the terrain and denizens of my world.) Still, I appreciate the thought, and in my next book, (Which will have 100+Pics) I will probably just cram the pictures in back to back, and leave the title of pictures to those who seek to find them in the index, Easter egg fashion.
Finally, I do think providing these images in JPG format as opposed to PDF format is a great idea. (I was recently thinking that myself, for my CD releases.) The one problem I have is that I am not sure if RPGnow can support that, except maybe as zip file or a bundle of separated jpg images. Hmmm, maybe I should do that? Offer Poster sized JPGs individually for .50 cent each? What do you think? Then I can bundle them for those who want a volume discount? I guess I should ask them if that okay, It seems like spamming to me, but I am game, if they are. It would mean bigger and better pictures for those people who like my work, and they could buy only what they like. So dear critic, thanks for keeping me honest with this review, hopefully someday my work will evolve into something more praise worthy, or at least without enough fault as to merit such a critical review.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Calendars are one of those projects where they seem like a no-brainer. After all, you just make twelve pages, one for each month of the year, and have each page list the dates for that month. No big deal, right? However, calendars are one of those areas where the devil is in the details. What holidays do you list? What about other events, such as the phases of the moon? Perhaps the biggest detail, however, is what theme will your calendar have?
In the case of Stainless Steel Dragon’s 2012 Fantasy Female Calendar & Print Set, the theme is beautiful, scantily-clad women.
At twenty-eight pages long, this calendar’s basic construction is pretty much what you’d expect. Given in PDF format, there are twelve sets of calendar listings and an equal number of photos; the array listed is in the standard one photo followed by one month arrangement.
The file opens with an introduction which is the product page information, telling us how these pictures were configured and giving us the default methods of printing out this calendar should we want a hard-copy. It’s fairly boilerplate, but it was nice to have the information listed just to be on the safe side; I doubt I’ll be printing out this calendar, but for those who are interested in doing so, there’s some good, albeit basic, advice here in that regard.
The pictures are, as mentioned, all of beautiful girls in skimpy outfits. The pictures all have a fantasy theme to them, with the outfits having a fantasy-medieval theme, and many of the pictures feature the girls wielding various medieval weapons (e.g. mace, crossbow, etc.). The artwork here is all tasteful, and while titillating doesn’t ever rise to the level of softcore porn – a few pictures are slightly risqué though, such as how Ms. February has most of her ass uncovered, and Ms. August seems to be naked (though positioned in such a way that nothing naughty can be seen).
I should note that full bookmarks are given for this PDF, which makes it very easy if you’re using the file as a calendar for your computer. Interestingly, the bookmark for each month has a nested entry to that month’s picture; it’s here and only here that you’ll find the name of the picture, something I thought was a very fun easter egg.
Likewise, my mention of using this file as your computer calendar was no off-hand remark. As the introduction notes, each day’s entry has been formatted to allow you to post a sticky note there, giving this product an edge of practicality. The calendar days also note the phases of the moon, the solstices and equinoxes, and most major holidays as well.
A few extras are here that should be noted. Each calendar page has small, abbreviated listings for the previous and next month at the top, which is convenient. A fun addition is that, while the days of the week are listed along the top of each calendar’s dates table, it also lists the corresponding deities each day of the week is named for along the bottom.
Overall, I quite liked the 2012 Fantasy Female Calendar. Beyond the delicious cheesecake, the ways in which this product took advantage of the digital format, rather than being held hostage by it, were quite refreshing. From the picture titles in the bookmarks to the sticky notes when you right-click a day, there was comparatively a lot here to enjoy. From sexy images to functionality, this calendar makes 2012 look like it’s going to be a great year.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 0 items |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
Log In 
