Other Minds magazine, latest Issue published

[Halbarad]

Thank you for taking time to comment Dunkelbrink and I'm glad that you enjoyed the adventure.

There is one thing that I would like to point out though.

The Elvira, Mistress of the Dark style picture of the Vampiress was a curious choice by Tolwen. Given his usual attention to detail and his in depth knowledge of the setting and how it should 'look and feel', I was surprised to find that particular style of vampire among the illustrations.

I do actually wonder if that might be part of the reason why readers are detecting overt Gothic tones in the adventure.

[Halbarad]

@Dunkelbrink

One thing I would like to ask you about is why my inclusion of a new village made you feel a disconnect from the C7 setting?

I was careful, once again, not to go against anything that C7 or Tolkien had written. Buhrscilda is definitely Hamlet sized and it lies outside the 100 league exclusion zone of the Shire.

[Dunkelbrink]

@Halbarad Oh, it's not that you or the adventure goes against anything that Tolkien or C7 has written. Rather that is doesn'tinclude characters and places from Tolkien or C7. Most published adventures so far make use of characters from the books in some way or the other. The characters meet Gandalf, fight the Necromancer's servants, does Beorns bidding etc. C7's stuff, especially Heart of the Wild, envokes the same feeling, almost like it is not possible to discern what is original Tolkien material and what is not.

So, personally, I find that I tend to like adventures better when they are solidly grounded in this material. When they make use of these great characters instead of inventing a dozen new ones. I guess I felt a bit like the adventure could have fit in any low fantasy rpg and not necessarily a Tolkien rpg. That said, it is only my personal opinion and the adventure is great!

And, yeah. The busty gothic queen of darkness Elvira was probably one thing that tipped the adventure to the gothic side-...

[Halbarad]

I do take your point Dunkelbrink and agree that the Tolkien characters that I have used are certainly of the lesser spotted variety and very much peripheral to the main action. (The adventure begins in the company of Halbarad and finishes with them fighting alongside the sons of Elrond.)

It's something to consider for any future efforts.

[Rich H]

As a counter balance, I'd just like to state that using and reusing established characters can get old pretty fast so having new ones introduced is a welcome change! Wilderland is a Huuuuuuuuge area of land so there's definite license to expand and detail other areas as well; without such expansion the place can run the risk of feeling too empty.

[Tolwen]

The Elvira, Mistress of the Dark style picture of the Vampiress was a curious choice by Tolwen. Given his usual attention to detail and his in depth knowledge of the setting and how it should 'look and feel', I was surprised to find that particular style of vampire among the illustrations.

That's easy to explain. Beside fitting artwork as such, there is always the key aspect of permission to consider. Finding appropriate artwork is one thing, but being allowed to use it is an entirely different piece of cake.
In the case of the demonic vampires, the selection of artwork fitting to the description was extremely slim, so I had to use something that came approximately close and that we had permission to use.

Best
Tolwen

[Halbarad]

No problem Tolwen, the choice of picture just seemed a little out of character for you.

[Robin Smallburrow]

Great issue as always, kudos to Tolwen & contributors!

Unfortunately I have had to postpone my Mordor work at the moment, I am too busy with a revision of the Magic chapter of the Loremaster's Guide for AiME, and I am also now running AiME Wilderland campaign, so don't know whèn Ill go back to Mordor

I could send u what I have if u are interested

Also brings to mind an idea for future issues: Geography! ( could have an issue on Mordor or on The Shire etc

Robin S

[Tolwen]

Hi Folks,
another update has gone live. This contains the following fixes:

• p. 1 - added new artist
• p. 3 - added new contribution (Were-worms) and edited TOC
• p. 10 - fixed list of artists (added Tuuliky as contributing artist)
• p. 56-61 - fixed typos and misplaced paragraphs
• p. 119 - fixed artist credit
• p. 200-203 - added José Enrique's article on Were-worms

You can find the updated file on the OM website or under this direct link. Have fun with it and feel free to comment anything you deem worthwhile

@Robin S: Please send me anything you have and deem worthwhile for inclusion

For the OM team
Thomas

P.S.: I also updated OM16 with adjusted numbers for Rohan (especially Westfold and West-march) that match with the numbers found in OM17.

[Tolwen]

And still in update mode...

A new version of OM14 has become available as well. You can find it under this link. The original file will stay available as well.