Looks like print’s back on the menu, boys! I’ve just received the final proof copy of Lost Castle of the Astronomers, and you can pick it up on my long-dormant Lulu.com storefront.

The rules have settled down, so I’m going back over the original adventures and making sure they make sense with the current rules. I’m also redoing them in Nisus, which means they’ll be available in more readable HTML than the old Word versions. I may have more to say about that later, but if you’re a writer with a Mac in search of an easy to use, feature-rich word processor, I can’t speak too highly of Nisus.

There weren’t many changes. Poison is simpler to deal with now, so I fixed that, and I fixed a lot of typos. I have a wandering monster table macro in Nisus to quickly catch typos in the ranges, and there were a few. If nothing else, the random encounter tables should be glitch-free this time around.

I’ve also updated it to the new 9x7 format. I find this size to be easier to use at the game table. It’s e nice compromise between traveling books and full-size books. I’ve also switched from starting new sections on odd pages to starting them on even pages. I was inspired by how much this design decision, from the one-page dungeon movement, made Stonehell more usable. I haven’t gone as bare-bones as Stonehell, but the maps do now face the initial part of the keys describing them. This should help you get up to speed faster when the player characters transition between levels.

Lost Castle, as the first official adventure for Gods & Monsters, is specifically designed to be friendly to beginning game masters and beginning players. It has more flavor text than the rest of my adventures, and fewer encounters.

It was a whole lot of fun for us, and I hope you enjoy it, too! It should work well with any of the retro clones on the market, and I’ve made a conversion document to help with the odd bits.

Remember that the content of the print version is exactly the same as the content of the free PDF. So you don’t need this unless you need a print version. The only difference is the cover. I try to keep the free version easily editable in a word processor, so I put the cover in the main text. For the print version, I make the cover in Scribus.

Also remember that all of the maps are available in the resources file.

To celebrate, I’ve added some of the original drawings, before I brought them into AppleWorks (and later, Inkscape). Complete with coffee stain; except that I don’t drink coffee, so I’m guessing beer. Marvel at my drawing skill, and then thank the Inkscape team for the fact that my maps are readable.

If you want to bundle up to save on shipping, I’ve listed several other great things you can pick up at Lulu along with Lost Castle.