Miria, Edryk, Kale, The All-Knowing, and the Squid set sail across the Astral plane and discover that it is anything but empty.

This episode uses a mix of planar travel rules found in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Dungeons & Dragons 3.5e, and the D&D3.5e Planar Handbook, as the players travel across the Astral Plane.

It also features a monster from Dungeons & Dragons3.5e: The Elsewhale.

Elsewhale: HD: 16; AC: 6 [13]; Att: bite (4d8); SV: 4; Special: plane shift, adaptation, telepathy; MV: swimming 18, flying 18; AL: Neutrality; ML: 9; No. Appearing: 1d3; CL/XP: 20/2,4,400

Elsewhales are magical cetaceans that can be found on almost any plane. They wander the multiverse endlessly in pursuit of their own ineffable ends, devouring astral krakens and other planar creatures. They can sometimes be bribed to carry small groups in their mouths from plane to plane.

Elsewhales Originally appeared in the Dungeons & Dragons Planar Handbook.

From the Free Music Alliance:

From Pixabay:

A summary of Episodes 21-29.

Swords Against Madness episode 30 is a summary of the plot from episodes 11 through 19. An opportunity to catch up on the plot or just refresh your memory. It adds nothing to the main plot-line.

This episode includes performances by:

From the Free Music Alliance:

From Pixabay:

This is a special bonus episode of Swords Against Madness featuring my new TTRPG, Undeadwood: Weird West RPG. Follow the Lost Soul Carson Swift, as he tries to help a bounty hunter track down a stolen item, only to be dragged into a battle between a powerful land-owner and a dark cult of alien mystics.

This episode is played using my Undeadwood: Weird West TTRPG system, and its dark, American folklore-enriched setting of Wonkatonkwa County.

The game is available on DriveThruRPG.

You can also learn more about it through the game development podcast, Dead Man’s Dice, and on my weblog: Welcome to the Deathtrap.

All music and Sound Effects are courtesy of Pixabay.

Miria, Edryk, and Kale finally reach the place where the All-Knowing believes there is a means to travel to the planes. The object they discover is far stranger than anything they could have imagined.

In this session I reference the amazing role-playing game Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG from Goodman Games. DCC catches the strange psychedelic vibe of the books that inspired D&D – and Swords Against Madness – better than any other game on the market.

It also borrows some rules for planar travel and plane shifting from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition to fill in the gaps in the Swords & Wizardry rule-set.

The Wizard Van is an enchanted 1974 Ford Econoline with air-brushed fantasy art on the sides and comfortable couches in the back. It is fuelled by magic-user spells. Each level of spell cast into its Flux Capacitor provides two hours of fuel. The van can shift to the Astral Plane by using 2 hours of fuel. It can also fly at 55 miles per hour, but has a ceiling of 50ft. and consumes twice as much fuel.

I mentioned the song Wizard Wagon by Glitter Wizard; if you want to check out this awesome (if explicit) song, you can hear it here!

This episode includes performances by:

From the Free Music Alliance:

AI Generated Pieces:

From Pixabay:

The party may have destroyed the Dread Silkworm, a half-giant-caterpillar-half-god monster… but there are still more creatures devouring the juju garden, and a mission to fulfill.

This episode opens with rounds 8-14 of a brutal gruelling battle! The Dread Silkworm may have fallen, but it is far from the only threat that the party was facing!

This is an AI-free episode of Swords Against Madness.

This episode includes performances by:

From the Free Music Alliance:

Used with special permission:

From Pixabay:

Sometimes folks head out West, and just fall off the edge of the world. 

They end up here. Wonkatonkwa County. 

They just show up, confused, frightened, missing a year off their life with no idea where it went. A place full of walking dead, prehistoric monsters, black magic.

t takes a special kind of grit to make your way here. You gotta be crazy, or nearly so just to make sense of what you are seeing. And if you weren’t crazy before, circumstance will be happy to oblige you.

Best thing to do is get yourself a gun, and sober up the preacher so that he can give it a proper blessing, then find yourself something to hold on To. A bible. A bottle. It don’t really matter which… 

After all, You ain’t in Texas anymore.

Undeadwood: Weird West is a dark weird west game that doesn’t take itself too seriously. It embraces some of the stranger, more offbeat elements of American Folklore. Along with the devils, ghosts, cursed treasure, and mad scientists, you can expect to see hodags, jackalopes, and thunderbirds. My goal is to play a game that has all the action and grit of a pulp Western story from Lariat or Triple-X, but fused with the humorously macabre of The Addams Family or Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Played using 2d6. And featuring work from some of the greatest artists to ever grace the pages of pulp western magazines.

Now available on DriveThruRPG

The party attempts to help the Nilkin clear the Ravenous Caterpillars from their sacred garden, only to find the threat is much greater than anyone anticipated.

Mythic Game Master Emulator throws a number of crazy curve-balls at the PCs this session, showing just how wild and unpredictable it can make a game become…

…Especially when you are willing to truly let your imagination run wild with the prompts it creates.

This is the first fully AI free episode of Swords Against Madness.

This episode includes performances by:

This episode includes two home-brewed monsters.

Ravening Caterpillar: HD: 4; AC: 4 [15]; Att: bite (d6) or silk (ranged, entangle); SV: 15; Special: poison spines, regeneration; MV: 3; AL: Neutrality; ML: 7; No. Appearing: 1d4; CL/XP: 8/900

The Dread Silkworm: HD: 6 (27 hp); AC: 4 [15]; Att: bite (d8) or silk (ranged, entangle); SV: 15; Special: poison spines, regeneration, spells; MV: 3; AL: Neutrality; ML: 10; No. Appearing: 1 (unique) CL/XP: 11/2,400

From the Free Music Alliance:

From Pixabay:

The Party joins the mysterious wild halflings, the Nilkin, in their village in hopes that the local shaman might be able to help them find the planar travel device. The Nilkin are not as firendly as they might seem, and have a dangerous task that needs doing.

This episode of Swords Against Madness includes a discussion of the Dungeons & Dragons module Hot Springs Island by Jacob Hurst et al. at Swordfish Islands.

This age-of-sail tropical island hexcrawl has set the standard for me for adventure design and I used many of its monsters and encounters in designing Nar. It consists of two books: A Field Guide to Hot Springs Island and the Dark of Hot Springs Island, although some of the dungeons included are also sold separately as The Lapis Observatory and Toxic Elvish Smut.

Kuji Bird: HD: 3+3; AC 2 [17]; Bite: 1d4; MV: 12; SV: 16; AL: N; ML: 7; CL/XP: 3/60

Wild Halflings: HD: 1d6; AC 6 [13]; Atk: sling (1d3) or short sword (1d6); SV: 19; AL: N; ML: 8; CL/XP: B/10

Plant Zombie: HD: 2; AC 5 [14]; Atk: slam (1d6); SV: 17; AL: N; ML: 11; CL/XP: 1/15

From the Free Music Alliance:

From Pixabay:

Generated with Suno

Miria, Edryk, Raxon, Berle, & Kale brave the untamed norther jungles of Nar, to find that the wilderness itself seems to hunger for them…

This episode features a reinterpretation of the Vine Horror from the epic Dungeon Crawl Classic RPG module Sailors on the Starless Sea, a legendary module that helped define DCCRPG and secure it as the most popular Old-School RPG around.

It also features my Swords & Wizardry adaptation of the Kuji Bird from the equally epic (and edition agnostic) D&D module Hot Springs Island.

Strangling Vine: HD: 2; AC: 6[13]; Atk: vine (1d3 + grab); Special: grab, strangle; MV: 5; SV: 17; AL: N; ML: 10; CL/XP: 3/60

Kuji Bird: HD: 3+3; AC 2 [17]; Bite: 1d4; MV: 12; SV: 16; AL: N; ML: 7; CL/XP: 3/60

Wild Halflings: HD: 1d5; AC 6 [13]; Atk: sling (1d3) or short sword (1d6); SVL 19; AL: N; ML: 8; CL/XP: B/10

From the Free Music Alliance:

King Edward by Mister Smith (CC-BY) from the Free Music Archive

From Pixabay:
Underwater Mysterious Ambient by Harumachi Music
Awesome Pink Floydish Guitar by Palle1958
Dark and Suspenseful Atmosphere by SoulProdMusic
Words of a Sermon No One will Hear, Ambient Nod to Elanor Rigby by ODennehy
Western Duel Rock by Abydos Music
Iron Cathedral by JYProject
A Place of Calm and Wonder by UniqueCreativeAudio
Midnight Quirk by Top-Flow
Ominous Tones by UniversField
Deadite Ash vs Evil Dead Song by Anon

Generated with Suno
Reign of Shadows
Eternal Nightmare Initiation

With the help of the All-Knowing, Miria delves into the terrors of Haalu’s mind to learn more about the cruel and enigmatic Master.

This episode includes an encounter with a monster that in Swords and Wizardry is referred to as a Carrion Worm. Other pseudonyms have included the Carcass Crawler, Corpse Worm, and Tentacled Horror, but they all refer to one classic and horrifying Dungeons & Dragons monster: The Carrion Crawler.

The Carrion crawler gets multiple attacks around, each doing only 1hp, but each requiring a save or the unfortunate character becomes paralyzed. On a bad round, the Carrion Crawler can paralyze an entire party, and finish them off at is leisure. They are one of the most feared terrors of D&D for good reason!

The Miria, Edryk, Berle, Raxon, and Kale have their showdown with Haalu; we explore a piece of Edryk’s past, where it crosses with doctor Haidran.

This episode includes my quick and dirty rules for fighting manoeuvres in OSR games:

In the case of grappling, the target cannot move or use a weapon bigger than a dagger until they make a save to break free,

If they cannot break free they become pinned and helpless until they are released.