mordite press

  Transmogrification 5TH CIRCLE SPELL (Vitalis) Tapping into the shared origins of all life, the vitalist rearranges muscle, bone, and sinew into the form of whatever creature suits their whims.

After you cast your spell(s), there's no need to sit and mope.

Ardmor Actual Play Coming Soon...

Whether playing at a convention or firing up a one-shot adventure, there are times when you are looking for not only pre-generated characters but a pre-gen team.

MyNamesArt has been active in the Torchbearer community for a while now, and he's started streaming some Torchbearer content! Check out his Twitch here and give him a follow. In this installment, he...

Puzzles are a staple of adventure and role-playing games. However, the design for a puzzle dungeon presents not-so-typical challenges. Fortunately, Torchbearer has systems, tactics, and mechanics...

Now that The Grind is starting to ship, this will be our last behind-the-scenes Grind article.

Previously in the Master's Manual we have explored how to balance a session, how to estimate the difficulty of obstacles, how to gauge the relative power of monsters, and how to make sense of unusual...

Loot as if you were to die tomorrow. Level up as if you were to live forever. - The Adventurer Credo

Conflicts handle a variety of pivotal moments in Torchbearer: arguments, contests, and struggles of will, daring chases or escapes, and more. While the rulebook thoroughly explores “Fight”-style...

"To snuff out a life with a word... any so-called archmage who would pervert the art to such heresy is unworthy of the title." — Gambinster the Red

 Another glimpse into the forbidden grimoire...

One of the coolest features of the conflict system in Torchbearer is that it can be applied to almost any chaotic, dramatic scene— not just fights! However, many of the other conflict types receive a...

Learned scholars have long debated the process and efficacy of creating automata, artificial creatures capable of ambulation and decision making. Methods of both arcane and divine origin have been...

In Torchbearer— as in B/X Dungeons & Dragons— magic spells are highly self-contained things. They give you all the rules you need to use them, and they only very rarely note how they might...

Behold, a vision in my scrying orb... there are brave scholars who pray for guidance as they pore through the ancient tomes. Those calls shall not go unanswered.

I just finished editing some awesome upcoming Magician and Elf spells for our Kickstarter-funded, Zine Quest, Mordite Press presents: The Grind, a Torchbearer Zine. But what about the humble (or...

Reflections on the adventurer life, for soon The Grind shall hit.  

Mordite Press is playing through Shane King’s adventure Floating Castle Ardmor, which is available for free under the Dungeoneers license. The adventure is still in its “alpha” playtesting phase, so...

With the life draining out of G+, I'm setting up a slack that people can join for discussion while we await the promised land.

When Luke Crane announced Kickstarter's Zine Quest back in November, we started kicking around ideas.  

Mordite Press presents a new Torchbearer class for heartless players and GMs: the Orc Warmonger (PDF).

Torchbearer RPG Zine Available Now in PDF

In Part II, we discussed Obstacles and how to evaluate what obstacles were challenging for a given party. Today we're going to look at versus tests and monsters, and how to gauge just how dangerous a...

In Part I we discussed how skill and ability tests against obstacles are only a part of Torchbearer’s overall flow. A lot hangs on how the GM presents information to the players and the choices that...

Boss Monster battles offer interesting challenges for players and GMs. Players have to strategize a little differently and GMs have to juggle a few more pieces. Let's look at what these special rules...

The Torchbearer rulebook has solid advice on running the game, and I recommend periodically re-reading it as your Torchbearer campaign unfolds. Specific headings like Describe to Live and...

As the Torchbearer rulebook helpfully explains, the magician is the most complicated class in the game. A close reading and mastery of the spell rules is necessary to get the most out of playing a...

GMing any game is an art form - requiring imagination and creativity. But when it comes down to it, running a Torchbearer game for the first time can be daunting.

Most of the adventures I run in Torchbearer, both at home and at conventions, are drawn from one or two page adventures by a variety of authors. I’ve found that using small adventure locations helps...

Mordite Press is preparing a feast of gaming for PAX Unplugged 2018! To celebrate, we're putting on a sale! From today until December 3rd, all our books are 30% off. This can combine with...

The guru awaits... 

I greet you, Legion of Chaons, and welcome back to Mordite Monday! This week I'm turning over command to D. Koch, author of Fearless and Freebooting and all-around classy guy. His formidable mission...

Nature is one of the most abstract rules in the Torchbearer RPG. You could, in theory, play many sessions without rolling it at all. Even so, a lot of the other mechanics hang from it, and once...

Some time ago, I presented Jared Sorensen (Memento Mori Theatricks) with a notion: his Specialist class rules should be used to enable depraved Torchbearer magicians and clerics to attain Lichdom.

The most monstrous of holidays draws near, and so this Mordite Monday is a Monster! Following on Thor's example on the official Torchbearer Blog—which introduced and reproduced stat blocks for...