I finally got my copy of Wormskin issue 1, from the brains of Gavin & Gorgonmilk (well, Norman & Gorgonmilk or Gavin & Greg if I were being consistent with naming conventions).

Before I go into my own revelations, let me say this is an awesome little booklet. 40 pages of digest-sized tastiness for the Dolmenwood B/X D&D setting. It includes a map of the Dolmenwood, the Moss Dwarf class (a very substantial chunk of material here with random tables for generating fun NPC moss dwarves, a variety of different talent-trees for the race/class and everything you normally expect from a new class), an article on mushrooms (with 30 varieties, their weird effects, appearance, taste and where you can find them, as well as how to buy them and for how much), the Gimalkin race-class (cat-creatures) and finally it finishes with monstrous sentient humanoid root vegetables.

It is wonderfully creative, quirky, and very well written and laid out. A total masterclass in bite-sized old school goodness.

Which brings me back to my always incomplete Snail Lords of the Salt Flats.

This format is brilliant. It brings chunks of information forward in an easy to digest format and provides a nearly instant way to get stuff out there when it is written. I feel that this is probably the optimal release method for odd-ball campaign settings – a bit of setting material, a class, a monster, etc, all wrapped up in a pretty little booklet.

It provides two bonuses over the traditional format of getting it all together into one book and then publishing it:

1. Instant gratification. I get a chunk of material together and I can release it, instead of just checking off that chapter in the campaign setting document’s outline as “done”. I also get immediate feedback, and a bit of cash as financial incentive to do more. A bunch of small milestones is a lot more motivating that one big milestone.
2. If I never get the whole thing done, at least chunks of it will be out there for people to enjoy playing with, and for me to use in my own games.

So, to make a long story short, this may become the new format of the Snail Lords material I’ve written so far so that I can comfortably start running a game of it soon.