Mythoard: Summoning Circle (Cool Stuff)

It's that wonderful time of the month, the Mythoard is here! After expending a few handfuls of specially crafted green paper, burning the traditional goat-hair incense, and clicking on the subscription button on the shiny new Mythoard webpage, a bundle of mysterious papers arrived in a box just outside my apartment.

Awful Good Games is back this month with a very cool mini adventure around the dying curses of a wretched witch in the town of Lichfield. The artwork and the design of this are fantastic. I love that everything has its own instincts and the relevant locations have meaningful offerings for the players without weighing down the DM with trivial bits of information. They do a great job creating a feel for this town after only describing a handful of people and places.

This is probably my favorite item in this mythoard, not for its exceptional quality compared to all the other stunning items in the bundle, but because it is so fantastically cool for hex mapping and doodling on the go. For me it was one of those moments where you got something you didn't even realize you should be asking for. I can't wait to take this baby for a spin.

The little magazine, the Oubiliette, is a cute little magazine packed to the margins with silly little encounters, quaint maps, and (my favorite) curious spells. I wouldn't mind seeing one of these regularly show up, the artwork is very well done and the variety of snippets included were enough to offer a lot of content without becoming overly focused on providing inspiration in one area (maps, magic items, etc.)

From "For Rent, Lease or Conquest" (darn you Oxford comma) comes what has to be my new favorite monster. Enter, the 'Chicken Coop', a literal animated house with chicken legs that is so desparate for tenants that it will eat humans and force them to live inside. The adventure itself is well written and based around a fun premise of getting to flip the script and play dungeon defense when some unscrupulous individuals come-a-knockin'. Despite not usually liking to run other people's adventures, I might give this one a try.

Last up are two original DragonQuest adventures, the Starsilver Trek and Heroes and Villians. I'm not the biggest fan of written adventures, as I prefer to hand craft my own things, but I enjoyed seeing all the stories and NPC's presented in these two adventures. I may call upon these maps, places, and people in the future. Having those portraits may just mean I might be scanning some faces onto my computer to call up at a moment's notice without having to lug around a bunch of magazines.

Overall, I am only getting more impressed with Mythoard. They continue to send me things I wouldn't even think to ask for. My only desire would be to see it a little more mixed with a few more tangible items like miniatures, dice, or tools so that it isn't entirely magazines and booklets. That may be beyond the price point of the subscription, so I will wait to see how it plays out.