July 2014 RPG Blog Carnival Wrap-Up

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It's nearly Midnight, but instead of turning into a pumpkin or whatever, here's the Wrap-Up Post for the July 2014 RPG Blog Carnival.

The theme this month was Invasive Species. We had nine excellent entries, not counting our own contributions; two of which were by Leicester. Thanks to all of you who participated in this month's RPG Blog Carnival. It was quite a lot of fun to read all the very well written and thought provoking entries.

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Leicester's Ramble gave us four minor amphibious horrors that have shown up in the kingdom recently. The Rage Salamander, Thunder Frogs and Pustule Toads are bad enough, then you get the Bleeding Caecillian...ouch!

The Githyanki Diaspora blog provided a means of customizing a Githyanki Invasion using 6d6 to suit your campaign. The Githyanki are one of the truly classic Invasive Species to come out of gaming, and this is a fun set of tables just begging to be used.

The MindWeave Role-Playing Platform featured the Tulkem, a reptilian invasive species that aggressively take over territory by expanding swampland and flooding-out their neighbors and competitors.

Tower of the Archmage released their first issue of their brand-new RPG-zine The Archmage's Octavo and this inaugural issue happens to feature an invasive species! It's a free pdf, so you've got nothing to lose by checking it out, and besides it's really good stuff. There's also a map by Dyson Logos in this issue, so you know it has a great map to go with the new monster, and did I mention there are rules for handling Carousing as Magical Research for Wizards? Go Get it.

Leicester's Ramble featured a fun bit of flash fiction as a second-helping of invasive species goodness. It reminded me a bit of the old Twilight Zone and Outer Limits stories, in a good way. I'm still hoping to read another new installment of Farthing and Tig!

Over at the World Builder Blog they were Preparing for the Invasion and featured the half-devil/half-aberrant Morchia and the mind-controlling parasitic Mystauk, both statted-up for the new 5th Edition rules. Both are excellent monsters and worth taking a look at and could be converted over to another edition fairly easily.

Tales of a GM blog told us all about an intriguing invasive species...a giant albino leech that served a player character as an animal companion! I enjoyed this post a great deal as it would fit right in with Wermspittle in a heart-beat.

Eric's Gaming Pulse took on the task of presenting humanity as an invasive species in space. He raises some interesting points and postulates a setting where more highly advanced aliens hire-on humans as their preferred interstellar workforce since humans require less intensive life support systems than other species. There's some real magic to this premise and you really need to read his post if you're at all interested in a fun scifi twist on the invasive species premise.

Porky delivered a very sparse but effective set of rules for adding financiers into the mix at the table in The Rule of the Jungle and the Self-Invasive Species. It reminded me a little bit of Sir A.C. Doyle's The Lost World and similar stories along those lines where there is always someone with money getting involved, the rich investor who backs an expedition only to force their way on board and try to run things...this is another very well thought-out post well worth your time to read it over and consider how it might fit into your game.

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As for ourselves, we posted about the Black Zones, a few Aquatic Terrors for Gus L., Six Nasty Things from the Black Zones, Sickly Yellow Phantoms, Killing Frost, our Third Sewer Encounter table, the Fleshwrought Servitors of Varug, a set of paper minis for the Rilligong, a set of paper minis including several very invasive species such as the Yelg Froth, Bugs, Stompers and there was a picture of a Mucoid included in the photo of our work-space that we posted for Jack. We also did a new robot T-shirt, but those 'bots aren't particularly invasive, so never mind that.

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Thanks again to everyone who participated in this month's RPG Blog Carnival!
Next Month's Theme is: Devious Dungeons and the Host will be: Mindweave Role-Playing.

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