Pyramid: Dungeon Fantasy Collected

[PK]

It is dangerous
To go alone; take this book!
And a sword, I guess.

— Old man in a cave

Over the years, we've published quite a few Dungeon Fantasy-themed articles. Many appeared in dedicated "Dungeon Fantasy" or "Alternate Dungeons" issues, which are prepackaged and ready for die-hard delvers to grab and use. But just as many have appeared elsewhere, proof that dungeon crawling is a style that mixes with many themes and topics. So we've gathered our favorite 28 such articles, compiling them into Pyramid: Dungeon Fantasy Collected.

The five chapters of this 165-page (!) anthology roughly correspond to the five books within the new Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game. The first, "Adventurers," gets double the attention, with twice the articles of the next largest chapter. After all, players and GMs alike love having extra options for crafting potent PCs and NPCs, from new templates to special power-ups and unique options. "Exploits" expands the game with new supernatural feats and wilderness challenges. "Magic" delves into auras, spells, artifacts, and familiars -- which will be needed to fight the threats found in "Monsters." And "Dungeons" offers four adventures, ready to use in your current game (or to start a new one).

Whether you've held off on a Pyramid subscription because you really wanted just Dungeon Fantasy stuff, or you're a lifelong subscriber who craves the convenience of a curated compilation, Pyramid: Dungeon Fantasy Collected is here to help you kick some butt and loot some corpses!

(This is the same collection that was available as an add-on during the DFRPG Kickstarter campaign. All backers who added it, or pledge for the "I Want It All!" level, should already have this.)

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[Edges]

I gotta say, this document is quite handy. Many thanks to all who contributed to it.

I recommend it to anyone who plays GURPS DF.

[Fossilized Rappy]

I haven't bought this title yet (though I almost certainly will eventually), as I have an unhealthily large collection of Pyramid articles that covers much of the stuff in here on top of not actually playing Dungeon Fantasy, but looking at the list I can definitely say there's some wonderful articles collected in here. "More Power to Dungeon Warriors!", "The Sorcerer", "It's a Threat!", and "A Familiar Path" in particular are some ones I've personally been really fond of.

[Phantasm]

How readily useful are the Exploits, Magic, and Monsters chapters to non-DF games?

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

How readily useful are the Exploits, Magic, and Monsters chapters to non-DF games?

It's use should scale with how often you use Exploits, Magic, and Monsters outside of DF games.

[Fossilized Rappy]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

How readily useful are the Exploits, Magic, and Monsters chapters to non-DF games?

Well, I'm only one subjective voice in the wind, but lessee here...

Exploits
"The First Resistance": This is a magical style based around a group of secret mage resistance fighters. This one could easily be adapted to a not-DF fantasy setting like Banestorm or an urban fantasy campaign where hidden magic is a big deal.

"Designer's Notes: Wilderness Adventures": The mechanics in this one are tied to the Dungeon Fantasy Druid template, but I could still see it being pilfered for ideas in other fantasy settings. Elemental Druids are sort of like the Athasian Druids from Dark Sun, High Druids are most like the Celtic Druids of yore (but with powerful magic, of course), and Life Force Wizards allow you to trade monitoring mana levels for monitoring natural sanctity levels.

"Into the Wilderness:" This one's all about combining wilderness stuff with the adventure Mirror of the Fire Demon, so it's probably the lowest on the scale of ones that are immediately useful for non-DF settings. Still a fun article for reading an adventure creator's thought processes, though.

"Dungeon Brewmasters": If your setting has potion making, this is probably still useful for you, though I'll freely admit that I've never played around with the Alchemy skill in any capacity.

Magic
"Auras of Power": Plenty of supernatural (or superhero) characters can exude auras, so no hangups here. The Aura of Power meta-enhancement got reprinted in GURPS Power-Ups 4: Enhancements, but you've also got over a dozen worked examples in the article, which counts for something when you're a GM on the go.

"Essential Magic:" This takes the Essential [Element] spells from GURPS magic and puts them into practical use with things like exploding balls of Essential Fire or turning your blade into orichalchum. These spells are definitely tied to the more high fantasy end of things, but that's expected; the Pyramid issue they come from is titled "Epic Magic", after all.

"Seven Mythical Artifacts for Dungeon Fantasy": While viewed through a DF lens, these are all wondrous items from real world religion and mythology (mostly Greek, but there's a few outliers such as the mirror of the Aztec god Tezcatlipoca and Kali's skull necklace). As long as your setting is one where ancient artifacts of divine power can feasibly exist, I don't see any complications here.

"The Familiar Path": Like most things Ghostdancer does, this is a precious little gem of an article. A lot of stuff on interactions between you and a familiar Ally, as well as some fun new enhancements and limitations such as potential "mental bleed" from an Ally during mental duress (my first thought back when I first read this article in Pyramid was Drifting trauma in Pacific Rim) and the ability to absorb spells with your Magic Resistance.

"Eight Artifacts": David Pulver even introduces this article by saying it's applicable to Dungeon Fantasy, Fantasy, or Banestorm equally, so I guess he pre-empted the question here. The artifacts are all as interesting and quirky as you'd probably expect from a Pulver production, including a dryad-gifted spear that phases through any vegetation to freely hit those hiding within or behind it and an enchanted umbrella made from a fire dragon's wings.

"Appendix Z: More Charms": A brief collection of some magic talismans and amulets. Since there's no fluff to sort through and the stats are very simple, you could probably quickly add them to any sort of supernaturally inclined setting where you feel they'd make sense.

Monsters
"Cultists of the Elder Gods": The big draw here is a lens for changing the Dungeon Fantasy Cleric into a Lovecraft-style worshiper of some wretched things from beyond the stars. While this obviously ties it directly to DF, I could still see the article being used as a stepping stone for making your own Cthulhu cultists for some manner of Conan-y fantasy adventure or a horror campaign dealing with Elder Things. The blobby unpleasant things they summon as servants would work without much effort needed.

"Horde Ninja": It's a horde battle with ninja mooks, so I guess you could throw them wherever you wanted if it makes sense, really.

"It's a Threat!": While intended for Dungeon Fantasy, the Combat Effectiveness Rating system could be used with just about anything that heavily focuses on fighting stuff.

"More Psionic Threats": If you've got psychics around, I don't see why you couldn't use any of these creatures with a little spit and polish.