Monday, April 9, 2012

New 4E: Thingamajigs of the Barrier Peaks

Well, well. Apparently not all the joke articles listed by Wizards are April Fools hoaxes. One has recently been posted, written by freelance game designer, Dave Chalker (head of the award winning blog Critical-Hits). His offering, Thingamajigs of the Barrier Peaks is yes, a 4th edition updated to the magitech found in the classic AD&D module S3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. You will need a D&DI subscription to download this content of course, but for the Greyhawk completist this and more concerning Greyhawk is surely on the horizon with D&DNext, so keep that in mind.

Mr. Chalker's article is a well developed conversion of many of the classic "thingamajigs" that old school players know and love such as Powered Armor, Blaster Rifles and Laser Pistols. Dave writes:

"Surely you have heard the tales of the strange creatures that plagued the Grand Duchy. No? Well, allow me, your humble shopkeeper, to enlighten you today. These stories tell of how predatory creatures emerged from a gated cave at random intervals. The area defied all attempts at exploration until recently, when one expedition to the Barrier Peaks explored the caves to attempt to stem the tide of strange invaders. During their efforts, they found some unusual items and brought them back. Lucky for you, I have these very items on sale here. Let me tell you about them." 

Thingamajigs of the Barrier Peaks doesn't skimp on new stuff either. Told from the tales of a sole survivor named Kzunt, this article also catalogues several never before seen items that fit perfectly into the Barrier Peaks milieu such as the Confusion Ray, Chain Swords, Wheely Sleds and my favorite the Singularity Grenade. For anyone into genre-mixing campaigns this article is a must see even if you aren't into 4th edition or even Greyhawk. Enjoy!

Update 5/6/2021: Link updated to DMsGuild. You no longer need a subscription to DL individual 4E era Dragon and Dungeon magazines.

2 comments:

Eric said...

That is a very unfortunate name for the person who "found" the stuff. I'm surprised the editors didn't stomp that out.

grodog said...

Joe: hmmm, you seem to be tempting me with Greyhawk content only available on WotC DDI pages. I didn't think that was really possible ;)

@ Eric: it's an an anagram for "Kuntz" and Rob Kuntz designed much (all?) of the nasty foliage in the original S3.

Allan.