About This Blog

   A blog that I contribute to every other day now, it was daily, full of spells, monsters and miscellaneous about traditional gaming with a bit of commentary on the various influences that contribute to a game full of flavor. Since I run Swords & Wizardry and Labyrinth Lord there will be a focus on these games when it comes to game write-ups, but considering how easy conversions are between the simulacrum systems, anything contributed to the games can easily be used in BFRPG or any of the other retro-clones with very little effort.

Where are the posts from 2009 to 2015?!?!?! With a few Kickstarter projects coming up those posts have been archived for now.

If any of the spells, creatures, magic items or ideas will work with your game, feel free to run with them, all I ask is that you let me know how they worked out. If you tire of my writing I apologize, I have found that I cannot stop the flow of ideas.

All art posted here is a copyright of the owner and is not meant to claim or challenge said artwork. All images are presented in a high quality format and posted out of admiration for the artist.

Also:As of June 27th, 2011 all material is hereby copyright “bat” d/b/a Wild Eyed Owl Studio, all rights reserved. If you would like to use any material, please contact me at ancientvaults@gmail.com

Everything here is free to use in your game, if you want to publish it or use anything for other than personal use, get in touch with me.

I don’t care what edition of what game that you play, as long as your group has fun, that is all that matters.

Please refer respectively to these statements:

“Dungeons & Dragons” and “D&D” are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast, Inc.: Mythmere Games isn’t associated with WotC at all, and obviously makes no claim to these trademarks. Indeed, Swords & Wizardry is not compatible with the WotC Dungeons & Dragons editions.

Swords & Wizardry (TM) is a “retro-clone” of the original version of Gary Gygax’s fantasy roleplaying game, which was published in 1974. In other words, S&W is the “rules” of the original system, reconstructed and re-described using the “System Reference Document,” an open license provided by Wizards of the Coast, Inc., the publishers of Dungeons & Dragons and owner of the “intellectual property” of Dungeons & Dragons. Again, Swords & Wizardry is not compatible with their editions. It’s a whole different game – faster, less based on rules, and highly adaptable. It’s our goal to rebuild an old approach to fantasy gaming; where imagination tends to replace rules, where rules are easily customized, and where there’s less “procedure” intruding on the fantasy. We’re supplying a toolkit for fantasy gaming, and what you do with it is up to you – there are no “official” answers, and no “official” procedures, and not even any “official” rules if you’re in the mood to tinker. You just take the game’s basic elements and then, as we say, “Imagine the hell out of it.”

Labyrinth Lord takes us back to the basics of old-school fantasy gaming by combining text and terms provided by Open Game Content (OGC) released under the OGL, and game system algorithms from simple fantasy game systems of the late 70s and early 80s. This combination of terms, text, and new algorithm expression forms the basis of Labyrinth Lord as a reference document for players and third-party publishers, who are able produce material for Labyrinth Lord with a free license. The license and its terms may be downloaded on the right. One important feature of this arrangement is that the majority of Labyrinth Lord is Open Game Content. In addition, there are very few restrictions in the Labyrinth Lord license, meaning that fans and publishers alike can create virtually any material and refer to the Labyrinth Lord trademark. By taking this route, publishers and fans can establish this brand name as something that is collectively understood to be completely compatible with similar simple fantasy systems from the 70s and 80s.

Ancient Vaults & Eldritch Secrets  and all gaming blog content is copyright 2009-2023 by Wild Eyed Owl Studio. All art post is copyright of the artist, agent or other. Please ask permission before using any characters or gaming material found on this blog.

Labyrinth Lord^{TM is copyright 2007, Daniel Proctor. GORETM is copyright 2007, Daniel Proctor. Labyrinth LordTM, Advanced Labyrinth LordTM, GORETM, G.O.R.E.TM,
Lite GORETM, Lite G.O.R.E.TM, Generic Old-school Role-playing Engine, Mutant FutureTM, Scribe of OrcusTM, and Goblinoid GamesTM are trademarks of Daniel Proctor.}