Articles Needed: In Memoriam: The Orc Lord

Work on Issue 11 is ready to begin, now that we're approaching the finish line for the 13th Age Glorantha book, Red Moon and Warring Kingdoms. With the Dragon Empire now devoid of its slayer of the Wizard King, it's time to celebrate the life of the Orc Lord and all things orc.

Interested in submitting an article? Here are some suggestions that might spark your imagination.

• 13 ways the Dragon Empire was impacted by the death of the Orc Lord.
• How to use orcs in your game, now that the Orc Lord is gone.
• Orc kin for 13th Age 2nd Edition with explanation of just how, exactly, an orc can work as a player character in the Dragon Empire.
• Orc-inspired or anti-orc feats, talents, or powers.
• Random tables to customize orcs that a party encounters.
• Orcish magic items for 13th Age 2nd Edition.
• 13 origin stories of the orcs of the Dragon Empire.

Take a look at the link at the top right corner of the page for submission guidelines and contact information. I look forward to our memorial of the life of the Orc Lord!

Artists: Aaron McConnell and Lee Moyer.

The 13 Vaults site is collecting the 13th Age rules in an easy-to-consume way. They're also working on an online character creator (similar to D&D Beyond for 5e). The site is looking for volunteers to write a New Player's Guide and New Gamemaster's Guide. If that's something you'd be able to help with, please consider contributing to the community. For more information, check out their April Progress Update.

Creative Commons Art for 13th Age Community Icons

The 13th Age Community Icons now have Creative Commons art for their symbols, thanks to Pelgrane Press! Check out this Pelgrane Press blog post for information on where you can download high-quality versions of these images.

Kudos to artist Madison VanDoren for her awesome work. You can find more of Madison's art on ArtStation.

I've already seen discussions about how third party software designers are considering how to incorporate these symbols in their products. Exciting stuff! I hope to see more of this artwork featured in future Escalation articles.

Progress on 13th Age Glorantha Book

It's been a while since I last provided an update to our community, so I wanted to take a moment to let you all know that we're hard at work on our largest project to-date. The Escalation team has partnered with Evan Franke to create a full-length sourcebook for 13th Age Glorantha: Red Moon and Warring Kingdoms. We estimate that the book will weigh in at over 300 pages when it's complete.

Here's a list of the chapters that are currently planned for the book. The chapter titles may still change, but they should give you a sense of what you can expect.

1. Introduction
2. A Life of Adventure in Fronela
3. Peoples of Fronela (including new player kin)
4. Ruled by the Moon: Adventuring and the Lunar Cycle
5. Classes and Cults of Lunar Arrolia
6. The Seven Mothers
7. Sources and Resources
8. Appendices

We hope that the 13th Age fan community are as excited by this project as we are. We appreciate your patience as we try something at a scale we've never attempted before.

Escalation Issue 10 is Available

I'm pleased to announce that Escalation Issue 10 is now available! You can find it on the Vault of the 13th Age. This issue's theme is The High Seas. There are rules for pirate-themed monsters, icons, factions, magic items, voyage rules,  swashbuckling encounters, and more. Having run a couple campaigns where the Midland Sea featured heavily, I wish I’d had access to the wide range of articles in this issue! You could really flesh out The Strangling Sea using these materials.

We love to hear feedback, so let us know what you enjoy and would like to see more of in the future. What's missing that you'd like us to include next time? What didn't work so well, and we should consider omitting? This is the community's fanzine, and we want to make it as useful as possible for you.

The Escalation team’s next project is the Red Moon and Warring Kingdoms book, describing how to play Lunar characters in 13th Age Glorantha. It may be a while before we come up for air, so please be patient with us in the meantime.

Thanks again to everyone who made this possible!

Show Demiplane Your Support for 13th Age Nexus

I submitted a request for Demiplane to build 13th Age Nexus (which would offer features similar to Pathfinder Nexus or D&D Beyond), based on their recent call to fans to submit feedback about games they'd like to see the platform support.

If that's something you'd be interested in, please add to this thread on the Demiplane forums.

13th Age Official Variant Rules Collection

Over the years, 13th Age has accumulated variant rules that the designers have shared with us. This page attempts to collect the variant rules in one place, summarizing each rule and providing a reference to the original source.

• Alternative Ability Score Array—Use this ability score array, which is better than the point-buy would allow, but on the bottom end: 17, 15, 14, 13, 12, 10. Source: 13th Age Glorantha p. 24.
• Force Salvo—Replace the adventurer tier feat with one that requires the wizard target each enemy only once. There are some other options offered as well. Source: 13th Age FAQ.
• Grabbed—When you're grabbed, the monster deals automatic damage to you as a free action equal to half the original damage of the grab attack. If you try to make a ranged attack while grabbed, you're subject to an opportunity attack. Source: 13th Age Glorantha p. 66.
• Icon advantages—When rolling icon relationships, treat both 5's and 6's as advantages. When a you use an icon advantage, roll a d20. On a 1–5, the advantage comes with a complication (the equivalent of a 5 in the core rulebook). Source: 13th Age Quick Start Rules p. 11.
• Incremental Advance—You may only take one new power or spell as an incremental advance per level. Source: 13th Age Glorantha p. 74.
• Ranger animal companion—A ranger with the Animal Companion talent uses the updated rules for the druid animal companion (e.g., you can cast spells on your animal companion). Source: 13 True Ways p. 41.
• Drunken Style Monk—This is a monk fighting style that didn't make it into 13 True Ways, but was included in the playtests. It was further refined and included in a Sage Advice article.