Finding the Time
I remember the Good Old Days when I had acres of free time to game. It was a carefree time. School holidays were epic—we’d game for days at a time. We had nothing else to do. I don’t think I’ve ever gamed as much. Now, not so much. I have a family, a job, a house to upkeep and so on. Time is thin on the ground, but gaming is still super important to me.
I’m sure I’m not alone. As a busy GM with many other roles and responsibilities, finding time, energy and motivation (the triumvirate of productivity) to prepare for the game can be a full-on struggle. (Frustratingly, as an aside, it’s a struggle that many players don’t notice or appreciate—they just rock up ready[ish] to play with no real concept of the time and effort it can take to run a decent, immersive game.)
Thus, for many reasons, I want my prep time to be as short as possible. I also want my prep to be as easy and as productive as possible while ensuring my game is as fun as possible.
GMing should not be a struggle or a chore. It should be a joy. It should be as easy as possible.
That’s one of the fundamental principles of our books. How can [insert book title] facilitate your game? How can it help you run a better game for you and your friends? How can it make you look as good as possible behind the screen? (And if a book isn’t going to do that, you shouldn’t buy it.)
Getting ready for the game should not take longer than the game itself. One of the things you buy (back) when you buy a Raging Swan Press book is your time. Time is your most valuable asset. You should spend it wisely on what is important to you.
So, we publish books for GMs who don’t have endless time to get ready for their games.
Our most popular books—books like the Dread Thingonomicon, the Dread Laironomicon and the Dread Dungeononomicon are designed to help you quickly add flavour, depth and verisimilitude—the appearance of reality—to your game.
These books help you add the cool details to your adventures and campaigns that bring them to life in your players’ imaginations. The kind of things that you don’t have time for—the kinds of things that fall through the cracks.
Think of it as gaming in HD.
"Here are the bones of the adventure. You must breathe life into the framework after you flesh it out."
Gary Gygax
You are a GM, but you are busy. You want to write your own modules, but you just don’t have the time. And you don’t want to use commercial modules. You want to make your campaign your own. That’s where the Dread Dungeononomicon comes in!
Find within over 30 fully fleshed-out and lovingly detailed self-contained adventure sites. Stock the dungeon with your own monsters (and—perhaps—their treasure), decide their back story, and you are good to go.
The Dread Dungeononomicon is a System Neutral book compatible with any fantasy role-playing game, particularly ones featuring dungeons and/or dragons.
Get all the maps for the Dread Dungeononomicon here.
Members of our Patreon campaign pledging as little as $5 a month got this download as just one part of their rewards. Join today.
Are you a busy GM? Does session prep take too long? Do you never have time to design the cool little details that bring your game to life? Fear not! That’s where the Dread Thingonomicon comes in.
Crammed full of system-neutral themed lists, flavourful NPCs and more, the Dread Thingonomicon is designed to give you—the time-crunched GM—the tools to effortlessly add flavoursome verisimilitude to your game.
If your campaign features abnormal lesser undead, alchemist’s laboratories, ancient necropolises, archives & libraries, bandits & brigands, besieged castles, black dragon lairs, blue dragon lairs, bustling marketplaces, corpses, creepy graveyards, crypts & catacombs, cultists’ lairs, curio shops & pawnbrokers, dark caverns, fairs & festivals, fallen dwarven holds, fanes of evil, fanes of good, farming villages, fecund jungles, forts on the borderland, ghostly hauntings, goblin lairs, green dragon lairs, haunted houses, henchfolk & hirelings, hill giant steadings, items most wondrous, kobold warrens, lich’s lairs, local landmarks, lunatic asylums, merchant caravans, minions of evil, necromancer’s lairs, noble’s manor houses, noisome marshes, noisome sewers, ocean voyages, orc villages, red dragon lairs, roads, ruined castles, ruined cities, ruined monasteries, ruined wizard’s towers, seedy taverns, shadowed borderlands, slavers’ compounds, smugglers’ villages, smugglers’ lairs, snow and ice, subterranean mines, sun-scorched deserts, sunken ships, thievish doings, torture chambers, travellers’ inns, troublesome treasures, urban chases, urban events, urban landmarks, urban oddities, vampire’s castles, war-ravaged lands, white dragon lairs, wilderness camps, windswept moors, wizard’s towers and wrecked ships (and whose doesn’t?) the Dread Thingonomicon is for you!
Comprising the entire 20 Things line, the Dread Thingonomicon weighs in at 476 pages of content and is the culmination of seven years of design.
Use the system-neutral material herein either before or during play and bask in your players’ adulation.
A System Neutral Resource by Alexander Augunas, John Adams, Aaron Bailey, John Bennett, Creighton Broadhurst, Simon Butler, Ronald Calbick, Kalyna Conrad, Seamus Conneely, Jeff Gomez, Rikh Hart, Eric Hindley, Taylor Hubler, Steve Hood, Anthony Jennings, Cole Kronewitter, Jacob W. Michaels, David Posener, Paul Quarles, Alex Riggs, David N. Ross, Mike Welham and Bart Wynants.
Digital Files
The download for this book includes print- and screen-optimised PDFs along with individual text files complete with markdown formatting for each of the 20 Things instalments presented within.
Print Editions
Print editions of The Dread Thingonomicon are available at DriveThruRPG by following this link.
Members of our Patreon campaign pledging as little as $5 a month got this book as just one part of their rewards. Join today.
Are you a busy GM? Does session prep take too long? Do you never have time to work on the cool little details that bring your adventures, dungeons and campaign to life?
Fear not.
This dread compilation gives you, the time-crunched GM, the tools to effortlessly add verisimilitude and detail to 100 different types of monstrous lairs. Use the material herein either before or during play and bask in your players' adulation.
You can use the lists herein before or during your game to help breathe life into a monster’s lair. Adding depth and verisimilitude to your game helps the players’ (hopefully willing) suspension of disbelief and leads to a better game.
Check out the Contents below or download the free Monstrous Lair Index to see exactly what is in this monstrous tome.
The Download
The download for this book includes print- and screen-optimised PDFs along with individual text files complete with markdown formatting for each of the Monstrous Lairs instalments presented within.
PRINT EDITIONS
Print editions of The Dread Laironomicon are available at DriveThruRPG by following this link.