DINO-PIRATES OF NINJA ISLAND
The Legend ARRIVES: At last she appears! THE SLAVE QUEEN OF THE RUINED CITY makes her long-anticipated debut in the first-ever "official" DINO-PIRATES OF NINJA ISLAND product -- a True20 adventure of 32 jam-packed pages, overflowinig with the pulpy goodness you'd have come to expect from Scratch Factory were we in the habit of releasing stuff.
Previous Output
Although Scratch Factory hasn't produced much yet, Corey has. He's the evil mastermind responsible for the following popular products:
Fire and Brimstone: A Comprehensive Guide to Lava, Magma and Superheated Rock -- SammichCon Publishing is the real force behind this baby, as notables from around the gaming world come together for the first-ever all-lava, all-the-time product that really delivers with the ooey gooey lava action.
Hot Pursuit: The Definitive d20 Guide to Chases -- One of the most popular releases ever for publisher Adamant Entertainment, this brings the action-movie aesthetic to the d20 chase scene. There's also a supplement to handle foot chases.
Gun Fu: Balletic Ballistics -- Speaking of the action movie aesthetic, Gun-Fu provides its most complete realisation in the d20 genre. One user called it, "The first d20 game that I'd consider using in the genre rather than my beloved Feng Shui." Heady company, indeed.
Free Stuff
With the power of the Open Gaming License (and a little help from Creative Commons), we are able to offer the following cornucopia of ABSOLUTELY FREE products -- it's amazing! Colossal! Uncanny! So help yourself and enjoy.
True20 Screen Damage Condition Chart: The True20 Narrator's Screen is almost perfect. Print this guy out, tape him over top of the existing "Concealing Items" chart, and the most important chart in True20 is at your fingertips!
True20 Prehistoric Bestiary: 25 unique, fully statted monsters from the headlines of paleontology. Creatures never before represented in True20 format, with dozens of full-colour illustrations, a half-inch scale battlemap ready for use, and notes on DINO-PIRATE dinosauriness. Full of good.
True20 Ship Combat Rules: Mostly developed by True20Chick over on the True20 forums, cleaned up by yours truly and now available for you. With some added DINO-PIRATE goodness, just to give it that "frisson" of excitement.
The Infamous Swashbuckling Cards: born out of a long-lost ENWorld.org thread, newly updated and polished -- ready for use in d20, True20 or just about any other type of 20-style campaigns. Bring wacky hi-jinks to your game. Because, uh, why wouldn't you?
And now a full-blown character sheet for True20 players. Takes care of the niggling issues on the "official" sheet without changing the layout much, but includes some new handy stuff -- you can note your adept's increasing Fatigue Save penalties under the "Fatigue Save Modifier" header, and there's slots for Power Bonuses and Power Save DCs. Also a handy key to keep track of which powers require concentration, maintenance or mental contact, and which are fatiguing. Also has a slot for Grapple Bonus, which is one of those numbers I always seem to end up using more often than not.
True20 NPC Record Sheet: A handy sheet for True20 GMs to record and track significant NPCs on, including damage and fatigue tracks. Print 'er off and fill 'em in!
The Modern System Reference Document: All the rules of the Modern d20 game, ready and waiting for you.
Hot Pursuit Tables: All the key tables and charts required to run Hot Pursuit chases in vehicles or on foot, brought together in one easy-to-print PDF for your convenience! Note you'll need the Hot Pursuit rules to use these tables. Not giving away the WHOLE THING, here. Still, pretty nice of me.
The Peking Opera House: This four-page PDF is a 1"-scale battlemap for use with 25mm figures, illustrating a typical opera house in the Peking style, with high beams to balance on, tables to jump up on, benches to throw and trap doors to crash down through. It's almost like fun, on a page.
The Teahouse: this PDF is another figure-ready battlemap, illustrating a classic teahouse for kung-fu mayhem to take place in. It also includes a batch of rules suggestions for improvising weapons in a d20 world.
With a Bullet: this is a full-size adventure I did to go along with Gun-Fu: Balletic Ballistics. Give it a read; it lets you know what the game is like and is funny, too. Funny ha-ha, not funny strange.
Complete Portfolio
If you really want to know, here's a complete list of our game-related products and development.
Dino-Pirates of Ninja Island

In the words of the founding genius, JPL:
Ninjas, pirates, and dinosaurs. A fantasy Asia, filled with warring island nations. Samurai mounted on domesticated raptors. Bigger dinosaurs hunted by quasi-Polynesian tribesmen. Dueling factions of shadow warriors. Privateers and bucaneers battling the servants of the Imperial Navy. Fallen kingdoms deep in forgotten jungles. And I call it...
DINOPIRATES OF NINJA ISLAND!
Scratch Factory is your as-official-as-this-sort-of-thing-allows home for all things DINO-PIRATE. The first product, an introductory adventure (complete with sample PCs, all ready to go) has already been released: THE SLAVE QUEEN OF THE RUINED CITY. This adventure showcases many of the key themes and ideas of this fantastic pulp adventure setting, including all the basics of any DINO-PIRATES adventure:
- Dinosaurs
- Pirates
- Ninjas
- Monkeys
- Robots
It's all there, we promise! And we assure all customers that we will hold to this list of essential ingredients, and that every DINO-PIRATES adventure ever published by us will include every single one. That's a promise, kids, and you don't get many of those you can count on in this world.
Latest Notes
Some commentary on gaming we've posted recently:
Everybody Loves Orcs (Except Me)
They do.Orcs are so handy. I mean, as a concept. One of the more offensive aspects of D&D-style fantasy is how races all get assigned particular personalities and natures. It really just sort of supports the whole notion of ethnic profiling, only this is even worse -- whole species getting branded with a single character.
But virtually every fantasy RPG has "orcs" of some fashion or other, mainly in order to provide bad guys that nobody needs to feel bad about killing a lot. D&D of course has a dozen or so variations on the "orc" theme, all twisted and evil in different ways, but all needing killing. A lot. Hobogblins, gnolls, mongrelmen, whatever you call them, they're just human beings who have no right to live, and so delivering them to death is what good guys do.
Personally, I find it boring. Why would any sentient race NOT develop the breadth of personalities and philosophies that human beings do? Most of these races are described in such a pathetically narrow way that it's really impossible to imagine. Hobgoblins like order and discipline. Goblins are impish and savage. And so on. There cannot be thoughtful gnolls, orcs are never swayed by appeals to compassion or long-term interest. These races are thin, amateurish cartoons of human beings -- which can work in some games, to be sure (Kobolds Ate My Baby, for one (by the way, Kobolds Ate My Baby is, like, the greatest game EVER, if you don't know)).
I like what Joshua has done with his last few campaigns -- the "monstrous" humanoids are just other races and everyone more or less kinda sorta gets along. Works best without elves, of course, but then so much does. Let's not discuss elves.
Anyway, the monstrous races are almost always used as this cheap way to have thrills without cost. Like the demons in Buffy the Vampire Slayer -- technically, right, they're demons, so Buffster can just murder them right left and center and never feel a twinge of guilt, but... A lot of the demons that start turning up seem awfully... not so terrible. Just kind of plain folks, really, who have a line or three and then get Buffercized. And then there seem to be some demons that don't ever get killed, and just hang out with everyone else. I don't get it, but more to the point, I don't LIKE it (I guess that's coming clear), since it sucks all the actual human drama out of the situation. All the killing ceases to matter, ceases to be exciting on anything other than the most trivial of levels.
Which, again, is fine in a cartoon where kobolds are running around stealing babies. But for a game I'm going to invest the time to run a campaign in, insufficient.
Which is why DINO-PIRATES OF NINJA ISLAND doesn't have any races other than people. People are good. You have people, you have everything.
All that aside, Claudio did a pretty awesome job on this half-orc picture. That guy looks MEAN.
DINO-PIRATES at GryphCon!
DINO-PIRATES OF NINJA ISLAND games are popping up all over the place. In a few weeks, we'll be running yet another edition of MONKEY WARRIORS OF THE WALKING SWORD at this year's GryphCon event up in Guelph.You can sign up for the event online. Our kick-off time is 7:00pm, Saturday, March 27.
We had a great session at last month's SpellStorm convention, and are really looking forward to hanging out with the good folks in Guelph for a weekend of gaming fun.
Hope to see you there! Tell your friends!
Keeping it Small

The One-Page Dungeon
So amazingly awesome. Apparently it originated with this character David Bowman ("Dave? What are you doing, Dave?"), and this year's version of the contest is being run by a gentleman name of Alex Schroeder.
It's such a fantastic idea. I love everything about this. Constraints are essential to creativity, but so often, the only constraint on a GM is time. You've got a game on Saturday, you gotta get things ready, so there's your constraint. But something more formal, even if it's as ad-hoc as "you have to fit everything on one page", really strikes a chord with me. I find it so much harder to be creative if I don't put some constraints on my thinking. Inspiration so often comes out of limitations.
Now, you can take the whole idea a little further than I would, but it's still a brilliantly useful tool.
So brilliant, that we're pleased to announce that Scratch Factory Productions will be donating a copy of SLAVE QUEEN OF THE RUINED CITY as a prize for the contest winners. So break out the pencils, or the Photoshop, or whatever, and put down a page. On the left I've done up one of my own -- Flintwater's Lair, a secret grotto where the dread pirate Flintwater keeps his sloop of war, his hearty crew, and his booty. Yar. I've added Flintwater's lair to the burgeoning DINO-PIRATES OF NINJA ISLAND setting wiki, which hasn't been announced yet but is gonna be soon, 'cause it's awesome.
What other creative constraints strike you as useful for DMs looking for inspiration?
DINO-PIRATES in T.O.!
DINO-PIRATES OF NINJA ISLAND will be one of the games taking place at next weekend's SpellStorm convention here in Toronto. I'll be running MONKEY WARRIORS OF THE WALKING SWORD for up to seven fortunate souls on Saturday, Feb 20. This will be the first time running this adventure in Toronto, so this is a great chance to come see what DINO-PIRATES is all about.You can sign up online: it's only $5 to register for the game.
About SpellStorm: SpellStorm is back for its second year! Once again at Oakham House, Ryerson University, Spellstorm is the only Toronto area convention that puts gaming first. Come join us February 19-20 for 5 slots of tabletop gaming fun.

