How are Issues 1 & 2 of Through Ultan's Door Connected? And other news

First, some news: 

1. DriveThruRPG has finally approved the PDF of Issue 2 of Through Ultan's Door. You can now purchase electronic copies of the zine here.

2. I have heard the voice of the people, and chosen to add shipping directly from my Big Cartel store to Canada. Note: it is not really any less expensive than buying it from the Melsonian Arts Council, and I'm not sure how much faster it'll get there. But should you want the option to buy it closer to home, you can now do so. Everyone else outside the U.S. should go to The Melsonian Arts Council.

But now, on to the main topic. I've received some questions about the Catacombs of the Fleischguild featured in issue 2 relates to the Ruins of the Inquisitor's Theater in Issue 1. The short answer is that the Catacombs are down river from the Ruins of the Inquisitor's Theater. If you just hop in that ornate green canoe at area 25 of the Inquisitor's Theater, and paddle with the current downstream, in 15 minutes you will find yourself at the entrance to the Catacombs of the Fleischguild.

Originally, I had been planning on including a map of the sewer river with issue 2. But it's a point crawl map, which necessitates descriptions of quite a few nodes, and a big old encounter table. It proved to be too much material to include in issue 2, and I decided to bump to issue 3. I was also encouraged to do this because Gus drew a crazy great map of the sewer river that really fired my imagination. So this made me want to give it the space to breath in an entire issue. This has produced the awkward situation that I'm giving you a second dungeon on a pointcrawl map without giving you the map or rules for transit between destinations. C'est la vie.

A Teaser of one part of Gus' deliciously crazy sewer map

I will try to rectify this by making some more material about the sewer river available here in advance of issue 3, which is, naturally, still a long way off. But it's worth saying this too:

The Ruins of the Inquisitor's Theater is intended as a slow burning entree into the strange world of Wishery that lies on the other side of Ultan's Door. The Catacombs of the Fleischguild is different. While it "lifts the curtain" on further mysteries of Zyan, it is much more of a self-contained "jewel box" of a dungeon. For all its implied Zyanese theology and culture, it is more amenable to being dropped in to existing campaigns without the aid of Ultan's door to the dreamlands. Of course, for me, it is and always will be part of Wishery. But the waking world is full of echoes of Wishery (or is the other way around?), so perhaps this dungeon can find its way directly into your Living Greyhawk or Duskvol or City State of the Invincible Overlord. I would be the last to imagine that I could contain such phantasms by placing them on a map.

Through Ultan's Door Issue 2 is Finally Here!

The long wait is over! I am now releasing into the wild issue 2 of Through Ultan's Door.

Go through Ultan's door in this second issue into the Catacombs of the Fleischguild, replete with fiendish butcher traps, blood demons, flayed heretics, and much more! It is a 31 room dungeon for a party of 3-5 characters of 2nd-3rd level, written for Advanced Labyrinth Lord, but broadly compatible with any older version of D&D or their retro clones.

This 36 page zine also has house rules for playing in the dreamlands, a treatise on the undead of Wishery, and new spells and magic items. It is brought to life with a gorgeous cartography by Gus L and lavish illustrations by Huargo, Jeremy Duncan, Orphicss, and Matt Hildebrand. Like issue 1, it comes with a detachable cover with a map and a separate encounter card so that you can sit right down and play! I have also reprinted issue 1, so you can finally purchase physical copies of that as well.

At the moment, where you should go to buy the zine depends on whether you wish to buy a print + PDF, or PDF only. you can purchase the zine.

For customers wishing to purchase print + PDF copies, please visit my Big Cartel webstore here: https://throughultansdoor.bigcartel.com/ International shipping can be pricey, and although I've discounted it to the extent I've been able to, it's still much higher than I would like it to be.

For this reason I've also distributed some copies to The Melsonian Arts Council which ships from the UK here: https://www.melsonia.com/zines-2-c.asp

For customers anywhere wishing to purchase a PDF only of the zine, please visit DriveThruRPG here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/13761/Through-Ultan039s-Door (at present I'm still waiting for the PDF to be approval, I'll update here when it's available)

In the U.S. and Canada I have provided people the option to have their single zines shipped bagged and in a box for a small extra fee ($2). Orders of multiple zines will automatically be shipped in a box. Unfortunately, I do not have the capacity to honor other shipping requests: for a single zine it's either in a simple envelope, or bagged in a box; for multiple zines they will be sent in a box. Please keep in mind that if you order the print version in the U.S., I will be manually emailing you the PDF, and I may need up to 24 hours to get the digital copy into your inbox.

If you are stumbling upon the zine for the first time, and are curious, there were many reviews of issue 1. Here are just two:

The first, by Patrick Stuart, of False Machine can be viewed here.

The second, by Byrce Lynch, of Ten Foot Pole can be viewed here.

If you want to see a preview of the contents of issue 2 before purchasing the zine, you can head over to the DriveThruRPG link above, where the preview includes a hefty chunk of the dungeon. If you wish to receive email updates about future releases, send an email to throughultansdoor@gmail.com.

See you in Slumberland!