North Wind Adventures is a small press publisher based in New Hampshire, USA. Our goal is to produce system neutral adventures for traditional tabletop RPGs. These adventures are seamlessly adaptable to the world’s most popular fantasy and wargame rules as published between 1974 – 1999, and are also usable with simulacrum or “retro-clone” games that seek to evoke the roots of this hobby.
These sword-and-sorcery adventures are situated in our default setting of Hyperborea, though are easily adaptable to other campaign settings, published or home-brewed. Hyperborea is largely inspired by the fantastic creations of RE Howard, HP Lovecraft, and CA Smith.
Our core product is Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea, a role-playing game of swords, sorcery, and weird-fantasy, whose rules are inspired by the creations of Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. Essentially, AS&SH presents an alternative rules set for traditional gaming, this made possible by the Open Gaming License (OGL).
Meet the Team:
Jeffrey Talanian, designer for North Wind Adventures, lives in New Hampshire with his wife and three children. He was first introduced to Dungeons & Dragons in 1980, and since then he’s been running epic campaigns of adventure, intrigue, and war. His weekly group, the Knights of Next Tuesday, has been gaming together since 1993.
In recent years Jeff has developed several Castle Zagyg projects under the guidance of E. Gary Gygax (R.I.P.), including four Castle Zagyg: Yggsburgh city supplements, Castle Zagyg: The East Mark Gazetteer, and Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works. In addition to other projects, Jeff is a regular contributor to the magazines Fight On! and Knockspell.
**** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** ***** **** **** ****
Ian Baggley, illustrator for North Wind Adventures, lives in Toronto with his wife and two kids. At 30 years of age, Ian decided to go back to school and follow his dreams, taking fine art. When not blowing charcoal out of his nose he is busy working away – oil painting, charcoal drawing and teaching.
**** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** ***** **** **** ****
Andreas Claren, freelance cartographer for North Wind Adventures, was born and still lives in Hamburg, Germany with his wife and two children. Andreas was introduced to Dungeons & Dragons in 1980 during a visit to San Diego, California. Afterward, he brought the hobby home to Germany where fantasy RPGs were virtually unknown, and he’s been gaming ever since. 1e Advanced Dungeons & Dragons is the game of choice for Andreas, though he has also enjoyed playing Traveler, Call of Cthulhu, and other D&D editions.
Andreas began drawing maps in 2004 and has mapped for Dragonsfoot Publications, Brave Halfling Publications, and Black Blade Publishing. When not gaming or spending time with his family, Andreas enjoys playing bass guitar in his band.
**** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** ***** **** **** ****
David Prata, editor for North Wind Adventures, has lived most of his life in Rhode Island (which is, in fact, one of the 50 United States). First introduced to Dungeons & Dragons® via the Holmes “blue book” c. 1982, David quickly graduated to AD&D® and never looked back. He has been running AD&D® games, along with Call of Cthulhu, for more than two decades. When not gaming or nitpicking grammatical errors, David enjoys heavy metal music, baseball, and writing about himself in the third person. He had macaroni & cheese for lunch today.
David’s previous publishing credits include the OSRIC™ rule book, as well as Malevolent and Benign for Expeditious Retreat Press. He has collaborated with Gary Gygax on the Yggsburgh town modules and with Len Lakofka on his web-published module L4 Devilspawn. David is also known in message board circles for his World of Greyhawk® Deitybase™, his Advanced Dungeons & Dragons® Initiative & Combat Table (A.D.D.I.C.T.), and his maddeningly obscure 1E trivia questions.
**** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** ***** **** **** ****
Johnathan Bingham, freelance artist for North Wind Adventures, lives in Italy with his exotically beautiful American wife and two wonderful children (whom he seeks to nurture into to his cultural adoration of the finery points of geekdom). Heavily involved with the “Old School Renaissance” in the Role Playing Game world, Johnathan is highly interested in developing and supporting hobbyist gaming projects.
Johnathan has been involved with the Old School Reference Index and Compilation (better known as OSRIC), Brave Halfling Publishing, Expeditious Retreat Press, Black Blade Publishing, Trey Causey’s Weird Adventures, Open Design, Swords and Wizardry, and Small Niche Games. A fan of the Do It Yourself (DIY) ethic; Johnathan enjoys listening to a wide range of Indie music (garage, rock/punk, folk, alt country) being a beer snob (German/Belgian/Irish/English and microbrews), Role Playing Games, and comics/comix. Primarily a visual artist, Johnathan is also working on a variety of writing projects that he hopes to one day see come to fruition.