Castles & Crusades Rules Reference Sheets / Game Master Screen Inserts

"Spell Books" by Tsabo6

[updated 2/27/2026: portrait format now included in addition to the landscape format: DriveThruRPG]

Castles & Crusades is the perfect mid-point between enough rules and rules-light.  Still, my players and I sometimes need help to know what's what. To reduce time looking up rules at the table, I created these reference sheets. I also use them as GM screen inserts. 

Enjoy! 

Dungeoneering Dad's Castles & Crusades Reference Sheets: link 

Remember, you can get a free copy of the Players Handbook right here: link 

Castles & Crusades Spells Sheets by the Dungeoneering Dad

[Link to the sheets: Castles & Crusades Spell Sheets by the Dungeoneering Dad]

I've been on a bit of a tear making Castles & Crusades sheets (you can see the rest here: Double D's sheets).

Next up, I made spell sheets for use in your Castles & Crusades game. 

These sheets include:

• Spell Casting tracker sheet to track spells per day, spells expended, challenge levels, and concentration checks.

• Spell Book to track spell details available to your character!

• Spell Component log to track use of spell components (if you're hardcore!)

If you find issues, let me know and I’ll fix it!

    

Great Free VTT Tokens from Dead Hawk Publishing

[Update 2/24/2026: These tokens are inspired by art by Frankie Breakbone (You See This blog and his Patreon). Old School Jelly, the fellow behind the tokens, confirmed in the comments below.]

Folks,

Just a quick and dirty post (just like your mom likes it) today.

Deak Hawk Publishing (DriveThruRPG link; Patreon link) has posted some great free VTT tokens.  These definitely have the OSR / Shadowdark vibe that I love. 

Old School Token Pack - Lost Citadel of the Scarlet Minotaur

From the DTRPG posting:

This digital token pack contains everything you need to run Lost Citadel of the Scarlet Minotaur, the dungeon found in The Arcane Library’s Shadowdark RPG Quickstart Set. Inside you will find tokens for 19 unique characters, including eight pre-generated player characters.

Each token is hand-drawn in a striking OSR black-and-white style, is 400 x 400 pixels in size, has dark and light background variants, and is available in both PNG and WebP formats. Better yet, they're 100% free!

You can find similar excellent tokens at the You See This blog and Patreon (see that post here: Free Old School D&D Virtual Tabletop (VTT) Tokens).

You See This / Frankie Breakbone

Dead Hawk Publishing / Old School Jelly

Compact Castles & Crusades Compact Character Cards by the Dungeoneering Dad

[Updated 2/17/2026]

Link to the sheets: Castles & Crusades Character Record Cards by the Dungeoneering Dad

I worked up some small character cards for Castles & Crusades.   

I use these as Castle Keeper (aka DM / GM / judge) "cheat" sheets of the PCs, but they would also work well for NPCs.  They'd also be suitable for a player that loves something more simple than a standard character sheet.

I made two versions: one that uses the new "Reforged" term of "Disposition" term, and one that uses the OGL "Alignment" term.

Front

Back

Castles & Crusades Character Record Sheets by the Dungeoneering Dad

Link to the sheets: Castles & Crusades Character Record Sheets by the Dungeoneering Dad

As a teenager, I loved making character record sheets for D&D. Personal computers were still kind of new, so it was a game changer to produce a "professional" sheet at home! Plus, it was hard to get a hold of the official sheets. When you did, they were precious because you didn't have an unlimited supply.

The Internet changed all that and it became easier to find pre-made ones (official or otherwise).

Castles & Crusades is my favorite RPG, but I've never found a character sheet that was exactly what I wanted. I grew up playing AD&D and moved to 3rd Edition. When C&C first came out, it was often referred to as "3rd Edition Lite." That's what I like about it: it has the modernization of 3rd Edition, but plays faster.

However, most C&C character record sheets are set up closer to AD&D format, rather than something closer to 3rd Edition. The only ones I can find with the "3e format" are made by the Mad Irishman (link).

So, I sat down finally and made the ones that I want! You have can find them on DriveThruRPG here: Castles & Crusades Character Record Sheets by the Dungeoneering Dad

I updated the files to include two formats:

• One set with Secondary Skills and Advantages from the Castle Keepers Guide.
• One set with only core C&C content.

I'd love feedback or requests. 

 

 

Holiday Gift Idea - "Grill Master by Day, Dungeon Master by Night" Grilling Apron

Folks,

I'm just putting this out there as a gift idea from my wife's Etsy account.  

The perfect apron for your favorite nerdy grill master.  

Designed by daughter, KamciazArt.

NPC - Portia Fairchild, Halfling Wizard

My daughter (KamciazArt) drew up a picture of the NPC halfling wizard in our Castles & Crusades game.  Stats below!

Product Review - Dungeons & Dragons Masterworks Dice Tower

(Updated October 1, 2025)

[Note - I bought this with my own cash. This is not a paid review. I did include affiliate links if you want to help a brother out.]

I really don't need a dice tower, but I couldn't resist getting one of these cool D&D Masterworks Dice Towers.  They're put out by FanRoll. (If you're interested, use my promo code for a 10% discount: DAD-10).

I went for the classic piece of Larry Elmore art from the 1983 Basic Edition (i.e., the Red Box).  I'm very pleased. It's simple but quite nice. 

It does not come with a dice tray, although there are matching ones you get get separately, I believe.

Things I Like:

• The exterior is faux leather and it feels and looks nice. I prefer that over a hunch of plastic.

• It folds down for easy transport. As I'm typically a "road DM," this works well. I have to admit, I felt a little dense trying to figure out how to set it up, but this video made it clear: link. It's not hard - I'm just not too swift.

Front

Back

Little stand thing that attaches to the back for stability.

• It's quiet. The interior is lined with felt the rolls are nice and quiet (apart from the clanking on the table, ha).

Dice Roll Test:

In the video below, you can see me testing metallic dice, acrylic dice, and 4d6. It worked fine. You have to pay attention when putting the tower together. As long as you do that, you're good to go. More on that below.

Tips on Use:

• You have to pay attention to how you set up the ramps.  If you do it wrong, dice will get stuck.  It's not hard to get right, but something to pay attention to.  Make sure the magnetic supports are folded below the ramps, not above it.

Other Info:

I was tempted by the other two, particularly the Erol Otus one, which is from the 1981 Basic Set, but the Red Box art was too iconic to pass up. 

I really like Jeff Easley's art, but I wasn't familiar with the source used for this dice tower.

Frost Giant Friday - "Frost Giant" by Antonio José Manzanedo

"Frost Giant" by Antonio José Manzanedo

Frost Giant Friday - "Enthroned" by Boxume

 

"Enthroned" by Boxume

Frost Giant Friday - "Gerti Orelsdottr - Frost Giant Jarl" by Buck Gunner

"Gerti Orelsdottr - Frost Giant Jarl" by Buck Gunner

Playing Cards for Dynamic Initiative

DD Note 9/6/2025: It was pointed out to me that Savage Worlds has been using playing cards for initiative for ages. 1.) I can't believe I forgot that... I have even played Savage Worlds before. 2.) the method detailed here is simpler. 

I've explained the differences below. 

DD Note 9/7/2025: I also just learned that Dragonbane, Year Zero, Twilight 2000 also use cards (I'm sure there are more).

I fully admit, I didn't reinvent the wheel here. This is just another spin on the concept.

I ran three games of Castles & Crusades at Gen Con 2025. (If anyone is curious, I ran each adventure in the Dwarven Glory series.)  It was a great time. One weird thing, though, is that I had occasional trouble with keeping track of initiative. 

Castles & Crusades uses dynamic initiative. Each round, the individual players and the Castle Keeper roll a d10 and people take turns from highest result to lowest.  

At home, I use tiles on the top of my GM screen to organize and display the order for each round. While displaying the order is handy, the process slows the game down. 

Since you're "on the clock" when running a game at a con, I decided not to do that and used the "traditional" method. That is, I verbally counted down from 10 to 1 and had the players chime in on their number to take their turn. 

Whether it was due to the fun of the game or fatigue of CKing three sessions back-to-back (as fun as it was), I had occasional trouble remembering where I was in the order of the round.

This got me revisiting an alternative idea I'd been mulling over - using playing cards to track initiative. I gave it a go last session with my local group and I think it worked pretty well.

Here's what I did:

• I set aside one full suit (ace to king) to be used to determine order. Naturally, I used Spades. 

• I set aside one full suit (ace to king) to be used to track order. I used a red suit (Hearts, I believe). 

• Each round, I shuffled the Spades and dolled them out to the players to determine who went first. The players kept their cards out in front of them, so it was pretty easy to see who was up.

• I stacked the Hearts from high to low and used them to keep track of where we were.

• After that, we repeated this each round.

While this was only one session, I think it worked well. It kept things moving quickly and made it easy to track turn order.  If you're looking for a way to speed up dynamic initiative, give it a try.  

How This is Different than Savage Worlds Initiative (and likely other games)

• Savage Worlds has a whole system based on using the deck of cards for initiative. I'm just replacing dice rolls.
• I don't use a whole deck of cards, only 13 from one suit.
• This eliminates ties (which can also slow down play, albeit not dramatically).

• I use a second set of 13 from one suit has a initiative tracker for myself.