Nifty OSR Products Oct 1

YEAH! It's October! Here's hoping we don't have snow on Halloween this year.  Currently we are actually above normal temps, but that can change in an instant. 

Rather than finding the newer OSR stuff, I decided to do a bit more of a deep dive this morning to see what I could find. 

Scourge of the Demon Wolf

Three died. They were mauled beyond recognition. The Baron sent his huntsmen to kill the beasts and for a fortnight they tramped across the countryside. Between their whoring and drinking they killed twelve wolves, parading their skins through the village. They were hung on poles as trophies of victory. Then the huntsmen left, the beasts slain, the village saved… so we thought.

As the fields turned golden under the summer sun the killings began again. Four more died. Then the Baron's man, the bailiff, was killed on the high meadow in sight of Mitra's Temple. His screams could be heard well into the village. He was only identified after we reassembled the pieces.

With the priest's help I wrote a report to our liege, the Baron of Westtower. My report ended with,

There will be no harvest until the beast is slain and the killings stopped.

A 72 page adventure compatible with the Swords & Wizardry  rules and a setting supplement to the Majestic Wilderlands. detailing a small barony, a complete fantasy village, a conclave of mages, a crossroads hamlet, and a camp of wandering beggars.

GET IT

Talespinner magazine, Issue One

Talespinner is a magazine dedicated to roleplaying gamespublished by Ganesha Games (Tales of Blades and Heroes, Familiars RPG). Playable materials are double-statted for Labyrinth Lord (tm) so they can be used by players of "Old School" games. In this issue:

Three short fantasy adventures ("The Crystal Heart", "Knock on Wood", and "The Crumbling Tower", all for low-power player-characters);

 

Swimming Rules for TBH;

New character types for Familiars RPG;

Monster Menagerie: Swamp Trolls (for TBH and LL);

The Martial Artist archetype for TBH;

Sneak Peek: Heroes of the Tales (TBH supplement);

Alternative Initiative rules for TBH;

GET IT

Attack of the Frawgs

"The thing I love about Stephen Newton's Attack of the Frawgs is that you think everything's fine. This is just another adventure. Everything's cool. Nothing too unusual. Nothing crazy. Good ol' vanilla fantasy.  But when the frawgs hit the fan... all bets are off. Best "holy shit" reveal I've seen for DCC yet." 

GET IT 

Hex Crawl Chronicles 3: Beyond Black Water (Swords and Wizardry)

When the game was invented and sold in a little woodgrain box, the author told us a required supplement was an Avalon Hill game called Outdoor Survival. This was a wilderness survival game that consisted of a hexagonal map system that players would travel around, trying to find their way back to civilization, all the while trying not to die of thirst or get eaten by bears. This game map was used as the first wilderness "hex-crawl" for what eventually became D&D. Later, Judges Guild took this to a whole new level with the Wilderlands series. For many years, hex crawling was just the way the game was played. This series brings that back, or supplements existing games that use that system of travel.

GET IT

The Purple Worm Graveyard

It is said that when the largest and most ancient of purple worms know that the time of their death is near, they make their way through rock, earth, and water to the legendary Purple Worm Graveyard.

The graveyard is said to lie somewhere in the barren Rockspyre mountains, but its exact location is unknown. Now and then an adventuring expedition sets out on a hunch or clue seeking the graveyard. Most return empty-handed and dispirited. Some never return.

But a few, just enough to keep the legend alive really, come back with whispered tales of subterranean fields littered with a fortune in purple ivory, unguarded and ripe for the take.

The Purple Worm Graveyard is a short dungeon crawl adventure that's best for levels 1-4. The adventure has 15 entries and is designed to provide a variety of challenges for a new adventuring party or one-shot game. It's got fabulous treasures, cunning monsters, dangerous traps, and ancient mysteries for players to discover and explore. It's written using the Labyrinth Lord rules, but will work with any dungeon crawl adventure game.

GET IT

Shadowbrook Manor

This Labyrinth Lord adventure is suitable for characters of levels 1-3, and is usable with similar basic or advanced fantasy role-playing games.
Once a powerful proponent of Law, the Archmage Tazimack the Red was eventually driven mad by a fear of mortality. As he slipped into insanity his retirement home began to reflect the chaotic bent of his mind. Long after Tazimack's unnaturally animated body has disintegrated, his manor house remains as a shadow cast by a twisted intellect. Can the characters bring order to this chaos?

GET IT

Creatures of the Tropical Wastes (Mutant Future)

Do you need more monsters and mutations for your postapocalyptic, sci-fi, or fantasy game? If so, Creatures of the Tropical Wastes is what you are looking for!

Fully compatible with Mutant Future - as well as Labyrinth Lord and other games that use the familiar and easy-to-use "Basic" role-playing game rules introduced in the 1970s - this collection includes:

* A Foreword by Derek Holland, author of several licensed Mutant Future sourcebooks.

* 50 new creatures, including the mysterious Ahas Folk, the insidious Egret Puppeteer, and the fearsome War Baboy.

* 30 new mutations, including numerous Plant mutations.

* Official Mutant Future Poison and Radiation Tables for convenience of reference.

* Original illustrations by fantasy artist Sharon Daugherty

GET IT

End of September update

The current 5e group I'm in is made up of co-workers, we've been playing online every other week for awhile now.  We are currently in Ravinica which is a lot of fun.  My first PC died mostly because I didn't really like him, and we needed a healbot/thief.  What I'm really diggin about these folks is the following:  We are fast and loose with the rules (ie no one is looking up things in a rule book).  We spend a lot of time giggling and roleplaying.  

Having used roll20 and google hangouts (or whatever its called now) I have to say Discord is probably one of the best options for doing non irl table top stuff.  Minus the whole map thing (which I'm sure there is a work around).  I noticed the other day on youtube a tutorial about playing nerd games using discord.... hold on for my google fu, ah here we go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Yg-GyrcccI

The other day on a total lark, and I mean total lark (I never buy things for myself, and I never buy things without researching them) I went ahead and bought "The Wild Beyond the Witchlight" for 5e. 

OH NO! SHANE'S LEFT THE OSR! 

Nah not at all kids!  Don't worry.  This is actually the FIRST real thing I've bought for 5e other than the starter set.  I was gifted the DMG and PHB from a previous group.  

Do not fret good folks, I actually just downloaded this amazing organizational software for writing: https://bibisco.com/

I'm trying to nail down the Gygax 75 challenge into a real thing.  I'm currently amalgamating ideas that I had written on the blog and in other various places (like notebooks and random google drive and libreoffice files).  The one thing I did wrong when I started the challenge in the first place was that I didn't decide on the sytem (sometimes I get analysis paralysis).  That and my ADD kicked in and I switched gears like I always do.  The good news is this software allows me to jump from thing to thing quickly.  As long as I maintain some focus on the overall idea.  

I'm trying to write something every morning for 15 minutes. 

Whether its shit or not. 

I'll hire an editor hahah. 

In other random news, I think I'm going to try and get some kinda roll20 western marches, marsh's? marshmellows? type game thing happening.  What my thought this morning was, was to basically use all the awesome online generating tools to build a hexcrawl and then let the players be in the drivers seat. 

Could be fun? 

It could also be my brain having the morning coffee kick in.

Mostly its because I'm not currently DMing a game, and that muscle is something I need to flex once in awhile.  

Anyways I'm off to work.  

Good news I restrung my strat yesterday and I've got it down to about 8 minutes.  That's almost pit crew level! 

A review of "A Fool's Errand"

The prince was kind enough to take a look at my latest adventure "A Fool's Errand" 

You can read the review here: 

 https://princeofnothingblogs.wordpress.com/2021/01/20/review-a-fools-errand-osr-skill-curve/

You can grab it here it's PWYW: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/309263/A-Fools-Errand

Here's the premise: 

A local jester (Gat) is looking for an ancient tome detailing long forgotten dances, it is called the “Grimoire Of Collected Dance” written by Halin Dwarivsh.  He hopes to take his stage show to the next level.  He hires the PCs to track it down after finding the possible location of the tome.  In return for the tome, the PCs will receive a treasure map and some gold.  The jester is part of a local troupe, (him and his brother).  The brother (Lath) is very cynical and believes this book to be cursed.  He has overheard the conversations his brother has been having, and is quite worried about the outcome.  He has hired a local sorceress to make sure that the book remains hidden.  Unbeknownst to either party, a demon has been on the trail of the cynical brother and is using this tome for his own means.  

One thing that was brought up in the review was the idea of adding the conversion notes for different D&D systems.  I suppose it makes sense that any GM whose picking up an OSR module is going to convert to their system of choice.  In my personal opinion all I really need for a monster is AC, HD and any extra special stuff.  I don't tend to use movement, although I know some people who do.  Since there's only a few things that all the OSR types agree on (mechanics wise), it makes sense to only really put them in the adventure.  Alternatively you can always write for a "specific system", provided you have an ok from the publisher.  In my opinion this does pigeon hole the adventure a little bit, but it also has all the information that one would need to run it. 

What are your thoughts on agnostic osr adventures? 

It's funny how as soon as you play a game, you get the bug to write more game stuff.

Super fun game last night.  Got together with Jeff and a few cohorts from the One Shot Group on facebook to play some Star Frontiers (Which I've never played).  Jeff was using the Zeb's Guide version, which has the oddball faserip style charts in them.  (See below)

Jeff was borrowing stuff from Zeubulon's guide as well as the Knights Hawks and a lot of dragon magazine articles.  The whole premise of the game is super neat, basically post apoc earth, everyone lives under water.  The world is managed by corporations rather than governments.  Not exactly waterworld or shadowrun, but there's waves of that which is cool.   This is my first d10 style game that I'm playing in, and my first non D&D game that I've played in a long time.  We went thru basic character creation last night, and got the intro to the world and backstory.  Afterwards it was starting to get "early" for one guy (whose in England), so we pulled the plug at that point.  What I really enjoy about playing in hangouts games is that 9/10 we tend to all chat about games afterwards.  I spent about an hour and a half talking about OSR games, was labelled a Grognard (which is awesome!).  A few of the players are only just recently getting into OSR (hence the grognard thing), so we discussed some of the history, G+, etc.   

One thing that I did come to the realization of was that I really just like playing games on hangouts (or zoom I guess if I have to), whilst I don't mind roll20 it often becomes very boardgamey.  I tend to spend more time farting around in roll20 and creating maps than I do prepping a game.   I just find the whole player agency thing to be really wound up tight when you are playing only theatre of the mind (and playing a system that doesn't bog you down with +/-s and other nonsense).  

One of the guys I was talking to last night wants to get into writing more, so we talked about that and the 5 room dungeon model (Which he hadn't heard about).  

Coming away from this discussion and the beginnings of a game I've got a WHOLE wack of inspiration and a few good ideas to start working on.  It's funny how as soon as you play a game, you get the bug to write more game stuff. 

I'd like to jump back into the Gygax 75 challenge, but with a few tweaks to the process, more 5 room dungeons, less one big close by dungeon.  I think enough time has passed that I have a few more concrete ideas to put down.  I was discussing my thoughts on character creation last night, and how I'd like to have everyone get one magical talent, likely from a d20 list.  The suggestion was made that I do the table DCC/Lotfp style, where at a starting level you roll a d20 and as you level up your roll on the same table but it's a d100.  Fucking genius! This is the real trick with writing for me, is bouncing ideas off of people! It gets the juices flowing.  

*damn it! I started the challenge in frigging April! It's august! What the heck shane!

Nifty things

Hey all! Sorry I've been basically MIA for awhile.  I suppose this will be the usual catchup/what I'm excited about/ramble post.

THE LAST GOD

First up, the "Last God" series from DC comics looks pretty cool.
https://www.dccomics.com/comics/the-last-god-2019/the-last-god-1

Since it was only released in October of last year, I figure I should be able to collect most of them without breaking the bank and feeling like I'm always behind.  By that I mean the issue with a lot of comic collecting is never really being able to collect the entire series because its been ongoing for so long. 

DC is also releasing a Fifth Edition campaign setting for the Last God which sounds pretty cool honestly!

https://www.polygon.com/2020/1/21/21075387/dc-comics-dungeons-dragons-book-the-last-god

Here's the blurb

The supplement, which will be published under D&D’s Open-Gaming License, expands on the setting of Cain Annun, as seen in the publisher’s recently launched Black Label series, The Last God. The book, written by Phillip Kennedy Johnson and drawn by Riccardo Federici, picks up 30 years after a group of adventurers defeated an undead horde, climbed an impossible mountain, and slew a god to save the world. When the same undead horde shows up again, it becomes clear that their victory may not have been as clear cut as their legend would tell.

BLACK PUDDING

The latest issue of Black Pudding has been released, and as usual James West knocks it right outta the park!  https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/303613/Black-Pudding-6?src=hottest_filtered


ZINE QUEST

Zinequest is in full force and Tim from Gothridge Manor's zine looks awesome and was like 1000% funded!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gothridgemanor/hunters-in-death

Hunters in Death: An Old School Hex Crawl, for this year's Zine Quest, is something that's banged around in my head for years. It's inspired by my campaign, mixed with new material. I use old school gaming philosophies, meaning  save vs. death is in play, and bringing home a buttload of silver is the best way to get xp.  

Also check out Dice Roll Zine#3 from our good friend Steve C at Hogtown games 
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/steve-c/dice-roll-zine-3-zine-quest?ref=thanks-share

Dice Roll Zine is an old-school RPG zine that's chock-full of gaming goodness, brought to you by Hog Town Games. Dice Roll Zine #3 is written by Steve C of the The Borderlands blog and Dice Roll Zine Podcast and illustrated by some of the best old school-inspired artists around. Dice Roll Zine #3 currently stands at 40 pages, digest-sized, with a black & white interior and cover. The zine will be professionally printed and staple-bound with a card-stock cover.

3 TOADSTOOLS 

A whole lotta nothing! I dunno if my muse just up and left? Who knows.  I can tell you this, I've been having a wonderful time every monday night playing D&D with Tim and the crew.  For me that's basically all I want to do right now, just play games.  

I've done a bit of reading here and there, but honestly I dunno if I have anything left in the tank, writing wise? or if I'm just changing a bit.  That's probably it honestly. With my new job I've been spending far too much time playing music (which is a good thing).  I currently have G.A.S. (gear acquisition syndrome), which is similar to R.A.S. (roleplaying game acquisition syndrome), of which most of us suffer from.  

I did sell off that old les paul that I was going to fix up.  It had too many bad memories. 

That's about all I got for the time being. 

At the crossroads

There comes a time in the life of an adventurer when they consider making a deal with the devil at the crossroads.

The Deal
Your soul in return for the a limited wish from a Devil.

Alters the past, present, or future to cause a wish to come true, but within limited bounds. The wish cannot grant treasure, for instance, and only part of the wish may occur. The caster may wish to erase an unfortunate adventure, for instance. Wishes must be careful: the referee may grant a wish in such a way as to kill or handicap a character. 

(Source https://dungeonsdragons.fandom.com/wiki/Limited_Wish)




Consequences

• Automatic alignment change to Chaotic Evil (or Evil) 
• -2 Constitution
• Eternal Damnation 
• Any silver you are carrying disappears. (including weapons) 
• Cleric healing spells will only heal half.     

Benefits 

• +1 Charisma 
• Your limited wish is fulfilled for (1d100 days) 
• An imp follower (HD 2, can cast invisibility/charm once per day)
• +1 to all saving throws vs spells.
• Receive nightvision (or extended range if you already have it) 

Mechanic 

Shortly after the deal is made the following will start to happen daily. (roll on table once per day) 

1. Disassociation 
2. Terrible nightmares (affect the amount of Hit points/Spells returned from non restful sleep)  
3. Waking illusions (images of yourself dead, hanging from a noose, lying in a pool of blood, etc)
4. The appearance of Hellhounds, they follow you wherever you go but do not approach. 
5. The taste of food has changed, everything tastes rotten.  
6. Your shadow has disappeared and has a mind of its own. 
7. Your fingernails drip blood.
8. You no longer have a reflection. 
9. Intensely hungry for the oddest of things.  
10. You hear voices speaking in ancient tongues. 
11. You trip or fall for no reason. 
12. Itchy
13. Your vision blurs
14. You wake up very achy, -1 DEX and CON for the day. 
15. You cannot find the correct words today, everything that comes out of your mouth is mumbles. 
16. Shaky hands (-1 to all attack rolls) 
17. A low mournful sound echoes in your ears, it does not stop.  
18. Anything you touch catches fire. 
19. Re-roll one stat permanently.  A large black mark appears on your wrist.  This is the sign of the devil. 
20. A mist envelopes you, and as such you become ethereal.  You cannot be harmed, and you cannot communicate.  

d100 days

GM:  Once the deal has been completed, roll 1d100.  Mark this down.  These are the amount of days that the limited wish spell will actually work.  

The epic weirdness of Cha'alt

I kindly received a copy of Cha'alt from Venger.  You can grab a copy here.

This is a BIG book.  It comes in at 218 pages!  I'm always amazed at his work ethic, inspiration just flows thru him.

Here's the elevator pitch:

Cha'alt is the beast of a book (218 pages) I've been working on for the past year.  It's a ruined world focusing on a couple of introductory dungeons before getting to the main event - the megadungeon known as The Black Pyramid.  

The Black Pyramid is like nothing you've ever seen before.  Unique design, purpose, feel, magic items, NPCs, monsters, factions, motives, agendas, strangeness, the works!

There's a decent amount of setting detail besides dungeoncrawling - space opera bar, domed city, mutants, weird ass elves, desert pirates, a city ruled by a gargantuan purple demon-worm, and much more!

Cha'alt is compatible with both old school and 5e D&D purposefully blended for maximum usability.  Full disclosure: aside from advantage/disadvantage and bounded accuracy, there isn't much in the way of 5th edition mechanics. It's predominantly OSR.

Venger has included his own rules Crimson Dragon Slayer D20 within the book.  As well there is a pdf for Pregens and old school feats / skill-sets and background details.

Knocking the layout out of the park is Mr. Glynn Seal From Monkeyblood Design (whose done a pile of work for Venger, and he's won an Ennie for his setting The Midderlands!)   Damn I love the map on page 65.

Interior Art by Monstark, Yannick Bouchard, Brent Schreiber, Dan Brown, Paul Carrick, Luke Oram,
Matthew Bailey, and Slappy.  Additional images licensed from Adobe Stock.  I gotta say the art is fantastic! And it's what you expect from Venger's releases.  Inspiring.

This book as the description states is a setting book/megadungeon.  There's a nice over view of the world, all of the strange factions, a cantina that's in the middle of a desert (filled with patrons).

Venger loves to include random tables into his books, there's a pile of them! Including a handy chart for ability scores, typical +/- found in different iterations of D&D.  I probably should have noted this earlier, this is a OSR/D&D book.  You could technically run it with other systems (most OSR stuff is pretty easy to convert).  Alternatively you could pull a pile of inspiration from this book, and run with your own version of the Black Pyramid and Cha'alt.

There are six awesome factions detailed in the book.  A crap ton of new monsters for your players to contend with.

Example:  A ga'athrul is what we on Earth would describe as an alien dinosaur. They are massive creatures living in the wasteland, vying for territory and resources…such as delicious humanoids.

Also Gigantic Spider-Droids!!!!!!!!

An incredibly detailed city, with lots of random tables! KBrae’andeuamthek City of the Purple Demon-Worm. (About the only thing that I`d really give Venger a dig at, is the names of things in his books.  I can`t pronounce em! That of course is not Venger`s fault.  And Honestly KBrae’andeuamthek sounds a lot cooler than Waddingtonsforth... or something).

Excerpt from the city details: Periodically, the Purple Demon-Worm priesthood imbibes hallucinogenic drugs. So,all but the High Priests and Ipsissumus are easily distracted and/or misled by a clever ruse.

The Black Pyramid:  There's so much going on within this pyramid! Each room is almost a vignette unto itself.  There's weirdness, there's fruit! there's death around pretty much every corner.  This place begs to be explored.

I really dig the map style.  It`s these oddly triangular rooms with passages between them.

Here`s a few excerpts from the dungeon. 

Videodrome:  Black robed humanoids are abusing and humiliating each other as cameras record the
degradation. The leader has black crosses drawn all over his face, neck, and hands.  There are certain individuals within the Sect of Kara'as who've been exiled to this room for worshiping Ara'ak-Zul. They call themselves The Order of The Black Trapezoid. This is where they live.

Chartreuse Sphere
The yellow-green line of illumination running along the top of this room perfectly matches the color of the glowing sphere that hovers in the center of this small room.

All told there`s a 111 rooms in this creepy assed pyramid!

This book will bring you years of craziness and gaming.

The book was printed at Friesens (which is super cool, as it's really close to my actual home, and they do really good work!).

Quoting Prince Of Nothing in the afterword: 

Running Cha'alt is not about control, accuracy, or preparation. It’s not a series of
encounters that requires a delicate balance of character classes, feats, and consumables to
circumnavigate successfully.

If you only ever buy one book of Venger's, buy this one!  - Shane 

(Note: it's a great idea to buy the others as well, there's some amazing wonderfully covered pages of purple slime, with strange androids and gonzo weirdness within Venger's catalog).  

Nifty things (1000th post)

A month or so back I thought I'd hit 1000 posts on 3 Toadstools.  I made a mistake, as I was looking at my drafts and my posts.  This one is the actual 1000th.  Which seriously amazes me.

Nifty Things! 

It appears there is a 2nd edition, 2nd printing of Sword & Spell.  There are three books, and the first one is free. 

Sword & Spell is a replication of the timeless Original Edition fantasy adventure game published in 1974, with incorporation of material from its wargame predecessor.


Simplify your gaming experience and return to the days when referees rued the day when player skill and wit overcame their every challenge. Play one of six different character-types to delve dungeons, fight dragons, and with some skill and luck, return victorious with riches and magic items.

There are three separate pdfs.

Book 1 - Might & Magic
Book 2 - Monsters & Treasure
Book 3 - Underworld & Wilderness Adventures 




DIY Monster Manual 

This 141-page book provides a collection of B&W monster illustrations with space for you to fill in your own stats and details for your favorite "Old School" system and create your own Monster Manual.

Included is also an area to create random encounter charts and random treasure charts!

Not free, but not expensive.  Get it here.




200 Dark Fantasy Odd Situations

10 pages of odd situations for a total of 200 items
Split into 10 emblematic locations (forest, temple, sanatorium, city, ruins, ...)
Most are not combat oriented, but who knows ...
These odd situations are perfect to entertain your players during long travels or exploration without throwing at them only random combat encounters.

They also can be useful to make your world feel alive with events or characters unrelated to player characters or their quest !

Not free but not expensive, get it here.


Treasure 

This book contains treasure tables for 1st Edition Dungeons and Dragons divided into 10 levels.  Free

Easy to read layout.







THIS DEFIANT EARTH—1950s Sci-Fi Roleplaying: Players' Guide

This isn't really OSR, but looks cool.  Just reading the preview, it looked right up my alley.  Plus the art is pretty bad ass.  Apparently this was a kickstarter that took awhile to complete.  

THIS DEFIANT EARTH is a rules-lite roleplaying game set in a universe inspired by the popular imagination of the 1950s: an Atomic Age dreamscape as envisioned by television, cheap paperback novels, comic books, and above all, movies. In this world, the American Dream is alive and well, but threatened by monsters from the deep recesses of the Earth, alien flying saucers, and sinister foreign agents pledged to destabilize the American way of life with super-advanced technology. Players take on the roles of America’s noble defenders in these thrilling but dangerous times! It’s up to you to stop the horde of gargantuan ants before they establish a colony in the heart of New York City. It’s up to you to thwart the sinister plans of Kro-Gar, the conqueror from space. You will test-pilot rockets, fight monsters, challenge unknown landscapes, and make the world safe for freedom and democracy. You will stand a champion of THIS DEFIANT EARTH!

This players' guide version of the game includes all you need to get started playing the game, including ready-to-use monsters!


THIS DEFIANT EARTH is based on the same Lucky 6 System driving the Urban Knights and Fear Response games (also available from DriveThruRPG). A number of 6-sided dice are required for play.

You can get it here.

Different Gatekeepers

One time playing strahd, a guard was quite nearsighted. Anytime someone would come to the gate he would yell "who goes there". Typically when you get to a town gate, someone talks and then hopefully we all get in. This case we all had to talk our way thru, and if we spoke to each other out of character the guard would reply. It was some good dming.

That said, human guards are boring. In Port blacksand, Lord azzur has hired ogres as gate guards. Orcs fill it the ranks of the city guard.

Here's a few different guards

1.  A sluggish giant leaning against the wall, his club blocks the gate.
2.  A chain of five skeletons, the centre one has a magic mouth spell.
3.  The actual gate is a wood golem.
4.  A talking wyvern (which is always hungry), it needs to sniff all the bags for food.
5.  A large cat, who sun's itself and bathes.  Scratches behind the ear, will get it to move. Alternatively some kind of red dot illusion.
6.  A gnome who insists that anyone wishing to enter must beat it at a game of cards.
7.  The gate is a giant maw, it spits acid.  The wall is a living thing.  Or at least it seems that way.
8.  A talking barrel, that will only open the gate, provided that all weapons go into the barrel.
9.  An old orc with short term memory loss. He will forget the reasons for entry request, whether or not the toll has been paid.  Unfortunately he is the only guard.
10.  There is no gate, only a length of rope. Whenever anyone attempts to climb it, it will lower the person back to the ground. To circumvent this, the rope must be tied into knots every few feet.
11.  There are two gates, in front of the main wood gate is a large stone archway. Anyone passing thru of evil alignment will not be allowed to gain access. (or good, if it's that kinda town).
12.  Two horses stand on opposite sides of the entrance. They are hooked up to large ropes. They will not budge unless fed delicious apples. There is a tree nearby, however the fruit is very high off the ground.

Image:  https://www.oldbookillustrations.com/illustrations/horn-blown/

The OSR rolls saves at +20

There's been a few discussions latetly about the OSR being dead.

https://anchor.fm/tavernchat/episodes/E448---The-OSR-is-Dead--All-Hail-the-OSR---Plus--We-are-Giving-Gifts-e4t91o

https://thac0rpg.blogspot.com/2019/08/osr-is-dead-and-i-did-not-know.html

https://www.greyhawkgrognard.com/2019/08/10/no-the-osr-isnt-dead-and-you-cant-kill-it/

http://www.theevildm.com/2019/08/just-thinking-osr-is-dead-ha-tabletop.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

A bit of it has been because of the latest controversy (there's a controversy once a week damn it!) regarding lotfp's Gencon catalog image. (Note if you really like reading shit slinging search osr on twitter  EGAD!).  I don't intend to get into that discussion, other than noting that this is probably the cause of the latest "OSR BEING DEAD".

It's not dead.  I doubt it will die.

It's really splintered.  My personal thought on the splintering is that it's honestly not a bad thing.  Erik does a really good job of explaining everything in the above podcast link.  I think what is happening, has happened and will continue to happen is that people are going to go out create, play games, etc within their own little community.  And that my friends is perfectly cool.

Every single time some shit storm happens, there are a lot of people who say "why do we have to fight? can't we just play elf games".  A perfectly acceptable suggestion, although sometimes it's taken the wrong way. The response can be  "No, politics needs to be discussed in community places".

I think that the OSR (other than the labelled marketing version) is always going to exist.  Every time some new person picks up Labyrinth Lord, Basic Fantasy, Blueholme, etc it leads them down the rabbit hole of the OGL and everything that goes along with it.  This newbie might decide to write little adventures at home, run them for their friends, create a zine, publish something!  This is good.  This is what will continue to keep it going.

While I'm active in the community (sorta), my real osr is the fact that I can take these old dusty rules, fuck em up to suit my tastes, write an adventure for a my friends, drink beer and enjoy gaming.

That's it.

So yes the OSR rolls a +20 on saves. 

I need to come up with a better title with cool links

Mythic Times Issue 5

Designed for the Mythic Hero game system this magazine includes a new creature, new spells, a mini-adventure, a new monetary system, a new career, weapons from the combat system expansion, NPC's, things to find in a manor house, expansion on the Laoinshoa world (basic hand drawn map of the City of Valkra), a hero profile, and (of course) the Mythified comic.

Much of what is in here can easily be used or adapted to any fantasy RPG system.

Please show your appreciation for these works by coming back and "buying" them again. Any amount helps!

Link:

Cha'alt

Who has the balls to confront this dark psychic force?

Cha'alt is the beast of a book (218 pages) I've been working on for the past year. It's a ruined world focusing on a couple of introductory dungeons before getting to the main event - the megadungeon known as The Black Pyramid.

The Black Pyramid is like nothing you've ever seen before. Unique design, purpose, feel, magic items, NPCs, monsters, factions, motives, agendas, strangeness, the works!

There's a decent amount of setting detail besides dungeoncrawling - space opera bar, domed city, mutants, weird ass elves, desert pirates, a city ruled by a gargantuan purple demon-worm, and much more!

Cha'alt is compatible with both old school and 5e D&D purposefully blended for maximum usability. Full disclosure: aside from advantage/disadvantage and bounded accuracy, there isn't much in the way of 5th edition mechanics. It's predominantly OSR.

The interior is gorgeous full-color art, layout, cartography and Lovecraftian aesthetics. Gold ENnie winner Glynn Seal of MonkeyBlood Design went above and beyond his usual fantastic job. Give the new 32 page preview a look. I spared no expense making Cha'alt fantastic - this world is alive and spilling over with possibilities.  Link

Venger wrote about the new release on his blog here: http://vengersatanis.blogspot.com/2019/08/chaalt-pdf-released.html
Also an Ask Me Anything Here: 
https://www.reddit.com/r/osr/comments/cmfdel/ask_me_anything_about_chaalt/

Battleships Dungeon - A Procedural 'Grid-Crawl' method of making a dungeon using 'Battleships' as a template

*Goblins Henchman strikes again! And this is another cool thing.

Using the Battleships game as a template to procedurally generate a 20 room, 2 level (Grid‑Crawl) dungeon.

Once the method is understood, making a map should take less than 5 minutes.

Possible uses/advantage:

:: Useful for solo gamers.

:: The physical game version might (I presume) be useful for partially sighted gamers, it’s tactile like Braille.

:: I combined with random dungeon dressing (like in my procedural adventure ‘Carapace’), the adventure emerges for the DM and players alike.

:: It takes some of the burden from the DM about having a ‘coherent’ map. The map ‘is what it is’.

:: Mainly, it’s a bit of fun!!

What is this?

More on 'Grid-Crawls' here:

https://goblinshenchman.wordpress.com/2019/06/25/grid-crawl-or-something/

I'm very happy for you to pay nothing for this product; and anything given to me will only be frittered away on RPG-related wares anyway. That said, even a nominal sum like 50 cents seems to bump this thing up the DriveThru charts! Link: 

September Short Adventures 2 (LabLord)

This looks pretty cool, and it’s pwyw. Lots of short adventures, perfect to toss into any campaign.

A vintage selection of ten short adventures from 2011 intended for use with Labyrinth Lord or any other Basic Era version/edition of the world's Most Popular RPG.  Link

Essentials & Starter Set on sale and hitting amazon.

https://geektyrant.com/news/dampd-starter-set-and-essentials-kit-on-sale-at-amazon-right-now

Looks like you can preorder on Amazon. I haven't checked the canadian version of the site yet. (note: while I think the essentials looks super cool, I have a lot of rule sets and the basic 5e rules do everything i need them to do. That said, just passing this on)

Luminous Bristlemaw

Note: Free cool monster!

The dreaded Luminous Bristlemaw, one of Six Aquatic Terrors we did in support of Gus L's excellent H.M.S. Appollyon project.

This beasty first appeared at our blog on July 4th, 2014. You can search our blog (hereticwerks.blogspot.com) by the date, or use the handy search feature to look up "Six Aquatic Terrors" in order to find the original post with the rest of the encounters...if you are so inclined. By all means please do go check out the HMS Appollyon series at Gus L's blog, "Dungeon of Signs," while you're at it...the blog may be inactive, but it remains a treasure trove of incredibly inventive and well-thought-out stuff well worth your time. Link: 

By the sounds of it Goodman Games is going to start working on B4 The Lost City for their line of re-releases with 5e stats.  I cannot find any blog posts regarding this on their site.  I'm curious to see how this turns out.  I've heard really good things about the Isle Of Dread they did. 

I am sure you can keep your eyes over here:  https://goodman-games.com/store/product-category/coming-soon/ *note they are working on barrier peaks which should be pretty cool! 

Cool things Thursday

Surfing thru OBS this morning and found some cool stuff!

IT Came from Below (or Above) - Hex Flower 3D Tracker

A 'game engine' in the form of a 2D6 19 Hex Flower.

There must be the odd occasion you want to track ‘something’ e.g. a monster, relative to the PC’s location in three dimensions. The PCs might be in an airship or underwater. This Hex Flower is designed to do just that ….

Background

You can read more about this Hex Flower Engine idea here: https://goblinshenchman.wordpress.com/2018/10/25/2d6-hex-power-flower

I'm very happy for you to pay nothing for this product; and anything given to me will only be frittered away on RPG-related wares anyway. That said, even a nominal sum like 50 cents seems to bump this thing up the DriveThru charts! 

H'Excel Crawler - a random 'hex crawl' map generator using Excel

This Excel widget can generate random ‘hex’ terrain maps.

Features:

Randomly generates a 'Hex' map (i.e. squares in a hexagonal array)

Global settings – raise or lower the terrain of the whole map

Regional settings – raise or lower the terrain in a portion of the map

Screen capture mode (‘Snap Map’)

Edit mode – generate a map and tweak it, or build the map from scratch

Customisable random encounter tables

Refresh encounter (but keep the map the same)

In Hex locations, for encounter locations etc. 

The Morose Highlands - Supplement for #ZweihanderRPG

*There seems to be a TON of stuff for Zweihander RPG

Here's a short video on some community created content for Zweihander.

Dark Fantasy Magic

MAGIC AND MAYHEM IN DARK FANTASY SETTINGS!

Dark Fantasy Magic is a collection of tables and short essays to inspire the creation of wizards, spells or entire magic systems. You can also use this book to generate characters, spells and magic for stories, comic books, etc. 

The focus is on dark fantasy tropes: flawed heroes, terrible villains, corrupting magic, ominous ruins and damned wastelands.
This is mostly a system-less book, to be used with any game of your choice, but some parts are written with the most popular RPGs in mind (you know, six abilities, hit points, saving throws, etc). It is especially suited for medieval dark fantasy games, such as my own (Dark Fantasy Basic). 

*I did a review about Dark Fantasy here. 

Grinding Us

Grinding Us is a gruesome OSR module marking the 10th-anniversary of Grinding Gear (2009) and the fifth-anniversary of Forgive Us (2014), both published by Lamentations of the Flame Princess. It has been designed for use with LotFP, but is easily adaptable to other OSR systems.

Random spellcasting mechanic idea plus weirdo ability check idea.

Somewhat silly idea for spellcasting.

• The player has no "actual spells from the book"
• They get as many spells as they are of level (10th level = 10 spells). 
• They describe the spell and its effects.
• If the spell does damage its 1d4 per level of caster  (2nd level wizard 2d4 damage)
• If the spell has a duration it is 1d4 per level in rounds of the caster (1st level is 1d4)
• If the spells cures it is 1d4 per level of caster. (3rd level 3d4)
• Any spells that cause damage or have an effect are subject to a saving throw.  (attack rolls are not needed). 

What I like about this idea, especially for new players, I can just say "alright what is it that you want to do?", and then have them describe the spell in detail.  This might also give way to new spells.  I think it might keep a player from randomly looking at their character sheet and wondering "do I have a spell that will help us here?". 

Anyways, just an idea that I might put into practice. 

Ability check idea! 

Alright rather than a DC check or a roll under, I kinda like the idea of a target number for any check.  The math is 17 - your level + modifier = target number.  So a 3rd level character needs to roll over 14 with modifiers to be successful.  Capped at 10 I think, so there's still a chance of failure.  So at level seven you would always have to roll 10 or higher to be successful. 

I actually wouldn't mind doing this same idea for saves and thieving skills.  If any PC other than a thief attempts something, the math might be 19 everytime.  19 - your level + modifier = target number.

Image courtesy of: https://www.oldbookillustrations.com/illustrations/wizard/