xoth.publishing
Swords against tentacles!
I think, from a quick browse, the art is great, if repeated (unfortunately) a tad too much. The b/w style evokes the best from the Games Workshop era (Warhammer, Fighting Fantasy)! High praise coming from me!
Thanks! Credit where it's due: The artists are Mark Allen, Kent Burles, Storn Cook, Tommaso Galmacci, and Steve Lines.
...Sword & Sorcery is best played as a very mature setting for those willing and able to handle decidedly non-modern tropes of exaggerated stereotypes ...
I fully agree with everything you said there and in the following paragraphs. That said, I think that GMs and players could (and should) shake up the genre stereotypes if they feel like it. Every barbarian doesn't have to be healthy and wholesome, you could have evil barbarians and good sorcerers for that matter. As long as the table is having fun, run with it.
PS. This is why I personally was satisfied when John Carter of Mars bombed: I think the idea of disneyificating S&S is oxymoronic and stupid. It tells me the exec saw S&S as just some rollercoaster adventure setting, completely shedding all that makes the genre valuable and interesting (as listed above). S&S needs the premium cable treatment, dammit! DS.
I actually think it was a pretty good movie, although it would of course have been totally awesome if they made it something like "Game of Thrones in Space"... ! Same with the Tarzan movie from a few years ago, so much opportunity lost by not making it more true to Burroughs. And don't get me started on the Conan movies (all of them, actually), it really bothers me that they can't just make a Conan movie based on an original Howard story. Instead they just take the name and replace the content with some BS written in Hollywood, and it predictably bombs every time. Imagine Peter Jackson using the name "Lord of the Rings", but replacing the story, do you think it would be a success? All right, I think I have to end my little movie rant here...