OSR Does anybody know anything about this OSR adventure: Gods of the Forbidden North?

[Afroconan]

Here's a pretty in-depth flip through and review.

I own a lot of OSR adventures. This one is certainly the most well done in terms of art, setting, and scope. Unlike others, I find the lore to be intriguing and look forward to playing it with the Hyperborea rule set. @Afroconan has me a bit nervous there's more than just a canonically "good" church though, so maybe they can elaborate more for potential purchasers?

Curious to hear from others that have or are currently running it though if it's actually as good as it looks.

I read the whole chapter and they took the Law and Chaos gods to heart.

There's a One True God of Law (based on the catholic capital "G" God that even manifests as a holy trinity). There's a sidebar that specifies that if you're a Lawful cleric you must be from the Hadean Temple.

Then there is the God of Chaos which is not really a God but some entity out of space that's tricking and tempting everyone into being degenerates to invoke their inner divinity but it's basically a ploy for this alien god to reproduce or something. They are evil and that's that.

And then there is a "neutral" animistic religion that's practiced by the natives of the titular Forbidden North but I haven't read enough to see how that develops.

I have no real issue with Law vs Chaos Gods. Thats baked into B/X. But the way the author chooses to present the Good God Above without any kind of criticism, and drawing clear parallels with real religions and actual modern religious issues... I don't know man. That raised some alarms.

Then you see the dude supporting Musk and taking the "No Politics" stance...

I learned about God's almost at the same time I got into the OSR and OSE specifically. I was expectant of the Vol 3 Kick-starter to go all in but then I began reading Vol. 1...

Maybe I'm missing out on the best campaign ever, a modern classic even, but my gut tells me to stay away from it and it's author.

 

[AlexofBarbaria]

I'd check out the author's interviews on YouTube to get a sense of his personality. He seems like an extremely nice dude.

IIRC he was a director for a Catholic charity before starting a gaming company. So he is probably Catholic, yes.

 

[agrayday]

Thank you everyone, I appreciate the posted perspective/opinions on this product. What spurred my interest was that it was spotlighted as a judges Ennie award, and there was a lot of talk about its style and art and production. So its very good to hear about the details of the adventure/campaign. They did mention this is the only time they are printing these volumes in the offset print version. All future releases will be the normal DrivethruRPG POD quality.

 

[Dire Bare]

Edit: Normally I would let this thread fade into the ether, but with the recent post updating the thread I am inclined to point out that this book's publisher, Pulp Hummock Press, has come out in favor of the "anti-woke" side of the culture wars on their Twitter account. Not so much direct statements as retweeting other such content creators. Such as a tweet by the Basic Expert saying that people are "throwing Gary under the bus" in regards to the recent kerfluffle over a D&D history book acknowledging that older supplements had bigoted content, or another person hoping that Elon Musk buys WotC, and so on.

Well dammit. No "Gods of the Forbidden North" for me then.

If you are anti-woke, well, I don't know if you'll go broke, but you won't get my business.

 

[Dire Bare]

It's possible for someone to feel protective of Gygax's legacy without being "anti-woke" in general, isn't it?

Nope. Not in this context.

If you've read the "attacks" on Gary in the WotC book "The Making of Original D&D" . . . you'll find there are no attacks on Gary in the book, just primary source documents. The intro points out that the early works have elements of sexism in them . . . which is 100% obviously true.

 

[AlexofBarbaria]

Getting back to the adventure, the previews on DriveThru aren't very good.

The Vol. 2 and 3 Kickstarter pages each have a chapter for free download. Much better previews of the adventure content:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pulphummock/gods-of-the-forbidden-north-volume-2

Dropbox <-- link to Fort Ikenvar dungeon

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pulphummock/gotfn-trilogy

Dropbox <-- link to Brass Temple of Magoth dungeon

 

[Jahydin]

I'd check out the author's interviews on YouTube to get a sense of his personality. He seems like an extremely nice dude.

Oh, didn't know there was any...

Posting this one here because I've been really enjoying hearing the author's commentary while flipping through the adventure.

 

[Jahydin]

I'm curious also on actual game play. I've seen a lot of reviews, but haven't seen one that actually had played through it yet.

Well okay, you twisted my arm.. I'll try and run this soon and report back periodically how it's going.

 

[Jahydin]

@Afroconan
Thanks for taking the time to expound on what you didn't like about the setting. That information is incredibly useful for others deciding if they want to drop money on this adventure or not.

Personally, I think it's kind of refreshing to see this sort of take in fantasy. I'm pretty burned out on "the church is secretly corrupt", "the church actually never had real power", or "the 'evil' beings are just misunderstood" tropes myself. One of the reasons I still love the Exorcist.

 

[LordBP]

Well okay, you twisted my arm.. I'll try and run this soon and report back periodically how it's going.

Thanks!