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If it was up to me, I’d suggest WOTC contact @Steampunkette and work out a deal to publish her Sins of the Scorpion Age setting. It’s well-developed, tested in actual play and has all the flavours of Swords & Sorcery, but fully inclusive for all. Playing in the setting is a fantastic privilege.

My friend and I were 13 and a lad from the year above in school had the White Box set. It was late in 1976. The older lad, Dave, asked Phil and I to play a game after school and we were hooked. Phil played a magic user called Amroth, I played a fighter called Aelric. We both got the box set...

In August 1648, Cromwell’s Government was somewhat occupied with mopping up the Second Civil War, so the returning privateer could probably get away with landing their loot and dispersing it.

Started with the white box set in 1976 as a kid. For me, OSR-affection isn’t really about the rules as such. I know that sounds a bit counter-intuitive, but I can just as happily play 5e rules. What I’m after is the nostalgia of the actual adventures and the feel of exploring dusty and musty...

I guess books are the obvious ones, so Tolkien, Howard and myriad others loom large as inspirations. I played a lot of rugby, so a similar sense of teamwork to @dave2008 in that respect. I had a pretty tough upbringing, combined with the punk scene of the late 1970s, this makes social justice...

Talking of Scottish legends that could apply to your game, Sawney Bean is a late C16th legend, but if he and Agnes Douglas (allegedly a witch) had 12+ children, a descendant could easily figure in the game, as could the site of the sea cave near Girvan. Similarly, Black Shuck, the devil dog of...

French emigres from an ancient noble family, fleeing the Revolution in France, bring with them a relic, long held in the cellars below their chateau; the skull’s upper jaw has distended canine teeth. At midnight, the chime of the church bell in the village of Hartsdown strikes 13 notes. Yet the...

A fashionable spa town in the Southeast, where the waters, emerging from untold depths below the earth, are more than they seem. A pavilion in a coastal resort, built by the Prince Regent, in an eastern style, whose staff are devotees of the Goddess of Death. Psychic memories of the fear of...

A Neolithic stone barrow where a bloody cult meet on storm-riven nights, with one of its leaders being a senior Royal Family member The ghost of a former lover at the window of a lonely moorland farmhouse A high-sided, thickly tree-shrouded lane, where travelers trapped by its magic through...

When you write the adaptation of Ravenloft in Gothic Regency England, count me in as both a play tester and a buyer! Your description sounds awesome. I’m a historian and a lover of British folk tales so it ticks every possible box for me. Your few words may have created a new white whale.

Go for it regards the Northlands Saga. I’ve been lucky enough to DM it for a great group of players and it was brutal fun. I can still taste the salt of the bitter old seas, and still see the look on @TheSword ’s face as the gold, tied up in a blanket, slipped of the tilting ice floe, into the...

White whales ahoy! Great question and my answers in no particular order: 1 Dark Tower in the Wilderlands setting. I’ll probably DM this one. 2 To see @Steampunkette ’s awesome Sins of the Scorpion Age setting in print (and for Arkaeus of Myrkona to tread it’s jewelled thrones beneath his...

I like Critical Role a lot but, at the risk of being an old punk grognard, I saw the Boomtown Rats a couple of times in the late 1970s and wouldn’t swap out the experience. They were awesome. Hope it goes well though.

There might be a sequel in which the protagonists drink the magic “wake up, get real, grow a conscience and start being a decent human being” potion, and realise that “ Byden’s Garage” was all a lie, and that the real secrets were hidden in a false sarcophagus under a Golfimbul course, ready for...

This book sounds like shite! The synopsis is comically awful. The book is probably worse. And as for Lord George, Lady Eliza and Duke Justin; they’re as character-full as white, powdery dog faeces that’s been too long in the sun. PS I won’t be buying.

You could build a campaign around the young mage accidentally “casting” Cacodaemon whilst examining her inherited books. The demon, for whatever reason ( I’d go for another part of the inheritance, such as an otherwise unremarkable amulet), leaves the young mage alone but goes on to cause death...

You mentioned a “Noah’s Ark” near Eshkigal, from which magical beasts emerge to protect the city at times of peril: a powerful beast emerges, at a time of no obvious peril, to warn of an impending catastrophe. The beast ( dragon maybe?) is also the messenger prophecied among worshippers of the...

Nothing to add in terms of answers but thanks for the reminder about the magical stuff from JG back in the day. I still have nightmares about our crushing defeat by the Witches of Marmon!

Thank you once again for these awesome articles. I reckon I’ve played devotees of Ehlonna more than any other Greyhawk deity.

Would be a good album cover for bands such as Hawkwind or Wishbone Ash?