OSR News Roundup

[thirdkingdom]

It's the first Monday is December. What's left of my Twitter feed lit up on Friday with a news of an "Indie RPG Creators Summit" put on by Goodman Games with a promo that featured headshots of ten of the participants; white males all. With as much creativity and innovation as goes on in the OSR and indie ttrpg spheres, much of it driven by women and people of color, it was really disappointed to see such a tone-deaf promotion. With the third year of the News Roundup rapidly approaching, now's a good time to reiterate that one of my goals in doing the roundup is to help promote those independent creators who don't look like me, a middle-aged, bearded white dude. I'm not perfect, and I'm sure I miss some stuff that I should be highlighting, so if you think there's something I overlooked, especially if you don't fall into the traditional OSR creator category, please let me know and I'll correct my oversight.

The past few weeks have been pretty light on new releases: looks like that has changed. This is going to be a long one, folks, so buckle in!

• Charles Avery Ferguson has just launched a Kickstarter for Ave Nox, a system-neutral megadungeon. Charles is one of the driving forces behind Into the Wyrd and Wild, Cess and Citadel, Never Going Home, and more, and consistently puts out high-quality, top notch work.
• Another author known for their output is Paolo Greco, who, with Yochai Gal (the author of the wonderful Cairn system) is raising funds for Beyond the Pale, a horror adventure that draws on Jewish religious themes and mythology. It's statted for Cairn.
• I don't know if there's something in the water, but there's a lot of religious themes going on this week. Let us Build a Tower is a new Kickstarter for a mythic bronze age setting in the ruins of the Tower of Babel. It's designed to be compatible with OSR systems in general, and seems to be offering a lot of content as well as an interesting hook with the Tower of Babel as a constantly shifting mega-dungeon.
• Knock Issue 4, the acclaimed 'zine (although, it's really too much content to truly be called a zine) by The Merry Mushmen is also live on Kickstarter. Take that, Christmas budget!
• I've been really looking forward to this release: Hellwhalers is now available on itch as a pdf. It's a game of existential nautical and Christian religious horror. The players take on the role of crew aboart a damned ship hunting a god-like whale, and the Referee the role of the captain of the vessel. The art is done in a woodblock-style that is absolutely phenomenal. Right now it's not available in print, only pdf, but I believe the goal is to release it as a printed book in 2024.
• Not only can you download pdfs and desktop games from itch, you can also purchase music! eskur has made a short, ambient album live on itch. Entitled Distant Shores, it's inspired by the Slugblaster jam.
• A Feast for Flies is a short adventure for Cairn, designed to be run in a single session. It's designed to be introduced to characters traveling along a stretch of road, so would serve well as a one-shot, a side quest, or something to run when all the players don't show up for a game but you still want to run a quick little adventure.
• Wanderhome is proving to be a pretty good seller at Sabre, and Feet Melting on the Path is a collection of twelve short scenarios for that system now available on itch. This is the ashcan version, and I'm hoping there's enough interest in it for the author to polish it up and add some art.
• I've mentioned before how much I like the work of taichara. They've uploaded a new minizine to itch. Titled Beasts in Shining Beads, its a system neutral collection of gemstones and the beasts carved from them, little charms and low-powered items reminiscent of figurines of wondrous power.
• I'd heard of NaNoWriMo, but not of Nagademon, the National Game Design Month. That is, I hadn't heard of it until I came across Bristle, Thistle, Tusk and Mud, a modern horror implied setting and mystery. It's nominally statted for Liminal Horror, but can be used with a wide range of systems. It is inspired by kaiju, medieval fairs, injustice in the name of religion, and time in Southern France.
• San Tagoy has released Smells Fishy, Jack, a Fallout-inspired, system neutral adventure set in an alternate Philippines wracked by colonialism and dealing with the aftermath of nucleur war.
• Eternal Torch has released Whispers of the Black Spear Fellowship, a PWYW alternative magic system designed to be system neutral and open-ended.
• Hunt on the Borderlands is another free solo adventure for the Dragon Warriors game put out by the prolific folks at Red Ruin Publishing.
• Another prolific publisher is Philip Reed, who's just come out with two system neutral products: Deck of Dungeon Illumination and DoDI Vol. 2. Both are 50 card decks with light sources and more to add flavor to dungeon crawls and help design dungeons.
• Codex Magica, by the Wandering Mage, is a short supplement that provides all manner of arcane items and spells to add to you campaign. It's system neutral and written for OSR-style games.
• The Key of Alamantra is a low-level OSR adventure that looks to be a fun puzzle-style dungeon.
• I've added a 'zine suprise bundle to the website. For 50.00 you can get over 100.00 dollars worth of randomly selected print zines. There may be some duplication of titles between the different bundles.
• Populated Hexes Monthly Issue 28 is now live on the website in print and pdf. It features a manticore lair, new monsters, and basic rules for aerial combat.

EDIT: Fixed to include missing links.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

• Charles Avery Ferguson has just launched a Kickstarter for Ave Nox, a system-neutral megadungeon. Charles is one of the driving forces behind Into the Wyrd and Wild, Cess and Citadel, Never Going Home, and more, and consistently puts out high-quality, top notch work.
• Another author known for their output is Paolo Greco, who, with Yochai Gal (the author of the wonderful Cairn system) is raising funds for Beyond the Pale, a horror adventure that draws on Jewish religious themes and mythology. It's statted for Cairn.
• Knock Issue 4, the acclaimed 'zine (although, it's really too much content to truly be called a zine) by The Merry Mushmen is also live on Kickstarter. Take that, Christmas budget!

All three of these look amazing.

I'm most torn on Ave Nox, since I don't think a megadungeon really makes sense for me and my players, as we tend to play three hour episodic adventures, but man, this looks good. The use of plumbing in the video makes me want to see something like this set in the Great Underground Empire of Zork.

I've also long wanted to incorporate less-Christian-flavored religious influences into my fantasy games (I try, but it's hard to de-Catholicize my default way of handling religion) and Beyond the Pale looks great.

And not only have I long wanted to pick up Knock, this issue has content from the creators of Shadowdark and Pirate Borg (a dark fantasy island generator using a drop-die system, in the latter case), which really adds to the appeal for me.

This is going to be an expensive December.

 

[thirdkingdom]

All three of these look amazing.

I'm most torn on Ave Nox, since I don't think a megadungeon really makes sense for me and my players, as we tend to play three hour episodic adventures, but man, this looks good. The use of plumbing in the video makes me want to see something like this set in the Great Underground Empire of Zork.

I've also long wanted to incorporate less-Christian-flavored religious influences into my fantasy games (I try, but it's hard to de-Catholicize my default way of handling religion) and Beyond the Pale looks great.

And not only have I long wanted to pick up Knock, this issue has content from the creators of Shadowdark and Pirate Borg (a dark fantasy island generator using a drop-die system, in the latter case), which really adds to the appeal for me.

This is going to be an expensive December.

Yes, it is. I think all three look really good. I was a little concerned at first glance when I saw Beyond the Pale -- especially now, I think tackling Jewish mythology is a fraught subject -- but knowing the Yochai is involved made me feel confident it would be done well.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Yes, it is. I think all three look really good. I was a little concerned at first glance when I saw Beyond the Pale -- especially now, I think tackling Jewish mythology is a fraught subject -- but knowing the Yochai is involved made me feel confident it would be done well.

I ran it past several Jewish gamers myself for similar reasons. I think the people actually buying it and running it are likely the ones who will be treating the subject respectfully since being a prejudiced creep is free.

 

[thirdkingdom]

It's the second Monday in December, and the end of the year is fast approaching, as is the three-year anniversary of this Roundup. Because Christmas falls on a Monday this year I will likely (but not definitely) be skipping that day. Haven't made up my mind yet. I'm also toying with the idea of doing a year-in-review for the last week in December. Would readers be interested in that? It might be fun for me to go back through and list my top releases from the past year, and see how it compares to other peoples'. I'm also going to be gearing up to interview ZineMonth creators for the February event, so if you're going to be funding a project for ZiMo24 please hit me up and I'll get some questions sent over to you.

Last week saw one of the more popular authors in the OSR/indie crowd, Noora Rose, be credibly accused of plagiarism, but I'm not going to dwell too much on that because it has been thoroughly discussed online on various platforms. I had mentioned the author's work in the past, and was really looking forward to her upcoming release that was Kickstarted this summer. It's disappointing news, but it was good, I think, for the community as a whole that it was brought to light.

Also, while never a really active Twitter user, I've decided to leave the platform and won't be promoting this Roundup there moving forward. I'll instead be posting more to dice.camp over on Mastodon and Bluesky. If anyone wants some invite codes for Bluesky here you go:

1. bsky-social-faved-63u7d
2. bsky-social-ciqdz-7tzua
3. bsky-social-tcdwi-dzzmo
4. bsky-social-jri5o-dysic
5. bsky-social-j27zf-hdnfr

• Rabid Dogs Zine, Vol. 2 is currently raising funds for this DCC-compatible zine. It's designed partly to support the author's grimdark setting, but it can be used stripped of setting information, as well.
• Solo gaming has seen a great upswing in popularity, especially since the pandemic, and Ker Nethalas, a single player dungeon crawler designed specifically for solo or cooperative play, is in the process of raising money through Kickstarter. It's got an interesting premise: the character is condemned to death but somehow survives the execution, and wakes to find themselves trapped in a vast underground dungeon amidst a pile of corpses.
• The Fantasy Trip, an early rpg published by Steve Jackson Games, is held up as an example of an excellent tactical rpg with, for the time, innovative rules, and it has recently seen a resurgence in popularity as well as new Kickstarted editions. SJG is currently Kickstarting a Bestiary for the Fantasy Trip, and the project includes the option to pledge for the stl files for the monsters, enabling backers to print their own minis.
• I'd Rather be Tending my Sheep is another solo game, this one a mini-game designed to fit on a business card. It's a game about a peasant trying to defy their feudal lord.
• Snakes in a Hotel is a free mini-game designed as an introducttion to role-playing. It's diceless and meant to be playe by two people.
• A recurring creator in this roundup is Cats Have no Lord; they've just released Jaxon's Claim, a mini-dungeon that also serves as an introduction to a longer, sci-fi adventure they're working on that will be statted for Cairn.
• I mentioned the Black Spear Fellowship, by Eternal Torch, a little while ago, and they've just released a rumors supplement for the game, that uses a standard deck of playing cards to generate random rumors and adventure hooks.
• Adam Bell has just released Locked Murder Room Mystery, a game that let's you run pretty much what it says on the tin
• The Saint Butcher is a new class for Mork Borg. These characters make their living cutting up the corpses of fallen martyrs and saints in order to ensure there are enough holy relics to satisfy a thriving demand.
• Philip Reed is a prolific author who often gets mentioned in these roundups. They've just co-authored a release called On the Other Side, a system-neutral guide to populating dungeons with discoveries and encounters.
• Mausritter is one of my favorite little gems of a game, and Trader's Torrent is a new, 3rd party adventure for the system that takes the characters on a river voyage.
• Justin Sirois is one of my favorite publishers, and they've just released Sickest Witch, Hayride, an adventure for Mork Borg. It's a prequel to Beneath, the Inverted Church, and offers four new witch classes. Just be aware that, like a lot of Severed Books products, it deals with mature themes and is not appropriate for all ages.
• Chaos Gen has released a one-page of random cold weather encounters on Drivethru. It's written to be system-neutral.
• I'm offering a 15% discount for yearly subscriptions to Populated Hexes Monthly, an Old School Essentials zine that is coming up to issue #30 soon. Use the code "PHMY3" at checkout and get 12 issues delivered to your mailbox. Each issue has a hex with a different terrain type and encounters within that hex, as well as alternate and expanded rules for OSE: new classes (psionic sheep-folk! necromancer! parrot-folk! fey-dwarves!), new rules (non-point based psionics! sailing and nautical combat!), new spells and monsters, and more.
• Additionally, all Third Kingdom Games products are 35% off until the end of the year.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Apparently Bluesky is on the Fediverse now, as is Spoutible, but I haven't seen anyone explaining how to share that content to/from Mastodon yet. Fingers crossed, one day soon, we can just pick the one client we like and everyone can engage with it through the clients they like.

 

[thirdkingdom]

Apparently Bluesky is on the Fediverse now, as is Spoutible, but I haven't seen anyone explaining how to share that content to/from Mastodon yet. Fingers crossed, one day soon, we can just pick the one client we like and everyone can engage with it through the clients they like.

That would be great.

 

[thirdkingdom]

Welcome to the third Roundup of December. This is the two year anniversary of these Roundups, and I look forward to bringing y'all another year. If I've got time in the next week or so I'm going to try and work up a "Year in Review" post. Looking forward, 2024 is going to be bringing us another ZineMonth in February, and I'm planning on doing another round of interviews with zine creators to promote the event. If you're planning on participating this year, and would like to answer a few softball questions about your project send me an email or message and I'll get you the questions.


This week is a bit light on releases, due no doubt in large party to the approaching holidays.

• I forgot to mention a Kickstarter last week: Douglas Cole has launched The Isle of Sedra. This is a setting and adventure book that ties into the author's existing solo OSE adventures. The book was originally written for The Fantasy Trip but has been revised and re-written for OSE.
• Leyline Press has been publishing some quality rpg products for awhile now -- I'll be stocking their newly-released Salvage Union rpg soon -- and they've just launched a Kickstarter to bring Salvage Union -- a post-apocalyptic mech rpg -- to Roll20.
• Roque Romero has released Old School Revisited, a collection of 28 monster png images. The terms of use are very generous, and allows for modifications, which is really cool. The images would be great for fleshing out an adventure, or perhaps even building an adventure or bestiary around, since they're pretty unique and not just another goblin or ogre.
• Dice Goblin Games has just published The Adventure Calendar, a miscellaneous compilation of rules and add-ons for old-school games such as Cairn and their own Block, Dodge, and Parry. They've also released Morph, Shift, and Alter (with illustrations by Evlyn Moreau), rules for polymorphing and transformations.
• Terminal, a game of digital pirate action, is live on itch. Written by Rat Wave Game House, it features additional writing by a number of well-known names in the indie community, including Roundup favorites Tanya Floaker and JellyMuppet.
• Inspired by Terry Pratchett, Farcical Fellows is a collection of six monsters for Troika. They're delightfully absurd, and the amateur (by the author's own admission) doodlings that illustrate the pages only add to the charm.
• Just in time for the holiday season, Yule them All is a hack and slay adventure written for Mork Borg. It's designed to be fast paced and brutal.
• White Star, by James Spahn, is a sci-fi hack of the simplified White Box rules, and the newly released Defenders of Altron is a setting for White Star. It weighs in at a hefty 130 pages, and is available in pdf and POD.
• Solo in a Lost Cause, by Parts per Million, is a Silent Legions (the excellent game by Kevin Crawford) compatible solo introductory system that's specifically designed to introduce new players to solo-style play.
• As many readers may know, I'm a sucker for hexcrawls, and Burning Light Press has just released two short, 2-page hexcrawl regions with isometric hex maps. The Canton of Mardon Gorge and The Canton of Swarrow are the two releases, and I really like the way they're organized and presented.
• We still have some of the Surprise Zine Bundles in stock. This is a collection of at least 100.00 dollars worth of zines from our stock, and is available for 50.00.

 

[thirdkingdom]

Welcome to the first news Roundup of 2024, and the start of the third year of this newsletter. I have not had a chance to do a year in review of previous roundups, but I'd be interested in hearing from readers about your favorite releases from 2023.

I've been getting ready for ZiMo24, the upcoming coordinated crowdfunding month in February when small press creators raise money for their projects. If you're one of those creators, and would like to answer some short questions about your project to be featured in an interview, please send me an email and I'll get you questions.

It's hard to believe that roughly a year ago, WoTC threw the 3rd party publishing community into turmoil by proposing a revision of the OGL; the community rebelled, and not only did WoTC back down, but a number of competing OGL licenses have been/are in the process of being created.

One thing I've noticed in the last year is the absolute proliferation of AI technology in the creation of materials. I've made a decision to exclude AI-generated products in this roundup, but it is requiring more and more vigilance, both for Drivethru and Kickstarted products.

One of the things I've really enjoyed this year is watching people post their progress on the Dungeon23 challenge, and I've seen at least two people post finished results.

This is going to be a pretty short roundup; releases were pretty (understandably) scarce in the past two weeks, with folks focusing on the holidays. I hope everyone has a great start to the new year!

• The Wyrd has released FEUD, a system-neutral, 60-page fantasy adventure where the characters take the roles of ordinary people caught in the middle of a blood feud between two villages.
• I've mentioned the artwork of Exeunt Press before, and they've just released Rabbits & Demons, a collection of traced woodcuts from public domain sources. I really like these because they convey a certain mood instantly upon seeing it, and it's really nice having a source that someone has curated and uploaded as high resolution files these cool old public domain woodcarvings. It's pay-what-you-want, and they've made it CC-BY-4.0, which means you're free to use them in commercial or personal projects.
• 24XX is one of those systems that seems to fly below the radar but gets a ton of stuff written for it. One of the newest releases is SOL, by Zotiquest Games. It's billed as a retrofuturist sci-fi game set in a future where the space race never ended.
• Seth Ian has released Scaly Gods, a modern remix of the classic Cult of the Reptile God module.
• Cairn is another system that, like 24XX, is a bit under the radar but is hacked and used by a bunch of folks. The Rock Face is an adventure for Cairn written during the Adventure Calendar jam. It is good for a one-shot or to add it as a location in a point or hexcrawl.
• Brian Sago has released Sisyphus Die, a one-page Sisyphean game about playing Sisyphus.
• Beyond the Wall is another system that gets tons of critical acclaim but seems to be played less than it should be. Flatland Games have just released Beyond the Wall: A Kingless Realm, a 180+ page setting and sourcebook for Beyond the Wall.
• One of my favorite "weird" OSR zines is Black Pudding, by the author and illustrator James West. They've just released Issue 8 of Black Pudding. It's got its usual assortment of bizzare and unique character classes, items, and spells to add a bit of absurd fun and danger to your games.
• Scoundrels, Xenos, and Cyborgs is the new release by Stellgama publishing, and includes a ton* of expanded material for the White Star sci-fi game.
• Hugh Lashbrooke has been putting out some consistently great content for Mausritter, and has just released Away in a Manger, an adventure set in the nativity stable after all the humans have left.
• Dragons Beyond is a clone of 0e rules and notes, many of which never made it into the original three box release. It imagines if the original focus of the game was more on domain play and patronage, rather than dungeon exploration.
• We've gotten restocks of Stars Without Number and finally got Worlds Without Number in stock. Kevin Crawford is producing some of the best content in rpgs, and his books are consistently top-notch.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

A few days before A Kingless Realm was released, Flatland also released the final supplement for Grizzled Adventurers, the Dungeon Builders Almanac. I was shocked at the one-two punch of these being released so close together.

DBA is actually just a short grab-bag of content, from how PCs get home solo when players have to leave early (a previous supplement included travel rules for heading home and whom one might meet on the way, for when the adventure ends early and people want to play for another 30 minutes or so), making kids the MacGuffin in the dungeons generated in GA (a very neat modular system that creates very good results on the fly), an explanation for how to make more swarm-type groups like the skeleton and goblin swarms in the core book and two new sets of foes to include in the dungeon generator.

Grizzled Adventurers is definitely lost in the shadow of Beyond the Wall and Through Sunken Lands, although it uses a very similar system to tell stories of elderly adventurers and is almost entirely compatible mechanically, if not in tone, with the other two games.