OSR News Roundup

[thirdkingdom]

JE Shields is a well-known artist that works in the OSR community (I've mentioned a couple of his projects here in the past). His son recently passed away, and the NTRPG community is hosting a GoFundMe to help with the funeral expenses. If you'd like to help out the link is here.

February's annual ZineMonth is fast approaching, and I'll be doing my interview series again this year. If you've got a project you'll be crowdfunding for during this event please drop me a line and I'll send over a list of questions.

• I'd mentioned Atop the Wailing Dunes, by Atelier Hwei, back when it was crowdfunding. It's now available on Drivethru. It's a sandbox adventure for PARIAH, the neolithic-punk rpg system.
• Goblins and Gardens has released a pretty cool looking little game on itch. Dungeon Wilds is a cooperative card game of dungeon crawling and exploration. It has strong rogue-like crpg vibes, and the art is incredibly charming.
• Returning to Port is a supplement for Mork and Pirate Borg that provides random tables to spice up your players' successful (?) return to port after a sea adventure.
• Both Knave and Maze Rats are popular OSR systems, and TSOR uses them as an inspiration . . . with the catch being that it is only one page long.
• Brave Spartan is a solo journaling rpg where you play the part of a guardian statue, tasked with protecting the world's greatest literary collection.
• Directly pursuant to my interests, The Realm is an OSR-generic supplement that focuses on domain-level play, with rules for mass-combat, random domain events, and more.
• We sold through the print run of Perils and Princesses we got in within a few weeks, but I'm glad to see the game is now up on Drivethrurpg. It's a fun, OSR-adjacent game with quirky illustrations.
• I haven't had a chance to check this out yet, but The Mask and the Sword is a historical game that looks to be inspired by the Three Musketeers and similar works. What intrigued me is that it looks like it has options for solo, choose your own adventure style play.
• Peryton Publishing has released Spacers: 180, a rules-lite sci-fi game that seeks to emulate what the authors refer to as "rocket opera".
• Alienist Press has released a hexmap template on Drivethru, with 21 different versions of hexmaps. It's currently available as a single pdf, but the author has plans to release them as pngs as well as individual files.
• The Merry Mushmen are known for producing high quality, visually stunning books, and their first adventure, Nightmare Over Ragged Hollow, is now available in pdf through Drivethrurpg.
• Pickpocket Press, the publishers of Low Fantasy Gaming, have released Tales of Argosa as a free, public playtest book. It's designed to be quick, deadly, and with more options to support solo and oracular style play.
• We've got some titles back in stock, as well as some new titles:

*Reach of the Roach God and the Book of Gaub are back in stock.

*Stoneburner is now in stock. It's a solo friendly game of demon hunting in a dwarven asteroid.

*Populated Hexes Monthly Issue 29 is now available in a pdf. This is a mountainous hex, and features a roadside shrine desecrated by a corrupted nature spirit.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

You're missing the link to the Alienist Press template.

 

[thirdkingdom]

Yeah, it got messed up with the scheduled post, somehow. Here's the link. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/466355/Hexmap-Templates

 

[thirdkingdom]

As I'm sure most of the readers of this series will know by now, last week we lost one of the true luminaries in the gaming field: Jennell Jaquays. She had fallen sick last year, and finally succumbed to her illness. I never met her personally, but we did correspond via email occasionally. She was one of my first interview subjects, and as I was looking back over the interview last week I couldn't help but think of the questions I should have asked. When she first fell ill her wife Rebecca set up a GoFundMe to help with hospital costs. That GoFundMe is still active and could still use some support to help Rebecca with lingering hospital bills and funeral costs.

A number of people have raised suggestions of ways to recognize her contribution to the field of gaming. One that I think is appropriate is a game jam on itch, currently taking submissions for a megadungeon tile set that will be eventually printed, with proceeds going to her family as well as the organization Trans Lifelines. Jennell was an inspiration to all gamers, but especially to the trans and queer people in the hobby, and worked tirelessly to help those less fortunate than her. She will be missed.

I was torn about doing the normal Roundup this week -- it seems somewhat crass to jump into promoting works after the introduction -- but I decided there are some interesting products that deserve a spotlight. After a week with a bunch of new releases this week seemed somewhat light. My assumption is that folks are getting ready for ZineMonth and may be otherwise busy.

• I always leap at the chance to promote Mausritter and the various supplements and third party products for it. There's a Mausritter megadungeon currently on Kickstarter called The Tomb of a Thousand Doors. Matthew Morris is running it, but it features contributions from the entire Mausritter Third-party Community.
• My first introduction to the OSR was Dark Dungeons, the Rules Cyclopedia by Blacky the Blackball (currently going by Gurbintroll). I was lucky enough to eavesdrop on some of the work that went into Gurbintroll's current project, Light Fantasy, which is now available on Drivethru as a pdf. According to them, the print proof is on the way, so we should be seeing a POD version pretty soon, if all goes according to plans. While part of the charm of Dark Dungeons was, to my mind, their use of public domain art, the recent Kickstarter allowed Gurbintroll to commision art for Light Fantasy, which really makes the game.
• John Bilodeau has begun to publish some pretty cool stock art, and has just released the Gnoll Drimimancer, a gnoll that can tell the future by reading the pattern of blood splatters. It's a pretty nice piece of artwork, and I like how it invites you to create an NPC based on the image and a short description.
• The Crash Site, by ell0, is a solo journaling game where you play the role of a recently crashed and stranded space trucker. A rescue team is on the way, but it will be days before they arrive, and you're on a strange, unexplored planet.
• Realm Builder Games has released Vol. 1 of Beyond Basic, a set of rules expansions for OSE and other similar games. This volume presents a skill system, weapon mastery, and training rules for leveling up characters.
• Hexplore Publishing has released a bundle of four low-level OSE compatible adventures. I'm not familiar with their work, but it looks interesting.
• Gentle's Dungeon Guide, Vol. 2, by Taylor Seely-Wright, offers advice and procedures to generate dungeons in a simplified, check-list form.
• I don't seem to see much these days for Against the Darkmaster, but there's a new, massive (350+ pages) supplement and setting guide out now. Secrets of the Golden Throne has new monsters, kinships, spells, and a fleshed out mini-setting.
• Ever since Dark Places and Demogorgons I've been a fan of Eric Bloat's work, and he's just released a playtest version of Evolved, his new superheroes rpg that is run with the DCC engine. When I heard it was based on DCC I was a little skeptical, at first, but the more I thought about it the more I liked the idea.
• There are a couple days left on the current Kickstarter I'm running for Issue 30 of Populated Hexes Monthly, which begins a deep dive into religion with rules for creating gods and deities, with an emphasis on small, local gods. You can pick up the pdf for a couple of bucks, or get an offset print version for a bit more.

 

[thirdkingdom]

A reader pointed out that I had used 2023 as the date for last week's roundup, so I made sure to write 2024 for this week's. Zine Month is right around the corner, and I'll be posting a series of interviews with participants as it gets into full swing. If you're interested in participating, or are looking to try and get your books into stores (whether online or brick and mortar) I wrote a post last year that offers some advice on how to crowdfund/price your products with the expectation of selling through third parties. Hopefully it will be of some use to people.

Last week's Roundup was somewhat sparse, so let's see what this week has in store for us, shall we?

• Visceral is a rules-lite, action-oriented two-page rpg that draws inspiration from, and is designed to emulate, darker genres such as grindhouse, noir, mythos, and more.
• I've been a big fan of Tanya Floaker's work since Lo, Thy Dread Emperor, and she's just recently released the Connection Machine, a dream-like rpg that explores themes of trauma and attachment. You can check out an interview I conducted with Tanya here.
• Dungeon Dash is an intriguing, tongue-in-cheek dungeon delving game that's currently crowdfunding on itch. They're raising money for commissioned art and to provide additional content (random generation, which is right up my alley!).
• Happy Cthonian has released the wordy All Dice II Haunted House Character Generator, a random character generator that uses all of the standard D&D dice to create a PC. This publication focuses on creating characters suited for haunted house adventures, and especially the adventure the Waking of Willoughby Hall.
• Speaking of Visceral, Prey No More is a game using the Visceral engine in which you play escaped potential victims of a powerful secret society's horrible rituals, out for revenge on your captors.
• Seedling is one of the indie publishers I've been keeping my eye on (they wrote A Gathering Storm and Procedures to Develop the Paths Ahead, amongst others), and they've just released Liars, Friends and Troublemakers, a collection of (largely) system-agnostic NPCs (Cairn is used when stats are needed).
• Scout Vol. 2 is out. A supplement for OSE and Dolmenwood, this issue has a ton of material crammed into it s 46 pages: four new classes, new spells, new rules for spell-casting, and more.
• There's a new game out that's an ode to the scribbled illustrations that you drew in the margins of your notebooks in study hall. Attack From Space: the RPG is inspired by these scribblings, and used Spencer Campbell's LUMEN system. It's more art project than rpg, but the author has thoughtfully included a cleaned up version for ease of reading and playing.
• After a short break, the folks from Red Ruin Publishing are back with Casket of Fays #12, another issue in their free Dragon Warriors fanzines.
• They Dug Too Deep is a one-page dungeon -- it placed in the top ten during last year's one-page dungeon contest -- that is now available on Drivethru. The cartography is excellent, and it also comes with VTT-support, which is a plus these days.
• Philip Reed is one of the most prolific creators in the OSR space, and is currently running a Kickstarter to fund the printing for a 54 card deck of treasures for the Dragonbane game.
• Another indie creator I like is Marco Serrano of Spicy Tuna RPGs. He's currently crowdfunding Greenhorns: A Weird Space RPG. It's based on the Together We Go Engine written by Markus Linderum and Tony Vasinda.
• In addition to supporting indie publishers I like to do what I can to support and promote local (to me, at least) authors, which is one reason we've added the newest book by Sandy Pug Games to the Sabre inventory. The Exquisite Corpse: In Maggot's Keep is a game designed for immersive storytelling, where the plot is generated by being passed from participant to participant, with each player adding their own unique take on the story.

 

[thirdkingdom]

It's the last Monday in January, which means that ZineMonth is right around the corner. I'm sure I'll keep banging this drum over the next month or so, and I hope y'all will humor me with this. There are three places you can go to check out the projects on tap this year:

• Kickstarter's ZineQuest page.
• The independent ZineMonth page (they're still in the process of getting it set up).
• Crowdfundr's Tabletop Nonstop.

And, of course, I'll be keeping as up to date as I can here. There's going to be a lot going on, of course, and if you're a creator or know of something I should spotlight the best way to make sure it gets included is to message me.

Also, just to gripe for a second, this is the first Roundup I've written using Drivethrurpg's new site, and, I gotta say, I'm not lovin' it. It makes browsing difficult. Of course, it could just be that I'm old and stuck in my ways.

• Cities of Constant Rain is an analog techpunk game put out by Roachtrout. It's inspired by media such as Strange Days, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Escape from New York, and more.
• David Blandy has put out some great stuff (Lost Eons is something I'd love to get back in stock), and they've just released The Art Lover, a mini-dungeon for Cairn written in memorial of Jennell Jaquays.
• Runecairn is one of the more popular indie games that we carry, and Colin Le Sueur, the author (you can read my interview with him here) is running a KS for a remastered version of Runecairn Wardensaga.
• Sad Fishe Games has published Expanded Magick Weapons for EZD6, a d66 list of unique and interesting magic items. It can be adapted to other OSR adacent systems easily.
• Unnatural Selections, Vol. 2, is bestiary of monsters for use with Mutant Crawl Classics, released by Dandyline Games.
• Eric Bloat has released a Referee's Screen for one of my favorite releases from last year: Dark Places and Demogorgon's, his love letter to Stranger Things and kids on bikes.
• I'm not familiar with the work of Downsized Press, but they've just released Downsized Dungeons, Vol. 1, a short 5-room dungeon designed to be filler for the Referee to use in between adventurers, as a one-shot, or an easy addition to a hexcrawl-style game.
• Dyson Logos needs no introduction, and they've just released Strange Stones, a collection of tables to use to generate standing stones. Like Dyson, standing stones have been a fascination of mine, and I make liberal use of adding them to adventures and hexcrawls.
• I'm also a sucker for barrows, and Woeful Barrows and Other Places is a collection of almost 100 pages worth of barrows and barrow-themed adventures, written for Shadowdark.
• Written for Forbidden Psalms, Frozen Psalms is a collection of five scenarios set in arctic climates, and also include new rules for adventuring in the cold.
• Raging Swan Press has published Dread Shrine of the Supreme Warlord, an OSR adventure for characters of level 1-2. It's set in their default setting, but can be adapted to other locations with relative ease.
• Aron Clark has made available a copy edit of the classic adventure The Lichway to celebrate the 50th anniversary of D&D. They revised and edited it to make it more accessible and easier to run at the table.
• The Into the Wild Omnibus is now available in print and pdf through Drivethrurpg and pdf only through the Sabre Games website. I've just gotten the print proof for the offset book, so that is underway, as well. This book combines A Guide to Thieves' Guilds, Filling in the Blanks, and Into the Wild into a single, 380+ page book.

 

[thirdkingdom]

Actually, use this link for the current ZiMo projects: https://zinemonth.spread.name/

 

[thirdkingdom]

ZineMonth is here, and I've started posting interviews with creators who are participating in the event. They'll be posting Monday through Friday at 1:00 pm eastern time. Thus far I've posted two interviews:

• Jim Hall of Brooklet Games crowdfunding one of the games I've been looking forward to since he started posting about it last year on social media: Beetle Knight.
• Mikhail Malkin is Kickstarting Fishbone Archipelago: Lost Lighthouse, a system-neutral aquatic adventure.

To celebrate ZineMonth, Sabre Games is having a 20% off sale on all of our in-stock zines through the end of the month.

You might notice that Kickstarter links will be a little light in the official Roundup during this month, for the simple reason that I'll be promoting and linking to these campaigns in individual interviews throughout February. I will still be linking to stuff that I don't have interviews lined up about, though.

• Samsara is an entry in the 24-Word RPG Jam that explores the eponymous Buddhist concept of rebirth and suffering.
• Scott Wegener, artist and co-author of Atomic Robo, is raising money for The Cult of Morach, an old-school dungeon crawl written for GLAIVE but also broadly system-agnostic.
• Idle Cartulary is raising funds for the Curse of Mizzling Grove, an adventure written for Old School Essentials. It features the art of Niosis; I had never seen their work before, but am very taken by it. The samples posted on the Kickstarter are some very cool, stark line art that I really like.
• I really enjoyed following last year's Dungeon23 event, and one of the megadungeons created as part of it is now on Kickstarter. Sean Richer is raising funds for Terror of the Stratosfiend: Snake Wolf 3. It's a 400+ page megadungon written for DCC designed for characters of levels 1-6.
• Milk Bar is a Sci-fi game set in post-Soviet Poland. Based on RPGs like Cairn, Mausritter, and Mothership, and video games like Disco Elysium and Control, Milk Bar is a game about the post-collapse and rebuilding.
• Archstone Press has published the Years of Adventure, available for pay-what-you-want on itch. Inspired by epic fantasy series such as the Malazan Book of the Fallen, Earthsea, and A Song of Ice and Fire, The Years of Adventure was designed to create sweeping, large scale stories with a personal focus.
• One of the things I really like about ZineMonth is seeing new authors and artists publish their stuff for the first time, and the enthusiasm they bring to the hobby. Maria Weninger is running her first Kickstarter to fund Glimmerlight Inn, a system-agnostic location statted for general OSR-games but easily adaptable to other systems. It's billed as a way to introduce a path into Faery for your characters, or to introduce the Faery Realms to an existing campaign.
• Christopher Wilson has released Tasadantilis' Tantalizing Tower, an adventure for Old School Essentials, a massive 335 page setting and adventure.
• Ivanhoe Unbound has released Troika 19280!, a collection of d66 background tables to use with Troika.
• Prehistoric Perils is a mini-bestiary of dinosaurs designed to be used with The Monsters are our Heroes (by Bloat Games).
• Written for the Black Hack, but easily adapted to other OSR games, A Home Reforged is both setting and ruleset with a dwarven theme, which I think is somewhat neglected these days.
• Hexcrawl Horrors is written for BFRPG and includes ten d100 wilderness encounter tables, each one suited for a different terrain type and featuring monsters arranged by HD and in order of rarity.
• I'm a big fan of Joel Hines' work, and last year he Kickstarted The Tide World of Mani, a setting for Mothership. It's finally out in PDF on Drivethru.
• Paul Partington, who also writes the free Dragon Warriors fanzine, has just released a CYOA title: Temple of the Skull God. It's over 300 pages and looks to be pretty cool.
• I haven't had a chance to dive into it yet, but The Raven's Call is short little system that looks rather charming, mostly in the brevity of its description (I must admit that I tend towards pretty succint and short descriptions of my stuff, as well).
• I'm raising funds for Issue 31 of Populated Hexes Monthly as a part of ZineMonth. This issue takes the rules in Issue 30 for creating gods and presents three sample deities. It also includes a barrow left behind by a long-lost civilization and rules for modifying the clerical turn undead ability into channeling divinity, allowing for clerical abilities to be customized by the gods they worship. If you're a Patron or subscriber you don't need to back this Kickstarter.

 

[thirdkingdom]

It's the second Monday in February and the we're entering into the second full week of ZineMonth. Last week I conducted the following interviews:

• Tanuki Games, with HIC: Tapestry Toilet Roll Game, an art journaling game inspired by the Bayeux Tapestry.
• Michael Putlack, with Be Kind, Rewind, a solo journaling game about a time when video stores were a major part of your life.
• Nessun Dove, with The Magus and the Oracle, a solo-journaling game that explores loneliness.
• Stuart Watkinson, with The Abbott Trilogy, a set of three system-agnostic adventures.

There will be no Roundup next week; I will be traveling over the weekend and will not have time to put one together. With that out of the way, let's check out some other stuff that was released or announced last week!

• I'd mentioned the rules-lite game Visceral a little while ago, and I just saw an update that the game is now available in tri-fold pamphlet format.
• Cezar Capacle is raising funds for ZineMonth on Crowdfundr. Random Realities is an oracle designed for solo gaming, and one of the things that I think is so cool about this project is that the pdf is set up with die-rolling capabilities in the pdf itself.
• I thought this was super clever, even though as a professional cabinet maker IKEA furniture, and their riddle-like instruction manuals, are the bane of my naughty word existence. Dieku Games is Kickstarting FÄNGELSEHÅLA, an rpg laid out and designed around classic Swedish instruction manuals.
• I saw the link for No Nazis in Valhalla floating around on social media. It's by Spooky Bell Games, and posits that, their defeat imminent, the Thule Society sends a force of important Nazi party members back in time to 865 in an attempt to ally with the Great Heathen Army. The players take the role of these heathens, intent on repelling this new threat from out of time.
• The Book of Cosmic Creatures is a science fiction bestiary statted for Cairn and Into the Odd. It's got a wide range of creatures for your PCs to encounter.
• Written for the Black Hack, A Disputation at Worm Rock is an adventure inspired by medieval philosophy and the disastrous voyage of Ernest Shackleton.
• The folks at the Melsonian Arts Council are fundraising for Swyvers, an rpg of heists and swindles in a dirty, cuthroat world.
• I don't usually plug promo pages, but Yochai Gal and Space Penguin Inc are getting ready to launch Cairn 2e, now in box set form! I've been looking forward to this for awhile.
• Nightblade is a new, ruleslight fantasy rpg that's short and sweet but offers tactical play with an old school feel.
• Written by Glenn Robinson, Grandma's Cottage, Inc is a good starter adventure for OSE.
• Roderic Waibel, of Izegrim Creations, has published Castle Brookmere. A reworking of the book Return to Brookmere, by Rose Estes (and published with her permission), into a playable adventure.
• Appendix N Entertainment has published the second volume in their quest to bring the outer planes to OSE: Devilry journeys to the Nine Hells and provides stats for devils, both generic and named.
• One of my most used GM books is Matt Finch's Tome of Adventure Design, and he's just published City Encounters for Swords and Wizardry, a supplement to help run adventures in urban environments.
• I'm super thrilled to announce that Sabre Games has started to stock the Salvage Union game by Leyline Press. We've got the core book, patches, and several adventures. This is an absolutely gorgeous mech rpg set in a post-apocalyptic world. You play as salvager mech pilots who scour the wasteland for salvage in scrap built mechs.
• We've also stocked A Street Level Guide to Urban Troika, a supplement aimed at expanding the options for what to do in the Infinite City between adventures.
• Issue 31 of Populated Hexes Monthly is in its final week of raising funds on Kickstarter. This issue, printed in classic A5 zine format, provides options to customize the clerical turn undead ability based upon which god they serve, and presents three sample deities created using the rules in Issue 30.
• Also, the newest session of Basilisk Hills Breakdown is now live, in which the adventurers finally make the journey to Hezli, the mysterious abandoned town along a once vital trade route, and begin to explore the mysteries that are hidden within.

 

[schneeland]

• I thought this was super clever, even though as a professional cabinet maker IKEA furniture, and their riddle-like instruction manuals, are the bane of my naughty word existence. Dieku Games is Kickstarting FÄNGELSEHÅLA, an rpg laid out and designed around classic Swedish instruction manuals.

It looks like a really neat project. The video alone is so great I had to back it