OSR OSR News Roundup

[Wofano Wotanto]

I've run Stygian Library (and am waiting for the revised Gardens of Ynn to get shipped out) and it's amazing.

I've run both original Ynn and Stygian Library and I cannot agree with you more. They're fantastic - and I don't even generally like procedural games.

 

[thirdkingdom]

Last week was a little light on releases, I'm assuming because the kids are heading back to school and summer is winding down. However, there's still some interesting releases (I think) that I've included.

• Liminal Horror is an, I think, oft-overlooked gem of a system, but there is a Liminal Horror jam going on over on itch, and Ex Infernis is one of the entries. Drawing on the ghost ship theme, it's set on the Great Lakes but can be easily adapted to any location or even system.
• Karate High Noon is a short and sweet one-page rpg inspired by 90s action movies. If you want to play a Jackie Chan or Walker, Texas Ranger inspired game where the PCs get to beat up hordes of mooks this is the game for you.
• One of the entries into the recent (which ended yesterday) One Page RPG Jam is Small Town Gods, a game about playing minor deities who grow in power as their communities grow.
• I've been seeing a number of releases recently relying on Into the Odd, and Plasmodics is currently raising funds on Kickstarter. It's a gonzo, weird, and wacky game set in the far, post-apocalyptic future. The publisher is a first time Kickstarter, so there's always the caveat that comes with that, but they seem to have a good handle on the process and aren't, I don't think, overpromising.
• Stefan Surrat is well known in the DCC community for their releases, and are currently Kickstarting Bloody Barbershops and Sanguine Scissors, a "zine for barbers and fans of barbering", which aside from being one of the more niche markets I've seen, includes a bunch of new stuff for DCC, including a new class, a 0-level funnel, and more.
• The Cult of Kluckee the Chicken is a gonzo, tongue and cheek adventure set in the post-apocalyptic future (another one!) and statted for 1e and 5e. It's also billed as being broadly compatible with MCC, Gamma World, Mutant Future, and more.
• I have been waiting patiently for Hydra Cooperative to release Completely Unfathomable, by Jason Sholtis. This release combines the Ennie Award-winning Operation Unfathomable with new material. Hydra Cooperative is known for releasing some of the highest quality OSR material out there, and I'm really glad they've been able to make this release happen, and hope this means we'll be seeing more new releases down the road.
• Graveyard Dirt is a new undead-themed release for Knave 2 and similar games. It includes new adventures, skeleton varieties, spells, and more.
• There've been more new class releases for Shadowdark than pretty much everything else, and I haven't been including the bulk of them, but the Runemaster class caught my attention as being something interesting to mine for ideas.
• The Sorcerer's Fate is a 0-level funnel for DCC that aims to be the first in a series of semi-connected adventures.
• I've long admired the art of Castle Grief, and they're currently crowdfuning Kal-Arath: Sword and Sorcery, a Conan-inspired sword and sorcery game and setting.
• I'm currently running a Kickstarter for Issue 38 of Populated Hexes Monthly, in which the series gets back on track with a new hex every month. This month's hex is a densely wooded northern forest with a prophetic raven, and includes guidelines for adding prophecies to your game as well as the eldritch warrior class, a fighter subtype that blends spell and steel but is also not an elf reskin.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

What is it with post-apocalyptic adventures about mutant chickens? Wasn't Famine In Far-Go enough already?

Still, it's another chance to use the miniatures from Interloper so that's a plus.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

This is the second version of Completely Unfathomable, I believe. This is a long-awaited Swords & Wizardry version (so long awaited that S&W is no longer the OSR's favorite system), but a Dungeon Crawl Classics version came out a few years ago.

I have Operation Unfathomable (the below ground version of the setting). It's a deeply weird/gonzo underdark like you've never seen. I don't think it qualifies as a "mythic underworld" unless time travelers, people without heads, hungry bug men and chaos gods show up in real world myth somewhere.

 

[thirdkingdom]

We're into September already, and beginning the race towards the end of the year. Sabre Games is having a Labor Day sale, ending tonight, with everything in store 15% off with the code LaborDay2025.

• Rise up Comus recently released the incredibly well recieved and difficult to get in stock His Majesty the Worm. In conjunction with a HMtW jam happening this month on itch, they've also released a Creator's Kit to help and provide guidance to folks who want to contribute to the jam.
• It was only a matter of time before we started seeing Shadowdark Game Jams on itch (there have probably already been some, but this is the first one I've been aware of), and Bad Star Games has released Dacian Draco, a mini Shadowdark adventure that combines wolf cults and the moon.
• Exeunt Press has been, I think, one of the most creative and interesting small press publishers focusing mostly on microgames and adventures, and they've just released Music in its Roar, a one-page rpg about the call of the sea, inspired by Lovecraft's Shadow over Insmouth.
• Carrion Comfort has released Come on In, a supernatural detective horror rpg set in small town Louisiana.
• I saw Claim the Victim and knew I had to include it in today's roundup: it's a game of cover letters and job applications, of trying to land the coveted job of serial killer, haunting, or other horror movie villain in a world where the average folks are becoming inured to TV tropes.
• Pickpocket Press has released the final version of Tales of Argosa, a low-fantasy rpg that I've been following for awhile, and have actually been playing in a play-by-post game for awhile using the initial rules. It's a great system with a lot of content and some interesting rules that make characters engaging.
• One Night at the Shelterwood Inn is written for both Liminal Horror and the Triangle Agency, inspired by such 80s-90s horror/weirdness like Misery, Twin Peaks, and more.
• As many readers may be aware, domain level play in OSR-style games is of special interest to me, and Death Tax is a new release that offers a wide range of options and rules for higher-level play and managing a domain.
• The Radical Kids Player's Guide for Shadowdark uses the SD system and adapts it to a kid's with bikes-style game. It's a genre I'm a big fan of, and one more example of the recent trend of hacking Shadowdark for other styles of play.
• I like seeing products that add mini-games to an rpg system, whether gambling, tournaments, chases, or in the case of Last One Standing, a method of resolving duels, challenges, and other personal contests.
• The Sword of Cepheus, by Stellagama Publishing, is a quiet, unassuming system that boasts a lot of good revues and press. They've just released the 2nd edition of the game, and a new adventure, Escape from Miklagard, is also available.
• Sunday Matinee Crawls: The Mines of Dread is written for DCC and is part of a series of adventures. I have to confess that this is the first in the series I've seen promoted, but it looks to make for an interesting dungeon crawl, either by itself or as a sequel to the previous release.
• I'm a sucker for alliteration, so of course I had to mention Tomb of the Fey Fellmonger, a short mini-advenure written for Cairn, OSE, and 5e. It features a living skin suit, which sounds appropriately creepy.
• I'd mentioned His Majesty the Worm above, and All that Skitters is a bestiary of spiders for that game. In addition to alliteration, I'm a sucker for new and interesting spider-themed monsters.
• The prolific Douglas Cole and Gaming Ballistic are crowdfunding Warlock Knight, an adventure for Gurps Dungeon Fantasy. I haven't checked out DF yet, but have heard great things about it. Like many of Cole's products, it's designed to be a solo adventure, this one specifically with the goal of teaching the system.
• We're wrapping up the last days of the Populated Hexes Monthly Issue 38 Kickstarter, which moves to a new region of the world and includes a hex containing a prophetic giant raven, guidelines for including prophecies in your games, and the eldritch warrior class.

 

[thirdkingdom]

Welcome to the News Roundup for the second week in September. It's been another slow week for releases, but there are some goodies in here!

• Odds & Ents has released TTRPG Digital Notebook Pages, a collection of fourteen player-facing pages designed for the players who maybe aren't the best notetakers. They're printable, but are also form-fillable pdfs, which I really like. It is formatted for D&D, but the creator intends to create more for other systems.
• The Land of Calyx, Vol. 1, is a 58-page zine/gazetteer for the author's setting. It's crammed with a bunch of stuff, including player options, an adventure, but mostly I figured folks might find this interesting because it devotes a lot of space to the city of Calyx, and well described cities are always a great resource for games.
• Francisco Lemos has released The Crypt of Crimson Ice, a gorgeous one-page dungeon. It's available in several different rules systems, including Cairn, Mork/Pirate Borg, and system neutral.
• Sam Seer has released a one-page calendar tracking sheet. I'm pretty boring when it comes to gaming calendars, but I do like including them. One of the nice things about this sheet is that the creator includes the Affinity file to make it easy to edit and hack.
• Sad Fishe Games has been putting out Junk Drive, a semi-regular zine for CY_Borg, and they've just released Issue 4, which updates and expands the weapons and equipment tables from the core rules.
• Zed and Two Noughts is a 0-level funnel for Old School Essentials, and looks like it is a weird, fun romp through a deadly adventure filled with cosmic horrors.
• The same publisher has also released Tangled (this has been on my radar for awhile), another 0-level funnel. This one has much more of a dark fairy-tale theme and absolutely amazing pixel art.
• Speaking of amazing art, Emiel Boven has released the Electrum Archive Volumes 1 and 2. It's a science-fantasy setting along the lines of Vaults of Vaarn and the Ultraviolet Grasslands, and I was super excited to get my print copies at the end of last week.
• The Pit of Blasphemy is a 56-page adventure/mini-setting for Mork Borg, and in addition to all the content of the books it also comes with a 12 track album with original music to get you in the mood to play.
• I saw this pop up in my social feeds and wanted to promote it, as I once did something similar with the introductory dungeon from the Mentzer Basic set. A Sample Dungeon takes the map from the AD&D 1e book and fills it out.
• Populated Hexes Monthly Issue 37 is now live, on Drivethru in print and pdf and on my website in offset print.
• The prelaunch page for my upcoming Kickstarter is live. I'll be raising funds to print a 2025 Wilderness Hex-a-Day style calendar, with an accompanying hex workbook with a page per hex.

 

[thirdkingdom]

With the month half over we're plunging straight into fall here, and I'm seeing more and more horror-themed releases, which is only appropriate. One thing I'd like to mention for any publishers out there: I've mentioned before that I won't be promoting products that contain AI assets in any form, and there were several interesting-looking products this week that I passed up promoting because I couldn't tell if there were AI assets or not, so I erred on the side of caution. This applies mostly to releases on Drivethru; if your product image clearly includes artwork, but the artist credit is "N/A", I am going to assume it is AI generated and give it a pass. Even if it is public domain that is helpful information, and if it is stock or commissioned art those folks deserve credit for the work they have done.



Long-time readers may have noticed that, while I also use this newsletter to promote my own work, I typically keep those announcements until the end to focus the attention on the releases of others. Today I'll be subverting that norm to announce the launch of my current Kickstarter that can use your support; I'm raising funds for a 2025 Daily Wilderness Hex tear-away calendar and workbook. The calendar has a different hex for each day, and the workbook is an accompanying spiral-bound, 380+ page notebook for use in developing hexes. It's gotten off to a slower start than I expected, and if this sounds like something that you could use yourself or give as a gift your help is appreciated.

• Minimal OSR FKR Dungeon is a rules-lite complete OSR/FKR (inspired by the Free Kriegspel wargaming movement). It manages to fit a ton of stuff into 37 pages, including rules for random dungeon generation, a starter adventure, and guidelines for using it for solo play.
• I totally missed Song of Eastlake when it was in the planning stages; billed as a "multiversal" hexcrawl, it's a free compilation of 16+ hexcrawls by different creators that were all made using the same prompt. I think it's really interesting because it shows how different people can interpret a single idea . . . plus, it's really good.
• I've mentioned FTW before, and the author has just released a new version. There's about 10 pages of rules, 100 pages of spells, monsters, and treasure, and some really cool looking art.
• Luna Rose Manor has just released Soho Lakes, a solo journaling game about documenting cryptids in a haunted forest. It's got a really cool hook where if your character dies you mail the journal you've been keeping to another player to pick up where you left off.
• Stalls of the Blood Queen is an adventure for Mausritter. It's somewhat horror-themed, and comes with a ton of content, including printable item cards and paper minis.
• The works of xiombarg on itch are new to me, but I just saw they've released a massive, centuries-spanning adventure for Liminal Horror called QU33. It looks like there's a ton of content in this mega-adventure.
• Bite-Sized Gaming has released Faction Relics for Pirate Borg, which contains pretty much what it sees on the tin. We're actually hosting two games of Pirate Borg this week in conjunction with speak like a pirate day, and I always love seeing new supplements for PB.
• Pirates of the Goblin River is a 2nd level adventure for DCC that is part of a planned adventure path by the author. I'm not positive, but it looks like it can be easily used as a stand-alone adventure as well.
• Another DCC adventure, this one also for 2nd level characters, is Tragedy at Wood-Witch Rise. It's designed to be run in a single session.
• 7th Impact is a zine written for Mork Borg. What caught my eye is that much of the content is inspired by Neon Genesis Evangelion. This is apparently a compilation of work the author has previously released, although I must confess it is the first time I've been aware of their work.
• I've mentioned previous works of Hellwinter Forge of Wonders, and they've just released a new adventure, Raiders of the Forlorn Gods. Full disclosure, the author sent me a comp copy of the adventure, and I'm in the process of reading through it right now.
• Every once in awhile when compiling releases I come across something that reminds me I need to order a restock of a product. This morning, that release is Visitors to Fairhaven, a new 'zine for the Weird Heroes of Public Access setting by Stefan Surratt. We've had the . . . previous three issues, I think, in stock, and they've all sold out super quickly. The new release has an adventure plus some supplemental material to help flesh out Fairhaven. I'm a big fan of WHPA, and am glad to see that the line is continuing.
• Unbreakable Pathways crossed my social media feed and I was immediately intrigued. It's a collection of Asian-focused adventures, written for a variety of systems (including Errant, an OSR system by Ava Islam that I don't think gets nearly enough love), and by largely Asian authors. It looks like there's some really nice stuff in here.
• Casket of Fays is out with Issue #14, a real milestone for this free Dragon Warriors fanzine. I'm always happy to help promote these, as it's truly a labor of love by the authors. This issue has 32-pages, and even if you don't play Dragon Warriors there's plenty of great inspirational material in here.
• I'm always interested in seeing new releases that help with solo gaming -- solo games make up a surprising percentage of the rpg sales at Sabre, exceeding sales of official D&D products -- and oraKVLT is an intriguing new release that bills itself as a "sandbox line crawler". The one downside I see is it is designed to be printed on an 11 x 17 sheet of paper, which not everyone has access to, but it otherwise looks to be an excellent addition to solo play oracular engines.
• Also, pursuant to the interests of many readers, we just got in a huge lot of used OSR and indie titles, many of them in near mint condition, and have added them to our used games inventory on the website.

 

[thirdkingdom]

Welcome to the third news roundup in September. I don't usually promote works that have been released in the past, but would like to make an exception. Davide Quatrini reached out to me a few weeks ago (sorry this is late), asking me to mention their work. They've released a half-dozen titles with a varied range, covering Roundup-favorite systems like Troika!, Into the Odd, Basic Roleplaying, CY-Borg, and more. Speaking of Troika!, there are two weeks left on the Troika! 2024 Bundle of Holding offering. It's a fantastic deal on a bunch of great products.

• I experienced my first failed Kickstarter with the recently launched Hexcrawl Daily Calendar. It was apparent after a week that it wasn't going to hit funding, so I canceled it and retooled it to remove the tear-away calendar (which was driving the vast majority of the cost) and only publish the Daily Hex Workbook. My plan is to work next year on the calendar and try to get more wholesale orders before launch, so I can lower the amount needed (I need to print 1,000 calendars to get reasonably priced custom options). I hope you'll support the reworked project. I'm going to launch it today.
• The Tome of Adventure Design, by Matt Finch, is probably one of the most used resources at my table, and I was excited to hear that Mythmere is raising funds for another two books in the same vein, with one focused on world-building and the other being devoted purely to name generation. This project goes live Tuesday.
• I've mentioned before about how PirateBorg is my favorite of all the Borg family; the publishers are running a Kickstarter campaign for Pirate Borg: Down Among the Dead, a collection of supplements for PB. There's a ton of cool stuff in here, including a naval playmat, ship tokens, and more.
• While not really OSR, Root the RPG is a title we are constantly selling out of at Sabre, and I'm excited to see a new supplement being funded right now. Ruins & Rolls offers rules for adding dungeon-crawling to Root as well as some custom Root Dice.
• While scrolling social media I see a suprising number of questions about running a heist or crime-themed OSR game. The recently released (and free!) Blades in the Odd system by Murkdice combines the well-regarded Blades in the Dark with Into the Odd, to create a system that allows for gritty, grimy fantasy heist or gang-style games.
• The Line, by boryan, is a submission to the Vaults of Vaarn summer jam. It's a point-crawl based around a fallen space elevator, and looks really nicely done.
• R Rook Studios is one of my favorite indie publishers (you can find an interview I did with them here) and they've just released The Haunting of Cliff Cove, a Scooby-Doo inspired zine that was funded as part of ZIMO24. In addition to being a fantastic author, Richard's releases have amazing art and layout that really just make the projects some of the best all-around books I've seen. At the same time Richard has also released Lunaris, for Liminal Horror, and Mysteries of Rose Island, Vol. 1, a collection of adventures for the fantastic Moonlight on Roseville Beach.
• Something Sinister at Candlewax Cabin is an OSE adventure available on both Drivethru and itch. It's designed as a sidequest or one-shot, and is horror-themed just in time for Halloween.
• A Baker's Dozen of d66 Lists grabbed my attention. A collection of, as it says on the tin, thirteen d66 lists, there's a bunch of stuff in here to spark the imagination and run with.
• I'm not familiar with Cloud Press, but they've released a PWYW adventure for Knave 2e entitled Turn it Off. It makes great use of public domain art, which is something I always like to see, and the layout is clean and easy to follow.
• I'd mentioned Mythmere Games upcoming Kickstarter, but Matt's been busy with other stuff, as well, having released The Big Book of NPCs, a collection of NPCs for each class featured in SW Expanded, up to at least 9th level, plus some collections of NPCs like caravans. I love products like this.
• The Vault of the Emerald Key is a Shadowdark adventure designed for characters of levels 2-4. The premise definitely reminds me of an adventure from Dungeon magazine, and I totally mean this as a compliment!
• I've mentioned Hugh Lashbrooke's releases in the past; they've been putting out a series of quaint and delightful adventures for Mausritter. The Rending of the Sun is written for both Mausritter and Knave 2e; I'm curious to see how this translates across systems, which have different aims and assumptions behind them. I've been really impressed with the author's Mausritter products, so if anyone can do it I think they can.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Sorry about the campaign. I'm glad you're getting back on the horse, though.

 

[thirdkingdom]

Sorry about the campaign. I'm glad you're getting back on the horse, though.

My first failed project in over twenty. Was bound to happen at some point. I'm working on a blog post addressing this, about how to get back on the horse and move on after a failure.