OSR OSR News Roundup
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And we've got Lucid in stock!
Lucid: Sea of Dreams | Sabre Games
Dreams are dangerous.A roleplaying game about Lucid Dreamers and their adventures, tribulations, and mysteries in the Waking World and the Sea of Dreams. Inspired by dreams, nightmares, and Jewish folklore (and much much more). Has been described as 'inside-out meets pan's labyrinth' A super...
www.sabregamesandcards.com
Welcome to the last Roundup for June. We're also halfway through the year, and less than a month out from GenCon, which is usually a slow time for releases as publishers work on getting their ducks in a row for the biggest convention of the year. I will likely not be publishing a Roundup next week; with SabreCon going on at the store I'm not sure I'm going to have time.
- Odinson Games has released Knight of the Corpse Trials on itch. Written of Cairn, it's a forest hex-crawl with gothic horror vibes, as the adventurers are sent to capture a celebrated knight who seems to have gone crazy and is exhuming corpses to put them on trial.
- Grinning Rat has released The Outcast, the Witch, and the Shepherd as part of the Cairn Backgrounds jam. These are three science fantasy backgrounds for use with Cairn 2e.
- Another entry to the jam is the Biomechanist, by Francisco Lemos. This background is available in both English and Spanish. One of the things that has been really neat to watch happening in the Cairn community are all the translations that have taken place; at last count Cairn is available in at least ten languages, an impressive feat for an indie game.
- There's a third entry to the jam: the Colonial Rebel background, inspired by Andor and published by Riles.
- Corvid Court, by Gila RPGs, is a game about bad people doing bad things in a city filled with even worse people. Also, you might be birds?
- Eco Mofos is one of my favorite games released last year, and there's been a ton of great community content written for it, as well. Dream Church Seed Vault takes place in an abandoned movie theater from ages past.
- Necrotic Gnome has released the Dolmenwood Creator's Guide, everything you need to know to publish your own material for DW. The pdfs for Dolmenwood are also available. I'm not going to link to all of them, but here's the Campaign Guide.
- I think everybody's waiting with bated breath for the physical release of Dolmenwood. 2Die10 Games has just released three titles for the setting: a short starter delve called Into the Dolmens, Books of Dolmenwood, and The Wrowl, a Kindred Class.
- Mork Stad is another Borg adjacent release, this one set in a twisted, alternate reality version of London. It looks well done, and has some neat ideas in there.
- I'd mentioned Barrows and Borderlands awhile back, and I see the author has just released Barrows and Borderlands, Electric Boogaloo, a collection of house rules and esoterica that will be updated as warranted.
- Mister Smith Designs has released Sour Grapes, an adventure written for OSE that features an undead vinter and their estate.
- I'd mentioned the Mortdraken RPG (and have an interview with the author coming up, as soon as I take care of some other things) and it's now available on Drivethrurpg. I really like the art in this game.
- Max Moon is Kickstarting Twelve Years at Sea, a solo+ game of nautical exploration inspired by weird fiction, mythology, and Ray Harryhausen films.
- We've added two new products to our inventory that I have been really excited about and waiting for their release:
- The Cairn 2e boxset. It's gorgeous, and longtime readers of this roundup will know that there's an active and vibrant community of folks publishing content for Cairn.
- Lucid: Sea of Dreams. I posted a few months back about this project from 2022, and how the author pushed forward through a bad case of writer's block and other issues, and has finally released the finished zine. It looks amazing, and I'm really glad we've got some in stock, and that the author was able to bring this project to completion. Kudos!
My apologies for missing last week's Roundup; we had SabreCon going on that weekend, and I was wiped out. I'd like to thank Lyme, author of Dawn of the Orcs (Ennie-nominated!) for showing up for all three days and helping us out, as well as Josh McCrowell, author of His Majesty the Worm (also Ennie-nominated!) for running a game of HMtW on Sunday.
The Friday of SabreCon the Ennie nominations also dropped. I was really pleased to see the number of indie titles dominating this year's awards. Please, take a few moments to vote for your favorites, here.
Since this is a two-week Roundup I'm going to dive right in and see what we missed from the past two weeks. My apologies if I don't catch everything.
The Friday of SabreCon the Ennie nominations also dropped. I was really pleased to see the number of indie titles dominating this year's awards. Please, take a few moments to vote for your favorites, here.
Since this is a two-week Roundup I'm going to dive right in and see what we missed from the past two weeks. My apologies if I don't catch everything.
- Eldritch Instinct is a game of cosmic horror based on Cairn. I'm only linking to the itch version (I try to promote itch links when possible), but there is a Drivethru POD option the author links to from their itch page.
- Planet Gnome has released the Stranded Astronaut as an entry to the Cairn science-fantasy background jam.
- We don't see many releases on ko-fi, but chrispychickin has released The Muttering Obelisk on that platform. It's a system-neutral module for OSR-style games.
- I've mentioned the Glowburn & Radscars system before, and the author has just released The Soul Jar, an adventure for G&R. Originally written as part of the Appendix N jam, this project turned out to be a bit too long for that project, so was released independently.
- Speaking of the Appendix N jam, The Gnôles of Nuth is an entry into that project, written for Into the Odd.
- Another entry in the jam is Jungle of the Jade Jaguar, which is a truly visually striking release. It uses a unique d12 system, as well.
- Goblinpitgames has released Temple at Mount Sampo, an adventure for their Miasma and Monsters system and the follow-up to their last released adventure.
- Kevin Crawford is one of my favorite publishers, and he's just released his newest Without Numbers book; Ashes Without Numbers brings his amazing system to the apocalypse, or, rather, the post-apocalypse. It's now out on Drivethru.
- Star Borg: Big Book of Bots is a supplement for Star Borg that introduces ten new bot classes to the game.
- Skin City looks like a really fun setting for Into the Odd. You play animated skeletons, tasked with wearing human skin-suits and infiltrating the last remaining city of humans.
- Written as an introductory adventure for Shadowdark, Into the Shadows features art by a bunch of recognizable OSR figures, with an upcoming print version. It sounds like a classic low-level adventure setup, which isn't necessarily a bad thing!
- I'm a big fan of procedural generation tools, and was excited to see The OSR Infinite Depths Dungeon Crawl System is designed to be used solo or with a group to randomly generate dungeons.
- Days of the Plague is a fascinating little game I saw pop up on Drivethru the other day. It's set in the societal collapse of Italy during the Black Plague.
- I've admired the work of Fernando Salvaterra for awhile now, especially their hex maps, and I saw they just released a mini pack of four monster stock art images on Drivethru.
- I saw this on social media a few weeks back, and it is in my queue for publications to check out: The Book of Winter. Published by Hellwinter Forge of Wonders, this release revises the ranger class in OSR games, with a particular emphasis on cold weather environments.
- I thought I had recommended Chain Censer #1 awhile back, but I see it is still funding on KS, so I must have made a mistake. Anyway, it's a zine by the talented Donn Stroud for the game Ruination Pilgrimage. You should check it out!
- Engram is currently funding on Kickstarter. It's a scenario for Mothership, centered on unscrupulous, mind-controlling mining company and a brewing rebellion among the workers.
- It seems like it's been ages since I mentioned a project by Philip Reed; he's got Enchanted Loot currently funding, a card deck of magic items for Shadowdark.
- Lotta Shadowdark this week: Sapphire Seas is a nautical hexcrawl adventure path written for characters of levels 1-10.
We're more than halfway through July, and GenCon is next weekend. I hope everyone who is going has a safe, fun trip, and gets plenty of gaming in. Additionally, Drivethrurpg is having their annual Christmas in July sale, with a bunch of titles on sale, including most of those by yours truly. It's usually a quiet week for gaming releases around this time of year, so let's dive right in and see what is new.
- First off, I realized I dropped the ball on something; I've mentioned several Appendix N game jam products, but totally forgot to link to the jam itself. It's a retro-themed project (submissions must be in by the end of July, so pardon this tardiness), with the goal of creating a short (four A5 pages) module of some sort based of a randomly assigned title. There's been some really creative stuff coming out of this project (and some super cool cover pages based on pulp covers), plus there are cash prizes!
- Another itch jam that just started is the Indie Adventure Jam. It's pretty open-ended; write an adventure for a game that you think needs more support. No AI or being a jerk. It's long running, too, with submissions due September 17th.
- Jonah's Monster is a short and sweet, deadly and profane, one-shot adventure written for Cairn set in a desert.
- A submission to the Appendix N jam is Pawns of the Mind Masters, by MeatCastle GameWare, an adventure focused on illusion and deception. It features art by Perplexing Ruins (they're trying to do game art full time, so if you need art, please reach out to them!).
- The Crypt of Lowell is a longer adventure for Cairn, clocking in at 24 pages. It's designed to be used either as a solo or group adventure. The crypt of a saint is no longer the holy place it once was.
- I love me some bestiaries, and Creatures Fantastic and Terrible was just released on itch. It's got 21 new monsters, applicable to a broad array of OSR-systems, written and illustrated by the author of A Street-level Guide to Urban Troika.
- Jeffrey Jones is back at it again, with Issue 8 of Gary's Appendix. This one focuses on lycanthropy, with contributions from a variety of authors in the OSR-sphere.
- My daughter was speech-delayed as a toddler, so we learned sign language as a family so we could communicate with her. She's speaking now, and sadly we've forgotten most of what we learned, but I was excited to see that Hatchlings is funding Underisles, the third in their series of games aimed at teaching American and British sign language through gaming. We've stocked the first two (looks like we only have Overisle in stock right now), but I'll be sure to pick up the trilogy when it comes in. Accessibility in gaming is a growing topic as more people are finding their way into the hobby, and this is a great addition.
- Tales of Argosa is one of the current favorite OSR systems, and I've been pleased to see more releases for it, both official and 3rd party. The Warlord Class is one such 3rd party release, and does pretty much what it says on the tin.
- Kobayashi is the author of the Black Sword Hack and a few other well-regarded releases, and I just saw today they've released Golem Parade, a game where you play golems created by demented mages, along with what look to be some intriguing mechanics to build the setting. The art is pixel-style, which I absolutely adore.
- I had mentioned Mana Meltdown a few months back when Lazy Litch was raising funds for it; the pdf is now out on Drivethru. It's an interesting, psionic themed battle royale style adventure. Lazy Litch consistently puts out great products, and this one is certainly worth a look.
- Andrew Cavanagh has released Cairn: Lair of the Frost Witch, a short, cold themed adventure for Cairn. They've generously included the whole adventure in the preview on Drivethru, so you can check it out before you buy.
- I've been following Muzgrob's work on the OSE Discord, and was really excited when they released their first product, the Cobbin class for Dolmenwood. I think this might also be the first 3pp Dolmenwood product I've seen?
- Issue 48 of Populates Hexes Monthly is almost at the end of its crowdfunding run, with only a day or two left at the time of this posting. This issue, rounding out the fourth year of monthly OSR publications, contains two small dungeons that tie into the larger sewer system of Dry Gulch.
- Mind over Matter, my new book of old-school psionic rules, is now available in its entirety as a free, no art version. Includes a conversion of the 3rd edition Book of Nine Swords to OSR games. The full art pdf is also available on Drivethru, here, as well as the Sabre Games website.
Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
This is a really cool jam and I think I can get something knocked out in time, but the cover is what's tripping me up. It would take me a ton of time to create something appropriate. Does anyone know if there are cool paperback templates for Affinity Publisher or free clip art that I could use to build one?
Um, shoot, let me see what I can dig up. I'm 99% sure I saw someone posting that very thing on Bluesky.
EDIT: Actually, that's where I saw it. At the bottom of the Jam page there's a list of resources.
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Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
Serves me right for not scrolling all the way down
Also, I'm not sure if you're on Discord or not, but Tony Vasinda of Plus One Exp is involved with this one, and they're always really good about helping out and providing guidance.
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