Yeah, no kidding! I was really surprised at the number of releases this week.
OSR OSR News Roundup
- Thread starter thirdkingdom
- Start date
Yeah, no kidding! I was really surprised at the number of releases this week.
Welcome to the third OSR News Roundup for September 2025. There were a ton of entries last week; one reader commented that it was like everyone got home from summer break and pressed publish at the same time. Let's see if this week continues at the same pace. A warning, though, that itch was acting up for me over the weekend with extremely slow lead times, so I didn't spend as much time on that platform as I usually do.
This roundup does not include products that contain AI assets. I refuse to promote anything that uses AI, and most of the time I can tell if a product does or not. However, in this release I had to pass over some nice looking releases on Drivethru because I couldn't tell if they had AI or not: no artist was listed, and the publishers did not check the box during setup that indicated if it was handmade or used AI assets. If you're a publisher that doesn't use AI assets I really encourage you to make use of the "Creation when setting up your file on Drivethru. It looks like this:
This roundup does not include products that contain AI assets. I refuse to promote anything that uses AI, and most of the time I can tell if a product does or not. However, in this release I had to pass over some nice looking releases on Drivethru because I couldn't tell if they had AI or not: no artist was listed, and the publishers did not check the box during setup that indicated if it was handmade or used AI assets. If you're a publisher that doesn't use AI assets I really encourage you to make use of the "Creation when setting up your file on Drivethru. It looks like this:
- Everyone can use a stable of NPCs to pull from, and Coyote has just published Jim the Goblin to itch. Jim's statted to be system agnostic and can be used to aid or bedevil your party. He's a bit like Nobby, from Discworld.
- Ecstatic Entropy Games has released Effigies of Inveracity, a collection of new classes for BX-style games. The classes smooth out the attack and saving throw matrices, making for a more even progression.
- I've linked to merwin's releases back when they were using kofi as a hosting platform; they've made the jump over to itch, and have just released Voice of the Screaming Mountain, an incursion for the excellent Trophy Dark game. It's a game about treasure hunters seeking pearls, and includes a bunch of files to help run/play the adventure, including audio files, which is a really nice touch.
- I'd mentioned the Blood Sands awhile back, and Denizens of the Blood Sands is now out. Statted for OSE, and with a John Carter of Mars/sword and planet feel to it, this is a bestiary for the eponymous Blood Sands setting.
- Jeffrey Jones has released Gary's Appendix Issue 8 on Drivethru, a collection of essays, options, adventures, and more for Old School Essentials and other similar games. This issue features lycanthropes.
- Hyper Neon Racers is a dystopic future car racing game, using Into the Odd as the system of choice with a little bit of Mythic Bastionland thrown in for good measure.
- If there's a button to push or lever to pull in an adventure you can almost guarantee that the players will fiddle with it, and the new release Billions of Buttons helps scratch that itch. It's an excel spreadsheet (and requires excel to use) that randomizes buttons with outcomes, providing an astounding number of combinations.
- The McHack is a rules-lite BX hack that uses a d20 for combat and a d12 for most other resolution mechanics. It looks like a fun, streamlined version of BX.
- I'd mentioned the Solo Compendium a few roundups back, and now Vol. 2 is out, with even more resources for people to run OSR solo games.
- The Accursed Rock is an adventure for Cairn or other similar games, in which the PCs are washed ashore on a desolate island after their ship goes down.
- Benthic: The Scattered Sea Floor is a neat looking adventure for Pirate Borg that is currently funding on Kickstarter. It is a deep sea hexcrawl with some really cool concepts, and a soundtrack!
- The Bree-YARC Quickstart is still funding on Kickstarter, and you can download the free pdf prior to backing. I'm just raising funds for art/offset printing. It's a mix of BX and 3rd edition D&D, with an emphasis on exploration, discovery, and downtime activities.
- I'm a big fan of Joey Royale's Weird Heroes of Public Access -- Sabre has carried their zines in the past, and they always sell well -- and I'm pleased to announce that we now carry the Weird Heroes rpg! If you want to play a Welcome to Nightvale or UHF-style game this is the system for you!
Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
This is a great idea for an NPC, although Coyote notes that it would be a good insert for Mork Borg. But people don't hang around goblins in Mork Borg unless they want to turn into goblins themselves, thanks to the curse. So probably good for all systems but Mork Borg.
We're heading into the tail end of September, and staring down towards the end of 2025. First, I'd like to apologize to Ron Sparks of BoredtoBoardGames. He reached out to me over the summer and asked me to mention his new release Against the Dark!, and I totally dropped the ball on it. Sorry! So, he gets a special shoutout. Against the Dark! is written for Shadowdark and has two new ancestries and five new classes. Most intriguing to me is that it includes grafting rules, for players interested in grafting different monster parts onto their body to gain supernatural abilities.
With that out of the way, and my sincerest apologies, let's jump into the meat of the Roundup, shall we?
With that out of the way, and my sincerest apologies, let's jump into the meat of the Roundup, shall we?
- Few have done more to support and promote the OSR-style of gaming than Jason Hobbs, and he's just released Bite the Bullet, and Into the Odd-adjacent, We Deal in Lead (by Colin Le Sueur) inspired game of post-apocalyptic gunslingers.
- The deluxe version of What Dust Remains, by momatoes, is now available on itch. This is a GM-less game for 1-3 players that explores legacy and sacrifice, and is absolutely gorgeous. The layout is stunning. If this doesn't get an Ennie nomination next year I'll be shocked.
- Belly of the Beast is an adventure for Cairn 2e, set in the soon-to-immolate corpse of an enormous, ancient dragon. Can you retrieve the many treasures contained within its bellies before the great wyrm bursts into flame?
- Roundup favorite Amanda P was kind enough to send me an advance copy of Orestruck, their new adventure. It's a whirlwind of an adventure, sent in the same Tannic forest as her previous adventure, and has a number of sub-plots and tales woven together around the central theme. It's available on itch and Drivethru. It's a delight, and while I've just read it and haven't had a chance to run it I strongly suggest checking it out.
- Rune-Borg is a background inspired by the Cairn 2e Science-Fantasy Background jam, and itself is inspired by the TV show Arcane, speaking of grafting.
- Promising to release before Halloween, A Haunting in Glass is currently funding on Kickstarter. It's an adventure for Shadowdark, designed for characters between levels 3-5, with strong themes of horror and madness.
- Empedocles the Wizard has released Rest and Recovery in Bathhouses, a little pamphlet with system-agnostic mechanics for health and healing using bathhouses, saunas, and relaxation.
- I thought I had posted about Glatistant, but it looks like I didn't. It's a two-player Arthurian rpg, where one player takes the role of the knight errant and the other the role of the questing beast. It's a neat concept, and I really like the art.
- Pest Control is a mini-dungeon published by Neoclassical Geek Revival, available in print from this booth at GenCon2025.
- Invasion of the Space ROBOTS is an expansion to Forbidden Psalms, a miniatures game based on and inspired by Mork Borg.
- Written for Shadowdark, Veilstone is a gothic western, set on an alternate Earth, during the California gold rush.
- The Morksons is a Mork Borg hack that lets you play morbid families of TV: the Addams Family, the Munsters, Beetlejuice, and more.
- One of my first rpg purchasers as a youngster was the collected B1-B9 In Search of Adventure, and I remember The Journey to the Rock clearly. Journey Under the Rock is inspired by that module, with a little bit of Donkey Kong country mixed in.
- I've released the Ranger for Bree-YARC, levels 1-4 of the ranger class for the Bree-YARC Quickstart. It's my take on a magic-less ranger.
Welcome to the last OSR News Roundup in September. This month has just flown by, at least for me, and we're staring down the barrel of the gun that is the end of the year. The past couple weeks have been pretty busy, and next month is the Backerkit sponsored Mothership Month, so we'll likely be seeing a ton of new Mothership related projects funding in the next few months. I'll be posting active links when they pop up, but to see what all the fuss is about here's the general launch page.
This week seems pretty slow, no doubt with folks gearing up for the usual slew of spooky and Halloween-themed releases. One other thing I've noticed, and this is purely anecdotal, is that crowdfunding projects don't seem to be generating as much support as they did up till fairly recently. If you're currently running a project, or have finished one recently, I'd be curious to find out if this is the case or if it is just my imagination.
This week seems pretty slow, no doubt with folks gearing up for the usual slew of spooky and Halloween-themed releases. One other thing I've noticed, and this is purely anecdotal, is that crowdfunding projects don't seem to be generating as much support as they did up till fairly recently. If you're currently running a project, or have finished one recently, I'd be curious to find out if this is the case or if it is just my imagination.
- Matt Kelly has released Connections, a short, system agnostic system for downtime and domain play that helps to define relationships between PCs and NPCs.
- We just got Welcome to Night Vale in stock, and Absurdia, currently funding on Backerkit, looks like it might do as good a job, if not better, of recreating the absurd and surreal humor in that podcast.
- I missed this last week, but it seems like we need to see more stuff like this in the world: Fast Food Fascists has the players take the role of resistance fighters in a world dominated by fast food corporations.
- New (to me) publisher Radmad RPGs has released Wages for the Dead, a sweet little supplement for Electric Bastionland that has eight failed careers that revolve around death and undeath. It makes great use of public domain art from the British Museum.
- Mark Hunt is one of the unsung workhorses of the OSR community, probably best known for Gangbusters BX, their clone of the classic Gangbusters game. They've just released Siege at Perdition Jail, an adventure for the Tall Tales BX system.
- Wytchin Hour has released Worldbuilding: Creating Grasslands, a short little system-neutral supplement to help Referees make grasslands more exciting environments for play.
- I've mentioned Berserkr before, the Mork Borg clone of norse adventure, and the author has just released Blood & Ice, a supplement for Berserkr that provides solo rules for that game.
- Journeymen, Expert, Master (or JEM) is an OSR-clone, and Advanced Fantasy: Race as Class is a supplement for OSR games that provides race as class options.
- Powder, Blood & Brine is a Pirate Borg supplement aimed at abstracting naval combat to allow it to be played via theater of the mind.
- James Floyd Kelly is raising funds for a fantasy zine double feature: Delver 19 (for OSE) and Runes 8 (for Shadowdark). They're a consistent publisher, and you can't go wrong by backing this campaign.
- I've uploaded The Sorcerer for Bree-YARC, the first four levels of the Sorcerer class, usable with the Bree-YARC ruleset.
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Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
The Appendix N Jam is going to hold their end of judging livestream this afternoon and, I believe, announce which entries are going to be compiled into hard copy. Some entrants are established pros, so I would bet on a compilation of mostly big name OSR folks doing fun four-page adventures.
www.youtube.com
Appx. N Jam Awards Livestream!
We'll be announcing the winners of the Appx. N Itch Jam as well as our honorable mentions and chatting!Hosted by @Jorphdan @DankDungeons Skullboy, and Tony...
www.youtube.com
Good luck with your entry!The Appendix N Jam is going to hold their end of judging livestream this afternoon and, I believe, announce which entries are going to be compiled into hard copy. Some entrants are established pros, so I would bet on a compilation of mostly big name OSR folks doing fun four-page adventures.
Appx. N Jam Awards Livestream!
We'll be announcing the winners of the Appx. N Itch Jam as well as our honorable mentions and chatting!Hosted by @Jorphdan @DankDungeons Skullboy, and Tony...
Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
Honestly, I'm so happy with my entry (which I'll do a light editing pass and change the body font on), that compilation would just be gravy.
