OSR OSR News Roundup

[thirdkingdom]

Welcome to the first News Roundup of November, steaming towards the end of the year. I had a number of people reach out to me to share their new releases, which always makes me happy because it makes my life easier and tells me that people are interested in this newsletter.

• I don't share as much about Dragonbane, for some reason, but it definitely falls into the Old School Category. Tom Lagier has released Belles of the Bog, a tongue-in-cheek adventure inspired by Mark Twain's riverboat tales. It's an impressive almost eighty-page long.
• Raiders on Strange Tides is written to be compatible with Mythic Bastionland, a supplement that provides myths for use on sea voyages.
• Studio Zozomis is raising funds for Ephemeris: Omens of the Blood Comet on Kickstarter. It's a stand-alone, retrofuturist game set on a mysterious planet, and is about vampires. The art is absolutely stunning, much of it done in a bleak and simple woodcut style.
• Retrofit Games has released White City on itch, a game system and collection of supplements for role-playing as occult investigator's during the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. It's a really impressive collection and a neat idea.
• The Knights, the Terror, and the Quest for Glory is a short, solo-journaling game inspired by Arthurian legends. It's designed to be played in about a half hour, so it looks to be a great option when you've got some time to kill and want something to do other than doomscrolling.
• Mausritter Month is coming up in a few days, and some folks are hosting a Mausritter jam on itch. Submissions open on November 11th, so not this week, but I wanted to go ahead and promote it early so if you're interested you could start throwing some ideas around.
• Jellyfishlines has released Dreamscapes, a dream logic inspired system agnostic dungeon. It was a submission to the Random Prompt jam on itch.
• Mork Sol is funding on Kickstarter, a mashup of Mork Borg and CY_Borg, set in a dying, hellish universe with no salvation in sight.
• Eric Bloat has released Operation BX, a modern supplement for OSE/BX designed for running WWII-style games, and its companion Into the Dark, which adds magic to the setting for a Weird War-type game.
• Joseph Lewis has released Lovely Jade Necropolis, an adventure for Shadowdark, OSE, and Cairn, bringing necromancers and fey into conflict and throwing the adventurers into the midst.
• Elfgame, by Savvy Thief Studios, is an interesting anti-clone, specifically designed to eschew Gygaxianisms and the typical mechanics of older games while making something old school in spirit, style, and play.
• I'm always excited to see a Basic Fantasy product come along; it's a solid system that's been overshadowed by OSE, and Chris really provides a lot of bang for the buck with supplements. While not an official adventure, Estates of the Eliari is written for Basic Fantasy, and provides random generation tools to ensure the adventure is never the same twice. The same publisher has also released Blades and Barklings and Terror in Tosanth.
• Quest Giver is a system-neutral collection of quests and plot hooks that can be used to motivate players or generate adventure seeds. It makes nice use of public domain art, which I'm always a fan of.
• Another new release making use of public domain art is the Bounty Hunter, a new class for Dolmenwood.
• Another Dolmenwood release is Wulvs, a playable kindred, the weird folk who dwell in the Northern Scratch.
• Forneus Research Base, by Melsonian Arts Council, is an adventure for Stay Frosty, a space marine sci-fi game.
• Written as a system-neutral generator for artifacts and other legendary items, Arcane Relics provides rules and guidelines for generating powerful items you can use as campaign drivers or quest items.
• Adam Station is raising funds for 100 Strangers, a collection of 100 unique NPCs to use in sci-fi games. They are the creative force behind the recently released Infinity of Ships, which we just got into stock.
• Populated Hexes Monthly Year Four is funding on Kickstarter. I'm raising money for new, commissioned art, to replace the original stock art I used, and an offset print run. Issues 37-48 contains a bunch of stuff; new races, classes, monsters, and of course drop-in hex locations that can be used to spice up your hexcrawl.

 

[thirdkingdom]

Welcome to the second News Roundup of November, 2025. The big news is that Mausritter Month is upon us, on Backerkit, and there are some really neat projects being funded right now. All of the projects look fantastic, and you should check them out. One of the ones I'm really excited about is the only one (at the time of this writing, at least) that hasn't fully funded: Mechritter is pretty much what it says on the tin, but instead of minis it comes with a selection of mix and match stickers to build your mouse 'mechs. But honestly, they all look amazing.

We had a pretty packed week last week, but this week is a bit slower, it seems. Still, there's some really cool stuff for you to check out!

• I've been a big fan of David Blandy for awhile now -- he was one of the first publishers I carried when I first opened the webstore -- and last week he reached out to let me know about a project that I, ironically, was already following and really excited about. ECO Mofos was released . . . jeez, has it really been two years? . . . well, awhile back. It's billed as a weirdhope game of post-apocalyptic survival, and the game is pretty fantastic. David and co are currently crowdfunding Islands of Weirdhope, an official supplement for ECO Mofos. It's being described as "Windwalker meets Waterworld."
• Oudfort, by jcd, is a short adventure set in their "Grassbraids" setting, itself an offspring of the Gygax75 challenge. Oudfort, however, can be easily dropped into any system or setting. It features an old fortress from a more prosperous time, but the cliff upon which it is perched has partially collapsed, providing a hook for investigation. What secrets have been revealed?
• I'd mentioned Fortnightly Adventures a few Roundups back; vol. 2 is now available. It's statted for OSE. This adventure takes place on a remote island and features a mini-hexcrawl and environmental challenges.
• Into the Deep Country is a hexcrawl written for Into the Odd. It's one part hexcrawl, one part hexcrawl toolkit generator, and includes rules for hexcrawling in Into the Odd.
• Merry Manticore has published The Secret Life of Monsters, a supplement for OSR-style games designed to make encounters more interesting.
• Ever & Anon, the spiritual successor to Alarums and Excursions, has just released their fifth issue of entirely free content for all different kinds of games. It's 183 page of gaming goodness, and is definitely worth checking out.
• Choir of Flesh is a complete ttrpg, set in the year 1000 AD, in a medieval Europe in the middle of the Rapture, but not the one expected by the faithful of the church and cathedral.
• I'd also mentioned Ruination Pilgrimage awhile back when it was crowdfunding; Chain Censer #1 is now out, the official zine for that system, and if features art by a ton of Roundup favorites.
• It Comes from the Deep is funding on Kickstarter. It's a two-fer adventure for Pirate Borg. I'm glad to see Pirate Borg getting more support these days.
• Another game funding on Kickstarter is Notorious: Tales of Hardscrabble Bounty Hunting. It's a solo, sci-fi ttrpg that uses cards to drive the narrative forward. The art is really nice, reminiscent of the Painted Wastelands.
• There's only a couple of days left to back Populated Hexes Monthly, Year Four. It compiles Issues 37-48 into a single volume, and will be replacing all of the stock art I used in the original issues with commissioned art.