OSR OSR News Roundup

[thirdkingdom]

A Mothership adventure taking place in a house threw me for a second, but presumably not everyone in Mothership lives in a space station or a starship.

Yeah, I did a doubletake with it as well, tbh.

 

[thirdkingdom]

Welcome to the third news Roundup for February. We're in the thick of ZineMonth, as I believe I've mentioned once or twice before? Anyway, I've been conducting and posting print interviews on the blog (you can search for them using the ZiMo26 tag) and audio interviews that you can find on the nascent Sabre Rattlings podcast (the link is the RSS feed), all to promote ZineMonth creators.

I don't know why I missed this last week, but the No ICE in Minnesota bundle is live on itch. It contains almost 1,500 titles and all proceeds go to support a great cause.

Let's dive in and see what other projects were released last week:

• Roundup favorite Inkwell Ideas, the creator of the excellent Worldographer mapping program, is crowdfunding for Rock and Roar, a collection of monsters based on classic rock songs and artists! It's a pretty cool-looking project!
• New to me is the Menu zine, on itch, a collection of articles geared towards various rpgs. It's primarily 5e focused, but there's some interesting Shadowdark and other OSR material in there, as well.
• ManaDawn Games has released Valley of Wrecked Fortunes, a mini gothic hexcrawl that's a collaboration between Matt and Roundup favorite Perplexing Ruins.
• I had mentioned Abigail's Wedding, by doogface, awhile back, and just saw they've released a six page updated version, again with art by Perplexing Ruins. The updated version looks really good.
• Echoes of Mnareth is an interesting dungeon by Gnarled Monster that started as a one-page dungeon inspired by the Caverns of Thracia that has grown into something much longer.
• Necrotic Gnome has released a new collection of four Referee screen inserts on Drivethru.
• Kevin Crawford is, for my money, one of the best OSR small press publishers out there, and they've just released an 80+ page setting guide on Drivethru. The Proteus Sector takes me back to the early day of SWN when Crawford was releasing a ton of supplemental stuff for it.
• Goblin Grove is a short little mini-zine and adventure focusing on the Goblin King and his stolen magical sword.
• The folks over at Red Ruin Publishing have released issue 17 of their Dragon Warriors fanzine, Casket of Fays.
• A Pirate's Life for Me is a short adventure for Pirate Borg. With the recent notification that the last big Pirate Borg Kickstarter is now fulfilling, there's no doubt going to be renewed interest in PB (my personal version of the Borgs).
• Marco Fossati has released Liber Umbrae, a system-neutral toolkit for adding horror to your rpg.
• I'd mentioned Jade and Ash before, and the author reached out to me to let me know they've bundled all four of their products into a single discounted bundle.
• Richard Barton is probably one of my favorite authors publishing today, and he's just released The Thicket, a 50-page adventure that ties into Arden Vul, the masterful mega-dungeon.
• Cairn Press has just released a Barebones edition, a a free 48-page pdf that presents a setting neutral version of Cairn.

 

[thirdkingdom]

Well, this is the last News Roundup in February, and ZineMonth is wrapping up, although there will be projects still running into March. I haven't really been covering specific projects (for one, there are really too many great sounding ones that would just overwhelm the Roundup), but have been trying to point to resources to help find them instead. I'd like to plug one specific project, though, that ends very soon (I believe on Tuesday): Seedling Games is raising funds for The Sierra Express, a game of hijinks aboard a train in an alternate reality Weird West. I've been a big fan of Seedling Games for awhile -- Procedures to Discover the Paths Ahead is a great little supplement -- and I feel bad that I missed this project until towards the end of its run. You should check it out, help push it over the finish line.

• Sivads Sanctum has been knocking it out of the park recently with their Americana inspired settings and adventures; their new one, The Parent of Fear, is a hexcrawl setting roughly analogous to the New England coast during the heyday of the whaling industry. They're slowfunding it on itch.
• I've been plugging You Can Breathe Now Games for awhile, and they've just released the poetically named In a Tomb of Splendor by the Endless Sea, an adventure for Forbidden Lands.
• Kuźnia Wyobraźni has released a cool looking mini-zine on itch: Ocarina of the Waves. It's designed to be printed and folded, and is based around the theme "waves".
• If I can confess a secret, my ideal rpg would be something like Sid Meier's Civilization (over a much shorter time span): I love the domain play aspect and city management, and was really chuffed to see Of Rule and Ruin funding on Kickstarter. It's a solo game of city management, and seems really worthwhile checking out.
• I'm not familiar with the Great Plains Apocalypse system, but I see they've just released Antler Valley; it's a hexcrawl in post-apocalyptic Appalachia.
• John Baltisberger has been putting out quality projects for years, and has just released The Catacombs of Dread King Dreg, a mini-adventure for Mork Borg.
• Brett Simpson has released Uppity Bit, the second part of Friar's Keep, featuring absolutely charming art.
• Written for Mauritter, Hearts on the Brink is a fascinating adventure location based on the remnants of a car crash that has been settled by mice.
• In the past year I've seen a lot of projects inspired by the old Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, and Experimental Playground has just released Spellzard, 2nd edition. It's a rules-lite, dry-humored rpg designed (nay, encouraged) to be hacked.
• Under an Irreverent Sky is a short retroclone designed by Orbital Intelligence that seeks to strip the OSR experience to the bare bones while including the core premises of the OSR.
• The Sandbox Generator, by Atelier Clandestin, is one of the projects always mentioned when the topic of populating a hexcrawl comes up; I haven't seen any new releases for it in awhile, but just saw they've released an Urban Expansion supplement.
• A couple of years back Eric Bloat released War for the Wastelands, a mini post-apocalyptic system, and I see they've just released an expanded, almost two hundred page version of the game, adapted to their Survive This! system.
• Outcast Silver Raiders is a really great game that is way too grimdark for me, but I still appreciate it, especially the layout and art. Altar is a 3rd party zine published for OSR, and has now just released Issue 4.
• Every so often a cool looking project drops on a Monday, after the Roundup has been posted, and I don't include it. That happened last week with The Lost Vault of Zarnak is a pretty classic dungeon crawl designed to take characters from level 1-6.
• Gründer: Business Adventure Game is live on Drivethru. It's a Mark of the Odd driven game, in which the PCs seek to found a business. Probably not everyone's jam, but I think even if not there are some useful bits and bobs one can steal, especially when your players inevitably begin talking about starting a business.
• I'm going to be launching a project on Tuesday for ZineMonth. Called The Caverns of Anamosa, I'm toying around with the idea of a campaign to take PCs from levels 1-14, based on the Adventure Path format. This is the first issue of a planned adventure path that takes the classic module B1 -- In Search of the Unknown, and fiddles with it, reworking the dungeon and extrapolating a looming barbarian invasion from the north.

 

[thirdkingdom]

Welcome to the first News Roundup for March. While ZineMonth is technically over, there are a number of projects that are still running that started late. The Roundup is pretty light this week; I think a lot of folks are just taking a deep breath and relaxing after a hectic month.

• Sivad's Sanctum has released Inn of the Red Roof, a thirteen level dungeon written for od&d. They've been posting WIP shots of this project on Bluesky for a month or so, and it looks really neat.
• The Dying River is a short, adventure pamphlet for Year 100 Million BC, in which the PCs are unexceptional cavemen sent out to find out why a river is drying up.
• I think Coyote and Crow is one of the coolest games to come out in the last few years, and they're currently Kickstarting a supplement for it. Legends & Icons is a collection of over 100 monsters, spirits, factions, and more.
• And He Shall Eat the Sun is funding on Kickstarter. It's a high-lethality, tournament-style dungeon written for OSR-style games, set in a dungeon in the body of a god.
• Outrider Creatives is funding The Princess and the Dragon, a supplement for the great Perils and Princesses game.
• The people over at Angry Golem Games as released another Fortnightly Adventures. Vol. 6, the Drowned Relic, is an adventure for lower-level characters involving sahuagin.
• The Village of Syblos is a planned adventure written for Shadowdark that the author has released a one-page preview for. It's an interesting premise, and is worth checking out just to follow the project.
• The Pirate's Hymnal is a collection of sea shanties for Pirate Borg. We should be seeing a bunch of new releases for PB in the next few months as previous crowdfunding projects come to fruition.
• Necrotic Gnome has released their Quick Delve #3, Against the Horselord. Written by Brad Kerr, it's designed for mid-level characters (levels 5-7), and one or two sessions.
• Mirror People is a short supplement for Liminal Horror that introduces the mirror people, a new monster.
• Written for the Appendix N Jam, The Chalk-Marked Grave is an adventure for Cairn, a mini-pointcrawl through a weird wasteland.
• Crawl from the Catacombs is a 0-level funnel for Shadowdark, in which the PCs wake up, buried in coffins, seemingly resurrected from the dead, and must first escape their tombs.
• Written for Shadowdark, The Shadowed Village is an adventure where the PCs must find and rescue a magic-user who's actions may have doomed their town . . . and is the only hope to save it.
• Under the Dolmens, Delve #2, by 2DIE10 Games, is a one-shot adventure for Dolmenwood.
• I've launched Quest for the Unknown: The Caverns of Anamosa, an experiment in OSR Adventure Paths that remixes the classic adventure B1 -- In Search of the Unknown in to the first book of a planned epic campaign.
• Populated Hexes Monthly, Year Four is now available on Drivethru in pdf and print on demand. The offset version will soon be available through Sabre as well as Drivethru. It compiles Issues 37-48 into a single volume, with all new art.

 

[thirdkingdom]

Welcome to the second news Roundup in March. I've started a little podcast as a part of Sabre, and part of what I'm aiming to do is have some short conversations with people in the indie and OSR gaming spheres. Last week I posted an interview I did with Josh McCrowell, author of His Majesty the Worm, and tomorrow there's an interview going live with Marx Shepherd of the Far Horizons Co-Op. You can find Sabre Rattlings, the podcast, on most major podcatching platforms, and this is the RSS feed.

• Matt Kelly is back at it again, this time with a supplement titled . . . Titles, all about fantasy-style titles and the duties and responsibilities that come with said titles.
• My Friend Mike is an adventure written for Luke Gearing's Violence.
• I'm not sure if there's something in the water, but there's another release for Violence: Amelia is a ten page adventure revolving around stealing a bronze statue of Amelia Earhart.
• I'm a sucker for hex maps, and Uptight Cultist has just uploaded a charming hand-drawn blank hexmap to itch.
• I've been a big fan of Jim Hall for awhile, and he's just launched a Beetle Knight Pamphlet Jam on itch. Beetle Knight is his recently released game about, well, insect knights and warriors (Looks like we still have one copy of the bundle left).
• Secrets of the Old Ruins is an adventure for OSE that focuses on a ruined noble hall and the outlaw band that dwells within.
• One of the best deals in gaming is the Lazy Litch Adventure Bundle that's currently on Drivethru. It includes Mana Meltdown, Haunted Hamlet, Toxic Wood, and Willow.
• Paul Partington has just released another solo gamebook, designed for a fourth level fighter, entitled Hunt on the Borderlands, in which you search for a missing relic.
• The Crypt of Atan-Thu is out on Drivethru, statted for Advanced Labyrinth Lord, an undead-themed adventure for characters levels 6-8. It's also available statted out for a bunch of different OSR systems.
• I haven't seen much from Barrel Rider Games recently, and was pleasantly surprised to see White Box Quarterly #1, a planned quarterly zine for White Box.
• This posted too late last week for me to include it, but Parliament of Owls is a Dolmenwood adventure designed to be dropped into any hex with a river.
• I only just saw this now, and there's only a few days left, but Mudbones is a cool-looking Shadowdark adventure zine and dungeon delve.
• Also on Kickstarter is the Dying Hard on Hardlight Station Anthology, a revision and collection of setting and adventures for Mothership 1e.
• Guns, Mages, Corpses, by the talented Kobayashi, is a swords and sorcery meets cyberpunk mashup done. There's only a couple of days left here, so be sure to jump on this.
• There's about a week left on my current Kickstarter, raising funds for a late ZiMo project, a re-imagining of the classic adventure B1 -- In Search of the Unknown, as the first step in a multi-level Adventure Path.

 

[Rauthik]

Welcome to the third News Roundup for January. ZineMonth is just around the corner; last week there were a lot of new releases, so let's see what this week brings us, shall we?

• The Fracture Between Jade and Ash is a system-neutral, city-based scenario that relies on the conflict between two factions -- Jade Serpents and Ash-born -- to ratchet up the tension in the adventure.
• Moonwhisper Magic has released What Hirelings, a collection of 35 NPC and hireling cards statted for general OSR games.
• The Frog Lord's Hold, by David Okum, is a system agnostic, swords and whiskers adventure with a heist theme.
• Black Knife Media has released Kobolds, a Class for OSE. It is presented as both race as class and race and class flavors.
• I'm a big fan of hexcrawls, and was intrigued to see Khazia: the Fasting East, a mini-hexcrawl for Shadowdark. It includes the map, locations of interest, and a bunch of character options to help provide flavor to the region.
• Roundup regular Paul Partington has released another solo gamebook for OSE: Desolation of the God King, an Egyptian-themed adventure that can be played without a Referee.
• Games Omnivorous has released Best Served Cold and Tomb of 1000 Gears, two minimalist, low-prep games for FLAIL in a slick double-side postcard format.
• I'm not sure if this is brilliant or Mork Borg finally jumping the shark, but I see that someone releases Cottage Borg, a cozy, slice-of-life game powered by the Mork Borg engine.
• I'd mentioned Roguelike Megadungeon before as part of ZineMonth 2022, and, after a number of setbacks, it's been released on Drivethru. The publisher is upfront about the delay, and it always makes me happy when a delayed product is finally released. I was really looking forward this release, as a big fan of the roguelike dungeon-crawling zine.
• Jeff Stevens is raising funds for The Savage Arctic, a campaign setting in the frozen tundra.
• I'm raising funds for Populated Hexes Monthly Issue 53, a location on a lonely moor featuring a korred and a haunted barrow, as well as a half-nixie class.

Hey there! This is Chris from Black Knife Media! Thank you so much for spreading the word about our Kobold! As far as zines go, we also have been releasing one called Illuminations of the Baleful Lantern. Issue 1 is out on DriveThruRPG and Issue 2 will be there in about a month -shortly after issue 3 drops in on our patreon on April 6th.
Issue 2 has the Aeger (a race/class of ram-folk) for OSE and 5e, while issue 3 will feature an OSE Shaman class. Issue 4 is going to have the Moonbound (a race/class of natural lycanthropes for OSE) and issue 5 will feature the Soulless (and undead race/class for OSE). There will also be other OSE race/class options coming soon to DriveThruRPG (patrons also get all drivethru releases). We've been busy and have a ton of stuff coming down the pipe that we are excited for.