New OSR Prodcts at RPGNow—July 31st, 2014

Another quiet week. I wonder if 5e is taking the steam out of the OSR? Certainly, that's all people are talking about at the RPGSite...

Adventures

FP7 - Blood Mace of Khan Sing - An Adventures in Filbar module for mid level parts. $3 and 22 pages

Thulian Echoes - An adventure for LoFP. 31 pages, $7.50. It's not from Raggi, so it might not be the traditional "screw you" adventure. But then again, I wouldn't bet on it...

Rules

Chevalier - A new class from Barrel Rider games. This time it's for OSRIC, not Labyrinth Lord (is it really that hard to stat a class for both?) and it seems to be a revamped Paladin. $1, on sale for 75 cents, 6 pages.

Free Module—The Last Princess

The Last Princess is a module from the Gagmen, who I think have a podcast or something. It's for 8-10 level characters and written for the Basic Fantasy Roleplaying Game, so pretty much compatible with everything OSR, except it uses ascending AC

Deep in the jungle lies the ruins of the ancient civilization of the Ditani, now overrun with arachno-apes and other jungle savages. Our heroes are hired by the great explorer Raeyon, the lady Ipeneth and their team to help them find and capture the legendary Gyanki’don, a massive arachno-ape rumored to protect the natives from harm. When the group stumbles upon the village of the Coleco tribe, they find themselves at the whim of a crazy witch doctor and his half- baked ideas, which may lead the entire tribe to a grizzly and badly planned demise. When the Witch Doctor decides to sacrifice the Lady Ipeneth to Gyanki’don, the party must chase the giant arachno-ape and his new hostage to the pyramid of Li’kani. Can the party survive the horrors of the Pyramid and recue the beautiful damsel? Will the video game references contained within overpower the rest of the adventure? Will the witch Doctor succeed in accidently killing off his entire tribe? Discover the answers and the punchlines as you and your party search through jungles and temples for “The Last Ditani Princess.”

Delving Deeper Hypertext Version

I'm not that big a fan of the game (I prefer 1e to 0e), but I thought this was pretty neat, an online, hypertext version of the Delving Deeper rules

Crypts & Things Review

Crypts and Things is an OSR game from D101 Games, written by Newt Newport. It's an OSR game as opposed to a retroclone, because it's not designed to mimic an older form D&D exactly, but uses rules tweaked to fit its setting. In this case, swords and sorcery in the vein of Robert Howard (Conan), Clark Ashton Smith, and Fritz Leiber (Grey Mouser and Fafhrd).

New OSR Products at RPGNow—July 24th, 2014

Another slow week.

Adventures

 FD1:Death of the Jabin Sagna - An Adventures in Filbar modules. $3, 16 pages

 Doom Cave of the Crystal Headed Children - Already covered this, PWYW for LoFP

Misc

Henchmen for Hire from Barrel Rider Games. $2, 13 pages, currently 25% off.

Dwimmermount nearing release

Autarch just sent out the penultimate proof and in a week, it will be sent to the printers, knock on wood.

And this isn't really OSR related...

But for the next week, EA is giving away The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection for free. Just need an Origin account.

Half Price Advanced Adventures Sale (Print)

I own the compilations, but now you can get them individually for half off each (with #2 and #3 being $2 each).

#1 is really good, as are the ones by James Boney, I'd say. In general, avoid the ones by Alphonso Warden. They tend to be almost as deadly as a LoFP module, although in a less random way.

Blood & Treasure Monster Tome out in PDF

This is a monster book for Blood & Treasure, but should work in most OSR games. 250 monsters and 170 pages, $6.99.

Doom-Cave of the Crystal Headed Children released (PWYW for LoFP)

Most Lamentations of the Flame Princess modules are basically a big screw you to the players, so I've pretty much stopped buying them,

But this one you don't have to buy to see if it is like that, it's Pay What You Want, apparently the Free RPG module from them this year.

DTRPG having a Christmas in July sale

Basically 25% off of most items. Not all, but there is a lot of OSR stuff on sale (and Labyrinth Lord), including stuff by Expeditious Retreat Press, Usherwood, and Goblinoid Games

Brave the Labyrinth Issue #4 Out (Pay What You Want Labyrinth Lord fanzine)

Small Niche Games has done a lot of work supporting the OSR in recently years, including their excellent 'zine, Brave the Labyrinth.

Issue #4 was just released, 48 pages of various stuff — an adventure, new class, and some magic items.

Review—Barbarian Class from James Mishler Games (Labyrinth Lord)

Thanks pretty much to Conan (along with Red Sonja), the barbarian is seen as a classic fantasy archetype. So it's not too surprising it's often the subject of a new character class, originally (as far as I know) in White Dwarf #4, then an official version by Gary Gygax in Dragon magazine and then later Unearthed Arcana.

The Barbarian Class from James Mishler Games, written by James Mishler & Jodi Moran-Mishler, is pretty much the AD&D 1e barbarian, restated for Labyrinth Lord, and with some tweaks. So essentially a fighter that has a d12 for hit points, can jump, track, and climb while outdoors. Also something I didn't remember well was that the barbarian could use first aid and had something of a danger sense. The original barbarian had some skills related to the area he was from. That is true here, but instead of only a few different types of homeland, there are seven, which is quite nice.

New OSR Products at RPGNow—July 17th, 2014

I thought last week was a bit slow, well, this week it's really slow.


Adventures

FN9 - Karnack Sanctuary is this week Adventures in Filbar product. Mid to high levels, 28 pages, $3

Rules

Barbarian Class from James Mishler is just that, a barbarian class for Labyrinth Lord. For some reason, he sent me a free copy of this (which I'll review soon) and I have to say it's much better than the other classes for a buck that I've seen. Seems perhaps more suited for AEC and OSRIC than plain LL/BX, as it seems closer to the Unearthed Arcana barbarian than anything else.  9 pages, $1

Spes Magna Games Looking for Playtesters of their Aquatic Depths & Denizens rules

No, it's not a retro-clone for D&D underwater, it's just rules for playing underwater

From a post on ENWorld (why I almost missed it)

Aquatic Depths & Denizens is ready for playtest release!

This PSR PDF focuses on adventuring underwater. It includes rules for swimming, drowning, fighting and spellcasting under the waves, five player character aquatic races, an assortment of aquatic spells, and a plethora of marine monsters. Download your copy and playtest today.

Of course, helpful folks who playtest the PDF and/or provide feedback receive credit in the final PDF. They also receive a free copy of the final PDF, providing I have an e-mail address. To further sweeten the incentives, playtesters/feedbackers may also select any single PDF from my on-line catalog to receive for free (again providing I have an e-mail address). My email address is mark at spesmagna dot com.

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?357013-Spes-Magna-Games-Aquatic-Depths-amp-Denizens#ixzz37hlmIKVg

Gutenberg—Stories from Northern Myths and Chicot the Jester

Not much happening right now OSR wise (working on a review of something for tomorrow), but Gutenberg has a couple of related books.

Firstly, Stories from Northern Myths, which is as you might expect, a collection of Norse and Germanic myths. Several illustrations, none of them particularly good. A couple look like photographs of actual people dressed up in old clothing.

And then Chicot the Jester from Alexandre Dumas. It's perhaps not as good as the Three Musketeers, but it's a pretty good tale of adventure and intrigue, and one that explains why the Jester could be a very viable D&D class.

Bedroom Wall Press Going Free

They aren't the usual sort of OSR publisher, in a way, more like Sine Nomine, using traditional OSR mechanics in different settings, first for their Sci-Fi dungeon crawling game, Hulks and Horrors, and then for a modern fantasy game (sort of like Shadowrun), Arcana Rising.

But apparently, he's made more money by offering Hulks and Horrors free than on the games he's charged money for upfront. So he's making everything free

Wizardawn now creates Labyrinth Lord characters

Wizardawn is justifiably famous for creating all sorts of online generators - for dungeons, characters, etc.

While they've had an OSRIC character creator for forever, they just added one for basic Labyrinth Lord

Gutenberg—Mazes and Labyrinths

Mazes and Labyrinths by W. H. Matthews is a look at real life dungeons. Okay, most of them are above ground and made out of hedges, but there's a section on tomb dungeons

New OSR Products at RPNow—July 10th, 2014

This seems to be a fairly slow week. I already covered Domains of War for ACKS and Taglar's Tomb


Adventures

Just Taglar's Tomb, it seems

Rules

Alienist is a character class from Barrel Rider Games for Labyrinth Lord. 7 pages, $1

Treatise of Twisted Terrors is a monster book from new company Quasar Dragon. 90 pages, $2

Misc

A Coward's Guide to Goblins from Barrel Rider Games for Labyrinth Lord. 15 pages, $2

The Undercroft #1 is a fanzine for Lamentations of the Flame Princess. 28 pages, $3.43

Advanced Adventures #21 now Pay What You Want

Advanced Adventures #21: The Obsidian Sands of Syncrates is now Pay What You Want.

I've got this, and honestly, it's not that great. It's a tournament module. Apparently the gods have just decided to toy with your party and put you inside a giant robot.

If you are running a tournament, I guess it's okay, but it's not something you could really use in a campaign, unless you have players that like having their characters screwed over arbitrarily. 

Tomb of the Sea Kings 2nd Edition now available at Lulu

I must confess, I didn't even know there was a 1st Edition of The Tomb of the Sea Kings

Long ago, before the Great Purging of the Island Empires, there were 80 Sea Kings. Each held his keep on the cays which comprise the Urchinn Isles. As tradition, when a king would die his body was set to sea in a large boat from whence the king's spirit would rule the high seas. But one island was different… On this island lived the great and terrible wizard, Faltor Pan. Using his magic he captured the sea kings' souls, imprisoned them in a labyrinth on Blackstone Island, and promised them no rest until a very powerful, very old magic sword known as Doomcreeper, was pulled from the depths and delivered to him. In truth Faltor Pan is no man, but said to be an ancient serpent!

The preview looks interesting. While it's for OSR games, apparently it uses some house rules

Free Product Spotlight—Fabled Curse of the Brigand Crypt

I missed the early days of the OSR, as I was something of a 3.0 fan that got burned out by all the rules and the release of 3.5. So there's a lot of early companies and products that I missed, and don't seem to get mentioned much anymore.

This is one of them, Fabled Curse of the Brigand Crypt from R. Lawrence Blake and Prime Requisite Games. Apparently he put out several modules back in 2009 or so. Most of these run 16-18 pages, are fully illustrated and so forth.

This is probably the best. It's a small-ish dungeon crawl with a lot of puzzle elements involved. Maybe a little treasure heavy, but it's nice to see a starter dungeon that requires thinking.

Kabuki Kaiser has a sale!

Mad Monks of Kwantoom is really good, and now it's only $5.95.  Don't have Ruins of the Undercity, but it's only $3.

New Pay What You Want Adventure—GL-1: Taglar's Tomb (Revised)

The author originally was selling this Swords & Wizardry Adventure for 1st level characters for 50 cents, but today apparently changed it to "Pay What You Want", which seems to work since the average contribution is $4.70

Gutenberg—Orlando Furioso and Sketch of the History of the Knights Templar

It's in Spanish, but Orlando Furioso (Madness of Roland, I believe) has a lot of nice illustrations like the above. Really good stuff.

And then a book on the Templars, which is in English, but only has a few decent illustrations

Mad Monks of Kwantoom Review

Mad Monks of Kwantoom by Kabuki Kaiser is an Asian themed game supplement for Advanced Edition Character Labyrinth Lord, which basically means it works with 1st Edition AD&D and other games where you have separate class and race. I call it "supplement" because it's several products in one. It's part rules supplement, part setting sourcebook, part dungeon adventure, and part monster manual. It's also largely aimed at solo gaming, just one person playing while also being the GM. It reminds me of some of the mini games from the 1980s, meant for solo play.

I say Asian themed because it's really a mash-up of both Japanese and Chinese culture and folklore. This is perhaps never more evident in the rules section, where several new races are introduced. Most of these are Japanese, like the Tanuki and Kitsune. On the other hand, the new classes intoduced are really all variations of the monk (thus the name of the product), which are mostly Chinese. If you are a looking for a historically accurate product, this isn't it, it's as much of a pastiche of Asian fantasy as regular D&D is of Western.

Free Filbar Adventure

FT - Andju Village is a free adventure (or adventure setting) from Adventures in Filbar

Domains of War for ACKS is out

Autarch's Adventure Conqueror King System focused on the higher level play of D&D, yet somehow managed to not include any mass combat rules.

2 years and a Kickstarter later, that has been addressed with Domains At War. It comes as either a full set for $20, or in pieces: Battles (130 pages, $7.50), Campaigns (102 pages, $7.70), and then cards for the armies and such ($7.50).

Half-Priced Advanced Adventures PDF Sale at Paizo

I sometimes forget that there are other PDF stores besides RPGNow/DTRPG/OBS.

But Paizo has a notable one, they are currently selling the Advanced Adventures lines from Expeditious Retreat Press for half off, $3 to $3.50 per PDF.

I bought the compendiums in print for about that price at Lulu (during their annual 40% off in December sale) and it's certain worth the price

(thanks to chiius81 on Dragonsfoot)

New OSR Products at RPGNow—July 3rd, 2014

Wow, busy week. Most of these flew under my radar.


Modules

Adventure at Goldmarsh - This is an adventure for 5th level characters from Lupus Rex games. 39 pages, $4. Sounds interesting:

First is the adventure itself (Adventure at Goldmarsh), one wherein the party must stop another band of adventurers from waking an ancient power. This adventure starts with an investigation followed by a trip through a marsh, an exploration of a ruin and culminates in a battle in the past.

The second is a complete village (Goldmarsh) for the party to explore and interact with. The village is completely system-free and can provide many adventures just from the descriptions therein.

Ryubix - Already mentioned, a 20th level haunted manor adventure. 90-something pages, $10.


Rules

Bringer of Order - This is an "OSR" class from Nordic Weasel Games. 5 pages,  99 cents

Inquisitor - A Labyrinth Lord class from Barrel Rider games.  8 pages, $1

Metaphysician - Another Labyrinth Lord class from Barrel Rider games. 7 pages, $1

The Gilded Grimoire - the second product from Ravenlore Press about their world of Ark.  139 pages, 99 cents.

Misc
 
Creature Decks: Dragons, Undead, and Outsiders; Fey, Constructs, and Wildlife; and Animals - these seem to be similar to the old TSR monster cards. An illustration of the monster on one side, stats for the monster on the other. $5 for each deck in PDF, $10 in print and about 60 cards per deck

FT - Cedarwood - An adventures in Filbar sourcebook for a city in the setting. 20 something pages, $2

Hark! A Wizard - This seems to be rules to quickly create wizard NPCs. 28 pages, $5.99

Gutenberg—The Knights of the Round Table

The Knights of the Round Table is pretty much what it sounds like.

Has a number of illustrations, though only one of knights fighting.

Ryubix Manor out in PDF

I came incredibly close to backing the KS, but decided not to because I'm broke and needed to cut down on backing KSes, especially since so many that I have backed have done poorly.

But apparently this wasn't one of them, as it's out on RPGNow. $10 for 94 pages

Ryubix Manor is a 300+ area haunted house adventure, written in a system agnostic style (OSR/OGL compatible), and is suitable for most fantasy role playing games. For 4-8 players, scalable up to 20^th level.

Three brothers – Staunton, Segar, and Severin – founded House Ryubix four centuries ago atop the windswept hills of the southern coast. The Ryubix brothers were respected Lords of Order, who ruled fairly (and taxed lightly) the small but thriving community under their protection. Unfortunately, the descendants of Ryubix Manor would begin down a path that would ultimately lead to their own destruction. Born into a life of idleness and ease, the subsequent Ryubix lineage slowly descended into wickedness, each successive generation subtly worse than the last. A unique curse lies on Ryubix Manor, one tied not only to the Manor, but to the Ryubix line itself. The haunting of the Manor has endured for 111 years. It is now up to you to break the curse and cleanse Ryubix Manor once and for all.