Folio 1E funded

Probably won't make any stretch goals (which were more modules), but at least the first one will be released.

Neat article about the making of the module Quagmire

Or TSR modules in general. Sometimes I wonder they didn't have money trouble even sooner...

Updated Cthulhu Bestiary available

The somewhat prolific author Leonaru first produced this free supplement a couple months ago, but now has released an updated version over at Lulu. Covers a lot of ground.

New OSR Products at RPGNow—December 25th, 2014

Not too surprisingly, it's a fairly slow week.

Adventures

FN11 - Amulet of Dorian Beldor - This week's Adventures in Filbar product is a mid to high level adventure: The Amulet of Dorian Beldor begins as a race to catch a fugitive from justice and quickly escalates into a much larger problem. With over 40 pages and 8 different maps this adventure has your party stumbling onto a former city covered by a rock slide now inhabited by a large group of humanoids.  $3, 42 pages.

Hexed Places - The Bogwood - This is a hex crawl adventure set in a boggy woods. Hopefully no bigfeet.  $2.69

The Trail of Stone and Sorrow - Very short adventure (basically one encounter) from Zzarchov Kowolski, Presumably best used with LotFP as it seems set on a fantasy Earth. Pay What You want, 8 pages.

Thistle Games goes Pay What You Want for Christmas

Most notably, Dragon's Rage is an adventure that is largely statless, but has standard D&D features, and Renegade (and Renegade Corruption) which are OSR style fantasy games (not really retroclones, but more neo-clones)

Wonder & Wickedness now available

This is for OD&D, and is apparently a re-visioning of spells. $10 for PDF, $20 for PDF+Print.

Gutenberg—The Dates of Variously Shaped Shields

Not many books are named as truthfully as this one. Kind of a boring book, but it does have a decent amount of illustrations of knights and such.

1E Module Line on Kickstarter

I don't know how I missed this (thanks to Eric Andres for mentioning it to me), but over on Kickstarter is a new project to bring out a series of 1e folio adventures. While the art is clearly quite different (though some interior art is apparently by Jim Holloway), it will have the detached cover with the map inside like the old modules (and not something you can do at POD printers)

My Project: The Folio is a 1st Edition gaming module. It will be produced as an 8x11”, removable cover [11x17" once removed], adventure with mostly b/w interior artwork.  The final size is 30 pages of content.
Who’s it for? ALL gamers, both new gamers and old gamers as it is easily expandable or playable as is.The concept is to allow gamers a starting point for adventure that can be modified to their liking while providing excellent reference content and framework.The base mechanic will be for 1st Edition, but I’ve designed it to be readily modified to any fantasy game.
What’s in it? All original content. It has been written by myself and my OSR compatriot Mark Timm, with incredible cover art from old school masters and interior artwork by skilled black and white illustrators Travis Hanson and Michael Wilson, and even a bit of Jim Holloway because I can never get enough Holloway. We are intent on providing a polished and modern design with creatively nostalgic content that transcends a particular age. The Folio will contain a 3-D map, a Gazetteer, a monster section, a new monster unique to the setting, DM’s notes and guides, and a full adventure. 

Also very reasonably priced, $5 for a PDF, $15 for a print copy. So check it out.

Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures now available in color hardcover

Over at  RPGnow/DTRPG. $38 isn't bad at all, considering it's in color and a hardback.

Blueholme Prentice Rules now in print at Lulu

And at very low prices. Blueholme being a retroclone of the Holmes D&D rules

New OSR Products at RPGNow—December 18th, 2014

Hmmm, a fairly busy week.

Adventures

FQ1 - Ruins of Heliopolis - This weeks Adventures in Filbar product, the first in the Filbar Quest line of adventures, meant for starting characters. 21 pages, $3

Starter Adventures - Starter Adventures is targeted toward introduing a new player into RPGs.  Inside are four short adventures for each of the four main classes, a tavern to hangout in, and a full-fledged adventure when they've got enough blood encrusted on their blades. . 51 pages, $7.99

Unicorn Now - Free adventure from the Gagmen.

Rules

Ars Goetia - Faust's Footsteps - Goetic Magick for Old School Gaming - Whew, the book is almost as long as the title, 110 pages for $5.95 As the title says, it's based on real life magic, specifically the Lesser Key of Solomon, so probably best suited (as it suggests) for LotFP.

Misc

Five Henchmen -   Five Henchmen Has writeups for Bill and Glave, the Guisarme Brothers, as well as their friends Becky Corbin, 'Little' Bill Hook. amd Hal Bard. Each one comes with their own stats, equipment, personality, motivations, and backstory. It also holds the story of how they ended up as mercenaries and part-time adventurers. Pay What You Want, 9 pages, several puns.

Mead & Mayhem -  This is a tavern and bar fighting supplement. 6 pages, Pay What You Want (suggested price $3)

OSR Oddness Bundle - Three products: Little Devils, an adventure; Fetishistic Arcana, a magic sourcebook; and Mutations Mutable which I don't know what is, exactly. $2.75, a $1 cheaper than buying all of them separately.

Darts and D&D

Darts have always been somewhat strange in D&D, they can be overpowered due to their high rate of fire, especially if weapon specialization is used. But at the same time, you think, "Darts? What can darts do?"

And yet, the movie I'm watching now on the El Rey Network, Temple of the Red Lotus, features expert dart throwers leaving a bloody trail using just darts.

Neat Dragon's Lair Video

This is not OSR news, but I stumbled across a video for the space synth song Dragon's Legend that featured video from the game Dragon's Lair (which the song samples, actually).

Back in the day, I had never made it very far in the game (it was all about memorization) so it was neat seeing the whole (or most of it) quest. Presumably the whole game is someplace on youtube, but I am a fan of the song and the guy did a good job syncing it.

Original Edition Delta: Book of Spells 2nd Edition now available on Lulu

 That's weird, after months of nothing OSR related on Lulu, on back to back days there are new items. Today, it's Original Edition Delta: Book of Spells: 2nd Edition, available in both print and pdf for $8 and $6 respectively.

A concise, comprehensive collection of magic spells for use with the "original edition" fantasy game rules (as published by Gygax & Arneson, 1974-1975). A handy supplement for both DMs and players of wizard characters. Now revised & edited with extra care for the 2nd Edition! All of the spells have been refined and polished to let their essential facets shine brightly -- bringing them in even closer alignment with the original game. It's easier than ever for DMs and players to use and remember any wizard spell at the table without slowing down the game.

The Book of Elder Magic now at Lulu

The cover is kind of NSFW-ish, but The Book of Elder Magic is now available in print over at Lulu.

The Book of Elder Magic is a handy reference designed for use at the gaming table by players and Gamemasters alike, playing Classic, Original, and Retroclone rulesets of the worlds most popular RPG, including our own Champions of ZED. It contains over 42 pages of spells for Clerics and Magic-users including all those found in the Original 1974 Edition, and many more spells inspired by Dave Arneson and the original Twin Cities ganers and also spells adapted from Arneson's Open Game sources.

Not sure if there is a PDF version someplace, but the print version is 72 pages and costs $11.

New OSR Titles at RPGNow—December 11th, 2014

Some pretty neat stuff this week.

Adventures

 

Barrowmaze Complete -  This is a megadungeon from Greg Gillespie. It's appeared before in two parts along with illustration and map books, but this gathers it together into one product. $40 for the PDF, $75 for the hardback, and 260 pages. I can't honestly say that's a bad deal for what you get, but it just illustrates how good a deal Dwimmermount is (which is 400 pages and $10 for the PDF, $40 for the hardback)

Food Fight - A new adventure from the Gagmen

Revelry in Torth - The third adventure from Venger Satanis, whose work is probably the closest you can get to Heavy Metal (the magazine) in terms of modules. Little pricey though at $10 for 39 pages.  Aimed at low level characters.

The Unholy Land - Hex crawl set in the Holy Land. A lot more dinosaurs there than I thought. PWYW, suggested price $2.99, 20 something pages.

Rules

By This Poleaxe - I missed this, it's a free set of rules to run skirmish level mass combat in Labyrinth Lord and similar systems.

Collectanea Creaturae: Psyche Lasher - WOTC didn't make the Mind Flayer open content and there have been countless attempts to replace them with someone similar.

Misc

FT - The Barony of Civille - Last week didn't have an Adventures in Filbar product. But they are back with a free sourcebook about a port city which may or may not be full of barbers.

The Hill Cantons Cosmology - Apparently a description of the hairstyles and makeup trends in the Hill Cantons setting. Or maybe not.  $2, 8 pages.

Time of the Dying Stars now available—PWYW OSR Fiction

From Pete Spahn of Small Niche Games comes Time of the Dying Stars, the first book of fiction set in the world (well, city) of Dolmvay, which is a setting for Labyrinth Lord

New PWYW Hex Crawl—Unholy Land

This is pretty neat:

Judea, the year 2 BCE. Sometime soon, a baby will be born that will change the course of human history. This even is heralded by the arrival of a star, an omen shining down. The expenditure of divine power has thinned the barriers between worlds and times. Monsters, demons, undead, and antediluvian creatures all stalk the deserts and hills of Judea. Kings, demons, and cults have read the signs and know the star means their doom. They will do anything to kill the prophesied child and maintain their power.
Unholy Land is an old-school hex-crawl campaign for mid-level characters taking place in Judea around the time of the birth of Jesus Christ. What better way to celebrate the holidays?

Suggested price $2.99 and has 26 pages. 

Hero Forge is live

While I don't use miniatures any more, back when I was a kid playing D&D, we did, at least for marching order.

Back then, we'd pick a miniature and then base a character around it. I remember one character that drove my DM crazy, I thought it looked like he had a toad on his helmet. So I kept pushing for him to have a toad familiar. And my DM (rightfully in retrospect) said it was just a horse ornament (I guess maybe it was a Rohan inspired figure).

Anyway, Hero Forge allows you to make your own custom figure. Pretty neat. (They seem to be overloaded right now, takes a while to load)

Gutenberg—The Catacombs of Rome

There aren't a lot of real world dungeons due to a lack of monsters, evil wizards, and dwarves (at least the type that mine). But there are a few, including the Catacombs of Rome.

The book has a number of neat illustrations useful for OSR type publications.

New OSR Products at RPGNow—December 4th, 2014

Most notably, a couple of new LotFP products this week

Adventures

A Red & Pleasant Land - Perhaps more of a setting than adventure, for LotFP.  Seems to be very much Alice in Wonderland-ish, not literally (like Dungeonland), but very much inspired by it. 197 pages, $14.99

Hexed Places - Fen Fields - Hex crawl type deal, $2.69

The Idea from Space - Low level LotFP adventure. 34 pages, $5

The Pony of Your Dreams - Mine would be a '70 Mustang w/ a 428 engine, but in this case it's a free adventure from the Gagmen. 21 pages

Rules

Blood & Treasure Monster Tome - Whole bunch of new critters for Blood & Treasure, but usable in most OSR games. It's been available at Lulu for quite some time now. 172 pages, $6.99

Fetishistic Arcana - This is about magic using minor magic items, fetishes. 25 pages, $2

Misc

Old School Character Sheet - From 3 Toadstools

Red & Pleasant Land now available in print for LotFP

So apparently a bunch of their modules are now (or back) in print and available for sale from their store. 

I am not really a fan of their stuff, but most of them at least have well done illustrations. Definitely avoid the Seclusium of Orphone something something.

HS1 The Lost Shrine of Sirona Released

This is sort of cheating as a news item, since I made it, but I just released the first (of hopefully) a number of modules, HS1 The Lost Shrine of Sirona. It's meant for first edition and for 5-7th level characters, though I ran it for a 5th/6th level party and they found it kinda easy, but they also had 9 characters total, which complicates things.  

It's a very short, fairly simple dungeon crawl, 9 rooms and 2 pages. I've been working on a much longer (80 room) dungeon, but I wanted to release something short and simple as a test.

Edit:

Slightly updated version —  Fixed a couple typos, added AL to critters I forgot to, and added a monster xp summary in the Notes. Which as it varies from rules system to rules system, might be off, but it's more or less the 1e xp values (I also round)

Zero Edition Ninja released

Based on the original Ninja from Dragon Magazine comes the free Zero Edition Ninja from Leonaru.

New Bard's Tale in the works?

I was a backer of Wasteland 2 (and I also wrote that character program included in Wasteland 1) and was a big CRPG fan in the '80s. One of my favorites was The Bard's Tale. Well, In-Xile is hinting at a new version

Along with continued tuning of Wasteland 2, myself and a few others at the studio are beginning to work on another RPG that has been passionately demanded of us for a while now! It’s still quite early in the process, but we will have more news on that in the New Year.

At least that's the obvious thing, though I guess it could be Neuromancer or Stonekeep.

Author looking for playtesters for high level module

Over on Dragonsfoot, an author of a forthcoming (from Pacesetter apparently) high level module is looking for playtesters

This adventure should challenge even experienced groups. Parties who charge in with guns blazing will most likely die in their attempt. Figuring out what you are up against and then figuring out how to deal with the problem are both difficult.