New OSR Products at DTRPG — July 26th, 2019

Somewhat slow this week, but a couple of 1e adventures, a S&W setting and adventure book, and stuff for two different White Box hacks.

Official

R2: The Investigation of Hydell -  the RPGA module for 1e about zombies being disguised and sold as servants. But given the ease of undead animation in AD&D, wouldn't it be readily accepted? 35 pages, $4.95

RPGA2: Black Opal Eye - I think part two of a model for Basic. 20 pages, $4.95

Adventures

Adventures in Great Lunden -  Adventures set in the Great Lunden setting (see below) for S&W. $11.15 (probably will fluctuate due to currency differences) and 198 pages.

SM06 - The Warren -  Dunromin setting adventure for OSRIC/1e involving goblins...but for levels 5th to 8th.  I'm not sure my players would be too interesting in still fighting goblins, but we shall see. 76 pages, $4.95

The Banshee's Tower - New OSRIC/1e adventure from Joseph Mohr. 30 pages, PWYW

Rules

The Armiger: Avremier Character Supplement I -  I have no idea what this is, other than it's a new class and a lot of rules for White Box.  $4.99 and 46 pages.

The Isle of the Amazon for Untold Adventures -  Apparently it's additional Amazonian rules for yet another White Box game. Because apparently people never get tired of making additional rules for White Box or White Box hacks.  $4.99, 69 pages.

Misc

Dungeon Dressing: Dungeon Names and Legends 2.0 - " presents loads of tools to help you give your dungeons evocative and exciting names and legends". Oh yeah, that's totally what I need, exciting names. But if you do, it's $3.45 and 22 pages.

Friday Enhanced Map 7-19-19 - Level 4 of the Eye of Something Dungeon. $2.

The City of Great Lunden -  I hope it's more creative than the name "Lunden", but apparently a gritty city setting for S&W. $18.58 and 224 pages, plus nearly a gigabyte of maps. Yikes. Pass on all the above.

The Lost Valley of Kishar — More Trouble Than Treasure, For Misery Tourists Only

 The Lost Valley of Kishar is a site based adventure from Gabor Csomos from Gabor Lux's (better known as Melan) imprint, EDMT. As such, it's not surprising that it has a strong sword & sorcery feel, though this is almost taken to the point of cliche. While apparently for 1e (levels 6th through 8th), it uses its own house rules, including things like morale, and is extremely stingy (by design) on the treasure, both magic and mundane.

Essentially it's a small valley with a number of locations, though even calling them mini-dungeons would be a stretch. It seems that the valley has a magic tree and this magic tree was worshiped by followers of a fertility deity (Kishar). They lived there for a while until an evil magic-user came in and took over the valley, corrupting the tree and using it to create magical beasties. But the priestesses recuited an army of heroes who defeated them, but all died in the process (and despite being D&D, didn't have access to raise dead for some reason), leaving the valley more or less deserted and open for the remaning monsters people to slowly fill the power vacuum.

New OSR Products at DTRPG — July 19th, 2019

Woops, a day late. I lost track of time.

On the flip side, the Christmas in July sale there has started.  I really don't know why July is when it happens, since Christmas Season these days starts in October, running concurrently with Halloween. It would make more sense for it to be in May or June.

Doesn't seem like a whole lot of OSR stuff is on sale, misc stuff. OTOH, Raging Swan's stock town maps and Rogue Genius's stock are on sale

Official

M1 Blizzard Pass - Solo adventure (with hidden text shown). 35 pages, $4.99

AC6 D&D Player Character Record Sheets -  Going by the sample, they are orange, so I'm not sure this is even with the 99 cents it costs.

Adventures

Annihilation Rising - This short adventure from Fail Squad Games features the Tarasque, though more like the French original (which amusingly enough, surrendered to the townsfolk). $4, 16 pages

RPPP Cave of the Hawk - Medieval Authentic about a drunk vicar. (Everyone was drunk back then, as the water was not fit to drink). 17 pages, $2.99

The Lost Valley of Kishar - This is a mid level 1e/OSRIC module is by Gabor Csomo, featuring several mini-dungeons in a wilderness area, $6, 36 pages.

Temple of the Blood Moth - Sci-Fantasy Horror modules. No preview, but I know the price is scary, $8 for 24 pages.

Rules

Draugr & Draculas -  Comedic look at OSR Vampies, apparently. $7, 64 pages.

Far Away Land OSR RPG -  Seems like another "light" Swords & Wizardry hack.  $10, 130 pages.

Floating Magicians: A New Class -  As near as I can tell, this seems to be Orko from Masters of the Universe. $1, 13 pages.

Wherein Evil Lies - B/X zine of sorts from New Big Dragon Games that has some new classes (including the Half-Orc, which continues NBDG's trend of turning B/X into AD&D and IMHO, ruining both - let B/X be B/X and AD&D be AD&D), some spells, an adventure and other stuff. 44 pages, PWYW

Misc

Echoes from Fomalhaut #5 -  The latest PDF issue of the excellent Hungarian zine from Gabor Lux, including an adventure and more. $6, 44 pages.

Friday Enhanced Map 7-12-19 - Looks like another level of that eye dungeon. $2

Odysseys & Overlords World Map - PWYW

Robots: A New Character Class Review — Not Enough Distinctive Mechanics For Mechanical Men

 Robots! Although arguably the heyday for them in fiction was the 1950s, I discovered Isaac Asmiov as a teenager in the early 80s, a man who probably put more thought into his robot stories than anyone. I also later discovered the works of Clifford Simak, who although lacking the scientific background of Asimov and typically writing stories in a pastoral setting, absolutely loved robots. Not as props, but heavily developed characters. 

Robots from Sharp Mountain Games is not the first attempt to bring a robot character class to the OSR.  The first was perhaps the Automaton class from Barrel Rider Games (flavorful, but like the UA Barbarian, saddled with huge XP costs), and a couple years ago, I came up with the OSR Android. This though is more like the more traditional SF robot, the sort favored by Simak. At least in flavor.

New OSR Products at DTRPG — July 11th, 2019

Sick this week. Slept 13 hours last night. So no review.

And on a completely different subject, it's amazing how many typos there are in product descriptions. I'm not immune to it myself (and it's always remarkable how obvious they are when reading something again a week or more later), but it seems to me when you're charging $10 for a product, you could at least proofread your description.

Adventures

HighFell: The Drifting Dungeon - From the author of Barrowmaze (which I thought was pretty meh, to be honest) comes this new megadungeon. 246 pages plus maps, $35

Rules

OSR Solo -  Rules for running games without a GM. 8 pages, $1.99 and apparently the whole thing is available as a preview (which is what I do for my stuff, but I don't really charge for it, so nice of this guy.)

Robots: A New Character Class - From Sharp Mountain Games comes this racial class for B/X and LL. 14 pages, $1

Misc

CAL2 Calidar on Wings of Darkness -  From Bruce Heard comes this Calidar gazetteer about that world's version of a magocracy (seems more like Glantri than Alphatia), with the added complication there it's also full of demons (which B/X and BECMI didn't really have). $8.50 and 132 pages.

PG2: A Player's Guid to Caldwen - Small guide for above meant for players. $2.99 and 20 pages

Friday Enhanced Map 7-5-19 -  Underground dungeon with caves. $1

New OSR Products at DTRPG — The 4th of July, 2019

No review this week since I am battling either allergies and/or a summer cold, plus there isn't anything that I've bought lately that cries out to be reviewed.

Also, somewhat of note, is there is a kickstarter for a new version of Chivalry & Sorcery.  Which if nothing else, is a reminder that old school is not necessarily less rules.

Adventures

Death at the Oasis -  Apparently for C&C (which I really consider more 3e-ish than OSR, and not very good in any event), but has OSR conversion notes. 20 pages, $5.99

Dead Arising - Apparently for C&C, but has OSR conversion notes. 30 pages, $5.99

Forsaken Pyramid -  Apparently for C&C, but has OSR conversion notes. 30 pages, $5.99

Mystery of the Cursed Monastery -  1st-2nd level adventure for Odysseys & Overlords/Basic Fantasy RPG. $1, 10 pages.

Spiral Isles -  Apparently an adventure about coming back from the dead, because raise dead is too easy or something. Dual statted for 5e and S&W. 54 pages, $10

Towering Temple -  Apparently for C&C, but has OSR conversion notes. 24 pages, $5.99

The Port of Dakhalla -  Apparently the setting for the above C&C modules (with notes for OSR). 36 pages, $9.99. Cover art is really nice.

Rules

From Distant Lands -  Barbarian expansion for Beyond the Wall

The Blackest of Deaths -  Seems like another entry in the OSR eliter than thou pissing contest of who can be the most grim/deadly.  104 pages, $9.99

Misc

Friday Enhanced Map 6-28-19 - Level 2 of the Eye of Shum Murak. $2

SPC1 Old School Character Sheets - For 1e/OSRIC $2.95

Free Megapack from Wildside Press (until Sunday)

Wildside Press is something of an odd company, partly parasitic in that they take public domain stuff (often scanned and corrected by others) and sell them for cheap (in Megapacks), but they also do have stuff that doesn't seem to be PD and sell them for cheap (also in Megapacks).

Case in point, the Kothar the Swordsmen novels from Gardner Fox. He was a favorite of EGG (even publishing him in early issues of Dragon), but his work is very hard to find

Anyway, my point is, they are having a 99 cents off coupon (and their megapacks are 99 cents) with the code HAPPY4TH

Two different collections of Kothar novels are in the fantasy section, there's also a lot of old pulp horror in that section, and you might also look at the Lon Williams weird western megapack, the dude more or less invested the Weird West genre.  I came across them via Pulpgen and Mobileread (a guy there would convert Pulpgen's PDFs to mobi/epub) and they are very good.

New (and Free) Add-on for Beyond the Wall

From Distant Lands is an add-on all about barbarians for the excellent OSR game Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures,

Basically includes a playbook for a barbarian character, rules for mass battles, a scenario, and barbarian themed monsters. And it's free.