Inferno: City of Glasya-Labolas Review — Hell is a lot like South Florida

In high school I had to read Dante's (Divine) Comedy, at least parts of it, mostly the Inferno part about Hell and its 9 circles. While largely meant to be political satire of the day, the vivid descriptions and sheer depth of the descriptions of Hell really leaves an impression. Which is why it's remembered so well today and used for some many products - at least books and games.

Back in the old days Geoffrey O. Dale must have been similarly captivated, because he released a hex crawl of Dante's Hell, Inferno. Well, more like 4/9s of them. I actually had missed this back in the day, but Fight On! published a 5th circle and it really impressed me. So I've been following Mr. Dale's attempts at continuing his Inferno line (along with Erik Elkmann), despite the fact that the modern releases are not really compatible with D&D, old school or modern, except very vaguely like any fantasy RPG is.

Inferno: City of Glasya-Labalos is the latest product in the line, detailing a small city on the plane of Gehenna. The name of the city might be familiar, as it's a "real" name of a devil/demon which EGG re-purposed as the name of Asmoedeus's daughter (Glasya). At 163 pages (plus another booklet with stats for NPCs) it's a remarkably detailed look at the city and its environs, but the level of detail in the city itself comes at the expense of flavor, or even coherence, really.

Inferno: Oasis of Koessa Review — Banana Throwing Polymorphed Dwarves in Hell

Inferno: Oasis of Koessa is an adventure module from Paul Elkmann and Geoffrey O. Dale, the latter known to old school gamers as the author of the Inferno hex crawl for Judges Guild, which was literally set in hell as envisioned by Dante.  That only had 4 circles of hell, but he included a 5th circle in one of the issues of Fight On! and then apparently finished the rest in a stand alone product.

As the name implies, Inferno: Oasis of Koessa is set in hell (the 7th Circle), basically a small oasis consisted of some sphinxes, a funerary temple, a tower (obelisk), and some small pyramids, ruled over by a mummy king. In practice, it's a collection of dungeons. The largest is a sphinx, with just over 100 keyed locations and 20 pages. The funerary temple is 14 locations and 5 pages, the tower 11 floors (one per floor) and 4 pages, the tomb is 16 locations over 6 pages, and the pyramids are about 12 locations and 5 pages each.

For the most part, all of these places are old school dungeon crawls. Very old school, they very easily could have come out of a Judges Guild product circa 1980 (as did the original Inferno).  Lots of combat, lots of death traps (two or three saving throws per room seems to be about the norm), with the occasional very strange thing that makes you laugh and say "That's crazy!".  My favorite example of the latter is a dwarf polymorphed into a chimp that throws bananas at the PCs, some of which explode.