Temple of the Bear Review — Bears and Bores

Sharp Mountain Games has put out a lot of mini-adventures for Labyrinth Lord over the last few years, and being a person that finds short-ish adventures the most useful, I've bought most of them. They tend to be a bit formulaic and can be a mixed bag, but once in a while there's one that's exceptional and they are cheap enough ($2.50). Temple of the Bear is perhaps the most generic of the bunch, although it's aimed at a somewhat higher level (7th) than the previous.

Originally SMG's modules were centered around a town of Adela, but recent ones have moved, this is in a village named Fastholme. Basically the place has been beset by animal attacks (bears) and recently a farmer's son has been kidnapped. There's no real detail about the town, only about a half-dozen townsfolk who are are given half a paragraph of background each. But presumably the PCs will investigate, with the mayor offering 4,000 gp. That's not a princely sum for 7th level, but it's better than the miserly amount many other modules offer.

The Barbarian King Module now available

Or perhaps available again. Anyway, it's a print adventure module from the Fomalhaut guy, Gabor Lux

A 20-page adventure module for 4th to 6th level player characters, The Barbarian King pits the company against the ruined empire of the mountain barbarians... and the evil that still slumbers therein! This gloomy wilderness and dungeon scenario features deals with malevolent and ultra-powerful spirits, the burial places of a now defeated people, shadowy hosts and deadly traps.
First published in 2002 as a standalone mini-module, this edition has been re-edited for easy use, and includes illustrations by Matthew Ray, Stefan Poag and Denis McCarthy.

When I first got back into the OSR, I almost exclusively bought print stuff, but lately I've gotten lazy and just go with PDF. This (and $6) will also get you a PDF when it's eventually released.

Free Adventure for BlueHolme

Yes, I possibly should name this blog "A Day or Two Late OSR News and Rarely Reviews", but in case you missed it, a collaborative dungeon for BlueHolme, the Holmes Basic retro-clone is now available for free

I really liked both version of the Numromen dungeon (the first one for Blue Holme), this seems a bit overly slick and too modern. But it's free

QuasarDragon is back with Goblin Market, PWYW module

It's been a while (understandably, as modules can be a surprisingly large amount of work) but QuasarDragon is back with a new module, Goblin Market. It's the second in the PO series, which are based on famous poems. In this case, arguably one of the greatest poems ever, Goblin Market by Christina Rosetti.

It's one of those poems that tells a fairly interesting story in its own right and can be interpreted pretty much any way you want to.

So check it out, it's PWYW, and if you like it, go back and donate. And pick up his Tome of Twisted Terrors, a monster book containing various creatures from folklore, a bargain at $2.

False Promises Review — Converted Adventure Needs a Bit More Converting

False Promises from Throwigames came out last year around the holidays. I didn't get it at the time since it was $5 for 20 pages, a bit too pricey for my budget for a blind purchase, but the price was later dropped to $2.50 which is more in my wheelhouse for modules I know nothing about. Indeed, I didn't know it when I bought it, but apparently it's a conversion to B/X D&D of an older module written for the company's own house system. Regardless of its origins, it actually sort of feels and looks like a late '90s 2e product than anything else. 

My contribution to Free RPG Day — The Craft Dungeon of Reynaldo Lazendry

Was originally going to be "Hobby Dungeon", but then I realized that was too close to the Hobby Shop Dungeon. It's a fairly large dungeon that I made a couple years ago when I started up a new game. I had originally used a free map from Tim Hartin from his website, but ended up changing a lot of things and re-drew it, much less artistically.  It was going to be the first module I released, but it was rather large and never got around to finishing polishing it up.

It's the first level of a larger dungeon. The premise is that an adventuring wizard retired, but grew bored. So he took up a bunch of hobbies, which the first level is devoted to. It also comes with a village that I used as a home base. All in all, 30 pages.

You can get it free from TinyUpload, or MediaFire or as a Pay What You Want title at DTRPG

Betrayal at Lucir Review

Betrayal at Lucir is the second module from Sundered Blade Games, the first The Shrine of Sruukor is Pay What You Want, while this is priced at $2.99. It's meant for Swords & Wizardry, level 2 or so, but could possibly serve as a starter adventure.

It's something of a semi-sandbox. The basic area (the town of Lucir and the surrounding area) is detailed somewhat, and then there are two events which lead to the PCs running off to two different dungeons. One of these events is what the title refers to.

The area has something of a Celtic feel to it, at least the names do. The town has an apothecary, inn, church (dedicated to a forrest goddess), smithy, and market square. Perhaps more, but those are the things that get a write-up. There is no town map as near as I can tell, but the level of detail for things described is quite good, with the exception of stats for the mentioned NPCs (there aren't any).

The Tomb of Gardag the Strange—New PWYW Adventure from 3 Toadstools

A new module from Shane Ward of the 3 Toadstools blog. If you follow that (it's on my blogroll), he's been working on a megadungeon but put this out to take a break from it. I am a fan of his previous stuff, so I've been eager for both.

A long time ago lived an evil and very eccentric warlord named Gardag.  Over the years he up aa cult following, many flocked to him and worshipped.  He sent out his cultists to pillage and burn the surronding lands.  Eventually he ammased a huge stock pile of treasure. 

*A OSR module for 4 - 6 Characters Levels 3 and up.  Compatible with Labyrinth Lord (TM). 

Includes Pre Generated Characters

Interesting Henchemen

One Hand Drawn Map 

24 Encounter Locations

The Sinister Stone of Sakkara from Autarch on Kickstarter

Autarch doesn't put out a lot of products, but the ones they do put our are pretty high quality. Their latest Kickstarter is a starting adventure, The Sinister Stone of Sakkara. It uses the ACKS rules, presumably, but that's really, really close to B/X except for the weird armor class they use.

The adventure is intended for six to ten characters of 1st to 3rd level, with a combined total of 8-12 levels of experience in the party. In the tradition of classic TSR adventure scenarios such as The Keep on the Borderlands and The Village of Hommlet, The Sinister Stone of Sakkara features a detailed starting base and small wilderness sandbox in addition to a dungeon. 

• The adventure scenario is approximately 40,000 words.
• The starting base includes a villa, headquarters, hospital, chapterhouse, infantry barracks, cavalry barracks, bathhouse, traveler's inn, and forum, all mapped and keyed.
• The dungeon features two levels, the first with 75 rooms and the second with 39 rooms, mapped and keyed, along with two custom wandering monster tables. 
• Additional delights include the "Adventurer Motivation Table", "Random Philosophical Meditations Table", "Profligate Imperial Banquet Table," and "Settlement Demand Modifiers Table" (for the mercantile venturers!), as well as a menu of options available at an Auran fast-food restaurant, excerpts of Zaharan prayer-verses, and more!

The PDF is only $5, so pretty good deal there, and the print version is $25, which is perhaps not, depending on how many pages it is (I'd guess 90?)

The Beast That Waits Review—Overlooked Gem

Somehow I missed this product, The Beast That Waits from Three Sages Games, using the Sword & Wizardy (Complete) Rules. It apparently came out in the summer of last year (2014) and I just didn't notice it. I'm kicking myself, because it's essentially my favorite sort of gaming product, and it's extremely well done. It is a mini-sized sandbox setting. While a sandbox, it's not simply a collection of random tables (though it has those), but a well described location that the PCs can explore and interact with more or less at their leisure.

It's centered around a small village named Graven. The place has a lot of problems, and has been increasingly cut off from the outside world. Presumably the PCs will want to reverse that by exploring the country side, dealing with the various dangers. There are four wilderness areas to explore (well, one is really farms), two dungeons, and the village itself.

Much of the wilderness is table driven, rather than a hex crawl. There are separate tables for day and night in each area, and eventually the PCs can "clear" the area by killing off (or making friends with) everything. The dungeons though are fully described and keyed. One is the keep of the ruler of the area and is relatively small, clearable in a session, while the other is a combination of mines and ruins below the mines. This is large and could very well take two or three sessions to go through.

The Outpost of the Outer Ones released

This module took longer to make than previous ones. It's basically a dungeon crawl set in a Mi-Go base, suitable for sixth to tenth level characters (sixth for 1e, closer to 10th for 0e or B/X). It ended up being more gonzo than first planned.

Grab it for free from here, or over at RPGNow

Delver's Dungeons

In case you missed them (I know I have), the author of Delver's Dungeons just posted a roundup of all his past AD&D modules, and is teasing a new release

Advanced Adventures #32: The Palace Beyond is out!

At least it's out at RPGNow/DTRPG. Although the quality depends a lot of the author, in general, I am a huge fan of this series, and they are pretty much the only real ongoing products for OSRIC/1e.

The Palace Beyond is an OSRIC(tm) module designed for 4-6 adventurers of levels 6-9.

The Palace Beyond is ancient, and the race that built it is long gone. The palace exists on many levels of reality, and it is said it is everywhere and nowhere at once. It connects different parts of the world: it is possible to walk through a magic portal, into one of the palace’s corridors, turn around a corner, and then walk through another portal to end up in a far away land. But now the palace is deserted, and the magic that made it possible is slowly crumbling. Its pocket dimension is collapsing, and large sections of the palace have already fallen into Nothingness.

$6, 16 pages.