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.

Free Adventure from Geoff Dale—The Temple of Modiboga

The Temple of Modiboga is a small temple crawl adventure from Geoff Dale, best known for his classic Judges Guild module Inferno (which he has updated/continued).

While it is for his retro-clone, Portal to Adventure, it's pretty much standard OSR stuff, other than some slightly different terminology. Not sure how his Armor Class works, as it seems to range from 6 to 30, but it seems to use standard monsters, so not a real problem.

Judges Guild Inferno will finally be complete on Sept 28th...

Judges Guild was known for their hex crawls, and one of the more ambitious ones was a hex crawl in Hell, called Inferno. That only featured the first four circles...then a fifth circle was detailed in the third issue of Fight On!

Well, the original author has been working on it and will finally publish it via his company, Spellbook Games.

Inferno: Journey through Malebolge, the expansion and completion of the 1980 JG module, Inferno, goes on sale on September 28, 2014. Inferno describes an area almost 400 miles across and 1.25 miles deep consisting of the ten Circles of Dante's Hell. It features more than 70 encounter areas/dungeons with detailed statistics for more than 75 denizens (including 5 Diabolic Earls). The module will be available from DriveThruRPG; the PDF version comes as a 3-file bundle (cheaper) although each book can be purchased individually. The print-on-demand versions can only be purchased as separate books (more expensive plus printing fee plus shipping). There will also be a PDF bundle available consisting of all the Inferno files (3 Journey books, Inferno 1980 {the original JG module}, Gehenna Primer, Inferno: Bestiary, Codicil of Maladies, Gazetteer of Hell - Fire and Ice, and Gazetteer of Hell - Blood and Mire; Treasury will be added when it is published). Journey through Malebolge is completely compatible with the two current Gazetteers of Hell and the two Gazetteers now in production (available later in 2014).

I am nearly finished editing Inferno: Treasury, the essential reference for the artifacts and unique enchanted items found in Inferno; these are NOT described in detail in the text, only referenced by object name. My hope is to release Treasury on Sep-28 but that may slip a few days into early October.

Neat, but looking at the prices of his other stuff, probably expensive as, er, hell.