Gobs o' Trouble Review — Odd Hobs

I really liked The Beast that Waits from Three Sages Game, it was an excellent sandbox-ish title. However, I'm guessing I was one of the few that even noticed it, since they have moved on to other game systems, with their only other OSR module being this, Gobs of Trouble. It's a very short mini-module (priced at $1).

As the name implies, it involves trouble with goblins. A small band of them has displaced a family from their farm. The party presumably stumbles across the evicted farmers and decides to help them by retaking the homestead. If they do that and succeed, they then discover that the goblins have been in turn kicked out of their lair by an advance party of hobgoblins.

Rob Conley's Majestic Wilderlands now has its own rules

Sort of an unholy combination of Swords & Wizardry and 5th Edition, but eh.

BF1 Tower of Skulls Review

BF1 Tower of Skulls is a high level (10th to 12th) adventure from Cut to the Chase Games for Swords & Wizardry. It's actually been released for several different systems (Pathfinder, 5e, and even Savage Worlds) but is pretty strictly an old school dungeon crawl. It does seem to have been written with 5e in mind and then back converted, so there are a few oddities and problems arising from such a conversion.

The Tower of Skulls has something of a lengthy backstory, but essentially a rival demon prince of Orcus, a demon prince of undead plants, ended up on the losing end of a war and Orcus imprisoned him in the Tower of Skulls. But the PCs probably don't know this and simply go to the tower for other reasons. Several ideas are presented, but not are particularly compelling, other than the lure of loot.

Free Sword & Wizardry adventure from Frog God Games

I don't really like Swords & Wizardry and I don't really like most of FGG's products (since most are designed for Pathfinder first and half-assedly converted), but this was written by Mathew Finch so presumably it was the other way around.

Also it's not short. It's 26 pages, which is what, like a $30 value going by Frog God's usual prices?

Ivory Relics — Free Swords & Wizardry sourcebook

13 pages of new magic items

Ivory Relics contains Suits of Armor, Shields, Melee Weapons, Missile Weapons, Greater Wands, Greater Rings and Staffs suitable for any Swords & Wizardry White Box adventure. More than fifty magic items!

List price of $1.99, current price free. Presumably no elephants or narwhals were harmed in the making of it.

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).

Creation's Edge is back with a full sized Module, Against the Goblins

At the end of last year, Creation's Edge published 8 mini-modules for Swords & Wizardry at about one a week or so (maybe longer, don't remember). I was a fairly big fan of them, I bought over half of them and reviewed a couple (will eventually review the others). I was a bit disappointed to see them stop, so I'm really happen to see a new module from him, Against the Goblins, this time full sized at 60+ pages,  Right now it's priced at only $3 (regular price $6) and is for 1st-3rd level characters.

Tower of the Elreli—New PWYW Adventure

From Sundered Blade Games comes Tower of the Elreli, a one page adventure which can be used on its own or to expand Betrayal at Lucir (which is on my wishlist, but haven't bought it yet)

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 Warlord's Vault Review

The Warlord's Vault is the 6th in the Dungeons of Dazegoneby line of modules from Creation's Edge Games, meant for a party of 6th to 8th level characters. The modules are for Swords & Wizardry (a Original D&D retro-clone) and are meant to mimic the modules TSR put out, at least in the general sense. They are more like mini-modules, to run for a single session, in this case 13 pages total, including map & credits page.

The setup is a bit non-traditional, being almost like a game show. The warlord of the title was a great adventurer and when he died, a friend created a tomb to serve as a proving ground to see who deserved his magical gear.

In order to reach his tomb, and more importantly, his gear, the PCs have to knock down 7 prismatic walls, essentially similar to the prismatic sphere spell. To take down each wall, you need to either cast the spell that counters it (which is probably not an option for the PCs, since most are higher level than this module) or use a corresponding prismatic key, which are found in various parts of the dungeon.

Pyramid of the Lost King Adventure on Kickstarter

From Genius Loci Games, which honestly, I haven't heard of, but they have published a few small OSR  adventures before, comes a kickstarter to fund a larger adventure, Pyramid of the Lost King: Adventures in Basq

Pyramid of the Lost King is a decentralized sandbox adventure centering around an area of the Desert known as the Narrows. The Narrows is a section of desert that is divided into a northern and southern half by a massive slab of sandstone over 200 miles wide and 300 feet in height. The only way (aside from walking around) past this slab of rock is through the narrow canyon the area gets its name form. The Narrows and the desert around it have become a hot bed of activity as the merchant guilds have come to rely on it for their caravans to the Last Lands. However, the desert around the Narrows is still unexplored and dangers, both ancient and new, encroach.

It's for Swords & Wizardry

Secrets #2: Strange Races now available.

In case you didn't see this on my blog roll, it's a new supplement/fanzine from Darkwater Press featuring a bunch of new player races (and other stuff) for Swords & Wizardry. $2 for PDF and $6 for print (and PDF)

D4 Mazestone Dungeon Review

Magestone Dungeon is the 4th in the line of Dungeons of Dazegoneby, mini-modules for Swords & Wizardry, from Creation's Edge Games. This line started about a month and seems to be their first foray into OSR stuff. It's a short module, only 11 pages, and only 7 keyed locations/encounters which takes up about half the PDF, with another page describing prisoners in the dungeon.

Although I'm not a fan of Swords & Wizardry, but I couldn't help being lured in by the blurb for this module: The king’s wizard is dead. His legendary mazestone has been stolen. The good news is its been located in the castle’s dungeon. The bad news is the maze has escaped, along with the monsters it contained). The low price, $1.50, sold the deal.

Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods released

This is something of a mini-monster manual from Spes Magna Games, based on a real life (if tongue in cheek) book of the same name, Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods by William T. Cox.

19 critters statted for Swords & Wizardry, 24 pages for $1.50

Freebooter's Guide to the Razor Coast free in PDF for a limited time

This is a bit iffy. The Freebooter's Guide comes in a Swords & Wizardry version, but it's very much a Pathfinder orientated product line.

Still, ordinarily a $1,000 value, or something like that (Frog God's products are really overpriced...)

Creation's Edge starts publishing OSR materials

Creation's Edge, a fairly prolific 3e/Pathfinder/4e low end publisher, has now dipped its toes into the OSR waters with a module, Sorrowblight Fields for Swords & Wizardry. It's an 11 page mini-module for $1.50 and 1-3 level characters.

New Pay What You Want Adventure—GL-1: Taglar's Tomb (Revised)

The author originally was selling this Swords & Wizardry Adventure for 1st level characters for 50 cents, but today apparently changed it to "Pay What You Want", which seems to work since the average contribution is $4.70