OSR OSR News Roundup

Welcome to the News Roundup for September 30th, the last day (and Monday) of the month. We've had nothing but rain here for the last two weeks, it seems, and I hope that everyone reading this in North Carolina is safe. I'm sure long-time readers may be aware that one of my goals with this newsletter is to promote the works of new and/or marginalized creators, especially those of BIPOC and/or LGBTQ communities. There are creators who, because of their views or the content of their creations, I do not mention here. I bring this up now, specifically, because I had gone back and forth about whether or not to include mention of a product, and ultimately decided to, which you can find below, along with some rationalization of why I did so.

  • I'm always on the lookout for a good mecha game, and I stumbled across the newly released Celestial Bodies: Titan Edition, by Binary Star Games. They've been releasing CB in increasingly longer editions, and it looks like they're getting ready to launch a crowdfunding campaign for a final version soon.
  • Violet Core is another mecha game funding on Kickstarter, billing itself as a high-speed sapphic mecha rpg. The art has a wonderful neon-90's punk aesthetic.
  • The Gauntlet is raising funds on Backerkit for The Between, a game of monster hunters in Victorian England. It runs on the same system that powers one of my favorites in recent years, Brindlewood Bay.
  • Ikezu-Ishi is a feudal Japan-inspired game that hacks Cairn, Into the Odd, and Block, Dodge, Parry. It's still in playtest form, and will no doubt be updated as things get refined.
  • Liminal Horror is a great little system that is getting more (deserved) attention, and I just happened to see The Roaring Age, a hack of LH set in the 1920s for that classic Call of Cthulhu feel but with newer, stream-lined rules.
  • The Caverns of Arcane Silk is an introductory adventure written and published by Idle Doodler as a dungeon they created and ran some players through. I think this is a great little project, and look forward to seeing more of what they release. It is a good way to get some spell scrolls into the hands of lower level adventurers.
  • I've mentioned before that one of my favorite things to do is promote the work of first-time publishers: this week we've got two by a new author: Cloud Press. They've released Turn it Off, an adventure for Knave 2e, in which a lighthouse meets Lovecraft, and The Cult of Mr. Jingles, a horror-filled adventure written for Mausritter. They may be a new publisher, but the use of public domain art and the layout is top-notch.
  • Solo games sell so well at Sabre that we've got a rack that displays the two dozen or so different games we stock, and I was stoked to see the Ultimate One-Page Solo RPG Toolkit, a collection of tables for use with solo gaming.
  • I always like seeing short encounters or adventures that can be easily slotted into an existing game, and Tales by the Fire, Vol. 1 promises that for your Shadowdark game with a collection of short adventures and encounters.
  • I know Andy Duvall through his OSE adventure the Dessicated Temple of Locha as well as some maps he's done for me, and he's just released What Lies Sweeping, a system-agnostic sci-fispace adventure. He produces some quality products.
  • I'm sure I'm not alone in that the Fight On! Fanzine was a crucial resource when I was first discovering the OSR community and playstyle, and right now there's a bundle deal on the first fourteen issues over on Drivethru. I'm not sure how long the bundle deal will last. I will also provide a caveat that these issues contain works by some contributors who, because of some of their views and opinions, I have chosen not to feature in this Roundup. I still think this is a great resource and am important look at the early days of the OSR movement, so I decided to include it.
  • I've mentioned the wonderful Tales of Argosa before, and the publisher has just released a new adventure for it: the Crypt of Kursaba, a short undead-themed adventure.
  • The prolific Philip Reed has released Blacken & Burn, Rumors of a Dying World, a collection of rumors for Mork Borg and other similar grim fantasy settings.
  • I'm shocked that Fungi of the Far Realms is only now just showing up on Drivethrurpg, but I guess that is the cae. It's an awesome book, a pictoral guide to weird and wild mushrooms and other fungi for you to plop down into your setting. I'm hoping it gets a reprint, soon, because it is one of those books we just could not keep on the shelf when we did have it in stock.
  • I've got a couple projects in the works. Right now I'm raising funds for the 2025 Hexcrawl Workbook, a daily planner-style notebook with a blank hex page for each day. I'm most excited that it is available in a spiral-bound version, to make it really easy to use. Also, I've had a compilation of all the player options I've written over the years laid out and ready to crowdfund, and I've decided to give Backerkit a whirl with that project. I've been using KS to fund over two dozen projects, but when I saw Games Omnivorous post about switching over to BK I thought I'd give it a try; the book is already written and compiled, and I've just been waiting for a chance to slot it into the schedule. I'm hoping to write up a blog post in the next month or two about the two different platforms; I can already see ways in which Backerkit is superior, at least from a "setting it up" perspective.
 

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It's October, and here in Central Virginia it has finally stopped raining and it feels like fall is here, bringing along with it Halloween. Along those lines, another Todd is hosting a Headless Halloween Game Jam on itch. There are some nice prizes for those who participate. It felt like releases were kind of light in August and September; this Roundup makes up for it with a ton of new stuff. I actually didn't include everything I saw, so if you feel like I skipped over a release I should have covered please let me know and I'll rectify it next week.



  • Someone pointed out The Ruins of Castle Gygar to me. Written by Onslaught Six during Dungeon 23, it's been polished and laid out and is seeing print as a 64-page zine, much in the style of Stonehell (one of my favorite mega-dungeons). Seeing stuff like this -- that started as an itch jam or a writing exercise or just a labor of love -- come into print is one of the coolest things I get to witness in doing this Roundup on a regular basis.
  • Matt Finch's Tome of Adventure Design is a book I use constantly, and there's about a week left on his current Kickstarter, funding books two and three in the series. When done, this three-volume set should have everything you need to craft a setting and campaign.
  • Jeffrey Jones has been publishing some really cool stuf for OSE, and is currently crowdfunding Secret of the Whispering God, a 1st level adventure for DCC. It may be of some interest that this is a city-based adventure that involves heists, which is an overlooked genre in gaming but one I always see people asking for.
  • I've been following the work of Marco Serrano (also known as Spicy Tuna) for awhile now, and they're in the middle of a very successful KS campaign for The Hands that Feed, an adventure for Mothership. I've enjoyed everything that they've put out thus far, and am looking forward to this, as well.
  • Another publisher I've been following for awhile -- and stocking in the store -- is Crumbling Keep. They're funding a second edition of their solo/co-op dungeon exploration game, Marching Order: Curse and Coin Edition. The one drawback -- for me, at least -- is that they're looking at a release date of October 2025, and for the retailer level tiers that's just too much money for me to have tied up for a year before getting the goods. I've mentioned it before, but for retailer levels with that much lead time I'll only back it if I can do it for a placeholder amount, and pay the balance within a month or two of fulfillment.
  • I feel like a broken record this week (but I guess that's a function of doing this for . . . three years, I think? I start to see names I recognize and think have produced cool stuff), but Murkdice is another indie publisher that put out constantly great material. They've just released Void Above: Spacer Guide (for players) and Void Above: Host Guide (GMs). The artists have really knocked it out of the park, with a style I can best describe as pastel children's book meets art deco. It's really phenomenal.
  • His Majesty the Worm hit the OSR scene like a ton of bricks, and shortly after its release there's already an itch jam devoted to it. Crime of Passion is an adventure written for HMtW that centers around two ex-lovers who've decided to make their break-up everyone else's problem.
  • Speaking of HMtW, the author has released At the Shrine of Fortitude, a free adventure for that game.
  • One of my pleasures in writing this Roundup is getting to promote the works of first time publishers. Daniel H. Carlsen has released their first adventure, The Curious Creeps in Crimson Creek, as part of the Knave 2e adventure jam.
  • Trappist Ails is a pun-heavy, trap-themed adventure written as part of the Knave adventure jam.
  • A third adventure written for the Knave jam is Beneath the Spindle. It is stunning, to be blunt, an absolute masterpiece, and it is free on itch, so you have absolutely no excuse not to pick it up.
  • The talented Lucas Rolim is itch-funding Death Knight, a solo rpg about a fallen knight raging against darkness and despair.
  • Haunts is a supplement for Shadowdark that provides guidelines for adding haunts to your game; undead and horror-themed apparitions with a variety of powers.
  • Written for Mork Borg, Skeletons! is a short supplement that pretty much does what it says on the tin; provides skeletal varieties for the game.
  • Wormwood is a free, 95-page setting and game that is a work in progress. Influenced by the time period in the mid-530s, AD, when a series of volcanic eruptions caused the earth's temperatures to drop and unleashed a period of plagues, famine, and societal unrest.
  • Courteous Dragon has released the Mystery of Moonriddle, a system agnostic adventure toolkit that seems to be a bit in the vein of B1, the classic starter adventure that provides a map and a framework on which to build an adventure. I might ordinarily pass this by, but it is specifically designed to be run on a VTT, with the maps having separate tokens that can be arranged as desired. With the explosion in growth of online gaming this is something I like to see.
  • This must be the season of the 'mech; I wrote about two new releases last week, and this week I've got two more for you. Aether Nexus is a fantasy Mecha game based on the Mecha Hack system, with absolutely gorgeous artwork.
  • Readers might also be aware that we're the US distributors for Leyline Press and their Salvage Union game; LP is currently funding the Salvage Union Starter Set on Backerkit, which will come in a box set format.
  • I've been waiting for Wind Wraith, by Lazy Litch, to come out in print, and we've finally got it in stock. It's a really nice-looking book and the quality and content is up there with their other releases.
  • I'm currently running two crowdfunding projects, the first on Kickstarter for the 2025 Hexcrawl Workbook, and one on Backerkit for a compiled book of all the player-facing options I've written over the past seven or so years. I'm cautiousl impressed by Backerkit, especially the option to have hidden pledge levels. Speaking of which, there are hidden pledge levels for both Patreons and Subscribers of my work in addition to people who have purchased my work before. If you fall into one of those two categories, and have not gotten an email with the links, hit me up and I'll be sure to send them over.
 

I'd like to start off this issue of the Roundup letting everyone know that Sabre is planning a gaming convention next summer to celebrate our birthday. Right now we're looking at SabreCon2025 to occur the weekend of the 4th of July, July 4th-6th, in downtown Charlottesville. We'll be parterning with Decades Arcade to create a three-day weekend of gaming, both tabletop and arcade. We're still early in the planning stages right now, but if you're in the area and think you may be interested in attending (to either play, run, or as a vendor) we'd love to hear feedback. We've set up up a forms survey here to get some preliminary information.

Second, I don't know how many readers are familiar with the fiction of Howard Andrew Jones, a gamer and writer known for his Pathfinder fiction and his own works, notable his recent Hanuvar series. Howard has just been diagnosed with brain cancer, and his friends and family have set up a GoFundMe to help him out. I never met Howard in person, but we have corresponded, and he was very encouraging about my work. His kind words and encouragement meant a lot to me, especially coming from a published author. If you can spare some cash to contribute to the campaign I know both he and his family would appreciate that.

Last week's Roundup had a lot of new releases; it seems as if that was an outlier, as there aren't as many new releases that I was able to find for this week.
  • This is the time of year when capitalism kicks it into high gear, and to celebrate that there's a game jam running on itch until November for Corp Borg. So, if you want to share your love and devotion to commercialism this is is the jam for you.
  • bonsaipropaganda has released their first ever project. It's on itch and free, so you should check it out and give them some encouraging feedback. Entitled Sheep People and the Meat Man, it's a short, mini-adventure written for Cairn. I've said it many times, and I'm sure long-time readers are getting sick of hearing it, but I will never not share someone's first release.
  • I've mentioned Slugblaster a couple of times here before; Reality Lens Stolen is a one-shot mystery for that system.
  • Nietzsche's Demon is currently funding on Kickstarter. It's an adventure for Mothership 1e, with a Groundhog Day-esque theme of reliving and replaying the past.
  • I'd mentioned Corp Borg, above, and saw that there's a release on Drivethru for the D10 Useless Office Items, a collection of useless stuff you can find around the office.
  • Secret of the Crystal Gate is a short, interesting looking adventure for Knave 2e that is meant to be used as a one-off or a side-quest as the adventurers travel.
  • Just in time for Halloween, Dark Shadows Over Castle Talbot is an adventure for OSE centered around a noble family afflicted with lycanthropy and how the solutions they attempted to cure themselves made things worse.
  • Hexed Press has released Do Anything d6, a system broadly compatible with most OSR games that uses d6s to resolved skill and other similar challenges.
  • I've been highlighting some entries in the Knave 2e Adventure Jam; one of the recent releases, by RPGPapercraft, is called Patrons of the Harvest and is availble on Drivethru. It comes with some charming paper cut-outs, a watch wheel, and more, and fits an amazing amount of playable content into 8 pages.
  • directsun has been publishing some really high quality products (full disclosure, we carry some of them), and they have just released With the Cult of the Crimson Revelers, an adventure for Knave inspired by the film Reefer Madness. It also features art by one of my favorite artists, Munkao, known for Thousand Thousand Islands and Reach of the Roach God.
  • Broadsword is a new swords and sorcery-style retroclone inspired by pulp fictions such as Conan. I'm not familiar with the publisher, but it's a short and sweet system and the author has made it available via the Creative Commons license, which is nice.
  • The BX Advanced Player's Options book is still funding on Backerkit. If you are looking for some options and expansions to your BX/OSE game, especially if your players may be coming from a more modern background and looking for more customization, this compilation of my previous work may be of interest to you.
 

Welcome to the News Roundup for the third week in October. I don't know about you, but it sure feels like to me that the weeks are flying by, and before long we're going to be into 2025. I'd mentioned the GoFundMe for Howard Andrew Jones, fantasy author and gamer, and I'd like to mention it again. They're within 12k of the goal, and if you've got some spare change it is a worthy cause to contribute to.

On Friday at Sabre we hosted two new authors, both who just published their debut novels, and I'd like to take a moment to promote their work. I have not read either of the books, but I did purchase a copy of each and they're on the top of my "to-read" pile.

Lindsey is a local, Charlottesville-based author, and Cindy, who lives in Kansas, is her critique partner. They came in on Friday and set up a table to sign books and discuss their work. If you're looking for a good book to read this winter you should check them out!

Also, Alex Kingsley used to be based in Charlottesville (my wife actually taught them in high school) and they have written several gaming books that consistently sell out. Alex has just published their debut novel, Empress of Dust, and when they came in to discuss their work for SabreCon 2024 they mentioned they're also planning an rpg based on their setting.

  • Kyle Tam of Urania Games has released Track Rats, an adventure for Liminal Horror based on subways and the rats that inhabit them. It features work by Hodag RPG, one of my favorite artists.
  • I'd mentioned the Exalted Order of the Majestic Moose awhile back, and the author has just released their second title on itch: Fish People and Water Witches is an encounter location written for Cairn and set on the back of an enormous sea turtle.
  • Tower into Elsewhere is a new adventure written for David Blandy's Eco Mofos game, a multi-planar romp with horror themes.
  • I'm a huge fan of Yochai Gal and Cairn, and am waited with bated breath for the box set to be released. Until then, they've published the Player's Guide as an at-cost, print on demand book over on Lulu.
  • The Bundle for Ukranian Hospitals came out last Monday, too late to be include in that issue of the Roundup, so I'm mentioning it today. If you're a creator who has a product they'd like to submit, or if you'd just like to support a worthy cause and get a crap-ton of games (there are currently over 200 entries with another 14 days to go) this is something you don't want to miss out on.
  • Gordy Higgins released WitchCon, an adventure for Troika! set during a witch's convention. It had been previously written by Franc, but Gordy provided illustrations and layout for the project.
  • Downcrawl 2e is funding on Backerkit; it's a toolkit for creating an underworld sandbox setting, and has been remastered to provide support for solo or zero-prep play. Besides the content, the art is pretty stunning.
  • Castle Grief is fast becoming one of my favorite OSR publishers, and they've jsut released Aelwine, a free, partially filled out hexcrawl region designed to give Referees a framework to use when building their own adventures.
  • I mentioned Dungeon Grand Prix a year or so ago after it was released, and Orbital Intelligence has released Dungeon Grand Prix: Smuggler's Pass, an adventure and location for the game. This book provides a ton of new material for the game.
  • Righteous Vow Vol. 1: The Witch-king of Ul, is an adventure zine for Shadowdark that includes a setting, adventure, and new items and monsters.
  • The Purple Planet is one of the classic settings for the DCC game, and Memories of the Purple Planet is a new adventure set on that world, written for PCs of levels 4.
  • What is Under Monger Lake? is an adventure for Knave 2e designed for low-level characters but with an open-ended, sandbox-style format that can open itself up to longer play. It's also available statted out for 5e, but I'm never too sure how well OSR-style games translate over to 5e.
  • I'm a big fan of isometric style maps, and the new adventure Cult of the Crimson Ice comes right out with a gorgeous iso-map on the cover. It's a dungeon crawl with Cairn and Borg options, plus it is available in both English and Spanish.
  • Justin Sirois of Severed Books is producing some of the most consistenly weird and intriguing products for OSR-style games, and Veilgrave for Mork Borg is no exception. It's a low-level sandbox style adventure brimming with the top-notch art and layout one expects from Severed Books.
  • Prisoners of the Crimson Crystal is an adventure written for OSE with lovely, 8-bit style art. It's available in both English and Italian, and is reminiscent of the old Palace of the Silver Princess adventure.
  • I'd mentioned Painted Wastelands when it was crowdfunding; the PDF is now available on Drivethrurpg. With an art style reminiscent of Ultraviolet Grasslands and a setting that looks to be a cross between Vaults of Vaarn and Cloud Empress, this is a gorgeous, well-thought out setting and game.
  • I'm funding Issue 39 of Populated Hexes Monthly on Kickstarter this month. It begins an exploration of Tyeld, the City of Shadows, and introduces the duskblade class, a warrior-based class that draws powers from the Shadowlands, at the risk of corruption by the fell entities that dwell there.
  • There's also a little more than a week left in the Backerkit Campaign for the BX Advanced Player's Options, a collection of the almost decade's worth of new classes, spells, and player's options I've written for OSE.
 

It's the last Monday in October, and that means there are just two months left in 2024. What this also means is the ZineMonth is just around to corner. I will be doing the interview series I have done for the past (three now, I think?) years, highlighting zine creators and their projects, and it's never too early to start promoting your work. If you're such a creator, and you'd like to answer (in written form) a handful of questions about your project, please hit me up and I'll get them to you.

  • The first project I'd like to mention is written for 5e, but being an encounter location for a hexcrawl-style game I figure it is right up my alley. The Conductor, by Kontent Punch, is an encounter location with a strange being, and is especially suited for a fey-themed encounter.
  • Johnny Rook Games is Kickstarting Of Hunger and Lies, a city-based murder mystery written for OSE and OSRIC. It looks like there's a ton of stuff in here to make the city come alive, which is something I see people constantly looking for.
  • Double Proficiency, the folks behind the wildly popular Geologists' and Herbalists' Primers, is Kickstarting the Mycologists' Primer, which does for fungi what their previous two books did for herbs and rocks.
  • Gourdin Konbo Club has released The Illustrated Bestiary in English and Japanese, a collection of 145 monsters for Cairn (written by the author of Cairn, Yochai Gal themselves!).
  • Bound for the Bogwood is a spooky-themed adventure written for Cairn. It's about 90% done, and folks who purchase it now (at a discount) will be getting the updated files at no added cost when it's done.
  • Caverns of the Sacred Flame is an adventure for Knave 2e that was submitted to the recent Knave jam. It boasts a super cool isometric dungeon map.
  • Sneaking under the wire in time for Halloween is the Cairn adventure It Was Night in the Lonesome October, a spooky race-against-the-clock hexcrawl.
  • Saving Saxham is a short, open-ended sandbox-style adventure written for Cairn, 5e, and standard OSR games. It looks like it, too, would be a good one shot to run around Halloween.
  • Another Knave 2 jam entry is the Toymaker's Folly, a (free) adventure on Drivethru with horror-themes designed for a low-level party.
  • The Sunken Temple is a mid-level adventure for OSE, centering around a submerged temple and the hunt for the wizard who went missing while exploring it.
  • Shadow & Fae is a cool little OSRish game that I mention from time to time: A Walk in the Harwood is a new adventure for S&F (alhough it can also be run with OSE) where everything is not what it seems.
  • Crumbling Keep has released A Strange House, a 42-page adventure in a weird, decrepit dwelling contained within a pocket dimension. It's written for OSE and features art by Roundup favorite Evlyn Moreau.
  • Castle Grief is on my list of new favorite publishers that I've discovered this year, and they've just released Kal-Arath, an OSR system designed for procedural play; whether solo or co-op. They've also released at the same time two expansions: Valley of the Black Ziggurat and Lords of the Pit.
  • After founding Mythmere Games and going out on his own Matt Finch has been releasing new products at a torrid pace, both old and new. Tomb of the Iron God is a re-release of the classic adventure he wrote in the late aughts, updated for S&W Revised.
  • The Wizard's Zine was released in 2016, and now, eight years later, we've gotten Vol. 2 after much fan urging. It's largely a community driven project, and contains a whopping 105 pages of material written for Swords and Wizardry and White Box. Believe it or not, it's also Pay What You Want!
  • Written for Knave 2e, Eurydice's Needle is a jazz and crime inspired adventure that features, in my opinion, one of the best designed covers I've seen in awhile. The interior art is pretty great, as well.
  • MT Black has released World War Weird, a Black Hack hack set in on an alternate Earth during World War Two. Black is a well-known author, and a number of their releases are extremely well-regarded.
  • Sabre has gotten some new OSR titles in, including His Majesty the Worm, Outcast Silver Raiders, and a restock of the OSE Advanced Player's Book.
 

Welcome to the first Roundup for November, 2024, and closing in on the last of this year. Like I mentioned in last week's Roundup, that means a number of y'all will be getting ready for the annual ZineMonth event, and like I've done in previous years I'd like to promote your project, whether you're doing it through Kickstarter or the independent ZiMo project. If you're interested, but have never done it before, I recommend joining the ZineMonth Disord server, here, where you'll find plenty of resources to help your project.

I saw an announcement last week that Drivethrurpg has finally enabled the option to filter out all content with AI generated assets, which I think is well overdue and a great option.

Also, I'm sure everyone is tired of hearing about the election, but if you're in the US remember to vote tomorrow!

  • Yochai Gal, the author of Cairn, and one of the driving forces behind the NSR movement, has released Trouble in Twin Lakes. It's obviously written for Cairn, and looks like it will be an introduction to a mini-setting Yochai is working on.
  • Wuggy has been releasing some really cool art assets, and their most recent release is a collection of hex tiles. It's compatible with Hex Kit, but they should be easily imported into other similar hex software.
  • Dice Goblin Games has released a cool fantasy seasonal transition table, for use when the seasons transition from one to another.
  • The Far Horizons Co-Op has been producing and publishing some really neat stuff over the past few years (including Samantha Leigh's Outliers!), and they've just launched a Kickstarter for Paranormal Freelancers, where you play freelancers who do the work that various powerful supernatural entities can't be bothered with. It's a short campaign, so be sure to check it out now before it is too late.
  • It's not OSR, but I saw Trash to Treasure: A Magical Goblin Girl RPG, a game about magical goblin girls fighting evil and pollution, and thought it looked pretty neat. It's inspired by the excellent Eat the Reich game.
  • Card-based rpgs have proved to be really popular at Sabre, and I'm intrigued by a project currently funding on Backerkit. The Time we Have is a card-based rpg designed for two players, where each takes on the role of a brother on the opposite side of a door in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. One of you has been bitten, and it is only a matter of time before you change.
  • It missed Halloween, but The Black Pumpkin is a Halloween-themed dungeon available on itch. Set in a pumpkin, with a plethora of Halloween/horror tropes, this short adventure is system neutral and available as Pay What You Want.
  • I saw this a few weeks back on socials and it looks like Lazarus has finally uploaded their spell books for OSE to Drivethru. It's available in a free (B&W) version and a paid color version, both of which are designed to be printed and assembled for your players.
  • Bloodholme is a horror comedy adventure written for Old School Essentials, designed for a party of third level characters.
  • Dyson Logos has just released their Cartography Collection of all of the maps released in January of 2024. There are ten maps, and they include both blank and populated maps.
  • Cairn 2e is available on Drivethru! Both the Warden's Guide and Player's Guide are available for free, and as I'm sure many readers have noticed from my shout-outs over the past few years there's a really active community of people creating products for this great system.
  • Abandoned Temples and Crawling Creatures is a new solo dungeon crawling system.
  • Another OSR system that has caught my eye is Blood Engine. It's meant to be compatible with old school modules and systems, but also draws inspiration from modern games like Savage Worlds and Mausritter. As someone who draws inspiration from modern games as well as old games, I appreciate the sentiment.
  • The prelaunch page for Year Three of Populated Hexes Monthly is live on Backerkit. I had a really good experience with the platform for my last project, and am giving it another try. Since this is the third book in the series, and I have two successful campaigns on Kickstarter for the other volumes, I'll be able to use this as a direct comparison.
 

Welcome to the second Roundup of November. Let's jump right in, shall we. This week seems a bit lighter than recent weeks.

  • DURF is a fun little system, and DURF Me to the Moon is a recent entry into the DURF adventure game. It's meant to be a quick one-shot playable in a couple of hours, and is influenced by both The Little Prince and Dr. Who.
  • Simon Templar has just released The Call of Cairnthulhu, a mashup of Cairn and the works of HP Lovecraft. Cairn is a sweet game (I know I've talked about it before), and I think it dovetails very nicely into the Call of Cthulhu-style games.
  • Written for the excellent Wretched and Alone system, A Witch, A Gallows Bird is a late release for Halloween. You take the role of the one real witch in Salem Village, trying to survive in an atmosphere of accusations and fear.
  • The prolific James Floyd Kelly has launched a short Kickstarter for Delver 16/Runes 5, a collection of game aids and material for OSE and Shadowdark.
  • Christian Eichhorn is funding Tribute, a zine for Mork Borg, CY_Borg, and A Death in Space. Christian has released a staggering amount of 3rd party material for these systems, and their projects are always worth checking out.
  • One thing that the various Borgs do really well is project hopelessness into the game, and Mork Org leans into that, embracing perhaps the most horrifying, hopeless existence of all: that of the mindless office drone.
  • The Ghosts of Zoazanna Mountain is an adventure for OSE currently funding on Backerkit. It's a massive, 80+ page adventure, with some really great illustrations.
  • I meant to mention this a few weeks ago, but I dropped the ball. Elln the Witch has released a compilation of their "little zine" books. Each release is a little amuse bouche, a delightful aid to play, and they're definitely worth checking out.
  • Peculiar Taverns Along the Way is a collection of twenty taverns, broadly sketched, ready for the Referee to add details and throw them into their game as needed.
  • I've mentioned Corp Borg a couple of times, and Gates of Byll is a random room generator for that system.
  • Speaking of an amuse bouche, Random I Am is a collection of two tables of grog and grub, written with Pirate Borg in mind but obviously adaptable to any other system.
  • I'm a big fan of Hugh Lashbrooke's Mausritter releases, and Whiskers in the Wind introduces the new setting of Whiskerwind Hollow.
  • River of Lies is a DCC adventure set on the Purple Planet. It's written for 3rd level characters, and is by James A Pozenel, with art by a host of DCC luminaries.
  • MacGuffin and Co (publishers of some fantastic indie games, include Upriver, Downriver), have just released A Day at Barracuda Beach, a . . . relaxing, beach-based hexcrawl that allows the PCs to doff their plate armor and don their Speedos.
  • Populated Hexes Monthly Issue 39 is live on Drivethru, featuing an introduction to Tyeld, the City of Shadows, and the duskblade class, a martial playable class that draws power from the Shadowlands at the risk of corruption of the soul.
 

Welcome to the third Roundup for November. Releases are a little light this week, no doubt due in part to the impending holiday rush/busyness.

  • There are plenty of one-page systems out there, and now there's Forest Burial, a solo rpg designed to be printed out and stored in a chewing gum case. It's a submission to the Solovember Game Jam, and takes inspiration from Vermis, Princess Mononoke, Shadow of the Colossus, and more.
  • Transgender Deathmatch Legend is a title that we constantly sell out of at Sabre, and the folks behind that game are currently crowdfunding TDLII, a sequel to the first. This new book is available in an A4 landscape coilbound book.
  • James T Hook has released Sword & Backpack: Reforged, an rpg where you play a young and untested adventurer setting out to seek gold and glory for the first time.
  • Cyclopean has released a pretty cool-looking free product on Drivethru: entitled The Faction Machine, it's a system-neutral faction generator for sandbox campaigns. It's five pages, and provides simple rules creating self-motivating factions for your games.
  • The Dreamgod's Idol is a 1st level adventure written for DCC. It's a short adventure, suited for a one-shot or side-quest, or as a hook to throw out for low-level players.
  • Written for Shadowdark, Smoke and Shadows is a short supplement and expansion for the system (and for OSR systems in general) that add rules for gunpowder weapons, as well as the musketeer class.
  • I always enjoy seeing a new release and remember covering it in the past as part of a crowdfunding project. FÄNGELSEHÅLA is now out, and I remember covering it for 2024's ZineMonth. It's an rpg in the style of an IKEA instruction catalog, and is really well done and very clever.
  • Hangry Dwarf Games has released The Wizard Remains, a mid-level (6th or so) adventure that is written for 5e, Knave 2e, and generic OSR games. I'm usually really hesitant to recommend games written for both 5e and OSR games, since I think the two playstyles are usually too divergent, but the author has included conversion and scaling notes, which will no doubt help with that.
  • Kevin Crawford is crowdfunding a new in the "Without Numbers" series: Ashes Without Number is his take on the post-apocalypse genre, with tools to create your own version of the apocalypse, as only Crawford is able to deliver.
  • I'm crowdfunding yet another issue of Populated Hexes Monthly, this one Issue 40, which continues the look at Tyeld, the City of Shadows, and begins an exploration of the Shadowlands, where spirits go after death and demons feed upon the unwary.
 


Welcome to the last Roundup of November, and in the States the one before the Thanksgiving break and the consumer chaos that is the weekend after. There's not a ton of new releases that I found this week, which is likely due to the impending holiday season and the general level of busyness.

  • Hedgemaze Press has released a free Polyhedral Dice Font, which is excellent for a visual representation of different dice notations.
  • Statted for Cairn and DURF, The Fabulous Luxurious Totally Normal Hot Springs Resort on Reverie Island is a pamphlet one-shot adventure with some really neat art and fun, totally normal, not dangerous at all locations and guests.
  • I'm a big fan of Block, Dodge, Parry, and the author has just released Sail, Swab, Scurvy, a nautical supplement for BDP and Cairn. There's a ton of content in here that is applicable to virtually any kind of naval campaign you're running.
  • Solo Survival is a short, quick survival game where you try to reach safety in a post-apocalyptic world.
  • Kobayashi has been releasing some amazing NSR content (including Black Sword Hack and Fléaux!), and they're currently crowdfunding Assassins, Demons, & Dying Gods, a game in which you play mortal assassins tasked by a god with killing the demons hiding amongst humanity.
  • The Caravan's Secret is an adventure for Dragonbane, a desert adventure designed to be run as a one-shot or short adventure to get players from one place to another.
  • As many readers no doubt are aware, I'm a big fan of random table resources, and was excited to see this new Magic Item Generator by SilverNightingale; I think it's a great way to give flavor to magic items to make them more than just "a +1 sword".
  • The Sepulchral Tower is a short adventure written for Mork Borg with a pretty simple premise: there's a tower, it's abandoned, and there's stuff in it to find and fight.
  • I'm not familiar with Lance & Tome, but Vol. VI is out and has rules for mass combat that are designed to be system agnostic and usable for a wide range of OSR systems. I'm always interested to see what different folks do with mass combat systems.
  • I'm a big fan of Weird Heroes of Public Access, and there's just been a supplement released for it for free: game posters designed to be printed, filled out, and posted at your local FLGS to get a WHPA game together. I think this is a really neat idea, and would like to see other games do soemthing similar.
  • Philip Reed has released Unplanned Encounters with the Undead, a collection of encounter cards that, as it says on the tin, provide encounters with a variety of undead monsters.
  • I've launched a Backerkit campaign for the compiled collection of the Third Year of Populated Hexes Monthly. This collection includes a basic psionics system, rule
 

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