OSR Commentary On The Ice Kingdoms: The Fires of Mount Surtur Kickstarter & The Ice Kingdoms Campaign Setting

Deep in the heart of Mount Surtur an ancient evil long thought vanquished is stirring. Can your heroes protect the Ice Kingdoms from the legacy of the fire giants?

Continuing the Swords & Sorcery theme with a twist with the new  Mad Martian games Kickstarter. In less then twenty four hours I've watched Mad Martian's latest Ice Kingdom's adventure Fires of Surtur Kickstarter  fulfill & now its stretch goal time.




This adventure is built around the idea of the Thanelands a full on fantasy version of Norse & full throttle Viking mythology with an old school setting twist. The Thanelands is a solid setting that could be added into an existing campaign as another Northern alternative plane or as another Norse style across the world country. There are new PC classes, spells, monsters, etc that are specifically adjusted to the the setting. The Ice Kingdoms is specifically designed for OSR games;
"The Ice Kingdoms is a fantasy setting inspired by and designed for old school RPGs. We love the ‘feel’ of old school games (such as pre-3rd Edition Dungeons and Dragons) and their rules, so we are creating game material that is compatible with several modern game systems that use the Open Game License to ‘retro-clone’ those classic games. The Ice Kingdoms is compatible with OSRIC and For Gold & Glory, and our books can also be used with Swords & Wizardry, Basic Fantasy Role-Playing, and Labyrinth Lord with only very minimal conversion, as well as the original editions upon which these games are based. We are currently working to convert our earlier projects to other game systems such as Pathfinder, 3rd Edition and 5th edition."

The Thanelands has its own distinctive feel & style to the setting. Fires of Surtur takes it & amps it up to eleven, given that the Thanelands is specifically designed with its own distinct take on Norse mythology, it stands to reason that this is going to be very distinctive take of an adventure. I'm also interested to see where they take the Thanelandsversion of Kobolds in this The Fires of Mount Surtur.


The artwork looks very interesting to me & since there's an extensive catalog of adventures & supplements I'm intrigued by the direction of this Mad Martian games latest efforts. If your interested in getting a feel for the Thanelands, 'The Temple of Drawoh Rock' 1st level adventure is available for 'pay what you want'. It will give a solid overview for the adventure locations of the Thanelands;
'The Temple of Drawoh Rock is an adventure module for 1st level characters exploring the Ice Kingdoms. As warriors of Thane Ornulf the characters will sail the Atalac Sea, explore the Gate Isles, and raid the Monastery of Jove. But what starts out as a simple plan to rob some peaceful monks turns into a harrowing adventure as the adventurers cross paths with the machinations of a deadly sorcerer. The Temple of Drawoh Rock is the fourth adventure for the Ice Kingdoms Campaign Setting. For more adventures in the Ice Kingdoms see Into the Mournwood, The Lair of the White Wyvern, The Girl With the Demon Tattoos, and The Ice Kingdoms Campaign Setting all from Mad Martian Games'


Is this kickstarter worth your dime?! Seriously I think so. The Thanelands setting is flexible enough to be used with a large variety of OSR games. We're finally getting the bestiary we need & the Thanelands has expanded considerably since the their very first kickstarter. Since this is the case I'd use the Thanelands as an old school  background setting for running the '81 Gygax classic Against The Giants. The Thanelands has everything a dungeon master could want to run this classic along with the appropriate background & PC classes.


I think that the Fires of Surtur adventure could be used to enhance G1,2,3, & as a possible side quest for the adventure path. Do I think that the Fires of Surtur is worth your money?! In a word yes!!

Review & Commentary On Mad Martian Games OSR Setting The Ice Kingdoms Adventure "Lair of the White Wyvern" By Ryan Lynn

Five days or so ago I went to the Mad Martian Games crew & asked for a copy of "The Lair of the White Wyvern".  I took three days to read through Mad Martian Games "The Lair of the White Wyvern", here's what came out of my readings & musings.
"Something is amiss in the village of Ainhild. A sickness sweeps through the people and no cure can be found. Rumors and tall tales lead the desperate to blame a long vanished wyvern for the illness. Can your adventurers unravel the secret of The Lair of the White Wyvern? "The Lair of the White Wyvern" is the first adventure for the Ice Kingdoms campaign setting. It is a suitable adventure for characters level 3-6 for a variety of old school role playing games, including OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, Swords & Wizardry, For Gold & Glory and even the original games these ones are based on."

So reads the blurb for the first adventure for the Ice Kingdoms old school style rpg setting. This is one of those adventures that is half adventure & half let's get the party up to their necks in trouble in our setting. The village of Ainhild is one part sword & sorcery setting and one part home base for this adventure where the party is right at the center stage of the action. The plot begins with the PC's right in the middle of the action;"As the adventure begins, the characters are traveling across Thanegard heading toward the Vanir Mountains when they encounter some farmers in need of rescuing.

By talking with the farmers, the characters learn of Ainhild, a small village that has been stricken with a rash of unexplained deaths and illnesses." And then it sort of goes pear shaped.

There are over thirty two pages of adventure with surrounding introduction material comprising of random encounter tables, adventure plot ideas, setting background & history of the village of Ainhild as well as the surrounding environs. Its a serviceable section that does the job of getting the PC's into the adventure's universe. But there's a problem right off the bat.

Right out of the gate there's an adventure device that is a bit well rail roadie with the PC's drawn into the plot of the adventure if they like it or not. This is not something that I like to hook players into the action but 'Lair of the White Wyvern' employs it. There are other hooks & ways of drawing in the PC's into the adventure provided. These are discussed about getting the PC's reasons for being in the village of Ainhild. But once again this device is employed throughout the first half of the adventure.

The adventure itself has some clever bits and pieces revolving around the deaths of the village, a bit of wilderness adventure, some dungeon crawling, and plenty of hooks for later adventuring in the area. But something felt a bit flat in the writing of  "Lair of the White Wyvern." There are a few things that I've come to expect out of an old school adventure:

1. Is this adventure going to provide an overview of the setting material and can it be used as a campaign tool kit to create a complete campaign setting for long term play? The Lair of the White Wyvern has the potential to do so but seems well somewhat limiting for long term play. Here's your sandbox & your region don't go colouring out of the lines because your only this level PC's. 
2. Can material in the adventure  that has been provided be used to create other adventures within an campaign setting? With the "Lair of the White Wyvern" the answer is yes & this makes the adventure salvageable for other adventures within the region given in the adventure. 
3. Is the adventure open ended? The "Lair of the White Wyvern" is not as open ended as I'd like it too be; the Thanelands is one of epic mythology, sword & sorcery action. But your in some backwater village dealing with an issue of poisoning & backstabbing. The more interesting stuff is happening elsewhere in the campaign setting. This was one of the problems with many second edition rail road AD&D adventures. This isn't an edition wars complaint but a second edition adventure design criticism. Its one that's stuck in my craw since the first adventures started coming out for second edition AD&D & "Lair of the White Wyvern" seems to stumble right into this path conceit  for whatever reason.
   
   The bestiary is one that we've seen a thousand times before with several usual suspect AD&D first edition monsters now transported over into the Thanelands. Why is this being done? Because Mad Martian games wants their own version of these classics. Anyone can find them out of the OGL & I understand why the designers & writers are doing this but it doesn't fly in this adventure.
   
   Look the problem is that there are certain sword & sorcery ideals that I was expecting after reading through the Ice Kingdoms setting  book.  I'm expecting an operatic sword & sorcery adventure & given the quality of the setting book I was expecting more from the "Lair of the White Wyvern". The writing felt flat, the artwork was passable, & the cartography needed more time in the oven. In fact I think that the whole adventure needed more time to develop & be brought up to the quality of Mad Martian Games Ice Kingdoms setting. Three out of five.
   If this is the direction that The Ice Kingdoms line is going to go then I'm going to part ways. There are way too many issues for such an epic setting to have such a mediocre adventure.
   
    "The Lair of the White Wyvern" is available through Mad Martian Games Lulu store
   
   

Commentary On OSR The Ice Kingdoms Source Book From Mad Martian Games & The Ice Kingdoms Map For Your Old School Games

No I'm not being bribed by Mad Martian Games but they did send me a really nice gift a huge color map of the Ice Kingdoms setting on heavy poster material suitable for actual play at the table. This piece of cartographic awesomeness is massive and works on a grand scale, it covers 24x36 inches and its available right over here. Now let me give you the scale of this map, I'm standing on a chair to get the whole thing in the frame!


The detail is very well done & Mad Martian is making it very difficult for me not to want to use their setting at the table. I believe that this is a part of some diabolical plan on the part of writer/designer  Christopher Barnhart

The Thanelands is very well detailed here and the whole thing resonates with me for a sword & sorcery style adventure setting. Even though the game setting is keyed for either second edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons or For Gold & Glory a second edition retroclone system. Neither of these options really clicks my switches but not because I don't like second edition AD&D but because I'm in a different place with my sword & sorcery gaming itch. Let me explain, The Ice Kingdoms hits the same sword & sorcery buttons that Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea trips. Congrats to all of the kickstarter backers who have gotten their books. They look from what I've seen fantastic & the setting resonates with a very different feel from other stuff on the market including some of the OSR Viking material. But what I like is the ease of use, there are several different pages of conversion tables that make The Ice Kingdoms very accessible to Ninety percent of the OSR retroclones currently on the market.
This book has all of the tools to take PC's into a home sword & sorcery Thanelands  based game campaign. Several reasons why this works is:

• New racial variants for Humans based on a humancentric outlook &  culture.
• New rules for class modifications which are actually usable in my opinion with current OSR systems including AS&SH or ACK's. 
• Detailed gods & pantheons as well as rules for priests of every deity because these deities fit the setting in the heavy mythological OSR sword & sorcery
• Monsters are Thaneland variations on many of the classic D&D monsters with a mythological Viking twist drawing heavily from such sources as Russian, Norse, Celtic, and deep Arthurian legends 
• The history of the Thanesland ties directly into its actual game setting location while drawing deeply from its own internal material but leaving plenty of room for DIY D&D hi jinks.
  
  
  The detail is incredible and well worth the price of admission & can't believe my good fortune to have this sent to me. The Ice Kingdoms is one of those settings that works on a multiple series of levels as a home campaign as an adventuring backdrop & as a point for more familiar D&D classic adventurers to grab a series of vacation adventures upon.
  
  
  For use at the table I can see several uses for the map as a way of keeping track of the adventurers progress across the world of the Ice Kingdsoms. This is the most obvious application as a visual reference for the dungeon master & players. The second way is for use by the DM to chart out his own machinations for adventures for his players which makes sense especially for placement of artifacts, adventure locations, important NPC's, PC families & dependents, home bases, etc. The third use is for domain & military campaign action within the game. Make no mistake this is a solid cartographic resource for both the Ice Kingdoms setting & for actual on the ground table top action.
  
  If your interested in finding out more about the Ice Kingdoms & the Thanelands there's a twenty five page pdf preview available here!
  
  There is also a facebook group for the Ice Kingdoms here. With lots of constantly updated news & Ice Kingdoms related stuff.
  
  If your interested in purchasing the Mad Martian Ice Kingdoms source book & their latest adventures in print they've got a Lulu store here!
  The giant Ice Kingdoms Map is available right over here.

More New Ice Kingdoms OSR Sourcebook Commentary

So the other day I was zipping around the various Facebook support groups & Mad Martian Games's Christopher Barnhart made the official announcement;"If the tracking is to be trusted, the proofs should be at my house tonight when I get off work. Therefore, provided there are no issues, we should start fulfilling orders tomorrow night.

We will be working our way down from highest level backers to lower level backers. Breaking them up into groups so we can tackle all the fulfillment in one weekend.
Then we can proceed to finish up the three adventures, the art book and the map supplement for Into the Mournwood. Then I can get some rest before tackling the Bestiary and the next Kickstarter (once we see what the IRS does to us!)"

Yes, I totally stole this from Ice Kingdom's Facebook support page.

So is there a difference between this book & the Black Edition that Mad Martian sent me? In a word yes according to Mad Martian's RW Stenberg "Yes! more art! more reference! Better words! 196 pages of snow covered viking goodness!" In addition according to Christopher Barnhart, the new color edition is still b&w interior but this edition is a more refined and edited version of the Black Edition with additional information, the finished product. The Black Edition was an early release of an incomplete edited manuscript." For the moment I'm good with my copy of the Black Edition that Mad Martian had sent me.


Congrats to the backers & those of  you who supported the Ice Kingdoms Kickstarter. Recently, I've been rereading the book at various intervals and dipping my dungeon master's wick in. Think of that what you will. But seeing the color book has me looking & wanting but I have some reservations. But these aren't what you think.
See its like this, Ice Kingdoms is a great setting with lots of fantastic Dungeons & Dragons style races, monsters, PC class options, etc. but its really its own world with lots of interesting kick ass sword & sorcery  details but it needs to stand on its own terms. The more you delude & mix this setting there's something of a loss that can happen here.
This was one of the reasons why in the last commentary that I made about mixing Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea with the Ice Kingdoms I stated keeping things separate from each other.



Many of the familiar D&D  setting details might look familiar but they've been given a brand new & somewhat unique spin through the lens of the fantastical aspects of Norse Mythology with some Greek, Arthurian, Celtic, Germanic and Russian Mythological influences  which makes a huge difference to how they can impact a campaign. In other words if your going to do an Ice Kingdoms game then set it within the Ice Kingdoms themselves or take bits & piece of the setting for NPC's,  monsters, adventure locations, but keep the Ice Kingdom's flavor.


So why I'm holding off on the jumping on board with the new rule book? Well because I want to do this setting and world justice. There's a certain amount of unique Viking style trappings about the setting and simply dropping it into a game as another sword & sorcery cookie cutter OSR product doesn't do me or my players any good. Digesting a world setting means getting into some respect for the amount work & passion that the writers & creators have done with the Ice Kingdoms. By distilling that into a home brewed adventure then a DM has not only a unique voice but his own take on an OSR setting. This is one of the corner stones of the OSR, taking an existing product or setting and putting your own stamp on it to make it yours. The Ice Kingdoms seems ideal suited for just this sort of gaming.

I'm kind of excited to see where Mad Martian is going to take the Ice Kingdoms & it should be a unique ride to say the least. The colour edition looks most excellent. The world of Eordan is very well laid out and I can't wait for the next chapter of The Ice Kingdoms.

Mixing & Matching Setting Elements From The OSR Sourcebook Ice Kingdoms From Mad Martian Games & Hyperborea From The Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea Rpg System From North Wind Adventures

Thanks for the email  +CherryCokeRiboflavin first of all & the great questions about mixing and matching these fantastic settings. If your interested dear reader my first impressions of the Ice Kingdoms they haven't changed. The world of Eordan is very well laid out in the Black Edition of Ice Kingdoms within the OSR campaign book. There shouldn't need to be any thematic element changes between Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea & Ice Kingdoms they're both old school sword & sorcery settings built for OSR adventures & play.


The Ice Kingdoms has many of the traditional AD&D first & second edition monsters, races,magical elements, classes, etc. all with sword & sorcery twists to them drawing heavily from the fantastical aspects of Norse Mythology with some Greek, Arthurian, Celtic, Germanic and Russian Mythology added in. This makes the world uniquely its own thing but its setting  is grounded in the OSR within its systems so its easy to convert between use with  OSRIC and For Gold & Glory. Their books can also be used with Swords & Wizardry, Basic Fantasy Role-Playing,Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea  and Labyrinth Lord because they contain extensive conversion notes & tables for use between these retroclone systems.


Now as for how PC's can travel and mingle between these settings? Well that's rather easy if we take the world of Eordan & place it within the same orbits as the black winds of Hyperborea these two bodies might pass near each other in the blackness of space. Both game systems have extensive astrological sections within them. Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea has an entire section on the Hyperborean system carefully laid out in the Referee's book on page 178. All of the astrological bodies and phenomenon appear within.


Now hypothetically the bowel shaped flat world of Hyperborea could pass within the influence of the world of Eordan allowing a mingling of atmospheres and perhaps even hypothetically oceans. Now given the nature of Ice Kingdom's Thanesmen & the Vikings of Hyperborea its within the realm of possibility of these two groups traveling to each other's worlds to go exploring, adventuring, raiding, trading, and even to establish out posts. Technically there could be hidden shrines, or long forgotten tribal locations within some of the backwaters of Hyperborea or vice versa.


The Ice Kingdom's setting has extensive background on its cosmology and there are differences across the board but these can be incorporated & fleshed out by a clever dungeon master looking to exploit such setting minutia to work in their benefit.


This mixing and matching of settings allows a dungeon master to introduce on a limited basis such traditional D&D races such as Elves & Dwarves into the world of Hyperborea with very a definitive sword & sorcery spin on them.
This can be done without ruining the unique flavor of the Hyperborea setting or adding in too many high fantasy elements within the bounds of AS&SH. Part of the strength of Hyberborea is the low fantasy high pulpiness of the world giving it a rather unique feel in the world of the OSR. Ice Kingdoms has a far more heart & soul of dark European mythological fantasy with a heart of sword & sorcery.


Crossing into the spaces between worlds on a Viking ship is going to make spell jamming look like a trip to sunny brook farm. The space between worlds is going to be filled with all kinds of hazards not to mention Lovecraftian horrors waiting to snack on a viking warrior or ten. This means that a wizard or cleric of Odin is going to be essential to such endeavors.



In the end this sort of mixing & matching of systems to through the use of inter system world existence is something that could lead to a world crossing point crawl from one OSR or old school setting  to another allow DM's to pick and choose which settings they want to have as the focus for their own hybrid campaigns. So +CherryCokeRiboflavinI hope this helps out in your own OSR campaign, great question & hopefully I've given you some more fodder for your own games.

Initial Impressions Of The OSR Sourcebook Ice Kingdoms From Mad Martian Games

Alright so back about August of this past year I helped to promote The Ice Kingdoms 

Kickstarter from Mad Martian games. I was just starting to really dip my toe in more Sword & Sorcery style Old School third or forth tier products. Anyhow I got absorbed by the OSR & table top gaming as I always do. Then I was contacted by the Mad Martian crew on Facebook that my book is on the way?! Alright so flash forward yesterday & really nice package arrives from Lulu. Inside was this beauty!

So what on Earth is this?! Well its a source book about a Viking like people with lots of deep OSR bits. I say Viking like because it draws from the Celtic (Pictish), Arthurian, Russian, Norse, & lots of other mythologies especially sword & sorcery. Here's the blurb from the Kickstarter;"The Ice Kingdoms is a fantasy setting inspired by and designed for old school RPG’s. We love the ‘feel’ of old school games and their rules, and we are creating materials that are compatible with several current systems that ‘retro-clone’ those older games. The Ice Kingdoms is compatible with OSRIC and For Gold & Glory, and our books can also be used with Swords & Wizardry, Basic Fantasy Role-Playing, and Labyrinth Lord with only very minimal conversion, as well as the original editions upon which these games are based."  So why was I interested in this Ice Kingdoms in the first place? Because I was playing boat load of Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea & I wanted a Viking style source book well I got it in spades. Now that being said there's a bit of THACO style system scattered throughout the book because of the source book's connection to the 'For Gold & Glory' second edition AD&D  retroclone  By Justen Brown. 

 Umm how do I put this delicately, I'm not a fan of second edition AD&D because the system took a lot of the teeth out of the PC's classes. This isn't me engaging in 'edition wars' bull crap but its a systemic observation of 2nd edition AD&D. The TSR second edition era world settings  were/are  incredible but the system was very bloated and heavy in many regards. THACO can be a bit of a problem for some gamers  but for us old schoolers who know a bit about conversions there's a dice and systems conversion page. There's also some  fairly detailed conversion rules in the book to make it usable with other OSR systems, including their  indexed priest spell list so this makes using Ice Kingdoms with  Swords & Wizardry, Basic Fantasy Role-Playing, Labyrinth Lord & other OSR game systems a snap.

CS Barnhart is the lead designer on the project and there's a lot of his finger prints all over this sourcebook in a good way. There are multiple human tribes scattered throughout the Ice Kingdoms that resemble many of the peoples of history with their cultures resembling Greek, Arthurian, Celtic, Germanic and Russian respectively. The book is actually organized with a decent ready for it? An index of all of the material relative to the Ice Kingdoms themselves. This is a big deal for a book that deals with a world setting plus monsters, horrors, orcs, goblins, etc. yes there are the usual suspects but they've been given an Ice Kingdom paint job & well blended into the setting's cultural background.

The whole book has the feel of a labor of love and hearkens back very early indie D&D style source books so on that level it appeals to me; Mad Martian also went the extra mile by enlisting the talents of writers who were themselves involved with those old books, James Ward and Ernest Gary Gygax, jr. The layout is smooth & the text is clear, the world setting is pretty detailed but not overwhelmingly so. There's plenty of room for DIY D&Ding in this one.


The Ice Kingdoms is a collection of borderlands stretching between fair Adierolf and vile Dargogran, a mountainous and savage untamed wilderness of marauders, monsters and mystery, known as the Land Bridge. The Land Bridge is home to the savage and misunderstood Ice Kingdoms. Between the Thansmen, the various warrior races, Ice magi, and other barbarian style hordes I'd drop these folks right into a their own setting in an Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea game! Floating high above Hyperborea this world comes into close orbit around that setting & then wham looting pillaging begins! The Hyperborean Viking gods are not going to get along at all with some of the gods of the Ice Kingdom. Ullr alone is a good example of a survivor of Old Earth's Ragnarok that is more then happy to send his worshipers into war against these upstarts from another world.
The book is extremely detailed and well thought out!
Which is why I wouldn't actually screw around with retro fitting the setting as it is. I would take the whole setting cloth & all to add into my own  low magic, high violence sword & sorcery world to add in another dimension of play and adventure.Thanks to Mad Martian Games for my copy of the Ice Kingdom and an early Christmas present!
Do you want a copy of The Ice Kingdoms for your own old school campaigns? Get in contact with Mad Martian games here!


Mad Martian offers some great previews here
25 page PDF of "The Ice Kingdoms" Website

An Updated Preview/Sample of "The Ice Kingdoms"

There's also a great Facebook support group for the Ice Kingdom

Commentary On The OSR Retroclone Kickstarter For The Ice Kingdoms By Mad Martian Games

Check Out Ice Kingdoms
& Support Here

So there's a new sword and sorcery style retroclone on Kickstarter called Ice Kingdoms; the ideas & concepts are interesting here. The idea of a more generic Ice Age style world for a low magic, high violence sword & sorcery world appeals to me as  a dungeon master. So take a look at  The Ice Kingdoms by Mad Martian Games

The game seems centered around a Viking Norman sword & sorcery era coupled with some of the usual D&D  tropes and set in the background of an Ice Age style world. This looks like the Kickstarter that could & because it appeals to me as a new sword and sorcery style retroclone I thought I'd shed a bit of light on it and raise the signal.
The game world campaign book is described as;"The Ice Kingdoms Campaign Setting, a game setting that is sort of Robert E. Howard Sword and Sorcery meets Vikings. It captures the fantastical aspects of Norse Mythology with some Greek, Arthurian, Celtic, Germanic and Russian Mythology added for flavor. But it is firmly set in a fantasy world."


Another nice aspect is the crossover appeal with your favorite OSR setting or retroclone rules set up:"However the plan is to also include options that include stats and rule conversions to make Ice Kingdoms compatible with other game lines, such as the Open Game License for Wizards of the Coasts 3rd Edition Dungeons and Dragons as well as Pathfinder and other RPGs. Our goals include making versions of  the Ice Kingdoms available to match different open game rules, including OSRIC, For Gold & Glory, Labyrinth Lord and 5E."
One thing I've noticed lately is the cross over of retroclone systems more and more. This is something that's been on going since the beginning of the OSR but lately its really coming into its own lately. This trend is something I hope will continue. Anyhow I hope that this Kickstarter goes well and we'll see the Ice Kingdoms making its debut soon.