The Free Old School Rpg Horror Resource Protodimension Magazine Issue #26 March 2016 For Your Old School Horror Campaigns

GRAB IT HERE

Well, it finally hit the streets yesterday, Protodimension magazine Issue #26 March 2016 

has hit the ground running. There is some solid material in this newest issue of the venerable horror magazine. You get a really solid cross section of old school material for Dark Conspiracy starting off  with the NPC Mr. Fitch by  CW Kelson III (Tad) for Dark Conspiracy and a brand new monster Loup-Garou (Demon Wolf) by Tim Bisaillon for Dark Conspiracy. This monster works on a number of levels for the game. There are two pieces of fiction with old school horror adventure potential for Call of Cthulhu; "Sleeping With Beauty, Fiction by me and  "I Love You I Love You," said the Little Blue Man, Blue fiction by Shae Davidson for Bucky both of which have lots of  hooks for plenty of table top game mileage.

What's on the Shelf, Ammunition packaging by Jason D. McEwen for Dark Conspiracy has some great material that can be inserted into your old school game campaigns. I really like The Order of the Veiled Eyes, A great  hunter cell by Scott McClenaghan for Dark Conspiracy that could be dropped into the back end of a campaign for some extra punch. And finally Profile : Riley Groff, Neuropath, An NPC/Contact by Richard Hayden for Dark Conspiracy which rounds out the entire issue. The artwork is very well done. The lay out is better then half of the professional stuff I've seen lately.
I'm totally blown away as per usual with this stuff. So go download it & you won't be sorry. Tell em Needles send ya!

Meditations On The OSRIC 2.0 rpg System By Usherwood Publishing For Your Old School Campaigns

OSRIC 2.0 was a bit of a departure for me and got released back in 2008 and it's one of those books that comes out along with my AD&D 1st Edition Player's Handbook,DMG, and Monster Manual. Yet I haven't said anything about it for years now. Let's change that fact shall we? There was an updated and expanded version of the retroclone system three years ago What I'm about to say I don't say lightly, OSRIC is the single most important retroclone to come down the pike since it came out 2006 and that's not a boast its a fact. Much of the DNA of theretroclone game has been peppering the OSR ever since. In fact that's OSRIC's real purpose to allow modules, supplements and more to be published legally for the OSR crowd and fans of products of our imagination.
"The purpose of OSRIC is to provide publishers with a tool to legally produce gaming materials compatible with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.^[3] More than 20 different publishers have produced more than 100 products branded as OSRIC-compatible"
The pdf of the game is still free which is huge plus and that means it gets used a lot at the table top.
GRAB IT OVER HERE
Oh I've heard all of the criticisms and arguments about OSRIC and so forth.  I really still love the game hands down. The update from 2013 is a bit of a God sent;"This release includes all Knights-n-Knaves.com errata through January 2013, as well as all edits included in the second printing of Black Blade Publishing’s large format hardcover of the OSRIC SRD."

OSRIC 2.0 is a bit different then the other editions I've seen, first the contents are a wee bit better organized and things seem to be very well laid out in contrast to previous editions that I've seen and own. This is a very welcome piece of OSR retroclone slight of hand and they did a bang up job with it. This is from the PDF and not the hardback which I don't own (yet) but here are ten reasons why I continue to gravitate toward OSRIC 2.0.

1. This is a great pdf to use as a reference and not have to go hunting and pecking around through the AD&D 1st edition Player's Guide and the DMG or Monster Manual its all laid out right there. 
2. The editing and spell lists are very well done and easily can be used quickly & without fuss. That means that I can concentrate on the adventure and the player can concentrate on playing the wizard from his Ipad or book. 
3. The monsters are well statted up and easily accessible with some very well thought out substitutions for Wizard's IPcentric monsters. There are some solid variants from the traditional Monster Manual 1st edition that will cause players to stop and think if their facing an old favorite or something much weirder and more dangerous. The monster list is huge and well thought out.
4. Tons and tons of random tables! Anyone who reads or subscribes to this blog knows I love random tables and there are tons of them. 
5. Even if you don't play OSRIC its worth it to use as an OSR source book for your favorite retroclone. There is so much potential for reference and at the table use that it makes the download alone worth it. 
6. The Black Blade Blade version of the book is worth getting for the quality and printing of the book. I speak from experience, I've borrowed, held, and read through a copy of this book in 2014 but its one of those books like Dark Albion that seems to slip through my fingers ( the reason of course is that bills come up and so forth). But I can tell you that product & printing is worth it. 
7. No huge over arching  author or designer voices echoing in the product telling you how to do things this or that way. Its simply here are the well organized  rules, charts, classes, tables,etc. go play and create a campaign yourself.
8. Lots and lots of support for OSRIC from the internet, authors, etc. its that support that has enabled the OSR to continue its juggernaut roll for old school gaming and will continue to.
9. A great index and access to the OSRIC 2.0 rpg System through out the pdf that makes looking up things during play a snap. 
10. OSRIC 2.0 is something that I can live with along side my other retroclone systems and the quality is in my humble opinion very much up to my standards for execution and publishing. OSRIC remains a backbone retroclone of the OSR and is still just as important as when it hit the pavement in 2006 and will continue to be.

Reading through the OSRIC 2.0 pdf was fun and very informative for me, there are certain design conceits and ways that the rules were thought out that makes sense to me after rereading some of the 1981 versions of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 1st edition. This book does a wonderful job of bring to the surface the feeling of wanting to sling some dice and get my friends together. As always your mileage may vary at the table top until next time.

Meditations On The First Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual For Your Old School Campaigns

Good morning kids, after a rather interesting discussion about the first edition Monster Manual I've come to some rather interesting conclusions. The Monster Manual is still even after all this time still useful at the table top and still provides a plethora of horrors that send PC's off to oblivion after all this time.
These books aren't sacristan but there is a certain level of respect I've got for them on many levels. The Monster Manual isn't any exception. You can find a whole history of the Monster Manual and differences in editions, printings etc here.
Instead today I'm going to concentrate on some of the applications and actual uses for this classic book at the table.


First of all Monster Manual provides a baseline statistic for many of the iconic monsters of the game. They are so iconic that many times players don't read or haven't read the Monster Manual in many years and that's often a DM's in on creating their own backgrounds, histories, etc. for these horrors within their own campaign worlds and settings. Don't be afraid to make these monsters your own despite the fact that so much fluff and verse has been heaped upon them. In point of fact the book not only encourages but expects you to do exactly that.



If you don't believe that this book still has use at the table right along with OSRIC and other emulators of the original mater then don't forget that in 2012 Wizards of the Coast reprinted it along with all of the other original AD&D books;"The 1st edition Monster Manual was reproduced as a premium reprint on July 17, 2012" The fact is that the Monster Manual is still one of the fastest, and easiest ways for populating not only your dungeon but wilderness adventure settings in your world from the ground up and has been cited numerous times for DYI Advanced Dungeons and Dragons adventure construction. In point of fact the Monster Manual was offered smack in the middle of the original TSR catalog.
Here are my ten reasons why the Monster Manual is still one of the cornerstones of not only AD&D but also our hobby.

1. Every AD&D player has read and memorizes the 1st edition AD&D Monster Manual or do they. Memory is a very funny thing and often times players will forget a detail or two from a monster entry. DM's should pull this tome from its place on their shelves and reread the entries not only to fall in love all over again with the monsters but to brush up on certain details. There has been so much fluff heaped upon these classic and icon monsters that details are often lost to time. Use that to your DM advantage. Separating player and PC knowledge is often very helpful as well. 
2. Iconic monsters are dangerous monsters and they can appear in very unexpected places. The MM's monsters can easily be used in a post apocalyptic or a science fantasy world. This can be more then a little jarring for players who weren't expecting this sort of thing to happen. Wastelands and alien planets can be very funny places especially with wizards releasing their favorite pets for mayhem. 
3. The monsters in the Monster Manual can be and should be used as templates for you as the DM to twist these creatures to suit your game and world. Don't be afraid to do this time and again, just because it says XYZ doesn't mean its gospel, this is a game and your in charge of your world. 
4. Use the unexpected and lesser known monsters for the exotic and alien as needed but take the normal and expected dungeon monsters in new and interesting ways. The Monster Manual has so much room for expansion and adaption of its creatures this fact often seems to get over looked. Don't let the weigh of Dragon magazine or chapter and verse of AD&D keep you from getting the most out of these monsters at your table top. This is one of the vast strengths of the Manual. 
5. Use the guidelines, treasures, tables, etc in the book to your advantage to help build your world. The Monster Manual is as much a world book as it is a monster book. The monster's ecology is built right into the monster entry. This fact enables a DM to quickly and easily place not only the monster but design its habitat from the ground up around it. Use that fact to populate your campaign settings. 
6. Monsters do not exist in isolation and the Monster Manual often has an over looked stat and that's a monster's intelligence. Social monsters are going to cooperate and build upon one another in dungeons as well as wilderness a key fact of the old Trampier cartoon Wormy.  Yeah its a really funny and iconic comic but it also taught me a few things about monsters they're intelligence is often a good indicator of their social pecking order within an environment. 
7. The AD&D Monster Manual shouldn't be put upon a pedestal with its iconic table top gaming history. The book should be in your hand and at your table getting used over and over again to design dungeons, adventures, etc. that's the way that Gary Gygax wanted it. 
8. The Monster Manual has some great treasure tables for its monsters and the fact that it lists exactly what might be found gives a base line and bench mark for the placement of items and artifacts. This is one of the most overlooked plot hooks for DM's! Yes I said it. Do you have a major plot hook in your campaign world or an artifact that you want your players to find? Slip it into the major loot that your PC are going to find. Where the hell does a treasure like so and so come from? Make it a lost part of your world. The treasure tables in the Monster Manual are as much a world and set building tool as the monsters. 
9. The monsters of the Monster Manual are timeless and can be used to build any time period or world setting as needed. Do you want to create a new campaign world but a gaming article or something is holding you back as a DM? Throw those preconceptions & hang ups  out the window and go with the background in the original source material. The AD&D 1st edition Monster Manual has tons of room for your take on the game. This fact also allows it to be used with many of the major emulators and retroclones of today especially OSRIC and even OD&D.
10. Take the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual and make it your own. This I can't stress enough, the book is a primer on the placement of monsters and treasure. Its iconic for a reason but don't let that stop you from using it at your table for everything from adventure construction to world building from the ground up.

The bottom line is that the AD&D 1st edition Monster Manual is a great book and remains one of the cornerstones of the hobby. The fact is that you as a DM should dust it off and give it a read. Fall in love with the game all over again and take a look at the Monster Manual again. You might be inspired to run a classic adventure or create your own.

1d6 Random Space Adventurer's Encounter Table For The Alpha Blue Rpg System Or Your Old School Space Operas

Part of the charm and dangers of Alpha Blue is running into some of the meanest and most dangerous space scum you've ever seen. The station boasts an across the board cross section of weird and down right dangerous space adventurers your likely to have a party run into. These dangerous and somewhat deranged folks are often looking for any opportunity to get laid as well as their next high. Many times their desperation is your party's opportunity to exploit for adventure and profit in the wilds of space.



Adventurers are very aggressive and there is a 20 % chance of an adventurers having a relic or valuable item that they've picked in their travels.
1d6 Random Space Adventurer's Encounter Table

1. Uni Trianth space detective and adventurer at large; this buxom and highly trained space detective has come to Alpha Blue hot on the trail of a cargo of stolen sex toys and highly illegal weapons systems that are said to be sold to the highest bidder aboard the station. She has already run afoul of the Federation and is looking of a party of fools ermm adventurers to help her take blame for this mess. 
2. Jargo Zazaxi - This Zedi warrior is a servant of the old order who is being chased down by a whiny self absorbed black guard Zedi warrior who is looking to be punished for an oversight on his part. Jargo is trying to get a drink and get laid but not necessarily in that order. 
3.  The Star of Romia - This incredibly beautiful space princess is actually the latest victim of a dangerous and highly valuable demonic artifact from Thule. The Star has taken over the body of this space princess and has been using her for over year to steal, cheat, and generally do loads of may hem in her name. 
4. Tray of The Amazonria - This shape shifting warrior princess from an ancient people has escaped from her life of honor and duty to enter the world of high stakes adventure and space going sleaze. She has two targets for shake down operations but she needs adventurers and a ship. Perhaps your her ticket into the big time. 
5.  Helix Go - This alien gambler god from another dimension is looking to spread and take over several new markets. He is looking for two or more representatives to expand his religion's bases, support, and generally make him higher profile. This can be down through a series of elemental horror encounters and she needs the adventurers help. 
6. A space plumber and his brother are looking to steal back a powerful artifact and princess from a reptilian alien overlord though out his holdings. They're looking to recruit some adventurers to help with two of the lesser known castles. They are willing to reward adventurers who help them with several alien artifacts. 

1d6 Random Wasteland Elemental Plane of Fire Manifestations & Encounters Table For Your Old School Campaign

Between the islands  of civilization the deep sands of  the wastelands there are places where the heart of the Earth churns with outrage and violence against the outrages of the ancients and their wars. The Earth rages its anger and elemental fury at the mistakes and incidents of mankind, these often manifest in the form of wounds or volcanic activity across the wastes in unexpected ways. There is a 5% chance when traveling across the wastelands that some random volcanic activity will tear open a fissure or other weird Earth filled event.
These places of violent and often weird manifestations of unexpected energies often tear holes in the local space time continuum allowing the entrance of visitors from other planes, times, and dimensions. One of the most common manifestations is the intrusion of visitors from the Elemental planes of Fire.



Here then are a 1d6 Random Wasteland Elemental Plane of Fire Manifestations & Encounters Table to bedevil your PC's with in your post apocalyptic adventures. Slavers and the like will often carry cheap and semi magical elemental survival collars so as not to damage the merchandise. These will have enchantments such as elemental survival built into them; they allow beings to breath, exist without food, and are considered by many races to be as bad as living in a sort of living death like state.



1d6 Random Wasteland Elemental Plane of Fire Manifestations
& Encounters Table

1. 1d6 B/X Fire salamanders tearing each other apart and now running down the fiery remains of lava and destruction as a fissure explodes out from a near by point where your party is. Valuable molten metal and ore cracks from the rock and stone at their passage though.
2.  A gang of 1d8 Monster Manual Salamanders are surveying the area and planning mayhem upon this plane; should they notice your party they will be very interested in acquiring you for slavery purposes to sell in one of the many exotic markets back on the planes of Fire. 
3. A gang of 1d10 fire newts is moving among the lava and overflow marking out valauble finds. They're more then happy to find a party of adventurers among the various debris and whatnot around the area. There is a 40% chance they have mounts and other weird tech with them. 
4. A nest of 1d6 giant Fiend Folio fire toads basks in the heat of a nearby lava tube. They are looking for fleshy prey and any movement may attract they're attention. 
5. 1d6 dancing fire jinn 'girls' who are actually fire spirits using their abilities to create these weird illusions among the flames. They are attempting to attract fools to this sight for their fire demon slaver masters who wait in the wings. 
6. A gaggle of 1d8 rock worms wait just below the surface to explode forth and wreck havoc upon the prime material fools above them. The presence of such life forms hurts the delicate senses of the worms!
   
   
   

Some Random Meditations On The Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 1st Edition Rpg System Books & The Dungeon Hobby Shop 1981 Catalog

 Sometimes there something to be said for classics and the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 1981 line up is kinda hard to beat. Classic modules,adventures, monster books, and expansions mark this era of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons; it happens to be one of my favorites.

Lately I've been having to work quite a few hours and handling repair work has been especially heavy today(this is a good thing folks).  But the other day I grabbed my AD&D 1st edition books and began to fall in love with Advanced Dungeons and Dragons all over again.This came about after reading through the 1981 Dungeon Hobby shop catalog.  There are times when you need to get back to your roots and nothing does this for me like Advanced Dungeons and Dragons first edition. You begin to look into your collection of books a gamer and start thinking about being with friends around a table to chuck some dice. At least that's how it works for me and its an interesting mental exercise to revisit the classics.



As a gamer I've thought long & hard about the passion, the amazing history that AD&D has, and what it means to me. It really doesn't take much to get my gamer juices flowing, the opening to the damn D&D cartoon, hearing someone in a store or gas station mention the game, the sight of a hobby or comic shop along some stretch of highway, a book shop in some small town or mall or the sight of this catalog. Yeah this was pretty much my secondary gateway drug into the hobby back in the day.



And if you look at some of the details it has the set up for the game perfectly outlined right in the catalog; the basic, expert, expert adventures, and the complete run of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons books all laid out right there for the the DM. 

All of this product was laid out back to back so that the DM could purchase and use it with a steady progression and not have any problems. This same catalog also featured original Dungeons and Dragons as a collectors item as it was being phased out but that would take a while. Eighty one was a very good year for Dungeons and Dragons.If your interested in the catalog then hop over to here.


My point here isn't simply nostalgia but the over all plan that this line seemed to have; sure we now know some of the upheaval and whatnot that went on behind the scenes but simply thumbing through that catalog from Eighty one and its like falling in love with the game again. Taken as a whole this catalog kinda maps out a whole range of a campaign especially when combined with other classic era TSR games such as Gamma World and Boot Hill which actually work quite nicely with the system and really expand the range of this wonderful line of books. So good were these products that all this time later and their still being used at the table along with their emulators.


This is simply a random post extoling my love for this era of the grand old game this evening.

Commentary On Deities & Demigods For 1st Edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons For Your Old School Campaigns

Good morning kids, I took yet another night off of social media, writing, and whatnot to get back into the habit of reading.An older and somewhat wrongly maligned favorite of mine is Advanced Dungeons and Dragons first editions Deities and Demigods by James M. Ward and Robert J. Kuntz. You can read all about its history right over here.  Though it came out in 1980, this book is still having echoes across the gaming table; here's my thoughts as too why.

So what is it about this book that really still gets my gamer's heart beating and what buttons does this book push for me?? Let's get right into the heart of matter now. Deities & Demigods presents guidelines for creating your own gods, heroes,and demigods of mythology along with some of the heavy hitters of classical mythology along with some interesting choices for cultural mythologies including the Finnish, American Indian, Chinese and more. So why is this book still being used at the gaming table besides some fantastic urban gaming lore and history?

Well its a damn useful book that summarizes some of the world's mythological and intricate religious figures into a handy and useful set of guidelines at the table for the dungeon master for one. Yes there are vast differences between some of D&D's depictions of certain mythological characters and heroes. That's fine given the fact that there myriad prime material campaign worlds across the AD&D multiverse. The book also contains some of the first appearances by the nonhuman AD&D races gods;"The original 1980 edition was the first print appearance of various fictional non-human deities, such as Corellon Larethian, Moradin, Gruumsh, and others, many of which have become standard features of the D&D game and its derivatives. These deities were the creation of Jim Ward." That's important if the dungeon master wishes to pull certain types of mythological details into their games from the original source material for NPC's, adventure details, and adventure setting pieces for their games.  And yes there are some folks who are that pedantic about adventure writing and design. The Deities and Demigods book always seems to be at hand.
I know three or four of them in real life right off the top of my head. But back to the Deities and Demigods book itself; the fact that it summarizes and makes these deities accessible to the DM to customize for their campaigns is great. This fact keeps in line with the DYI ethos of earlier editions of AD&D. No longer was was mythology, theology, and religion something nebulous but hands on for both the player (especially those who love clerics) and DM's who wanted access to all things cosmic. Wizards of the Coast is still treading upon this book's contents to this day and too me it speaks volumes. Various editions of this book are trading right now on ebay.

So besides the above, why is Deities & Demigods being used in 2016 by dungeon masters and players across planet Earth? Well, with a simple bit of restructuring Deities and Demigods can be a flexible book you can use it for both science fantasy and post apocalyptic AD&D games too add in some unexpected color to the backgrounds of mutant communities and followers. That especially true if the nonhuman races are starting to spawn from the unknown recesses of the wastelands or from the other dimensional seals that were put in place by the Ancients. Those non human deities I mentioned earlier might be putting forth their own agendas. But there's more too the appeal of Deities and Demigods then simple nostalgia for me at the table top level. Here are my top ten reasons why for me book still has use:

1. Fast reference material for the dungeon or table top during the writing phase of adventures. When your dreaming about creating your dungeon grab this book and start reading. This is one to provide some damn fine inspiration for your adventures that draws from the cultural landscape of mythology. This always works for me. 
2. As a resource for your clerics its sometimes the little details that make it come together for a player. This book provides all sorts of nice pieces of reference for clerics;
   "the quick reference chart for clerics particularly worthwhile, which describe items such as what a cleric should wear, what his holy colors and animals are, when and where he should worship, and what he should sacrifice." But the thing to remember is that these are guidelines and should never ever be forced onto a player! They might have a complete different take on their character then what this or any other rule book has to say! Listen to them first and come to a decision together. This book is a set of guidelines and not a set of instructions! 
3.  Remember this is a piece of gaming fun and a  fine one at that not a primer on real world religion. Though it references many factual and existing religious figures this book is from a game. This very fact makes Deities and Demigods a very interesting book to use and play around with. Have fun with it. 
4. Browse the gods, add them to your campaign regions and give your campaign world some flavor. Different deities in various areas of campaigns adds flavor to adventure worlds. I came across this great blog entry with exactly that sentiment.  
5. This book is from 1980 and all of the material in this book is usable with a number of retroclones including OSRIC and the Labyrinth Lord Advanced Companion. That's some damn fine utility right there in my humble opinion. 
6. There is a nice mix overall with the gods in Deities and Demigods that makes adventure placement easy and fun. I've also heard the complaint that there isn't enough detail on so and so deity as well as not enough background. I think that this is a strength for the DM allow him or her to add in details for future adventures as they fit and are needed. 
7. Even the goofy gods can shred your PC's and avatars are a bear to deal with. God's love long and drawn out revenges; this fact was something I got to watch when a player's powerful PC killed a god in one of those campaigns. The DM drew out the revenge of the god over months and it wasn't pretty but damn it was fun. Everyone walked away and had a good time with it. This was an epic end of the campaign event.
8.  Plot hooks abound throughout Deities and Demigods just look for them and add them to your game on an on the the ground level for adventures. There's something very operatic to the struggles of mythologies in old school adventures. Take advantage of those. 
9. The same tables that give what to wear, what to sacrifice, and so forth can be used as tables for evidence of cults and activities for play for PC's to stumble upon for adventure hooks. The number of times that I've done this countless. 
10. Deities and Demigods is a great book to thumb through and use in your games. Don't be afraid to alter, and change the details on gods as you want and need for your old school campaigns. Gods change, evolve, and morph as they will with the times. History and war can be your friend as a DM take and embrace these deities as your own. Its a time honored tradition in gaming and one to take full advantage of.  

Deities and Demigods is a fine book in my humble opinion and one that I'm proud to own. I take a certain amount of pride that my copy of Deities and Demigods has survived moves, a fire, pizza, and god knows how many players. As always your mileage may vary a lot when it comes to classic gaming but for my money Deities and Demigods remains a favorite. Happy gaming and now go roll some dice.

Commentary On The S'rulyan Vault By Venger Satanis Kickstarter For Your Old School Campaigns

So I see a ton of snarky comments on various Kickstarters and other projects on G+.  Those are with some damn good reasons I might add. But let's talk about Venger Satanis & the various books that he's done for a moment and come through on those Kickstarter projects. Well, he's back with another fifth edition old school module Kickstarter along with Glynn Seal of Monkey Blood design. So colour me excited about his latest bid for our cash. No, seriously I think he's got a winner here.Watch and then you'll understand what I mean.
GO HERE TO FUND
& GET IN ON THE ACTION!

So who cares about a huge map? Well yes its a huge map with a lot going on that you can customize into your own adventure location for your PC's to explore and plunder; "The map will also come with a 5 - 7 page PDF.  This document will contain a brief history of the dungeon, as well as, various random tables for helping the GM spontaneously come up with content, description, rumors, factions, and encounters (including traps, monsters, NPCs, weird stuff, etc.) so that each adventure into the S'rulyan Vault can be unique."
This is one of the things that makes it interesting and unique in some respects. Sure there have been other projects going on with Kickstarter by Venger but this is one of the first times he's getting into a fully customization old school style adventure setting set up for this style of play. There are a couple of things that are going on here that have caught my interest:

• This is a very large setting with plenty of room for the DM to do their own set up and take on the dungeon itself. The fact is with a map this big its going to be quite easy to cut some cardboard or white board and block off the sections that you don't want players to see. This means that the DM can cruise into the adventure as they want to. They can also add or subtract dungeon adventure elements as they like. 
• Knowing Venger's style of writing and design as I do this project will get bigger then it is now. What that will mean in terms of page count and contents is your going to get more for your money without a doubt. 
• These Kickstarters deliver just look at Alpha Blue, Girls Gone Rogue and his earlier projects. 
• This is going to have the usual Venger Satanis twist to it without a doubt. That also means that this is going to be another project that a DM can re purpose to their own campaigns. 
• Monkey Blood Designs always does great cartography and artwork Again knowing Venger's style and gravitas as I do your going to see something different, unique, perhaps controversial, and highly entertaining. 
• There are already backers for this project and we're only a few hours into it. So its a good sign that we'll be seeing some fun stuff. 

Bottom line, I personally think that this is a fun Kickstarter, and Venger as well as his crew have a few surprises up their sleeves for this. So go fund this one and let's see where this is going to go!  

Update we've now got more to go on about the  The S'rulyan Vault Adventure location map  from Venger and Glynn over at Monkey Blood Design " I just posted an update on the KS page.  Glynn provided me with a sketch.  Still early days, but at least now people have something to go on." If you have questions contact Venger through the Kickstarter page. He'll be happy to answer any questions about the kickstarter or the adventure.

Commentary On The Fiend Folio For 1st Edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons For Your Old School Campaigns

Good morning kids last night I took a bit of time off from blogging, writing and social media to read a bit of the Fiend Folio over the weekend and recharge the batteries. The Fiend Folio has a bit of a maligned reputation and such but I really love the book. You can read all about the troubled history of the of the Fiend Folio right over here.  

As for this writer I'm moving on with this commentary and getting into the heart of what makes the book tick and whistle for me. There is a certain flexibility and old school weirdness to the Fiend Folio as well as the fact that its distinctly British original White Dwarf magazine in style. There's just something damn appealing about that for me. The monsters have their place among the monster and dungeon ecology of campaign settings so much so that Necromancer games used them in their 3.0 and other books. According to Wiki; "Many of the creatures from the 1st edition Fiend Folio were updated to the d20 rules by Necromancer Games in their ENnie award winning^[15] Tome of Horrors.<sup>[16]" 


That tells me volumes right there about the book, its not only still in use but its still got an audience and why not? The Fiend Folio is a damn flexible book you can use it for both science fantasy and post apocalyptic AD&D games as well with a few simple mathematical flip arounds. So in 2016 why is the Fiend Folio still getting table top use? Here are my ten reasons why the Fiend Folio is such a beloved book:</sup>

1. ^{The Fiend Folio is the forgotten Monster Manual and the monsters are easily discounted and overlooked. This makes perfect fodder for the DM to use them and reintroduce his or her players to the terrors of them.} 
2. ^{There's a distinctly British sword & sorcery feel to the book making this a easy book to re purpose for the table top add them in as needed for games such as Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea.} 
3. ^{This book has some great undead in it and they are so great to add into post apocalyptic games such as Mutant Future and Gamma World as needed for alien planets and ruins. Yeah, there's a bit of science fantasy over flow with Fiend Folio and the gonzo factor is such an appeal here.} 
4. ^{Even the goofy monsters will shred your PC folks. This is something to remember and its your dungeon, wilderness, or setting. Use the monsters that you want to.} 
5. ^{Fantastic encounter tables in the back of the book make dungeon and wildness setting design and monster placement a snap. This keeps things moving at the table during play.} 
6. ^{The over all mix of monsters works very well and for the dungeon master this means a Chinese restaurant menu approach to monster selection one from column A. and B. This approach works quite well for the Fiend Folio.} 
7. ^{Ease of use with OSRIC and Advanced D&D retroclones, the fact that a book from 1981 is still useful with games in 2016 is some solid utility at the table top in my humble opinion.} 
8. ^{There are little tid bits of information scattered throughout the monster entries that can be expanded into full blown adventure hooks for the DM. One of the complains I've heard over the years is the fact that the Fiend Folio doesn't include as much information as needed for adventure design. I think this is a strength, the DM gets to fill in his or her own details as needed to fit their campaign. This is pretty damn important when designing a campaign or setting.} 
9. ^{There are a ton of monsters to choose from and they're open to how you want to use them. Change it up a bit and they can become a real pain in the dungeon or wilderness for PC's. One monster can become an entire adventure unto itself. A good example of this approach is}  HM4 - Pop goes the Meazel 
10. The Fiend Folio is a part of our gaming OSR heritage and has a ton to offer a DM if their willing to; A. Use the material and monsters as they want. B. Place and use the creatures as they are needed and use the material from the book sparingly while modifying the monsters as needed. Don't be afraid to make these horrors your own and use them as YOU need to. 
    
    The Fiend Folio has a ton of uses at the table top in my humble opinion and it has utility that spans decades. There are reasons for this and as always your mileage may vary a lot but there's some damn fine and gonzo monsters between its pages.
    

The 'Pay What You Want' OSR Adventure Resource - RL1 - The Craft Dungeon of Reynaldo Lazendry From Jeremy Reaban For Your Old School Campaigns

Good morning kids your uncle Eric is back with another OSR goodie that has plenty of potential at your table. I'm speaking of  RL1 - The Craft Dungeon of Reynaldo Lazendry From Jeremy Reaban.

GRAB IT RIGHT HERE

This is a great thirty page dungeon adventure complete with maps, NPC's,etc. all boiled into an adventure location that you could drop into any existing D&D or AD&D style campaign world. And its very good at what it does. The set up is nice and classic adventure plotline that works on a number of levels to click the emotional buttons of the DM and players;"Approximately 230 years ago the magic-user
Reynaldo Lazendry retired after a twenty year adventuring career, building a wizard's tower atop a
hill. Shortly after retirement he become very bored. Having mastered magic to his satisfaction (he was
an archmage), he decided that the world needed hisgenius applied to the arts.
Realizing that his tower lacked the room to pursue the arts, he began expanding the cellars below his tower into a domain suitable for his endeavors.
After 30 years of retirement, the top of the tower exploded, as wizard tower's are apt to do. The rest
of the tower collapsed into rubble, and Reynaldo was presumed dead. Eventually the local villagers investigated and sifted through the rubble (and looting anything of value), but any entrance to the cellar below was under tons of rock.Years of weathering and recent, massive storm have finally displaced enough rubble to make the cellars accessible again."
Here's the thing that makes this such a great adventure; Reynaldo Lazendry was an adventurer himself there are all kinds of possible plot and adventure hooks scattered throughout the adventure if the DM wants to use the wizard as a recurring but unseen NPC for his own party. There are so many possible uses for this line of thinking that its one of the reasons I started looking into the RL1 once again. Then there's the tower itself, you've got a completely worked up adventure location that you can DYI yourself as needed.



So the set up for this is a classic D&D style but here's the thing this adventure it has plenty of room to make this adventure  into either a sword and sorcery scenario ala Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea or it could easily be given a horror slant with more of the background details about the wizard being revealed through play making this a perfect vehicle to introduce some or make this adventure a possible Lamentations of the Flame Princess adventure. Could the The Craft Dungeon of Reynaldo Lazendry work for say Dark Albion? Possibly but it might have to be modified with some of the details and background ironed out a bit more and a change or two with some of the NPC's. Don't mistake this for an easy low level scenario or adventure; it isn't and can be very deadly if PC's make unwise decisions.
There are new spells, new monsters, and some other bits & pieces that reek of  Professor Barker's infamous Saturday night specials school of adventure design ala Empire of the Petal Throne. The idea of several unexpected and highly dangerous things or events lurking in the background of play. This isn't a bad thing in my humble opinion. Then there's a six page appendix featuring Cowford. The matter of Cowford is interesting. The backwater town of Cowford has it's own appendix; the details of the town are very well done but suggest that place is off the beaten path and could be used with Labyrinth Lord or even (sic) Mutant Future. In point of fact the whole adventure could be dropped straight into some sleepy backwater Gamma World style town location and it would still work quite well for the PC's to explore a retired wizard's tower! This town could serve as a fantastic base of operations from which to adventure from.
And that's part of the beauty of RL1 - The Craft Dungeon of Reynaldo Lazendry From Jeremy Reaban; its easy to drop into an existing campaign and modify it as the dungeon master needs. Think that the level between completeness and leaving the details to the DM is a fine balance and that the author does an excellent job with this adventure  A four out of five adventure to say the least! I highly recommend this title!

1d6 Random Wasteland Patrons & Faction Leaders Table For Crimson Dragon Slayer & Your Old School Post Apocalyptic Campaigns

In the wastelands of Thule might makes right unless it happens to be the Ultra gangs and some of the factions who dwell between the city states. There are places where the certain lords and ladies of power, magick, and mayhem hold court. They try to bring a bit of peace and excellence to one another. But these patrons also are known to employ adventurers to go on special missions or errands for them. They sit back and collect the sweet rewards but the various desperate souls take all of the risks and injures. If the poor fool meets his end in the maw of a Crimson tiger or at the point of an outlaw or monster's sword or laser? There are eight more to take his or her's place.


1d6 Random Wasteland Patrons
& Faction Leaders Table

1. PJ's Play House - The ghost with the most leads a band of merry adventurers who share his bunker 'play house' where he holds court. He's fascinated by the Earth gear that comes his way on Thule and has the money, clout, and backing to send adventurers out into the wastelands to recover it. There's a dark secret to PJ he's actually from Earth originally critica 1970 but died when his pimpmobile exploded when he made the dimensional jump to Thule. Since then his demonic overlord has kept his soul in hoc so that long as PJ entertains him. 
2. Doc Marty The Third - The so called time traveler mad scientist  is a criminal master mind from an alternative future with a hatred for so called heroes and is always seeking arcane artifacts from other dimensions, ruins, and other locations. He lives in a converted Hollywood mansion located deep in the wastelands where he has a oasis base complete with helipad and a staff of close to a hundred servants and robots. He pays on time but is quite mad and violent with people who insist that he might be wrong. He's also a bit of a pervert and old lecher which doesn't endure him to the staff. 
3. The Groonies - A band of retired adventurers who were led by an undead hero called One Eyed Dick; these folks have retired to the good life after finding a Crimson Dragon hoard. They employ adventurers to deal with and recover certain Thulian artifacts and the occasional barbarian treasure. They pay on time but have an obsession with maps, traps, and certain types of puzzles. 
4. Captain Awesome and Adventurers of the Future! - A group of Saturday morning adventure program actors who became the real thing after their sets, vehicles, toys, and followers became the real thing. They now are complete opportunists training new adventurers to go out into the wastes and spread the 'awesome way'! The awesome way is a pseudo religion of blaster, sword, makes right mixed with pop culture feel good Eighties messages! The Captain and his crew of adventurers can actually be very dangerous when crossed. 
5. The Knights of The Final Count Down - A metal hair band turned adventurers with hordes of loyal followers who are actually a necrotic cult of black wizards. They employ a weird mix of sorcery,heavy metal ethos, and zombies to get their twisted whims done which seems to be acquiring more influence and cash. The odd thing is that they can be really dangerous but none of the royalty of Thule takes the knights seriously but they do pay on time for artifacts, magick and certain relics. They also loan out certain powerful magickal treasures 
6. Scar Face The One Eyed Gangster - A weird mutated floating eye creature who heads up one of the most powerful wasteland criminal empires in the wastelands. Scar Face is a one monster wrecking crew who has killed, murdered,and erased a good swath of the criminal elements of  Thule. He employs a wide variety of mutants, murderers, psychopaths, and wasteland gangsters on his payrolls. And he's interested in Earth artifacts especially powerful weapons and movies. The bastard has a total hard on for cheesy trashy Earth films this includes 1970's porn films on VHS. He's got a wall of televisions and VHS recorders where he watches the stuff. He pays on time but don't cross him!
   

So Less Then Twenty Hours Remains For The Mystery at Port Greely By Jeffrey P. Talanian Adventure Kickstarter For The Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea Rpg System

Greetings kids its your uncle Eric with another blog post regarding the The Mystery at Port Greely Adventure By Jeffrey P. Talanian Kickstarter. This is an upcoming adventure that has me very excited but I've been so busy with campaigns, real life, reviews, writing, etc. that I haven't been paying as much attention as I should have and now the Kickstarter campaign is coming to a close! But you still have time to jump on board before the clock runs out. So why should you get on board with this kickstarter besides the obvious reason that you'll be getting a great adventure with some great perks and adds on's.
BACK IT RIGHT HERE



The Mystery at Port Greely Adventure is going to fill in another piece of the world setting of Hyperborea and in this case present both a mystery and a chance to deal with the hideous Deep Ones of Hyperborea the plot is both engaging and has merit;"Until recently, the peculiar village of Port Greely was renowned as one of the most prolific exporters of crustaceans in the realm. Then, about three years ago, the Greely lobstermen severed all ties with outside partners. Subsequent attempts at renegotiation were shunned. More recently, a small group of Fishmongers’ Guild representatives from the City-State of Khromarium has gone missing in Port Greely, and answers have been less than forthcoming. At present, the guild seeks answers. They want to know what became of their representatives, and they wish to reestablish their lucrative partnership with the Port Greely lobstermen. Your party has been contracted to help resolve the mystery at Port Greely." This is your party's chance to take on the Hyperborean version of the Deep Ones and deal with their machinations. The thing to remember about Lovecraft's Deep Ones is that they are an insidious and dangerous species that can spread their foul brand of evil across worlds. There are nasty secrets in Port Greely and these are bubbling just below the surface of this adventure. The Kickstarter details look great and the artwork really strikes a cord with me as an AS&SH dungeon master. The front cover by Charles Lang really brings home the nastiness of the Deep Ones. The plastic genetic drift, inhuman weirdness and the Lovecraftian chaos of these horrors.


"men—at least, a certain sort of men; though the creatures were shown disporting like fishes in the waters of some marine grotto, or paying homage at some monolithic shrine which appeared to be under the waves as well... [T]hey were damnably human in general outline despite webbed hands and feet, shockingly wide and flabby lips, glassy, bulging eyes, and other features less pleasant to recall. Curiously enough, they seemed to have been chiseled badly out of proportion with their scenic background; for one of the creatures was shown in the act of killing a whale represented as but little larger than himself"
 Dagon By HP Lovecraft



If the Deep Ones of Port Greely keep to the Lovecraftian model then we may be looking at the beach head of a Hyperborean undersea empire of these horrors. In the Shadow Over Innsmouth by HP Lovecraft the under sea city of "Cyclopean and many-columned Y'ha-nthlei" is shown to be a great undersea metropolis below Devil's Reef just off the coast of Massachusetts, near the town of Innsmouth. Its exact age is not known, but one resident is said to have lived there for 80,000 years. Given the fact that Port Greely takes much of its nods from The Shadow Over Innsmouth there might be far more to this adventure then we think.

There are few things to keep in mind when dealing with the Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea rpg take on the Lovecraft Mythos:

• Hyperborea isn't Earth, there are far weirder conceits in the world of Hyperborea then there are Earth. Hyperborea might be a reflection of our world from one of the cycles of when the oceans drank Atlantis 
• Deep Ones are a very dangerous race of horrors that spread their taint for generations into the gene pools of their prey and mating pools. Namely the humans along coastal waters, fishing villages, towns, harbors, trading centers,etc. 
• Port Greely is another puzzle piece in the Hyperborean campaign setting and its designed to fit into your version of the game world. This is a whole cloth adventure setting that can be dovetailed into existing AS&SH game campaigns.
  
  We know that this is going to be a quality adventure given the satisfaction of the other AS&SH kickstarters and that this adventure is going to hearken back the original editions of the world's most popular role playing game. Do I think that you should give this Kickstarter your time, attention and money? Yes in my humble opinion yes I do.

Free OSR Adventure Resource - Adventure Module BL1-2: The Ruined Hamlet/Terror in the Gloaming From Barrataria Games For Your Old School Campaigns

So here is a free fifty nine page OSR module from Barrataria Games  it has a sort of Village of Hommlet feel with a twist or two. Are you looking for an excellent adventure to start a campaign with? Then download this book because its bursting with some great OSR campaign resources and lots & lots of hooks throughout.
GRAB IT RIGHT HERE

The set up is pretty nice and ropes in the PC's straight out of the gate and into the back end of the module where they're walking into a situation that they may soon find themselves up to their necks in;"nto the Unknown! The wilderness around the cave stronghold called Gold Hill Trading Post is dangerous and scattered with ruins of large and small settlements. Will your party find fame and fortune, solve ancient mysteries, or just disappear into the Borderlands like so many that came before? This module contains underground and wilderness maps that form a detailed adventure and mini-campaign for beginning characters, including an abandoned village, haunted graveyard, ruined church, traders’ camp, wilderness encounters, and monster lairs. It also includes a ruined keep and dungeon as well as a mapped and detailed “base camp” stronghold"



There are some really nice maps and hooks in BL1-2: The Ruined Hamlet/Terror in the Gloaming  as well as a large assortment of NPC's, factions, powers, and over arching situations to get your party of adventurers into. The material here feels like a compete touch stone to step into a campaign, with a large amount of sword and sorcery action on the side. You get There are fifty pages of adventuring and 6 pages of maps all designed to dovetail and slide into your existing campaign material which is fine. This module has a bit of everything from a small range of spells, monsters, a distinctive flavor about the setting and more but none of this takes away from or tries to perform hugely distinctive adventure setting on its own. Its almost as if this module was designed to seamlessly expand and fit into your own campaign world. I'm all on board with this style of game writing and design. Everything here is fairly evenly put together making this a perfect DYI D&D module for a retroclone, OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord or first edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons game. The settings include a fully detailed hamlet, a wilderness section, a graveyard, a trading post, and much more which makes the price of admission worth a look alone! 
Everything in this module suggests and sets up a campaign from the ground up with the PC's hip deep in the local scene. There are mixes here of the mundane and the fantastic, the module reminded me of the Village of Hommlet more then once making this an adventure module to drop into an existing campaign or as a location to have more experienced PC's deal with some of the adventure hooks that  Module BL1-2: The Ruined Hamlet/Terror in the Gloaming brings to the table.

There are several reasons why this module reminds me of the classic T1 adventure:

• Organic campaign set up and implementation into an existing campaign as well as use for a jump off point for a brand new campaign. 
• Old school no tears encounters with a mix of the bizarre and the mundane. 
• The adventure blends the local scene and politics with the PCs playing into both! This makes the PC's invested in the action. 
• The factions and NPC's are deeply invest in the adventure's plot and themes. 
• The 'Big Event' of  BL1-2: The Ruined Hamlet/Terror in the Gloaming  actually has some solid repercussions on the campaign world and setting and not simply an implied campaign or setting impact. 

The bottom line is to grab this adventure for your old school games and use it as both adventure and tool box. The fact that its free is icing on the cake in my opinion.