OSR News From The Underdark Gazette – Saturday, April 24, 2010

New Releases

Expeditious Retreat Press has released Advanced Adventures #14 – The Verdant Vault of Malakum.

“The Verdant Vault of Malakum is An OSRIC(tm) module designed for 4-6 adventures of levels 8-10

Well over 2,000 years ago, there existed a vast jungle kingdom ruled by a man called Malakum, who was descended from a long line of mage-kings. Like his regal forebears, Malakum ruled with a stern hand and possessed a pitiless, cruel nature. The sadistic liege was greatly feared by his subjects particularly because of his unnatural fascination with plants of every species. He enjoyed performing magical experiments on his own people in which he grafted onto their bodies various plant parts, in most cases killing his victims outright and at other times producing hybrid abominations. The mage-king also perfected various and sundry magical ointments and poisons extracted from plants, which he always tested on his unwilling subjects. It was therefore no surprise that Malakum's people tired of his rule and mounted a rebellion, assassinating him and almost all of his advisers virtually overnight. Without a ruler, however, Malakum's subjects soon reverted to savagery and eventually fled into the heart of the jungle to live out the remainder of their lives.

Fortunately for Malakum, his tomb had been completed several years before his death. Immediately after the mage-king's demise resulting from an obsidian dagger cut to the throat complements of one of his former servants, a few surviving members of his priesthood were able to smuggle his body out of the palace for internment. After spending several weeks preparing their liege's corpse with exotic oils and powders, these priests placed Malakum's mummy in his tomb. Their grisly task done, the priests fled into the jungle with the rest of the citizens of the city, and vanished into history. The tomb of Malakum has remained inviolate all these centuries...”

Available in PDF format for $6.00 from RPGNOW. 8 pages. The Print version is not on the Publisher's Site, yet.

Od&dities # 15 is out! $2.00 in PDF format. 

“Harness the power of the Elements with Issue 15 of OD&DITIES; bring the might of the Elementalist to your Labyrinth Lord campaign, with six pages of Elemental spells and three pages of new Elemental beasts, including beasts from the Quasi-Planes. Also featured in this issue is an in-depth analysis of resurrection in Labyrinth Lord, methods of providing more detail for your character's aimless wanderings, a fresh look at alignments, seeking out buried treasure, and of course, the return of Mr. B! Twenty-five pages of old-school fun, compatible with all Basic and Expert rules sets.”

You can keep up with news about Od&dities, at the author’s blog.

Free Downloads

Joseph Bloch has released the latest version of WG13 Castle of the Mad Archmage! Levels 9, 10 & 11 are now a part of the compilation. Click the link above, for the author's comments and link to the download site. Thanks Bunches!

Switching to Guns, is a gaming zine focused on the author's Labyrinth Lord campaign. Issue #22 has just been released and you can check it out, here.

The Winners of the 2010 One Page Dungeon Contest have been announced.  Congratulations to the winners! PDF compilations of the Winning Entries and All the Submissions, are available for download, as well.

And speaking of the One-Page Dungeon Contest, you can head over to RPGNOW and pick up the recently released free Deluxe version of The One Page Dungeon Codex 2009.

 

The Second Draft of the Dark Dungeons Retro-Clone is now available for download, in PDF format. I haven't read this yet, so I'm unsure as to exactly which version of D&D it's emulating.

Over at the Isomage's House, the author has released an updated version of his hexGIMP tool. The new release allows for numbered hexes and if you're looking for a quick and easy way to make old school hexmaps, then you'll definitely want to check it out.

Events & Happenings

Jon Hershberger of Black Blade Publishing, has announced that Swords & Wizardry is hitting game stores in the UK. More info here.

In Other News

A Paladin in Citadel has posted a review of Dragons at Dawn.

There's a review of The Hidden Serpent by Faster Monkey Games, over at Grognardia.

Episode 6 of I Hit It With My Axe is up at The Escapist.

 

Grendelwulf is on Part XVII of his Armies of Oerth column, over at Lord of the Green Dragons! Even if you’re not into wargaming, there’s a lot of material here, of use to anyone running Greyhawk. Thanks go out to the author for giving us this terrific series!

Brunomac, at the Temple of Demogorgon recently posted about the Roll for Initiative Podcast. The show is a Podcast about 1^st Edition AD&D and while I've ran across it before, I haven't taken the time to really check it out. Issue #14 has just been released, so it's time I rectified that.

What I’m Pimping This Week

Knockspell  #1.

 

 

“Magazine of the Swords & Wizardry 0e Project, old-style OGL gaming, and retro-clone fantasy gaming.”

Available from Black Blade Publishing, in Print for $11.00 and in PDF format for $4.00.

Very, very Cool! It’s also, What I’m Pimping This Week!