OSR News from the Underdark Gazette - Sunday, March 27, 2011

Not much in the way of new releases, this week. Considering how busy the past couple of months have been, we were due for a break, I guess. But, there's still a lot of News and Activity going on, as you can see! Sorry the News was so late, today. I was playing D&D. :)


A Book of Exalted Deeds

The OSR Links to Wisdom wikipage, a repository for everyone's favorite Gaming Goodness, from the OSR Blogoverse, went live this week.Thanks to The Jovial Priest, Alex Schroeder, Jeff Rients, Zak Sabbath and everyone else, working to build and promote this fantastic resource! I noticed someone added my Guide to Free OSR Resources, which means I need to get my ass in gear and update the thing. I haven't had the time this weekend to do very much, but I did add my own favorite piece of OSR Wisdom: How to Awesome-Up Your Players by Jeff Rients. If you need some more info on the wiki, I'll let The Jovial Priest fill you in. Daddy Grognard has some info on a competition to design a logo, for the wiki. Since there's not one, yet, I'm gonna put a pic up by Mr. Roslof, to accompany this section.

The Swords & Wizardry Creative Guild

I really dig the picture!  A word from Matt Finch:

To join the SWCG, email me at:

mythmere at yahoo (dot) com!

The Swords & Wizardry Creative Guild is a resource organization for publishers, for bloggers, and for Referees who want to run convention or demo games for Swords & Wizardry and/or Original D&D. At first, the main benefit to joining will be a periodic e-zine with information about conventions, calls for playtesters from the various Swords & Wizardry publishers, and other resources for the production/promotion side of things that aren't purely about the gaming table. There will probably be some freebies, discounts, and other stuff involved at some point, too. 

The Old School Renaissance Group Blog

And now, a word from Mr. Browning:

Firstly, I've started up an Old School Renaissance Group blog! This blog will have information concerning the OSRG booth at Gen Con. I'm very excited to be part of helping bring the OSR to GenCon and I thought a centralized location of information would best serve all of us. So drop by and subscribe to the blog to keep up-to-date about what's going on with the OSRG at Gen Con.

Secondly, Expeditious Retreat Press is looking for more tourney judges at our 1e Gen Con tourney this year featuring the Advanced AdventureThe Obsidian Sands of Syncrates. We've got two GMs so far, but I'd love to have more, as there always seems to be more players wanting to play 1e at Gen Con than we've got GMs. Our tourney GMs get a free signed copy of the tourney adventure along with an additional free copy of an Advanced Adventure of their choice that they can pick up from the Old School Renaissance Group booth.

Thirdly, here's a deal if you're interested in running any other of our Advanced Adventures at Gen Con 2011. Let me know which Advanced Adventure your running and I'll send you a free PDF copy of that Advanced Adventure and we'll also give you a signed copy of the Gen Con 2011 tourney adventure, The Obsidian Sands of Syncrates when you drop by the Old School Renaissance Group booth at Gen Con.

And Another Word, While We're Visiting Mr. Browning...

8th Anniversary - 50% off all our PDFs!

8 years ago today, Suzi and I officially started this crazy rpg publishing business by releasing our first PDF, A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe. Throughout the next 8 years we've managed to create over 180 PDFs supporting 1e, 3e, 4e, Pathfinder, and last year we created our own game and system, Sorcery & Super Science. It's hard to express how much I love what I do. I'm immensely satisfied to be able to pursue what I enjoy as a vocation.

So, until the end of March, we've put all our PDFs for sale for 50% off! It's our thanks to all of you for all of your support throughout the years. You can buy them at Your Games Now, Rpgnow, E23, and Paizo.

Thank You! 

Random Tables! Prizes! Random Table Prizes!!!

And now, a word from Ian of Magicians Manse and Calithena of Fight On!:

Fight On! and Magician’s Manse are Proud to Announce -A Contest for Fantasy Gaming Tables!

Entry Deadline: May 31, 2011

Send your random tables via email with the header TABLES to tombowings at gmail dot com!

Rules: Maximum 3 tables per entrant, OR 2 tables per entrant if either or both of them are ‘multiple tables’ tables (e.g. a connected set of dungeon or wilderness tables).
For some gamers, there is nothing – not even a good ruleset – that beats a good collection of random tables. So we’ve decided to run a contest to put one together!

By submitting your table, you give us permission to re-print that table in the upcoming Fight On! Big Book of Tables (or whatever we eventually decide to call it). You continue to own your own table and all rights to it other than our right to publish it in various iterations of that book and may re-use or re-publish it elsewhere as you see fit. Likewise, tables you have already published elsewhere may be submitted to this contest so long as you still have the rights to them to give to us to publish in this way.

We are looking for overall quality, game-usability, creativity, better mousetraps, and/or gonzo! Our Judges include S. John Ross, Jeff Rients, Tim Kask, Paul Czege, and Ian Burns, as well as Ignatius Umlaut of Fight On!

Prizes!

Grand Prize: 1 Roll on the Gold Table, 1 Roll on the Gems & Jewelry Table, 1 Roll on the Magic Items Table, a Trade Paperback Copy of Roll the Bones, and a set of Dwarven Metal Dice provided by DEI Games (deigames.com)

Second Prize: 1 Roll on the Gold Table, 1 Roll on the Gems & Jewelry Table, and 1 Roll on the Magic Items Table

Third Prize: 1 Roll on each of any Two Different Tables Below (your pick)

First Honorable Mention: 1 Roll on the Gems and Jewelry Table or the Magic Table (your pick). All prizes except FHM guaranteed; we will use this category for entries that were extremely painful to exclude from the top three.

Honorable Mention: All honorable mentions and all prizewinners above will receive a free PDF copy of the Fight On! Big Book of Tables (when it comes out) and a free PDF of a randomly determined issue of Fight On! magazine! And we intend to give Honorable Mention to ALL submitted tables meant for eventual inclusion in the Big Book of Tables, so there will be a lot of these prizes to go around!

All product prizes below are provided by Fight On! and do not represent the endorsement of or cooperation with the authors, publishers, or manufacturers of said products, although we like them all and think they’re cool guys.

Gold Table (d100) - USD:

01-25 $25
26-50 $50
51-75 $75
76-95 $100
96-99 $250
00 $500

Gems & Jewelry Table (d100) – only one of each, rolled in order of prize received:
01-30 About 30 or so mostly unpainted old-time Grenadier minis, mostly from the Dungeon Explorers and Tomb of Spells Sets
31-40 Beautifully Painted Owlbear, Otyugh, and Ogre Mage Minis (sculptor unknown, but I think they’re old-tyme)
41-50 Provocatively Painted Marilith and Succubus (Marilith is Reaper, not sure about Succubus)
51-60 Battle Scene 1: 4 Beautifully Painted Crocodile Games Wargods of Hyperborea Wendigo (Yeti) Warriors versus 6 Well Painted Privateer Press Hordes Everblight Archers and Swordsmen
61-70 Battle Scene 2: 4 Excellently Painted Tom Meier Thunderbolt Mountain Elves on Foot versus 4 Excellently Painted Tom Meier Thunderbolt Mountain Orcs
71-75 Battle Scene 3: 3 Excellently Painted Tom Meier Thunderbolt Mountain Elves on Horseback versus 3 Excellently Painted Emperor’s Choice Miniatures Goblin Grey Knights Mounted on Air Sharks
76-85 Against the Giants 1: Exceptionally Painted Otherworld Miniatures Hill Giant and Stone Giant
86-95 Against the Giants 2: Well Painted Ral Partha Frost Giant and Cave Giant
96-99 Random Dwarven Forge Custom Dungeon Piece: 1 Wall of Fire Short Passage, 2 Moss & Fungus L-Shaped Passage with Mushroom, 3 4x6 Cerberus Fountain Floor Piece, 4 Room Corner with Banner and Crystal Ball. (May reroll if you don’t use DF.)
00 Beautifully Painted Complete Ral Partha Wasteland Raider Set

Magic Items Table (d100) – all are physical print copies:
01-03 $50 donation to Friends of Starship Warden in your name
04-06 Apocalypse World
07-09 Arduin: World of Khaas Worldbook (First Hardback Printing, OOP)
10-12 Backswords & Bucklers AND Ruins & Ronin
13-15 Book of Ebon Bindings
16-18 B/X Companion
19-21 Carcosa
22-24 Charnel Crypt of the Sightless Serpent
25-27 Dragons at Dawn
28-30 Drowning and Falling AND Elfs
31-33 Dungeon Alphabet
34-36 Empire of the Petal Throne (HOG Reproduction)
37-39 Encounter Critical
40-42 Exquisite Corpses
43-45 Fight On! Magazine, 1d6 Randomly Determined Print Issues
46-48 Grinding Gear AND Weird New World
49-51 How to Host a Dungeon
52-54 Inferno: 1980
55-57 Majestic Wilderlands
58-60 Miscellaneum of Cinder AND Ye Olde Book of Spells
61-63 Mutant Future
64-66 My Life with Master
67-69 Mythmere’s Adventure Design Deskbook I and II
70-72 Necropolis (Necromancer Edition), autographed by Gary Gygax, slightly used
73-75 Petty Gods (if it is out, otherwise Cursed Chateau)
76-78 Realm of Crawling Chaos
79-81 Secret of Smuggler’s Cove AND Skull Mountain
82-84 Sorcery & Super Science
85-87 Spellcraft & Swordplay
88-90 Stonehell Dungeon
91-00 Trade Paperback copy of Roll the Bones AND Roll Again, ignoring results of 91-00

So what are you waiting for? Let’s see your tables!

Let's Check in with LotFP

We finally found out who this Karina person is! A Free PDF compilation from all three of Mr. Raggi's contests, can be found at this post. 

And some pre-order info from Mr. Raggi:

Freebies When You Pre-Order Grindhouse + Vornheim

Vornheim: The Complete City Kit has charts on the covers (and one on an inside cover). You roll dice on the cover and read where they drop. It's cool.

If you pre-order Grindhouse + Vornheim, you'll get those three charts on a double-sided A3 sheet. Two of the charts will be twice the size as on the physical Vornheim book, and one chart will be four times as large.

But wait! There's More!

The first 100 people to pre-order Grindhouse + Vornheim get an extra copy of the Rules and Magic book at no extra cost.

That's a 168 page perfect-bound book that includes an 8-page full color glossy section. No, it won't fit in the box with all the other stuff, but now you're just being picky. :P

April 1.

Tempted yet?

A Special Thanks to ChicagoWiz and Tenkar for Pointing Out Something I Missed

Fire in the Jungle by Dustin Brandt.  Art by Rommel Joson and Edbon Sevilleno. $4.70 for Print & PDF combo. PDF only $2.15. 16 pages.

A ready-to-go jungle adventure or a toolkit for creating your own jungle setting. This supplement contains:

• A brief history of the jungle’s troubled past and the natives who have survived there.
• A color judge’s map of the jungle with dozens of described locations to explore.
• A color player map to give the player’s a vague understanding of the shape of the jungle.
• A comprehensive Jungle Event System that reflects the harsh reality and wondrous excitement of journeying through this jungle.
• The Ant Tunnel Exploration System provides a framework for running adventures in these infinite, living tunnels.
• The Tomb of the Monkey God. A dungeon module with an Escalation mechanic that ratchets up the tension the longer the PCs remain inside the tomb. Unique, overlapping color map of this four-level tomb.
• Plus a variety of monsters, NPCs, hirelings, magic items, etc.
• And, of course, the cover art by Rommel Joson and the back cover art by Edbon Sevilleno.

Because the back cover art shows bare breasts, buyers may be required to mark the box at Magcloud that allows them to purchase “Restricted Content”. It is packaged in a sturdy, clear plastic bag with the shipping label covering the nudity on back. You postal worker may fold it when putting it into your mailbox, like mine did, but I discovered that it smooths out quickly and completely.

Again, I don't Usually Report on Upcoming Products, But...

Isn't this just the coolest damn cover? The Stand-alone Print cover for Rob Conley's Blackmarsh! Here, Mr. Conley is referring to both the Delving Deeper version and the Stand-alone, pictured on the left:

Both will digest size (5.5" by 8.5") books. The Boxed set version will be 24 pages digest (6 folded sheets). The print version will have some extra pages to include the main map in the book.

RPGNow only has perfect binding so in addition to selling there I will continue to sell at Lulu and offer a saddle back (staple) bound option. Along with that have a parchment cover option. The disadvantage of Lulu will be that you have to download the PDF and the word doc from the Bat in the Attic website. Still working on pricing for print but it will be very easy on the budget.

Very, very nice, Mr. Conley!

Holy, Freakin' Toledo!!!

Cold Text File C1 - Part 8. Scottsz, good-gravy! Like I said, that was Epic!

Blogger Round Table

Al of Beyond the Black Gate, hosted a blogger round-table discussion, with James Maliszewski, Zak Sabbath, James Raggi, Thomas Denmark and Michael Shorten. Great stuff!!

Some Free Stuff from Sham!

David Bowman of Sham's Grog & Blog added his Bleak Beyond Bestiary and Bleak Beyond Random Monsters PDF's to his downloads section.

A Monster Freebie!

Shane Mangus of Swords Against the Outer Dark and Sean Robson Tales from the Flaming Faggot have formed Hopeful Monster Creations and right off the bat, gave us a 4C Reference Screen in PDF format. 

A Freebie from Michael Curtis of The Society of Torch, Pole and Rope

Horses. 

A Freebie from The Alexandrian

Encumbrance by Stone - OD&D Equipment Sheet. Goes with this and this. 



Product Updates

Terminal Space v1.4 by Albert Rakowski is out and available as a free pdf download. From the author:


Version 1.4 is not very different from 1.2 (don't ask about version 1.3 - I don't remember what happened with that file...), except one important thing - LANGUAGE IS CORRECTED! Less crude and clunky - thanks to my friend Piotr. I must buy him a beer. Or two. Or more :D


jasons of Underworld Ink posted the Player's Handout for Operation: Unfathomable, an adventure from Knockspell #5.


Matt Finch of Mythmere's Blog posted a revised version of the  Player Handout for Jungle Ruins of Madaro-Shanti.

Beneath the Ghoul Lair from Johnny Rook Games is now available in Print for $14.00.

A Freebie from Tony Dowler

The December Microdungeon Compilation is available for download at year of the dungeon.

Free Stuff from Basic Fantasy

Check out the Basic Fantasy News page for some product updates and a couple of new supplements: Scouts and Magic-User Options.


More Video From Samwise7


As he talks about a recent post by Zak.

The Latest Newbie Blogger

Tim of Gothridge Manner has Awarded another Newbie Blogger!

The Latest from Dyson Logos

Reposted from goblinoidgames.com

This Week at A Character for Every Game
Big week with some major "releases" for me:

• The Ruins of the Gorgon - a fully stocked level 4 dungeon with a few unique monsters
• Dyson's Dodecahedron Issue 3 - The third monthly installment of articles and adventures from my blog in PDF format
• Enchanters - a magic user subclass for B/X D&D and Labyrinth Lord
• Enchanter Spells - 8 new spells for the enchanter
• 6 Magic Potions - culled from the pages of a half-complete Labyrinth Lord sourcebook
• DungeonMorph Dice - Joe's kickstarter project to make awesome 1" dungeon geomorph dice - I'll be working on the map design side of this project.
• To The Mines! - Map of the entrance to a set of dwarven mines

Another Freebie from the Digital Orc

One Page Module 3: No One Lives Forever. Posted on his blog, with a PDF coming.

And one from mark morrison

FFG 7 Quick Adventure: Revenge is Bitter Sweet. Posted to his blog.

Stefan Poag Opens up a Shop

You can by some of his original art. Check this post for more info.

One Grognard's Opinion: Reviews

Pookie of Reviews from R'lyeh has some thoughts on Return to the Keep on the Borderlands. 

James Maliszewski of Grognardia reviews Lesserton and Mor.

Brutorz Bill of Green Skeleton Gaming Guild reviews Sooner Dead by Mel Odom. (WotC Gamma World Novel.)

Beedo of Dreams in the Lich House continues his play report of Hammers of the God. And his son Nogal fills us in from the other side of the screen, at The Chronicles of Nogal. 


Matthew of Silver Blade Adventures posted his review of The Sarcophagus Legion. 

ChicagoWiz reviews Fire in the Jungle. 

And Tenkar reviews Fire in the Jungle.  Tenkar also reviews Chronicles of Arax and Beneath the Ghoul Lair.

Johnathan Bingham of Ostensible Cat has some thoughts on OpenQuest and Stars Without Number.

Shinobicow of The Dump Stat continues his OSR journey, with some thoughts on A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming.



ckutalik of Hill Cantons posted his Humanspace Empires playtest recap. 

John at The Lonely Garrett continues his Fight On! #1 Cover to Cover series. 

Haque in Black has a review of The Last Priest of Sebek.

Brad of Skull Crushing for Great Justice reviews the C&C Castle Keepers Guide.

And I reviewed Kingmaker. 

Maptime!!!

Dan of Tales from the Tower has posted more of his I.C.E. mapwork! This is awesome!

John Laviolette of The Nine and Thirty Kingdoms has updated is geomorph collection.

Pat of Henchman Abuse posted his Land of a Thousand Towers map.

James from the Underdark Gazette posted his Black Mete map. 

Beedo of Dreams in the Lich House posted his The Black City map. 

Evan of In Places Deep posted his Dark Country Region 2 map. 

Yesmar of Sickly Purple Death Ray posted Interesting Places: Beneath the Cemetery.

Greg of Errant RPG  posted his Silverwood maps. 

John L of The Tales of Kaelaross posted his The Town of Luthien map.

Ragnardbard of Vaults of the Mad Archmage posted his Kobold Murder-Tunnels. And check out this one, as well.

And an early map by Matt Finch: Goblinear Crag.

I'm letting the Pimpage Widget Ride


About The News

Unless otherwise noted, all links to products and files are to the individual authors sites, pertinent posts, or sales pages. I don’t link directly to files, unless that is the only link available. The OSR News is produced as a service to the community and is entirely a non-commercial endeavor on my part. I have received no remuneration for advertising or reporting on any of the items appearing herein. Occasionally, the News might feature an item, which the author has sent me a complimentary copy of, for purposes of writing a review.  

As always, the What I’m Pimping This Week section of the OSR News and its accompanying blog widget, feature products which I have purchased (or items which are available for free download) and wish to support. At times, the item I'm pimping may be one which I received a complimentary review copy of, from the author or publisher. No one has asked me to spotlight their material in this section and I have received no payment of any kind for doing so. 

Please feel free to send me information on any new releases, events, or other items of interest, which you would like to see mentioned.