OSR News from the Underdark Gazette - Sunday, April 17, 2011

Robert Conley's Blackmarsh

Blackmarsh by Robert Conley. Bat in the Attic Games. Available in Print for $7.00 and in PDF for Free. 24 pages.

In the days when man knew only the working of stone and fought for their existence against the orc and the goblin, the sky turned to ash and down fell the fiery mountain onto the land. The world tore open and the grey waters rushed in. Those who survived the impact were lost as boiling clouds rushed out in all directions leaving a wasteland in its wake.

The Mountain That Fell left a gift; magic. Near and far, those of learning and strong of heart discovered new powers to shape the world. In the desolation around the Smoking Bay the adventurous found viz, magic in physical form. And there was more, scattered amid the landscape were strange artifacts and stranger creatures that survived The Mountain That Fell. For a time men, dwarves, orc, goblins, and other races braved the dangers and fought each other in the wastelands. Then the elves came into Blackmarsh expelled the feuding races, drove the monsters out, and healed the land.

In the present day, many come to Blackmarsh to harvest viz, kill monsters, or seek the strange artifacts left by The Mountain That Fell. The only force that stands against the wilderness is the Blackmarsh Rangers. Anyone who is willing to defend the land and its people are welcomed into their ranks. Powerful kingdoms outside of Blackmarsh are beginning cast a covetous eyes toward the land's riches. Will the adventurers of your campaign become wealthy and powerful? Or will their bones join the many that have sunk into the swamps?

Blackmarsh is a complete, ready to run setting for your campaign. It can be run as its own setting or an expansion of your existing world. Contained in Blackmarsh are 17 geographical entries, 78 described locales, and one detailed town; Castle Blackmarsh. Each entry provide one or more adventure hooks to use in your campaigns.

The PDF download does not include the cover, but Rob posted a nice copy of it, here.

The Trilogy is Complete!

Adventures Dark and Deep Bestiary - Playtest Version by Joseph Bloch

What it's got:

• All of the monsters from the original Monster Manual (some in other guises for legal purposes)
• Some of the monsters from the original Monster Manual II
• A couple of the monsters from the original Fiend Folio
• A few new monsters

What it's not got, but will eventually as new playtest versions are released:

• Most of the monsters from the original Monster Manual II
• Most of the monsters from the original Fiend Folio
• The rest of the new monsters
• Random encounter tables (can't be done until the final creature list is nailed down)
• An index (ditto)
• Lots of formatting changes
• Artwork

We now have a complete set of books for playtesting purposes, even if we know that the Bestiary will be considerably expanded as the playtest period wears on. Enjoy!

How About Some Sorcery & Super Science?

Creatures Below the Shattered Moon - Volume 5 by Joseph Browning. Art by David Esbri, Joan Guardiet, Rick Hershey. Expeditious Retreat Press. Available in PDF for $3.00. 5 pages.

After the cracking of the moon and before the rise of Atlantis the world was a place strange to the thoughts of honest men. The death throes of science amid the birth of magic sculpted new generations of conquerors who strode the lands forging civilizations of steel, sinew, and sorcery from the decrepit hulks of the ones that fell before. Tyrannical wizards, amoral super-scientists, charismatic catalysts, and multifarious mutants battled for wealth, power, and honor. It was ten thousand years of barbarity; ten thousand years spent in the shadowy shells of past glories, hiding from horrible creatures that scratched and skittered for blood; ten thousand years of tyranny and injustice, ten thousand years of Sorcery & Super Science!

This short PDF provides a harried GM with 19 new creatures, suitable for various power levels and certain to bring additional life to the world under the shattered moon.

Don't forget to pick up the Sorcery & Super Science! Core Rules as well as download The House of Blue Men, a free adventure featuring quickstart rules. Also don't forget about Creatures Below the Shattered Moon - Volume 1, 2, and 3 and Objects Below the Shattered Moon - Volume 1 and Volume 2. Finally, drop by our Sorcery & Super Science Blog for additional Sorcery & Super Science goodness!

A Free OD&D Supplement

Planet Eris by Jimm Johnson. Available for Free. 53 page PDF. Look for the pic on the right and column of Jimm's blog.

RULES ADDITIONS & MODIFICATIONS FOR THE SKULL MOUNTAIN MEGADUNGEON, THE SPARN EMPIRE, AND THE WILD LANDS OF OROS

Remember Netbooks?

Tim Brannon of The Other Side recently blogged about them and posted links to his The Complete Netbook of Witches and Warlocks, for 2e. Also, his Liber Mysterium: The Netbook of Witches and Warlocks for 3e.

Updates on the Links to Wisdom

Daddy Grognard is hosting the Logo competition and you have until Aprill 22, to cast your vote! Meanwhile, Alex Schroeder has made it easy, easy, easy to submit new links! A toolbar bookmarklet that will submit whatever page you're looking at!

The Ugly Green Button

By now, you've no doubt seen the Print/PDF button thingies appearing all over your favorite blogs. Thanks to Matthew of Rended Press for finding that one! Trollsmyth has kindly made a post, linking some of his greatest hits, so you can go back and print/pdf, away! Cool idea Trollsmyth! And thanks to everyone who's Been Assimilated followed Matthew's lead. I spent a lazy Friday night, pdfing every post with a Dwimmermount label, over at Grognardia. Just in case...

Found This. Don't Know If It's Any Good. But it's Free And I Like the Title/Cover!

Crawling for Cash by Ben Wright. Available in Print for $15.11 and as a Free PDF Download.

Sometimes you just want the simple pleasure of sticking a sword into an orc and walking away with its gold. This game will let you do that. It's about trying to make a living killing monsters.

Jeff Thinks of the Coolest Things...

Please, do yourself a favor and check out Jeff Rients' One Issue Campaign series, if you haven't already. Then, see Kelvin Green's take on the idea.

Danger!

Daddy Grognard has a Woodland Dangers random table PDF you can download. 

Raising Funds for Lupus

ChicagoWiz is having a Fundraiser for the Lupus Foundation of America. You can get your hands on some comics and Dragon magazines. I'm not sure what's left, as I'm not on Facebook, but by donating, you can apparently make ChicagoWiz walk. A lot!

Old School Rocks

Joseph Browning and Shawn of Rather Gamey have teamed up to bring you these t-shirts, to help fund the OSR presence at Gen Con. To get a better look at them, head over to Zak's blog.

New Stuff from Sham

Head to Sham's Grog & Blog for some Monster Business. Also available in PDF. 

Year of the Dungeon

Tony Dowler has a new Year of the Dungeon Compilation up. 

Scottsz Continues His Epic Greyhawk Research Project

Cold Text File C1 - Part 9. Posted at Lord of the Green Dragons.

GIMP Gear

ze bulette of Dungeons and Digressions has some cc licensed Dungeon feature Icon GIMP Brushes you can download.

Tiddlywinks? What the hell does Tiddlywinks have to do with D&D?

Berin Kinsman put out a new version of his Campaign Tiddlywiki. Free. He's also started a blog series on Fritz Leiber, you might enjoy. (I now expect someone to come up with a way to use Tiddlywinks in D&D. Opening locks, maybe?)

Some Red Tide Info

SineNomine pops into this thread with some further info on Red Tide.

Logical

Brad of Skull Crushing for Great Justice has made an AD&D NPC Generator.

Time to Check in with Dyson Logos

Reposted from goblinoidgames.com:

This Week at a Character for Every Game

Hola! Another week, another occasional post of interest to you old-schoolers:

• Last week I introduced the Infinite Caves of the Shroom-Goblins.
• This week I present the fully stocked contents of said caves in two posts. Areas 1-14. Areas 15-29.
• An overview of the first 10 days of the RPG Blog Carnival on RPG Cartography (warning: lots of links... like two score of em).
• Journey Down The Dark One Mines - a map from a game of How to Host a Dungeon.
• Tucker's Kobolds - editorial on my hatred for the little beasts, and a Tucker's Kobolds racial class for Labyrinth Lord or Basic D&D.
• Lost Cities of the Fallen Empire - First set of tables to determine the basics of a lost city to explore.
• Erdea Manor - Surface and first levels of this classic-styled dungeon that I'll be stocking on and off over the next week.

Usherwood Adventures is Hiring $$$

Quoted from Mr. Kramer's post at the Knights & Knaves Alehouse:

Usherwood Adventures is undergoing a large-scale re-design and edit. Knowing my limitations as a writer, I am seeking an energetic editor willing to give each page a thorough (if loving) scrub. Beyond grammatical issues, I am also looking at OSRIC compliance, continuity, and fresh thoughts on the content itself. It will be a cash-paying job (to be discussed offline), as well, the editors (I'll consider up to 3 individuals) will get a free copy of my upcoming Usherwood Adventures Expansion for OSRIC that is due to be released late Spring/early Summer.

This expansion material is 100 pages of new PC races, PC classes, monsters, magic, the Usherwood take on psionics, and includes a Foreword by Stuart Marshall. Much of this material has never been published before, and will only be available in this book. The material has been written to be setting-agnostic, so it can be easily added into your existing non-Usherwood game.

A Mini-Adventure from ... and the sky full of dust

Nautical Adventure: The Temple of Tides.

Tim has Been Remodling!

Tim of Gothridge Manor has added an Excellent Gaming Stuff for Free page to his blog. It's far more up-to-date than mine (time, blessed, cursed, time!) so be sure to check it out. Another page lists all of The Newbie Blogger Award Winners and another page is set aside for Knowledge Illuminates, including Sales Figures and Links to Reviews!

We Need a Hero!

Joeskythedungeonbrawler posted a new version of a classic potion.

Product Updates!

A few of days ago, I had some fun with Mythmere's Adventure Design Deskbook Volume One. Matt gave us an update on the new edition of the series, Friday:

The four volumes of this series are all written, and will be published as a single volume by Frog God Games in the fairly near future (I don't have the estimated date, yet, but soon). In the meantime, if you want to get just one (or both) of the first two volumes, you can get printed copies at Frog God Games -- the various legacy products from BBP that are in stock are all listed here. (look on the right hand side to see the list).

He's also put the original Volume One PDF up on Lulu, at a Discount. You can pick this up for $3.50!

Wheel of Evil from Faster Monkey Games is now available in Print! $11.99. The PDF is still available for $6.00.

Video & Audio

Bighara continues his Echoes from the Geekcave with Turning Undead and Player Interest. 

Azird83 has a video review of Swords & Wizardry Complete.

tetsubo57 has a video review of Kingmaker. 

Samwise7 of Darves Hill has some more play session Audio for you.

One More Freebie!

the venomous pao, once again hosts a new Barbarians of Lemuria adventure, written by G-Man! Children of the Void! And if you haven't downloaded the original free version of BoL, you can do so, here!

One Grognard's Opinion: Reviews

Tsojcanth of Lost Papers of Tsojcanth takes Vornheim for a test-drive.  He has some more Vornheim fun, here.

ChicagoWiz tells us about Obsidian Portal.

John of the Lonely Garett continues his series on Fight On! #1.

Professor Pope has a Play Report of Knowledge Illuminates. 

The Jovial Priest has been posting a series on the much-maligned Dungeoneer's Survival Guide.

Haque in Black has a review of Splinters of Faith: Modules 1-4.

Delta has a play report of G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl.

Tenkar began a new series, The Draconic Archeologist, combing through the bones of Dragon. 

Taketoshi of Zero XP Adventures has posted Stonehell: Session 3.

Blair of Planet Algol has a Quick Vornheim Review. 

Maptime!

Visit FrDave at Blood of Prokopius. The second map! Click on it. Enlarge it. Be Amazed!

Knightvision Games posted a preview dungeon map for their upcoming ST1 Sunken Temple of Ta'nask.

Last week I posted a link to Omer Golan's forum thread, where he was putting his campaign setting materials. He's since opened a blog, Wounded Gaia and you can check it out, here including his map of the Zagadur Isles.

Greg of The Weirdlands of Xhuul posted his Cross-section Sketch of Hlatl.

Evan of In Places Deep posted his Xenroth and/or Irass Continent Map and IRASS Map Take II.

Carter Soles of The Lands of Ara shows us a close-up of The Kingdom of Noffel and posts the map for 
Wraithstone Island.

Johnathan Bingham of Ostensible Cat posted his Isle of Maedsid.

Blair of Planet Algol posted his Map of the Pluton Zone.

John Laviolette of The Nine and Thirty Kingdoms continues posting these Awesome Geomorphs!

John at The tales of Kaelaross has A Map of Thaldion, Capitol of Teiglin.

Yesmar of Sickly Purple Death Ray posts awesome maps every week! Here's the Tomb of Yekelil.

Jimm from The Contemptible Cube of Quazar posted the map from his Skull Mountain Megadungeon campaign.

What I'm Pimping This Week

Tome of Tomes by Joseph Browning. Expeditious Retreat Press. 18 pages. Available in PDF for $3.00.

Books in fantasy games have always been sources of mystery. We're all familiar with the sight of the magic user's eyes lighting up like a 5-year-old at Christmas when one is found. This work provides 100 tomes for your gaming pleasure, ranging from the magical to the mundane, from the common to the unique. Never again will you be at a loss to describe that recently found libram.

Tome of Tomes is a compilation of books that could be found on a sage's shelf or on the shelves of a city library. Each tome is described and classified according to field of study and special knowledge category (if applicable).

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.