I've tried to make it necessary to add flair to each post, it will help when people search and keep things organized. If you make a post, its simple, just go back in and click on the little tag on the post, and select your flair (topic)
Three years after taking the plunge in the OSR, I have released my first OSR adventure, The Hive Under Eisenstead! This was funded via Kickstarter as a part of Zine Quest 2026, and is now live on DriveThruRPG.
In addition to some amazing art and maps, some key features are:
Designed for characters of 2nd to 4th level.
Statted for both old school systems (OSRIC, OSE, Swords & Wizardry) and modern systems (5E, Shadowdark, Pathfinder).
84 keyed locations across four areas.
Four new monsters and several riffs on classic foes.
Two rival adventuring parties.
Several unique magic items and two new Magma Sorcery spells in D&D and DCC compatible formats.
Five adventure hooks to tie player characters to NPCs immediately.
48-pages in a 5.5" x 8.5" zine format, easily printed at home.
14 handouts, both digital and printer-friendly.
Player-ready maps and digital tokens for a virtual tabletop.
It was a blast to make, and it has been incredible to see it come to life. I hope you will check it out.
I am pleased to announce the publication of Gamemaster’s Guidelines Beyond Fomalhaut! This is a 292-page hardcover supplement providing comprehensive, easy-to-follow guidance on creating and running old-school adventures and campaigns, from basic philosophy to tested design methods and a whole lot of supplemental material (including optional rules, monsters, treasure, and random generation tables). The book should be useful for beginning gamemasters and old hands alike, and while it is designed for OSRIC, most of it should be quite applicable to any old-school games.
Gamemaster’s Guidelines Beyond Fomalhaut is lavishly illustrated by Cameron Hawkey (who did the cover and various interiors), Graphite Prime, Vincentas Saladis, Sean Stone, Peter Mullen, as well as the Dead Victorians, the Antique Alumni, and the Robot Overlords. Profferading and helpful advice was provided by the Riders of Doom: Istvan Belanszky and Kalman Farago; with further suggestions by Ken McKinney, Settembrini, and Terrible Sorcery. Thank you, gentlemen! This was a mighty undertaking.
The book includes the following materials:
A primer on Classic Adventure Gaming, notes on swords & sorcery, and a list of selected inspirational material.
Basic and advanced gamemastering techniques, from effective descriptions to harnessing random rolls for creativity.
Intuitive and modular optional rules from a simple mass combat system to experience, survival, poison, and disease.
Adventure and campaign design advice, including dungeon, wilderness, city, and situation-based adventure types, as well as guidance on constructing and running rich sandbox campaigns with ease.
Guidance on designing game-friendly fantastic worlds, including understanding their assumptions, dealing with the gods, and adopting the game to other genres.
Simple domain management guidelines.
A selection of 255 monsters, NPC types, and a large, complex set of encounter tables.
A treasury of magic items, technological devices, and treasure generation charts.
A rich selection of random inspiration tables to help in adventure design.
A detailed description and a preview of the dungeon design chapter is found here.
The print version of the book is available from my Bigcartel store; the PDF edition will be published through DriveThruRPG with a few months’ delay. As always, customers who buy the print edition will receive the PDF version free of charge. US shipping is now open, although still rather expensive (see how it works here).
US customers will also find the book for sale at Dark Future PDX, who also carry many other fine old-school supplements. They are a small store, so they may not have everything in my catalogue all the time, but they restock regularly, and they have amassed a good reputation. Orders through Dark Future are also eligible for free PDFs.
This is a map from the newsletter Map Libs. Each month a clean, isometric, one page dungeon map is posted and the subscribers have 15 days to submit ideas for what those blanks should be. One submission is chosen and the information is integrated into the final map before it is posted in the next months newsletter. We try and keep it system agnostic and reasonably un-raunchy. Come and join the fun for free!
This is a map from the newsletter Map Libs. Each month a clean, isometric, one page dungeon map is posted and the subscribers have 15 days to submit ideas for what those blanks should be. One submission is chosen and the information is integrated into the final map before it is posted in the next months newsletter. We try and keep it system agnostic and reasonably un-raunchy. Come and join the fun for free!
What are your favorite old school (as in written between 1975 to 1999) modules, source books, etc. that no one talks about? and what makes it so great? It can either be a hidden gem from TSR or any third party. I just love exploring off the beaten path.
I painted this mini recently and I was wondering if anyone knows of any good modules that could use minis like him? I don't know of many modules that have Knights of Orders.
Also any feedback on the paint job would be appreciated.
