I'm back after a week off, and I'm sure a number of readers are waking up bleary-eyed this morning after a long weekend at GenCon. Looks like Shadowdark (deservedly) cleaned up at the Ennies. I'd also like to call attention to:
Cloud Empress (sadly, we're out of all the CE titles).
Ultraviolet Grasslands 2e.
I'm not going to be able to cover all of the new releases/projects that dropped in the past two weeks, but I'll try to get as much as I can get.
I've been waiting for Painted Wastelands to drop on Kickstarter for awhile, and it's finally live. It's a dreamy acid-trip of a game, reminiscent of the Electrum Archive and Ultraviolet Grasslands.
Speaking of UVG (and they also won an Ennie!), the long-awaited companion/sequel to it is currently funding on Backerkit. Called Our Golden Age, it is a two-volume set designed to be used either as a companion to or independently of UVG.
First time publisher Lost Legacies Gaming is raising funds for the Immortals White Box. There's only a day left in the campaign as of this publication, so this is one to jump on if it grabs your fancy. It's a pretty ambitious project, a love song to the original White Box game.
Cain is a new release by Tom Bloom, the driving force behind Kill Six Billion Demons and the recently released in print Lancer. Featuring the same art that makes Lancer such a beautiful book, Cain is a game of psychics hunting the sins of humanity made manifest.
I'd mentioned Ghosts of the Sierra Verde Grand Campaign a year or so ago; written by Sivad's Sanctum, and strongly influenced by Wolves Upon the Coast, SS has added another County to this, and ever-expanding hexcrawl (and, like WUtC, those backing earlier will get access to additional material at the original price).
Gothic Grace is a dice-less, GM-less playtest by Lost Seas, in which the players take on the role of wizards and warlocks who must work for an incompetent government in order to survive.
I'm not familiar with the works of Symbolic City, but a new release of theirs -- Tarnation -- caught my eye. It's a solo rpg set in a weird west pocket dimension, and while it is currently just available in pdf the art and layout cries out for a physical copy.
One of my current favorite indie publishers is Cats Have No Lords (author of Swamp Troll Witches). They put out such a wide range of games and adventures that make me somewhat jealous. I saw recently that they've just released Hwaet, a solo game inspired by Beowulf. Both Hwaet and Tarnation make excellent use of public domain art.
bread wizard has just released a tantalizing mashup adventure written for MCC and Cairn. Titled Glowburn and Radscars, it is a playtest version available as a PWYW product, with the author hoping to fund art and editing down the road.
The Old School Revival Solo Role-Playing Guide is a recently released product by Arcane Sword Press. It looks to be an interesting product.
In a similar theme, Hilander has released The Old School Referee, an introductory guide to the nuts and bolts of running OSR-style games.
Lizard Isle is a low-level adventure written for 1e and other similar OSR games, in which the task the adventurers are hired for turns out to be a lot more complicated than what they had originally imagined.
The One That Got Away is an adventure for DCC by Shinobi Games, designed as a 0-level tournament adventure, all about catching the largest eel in the Gravic Swamp.
Another product that makes great use of public domain art is Pluvium, a supplement for Mork Borg that revolves around rain. In some ways it reminds me of Gavin Norman's excellent -- and sadly ended -- Wizardzine.
Decay is a cool-looking OSR game inspired by Cairn, White Box, and similar systems. It's a classless system set in a decaying and crumbling world.
After years of quiescence, Fight On! is back with Issue 15. One of the most important zines of the beginning days of the OSR movement.
Knight Owl Publishing just released the recently Kickstarted project Isle of Joy, an adventure billed as David Lynch directing The Tempest. All of Knight Owl's products are pretty great (and they also just released Volume 5 of Old School and Cool).
Another great publisher is the Melsonian Arts Council, and they've just released Palace of the Metegorgos, by Evey Lockhart.
The Giant Moth that Awaits us All grabbed my attention right away when I saw the cover art by Acid Lich, one of my favorite illustrators. It's written for DCC, and set in a weird far future.
It was pointed out to me that I've been remiss with promoting the works of Dyson Logos; I don't know how I managed this obvious oversight, so want to make sure to call out their Cartography Collection from June 2023 of Dyson's Dodecahedron.
I'm Kickstarting Issue 37 of Populated Hexes Monthly. This, the first issue of the fourth year of this zine, contains material that didn't make it into Vol. 2 of the BX Advanced Bestiary, and includes four playable race-as-class options (three versions of bee-folk, plus the bird-folk garuda), the slime magus prestige class, and more!
Issue 36 of Populated Hexes Monthly is now live on the Sabre Games website in pdf and print. This issue finishes the the exploration of the dungeons underneath Dry Gulch and includes some new clerical ritual spells.
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