It's October, and here in Central Virginia it has finally stopped raining and it feels like fall is here, bringing along with it Halloween. Along those lines, another Todd is hosting a Headless Halloween Game Jam on itch. There are some nice prizes for those who participate. It felt like releases were kind of light in August and September; this Roundup makes up for it with a ton of new stuff. I actually didn't include everything I saw, so if you feel like I skipped over a release I should have covered please let me know and I'll rectify it next week.
Someone pointed out The Ruins of Castle Gygar to me. Written by Onslaught Six during Dungeon 23, it's been polished and laid out and is seeing print as a 64-page zine, much in the style of Stonehell (one of my favorite mega-dungeons). Seeing stuff like this -- that started as an itch jam or a writing exercise or just a labor of love -- come into print is one of the coolest things I get to witness in doing this Roundup on a regular basis.
Matt Finch's Tome of Adventure Design is a book I use constantly, and there's about a week left on his current Kickstarter, funding books two and three in the series. When done, this three-volume set should have everything you need to craft a setting and campaign.
Jeffrey Jones has been publishing some really cool stuf for OSE, and is currently crowdfunding Secret of the Whispering God, a 1st level adventure for DCC. It may be of some interest that this is a city-based adventure that involves heists, which is an overlooked genre in gaming but one I always see people asking for.
I've been following the work of Marco Serrano (also known as Spicy Tuna) for awhile now, and they're in the middle of a very successful KS campaign for The Hands that Feed, an adventure for Mothership. I've enjoyed everything that they've put out thus far, and am looking forward to this, as well.
Another publisher I've been following for awhile -- and stocking in the store -- is Crumbling Keep. They're funding a second edition of their solo/co-op dungeon exploration game, Marching Order: Curse and Coin Edition. The one drawback -- for me, at least -- is that they're looking at a release date of October 2025, and for the retailer level tiers that's just too much money for me to have tied up for a year before getting the goods. I've mentioned it before, but for retailer levels with that much lead time I'll only back it if I can do it for a placeholder amount, and pay the balance within a month or two of fulfillment.
I feel like a broken record this week (but I guess that's a function of doing this for . . . three years, I think? I start to see names I recognize and think have produced cool stuff), but Murkdice is another indie publisher that put out constantly great material. They've just released Void Above: Spacer Guide (for players) and Void Above: Host Guide (GMs). The artists have really knocked it out of the park, with a style I can best describe as pastel children's book meets art deco. It's really phenomenal.
His Majesty the Worm hit the OSR scene like a ton of bricks, and shortly after its release there's already an itch jam devoted to it. Crime of Passion is an adventure written for HMtW that centers around two ex-lovers who've decided to make their break-up everyone else's problem.
Speaking of HMtW, the author has released At the Shrine of Fortitude, a free adventure for that game.
One of my pleasures in writing this Roundup is getting to promote the works of first time publishers. Daniel H. Carlsen has released their first adventure, The Curious Creeps in Crimson Creek, as part of the Knave 2e adventure jam.
Trappist Ails is a pun-heavy, trap-themed adventure written as part of the Knave adventure jam.
A third adventure written for the Knave jam is Beneath the Spindle. It is stunning, to be blunt, an absolute masterpiece, and it is free on itch, so you have absolutely no excuse not to pick it up.
The talented Lucas Rolim is itch-funding Death Knight, a solo rpg about a fallen knight raging against darkness and despair.
Haunts is a supplement for Shadowdark that provides guidelines for adding haunts to your game; undead and horror-themed apparitions with a variety of powers.
Written for Mork Borg, Skeletons! is a short supplement that pretty much does what it says on the tin; provides skeletal varieties for the game.
Wormwood is a free, 95-page setting and game that is a work in progress. Influenced by the time period in the mid-530s, AD, when a series of volcanic eruptions caused the earth's temperatures to drop and unleashed a period of plagues, famine, and societal unrest.
Courteous Dragon has released the Mystery of Moonriddle, a system agnostic adventure toolkit that seems to be a bit in the vein of B1, the classic starter adventure that provides a map and a framework on which to build an adventure. I might ordinarily pass this by, but it is specifically designed to be run on a VTT, with the maps having separate tokens that can be arranged as desired. With the explosion in growth of online gaming this is something I like to see.
This must be the season of the 'mech; I wrote about two new releases last week, and this week I've got two more for you. Aether Nexus is a fantasy Mecha game based on the Mecha Hack system, with absolutely gorgeous artwork.
Readers might also be aware that we're the US distributors for Leyline Press and their Salvage Union game; LP is currently funding the Salvage Union Starter Set on Backerkit, which will come in a box set format.
I've been waiting for Wind Wraith, by Lazy Litch, to come out in print, and we've finally got it in stock. It's a really nice-looking book and the quality and content is up there with their other releases.
I'm currently running two crowdfunding projects, the first on Kickstarter for the 2025 Hexcrawl Workbook, and one on Backerkit for a compiled book of all the player-facing options I've written over the past seven or so years. I'm cautiousl impressed by Backerkit, especially the option to have hidden pledge levels. Speaking of which, there are hidden pledge levels for both Patreons and Subscribers of my work in addition to people who have purchased my work before. If you fall into one of those two categories, and have not gotten an email with the links, hit me up and I'll be sure to send them over.
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