Welcome to the News Roundup for September 30th, the last day (and Monday) of the month. We've had nothing but rain here for the last two weeks, it seems, and I hope that everyone reading this in North Carolina is safe. I'm sure long-time readers may be aware that one of my goals with this newsletter is to promote the works of new and/or marginalized creators, especially those of BIPOC and/or LGBTQ communities. There are creators who, because of their views or the content of their creations, I do not mention here. I bring this up now, specifically, because I had gone back and forth about whether or not to include mention of a product, and ultimately decided to, which you can find below, along with some rationalization of why I did so.
I'm always on the lookout for a good mecha game, and I stumbled across the newly released Celestial Bodies: Titan Edition, by Binary Star Games. They've been releasing CB in increasingly longer editions, and it looks like they're getting ready to launch a crowdfunding campaign for a final version soon.
Violet Core is another mecha game funding on Kickstarter, billing itself as a high-speed sapphic mecha rpg. The art has a wonderful neon-90's punk aesthetic.
The Gauntlet is raising funds on Backerkit for The Between, a game of monster hunters in Victorian England. It runs on the same system that powers one of my favorites in recent years, Brindlewood Bay.
Ikezu-Ishi is a feudal Japan-inspired game that hacks Cairn, Into the Odd, and Block, Dodge, Parry. It's still in playtest form, and will no doubt be updated as things get refined.
Liminal Horror is a great little system that is getting more (deserved) attention, and I just happened to see The Roaring Age, a hack of LH set in the 1920s for that classic Call of Cthulhu feel but with newer, stream-lined rules.
The Caverns of Arcane Silk is an introductory adventure written and published by Idle Doodler as a dungeon they created and ran some players through. I think this is a great little project, and look forward to seeing more of what they release. It is a good way to get some spell scrolls into the hands of lower level adventurers.
I've mentioned before that one of my favorite things to do is promote the work of first-time publishers: this week we've got two by a new author: Cloud Press. They've released Turn it Off, an adventure for Knave 2e, in which a lighthouse meets Lovecraft, and The Cult of Mr. Jingles, a horror-filled adventure written for Mausritter. They may be a new publisher, but the use of public domain art and the layout is top-notch.
Solo games sell so well at Sabre that we've got a rack that displays the two dozen or so different games we stock, and I was stoked to see the Ultimate One-Page Solo RPG Toolkit, a collection of tables for use with solo gaming.
I always like seeing short encounters or adventures that can be easily slotted into an existing game, and Tales by the Fire, Vol. 1 promises that for your Shadowdark game with a collection of short adventures and encounters.
I know Andy Duvall through his OSE adventure the Dessicated Temple of Locha as well as some maps he's done for me, and he's just released What Lies Sweeping, a system-agnostic sci-fispace adventure. He produces some quality products.
I'm sure I'm not alone in that the Fight On! Fanzine was a crucial resource when I was first discovering the OSR community and playstyle, and right now there's a bundle deal on the first fourteen issues over on Drivethru. I'm not sure how long the bundle deal will last. I will also provide a caveat that these issues contain works by some contributors who, because of some of their views and opinions, I have chosen not to feature in this Roundup. I still think this is a great resource and am important look at the early days of the OSR movement, so I decided to include it.
I've mentioned the wonderful Tales of Argosa before, and the publisher has just released a new adventure for it: the Crypt of Kursaba, a short undead-themed adventure.
The prolific Philip Reed has released Blacken & Burn, Rumors of a Dying World, a collection of rumors for Mork Borg and other similar grim fantasy settings.
I'm shocked that Fungi of the Far Realms is only now just showing up on Drivethrurpg, but I guess that is the cae. It's an awesome book, a pictoral guide to weird and wild mushrooms and other fungi for you to plop down into your setting. I'm hoping it gets a reprint, soon, because it is one of those books we just could not keep on the shelf when we did have it in stock.
I've got a couple projects in the works. Right now I'm raising funds for the 2025 Hexcrawl Workbook, a daily planner-style notebook with a blank hex page for each day. I'm most excited that it is available in a spiral-bound version, to make it really easy to use. Also, I've had a compilation of all the player options I've written over the years laid out and ready to crowdfund, and I've decided to give Backerkit a whirl with that project. I've been using KS to fund over two dozen projects, but when I saw Games Omnivorous post about switching over to BK I thought I'd give it a try; the book is already written and compiled, and I've just been waiting for a chance to slot it into the schedule. I'm hoping to write up a blog post in the next month or two about the two different platforms; I can already see ways in which Backerkit is superior, at least from a "setting it up" perspective.
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