Flowstone is a city for my own Undergloom setting (previous post here), though it could most likely be plugged in to any Underdark-style world. I use it for the occasional Black Hack game, but it should work with any OSR-style system. Flowstone lies in the center of a vast cavern that serves as a junction … Continue reading Flowstone – an underground city for the Black Hack, or any OSR game
I’ve been posting a bit recently on the "Cepheus Engine as the New OSR” notion I’ve been playing around with. The idea is that the Cepheus Engine (basically old-school Traveller) should be a lot better known, and would make an excellent core for a OSR-style community of players and developers. My Cepheus as a New … Continue reading The New OSR 4: Blades of Barsoom
I've just run a session of Vaults of Vaarn, the weird science fantasy RPG from Leo Hunt. It's one of my favorite settings, with lots of Dying Earth, post-apocalyptic flavor to it. Vaults of Vaarn #3 To prepare for the session, I used the region generation method from the Vaults of Vaarn #3 zine, which … Continue reading The Labyrinth – a mini-setting for Vaults of Vaarn
I've been working on my submission to the Cepheus Journal fanzine. My plan is to create an adaptation of the 1983 science fantasy movie Krull (Wikipedia / YouTube Trailer) for both the Sword of Cepheus & Barbaric! games. Krull itself was a fairly unsuccessful movie, creatively and financially, with some nice visuals. However, the basic … Continue reading Making RPG stuff from a mostly-forgotten film: Krull
I've been continuing running my ongoing Lumberlands (DriveThruRPG / itch.io) campaign using the Black Hack OSR rules set. It's been fun getting deep into one system and world, after years of just running one-shots. I've decided to post all the new details I've been adding to the fantasy lumberjack setting. The rules are Black Hack … Continue reading Oddities of the Lumberlands – Part II
In 1956, the English writer Colin Wilson released the book The Outsider. It was sort a cultural and literary analysis of so-called "outsider" figures, and served as an early introduction to existentialism. The book received a lot of early acclaim from critics, and Wilson was as feted one of the "angry young men" of his … Continue reading Planet of the Spiders: A campaign idea I’ll probably never get around to.
At Travellercon/USA 2021 I got to play in a great session of Traveller: 1700. This is a free setting for Classic Traveller created by Greg Caires, originally published in the Freelance Traveller fanzine. It's available for download over at the Freelance Traveller site. Though designed for Classic Traveller, it's easily compatible with more modern versions, and … Continue reading Traveller: 1700 – A custom character sheet and some recommended Colonial American RPG books
The latest issue of the Cepheus Journal was just released. It's free and worth a download. The Cepheus Journal is a fanzine by and for fans of the Cepheus Engine (basically an open source version of the Traveller RPG) The issues are generally given a theme. The theme for issue #8 is Retro Sci-Fi Some … Continue reading Cepheus Journal #8: The Retro Issue
I'm slowly continuing work on my conversion of the AD&D Dark Sun setting to the Sword of Cepheus system. I'm currently continuing to add to the Elemental Cleric class. I’m now putting together a list of spells for each type of Elemental Cleric – Fire, Air, Earth, and Water. Here’s my list of Sword of … Continue reading Dark Sun for Sword of Cepheus: Part X – Earth Spells for Elemental Clerics
I'm continuing work on my conversion of the AD&D Dark Sun setting to the Sword of Cepheus system. My last post was the Elemental Cleric class. I'm now putting together a list of spells for each type of Elemental Cleric - Fire, Air, Earth, and Water. Here's my list of Sword of Cepheus spells for … Continue reading Dark Sun for Sword of Cepheus: Part IX – Fire Spells for Elemental Clerics
Polyhedral Nonsense 