Phenomenal rules for playing out epic battles as a capstone to a campaign. Very well thought out and integrates very well into the base ACKs game as well as a great standalone wargame!

"The ancient almanac of unusual magic, penned by the wizard-lord Aryxymaraki in the time before the Day Without Night, has been rediscovered…"

Within the pages of Aryxymaraki’s Almanac of Unusual Magic, you will find four new kinds of magic-user, each of which uses magic in new and exciting ways:

Dwarven earthforgers inherit an ancient tradition allowing them to draw on the spark of the divine found in all creation to power their magic. Gnomish alchemists are experimenters whose concoctions range from ‘helpful and safe’ to ‘incredibly poisonous’. Terran engineers are scientists and builders from another time, whose inventions and tinkering certainly appear magical to most non-technological societies. Warlords draw on the chaotic energy of battle, taming it with their practiced tactics and leadership to ensure that their side wins. These new classes are built for use with Autarch’s Heroic Fantasy Handbook, which provides rules for ceremonial and eldritch magic. Because they use eldritch magic, the new spells (and tactics) described for the gnomish alchemist, the Terran engineer, and the warlord constitute more than one hundred new eldritch spells usable in any campaign that includes eldritch magic, even one that doesn’t include any of these new classes. Of course, it wouldn’t be an ACKS supplement without full builds for all of the classes and spells, and the source factors for gnostic magic, allowing you to build your own content to expand what’s in the Almanac"

Aryxymaraki’s Almanac of Unusual Magic is one that I've been waiting for since the kickstarter reared its head a long while back. Clocking in a fifty six pages of ACK's goodness Aryxymaraki’s Almanac of Unusual Magic packs in the magical PC goodness for orienting magus towards the Heroic Fantasy Handbook.

And like it Dwarven earthforgers are a welcome add on to Adventurer, Conqueror, King giving the Dwarven PC classes a much needed magical elemental boast. The class is well rounded & feels like it belongs in Dwarven hold deep beneath Greyhawk.

Here's exactly the sort of flavor we're talking here;"At first level, dwarven earth-forgers are able to learn and cast gnostic ceremonies in the runic tradition. Unlike other ceremonial spellcasters, dwarven earth-forgers know only one ceremony at first level, determined by their choice of sigil of creation (see below). The ceremonies available to dwarven earth-forgers are referred to as invocations. They may cast an invocation at any level equal to or less than the maximum level listed on their progression table, below, for their class level. The invocation will describe its effects at each level in its description. When they perform an invocation, they may choose which level to perform it at; they do not need to prepare it ahead of time" We get behind the scenes building of the class from the ground up. Then variarations & much more. The Gnome Alchemist is another class that as player & DM that I really like ;"Gnomish Alchemy is a new subset of magic for ceremonial and eldritch magic. It is a kind of eldritch magic, and uses all of the same source factors and can theoretically access the full spell list. In addition, any spells designed for gnomish alchemy can be used by eldritch spellcasters without any change necessary (beyond determining their shade). Instead of its spells being categorized as Black, Grey, or White magic, they are categorized as Toxic, Tolerable, or Safe. Instead of risking Corruption when casting Black or Grey magic, they risk exposing themselves to Toxicity when using concoctions that are Toxic or Tolerable. And instead of comparing their Corruption to their Wisdom score, they compare their Toxicity to their Constitution score. Thanks to their distance from the magic, provided by their use of alchemy rather than direct ritual, they can blithely perform acts that would sear the soul of an ordinary eldritch caster. However, because their ingredients have difficulty doing things outside the physical, effects that are perfectly safe for ordinary eldritch casters may be among the most toxic for a gnomish alchemist." Simple easy, & straight forward.. And its a well done class but then we slide deeper into the Alchemy levels for the Gnome Alchemist we get deeply into their background, motives, class structure, & much more. And then we get into one of the primary villain NPC race's magicks of my campaigns 'The Terrans'. And their traditions of Terran engineering; "Like Gnomish Alchemy, Terran engineering is a new kind of ceremonial and eldritch magic. Terran engineers can easily do some things that are horrifying or dangerous for other eldritch spellcasters (including gnomish alchemists), but have difficulty with other things that might be simple for them. Instead of their spells being Black, Grey, or White, they are categorized as Hypothetical, Experimental, or Tested. Only Tested spells can be cast or learned safely! Even Experimental spells carry dangers with them, and Hypothetical spells, which truly test the boundaries of engineering, are even more dangerous. Like gnomish alchemists, Terran engineers do not gain Corruption in the normal way; instead, they gain intellectual apathy as they delve deeper past the frontiers of the science they know and learn the dark secrets of the universe. Their ability to resist this is based on their Intelligence score, rather than their Wisdom score." We get deep into the actual nuts & bolts of the alien technologies & dangerous sciences of the Terrans. And not all is wonderful with them. Take for example the spell Aversion Field; " Aversion Field Range: 0’ Terran Engineering 4 (Hypothetical), Duration: 9 turns Eldritch 4 (Black) By means of a supersonic noise above the level of human hearing, the caster can create a field that repels animals. The field affects a 480’ diameter sphere centered on the engineer when cast, though the field does not move after casting. The field lasts for nine turns. Animals and giant animals in the field when it is cast, or who attempt to enter the field for the duration must save vs Spell; on a failed saving throw, they flee in panic for 30 rounds. On a successful saving throw, the animal is not affected by the aversion field." Applied to the holdings of a Terran royal through his or her engineer a pattern of spells & operations for the Terrans emerges. And its not all rainbows & sunshine. This is a race whose spell casters have an agenda & its clear through out Aryxymaraki’s Almanac of Unusual Magic that PC's better watch out. Finally we get a brand new class of magic in form of Warcraft; "The ebb and flow of combat…the dance between life and death. There is an art to war, to knowing when to step forward and when to fall back. When to take a chance, and when to cut your losses. And as with any art, there are masters of it. Those masters call their art warcraft. Is warcraft magic? There is power in it, and its secrets seem to be visible only to a talented few. Perhaps it is a matter of training and talent only. Perhaps there is magic in it, as there is magic in a sunset or in a baby’s first breath. There is a raw power available in combat, as primal forces surge to the fore while combatants strive for victory or death. Warcraft is the art of recognizing that power and of manipulating it through the actions of yourself and your allies. Practitioners of warcraft do not directly manipulate magic, and would not consider themselves spellcasters. They are strategists and tacticians, commanders and captains. By recognizing the flow of the battle (consciously or not), they can identify the perfect action to take at the time, and the effects of such perfect timing can be magnificent." Without a doubt Warcraft magi would be right at home in the field with the armies of Rome! Seriously this class is everything I was expecting & wanting from Aryxymaraki’s Almanac of Unusual Magic. This is a battle magi worth of ACK's warfare. A solid class of magus capable of pulling off some of the magicks to bring the war to the enemy in spades. This is a good solid class to add to party if their looking to profit & deal with warfare on a tactical or grand level. Could Aryxymaraki’s Almanac of Unusual Magic be added to other OSR systems?! Easily in my opinion where Labyrinth Lord & its subsystems are used. Aryxymaraki’s Almanac of Unusual Magic is a good book to add into the mix to get the maxinum ulility out of your OSR systems.

All in all I'm really glad that I backed Aryxymaraki’s Almanac of Unusual Magic it has just the right combination of OSR magicks & classes to make a worth while addition to a DM's tool box for Adventurer,Conqueror, King rpg. Eric Fabiaschi Swords & Stitchery Want more OSR action?! Please subscribe to https://swordsandstitchery.blogspot.com/

Of all the Dwimmermount supplements this one is a must have. The others are nice, I bought the map book and the illustration book as well, but this is a MUST if you are trying to run Dwimmermount. I got back into the game after a decades long absence. I hadn't been a DM since the Gipper was in the White House. This took all the stress out of running a megadungeon for my OSR group. Maps are keyed, there is a random encouter table, everything you need to run the level is included in two pages. ALL megadungeons should have something like this. Money very well spent in my opinion.

Yes, nearly all the images are included in the book. But these are bigger and are nice to show the players during the campaign without showing the group the main book and perhaps revealing something inadvertently. Very good if you want the complete package and reasonably prices. The art is evocative and well done.

Very useful for the DM. I wouldn't want to run Diwmmermount without it. Anybody running a Mega Dungeon knows the value of a map pack. Yes the maps are in the book, but these are bigger and the the POD map book was of excellent quality. If you want to run a quick campaign, without having the players try to draw their own maps this is a must.

Fantastic megadungeon. I returned to the game after a more than 30 year hiatus to run this as a DM for my OSR group. It was very easy to run and very flexible and adaptable. Room descriptions, stat blocks and supplementary materials are simply excellent. Lots of strange magic items, custom monsters and a well thought out campaign world. This product along with various side adventures kept my group busy for close to a year. A great time was had by all.

More excellent material from Autarch! This is a resource I continue to reference for game play. Like the parent book, this is well crafted including easy referencing and relevant art. The game system does appear to be acquiring some diffusion of scope as the limitations of class based characters common to d20 systems appears to be reached. A very useful addition to the rules nonetheless and well worth the money.

This book is a master's seminar on how to present a game system with coherent rules, easy to access indices in the back topically arranged to allow rapid review. It is a well constructed tome with engaging and relevant art which helps the material presented appear engaging and entertaining. The game system itself is very playable and an improvement on other d20 based systems. Well worth the money!

Very useful background material for ACKS campaigns. Continue to use as a ready reference with each new game setting.

Over a thousand years ago, the Zaharan Sorcerer-Queen Semiramis reigned over a court notorious for its decadent arts and lavish opulence. The hidebound nobles of Zahar were troubled by the ascendance of the kingdom’s first female monarch. Semiramis was beset by over one hundred suitors, each one demanding that she marry him so that the kingdom might have a king. Many of these suitors were powerful spellcasters who wove enchantments upon her, but to no avail: The Sorceress-Queen wore the Ring of the Queen’s Heart, a legendary magic item gifted to her by the goddess Nasga that made her immune to her suitor’s charms.

As beautiful and cruel as her goddess, Semiramis instead seduced her perfidious suitors into swearing eternal love to her – then had them slain. The Sorceress-Queen mummified and interred all one hundred suitors in her own majestic sepulcher, where they would serve her as loyally in death as they ought to have in life.

Since then, the sepulcher of the sorceress-queen has lain hidden and undisturbed, its undead inhabitants slumbering in torpor until the prophesied time of the Awakening. But now a reckless warband of lizardmen has broken open the ancient tomb and disturbed evils not seen in centuries…

When it comes to anything ancient Egyptian themed I'm a huge sucker for OSR supplements, books,& especially adventures. So when it came to the Middle Kingdom inspired Adventurer,Conqueror,King rpg AX6: Sepulcher of the Sorceress-Queen (SoSQ) adventure I was all in. So much so that I stepped up & bought in on the Table Top Game On Funding Project. This is not a huge adventure & it clocks in at fifty six pages of OSR goodness but realize that this is a nasty little dungeon romp for PC's levels 7-9.

This isn't the usual animal of an adventure when it comes to ACK's because the Zaharan Sorcerer-Queen Semiramis is a menace in every sense of the word here. If the dungeon isn't cleared & her reign of evil isn't stopped then things are going to get beyond ugly for the PC's here. Our witch queen is set up in this adventure to become a real thorn in the sides of the PC's if she's not put down. That's the whole cloth issue here This is a nasty dungeon as well with tricks,traps, & some really nasty monsters all crammed & jammed into fifty six pages of ACK's goodness. Sorcerer-Queen Semiramis could become a straight up villainess of epic proportions within her own right to the back drop of the PC's rule with their own ACK's campaign.

AX6: Sepulcher of the Sorceress-Queen does a good job setting up its own inter universe adventure logic & sticking with it. This adventure owes more to Robert E. Howard's Conan then it does real world history. But it does it in a slick & solid package that rises to the usual level of ACK's products. The cartography is well done, the layout is good, the plot of the dungeon is well thought out but its placement?! I've got some 'suggestions' on that.

But where does one place AX6: Sepulcher of the Sorceress-Queen in the campaign setting of ACK's?! Well there's the official explanation which dives it right into the world setting of the Auran Empire found within The Auran Empire Primer . And then there's my personal take on AX6: Sepulcher of the Sorceress-Queen . Take this adventure & throw it whole hog into Barbarian Conquerors of Kanahu world setting.

Not only is AX6: Sepulcher of the Sorceress-Queen going to shine but its going to take the Zaharan Sorcerer-Queen Semiramis into the threat level that the campaign deserves. Here we get to see the influence & darkness of the Zaharan Sorcerer lines of royals in spades! The adventure is solid but the NPC potential of the Zaharan Sorcerer-Queen as a campaign villain is outstanding. She's got to be the potential to be a royal pain in the arse of any PC's for years to come. A very well done adventure & one I'm glad to add to the collection! Eric Fabiaschi Sword & Stitchery blog Want More original OSR content ? Subscribe to swordsandstitchery.blogspot.com

A great tool for running Dwimmermount. For each level you get a high resolution (designed for printing at 11x17, but still readable at 8.5x11) map with much more detail than the maps in the Dwimmermount book. Each room is keyed with its number, all the monsters and NPCs (NPCs that will talk first are even keyed as a different color than straight combat encounters), a room description of 1-5 words is printed directly on the map, and it it even has icons showing you the locations of magic and treasure. You also get a one page summary of each dungeon level showing you the random encounter table, and summaries of major features, factions, and level entry points.

I noticed at least one minor error. An NPC (Melissa in the Halls of Lesser Secrets) is shown on the map but is not in the key.

It's said the product is designed to have the level summary printed on the back of the level map, but I would probably print it spiral bound so that the summary for each level was on the back of the map page of the next dungeon level, so that they are both visible at the same time when the dungeon tracker is open on the table.

I would definitely get this if you bought the Dwimmermount book and you are planning on running the dungeon in person. It's not a must have if you are playing on a virtual tabletop but I'd imagine it would still be useful.

There is nothing in the dungeon tracker that is specific to D&D, LL, ACKS, or any specific ruleset.

This map pack (as a pdf) is not very useful. I can't speak to how it's assembled as Print on Demand, or as the original hard copy from the Kickstarter, but as a pdf it provides almost nothing that isn't in the main Dwimmermount book or the dungeon tracker.

You get a higher resolution wilderness map than in the main book, but it's crudely split up over different pages with large margins so you can't take it to a print shop or import it into a virtual tabletop. You get maps of each dungeon floor, but they are done MUCH better in the excellent Dwimmermount dungeon tracker.

The only thing you get here that's not in the other two products is a chronological cross section of Dwimmermount, showing which portions of the dungeon were built in which eras. This is cool, but it's also crudely split between pages and isn't worth $7.50.

I highly recommend both the adventure and the dungeon tracker, but not this product. The dungeon tracker has all the maps you need, buy that instead.

First, the physical product was well-packaged and arrived without damage.

Second, it is a beautiful tome. My only quibble is that there was no hardcover option; this is merely a personal preference for hardcover vs. softcover.

Third, the content is exactly what it says on the tin. If ACKS is your bag, this is a must. While ACKS Core is eminently playable as-is, if you enjoyed the "rolling back of the covers" in the Player's Companion, this is your candy. Having all of Axioms 1-8 in a collected edition, with (I presume; I havent checked) the most recent errata and updates to same incorporated into the text is invaluable.

Finally, Autarch is a class act. If they publish it, give it a look. I have yet to be disappointed.

This game has an incredible breadth of possibilities covering nearly any conceivable ability, character, or circumstance, all designed with a solid grounding in real-world physics of how such abilities might work.

"Cyfaraun is a city of ancient lineage. The name itself is an Auran corruption of its original elven name, Cyfarawn. Evidence of elven construction is still visible in the city’s oldest district, today called Old Cyfaraun. Many city residents know that Old Cyfaraun was founded atop an earlier settlement – Ancient Cyfaraun, buried by cataclysmic ashes over 500 years ago.

Only the most illustrious sages are aware that the Ancient City was itself built over an even deeper ruin, a Forgotten Cyfaraun, a city brought low by an earthquake almost 2,000 years ago. Forgotten Cyfaraun was reduced to rubble but its lasting legacy is a hidden Nethercity, a treacherous place of twisting tunnels, dusty catacombs, and black, volcanic caves that waits, forgotten and unplumbed - until now…"

There are times when you look at your pile of books & one slips through the cracks. That's happened with AX2: Secrets of the Nethercity by Newton Grant & Alexander Macris. And yet this is in my opinion one of the most vital adventurer,Conqueror,King rpg books to come out. Why?! Because this book fills in many of the cracks & take downs I've heard from gamers regarding the ACK's official campaign setting found in the Auran Empire Primer. Namely that there's not enough adventure opportunities & dungeon fodder in the book. This is complete nonsense of course. AX2: Secrets of the Nethercity by Newton Grant & Alexander Macris fills in many of the campaign gaps in the official setting with a kilo dungeon & lots of nasty history hinted at in the Auran Empire Primer. This is not a nice place for adventurers to go! Given the history & adventure material found within AX2: Secrets of the Nethercity. Its little wonder that the book was meant to bring characters from 3rd to 8th level of experience. This is one nasty book filled with twenty interlocking adventure locations that make up the AX2: Secrets of the Nethercity. The cartography by Dyson Logos and Simon Forster are on point along with the layout are top notch.

AX2: Secrets of the Nethercity has a ton of PC options for ACK's & adds a layer of optional add on's to the world history of the Auran Empire Primer. The PC's can add the Elven Cultist, Elven Hierophant, Elven Warlord, and Elven Wizard to an adventurer party. This fits right in with the history of the Auran Empire . The monsters in AX2: Secrets of the Nethercity by Newton Grant & Alexander Macris are really nasty & written for the level of ACK's The Heroic Fantasy Handbook. The Faewyrd, Incarnation of Terror, and chaos backed horrors are primed for cross breeding. This ties right into the ACK's adventure AX4: Ruined City of Cyfandir.

This world campaign commitment echoes itself in the city of Cyfaraun which is perfect for use by your adventurers in between dungeon delves. This ties in with B2 Keep of the Borderland By Gary Gygax & many other classic B/X Dungeons & Dragons adventures. What separates AX2: Secrets of the Nethercity from other OSR resources is that its a dungeon book with player possibilities for domain play & the sheer volume of OSR play weirdness that's in the book.

If your an ACK's dungeon master AX2: Secrets of the Nethercity by Newton Grant & Alexander Macris is in my opinion this is an essential & absolute solid adventure resource. Here we have absolutely solid adventure resource book which will keep the players on their toes for years to come or destroy the PC's utterly.

Eric Fabiaschi Swords & Stitchery Want More Original OSR Content & Reviews? Subscribe To https://swordsandstitchery.blogspot.com/