With Hawkmoor, you're developing a robust and seriously inspirational setting with a wealth of gameable locations, situations and conflicts. This primer has more adventure seeds in it than many of the lengthy setting books I've battled through over the years. Looking forward to future updates. Will there be a rules system to complement it ?

As you might expect from a Night Owl Workshop book, the art is top notch black and white pen and ink drawings - evocative of a by-gone era of gaming that we all imagine existed but is as elusive and substantive as the Wild West perhaps once. Nevertheless, it captures the imagination.

Looking through the book there is a lot of information on how a Freebooters adventure could be run using characters from the Treasure Island classic pirate book by Robert Lewis Stevenson. There are stats for all kinds of pirates and good guys from the books along with generic characters. There is also a summary of key locations such as a port city, a table for random tavern encounters at the port, a weather table, and a long random name of passengers. There are even stats for different kinds of ships as well.

There is a description of several plot ideas that would get the GM moving the story along either parallel to the Treasure Island story, or simply in the world of Treasure Island.

While the book has a lot to offer and it is a really great book, I feel it falls more into the category of a campaign setting and not a ready to play adventure. I was hoping to see locations with specific boxed texts to be a really table ready adventure. I also would have liked to have seen random encounter tables at sea with pirates ships and sea monsters - maybe also using the lengthy list of NPC pirates statted out in the book.

All in all a nice book, but the GM will need to do some work to prepare this for the table unless you are a modern type of GM who is good at doing things on the fly. I myself will probably fuss over how to turn this into a seacrawl and then a hex crawl on different islands. Or, at least some kind of point crawl. I will then end up making up encounter tables and a sea map....

This game is a godsent. It uses the kinda of rules within TTRPG's that are much more roleplaying instead of rollplaying. Bringing things to a manageable core that can be used for fun adventures. I myself have an adventure i'd love to release at some point with it, and which includes alien remnants meaning secretly more to the players than they know.. And which lure to a vast treasure of alien tech that should allow the players to kick pretty much anything's ass on Mars. And where it any other system i don't know if i could pull that off so well. This game get's an utter 8.5 out off 10.

Smart as Paint this one is... Excellent treatment of one of my favorite tales! All pertinent characters and plot are included, yet you can also take all of this material and make it your own version for your campaign. Fits perfectly with the Freebooters RPG. The real treasure for me was seeing this laid out for the game and of course Long John Silvers stats ! The art and maps are well done and fit the flavor of the product, The spanish main is fleshed out here and there are a nice set of crew generation tables to boot! And more than what ive listed. Thanks for this product Night Owl, me thinks gold dust of ye!

utterly loved this game. Character generation with seperate origin and class just worked, i couldnt find a concept or published character I couldnt fit. The combat system was quickand worked. some of the powers needed expansion and rewrite, super attribute was really difficult to balance and i had to rewrite it with houuse rules for example, but supers games a complex to get right and always need some tweaking

Five stars for the 2019 version: auto cleave, +2 for shields, good skill system, flavourful spell list, beautiful bestiary and spaceships. This is one of my top three games. Four stars for the latest version.

I love this book- I love the writing and I love the art. I bought this sometime back, and am only now, getting to my backlog of reviews- and I would be remiss if I failed to extoll the virtues of this excellent work!

Every page is evocative of the era and the creators from that era- but geared toward space fantasy, what we called science fantasy when I was a kid. I get lost in the chapters that cover monsters and races, every time I open the book- this is a complete work, by every metric. If you world-build at all, you need this book.

The art suits the genre perfectly. I am an artist in recovery, and I was never this good!

I loved this book so much that I bought most of the other offerings from this publisher- of particular interest was their work on super heroes, check it out.

Five solid stars. You deserve six.

This is a great 0e suppliment. Works well with white box rules. Looking forward to picking up Beasties 2.

Minor spoilers follow. Enjoyable exploration of a tower with a moon worshipping/werewolf theme; undead are the main opponents. More than just a treasure hunt, as there is a captive to rescue, rival adventurers, and various items with which one can interact. Consistent tone: the seemingly bizarre spectral dance makes sense after later revelations; imaginative magic items which fit the backstory. Treasure might be a touch light, but there are interesting items for which you will need to find the right buyers. Some rousing combats to win.

One aspect that could be improved is the presentation of immediately important information in room keys: possibly bullet points or short boxed text could be used. The adventure does address attempting to enter via upper windows. Maps are clear, and the repeats of individual levels in the text are helpful.

In play, the party scared off the rival group, gained useful information from the Wise Wolf, and triumphed after some tough battles; they recruited Mariya.

Familiar themes, but stylishly done, well crafted. Highly recommended.

This is exactly what I want a booklet like this to be - a way to convert old school basic D&D to Barsoom (or similar other sword and planet settings). Good character class options, solid trope monsters, fun pulp sci-fi gadgets, it's got everything.

I don't think I need to say much more than that - if you know what Barsoom and the OSR is, then you're in the right place. If you don't, then I'm surprised you find this in the at all.

Warriors of the Red Planet by Al Krombach with art by Thomas Denmark and published by Denmark's Night Owl Workshop.

The PDF is digest-sized, single column, with black & white art from Denmark (so you know it looks great). At 128 pages it is a good-sized volume. And all for $8.00. They could have made it $10 and still it would have been a great price. Overtly the book is for Swords & Wizardry.

This game is more inspired by Burroughs than actually being Barsoom.

There are five races to play, Ancients, Elevated, Exotic, Humans and Unliving. And four classes, Fighting Men, Scoundrels, Mentalists, and Scientists. Each class goes to 10th level.

Mentalists have powers, Scientists have gadgets and they both work roughly like spells.

There are rules for character creation, equipment (including swords and rayguns), and several examples of play.

While I said it is overtly for S&W, there is Ascending and Descending AC and "Basic-like" saving throws.

There are some great monsters added to this as well. Any of which can be ported over to any OSR games if you wish. Many are recognizable from Burroughs, but there are plenty more as well.

Some of the races get more detail in the appendix. While an Exotic can nearly be anything (with random tables to boot!) some of the more common types are listed here. As per Burroughs we have Red, Green, Black, White and Yellow Martians. Earthlings on Mars are also discussed.

Appendix A covers all sorts of random terrain, building, missions, and the unexplained along with weird science artifacts.

Appendix B adds the eldritch to Mars with the Sorcerers of the Black Gate.

Appendix C adds an optional skill system.

Appendix D covers ship to ship combat.

And finally, Appendix N (yup) covers suggested reading.

Again, this is a great book and 100% compatible with other "old-school" books from Night Owl Workshop. And easily worth twice the cover price in my mind.

Cool adventure with plenty of elements to add to any random session.

"What if the first RPG was inspired by hard Science Fiction as written by Robert Heinlein, Poul Anderson, Isaac Asimov, and Frank Herbert instead of Tolkienesque fantasy?

Colonial Troopers is a science fiction RPG compatible with the original fantasy roleplaying game and subsequent editions, and other “OSR” games that follow in the mold of the original like, Guardians, Warriors of the Red Planet, and others. If your tastes run towards battle hardened combat armor, some attention to real physics, and explorations of just what it is to be human, you’ve found the right book. As in the fiction of the above writers, the players are confronted with an unforgiving universe full of wonders and deadly quirks of science ready to astound and enchant, and cull the unwary."

Sometimes I need a break from the constant fantasy network of Dungeons & Dragons to get back to the roots of my hobby. In this case it was the fact that many of the games that I started out with in the heady days of Seventies war gaming were sci fi or science fantasy games. Games such as the mico game such as Starfire, Warp War, & many other classic sci fi war games which brings me to Night Owl Workshop's Colonial Troopers by Steve Perrin, & Thomas Denmark. Now this table top role playing game brings together many of the classic races, PC classes, etc. of military science fiction which during the Seventies was huge. Even in the niche circles of wargaming & among science fiction paper back & book fans this was the golden age. But what if Gary Gygax & Dave Aneson had designed original Dungeons & Dragons along these hard Sci fi influences lines?! The result would be the Colonial Troopers table top rpg.

Basically this game plays like a combination of Dune, Star Ship Troopers, Alien, & many of the 70's thru 90's military sci fi I love so much. I really do love the game but its been heavily & almost totally overshadowed by Stars Without Number. While SWN is a fantastic game Colonial Troopers has all of its own original Dungeons & Dragons feel in military space thing going on right outta of the gate. This is brings me to the promised space war game/adventure expansion book for Colonial Troopers & yes I'm speaking of Colonial Troopers: Knight Hawks By Thomas Denmark. Now I went to Mr.Denmark & asked for a copy for review. Fortunately I'm happy to report that this game expansion clocks in at eighty pages of Colonial Troopers goodness. Yes it comes with a hex map in the PDF so you can run right outta of the the space battles, squad level adventures, dungeon & ruin battles, that you've come to expect out of Colonial Troopers. Colonial Troopers: Knight Hawks By Thomas Denmark takes space combat, ship stats, ship stat sheets & marries them too the the Colonial Troopers table top rpg. So that the dungeon master & players gets the sort of action one might see in an alterative 70's sci fi rpg & table top enivorment especially if your using sci fi minatures or paper minatures.

You can see the intent with the included adventure campaign Zombies on Zeta mini-campaign which encapulses all of the squad level themes within Colonial Troopers: Knight Hawks By Thomas Denmark. It takes the dungeon clearing action & marries it up with the Bug Hives, Bugs types, etc. within this book. Yes I love the smell of roasting bug in the morning! There are Conversion Notes for the other games within the Night Owl Worshop lines especially Warriors of the Red Planet. With Warriors of the Red Planet you get Mars through a Barsoom lens & Colonial Troopers: Knight Hawks By Thomas Denmark you get the rest of the solar system through a military post colonial campaign lens. The game book is well done & the material lives up to the the Colonial Troopers table top rpg. moniker. I was rather impressed & pleased to grab copies of both of these games!

Eric Fabiaschi Swords & Stitchery Blog Want More OSR goodness & support for this And Other OSR products please subscribe to https://swordsandstitchery.blogspot.com

Now I have gone on the record, many, many times, talking about how much I love monster books. My first glimpse into D&D was way back in 1978-79 when I first saw and read the Monster Manual. Very few books have come close to that feeling of unlimited potential. So when a new monster book comes out, I have to take a look and usually grab it.

Beasties II from Night Owl Workshop has something of a pedigree in my mind. The art and text are from none other than Thomas Denmark. He is responsible for some of my favorite art during the d20 boom, in particular, Citizen Games' "Way of the Witch". Plus I LOVED Beasties I so grabbing this was a no brainer for me.

Beasties II is a digest-sized book. 90 pages with black & white art. According to the sales text on DriveThru the book contains: 27 Monsters 8 NPC's 40 Drawings 1 Map Article on Goblinology

The book follows the same format as Beasties I. Like the first Beasties it certainly punches above its weight class in terms of monsters and content. All the text and art is by Denmark himself.

The book is designed for "Original Fantasy Rules" but plenty of conversion notes are given for OSRIC and Basic Fantasy. There are also some conversion notes for Nite Owl Workshop's other games Colonial Troopers, Guardians, Warriors of the Red Planet, Raiders of the Lost Artifacts and Freebooters.

The definition of "monster" is certainly very old-school too, with some traps, "minor monsters", and NPCs included for good measure.

But the REAL reason to get this book is goblins. There are several goblin hybrids; Blorc, Bugbearzerker, Gnomblin, Hoblin, Hoblin (Cruel), Koblin, Zoblin and a whole article on Goblinology or the Ecology of the Goblin. Frankly, the book is worth it for all of this alone.

Seriously. If you like goblins then grab this now.

There are also some undead and some really fun fiends. The Drumph gets a full publication so that is now. A new aquatic humanoid race is introduced, the Shahatha. I rather like them to be honest and will be porting them over to my 5e game.

The NPCs are also a lot of fun. One, Isaina Lyd’ar, reminds me of the work he did for Way of the Witch. So much so I might convert to a White Box Witch. She looks like she would be fun to play. Maybe she is a Sinderan Witch tradition.

So a lot of great content for $4. Plus the entire work is released as "Open" under the OGL so that is a nice touch.

Bookmarks in the PDF would have been nice as well as a PDF clickable table of contents, but that is a minor thing really.

If you love monsters get this book. If you love goblins you REALLY need to get this book.

This reveiw also appears here: http://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/2019/03/monstrous-monday-beasties-ii-from-night.html

This rulebook is a true gem. The "Sword and Planet" genre is wonderfully brought to life though simple but effective rules for character races, classes and equipment. The sample bestiary is packed full of colour and immediately began giving me ideas for adventures.

This is not 'Barsoom', but rather a tool kit for playing adventures either in worlds inspired by literature, or in unique worlds designed by the umpire.

Many sets of rules contain unwanted umpiring advice. The notes in '"Warriors of the Red Planet", however, were extremely useful. They give pointers on the look, feel and 'geist' of sword and planet settings, and advice for effective creation of settings. There are delightful charts for generating adventures, ruins, strange alien flora and local colour. The book also comes with a treasure list of ancient tech and strange items to serve as treasures.

All in all, this is a wonderfully complete game, and all in 124 pages.

I was delighted with the illustrations in this book and in the adventure"Mechanical Men of Mars". Not too many, but all well placed and simply beautiful.

I would love to see more material come out for this rules set.