One of the harder tricks to pull off is telling a modern & engaging Neo noir/horror adventure with OSR overtones. Well, 'His Flesh Becomes My Key' is one part John Carpenter/Stephen King / mixed in with a simmering helping of Cliver Barkerish weirdness strained through the lens of Venger Satanis. Alright this is the usual Outer Presence rpg included in the adventure package bit we've seen before & I'm going to go out on a limb here & throw that right into the waste basket. " This is an eldritch pulp / investigative horror scenario especially suited for The Outer Presence roleplaying game. A serial killer case opens up before the investigators and leads to something beyond the usual detective story." So after reading through this adventure which puts the PC's front & center of a murder investigation/slash horror story I'm going to say that this would make a killer horror story adventure for the Silent Legions From Sine Nomine Publishing. Why? Because quite frankly this adventure has a bit of it all;

So the PC's are on the trail of Richard Black a horror novelist & run smack into the back burner of a whole lot of unraveling pulp horror business. Sure there's plenty of bloods, guts, gore & more here. But this is a thinking man's adventure that can be played over several nights sessions. Sure it includes everything you need to get started and play through but I want more. I want solid pacing, plot/setting, and a set of rules that's going to give me extended modern OSR neo horror play. That's where Silent Legions comes in and frankly there aren't enough adventure modules to support at system but 'His Flesh Becomes My Key' fills the slimy gap quite nicely. This really isn't Lamentations of the Flame Presence turf although there is this sort of thing, ‘When his gaze meets that of the investigators, the chartreuse-hued dweller of the cavern begins to melt into a pool of liquid flesh.’ Instead this is one part X Files twisted around an unraveling 'In The Mouth of Madness' with a good helping of Cthulhu & Venger's tendrils of horror. So yes its a good solid fit for a Silent Legions game. Eric Fabiaschi Swords & Stitchery blog Want more OSR action & support for this and other adventure titles? Subscribe to http://swordsandstitchery.blogspot.com/

"Find a place to hide! Luckily, such a place happens to be nearby. Approximately 50' away from where the adventurers currently stand is a half-buried hunk of metal the size of a small village. Various metallic parts of the thing are halfway sunk into the ground. The large metal structure is tilted slightly downward." The PC's find a mad scientist Dr. Ebzub in the middle of an experiment will open a gateway to "a place the gods have forgotten." the forbidden Stairway of V'dreen e Stairway of V'dreen From Kort'thalis Publishing. You can think of the Stairway of V'dreen as a mid level adventure/setting for Crimson Dragon Slayer rpg & its easily adaptable to any OSR retroclone rpg system. This adventure is a throw back to those Eighties setting books that we got for many old school system games. The overview from the adventure's Trinity of Awesome Returns Kickstarer best describes the other dimensional setting;"

Each PC will have his own reason for visiting V'dreen - a random table will personalize every character's desire/need. Reaching the stairway, V'dreen's greatest treasure, will not be easy - alien, mutant dreamland hazards bar the way!

This location will be the most bizarre thing I've come up with yet. The main Kickstarter picture above gives you an idea of what's in store. But I've got some additional details and a b/w illustration directly below...

Fruiting bodies. The scent of V'dreen is that of a corpse blooming with strawberry and apricot preserves. A fragrance that one cannot easily forget. Pungent jam and jelly intermingling with the sweat of human fornication.

Rumored tales of V'dreen: a magical timepiece is buried in the ground, preventing this place from aging, neither evolving nor decaying. However, some believe the timepiece to be broken in some way - or perhaps it had always been corrupted - because slavering demons roam free, wizards scry and watch and influence life on V'dreen with their little knobs and levers and buttons... my God, even the tentacles have tentacles!

The stairway leads to an even more distant realm. It is a personal voyage... the discovery of self-annihilation, where travelers lick savage dreams and ride bareback upon the sparkling-scaled magenta snake-thing with golden eyes coiled at the heart of eternity."

So basically this is a part setting, part adventure location that echoes with the Eighties horror/sci fi Lovecraftian horror that Venger loves to mix with his rpg systems. The Stairway of V'dreen is a type of adventure that rarely comes along a mix of dark fantasy, comedy, & lovecraftian weirdness all around the usual Venger quality. It clocks in at nineteen pages & reminds me a bit of the Eighties film 'From Beyond' with a bit of body horror mixed in with an old school style adventure. Because of the very nature of the dark fantasy of the The Stairway of V'dreen its really useful for other OSR systems such as Lamentations of the Flame Princess or other OSR systems. This is partially because of the random monster generators & the random magic items that can be created from similar generators. The vary fact of this unpredictable factor is going to keep those jaded & long time players reaching for their Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guides. I can easily see adding in the The Stairway of V'dreen to a game of Lamentations of the Flame Princes as adventure location or a game of Labyrinth Lord. The setting technically could be used as a twisted Lovecraftian domain for Adventurer,Conqueror, King. But I would using this as an adventure location for Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. The pulpy flavor is very strong in the the The Stairway of V'dreen . The Stairway of V'dreen is the type of setting that you could potentially drop in a bunch of Mutant Future PC's or any old school adventurers into & not break it at all. There's the usual Venger Satanis sleaze but much of the setting is far more geared toward the dark fantasy/Lovecraftian vibe. Its well written and balanced for a far more experienced group of PC's to come into in my opinion. I really enjoyed thumbing through this one. Can't wait to subject my players to this adventure/setting. Five out of five.

Venger has been working hard to make the Alpha Blue his brand of sleazy mature(ie Adult) science fantasy and fiction rpg visible in the wilds of the rpg market. You've got numerous resources & source books, etc. including a set of free rules under the dubious title Alpha Blue Quickie. I've used Alpha Blue numerous times to help fill in the gap in science fiction or fantasy campaign or when I needed a location for a 70's style science fiction adventure or even a rest stop. Yeah its good & original for just that sort of thing as well as fully functional system. Now Venger Satanis is a guy to ride the trends & with Guardians of the Galaxy Volume II riding high on the coat tails of the first Marvel block Venger would be putting out his own version for Alpha Blue. Except its not!?! Nope its a free adventure for Alpha Blue that takes some elements from a Guardians style school of sci fi comedy but puts a whole different spin on it. "You wake up out of cyro sleep to find your party up to its ears in trouble and adventure;"The soldier tells the leading man type that the galaxy is in grave danger - Thargons have pissed off the Romulyns who had a truce with the foul Myrmidons who never really saw the point in befriending the Zandarians and had just recently pinky-swore to uphold the freedom of the Azhanti Cresh. In a nutshell, this small corner of the universe is about to blink out of existence unless someone takes out the team who's supposed to defend it - the guardians of the galaxy! Rory blinks a few times at the impatient sergeant waiting for an answer to the question - will you help us

• and proceeds to lay back down in the cryo-pod. The sleep shield slowly lowers over his body and back he goes to snooze town. At that point, sergeant Kaufman realizes the PCs are also awake and that they've been at least sort of listening to his spiel. "Well, what about you ..... want to come with me and save the galaxy or go back to bed?" If the PCs need any more convincing, the sergeant informs them they've racked up quite a debt in back taxes and freezer fees since entering hibernation. 1,843 credits… each, and that's in addition to what the PCs owed before entering their cryo-pods (1d6 x 1,000 credits in the red). Saving everyone's bacon would go a long way towards erasing those debts. Before leaving the cryogenic facilities, there's a ringing sound. The ringing is coming from inside one of the opened pods. One of the PCs is getting a phone call. Lifting the red phone from the receiver is enough to answer the call. Yes that's right the Guardians of the Alpha Blue universe weren't available so your going to have to do! Things go sideways for the PC's from there. The ride is weird and quite wild, all of this in only about ten pages. Venger's writing is up to its usual standards and the adventure plot moves along for a free adventure its well done and easy to incorporate into your favorite science fantasy system. Make no mistake this is a Venger Satanis production so the adult and mature themes are front & center in that Eighty One 'Ice Pirates' sort of way! But its very well done for what it does and what it does is serve as a beginning grab by the scrotum introduction to the Alpha Blues system. Its not pretending to be another gaming system or parodying or copying Marvel, this straight to the vein Alpha Blue. Its quick, its dirty, funny, and a straight up beginning adventure. Its not dancing around its adventure plot or anything. It takes the players straight into the sleazy weirdness that is the Alpha Blue rpg system. So in that it succeeds in spades. Guarding Galaxy XXX could be & should be used with other gaming systems especially West End's Star Wars or even gasp Traveler or one of its retroclones. Why because they're several adventure hooks that are scattered throughout the adventure that can really bring home the sleazy of 'Guarding Galaxy XXX' vibe. So for a free introductory adventure you could do worse then grab a copy of 'Guarding Galaxy XXX' some friends with a warped sense of humor and bring the sleazy mature party of Alpha Blue's seedy galaxy to them! Adults only Eric F. Swords & Stitchery Blog Want to see more original content for this & other OSR or O5R products? Subscribe to http://swordsandstitchery.blogspot.com/

"Something steers deep in the jungle. Rumors of a strange drug start making the rounds … and then things start getting really hairy. Even the cannibals are upset. Monkey Business is a wild ride for Labryth Lord or other OSR retroclone compatible games." So in the last twenty four hours I've had the patience of Job dealing with a few things at work and the very nice author/designer Jens Durke. This is a viciously fun old school adventure with lots of added on extras including random generators, a whole boat load of bananas dungeon location setting material, and some apetastic drug dealers, smugglers, and more. Monkey Business is available through Drivethrurpg as a pay what you want OSR title for Labyrinth Lord. This module is packed with lots of neo OSR weirdness and right off bat your lead down the ape hole;"an OS compatible mostly setting agnostic sandbox module about ape organized drug traffic and flying feces. It got way bigger than I thought it would and I hope it’ll bring you some joy. I’ll use Labyrinth Lord TM as the goto system here and it’s more like an adventure location instead of an adventure. There will be some hooks to get the players involved, too. I’d like to thank Mark van Vlack for giving me the inspiration, an ear or two and his pen (plus his Random Monkey Table, check out his monkey table in Appendix 5!). This is not a work of science but a work of pulp. Don’t expect biological accuracy or anything. Indian, Amazon or African jungle? I don’t care, it’s all one hot mess. Easy enough changed if you know better (and care), easy enough ignored by the rest. But, you know, this also has drug dealing apes and mushroom pygmies that want to get eaten and some magic. There is even a dinosaur somewhere in there, so going with “pulp fantasy” on this one is a safe bet anyway." " And that's exactly what it is part adventure location setting book/part adventure with a wild ride of strangeness that has far more in common with "The Juggle Book" on acid then it does with Planet Of The Apes even though it does remind me of that classic film in some respects. This is balls to the walls gonzo done with an even old school lethality & a dangerous balance. The material here is Labyrinth Lord or B/X Dungeons & Dragons style oriented towards a mature audience as the author sometimes uses the 'f' word with some regularity and lots of drug culture references. The adventure design is tight and centers around the effects of one drug as it filters its way (sort of) through out the adventure, its locations, its environs, and its NPC's. The artwork is public domain throughout most of Monkey Business but not all. There are a few pieces that really bring home the gonzo over the top nature of the adventure but not in a bad way. This makes Monkey Business a perfect add on for both Mutant Future and Apes Victorious but there will be a bit of adjustment needed for some of the encounters because of the possible inclusion of modern weapons and technologies from those Goblinoid retroclones systems. Because Monkey Business has been created for Labyrinth Lord its easy to adapt and twist in many ways for your favorite old school or retroclone systems. The plot is part adventure tool kit & part setting book with a healthy dose of adventure thrown in. There is lots of uses for this one. For value this is one of the best 'pay what you want' titles to come down the pike in a while. I'd give this one a healthy five out of five. Its that good and that nice.

Eric F. Swords & Stitchery Blog Want to see more OSR material for this & other OSR systems then subscribe to http://swordsandstitchery.blogspot.com

Good morning I've had a lot of time to think about one of the biggest problems with post apocalyptic gaming regardless of old school & retroclone system. I've been playing a lot of Gamma World 1st & 2nd edition lately. But I've used a mutated ton of systems from Mutant Future to Mutant Epoch as well as several of my own creations in addition to enhancing them with Boot Hill & AD&D 1st edition style system. So I know a bit about post apocalptyic gaming and it always seems to come down to location. Sure the players have crawled through the ruins of Pitzburke in Gamma World, done with the ruins of California in Mutant Epoch, etc. It really becomes a pain in the ass to keep doing research to some location that they've never heard of for scavenging & ruin creation. The internet has made it that much harder. So the other night I asked my friend Dave Woodrum for Wreckside District: A Post Apocalypse Setting From Fishwife Games So unlike other Fishwife Games in the past this one has a lot of artwork & some really well done professional layout so its easy on the eyes. The gaming potential here for all kinds of havoc at the the table. This is a an urban, post apocalyptic setting that can be used as part loot zone & part city state whole hog & dropped into a campaign. Its system genric & neutral so its a simple matter to drag & drop this right into a campaign even an on going one with a blank spot on the map like I did with my recent Gamma World/Carcosa game.

A City Of Wasted Potential… Aria stood at the edge of the wasted city and peered off towards its most functioning, but violent, part... Wreckside. The crumbling district was given its name years ago for the salvage yard and multiple garages and towing services that sprung up in the area. Now its name is more fitting for the condition of the district and its desperate inhabitants. "So why are we are going back to that place again?" Aria questioned her companion, Darius, as she stared at the dimly glowing lights of the distant buildings, proof that at least some of Wreckside's inhabitants enjoyed the rare treat of functioning electricity. Darius took a swig from a metal flask as he walked away from the acrid smolder of the dying barrel fire. "Supplies. Some special stuff. Electronics and some old notes on building things. I'll know it when I see it." Aria hated it when Darius wouldn't tell her exactly what they were looking for. Still, though, Darius was renowned by the outskirt settlers as a master scavenger and for keeping his mouth shut about what his employers wanted him to recover. The young woman has learned a lot since Darius took her under his wing a year ago, and the scavenger has always managed to keep her alive in the process. "So its another one of those jobs, eh? Typical orders from Garrett, don't let the new kid in on the details...", Aria remarked with an obvious bit of disgust in her voice. "Hey, don't be knocking on Garrett," Darius replied as he checked the contents of his backpack and finished loading rounds into his pistol clip. "The old man is a bit of a creeper, yeah, but he pays well. Plus, we're going to get a pretty big bonus this time if we get back with exactly what he's hoping we'll find." "Big bonus? What he hopes we'll find?" "You'll see. Now follow me... quietly. I've been told there's a safer route into the district."

There are a couple of minor gripes with Wreckside District, the price measures out to about seven dollars and fifty cents for the pdf & I'd love to have seen a print option for these old eyes of mine. But trying to get a print pdf option for Drivethrrpg & Rpgnow is a huge pain in the arse. Artists also cost money & I was surprised at the amount of artwork in this title. Artists cost. Believe me I totally understand why. You've got a ton of NPC's, gangers, adventure locations, and more built into this. This means that this is a drag & drop product for a campaign. The other thing about Fish Wife Games is the fact that they're a company that seems to fade into the background of the OSR & table top hobby. This means that players are not aware of them as a potential resource for some really nasty post apocalyptic material.

Its a good resource for any of the PA games I mentioned & more. This could even be used for as Cyberpunk 2020 adventure location out in the badlands & no go zones. The price is right up there with other pdfs so I would wait for a Drivethrurpg sale and possibly a code. But is it worth your time & efforts? Hmm with the district's map that contains over two hundred numbered locations which are each provided individual descriptions and details. This can be a resource to base an entire campaign around. Now in lots of other reviews I mentioned Domain level play. What the hell is that? Well, when a PC gets to certain level in OD&D such as ninth or higher it was assumed that if they were a fighter they'd build a stronghold, a wizard a tower, a cleric establish a temple or church, etc. This is basically the PC's carving out their own pound of flesh or land in a campaign setting. For some players this is a huge pain in the arse but for old schoolers this was part & parcel of old school campaign settings. This started with OD&D & carried on in B/X with the Companion & Master rules sets. But what does this have to old school DYI Retro Future campaigns such as Gamma World & the Wreckside District? Actually everything. Many old school post apocalyptic games such as Gamma World all the way to Mutant Epoch have factions or Cryptic Alliances or whatever name such groups are under. In a nut shell this is an extension of kill the mutants, take their stuff and then rule their kingdoms! You & your party are looking for food, shelter, safety for you as well as your community by this blaster you rule! So essentially the Wreckside District provides one more filled in space to explore, exploit, & take over or does it? Not so fast kids this is a large area of a loot, and scavenging zone. Here's where the horror just might start. If your forces are spread too thin then you just might crash and burn at the end of a laser shot. So here's ten reasons why Wreckside Disttrict is a perfect product of opportunity for your old school post apocalyptic games:

Eric From The Sword & Stitchery blog Want to see more OSR support for this and other old school products,systems, and more? Subscribe to http://swordsandstitchery.blogspot.com/

Play Your Character like a Fucking Boss is the latest title from Venger Satanis and is his book end to his other work How To Game Master like a Fucking Boss. Clocking in at about fifteen pages this book is really geared towards OSR style players, well mostly. What this book is actually is a primer or manifesto for Venger's wit and wisdom when it comes to his style of gaming for the player. So what your getting is a primer for the player's side of the screen. The cover is pretty awesome with a Venger style wizard taming his three headed dragon and yeah the cover is boss. The advice inside is as well for players up to a point, the break down here is the finer points of this book is the fact that at certain levels its not really a primer for players. But a set of guidelines for smoother play & more cooperation between dungeon masters & the players. It has more between its pages then a simple review of it can kinda of encompass. There are some ideas for PC guidelines, quick idea backgrounds, how to approach both both play at the table, and how to deal with the dungeon master at your table. All of this is done with Venger's usual unique take. It kinda boils down like this. Without the players you don't have a game & its really not about being a complete jerk. Talking & having complete communication across the table is key here. Which basically makes this book something a look into a set of opinions, PC guidelines, & some solid advice. This isn't so much a book of incredibly awesome ideas but simple on the ground common sense. That right there makes this book far more valuable to me as a player. Do I agree with everything in this book, umm no but then I'm not meant to and neither are you as a player. Play Your Character Like A Fucking Boss is a box of chocolates in this regard. Pick and choose the pieces of advise that are in there for you.

The part about the OSR I agree with mostly but then again I don't; "Players, you have a lot more power than you realize.Banding together with common goals is the equivalent of forming a union. If I was part of this player union, my first order of business would be to find an easy, fun, rules-lite system that the majority will enjoy. I'm sure you can think of several off the top of your head, but indulge my blatant pimping… Crimson Dragon Slayer, The Outer Presence, and Alpha Blue are prime examples of simplistic yet awesome roleplaying games. On the flip-side, strong unions - when thoroughly corrupted by power - deserve to be broken. By the way, I feel the same way about strong, corrupt corporations. That's all part of the fascinating pushpull dynamic between the Game Master and players. Neither side has absolute power, and thank the gods for that, as the game would lose its fun. The second old school element I dislike is that player characters were occasionally… what's the opposite of putting something on a pedestal? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for initiation - the risk of a quick, unceremonious death comes with the old school territory. However, when you beat the odds, make the right decisions, and lady luck smiles upon your character, succeeding despite all the nasty shit the GM throws at you… I expect a fucking parade!" Which I mostly agree with but many OSR games find their own level and quite quickly. This is one of the reasons why its been easier to get players to play Dungeons and Dragons rather then Alpha Blue. This product is part manifesto and part advise primer by someone whose been in the hobby a long while. The artwork is very well done and the layout is top notch. The advise is right on target & for what it does 'Play Your Character Like A Fucking Boss' By Venger Satanis gets five out of five.

Recently I've put a six month hiatus on doing reviews for this blog mostly to concentrate on my own writing, designing,running, & enjoying the OSR games that I own. The reasons for this are myriad but it all comes down to a matter of time & work. There are going to be exceptions from time to time but those are going to be under my purview; I'm getting very picky these days. When Joseph D. Salvador contacts me about an adventure with artwork, writing, & interior pieces done by Del Teigeler. .Well Beyond The Ice Fall is worth checking out. Well now you've got my attention but then when I begin checking out Beyond The Ice Fall. It turns out that this is a Sword & Sorcery style adventure for Swords & Wizardry. We'll let that bit slide for now & come back to that later, for the moment this adventure has been inspired by Algernon Blackwood’s The Glamour of the Snow & Robert E. Howard’s The Frost Giant’s Daughter.

"In the village of Askibakken, the winter has been harsh and an unnatural blizzard has gripped the area. The village chieftain has called upon young warriors to search for a missing supply ship, but this endeavor leads the adventurers into a mysterious adventure. Will the party discover what lies Beyond the Ice-Fall?"

This is basically a good old fashioned crawl and investigation style adventure using a good solid easily adaptable premise for PC's levels 1-3 not 6 to 20,but levels one through three. The adventure clocks in at a reasonable twenty pages is a fully enclosed package that can be used for a wide variety of OSR style games with some adaptation on the part of the dungeon master. The quality is up to Raven God Games standards and the cartography is particularly well done with evocative interior pieces. The writing flows smoothly & the encounters seem well balanced for the Nordic style mythological setting of the adventure. There is a Frazetta & Robert Howard style to Beyond The Ice Fall but its not a coy rip off but a well thought out homage to the classic sword & sorcery pulp material. Let's me state this right off a stupid party of adventurers are going to end up very dead in no time flat. This isn't an instant TPK adventure but a thinking man's sword and sorcery adventure. This adventure is as much OSR adventure resource tool kit as it is adventure with a viking flare. You've got a mini-setting, a dungeon crawl with room for expansion, two maps, new monsters, new magic items, new spells, and a viking name list. Everything here is balanced towards old fashioned play, in other words this is a pick up and go adventure. Can it be played with original Dungeons & Dragons besides Swords & Wizardry White Box? Absolutely & it can also be used as a fill in for an Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea first edition adventure with some adjustments. But be warned this has some tricks, traps, and twists to it. The adventure flow here is wickedly dangerous and the PC's are messing with otherworldly powers from beyond ken of men.

Now for the obvious question, could this adventure be used with Mad Martian Games Ice Kingdoms OSR campaign setting book? Well, with some adjustments using the conversion tables within the Ice Kingdoms book sure. In fact I'd go so far as to say that Beyond the Ice-Fall is the sort of beginning adventure that I was hoping was going to be used for that setting. But I think that the village of Askibakken stands on its own. I'd adapt this adventure for any OSR Viking, Nordic themed, or OSR sword & sorcery campaign in a heart beat. This is a top draw quality adventure simple with nuances of complexity in the right places and plenty of room for OSR DIY D&D customization on the part of the dungeon master.

In fact I would say that this adventure with little modification could infact be used with other OSR settings such as Dark Albion where the Vikings of Beyond The Ice Fall could be used to fill in one or more factions from Dark Europe's Norse regions. The material here is loose enough to fit the adventure ideals of the setting and easily adaptable which in my opinion is one of the strengths of it. This is an adventure worth grabbing and getting in on. Five out of five

Eric Fabiaschi Swords & Stitchery blog Want to see more OSR support for this product and many others? Subscribe to http://swordsandstitchery.blogspot.com/

Sometimes you get to see an artifact from another alternative time period, a strange 'what if' book that ports itself into your hands. Unfortunately this sort of thing isn't real but Trey Causey has finally released his Strange Stars OSR Rule Book and its aimed straight at the heart of the Stars Without Numbers rpg system rule book as an alternative setting. "It’s the far future, Old Earth is lost and shrouded in legend, and the children of paleo-humanity have long ago populated the stars, branching into new forms and strange cultures. Adventure is measured in light-years!" This is a zipped down, stripped down, Stars Without Number setting book spun through the blender of Trey Causey's warped imagination. This book reads like a combination of a late 70's classic era Marvel space opera comic book setting with a completely different take down of the Stars Without Number setting on its own terms. So is this a good thing or a bad thing? Well, in many respects its a good thing, this book has actual playable OSR alien races that make you want to play them. There is a an entire boat load of worlds, materials,and adventure hooks sewing through out the setting book. This book is an exercise in compactness and interstellar utility. The layout is smooth, easy to read, & gives not only a gist of the interstellar setting but an entire setting straight out of the box. Here's a sample of the type of quality material that your going to get. Is it a complete setting? Yes and no, yes its perfectly suitable for running adventures in the Strange Stars universe mixed along side the Stars Without Number universe & system. But is it worth it if you already own the Strange Stars setting & resource book? Well that's going to depend if you want to convert the whole setting, plus races, material, etc. into Stars Without Number or into your favorite space OSR clone such as Hulks & Horrors, White Star, etc. This book covers all of the bases but making the buyer go for another purchase all over again is a bit of a pain in the ass for the consumer. So it loses points for that. But I get the reason why multiple versions of Strange Stars have been done. Trey is trying to get his hands into the gaming public's hands for sheer love of his setting & in a word its worth it. Especially for the Stars Without Number game universe because in many ways Strange Stars fulfills the retro gaming promise of SWN without all of that OSR system's setting baggage. I've DMed lots & lots of Stars Without Numbers over the years & in some respects there's way too many books, settings, etc. for SWN. In thirty seven pages you get factions, alien races,NPC's, adventure hooks, etc. ready too go for that group of player's that coming in fifteen minutes. This is a great setting book for Stars without Number because its ideal suited to take the PC's to the stars and beyond for months or years of old school play. Much of the Strange Stars setting echoes both SWN and its own internal 70's space opera groove. Could this work with other OSR gaming systems? Yes, in fact it would be an excellent fit with Venger Satanis's sleazy Alpha Blue rpg system. But without the adult sex & sleaze bits. Instead you get some very fine quality material that can literally generate months of 70's space opera play at the usual author's quality and output. There's some really fine pieces of artwork in here as well. Could Strange Stars OSR be used with other OSR retroclone systems such as White Star or Swords & Wizardry? In a word quite easily, not only the author's other work setting Weird Adventures the crunch is done in such a way to make porting over into your favorite game system quite easy & somewhat painless. This piece by Jason Sholtis, is especially evocative of the Seventies comic space opera. There is idea after idea here with homages to classic 70's films such as Logan's Run, Star Wars, Star Crash, etc. But Trey has free reign to let his imagination run wild. It does indeed lead into some weird & dark corners of his universe but that's half the fun here. What about using Strange Stars OSR with say the White Star rpg? Well after doing a bit of looking I found that Trey pointed me in the right direct it seems that friend already has done exactly this; " Mike aka Wrathofzombie has run some sessions of Strange Stars in White Star with some adaptation of the setting book of his on devising. Here are some races/classes: https://wrathofzombie.wordpress.com/2015/05/17/playable-alien-races-from-strange-stars-for-white-star/

Looking at what he did there, I don't think it would be very hard to convert over, as White Star looks even "rules lighter" than SWN, but with a similar OSR chassis. " This begs the question could Strange Stars be used with OD&D or say Swords & Wizardry? Well judging by the research I've done with it. I'd say definitely & because, "the children of paleo-humanity have long ago populated the stars" it would not be hard to take your favorite campaign setting or old school fantasy world & make it a back water planet in the Strange Stars universe. There are also lots of PC racial options from Atozan librarians to armored thrax warriors which can add new dimensions to character racial development.This is especially true for retroclones such as Swords & Wizardry or for other favorite OSR system. Could Strange Stars be used with Traveler, Star Frontiers ( the loving homage of the cover is a dead giveaway), or even Labyrinth Lord, Mutant Future, or Star Ships & Space Men Second Edition? In a word, yes. But where I think that Strange Stars OSR loses some points is in the fact that if you bought the first Strange Stars book, this is a companion piece & while I totally understand the reasons why. Now the reason why this pdf costs five dollars & fifty five cents is because its full of some really nice artwork, a solid layout,editing, & more all of this costs time, money, & high quality costs. Even though the page count is only thirty seven pages, this pdf is so chalk full of great OSR retro sci fi ideas that its well worth your time & money. The fact that its geared for Stars Without Numbers only adds to the value. My recommendation is to grab this one and start playing among Strange Stars. Five out of five in my book for solid OSR space opera for your old school campaign settings.

Eric Fabiaschi Swords & Stitchery blog Want to see more reviews, support for this & other OSR rpg systems plus original content? Subscribe to http://swordsandstitchery.blogspot.com

There are times when a PC wants to play the pinnicle of Amazon warrior battle hardened steel in human for in a sword & sorcery old school game. This is exactly what PC8 - The OSR Amazon Warrior By Jeremy Reaban brings to the table. This is an old fashioned kick ass lady warrior capable of taking down foes with some real teeth & old school steel. She is exactly what she sounds like an apex Amazon warrior. This is a well balanced PC class that clocks in at six pages of ass kicking warrior fun for the table. The best part is that the class isn't simply for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons or OSRIC style games; "Although primarily intended for first advanced edition, it also contains tables for other popular versions: original edition, basic and expert edition, and the cyclopedia edition." So is she Wonder Woman with the serial numbers filed off? Umm not exactly, a closer analogy might be a Xena style character in her earliest adventures or a feminine tribal 'warrior of history' style character. According to the add, these ladies of sword & mythology are," extremely athletic and a skilled warrior who fights without armor and is stronger and faster than others." And that's exactly what the design & the numbers of the class portray. The PC class is a capable warrior able to dispatch her foes & still have the skills to protect her fellow adventurers. This isn't race as class here but straight up PC Amazon fighter with a few add ons that echo popular culture & classic mythology. Make no mistake these are deadly women & they can mess you in the wilderness or the dungeon. The writing & design are tight, the PC tables are no nonsense & these ladies would be right at home in a mythic sword & sorcery old school setting or even in a sword & planet setting with little issues. Clever DM's could built entire adventures around them with these ladies being used as NPC Amazon lost world temple guardians, generals at higher levels, diplomats, & even the leaders of entire Amazonian mercenary companies. They're kick ass & this is another well done Jeremy Reaban affair five out of five for easy of use, no bull stats, & this class has plenty of fodder for the DM that needs something a wee bit different for their players. Don't forget to toss the writer some coins for his efforts so we can get more great PC classes! Eric Fabiaschi Sword & Stitchery blog Want to see more great original OSR content subscribe to http://swordsandstitchery.blogspot.com

Well I'm sucker for a great cause & each year I look for a twisted Christmas theme to run. Well it looks like I've found it! Santa is Dead is an old school D&D themed adventure that takes its twisted themes of Santa Claus back down to its mythological roots & then turns the blender on eleven. All of this is for a very worthy cause with the proceeds from this 'pay what you want' title going to the Ehlers-Danlos society Find out more about the great work it does here: ehlers-danlos.com So this is a for charity adventure but can I use it with my favorite retroclone system or other old school version of Dungeons & Dragons? Well Santa is Dead can be used with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition,B/X D&D, OD&D or your favorite D&D incarnation with some adaption. Santa is Dead was written for The Lamentations of the Flame Princess rpg system. Everything from starting PC motives, to equipment is included for player characters in the opening chapters. Everything is laid out for the players and DM right from the get go. The plot is a sort of pseudo 'Christmas from Hell' theme wrapped around the invasion of a sleepy small town called Chesnut by something & its minions that used be an ancient power from beyond the pale of mankind's greatest fears. Its a hell of a ride with some awesome artwork, cartography, and twisted themes. There's some seriously messed up stuff happening in Chestnut!!? The town is in deep Christmas pudding and it needs heroes either from within or without. The place has been invaded & this adventure feels like the Christmas version of Aliens. Try and imagine if this was happening in your home town back about Eighteen Sixty something in Germany. The PC's are thrown into the middle of 'the Awakening' of something terrible!? "Odin, the Captain, has risen from the grave and murdered Santa. He is bent on bloody revenge and is destroying everything in his path with the help of his Riders, members of the Wild Hunt. It is up to the players to stop him (or not) in eight nights. The Timeline outlines Odin’s actions each night and what will happen if he is not stopped. Because the Riders are extremely deadly, it is more than likely the party will be involved in a chase at least once during the game. Both the Timeline and Chase Mechanics can be found in the Resources section at the end of this adventure." The above outlines don't even really give a good overall impression of the twisted, dangerous, and horror themed weirdness of Santa is Dead. This isn't a one note pony its an adventure that works on a number of levels from investigative horror, to misery crawl adventure, to balls to the walls horror of a town in the middle of a blood bath. Each of those is hit on one of the Eight days of the adventure. Odin & his forces are terrible and the party is going to be in for a hell of a hot Christmas.

"Father Christmas, Sinterklaas, and Jolly Old St. Nick have been conflated into something new, something uniquely American. Stolen from a myriad of cultures, devoid of anything but ruthless optimism and joy, half remembered bits of Germanic mythos converge into a new being.

Small miracles spawn in the wake of a flying sleigh pulled by reindeer. Small bright bits of kindness, remembering only the giver of winter... forgiving and forgetting the terrible toll of December, the devouring form of midwinter, the savage joy of pursuit, the destroyer, the Hunter...

Such a travesty, this laughing New World oaf.

It cannot be abided.

Wodan Rides."

I can actually see using 'Santa Is Dead' for a Lamentations of the Flame Princess holiday one shot. But I can also see using this as a funnel for a Gothic Dungeon Crawl Classics campaign or as an opener for an OSR horror game. The theme of the PC's as survivors turned heroes can easily be done. The mythology plays fast and loose but well done. The gods have been let loose on Earth there is no peace on Earth for good men. I can see using this with either Labryth Lord or Swords & Wizardry easily. All in all this is one hell of a ride for an OSR game and those involved have done a bang up job with it. Grab this one for a wicked twist on the Christmas holiday. Eric Fabiaschi Sword & Stitchery Blog Want To See More OSR reviews & goodness? Don't forget to Subscribe To http://swordsandstitchery.blogspot.com/

"Over a millennium ago, when the borderlands were in the dark grip of the Zaharan Empire, the empire’s sorcerer-priests erected a profane temple to house the terrible artifact known as the Stone of Sakkara. Using the Stone, the sorcerer-priests could birth monsters and abominations with frightening ease and magically command the loyalty of chaotic creatures. The Stone brought its evil masters great power throughout the fell empire. "

Clocking in at eighty pages AX1 The Sinister Stone of Sakkara is an introductory adventure for the Adventurer,Conqueror, King system hearkening back to classic TSR era B/X adventures such as Keep of The Borderlands. By that I mean that it takes all of the existing ACK's products within the Autarch lines and puts them into play as a homage to adventures of a bygone era. The idea of the lone Auran/Roman style keep on an Ancient Egyptian/Mesopotamian border that they have conquered is used as the backdrop for a very well thought out adventure. Here the action is centered on the factions of the dungeon & the PC's must deal with the fall out of the evil that slumbers here. There is a bit of everything in this adventure as its meant to do exactly what the Adventurer, Conqueror, King rule book lays out. That is to explore, deal with, get hired, hex crawl, fight, battle, & play while getting an entire feel for the ACK's system with both the players and the dungeon master cutting their teeth on the The Sinister Stone of Sakkara . Everything has a pseudo Lovecraftinan sword & sorcery vibe mixed in with the Auran empire setting. Monsters & encounters have that late night Saturday matinee mixed with a Mountain Dew war game feel. There are actual motivations, as well as reasons why the PC's are here in this part of Türos Tem the place is presented as the stronghold of a realm controlled by a high-level NPC, with its maps, buildings, population, revenues, costs, and morale score all detailed and provided. This makes modifying and adding it into your own home game campaigns a snap. Many of your standard ACK's humanoids are present but there are far more sinister things lurking as lots of slimes, molds, jellies, fungus, & worse crawl through the AX1. If the players are stupid & make poor decisions their going to have their PC's killed in no time flat, this is a great module but parts of it can be very unforgiving as the writing and design is very tight. Its well done and easily modified but you're going to have to think on your feet. Yes your PC's might end up with their own domain but they might end up a victim of the very evils that they're investigating or being killed by one of the multiple factions of this realm. Action is fast, reactive, and the plot moves along. There is a sense and story to the history of the region that echoes bits of Robert Howard, Michael Moorcock, with a blend of Caesar and Rome thrown into the blender of this module. NPC's function as movers, shakers, possible patrons, or flat out enenmies of the PC's & the ambitions that they bring to the region & your table. This is a place of sand,blood, evil, & flat out mayhem. Expect no quarter if crossing the wrong person or their hidden agendas. The powers that use this region do so with intent and guile. This is because the whole adventure of AX1: The Sinister Stone of Sakkara is a guide as well as adventure intended to take the PC's through the whole of the ACK's system in miniature. Once again we've got that classic collapsing empires of earth’s Late Antiquity (250 – 750 AD) as the mirror of the age of Auran that AX1 is set. A turbulent era in which ancient glories were drowned in a torrent of violence & murder. So this is a perfect place for the PC's to make their mark as they come to explore the dungeons & environs of The Sinister Stone of Sakkara. I was somewhat shocked by how underpowered the NPC's are in this adventure, well not really. This adventure's NPC's reminded me of Dark Albion's 'anyone can be killed' in the Rose War attitude. Because there's also an almost boom town/end of empires set of circumstance that surrounds the setting of the Sinister Stone of Sakkara. This is so that the PC's can not only make their mark but possibly take over the local domain if their very lucky. Certain things about this adventure stand out such as the fact that it intergrates & plays around with Adventurer,Conqueror, King's Domains of War. The aspects of military & trade details is fitted in seamlessly within the adventure but its a weird fit in some respects unless of course you're used to war games being a part of your old school systems. The aspect of the war game as a part of the dungeon crawl hearkens back to the old school roots of OD&D when empire building was part and parcel of the gaming experience. Many independent companies kept this style of table top adventure going even as AD&D took another twist. AX1: The Sinister Stone of Sakkara builds upon & to some degree advances this concept on paper. How? By making the players take their PC's center stage or dying in the attempt. Even the description has this conceit built right in, "AX1 includes a two-level dungeon filled with chthonic horror along with a friendly stronghold from which your adventurers can explore the region." AX1: The Sinister Stone of Sakkara isn't Dwimmermount & for that I'm thankful. Even though I'm an experienced dungeon master there are several systems that Adventurer, Conqueror,King brings to the table that I need a bit of hand holding with. There is also the fact that introducing new players to this system is an added stress but reading through AX1: The Sinister Stone of Sakkara the experience doesn't seem so bad. I really like the Character Motivations table, which adds an interesting twist to the 'reason a PC is this way' and the motive for adventure.
The motives for the adventure in part are the war bands of beast men looting, sacking, pillaging throughout the countryside to gather sacrifices to power the Stone’s birthing pools again. Local farms and hamlets have been laid low and destroyed. This sets up everything for the PC's to get into the deep end of this adventure & perhaps become entangled in the adventure's plot and weird horror that echoes through out. All in all I did enjoy looking through & reading AX1: The Sinister Stone of Sakkara. I think its a four out of five for the style, utility of use at the table, an economical use of writing and some fine gaming designing in the old school traditions. All in all I think that X1: The Sinister Stone of Sakkara does a fantastic job of presenting not only a great quality introductory adventure for Adventurer,Conqueror, King. But a great set up for a possible domain and base for the PC's all the while bringing the high quality Autarach standards we've come to expect.

Eric Fabiaschi Sword & Stitchery blog Dark Corners of Role Playing Blog Want to see more OSR action subscribe to http://swords- andstitchery.blogspot.com/ Or http://darkc- ornersofrpging.blogspot.com/

There are times when I need to know facts about monsters such as background, where the monster is dwelling, how long the horror has been in its location, the social background of the beast, are there others of its species within a certain number of square miles, & more. All of this material sometimes needs to be joined together in a concise & coherent way. Well that's where Adventurer Conqueror King System: Lairs & Encounters comes in. This book breaks down all of these details & more. This book continues the high caliber standard set by the other Autarch titles. The physical book isn't out quite yet but the pdf sells for around ten dollars. Everything in this book is geared toward creating monsters that can deal with PC's on an even footing & then come back for more. Some of the highlights of this include the following:

There are samples throughout the book presenting the types of details on monsters that I haven't seen since the days of the 'ecology of' Dragon magazine articles. There are samples of monster lairs and the details that go with them. There are lots of uses for all of this material and I have to say that it back ties into the Adventurer, Conqueror, King main rule book. This is a welcome and wise decision to the DM who wants to bring the monster goodness to their tables. Here's a good example of the level of detail that I'm talking about that appears in the Lairs & Encounters book:"

MEN, BRIGANDS

A fortified camp, with barracks, tents, and a large command pavilion, surrounded by a log palisade, is home to renegade mercenaries from the Company of the Black Thorn. They survive by raiding towns and robbing caravans and travelers. There are 100 Brigands (AC 3, Move 120’, HD 1, hp 5 each, #AT 1 weapon, Dmg by weapon, Save F1, ML +1, AL C) equipped with leather armor, shield, sword, and shortbow, and another 100 mounted Brigands (AC 5, Move 120’, HD 1, hp 5 each, #AT 1 weapon, Dmg by weapon, Save F1, ML 0, AL C) with chain mail, shield, sword, and riding horses.

They are led by Inthorn, their captain (AC 7, Move 60’, F9, hp 45, #AT 1 weapon, Dmg by weapon +6, Save F9, ML 0, AL L/C), equipped with spear +2, sword +2, plate armor, shield, and a plate-barded medium warhorse. He wears a red-plumed bronze helm of alignment change, which has turned him chaotic and led to his band going rogue, as well as a dragon-hide sword belt studded with hematite (900gp) and a wrought gold necklace set with thorn-shaped hematite (1,200gp).

Inthorn keeps a war-chest of 7,000gp, which is about one month’s operating expenses for the band. In a small locked coffer, trapped with a poison needle, he keeps 7 bloodstones (50gp each), 5 amethysts (100gp each), 6 amber (100gp each), 3 topaz (500gp each), and 1 sapphire (1000gp each). He keeps 3 wrought gold goblets (700gp), a gold decanter (800gp), and gold bowl (500gp) in the command tent.

Inthorn has 4 lieutenants (AC 6, Move 60’, F5, hp 25 each, #AT 1 weapon, Dmg by weapon +2, Save F5, ML 0), 5 sergeants (AC 6, Move 60’, F4, hp 20 each, #AT 1 weapon, Dmg by weapon +2, Save F4, ML 0, AL C), and 10 corporals (AC 6, F2, hp 10 each, Move 60’, #AT 1 weapon, Dmg by weapon +1, Save F2, ML 0, AL C), all equipped with plate armor, sword, lance, and warhorse.

Accompanying the mercenaries-turned-brigands is Dairin, a powerful chaotic wizard (AC 0, Move 120’, M11, hp 22, #AT 1 weapon or spell, Dmg by weapon or spell, Save M11, ML 0, AL C). Dairin wears elven cloak and boots and carries a wand of enemy detection (20 charges) and a scroll of cloudkill and conjure elemental. His spellbook has the following spells: burning hands, charm person, detect magic, magic missile, shield, sleep; detect invisibility, invisibility, knock, mirror image, web; dispel magic, fireball, fly, invisibility 10’ radius, protection from normal missiles; conjure elemental, cloudkill; death spell.

Inthorn’s new lover is Olyma, a priestess of Nasga (AC 8, Move 90’, C8, hp 28, #AT 1 weapon or spell, Dmg by weapon or spell, Save C8, ML 0, AL C). Olyma is equipped with polished black plate armor +1, a whip, a spiked mace, a shield, an unholy symbol (a silver statuette of a bat-winged woman with a whip), and a potion of poison. She wears a pair of engraved silver armlets (600gp each) and a platinum tiara set with a ruby (1,300gp)." Needless to say that this sort of work is scattered across the board in Lairs & Encounters. This makes Lairs & Encounters a monster path book, that is not simply a source book but a source book that creates within its wake a way of detailing a monster as much as the setting within the context of an adventure or campaign.

Where ACK's is designed expressly for the purpose of providing interesting domain-level play, putting the "game" back into the endgame; Lairs & Encounters takes the domain level game applies that concept into the background of the monster. This means that the concept of the monster becomes two things one it becomes the competition, the horror, the mythological concept and antithesis to the PC's within their domains. The second thing it does is makes the animal or being that is being used within a game as much of a resource as any of the other natural game elements to be exploited by the DM. It means that those within your domains are going to be far more eager to seek the protection of those more powerful than themselves. This gives a whole other aspect to monsters as protection, rulers, etc. within those hexes that parties seem to continue to crawl through.

Another thing about Lairs & Encounters that's the 'encounter' part there is the gravity of history in many of the encounters that are created within this book. Many plug into the 'official' ACK's setting but they can easily be applied to your own campaigns for example:"

SKELETON

The ground here is torn up by the remains of nine ancient Zaharan scythed chariots, broken and partially covered by webs, dust, and sand. Here and there the jagged blades stick up from the scattered chariot wheels. Each character passing through or searching the area has a 1 in 6 chance of stepping on one of these partly-buried blades and suffering 1d3 points of damage. 18 skeletons (AC 2, Move 120’, HD 1*, hp 4 each, #AT 1 weapon, Dmg 1d6, Save F1, ML N/A, AL C), with rusted mail and jagged, broken scimitars, litter the ancient battlefield in clusters near the chariots. They will rise to attack if blood is shed. " This is something to keep in mind when designing your own encounters and this book has the tools, guidelines, and more to help you out with that. Something else to keep in mind is that Lairs & Encounters plugs into Domains at War, ACKS' expansion focusing on mass combat and how it relates to all other aspects of the game, from monsters in domain management to mercenary wages to mercantile supply and demand all centered around the aspects of the monster. By popular demand, they have distilled just the mass combat system itself to an ~8 page kernel which they are planning to add as an expansion but Lairs & Encounters slides right into the backside of this material. That means that all of those battle grounds, war fields, places of violence, ancient war sights and more have the real potential to turn into adventure locations unto themselves. This is something to keep in mind when running games after a party has passed through hex '5671' and they're entirely done with looting the bodies and the bandits, mercenaries are dead. Their foes can rise again to cause problems for the locals and you might have to back to clean up your messes. There are several reasons to really get into Adventurer Conqueror King System: Lairs & Encounters:

Adventurer Conqueror King System: Lairs & Encounters is a very useful book with lots of utility at the table the mechanics to create balanced new monsters, new spell powers, and other enhancements for foes itself is worth the price of admission because it can be applied for any OSR retroclone game with B/X D&D at its heart. Is it worth the ten dollar price of admission? Well in a word yes if you're used to creating your own adventures with in the confines of your campaign world and you want a book with the right tools for the job. Adventurer Conqueror King System: Lairs & Encounters ties directly back into the Adventurer, Conqueror, King main rule book making this one very thought out monster & encounters book. Do I think its worth the money for this book? In a word yes! Go buy it and will I be using it! Eric Fabiaschi Sword & Stitchery blog Dark Corners of Role Playing Blog Want to see more OSR action subscribe to http://swords- andstitchery.blogspot.com/ Or http://darkc- ornersofrpging.blogspot.com/

So I've been gone a good portion of the day & how this review came about is a bit tangled. I've been rummaging around the a great many Adventurer, Conqueror, King titles for the better of a year now. Yes, I have friends of mine who feed my OSR habit quite regularly & I've been off the ranch for a long time now. This means I review what I want when I want as well as how I want. Still there are titles that I don't have access to so I hit up Alexander Macris with an email. Well the gentleman is a very busy guy and all, so I don't like bothering him. At least that's what I thought. Wham two nights later I had a bunch of titles from the ACK's line up sitting in my inbox!? Among them was 'Guns of War', yeah great another 'fire arms' set of rules rattled through my head at about two A.M. Wait?! There's a whole supplement on black powder weaponry that could be used with both ACK's & Lamentations? Given my obsession of wheel lock weaponry & my love of all things Lamentations colour me interested folks. So what does 'Guns of War' bring to the table? Well its a supplement that brings the timeline for ACK's up to the age of black powder weaponry not simply for the humans but most of the major races of the Adventurer,Conqueror, King & Lamentations of the Flame Princess. This adds an entirely new dimension to these OSR games themselves. This brings that setting dynamic into a new light entirely.

"Guns of War brings you all the rules you need to add the gunpowder, firearms, and artillery of the Age of Pike and Shot into your fantasy role-playing game. This century-and-a-half period was an age of war more terrible than any that had come before, as the technology of battle changed more rapidly than it had in any time in the preceding 3,500 years of human history. It was also an age of apparent anachronism made real, as plate-clad knights battled rifle-armed soldiery, field artillery fired on pikeman, and swords hung alongside pistols on the belts of cavalry.

Guns of War is designed for use with Autarch’s Domains at War (D@W) rules for military campaigns and battles. You will also need a copy of Adventurer Conqueror King System (ACKS), Lamentations of the Flame Princess (LOFTP), or a similar D20-based fantasy role-playing game to use this book."

But is it worth getting into? Well from a dollar stand point my answer is 'yes' it adds whole new aesthetic to these games and it could be used with Dark Albion as well because its going to change events across the board in broad gun powder clouded strokes. The age of powder & shot becomes an entirely new set of dynamics & history stalking changes to the set up of games. This means that the material has a has a vaguely 13th-15th century feel to it in equal measure. Guns of War manages to do all of this in fifty eight pages of jammed black powder packed book. Does this really make a difference in the dungeon? Not really when your wearing twelve hand grenades packed with black powder called the 'twelve apostles'. Because your going to be facing down things like this Ifreet in some God forsaken megadungeon. Guns of War does the job of taking ACK's from the dungeon into other realms of adventure into things like the a fantasy age of piracy, full on full city siege warfare with cannons, mixing up with the forces of darkness with powder, and much more. I make this book sound like one of the essentials for ACK's don't I? Well that's because technically in my estimation it is! When you have chain mail clad warriors fighting with pistols & swords then you've got a different mix of a game setting happening. Guns of War presents its material concise and well laid out details with the rules, tables, & descriptions being very easy to read as well as the content presented in a way that's easy on the eyes. The artwork is public domain with an eye towards the real world history whist keeping the book grounded in the ACK's setting (sort of). Because it moves the technological time table up there is a sense that Guns of War has at its core the OSR with an eye towards taking systems to the next level or at the very least the next time period. This book has lots of potential because of its use in ACKS Domains at War but that's a blog entry for another time. What it also means is that I can now run Lamentations of the Flame Princess rpg materials within the ACK's system quite well. Things are not seamless but they work quite well so that suddenly that mini wall of Lamentations of the Flame Princes books has lots of potential in the ACK's system. This is another mark of the ulitity of the ACK's material at the gaming table. All in all I really enjoyed Guns of War so much so that I called the print shop today to get myself a copy of this pdf spiral bound. I give it four out of five because not only was I pleasantly surprised by Guns of War. Eric Fabiaschi Sword & Stitchery blog Dark Corners of Role Playing Blog Want to see more OSR action subscribe to http://swords- andstitchery.blogspot.com/ Or http://darkc- ornersofrpging.blogspot.com/

I went into the Auran Empire Primer with open eyes not expecting that much, this is the implied & now fully fleshed out OSR setting for the Adventurer, Conqueror, King rpg system. The whole setting implies not so much the usual Sword & Sorcery of D&D but Late Antiquity, around 250 - 750 AD."Late Antiquity is a periodization used by historians to describe the time of transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages in mainland Europe, the Mediterranean world, and the Middle East. " . This is the time period that saw the Roman Empire split in two, with the western half eventually dying while the eastern half of the empire continuing until 1453.Auran isn't the Roman Empire, there are some really interesting marked differences right off the bat. The fact that Auran is an empire with its cracks beginning to really taking its toll on many fronts means that there are lots of places for adventurers to make a difference. The setting is close to a Constantinople of the era of Antiquity in many respects including a reaming cross section of peoples, religions,and weirdness of a world on the edge. This is a place of forbidden black magic, the blackest magic that cracks peoples souls & beastmen capable of rending an empire in half. This book presents in twenty five pages an overview of places, things, religions, cultures, and other elements that we've heard in other ACK's products such as ACKS Player's Companion, The Sinister Stone of Sakkara, & Axioms digital magazine. That's pretty much only half of the material though. What this book actually is a showcase of the elements from Adventurer, Conqueror, King & a kit for creating your own world if you want to look past the usual set pieces & system place holders which one finds in other OSR games. This system has a good grounding in real world as its inspiration & that to me seems to make a solid difference;"The ancient civilizations that precede the campaign’s era have realworld cultural analogues as well. The ancient Argollëan elven civilization resembles a sort of Proto-Helleno-Celtic culture; imagine if the Danaans of Ancient Greece and the Danaans of Ancient Ireland were actually the same people, part of a single, more advanced civilization. The ancient Thrassian civilization is inspired by Sumerian civilization with an Aztec aesthetic, while the subsequent Zaharan civilization is inspired by pre-Hellenistic Akkadian civilization with some Egyptian flavoring. The early Auran “Empyrean era” civilization draws on elements of the Minoans, Mycenaeans, and Sea Peoples, with extensive Heroic Age Greco-Roman (Illiad, Aeneid) inspirations." This is a case of heavy is the head that wears the crown and that head just might be your PC, if their very lucky & the players might think outside the box. So what does the Auran Empire Primer bring to the table that's different then say Greyhawk or some other old school rpg setting book? Not much & that's fine with me! Let me explain here, the book presents a brief bite sized overview of the Auran world setting & it does it with a nice level of presentation along with some really well done artwork, cartography, and ideas. The overview is brief, to the point, and gives me exactly the level of detail that I want without overwhelming me with lots of filler BS that I don't need. In other words this is a place that I want to set adventures in.Its not a world that is so on fire that I as a DM don't have room or a elbow space to set up my own political or world events in. This is often one of the problems that I've had with other RPG products, the world events are happening right now! There's no time to get to know anything or do great deeds, your characters have to be heroes now! Well they do but in a system such as Adventurer, Conqueror, King they're going to need to build PC in roads into the world. This book helps to fill in the colour and setting material that you need. Did I mention that the book sells for only two dollars and fifty cents? All in all I think that the Auran Empire Primer does a really killer job of presenting the world of the empire and its very well done product.

Eric Fabiaschi Sword & Stitchery blog Dark Corners of Role Playing Blog Want to see more OSR action subscribe to http://swordsandstitchery.blogspot.com/ Or http://darkcornersofrpging.blogspot.com/

There are dark times in the galaxy when a bunch of outlaws & sleazoids are needed to take on the worst scum in the universe. This is the set up for Slippery When Wet an Alpha Blue rpg adventure which has a bit of everything from space battles to dungeon crawling. Here's the thing about Alpha Blue despite the silly/sleazy names in the adventure this is one that's tightly designed & well written. But I think that unless your ready for what Venger Satanis is trying to pull off this one isn't going to make a lot of sense unless your into the Eighties sci fi vibe of the Alpha Blue universe. This is the result of the highly successful kick starter for the Trinity of Awesomeness that Venger did back in October Here's the low down on Slippery When Wet;"This is a 4- 5 page adventure of sleazy space opera action in the 23rd century. After a large-scale assault, the PCs hitch a ride on an underwater vessel named the bearded clam. Their destination is the undersea citadel Aqua Vulva. " It's made for the Alpha Blue RPG, but will be usable with almost any sci-fi RPG of your choice. Ever wanted to play in a universe akin to Ice Pirates, Flash Gordon, Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone, Starchaser: The Legend of Orin, Space Balls, Heavy Metal, or some porn parody of Star Wars or Star Trek? " So what's the party of adventurers in Slippery When Wet? Well a bit of gun running, double crosses, lots of space sex, and plenty of death if your players take some very dumb risks. Slippy When Wet clocks in at about fourteen pages & there's some great cartography by Glynn Seal of Monkey Blood design. There is balance in the design work of the adventure & I don't really think that this is a beginning adventure for Alpha Blue rather this would actually be a good middle or connecting adventure for a party of experienced Alpha Blue players. Some of the menaces here are clearly very dangerous and could be retro fitted into some of the back adventures from the Alpha Blue product line. Slippery When Wet adds in myriad underwater elements to the Alpha Blue game and several minor factions to play as well. Some of these could be expanded upon to give even more nasty surprises to players as their time in the Alpha Blue universe gets underway. Several of the major Alpha Blue interstellar power blocks come on stage for the weirdness of this adventure. Remember this is an adult title so its not one for the kids!

Slippery When Wet could be used with Universal Exploits to be expanded into a full blown campaign with almost but not quite Italian Star Wars rip style weirdness throughout. This sort of an adventure is one of my favorites and my preferred way of running Alpha Blue has been with Crawljammer in the past. These two game system really work well together & Alpha Blue's Slippery When Wet fits right into the background of Crawljammer. Given the free range of the material in Alpha Blue it fits into the Dungeon Crawl Classics fanzine ethos quite nicely. There are more then enough ways of exploiting this vibe to create fully detailed DCC funnels within the Alpha Blue universe but that's a blog entry for another time.

Do I think that Slippery When Wet is worth the price of admission? In a word yes because of the fact that so many of the Alpha Blue elements are on parade & its done with the bravado and sleazy weirdness that I've come to love from the game! Grab this one and get some friends together to play in the interstellar strangeness of Alpha Blue