I’ll start off by noting that I’ve been playing D&D since late 1981, when I received the magenta Basic Set by Tom Moldvay for Christmas. And while I’ve played various versions of old school D&D and several retroclones, I’ve always retained a soft spot for B/X and more recently, Old School Essentials. With that being said, I think that thus far, the first two volumes of Gods of the Forbidden North constitute the most imaginative and impressive setting/adventure I’ve ever read. It has a bit of everything: ample roleplaying opportunities; colorful NPCS, both potential allies and villains; sandbox hexcrawl play; dungeon crawls of varying lengths, difficulty levels and complexity, and a meta-plot that can be incorporated or ignored as the DM and players desire. The cartography is top notch and the images are plentiful and evocative, though because a variety of artists are employed, their tone varies somewhat and I like some much more than others. Additionally, in true old school style, there are tons of new monsters and magic items to keep your players on their toes. Furthermore, the setting itself, which is an arctic wilderness, offers many opportunities to engage the environment and make full use of the OSE Advanced rules system. Extensive guidance is provided for this at the end of the book. As much as I enjoy Vikings, I also like the fact that the author keeps them out of this setting and leans into Inuit-inspired cultural influences and tropes, with the colonists being inspired by the Romans. However, though there are some yeti, somehow he doesn’t have any proper sasquatches in here. Hopefully that gets rectified in volume 3. After all, they were in the D&D Master Set.

Turning to the specifics of this volume itself, after about a 10 page introduction, there are eight chapters of adventures, followed by extensive appendices that include monsters and NPCs, new magic items, rules for the DM, summaries of XP awards for the various adventures, a helpful glossary of names (essential in a work of this length), and an index, which is also essential. Throughout, the author offers summaries, tips, and previews of potential adventures to come as aids to the DM. References are frequently made to other volumes in the series and the pdf text is fully hyperlinked. While one could certainly pull individual scenarios and dungeons out of this or any of the volumes, they definitely work better together as a whole. Think of only reading The Two Towers, for example. Sure, it’s great (and in fact was the first book of Lord of the Rings that I read because Fellowship of the Ring was missing from my middle school library), but you lose quite a bit if it’s simply extrapolated from the whole. I should also note that not all of the adventures are written solely by Robert Alderman, other OSR luminaries, such as James Spahn and Glynn Seal, are enlisted to write or co-write some sections. But it doesn’t feel too jarring, for the most part and the tone, which is increasingly dark, stays consistent.

The first three chapters of this volume (technically chapters 11-13), are basically urban adventures. One is set in the village of Kangul, while the others are in the main northern city of Valkengrad. All offer both investigative elements and dungeon crawls and have links to larger plots within the campaign. Again, this is great, since it allows different character classes to shine and highlights different aspects of play. As many of us know, even if your players love dungeon crawling, it can get to be a slog if that’s all you’re doing. Chapter 12, “Children of the Green Light,” connects all the way back to the start of volume one, reinforcing ties with some key NPCs. It is a long and complex chapter with a variety of potential outcomes that will have major implications for subsequent developments. Players enjoying intrigue and investigation should enjoy this chapter. The same is true for Chapter 13, “The Tower of All-Seeing Eyes,” ably written by Frog God Games’ veteran, Casey Christofferson. This is one of my favorite chapters owing to the heavy influence of the classic 80s film, “Big Trouble in Little China.” DMs should absolutely watch this movie before running this chapter, though you might not want your players to, lest they get too many hints. Designed for 7th level heroes, this is a very deadly dungeon and presages the dangers to come. Once more, there are serious implications and consequences tied to what the players accomplish, reinforcing the depth of the setting. And best of all, yes there are freakin’ ninja!

In chapters 14-15, the adventures shift to the Underworld. As these adventures are even more perilous than what has come before, it makes sense that they are all designed for character levels 8 and up. And the adventure returns to more of a sandbox/hexcrawl here, with the dangerous environs taking center stage as the party explores. In addition to standard wandering monster tables, random hazard tables are provided, tailored to different locales. There are fewer opportunities for meaningful social interactions down here, but not everything the party encounters will be hostile and careful players can greatly enhance their chances of survival. There are lots of new monsters in these chapters, keeping PCs on their toes. Extensive exploration has the advantage of revealing more of the history of the Forbidden North, thereby gradually providing more clues to the meta-plot. These chapters also lean into the Mythic Underworld tropes of classic fantasy without quite getting as silly or weird as say, Operation Completely Unfathomable, which I also enjoy. Chapter 15 is entirely devoted to an Underworld city, called Morgathaur, though it is not completely detailed and ambitious DM’s could flesh it out a bit. Indeed, it has many of the vibes of the Shadow Elves gazetteer from BECMI and that supplement could easily be adapted or inserted herein.

Chapter 16 veers more into the realm of super (or pseudo) science, detailing the Green Dome of Foranadoth, an ancient citadel occupied and re-purposed by serpent-folk from beyond the stars. These are canny and deadly foes and the party will be hard-pressed in this challenging environment. Chapter 17, “Maleum Hatus,” details a death-trap dungeon inspired by Tomb of Horrors. It is technically optional and somewhat incidental to the meta-plot, but the PCs can acquire a valuable artifact herein that will greatly aid them down the road. But be warned: there is the very real chance of a TPK here. It requires smart players, not just high level characters, to survive. The last formal chapter, “Brass Temple of the Magoth,” is another dungeon crawl and connects more directly to the meta-plot. As such, the DM should find ways to get the party here eventually. Extensive notes are provided for the reactions of the temple’s denizens in accordance with the party’s actions. This dungeon is probably easier than the previous one, but it’s still tough and there’s a satisfying boss fight. The party should feel they’ve made significant progress if they get through this.

Overall, as noted above, I think this is an amazing product. Taken together, this trilogy should provide years of play and the full adventure path will take characters all the way to level 14, which is the default cap for OSE. Indeed, so far as I know, this is the full adventure path ever published for OSE Advanced. It sets a high bar. I do have a few minor quibbles, however. The author is a professor of creative writing. At times this is reflected in the text being a bit too verbose. While I’m not a big fan of the usual OSE bullet-point style of presentation with respect to room design, this goes too far the other way at times, giving redundant or possibly unnecessary advice or detail, not unlike you often find in DCC modules. Additionally, because there is simply so much information here, it will likely require at least a couple read-throughs for a DM to get comfortable. Not all DM’s have that kind of time. If you’re not so concerned about the meta-plot, this won’t matter so much. Next, while I understand the reasons for doing so given the length of the text, it’s a bit annoying that stat blocks are not provided for monsters found in the OSE Advanced Fantasy Referee’s Tome. So, you’ll need that or your monster book(s) of choice at the table and have to flip through it on the fly. This will greatly slow things down in play. Full stat blocks in the text are provided for new monsters, however, and full write-ups are in the appendices. But the author sadly defaults to just giving the average (4.5 hp per die) for every monster in the book, even boss monsters and main villains. Sorry, but this is just lazy and it’s a major pet peeve of mine. Given all this effort, couldn’t you be bothered to roll for HP, Rob? Heck, they have computer programs to do it for you. Lastly, while most of the art is excellent and evocative, some pieces, presumably by the same artist, are really childish and cartoony (i.e. p. 65 and p. 95), and detract from the overall vibe. I realize that these pieces are more in line with OSE in general, but they seem strange here. This being said, I still think this is an amazing achievement. We are just starting the campaign now, but I’m eagerly looking forward to years of playing in this setting/adventure path. There are so many great ideas in here and plenty of adventuring variety to satisfy all kinds of players.

Pretty disappointing conversion of an adventure originally written for Gygax's "Lejendary Adventures" line. It's for high level characters and is sort of a hexcrawl investigation that essentially becomes a railroad. Lots of extended walls of text to read to the players and pretty underwhelming foes/villains. Also gets too self-indulgent with boring descriptions of castle walls and their dimensions. One can deduce that from the maps. The layout is adequate, but there's not much text on each page so the book feels stretched out. The artwork is minimal and much of the monster art is simply recycled from previous TLG publications. Groups that are heavy into scripted roleplaying and not big on character agency may enjoy this, but I found it to be one of Gygax's weakest adventures and one I doubt I'll ever bother running. Only worth the investment if you some kind of completist or Gygax fanboy.

Great expansion to the spell cards for this awesome game. You get three new lores: Glamour, Hedge Magic, and Oneiromancy (Dream Magic), which support the new kins available in the Golden Throne supplement. The spells are flavorful and definitely add to setting, especially if one is into Elven or Faery settings or games.

As I'm currently expanding, updating and converting an old campaign from AD&D to Castles & Crusades, I was eager to get this for the lore and background information, also hoping to mine some adventure ideas from it. But it's pretty much a disappointment. It sadly exposes the many of flaws of 5e while also being poorly written and uninteresting as an adventure. Safety tools, sensitivity warnings, Mont Haul options for buying magical items, artifacts liberally scattered all over the place, multiple easy options for resurrection. Hell comes off like Disney's Magic Kingdom in this train wreck of an adventure. The factions and NPCs are generally lame and one dimensional. The art for the Arch-devils is the worst I've seen since that hack DiTerlizzi disgraced the pages of 2e. The story itself is pretty weak, following upon the admittedly even weaker trash that was Descent to Avernus. The bottom line is that like movies nowadays it seems that nobody in the mainstream can write an edgy, interesting, challenging adventure. Everything is toned down for "modern gamers" who are used to the training wheel style game that is 5e. I half expected Hello Kitty to show up while reading this. If your players enjoy easy fetch quests on a railroad, they make like this. Otherwise avoid. Totally not worth the money.

Ironically, a couple months ago I was kicking around ideas for running a campaign in a northern setting that mashed up Alaskan and Scandinavian lore with fantasy elements. Then, I saw reviews for this online and ordered it right away. I must say it's quite unlike anything else I've seen. The setting is developed in great detail, almost too much, with a rich history and backstory. There are gods, cults, and factions aplenty. The influence of classic pulp fantasy is strong, but it's also infused with generous references to 80s pop culture and fantasy.

The beginning adventure is a bit railroady and is probably the weakest part of the whole package, but it does allow the DM and players to get invested in the setting. From there it assumes more of a sandbox character. The subsequent chapters are full of adventure hooks of all types and power levels, meaning that, in true old school fashion, the characters can easily find themselves overmatched and end up dead. There's still a ton of lore to absorb here, but one can see that over time this will start reinforcing itself and adding depth to the world, building towards the megadungeon climax promised in the the upcoming third volume of this set.

All told, there are tons of interesting locations, NPCs, magic items, and new monsters here. The backstory is a bit convoluted and difficult to follow, but if run over a significant length of time, I think the pieces will fall into place and make for a very rewarding campaign. The level of detail is amazing and the setting itself really shines, becoming a character in itself. As importantly, this is designed for Old School Essentials Advanced and the writing is such that it makes full use of those rules and demonstrates how that game can shine in a long-term campaign. So if you're interested in investing in a campaign setting that is both unique and not over the top gonzo, but incorporates elements not found in your bog-standard European-derived fantasy, by all means check this out. You won't be disappointed if you're willing to put in the effort. I for one, cannot wait for the two follow-up volumes.

Well technically you get all the Pathfinder monsters converted to OSR stat blocks. Except that you don't, really. The issue is that they aren't actually direct conversions most of the time. So you're usually getting really watered down versions of the monsters with limited abilities and often far fewer hit dice. To give one example, in PF the Balor Demon has 20d10+260 HP and an AC 36. Obviously much more powerful than it's original AD&D equivalent, but based on 3e. But here you get 4 balor variants ranging from 4-7 HD worth a measly 175-900 xp. So I guess these are babies? This is pretty much true for everything in the book; you just get low-mid-level variants, often with little correlation to original power levels. On top of this, attacks are not always clear (though you can figure it out) and the aligments are off in the sense that because they just use Law, Neutrality, and Chaos, that supersedes good & evil. All the devils, for example, are listed as Lawful. Again, an experienced DM can figure this out, but it's lazy, poor design that feels like a Bot created it. I wanted stats for all the Pathfinder fiends & Celestials to port over to Castles & Crusades. But this is basically useless as is so I'll just convert them myself from the originals. The biggest shame is I forked out big cash for the massive hard copies. Had they been legit conversions, I'd be delighted. But these are effectively worthless for my purposes.

This expands material from the 1980 Judges Guild module. It has some interesting settings and great villains, but is a bit hard to use. The stats are for some kind of house system that isn't quite any version of D&D and one needs several extra books containing monsters, spells, and magic items. I ended up buying pretty much everything in the line in hard copy because I'm updating a massive Infernal campaign using Swords & Wizardry.

The artwork and maps are lackluster, but there are enougfh evocative settings to counteract these shortcomings. It will be tough for even high level PCs, but there's also some good treasure and interesting magic items. So this is recommended if you're into Infernal adventuring and willing to put in some time to convert it to your system of choice.

I'll start by saying I'm a big fan of Gillespie's megadungeons and own all of them in hardcover. So I was very excited to get this one. But I have to confess that I'm a bit disappointed with it. While it has some good elements, for me it just doesn't stack up to the others. I guess my expectations were too high. For one, the broader setting and backstory simply aren't as interesting. And while I understand the rationale for not mapping the whole thing, I have no desire to create a bunch of my own levels using geomorphs. I'm paying $65 or whatever for something I can just run. After mapping a couple levels, I just stopped. One can easily find complete Dwarf themed megadungeon maps on the Internet. Additionally, the room descriptions seem more vanilla than in Gillespie's other products. The rune stuff is nice, but this just doesn't grab me like the other ones and I find it far less useful in a modular sense as well. With his other dungeons, notably HighFell & Archaia, one can easily pull sections out to drop in anywhere. Not so much with this. So if you're really into dwarf-themed dungeons and don't mind putting in a fair amount of work to finish it, this could be for you. But it's less playable out of the box than his other dungeons.
Since you're here I'll give my personal ranking of all Gillespie's megadungeons:

1. HighFell
2. Forbidden Caverns of Archaia
3. Barrowmaze
4. Dwarrowdeep

Exactly what it says on the cover. You get all the monsters from Gillespie's four published megadungeons. This is super handy if you're running any of them, as monsters from earlier books often pop up in the later ones and he was limited by space and could not include them all. Plus, if you're doing your own dungeon, you've got a great selection of monsters here spanning roughly levels 1-10. Stats are the streamlined Labyrinth Lord variety, which makes this usable with any OSR D&D adjacent game. A picture is provided for every monster and they are in the style of the author's modules. So if you like AD&D black and white art, you'll dig this. Also includes the treasure type table in the back like the monster manuals of yore. Also, while many of the creatures herein have appeared in earlier editions of the game, plenty are brand new or modified so you'll be getting plenty of value even if, like me, you still own all your 1e stuff. Highly recommended if you play these older games or retroclones or like dungeon crawls.

Extremely useful if you're running Undermountain or the 5e Mad Mage adventure. Could also be used as a generic "hive of scum and villainy" for any Underdark or pirate campaign. My only complaints are a general lack of illustrations and the fact that the maps can be a bit hard to read. I assume the originals must have been in color.

Well, you do get a ton of dungeon jam packed into this product. Unfortunately, it's not particularly inspired, evocative or easy to use. Indeed, mega-dungeons like this help give the whole genre a bad reputation. There's just not much here to get you excited about running it. The back story is vanilla and cliched. The maps are fine, but nothing special. Most rooms have virtually no description; just a name, which more often than not simply describes the contents such as "Skeletons," "Orcs," etc. Any tween from the 80s could come up with that. Even worse, there aren't full stat blocks, just lists of hit points. So you'll need whatever old school monster book/stats you rely on to run encounters then have to calculate all the XP yourself.

As for the dungeons themselves, they're just okay. There are feeble attempts at creating factions, but much of it doesn't make much sense. And he doesn't really lean much into the Mad Archmage trope with a few exceptions. Traps and tricks tend to be underwhelming too. There is a lame effort to insert orc "work crews" into the dungeon that I just ignored. The sample rival NPC adventuring parties are a bit better done and showcase some of the character classes created for Adventures Dark & Deep, the author's OSR imagining of what 2nd edition AD&D might have been. I also like the "Dungeon Dressing" tables, though they could be expanded.

There is a book of illustrations, but they're pretty amateurish. Better than nothing, but since the room descriptions themselves are generally so lacking, cool images would have helped immensely. There are some new monsters and magic items, but again, nothing especially interesting or inspiring.

All of this is disappointing because in watching the author's youtube videos I was really excited to get this product. But it's just kind of meh. You can at least crib thre maps and adapt the dungeons for something else, which is what I'm doing, basically linking this to the far more interesting Undermountain.

So if you want to put in the work, you do get a lot of potential with this for a decent price. But if you're looking for something exciting to run right out of the box, there are far better megadungeon options out there.

So I snagged this for $4.50 as a pdf when it went on sale here. That's actually cheaper than what I paid to have it spiral bound. Yet it's so mediocre that I still feel I overpaid for it. Supposedly it's the final version of the first megadungeon ever created, Dave Arneson's dungeon for the legendary Castle Blackmoor. The problem is that it doesn't feel particularly old, nor is it at all interesting from a design or tactical standpoint.

It is statted out for D&D 3.5, which is fine since that's the version of the game that was in print when this first came out and the OSR wasn't really a thing yet. But it's kind of hilarious to see the huge 3.5 stat blocks on almost every page for even the simplest of monsters. So while you are theoretically getting over 300 pages of content, in fact it's maybe half that at best. On top of this there are tons of monsters in here that didn't exist in RPG form back in the day like barghests, mephits, half-orc barbarians and the like. Again, not exactly a deal breaker, but certainly detracts from any old school feel. On the other hand, they are strewn across the dungeon in a rather non-sensical way, which does simulate old school products like Keep on the Borderlands.

More significantly, the dungeon levels are pretty small and rather boring. Descriptions are terse, which is common enough, but there's little interesting in here. Poor writing, lousy art and awful editing contribute further to the unprofessional presentation and feel of the adventure. It really reads like a 13 year old kid slapped this thing together. The factions are lame, the villains are uninspired and the whole thing just feels like it was a late career cash grab. I had high hopes of converting this to B/X and running it for a campaign set in Blackmoor but the adventure here isn't worth the time it would take to convert it. I'd have more fun just designing my own megadungeon or using one of the many other published ones out there. Only worth buying if you really want something for Blackmoor using those awful D&D 3.5 stats and mechanics.

Very solid and somewhat whimsical take on the "modern" witch. Lots of spells, rituals, and other options. Can be combined with the author's other witch tradition books. One of the highlights is the monster list, which includes things like pumpkin golems and even the notorious pumpkin head demon himself. If you like your witches in the "Charmed" or "Bewitched" vein, this is worth a look. One quibble is that the editing is a bit shoddy with lots of typos and some inconsistencies and repeated entries in the text, possibly due to cutting and pasting from other sources. But alas, that's pretty much the industry norm nowadays.

Note: This review covers the complete module.

Among other things, the OSR movement has witnessed the revival of the megadungeon for fantasy gamers. Indeed, at this point there are far more OSR megadungeons than were actually published for the 1st edition of the game back in the 1970s-80s. To their credit various authors have tweaked the classic formula in terms of themes, style, and layout to provide varying experiences for gamers. And it’s true that many of these things are massive and require months or even years of steady play to finish. Yet there always seems to be an inclination by some to go bigger. This is where The Halls of Arden Vul comes in.

In many ways this adventure is the War & Peace, or perhaps more appropriately, The Song of Ice & Fire, of megadungeons. It is ridiculously massive and complicated, with tons of factions, major characters, minor characters, tons of backstory that you may or may not need or care about, and a hefty amount of self-indulgent over-writing that could use a serious amount of editing. As they boast in their description of the product, Arden Vul includes:

2,162 Encounter Descriptions 14 NPC Factions 10 Massive Levels 15 Extensive Sub-levels 7 Dangerous Exterior locations 149 New Monsters 332 New Magic Items 69 New Technological Items 44 New Spells 189 New Books through which PCs can gain a deep understanding of the dungeon

So no matter what you think about the quality or organization, that’s a ton of content. And, you can definitely see that it was a labor of love for the author that clearly took a long time to create. And, again much like the aforementioned novels, a significant amount of the content is pretty amazing. There are interesting villains and NPCs, lots of tricks, traps, and puzzles, and plenty to discover. But as one might expect, it’s all just a bit too much to take in. There comes a point where there are just too many new monsters, magic items, spells, cultures, etc., and one starts questioning if the effort needed to actually run the adventure is worth the money and time invested. To the author’s credit, considerable effort is made to guide the DM by indicating points of connectivity, links to other areas, summaries of each level, extensive random encounter tables, and copious background notes. But that ends up becoming a lot of noise that again hinders more than it helps. For example, most megadungeons give you a base town, some wilderness areas to explore and a few NPCs and background material. That usually takes up 20 pages or so, sometimes considerably less. This beast takes over 100 pages covering such prefatory material and even after reading that you’ll likely be confused about many of the factions and new species because they’re not all clearly described or explained. To get that information you need to go to volume IV. And because there are often sub-species or variants, trust me, you’ll be flipping to volume IV a lot, whether in hard copy or on your pdf.

As indicated above, there are a total of 25 levels and sub-levels, and some of these are truly massive, encompassing nearly 200 separate encounter areas. This does allow for a fair degree of variation in both inhabitants, the physical environment and style of play. So one could encounter your standard humanoids or undead, or a variety of extra-terrestrial races, some of which possess powerful technology, constructs, fishmen, lizardmen, demons and their cultists, or human cults, among others. There are lots of opportunities for role-playing and interaction because of the sheer number of factions and sub-factions. So some players & DM’s may love this aspect. But again, it’s just a bit too much for my taste. I’ve never played with a group that was very interested in factional politics in their games and I generally find that having more than 3 factions or so just becomes too much. Here the factional aspect is “turned up to 11” to paraphrase Spinal Tap. And you’ll have to keep track of a dizzying array of new cultures and names, with particular architectural styles, etc. I’ll admit that this gets a bit easier as you read more and more of the adventure, but I could see it being rather difficult to convey all this to the players and get them onboard, unless they have a particular affinity for that style of play. Moreover, because the various factions and sections of the dungeon are so intertwined, it seems much harder to pull out sections for individual use or shorter campaigns. It can be done with a bit of work, but this dungeon seems much more tied to this setting than, say Barrowmaze, Stonehell or Rappan Athuk.

And the factions vary widely in how interesting or novel they are. I particularly liked the demon-worshiping heqeti, which are a type of amphibious humanoid, but really didn’t care for the varumani, for example, which are a sort of alien-derived troll/ogre mix with several sub-species. Obviously, individuals will vary on new species and monsters in terms of how they might want to use them. I also found the new demon species quite interesting, though in general many of the new monsters have lots of special abilities, which makes them a bit of a chore to run, since you’ll have to keep looking up what they can do. Frankly, sometimes less is more.

The biggest challenge is usability. It’s obviously huge and the simple fact that it stretches over five volumes makes it cumbersome to run. The maps are gathered in the last volume and volume IV contains all the new monsters, spells, descriptions of books, and world information. That makes sense, but what this all means is that you’ll generally need at least three of the volumes or pdfs to play since you’ll have the section of the dungeon you’re in (volumes I-III), plus the maps, and the monsters. As for some of the other issues, as noted above, a major challenge is that the encounter descriptions and background information tend to be way too long, and often repetitive. Many room descriptions run upwards of 3 whole pages. And this isn’t just for boss encounters. Sometimes much of it is simply fluff with a discussion of the previous 3000 year history of a site or individual. That could have just been in a separate supplement. And the super long lists of all the spells in every spellbook found in the dungeon take up tons of space for rather minimal gain, since each spellcaster has their memorized spells listed in the lengthy write-ups provided for virtually every NPC.

The maps, at least in the printed version, are some of the worst I’ve ever seen in a published product. It’s not that they are poorly drawn, but rather not properly cut and formatted. So rooms get cut off in the middle or bottom of pages, letters identifying sites are cut in half, and there are maps that barely take up half a page yet aren’t even centered. So I’d strongly recommend just going with the pdf maps if you can, because they are easier to read and use. By comparison, Rappan Athuk is a model of elegant simplicity. As for the images, they are okay, but not as evocative as say, the images in the various Greg Gillespie megadungeons. And there aren’t really enough of them. In many cases there will be several consecutive pages of nothing but text, perhaps broken up by a long table spread out over several pages. Then you might get a picture of something like a crocodile, or giant crayfish which seems rather pointless since one assumes the typical gamer can easily visualize a crocodile or a crayfish. There are some pictures of more interesting things, but if you’re going to be fairly limited in your images, the ones you include should be really memorable. Another minor, but still annoying, problem is that the author does not calculate the experience point values for monsters in the text, despite including the fairly lengthy stat blocks. It’s not like they were worried about space. Why not include that? Certainly it would be more useful than putting (see new monsters) or (see new magic items) after nearly every entry. Those could have been indicated with an asterisk or something. So this is one more thing you’ll need to do if you’re running this adventure.

So is it worth buying? That will depend largely upon your GM style and the predilections of your players. It is definitely very expensive. But, if you really want to make this the center of your campaign, even if you played on a weekly basis, this would probably take years to get through. So if that sounds like what you want, then the price point isn’t quite as crazy. And that may be the best approach, because it would give the players the best chance for immersing themselves in this world. While it does get to be overkill, there are elements of Egyptian, Roman, and Byzantine culture in here, as well as science fiction & weird fantasy. So a lot of itches can be scratched. A clever DM may find ways to integrate it into their own campaigns. I’m going to drop it into a fairly open area in my campaign world that was the location of an ancient civilization based on Egyptian & Middle Eastern cultures with a focused mission tied to a broader campaign. It’s written for OSRIC, so it’s compatible with all the major retroclones as well as 1e and 2e D&D. So you can certainly plunder it for monsters and magic items as well.

In the final assessment, there is lots to like here and the vision of the author is impressive. But it also feels so personal and tied to the campaign from whence it came, that it becomes a bit of a barrier to play and get invested in. So I’d personally rate it a step below the other megadungeons I’ve referenced in here in part because I think they’re easier to run and more portable, if that makes any sense in the context of megadungeons. So consider it recommended with a degree of caution.

Simply put, if you buy only one monster book for your OSR game, it should probably be this one. It has most of the monsters from 1e, as well as lots of new creatures and variations. And unlike so-called "modern" monster books, the stat blocks are not the length of the tax code with a raft of abilities, exceptions and conditions to keep track of. Plus, there's a picture for every monster as well as a mini encounter or adventure hook. These are great for inspiration, side quests, or even to use as interesting random encounters. And there are many clever pop culture references worked into the encounters.

The only real downsides are that the images varey somewhat in quality and because they try to keep it one monster per page, there's often a lot of white space. So they could have added a bit more fluff to the text. But in a book that already runs over 500 pages, perhaps less is more in that respect. And to be honest, this black and white artwork suits the book better than the color artwork they've used in supplements to Tome of Horrors Complete, which should be the second OSR monster book you buy. With those two massive tomes, it's hard to see you ever needing another monster book. My only regret is that I waited too long to buy this so I was only able to get the pdf. Still hoping to snag a hard copy somewhere.