This is the world map (including all the aforementioned variations) for James Mishler's new "Olden Lands" campaign setting, which looks to be very much an old-school setting in the spirit of those such as Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, and Wilderlands (to which James has also contributed). The map is very well done, not to mention evocative - even just the place names suggest an intriguing setting. I'm very much looking forward to seeing it fleshed out via upcoming products - it may even replace my Greyhawk campaign!

What a fantastic product! I highly recommend this even if you're not into Freeport - there's a ton of great C&C material here:

• racial info for goblins, orcs, and hobgoblins, should you ever want to use them for PCs or even just detailed NPCs
• two new classes (the noble and the pirate)
• detailed insanity / fear rules
• weapons, including blackpowder firearms and a few new melee weapons
• drugs & poisons
• 12 new spells
• a bunch of new magic items
• stats for about 10 NPC kinds (including assassins, beggars, cultists, etc.)
• stats for about 85 specific NPC personalities, any of which could be ported into all sorts of other games
• a great bestiary! about 40 new creatures for use in almost any campaign
• a short but detailed adventure to get you started in Freeport, should you so desire

Great stuff - get it!

Wow, what a great ezine - and for free! Packed with tons of fun and useful stuff for any 1st ed. D&D / retroclone (I'm a C&C fan myself, and very little conversion is required). I liked it so much, I plopped down the other $10.50 to buy issues 1-5. Great stuff - highly recommended!

Basically a random encounter / adventure seed generator, but not to be confused with a full-fledged random adventure generator like those found in Thrilling Tales, Shaintar, etc. Makes things a bit easier on the GM, especially if you need a short encounter to stall when your PCs go off the rails in your current adventure. Definitely worth the price.

A very nice bundle. For $3, you get three "one-sheets." Actually, these are packed with content (the small font helps to cram a lot in), so they're a bit more substantial than the usual one-sheet - definitely more mini-adventures than single encounters. They are high quality, too, including good maps for table-top play. The blurb says that each of these would take 4-8 hours to play, though I'd guess closer to 4 than 8.

A couple of minor quibbles:

• When listing toughness scores, there's no indication of armor, requiring the GM to consult the character's gear list or the monster's special ability list. SW products typically list the armor value in parentheses right after the toughness - e.g., "7(1)".

• The spiders in "Spider Hunt" list a toughness of 5, despite having a Vigor of d10. From the description, I'm guessing this is due to size, but there's no size note listed under the spiders' special abilities. This is important because creatures have a lower toughness but are also harder to hit (-2 to attack rolls).

Again, these are minor quibbles. This a quality product at a cheap price. Although they were designed with the Kith’takharos setting in mind, they could be used in almost any classic-style fantasy setting with little to no modification. Highly recommended.

Wow - I can't believe this is free! This ezine is filled with a ton of great stuff, including a small fantasy adventure, a detailed fantasy NPC (complete with adventure hooks), fascinating interviews with a wide variety of SW authors and editors, fiction (both text and illustrated) and more. There are several drool-inspiring full-page color ads, some for SW products I hadn't even heard of before. I can't imagine why a fan of SW wouldn't pick this up. Did I mention that it's free?!

If I could give half-star ratings here, I'd probably give this a 3.5 - I like it better than the Radio Marauders but not quite as much as the Valley of Mystery or Curse of the Jade Monkey. It's good, but it feels more like a sketch or outline than a fully developed adventure. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though - as they say, it is designed in such a way as to make for easy expansion by the GM into a series of more detailed adventures, which I suspect most GMs will want to do. Again, no maps (I'm contractually obligated to complain about that ... ). There are some errors as well (e.g., Li-Ming Jade's Parry score should be 9, not 7), but nothing too serious. Recommended, but only after you get Valley and Curse.

Another winner from Adamant! This is a nice, healthy adventure (I suspect it would take a couple of sessions to complete) with an Indiana Jones / Lost World sort of flavor. As one would expect from this genre, there are some distinctly non-PC elements, but as long as the players understand that it's meant to capture the style of these sorts of pulp stories - warts and all - it shouldn't be an issue for any but the most sensitive of gaming groups. As usual, I'll complain about the lack of maps, but otherwise, I highly recommend it.

I recently reviewed Curse of the Jade Monkey, and quite favorably at that. I'm afraid I can't be quite as positive about The Radio Marauders. Don't get me wrong - it's not bad, but it is flawed. There are some minor formatting issues (e.g., the occasional word with a space in the middle of it, or two words crammed together), and a couple of conversion oversights (e.g., a reference to an INT roll, which I'm guessing is supposed to be a Smarts roll). My main problem, however, is a rather odd plot. Specifically, there are occasions in which the GM is strongly advised to make sure that the PCs fail certain actions, for fear of the adventure moving along too quickly. Honestly, I don't think I've come across that before. An adventure shouldn't be predicated on PC failure, especially if the PCs are high level (and this adventure is recommended for various numbers and ranks of characters, including a single Legendary character - who is probably not going to fail at a lot ... ). Still, the basic ideas in the adventure are good, and for two bucks, it's certainly worth getting, but I suspect most GMs are going to feel the need to do some re-writing or improvising in order to make it run better - I know I will.

A great adventure - my favorite of the several Savage Worlds Thrilling Tales adventures that I've looked at so far. It's a medium-short adventure, perfect for a single afternoon or evening of play. It's very linear, which is the style for these sort of pulp adventures - not a problem, just something to keep in mind. It really captures the pulp hero genre, putting me in mind of Indiana Jones (including an optional "Short Round" style NPC sidekick) or the classic Big Trouble in Little China. My only gripe: no maps. That seems to be the norm these days, so maybe I shouldn't complain, but for a game like Savage Worlds, that does so well with miniatures, it seems like a shame not to include them. Highly recommended.

This is a fine addition to Savage Worlds and the Suzerain product line. Despite the initial look of it, it's not just another SW pulp setting - think "The X-Files" set in the Great Depression, and with high powered PCs who can be just as paranormal as the cases they investigate.

For my review of the full setting book, see here:

http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/15/15122.phtml

Very neat product! It's like a "zombie construction kit." It has detailed discussions of all the different kinds of zombies, and detailed advice about how to assign SW stats to reflect the specific kind of zombie you want to create. There's good information for your players too - zombie fighting tactics and strategies, gear, improvised weapons, etc. A variety of sample scenarios are also included to get you going. Highly recommended, especially at the price.

A very good adventure in the pulp hero / crimefighter style that's popular with the Savage Worlds crowd. It's a self-contained adventure, but it would fit in nicely with a series of similar adventures with little to no tweaking (e.g., the Daring Tales of Adventure series, the Thrilling Tales plot point campaign, etc.). It's written to make things easy on the GM, including boxes of text to read to the players. And maps! I can't tell you how frustrated I get with adventures that don't provide maps for important tactical locations, and I'm very glad this isn't one of them. Anyway, if this is your style of adventure, I'd definitely recommend it.

Good stuff, everything your players need to know. Two minor quibbles: 1) It should probably be slightly cheaper. 2) It includes the table of contents for the whole setting book, which could be a little spoilerish for your players. Otherwise, again, good stuff.