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Welcome to the second news Roundup in May. As I'm sure most readers are aware, it is OSE Month on Backerkit, and there are a number of projects being funded in conjunction with two official Necrotic Gnome releases: the Demonic Grimoire and the new 2026 Core release. There are a lot of really cool projects being funded, and a lot of community enthusiasm for the collab.

For fans of the Casket of Fays fanzine, the publishers have provided this code to get 1.50 off the print version of Issue 18.

• directsun crowdfunded A Familiar Tower during this year's ZineQuest, and it is now out and available on Drivethru. They've become synonomous with puzzle dungeons, and this release is no exception.
• haboobies has released wizardbong, a system-neutral, tongue-in-cheek, supplement for more modern games, written as a school report. More importantly, it's their first release, and I will always plug first-time creators and their work!
• Deserting the Illusions of a Safe Rest is a collection of random events that can happen while the party is resting for the night. It's specifically for the author's system, but can be easily adapted to other games, as well.
• SDDND has released the first in a series of 6 planned themed one-page dungeons: Dungeon Cookbook Delves #1, using Cairn.
• Another adventure for Cairn is Toxic Tangle, with delightful art, featuring a possible dead moonshiner.
• The Red Plague, by Dongons and Darons, is a point-crawl adventure for OSE that is available in both English and French! It's also urban-based, which is something I see a lot of people asking about.
• Written for Mork Borg, the Dreadful Citadel of Urzengotz is a multiplanar urban setting location inspired by weird science fantasy.
• Flailing in Style has released two short adventures for Pirate Borg: The Lightless Sea and Tropical Terrors.
• Fated is a system-neutral, tarot-based system for generating NPCs and encounters.
• Whispers of the Burrow Gods is a setting expansion for the Mice of Legend publication, exploring the pantheon and worshippers of the Portal Lake region.
• Ever & Anon, the spiritual successor to Alarums and Excursions, has just released Issue 11 of the free fanzine.
• FLAIL is a cool system by Games Omnivorous, and I'm glad to see it's getting some 3rd party support. The Horrors Beneath Zamorcia is a short dungeon for use with FLAIL, available as PWYW.
• Games Omnivorous themselves have released Cult of the Mutant Mutton for FLAIL.
• Might as Well Jump is a Mausritter sci-fi adventure released in conjunction with PocketQuest month on Drivethru. My guess is that, due to the richness of the theme and content, this will be expanded in the future.
• Every so often I'll plug a crowdfunding project that doesn't look like it will hit its funding goal, but is interesting enough that I think it deserves some exposure: Into the Barrowlands is such a project, a low-fantasy hexcrawl setting inspired by Arthurian legends. It's only got a couple of days left to fund, and is a ways off from their goal.

Welcome to the first News Roundup for May, 2026. To forestall questions, yes, I am aware that OSE Month, but I try not to plug stuff until they go live, so I'll be looking at those projects next week, since the official launch date is the 6th. Last week was pretty heavy on the releases, compared to the previous few weeks, and it really seems like back to normal.

• The Lone Legend has released Gloam, a stand-alone system using tarot that is inspired by His Majesty the Worm, Burning Wheel, Forbidden Lands, Dolmenwood, and the excellent Neverland by Andrew Kolb.
• swanandravenstudio has released Tradlife, a short, psychological horror rpg based on the current trend of tradwifery.
• The excellent Machine Gods of the Noxian Expanse is getting the Mork Borg treatment, and is currently funding on Kickstarter. It's set in a post-apocalyptic, feudal society, ruled over by god-like AIs that once served man before the world fell.
• Shrine of the Cabbage God is an interesting, BX-style dungeon written for a party of 4th-6th level. It involves the shrine of a petty god, which always piques my interest!
• Published by Hellwinter Forge of Wonders, The Seventh Star is a pretty neat adventure written for Dolmenwood.
• I'm not familiar with Experimental Playground, but they've just released Kosmos, a rules-lite science fantasy game that looks pretty intriguing.
• Kaiser is a heroic fantasy hack of Mork Borg, and Heroes of Yore is a newly released player supplement for that system that adds tons of new options.
• The Lone Adventurer: Failed Harvest is an adventure written for OSE designed specifically for two person play -- one Referee and one player -- which between solo and traditionally party assumptions is not something we see that much of.
• The illustrious Rob Conley has released Into the Majestic Fantasy Realms: The Northern Reaches, a massive, much-anticipated release that expands their setting.
• Pickpocket Press has released the Argosa NPC Deck, a seventy card deck used to generate NPCs for fantasy games (it's technically system neutral).
• Swyvers is an excellent, urban rpg that centers around thieves, heists, and cons, and I was excited to see Rare Birds, a heist written just for Swyvers.
• Written for Shadowdark, The Strangled Wood is a forest-crawl adventure that features art by one of my favorites: Carlos Castilho.
• The Fantasy Trip is a classic, innovative (for its time) game that has seen more love over the past few years, and just learned there's a free fanzine dedicated to it! The Heresy zine is on it's 4th issue.
• The Last Broadcast is a fascinating hack of Mork Borg, a game of doomed pilgrims and decaying transmissions.
• Rod Waibel is crowdfunding Shadow Fables, a bestiary for Shadowdark based off of real-world mythology, fairy tales, and legends.
• Mythworks is winding down a Kickstarter for Breathless, Frighmare edition, a game of survival zombie horror.
• The reprint crowdfunding of the Into the Wild Omnibus is still ongoing, with a little more than a week to go. I'm almost out of the original print run of this book, and decided to order another run, but it's a large up front outlay, so I decided to run a quick Kickstarter for it.

Note that the Drivethru links are Affiliate links.

Welcome to the last News Roundup for April. I don't usually post links to software-related projects, but I've got two this week that were brought to my attention: a simple turn tracker on itch, and there's also One More Adventure on Steam, an explicitly OSR hexcrawl rogue-like game. Otherwise, it's a short one this week.

• Halls of the Witch Queen is a free adventure for Cairn 2e, in which the adventurers are enticed to explore a ruined castle that is rumored to contain a relic of the witch queen.
• There's likely to be increased interest in Mythic Bastionland as 3d6 Down the Line prepares to jump into their new campaign, and I saw the other day that Bart has launched The Watcher, a new myth for Mythic Bastionland.
• The prolific Joseph R Lewis has just released Kneel Before the Goblin King!, an adventure for Shadowdark.
• Hunted House is another adventure for Shadowdark, designed for characters of level 0-2.
• Will has released Invasion of the Space Troopers, bringing an invasion of space fascists to Forbidden Psalms (which Sabre is now carrying!).
• We've just started to carry Vagabond in the store, and I've seen the first 3pp supplement for it this week: Thrall is a warlock-themed class for that system.
• Yochai Gal has released a collection of pregens for Cairn 2e, for free, on Drivethru.
• Joel Hines has launched Citadel of the Sun Kings, a sword and sorcery desert adventure written by rpg luminary Michael Curtis.
• Brian Shutter, of Neon Lords of the Toxic Wastelands, is crowdfunding for Neon Bastardz, a Mork Borg compatible . . . riff, I guess, on NLoTW? It's a stand-alone game, but very similar to their earlier, excellent work.
• I'm crowdfunding another print run of the Into the Wild Omnibus, since I'm almost out of my last print run. The Omnibus is an almost 400 page hardcover, smyth-sewn book that combines A Guide to Thieves' Guilds, Filling in the Blanks, and Into the Wild.

Please note that the Drivethru links are affiliate links.

Welcome to the third news Roundup in April. It's a dry, dry month here, with temperatures way above normal, perfect for hanging out indoors and checking out some new games!

• I don't know how I missed this, but Johan Nohr, the driving force behind Mork Borg, is raising funds for Fomoria, their game of folk horror. The campaign is well and funded, and is almost over at the time this goes live, but I wanted to make sure to get a mention of it in.
• Simon Taylor is raising funds for The Cohort, an adventure for Mothership where the PCs are tasked with tracking down missing corporate employees.
• Another Mothership adventure currently funding is Red Shift, an adventure where the earth's first colony ship has just been found, drifting through empty space, three centuries after it left the solar system.
• The Mimic's Vault has just released Tarotweaver, a tarot-powered game inspired by Cairn, His Majesty the Worm, Over the Garden Wall, and more.
• Mac, of Mac's Makes Games, has just released Under an Atomic Sky, a campaign hexcrawl for their NUKED! post-apocalyptic setting.
• When the Shimmer Fades is a free adventure for Shadowdark. Themed around corruption and loss of faith, it's an adventure for character levels 2-4, set in a town where greed led to sacrilege.
• Agamemnon Press has released their long-awaited (by me, at least!) Empire of Bones supplement in pdf on Drivethru. It's written for their fantastic Painted Wastelands setting, and looks at a city ruled by necromancers. The art is stunning.
• Tales from the Locker, Issue 1, is the inaugural volume of what is planned to be a regular fanzine for Pirate Borg.
• The prolific and talented Games Omnivorous has released The Flying Lootsman, an adventure for FLAIL!, in which a pirate with a flying ship is terrorizing the land, and it is up to the PCs to stop them and possibly claim the ship as their own.
• Barrel Rider Games has released White Box: Dungeon Adventures, a sort of starter set for their line of White Box retroclones.
• Mean Gits & Flashy Bitz is a supplement for Orc Borg that includes more classes, random tables, and guns. It does pretty much what you think it does.
• Another in the ever-growing list of Borg hacks is Shark Borg: Bloodwater Preview, a PWYW introduction to the game. I'm not exactly clear what the game does, just that it has a lot of sharks in it, which is never a bad thing.
• It's been awhile since I've seen anything by False Machine, but they've just released Gackling Moon, a gazetteer of sorts, written for the Gackling Moon setting.
• David Okum has released Star Borg: Dreadfire Sector, a look at a region in space written for Star Borg, with a setting introduction, new classes, races, and a mini-adventure.
• Depthwalker, an Enemy for Mork Borg, does pretty much what is says on the tin, presents a one-page, PWYW enemy (an animate old-timey diving suit) for Mork Borg encounters.
• Written for Ad Astra and CY_BORG, EUPNEUS is a setting/adventure/campaign set in the depths of space, and includes a tone of material.
• Almost exactly three years after I funded the original print run of the Into the Wild Omnibus I've started up a new Kickstarter to fund a reprint, as I'm now down to my last dozen or so copies. The Omnibus combines A Guide to Thieves' Guilds, Filling in the Blanks, and Into the Wild into a single book, and is all ready to be sent to the printers as soon as the campaign ends.
• I'm pleased to announce the Sabre is now fulfilling the US orders for Forbidden Psalms, the minis game based off of Mork Borg. You can purchase directly from the Forbidden Psalms US webstore, or through Sabre Games and Cards.

Please note that the Drivethru links are Affiliate links.

Welcome to the News Roundup for the second Monday in April. An astute reader pointed out that I have neglected to mention Inkvein, by Murkdice, currently funding on Backerkit. I interviewed Murkdice a few weeks back for Sabre Rattlings, and I totally conflated that with a Roundup mention. Sorry about that! At the time of this writing there's nine days left in the campaign, for a Mork Borg powered mega-dungeon. Also, just as an aside, I'm having a fairly difficult time finding new releases on itch to promote. I don't know if this means that not as many people are releasing over there, or if algorithms have changed, but it you're a creator with something you'd like to promote on itch, please let me know! The Roundup is a little light this week, but I hope you enjoy what I've managed to scrounge together.

Also, as a reminder, April is Orbital Blues Month on Backerkit, and there are six cool projects to back as a part of it.

• The imaginatively named Probable Claws is out on itch. It's a Shadowdark adventure for 4th level characters, and takes place in a sinking port city.
• It's been awhile since I've seen anything written for Wyrm, a system by GilaRPG, but I just happened across Forgotten City of the Salamander God, a wilderness hexcrawl adventure for that system.
• Crests and Symbols of the BoSS is a setting specific guide to the family crests and symbols of the Bay of Spirits setting, by the same author, but you may very well find some artwork or lore in here that can be easily ported over to other systems: crests and family shields being something oft neglected in fantasy games.
• Richard Kelly has released P.H.U.G., an osr-adjacent, rules-lite game that has some interesting stuff in there.
• Uptight Cultist has released Famine, Ash, and Steel, a solo rpg that spun out of the Gygax75 Challenge and is inspired by the slow collapse of empires and the ecology.
• Troubled Troll Grotto, by Dougal Cochrane, is an adventure for Dolmenwood centered around a two-headed troll and includes some amazingly great art.
• Philip Reed has released Horizon, the Endless City, an infinite city/dungeoncrawl.
• Dead Piety: Den of the Root Eater, is an adventure for Mork Borg that funded on Kickstarter last year and is now available.
• Funding now of Kickstarter, Two-Minute Caves is a short supplement designed to quickly generate interesting cave systems to explore.
• Eric Bloat is raising funds for Overworld, an rpg based on 80s and 90s video games, and the culmination of smaller zine releases.
• I'm raising funds for Populated Hexes Monthly Issue 56. This issue is set in the far north of Absalom, on the banks of the Great Inland Sea, and features an abandoned keep inhabited by strange fungal people.

Note that the Drivethru products are Affiliate links.

Welcome to the first News Roundup of April. I started off writing this thinking there weren't going to be many entries, but it turns out there are a bunch this week!

• Jimmy Shelter, publisher of Hiria, the Eternal City and A Visit to San Sibilia, among others, is raising funds for Pine Shallows, a Goonies and Stranger Things-inspired game of meddlesome kids.
• For the next eleven days, there are two Tunnels and Trolls bundles up on bundles of holding: one for the rulebooks, the other for the adventures.
• Lyme, the author of the Ennie-nominated Dawn of the Orcs, has just released Cooking with the Orcs, a recipe-crafting expansion to their initial game.
• Gowanusaurus Rex has released Amontillado, a two-player, one page rpg based on the Poe short story.
• Orbital Blues is one of our best-selling indie rpgs, and there's currently an Orbital Blues month going on over on Backerkit, part of the Backerkit trend of promoting game months.
• John Flood has just released the Psion, a mentally-themed class for Shadowdark.
• Way of the Warlock is a 46-page supplement for OSR games that introduces a warlock class and accoutrements.
• Tentacles Press has just released Fighter Wizard Elf, a collection of notes by Jonathan Tweet condensing his experience running barebones d20 games.
• The prolific Tabletop Engineer has just released Runes #9, their zine geared towards Shadowdark.
• Jeffrey Jones has released three supplements for their Blood Sands setting: an adventure called Rising Tides, and two zines, issues 1 and 2.
• Jeff's been pretty busy, because they also released Gary's Appendix Issue 9, a collection of themed articles, and an Omnibus, that collects the first six issues into a single volume.
• Expeditious Retreat Press has released three adventures for OSRIC, Den of Thieves, Attack of the Mushroom People, and The Heart of the Titan, all three designed for mid-level parties.
• The Fairy Master class, written for Dolmenwood, is a class where you summon and control small, annoying, fey creatures.
• James Spahn and Barrel Rider Games has released White Box Quarterly Issue 2, a quarterly zine with content for White Box.
• Block, Dodge, and Parry is a fun retroclone, and Steel & Survival is 28-page supplement of gear and tactical combat.
• There's probably no need for me to promote this, since it's doing so well, but the Gauntlet Gaming Community (the same folks behind Brindlewood Bay), are crowdfunding Public Access, their rpg inspired by analog and found footage horror.
• Wet Ink Games, the folks behind Cess and Citadel, Wyrd and Wild, Never Going Home, and more, are crowdfunding for Precious Things, a cozy-themed game of small dragons hoarding precious objects.
• I'm raising funds for Populated Hexes Monthly Issue 56, an issue that features an abandoned keep inhabited by fungal-folk.

Welcome to the final News Roundup for March. This has been a pretty busy month for ttrpg releases, so let's see if we can keep the momentum going into April.

• Titan of the Verdant Maw, an adventure for OSE, was released last year, but it's recently been updated with some new material and clarifications of existing content. It's a really cool looking adventure with some sci-fi elements.
• S. Murphy has released Outpost 33, an investigative adventure for Mothership set on an ice-covered planet.
• overeasy is a first time rpg publisher from Indonesia, and has just released Race Your Pardon, a one-off adventure written for Troika! involving a race to win your pardon . . . by any means necessary.
• If you need some NPCs for Dolmenwood, Joey V has started rolling some up and posting them to their itch page. They've done a nice job of taking a character for each class, and then advancing them from levels 1-4 in case you need a recurring NPC or rival that advances as the PCs do as well.
• The Ioun Codex is a supplement for OSE that examines ioun stones, with new varieties, monsters, and NPCs inspired by them.
• Melpomene Games has released Wyrd: Issue 1. This is a zine for Outcast Silver Raiders, with rules for hacking OSR to run a viking-themed setting and game.
• Forbidden Psalms is a neat tabletop minis game hack of Mork Borg, and the publisher has just released Forest Goblins, a new faction for play.
• Total Party Skills has just released Swordshanks, a fantasy rpg and setting, with a wide variety of races and classes to choose from. It's a no-nonsense, beefy book with some neat ideas.
• Scott M has released Aethelberd's Tomb, a low-level adventure for OSRIC that is inspired by adventures from the early days of gaming. My only complaint is that there isn't more interior art; the cover art is utterly charming.
• Kabuki Kaiser has been releasing a lot of material in recent months, and the one I'm probably most excited about is the Temple of Jubilex, an infinite dungeon generator that can be used for solo play or for Referees looking for spark and inspiration.
• Odd Artworks has released Random Mini Dungeons Vol. 1 and 2, each a collection of 10 illustrated mini dungeons, random prompts, and more. The artwork is pretty stunning.
• I would be remiss if I didn't mention Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age, currently funding on Kickstarter. It's a little unclear how much of the original, much loved T&T remains in this new version, but it's definitely a gorgeous looking book.
• The Veiled God is funding on Kickstarter. It's a saga for Barbarians of Lemuria, and looks fantastic.

Note that the Drivethru products are Affiliate links.

It's the fourth Monday in March, and spring has sprung here in Central Virginia. Let's see what last week had in store for us, shall we? There are a lot of new releases to go over.

• One of my favorite things about doing this roundup is getting to promote the work of first time creators: viendhita has just released their first adventure, Like Flowers We Wither & Die, a system-agnostic horror pamphlet adventure. Looking forward to seeing what else viendhita releases!
• Someone who is not a first time author, Hilander, just released Oh Precious Poisoned Elder, and adventure written for Cairn and inspired by Zelda.
• Donjons and Darons has released Triptyque #3: The Toad's Lair, an adventure for OSE written in both English and French!
• M. Allen Hall has released The Baron's Grip, a sandbox adventure for Mausritter.
• Another adventure for Mausritter, this one having funded last year as a part of Mausritter Month, The Rolling Coast is a sandbox campaign setting in an amusement park. I was really looking forward to this project, and am glad to see it is out!
• Prophet+Pilgrim, Voyages in the World Shattered by God, is a setting and rpg inspired by Sindbad and the Arabian Nights.
• Brett Simpson has released Dungeon Von Glick, a short and sweet 2-page adventure written for Monsters! Monsters!
• I was excited to see Under Western Skies, a supplement of random weather events written for Scarlet Heroes (but broadly applicable to any other game). Crawford's work in general deserves more third party support, and it has always been surprising to me that there's not more stuff out there being written for it.
• I don't know if there's something in the water, but there's another Mausritter release this week: Stormfallow, a shorter campaign for the system set on an island.
• Atelier Clandestin, author of the Sandbox Generator, has released Medieval Musings: Hunting, the first in a planned series designed to bring medieval motifs and themes to your games.
• The Shadowfinder Player's Book is now out on Drivethru. It's a conversion of Pathfinder 1e rules to Shadowdark.
• Mythmere Games released a number of OSRIC supplements and products last week, including Fortress Tomb of the Ice Lich, an adventure written by G. Hawkins and designed for higher-level play.
• David Okum has released Pulp, Inc, a Mork Borg hack designed to emulate pulp-style adventures.
• Land of the Blind has released a couple of adventures specifically written for Vagabond (the first I've seen so far for this new system): The Rook & The Crook and Ghost Crest Peak.
• I saw them post about this on socials, and wanted to plug DWIGAS, who's released two supplements for OSE: Mercenaries & Mass Battles and Strongholds & Domains, both geared to providing support to higher level, domain-style play.
• Corpse Husbandry, by Shanklimb, is an adventure written for Dolmenwood with charming, hand-drawn illustrations.
• Trophy is a really interesting system that hasn't gotten as much support as I would have thought, and Amanda Mullins is Kickstarting Ruin, a collection of one-shot incursions for Trophy.
• Pirate Borg: The Winds of Hell, is also raising funds on KS. It's a massive setting and campaign for Pirate Borg.
• Crawl Club is funding Righteous Vow 4, a zine for Shadowdark, with a theme of pirates and ocean-adventures.
• The Gauntlet Gaming Community is raising funds for Public Access. The creators of Brindlewood Bay have written Public Access, an uncanny, Night Vale-esque setting.
• Sabre's finally got Dolmenwood in stock!

Please note that some of these are affiliate links.

Welcome to the third News Roundup for March, 2026. Let's jump right in and check out the most recent releases!

• Utku has released Scalemail, a mass combat system for BX that has been released under the Creative Commons license. The release is currently in early beta.
• David Blandy is an author I really admire, and he's just released The Knight Errant: Expanded Edition. It's a sci-fantasy adventure designed to be run with any Mark of the Odd genre of games (Into the Odd, Cairn, Eco Mofos, etc.), inspired by the weird fiction of Clark Ashton Smith, Moorcock, and others.
• Little Ghost Town, by gingerino42, is a forest point-crawl for use with Cairn, based on a real-life short hike near the author's home.
• Written for Shadowdark, Holy Tinder is a 1st level adventure, in which the PCs must try and save their town from the clutches of an evil priestess.
• I haven't officially announced it yet, but Sabre will be the new US fulfillment partner for Forbidden Psalms, the Mork Borg adjacent miniature skirmish game. They're currently crowdfunding for Legitimate Salvage, a sci-fi version of the game.
• I think I missed plugging this: Hard Wired Island is probably my favorite entry in the cyberpunk genre, and the publishers are currently running a Kickstarter for Second Gig, the first full-length supplement for HWI.
• There's only a short amount of time left to back Twilight Riders, a charmingly low-tech game of weird west roleplaying.
• Flatland Games is perhaps best known for publishing Beyond the Wall, but they've just released Through Sunken Lands: Of Glory and Peril, a supplement for TSL.
• I was intrigued to see the Pressure Quickstart up on Drivethru. It's an upcoming system dealing with rising pressure and danger and the cost of slowing down. It's a free download, and the art is very evocative.
• Colin Le Sueur, of We Deal in Lead and Runecairn, has just released Midnight of the Century, an rpg inspired by thriller and serial killer media from the 90s.
• The Curse of the Dwarven Tomb is a new adventure for Shadowdark, a short delve into, well, a dwarven tomb, written for a party of 4th level characters.
• Haus of Tombs has released The Lighthouse, one of their adventure locations designed to be used in a plug and play nature.
• There's still a lot of interest in solo gaming, and the new release Sunless Wood is designed as a system neutral, introductory adventure to solo gaming.
• Shanklimb has released The Lonely Home of Thin and Bone, a short adventure for mid-level Dolmenwood PCs.
• Ever & Anon Issue 9 is out. This free magazine (it's too long to be just a zine) is the spiritual successor to Alarums and Excursions.
• Lastly, I'm excited to see that the Pirate Borg starter set is now out in pdf, as is the adventure Down Among the Dead.

Welcome to the second news Roundup in March. I've started a little podcast as a part of Sabre, and part of what I'm aiming to do is have some short conversations with people in the indie and OSR gaming spheres. Last week I posted an interview I did with Josh McCrowell, author of His Majesty the Worm, and tomorrow there's an interview going live with Marx Shepherd of the Far Horizons Co-Op. You can find Sabre Rattlings, the podcast, on most major podcatching platforms, and this is the RSS feed.

• Matt Kelly is back at it again, this time with a supplement titled . . . Titles, all about fantasy-style titles and the duties and responsibilities that come with said titles.
• My Friend Mike is an adventure written for Luke Gearing's Violence.
• I'm not sure if there's something in the water, but there's another release for Violence: Amelia is a ten page adventure revolving around stealing a bronze statue of Amelia Earhart.
• I'm a sucker for hex maps, and Uptight Cultist has just uploaded a charming hand-drawn blank hexmap to itch.
• I've been a big fan of Jim Hall for awhile, and he's just launched a Beetle Knight Pamphlet Jam on itch. Beetle Knight is his recently released game about, well, insect knights and warriors (Looks like we still have one copy of the bundle left).
• Secrets of the Old Ruins is an adventure for OSE that focuses on a ruined noble hall and the outlaw band that dwells within.
• One of the best deals in gaming is the Lazy Litch Adventure Bundle that's currently on Drivethru. It includes Mana Meltdown, Haunted Hamlet, Toxic Wood, and Willow.
• Paul Partington has just released another solo gamebook, designed for a fourth level fighter, entitled Hunt on the Borderlands, in which you search for a missing relic.
• The Crypt of Atan-Thu is out on Drivethru, statted for Advanced Labyrinth Lord, an undead-themed adventure for characters levels 6-8. It's also available statted out for a bunch of different OSR systems.
• I haven't seen much from Barrel Rider Games recently, and was pleasantly surprised to see White Box Quarterly #1, a planned quarterly zine for White Box.
• This posted too late last week for me to include it, but Parliament of Owls is a Dolmenwood adventure designed to be dropped into any hex with a river.
• I only just saw this now, and there's only a few days left, but Mudbones is a cool-looking Shadowdark adventure zine and dungeon delve.
• Also on Kickstarter is the Dying Hard on Hardlight Station Anthology, a revision and collection of setting and adventures for Mothership 1e.
• Guns, Mages, Corpses, by the talented Kobayashi, is a swords and sorcery meets cyberpunk mashup done. There's only a couple of days left here, so be sure to jump on this.
• There's about a week left on my current Kickstarter, raising funds for a late ZiMo project, a re-imagining of the classic adventure B1 -- In Search of the Unknown, as the first step in a multi-level Adventure Path.

Please note that the Drivethru products listed above go to an affiliate link.

Welcome to the first News Roundup for March. While ZineMonth is technically over, there are a number of projects that are still running that started late. The Roundup is pretty light this week; I think a lot of folks are just taking a deep breath and relaxing after a hectic month.

• Sivad's Sanctum has released Inn of the Red Roof, a thirteen level dungeon written for od&d. They've been posting WIP shots of this project on Bluesky for a month or so, and it looks really neat.
• The Dying River is a short, adventure pamphlet for Year 100 Million BC, in which the PCs are unexceptional cavemen sent out to find out why a river is drying up.
• I think Coyote and Crow is one of the coolest games to come out in the last few years, and they're currently Kickstarting a supplement for it. Legends & Icons is a collection of over 100 monsters, spirits, factions, and more.
• And He Shall Eat the Sun is funding on Kickstarter. It's a high-lethality, tournament-style dungeon written for OSR-style games, set in a dungeon in the body of a god.
• Outrider Creatives is funding The Princess and the Dragon, a supplement for the great Perils and Princesses game.
• The people over at Angry Golem Games as released another Fortnightly Adventures. Vol. 6, the Drowned Relic, is an adventure for lower-level characters involving sahuagin.
• The Village of Syblos is a planned adventure written for Shadowdark that the author has released a one-page preview for. It's an interesting premise, and is worth checking out just to follow the project.
• The Pirate's Hymnal is a collection of sea shanties for Pirate Borg. We should be seeing a bunch of new releases for PB in the next few months as previous crowdfunding projects come to fruition.
• Necrotic Gnome has released their Quick Delve #3, Against the Horselord. Written by Brad Kerr, it's designed for mid-level characters (levels 5-7), and one or two sessions.
• Mirror People is a short supplement for Liminal Horror that introduces the mirror people, a new monster.
• Written for the Appendix N Jam, The Chalk-Marked Grave is an adventure for Cairn, a mini-pointcrawl through a weird wasteland.
• Crawl from the Catacombs is a 0-level funnel for Shadowdark, in which the PCs wake up, buried in coffins, seemingly resurrected from the dead, and must first escape their tombs.
• Written for Shadowdark, The Shadowed Village is an adventure where the PCs must find and rescue a magic-user who's actions may have doomed their town . . . and is the only hope to save it.
• Under the Dolmens, Delve #2, by 2DIE10 Games, is a one-shot adventure for Dolmenwood.
• I've launched Quest for the Unknown: The Caverns of Anamosa, an experiment in OSR Adventure Paths that remixes the classic adventure B1 -- In Search of the Unknown in to the first book of a planned epic campaign.
• Populated Hexes Monthly, Year Four is now available on Drivethru in pdf and print on demand. The offset version will soon be available through Sabre as well as Drivethru. It compiles Issues 37-48 into a single volume, with all new art.

Note that the Drivethru links are affiliate links.

Well, this is the last News Roundup in February, and ZineMonth is wrapping up, although there will be projects still running into March. I haven't really been covering specific projects (for one, there are really too many great sounding ones that would just overwhelm the Roundup), but have been trying to point to resources to help find them instead. I'd like to plug one specific project, though, that ends very soon (I believe on Tuesday): Seedling Games is raising funds for The Sierra Express, a game of hijinks aboard a train in an alternate reality Weird West. I've been a big fan of Seedling Games for awhile -- Procedures to Discover the Paths Ahead is a great little supplement -- and I feel bad that I missed this project until towards the end of its run. You should check it out, help push it over the finish line.

• Sivads Sanctum has been knocking it out of the park recently with their Americana inspired settings and adventures; their new one, The Parent of Fear, is a hexcrawl setting roughly analogous to the New England coast during the heyday of the whaling industry. They're slowfunding it on itch.
• I've been plugging You Can Breathe Now Games for awhile, and they've just released the poetically named In a Tomb of Splendor by the Endless Sea, an adventure for Forbidden Lands.
• Kuźnia Wyobraźni has released a cool looking mini-zine on itch: Ocarina of the Waves. It's designed to be printed and folded, and is based around the theme "waves".
• If I can confess a secret, my ideal rpg would be something like Sid Meier's Civilization (over a much shorter time span): I love the domain play aspect and city management, and was really chuffed to see Of Rule and Ruin funding on Kickstarter. It's a solo game of city management, and seems really worthwhile checking out.
• I'm not familiar with the Great Plains Apocalypse system, but I see they've just released Antler Valley; it's a hexcrawl in post-apocalyptic Appalachia.
• John Baltisberger has been putting out quality projects for years, and has just released The Catacombs of Dread King Dreg, a mini-adventure for Mork Borg.
• Brett Simpson has released Uppity Bit, the second part of Friar's Keep, featuring absolutely charming art.
• Written for Mauritter, Hearts on the Brink is a fascinating adventure location based on the remnants of a car crash that has been settled by mice.
• In the past year I've seen a lot of projects inspired by the old Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, and Experimental Playground has just released Spellzard, 2nd edition. It's a rules-lite, dry-humored rpg designed (nay, encouraged) to be hacked.
• Under an Irreverent Sky is a short retroclone designed by Orbital Intelligence that seeks to strip the OSR experience to the bare bones while including the core premises of the OSR.
• The Sandbox Generator, by Atelier Clandestin, is one of the projects always mentioned when the topic of populating a hexcrawl comes up; I haven't seen any new releases for it in awhile, but just saw they've released an Urban Expansion supplement.
• A couple of years back Eric Bloat released War for the Wastelands, a mini post-apocalyptic system, and I see they've just released an expanded, almost two hundred page version of the game, adapted to their Survive This! system.
• Outcast Silver Raiders is a really great game that is way too grimdark for me, but I still appreciate it, especially the layout and art. Altar is a 3rd party zine published for OSR, and has now just released Issue 4.
• Every so often a cool looking project drops on a Monday, after the Roundup has been posted, and I don't include it. That happened last week with The Lost Vault of Zarnak is a pretty classic dungeon crawl designed to take characters from level 1-6.
• Gründer: Business Adventure Game is live on Drivethru. It's a Mark of the Odd driven game, in which the PCs seek to found a business. Probably not everyone's jam, but I think even if not there are some useful bits and bobs one can steal, especially when your players inevitably begin talking about starting a business.
• I'm going to be launching a project on Tuesday for ZineMonth. Called The Caverns of Anamosa, I'm toying around with the idea of a campaign to take PCs from levels 1-14, based on the Adventure Path format. This is the first issue of a planned adventure path that takes the classic module B1 -- In Search of the Unknown, and fiddles with it, reworking the dungeon and extrapolating a looming barbarian invasion from the north.

Please note that the Drivethru links in this roundup are Affiliate links.

Welcome to the third news Roundup for February. We're in the thick of ZineMonth, as I believe I've mentioned once or twice before? Anyway, I've been conducting and posting print interviews on the blog (you can search for them using the ZiMo26 tag) and audio interviews that you can find on the nascent Sabre Rattlings podcast (the link is the RSS feed), all to promote ZineMonth creators.

I don't know why I missed this last week, but the No ICE in Minnesota bundle is live on itch. It contains almost 1,500 titles and all proceeds go to support a great cause.

Let's dive in and see what other projects were released last week:

• Roundup favorite Inkwell Ideas, the creator of the excellent Worldographer mapping program, is crowdfunding for Rock and Roar, a collection of monsters based on classic rock songs and artists! It's a pretty cool-looking project!
• New to me is the Menu zine, on itch, a collection of articles geared towards various rpgs. It's primarily 5e focused, but there's some interesting Shadowdark and other OSR material in there, as well.
• ManaDawn Games has released Valley of Wrecked Fortunes, a mini gothic hexcrawl that's a collaboration between Matt and Roundup favorite Perplexing Ruins.
• I had mentioned Abigail's Wedding, by doogface, awhile back, and just saw they've released a six page updated version, again with art by Perplexing Ruins. The updated version looks really good.
• Echoes of Mnareth is an interesting dungeon by Gnarled Monster that started as a one-page dungeon inspired by the Caverns of Thracia that has grown into something much longer.
• Necrotic Gnome has released a new collection of four Referee screen inserts on Drivethru.
• Kevin Crawford is, for my money, one of the best OSR small press publishers out there, and they've just released an 80+ page setting guide on Drivethru. The Proteus Sector takes me back to the early day of SWN when Crawford was releasing a ton of supplemental stuff for it.
• Goblin Grove is a short little mini-zine and adventure focusing on the Goblin King and his stolen magical sword.
• The folks over at Red Ruin Publishing have released issue 17 of their Dragon Warriors fanzine, Casket of Fays.
• A Pirate's Life for Me is a short adventure for Pirate Borg. With the recent notification that the last big Pirate Borg Kickstarter is now fulfilling, there's no doubt going to be renewed interest in PB (my personal version of the Borgs).
• Marco Fossati has released Liber Umbrae, a system-neutral toolkit for adding horror to your rpg.
• I'd mentioned Jade and Ash before, and the author reached out to me to let me know they've bundled all four of their products into a single discounted bundle.
• Richard Barton is probably one of my favorite authors publishing today, and he's just released The Thicket, a 50-page adventure that ties into Arden Vul, the masterful mega-dungeon.
• Cairn Press has just released a Barebones edition, a a free 48-page pdf that presents a setting neutral version of Cairn.

EDIT: Oops, also, the DT links are affiliate links.

Welcome to the OSR News Roundup for February 9th, 2026. ZineMonth is in full swing, and I'll be releasing some print interviews over the month promoting various projects. I've also, because apparently I'm not busy enough, decided to start releasing a podcast. The goal is to release short, weekly episodes, with an emphasis on talking about topics in gaming that we're excited about. You can catch the first episode here (link is to podbean, but it should be available on all major podcatchers under the name "Sabre Rattlings"). If you're a creator, with something you'd like to promote, and you'd like to sit for a short interview let me know and we'll try to get a time scheduled.

There's a lot going on with projects funding, so in lieu of covering everything I find interesting here (it would be a long Roundup) you can find various projects at the following locations:

• ZiMo 2026 independent page
• Kickstarter
• Backerkit

Let's jump into some of the releases, shall we?

• Matt Kelly has been releasing a number of short, slick supplements designed to expand options for OSR-games, specifically Cairn. Their most recent release is called Enterprises, and is geared towards mercantile ventures.
• Liquid Euphoria is funding on Backerkit, and is an open-ended adventure for Cairn set in a small village in the official setting for Cairn.
• Most of the projects for ZiMo are either Backerkit or Kickstarter, but Sivad's Sanctum is using itch to slowfund their project: The Bastardized Classics Redux. Their series remixes the early TSR modules and modernizes them, and the itchfunding is for four adventures: two already written and two upcoming, that update S1-S4.
• Wyld bills itself as a "cozydark" fantasy, built on the Cairn 1e engine, that focuses on anthropomorphic forest folk.
• Funding on Backerkit, YAB Bag #1 is an interesting release by a newly formed collective of creators. It features six mini-games with an eclectic, thought-provoking focus.
• I don't see many releases for Basic Roleplaying, so wanted to make sure to plug A6: Beneath the City of Keys, an adventure set in a city plagued by lycanthropy.
• Frankie Breakbone has released a pretty slick looking print-at-home character screen designed specifically for B/X.
• I plugged Choir of Flesh awhile back, and I see that Blackoath Entertainment has released Apocrypha, an expansion that dives into the sins of the Gnostics.
• The folks over at Dank Games have released Something Wicked, an adventure for Mothership 1e, featuring the mansion of a reclusive treasure hunter who has disappeared, leaving a house full of traps, treasures, and something else, something wicked, behind.
• Jeffrey Jones is running a Kickstarter for his Blood Sands setting, including four zines (an adventure, bestiary, class options, and setting guide) written for OSE. Blood Sands is a science fantasy setting.
• I'm currently raising funds for Populated Hexes Monthly Issue 54, a collection of two small dungeons, one inhabited by wyverns, one by ogres, in a remote mountainous hex.

Note that the Drivethru links here are affiliate links. Affiliate links take no profit away from the creators, and help me to maintain this weekly newsletter.

Welcome to the first News Roundup for February. January felt like it was a year long, but now with February we're into ZineMonth, and all the projects that it entails. I'll be posting periodic interviews with ZineMonth creators for the next month and a half, and I encourage everyone to check out the projects being funded and to support small, independent publishers. As I'm writing this it's still too early for a lot of projects, so expect the ZiMo stuff to come at you fast and furious next week.

• I've made no secret that one of my favorite indie game designers is Tanya Floaker, and they've just launched a Kickstarter for their ZiMo project. Called A Thunder Perfect Mind, it's an occult action thriller in which the players are revenants dealing with the wreckage of their lives.
• Crypt_Rich has published Greed's Punch Bowl, part one of a planned three-part adventure collection. The first one features a bandit hideout, and is statted for Cairn.
• Winnifred's Cube is a isometric dungeon crawl in a non-euclidian space, submitted to the itch Isometric Dungeon Jam. It's written for Cairn, Shadowdark, and other OSR systems.
• Doogface has released Abigail's Wedding, a two-page monster lair for Dolmenwood, designed to be able to drop into the setting in any hex containing a ley line.
• If there are any Greyhawk fans out there, Forlorn Skulk has just launched a Kickstarter as part of ZineMonth that could use your support. It's called Sarkaasa'a Lair, and is written for OSE. It's a labor of love, and the previewed art is utterly charming.
• It's been awhile since I've seen anything by Lloyd Metcalf, but he's in the process of funding a short zine as a part of ZineMonth. Called Tales from the Hearth, it's not a gaming zine per se, but instead a collection of three stories written to spark the creative juices and provide fodder for adventures.
• Roll and Perish has released The Triangle Gorge, a generic OSR adventure loosely statted for OSE. It's a deadly, combat-heavy dungeon, with some fantastic artwork by the author.
• The Gribbit is a race-as-class amphibian option for Old School Essentials, reminiscent of gripplis.
• The prolific and talented Kabuki Kaiser has released Many Sought Adventure, a d6-powered OSR ruleset that's billed as a "Rosetta Stone" that allows running most of the OSR and original games without cumbersome conversions.
• Roundup favorite Munkao and Centaur Games has released Tragedy at Zaya's Theatre, an adventure for Cairn, Into the Odd, and their own Kala Mandala ruleset.
• Joseph Lewis and Dungeon Age Adventures has released Ragged Hollow Nightmare, an adventure and setting written for Cairn.
• The folks that publish Fortnightly Adventures have released Volume 5, the Forsaken Reserva, an OSE adventure for characters 1-3.

The Drivethru links in this Roundup are affiliate links. Affiliate links don't take anything away from the creator, and helps allow me to publish these weekly roundups.

Welcome to the last News Roundup for January 26th. If you're reading this right now, it means we haven't lost power today; like much of the US, we're being hit by a severe winter storm. I hope everyone stays safe and as warm as possible. Last week was pretty light on releases -- I'm assuming many publishers are getting ready to launch projects for ZineMonth -- so let's see what is on tap for today. The Drivethru links in this Roundup are affiliate links. Affiliate links don't take anything away from the creator, and helps make it possible for me to publish this Roundup. Also, fuck ICE.

• Matt Kelly has gradually been releasing supplements that expand on Cairn's core rules, and they just released Trade, a supplement that does what it says on the tin, with card-driven trade rules.
• I've mentioned Glowburn & Radscars, the post-apocalyptic game, in the past, and the publisher has just released Feature Presentation, their first illustrated adventure for G&R.
• Scalemail is a cool looking OSR system currently funding on Kickstarter. It's rules-lite, and has charming illustrations and a slick-looking layout.
• The Merry Mushmen are raising funds for Dungeon Inc, a reverse dungeon game where you play the role of monsters defending their dungeon from invading adventurers.
• Lightning Quest is a fast-paced, solo puzzle dungeon crawl game that's currently funding on Kickstarter. It's an interesting looking game with a low buy-in that changes each time you play it.
• I'm a huge fan of Christopher Willett's Painted Wasteland, and they've just (as of Monday morning) launched a setting/campaign for PW, called Empire of Bones. You can check out the free preview here.
• Take the Tower is a 0-level funnel for Shadowdark. It comes in a printer-friendly version, which is always a plus for PDF-only products.
• Dank Games has released Children of the New Gods, a short, two page adventure for Mothership set in a colony filled with settlers that have been transformed into monstrosities.
• I'm seeing more and more Dolmenwood compatible products being released, and Red Gwen's Bandit Hideout. It's a short little adventure based on one of the unfilled hexes in Dolmenwood.
• One of my favorite releases in the past few years was Eco Mofos, and I saw that there's a new supplement for that game, written by Peter Eijk, called Road Warriors, which brings vehicle rules into the system.
• Bergummo's Tower is a starting adventure for OSRIC, an entry into the No Artpunk 2 Contest.
• Tesseract Engine has released a solo ruleset for Jack Rocket, a fascinating-looking game that revisits the space dreams and hidden fears of 1950s America.
• The Madder Hag is a periodic zine designed as a series of modular mini-adventure and supplement. This, Issue 8, visits the magic-user class with new materials, spells, and more.
• Richard Kelly has released Mugshots, a supplements for the Mork Borg hack Cthork Borg.
• Fängelsehåla is a recently released, IKEA-inspired game, and Raspberry Juice is the first (that I'm aware of) adventure for this system.
• The OSRIC Gamemaster's Guide is now available as PWYW on Drivethru. It's the 3rd edition of the system that started it all.
• Pickpocket Press has released A3 Adventure #1 -- Whitestone Tower, an experimental form of adventure by the Tales of Argosa publisher.

Welcome to the third News Roundup for January. ZineMonth is just around the corner; last week there were a lot of new releases, so let's see what this week brings us, shall we?

• The Fracture Between Jade and Ash is a system-neutral, city-based scenario that relies on the conflict between two factions -- Jade Serpents and Ash-born -- to ratchet up the tension in the adventure.
• Moonwhisper Magic has released What Hirelings, a collection of 35 NPC and hireling cards statted for general OSR games.
• The Frog Lord's Hold, by David Okum, is a system agnostic, swords and whiskers adventure with a heist theme.
• Black Knife Media has released Kobolds, a Class for OSE. It is presented as both race as class and race and class flavors.
• I'm a big fan of hexcrawls, and was intrigued to see Khazia: the Fasting East, a mini-hexcrawl for Shadowdark. It includes the map, locations of interest, and a bunch of character options to help provide flavor to the region.
• Roundup regular Paul Partington has released another solo gamebook for OSE: Desolation of the God King, an Egyptian-themed adventure that can be played without a Referee.
• Games Omnivorous has released Best Served Cold and Tomb of 1000 Gears, two minimalist, low-prep games for FLAIL in a slick double-side postcard format.
• I'm not sure if this is brilliant or Mork Borg finally jumping the shark, but I see that someone releases Cottage Borg, a cozy, slice-of-life game powered by the Mork Borg engine.
• I'd mentioned Roguelike Megadungeon before as part of ZineMonth 2022, and, after a number of setbacks, it's been released on Drivethru. The publisher is upfront about the delay, and it always makes me happy when a delayed product is finally released. I was really looking forward this release, as a big fan of the roguelike dungeon-crawling zine.
• Jeff Stevens is raising funds for The Savage Arctic, a campaign setting in the frozen tundra.
• I'm raising funds for Populated Hexes Monthly Issue 53, a location on a lonely moor featuring a korred and a haunted barrow, as well as a half-nixie class.

Welcome to the second News Roundup in a 2026 that has already felt about six months long. ZineMonth is three weeks away, and I've already collected some interviews to promote projects; if you're participating in this year's ZineMonth and want some promotion please get in touch with me and I'll send over some short interview questions.

The first thing I'd like to plug is the free zine released by the NSR Cauldron Discord server. To me, this Discord has some of the same energy as the heady days of Google +, and the server has just released their first free zine: Sword&.

• No Seat Belts has released Hobs -- Household and Familial Spirits for Cairn, a supplement that does pretty much what it says on the tin. It also features art by Perplexing Ruins, a Roundup favorite.
• Another release for Cairn is Heron Watch, an adventure exploring the ruins of a keep built by an order of knights inspired by early airplane pilots. The art is pretty stunning. This release is free for a couple of weeks, after which you'll have to pay for it.
• A Change is Coming is a charming solo, one page rpg about a very hungry caterpillar feasting on the nearby countryside in order to metamorphize into . . . something.
• I am not familiar with publisher Juggle Bubble, but I see they've just released You'll Meet the Devil at a Crossroads, a GMless story game for 1-6 players about making choices.
• Before they Were Heroes is a character sheet of 0-level PCs in OSE.
• Another OSE release is The Isle of Ruk and the Dungeon of Klinis, a small sandbox setting with three-level dungeon.
• Doogface has released On Axionic Wings, a pamphlet scenario for Mothership 1e, designed to be run as a one-shot or an encounter en route to other adventures.
• One of my favorite publishers is Lazy Litch, and they've just released a free preview of their upcoming release: Demidirge, a mind-bending adventure for Shadowdark.
• Christian Eichhorn has released CLVSTER, a sandbox adventure for Death in Space and CY_BORG, set in a haunted asteroid mining belt.
• Temple of the Rotting Priest is a short, one-shot adventure for OSE featuring a three-foot tall kobold in a ten gallon hat looking to hire the PCs to track down a stolen shipment.
• James Spahn of Barrel Rider Games has released The Devil's Due, a game of grimdark gothic heroes.
• The ever-prolific James Floyd Kelly has released two zines: Runes #8, focused on Shadowdark, and Delver #19, for OSE. Like all OSR products, the content is largely system agnostic, and can easily be adapted into other games.
• Kabuki Kaiser has released The Player's Bestiary, a reference for solo players to create an imaginary gaming group.
• Written for Dolmenwood, The Classic Kindred Collection presents the four classic kindreds -- dwarf, gnome, halfling, and half-elf -- adapted for Dolmenwood.
• Knight Owl Publishing is funding The Vanilla Adventure, an updated version of the original game that was released in 2017. Knight Owl has a great track record with their releases, and we stock a number of their titles in store.
• There are two days left in the Kickstarter for the BX Advanced Bestiary, Vol. 3, covering monsters L-R from the OSE Classic tome, with options and variants to add spice to your encounters.

Welcome to the first News Roundup for 2026. The holidays (in the US, at least) are over, and we're heading towards ZineMonth in a matter of weeks. I've already got some interviews lined up, and just want to remind folks that if you're participating in the event, and want some free press, there are a few options:

• You can send me an email at thirdkingdomgames at gmail dot com and I'll hook you up with a few short and sweet questions.
• I've started a thread on rpgnet for people to promote their projects. Feel free to hop over there and post about your work!

The past few weeks have been understandably slow with releases, so let's see if that pace has picked up a bit now that the holidays are over (spoiler, there's a lot of new stuff this week!).

• Distant Lands is an interesting looking Cairn Hack that borrows the corruption mechanics from Weird North. It gets an extra shout out from me because Perplexing Ruins did the artwork, and his works really sets the tone for the game, as much as the mechanics.
• Afterthought Committee has released E.V.I.L. (Every Villain is a Loser) on itch, a game where you play the henches, mooks, and goons working for super-villains. It's designed so it can be played with or without a GM.
• I'm not familiar with Pytanga Studios, but they're out of Brazil, and look to be continuing the rich tradition of excellent OSR products coming out of Brazil. They've just released The Grand Grimoire of Marvelous Relics, a system neutral supplement for generating unique magical items.
• Steven Gibbs has released two new adventures for Pirate Borg: Curse of the Rumrunners and It Comes from the Deep.
• There are a bunch of supplements for randomly generating features and encounters for hexcrawls, but I rarely see them devoted just to settlements: the aptly-named Instant Settlement Builder is an entry into the latter category.
• I'd mentioned the Land of Blood and Honey zine awhile back, and just saw that Issue 2 is now out. It's a setting specific zine for OSR games, but can be easily adapted for use with other games, especially those with a desert setting.
• Shutirah, by WatcherDM, was a submission to the recent Zungeon Jam, focusing on the eponymous island chain and the corpse of a minor deity that affects the surrounding area.
• Arbitrio Games has released The Lost Opus of the Lich Bard, an adventure for Shadowdark centered around a bard who attained lich-dom and the quest to destroy its spirit vessel.
• BX Modern, by Jeremy Reaban, is pretty much what it says, an adaption of the BX rules to run modern games. It's bare-bones, no art.
• Losing Games has released Cabinet of Curiosities, an official adventure for Mausritter, a snakes and ladders-inspired adventure set in a storage cabinet that has become a weird, extra-dimensional space due to the strange artifacts stored within.
• Into the Bronze is a fantastic rpg that hails from Brazil, and Under the Seal of Solomon is a release for that system where the adventurers are tasked by Solomon to capture the demons that are running roughshod through his kingdom.
• Prancing Puca has released Cobbins, an ancestry for use with Dolmenwood.
• Eric Bloat is funding Campgrounds and Cryptids, a collection of four solo zines of modern horror and mystery.
• d66 Hexes to Explore, by Philip Reed, is pretty much what it says. Philip's got a strong track record with Kickstarted products, and always publishes solid supplements.
• The Kranus Collection, by Kabouter Games, is on Kickstarter, funding a release of system neutral magical items.
• Volume 3 of the BX Advanced Bestiary is still funding on Kickstarter. It covers monsters L-R from the BX and OSE Classic rules, expanding them with options and new variants.

Welcome to the last News Roundup for 2025. I know this year was fraught and stressful, at best, for a lot of people, and we're looking at a 2026 with plenty of unknowns and economic uncertainty. A big bright spot for me in the upcoming year is going to be ZineMonth2026, starting in February. I've already seen a number of people start promoting their projects, and I'd love to help with that. If you're going to be participating in the event, and have time to answer a few short, softball questions about your project, please let me know and I'll send them over.

Also, I've had some people ask about how to subscribe to the Roundup. This link should take you to the sign-up page. I send the Roundup out every Monday around 1:00 pm (eastern US time) via Mailchimp. It's a relatively light week, as might be expected for the week between two holidays, and a month before ZineMonth.

• As someone who publishes my own work I like to have a collection of dungeons to draw on that I can use to populate; NPC has just released the Guildhall Basement Dungeon, a small, ready to populate dungeon laid out with space to record encounters/areas of interest (this was supposed to go in last week's Roundup); also now out is Crook Sect, a release for Shadowdark with NPCs and a ritual fighting pit.
• Drops of St. Jerome is a small, nine-room dungeon written for Cairn, with themes of sorrow and loneliness.
• Hilander has released Felwoods, an OSR-lite game of travel through a mysterious and dangerous land, using the public domain art of Warwick Goble.
• Block, Dodge, Parry is a sweet little OSR system I've mentioned before, and I see that there's no an "official" zine: Steel & Survival, Issue 1. It focuses on gear and equipment, and should be useful for a variety of OSR systems in addition to BDP.
• In the Light of the Setting Sun, by Sivad's Sanctum, is a wild west game that I've been following the development of over the past year or two, and the publisher is currently hosting a game jam on itch for it, entitled On the Rails Jam, with the goal for all participants to contribute a car to the Rose & Thorn train, traveling along the frontier.
• Menagerie Press has released Gnome for the Holidays 2 -- A Shadowdark Christmas Adventure and Gnome of the Holidays 1, as well, on Drivethrurpg. Both are for Shadowdark.
• A Christmas Cookie Caper is another holiday themed adventure, written for Mausritter, where you play mice trying to steal Santa's cookies from under the watchful eyes of Pepper, the housecat.
• David Garrett has released Forgotten Shrine 1, a puzzle dungeon for Shadowdark.
• Many readers may have been gaming in the 80s and 90s and will well remember the Satanic Panic; Eric Bloat has just released a zine about and influenced by those dark days in gaming history.
• The Goblins of Volm is a one-page dungeon that is modular to allow mixing and matching to create up to ten different dungeons. It features charming, lo-fi art that is right up my alley. Everyone who insists on using AI art for their projects should check this out.
• The OSRIC 3rd Player's Guide pdf is now available on Drivethru. It's free, and should be a marked improvement -- from a layout perspective -- from the previous versions. I'm looking forward to diving in and seeing how it's been put together.

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Welcome to the penultimate News Roundup of 2025, and, as it happens, the anniversary of this newsletter. The first Roundup was published on December 20th, 2021. I hope that readers have gotten some benefit from it; I know for me it has opened up a wide range of indie and OSR publishers and some fantastic products that I otherwise might not have heard from, and the simple act of maintaining this as a routine as helped motivate my writing in general (I am, if anything, a routine-driven person).

Since this is two days before Christmas, and right in the heart of the holiday season, releases are a little light this week.

• Ran has released a Quickstart guide to Those Under the Mountain, a dwarven fortress inspired settlement building game. It looks amazing.
• Frozen Fane of the Far Traveler is a mini-dungeon for Cairn, written as part of the Zungeon jam. It's a cold-themed adventure, perfect for this time of year (in the northern hemisphere, at least!), and features alien yeti, ice scorpions, and more.
• The prolific ManaDawn has released Riverbend Valley, a mini-setting hexcrawl for Mausritter.
• Rat in a Suit is a publisher I discovered this year, and they've just released A Glorious Winter Gift Giving, an adventure for the Trains of the Glorious Republic of the People game.
• I'd mentioned the Land of Mist last year when it came out as a setting for OSE; the author is currently raising funds for Adventures in the Mist, a Gazetteer and Campaign book.
• Arion Games is raising funds for Maelstrom Expanded, not on Kickstarter or another platform, but on Drivethrurpg. They're near their goal, and will use the money raised to commission art for the project. Maelstrom was originally published in the mid-80s, written by a British teenager, and has recently been revised and expanded.
• The folks over at Red Ruin publishing have just release Casket of Fays #18, the Dragon Warriors fanzine. Because it's not official it is listed as a PWYW product, but it is certainly a labor of love and worth supporting.
• Liminal Grimoire for Liminal Horror is a collection of six adventures, designed to be played either as one-shots or linked together as a campaign, written for Liminal Horror.
• It seems to me (in a good, fun way) that Mork Borg has become the 5e of indie games, used for a bewildering array of themes and settings. In the case of Mork Borg, it seems that a lot of these games are written for the ability to pun off the MB name. In this case, Smork Borg (a Smurfs knock-off) Episode Book 1 is out, over one hundred pages of Smurfy . . . I mean, Smorky, zany fun.
• Dried Marrow Fort is a fun-looking adventure for Shadowdark, heavy on undead themes.
• Lazy Litch has been consistently publishing some of the best weird fantasy content out there, and they've just released Demidirge -- Fanged Funnel, a 0-level funnel for Shadowdark. It looks exceptional, like all of their works.
• I'm raising funds for the third volume of the BX Advanced Bestiary, a collection of the monsters L-R from the BX and OSE Classic books, expanded with variants and monsters inspired by them.

Welcome to the OSR News Roundup for December 15th, 2025. We're coming towards the end of the year and looking at ZineMonth 2026 starting in February. Kickstarter has launched their open call already, here, and of course there's the community run ZineMonth . . . actually, I'm not sure if they've set up their webpage for 2026 yet. I need to dig into this further. Anywho, here's a selection of last week's releases. It was kind of a slow week for releases.

• I'm a big fan of James Holloway's work (Tome of Tombs and Pamphlet of Pantheons) and I was excited to see he's Kickstarting a new project: The Booklet of Bounties, a collection of ten ne'er-do-wells and criminals that have bounties on their heads.
• Matt Kelly has released another supplement (for Cairn specifically, but other OSR games generally) entitled Ships & Buildings, expanding rules for, well, ships and buildings in your games.
• Tis the Season is a tongue-in-cheek, Holiday Hallmark movie game designed to emulate the tropes of that particular genre.
• Leicester's Rambles has just released Yet Another Baker's Dozens of d66 Lists, which is pretty much what it sounds like: thirteen d66 tables to add inspiration to your games.
• Christmas Capers is a holiday-themed rules-lite system where the PCs are crime-fighters trying to save their city (and Christmas!) against impending doom. Features the charming public domain art of Arthur Rackham.
• Another new release that makes use of great public domain art is Strange Monster Generator, a collection of tables to randomly generate weird monsters.
• I'd mentioned A Haunting in Glass in October, and it's now available through Drivethrurpg (you can also grab it in print form at Sabre). It's a super cool Shadowdark adventure for levels 3-5 with strong horror themes.
• Troika! is such a fun little game, and Strange Magical Oddities from Across the Spheres is a supplement that adds new magical items, monsters, and spells for it (as well as other OSR-style games).
• Ankheg is an adventure for Knave that features mind flayers and dwarves and ankhegs.
• Graeme Davis has released Mayhem in the Market, an interesting-looking adventure for OSE that was written as part of a collaborative effort during an event at an Italian game convention. It looks like there's been an error with the pricing, though, at least as of this writing.
• In the Squeak Midwinter is a system-neutral game of winter-themed, cozy mouse adventures. It comes with charming paper minis.
• Ever & Anon, the fanzine replacement to Alarums & Excursions, is out with Issue 6 of this free role-playing resource.
• Written for Castle Grief's Grief Engine, Tome of the Pyromancer is a supplement, setting, and adventure specifically designed for use with solo play (although it can be used for GMed games as well), that is fire-magic themed.
• BX Advanced Bestiary Vol. 3 launches later this week, expanding on monsters L-P from the BX/OSE Classic books. Sign up now to be alerted at the launch.

Welcome to the second News Roundup for December, 2025. Last week was a bit slow on releases, so let's see what this week looks like as we steam towards the end of the year. One development that I'm really pleased about is that Drivethrurpg has now made it mandatory for publishers to indicate if their releases contain any AI assets, as opposed to just an optional disclosure. It should hopefully make my job easier; I'd like to see them ban all content with AI assets, but that's a long uphill climb, I'm afraid.

If you're participating in the upcoming ZineMonth 2026 next year, I've started a thread on rpgnet that you're welcome to post in to promote your project.

• Temple of the Forked Tongue is a short dungeon crawl for Cairn 2e usable as a sidequest or one-shot, featuring a temple built by serpent-folk.
• Another Cairn release, this one by Pointless Monument, is Ruin of Reputation. This one is a sweet and short puzzle dungeon.
• Exeunt Press has released Blood Chapter, a bookmark game that uses any random book to generate keywords, and is about hunting vampires in 16th century Germany. This is a submission to the currently running (with a little more than a week left at the time of this posting) TTRPG Bookmark jam.
• Spooky Aurora's Final Cut is a horror-themed holiday adventure based on The Final Girl RPG
• Castle Grief is one of my favorite publishers I've discovered over roughly the past year, and they're currently Kickstarting Arathi Sector, a sci-fi hack of their popular Kal Arath system, designed specifically with solo gaming in mind, although it can certainly be played in a group.
• It's for 5th edition, but Eric Bloat is raising funds for Dark Places and Demogorgons, a kid's-on-bikes-style game. I'm a big fan of the BX version of the game that he published a few years back.
• I forgot to plug this last week, but I'm excited to see Hinterlight almost hitting its funding goal. Based on the Together We Go system, it's a really neat looking game of gothic horror role-playing.
• I mentioned Berserkr, a Mork Borg hack set in an impending Ragnarok, awhile back (we've got some physical copies preordered for Sabre), and I just saw Zoological Zine #1, three creatures statted up for use with Berserkr.
• Elln the Witch has been releasing some neat little OSR supplements in the past year, and they just released My Little d6 Tables -- Caves, a short supplement of random tables for, you guessed it, caves.
• Fight On was a seminal publication in the early days of the OSR, and publisher Ignatius Umlaut has brought it back, having just released Issue 17.
• Blade of the Explorer is an interesting looking rewriting of the BX rules. It's a barebones, no art release, available as PWYW.
• Using the Shadowdark engine, Shadows of the Star Knights is a sci-fi space opera setting.
• Paul Partington is known for his gamebook releases, and has just released Village of the Damned, a solo gameplay book using Old School Essentials.
• The Sun's Betrayal is Volume 3 in the Fortnightly adventure series, a planned collection of one-shot adventures that releases every two weeks or so. This one is written for OSE and set in a steaming jungle.
• I'm currently running a Kickstarter for Issue 52 of Populated Hexes Monthly, moving north to the a region of the world known as The Ruins of Isenden.

Welcome to the first News Roundup for December, the last month in the year. I hope all of the USians reading this had a nice, relaxing Thanksgiving.

We, like pretty much everyone else in the world who runs an online business, are having a Cyber Monday sale. If you use the code CyberSabre at checkout on Monday (today), you can get 20% off everything in your cart.

Releases are a bit thin last week, I think because they were split between PAX U, Thanksgiving, and Dragonmeet in the UK, but let's jump in and see what dropped, shall we? Just as a note, this Roundup tries to focus specifically on new releases and products, and not on sales or promotions. If you're running a sale on existing, already released products, feel free to drop a link in the comments.

• The big news of last week was the release of the revised Labyrinth Lord. It's a system that is near and dear to my heart, as it was the first BX clone I played after getting back into gaming, but it's since been eclipsed by newer, shinier system. I was excited when Daniel Proctor announced this new edition, and then it just kind of lingered. But, it's out now, and I'm really excited to check it out to see how it compares to the original as well as the wealth of BX-like clones out there now.
• Matt Kelly has just released Firearms for Cairn, a short supplement that does what it promises.
• Nearer My God to Thee is a cool-looking solo journaling game about the return of one's god and the refusal of destiny.
• Necrotic Gnome has released Carcass Crawler #6 as well as their second in the Quick Delve series: the Grotesque's Grotto, by Amelia Luke.
• Hellwinter Forge of Wonders has been releasing some solid adventures for Old School Essentials, and they've just released Bestiary of the Empire, a bestiary and travel guide for their setting.
• It's been awhile since I've seen any new releases by Atelier Clandestin, so I was excited to see The Book of Thieves: Procedural Burglaries. It's considerably longer than their other releases, at 112 pages, and provides rules, guidelines, and inspiration for everything thief-y, including support for solo play, so you can plan and run your own capers.
• Carousing Options - Romance expands on the Shadowdark carousing tables to add long-term romances into the mix.
• I've been a big fan of YouCanBreatheNowGames stock art, and so I was thrilled to see they've added some new sheets to to their inventory. This one is a selection of dungeon entrances.
• We've added A Haunting in Glass to our Sabre inventory. I'm really excited when we get to do something like this: I had mentioned this book a few months back when it was being crowdfunded, and the author (who has some Charlottesville connections) reached out recently to let me know they would be in town this weekend and would we like to carry the book. It's a horror adventure written for Shadowdark for a party of level 3-5. It always makes me happy when we can support small press or first-time publishers in a way like this.

It's the last Monday in November, and we're entering the home stretch to close out 2025. It felt weird missing last week's Roundup, but I just didn't have any energy last weekend to compile it.

I'm hoping to do my interview series to promote ZineMonth in 2026, so if you're planning on participating in the event, and have the bandwidth to answer a few softball questions about your project, please reach out and I'll get some questions sent over.

If you are participating, and you'd like to try and get your zine stocked in retail stores via a "retailer" pledge level, my suggestion would be to offer it at a placeholder, minimum dollar amount, with the ability to add the actual titles when you are ready to fulfill. Since I've opened Sabre I've become loathe to back projects that have either a high initial buy-in or a long lead time. That said, I will do what I can to add indie and small press products to our shelves!

If you're a publisher and would like help with fulfillment we can do that as well. That email address is sabregamesandcards at gmail dot com.

• I've mentioned Spellburn and Battlescars before -- it's a neat, Marked by the Odd-inspired system with unpredictable magic -- and the publishers have just released the first issue of Fleeting Luck, their zine written to support S&B.
• Downrooted is currently itchfunding. It's a depthcrawl for Cairn, featuring a town, the forest, and the dungeon. The publisher is raising funds to have it professionally edited with the goal of putting out a print edition.
• One of the current projects I'm really excited about is David Blandy's Islands of Weirdhope, the new expansion for ECO Mofos. Concurrently with the fundraising campaign there's a game jam on itch titled Gizmos!!Titans!!Vaults!!, for Weirdhope.
• Noseatbelts has released The Reckoning of Knotwood Forest, an adventure for Cairn 2e. It's a really nice looking product, and the cover design is pretty stunning, evoking this summer's Appendix N jam, with art by Perplexing Ruins.
• A new "bite-sized dungeon" by Dice Goblin Games is entitled the Howling Halls of Whisperstone, and is an attempt to write a compact, succinct adventure that can be run in a session or two.
• I will bend over backwards to promote first-time publishers, but there was no need to twist my arm here: Ethan Dunning has released The Giant's Cottage. Written for Old School Essentials, and inspired by The Black Wyrm of Brandonsford, this is a really solid release with delightful art.
• Whispers of the Burrow Gods, by Mice of Legends, is a 30 page preview version. The author has released it seeking input and reviews for the full version. It's a mouse-sized and themed setting for use with their bespoke system or any other OSR-style game.
• David Okum has released Starship Adventures Starter Pack, a bundle of their three Starship Adventures books, written to Star Trek-inspired adventures, but with the Mork Borg engine.
• Singularity, by Dank Games, is a two-page pamphlet adventure written for Mothership.
• I'm not familiar with Vigilance, but I just saw Bad Eggs, a release for that system, that is designed to generate villains and enemies, and it looks like it should be pretty easily adapted for use by other systems.
• Kabuki Kaiser has released Fly Me to the Moon, an intriguing lunar hexcrawl inspired by fantastical literature.
• Basic Gishes and Goblins Quickstart is now live on Drivethru. It's a rules-lite, OSR-rpg that looks pretty neat.
• Written for Old School Essentials, Into the Breaking is a setting specifically designed for use with a West Marches-style campaign.
• Horseshark Games has released Netcrawl, a cyberpunk game of hacking and virtual reality. They timed their release with a ton of other supplements, that you can find by checking out their publisher page.
• Jeff Jones is raising funds for Gary's Appendix #9, this issue dealing with giants. The only thing giving me pause with this campaign are the custom dice on offer, but it looks like they're only available to US backers, which given the state of the world right now is a solid choice. Jones puts out some quality material, and this looks to be no different.
• Troika! is one of my favorite small press games, and there's a 3rd party project for it funding on Kickstarter right now: The Venture Below is an exploration of an abandoned metro system below the city.
• I somehow missed this, but the folks over at Wet Ink Studios are kickstarting a new printing of Into the Cess and Citadel. I'm glad to see this book back in print.
• I'm raising funds for Issue 51 of Populated Hexes Monthly; this issue delves into Catoptris, the realm behind reflections, and introduces new spells, magic items, monsters, and the echo warrior class.

Unfortunately no News Roundup today; I was sick this weekend and didn't get a chance write anything up. If anyone's got something they'd like to add that would be awesome.

Welcome to the second News Roundup of November, 2025. The big news is that Mausritter Month is upon us, on Backerkit, and there are some really neat projects being funded right now. All of the projects look fantastic, and you should check them out. One of the ones I'm really excited about is the only one (at the time of this writing, at least) that hasn't fully funded: Mechritter is pretty much what it says on the tin, but instead of minis it comes with a selection of mix and match stickers to build your mouse 'mechs. But honestly, they all look amazing.

We had a pretty packed week last week, but this week is a bit slower, it seems. Still, there's some really cool stuff for you to check out!

• I've been a big fan of David Blandy for awhile now -- he was one of the first publishers I carried when I first opened the webstore -- and last week he reached out to let me know about a project that I, ironically, was already following and really excited about. ECO Mofos was released . . . jeez, has it really been two years? . . . well, awhile back. It's billed as a weirdhope game of post-apocalyptic survival, and the game is pretty fantastic. David and co are currently crowdfunding Islands of Weirdhope, an official supplement for ECO Mofos. It's being described as "Windwalker meets Waterworld."
• Oudfort, by jcd, is a short adventure set in their "Grassbraids" setting, itself an offspring of the Gygax75 challenge. Oudfort, however, can be easily dropped into any system or setting. It features an old fortress from a more prosperous time, but the cliff upon which it is perched has partially collapsed, providing a hook for investigation. What secrets have been revealed?
• I'd mentioned Fortnightly Adventures a few Roundups back; vol. 2 is now available. It's statted for OSE. This adventure takes place on a remote island and features a mini-hexcrawl and environmental challenges.
• Into the Deep Country is a hexcrawl written for Into the Odd. It's one part hexcrawl, one part hexcrawl toolkit generator, and includes rules for hexcrawling in Into the Odd.
• Merry Manticore has published The Secret Life of Monsters, a supplement for OSR-style games designed to make encounters more interesting.
• Ever & Anon, the spiritual successor to Alarums and Excursions, has just released their fifth issue of entirely free content for all different kinds of games. It's 183 page of gaming goodness, and is definitely worth checking out.
• Choir of Flesh is a complete ttrpg, set in the year 1000 AD, in a medieval Europe in the middle of the Rapture, but not the one expected by the faithful of the church and cathedral.
• I'd also mentioned Ruination Pilgrimage awhile back when it was crowdfunding; Chain Censer #1 is now out, the official zine for that system, and if features art by a ton of Roundup favorites.
• It Comes from the Deep is funding on Kickstarter. It's a two-fer adventure for Pirate Borg. I'm glad to see Pirate Borg getting more support these days.
• Another game funding on Kickstarter is Notorious: Tales of Hardscrabble Bounty Hunting. It's a solo, sci-fi ttrpg that uses cards to drive the narrative forward. The art is really nice, reminiscent of the Painted Wastelands.
• There's only a couple of days left to back Populated Hexes Monthly, Year Four. It compiles Issues 37-48 into a single volume, and will be replacing all of the stock art I used in the original issues with commissioned art.

Welcome to the first News Roundup of November, steaming towards the end of the year. I had a number of people reach out to me to share their new releases, which always makes me happy because it makes my life easier and tells me that people are interested in this newsletter.

• I don't share as much about Dragonbane, for some reason, but it definitely falls into the Old School Category. Tom Lagier has released Belles of the Bog, a tongue-in-cheek adventure inspired by Mark Twain's riverboat tales. It's an impressive almost eighty-page long.
• Raiders on Strange Tides is written to be compatible with Mythic Bastionland, a supplement that provides myths for use on sea voyages.
• Studio Zozomis is raising funds for Ephemeris: Omens of the Blood Comet on Kickstarter. It's a stand-alone, retrofuturist game set on a mysterious planet, and is about vampires. The art is absolutely stunning, much of it done in a bleak and simple woodcut style.
• Retrofit Games has released White City on itch, a game system and collection of supplements for role-playing as occult investigator's during the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. It's a really impressive collection and a neat idea.
• The Knights, the Terror, and the Quest for Glory is a short, solo-journaling game inspired by Arthurian legends. It's designed to be played in about a half hour, so it looks to be a great option when you've got some time to kill and want something to do other than doomscrolling.
• Mausritter Month is coming up in a few days, and some folks are hosting a Mausritter jam on itch. Submissions open on November 11th, so not this week, but I wanted to go ahead and promote it early so if you're interested you could start throwing some ideas around.
• Jellyfishlines has released Dreamscapes, a dream logic inspired system agnostic dungeon. It was a submission to the Random Prompt jam on itch.
• Mork Sol is funding on Kickstarter, a mashup of Mork Borg and CY_Borg, set in a dying, hellish universe with no salvation in sight.
• Eric Bloat has released Operation BX, a modern supplement for OSE/BX designed for running WWII-style games, and its companion Into the Dark, which adds magic to the setting for a Weird War-type game.
• Joseph Lewis has released Lovely Jade Necropolis, an adventure for Shadowdark, OSE, and Cairn, bringing necromancers and fey into conflict and throwing the adventurers into the midst.
• Elfgame, by Savvy Thief Studios, is an interesting anti-clone, specifically designed to eschew Gygaxianisms and the typical mechanics of older games while making something old school in spirit, style, and play.
• I'm always excited to see a Basic Fantasy product come along; it's a solid system that's been overshadowed by OSE, and Chris really provides a lot of bang for the buck with supplements. While not an official adventure, Estates of the Eliari is written for Basic Fantasy, and provides random generation tools to ensure the adventure is never the same twice. The same publisher has also released Blades and Barklings and Terror in Tosanth.
• Quest Giver is a system-neutral collection of quests and plot hooks that can be used to motivate players or generate adventure seeds. It makes nice use of public domain art, which I'm always a fan of.
• Another new release making use of public domain art is the Bounty Hunter, a new class for Dolmenwood.
• Another Dolmenwood release is Wulvs, a playable kindred, the weird folk who dwell in the Northern Scratch.
• Forneus Research Base, by Melsonian Arts Council, is an adventure for Stay Frosty, a space marine sci-fi game.
• Written as a system-neutral generator for artifacts and other legendary items, Arcane Relics provides rules and guidelines for generating powerful items you can use as campaign drivers or quest items.
• Adam Station is raising funds for 100 Strangers, a collection of 100 unique NPCs to use in sci-fi games. They are the creative force behind the recently released Infinity of Ships, which we just got into stock.
• Populated Hexes Monthly Year Four is funding on Kickstarter. I'm raising money for new, commissioned art, to replace the original stock art I used, and an offset print run. Issues 37-48 contains a bunch of stuff; new races, classes, monsters, and of course drop-in hex locations that can be used to spice up your hexcrawl.

Welcome to the final News Roundup for October. Mothership Month, the Backerkit sponsored Mothership extravaganza, is in full swing. I'm really looking forward to November, when Mausritter Month launches, also through Backerkit. I've seen some really neat projects being promoted for this event.

It looks like last week was relatively slow on releases, but I found some that I think are worth taking a look at.

• Marta's Vineyard of Despair is up on itch. It's a really interesting one-page adventure submitted to a couple of game jams. One of the things that makes it interesting is the exploration of deaf history prior to the invention of ASL.
• Speaking of Mausritter Month, Whiskers and Wastelands is a blend of Mausritter and Eco Mofos; a post-apocalyptic setting in which you play as mice and other small-folk, trying to reinvent a world that eschews what brought about the apocalypse in the first place.
• Jeffrey Jones is Kickstarting Dark Devilry for Shadowdark, two volumes that bring the lower planes to Shadowdark. He's assembled quite a cast of contributors for this project.
• It seems like its been awhile since I mentioned anything by Philip Reed: he's currently raising funds for The Deck of Old-School Wilderness Encounters, a system-agnostic deck of cards designed to randomly generate wilderness encounters.
• I somehow managed to miss that Inkwell Ideas is funding something similar to Mr. Reed: an expansion to their Hexploration Deck series. I use II's Worldographer for all of my mapping needs, and Joe has been producing a ton of great content for overland mapping and adventuring. There's only three days left in this campaign, so be sure to jump on it if it strikes your fancy.
• Space Dragon Games has released Basic Gishes and Goblins, an OSR-style game of dungeon crawling that seeks to emulate JRPGs.
• Dyson Logos has released The Ossuary Masquerade, a Halloween-themed adventure for Mork Borg.
• I've mentioned Midnight of the Century, the serial killer investigative rpg by Colin le Sueur, a few times, and he's just released a primer for the game.
• Elln the Witch has released My Little Places: Forest of the Eternal Rain. I think it's supposed to be the first in a series of system-agnostic fantasy locations, but I can't quite tell. The author has been releasing a bunch of neat little OSR supplements for awhile, though, and this is one to add to the list.
• gongoozler is an adventure written for Liminal Horror, a short-two pager that's in ashcan form, in the process of being expanded and edited.
• I'm raising funds for Populated Hexes Monthly, Year Four, a compilation of Issues 37-48 of Populated Hexes Monthly. It's going to fund newly commissioned art and an offset print version.

It's the penultimate Monday in October, and the winter holiday season is rapidly approaching, along with the end of the year.

The big news of this week is Mothership Month is underway, and raising funds for a ton of cool-looking projects on Backerkit. If you're on Bluesky, you've no doubt seen an overwhelming number of posts tagged "over/under", all part of a massive, 1,000+ member strong play by post game Sam Sorenson spearheaded in conjunction with Mothership Month.

In a Roundup first this week features three campaigns funding on Gamefound. I've been tangentially aware of this funding platform, and have backed a couple of projects on it, but it's really flown under my radar, for whatever reasons.

The final big news story of the week is that Drivethrurpg has quietly rolled out a Retailer program, where instead of purchasing a print-on-demand physical book from Drivethru you can purchase an offset print book from the publisher. You buy through Drivethru, the order goes out to the publisher, who then fulfills the order. Right now it is US only (on both ends), but it allows those publishers who do offset print runs to sell those through Drivethru. I've signed up to the program, and you can see my selection of books on offer here. It's still early on in the process, and the filters can be a little tricky to navigate. Any publisher that is involved with the program will have a "retail" option on each title page.

• Red Ruin Publishing has been releasing a series of solo play game books based on releases from the 80s, and they've just released Sword of Harmony: Blood Sword Prologue. This is all fan-released material.
• Jonah Lemkins has released a set of hand drawn fantasy map assets. It's a steal at 50 cents for sixty-six images, and the art is really cool.
• Phantom Mill Games is funding Wilendrem Volume Two: The Saintly Hollows, the follow-up and companion volume to their excellent Valley of Flowers setting. It's statted for OSE and Cairn.
• I don't see that much funding on Gamefound, but did stumble across Sewer Sanctuary recently. It's billed as a one-shot temple crawl rpg, that brings to mind the classic rogue-like dungeon experience.
• And speaking of Gamefound, Twilight Sun is also currently funding on the platform. It's Victorian-inspired ttrpg set in a world lit by a constant mechanical sun, after the death of God, and seems pretty intriguing, and makes good use of public domain art from the period.
• Doomsong: Though Shalt Not Suffer the Wycce, is currently funding on Kickstarter. It's by the same folks that brought us the excellent Labyrinth and Dark Crystal rpgs, and this new one is set in a world on the cusp of a Biblical Apocalypse.
• A third (!) campaign on Gamefound is Turn it Off, an eldritch horror adventure inspired by Lovecraft, Poe, and Eggers. It's statted for Knave 2.
• Yochai Gal, the author of Cairn, has released a free adventure, The Feast of Tegny Wood, written for Cairn 2e. It's set deep in the forest, in a region where an alchemist's failed experiment is twisting the nearby life.
• Vox Dei is a Mork Borg-influenced game that lets you play as pilgrims facing an existential threat to their faith. You don't need MB to play.
• I'd mentioned Starship Adventures, by David Okum, a month or so ago, and they've now released Starship Adventures: GM's Guide, as a guide to create adventures and run the game.
• One of my favorite recent releases has been the excellent Painted Wastelands, and the publisher has just released The Quest Unpronounceable, an adventure that ties in to a hook from the PW core book. I'm hoping this sees a print version soon.
• Fortnightly Adventures #0: The Hollow Tower, is the first in a planned adventure periodical. This adventure is written for OSE, a short, 16-page adventure for characters levels 1-3 and placed in a desert setting.
• Savvy Thief Studios has released Epona's Temple, a one-page dungeon that focuses on player skill and the ability to solve puzzles.
• Freelancer is an interesting release, a beta document about freelance mages for hire fighting preternatural threats in an alternate reality similar to our own.
• Justin Sirois, of Severed Books, recently released Sickest Witch, and John McGuire is currently raising funds for Under the Shadow of the Noon-Day Witch, a dark folk horror adventure written for Sickest Witch.

This is going to be a bit of a short Roundup; I had covid and flu boosters on Saturday and they really knocked me for a loop. Just a caveat before we dive into the week's releases: I hope that I'm not coming across too critical of some of these projects, specifically when discussing lead and production times. When I first opened the webstore, and then a physical FLGS, I was backing a lot of Kickstarters, primarily as a retailer, but over the years I've been burnt by a number of projects, as I'm sure many of you have. Even if a project releases successfully, if it is more than a couple months for me to get product I won't back it; as a retailer it is too difficult for me to have cash tied up for that long. I've grown leery of games that have such a long lead time from crowdfunding to fulfillment, especially those that have a lot of add-ons or stretch goals.

• I'm a big fan of Colin Le Sueur's work (We Deal in Lead, Runecairn), and they made the interesting choice to slowfund their most recent release, Midnight of the Century, on itch, and it's within striking distance of hitting the funding goals. It's a lovesong to 90's serial killer and murder investigation shows, where the streets are dirty, the rain is omnipresent, and the Pacific Northwest is where the action is. I'd like to sit down and chat with Colin about the process, because I think it's an intriguing way to fund projects.
• Duginthroat Divided is funding on Kickstarter. It's a large-ish dungeon for OSE, designed to take PCs from levels 1-4. The art is astonishing, and the adventure looks really solid, but the only thing that gives me pause is the lead time; it's planning on releasing in August, 2026, and that just seems like an awfully long time with everything going on in the world.
• Another Kickstarter with a long lead time and a host of add-ons is RagnaBorg, a Mork-Borgian take on the end of the world and raging against the dying of the light. It looks super cool, and has already shot past its funding goal, but the number of add-ons and year to fulfillment is giving me pause.
• I've been seeing KOKOTÖNA promoted on socials recently; it's a grimdark take on precolonial MesoAmerica, using the MorkBorg system. It's written by a LatinX author, and brings in a host of others from the community, so it looks like this will be a great project to back if you're looking for a perspective written by indigenous voices.
• The Wandering Cities is a zine funding right now on Kickstarter, and is about a vast grasslands and the cities, built upon the backs of giant isopods, that wander the plains. It's system agnostic.
• Written for Forbidden Psalm, 1540 Salt War looks like a pretty fascinating scenario set in war-torn Italy of the 1500s. I've been seeing more of these historically grounded adventures or settings recently, and it seems like a rich vein for exploration.
• I've mentioned Ever & Anon before; it aims to fill the spiritual shoes of the sadly discontinued Alarums & Excursions, and E&A is now out with Vol 4, almost two hundred pages of free content for your gaming pleasure.
• I feel like at least half of these offerings are some version of Mork Borg, and Super Borg is no exception, with art that evokes the golden age of comic books.
• Just in time for Halloween, Black Flies is funding on Backerkit. It's a rules-lite, GMless game where you play the villains all vying to turn the residents of your town into flies.
• The SoloRPGList popped up on my socials this weekend, and it looks like a fantastic resource; a collection of links to solo and duet rpgs.

It's the first roundup for October, and the big event for this month is Mothership Month. It starts on October 14th, and will be chock full of projects Mothership. Exeunt Press is running an event for October as well, called Morktober, which is for all the various Mork Borg games. Backerkit has really been pushing these collaborative projects; in November they're doing Mausritter Month.

It's been a strangely slow week for new releases. The big news is that the winners for the Appendix N itch jam were announced on YouTube. Congratulations to the winners and everyone who participated. This was definitely one of the coolest projects I've seen this year

Let's jump right in and see what came out last week, shall we?

• Beneath the Muckfort is an adventure written for Cairn 2e. It's an undead and mud themed sandbox adventure that is billed as being especially deadly.
• Recursive Faults has released OSR Ready, a guide to running OSR games. It's meant to be an alternative to the OSR primers that were released in the early days of the movement, with emphasis on practical advice for running games.
• Pirate Borg is probably my favorite of the various Borg clones, and I just stumbled across the released Pirate Haven, a short supplement designed to help generate a pirate settlement.
• Lost Contact is a Mothership one-shot, a quick and short adventure that features a research station gone silent based on Aliens.
• I've seen a fair amount of online conversation recently about different combat resolutions for BX-style games, using armor or to-hit rolls differently. Interestingly, I also saw Camelot Combat, which is a 32-page supplement that provides an alternative combat system compatible with BX-games.
• I'm a big fan of Joel Hines and Silverarm press, and he's just released Bastion of the Barren Five, a two-page pamphlet adventure written for OSE and designed for characters of level 3-5.
• Nepo Baby is a one-page class for the CY_BORG game, where you're a spoiled child of a wealthy family.
• Eat God is funding on Kickstarter. You play strange, muppet-like creatures, the amalgamation of all the strange little critters in fantasy: goblins and kobolds and homunculi. Your mission: to cause trouble.
• We just added Inevitable to our inventory, the game of doomed Arthurian gunslingers by Soul Muppet Games, and I just saw they're raising funds for Doomspiral, billed as their lovesong to Dark Souls and Elden Ring.
• Emiel Boven is crowdfunding Durf Expanded on Kickstarter, fully illustrated and updated. Emiel is the force behind the excellent Electrum Archive zine, and Ava Islam, the author of Errant, is going to be editing it.
• We just got in Beetle Knight, by Jim Hall. Part of a crowdfunding project for ZineMonth in 2024, this took awhile to get out but it is totally worth it. Very cool project, very well done, well worth the wait. We're selling it as a bundle with the core rules, world guide, adventures, solo rules, and more.

Welcome to the last OSR News Roundup in September. This month has just flown by, at least for me, and we're staring down the barrel of the gun that is the end of the year. The past couple weeks have been pretty busy, and next month is the Backerkit sponsored Mothership Month, so we'll likely be seeing a ton of new Mothership related projects funding in the next few months. I'll be posting active links when they pop up, but to see what all the fuss is about here's the general launch page.

This week seems pretty slow, no doubt with folks gearing up for the usual slew of spooky and Halloween-themed releases. One other thing I've noticed, and this is purely anecdotal, is that crowdfunding projects don't seem to be generating as much support as they did up till fairly recently. If you're currently running a project, or have finished one recently, I'd be curious to find out if this is the case or if it is just my imagination.

• Matt Kelly has released Connections, a short, system agnostic system for downtime and domain play that helps to define relationships between PCs and NPCs.
• We just got Welcome to Night Vale in stock, and Absurdia, currently funding on Backerkit, looks like it might do as good a job, if not better, of recreating the absurd and surreal humor in that podcast.
• I missed this last week, but it seems like we need to see more stuff like this in the world: Fast Food Fascists has the players take the role of resistance fighters in a world dominated by fast food corporations.
• New (to me) publisher Radmad RPGs has released Wages for the Dead, a sweet little supplement for Electric Bastionland that has eight failed careers that revolve around death and undeath. It makes great use of public domain art from the British Museum.
• Mark Hunt is one of the unsung workhorses of the OSR community, probably best known for Gangbusters BX, their clone of the classic Gangbusters game. They've just released Siege at Perdition Jail, an adventure for the Tall Tales BX system.
• Wytchin Hour has released Worldbuilding: Creating Grasslands, a short little system-neutral supplement to help Referees make grasslands more exciting environments for play.
• I've mentioned Berserkr before, the Mork Borg clone of norse adventure, and the author has just released Blood & Ice, a supplement for Berserkr that provides solo rules for that game.
• Journeymen, Expert, Master (or JEM) is an OSR-clone, and Advanced Fantasy: Race as Class is a supplement for OSR games that provides race as class options.
• Powder, Blood & Brine is a Pirate Borg supplement aimed at abstracting naval combat to allow it to be played via theater of the mind.
• James Floyd Kelly is raising funds for a fantasy zine double feature: Delver 19 (for OSE) and Runes 8 (for Shadowdark). They're a consistent publisher, and you can't go wrong by backing this campaign.
• I've uploaded The Sorcerer for Bree-YARC, the first four levels of the Sorcerer class, usable with the Bree-YARC ruleset.

We're heading into the tail end of September, and staring down towards the end of 2025. First, I'd like to apologize to Ron Sparks of BoredtoBoardGames. He reached out to me over the summer and asked me to mention his new release Against the Dark!, and I totally dropped the ball on it. Sorry! So, he gets a special shoutout. Against the Dark! is written for Shadowdark and has two new ancestries and five new classes. Most intriguing to me is that it includes grafting rules, for players interested in grafting different monster parts onto their body to gain supernatural abilities.

With that out of the way, and my sincerest apologies, let's jump into the meat of the Roundup, shall we?

• Few have done more to support and promote the OSR-style of gaming than Jason Hobbs, and he's just released Bite the Bullet, and Into the Odd-adjacent, We Deal in Lead (by Colin Le Sueur) inspired game of post-apocalyptic gunslingers.
• The deluxe version of What Dust Remains, by momatoes, is now available on itch. This is a GM-less game for 1-3 players that explores legacy and sacrifice, and is absolutely gorgeous. The layout is stunning. If this doesn't get an Ennie nomination next year I'll be shocked.
• Belly of the Beast is an adventure for Cairn 2e, set in the soon-to-immolate corpse of an enormous, ancient dragon. Can you retrieve the many treasures contained within its bellies before the great wyrm bursts into flame?
• Roundup favorite Amanda P was kind enough to send me an advance copy of Orestruck, their new adventure. It's a whirlwind of an adventure, sent in the same Tannic forest as her previous adventure, and has a number of sub-plots and tales woven together around the central theme. It's available on itch and Drivethru. It's a delight, and while I've just read it and haven't had a chance to run it I strongly suggest checking it out.
• Rune-Borg is a background inspired by the Cairn 2e Science-Fantasy Background jam, and itself is inspired by the TV show Arcane, speaking of grafting.
• Promising to release before Halloween, A Haunting in Glass is currently funding on Kickstarter. It's an adventure for Shadowdark, designed for characters between levels 3-5, with strong themes of horror and madness.
• Empedocles the Wizard has released Rest and Recovery in Bathhouses, a little pamphlet with system-agnostic mechanics for health and healing using bathhouses, saunas, and relaxation.
• I thought I had posted about Glatistant, but it looks like I didn't. It's a two-player Arthurian rpg, where one player takes the role of the knight errant and the other the role of the questing beast. It's a neat concept, and I really like the art.
• Pest Control is a mini-dungeon published by Neoclassical Geek Revival, available in print from this booth at GenCon2025.
• Invasion of the Space ROBOTS is an expansion to Forbidden Psalms, a miniatures game based on and inspired by Mork Borg.
• Written for Shadowdark, Veilstone is a gothic western, set on an alternate Earth, during the California gold rush.
• The Morksons is a Mork Borg hack that lets you play morbid families of TV: the Addams Family, the Munsters, Beetlejuice, and more.
• One of my first rpg purchasers as a youngster was the collected B1-B9 In Search of Adventure, and I remember The Journey to the Rock clearly. Journey Under the Rock is inspired by that module, with a little bit of Donkey Kong country mixed in.
• I've released the Ranger for Bree-YARC, levels 1-4 of the ranger class for the Bree-YARC Quickstart. It's my take on a magic-less ranger.

Welcome to the third OSR News Roundup for September 2025. There were a ton of entries last week; one reader commented that it was like everyone got home from summer break and pressed publish at the same time. Let's see if this week continues at the same pace. A warning, though, that itch was acting up for me over the weekend with extremely slow lead times, so I didn't spend as much time on that platform as I usually do.

This roundup does not include products that contain AI assets. I refuse to promote anything that uses AI, and most of the time I can tell if a product does or not. However, in this release I had to pass over some nice looking releases on Drivethru because I couldn't tell if they had AI or not: no artist was listed, and the publishers did not check the box during setup that indicated if it was handmade or used AI assets. If you're a publisher that doesn't use AI assets I really encourage you to make use of the "Creation when setting up your file on Drivethru.

• Everyone can use a stable of NPCs to pull from, and Coyote has just published Jim the Goblin to itch. Jim's statted to be system agnostic and can be used to aid or bedevil your party. He's a bit like Nobby, from Discworld.
• Ecstatic Entropy Games has released Effigies of Inveracity, a collection of new classes for BX-style games. The classes smooth out the attack and saving throw matrices, making for a more even progression.
• I've linked to merwin's releases back when they were using kofi as a hosting platform; they've made the jump over to itch, and have just released Voice of the Screaming Mountain, an incursion for the excellent Trophy Dark game. It's a game about treasure hunters seeking pearls, and includes a bunch of files to help run/play the adventure, including audio files, which is a really nice touch.
• I'd mentioned the Blood Sands awhile back, and Denizens of the Blood Sands is now out. Statted for OSE, and with a John Carter of Mars/sword and planet feel to it, this is a bestiary for the eponymous Blood Sands setting.
• Jeffrey Jones has released Gary's Appendix Issue 8 on Drivethru, a collection of essays, options, adventures, and more for Old School Essentials and other similar games. This issue features lycanthropes.
• Hyper Neon Racers is a dystopic future car racing game, using Into the Odd as the system of choice with a little bit of Mythic Bastionland thrown in for good measure.
• If there's a button to push or lever to pull in an adventure you can almost guarantee that the players will fiddle with it, and the new release Billions of Buttons helps scratch that itch. It's an excel spreadsheet (and requires excel to use) that randomizes buttons with outcomes, providing an astounding number of combinations.
• The McHack is a rules-lite BX hack that uses a d20 for combat and a d12 for most other resolution mechanics. It looks like a fun, streamlined version of BX.
• I'd mentioned the Solo Compendium a few roundups back, and now Vol. 2 is out, with even more resources for people to run OSR solo games.
• The Accursed Rock is an adventure for Cairn or other similar games, in which the PCs are washed ashore on a desolate island after their ship goes down.
• Benthic: The Scattered Sea Floor is a neat looking adventure for Pirate Borg that is currently funding on Kickstarter. It is a deep sea hexcrawl with some really cool concepts, and a soundtrack!
• The Bree-YARC Quickstart is still funding on Kickstarter, and you can download the free pdf prior to backing. I'm just raising funds for art/offset printing. It's a mix of BX and 3rd edition D&D, with an emphasis on exploration, discovery, and downtime activities.
• I'm a big fan of Joey Royale's Weird Heroes of Public Access -- Sabre has carried their zines in the past, and they always sell well -- and I'm pleased to announce that we now carry the Weird Heroes rpg! If you want to play a Welcome to Nightvale or UHF-style game this is the system for you!

Welcome to the third OSR News Roundup for September 2025. There were a ton of entries last week; one reader commented that it was like everyone got home from summer break and pressed publish at the same time. Let's see if this week continues at the same pace. A warning, though, that itch was acting up for me over the weekend with extremely slow lead times, so I didn't spend as much time on that platform as I usually do.

This roundup does not include products that contain AI assets. I refuse to promote anything that uses AI, and most of the time I can tell if a product does or not. However, in this release I had to pass over some nice looking releases on Drivethru because I couldn't tell if they had AI or not: no artist was listed, and the publishers did not check the box during setup that indicated if it was handmade or used AI assets. If you're a publisher that doesn't use AI assets I really encourage you to make use of the "Creation when setting up your file on Drivethru.

• Everyone can use a stable of NPCs to pull from, and Coyote has just published Jim the Goblin to itch. Jim's statted to be system agnostic and can be used to aid or bedevil your party. He's a bit like Nobby, from Discworld.
• Ecstatic Entropy Games has released Effigies of Inveracity, a collection of new classes for BX-style games. The classes smooth out the attack and saving throw matrices, making for a more even progression.
• I've linked to merwin's releases back when they were using kofi as a hosting platform; they've made the jump over to itch, and have just released Voice of the Screaming Mountain, an incursion for the excellent Trophy Dark game. It's a game about treasure hunters seeking pearls, and includes a bunch of files to help run/play the adventure, including audio files, which is a really nice touch.
• I'd mentioned the Blood Sands awhile back, and Denizens of the Blood Sands is now out. Statted for OSE, and with a John Carter of Mars/sword and planet feel to it, this is a bestiary for the eponymous Blood Sands setting.
• Jeffrey Jones has released Gary's Appendix Issue 8 on Drivethru, a collection of essays, options, adventures, and more for Old School Essentials and other similar games. This issue features lycanthropes.
• Hyper Neon Racers is a dystopic future car racing game, using Into the Odd as the system of choice with a little bit of Mythic Bastionland thrown in for good measure.
• If there's a button to push or lever to pull in an adventure you can almost guarantee that the players will fiddle with it, and the new release Billions of Buttons helps scratch that itch. It's an excel spreadsheet (and requires excel to use) that randomizes buttons with outcomes, providing an astounding number of combinations.
• The McHack is a rules-lite BX hack that uses a d20 for combat and a d12 for most other resolution mechanics. It looks like a fun, streamlined version of BX.
• I'd mentioned the Solo Compendium a few roundups back, and now Vol. 2 is out, with even more resources for people to run OSR solo games.
• The Accursed Rock is an adventure for Cairn or other similar games, in which the PCs are washed ashore on a desolate island after their ship goes down.
• Benthic: The Scattered Sea Floor is a neat looking adventure for Pirate Borg that is currently funding on Kickstarter. It is a deep sea hexcrawl with some really cool concepts, and a soundtrack!
• The Bree-YARC Quickstart is still funding on Kickstarter, and you can download the free pdf prior to backing. I'm just raising funds for art/offset printing. It's a mix of BX and 3rd edition D&D, with an emphasis on exploration, discovery, and downtime activities.
• I'm a big fan of Joey Royale's Weird Heroes of Public Access -- Sabre has carried their zines in the past, and they always sell well -- and I'm pleased to announce that we now carry the Weird Heroes rpg! If you want to play a Welcome to Nightvale or UHF-style game this is the system for you!

I try to catch as many new releases as I can, but sometimes I miss one, and I'll try to plug stuff that I missed that seems really interesting. Back in March Thunder Toad Games released their first adventure Titan's Throne: Infested Archives, a sandbox-style adventure for characters of level 1-3. It features giant ants and a dying race of stone-skinned humanoids (that you can play as a character!).

Anyway, there were a lot of releases last week, and I've compiled some of the ones that caught my fancy below.

• The Crescent Monastery is an adventure for 4th level character using the OSE ruleset, in which the monks inhabiting a distant monastery famed for the healing oil it produces, have been transformed into undead monstrosities.
• 1pagedungeons has released https://1pagedungeons.itch.io/urban-crawlBazaar of Lies, a one-page urban puzzle dungeon written for Cairn or the Odd-like series of games.
• Crystal Hollow and the Barony of Duskvale is a system neutral(ish) sandbox setting book that is designed more as a toolbox than a complete setting, and is designed as a tool for experienced Referees.
• The inimitable Kevin Crawford is running a Kickstarter to reprint the offset version of Stars without Number. Crawford's stuff is a must back for many people, and I'm glad to see SWN back in print in the offset version.
• There's an itch jam currently going on for the Crown 2e rpg. It's pretty open ended, but the general theme should revolve around the end of summer/autumn/approach of winter.
• Hauler's Handbook is a supplement for Mothership that provides rules and guidelines for deep space hauling and transport.
• mtb-za released Open Season, a system-agnostic, lightly sci-fi adventure about a big game hunting safari.
• Written for Cairn, The Dreaming Well is a short adventure about a banished wishing well that haunts everyone's dreams.
• Paolo Greco consistently produces some of the most beautiful products in the indie rpg field, and they're currently crowdfunding Pergamino Barocco, a beautiful, system agnostic collection of weird and unusual spells that would fit just as well in an occult modern game as a fantasy setting.
• Bill Edmunds is Kickstarting Inn to the Deep Deluxe, a collection of four adventures all tied to a single inn that can be used as a base for the party, in a deluxe boxset collection. There are options to back it for OSE and for Shadowdark.
• I like the recent trend of bestiaries that expand on existing monsters, and Malum Monstrum Vol. 1 is a new series that does just this. Published by Wytchin Hour, this first volume looks at goblins, and is written for Basic Fantasy.
• Land of Blood and Honey is the inaugural issue of an OSR-system agnostic setting zine that explores a desert campaign world. It looks a lot like Al-Qadim, and there are what looks to be some interesting twists.
• It was a sad day when Lee Gold announced she was shuttering Alarums and Excursions, but Ever & Anon has picked up the mantle and run with it. They've just published Issue 3, 161 pages of free material.
• The Lamplit Market is a short, PWYW adventure for Shadowdark, focused more on social interactions than combat.
• Hellwinter Forge of Wonders has released Hearts of Steel, a solo gamebook for Old School Essentials. It looks really well done, and the pdf is hyperlinked, making it super easy to use.
• I saw the Magical Compendium Companion mentioned on Discord earlier this week; it's a free, 130-page adaption of spells from advanced editions to OSE rules. It's a pretty amazing piece of work.
• James Spahn has released Chickendark, a collection of fowl rules, classes, and options for Shadowdark.
• Red Ruin Publishing, the folks behind the free Dragon Warriors zine Casket of Fays, have released Issue 17. It's jam packed with lots of interesting material.
• Relics and Ruins is a dungeon crawl for OSE set in the Little Ice Age period of our world on the Italian peninsula. It looks really interesting, and I like the premise. It's also available in a Knave version.
• I'd mentioned Sapphire Seas when it was Kickstarting, and I see it is now out on Drivethru. It's an adventure path for Shadowdark, taking characters from levels 1-10, and is set in a Phoenician-inspired world.
• I'm a huge fan of Arden Vul, and was excited to see that the folks behind it have released a bullet-point pdf of a couple of the areas: Level 1 -- The Basement, and The Pyramid of Thoth and the Tower of Scrutiny. I believe the eventual plan is to revise the entire document, a daunting task. I think what they've done so far is a nice compromise between a complete bullet point layout and text, making it easier to run but not reducing the lore and information which makes the book so unique.
• Silver Bulette has released Temple of the Sheep God, an adventure for Shadowdark for characters level 2-4, that includes a dungeon as well as a 24-mile hex filled with dangers and treasures.
• The Frontier 2nd edition is a Borderlands-inspired sci-fi quickstart guide of high-octane energy and excitement. It's unabashedly a shoot-em-up style game.
• I've launched a Kickstarter for the Bree-YARC Quickstart Rules. The rules are already available for free online, and this crowdfunding project is to raise funds for art and an offset print run. Bree-YARC is a mash-up of BX and 3rd edition D&D.
• We've added a number of indie and small press titles to the Sabre webstore, including Dead Orbit Mall (by Evlyn Moreau, and we're the only place to buy it in the States), Gnome and St. Witold's Bell by Perplexing Ruins, and Inevitable, by Soul Muppet Games.

I try to catch as many new releases as I can, but sometimes I miss one, and I'll try to plug stuff that I missed that seems really interesting. Back in March Thunder Toad Games released their first adventure Titan's Throne: Infested Archives, a sandbox-style adventure for characters of level 1-3. It features giant ants and a dying race of stone-skinned humanoids (that you can play as a character!).

Anyway, there were a lot of releases last week, and I've compiled some of the ones that caught my fancy below.

• The Crescent Monastery is an adventure for 4th level character using the OSE ruleset, in which the monks inhabiting a distant monastery famed for the healing oil it produces, have been transformed into undead monstrosities.
• 1pagedungeons has released https://1pagedungeons.itch.io/urban-crawlBazaar of Lies, a one-page urban puzzle dungeon written for Cairn or the Odd-like series of games.
• Crystal Hollow and the Barony of Duskvale is a system neutral(ish) sandbox setting book that is designed more as a toolbox than a complete setting, and is designed as a tool for experienced Referees.
• The inimitable Kevin Crawford is running a Kickstarter to reprint the offset version of Stars without Number. Crawford's stuff is a must back for many people, and I'm glad to see SWN back in print in the offset version.
• There's an itch jam currently going on for the Crown 2e rpg. It's pretty open ended, but the general theme should revolve around the end of summer/autumn/approach of winter.
• Hauler's Handbook is a supplement for Mothership that provides rules and guidelines for deep space hauling and transport.
• mtb-za released Open Season, a system-agnostic, lightly sci-fi adventure about a big game hunting safari.
• Written for Cairn, The Dreaming Well is a short adventure about a banished wishing well that haunts everyone's dreams.
• Paolo Greco consistently produces some of the most beautiful products in the indie rpg field, and they're currently crowdfunding Pergamino Barocco, a beautiful, system agnostic collection of weird and unusual spells that would fit just as well in an occult modern game as a fantasy setting.
• Bill Edmunds is Kickstarting Inn to the Deep Deluxe, a collection of four adventures all tied to a single inn that can be used as a base for the party, in a deluxe boxset collection. There are options to back it for OSE and for Shadowdark.
• I like the recent trend of bestiaries that expand on existing monsters, and Malum Monstrum Vol. 1 is a new series that does just this. Published by Wytchin Hour, this first volume looks at goblins, and is written for Basic Fantasy.
• Land of Blood and Honey is the inaugural issue of an OSR-system agnostic setting zine that explores a desert campaign world. It looks a lot like Al-Qadim, and there are what looks to be some interesting twists.
• It was a sad day when Lee Gold announced she was shuttering Alarums and Excursions, but Ever & Anon has picked up the mantle and run with it. They've just published Issue 3, 161 pages of free material.
• The Lamplit Market is a short, PWYW adventure for Shadowdark, focused more on social interactions than combat.
• Hellwinter Forge of Wonders has released Hearts of Steel, a solo gamebook for Old School Essentials. It looks really well done, and the pdf is hyperlinked, making it super easy to use.
• I saw the Magical Compendium Companion mentioned on Discord earlier this week; it's a free, 130-page adaption of spells from advanced editions to OSE rules. It's a pretty amazing piece of work.
• James Spahn has released Chickendark, a collection of fowl rules, classes, and options for Shadowdark.
• Red Ruin Publishing, the folks behind the free Dragon Warriors zine Casket of Fays, have released Issue 17. It's jam packed with lots of interesting material.
• Relics and Ruins is a dungeon crawl for OSE set in the Little Ice Age period of our world on the Italian peninsula. It looks really interesting, and I like the premise. It's also available in a Knave version.
• I'd mentioned Sapphire Seas when it was Kickstarting, and I see it is now out on Drivethru. It's an adventure path for Shadowdark, taking characters from levels 1-10, and is set in a Phoenician-inspired world.
• I'm a huge fan of Arden Vul, and was excited to see that the folks behind it have released a bullet-point pdf of a couple of the areas: Level 1 -- The Basement, and The Pyramid of Thoth and the Tower of Scrutiny. I believe the eventual plan is to revise the entire document, a daunting task. I think what they've done so far is a nice compromise between a complete bullet point layout and text, making it easier to run but not reducing the lore and information which makes the book so unique.
• Silver Bulette has released Temple of the Sheep God, an adventure for Shadowdark for characters level 2-4, that includes a dungeon as well as a 24-mile hex filled with dangers and treasures.
• The Frontier 2nd edition is a Borderlands-inspired sci-fi quickstart guide of high-octane energy and excitement. It's unabashedly a shoot-em-up style game.
• I've launched a Kickstarter for the Bree-YARC Quickstart Rules. The rules are already available for free online, and this crowdfunding project is to raise funds for art and an offset print run. Bree-YARC is a mash-up of BX and 3rd edition D&D.
• We've added a number of indie and small press titles to the Sabre webstore, including Dead Orbit Mall (by Evlyn Moreau, and we're the only place to buy it in the States), Gnome and St. Witold's Bell by Perplexing Ruins, and Inevitable, by Soul Muppet Games.

Welcome to the first news roundup for September. Here in the States it is Labor Day. The first thing I wanted to plug isn't a release, but an event; on September 28th, Pure Panic and Games in Silver Springs is hosting a mini-convention, in conjunction with the indie rpg group Designed in the DMV. If you're in the area you should try and swing by and show them some support. You can check out the Designed in the DMV website, and they've got information there about the event.

• Manor of the Swine Duke is a new adventure for Rovers and Riches 2e. It's published by goblinpitgames, (they're the authors of Miasma and Monsters). This current adventure is part of the Filthy Rich OSR Adventure Jam.
• As I'm sure many long-time readers are getting tired of hearing, nothing gives me greater pleasure than promoting the work of first time publishers. I saw a thread on reddit by one such individual asking how to promote their work; please, if you're one of these people, reach out to me and I'll do what I can to include you in this publication (I don't promote work with AI assets, though!). Anyway, be sure to check out Family of Night: The Sunless Cæthedrull, by Melotron9. It's a free module for Mork Borg.
• Onslaught Six has launched a Kickstarter for Monster Condo, the follow-up to their Ruins of Castle Gygar adventure. Monster Condo is a mega-dungeon, with 17 areas and 114 rooms. Similar to Castle Gygar, this project was written as a "room-a-day", and then integrated into a whole.
• Weird Heroes of Public Access is available on etsy as a hardcover. We've carried a bunch of Joey's zine titles, and I'm really excited to see that Fairhaven is now available as it's own thing. If you're looking for something that would be perfect to emulate Welcome to Night Vale or UHF with equal ease, you should check this out.
• I missed this a few weeks ago, but Sivad's Sanctum has released In the Light of the Setting Sun Tombstone edition, a neat little game for role-playing in the Weird West.
• Goblin Archives has released Case Files 01: Anomaly, an anthology-style releases of content for the excellent Liminal Horror rpg.
• The Bones of Elenore Greymarsh is an adventure for Pirate Borg, an adventure of revenge served cold and justice delivered.
• Epoch: A Game of Stone and Spell is a stone-age rpg, and the newly released Red Ochre and Ruins is a supplement for it, that brings a number of optional rules to the table, including ideas and guidelines for converting it to a far-future, post-apocalyptic setting.
• Dyson Logos has released a new crop of his Cartography Collections, these from 2024. The god-father of OSR cartography, these maps are invaluable resources for small publishers (like me!) looking for some inexpensive yet awesome maps, or GMs looking for some inspiration for their own dungeons.
• JV West has released the Black Pudding Playbook, an expansion of the material from Issues 4 and 7, expanding the setting and character options. Of course, there's also the terrific art by JV, as well.
• So many collections of tables I see on Drivethru are AI-driven drek, so I was pleased to see that Tables & Lore: Vol. 1, is not one of these. It's a collection of 13 random tables and 6 pieces of lore designed to spark imagination; I'm looking forward to checking out future installments in this series.
• Ancestral Peninsula #1 is a periodic hexcrawl campaign (much like the Nod series), written for generic OSR systems, in an Iron Age setting.
• Loot the Body has released Candle, a reverse dungeon crawl written for Mork Borg, in which the adventurers find themselves summoned to the lowest level of a dungeon and must make their way to the surface.
• I'd mentioned Island of Fury a few weeks ago; its a solo-style gamebook in the vein of the old Fighting Fantasy releases, and has been released for GNAT and Dragon Warriors, and last week the authors published a version for OSE.

Welcome to the first news roundup for September. Here in the States it is Labor Day. The first thing I wanted to plug isn't a release, but an event; on September 28th, Pure Panic and Games in Silver Springs is hosting a mini-convention, in conjunction with the indie rpg group Designed in the DMV. If you're in the area you should try and swing by and show them some support. You can check out the Designed in the DMV website, and they've got information there about the event.

• Manor of the Swine Duke is a new adventure for Rovers and Riches 2e. It's published by goblinpitgames, (they're the authors of Miasma and Monsters). This current adventure is part of the Filthy Rich OSR Adventure Jam.
• As I'm sure many long-time readers are getting tired of hearing, nothing gives me greater pleasure than promoting the work of first time publishers. I saw a thread on reddit by one such individual asking how to promote their work; please, if you're one of these people, reach out to me and I'll do what I can to include you in this publication (I don't promote work with AI assets, though!). Anyway, be sure to check out Family of Night: The Sunless Cæthedrull, by Melotron9. It's a free module for Mork Borg.
• Onslaught Six has launched a Kickstarter for Monster Condo, the follow-up to their Ruins of Castle Gygar adventure. Monster Condo is a mega-dungeon, with 17 areas and 114 rooms. Similar to Castle Gygar, this project was written as a "room-a-day", and then integrated into a whole.
• Weird Heroes of Public Access is available on etsy as a hardcover. We've carried a bunch of Joey's zine titles, and I'm really excited to see that Fairhaven is now available as it's own thing. If you're looking for something that would be perfect to emulate Welcome to Night Vale or UHF with equal ease, you should check this out.
• I missed this a few weeks ago, but Sivad's Sanctum has released In the Light of the Setting Sun Tombstone edition, a neat little game for role-playing in the Weird West.
• Goblin Archives has released Case Files 01: Anomaly, an anthology-style releases of content for the excellent Liminal Horror rpg.
• The Bones of Elenore Greymarsh is an adventure for Pirate Borg, an adventure of revenge served cold and justice delivered.
• Epoch: A Game of Stone and Spell is a stone-age rpg, and the newly released Red Ochre and Ruins is a supplement for it, that brings a number of optional rules to the table, including ideas and guidelines for converting it to a far-future, post-apocalyptic setting.
• Dyson Logos has released a new crop of his Cartography Collections, these from 2024. The god-father of OSR cartography, these maps are invaluable resources for small publishers (like me!) looking for some inexpensive yet awesome maps, or GMs looking for some inspiration for their own dungeons.
• JV West has released the Black Pudding Playbook, an expansion of the material from Issues 4 and 7, expanding the setting and character options. Of course, there's also the terrific art by JV, as well.
• So many collections of tables I see on Drivethru are AI-driven drek, so I was pleased to see that Tables & Lore: Vol. 1, is not one of these. It's a collection of 13 random tables and 6 pieces of lore designed to spark imagination; I'm looking forward to checking out future installments in this series.
• Ancestral Peninsula #1 is a periodic hexcrawl campaign (much like the Nod series), written for generic OSR systems, in an Iron Age setting.
• Loot the Body has released Candle, a reverse dungeon crawl written for Mork Borg, in which the adventurers find themselves summoned to the lowest level of a dungeon and must make their way to the surface.
• I'd mentioned Island of Fury a few weeks ago; its a solo-style gamebook in the vein of the old Fighting Fantasy releases, and has been released for GNAT and Dragon Warriors, and last week the authors published a version for OSE.

Welcome to the last News Roundup for August. First, I'd like to apologize to Will, of Inverted Castle Press. I had fully planned on mentioning their release Manic at the Monastery, but it slipped through the cracks. It's an adventure for characters of levels 1-3, and is statted for both OSE and Worlds without Number, and is their second published adventure, after the excellent Fragments of the Floating City.

It looks like last week was a bit slower with new releases than the previous week, but I think I've found some titles that might be of interest to folks.

• It seems like it's been awhile since I saw something released for the 24XX line of games, so I was pleasantly surprised to see 24XX-RPS pop into my feed. It's a version of 24XX that uses Rock-Paper-Scissors instead of dice.
• More Dungeons and Treasures is a collection of short zines for A Deck of Dungeons and Treasures and Mausritter, and the goal is to eventually have nine different micro-settings to play in.
• Not a new release, but a remastered one, and a system that gets mentioned here with some regularity: bread wizard has released a remastered version of Glowburn and Radscars, a nice little post-apoc game that mashes up Cairn and Mutant Crawl Classics.
• Heretics' Grave is a modular adventure for 3rd level characters written for Swords and Wizardry. It's specifically designed to serve as a bridge between two unconnected areas, or perhaps as a filler in one of those "the dungeon continues on here, but it is unmapped" regions. It's nice seeing some 3pp support for S&W.
• I'm also glad to see some more stuff coming out for Red Borg, the explicitly anti-capitalist hack of Mork Borg (although, I'd argue that most of the Borg line of games are anti-capitalist); this one focused on bringing the revolution to South America.
• I'm still seeing stuff trickle in from the Appendix N jam; one of the more recent releases is The Howling Blade, by Suffety Games, in which War, one of the four horseman, is determined to bring about the apocalypse.
• As may be obvious, I'm a sucker for lo-budget, do-it-yourself art, and Riff Wizards fits that groove totally. It's a rules-lite, story-heavy rpg that bills itself as universal. I haven't had a chance to give it a thorough read-through, but the art is glorious and reminds me of margin doodling in my notebook during 10th grade English.
• Been seeing more and more stuff for Dolmenwood: Cobbin is a new ancestry for the system, that lets you play as an anthropomorphic animal.
• The Fantasy Trip is a fascinating little system published by Steve Jackson decades ago that, in some ways, is surprisingly modern, and it's nice to see that there's still support for it. The Heresy zine is an unofficial fanzine, and is currently on Issue 3.
• All Rolled Up Games is raising funds for Cork Bord, the Borg-based game of Nordic investigation and mystery. It looks pretty sweet.
• Rowan, Rook and Decard has been publishing some really groundbreaking games over the past five or so years, and they're currently crowdfunding a supplement for Heart: The City Beneath. Called Ways and Means, it expands on Heart with a bunch of new options and rules.
• Bree-YARC, my take on what 3rd edition D&D would have looked like if it used BX as a springboard, is now available as a Quickstart on Drivethrurpg and the Sabre Games website. It's free!

Note that some of these are affiliate links through Drivethrurpg.

Welcome to the last News Roundup for August. First, I'd like to apologize to Will, of Inverted Castle Press. I had fully planned on mentioning their release Manic at the Monastery, but it slipped through the cracks. It's an adventure for characters of levels 1-3, and is statted for both OSE and Worlds without Number, and is their second published adventure, after the excellent Fragments of the Floating City.

It looks like last week was a bit slower with new releases than the previous week, but I think I've found some titles that might be of interest to folks.

• It seems like it's been awhile since I saw something released for the 24XX line of games, so I was pleasantly surprised to see 24XX-RPS pop into my feed. It's a version of 24XX that uses Rock-Paper-Scissors instead of dice.
• More Dungeons and Treasures is a collection of short zines for A Deck of Dungeons and Treasures and Mausritter, and the goal is to eventually have nine different micro-settings to play in.
• Not a new release, but a remastered one, and a system that gets mentioned here with some regularity: bread wizard has released a remastered version of Glowburn and Radscars, a nice little post-apoc game that mashes up Cairn and Mutant Crawl Classics.
• Heretics' Grave is a modular adventure for 3rd level characters written for Swords and Wizardry. It's specifically designed to serve as a bridge between two unconnected areas, or perhaps as a filler in one of those "the dungeon continues on here, but it is unmapped" regions. It's nice seeing some 3pp support for S&W.
• I'm also glad to see some more stuff coming out for Red Borg, the explicitly anti-capitalist hack of Mork Borg (although, I'd argue that most of the Borg line of games are anti-capitalist); this one focused on bringing the revolution to South America.
• I'm still seeing stuff trickle in from the Appendix N jam; one of the more recent releases is The Howling Blade, by Suffety Games, in which War, one of the four horseman, is determined to bring about the apocalypse.
• As may be obvious, I'm a sucker for lo-budget, do-it-yourself art, and Riff Wizards fits that groove totally. It's a rules-lite, story-heavy rpg that bills itself as universal. I haven't had a chance to give it a thorough read-through, but the art is glorious and reminds me of margin doodling in my notebook during 10th grade English.
• Been seeing more and more stuff for Dolmenwood: Cobbin is a new ancestry for the system, that lets you play as an anthropomorphic animal.
• The Fantasy Trip is a fascinating little system published by Steve Jackson decades ago that, in some ways, is surprisingly modern, and it's nice to see that there's still support for it. The Heresy zine is an unofficial fanzine, and is currently on Issue 3.
• All Rolled Up Games is raising funds for Cork Bord, the Borg-based game of Nordic investigation and mystery. It looks pretty sweet.
• Rowan, Rook and Decard has been publishing some really groundbreaking games over the past five or so years, and they're currently crowdfunding a supplement for Heart: The City Beneath. Called Ways and Means, it expands on Heart with a bunch of new options and rules.
• Bree-YARC, my take on what 3rd edition D&D would have looked like if it used BX as a springboard, is now available as a Quickstart on Drivethrurpg and the Sabre Games website. It's free!

Welcome to the third News Roundup for August. For new readers, this is a compilation of last week's new releases that I found in the OSR and indie RPG fields. I don't promote anything that contains AI assets, and I also make my best effort to promote the works of marginalized creators. If you've got something you would like me to mention please send me an email at thirdkingdomgames at gmail dot com and I'll see what I can do. After the relative calm of releases around GenCon it looks like things have picked up again.

If you're a publisher and reading this, Sabre is looking to expand our selection of indie games at both the retail and wholesale level. I'm trying to start carrying and distributing titles for wholesale. We already handle distribution for a couple of smaller companies, Leyline Press being the main one, and offer fair terms, fast turnaround on shipping, and good customer support. We can also help fund print runs or fulfill Kickstarters, so if you're interested please reach out to the email above.

• The Potato Game Quickstart, by Gnomestones, is now available on itch. It is based on a BX-engine, and is simple and easy to run, and incredibly charming. You play as field gnomes, and it is an absolute whimsical delight. For people who say they need to resort to using AI art in their games, I would urge you to check out The Potato Game to get a sense of what you can do on your own, and how much it adds.
• There must be something in the air about gnomes this week, because I just saw Tomte, a cozy rpg based on Swedish folklore where you play gnomes that care for a farmstead.
• One of our best-selling zines is Transgender Deathmatch, so I was tickled to see Pronoun Throwdown, a one-page wrestling rpg that's got a much lighter tone than TD.
• I'm not familiar with the work of ehronlime, but I saw the other day they've released Ithaca in the Cards: The Second Expedition. It's a game about tragedy and loss on the voyage home from a successful quest, and the art is really stunning.
• Beyond Tell Arn: Kurhan of the Spear is a city supplement for BX-style games, introducing the city of Kurhan. It's written for The Lions of Tell Arn, but should be easy to add to any existing OSR system or campaign.
• Shadowdark is a system that I really haven't delved that much into, although I like a lot of what I see. I was especially intrigued by the new third party zine Shadowstones, which is geared towards solo play using SD.
• Non-Euclidean, 4 Dimensional Aberrant Castle is a collection of two dungeons with system agnostic OSR stat blocks. One of the dungeons is designed as a shifting block puzzle, with printable pieces. The whole product is designed to be easily printed using a home printer, which is really nice.
• Red Ruin Publishing, the folks who have been putting out an amazing amount of free or PWYW content for Dragon Warriors, have just released Island of Fury, in both GNAT and Dragon Warriors flavor. It's a chunky 200+ page playbook for either system.
• On Solar Tides is a short adventure for the Dirtbags! system, and is an adventure where the PCs need to pose as space pirates to eliminate the true threat: even nastier space pirates.
• Heroes and Homebrew has released Beyond the Twisted Portal, vol. 3, a punk, DIY OSR zine with a dash (okay, maybe a bit more than a dash) of weirdness.
• Hoser Mode, by David Okum, is a Mork Borg game about what happens when Canadians get pushed to far and they drop their legendary niceness.
• Kobayashi, the creative force of nature behind Black Sword Hack, Fleaux!, and more, is crowdfunding Fallen Blades/Endless Stars, a zine designed to emulate Star Wars games. Their work is definitely worth checking out.
• What happens when a successful halfling adventurer retires, founds their own Shire, and invites their relatives to stay? Only a group of Expert-level adventurers can answer that, apparently, in the new adventure Hubert's Hole.
• I missed the first issue of Ever and Anon, but the second issue is out (and free!). It's a digital zine (and comes in at 150 pages) seeking to continue the legacy of Alarums and Excursions, and features contributions from a number of creators in the OSR and indie gaming space.
• Grimme Perils is a grim fantasy game with fairy-tale influence that uses a 2d6-based system. It looks pretty interesting, and the author was nice enough to send me a complimentary copy, which I'm hoping to do a review of when I get a chance.
• I've launched the Kickstarter for Populated Hexes Monthly Issue 49. It's going to be releasing in October, and features the town of Junction, at the edge of the Scarlet Principalities, an oft-mentioned city that can serve as a base for the PCs.

Welcome to the third News Roundup for August. For new readers, this is a compilation of last week's new releases that I found in the OSR and indie RPG fields. I don't promote anything that contains AI assets, and I also make my best effort to promote the works of marginalized creators. If you've got something you would like me to mention please send me an email at thirdkingdomgames at gmail dot com and I'll see what I can do. After the relative calm of releases around GenCon it looks like things have picked up again.

If you're a publisher and reading this, Sabre is looking to expand our selection of indie games at both the retail and wholesale level. I'm trying to start carrying and distributing titles for wholesale. We already handle distribution for a couple of smaller companies, Leyline Press being the main one, and offer fair terms, fast turnaround on shipping, and good customer support. We can also help fund print runs or fulfill Kickstarters, so if you're interested please reach out to the email above.

• The Potato Game Quickstart, by Gnomestones, is now available on itch. It is based on a BX-engine, and is simple and easy to run, and incredibly charming. You play as field gnomes, and it is an absolute whimsical delight. For people who say they need to resort to using AI art in their games, I would urge you to check out The Potato Game to get a sense of what you can do on your own, and how much it adds.
• There must be something in the air about gnomes this week, because I just saw Tomte, a cozy rpg based on Swedish folklore where you play gnomes that care for a farmstead.
• One of our best-selling zines is Transgender Deathmatch, so I was tickled to see Pronoun Throwdown, a one-page wrestling rpg that's got a much lighter tone than TD.
• I'm not familiar with the work of ehronlime, but I saw the other day they've released Ithaca in the Cards: The Second Expedition. It's a game about tragedy and loss on the voyage home from a successful quest, and the art is really stunning.
• Beyond Tell Arn: Kurhan of the Spear is a city supplement for BX-style games, introducing the city of Kurhan. It's written for The Lions of Tell Arn, but should be easy to add to any existing OSR system or campaign.
• Shadowdark is a system that I really haven't delved that much into, although I like a lot of what I see. I was especially intrigued by the new third party zine Shadowstones, which is geared towards solo play using SD.
• Non-Euclidean, 4 Dimensional Aberrant Castle is a collection of two dungeons with system agnostic OSR stat blocks. One of the dungeons is designed as a shifting block puzzle, with printable pieces. The whole product is designed to be easily printed using a home printer, which is really nice.
• Red Ruin Publishing, the folks who have been putting out an amazing amount of free or PWYW content for Dragon Warriors, have just released Island of Fury, in both GNAT and Dragon Warriors flavor. It's a chunky 200+ page playbook for either system.
• On Solar Tides is a short adventure for the Dirtbags! system, and is an adventure where the PCs need to pose as space pirates to eliminate the true threat: even nastier space pirates.
• Heroes and Homebrew has released Beyond the Twisted Portal, vol. 3, a punk, DIY OSR zine with a dash (okay, maybe a bit more than a dash) of weirdness.
• Hoser Mode, by David Okum, is a Mork Borg game about what happens when Canadians get pushed to far and they drop their legendary niceness.
• Kobayashi, the creative force of nature behind Black Sword Hack, Fleaux!, and more, is crowdfunding Fallen Blades/Endless Stars, a zine designed to emulate Star Wars games. Their work is definitely worth checking out.
• What happens when a successful halfling adventurer retires, founds their own Shire, and invites their relatives to stay? Only a group of Expert-level adventurers can answer that, apparently, in the new adventure Hubert's Hole.
• I missed the first issue of Ever and Anon, but the second issue is out (and free!). It's a digital zine (and comes in at 150 pages) seeking to continue the legacy of Alarums and Excursions, and features contributions from a number of creators in the OSR and indie gaming space.
• Grimme Perils is a grim fantasy game with fairy-tale influence that uses a 2d6-based system. It looks pretty interesting, and the author was nice enough to send me a complimentary copy, which I'm hoping to do a review of when I get a chance.
• I've launched the Kickstarter for Populated Hexes Monthly Issue 49. It's going to be releasing in October, and features the town of Junction, at the edge of the Scarlet Principalities, an oft-mentioned city that can serve as a base for the PCs.

Welcome to the second News Roundup in August. If you're in the States you're probably looking at the start of school and the winding down of summer. Let's jump right in and check out last week's releases, shall we?

• Perplexing Ruins has published Saint Witold's Bell, an adventure for Shadowdark written for characters of levels 2-4. Perplexing Ruins is a fantastic artist (full disclosure, they've done work for me) and they're trying to make it full time in the rpg field, so can use your support!
• Matt Kelly has released Reputation, a simple system for tracking a character's renown and reputation as they adventure. It's written for Cairn, but should be broadly applicable to other OSR systems.
• I'm glad to see support for the excellent post-apoc game Glowburn and Radscars; Terror Beneath the Sunken City, by bread wizard, is an adventure set in a swamp, featuring a city of the Ancients covered by the muck and water.
• Rat in a Suit released their entry into the one-page rpg jam currently running on itch: The Grand Melee. In this game, each player takes on the roll of a knight in a medieval melee tournament to see who will be the last knight standing!
• I'm not familiar with yanahn, but they've just released a really cool adventure: Enter the Whalefall is an underwater depthcrawl/dungeon inspired by the death of whales and the ecosystem that forms around their bodies at the very bottom of the ocean. It looks really neat.
• YouCanBreatheNow Art just released a bundle of ruin art for use with the Creative Commons License. I'm a big fan of their work, and their recent release is a really nice combination of peaceful landscape and forgotten ruins.
• Zones is a neat looking new game with fantastic art that's now out on Drivethru. It uses the Into the Odd rules system, and is a post-war, post-apoc game inspired by Escape from Tarkov, Twilight 2000, and others.
• Temple of the Cybernetic Cult is a short adventure for Shadowdark that brings some advanced tech to the game.
• I'm always happy to promote the work of a new publisher, and Crookhorns is Muzgrob's second release. It's a kindred for the newly released Dolmenwood game/setting.
• Casey Garske has released Issues One and Zero of Oubliette, a mega-dungeon published in a serial zine format. I really like their use of public domain art.
• Sandbox Casual bills itself as a "small press indie mixtape RPG from a parallel universe where 1979 never ended". It looks pretty interesting, and has some great art.
• Tales from the Skieg River is on Drivethru in both English and Italian (I've linked to the English version). It's a collection of three system-agnostic one-page dungeons written for OSR/NSR-style games.
• Based on the Brindlewood Bay rules engine, Fiendgazer is a game of small-town weirdos and misfits protecting their town from supernatural horror. I stumbled across this because it features the art of Tony Tran, who I really admire and think does great work. I also really like Brindlewood Bay.
• Another Brindlewood inspired project is Serving up Disaster, a game of kitchen nightmares. One player takes on the role of the fiery celebrity chef visiting struggling restaurants, and the other players take on the roles of the staff of said restaurants.
• I've been a big fan of Idle Catulary and their blog -- especially their bathtub reviews -- and I saw that they've just released The Frost-Wreathed Heart, a grim game where the players are trapped in a labyrinth and not everyone will be able to get out alive.
• After four straight years of consistent monthly releases, Populated Hexes Monthly is taking a month off (I needed a break). We'll be back in October with Issue 49, this time beginning an exploration into the oft-mentioned, but as not-yet covered, Scarlet Principalities.

Welcome to the second News Roundup in August. If you're in the States you're probably looking at the start of school and the winding down of summer. Let's jump right in and check out last week's releases, shall we?

• Perplexing Ruins has published Saint Witold's Bell, an adventure for Shadowdark written for characters of levels 2-4. Perplexing Ruins is a fantastic artist (full disclosure, they've done work for me) and they're trying to make it full time in the rpg field, so can use your support!
• Matt Kelly has released Reputation, a simple system for tracking a character's renown and reputation as they adventure. It's written for Cairn, but should be broadly applicable to other OSR systems.
• I'm glad to see support for the excellent post-apoc game Glowburn and Radscars; Terror Beneath the Sunken City, by bread wizard, is an adventure set in a swamp, featuring a city of the Ancients covered by the muck and water.
• Rat in a Suit released their entry into the one-page rpg jam currently running on itch: The Grand Melee. In this game, each player takes on the roll of a knight in a medieval melee tournament to see who will be the last knight standing!
• I'm not familiar with yanahn, but they've just released a really cool adventure: Enter the Whalefall is an underwater depthcrawl/dungeon inspired by the death of whales and the ecosystem that forms around their bodies at the very bottom of the ocean. It looks really neat.
• YouCanBreatheNow Art just released a bundle of ruin art for use with the Creative Commons License. I'm a big fan of their work, and their recent release is a really nice combination of peaceful landscape and forgotten ruins.
• Zones is a neat looking new game with fantastic art that's now out on Drivethru. It uses the Into the Odd rules system, and is a post-war, post-apoc game inspired by Escape from Tarkov, Twilight 2000, and others.
• Temple of the Cybernetic Cult is a short adventure for Shadowdark that brings some advanced tech to the game.
• I'm always happy to promote the work of a new publisher, and Crookhorns is Muzgrob's second release. It's a kindred for the newly released Dolmenwood game/setting.
• Casey Garske has released Issues One and Zero of Oubliette, a mega-dungeon published in a serial zine format. I really like their use of public domain art.
• Sandbox Casual bills itself as a "small press indie mixtape RPG from a parallel universe where 1979 never ended". It looks pretty interesting, and has some great art.
• Tales from the Skieg River is on Drivethru in both English and Italian (I've linked to the English version). It's a collection of three system-agnostic one-page dungeons written for OSR/NSR-style games.
• Based on the Brindlewood Bay rules engine, Fiendgazer is a game of small-town weirdos and misfits protecting their town from supernatural horror. I stumbled across this because it features the art of Tony Tran, who I really admire and think does great work. I also really like Brindlewood Bay.
• Another Brindlewood inspired project is Serving up Disaster, a game of kitchen nightmares. One player takes on the role of the fiery celebrity chef visiting struggling restaurants, and the other players take on the roles of the staff of said restaurants.
• I've been a big fan of Idle Catulary and their blog -- especially their bathtub reviews -- and I saw that they've just released The Frost-Wreathed Heart, a grim game where the players are trapped in a labyrinth and not everyone will be able to get out alive.
• After four straight years of consistent monthly releases, Populated Hexes Monthly is taking a month off (I needed a break). We'll be back in October with Issue 49, this time beginning an exploration into the oft-mentioned, but as not-yet covered, Scarlet Principalities.

I've been publishing a weekly OSR News Roundup for the past . . . almost three years, I think? In that time it's morphed to include a lot of indie and small press titles, so I thought it might be beneficial to start posting it here, as well as over on r/osr. I don't include any titles with AI assets. The Drivethru links are affiliate links, which helps support the project.

------------
It's the first week in August, and GenCon is officially over. Congratulations to all of the Ennie winners (and nominees!). It's an achievement to have been nominated for the award, and the number of OSR and indie titles on this year's slate speaks to the quality of product the community has been releasing.

The Appendix N jam is over, and some of the more recent releases that have caught my eye are:

• Stronghold on the Edge of Forever, an exploration through a constantly morphing tower as it travels back in time.
• Labyrinthine Press released He Who Walks with Shadows, a system-neutral adventure inspired by Lovecraft, Ashton Smith, and Howard.
• The Leshy's Grove, a forest-crawl written for Cairn, by void_stitch.
• Matt Kelly has compiled a list of all the Cairn adventures submitted to the Appendix N jam: there are a whopping 30 titles in there!
• I'm a big fan of Weird Wonder (Amanda P), so I was excited to see they submitted an entry to the jam: The Eternal Empress (it's part of the Cairn link above, but I really love her work and wanted to give it a special shoutout).

With one jam ending another jam is starting up: Mythic Bastionland did extremely well at the Ennies, and the new jam is all about writing adventures for that system/setting. You've got about a week and a half as of the time of this post.

• Vaults of Vaarn 2e is currently funding on Backerkit, and there's a concurrent Vaarn game jam going on over at itch, as well. VoV is a great system and setting, and I'm really looking forward to the 2nd edition.
• Another great game raising funds on Backerkit is Dragon Reactor: Embers, Ashes, Moments, and Stars. Its a fascinating mech tragedy game, and is edited by Sam Leigh, so you know it will be top-notch!
• We don't see many products distributed via ko-fi, but One Foot In has released Mystery Mastering, a guide to planning and running mysteries in rpgs.
• I had mentioned A Perfect Wife awhile back when it was crowdfunding, and the pdf is now available on itch through David Blandy. It's got an all-star cast involved: one of my favorite authors, Zedeck Siew, and artists Amanda Lee Franck and Scrap World.
• Izegrim Creations is raising funds for the second edition of Bugbears and Borderlands, a mash-up of BX and 5th edition. Including in the campaign, and relevant to my professional IRL interests, is a limited edition run of walnut box-sets.
• Glory&Ruin is an interesting-looking supplement out on Drivethru. It's designed as a toolbox to generate history and backstory for a setting, based on the Toynbee-en concept of the rise and fall of empires.
• The Tabletop Engineer has released Delver 18, their quarterly (?) zine of excellent OSR content.
• The Spawning Deeps is a short adventure for Shadowdark featuring a monster giant crab and her babies.
• Using the Mork Borg engine, Berserkr is a game of Norse fantasy set just before Ragnarok. The art is stupendous, and while I have a hard time with Mork Borg, I relate better to some of its offshoots, like Pirate Borg, so I'm hoping this is a system that I can get into.
• Originally written as part of the Return to Perinthos game jam honoring Jennell Jaquays, Xuesis' Labyrinth is a dungeon that is written for 3rd level characters and features traps, treasure, and deceptively fast gelatinous cubes.
• The Big Book of Little Dungeons is a community project, a collection of short and sweet system-neutral dungeons, with an emphasis on playability. I'm hoping this is the first volume of many.
• Chris Gonnerman and Basic Fantasy are names that fly under the radar when compared to the more popular publishers and systems in the OSR sphere, yet BF was hugely influential in the movement, and the amount of free content available for this system is truly staggering. Gonnerman just released Iron Falcon, his Creative Commons system based on OD&D, but without the licensing.

It's the first week in August, and GenCon is officially over. Congratulations to all of the Ennie winners (and nominees!). It's an achievement to have been nominated for the award, and the number of OSR and indie titles on this year's slate speaks to the quality of product the community has been releasing.

The Appendix N jam is over, and some of the more recent releases that have caught my eye are:

• Stronghold on the Edge of Forever, an exploration through a constantly morphing tower as it travels back in time.
• Labyrinthine Press released He Who Walks with Shadows, a system-neutral adventure inspired by Lovecraft, Ashton Smith, and Howard.
• The Leshy's Grove, a forest-crawl written for Cairn, by void_stitch.
• Matt Kelly has compiled a list of all the Cairn adventures submitted to the Appendix N jam: there are a whopping 30 titles in there!
• I'm a big fan of Weird Wonder (Amanda P), so I was excited to see they submitted an entry to the jam: The Eternal Empress (it's part of the Cairn link above, but I really love her work and wanted to give it a special shoutout).

With one jam ending another jam is starting up: Mythic Bastionland did extremely well at the Ennies, and the new jam is all about writing adventures for that system/setting. You've got about a week and a half as of the time of this post.

• Vaults of Vaarn 2e is currently funding on Backerkit, and there's a concurrent Vaarn game jam going on over at itch, as well. VoV is a great system and setting, and I'm really looking forward to the 2nd edition.
• Another great game raising funds on Backerkit is Dragon Reactor: Embers, Ashes, Moments, and Stars. Its a fascinating mech tragedy game, and is edited by Sam Leigh, so you know it will be top-notch!
• We don't see many products distributed via ko-fi, but One Foot In has released Mystery Mastering, a guide to planning and running mysteries in rpgs.
• I had mentioned A Perfect Wife awhile back when it was crowdfunding, and the pdf is now available on itch through David Blandy. It's got an all-star cast involved: one of my favorite authors, Zedeck Siew, and artists Amanda Lee Franck and Scrap World.
• Izegrim Creations is raising funds for the second edition of Bugbears and Borderlands, a mash-up of BX and 5th edition. Including in the campaign, and relevant to my professional IRL interests, is a limited edition run of walnut box-sets.
• Glory&Ruin is an interesting-looking supplement out on Drivethru. It's designed as a toolbox to generate history and backstory for a setting, based on the Toynbee-en concept of the rise and fall of empires.
• The Tabletop Engineer has released Delver 18, their quarterly (?) zine of excellent OSR content.
• The Spawning Deeps is a short adventure for Shadowdark featuring a monster giant crab and her babies.
• Using the Mork Borg engine, Berserkr is a game of Norse fantasy set just before Ragnarok. The art is stupendous, and while I have a hard time with Mork Borg, I relate better to some of its offshoots, like Pirate Borg, so I'm hoping this is a system that I can get into.
• Originally written as part of the Return to Perinthos game jam honoring Jennell Jaquays, Xuesis' Labyrinth is a dungeon that is written for 3rd level characters and features traps, treasure, and deceptively fast gelatinous cubes.
• The Big Book of Little Dungeons is a community project, a collection of short and sweet system-neutral dungeons, with an emphasis on playability. I'm hoping this is the first volume of many.
• Chris Gonnerman and Basic Fantasy are names that fly under the radar when compared to the more popular publishers and systems in the OSR sphere, yet BF was hugely influential in the movement, and the amount of free content available for this system is truly staggering. Gonnerman just released Iron Falcon, his Creative Commons system based on OD&D, but without the licensing.

It's the last Monday in July, and the week is rolling right into the biggest week in gaming: GenCon. I hope everyone lucky enough to be going has a great time. The big news from last week, as I'm sure many of you have heard, is that due to pressure from payment processors, themselves under pressure from a small, Australian anti-smut group, itchio has de-indexed, as far as I can tell, all of their games -- both crpg and ttrpg -- labelled NSFW. As is often the case, this has affected a number of LGBTQ-positive products that are deemed NSFW simply because of queer themes and not because of explicit content.

If you feel that a small group of people in one country should be able to influence what the rest of the world might want to enjoy, Lin Codega posted a link to a website outlining concrete actions we can take to put pressure from the other direction.

• A Vampire in Neraka is a short adventure for low-level characters, written for OSE. It's almost something of a funnel, or 0-level adventure, and can be used as a stand-alone one-shot, a sidequest, or as part of the author's Neraka series of adventures.
• I'm not going to link to all of them, but the incredibly talented Dyson Logos has added a number of their map collections to Drivethrurpg, these from 2024. Dyson is very generous with the licensing of these products, and they're a true resource to indie gamers.
• TLHP Games has released a Random Adventure Generator for Medieval Games, a collection of tables and worksheets to help guide the adventure creation process.
• Most of what I've seen released for the Appendix N game jam has been on itch, but I noticed one released on Drivethru: The Astral Ship is about a fairy astral ship trapped in the mortal world, and warping reality around it.
• I don't see that much stuff for Dragonbane, which is a shame, 'cause it's a really cool system, and I was excited to see Wonderful One-Shots: Kobolds Stole My Babies up on Drivethru. It's a short adventure designed as a one-shot or a session cleanser.
• Vasili Kaliman, the author of DNGN and the Xanadu series of zines, has just released an official OSE adventure published under the Necrotic Gnome new line of Quick Delves: Milk is a short adventure designed as a one-shot or sidequest (boy, lot's of those this week!) for characters of levels 2-4.
• I really love Teresa Guido's art (I've used her on a number of projects), and I see she's released a packet of ten black and white character illustrations.
• Floodplains of Illamoor is a hexcrawl written for Cairn. It's PWYW over on itch, and the layout and art is really charming.
• Another submission to the Appendix N jam is Invaders of Atlantis. Written for Cairn, it imagines a reverse invasion, where after centuries of Atlanteans attacking surface dwellers, the tables have turned and it's time to invade the underwater kingdom of Atlantis.
• Another Appendix N submission is Raiders of the Crystal Keep. When a mysterious giant crystal appears in the nearby mountains, does it portend woe or weal?
• The Crypt of Atan-Thu is currently raising funds on Kickstarter. It's written for a variety of OSR systems, and is a mid-range adventure featuring an ancient undead necromancer.
• With the new release of Dolmenwood we're likely to see a bunch of 3pp written for the setting/system; the second one I've seen thus far is The Swallowed Saint. It brings the characters to a swamp and a forgotten holy shrine that has been subsumed by the muck and mire.
• We're working on clearing out some backstock, and have started to put together some zine bundles. If you're looking for a great deal on some great zines we've got you covered!

We're more than halfway through July, and GenCon is next weekend. I hope everyone who is going has a safe, fun trip, and gets plenty of gaming in. Additionally, Drivethrurpg is having their annual Christmas in July sale, with a bunch of titles on sale, including most of those by yours truly. It's usually a quiet week for gaming releases around this time of year, so let's dive right in and see what is new.

• First off, I realized I dropped the ball on something; I've mentioned several Appendix N game jam products, but totally forgot to link to the jam itself. It's a retro-themed project (submissions must be in by the end of July, so pardon this tardiness), with the goal of creating a short (four A5 pages) module of some sort based of a randomly assigned title. There's been some really creative stuff coming out of this project (and some super cool cover pages based on pulp covers), plus there are cash prizes!
• Another itch jam that just started is the Indie Adventure Jam. It's pretty open-ended; write an adventure for a game that you think needs more support. No AI or being a jerk. It's long running, too, with submissions due September 17th.
• Jonah's Monster is a short and sweet, deadly and profane, one-shot adventure written for Cairn set in a desert.
• A submission to the Appendix N jam is Pawns of the Mind Masters, by MeatCastle GameWare, an adventure focused on illusion and deception. It features art by Perplexing Ruins (they're trying to do game art full time, so if you need art, please reach out to them!).
• The Crypt of Lowell is a longer adventure for Cairn, clocking in at 24 pages. It's designed to be used either as a solo or group adventure. The crypt of a saint is no longer the holy place it once was.
• I love me some bestiaries, and Creatures Fantastic and Terrible was just released on itch. It's got 21 new monsters, applicable to a broad array of OSR-systems, written and illustrated by the author of A Street-level Guide to Urban Troika.
• Jeffrey Jones is back at it again, with Issue 8 of Gary's Appendix. This one focuses on lycanthropy, with contributions from a variety of authors in the OSR-sphere.
• My daughter was speech-delayed as a toddler, so we learned sign language as a family so we could communicate with her. She's speaking now, and sadly we've forgotten most of what we learned, but I was excited to see that Hatchlings is funding Underisles, the third in their series of games aimed at teaching American and British sign language through gaming. We've stocked the first two (looks like we only have Overisle in stock right now), but I'll be sure to pick up the trilogy when it comes in. Accessibility in gaming is a growing topic as more people are finding their way into the hobby, and this is a great addition.
• Tales of Argosa is one of the current favorite OSR systems, and I've been pleased to see more releases for it, both official and 3rd party. The Warlord Class is one such 3rd party release, and does pretty much what it says on the tin.
• Kobayashi is the author of the Black Sword Hack and a few other well-regarded releases, and I just saw today they've released Golem Parade, a game where you play golems created by demented mages, along with what look to be some intriguing mechanics to build the setting. The art is pixel-style, which I absolutely adore.
• I had mentioned Mana Meltdown a few months back when Lazy Litch was raising funds for it; the pdf is now out on Drivethru. It's an interesting, psionic themed battle royale style adventure. Lazy Litch consistently puts out great products, and this one is certainly worth a look.
• Andrew Cavanagh has released Cairn: Lair of the Frost Witch, a short, cold themed adventure for Cairn. They've generously included the whole adventure in the preview on Drivethru, so you can check it out before you buy.
• I've been following Muzgrob's work on the OSE Discord, and was really excited when they released their first product, the Cobbin class for Dolmenwood. I think this might also be the first 3pp Dolmenwood product I've seen?
• Issue 48 of Populates Hexes Monthly is almost at the end of its crowdfunding run, with only a day or two left at the time of this posting. This issue, rounding out the fourth year of monthly OSR publications, contains two small dungeons that tie into the larger sewer system of Dry Gulch.
• Mind over Matter, my new book of old-school psionic rules, is now available in its entirety as a free, no art version. Includes a conversion of the 3rd edition Book of Nine Swords to OSR games. The full art pdf is also available on Drivethru, here, as well as the Sabre Games website.

My apologies for missing last week's Roundup; we had SabreCon going on that weekend, and I was wiped out. I'd like to thank Lyme, author of Dawn of the Orcs (Ennie-nominated!) for showing up for all three days and helping us out, as well as Josh McCrowell, author of His Majesty the Worm (also Ennie-nominated!) for running a game of HMtW on Sunday.

The Friday of SabreCon the Ennie nominations also dropped. I was really pleased to see the number of indie titles dominating this year's awards. Please, take a few moments to vote for your favorites, here.

Since this is a two-week Roundup I'm going to dive right in and see what we missed from the past two weeks. My apologies if I don't catch everything.

• Eldritch Instinct is a game of cosmic horror based on Cairn. I'm only linking to the itch version (I try to promote itch links when possible), but there is a Drivethru POD option the author links to from their itch page.
• Planet Gnome has released the Stranded Astronaut as an entry to the Cairn science-fantasy background jam.
• We don't see many releases on ko-fi, but chrispychickin has released The Muttering Obelisk on that platform. It's a system-neutral module for OSR-style games.
• I've mentioned the Glowburn & Radscars system before, and the author has just released The Soul Jar, an adventure for G&R. Originally written as part of the Appendix N jam, this project turned out to be a bit too long for that project, so was released independently.
• Speaking of the Appendix N jam, The Gnôles of Nuth is an entry into that project, written for Into the Odd.
• Another entry in the jam is Jungle of the Jade Jaguar, which is a truly visually striking release. It uses a unique d12 system, as well.
• Goblinpitgames has released Temple at Mount Sampo, an adventure for their Miasma and Monsters system and the follow-up to their last released adventure.
• Kevin Crawford is one of my favorite publishers, and he's just released his newest Without Numbers book; Ashes Without Numbers brings his amazing system to the apocalypse, or, rather, the post-apocalypse. It's now out on Drivethru.
• Star Borg: Big Book of Bots is a supplement for Star Borg that introduces ten new bot classes to the game.
• Skin City looks like a really fun setting for Into the Odd. You play animated skeletons, tasked with wearing human skin-suits and infiltrating the last remaining city of humans.
• Written as an introductory adventure for Shadowdark, Into the Shadows features art by a bunch of recognizable OSR figures, with an upcoming print version. It sounds like a classic low-level adventure setup, which isn't necessarily a bad thing!
• I'm a big fan of procedural generation tools, and was excited to see The OSR Infinite Depths Dungeon Crawl System is designed to be used solo or with a group to randomly generate dungeons.
• Days of the Plague is a fascinating little game I saw pop up on Drivethru the other day. It's set in the societal collapse of Italy during the Black Plague.
• I've admired the work of Fernando Salvaterra for awhile now, especially their hex maps, and I saw they just released a mini pack of four monster stock art images on Drivethru.
• I saw this on social media a few weeks back, and it is in my queue for publications to check out: The Book of Winter. Published by Hellwinter Forge of Wonders, this release revises the ranger class in OSR games, with a particular emphasis on cold weather environments.
• I thought I had recommended Chain Censer #1 awhile back, but I see it is still funding on KS, so I must have made a mistake. Anyway, it's a zine by the talented Donn Stroud for the game Ruination Pilgrimage. You should check it out!
• Engram is currently funding on Kickstarter. It's a scenario for Mothership, centered on unscrupulous, mind-controlling mining company and a brewing rebellion among the workers.
• It seems like it's been ages since I mentioned a project by Philip Reed; he's got Enchanted Loot currently funding, a card deck of magic items for Shadowdark.
• Lotta Shadowdark this week: Sapphire Seas is a nautical hexcrawl adventure path written for characters of levels 1-10.

Welcome to the last Roundup for June. We're also halfway through the year, and less than a month out from GenCon, which is usually a slow time for releases as publishers work on getting their ducks in a row for the biggest convention of the year. I will likely not be publishing a Roundup next week; with SabreCon going on at the store I'm not sure I'm going to have time.

• Odinson Games has released Knight of the Corpse Trials on itch. Written of Cairn, it's a forest hex-crawl with gothic horror vibes, as the adventurers are sent to capture a celebrated knight who seems to have gone crazy and is exhuming corpses to put them on trial.
• Grinning Rat has released The Outcast, the Witch, and the Shepherd as part of the Cairn Backgrounds jam. These are three science fantasy backgrounds for use with Cairn 2e.
• Another entry to the jam is the Biomechanist, by Francisco Lemos. This background is available in both English and Spanish. One of the things that has been really neat to watch happening in the Cairn community are all the translations that have taken place; at last count Cairn is available in at least ten languages, an impressive feat for an indie game.
• There's a third entry to the jam: the Colonial Rebel background, inspired by Andor and published by Riles.
• Corvid Court, by Gila RPGs, is a game about bad people doing bad things in a city filled with even worse people. Also, you might be birds?
• Eco Mofos is one of my favorite games released last year, and there's been a ton of great community content written for it, as well. Dream Church Seed Vault takes place in an abandoned movie theater from ages past.
• Necrotic Gnome has released the Dolmenwood Creator's Guide, everything you need to know to publish your own material for DW. The pdfs for Dolmenwood are also available. I'm not going to link to all of them, but here's the Campaign Guide.
• I think everybody's waiting with bated breath for the physical release of Dolmenwood. 2Die10 Games has just released three titles for the setting: a short starter delve called Into the Dolmens, Books of Dolmenwood, and The Wrowl, a Kindred Class.
• Mork Stad is another Borg adjacent release, this one set in a twisted, alternate reality version of London. It looks well done, and has some neat ideas in there.
• I'd mentioned Barrows and Borderlands awhile back, and I see the author has just released Barrows and Borderlands, Electric Boogaloo, a collection of house rules and esoterica that will be updated as warranted.
• Mister Smith Designs has released Sour Grapes, an adventure written for OSE that features an undead vinter and their estate.
• I'd mentioned the Mortdraken RPG (and have an interview with the author coming up, as soon as I take care of some other things) and it's now available on Drivethrurpg. I really like the art in this game.
• Max Moon is Kickstarting Twelve Years at Sea, a solo+ game of nautical exploration inspired by weird fiction, mythology, and Ray Harryhausen films.
• We've added two new products to our inventory that I have been really excited about and waiting for their release:
• The Cairn 2e boxset. It's gorgeous, and longtime readers of this roundup will know that there's an active and vibrant community of folks publishing content for Cairn.
• Lucid: Sea of Dreams. I posted a few months back about this project from 2022, and how the author pushed forward through a bad case of writer's block and other issues, and has finally released the finished zine. It looks amazing, and I'm really glad we've got some in stock, and that the author was able to bring this project to completion. Kudos!

Welcome to the fourth news roundup in June. Last week was a short release, due to travel plans and storms that interfered with my internet connection, so let's see what we can do this week to make up for it, shall we? I have found that the summer months, especially the month and a half leading up to GenCon, tend to be slow for releases.

• Matt Kelly has released Cities & Towns, an expansion for Cairn and Into the Odd. It provides urban options for adding to domain-level play in those two games, and looks to be a welcome addition to supplements for fleshing out your campaign.
• I had missed this earlier, but there's a No ICE in California game jam going on over on itch that will be ending tomorrow. There are over 500 entries, and when it's done the jam will be collated into a bundle, with sale benefits going towards organizations working for immigrant rights.
• Rat in a Suit has released their first solo play zine: Ice, Snow, and the Quest for Salvation. Inspired by Shackleton, Scott, and the early days of polar exploration, you take on the role of a ship's crew stuck in ice and forced to disembark and journey overland.
• I had mentioned Miasma and Monsters a few weeks back, and the creator reached out to let me know that they've just released the first adventure for it: Sacrifice at Mount Sampo. It looks really well done, and I'm looking forward to more releases from them.
• Solo games have experienced an incredible surge in popularity, and one of the new entries is Solo Compendium, by Sam Bickley, which is less a system and more a toolkit to help folks play solo games.
• Pickpocket Press, the publishers of Tales of Argosa, has just released Adventure Framework 70: The Lost Roads of Dol-Karok. There's a bunch of material jammed into 34 pages, with two really cool adventure generators. I'm a big fan of ToA, and think the stuff PP is putting out is top notch.
• Mudbones is an interesting-looking four page dungeon statted for Shadowdark. It's part of a series of short dungeons by the same author. It's got a pretty broad level range, written for 3-6 PCs of levels 1-4, but I also like that it comes with VTT compatible maps.
• The prolific Christian Eichhorn has released Sinners, a new zine for Mork Borg. They consistently produce high quality, interesting work, and it's totally worth checking out their newest venture.
• The Untitled Runic Manuscript is a neat looking, system-neutral product that introduces a system of runes and runic magic designed to be plugged into an existing game.
• Bog Iron is a mini-setting for Mork Borg based on Swedish folklore. The art and layout is phenomenal.
• Michael Duggan reached out to me at Sabre about carrying Ligaments, and I see that it's also available on Drivethrurpg. It's an interesting premise, a game that blends WWI technology with a post-apocalyptic setting.
• Outcast Silver Raiders is a beautiful game that we can't seem to keep in stock at Sabre, even though it is a bit grim for my tastes. I saw recently that Altar, Issue 2 is now available, sixty-six pages with three dungeons and a bunch of extra material.
• I'm getting ready to launch Hexapalooza, a crowdfunding campaign with two goals: printing an offset, slightly revised version of Filling in the Blanks (this version is designed to be system neutral) as well as a calendar-agnostic hexcrawl workbook that goes along with it. It's the first time I've done an offset print run of Filling in the Blanks, and I wanted to make it more usable to folks using other systems.

We've reached the halfway point of June and things are starting to heat up here in Virginia. On Wednesday I'll be posting an interview I conducted with Rob Conley of Bat in the Attic games, so be sure to check out the blog for that. It's likely going to be a short one this week; I'm traveling today to get my daughter to camp, and the blog interface keeps crashing, so, if I missed something this week, I apologize. Shoot me a note and I'll include it in next week's release.

• Melfy has released the quirky Wizard-Mendicant of the Didactic Wasteland, a short entry into the Cairn Science Fantasy Background Jam. If you need an annoying wizard to pester your party with, this is your guy.
• The Crypt of Saint Wendelgard is a one page adventure for Cairn about an undead saint.
• I'd mentioned Flint, the solo adaption of Cairn 2e, awhile back. It is finally out on print on demand, and the author has released a code for 3.00 of the printed version.
• Mist & Sorrow is a Mothership fantasy hack that takes a rules-light approach to the game while retaining the "Panic Engine" mechanic.
• Red Ruin Publishing is out with Casket of Fays #16 of their Dragon Warriors fanzine. They're also delving into the world of offering pod versions, and have given me some News Roundup exclusive codes to provide: one for hardcover and one for softcover.
• Tales from the Pog Wars looks like a fun hack of Shadowdark, a post-apocalyptic, weird west setting and game.
• There's a ton of new stuff for Shadowdark out there this week, including Auxilary 2025 for Shadowdark, a release of supplemental material for SD.
• The Bochord of Blasphemy is a short dungeon crawl for Mork Borg featuring stolen scriptures and the threat that the characters need to track down and return the stolen goods or face damnation themselves.
• Zineventures 1: Deadwoods is a planned monthly zine with OSR system neutral content. This one features a necromancer stitching together with gleeful abandon the remains of dead animals and people and setting them free to terrorize the local forest.
• I had missed Defy the Gods when it launched for the first time; it didn't fund, so the creators took it down and have relaunched it. It's inspired by Conan, Clash of the Titans, and Princess Mononoke, with themes of queer resistance and survival.
• Temple of the Sheep God is a 3pp adventure for Shadowdark that centers on a single 24-mile hex. There's a dungeon and surrounding encounters.
• One of the big projects I've been waiting patiently for is Hellwhalers: The Book of Leviathan. I had promoted Hellwhalers when it was first announce, and this new release expands on this amazing game. I can't say enough good things about this game: everything is great about it, from the woodcut-style art to the theme of sailing the stygian seas in a vessel crewed by an infernal captain.

Welcome to the second news roundup in June. We're about a month out from SabreCon2025, the mini convention we're hosting in downtown Charlottesville. If you're in the central Virginia area and would like to check it out we've got tickets available here. Josh McCrowell will be running a game of His Majesty the Worm, Lyme running Dawn of the Orcs (and other games), and we've got Samantha Leigh, author of Anamnesis, Death of an Author, and more, will be giving a talk, as well.

Last week was pretty crammed with new releases. Let's see what this week brings us, shall we?

• Goblin Pit Games has released the Miasma and Monsters Player's Pamphlet on itch. They've got more releases lined up to support it. I'm intrigued by the game, partially because of it's incorporation of Miasma, a physical manifestation of evil that reminds be somewhat of the mythic underworld tropes.
• Matt Kelly has released Gamma Mutant, a submission to the Cairn Backgrounds Jam. It's inspired by post-apocalyptic literature of the 70s and 80s.
• Nevyn Holmes and S. Quinn Morris (of Dinoberry Press) are gearing up to launch a crowdfunding campaign for Dragon Reactor, and have released a demo of the game on itch. Dragon Reactor is a game about conflicts on a grand scale, as well as 'mechs. We carry a number of their products, and the quality is always top-notch. I'm excited to see what they've come up with for this project.
• Bundle of Holding has a Pride Bundle with a number of great titles on it, including one of my favorites, Moonlight on Roseville Beach.
• James Floyd Kelly is raising funds for two OSR zines: Delver #18 and Runes #7. Delver is written for OSE, Runes for Shadowdark. He consistently puts out quality content, and is one of those publishers I can always count on to deliver on time.
• I'm a big fan of Jess Levine's products, such as I Have the High Ground, a dueling mini-game, and Planet Fist. Along with Riley Rethal they're funding a new and combined printing of Galactic and Going Rogue. Galactic is inspired by the Episodes 4-6 of Star Wars, while Going Rogue by Rogue One and Andor.
• Against the Darkmaster is a system I've never gotten around to reading, although it has been on my reading list for awhile now. I happened to notice Critters #3, a collection of monsters and foes to use with AtD and other similar systems.
• The Corrupted Library is a one-shot adventure written for Shadowdark and designed for characters of roughly 5th level.
• David Okum has released Wreck of the Stormglaive, another adventure for Shadowdark, but this one geared towards 1st level adventurers.
• I am not familiar with the work of Ellie Valkyrie, but I spotted their recently published Redirections: Tiny Biomes #1 and was immediately interested. This 80-page pdf presents five system neutral "setting seeds", little mini-settings designed to be dropped into existing settings or campaign worlds.
• The MultiOSR Creature Codex is a collection of 100 monsters for use with Troika, Into the Odd, or other OSR systems. It's a great value, and is something I'll likely be using to dip into every now and then when I need a new monster to confound players with.
• Now that the year is almost half over we've marked down the 2025 Hexcrawl Workbook by 50%. It's a spiral-bound daily planner-style calendar and hexcrawl journal.
• Issue 47 of Populated Hexes Monthly is winding down its campaign as we approach the end of the fourth year of this zine. This issue has a small, ruined keep and caves beneath occupied by brigands (which ties into the sewers in Dry Gulch from Issues 34-36) as well as some rules for downtime activities that tie downtime into leveling in a deliberate attempt to slow down the pace of play.

It's the first week in June and we're chugging right along. Before we dive into the Roundup I'd like to give a shout-out to author Raphael Falk. I don't back much stuff on Kickstarter at the retailer tier anymore; with having a physical store, asking for an up-front lump sum payment for a product that might not see the light of day for months, years, or ever is too much of an ask. But three years ago during ZineMonth I backed Falk's Lucid: Sea of Dreams during ZineMonth. I even conducted an interview with them, here. Over the past few years there were some updates; he didn't think he was going to be able to finish the project, he was sorry, etc.

Well, I am pleased to report that I've got the completed zine in my hand, and it looks fantastic. Sabre's going to be handling the distribution of this project. I don't know what issues he had that delayed the project, and don't care. I would have been fine if he wasn't able to finish. Shit happens, I know that as well as everyone, and it's not my place to get down on a solo publisher who lost momentum on their project. But Raphael pushed through it, got the project done, and it looks fabulous. He should be really proud of the result, and even though I don't know him personally I think he did something that a lot of smaller publishers don't have the guts or ability to do.

Speaking of interviews, last week I published a short print interview with Matt Finch where he talks about the OSRIC Kickstarter.

Also, to celebrate beginning our third year in business Sabre will be hosting SabreCon2025, a three day game convention over the 4th of July weekend that will take place in downtown Charlottesville. We've got a bunch of events and games scheduled, so if you're in the area come check us out!

• I've said before that one of my favorite things with the Roundup is seeing first time publishers release their first works, so I was really tickled when I saw The Halls Between, by Fluca. It's a system neutral product detailing the monsters, treasures, and challenges that lurk in the space between different realities. The art is stellar, the concept is super cool, and I'm looking forward to seeing more releases from Fluca in the future.
• Queer Wizard has just released Handy Hex Icons, a collection of 78 hand-drawn, vintage-style hex icons.
• Rob Conley has launched Into the Majestic Fantasy Realms, the Northern Marches, on Kickstarter. It's an expansion on his classic Blackmarsh hexcrawl setting, and looks to be an amazing supplement.
• I mention Jeffrey Jones pretty frequently as someone who releases some consistently great old-school products. They're currently Kickstarting an OSE Double Feature, two adventures for Old School Essentials written for low-level characters.
• Secret Passages #2 is currently funding on Kickstarter. It's pulling those old nostalgic strings, focusing on games released and produced during the mid to late 80s through 90s. They offer a subscription model as well. I don't have Issue 1, but it looks to be really well-laid out and with some interesting content.
• Red Ruin Publishing is back with more Dragon Warriors content! This time they've released The Curse on God's Acre, a mid-level solo adventure that takes place in a bucolic setting where all is not as it seems.
• Dungeon Age Adventures has released the delightfully named Perilous Path of the Cursed Camel, a romp through the world when a camel appears and commands the characters to recover as many artifacts as they can lest they face the curse of a witches coven. It's statted for OSE, Shadowdark, and Cairn.
• There must be something in the water this week, because Writer Ben has also released an adventure centered around a seemingly peaceful pastoral setting where all is not as it seems. Dunhollow -- The Village that Won't Let You Go, is written for their own Scouts and Scoundrels as well as Cairn.
• I'm always on the lookout for well done stock art, so I was chuffed to discover that You Can Breathe Now has just started selling their work on Drivethru. It's pretty simple, black and white line art, but there's a bunch of useful stuff in there.
• Speaking of art, Perplexing Ruins (I'm sure you've seen their stuff around in various releases) has taken the plunge and is doing art full time. They haven't set up an website yet, but if you're interested in reaching out to them to commission some work the best place to do so is on Bluesky. You can find them at @perplexingruins.bsky.social‬.
• Adventure Kit #1: The Lover's Folly is an adventure written for Into the Wild and Dangerous. The idea behind the adventure kit is that it provides the necessary ingredients for the Referee to run the adventure, but also allows the freedom for them to expand. It sounds like it might be a good resource for starting Referees.
• I'm a big fan of the Fairhaven zines, and What's the Frequency Joey? is a short supplement revolving around the mysterious station manager of the public access channel.
• Another in the seemingly endless line of Mork Borg hacks is Duo Borg, rules for Mork Borg where there's only two players.
• Funded during this year's ZineMonth, Wayward Words is now out on Drivethru. It's a supplement for fantasy games with an A-Z of weird magical books to place in a library.
• Aldriathar is an interesting looking product; it's a minimalist system set in a living megadungeon with procedurally generated content.
• I've launched a Kickstarter for Populated Hexes Monthly Issue 47. It features a small dungeon, inhabited by brigands, that ties into the larger dungeon under Dry Gulch from issues 34-36. It also has rules for downtime activities, and adding downtime activities to leveling requirements to slow down the pace of play.

We're somehow at the end of May, already, and barreling into summer. It seems like over the last week I've seen a lot more new releases than I have for the past few months, so let's dive right in.

• First, I somehow missed last week that Colin Le Sueur, author of the excellent We Deal in Lead and Runecairn, is currently itchfunding the primer for Midnight of the Century, a game currently in development. The primer serves as an introduction to MotC, which will be a pre-apocalyptic serial killer investigation game set in the 90s and based on media such as Silence of the Lambs, Twin Peaks, and Homicide: Life on the Streets.
• Golden Achiever has released The International Player's Review, Vol. 2. It's a 28-page gaming zine in the style of ye olde The Strategic Review. There's some great content in here, and I'm glad to see them publishing a second issue.
• Relics & Ruins is a new OSR adventure statted for OSE, Knave 2e, and Shadows of the North. It's set in the real world, in Italy, at the end of the Little Ice Age.
• The similarly named Ruins & Rogues isn't an adventure, but a one-page, rules-lite fantasy game. It was released in 2023, but has been cleaned up and rereleased.
• Shards is a nifty little supplement designed to generate futuretech or inexplicable alien artifacts. It's the kinda thing I always struggle with naming, so I'm really stoked to see this release.
• Matt Kelly has released WarFare, the first in a planned series of supplements that provides rules for domain-level play for Cairn and Into the Odd. This specific supplement delves into the world of mass combat.
• The False Temple is a (smallish) mega-dungeon written for generic OSR systems and designed for character levels of 4-7. It includes a town to use as a base as well as a wilderness sandbox. At only 41 pages its sparsely written, but there's a ton of hooks and areas of interest, and it makes it ideal for Referees who want a framework they can adjust to fit their own setting.
• I've long been personally tempted to write a system based on the rogue-like dungeon crawl genre, and I was delighted when I stumbled across Morkin: The Lords of Midnight Solo Adventure Game. It's a system based on and inspired by the classic Lords of Midnight rpg computer game from the 80s, reimagined for solo tabletop play. It looks amazing. my only concern is that it will be printed and distributed from Spain, and with the current tariff uncertainty nonsense I'm worried US backers might be left in a lurch. But it's definitely a project I recommend checking out.
• Published by Archon Games, Ferric Resonance is a system-neutral adventure filled with doom and dread, and focused more on investigation and survival than combat. The art is top-notch and really evokes the game's themes.
• I saw Heroes and Beggars mentioned on socials and knew it was one I wanted to mention. It's a collection of twenty NPCs statted for OSE, each with their own illustration, goals, and motivations.
• I was glad to see that The Worm that Gnaws is statted for OSRIC, just in time for the new edition. While I do have deep love for BX-style games, I'm glad to see products for the Advanced-style games come out as well. This adventure is by the well-regarded Expeditious Retreat Press, and is designed for a party of level 4-7 characters.
• Justin Sirois of Severed Books has been posting pics of the soon-to-be released offset copies of Sickest Witch, and they look gorgeous. They've also just released Blood Property, a follow-up adventure to the introductory Salt of the Earth.
• Dungeon Meal Class Pack is a collection of five new classes for OSE, inspired by a certain current manga/anime. It's cute and clever.
• Richard Watt has just published The Lesser Key, a collection of demons for Mork Borg. They're designed less as creatures to be fought than foes to be tricked or unlikely, and untrustworthy, allies.
• The Bowl of Gunnfried is a short adventure written by Vance Atkins that uses some random generation tables they had previously published. It's statted for Shadowdark.
• Every so often I think back fondly to the Redwall books, and so I was excited to see Burrows and Bobcats: Storms over Bendell. It's a one-shot written for Into the Odd or Cairn, and I think I may run this adventure as part of SabreCon2025.
• The ever creative Melsonian Arts Council has just released Stay Frosty Remastered, a game of sci-fi marines against the worst aliens the universe has to throw at them.

Welcome to the third OSR News Roundup in May. Let's jump right in and see what is new today, shall we?

• First, I apologize for not mentioning this sooner. Wandering Blades is a wuxia-style game built on an OSR framework, and is a little more than halfway through its campaign. You can checkout the interview I conducted with the author a few weeks back, here.
• Ruins and Rogues is an intriguing one-page fantasy rpg with a streamlined set of rules, easy character creation, and an interesting take on combat.
• I've been really tickled with the content of the Appendix L products, and they've just released Issue 4: Savage Scavengers. This issue is all about harvesting monster parts, and includes an alchemical system, formulas for potions, and more.
• Torch Fail is an OSR system that seeks to straddle the divide between rules-lite and heavy systems. It's being constantly updated as the author refines it, and is currently on version .97. It's free, and the author is actively seeking feedback.
• Writer Ben has released Dunhollow -- the Town That Won't Let You Go, on itch. It's an adventure for their own Scouts and Scoundrels system, but is also fully compatible with Cairn.
• The excellent Liminal Horror game just finished a crowdfunding campaign for the deluxe edition, and I just saw yesterday that Roque Romero has released a bundle of original art assets for Liminal Horror and similar games. It's free, and really cool looking.
• Chekhov's Angels is out on itch. It's a fun, quirky, spy-thriller game inspired by Charlie's Angels and the ordinary household items that get turned into weapons in their movies.
• Lancer is one of my favorite 'mech games, and is a good example, I think, of how the much maligned 4th edition of D&D did tactical combat better than almost any other game. Another game I just saw that I think fits into that mold is Fathomless Gears, a ttrpg about building 'mechs out of tetris-like pieces and then hunting deep sea abominations. It's also got a companion app for ease of creating 'mechs, as well as Foundry VTT integration to make playing online a breeze.
• Wicked Cool Games has released Ashes of Rhu, an adventure for characters of levels 2-3, compatible with most OSR systems.
• Tombs of the Dead Gods is a rules-lite, d100 fantasy game designed to fit on a single page in A4 format.
• Seventh Son Publishing has released Demographics and Microeconomics of an Early Modern Fantasy City. It's a free release designed to provide guidance on creating the industry and inhabitants of a fantasy city.
• Shadow Beasties Two, by David Okum, is a collection of twenty monsters for Shadowdark, the second in their series. The illustrations are in a charming, woodcut-style.
• I hadn't heard of YouCanBreatheNowGames, but I was immediately struck when I saw their new adventure: Well Past Midnight in the Moonlight Kitchen. It's short and sweet, with charming illustrations and a gonzo charm. The entire adventure is available as a preview, so you can check out the whole thing in advance. But, IMHO, it's well worth the low price of two dollars.
• The prolific Alan Bahr has released two new adventures for their Tombpunk system: Gallowghast Manor and Sacred Places. Alan produces consistently great content.
• Man Alone just released Flint, a solo handbook for Cairn 2e. This looks to be a great product for a great system.
• Forsaken Scriptures is a fascinating supplement for Mork Borg that takes the traditional dungeon map and reinterprets them into condensed word maps. Like so much of Mork Borg (for me, at least), I'm not sure how much use I would get out of it, but it is a gorgeous release, and one that I think would be well-served by a POD option.
• Rovers and Riches 2e is now available. It's a rules-lite, BX-influenced rpg. One of the most appealing aspects of this system is the reworked thief class, called the rover, which has some promise as an excellent thief alternative. It's also written for a spread of 6 levels, which I find appealing.

Welcome to the News Roundup for May 12th, 2025. As I'm sure many readers are aware, the big news of the past week was Goodman Games announcing they will be running a City State of the Invincible Overlord, having made a licensing deal with Judges Guild, with whom they had pledged to cut ties in 2020 following revelations that the Bledsaws, current owners of Judges Guild had been making anti-semitic, racist, and other bigoted posts online. It took three press releases by Goodman Games to explain things, and while the final release clarified that, most likely JG will not be seeing any money from this project, there are still people who are upset by this move.

I had discussions with the other two owners of Sabre while this was going on, and we've decided to not carry any more Goodman Games products moving forward, and are having a clearance sale of our existing stock. The other two owners are Jewish, my wife is Jewish, and we're just not comfortable at this point with the explanations we've gotten, nor Goodman's original response of "we want to build bridges, not walls". Also, being in Charlottesville, located on the street where a woman was killed as a part of the Unite the Right rallies . . . anti-semitism just hits too close to home. Our position may change in the future -- I've always found Joseph to be a good, decent person who does the right thing -- but for the time being we will no longer be stocking their products.

Anyway, let's move on to other new releases, shall we?

• The big release for this week is the launch on Backerkit of OSRIC 3e. The revision is being launched under Matt Finch's imprint Mythmere Games, and there's a lot of excitement around this release.
• Also on Backerkit, the Melsonian Arts Council is raising funds for Liquid Steel, a two-part project that translates the Argentinian comic into English and creates an rpg based on it. The game is going to be based on Troika!, and well-known Argentinian rpg writer and illustrator Gavriel Quiroga will be doing both the translation and the rpg book.
• Another (the third this issue!) project on Backerkit is Dahlia's Diversions for Peculiar Parties, a collection of eight short role-playing games that can be used for one-shots or party games.
• Doogface has released The Quiet Shrine, a 4th level adventure written for Shadowdark. It is set in an abandoned and ruined dwarven shrine.
• Fedmar has released the whimsical The Basement of Old Man Hamsy, a short dungeon set in the complex under the house of the local butcher. It looks to be system-neutral.
• Gladiators 2050 is a new release that takes the premise that in the year 2050 the TV show Gladiators is still running, albeit with chainsaws, spiked maces, and ultraviolence.
• The long, tongue-twisting New England Society for Paranormal Reseach: Containment Procedure Field Guide is now out on itch. The players have to track down and contain haunted relics and artifacts.
• Stock artist Rick Hershey (who probably holds the record for works in different releases; I know I've used his work before) is raising funds for the medical expenses of his children, who were injured in an auto accident caused by another driver. It's an exceptional value, containing both his stock art and the works of others who have donated the title to the cause.
• Underhaven is an interesting looking project currently funding on Kickstarter; an OSR adjacent ruleset set in a world where the surface has become uninhabitable, and people have retreated deep underground and built new civilzations far from the surface world.
• Nocturnal Peacock has releases Roll 4 Ruin, a classic dungeon generator designed to be used either in play or in advance when designing dungeons.
• I'd mentioned Dungeons of Galora awhile back when the ashcan version was first released, and the author reached out to let me know that the full version is now available. It's a solo dungeon crawl game influenced by Latin American myths.
• Beneath the Towers of Khardum is a new adventure written for Shadowdark inspired by Conan, Sinbad, and Dune.
• Written for Liminal Horror, Truck is inspired by Duel, Christine, and Tremors, and is set in Texas and was written for a recent game jam.
• Knights in the Grimveil was written as a part of the Drivethru sponsored PocketQuest game jam, and is game about delving into dreamscapes to banish horrors and nightmares.
• I've got a couple of crowdfunding projects currently running: Populated Hexes Monthly Issue 46 is all about bugbears, and includes a small bugbear encampment in the frozen wastes. Mind over Matter is funding on Backerkit, and is a psionics book for OSR-style games with two options for psionic powers.

It's the first Monday in May, and time for a News Roundup. As of this writing, the ongoing tariffs are still throwing the gaming industry, as well as many others, into disarray. This is likely going to be the first week we really see the first impacts of the tariffs, especially if you live on the West Coast. It's been a slow week on the rpg release front, but I think I've found some good ones for you to check out. Also, I have not been able to substantiate this, but I've read online that Alarums & Excursions, one of the original gaming zines and certainly the longest continually published one, is ending its run. Lee Gold was an immensely creative force, and a woman in gaming at a time when that was not well accepted, even by (perhaps especially by) the creators. Congratulations to Lee Gold for such an incredible accomplishment.

• Munkao is one of my all-time favorite creators; they're incredibly talented and creative, and I'm glad to see their still putting out products after their split with (another one of my faves) Zedeck Siew after Reaches of the Roach God. Munjao, publishing as Centaur Games, has just released the Kala Mandala Playbook, a rules-light fantasy rpg centered on and inspired by medieval southeast Asia.
• Grimbark is a rules-lite, two-page rpg set in the grimdark future about dogs in power armor, bound to protect the slumbering immortal emperor.
• I've also been a fan of Justin Sirois/Severed Books. They've just released Sickest Witch, a core rpg book that's a compilation/revision/culmination of their implied setting and playstyle for all of their releases.
• Mottokrosh, publisher of the excellent Hypertellurian system, has just released Wolden Issue 1, an rpg that will be released in a series of zines. This issue covers the rules and a basic introduction to the setting, enough to start playing.
• 30 Wicked Wizards is a really neat looking supplement, a collection of thirty spellcasters, each inspired by different wikipedia articles.
• Written for the Skyrealms Game Jam, the Shifting Market is a supplement for Skyrealms, and detailing a trade village constantly on the move, shifting from one location to another.
• Inspired by the original iteration of old-school zines, Tales from the Smoking Wyrm, Issue 9, is now out. It's written for DCC, but can be used by any OSR-system.
• Wanted! Borg is a game of grim westerns, powered by the ubiquitous Mork Borg system.
• Prolific author Tim Brannan of The Other Side Publishing has just released the Witch-Finder class for OSE. This is an interesting one, as it introduces the idea of a "half-class", one that can only be entered at a certain point.
• The incredibly talented Dyson Logos has released two of their compiled map collections; one for March 2024 and one for February 2024.
• Soul Muppet Publishing has put out some great stuff over the past few years, including Best Left Buried and Orbital Blues. Their newest project is currently being funded on Kickstarter. Mad as Hell is an anti-capitalist demon-hunting game where you fight and destroy the literal demons that are plaguing your communities by figuring out what is driving their existence.
• Perils and Princesses is one of the best-selling zines we carry, and I just this weekend saw there's an adventure zine currently funding -- and ending soon -- called The Secret of the Night Market.
• Another bestseller at the store are the Fairhaven family of zines. Based around a small town, a community access TV station, and the people that keep it going, Make it a Fairhaven Night is a new zine supplement for the setting that delves into the adventures going on at the local video rental store.
• Mind over Matter is still going strong on Backerkit, and there's definitely time to pledge. It provides two psionic systems for use with OSR games.
• We've added a bunch of used titles to the Sabre webstore, including a sizable collection of magazines from the 80s, 90s, and early aughts: The Gamer, GURPS Roleplaying, and more!

It's the last Monday in April, and that means it's time for the OSR News Roundup for this week. I've managed to tear myself away from getting our garden ready to compile a list of some of last week's releases and crowdfunding projects. First off, I'd like to plug a project of my own. I'm currently raising funds for Mind over Matter, a psionics supplement for OSE and other OSR games. I'm pretty pleased with the book -- I think the system I've come up with simplifies psionics, and I've also included a secondary system inspired by the 3.5 book Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords. If such a thing sounds interesting to you I can certainly use your support!

• As I'm sure most folks are aware, Knock #5 is currently funding on Kickstarter.
• One of the words of advice I often hear from experienced Referees is the phrase "just use bears". This, of course, refers to the practice of reskinning bear stats when creating new monsters. Now, Dice Goblin Games as published Just Use Bears, or Wolves, or Spiders.
• Dustatron has released a pack of 20 pre-generated characters statted for Cairn, to make it even easier to run one-offs or introduce new players to the game.
• The world can seem pretty bleak these days, so I was pleased to see the Build a Better World ttrpg jam, that launches today. It's organized by the folks at the Lost Bay Discord server, and I'm excited to see what comes out of it.
• Odds & Ents is also hosting an itch jam, this one their first: The Desert Dwelling Jam, where you submit entries based on an asset pack they created. It doesn't start for a month, but I wanted to get it in here before I forget about it.
• Skinkworks Game is running their first Kickstarter, raising funds for Milk Run, a scenario of Mothership designed as a one-shot.
• Another Mothership project is Salvage Run, not an adventure but a toolkit designed to help you create derelict ships and salvage/rescue scenarios.
• And here's another Mothership project (jeez, must be something going on!): Providers. It's a sandbox setting based on a rimward planet controlled by a dystopian mercantile cult.
• Lichyard Games has released their first published adventure, Eye of the Watcher. It's written for OSE, and designed for 1st level characters. It looks nicely done, with hand-drawn art commissioned just for the project by Jantiff Illustration.
• Crossplanes has released Weapon Properties for the Shadowdark RPG, a short publication that adapts the 2024 D&D weapon specialization rules to Shadowdark.
• I've mentioned the works of Marc Braden and This is the Weird; they've just released Issue 1 of Shadowfolk, a zine for Shadowdark (and other similar systems) that focuses on hexcrawls and sandbox-style campaigns.
• I'm not seeing much stuff for Swords and Wizardry these days, so I wanted to be sure to mention Beneath the Ruins of Griffon Keep. It's a short adventure that packs a lot of material into 17 pages, with three dungeon levels and almost 120 keyed locations.
• Tales Forlorn is an rpg that promises an atmosphere of melancholic horror. It looks interesting, and comes with an original soundtrack to help convey the themes of the game.
• I was super excited to see Kaiser, a game based on the Mork Borg rules that's designed for heroic fantasy. Maybe this is a Borg-inspired set of rules that I won't bounce off of! Plus, the artwork is phenomenal, and is worth the purchase based on the cover art along.
• The Chateau Amongst the Stars is a point-crawl adventure written for Shadowdark, designed for parties of levels 6-7, which I think is an under-represented level range for most published adventures. It's also an interesting premise, and looks really well put together.

Welcome to the third news Roundup in April. Let's see what was new last week, shall we?

• One of my favorite cyberpunk games, Hard Wired Island, is currently funding on Kickstarter for a new print run. It's a nice, anti-corporate, anti-capitalist cyberpunk game set in an alternate Earth in the distant year 2020.
• Starting in about a week and a half, The Maple Jam is a jam on itch focused on promoting the work of Canadian game designers, culture, and arts. It's a pretty wide-ranging jam that has a lot of fun potential.
• I Don't Belong Here has just launched on Backerkit. For readers of a certain age and temperament, such as myself, for whom Radiohead was a seminal influence on our younger selves, this is an ideal project, as the game is inspired by the lyrics of Radiohead tracks.
• Accessibility has become an important topic in the gaming field, both as older gamers get, well, older, and the hobby opens up to be more inclusive. I was interested to see that there's a zine specifically geared towards accessibility in gaming. Titled Accessibility Gaming Quarterly, they just released Issue 13 on Drivethru.
• Created as part of the Gygax75 challenge, Grassbraids is a fascinating setting for blackpowder-era maritime adventures.
• Fragments of the Floating City is a starting adventure written for Worlds Without Number, and looks to be very well done. It's also the author's first published adventure, and I'm always thrilled to be able to promote someone's first venture into publishing. Go, check it out, and leave a review! You can also find it on Drivethru.
• I'm not sure how I missed this, and I apologize to Alan for not catching it sooner: Gallant Knight Games is crowdfunding Carrion Lands, a dark horror sword and sorcery survival game. Gallant Knight Games consistently publishes some quality material.
• LatinX creator Gavriel Quiroga is crowdfunding Hellworld Earth, a brutal old school rpg with an accompanying spotify metal playlist to get you into the mood.
• Doublecrossed World is written for Dungeon World, and seems to be a Rifts-homage, set in an alternate earth where an influx of magic has transformed the world.
• CM Lowry has released Tyrannosaur Inside, a Mork Borg adventure where, well, a Tyrannosaur appears out of nowhere in the middle of the adventurers' village.
• Speaking of Gallant Knight Games, they've just released All Axe Wounds at Once! Go! a rules-light fantasy rpg that borrows from Cairn and other similar systems.
• Appendix N Entertainment has released Angelology, the third in their series of bestiaries that focus on beings of the Outer Planes (Demonology and Devilry are both available in print through Sabre Games).
• We Squeak at the Moon is a beautiful, quirky bestiary of creatures for Mork Borg, with each entry accompanied by poetry.
• Speaking of accessibility, the Age of Adventures rpg has just been released in a revised, cleaner format for easier use and reading.

Welcome to the third Roundup in April. Last week I published an interview I conducted with Daniel Kwan, the author of the upcoming Wandering Blades, a wuxia-inspired OSR game being published by Plus One Exp. I'd like to revise my Meet the Publisher series, so if you're in anyway adjacent to the ttrpg field, whether as an author, illustrator, publisher, editor, etc., I'd be happy to send you over some questions about your work.

Releases are still a little slow; it could just be spring or people recovering from their ZineQuest projects, but let's see what we've got!

• Mortdrakon RPG is a new, rules-lite fantasy rpg inspired by Cairn and Basic Fantasy, with a sweet pixel-dungeon vibe.
• Jeffrey Jones has been producing some great old-school content over the past three or so years, and they've just launched a Kickstarter for a combined volume of Issues 1-6 of Gary's Appendix, combining the first six issues of that zine.
• Uneasy Lies the Head 2e is an interesting project that just launched on Kickstarter. It's a GM-less competitive game of courtly intrigue. I really like their use of public domain art in bringing the project to life.
• I can't remember if I plugged this already or not, but Solo Borg is doing gangbusters on Kickstarter, raising funds for a ruleset designed to aid in playing Morg Borg.
• Justin Sirois of Severed Books is crowdfunding for Sickest Witch, a d20-based, rules-lite folk horror game. This is a core ruleset for the setting of many of Severed Books products.
• Tom Phillips reached out to let me know about Monster 24, a collection of 250 monsters for Shadowdark created during 2024.
• Written for OSE, The Herbomancer is an adventure set in an abandoned botanical garden. It's written for a party of 3rd-5th level characters.
• Kal-Arath, by Castle Grief, is popping up more and more in my social feeds, and I ran across Al Rathak, Tales of the Crescent Kingdom, a pseudo-Arabian setting designed for use with Kal-Arath and similar settings/games.
• Mouths in Your Skin is a short and sweet (or maybe gross) supplement to help Referees generate the NPCs that live in the characters' skin. It's got a bit of body horror, as may be expected.
• Spellburn and Battlescars is an OSR game designed to work with the various Mark of the Odd games. It's got some really nice art.
• Will Flora has released Tome of the Ancient Hero, an adventure for Old School Essentials. I'd like a little more information here about the adventure itself, but there's an available preview that should give you a good idea of what is contained within.
• I've uploaded a free preview of Mind over Matter, my upcoming psionics book for OSR games. It's an unedited, un-laid out, incomplete version of the work, but it captures some of the highlights, including the introduction to the Path of Seven Blades (an adaption of the Book of Nine Swords to OSR), a few classes, and more.

I was out of town last week for a short spring break trip, so there wasn't a news roundup last week. I'm going to do my best to encapsulate both in this Roundup, but we'll see how we do. Every once in a while I plug a release in the introduction, for one reason or another. This week, I'd like to give a special shout-out to Gurbintroll (nee Blacky the Blackball) and the newly released 4th edition of their Rules Cyclopedia clone Dark Dungeons. Years ago, Dark Dungeons was the game that brought me into the OSR after a long hiatus and then jumping back into 3rd edition with my stepson. The 4th edition is a fantastic re-imagining and interpretation of the Rules Cyclopedia, and I encourage everyone to download and read this game as soon as possible; the pdf is free and is a hefty 475 pages.

• I'm pretty sure I've mentioned the Cairn Monster Cards before, but if not, here you go. You can get a file of 145 illustrated and printable monster cards statted for Cairn, designed to be folded and used in a standard card sleeve. This is a really cool project.
• If you're looking for an easy way to dip your toes into game design, or have a spark of an idea you'd like to get down on paper, the SAGAS TTRPG 1-page game jam is still accepting applicants. It's pretty broad and open-ended; the only requirements are that it be one page and use the SAGAS game system.
• Issue 2 of Print it Yourself is now out on itch. It's a cool zine about, well, the physical process of making zines. I really like this (especially with all of the tariff news throwing a huge wrench into a lot of current projects) because I think it is an aspect of the indie community that isn't much discussed; there's plenty of stuff on game design, and mechanics, but not that much on actually making the physical product.
• Written for Old School Essentials, The Orc is a playable character class for it and similar BX-style games.
• I haven't had a chance to dive into it but The Madder Hag is an interesting looking zine that tackles BX-style gaming, with what looks to be a ton of content. Issue Five, all about fighters, is out now.
• I always like being able to promote first-time authors: Nick Campbell is coming out of the gate strong with several adventures, the first of which is D1 -- Escaping Bunsunin. This is a 0-level, gauntlet-style adventure written for Shadowdark, and is followed by several other adventures in the series.
• Red Ruin Publishing has been putting out an amazing amount of fan content for Dragon Warriors, and they've just released an 80-page, PWYW solo adventure for that system.
• I'm not familiar with the work of Storm Fetish Productions, but they've just released Brink of Calamity, a 180-page adventure written for OSRIC and similar systems.
• Crawling North, Vol. 2 is now out. This is a zine written for DCC with a special focus on Norse-style settings.
• I don't know if any readers are fans of the historical war game Bolt Action, but Sabre Games is currently auctioning off a painted German army on ebay.

It's the penultimate News Roundup for March, and before we start I'd like to apologize to Old School Epics. They had reached out to me on Reddit a month or so back asking me to mention their new audio story series on YouTube. I responded that I didn't normally promote this sort of thing, but that I would be happy to, and then I promptly didn't. Sorry about that! If you're looking for a new solo AP audio series, you should check out Old School Epics, playing through the OSE adventure The Jeweler's Sanctum.

• It's been awhile since I've mentioned something available on Lulu, but the game Block, Dodge, Parry is now available in print in a couple of different varieties. This link is to the hardcover version. Longtime readers will not doubt recall that I've been following the development of this system over the years, and am excited to see it available in print.
• I just happened to see there's a bundle on itch to support the town of Valencia, Spain, after devastating flooding in November. You can get almost 800 of some of the best titles itch has to offer for as little as 5 euros.
• There's an interesting game jam going on over on itch for the RAD system, or there will be when it launches in a week's time. RAD is set in post-apocalyptic Russia and central Asia. It's got some really interesting premises and a strong, active community supporting it.
• Roundup favorite Tanya Floaker has just launched a new project on Backerkit, an anthology collection of games to support the Edinburgh Indie Gamers Collective as they search for a new physical location.
• Extra Ordinary is currently funding on Kickstarter and could use some support to reach its funding goal. It's a game using the "no dice no masters" system, all about kids with occult powers on the outside of society.
• One of my favorite indie authors and publishers is Lazy Litch, and I was excited to see they've just launched a new project on Kickstarter called Mana Meltdown. It's a game of psionic dark fantasy battle royales, in which the players delve into a psychically aware dungeon to outwit other treasure seekers. Lazy Litch consistently puts out great products, and their art is only one part of what makes their books so great.
• L Mann has just released One Antarctic Bestiary, a small collection of classic OSR monsters reimagined for an arctic setting.
• Phantom of the Scarlet Heart is an adventure written for 1e and similar systems, something we don't see that much of these days thanks to the twin one two punch of OSE and Shadowdark. Hopefully with the announced launch of the new edition of OSRIC there will be more 1e compatible products released. This is a mid-level adventure that features a death knight! Always a plus in my book.
• Mauro Longo has just released Mill of the Twelve Dead, a low-level adventure for BX-style games that looks impressively put together and will be released in a print format soon.
• The Painted Wastelands is one of my favorite projects from last year, and I see that the author has just released a Referee's Screen for the game. It's a pdf on Drivethru, so you'll need to be able to print the file, but the art is just so cool looking! They've also just released a Player's Guide and the just funded Strange Tales of the Painted Wasteland, an impressive turnaround time that bodes well for future support of the setting.
• The OSR Advanced Player's Options Book is now available. This is a 340 page A5 hardcover book with plenty of options for OSR-style games: new classes, spells, magical item creation, rules for establishing temples, and more! 

Welcome to the third OSR News Roundup of March. This is the week that GaryCon kicks off, so people are plenty busy getting ready for that. The big news this week is the currently funding Shadowdark Kickstarter, shattering stretch goals with their Western Reaches campaign, an exciting setting and game expansion.

• In Ruins is a fun-looking dungeon building game that is currently funding on Kickstarter. It's a neat concept; the player's build a castle, let it fall into ruin, and then populate it with monsters who all fight for control of the Throne Room.
• Written for Wretched & Alone, Covet is a solo-rpg all about obsession, desire, and toxic relationships.
• We carry a couple of titles by Hatchlings Games, and they're currently raising funds for GAST on Backerkit, a boxset collection of short horror games.
• Another project funding on Backerkit is Hit the Road Jack, a solo or duet game of high-speed, highway chases on the open road.
• Ward Against Evil has just released Aketon: Adventurer Options, a supplement for the Aketon rpg. It's free, and even if you don't play Aketon there's bound to be plenty of inspirational material within.
• Harpy Broodmother is a free adventure written for Knave 2e, OSE, Mork Borg, and Shadowdark. It's a short adventure, available in pdf only, but the pdf is set up as printable files, as well.
• Matt Finch recently launched his own publishing imprint, Mythmere Games, and has been releasing a steady stream of new and revised titles under it. I'm a huge fan of his Tome of Adventure Design, and was super excited to see that two of his most recently Kickstarted titles -- The Nomicon and Tome of Worldbuilding are in stock at Drivethrurpg. I hopefully will be conducting an interview with Matt about the upcoming OSRIC revision in the next few weeks, once he's back from GaryCon.
• Knight Owl Publishing has just released The Book of New Gods, a collection of one hundred new gods for use with Shadowdark. Knight Owl consistently produces quality products, and they've got Amanda Lee Franck and Waclaw Traier provided art for the book.
• Titan's Throne: Infested Archives is a new adventure written for Old School Essentials. It's a sandbox adventure designed for PCs of levels 1-3 and includes a 3-level dungeon the mini-campaign is centered on.
• I've mentioned The Ruins of Castle Gygar a couple of times in the past, and the adventure is now live on Drivethru in pdf form. It's a megadungeon written for OSE that was generated as part of the Dungeon23 megadungeon project.
• Another project birthed from Dungeon23 is The Blades of Gixa, currently funding on Kickstarter. It's a gorgeous mega-dungeon with a charming layout, like one you'd scribble in your notebooks during high school math.
• The Extraplanar Vending Machine is a short and sweet system neutral absurd addition to any fantasy rpg. It's very clever, I think.
• Another system neutral little product is The Willow's Tears, a short, low-level adventure designed as an introduction. It's got a great map, and I also like how it is set up to be printed as a trifold pamplet.
• Another game I mentioned awhile back is Mythic Bastionland, the system by well-known author Chris McDowall that is designed as a prologue to their Into the Odd and Electric Bastionland.
• Lixu has released Appendix L: Vol. 3, a collection of material and houserules for Old School Essentials. You may know Lixu for their Spelljammer and Dark Sun adaptions to OSE.
• My own Kickstarter for Populated Hexes Monthly Issue 44 ends on Tuesday. In addition to beginning a look at the kingdom of Negrorn, ruled by seven lich-lords, it also provides rules and guidelines for advancing beyond normal OSE level limits.

Welcome to the second news roundup of March. My apologies to subscribers; I realized belatedly that I neglected to send out the newsletter last Monday. I had an immensely shitty day and it just got away from me.

I'm getting excited about the upcoming crowdfunding project I'll be launching in April for Mind Over Matter, a psionics book for Old School Essentials and other OSR games. In addition to a fairly traditional psionics system, albeit one divorced from point-based activation, it will also include an adaptation of the classic Book of Nine Swords from late in the 3.5-era. I've always liked the concepts presented in that book, and I've reworked the rules to fit in with an OSR mindset and power scaling.

Enough about me, though. The big news from last week that I'm sure many of you have heard already is that Drivethrurpg will be raising prices on certain print on demand products, chiefly softcover books, some of which will see a price increase of up to 70%! I don't know yet how this will affect POD books from other vendors, or offset books from other sources, but it has been my experience that prices almost never go down. I hope that people who are in the middle of crowdfunding campaigns aren't negatively affected by the upcoming pricing increases, and for everyone else, I guess now is the time to purchase those POD titles that have been sitting in your cart.

• I've mentioned before my love of the games coming out of Latin America these days, and I was stoked to see that the LATAMjam 2025 is starting on March 12th. You don't have to be a LATAM creator to participate, so long as your entry uses a ruleset designed or released by an eligible publisher. The depth of creativity coming out of this community is truly astounding, and I'm excited to see what comes out of this game jam.
• Matt Kelly has released Stormalong, a collection of seafaring adventures for Cairn, Into the Odd, and other systems, all based on American folktales.
• Scouts and Scoundrels is a free, rules-lite rpg based on Cairn, with some super cute artwork.
• I've mentioned Block, Dodge, Parry several times, and was excited to get the notification that the final version is out on itch. It's designed as an "advanced" companion to Cairn, and is available now for a lower price before it jumps up to the regular price. I've been following the development, and it's a really neat system in its own right, and in my opinion really brings a shine to the (fairly basic) Cairn.
• Vesta Mandate is a neat-looking game of political intrigue in the future that is currently funding on Kickstarter.
• Vaults of Vaarn has a soft spot in my heart, and I just saw that Ecophage is a newly released adventure for VoV, dealing with an escaped scientific experiment causing havoc.
• I've mentioned before that Goblin Errands is one of Sabre's bestselling titles, and I just saw there's a similar (perhaps a bit darker) project funding on Kickstarter: Rob'n Goblin is a heist game which looks to be a bit of Honey Heist mixed with Goblin Errands mixed with the newly released Dawn of the Orcs (which we have in stock!)
• Out of all the various Borgs, Pirate Borg is perhaps my favorite, and I just saw there's a newly release Ancient Mariner class available.
• Back to Basix Issue 13 is now available on Drivethrurpg. It's a well-respected OSR zine, and in addition to new gaming content this issue also features an interview with Tracy Hickman.
• Explore Dungeons have released Heroic Adventures #1, an adventure written for DCC revolving around a lich and its rule over a helpless town.
• Attack the Light Issue #0 is the flagship offering of a new series of zines by Michael Putlack, written for Shadowdark. I had the pleasure of interviewing Michael several years ago for a project they launched for ZineMonth, and it's cool seeing them continuing to publish product (full disclosure, Michael currently works for the Arcane Library, publisher of Shadowdark).
• I've mentioned before how much I like seeing a product that I've mentioned in the promotional stages make it to publication, and I just saw that Miami 86 is live on Drivethru. I mentioned it a few years back when it was funding; it's . . . a game set in Miami in the 80s. Not sure if I need to describe it more.
• Populated Hexes Monthly 43 is now available in pdf, POD, and offset versions. It concludes the three part series on the Shadowlands, and finishes up with some playable classes, including one of my favorite, the dhampir.

ZineMonth is officially over, although there are still projects running that started late in February. I hope everyone who participated by launching a project had a fun time and were successful meeting their funding goals, and I hope everyone else saw (and backed) some fun and interesting projects.

This looks to be a pretty light week on the release end of things.

• The Crimson Caverns, by jofas, is a simple dungeon crawl written for Cairn 2e as a one-shot or a short adventure that can be slotted into an existing campaign. Explore the abandoned hideout of an evil sorcerer!
• Inspired in part by the shrines in Breath of the Wild, Pit is the first of a Spell Shrine written for the 2025 Zungeon Jam using Cairn. It's a neat idea; every spellbook has its own shrine that must be found and explored in order to master the contained spell. It's the first in what the author hopes is a planned series.
• Wayward Words is a late entry into the Zinemonth festivities and could use some support. It's a system-neutral supplement of weird books arranged in alphabetical orders; each book has something unique to teach the reader.
• The Rainy City is a fun and quirky setting zine that we consistently sell out of at Sabre, and I just saw the author is Kickstarting Vol. 3 of Flott's Miscellany, a new collection of goodies, tables, and encounters for the city where the rain never stops.
• Tales from the Spectral Sea looks to be a fun game where you play as the crew of a ship that died at sea but couldn't pass on to the afterlife, and instead sail the spectral sea, "living" out your swashbuckling dreams until you can pass on to the afterlife.
• Written for the Mork Borg family of games, Wraithborn is a setting where the players take on the role of the undead inhabitants in a realm of the dead and damned.

Welcome to the last news Roundup in February. While the month is almost over, ZineMonth is not, as many of the projects that are launched during this time extend into March.

Sabre has added a "Daily Deal" feature, with each day giving one product we've got in stock a significant discount. We'll be rotating through a number of OSR and indie titles, both old and new. Right now probably the easiest way to find these deals is via our Discord.

• The Spires of Kuyyin is a short adventure written for Cairn 2e dealing with the exploration of ruins within a ice-covered canyon.
• Billed as a "mini-mega dungeon", The False Temple is by the Azorynian Post. It's projected to have about 150 rooms when complete, and is for characters of levels 4-7. It's a bit of a gamble -- it's the creator's first project, and the project isn't 100% complete -- but they are just fulfilling it as a pdf, and previews of the dungeon are available for perusal. I'd like to see this project fund as I like to encourage small, first-time publishers who are dipping their toes into the business end of the hobby.
• Available as a 114-page, spiral bound book, Advanced Rules is a compilation of supplemental material for Mothership, including some guidelines for solo play (someone was asking me about solo rules for Mothership a few weeks back).
• Mussel Beach: Volume 1 is described as a "swole seafaring zine". It's written for Meatheads, a game which sees occasional mention here, and is designed as part in-world magazine, part setting.
• Jaclyn Lewis is raising funds for Imagine Queer Worlds, a guide to designing worlds and settings that do not hew to traditional gender and romantic assumptions.
• The prolific and ever generous Philip Reed is raising funds for Quest for Zines, a ZiMo project designed to help new authors and artists get into making their own zines. Reed's got an enviable track record of both publishing material but also running successful crowdfunding campaigns, so I'm sure this zine has a lot of useful information in there.
• Probably one of the most interesting ZiMo projects I've seen thus far this year is Wiki Articles are Wizards [citation needed], a zine about generating weird and unusual wizards from wiki articles.
• Jeffrey Jones is another publisher who has been putting out some consistent, high-quality OSR products, and their current project is Denizens of the Blood Sands, an OSE bestiary with a distinctive Dark Sun meets Barsoom meets Synnibar vibe.
• John McGuire is raising funds for Avon by the Sea, an adventure written for the 321RPG ruleset that takes place in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy.
• Feathertail Falls is a Mausritter adventure collection with five adventures, which can be run as stand-alone adventures or tied together into a mini-campaign.
• The classic OSR zine Fight On is now out with Issue 16, this one dedicated to legendary artist David Trampier, and featuring the same roster of fantastic contributors and articles the zine is known for.
• Survivors of Frith is an interesting looking sandbox adventure path written for OSE, set in a world changed by alien invaders. It's designed to take a party of adventurers from 1st to 7th level.
• Chive Knight is a delightful looking OSR system inspired by jrpg art and games. I haven't had a chance to look it over, but from the preview page it sounds like it might be a fun little system to explore.
• The Endless Dungeon of the Mad Mage is a Mork Borg entry into ZineMonth2025, a procedurally generated, never the same dungeon designed as a meat-grinder for careless PCs.
• The Advanced OSR Player's Guide pdf is now live on Drivethru and the Sabre webstore. Written for OSE, but applicable to a wide range of OSR-style games, this book compiles dozens of new classes, spells, and player options.

It's the third week in February and ZineMonth is still going strong. There are a fair number of projects to go over this week, so let's jump right in.

• I'm a big fan of Inkwell Ideas and all of their hex and mapping products, so I was excited to learn that Joe is raising funds for a collection of products to help liven up your hexcrawl or sandbox: four decks of encounter cards, plus printable hexes that you can arrange however you'd like (with artwork by Dyson Logos).
• The Electrum Archive, by Emiel Boven, is one of my favorite zine series of the past couple of years, and I was excited to see that Gav van Saxen has released a depthcrawl titled The Chrome Leviathan, written for the EA setting. It's a procedurally generated dungeon that gets weirder the further in you go.
• Adam Vass is crowdfunding a collection of five zines on Backerkit. They're all horror themed, and each one is a unique take on a specific genre of horror, with its own mechanics.
• Every Villain is a Loser is funding on Kickstarter: this GMless-optional game has the players take on the roles of henchmen, mooks, and minions of supervillains. EDIT: This project has funded, but you can still preorder through the KS page.
• Well, it certainly looks like A Perfect Rock took off and entered the stratosphere! Another game with the ability to play without a GM, this one has the players take on the role of survivors of a doomed planet, on a mission into outer space to find a new planet to settle: the perfect rock. It looks like it would be a great teaching game, since it also literally teaches about rocks and geology.
• Against Time and Death is a neat looking project, a duet-storytelling game about two ace operatives on opposite sides of a multiversal time war. It's got a fun, asynchronous mode of play, which makes it ideal for folks who may be on the busy side of things, and the art is simply amazing.
• It is no surprise to long-time readers that one of my favorite indie publishers currently active is Richard Ruane of R. Rook Press. They're currently raising funds for Silver Age, a game of broken, desolate towns in West Texas and the packs of werewolves that protect those citizens that remain after their lives were sold out for corporate greed.
• Just in time for Valentine's Day, Love for the Love Gods bills itself as "Cabin in the Woods", but for the Hallmark Channel. There's also some Truman Show thrown in there as well.
• In addition to their recently released alchemy folded pamphlet, Valluch has just released two new pamphlets: single use magical items and occult books.
• I've become a big fan of Castle Grief's release and Kal Arath setting, and they've just launched a new Kickstarter for the setting and system entitled Twin Sun Sutra.
• Sivad's Sanctum has been releasing setting material for their wild west hexcrawl piece by piece, a la Wolves Upon the Coast, and they've just released the ashcan version for their bespoke western system. Entitled In the Light of the Setting Sun it is slow funding on itch.
• Mars Belongs Dead is an interesting project funding Drivethrurpg as part of ZineMonth. This is the first project I've seen funding through Drivethru (with promised upgrades based on seller status), and deals with a post-apocalyptic Barsoom.
• I'm not familiar with Operant Game Labs, but they've just released a 13-room wizard's dungeon full of all manner of weirdness. It seems to be statted for generic OSR games, but the art is what sold me on this product; it's charming and lo-fi.
• Paul Partington has released Tomb of the Arachnomancer, a solo gamebook that's nicely hyperlinked, making it easy to play as a pdf.
• It's been awhile, but several years back I mentioned The Golden Age of Khares, a bespoke system for playing sandals and sorcery-style adventures; the author has just released a deluxe edition that looks pretty sweet!
• Kobayashi, the creative force behind Black Sword Hack, has just released Assassins, Demons, and Dying Gods, a neat game where ordinary citizens are tasked by a god-like creature to kill demons lurking among the populace.
• Die, Robot! is a fun-looking 0-level funnel for DCC set on the Purple Planet DCC setting.
• I've got two crowdfunding projects going on right now: Issue 43 of Populated Hexes Monthly, which includes a dhampir playable race as class, and a reprint of Vol. 1 of the BX Advanced Bestiary, as the offset version is out of stock and I need to do another print run.

Welcome to the second News Roundup in February. ZineMonth is going strong, and, like always this time of year, the below entries will be heavy on ZiMo projects currently funding. It's not a release, but if you're a creator the TTRPG for Trans Rights -- Ohio Game Jam is currently accepting submissions. If you're not a creator, this is a great way to get ahold of a bunch of cool projects while supporting a worthwhile endeavor.

• One of my favorite creators is Zedeck Siew, co-creator of A Thousand, Thousand Islands and Reach of the Roach God, among others. They're currently raising funds for A Perfect Wife, with illustrations by additional Roundup Favorites Amanda Lee Franck and Scrap Princess. This game explores Malaysian mythology and asks the question: what happens when a female vampire is married to a misogynistic asshole?
• I'd missed adding Roguelike Dungeon last week (I meant to, just forgot) and wanted to make sure I got it this week. As someone who plays a lot of Pixel Dungeon on my phone in an effort to doomscroll less this is right up my alley; a procedural, analog toolbox for creating sandbox-style megadungeons. This project is actually the continuation of a project from 2022.
• Nice Weather for Fish is currently funding on Kickstarter. It's a family-friendly game set in a fantastical version of 1000 AD Britain Peak District. The art is pretty amazing; it looks like J.V. West by way of Dr. Seuss.
• Transgender Deathmatch Legend is one of our consistent best-selling zines at Sabre, and I just saw the other day that the sequel to it (Transgender Deathmatch Legends II) is now out in pdf on itch. Put the HRT in hurt in this indie wrestling game!
• Soul to Keep is an interesting two-person game where you play one of two souls struggling for possession of a single body.
• Alex Kingsley is a writer and game developer with a small catalog of indie games that have been consistently selling out at Sabre. They recently published their debut fantasy novel, that is accompanied by an rpg, and they're currently hosting a game jam on itch for submissions using the game.
• Another interesting project currently funding on KS is When the Sky Comes Looking for You, an adventure written for Weird Frontiers and DCC that features a loan-shark luchadore and mutant bad-guys.
• Another zine that does really well for us is Perils and Princesses. I saw recently that they've just published a quickstart guide on Drivethru, as well as two new adventures: The Sweet Escape and Sweet Revenge.
• Written for the excellent Outcast Silver Raiders system, The Unfortunate Brotherhood is an introductory adventure designed for a party of 4-6 PCs.
• Timothy Brannan consistently produces excellent work, and I've been enjoying his series of new classes that drop every so often. His newest one is the Swan Maiden class, written for OSE and similar BX-style games.
• I'd mentioned Return to Perinthos a year or so back; it is the culmination of the Jennell Jaquays game jam on itch, a megadungeon written by dozens of creators and stitched together into a coherent whole by Luke Gearing. Backers should be getting their rewards soon, and if you didn't back but would like a copy of this tribute dungeon you can preorder at the link, above. All proceeds from the sale go to benefit Trans Lifeline.
• I'm running a short Kickstarter for Issue 43 of Populated Hexes Monthly. This issue is the last in the three part look at the Shadowlands, and in addition to a small town of mortals it includes three playable race-as-class options: dark creepers, dark stalkers, and my personal favorite, the dhampir.

Welcome to the first news Roundup in February as well as the first Roundup for ZineMonth2025. I don't usually share links to blogs, podcasts, or other such releases, but I was asked nicely, so I wanted to plug The Jeweler's Sanctum, a neat little solo play game on YouTube.

Also, in observance of ZineMonth, Sabre Games has all of our in-stock zines on sale for this month.

You're going to find this month's Roundups focusing primarily on projects being released or funded as part of ZineMonth; if I missed your new release or crowdfunding project because it is not ZiMo related please let me know. Let's jump right in, shall we.

• Tanya Floaker is one of my favorite indy game designers. One of the things I really admire about their work is the versatility. Whether it's a tactical minis game of skeletons fighting against capitalism, or a game of an alien visitor trying to explore and understand Earth, they consistently produce interesting and thoughtful games. Tanya is currently raising funds for Mum Chums, a slice of life rpg about the people who care for children.
• Paul Wolfe is raising funds for Witch-Lords of Skull Mountain, a mini-setting/zine written for DCC, OSE, and Shadowdark designed as a teaching tool for creating one's own hexcrawls.
• Mill of the Twelve Dead is a project I've been looking forward to (I've got an interview with the creator coming up soon); it's an adventure written for OSE, designed for low-level parties.
• DedZeppelin has released Under the Keep at Ernost. It's written for Wilderlands, a Cairn hack designed to emulate Tolkien-esque style adventures, but can obviously be used with Cairn, Into the Odd, or any similar OSR-style games.
• We recently got in Lola Johnson's The Tower in stock, and I now see that they're kickstarting another project for ZiMo: Universe at Your Door: The Traveller is a solo journaling game where you play a voyager venturing into the depths of space, documenting what they find on their mission.
• Sometimes, We Were Infinite is an interesting looking project for ZiMo. It's written for Troika! and is a game set at the end of the universe, with art by Perplexing Ruins.
• In a News Roundup Exclusive (not really), the folks behind the Dragon Warriors Fanzine Casket of Fays have begun adding a POD option to the fanzine. Issue 14 is out in pdf, as well as in POD.
• Idle Catulary gets promoted here fairly frequently, and I see they've got a ZiMo project. Sharky is an underwater adventure written for Old School Essentials and is designed for readability and ease of play.
• Enter Him/\Love Him is itchfunding as an entry into the Tiny Worlds jam. It's an adventure about exploring another adventure, but is also about exploring a human body? There's a lot going on, but it looks promising.
• A great looking collaborative story-telling game is Knight Forlorn, in which the players control a lone wanderer on a futile quest. The art is evocative and gloomy, and fits the premise to a "T".
• Meldar16 Games is raising funds on Backerkit for their ZiMo project; Vapid Venus Ventures is a solo-journaling rpg all about terraforming Venus.
• Solo games seem to be really big this year, and another one that caught my eye is Realms: Etria, a collaborative story-telling game set in a pastoral, mysterious world.
• Out of Orbit is a fascinating, troupe-style collaborative game where the players take control of a group of survivors from a crashed starship, off course and alone, trying to get off-planet or make a home for yourselves where you are.
• The Rook and The Crook is a really neat looking, system-neutral, mind-bending dungeon adventure with some nice art and an interesting concept.

Welcome to the last news Roundup for January and the first before the start of ZineMonth. I do not think I'll be as active with interviews as I have been in previous years; my day job has been more time consuming than normal, and while I have sent out some interview questions, I haven't really had the spoons to devote more energy to it. I'll be sure to link to projects as they go live, but don't expect to see the same number of interviews as I've done in the past. Sorry!

With that out of the way, let's dive right in to last week's releases.

• The Carnivorous Caverns is an adventure for OSE that was released at the beginning of December; it's now available in print on demand from Drivethrurpg.
• I typically don't plug products that are older, but it this case I've been asked nicely to mention a couple of older releases that I either missed or have been recently updated. The first is Adam Dreece, who just updated Wondrous and Perilous Treasures for Old School Gaming (I'm linking to Vol. 1, but there is a second volume available). Additionally, Furvik's Destiny is an adventure for the same (compatible with Old School Essentials). It's beefy -- 71 pages -- and is meant to be played over several sessions.
• And secondly, James Giltner of Nwyrve Press released Slay and Plunder back in November. It's a new system, broadly compatible with other OSR-style games, but one in which the adventurers play the barbarians come knocking at the games of civilization.
• The oft-mentioned Wuggy has released Bloodhoney, an entry in the 2025 Zungeon jam and written for Cairn 2e. It's written as a short, horrific dungeon crawl.
• I may have been somewhat misled by the promises of Cow Borg, but Gem Room Games Dukk Borg looks to do what it says on the tin; present a gritty interpretation of the classic Duck Tales cartoon.
• In line with above, Demon God of the Duck Men is an adventure written for Shadowdark that's designed to be a short, funny one-shot adventure with plenty of fowl play.
• Pestilence at Halith Vorn is an OSRIC adventure written for a party of 4th to 6th level characters. There's a dungeon and hexcrawl region included in the 120 pages.
• Orbital Intelligence has released The Terror of the Stratosfiend (there's more to the title, but for brevity's sake), a megadungeon adventure designed to take characters from levels 1-6.
• Aqua Regia is an adventure (the first one I've seen, at least by a 3rd party), written for the amazing His Majesty the Worm.
• TrueTenno has released 100 New Spells for Into the Odd, which pretty much does what it says on the tin. They've also released Rime Walkers, an adventure based on Slavic mythology and written for OSR games.
• Gnarled Monster has released Beyond the Borderlands 3, the third and final zine in their series. This issue includes a constantly shifting megadungeon that changes layout each delve.

I had mentioned over the summer that author (of both fiction and game material) Howard Andrew Jones was sick with terminal cancer. In addition to being a great writer, Howard was incredibly encouraging to me when I started writing, and his infrequent emails in support of my projects really gave me the confidence to keep going. It is with great sadness that I learned last week that Howard has since passed away. The GoFundMe to support his family is still active, though, and if you can't donate to that I suggest you check out some of his writing.

• Davide Quatrini has released 6 for .66, a collection of six new monsters for Mork Borg. This was actually released last month, but I missed it, and thanks to Davide for reaching out to let me know about it (if you've released something please let me know, as my gaze is not ominiscient!).
• DedZepplin has released Wilderlands, a game of heroic characters inspired by the works of JRR Tolkien and using a system similar to Cairn or Into the Odd.
• The charmingly named Valley of the Cannibal Cow is a short (two page) adventure written as part of the Zungeon 2025 Jam, and features a murderous bovine terrorizing a small, helpless village.
• el has released Nothing will come of Nothing, a short introductory adventure written for Cairn. It's meant to be deadly, and requires clever thinking and teamwork in order to survive.
• Escape to Blackboot Bog is another introductory adventure for Cairn. It's designed as a "pathcrawl", taking adventurers from point to point to illustrate gameplay.
• James Spahn is crowdfunding a campaign for the White Box Cyclopedia, a compilation of the core rules plus various supplements and additional materials that have been published over the years.
• Hobgoblin is the first issue of a new OSR zine, written to be system agnostic. There's not much more information on it, but it looks interesting.
• Underground Oracle Publishing has released the intriguing Bad Moon over Burnt Rock, a weird west adventure written for Mausritter. It looks pretty amazing.
• Tales of Argosa, by Pickpocket Press, is a fun low-fantasy game, and I stumbled across the Jester, a new playable class for ToA.
• The Elixer of Kosmodes is a 1st-level, city-based adventure for DCC, inspired by The Invasions of the Body Snatchers.
• When I saw the product entitled Cowborg, I must admit that my mind leapt to a different conclusion than what it actually is. Regardless, I'm hopeful that this, a hack of Morg Borg set in apocalyptic wild west, does for the weird west genre what Pirate Borg did for nautical-themed campaigns.
• Chainsaw Space Wizards is powered by Troika!, and takes place roughly 40,000 years in the future, with all of the, um, grimdark fun that suggests.
• There's only a couple days left in the Kickstarter campaign for Issue 42 of Populated Hexes Monthly. This issue, featuring cover art by Waclaw Traier, nine demons from other sources adapted to BX-style games, and extensive rules and guidelines for creating new demon types.

Welcome to the second OSR News Roundup for the new year. For the next month or so I will be annoying probably about half of y'all with ZineMonth updates, and I've got a couple quick ones to go over right now.

1. Luke, of AetherCorp Games, has taken over the mantle of maintaining a community ZineMonth site, which you can find here. If you're planning on participating in ZineMonth this is a great resource for you, both to share news about your project and to connect with others.
2. I wrote a blog post a few years back on how to price your zine project with an eye towards retail sales. You can check it out here. If you're interested in trying to get your zine into retail stores I'd be happy to talk to you about stocking it at Sabre.
3. Finally, if you'll be participating and want some free publicity please reach out to me and I'll send you some short and sweet questions to answer about your project.

Okay, with that out of the way for this week let's jump into new releases.

• I've been tinkering with an alchemy system for OSE for years now, never really having the time to tackle it, but Valluch has just released a generic alchemical pamphlet for use at the table, one that produces random results from monster parts the adventurers manage to drag back to civilization. It's in a nice, tri-fold format.
• New to me, Infinite Fractal has released Embark, a hackable OSR system, that uses d12s for resolutions.
• The Caves of Emerald Cove is a Goonies-inspired dungeon crawl written for Gloom & Doom but easily converted for use with other systems.
• I've mentioned before that I've bounced hard off the various Borgs (except for Pirate Borg, for some reason!), but the newly released Fe Borg seems to be right up my alley. It's set in a dying Fairyworld desparate to stay alive by feasting on mortals.
• Inspired by the various Odd hacks and derivatives, The Outer Dark is a post-war game that is written to be played solo, cooperatively, or with a referee, and is a neat little classless, Lovecraftian horror system.
• The Divorced Mage is written for DURF but can be easily adapted to other systems. It's a charming adventure for low-level characters, exploring the lair of a mage beset by the regrets of their life-choices.
• SunEater is a short adventure for a variety of Borgs that centers around the adventurers being press-ganged into solving a mystery that threatens a city. It mostly jumped out at me for the cover art, which is very evocative.
• Jesse Lee released Better off Undead last Monday, too late for inclusion in last week's Roundup, so I wanted to be sure to include it today. It's written for BX/OSE and has some pretty great, old-school-style hexmaps.
• I'm running a Kickstarter for Issue 42 of Populated Hexes Monthly. This is the demon issue, and includes a handful of demons converted to OSE/BX-style monsters, as well as rules and random tables for generating your own demonic creations.

Welcome to the first News Roundup of 2025. As I write this we're staring down the barrel of a winter storm that is promising to dump a bunch of snow on this tonight and tomorrow; hopefully I'll be able to post this before that hits. Last week's releases were pretty light, so let's take a look and see what they're like this week.

• I'd somehow missed Justin Sirois's (of Severed Books) OSR Booster Zine project of Backerkit (in my defense, I'm still getting used to looking for projects on BK), and it's only got a day or so left as of this release. It's written as a general OSR/Mork Borg release, and is a hefty 56-page zine with d20 armor and weapons. As with all of Justin's releases you can expect top-notch production values and a fast turnaround to fulfillment.
• Thanks to a reader for pointing out (that's not an email I check much anymore, btw) that there's a Cloud Empress itch jam starting today (the 5th). Apropros for the season, it's a winter jam, so is themed around winter in the setting.
• The other Todd has released Of Wood and Wold, a hexcrawl guide for Shadowdark, which introduces rules for hexcrawling as well as creating the locations.
• Big Bang is a pretty cool looking scenario designed for a variety of spy/thriller games. It's written to be largely system agnostic, and is set in secret volcanic lair.
• Prudence Publishing has released Whitesparrow Village and the Night Blade, an adventure written for Cairn. It's an adventure scenario that revolves around a bandit chief that has been released from prison; is he responsible for the renewed bandit attacks on Whitesparrow Village?
• Richard Kelly has released the charming and impressively long Radish Knights, an rpg where you play animate vegetables.
• The Tabletop Engineer has released Issue 16 of their Delver zine series. Like of all James's releases, there's a ton of useful, system-agnostic content to be found in here.
• Inspired by Mausritter, Halfjinks is a cozy-style game of mischief in the Shire, written by James Spahn.
• The talented Gavriel Quiroga has released The Black Rainbow Society, their sequal to Hell Night, a psychedelic journey and adventure. I've been following the development of this on social media, and it looks really sweet.
• Against the Hydra is a swampcrawl and dungeon featuring the eponymous hydra. It's written for OSE, and includes printable paper minis.

Welcome to the last news Roundup for both December and 2024. There've been a lot of great new releases this year, and I'm curious to see what peoples' favorites were. Looking forward to 2025, we've got ZineMonth coming up, and I'd love to get more interviews in with folks looking to launch projects for it. I've posted the link before, but there's a great Discord server that is unafilliated with the Kickstarter run ZineQuest, with plenty of folks helping each other out in all aspects of the zine, including some great video tutorials on the nuts and bolts of zine creation. You can find that server here.

This has been a pretty slow release week, no doubt due to the holiday season. Like, reallllllly slow.

• Alfred Valley has released Fire in the Gorge, a one-shot adventure for Frontier Scum. Its designed to be used as an introductory adventure to the Frontier Scum, the wild west OSR game.
• I'd mentioned the Witches of Frostwyk before, a sprawling adventure for OSR, Cairn, and 5e, but it is now available in print on demand format.
• Carlos Castilho has released a ton of new stock art on Drivethru. I'm not going to link to any of them, but you can instead find their Drivethru page here. I use Carlos frequently on my projects, and highly recommend working with him or, failing that, purchasing his stock art.
• The original version had AI, so I was pleased to see that Beneath the Catacombs, 2nd Edition, has replaced the original AI assets with human-made art. It's a neat little OSR game that has a bunch of content.
• We've added The Painted Wastelands to the Sabre store. This is one of my favorite releases from the past year; it's an absolutely gorgeous book that is very well written and evocative; it reminds me a lot of the Ultraviolet Grasslands.

Welcome to the OSR News Roundup for December 23rd, 2024. We're getting within spitting distance of the new year, and for those who celebrate Christmas is just days away.

• I had seen Undelved, the author of Cave of Cowardice, post works in progress pics of the project over the past few months, and I'm super excited to see that it is finally released. It's a system neutral adventure with amazing art and, perhaps more importantly, is generously hyperlinked, which makes it super easy to use in pdf form.
• Chrypt is a pretty cool looking dungeon-crawling game built partially using Cairn. The pdf is designed to be easily printed in a charming A6 format, and it includes rules for procedural generation of dungeons.
• I don't see that many adventures for Dungeon Age, but the previously released Desert Angel Fiasco is now available in print format. It's written for Cairn, 5e, and standard OSR versions, and looks like it does some interesting world-building.
• Eco Mofos, by Dave Blandy, is one of the cooler releases I saw come out in 2024, and there's been a ton of supplements released supporting it. One recent one I saw is by Roundup regular Jimmy Shelter, and is entitled Vehicle Rules for Eco Mofos. Sweet, simple, and to the point.
• Nemesis Retribution is a slick little game that looks ideal for one shots or a session when the whole group can't make it. It's a game of enemies, dark counterparts, and all-consuming rivalries.
• I'm not familiar with Eidolon, but I just saw there is a 2nd edition of the game that was just released. It's got some neat artwork and interesting concepts that evoke Jojo's Bizarre Adventures and Persona.
• One of my personal favorite indie game designers is Tanya Floaker, and they've just released The Thunder Perfect Mind, in which you play a revenant attempting to form a mystery cult with the goal of discovering what caused your untimely end and rectifying it. It's a work in progress available on itch.
• The Sin Eater is a new solo, rules-lite game in which you play the captain of a space vessel who failed in their mission to stop a galaxy destroying terror and have one last hope at saving humanity; constructing a parallel universe free from the creature.
• Richard Kelly has released Seven Strangers III, a class supplement for Cthork Borg. Richard always publishes some great material.
• I don't know how I missed this when it came out last week; the Welsh Piper is one of my favorite publishers, and their BX Options: Class Builder book is a classic. They've just released BX Options: Alternate Magicks, a weighty, 150 page book that introduces new spells, new spell-casting classes, a magical research system, rules for spell components, and more.
• There's only a few days left in the Kickstarter for Issue 41 of Populated Hexes Monthly. This issue takes a dive into the Shadowlands, the place where souls journey after death, and explores the natives of this plane with a look at penumbrals. In BX-style D&D, shadows occupy a weird, non-undead place, and I decided they were the perfect starting place for the native inhabitants of the Shadowlands. Joining shadows are bodaks, barghests, ghouls, and vampires.

The first OSR News Roundup was December 20th, 2021, and for three years I've been able to maintain a regular posting schedule, with a break here and there. I started doing this as a way to create a blogging "habit" and have kept going for about 150 of these. I hope y'all have found some fun and new games through the Roundup; I know that I have.

It's been awhile since I posted what I think of as the Roundup ground rules, and figure I might as well do it again going into the fourth year.

1. I only post about products that have been released in the past week or have launched a crowdfunding project in the past week. When I started I would post links to pre-launch pages, as well, but I've switched over to only promoting active projects. It helps me keep track of what I've promoted, and I think you (the creator) get a bigger bang for the buck.
2. What started out as just OSR releases has morphed to include indie titles, as well.
3. All of the Drivethru links I post are affiliate links, which means that I get a small percent of any sales. This does not take anything away from the publisher's profit, and if given a choice between promoting a product on itch or another similar platform or Drivethru I always try and promote a non-Drivethru link.
4. This list is curated! I purposefully do not include products from alt-right publishers, and where possible I give priority to works by BIPOC, women, and other minority groups. Also, I under no circumstances will promote products that use AI.
5. I don't promote blog or substack posts; there are other places that do a good job collating these.
6. Other than affiliate links, I'm not paid (in either cash or product) to promote these products.
7. If you've got something you would like to see promoted please send me a message (via socials or my email at thirdkingdomgames at gmail dot com) and I'll see what I can do; sometimes I miss stuff!
8. I admit to using the Roundup to promote my own work, but I do try and put it at the bottom of the list so that others get higher priority.

That's about it. Thanks for reading, and here's to another three years! This is a bit of a short roundup; I'm guessing most folks are busy with holiday stuff.

• The Great Lakes Game Library has released Tales from the Northwoods, a collection of beasts, maps, and adventures written for Cairn and inspired by the myths and legends of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan.
• The Sepulchre of Dust is currently crowdfunding on Kickstarter. This is a revised edition of the introductory Shadowdark adventure, and includes updated VTT maps for both players and GMs.
• MeatCastle GameWare has released the Light in the Fridge, a Honey Heist inspired game where you play leftovers in the fridge trying to reach the top shelf to replace a light before it burns out forever.
• The other Todd (Hexed Press) has released Simple Hex Map Icons to itch. Pursuant to my interests, they include a selection of icons for use to create hex maps; right now they're just available for use in GIMP-based maps, but Todd is hoping to expand the collection to be usable by other programs, as well.
• Fanterland has released Feathertail Falls, a collection of adventures and setting for Mausritter, featuring mice that can fly. The art in this release is pretty stunning.
• In The Court of the Crypto King is a delightfully named adventure for CY-Borg, where the characters must delve into a facility dedicated to an ancient horror: blockchain technology.
• Many of you may be aware that the fourth issue of Carcass Crawler, the official OSE zine, dropped a couple of days ago. This issue has new classes, spells, new potions and rules for potions, and an adventure featuring a shadowmancer's lair.
• Joel Hines has released the Shrike, an adventure and setting by Leo Hunt that crowdfunded at the beginning of the year. It's a gorgeous, weird, sandbox style-adventure set in an abandoned corner of Hell. Right now it is only available in pdf, but I believe the print versions should be out soon.
• Written using Mork Borg as a starting point, GRUSS VOM KRAMPUS is both a holiday-themed adventure and a cold weather adventuring sourcebook
• I'm raising funds for Issue 41 of Populated Hexes Monthly. This issue dives straight into the Shadowlands, the land of the dead in the Absalom setting, and includes a bunch of monsters that have either been tweaked for the setting (ghouls, shadows, vampires) or adapted from other editions (barghests and bodaks). It also includes new spells and clerical abilities.

Let's jump right in and see what new releases there are for this week's edition, shall we?

• In what is likely a Roundup first, there's an rpg release on Ko-fi. Entitled Space Cairn, it's a hack of the popular Cairn 2e ruleset for sci-fi gaming. I know I've plugged artists on ko-fi before, but I think this is the first rpg release I've seen on the platform.
• Matt Kelly has released Jug Bitten, a supplement for Cairn, Into the Odd, or virtually any other OSR system, that delves into the age old question of "what happens when the PCs decide to start drinking on the job."
• Dodocahedron Games has released a six-sided dungeon bookmark designed to not only help you mark your place but as a handy set of tables and inspiration for use during gaming. The creator is visually impaired, and designed these printable tools to be easy to use and accessible.
• For whatever reason I don't always catch game jams as they're ongoing, instead noticing them after they're done and I start seeing the submissions out in the world. Not with the enticingly named Below a Bad Moon Jam. It's a long-running one, and has only two guiding design principles: fuck up the moon, and put a maze under a castle.
• Minihex is a hack of the Mini-Quest game, and is designed to play solo or with a small group. It's a cute little minis game that you can print out the board for.
• This is the first release by TrueTenno that I've seeen; they've released SunEater on itch; it's an adventure for Mork Borg and has some of the most charming, DIY-art I've seen in awhile.
• Seven Sealed Spirits is an alliterative adventure for Knave 2e. It's a micro-setting island with a ton of content jammed into the 32 pages.
• In a stunning break from tradition, Casket of Fays #15, the Dragon Warriors fanzine I plug whenever I happen to see a new issue, is now available as a PWYW title rather than free. I'm glad they took this step; the publishers have released an incredible amount of content as a labor of love, and it's only right that they get some financial love in return.
• It's been awhile since I've seen a new release of Zine of Wondrous Power, and Issue 5 is now out, chock full with shark-themed material for a variety of OSR-games.
• Munkao is an author an illustrator that I'm always happy to promote -- you might know them from projects such as Thousand Thousand Islands and Reach of the Roach God -- and they've just released another solo project: Deluge at Drizzle Distillery. It's written for Cairn and Into the Odd. You should check it out, they always produce great stuff.
• Philip Reed can be relied upon to release a steady stream of quality OSR-adjacent products; their newest release, A Rattle of Bones, Creepy Encounters for Fantasy RPGs, does pretty much what it says on the tin.
• James Mishler has released Liber Diaboli, a supplement of demons and devils for Shadowdark. I like that they include a warning that the supplement adds complexity to the system that some players may not be looking for, and compares the difference to Advanced versus Basic. I should really take that to heart and start adding that to my stuff.
• In addition to releasing the 2025 Hex-a-Day Workbook on Drivethrurpg, where you can get it in pdf or hard and soft flavors of print on demand, we've added the spiral-bound version to the Sabre webstore. These will ship out immediately, while the POD versions likely won't arrive until after the holidays, I'm afraid. This book is in the form of a daily calendar planner, with 365 hexes to fill in as part of a hexcrawl.

It's the last month of 2024, and I hope that everyone in the US had a relaxing Thanksgiving. I'm going to mention again next year's upcoming ZineMonth. If you'll be participating I'd love to interview you about your project and promote your work, so please reach out to me (thirdkingdomgames at gmail dot com) and I'll send some survey questions over to you.

One of the big pieces of news to emerge over the past couple of weeks is the explosion in popularity of Bluesky as a place for OSR and indie ttrpg creators to network and post. There are a number of "starter packs" that include relevant folks that you can sign up for to follow everyone at once. Roundup fave Yochai Gal has been instrumental in curating and publicizing some of these packs.

• Roundup favorite Evlyn Moreau is running a Kickstarter along with Sofia Ramos and Luna P. A Feast for a Sphinx is a dungeon crawl adventure for Mork Borg, and has about a week left to fund as of the publication of this issue. Evlyn's projects are always great, and I cannot recommend her work highly enough.
• It seems like it was just yesterday that Jeffrey Jones released the first issue of Gary's Appendix, and now he's funding Issue 7. It's a collection of articles and resources for OSR games, especially OSE; this issue focuses on underground exploration.
• Endling is a pretty cool looking solo, tarot-driven game that uses hex flowers to create a journaling game of being the last human alive after an apocalypse.
• Loot the Room has released The Witch of Drithwyn Weald on itch. It's an advent calendar style hexcrawl, system neutral, and the price will rise as the month progresses; those that back early will get the entire release at a lower price.
• The Lost Chronicles of Oz is a new project funding on Kickstarter that uses a custom system is open-source, creative commons, with some really neat artwork and concepts. It looks like its still aways from funding, and if you're interested in this sort of thing it's definitely worth checking out.
• Melf has released Wud on itch, a collection of encounters in a dark, fairytale forest, written with Cairn 2 rules. It would also be an excellent addition to solo play games.
• Depths of Dark Bargain is a compact dungeon delve written for Cairn and Block, Dodge, Parry. It's designed to emulate the claustrophobia of deep, dark, dungeon delving.
• If there are any pro-wrestling fans in the readership you're going to want to check out Legendary Pro-Wrestling, currently itch-funding a print version, in which you play a supernatural creature who has joined the pro wrestling circuit.
• R Rook Studios is one of my all-time favorite indie publishers, and they've just released A Merry Little Christmas, an adventure/setting for Liminal Horror. You can find my interview with Richard here.
• A Hundred Years of Yeoldlands caught my attention earlier this week. Available on Drivethru as a PWYW product, it is over 600 pages of session reports of a campaign run for over one hundred sessions over a period of three years.
• I've got about a week left in my current Backerkit campaign, raising funds for Year Three of Populated Hexes Monthly. This project is raising funds to commission new art as well as an offset print version of the collection.
• Sabre Games is having a Black Friday weekend sale; 20% off all in stock items through Monday night by using the code "BF2024" at checkout. This includes a wide selection of indie and OSR zines and games, new and used. https://www.thirdkingdomgames.com/products

Welcome to the last Roundup of November, and in the States the one before the Thanksgiving break and the consumer chaos that is the weekend after. There's not a ton of new releases that I found this week, which is likely due to the impending holiday season and the general level of busyness.

• Hedgemaze Press has released a free Polyhedral Dice Font, which is excellent for a visual representation of different dice notations.
• Statted for Cairn and DURF, The Fabulous Luxurious Totally Normal Hot Springs Resort on Reverie Island is a pamphlet one-shot adventure with some really neat art and fun, totally normal, not dangerous at all locations and guests.
• I'm a big fan of Block, Dodge, Parry, and the author has just released Sail, Swab, Scurvy, a nautical supplement for BDP and Cairn. There's a ton of content in here that is applicable to virtually any kind of naval campaign you're running.
• Solo Survival is a short, quick survival game where you try to reach safety in a post-apocalyptic world.
• Kobayashi has been releasing some amazing NSR content (including Black Sword Hack and Fléaux!), and they're currently crowdfunding Assassins, Demons, & Dying Gods, a game in which you play mortal assassins tasked by a god with killing the demons hiding amongst humanity.
• The Caravan's Secret is an adventure for Dragonbane, a desert adventure designed to be run as a one-shot or short adventure to get players from one place to another.
• As many readers no doubt are aware, I'm a big fan of random table resources, and was excited to see this new Magic Item Generator by SilverNightingale; I think it's a great way to give flavor to magic items to make them more than just "a +1 sword".
• The Sepulchral Tower is a short adventure written for Mork Borg with a pretty simple premise: there's a tower, it's abandoned, and there's stuff in it to find and fight.
• I'm not familiar with Lance & Tome, but Vol. VI is out and has rules for mass combat that are designed to be system agnostic and usable for a wide range of OSR systems. I'm always interested to see what different folks do with mass combat systems.
• I'm a big fan of Weird Heroes of Public Access, and there's just been a supplement released for it for free: game posters designed to be printed, filled out, and posted at your local FLGS to get a WHPA game together. I think this is a really neat idea, and would like to see other games do soemthing similar.
• Philip Reed has released Unplanned Encounters with the Undead, a collection of encounter cards that, as it says on the tin, provide encounters with a variety of undead monsters.
• I've launched a Backerkit campaign for the compiled collection of the Third Year of Populated Hexes Monthly. This collection includes a basic psionics system, rule

Welcome to the third Roundup for November. Releases are a little light this week, no doubt due in part to the impending holiday rush/busyness.

• There are plenty of one-page systems out there, and now there's Forest Burial, a solo rpg designed to be printed out and stored in a chewing gum case. It's a submission to the Solovember Game Jam, and takes inspiration from Vermis, Princess Mononoke, Shadow of the Colossus, and more.
• Transgender Deathmatch Legend is a title that we constantly sell out of at Sabre, and the folks behind that game are currently crowdfunding TDLII, a sequel to the first. This new book is available in an A4 landscape coilbound book.
• James T Hook has released Sword & Backpack: Reforged, an rpg where you play a young and untested adventurer setting out to seek gold and glory for the first time.
• Cyclopean has released a pretty cool-looking free product on Drivethru: entitled The Faction Machine, it's a system-neutral faction generator for sandbox campaigns. It's five pages, and provides simple rules creating self-motivating factions for your games.
• The Dreamgod's Idol is a 1st level adventure written for DCC. It's a short adventure, suited for a one-shot or side-quest, or as a hook to throw out for low-level players.
• Written for Shadowdark, Smoke and Shadows is a short supplement and expansion for the system (and for OSR systems in general) that add rules for gunpowder weapons, as well as the musketeer class.
• I always enjoy seeing a new release and remember covering it in the past as part of a crowdfunding project. FÄNGELSEHÅLA is now out, and I remember covering it for 2024's ZineMonth. It's an rpg in the style of an IKEA instruction catalog, and is really well done and very clever.
• Hangry Dwarf Games has released The Wizard Remains, a mid-level (6th or so) adventure that is written for 5e, Knave 2e, and generic OSR games. I'm usually really hesitant to recommend games written for both 5e and OSR games, since I think the two playstyles are usually too divergent, but the author has included conversion and scaling notes, which will no doubt help with that.
• Kevin Crawford is crowdfunding a new in the "Without Numbers" series: Ashes Without Number is his take on the post-apocalypse genre, with tools to create your own version of the apocalypse, as only Crawford is able to deliver.
• I'm crowdfunding yet another issue of Populated Hexes Monthly, this one Issue 40, which continues the look at Tyeld, the City of Shadows, and begins an exploration of the Shadowlands, where spirits go after death and demons feed upon the unwary.

Welcome to the second Roundup of November. Let's jump right in, shall we. This week seems a bit lighter than recent weeks.

• DURF is a fun little system, and DURF Me to the Moon is a recent entry into the DURF adventure game. It's meant to be a quick one-shot playable in a couple of hours, and is influenced by both The Little Prince and Dr. Who.
• Simon Templar has just released The Call of Cairnthulhu, a mashup of Cairn and the works of HP Lovecraft. Cairn is a sweet game (I know I've talked about it before), and I think it dovetails very nicely into the Call of Cthulhu-style games.
• Written for the excellent Wretched and Alone system, A Witch, A Gallows Bird is a late release for Halloween. You take the role of the one real witch in Salem Village, trying to survive in an atmosphere of accusations and fear.
• The prolific James Floyd Kelly has launched a short Kickstarter for Delver 16/Runes 5, a collection of game aids and material for OSE and Shadowdark.
• Christian Eichhorn is funding Tribute, a zine for Mork Borg, CY_Borg, and A Death in Space. Christian has released a staggering amount of 3rd party material for these systems, and their projects are always worth checking out.
• One thing that the various Borgs do really well is project hopelessness into the game, and Mork Org leans into that, embracing perhaps the most horrifying, hopeless existence of all: that of the mindless office drone.
• The Ghosts of Zoazanna Mountain is an adventure for OSE currently funding on Backerkit. It's a massive, 80+ page adventure, with some really great illustrations.
• I meant to mention this a few weeks ago, but I dropped the ball. Elln the Witch has released a compilation of their "little zine" books. Each release is a little amuse bouche, a delightful aid to play, and they're definitely worth checking out.
• Peculiar Taverns Along the Way is a collection of twenty taverns, broadly sketched, ready for the Referee to add details and throw them into their game as needed.
• I've mentioned Corp Borg a couple of times, and Gates of Byll is a random room generator for that system.
• Speaking of an amuse bouche, Random I Am is a collection of two tables of grog and grub, written with Pirate Borg in mind but obviously adaptable to any other system.
• I'm a big fan of Hugh Lashbrooke's Mausritter releases, and Whiskers in the Wind introduces the new setting of Whiskerwind Hollow.
• River of Lies is a DCC adventure set on the Purple Planet. It's written for 3rd level characters, and is by James A Pozenel, with art by a host of DCC luminaries.
• MacGuffin and Co (publishers of some fantastic indie games, include Upriver, Downriver), have just released A Day at Barracuda Beach, a . . . relaxing, beach-based hexcrawl that allows the PCs to doff their plate armor and don their Speedos.
• Populated Hexes Monthly Issue 39 is live on Drivethru, featuing an introduction to Tyeld, the City of Shadows, and the duskblade class, a martial playable class that draws power from the Shadowlands at the risk of corruption of the soul.

Welcome to the first Roundup for November, 2024, and closing in on the last of this year. Like I mentioned in last week's Roundup, that means a number of y'all will be getting ready for the annual ZineMonth event, and like I've done in previous years I'd like to promote your project, whether you're doing it through Kickstarter or the independent ZiMo project. If you're interested, but have never done it before, I recommend joining the ZineMonth Disord server, here, where you'll find plenty of resources to help your project.

I saw an announcement last week that Drivethrurpg has finally enabled the option to filter out all content with AI generated assets, which I think is well overdue and a great option.

Also, I'm sure everyone is tired of hearing about the election, but if you're in the US remember to vote tomorrow!

• Yochai Gal, the author of Cairn, and one of the driving forces behind the NSR movement, has released Trouble in Twin Lakes. It's obviously written for Cairn, and looks like it will be an introduction to a mini-setting Yochai is working on.
• Wuggy has been releasing some really cool art assets, and their most recent release is a collection of hex tiles. It's compatible with Hex Kit, but they should be easily imported into other similar hex software.
• Dice Goblin Games has released a cool fantasy seasonal transition table, for use when the seasons transition from one to another.
• The Far Horizons Co-Op has been producing and publishing some really neat stuff over the past few years (including Samantha Leigh's Outliers!), and they've just launched a Kickstarter for Paranormal Freelancers, where you play freelancers who do the work that various powerful supernatural entities can't be bothered with. It's a short campaign, so be sure to check it out now before it is too late.
• It's not OSR, but I saw Trash to Treasure: A Magical Goblin Girl RPG, a game about magical goblin girls fighting evil and pollution, and thought it looked pretty neat. It's inspired by the excellent Eat the Reich game.
• Card-based rpgs have proved to be really popular at Sabre, and I'm intrigued by a project currently funding on Backerkit. The Time we Have is a card-based rpg designed for two players, where each takes on the role of a brother on the opposite side of a door in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. One of you has been bitten, and it is only a matter of time before you change.
• It missed Halloween, but The Black Pumpkin is a Halloween-themed dungeon available on itch. Set in a pumpkin, with a plethora of Halloween/horror tropes, this short adventure is system neutral and available as Pay What You Want.
• I saw this a few weeks back on socials and it looks like Lazarus has finally uploaded their spell books for OSE to Drivethru. It's available in a free (B&W) version and a paid color version, both of which are designed to be printed and assembled for your players.
• Bloodholme is a horror comedy adventure written for Old School Essentials, designed for a party of third level characters.
• Dyson Logos has just released their Cartography Collection of all of the maps released in January of 2024. There are ten maps, and they include both blank and populated maps.
• Cairn 2e is available on Drivethru! Both the Warden's Guide and Player's Guide are available for free, and as I'm sure many readers have noticed from my shout-outs over the past few years there's a really active community of people creating products for this great system.
• Abandoned Temples and Crawling Creatures is a new solo dungeon crawling system.
• Another OSR system that has caught my eye is Blood Engine. It's meant to be compatible with old school modules and systems, but also draws inspiration from modern games like Savage Worlds and Mausritter. As someone who draws inspiration from modern games as well as old games, I appreciate the sentiment.
• The prelaunch page for Year Three of Populated Hexes Monthly is live on Backerkit. I had a really good experience with the platform for my last project, and am giving it another try. Since this is the third book in the series, and I have two successful campaigns on Kickstarter for the other volumes, I'll be able to use this as a direct comparison.

It's the last Monday in October, and that means there are just two months left in 2024. What this also means is the ZineMonth is just around to corner. I will be doing the interview series I have done for the past (three now, I think?) years, highlighting zine creators and their projects, and it's never too early to start promoting your work. If you're such a creator, and you'd like to answer (in written form) a handful of questions about your project, please hit me up and I'll get them to you.

• The first project I'd like to mention is written for 5e, but being an encounter location for a hexcrawl-style game I figure it is right up my alley. The Conductor, by Kontent Punch, is an encounter location with a strange being, and is especially suited for a fey-themed encounter.
• Johnny Rook Games is Kickstarting Of Hunger and Lies, a city-based murder mystery written for OSE and OSRIC. It looks like there's a ton of stuff in here to make the city come alive, which is something I see people constantly looking for.
• Double Proficiency, the folks behind the wildly popular Geologists' and Herbalists' Primers, is Kickstarting the Mycologists' Primer, which does for fungi what their previous two books did for herbs and rocks.
• Gourdin Konbo Club has released The Illustrated Bestiary in English and Japanese, a collection of 145 monsters for Cairn (written by the author of Cairn, Yochai Gal themselves!).
• Bound for the Bogwood is a spooky-themed adventure written for Cairn. It's about 90% done, and folks who purchase it now (at a discount) will be getting the updated files at no added cost when it's done.
• Caverns of the Sacred Flame is an adventure for Knave 2e that was submitted to the recent Knave jam. It boasts a super cool isometric dungeon map.
• Sneaking under the wire in time for Halloween is the Cairn adventure It Was Night in the Lonesome October, a spooky race-against-the-clock hexcrawl.
• Saving Saxham is a short, open-ended sandbox-style adventure written for Cairn, 5e, and standard OSR games. It looks like it, too, would be a good one shot to run around Halloween.
• Another Knave 2 jam entry is the Toymaker's Folly, a (free) adventure on Drivethru with horror-themes designed for a low-level party.
• The Sunken Temple is a mid-level adventure for OSE, centering around a submerged temple and the hunt for the wizard who went missing while exploring it.
• Shadow & Fae is a cool little OSRish game that I mention from time to time: A Walk in the Harwood is a new adventure for S&F (alhough it can also be run with OSE) where everything is not what it seems.
• Crumbling Keep has released A Strange House, a 42-page adventure in a weird, decrepit dwelling contained within a pocket dimension. It's written for OSE and features art by Roundup favorite Evlyn Moreau.
• Castle Grief is on my list of new favorite publishers that I've discovered this year, and they've just released Kal-Arath, an OSR system designed for procedural play; whether solo or co-op. They've also released at the same time two expansions: Valley of the Black Ziggurat and Lords of the Pit.
• After founding Mythmere Games and going out on his own Matt Finch has been releasing new products at a torrid pace, both old and new. Tomb of the Iron God is a re-release of the classic adventure he wrote in the late aughts, updated for S&W Revised.
• The Wizard's Zine was released in 2016, and now, eight years later, we've gotten Vol. 2 after much fan urging. It's largely a community driven project, and contains a whopping 105 pages of material written for Swords and Wizardry and White Box. Believe it or not, it's also Pay What You Want!
• Written for Knave 2e, Eurydice's Needle is a jazz and crime inspired adventure that features, in my opinion, one of the best designed covers I've seen in awhile. The interior art is pretty great, as well.
• MT Black has released World War Weird, a Black Hack hack set in on an alternate Earth during World War Two. Black is a well-known author, and a number of their releases are extremely well-regarded.
• Sabre has gotten some new OSR titles in, including His Majesty the Worm, Outcast Silver Raiders, and a restock of the OSE Advanced Player's Book.

Welcome to the News Roundup for the third week in October. I don't know about you, but it sure feels like to me that the weeks are flying by, and before long we're going to be into 2025. I'd mentioned the GoFundMe for Howard Andrew Jones, fantasy author and gamer, and I'd like to mention it again. They're within 12k of the goal, and if you've got some spare change it is a worthy cause to contribute to.

On Friday at Sabre we hosted two new authors, both who just published their debut novels, and I'd like to take a moment to promote their work. I have not read either of the books, but I did purchase a copy of each and they're on the top of my "to-read" pile.

• Cindy L Sell has published Remnants of a Scarlet Flame.
• M.J. Lindsey has published a Distortion of Fate.

Lindsey is a local, Charlottesville-based author, and Cindy, who lives in Kansas, is her critique partner. They came in on Friday and set up a table to sign books and discuss their work. If you're looking for a good book to read this winter you should check them out!

Also, Alex Kingsley used to be based in Charlottesville (my wife actually taught them in high school) and they have written several gaming books that consistently sell out. Alex has just published their debut novel, Empress of Dust, and when they came in to discuss their work for SabreCon 2024 they mentioned they're also planning an rpg based on their setting.

• Kyle Tam of Urania Games has released Track Rats, an adventure for Liminal Horror based on subways and the rats that inhabit them. It features work by Hodag RPG, one of my favorite artists.
• I'd mentioned the Exalted Order of the Majestic Moose awhile back, and the author has just released their second title on itch: Fish People and Water Witches is an encounter location written for Cairn and set on the back of an enormous sea turtle.
• Tower into Elsewhere is a new adventure written for David Blandy's Eco Mofos game, a multi-planar romp with horror themes.
• I'm a huge fan of Yochai Gal and Cairn, and am waited with bated breath for the box set to be released. Until then, they've published the Player's Guide as an at-cost, print on demand book over on Lulu.
• The Bundle for Ukranian Hospitals came out last Monday, too late to be include in that issue of the Roundup, so I'm mentioning it today. If you're a creator who has a product they'd like to submit, or if you'd just like to support a worthy cause and get a crap-ton of games (there are currently over 200 entries with another 14 days to go) this is something you don't want to miss out on.
• Gordy Higgins released WitchCon, an adventure for Troika! set during a witch's convention. It had been previously written by Franc, but Gordy provided illustrations and layout for the project.
• Downcrawl 2e is funding on Backerkit; it's a toolkit for creating an underworld sandbox setting, and has been remastered to provide support for solo or zero-prep play. Besides the content, the art is pretty stunning.
• Castle Grief is fast becoming one of my favorite OSR publishers, and they've jsut released Aelwine, a free, partially filled out hexcrawl region designed to give Referees a framework to use when building their own adventures.
• I mentioned Dungeon Grand Prix a year or so ago after it was released, and Orbital Intelligence has released Dungeon Grand Prix: Smuggler's Pass, an adventure and location for the game. This book provides a ton of new material for the game.
• Righteous Vow Vol. 1: The Witch-king of Ul, is an adventure zine for Shadowdark that includes a setting, adventure, and new items and monsters.
• The Purple Planet is one of the classic settings for the DCC game, and Memories of the Purple Planet is a new adventure set on that world, written for PCs of levels 4.
• What is Under Monger Lake? is an adventure for Knave 2e designed for low-level characters but with an open-ended, sandbox-style format that can open itself up to longer play. It's also available statted out for 5e, but I'm never too sure how well OSR-style games translate over to 5e.
• I'm a big fan of isometric style maps, and the new adventure Cult of the Crimson Ice comes right out with a gorgeous iso-map on the cover. It's a dungeon crawl with Cairn and Borg options, plus it is available in both English and Spanish.
• Justin Sirois of Severed Books is producing some of the most consistenly weird and intriguing products for OSR-style games, and Veilgrave for Mork Borg is no exception. It's a low-level sandbox style adventure brimming with the top-notch art and layout one expects from Severed Books.
• Prisoners of the Crimson Crystal is an adventure written for OSE with lovely, 8-bit style art. It's available in both English and Italian, and is reminiscent of the old Palace of the Silver Princess adventure.
• I'd mentioned Painted Wastelands when it was crowdfunding; the PDF is now available on Drivethrurpg. With an art style reminiscent of Ultraviolet Grasslands and a setting that looks to be a cross between Vaults of Vaarn and Cloud Empress, this is a gorgeous, well-thought out setting and game.
• I'm funding Issue 39 of Populated Hexes Monthly on Kickstarter this month. It begins an exploration of Tyeld, the City of Shadows, and introduces the duskblade class, a warrior-based class that draws powers from the Shadowlands, at the risk of corruption by the fell entities that dwell there.
• There's also a little more than a week left in the Backerkit Campaign for the BX Advanced Player's Options, a collection of the almost decade's worth of new classes, spells, and player's options I've written for OSE.

I'd like to start off this issue of the Roundup letting everyone know that Sabre is planning a gaming convention next summer to celebrate our birthday. Right now we're looking at SabreCon2025 to occur the weekend of the 4th of July, July 4th-6th, in downtown Charlottesville. We'll be parterning with Decades Arcade to create a three-day weekend of gaming, both tabletop and arcade. We're still early in the planning stages right now, but if you're in the area and think you may be interested in attending (to either play, run, or as a vendor) we'd love to hear feedback. We've set up up a forms survey here to get some preliminary information.

Second, I don't know how many readers are familiar with the fiction of Howard Andrew Jones, a gamer and writer known for his Pathfinder fiction and his own works, notable his recent Hanuvar series. Howard has just been diagnosed with brain cancer, and his friends and family have set up a GoFundMe to help him out. I never met Howard in person, but we have corresponded, and he was very encouraging about my work. His kind words and encouragement meant a lot to me, especially coming from a published author. If you can spare some cash to contribute to the campaign I know both he and his family would appreciate that.

Last week's Roundup had a lot of new releases; it seems as if that was an outlier, as there aren't as many new releases that I was able to find for this week.

• This is the time of year when capitalism kicks it into high gear, and to celebrate that there's a game jam running on itch until November for Corp Borg. So, if you want to share your love and devotion to commercialism this is is the jam for you.
• bonsaipropaganda has released their first ever project. It's on itch and free, so you should check it out and give them some encouraging feedback. Entitled Sheep People and the Meat Man, it's a short, mini-adventure written for Cairn. I've said it many times, and I'm sure long-time readers are getting sick of hearing it, but I will never not share someone's first release.
• I've mentioned Slugblaster a couple of times here before; Reality Lens Stolen is a one-shot mystery for that system.
• Nietzsche's Demon is currently funding on Kickstarter. It's an adventure for Mothership 1e, with a Groundhog Day-esque theme of reliving and replaying the past.
• I'd mentioned Corp Borg, above, and saw that there's a release on Drivethru for the D10 Useless Office Items, a collection of useless stuff you can find around the office.
• Secret of the Crystal Gate is a short, interesting looking adventure for Knave 2e that is meant to be used as a one-off or a side-quest as the adventurers travel.
• Just in time for Halloween, Dark Shadows Over Castle Talbot is an adventure for OSE centered around a noble family afflicted with lycanthropy and how the solutions they attempted to cure themselves made things worse.
• Hexed Press has released Do Anything d6, a system broadly compatible with most OSR games that uses d6s to resolved skill and other similar challenges.
• I've been highlighting some entries in the Knave 2e Adventure Jam; one of the recent releases, by RPGPapercraft, is called Patrons of the Harvest and is availble on Drivethru. It comes with some charming paper cut-outs, a watch wheel, and more, and fits an amazing amount of playable content into 8 pages.
• directsun has been publishing some really high quality products (full disclosure, we carry some of them), and they have just released With the Cult of the Crimson Revelers, an adventure for Knave inspired by the film Reefer Madness. It also features art by one of my favorite artists, Munkao, known for Thousand Thousand Islands and Reach of the Roach God.
• Broadsword is a new swords and sorcery-style retroclone inspired by pulp fictions such as Conan. I'm not familiar with the publisher, but it's a short and sweet system and the author has made it available via the Creative Commons license, which is nice.
• The BX Advanced Player's Options book is still funding on Backerkit. If you are looking for some options and expansions to your BX/OSE game, especially if your players may be coming from a more modern background and looking for more customization, this compilation of my previous work may be of interest to you.

It's October, and here in Central Virginia it has finally stopped raining and it feels like fall is here, bringing along with it Halloween. Along those lines, another Todd is hosting a Headless Halloween Game Jam on itch. There are some nice prizes for those who participate. It felt like releases were kind of light in August and September; this Roundup makes up for it with a ton of new stuff. I actually didn't include everything I saw, so if you feel like I skipped over a release I should have covered please let me know and I'll rectify it next week.

• Someone pointed out The Ruins of Castle Gygar to me. Written by Onslaught Six during Dungeon 23, it's been polished and laid out and is seeing print as a 64-page zine, much in the style of Stonehell (one of my favorite mega-dungeons). Seeing stuff like this -- that started as an itch jam or a writing exercise or just a labor of love -- come into print is one of the coolest things I get to witness in doing this Roundup on a regular basis.
• Matt Finch's Tome of Adventure Design is a book I use constantly, and there's about a week left on his current Kickstarter, funding books two and three in the series. When done, this three-volume set should have everything you need to craft a setting and campaign.
• Jeffrey Jones has been publishing some really cool stuf for OSE, and is currently crowdfunding Secret of the Whispering God, a 1st level adventure for DCC. It may be of some interest that this is a city-based adventure that involves heists, which is an overlooked genre in gaming but one I always see people asking for.
• I've been following the work of Marco Serrano (also known as Spicy Tuna) for awhile now, and they're in the middle of a very successful KS campaign for The Hands that Feed, an adventure for Mothership. I've enjoyed everything that they've put out thus far, and am looking forward to this, as well.
• Another publisher I've been following for awhile -- and stocking in the store -- is Crumbling Keep. They're funding a second edition of their solo/co-op dungeon exploration game, Marching Order: Curse and Coin Edition. The one drawback -- for me, at least -- is that they're looking at a release date of October 2025, and for the retailer level tiers that's just too much money for me to have tied up for a year before getting the goods. I've mentioned it before, but for retailer levels with that much lead time I'll only back it if I can do it for a placeholder amount, and pay the balance within a month or two of fulfillment.
• I feel like a broken record this week (but I guess that's a function of doing this for . . . three years, I think? I start to see names I recognize and think have produced cool stuff), but Murkdice is another indie publisher that put out constantly great material. They've just released Void Above: Spacer Guide (for players) and Void Above: Host Guide (GMs). The artists have really knocked it out of the park, with a style I can best describe as pastel children's book meets art deco. It's really phenomenal.
• His Majesty the Worm hit the OSR scene like a ton of bricks, and shortly after its release there's already an itch jam devoted to it. Crime of Passion is an adventure written for HMtW that centers around two ex-lovers who've decided to make their break-up everyone else's problem.
• Speaking of HMtW, the author has released At the Shrine of Fortitude, a free adventure for that game.
• One of my pleasures in writing this Roundup is getting to promote the works of first time publishers. Daniel H. Carlsen has released their first adventure, The Curious Creeps in Crimson Creek, as part of the Knave 2e adventure jam.
• Trappist Ails is a pun-heavy, trap-themed adventure written as part of the Knave adventure jam.
• A third adventure written for the Knave jam is Beneath the Spindle. It is stunning, to be blunt, an absolute masterpiece, and it is free on itch, so you have absolutely no excuse not to pick it up.
• The talented Lucas Rolim is itch-funding Death Knight, a solo rpg about a fallen knight raging against darkness and despair.
• Haunts is a supplement for Shadowdark that provides guidelines for adding haunts to your game; undead and horror-themed apparitions with a variety of powers.
• Written for Mork Borg, Skeletons! is a short supplement that pretty much does what it says on the tin; provides skeletal varieties for the game.
• Wormwood is a free, 95-page setting and game that is a work in progress. Influenced by the time period in the mid-530s, AD, when a series of volcanic eruptions caused the earth's temperatures to drop and unleashed a period of plagues, famine, and societal unrest.
• Courteous Dragon has released the Mystery of Moonriddle, a system agnostic adventure toolkit that seems to be a bit in the vein of B1, the classic starter adventure that provides a map and a framework on which to build an adventure. I might ordinarily pass this by, but it is specifically designed to be run on a VTT, with the maps having separate tokens that can be arranged as desired. With the explosion in growth of online gaming this is something I like to see.
• This must be the season of the 'mech; I wrote about two new releases last week, and this week I've got two more for you. Aether Nexus is a fantasy Mecha game based on the Mecha Hack system, with absolutely gorgeous artwork.
• Readers might also be aware that we're the US distributors for Leyline Press and their Salvage Union game; LP is currently funding the Salvage Union Starter Set on Backerkit, which will come in a box set format.
• I've been waiting for Wind Wraith, by Lazy Litch, to come out in print, and we've finally got it in stock. It's a really nice-looking book and the quality and content is up there with their other releases.
• I'm currently running two crowdfunding projects, the first on Kickstarter for the 2025 Hexcrawl Workbook, and one on Backerkit for a compiled book of all the player-facing options I've written over the past seven or so years. I'm cautiousl impressed by Backerkit, especially the option to have hidden pledge levels. Speaking of which, there are hidden pledge levels for both Patreons and Subscribers of my work in addition to people who have purchased my work before. If you fall into one of those two categories, and have not gotten an email with the links, hit me up and I'll be sure to send them over.

Welcome to the News Roundup for September 30th, the last day (and Monday) of the month. We've had nothing but rain here for the last two weeks, it seems, and I hope that everyone reading this in North Carolina is safe. I'm sure long-time readers may be aware that one of my goals with this newsletter is to promote the works of new and/or marginalized creators, especially those of BIPOC and/or LGBTQ communities. There are creators who, because of their views or the content of their creations, I do not mention here. I bring this up now, specifically, because I had gone back and forth about whether or not to include mention of a product, and ultimately decided to, which you can find below, along with some rationalization of why I did so.

• I'm always on the lookout for a good mecha game, and I stumbled across the newly released Celestial Bodies: Titan Edition, by Binary Star Games. They've been releasing CB in increasingly longer editions, and it looks like they're getting ready to launch a crowdfunding campaign for a final version soon.
• Violet Core is another mecha game funding on Kickstarter, billing itself as a high-speed sapphic mecha rpg. The art has a wonderful neon-90's punk aesthetic.
• The Gauntlet is raising funds on Backerkit for The Between, a game of monster hunters in Victorian England. It runs on the same system that powers one of my favorites in recent years, Brindlewood Bay.
• Ikezu-Ishi is a feudal Japan-inspired game that hacks Cairn, Into the Odd, and Block, Dodge, Parry. It's still in playtest form, and will no doubt be updated as things get refined.
• Liminal Horror is a great little system that is getting more (deserved) attention, and I just happened to see The Roaring Age, a hack of LH set in the 1920s for that classic Call of Cthulhu feel but with newer, stream-lined rules.
• The Caverns of Arcane Silk is an introductory adventure written and published by Idle Doodler as a dungeon they created and ran some players through. I think this is a great little project, and look forward to seeing more of what they release. It is a good way to get some spell scrolls into the hands of lower level adventurers.
• I've mentioned before that one of my favorite things to do is promote the work of first-time publishers: this week we've got two by a new author: Cloud Press. They've released Turn it Off, an adventure for Knave 2e, in which a lighthouse meets Lovecraft, and The Cult of Mr. Jingles, a horror-filled adventure written for Mausritter. They may be a new publisher, but the use of public domain art and the layout is top-notch.
• Solo games sell so well at Sabre that we've got a rack that displays the two dozen or so different games we stock, and I was stoked to see the Ultimate One-Page Solo RPG Toolkit, a collection of tables for use with solo gaming.
• I always like seeing short encounters or adventures that can be easily slotted into an existing game, and Tales by the Fire, Vol. 1 promises that for your Shadowdark game with a collection of short adventures and encounters.
• I know Andy Duvall through his OSE adventure the Dessicated Temple of Locha as well as some maps he's done for me, and he's just released What Lies Sweeping, a system-agnostic sci-fispace adventure. He produces some quality products.
• I'm sure I'm not alone in that the Fight On! Fanzine was a crucial resource when I was first discovering the OSR community and playstyle, and right now there's a bundle deal on the first fourteen issues over on Drivethru. I'm not sure how long the bundle deal will last. I will also provide a caveat that these issues contain works by some contributors who, because of some of their views and opinions, I have chosen not to feature in this Roundup. I still think this is a great resource and am important look at the early days of the OSR movement, so I decided to include it.
• I've mentioned the wonderful Tales of Argosa before, and the publisher has just released a new adventure for it: the Crypt of Kursaba, a short undead-themed adventure.
• The prolific Philip Reed has released Blacken & Burn, Rumors of a Dying World, a collection of rumors for Mork Borg and other similar grim fantasy settings.
• I'm shocked that Fungi of the Far Realms is only now just showing up on Drivethrurpg, but I guess that is the cae. It's an awesome book, a pictoral guide to weird and wild mushrooms and other fungi for you to plop down into your setting. I'm hoping it gets a reprint, soon, because it is one of those books we just could not keep on the shelf when we did have it in stock.
• I've got a couple projects in the works. Right now I'm raising funds for the 2025 Hexcrawl Workbook, a daily planner-style notebook with a blank hex page for each day. I'm most excited that it is available in a spiral-bound version, to make it really easy to use. Also, I've had a compilation of all the player options I've written over the years laid out and ready to crowdfund, and I've decided to give Backerkit a whirl with that project. I've been using KS to fund over two dozen projects, but when I saw Games Omnivorous post about switching over to BK I thought I'd give it a try; the book is already written and compiled, and I've just been waiting for a chance to slot it into the schedule. I'm hoping to write up a blog post in the next month or two about the two different platforms; I can already see ways in which Backerkit is superior, at least from a "setting it up" perspective.

Welcome to the third news roundup in September. I don't usually promote works that have been released in the past, but would like to make an exception. Davide Quatrini reached out to me a few weeks ago (sorry this is late), asking me to mention their work. They've released a half-dozen titles with a varied range, covering Roundup-favorite systems like Troika!, Into the Odd, Basic Roleplaying, CY-Borg, and more. Speaking of Troika!, there are two weeks left on the Troika! 2024 Bundle of Holding offering. It's a fantastic deal on a bunch of great products.

• I experienced my first failed Kickstarter with the recently launched Hexcrawl Daily Calendar. It was apparent after a week that it wasn't going to hit funding, so I canceled it and retooled it to remove the tear-away calendar (which was driving the vast majority of the cost) and only publish the Daily Hex Workbook. My plan is to work next year on the calendar and try to get more wholesale orders before launch, so I can lower the amount needed (I need to print 1,000 calendars to get reasonably priced custom options). I hope you'll support the reworked project. I'm going to launch it today.
• The Tome of Adventure Design, by Matt Finch, is probably one of the most used resources at my table, and I was excited to hear that Mythmere is raising funds for another two books in the same vein, with one focused on world-building and the other being devoted purely to name generation. This project goes live Tuesday.
• I've mentioned before about how PirateBorg is my favorite of all the Borg family; the publishers are running a Kickstarter campaign for Pirate Borg: Down Among the Dead, a collection of supplements for PB. There's a ton of cool stuff in here, including a naval playmat, ship tokens, and more.
• While not really OSR, Root the RPG is a title we are constantly selling out of at Sabre, and I'm excited to see a new supplement being funded right now. Ruins & Rolls offers rules for adding dungeon-crawling to Root as well as some custom Root Dice.
• While scrolling social media I see a suprising number of questions about running a heist or crime-themed OSR game. The recently released (and free!) Blades in the Odd system by Murkdice combines the well-regarded Blades in the Dark with Into the Odd, to create a system that allows for gritty, grimy fantasy heist or gang-style games.
• The Line, by boryan, is a submission to the Vaults of Vaarn summer jam. It's a point-crawl based around a fallen space elevator, and looks really nicely done.
• R Rook Studios is one of my favorite indie publishers (you can find an interview I did with them here) and they've just released The Haunting of Cliff Cove, a Scooby-Doo inspired zine that was funded as part of ZIMO24. In addition to being a fantastic author, Richard's releases have amazing art and layout that really just make the projects some of the best all-around books I've seen. At the same time Richard has also released Lunaris, for Liminal Horror, and Mysteries of Rose Island, Vol. 1, a collection of adventures for the fantastic Moonlight on Roseville Beach.
• Something Sinister at Candlewax Cabin is an OSE adventure available on both Drivethru and itch. It's designed as a sidequest or one-shot, and is horror-themed just in time for Halloween.
• A Baker's Dozen of d66 Lists grabbed my attention. A collection of, as it says on the tin, thirteen d66 lists, there's a bunch of stuff in here to spark the imagination and run with.
• I'm not familiar with Cloud Press, but they've released a PWYW adventure for Knave 2e entitled Turn it Off. It makes great use of public domain art, which is something I always like to see, and the layout is clean and easy to follow.
• I'd mentioned Mythmere Games upcoming Kickstarter, but Matt's been busy with other stuff, as well, having released The Big Book of NPCs, a collection of NPCs for each class featured in SW Expanded, up to at least 9th level, plus some collections of NPCs like caravans. I love products like this.
• The Vault of the Emerald Key is a Shadowdark adventure designed for characters of levels 2-4. The premise definitely reminds me of an adventure from Dungeon magazine, and I totally mean this as a compliment!
• I've mentioned Hugh Lashbrooke's releases in the past; they've been putting out a series of quaint and delightful adventures for Mausritter. The Rending of the Sun is written for both Mausritter and Knave 2e; I'm curious to see how this translates across systems, which have different aims and assumptions behind them. I've been really impressed with the author's Mausritter products, so if anyone can do it I think they can.

With the month half over we're plunging straight into fall here, and I'm seeing more and more horror-themed releases, which is only appropriate. One thing I'd like to mention for any publishers out there: I've mentioned before that I won't be promoting products that contain AI assets in any form, and there were several interesting-looking products this week that I passed up promoting because I couldn't tell if there were AI assets or not, so I erred on the side of caution. This applies mostly to releases on Drivethru; if your product image clearly includes artwork, but the artist credit is "N/A", I am going to assume it is AI generated and give it a pass. Even if it is public domain that is helpful information, and if it is stock or commissioned art those folks deserve credit for the work they have done.

Long-time readers may have noticed that, while I also use this newsletter to promote my own work, I typically keep those announcements until the end to focus the attention on the releases of others. Today I'll be subverting that norm to announce the launch of my current Kickstarter that can use your support; I'm raising funds for a 2025 Daily Wilderness Hex tear-away calendar and workbook. The calendar has a different hex for each day, and the workbook is an accompanying spiral-bound, 380+ page notebook for use in developing hexes. It's gotten off to a slower start than I expected, and if this sounds like something that you could use yourself or give as a gift your help is appreciated.

• Minimal OSR FKR Dungeon is a rules-lite complete OSR/FKR (inspired by the Free Kriegspel wargaming movement). It manages to fit a ton of stuff into 37 pages, including rules for random dungeon generation, a starter adventure, and guidelines for using it for solo play.
• I totally missed Song of Eastlake when it was in the planning stages; billed as a "multiversal" hexcrawl, it's a free compilation of 16+ hexcrawls by different creators that were all made using the same prompt. I think it's really interesting because it shows how different people can interpret a single idea . . . plus, it's really good.
• I've mentioned FTW before, and the author has just released a new version. There's about 10 pages of rules, 100 pages of spells, monsters, and treasure, and some really cool looking art.
• Luna Rose Manor has just released Soho Lakes, a solo journaling game about documenting cryptids in a haunted forest. It's got a really cool hook where if your character dies you mail the journal you've been keeping to another player to pick up where you left off.
• Stalls of the Blood Queen is an adventure for Mausritter. It's somewhat horror-themed, and comes with a ton of content, including printable item cards and paper minis.
• The works of xiombarg on itch are new to me, but I just saw they've released a massive, centuries-spanning adventure for Liminal Horror called QU33. It looks like there's a ton of content in this mega-adventure.
• Bite-Sized Gaming has released Faction Relics for Pirate Borg, which contains pretty much what it sees on the tin. We're actually hosting two games of Pirate Borg this week in conjunction with speak like a pirate day, and I always love seeing new supplements for PB.
• Pirates of the Goblin River is a 2nd level adventure for DCC that is part of a planned adventure path by the author. I'm not positive, but it looks like it can be easily used as a stand-alone adventure as well.
• Another DCC adventure, this one also for 2nd level characters, is Tragedy at Wood-Witch Rise. It's designed to be run in a single session.
• 7th Impact is a zine written for Mork Borg. What caught my eye is that much of the content is inspired by Neon Genesis Evangelion. This is apparently a compilation of work the author has previously released, although I must confess it is the first time I've been aware of their work.
• I've mentioned previous works of Hellwinter Forge of Wonders, and they've just released a new adventure, Raiders of the Forlorn Gods. Full disclosure, the author sent me a comp copy of the adventure, and I'm in the process of reading through it right now.
• Every once in awhile when compiling releases I come across something that reminds me I need to order a restock of a product. This morning, that release is Visitors to Fairhaven, a new 'zine for the Weird Heroes of Public Access setting by Stefan Surratt. We've had the . . . previous three issues, I think, in stock, and they've all sold out super quickly. The new release has an adventure plus some supplemental material to help flesh out Fairhaven. I'm a big fan of WHPA, and am glad to see that the line is continuing.
• Unbreakable Pathways crossed my social media feed and I was immediately intrigued. It's a collection of Asian-focused adventures, written for a variety of systems (including Errant, an OSR system by Ava Islam that I don't think gets nearly enough love), and by largely Asian authors. It looks like there's some really nice stuff in here.
• Casket of Fays is out with Issue #14, a real milestone for this free Dragon Warriors fanzine. I'm always happy to help promote these, as it's truly a labor of love by the authors. This issue has 32-pages, and even if you don't play Dragon Warriors there's plenty of great inspirational material in here.
• I'm always interested in seeing new releases that help with solo gaming -- solo games make up a surprising percentage of the rpg sales at Sabre, exceeding sales of official D&D products -- and oraKVLT is an intriguing new release that bills itself as a "sandbox line crawler". The one downside I see is it is designed to be printed on an 11 x 17 sheet of paper, which not everyone has access to, but it otherwise looks to be an excellent addition to solo play oracular engines.
• Also, pursuant to the interests of many readers, we just got in a huge lot of used OSR and indie titles, many of them in near mint condition, and have added them to our used games inventory on the website.

Welcome to the News Roundup for the second week in September. It's been another slow week for releases, but there are some goodies in here!

• Odds & Ents has released TTRPG Digital Notebook Pages, a collection of fourteen player-facing pages designed for the players who maybe aren't the best notetakers. They're printable, but are also form-fillable pdfs, which I really like. It is formatted for D&D, but the creator intends to create more for other systems.
• The Land of Calyx, Vol. 1, is a 58-page zine/gazetteer for the author's setting. It's crammed with a bunch of stuff, including player options, an adventure, but mostly I figured folks might find this interesting because it devotes a lot of space to the city of Calyx, and well described cities are always a great resource for games.
• Francisco Lemos has released The Crypt of Crimson Ice, a gorgeous one-page dungeon. It's available in several different rules systems, including Cairn, Mork/Pirate Borg, and system neutral.
• Sam Seer has released a one-page calendar tracking sheet. I'm pretty boring when it comes to gaming calendars, but I do like including them. One of the nice things about this sheet is that the creator includes the Affinity file to make it easy to edit and hack.
• Sad Fishe Games has been putting out Junk Drive, a semi-regular zine for CY_Borg, and they've just released Issue 4, which updates and expands the weapons and equipment tables from the core rules.
• Zed and Two Noughts is a 0-level funnel for Old School Essentials, and looks like it is a weird, fun romp through a deadly adventure filled with cosmic horrors.
• The same publisher has also released Tangled (this has been on my radar for awhile), another 0-level funnel. This one has much more of a dark fairy-tale theme and absolutely amazing pixel art.
• Speaking of amazing art, Emiel Boven has released the Electrum Archive Volumes 1 and 2. It's a science-fantasy setting along the lines of Vaults of Vaarn and the Ultraviolet Grasslands, and I was super excited to get my print copies at the end of last week.
• The Pit of Blasphemy is a 56-page adventure/mini-setting for Mork Borg, and in addition to all the content of the books it also comes with a 12 track album with original music to get you in the mood to play.
• I saw this pop up in my social feeds and wanted to promote it, as I once did something similar with the introductory dungeon from the Mentzer Basic set. A Sample Dungeon takes the map from the AD&D 1e book and fills it out.
• Populated Hexes Monthly Issue 37 is now live, on Drivethru in print and pdf and on my website in offset print.
• The prelaunch page for my upcoming Kickstarter is live. I'll be raising funds to print a 2025 Wilderness Hex-a-Day style calendar, with an accompanying hex workbook with a page per hex.

We're into September already, and beginning the race towards the end of the year. Sabre Games is having a Labor Day sale, ending tonight, with everything in store 15% off with the code LaborDay2025.

• Rise up Comus recently released the incredibly well recieved and difficult to get in stock His Majesty the Worm. In conjunction with a HMtW jam happening this month on itch, they've also released a Creator's Kit to help and provide guidance to folks who want to contribute to the jam.
• It was only a matter of time before we started seeing Shadowdark Game Jams on itch (there have probably already been some, but this is the first one I've been aware of), and Bad Star Games has released Dacian Draco, a mini Shadowdark adventure that combines wolf cults and the moon.
• Exeunt Press has been, I think, one of the most creative and interesting small press publishers focusing mostly on microgames and adventures, and they've just released Music in its Roar, a one-page rpg about the call of the sea, inspired by Lovecraft's Shadow over Insmouth.
• Carrion Comfort has released Come on In, a supernatural detective horror rpg set in small town Louisiana.
• I saw Claim the Victim and knew I had to include it in today's roundup: it's a game of cover letters and job applications, of trying to land the coveted job of serial killer, haunting, or other horror movie villain in a world where the average folks are becoming inured to TV tropes.
• Pickpocket Press has released the final version of Tales of Argosa, a low-fantasy rpg that I've been following for awhile, and have actually been playing in a play-by-post game for awhile using the initial rules. It's a great system with a lot of content and some interesting rules that make characters engaging.
• One Night at the Shelterwood Inn is written for both Liminal Horror and the Triangle Agency, inspired by such 80s-90s horror/weirdness like Misery, Twin Peaks, and more.
• As many readers may be aware, domain level play in OSR-style games is of special interest to me, and Death Tax is a new release that offers a wide range of options and rules for higher-level play and managing a domain.
• The Radical Kids Player's Guide for Shadowdark uses the SD system and adapts it to a kid's with bikes-style game. It's a genre I'm a big fan of, and one more example of the recent trend of hacking Shadowdark for other styles of play.
• I like seeing products that add mini-games to an rpg system, whether gambling, tournaments, chases, or in the case of Last One Standing, a method of resolving duels, challenges, and other personal contests.
• The Sword of Cepheus, by Stellagama Publishing, is a quiet, unassuming system that boasts a lot of good revues and press. They've just released the 2nd edition of the game, and a new adventure, Escape from Miklagard, is also available.
• Sunday Matinee Crawls: The Mines of Dread is written for DCC and is part of a series of adventures. I have to confess that this is the first in the series I've seen promoted, but it looks to make for an interesting dungeon crawl, either by itself or as a sequel to the previous release.
• I'm a sucker for alliteration, so of course I had to mention Tomb of the Fey Fellmonger, a short mini-advenure written for Cairn, OSE, and 5e. It features a living skin suit, which sounds appropriately creepy.
• I'd mentioned His Majesty the Worm above, and All that Skitters is a bestiary of spiders for that game. In addition to alliteration, I'm a sucker for new and interesting spider-themed monsters.
• The prolific Douglas Cole and Gaming Ballistic are crowdfunding Warlock Knight, an adventure for Gurps Dungeon Fantasy. I haven't checked out DF yet, but have heard great things about it. Like many of Cole's products, it's designed to be a solo adventure, this one specifically with the goal of teaching the system.
• We're wrapping up the last days of the Populated Hexes Monthly Issue 38 Kickstarter, which moves to a new region of the world and includes a hex containing a prophetic giant raven, guidelines for including prophecies in your games, and the eldritch warrior class.

Last week was a little light on releases, I'm assuming because the kids are heading back to school and summer is winding down. However, there's still some interesting releases (I think) that I've included.

• Liminal Horror is an, I think, oft-overlooked gem of a system, but there is a ~Liminal Horror jam~ going on over on itch, and ~Ex Infernis~ is one of the entries. Drawing on the ghost ship theme, it's set on the Great Lakes but can be easily adapted to any location or even system.
• ~Karate High Noon~ is a short and sweet one-page rpg inspired by 90s action movies. If you want to play a Jackie Chan or Walker, Texas Ranger inspired game where the PCs get to beat up hordes of mooks this is the game for you.
• One of the entries into the recent (which ended yesterday) One Page RPG Jam is ~Small Town Gods~, a game about playing minor deities who grow in power as their communities grow.
• I've been seeing a number of releases recently relying on Into the Odd, and ~Plasmodics~ is currently raising funds on Kickstarter. It's a gonzo, weird, and wacky game set in the far, post-apocalyptic future. The publisher is a first time Kickstarter, so there's always the caveat that comes with that, but they seem to have a good handle on the process and aren't, I don't think, overpromising.
• Stefan Surrat is well known in the DCC community for their releases, and are currently Kickstarting ~Bloody Barbershops and Sanguine Scissors~, a "zine for barbers and fans of barbering", which aside from being one of the more niche markets I've seen, includes a bunch of new stuff for DCC, including a new class, a 0-level funnel, and more.
• ~The Cult of Kluckee the Chicken~ is a gonzo, tongue and cheek adventure set in the post-apocalyptic future (another one!) and statted for 1e and 5e. It's also billed as being broadly compatible with MCC, Gamma World, Mutant Future, and more.
• I have been waiting patiently for Hydra Cooperative to release ~Completely Unfathomable~, by Jason Sholtis. This release combines the Ennie Award-winning Operation Unfathomable with new material. Hydra Cooperative is known for releasing some of the highest quality OSR material out there, and I'm really glad they've been able to make this release happen, and hope this means we'll be seeing more new releases down the road.
• ~Graveyard Dirt~ is a new undead-themed release for Knave 2 and similar games. It includes new adventures, skeleton varieties, spells, and more.
• There've been more new class releases for Shadowdark than pretty much everything else, and I haven't been including the bulk of them, but the ~Runemaster~ class caught my attention as being something interesting to mine for ideas.
• ~The Sorcerer's Fate~ is a 0-level funnel for DCC that aims to be the first in a series of semi-connected adventures.
• I've long admired the art of Castle Grief, and they're currently crowdfuning ~Kal-Arath: Sword and Sorcery~, a Conan-inspired sword and sorcery game and setting.
• I'm currently running a Kickstarter for ~Issue 38 of Populated Hexes Monthly~, in which the series gets back on track with a new hex every month. This month's hex is a densely wooded northern forest with a prophetic raven, and includes guidelines for adding prophecies to your game as well as the eldritch warrior class, a fighter subtype that blends spell and steel but is also not an elf reskin.

Let's jump right in and see what's new, shall we?

• BlueMountainBooks has released a free hexcrawl on itch, inspired by Luke Gearing's Wolves Upon the Coast. ~At the Base of Blue Mountain~ includes seven dungeons, nearly sixty hexes, and more.
• ~Ventis~ was an entry in the Vaarn Summer jam, and is a city located at the edge of Vaarn. The art is really stunning in a minimalist, Vaarnian sort of way. I think this is a great little product to pick up either for Vaarn or to mine for ideas to plop into other settings.
• Another Vaarn adventure is ~Penumbral Oasis, Part One~, a three level dungeon for characters of level 1-3.
• ~Trouble at Bigby's Meadery~ is a system-neutral, lighthearted adventure that packs a surprising amount of content into 34 pages. It's the publisher's first product, which is always really great to see.
• Dice Goblin Games has published ~Deep Delve~, an adventure inspired by The Stygian Library and compatible with either Block, Dodge, Parry or Cairn. If you're looking for an adventure set in an abandoned dwarven mine this is the one for you. It's also available through ~Drivethrurpg~.
• ~Dark Tales for Dark Times~ is an OSR bundle now available on Drivethrurpg. It features eight publications by different authors, some adventures, some supplements, that all are written for OSR-style games. It looks to be a good bundle to pick up to get a sampling of some lesser-known OSR authors.
• I'm a sucker for a good kids on bikes game, and ~Teenage Oddyssey~ (not a typo) is another entry into the genre, this one embracing the awkwardness and humor of adolescence. The art is spot on and really captures the vibe. This game uses the Mark of the Odd system used by Into the Odd and others.
• One of my favorite things about doing this roundup is when I get to mention a game that is crowdfunding and then it pops up as published some time later, and I get to plug it again! ~The Parthenogenesis of Hungry Hollow~ is one of these. It's the first hardback adventure written for Liminal Horror. It also features art by one of my favorite artists: Amanda Lee Franck.
• Another such adventure is the seacrawl ~Wind Wraith~, by Lazy Litch, who has really found a niche putting out spooky, creepy mini-settings and games.
• Continuing with the nautical theme, ~The Undying Sea~, by Dungeon Age Adventures, is an Into the Odd game set in a dying world.
• I'm in the process of harvesting peppers as the growing season begins to wind down, so it was perhaps serendipity that I stumbled across ~The Chili Rat Chiefs~, an Into the Odd (lots of stuff for ItO this week!) adventure, a fun little short scenario that would work well as a one-shot.

It's the second Monday in August. GenCon is over, and here in the States kids are getting ready to head back to school. New releases seem pretty light this week, but let's see what we can cover.

• I mentioned a new game called ~Dungeons of Galora~ a few months back; there's now a free version available on itch, with a bunch of new content, including some really nice art. It's a solo OSR dungeon crawl, and really evokes some of the old rogue-like games. The author is Brazilian, so the game is inspired by South American folklore. There's some amazingly creative stuff coming out of the indie rpg zine in Brazil right now.
• ~Chicken Pod #1~ is available on itch right now, and will, at some point, be available in print. It's by Mobile Hut, a collective of trans game designers (including Roundup fave Evlyn Moreau). The first issue of the zine lays out in broad strokes the goals of the collective and what they're working on for the future.
• I am about the furthest thing from working in IT, but ~The Awful Weekend On-Call~ made me chuckle. It's a one page solo rpg about working the IT call center on weekends, and includes mechanics to replicate a descent into madness.
• ~Umbra Arcanum~ is a system-neutral OSR adventure set in a dark fantasy world on the brink of Armageddon. It's the second in a series of adventures by the author but can also be run as a stand-alone scenario.
• Pirate Borg is another Borg hack that, in my opinion, is one of the best of the variants that has been released to date. ~Rough Seas~ is a supplement for PB that brings a bunch of new stuff to the table; random tables, new monsters and NPCs, and a short hexcrawl.
• ~The Bounty Hunter~ is a new class for OSE with an interesting take on rangers whose alignments shift to Chaotic.
• As popular as Mork Borg is, and as well designed and beautiful the book is, it's something that I just bounced hard off of when I tried to get into it. Perhaps if I had this short primer by KJJ Publishers I would have had better luck! ~How to play Mork Borg~ is a 6-page introduction to the system and setting designed specifically for new players.
• I wish I was able to name my products with catchy and poetic names, instead of just prosaic descriptions of what they contain. I saw the title ~A Spear Brings Sorrow~ and was immediately intrigued. It's a short, system neutral OSR supplement that presents an NPC that can be used in game, and their backstory to incorporate into the campaign.
• Shadowdark cleaned up at the Ennies, and just this week I saw the first (to me) hack of the game: ~Neonbright, a Cyberpunk Fantasy Hack~. It's a short work, and requires Shadowdark Core rules to use.
• I'm loving this new art style that seems to be popular these days, inspired by works such as Ultravioulet Grasslands, The Painted Wastelends, and others. ~Ruthless Heavens, Boundless Fates~ is another new release with this style of gonzo, pastel art. In it, the characters play as Ascendants, near god-like beings that rule nations but soon learn they are still at the bottom of the pecking order. It also includes rules for solo play.
• ~The Dream Shrine~ is the first collaboration between Brad Kerr and Skullfungus, and is a dreamy, psychedelic adventure for OSE and Cairn. It's meant to be a low-level "escape room" style adventure.
• Currently funding on Kickstarter is the solo game ~Necrovenge~, in which you play a necromancer who awakes from a long slumber only to find that pesky adventurers have trashed your dungeon!
• ~Vol. 2 of the BX Advanced Bestiary~ is now live in pdf and hard and softcover POD options, with the offset version coming to the Sabre Games store in a few weeks. The second in the series, it covers the monster entries E-K in the OSE Classic book and expands them with options and variants. Each of the monsters is fully illustrated, and it also includes new classes, spells, and psionic abilities.
• As a companion to Volume 2, the ~Kickstarter for Issue 37 of Populated Hexes Monthly~ is ending today. This, the first issue of year 4 (!), contains material that didn't make it into the Bestiary, and includes four new classes, new clerical spells, and more.

I'm back after a week off, and I'm sure a number of readers are waking up bleary-eyed this morning after a long weekend at GenCon. Looks like Shadowdark (deservedly) cleaned up at the Ennies. I'd also like to call attention to:

• ~Eat the Reich~.
• ~Hexcrawl Toolbox~.
• Cloud Empress (sadly, we're out of all the CE titles).
• Ultraviolet Grasslands 2e.

I'm not going to be able to cover all of the new releases/projects that dropped in the past two weeks, but I'll try to get as much as I can get.

• I've been waiting for ~Painted Wastelands~ to drop on Kickstarter for awhile, and it's finally live. It's a dreamy acid-trip of a game, reminiscent of the Electrum Archive and ~Ultraviolet Grasslands~.
• Speaking of UVG (and they also won an Ennie!), the long-awaited companion/sequel to it is currently funding on Backerkit. Called ~Our Golden Age~, it is a two-volume set designed to be used either as a companion to or independently of UVG.
• First time publisher Lost Legacies Gaming is raising funds for the ~Immortals White Box~. There's only a day left in the campaign as of this publication, so this is one to jump on if it grabs your fancy. It's a pretty ambitious project, a love song to the original White Box game.
• ~Cain~ is a new release by Tom Bloom, the driving force behind Kill Six Billion Demons and the recently released in print ~Lancer~. Featuring the same art that makes Lancer such a beautiful book, Cain is a game of psychics hunting the sins of humanity made manifest.
• I'd mentioned Ghosts of the ~Sierra Verde Grand Campaign~ a year or so ago; written by Sivad's Sanctum, and strongly influenced by Wolves Upon the Coast, SS has added another County to this, and ever-expanding hexcrawl (and, like WUtC, those backing earlier will get access to additional material at the original price).
• ~Gothic Grace~ is a dice-less, GM-less playtest by Lost Seas, in which the players take on the role of wizards and warlocks who must work for an incompetent government in order to survive.
• I'm not familiar with the works of Symbolic City, but a new release of theirs -- ~Tarnation~ -- caught my eye. It's a solo rpg set in a weird west pocket dimension, and while it is currently just available in pdf the art and layout cries out for a physical copy.
• One of my current favorite indie publishers is Cats Have No Lords (author of ~Swamp Troll Witches~). They put out such a wide range of games and adventures that make me somewhat jealous. I saw recently that they've just released ~Hwaet~, a solo game inspired by Beowulf. Both Hwaet and Tarnation make excellent use of public domain art.
• bread wizard has just released a tantalizing mashup adventure written for MCC and Cairn. Titled ~Glowburn and Radscars~, it is a playtest version available as a PWYW product, with the author hoping to fund art and editing down the road.
• The ~Old School Revival Solo Role-Playing Guide~ is a recently released product by Arcane Sword Press. It looks to be an interesting product.
• In a similar theme, Hilander has released ~The Old School Referee~, an introductory guide to the nuts and bolts of running OSR-style games.
• ~Lizard Isle~ is a low-level adventure written for 1e and other similar OSR games, in which the task the adventurers are hired for turns out to be a lot more complicated than what they had originally imagined.
• ~The One That Got Away~ is an adventure for DCC by Shinobi Games, designed as a 0-level tournament adventure, all about catching the largest eel in the Gravic Swamp.
• Another product that makes great use of public domain art is ~Pluvium~, a supplement for Mork Borg that revolves around rain. In some ways it reminds me of Gavin Norman's excellent -- and sadly ended -- Wizardzine.
• ~Decay~ is a cool-looking OSR game inspired by Cairn, White Box, and similar systems. It's a classless system set in a decaying and crumbling world.
• After years of quiescence, ~Fight On!~ is back with Issue 15. One of the most important zines of the beginning days of the OSR movement.
• Knight Owl Publishing just released the recently Kickstarted project ~Isle of Joy~, an adventure billed as David Lynch directing The Tempest. All of Knight Owl's products are pretty great (and they also just released ~Volume 5 of Old School and Cool~).
• Another great publisher is the Melsonian Arts Council, and they've just released ~Palace of the Metegorgos~, by Evey Lockhart.
• ~The Giant Moth that Awaits us All~ grabbed my attention right away when I saw the cover art by Acid Lich, one of my favorite illustrators. It's written for DCC, and set in a weird far future.
• It was pointed out to me that I've been remiss with promoting the works of Dyson Logos; I don't know how I managed this obvious oversight, so want to make sure to call out their ~Cartography Collection from June 2023~ of Dyson's Dodecahedron.
• I'm Kickstarting ~Issue 37 of Populated Hexes Monthly~. This, the first issue of the fourth year of this zine, contains material that didn't make it into Vol. 2 of the BX Advanced Bestiary, and includes four playable race-as-class options (three versions of bee-folk, plus the bird-folk garuda), the slime magus prestige class, and more!
• Issue 36 of Populated Hexes Monthly is now live on the Sabre Games website in ~pdf~ and ~print~. This issue finishes the the exploration of the dungeons underneath Dry Gulch and includes some new clerical ritual spells.

Please note that some of the Drivethru links are affiliate links. They take nothing away from the publisher, and help support my work with this weekly Roundup.

Welcome everyone to the fourth news roundup for July. I will be on vacation the next week, so there will be no Roundup then. I hope everyone has a great couple of weeks, and I'll catch everyone for August 5th's review. As I'm writing this I realized I'd like to make a clarification about how I decide to include games; as I'm sure most readers are aware, I've made the decision to not include any products with AI assets in the Roundup. I've seen a number of games recently, primarily on Drivethru, that don't mention use of AI assets but also don't include any artists' names in the description, even stock art. If an artist/s are not given in the description, even if it is just properly crediting stock artists, I will not be pluggin that product. I think it is important to credit artists who have contributed to a product -- stock or not -- and given my policy on AI assets I would rather play it safe. So please, if you're a publisher and your work includes the artwork of others, include their names in your products!

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that Drivethrurpg is currently holding their Christmas in July sale, and you can purchase a whole slew of titles for drastically reduced prices for the next week or so.

• I've plugged Nuked! by Mac Makes Games, and now I see they're ~hosting a game jam~ on itch for Nuked! It has a deadline of August 31st, and is themed around "The Devil's Highway", a stretch of cursed and forsaken highway with unknown origins.
• Lonely Adventurer has released ~Cult of the Morach~, an homage to the classic Against the Cult of the Reptile God. Although certain aspects are statted for GLAIVE, it's largely designed to be system agnostic to be run with any OSR/NSR-style game.
• Hilander is one of the indie publishers that I am always happy to give a shout out to. They're currently itchfunding ~Goons~, a mobster rpg inspired by America in the 1920s, but not set in America. It looks like a fun little system for roleplaying mobsters.
• Knight Owl Publishing has released ~Janky Goblins~, a short adventure for Cairn designed to be run as a one-shot or an introductory game. Plus, it has art by Amanda Lee Franck, one of my favorite artists.
• Josh Burnett consistently publishes some excellent OSR content, and I see they've just released ~Blobs vs Blades~, a collection of six new and weird classes of OSR-style game. As something pursuant to my interests, they also break down the math behind figuring out the XP requirements for each class.
• M Allen Hall has released ~Foul~, a funnel adventure compatible with Mork Borg and other OSR-style games. The adventure includes rules for DCC-style 0 level characters in Mork Borg.
• The Tabletop Engineer has released ~Issue 15 of Delver~ and ~Issue 4 of Runes~. Delver is primarily OSE-adjacent, while Runes is specifically focused on Shadowdark.
• ~Chrono-delve~ is an interesting new PWYW ruleset available on Drivethru that seems to incorporate some neat twists on OSR-gaming; roll to cast, procedural dungeon generation, and more. The publisher will be using proceeds from sales to comission more art for the project.
• Orbital Blues is a space western/opera game we have a hard time keeping in stock, and there's a ~new bundle of three OB adventures~ now on Drivethru.
• ~Beyond the Twisted Portal #1~ is a new OSR zine by Tristan Radu that includes a little bit of everything; an adventure, some optional rules, a new class, and more.
• Rise up Comus has released the hotly anticipated -- and apparently currently impossible to find in print, as it sold out of its first printing in hours -- NSR megadungeon ~His Majesty the Worm~, which is luckily still available in pdf.
• I'm intrigued by ~The Fortunist~, a new class for OSE based on wild west gambler themes, and using a deck of cards to judge their abilities.
• ~In the Steal of the Night~ is a cat burglar mystery adventure written for OSE. It looks to be a cute intro or side-quest adventure for when the players are in a city.
• It's not really OSR, but Coyote and Crow is a current game that I'm a big fan of, and the publishers are currently raising funds for ~Ahu Tiiko~, an expansion to the system that brings themes of mystery and horror to the game.
• Perils and Princesses is another game we're having a hard time keeping in stock, and there's currently the first official campaign setting being Kickstarted now: ~Sweet Revenge~ is heavily influenced by Grimm's Fairytales.
• Today's the last day for my Kickstarter for ~issue 36 of Populated Hexes Monthly~, finishing off three years of the zine with a bang and the second level of a dungeon under the town of Dry Gulch. Since it is part three of the series, you can pledge to get Issues 34 and 35 if you don't already have them.

I don't know about where you are, but it is hot here as I'm writing this: close to 100 degrees F. Great weather to stay inside, under a ceiling fan or in air conditioning, and check out some new OSR and indie releases, which, to be honest, are still a bit light this week. It's something I've come to notice around this time of year; people are on vacation, gearing up for Gen Con or the other big conventions, and the pace of new releases often slows down during July and August.

• Tanya Floaker is one of my favorie indie rpg publishers. I've interviewed here a couple of times about the various projects she's worked on: one of the general interviews can be found ~here~. Floaker has just re-released ~Tiny Spaceship~ on itch. It's a designed to be run as a whimsical one-shot about aliens trying to understand earth.
• I always see people asking about mass combat systems, and while I've certainly got my favorites, I like to see other takes on the genre, especially abstracted systems that are designed to be run without a grid or map. Bread Wizard has released ~Feoht!~, a system-neutral abstracted mass combat system.
• There are so many cool projects that come out of itch jams. Some are one and done, and lay abandoned by the publisher, but others, like ~Palace Run Remastered~, saw it's initial release as part of the jam, an expanded, remastered version to build on the initial concept (exploring an endless palace that is built as it is explored), and is now available in a limited print run.
• I've mentioned Hilander's work before on the Roundup. They're currently itchfunding ~Dead Man's Song~, a nautical adventure written for Shadow & Fae 2e, but easily adaptable to other OSR-style games.
• Jimmy Shelter has released the ~Passkey Solo Expansion~ on itch. It's designed to be used with the Passkey system to provide oracular options for solo play, or to help GMs with their design. The Passkey system is designed to be an open-ended, rules-lite means to create a variety of games.
• ~The Book of Hexcrawl Adventures~ popped up on my socials, and I knew I had to give it a plug. It provides a bunch of random tables that can be used to spice up wilderness adventures.
• I really like the Hypertellurians game by Mottocross Machinations, and they've just released a follow-up: ~Ultracosmic~ is what I hope will be the first of many zines for this system, and if features work by a number of notables in the OSR/indie sphere, including Amanda Lee Franck, Alan Bahr, Wind Lothamer, and more.
• Eric Bloat has released a third adventure for the Underworld game (itself inspired by classic NES games): ~Madness of the Magi~ has stats for a bunch of systems, old and new (including 5e, the Zelda-clone Forgotten Ballads, Bloat's own Survive This!, and more).
• ~Ambaridell and the Freezing Vault~ is a short OSR adventure for characters of levels 1-3. It's designed for BX-style games.
• The newly released Eco Mofos! is being supported by a ton of content already, which is great to see, because it makes playing the game that much easier. ~Nauti Mofos~ is a nautical themed supplement and adventure for this new system.
• Populated Hexes Monthly Issue 35 is ~available on Drivethru~ as a pdf and pod softcover. This issue looks at the first level of the dungeon below Dry Gulch, a spread out complex connected by a variety of service tunnels.
• Rounding out the third year of its existence, Populated Hexes Monthly Issue 36 is currently ~funding on Kickstarter~. In addition to finishing up the first three years, it completes the three-issue look at Dry Gulch with the second level of the dungeon beneath the surface, a network of abandoned sewers and settling tanks once used by the ancient city that stood where Dry Gulch is now.

Welcome to the second news Roundup in July. SabreCon2024 is officially over, and it was both tiring and a lot of fun. It is perhaps good that the last week was light on new releases. No doubt the long holiday weekend in the US had a lot to do with it. Anyway, it'll be a short Roundup this week.

• I've been listening to Dimension 20s new game, Never Stop Blowing Up, based on action movies, and so it seems to be perfect timing that I see \~Bravado, Bombast, Brains + Bullets\~ is live on itch. It's a rules-lite homage to cheesy 90s action flicks.
• \~Nuked!\~ is a clever little post-apoc rpg, and the author has released the first two supplementary zines for it that are available on itch: the Totally Radical Tales Volumes \~One\~ and \~Two\~. Volume 1 is an adventure, while Volume 2 is a rules supplemen and expansion.
• We're currently out of stock of Barkeep on the Borderlands, but a little itch adventure caught my fancy when I saw that it was inspired by the music of John Fahey. \~The Outer Reaches\~ was a submission to the recent Barkeep jam on itch, and details a setting to use for that system.
• The \~Occluded Keep of the Doomed Elementalist\~ is a new adventure by YouCanBreatheNow Games, and it has gotten praise from the excellent Between Two Cairns podcast. It's written for broad OSR-play, and is designed for adventurers of 3-4 level.
• Prolific author Philip Reed has released The Many Eyes of the Tyrant, a system-neutral supplement for customizing the already terrible eye tyrant. It's primarily written with 5e in mind, but Reed is no strange to old-school gaming, and wrote this specifically to be used in older games, as well.
• \~The Harvest of Horror\~ is written for DCC and starts off with a mysterious meteorite landing in a farmer's field, one of my favorite plot hooks to throw at characters.
• I'm not familiar with Bee Excellent Games, but they've just released a 0-level adventure for Shadowdark entitled \~Tower of the Missing Mage\~. The premise is that a local wizard was defeated in a magical rivalry, and their tower is now open for plunder. Even if you don't run it as such, I think it sounds like a good resource for adding a mage's tower to your setting.

We've added a bunch of new titles to the Sabre website, including:

• I played my first game of Battletech about a month ago after a thirty-year hiatus and was surprised and thrilled to learn that the rules really haven't changed that much. Anyway, we've started to carry \~individual Battletech minis\~ in addition to the larger force packs, so if you're looking for a specific mech or two to round out your lance you don't need to buy an entire box.
• We've restocked the \~OSR Classic Rules Tome\~, \~Advanced Player's Tome\~, and \~Mausritter\~,
• Populated Hexes Monthly Issue 35 is now in stock in both \~print\~ and \~pdf\~. This 44-page issue takes a look at the first level of the dungeon underneath Dry Gulch and expands on the city encounter tables found in Issue 34.
• The ~Kickstarter for Issue 36~ -- the end of the third year of this zine! -- is now live on Kickstarter. This issue finishes up the three part series on the town of Dry Gulch and the dungeon that lies beneath its streets.

Welcome to the first Roundup of July. This is going to be on the shortish side: we've got some illness in the family and work kind of exploded on me last week. The big news, gaming-wise, is that today is the one-year anniversary of Sabre Games opening. I've been plugging SabreCon2024, the mini-convention we're having from the 4th-7th in store, but we're also going to have a sale this week: you can take 15% off everything in stock with the code "One Year" at checkout.

• This probably needs no announcing, but Goodman Games is funding \~The Caverns of Thracia\~, the legendary adventure by the late Jennell Jaquays, on Backerkit. This book will be available in both 5e and DCC flavors. I picked up the DCC version of the Dark Tower when it released earlier this year, and while I do prefer other versions of OSR-games I think that DCC does the game justice, and look forward to seeing what The Caverns of Thracia is like.
• Samantha Leigh, author of \~Outliers\~ and \~Anamnesis\~, wrote an adventure for Eco Mofos that you can now get from itch (she will also be at Sabre this Saturday, the 6th of July, to participate in a round-table discussion on gaming). \~Into the Antlion's Den\~ is described as an episode of the Mad Max Muppets.
• Another adventure for Eco Mofos, this one by Logan Dean, is the \~Abyss Protocol\~. This one is a race against time as an underground silo filled with treasure collapses.
• Finally, David Blandy released the third of a trio of Eco Mofos adventures. \~A-Hole in the Ground\~ is an underground mini-dungeon with eight deadly and weird rooms.
• I'd also be remiss if I didn't mention that \~Eco Mofos\~ is also available in pdf. It's written using Into the Odd and Cairn, and is a post-apocalytic game set after ecological disaster.
• I'd mentioned \~Spectacle\~ awhile back when it was crowdfunding, and the pdf is now available on itch. Written for \~Troika\~, the central premise is that the characters are kidnapped by an alien overlord and forced into gladitorial combat.
• \~Abara Cad Ebra\~ is a village and adventure location written using the Old School Referee (which I mentioned a few weeks back) as a guide. It's in pre-release form, which means that purchasers will get the updated pdf as it is completed and worked on, so you get to see the work in progress.
• \~The Scropulating of the Pious\~ is a monster-hunting adventure that can be run with OSE, Mork Borg, or other similar OSR-style adventure. It's designed to be run as a one-shot and is one of the rare urban adventures.
• \~Raphael Falk\~ ran a ZineMonth campaign two years ago for \~Lucid: The Sea of Dreams\~ a little over two years ago. Inspired by dreams, nightmares, and Jewish folklore, the production process hit a number of snags and delays, but Raphael kept at it and has finally released the pdf of the title. I haven't had a chance to dig into it yet, but look forward to doing so soon.
• RPG Ramblings has released the recently Kickstarted \~Into the Madlands, Issue 1\~, a weird science fantasy zine by the same folks that produce Gary's Appendix.
• Hugh Lashbrooke has been publishing a series of delightful short adventures written for Mausritter, set in their Kiwi Acres campaign world. Their most recent release is the PWYW \~An Urgent Quest\~.
• I plugged \~The Mosidian Temple\~ awhile back when it was crowdfunding, and it's now available on Drivethrurpg. Written by David Flors of Darklight Interactive, this is an adventure written when the author was in high school, many years ago, and re-released in all its glorious mess. As it was originally written for 1e it has been released for play with OSRIC.
• I saw this pop up on my social media feed and it immediately grabbed my attention. \~Oh My Lost Darklords\~ is a collection of thirteen misbegotted, misanthropic, and menacing player character classes, written for OSE and other similar games. It comes in at a chunky 126 pages, so there's plenty of stuff in there for your use.
• Matt Finchand and Mythmere Games has released two new titles: \~Fiends and Foes\~ and \~The Book of Options\~. Both are written for Swords and Wizardry, but like everything Matt does both are rich resources that can be mined for ideas regardless of the system that you're using.
• Dark Wizard Games is running a Kickstarter to fund two books for their Maximum Mayhem adventure line: \~Fantastic Quest of Whimsical One & Lost Tomb of Mummy Lich\~. They're both high level adventurers written for 1e/OSRIC, and feature cover art by OSR-favorite Erol Otus.

May and the first part of June were pretty slow with new releases, but the pace picked up last week and looks to continue at the same pace this week. Maybe the heat wave gripping the eastern US is keeping folks inside and writing?

• I'm not familiar with S. Murphy's work: they wrote a "car-polcalyptic" rpg called Gaspunk that's available on itch, and just recently published a PWYW adventure and mini-setting called ~Drytongue Valley~ on itch. There's not an actual page count given (that's one feature I think would be helpful for itch to implement with their pdf downloads), but it seems like there's a ton of content in there.
• I'd mentioned the game See You, Space Cowboy awhile back when it was funding on Kickstarter, and the ~first adventure anthology~ for the game has about four days left to go and has already funded. You get eight adventures/scenarios, each laid out in a simple, easy to run two-page format.
• One of my favorite indie publishers is Prismatic Wasteland, author of Big Rock Candy Hexcrawl and the award-wining Barkeep on the Borderlands, and they've just released ~Trouble in Paradisa~, inspired by an obscure (to me, at least), 90's Lego kit.
• Cosmic Chill Creations has released ~Oolroob~, an expansion for the cool and weird Slugblaster game. It (Oolroob) is set in Perth, Australia, and is available as a PWYW download.
• I'm not familiar with Revolution Comes to the Kingdom, by Porcupine Publishing, but they've released a ~compilation of all three books on itch~. Set in a nameless country in the aftermath of World War 2, it explores themes of civil strife, global struggle and hegemony, set in against a backdrop of spiritual awakening.
• ~Red Solstice, Issue 5~ is now out on itch. It's a sprawling, experimental, wide ranging gaming magazine with a host of authors and contributors.
• The Troika! Bestiary jam ended a few days ago, and I'm sad that I missed it and didn't get a chance to promote it. But I've been seeing some cool entries pop up: one of them is ~Heliozincographic Drones~, a mini-boss that, when defeated, reveals a nearby area of interest, neatly providing a further adventure hook to dangle in front of your players.
• Hilander has released ~The Old School Referee~, a compilation of tips, advice, and guidelines for running old-school style games as well as crafting worlds and adventures.
• Long time readers of the Roundup will know that I am a huge fan of the work of Zedeck Siew, of Reach of the Roach God and A Thousand, Thousand Islands fame. David Blandy, author of the ECO Mofos, has just released an adventure written by Siew for EM. Entitled ~To Put Away a Sword~, like all of Siew's work it struggles with concepts of war and peace, of alternative means of resolving conflicts, and of dealing with the aftermath of struggles.
• Jeffrey Jones has been publishing his zine, Gary's Appendix, on a semi-regular basis for a couple of years now, and is currently ~raising funds for Issue 6~. The theme of this issue is Dragons!
• Crumbling Keep is Kickstarting ~Techcromancer~, an adventure for Mothership that plays around with the adventure format, including audio and visual components that are used to run the scenario.
• Warpland, the post-apocalyptic rpg by Gavriel Quiroga, is currently funding on Kickstarter for a ~revised print run~ of this very cool game and setting. Gavriel is one of the Latin American creators that I always keep an eye on for their releases. If you like Rifts, but wish it were even more gonzo, with better rules, I would recommend Warpland as a good substitute.
• Outcast Silver Raiders is a recently released, and absolutely gorgeous, OSR rules-set. Melpomene Games has just released ~Hexen Vol. 1~, a supplement for OSR released under their third-party license. It's an ambitious project, and looks like it contains a lot of cool stuff that adds to Silver Raiders. The release is currently in beta, and so can be purchased now for a huge discount; early bird purchasers will get any future updates, so it's definitely a bargain right now.
• The Sunken Sisters is a 35-page adventure module by David Henley written for Old School Essentials.
• I was talking to a customer the other day about the works of Jim Wampler and extoling the weirdness of Mutant Crawl Classics, and I just happened up ~Martian Crawl Classics~, a setting and expansion for MCC that asks the question: what if the Great Disaster was not caused by the hubris of Man but rather by a Wellsian invasion from Mars?
• Knave 2 has been released, and Noobirus has followed hot on its heels with ~Knave 2ed -- Expanded Lore~, a PWYW supplement for Knave.
• Speaking of Knave 2e, you can get the ~pdf on Drivethru~. I'm waiting patiently for retailer copies to come available so I can get some in for Sabre.
• I'm trying out a couple of things for Kickstarters: the BX Advanced Bestiary, Vol. 2, is currently fulfilling, and I've opened a ~pre-order store~ where you can pick up the volume for the same price as the original Kickstarter. Additionally, Kickstarter has started offering the ability to pledge late to projects, so you can still get in on the KS for ~Issue 35 of Populated Hexes Monthly.~ This issue contains the first level of the dungeon underneath Dry Gulch, a mining community west of the Basilisk Hills Hexcrawl region.

Welcome to the third Roundup in June. I mentioned a few weeks back that we're having a little mini convention at Sabre from July 4th - 7th in celebration of our one year anniverary of being in business: I've posted ~a schedule to our blog~ with our events. If you're going to be in the area during those days we'd love to see you pop in. There will also be cake.

Also, I missed this last week, but the Shadowdark RPG won the Three Castles Award at NTRPGcon last week. This issue might be a little light on Drivethru releases, but that's because there's an artist who's spamming the OSR filter with individual pieces of stock art (like, literally hundreds of different pieces) and it has made it very difficult to go through and find new releases).

Releases seemed to be pretty light in May, but they've definitely picked up the pace this month, with plenty of new releases last and this week.

• As so often happens, a new project that I've been looking forward to releases on the same day as the Roundup goes live. In this case, it is a Castle Grief and their project ~Studded Leather Issue #1~, a punk-rock, system agnostic, fantasy setting. I've been a fan of their artwork for awhile now, and am excited to see the zine come to life.
• The prolific James Floyd Kelly is Kickstarting a dual project: ~Delver #15 and Runes #4~. Delver is primarily for OSE and other similar games, while Runes features exclusively on Shadowdark.
• ~Grimwild~ is funding on Backerkit. It bills itself as classic fantasy meeting narrative gameplay, and cites Blades in the Dark and the 24xx games as an influence.
• Another project funding on Backerkit is ~Wasteland Degenerates~, a Mad Max-inspired game that uses CY and Mork Borg as an engine. This campaign is to fund a jumpstart edition of the upcoming release.
• Daniel Sell is reprinting the amazing ~Fungi of the Far Realms~ as part of a Kickstarter project, and this version includes a deck of cards that can be backed as well. This is a book we've had before, but is out of stock, and I'm excited to get it back in stock.
• ~Troves~ is a fun-looking project that has reached its funding goal on KS and only has a day or two left. It's a GM-less, lighthearted game of cooperative dungeon delving, and looks to be a great introduction to gaming for kids or adults who might want a less intense rpg experience.
• TheGiftofGabes has released ~Vaarn by the Way of Cairn~, a mashup of Knave 2e and Cairn designed to allow you to play The Vaults of Vaarn using Cairn with as little conversion as possible.
• ~A Quiet Land~ popped up in my social media feeds last week and I was immediately intrigued. It's billed as a one-page system for domain management. I haven't had a chance to take a look at it yet, but I do have the author's Shadow and Fae game and like that, so my guess is I'll like A Quiet Land as well.
• GM Shail wrote ~The Ruin of Cochlea~ as part of the Hex23 jam. It's an intriguing-looking mini-dungeon that plays around with time and time travel.
• I'm always happy to plug Wuggy's art packs: they've just released one of Arms and Armor. Like all of their art packs, it uses the CC-BY 4.0 license, so the contents are available to use for commercial and personal use.
• Jimmy Shelter is itch-funding extra content for ~Pine Shallows~, their excellent Goonies/Stranger Things-inspired game. I'm just getting into Brindlewood Bay, and I think Pine Shallows is very much in the same vein.
• One of my favorite things to do in the Roundup is to promote the work of first time authors, and 8bitLogik has just released their first project. ~The Grind~ is a 2-player game that explores the commodification of the modern life.
• ~Knaves of the Realms~ is a micro-supplement for Knave 2e that aims to bring a little more old school flavor to Knave while maintaining the rules-lite Knave approach.
• A Visitor's Guide the Rainy City is a zine that we are consistently selling out of, and I saw this week that there are two new supplements for it: ~The Puppethand's Guide~ and ~The Restless Dead~. I'm hoping both of these titles will be released in classic zine format.
• The Morgansfort Campaign is one of the best regarded starting adventures for OSR games, and ~Morgansfort: Western Campaign Setting~ is now availble on Drivethru.
• We've got a bunch of new books in stock, including:
• The Mothership box set, in both ~normal~ and ~deluxe~ flavors.
• Two Runecairn titles, by Colin Le Sueur: ~Into the Nine Realms~ and ~Wardensaga Remastered~.
• A number of (new) ~used titles~.
• ~Populated Hexes Monthly Issue 35~ is live on Kickstarter for another day or so. This issue continues the look at the town of Dry Gulch by exploring the first level of the dungeon beneath the city.

Lots of stuff happened last week, including North Texas RPGcon, one of the pre-emininent conventions focusing on OSR-style gaming. One of these days I'll get a chance to make it to a convention.

As the author of this series I allow myself to take the liberty of promoting certain products: this week I'll be plugging Martin Thomas's first crowdfunding campaign, for ~Alchemy, Explosions, and Inventions~. I've been a big fan of Martin's blog -- Daddy Rolled a 1 -- and interviewed ~him a couple of years ago~ where we talked about online gaming and getting younger kids into D&D. I knew he'd been kicking around this project for awhile, and had been posting material that would form it on his blog, and I'm really glad he's taken the plunge into publishing it. Written for OSE, "this new supplement offers information for both players and GMs to run expert and specialist characters and campaigns. Inside are three new classes, 15 class concepts, campaign ideas including patrons and guilds, a three-story guild hall map with NPCs and adventure ideas, and much more." Plus, it's got art by Denis McCarthy, a Roundup favorite.

There are also a lot more releases this week than the past month or so, which is great! Hopefully you will find something in here that piques your interest.

• I'd mentioned the PÈLERINES x AORI NOX Kickstarter awhile back. It didn't fund, but the creators didn't let that deter them and they're back with a streamlined and redesigned campaign, for just ~PÈLERINES~. This version is designed for solo and multi-player, and is described as "a mystical journey where you explore a world blanketed into an everlasting twilight. You play pilgrims, sent to unravel the mysteries of this world and its enigmatic moon-eclipse." The publishers have included a soundtrack list of influential music, and include the likes of Bjork and Dead Can Dance.
• I'm seeing more projects funding on Backerkit these days, and one is ~The Parthenogenesis of Hungry Hollow~. Written for the excellent Liminal Horror system, this is a modern take on the classic Against the Cult of the Reptile God adventure.
• Castle Grief has updated their high fantasy toolkit ~Tarvannion~ over on itch. It's got a simple hexcrawl system, lots of d6 tables for random generation, and the art is absolutely evocative. Castle Grief has an upcoming Kickstarter, as well, that I'll be plugging when it is live.
• The Thinking Lands Discord, a collective of artists and authors, has released ~the Bronze Lands~, a free, system-agnostic hexcrawl featuring adventure locations crafted by individual members, including Luke Gearing, Chaoclypse, and more.
• If weird and gonzo are your thing you might like ~A Field Trip to Zu~, a free, 34-page hexcrawl of 36 hexes. Like Tarvannion, this publication includes simple hexcrawling rules.
• ~Under the Pale Sun~ is a weird science fantasy game currently itchfunding (on itch, natch), which means that if you support it now you'll get all future updates, including art by Evlyn Moreau and Perplexing Ruins.
• ~Dungeons of Golora~ is a free, solo-rpg designed to highlight dungeon crawling, which I think is a neat take; I see so much focused in the solo realm on hexcrawling and world-building that it's nice to see something focused on dungeon exploration.
• Deldon has released a game called ~The Door Locks Behind You~, a love-song to the Legends of Zelda and other similar games. There's a soundtrack, and the zine contains original art. The game itself is influenced by NSR games such as Cairn, Knave, and Mausritter.
• There are a lot of Mork Borg hacks out there -- for some reason I bounced off Mork Borg, but find the hacks generally pretty interesting and good -- and the newest one is ~Red Borg~, a game of revolutionary uprising against unfettered capitalism.
• Murkdice has just released ~The Sanguine Siren~, a scenario for OSR-style sci-fi games, but specifically written for Death in Space. It's based around a mystery; a patron of the aforementioned space tavern is cheating and the owner needs the players' help discovering who is doing the deed.
• ~The Road to Canterbury~ is an interesting release now available on Drivethru. It bills itself as an OSR approach to the Canterbury Tales. I haven't had a chance to check this out, but it caught my eye this week as I was browsing.
• I'm not familiar with the work of Adam Watts and Archon Games, but they've just released the evocatively titled ~Dread Shores and Black Horizons~. There's not much of a description about the product which, given the price point, would be a nice addition, but the cover art definitely draws one in. It's supposed to be system-neutral OSR.
• ~Maustrapper~, by Sam McKay, is a collection of twenty traps for use with Mausritter.
• I'd mentioned Pirate Borg last week, and ~Back to the Ship!~ is a short adventure written by Robert Swanson for that system.
• I'm not familiar with the work of OSRDAN, but I am familiar with the art of Teresa Guido (she has done a fair amount of commissions for me), which grace the pages of the newly released ~Divinities and Cults Vol. V~. It looks to be a good resource to add gods and divinities to OSR-style games, and seems to be in the classic style of early TSR.
• ~Populated Hexes Monthly Issue 34~ is now live on Drivethru, and features the mining town of Dry Gulch, an adventure location that can be used as part of the Absalom setting or dropped into an existing game when the Referee needs a town. ~Issue 35~ is currently raising funds on Kickstarter, and expands Dry Gulch by mapping the first level of the dungeons beneath the city.

It's the first Monday in June. This year is just flying by. I'd mentioned Evlyn Moreau's new release, \~The Choir\~, a few weeks ago. I'm pleased to annouce that Sabre Games is currently the \~sole US distributor for the print version of the game\~, and Ratti Incantati is the Canadian distributor (although it doesn't seem to be up on their website yet). Let's dive in and see what was released last week, shall we?

• The Merry Mushmen, of Knock and Black Sword Hack fame, have just launched a \~Kickstarter for a pair of adventures\~, one of which is billed as a sequel to their lauded first adventure, Ragged Hollow.
• A new (to me) publisher, Molten Blast, is \~Kickstarting a bestiary\~ for old-school dragons and undead. It looks like this one adapts a previous release, which was for 5e, and converts the creatures to standard, system-agnostic, OSR format.
• I've been really impressed with Emiel Boven's Electrum Archive zine, and saw that issue 2 is now \~available in pdf on itch\~. We're Kickstarter backers, and I hope to have the print version of Issue 2 in stock as soon as it is available.
• I'd mentioned Chaoclypse's new zine, Chaos Crawler, a few weeks back. It's now available on \~Drivethrurpg as a pdf\~, and sounds like the author is exploring some print options. This is a 28-page, wide-ranging zine with a generous splash of gonzo.
• Omnik has released \~Wander\~, a really neat-looking solo rpg about reactivating ancient pacts with spirits, fey creatures, and giants.
• Awhile back, when Cairn 2e was Kickstarting, Yochai Gal released a starter adventure to go along with it called \~Rise of the Blood Olms\~. They've now made this adventure available via Lulu priced at cost. Lulu is a great option for folks overseas, since there are a number of printers located throughout the world and it can really help reduce shipping costs.
• I'm not familiar with the works of post world games, but they've just released \~Snickersnee\~ on Drivethru, a minimalist fantasy game with definite NSR sensibilities. I'm curious to check it out; it's outside of my usual style of play, but it can be a good thing to step outside your comfort zone every so often.
• \~Passive Corruption\~ is a short, interesting-looking release for DCC that adds several traits to the game that can be used to mechanically add a grimdark feel to the system.
• Pirate Borg gets a lot of praise for its nautical rules and tone, and Beau Yarbrough has just released \~Five Lost Souls\~, a bestiary for Mork Borg that adds five new foes for the players to encounter.
• Awkward Turtle has released \~Wizard Trash, Goblin Treasure\~, a short game of navigating a goblins and a wizard with a penchant for conjuring goods from our world as a form of retail therapy. It features art by Nate Treme, who is always a great illustrator for projects.
• \~The Doom of Blackwinter\~ is an adventure for Old School Essentials that contains a lot of material -- over 70-pages, including a city that can be used as a home base and introduction to the author's setting.
• I also totally forgot to post this, but the ~Into the Wild Omnibus offset edition is now available~. It's a 390+ page, full color, sewn binding hardbound with velvet ribbon bookmark.

It's the last Monday in May, and in the States it is also Memorial Day. There are a number of interesting and cool-looking projects coming up on Kickstarter, and I'll be covering those when they go live. Until then, here's what I found from last week.

• Not a new game, but one that is new to me and I thought looked really cool. ~Born From the Sand~, by GM Shail, is written for Into the Odd and features a dungeon in the shape of an inverted pyramid. It's a free, playtest version of the adventure, and from what I've read of it there's some really good ideas in there.
• I'm a sucker for games with charming artwork, and ~FTW~ scratches that itch as well as providing an interesting framework for non-OGL rogue-like dungeoncrawl games. There's a ton of content in there for a PWYW game.
• I've been a fan on cats have no lord for awhile; they produce consistently good, quirky little games and adventures. Their most recent release is ~Leviathan~. It's a system-agnostic sci-fi horror written for the 2024 Sci-fi one shot jam. I'm impressed by how CHNL is able to produce content in a variety of styles and systems.
• Vaults of Vaarn is a cool-setting/game that's been difficult for us to keep in stock. ~Issue 4 of the Vaults of Vaarn~ zine is currently out in pdf form, and it sounds like print copies will be available through the author's webpage.
• I'm never sure what to think of releases that are dual statted for 5e and OSR games. I've got nothing against 5e -- goddess knows I incorporate some of the aspects of 5e into my stuff -- but I'm never sure how well they convert directly as dual-statted releases. I bring this up because I see that ~Project 666, Vol. 2~ is live on Drivethru, with a bunch of random tables, items, and more statted for both 5e and standard OSR-style stat-block.
• ~The Thing From the Swamp~ is a B-movie inspired adventure for Mork Borg. I think it's an interesting idea concept and might play really well with Mork Borg.
• As many gamers of a certain age, the Spelljammer giant space hamsters holds a special place in my heart. Downsized Press has released ~issue 5 of their zine~, which presents giant space hamsters inhabiting a mini-dungeon.
• My social media feeds have been blanketed by art previews for the Painted Wastelands, a new game that will be hitting Kickstarter pretty soon. The art is absolutely gorgeous and remind me of the Ultralight Grasslands. ~They've got a free preview of the PW~ up on Drivethru.
• Charles Ferguson-Avery, of Into the Wyrd and Wild and others, has released their megadungeon ~Ave Nox~ on Drivethru. It's designed to be system neutral, with an emphasis on exploration and piecing together forgotten histories.
• ~Faces of Clay~ is an interesting looking release for OSE. It's billed as either an easy role-play encounter or a difficult combat encounter, and I see it as potentially being a good introduction to OSR-style play for those who might not be as familiar with the playstyle.
• It's the last week (sale ends May 31st) to take ~advantage of our zine sale~. You can take 35% off all in-stock zines by using the coupon code "Spring24" at checkout.

May's a busy time of the year for us, between multiple family birthdays and getting ready for the end of the school year. I wasn't sure if I was going to have time to put out today's Roundup, but was able to put together a short review of last week's releases; there honestly weren't as many new releases as I had expected to see, so perhaps everyone else is as busy as we have been.

The one year anniversary of Sabre Games brick and mortar opening is coming up at the beginning of July, and to celebrate we're hosting a mini-convention. If you're going to be in or around the central Virginia area July 4th - 7th we'd love to have you stop by. The schedule is still being worked out, but we're going to have various games and tournaments going on all four days.

• In conjunction with a number of bloggers, Prismatic Wastelands released ~Wonky Willie's Authentic Interactive Extravaganza~, inspired by the ill-fated and much-ridiculed Willy Wonky Glagow exhibit.
• ~Just Another Goblin Cave~ showed up on my radar and it looks like an interesting little mini-dungeon. Defiantly handcrafted, it's a four-page adventure that bills itself as a short and sweet adventure designed specifically to introduce folks to the OSR style of play.
• Melpomene Games has released ~Moonshine Revelers~, an adventure for Mausritter. The art is composed of delightful watercolors that really set the mood and make me thing of my childhood copy of The Wind in the Willows.
• ~A Traveler's Guide to the Echelon Forest~ is a constantly changing, system agnostic, die drop forestcrawl. It's also CC-BY-4.0, which means it can be shared, altered, or otherwise adapted for other purposes just as long as the original author is credited.
• ~Tome of the Blood Baron~ is a mini-dungeon statted for Cairn, OSE, and 5e. It features all manner of vampiric foes and is designed to be run in a single 1-3 hour session.
• Alex T is raising funds for ~Ruthless Heavens, Boundless Fate~, an interesting rpg that looks a bit like Godbound and Exalted meets Miyazaki. I'm seeing more and more games like this, that come specifically with options for solo gaming.
• Today's the last day to get in on the mini-Kickstarter I'm running for ~Populated Hexes Monthly Issue 34~, which begins a look at the mining community of Dry Gulch, a location mentioned in, but just outside of, the Basilisk Hills Hexcrawl.

This is likely to be a somewhat short edition of the Roundup. I caught whatever current variant of the flu is making the rounds of the east coast, and it knocked me out Friday and Saturday. I'll do what I can to post some of last week's releases, however.

Well, I lied. There's a fair amount of stuff I was able to add. Oh! Also, Sabre Games will be holding a mini-convention July 4th-7th at the store in downtown Charlottesville to celebrate our one year anniversary. We're still working on a schedule, but if you're in the area and think you might be interested in running a game hit me up and we'll try and make it happen.

• Every once in a while I come across a project being funded on Crowdfundr, an interesting crowdfunding platform that got a lot of love two or so years ago but seems to have dropped somewhat off the radar since then. But Cezar Capacle is using it to fund ~Wraithbound~, a game of ghost hunters endowed with supernatural abilities.
• Mobile Hut has released ~The Choir~, a short, 8-page adventure for Mork Bork. It features some art and design by Roundup favorite Evlyn Moreau.
• I often see people asking about a suitable mass combat system, and while I've written one included in Into the Wild I'm always interested in other peoples' takes on it. ~Killchain~, by Castle Grief, is inspired by Chainmail but meant to be simple enough to be run via theatre of the mind.
• I do not speak Spanish, unfortunately, since so much of what is innovative in the OSR-sphere is coming out of Latin and South American, and the collective OSR Latam has just released ~Mestiza #1~, a zine that collects essays, discussion on game theory, a small dungeon, and more. It's all in Spanish, though.
• We're both named Todd and are into hexcrawls, but Todd from Hexed Press has just released a ~one-page guide to dungeon-crawl procedures~ to help new Referees understand how it works.
• I've been plugging Chaoclypse's work for awhile now, and they've just released the first issue of ~Chaos Crawl~, a weird old-school zine broadly compatible with BX-style games. It's got a bunch of weird and gonzo content.
• ~What Lurks Beneath Tidewater Tower~ is a short adventure written for OSE with an aquatic theme that features a cursed idol, undead sea creatures, and more.
• The prolific author James Floyd Kelly has released ~Issue 14 of his Delver zine~, written as a gaming aid for OSR/OSE games.
• ~As Above, So Below~ is a short, system-neutral adventure that explores two dungeons, each a mirror of each other, one celestial and one infernal.
• Eric Bloat and Pete Spahn are both mainstays in the field of OSR publishing, and they're collaborating to produce ~WWII: Operation BX for Old School Essentials~, a WWII rpg based upon Old School Essentials. It's currently raising funds on Kickstarter, and both authors have a proven track record of publishing high quality products.
• I'm unfamiliar with the work of Ed Stanek, but their raising funds for ~Cosmologia~, a guide to planar geography in DCC. This looks like an interesting take on the standard fantasy planar cosmology, especially how it works with the implied setting of DCC>
• Hammer City Games is currently Kickstarting ~Earth: After Death~, a post-apocalyptic survival game inspired by Gamma World, Fallout, and other similar systems.
• I'm running a ~Quickstarter for Populated Hexes Monthly Issue 34~. By popular demand, this issue begins a look at Dry Gulch, a city mentioned in the Basilisk Hills Hexcrawl but never expounded on.
• Sabre Games is still having our spring cleaning zine sale. By using the code Spring24 you can take 35% off ~all in stock zines~. We've also added a bunch of new titles to ~our selection of used books~, including original TORG, Rolemaster, and more.

Welcome to the first news roundup in May. This year is just flying past.

• I'm not familiar with the work of nealyboy, but I see they've released a one-page rpg called Gune on itch. In this game you can ride a giant sandworm, have knife fights, and, as the author points out, buy a used van. The art is worth the pwyw price alone!
• I often see people asking where to find short adventures, and the One Page Dungeon contest is a good place to look. Chaotic Goods has released a compilation of their OPD submissions from over the years; it looks like there are some great short adventures found here.
• Longshot City is a Troika-based superhero game published by the Melsonian Arts Council, and Detyan has released The Waifs and Strays of Longshot City, a collection of weird and wonky NPCs to add to the setting.
• My Spoons are Stabby is currently raising funds on Kickstarter. It's billed as "A solo rogue-like tabletop RPG about exploring your mind through the lens of empathy, truth, joy, kindness, & anti-greed". There are some interesting ideas here; the Kickstarter is for a premium edition and you can download the basic game as a PWYW product on itch.
• David Blandy has released a little 2d6 World Engine SRD, a guide to creating simple, 2d6 based games. Even if you don't use it for game creation, it has tons of ideas and tables that can be mined for inspiration.
• I've mentioned before how highlighting the works of first-time creators is something that brings me joy, and Swords, Spells, & Skills, by Teuta, falls into this category. The game is currently in playtest phase, and folks buying in now will get the updates at the current price. It looks like there are some interesting ideas and tweaks in this system.
• I don't often get a chance to promote ko-fi pages, but I saw this release by The Moody Warlock and thought it looked interesting: it's an OSE DM's screen.
• Tides of Rot, by Games Omnivorous, is a unique release for Frontier Scum, in the form of an LP release along with music. As I discussed last week, some stuff I'm just not sure about how it works in practice and might just be too punk for me, but hopefully some readers will find things of interest in it.
• After a short hiatus, the folks at Red Ruin Publishing are back with a new issue of Casket of Fays, their free Dragon Warriors fanzine. This is number thirteen in the series.
• Brian Shutter has released a free quickstart version of Neon Lords of the Toxic Wasteland, his punk post-apocalyptic rpg.
• Farthest is a mini-adventure based upon the aforementioned Frontier Scum system.
• Jeffrey Regner Kickstarted the DCC adventure Exhuming John Barleycorn awhile back, and it is now available on Drivethru. It's set in the Shudder Mountains, and has some really cool and evocative art.
• Hexplore Publishing has released The Tower of the Elephant, an adventure written for OSE that adapts the classic Conan tale by the same name to OSR gaming.
• Populated Hexes Monthly Issue 33 is now available on the Sabre Games website. This issue clocks in at an impressive 56 A5 pages, and finishes up the look at creating artifacts and relics in your old school game. It's available in offset print for only 8.95 and pdf for 2.95.
• Sabre Games is having a Spring Cleaning Zine Sale in anticipation on new titles coming in. For the month of May you'll be able to take 35% off all in-stock zine titles by uing the code "Spring24" at checkout.
• We've also been adding quite a few new titles to our Used selection, including a box set copy of the West End Ghostbusters RPG in surprisingly good condition. We always try to price our used games competitively with other vendors.

It's the last Monday in April and time for another Roundup. Last week I had the privilege of interviewing gaming journalist Lin Codega. They talked about their new project, Rascal News, the state of the gaming industry, AI, and more. You can find the interview here. This issue seems a little light on released to me; perhaps many creators are finding themselves drawn outside to work in the garden and enjoy the warmer weather like I have been.

• There's an itch bundle going on right now to support trans rights in West Virginia. You can get an amazing 529 titles for 5.00, and this includes a number of OSR titles, including FIST, Brewkessel #1 (one of the my favorite adventures from the past two years; am eagerly awaiting Vol. 2), The Dessicated Temple of Locha, and more.
• I stumbled across the PÈLERINES x AORI NOX Kickstarter and was immediately intrigued by it. Written by a team of French creators, and beautifully illustrated, it's an ambitious, two book collection of science fantasy gaming designed for solo or group play. I'm really impressed by the scope and the attention to detail in all aspects, from illustrations to the physical construction of the books. They could use support in reaching their goal, though, so if it sounds interesting you should consider backing.
• I really don't see that much stuff being sold through Lulu, but Wuggy has just released their print version of The Undermall on that platform. I mentioned the Undermall awhile back in a previous Roundup; it's written for Electric Bastionland and is set in an abandoned, underground mall.
• Jeffrey Jones, of Gary's Appendix, has just launched Journey Into the Madlands, a post-apocalyptic setting using Old School Essentials.
• Attack from Space: the Mork Borg Ditto Game, is available on Drivethru. Play a medieval knight battling alien invaders in this game, formatted to look like the ditto worksheet copies many of us will remember from school in the 80s and 90s. The art is absolutely top-notch.
• Downsized Press has released Volume 4 of Downsized Dungeons, their OSE compatible mini-zine. This issue is influenced by John Carter on Mars.
• ZZ Walker has released Kobolds of Karnath Canyon, where the players take the roles of kobolds battling invading adventurers. It looks like there are some interesting ideas in this produt.
• Sometimes I see something that I don't know how to classify, and Candle III falls into that category. It bills itself as a "fantasy audio magazine", but I must confess I'm not sure what it is. You can get a pdf or a print version, and it looks like it contains some interesting stuff, but I'm left with the feeling that I'm not cool or punk enough to get it. Some of the readers of this column may be, however, so this one goes out to y'all.
• I haven't seen that much recently coming out of the immensely creative LatinX scene, but I did see the other day that Tragos Games has released Metamorphosis BX, a hack of Rolim's MiniBX that is a South American take on Metamorphosis Alpha.
• Medieval Mercenaries is a short zine that provides guidance for adding mercenary companies to your fantasy games. Ever since I read Elizabeth Moon's Paksenarrion trilogy in middle school I've been fascinated by this overlooked aspect of gaming.
• Shadow and Fae 2e has just been released on Drivethru. It allows characters to take the role of fairy tale characters. It looks like a delightful little system, inspired by GLOG, that is in the process of being polished.
• We've added a number of Used titles to the Sabre webstore, including a selection of classic Rolemaster titles.

Welcome to the third Roundup in April. Last week I'd mentioend the new Seas of Sand setting/adventure coming out, and a reader pointed out Xeric Sands, a desert depthcrawl in the same vein as Emmy Allen's Garden's of Ynn and Stygian Library. Xeric Sands is by Andy Murrilo, and looks to be something that can be slotted into Seas of Sand very easily. There's also a Palestinian Relief Bundle on itch right now, and in addition to some excellent indie titles there are a number of OSR-related titles as well.

• One of my favorite things to do is to highlight the works of first-time authors, and so I was tickled when I stumbled across Halls of the Beetle Queen. Written for Cairn as part of itch's Hex Jam, it is the first release by BoRyan.Online. I look forward to seeing more of their work in the future.
• Tidal Wave Games has released Knight of Diamond, a free rpg compatible with OSE and other similar systems. What caught my eye is that it is inspired by the only Wizardry CRPGs, which I enjoyed imensely as a youth.
• The Cairn kickstarter is chugging along nicely, and hakbyte has relased a minimalist character sheet for use with that system. I especially like the evocative antlers that frame the top entries.
• Dave Blandy has just released Eco Mofos, a game of environmental apocalypse using a mash-up of Into the Odd and Cairn. There's a vertitable who's who of collaborators on this project: IKO does the editing and Daniel Locke the artwork.
• It's not a new release, but Dark Tools just came across my radar and I thought it looked cool. Inspired by the ghost stories of MR James, this short game involved hunting for artifacts in a quaint, rural setting.
• Roxanne B has relased OIL, a rules-lite dungeon crawl about exploring the darkness with a lantern that requires oil to keep lit.
• The Darkest Outcome looks really interesting: it's a tactical skirmish horror game written by Orbital Crypt. I'm curious to see how the mechanics work in play.
• It seems like steampunk has been dwindling in popularity recently, but the recently released Sky and Steam Miscellany looks to be a refreshing take on that genre, with the characters playing the roles of super-powered Dickensian protagonists.
• Jeffrey Jones has released Issue 5 of Gary's Appendix, a wide-ranging zine focusing on quality OSR content.
• Mighty Peasants Deed Book is a collection of almost 100 tricks and deeds that are usable by 0-level characters in your DCC game to make playing at that level more exciting.
• Ophoric Labs has released The Wizard Sea Chronicles, Vol. 1, a zine based upon their homebrewed setting. It looks to be a mix of adventure and gazetteer, with some rule additions.
• Mausritter is one of my favorite new systems, and Sam McKay has released Mousepuzzler, a collection twenty puzzles that can be used for Mausritter, or really any other game.
• You Meet in a Tavern, You Die in a Dungeon is a procedurally generated dungeon delving game where all of the characters are destined to die. In my opinion it's worth picking up for the rules on procedural dungeon generation alone.
• I'm currently running a Kickstarter for Issue 33 of Populated Hexes Monthly, which is part two of the series on artifact generation. It comes in at a whopping 57 pages of content, and you can pick up the pdf for just 2.00, as well as pick up Issue 32 if you haven't gotten that yet.

It's the middle of April already, and time for another Roundup. Releases seem to come and go at different speeds, and for whatever reason I haven't managed to find many releases on itch. A reader last week asked about the best way to search for game jams. Unfortunately, while you can search the "jam" category on itch, there doesn't seem to be a good way to sort out the ttrpg ones from the digital games. Perhaps if enough people request it this is a feature itch would be willing to integrate.

• My apologies to the authors of Mystic Punks, a ttrpg of weird punk role-playing. This project is based off the previously published solo rpg, and a quick start version of the game can be found on itch.
• We carry a few products by Crumbling Keep, and they're currently running a Kickstarter for The Troll Hunter, a trifold pamphlet adventure written for OSE. If you're interested you should hurry up and back, as the project ends in about two days from the publication of this blog.
• Luminary Matt Finch has just launched Swords and Wizardry Expansions, a collection of new stuff for Swords and Wizardry.
• Cloud Empress, by Watt, is a unique and charming Nausicca-inspired setting that uses a rules-lite version of Mothership. They're currently Kickstarting Cloud Empress: Life and Death, an expansion upon the original products, which a bunch of new stuff and options. This is definitely worth a look.
• I've mentioned projects by Wuggy before, and they've just released an urban art asset pack on itch. For 2.00 you get over 500 hand-drawn icons for use in your projects, whether personal or commercial. They're super impressive and detailed, and an absolute steal at the price point. They're in .abr format, for programs like Photoshop and GIMP. I haven't taken them out for a test drive yet to see if they work in Worldographer.
• Robin Fjärem has released Shadow over Gloomspire, an adventure for the new and increasingly popular Dragonbane RPG. It's inspired by dark fantasy and gothic horror.
• Robert Conley's How to Make a Fantasy Sandbox is out and available on Drivethru, along with the mini-setting the Isle of Pyade.
• Sword of the Dragonslayer is an adventure for characters of levels 4-6 and written for OSE.
• Wandering Mage has released a collection of six new classes for the popular Shadowdark rpg, including the assassin, troubadour, and the intriguing looking undead revenant class.
• Ill-met in the City is a collection of urban locations that can be added to your fantasy game. It's described as having a Lankhmarian vibe, which is right up my alley in terms of tone.
• Along with Wuggy's icon release, Elderberry Inn has released a series of icons that also use the Creative Commons license. This icon pack seems more geared towards VTT play and less towards map-making or commercial use.
• Sam Sorenson has just released The Seas of Sand, an intriguing-looking setting designed for OSR play. The premise is that the setting is a vast desert of amorphous sand; by day ships can sail upon it, while at night the sand solidifies and can be walked upon. I'd seen this mentioned on social media over the past few weeks, and am excited to see it released.
• The Domain, featuring art by a Roundup favorite JE Shields, is system agnostic fantasy setting that comes in at almost 300 pages.
• I'm not sure I would ever use any of the items in 20 OSR-style Magic Items, but it is a collection of odd and unique magical items that can be added to games, perhaps as low-level trinkets to amuse your players.
• After is billed as a "post-apocalyptic stone punk rpg", and is inspired by a wide variety of systems and settings. There are a couple of sample spreads in the titles description that do more to sell the product than any promotional blurb could.
• I've launched a Quickstarter for Issue 33 of Populated Hexes Monthly, which picks up were Issue 32 left off with a look at adding artifacts and relics to your OSE and OSR-style games.
• Just a reminder that I've decided that the only Third Kingdom Games books that I'll be keeping in stock will be offset versions, which means I'm putting my remaining inventory of print on demand titles on deep discount, 50% off all titles. The POD titles will still be available via Drivethrurpg and Lulu, but my goal is to only stock offset versions in my own webstore. If you'd like to pick up some books at 50% off now is the time to do so.

It's the second Monday in April and, the big news is obviously the eclipse that will be visible in the US. Hopefully the darkening of the sun will not release the eldritch beasts that have been restrained for the good of humanity.

• Pocket Quest is an annual Drivethru event that I always seem to overlook, but I did see that Zadmar Games has published Conniving Cat Burglars, a one-page system/scenario that can also be used as part of the Tricube Tales system.
• When it rains it pours, because another entry to Pocket Quest is Mission: ImPAWsible, by T-Rex Games, a game of three raccoons in a trench coat trying to save the world.
• I'd mentioned the Fishing With John game jam on itch a few weeks ago, and one entry that's just been published is Way Down on the Waccamaw, by giantrobottackler. It's written for Cairn and is a little one-page scenario about a fishing contest that may or may not turn out badly for you.
• I'm a big fan of Emmy Allen's work, and Soul Muppet is currently running a Kickstarter for a remastered version of the Garden of Ynn, a procedurally generated, zero-prep adventure set in an ever-shifting garden.
• Eva K has released a pack of grayscale wilderness hexes, with the idea that they are a minimalist aid to writing an adventure rather than something to spend time fiddling with.
• One of my favorite parts of Worlds Without Number is system generation, and Robotic Topologist just released their Minimalist Solar System Generation.
• The pdf of Goodman Game's recent Dark Tower release is now available on Drivethrurpg. It's available in both DCC and 5e flavors.
• Hirelings is an interesting new release on Drivethru. It's billed as a fantasy heist game, suitable as a one-shot or a mini-game inside an existing campaign.
• I'd mentioned Prisoners of the Secret Overlord a few months back when it was on Kickstarter, and it's now out on Drivethru in pdf and POD. Written for DCC, it's a 2nd level adventure with science fantasy elements.
• Flooded Realms Adventure Press has released Oglia's Folly, a short (3-page) high level adventure for OSE. I like seeing shorter high level adventures that can be slotted in as part of a larger campaign or hexcrawl without the baggage of a longer campaign setup.
• Land of Mist is a campaign supplement written for Old School Essentials. It looks like it's got an interesting variety of new classes, monsters, and, what may be of interest to some people, rules for achieving Immortality.
• Populated Hexes Monthly Issue 32 is now available in pdf and print. This issue is the first in a two-part look at creating artifacts and relics for OSE and other similar games, and provides plenty of tables and tools to create both them and mortal magical items.
• There's about a day left in the BX Advanced Bestiary Kickstarter, which expands on monsters E-K in the Old School Essentials Classic rules. It adds new monsters, classes, spells, psionic powers, and more. Illustration below is bee-folk soldier, by Marco Ortiz Walters.

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Welcome to the OSR Roundup for April 1st. March is over and saw a lot of in person gaming activity with GaryCon, PAX East, Adepticon, and a host of other conventions. I'd mentioned last week that Cairn 2e has launched on Kickstarter; I conducted a short interview with the author, Yochai Gal, last week, that you can read here.

• Aaron Dill of Jolly Lark Gaming is a friend of mine from high school. After working with Games Workshop, Gale Force Nine, and Monster Fight Club he as founded Jolly Lark, a small, bespoke company geared towards minis and accessories. He's running a Kickstarter (ends in a few days) for cultist minis designed for a variety of games and systems. You can pledge for either the physical minis or, what I like to see, the .stl files so you can print the minis yourself.
• Hexed Press has released Huzzah! Inspired by Honey Heist, it is a quick, rules-lite rpg designed to capture the frenetic and mad-cap energy of classic Saturday morning cartoons.
• One of the things I love about itch are the number and creativity of game jams that folks come up with. A recent one is the Door Jam, and All the Doors I Could Think Of is seedling's entry into the jam.
• Speaking of jams: Shit or Get off the Pot is a game design jam that will be happening in May, with the goal to produce ten one-page games in the span of a month, regardless of quality. Just brainstorm and get stuff on paper.
• I'd mentioned Yochai and Cairn 2e, above, and he's also released a free dungeon, Rise of the Blood Olms, for use with the new edition of Cairn (or, really, any OSR system).
• Tropical Heat, by Marcos Dominguez, is a short, one-page rpg designed to emulate a 90s Canadian TV series that sounds like Miami Vice meets Hawaii 5-0.
• Eric Bloat has launched a Kickstarter for We Die Young, a game of supernatural horror also set in the 90s. I'm a big fan of what he did with Dark Places and Demogorgons, the Stranger Things-themed game, and I'm excited to see what happens here.
• Storied Lands Second Edition is now live on Drivethru. It runs on a BX chassis but with some modern elements added in, such as ascending AC, Advantage and Disadvantage, etc. A substantial part of the book is geared towards setting and campaign creation, which is nice.
• I backed the Goodman Games Kickstarter for the OAR version of the Dark Tower what seems like years ago, and it is finally out. You can purchase the pdf on Drivethru, We've also got it in stock at Sabre in both DCC and 5e flavors.
• Five Visits to the Temperance Stone is a short adventure by Leicester's Rambles featuring a five room dungeon drawn by Dyson Logos.
• Another release I've been waiting for is Kill Jester's Sanctimonious Slimes and Expired Epicures. Kill Jester is the publisher of Ava Islam's fantastic Errant system, and SSaEE, written by Nick Whelan, is statted for Errant but can be easily adapted to a system of your choice.
• Leyline Press (full disclosure that Sabre is the US distributor of their products) has just released The Isle of Glaslyn on Drivethru. It's a hexcrawl written for OSE that can be slotted into pretty much any existing fantasy campaign. They've also released Bastard King and The God With No Name.
• Written for Shadowdark, the Meadery Mishap features art by Carlos Castilho, one of my favorite artists. It's a low-level adventure, designed to introduce new characters to a setting and including elements of dungeon, town, and wilderness play.
• We just got the fantastic Mausritter in stock, and I was excited to see that Lazy Cat Cult has released Mauspunk, an unofficial Mausritter supplement dealing with mice in a cyberpunk future.
• Swords and Wizardry Whitebox isn't as popular as it once was, but I'm hoping that with Matt Finch at the helm of Mythmere Games it will see a resurgence. It's now available on Drivethru in PDF and POD versions.
• Welcome to Strangeville is another stab at a Stranger Things/Stephen King/Kids on Bikes system.
• Hinokodo has released an asset pack of "human-made" logos they've designed and made available for commercial use, with the only caveats being it can't go on any product with AI assets and they can't be repackaged or resold. There's a wide variety of cool designs here, and it is a PWYW release.
• Sabre Games has added the OSE Adventure Anthologies Volumes 1 and 2 to our stock.
• The Kickstarter for Volume Two of the BX Advanced Bestiary is still ongoing, with a little more than a week to go. It takes monster entries from the OSE core book entries E - K and adds to and expands those options.

Welcome to the fourth and final OSR News Roundup of March. As I write this, on Sunday, I'm seeing reports trickle in from GaryCon of the wonderful time that everyone had there, and I'm super jealous. Maybe one of these years I'll be able to make the trip. In the meanwhile, I've been occupying myself by searching out some of last week's most interesting (to me, at least) releases. It seems like this week's releases are a little light, which I'm not surprised by given GaryCon and PAXEast happening this weekend.

• Many of you may be aware that the duo behind the amazing Thousand Thousand Islands and Reach of the Roach God are no longer working together, but I just learned that Munkao, one of the two, has released their first adventure. Stirring the Hornet's Nest at Het Thamsya is available on itch and Drivethru. It's written for Cairn and Into the Odd, and of course brings Munkao's take on mythical Southeast Asia. You can find an interview I conducted with Munkao here.
• tlomdev has added and expanded to their selection of gritty tokens on itch. There are over 200 character, item, and monster tokens that have a delightful 1960s gritty vibe to them. If you're playing virtually and need some vtt art this is what you should get.
• Otherworldly Flesh, by Fran, is a system-neutral sci-fic scenario in which the players investigate the mysteries of a strange, organic spaceship.
• Idle Catulary's been putting out some really neat, innovative rules-lite stuff on itch, and their newest project is SLMDNGN, a tri-fold dungeon crawl game that is designed to be compatible with adventures from meatier systems.
• The Lost Bay, by IKO, is live on Kickstarter. I've been looking forward to this project for, oh, as long as I've known about it, and am really excited to see it do well. While many games in the suburban kids genre of games focus on the 80s, the Lost Bay is influenced by a fair amount of 90s media.
• It seems like I haven't plugged any of Philip Reed's products recently, but that's likely just because he maintains a pretty fervent pace of releases. His newest release is Vol. 3 in the Old School Encounters series of cards, a set of 72 system agnostic random encounter cards for fantasy games.
• Kevin Crawford of . . . Without Numbers fame has just released The Diocesi of Montfroid, a gazetteer for use with The Atlas of Latter Earth, although, like all of his products, it can be mined for ideas and used virtually anywhere.
• The Petals of Splendour is a mid-level adventure written for OSE. It's designed to be tough, combat-heavy, and run in a single session.
• The House Under the Moondial is an adventure written for Old School Essentials and features art by Roundup favorites Evlyn Moreau and Dyson Logos. I like that the pdf is linked and has form-fillable settings for the Referee to use; it seems very intelligently laid out and set up for ease of play.
• Moira Games has released Hidden Gods of the Woods, a one-page adventure about a hermit who discovers a strange jewel deep in the woods.
• It's not OSR, but Jenna Moran is one of those writers that I aspire to be 1/10th as good as one of these days. Her games are some of the best out there, all around, and she's currently Kickstarting The Far Roofs, a game of talking rats, god-monsters, and you, as she describes it.
• I'm currently Kickstarting Vol. 2 of the BX Advanced Bestiary, covering and expanding monsters from BX/OSE from E to K. Art has started to come in, and here are a couple of the newest pieces:

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The Loxen, or elephant-folk, warriors with a fearsome psionic stomp ability. By Marco Ortiz Walters.

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Gug, by Adrian Barber

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Blood Hawk, by Francesco Accordi

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It is the third Monday in March and we have begun the relentless "march" towards convention season. GaryCon starts at the end of this week, as does PAX East, and my social media feeds have been filled with people heading to a bunch of smaller local cons as well. Let's take a look and see if the approaching convention season has affected releases.

• I saw the title Arsenic & Old Lace pop up on itch and at first I thought it was a game about poisoning husbands, but took a look and saw it was something even cooler. It's a game set in the age of sail, with the English 30-Year War as a backdrop, but adds a soupçon of Mythos horror and the supernatural. Right up my alley.
• Brimstone is an interesting OSR approach to fantasy, using some traditional OSR aspects like classes but eschewing others (instead of a level-based magic system it is much more free-form and allows the creation of spells on the fly). Plus, it's got art by Carlos Castilho.
• I've got something of an unspoken rule that I don't promote crowdfunding projects before they launch, but hey, rules are meant to be broken, and in this case I've been looking foward to Cairn 2e for awhile. Yochai will be launching this on March 27th, and it's a project I've been waiting for with bated breath since he announced it last year. I'm especially looking forward to it being a boxed set.
• I'm sure long-time readers are aware that one of my favorite indie creators is taichara, author of A Hamsterish Hoard of Monsters (seriously, this is one of my all-time favorite bestiaries for B/X, and it's free!). They've just released Lindwyrm, a minimalist take on OD&D that is designed to be printed and folded into a 16-page zine.
• I mentioned Dynasty of Blood awhile back in a previous Roundup. It's an interesting work by Austin Wilson that melds fiction and gaming. It's set in the 80s, and is focused on a fictional rpg Dynasty of Blood (the rpg portion of the product uses Cairn). Volume Two, Betrayal at Indier Mountain, is now available.
• Cairn is just representing today! The newly released The Devil Choked on a Whale is a supplement with folkloric coastal backgrounds, rules for naval combat, bestiary and monster harvesting table and enough encounters for a small campaign.
• Shadowdark is another system I see a lot of releases for, but not that many releases on itch use it. The Wanderer's Guide to the Wild looks like it is right up my alley, though, and system-neutral enough that it can be ported over to a variety of OSR-systems. It provides tons of stuff for wilderness and nature-themed games, including some new classes, random tables, and more.
• Mythiria is a beta release of a rules-lite fantasy rpg built along the lines of and inspired by the FKR Flexpiel system by the same author.
• Matt Finch and Stuart Marshall have released a free OSRIC Player's Guide pdf on Drivethru. I've been hearing rumors that new edition of OSRIC is in the works spearheaded by the newly formed Mythmere Games.
• The Wizard's Tower is part two of an adventure series set in the Greymarsh. There's no system indicated for it, so my assumption is that it can be used for a variety of OSR-style games.
• I think many folks, myself included, have a difficult time running urban adventures, and while there are plenty of supplements written for wilderness exploration, there aren't that many designed for urban adventures. CWP #39 -- Urban Adventures, is an addition to the urban role-playing supplements that looks very interesting.
• home? is a journaling supplement for Mork Borg, two phrases I never thought I'd hear, but with the popularity of both I suppose it's just a matter of time.
• I often see folks asking about OSR-style games accessible to children, and the newly released Take Courage aims to address that niche. It's a pdf, but laid out (like Lindwyrm, above) to be printed and folded into a zine.
• Alan Bahr is a prolific creator (author of For Coin and Blood, among other titles) and he's just released Tombpunk: The Mausoleum Edition. The artwork that I've seen is pretty stellar.
• As I'm sure many folks have already heard, Necrotic Gnome have released their OSE Adventure Anthologies Vol 1 and 2.
• Diogo Nogueira is one of the Latin American authors producing some of the most interesting and innovative products in the OSR scene, and he's just released Fire and Fang, a mythical stone age setting that has a stunning cast of artists involved with it.
• Hex 24.26, the Temple of Bathrymrala, is on sale at Drivethrurpg for half-off through the month of March. It's got four mini-dungeons, new monsters, and rules for adding summoning circles to OSR-style games.
• I've launched a Kickstarter for Volume 2 of the BX Advanced Bestiary. This release will cover and expand on monsters E-K, including new classes such as the awakened giant ferret, garuda, and loxon (elephant-folk with a psionic stomp attack).

Let's dive right in and see what's new and exciting, shall we?

• The folks at Pickpocket Press, publishers of Low Fantasy Gaming, are raising funds for a new project. Tales of Argosa, billed as Low Fantasy Gaming 2e, is designed to both group and solo play, and the project comes with a bunch of add-ons to aid with solo gaming, or even the Referee that needs some inspiration.
• It's only got about a day left, but the Path of the Aram Thyr is being Kickstarted by Gallant Knight Games (Alan Bahr, publisher of Blood and Coin among others). It's a classless, high fantasy d20 system and also includes rules for solo play.
• I stumbled across the Rumored Lands Kickstarter and thought it looked interesting. It's a collection of three risograph printed zines, each one presenting a map, rumors, and areas of interest. Geared towards fantasy gaming, it looks like it is system-agnostic.
• The Long Road Home looks like an interesting project. It's a game about what happens after the adventure, as the characters make their way home.
• Pulpee has released The Bloody Pigsty as part of the Cairn jam on itch, and deals with themes of gluttony and greed.
• Walkmage is an interesting project. It's designed to be a portable rpg that you can play on the go, and instead of dice uses hand gestures. I'm sure I am part of a very small subset of players that remembers Darksword Adventures, the companion rpg to Weiss and Hickman's Darksword trilogy of books. It introduced a set of hand gestures that replaced dice, as well.
• Chris Bissette has released Beneath the Cobbles as a PWYW adventure. It's written for A Dungeon Game, but can be easily converted to other OSR/NSR systems. It's a small thieves' guild dungeon, which I think is something that most Referees would find a use for.
• I'm a big fan of Colin Le Sueur, and he's just released Into the Nine Realms, a collection of sixteen 1-page dungeons written for his Runecairn game. You can find it on itch as well as Drivethru.
• There are a couple of jams currently running on itch I wanted to call attention to. The first is Fishing with John. Hosted by Sivad's Sanctum, the goal is to write some sort of adventure about your totally normal fishing trip with your totally normal friend John. The second, near and dear to my heart, is the Fill the Hex Jam, where the goal is to create a hex map with exactly 36 hexes.
• Barrow of the Raging Storm is a 1-page low level adventure written for Shadowdark.
• I've been enjoying the heck out of 3d6 Down the Line's playthrough of Arden Vul, and am reading this massive mega-dungeon along with them. My one quibble with the book is the separation of maps from text -- IMHO, it makes it really difficult to follow when reading the pdf -- but Expeditious Retreat Press has just released a pdf of maps that show the various zones of control of the different factions within the mega-dungeon, something that I think will be super helpful.
• Lee Talman has released Advanced Knavery, a supplement for Ben Milton's Knave 2e. I'd like to give this a special shoutout as Lee also lives where I do, and is a regular at Sabre. Awesome to see local folks publishing stuff for OSR! Buy his stuff!
• When Sea is Calling is a supplement by Atelier Clandestin designed to generate nautical encounters and is meant to be used as either a solo generator or by Referees.
• Written for Troika!, Oops, All Oozes is an adventure where you play the role of various oozes, slimes, and puddings, trying to stop a mad wizard bent on wiping out your kind from existence.
• Beneath the Reeds is a mid-level adventure written for OSE. It's designed to be one that can be easily slotted in as a one-shot, filler, or quick sidequest, but is also billed as being very deadly.
• The pre-launch page for the BX Advanced Bestiary, Vol. 2, is now live. We'll be starting this Kickstarter on Thursday, March 14th.

It's already March, 2024. ZineMonth is officially over, although there are a number of projects that are still in the funding stages. The big news on this front is that Sabre is now the official US distributor for Leyline Press, creators of the post-apoc 'Mech game Salvage Union, as well as all their other titles (including some written for OSE!). This roundup may be a bit short this week, as well; I've been feeling under the weather this weekend and haven't had the energy I normally do.

• Recent featured author Cats Have No Lords has made Door-Hoard available on itch. It's a collection of 44 rooms strung together for the Door Jam on itch.
• Planarian has released the Stupid Name Generator on itch, which does pretty much what it says on the tin, although one person's stupid name is another's awesome moniker.
• Into the Odd is a system that I always like seeing people make content for, and Rhododendron Palazzo, by J Fur, is a 19-room dungeon written for that system.
• Sivad's Sanctum is another prolific itch creator, and they've just released the Parent of Fear; or, Ignorance, a seacrawl.
• I was unfamiliar with Bogfolk, on itch, until someone pointed out their Monolith periodic zine. This one, the second in the series, is entitled Supernatural, and focuses its gaze upon Mausritter (each issue focuses on a specific system or game rather than a topic).
• Written for GNAT, Grave of the Kraken is available on itch and Drivethru. There's also a paperback option available on Amazon. This is a solo adventure, written by David Donachie, who, along with Paul Partington, also put out an amazing amount of content for Dragon Warriors. You can catch my interview with them from a few years ago, here.
• City of Blood and Plaster is a system-agnostic adventure set Chicago during the 1893 World's Fair. The art is really neat, and it looks like an interesting premise.
• OSE has become the default chassis that a lot of games are built on these days, and Modern Necessities is funding on Kickstarter, using OSE to create a modern rpg. It worked really well for one of my current favorites -- Dark Places and Demogorgons -- so I'm curious to see how this game turns out.
• Weird World is a post-apocalyptic rpg set in the distant future, in what a friend of mine refers to as a "polyapocalyptic" setting. It looks like the love child of A Canticle for Leibowitz and Gamma World.
• TheNatOne has released The Red Hack 2e, a blend of OSR and modern gaming philosophies. The system has been influenced by games such as Five Torches Deep, DCC, and, of course, The Black Hack.
• I'd mentioned Into the Odd, above; A Mutants of Ixx Homebrew is written for Into the Odd, specifically the Mutants of Ix setting by Skullfungus. The release adds new classes and items to add to the setting.
• Cthulhu Crawl is an adventure for DCC set in 1920s America. I haven't had the chance to look into it yet, but it's an intriguing premise for the system; I think one of the strengths of DCC is how well it adds Lovecraftian mythos to the vibe of the game.
• As I'm sure long-time readers know, high-level domain play is one of my particular areas of interest. One of the better supplements that has come out in the past year to deal with domain play is Demesnse and Domination, by Bryan Larkin. It's now available in a free, no-art version.
• Delver #7, by The Tabletop Engineer, is now also available as a pdf, as is Runes #2, his Shadowdark zine.
• My own Populated Hexes Monthly, Year Two, is now available on Drivethru as a pdf and POD. The offset version will be available on the Sabre website next week. This book compiles Issues 13-24 and includes new classes (necromancer, turtle-folk, parrot-folk), rules for naval engagements and customizing vessels, dungeons, and more.
• I've also got a new Kickstarter going, squeezing it in for the BX Advanced Bestiary, Vol. 2, goes live. This one is for Issue 32 of Populated Hexes Monthly, which looks at randomly generating magical items, and specifically artifacts and relics.
• We've added a bunch of new products to the Sabre webstore, including the full line of Leyline Press books, both Hot Springs Islands books, the Waking of Willoughby Hall, and more.

Last week in February, and ZineMonth is wrapping up as well. I wasn't on top of things as much this year as in previous years, and some interviews slipped through the cracks and were missed. I apologize if I missed your project. Since this Roundup is covering two weeks worth of stuff, instead of linking directly to individual interviews this link will take you to all the interviews tagged with ZiMo24.

One thing I'd like to call attention to directly is Return to Perinthos. It's the compilation of the community created dungeons that were part of the Jennell Jaquays Memorial Game Jam that was held on itch. Luke Gearing has volunteered to create content that ties the different levels together, and Goodman Games donated a unpublished interview with Jennell with Tavis Allison. It's on Crowdfundr, so might not be getting the eyeballs that something on Kickstarter does.

There's only a couple of days left to take advantage of the Sabre Games 'zine sale in conjunction with ZineMonth, where you can take 20% off all our in-stock zines.

• DeReel has released a charming, nostalgic look at childhood water fights on itch. It's pretty minimal, but hits right in the feels.
• Advanced Fantasy Dungeons, a "paraclone" of AD&D 2e (something sorely missing in the OSR field, I think) is in the playtesting phase on itch. It's a "paraclone" because it imagines AD&D as it might be played in an alternate reality that split off from ours in 1993 and went a different route.
• I've been seeing whispers about Tarvannion online, and it has just been released to itch. It looks really cool. Written by Castle Grief, it's a system agnostic high dark fantasy toolkit with the aesthetic of something your DM cooked up in his binder during 5th period study hall.
• We carry some of the works of seedling games, and at the last minute they decided to throw something together for ZineMonth. Entitled Liars, Friends, and Troublemakers, it's a collection of 8 NPCs that are loosely statted for Cairn. This is a project they're going to put together themselves at home, in the true spirit of ZineMonth.
• Shots in the Dark #1 is a collection of one-shot adventures for ShadowDark. It's put together by Sara Angell, but features the works of a bunch of authors.
• I stumbled across the Meatheads Kickstarter and thought it was worth a shout out. It's a clever, whimsical mega-dungeon that, like Tarvannion, has a do-it-yourself aesthetic.
• Not a game per se, but a story that involves a fictional game, Dynasty of Blood is an exploration of the Satanic Panic and how it influenced the world of the 1980s. I think it is especially relevant with some of the narratives being pushed in today's world.
• The Cursed Art Pack, a collection of 20 CC-BY-4.0 prints that evoke a strange and horrific world, is currently live on Kickstarter. No AI was used in this artwork, and due to the license it can be used for commercial as well as personal projects. I would especially recommend this for people publishing Mork Borg products.
• Jimmy Shelter and the Good Sleep Collective are itchfunding the Dreamlands, a dream and nightmare themed tabletop roleplaying supplement with adventures, monsters, archetypes, strange places and lots of art. It's written for DURF but, of course, can be easily adapted to other OSR/NSR systems.
• I really like the premise of Great Metal Serpent. Written for Vaults of Vaarn, it is a dungeon inside a space elevator that has collapsed and fallen to earth. They've also released Dwellers of the Waste, a bestiary and supplement for the same system.
• RagnaBorg is another hack of Mork Borg, but this game is set in the last days of Ragnarok.
• YouCanBreatheNowGames has released a number of short adventures, including The Buried Convent of the Headless Saint.
• Downsized Press has released Downsized Dungeons, Vol 2, a collection of shorter adventures written for OSE. They're designed to have minimum prep time to help Referees run them at short notice.
• Wayne Robert, the author of Dungeon Plumber, has released the Mud Wizard, a class for Old School Essentials. Inspired by environmental activists, the proceeds from these sales will all be donated to charity.
• Tales of the Wolfguard is by Andrea Mollica, author of the popular Falkrest Abbey. This adventure is written for OSE and is an open-world sandbox style adventure, and also includes an ambient music soundtrack to play while you're running it.
• Joel Hines of Silverarm Press creates consistently good content, and he's teamed up with Leo Hunt to Kickstart The Shrike, a megadungeon written for Old School Essentials that's set in an extraplanar megastructure.
• Populated Hexes Monthly Issue 30 is now available on Drivethru.
• We've also added a bunch of new titles to the webstore from Indie Press Revolution and Exalted Funeral.

It's the second Monday in February and the we're entering into the second full week of ZineMonth. Last week I conducted the following interviews:

• Tanuki Games, with HIC: Tapestry Toilet Roll Game, an art journaling game inspired by the Bayeux Tapestry.
• Michael Putlack, with Be Kind, Rewind, a solo journaling game about a time when video stores were a major part of your life.
• Nessun Dove, with The Magus and the Oracle, a solo-journaling game that explores loneliness.
• Stuart Watkinson, with The Abbott Trilogy, a set of three system-agnostic adventures.

There will be no Roundup next week; I will be traveling over the weekend and will not have time to put one together. With that out of the way, let's check out some other stuff that was released or announced last week!

• I'd mentioned the rules-lite game Visceral a little while ago, and I just saw an update that the game is now available in tri-fold pamphlet format.
• Cezar Capacle is raising funds for ZineMonth on Crowdfundr. Random Realities is an oracle designed for solo gaming, and one of the things that I think is so cool about this project is that the pdf is set up with die-rolling capabilities in the pdf itself.
• I thought this was super clever, even though as a professional cabinet maker IKEA furniture, and their riddle-like instruction manuals, are the bane of my fucking existence. Dieku Games is Kickstarting FÄNGELSEHÅLA, an rpg laid out and designed around classic Swedish instruction manuals.
• I saw the link for No Nazis in Valhalla floating around on social media. It's by Spooky Bell Games, and posits that, their defeat imminent, the Thule Society sends a force of important Nazi party members back in time to 865 in an attempt to ally with the Great Heathen Army. The players take the role of these heathens, intent on repelling this new threat from out of time.
• The Book of Cosmic Creatures is a science fiction bestiary statted for Cairn and Into the Odd. It's got a wide range of creatures for your PCs to encounter.
• Written for the Black Hack, A Disputation at Worm Rock is an adventure inspired by medieval philosophy and the disastrous voyage of Ernest Shackleton.
• The folks at the Melsonian Arts Council are fundraising for Swyvers, an rpg of heists and swindles in a dirty, cuthroat world.
• I don't usually plug promo pages, but Yochai Gal and Space Penguin Inc are getting ready to launch Cairn 2e, now in box set form! I've been looking forward to this for awhile.
• Nightblade is a new, ruleslight fantasy rpg that's short and sweet but offers tactical play with an old school feel.
• Written by Glenn Robinson, Grandma's Cottage, Inc is a good starter adventure for OSE.
• Roderic Waibel, of Izegrim Creations, has published Castle Brookmere. A reworking of the book Return to Brookmere, by Rose Estes (and published with her permission), into a playable adventure.
• Appendix N Entertainment has published the second volume in their quest to bring the outer planes to OSE: Devilry journeys to the Nine Hells and provides stats for devils, both generic and named.
• One of my most used GM books is Matt Finch's Tome of Adventure Design, and he's just published City Encounters for Swords and Wizardry, a supplement to help run adventures in urban environments.
• I'm super thrilled to announce that Sabre Games has started to stock the Salvage Union game by Leyline Press. We've got the core book, patches, and several adventures. This is an absolutely gorgeous mech rpg set in a post-apocalyptic world. You play as salvager mech pilots who scour the wasteland for salvage in scrap built mechs.
• We've also stocked A Street Level Guide to Urban Troika, a supplement aimed at expanding the options for what to do in the Infinite City between adventures.
• Issue 31 of Populated Hexes Monthly is in its final week of raising funds on Kickstarter. This issue, printed in classic A5 zine format, provides options to customize the clerical turn undead ability based upon which god they serve, and presents three sample deities created using the rules in Issue 30.
• Also, the newest session of Basilisk Hills Breakdown is now live, in which the adventurers finally make the journey to Hezli, the mysterious abandoned town along a once vital trade route, and begin to explore the mysteries that are hidden within.

ZineMonth is here, and I've started posting interviews with creators who are participating in the event. They'll be posting Monday through Friday at 1:00 pm eastern time. Thus far I've posted two interviews:

• Jim Hall of Brooklet Games crowdfunding one of the games I've been looking forward to since he started posting about it last year on social media: Beetle Knight.
• Mikhail Malkin is Kickstarting Fishbone Archipelago: Lost Lighthouse, a system-neutral aquatic adventure.

To celebrate ZineMonth, Sabre Games is having a 20% off sale on all of our in-stock zines through the end of the month.

You might notice that Kickstarter links will be a little light in the official Roundup during this month, for the simple reason that I'll be promoting and linking to these campaigns in individual interviews throughout February. I will still be linking to stuff that I don't have interviews lined up about, though.

• Samsara is an entry in the 24-Word RPG Jam that explores the eponymous Buddhist concept of rebirth and suffering.
• Scott Wegener, artist and co-author of Atomic Robo, is raising money for The Cult of Morach, an old-school dungeon crawl written for GLAIVE but also broadly system-agnostic.
• Idle Cartulary is raising funds for the Curse of Mizzling Grove, an adventure written for Old School Essentials. It features the art of Niosis; I had never seen their work before, but am very taken by it. The samples posted on the Kickstarter are some very cool, stark line art that I really like.
• I really enjoyed following last year's Dungeon23 event, and one of the megadungeons created as part of it is now on Kickstarter. Sean Richer is raising funds for Terror of the Stratosfiend: Snake Wolf 3. It's a 400+ page megadungon written for DCC designed for characters of levels 1-6.
• Milk Bar is a Sci-fi game set in post-Soviet Poland. Based on RPGs like Cairn, Mausritter, and Mothership, and video games like Disco Elysium and Control, Milk Bar is a game about the post-collapse and rebuilding.
• Archstone Press has published the Years of Adventure, available for pay-what-you-want on itch. Inspired by epic fantasy series such as the Malazan Book of the Fallen, Earthsea, and A Song of Ice and Fire, The Years of Adventure was designed to create sweeping, large scale stories with a personal focus.
• One of the things I really like about ZineMonth is seeing new authors and artists publish their stuff for the first time, and the enthusiasm they bring to the hobby. Maria Weninger is running her first Kickstarter to fund Glimmerlight Inn, a system-agnostic location statted for general OSR-games but easily adaptable to other systems. It's billed as a way to introduce a path into Faery for your characters, or to introduce the Faery Realms to an existing campaign.
• Christopher Wilson has released Tasadantilis' Tantalizing Tower, an adventure for Old School Essentials, a massive 335 page setting and adventure.
• Ivanhoe Unbound has released Troika 19280!, a collection of d66 background tables to use with Troika.
• Prehistoric Perils is a mini-bestiary of dinosaurs designed to be used with The Monsters are our Heroes (by Bloat Games).
• Written for the Black Hack, but easily adapted to other OSR games, A Home Reforged is both setting and ruleset with a dwarven theme, which I think is somewhat neglected these days.
• Hexcrawl Horrors is written for BFRPG and includes ten d100 wilderness encounter tables, each one suited for a different terrain type and featuring monsters arranged by HD and in order of rarity.
• I'm a big fan of Joel Hines' work, and last year he Kickstarted The Tide World of Mani, a setting for Mothership. It's finally out in PDF on Drivethru.
• Paul Partington, who also writes the free Dragon Warriors fanzine, has just released a CYOA title: Temple of the Skull God. It's over 300 pages and looks to be pretty cool.
• I haven't had a chance to dive into it yet, but The Raven's Call is short little system that looks rather charming, mostly in the brevity of its description (I must admit that I tend towards pretty succint and short descriptions of my stuff, as well).
• I'm raising funds for Issue 31 of Populated Hexes Monthly as a part of ZineMonth. This issue takes the rules in Issue 30 for creating gods and presents three sample deities. It also includes a barrow left behind by a long-lost civilization and rules for modifying the clerical turn undead ability into channeling divinity, allowing for clerical abilities to be customized by the gods they worship. If you're a Patron or subscriber you don't need to back this Kickstarter.

It's the last Monday in January, which means that ZineMonth is right around the corner. I'm sure I'll keep banging this drum over the next month or so, and I hope y'all will humor me with this. There are three places you can go to check out the projects on tap this year:

• Kickstarter's ZineQuest page.
• The independent ZineMonth page (they're still in the process of getting it set up).
• Crowdfundr's Tabletop Nonstop.

And, of course, I'll be keeping as up to date as I can here. There's going to be a lot going on, of course, and if you're a creator or know of something I should spotlight the best way to make sure it gets included is to message me.

Also, just to gripe for a second, this is the first Roundup I've written using Drivethrurpg's new site, and, I gotta say, I'm not lovin' it. It makes browsing difficult. Of course, it could just be that I'm old and stuck in my ways.

• Cities of Constant Rain is an analog techpunk game put out by Roachtrout. It's inspired by media such as Strange Days, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Escape from New York, and more.
• David Blandy has put out some great stuff (Lost Eons is something I'd love to get back in stock), and they've just released The Art Lover, a mini-dungeon for Cairn written in memorial of Jennell Jaquays.
• Runecairn is one of the more popular indie games that we carry, and Colin Le Sueur, the author (you can read my interview with him here) is running a KS for a remastered version of Runecairn Wardensaga.
• Sad Fishe Games has published Expanded Magick Weapons for EZD6, a d66 list of unique and interesting magic items. It can be adapted to other OSR adacent systems easily.
• Unnatural Selections, Vol. 2, is bestiary of monsters for use with Mutant Crawl Classics, released by Dandyline Games.
• Eric Bloat has released a Referee's Screen for one of my favorite releases from last year: Dark Places and Demogorgon's, his love letter to Stranger Things and kids on bikes.
• I'm not familiar with the work of Downsized Press, but they've just released Downsized Dungeons, Vol. 1, a short 5-room dungeon designed to be filler for the Referee to use in between adventurers, as a one-shot, or an easy addition to a hexcrawl-style game.
• Dyson Logos needs no introduction, and they've just released Strange Stones, a collection of tables to use to generate standing stones. Like Dyson, standing stones have been a fascination of mine, and I make liberal use of adding them to adventures and hexcrawls.
• I'm also a sucker for barrows, and Woeful Barrows and Other Places is a collection of almost 100 pages worth of barrows and barrow-themed adventures, written for Shadowdark.
• Written for Forbidden Psalms, Frozen Psalms is a collection of five scenarios set in arctic climates, and also include new rules for adventuring in the cold.
• Raging Swan Press has published Dread Shrine of the Supreme Warlord, an OSR adventure for characters of level 1-2. It's set in their default setting, but can be adapted to other locations with relative ease.
• Aron Clark has made available a copy edit of the classic adventure The Lichway to celebrate the 50th anniversary of D&D. They revised and edited it to make it more accessible and easier to run at the table.
• The Into the Wild Omnibus is now available in print and pdf through Drivethrurpg and pdf only through the Sabre Games website. I've just gotten the print proof for the offset book, so that is underway, as well. This book combines A Guide to Thieves' Guilds, Filling in the Blanks, and Into the Wild into a single, 380+ page book.

A reader pointed out that I had used 2023 as the date for last week's roundup, so I made sure to write 2024 for this week's. Zine Month is right around the corner, and I'll be posting a series of interviews with participants as it gets into full swing. If you're interested in participating, or are looking to try and get your books into stores (whether online or brick and mortar) I wrote a post last year that offers some advice on how to crowdfund/price your products with the expectation of selling through third parties. Hopefully it will be of some use to people.

Last week's Roundup was somewhat sparse, so let's see what this week has in store for us, shall we?

• Visceral is a rules-lite, action-oriented two-page rpg that draws inspiration from, and is designed to emulate, darker genres such as grindhouse, noir, mythos, and more.
• I've been a big fan of Tanya Floaker's work since Lo, Thy Dread Emperor, and she's just recently released the Connection Machine, a dream-like rpg that explores themes of trauma and attachment. You can check out an interview I conducted with Tanya here.
• Dungeon Dash is an intriguing, tongue-in-cheek dungeon delving game that's currently crowdfunding on itch. They're raising money for commissioned art and to provide additional content (random generation, which is right up my alley!).
• Happy Cthonian has released the wordy All Dice II Haunted House Character Generator, a random character generator that uses all of the standard D&D dice to create a PC. This publication focuses on creating characters suited for haunted house adventures, and especially the adventure the Waking of Willoughby Hall.
• Speaking of Visceral, Prey No More is a game using the Visceral engine in which you play escaped potential victims of a powerful secret society's horrible rituals, out for revenge on your captors.
• Seedling is one of the indie publishers I've been keeping my eye on (they wrote A Gathering Storm and Procedures to Develop the Paths Ahead, amongst others), and they've just released Liars, Friends and Troublemakers, a collection of (largely) system-agnostic NPCs (Cairn is used when stats are needed).
• Scout Vol. 2 is out. A supplement for OSE and Dolmenwood, this issue has a ton of material crammed into it s 46 pages: four new classes, new spells, new rules for spell-casting, and more.
• There's a new game out that's an ode to the scribbled illustrations that you drew in the margins of your notebooks in study hall. Attack From Space: the RPG is inspired by these scribblings, and used Spencer Campbell's LUMEN system. It's more art project than rpg, but the author has thoughtfully included a cleaned up version for ease of reading and playing.
• After a short break, the folks from Red Ruin Publishing are back with Casket of Fays #12, another issue in their free Dragon Warriors fanzines.
• They Dug Too Deep is a one-page dungeon -- it placed in the top ten during last year's one-page dungeon contest -- that is now available on Drivethru. The cartography is excellent, and it also comes with VTT-support, which is a plus these days.
• Philip Reed is one of the most prolific creators in the OSR space, and is currently running a Kickstarter to fund the printing for a 54 card deck of treasures for the Dragonbane game.
• Another indie creator I like is Marco Serrano of Spicy Tuna RPGs. He's currently crowdfunding Greenhorns: A Weird Space RPG. It's based on the Together We Go Engine written by Markus Linderum and Tony Vasinda.
• In addition to supporting indie publishers I like to do what I can to support and promote local (to me, at least) authors, which is one reason we've added the newest book by Sandy Pug Games to the Sabre inventory. The Exquisite Corpse: In Maggot's Keep is a game designed for immersive storytelling, where the plot is generated by being passed from participant to participant, with each player adding their own unique take on the story.

As I'm sure most of the readers of this series will know by now, last week we lost one of the true luminaries in the gaming field: Jennell Jaquays. She had fallen sick last year, and finally succumbed to her illness. I never met her personally, but we did correspond via email occasionally. She was one of my first interview subjects, and as I was looking back over the interview last week I couldn't help but think of the questions I should have asked. When she first fell ill her wife Rebecca set up a GoFundMe to help with hospital costs. That GoFundMe is still active and could still use some support to help Rebecca with lingering hospital bills and funeral costs.

A number of people have raised suggestions of ways to recognize her contribution to the field of gaming. One that I think is appropriate is a game jam on itch, currently taking submissions for a megadungeon tile set that will be eventually printed, with proceeds going to her family as well as the organization Trans Lifelines. Jennell was an inspiration to all gamers, but especially to the trans and queer people in the hobby, and worked tirelessly to help those less fortunate than her. She will be missed.

I was torn about doing the normal Roundup this week -- it seems somewhat crass to jump into promoting works after the introduction -- but I decided there are some interesting products that deserve a spotlight. After a week with a bunch of new releases this week seemed somewhat light. My assumption is that folks are getting ready for ZineMonth and may be otherwise busy.

• I always leap at the chance to promote Mausritter and the various supplements and third party products for it. There's a Mausritter megadungeon currently on Kickstarter called The Tomb of a Thousand Doors. Matthew Morris is running it, but it features contributions from the entire Mausritter Third-party Community.
• My first introduction to the OSR was Dark Dungeons, the Rules Cyclopedia by Blacky the Blackball (currently going by Gurbintroll). I was lucky enough to eavesdrop on some of the work that went into Gurbintroll's current project, Light Fantasy, which is now available on Drivethru as a pdf. According to them, the print proof is on the way, so we should be seeing a POD version pretty soon, if all goes according to plans. While part of the charm of Dark Dungeons was, to my mind, their use of public domain art, the recent Kickstarter allowed Gurbintroll to commision art for Light Fantasy, which really makes the game.
• John Bilodeau has begun to publish some pretty cool stock art, and has just released the Gnoll Drimimancer, a gnoll that can tell the future by reading the pattern of blood splatters. It's a pretty nice piece of artwork, and I like how it invites you to create an NPC based on the image and a short description.
• The Crash Site, by ell0, is a solo journaling game where you play the role of a recently crashed and stranded space trucker. A rescue team is on the way, but it will be days before they arrive, and you're on a strange, unexplored planet.
• Realm Builder Games has released Vol. 1 of Beyond Basic, a set of rules expansions for OSE and other similar games. This volume presents a skill system, weapon mastery, and training rules for leveling up characters.
• Hexplore Publishing has released a bundle of four low-level OSE compatible adventures. I'm not familiar with their work, but it looks interesting.
• Gentle's Dungeon Guide, Vol. 2, by Taylor Seely-Wright, offers advice and procedures to generate dungeons in a simplified, check-list form.
• I don't seem to see much these days for Against the Darkmaster, but there's a new, massive (350+ pages) supplement and setting guide out now. Secrets of the Golden Throne has new monsters, kinships, spells, and a fleshed out mini-setting.
• Ever since Dark Places and Demogorgons I've been a fan of Eric Bloat's work, and he's just released a playtest version of Evolved, his new superheroes rpg that is run with the DCC engine. When I heard it was based on DCC I was a little skeptical, at first, but the more I thought about it the more I liked the idea.
• There are a couple days left on the current Kickstarter I'm running for Issue 30 of Populated Hexes Monthly, which begins a deep dive into religion with rules for creating gods and deities, with an emphasis on small, local gods. You can pick up the pdf for a couple of bucks, or get an offset print version for a bit more.

JE Shields is a well-known artist that works in the OSR community (I've mentioned a couple of his projects here in the past). His son recently passed away, and the NTRPG community is hosting a GoFundMe to help with the funeral expenses. If you'd like to help out the link is here.

February's annual ZineMonth is fast approaching, and I'll be doing my interview series again this year. If you've got a project you'll be crowdfunding for during this event please drop me a line and I'll send over a list of questions.

• I'd mentioned Atop the Wailing Dunes, by Atelier Hwei, back when it was crowdfunding. It's now available on Drivethru. It's a sandbox adventure for PARIAH, the neolithic-punk rpg system.
• Goblins and Gardens has released a pretty cool looking little game on itch. Dungeon Wilds is a cooperative card game of dungeon crawling and exploration. It has strong rogue-like crpg vibes, and the art is incredibly charming.
• Returning to Port is a supplement for Mork and Pirate Borg that provides random tables to spice up your players' successful (?) return to port after a sea adventure.
• Both Knave and Maze Rats are popular OSR systems, and TSOR uses them as an inspiration . . . with the catch being that it is only one page long.
• Brave Spartan is a solo journaling rpg where you play the part of a guardian statue, tasked with protecting the world's greatest literary collection.
• Directly pursuant to my interests, The Realm is an OSR-generic supplement that focuses on domain-level play, with rules for mass-combat, random domain events, and more.
• We sold through the print run of Perils and Princesses we got in within a few weeks, but I'm glad to see the game is now up on Drivethrurpg. It's a fun, OSR-adjacent game with quirky illustrations.
• I haven't had a chance to check this out yet, but The Mask and the Sword is a historical game that looks to be inspired by the Three Musketeers and similar works. What intrigued me is that it looks like it has options for solo, choose your own adventure style play.
• Peryton Publishing has released Spacers: 180, a rules-lite sci-fi game that seeks to emulate what the authors refer to as "rocket opera".
• Alienist Press has released a hexmap template on Drivethru, with 21 different versions of hexmaps. It's currently available as a single pdf, but the author has plans to release them as pngs as well as individual files.
• The Merry Mushmen are known for producing high quality, visually stunning books, and their first adventure, Nightmare Over Ragged Hollow, is now available in pdf through Drivethrurpg.
• Pickpocket Press, the publishers of Low Fantasy Gaming, have released Tales of Argosa as a free, public playtest book. It's designed to be quick, deadly, and with more options to support solo and oracular style play.
• We've got some titles back in stock, as well as some new titles:

*Reach of the Roach God and the Book of Gaub are back in stock.

*Stoneburner is now in stock. It's a solo friendly game of demon hunting in a dwarven asteroid.

*Populated Hexes Monthly Issue 29 is now available in a pdf. This is a mountainous hex, and features a roadside shrine desecrated by a corrupted nature spirit.

Welcome to the first news Roundup of 2024, and the start of the third year of this newsletter. I have not had a chance to do a year in review of previous roundups, but I'd be interested in hearing from readers about your favorite releases from 2023.

I've been getting ready for ZiMo24, the upcoming coordinated crowdfunding month in February when small press creators raise money for their projects. If you're one of those creators, and would like to answer some short questions about your project to be featured in an interview, please send me an email and I'll get you questions.

It's hard to believe that roughly a year ago, WoTC threw the 3rd party publishing community into turmoil by proposing a revision of the OGL; the community rebelled, and not only did WoTC back down, but a number of competing OGL licenses have been/are in the process of being created. 

One thing I've noticed in the last year is the absolute proliferation of AI technology in the creation of materials. I've made a decision to exclude AI-generated products in this roundup, but it is requiring more and more vigilance, both for Drivethru and Kickstarted products. 

One of the things I've really enjoyed this year is watching people post their progress on the Dungeon23 challenge, and I've seen at least two people post finished results. 

This is going to be a pretty short roundup; releases were pretty (understandably) scarce in the past two weeks, with folks focusing on the holidays. I hope everyone has a great start to the new year!

• The Wyrd has released FEUD, a system-neutral, 60-page fantasy adventure where the characters take the roles of ordinary people caught in the middle of a blood feud between two villages.
• I've mentioned the artwork of Exeunt Press before, and they've just released Rabbits & Demons, a collection of traced woodcuts from public domain sources. I really like these because they convey a certain mood instantly upon seeing it, and it's really nice having a source that someone has curated and uploaded as high resolution files these cool old public domain woodcarvings. It's pay-what-you-want, and they've made it CC-BY-4.0, which means you're free to use them in commercial or personal projects.
• 24XX is one of those systems that seems to fly below the radar but gets a ton of stuff written for it. One of the newest releases is SOL, by Zotiquest Games. It's billed as a retrofuturist sci-fi game set in a future where the space race never ended.
• Seth Ian has released Scaly Gods, a modern remix of the classic Cult of the Reptile God module.
• Cairn is another system that, like 24XX, is a bit under the radar but is hacked and used by a bunch of folks. The Rock Face is an adventure for Cairn written during the Adventure Calendar jam. It is good for a one-shot or to add it as a location in a point or hexcrawl.
• Brian Sago has released Sisyphus Die, a one-page Sisyphean game about playing Sisyphus.
• Beyond the Wall is another system that gets tons of critical acclaim but seems to be played less than it should be. Flatland Games have just released Beyond the Wall: A Kingless Realm, a 180+ page setting and sourcebook for Beyond the Wall.
• One of my favorite "weird" OSR zines is Black Pudding, by the author and illustrator James West. They've just released Issue 8 of Black Pudding. It's got its usual assortment of bizzare and unique character classes, items, and spells to add a bit of absurd fun and danger to your games.
• Scoundrels, Xenos, and Cyborgs is the new release by Stellgama publishing, and includes a ton* of expanded material for the White Star sci-fi game.
• Hugh Lashbrooke has been putting out some consistently great content for Mausritter, and has just released Away in a Manger, an adventure set in the nativity stable after all the humans have left.
• Dragons Beyond is a clone of 0e rules and notes, many of which never made it into the original three box release. It imagines if the original focus of the game was more on domain play and patronage, rather than dungeon exploration.
• We've gotten restocks of Stars Without Number and finally got Worlds Without Number in stock. Kevin Crawford is producing some of the best content in rpgs, and his books are consistently top-notch. 

Welcome to the third Roundup of December. This is the two year anniversary of these Roundups, and I look forward to bringing y'all another year. If I've got time in the next week or so I'm going to try and work up a "Year in Review" post. Looking forward, 2024 is going to be bringing us another ZineMonth in February, and I'm planning on doing another round of interviews with zine creators to promote the event. If you're planning on participating this year, and would like to answer a few softball questions about your project send me an email or message and I'll get you the questions.

This week is a bit light on releases, due no doubt in large party to the approaching holidays.

• I forgot to mention a Kickstarter last week: Douglas Cole has launched The Isle of Sedra. This is a setting and adventure book that ties into the author's existing solo OSE adventures. The book was originally written for The Fantasy Trip but has been revised and re-written for OSE.
• Leyline Press has been publishing some quality rpg products for awhile now -- I'll be stocking their newly-released Salvage Union rpg soon -- and they've just launched a Kickstarter to bring Salvage Union -- a post-apocalyptic mech rpg -- to Roll20.
• Roque Romero has released Old School Revisited, a collection of 28 monster png images. The terms of use are very generous, and allows for modifications, which is really cool. The images would be great for fleshing out an adventure, or perhaps even building an adventure or bestiary around, since they're pretty unique and not just another goblin or ogre.
• Dice Goblin Games has just published The Adventure Calendar, a miscellaneous compilation of rules and add-ons for old-school games such as Cairn and their own Block, Dodge, and Parry. They've also released Morph, Shift, and Alter (with illustrations by Evlyn Moreau), rules for polymorphing and transformations.
• Terminal, a game of digital pirate action, is live on itch. Written by Rat Wave Game House, it features additional writing by a number of well-known names in the indie community, including Roundup favorites Tanya Floaker and JellyMuppet.
• Inspired by Terry Pratchett, Farcical Fellows is a collection of six monsters for Troika. They're delightfully absurd, and the amateur (by the author's own admission) doodlings that illustrate the pages only add to the charm.
• Just in time for the holiday season, Yule them All is a hack and slay adventure written for Mork Borg. It's designed to be fast paced and brutal.
• White Star, by James Spahn, is a sci-fi hack of the simplified White Box rules, and the newly released Defenders of Altron is a setting for White Star. It weighs in at a hefty 130 pages, and is available in pdf and POD.
• Solo in a Lost Cause, by Parts per Million, is a Silent Legions (the excellent game by Kevin Crawford) compatible solo introductory system that's specifically designed to introduce new players to solo-style play.
• As many readers may know, I'm a sucker for hexcrawls, and Burning Light Press has just released two short, 2-page hexcrawl regions with isometric hex maps. The Canton of Mardon Gorge and The Canton of Swarrow are the two releases, and I really like the way they're organized and presented.
• We still have some of the Surprise Zine Bundles in stock. This is a collection of at least 100.00 dollars worth of zines from our stock, and is available for 50.00.

It's the second Monday in December, and the end of the year is fast approaching, as is the two-year anniversary of this Roundup. Because Christmas falls on a Monday this year I will likely (but not definitely) be skipping that day. Haven't made up my mind yet. I'm also toying with the idea of doing a year-in-review for the last week in December. Would readers be interested in that? It might be fun for me to go back through and list my top releases from the past year, and see how it compares to other peoples'. I'm also going to be gearing up to interview ZineMonth creators for the February event, so if you're going to be funding a project for ZiMo24 please hit me up and I'll get some questions sent over to you.

Last week saw one of the more popular authors in the OSR/indie crowd, Noora Rose, be credibly accused of plagiarism, but I'm not going to dwell too much on that because it has been thoroughly discussed online on various platforms. I had mentioned the author's work in the past, and was really looking forward to her upcoming release that was Kickstarted this summer. It's disappointing news, but it was good, I think, for the community as a whole that it was brought to light.

Also, while never a really active Twitter user, I've decided to leave the platform and won't be promoting this Roundup there moving forward. I'll instead be posting more to dice.camp over on Mastodon and Bluesky. If anyone wants some invite codes for Bluesky here you go:

1. bsky-social-faved-63u7d
2. bsky-social-ciqdz-7tzua
3. bsky-social-tcdwi-dzzmo
4. bsky-social-jri5o-dysic
5. bsky-social-j27zf-hdnfr

• Rabid Dogs Zine, Vol. 2 is currently raising funds for this DCC-compatible zine. It's designed partly to support the author's grimdark setting, but it can be used stripped of setting information, as well.
• Solo gaming has seen a great upswing in popularity, especially since the pandemic, and Ker Nethalas, a single player dungeon crawler designed specifically for solo or cooperative play, is in the process of raising money through Kickstarter. It's got an interesting premise: the character is condemned to death but somehow survives the execution, and wakes to find themselves trapped in a vast underground dungeon amidst a pile of corpses.
• The Fantasy Trip, an early rpg published by Steve Jackson Games, is held up as an example of an excellent tactical rpg with, for the time, innovative rules, and it has recently seen a resurgence in popularity as well as new Kickstarted editions. SJG is currently Kickstarting a Bestiary for the Fantasy Trip, and the project includes the option to pledge for the stl files for the monsters, enabling backers to print their own minis.
• I'd Rather be Tending my Sheep is another solo game, this one a mini-game designed to fit on a business card. It's a game about a peasant trying to defy their feudal lord.
• Snakes in a Hotel is a free mini-game designed as an introducttion to role-playing. It's diceless and meant to be playe by two people.
• A recurring creator in this roundup is Cats Have no Lord; they've just released Jaxon's Claim, a mini-dungeon that also serves as an introduction to a longer, sci-fi adventure they're working on that will be statted for Cairn.
• I mentioned the Black Spear Fellowship, by Eternal Torch, a little while ago, and they've just released a rumors supplement for the game, that uses a standard deck of playing cards to generate random rumors and adventure hooks.
• Adam Bell has just released Locked Murder Room Mystery, a game that let's you run pretty much what it says on the tin
• The Saint Butcher is a new class for Mork Borg. These characters make their living cutting up the corpses of fallen martyrs and saints in order to ensure there are enough holy relics to satisfy a thriving demand.
• Philip Reed is a prolific author who often gets mentioned in these roundups. They've just co-authored a release called On the Other Side, a system-neutral guide to populating dungeons with discoveries and encounters.
• Mausritter is one of my favorite little gems of a game, and Trader's Torrent is a new, 3rd party adventure for the system that takes the characters on a river voyage.
• Justin Sirois is one of my favorite publishers, and they've just released Sickest Witch, Hayride, an adventure for Mork Borg. It's a prequel to Beneath, the Inverted Church, and offers four new witch classes. Just be aware that, like a lot of Severed Books products, it deals with mature themes and is not appropriate for all ages.
• Chaos Gen has released a one-page of random cold weather encounters on Drivethru. It's written to be system-neutral.
• I'm offering a 15% discount for yearly subscriptions to Populated Hexes Monthly, an Old School Essentials zine that is coming up to issue #30 soon. Use the code "PHMY3" at checkout and get 12 issues delivered to your mailbox. Each issue has a hex with a different terrain type and encounters within that hex, as well as alternate and expanded rules for OSE: new classes (psionic sheep-folk! necromancer! parrot-folk! fey-dwarves!), new rules (non-point based psionics! sailing and nautical combat!), new spells and monsters, and more.
• Additionally, all Third Kingdom Games products are 35% off until the end of the year.

It's the first Monday is December. What's left of my Twitter feed lit up on Friday with a news of an "Indie RPG Creators Summit" put on by Goodman Games with a promo that featured headshots of ten of the participants; white males all. With as much creativity and innovation as goes on in the OSR and indie ttrpg spheres, much of it driven by women and people of color, it was really disappointed to see such a tone-deaf promotion. With the third year of the News Roundup rapidly approaching, now's a good time to reiterate that one of my goals in doing the roundup is to help promote those independent creators who don't look like me, a middle-aged, bearded white dude. I'm not perfect, and I'm sure I miss some stuff that I should be highlighting, so if you think there's something I overlooked, especially if you don't fall into the traditional OSR creator category, please let me know and I'll correct my oversight.
The past few weeks have been pretty light on new releases: looks like that has changed. This is going to be a long one, folks, so buckle in!

• Charles Avery Ferguson has just launched a Kickstarter for Ave Nox, a system-neutral megadungeon. Charles is one of the driving forces behind Into the Wyrd and Wild, Cess and Citadel, Never Going Home, and more, and consistently puts out high-quality, top notch work.
• Another author known for their output is Paolo Greco, who, with Yochai Gal (the author of the wonderful Cairn system) is raising funds for Beyond the Pale, a horror adventure that draws on Jewish religious themes and mythology. It's statted for Cairn.
• I don't know if there's something in the water, but there's a lot of religious themes going on this week. Let us Build a Tower is a new Kickstarter for a mythic bronze age setting in the ruins of the Tower of Babel. It's designed to be compatible with OSR systems in general, and seems to be offering a lot of content as well as an interesting hook with the Tower of Babel as a constantly shifting mega-dungeon.
• Knock Issue 4, the acclaimed 'zine (although, it's really too much content to truly be called a zine) by The Merry Mushmen is also live on Kickstarter. Take that, Christmas budget!
• I've been really looking forward to this release: Hellwhalers is now available on itch as a pdf. It's a game of existential nautical and Christian religious horror. The players take on the role of crew aboart a damned ship hunting a god-like whale, and the Referee the role of the captain of the vessel. The art is done in a woodblock-style that is absolutely phenomenal. Right now it's not available in print, only pdf, but I believe the goal is to release it as a printed book in 2024.
• Not only can you download pdfs and desktop games from itch, you can also purchase music! eskur has made a short, ambient album live on itch. Entitled Distant Shores, it's inspired by the Slugblaster jam.
• A Feast for Flies is a short adventure for Cairn, designed to be run in a single session. It's designed to be introduced to characters traveling along a stretch of road, so would serve well as a one-shot, a side quest, or something to run when all the players don't show up for a game but you still want to run a quick little adventure.
• Wanderhome is proving to be a pretty good seller at Sabre, and Feet Melting on the Path is a collection of twelve short scenarios for that system now available on itch. This is the ashcan version, and I'm hoping there's enough interest in it for the author to polish it up and add some art.
• I've mentioned before how much I like the work of taichara. They've uploaded a new minizine to itch. Titled Beasts in Shining Beads, its a system neutral collection of gemstones and the beasts carved from them, little charms and low-powered items reminiscent of figurines of wondrous power.
• I'd heard of NaNoWriMo, but not of Nagademon, the National Game Design Month. That is, I hadn't heard of it until I came across Bristle, Thistle, Tusk and Mud, a modern horror implied setting and mystery. It's nominally statted for Liminal Horror, but can be used with a wide range of systems. It is inspired by kaiju, medieval fairs, injustice in the name of religion, and time in Southern France.
• San Tagoy has released Smells Fishy, Jack, a Fallout-inspired, system neutral adventure set in an alternate Philippines wracked by colonialism and dealing with the aftermath of nucleur war.
• Eternal Torch has released Whispers of the Black Spear Fellowship, a PWYW alternative magic system designed to be system neutral and open-ended.
• Hunt on the Borderlands is another free solo adventure for the Dragon Warriors game put out by the prolific folks at Red Ruin Publishing.
• Another prolific publisher is Philip Reed, who's just come out with two system neutral products: Deck of Dungeon Illumination and DoDI Vol. 2. Both are 50 card decks with light sources and more to add flavor to dungeon crawls and help design dungeons.
• Codex Magica, by the Wandering Mage, is a short supplement that provides all manner of arcane items and spells to add to you campaign. It's system neutral and written for OSR-style games.
• The Key of Alamantra is a low-level OSR adventure that looks to be a fun puzzle-style dungeon.
• I've added a 'zine suprise bundle to the website. For 50.00 you can get over 100.00 dollars worth of randomly selected print zines. There may be some duplication of titles between the different bundles.
• Populated Hexes Monthly Issue 28 is now live on the website in print and pdf. It features a manticore lair, new monsters, and basic rules for aerial combat.

EDIT: Fixed to include missing links.

It's the last Monday in November, and the Thanksgiving holiday has ended for folks in the States and we're staring down the barrel of the gun that is Christmas in less than a month. A reader recently reminded me that I'm coming up of the two-year anniversary of this Roundup -- the first one was published on December 20th, 2021, and I'm pleased that I've managed to keep up a regular weekly schedule for the past two years. Some weeks are better than others, I think, but that is true of anything. I am nothing if not a creature of habit, and having these weekly releases has been good for me to stay active in the community as well as keep up with new releases and goings on. It's been a somewhat light week on the rpg release front, especially those on Drivethrurpg, but hopefully there are some worthwhile releases I've included.

• Idle Cartulary has released Dungeons Regularly, Vol. 2. I plugged Vol. 1 a month or so ago; it's a map workbook with a blank map on one page, and room to populate it on the facing page. You can also pay more to have it filled out in advance, and statted for Cairn. The author has made it under the CC BY 4 license, so the empty maps can be used commercially as long as you attribute them.
• Tlombev's Tokens are a collection of bare bones, black and white NPC tokens that were designed to be as role-agnostic as possible. There's a wide range of art in this pay-what you want bundle.
• The Final Days of Schnarb is a solo mini-rpg where you play as a tree planter in the last days of planting season.
• Castle Grief has released Kal-Arath, a fantasy rpg designed for play with 1+ players. What drew my attention was how it is written for a number of styles of play: solo, co-op, or standard party with a Referee, which means that it has plenty of tools to generate random results.
• The Candy Emporium, by Ashvi Gupta, is a Halloween-themed adventure written for Mausritter. It looks to be a fun romp through a mouse wizarding school run in the candy counter of a human store.
• I don't think I've plugged this before, but Jess, of Jumpgate Games (author of I Have the High Ground) is itchfunding Planet Fist, a satirical sci-fi skirmish game. I'm a big fan of their dueling-themed IHtHG, and Planet Fist looks to be intriguing.
• Patrick Stuart consistently puts out some of the most interesting and creative products in the OSR/NSR sphere, and they're in the process of Kickstarting a new project: Gackling Moon. It's part art book, part gazetteer, and looks phenomenal.
• Forgotten Ballads is the new Zelda-themed rpg published by Bloat Games, and they're currently in the process of raising funds for Cries of the Overlord, a bestiary and monster book for FB. It's got about a day left as of this posting, so if you're interested in backing time is limited.
• The author of Gremlins, a new class for OSE that is a sneak preview for the upcoming Land of Mists release reached out to me about doing a Meet the Publisher interview, and I was reminded I need to put together some questions when I saw this PWYW character class pop up on Drivethru. Gremlins is done in the standard OSE two-page format. They've recently released a number of PWYW products from this upcoming release: I'm not going to link to all of them, for space reasons, but if you're interested in checking out some new OSE classes it might be worth a look.
• Brian Colin has released Vast Grimm Space Cruisers and Vast Grimm Space Raiders, a pair of releases for the Vast Grimm (a Mork Borg-derived game) system that includes a hexcrawl adventures, spaceships, and more.
• Sabre Games is having a 25% sale on all online purchases, ending today (Monday the 27th) at midnight. Use the code "Cyber2023" at checkout to get 25% off everything in your cart.
• We're restocked a number of titles, including Monster Overhaul, Hole in the Oak, all versions of the Old School Essentials rules, and we've also added a bunch of new titles, including Kosmosaurs, Hexcrawl Toolkit, Herbalist's Primer, and more.

This is going to be somewhat of a shorter roundup; I got my Covid booster on Saturday and it has really knocked me for a loop. We're moving into Thanksgiving week in the States, and the resulting commercial frenzy that accompanies it. To do our part in furthering capitalism, Sabre Games is going to be having an online sale Saturday through Monday; 25% off all in-stock physical items. Starting Saturday morning you can use the code Cyber2023 at checkout to get the discount.

• Zeth has two entries in the DURF jam on itch: Eel Folk Aristocrat, that includes dueling rules, and Dale and Pocket Sand. Both are archetype books for DURF (by Emiel Boven).
• In a Bubble Brightly is another entry into the DURF jam, this one by A Swamp in Space. It's an adventure set in an interdimensional bubble piloted by wizards and their slug-monster creations.
• Bolt-Neck Opposum and Christian Kessler are sponsoring a jam on itch for TROIKA! and Longshot City. Longshot City and Beyond is seeking campy, comic-book entries to the jam.
• Month of Misery is currently raising funds on Kickstarter. Written by Greyson Yandt, it is a Mork Borg zine that compiles their 31 entries from this year's Morktober into a single zine.
• Wuggy has released Praise be, God of Filth on itch. It's a pamphlet adventure written for Cairn and promises to delve into unseen levels of filth and slime (in a good way!).
• Black March Issue #1 is a new OSR zine that is available on itch. The layout and art looks really interesting, and it is written to be system agnostic so it can be applied to any number of OSR-style games.
• James Chip has released The Adventurer: Space Between the Stars, a solo journaling game using the Adventurer journaling system.
• The Tabletop Engineer has a bundle up on Drivethru of the first six issues of their popular Delver zine. Filled with all sorts of random tables, this series is a boon to any Referee.
• I mentioned Kavlov's Santuary awhile ago when it was crowdfunding, and it is now available on Drivethru in pdf and POD versions. Written for OSE, it's a dungeon and sandbox adventure module with a bunch of new stuff included.
• The big title that I wanted to be sure to plug is the first publication by the folks behind 3d6 Down The Line. They've published Feats of Exploration, a guide to the house rule they've started using in their Arden Vul actual play.
• Champions of the Goblin Market is written for DCC and is a 0-level funnel that challenges standard fantasy assumptions and is a good entry point for the author's level 1-4 adventure path, A Tale of Two Sisters.

Thanks for reading; I'll be back next week with a longer, less-fever induced Roundup.

We're cruising towards the end of the year, and almost to the Thanksgiving holiday in the States. One event lurking on the horizon is February's ZineMonth. I will be conducting my regular interviews with ZiMo creators, so if you've got something you're working on that you'll be crowdfunding for let me know and I can get you questions. I know it is still early, but it never hurts to get stuff together in advance!

Also, I'm sure many of the readers are fans of the 3d6 Down the Line podcast/Youtube channel, currently playing an amazing campaign of the Arden Vul megadungeon. They've just started a Patreon to support their work, and could definitely benefit from listener support.

• Jim Wampler of Mudpuppy Games is Kickstarting Issue 6 of Scientific Barbarian, his zine of gonzo mutant future goodness. Included in this issue are guidelines for playing a Thundarr the Barbarian style game.
• Blog favorite Evlyn Moreau is raising funds for a project she's both written and illustrated. Goblin Mail is written for Troika! and is an adventure set in a chaotic, multi-dimensional post office run by goblins.
• Chris McDowall is raising funds for Mythic Bastionland, billed as a prequel to Into the Odd. Their work has set a benchmark for NSR games, and MB already has a 70+ page quickstart ruleset available for free.
• Bolt Neck Opposum is raising funds for Spectacle, another project for Troika!. Spectacle is a game of science-fantasy gladitorial mayhem.
• Tony Vasinda and the +1 Exp team is raising funds for The Wassailing of Claus Manor, a holiday horror adventure using the Trophy Dark ruleset.
• Relics of Woe is a treasure book written for OSE and Cairn that presents twenty magic weapons with distinct backgrounds and abilities to make them more than just the bog standard sword +1. Plus, one of the things I really like, is that it comes with printable stat block cards to hand out to players.
• Penny Spent, by Ian McDougall, is an entry in the second minimalist TTRPG jam. This game plays around with shared world-building and focuses on long time periods and distances, which I think is a pretty neat and relatively unexplored part of gameplay.
• Traverse Fantasy, author of the recently released OD&D retroclone Fantastic Medieval Campaigns, has just released a cool little project. Titled Bite Sized Dungeons, it's a workbook for writing and developing small, six-room dungeons, with one side of the page containing a sample nodal map and the other side blank space to record room contents, encounters, and other notes.
• There's a DURF jam currently running on itch, and one of the releases is the delightfully titled The Fabulous Luxurious Totally Normal Hot Springs Resort on Reverie Island. It's a pamphlet adventure set in a totally not cursed resort.
• Hairic Lilred has released a CC asset map pack of 23 colored characters that can be used for commercial or personal use. The assets are also available in greyscale.
• The Pauper's Page, a short OSE zine, is out with Issue #6. This is a PWYW product on Drivethru, and this issue looks at owlbears, mysterious tracks, and more.
• The Scorched Church is an adventure for Dark Places and Demogorgons OSE version by Bloat Games. This is the Stranger Things inspired kids on bikes game that just came out. I'm still in the process of working my way through the core book, but have been really impressed by what I've seen so far.
• This is the first time Monolith has come across my radar. It's billed as a quarterly zine that focuses on a single system per issue; the current issue's focus is Mork Borg. It looks like an interesting concept, and seems well put-together and thoughtful.
• Gary's Appendix Issue 3 is out on Drivethru, and this issue focuses on an undead theme.
• Written for DCC, but broadly applicable to any OSR system, Outlying Farms is a trifold pamphlet to presents a dozen outlying farms around a town, those that inhabit the farms, as well as adventure hooks. This looks to be a really cool product when a Referee needs to either populate a community or pull a quick homestead out of their butt on the fly.
• Atop the Wailing Dunes, by Atelier Hwei, is a sandbox adventure for PARIAH, and features a psychedelic, proto-neolithic world to explore.
• I'm not familiar with Sorchi Games, but they just released The City Beyond the Portal, a science fiction OSR setting inspired by Franco-Belgian sci-fi comics. The rules are inspired by Mork Borg, Knave, Black Hack, and more, and the art is pretty dang cool.
• Populated Hexes Monthly Issue #27 is out, and features a set of interconnected caves located on a sheer cliff face along a remote stretch of ocean. It's available on Drivethru as well as the Sabre Games webstore, and if you buy through us can be purchased as a pdf or saddle-stitched version.

Note the use of affiliate links in some of the above entries. Affiliate links take nothing away from the creator, and help me maintain this weekly resource.

It's the first week in November and the end of the year is rapidly approaching. Let's take a look and see what last week brought us.

• Longtime readers of this feature may know that one of my favorite OSR rulesets to have come out in the past couple years is Errant, by Ava Islam (you can find my interview with her here as well as a followup interview here.). She's currently running the Kickstarter Sanctimonious Slimes vs Expired Epicures, the first official adventure for Errant. At the highest backer tier it includes a copy of the limited print run of an adventure by Gus L, never to be printed again.
• Exalted Funeral is crowdfunding a collected volume of Max Moon's Abyss of Hallucinations. The original volumes are already some mighty nice looking zines, but this project looks to add some real pizzazz to the product.
• Rob Conley, of Bat in the Attic fame, is crowdfunding How to Make a Fantasy Sandbox, a compilation and revision of his most popular series of blog posts.
• Cezar Capacle has been releasing some of the most creative products in the indie sphere over on itch, and they're currently slowfunding Midnight Melodies, a solo rpg where you play a jazz pianist who cannot die, and who Death recruits into a secret organization devoted to tracking down and solving the mysteries of unauthorized deaths. The art is absolutely stunning and perfectly fits with the themes of the book.
• Fear and Loathing and Second Guessing on the Campaign Trail is another solo adventure, this putting the player in the role of an aspirant seeking the role of student body president.
• Bastardized Classics: Squash Hunt is a stand-alone adventures for the Bastards game, a reworking of the tournament module Bugbear Hunt that appeared in Issue 28 of Polyhedron way back in 1982.
• Dithmer has just released Daemognosis. It's a free scenario for Heirs of the Leviathan, an interesting little game that puts the players in the roles of tragic inheritors of a fragmented realm.
• Fire from the Heavens is a DCC scenario that is designed to be set in a wide range of time periods. When a mysterious object from the sky crashes to the ground the adventurers are faced with ethical choices to make about how to resolve the situation.
• Vitoria Faria has released OSE Monster Girls, a PWYW pack of four playable monsters for OSE and old school games: succubus, medusa, minotaur, and dryad.
• Games Omnivorous has released some pretty cool products, and their newest one is a multi-media extraveganza: Death Robot Jungle is a soundtrack and printable LP cover that doubles as adventure and DM's screen. Electric Mangrove is a follow-up.
• Mark Hunt wrote the Gangbuster's BX rpg, and they've just released Peterson's Billiards and Social Club, a location that can be slotted into that game when the Referee is in need of an adventure seed.
• Cocoxoca, by Marco Serrano, is a setting compatible with the Primal Quest game, and looks to explore the Mexican wetlands. Marco's been publishing some really cool stuff, and this is defintely worth a look.
• Red Ruin Publishing has just released two more free adventures for the Dragon Warriors system: Tarnished Silver and The White Raven.
• I'm thrilled to announce that Sabre has just stocked Reach of the Roach God. For those who have been following the along, the two creators behind this (and the super cool Thousand Thousand Islands series) have moved on from their partnership, and it is unlikely this book will ever see a reprint.
• We've also stocked up on some indie titles, including Bridgetown, Bones Deep, a number of Best Left Buried, and Orbital Blues.
• The latest session of Basilisk Hill Breakdown is now live. In this session, the adventurers learn that basilisks really aren't that much of a threat when you get the drop on them with a few squads of archers.

Please note the use of affiliate links in some of the above entries. Affiliate links take nothing away from the creator, and help me to be able to put together this weekly newsletter.

Welcome to the News Roundup for the last Monday in October. It's the day before Halloween, and we've seen no shortage of horror-themed releases this month. Let's jump straight in, shall we?

• Woeful Barrows and Other Places is a collection of short adventures written for Shadowdark that is currently raising funds on Kickstarter. It's written for parties of levels 1-5, so looks like it should be a good collection to pull starter adventures or sidequests from.
• I'm seeing an increase in GM-less cooperative games, and one of these that is currently raising funds is Negocios Infernales. It's set in an alternate universe 15th century "Spain", during the inquisition, but with aliens. The art that's previewed on the Kickstarter is absolutely fantastic.
• The publishing collective Soul Muppet puts out some consistently awesome products, and they're raising funds for Orbital Blues: Afterburn, an expansion to Orbital Blues, their game of sad space cowboys.
• I came across The Molt on Kickstarter the other day and thought it looked really cool. It's a setting/system based on and compatible with Mork Borg, written by the author of the acclaimed Vast Grimm. In this setting, rifts in the earth's surface are beginning to appear, releasing the beings that have been trapped in the underworld.
• I don't usually plug blogs or personal posts, but I stumbled across this and wanted to share it. I plugged the indie game FEUD awhile back, and the artist made a blog post explaining how they produced the distinctive lino-type art for it. Anyone interested in doing their own art for projects would benefit from reading it.
• Eva K has released Hundreds, a simple, semi-agnostic D100 game with rules for combat lightly based on Luke Gearing's Violence. It's short and elegant, but also quite bleak, which isn't necessarily a bad thing!
• Electric Bastionland is a neat, quirky system, and Wuggy has just released The Undermall, an EB adventure set in an abandoned shopping mall.
• Goblins are pretty popular -- we can't keep Goblin Errands on the shelf -- and The Lawful Neutral is itchfuning Gobs Galore: a d100 Goblin Generator. This looks to be a neat addition to a Referee's toolkit for adding depth to NPCs/monsters.
• Rugose Kohn has released Thirty Days of Mork Borg, Adventure Chapbook Vol 5, a collection of three adventures for Mork Borg. Like most MB supplements, this comes with a generous number of trigger warnings, but also promises to be an interesting addition to the adventures for the system.
• The Valley of Flowers is written for OSE and Cairn, and is 150 pages of sandbox setting in the eponymous Valley of Flowers. There's all kinds of goodies here: 15 dungeons, new monsters, spells, and more, and VTT-ready maps, as well.
• I'm not familiar the publisher Wizards with Laser Rifles, but they've just released Silam #1: The Spike of Doscu, a unique setting for DCC that introduces some new classes, and adventure, and more.
• Red Ruin Publishing puts out a steady stream of adventures and supplements for the Dragon Warriors game, and it's all free. Their newest release, just in time for Halloween, is written by Paul Partington. Called Lair of the Vampire, it's a solo adventure for Rank 7 characters.
• Downsized Press has released Issue 5 of Pauper's Pages, their short zine for OSE. It's designed to be printed and folded, newspaper-style, and the author's goal is to put out one themed issue every two weeks.
• The Reptile House is a 72-page adventure for the Shadowdark RPG. It's priced at under four dollars, is written for 3rd level adventurers, and is billed as the first in a series of adventures in this setting.
• The RPG World Creation Map Kit is available on Drivethru, and includes a commercial license. It's a collection of nearly three hundred tokens and icons that can be used to create fantasy overland maps.
• In the category of products I've been waiting eagerly for, Issue Three of the Planar Compass zine is live on Drivethru. Sabre should be getting print copies in this week (fingers crossed), as well as restocks of issues 1 and 2. You can catch an interview I did with the authors awhile back here.
• Sabre's Spooky October sale only has two more days left, so if you want to pick up some horror-themed products at 20% off retail there's only a limited time left to do so.

Welcome to this week's OSR and indie News Roundup. As many readers might already be aware, Jennell Jaquays, one of the seminal figures in the development and evolution of D&D, is having pretty serious health issues and can use some support from the community. If you've got money to spare, her wife has set up a GoFundMe to help with hospitalization costs. If you're unfamiliar with Jennell's history and contributtions, you can check out this interview I conducted with Jennell. We are wishing her a speedy recovery.

It's been another kind of slow week in releases, for some reason, but I've compiled a decent sized collection of ones that have caught my eye. Also, I don't usually plug individual websites or blogs, but Shane Thayer (formerly of Wizards and Wobblies podcast) has done a ton to promote and support independent and minority creators in the rpg space, and they've just done a soft launch of the website of their new project, the Hobo's Collective, which in addition to the eponymous podcast is also meant to be a community publishing project.

• Friend of the Roundup Howard Andrew Jones has just published City of Marble and Blood, book 2 in his Chronicles of Hanuvar series. I've just started reading the first book in the series, and it is an excellent entry into the Conan-inspired sword and sorcery genre.
• I've mentioned Moonlight on Roseville Beach before (and you can find my interview with the author here), and they're Kickstarting a second printing of the book along with some bonus content. The art in this book, especially the cover, is an absolutely amazing example of using public domain works and captures the feel of the game effortlessly.
• An Infinity of Ships is another project I've had my eye on. It's raising money on Kickstarter, and the goal is to produce a book chock full of system agnostic sci-fi ships and vessels. Again, the art for the ships is pretty great.
• I don't know if I mentioned this or not, but Appendix N Entertainment is Kickstarting another in their bestiary series, this one appropriately (for October) focusing on the Cthulhu Mythos. The Mythos Manual has just over a week to go and is halfway to funding.
• Doomsong: Lord Have Mercy Upon Us is also Kickstarting. It's a macabre horror game, set in the time of a biblical apocalypse.
• Populated Hexes Monthly, Year Two, is winding down its campaign and entering the last week of funding. We're funded, but I'd love to see more pledges and perhaps even hit one of the new stretch goals that will enable grants to independent game designers. The book is a compilation of issues 13-24 of Populated Hexes Monthly, and contains nearly 200 pages of setting locations, new classes, monsters, and spells for OSE or other OSR games.
• I'd mentioned Savvy Donkey Press a few weeks back; they've just published the Travel Challenge Generator, a 72-page, system-agnostic book of challenges you may encounter while traveling.
• Gield is a nordic setting for the low magic game Heroic Tales. It's billed as a system-neutral setting, so you should be able to adapt it easily to other games. The use of art in it reminds me of that found in the RC clone Dark Dungeons.
• I've recently become somewhat enamored by tri-fold adventure supplements, and just found a new one the other day. Something Wicked on Picnic Point is written for OSR games, and inspired by a real-world location in Madison, Wisconsin.
• Dungeons Regularly Issue #1 popped up in my feed the other day. For 3.33 Canadian you get a workbook with a unfilled but numbered dungeons that are licensed for commercial use with attribution; if you double that, you get the same product, but with filled in dungeons statted for Cairn. I thought that was a pretty neat idea and presentation, appealing to both creators who might need an empty dungeon to customize and DMs looking for short dungeons to plop into a sandbox setting.
• I love supplements with new spells, and Archives of Nabu: School of Water, is one such supplement, with 36 new water-themed spells written for OSR-style games.
• Living Hive is a new class for Mork Borg, individuals whose bodies are host to swarms of insects they can control and command.
• I'd mentioned Volume 1 of Medieval Margin-arie when it came out awhile back and was super excited to see Volume 2 is now available. It's an old school bestiary based upon medieval marginalia, the weird, funky doodlings in the margins of medieval books.
• 10 Downing: A Mausritter Campaign, is 50-pages of setting and adventure for use with the Mausritter system. As may be guessed from the title, it takes place at Number 10 Downing St, the home of the British Prime Minister.
• Jacob Fleming of Gelatinous Cubism has been producing some quality products, and they've just released Scourge of the Northland on Drivethru. It's a sandbox setting designed for low-level characters.
• Sabre Games has recently added some new titles to their webstore, including the whimsical Taming of the Slugirrafe solo game and Hull Breach, Vol. 1, written for Mothership. We've also got a week to go on our Halloween Horror Sale, where you can save 20% on a selection of horror-themed titles.

We're in the middle of October, and some stuff to go over. The only thing I wanted to point out is that I had mentioned Gurbintroll's (i.e. Blacky the Blackball) Light Fantasy Kickstarter. Last week I published a print interview with Gurbintroll where he talks about the design goals of Light Fantasy, upcoming projects, and more. You can check it out here! This week's Roundup is a bit shorter than normal, largely due to family obligations this weekend that I had briefly mentioned in last week's post.

• The crew at the Melsonian Arts Council is raising funds for a reprint of Luke Gearing's excellent hexcrawl Fever Swamp, and it looks like they've added some new material!
• I haven't heard of the game Notorious, but there's an expansion called Outsiders for it that is now on Kickstarter. It's a solo game of space outlaws and bounty hunters, inspired by the Star Wars universe (especially shows like Andor and the Mandalorian), Mad Max, and more.
• The ever-reliable Levi Combs is raising money for Reverend Werewolf's Old Timey Monster Mania Family Hour, a mouthful of a Halloween horror-zine that looks to be pretty system and genre agnostic.
• Out of Darkness is a sci-fi horror adventure written for Mothership. It's got a neat 1970's vibe in layout and design.
• taichara, one of my favorite authors out there, has just released As the Spirits Move, a system-agnostic collection of 31 spooky instances and events. It's PWYW over on itch, and their work is always top-notch and very creative.
• Chloris has released an alpha test of their oracle system, which uses icons, rather than words, to provide inspiration. The project is called The Vibrant Muse.
• I always like new spells to draw on to add to my games, and vdonnut has created a free download of Disturbing First Level spells.
• Kyle Tam has released Spirited Encounters: Creatures for Mausritter, a collection of four spooky creatures to add to your Mausritter game.
• Downsized Press has released Volume 1, Issue 4 of their OSE zine The Pauper's Page. It's a short, 4-page zine that is priced as PWYW.
• OFR -- Old Freestyle Revival is another entry into the retroclone field. The big thing that drew my attention, however, was the inclusion of rules for solo play. I think that's a really smart thing to do, since there seems to be a growing market for solo gaming.
• We've added a number of OSR-related topics to the webstore, including:

*Dark Places and Demogorgons, the Stranger Things-inspired OSE game by Bloat Games.*Singing Flame has just released Issue #3 of Aquilus, their OSR zine.

*The softcover new edition of Troika. This is a beautiful little book.

*We've added a number of used OSR titles, including the Zweihander Starter set, Dungeon Alphabet, and An Echo, Resounding.

Welcome to the second Roundup for October. We've got a number of Kickstarters I want to mention, but first there's something I'd like to address. I've been pretty clear about my support of creators and my desire to not promote anything with AI content. Last week I had some entries that expressed displeasure at the number of AI-driven projects I've been seeing, and the overwhelming majority of reader responses have been supportive of my stance. There was one commenter on Reddit that disagreed with my stance that AI hurts individual, small-press creators, arguing that it was a good thing since it allowed creators on limited budgets to add art to their projects. I follow a number of indie and 3rd party communities, and I have seen no evidence of small creators being excited by AI.

​

Regardless, I've been thinking about this and decided to put my money where my mouth is.
I'm currently running a Kickstarter (link below) and have since added two new stretch goals, one at 7,500.00 and one at 10,000.00. For each of these we hit I'm going to set aside 500.00 that will be divided into five 100.00 grants. If you're publishing a game and can use some financial help, let me know and I'll see what I can do. The money can be used to commission art, hire an editor, fund a print-run, buy hookers and blow, whatever you want, as long as the project doesn't include any AI. I'm hoping we can hit at least the first of those two stretch goals, especially with ZineMonth24 just around the corner.

Anyway, let's move on to the releases, shall we?

• This has been a pretty stressful week for me, as my mother has finally made the right decision and is entering hospice care after years of declining health, and it is somewhat appropriate that I just noticed the current crowdfunding project by the Far Horizons Co-Op: Afterwords is a collection of essays and games by indie creators with the goal of "tak[ing] the lens of play and use it to highlight our own reactions to different aspects of death. To explore how death is used in myth, ritual, art, and even business. To help us all better understand our own feelings about something that will happen to us all."
• Wind Lothamer is raising funds for Isle of Joy, a David Lynch-inspired island hexcrawl that's described as a "brooding, psychedelic trip". It's for mid-level characters and written for Old School Essentials. It looks really neat, but there's just one thing I wanted to mention that's applicable to this and other similar Kickstarters: if you're including a retailer tier, and delivery of the project is, say, more than 3 months out, please don't have the tier be for the full amount. Rather, use a placeholder of a couple dollars to register retailer interest. As a retailer, it's really difficult to commit significant money to a product that we may not see for half a year, or more (in the case of this specific Kickstarter, July 2024). Peter Regan does an excellent job of this, as do several other creators (I don't mean to single Wind Lothamer out specifically, because it is something I see a lot, and it immediately turns me off of backing projects with such a long lead time). Also, damn, I see this Roundup is turning into one big wall of text. Sorry!
• Mythmere Games has launched a Kickstarter to fund the Tome of Adventure Design -- Digital Fantasy Builder, a digital adaptation and expansion of their hugely popular Tome of Adventure Design that should allow people to generate entire adventures.
• Kevin Crawford's running a Kickstarter to fund a reprint of the offset version of his hugely popular Worlds Without Numbers book.
• Prisoners of the Secret Overlords is funding on Kickstarter. It's a 2nd level adventure written for DCC. It's already been written (yay!) and just is funding for layout at commissioned art.
• Oh, and yeah, I'm running a Kickstarter for a compiled book of the second year of Populated Hexes Monthly. This covers issues 13-24, which includes a bunch of new classes for OSE (a Garth Nix-inspired necromancer, parrot-folk, turtle-folk, ironskin craftpriest, and more), rules for naval engagements and improving naval vessels, printable ship tokens to use on a battlemap, and plenty of adventure locations! Plus, if we hit the mentioned stretch goals, I'll be donating money to other creators to help them out.
• I'd mentioned another one of Savvy Donkey Presses generators recently, and now they've released an Endless Crypt Generator, designed to randomly generate crypts. Interestingly, it's mentioned that it can be used to pre-generate dungeons or to create them on the fly.
• Archstone Press has released their first adventure on itch. Entitled Smoke in the Salt Pines, it's a 24-page semi-random pointcrawl adventure for low to medium level parties, and is largely system agnostic, so it can be run in any OSR or NSR system. What caught my eye was the art, which has a delightful innocence to it.
• I don't usually plug stuff that hasn't been released yet, but I'm a big fan of Ava Islam's Errant system, and they've just announced the upcoming first adventure for it. I'm sure I'll plug it when the KS goes live, but you should check it out now and smash that "Notify me on launch" button.
• Active Time Battle is a short, PWYW pdf meant for use with Troika! It presents science fantasy, JRPG-inspired backgrounds for your heroes.
• Kyle Tam has released Fate's Folly, a randomized point-crawl written for Mork Borg, with the adventure being determined by the roll of the die as you progress through it.
• Taintedweald is written for Cairn and is inspired by the works of Hayao Miyazaki. It's a post-apocalyptic forest-crawl.
• Session Eleven of the Basilisk Hills Breakdown is now live, in which the adventurers deal with the aftermath of the Festival in Liwil, interrogate the captured brigand boss, and learn more about the town of Sin and the mysterious Lord of Shadows.
• I released Populated Hexes Monthly Issue 26, the second part of a two-part introduction to an alternate psionics system for OSR games, one that doesn't require you to track psychic points.
• On the Sabre end of things, we've still got our Halloween sale going on, here, and have also added a clearance page. We've also added:

1. The offset versions of Kevin Crawford's Stars Without Numbers and Cities Without Numbers.
2. The Tome of Adventure Design, by Matt Finch, is back in stock.
3. We've added a number of books by Jacob Fleming to the inventory, including the Scourge of the Northland, In the Shadow of Tower Silveraxe, and Through the Valley of the Manticore.
4. The Demon Lord Expansion, by Max Moon Games. This is the sequel to Twelve Years.
5. A number of used titles that are OSR-adjacent.

Welcome to the News Roundup for the first week in October. In all probability we'll be seeing a lot of horror and Halloween-themed releases this month. First, however, there are a couple of things I wanted to mention. I totally spaced on promoting Justin Sirois' (of Severed Books) metal zine spinner rack that just ended funding on Backerkit. It's a one-off thing, with no plans to make it available after the end of the project, but if you act fast and send him a message you may be able to squeak in. Sorry, Justin! Second, Tony Vasinda and the folks over at Plus One Exp have just started a monthly zine club, where you can subscribe and get physical zines mailed to you on a monthly or bimonthly basis. You should check it out if you're into indie zines and supporting small press publishers!

• Hammer City Games has released Earth, AD: Wastelander's Handbook 0e. It bills itself as a spiritual successor to Gamma World, and right now it is a PWYW preview product, with the expectation that this release will provide feedback and playtesting for the upcoming full release next year.
• Claim the Victim, by Urania Games, is a game about probably one of the most horrifying aspects of being an adult . . . applying for jobs. In this zine, however, you play as a real-life movie monster trying to get a job. It's a solo game of CVs and cover letters.
• Theunlawfulneutral has added Magical Miscreants: d100+ Wizards & Witches to their itch page. It's a collection of random tables that can be used to generate magical miscreants for any fantasy adjacent game. And, because their tables involve rolling more than just a d100, you're guaranteed to get billions of possible combinations.
• Into the Odd is a game that I don't think gets enough love, and I just saw there's a new, 3pp setting written for it (but, of course, easily adaptable to other settings) called The Splitting Stone. It's free, and provides a bare bones sketch of the setting, including a community and the dungeon that has opened up beneath it.
• I was intrigued when I saw the elevator pitch for Super Space Shifters. It's a sci-fi game set in an alternate galaxy where the players act as a cadre of messengers and diplomats (er, or spies) that travel to different planets solving problems. What caught my eye was the author's deliberate attempt to meld traditional rpg games with newer, more modern innovations (the kind of narrative or storytelling games that a lot of OSR gamers sneer at). I think it's an interesting approach, and if something like that appeals to you I think it is worth a look.
• Spectacle is currently raising funds on Kickstarter. It's a science fantasy space gladiatorial game inspired by Kirby, Junji Ito, and more. It is being published by Bolt Neck Oppossum and features contributions by some luminaries in the indie/OSR field, including Tony Jaguar and Luke Gearing. It's written for Troika!
• Mothership is a great game to be running this month, and there's Hell on Rev-X is a depthcrawl for Mothership set on a derelict, city-sized generation ship. The publishers have two purchasing options: full-price and economically distressed, which is a solid thing for them to do.
• The first retroclone I ever played was Gurbintroll's (formerly known as Blacky the Blackball) Dark Dungeons, a clone of the Rules Cyclopedia. They're currently crowdfunding Light Fantasy RPG, a modern take on OSR gaming. I highly recommend checking it out; they've got a long track record of producing high quality products. There's a thread over on rpgnet where they talk about their design decisions that went into Light Fantasy.
• Another OSR adjacent author I really like (as do many readers, I would assume) is Kevin Crawford, and they've just launched a Kickstarter for another round of offset books for Worlds Without Numbers.
• The RPG Blacksmith has just released a series of hand-drawn hex-tiles to use in swamp or marsh hexcrawls. They're designed so they can be used as lone encounter locations to together as a hexcrawl setting. I like the idea of randomly assembling them to create a map for solo gaming.
• Academia Arcana is available on Drivethru as an ashcan edition. It uses the DCC rules as a framework to create a game of students in a wizarding school. It also features some of my favorite artists, including Amanda Lee Franck, JE Shields, and Charles Ferguson-Avery.
• Bill Edmunds has released Black Dragon #4, a zine for OSR gaming. One of the things that drew my interest to this issue was a section on randomly generating cults.
• The Shattered Oak is a two-page, vertical dungeon written for Mausritter designed as an introductory one-shot to the system.
• Written for OSE, and just in time for Halloween, goddamn it. Another title with AI art and text. Yeah, not going to promote this one.
• One of the biggest questions I see being asked in the OSE space is when there will be a demons and devils supplement. There's nothing official, but Appendix N Entertainment has just released Demonology, their bestiary that looks at demons.
• This looks to be . . . fuck. More AI art. Nope.
• Tim is of the Essence is a scenario for CY_BORG where the players have to find Tim.
• Populated Hexes Monthly Issue 26 is now out on the website. This issue is the second part in a look at a new type of psionics for OSR games, one that doesn't use points to activate or keep track of powers, but instead uses a roll-under mechanic. It's available in pdf and offset print through the Sabre Games webstore.
• We're having a spooky Halloween sale the whole month of October at Sabre Games. You can get almost one hundred horror-themed titles at a 20% discount!

Fall is officially here in the northern hemisphere, and we're gearing up to enter the spookiest month of the year. I'm sure the Roundup will reflect this over the next few weeks. Let's take a look and see what last week's new releases looked like, shall we?

• I don't typically like to promote retail stores, preferring to focus instead on creators, but this came across my radar recently and I thought it would be of interest to the Canadian readers of this blog: The Eternal Torch is a new webstore located in western Canada that focuses on indie and OSR zines. We all know how crazy international shipping is these days, and it's nice to have another options for our neighbors up north.
• Ben Laurence (of Ultan's Gate and Zyan fame) has started up a delightful little podcast that focuses on megadungeons. Called Into the Megadungeon, he's four episodes in, and each episode features an interview with a creator of a megadungeon campaign. This link takes you to his blog, and the link to the first episode.
• There's a Cairn Adventure Bundle up on itch with some really fantastic products by some well-known authors in the field: Brad Kerr, Amanda P, seedling games, Cats Have no Lord, and more. Definitely a steal at the price!
• Levi Kornelsen has published The Soothsayer's Deck, a collection of 36 oracle cards that can be used to add twists and depth to rpgs, especially if used in solo play. It'll be available as a POD product, and Levi has also made it with VTT functionality.
• James T Hook has released Obsidian Dragon Slayer on itch. It uses the Maze Rats chassis, but is written to emulate high fantasy or sci fi play, especially along the veins of The Hobbit and similar early works.
• There's another freebie by the folks at Red Ruin Publishing, as part of their fan-production for Dragon Warriors products. All Roads Lead to Clyster is an adventure written for 4th-6th rank characters.
• Hoist the Flag, by Heretical Hedgehog, is a supplement for Pirate Borg that features a bunch of random tables to help out the GM, such as generating pirate flags and ship names, a study of historical jolly roger flags, and more.
• I thought the Seeker class for OSE looked pretty interesting, although I haven't had a chance to check it out yet. Seekers are characters that started their study as magic-users, but for whatever reason were unable to complete it and master the arcane arts, but still retain the hunger for knowledge and power.
• Knives Out is a supplement for Mork Borg (and also compatible with Frontier Scum) that features knives, fencing rules, knives, a detective class, knives, and more.
• Limithron has released two new adventures for Pirate Borg: The Battle of Dead Man's Cove (written specifically for naval combat) and Buried in the Bahamas (a sandbox introductory adventure).
• The Bloom, by Goblin Archives, is a sandbox adventure for Liminal Horror inspired by The Last of Us, Stranger Things, Twin Peaks, and more. Goblin Archives typically puts out fantastic stuff, so if you're a horror fan this is likely a great choice.
• Episode 10 of Basilisk Hills Breakdown is now out. In this session, the Festival of Liwil continues, and the PCs have dinner with an ambassador from Faery and capture the leader of a brigand gang.
• Coming up next month (October) at Sabre, we'll have a selection of spooky and horror-themed books on sale as we get ready for Halloween. This sale will apply to in-store and online purchases, so check out next week's roundup for a breakdown of what is for sale.

Over at Third Kingdom Games, I've come up with a release schedule for the next six or so months, if anyone is interested. In addition to the (monthly) Populated Hexes Monthly, I'm planning the following:

• I've got my fingers crossed that I'll be getting the laid out version of Filling in the Blanks in this week, so I can move forward on printing the Into the Wild Omnibus. Layout has taken a lot longer than I had hoped, and I'm not happy about that.
• I'll be raising money for the compiled Year Two of Populated Hexes Monthly in a few weeks. This should be a quick turnaround, seeing as everything is written, and I just nee to commission art. I'll also be doing the layout on this and all subsequent projects. I'm not the most innovative or interesting layout editor, but I'm pretty good at keeping to a schedule
• I'll be crowdfunding Volume 2 of the BX Advanced Bestiary at the end of October, and shooting to have it done end of December. This volume will cover monsters E through N (maybe O).
• Beginning of 2024 will see two projects: The Keep of the Rawhide Gang hexcrawl -- the third in the series of hexcrawl books I'm doing. This one will likely be the biggest, probably checking in at around 350 pages. I've also started writing Filling in the Dungeon, the companion book to Filling in the Blanks, that is all about randomly generating and populating dungeons. Both of these will be hitting Kickstarter the first few months of 2024.

As many readers of the Roundup might know, I opened a brick and mortar retail store this summer with a couple of other people, and last weekend had a really neat experience. There was apparently a zine Fest in Charlottesville that I wasn't aware of. After the festival, Jamie Douglas, a zine author based in Richmond, stopped by the store. Unfortunately I wasn't there, but they dropped off a couple copies of their works and later reached out to me on Discord. As it turns out, I had promoted some of their most recent works: Water Hoard Honeypot, an entry into the Vaults of Vaarn jam, Exton, a mini-setting, and more. It was a really neat completion of the circle, making a connection (however much removed by my absence) in real life that had its germs in this Roundup (as a sidenote, you can check out Jamie's itch page here!).
I'm not sure why, but releases last week were a little light. I've included what I found and thought looked interesting.

• mothteeth has released Freeform Solo Role-playing (a Guide), which is pretty much what it says on the tin: it doesn't focus on mechanical rules for solo gaming, but instead presents guidelines for the actual role-playing aspect of solo play.
• Sanction is being funded on Kickstarter. It's an interesting-looking universal system based on the Dee Sanction rpg. The idea is that it can handle a wide variety of genres and settings, and the plan is to release a number of genre supplements as stretch goals.
• Champions of the Goblin Market is also raising money on Kickstarter. It's a 0-level DCC funnel that features weirdness and role-play instead of the straight on grinding associated with a lot of funnels.
• Speaking of DCC, the Balladeer is a new class for DCC that brings in bardic influence for a class that helps to buff other PCs.
• I knew that Matt Finch had started up Mythmere Games to republish Swords and Wizardry and other books; what I didn't realize is that they're also partnering with Luke Gygax to release material for Luke's setting. The Eye of Chentoufi is written by Gygax and Matt Everhart, and is a desert-themed adventure for a party of 6th to 8th level characters, while the Heart of Chentoufi is a sequel to it and a GaryCon exclusive.
• The folks at Red Ruin Publishing have released a new free supplement for Dragon Warriors. Day of Legends: A Record of Times Past is a record of a Dragon Warriors Convention. They've also released Issue 11 of their zine, A Casket of Fays (also free).
• Ziggurat of the Blood God is an adventure written for OSE written for 4th level characters and set in a jungle.
• Written for 1e, with a host of well-known artists and plenty of extra material (such as a short cookbook with recipes from the inn featured in the module), The Village on the Borderlands is a detailed sandbox adventure.
• New High Score is an adventure for Dark Places and Demogorgons, Bloat Games "kids on bikes" setting written with the OSE ruleset and designed to emulate Stranger Things-style games.
• Cthonic Crawl #2: Monsters and Merchants is the second issue of a DCC-themed zine. This issue features ten merchants and ten monsters that can be dropped into DCC or other OSR-style games.

We're into the second week of September already -- this year has been flying by -- so let's see what was new last week, shall we? Oh, also, I don't usually promote Kickstarters before they go live, but Matt asked nicely (and I'm a huge fan of Tome of Adventure Design): Mythmere Games is getting ready to launch Fantasy Adventure Builder, a digital companion to ToAD.

• Games Omnivorous is running a Kickstarter for two things: a reprint of their game Frontier Scum, and Tides of Rot, a "splattercrawl" adventure written for FS that takes the form of an LP.
• The author of Infinite Revolution: Overdrive Edition reached out to me about carrying their project, and I though that it look interesting enough to share here. The game was originally released on itch. It's billed as a lightspeed, exosuit, dogfight rpg.
• Under Ashen Skies, by Alex T, is a quick-running Kickstarter campaign (with only a couple of days left as of this posting). It's a a single player ( or GM-less multiplayer) rpg of loss and personal horror heavily influenced by Silent Hill, Hellraiser, and the Orphic Mysteries.
• I'm Kickstarting Populated Hexes Monthly Issue 26, the second in a two-part series presenting alternate psionics rules for old-school gaming. This system doesn't use points to activate or maintain abilities, but instead uses a roll-under d6 mechanic that gives the character the ability to temporarily "burn" relevant ability scores to increase their chance of success.
• Every once in a while something truly unique comes along and grabs me by the lapels. The Gobbling Glutton is a hexcrawl for Hieronymous set in Where's Waldo illustrations.
• Speaking of which, The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke is a mini-hexcrawl through the eponymous painting by Victorian painter Richard Dadd.
• gestaltist has created a procedural world map generator called 12-word cartographer. It provides a simplified model of plate tectonics to create realistic-looking world maps.
• After a sudden flurry last year the number of projects funding on Backerkit seems to have slowed down, but a new one caught my eye: The Night Clerk is an architectural horror scenario based on a popular episode role-playing radio.
• Tim B is writing Ruins and Rogues as part of the one-page rpg jam on itch. It's designed to emulate old-fashioned dungeon crawling with minimum prep time, and is inspired by Maze Rats among other games.
• Space Aces: Voyages in Infinite Space is now available on Drivethrurpg. It's a sprawling space hexcrawl with a vibe drawn from 80s cartoons and kitschy sci-fi.
• Written for Shadowdark, but compatible with a broad range of OSR fantasy games, the War Under Hammerfall Mountain is a 100+ page adventure that pitches goblins against rat-folk, and let's the PCs try to take advantage of the chaos that ensues.
• Joseph Lewis has released Wicked Little Delves v.3, a collection of three short adventures statted for 5e, OSE, and Into the Odd. They are, broadly speaking, dragon, mummy, and horror from beyond the stars themed.
• Archives of Nabu: The School of Air, is a short collection of new spells that all have an air theme. I'm a sucker for new spells, and I like the elemental theme of air.
• I've been hearing a lot of good things about Pirate Borg, and Pick Yer Poison is a guide to randomly generating inns, barkeeps, and other related hooks/dressing for that (or any other nautical-themed game).
• Singing Flame has been publishing some interesting and innovative works in the past few years, and the third issue of Aquilus is finally out and on Drivethru. It's got a bunch of stuff -- character classes, random tables, new gods, but Vasili has also made the leap into commissioning art for the issue rather than using public domain works, which I think is great.
• There are a couple of works that are now live that I've been patiently (or not) waiting for, and am excited for the print version to be released so I can stock them. The first is Gods of the Forbidden North, the inaugural and very ambitious hexcrawl release by Pulp Hummock Press.
• The other one I've been looking forward to is the new issue of Jim Wampler's zine: Scientific Barbarian Issue 5. There's a whole host of luminaries writing for this issue, including Merle Rasmussen, Bill Barsh, Thom Wilson, and more.
• Dark Places and Demogorgons for OSE has just seen a new adventure by Bloat Games. Happy Campers takes place in a summer camp where a dormant clan of vampires has just awakened.
• Nothing is more old school than Runequest, still going strong after all these years. We've just added two of their newest deity-themed books to our inventory: The Lightbringers and The Earth Goddesses.
• I've also just released Populated Hexes Monthly Issue 25 to Drivethru. Going strong into its third year, this issue is the first of a two-parter exploring a new psionics system for old school gaming that doesn't use pesky points to activate powers. It also has two playable sheep-folk classes that wield psionic powers.

Some of these links are Drivethru affiliate links. They take nothing away from creators and help me put out this weekly newsletter.

Welcome to the first news roundup of September. We're entering the end game of 2023, and will soon be getting into Halloween and a number of horror-themed releases. For now, though, let's see what was released during the last week of August. The past week was pretty slow on the new releases front, as far as I was able to find.

• King Arthur versus the Devil Kitty is a story-book retelling of what the author claims is an ancient Arthurian myth. While on first glance it doesn't really belong in this roundup, it does include D&D stats for the Devil Kitty (plus, the art is pretty adorbs).
• Tidal Wave Games has released Ceres, the City that Never Sleeps. It's written for See You, Space Cowboy, but can be easily adapted to any OSR-style sci-fi rpg.
• I think I mentioned Mixed Success awhile ago, when they first announced they were looking for submissions. The first issue is now out. It's a combination fiction/gaming/philosophy zine available on itch, and issue 1 is based around the theme of negative space in OSR games, with the contention that if there are no negative spaces to fill you're not playing a game, you're reading a novel.
• Scrap, the Gathering, is available in both Italian and English versions, and is a tongue-in-cheek send up of Magic, the Gathering. It's available as PWYW on itch, and the art for it looks really cool.
• The Vaarn Game Jam is now over, and squeaking in just before the deadline is Dreamsands of Vaarn, a UVG-inspired caravan crawl written for Vaarn.
• Water Hoard Honeypot is another entry into the Jam, and is a one-page adventure based around a group of bandits luring innocent victims to their doom.
• Written as a system-neutral fantasy adventure, HISS takes place in an elven village and focuses on the doom that (may) befall it.
• atelier pilcrow has released tulgey #2, an Alice in Wonderland-themed zine based on Cairn.
• Seth Ian has written Red Eye at 40,000 Feet, with art by Evlyn Moreau, an adventure where gremlins are transported onto an airline flight. Hijinks ensue.
• Crawl Issue 13, by the Rev. Dak V. Ultimak, is now available. This excellent OSR zine has been on hiatus for some time, and it's good to see that it is continuing forward, hopefully with more issues to come.
• I don't see that much published for OSRIC these days, but The Tree and the Titan, by Anachronistes Press, is now available on Drivethru. It's a low-level adventure in a quasi-Mesopotamian setting.
• The big release this week is the long awaited Cities Without Number, Kevin Crawford's cyberpunk game. I've been a longtime fan of his work, and am currently playing in two online WWN games. I'm excited to see what he brings to the cyberpunk table. As with all of this books, there's a free version available as well.
• Frolicking: Kid Friendly Carousing, is a neat little addition to the OSR sphere that tones down a lot of the carousing tables that have proven to be pretty popular and makes it more appropriate for a younger audience.
• With artwork by Dyson Logos, Lair of the Wild Hunt is an adventure for OSE designed for characters of level 4-6, which is a nice range.
• The Mountain Adventure Bundle, by Christopher Wilson, collects a number of the author's Braunhaven books into a single bundle. It's written for Old School Essentials, and you can catch the author's actual play set in Braunhaven on Youtube.
• Speaking of actual plays, you can hear episode Nine of the Basilisk Hills Breakdown is now live. The adventurers return to civilization in time for the monthly festival in Liwil which promises to bring as much adventure and excitement as the perilous wilds they had been exploring.
• I've released Issue 25 of Populated Hexes Monthly on my website. This issue is the first of a two-part series that introduces a new way of doing psionics to old school gaming, one that doesn't rely on points or high ability scores to determine success. You can get it in saddlestitched or pdf.

Note that some of the above are affiliate links to Drivethrurpg. Affiliate links take no profits away from the creators and help me to put out this Roundup.

Welcome to the last news roundup for August. Summer is drawing to a close, kids are back at school, and we're moving (at least in the northern hemisphere) into fall. Let's see what was released last week, shall we?

• Zac Bir has released Journeyman Pocket Edition on itch, a rules-lite, generic rpg system that emphasizes establishing trust amongst participants to develop guidelines for play.
• Heat Wave Horror is a bundle of two games by Javierloustaunau on itch. The sale ends in two days (as of the 28th), so if you want to take advantage of this deal you should jump on it. It includes the recently released Trapped in an endless i-kräla, an Ikea-themed horror scenario.
• I've been eagerly waiting for this (and the upcoming print version): Jimmy Shelter has just released Hiria: the Eternal City, on itch. It's a solo journaling game set in a city that exists in an infinite number of possibilities, changing subtly through realities.
• James Holloway has released the Guide to Grunts on itch, a system-neutral guide to creating realistic armies and mercenary bands in fantasy games.
• Levi Combs of Planet X Games is raising funds for Closet of the Eye Wizard, a DCC zine that brings the contents of the Eye Wizard's closet to life, adding new sartorial magical items to the DCC game.
• From the prolific Phil Reed comes Combat Banes and Boons, new critical hit and fumble tables for fantasy rpgs.
• Barbaric! by Stellagama Publishing, is now available in a 2nd edition. This book brings Swords and Sorcery-style gaming to life using the Cepheus engine.
• Tales from the Smoking Wyrm, Issue 6, is a zine written primarily for DCC but with content that can be mined for other fantasy OSR systems.
• Pirate Borg is a new game based on the popular Mork Borg engine, and Caught: A Compendium of Punishments Pyratical [sic] introduces a collection of punishments for piracy, breaking them down into categories depending on who is meting out the punishments.
• I've had this little gem of a supplement in stock for a month or so, but Cats Have no Lord has just released The Frog Supertable on Drivethru in pdf. It's a little pamphlet with twelve frog variants, and features the art of blog favorite Evlyn Moreau.
• Essential Enemies #5 is out. This issue is titled Creatures of Chaos, and presents an assortment of new monster, items, and lairs to use in your Old School Essentials or similar game.
• The Weeps, by Spooky Jaguar, is a short zine written for Cairn with a starting town, forest, and dungeon to use as a jumping off point for adventure.
• I really like the hexcrawl stuff that Lazy Litch has put out, and now you can get all of their existing titles as part of a bundle on Drivethru. I carry all of their print titles, as well, and they're totally worth picking up.
• We've also added a number of OSR-adjacent titles to the store:

1. Another artist I really like is Amanda Lee Franck, and we've added her two zines to the store: You Got a Job on the Garbage Barge and Vampire Cruise. Both are quirky and come with Amanda's illustrations and super cool maps.
2. Guild: Sword and Magick for Hire, the new zine by Disaster Tourism, is also in stock. This was crowdfunded last December and is now available in print.
3. Zinepalooza funded in February of 2022 as part of the first independent ZineMonth project, and the three zines that were part of it are now all out in print, as well as the first two issues of Explore Dungeons that were reprinted as part of the Kickstarter. Explore Dungeons 1, 2, and 3 are all system neutral with plenty of content to add to games; Smorkasborg is a zine for Mork Borg, and Tales from the Tower adds content for 5e-style games.