Need more monsters to liven up your campaign? Need something unique to fill out your dungeon? Look no further than Monsters of Myth. Nominally written for OSRIC but suitable for the OSR ruleset of your choice, Monsters of Myth can be had for FREE.
Monsters of Myth is the premiere collection of OSRIC monsters, and contains more than 150 new creatures for use with First Edition-compatible games. A companion in the spirit of the monster collections from the 1970s to 1980s, Monsters of Myth will provide game masters with many unique challenges with which to test their players!
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It's beginning to feel like Christmas - because every Christmas, we get a Campaign Cartographer 3+ Bundle over at Humble Bundle. If you want it, grab it at the $30 bundle level. It is simply the best value of the lot.
Design maps for your own tabletop campaigns, fantasy settings, and more! This bundle includes everything you need to create stunning, print-worthy works of art that will bring your worlds to life. Get powerful software like Campaign Cartographer 3+ (including a Lifetime License), City Designer 3, Dungeon Designer 3, Tome of Ultimate Mapping, and more. Unlock a treasury that will take your tabletop games and fantasy stories to the next level, and help support Save the Children with your purchase.
Shadowdark holds a special place in my heart. It's an old-school chassis with an engine built off of 5e. The ecology of high-quality releases from third-party publishers for Shadowdark is second to none.
Menagerie Press invites you to adventure into the elf-tombs of Moire and Tiar, find Ord’s crypt-tree, battle the Amber Chimera, and recover eldritch baubles and lore.
A Shadowdark-compatible role-playing game adventure collection for level 1-5 characters.
The Queen of Brambles: Elf-Queen Lia's crypt was recently rediscovered. Do you dare disturb her resting place?
Shune's Door: In the hillside, a black steel door is etched with the diabolic glyph of Shune the Betrayer. What lies beyond?
Gorr's Tomb: Hatlitt Gorr was a renowned dragon-slayer, but the dwarf warlord succumbed to the curse of his dragon-tainted gold. Seek gold and glory, or a quick death.
The Amber Chimera: An old Elvish reflecting pool, a black obelisk, and a chimera carved from amber. Rumors talk about wealth, danger, and a gemstone beast that cannot die.
The Pale Vault: The Ebon Heart, an arcane relic of immense power, was secured in the Pale Vault. Will you brave the vault's wards and acquire the wooden heart?
Finding Seph Bordel: Persephone Bordel, fiancée of Lord Oster, was kidnapped by her ex-lover. There's a substantial reward for rescuing her from her captors.
Tomb of Himortu: The ancient elf-lord Himortu was buried with his arms and armor. Surely these antiquities belong in your capable hands - you just need to go get them.
Short Encounters: A collection of 15+ wilderness and 6+ urban encounters, such as a dream wine speakeasy, prism-worshipping cultists, a trapped cave troll, hobgoblin bandit ambushes, eager grifters selling "magical trinkets," and many more.
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I am a massive fan of the Palladium Fantasy rules. I like the Palladium system well enough (which breaks down with Rifts, IMHO), but the setting and support material are fantastic. You can grab the Palladium Fantasy 2e Starter set for 17.95.
Adventurer! We've resurrected our January 2022 Palladium Fantasy 2E Bundle featuring .PDF ebooks for the 1996 Second Edition of The Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game, Kevin Siembieda's tabletop fantasy RPG from Palladium Books. The mystical world of Palladium is a land rich in magic. The Wolfen Empire prepares for war in the Great Northern Wilderness, and the Giant kingdom of Mount Nimro threatens nearby human, elven, and dwarven settlements. Mystics, Knights, and Barbarians call upon the gods for powers both new and arcane to bend the world to their will. On the high seas, pirates sail to islands like the Isle of Zy and the Island of the Cyclops. Against a host of legendary creatures, and the backstabbing intrigues of the high courts, you'll need dragon-forged will, deceptive guile, and a stout backbone to survive.
For just US$17.95 you get all six titles in this revived offer's Starter Collection (retail value $71.50) as DRM-free ebooks, including the complete Palladium Fantasy RPG 2E core rulebook, The Heart of Magic rules expansion, the sourcebooks Monsters and Animals and Dragons & Gods, and the introductory setting sourcebooks The Western Empire and Library of Bletherad.
And if you pay more than the threshold price of $33.34, you'll level up and also get this revival's entire Bonus Collection with ten more setting sourcebooks worth an additional $125, including Wolfen Empire, Eastern Territory, Land of the Damned 1 - Chaos Lands and 2 - Eternal Torment, Mount Nimro, Baalgor Wastelands, Northern Hinterlands, Bizantium and the Northern Islands, Old Ones 2E, and Adventures on the High Seas 2E.
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I should number these Free OSR posts, but I'm too lazy. :)
Venger—love or hate him- produces some excellent material for your Old School campaign. Cha'alt is a bit of a setting book, a bit of an adventure module, and 100% gonzo. Even if gonzo isn't your cup of tea, for the price of FREE, can you really go wrong?
Cha'alt is the beast of a book (218 pages) I've been working on for the past year. It's a ruined world focusing on a couple of introductory dungeons before getting to the main event - the megadungeon known as The Black Pyramid.
The Black Pyramid is like nothing you've ever seen before. Unique design, purpose, feel, magic items, NPCs, monsters, factions, motives, agendas, strangeness, the works!
There's a decent amount of setting detail besides dungeoncrawling - space opera bar, domed city, mutants, weird ass elves, desert pirates, a city ruled by a gargantuan purple demon-worm, and much more!
Cha'alt is compatible with both old school and 5e D&D purposefully blended for maximum usability. Full disclosure: aside from advantage/disadvantage and bounded accuracy, there isn't much in the way of 5th edition mechanics. It's predominantly OSR.
I've included my own Crimson Dragon Slayer D20 as an appendix, but you can use any of the hundred RPG systems available to run Cha'alt as your own. The rules-language is fairly neutral, and my priority was helping the Game Master at the table.
The world is gonzo, eldritch, science-fantasy, and post-apocalyptic. It's a wild ride, perfect for those players seeking something a little bit different, but also recognizable.
The interior is gorgeous full-color art, layout, cartography and Lovecraftian aesthetics. Gold ENnie winner Glynn Seal of MonkeyBlood Design went above and beyond his usual fantastic job. Give the new 32 page preview a look. I spared no expense making Cha'alt fantastic - this world is alive and spilling over with possibilities.
Cha'alt should give you years of solid, non-standardized gaming.
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Continuing our meandering through our Free OSR resources, we come across LotFP Rules & Magic Free Version. LotFP is one of the better hacks of B/X, and hack it is because little remains of the original, yet it stays true to its heritage. It's free because it is art-free. Grab it if this still needs to be added to your digital bookshelf!
Beyond the veil of reality, beyond the influence of manipulating politicians, greedy merchants, iron-handed clergy, and the broken masses that toil for their benefit, echoes of other realms call to those bold enough, and desperate enough, to escape the oppression of mundane life. Treasure and glory await those courageous enough to wrest it from the darkness. But the danger is great, for lurking in the forgotten shadows are forces far stranger and more perilous than even civilization. The price of freedom might be paid in souls.
LotFP: Weird Fantasy Role-Playing presents a sinister and horrific twist on traditional fantasy gaming. Simple enough for a beginner yet meaty enough for the veteran, this game will make all your worst nightmares come true.
This book is a revision of the Rules & Magic book originally found in the LotFP: Weird Fantasy Role-Playing boxed set. It contains all the rules needed to play the game.
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We continue our delve into the often overlooked corner of the OSR - free and precious resources that have been overshadowed and undervalued.
Today, we look at Wormwood, a 6th-century setting/resource for OSE and other OSR systems. Note that this is still a work in progress.
"For the sun gave forth its light without brightness, like the moon, during the whole year.” So wrote Byzantine historian Procopius of the year 536 A.D., the year the first of three catastrophic volcanic eruptions in Iceland would drop global summer temperatures by 1.5 to 2.5 degrees Celsius and herald the beginning of the coldest decade on record in 2,000 years. Migrations of Germanic, Hunnic, and Slavic tribes have swept aside and now pick over the remains of the Western Roman Empire, sacking Rome itself and establishing a network of “barbarian kingdoms” across the west. Crop failure, famine, the Justinian Plague will devastate a fractured Europe for the next hundred years. Of all the time periods called the “Dark Ages,” this is surely - both literally and figuratively - the darkest.
This historical context is interwoven with both “authentic” medieval folklore and the classic elements of 19th- and 20th-century fantasy fiction found in your typical Appendix N. This ‘Dark Year’ and all of its tumultuous events provides players and Judges a compelling backdrop upon which to project historical fantasy adventures. While based upon historical context, these are works of fiction: liberties have been taken where doing so would be entertaining. Weave fiction and fantasy as you please, and above all: Fight On!
This book contains 95 pages of rules for: expanded character creation, cultures, languages, soubriquets, mass combat, social status, equipment, estates & strongholds, trade goods & services, crime, punishment & trials, medicines, poisons, and retainers - - everything referees and players could want to set their old-school fantasy role-playing campaigns within a 6th century Europe historical fantasy setting.
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