Review & Commentary On M.A.R. Barker's Empire of the Petal Throne Rules By TSR From M.A.R Barker's World of Tekumel

"A rich, complex world and a complete set of rules, Empire of the Petal Throne includes rules for character generation, magic, monsters, adventuring, societies and languages. It is set in the 2,354th Year “After the Seal” – the accession of the first Emperor of Tsolyánu, just before the events chronicled in Man of Gold, the first of several novels written by Prof. Barker. Included with the rules is a four page set of charts and tables, errata for the original game, a map of the City of Jakalla, a b&w map of the Five Empires, and a citizenship document for Tsolyanu, the Empire of the Petal Throne!"


Technically speaking Empire of the Petal Throne by M.A.R. Barker is a current game in print due to the machinations of the Tékumel: Empire of the Petal Throne Foundation. The set of rules that I'm going to be talking about today is the original Dungeons & Dragons Style rules set. If you wanna use Tékumel: Empire of the Petal Throne setting elements in your favorite rpg table top rules set then The Tekumel Sourcebook - Swords & Glory Vol. 1 for the classic material is the route to go. 



The world of the five empires is a complex cultural painting completely different from the high fantasy worlds of Dungeons & Dragons. Tékumel  is a setting created from within the fertile imagination of MAR Barker. Its vastly different from the original Dungeons & Dragons settings of Greyhawk & Blackmoor. How this is a quasi Middle Eastern, Indian, Mayan settings &  locations with ancient science fantasy overtones. The whole setting makes it clear that at any moment your player's PC's could be sacrificed, murdered, etc. in terrifying different realms of dungeons & ruins. Even though this game uses the familiar character generation, classes, etc. as original Dungeons & Dragons, EMP is vastly different because of its language, principles, & don't get me started on the cultures  of the game.  M.A.R. Barker was a brilliant weaver of tales, creator of setting, & definer of his world. Those who get invested are in for a ride.
For original Dungeons & Dragons players & DM's the trade cities provide a fertile place where you can plunk down your player's PCs. Adventuring means citizenship with lots of minor advantages. Within moments of plunking down in town PC's might wander into trouble or vast ruins that make the Undermount look like a pile of rubble. EMP is a mix of urban & dungeon crawl with lots of monsters not seen by the average Dungeons & Dragons players. They will learn to fear the smell of cinnamon there are vast numbers of alien races, weird creatures, robotic lifeforms & other strangeness left over in the depths of the underworld. Their waiting to say hi & murder your  adventurers.
The Empire of  The Petal Throne Rpg review on Drivethrurpg by Brit B. brings up a very important point with reference to the monsters;"Simple but striking black & white illustrations are frequent, which is good since I’m pretty sure you don’t know what a Pé Chói is, but you will soon. Each monster has about a paragraph of description for inspiration and a basic stat block. There’s a hex map of the main country along with ungridded maps of the main city, Jakálla, and the five empires to get you started. It is old school in my favorite sense, they give you the basics and let you run with it."
Its the sense of flavor that melts like candied Middle Eastern wax of imagination from the annals of Empire of the Petal Throne.  Jakálla has such setting flavor for me as a trade city that it reeks of spices, intrigue, incense, & adventure oozing through the cracks of its flag stones. Sorcerers & priests around every corner with their own sinister agendas. 
A word on combat, this is a 1975 game & the combat is a lethal affair with players expecting a high mortality rate. The game is more tool kit then actual whole cloth game that modern gamers might not be used to. Expect to die in unexpected & sinister ways of mayhem with monsters & NPC 's involved. Everything you need is contained within this book, so get those character sheets ready!  Jakálla or one of the many other trade cities await your PC's!  Do I think that Empire of the Petal Throne is fantastic? Yes I do but this is the rules set that I grew up with & so there's a bit of nostalgia on my part. Is it perfect? Not by a long chalk folks but for me & many others its a fantastic entry & exit point for the world, setting, & game of the Petal Throne. 

So why haven't I reviewed Jeff Dee's Bethorm: the Plane of Tekumel RPG from Uni games? Well that's a separate review completely coming up. 

A Pipeful Of Trouble Adventure By Bret James Stewart From D-oom Products For Labyrinth Lord Or Your Old School Campaigns

"All is not well in Brierfield. The idyllic halfling village has fallen prey to unknown bandits and marauders. These peaceful victims of shattered loves and broken dreams need a band of heroes to save them. Are you willing to help them in their time of needs?"


Sometimes a dungeon master needs a basic & down to Earth module & that's where A Pipeful Of Trouble comes in from Bret James Stewart. We get a low level halfling adventure with some heart & heat for the player's PC's. The production & layout are straight up too the level of  D-oom Products expectations. This adventure is packed with back to back old school value at seventy two pages of campaign setting set up goodness. This adventure packs in  NPCs,nasty opponents & NPC's, lots of dangerous adventure locales,
twists & turns for the PC's situations, plus a brand new
evil monster with its own brand of weirdness.
The cartography  for Brierfield, & the Merrywood route to the caves, along with the adventure  a cave and dungeon maps are very well done. But I can't help but feel that everything in Pipeful Of Trouble is an old fashioned campaign set up. While the Tolkein flavor is undeniable its not an adventure that talks down the players or the dungeon master. Here the flavor is akin to a fully fleshed out adventure that can be dragged & dropped as a prime introduction adventure.
While this is an introductory adventure for beginning characters the entire adventure feels like a European fairy tale mixed in the with strains of Tolkien shifted through the lens of Dungeons & Dragons.


:Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis - FAIRY TALE (FAIRY TALE OF KINGS) - 1909 has some of the magic of Pipeful Of Trouble adventure ideals. 

There's something to be said for bringing in a tradition Dungeons & Dragons style adventure with some solid beginnings for lower tier PC's. At this Pipeful Of Trouble succeeds in spades. The style of this adventure is one with clear goals & roadways of old school campaign ideals. This is a good thing for beginning characters & players in my opinion. The dungeon master is given all of the tools he or she will need to set up a fine campaign to beginning with.
There are several ways I can see using Pipeful Of Trouble, one is for a set up for a game of James Spahn's The Hero's Journey Swords & Wizardry rpg . All of the elements are present in Pipeful Of Trouble to really bring home the Tolkein while grounding a campaign on the dungeon master's stomping ground. The epicness of the adventure's background setting allows the dungeon master to customize certain adventure elements. 




But the place where Pipeful Of Trouble really shines is with the Goblinoid Games Labyrinth Lord retroclone game. The whole package slots right into LL with no trouble at all & really brings home that old school feel without giving the players loads of horrid worry. That isn't to say that Pipeful Of Trouble isn't going to kill your PC's dead quite the contrary. But it means that the players can have a solid time with the adventure right from the dice hitting the table.



Pipeful Of Trouble does three things at the table top level & does em right. It presents a great introductory adventure, there is some really nasty business waiting for the PC's, & the adventure serves as a prime price of adventure gaming perfect for introducing new players to the OSR & for killing off the PC's of veterans who get cocky with a first through third level adventure. Is Pipeful Of Trouble worth the money?! Yes I think so. The adventure succeeds on two levels, one it delivers on its promise for adventure! 

Review & OSR Commentary On RPGPundit Presents #26: Mutant Hordes of the Last Sun For Your Old School Wasteland Campaigns

So today it wad great anticipation that I grabbed a copy of Rpg Pundit Presents 26 Mutant Hordes of the Last Sun. 

I asked for this copy of what looks like Rpg Pundit's dip into the OSR  post apocalyptic rpg scene with the Last Sun setting. Sort of a Dying Earth meets gonzo OSR rpg style game setting, Dungeon Crawl Classic or Mutant Crawl Classic players are going to feel right at home here as will Mutant Future rpg fans. There's also a good shot of Tolkein's Middle Earth playing to the strains of some weird Eighties sound track here. None of this is a bad thing for the OSR zine presentation of this setting;

" In the gonzo world of the Last Sun, human beings are an endangered species. After the Great Disaster, human numbers have steadily declined throughout the world. Although a few areas still contain a human majority (like the city of Arkhome, detailed in RPGPunditPresents #16 and #20), true humans are a very rare breed throughoutmost of the world.
While humans have been hunted to near-extinction in some areas (like the Middle-Northern Wildlands, detailed in RPGPundit Presents #15), it was mostly mutation rather than depredation that
has apparently doomed humanity. The time of the Great Disaster, when the Dark Ones entered the world of the Last Sun and waged war against all life, caused an enormous amount of ecological damage to
the world. The disappearance of the Ancients, crash of G.O.D. into Emergency Mode, and rebellion of the AI Daemons meant that there was no central control. The loss of the Dwarven Machineholds to the
servants of the Dark One also meant that all the machinery that kept strict control over the climate of the world was no longer accessible.
The war of the Pythian Elves and their allies against the Dark Ones on the surface of the world created devastation, both technological (radiation and other toxic effects) and magical. As a result of all this,
not only did many humans die, but many more were mutated into horrific monsters and monster-races, like the humanoids usually described as goblin-kin. A majority were changed into what are now
simply referred to as mutants—they are human-like, but no longer human creatures"
So basically Rpg Pundit is steadily working on an OSR post apocalyptic rpg and testing the waters of the marketplace with a slick mutant race generator with a strong eye towards the gonzo end of the spectrum. This product clocks in at eighteen pages & is full of random generators for everything from your mutant's tribal factional background, powers, type, color, & potential additional physical qualities. In addition there's a psychic powers system built into the product that can work in a wide variety of OSR products. Finally there's a random mutant quirky qualities & weirdness table. And there's actually a couple of pieces of pretty decent artwork along with the usual quality layout to the product line. 




Mutant generators walk a very fine line when it comes to execution they have to have enough useful information & lots of great random tables without taking away from the tool box nature of the product. Rpg Pundit Presents 26 Mutant Hordes of the Last Sun succeeds in that regard. The three dollar price tag means that the dungeon master can roll up a wide variety of NPC mutants without breaking the bank. It also means that the players have addition customization tools right at their finger tips. There's enough meet on the Mutant Hordes of the Last Sun eighteen pages to give a good idea of the direction of the product without boxing the players completely and utterly into the setting.
There's just enough guidance to randomly determine if your PC is a mutant, and what kind of classes he can play without strong arming the player into a corner of dead ends & penalties that many other OSR & old school post apocalyptic products have done in the past. Yes I'm looking at you Ares section of Dragon magazines of ages past.
There's a lot here that can be done with Rpg Pundit Presents 26 Mutant Hordes of the Last Sun

from factional NPC mutant characters to full fledged psychic mutant PC's whose presence won't destroy your wastelands.
The inclusion of a working psychic powers system is a nice addition for only three dollars & I can see using this generator for creating humanoid mutant alien species as well. This generator would work well for creating mutant tribes & NPC's on failed colony worlds for science fiction or science fantasy worlds. There's enough here to add mutant PC's to a wide variety of OSR games. The three dollar price tag makes this a nice & solid product for use with OSR games. I don't know if the Last Sun setting is for me but the Rpg Pundit Presents 26 Mutant Hordes of the Last Sun is a welcome addition to the post apocalyptic Dungeon master's arsenal. So this one is a five out of five in my book!

GRAB RPGPundit Presents #26: Mutant
Hordes of the Last Sun RIGHT HERE

Commentary & Review Of Adventurer, Conqueror, King's Rpg System Adventure AX1: The Sinister Stone of Sakkara For Your Old School Campaign

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

Clocking in at eighty pages AX1 The Sinister Stone of Sakkara is an introductory adventure for the Adventurer,Conqueror, King system hearkening back to classic TSR era B/X adventures such as Keep of The Borderlands. By that  I mean that it takes all of the existing ACK's products within the Autarch lines and puts them into play as a homage to adventures of a bygone era. The idea of the lone Auran/Roman style keep on an Ancient Egyptian/Mesopotamian border that they have conquered is used as the backdrop for a very well thought out adventure. Here the action is centered on the factions of the dungeon & the PC's must deal with the fall out of the evil that slumbers here.  There is a bit of everything in this adventure as its meant to do exactly what the Adventurer, Conqueror, King rule book lays out. That is to explore, deal with, get hired, hex crawl, fight, battle, & play while getting an entire feel for the ACK's system with both the players and the dungeon master cutting their teeth on the  The Sinister Stone of Sakkara .


Everything has a pseudo Lovecraftinan sword & sorcery vibe mixed in with the Auran empire setting. Monsters & encounters have that late night Saturday matinee mixed with a Mountain Dew war game feel. There are actual motivations, as well as reasons why the PC's are here in this part of Türos Tem the place  is presented as the stronghold of a realm controlled by a high-level NPC, with its maps, buildings, population, revenues, costs, and morale score all detailed and provided. This makes modifying and adding it into your own home game campaigns a snap. Many of your standard ACK's humanoids are present but there are far more sinister things lurking as lots of slimes, molds, jellies, fungus, & worse crawl through the AX1.


If the players are stupid & make poor decisions their going to have their PC's killed in no time flat, this is a great module but parts of it can be very unforgiving as the writing and design is very tight. Its well done and easily modified but you're going to have to think on your feet. Yes your PC's might end up with their own domain but they might end up a victim of the very evils that they're investigating or being killed by one of the multiple factions of this realm. Action is fast, reactive, and the plot moves along. There is a sense and story to the history of the region that echoes bits of  Robert Howard, Michael Moorcock, with a blend of Caesar and Rome thrown into the blender of this module.


NPC's function as movers, shakers, possible patrons, or flat out enenmies of the PC's & the ambitions that they bring to the region & your table. This is a place of sand,blood, evil, & flat out mayhem. Expect no quarter if crossing the wrong person or their hidden agendas. The powers that use this region do so with intent and guile. This is because the whole adventure of AX1: The Sinister Stone of Sakkara  is a guide as well as adventure intended to take the PC's through the whole of the ACK's system in miniature.

Once again we've got that classic collapsing empires of earth’s Late Antiquity (250 – 750 AD) as the mirror of the age of Auran that AX1 is set.  A turbulent era in which ancient glories were drowned in a torrent of violence & murder. So this is a perfect place for the PC's to make their mark as they come to explore the dungeons & environs of The Sinister Stone of Sakkara. I was somewhat shocked by how underpowered the NPC's are in this adventure, well not really. This adventure's NPC's reminded me of Dark Albion's 'anyone can be killed' in the Rose War attitude. Because there's also an almost boom town/end of empires set of circumstance that surrounds the setting of the Sinister Stone of Sakkara. This is so that the PC's can not only make their mark but possibly take over the local domain if their very lucky.

Illustration of gnoll diplomacy, requested by Jeff Binder

Certain things about this adventure stand out such as the fact that it integrates & plays around with Adventurer,Conqueror, King's Domains of War. The aspects of military & trade details is fitted in seamlessly within the adventure but its a weird fit in some respects unless of course you're used to war games being a part of your old school systems. The aspect of the war game as a part of the dungeon crawl hearkens back to the old school roots of OD&D when empire building was part and parcel of the gaming experience. Many independent companies kept this style of table top adventure going even as AD&D took another twist. AX1: The Sinister Stone of Sakkara builds upon & to some degree advances this concept on paper. How? By making the players take their PC's center stage or dying in the attempt. Even the description has this conceit built right in, "AX1 includes a two-level dungeon filled with chthonic horror along with a friendly stronghold from which your adventurers can explore the region."


Illustration of a raven spying on Lady Valerian and Hometri Socolo, requested by Florian Hübner

AX1: The Sinister Stone of Sakkara isn't Dwimmermount & for that I'm thankful. Even though I'm an experienced dungeon master there are several systems that Adventurer, Conqueror,King brings to the table that I need a bit of hand holding with. There is also the fact that introducing new players to this system is an added stress but reading through AX1: The Sinister Stone of Sakkara the experience doesn't seem so bad. I really like the Character Motivations table, which adds an interesting twist to the 'reason a PC is this way' and the motive for adventure. 


The motives  for the adventure in part are the war bands of beast men looting, sacking, pillaging throughout the countryside to gather sacrifices to power the Stone’s birthing pools again. Local farms and hamlets have been laid low and destroyed.
This sets up everything for the PC's to get into the deep end of this adventure & perhaps become entangled in the adventure's plot and weird horror that echoes through out. All in all I did enjoy looking through & reading  AX1: The Sinister Stone of Sakkara. I think its a four out of five for the style, utility of use at the table, an economical use of writing and some fine gaming designing in the old school traditions.
All in all I think that X1: The Sinister Stone of Sakkara does a fantastic job of presenting not only a great quality introductory adventure for Adventurer,Conqueror, King. But a great set up for a possible domain and base for the PC's all the while bringing the high quality Autarach standards we've come to expect.

YOU CAN GRAB  AX1: The Sinister Stone of Sakkara here!

Review & Commentary On Guns of War From Autarch For Adventurer,Conqueror,King Rpg System, Lamentations of the Flame Princess Rpg, & Your Old School Campaigns

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


So what does 'Guns of War' bring to the table? Well its a supplement that brings the timeline for ACK's up to the age of black powder weaponry not simply for the humans but most of the major races of the Adventurer,Conqueror, King & Lamentations of the Flame Princess. This adds an entirely new dimension to these OSR games themselves. This brings that setting dynamic into a new light entirely.

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

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

But is it worth getting into? Well from a dollar stand point my answer is 'yes' it adds whole new aesthetic to these games and it could be used with Dark Albion as well because its going to change events across the board in broad gun powder clouded strokes. The age of powder & shot becomes an entirely new set of dynamics & history stalking changes to the set up of games. This means that the material has a has a vaguely 13th-15th century feel to it in equal measure. Guns of War manages to do all of this in fifty eight pages of jammed black powder packed book. Does this really make a difference in the dungeon? Not really when your wearing twelve hand grenades packed with black powder called the 'twelve apostles'. Because your going to be facing down things like this Ifreet  in some God forsaken megadungeon.


Guns of War does the job of taking ACK's from the dungeon into other realms of adventure into things like the a fantasy age of piracy, full on full city siege warfare with cannons, mixing up with the forces of darkness with powder, and much more. I make this book sound like one of the essentials for ACK's don't I? Well that's because technically in my estimation it is!
When you have chain mail clad warriors fighting with pistols & swords then you've got a different mix of a game setting happening.

Guns of War presents its material concise and well laid out details with the rules, tables, & descriptions being very easy to read as well as the content  presented in a way that's easy on the eyes. The artwork is public domain with an eye towards the real world history whist keeping the book grounded in the ACK's setting (sort of). Because it moves the technological time table up there is a sense that Guns of War has at its core the OSR with an eye towards taking systems to the next level or at the very least the next time period. This book has lots of potential because of its use in ACKS Domains at War but that's a blog entry for another time. What it also means is that I can now run Lamentations of the Flame Princess rpg materials within the ACK's system quite well. Things are not seamless but they work quite well so that suddenly that mini wall of Lamentations of the Flame Princes books has lots of potential in the ACK's system. This is another mark of the ulitity of the ACK's material at the gaming table. All in all I really enjoyed Guns of War so much so that I called the print shop today to get myself a copy of this pdf spiral bound. I give it four out of five because not only was I pleasantly surprised by Guns of War.

GRAB  'Guns of War' From
Autarch Right HERE

Review & Commentary On The Adventurer Conqueror King System: Player's Companion By Alexander Macris

Yeah, I've been around the table top rpg hobby for a long while now at forty seven years old & I've seen my fair share of 'character guides' & companions. But then Adventurer, Conqueror, King shows up with its B/X leanings, proficiency system, and customization factor then more. So there are always books that are touted as essential out in the table top market but then you've got the Player's Companion for the Adventurer Conqueror King RPG. So what the hell is so essential in this book? Right off the top it features:"
16 new character classes to expand your  campaigns, including the anti-paladin, barbarian, dwarven fury, dwarven machinist, dwarven delver, elven courtier, elven enchanter, elven ranger, gnomish trickster, mystic, paladin, shaman, Thrassian gladiator, warlock, witch, and Zaharan ruinguard." One of the strengths of ACK's is how the PC classes fold into the campaign setting material.



 Everything in the sixteen new character classes ties in with the Auran Empire material and the implied setting set up from the character section of the main Adventuerer,Conqueror, King rpg rule book. This is a round about way of insuring the dungeon master & his players are going to be engaged in the world setting of the book but with enough room for customization. This is one of the differences between a second tier & generation OSR product or  more 'modern' rpg systems. The amount of crunch helps to keep things wide open for player choice.  This trickles down into the '238 character generation templates with pre-selected proficiencies, spells, and equipment options to create archetypes such as the Aristocrat Bard, Buccaneer Thief, Gladiator Fighter, or Runecaster Shaman' These PC materials wrap character creation into essentially a kit like structure that actually works similar too but distinct from the old Skills & Powers second edition set up.You choose one of the "archtypes" to cut down on character preparation time to get up & playing as soon as possible.
This section actually works & ties back into the Antiquity style of the Auran Empire. But it can be just as easily used with a straight up Sword & Sorcery style campaign setting of one's own design. Even magic system which adds new spells can easily be ported over to a sword & sorcery setting especially with dweomers such as dismember, earth's teeth, and trance, as well as ritual spells including cataclysm, plague, temporal stasis, and undead legion.


Do you have a favorite OSR PC class? Well there's a really nice DYI character customize class built section too. And additional domain rules that tie back into both the existing ACK's rules book & the Player's Companion;"A point-based customized class system that lets you create the perfect blend of fighting, thievery, divine, and magical power. The custom class creation rules are 100% backwards compatible with every class in the ACKS core rules and all of the classes in the Player's Companion." Once again there's more justification for dungeons & adventure locations to exist as the NPC can and will grow along with their PC counterparts;"Additional equipment and proficiencies to provide options for character classes new and old, plus prices for building traps to defend your stronghold".


There is an an emphasis on the political and kingdom building aspects as intended right from the main ACK's rule book which continues straight though the The Adventurer Conqueror King System: Player's Companion. This is something  that makes it useful for the creation of both PC's & NPC's a welcome change of pace from many other rule books. All in all this well rounded approach to ACK's by the Player's Companion makes this one of the essential ACK's purchases. Its well put together, has a no nonsense approach to its subject matter and the sheer volume of material makes The Adventurer, Conqueror, King:Player's Companion a must have for any player or ACK's dungeon master. Clocking in at about thirty five dollars the hard cover has some really nice value for the dollar.
You Can Purchase The Player's Companion In Hard Back Here

Essentially all you need to run a complete campaign is the ACK's rule book & the ACK's Player's Companion

The Adventurer Conqueror King System: Player's Companion is on my short list of books to get in hardback for 2016 at some point.

Review & Commentary On The Auran Empire Primer By Alexander Macris For The Adventurer, Conqueror, King RPG System

I went into the Auran Empire Primer with open eyes not expecting that much, this is the implied & now fully fleshed out OSR setting for the Adventurer, Conqueror, King rpg system. The whole setting implies not so much the usual Sword & Sorcery of D&D but  Late Antiquity, around 250 - 750 AD."Late Antiquity is a periodization used by historians to describe the time of transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages in mainland Europe, the Mediterranean world, and the Middle East. " . This is the time period that saw the Roman Empire split in two, with the western half eventually dying while the eastern half of the empire continuing until 1453.Auran isn't the Roman Empire, there are some really interesting marked differences right off the bat. The fact that Auran is an empire with its cracks beginning to really taking its toll on many fronts means that there are lots of places for adventurers to make a difference. The setting is close to a Constantinople of the era of Antiquity in many respects including a reaming cross section of peoples, religions,and weirdness of a world on the edge. This is a place of forbidden black magic, the blackest magic that cracks peoples souls & beastmen capable of rending an empire in half.



This book presents in twenty five pages an overview of places, things, religions, cultures, and other elements that we've heard in other ACK's products such as ACKS Player's Companion, The Sinister Stone of Sakkara, &  Axioms digital magazine. That's pretty much only half of the material though.
What this book actually is a showcase of the elements from Adventurer, Conqueror, King & a kit for creating your own world if you want to look past the usual set pieces & system place holders which one finds in other OSR games. This system has a good grounding in real world as its inspiration & that to me seems to make a solid difference;"The ancient civilizations that precede the campaign’s era have realworld
cultural analogues as well. The ancient Argollëan elven civilization resembles a sort of Proto-Helleno-Celtic culture; imagine if the Danaans of Ancient Greece and the Danaans of Ancient Ireland
were actually the same people, part of a single, more advanced civilization. The ancient Thrassian civilization is inspired by Sumerian civilization with an Aztec aesthetic, while the subsequent Zaharan civilization is inspired by pre-Hellenistic Akkadian civilization with some Egyptian flavoring. The early Auran “Empyrean era” civilization draws on elements of the Minoans, Mycenaeans, and Sea Peoples, with extensive Heroic Age Greco-Roman (Illiad, Aeneid) inspirations."  This is a case of heavy is the head that wears the crown and that head just might be your PC, if their very lucky & the players might think outside the box. 


If your really lucky this just might be your character.

So what does the Auran Empire Primer bring to the table that's different then say Greyhawk or some other old school rpg setting book? Not much & that's fine with me! Let me explain here, the book presents a brief bite sized overview of the Auran world setting & it does it with a nice level of presentation along with some really well done artwork, cartography, and ideas. The overview is brief, to the point, and gives me exactly the level of detail that I want without overwhelming me with lots of filler BS that I don't need. In other words this is a place that I want to set adventures in.Its not a world that is so on fire that I as a DM don't have room or a elbow space to set up my own political or world events in. This is often one of the problems that I've had with other RPG products, the world events are happening right now! There's no time to get to know anything or do great deeds, your characters have to be heroes now! Well they do but in a system such as Adventurer, Conqueror, King they're going to need to build PC in roads into the world. This book helps to fill in the colour and setting material that you need.
Did I mention that the book sells for only two dollars and fifty cents? All in all I think that the Auran Empire Primer does a really killer job of presenting the world of the empire and its very well done product.

GRAB IT OVER HERE

Review and Commentary On Spellbook Games Inferno Bestiary, Second Edition For Your Old School Campaigns.

Way back in the 90's or so I bought a pack of Judge's Guild modules back in the early 90's and among them was Geoffrey O'Dale's Inferno module. The module has been with me on and off for the better part of thirty years. This was actually a requiring of the module from the early 80's. For me the module offered a nice alternative to the well known and admired Ed Greenwood Dragon magazine module. Geoffrey O'Dale's Hell made quite the impression on me. And in some ways continues to. 

Growing up on a steady diet of horror comics with Warren, Skywald,Marvel, D.C. and many others. Hell was the ultimate wilderness crawl. Reading through the module and going to a Roman Catholic grammar school didn't turn me off in the least. In point of fact this module was responsible for me reading Dante's Divine Comedy in its entirety.   But the module has far more to do with horror comics and Dante's Inferno then it has to do with Christianity at all. In fact the module is very, very deadly and it took every ounce of energy and skill to survive it.
Inferno always gave Judge's Guild's City State of the Invincible Overlord series of modules a very deadly razor's edge  of darkness to their adventures. Sure everything looked pretty funny with evocative covers. But your adventurers could end up in the pit with a cursed scroll, magic item, crossing the wrong entity or god. The ways to get their were myriad but there were very few ways of getting out much less surviving. 

I ran an entire campaign for about two years in the pit. The PC's couldn't return to Earth at all, Hell changes characters if they survive. 

Which brings me to my recent brushes with Spell Book games, Geoffrey O'Dale never really left gaming per say. I saw an issue of 'Fight On' magazine where the circles for Hell were completed. This brings me to Spell Book games, which is Geoffrey's company that has taken the original Inferno concept and turned it into an entire campaign setting by itself. This is an entire line of AD&D first edition style products with an eye to providing a line of weird and dangerous adventures set in a Dante style Hell complete with a whole array of demons and devils. These are highly detailed Gazetters and adventure books set in the Pit itself. They really have a style all their own and detail some very nasty adventure locations within Hell.
The Inferno Bestiary is a complete overview of all of the demons and devils of the adventure modules as a stand alone product. Just page after page of demons,devils, and monsters free from any baggage at all.
This makes them perfect to drop in and run with your old school games. This is especially nice for an AD&D first edition style game where you need a monster to add into a old school adventure and just want something dangerous, diabolical, and out & out mean.



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According to the Drivethrublurb:
Spellbook Games releases the Second Edition of Inferno: Bestiary.  This edition includes all of the monsters and creatures from the original Bestiary, including more than 70 unique Devils from the Inferno Hell, plus more than 200 additional new creatures created for the Portal to Adventure rule set. This Bestiary includes more than 750 total entries.  This edition particularly fills a gap in the Portal rule set in that it includes an extensive collection of aquatic creatures.
As an old school DM this is nice book for constructing my own Hells and peppering them with new and incredibly diabolic monsters. The book is on the expensive side but it does its mission quite well.
If your not sure if this book is for you then there is a no cost solution you can take a look at in the form of the free Diabolic Denizens book that's available from Spellbook games.
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With the Diabolic Denzins book you get an overview of the monsters, stat block, and much more for free. You can kick the tires, look into the demons and monsters. Get a feel for the product and much more.

The Inferno Bestiary, Second Edition does exactly what it says on the tin and provides a whole swath of monsters completely background free and concisely mapped out for you to use in your old school games as you see fit. The creatures are hideously dangerous and incredibly nasty with a complete eye towards ripping your PC's apart and coming back for more. Personally I can see me using some of these in several old school campaigns. I give this a nice solid four out of five and look forward to checking out more of Spellbook games material in the future.  

A Red & Pleasant Land By Zak S. From Lamentations Of The Flame Princess

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I recently asked for a copy of a Red and Pleasant from James Raggi of Lamentations Of The Flame Princess after reading Tim Brananan's blog's review of the book on his blog HERE and for the life of me I've been trying to process the whole of this  book. Its part campaign setting, part art book, and part deep end launch into Zak Smith's pick up of the Alice In Wonderland books as well as legends and fairy tales surrounding the Lewis Carroll books shoved into a blender with classic Dracula and set on nightmare and the dream setting.






What's the book about? Well to be honest the back cover explanation doesn't convey half of the feel of the campaign kit/setting. It covers in broad strokes and artful descriptions a battle that has raged across 

A terrible Red King wars with an awful Queen, and together they battle into being a rigid, wrong world… and this book has everything you need to run it. (And any other place in your first, second, third, fourth or fifth edition game that might require intrigue, hidden gardens, inside-out-rooms, scheming monarchs, puzzles or beasts, liquid floors, labyrinths, growing, shrinking, dueling, broken time, Mome Raths, blasphemy, croquet, explanations for where players who missed sessions were, or the rotting arcades and parlors of a palace that was once the size of a nation.)

Zak S, game master on I Hit It With My Axe and author of the multi award-winning Vornheim: The Complete City Kit now brings the same do-it-yourself tables-and-toolkits approach and eerie magic to an entire distorted continent.

Voivodja is an old land with its own all encompassing setting and its old, rotten to the core , and damned as well as dangerous. The place is thick with vampire courts, heroes, heroines, and things they get up to all bound within a unconventional book. Many of the characters of Alice in Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass have been re imagined as ancient creatures out of European legend. Very old and very strange vampires of royalty with their own agendas and view points of events surrounding the brand new character class that shapes the events within , 'The Alice'.  'The Alice' is a new take on the 'Specialist' from The Lamentations of the Flame Princess as a heroine lightning rod for the adventure  events surrounding Voivodja. The Alice plugs into every single heroine and princess of every dream like fairy tale and pop culture fantasy that streams through the collective unconscious. 

The OSR produces tons and tons of random tables and A Red & Pleasant land has over thirty pages of them but this book implements the tables as key parts of the setting narrative guiding the PC's into the workings of the adventure setting. They range from the general encounter style ones, to one the spot adventure creation tables that happen on the fly, there are NPC generators, and more all tied neatly back into the Voivodja setting. This happens over and over again tying the PC's into the narrative of the dreamlike decayed fairy tale setting.

I've been reading reviews of A Red and Pleasant Land over and over the last few days then referencing back to the PDF. One thing that strikes me is how each person sees their own version of the setting of the Land of Unreason. This fact highlight's the phantasmagorical  nature of  Voivodja as a campaign. The factions are at each other's throats and warfare here can take the form of a game of crochet or the exploration of the setting's adventure locations. These are not simple dungeons in the conventional sense nor are they mega dungeons with their own ecologies  instead  they're almost artifacts of some old fairy tale echoing from older dreams as well as nightmares given a DYI D&D slant. 

The book is filled top to bottom with Zak Smith's artwork which set's the tone for the entire book from top to bottom marking it as an art book as well as a roleplaying campaign setting. The book is very well done in the graphic's regard. Its a brutal art book and it takes no prisoners with its dark, decadent artwork reflecting the feel of the dreamlike land of Unreason.

We're given a tour of this setting with options to look into niches,crannies, and the dark spots but there's plenty of room to get into the deepest recesses of the dream like realm. NPC's have motives and reasons as well as complex chess like takes on the state of things in the Land Of Unreason. Sometimes these goals and grudges stretch back centuries.



One thing about Voivodja, every single DM I showed this pdf in my circles of players and DM's has a different view of the setting.  Some see it as an other classic take on the Alice novels and the vampire literature. Still others have told me that its a gate way drug setting to a brand new take on using fairy tales as campaign settings. Still others have stated that this is a breath of fresh air for the Lamentations of the Flame Princess rpg system and boosts the powerful hero PC take that the game has had lurking in the backdrop since its release. A Red and Pleasant Land simply gives validation to this ideal with bells.

Voivodja is a mix of all of the above and then some. Does it break new ground? Yes and it does it with style as a campaign setting. Do I think that it will set the world on fire? Perhaps as a way to show other game companies that there is more then a few ways of creating graphic design as a gateway for presenting your game as a both an exhibit for your product ideals and as a character within the campaign setting. A Red and Pleasant Land is as much an rpg artifact as a campaign setting.


The longer I read a Red and Pleasant Land the more the setting plays and begs to be run. There are bits of horror, fairytale, and lurking spillage of a world that runs right below the mirrors and places of shadow right behind our own world. The setting has as much of the modern running through its narrative as an alternative dimension as a it is a D&D setting.
There are so many hooks lurking in the back drop of the book that it begs to be connected with the rest of the Lamentations of The Flame Princess system but it could really be used with a great variety of other retroclones as well.
There are so many ways that this book could be plugged into games as a horror setting or as a completely different take on fairy tales. The author gives the DM everything he needs to take this setting and use it as everything from tool kit to complete campaign. The book can be dipped into a bit at a time or taken as a whole and used completely. My advice is to take the PC's there for a short visit and let them kick the tires of the setting and then see where this book takes them.

There is enough conflict for several years worth of play at least here with plenty to deal with if not more.


I don't think that A Red and Pleasant Land is a perfect role playing book but I do think that its one of the best to come out for 2014. Its a good and solid hit for the Lamentations of The Flame Princess.
Do I think that you should buy this book? Yes and I'm going to purchase a physical copy as soon as possible. 

Obscene Serpent Religion From Neoplastic Press For Your Old School Campaigns

Obscene Serpent Religion

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Sweet mother of serpents, where does one begin upon this pdf of metastatic awesomeness dripping with the 

bile of a thousand serpents echoing from a forgotten age? Hmm Serpent Religion is everything & has everything a DM could want for an OSR campaign all compacted into thirty two pages of disturbing and slightly over the top options for a DM to basically construct a Serpent Religion of Lovecraftian horror from the ground up for any old or new school game system with the emphasis being D&D style systems and retroclones. 

Here all of the options are laid bare right from the get go. 

From Way Of The Circle - This is very foundation core of the Serpent religion well thought out but with a core of over the top metal weirdness and supernatural core belief right out the gate. 

Who Is The Goddess - Whose your serpent goddess at the core. 

Tenets of the Faith - These might be rumors or could be solid core beliefs its really up to the DM Here are rites and disturbing rituals of high weirdness for your NPC's or PC's should you want a really weird campaign. Not my bag but some folks might. 

Quests of the Hexagram - Raise your status in the cult, astound your friends, and put your serpent cult social standing higher. 

Assigned Missions bring even more grim and metal assignments to your NPC foes or dark deeds of renown for your PC's within your serpent based religion. 

Sacred Sites - Adventure locations based in part on your serpent cult's religion. All right there to get your party into deeply assigned random trouble right up to their necks. 

Bestowed Powers - The gifts of the serpent goddess visited upon NPC cult members or high level PC's right in the thick of the coils of the religion itself. Again all randomly chosen. 

NPC in Cities- Where are the movers and shakers of the serpent religion and how deeply does its corruption go in your campaign? This random chart will tell you. 

Encounters In the Wild- This chart will allow PC's to stumble upon the serpent's influences in the wilderness of your world. 

Sable Nectar - A mixture of blood and essence from those half serpent monsters. Don't tell the orthodox serpent religions. 

Scarlet Nectar - This is a potion made from the blood of purer serpents and its effects randomly determined. 

New Monster - Skin vessels - A new serpent religion AD&D style monster with deep campaign usefulness. Very much at the core of serpent religions where stealth verses combat is the norm.

Using Obscene Serpent Religion From Neoplastic Press For Your Old School Campaigns 


Obscene Serpent Religion is a great niche product for creating a whole patheon of foes and foils for your PC's and do it with style and high weirdness. The tables within the thirty two pages give enough background options to make anything from a down & dirty cult of serpent worshiper to a full assassins guild style cult of serpent themed terrorists for your old school waste lands.

From adventure location tables to rites and rituals this OSR product has all of the high points for adventure creation but it does have a very warped sense of humor about it. 

Alright tongue is placed very firmly in cheek with this particular product from the almost unreadable Metal based font of the opening title. Obscene serpent religion plays half heads and tales with the 80's Satanic panic vibe mixed in with a healthy dose of Robert Howard on a Popsicle stick style high weirdness. Yet it still retains a high standard of game utility. 

The artwork and themes are not work safe and have been chosen on purpose. You've been warned. 

This product does one thing and does it very,very well. It randomly generates a Serpent religion and one of an extremely unpleasant nature. Once that's done the religion can be placed in any Lovecraftian horror, science fiction or fantasy, sword and sorcery setting of the DM's choosing. The fact is that this is very cleverly done product that uses OSR random table conventions to create new and different incarnations of a serpent based religions. Everything is right at the DM's finger tips. This product could be used to create a very dark and dangerous PC serpent religion based campaign of obscene and dark evil. I personally wouldn't take this particular avenue but there it is. This campaign tool box of nastiness could be used with many new and old school gaming systems. The core tables can concisely and dangerously be added to any number of old school games. This is a fine product with its forked tongue planted firmly in its cheek with its artwork depicting serpent/human hybrids with slongs, tattas, and scenes of serpent god and religion depravity. The artwork adds in to the 'charm' and humor of the product. 

This isn't a product for everyone at all but a solid investment for a DM with over arching need in the old school traditions of horror and depravity that needs a solid set of serpent based religions for adventure and NPC construction. The added bonus here is that this product has so many versatile and solidly done bits and pieces that I can see using this for years and years to come.

The Free OSR Download The Second Edition Alchemist By Leonaru For Your Old School Campaigns.

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Second Edition Alchemist is a solid old school second edition style add on for the world's most popular fantasy game. Alchemists have always been the black sheep of the grand game but there have over the years been various attempts to create a fill in of essentially what has been in the past an NPC hireling class at worst and a blank spot of metaphysical esoteric background disguised as a class at best. In the past there have been several attempts to bring alchemists into the dungeon with varying degrees of success. 
This is an attempt to grab the alchemist and bring this unappreciated class into the OSR and allow him to be a playable option, on the whole this twenty five page pdf is done in the second edition style right down to the selection of font and layout.If your expecting long winded symbolic laden spells and rites look elsewhere. This is a straight up second edition AD&D take on the Alchemist class complete with a full selection of spells and what have you. There are complete backdrop and explanations for AD&D first and second edition style retroclone action here. And its well done as well as free. The choices of the author are bold and intuitive with the class making it an actual playable option for the dungeon. The alchemist has all of the usual racial AD&D style of choices and options laid out right in front of both player and DM with a wide range of tools brought into play.
The spells are interesting and engaging and there's enough here to play the class right out of the gate. There's not a whole lot of background which is fine, this allows the DM to fill in what he needs as needed for his campaigns.
This class is ideally suited for those middle period AD&D sword and sorcery style games where the talents of an Alchemist could prove invaluable. 
The playility of this pdf is going to really depend upon the imagination and intuition of the DM to adapt the material as its presented and then use or discard what is necessary. The author is no slouch when it comes to presenting a wide array of choices for the Alchemist to advance along the level axis as the class presents itself. 
The language of the rules, spell, setting (what there is of it) is simply straight forward and down to fully realized business. There's no fluff or BS here just a class that is clearly defined and well adjusted to bring a style of Alchemist into a second edition AD&D style campaign. All in all this a pretty nice attempt at bringing the Alchemist out of the Dark ages of AD&D and into the light of the OSR movement. Did I happen to mention that this pdf is free and you might want to download it ASAP to start rapidly getting into the groove of this great little addition to your DM's tool box today? 

Aegean Regional Map (Swords of Kos Fantasy Campaign Setting) From Skirmisher Publishing For Your Old School Sword and Sorcery Campaigns

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Maps are a very tricky little issue when it comes to rpgs, they set the tone of a campaign. Allow the players to reference the entire campaign and even in someways bring players into having a stake in campaign world by allowing the players to chart the course of their PC's across the face of the world. The Aegean Regional Map (Swords of Kos Fantasy Campaign Setting) From Skirmisher Publishing is a very central resource for the Kos setting. The setting of the Kos campaign and its attendant products has been growing for a long while now. 

If your into the old school Swords of Kos sword and sorcery setting then this map is really a no brainer. This map shows in great detail the world of the campaign and allows a DM to see as well as design their own adventures using the whole cloth of Kos as fodder. This is not our Earth but an alternative world with its own distinctive flavor drawn from the mythology and legends that the designers have come up with. 

Kos has plenty of room for a DM to customize and stake out who, what, where they wish to stake out in their own campaign. Everything is laid out in very nice detail within the cartography of Kos and shows all of the locals that the Kos line of products has produced. There's a nice distinctiveness with this map and its a really nice little piece of artistic fluff that allows a DM to pitch their own campaigns within the confines and use this map as both a campaign resource and as a palette to set down their own old world mythological adventures in one sold product. 

Maps such as this one can also serve a higher purpose as both a hand out and as reference to give credence to the DM's vision for his or her own campaign. There are several things that I really like about this map. One the colors are not exploding off of the page but reflect Kos's Agean grounding. Second thing is the level of detail is just enough to explain but not over state campaign bits and pieces. The third thing is that there's plenty of room for customization and just enough places to fit a plethora of adventures across the area. Not too bad of a piece of artwork that actually has real world gaming applications. 

According to the Drivethrurpg blurb: 

This map is bounded by the Black Sea in the north, mainland Asia in the east, the sprawling island of Crete in the south, and the Ionian sea in the west. It encompasses the area occupied in whole or in part by the modern countries of Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria, and Macedonia. States represented on the map, both with political boundaries and their national symbols, include the city and island of Kos, Abbadonia, the Tetrarchy of Anatolia, Attica and the city state of Athens, Çatalhöyük, the Kingdom of Lydia, Greater Peloponnese, the Grand Duchy of Porphyris, and the Republic of Rhodes.

I've always liked the cartography of acclaimed fantasy artist/cartographer Francesca Baerald. And this map looks like it came out of a Ray Harryhausen film. A piece of artwork set's the tone for an rpg campaign and this map looks like a piece that might be on an Aegean general's desk or within a sea captain's cabin with some old instruments around it. 

Thus a DM can use this map to print out smaller sections to bring his party right into the fray of adventure and detail what will be pivotal to the adventurers. Is it worth the price of admission? Perhaps but I might wait till Drivethrurpg has a sale. But I definitely would purchase this product because of its utility and usefulness in adventure creation and balancing of the Kos campaign setting. This is a really nice piece of artwork and cartography with myriad of uses across the board.  

Un Boxing And Review Of The Hanging Coffins Of The Vampire Queen By Mark Taormino

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So I finally received my physical copy of  'The Hanging Coffins Of  The Vampire Queen' , the OSR vampiric tour de force by Mark Taormino. This module is for any number of OSR retroclones and it really does a wonderful job of trying to plug into the the older edition or retroclone of your choice. 
Mark has a passion for D&D and AD&D, he's also a screen writer as well as a game designer out in California all of which comes through in The Hanging Coffins. The plot goes something like this : 
'Death or freedom? The Vampire Queen has challenged a small band of her worst prisoners to escape from her wicked dungeon lair. With all of your original weapons, magic items and possessions, it is up to you to outwit and fight your way through terrible traps, beastly monsters, and all the horrific surprises she has arranged for you'
Right off the bat this module has a wicked sense of humor about itself  but its still a nasty & deadly little read through for an AD&D style first edition module.
The writing is tight, the plot inventive, and play is wicked. Have a few PC's on standby for this one. Seriously, this adventure is very nasty but in a good way.
I have to say that I was very pleased to feel a stiff cardboard backing to the envelop right out of the gate. That's a good sign that the game company or hobby store that your dealing with knows what its doing. It helps to preserve the module or game product from the postman. Take note game companies for future shipments. 

 Good quality packing material makes all the difference as well. It basically means that the company or person cares enough to hand pack their stuff. This is one of the reasons why I prefer the smaller game companies to the mass market stuff out there. Also you don't get that 'Christmas morning' gift feeling unpacking a pdf.

 I'm greeted by the Vampire Queen herself whose sealing the adventurers doom with a kiss, a very nice little bonus to an already nice old school adventure package. The author is setting the tone of his adventure with the little details of artwork that make this a total package. The sense of humor is one that is here in spades, a darkly playful bit of fluff that goes a long way to making this a real winner of a module in my book.

 The next thing comes across in the physical book that is the module,this book is sealed up with a lovely comic book collector bag in addition to the cardboard wrap around. Yes, I'm making a big deal about this because I've recently gotten a book from 'Fleabay' and well we've all been there. In this economy good packing makes for happy gamers and DM's. The artwork screams 'Old School 'right out of the gate!

 The page count is a hefty one and the paper stock is good quality as well as the wrap around cover. Mark is using a nice printer as well. Good quality in a module means solid shelf life over the coming years which equals solid utility in the years to come. Loving the Jeff Dee cover art which pops even more in person and the back cover as well sells this one.

 The module sells you on the adventure just like those old first edition AD&D modules, it almost jumps into your hands and says, 'play me!' You can see where to take a feather from another old school writer's cap, the art sets the tone and stepping points for the book here. So far I'm loving everything I'm seeing.

 Overall my initial impressions are very favorable that this module was worth the time and energy for the Kickstarter.

The wraparound cover maps are very well done and I recognize the cartographic style of Alyssa Faden and a very clever back joke to the adventure map itself. Nice.

 That wrap around cover map is very well done and reminds me of some of the very early TSR products from back in the day.

 As we start dive into the background of the module with the introduction, it becomes clear that the Vampire Queen is a vile villain of epic scope that could take over the undead scene of the campaign that she's let loose in. That's not a bad thing but man is this adventure well done but please bring some extra PC's to the fold. The adventure says for levels ten through fourteen on the cover and their not kidding.

 As your reading through the Hanging Coffins keep that 'wrap around' cover handy for reference, this adventure's encounters move fast and remind me of some of the Goodman games adventures I've seen in the past. The writing here is playful, funny, and very deadly.

 A quick word on the spacing and fonts of the  Hanging Coffins, they're very easy to read and for older eyes that's really very important. A real plus in a world of old school rpgs that like to have very tiny little lettering. He scores points for that as well.

 Nice old school stat blocks that are quick for a solid way to reference at the table during play is a always a plus. The encounters here remind me of Hammer's 'Famous Vampire Killers' thrown into a blender with AD&D then set on Vampire Queen!

 Yeah bring a few extra adventurers to this one, the humor is high but not playground at all. The module is clever but doesn't talk down to its audience.The encounters here are going to take a bit of work through but the adventure is flexible enough to allow the DM to work this adventure into his pattern of Dming and campaign.

There are a few sidelines adventure bits, some really nice hooks, and a few dangling plot bits that the DM can exploit for their own campaigns but these are not barn doors that will effect play at all. Here's where the author's background as a screen play writer shows through. That's a good thing and makes this module read like a clever black horror comedy in some places and yet the adventure turns up the heat to some searing edges in other places. Its a hard and razor edge style of play to balance though but the author does it nicely. 

Several of the encounters are throw backs to the puzzle solving, investigation bits, and work throughs  of the older TSR Advanced D&D first edition adventures. With a bit of real skill and luck on the players part its survivable with some really good rolls of the dice. 

The treasures, loot, encounters, and meat of the module are a nice change of pace from some of the hum drum material that has been making its way to the marketplace lately. The Hanging Coffins Of The Vampire Queen is out just in time for Halloween and might make a fantastic October mini campaign. 

There are a lot of old school Kickstarters out there and that's fine but with Mark's efforts and further en devours only now starting to get off the ground, this was one adventure worth the wait to me. I'm very happy to have a physical copy of this adventure and it will have a proud place upon my shelf right along with my copy of OSRIC and my AD&D first edition books. 

If your fretting over the level of play here in the Hanging Coffins of The Vampire Queen there are a number of pre generated PC's for play. In reading through the module, I can actually see using these as fodder for the trepidations of the Queen herself or her myriad of forces that infest her dark and nasty lair. 

Note that the stat blocks of the Vampire Queen are easily convertible to your favorite OSR retroclone or even Pathfinder with a bit of work. The level of play here is well thought out and the balance is nice for the pregens. All in all I think that this is a really nice modern throwback to another age of gaming. 

Bottom line here is that I feel that the Hanging Coffins of the Vampire Queen is worth the time, energy, and your dollars.Grab a copy just in time for October, grab some friends, and sink your fangs into this wonderful old school retroclone module today!
Note: that this one isn't for the kids, this has several adult threads that run through the module. The humor is well done and very un PC in places just the way I like it! But its definitely not for the kiddies. Now that that's understood, this is only the first of several Kickstarters that Mark Taormino will be running.
'The Secret Machines Of The Star Spawn' is his current Kickstarter and you can find Chocolate Thunder and her friends right over HERE