Zothique kickstarter

I’ve long been a great fan of Clark Ashton Smith’s fiction, especially his fantasy stories set in Hyperborea, Averoigne, and Zothique. Indeed, on balance I would rank his work to be at least as innovative and compelling as that of his “pulp” peers, H. P. Lovecraft and R. E. Howard. Unfortunately, despite his influence on a few later authors – most notably, Jack Vance – CAS’s writings are not especially well-known.

So I naturally was intrigued when I learned about a kickstarter to produce an illustrated omnibus of CAS’s Zothique stories, as well as role-playing adaptations of the setting. The latter consist of: The Zothique RPG Campaign Guide (the gazetteer and rules for the setting), The Denizens of the Dying Sun (essentially a “monster manual” for Zothique), and Litanies of the Dead: A Trilogy of Doomed Adventures (three adventures).  

Unfortunately, the role-playing systems in question are 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons, Dungeon Crawl Classics, and Shadowdark. I’m not really interested in any of these systems. The possible exception is Shadowdark, which I think is fine but nothing special. (I’m a little puzzled by its current popularity, to be honest. I have nothing against it, but for this kind of “rules-lite-ish, deadly, low magic” game, I regard Dragonbane to be a superior alternative. Nonetheless, unlike 5e D&D, I would be happy to try out Shadowdark some time. But enough of this tangent…)

I plan to get the omnibus. CAS’s short stories are available for free online (at Eldritch Dark). But it would be nice to have them all collected into a sturdy, attractive physical tome. I’m going to skip the RPG adaptations, but perhaps others might find them of interest. 

[Map by G. R. Hager. From Eldritch Dark.]

OSR miscellaneous items: Swords and Wizardry revised and Shadow Dark

For your OSR consideration:

 

 

I'll be backing this, even though I already have multiple copies of Swords and Wizardry (albeit most in storage due to restricted shelf space –- although the recent box set is sitting near two copies of Crypts and Things in my bedroom).

S&W got me into the ‘Old School Renaissance’ in a big way about 15 years ago. Indeed, this blog started as a repository for house rules and campaign notes for S&W (many of which eventually became incorporated into the S&W-based Crypts & Things).

I’m looking forward to checking out the revised version (with the new Erol Otus cover). And even if I weren't, I’d support the new version out of gratitude to Mythmere Games.

 

Also possibly of interest to gamers whose tastes tend towards the ‘old school’ side of things: the Shadow Dark role-playing game. The ‘quick start’ rules are free, and after a leisurely skim through them, I have to say that I’m favourably impressed overall. I like the game’s art and clean layout, as well as its motivating philosophy (especially its focus on keeping the game ‘moving’ at a brisk pace).

 

I thought that Shadow Dark might be trying to do (more or less) what Into the Unknown does: namely, provide a game that is fully compatible with 5e D&D (i.e., 5e-derived) but with some streamlined rules and an overall ‘old school’ ethos. But it looks like it’s something else: Shadow Dark is more of a (1980 era) Basic/Expert D&D inspired game (but with class and race separated) with a few mechanics inspired by 5e (e.g., 5e’s ‘advantage/disadvantage’ system, which I’m quite fond of) and other novel twists (e.g., a ‘real time’ torch rule). While I’m not sure I’d ever run it myself (although I certainly would not rule it out!), I think I'll be getting it any case. The random tables look cool and readily usable with other systems (S&W, ItU, etc.). 

 

(As an aside, I’m simply amazed that the Shadow Dark kickstarter already has raised over 800K USD [1.1 million CAD]! How is that possible?)