I Love My Brick!

“I love my brick” – which is my copy of DCC and its pile of adventurers.

I have plans to run it at some point, a short adventure and a mini-campaign setting

One of those games that whenever I’m a bit down, I get it out and it cheers me up 🙂

Reassuringly and Robustly Old School for the Win 😀

Under Dark Spires, the Obsidian Pyramid

I’m currently working on the last scenario of the Under Dark Spires adventure collection for Crypts and Things. It’s deliberately a crypt-based adventure (with things) that ties in several plot lines and themes into what should be an epic ending for the character’s adventures in the Dark Spires.

Here’s a peek from the Player’s Introduction.

The Obsidian Pyramid lies in the heart of the Bone Fields and can be seen for miles. Close up, the locals claim, it gives out an eerie hum that drives animals crazy. Treasure hunters periodically turn up in Fort Boneguard and declare their intent to make their fortune by robbing the crypt, which obviously holds the lost treasure of the Hu-Pi kings, who it is said built the pyramid. They party and drunkenly loaf about town. Bragging about how rich they are going to be. When they find out no one will give them a line of credit to extend their bar tab, they leave town in a sulk in the direction of the pyramid, never to be seen again.

All this gives the pyramid a fearsome reputation and a sense of unease that it’s only a half-day’s ride away from the Fort.

On a personal note its reignited my passion for writing the special blend of weird fantasy and horror that Crypts and Things brings out in me, which I don’t always find comfortable. The Obsidian Pyramid lives up to its name and is a dark place, filled with horrors unleashed by dark pacts in antiquity and maintained by insane cultists who worship the crypt’s blood-stained past. It’s a good place for even the most reluctant hero to make their stand against a madness that threatens to push the already dying world over the edge into screaming oblivion.

Under Dark Spires is Coming

This is my much delayed, 90% written, mostly illustrated (by Dan Barker, no less), adventure/setting book for Crypts and Things. I’m in the “get this damn thing done” phase of things.

This update over on the Crypts and Things Remastered Kickstarter gives the overall state ot play.

This month, I’ve taken a bit of a step back to get a climactic adventure into the line-up.

These monthly updates will continue until the book, a collection of five adventures and setting information, is finished and out the door. I’ll also post more about the book’s content as I get close to release here. So if you are looking for a mini-campaign for C&T and other OSR games, this is your book!

Here’s Dan Barker’s cover.

Beyond Dread Portals, the End (for now)

From the Beyond Dread Portals Kickstarter

It is with great regret that I’m cancelling the Beyond Dread Portals Kickstarter.

Since launch, its become clear to me that the campaign will not fund.

So I’m gracefully ending this current campaign at this point.

Your support has been overwhelming, as has the commitment of the production crew.

So I will regroup, replan and relaunch in the Autumn or early next year with a lower goal so the campaign funds quickly and attracts the attention that Dr Mitch’s game deserves.

When I relaunch the campaign, you’ll be notified via Kickstarter email, but also keep an eye out via my social media outlets (Facebook/Twitter and Discord channel, the link to which is on d101games.com).

Thank you for backing this campaign.

We shall be back.

Labyrinth Lord 2nd Edition

In my mind, Labyrinth Lord was one of the first wave of OSR games in the late 2000s/early 2010s, along with OSRIC (AD&D), Swords and Wizardry (OD&D) and Basic Fantasy (early D&D using D20).  It was the first retro-clone, a faithful replication within legal limits of the Basic/Expert style of D&D from the 80s, that I ran, all the way back at Furance 2010 twelve years ago! So it was my reintroduction to playing the World’s Favourite Fantasy Game back in the early 2010s. Its licensing model greatly inspired me to get off my arse and start writing stuff for publication.

While I’ve not run it since that brief glorious game at Furnace or engaged with it much in recent years, I took a hard pass when they did a very reasonable Kickstarter for a revised edition, I was slightly worried when the Goblinoid Games website went dark a couple of months ago. I get it all the B/X kids are going crazy about Old School Essentials, and its clean, clear presentation with lashings of old-school style art, but man this is our old friend LL.

Turns out that I need not have worried. Creator/author Dan Proctor has taken some time out to reflect and regroup and a proper 2nd edition of Labyrinth Lord is coming out next year.

Labyrinth Lord powering the fun

Labyrinth Lord powering the fun

Final day of funding for From the Shroud Issue 3

At the time of writing, we are about to enter the last day of funding of the From the Shroud #3 which is a Crypts and Things/OSR zine, as part of Kickstarter ZineQuest 4.  The zine is now fully maxed out content-wise as a 64-page full-colour zine. It will have sixteen tales of cosmic horror, each featuring a different alien Other World, the demonic Others that live there and adventure ideas.

The campaign also funded a second twenty-three-page zine, Mancuria an fantasy version of my home-city Manchester, an OSR sandbox setting that every backer will get a copy of.