Apart from a bit of tweaking, my Oldhammer RPG hasn’t had much time dedicated to it since its initial run out at Grogmeet earlier this year (!)
So when the call for games for Grogmeet 2026 in January was issued without thinking, I hammered out the pitch to the sequel to Ziggurat of Gloom, Beneath the Ziggurat of Gloom!
“You’re only meant to blow the bloody doors off!” Head Brewer Danblain Goldtooth to Sorcerer’s Apprentice Harry Copper.
In the aftermath of the Regiment’s battle against the Goblin Horde at the Ziggurat of Gloom, the Dwarf Brewmaster of the Beddington Brewing Company reveals the real reason behind their expedition from Dwarfchester over the Painine Hills to this ancient site. It’s not to deliver the beer barrels they have been guarding to Harry Copper as the student representative of Uddersfield College of Magic. No, the barrels aren’t filled with booze, but with the finest Dwarfchester Black Powder. Harry Copper isn’t here to collect them for an end of term knees up, but as a dedicated anarchist, he intends to use his skills to blow them up and gain access to the underhalls beneath the Ziggurat. Your Regiment, renowned for exploring the Underworld, has actually been hired to uncover the mysteries that lie beneath.
“Could it be Chaos? A swarm of Ratlings? You’ll have to wait and see! Hope its Orc’s, it’s Orcs, We all hope its Orc’s..” Impromptu battlefield singalong by Beddington’s All Dwarf Choir, upon hearing that the underhalls are to be explored.
Grim and Dangerous is a reimagined roleplaying game inspired by the early editions of Warhammer, also known as Oldhammer. It features a simple roll-under D20 mechanic, with characters having career focuses and special abilities that distinguish them from one another. This adventure draws heavily on the White Box of Warhammer, Warhammer 1st Edition. Please note that this game is currently in development at the playtest stage.
While Dan Barker is working on the cover for the current set of rules, he’s created a logo and a flyer of sorts (inspired by a very famous WWI British recruitment poster).
I ran my adventure, The Shrine of Chaos, using the D101 Hack, at Virtual Grogmeetish a couple of weekends ago.
The D101 Hack, in a nutshell, is a rules-light D20 class/level game that I’m developing inspired by the Black Hack/Dungeon World and other common sense rulings I’ve come across over the last decade or so. The version I was using for this game is called Fighting Old School Fantasy, inspired by 80s British D&D and Fighting Fantasy (aka BOSR), and features the familiar Test your Luck mechanic from Fighting Fantasy for Saving Throws, hence the name.
“Many years ago, the Shrine of Kollchap flourished. Priests of Chaos made human sacrifices, and their servitors raided the lands around for new victims to satisfy the thirst of the Chaotic god. The villagers were, at first, too terrified to do anything, but at length collected a small army and appealed to the King for aid. He sent only his champion, Amaul, bearing the Sword of the Sorcerer. Together, they marched to Kollchap and drove out the priests and their allies. Amaul, however, was killed in the assault, and the sword has never been seen again. Just recently, the Priests of Chaos have begun to reoccupy Kollchap, and some villagers have been abducted. If the Sword of the Sorcerer were to be recovered, the shrine could once again be cleared out and, this time, finally destroyed.
From “”What is Dungeons and Dragons?”” the original British D&D for Dummies published by Puffin in 1982! I’ll be using the D101 Hack, my own take on rules-light OSR DnD with modern rulings (inspired by the Black Hack).” OSR, D20, Grimdark
The four player characters were the Fighter, Thief, Magician, and Templar (= cleric). On the day, I couldn’t find the book, so I improvised the adventure, and the Shrine of Chaos was born. Also, somewhere along my ramblings, the Forest of Gloom, which riffs heavily on the old Fighting Fantasy book the Forest of Doom, got thrown into the mix.
The adventure started in Little Town (a town barely out of village size, full of little people, Halflings, Dwarfs, etc ) that forces of chaos had recently attacked. The PCs had beaten off an attack by Orcs and Goblins, earning them two Achievements in the process, allowing them to level up and gain perks. I wanted to present 2nd level characters, because as a con game I thought it would be more interesting. There were strong indications that chaos was regrouping beyond the Forest of Gloom, at the legendary Shrine of Chaos. So a concerned Mayor had a chat with the characters in the local Tavern and hired them to go to the Shrine to see if this was true. There was also the matter of the lost Sword of the Sorcerer of the hero, Amaul, lost there in a previous assault on the Shrine.
Our little adventuring party then passed through The Forest of Gloom, intending to talk to the local Wizard in residence, Garrick Greenback (aka Old Greeny). They easily made it to the centre of the wood where the Wizard’s Tower stood proudly in a clearing. Still, Old Greeny was not willing to tell them where the Shrine was unless they sorted out a band of Goblins who were trying to capture the giant Gloom Wolves, who den in the wood, for use as mounts. The Goblins were dealt with through a combination of negotiation and intimidation, and finally by trapping them in the clearing with the wolves they were trying to capture. The party left to the sounds of the mama wolves and pups having lunch. Returning to Old Greeny, he was more than happy to tell them the location of the Shrine, because they had got rid of the goblins, without indiscriminately killing the wolves.
Beyond the forest, in a blasted fen, lay the ruins of the Shrine of Chaos. A group of Hobgoblin soldiers out camped on the ruined temple, where the trapdoor entrance to the actual underground shrine was, had their leaders picked off by the Thief (we decided to make Backstab into Stealth Attack, so roll to hit with advantage and double damage did the job) and quickly routed into the night. Descending into the underground, the characters encountered a group of Zombies, which the Templar quickly turned, sending them running into the next room. Where a group of chaos cultists, dancing naked around a fire pit, were it appeared they were summoning up a chaos horror beyond a door that no man was meant to open. Turns out the Chaos Cultists were misguided Talls, the only human family from Little Town, trying to appease Chaos by venerating it. So the characters (and Zombies) quickly persuaded them to flee the scene. The Zombies shambled off into a dark archway and beyond, just in time for the sealed door to crack open, revealing the Shrine’s Champion of Chaos…an undead Amaul, resurrected by the chaos powers of the shrine, wielding the Sword of the Sorcerer! Another successful Turn Undead (despite it being a difficult one, which saw the player roll successfully below half WIS on a D20) and Amaul is fleeing before the Templar’s boldly presented Symbol of Righteousness. More “Stealth Attacks”, this time with a sword, from the Thief, and the fighter finally getting in the act, and being exceptionally lucky and rolling a critical, doing maximum damage, and Amaul didn’t stand a chance!
The characters triumphantly returned to Little Town, where they were hailed as heroes and rewarded financially. They donated the Sword of the Sorcerer to the rather neglected local Church of Law to stave off any future attacks emanating from the Shrine of Chaos.
So the game was a triumphant success!
But is this D&D? Well, not the D&D that we played when I was in my teens in the 1980s. But that may be that with players being able to make rolls against any of their character’s abilities with advantage (roll twice, pick the best result) as dictated by their character class and perks (special abilities earned as they gain levels), means that suddenly there are more options than just fighting creatures. Also, we were all thoughtful, middle-aged folk, rather than bloodthirsty teenage boys! So, after much soul-searching, I’m okay with that because we all had a ton of fun playing the game.
With the prototype being such a success on iI’m going to be developing the D101 Hack to be the D20 class/level based game that I want to run going forward, that will power not only Fighting Old School Fantasy, which will give the example classes for any Creative Commons SRD that I produce, but a couple of other short D20 games I have in my head, currently bursting to get out.
Here’s a picture of the game and its players (many thanks) , which was held over Role VTT.
This is a game of Beyond Dread Portals I’m bringing as a convention game to Grogmeet in November, and possibly as a short series of online games. Its also highly likely to be offered as a stretch goal for the upcoming Kickstarter.
Here’s the pitch…
Come, oh Adventurer, to the Edge of the Empire of Ys!
The Lion Keep is a magnificent border fortress made of yellow brick. It was transported through a giant magic portal from the world of Samara. It now stands in the never-ending cave system that is the world of Erebus. It has some of the staff and traders from its days sitting in the sunlit grasslands of the Lion Empire. The Ysian Guilds also have representatives with offices within the walls.
Officially, the Imperial occupation of Erebus has ended. The colonists are either dead or gone home, and the Keep is the last Imperial outpost on Erebus. But there are regular expeditions into the nearby Caves of Mayhem, sponsored by patrons from the Guilds or the Five Noble Houses.
Good job you are all seasoned members of the League of Explorers. Treasure and glory will be yours. Perhaps you’ll even track down and kill the fabled giant three-headed monster known as the Grognard!
Revisit an old-school classic reimagined through the baroque fantasy lens of Beyond Dread Portals. Take part in the intrigue and power plays of the factions of the fort stuck between unimaginable riches and horrible damnation contained in the nearby Caves of Mayhem. Adventure as third-level characters, using the streamlined and sensible D20 fantasy system created by Paul Mitchener (Liminal, Out of Ashes, Age of Arthur).
As well as articles for OpenQuest and Crypts and Things, it also has a sequel to the Road to Hell in the form of Wigan Pigs an adventure for OSR games. Also making their debut in Grogzilla are the Six Traveller culture for Mythras, which is a short taste of things to come in the new year.
