Commentary The Free OSR Monster Sourcebook - Creatures from Unknown Lands By Nicolas Dessaux For Your Old School Campaigns

I've been poking around some of my old haunts and looking for some reasonably interesting and useful resources for an upcoming OSR adventure that I'm designing. So today I was looking for some old school monsters and creatures. Then I remembered seeing a copy of Creatures From Unknown Lands by Nicolas Dessaux  for Labyrinth Lord from back in 2009. Basically this is an OSR creature and monster book with lots of the horrors already worked out for the DM.

GRAB IT RIGHT HERE
Scroll down past the LL PC Sheets and Click The Picture To Download

But is it worth the download? Well in a word yes! This is a perfect little free download for stocking the wilderness or the dungeon with something a little left of center and off beat. There are some very traditional horrors here but there are also some weird and off beat monsters that might surprise the most jaded palettes. About ninety percent of these horrors can easily be ported over into Mutant Future or the Advanced D&D style of OSR retroclones as well. According to the introduction; It includes some classic and giant animals,
dinosaurs, undead, constructs, weird horrors, various humanoid races, from low to very high
level. You will probably found some which fits well your campaign, as well as your own publications – provided you respect the terms of the license published on last pages."

I'm raiding this particular piece of OSR monster resource for Ice Age and sword & sorcery monsters for an upcoming Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea adventure. Many of the beasts in this pdf fit the bill and since its free it fits my current gaming budget quite nicely. Many of the monsters fit into the classic Ice Age era of  mammals and monsters which suits me just fine. Many of these classic redos and reskins of monsters makes this a good choice for a Lamentations of the Flame Princess no holds barred horror fest or as adventure fodder. The mood and material suits this style of play just fine.



The redress of many of the classic D&D monsters fits the mood and choices for sword and sorcery or post apocalyptic old school adventuring quite nicely. The design here is tight and the choices varied so a DM will be able to get the maximum of use out of these old school beasties quite nicely. For using these in a wasteland setting you may have to add in a mutation or two to give the monsters a chance against your post apocalytic warriors and mutants. All in all I think that Creatures From Unknown Lands is a very welcome addition to an OSR dungeon master's tool kit.