La ePtite Mort OSR Mail Call & More OSR Commentary

So today I've been on the road & tomorrow I'm going to be on the road again with work. But I was able to sneak in some time for my personal OSR mail call. So I've been waiting for an inexpensive hardback of The Lion & Dragon Rpg from lulu. 
I like what I see from just the slight read through because I'm a Dark Albion & Dark Albion Cults of Chaos cheerleader.  I've used both books as settings for OSR games since they hit the market place & its one of the reasons why I instantly gravitated towards Lion & Dragon as an OSR system.

The system is described by the rpg blurbs as thus; "Lion & Dragon is a Medieval Authentic OSR game. With L&D, the rules of the original tabletop RPG have been adapted to create a more historically authentic medieval experience, to reflect the grittier and yet more mythic world of a magical medieval Europe." Which is both its boon & its bane. So is the hardback worth the price of admission, in a word yes. Basically this Dark Albion's Europe uncoupled from the world of Albion.
Sure I've seen some great reviews & done a ton of research but there are some excellent reviews out there already.Like this one below, but I really don't see anyone talking about what about if you already own Dark Albion & Cults of Chaos? Can Lion & Dragon enhance your experiences with those game settings?

In a word yes, because Lion & Dragon is basically an uncoupled Dark Europe from the Albion setting! There are a lot of similar aspects such as the social class system having a deep impact on the PC generation. Lots of changes to the magick system and less focus on the Vancian D&D business. There also the lovely bits & pieces of Chaos such as it appears in Albion. BTW you can easily use DA & Cults of Chaos with Lion & Dragon. We also get more monsters such as the Elven Mummy & chaos mutated giants!



Yes the frogmen are still there along with fishmen that I wasn't expecting, those Lovecraft bits I spoke about in other blog entries seem now entire possible. The system is similar to Fantastic Heroes & Witchery but again this has its own spin on things. I'll go into a bit more detail later on that. But the Lion & Dragon system can easily be ported over to almost any OSR centered retroclone.
The layout is easy on the eyes & the artwork is very appropriate to the product. There's an expanded alchemy section, magic item section, & lots of Dark European weirdness bits throughout. Dominique Crouzet is up to his usual standards here.



There has to be an OSR balance between classic D&D or AD&D & the Lion & Dragon system. What I'm I talking about?! Well, there are certain expectations in classic Dungeons & Dragons players. Adapting classic modules such as T1 Temple of Elemental Evil can easily be done with Lion & Dragon rather then a specific world  setting book such as Dark Albion. Lion & Dragon keeps the classic bits & pieces of the Dark Albion system without the world specific baggage. Don't take this the wrong way. The Dungeon Master is the one going to be carrying the burden for world & adventure creation because they can use real world history to flesh out details, historical events, & finally an old school adventure campaign. This is a very rules light weight game with a deceptively simple appearing concept. The execution of this OSR system is anything but simple. DM's are going to have to put on their thinking caps & work a bit to live up to the high quality resources that Lion & Dragon provides.


For the Dark Albion DM, Lion & Dragon prove a solid system expansion possibly into a whole cloth  other world building aspect of a possible mirror verse or other realm!  The L&D dungeon master can dip into both Dark Albion & Cults of Chaos for an expansion of Dark Europe whist not even waiting for more material from the author. But there's also a whole slew of support material on the market for the game in the form of the

RPGPundit Presents # series of titles from Precis Intermedia.

One of the latest is a perfect introductory adventure encounter for Lion & Dragon called , Issue 14 (Jan 9, 2018): The Secret Order of the Red Lady

Band new cult appears and all is not as it seems, this is an excellent opportunity to test the PC's mettle and have the players ramp up their OSR gaming skills. The quality of the Lion & Dragon Lulu hardback is excellent! I'm really going to be using this with my OSR campaigns.