Review & Commentary Shadowmercs -- A Shadowdark 1980's Action-Adventure Supplement For The Shadowdark rpg

 "You were in The War. Things went wrong.

You and your comrades were charged with a crime you didn’t commit.
Now, you and your Team are back in The World and on the run.
You and your Team make your way in life the only way you know how… you are Shadowmercs."

"You served in The War at home, in the Concrete Jungle, protecting those who could not protect themselves.
But there is a Bigger World out there. The junk that is ruining lives comes from Out There.
If you want to stop it, and make Your World a better place, you need to take the fight to Them.
You and your Team have only your guts, your guns, and your mighty martial arts¦ you are Shadowmercs."

Shadowmercs -- A Shadowdark 1980's Action-Adventure Supplement For The Shadowdark rpg is the latest offering from James Mishler, &  Jodi Moran-Mishler. Shadowmerc presents an alternative set of 1980's action & television rules. Yes these are cinematic Shadowdark rpg rules for running 80's action adventures for your players. 
The PC's in Shadowmercs are taken outta of these TV show inspired influences: 

 Shadowmercs uses modified rules for Armor Class, Hit Points, Unconsciousness, Dying, and Healing, appropriate for the Action-Hero genre;

Modern backgrounds for modern Action Heroes, with an expanded cinematic Luck Token system;

Six new classes:
The Armsman, master of gun-fu and blazing bullets;
The Brawler, master of martial arts and weapon-katas;
The Driver, master of any vehicle that moves on land, sea, or air;
The Faceman, master of manipulating people to get what they want;
The Operator, master of plans and leadership who makes a team's luck;
The Scout, master of bushcraft and survival and lots and lots of weapons!

So Shadowmercs provides about fifty seven pages of Shadowdark rpg action rules style rules & this includes a ton of modern fire arms, equipment, adventure tables, and more. All centered around a cinematic take on the Shadowdark simplified engine. 

The Shadowdark rpg of Shadowmercs looks like a great supplement. But it's not for me as a DM. 
This isn't a slight on the Shadowdark role playing game. Let me explain. I'm a Castles & Crusades rpg fanatic and enjoy that system and Shadowmercs could easily be grafted into C&C but it's already got a cinematic system in Amazing Adventures reforged. 
However, Shadowmercs fits a far more specialized niche with the A Team, James Bond, Superspy genre of Shadowdark rpg adventures. 

Shadowmercs plugs into the 99% of the Shadowdark Rpg to turn it on it's ear and get deeply into the superspy and Pulpy genre of the fiction and television to present an alternative set of rules that works. 

Review of 'The Shattered Isle: Rebels Against the Mutant Master' (Eternal Champion Series) By Steve Perrin, Sandy Petersen, & Charlie Krank For The classic Stormbringer Rpg & The Hawkmoon Box Set

 

Sometimes we don't understand the sigificance of an adventure until much later on in life, such is the fate of 'The Shattered Isle: Rebels Against the Mutant Master' By Kerie Campbell-Robson, Steve Perrin, and Sandy Petersen published in '87 by Chaosium.

The first half of the book is new rules, fixes for the classic Hawkmoon box set, new masked orders of the Granbretanian empire & a sprawling campaign. This is not a lower tier campaign adventure for either Hawkmoon or Stormbringer, the stakes are high, the adventure elements go from gritty to full on cosmic & the adventure campaign could be lethal.

 'The Shattered Isle: Rebels Against the Mutant Master' is a crossover adventure between the classic Chaosium Stormbringer rpg & Hawkmoon box set. 'The Shattered Isle: Rebels Against the Mutant Master' is the classic wizard messing around with a high level technological/occult relic to break the barriers of the planes. This isn't your run of the mill wizard instead this is the mutant master whose responsible for the entirety of the bio weapon system program of the Tragic Millennium Europe take over. Zhenader is a wizard scientist of the Granbretanian empire who controls the entire country of  Eire is Irish for "Ireland", the name of the island and   the sovereign state.  Zhenader  has gone completely rogue after finding a Fairy mound, other worldly artifact, & broken the planar barrier into the Million Spheres.

He is not someone to trifle with at all because he's also found the armory of Eire & a host of pre Tragic Millennium weapons, artifacts, & more
The weapons are a weird mix of Eighties military technologies & Granbretanian empire weapon systems. This makes sense but its still gives a very strange impression. And its this impression of the weird where 'The Shattered Isle: Rebels Against the Mutant Master' excels. 

We mentioned the word sprawling &  'The Shattered Isle: Rebels Against the Mutant Master'   has the PC's coming face to face with some of the more dangerous NPC's their going to be facing. We get warriors from across the 'Young Kingdoms' to the peoples of Corum these are all in the hands of  Zhenader. Things go from bad to worse for the PC's. But their is light at the end of the tunnel & its not a train. The party is going to have to do some very fancy foot work but its a good adventure. 'The Shattered Isle: Rebels Against the Mutant Master'  is just weird enough to be engaging but actually playable. This is a campaign that is going to take months to work through. The possibilities of dimensional travel are high & even beyond. We have used this campaign as a pick up adventure with Rogue Mistress in the past so this is a strong possibility as well. This is a campaign that can go from 3 months to about a year or better to mop up every aspect of the machinations of the top tier villain

With a bit of work on the dungeon master's part I actually think that this could be a really good module for an extended game of both classic Stormbringer & Hawkmoon. 

OSR Commentary on The Gunslinger Rpg Strange Science in The Arizona Territory

 "Gunslinger Roleplaying Game Core Rules

Welcome to the Weird and Wondrous Wild West!

Saddle up, partner, and prepare to embark on an unbridled journey through a science-fantasy adventure, inspired by the yarns of classic western lore and the pulp fiction sagas of the early 20th-century. Gunslinger, the thrilling roleplaying game, is here to send you on a white-knuckle escapade, galloping through the untamed frontiers of the Arizona territory in the era of the Wild West."

 Gunslinger rpg has been on my hard drive since 2023 by Thomas Denmark & it dives into the deep end of the Pulp Strange Science. How?! Because the hills of Arizona in Gunslinger are rife with tons of OSR tunnels and high weirdness! From aliens to American Indian giants hunting PC's, villages, towns, and more. 

So basically this is a Weird Western rpg with OSR leaning that goes heavy into the Old Western vibe. The character classes lean heavily into Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, and other Pulp writers  Old Western tales. And the PC's character classes reflect this: 

• Brave
• Doctor
• Engineer
• Gunslinger
• Huckster
• Muckraker
• Arizona Ranger
• Scout
• Cavalryman
• Greenhorn (0 Level)

These classes are perfectly suited to use with a 'weird west' style OSR adventure campaign. These are a solid juxtaposition to the Warriors of the Red Planet rpg   because mixing the two games gives a solid OSR campaign. This means that the action is located right in the Old West campaign setting. 
These adventure elements are straight outta of the ordinary and allow the DM to take an Old West campaign and inject the old school weirdness factor right in. The Gunslinger rpg have the monsters & horrors baked right in. 
So a DM can easily do  a 'The Valley of Gwangi' style OSR campaign where an isolated 'Lost World' adventure is filled to the brim with lots of old school Gygaxian style horrors. And this is the perfect place to put a Barsoomian or ancient Martian style dimensional gate. And here's where your Gunslinger rpg PC's could end up on Warriors of the Red Planet rpg Mars. 
So this expands the Night Owl Workshop style campaign range with even more adventure  possibilities. There are a ton of options that a DM can bring his or her players with this combination of games. 

Review & Commentary On The Hostile Situation Report #017 For The Hostile rpg

" HOSTILE Situation Reports - Free one-page NPCs or adventure situations for the gritty HOSTILE setting."

CONAM 17

"A waystation, off the traffic routes, with unused areas powered down, shuttered and off-limits. A skeleton crew keeping things running, and a manager who is agitated and desperate to leave. And she has a job for you .."

  If your looking for a good beginning and mid level encounter/adventure to kick off your Hostile rpg campaign this is a good one! The Hostile Situation Report #017 for the Hostile Rpg  combines the mission & deadly encounter out in the blackness of space. This bases is off the usual trade routes and the manager has an agenda of their own and the PC's are at the center of this. 
Hostile Situation Report #017 has everything that a DM needs to bring a touchstone or as a jump point for a Hostile rpg campaign; "ConAm 17 is a corporate waystation, out on the Frontier. Once a thriving hub for corporate and industrial traffic, new colonies have since opened up alternate trade routes. ConAm 17 is now a shadow of what it once was." This allows the situation of open corporate corruption for PC's to get involved. Or at least that's what it looks like from the outside.  Maya Donaldson runs the station, but is a manager at wits end.  
And here's where the PC's get involved & this Hostile Situation Report goes deeply into a full on investigation mode. The PC's are going to become fully familiar with Com AM 17 station. This is an awesome encounter that runs deeply into the Hostile rpg turf. 

The Hostile Situation Report #017  for the Hostile Rpg takes full advantage of the Hostile rpg rules from the ground up especially the setting campaign material and the Hostile rules. There's room for Hostile rpg DM to inject their own scares and terror within this adventure encounters.  And this is a solid adventure encounter that delivers the full on goods if used correctly. 

OSR Review & Commentary On Forest Adventures -- A Shadowdark Supplement By James Mishler, & Jodi Moran-Mishler For The Shadowdark Rpg or Castles & Crusades rpg campaign

 "The materials presented in this booklet are optional, providing a new ancestry, new class, new spells, and new patrons for players and new monsters, treasures, and a complete mini-campaign setting for the game master to challenge player characters.

This supplement is designed to expand options for any campaign setting or sub-region of a campaign setting that is based in a forested area.

Designed for use with Shadowdark, easily adaptable to any other classic style OSR Role-Playing Game.

Forest Adventures includes:

New Oozeling Ancestry
New Hermit Class
20 new Woodland Spells
Four new Patrons for Warlocks and Witches

15 new forest-themed monsters:
Brudnakula
Doe Maiden
Flitterswarm
False Satyr
Korrigan
Lamia
Lamia Princess
Leucrotta
Nix
Nixie
Plonakupa
Satyr
Schaedelbaum
Woodwyrm
Ywazent"

"10 new forest-themed treasures:
Horn of the Woodland
Nixie Ring
Potion of Ooze
Potion of Power
Rune-Carved Menhir
Saint's Cloak
Seed of the Outer Sphere
Stormcrown
Staff of the Woodlands
Woodwyrm Necklace

A Gazetteer of the15 new forest-themed monsters:
Brudnakula
Doe Maiden
Flitterswarm
False Satyr
Korrigan
Lamia
Lamia Princess
Leucrotta
Nix
Nixie
Plonakupa
Satyr
Schaedelbaum
Woodwyrm
Ywazent"

A Gazetteer of the Witchyflow Vale for James Mishler's Hawkmoor Campaign Setting, including:
Extensive Encounter Tables, with region guidelines and history;
25 Hex-based Encounters
d100 Specific Witchyflow Vale Encounter Table
Witchyflow 2 mile-per-hex GMs Hex Map
Witchyflow 2 mile-per-hex VTT Players Hex Map

Forest Adventures -- A Shadowdark Supplement By James Mishler, & Jodi Moran-Mishler is the latest offering for the Shadowdark Rpg. Now anytime I get a Shadowdark supplement from it's a red letter day. Because these supplements can easily be translated over to Troll Lord Games Castles & Crusades. Now woodland themed supplements are not as common as one thinks.
This one Forest Adventures offers a slightly off center OSR theme of forrested areas to populate with new PC options, spells, & new woodland patrons for Warlocks and such. And there's the Oozeling ancestry options that work on two levels as an NPC optional background or for PC's to add another dimension for play. 

The woodland patrons could easily be used for druids or the other spell casters in Castles and Crusades. The newest monsters within Forrest Adventures are woodland and Forrest 15 new forest-themed monsters:
Brudnakula
Doe Maiden
Flitterswarm
False Satyr
Korrigan
Lamia
Lamia Princess
Leucrotta
Nix
Nixie
Plonakupa
Satyr
Schaedelbaum
Woodwyrm
Ywazent"

These monsters are all designed around the woodlands and they work on several levels. Level one these creatures are perfectly balanced to add new OSR weirdness to your OSR adventures. There are already overlap for many of these OSR monsters within Castles & Crusades but it's easy enough to have variety or subspecies of creatures. 
The Hermit class could easily be a guide or NPC class that takes care of the adventurers from a distance guiding them through the wilderness that is inspired by old school adventures. 
Note that the spells also reflect this theme of the wilderness as antagonist towards the player's PC's as well. Something we also see in the treasures that echo nature and the wild aspect of the woodlands. The woods are dark and deep, this brings us to the Gazetteer of the Witchyflow Vale for James Mishler's Hawkmoor Campaign Setting,
The Witchyflow is an extensive wilderness adventure for the PC's to adventure in. You get encounter tables, ruins and more that can easily be added into your own old school or OSR campaigns. 
Is Forest Adventures any good?! In a word, yes it's very good at what it does and that's add more OSR goodness to your own games if they happened to be centered on the wilderness or not. The material covered here is optional but adds a complexity to your own campaign. 

OSR Review & Commentary Serious Sword & Sorcery Gaming With The Red Room's Savage Swords Rpg

 "In a world where strength is measured in blood spilled, only the toughest endure. Inspired by Robert E. Howard's tales of Conan, Savage Swords is no realm for the timid. Here, the bones of ancient civilizations jut from the earth like broken teeth, their cyclopean ruins hiding treasures and terrors older than man. The known lands stretch from the jagged cliffs of Albiyu, lashed by relentless storms, to the sun-bleached wastes of Alkebula, ruled by merciless tyrants. Ruined empires rot beside ambitious warlords, and older, darker things stir in the shadows. In Savage Swords you can take up the role of a battle-scarred warrior, a sly rogue, a spell-weaver, or a priest of the old gods, scraping by in a place that spares no one. Tangle with schemers, confront nightmares from forgotten ages, and weigh decisions that leave lasting scars on you, or the world. Triumph is never cheap, and power slips through the fingers of the careless."

Savage Swords by The Red Room is a straight up Sword & Sorcery rpg based on the Red rpg system. This means there's no levels and very little in the way of PC speed blocks. This means that there's lots of room for PC customization & expression. 

Savage Swords is straight up OSR Sword & Sorcery rpg that clocks in at six hundred and twenty two pages. Why?! Because this is a completely self contained OSR rpg from the ground up. This means that right away you as a DM can get a campaign going straight outta of the gate. There's more monsters, circumstances, factions, etc. all included in the pdf. There's plenty of opportunity to get a Sword & Sorcery adventure campaign right off the ground. 
The first half of the pdf is the rules for character generational material & all of the attendants optional rules. All of this is centered around OSR Sword & Sorcery adventuring for your players. 
The second half of the rules is peppered with monsters, antagonists, forbidden magicks and more all Sword & Sorcery concentric material.  Savage Swords is built around the Red rpg systems. You don't need the Red Rpg system instead it's baked right into Savage Swords as foundation rpg. 

Why is this important because of the fact that the entire Savage Swords rpg is centered around running full on Sword & Sorcery adventure campaigns. Savage Swords  is  simply rpg Pulpy violence and horror adventure for your players. This means that Savage Swords rpg pulls hard from the Appendix source of writers like Robert E. Howard, HP Lovecraft, Clark Aston Smith, and many, more. 
Savage Swords supports the old style of OSR gaming by tapping into these Pulp sources bringing those sources into it's gaming. This is why I think that Savage Swords is an excellent rpg! 

Warriors of The Red Planet & Clark Aston Smith's The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis (1931) - For An Old Mars Campaign

'There were eight of us, professional archaeologists with more or less terrene and interplanetary experience, who set forth with native guides from Ignarh, the commercial metropolis of Mars, to inspect that ancient, aeon-deserted city. Allan Octave, our official leader, held his primacy by virtue of knowing more about Martian archaeology than any other Terrestrial on the planet; and others of the party, such as William Harper and Jonas Halgren, had been associated with him in many of his previous researches. I, Rodney Severn, was more of a newcomer, having spent but a few months on Mars; and the greater part of my own ultra-terrene delvings had been confined to Venus.'

'I had often heard of Yoh-Vombis, in a vague and legendary sort of manner, and never at first hand. Even the ubiquitous Octave had never seen it. Builded by an extinct people whose history has been lost in the latter, decadent eras of the planet, it remains a dim and fascinating riddle whose solution has never been approached . . . and which, I trust, may endure forevermore unsolved by man. Certainly I hope that no one will ever follow in our steps . . . .'

• Clark Aston Smith's Vaults of Yoh-Vombis, The (1931)

 There's something right outta of the gate of the Clark Aston Smith's Vaults of Yoh-Vombis, The (1931)that reeks of the alieness of Mars. A certain morbidness  air that hangs right in the opening paragraphs. These are a crew of adventurers under the guise of archaeologists who are plumbing the depths of a Mars that humanity barely understands.  This is an old and very dangerous world hoary with age, horror, and alien Lovecraftian gods dwelling in its underworld.

This Mars belongs to the first cycle of the planet when it was dominated by plant based life, gods, and even horrors. This is related in the 1933 story by Clark Aston Smith in which  these stories are set on the same Mars - that of the Aihais and their predecessors the Yorhis. These two peoples belong to the next cycle when Mars crests into the Barsoomian cycle. This makes it easy to move this campaign into a Warriors of the Red Planet rpg campaign. 

But the alien plant cycle won't be denied because the Aihais and their predecessors the Yorhis are hoarders of ancient forbidden secrets sequestered away in lost valleys of a grim and highly dangerous Mars. For Warriors of the Red Planet campaign 'This is a world where mankind has made his mark & then stumbled into the fires of his own nuclear fall from grace. There are space ports here and there, a few human city states but the Martian races have re emerged on Mars from hidden valleys & scattered colonies across the face of Mars. There are ancient Lovecraftian horrors & gods that rule as they have for billions of years scattered in certain countries across the face of this world. This is world where the sword is king & you need to keep your radium side arm handy. Mutants, ancient evils, and worse await you in the red night.' The Blackgate blog covers this with The Fantasy Cycles of Clark Aston Smith Part IV with the following; "  The current inhabitants of Smith's Mars call themselves Aihais and have barrel chests, multi-articulated arms, high flaring ears, and pit-like nostrils. The best remembered of the dead civilizations, the Yorhi, have physical similarities to the Aihai but left behind sinister ruins and legends of their passing." 

Humans are only now starting to unearth and explore these forbidden ruins. And for the sake of the human race we'd better hope they don't uncover the wrong dungeon. 

Clark Aston Smith's Mars in his Martian cycle is a dark and forbidding place where the human race is trespassing on a world that humanity barely understands at all. Could Barsoom fit into this?! Why not we've got planet men who are highly dangerous and one of the last things that some poor 2000 year old Red Martian is likely too see. 

OSR Commentary On Stormbringer's Rpg Chaos Lord - Arioch Blood and Souls For The Lord of the Seven Darks

 "Arioch is one of the most powerful of the Dukes of Hell. He has many titles and nicknames including Knight of the Swords, Lord of the Higher Hell, and  Lord of the Seven Darks."

We deal with Arioch several times and none of them for good during our Stormbringer rpg campaign. The first time was when we recovered a magic sword from a Melnibonean tomb & the Chaos god appeared to chastise  our party. According to the wiki entry on the Biblical name of Arioch;"Arioch was a name for a fictional demon, and also appears as the name of a demon in many grimoires. Arioch is also named in John Milton's Paradise Lost (vi. 371.) as one of the fallen angels under Satan's command." We were able to get away from the Chaos lord by paying tribute to him with the sacrifice of one of the tomb's guards. The second time we paid the price when we were dealing with a sorcerer from Pan Tangian in charge of a group of pirates. This time Arioch took one of our party as a compensation. 

 Arioch has many aspects that made us suspect that he might actually be Beelzebub Lord of the Flies, according to the Beelzebub wiki entry; "Beelzebub is commonly described as placed high in Hell's hierarchy. According to the stories of the 16th-century occultist Johann Weyer, Beelzebub led a successful revolt against the Devil,^[26]  is the chief lieutenant of  Lucifer, the Emperor of Hell, and presides over the Order of the Fly." 

The third encounter with Arioch was in a point of Limbo when we crossed over into the 14th century in a quest to find an artifact of Law. We crossed into Limbo to get to the temple of the Fallen. There we came into conflict with Count Jagged of Caledonia. According to the Michael Moorcock multiverse wiki; "Lord Jagged of Canaria is a Denizen of the End of Time. He is a friend to Jherek Carnelian and engineered Jherek's falling in love with Mrs. Amelia Underwood. Jagged is described as being almost white in his paleness, with near colourless eyes and hair and extravagent costumes usually featuring a high, padded collar. He once took the form of Arioch, and it has been hinted that they are one and the same." They were one and the same when Jagged turned into Arioch and our party almost died. 
The thing that saved our bacon was the fact that a Saint of Law came into conflict with Arioch. We fled in the meantime. And crossed into Limbo once again to get back to the Young Kingdoms. 

We were able to get the artifact to our patron who then gave us a singularity engine to get our planar ship back into the Million Spheres. 
Our own issue with the Young Kingdom was the growing influence of Chaos and the Pan Tangians. We found that Arioch was able to manifest without being called in the Young Kingdoms! We fled after leaving him to a temple of Law's refugees.  The Million Spheres awaited us and we left the Young Kingdoms behind. Just as the Young Kingdoms submitted to Chaos itself.