It All Begins In A Pirate Town - 'Sea Kings of The Of the Purple Towns' by Fred Behrendt For Both The Stormbringer rpg & Your Old School Or OSR Campaigns

 "Between the Oldest Ocean and the Eastern Ocean lies the Isle of Purple Towns, the center of commerce and trade in the Young Kingdoms."

"Sailing into port, visitors are impressed with the magnificent buildings, the splendid markets, and friendly people. Few see the undercurrents, the dirty deals, and the politics which threaten to rip apart the apparent serenity of the island.

The Isle of Purple Towns is a haven for adventurers, a safe port to count money and plan future deeds of daring. It lies literally in the middle of the world, and ships sail from Purple Towns ports to every other nation."

If there's one or more essential books for the Stormbringer rpg or even running a Stormbringer rpg style game then its for us at least its gotta be 'Sea Kings of The Of the Purple Towns' by Fred Behrendt. Not a really well known book today which is too bad. This series of loosely interconnected adventures has everything going for it. This situation with the adventures, they make an excellent starting point for a Stormbringer or OSR campaign.

'Sea Kings of The Of the Purple Towns' by Fred Behrendt presents a two part campaign setting & adventure package.The first half of the island is very well detailed within this 125-page sourcebook. The people,history, background, notable NPC's, etc are all gone over in this book in detail. The island & its environs were once the home of the Melnibonean navy & the piratical sea kings have carved out their own niche as responsible merchants who worship the forces of Law. The adventures within 'Sea Kings of The Of the Purple Towns'  can be played individually or as a linked campaign.

"The Strong Arms" is a sort of a shell of an adventure that centers around the acquisition of a tavern & can serve as the central hub of the campaign or not. "Sisters of Chaos" is a cut above the usual Stormbringer weirdness. This is a solid adventure & flows right into the "The Unholy Fortress" which is a straight up epic adventure in full on Sword & Sorcery goodness. This adventure is one part Sea Kings & three parts guarding the bones of a dead god against the forces that wish to exploit them. This is an epic adventure unto itself it remains true to the Stormbringer spirit.

One of the things that we did with 'Sea Kings of The Of the Purple Towns' is to use the island as a base of operations for our adventurers. We also became merchants & traders within the Young Kingdoms. And to trade we used the Runequest rpg book  'Cities'. We used this book for our ports of call & various urban locations. This is what we did with it.

'Cities' came out in 1990 & is a series of very well done random encounter charts that can be adapted for any system. And this is where things get very interesting because 'Cities' can be used to fill in the gaps for a campaign as easy of the roll of the dice. And this makes these books perfect for OSR campaign. This is especially true if you like tinkering with systems. This means that Adventurer,Conqueror, King rpg  can't be far behind.

Both books quite readily fit the vibe of Stormbringer quite nicely but they can easily be part of an on going sea faring ACK's campaign.The base system provides everything that the DM is going to have to pull apart to make a successful campaign. The thing about this campaign is that it has to be pulled off in sections from the beginning to the episodic nature of such a campaign.

All in all 'Sea Kings of The Of the Purple Towns' by Fred Behrendt was way ahead of its time in terms a series of adventures that links together to form both a great beginning & continuing campaign. Highly recommended.

OSR Review & Commentary On Wretched Folklore Enhanced Edition By Mathew Thomas For The Wretched Country and Wretched Epoque rpg

 "Wretched Folklore: Enhanced Edition updates the monsters and the Spiritualist class to align with the current edition of the Wretched RPG. The bestiary includes creatures inspired by both Native American and European folklore to use in your Wretched Country and Wretched Apoque campaigns. It also introduces additional shaman rituals, new rules for kung fu, and mechanics for creating steampunk contraptions. All of this will enrich your 19th-century campaigns, whether they unfold in the wild prairies or the slums of Paris."

Wretched Folklore Enhanced Edition By Mathew Thomas is a Wretched title that comes in right on time! This is a freshening up of the Wretched Folklore by Mathew Thomas! Wretched Folklore Enhanced Edition updates the spells, rituals, & monsters inspired by both Native American and European folklore.  The highlight of the book is the Spiritualist class. This supplement bring the heat with brand new material for your Wretched Country and Wretched Epoque rpg campaigns.  Wretched Folklore Enhanced is perfectly suited for use with Wretched Epoque rpg. 

 The material within Wretched Folklore Enhanced Edition dovetails within Wretched Country revised with expanded Kung Fu martial arts rules, & expanded rules for Mad Science as well as Steampunk devices or inventions. These expansions of the rules found within the Expanded Wretched Rpg. 

The Expanded Wretched rpg has a great feel & turns both Wretched Country and Wretched Epoque into fully realized campaign settings. This means that the player's PC's can literally dive right into the campaign from the get go. 
This ulility feels like it expands itself into  Wretched Folklore Enhanced Edition. Why because this mixed bag of material blends right into the background easily. 

The material here is easily blended into the background of the 19th century of Wretched Country and Wretched Epoque rpg campaigns seamlessly. The systems are optional but well thought out in spades. 
The material here is full of substance that enhances the campaign value of your games on so many levels. 
The material is solidly done within Wretched Folklore Enhanced Edition. And I highly recommend this supplement to get your games cooking along with solid material to get a campaign going within about 10 minutes or so. And it's a great supplement on so many levels. 

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.