OSR Commentary On Faseripodia rpg Source book Subterranea By Johnathan Nolan For FASERIPOPEDIA Rpg or Classic FASERIP rpgs

 "SUBTERRANEA! Underground, Underworld, Tartarus and this Hollow Earth! Explore the worlds beneath our feet, from the eccentric Subway Wizards to the chained Titans of Tartarus to the Refuges of Dinosaurs and Cave People at the Earth's Core - and so very much more! Every kind of Subterranean adventure and creature is covered from the Earth's Core Mahars and Sagoth and the dinosaurs and Dinosaur Men to the Molemen of various types, Ratmen, Cave Giants, Cyclopaean Ruins and the monstrosities that might haunt them and vast ecologies of encounters. Randomize your way down into Subterranea, what you find when you get there, and how you might try and get back out - not always as simple as just climbing back in the mole machine or elevator, you see!" 

Faseripodia rpg Source book Subterranea By Johnathan Nolan is a fantastic source book for the underworld and underground of the FASERIPOPEDIA rpg or classic FASERIP rpg's. This is a massive supplement that brings the underground world of Burroughs, Verne, Wells, and more to life. A lot is packed with in this sourebook. According the reviewer Gregory on Drivethrurpg from Feb 28 2023; 

"My first impression, was of shock and awe. Like the FASERIPodedia, there is a staggering amount of content with a mind-boggling range. And it varied from great charts and frameworks upon which to hang an adventure (or series of adventures) to settings and 'denizens of the deep' that ranged from "cool, I recognise those", to "what the act f&%, the author must be high"... until a few minutes of internet research confirmed that, yes, ALL of the content is grounded in what has come before; comics and fiction sources that fans of the "worlds below" genre (or anyone willing to do internet research) will recognize. Yes, it is playable, adhering to the author's principles of creating a game structure that is simple enough to be easily picked up and robust enough to support complex themes and situations. Yes, it is entertaining in allowing a flowing rollicking story for players with an enormous amount of genre specific content. But what blew me away on this was the hidden gems of hidden history. Do yourself a favor and do a few internet searches on the content; more than once, entries I assumed were from old comics or fiction turned out to be references to history or events from our own cultural past. Sprinkling a few of these Easter Eggs into the game will give a great flavour of realism to a game of monsters, dangers and heroes."

Here's the thing about the underground world of Sunterranea, it can appear literally anywhere on Earth. Beneath your PC's feet is a world of myth, monsters, and super Science. This is a place that snatches the ordinary humans and folks from the surface of the Earth to become slaves to the Derro, the Morlocks, and many others. Sunterranea as a source book suffers from the lack of a real editor but makes up for it with the sheer scope of it. 

Subterranea By Johnathan Nolan  has everything too easily piggyback onto an existing classic FASERIP rpg aka classic Marvel Super Heroes rpg system. And this makes this game supplement easy to bring Pulpy underground and underworld adventure elements into your games. With characters like Marvel's Moleman and underworld & a 100% backwards compatibility rpg with ANY FASERIP rpg system makes Subterranea a great investment for me as a DM. 

Marvel Super Heroes Rpg Thoughts on Marvel Comics Crystar The Crystal Warrior Saga

 So last year I covered  & reviewed The Marvel Super Heroes Rpg The Sourebook of Crystar Crystal Warrior .The warriors of Crystallium have certainly gotten airplay on our table top recently. And I'm thinking of dumping the Chaos mercenaries of Moltar & the wizard Zardeth into both our Marvel Super Heroes &  Ascendant rpg campaigns. Crystallium is a violatile Chaos/Order world in spades as the Demon Lord's forces were in retreat. You can find out more about The Marvel Super Heroes Rpg The Crystar The Crystal Warrior Sourcebook here.  

The violent elemental forces of Crystallium are perfect to be sandwiched into the Marvel Celtic Otherworld. This is especially true when Moltar and his lava warriors were allied with Morgan Le Fay. So could Morgan Le Fay make another push for the Marvel 616 universe or one of it's numerous variants?! 

There have been interactions between Crystar & members of the Marvel 616 universe notably Dr.Strange and Alpha Flight. My question becomes would Crystallium remain within the pocket universe of the Otherworld?! Somehow down deep I doubt it. 
During the Eighties within my uncle's Marvel Super Heroes rpg campaign Moltar and co clashed with the Avengers and our own group of heroes numerous time. Crystallium became the origin point for our own homegrown hero Amber who passed through the crystal portal of the wizard Argos. Argos is an almagam of both Order & Chaos. He was instrumental in the creation of the hero Amber, she was a homegrown hero who was created after being saved by Argos from certain death. 

Amber has remained on Crystallium since the Nineties and it might be time to mount a mission to save her. Her powers were elemental in nature and being able to turn back the tide of Chaos. She's kinda been on the back burner after Hanna her player went off to college. 
However one of my players and DM Paul made reference to her over last weekend. Orginally we left her in the care of Argos on Crystallium. 




 

OSR Commentary On CROM FASERIPopedia sourcebook By Jonathan Nolan For The FASERIPopedia Rpg or Classic Marvel Super Heroes Rpg

 "CROM

FASERIPopedia sourcebook

"Taking as its inspiration Saturday morning science fantasy cartoons and the Golden Age comics era character CROM THE BARBARIAN, this sourcebook brings the full fantasy roleplaying experience to FASERIPopedia!"

"CROM features some of the most startling art and monsters, most exciting characters and settings of any FASERIPopedia game!

A full sandbox chart set is provided to generate detailed "hexes" to explore or fight over as well as a generator for the scattered city-states of CROM's world!

The Bestiary lists cosmic horrors and exotic threats quite unlike the normal and a real challenge even for hyper league superheroes!"" 

 CROM  FASERIPopedia sourcebook By Jonathan Nolan is too date one of my favorite sourcebooks for the FASERIPopedia Rpg or classic Marvel Super Heroes Rpg. And this is a fantastic Science Fantasy or Sword & Sorcery Sourcbook. But please for the love of the Gods pay an editor to trim and neaten up your sourcebooks. There's a great index at the front of  CROM  FASERIPopedia sourcebook but damn does this sourcebook need a bit of neating on the material.

The fonts, layout, and columns are all fine and servicable but the Crom sourcebook needs an editor. 
Now that having been said the Crom sourcebook is solid when it comes to presenting a Sword & Sorcery veener campaign with a solid Fasrip Science Fantasy campaign setting waiting below. And for games such as Marvel Super Heroes the Crom sourcebook is a God sent. It gives you random table after random table for character generation, origin, and full on back history. Want a cyborg from the time of Crom go for it! Need an origin for a magic item that doesn't conform to the time when the oceans drank Atlantis? The Crom sourcebook has you covered! 
There are  rpg tools after tools with random tables to create your own unique world of Crom from the ground up different from your buddy's Crom campaign. And this is a theme throughout the CROM  FASERIPopedia sourcebook. And the Crom sourcebook works very well as a supplement for classic Marvel Super Heroes rpg especially the advanced rpg systems. 

  Because of the underlying Science Fantasy aspect of the Crom sourcebook it's incredibly useful for the occult adventures and materials of the Marvel Super Heroes RPG: The Unofficial Canon Project. Because of the fact that many of these overlap the Marvel Savage Sword of Conan and the various Hyboria comic book titles. The Crom sourcebook's timeline could easily be situated a couple of thousand years before the oceans drank atlantis. This is especially true of the Realms of Magic rework that The Unofficial Canon Project did! The Eternals sourcebook is perfect to use as both allies and NPC protagonists. 

And the  CROM  FASERIPopedia sourcebook is also going to get a workout in Alexander Markus's Adscendant rpg. Part of the background is that the super heroes were once possibly gods of the ancient world. And since the supplement is FASERIP it's easily convertable to Adscendant.