Free OSR Resources - Petty Gods: Revised & Expanded Edition From New Big Dragon Games Unlimited Or Rules, Roles, & Religion

If you haven't noticed OSR, I've been putting up lots & lots of free resources & there are several reasons for this. One is that I'm out of money to put into the OSR marketing pot and its costing me time which is something I haven't had a lot of lately. Two I'm honestly sick of not utilizing the resources I've got at my table which has been sitting on my book shelf for the past year or so. Which brings me to one book that hasn't sat on my shelf,  Petty Gods: Revised & Expanded Edition. This book has been in constant play right out of the gate with  327 petty gods, 116 minions, knights & servitors, 12 cults, dozens of divine items & new spells as well as much more.
I've had three clerics in my home campaigns that have used this book for their gods and everyone of the players was really happy with the result. The book actually gives a frame work for creating fully fleshed out religions that use petty gods, minions, knights & servitors as well as their cults.

 

There is tons of stuff to use from the ground up and I'm constantly referring to this book consistently. The book uses some very clever old school rules to supplement the role of its petty gods & their placement within the theological ecological system of a campaign world. But its actually the role of clerics from the ground up and their street level placement with the spirits and entities that makes this book work for me. Religions are one of the least utilized pieces of gaming especially as motivator for adventures, in my campaign one goddess that gets a huge chunk of game play and time is "Detriax, a space goddess that consumes (and even creates) space wreckage and heartbroken star sailors. Imagine Davy Jones from Pirates of the Caribbean mashed up with the Unicron or Galactus. She's got a few minions as well" My players hate this goddess and her machinations with a passion. Her minions show up and everything goes straight down hill and let's not even talk about her knights and minions. When these guys show up in the wastelands the players bitch, moan, and complain because their going to be losing relics & treasure not to mention PC's. Special thanks to Jay from the Exonaughts! for this fiendish creation.



If you haven't gotten in on this one then grab it! I'm telling you that this one of the best things to come out of the OSR in a long time. As for me its going to be a major factor coming up in Tuesday night's inner Earth campaign set up!

 GRAB IT RIGHT HERE!

Review & Commentary On The 'Free' Beta OSR Adventure Resource - PA1 Vault of the Faceless Giants From New Big Dragon Games Unlimited For Your Old School Retroclones

PA1 Vault of the Faceless Giants From New Big Dragon Games Unlimited is a 'free' beta adventure from New Big Dragon Games Unlimited.This is a sixteen page 'free' beta adventure that highlight's the strengths of the PX1 Basic Psionics Handbook. So a day or so ago author/designer Richard J. LeBlanc, Jr.offered this beta adventure for 'free' on his blog website with the following stipulation. PLEASE NOTE: This adventure is being released for free in its current beta form. Once the final art and adventure material have been added, it will then go to its regular price. Those who download it for free as part of this beta release will get the final updated version for free as well, even after it goes to its regular price! 

The adventure's set up pays tribute to a classic pseudo historical mythology from India or some other far away land. The plot reads like something from a classic Rudyard Kipling;

"The tiny jungle village of Phoumi Sramol has fallen victim, they believe, to the evil hand of the demon lord Rahb. 

Many generations ago, a temple set in the side of a cliff a few miles northwest of the village acted as the center of worship for evil adherents of Rahb. Livestock would die, villagers would be kidnapped, plagues would befall the area. It was believed this was all done in service of bringing Rahb into the physical world (the Material Plane) from his Abyssal home (an island fortress known as Lanku).

Suddenly, however, all of the evil and suspicious activity around the temple stopped. 

Legend holds that it was the great adventurer Somnang whose hand stopped the evil, but no one is really sure.

Now, generations later, an occurance in the village has the locals questioning whether or not the evil is returning. 

A local woman named Kanya claims her baby was snatched from her hands in the middle of the night by followers of Rahb, dressed in loin cloths, their faces painted to resemble the many-faced demon. 

Many of the villagers deny the temple’s relationship to the missing child. Maybe they are naive; maybe they are just fearful of the truth. Regardless, they suggest instead the woman “lost” the baby in the jungle and a tiger ate it; they purport she is simply unwilling to admit her absentmindedness (something for which she is well known by the locals).

If the woman is telling the truth, however, then there is much to be feared, and the story bears investigating—not just for the sake of the woman and the community, but for the sake of a world where this kind of evil can exist."
The maps of the Vaults of the Faceless Giant are very well done, many of the ideas and encounters highlight the strengths of the sixteen page adventure; their well done and blend into each other quite nicely. But this adventure also takes advantage of another free download outlined right here;
This module includes several encounters that use mechanics and
content from Old School Adventures™ Accessory PX1: Basic Psionics Handbook. Additionally, many of the encounters will be made more enjoyable by having a character of the mystic class in the party. If you do not plan to use the material from the Basic Psionics Handbook, some of the encounters
may require modifications in order to facilitate playability. This adventure references the planar cosmology (specifically, the Astral and Ethereal Planes, and the lower plane of the Abyss). It is suggested that DMs have a cursory familiarity with these concepts. A PDF of Old School Adventures™ Accessory
PX2 Extra: Planar Primer is available for free through One- Bookshelf (i.e., RPGNow and DriveThruRPG).
Everything is laid right at the feet of the dungeon master to run this adventure the village is clearly outlined and defined within the perimeters of the adventure. The details are just enough to wet the appetites of the players and the PC's are given enough details of the place to make everything clear and concise including the goals of this adventure. For example here we've got a thumbnail description of the village featured in the Vault of the Faceless Giants.
"Phoumi Sramol (the name means “village of shadows”) is a tiny  fishing village—a collection of about two dozen simple straw shacks built atop posts, set along the edge of the Karkeng river.
The fifty or so people residing there live a simple life, relying  mainly on the fish in the river for their protein source, and gathering fruits and nuts from the nearby Sramol Jungle"
We get lots of local color and rumors that flesh out details of the adventure. Random encounters help to round out the upper half of the jungle part of the adventure from morning till night. This helps to build the ideas within the game adventure. This is a dangerous and wild place just on the edge of civilization. We then switch to the main action of the adventure the temple and its environs. There's a ton of flavors and ideas in the PA1 Vault of the Faceless Giants and there are more then a few instances that take and use the psionic system of the PX1 Basic Psionic Handbook during some of the encounters.  But there is more to this adventure then simply another adventure as advertisement for another book.
The balance here is between game elements, adventure encounters, and monsters, the cult of the temple is pretty well fleshed out and this is a great adventure to run with OD&D and any of its retroclones. After really going over the adventure &  though the adventure locations and encounters this adventure has been created to take full advantage of the PX1 Basic Psionics Handbook. Another 'free' resource that will come in very hand during several key points in this adventure is the free planar resource PX2 Extra: Planar Primer.

This is a solidly done adventure with lots of possibilities for a campaign touch stone and jump off point. New Big Dragon Games Unlimited continues to impress me with its products, this could be used with Labyrinth Lord, OD&D, and Basic Edition with lots of room for expansion. With a little work this adventure could provide a template for an entire campaign world. The function and focus of the adventure  is top notch and very well done.

Review & Commentary On The Free OSR Resource - New Big Dragon Games Unlimited Old School Adventures™ Accessory PX2 Extra Planar Primer

Have you ever wanted to take your basic or OD&D parties onto the planes but in the AD&D 1st edition Dungeon Master's Guide only the 'high level' parties got to play there? Need to throw your PC's into the deep end of the multi verse? Well wonder no more because New Big Dragon Games Unlimited Old School Adventures™ has a brand new pdf with everything to jump start your PC's into the deep dimensional morass that is the multiverse. The Planar Primer is seven pages of stripped down easy access nastiness waiting for your PC's to stumble into the astral and beyond.

So Richard LeBlanc Jr has stripped everything down to a usable format for Labyrinth Lord or B/X and made it an easy access for DM who don't have the time to deal with the issues of conversion, reference, and all of the little details that make planar and dimensional travel a headache everything here is boiled down into an easy to use format. Basically this is planar travel without tears and its pretty nifty. The break down is easy to understand and there are some old favorites for magic items even. The planar travel isn't the nightmare its been in the past and the author explains everything out like stereo instructions step by step from set up to plug & play making this a very easy to understand book on the planes. There's a bit of everything laid out in easy understand and plain English. Its pretty much all there for the DM to pick, choose, and use as they see fit.
Everything is laid bare in this book from the basics of plane physics and its effects on magic, to thumbnail sketches of the planes themselves, a quick overview of magick on the planes, a smattering of magic items and diagrams outlining the planes, the ways magic effects them and your PC.
The nice thing about this book is the fact that there's no real emphasis on how to use this pdf, you could easily tack this onto a Mutant Future session as easily as a regular game of B/X Dungeons and Dragons or mix it up. The fact that its free makes this an even more enticing little gaming morsel. There is a ton that can be done with this little pdf, such as grafting onto other campaigns and getting much expanded other dimensional multiverse. The nice thing is the simplicity and functionality of the piece, it makes adventure crafting quite nice in a simple way when a DM doesn't have to reach for the Manual of The Planes. For a short seven pages of old school retroclone fun, this is a damn little useful book. Four out of five, I kinda wish there might have been a bit more of this book but it is free!

Free Egyptian Themed OSR Adventure Resource - TM1 The Ogress of Anubis From New Big Dragon Games Unlimited For Your Old School Campaigns

Are you looking for an old school adventure with an ancient Egyptian style theme capable of supporting a wide variety of retroclone system and with an actual challenge to you parties that can be played in one night or stretched into a mini campaign with lots of potential? And do want it for free? 

Well TM1 The Ogress of Anubis just might be your answer for your old school AD&D 1st edition or OSRic style system. 

Fully compatible with a wide variety of retroclone systems as well, this adventure offers thrills,chills, and some really nice twists on the usual themes of the pseudo Egyptian setting. 
Grab It Right
HERE

The plot follows some of the classic OD&D and basic D&D plot outlines that while we've heard as DM a million times but here  are twisted around in something that comes more out of a pulp style weird tale then the usual D&D plot line.

According to the Rpgnow blurb: 

Azeneth believed the life of the high priest (or priestess) should be as comfortable as that of the kings and the gods. She spoke her contempt for her father’s “weakness” loudly and publicly, almost from the time she learned to talk. As she neared her teens, she made it known her plan was to supplant her father and become high priestess of the temple, sometimes claiming it was her place as the incarnation of the goddess Nekhbet.

Many say Azeneth has the power to command serpents, and it was she who sent the asp that killed her father Kemosiri. Regardless, she Azeneth believed the life of the high priest (or priestess) should be as comfortable as that of the kings and the gods. She spoke her contempt for her father’s “weakness” loudly and publicly, almost from the time she learned to talk. As she neared her teens, she made it known her plan was to supplant her father and become high priestess of the temple, sometimes claiming it was her place as the incarnation of the goddess Nekhbet.

Many say Azeneth has the power to command serpents, and it was she who sent the asp that killed her father Kemosiri. Regardless, she seized her position as high priestess of the temple and set about her accumulation of power and wealth. 

Recently, children from the villages around the temple have begun to disappear. Rumors abound that Azeneth is sacrificing them and cannibalizing them because she believes this will make her wealthier, more powerful, and more divine. The people of the villages have begun to refer to Azeneth as the “ogress of Anubis”—believing it was Anubis himself that made this woman mad, and commanded her to consume the children she sacrifices. her position as high priestess of the temple and set about her accumulation of power and wealth. 

Recently, children from the villages around the temple have begun to disappear. Rumors abound that Azeneth is sacrificing them and cannibalizing them because she believes this will make her wealthier, more powerful, and more divine. The people of the villages have begun to refer to Azeneth as the “ogress of Anubis”—believing it was Anubis himself that made this woman mad, and commanded her to consume the children she sacrifices.

All of the usual suspects are in this adventure but its been written in such a way to be dropped into an existing campaign or as a convention style one shot. The module's encounters are weirdly pulpy and highly entertaining. The module works within the plot perimeters but the maps,handouts, rumors tables, allow for play expansion and can quickly be expanded into a mini campaign. Since downloading this one a few years ago, it looks as if new material has been added into the background of it. In fact it looks like a ton of new work has been added to make this one even better.
Includes the following: information for adapting to different OSR rules editions; adventure background; regional overview (small map + info on villages and wandering monsters); information on the temple compound and its vicinity (including wandering monsters); a detailed map of the temple compound; a 4-page detailed encounter key for the temple compound; new monster (animal mummy w/ 7 variants, statted for Oe/BX/1e); "generic" stats for all monsters and NPCs mentioned in the adventure; 12 pre-generated NPCs w/ details; 10 adventure seeds (for continuing adventures in the area); and 8 additional unkeyed maps (7 tombs, 2 caves, 1 sunken city) for use with the adventure seeds.

Everything here is a nice blend of mythological weirdness, old school solid encounters, and the maps and keys for the temple compound could be used for a wide variety of other games. The Animal mummies could easily be used for any old school D&D Egyptian themed game or added into the backdrop of your own campaign world and this is one of the strengths of this particular set of adventure pulpy weirdness thrown into the structure of an old school adventure.
The encounters are balanced, the maps are well done, and the whole adventure has a nice internal Egyptian style mythological tone that is perfect for both an existing D&D style game or as change up to a more old world Egyptian campaign with a touch of high weirdness in the background of it floating around.
Do I think that this adventure is worth the download? In point of fact I actually do. Here's why! This adventure can easily be added into the back drop of your favorite sword and sorcery campaign. The adventure will keep a set of PC's very busy as well. It works with a wide variety of old school retroclone or basic D&D or OD&D games and it could be used as the frame work for an existing game or as a touch stone to a whole mini campaign featuring an Egyptian style game. All in all this is a solid adventure worth your time, energy, and because its free it has a nice touch of the pulp that will challenge your adventurers and keep them coming back to the table for another round.