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.

Review & Commentary On Primordial Chaos: Gonzo Like A Fucking Boss! By Venger Satanis For Your OSR campaigns

 "Unformed, omnipotent, oscillating, undulating, chromatic, prismatic, and ultra-telluric.  Primordial Chaos is the throbbing gristle of our hobby, the pale underbelly of a sandworm coughing up a hairball akin to the dark messiah who shall change the unchangeable.  Neon fuchsia reflected on the chartreuse palm of an all-seeing eye.  It is the prophecy!"

"Gonzo is awesome in and of itself, but gonzo can also be used to enhance the roleplaying experience in a variety of ways.  The problem is that, for many gamers, gonzo is inaccessible, hard to understand, and difficult to implement successfully."

Venger Satanis and I go wayback in time & he sent me a ton of titles to review as well as play. And that brings me to his magnus opus on gaming advice on bringing on the gonzo Primordial Chaos: Gonzo Like A Fucking Boss! So what is in this hundred and ten suppliment?! Well,this is a whole ton of articles that you can actually use to bring in the gonzo into your old school campaign such as bringing in the guest spot, the expect the unexpected table, nuturing your inner 14 old (to make the campaign more gonzo, Gonzo but not stupid, and much, much, more. Because this is a book end to his series of books such as 'How To Game Master Like a Fucking Boss'.   Primordial Chaos: Gonzo Like A Fucking Boss! By Venger Satanis has all of the editing, solid artwork, and good layout with a nice selection of cartography thrown in. 

 

Primordial Chaos: Gonzo Like A Fucking Boss! By Venger Satanis brings the gonzo chaos because it's Venger's advice & ethos on OSR gaming from the bottom up. He adds in his ubiquitous random tables. These really bring this book into the realm of  usable and as a tool for the DM this is something we see time and again with Venger's gaming books. Primordial Chaos hits that vibe with a wet tenticled gusto and keeps going. This is a hundred and ten page book that hits the OSR rpg tool box approach right out of the gate. This is something we see time and again here. Is there a ton of sleazy and sexual material here?! Naw, not really instead there's tables like 'Find your PC's Doppleganger' and more. But is Primordial Chaos: Gonzo Like A Fucking Boss! By Venger Satanis actually useful?! In a word, oh yes! This supplement distills down a good deal of Venger's experiences and advice to both experienced dungeon masters and newbie players for a gonzo experience.  Venger's written more then three Cha'alt mega dungeons that have sold & continue to have solid sales. 

So he knows a thing or two about gonzo dungeons, ruins, and adventures. This book distills that down and brings home the gonzo. And it shows with his latest adventure included in this supplement, 'Sent by The Gods'. 
'Sent by The Gods' is a solid old fashioned dungeon crawl with Venger's usual flare thrown in.. The adventure does a good job of adding in and demonstrating Venger's ethos without overstaying it's welcome. And 'Sent By The Gods' can easily be added into the Cha'alt trilogy without creating a ripple at all in your campaign!  And that can also be said for Primordial Chaos: Gonzo Like A Fucking Boss! By Venger Satanis which I think is a fine addition to the Kortthalis Publishing family of books. Grab  Primordial Chaos: Gonzo Like A Fucking Boss! By Venger Satanis when it hits the shelves on Drivethrurpg.

Review & Commentary On Severed Fate By John Keefe and Laurel Nicholson From Smoldering Dung Games For Your Old School Or OSR Campaigns

 "Barely 100 feet away, the repulsive and terrifying monster Furythorn steps into the compound littered with burning corpses. He hasn’t seen you yet, but he will soon. There's no escape. Your band of adventurers are the last ones to stop his destruction and killing.

You ready your weapon, watching bursts of flames erupt from his body. Hideous pus-oozing burns cover his face.

As night deepens, one of his hulking minions spots you and points, grunting. Seeing your group of warriors, Furythorn laughs a chilling cackle, spewing pus into the evening air. “There you are cowards. I’ve been waiting for you.” He holds out his arms. “Come to me and die!”



Kranna, the wizard’s apprentice feverishly clutches the spell components beneath her cloak. “He must die tonight. Otherwise he’ll destroy the whole northern half of the isle.” The only response is the sound of blades pulled from their sheathes. As you charge forward, embers from the monster’s burning flesh float above you in the wind." 

Severed Fate By John Keefe and Laurel Nicholson is a 1st level adventure for five to seven player's PC. Severed Fate is well done 1st or 2nd level adventure for beginning or  experienced players. Severed Fate can be dropped into any campaign & works very well with campaigns with wilderness focuses. And it has as it's central focus an impressive NPC and lots of twists and turns. 
Severed Fate is very much grounded in the old school tradition with some mature themes but it's also grounded into the OSR's more modern aspects. The good aspects of this module are that if run solidly with a good group of players this adventure will cement the touchstone for an exciting campaign. The layout is well done, the fonts easy to read, and the material well done OSR solidly adventure. 
Encounters in Severed Fate can be and are deadly for a group of players who are not used to the fact that death is always waiting around the corner. And in this OSR module  this is never more true. 
The writing is solid for it's seventy two pages and is easily fitted into your old school or OSR campaigns. And this makes this adventure ideal for OSRIC! Drop this adventure in right after B2 Keep on The Borderlands. 

Could Severed Fate be used easily with other OSR systems?! Short answer, yes. This module  could be combined with Castles & Crusades without much fuss. And infact if the DM wanted this module could easily be dropped into Greyhawk or similar campaigns running C&C as it's main system. 
The reasons for this are the focus on the wilderness, the NPC's, flexible locations, and more. Severed Fate is well thought out and needs more leads into it's own campaign setting though. This isn't a criticism however only a minor point of contension on my part as a DM. Over the team of  John Keefe and Laurel Nicholson who once worked for Mayfair Games as a part of the Role Aids adventure modules.The quality of Severed Fate continues this tradition in spades.