Review & Commentary The OSRIC Player's Guide, By Stuart Marshall From Seattle Hill Games For The OSRIC Rpg

"The OSRIC Player's Guide, by Seattle Hill Games, has most of the core rules to play the advanced first edition of the world's most popular role-playing game. It is an easy introduction on how to play the game as Gary played it. Once you have mastered the rules herein, you should be able to easily assimilate the full rules from the golden age of fantasy adventure gaming."

The OSRIC Player's Guide, By Stuart Marshall From Seattle Hill Games is on Amazon. And The OSRIC Player's Guide was brand new to me & clocks in at about two hundred and twenty pages. And the OSRIC Player's Guide has everything that an OSRIC player is going to need straight out of the gate to get thier PC up and running. You've got classic races, classes, equipment, and more to get your OSRIC adventurer off the ground. Ths book goes through the entire process of PC creation for OSRIC from the ground up. From rolling dice to getting equipment it's all here according to the original style of the world's most popular fantasy role playing game especially the first edition. The difference here from the regular OSRIC rule book is that this is done from the player's side of things. 

For someone who wants to run OSRIC the  OSRIC Player's Guide, is going to make things much easier. Because this book plugs into the player's needs and wants from OSRIC. And it does this by laying out all of the rules like stereo instructions. The OSRIC Player's Guide is highly linear and this is a good thing because it enables the DM to guide his or her players through the PC generation process. 
The OSRIC Player's Guide is incredibly useful because it has a secondary use at the table top as a reference while play is going on. This player's guide is not a replacement for the OSRIC rule book instead this is book is a companion. And one that feeds into the OSRIC system by being useful along side of the main OSRIC rule book. 
And is it good?! From what I've read from owning it over the past week or so yes very much so. The OSRIC Player's Guide is a well thought out book that takes the OSRIC system and enables the player to dive into the deeep end of the system easily, reliably, and with little fuss. 

Zothique, X2 Castle Amber, And Clark Ashton Smith's Necromancy From Naat By Way of OSRIC

 Today's blog post is going to pick up right from this blog post here.  When it comes to Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique exotic & completely alien are the two words that come to mind. This is borne out within the CAS story ' Necromancy In Naat'. Clark Ashton Smith cranks up the 'ick' factor by '11' and then goes in for the kill with his ending. Death, the grave, and even then the ending isn't the original one. According to the Deep Ones KentonSem;"A few details from the notes by Scott Connors and Ron Hilger in the NSB edition of The Last Hieroglyph:

"Necromancy in Naat" was completed on February 6, 1935. It appeared in the July 1936 issue of Weird Tales, where it was accompanied by another Virgil Finlay illustration, where it tied with Robert E. Howard's "Red Nails" as the most popular story in the issue. Smith was paid seventy-three dollars for the story.

Smith wrote to August Derleth that "'Necromancy in Naat' seems the best of my more recently published weirds; though Wright forced me to mutilate the ending."

Apparently Farnsworth Wright had an issue with the last paragraph and the "shadowy love" that is hinted at (although it's not exactly necrophilia if it's between two consenting dead folk, now is it? Let's just call it necromantic). The original version was eventually restored for the NSB volume and presumably the online version listed above." 

Rodney Matthews, Obsidian Castle used without permission. 

And so what does this prevading use & abuse of the undead in 'Necromancy of Naat' have anything to do with OSRIC or the D20 version Zothique? Quite simply the dead don't rest quiet on Zothique and I believe that THAMOGORGOS the lord  of The Abyss is partially  responsible for this state of affairs. Many of the events of 'Necromancy in Naat' remind me of the restless and dangerous undead of X2  Castle Amber by Tom Moldvay. How?! In both the story & the module the dead play dangerous parts with the living. And it's possible when weird old gods are at play the rules for reality slide out the window. 

Starcrossed lovers who are actually dead & then become the play things of the necromancers amid the dying Earth's lost wasteland seas?! The classic X2 has many of the trappings of the' Necromancy of Naat' without the implied undead umm ick . X2 is one part dungeon, one part wilderness, & partially a module with deep roots in Glantri. Zothique itself while not a magick heavy setting none the less is on par with many Sword & Sorcery settings. 

And this is where the connection comes in with Elric's Pan Tang wizards, soldiers, mercenaries, etc. comes into play. We know for a fact according to the Stormbringer books by Michael Moorcock that the Young Kingdom's Pan Tang were sending out expediationary forces, envoys, etc. to expand the scope of the horrid kingdom's reach. 

Pan Tang miniature forces by Games Workshop 

If we look at the idea that we've got Pan Tangian envoys & forces moving beyond the planes of the Young Kingdom through foul magics then.  Then the foul forces of Pan Tang  can show up any place and this includes Zothique! The party may come up against forces they may have to flee from. 

If the PC's go into the land of Ghouls in X2 Castle Amber then the party may eventually find themselves within the lands of Mordiggan on Zothique!  After naviagting & neogatating with the ghoul tribes  or their foul Lovecraftian god events may trip in the party's  favor if the ghost of Stephen Amber parleys with the ghouls on the players behalf. Stephen  De Ambers was a mage of iincredible skill and it's no surprise that other mages may be angling to take over his domain. 

Many of my contempary DM's have eluded to the fact that Castle Amber may be a domain of Ravenloft. And perhaps Zothique could be one as well?! 

Michael Moorcock's Melnibonéans And Clark Aston Smith's Zothique By Way of OSRIC

 OSRIC came out in 2006, and it's use at the table top is a God's sent allowing the DM to create their own table top adventures & supplements. And OSRIC  also allows the DM to transcend the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Player's Guide, Dungeon Master's Guide, & Monster Manual all in one at the table top level. All of these references are there at the DM & player's finger tips. 


Michael Moorcock – The Stealer of Souls (1963) artwork by Rodney Mathews used without permission 

This thread picks up right from this blog post from the other day here. So let's talk about the  Melniboneans whose alien & very primal ways get a solid from the Knights & Knaves forums here.  And it was Geoffrey's canon that has me thinking over about the classic Michael Moorcock stories:  "My "Elric canon" is pretty short; 

"The Dreaming City" (Science Fantasy #47, June 1961)
"While the Gods Laugh" (Science Fantasy #49, October 1961)
"The Stealer of Souls" (Science Fantasy #51, February 1962)
"Kings in Darkness" (Science Fantasy #54, August 1962)
"The Flame Bringers" [later retitled "The Caravan of Forgotten Dreams"] (Science Fantasy #55, October 1962)" 

And its really Grodog here that I agree with; " grodog » Tue May 14, 2019 7:23 pm

I tend to think of Melnibonéans as earlier "generation" of AD&D elves---they're more atavistic/primal, closer to Faerie (in this case the Unseelie Court, of course!), and more tainted with Chaos in comparison to modern-day AD&D elves. Modern elves would likely be seen as some debased Morlock-like freak, if they were acknowledged as relations at all.

YMMV, of course " Of course this brings in the fact that the  Melnibonéan tribes may be far more common then at first it appears. There could be other  Melnibonéan sorcerers scattered along the planes that never got the message about their ancient homeland ending. 
And the odd Melnibonéan sorcerer will be right at home within Clark Aston Smith's Zothique. These thoughts go back to Guy Fullerton's threads on the Knights & Knaves forum. Fullerton's been playing with this idea for a long time as he's got a Moorcockian Sorcerer class here.  As was said this isn't anything new & goes back to 2015. And it's perfect for Clark Aston Smith's Zothique and Smith himself describes Zothique in a great letter breakdown according to the Zothique wiki entry; "Clark Ashton Smith himself described the Zothique cycle in a letter to L. Sprague de Camp, dated November 3, 1953:

Zothique, vaguely suggested by Theosophic theories about past and future continents, is the last inhabited continent of earth. The continents of our present cycle have sunken, perhaps several times. Some have remained submerged; others have re-risen, partially, and re-arranged themselves. Zothique, as I conceive it, comprises Asia Minor, Arabia, Persia, India, parts of northern and eastern Africa, and much of the Indonesian archipelago. A new Australia exists somewhere to the south. To the west, there are only a few known islands, such as Naat, in which the black cannibals survive. To the north, are immense unexplored deserts; to the east, an immense unvoyaged sea. The peoples are mainly of Aryan or Semitic descent; but there is a negro kingdom (Ilcar) in the north-west; and scattered blacks are found throughout the other countries, mainly in palace-harems. In the southern islands survive vestiges of Indonesian or Malayan races. The science and machinery of our present civilization have long been forgotten, together with our present religions. But many gods are worshipped; and sorcery and demonism prevail again as in ancient days. Oars and sails alone are used by mariners. There are no fire-arms—only the bows, arrows, swords, javelins, etc. of antiquity. The chief language spoken (of which I have provided examples in an unpublished drama) is based on Indo-European roots and is highly inflected, like Sanskrit, Greek and Latin." 

So using OSRIC to recreate a Zothique style campaign setting isn't only possible but it might be easy to drop in a whole tribe of Melnibonéans and no one is going to be the wiser. 

More artwork by Rodney Mathews used without permission that captures in my mind the weirdness of Zothique.

OSRIC is perfect for a Zothique one shot because of it's flexibility & it's easy of rules for players to grasp. it makes sense then that these rules could be twisted to Smith's world & yes I know about the Free D20 Zothique pdf here.  And we'll be diving into how this applies next time! 

Michael Moorcock's Young Kingdoms And Clark Aston Smith's Zothique By Way of OSRIC

Before this blog entry get's underway we already know about the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition Deities & Demigods By Robert Kuntz & James Ward's  Elric mythos. The material below compliments it. 

 Rodney Mathews Elric artwork used without permission. 

 Over the weekend after playing several games & DMing, it was time to return home to the family. My mind wasn't idle at all over the rest of the weekend. And it went back back in time to 2006  & the release of OSRIC or Old School Reference and Index Compilation. At the time OSRIC was particularly a God sent because it allowed me to have instant access to the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition Dungeon Master's Guide, the Players Handbook, and The Monster Manual all in essentially first edition goodness. And yes, the excitement is still there for OSRIC but the mind weights heavily with Pulp origins for a Elric style game using the OSRIC rules. And then Guy Fullerton's Stormbringer/AD&D first edition hack thread from 2015 jumped out at me here. Now Fullerton's been playing with this idea for a long time as he's got a Moorcockian Sorcerer class here.  As was said this isn't anything new & goes back to 2015. But seed is there for me as a dungeon master. 

Over the years the idea of using the Grey Elves inplace of the Melnibonéans for AD&D first edition & OSRIC. Reading through Guy Fullerton's PC entries that perhaps these rules could serve another Pulp world setting quite easily. I'm thinking about using these rules for Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique as a one shot or mini campaign. And yes this flies in the face of convention or does it. Zothique itself has bold sorcerers who make bargains with otheworldly powers of Chaos & Hell. So it makes sense that these rules could be twisted to Smith's world & yes I know about the Free D20 Zothique pdf here. 

But how does one incorporate the OSRIC races or classes within such a Zothique game?! The answer is fairly simple really, the OSRIC characters are visitors from another realm and the Young Kingdoms or Zothique are another stop on a whirl wind tour. 

This all was a thought excercise over the weekend but OSRIC looms large in my DM brains headlights at the moment. So this might be a mini campaign coming up or simply two stops that are a part of the next mini campaign at the moment. 
Somet thoghts on OSRIC as well, the retroclone isn't fully AD&D first edition but it does emulate a good chunk of it. OSRIC is excellent for Sword & Sorcery adventures and does a nice job at what the Rpg sets out to do. The old school mechanics of OSRIC are very flexible & could be applied to any number of OSR adventure styles. 

Review and Commentary On The OSR Resource - OSRIC Player's Guide By Steve Robertson & Stuart Marshall For Your Old School Campaigns

Stuart Marshall released the OSRIC Player's Guide   and it clocks in at around one hundred eighty pages of OSR goodness but what exactly is this book? Its a condensed down and boiled down essence of the OSRIC rule book. You can check out a free version of this book right over HERE
Personally after reading through this book I'd go for the print copy. My eyes were ready to bleed out because this book features wall to wall original artwork.

So what's in the book? Well, according to the Lulu blurb;
"OSRIC Player's Guide (Perfect Bound Softcover) At approx. 180 pages, this slim volume has all of the information that OSRIC players need and none of the stuff they don't. It essentially contains the first 3 chapters of OSRIC, minus some of the GM content from chapter 3. It features over 70 all new illustrations created specifically for this book, relatively large print to make for easy reading, incorporates the latest errata (as of November 2012), a reorganized spells section, a spell index, and a general"
Yeah, this description doesn't really do the book any real justice, this is a slimmed down over all edited and in many respects improved version of OSRIC with the player in mind. Skipping through the book and reading it will make you want to actually run the game. So basically everything is run much tighter and leaner, the book is very well done. The print is clear and concise. The layout is very well done. There are nods here and there throughout the book to its original source material.


Everything here is very well done, the quality of the work is very nice and its actually useful to both the player and the dungeon master. All of the mechanisms for each race, attribute, and class are all grouped as they should making this a very easy book to use at the table and something well done for taking with you to a game. This sort of a natural progression puts this game reference right around the mark where it needs to be.This is the sort of high quality product that I've come to expect out of the OSR.

One of the big selling points is the clear and concise indexing of the book's contents in easy to understand indexes with large print with everything laid out for referencing and quick access at the DM's finger tips. The spells are laid out according to level, PC class and readily handy.



Bottomline do I think that this book is worth the price tag? Yes in spades in point of fact. Stuart Marshall does an excellent job with his book and its a welcome addition to the OSRIC family. Because its a Black Friday sale on Lulu,Code TURKEY30 gets 30% off print orders at Lulu thru Thanksgiving, 11/26.