More New Ice Kingdoms OSR Sourcebook Commentary

So the other day I was zipping around the various Facebook support groups & Mad Martian Games's Christopher Barnhart made the official announcement;"If the tracking is to be trusted, the proofs should be at my house tonight when I get off work. Therefore, provided there are no issues, we should start fulfilling orders tomorrow night.

We will be working our way down from highest level backers to lower level backers. Breaking them up into groups so we can tackle all the fulfillment in one weekend.
Then we can proceed to finish up the three adventures, the art book and the map supplement for Into the Mournwood. Then I can get some rest before tackling the Bestiary and the next Kickstarter (once we see what the IRS does to us!)"

Yes, I totally stole this from Ice Kingdom's Facebook support page.

So is there a difference between this book & the Black Edition that Mad Martian sent me? In a word yes according to Mad Martian's RW Stenberg "Yes! more art! more reference! Better words! 196 pages of snow covered viking goodness!" In addition according to Christopher Barnhart, the new color edition is still b&w interior but this edition is a more refined and edited version of the Black Edition with additional information, the finished product. The Black Edition was an early release of an incomplete edited manuscript." For the moment I'm good with my copy of the Black Edition that Mad Martian had sent me.


Congrats to the backers & those of  you who supported the Ice Kingdoms Kickstarter. Recently, I've been rereading the book at various intervals and dipping my dungeon master's wick in. Think of that what you will. But seeing the color book has me looking & wanting but I have some reservations. But these aren't what you think.
See its like this, Ice Kingdoms is a great setting with lots of fantastic Dungeons & Dragons style races, monsters, PC class options, etc. but its really its own world with lots of interesting kick ass sword & sorcery  details but it needs to stand on its own terms. The more you delude & mix this setting there's something of a loss that can happen here.
This was one of the reasons why in the last commentary that I made about mixing Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea with the Ice Kingdoms I stated keeping things separate from each other.



Many of the familiar D&D  setting details might look familiar but they've been given a brand new & somewhat unique spin through the lens of the fantastical aspects of Norse Mythology with some Greek, Arthurian, Celtic, Germanic and Russian Mythological influences  which makes a huge difference to how they can impact a campaign. In other words if your going to do an Ice Kingdoms game then set it within the Ice Kingdoms themselves or take bits & piece of the setting for NPC's,  monsters, adventure locations, but keep the Ice Kingdom's flavor.


So why I'm holding off on the jumping on board with the new rule book? Well because I want to do this setting and world justice. There's a certain amount of unique Viking style trappings about the setting and simply dropping it into a game as another sword & sorcery cookie cutter OSR product doesn't do me or my players any good. Digesting a world setting means getting into some respect for the amount work & passion that the writers & creators have done with the Ice Kingdoms. By distilling that into a home brewed adventure then a DM has not only a unique voice but his own take on an OSR setting. This is one of the corner stones of the OSR, taking an existing product or setting and putting your own stamp on it to make it yours. The Ice Kingdoms seems ideal suited for just this sort of gaming.

I'm kind of excited to see where Mad Martian is going to take the Ice Kingdoms & it should be a unique ride to say the least. The colour edition looks most excellent. The world of Eordan is very well laid out and I can't wait for the next chapter of The Ice Kingdoms.

Mixing & Matching Setting Elements From The OSR Sourcebook Ice Kingdoms From Mad Martian Games & Hyperborea From The Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea Rpg System From North Wind Adventures

Thanks for the email  +CherryCokeRiboflavin first of all & the great questions about mixing and matching these fantastic settings. If your interested dear reader my first impressions of the Ice Kingdoms they haven't changed. The world of Eordan is very well laid out in the Black Edition of Ice Kingdoms within the OSR campaign book. There shouldn't need to be any thematic element changes between Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea & Ice Kingdoms they're both old school sword & sorcery settings built for OSR adventures & play.


The Ice Kingdoms has many of the traditional AD&D first & second edition monsters, races,magical elements, classes, etc. all with sword & sorcery twists to them drawing heavily from the fantastical aspects of Norse Mythology with some Greek, Arthurian, Celtic, Germanic and Russian Mythology added in. This makes the world uniquely its own thing but its setting  is grounded in the OSR within its systems so its easy to convert between use with  OSRIC and For Gold & Glory. Their books can also be used with Swords & Wizardry, Basic Fantasy Role-Playing,Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea  and Labyrinth Lord because they contain extensive conversion notes & tables for use between these retroclone systems.


Now as for how PC's can travel and mingle between these settings? Well that's rather easy if we take the world of Eordan & place it within the same orbits as the black winds of Hyperborea these two bodies might pass near each other in the blackness of space. Both game systems have extensive astrological sections within them. Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea has an entire section on the Hyperborean system carefully laid out in the Referee's book on page 178. All of the astrological bodies and phenomenon appear within.


Now hypothetically the bowel shaped flat world of Hyperborea could pass within the influence of the world of Eordan allowing a mingling of atmospheres and perhaps even hypothetically oceans. Now given the nature of Ice Kingdom's Thanesmen & the Vikings of Hyperborea its within the realm of possibility of these two groups traveling to each other's worlds to go exploring, adventuring, raiding, trading, and even to establish out posts. Technically there could be hidden shrines, or long forgotten tribal locations within some of the backwaters of Hyperborea or vice versa.


The Ice Kingdom's setting has extensive background on its cosmology and there are differences across the board but these can be incorporated & fleshed out by a clever dungeon master looking to exploit such setting minutia to work in their benefit.


This mixing and matching of settings allows a dungeon master to introduce on a limited basis such traditional D&D races such as Elves & Dwarves into the world of Hyperborea with very a definitive sword & sorcery spin on them.
This can be done without ruining the unique flavor of the Hyperborea setting or adding in too many high fantasy elements within the bounds of AS&SH. Part of the strength of Hyberborea is the low fantasy high pulpiness of the world giving it a rather unique feel in the world of the OSR. Ice Kingdoms has a far more heart & soul of dark European mythological fantasy with a heart of sword & sorcery.


Crossing into the spaces between worlds on a Viking ship is going to make spell jamming look like a trip to sunny brook farm. The space between worlds is going to be filled with all kinds of hazards not to mention Lovecraftian horrors waiting to snack on a viking warrior or ten. This means that a wizard or cleric of Odin is going to be essential to such endeavors.



In the end this sort of mixing & matching of systems to through the use of inter system world existence is something that could lead to a world crossing point crawl from one OSR or old school setting  to another allow DM's to pick and choose which settings they want to have as the focus for their own hybrid campaigns. So +CherryCokeRiboflavinI hope this helps out in your own OSR campaign, great question & hopefully I've given you some more fodder for your own games.

Initial Impressions Of The OSR Sourcebook Ice Kingdoms From Mad Martian Games

Alright so back about August of this past year I helped to promote The Ice Kingdoms 

Kickstarter from Mad Martian games. I was just starting to really dip my toe in more Sword & Sorcery style Old School third or forth tier products. Anyhow I got absorbed by the OSR & table top gaming as I always do. Then I was contacted by the Mad Martian crew on Facebook that my book is on the way?! Alright so flash forward yesterday & really nice package arrives from Lulu. Inside was this beauty!

So what on Earth is this?! Well its a source book about a Viking like people with lots of deep OSR bits. I say Viking like because it draws from the Celtic (Pictish), Arthurian, Russian, Norse, & lots of other mythologies especially sword & sorcery. Here's the blurb from the Kickstarter;"The Ice Kingdoms is a fantasy setting inspired by and designed for old school RPG’s. We love the ‘feel’ of old school games and their rules, and we are creating materials that are compatible with several current systems that ‘retro-clone’ those older games. The Ice Kingdoms is compatible with OSRIC and For Gold & Glory, and our books can also be used with Swords & Wizardry, Basic Fantasy Role-Playing, and Labyrinth Lord with only very minimal conversion, as well as the original editions upon which these games are based."  So why was I interested in this Ice Kingdoms in the first place? Because I was playing boat load of Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea & I wanted a Viking style source book well I got it in spades. Now that being said there's a bit of THACO style system scattered throughout the book because of the source book's connection to the 'For Gold & Glory' second edition AD&D  retroclone  By Justen Brown. 

 Umm how do I put this delicately, I'm not a fan of second edition AD&D because the system took a lot of the teeth out of the PC's classes. This isn't me engaging in 'edition wars' bull crap but its a systemic observation of 2nd edition AD&D. The TSR second edition era world settings  were/are  incredible but the system was very bloated and heavy in many regards. THACO can be a bit of a problem for some gamers  but for us old schoolers who know a bit about conversions there's a dice and systems conversion page. There's also some  fairly detailed conversion rules in the book to make it usable with other OSR systems, including their  indexed priest spell list so this makes using Ice Kingdoms with  Swords & Wizardry, Basic Fantasy Role-Playing, Labyrinth Lord & other OSR game systems a snap.

CS Barnhart is the lead designer on the project and there's a lot of his finger prints all over this sourcebook in a good way. There are multiple human tribes scattered throughout the Ice Kingdoms that resemble many of the peoples of history with their cultures resembling Greek, Arthurian, Celtic, Germanic and Russian respectively. The book is actually organized with a decent ready for it? An index of all of the material relative to the Ice Kingdoms themselves. This is a big deal for a book that deals with a world setting plus monsters, horrors, orcs, goblins, etc. yes there are the usual suspects but they've been given an Ice Kingdom paint job & well blended into the setting's cultural background.

The whole book has the feel of a labor of love and hearkens back very early indie D&D style source books so on that level it appeals to me; Mad Martian also went the extra mile by enlisting the talents of writers who were themselves involved with those old books, James Ward and Ernest Gary Gygax, jr. The layout is smooth & the text is clear, the world setting is pretty detailed but not overwhelmingly so. There's plenty of room for DIY D&Ding in this one.


The Ice Kingdoms is a collection of borderlands stretching between fair Adierolf and vile Dargogran, a mountainous and savage untamed wilderness of marauders, monsters and mystery, known as the Land Bridge. The Land Bridge is home to the savage and misunderstood Ice Kingdoms. Between the Thansmen, the various warrior races, Ice magi, and other barbarian style hordes I'd drop these folks right into a their own setting in an Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea game! Floating high above Hyperborea this world comes into close orbit around that setting & then wham looting pillaging begins! The Hyperborean Viking gods are not going to get along at all with some of the gods of the Ice Kingdom. Ullr alone is a good example of a survivor of Old Earth's Ragnarok that is more then happy to send his worshipers into war against these upstarts from another world.
The book is extremely detailed and well thought out!
Which is why I wouldn't actually screw around with retro fitting the setting as it is. I would take the whole setting cloth & all to add into my own  low magic, high violence sword & sorcery world to add in another dimension of play and adventure.Thanks to Mad Martian Games for my copy of the Ice Kingdom and an early Christmas present!
Do you want a copy of The Ice Kingdoms for your own old school campaigns? Get in contact with Mad Martian games here!


Mad Martian offers some great previews here
25 page PDF of "The Ice Kingdoms" Website

An Updated Preview/Sample of "The Ice Kingdoms"

There's also a great Facebook support group for the Ice Kingdom