Review & Commentary On 'The Rockwell Inn' From THERAGINGBARBARIAN For Your Old School Campaigns

"Faraway, in the greatest battle in this age of the world, the  forces of the Bleak Warlock were undone, but at a dear cost. Lifes' of  many were lost, and the Emperor themself, hero and hope of the Free 

People, fell -for raise never again. In the wake of Worlock's defeat a  mighty storm of snow thunder and hail rose, hammering the fugitives  and the survivors for seven nights and seven days.

As this ordeal of frost seem to rest, after chill and desperation, you  come in sight of a lonely inn, a dim light behind a window.  The tag over the bell says: The Rockwell Inn"."

Sometimes you need a one page adventure location to stick into your OSR or old school Moldvay Dungeons & Dragons games. I was looking around Drivethrurpg & came across 'The Rock Way Inn' adventure location. A nifty little free dungeon adventure location for download.



Its not bad, basically its a nice little adventure location with a bunch of evocative NPC's & some back story. The whole affairs feels like its a location straight outta of a horror film & might be just the thing to get horror Moldvay Dungeons & Dragons game off the ground.

Since its free I can't complain & for a low level horror themed there are several NPC's that could be just the thing to kickstart a game campaign. But there's a number of NPC's who will burn the inn to the ground! 

"Grimbrow, Lost Giant Since the dawn of times, the Frost Giants of Havenpeak have been fighting for Chaos, sheding blood and spreading hate in the name of their Overlords. They were with the Bleak Warlock, Grimbrow having slayed six score and half a dozen ironclad riders, when the stonebolts began to rain. Now the Havenpeak Giants are no more, Grimbow being the last of them. He lost giants clan, he lost his purpose, he lost his legs, soon he'll loose his life. Still he did lose his fury. He's hopeless, and starving, and dying. If nobody stops him, he'll eat everything he can, drink everything he can, kill everyone he can, curse the gods, rest and then die. "
You know for an entree in the 'One Page Dungeon' books this is a very dark little adventure location which I think fits someplace between Lamentations of the Flame Princess & Moldvay '82 D&D. Reading through the various NPC's I couldn't help but think about the dark & twisted humor of early White Dwarf magazines. The twisted fun of the Rock Well Inn  might just suit Glynn Seal's The Midderlands setting easily. There's fun NPC's here but man it would take a bit of work on the player's PC part to try & save them which could branch off in to whole cloth adventures on their own. Not bad but this is a dark but fun adventure location which might suit some games. 




The Rock Well Inn Is Available
 Right Here For Free 

OSR Review & Commentary On The Swords & Wizardry Adventure Behind The Walls By John Large From MonkeyBlood Design

"The adventure takes place in the north of Havenland, near to the Scrottish borders by the Kelderwater lake (see Hex M09 of The Haven Isles map).

Ebeneezer Garbett, a local farmer from the mushroom-filled valley village of Otterdale, returned to the hamlet with tales of riches he had found. Now, no-one has seen him since, and he villagers are becoming ill with a strange fungal infection."


Set within the Midderlands Behind The Wall by John Large is an adventure with  Scrottish fungi weirdness happening around the party as they run into legacy of  the ruins of an ancient Goman fortification recently. And this is a well put together but deadly adventure centered around the events of the  farm stead of Ebeneezer Garbett & his ill dealings with the Mullach Dubh. This fungi is a mould that grows on the dead, absorbing their memories and re-animating their bodies into a terrible half-life. But this isn't a simple face down the zombie hordes adventure.
Instead this is a thinking man's adventure where the player's PC's are going to be dealing with the slightly off kilter weirdness of the Goman empire of the Midderlands. And some of the horrors of the alien invasion like take over of the Mullach Dubh.
The layout & artwork are top notch & the cartography is of course up to Monkey Blood Design standards.
"This adventure is intended for low level play and can be scaled up or down accordingly. It should work best with 4× Level 1-4 player characters." Now according to the read through I had this is a fairly low level adventure but you should have four or more players with PC's from the Midderlands. The adventure Behind The Wall by John Large is very hex location based & has a solid quality about it.


If you like the Midderlands then you're going to love Behind The Wall by John Large. It has that same White Dwarf magazine old school quality about it. The humor is right center point but this is still a take down aspect to it that will slaughter your PCs. This is a really flexible & customizable for your own old school or OSR games especially Swords & Wizardry.

Really comes down to the random tables & ideas scattered through out the product & it makes good use of them. Behind The Wall by John Large retains the charm & deadliness of the Midderlands line.



Played wrong & Behind The Wall by John Large will slaughter PC's without remorse & not even give the party a second glance. This is a solidly done adventure that does what it sets out to do. The events in the villages of Behind The Wall will challenge & possibly kill a novice group of players. But will vex even the most jaded experienced gamers. Highly recommended.

Operation Middenlands - Marrying Jason Sholtis Operation Unfathomable & Monkey Blood Design's Middenlands Setting

So I've been thinking about the Advanced Labyrinth Lord  Kickstarter & playing around with using Swords & Wizardry adventures & settings with it. I read about Glynn Seal of Monkey Blood Design's bad news tonight; "Okay, so my pickup truck failed its MOT test.To get it through, the running total is now at £920 GBP. Holy shit! I've never had a failure that bad... and I need my truck.

It turns out this year was the wrong year to go freelance.
If anyone wants to empty their wallet buying MonkeyBlood Design stuff, or commission me (although I'm tied up for a few weeks at the moment), or just share this around, please feel free to do so and thank you in advance!"



But this also got me thinking about Glynn's Midderlands mini sand box setting which is really weird because its for Swords & Wizardry. But it takes very little to convert on the fly from one OSR system to other.

Part of the idea of the Midderlands mini setting is that the deeper down you go the further you get into the green tinged Gloomium & primal chaos of the setting. This idea of primal chaos also got me thinking of Jason Sholtis's Operation Unfathomable.

 

Seal's Midderlands has a completely different feel then Shotlis setting. The Midderlands is completely fantasy United Kingdom on acid with splashes of dark fantasy scattered throughout. While Sholtis's setting that has a mix of dark fantasy comic book meets high weirdness with touches of Lovecraft & they had  a dungeon setting love child. Operation Unfathomable is weird & bizarre OSR adventure.
There would seem to be very little in common between the two product's settings except for the fact that both have a miasma of chaos madness  tinged in the center of their respective underground worlds. 
Its in the dungeon underworld where the two settings can be completely hooked up. The Middenlands could be an isolated & comparatively idyllically stationed backwater of a campaign world. The rest of the world however is a stinking mire of  dark fantasy typical an old school or OSR game Europe.
There are a few ways that marrying these two settings can easily & painlessly done in my mind:

1. The Operation Unfathomable world elements are on the other side of the campaign world. It takes a mounted expedition or two too get to the high weirdness. 
2. The dungeon underworlds of both the Middenlands & Operation are deeply connected because of the strain of primal chaos seething through the core of the campaign world. 
3. The solar system of this campaign world is of great importance to certain alien  factions in both  settings. They've been at war for a very long time & neither side wants to give up. 
4. Neither of these worlds is cosmically important but the wheels were set in motion billions of years ago. The chess board has to be played out. 
5. Glynn Seal's Demon Stones adventure   has several setting design options for bringing in Gloomium Outer Darkness goodness right out of a clear blue sky into a campaign. 
6.  Lots of Operation Unfathomable's factions are ripe to exploit the chaos laden goodness of Gloomium especially those bastard mushroom scientists of Sholtis. 
7.  The human race in both settings is completely & utterly expendable in the face of some of the factions in both books. They really do need heroes & adventurers to survive. 
8.   There's something very uniquely unsettling about the thought that in some libarary in the Middenland  is a  book & map from a failed expedition to the dungeons of Operation Unfathomable. Mounting an expedition would take lots & lots of money, time, treasure, ships, resources, etc. The PC's are perhaps going to be a part of a much larger operation.
9. The natives of  Operation Unfathomable are not friendly & should they become aware of the Middenlands Europe, then all bets could be off for those poor people. Or maybe they are aware of these folks & they don't care because their completely & utterly unimportant to their alien plans. 
10. I keep thinking of a campaign world where the world is much weirder & far more dangerous then the provincial fantasy Europeans think it is. The expansion of the West into the lands of Operation are going to be an eye opening experience.
     

Stefan Poag's artwork from the Operation Unfathomable book  quickly illustrates the exact sort of a situation that I'm speaking of.
" The above illustration shows an ‘Underworld ranger’ discharging his lightning pistol at a perfidious mind-bat while another ranger reels from the psychic attack they have already suffered — all creatures and situations from the dark corners of Sholtis’ fertile imagination."


I really can stop thinking about marrying this up with the back story of Henchmen Abuse's the Anomalous Subsurface Environment  ASE1 & ASE2&3 world.  Everything is completely in place for a massive campaign world. The factions, the science fantasy high weirdness, the world churning events, etc.
The whole affair would be massive undertaking with three or more dungeon masters handling the gonzo & completely dangerously insane world affair. This is why I'd run the whole thing with Labyrinth Lord.

 The question is are the adventurers of the Midderlands mini sand box setting ready for the high weirdness awaiting them in the greater world or underworld?!

Highcastle Guard
Under the command of Sir Hestel Vinethorn of Brignorth.

I think that both OSR settings have a lot of campaign milage to offer the players & the dungeon master. This is a sweet little chaos laden campaign affair that could have players coming back to the table for many years to come!

 Next time back to Arduin on the blog tomorrow!

 

 

OSR Round Up News With Venger Satanis, Rpg Pundit, & Money Blood Designs & Gavin Norman

Right now I'm super hot and its because I've got the flu & I'm ganked up with all kinds of cold medicine. But there's been a few developments out in the OSR hobby. First of all +Venger Satanis has a brand new Kickstarter up & I agreed months ago to help promote it. Why?! Well Venger is a real life friend & I agree to do weird stuff at times.

"Are you Alpha Blue curious, spacer? I've launched a new Kickstarter, Battle Star Trilogy: Trek Wars. It'll melt in her mouth... and in her hands/tentacles, as well" He's doing his Battle Star Galactica, Star Trek, Star Wars in with Alpha Blue. And more power to em.

The second thing that's going on is a bit of a mix up/glitch on the part of Rpgnow for 'Lion & Dragon' from +Kasimir Urbanski  & +Dominique Crouzet.
So what is Lion & Dragon? Well its a medieval authentic OSR system which takes place in a very twisted  real life magical setting. But this sounds like Dark Albion to me. Well its not. First this is a completely different setting a 'more historically authentic medieval experience, to reflect the grittier and yet more mythic world of a magical medieval Europe.' According to the real Rpgnow link.

The material is essentially mostly OSR system compatible and easily converts to your favorite retroclone system even thought the entire game is a stand alone system on its own.
The sections  on alchemy, herbal medicines, poisons, or law & justice, the magick system could easily be ported over to your home campaign in spades.



Do I actually own the game? No I'm waiting till I have the after Christmas money to get it. I like to support the smaller OSR publishers. If you don't believe me then check out Kenny Johnson's video review and flip through.

The third reason for this post is because +MonkeyBlood Design (Glynn Seal)  is going to be expanding the Midderlands OSR mini setting on Kickstarter. If your not familiar with the Midderlands setting its like the good part of White Dwarf's Dungeons & Dragons material set in a Medieval Period back water mini setting with all of its own history, monsters, weather, etc. It can also be uses for running 'Lion & Dragon' as a drag & drop setting for the game without breaking the bank.
 

It could potentially be used with the Dolmwood setting in Wormskin by +Gavin Norman  & it would work like a charm with some adjustment on the dungeon master's part. Because of the modular nature of the campaign setting DM's can adjust and move adventure locations & systems as necessary.

The focus of this whole affair could be the Hundred Years War is the perfect historical campaign fodder for this style of campaign. If you want to connect Lion & Dragon with Dark Albion, it would be quite easy to run this campaign during the lead up to when everything changes in Dark Albion or real world history.

"The Hundred Years' War was a series of conflicts waged from 1337 to 1453 by the House of Plantagenet, rulers of the Kingdom of England, against the House of Valois, rulers of the Kingdom of France, over the succession to the French throne. Each side drew many allies into the war. It was one of the most notable conflicts of the Middle Ages, in which five generations of kings from two rival dynasties fought for the throne of the largest kingdom in Western Europe. The war marked both the height of chivalry and its subsequent decline, and the development of strong national identities in both countries."

So not only do you have a tailor made historical conflict but a real world event that could take years to play through. But there's no extra support for Lion & Dragon rpg?! Wrong there's a ton of support in the form of the RpgPundit Presents titles. From Dragon corpses magical properties to further books of occult esoteric weirdness  to high tech weapons. He's got it all covered & much more.

All of these are fully compatible with Lion & Dragon rpg system & will provide your players with nightmares for years to come.

But now there's been a new wrinkle in the mix according to  RpgPundit ;"The saga continues and RPGnow has screwed me over yet again. With another "accident" or "mistake" that rendered useless every single link I spent all day yesterday posting. But I'm not done yet."