1d6 Random Lovecraftian Underworld Encounters Table For Your Old School Campaigns

When the Old Earth passed into the deep night's dreaming, many of the old monsters and horrors of the Atlantian Empire passed into the Underworld. These things sometimes do not rest easy and their reality intrudes on other places and times. Treasures and artifacts call to adventurers and lure fools to their dooms. Here then are 1d6 Lovecraftian underworld encounters


“By noon Carter reached the jasper terraces of Kiran which slope down to the river's edge and bear that temple of loveliness wherein the King of Ilek-Vad comes from his far realm on the twilight sea once a year in a golden palanquin to pray to the god of Oukranos, who sang to him in youth when he dwelt in a cottage by its banks. All of jasper is that temple, and covering an acre of ground with its walls and courts, its seven pinnacled towers, and its inner shrine where the river enters through hidden channels and the god sings softly in the night. Many times the moon hears strange music as it shines on those courts and terraces and pinnacles, but whether that music be the song of the god or the chant of the cryptical priests, none but the King of Ilek-Vad may say; for only he had entered the temple or seen the priests. Now, in the drowsiness of day, that carven and delicate fane was silent, and Carter heard only the murmur of the great stream and the hum of the birds and bees as he walked onward under the enchanted sun.”
― H.P. Lovecraft, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kathath

 1d6 Random Lovecraftian Underworld Encounters Table

1. 1d4 alien iron golem guardians fashioned in the form of alien humanoid things, these horrors seek to feast upon the blood and flesh of the living. Trapped within are demonic souls of ancient alien beings that animate these beings. They seek to destroy anyone who would venture into the underworld and trespass into the world of the dead. They  serve some of the lesser known death gods of the underworld. 
2. 1d6 2nd level undead fighters made from the souls of warriors who have come before, they seek the release of their master the demon lord Thog. 
3. 1d3 chaotic gargoyles who have fleeted the underworld and are operating now between the cracks of reality. They will attack anyone coming near the abandoned temple that they call home. They are ruthless and will attack any adventurers searching for treasure.
    
4. 1d8 zombies and damned souls that have been vomited fourth from the Underworld and now seek to infect the living with their horrid conditions and feast on the flesh of the living. There is a 10% change that there will be an elite zombie priest among them of at least fourth level or better zombie 
5. Lovecraftian harpies hell bent on escaping into the world and feasting on the flesh of the living and devouring their souls. 
6. 1d4 mid level demon warriors casting lots to see who will feast upon and rob the next travelers. They are clever but love to rob the helpless. They are very dangerous monsters armed with short swords and shields made from the  flesh  of their enenmies. They love to rob the living of any and all tre

 

Retro Review Of The Arcanum Part Of The 2nd edition (Atlantean Trilogy RPG System) For Your Old School Campaigns

"Alchemy and magic in the lost world of Atlantis. Contains nearly 500 spells, hundreds of alchemical and magical scripts, ciphers, symbols, wards, and runes. Also featured are optional rules for combat and magic, 27 character classes, new non-human races for player characters, photocopyable character sheets and spell cards along with a multitude of interesting game
variants."

After an apartment fire I once traveled one hundred and twenty miles for a copy of this book and that's no lie. To this day I still haven't recovered everything but then I've changed motivations for gaming. You see there are two types of table gamers really. There are collectors and then there are gamers, those people who fiddle with systems and play as if its second nature. These folks usually surround themselves with others of their kind. I'm a gamer and this was my go to gaming system as a part of my OD&D/AD&D 1st edition customized gaming system along with Arduin and Delos. By the way nothing has really changed. What makes this book such a well regarded treasure? Its one complete old school gaming system under one title.

Its very well organized and lays everything right at the players and the dungeon master's feet; there are a ton of traditional and no traditional fantasy races in the world of Atlantis during the;"  Second Age campaign may begin anytime between the years 150-200 (by Atlantean Second Age reckoning); in modern day terms, this would equate to approximately 15,000 B.C." But this book isn't the world book for Atlantis, instead this is the rpg system that was the first part of the Atlantis rpg system. For a sword and sorcery game player this book had a lot of awesome to offer. Micheal Sechi, famous creator of Talislantis and  co-founder of Bard games did a great job with this book.

The mechanics are quite simple: a d20 roll for most results, armor subtracts from damage and there are systems in place to create everything you need from the ground up. Everything is well laid out and the type face is easy on the eyes unlike Arduin and the Compleat Spell Caster. This book has it all under one roof. The concept of a level-driven system and that of a skill-based system are all there to use and only Rolemaster would have a similar rpg system later on.

There are a ton of options for races from the tradition to really interesting hybrid races that we might later see in Talislanta except here there are Elves, Dwarves, and many, many more. This is a world of classic mythology and sword & sorcery legend on steroids. There are  thirty two  classes and over a half-dozen races. Everything is sort of close to the "classic D&D" standard, but  there are twists on the usual suspects to make things very interesting.

This is a world setting pushed to the brink and still going strong and its book that has everything you need to run it out of the gate including conversion tables for OD&D, AD&D, Runequest and Tunnels & Trolls.

Races here are close enough to D&D but with some interesting twists to keep things interesting during character creation. There are several small tweaks that enable a PC to be customized as per the Compleat Spell Caster.

There's a bit of a variation with the magic system in this book for wizards and spell casters according to one of the Amazon reviews I've read; "One standout feature is that spellcasters (otherwise quite strong despite their lack of armor, given their ability to select spells at casting time--no "memorizing") have a unique handicap in combat situations. In direct, face-to-face confrontations, they can't fire anything more than 1st-level spells. This encourages them to stay out of the line of fire and let the warriors and physical combatants step forward. Teamwork is the key to a successful combat scene."
 


The PC magical classes have about nine different lists between them;" There are some really nice B/W art pieces between the sections enabling a DM to find what they need quickly during play.

The spell lists are brief, but cover most of the common effects you've seen in other games (magic bolt, darkness, charms, etc.). And with so many classes, there are NINE TYPES of magic to choose from--including some dual-classes that combine aspects of two different schools. (Where else can you find a Monk class separate from the Martial Artist and the Mystic?)

There is a solid selection of combat oriented classes including the witch hunter which would fit right into a sword and sorcery setting where wizards are an issue. The classes here have the feel of a Ray Harryhausen movie such as Sinbad and The Eye of the Tiger or the original Clash of the Titans.

You get break downs of backgrounds, skill systems, PC motivations, complications and history options for play and hooks for PC's for adventures.

There's a wealth of background details including a mini version of the system from the The Compleat Alchemist all of which can be applied across the board and dovetails in with some of the other classes. The system isn't perfect but lends its self to customization far more readily then Rolemaster by an order of magnitude.

Systems here are easy to grasp and oriented towards OSR style gaming and well rounding out of the PC with a variety of smaller subsystems and a multiple skill sets.

There are a myriad of spells keyed into the backgrounds of the PC classes and the setting material ie Black magic spells fit into the Necromancer and other black magick PC classes. There are a wide selection of touches and subsystems to add even more color to your PC.

Many of the most common and interesting systems that were in the Compleat series have been tucked into the  Arcanum into the back lot of the rpg book itself enabling a clever DM to pull these into his or her own game worlds.

One of the strengths of the  Arcanum  is the fact that while it is oriented towards Bard Games Atlantis world in spades there is plenty of room for customization into a whole pack of Retroclone games. In point of fact this is the case with a few DM's I've talked with who are using this book with games as diverse as Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea & to Labryth Lord with the Advanced Companion. The Arcanum adds a bit more flesh to the bones of these games and other systems such as Lamentations of the Flame Princess.

Dungeons and Dragons might have been the star of the Satanic Panic but it was the Arcanum which actually had the systems to flesh out the dark rituals and rites during adventures. In point of fact the Arcanum  can and does do a classic pulpy sword & sorcery horror adventure quite nicely in spades.

There are occult symbols and signs that can be used for minor magicks in the dungeon and astrological signs for summoning as well as minor magicks for PC's. All of this stuff adds flavor into an adventure.

Much of this material can easily be poured into the backdrop of more adult oriented D&D games such as Lamentations of the Flame Princess or Dark Albion.

Yeah, this game is from another less commercialized and more home  campaign oriented style of play, this comes through in the handling of class and skill sets. PC's were very well set up and its really no wonder that this book sells for forty two to forty five dollars on Amazon and E bay.

The appendixes with the expanded weapons lists and the whole pack reeks of quality of the small press that you just see in some of the better quality OSR publishers. There are a ton of expanded weapons, rules for poison, alcohol, disease, motives and reasons for PC's mentors, rules on demon summoning and rites etc.

On the whole looking through my copy of the Arcanum I'm reminded what a brilliant little product this was and is now that pendulum has swung toward the OSR and the DYI D&D community. There are still lessons between its pages and a whole different route that Bard Games might have gone. If you can find a copy of this game book snatch it and grab some friends, some dice and get playing. Five out of five stars for utility and fun. Still one of my all time favorite books to thumb through.

Resolving Minor Issues With The Alpha Blue Rpg PDF by Venger Satanis

So apparently there's been a minor issue with the Alpha Blue Rpg  PDF by  Venger Satanis and I was asked to pass some of this information along to my blog subscribers and those who backed the Alpha Blue Kickstarter.

Well, I was asked by Venger Satanis to pass the following information along about the Alpha Blue rpg pdf;"

Hey guys,
Glynn and I just noticed a few commas in some of the tables (after page 40, curiously) were dropped from the document.  Mysterious!  Glynn is getting to the bottom of it.  By my guess, there's probably 7 - 10 table entries without their commas.
What does this mean?  Glynn is going to create updated files, putting back the missing commas.  Updated PDFs will be available as soon as I have them.
Unfortunately, CreateSpace was extremely efficient in getting the books created.  I just got off the phone with them and they said production is over and they're waiting to be shipped.  
There are a few options available.  I'd like to order new books, once the update is completed.  Since it was caught and fixed early enough, that shouldn't push the delivery date too far past the January 12th date I was promised.  But I'll let you guys know when I know.  Maybe I'll include the missing comma books too that can be shared with players for character creation, highlighting, taking notes, etc.
More info coming tomorrow... also a little bonus surprise!"
VS

Updates for this blog post; according to Monkey Blood Design and Venger:
"Files are all amended... just waiting on VS for feedback on a couple of things and I'll get files prepped immediately. Bloody commas!  Apologies for the slight delay folks." from MB Design and Venger has now approved the 'fixes" "I gave my feedback a couple hours ago, so the updated file should be imminent.  BTW, Glynn found a couple more things to fix.  Yay!"

Retro Review Of The Complete Spell Caster By Stephen Michael Sechi & Vernie Taylor For Advanced Dungeons & Dragons First Edition And Your Old School Campaigns

The Complete Spell Caster By Stephen Michael Sechi & Vernie Taylor is fully worked out set of alternative classes from the guys at Bard games. This book came out in Eighty Five and I grabbed a copy from the closing of a game store in Boston in 90 something. Wiki lists the book as  The Compleat Spell Caster (1983) presented many variant magic-user classes. This is pretty much an understatement. Let me explain, back in Eighty Five there were a few companies that were presenting variation magic systems for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. The craze for AD&D was red hot back then and the market had Arduin, and a few small press outfits. Bard Games already had a hit with the Complet Alchemist and now they hit the market with The Complet Spell Caster. This was a completely different take on the wizard of AD&D in a way.

 The book basically approaches spell casters as professions and professionals. The book looks at them as actual individuals and beings of magick with complete personalities with reasons and motives for doing what they do in dungeons and ruins. These weren't simply Dungeons and Dragons books they had tables for snap conversion to AD&D, Runequest, and other popular fantasy rpgs such as Arduin. There were reasons for this.

 The Complete Spell Caster By Stephen Michael Sechi & Vernie Taylor is a spell and magick system unto itself. Basically there were the  chart for the Mystic to turn undead and the same chart was used by the necromancer to control them. There's an air of the Arduin Grimoire about the book because of the typeface and the way that the seven levels for each class are laid out. There are four magick using classes each with sixty plus spells, they have their own experience charts flavor and solidly done backgrounds.

 Guidelines, materials, and rules are nicely laid out at the dungeon master's & player's feet. There are witches (warlocks), mystics, necromancers,sorcerers, and scribes. These PC classes are well done and finely tuned with some nice touches in between.

 You get a quick layout and a readable Arudin style text, many of these wizard classes I've used for B/X gaming over the years and the flavor here adds something to many basic games. Many of the classes in The Complete Spell Caster are now found in other retroclone publications but not all. The Witch in The Complete Spell Caster is a different sort of animal, she compliments but doesn't drink from the same source material as AD&D's druid class. In point of fact I've seen and used her with several parties with druids in them. The Mystic from  The Complete Spell Caster is a wizard cleric hybrid that serves a god and gains solid power but must not harm a living thing. This class has always reminded me of certain Arabian Night style wizards, they also gain the ability to turn undead. They're opposite number is the necromancer whose a damned dangerous class by themselves. These are the black magicians of legend and many Weird Tales, they're professional wizards delving into the black arcane and they are nasty pieces of work who if resurrected come back as a random creature of the undead. They've got a full array of spells to cause merry havoc for PC's or to be among their ranks.

 One of the things that made  The Complete Spell Caster a hoot is the alternative systems that were included as a part of the book. This included a complete system of familiars and backgrounds for summoned creatures much of this dove tailed into the sorcerer class which was sorcerer/scientist style class in the book, these were men and women delving into other worlds and dimensions for power and arcane secrets. Often PC's seemed to end up employed by one of these mad bastards for a research materials and what not.

 Circles of protection, runes, and other set ups for wards in the dungeon are encountered in their own section in the book and these were much needed by wizards. They were activated by an intelligence vs. to see if they were drawn properly. These were often obtained from Sages. The sage is only given a one page overview but for those who had seen Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger they knew exactly who the class had been modeled on. Sages were pieces of work that were jacks of the magickal trade whose expertise was sought and could be a boon to a party or a bane depending upon how they were played.

For me as a dungeon master the summoned creatures section was a favorite, there was a ton of sword and sorcery  flavor here and much of the material dovetailed into Arduin with several of the demon types almost but not quite fitting into the Arduin and Delos molds. This was the section of the book that caused a teacher during the height of the 'Satanic Panic' to burn The Complete Spell Caster and Dragon eighty five after finding it at the born again high school I attended.

 Doesn't matter because I got the last laugh anyway but that's a story for another time,  The Complete Spell Caster's demons are more like templates then fully fleshed out monsters and that's the way I've used them. As templates for Lovecraftian demons over the years, monster that are close to but not quite what PC wizards might be expecting.

 This book adds in a whole bevy of demons, devils, elementals and other planar creature most of which over the years I've used as templates for a wide variety of horrors from other dimensions. There's also some other worldly monsters that can be summoned. Surely these horrors are played out and from another age. Think again my friends these horrors are easily convertible to both B/X and Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 1st edition and could be added into Lamentations of the Flame Princess's Carcosa quite easily giving a much needed monster boost to that title or used in your favorite sword and planet campaign.

 There are even angels and other horrors that can be added into other eras for a more tradition style of pseudo historical dark European game. The material here is interesting as well because we're lacking the Summoner class that would later appear in the Bard's Games Atlantis titles.

 Finally we get a quick overview of the horrors of magick in the form of the Major Arcana a grouping of ten magic spells of a very powerful and somewhat questionable nature. These are some of the secrets of magick that can be sprinkled into campaigns to lure wizards long the paths of power.

 The Complete Spell Caster also has six rather unique magic items that can and will change lives. On the whole  The Complete Spell Caster is a product of its time and has the distinction of being a rather interesting and unique book that has been cast into the shadow of Bard's Games legacy of the Atlantis books but I do think should you find it  The Complete Spell Caster is worth picking up there are several reasons for this. One the book is not that well known and therefore accessible for a DM who wants some rather interesting background and setting details that are both evocative of Eighties D&D and yet lesser known in the gamer circles. Two the occult  material here is easily adaptable to so many retroclone systems that it can serve as another tool in a DM's arsenal, and three I'm a sucker for wizards and spell caster classes,  The Complete Spell Caster has a lot to offer if a DM thinks outside the usual boxes.

Retro Review CM2 Death's Ride by Garry Spiegle For Companion Dungeons & Dragons And Your Old School Campaigns

GRAB IT RIGHT HERE

A King's Commission leads to danger! All communication with the barony of Twolakes Vale has ceased. King Ericall, worried about the security of his border and angered at the loss of tax revenues, has commissioned you, a delegation of powerful characters, to investigate. This is not a petty problem to be solved by the armies of local nobility. Indeed, the king's forces are desperately needed elsewhere. Twolakes Vale is, after all, only a small barony on the far frontier of Ericall's domain. And yet... The cloud is there, its nature and cause unknown. None have returned from the barony for weeks. Furthermore, the cloud is spreading, and vague reports of unrest and mysterious disappearances are starting to trickle in from nearby baronies. Can you discover the secret of Twolakes Vale?
All too often you have high level adventures where the adventurers have an agenda only for themselves not so in Death Takes a Ride. Here you've got an entire Barony on your party's shoulders.


Death Takes A Ride is pretty much a high level adventure  linked in my mind with Christmas & my friend Doug Kozlov. When I was a young kid growing up in Torrington,Ct. wasn't exactly the Leave It To Beaver or Happy Days. The Eighties in Torrington Connecticut quite frankly sucked and sucked hard, the Torrington Company was laying off workers and my dad was one of 'em. The Torrington Company in its heyday employed several thousand and quite frankly that heyday was gone as the jobs disappeared down South. I was in St.Peter's school and used to walk to school dodging neighborhood bullies and hanging out with my friends. I used to live right around from the corner from the Beth El Temple in Torrington Ct. and Doug was an overtly smart kid who was one of my D&D players and best friends. He also bought me CM2 for a Christmas present because he wanted me to run the adventure for him and our friend Billie who lived down the street from us. Billie was really nice kid and smart as a whip when it came to the D&D rules; CM1 is a high level Expert game adventure whose foundations are the PC's roles in proving their fealty to the Barony. The PC's have the roles of avengers, heroes, and rulers all at once; this is no mere dungeon crawl.

My group of players at the time always associated this piece of artwork with CM2

"A strange black cloud hangs over the Norworld barony of Two Lake Vale, which is cut off from the rest of the world. As the player characters move to investigate, they encounter armies of the living dead and other vile creatures besieging the last pockets of human resistance." This from Wiki  is putting things mildly from the other side of the screen. My first piece of advice is to make sure the players have a cleric in the party of descent level as this adventure showcases several new undead from the companion set. "The only relief is to find and destroy the dreadful Deathstone, which is responsible for the black cloud, thereby facing the united forces of an evil sorcerer, a powerful priest, and a mighty dragon." this blurb makes the adventure break down sound so simple. Once again this is a companion D&D adventure that highlights the use of the Warmachine system. The Barony of Twolakes Vale to Norwold gets fully fleshed out with a ton of NPC's, background setting information, lots of flavor and more material to expand the region into your own Companion level D&D adventures. For using this adventure with Astonishing Swordmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea a lot of scaling for the PC's levels are going to have to be done. The monsters and setting materials might have to be shoe horned in Hyperborea or your own old school campaigns.

There is a ton of potential here for the PC's to really make this adventure their own and being a high end wilderness adventures brings some interesting and well rounded encounters into play. The monsters & NPC forces here are strongly connected with the the Sphere of Death an extra dimensional realm of horror and depravity. In the past I've woven it into the Negative Material Plane's back setting material. For a retro clone game such as Dark Albion or Lamentations of the Flame Princess, CM2 has some gloriously nasty set pieces that can be reconned into a Dark European setting. There's a bit of everything in CM2 from the weird wilderness encounters to the vile villains of the adventure.


 Much of what really makes 'Death Takes A Ride' is the fact that certain events are keyed into location settings and this makes the adventure some what rail roadie in some players minds. I've never been one to listen to reviewers. The fact is that there is a ton of mileage that can be had from these adventures. To call this a high level dungeon crawl might be a fair assessment but it misses the point of CM2. Here the PC's are all that stands between forces of evil and certain undeath.


Parts of Death Takes A Ride are combat intensive and highly dangerous putting PC's right into the middle of the action. The adventure is a tightly wound and solidly done adventure and this might be its problem. There is a precise way that this adventure comes off in a very well done manner. Death Takes a Ride also has a ton of information on its setting, in this regard CM2 is as much a source book as it is a module, done correctly and this might a pretty damn well done adventure. But is it playable? Certainly this is one of the mostly well written modules to come out of its era.


Is CM2 worth the download? Yes because it also showcases how to use domain level adventures in a fun, dynamic way and it can easily be scaled for your own retroclone adventures. The module also shows a DM step by step how to do very dynamic and well thought out high level adventures that not only highlight its resources but puts those adventure resources into a playable context.

Retro Review Of The Compleat Adventurer By Stephan Michael Sechi For Your Old School Campaigns

This is a very personal product for me because of Bard Games connection to War & Pieces in West Hartford Connecticut. Basically in Connecticut way back in the Seventies there were a few options on the table. In 1977 or '79 I took my first trip into War and Pieces in West Hartford with my uncle Bob. I got to meet the guys down there including Rich Petro and the guys down there it was not going to me my last dealings with them. In those days my dad would take me into New York City to play wargames with the SPI crowd and fix sewing machines on the side in the garment district. It was a different time then really and OD&D was already in my blood stream. So  what does this have to do with the Compleat Adventurer?



Everything and nothing in equal measure in the world of gaming. Flash forward to '83 and the shelves were chock full of AD&D 1st edition books and this wonderful lady was luring me into book stores and all sorts of seedy places where others of my kind hung out. You know those kids who would later become film makers, engineers, musicians, writers and worst of all game designers. There was a small problem with Advanced Dragons & Dragons at the time, among the players there has always been a demand for more player character types. So in 1982 according to Wiki; Stephan Michael Sechi, Steven Cordovano and Venie Taylor each put in $600 and formed the company Bard Games to produce their own Dungeons & Dragons supplements. They found moderate success with the Complet Alchemist which offered many different options for the Alchemist from ingredients to fully fleshed out magic item production PC class. Heady stuff for a young kid to get his mitts on. The Compleat Spell Caster was even more intrenched in the weird occult and mythological background. 

Add in a touch of Bloody, Bloody Arduin and you've got the makings of a whole other way of looking at Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. Much of the complete series would go on to another incarnation in the form of the Atlantis Trilogy.  These would later form the basis of a completely alternative system of  OD&D and AD&D in Connecticut and at my table  which I referred collectively over the years as Hartford Beta Max Black Edition. This brings me back to The Complet Adventurer a collection of alternative adventurer's classes and Amazon's breakdown of the book is pretty spot on; "THE COMPLEAT ADVENTURER is BARD GAMES' third Fantasy Role Playing Supplement, and covers in detail a host of new character classes that may be added to your favorite F.R.P. game system. As a logical successor to THE COMPLEAT ALCHEMIST and THE COMPLEAT SPELLCASTER, this supplement is intended to expand the options of experienced players and Game Judges.

For the role-player in particular, THE COMPLEAT ADVENTURER offers a variety of colorful and viable types from which to chose. Several of the characters were invested with verbal talents which may be used to great advantage by the clever role-player. To add variety, certain character classes were designed so that the player could choose between several abilities, thus creating a more "personalized" type of character. Others were given abilities of a highly specialized nature, in the hope that players would more easily be able to relate to (and role-play) them.

For the Game Judge, THE COMPLEAT ADVENTURER should do much to add to his or her repertoire of N.P.C. villains, heroes and anti--heroes, while hope fully stimulating a few new scenario ideas. The many new character classes should also add variety to city, village, and wilderness encounters, and make the Game Judge's job a bit more interesting.

The character types available are: Beastmaster, Buccaneer, Gladiator, Harlequin, Hunter, Scout, Bounty Hunter, Witch Hunter, Knight, Martial Artist, Rogue, Spy, Swordsman, Warrior"


Now I want you to notice something the break down says Judges as in Judge's Guild products there are reasons for this in the Compleat series of products. In Connecticut there was quite a bit of market penetration locally of Judge's Guild product lines.  The Bard's game materials offered complete PC's packages that could be customized on a one on one basis for players while offering  truly alternative selection of classes including the coveted Beast Master class'. This material helped to fill in a gap point between the AD&D Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide while enhancing the Judge's Guild adventures by offering new options for the Dungeon Master's NPC's. Bard Products cut both ways you see by giving choices across the board.
This book comes with everything you need to back draft these classes right into your home campaign right out of the gate and this comes from a time when things weren't quite so cookie cutter and corporately snug in back beat of the AD&D game of second edition. This was the heyday of DYI experimentation, and this book included material to make it your own including in house experience tables, PC's abilities according to class and more all of this is under the umbrella of forty eight pages.


Stephan Michael Sechi and the Bard games crew included everything that the player actually needs straight from the time you open the book to the time you flesh out your PC and they include an array of these adventurer scum. Suddenly you could play a Beastmaster, Buccaneer, Gladiator, Harlequin, Hunter, Scout, Bounty Hunter, Witch Hunter, Knight, Martial Artist, Rogue, Spy, Swordsman, Warrior"
The Beast master was an interesting inclusion in the fact that it actually offered everything that the character of Dar could do and a bit more.



At the time I was with an old crew of players here in the Northwest Corner of Ct, they had been playing D&D for quite some time and were experienced at adapting gaming materials to a wide variety of venues. The Beast master class was retro fitted into a science fantasy setting by using the The Compleat Adventurer.  The book might take a bit more work to fit some of these classes into a B/X or Lamentations of the Flame Princess style game but the Witch hunter and several other classes would fit right into a pseudo or alternative world history setting. There would be a good deal of shoe horning going on to get these to work but these classes might well worth the effort involved.




There was something about using the book that was somehow freeing from the constrains of the AD&D's Dragon magazine paradigm. Suddenly the possibilities for more science fantasy based adventures made more sense to me. Add in classes like the bounty hunter and the nastiness of the Harlequin as an alternative to the Bard and things got very interesting indeed. Those crossover tables from the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide for Gamma World and Boot Hill suddenly made complete sense. The witch hunter is a complete bastard class though and has been one of the main NPC classes for vile villains over the years use this one very carefully, a small subtle hint they can also be used to hunt mutants and heretics as well.

 

Not everything is perfect in the Compleat Adventurer by any means but it presents another echo of options and a complete tool box to play with at the table. This was in the days from when The Dragon was gospel among certain cliches of players in my home town and I had seen the wider world and experienced Arduin in New York State but that's another story. My father's friend from the U.K. had drilled certain D&D and war gaming principles into my head including to think and try things for yourself and this is one of the lessons that the Compleat Adventurer brings home. Try and play with your games as you see fit. Several of the characters were invested with verbal talents which may be used to great advantage by the clever role-player the rules and guidelines of the Compleat Adventurer encourage just this sort of behavior and you'll get far more out of this book if your players come along for the ride with this book.



For me the Compleat Adventurer by Stephan Michael Sechi represents an artifact from another time period that can still be learned from. This isn't a collector's item to me, its a gamer's book to be used at the table. There are gamers and collectors in this world, the gamers take a book and use it in play.  The Compleat Adventurer by Stephan Michael Sechi is a book meant to be used. As an OSR book Compleat Adventurer still has a lot to offer in my humble opinion.