OSR Review & Commentary On Mineral Rights By Joseph Mohr For The Cepheus Engine rpg

 "The Borus system has recently been discovered on the edge of the Sonora sector. This system was believed to be unpopulated until a recent Kilgari Corporation mineral survey discovered a race of inhabitants known only as the Berzan on Borus Prime. Borus Prime appears to have significant mineral resources worth potentially billions of credits to the company."

"The Kigari Corporation is a mining concern which routinely surveys planets on the edge of the sector for valuable mineral resources to exploit. Such efforts have been extremely profitable to the corporation which has recently become a major player in the mining industry in recent years. The corporation begun extraction operations on dozens of uninhabited worlds on the edge of the Sonora sector."

"Little is known about the Berzan other than they appear to be primitive in terms of a lack of jump drive development or high tech weaponry. What is known is that they are very small in number. There appears to be less than one hundred on Borus Prime."

"Charles Kowalski of the Kilgari Corporation summons the travelers to his office. He has a proposition. For CR 300,000 he would like to see the Berzan “removed” from the planet Borus.Prime He suggests that they could be relocated to Borus Secunda or to some other viable planet in the system."

 Mineral Rights By Joseph Mohr For The Cepheus Engine rpg brings home a solid adventure with a base premise and a solid little set of encounters. I like the way that Joseph Mohr lays everything out in Mineral Rights. He does a great job of bringing the home where everything is laid out. This is a great adventure to add right into the Clement Sector. 

The Clement sector is the frontier of the Space Western & Mineral Rights plugs right into the genre and the game. The encounters are well done. The adventure plot hits the high marks for the whole cloth of a campaign. 

Mineral Rights works well for a campaign because it can be inserted anywhere within a 2d6 Clement Sector game. The whole adventure balances out because it works on two or three levels. Level one is because of the fact that players are going to come up against two or more factions. Level two is the fact that the encounters are solid. Three is the fact that Mineral Rights could be used as a spring board for a campaign. 

Mineral Rights hits the high notes for a Clement Sector rpg campaign setting. There's always conflict over mineral resources and these conflicts make for excellent drama for player's PC's to get into trouble and seeing all aspects of such a conflict. Mineral Rights hits this adventure plot and history on all gears. Grab this one and present it too your players. 

OSR Review & Commentary On Independence Games Contessa Class Fast Trader By Michael Johnson For The Clement Sector rpg

 

Out in the midst of the frontier of the Clement sector, there are times when you need a dual roled star ship and that starship is the Contessa class Fast Trader. 
This is an award winning Anderson & Felix class ship 600 ton  starship that competes with Borne's Thorpe class vessels. 
The Contessa Class Fast Trader is a mean ship able to take full advantage of the latest offerings in technology and design. The Provision class is a sqaudron support class vessel that accompanies a fleet as a logistics support vechicle. While the Einsatz class is a forward deployment ship with two platoons of Hub Fedration or Cammando marines along with equipment, vechicles, etcs that can be deployed at a moment's notice.  This is an adventurer's vessel though make no mistake about that. 

The Contessa class Fast Trader  fufills these roles and more because in this book's fifty three pages we get the complete history, roles, variants, and solid plans or diagrams of these vessels. This is a well written supplement with Michael Johnson getting into the meat of this vessel. The layout, fonts, artwork and more in this book are very well done. They fit the temper and rigor of the Clement sector. The Contessa class Fast Trader  is a vessel that fills a number of roles within the Clement sector and the frontier. The adventurers may not want to encounter those vessels however! They have teeth and can destroy even an experienced set of Clement sector spacers..  I really like the artwork that Ian Stead (Cover ,p.2,4,13-16,26,27,38-40); Michael Johnson (p.9,12,19-24,30-35,44-49);&  Bradley Warnes (p.11,38) brings to the table with the Contessa. 

The Contessa Class  Fast Trader is a bold and dangerous trade vessel that can open up lots of opportunity for experienced spacers. This is a vessel that will take adventurers into a whole other level of trade and spacer style company trade houses. And this is because the vessel is a whole cloth starcraft that will work hard for the party. This is one of the roles that this vessel fills in spades. Get the  Contessa class Fast Trader  if your looking for a hard working and 

OSR Review and Commentary On Liber Diaboli -- The Book of Fiends By James Mishler -- A Shadowdark Supplement or Is It!?

 So James Mishler sends me some awesome stuff! Take for example James Mishler Games latest offering Liber Diaboli -- The Book of Fiends By James Mishler is straight up world's greatest fantasy role playing game demons! Now let's talk about these demons for a moment. These things are straight up Chaotic evil from the ground up. Liber Diaboli gives all of the tools for use and full on customization of these fiends from the Abyss. Clocking in at forty eight pages there's tons of options here for the DM to grab the PC's by the throat! 

These tools are baked right into the whole cloth of the Liber Diaboli supplement; 

Cosmology and The Damned
Discourse on Demons & Devils and Other Denizens of the Underworld
Summon Fiend Spells
Ilks – “Ancestry Classes” of the Underworld
Fiendish Ranks
Fiendish Level Advancement

Abilities & Talents Details, including:
Elemental Attacks
Impervious Details
Multiform Ability
Fiendish Power
Size
Spellcasting Ability
Summoning Ability
Optional Possession Rules
D66 Chaos Talents
D666 Unusual Trait Table

From here the Liber Diaboli starts getting into the whole cloth of the demonic entities that have become so iconic from the world's most popular role playing game. And these are nasty. While I know that Shadowdark has become iconic. But these demonic entities would fit right in with Castles & Crusades rpg. Now let me elaborate here! Castles & Crusades is the OSR sweet spot because the system is close enough to fifth edition as to almost but not to be seamless. 

The Liber Diaboli has a ton of OSR goodness that can work very hard for the DM and challenge the player's PC's in spades. These demons can work for you as monsters and horrors to challenge your players in dungeons, lairs, & ruins. There's enough fluff & tools to keep your player's coming back for more. The demonic entities are nasty and highly dangerous because they hit all of the check boxes from lowest to highest encounter. 

Wretched Epoque Rpg - Bad Blood By Silvia Clemente - Into The Paris Night - Session One

 So we got together tonight to go deep into the Wretched Epoque campaign that my friend DM Paul has been running. Its been a couple of months since our group of sseven players got together. 

Deep in the heart of Paris we were helping our breathen within the Golden Dawn who have run across the wampirs of the Parisian underworld. We had come into the situation from the London temple and it was interesting because the inner temple was divided. Why?! 

The situation was because the DM was running Occult Blood by Silvia Clemente & the young faction of wampirs has been infiltrating the local branch of the Golden Dawn. We were ushered into the temple at night. Keep this in mind as we were confronted by two wampir royalty. 

We didn't want to get into a confrontation so that we did pick a fight. Instead we listened to our monsterous guests. And they explained about the war that the older royals were reigning down on thier heads. Among our number is a former Appache ganger who had been turned into a Lovecraftian ghoul. 
We are sizing up the situation before we jump into a wampir war! So the plan is to get in contact with an 'old friend of the family' ie another ancient wampir whose not a part of the current status qoute. This might be easier said then done was we've not seen her in five years (game time folks). 
Now we also want to check on our digs from our last game which were put into the hands of a family retainer.

So we've stalled the Paris temple of the Golden Dawn until we can speak to our sources and find out what's going on before descending into the fetid underworld of the Paris catacombs

Shadows of Saltmarsh Amazing Adventures! Rpg Session Report #1- Updated!

 

The Green Man a menace to the PC's coming up.


I've just started an Amazing Adventures rpg  by Jason Vey game last night. The PC's ended up crossing over into an alternative world time line of 2100. This blog post picks right up from November 19th blog post. 

The mono skyscrapers of the preserved New York Sky line greeted them. This was after tracking down the cybernetically enhanced courier of Nazi dimensional traveler  from 1952. The world of these Nazi is world where Operation Spark in 1943 succeeded in killing Hitler(or did it). Germany sued for piece in the world courts but continues hostilities with the Allies They turned over the hierarchy & infrastructure of the German high command responsible for the Final Solution  
Israel was founded much earlier in this world & continues to play a part in Western affairs.

This Nazi Germany has been locked in a Cold War with the Allies since the war's 'end' & continues to operate through powered agents, individuals, & teams. Now they've been raiding alternative dimensions & time lines. They've stumbled upon the world of 2100 where the countryside has mostly been abandoned & come across a Great Race of Yith library beneath the ruins of a castle in up state New York. These ruins have recently been unearthed in the upper part of New York state. Authorities have moved in to secure the site. 


What the characters also learned is the criminal mastermind known as 'the Alchemist' has been running a slave trade & human traffic ring in New York city of this alternative 1952.This bastard controls all of the major smuggling & drug traffic from the Salt Marsh neighborhood down on the water fronts. He has ties to the Nazi smuggling agents into New York. Their latest agent came in on the Sea Witch.



Yes I'm running U1 The Sinister Secret of Saltmash by Don Trumball with a Troll Lords Amazing Adventures pulp/super hero spin. So I'm dumping the whole Scooby Doo aspect of U1 & turning the Alchemist into a lich/pulp villain of incredibly evil aspect.

OSR Commentary on Troll Lord Games Adventurers Spellbook For The Siege Engine rpg System

 Troll Lord Games Adventurers Spellbook is a complete reference for spells throughout the Siege Engine rpg system. There are 379 Cleric spells (0 to 9th level), 366 Druid spells, 437 Wizard spells, 305 Illusionist spells, and over 200 rune magic spells all packed to into 170 pages of book. 

What the Adventurers Spellbook does is distill down the spells from the Players Handbook, Adventurers Backpack, Players Guide to Aihrde, Amazing Adventures, Hallowed Oracle Players Guide & Elemental Spells. This book is for Castles & Crusades, the Amazing Adventures second edition, and any Siege Engine powered games. There are over  200 hundred spells put into it for magic users, wizards, and etc. This is a well organized resource for your OSR games & Siege Engine systems. And the  Adventurers Spellbook sits as a supplement to it's sister book The Adventurer's Backpack. 

The Adventurer's Backpack features TONS of new classes, spells, items, niche rules, and even a complete new magic system! That magic system lines right up with the Adventurer's Spellbook! Because both of these books give more PC options to the players. And this is a good thing because it allows the players to build thier characters the way they want with the spells and classes that they want. This includes Rune magic and it's substact of spells & powers. 

For magic user style PC classes the Adventurers Spellbook offers a surprising variety of spells for reference and adaption for thier classes. Want an Elemental school spell to take care of an Air elemental or Earth elemental? We've got you covered in spades. 
Want an alternative set of spells for your illusionist or wizard? We've also got you covered. And that's only the tip of the ice berg. The Adventurers Spellbook has the complete plethora of spells for all of the usual spell using classes in Castles and Crusades. This is a must have reference for any magic and spell loving players. 

The Cube By Joseph Mohr & Trey Causey's Strange Stars - Stars Without Number & Cities Without Number Session Report Part II

The player's PC's were dealing with the Nicodemous Corridor & were looking for opportunities for thier crew. Then they found that there were lots of emergency calls from the outer edges of the Corridor. This was the Cube making it's enterance into the sector. Spacecraft, stations, etc. were being destroyed after encountering the Cube. 

 

The PC's were dealing with the Nicodemous Corridor and the PC's cybersneaks got a work out tonight. The party was  trying to take out the defenses, weapon systems, shields, and locks that The Cube by Joseph Mohr . This adventure was originally made for the Cepheus Engine Rpg. However Cepheus Engine is easy to adapt to Stars Without Number because these rpg's share thier skill systems. This session report picks right up from the last session  on the blog. 

The PC's found the remains of two United Space Cruisers wrecks that had encountered the Cube hundreds of years before. The PC's cybersneaks were trying to calm down the Cube's xenophobic A.I. but the party had to deal with the fact that the Cube was trying to blow them outta of the sky! 

The rest of the party was pressing thier employer/patron as to what he knows about the Cube. He has been evasive and cagey about his knowledge.After about 2 hours of play and dodging attacks. The PC's were able parley with the Cube's A.I. & get it to stand down. 

  The Cube questioned the PC's as to whom they had trade with. What thier relationships were with several alien races that the PC's had crossed paths with in the past. The Cube also copied thier data banks and wanted to know what the party's intentions are. They wanted to know if the party had been gene sculpted and how long they've been trading. The A.I. also analyzed thier course charts and full on trading contracts. The party made notes of various factions that have appeared in Trey Causey's Strange Stars but that haven't appeared in our game. There's also the fact that the Cube wanted to know if the party has had any interactions with alien bioroids. The players were taking notes after notes as to many factions and powers that the Cube named off. All of this came about in virtual space. We ended tonight with the Cube's A.I. considering on letting the party aboard or blowing them outta of space.