Appendix N Musings - Michael Moorcock's 'Kane of Old Mars', & an OSR Sword & Science Fantasy Campaign Set Up

 As was said last blog entry there's something very distinctive about Michael Moorcocks's Kane of Old Mars series. The Michael Moorcock, Kane of Old Mars (Warriors of Mars/Blades of Mars/Barbarians of Mars) (Lancer, 1965) books are a homage to Edgar Rice Burroughs Barsoom books. But they have a very distinctive flavor because the war between Law & Chaos on Mars is far closer to the fight between Entropy & Order. Kane of Old Mars in my opinion is close to the tone to the Leigh Brackett's Mars tales. The rich tapestry of  ancient order of Mars  veruss the newer races of Earth's  tribalism & colonization within Bracett's tales contrasts against the battle of Law & Chaos. Moorcock's Mars is a rich painted landscape of ancient brooding Mars contasted against the soul of the eternal champanion warrior Kane. 

Both of these author's takes on Mars contrasts with the Martian tales of Clark Aston Smith. Smith's Mars is a brood pile of wastelands were human interlopers are out matched by ancient horrors. Which is the true Mars?! All of em folks. Because these ancient horrors lurk at the very edges of the rpg that draws distinctly from Clark Ashton Smith. Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea definitely drinks deeply from the veins of Clark Aston Smith & Michael Moorcock. 

In terms of the OSR adventures that combined these alien elements  into a truly weird & alien mix. Lamentations of the Flame Princess Barbarians of Orange Boiling Seas does an excellent job of combining the effects of explorers & ancient Barsoomian like cultures clashing. Again it has that distinctive LoFP flavor but Barbarians will work with AS&SH as a further expansion module. 
Zzarchov Kowolski is up to his usual standards of adventure design. 

What does any of this have to do with the ideas of AS&SH's Hyperborea?! Quite a bit besides the ever present science fantasy artifacts another time. The clash of the Law of society & the Chaos of barbarianism. The same theme we see over & over again in Edgar Rice Burroughs writing even though its not smacking the reader in the face in the Barsoom books. Once again in Brackett's work we have an artifact sword that represents far more then it seems. In Bracket's Sword of Rhiannon we find an artifact that transports those that hold it back to the days of ancient Mars. A tribal Mars where the warfare is far more real & dangerous then even the reader knows. This is a Mars with ancient gods, powerful magicks, & battles as old as Lovecraftian time where humans  & Martians are the 'johnny come latelies'. 

Brackett, Moorcock, Clark Ashton Smith, & even Clark Ashton Smith's Mars contrast with one another but could be one in the same planet. And they are within this OSR science fantasy campaign we're cooking up. Its been a campaign described as Conan on Mars. And in some cases this is correct. But what makes it is the Law Vs Chaos aspect of Moorcock's Kane of Old Mars. The idea lurking just over the threshold of a very alien Mars with ancient gods lurking just on the fringes of the literature. 
These very elements are lurking within Beyond Belief Game's Jarkoon - Adventures on Planet X! which pick up on & dive deeper into the other planetary adventures ideals we talked about last blog entry. 

                                                                                       
We'll explore further how all of this fits together as one whole cohesive campaign setting coming up on the blog 

Astonishing Swordmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea, Michael Moorcock's 'Kane of Old Mars', & an OSR Sword & Science Fantasy Campaign Set Up

 Alright several weeks ago before the current Sword & Sorcery run that we've been on at the table top level. Things got pretty interesting before DM Steve's schedule with work fractured our current campaign. So its been a bit of mad scramble to get back on track but last night a phone call proved quite good with him feed us some Sword & Planet notes.  His proposel was simple use Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea rpg as the basis for an OSR  Sword & Science Fantasy campaign set up. The idea here is that millions of years in the future. This picks right up where yesterday's blog entry ended. Steve's idea here is that we draw some inspiration from Michael Moorcock's 'Kane of Old Mars' stories. The Kane series is a homage to Edgar Rice Burrough's Barsoom stories; "Michael Kane is the principal character, a Vietnam veteran that goes into physics and ends up on Mars during one of his experiments. He tells the author of the book his tales of adventure and the life he made on Mars. Typical of Moorcock's Eternal Champion stories, Moorcock's hero is a philosophical man who hates war (except Elric), but is good at it when he needs to be. Through Kane, Moorcock speaks of how fear affects us and causes us to do the wrong thing (kill, hate, etc.). Kane tries his best to remedy that with logic and compassion." All of the above comes from Michael H. Weekley Amazon review on Kane of Old Mars 

So using this as a campaign basis we need to expand the classes of AS&SH to really give the  an OSR  Sword & Science Fantasy campaign set up push. So using two other OSR rpg sources DM Steve feels confident that it can work. Source one is BX Mars which is beautifully done Michael Gibbons artwork, rpg design, etc. And really this is a whole cloth campaign unto itself. 

OSR source two is Warriors of the Red Planet rpg by Night Owl Workshop  this adds in a psionic system class to our game campaign set up. We could stop there but there's even more coming up. We need a basic adventure to kick off the Sword & Science Fantasy campaign. So what we're going for is full on 'Conan on Mars' feel here. Beyond Belief Games has Jarkoon - The Princess and the Green Men. This is a clocked in ten page, easy to run 1st level adventure, with the machinations of the Green Men all dialed in. For contrast Doc's Warriors of Mars from Jason Vey's Grey Elf site is a classic. 

So if you want to run your AS&SH party of adventurers within an old  solar system style adventure upon another planet with a Barsoomian flare without the copyright violation issues. This is one way. But if you want to expand this beyond into the intersellar bounds then Beyond Belief Games has you covered with Space Adventures X. 

From here if you want to dive back into a whole cloth urban adventure in the streets of Hypborea's capital City-State of Khromarium before heading into the wilds of space millions of years in the future. Lankhmar: City of Adventure for Second Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons works quite nicely as a Khromarium stand in. 

'Kane of Old Mars' is another of Moorcock's phisophical eternal champions & its interesting how he stands in stark contrast the violence of Bar erm Mars around him. Out of the eternal champions he's one of the most compassionate & yet complicated of the incarnations of the eternal champions. Could the PC's be used to tie up a ton of the loose ends of 'Kane of Old Mars'?! Its a strong possibility as a Mars campaign bridge gap. 
 As far as this being Mars for this run of AS&SH?! We think not. The popular consense is that this is another worldlet with this solar system. Tomorrow we dive into other applications of this campaign frame up. 

Matters of Death & Amber - Using X2 Castle Amber By Tom Moldvay & The Veterans of the Supernatural Wars Rpg As OSR & Old School Campaign - Laying The OSR Ground Work

 " Lo ! Death hath rear'd himself a throne

In a strange city, all alone,
Far down within the dim west —
And the good, and the bad, and the worst, and the best,
Have gone to their eternal rest.

There shrines, and palaces, and towers
Are — not like any thing of ours —
O ! no — O! no — ours never loom
To heaven with that ungodly gloom!
Time-eaten towers that tremble not!
Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie."
The Doomed City
by Edgar Allan Poe


DM Steve sipped his brandy quite nicely & the pipe smoke waffled around us. 'How would you go about running a successful Modern Gothic dark fantasy game?!' The question hung in the air about our group of players in the after game session fugue. In this case the question was hung out because already the blog entries  on  Matters of Death & Amber here & here.  'The problem is that you, the dungeon master already have campaigns in play some of which are still in play years on. Even if the players have pasted on..'  DM Steve & co. are trying to force me to move on with everything. 

There were murmmerings among the other players at this point & Steve was bringing up the fact that several campaigns had simply 'ended' when friendships had broken up & funerals had occurred. Now was a new beginning & the players wanted in on this purposed  'Veterans of the Supernatural Wars Rpg' campaign with the hooks & chains that it connects with our older campaigns.




 In the past we've used elements of Lamentations of the Flame Princess rpg but not all of the line. And if this holiday weekend's games taught me anything its that we're gonna need vehicle rules & we're not going to wait around for the Veterans of the Supernatural Wars Rpg companion which is due really soon. Fortunately my buddy Dave Miller did OSR Vehicle Rules and those should work out quite nicely. But Simon Washbourne also did his Terror Tales X! rpg rules for his OSR label Beyond Belief Games & these were done for the Swords & Wizardry light rpg. 

Why?! Because there are extra monsters, spells, & equipment that can easily be adapted into this  'Veterans of the Supernatural Wars Rpg' campaign. The players have told me in no uncertain terms that this isn't going to be in their words a WB Supernatural television show. This is straight up going to be a bloody 'R' rated Gothic horror fest. If this is going to be a Gothic horror fest then other resources have to include Jack Shear's  Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque series &  Adventures on Gothic Earth. These are top drawer OSR Gothic horror & adventure campaign world builder stuff. Be sure to check out Jack Shear's blog here. 

And its from here that we've got to pick up with campaigns of the ghost Christmas past. The first thing the PC's are gonna have to do is to clean out the Duley house. The Duely house was the headquarters for a party of supernatural hunters & slayers that was wiped out back in 2012. And that was from the D'Ambervilles influence but we'll get into that one tomorrow. 

Review & Commentary On Crimson Blades 2: The Dark Fantasy RPG By Simon Washbourne From Beyond Belief Games For Your Old School Campaigns

" With a familiar yet different set of rules, Crimson Blades gives you fantastic old school-style dark fantasy/sword & sorcery role-playing. You can be a brooding sorcerer with a demon blade, a savage barbarian with an equally savage panther companion, a grim tomb-robber seeking the riches of a long-dead empire or even a Dendrelyssi - one of the last members of a decadent race of necromancers looking for redemption in the lands they once ruled. 

Included in the game are seven human character classes: Barbarian, Fighter, Griot, Mountebank, Sorcerer, Thief and Wayfarer plus the inhuman Dendrelyssi. There are also four NPC classes: Fleshcrafter, Merchant, Royal Redeemer and Witch. The book includes the traditional rules for spell-casting as well as rules for summoning and binding demons, elementals and undead. 

Included in the book is a brief setting "The Crimson Lands" for you to use as the basis for your own campaign."

Simon Washborne of Beyond Belief Games contacted me on MeWe & reminded me of the fact that he's got an OSR game that has ton of Michael Moorcock like features about it called Crimson Blades. Now this is a neo  retroclone that came out in 2016. Now this game has been sitting on my hard drive since about that time, the best part of this game is the following statement in the OGL; "Publishing your own materials CRIMSON BLADES is all Open Game Content under the terms of Wizards of the Coast’s Open Game License version 1.0a, with the exception of artwork and the trademarks “Beyond Belief Games,” and “Crimson Blades DARK FANTASY RPG”, and all text that appears in the Crimson Lands Gazetteer. What does it mean that this game is Open Game Content? It means you can (basically) copy whatever parts of it you want, add your own content, change the content around, and publish the result. You have to comply with the terms of the Open Game License, which is reproduced below. If you don’t care about mentioning any of the game’s trademarks, that’s all you have to do. "  That's right an actual Swords & Sorcery game that I can publish with that doesn't have to go through a garage band publishing commitee! The bane of my existence as a writer/designer/creative person doesn't have to have a peer review by bunch of someones looking for their latest kickstarter! 
What you do get in one hundred & twenty six pages is an actual workable Sword & Sorcery gaming system that's set within an alternative universe style Solomon Kane world. The character creation is straight forward & there are little tweaks here & there. The layout is clear & crisp, the rules works on several levels for a Sword & Sorcery game!  This is the sort of game that Robert E.Howard fans can sink their teeth into & run a Solomon Kane Red Shadows game from especially when PC's would do things &  utter statements  like; "Slowly he rose, mechanically wiping his hands upon his cloak. A dark scowl had settled on his somber brow. Yet he made no wild, reckless vow, swore no oath by saints or devils.

"Men shall die for this," he said coldly."
And its this sort of clear headed cold violence that runs through Crimson Blades. The abandonment of civilization stopping just short of the edge of the map is something that we see throughout the product. This is game that takes you to the edge. The edge of corruption of magick & dark forces is a heart beat away in Crimson Blades. This isn't a game about niceties, or subtleties no this is game about seeking out the darkness & stabbing through with a saber blade point. By fire & blade the lands of adventure need to be cleansed. The PC class combination of Barbarian, Fighter, Griot, Mountebank, Sorcerer, Thief and Wayfarer plus the inhuman Dendrelyssi give the game a much more grounded & yet Sword & Sorcery feel mixed with something far more. 

Jean-Honoré Fragonard, 'The Warrior' artwork  reminds me of the feel of Crimson Blades. 

This is a solid, easy to understand, & heavily Pulpy system  taking everything to a bloody conclusion. The magick here is brutal & dangerous as its meant to be and Crimson Blades takes advantage of this. Crimson Blades has a Basic/Expert D&D rules system feel  but the game uses d6s as its base. The world of Crimson Blades is one where the old race the old race 'the Dendrelyssi' in shambles after the humans have rebelled. The whole setting feels like we as humans came after the fact. And we did. The Dendrelyssi, are the Elves of legend & mythology. Not the D&D Elves but the baby stealing, pagan god sacrificing, and uses humans as sacrifice scumbags that we've come to know and love from European legend. And Michael Moorcock's works of Sword & Sorcery fiction. And the 'the Dendrelyssi' are dying out. Does this sound familiar?! It should be cause we're cast into the Crimson lands as the setting & its not a huge sprawling affair of a campaign world. Instead its a world setting that begs to be used as the 'monsters' are left overs, hold overs, & things best left in the ovens of the  'the Dendrelyssi'. Why?! Because the Crimson land's ruins are slowly being reclaimed by the wild places & nature but they are not going quietly. On the whole Crimson Lands is/has a feel someplace left of center of the works of Robert E.Howard & Michael Moorcock with swaths of the Orientalism of the original works of Pulp writers. Is the Crimson Blades rpg worth your cash?! I think so. Crimson Blades is a solid game system with a solid base system,open rules, & a very well done package. 

A Christmas Coffin - OSR Commentary & Review of Terror Tales - X! From Beyond Belief Games By Simon Washbourne

"Weird! Baffling! Terrifying! Rousing tales of macabre adventure using familiar rules! Who wants to read through reams of text just to get to the action? No-one right? These rules assume you know how to role play. They assume you know about “Golden Age” comic book pulp mystery fiction. (Thrilling adventures through a retro lens). They assume you know how OSR products work. There, it’s done. You know how to play already. Just get on with it. Two-fisted tales and mysterious investigations. "
Terror Tales -X! by Beyond Belief is a solid addition to the OSR horror adventure  genre. The whole affair clocks in at twenty one pages & gives the DM all of the optional dark adventure material that they need. The focus is the Precode horror comics of the Golden Age & all that goes with it.  Dark rites at three A.M., occult monsters in the deep urban environment of the city, spooky alleyways that lead into other worldly Hells. Adventurers here are crusaders & heroes at much as victims themselves & the forces of darkness are always a heart beat or closing coffin lid away.


Painted cover of Strange Stories From Another World, number 5, February 1953, artwork by Norman Saunders. Another World was published by Fawcett from August 1952 to February 1953. Saunders' richly painted cover recalls the pulp magazines of the 1930s and 40s.

Ahh now that's the Hellfire & classic precode public domain horror comics that I've come to know & love. These are perfect for OSR horror adventure & with a wide array of PC options its a snap to 'plug & play' this set of rules. There's a nifty sanity set of rules for PC's straight off & a wide array of victims erm PC options.  You got your scientist, your detective,the psychic, the scoundrel, the adventurer, tough guy, & mystic. Two pages of advantages & disadvantages along with quick descriptions. Enemies & NPC's to thread the adventure along. Animals including dinosaurs & normal run of the mill wildlife.
The weird & supernatural is a similar but well rounded cast of Dungeons & Dragons style monsters retooled for horror adventure. Vehicles including surprisingly mounted weapons! Quick & dirty combat rules along with modern fire arms, weapons, melee weapons, & armor. Experience charts for the PC classes & some horror adventure hooks.

Cover of Spook #27, (January 1954)

Christmas time is the season for ghost stories & horror adventure. This year is no different Terror Tales -X! is based around Swords & Wizardry rules so its easy to pop into an existing OD&D or Retro clone system setting. The entire product is open game content on the OGL & that makes this a fantastic horror setting enhancement. But if that wasn't enough there's blogs like the OSR Library offer a huge amount of OSR horror adventure support.
May I also go on record as saying that incredible Horrors of It All Blog has some of the best precode Golden Age Horror comic book stories around & his collections of stories are an unsung gold mine of OSR horror adventure. Comic Book Plus is also an excellent resource for lots of pure gold adventure fodder.
All of this is perfect support material & a starting point for OSR horror adventure especially with the Terror Tales -X! rules.

Another stunning cover from Joe Simon and Jack Kirby: Black Magic number 28 (Prize Comics, April 1952). Following the war, as the superhero genre went into decline, publishing companies turned to romance, crime and horror to stock the news stands. Simon and Kirby were pioneers in all three.

I'm a super hero guy & Sword & Sorcery guy the Terror Tales -X! rules are perfectly compatible  with the other Beyond Belief games rules & for introducing super heroes to the horrors of the dark forces of the occult & supernatural! There is a long tradition of  heroes fighting the over whelming forces of darkness. This crosses over into so many gernes making this a real easy winner to grab for only $3.50!

OSR Holiday Review & Commentary - The Eerie West - X! By Simon Washbourne

"Strange! Ghostly! Mysterious! Rousing tales of action and adventure in a wild west that never was. Who wants to read through reams of text just to get to the action? No-one right? These rules assume you know how to role play. They assume you know about “Golden Age” comic book pulp western fiction. (Thrilling cowboy adventures through a retro lens). They assume you know how OSR products work. There, it’s done. You know how to play already. Just get on with it. Go fer yer gun, hombre! "

Sometime ago I got into Beyond Belief Games Eerie West - X! for a set up for an OSR Wild & Weird West campaign set up. The product is put together with spit, bailing wire, & a micro system built on the lines of Swords & Wizardry. But it should work with mostly any OSR rules set with some work & best of all its open game content.
You get a wide variety of PC classes from the Shootist, Cardsharp, Trailblazer, Dude, Quack, & Hexer. The shootist is your gun fighter/fighter type. The Card sharp is your thief & all around rogue. The Trail blazer is your ranger & scout type for the Wild West. The Dude class is your socialite, tenderfoot from back East, & diplomat all rolled into one. The Quack is your cleric/doctor/fake medicine man all rolled into one whose potion might actually work or they might make you worse. The Hexer is your occultist who shouldn't be messing with the 'things man wasn't meant to know. Did I mention that there's a sanity rules set in here, full system for guns, monsters, NPCs,equipment, mundane animals, stats weird menaces, adventure ideas, two pages of rules & random charts.
The fact is that I've been looking for a more open set of Weird West rules over the last couple of years. Since these rules are cross compatible with other Beyond Belief X rules sets its very easy to swap them out for other OSR or even other  D20 systems.

Belle Starr, American female outlaw. The caption reads, "A wild western amazon. The noted Belle Starr is arrested on the border of Indian Territory and being released on bail vanishes on horseback." Wood engraving in The National Police Gazette (1886 May 22), p. 16.

Even though Belle Starr wasn't featured in The Eerie West - X! she's exactly the sort of cowboy or outlaw adventurer that could be used in adventures surrounding this campaign using this product. The fact is that a lot of Golden Age of Comics public domain artwork & source material was used in The Eerie West - X!. This puts the 'X' material square in the Golden Age of Comicbooks & Pulp magazine source material making it perfect for that style of old school or OSR campaigning. 

Everything from your bandits to your Wild West Gumberoo is covered;
"Gumberoo
AC: 10* HD: 3d6+1 Attacks: Claws 1d3 (x2), bite 1d3 Move: 10 San Loss: 1/1d3
Special: The creature has a rubbery hide that bounces back anything thrown on it. Bullets, arrows and so on will rebound in the direction they were fired, hitting the person that fired them (separate roll needed to hit).
A nearly hairless, extremely disgusting, bear-like brute of the woods."

There's just enough here to get a campaign off the ground & with blogs such as the OSR library its a snap to get a campaign off the ground plus get support. The material here isn't incredibly expansive but it doesn't need to be. The layout is easy to read, the stat blocks are standard, & the material is straight on point & top drawer.  While The Eerie West -X ! follows the tradition Western comic & pulp genre it really plugs into the Revisionist Weird Western;
"The late 1960s and early 1970s saw the rise of revisionist Western film. Elements include a darker, more cynical tone, with focus on the lawlessness of the time period, favoring realism over romanticism, and an interest in greater historical authenticity. Anti-heroes were common, as were stronger roles for women and more-sympathetic portrayal of Native Americans and Mexicans. The films were often critical of big business, the American government, and masculine figures (including the military and their policies). "
But really what The Eerie West -X! does is mix & match its material so that the dungeon master & players get a mix of classic Western material with Golden Age of Comics adventure! But could Wild West-X! be mixed with an old school or OSR adventure?


Yes as a matter of fact this material could easily be incorporated with say Swords & Wizardry or even original Dungeons & Dragons? Yes it could easily support such a campaign where the PC's blunder into  The Eerie West -X! or perhaps the PC's of the Eerie West X blunder into B4: The Lost City by Tom Moldvay. The PC's become lost in a sand storm & they suddenly blunder into the lost city itself.
Its not hard seeing the pyramid located some place in the South Western Mexican desert & the factions of the city waiting to sacrifice the PCs to their bastard Lovecraftian god thing.

"Lost in the desert! The only hope for survival lies in a ruined city rising out of the sands.

A pyramid with five twenty foot high tiers rises from the sand.  Atop it are three 30 foot tall statues.  One is a bearded man holding a scale and a lightning bolt.  Another is a beautiful woman holding a sheaf of wheat and a sword.  Between them is a child with two snakes twined about its winged body holding a wand and a handful of coins.

Food, water, and wealth await heroic adventurers inside the ancient pyramid."

Is the The Eerie West - X! worth getting?! I think so in spades, the game does what it says in nineteen pages & delivers on its promise with less filler & more killer with little issue. Plus its a great value & the material is cross compatible with other retroclone & OSR games. Five out of five in my humble opinion.

OSR Review & Commentary On Jarkoon - Adventures on Planet X! By Simon Washbourne From Beyond Belief Games

"Astounding! Amazing! Incredible! Non-stop action using familiar rules! Who wants to read through reams of text just to get to the action? No-one right? These rules assume you know how to role play. They assume you know about “Golden Age” comic book space fantasy adventures. (Sword & Planet rules through a retro lens). They assume you know how OSR products work. There, it’s done. You know how to play already. Just get on with it. Ray guns set to kill! Flash! Bang! Zoom!"
Last night I logged into social media & found that a friend of mine had slipped me a pdf  from the 'X' series of OSR supplements  from Beyond Belief Games. 'Jarkoon Adventures on Planet X ' is a pretty fast & loose Sword & Planet style setting for the X series of  OSR books which borrow heavily from public domain comic books & pulps. According to Brian Courtemanche;" the X series is a growing number of fantastic, fast-start, fun-to-play OSR games by the talented Simon Washbourne of Beyond Belief Games. "



Jarkoon is a setting we've seen a billion times, a Barsoom like planet of adventure with new PC classes, monsters, equipment, etc. The X series is done in a Swords & Wizardry style & this is fine. What separates Jarkoon from a thousand other OSR Sword & Planet settings is the authors enthusiasm & the fact that its packed into twenty pages.
There's no baggage & anyone who plays standard Original Dungeons & Dragons will be picking this setting up in four minutes or less. We get lots of old school Pulp role playing here with the Astronomer class which is your standard Dr. Hans Zarkov style mad scientist who invents gadgets & messes with things man was not meant to know.
"Astronomers are scientific advisers to Kings and Nobles. They know science and can even build small gadgets and devices but rarely venture into the territory of the “Science-Lords” whose ancient mysteries are outlawed in the City-States." All of the artwork is public domain comic book & Pulp artwork re-purposed for this supplement. We get a Jedd erm noble class & this is your typical Prince Voltan from Flash Gordon type or one of the countless Edgar Rice Burroughs Barsoomian noble style. We get a scout class which is a redress of a Ranger style space man spiff type. Then the John Carter off worlder PC class of course. Then comes your standard PC warrior class & a Thark style Lo’Kreen race as class PC class;
"An ancient race from a distant sun, dislocated from their own world by the power of the Science-Lords. Somehow, they ended up on Jarkoon where they helped to overthrow the tyranny of the Science-Lords and make a home for themselves." Then there's the Psion class with a psionic system thrown right into the PC class.
You then get into a history of Jarkoon which again is a Barsoom or Sword & Planet setting but the author manages it in three pages!? We get flyers & air craft straight out of ERB's imagination.
A set of really super quick rules & then Jarkoon style names & NPC stats for your nameless folks who seem to come up as NPC's on the fly during game play. This happens to me each & every time. Then its four pages of monsters that have a surprising array of creatures for its size including the dreaded Science Lords. Missile weapons & melee weapons along with armor & the class combat tables.
The layout is clean, the tables easy on the eyes, & the bare minimum of clutter is welcome to someone like me who is getting very jaded with overarching OSR books I've seen over the last ten years. Your could drop your existing Dungeons & Dragons party onto
'Jarkoon Adventures on Planet X '  to watch the fun This is the thing this a pdf that demands to be played & Jarkoon simply a solidly done tool kit for Sword & Planet adventures. This is definitely a solidly done book coming in at twenty one pages & 'Jarkoon Adventures on Planet X ' is definitely worth picking up at three dollars. Why?! Because this little beauty can be used to add zip to existing Sword & Planet settings such as Planet Algol or even Lamentations of the Flame Princess's Carcosa. And yes the 'X' series of books covers a wide range of genres from Wild West to interstellar Pulp adventure. How do I know because I bought a few titles after reading through 'Jarkoon Adventures on Planet X '.

 'Jarkoon Adventures on Planet X ' could also be used as a side supplement to Barrel Rider Games White Star series of Star Wars film inspired rpg supplements.  I give 'Jarkoon Adventures on Planet X ' five out of five. Stay Tuned because I will be doing more  Beyond Belief Games  product reviews in the near future.

Free OSR Retroclone System - The Sabres & Witchery RPG By Simon Washbourne For Your Old School Campaigns

So I'm quietly looking around The Beyond Belief Games website for their free fan based Blake Seven rpg and came across a monster hunter style retro clone based on the Swords and Wizardry engine called  Sabres & Witchery. Described as "an 18th Century supernatural horror roleplayiong game based on the Swords & Wizardry (Whitebox) fantasy role playing rules." The game takes the usual tropes of monster hunting ala Solomon Kane and relaunches them into a slick little system of horror role playing.
GO HERE TO DOWN LOAD THE GAME UNDER THE 'Other Free RPG Downloads' Section & CLICK  ON THE The Sabres & Witchery RPG HEADING TO DOWN LOAD THE PDF




Your players play several different alternative PC classes from the usual magic user, fighter, cleric, thief party combination. Instead you have a complete wrap around of the PC classes with more of touch of the pulpy horror swashbuckler and sword fighter style of party; the classes are the Fighter, the Magus, the Scoundrel, the Woodsman and the Hunter (a Witchfinder or Vampire Hunter type). While this is based on the Swords and Wizardry engine there's something rather unique about the game, it has a more grounded pulpy swords and sorcery style in the tradition of Robert Howard's Solomon Kane. The fighter is based around the usual professional soldier of the 1600's to early 1800's. The magus is the wizard of supernatural horror and witchcraft history with appropriate spell modifications and twists. The woodsmen is a ranger type but with overtones of the OD&D optional hunter class seen in Dragon Magazine. And then finally there's the Hunter which is akin to a combination of a cleric and a witch finder general type. The game really revels in its source material with an Appendix N right at the very beginning of the book. There are rules that play fast and loose with the material as it should be. Spells have been modified to fit the pulpy supernatural horror setting of the game. Magic is ancient and dangerous here with prices to be paid in blood and more then a hint of corruption. The monsters are reworked from the usual Swords and Wizardry denizens into creatures that are dark and dangerous yet at once very strange. Horrors that have crawled out of myth and legend, these misbegotten horrors from beyond are really the center of the game. There is a good use of public domain artwork which is also at once familiar and yet never overdone. The layout is easy on the eyes and the material both familiar and yet different enough to keep my interest.



There are two mini adventures to round out the horror game and the first is based on Robert Howard's "Rattle of Bones", found in The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane and it well lives up to its horror roots. The mini adventure contains the barest outline of an adventure but it's waiting for the DM to inject life into it. Korred Table is next up and is based on events in history with a good smattering of horror mythology thrown into the mix. 
There is plenty of material here to basically run these adventures with a little DYI preparation work on the DM's part and really make them memorable as well as direly dangerous. So is the game worth the download? Well yes on a number of levels. First off this is a free game but its a well done free retroclone system and its based off of Swords and Wizardry which has a proven track record. This game is also a retro clone variation of OD&D meaning that it will work very with other games out there in the market place. As a stand lone product it can really be made to shine. As an addition to other games on the market this retroclone system brings several things to the table additional PC classes, new takes on spells, brand new re imagining of the classic monsters of D&D.  The Sabres & Witchery game makes a excellent counter point to Lamentations of the Flame Princess an add on resource. With the additional PC classes and monsters this game could take campaigns to another level. In addition this game could be used as an additional counter piece to Dark Albion enabling a DM to add' time lost' PC's or other monstrous elements to that dark brooding horror laced game. All in all I really liked having another resource to pull from for OD&D style games and Swords and Wizardry. I give  Sabres & Witchery RPG a four out of five. 

If you really like the game there is a Lulu printing option of it available right over HERE