OSR Review & Commentary On CASTLE OLDSKULL - Oldskull Gonneslingers By Kent Kelly For The Castle Oldskull Campaign Setting And Your OSR or Old School Campaigns

 "Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have your players dabbling in low anachronous-tech science fantasy, with anti-heroic gunslinger characters in the vein of Roland of Gilead, Solomon Kane, Lord John Roxton, Jack Sparrow, or even Don Kaye’s Merlin-D? What do you think would have happened if Gary Gygax, in creating his fantastical medieval history RPG, had never arbitrarily erased gunpowder from the heroic fantasy lexicon? And in what possible world, pray tell, do the legendary Cloud City of Laputa, the ever-fabled City of Brass, Jack the Giant Killer, imp-loaded hand cannons, Doctor Mirabilis, the King in Yellow, and Great Cthulhu coexist with one another?

"If you’ve never thought of these questions, let alone their potential answers, that is because you are sane. Fortunately, in the realms of Oldskull we long ago dispensed with sanity as a petty and needless obstacle, barring the way to endlessly strange and fun ideas."

"Herein you will find the Fusilier, an optional Player Character (or NPC) fighter sub-class, inspired in part by Arneson, Gygax and Perren, Howard, King, Poe, Browning, Hodgson, and Jonathan Swift. Secrets revealed in this tome include the following: Oldskull lore, binding old school fantasy firearms and asynchronous tech lore cohesively together; a Gygaxian history of guns in 1970s play; rules for introducing the wondrous Cloud City and its like; alchemical pulver (arcane gunpowder from out of another reality); medieval handgonnes; misfires; trick shots; kill shots; brimstone Glamours; and more. If you’ve ever looked for a way to introduce guns to the classic fantasy RPG in a limited fashion without ruining the lore of your campaign, you will find this supplement to your liking. Particularly if you’ve been drinking.

This book has been written to interface directly with the Old School Essentials game, as derived from compatible systems under the rules originally published by Gygax (1974-1985), Holmes (1978), Moldvay (1981), Mentzer (1983-1986), and many others. Even if it’s just a one-shot, why not give your players a game experience they will never forget?" " 

So last night I approached Kent Kelly & asked him for a copy of CASTLE OLDSKULL - Oldskull Gonneslingers. And this OSR PC resource book isn't what I was expecting. What I was expecting was a Stephen King Dark Tower style PC sourebook for some reason. But what I got was far better! Far better by far. Oldskull Gonneslingers By Kent Kelly is actually an OSR  black po wder gunner's sourcebook. And it supports that angle with 146 pages of a fantasy angle for a match lock powered gunner PC class with overtones of magic. 
Oldskull Gonneslingers By Kent Kelly  does an excellent job of presenting both arguments for black powder style weapons within OSR style games along with the materials to support it. And this is done by the author making his case for the history of black powder style weapons in Dungeons & Dragons powered games going back to the beginning. And it's an amazing sourcebook from the ground up.Oldskull Gonneslingers By Kent Kelly is a great resource for other OSR games. And I'm looking towards Lamentations of the Flame Princess &  the Gonneslingers PC class would be an excellent fit. The Gonneslingers & it's attendant class goes up too twelve levels with attendant magical effects, glamours, and more. There's a whole cloth setting involved in  Oldskull Gonneslingers ready to drag & drop into your campaign. Take for example Adventurer, Conqueror, King where Oldskull Gonneslingers would make an excellent side companion for ACK's Guns of War! The material within Oldskull Gonneslingers By Kent Kelly is a great side sequel to this book. 

Oldskull Gonneslingers By Kent Kelly For The Castle Oldskull Campaign Setting is one of those books that has use across a multiple OSR rpg platforms & systems. And this includes post apocalypse rpg campaign settings! And the Oldskull Gonneslingers makes no bones about this. So Gonneslingers could be easily slid into the Mutant Future rpg and it's attendant resource books. Bottomline, CASTLE OLDSKULL - Oldskull Gonneslingers By Kent Kelly is a solid OSR book and works well to creat a black powder and magical using PC class for your OSR games!
 
 CASTLE OLDSKULL - Oldskull Gonneslingers By Kent Kelly For The Castle Oldskull Campaign Setting And Your OSR Campaigns Is Available Here! 

OSR Review - CASTLE OLDSKULL - Oldskull Dragons From Kent David Kelly For Your Old School Campaigns.

" Have you been wanting to include some classic old school dragons in your campaign?  This book will save you hours of development time!  Many thousands of dice rolls have been made for you, with the results carefully collected into stat and treasure templates for easy reference and use.  Herein you will find 100 pre-generated dragons complete with unique names, combat statistics, spells (as appropriate), and pre-rolled treasure hoards. "



 "All 100 of these glorious beasties have been sorted according to their relative challenge level, from Crysthax the Pale (a very young white dragon, suitable for level 1 or 2 encounters) all the way up to Arcanthia the Invincible (an ancient gold dragon, who can easily provide a challenge to PCs of level 15 and up).All stats are clearly provided in Basic/Expert/Advanced format for easy conversion to other systems." 

There are two things you as a DM can never have enough of and that's  dungeons as well as  dragons. And let's talk about dragons shall we? Specifically CASTLE OLDSKULL - Oldskull Dragons From Kent David Kelly! CASTLE OLDSKULL - Oldskull Dragons rocks in at one hundred & fifteen pages of old school goodness. There's this huge D&D sale on drivethrurpg & a player of mine grabbed the Castle Oldskull mega bundle for me. CASTLE OLDSKULL - Oldskull Dragons is on the pile of pdf books that I'm making an effort to review. So CASTLE OLDSKULL - Oldskull Dragons is a tome of well dragons that covers NPC dragons across multiple editions including Basic/Expert/Advanced. What it does is flesh out these dragons not simply as 'monsters of the week'. But as living & breathing NPC's with thier own characteristics, special abilities, treasures, etc.. Instead of simply as a pile of stats on the page. The stat blocks are crisp, the writing solid, & the ideas are well done. There's more then enough to keep dipping back into the well again & again for a different dragon with different challenges to suit your environs & the campaign. 
These dragons could come in very handy in OSR games as you need them as important NPC's. 
Oldskull Dragons fits the bill in several ways. One it allows one to bring dragons into a campaign that most players have never heard of. Two dragons are a perfect for mid to high level OSR campaigns where kings, & royals face down NPC's. Yes, I'm talking about a game such as the Adventurer, Conqueror, King rpg here. Oldskull Dragons  is also excellent for Castles & Crusades but there may be some modifcation necessary to fit your C&C campaign. The truth is that CASTLE OLDSKULL - Oldskull Dragons fits a niche and that is the fact that almost any Dungeons & Dragons campaign can use a dragon. The monsters are incredibly powerful, very well done, and absolutely underrated in my estimation of the grand game. There are a variety of reasons for this and they include the fact that dragons are too damn powerful, dragona have undeserved reputations, dragons can undermine a campaign, and dragons fit their alignment. Dragons are also very cunning & should be used sparringly.CASTLE OLDSKULL - Oldskull Dragons From Kent David Kelly  goes a long way to fixing a multiplicity 0f problems with old dragons. The writing is top drawer, the exacution well done, & over all this is a good book to add too the Dm's tool box.

CASTLE OLDSKULL - Oldskull Dragons From Kent David Kelly For Your Old School Campaigns.  

Review & Commentary On CASTLE OLDSKULL - 333 Realms of Entropy By Kent David Kelly For Your Old School Campaigns

" The realms in this book will give you enthralling and mysterious idea-shards filled with exotic locales, disturbing secrets, and haunting monster encounters which you can make your own. Each of the 333 realms is uniquely named, and includes terrain details and revelations about the most unusual and powerful monsters who dwell there"                                                                           

CASTLE OLDSKULL - 333 Realms of Entropy by Kent David Kelly is a massive one hundred fifty three page set of generators & tools for creating choatically themed realms, rooms, adventure hooks, places, & even rumors from the Castle Oldskull OSR system. 
This is a sprawling book that I grabbed on sale this past week with the Black Friday sale on Drivethrurpg. And this is a perfect book for creating dungeons, or even planes of chaos. It does this by sets of interlinking random tables that plug into  exotic locales, disturbing secrets, and haunting monster encounters. This is a really well done set of tools that out of the box takes the dungeon master deeper within their own world. Within this book nothing is ever quite the same & we're not subject to repeat after repeat subject matter.  
CASTLE OLDSKULL - 333 Realms of Entropy takes the guess work out of the random die roll by taking the material that extra mile. The wilderness has never been as wild or wooly with the dice literally determining the outcome across board. This makes creating magical realms, fairy lands, or even realms of chaos a snap. So is the CASTLE OLDSKULL - 333 Realms of Entropy  actually useful for original Dungeons & Dragons or B/X Dungeons & Dragons?! In a word absolutely it is! 



Why?! Because the  CASTLE OLDSKULL - 333 Realms of Entropy  system builds upon itself creating its own internal consistency of a campaign world. This is a design feature built right into it. And it does this very well. The  CASTLE OLDSKULL - 333 Realms of Entropy  is useful for everything from a high fantasy campaign straignt into an old school Sword & Sorcery romp. This is something we see time & again within the one hundred & fifty three pages. Who, what, where, & when are created in a toss of the dice & this is something that we as dungeon masters need from time to time. When time is short the  CASTLE OLDSKULL - 333 Realms of Entropy   is a welcome change up! 
What makes it nice is the dovetailing of  CASTLE OLDSKULL - 333 Realms of Entropy  with the other Castle OldSkull system books as well. This includes the CASTLE OLDSKULL - Game World Generator - Deluxe Edition & its sister book GWG2 OLDSKULL ADVENTURE GENERATOR. 

So is the  CASTLE OLDSKULL - 333 Realms of Entropy worth the price of admission?! Abssolutely & it does its job very well & we have all kinds of plans for this book in our upcoming campaigns!