Review & Commentary On Matt Finch's 'The Spire of Iron & Crystal' from Frog God Games For Your Old School Campaigns

 

"For centuries, out in the wilderness beyond civilization's reach,

there has stood an enigmatic tower known as the Spire of Iron and

Crystal. It is a bizarre and ancient structure; four massive, eggshaped

crystals are mounted into a twisting, ornate structure of

rounded metal girders, one crystal at the top and the other three

mounted lower down. Moving lights seen inside the huge crystals

suggest that they are hollow and even inhabited, but no one has ever

discovered the secret of how to enter them. This is not surprising, for

the tower is located on a broad stone ledge halfway up a sheer cliff

face, the glassy walls of which have killed several adventurers who

attempted to climb down to the tower almost a hundred feet below.

Over the course of the last few months, with considerable effort and some

highly questionable methods, the adventurers have assembled quite a bit

of information about the Spire - things not widely known, even among

the wisest sages of the lands."

So right now Frog God's having this huge sale because of Black Friday. But its been a bit of Castles & Crusades that has our attention at the moment & yes Troll Lords has a huge sale on at the moment. But its an older title that has our attention today. Matt Finch's 'The Spire of Iron & Crystal' from Frog God Games is one of those adventures that's  been  sitting on the  hard drive for many years now. Its a nasty little romp of a dungeon for PC's levels 5-8. 

 This is one of those adventure that's gotten good reviews over the years from other corners of the OSR. But what the Hell were Frog God Games thinking with their own Drivethrurpg cover artwork. It does nothing for the module?! Yes we know its part of the 'one night stand' series but com'n on?! The director's cut artwork is so much better. Even Ten Foot Pole liked the 'The Spire of Iron & Crystal' & we almost never agree on anything. More over this is a really 'nice alien outpost on the edge of the wilderness dungeon'. 
I'm thinking of sticking 'The Spire of Iron & Crystal' into my version of a combined Carcosa/Cha'alt setting.
As Grognardia's review of 'The Spire of Iron & Crystal'  gets into the heart of the module; "The Spire of Iron and Crystal is a "pure" adventuring locale. Although there is a brief backstory about the korog and the original purpose of the Spire, very little of that comes into play unless the referee wishes it to do so. There are no essential encounters, boxed text describing your character's feelings about this eldritch place, or dramatic speeches by the Big Bad Evil Guy. What you get instead is an extremely well presented dungeon filled with weird magic and technology, clever traps, deadly monsters, and commensurate rewards. Yes, there's some great potential here for expansion. I can easily see using this module as the kick-off of an extended campaign involving the korog and their underground civilization, but, as written, the module makes no demand that the referee or the players be interested in such things. The Spire of Iron and Crystal is thus a fine modern example of the location-based approach to adventure design that gave birth to some of the best modules in D&D history." 

For me this is going to be a perfect set up because of the dungeon's alien nature & over all weirdness. Its hard to really review it without giving too much away! This a module that seems straight outta of the weirdness of Seventies original Dungeons & Dragons! 

The nice part is that I think  that 'The Spire of Iron & Crystal'  may work very well with both Castles & Crusades as well as Adventurer, Conqueror, King rpg. Already we' ve got plans for this dungeon to appear in a central part of the campaign axis so its gonna be a question of simply slotting it into the mix! And that's one of the best parts of a good old school module is the ability to slot it into an on going campaign. 

The d' Amberville Gambit - Campaign Session Commentary Report 1b - Now With More Jame M. Ward

So my Castles & Crusades rpg campaign has been humming along with me updating various adventure elements thanks in part to the Castles & Crusades rpg community on Facebook. I was able to get my local print shop to do an incredible bang up job on my recent purchases from Drivethrurpg.


So I've been incorporating huge swaths of past campaigns & that brings me to one of my most troublesome adventurer patrons & sometimes wizard foe  Stephen d' Amberville. Now d' Amberville first appeared in  X2: "Castle Amber (Chateau d' Amberville)" (1981), by Tom Moldvay. For the last twenty or so years he's appeared in the background of various campaigns as a high level wizard of near cosmic power. But for some time now I've been toying with the idea of him being completely converted into a Dark Lord ala Ravenloft.  But it feels like Ravenloft is way too well known at this point among players. Others have whispered 'The Haunted Highlands' but that setting deserves its own adventures really. But then a friend recommended James Ward's Tainted Lands . So it was on sale & so I thought why not I'm having it!


Since it came out I've been debating getting 'The Tainted Lands' since  2010 & it was Nicholas B's review that really sealed the deal; "Well, I just wrote a lengthy review that was devoured by rpgnow requiring me to sign in a second time (timed out I guess) and I lack the energy to rewrite this, so I'll just do a summary:
Style/Presentation: there are 5 books included but they are not indexed. The artwork is good, although the new artist's style took a bit of adjusting to get used to. As with all Troll Lords products it could have used a bit more editing. There is confusion on the extra prime rules introduced in the book.
Stand-Alone Usefulness: The book includes a C&C quickstart rules set but the game is clearly written for use with the main books, and so this is of limited usefulness. It works great as a specific campaign setting for C&C, but it is very high powered, and using much of this material in standard C&C games requires careful consideration.
Usefulness as a Horror Setting: This game is clearly inspired by Ravenloft, but it is much closer thematically to the movie Van Helsing or Underworld: Rise of the Lycans. I would also suggest this was a great resource for a Castlevania style game. Characters in this game are tough, very tough. They face slavering hordes of monsters that are just as tough, however; it's a strange mix that felt like a "fantasy heavy metal" take on horror to me.
Contents: Four new classes, a ton of new magic items, gear and spells, a detailed overview of the demiplane and a scenario for 4th level characters that will put them through the wringer of a haunted former keep turned inn turned bastion of EVIL. There is also a PDF with class-based character records and a quickstart rulebook that is more useful as a hand-out to players new to the whole RPG thing than to running the boxed set as is.
Overall: James Ward knows how to write a fun old-school sourcebook. It's not for people who find and crave balance, nor is it for people who learned everything they ever knew about role playing games within the last six years; if you were gaming in the 80's you will grokk what this set is about and appreciate what it's trying to accomplish. It;s very accessible and full of weird over-the-top ideas. Well worth the attention of old school and C&C fans alike. I could also see this being converted to a more modern game like Pathfinder with minor work involved. Fans of WoD games need not apply, this is a brand of heavy metal dark fantasy that has little to do with the precepts of the White Wolf brand names; likewise if you come to this expecting a Ravenloft supplement with the serial numbers filed off you will only be partially correct; the Tainted Lands is closer to James Ward's homebrew Ravenloft, I suspect, than anything else, and the higher overall power level of this game means it will most definitely play out like some sort of dark heroic fantasy than gothic horror.

You can't tell but this part is bursting with undead.

Style: 4/5 -- good art, good layout, needs some errata and editing Rules: 3/5 -- useful for its internal setting, harder to adapt a lot of it to a standard C&C game Readability: 5/5 -- James Ward's relaxed and casual style of writing is a pleasure to read and made this more engaging than many existing C&C modules Overall: 4/5 -- I'm using this for a Tainted Lands campaign "as is", the wacky concepts within make for a singularly unique over-the-top splatterfest campaign; if you like old-school and this sounds intriguing, grab it!"

Heavy Metal Old School Splatterfest sounds about right in my wheel house. And I've been debating about what do about the plane of water seas around my dimensionally travelling Tegel Manor. Matt Finch of Frog God Games happened to put me on the indegogo of Island of Sorrow is an adventure for characters levels 3-5 that takes them on a journey across the sea to rescue the lost scion of a wealthy merchant family. Yeah this sound right up my alley for adding it near X1 The Isle of Dread. Seriously this a perfect fit for it.

So over the next couple of days I'm working my coins into getting on board with this funding effort but its gonna be tight. Last night I remembered that  Timothy S. Brannan over at Otherside blog  had covered Tainted Lands in his  Class Struggles: Castles & Crusades Classes.
Here he speaks about modifying the Tainted Lands classes;
" Moving on to more C&C specific "worlds" we can first turn to the Tainted Lands. Now to be fair, I was pretty hard on this product when it came out.  I still find faults with it, but I am softening my approach some more.  I just ignore the "Psychic" and "Supernatural" attributes. The nice thing about this setting is it is easily back-adaptable to ad some darkness to your games.  The Tainted Lands also gives us four new classes.  The Witch Hunter (which I have converted to Wisdom), The Metals Master (which I honestly don't use), The Portal Keeper (I use Intelligence instead) and the Vampire (Strength).  Of these, I use the Witch Hunter the most.

The Haunted Highlands are next and have some classes that fit into the same horror or darkness tinged mode.  This includes the Players Guide, the Castle Keeper's Guide and the Black Libram of Naratus.  Now these books hit me right in my home.  Dark, scary, Celtic themed play?  Sign me up!  I will work on getting a full review out for the Haunted Highlands soon.  Case on point, the classes are a revised Assassin, a revised Monk, the Conjurer (Charisma based), the Necromancer (an Inteligence sub-class of the Wizard and which is also detailed at length in the Black Libram of Naratus), and the Witch (Wisdom based)! I could go on and on about the witch here, but it is a very approapriate adaptation of the concept for this setting.  Again. There is so much here to go through that I will have to devote a blog post or two about it.  But I would easily play one of these witches or necromancers."

This sounds very close to some of the Hammer horror Gothic/Gonzo feel that I was looking to inject into my Franco Prussian War Steampunk campaign using Mike Stewart's Victorious rpg as the spine system.  Across the demi planes the Cha'alt warlords & the Slavers are pushing their own agenda. There's lots of weirdness as wizards, dead gods, & others play three tiered planar chess with various realities. The Cha'alt crew wants to bring the whole chess board down or do they?! 

Stephen d' Amberville has been moving various agents into place at key critical junctures. A few of my players in Frog God Games  Encephalon Gorgers on the Moon have encountered the cat's paws of d' Amberville in the form of rival adventuring parties. A great adventure with a dangerous under plot to it.



For these modules I'm looking more at a Bruce Campbell Vs The Army of Darkness meets Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust hence my grabbing James Ward's Tainted Lands.

X2: "Castle Amber (Chateau d' Amberville)" awaits on its own to spring upon the PC's like some insane wild beast & bring them into its fetid grasp.
Meanwhile an old friend in the form of the lich the  Duke D' Lamont is keeping an eye on the PC's. He's sent the occasional assassin after the party of adventurers after they've broken into his tax collection coffers & caravans over the years. He's got a rivalry going with d' Amberville and often seems to squeeze them between these two bastard NPC's. 

OSR Commentary & Review Meat In A Tavern By Matt Finch - A Jordoba Campaign Introductory Adventure For The Swords & Wizardry Retroclone System

"Meat in a Tavern takes place below the Happy Ending Tavern (also known as the Sign of the Cleaver), in the Grim Quarter of the City of Jordoba — or any fantasy city you might choose. The Grim Quarter is essentially a holding-pen type of neighborhood for the city’s most dangerous residents, the ones allowed to live here for their skills or strength, but only to reside within the walls of the Grim quarter. Hired ogres are the best example of the Grim Quarter’s populace, working for their employers by day as guards or heavy laborers, but not free to roam the streets at will after curfew. Jordoba has a long tradition of monster-related violence in its streets and alleyways, but exerts best efforts to at least keep it to a minimum. "
 Clocking in at thirty pages Matt Finch brings his latest efforts in adventure to the table in his strange campaign setting of Jordoba from his on line campaign play. The planes of  Jordoba are decaying & all kinds of strange horrors lurk just around the corner in this Sword & Sorcery world. This campaign is a part of the Swords & Wizardry line of retroclone adventures. Matt Finch sent the Meat In A Tavern adventure  over to me. 



The idea here is that the adventurers instead of the usual party of adventurers meeting in a tavern for adventure & dungeon crawl plunder. Instead here the player's PC's are prisoners as part of a very nasty group of ogres dinner plans & business in the campaign's city;
"This adventure is a good way of introducing characters to each other and starting them off as companions on their first adventure — and is also a good place to “imprison” the characters if they are taken down by what would otherwise have been a total party kill in some other adventure. I don’t advise using the adventure as written unless it’s a first adventure or the consequence of the characters’ actions (getting defeated and sold to the slugs) because otherwise yanking characters into an escape scenario is a slightly cheap trick. However, Meat in a Tavern also works as a rescue scenario, where the characters start on the outside and try to free a prisoner or have some other reason to be entering the slugs’ complex from the outside."

So already we've got a twist on the usual beginning or introductory adventure which puts the PC's right into the middle of the action. The layout is very well done & the text is done in the comic book style of the Jordoba line of projects. The writing is up to Matt Finch's standards & like some of the basic hooks & ideas here.
What I'm I talking about?! You've got ogres in a city supplying other monsters with a food network that Hannibal Lector would be envious of!  I forgot to mention the giant  slugs. There's a really nice monster ecology twist on the usual Dungeons & Dragons giant slugs. And the one thing I know is that every D&D player & dungeon master I know for some reason loves giant slugs?!  For some reason the artwork from Meat In Tavern wouldn't work but since this is a Swords & Wizardry module it will work with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition too.

Artwork for the AD&D first edition Monster Manual Used Without Permission. 

Trade Marked & Copyrighted to Wizards of The Coast. But com'n look at that adventurer running for his life. That's what's gonna happen in Meat In A Tavern. 

So why do I like Meat In A Tavern so much?! Because the best adventures are also tool kits & this is one of those. It provides the dungeon master with a dynamic adventure location that also doubles into the idea of an ogre run thieves network or guild in the background of this adventure. Backed by some very weird & dangerous muscle that will come to scare the crap out of & possibly haunt the PC's later on. Its really going to depend upon what a bastard the dungeon master is.
Can I see running this with Swords & Wizardry?! Yes I can leaning towards doing a  Jordoba Swords & Sorcery campaign. The PC's are the 'heroes in the making' but its if they survive the Meat In The Tavern adventure experience. How would I personally run this adventure?! For my own experience I can see throwing this adventure into Hyperborea with little to no modification. There are several reasons for this including some of the background elements & the fact that its so well put together. The fact is that with the elements of Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea second edition.

You could slot Meat In The Tavern right into Brigands Bay in Hyperborea.  Why do I say this?! Because of the fact that there are lots of abandon cities on Hyperborea after the Green Death. So you've probably got all kinds of variations of humanity rubbing shoulders with humans. An ogre run tavern in an inhuman quarter makes perfect sense.


Given the adventure subplots & weirdness this is also an adventure that I could see running with Lamentations of the Flame Princess or another Shot & Pike era game. The PC's of this sort of game are thrown into the prisons & weirdness of  Jordoba via Meat In The Tavern. Believe me this is easy given the number of planar doorways & dimensional holes in the setting. Black powder isn't going to make much of a difference in Jordoba. This sort of a fish out of water expedition idea where the characters travel into the badassery of Jordoba. They run afoul of the tavern & its ilk.

The other option here is to run Meat In The Tavern with a traditional original Dungeons & Dragons or Advanced Dungeons & Dragons firs editions set of rules. Here the PC's are again going to be a part of the frame work of the world of Jordora & know their in serious trouble in the clutches of the ogres.

So is Meat In the Tavern worth getting?! In a word - yes! The whole adventure works on a number of levels & actively encourages play. I like the design, the cartography, & layout. The ideas here are interesting & original.
Here are some important  Jordoba links: 

Main Jordoba Resources &
where Meat In The Tavern Adventure Will Be Available Here 
 
Jordoba You Tube Play  resources
and other great stuff from Uncle Matt’s RPG Studio

Swords & Wizardry Complete Rulebook

OSR & Campaign Commentary On The O edition version of Tomb of the Iron God for Swords & Wizardry By Matt Finch

"A temple destroyed by divine wrath... An ancient, imprisoned evil and a powerful idol. Mysteries abound in the tombs below the temple of the Iron God, protector of the dead. Discover the dreadful fate of the Iron God's priesthood and the reasons behind their downfall in this intriguing adventure designed for low-level characters. Tomb of the Iron God covers a large catacomb area on two levels, with 58 keyed locations and six new monsters. This is a Swords & Wizardry (0e) dungeon crawl for four to five characters of 1st or 2nd level, by ENNIE-award winning author Matt Finch"




October is Halloween for the kids but many of us OSR guys we know that's the prelude to the Sword & Sorcery OSR campaign time during the long Winter months. With the Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea mega Kickstater going off,"New Kickstarter campaign launching on Halloween! Four new products for Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea; Hyperborea Players' Manual, Hyperborea Player Character Folder, Hyperborea Referee's Screen, Rats in the Walls and Other Peril". Jeffrey Talanian let the cat slip out of the bag about twenty hours ago on G+  & other social media. What does this have to do with the O edition version of Tomb of the Iron God for Swords & Wizardry?!
Quite bit actually. First of all I had three tons of messages & what not about the fact of why hadn't there been any announcement about  The World of Jordoba?! Matt Finch was streaming  actual play episodes on Youtube & Twitch. . Go here for the YouTube Playlist of the series.

Again the layout here reminds me of a 70's Sword & Sorcery comic book ala Marvel's Conan or DC's various Sword & Sorcery titles. This is done with exactly the idea of putting spot light on the PC's as they are moved into adventure's central point on for the adventure. The Tomb of the Iron God does this right out the gate with mechanical timing;

"For centuries, nearby hillfolk have brought their dead to the Tomb of the Iron God, a
largely-forgotten minor deity of the underworld who guards the spirits and bodies of the
dead. A community of monks has maintained an ancient temple above the god's sacred underground catacombs since before recorded history,performing funeral rites and bringing bodies below to rest in
the Iron God's protection."
"However, the monks of the temple became corrupt and venal, and under the leadership of one monk, Ardarus, they began accumulating treasure  and secretly raising an army of undead to take control of the
villages surrounding the  Monastery. About a month before the adventure begins,the High Priest, who remained loyal to the Iron God's true commands, denounced the renegade monks and ordered
them to bring Ardarus before the statue of the Iron God for judgment. Furious, Ardarus
took and imprisoned him, seizing control of the temple to  declare himself high priest. But
On the very night the high priest  died of starvation, the Iron God visited a terrible vengeance upon these disloyal servitors.
Lightning struck from the heavens, lighting the dark skies for hours as every building of the temple complex was blasted from existence. The renegade monks were transformed into statues of living iron, still
conscious but trapped in their almost-immobile bodies for all eternity. The subterranean catacombs under the temple still remain, filled with the treasures accumulated by the avaricious monks. The god, also, remains living within his great Idol in the Sacred Catacombs where he guards the dead entrusted to him. One other being remains as well, an immortal evil imprisoned a thousand years ago by the god himself - the Eater of the Dead."

Everything in this adventure pairs the PC's against the forces of the Iron Priests & the monsters of the tomb. Factions & monsters that we heard about in the World of Jordoba Player's Guide. Here the rumors & threads of the player's guide come together in the form of the ruins of the tomb. Necroamancers are going to have a bad time at the tomb.
Even though this is a first level PC dungeon its a really nasty one & very dangerous. The adventure contains lots of new elements specifically for Tomb of the Iron God for Swords & Wizardry. Why is this important?! Because they're keyed for this adventure but they have been adapted into the world of Jordoba setting. This places them squarely at the feet of the dungeon master to use elsewhere. Yesterday I mentioned that the world of Jordoba was like dimensional cheese cloth & rotting from within its own universe falling into the multiveral planar void.
This means that The Tomb of the Iron God can be upon Jordoba while at the same time appearing in Greyhawk or Blackmoor. Imagine walking into one world for the dungeon & crossing the dimensional threshold unto another universe entirely. Walk across Jordoba & you might end up upon Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea's Hyperborean setting. 


This takes the adventure from the realm of Swords & Wizardry into the pull of appendix N style stories such as Clark Ashton Smith's Sword & Sorcery settings such as the Hyperborean cycle & the Zothique tales. The world's cycle of years has moved on & now its time. The Tomb of the Iron God belongs to a different order & a different older reality then that of Jordoba. This makes the tomb a very dangerous location whose local space time could cross into other worlds & times. Solving the riddles, traps, & monsters  of the Iron Tomb maybe only the beginning. 
But is the Tomb Of the Iron God solidly done?! Yes its cartography is easy to read, the artwork & layout are easy on the eyes & the module is still a fine addition to any OSR Sword & Sorcery dungeon master's line up! Five out of five across the board. 

OSR & Campaign Commentary On World of Jordoba Player Guide by Matt Finch

"The World of Jordoba is the masterpiece swords & sorcery campaign setting written by ENNIE award-winning author Matt Finch. Jordoba is an ancient world populated by strange peoples and stranger monsters, physically fraying into the depths of the oceanic multiverse. Ruination has spread across the world, and the civilizations of the Sea of Khoramandu are pushed back to the very coasts. And yet, humankind has risen from worse threats in the past eons of its existence. Scattered villages remain in the wildlands, and new barons carve out freeholds in the wilderness, their names scribed upon new maps. Great wizards make sorties into the very shadows beyond reality, seeking forgotten lore and undiscovered frontiers of arcane scholarship. It is a world where unnatural things survive from ancient times, where nameless gods have turned their unfathomable intentions, and where even civilized regions must literally be re-explored.
This is … the Weirdling world of Jordoba!"


So once again I return to my first OSR love Sword & Sorcery with Matt Finch's World of Jordoba Player Guide  which is done in the style of Seventies Marvel Conan or Sword & Sorcery comic book. This puts the reader in the product's mind set & campaign setting.


While this is about as system neutral a product you can get the whole affair reminds me of Marvel's Guide To The Conan universe .  The setting has the feel of a place about to come to the end of its act. There's a great deal of the Robert Howard or Clark Ashton Smith twilight's end of the world bit about World of Jordoba.  The World of Jordoba Player Guide setting has the feel of a campaign setting on the last days as the setting bloated sun pulls the whole thing into the Abyss.  The dungeon master gets just enough detail to set adventurers onto the path of glory;

"MandrAknow  this, my fellow wanderer;The ancient civilizations around
the wine-dark waters of the Sea of Khoramandu arepressed back to the very
coasts. Do they not cling to the very coastlines against a  tide of beasts and barbarians
rising from the inland wilds?Even great kings upon their glittering thrones in the citystates
lie awake of nights,knowing that civilization may be in its last days!
Even the very fabric of the world is rent and frayed. Oh yes, There are places I know
of where you can walk straight through into another world than this, another time than
this, even into realms of shadow that lie behind the reality we see. Our world is parting at the seams,companion. The oracles know it. The great mages know it. Astrologers chart a path of ruin in the skies, and the wolves sing their triumph to the five moons.
Listen well, for what I tell you is little known and seldom spoken of. We talk of Goodness and of evil, we speak of law and chaos. But these are just the conceits of human morality, the way we order our little, insignificant place in the universe so that
we can understand it. In truth, however, there is a far larger conflict at work — the cosmic  forces of Order, Balance,and Ruination. This battlemight mean little to you now,
when your purse is shallow and your name means nothing.But as you claw your way
forward in the world, forces and destinies begin to coalesce  around you."

From here the World of Jordoba Player Guide setting book jumps into religion, city states, numerous locations, the gods, astrological information, etc.. The whole book feels like Matt Finch's campaign setting notes & that's not a bad thing. What your getting is a thumbnail setting done right. That is to say a whole campaign world in fifty pages that you can make your own.
What really puts the world of Jordoba in a different place is how setting elements are used to draw the average Dungeons & Dragons or Swords & Wizardry PC in. The planar rifts element is used here ;
Rifts are areas of planar instability; the interior of the rift could be occupied by a
part of one of several different “worlds” at any given time. Most of Jordoba’s rifts have a native Jordoban interior that is the most common occupant of the rift. Passing through the border and back  while the native Jordoban region is resident in the rift is no different from ordinary walking. However, the native Jordoban region will often be replaced by part of some other world: possibly switching places with that part of the
other world, or perhaps sliding into one of the rift’s outlets in a third and entirely
different world. The  functioning of most largerifts is inconsistent: some astrologers can make good  guesses about the drift of  worlds through the rifts." This adventure campaign element allows the dungeon master to place the World of Jordoba 
'where' & 'when' they want it. That's significant because it takes the pressure off of the dungeon master from ruining the flow of home brew campaign that's already in action.  The cartography is by Glynn Seal, the cover artwork by Adrian Landeros & the whole Sword & Sorcery affair has Matt Finch's writing & design all over it.
The dungeon master also is given a wide variety of factions, guilds, & brotherhoods to play with the PC's lives & use for adventure opportunity. They're well done & pretty solidly sketched out but not overly so. This same formula applies to the various locations around the setting such as;
 
Mbalamad, City-State of
mm-BAHLA-mahd
Population (city): 60,000
Current Ruler: Her Eternal
Divinity Ralaibala II, God-Queen of
Mbalamad, Suzeraine of the
Ghanzertes
What people have heard:
- Vast Moon-Temple
- Sacred monkeys
- Rich dyes and pottery glazes
from Ghanzertes river clay.

Like I said the dungeon master is given just enough material to be able to customize Jorboda & make it their own for their home games. But what makes Jordoba is the idea of a multiveral cancer spreading across the world consuming the adventure setting as it goes. 
"Jorboda is  physically fraying into the depths of the oceanic multiverse. Ruination has spread across the world, and the civilizations of the Sea of Khoramandu are pushed back to the very coasts"
This gives the dungeon master all kinds of lisence to get use old school adventures & OSR material at will. The World of Jordoba Player Guide's setting 

is solidly done & crams lots of ideas into fifty pages that many other OSR adventure settings take a very long time to do.
So for example if a dungeon master wanted to run the classic Keep on the Borderlands in this setting. The keep & all of its kit could be a short ride away. The idea of keeping Greyhawk intact & allowing the PC's to cross into another campaign setting makes this a brilliant adventure addition.
I can see using the World of Jordoba with other OSR game settings such as Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. The planar rifts & feel of the campaign setting allows parties to make the cross over easily. The fact a myriad of OSR systems could be used to run the Jordora make this a prime candidate for Lamentations of the Flame Princess.
The idea of expeditions from a dark historical Europe into a decaying dimensional Sword & Sorcery hellhole has all kinds of appeal as an adventure campaign.

Are there certain things that I'd change about the World of Jordoba Player Guide? Yes right off the bat there's no print on demand option for Drivethrurpg. Secondly I'd love a large version of the map featured in the Player's Guide as a separate PDF and as another print on demand product. 
Now the reason why this is a concern is the fact that this product uses planar rifts as possible adventure & campaign hooks. Players love to have actual maps & physical products to interact with.
All in all I was really impressed with the way that Matt Finch managed to pack so many original ideas into fifty pages. I think that the World of Jordoba Player Guide is worth your time & money.