OSR Review & Commentary On Talismundia Region 01: Rabalinn on the Rime River Book I: Player's Guide By James & Joey Moran Mishler For The Shadowdark rpg & Especially Castles & Crusades rpg

" Rabalinn on the Rime River

Book I: Player's Guide
Designed for use with the Shadowdark RPG
By James Mishler and Jodi Moran-Mishler

The Rabalinn on the Rime River Player's Guide is the first fully detailed player' guide for the Talismundia Campaign Setting.

The materials presented in this booklet present two new classes, 20 new spells, new patrons for warlocks and witches, and a complete pantheon for the Borean peoples of Talismundia.

This supplement is designed to provide information for developing player characters for a campaign set in the world of Talismundia, particularly in the lands of the Ice-Witch Wastes, Rime River Marshes, Reotan Forest, and Icy Sea of Region 01: The Cold Steppes.

Designed for use with Shadowdark, easily adaptable to any other classic style OSR Role-Playing Game."

This review is going to pick up from previous reviews on this blog here.  

 
The  Talismundia Region campaign by James Mishler games just got a major update with the Talismundia Region 01: Rabalinn on the Rime River Book I: Player's Guide. There was a huge info and game dump with the following: 

The Rabalinn on the Rime River Player's Guide includes:

Details on the Peoples of the Cold North
Frostblod Warlock Class
Ice Witch Class
Ice Witch Mishap Tables
Ice Witch Spells  four spells each for five tiers
Rimelords, including Ahti and Vellamo (Lawful, Borean), Louhi (Chaotic, Borean), Rlim Shaikorth (Chaotic, Outsider), Skadi (Neutral, Auroran), and Ymir (Chaotic, Auroran)
Rimelord Boons
Borean Gods
Borean Afterlife
Information Tables for the Borean, Auroran, Drakgudar, Hesperian, Holy Church of Law and Temple of Evil Chaos, Tenebrian, and Vesperian Pantheons

Talismundia Region 01: Rabalinn on the Rime River Book I: Player's Guide By James & Joey Moran Mishler adds a whole other aspect to the Rabalinn on the Rime River campaign with brand new classes, aspects on ice and regular magic, new gods, aspects of Chaos and Law plush much more. This all comes in with forty pages of new material with a well edited, laid out, and given set of features. 
However given the amount of material here, there's another OSR role playing game that the Talismundia Region 01: Rabalinn on the Rime River Book I: Player's Guide could easily work with. And that's Castles & Crusades! There's more then enough material here to easily expand anyone's C&C campaign. There's gods, monsters, new classes, and more. 

 Why the  Talismundia Region 01: Rabalinn on the Rime River Book I: Player's Guide works well with Castles & Crusades is because the Shadowdark and the C&C systems are easily crosscompitable enabling the C&C DM to get the best bang for their dollar..  There more then enough within the the Talismundia Region as a campaign to have a group of players going for years. Talismundia is a campaign setting is open enough to allow a DM to add their own spin on adventures and the campaign setting without getting bogged down in too much detail. 
And this is one of the strengths of James Mishler's design work and writing. He knows how to present a product with enough too get the DM started without drowning him or her in the morass finer detail and points. 

Is the  Talismundia Region 01: Rabalinn on the Rime River Book I: Player's Guide worth the price of admission?! In a word yes! This is especially true of the great material that's been made avaiable in this latest Talismundia product!  

OSR Review & Commentary On Forest Adventures -- A Shadowdark Supplement By James Mishler, & Jodi Moran-Mishler For The Shadowdark Rpg or Castles & Crusades rpg campaign

 "The materials presented in this booklet are optional, providing a new ancestry, new class, new spells, and new patrons for players and new monsters, treasures, and a complete mini-campaign setting for the game master to challenge player characters.

This supplement is designed to expand options for any campaign setting or sub-region of a campaign setting that is based in a forested area.

Designed for use with Shadowdark, easily adaptable to any other classic style OSR Role-Playing Game.

Forest Adventures includes:

New Oozeling Ancestry
New Hermit Class
20 new Woodland Spells
Four new Patrons for Warlocks and Witches

15 new forest-themed monsters:
Brudnakula
Doe Maiden
Flitterswarm
False Satyr
Korrigan
Lamia
Lamia Princess
Leucrotta
Nix
Nixie
Plonakupa
Satyr
Schaedelbaum
Woodwyrm
Ywazent"

"10 new forest-themed treasures:
Horn of the Woodland
Nixie Ring
Potion of Ooze
Potion of Power
Rune-Carved Menhir
Saint's Cloak
Seed of the Outer Sphere
Stormcrown
Staff of the Woodlands
Woodwyrm Necklace

A Gazetteer of the15 new forest-themed monsters:
Brudnakula
Doe Maiden
Flitterswarm
False Satyr
Korrigan
Lamia
Lamia Princess
Leucrotta
Nix
Nixie
Plonakupa
Satyr
Schaedelbaum
Woodwyrm
Ywazent"

A Gazetteer of the Witchyflow Vale for James Mishler's Hawkmoor Campaign Setting, including:
Extensive Encounter Tables, with region guidelines and history;
25 Hex-based Encounters
d100 Specific Witchyflow Vale Encounter Table
Witchyflow 2 mile-per-hex GMs Hex Map
Witchyflow 2 mile-per-hex VTT Players Hex Map

Forest Adventures -- A Shadowdark Supplement By James Mishler, & Jodi Moran-Mishler is the latest offering for the Shadowdark Rpg. Now anytime I get a Shadowdark supplement from it's a red letter day. Because these supplements can easily be translated over to Troll Lord Games Castles & Crusades. Now woodland themed supplements are not as common as one thinks.
This one Forest Adventures offers a slightly off center OSR theme of forrested areas to populate with new PC options, spells, & new woodland patrons for Warlocks and such. And there's the Oozeling ancestry options that work on two levels as an NPC optional background or for PC's to add another dimension for play. 

The woodland patrons could easily be used for druids or the other spell casters in Castles and Crusades. The newest monsters within Forrest Adventures are woodland and Forrest 15 new forest-themed monsters:
Brudnakula
Doe Maiden
Flitterswarm
False Satyr
Korrigan
Lamia
Lamia Princess
Leucrotta
Nix
Nixie
Plonakupa
Satyr
Schaedelbaum
Woodwyrm
Ywazent"

These monsters are all designed around the woodlands and they work on several levels. Level one these creatures are perfectly balanced to add new OSR weirdness to your OSR adventures. There are already overlap for many of these OSR monsters within Castles & Crusades but it's easy enough to have variety or subspecies of creatures. 
The Hermit class could easily be a guide or NPC class that takes care of the adventurers from a distance guiding them through the wilderness that is inspired by old school adventures. 
Note that the spells also reflect this theme of the wilderness as antagonist towards the player's PC's as well. Something we also see in the treasures that echo nature and the wild aspect of the woodlands. The woods are dark and deep, this brings us to the Gazetteer of the Witchyflow Vale for James Mishler's Hawkmoor Campaign Setting,
The Witchyflow is an extensive wilderness adventure for the PC's to adventure in. You get encounter tables, ruins and more that can easily be added into your own old school or OSR campaigns. 
Is Forest Adventures any good?! In a word, yes it's very good at what it does and that's add more OSR goodness to your own games if they happened to be centered on the wilderness or not. The material covered here is optional but adds a complexity to your own campaign. 

Review & Commentary On Manavores -- A Shadowdark Supplement By James Mishler, & Jodi Moran-Mishler For The Shadowdark rpg & adapting It to Castles & Crusades rpg

 

"Manavores
By James Mishler and Jodi Moran-Mishler"

"Manavores provides 16 new and strange monsters for use with the Shadowdark RPG and other Old School RPGs."

"All the creatures herein are manavores, which eat or absorb magical energy and convert it to other sorts of magical or non-magical effects."

"All originate in areas of high concentration of magical power, and so can readily be found in just about any dungeon or area of high native magical or extra-planar power."


"Charm Cat – these felines possess the power to charm creatures into service.
Dweomer Dog – these dogs absorb magic and provide it for their master’s use.
Enchantment Eater – these chimerical creatures consume and destroy magic.
Glamour Bug – these insects use their glamour to drain spellcasters of life.
Heka Hound – these dogs are used to hunt spellcasters and magic monsters.
Hexrat – these rats are carriers of baleful magic in the form of curses.
Hypno-Ooze – these oozes absorb magic and exude hypnotic patterns.
Incantarnate – these living spells seek out spellcasters to feast on their magic.
Mana Mite Swarm – these swarms drain magic from items and spellcasters.
Mana Moth – these giant moths eat magic and excrete it in magical dust.
Necrotoad – these giant toads swallow the living and spit out undead.
Phantasmic Presence – these strange entities are only quasi-real.
Pishogue Pig – these swine absorb curses and harmful spells for their master.
Spell Slug/Snail – these giant gastropods eat magic and expel it in pure form.
Witching Wolf – these beasts provide allies with power and protection.
Wizard Worm – these tiny annelids provide magic power at a cost"

So there have only been a few times that I've played the Shadowdark rpg. However the overlap with Troll Lords Castles & Crusades is pretty obvious in the similarities of the rpg systems. So there's a certain amount of cross compitibility within these OSR rpg systems. Manavores -- A Shadowdark Supplement By James Mishler, & Jodi Moran-Mishler  is the perfect way to take the magical bite of our favorite OSR glass cannons the wizard or magic user. These monsters are not your average monsters and horrors that are hunting and eating magic. Instead these are creatures that have evolved in a highly magick charged enviroment. This is a fact brought home in the introduction; " The materials presented in this booklet are an optional, providing additional monsters as challenges to and perhaps allies of player characters. All the creatures herein are manavores, which eat or absorb magical energy and convert it to other sorts of magical or non-magical effects. All originate in areas of high concentration of magical power, and so can readily be found in just about any dungeon or area of high native magical or extra-planar power."  
Manavores is a well laid out and solid book that presents a really nice font, layout and basic graphic presentation that is easy on the eyes. 
   

  This makes   Manavores -- A Shadowdark Supplement  perfect for 

Castles & Crusades Codex Celtarum 2nd Printing

. Because of the magick rich enviroment that C&C campaigns present. And this is especially true of the Castles & Crusades Reforged books that will be coming out after  the current Kickstarter. 

The Manavores presented in the book are both wild and having been captive bred making them incredibly dangerous to PC wizards. Some of these Manavores could be used as pets or companions but keep them far away from party wizards. 
Within  Aihrde the manavores would certainly fit in nicely as there are already some monsters that would certainly fit the manavore moniker. I could also see using the manavores within Greyhawk. 
Is the manavores supplement worth getting?! In a word yes there's a good range of magick eating creatures and monsters within to leave even the most cynical wizard shaking.