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Thursday, February 6, 2014

Five Old School Saturday Sword and Sorcery Cartoons As Well As Free Retroclone Material For Inspiration For Your Old School Sword And Sorcery Campaigns

This is a fast list off the top of my head of some of the influences that have appeared in my games over the years. 
This is a weird mix of stuff with some high science fiction style technology mixed into the background. 

Skeleton Warriors from CBS 1994 


Pirates of Dark Water 1991 


Conan The Adventurer 1992 -1993 


Herculoids 1966 to 1967 


Thundarr The Barbarian 1980


Most of these are in reruns now or on DVD. The Thundarr Material is available from the Savage After World right over HERE
The Herculoids AD&D files are right over HERE
The Pirates of Dark Water RPG system was profiled on The Epic Fail blog back in 2011 and has a download of the game available minus artwork and such. This thing is very close to AD&D and well you can see it right HERE 
 For Conan The Adventurer I'd say that Jason Vey's Conan material is perfectly suited to this cartoon. I'm taking away from Mr.Vey's efforts at all. I think that it emulates the look and feel of the cartoon in a much more serious tone. Available right over HERE
 Finally Arduin or Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea would easily work for 'Skeleton Warriors'. Simply make the heroes demi liches add in the dexterity and off you go. As always your mileage may vary considerably. 

3 comments:

  1. Thanks for reminding me about my own post! =P LOL

    There are soooo many great fantasy worlds in animation to play RPGs in. The most obscene shows that get no love would be Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea, Blackstar, Galtar and the Golden Lance and Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light. There are also some great shows from Europe and Asia, but the animated ones from Europe are obscene to the point of being ignored outright by many animation fans. =/

    There is also an underrated show called W.I.T.C.H. which was based on a girly Sailor Moon-wannabe comic from Italy, that was made into a cartoon by the producers of Gargoyles. To make it more appealing to male viewers, they dialed back the school girl drama, made it look really dark, scary and moody by adding a lot of Sword & Sorcery elements. The fantasy world it takes place in was twisted to reflect the evil will of its sorcerer-prince, and they went out of their way to make it look hellish and sinister. The writing was also brilliant, as they avoid the common mistake of treating the viewers as simpleminded children. Even if the show has no appeal to whom may read this, it is worth the time and effort to track-down the images of the monsters, troops, and background stills used in the show.

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  2. I've learned about so much great stuff from this post and the reply. Thanks!

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  3. W.I.T.C.H. was done by Disney Italia and had some brilliant animation. There were some really dark and scary ideas from the on set of the cartoon. They also had a metric ton of stuff to go with it. From graphic novels to movies there was a ton of stuff.
    Thanks for the fantastic comments gents and more to come!

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