Free OSR Resource From Dragon's Foot - Footprints Issue #22 For Your Old School Campaigns

Footprints #22 of the venerable pdf magazine is out, and its actually one of my favorite old school resources. The magazine has changed and evolved over the years and it now sports the 'ideas and adventures for advanced fantasy gaming';this is exactly what it is and does. This issue is no exception. First I absolutely love the cover on this issue. And that's really one of the places where the places where a revamp for the look of the magazine has been coming. Believe it or not the contents page has the look of the TSR era Dragon and my heart ached seeing it for a moment. 

Go Right Over
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But then after looking through this issue's contents it became even more apparent that this wasn't simply the graphic layout and content but there's more to it.
The Dragon's foot page reveals more of this new direction

Contents
% In Lair Column  By Ron 'rRedmond' Redmond - This is really a great article about the old school gaming experiences and tackling of the Footprints magazine by Ron. It really gives some personal insight into the who's, what's, why's of his experiences with Dragon foot and the OSR.
It also sets the tone for the rest of the mag as a whole. Some of the tone in this article sets up the backbone for the rest of the articles to come.

Charge It!(article) by Ian Slater is a really solid take on 'correcting' and offering an alternative method for charging magic item from the 1st edition DMG, and it breaks down both math and method to the madness. A really well thought out system with some nice twists that can really be applied in a number of ways. A solid addition to this issue right out of the gate. 

Feelin' Trapped? (article) - Continuing the trend with excellence is this article on random trap generation, Tony Chaplin does an excellent article which again gets back to early Dragon magazine articles. This is stuff that you can add into your own DM tool box and do so with little problems because of its quality. 

Pulling Strings (adventure) - Ahh The depth of this issue is in the adventures as well as the articles and 'Pulling Strings' really is an excellent adventure by Darren Dare  for 2nd edition AD&D but man this is a really solidly done adventure featuring some of my favorite old school monsters. I might have to back engineer this one into something like AD&D 1st or OSRIC. Very well done and love the maps and look of this one. 

Treasure & Tables (article) - Stuart Marshal turns in a really well done article on OSRIC random magic item generation, this one covers all of the bases and its very useful. The article has some very nice applications for adventure generation and provides a quick as well as effective method for magic item creation. 

Systems & Swordplay (article) - Is another Stuart Marshal effort for OSRIC to address the problem of weapon specialization inside the game. This article does a good job of giving the DM the means to deal with this problem that players sometimes make take center stage in combat situations. No more, this one takes the headaches right out of this. 

Many a Quaint and Curious Volume of Forgotten Lore (article) - Michael Haskell does an excellent job of setting up the back drop for wizards and magic users and their time between adventures. This one has it all and its worth the price of admission on the strength of this article alone. Very cool stuff with some horrific applications that reminds me of historical articles I've read about historical characters like John Dee and others. Wizards should often be the catalyst  for adventures and this article gives a DM a nice excuse to slip in plot hooks and twists between adventures. 

Prelude to an Adventure (fiction) - Now this is a good piece of fiction that drops in some ideas for the 'who, what, & where' aspects of old school adventures and their preludes. Nothing happens in a vacuum. And this story highlights that in spades. 

Blacktop Vale (adventure) - This is a solid adventure and Steve McFadden turns in all of the stops with this OSRIC or AD&D 1st edition style adventure. The maps, story, backdrop are all pure sword and sorcery with a pulpy heart that I loved. Again this is worth the price of admission. 

Bottom line this is a solid issue with content that can adapted into any number of old school or retroclone systems. Hell I can see these adventures being adapted for Labryth Lord with the advanced companion, I can see the material being retrofitted into several other systems. Including easily being used for Fantastic Heroes and Witchery, or even OSRIC or AD&D 1st edition. 

Is it worth the download? Hell yes and its very well done issue at that. Grab this issue and get moving to the gaming table. A really nice free download. 

Adapting The Free OSR Adventure Resource The Stone Alignments of Kor Nak By E.Gygax & B.Poire To The Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea Rpg System

I've been following the development of this free adventure resource for months and now its come out as a fully fleshed out old school pdf.
What is The Stone Alignments of Kor Nak about?
Well according to the GP Adventures website -
Discover the secret of the Alignments of Kor Nak, defeat many foes, and piece together a secret that will perhaps bring peace to the Carnelian Queen of old. This short module is compatible with 0e, 1e, and most variants of the World’s Premier Role-Playing Game. Light on stats and mechanical details, this hex is usable in a variety of settings and games, including your own.


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So I've been wracking my brains about adapting the brand new adventure resource The Stone Alignments of Kor Nak by Ernie Gygax and B.Poire to the Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea rpg system. But not in the way you might be thinking, you see some very cool folks have done quite a bit of the hard work for me over at the Hyperborea forums HERE

As one of the B.Poire points out :

"You'll see that we make allusion to the "Black Gulf" as "that which extends beyond the material plane" several times in the description. That's a nod for you guys, obviously. 

This material is eminently adaptable to Hyperborea, by the way, but you might have guessed it, given the source. Please enjoy, and let us know what you think!"The material is hugely influencal and very well done. It presents some clever locations, monsters, adventure hooks, and more.
Hell there are even crabmen, already built into the whole thing. I love the crabmen of Hyperborea because they're a fully fleshed out alien culture with a ton of menace and horror built right into the race.
Benoist Poire points out -
I could post some notes about possible AS&SH adaptations, but I'm not even sure those are even necessary: Switch Tenkar's Landing for the east coast of Hyperborea, and the ancient Ayceni just emerged on the continent from there, cast out from Old Earth or whatever alternate setting (our own Eurth, perhaps) you'd be using in your AS&SH game. Exchange humanoids like ape-orcs for fully blooded ape men, for instance, and you're pretty much there. It's even got a bit of science-fantasy on the side with the Iron Pyramid, the Cobalt Caves and why not, the Lone Tower as well.

EDIT. As far as our HSD AS&SH campaign is concerned, just include a portal from the Marmoreal Tomb into the deepest level of the Alignments of Kor Nak, back-and-forth, so the PCs can return, and you are set. Of course, any portal of such sort in Hyperborea would include some sort of chance of failure, mishap, or misdirection, but that's the gist of it right there. Boom. Enjoy the Dark Youngs of Shub-Niggurath, players. ;)

Once again this is hugely inspirational. And actually very useful advice. 

I read through Handy Haversack's contribution and I see a thousand possibilities for this setting.
Yeah, I read it when I got home, and it seemed like a perfect thing to put out on the coast by Brigands Bay--or to use as the "Black Fief," Blackadder23! It's great stuff, Benoist. Thanks for sharing it.

And sometimes that can be the problem with a setting,its simply too awesome to use right out of the gate.As a DM you need time to digest it and let it rattle around in your head for a day or so. The fact that its been collected and released as a pdf with a nice old school cover is simply icing on the cake.
I've already reviewed it on the Swords and Stitchery end of the blogs but after my Stars Without Number game I cracked open my Robert Howard Nameless Cult's book and my other Robert Howard fan book.
The maps in the Stone Alignment are really well done and I want to take this mini campaign hex location and build a campaign world around it.
There are a few other free resources that I want to add, mold, and mix with this one. The possibilities here are pretty damn endless. The authors have done a tremendous job with the whole package of The Stone Alignments of Kor Nak.

If you haven't gotten into this free resource? I strongly suggest that you stop what your doing and go to the GP adventures website right now and download.This is not the last that your going to be hearing about me adapting this campaign resource to AS&SH. 

The Free OSR Download The Second Edition Alchemist By Leonaru For Your Old School Campaigns.

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Second Edition Alchemist is a solid old school second edition style add on for the world's most popular fantasy game. Alchemists have always been the black sheep of the grand game but there have over the years been various attempts to create a fill in of essentially what has been in the past an NPC hireling class at worst and a blank spot of metaphysical esoteric background disguised as a class at best. In the past there have been several attempts to bring alchemists into the dungeon with varying degrees of success. 
This is an attempt to grab the alchemist and bring this unappreciated class into the OSR and allow him to be a playable option, on the whole this twenty five page pdf is done in the second edition style right down to the selection of font and layout.If your expecting long winded symbolic laden spells and rites look elsewhere. This is a straight up second edition AD&D take on the Alchemist class complete with a full selection of spells and what have you. There are complete backdrop and explanations for AD&D first and second edition style retroclone action here. And its well done as well as free. The choices of the author are bold and intuitive with the class making it an actual playable option for the dungeon. The alchemist has all of the usual racial AD&D style of choices and options laid out right in front of both player and DM with a wide range of tools brought into play.
The spells are interesting and engaging and there's enough here to play the class right out of the gate. There's not a whole lot of background which is fine, this allows the DM to fill in what he needs as needed for his campaigns.
This class is ideally suited for those middle period AD&D sword and sorcery style games where the talents of an Alchemist could prove invaluable. 
The playility of this pdf is going to really depend upon the imagination and intuition of the DM to adapt the material as its presented and then use or discard what is necessary. The author is no slouch when it comes to presenting a wide array of choices for the Alchemist to advance along the level axis as the class presents itself. 
The language of the rules, spell, setting (what there is of it) is simply straight forward and down to fully realized business. There's no fluff or BS here just a class that is clearly defined and well adjusted to bring a style of Alchemist into a second edition AD&D style campaign. All in all this a pretty nice attempt at bringing the Alchemist out of the Dark ages of AD&D and into the light of the OSR movement. Did I happen to mention that this pdf is free and you might want to download it ASAP to start rapidly getting into the groove of this great little addition to your DM's tool box today? 

Free Comic book Old School Resource Sword & Sorcery Download - Warren Presents 013 - Sword & Sorcery Comix 1981

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 Here's the low down on this issue of Warren Presents : 

Publisher: Warren

Published: October 1981, Original Cover Price: $2.00

Cover by Manuel Sanjulian. Edited by Bill DuBay. Stories by Greg Potter, Budd Lewis, Bill DuBay, Gerry Boudreau, and Forrest J. Ackerman. Art by Esteban Maroto. Reprints of Esteban Maroto sword and sorcery stories from Warrens magazines, plus a feature by Ackerman on the 1981 fantasy adventure film Dragonslayer. A Scream in the Forest; The Kingmaker; Goddess in a Kingdom of Trolls; Scheherazade; The Sleeping Beauty. 8 1/2 in. x 11 in. 64 pages, PC/PB&W.



 This  old school magazine from 1975 was done in the Warren style, the art here is top notch and the title though it capitalized on the 'Sword and Sorcery' craze back then is a really nice read through. This is a pulp/comic mashup comic magazine with 
elements of Arthurian legend thrown in to boot. 
I'm not going to lie, I've used this comic magazine a couple of times over the years for inspiration or as an outright source for a few AD&D and OD&D adventures and NPC's.

 This issue of 'Warren Presents' makes perfect source material for an OD&D campaign or indeed an Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea adventure. Much 
of the material here can easily be recycled and used with a bit of dust up and polish for some of the encounters. 
The writing by Greg Potter, Budd Lewis, Bill DuBay, Gerry Boudreau, and the Dragon Slayer movie Forrest J. Ackerman are pretty top drawer and a nice change of pace to the hum drum material that we see on the internet today. 
The Dragon Slayer film is mostly forgotten amid the CGI clap trap that passes for 

special effects today and should be viewed though as a great film to pull material for a sword and sorcery campaign. It remains an old favorite of mine.





 
The writing and artwork in this issue is up to Warren standards at the time, and while these are reprints of earlier Warren efforts, they're fresh and mostly forgotten by 
today's players. Making this a perfect source to pull from for a fast evening's 

entertainment or simply use these as fodder for your own imagination's pondering. 

All in all this isn't a bad little old school download to pull material from for an OD&D 

or AD&D campaign. Warren put out quite a bit of quality material and this issue of 

Warren presents gives some solid Sword and Sorcery stuff to pull from. 
Grab your copy and get rolling. 

Mega Dungeon Madness - Two Free '&' Magazine Mega-dungeon Downloads & A Column From Benoist Poire Of The Dungeon Hobby Shop

Today has been megadungeon madness on the blog today with two new free downloads from '&' magazine for all of your mega dungeon needs along with an aditional column from the Hobby Shop.  First the Adventure #3 The book of lower level lairs, this is a great resource for low level beginning parties and features a ton of material to stick into your mega dungeons but this book is also a bit of a PC book as well with plenty of old school adventure action to challenge your beginning level players! The effort here is to make the encounters balanced yet able to engage the PC's at the same time. The suppliment is a for character levels 1-4 but with plenty of room for expansion. This book has been created for Castle Triskelion the official '&' megadungeon. This book is only the beginning and its not bad for a free resource.

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According to the '&' website :
Everything from brown bears to giant porcupines to kenku and lizard men! All mini-adventures that can usually be run in a single session. Pick the ones you need, string them together as you see fit!
 Then this afternoon I stumbled upon : The second segment of the Castle Triskelion mega-dungeon, the Outer Ward First Floor has been released! In addition to this segment, Tim has included a number of new monsters, magic items, and other information about the castle and its environment. This is all described in the first supplement, the New Materials Volume I. Please note that this manual is necessary to use the First Floor, so download both
 Go right over HERE  for all the Castle Triskelion material



Available right over
HERE

 Finally Benoist Poire of the Dungeon Hobby Shop offers up a ton of useful and time worth advice upon designing, creating, maintaining, and fleshing out your own mega dungeons. He goes through the set up and step by step process that aided him in the design and writing of the news mega-dungeon coming soon from the Dungeon Hobby Shop, DU2 The Halls of The Begger King all of this is on the OD&D forums
right HERE

Free OSR Resource - OD&DITIES Issue #1 From Dragon's Foot For Your Old School Campaigns

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HERE

I stumbled upon this resource for OD&D last night on Dragon's Foot and thought I'd share. This is OD&DITIES #01 which is a ten paged fan based magazine that has a couple of great little articles that you can add to your campaigns. Many of the articles are short and sweet, more plug and play material for campaigns. The compendium of characters adds a bunch of NPC's that you can drop right into your existing campaigns. This infact seems to be the magazine's ethos, a simple and easy to use set of rules that fits into an existing style of play. These some pretty good solid NPC's characters with bare bones material to them that can add some flare to a game. The next article we get that I found useful is about getting the PC's to work together from the beginning of a campaign. A couple of very useful bits of advice. 

There's a pawn shop called  Thaldor’s Pawnshop, first in a line of

 town / city locations for your campaign, which I always find very useful for games. Pawn shops are a  great resource for PC's and one that always seems to get over looked as a source for getting rid of loot, getting gear, a source for adventures, and a place to get a loan fast when needed. Like for gambling debts and such. This is a nice little fit especially if you've got a few ties in with the local thieves guilds, pawn brotherhood, and local law enforcement. 

The 'Message' is an interesting adventure because it's geared for fighters, clerics, and Dwarves of 1st level a nice little campaign jump off point. 

All in all not a bad first issue and pretty good for a free resource for an OD&D game. Grab it while you can and get playing. 

Slicing Deeper Into The Free OSR Magazine Resource From Dragon's Foot - Footprints #21 For Your Old School Campaign

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The other day before I was leaving for my usual game, I happened upon the latest issue of Footprints on Dragon's foot. Issue number twenty one has been sitting on my computer for a few days now but only tonight I got the chance to take a look at one of my favorite OSR resources. 
This is a double sized issue and clocks in at about eighty eight pages of old school goodness. Much of the material is AD&D first edition heavy but that's to be expected.

Contents Include The Following:

Contents

New Character Races (article) - This is a solid article about some really interesting racial options for AD&D first edition drawn from myth and legend. The article is well done and pretty damn ingenuous in how it treats these mythological and legendary races. Many of these have appeared in dark fantasy, science fantasy, mythology and more. As well as few originals races that have been brought to the table. 

Combined Combat Chart (article) - A combat chart for AD&D that replaces the one from the AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide. A nice little gem to use in various behind the scenes combat situations. 

How Much Experience Did We Get For That Dragon? (article)- This article gives a solid overview of experience for most of the major dragon types in AD&D first edition. Very useful for OSRIC as well 

Magical Miscellanea (magical items)- This article presents a set of guidelines for renaming,customizing, and adjusting many of the more common AD&D magic items while keeping a solid set of awe and wonder to the game. A very interesting take on a subject that seems to really come into focus at times at the gaming table. 

Glarck's Remote Spell Books (article)- This is really cool little twist on the standard spell book in which the mage literally has a gem which can access his spells and he can mentally scan the book remotely. This idea has all sorts of adventure hooks sewn into the background and seeds of it. I could see this sort of weird magical technology being used in a sword and sorcery game with some weird Lovecraftian twists. 

Ride the Lightning! (MU spells)- Not at all what it sounds but a set of spells with a magnetic and electrical twist to them. These are actually pretty damn neat and could cause merry havoc in the hands of an NPC. 

Monsters of All Sizes (article)- Monster adjustment with hit dice and scale according to ideas for the AD&D first edition game. Pretty damn useful for all kinds of monsters and with some old school examples. The ideas in this one can have all sorts of adventure design and monster placement for adventures. Definitely suited to the AD&D Dungeon Master. 

The Wizard's Laboratory (article)- Bubble, Bubble, Boil, and Trouble  this article goes into the contents, chemicals, formulas, and what not of a wizard's lab. An article with lots of potential. Suited for AD&D but really useful for any old school campaign. Very long and well thought out. A solidly useful article. 

The Conjurer (new class)- A vastly dangerous useful and a great class for both PC's and NPC's. These are the dark wizards spoken about in dark fantasy literature who make pacts with Outer Planar beings, have shady agendas, and can be very useful adventure hooks for all kinds of adventures. A really nicely rounded class with lots of mayhem potential for the DM. For AD&D first edition but with some tweaks could be used in any D&D style of game. 

The Lake Of Sorrows (adventure) -This is a low level OSRIC or AD&D first edition adventure with lots of potential, some great encounters, a nice background, and plenty of potential for expansion into a full blown campaign. Plenty of replay value in this adventure and its pretty well balanced with some nice maps to boot!
 All in all this was a very enjoyable read for a Footprint's issue. Many of the articles in this issue could be used as the basis for a horror themed campaign or a one shot sword and sorcery adventure. The magic items and ideas were pretty intriguing and have potential for adventure design and hooks.
The articles were well written, concise, original, and very useful for an OSR DM to use. The variety of the material was also a really nice balance across the board. Grab a copy because its free as always. 

Review and Commentary On The Free Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea Resource - Quick Start Equipment Menu By Ben Ball

 

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This is a great little free  resource for AS&SH, an equipment list and so much more.
According to the AS&SH website: 

Quick Start Equipment Menu for AS&SH is a time-saving resource created by Ben Ball. This 7-page PDF document helps players speed up the purchase of starting equipment, including a variety of adventure packs to choose from and premade starting lists.
This little PDF allows players to choose from a wide variety of base starting equipment packages and to suit them to their characters and then jump right into their adventures with their DM.
The fact is that while this is one use for this list another would be to equip NPCs quickly as well. And with a bit of imagination to equip NPC monsters,troops, and more as well.
The material is really nicely laid out and the product is pretty clear in its directions, intent, and choices.
The idea of this sort of cookie cutter approach to an old school game is actually pretty insightful and allows the product to have a wide variety of uses. Add to the fact that this is a free quality list of options for equipment and you've got a very useful list that could easily be adapted and used for various sword and sorcery adventure set ups with PC's. Another idea that was given to me by a friend is that this list could be used for quick johnny on the spot found equipment for when a PC runs across a corpse. Done correctly and no one might be the wiser.
As I said there are other uses for this free seven page old school pdf. The fact that is alright created for AS&SH is a bonus.
 Get this one while you can. 

Commentary On The Free OSR Resource - Nellysyr manor For The Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea System and Your Old School Sword and Sorcery Campaigns

 
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The countryside of my AS&SH games are dotted with the half forgotten ruins of Atlantian and Hyperborean manors, countryside estates, and half forgotten palaces that have faded into  ruins in the wake of the Green Death. Places where on certain moon lit nights the ghosts of the past come alive and past comes to intrude on the present.
Nellysyr manor is a country estate from the wonderful pen of Jim Lassiter.  Here the ivy grows thick in the daylight while at night spectres of the past might haunt the living.
 The Blurb On Dragon's Foot: 

A nice manor house for those weekend getaways or ruins to try and getaway from?

What we get here is an eleven page download map of a manor house, grounds, environs, with some possible suggestions about what we might populate this place with monster wise. There is an incredible amount that can be done with this location. From the palace of a governor of a small city state's residence to the location for a lost tribe of barbarian raiders  headquarters with only the walls standing, to a possible location for a dungeon. Other possibilities including using the location as a haunted manor that appears only during nights of the second full moon on Hyperborea.
This is an eleven page download full of full colour maps, keys, and even possible treasure throughout but many spots are blank enough to fill them with your favorite treasure, monsters, and even piece of relic technology from Hyperborea here and there. All in all this is fun download that can be used for any number of possible sword and sorcery games. Grab it While you can.

Commentary On The Free Dragon's Foot OSR Map Resource - Dracolidius Castle For Your Old School Sword and Sorcery Campaign

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The Dragon's foot blurb : 

A great map of a castle, useful as a dungeon or a lived in building.
This is a great little free map of a castle and makes a great location to explore for a party. One of the aspects of the AS&SH game that I love is the Green Death, a plague that has swept through Hyperborea and wiped clean the previous societies, peoples, and aspects of life in the setting.

This enables a DM to really use some weird locations in out of the places of the world. This map could be one of those locations. The disease that plagued the Hyperborea world has possibly left more questions then answers for the generations to come. There is a bit of Poe's 'The Masque of the Red Death' about AS&SH that seems to just lurk in the background and this castle might be used to convey that to the PCs.
This castle has an almost dream like quality about it that might also be used for other sword and sorcery games as well.
The map is simple, the locations well drawn out, the place is ready to be stocked with whatever the DM want to.
All in all this is a simple yet effective download that could be used for a complete night's adventure and entertainment. All that is missing is a few NPC's and some solid old school monsters!  

Comentary and Actual Play With The Free Old School Adventure - The Hall of the Family From Chubby Monster Games For The Astonishing Swordsmen And Sorcerers Rpg Systems

I've run this old school adventure before but last night my buddy Peter got back home after a long business trip out to California. He got together with friends and family and so wanted a game.. now. So with little preparation I pulled this adventure from the back archives of Drivethrurpg. This adventure is a challenge and well suited for the more populous regions of Hyperborea. 

Grab It Free
HERE

The Hall of the Family: A Short Delve...with a medusa!

This short adventure covers the sad story of a family brought to ruin due to a seer's tale and what became of their home after their fall. With Goblins, medusa, golems, satyrs and even minotaurs...ensure your players have a rolliking good time as you crush all their hopes. Download The Hall of the Family today and start adventuring tonight!

The adventure is presented in a system-less fashion using common themes and elements found in any fantasy game. It should be easy for any GM to work this into any campaign.

I  DM'ed this with little free gem before for this group and because it's a free adventure I've heard a few murmers that companies don't put their all into them. That's simply pure hog wash. Josh Mannon has a written a very tight little number here as the PC's found out. The maps are nicely put together and this adventure runs like clock work. 

I didn't get home till almost four am but the players wanted to finish this one once and for all. The game went very well. Finished it but I left a few hanging threads for future adventures. So we'll see where this one get's taken in the coming weeks! Adapting Hall of The Family To AS&SH. 

This adventure is easily adapted into AS&SH because many of the monsters, encounters, and old school sword and sorcery elements are already present within the game! The maps are standard for AS&SH use and the encounters are well balanced. There's enough here for a couple of short games or one very long encounter session such as the night I had! All in all a very nice little download! 

The Free OSR Dragon's Foot Resource Adventure - The Corrupt Crypt of Ilmater & Adapting It For The Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers Of Hyperborea rpg System

The Corrupt Crypt of Ilmater

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Jesse Muir provides us with an old school crawl that could provide a DM with a mid point campaign adventure for any  retroclone game. 

This is a no frills dungeon crawl done in the old school tradition that can easily be adapted to Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea.
We get locations, a few NPC's, and two brand new monsters in this one and pretty much no background on the adventure, we're given all of the pieces to turn this into a well oiled pulp driven AS&SH game set adventure and nothing more.

Adapting this adventure 

This piece is meant to be a DYI adventure for either first or second edition AD&D with characters of either 4 through 6th level. This means for a game like AS&SH this means lowering the level of encounters back down to 2nd and 3rd level in AS&SH.
The other choice is to use existing monsters from AS&SH which is easily done. The encounters here are academic and while solid are easily adapted to your favorite retroclone game.
The rest of the adventure is easily tuned to your favorite game as well. The stats for the two or three new monsters simply need the 'Dex' adjustments from AS&SH. A bit of background into the world of AS&SH and this one is really to go. 

Using this Old School Adventure 
This is an old school adventure in the purer sense. Meaning simply adapt it as you see fit and use it as a mid campaign PC filler. The adventure easily lends itself to any number of situations and regions in AS&SH but can be made to work in really any retroclone. Because of the nature of the adventure and its monsters this one can fit the horror genre solidly if played right by the DM. The fact is that these ruins make a very nice 'Green Death' plague site that has only recently been exerting its influence upon Hyperborea once again.
A very nice little free download. 

Review and Commentary on The Free Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea Resource - Masks By Colin Chapmen

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According to the blurb on the AS&SH website : 

• Masks is a resource created by Colin Chapman. This 4-page PDF document provides a means for players and referees to randomly generate racially specific physical features (hair colour, eye colour) and other distinguishing features.
  This is actually so much more then simply a distinguishing features set of tables. This is a great random NPC table that can be used to generate instant NPC foils for your AS&SH adventurers. Bump into someone in the city or small town and wham your PC's are embroiled in the business of some interesting hi jinks. This is a perfect tool to get the ball rolling with adventure in the offering.
  The fact that the generator is simple and concise is perfect for DM's who like to 'wing' it or even if you want to get in on the details. Does the NPC have a facial scar from the pox and some other odd details that simply adds to the flavor of the encounter. This is the generator for you folks. Simple, easy, and ready to go for any retroclone really. A great free resource to use. 

Trek Along The Lizard Coast - Dealing With The Snakeriders of the Aradondo In AS&SH - Actual Play.

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My regular Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of  Hyperborea game has been hiatus for a couple of weeks now due to my having the flu. Last night was the first night I got together with my regular players who are dealing with the heat, humidity, and general jungle nastiness of the Lizard Coast ( refer back to the AS&SH Referee's Guide page 206 for more details on the region). Aradondo is a small island off the coast of this region. It's even more dangerous then parts of the interior but it's really all relative to the natives who live there.
To recap we've been playing through the AS&SH version of Snake Riders From the mighty pen of Tim Kask.
 If your unfamiliar with Snake Riders here's the Drivethrurpg blurb :

 "Hidden a midst a jungle teaming with giant crocodiles, man-eating carnivorous apes, and frogs the size of ponies lies a forgotten temple that harbors the bane of mankind.  The skilled might reach this temple.  The exceptional might actual discover its secrets and prevent a great evil from emerging to plague all the inhabitants of this world. Adventure is calling... will you accept the charges?

Snakeriders of the Aradondo is a classic Old School dungeon from the twisted mind of fantasy legend Tim Kask.  Containing both an overland adventure and a dungeon crawl, this non-system specific adventure is guaranteed to provide multiple sessions of entertainment for 3 or more players of average to skilled experience." 

 I've got a crew of seven players dealing with the heat, and nasty conditions of the Aradondo Island. There are some tribes of Pictish cannibals which worship the Snake Riders as semi divine gods as well to spice things up. PC's have run across several small shrines in the region. Died at the hands of carnivorous apes and giant frogs. Replacement PC's have been escaped adventurers from the cannibals or the Snake Riders.
Thieves and barbarians have been the order of the day with this adventure and players have remarked that this mini campaign has a Conrad's Heart of Darkness vibe going on. Actually one of the sources of the adventure at least for me to add a bit more of a Howard vibe has been the "The Thing On The Roof" You can find that one right over HERE .


Using The  The Snakeriders of the Aradondo



There is a definite question of balance when using Snake Riders with AS&SH. The material is very well balance and easily converted using the AS&SH monsters, treasure, and encounters.  Anyone using this adventure should prep this one out before the session and really reread the encounters. Pepper the adventure with some seriously minor 'treasures' and artifacts from AS&SH as well. I don't mean sun swords and laser cross bows but bits of Atlantian metal, odd coins, and perhaps a few things that can do a parlor trick or two of old school magic.
 In addition add in cannbals as well. Think of the Hovitos from the first  Indiana Jones  movie as a template or perhaps the Tcho Tchos might be a bit more along the lines of the AS&SH feel.
The Snake Riders should have a wide array of minor artifacts and perhaps a relic or two from AS&SH. They're vicious and quite nasty.

More To come as the PC's have made contact with a friendly tribe and are moving long the route toward the next encounter! 

Review and Commentary On The Free OSR Resource - Black Streams: The Yellow Bone Legion From Sine Nomine Publishing For Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea

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HERE

This is another in the Red Tide material for Labryth Lord that has been provided for free by Sine Nomine. The material is well thought out and easily adapted for 90% of the retroclones on the market. It has a very distinct and well thought out mythlology and culture all of its own. This material can easily be adapted into a full blown background easily for Astonishing Swordsmen or any sword and sorcery campaigns.
The Drive Thrurpg blurb: 

A people live by the sacrifices of their defenders- even when those gifts are not always freely given. Enter the world of the Red Tide Campaign Setting and Sandbox Toolkit to learn of the Yellow Bone Legion and the terrible price they paid to save their city in the hour of its greatest need.

In this free Labyrinth Lord-compatible supplement you'll find the truth behind the Legion's grim birth and the secrets that Xian's ancestors did so much to bury. You'll find details of the new Walking Ghost character class and ways to bring this revenant warrior to your own table. Plot seeds are provided for whipping up a fast Legion antagonist for your game, and conversion notes are given for trimming the meat of this supplement out of the world of the Red Tide and planting it firmly in your own creation.

Adapting the Bone Legion

The included PC class can easily be adapted into an NPC to bedevil or aid your PC's within Hyperborea quite easily. The secrets of The Yellow Bone Legion are weird and strange enough to engage a group of PC's for at least a couple of months if played with. The material even if its only seven pages provides a DM with quite a few options to play with. All in all its well worth the download in my opinion.
 Grab this one while you can.

Review On The Free OSR Product - Children of the Aesir From The Andonome Coterie For The Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea Rpg System

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Right this is exactly the sort of quality product that I'm looking for when wanting to bring you the best AS&SH adventures for review and down load. This is a Viking style system agnostic adventure that can easily be slipped into your current sword and sorcery game or right into the AS&SH world.
The Drive Thru Rpg Blurb: Children of the Aesir is a gritty, Norse adventure.  Twelve unhappy prisoners are thrown into an acursed mine and each player receives a number of these characters to play; and they will need all of them.  The characters are weak and the dungeon is brutal.  They will be strangled, burnt, bludgeoned, insulted and confused.  If any reach the end of the dungeon and retreive the blood-stone, they will receive the revelation that they are the child of a god and a mortal - a demi-god, and are fated for great things.  At this point the surviving characters receive great powers and can return home, blasting and hacking at the creatures they previously fled from.
 
This is a fifty three page brutal romp of Norse goodness that will melt right into the background of your current Norse AS&SH campaign. The maps are nicely drawn and plot brutal and nasty. This adventure makes a nice middle of the road adventure for AS&SH with very little in the way of fiddly bits to get in the way of your PC's excitement. 
The plot has some twists and turns. The adventure operates like something right out of a Frezetta painting come to life with your PC's bloodied and bruised as they navigate this adventure. The ideas here are not original but they are freshly presented into a whole cloth that can easily be adapted to about 90% of the retroclones on the market currently.  All in all this one is well written and interesting. With a bit of work this adventure could be the start of a mini campaign lasting several weeks with experienced players. 

All in all Children of the Aesir has lots of potential for the right group of players and its a nice free product! Don't miss this one! 

Review And Commentary On The Free OSR Product - Black Streams: Solo Heroes From Sine Nomine Publishing For Your Old School Sword and Sorcery Campaign

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The snows, flu, and winter in general can make OSR play difficult at the best of times and not being able to get together with friends is nasty on a campaign. This product makes that not as unpleasant as it could possibly when your players lose interest, experience goes off, and your players characters are at other ends of the table.  Did I mention that this product is free and also comes with a free adventure as well? 
According to the Drivethrurpg blurb:

Maybe you want to show a friend the fun of classic D&D, but you can't pull a group together on short notice. Maybe you have nights where only one friend can make it, and you're tired of breaking out the card games. Maybe you just want to run a side game for somebody, but don't feel like weighing them down with an entourage of henchmen just so they can survive their first combat. What do you need? You need Solo Heroes, a free Labyrinth Lord-compatible supplement for lone adventuring.

While written for the Red Tide Campaign Setting and Sandbox Toolkit, this supplement is compatible with a wide range of old-school games. Within, you'll find a simple set of rules for running classic adventures with just a single PC. There's no need to alter character sheets or rework modules to make them survivable for whatever class your player has chosen- Solo Heroes gives you a handful of simple rules for turning such solitary exploration from a death wish in the making to a daring tale of risk and potential glory.

In addition to these rules, the mini-adventure of The Yellow Toad God's Well is provided to give you a little something instant to run for your player's new hero. And if it turns out you've got a full group for that night's session? Just drop the optional rules and run it by the book.Solo Heroes lets you play the game without painful paperwork and adventure redesign, whether for one player or half a dozen.

 This is a great set of solo play adventure rules that are completely well balanced and very well thought out. These are perfect for a sword and sorcery campaign as well as emulating that old school feel. They are made for Labryth Lord but with the options as easily laid out they can be adapted into your favorite rules set.
I've been looking into using these with Astonishing Swordsmen and have to talk with my players to see if their open but from the looks of things this one is a no brainer. Grab these quick and take them for a spin for a bit of solo play.  

Review Of The Free OSR Product Black Streams: Cults of Ruin From Sine Nomine Publishing For Your Old School Sword and Sorcery Campaign

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A player of mine reminded me of this one today. This is by Sine Nomine products and this one is part of their Black Steams free product line which was done by them using the  Red Tide Campaign Setting and Sandbox Toolkit.
 This is a pretty nasty product in what it does, how it does it, and what can be done with it. This is a product that easily loosened upon a Sword and Sorcery campaign in the old school style with a modern design twist. Its very well done and very professional. I'm intimately familiar with Sine Nome's products through my long standing relationship with Stars Without Number.
Drive thru Rpg blurb: 

Description:

Gain further insight into the dark powers of the Sunset Isles with Cults of Ruin. Inside this free supplement you'll learn truths about five different foul sects. The devotees of the Black Emperor, the slaves of the Hell Kings, and stranger faiths still are given in this text along with guidelines for using them in your own campaign.

As a bonus, you also get the Azure Inquisitor, a Labyrinth Lord-compatible class dedicated to the rooting out of vile cults and secret cabals.

While written for the Red Tide Campaign Setting and Sandbox Toolkit, this supplement's information is easily reskinned for your own home campaign, with abominable faiths and foul creeds for your heroes to smite with righteous fury.

This is not the Book of Vile Darkness ( not that there's anything wrong with that product), but a very well balanced product that will easily slip into your old school campaign. It might take some modification but this one might be used in an Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea but it its going to take a bit of shoe horning and some fiddling with the ideas of this product.
I think that for a free product this is a pretty nifty set of ideas and some interesting twists to throw at your players. All in all I was happy with the download. I'm going to serious have to start looking into the other Black Stream product and see what I can unleash upon my players. 

Review and Commentary On The Free OSR Product - The Old School Dungeons - Crypt of the Dread Lord From Crypt Thing Press For The Astonishing Swordsmen And Sorcerers of Hyperborea Rpg System

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HERE 


This is a system agnostic product that is perfect for a pulptastic set of ruins for your old school sword and sorcery game or as an Atlantian pile of ruins for AS&SH.
Because of the laying of the pdf this product is perfect for dealing with the multi complex situations that seem to crop up in AS&SH games over and over again. 

In three pages you get everything you need for an extended play of AS&SH all for free add in the monsters and motives for the PCs then your good to go.
From The Drive Thru rpg blurb: 

Crypt of the Dread Lord

What horrors await within the burial crypt of the fabled Dread Lord? Who among you are foolish enough to brave the depths of this mysterious dungeon?

In this Old School Dungeon you will find a map of an ancient crypt, although it is designed to be generic enough to fit a multitude of uses. 

Welcome to Crypt Thing Press’ Old School Dungeons!

The Old School Dungeons product line offers you old school style dungeon maps for use in your role playing games. Whether you build an adventure around the location or just need a quick map for when the players run off the beaten path, Old School Dungeons has you covered.

Each dungeon map comes layered with room numbers, dungeon dressing, and secrets, so you can enable as much or as little information as is needed for your purposes.
 Much of the material can easily be customized into the AS&SH mindset and the material taken to create a very pulpish and solid background for this dungeon. Monsters from AS&SH should easily transfer over allowing that extra edge of material where needed. 
 Over all the feel and temper of the dungeon should invite further exploration of this crypt and the DM shouldn't think anything of dropping even more hints, tips, and tricks to this one. The dungeon is well done and solid but sparse in effect but that is to be expected for this style of product. The best thing about this one is that it's free. Easy to adapt, customize, sell to your players as a mid level dungeon inside an on going sword and sorcery campaign.  

Commentary And Review On The Free Old School Pulp Novel The Metal Monster By Abraham Merritt

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This is one of my all time favorite A.Merritt tales, we have the return of Dr.Goodwin from the Moon pool, a ton of weird technology and a really solid tale of pulptastic goodness!
The fact is that this wonderful novella has a ton of possibilities. 
According to wiki :

The Metal Monster is an Abraham Merritt fantasy novel. It was first serialized in Argosy All-Story Weekly in 1920 and features the return of Dr. Goodwin who first appeared in The Moon Pool.The epic adventure starts with a foreword where Merritt is assigned the duty to relay Dr. Walter T. Goodwin's incredible tale of his encounter in the Trans-Himalayan mountains to the world, to let everyone know the terrible fate Goodwin's group barely escaped and the possibility of other such monsters out there.

I know I'm not the only blogger whose covered this classic The Land of Nod covered it back in 2012 right over HERE

Dr. Goodwin is on a botanical expedition in the Himalayas. There he meets Dick Drake, the son of one of his old science acquaintances. They are witnesses of a strange aurora-like effect, but seemingly a deliberate one. As they go out to investigate, they meet Goodwin's old friends Martin and Ruth Ventnor, brother and sister scientists. The two are besieged by Persians as Darius III led when Alexander of Macedon conquered them more than two thousand years ago.

The group is saved by a magnificent woman they get to know as Norhala. She commands the power of lightning and controls strange metal animate Things, living, metallic, geometric forms; an entire city of sentient cubes, globes and tetrahedrons, capable of joining together and forming colossal shapes, and wielding death rays and other armaments of destruction.

They are led to a hidden valley occupied by what they name "The Metal Monster", a strange metal city occupied by the metal animate Things Norhala commands. This city is governed by what they call the Metal Emperor, assisted by the Keeper of the Cones.

Ruth is slowly being converted by Norhala to become like her; her little sister. Martin, her brother, tries shooting the Metal Emperor, who retaliates with a ray blast, putting Martin in a comatose state.

Closed in between the Metal Monster and the Persians, it falls to Goodwin and Drake to find a way to escape their predicament.

There are three versions of the story as well..

Three versions of the story exist.

The second version is named "The Metal Emperor", appearing in 1927 in Hugo Gernsback's Science and Invention magazine. It is an abridged version of the first story, with the leading character's name changed to Louis Thorton.
Using The Metal Monster For Your Old School Game 
Alright I realize that this isn't a sword and sorcery novel but the fact is that its one of those books that really stays with you and gets under your skin. Whist I was reading this one being sick I couldn't help but think of the possibilities of adding the metallic entities of this novel to a game like Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea.
The living technology would be perfect for a party of adventurers to encounter. And the scientist priestess in the novel makes a perfect template for an NPC priestess ruling from some distant and forgotten corner of that world.
A word of advice though, read the Moon Pool before proceeding into the Metal Monster. Some of the situations and characters will make far more sense.
This is really how I pictured the lost technology and artifacts of Hyperborea. Weird, strange and incredibly dangerous.
I can also see this novel as a bridge gap between a modern campaign and a lost world adventure in which the metal monster entities are awoken. This might even be used for a Mutant Future game adventure as well.
I can see some of the smaller entities being sold in some little forgotten out of the way market only to spring to life and take out a region as their big brothers are called in!
 All in all this is one of my favorite Merritt books. Its well written, tells a hell of a yarn, and gives a DM incredible fodder for their games