Blood, Death, Satan & Metal

Your console boots up. You switch the input to TV03. Color bars flash, static fizzles. The CRT scanlines reveal the words Vermis: Lost Dungeons and Forbidden Woods . MIDI synth music issues forth, soft and sinister --what we would call Dungeon Synth today, but what was mysterious and unnamed in childhood-- fades in, filling the dark room lit only by the glow of the screen and the power button of your console. A jarring flash occurs, with the words Which flesh is your flesh? appearing, briefly, before you are given the prompt Press Start to Enter the Darkness . Vermis (volume 1, with more to come?) is a guide to a game that never existed. It’s a lo-fi dark fantasy action RPG, with Dark Souls being an easy point of comparison, but of the era of Eye of the Beholder grid-based movement and sprite-based Doom engine graphics but with an off-putting layer of grime. In those days, a guide book would sometimes contain a world unto itself, with the world lore, character options, and select i

Midvinter is a short cult-centric holiday adventure that is compatible with OSR games. It features wilderness survival and a lot of NPC interaction to explore and investigate kidnappings. The party will have to unravel what is going on and find out how to stop and escape the cult while avoiding their outwardly friendly but sinister machinations. It is, of course, an obvious parody of Ari Aster’s Midsommar (a masterpiece), right down to the cover paying homage with the Flame Princess in a crown of holly with tears and a look of devastation on her face.  Physically, it’s a high quality hardcover with fantastic art by Yannick Bouchard. It’s printed in color with lots of art. In the LotFP style the endpapers are printed with maps for quick reference. While this is the most visually appealing choice, I would have preferred for one to be encounter tables and tips. The book is also too long, and could have been condensed by 10 pages or more if the location keys were presented together rather

The 2021 film The Green Knight is, in my opinion, OSR as hell. It’s a quest by an amoral/morally complex knave to confront a strange and unique foe. There is a lot of wilderness travel and encounters of all types, social, magical, and physical. It’s also not focused overly on a cohesive or “satisfying” narrative but rather the wonder and terror of the journey itself. This film has an RPG tie-in. It’s only available in physical form from the A24 studio itself as a box set styled after the famous Mentzer Red Box, and includes a single “Game Master’s Guide” booklet which houses both the rules and the adventure “Quest For Honor”, 5 character sheets for different roles, a single d20, and a color map of Britain with cryptic, post-Roman era cities, ruins and landmarks rather than more recognizable English locations. All the physical components are beautifully colored, printed on glossy paper of thick stock. There is no PDF version that I am aware of. Players beware, you should make ph

The saga of the Illuminati chat bots continues. Like, a lot... Oh, and I guess they're coming from Sweden on Macs running Firefox according to my analytics, at least right now. Generally they're Polish or Ukrainian on Unix. If anybody knows how to stop this traffic, let me know. Unless it algorithmically benefits me, of course. I wouldn't know, I'm a satanic warlock, not a computerist. By playing into their keyword optimization or whatever the fuck it is that they do, I have progressively escalated their engagement with the blog such that I semi-regularly get 1,000 views in a week just from bots offering membership to the Illuminati. As always, I urge you not to click their links or call their WhatsApps, not that you would.  Anyway, no more! I'm putting a captcha on comments, which I'm opposed to as a slight nuisance to humans but I'm tired of deleting these duplicate Illuminati comments (I keep the unique ones for entertainment value). Thus, I shall excis

Date: November 5, 1640   Location:  Sirenswail, Irish countryside, County Kerry, Ireland Main Cast: Shio the Acid-Burnout Alice, Gund the Amoral Magic-User, Salith the Cannibal Elf , Reynault the Fighter Supporting Cast: Helga of the Ulvenbrigaad, Harold the Mule   Previously: Our heroes destroyed the foundation of the Tower of London and fled the London guard in the style of Ye Faste & Furiousse by Thames gondola, returning to the safety of Sirenswail where they rested and spent a Haven turn. They set out in search of a mysteriously appearing statue in a cave in Ireland.   Presently: Traveling across the Irish countryside of County Kerry, the party traveled mostly without incident aside from the appearance of a red fox, which they attempted to follow but lost in the forest. This troubled them, seeming an ill omen of some sort to their minds. Gund was particularly bothered. Helga was like "whatever I'll kill it with my axe if it's a problem" and Harold was all li

It's probably the most played module of all time: the in-box adventure for the Basic sets, one of the foundational text of the OSR and the model for open-ended gameplay. I've played it (DCC), run it myself several times in both B/X and "the current version of the world's most popular fantasy roleplaying game" as of the time of this writing. I think I've figured it out. And I think it's brilliant. No one in the OSR is surprised by this take. You've likely played it yourself, perhaps even in multiple campaigns as I have. So why read about it? Because it has endless potential. It is the gold standard of "easy to grasp" while also holding plenty of challenge and possibility. It's great as a low-prep campaign starter and feels just open and empty enough to fill in with your own locations and encounters while also feeling like the PCs can find all sorts of cool things to do if they're willing to spend some travel time. I am currently runnin

  Praise the D30, cyclopean chthonic orb, grandest of the dice. Accept this offering of rituals, and blessed be thy rolls. This table has weird summer-flavored customs, celebrations and rituals for pagans or cultures with remnants of ancient beliefs.  Results are in order of escalating weirdness. Depending on what you want, use the following: d10 for fairly mundane/realistic results d20 for weird resultsd 30 for trauma, fear and sacrifice Should you enjoy this table, I have others... Rituals of Spring Rituals of Autumn   Rituals of Winter d30 Ritual 1 Wildflowers are planted into thatched roofs 2 The able-bodied embark on a hunt for the greatest beast. The victor  receives tribute from the village until the next summer when the hunt  begins again. 3 Young folk wrestle livestock. Victors claim the animals as their own. 4 Children lead prisoners in dances. Those who follow the child’s  instructions satisfactorily are freed. 5 Boasting competitions are held. If contest