In the beginning...

Well hello there, OSR nerds.
I am one of you.
Join me in my quest to make the OSR more metal.

What kind of things will I be posting on this blog? Gameable stuff: spells, abilities, classes, house rules, things that will make your game more metal. Session reports from my weekly Lamentations of the Flame Princess game. Other RPG stuff I'm working on. And if I find something awesome I want to share, maybe a music, movie, book or booze review. If you see something you like on here, please feel free to reshare it all the hell over the place.





Dungeons and Dragons
Grand devotions to Satan
Come revel with me


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3 Vermis Session Reports In Brief, with notes on running in different systems

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Finding the right system: Systemless adventures are nothing new, many statless bestiaries and one-page dungeons exist. They are generally assumed to use some dialect of the OSR Rosetta Stone or simple NuSR game. There are definitely things to take into account, however: you will want a low-powered or dangerous system, with a magic and skill system that is either generic or highly flavored toward Vermis's tone. Having run it several times, here are some suggestions: Session 1: Lamentations of the Flame Princess, heavily houseruled Location: Pauper's Catacombs                         Party: 4 level 6 characters I ran the Pauper's Catacombs as a "side-shot" in my campaign (when too many players are absent for a "real" session), using our regular characters with the rule that characters won't die, but suffer consequences as a result of these semi-canon adventures (i.e. missing limbs instead of death)....
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Mork Borg RPG Review (w/ bonus Mangled Bodies table)

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A doom metal album of a game. A spiked flail to the face. Mork Borg is the new hotness, the winner of 4 Ennies, and the most visually striking RPG product in years. Rules-light and condensed, while also being completely, absurdly saturated with aesthetics. Every person I've shown it to, roleplayer or not, has told me they need to get one just to keep on their shelf. Mork Borg is art-zine RPG design epitomized. Physically, even holding the book is enjoyable. It has a soft texture and the art is embossed into the cover, giving it a great feel. Every page you flip in the book is a surprise. There is no predicting what comes next- oversized gothic script, silver foil, chiaroscuro, biblical verse and even subtle little easter eggs. It makes you want to play it.  There are 4 general sections: setting, rules, random tables and optional rules, and a starter adventure. The world lore is presented in short 1-2 paragraph chunks for each region and laid alongside evocative art. You...
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Mork Borg Session: Rotblack Sludge

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The Accursed Den (but upside down) Rotblack Sludge is the introductory adventure included in the Mork Borg core book. It's well-suited to a one-shot, as are the ones created by Mork Borg's DNGNGN . I ran it for 3 players, using 2 characters each in case of a high body count. This report will include spoilers, obviously.  The players: Kelly Quinn Dylan Our heroes:   Quaker Mary the Dark Traveler. Occult Herbmaster, cowardly and prone to substance abuse. (Kelly) Doctor Dizzy the escaped cultist. Esoteric Hermit, alcoholic and extremely loud with a phlegm problem. (Kelly) Dun Kirk the Zweihander-wielding Gutterborn Scum. Wasteful, ruthless, and stutters when he lies (constantly). (Quinn) Roman the repugnant. Esoteric Hermit, vindictive and lazy. (Quinn) Chastity Goodfellow the Rotten Nihilist. Occult Herbmaster, former slave of a witch, shrewd and giggly. Has 4 monkey companions named Caligula, Nero, Ivan, and Mary, Queen of Scots. (Dylan) *Scream of a dying man* (the actual soun...
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Running Vermis; or "oracular meta-fiction as roleplaying setting"

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How's that for an enticing pretentious theory/tip post? Vermis & Vermis 2 are sensational, aesthetically rich and inspiring game books. They are, if you're unfamiliar, "game guides for games that don't exist"- written as picture and lore-heavy strategy guides for old pixelated dungeon-crawlers like Stonekeep and Eye of the Beholder. They take a lot of inspiration visually and tonally from Dark Souls and the bleak, gothic action rpg genre popular since the 2010s. If you're curious, I have reviews of both Vermis 1: Lost Dungeons and Forbidden Woods and Vermis 2: Mist & Mirrors which should give a pretty clear picture. How, though, are you supposed to actually use these as gamebooks? There are a few challenges: They are systemless, using only vague stats with no explanation  They are vague, hinting at the world and its denizens rather than instructing you They are disorganized, functioning as a puzzle for the reader to piece together while flipping t...
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Album Review: The Horned God- Volume 1 (w/ bonus Narrator Sidekick NPC!)

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The Horned God are an Albuquerque “cosplay band” who create fuzz-metal. They pay tribute to the long-running fantasy comic Slaine, published for decades in 2000 AD (famous also for Judge Dredd and Rogue Trooper). Slaine is a celtic Conan turned up to 11, with all of the badassery and far more magic and violence. The legendary run “The Horned God” with art by the great Simon Bisley gives the album its subject material. This is Volume 1, which the band began recording in 2012 and released in 2018. As of now there are no follow-ups, and it doesn’t look like there will be. Many a saga has begun that was too grandiose to carry to its end, and so too have many stoner metal bands made a Vol. 0 or 1 never to be followed. Do not fret, dear reader, for I will tell you of this lost gem, and why you should worship at its altar of dark druid magic and distorted rock fury. Volume: 1 by The Horned God   The band's look is GWAR-esque, but their sound is not. If anything, they sound like an over-fu...
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XENO Minimalist Sci-Fi Horror RPG Review (w/ bonus Xeno mission objectives!)

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XENO is a minimalist, pamphlet-sized RPG by Caligaes, where players are the alien threat, serving “MOTHER” and eviscerating the anthropomorphic humans and aliens most games would place you in the boots of. It’s inspired by sci-fi horror classics such as Alien, John Carpenter’s The Thing , Carrion and the X-COM video games. Its mechanics entirely use d4 die pools with few stats, quick resolution, and nearly no math. XENO currently consists of a core pamphlet, a “Victimary” add-on of Z-KOM soldier enemies, and the 36-page HENS & CHICKS module, written in zine format. I was kindly provided a review copy of these materials, and the game will have a BackerKit campaign soon with a physical release and more content. One side- full combat rules on the left. The core XENO pamphlet is a single tri-fold that looks great in black and white or color. It covers, in minimal but evocative text, concept, character class & stats, objectives, combat & defense, and nemeses, referred to as ...
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Cy_Borg Review (with bonus Citycrawl Events Table!)

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A rotting world. Torn apart by nano-disasters and corporate gluttony, environmental collapse, and toxic holocaust. No one knows the year. Wars, depressions and kleptocracies have destroyed, rebuilt and crystallized the world into a Cyberpunk hiveworld. Mork Borg with a Cyberpunk skinjob. To be honest, I soured on Mork Borg. The tone didn’t work with my group. Its excessive grimdarkness didn’t facilitate a genuine atmosphere, it broke immersion. The quirks and the goddamn pet monkeys turned it into the Three Stooges. Cy_Borg, I will say off the top, is much better. The reason is obvious, if you think about it: Mork Borg is cartoon Dark Souls. Mork Borg is fast-paced and chaotic. Dark Souls is quiet, lonely, and calculated, except for when combat demands precision and talent. Mork Borg is… not that. No shade to those who love Mork Borg, but I think it’s clear why, tonally, it’s not effective, at least for me. Cy_Borg, on the other hand, is- because Cyberpunk is hyperstylized, ADHD neon c...
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LotFP Specialist vs. B/X Thief

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I'm a true believer in the d6 skill system LotFP uses. So much so that I wrote a whole thingy about it. So much so that I converted saving throws into d6 and house ruled they could be improved like skills. One of the things I like so much about it is that it does a good job of approximating d20 and d100 skills- not as granular, but when arguing over increments of 1-5%, there is not much meaningful difference. For comparison, here are a few different ways that skills are arbitrated in traditional rpgs: B/X "Sometimes Percentage, Sometimes d6" method. Thieves suck at almost everything they're supposed to be good at and, depending on the ruleset,  only  Thieves can even do that stuff. 2E "Holy Shit, Look At All These Ridiculous Proficiencies With Different Methods Of Resolution" method. Literal volumes of skills- so many that everyone forgets they're  optional . 3E "Holy Shit, Look At All These Ridiculous Proficiencies With The Same Method Of...
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Green Knight RPG Review

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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...
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Vermis 2: Mist & Mirrors Review (w/ bonus Scooby Doo Hallway portals!)

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The dim light of a single bulb illuminates the messy stacks of dusty boxes in your attic. Treasures await. You hone in on what you seek. The lid of the foot locker creaks open on its damaged hinges. A rag of stray webbing clings to the interior, and the spider lays dead atop the messy stack of comics and roleplaying modules. Peeking out is the video game guide you seek, Vermis II: Mist & Mirrors . The rediscovery of Vermis ignited your curiosity, and you thought of the sequel you bought but never remember playing. You can't find the game disc in the foot locker. Good enough for now, you think, I can dig through the guide and pick up a copy later. You sit down on a cardboard box, flipping the cover open.   The knells of the bell echo along the endless corridors. The mist engulfs everything. Those glassy eyes that chase you wherever you go are none but your own. You eagerly devour the age-faded pages, losing track of time in the quiet attic, finding yourself in the world of th...
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