I am continuing my dive into the AD&D 2nd Ed Monstrous Manuals and today I am reviewing three that are nominally under the Forgotten Realms umbrella.  

There is no doubt that the biggest game world for AD&D 2nd Edition was the Forgotten Realms.  I was fairly anti-Realms back then.  I felt it was a cheap imitation of Greyhawk and I was a little irritated that Greyhawk got pushed to the side.   The 3rd Edition Forgotten Realms setting book did a lot to change that for me and now, especially with my investigations around my This Old Dragon posts, I have come to better appreciate the Realms for what they really are, not for what I thought they were.

That all being said I still bought Realms-related products like these because, well, I love monsters.

MC11 Monstrous Compendium Forgotten Realms Appendix II (1991)

My series This Old Dragon has served me well for this one since many of the creatures here have appeared in the pages of Dragon Magazine, most authored or edited by Ed Greenwood himself.

This PDF is listed at 64 pages + the dividers. The interior art is all black & white with blue accents. The list price is $4.99. There are a total of 76 monsters (with sub-types) here Alaghi to Tren (a troglodyte/lizard man crossbreed).  The Peryton, one of my favorites from the original Monster Manual finally makes its 2nd Ed debut here. Likely due to the "Ecology of" article. I went back to look over some old favorites, namely the Saurial.  I always kind of liked the Saurial since there had been some articles in pop-science magazines about what would a humanoid race evolved from dinosaurs look like.  I was a big fan of the Silurians and Sea Devils from Doctor Who and this was the "Paranoid 90s" when X-Files was about to reign.  So reptiloids, dinosauroids, and more were on my mind.  The entry here says that "Saurials are not native to the Realms, but originate from an alternate Prime Material Plane."  This reminds me of what authors would later do with the Dragonborn in the Realms; have them come from Toril's twin planet of Abeir.  I see in more recent Realms lore they are still from an unknown realm but I like this idea. 

While these monsters are "generic" enough to be used anywhere, most (like the Saurials above) are tied a little more to the lore of the Realms, so extracting them can be done, but they will need some edits.

MC13 Monstrous Compendium Al-Qadim Appendix (1992)

The Al-Qadim Monstrous Compendium had been the only product I ever purchased for the Al-Qadim setting back when it was new.  Again the reasoning was I loved monsters. But while reading it over I discovered there was a very interesting setting here.  

Like the Kara-Tur setting, Al-Qadim was pulled into the Realms. It was added to the Realms quickly after its release but the campaign setting box was designed a bit more for a general placement anywhere.

This PDF is listed at 74 pages and has a $4.95 price tag.  The art is typical for the time color covers and color dividers with black & white pages. Interestingly the accent color here is gold and not blue.  Ravenloft used red so I wonder how it would have been if all the settings had a different accent color to help separate them.  A dark-gray for Greyhawk, burnt orange for Dark Sun, and so on. 

There are 58 monsters from Ammut to Zin. This includes a large number of various Genie/Gin types. 

Divorced from their setting the monsters certainly lose some of their best flavor, but I do plan on using these in a desert-based campaign I have coming up and I think they will work fine.

MC6 Monstrous Compendium, Kara-Tur Appendix

Kara-Tur did not begin as a Forgotten Realms land. Quite the contrary it was designed to be used as part of Oerth in the 1st Edition Oriental Adventures.  This Monstrous Compendium brings the creatures listed in the 1st ed book, and more, into the 2nd Edition game. 

This PDF is listed at 64 pages (more with binder dividers) and a price tag of $4.99.  The cover and dividers are full color (including Easley's Oriental Adventure cover) and the interior art is Black & White. There are 76 monsters from Bajang to the Yuki-on-na.

Interestingly enough the Eastern Dragons from the Original Fiend Folio are not here.  They appeared in the MC3 Forgotten Realms one, but I thought they should appear here instead.  Likely to solidify the claim of Kara-Tur in the Forgotten Realms or maybe to give the 3rd MC some popular dragons.

There are some very unique monsters here. This is one of the few that I keep separate and do not integrate into my larger monster sets.

We are at a point with the Monstrous Compendiums where we get a bit of overlap.  For example, the Ashira (MC13) has a lot in common with the Hamadryad (MC11).  And the Black Cloud of Vengeance (MC13) is very much a larger, more evil version of the Tempest (MC11).  

Which is which? You tell me.

This is not a surprise, there are over 2100 monsters created for AD&D 2nd Edition, there are bound to be places where they overlap.

The scans for all are pretty crisp and clear. I certainly can see printed out a couple of pages and using them in a smaller binder for a specific AD&D 2nd Ed campaign.  Like I have said before, these PDF are fulfilling the promises made by the Monstrous Compendiums in the 1990s.

A bunch of great Kickstarters this week so let's get to it.

The Valley Out of Time series for S&W DCC MCC

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/science-wizard/the-valley-out-of-time-series-for-sandw-dcc-mcc?ref=theotherside

This one looks like a lot of fun. Has a whole "Lost World" vibe to it and I love that shit. It was already planned for DCC, MCC, and S&W and now with the first stretch goal Pathfinder 1st Edition.

Zweihander Fantasy Horror RPG Starter Kit

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zweihander/zweihander-rpg-starter-kit?ref=theotherside

I don't know a lot about Zweihänder. I know it is a clone in a sense of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying.  So I have been told to try this instead of Warhammer.  Creator Daniel Fox also takes credit for (rightly or not) taking down The Trove so that is a good thing in my mind.

This starter kit looks like a lot of fun and I think I am a good choice as a customer. 

The Sands of Despair: a D&D 5E and PF side trek

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dlimedia/the-sands-of-despair-a-dandd-5e-side-trek?ref=theotherside

Recent seismic events unearth a long buried tomb in the desert, and the locals fear that a long dead tyrant's last words may come true.

Sounds fun to me! Plus I have been wanting to do more desert adventures. 

And the big one of the week!

Old-School Essentials Fantasy RPG Box Sets

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/exaltedfuneral/old-school-essentials-fantasy-rpg-box-sets?ref=theotherside

Ok we all know what this one is. It's the biggest kid on the OSR block right now and after 2-3 days it is sitting on half a million dollars.  Not too shabby really.

I have everything for this already. But damn this is attractive.

Enjoy!

My family finished watching the Amazon Prime series "The Legend of Vox Machina" from Critical Role and honestly it was a lot of fun.

It was funny, exciting, and really just a lot of great gamer humor without feeling like gamer humor.

A big problem I have with most gamer-related fiction is you can often, as I say, "hear the dice rolling in the background."  Not so with this.  Yes there are the expected name drops, the occasional mention of a power (Grog wanting to "rage") or a spell (Keyleth saying she can only do that one once a day) but that all took a backseat to what makes any bit of fiction good; good story and characters you can care about.

I have not listened to any of the Critical Role episodes, but my oldest LOVES them.  So we backed the Kickstarter and honestly, we have been very pleased.  He let me know later how the animated series differs from the actual play episodes.  So now I do want to go back to those older Campaign One episodes and listen to them all.

Also not since the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon has D&D seen this much success in a televised medium.  Amazon already renewed it for a second season before season one even premiered.

It has met with critical success, including a 100% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and a 94% audience score. 

Whether you are a fan or not one thing is certain, Critical Role is one of D&D greatest achievements in terms of getting more people interested in our little game.  Born out of an odd combination of Pathfinder and D&D 5 the World of Tal'dorei has also seen quite a bit of success in the D&D 5 printed world with three (soon to be four) books.

In addition to the series, the actual play episodes, and the gaming material there are comic books, action figures, clothes, and gear.  There is even a 1/6th scale statue of the characters Vex and Vax from Vox Machina coming out.  You know for a fact if there were statues of Keyleth and Jester coming out they would never be able to keep them in stock. Yes even at the nearly $200 price tag.

When was the last time one of your campaigns did all of that?  Ok. I do have 1/6th scale versions of two of my own iconic witches. No, I am not going to share how much I spent on them.

So the show was a lot of fun, maybe a touch adult for some, a lot of swearing some nudity, lots of gore. But seriously, does no one remember gaming when they were 14? 

I wish them the best of luck and hope for their continued success. 

I have been reading more of the late Jason Zavoda's posts about his "Blackmoor Land of a Thousand Witches" and I have wanted to do something with that.  This got me thinking about some ideas I had had for 4e Blackmoor.  Which then got me thinking about my world in a larger sense and how Blackmoor really is the keystone of my Mystorerth world.  

Even before I adopted James Mischler's name for it I was playing in a combined Msytara/Oerth world (and I kinda regret not calling Oestara now).   My world was Mystara/The Know World, my DM's was Oerth Greyhawk.  The central common feature was Blackmoor.

But what even *IS* Blackmoor in my world now?

It has always been some sort of Shangri-La like place of High Magic and High Tech in the Mystara books and place of post-apocalyptic destruction in Greyhawk. 

So I am going back to the sources, the original Blackmoor.

I read on good ole Wikipedia (the unofficial Splat Book for every RPG) that the original Blackmoor campaign setting "include(ed) ideas from The Lord of the Rings and Dark Shadows and applied the Fantasy Supplement rules from the Chainmail game." That sounds like my games!

I also went the best Blackmoor sources on the net, Havard's Blackmoor Blog and the Blackmoor Archives.

To be blunt there is an absolute ton of material in both of those sites to keep me busy for weeks.  But there are a few key points there AND I have Harvard and fellow Mystoerth enthusiast Mathew Fenn to thank.

So I don't need to connect Mystara Blackmoor to Greyhawk Blackmoor physically because they are the same place separated by time.   Harvard tells us that MBlackmoor is set "4000 years in Mystara's past."  For me that means there are two Blackmoors indeed.  Same location, but somehow when their magic-tech devices exploded it trapped a bubble of Blackmoor in time (-3426 CY to be exact) so the PCs can still get to it if they know how.    In this respect Blackmoor become my Atlantis, or at least the Atlantis like the one depicted in the Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee) story The Time Monster.

I have always wanted an Atlantis.  A mythical land/realm destroyed by a cataclysm, maybe one wrought by hubris, BUT there also be enough survivors so we know what the tale is/was.  My version of Mystara's "Known World" has so many different sorts of people living in it because they are the descendants of refugees of the Blackmoor explosion. 

I'd also like to learn more about what sort of "Gothic Horror" and "Dark Shadows" elements were part of the original Blackmoor.  I am not sure that Dark Shadows fits in well with "magic-tech superpower" but it would with the post-apoc Greyhawk-era Blackmoor.  

Blackmoor today is more like what the Greyhawk Gazeteers say it is.  But I also want to add bits of Hyperborea to my version of Blackmoor for that full post-apocalyptic feel and justify high powered magic tech still existing.  Hyperborea's Atlanteans might be what I need to complete this picture.

In any case I do have a lot of reading to do and figuring out what it all means for my world.

So. What DO I know? Well in no particular order.

• Blackmoor is north.  For the Flanaess it is about as far north as you can go before reaching the Black Ice.  
• The Black Ice is black because Blackmoor blew up. 
• Prior to the explosion Blackmoor was a cosmopolitan utopia. All the races lived and visited here in seeming harmony (there was still tensions here so not all wine and roses) and art, science, and magic were celebrated.  I want it's past to be "far too good to be true" but in fact true.  That is the tragedy of Blackmoor. 
• The differences between the Mystara map of Blackmoor and the Greyhawk version is due to this explosion.
• I am reversing the names of the sea near Blackmoor.  In the past is was known as the "Icy Sea" now it is called the "Black Sea" and it actually black and full of weird mutated sea creatures.
• If there was ever an "Innsmouth" for my world it is here.
• There WILL be ways to travel back in time (or outside of time) to Old Blackmoor.  This will be my chance to pull out some time travel ideas and break my "no time travel in D&D" rule.  In fact it should be the focus of an adventure at some point. 
• Blackmoor of today is considered to be a haunted and desolate land.  The tales of Blackmoor's rise and then destruction are akin to our tales of Atlantis.
• "Not since Blackmoor" is a saying meaning a very, very long time ago. 
• The land is filled with random magic effects and other strangeness.  The barrier between realms is the weakest here.  So this is also where eldritch horrors are most likely to appear. 
• I might try to use the "Temple of the Frog" in some manner, obviously I am going to use this as a cult center of Tsathoggua.  I would change many elements of the adventure, but certainly go with the maps and some of the science fantasy elements.
• I still have to reckon my "Monks come from Blackmoor" notion.  Like I said then these might be psychic ascetics cut from the 70's occult revival cloth.  That would fit with the idea that monks were introduced in the Blackmoor supplement and the Mystics from the D&D Basic/BECMI/RC line. I need a good psychic mystic class to cover them. I have written a bit on Mystics[1][2][3] in the past, so I am sure there is something more I can do with that. 

Obviously I have a lot to consider here. And a lot more to read about before I could come up with any sort of good idea.  My ultimate goal here was to myself to a point where I could talk about Jason Zavoda's "Blackmoor Land of a Thousand Witches" but I am not even close to that yet.  But I can at least see the road map from here.

Links

• The Blackmoor Archives
• Vaults of Pandius
• Using Blackmoor in your Mystara Campaign
• Harvard's Blackmoor Blog
• How Blackmoor ended up in Mystara
• The Last Days of Blackmoor
• Blackmoor 2000
• Using Blackmoor in Your Mystara Campaign (and Greyhawk!)
• Mystoerth discussion
• Building Mystoerth
• Blackmoor map integrated into Greyhawk  (map)
• Mapping Greyhawk on Blackmoor
• Post-Apocalyse Blackmoor

I posted this elsewhere, but I am super busy at work today.  So here it is here.

I get it. Books and Game PDFs are expensive and everyone is on a much tighter budget these days. SO to that end, if you want one of my PDFs and can't afford it just ASK ME. I'll likely send it along with a couple more to spare.

Maybe at least say somewhere that you thought it was cool/fun/informative or made you sick to your stomach, whatever. But at least ask, the worst thing that can happen is I'll say no (which leaves you where you were) or I say yes and you have a new PDF.

It's a Presidents' Day Monstrous Monday.  I am continuing my dive into the AD&D 2nd Edition Monstrous Compendiums.  Today I want to talk about the next three that were important to me in terms of what I call the "core" of the AD&D 2nd Ed monsters.   

It is a commonly held belief that during the AD&D 2nd Ed era that settings were at their height.  The remaining Monstrous Compendiums focused on these settings.  For me it was a perfect systems really.  I could keep monsters in with my core rules, like I did with Greyhawk, Dragonlance and Mystara. Or keep them with my boxed sets of campaigns, like I did with all my Ravenloft stuff.  So let's go with the ones I integrated (to the best I could) into my core set.

MC4 Monstrous Compendium Dragonlance Appendix

Ok, this one bugged me at first. I bought it and it said Draonlance Appendix on the front even though it was the second two-ring binder.  I didn't play Dragonlance, I was doing Greyhawk and would soon be eyeballs deep in Ravenloft.   My irritations were put to rest when I opened and the cover, while having the same art, just said Monstrous Compendium Vol. 2.   For a while I used both alphabetically, vol 1 with A through M and vol 2 holding N to Z and the tables and blank forms.  Today I use vol 1 for my core monsters and vol 2 for everything else.

Dragonlance falls into "everything else" for me.  The monsters are good, and many that have made their way back into my core monsters.

The PDF from DriveThruRPG is 96 pages, 82 monsters and at a price of $4.99. The monsters range from "Anemone, Giant" to "Yeti-kin, Saqualaminoi."  It covers all the various races of Krynn including the various types of dwarves, all the different kinds of elves, the kender and Dragonlance's lizard men and minotaurs. It was the first to include the Death Knight and Skeleton Warriors, though I always felt they belonged in Greyhawk. Certainly worth it for the Draconians and tips on Dragonlance's dragons which help redefine dragons in D&D in the first place. 

The cover of the PDF is a little dark, but the pages inside are sharp and clear.

MC5 Monstrous Compendium Greyhawk Adventures Appendix

Personally I always felt that Greyhawk should have had a Monstrous Compendium long before the others, but I can see why it came out when it did, given all that history.  The Greyhawk Adventures book for 1st Edition had a "preview" of monsters in 2nd Edition format. I remember being quite excited about this and really liking the new stat block even though it was much larger than before.

More so than the other MC Appendices, I tried to integrate these monsters as much as I could into my "core" Monstrous Compendium.  To me Greyhawk was the "home world" of D&D.

The PDF from DriveThruRPG is 64 pages, runs $4.99, and includes 63 monsters; Beastman to Zygom.

Many of these monsters have their origins in the AD&D 1st ed modules and Fiend Folio, but there are few others here from the Monster Manaual II.  The only creatures here that really saw "Greyhawk" to me are the Grell, Greyhawk Dragon, the Sword Wraiths and the Drowned Zombies.  There are some here that are more generic like the hobgoblin (how did that one only make it in in MC5?? Corrected. Hobs are in the core set. Hobgoblin, Norkers are in this set!)

Monstrous Compendium - Mystara Appendix

First Edition was all about Greyhawk. Second edition was synomous with Ravenloft for me.  But Mystara, or before that name, the Known World was where my gaming began.  So the Mystara Appendix for the Monstrous Compendium was one of my "core" core sets.  

The Mystara appendix take a few diversions from the other core world sets.  For starters this one is 128 pages and $9.99 on DriveThruRPG now.  It is also full color, a indication of the change of publishing style at TSR.   This book was also published as a standalone softcover, perfect bound, book.  It seems that by 1994 the loose-leaf era was indeed over.

The PDF though does allow you to go back to that era and print the monsters out as you like.

This set has 174 monsters from Actaeon to Zombie, Lightning.  Many of the old favorites from the B/X and BECMI days are here too.  Living Statues, Kopru, Decapus and the Thoul are all here in their 2nd Edition glory as well as many of the Gem Stone Dragons.

If you were/are a fan of the D&D Creature Catalogs then this really is a must buy. I find it interesting that this Compendium came out just a year after the DMR2 Creature Catalog.  I'd have to go through them page by page to see if there are any differences in the monsters presented, but they feel very much alike. 

The DriveThruRPG scanned PDF is very bright and clear. I would love to see this as a print-on-demand some day. 

This week Other Side Favorite Green Ronin is up with a new AGE game and a new Mythos game.  Lucky for me they are one and the same!

Cthulhu Awakens Roleplaying Game

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/greenroninpub/cthulhu-awakens-roleplaying-game?ref=theotherside

Funded in 40 minutes it is currently sitting at about 6x its funding goal. 

This game, powered by their A.G.E. system (ModernAGE, The Expanse, Blue Rose) covers "The Weird Century" from the 1920s til today.  And the mythos talked about in stories and tales are only a part of the picture.

Do we need another Cthulhu/Mythos game?  Maybe, maybe not, but I do like what I see here and I find this more exciting than some of the Mythos-related RPGs that have come out in the past. 

For my home games I can see us using this a lot. For starters there is all the new background details and I like having new life breathed into my Mythos every so often.  Sure I do my own stuff, but it is nice to get a fresh perspective.

My son plays FantasyAGE so I am sure I'll do something with that.

I have been trying out The Expanse (spoiler I love it) and I love mixing space travel with the Mythos (see BlackStar) so what if the protomolecule is related to the Old Ones?  It could be the start of my BlackStar game! Or at least give me some fun ideas. 

The design team for this looks great and I am looking forward to seeing what they can come up with.

I was cleaning up my office on Wednesday, waiting for a meeting to start when I started going through a bunch of binders I have.  In particular a few for notes on my witch and necromancer classes (maybe I'll do a necromancer one day).  Anyway, I sorted through all my notes and I found many treasures.

The fruits of that labor are:

• Updated Witch Queens page
• Updated With Links page
• Updated Appendix O page
• and Several AD&D 2nd versions of some of my monsters that I added to my MC Binders

And...I dug up enough information for not just two new witch books, but three.

For the last year or more, I have been talking about "My Last Witch Book" the High Witchcraft Tradition.  The High Witchcraft book is very much tied up in organizing all my notes and sources project, so I knew I was going to find new material for it today.

I knew I had a lot for it, it was just all over the place on whatever I decided to take notes on.  I thought I had maybe enough for it and another, smaller, book.  Nope. I have enough for three different books now.

I am not really ready to reveal what these other books are/will be.  I reserve the right not to do them if push comes to it.  

So. Yeah.  I guess I do have more books in me.  Though I think I am going to keep the High Witchcraft book as the Last book.

Now I just need to dig up a 3.5" floppy drive.

Quick one today.  Yesterday's mail brought me some wonderful gifts.

Up first are the new books for the NIGHT SHIFT RPG.  The Night Companion and a new "Night Trip" A Faustian Dilemma.   These are both the babies of my co-author Jason Vey.  You can now get both at the Elf Lair Games store.

I do have a new "Nigth World" in Night Companion.  My "Weirdly World News" where you get to play tabloid reporters try to get that ever-elusive story that proves the supernatural is real, and hope there is a good paycheck in it. 

This book also introduces the world the everyone's favorite cryptid, Rat Baby.

 Kickstarter backers will be getting their books now. I knew I was on the end of the list for my copies.

I also got a new Witch Queen adventure in the mail again from Carlos A.S. Lising and casl Entertainment.

As you can see, this one also features Iggwilv as the titular Witch.

I am going to give this one a review and hope it is as fun as The Witch-Queen's Lament was.  I think I am going to restructure my War of the Witch Queens adventures just a bit. 

I was cleaning up some links on my Witch Links page and I noticed a few I had from the Halls of the Mountian King, the blog of the recently passed Jason Zavoda. He posted a bit about Hyperborea, nee AS&SH, including the Witch Queen of Yithorium.  I also found a lot of material for his own Blackmoor Land of a Thousand Witches.

Jason was very well respected in the Greyhawk community and I thought it might be a nice tribute to expand on his ideas some, but more importantly, share his ideas all with you.  Up first, the Witch-Queen of Yithorium.

The Witch-Queen of Yithorium

There is not a lot of text on who the Witch-Queen of Yithorium is except for what she wants now.

The official Hyperborea forum has a little on her background.  She is a nod/homage to Howard's witch Salome in "A Witch Shall Be Born." She rules from a 100’ tower of alien origin that immediately reminded me of Clark Ashton Smith. She is immortal, ever young, and has ruled Yithorium for nearly 700 years.  She obviously knows what to do.  

Jason provides the most information about the Queen herself in his post.  He uses a picture of Judith from the Bible as his inspiration.  Much like Salome (the namesake of Howard's witch) Judith is known for her association with a decapitated man. John the Baptist for Salome, Holophernes for Judith.   We gather from his post (and others) she was a beautiful woman, small but voluptuous, with long raven tresses.  Naturally, I think of Sarah Douglas.  

We know she is a witch and uses a type of magic unknown to her lands. We learn it is blood magic and that no one in the City-State of Yithorium knows where she learned it.  I am going to say, given the work that Jason has done, that she learned it all in Blackmoor. 

There are no official stats for the Witch Queen of Yithorium in the Hyperborea books.  She doesn't even have a proper name really. 

The Witch Queen of Yithorium
Female Witch 12th level
Chaotic Evil

Race: Human
Secondary Skill: Torturer

Abilities
Strength: 12
Dexterity: 12
Constitution: 13
Intelligence: 18
Wisdom: 16
Charisma: 18

Casting Ability: 12
Fighting Ability: 5Saving Throw: 11

Hit Points: 36
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
AC: 9

Powers
Brew Decoction (x5), Familiar, Read Magic, Scroll Use, Scroll Writing, Sorcery, New weapons skills (3), Dance of Beguilement (5th level), Effigy (5th level), Enlist Henchment (6th level), Animate Broom (7th level), Lordship (9th level).   
Spells 
First: Alter Self, Charm Person, Detect Magic,  Shocking Grasp, Unseen Servant
Second: Darkness, Ghoul Touch, Infernal Tounges, Ray of Enfeeblement, Witch Fire
Third: Dispel Magic, Exploding Skull, Phantasm, Summon Dæmon I
Fourth: Black Tentacles, Mirror Mirror, Sorcerer Eye, Summon Dæmon II
Fifth: Anti-Magic Field, Summon Dæmon III, Summon Elemental
Sixth: Gelatinize Bones, Transfer Youthfulness





The Witch Queen of Yithorium
Female Witch, Blood Tradition 13th level
Chaotic

Abilities
Strength: 12
Dexterity: 12
Constitution: 13
Intelligence: 18
Wisdom: 16
Charisma: 18

Hit Points: 36
AC: 9

Occult Powers
Familiar: Raven
7th level: Evil’s Touch 
13th level: Detect Bloodline

Spells 
Cantrips: Black Flame, Chill, Daze, Ghost Sound, Inflict Minor Wounds, Object Reading
First: Bewitch I, Darkness, Feel my Pain, Ghostly Slashing, Glamour, Silver Tongue
Second: Alter Self, Disfiguring Touch, Ghoulish Hands, Scare, Share My Pain, Suggestion
Third: Clairaudience/Clairvoyance, Dispel Magic, Lifeblood, Summon Spirit, Witch Wail
Fourth: Divination, Phantom Lacerations, Polymorph, Spiritual Dagger
Fifth: Bewitch V, Dreadful Bloodletting
Sixth: Spiritual Dagger, Summon Nightmare SteedSeventh: Wave of Mutilation 

For this witch, I am using a combination of the Family, Maelific, and Mara Traditions. 

While I am perfectly happy to keep her nameless, or only as "The Witch Queen," I am thinking of giving her the proper name of Miriam, to keep with the Biblical theme I have established here. Of course, no one besides her would know that. 
 

Hyperborea has always been a large part of my plan for the War of Witch Queens, at least in terms of how witches are presented.  At one point it was going to be my system of choice for the campaign, but I have since settled on OSE.  Still, Hyperborea has a lot to offer me. 

I typically mix in a fair amount of Barbarians of Lemuria into my Hyperborea games. So it might be fun to have Miriam, the Witch Queen of Yithorium be the rival of Methyn Sarr, the Witch Queen of the Fire Coast.  Each thinking the other is the lesser witch while worried that the other might have access to some magic they do not.  They seem to be cast from the same mould, that of Salome of "A With Shall Be Born," but one taking to fire magic and the other blood magic.  I don't think they were/are sisters in the biological sense but maybe they are former coven sisters. Once allies or even friends and now bitter, hated rivals.  If Sarah Douglas is my model for the Witch Queen of Yithorium, then my choice for Methyn Sarr would have to be Emma Samms. Not too far of a stretch since she was the uncredited performance/body model for Princess Teegra in Ralph Bakshi's "Fire and Ice." 

Links

• Hyperborea 3rd Edition Referee's Manual
• Inspiring Illustrations - The Witch-Queen of Yithorium
• Hyperborea Forum
• OD&D Forum
• Sword & Sorcery & Cinema: Sarah Douglas Film Fest
• Methyn Sarr, Witch Queen of the Fire Coast

I have been wanting to spend some time with the AD&D 2nd Edition Monstrous Compendiums.  I suppose now is as good of a time as any.

In the waning years of the 80s, AD&D took a new turn. Much of the original guard was gone from TSR and a new edition of its flagship game was on the way.  I was at University at the time, so for me, it was easy enough to move over to AD&D 2nd Ed.  I was not playing with my normal group anymore (they were 200+ miles away) and it seemed like a good place to move on.  

It was June 1989 and I was on what was to be my last family vacation to Harrisburg, PA.  We were doing a big Civil War tour and my dad was meeting up with a bunch of guys he served with during the Korean War.  I remember being on my own for a bit and I found a game and comic store not far from Gettysburg. I went in looking for anything new and anything to entertain myself.  Much to my shock they had copies, released that week, of the new AD&D 2nd Monstrous Manual.  I remember talking to them asking how business was for AD&D 2nd ed and they had said terrible that no one was buying yet.  I am quite certain that changed later on.  But that was also my first hint at anything like an "Edition War."

I got it back to my hotel room and I read that book cover to cover.  I loved the idea of the 3-Ring binder and I loved how the monsters were all expanded to include the Habitats and Ecology.  My first RPG love was the AD&D Monster Manual.  This did not fill me with as much excitement (you never forget your first time) but it was close. 

As time went on and I bought more of the Monstrous Compendiums the weakness of the format began to show itself.  For starters you could never properly alphabetize the pages.  One monster per page is great, unless the monster on the back of the page is more letters down the line.  Also in normal use, the pages became tattered and torn; and that is if you removed the perforations right the first time. 

Still, I loved the idea and still do it today. 

Sadly, I sold my original MCs in a game auction about 25 years ago.  I needed room and I had the Monstrous Manual, the proper hardcover that came out later and I was in the process of moving on to other games. So I figured I didn't need these anymore.  Big Mistake...or was it?

I have since bought back a number of the Monstrous Compendiums. I have found them at garage sales, auctions, Half-Price books, and the PDFs on DriveThruRPG.  In fact for less than I sold my originals I have rebuilt my collection and then some.  And I have been expanding.

I have added DriveThruRPG pdfs I have printed.  Dragon Magzine Monsters I have also printed from my CD-ROM.

And since I have been doing my This Old Dragon feature I have had many Dragons that are falling apart.  So I have been adding material when and where I can.  Namely the wonderful Ecology Of... articles. 

I even find material online that others have done.

But many of the old issues remain.

But now I have access to all the Monstrous Compendium PDFs.  So I can buy what I need and print them out as I need.

The extra data is still good and I am amazed about how much of it still works for me today.  I might not play 2nd Ed ever again, instead opting for 1st Ed, but I am likely to use the Monstrous Compendiums in place of the Monster or Monstrous Manuals.

If you wanted to rebuy your collection of AD&D Monstrous Compendiums there are 22 books for a total of 2,350+ pages (figure over 2,200 monsters) at a price of $141.66. (note I might not have all of them)  Then you could print out what you want, how you want and organize them as you like.  I have already done this with Demons and Devils.

I am going to spend time with these over the next few weeks.  

MC1 Monstrous Compendium Volume One

This was the first Monstrous Compendium to hit the market but not the first time seeing the new monster format.  That was published in the (then) new Greyhawk Adventures hardcover.  Originally this came with the monsters on printed, perforated sheets, cardstock color dividers, and the three-ring binder to put them all in.

This product covered some 130 monsters from Aerial Servant to Zombie. It had most of the "usual suspects" including orcs, all the PC races, goblins, and the greatly expanded dragons. The Dragons were the big star of this particular package. They were bigger, meaner, and a whole lot scarier.

The PDF from DriveThru helps this book live up to its promised potential. You can print the entries you want and organize them how you want.  The scans are of the original books/pages so you don't have to worry about a lot of color (you will burn through the cyan/blue though).

A note, like the original Monstrous Compendium this one still has the error on the Vampire page, with side 1 printed on both sides. The correction can be found in the October 1989 issue of Dragon magazine or the full Monstrous Manual.

MC2 Monstrous Compendium Volume Two

The second Monstrous Compendium package was released that to the horror of OCD Dungeon Master's everywhere, you could not properly alphabetize all the entries.  This one covers more monsters, the second tier ones, Aarakocra to Yellow Musk Creeper and Zombie.  It had a solid Fiend Folio vibe to it. 

Any hopes the rumors were false were soon dashed as this set also did not include the Demons and Devils of old.  We would get them, eventually, but not for a bit.

The weakness of the printed copy of 1989 is no longer an issue with the PDF of today.  Now you can reprint the monsters you want AND keep them to one page for fully proper alphabetizing.  You just a need a new binder that will hold 500 some odd pages.

Like the MC1 this PDF includes the dividers you can print.  For my use? I print them out, put them in a page protector and then put some card stock in with them.

MC3 Monstrous Compendium Forgotten Realms Appendix

For me, and many others I feel, AD&D 2nd Ed was synonymous with the Forgotten Realms. It was Ed Greenwood's "Ecology of..." articles in Dragon that gave us these expanded monster listings so the Realms and 2nd Ed are a perfect fit in my mind.  Even if 90% of my own 2nd ed gaming was in Ravenloft.

This gives us monsters from Ascallion to Wemic.  Some old favorites like the Eastern Dragons are here and lots of monsters appeared in the pages of Dragon and Forgotten Realms books, many as 1st Edition versions first.

The PDF makes good on the promises to allow you to organize things as your wish.  This is particularly nice for me since I took some of these monsters and placed them in with the ones above in one binder as all the "common" monsters and then mixed the remaining with the other Forgotten Realms MC (MC 11) for "Realms unique" monsters. 

The scan on this one is a little light, so printing might make some of the pages look washed out. BUT you can turn up your printer's settings a notch to make it darker. Not too much or the scanned paper will also show up as "background noise."  But you can also print them out and touch up what you like with a pencil and not worry about marking up a 30-year-old book from your collection. 

The PDFs from DriveThru are a fraction of the cost of the original and I can also buy a very sturdy binder to put them all in.  The big issue is of course my own printer ink.  But if I ever plan on running an AD&D game again I'll be using these and finally have them live up to the full potential that was promised to me back in Gettysburg, PA in 1989.

I love my old school games. No shock, spend any time here at all and you can see that.  I enjoy a good retro-clone. Especially if someone puts a little spin on it as well.  Well, that feeling extends to my computer gaming as well.

Brief history and many of you have read this before. I bought my first computer, with my own saved up money, back in 1985.  It was a TRS-80 Color Computer 2 and I plugged it into a TV.  It had 16k of RAM, and ran at about 900 Kilohertz.  No disk drive. I had to save everything to cassette tapes.  It did have color though and that to me made it better than the TRS-80 Model IIIs we had at school.  In fact it was very much like this computer.

This particular computer was given to me by my brother.  He got it from my old High School DM.  We had the same computer, only his was 64k and had a floppy disk drive.  I would upgrade to the Tandy Color Computer 3 with 128k of memory, running at a whopping 2 Megahertz and a floppy drive.

The computer above though was in sad, sad shape.  In addition to a lot of yellowing it had, according to my brother who is an engineer, a broken pin on one of the epromms.  He tried fixing it, but it was DOA.

So I decided to build my own Tandy Color Computer Retro-clone!  But first I needed some supplies and that case needed work.  A lot of work.

Step 1.  Cleaning and Bleaching

The case was a mess and the insides were not much better.

With some of the grime gone I got out some plastic restore bleach and set it all up under some UV light.

Honestly, I kept it under the light for about a week.  But I can't argue with the results.

Part 2. Proof of Concept 

While that was taking a bath in bleach and getting some fake sunlight I worked on my proof of concept.  I had my youngest print out a mini Color Computer case for a Raspberry Pi B.  I also began ordering everything I would need.  Keyboard, USB cables, new case badges, HDMI cables, a USB 3 port, and of course a new Raspberry Pi 4.  

While waiting on everything to come in I played around with my proof of concept computer.

The CoCoPi emulator even allows me to switch out which classic CoCo processor I can use the MC 6309E or the MC 6809S (my preferred choice).

Got the keyboard and the USB 3 port so those also got tested with the Pi B.  I was able to get the USB 3 port fitted into the old CoCo cartridge slot.  So that was one thing out of the way.

I felt that bit came together rather well.  The next part was a little more involved.

Part 3. The Miracles of 3D Printing

I needed to replace all the joystick, cassette, and serial ports with the 21st-century equivalent, USB. My plan was to route high power draw USB 3 to the side port and keep the back for USB 2.  I also needed to replace the TV Out with HDMI.  Unlike the Pi B, the Pi 4 has two HDMI ports, so I needed to work that out.

The keyboard is a great size, just a touch too small, and no way to get it into the case and have it stay in place.  Plus I am hard on keyboards, so I needed to make sure it was sturdy.  So the first task, 3D print a keyboard tray.  This is FDM print. Our resin printer is acting up and the bed for it is way too small for this size print.

Not bad.  Now to print the ports.

In addition to printing the ports that go in the back of the computer I got some new male-to-female cables for USB (with splitters), and micro HDMI.  Since they were going to plugged in and out a lot I needed to be sure they were secure.  So I also broke out the resin.  Before fitting the new ports to the computer, I fit the new cables to the ports.

USB went in like a charm.  Next the HDMI ports and power cable.  Sadly though, I had to cut the case of the full-sized HDMI.

Though all took a bit to dry and cure.  I was getting close now!

Part 4. Putting it all Together

I knew the hardest part was going to be getting all the cables in.  It was easier than expected except the HDMI kept coming undone.  Still not 100% happy with it.  I had to abandon my plan to also have an ethernet port. It doesn't need it since it has built-in WiFi, but it would have been nice.

Cables stuffed into the case, case screwed back up, time to boot up!

The keyboard lights up (it is a Color Computer after all!) and the DOS box and CoCo emulators work! With that time to put on the new case badge.

Grab some more emulators from my Pi B and fire up my new retro gaming machine!

The computer is running Raspbian which is a stripped-down version of Linux Debian for the Raspberry Pi.  I prefer Ubuntu for my Linux, but this is working out fine. 

To match the spirit of the CoCo my side USB 3 port also has an SD Card reader.  So I rummaged through the house to collect all the old SD cards we have laying around.

I'll load some programs on these and I'll be able to load software on the side of my CoCo just like the old days!

I spent a long time on this, and maybe way too much money. BUT now I want to do another one! I mean, I already have two, the proof of concept model with the Pi B and the full case with the Pi 4.  There is a micro Windows computer out there that would fit into this case and there is another keyboard that also glows red, green, and blue (proper CoCo Colors) but it is white instead.  Maybe I should wait though.   I have always wanted to gut out a TRS-80 Model 4 and make that into my own version of the proposed, but never produced, Color Computer 4.

In the language of the OSR movement, this is retro-clone.  It uses new mechanics/hardware to simulate/emulate an older experience.  I am not running OS-9 (the OS for the Color Computer) and I am not sure I want to at this point.  While the CoCo is my love, I also enjoy the ability to run an Atari 2600 emulator on it and DOS Box.  So I guess my next step is to grab the Gold Box AD&D PC games and play them on this.

One last look at the before and after.

And After

I am very, very pleased with how it turned out.

Now to start trolling some auction sites for a TRS-80 Model 4 and figuring out what keyboard and monitor I can fit into that case.  I already have some old external drives I could fit into it.

Reaching into the box of musty old Dragons I keep under my desk I find this little gem from September 1986.  I was a senior in High School and dying to get out.  I had just auditioned for the part of Dr. Seward in our school's performance of "Dracula."  Steve Winwood and Chaka Khan were singing about Higher Love.  It's fall of 86 and this is This Old Dragon issue #113.

My copy does not have a cover, but thankfully I still have my trusty Dragon CD-ROMs.  And this is one of my favorites.  I had just rolled up a cavalier from the Unearthed Arcana and I figured this was a good representation of him.  This particular cover was painted by Robin Wood.

Given the mustiness of my copy I might be sticking with the CD.

Kim Mohan talks about how he spent his summer, working on the new Wilderness Survival Guide, a follow-up to the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide.  We ate those books up in our group.  I remember going back and trying to retcon proficiencies for all my AD&D characters in play, some had gotten to fairly high levels.   These days prefer a much simpler skill system.  D&D 5 is a good example. And many "cinematic" point-buy systems.  In my OSR games, I more or less let my players tell what they are good at and leave it at that.  For example, I'll mention Erky Timbers below. He is a gnome who is an expert on cheese. He gets a +2 on any rolls involving cheese.  It comes up more often than I expected.

Letters cover something timely for me, responses to the Hooves and Green Hair article from Dragon #109. 

The Forum covers questions about HD and quibbles about the Unearthed Arcana.

A nice big colorful ad for the Dragonfire II Dungeon Master's Assistant software.  There is a review in Dragon #116, so I think I'll get into the details of it then and there.

Out big section for this issue is all about Hades, the Land of the Dead.  It looks to square the mythological Hades, a place of gloom but not really evil with the D&D Hades, a land of Neutral Evil.  Bruce Bauer gives us the treatise and his bibliography is top-notch for the time.   Like the nature of the planes in AD&D 1st ed, the article spends a lot of ink on how spells work or don't work, in this land.  There is a bit on the land itself and the various rulers.  This is sort of the problem I ran into in One Man's God, there is mythology here based on real-world myths mixed all together that don't always work out.  Still, though it is a fascinating read and a topic that often gets lost when dealing with the Lower Planes.  The material is still good today and not entirely incompatible with newer games. 

An old friend of the Other Side Vince Garcia is back with A Capital Idea. Vince covers how the PCs can make money becoming business people. I go back to this article every so often because every so often I get a player that wants to go into business.  Currently, my youngest's character, Erky Timbers, wants to hire a legion of gnome artificers to build magic items.  Erky is taking all his treasure and putting it to this goal.  Gods help me if he figures it all out.

Nice ad for the Dragonbone dice roller and the Dragonskin book covers.  They looked cool, too bad they tended to melt onto the covers of books and ruin them.  

John C. Brunnell is up with The Role of Books. Covered are Janet and Isaac Asimov's The Norby Chronicles.  Janet Morris takes a break from Thieve's World to go to Hell in Heroes in Hell. The one I read back then was Diane Carey's Dreadnought! about the Dreadnought class starship in Star Trek. 

Folklore is the topic in Thomas M. Kane's The Tales People Tell.  This is the backstory part of world-building that so many of today's gamers love. It gives examples of tales from our world and how they are used and then provides some examples.  Though to really use this article well you should read Kane's examples, but make up your own.  

Computers are all the rage in the 80s and Mike Gray reviews Ultima IV in Magic and Morality. Gray mentions he hates giving rave reviews since they are rarely accurate, but he raves about Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar.  He talks a lot about the morality of the game and even mentions that *shock* you can get through it without a lot of combat!  He makes the claim that this is the closest that anyone has gotten (so far) to a full-fledged RPG experience on a computer.  

Clout for Clerics is a good article to expand the role of the Cleric and give them some followers.  James Yates gives us lesser clerics and man-at-arms followers for clerics and explains why, out of all the classes, they should have them. 

A Saddle's Not Enough by Mike Albers covers the historical importance of the stirrups. This actually helped me on a history exam later in life. 

William Carlson covers combat in the Conan RPG from TSR in Combat Complexity.

Our centerpiece is a cut-out cardboard dragon that my issue does not have.  The CD-ROM has it, but no idea if it is complete or not. 

Ah, now time for a bit of a look into the Way Back Machine.  First is TSR Previews with what are going to be the hot new titles from TSR in November 1986.  The Wilderness Survival Guide is coming out for AD&D. The Creature Catalog for Basic D&D is on the way and wait, what's this a SEQUEL to Ravenloft?  Ravenloft II: The House on Gryphon Hill? Sign me up!  We also get the Convention Calendar for September/October 1986.  

TSR Creator Profiles feature the late great Keith Parkinson and the still great Bruce Heard. 

A Difficult Undertaking is our fiction bit from none other than Harry Turtledove. 

Easy as 1, 2, 3 from Rick Swan talks about how to make NPCs more interesting.  This article largely focuses on how to make the best use of tables on pages 100-102 of the Dungeon Master's Guide. 

Larry Church tries to tempt me with better math in One Roll, To Go.  Using his binomial tables he has you reduce the numbers of rolls you need to make.  Nice idea, bad concept though.  Why? People love dice and love to roll them.  While rolling less might mean a faster game it doesn't mean a more fun game. 

Top Secret gets in on the Top Gun craze with military aircraft in Top (Secret) Guns.  My first college roommate was Air Force ROTC. Nice enough guy, but fuck I never want to see Top Gun again. Though that soundtrack by Berlin was quite good. 

Mike Sitkiewicz is a triple threat with his Minimagic article where he painted the minis, built the dioramas, and took the pictures.  See for yourself.

Like many of us, Scott A. Hutcheon loved the Terminator movie (there was only one still) so he gives us Cold Steel, various hunter and killer robots for Gamma World 2nd Edition, with 3rd Edition notes promised.  I can't throw stones really. I even wanted to try out a "Terminator" like future in Gamma World of the last of the pure strain humans vs killer robots I called Machine World, gleefully stolen from the Queen song of the same name. 

Ah some Traveller goodness. Here we get Star Cops! from Terrence R. McInnes.  It is still three years before COPS hits the Fox Network, but if you start humming Bad Boys no one is going to stop you.  This article is also one of the reasons why I don't have a Dragon CD-ROM for issues past 250.  This article is copyrighted by McInnes, so likely there were never any second-run or reprintings allowed.   Anyway, this article deals with character creation for police forces. It actually looks rather fun.  

We get to the small ads. You can cast your own metal minis for just pennies! Get your own custom full-figure character from Avil Enterprises (always wanted one) and ads for various game stores including the legendary Wargames West. 

Tramp was making some news again on social media so it is a bit bittersweet to see Wormy here. Dragonsmirth has the normal silliness, but this issue has extra black mold. Not happy.  And three pages of Snarf Quest.

All in all not a bad issue. Not a completely memorable one. But not bad.  Though I am going to need to double up on the Benadryl after this one. 

A couple of weeks back I noticed a posting in one of the Greyhawk groups on Facebook about a new adventure. It was called The Witch-Queen's Lament so you know it immediately had my attention. The adventure was designed for OSRIC and had an old-school module look and feel to it.  I didn't know much about it to be honest, but I was sure I was going to get it.  I went over the publisher's website, casl Entertainment, and bought a copy of the PDF and perfect bound softcover.  While I was predisposed to like it, getting the PDF made me quite excited for it.

The Witch-Queen’s Lament

An adventure for character levels 6-9 (70,002 total experience points) for OSRIC or compatible games. PDF and softcover available, 95 pages.

This adventure is "compliant" (I think "compatible" is the word they want, it is "compliant" with the OGL) with OSRIC.  This really means it can (read should) be used with AD&D 1st Edition.  It will work with other games too, but more on that.

This adventure is designed for Tournament play. That is why we have the 70,002 XP value on it and there is a tournament scoring sheet.  IF you wish to play this adventure with tournament rules and scoring my advice is do not change anything about it.  I have run a few tournament adventures with scoring and this one feels like it put together well. My concern would only be can you fit it into the four-hour time slot?  I am 100% certain that author Carlos A.S. Lising has and has done so many times.  I am not sure *I* could do it.  That all being said I want to look at this from the point of view of a campaign, and my War of the Witch Queens campaign in particular. 

So let's start back at the beginning.  This adventure was the official Tourneyment adventure for GrogCon 2021.  Looking over their catalog it looks like they have run a few adventures at other old-school cons as well.  This bodes well.  The adventure was written by Carlos A.S. Lising, with cover and interior art by Daniel Govar, and cartography from Glynn Seal.  Carlos A.S. Lising is a huge fan of module S4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth which is also one of my favorites. This makes me optimistic for this adventure.

Now when this was announced for sale there was a little bit of wailing from the usual suspects in regard to the module code, G2, on the cover.  With many complaining that this was not really G2.  Sorry but the TSR G2 The Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl is over 40 years old now and neither TSR nor Gygax owned the letter G.  I am sure the G, in this case, stood for "GrogCon."  If this bugs you, be like Elsa and let it go.

On to the adventure proper.  We learn right away that the eponymous Witch-Queen is none other than "Natasha the Dark" aka Tasha, aka Tashanna, aka Zyblina, aka Iggwilv herself!  Ok. You now have my undivided attention.  We get a bit of backstory on Natasha the Dark including her becoming a Daughter of Baba Yaga, and her sisters Vasilisa (Elena) the Fair and Anya the Plain.  Anya is going to be our focus here since she has gone missing with Natasha's matryoshka doll. This was no ordinary doll, this nesting doll held a bit of Natasha's soul/life force and has kept her immortal for centuries.  Natasha, it a bit uncharacteristic token of love, gave the newly enchanted doll to Anya for safe-keeping, knowing her sister would love it and cherish it. The side effect has been that as long as Anya has the doll she will also be immortal, just stuck in the form of a 12-year-old girl.

The doll, and Anya, has now been stolen and IggwilvNatasha needs you all to get it back.

As far as adventure hooks goes this one is a good one.  The doll is in the hands of an evil Wizard named Andrei Anazinov who knows it is special and knows Anya has never aged. He trying to discover its secrets.  So get the doll before the wizard figures out Natasha's immortality.  The adventure overtly makes it about saving Natasha's immortality, but as you read it the real reason is also uncovered, the ancient Witch Queen still loves her little sister. Undoing the immortality would be bad for Natasha, but it is also likely she has many safeguards in place.  It would however kill Anya outright.

I don't want to go too much deeper than this in case potential players read this.  It is a MacGuffin search, but a fun one and a chance to interact with one of the more notorious characters in D&D lore.

Comments on the Adventure

A few comments.  I can completely understand why Natasha wants the doll and Anya back.  I even understand why she wants good adventurers to do it.  I am not sure why someone of Natasha's caliber would a. let the adventurers know who she is and b. what the doll is.  It seems to me that good or evil the party might want to hide or destroy the doll to stop an evil witch queen.  When I run this I am going to need another reason.

The maps are great. I am glad I have to PDF to print them out on my own.

There are some cool new monsters (a must in any adventure) and magic items.  There is even a pronunciation guide. 

One nitpick. None of the pages have page numbers on them. Seems a touch odd, but I can deal.

Sixteen pages are given over to the 8 pre-gen characters.  So that is nice.  There are also tournament scoring sheets.

Adapting for War of the Witch Queens

I bought this adventure with idea of adapting it over to my War of the Witch Queen campaign.  This is not the first "Witch Queen" adventure I have bought, nor will it be my last I am sure.   The fact that it includes Natasha/Iggwilv just makes it more perfect to be honest.

So here are my changes.

I am not running this as a tournament since I am going to be using OSE-Advanced Fantasy for it. There will be some more tweaks for the rules, but I think it is going to work out just fantastic really.

Natasha/Iggwilv is not going to let the adventurers know who she is or why she wants the doll back.  I am going to have her disguise herself as Elena the Fair and "Elena" will be hiring them to rescue her sister Anya. This way she feels she is not lying about her mission.  In the end, Anya will out "Elena" as Iggwilv, but the terms of their agreement will remain.  Maybe Vasilisa the Beautiful will show up to take Anya.  I have Elena and Vasilisa as two separate characters. 

I love the whole Russian feel to all of this, but I am going to take out Andrei Anazinov and replace him with Kelek.  Kelek has had some dealings with Iggwilv already and he is the "big bad" of the War of the Witch Queens.  I need an adventure to get him in front of the PCs instead of making him a behind the shadows guy.  Andrei is a 14th level wizard. I made Kelek a 15th level magic-user/necromancer.  Also in my games Kelek is looking for ways to make himself ever young, he thinks Anya (not the doll) is the answer.  Kelek is a misanthrope, so kidnapping and experimenting on a little kid is kinda on-brand for him So this all fits.  

Plus I have these great minis to use. 

There might be other little tweaks along the way. More winter wolves and worgs to be sure. I am certainly going to steal ideas from the newer 5e versions of Iggwilv and Kelek and I am also going to steal ideas from the Pathfinder Witch War series.

There are more adventures on the casl Entertainment website. Including one, C11 - When Comes the Witching Hour, that looks like it could be Iggwilv on the cover.  So I am going to need to check that one out as well.  Just watched this video and yup, looks like it is! I have to go get it now.

Arguably one of the biggest success stories of the late OSR movement has been the publication of Old-School Essentials Classic Fantasy (2019) and Old-School Essentials Advanced Fantasy (2021).  Indeed I feel that OSE has supplanted Swords & Wizardry, the darling of the middle OSR movement as the old-school game of choice.  It is the old-school game of choice here in my home game, alternating between it and D&D 5e, and seems to be the most talked-about game in the old-school discussion areas. 

This is all with good reason.  OSE is well designed, superbly organized, and has wonderful art.  There is a minimalist approach to the rules and presentation that does not detract from the experience, instead, it rather enhances it.   You can see my enthusiasm in my review of the Old-School Essentials Classic Fantasy Boxed set back in 2020.   So imagine my surprise when I learned I had not given OSE Advanced a proper review yet.

I have detailed my introduction to D&D many times here. But briefly, my "first" D&D was a poorly copied version of Holmes Basic with an AD&D Monster Manual.  My first "true" D&D, the one I could properly call my own was Moldvay Basic/Cook & MArsh Expert (commonly referred to as "B/X").  I would over the course of a year or so add in elements of AD&D.  Most importantly the Deities & Demigods, the Fiend Folio, and a copy of Eldritch Wizardry.  *My* D&D was always a mish-mash of Basic D&D and AD&D.  I later discovered that my playstyle was not at all unique.

Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy Edition really strikes at the heart of what this sort of play was like.  The familiar and easy Basic/Expert rules with AD&D layered on top.  Layered is the right word, AD&D had a lot of situational rules and rules used in tournaments and rules designed to cover what looked like medieval realism.  As real that is in a world where half-elves fought dragons with magic.  OSE-AF strips this down back to the B/X style rules found in OSE-CF and then adds in what people used the most from AD&D.  No weapon speed factors, no tournament scoring, just D&D-style play.  

OSE-AF is divided into two books, the Player's Tome and the Referee's Tome.

For this review, I am considering the hardcover books I got via the Kickstarter, the PDFs from DriveThruRPG, and extra copies of the Player's Tome I picked up at my FLGS.  All books were purchased by me and none were submitted for review purposes.

OSE-AF Player's Tome

Hardcover. Black and White and color interior art and covers. 248 pages. Bookmarked PDF with hyperlinked table of contents and index. $40.00 for the hardcover print (retail). $15.00 for the PDF.

The Player's Tome covers everything an OSE-AF player needs to know. The book details a lot of the same rules that are found in the OSE-Classic Fantasy (or read: Basic) rules.  This new book though integrates the "Basic" and "Advanced" material together with some notes on the "Advanced Fantasy" sections. One might be tempted to say that this book is not needed if you have the OSE-CF book, but that is not really the case. While there are certainly more classes, and more monsters in the case of the Referee Tome, there is still quite a lot of new material here.  Enough to make AF twice as large content-wise as CF.   

The main feature of this book, and indeed all of the OSE line, is the layout.  All material is laid out so that everything you need to read is on facing pages.  So a character class always takes up two pages (even and odd) so that when laid flat everything can be read at once and easily.  There are very few exceptions to this rule and it gives OSE it's unique look and feel. Add in the art, sparingly but effectively used, the feel is elegant, if minimalist, efficiency.   This is the same design that made D&D 4e a joy to read.  The same feeling is here.

Advanced Fantasy follows its Advanced namesake and splits character race and character class into two separate things. Basic combined race and class so you got Clerics (always human) and Dwarves (always fighters).  Here is the option that most folks want in the "Advanced" game.  In addition to the four classes and the four races of Basic, this book introduces six more races and nine more classes.

In the OSE-AF book, we get: Acrobat, Assassin, Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Illusionist, Knight, Magic-user, Paladin, Ranger, and Thief.

There are also the "race as class" variants of: Drow, Duergar, Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Half-elf, Halfling, Half-orc, Human, and Svirfneblin.  The level maximum is 14 for humans and variable for others. All race/class combinations are detailed.  This covers our first 80 some odd pages.

What follows next are guides for character advancement, equipment, animals of burden, transportation, and crews.

The next biggest section is Magic and this covers all the spells for the magic-using classes. Since the max level for any human is 14, spells are limited. Divine spellcasters are limited to the 5th level of casting and Arcane to the 6th level. The advantage here is the clerics and druids are on more equal footing with each other and so are magic-users and illusionists.  Unlike their Advanced namesake, this book does not require spell components nor are their other details given.  The spells are firmly in the Basic format.

The book wraps up with Adventuring, Hirelings, and building strongholds.  

The feel is solid B/X Basic with enough "Advanced" added in to make it feel just a little different. Or in other words, exactly how we used to play it from 1980 to 1983.

OSE-AF Referee's Tome

Hardcover. Black and White and color interior art and covers. 248 pages. Bookmarked PDF with hyperlinked table of contents and index. $40.00 for the hardcover print (retail). $15.00 for the PDF.

This book covers how to run an OSE-AF game.  Some of the details here are the same as OSE-CF but there are enough rules additions and clarification to make it worthwhile to anyone that has OSE-CF.

The first part covers running the game and adventures along with designing a dungeon and wilderness areas.

The next section, Monsters, makes up the bulk of the book.  All the old OSE-CF favorites are here and most of the Advanced era monsters.  In 107 or so pages we get over 320 monsters.  Again the art is light, but it is there.  We do not get any Demons or Devils, those are coming in a future book from my understanding, but it is still plenty.

The next largest section is Treasure which includes intelligent swords.

We also get sections on monster tables by terrain, strongholds, and NPCs.

The main feature of this book, and indeed all of the OSE line, is the layout.  All material is laid out so that everything you need to read is on facing pages. This is less obvious here as in the Player's Tome, but it is still a solid feature.

The two-volume set might just be the ultimate in expression of the time period in which I was doing my earliest D&D play.  There are other Basic/Advanced hybrid games out there and they all provide a good mix of their sources, but it is OSE-AF that is the closest to what I was playing then. All of the fun of Basic with the options in Advanced I loved.   The modularity of OSE also allows for expansion.  While the 1 to 14 level range covers most of what people will play there is no reason why there can't be an OSE-Companion to cover higher levels.

OSE-AF Carcass Crawler #1

PDF only, 32 pages. Color covers, black & white interior art. $7.50 PDF.

The sometimes zine for OSE and named for the OGC version of the infamous carrion crawler.

This issue adds the new races to the Advanced Fantasy line, the gargantuan (like Goliaths), the goblin, and the hephaestan (logical, elf-like beings).  I am particularly happy with the Goblin.

New classes for Classic and Advanced fantasy are the acolyte (a type of spell-less cleric with healing), the gargantuan (race-class), the goblin (race-class), the hephaestan (race-class), the kineticist (psychics), and the mage (a spell-less magic-user with magical abilities).

There are new rules for fighters and thieves as well as black powder guns.  I like the fighter talents, help give it a bit more to do really.  They are at every 5 levels, but I might make them every 4 instead. 

OSE-AF Fantasy Reference Booklet

PDF only, 32 pages. Color covers, black & white interior art. $4.00 PDF.

This handy guide covers all the major tables found in the OSE Advanced Fantasy line. For $4 it is a great little reference.

Through out all these books and the entire OSE line the art is both evocative of the old-school style and still modern enough to please new audiences.

This is the game of choice for me to introduce old-school style play to players of modern games. My regular 5e group took to it like ducks to water. They love it. They still love their 5e games, but they also like to do this one.  None of them had ever played B/X prior to this and it was a huge success.

I know that Gavin Norman and Necrotic Gnome have more material to give us for this, I hope it all lives up this new gold standard I set my OSR book to. 

Back to Monstrous Mondays!  A quick update on where I am at with my Basic Bestiary.  Book 1 is done, I just have some editing and making sure my numbers are doing what I want them to do.  I am going back and increasing the Treasure amounts a little.  It has been pointed out to me that my Old-School games are rather light on the treasure.  I also want to make sure that my XP values are appropriate for the monsters' special abilities.  Book 2 needs a bit more work since I have a ton of undead, but I have a plan for that.  When I am done with all the "level setting" of Book 1, Book 2 will go much faster.

So what does that mean for you my good reader?  Well for the most part I am not going to post new monsters for a couple of weeks at least since I am not actively writing monsters.  That could change if I come across an entry that needs a top to down rewrite.

For a bit I am going to review some of the monster books I have here.  Not so much for the individual monsters, but for a feel of how they work together.  I am not looking for a unified milieu of monsters. On the contrary, the original Monster Manual was an odd collection of monsters of myth and legend and it is now my gold standard.  But at least how they can group together thematically.  Even if that theme is "fantasy roleplaying."

I am going to start with my newest one first.

Mordenkainen Presents Monsters of the Multiverse

Monsters of the Multiverse is the newest book in the Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition line.  It has been eagerly anticipated since the announcement of a rules update coming in 2024 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of D&D.  The new rules are likely to be something akin to D&D 5.5 or even D&D 5r.  I am not expecting a full-blown 6th edition yet. But that is for another time. Today my focus is on this new monster manual because that is indeed what it is.

Mordenkainen Presents Monsters of the Multiverse.  288 pages. Full-color cover and interior art. Part of the D&D 5 gift set, available separately in April.

Monsters of the Multiverse is split into two large chapters.  

Chapter 1: Fantastical Races

This chapter covers the various races that can be used as Player Characters. All in all there are 30 races (33 with subtypes) that are available to use as characters or NPCs here.  Many have appeared in other books and most date back to the 1st Ed days.  In particular, there are the expected choices like Deep Gnomes, Eladrin, Goblins, Minotaur, orcs, and so on.  There are a few I want to focus on.

Fairy. This is fun class and one that began in official D&D books in 4th edition. They are a fun little character that has worked well in other non-D&D FRPG for decades.  D&D in finally catching up.   I converted my own Dirty Nell from Ghosts of Albion and she worked out great. 

Goblins are getting some lore updates tying them deeper into the Feywild.  Again, D&D started this in 4e but are playing catch-up here.  Now you can play a Labyrinth style goblin or even one like you find in GURPS Goblins (a completely underrated and underappreciated GURPS supplement).  Of course, there are still many, many evil goblins and they are likely the majority.  But PCs are of any alignment.  My character for this race is Nik Nak, by Chaotic Neutral Goblin Warlock.

Minotaurs go back to 1st Ed Dragonlance as a PC race.  Well, now they are back.

Satyrs are now a playable race.  They were back in 4e where they are a male-only race with hamadryads as their female counterparts. In 5e this is expanded, satyrs can be male or female.  Now if you tell me satyrs are only male I am going to remind you there is a reason why you failed art history.  There are plenty of female satyrs depicted in art over the last few centuries.  I might be playing the stereotype here, but my satyr character is a bard named Roan.  For the hell of it he plays the bagpipes.

If you must have a male-only satyr race, then by all means do that. There is nothing in the rules that say you can't.  I am still a HUGE fan of the Hooves and Green Hair article by Bennet Marks in Dragon #109.  I even commented in my This Old Dragon for #109 that they would make great races for D&D 5.

Shadar-Kai the S&M goths of 4e are updated again for 5e. They premiered in 3e as a type of elf. They are back to being elves here (they had been re-introduced as a race in previous 5e books). My "evil Wonder Twins" of Runu and Urnu are my goto Shadar-kai. 

No race has a default alignment. Indeed alignments for races are never mentioned.  

Chapter 2: Bestiary 

This section covers 250 of the total 288 pages.  Here we get over 250 (259 by my count) monsters for 5e. This is the most of any book aside from the Monster Manual.  This makes this book more akin to the Fiend Folio or Monster Manual 2.  

There are some duplications here. If you have other books then it is very reasonable to ask do I really need this book?  I can't say how much each monster was updated.  A few had some edits and some were largely the same.  BUT I can let you know what monsters are here and where they came from first.

I have created a Google Sheets spreadsheet with all the monsters from all the D&D 5 books except the Monster Manual.  I'll add that one later, but I wanted to focus on all the "new" monsters first.  You can see the duplicates and what books have which monsters.

Despite the whinging of old men online, all the monsters in this book do in fact have alignments. Even ones that have playable race options.  There are still plenty of evil creatures to fight and kill. It is true that the alignments are prefaced by "typically" but that is just saying the quiet part out loud.  That was true for 1st ed and it has been true for every other edition too.  5e is not getting rid of alignment.  

If I had a complaint it is that major unique characters such as Fraz-Urb'luu, Graz'zt and Geyron are not listed under demons or devils, but rather alphabetically by name.  Oh they are still demons and devils and they are still evil to the core, they are just alphabetized by proper name instead of "Demon, Graz'zt." A nitpick to be sure. I kept them like that in my list.  Dinosaurs are listed under Dinosaur, however.  There is a listing for a "Brontosaurus" as opposed to the "Apatosaurus" but I kinda like that to be honest.  Also, my all-time favorite, the Dimetrodon, is here even though it is not a dinosaur. 

Who should buy this?

Well, that is a good question. Largely it depends on much you play D&D 5e and/or how much do you love monsters?   I love monsters. So this is a no brainer for me.  This is D&D 5e's Monster Manual II.

If you play D&D and do not have the other books listed in my sheet then yes get this. 

If you are looking for insight into what might be in D&D 5.5/5r well there is little new knowledge here.

If you play D&D and want to try out these new races, then yes, this is a great choice. 

For me?  I love it, I think it is fantastic and worth the money spent.

Ok. Today's #FollowFriday might be seen as a little self-serving...and it is.  But that does not negate the fact that there are a lot of great things brewing over at Elf Lair Games!

Elf Lair publishes my original Witch class for Basic-era games and Eldritch Witchery for Spellcraft & Swordplay.   But most importantly They publish my newest pride and joy NIGHT SHIFT: Veterans of the Supernatural Wars.

There are a lot of great things coming from ELG so now is a great time to give them, well...us, a follow!

Elf Lair Games

• Website and Storefront
• The Grey Elf website
• Elf Lair Blog
• The Wasted Lands Blog, for Jason's home campaign
• Facebook Group
• Instagram
• Discord
• Twitter
• DriveThruRPG site
• Studio2 Publishing 
• Discussion Boards
• https://elflairgames.proboards.com/
• https://odd74.proboards.com/board/82/elf-lair-games

So be sure to check out all these sites and follow them on social media.

If you pardon the play on words here, the book Gods, Demigods, and Heroes holds a place of strange honor in the pantheon of D&D books.  It was the last of the Original D&D Supplements, Supplement IV. The next thing to come out would bring the split in the D&D product line, the Holmes Basic would continue OD&D in a strange OD&D/AD&D hybrid and the Monster Manual would start the AD&D product line.   In many ways, my personal "Ur-D&D" is a combination of Holmes Basic, the Monster Manual, Eldritch Wizardry, and GD&H.  My copy is the 7th Printing from 1976 so it at least mentions all the above books on the back page. 

The book was certainly making the rounds in my schools' various D&D groups and it was used EXACTLY as Mr. Kask told everyone not to use it as; a high-powered Monster Manual.  I have a distinct memory of hearing a conversation in my 8th grade D&D club about how someone's character was now the head of the Greek Gods because he had killed Zeus with Stormbringer.  It was a different time.

But I am not here today to comment on the various merits of the GD&H book.  I am here to talk about what it has to offer in terms of a One Man's God feature.

To do that I first need to at least see what Gods, Demigods & Heroes has in common with Deities & Demigods.  

The Gods, Demigods, and Heroes

I am going to compare my original Gods, Demigods, & Heroes to my original Deities & Demigods.  Both books would later have various mythos removed.

The books have the following pantheons/mythos in common (in order of appearance from GD&H):

Egyptian, India, Greek, Celtic, Norse (the largest), Finnish, Melnibone, Central American, "Eastern Mythos" (Chinese)

And the only Mythos unique to GD&H: Howard's Hyborea.

If you grab the PDF or POD versions of GD&H now there are no Melnibone or Hybora sections.

In many cases, there are more entries for various gods, heroes, and monsters in GD&H than in the D&DG.  Largely this is due to the much smaller statblocks and the lack of any art.  I could spend a lot of time going over the various differences, but I am sure that has already been done elsewhere online.  There are people that live for that sort of in depth D&D scholarship.

This is a One Man's God post, so to stay on topic I am looking for demons.

Deities, Demigods, & Demons

This will be a bit harder to tease out since many of the entries do not have an alignment listed.   Yes you read that correctly one of the oldest D&D books does not even use alignment for gods or monsters.

Also, the aim of One Man's God is to cast various creatures in terms of AD&D Demons.  AD&D only existed in Gary's head at this point. Though the demons did get a jump start in Eldritch Wizardry.  So for this posting, I am going to see what monsters here could be classified as Eldritch Wizardry demons.  This is appropriate since so many of the entries here have psionic abilities.

Egypt, Greek, Celtic, Melnibone, Central American, Chinese: No new creatures.

India: The section on India gives us three fantastic choices.  The Rakshasas will later go on to appear in the Monster Manual and Lawful Evil.  The related Yakshas, called "The weaker demons" and two other possible ones in the Naga (also in the MM) and the Maruts, or the Wind Spirits. Maruts are likely to be good-aligned. 

Norse: While I commented in the past that the giants of Norse myth take the place of other myths demons, there are some creatures that could be considered more demon-like.  Garm the guard dog of the Gate of Hel is literally a Hel-Hound. The Fenris Wolf and Jormungandr are both either demi-gods or demons.  But these last two do not meet all the requirements I set out to be AD&D demons.

Finnish: The Finnish myths get a lot of expansion here and if anyone is a fan of these tales then DG&H is a superior take than D&DG. Likely to due space reasons.

Hyborea

This one is getting special attention as it is "new" and tales from Robert E. Howard really shaped the look and feel of D&D.  Interestingly enough, these gods have no psionic powers.

There are few creatures here named demons; Demon of the Black Hands, Brylukas (neither man, nor beast, nor demon but a little of all three), Thaug the Demon, Khosatral Khel the Demon, the Octopus Demon, and Yag-Kosha.

This section is really written for people who already know all of these stories as there is not a lot of description given for anything.  I know some of these stories but I am no expert by any stretch of the imagination. 

For this, I would need to defer to the expert on Conan and how to use REH in OD&D, Jason Vey.  He has done enough about this to secure his place even the official accounts of the DG&H write-ups.

• The Age of Conan (blog posts)
• The Age of Conan: Secrets of Acheron
• The Age of Conan (PDF)
• An Age Undreamed of With Jason Vey's Free OD&D Booklet Age of Conan For Your Old School Campaigns

And with this epilog I wrap up the original purpose of One Man's God.  I have a couple of posts on Syncretism still to do and maybe a couple of other side quests.

I am a complete sucker for anything B/X.  While I have many games I love, it is B/X era D&D that really gets my nostalgia going.  So anything made for it gets my attention.  While the products, both official and fan-made, can vary in quality, I am rarely disappointed.  

One publisher that has delivered well on the nostalgia factor is Jonathan Becker of Running Beagle Games.  Becker, known for his B/X Blackrazor blog, "gets" B/X D&D.  He has demonstrated time and again that he gets how B/X is different that AD&D and indeed other Basic-era clones.  His B/X Companion remains one of my top 10 favorite books of the published OSR books.  So when he came out with a new book I jumped on it!

And...promptly forgot about it!  Ok, in my defense October is like my high holy month and I had a lot going on.   So now it is February and I figure I should come back to this one.

Comes Chaos

by Jonathan Becker.  64 pages, black & white art by Kelvin Green.  

Comes Chaos is a combination rules addition/setting for use with B/X era D&D.  It can be used with other versions of Basic D&D and the various clones, but there is a focus here.  That is appropriate for a few reasons I will touch on in a bit.

Like the Basic and Expert books of old, and his own Companion book, this is a 64 page book.  Printed with it's black and red cover it would look rather nice sitting next to the other books.  At this point Becker has enough material (Companion, Complete B/X Adventurer, and this one) for a reasonable boxed set.  Maybe one with a "3" in the corner.

PART 1: INTRODUCTION

Comes Chaos deals, naturally, with the forces of Chaos (capital C) and how to use them in your game.  There is an implied setting that can be used as-is or elements can be used in any game. 

The book is formated like that of the Basic and Expert (and Companion) books, so following the flow of information is straightforward.  The difference here is that these are alternate and additional rules. 

This section also introduces the "Four Great Powers" the Demon Lords ArjaDem, MorSolahn, SeiAhsk, and TeeGal.

PART 2: RUINED PLAYER CHARACTERS

Here we get alterations to the seven player characters classes. Clerics of gods of Law, for example, cannot use reversed versions of their spells. But their "Turning Undead" chart is not extended to include the demons of this game.  There is a new Magic-User "sub-class" (that word is not used) in the Chaos Sorcerer.  This class works a bit like the Sorcerer or Warlock of other D&D games. It uses Intelligence as a Prime, but I am going to change it to Charisma. 

The next part of this section deals with Corrupted characters and Chaos Champions.  Corrupted characters are ones that started out "good" and then fell into chaos.  Chaos Champions start out chaotic. These characters also gain the favor of one of the four powers. 

The four powers and their gifts are covered last. The four masters are unique to this book but remind a bit of the sort of creatures one might find in the writings of Moorcock. Not quite demons, not quite Lovecraftian horrors, but a little bit of both.  There is also a desire, and this might just be me, to link them up with the old AD&D Elemental Princes.  Maybe because there are four.

PART 3: TAINTED MAGIC

Magic gets some changes in Comes Chaos.  Both Clerics and Magic-users now have some restrictions on what spells they can normally cast.  We also get some new Dark Sorcery spells used by Chaos Sorcerers, Demons, and Chaos Champions.  Additionally, some spells are "patron" spells for three of the four Chaos Masters.  The other Master, ArjaDem, forbids their followers from using magic. 

The spells are in B/X format and there are eight per level for levels 1 to 6.  Some are repeats of other B/X spells. There are enough new spells to keep players on their toes when dealing with a minion of chaos. 

PART 4: EXPLORING THE WASTES

The Wastelands are areas that are corrupted by Chaos.  Spending time in these lands also leads to corruption and mutations in the living creatures here.  This section also has other hazards such as how long food and water will last, how much movement and time is changed, and what sorts of strange occurrences and creatures that can be encountered.   The section has a whole Colour out of Space feel to it. 

PART 5: BLOOD AND SOULS

This section deals with encounters and combat. Alterations are given for Champions of Chaos and demons as well as others dealing with these threats.

PART 6: BEASTS AND DEMONS

This is our monster section and it has 37 new monsters.  As expected 19 of them are demons and 4 are undead.  There are also corrupted versions of other monster types (elves, dwarves, etc) that can be used as guidelines for other corrupted monsters not listed.  

The demons depicted here are not the Demons of the AD&D monster manual. Nor are they the demons of Earth myth and legends.  These are new creatures unique to this book.  There are some interesting ones here and again the feeling is not quite demons and not quite Lovecraftian horrors, but a combination of the two.

PART 7: UNHOLY TREASURES

This section covers the treasures you can find with these creatures or in the wastelands.

PART 8: DEMON MASTER INFORMATION

The person running these games is called the "Demon Masters" which is just a way really to use "DM."  This section covers how to deal with corruption, magical research and chaos magic, and how to design a wasteland.

There is another class presented here, the Witch Hunter, from the Complete B/X Adventurer. Despite the success and dare I say universal approval of his own Companion Rules, this class only goes to level 14.  Though it is mentioned that levels 15-36 can be found in the Adventurer book. 

In fact the next section covers using this book with the Complete B/X Adventurer and the B/X Companion. 

PART 9: SLAVE-LORDS OF CHAOS

This section covers how to run an "evil" game including unique experience point rewards.

Comes Chaos is a great extension to any B/X style game.  Especially ones where "Chaos" is more of a factor than say "Evil."

Chaos in Comes Chaos follows the implicit guidelines originally set up in Moldvay Basic.  Chaos is not just a philosophy or moral outlook, it is a force and "thing" that must be dealt with. I feel this book does a good job in trying to expand on this notion and make it something to use in your games.

The ideas presented here are not all unique; Lamentations of the Flame Princess and Dungeon Crawl Classics cover similar ground in terms of Chaos as a Force to Fight and Realms of Crawling Chaos for the Lovecraftian Chaos is a Force.  Comes Chaos though combines these ideas into something that is uniquely B/X.  Yes both LotFP and Realms of Crawling Chaos have strong B/X roots, but this is explicitly B/X.  

Given this, Comes Chaos should work well with Old School Essentials as well.  Though one gets the feeling that OSE is more like "The Hobbit" than it is "Colour Out of Space."  Though I am not sure it would feel the same for Advanced versions of the Old-School games since there is a focus on Good vs. Evil there as well. 

The art by Kelvin Green is great and having one artist to do all the work gives the book a united vision. 

It is available at DriveThruRPG where it is currently just under $14.  The rule of thumb I have adopted over the years is 10¢ per page, which would place this at $6.40.  The price is twice that, but I still feel it is worthwhile.  Again this is a rule of thumb, not a hard and fast rule. 

There is no print-on-demand option on DriveThru for this.  Though none of Running Beagle's books have this.  You can though get print copies of this and all their other books from their website.  Print copies of Comes Chaos are $27.99 and handled via PayPal.

Comes Chaos also is not released through the Open Gaming License.  Not an issue to be honest, but I look at it as a way the creator/publisher "gives back" to the community.  Generally speaking, OGL products sell better than their non-OGL contemporaries/counterparts. 

Comes Chaos is a fun supplement.  I used similar ideas when running my B/X games in the past I will adopt some of these ideas to use in my current OSE game.  I am not likely to use the four demonic princes, my game has a solid cosmology, but I might adopt them for a 5e game I am running that could use Chaotic Evil figures like these.  

Who should get this?  DMs that want to add a little chaos effects to their games but do not want to go the full Dungeon Crawl Classics route.  DMs that play/run B/X and/or OSE in particular. 

This is also for DMs that enjoy the classical roots of the game but whose interests lean more towards Moorcock rather than Lovecraft.

For me, the price and the lack of the OGL keep it from being a perfect addition to my games.

Time for another Featured Artist post.  I discovered today's artist, Brian Brinlee, in one of the fantasy art groups I frequent on Facebook.  He had a great style and something about his art made me think of some of the old D&D books from the late 90s.   So I got him to commission a piece for me I was calling "Tea with the Witches." It featured five witches from various D&D worlds and it takes place in The Simbul's castle in the Forgotten Realms.

Here are the witches pictured. Left to right (clockwise, never widdershins when dealing with witches):

Sagarassi the Sea Witch (Krynn/Dragonlance), Iggwilv the Witch Queen (Oerth/Greyhawk), The Simbul, Witch Queen of Aglarond (Toril/The Forgotten Realms and where this is taking place), Larina (my OC), Feiya the Pathfinder iconic witch (Golarion/Pathfinder).

They are playing Pentacles, a game played with five people using Tarroka cards.

I loved this one so much I wanted to share more of his art with you.

You can find Brian online on his Facebook, Instagram and DeviantArt pages.

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Deviant Art

Thanks so much for sharing these with me Brian!