Ostensible Cat

Ok, ok, it has been years since Delve! Zine issue 2. What can I say, I'm a busy guy. Well, maybe, but also I tend to be lazy, and let's face it, the past few years have been a cluster F*** and I just was struggling with some things. Anywho, on the verge of my son Bear's 16th birthday, I decided to get my shit together and put out the third issue of Delve! Well, not exactly, but pretty much. Anyway, I had a quite different plan for the third issue, but since we are doing a Japanese theme for Bear's 16th (he's all about Japan and the manga/anime and culture at the moment). I remembered being roughly his age and being interested in similar things (Robotech was huge for me then as well as things like Lone Wolf and Cub). I picked up a copy of Advance Dungeons and Dragons Oriental Adventures from the Stars and Stripes bookstore in Nuremburg Germany in 1987. I was enthralled. Now, since we play Swords and Wizardry, I figured it'd be cool to introduce some Asian them

Some of you may remember many years ago, an initiative in the OSR Blogosphere to encourage folks to create a shared world sandbox adventure setting known as the Sea of O'Sr. Here's one of the main blog posts about it from the Lands of Ara blog:  http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/p/sea-of-osr-adventure-path.html For years, I've had this tucked away in my head and have really, really wanted to get back to this idea of creating a shared world sandbox for folks to adventure and create in. Being a huge Michael Moorcock fan and Elric Sailor on the Seas of Fate being my absolute favourite in the saga, the whole idea of a pandimensional etheral sea with many strange locations has absolutely fascinated me. I still think the idea behind the Sea of O'Sr is a great vehicle for it. Not sold on the name but I don't hate it either. Still a working title. Anyway, I'd like to do more than just small islands like in the original concept. I'd like to encourage anyone who

Heya Gang, I'm sure by now that most or all of you know that this is the Swords and Wizardry Appreciation Day.  While I'm not officially signed up to be a participating blog, I did want to chime in supporting Swords and Wizardry.  I'm a big supporter of all the verious "retroclone" systems out there (although I must admit to being more heavily in the OSRIC camp) and if you've played any of the older editions, it is a snap to convert between any of them.  In fact, I'm pretty confident that it is so easy, I'm going to give away five pdf copies of my zine Delve! at random to people that post comments in the comment section below.  So if only five folks post, then they all get copies.  At any rate, Swords and Wizardry is a great system.  Matt Finch, the mastermind behind it, was also the originating force behind OSRIC before turning it over to Stuart Marshall.  The main point of all of the clones, regardless of what you play, is getting out there and pla

OK, I've been one heck of a busy boy lately and haven't had much blog time :(. Or for that matter, much time to do much else other than work and draw. However, I hope to change that in the next week or so cause I know you guys miss me ;). At any rate, I just received my Swords and Wizardry version of Tome of Horrors Complete from Frog God games . I believe that this version is a limited print run which is a bit unfortunate as from my cursory pass through, it is an EXCELLENT monster resource. I especially like the plot hooks for each critter, a nice addition. I think I did read somewhere that Matt said they were considering an unlimited edition of the Swords and Wizardry version. I sure hope they do because this deserves to be in every gamers horde. Alright, I gotta duck out again but hopefully I won't be gone for so long next time.

Matt "Mythmere" Finch has announced on his blog the release of The Nameless City by Alphonso Warden for Swords and Wizardry. I'm pretty excited about this and not only because I did the artwork. Alphonso does a great job of capturing a creepy Lovecraftian feel in his works. I've collaborated with Alphonso on many modules before and I think they've all been top notch. So, if you want a real good pulp horror treat, stop by Lulu and pick up a copy.

Well, actually, to be more precise, my softcover copy of Swords and Wizardry Complete arrived yesterday. It is a very nice presentation and overall looks really good. Kudos to the Frog God. I still have to look through the text. At some point, I'm going to pull out all my retro-clones and comb through them and decide how I best want to cannibalize them for my own homebrew. I'll post more about it after I have a chance to look through it and digest the contents.

I got my order for the signed and numbered hard back in a few hours ago. It is a limited run of 100. The first print of the softcover is limited to 200. Go here for more. The hard cover and softcover come with a pdf version so you don't have to wait. I've done an initial skim through and it looks great. The Frog God guys did a bang up job on the production values. In case you are wondering, Frog God Games is the remnants of Necromancer Games (the 3rd edition rules, fist edition feel guys). I'll take a bit of time to digest and then get a review up. I'm also working on a review of Savage Swords of Athanor. All I can really say is the Old School Renaissance just keeps getting better and better...

Or to be more precise Swords and Wizardry vs. Labyrinth Lord. As I said, I've pretty much been an AD&D guy (or OSRIC). However, the simpler rulesets of Basic D&D have really been sparking my interest lately. I really, really am liking Labyrinth Lord. I want to like the simplicity of Swords and Wizardry, but there are a couple of things turning me off. one is the d6 damage. I really don't care for dragons doing only 1d6 bite damage (and only one attack per round is listed - except a breath weapon - for which no damage is listed). Now, according to the ethics of old school play that are enspoused by S&W, I as a DM can change this to suit my tastes. Which is all well and good but I'm really looking at this from the perspective of my OSR project. I want to release it at some point back to the community, but the rule sets of Labyrinth Lord appeal to me more. But if I think about it, the rule set shouldn't matter too much as a good DM should be able to e