Children of the OSR, Part Deux

I haven't done a post like this since early last year, so I might not be able to list everything important; regardless, here's an attempt to mention the latest, some of the important OSR releases that are for some reason close to my heart.


Ghastly Affair
I have mentioned this one last time: basically a free, completely OGL game that intends to capture the spirit of gothic fiction. The base mechanics are simple roll-under, and it has a set of very unique classes (with rather interesting and flavourful advantages and drawbacks). Also, it's got its sort of second edition, and it's still free.

Hydra Cooperative
Last time when I spoke about them, only Slumbering Ursine Dunes was available. Well, since then they have released the next two adventure supplements set in the same fictional milieu: Fever-Dreaming Marlinko (a city supplement) and the Misty Isles of the Eld (an island fort of the alien eld). They have also re-released Mike Davison's Ruins & Ronin (a Whitebox variant for a medieval Japanese setting).

John M. Stater
The man behind the Land of NOD magazine (which has 29 issues (!) so far, the last three available on RPGNow) has released his modern pulp game, Grit & Vigor, fully compatible with his earlier game, Blood & Treasure, which is about to receive a second edition. This year is probably the year of second editions of Mr Stater, since his superhero game Mystery Men has already got one, and his sci-fi dungeon crawler, Tales of Space Princess, is about to get one, as well.

Mateo Diaz Torres
The fantastic A Most Thoroughly Pernicious Pamphlet is currently PWYW until this Sunday. This small booklet is a sort of compendium for creating characters in the author's setting, which is easier to to be shown than explained: check out this encounter table or this treasure table or this location.

Necrotic Gnome Productions
The label have been around for some time, although I suspect people just say "Gavin Norman & Greg Gorgonmilk". Nevertheless, they have released a couple of interesting products, the first being From the Vats, a free compilation of community-created awesomeness, supplementary to The Complete Vivimancer. Labyrinth Lord-compatible rules for tweaking roguish classes is presented in The B/X Rogue (soon to be followed by The B/X Warrior). They have also slowly been releasing material for their Dolmenwood setting (dark forests inspired by Celtic myths and fairy tales) in the form of a zine (Wormskin), which has seen three issues released so far.

Sine Nomine Publishing
The ever-creating Mr Crawford has written and published another batch of wonderful products. First, it started with Starvation Cheap, a military campaign supplement for Stars Without Number, the first one to include colour pictures. After that, the earlier concept of Exemplars & Eidelons got polished and improved: Godbound can be summed up as the OSR's Exalted, but it's much more than that. Not only do we get the mechanics to build demigod-level characters and a sample setting to let them loose, but also the GM tools necessary to deal with the consequences of their actions. Similar to SWN, Godbound comes in a free and deluxe version, the latter including some extra content (like, rules for mortal characters, cybernetic and clockwork implants, themed godbounds, etc.). Both products are full colour, by the way, and as usual, the Kickstarter made it possible for the art to released into the public domain.