Need more monsters to liven up your campaign? Need something unique to fill out your dungeon? Look no further than Monsters of Myth. Nominally written for OSRIC but suitable for the OSR ruleset of your choice, Monsters of Myth can be had for FREE.
Monsters of Myth is the premiere collection of OSRIC monsters, and contains more than 150 new creatures for use with First Edition-compatible games. A companion in the spirit of the monster collections from the 1970s to 1980s, Monsters of Myth will provide game masters with many unique challenges with which to test their players!
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It's beginning to feel like Christmas - because every Christmas, we get a Campaign Cartographer 3+ Bundle over at Humble Bundle. If you want it, grab it at the $30 bundle level. It is simply the best value of the lot.
Design maps for your own tabletop campaigns, fantasy settings, and more! This bundle includes everything you need to create stunning, print-worthy works of art that will bring your worlds to life. Get powerful software like Campaign Cartographer 3+ (including a Lifetime License), City Designer 3, Dungeon Designer 3, Tome of Ultimate Mapping, and more. Unlock a treasury that will take your tabletop games and fantasy stories to the next level, and help support Save the Children with your purchase.
Shadowdark holds a special place in my heart. It's an old-school chassis with an engine built off of 5e. The ecology of high-quality releases from third-party publishers for Shadowdark is second to none.
Menagerie Press invites you to adventure into the elf-tombs of Moire and Tiar, find Ord’s crypt-tree, battle the Amber Chimera, and recover eldritch baubles and lore.
A Shadowdark-compatible role-playing game adventure collection for level 1-5 characters.
The Queen of Brambles: Elf-Queen Lia's crypt was recently rediscovered. Do you dare disturb her resting place?
Shune's Door: In the hillside, a black steel door is etched with the diabolic glyph of Shune the Betrayer. What lies beyond?
Gorr's Tomb: Hatlitt Gorr was a renowned dragon-slayer, but the dwarf warlord succumbed to the curse of his dragon-tainted gold. Seek gold and glory, or a quick death.
The Amber Chimera: An old Elvish reflecting pool, a black obelisk, and a chimera carved from amber. Rumors talk about wealth, danger, and a gemstone beast that cannot die.
The Pale Vault: The Ebon Heart, an arcane relic of immense power, was secured in the Pale Vault. Will you brave the vault's wards and acquire the wooden heart?
Tomb of Himortu: The ancient elf-lord Himortu was buried with his arms and armor. Surely these antiquities belong in your capable hands - you just need to go get them.
Short Encounters: A collection of 15+ wilderness and 6+ urban encounters, such as a dream wine speakeasy, prism-worshipping cultists, a trapped cave troll, hobgoblin bandit ambushes, eager grifters selling "magical trinkets," and many more.
The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. The Tavern DOES NOT do "Paid For" Articles and discloses personal connections to products and creators written about when applicable.
DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern.You can catch the daily Tavern Chat cast on Rumbleor YouTube - Tenkar
I am a massive fan of the Palladium Fantasy rules. I like the Palladium system well enough (which breaks down with Rifts, IMHO), but the setting and support material are fantastic. You can grab the Palladium Fantasy 2e Starter set for 17.95.
Adventurer! We've resurrected our January 2022 Palladium Fantasy 2E Bundle featuring .PDF ebooks for the 1996 Second Edition of The Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game, Kevin Siembieda's tabletop fantasy RPG from Palladium Books. The mystical world of Palladium is a land rich in magic. The Wolfen Empire prepares for war in the Great Northern Wilderness, and the Giant kingdom of Mount Nimro threatens nearby human, elven, and dwarven settlements. Mystics, Knights, and Barbarians call upon the gods for powers both new and arcane to bend the world to their will. On the high seas, pirates sail to islands like the Isle of Zy and the Island of the Cyclops. Against a host of legendary creatures, and the backstabbing intrigues of the high courts, you'll need dragon-forged will, deceptive guile, and a stout backbone to survive.
For just US$17.95 you get all six titles in this revived offer's Starter Collection (retail value $71.50) as DRM-free ebooks, including the complete Palladium Fantasy RPG 2E core rulebook, The Heart of Magic rules expansion, the sourcebooks Monsters and Animals and Dragons & Gods, and the introductory setting sourcebooks The Western Empire and Library of Bletherad.
And if you pay more than the threshold price of $33.34, you'll level up and also get this revival's entire Bonus Collection with ten more setting sourcebooks worth an additional $125, including Wolfen Empire, Eastern Territory, Land of the Damned 1 - Chaos Lands and 2 - Eternal Torment, Mount Nimro, Baalgor Wastelands, Northern Hinterlands, Bizantium and the Northern Islands, Old Ones 2E, and Adventures on the High Seas 2E.
The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. The Tavern DOES NOT do "Paid For" Articles and discloses personal connections to products and creators written about when applicable.
DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern.You can catch the daily Tavern Chat cast on Rumbleor YouTube - Tenkar
I should number these Free OSR posts, but I'm too lazy. :)
Venger—love or hate him- produces some excellent material for your Old School campaign. Cha'alt is a bit of a setting book, a bit of an adventure module, and 100% gonzo. Even if gonzo isn't your cup of tea, for the price of FREE, can you really go wrong?
Cha'alt is the beast of a book (218 pages) I've been working on for the past year. It's a ruined world focusing on a couple of introductory dungeons before getting to the main event - the megadungeon known as The Black Pyramid.
The Black Pyramid is like nothing you've ever seen before. Unique design, purpose, feel, magic items, NPCs, monsters, factions, motives, agendas, strangeness, the works!
There's a decent amount of setting detail besides dungeoncrawling - space opera bar, domed city, mutants, weird ass elves, desert pirates, a city ruled by a gargantuan purple demon-worm, and much more!
Cha'alt is compatible with both old school and 5e D&D purposefully blended for maximum usability. Full disclosure: aside from advantage/disadvantage and bounded accuracy, there isn't much in the way of 5th edition mechanics. It's predominantly OSR.
I've included my own Crimson Dragon Slayer D20 as an appendix, but you can use any of the hundred RPG systems available to run Cha'alt as your own. The rules-language is fairly neutral, and my priority was helping the Game Master at the table.
The world is gonzo, eldritch, science-fantasy, and post-apocalyptic. It's a wild ride, perfect for those players seeking something a little bit different, but also recognizable.
The interior is gorgeous full-color art, layout, cartography and Lovecraftian aesthetics. Gold ENnie winner Glynn Seal of MonkeyBlood Design went above and beyond his usual fantastic job. Give the new 32 page preview a look. I spared no expense making Cha'alt fantastic - this world is alive and spilling over with possibilities.
Cha'alt should give you years of solid, non-standardized gaming.
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DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern.You can catch the daily Tavern Chat cast on Rumbleor YouTube - Tenkar
Continuing our meandering through our Free OSR resources, we come across LotFP Rules & Magic Free Version. LotFP is one of the better hacks of B/X, and hack it is because little remains of the original, yet it stays true to its heritage. It's free because it is art-free. Grab it if this still needs to be added to your digital bookshelf!
Beyond the veil of reality, beyond the influence of manipulating politicians, greedy merchants, iron-handed clergy, and the broken masses that toil for their benefit, echoes of other realms call to those bold enough, and desperate enough, to escape the oppression of mundane life. Treasure and glory await those courageous enough to wrest it from the darkness. But the danger is great, for lurking in the forgotten shadows are forces far stranger and more perilous than even civilization. The price of freedom might be paid in souls.
LotFP: Weird Fantasy Role-Playing presents a sinister and horrific twist on traditional fantasy gaming. Simple enough for a beginner yet meaty enough for the veteran, this game will make all your worst nightmares come true.
This book is a revision of the Rules & Magic book originally found in the LotFP: Weird Fantasy Role-Playing boxed set. It contains all the rules needed to play the game.
The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. The Tavern DOES NOT do "Paid For" Articles and discloses personal connections to products and creators written about when applicable.
DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern.You can catch the daily Tavern Chat cast on Rumbleor YouTube - Tenkar
We continue our delve into the often overlooked corner of the OSR - free and precious resources that have been overshadowed and undervalued.
Today, we look at Wormwood, a 6th-century setting/resource for OSE and other OSR systems. Note that this is still a work in progress.
"For the sun gave forth its light without brightness, like the moon, during the whole year.” So wrote Byzantine historian Procopius of the year 536 A.D., the year the first of three catastrophic volcanic eruptions in Iceland would drop global summer temperatures by 1.5 to 2.5 degrees Celsius and herald the beginning of the coldest decade on record in 2,000 years. Migrations of Germanic, Hunnic, and Slavic tribes have swept aside and now pick over the remains of the Western Roman Empire, sacking Rome itself and establishing a network of “barbarian kingdoms” across the west. Crop failure, famine, the Justinian Plague will devastate a fractured Europe for the next hundred years. Of all the time periods called the “Dark Ages,” this is surely - both literally and figuratively - the darkest.
This historical context is interwoven with both “authentic” medieval folklore and the classic elements of 19th- and 20th-century fantasy fiction found in your typical Appendix N. This ‘Dark Year’ and all of its tumultuous events provides players and Judges a compelling backdrop upon which to project historical fantasy adventures. While based upon historical context, these are works of fiction: liberties have been taken where doing so would be entertaining. Weave fiction and fantasy as you please, and above all: Fight On!
This book contains 95 pages of rules for: expanded character creation, cultures, languages, soubriquets, mass combat, social status, equipment, estates & strongholds, trade goods & services, crime, punishment & trials, medicines, poisons, and retainers - - everything referees and players could want to set their old-school fantasy role-playing campaigns within a 6th century Europe historical fantasy setting.
The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. The Tavern DOES NOT do "Paid For" Articles and discloses personal connections to products and creators written about when applicable.
DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern.You can catch the daily Tavern Chat cast on Rumbleor YouTube - Tenkar
A Murderous Miscellany
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There have been times when it was very hard to find any support for *SLA
Industries* and times when it was hard to support *SLA Industries*. The
roleplayi...
The Peasants are Revolting
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by Peter GraySelf PublishedOSRICLevel ... 3? There is something rotten
going on in the backwater Barony of Near-Marsh and the region’s noble, The
Countess ...
DMing Styles: Beethoven to the Beatles
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Speaking in very broad brushstrokes (where would the fun be otherwise?),
there have been two different ways to approach making music in the time
since it...
Welcome Campers, Time To Die!
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Intro and OverviewCamp Blood is the second part of Bloat Games bloody
grindhouse trilogy. Like the first, Bloody Appalachia, it's a stand alone
game but fu...
“The Map of Five-Times-Five
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*The paper was flayed skin. Around its borders were these words; “A map
of Signs, like those which show the way to Grace or Down to Damnation,
through go...
Community Greyhawk: Shadows Over Diamond Lake
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Today we have Shadows Over Diamond Lake by Vitor Morelli. This is a 79 page
pdf, but that might be a deceptive because the margins are immense and the
text...
Seerbones
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Bastiards of the electric epoch are known for their badly designed dice
games, but what about the knights, vassals, and vagabonds of the mythic
age?
Th...
Air Gate game notes
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Some reveals and notes.
I said I'd reveal this after - Cumulon's castle layout and traps are from
Dungeon Magazine #9, The Plight of Cirria. It was written...
The Old School Renaissance
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Debates about what the OSR is have been going on since at least the late
2000s. Lately I seen more rounds of discussion on this topic on various
forums ...
Asset Thursdays: Acrocolypse
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Here we have Acrocolypse, and uplifted anarchist crocodile. This asset was
the asset of a player in the playtest games, and I did my bestest to make
th...
Excavating My First Fantasy...
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I've been a fantasy buff going way back; but my introduction to the genre
came by way of a non-fantastical source: dinosaurs and prehistory. Not
surprising...
What to do on a Gaming Break
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It's summer again. Well it's supposed to be but with temperatures lingering
around 40 it doesn't feel like it. Most summers I take time off. A couple
mon...
I come from the land of the ice and snow
-
So I got a wild hair and created 81 pages of demographically accurate
random birthplace charts covering every hamlet, village, town, city,
castle, and...
Easy Tracks in Blender
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There's an add-on for Blender called BagaPie, which adds a whole lot of
functionality in various arenas (scattering etc.). The one that is most
useful ...
A long overdue hobby update!
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Welcome back to the Vault everyone! 2025 is going by in a blur; I last
posted in February, almost started a post in March and now it's the end of
May. W...
Black Blade Publishing and the OSR Community
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...or, Why Does Black Blade Publishing Still Exist?
Earlier this year, Jon Hershberger and I met to conduct some *Black Blade
Publishing* 2025 planning, an...
Dark Tower (1979)
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From the back cover:
*An Ancient Evil* has overtaken a once holy shrine. Thus, a sleepy mountain
hamlet becomes a focal point for mysterious disappear...
Progress With My Card Game
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On February 9, 2018 I was struck with inspiration for a card game idea that
I brought to Gary Con 10 and play tested away most of the rough edges. I
had th...
Pulp: Adventure Location: Trindade & Martim Vaz
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History is fractally interesting. Start examine any event, or following any
citation, and interesting facts emerge. But some places, for whatever
reason,...
OSRIC the Third
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The wise sages at Mythmere Games are hard at work on the third version of
*OSRIC* (“Old School Reference and Index Compilation”). You can support
this proj...
Playing at the World 2E V2 Arrives
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With the release of its second volume, the second edition of *Playing at
the World *is finally complete. The two books combined total well over
1,000 ...
Blogs on Tape season 6 has begun!
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Hi everybody! Its been a minute. How are you? Everything is awful all the
time? Horrors never cease? You’re being driven mad by the weight of the
unfathoma...
The Hungering Dark
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Go into the earth, and reality will walk alongside you.
Walk further, and you will eventually be walking alone.
The world is plastic down there. Tar Lat...
Articulations
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Creating house rules, custom rules specific to a local group or campaign,
has been common throughout the history of D&D. What makes an effective
house rule...
Writing playlists for all occasions
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Hello again! Going off the idea of inspiration elaborated on by the prior
post, I also have music playing while I write my various games and fiction
pieces...
The Tarot of Pips
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Somewhere in your dice collection is a die like this one, the humblest of
dice. Although you don't know it, this small white die carries with it a
secr...
Pirates and Necromancers, a Play Report
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Over the Thanksgiving weekend we did a lot of gaming ranging from
“off-table” domain level stuff to some solo adventures to spell and magic
item rese...
It's been a bit
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Hey everyone, I hope you are doing well! I've had a lot going on and
haven't had much time to blog lately. Heres a recap of gaming events and
other st...
*'s in SpaaaaaAaaaace
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A lot of SF (including a certain 2D6 RPG grandaddy) deal with ancient
aliens taking humans from Earth and dropping them, fleas and all, on one or
more w...
Last move - to self-hosting!
-
As my vote regarding Substack in the “marketplace of ideas”, I’m moving to
self-hosting.
I’m now at (and hopefully staying for a long time at)
Blog: ht...
This is an Important Game Mechanic
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*"That's the GM's Regional Map from my AOWG. And it's a damned good
regional map. It's not a good map for a Simple Homebrew Campaign. It does
some s$&...
Clean Your Room
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Looking back at my little blog here. That last post… wow, I was having fun
playing WOW Classic! That was August of 1999 and I was having a blast… it
was ...
Steve Jackson Interview
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James Maliszewski recently did an interview with Steve Jackson over on his
Grognardia blog. Steve chats about the beginnings of The Fantasy Trip and
upcomi...
ToAD Monster of the Week: Crocoman
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Now that I'm back doing the blog thing I thought I would use Tome of
Adventure Design to create monsters for The Black Hack.
Using the monster tables in th...
Strange, Dangerous, and Inhuman: The Fey and Fairie
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When I was a boy I loved fairy tales. Jack and the Beanstalk, Puss in
Boots, Rumpelstiltskin - I devoured all of it. My fascination that there
was a strang...
Dungeons & Dragonmead Fall Schedule
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*As you know, I run public classic Dungeons & Dragons games at **The Loaded
Die**/Metro Detroit Game Night's Board Game Nigh at **Dragonmead**, in
Warren...
Fiction in Airhde
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On a whim this weekend, I picked up some fiction off the TLG store. *A
Houseless God & Other Tales* and *The Mirrored Soul & Other Tales*, both by
the T...
Ravensburg Reboot: Streamlined City Map
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I mentioned in my last post how I was tweaking and reworking parts of my
Ravensburg setting. Today I streamlined the city map. The old map had lots
of redu...
And Now the News Draft Download on Patreon
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It's self-styled Throwback Thursday and *having just released the 34-page
draft booklet of Hill Cantons news to my Patreon backers* I am going to
indulge m...
The Withered Crag available now
-
I just enabled the sale of the PDF version of The Withered Crag at
DriveThruRPG a few minutes ago, and the custom print version will be
available startin...
Annihilation Rising Goes live
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The latest in Fail Squad Games’ Quick Kick projects has gone live and needs
your support!! This project is only running 11 days and ends on 5/28/2019!
...
James's Celebration of Life
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We could not have asked for a prettier day for James's service. It was a
bit chilly and windy but gorgeous. A heartfelt thank you to all that joined
us tod...
Trap Tuesday: A step back
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I will get back to Tomb of Horrors soon. I found a topic that was
interesting enough to take a break. While interacting in a 5E group on
Facebook I talked ...
Let's Talk About Pacing!
-
The idea, I think, is that the RPG is ultimately about the long game. Even
rolling back to the early days of Basic & Expert, the goal of the player
was...
Profane and Profound Prep Part 2
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This is part 2 of my work to edit my magic items for a DMsGuild release,
along with adding cursed items along the way. Here is part 1. Bone of a
Saint 8000...
Please, I don't do paid advertisements - don't ask.
-
A little note since people have asked me about this. My video channel's
*not* an advertising platform, so I'm not available for hire if you want to
promote...
New website!
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Slowly but surely, all the content here will make its way — in updated
form! — to my new website: timbannock.com. For fairly obvious reasons, that
site wil...
Please Update Your Link!
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If you're seeing this, it means your link to the Greyhawk Grognard blog is
out of date.
Please update your link to www.greyhawkgrognard.com (RSS feed is
h...
Total Sales for WB:FMAG
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Hi Folks,
It's been a long time since I provided an update for the sales of White
Box: Fantastic Medieval Adventure Game.
*LULU*
Print: 396
PDF: 433
*OBS*...
How can We Destroy this Campaign World?
-
d12
1. You must trick a bard into strumming the *Chords of Fate* on the *Lute
of Annihilation*
2. Legends tell of thermonuclear weapons beneath megadunge...
Mord Mar - Session 5
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We had another successful delve into the dungeon yesterday. The delvers:
Moira, the Magic-User
Radovan - Human Cleric (of Odin?)
Khazgar Stonehand - Dwarf ...
Bundle of Fantasy Age
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Bundle of Holding: Dragon Age/Fantasy Age: Available until March 12. PA
Presents: Fantasy AGE Freeport live play Green Ronin in 2018 The Fantasy
Age RPG ma...
New Free PDF Module: The Hyqueous Vaults
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A new dungeon module—written in celebration of OSRIC's 10th Birthday—by
Rebecca Dettmann, Allan T. Grohe, Jr., Jimm Johnson, Matthew Riedel, Alex
Zisch, a...
Swords & Wizardry Light: Session # 6
-
Two months after our last session (thanks to things like 8th grade finals,
a 4 year-old's birthday and party, Father's Day, etc.), we finally had our
next ...