Otherworld Miniature Labyrinth Lord Level 2 Miniatures Complete! **Image Heavy Post**

The gang's all here!

I finished up my Otherworld Miniatures Level 2 figures yesterday.  I'm happy with how they came out, though the pictures are a bit fuzzy.  Sorry for the quality of the snapshots, I think my lens is messed up, it would not focus and everything came out really dark.  Hopefully you still get an idea of how they look, these are great miniatures with loads of detail!

More pictures after the break!

The rest of this post is picture heavy, enter at your own risk!

My Favorite Artists - Zhu Bajiee

I am very excited to announce that for today's Our Favorite Artists post I had the pleasure of interviewing none other than Zhu Bajiee.  Zhu has been involved with both Barrowmaze I and II and has also done work for Red Box Games. Zhu took a few minutes out of his schedule to answer some questions for me back in 2012, and now in 2014 I present to you dear readers his interview!

• First of all, thanks for taking some time out of your day to speak with me, please introduce yourself and give us a brief bio:

Hi! I'm Zhu, which is my artist name. I have  a real one too.

• When did you first discover your creative talents?

All my mates in school said I was better at drawing than them. Then  I went to art college, which was full of people in the same position, and realized that being the best isn't what it's about.

• How would you describe your style and where do you draw your inspiration from?  Do you have a favorite piece you have created?

Black and white, grimy, graphic fantasy. The things that make me most want to draw stem from history and folklore mixed together into modern sensibilities. The writings of Tolkien and Gygax are very inspiring, then so is nature, walking though the wilder, green, growing places of the countryside, and I generate have half a hundred ideas for drawings.  I couldn't choose a favorite piece, it would be unfair to the others.

• Who is your favorite artist? What draws you towards his or her artwork?

There's a whole bunch of people whose work I admire. It's difficult to pick one. If I were to say one that has direct influence on my artwork, it's Aubrey Beardsley, his command of line and space is beyond genius. It's really his craft that gets me - the penmanship, something I've always eschewed in my own art, is exquisite. I generally prefer his more tame pieces (Morte D'Arthur) to his erotic stuff.

• Is art a full time occupation for you?

In the sense that I'm thinking about it when I should be doing other things, yes.

• What projects are you currently working on?

I've got a lot of stuff for Barrowmaze 2 to do for Greg, I'm loving the dungeon-crawl aspects and all the strange archeological references.   I've also got some character designs I'm working on that are at sketches at the moment.  Right now I've got a drawing of a Red Box Games Helsvakt underway, and am just taking a break before doing some more tweaks.

• You've created art for a number of gaming products, are you yourself a gamer and if so what are your favorite games?

Yes, I play games. I really like early editions of Warhammer (more strategic and complex than of late) and AD&D, which is the daddy of them all. The board-game Talisman is fantastic, and I'm also guilty of Fighting Fantasy.

• Who is your favorite musical artist and why?

I listen to a lot of music.  It's a bit cheesy, but music is about setting the mood, staying motivated to work. I've just finished a private commission for a collector, based on early TSR D&D, whilst doing that I almost exclusively listened to folk and electronica - bands like Pentangle, Espers, Goblin, The Advisory Circle. The stuff being put out by Ghostbox records, for me it's very D&D. Today I've been drawing a messed-up psychopathic norse warrior, so I've been listening to 90s grindcore bands like Bolt Thrower, Napalm Death, Carcass.

• What was the last book you read?

Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy.

• Where can the readers go to see your art?

http://realmofzhu.blogspot.co.uk/p/art-of-zhu.html

I've recently set up a deviant art account as well,

http://zhu-bajiee.deviantart.com/

• Lastly, any words of advice for aspiring artists?

I'm not really qualified to offer advice. There are a lot more opportunities to get your work seen by the right people now than ever before, and you can probably find an audience for your work much easier today than 20 years ago.  I've been very fortunate to find people who like what I'm doing enough to commission it, so a big thanks to them.

The Fatal Funnel - Sailors of the Starless Sea

 

Last night my friend and I finished up our last session of Sailors on the Starless Sea, a level zero adventure for DCC RPG.  We played using Roll20, an online game table which I will be reviewing in the next week or so.  This was the first time either of us had played using the Fatal Funnel and level zero characters. We both had a blast and really enjoyed the experience.

Our initial party consisted of eight characters, we rolled for everything; names, professions, equipment, luck augurs, if there was a randomized chart, we used it. Stats were rolled in order with 3d6, this resulted in lots of lower scores but it also made having a 15 in an ability stat something to brag about! The party started with the following characters with the first four being my toons;

Dugar - Trapper (One ability score above ten!)

Aram - Grave Digger (Seven INT and LUCK)

Cerngoth - Smuggler (Seven PER and sixteen INT!)

Thaug - Dwarven Blackmith (Fourteen PER and INT, the party leader)

Imoagoth - Elven Chandler (Eight STA and fifteen INT)

Thremaim - Confidence Artist (Seven INT and eight in both AGI and STA)

Publio - Slave (Six STA and eight LUCK)

Leniqua - Wizards Apprentice (Seven STA and PER and a fourteen INT)

***SPOILER ALERTS***

I will be discussing the adventure from here on, read on at your own risk!!

It didn't take long before we took out first casualties, both Publio and Dugar were killed in the very first encounter battling the Vine Horrors! Starting with only one or two hit points and no Clerics to heal is not easy! The party buried their corpses and pressed on. Entering the ruined keep they found the alter room and were able to loot several suits of chain-mail and some weapons but left before encountering the Tar Ooze. Soon afterwards they discovered the Beast-men and Champion in the tower ruins and were ultimately victorious, though Thaug and Thremaim fell in battle. Four down, four left!  They freed the captive townspeople and recruited two new party members, Hekkador and Tonual.  Heading down the stone stairs they discovered a room with several chests and some discarded treasure.  Tonual spotted a hidden compartment in one of the chests but was killed by the trap which cut his hand off, he didn't last very long!  Moving on they found a large room with a brackish pool and murals that lined the walls, they also discovered four tattered robes which they brought with them.  After a nervous encounter with the floating skulls they took one with them as they continued to descend deeper towards the Starless Sea.

 

On the beach Hekkador failed his save while looking at the strange symbols on the menhir and suddenly attacked the party, he was filled with the urge to cut out someones heart and feed it to the Leviathan.  Luckily the rest of the party was able to subdue him before he caused any real harm.  They lit the candle on the menhir which drew the dragon boat closer to shore which they boarded.  Halfway to the ziggaraut the boat stopped in the water and the Leviathan made itself known by the score of tentacles that raised out of the water and hung ominously over the boat.  Hekkador knew they needed to present it a sacrifice due to his earlier mental state, but the party was unwilling to kill any of their own.  They readied for battle as the tentacles moved in.  Imogoth fell in the ensuing fight, Leniqua quickly jumped on his corpse and cut out his heart which she threw it into the sea to placate the beast.  The tentacles slipped below the waves and the boat continued onward.  Despite her quick thinking the rest of the party was a little distraught by her actions.

Moving onto the ziggaraut the four remaining party members, Aram, Hekkador, Leniqua and Cerngoth, donned the robes they had found and marched up the ramp towards the chanting beastmen.  Arriving at the top Hekkador discovered the skull he had taken from the pool room was vibrating and glowing, he tossed it into the hellish pit at the top of the ziggaraut.  This caused a large explosion which sent beast-men and party members flying in different dirrections.  They party reassembled and began slaughteriung the stunned beastment but they were unable to stop the beastman shaman from summoning the Chaos Lord.  As he formed they began retreating down the ramp in a fighting withdrawal.  Soon the Chaos Lord was upon them and a raucous battle followed. Luckily there were no deaths and all four lived to fight another day while the Chaos Lord was thrown low.

Soon after the his death the entire cavern began to shake and crumble, the intrepid party helped the townsfolk they had saved onto the dragon ship and they were carried away by a huge wave that swept through the cavern.

The Fatal Funnel lived up to its name.  Our losses were heavy but in some strange way I feel connected to the characters that did survive!  I don't think I would want to play like this all of the time.  There is a distinct lack of things to do each round for the characters as they do not have classes and the abilities that go along with them.  But if you have not tried playing level zero heroes, give it a shot, its a blast!

Otherworld Miniatures; Labyrinth Lord Level 2!

 

My new Otherworld miniatures arrived today and I'm super excited!  As you can see above they come in their own case (Feldherr I believe) with a sleeve wrapped around the case.

Each miniature has its own slot, there are two levels in the case.  My only complaint would be that many of the bases do not have slots which means I will need to cut them myself.  This is different from the first set which all had pre-slotted bases.  Some of the figures also have VERY tall tabs at the bottom which will need to be sliced in half to get them to fit in the bases.  Unfortunately the material is quite thick, its going to take some elbow grease to get them cut.  Other than those minor complaints I am very pleased with the set, the sculpts looks awesome and I really like the giant ooze!  More pics to come as I get to work on these later this week.

New Labyrinth Lord Miniatures on order!

 

Well this morning I ordered the next set of Otherworld Miniatures made for Labyrinth Lord.  I'm very excited for this set, it comes in a Feldherr case and includes the following minis; 3 Gnolls, 3 Ghouls, 3 Zombies, 4 Troglodytes, 2 Shadows, 3 Large Crab Spiders, 3 Berserkers, 1 Green Slime, 1 Yellow Mold and 1 Evil Magic User.

I'll make sure I post some pics once they arrive and again once I start painting.  Hope you all had a great weekend!

Labyrinth Lord & Fantasy Miniatures

Pig-faced Orc Commander and two of his minions.

I promised you guys some pictures of my Labyrinth Lord figures by Otherworld Miniatures, so here they are.  These figures are fantastic, the sculptures are great and they are solid minis.  I just finished painting the Level One box set not to long ago and will be purchasing the Level Two set sometime in the near future. 

I highly reccomend these guys, they have several box sets that come with their own carry cases, level one and two monsters and also heros, demi-heros and henchmen.  Well worth the money if you like old school minis!

The rest of this post will be picture heavy, have fun!

 

Pig-faced Orc archer and flail dude.

Trio of Hobgoblins.

A swarm of ugly ass Goblins.

I love the Kobolds, bad mofo's!

Creepy Centipedes.

Fire Beetles, I elected to leave off the feelers, they were a bit fragile.

The Rat Pack.

The rest of the pack.

The Stirges are freaking awesome!

Close up of the Stirges.

These are not the Skeletons that come with the set, but I like them :)

Again, not an Otherworld miniature but still a bad-ass Bugbear!

Booty shaker view.

Crowdfunding Roundup

Heya folks,

I just want to point out a couple of OSR related crowd-funding projects that recently went live.

First up is Barrowmaze Complete.  Greg Gillespie is updating Barrowmaze I & II into a single module with new content, new art, new layout and most exciting is a set of Barrowmaze monster mini's by the amazing Otherworld Miniatures.  This looks like a great project, if you missed Barrowmaze the first time around don't miss this new complete version, its a fantastic adventure!  There are 44 days left on this project.

Next up is Impact! Miniatures DCC RPG Compatible Dice Sets.  Have you had trouble collecting all of the dice used in DCC RPG?  Have you spent your time and hard earned money searching for the elusive D14?  Then this is the Kickstarter for you!  Get all of the dice you need to complete your adventures!  Several levels allow for multiple sets and different colors.  No more trying to figure out how to role a D7!  There are 24 days left on this project, join now!

Sword +1 Tournament

Sword+1 is running another joust starting on 04/30/2012.  There is still time to enter your knight in the Spring Faire of Xemes tournament.  Head on over an sign up, don't miss out on the fun!  

I just entered my knight:

Ahd ar-Rahman ibn Nassr, fighting man of eastern decent.  His shield design:

Clicky HERE for a direct link to the post.

Questions about OGL

 

I am planning on writing a short adventure called Valley of the Umber Hulks but I have a question about the open gaming license. I believe that Umber Hulks are one of the monsters that do not fall under the OGL as they are considered to be an icon of the D&D system. Does this mean that I am not allowed to use them in an adventure created for another system, let's say Labyrinth Lord? If I only plan to distribute the adventure free of charge does this change anything?

I'm a little confused on how this would work, any help figuring this out would be much appreciated!

The Dungeon Alphabet - A Review

The Dungeon Alphabet by Michael Curtis (designer of Stonehell Mega-dungeon) is a fun and informative book that would be worth twice the listed price.  Its forty-eight pages long, comes in hardcover only and is published by Goodman Games (http://www.goodman-games.com/). There is wonderful art though out the entire book, almost every page is illustrated with beautiful black and white images created by the likes of Jeff Easley, Erol Otus, Stefan Poag, Jim Roslof and a number of others.  

Every letter of the alphabet is given a meaning, always relating to dungeons.  A is alters, B is for books, C is for caves, etc.  Flip to the according page and you will find a short paragraph on each subject followed by a table of random versions of that item.  For example, H is for hallways so when you flip to the hallways page there is a list of twenty random hallway descriptions, each different and varied.

What I love about this book is not just that you get all kinds of fun tables and charts to roll on, it really ignites your imagination and gives you so many ideas and suggestions that can make your dungeon unique and varied.  

For $9.99 this book is a steal, I had a very enjoyable time reading through it, I found it both fun and useful.  The book is written so that it's system free, it can easily be plugged into any retro system of your choosing.  Unfortunately it seems to be out of print, the copy I purchased from Amazon was at the list price, but all the copies left seem to be way above that.  If you can find it cheap, pick up a copy, its a great read and great addition to any DM's toolbox.

Dwimmermount: Kickstarter Project - 60 hours left!

Hey folks, I just wanted to give a shout out to James Maliszewski's Dwimmermount project.  I'm sure many of you are aware of this upcoming product, but for those of you that are not, James has created a huge mega-dungeon that is currently being funded on Kickstarter.  Head on over and check out the project here:  Dwimmermount: An Old School Fantasy RPG Megadungeon.

There are only sixty hours left on the pledge drive, and the project is a little less than three thousand dollars short of the $40,000 bonus goal, so if you have not put your money in, now is the time to do it!  Also check out  Grognardia one of the best Old School Blogs out there and home of James Maliszewski's old school musings.

My Favorite Artists - Jeff Dee

Today I have a very special guest for our favorite artist post.  None other than the great Jeff Dee!  Many of you will know Jeff from his early work with TSR, some of his work includes the Norse and Egyptian gods in the Deities and Demigods handbook as well as the cover of the Isle of Dread (one of my favorites)!  Jeff is a busy many with many ongoing projects but he was kind enough to answer a few questions for us.  Take it away Jeff!

• First of all, thanks for taking some time out of your day to speak with us here at The Drunk Umber Hulk, please introduce yourself and give us a brief bio: 

I'm Jeff Dee; I was an artist at TSR Hobbies in the early AD&D days. Since then, I've done art for several different game publishers, a little comic book work, and artwork on a number of computer games - most notably Richard Garriot's Ultima series from Origin Systems. I'm also a game designer; I co-created the Villains and Vigilantes tabletop superhero RPG with Jack Herman in 1979, and I've published several other games through my own small company 'UNIgames' (http://www.prismnet.com/unigames/) since then. I've also done computer game design work; I was the lead designer of The Sims Castaway Stories in 2009.

My Favorite Artists - Steve Zieser

I am pleased to announce that for today's Our Favorite Artists post I had the pleasure of interviewing none other than Steve Zieser.  Steve has created most of the art for the Labyrinth Lord books, including the covers of the main rule-book, the Advanced Edition Companion and my personal favorite the LL Referee Screen.  Steve was nice enough to take a few minutes out of his busy day to answer a few questions for us at The Drunk Umber Hulk.  Without further delay here is the man that illustrated my favorite retro clone, Steve Zieser!

• First of all, thanks for taking some time out of your day to speak with me, please introduce yourself and give us a brief bio:  

Thanks, Jason. I grew up on a farm outside Cedar Rapids, Iowa and was the middle of 5 kids. Growing up on a farm, there wasn't a lot to do other than farm work, so I had time to do a lot of reading and doodling. I was an okay student, but would rather have been drawing or reading fiction than doing schoolwork. I loved art classes, and would have rather stayed there all day than work on other subjects. My father fully supported my artistic endeavors, and encouraged me to go to art school. I , however, was young and decided to go to tech school for Radio/TV Broadcasting instead. Afterwards, I worked at a tiny country/western station in southern Iowa for a few years and learned exactly how poorly paid people in the radio business could be. So, I decided to go back to school, and ended up at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa, and entered the Roman Catholic Seminary program there. (Can you tell I can't do things the easy way??) However, since I kept dating girls the whole time, I had to make a choice and I ended up transferring to Clarke College, where I majored in Studio Arts focused on Printmaking and minored in Religion. I spent a number of years kicking around after college, doing a lot of odd jobs such as working record stores, photo labs, and even selling knives door to door. I eventually settled down building furniture with my Dad for a few years, getting married to my lovely wife in the meantime. Eventually, my Dad decided to retire and I needed a more steady job, and I ended up working for Van Meter Inc, where I have been working happily for the past 7 years.

Premium 1st Edition Books

Wizards of the Coast will be releasing new versions of the original 1st edition core rule books some time in the future. When I first heard the announcement I was very pleased that 1E AD&D would be available to a whole new audience. I like the cover art that they designed, they are a nice nod to the original covers with an updated look, I think they look sharp. The books are going to cost $34.95 for the Players Handbook and Monster Manual and $44.95 for the Dungeon Masters Guide. I was initially going to pick up a set but at those prices I cannot justify spending close to a hundred dollars on books I already own, especially if they are not going to be updated in any way.


Hopefully with their release a whole new generation of players will be able to enjoy the version of the game that I started with so many years ago. Personally I am going to stick with my favorite new retro clone, Labyrinth Lord. The days of spending my hard earned money at Wizards of the Coast are a thing of the past.

Campaign Length

Today I want to pose a question to my readers (the few of you that there are!) I have been running an ongoing campaign for the last three years. My players and I do not have the opportunity to play very often, we live in different states so our gaming time is limited, maybe a couple of times per year.

Whats the longest you have ever run a single campaign, do any of you have campaigns that have been ongoing for more than five years? How often does your group get together to play? I'm been very interested in all the buzz surrounding G+ and the ability to play online, I may setup a Google+ account just to try it out, if I do I'll make sure I keep you guys updated!

So whats the longest campaign you have run?

Stonehell Dungeon - Review

Stonehell Dungeon is an old school mega-dungeon by Michael Curtis. When I say mega-dungeon, I mean MEGA-dungeon, this is one huge adventure packed into a 134 page book. Stonehell is a fantastic product that can be purchased at Lulu.com, there are also a number of other suppliments available for it which I will discuss a little bit later on.

The first eleven pages start off with some general information on Stonehell which give the GM a bit of back story and get him caught up to the current situation, there are also sections on customizing the dungeon and dungeon rumors, then the a dungeon proper starts. Each area or level is shown as a whole and then divided up and dealt with separately. For instance, there is a Surface Level master map and on the following page is the Surface Level overview which provides basic information regarding the maps and then a Surface Level monster list. The next few pages take that master map and break it into separate sections, now instead of the Surface Level Master Map we have levels 0A-Canyon East and 0B-Canyon West, each a smaller section of the master map reproduced and shown with more detail and additional notes, new monsters and new magic item stats. The levels are divided into four quadrants, so you get one overall map that shows how everything fits together and then four small maps that include all of the details you need to run the dungeon. Quadrent example:

The layout is certainly not pretty, it fact I found it to be very cramped and a little tough to read in some sections. That said, I cannot image any other way that this could have been put together without it being 300+ pages, there is SO much information crammed into this book. There is enough material in this book to run a campaign for years, it really is am amazing product. The art is sparse but good, I don't think they had much room for art, this book is all about content. There is a very handy Dungeon Dressing and Container Contents Appendix in the back of the book with 100 separate entries, it seems very useful especially for a dungeon of this size. There are new monsters and magic items sprinkled throughout the book, it would have been nice to see them all pulled together under a New Monsters section, but they are all referenced in the Index under Monsters, New for quick look up.

As I mentioned earlier, there are several suppliments for this dungeon, they can me found here: Michael Curtis Lulu Store. They include a free Stonehell Dungeon Preview, a free Brigands Cave adventure with new monsters and the $2.99 Buried Secrets supplement, which includes adventures for low level characters.

This is honestly one of the best OSR products that is available right now, its packed with information and lots of usable material. Even if you do not intend to run the entire adventure, the individual quadrants can be broken off and used separately in any campaign of your own design. If you do not own this product go out and get it now!

My Favorite Artists - Stefan Poag

Our Favorite Artists is going to be a recurring interview with some of the best and brightest RPG artists out there.  To start things off we are speaking to artist Stefan Poag, you may have seen some of his recent work in the fantastic Labyrinth Lord mega-dungeon, Barrowmaze.  Stefan has also done work for a number of other projects including books and magazines published by Kenzer & Company, Goodman Games and Expeditious Retreat Press.  His artwork has a great retro style that brings me back to my younger years.  I'm glad he was able to take some time to speak with us!  Without further ado, here is the man himself!

• First of all, thanks for taking some time out of your day to speak with me, please introduce yourself and give us a brief bio:

I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, after a childhood in (what was then) West Germany. My mother is German and my father was a teacher of German and a Medievalist, so we always had lots of books of medieval art around the house. At some point, I think my mother started buying a series of illustrated Time-Life books through the mail on different cultures through history --- 'The Neanderthals,' 'The Norsemen,' 'The Byzantines,' etc., and I spent a lot of time looking at those as well as the books of medieval illustrations, plus I loved the Japanese monster movies and TV shows like "Johnny Socko" and "Ultraman" that they used to show on the local UHF channel. A grade school friend of mine, Eric Piccione, and I used to draw our own 'comic books;' his favorite subject was "The Pirate" (a swashbuckling superhero with a cutlass). I don't think the Pirate had any special powers; I think he was just really bad-ass and would swing around on ropes, dodge bullets, etc. My favorite was a hero called (cough) "Ivanhoe." Ivanhoe was secretly an ordinary dude who worked in an office, but he had a special ring with a secret compartment in it that contained a button. When things went bad, the office guy pressed the button and thunder struck and he turned into a guy with a cape and a weird-looking octagonal helmet and a sword and a big "I" on his chest who could fly through the air and shoot bolts of lightning from his eyes. I don't think I had any explanation as to why he was called 'Ivanhoe' or where the powers came from --- my friend Eric, however, was having a great time drawing "The Pirate" and I wanted to do it, too. I barely graduated high school and slacked my way through college and have worked a series of menial jobs, usually doing some kind of creative thing on the side, then got into doing commercial photography (mostly shooting pictures of stuff for newspaper advertisements). My significant other, Annie, got a teaching job in Michigan and we have been up here for years. The bottom fell out of the local commercial photography scene and I got burned out on that, after doing a few other things I am now a literacy tutor in Detroit Public Schools, trying to help high school kids improve their reading skills. Given what a bad student I was, this is kind of ironic, but I always enjoyed reading so this is a good fit for me.

Barrowmaze - Mega-Dungeon Extraordinaire

To my surprise and pleasure, Barrowmaze arrived in the mail yesterday. I purchased it from RPGNow.com in hardcover format, but its available in several different forms, softcover, hardcover and both soft cover and hardcover including .pdf's for a few dollars more. Barrowmaze is an old school dungeon for use with Labyrinth Lord or other comparable OSR products. The first thing that struck me was the cover, its of a group of adventures in a crypt/dungeon looking area, and they all seem to be in a bit of trouble (except the mage). Its a great looking piece by artist Stefan Poag who also did a large number of the interior black and white illustrations. Really great art that's reminiscent of some of my favorite old school products.

Barrowmaze is a mega-dungeon, it contains over three hundred encounter areas and eighty four pages of adventuring goodness. New monster stats, spells, random encounter tables and several pregenerated characters are all included. Its a lot of adventure of a decent price. Having recently also picked up StoneHell mega-dungeon I must say I prefer the format of Barrowmaze, it seems a bit less crowded and easier to read.

Another reason to love this dungeon is the enormous amount of undead included, if you don't like undead this adventure is not for you! Clerics are a must here, more than one would be very beneficial. Being an old school dungeon it's tough and deadly, expect to be running from some encounters and expect death and mayhem from others. A party of careful adventures should do well here though, plan ahead and have the right tools for the job and you can get far.

Make sure you stop by the Barrowmaze blog: Barrowmaze They have lots of added content on the site, including hex maps of the Barrow mound, session reports, character sheets and my favorite; Meatshields! The Classic Fantasy Hireling & Hernchmen Generator. All good stuff that is quite useful.

Overall I'd give Barrowmaze a solid 9 out of 10, its a great product any Labyrinth Lord will love!

Oubliette Magazine - Lots of Gaming Goodness for a Great Price

I recently purchased and received Oubliette Magazine and I could not be more pleased with my purchase. I received issues one through four as a single compiled book and separate issues five through seven. This is a wonderful fanzine put together by Peter Regan that focuses on old school role-playing (with a particular focus on Labyrinth Lord). Each issue is filled with wonderful hand drawn art and a number of articles:

Monster Club - All manner of monsters, tricks and traps.

Various adventures for characters of all levels.

Mouse Watch - A Mouse Guard-esque comic.

Tales from Hell - A comic following the exploits of several Kobolds and their buckets

Goblin Quest - A larger paneled comic following several nasty little goblins.

Articles - From the the various of uses of a 10ft pole or how to grief a Paladin, really great stuff, the meat of the magazine.

The Song of Sithakk - An epic dwarven story.

I would highly recommend Oubliette Magazine to anyone interested in old school gaming, its a great purchase thats loaded with goodness! The eighth issue should be out this spring, once its available you will be able to purchase issues four through eight as a compiled book (like current issues one through four). I'll post a link on the left of the page so eveyone can go check them out, don't forget to support their blog while your there!

First!

So I finally decided to start a gaming blog. The reasons are many but I'll stick to a few. I love gaming, in all its many forms. I've been playing board games, role playing games and computer and console games for many years now. I intend for this blog to be a cornucopia of gaming related stuff, I will cover whatever my current interest is. This is a way for me to reach out and connect with other gamers as well explore different types and styles of gaming.

My current obsession is OSR, or Old School Renaissance. I have been playing versions of D&D for many years now, I started with the 1st edition set and played through second and third edition. I never quite made it into fourth edition as I was so tired of purchasing the same core books over and over. I have enjoyed every edition that I have played, but lately something has changed. The rules heavy third edition has started to seem clunky and over complicated. I longed for the earlier days of simple gaming, a stripped down system in which the story is more important than the rules. I discovered that there are many other gamers out there that also pined for the good ole days of gaming and that there are a number of systems that support the old school rules. OSRIC, Swords & Wizardry and Labyrinth Lords are the three I looked into. Ultimately I fell in love with LL. it's such a beautiful and simple system, but the addition of the Advanced Edition Companion really sold me. I love that the AEC is completely optional but adds most of the stuff I loved from 1st edition AD&D. Paladin, check. Rangers, check. More spells and equipment, check and check. Crazy weapon speed factor rules and rules for specific weapons vs different levels of armor class, nope. Its a simple system that includes just enough but not to much. I'll be posting more on this later though!

I hope you all enjoy this blog as much as I am going to enjoy writing it. It is probably going to be a bit eclectic, covering old school gaming, board games and the newest video games. Take care and roll high!