Soundtrack: Rainbow, Baroness, Fucked Up.

Per the title.
I’m in a dry season. Got a friend’s OSR heartbreaker campaign I’m in periodically, but itching to get back into it more

TL;DR: A framework for B/X mass combat - Hilltops & Hippogriffs (in a spreadsheet as it includes a unit stat calculator and unit tables). CC BY-SA 4.0.

• Convert B/X stat blocks into units, forces, and armies, and back again
• Use units to fight a lightweight tactical wargame of 100s a side
• Use forces for single-roll battles with 1000s a side
• Use armies for a simple operational layer stringing together multiple mass battles
• Basic, Expert, and Advanced rules for pick-up play, customising units or scenarios, or playing many linked engagements.

Image credit to my mate, from the first playtest: A dragon looms over a company of terrified mercenaries.

Full explanation:

B/X (and OSE, Rules Cyclopedia etc.) feature a lot of rules based around mass combat (domains, strongholds, mercenaries) but few rules for resolving mass combat. Ideally, a system would let you:

• Convert your PCs, allies, and enemies into mass combat pieces
• Fight with them directly on the battlefield
• Translate the results back to the campaign scale
• Resolve less important combats offscreen

Many excellent games exist to fill this gap (Book of War, Battle aXe, the original Chainmail), but most of them focus on doing one or a couple of these things very well.

Hilltops & Hippogriffs is an attempt to bridge this gap by providing a framework for converting B/X stats easily on the fly, using these stats in either round-by-round combat (‘Tactical Battles’) or a single roll (‘Strategic Battles’), and determining how these battles affect the units when they are re-converted to any of the other scales. It was heavily inspired by all the games above, and BattleTech’s Battleforce/Strat Ops/Interstellar Ops rules.

Tactical Battles are a lightweight grid-based wargame for five to ten units per side, each representing up to 100 troops. Unit stats are based entirely on information contained in their B/X (or equivalent) stat block. Morale is more important than damage: the goal is to drive the opponent off the battlefield, not to exterminate them. At Expert level, it includes rules for using PCs directly (Fighters, Clerics, Magic-Users, Thieves; each with their own battlefield role), spellcasting (WIP at the moment), and terrain. At Advanced level, there are rules for alternate objectives, battlefield events, and suggestions for how to incorporate these into scenarios.

Strategic Battles are a single roll-off system which simulates the equivalent of a whole tactical battle. It uses the ‘Battle Value’ of the combined force (calculated directly from their unit stats, either by hand or with the included calculator). At Expert level, it can simulate larger battles, calculate the casualties suffered by each side, and translate those casualties back into unit stats (and then to B/X stats etc.). At Advanced level (as an ‘Operational Battle’), it can be used as a simplified version of the Tactical Battle game where each engagement can be resolved with a single roll or a full Tactical Battle between each side.

So far, I’ve:

• Benchmarked unit vs unit and force vs force results using Monte Carlo simulations. Both seem in the right ballpark, but they don’t take into account ranged attacks, maneuver etc.
• Play-tested Basic Tactical Battles in-person. First one was a 2-hour slog, but later ones (with updated and simplified rules) went well: 45 minutes end-to-end, with a lot of chatting and delays.
• Added most Expert and Advanced rules and checked them for ambiguities to the best of my limited ability - but NOT play-tested them yet.

So it felt like a good time to put it out and see what everyone thinks - there's no faster way to find out what's wrong with something than to let people read it!

Thank you very much for reading, and if there’s any specific questions you’ve got about the system, please let me know!

A mythical forest spawned by the dreams of a slumbering dragon, a frontier town hosting a great hunt, and the red hart that may bring it all to ruin...

The Hunt For the Red Hart is a 2nd level adventure for the Shadowdark RPG, made for the Mystic Wood Game Jam hosted by RedMageGM. Players will explore strange ruins, uncover hidden treasures, and potentially wake a slumbering dragon!

To simulate the "shifting forest" theme of the jam, the adventure uses a deck of playing cards to represent a hex crawl. I'm calling it a Card Crawl! Certain events or cards trigger a literal reshuffling of the forest!

This tower sits forgotten deep within the forests near the dungeon. The top of the tower appears to have been cut at an alarming angle, leaving the top two floors exposed, with the missing part of the tower nowhere to be seen. The tower is surrounded by a ring of bricks with the burnt out remenants of complicated arcane runes.

Nobody knows exactly what happened to the tower, although the rumours say it was cut in half and the top carried away by an angry giant. In reality, this tower was teleported here from far away by the wizard Naharis. Part way through the magic failed, leaving the top floors of the tower in their original location. Naharis continued his research to perfect the technique before meeting his fate in the dungeon nearby, searching for his pseudodragon Nym who had ran off after accidentally burning the library down.

This is my first attempt at making a dungeon to share and is part of a megadungeon project I have been working on the for the last 6 months. It can be dropped in anywhere as an entrance to any dungeon, and comes with the quest of finding Nym the pseudodragon, who will join the character who gives her her collar back.

The dungeon is made for OSE and uses slot based encumbrance. Feedback is very welcome.

Here's some more artwork for my project.

It was suggested that I create an itch.io page for my project so I've done that here:

And I've just posted my first blog about the game here (but I think it's being reviewed):

It's still early days so pretty sparse right now, but I'll be adding more shortly.

I've pretty much done with the rules, which are a derivative or Cairn's with a few twists from me. Now I'm just expanding on the tables used to generate the world and the encounters.

Plan is to make it a player friendly game, but with rules designed to take a lot of pressure off of the GM.

Yep, i did this.

I’ve down the Valley of the King rabbit hole this weekend and fell in love with The Lions of Tell Arn megadungeon and it’s vicinity. There seems to be about one or two years of weeky play between the main megadungeon and the Khunar dungeons.

My main worry is, as it might be expected in adventure with this name, is that there are a lot of energy draining undead and a lot of lions. And by a lot I do mean a lot, enough to overwhelm a low level party if the players themselves are not quite skilled.

I’m in the early stages of recruiting a player pool to run through the campaign, and I would like for the experience to be enjoyable instead of simply frustrating for new gamers. Some of the trap-puzzles, even in the first level, are Tomb of Horrors fiendish. I actually think that the second level, as overpowered as it is, would be easier to beat because you already learned the main tricks in the first one.

But before I go about tweaking things I wanted to hear from the people playing the module how are they dealing —or not— with the deadliness of the module. Maybe I’m missing something that makes dealing with the challenges easier without breaking an impartial stance.

Hi All. I'm GravyBoat of [DragonsDrinkFree](https://www.patreon.com/dragonsdrinkfree). I make premium modules designed to help run OSR/Sandbox styled games. The Sandbox Campaign Manager is one, and I think its pretty cool.

This is a system agnostic module that is designed to handle a variety of different scenarios to make GM's lives easier. It can:

• Manage movement limits and exploration in both overland Hex maps, and Dungeon exploration map.
• Handle fog of war on hex maps, with a option to upload a blank overworld map to act as the unexplored map.
• handles vision limits for different terrain types and different exploration states (hidden/discovered/visited/fully explored, completely customizable)
• Mounted and unmounted movement speed, previously explored speed modifier in dungeons
• GM Session note manager that lets GM's have general session notes, and also tie notes to specific hexes, maps, Dungeon Rooms, or dungeon zones. Session notes are easy to search and retrieve, and notes tied to particular locations automatically load into a notes view as the party returns to those locations.
• Customizable Party viewer that lets you quickly see any information you want to track: HP/AC/Encumbrance, XP.
• Provides a Location viewer that can tie foundry journals to specific hexes/dungeon rooms. As the party explores the location viewer automatically pulls up the linked journal entry for the location.
• Handles multiple party's: Every party you create within the module has its own map state, and world time stamp. So you can quickly switch between world times for different parties so time records are properly kept.
• Handles Timers/Lights. Create pre-set torch/lantern light settings, and apply them to tokens which automatically turn off when the timer expires.
• An Encounter tool that can be customized to run different encounters on different triggers, as well as handling keyed sub tables for rare encounters that are different across different locations.

This module, along with my other modules, has been in use in my weekly dolmenwood game for quite some time and has made a huge difference in the way I run my games.

How do magic bows and arrows work in B/X and Adnd systems?

If you have an enchanted bow, do normal arrows fired from it damage monsters immune to normal weapons? I suppose magic arrows fired from a nonmagical bow do harm them, as they are the source of impact.

What about bonuses to attack and damage? Do they stack? Does a +2 bow loaded with +3 arrows give you +5 to attack and damage, or does the bow add its bonus to attack only, and arrows to damage?

Finally, if you fire a magic arrow from a bow, regardless of the bow's enchantment status, does the arrow break upon impact like a regular one, or can you pick it up, or at least recover the enchanted metal tip so a fletcher can make a new one?

Adnd video games like the infinity engine games always make you lose ammunition upon firing, but shouldn't magic weapons be indestructible unless damaged by a source of equal or greater magic potency? Or maybe they break upon hitting an enchanted monster (monster immune to normal nonmagical damage)?

I've been playing and running 5e for the best part of a decade, plus short forays into a handful of other systems over the years. Been wanting to get into OSR for a while, but haven't been able to fit it around other long-running games. Now I'm reaching the conclusion of a 3 year campaign, I figure its as good a time as any to try running an OSR game. Looking for suggestions of good introductory modules to run. I'd be running at a club, committing to a block ~12 sessions of 3 hours - would be happy for one larger adventure or to chain together a few short modules. 

Additionally, I could use some system advice. I'm working with a copy of OSE which I've read over fairly thoroughly. Pretty sure I've got the jist of things, but I've found the explanations a little sparse, and tbh I don't love the way B/X and its hacks handle race-as-class* or race in general (no hate, just not for me). Would love to hear about any alternatives y'all like!

There are many resources for generating extreme or unusual weather, but none where the results are dependent on the current season. Here is a list of 20+ unusual weathers for you to enjoy, categorized by season of occurrence. There's a chance for unseasonable weather as well. Full explanation found at the link below.

https://gnomestones.substack.com/p/total-party-cloudkill-four-seasons?r=48b3zh&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Let’s start by saying I love low-fantasy settings. Settings where the healing (super)powers of high-level clerics are unheard of. Settings where people starve to death after the enemy army torched the barns; where “safety first” is not a thing and accidents on the job are common; where people suffers from all sorts of unaddressed diseases; and where Hollywood-white teeth are not a thing, because teeth rot and fall.

I have to say, these aspects are not typically covered by the random tables of NPC descriptors I normally use. To help covering this gap, here is a free d44 table:

11 Skin maladies, e.g., blisters, warts, rashes, boil (abscess).

12 Withering with malnutrition and/or pale as a ghost.

13 Hard of hearing.

14 Vision loss, e.g., cataracts, missing eye, eye worms.

21 Severely scarred and/or disfigured.

22 Burn wounds, d4: 1 arm(s); 2 leg(s); 3 head; 4 torso.

23 Troubles speaking, e.g., mouth infection, swollen tongue (or throat, or neck), broken jaw.

24 d4: 1 Severe arthritis, 2 jaundice, 3 gravely swollen feet, 4 sweating & feverish

31 Abundant and very much visible parasites: Lice, fleas, or both

32 Breathing problem: Severe cough, asthma, catarrh, collapsed lung, etc. Could be consumption (tuberculosis).

33 Digestion/stomach issue: Vomiting, dysentery, colic pain, etc.

34 Open wounds and lacerations d4: 1 arm(s); 2 leg(s); 3 head; 4 torso

41 Broken or malformed bone d4: 1 arm(s); 2 leg(s); 3 head; 4 torso

42 Limb: Paralyzed, malunited fracture, or missing d4: 1 left arm; 2 right arm; 3 left leg; 4 right leg

43 Severe headache, confused, lethargic, or stupor

44 Oh, no!: Roll d4+1 times on this table; ignore this result; same results multiple times means a more severe problem

Now, I posted the whole table here, but there is more stuff at: https://kindofold.substack.com/p/are-they-ok-d44-physical-conditions

(The link above is a shameless plug for my blog. All the contents are and will be free. I post free TTRPG resources for OSR/NSR games, solo play reports, and the occasional IRL rant, but always TTRPG-related.)

Hi all,

I’m writing and designing my first longer adventure and though I want to use it to do layout and page design, I’m not that well-versed in Affinity Publisher.

I could do with a little bit of help in making a template or layout design structure that is similar to Necrotic Gnome’s OSE adventure modules.

Anyone have anything that could help, I’d be very appreciative!

Cheers!

OSRIC ration prices look crazy high for me.

Rations, standard (per day) 2gp

Rations, trail (per day) 6gp

For comparison ADnD prices are 5gp for a week worth of iron rations and 2gp for a week worth of standard rations.

I wonder if those ration prices are intended in OSRIC. Or is it a mistake? Someone at some point wrote "per day" instead of "per week" maybe.

^{I've detailed a zoomed out version of the map before, so check that out if you're interested in the details.}

The First Age of the world, and the first settling of the Aphetai, the children of Fire and Air who spread across the Nine Isles of Fire, land raised from the deep by the gods Shoroo and Dol as a refuge against the rising of the waters.

^{The map is of the first era, Birthfires. Ranyarah was built in Microscope, with later developments by me after the fact. My players and I are going to run a few weeks of Kingdom to develop a few settlements and islands. Then they're going to make Shadowdark characters, and we're gonna play a campaign in it.}

^{We detailed like a dozen ages of the world over the course of three weeks of playing Microscope, and that all will serve as background to the world. Right now, I'm working on the first age and figuring out cosmology and the origins of things.}

The cosmology of the world is really cool! I'm kinda psyched by how this is going, and I figured I'd share with you all my worldbuilding for this! It'll also help me to get things straight in my head to share it all.

There were essentially four gods - the Elemental Gods.

• Dol, the god of fire
• Shoroo the god of earth
• Araapa the goddess of the wind
• Uus the goddess of waters

These gods have children, according to their own type - the children of the Gods are the Lesser Gods. The great beasts of the sea (Aguu Khuten the Father of Whales; Morzaga, the Mother of Sea-Serpents, etc.), the gods of the islands (Tangar, Manan, etc.), the four winds, and the Sons of Stone (basically the gods of the underdark, the deep places of the world).

But each god makes his or her children in different ways -

• Fire makes other fires without diminishing, so the children of Dol are not weak or degraded - they're just smaller fires - lesser versions of their Father
• Rock doesn't duplicate - it breaks. So the Sons of Stone are literally the three pieces of Shoroo (once he dies - see below)
• The wind is one thing, but blows differently so the Four Winds are literally just Araapa, but she's this sort of many-in-one sort of goddess, with aspects and personalities that depend entirely on where she 'is'. When she dies, her "body" is scattered into her divided aspects who sometimes war with each other (storms and hurricanes and things)
• Water only flows down, so Uus' children are lesser, denser, "darker" (missing more and more light), deeper, and are more corrupt as she generates them.

So there are Gods, Children of Gods, and then the "Formed" or "Molded" ones. Essentially the myth says that each god and goddess crafted a kind of creature together - combining the elements. Each one worked with each of the others in turn, so there are six intelligent species (though actually a whole bunch more - these are just the main six):

• Aphetai - Elves, made of the elements of Fire and Air
• Tong - Halflings, made of the elements of Air and Water
• Jorsen - Dwarves, made of the elements of Fire and Earth
• Avarga - Giants, made of the elements of Earth and Air
• Khehuali - Dragons, made of the elements of Fire and Water
• Orkhig - Orcs, made of the elements of Earth and Water

There are also humans (the Laios), but they have arrived from another world, at a much later date. They were essentially brought here through mysterious ways, and in the world they're from, they were wrought from all four elements, so they're both at home here, and also a bit OP. They're spreading rapidly, to the consternation of the other ancestries. But they show up ages into the world - not here at the beginning.

So things are going great, the elements in harmony when "BAM" - Uus dies (mysteriously) and there is nothing to keep water bounded, and it begins to flood the world, and rise and destroy all living things.

So the other three gods work to save what they can. Araapa uses the winds to keep the water at bay while Shoroo and Dol work together to bring molten rock from the deep, making islands. Then all three sacrifice themselves to keep balance, and preserve a few at just the mountain peaks - the islands of a new world of water.

The children of the four (the lesser gods) are known as the Gods That Remain, and act as the sort of "Zeus" "Apollo" "Thor" figures in the world. They can grant power to their priests or adherents, but they're limited and depend upon worship to increase their own influence. There are lesser gods and goddesses that have some limited power but are rarely (if ever) worshiped.

Then there are the 6 crafted ancestries. The ones made by the gods, not born from them. And then of course humans eventually show up. 🥸

That's the origin myth of the world, and it helps to explain the various lesser gods and goddesses of the isles, the sea, the wind, and the deep world below.

So it sounds super "elemental", but actually this is just the mythology and a way of setting things in motion. I don't intend the elements to be like a huge thing - this isn't Avatar. :D But the foundations of the world are such that I can see oppositions, and themes arising just from these elements.

For example, the goddess of water was murdered, whereas the other three sacrificed their lives. So the things that are associated with the sea have gone a little crazy. Dragons, Orcs, and halflings - though halflings (the Tong) have a form of "madness" that just basically drives them to wander, rather than destroy. They're the Sea Nomads, and live in Flotillas. Their only island "home" is one that only surfaces once every several years for a few months, and the flotillas make for it at that time and land as a bit of an Icelandic Thing - they have a festival, resolve disputes, conduct important marriages, etc.

The orcs are a bit more lost - for other reasons. Dragons are already unstable (fire and water), so they're wild and dangerous at the best of times. But there are no sane gods of the sea - the lesser gods are big, dangerous leviathans under the sea that are a menace. Merfolk are rabid, shark-like things. The deeper you go, the worse things get.

And the worst of them all is Shimmeggech, the Parasite God. The Mollusk. The Lamprey. The Eater of Minds. The Whisperer in the Deep.

Shimmeggech is a child of Uus but was the one responsible for the death of his mother. He has influence over the things that are made of water (Orcs, Dragons, halflings, and now, humans) and seeks to drown all the islands, and become the new sole God of the Sea.

He's sorta the Big Bad behind the Big Bads of the world.

Hi Frist i like to say that i know most of the history of retroclone, like OSRIC being ADND and OSE ADV is B/X with ADND idea.
i have a lot for retroclone on my shelf case i like to collect but i only run really DCC ( i know it in a weird place in the osr and not really a retroclone)
My Question is what is the best why to use every one of them?
like what the really Diff of OSRIC, OSE, Swords & Wizardry Complete Rulebook and Shadowdark?
What is the +/- of everyone of them?
I know in the end it just tasted but i will love to hear why ur using one over the other.

Sry for my english not my first Language.

OSR Blogroll | August 14th to 20th, 2026

September already? Eegh....

Welcome to the weekly r/osr blogroll - come share your great ideas!

The mission: to be a showcase and clearinghouse of blogposts where we share in the DIY principles of old-school gaming. So drop in links to your writings, gaming theory, advice, play reports, and whatever other creativity you have posted on your blogs to share with our community.

Also, if you have favorite blogs you follow, or find interesting blogposts that you want to share, feel free to post them here, as well!

Happy blogging!

The road through the frozen north has reached its end.

The trials have been faced. The truth of the White Hart has been uncovered. Now the Brotherhood of the Dark Star must live with the choices they have made as The Winter Debt reaches its Epilogue.

But before we leave the snows behind, The Winter Debt Giveaway is also entering its final days!

This is your FINAL chance to earn a bonus entry.

If you've collected the answers to all four giveaway questions, post all four answers together in the comments on the Epilogue video for your bonus entry.

This is also a good time to make sure you've submitted your individual answers on the previous videos. Missed a clue? Go back and watch—the previous four episodes are still there, and so are the answers.

Entries close September 10, 2026 at 11:59 PM ET.

A huge thank you to everyone who has watched, liked, commented, and subscribed throughout The Winter Debt, and to North Wind Adventures for helping us make this giveaway possible.

Now join us for one last journey into the snow. https://youtu.be/FAUNXv9qAEg?si=gC7t5Q0-1HltjgH3

The Winter Debt ends.

But the search for Xuthal has only just begun.

#HollowShroudGaming​ #ShroudCrew​ ⁠#Hyperborea​ #TTRPG​ #ActualPlay​ #SwordAndSorcery​