OSR News Roundup for July 14th, 2025

My apologies for missing last week's Roundup; we had SabreCon going on that weekend, and I was wiped out. I'd like to thank Lyme, author of Dawn of the Orcs (Ennie-nominated!) for showing up for all three days and helping us out, as well as Josh McCrowell, author of His Majesty the Worm (also Ennie-nominated!) for running a game of HMtW on Sunday.

The Friday of SabreCon the Ennie nominations also dropped. I was really pleased to see the number of indie titles dominating this year's awards. Please, take a few moments to vote for your favorites, here.

Since this is a two-week Roundup I'm going to dive right in and see what we missed from the past two weeks. My apologies if I don't catch everything.

• Eldritch Instinct is a game of cosmic horror based on Cairn. I'm only linking to the itch version (I try to promote itch links when possible), but there is a Drivethru POD option the author links to from their itch page.

• Planet Gnome has released the Stranded Astronaut as an entry to the Cairn science-fantasy background jam.

• We don't see many releases on ko-fi, but chrispychickin has released The Muttering Obelisk on that platform. It's a system-neutral module for OSR-style games.

• I've mentioned the Glowburn & Radscars system before, and the author has just released The Soul Jar, an adventure for G&R. Originally written as part of the Appendix N jam, this project turned out to be a bit too long for that project, so was released independently.

• Speaking of the Appendix N jam, The Gnôles of Nuth is an entry into that project, written for Into the Odd.

• Another entry in the jam is Jungle of the Jade Jaguar, which is a truly visually striking release. It uses a unique d12 system, as well.

• Goblinpitgames has released Temple at Mount Sampo, an adventure for their Miasma and Monsters system and the follow-up to their last released adventure.

• Kevin Crawford is one of my favorite publishers, and he's just released his newest Without Numbers book; Ashes Without Numbers brings his amazing system to the apocalypse, or, rather, the post-apocalypse. It's now out on Drivethru.

• Star Borg: Big Book of Bots is a supplement for Star Borg that introduces ten new bot classes to the game.

• Skin City looks like a really fun setting for Into the Odd. You play animated skeletons, tasked with wearing human skin-suits and infiltrating the last remaining city of humans.

• Written as an introductory adventure for Shadowdark, Into the Shadows features art by a bunch of recognizable OSR figures, with an upcoming print version. It sounds like a classic low-level adventure setup, which isn't necessarily a bad thing!

• I'm a big fan of procedural generation tools, and was excited to see The OSR Infinite Depths Dungeon Crawl System is designed to be used solo or with a group to randomly generate dungeons.

• Days of the Plague is a fascinating little game I saw pop up on Drivethru the other day. It's set in the societal collapse of Italy during the Black Plague.

• I've admired the work of Fernando Salvaterra for awhile now, especially their hex maps, and I saw they just released a mini pack of four monster stock art images on Drivethru.

• I saw this on social media a few weeks back, and it is in my queue for publications to check out: The Book of Winter. Published by Hellwinter Forge of Wonders, this release revises the ranger class in OSR games, with a particular emphasis on cold weather environments.

• I thought I had recommended Chain Censer #1 awhile back, but I see it is still funding on KS, so I must have made a mistake. Anyway, it's a zine by the talented Donn Stroud for the game Ruination Pilgrimage. You should check it out!

• Engram is currently funding on Kickstarter. It's a scenario for Mothership, centered on unscrupulous, mind-controlling mining company and a brewing rebellion among the workers.

• It seems like it's been ages since I mentioned a project by Philip Reed; he's got Enchanted Loot currently funding, a card deck of magic items for Shadowdark.

• Lotta Shadowdark this week: Sapphire Seas is a nautical hexcrawl adventure path written for characters of levels 1-10.