OSR News Roundup for July 15th, 2024

I don't know about where you are, but it is hot here as I'm writing this: close to 100 degrees F. Great weather to stay inside, under a ceiling fan or in air conditioning, and check out some new OSR and indie releases, which, to be honest, are still a bit light this week. It's something I've come to notice around this time of year; people are on vacation, gearing up for Gen Con or the other big conventions, and the pace of new releases often slows down during July and August.

• Tanya Floaker is one of my favorie indie rpg publishers. I've interviewed here a couple of times about the various projects she's worked on: one of the general interviews can be found here. Floaker has just re-released Tiny Spaceship on itch. It's a designed to be run as a whimsical one-shot about aliens trying to understand earth.

• I always see people asking about mass combat systems, and while I've certainly got my favorites, I like to see other takes on the genre, especially abstracted systems that are designed to be run without a grid or map. Bread Wizard has released Feoht!, a system-neutral abstracted mass combat system.

• There are so many cool projects that come out of itch jams. Some are one and done, and lay abandoned by the publisher, but others, like Palace Run Remastered, saw it's initial release as part of the jam, an expanded, remastered version to build on the initial concept (exploring an endless palace that is built as it is explored), and is now available in a limited print run.

• I've mentioned Hilander's work before on the Roundup. They're currently itchfunding Dead Man's Song, a nautical adventure written for Shadow & Fae 2e, but easily adaptable to other OSR-style games.

• Jimmy Shelter has released the Passkey Solo Expansion on itch. It's designed to be used with the Passkey system to provide oracular options for solo play, or to help GMs with their design. The Passkey system is designed to be an open-ended, rules-lite means to create a variety of games.

• The Book of Hexcrawl Adventures popped up on my socials, and I knew I had to give it a plug. It provides a bunch of random tables that can be used to spice up wilderness adventures.

• I really like the Hypertellurians game by Mottocross Machinations, and they've just released a follow-up: Ultracosmic is what I hope will be the first of many zines for this system, and if features work by a number of notables in the OSR/indie sphere, including Amanda Lee Franck, Alan Bahr, Wind Lothamer, and more.

• Eric Bloat has released a third adventure for the Underworld game (itself inspired by classic NES games): Madness of the Magi has stats for a bunch of systems, old and new (including 5e, the Zelda-clone Forgotten Ballads, Bloat's own Survive This!, and more).

• Ambaridell and the Freezing Vault is a short OSR adventure for characters of levels 1-3. It's designed for BX-style games.

• The newly released Eco Mofos! is being supported by a ton of content already, which is great to see, because it makes playing the game that much easier. Nauti Mofos is a nautical themed supplement and adventure for this new system.

• Populated Hexes Monthly Issue 35 is available on Drivethru as a pdf and pod softcover. This issue looks at the first level of the dungeon below Dry Gulch, a spread out complex connected by a variety of service tunnels.

• Rounding out the third year of its existence, Populated Hexes Monthly Issue 36 is currently funding on Kickstarter. In addition to finishing up the first three years, it completes the three-issue look at Dry Gulch with the second level of the dungeon beneath the surface, a network of abandoned sewers and settling tanks once used by the ancient city that stood where Dry Gulch is now.