OSR News Roundup for June 16th, 2025

We've reached the halfway point of June and things are starting to heat up here in Virginia. On Wednesday I'll be posting an interview I conducted with Rob Conley of Bat in the Attic games, so be sure to check out the blog for that. It's likely going to be a short one this week; I'm traveling today to get my daughter to camp, and the blog interface keeps crashing, so, if I missed something this week, I apologize. Shoot me a note and I'll include it in next week's release.

• Melfy has released the quirky Wizard-Mendicant of the Didactic Wasteland, a short entry into the Cairn Science Fantasy Background Jam. If you need an annoying wizard to pester your party with, this is your guy.

• The Crypt of Saint Wendelgard is a one page adventure for Cairn about an undead saint.

• I'd mentioned Flint, the solo adaption of Cairn 2e, awhile back. It is finally out on print on demand, and the author has released a code for 3.00 of the printed version.

• Mist & Sorrow is a Mothership fantasy hack that takes a rules-light approach to the game while retaining the "Panic Engine" mechanic.

• Red Ruin Publishing is out with Casket of Fays #16 of their Dragon Warriors fanzine. They're also delving into the world of offering pod versions, and have given me some News Roundup exclusive codes to provide: one for hardcover and one for softcover.

• Tales from the Pog Wars looks like a fun hack of Shadowdark, a post-apocalyptic, weird west setting and game.

• There's a ton of new stuff for Shadowdark out there this week, including Auxilary 2025 for Shadowdark, a release of supplemental material for SD.

• The Bochord of Blasphemy is a short dungeon crawl for Mork Borg featuring stolen scriptures and the threat that the characters need to track down and return the stolen goods or face damnation themselves.

• Zineventures 1: Deadwoods is a planned monthly zine with OSR system neutral content. This one features a necromancer stitching together with gleeful abandon the remains of dead animals and people and setting them free to terrorize the local forest.

• I had missed Defy the Gods when it launched for the first time; it didn't fund, so the creators took it down and have relaunched it. It's inspired by Conan, Clash of the Titans, and Princess Mononoke, with themes of queer resistance and survival.

• Temple of the Sheep God is a 3pp adventure for Shadowdark that centers on a single 24-mile hex. There's a dungeon and surrounding encounters.

• One of the big projects I've been waiting patiently for is Hellwhalers: The Book of Leviathan. I had promoted Hellwhalers when it was first announce, and this new release expands on this amazing game. I can't say enough good things about this game: everything is great about it, from the woodcut-style art to the theme of sailing the stygian seas in a vessel crewed by an infernal captain.