OSR News Roundup for May 26th, 2025

We're somehow at the end of May, already, and barreling into summer. It seems like over the last week I've seen a lot more new releases than I have for the past few months, so let's dive right in.

• First, I somehow missed last week that Colin Le Sueur, author of the excellent We Deal in Lead and Runecairn, is currently itchfunding the primer for Midnight of the Century, a game currently in development. The primer serves as an introduction to MotC, which will be a pre-apocalyptic serial killer investigation game set in the 90s and based on media such as Silence of the Lambs, Twin Peaks, and Homicide: Life on the Streets.

• Sandy Pug Games (one of the members of this collective is local to Charlottesville) has just released the amazing Hellpiercers, a game of tactical tabletop role-playing that reminds me a lot of Kill Six Billion Demons meets Cthulhutech meets . . . I don't know what else. It's pretty great, and I'm waiting eagerly for it to be out in physical form so we can add it to stock.

• Golden Achiever has released The International Player's Review, Vol. 2. It's a 28-page gaming zine in the style of ye olde The Strategic Review. There's some great content in here, and I'm glad to see them publishing a second issue.

• Relics & Ruins is a new OSR adventure statted for OSE, Knave 2e, and Shadows of the North. It's set in the real world, in Italy, at the end of the Little Ice Age.

• The similarly named Ruins & Rogues isn't an adventure, but a one-page, rules-lite fantasy game. It was released in 2023, but has been cleaned up and rereleased.

• Shards is a nifty little supplement designed to generate futuretech or inexplicable alien artifacts. It's the kinda thing I always struggle with naming, so I'm really stoked to see this release.

• Matt Kelly has released WarFare, the first in a planned series of supplements that provides rules for domain-level play for Cairn and Into the Odd. This specific supplement delves into the world of mass combat.

• The False Temple is a (smallish) mega-dungeon written for generic OSR systems and designed for character levels of 4-7. It includes a town to use as a base as well as a wilderness sandbox. At only 41 pages its sparsely written, but there's a ton of hooks and areas of interest, and it makes it ideal for Referees who want a framework they can adjust to fit their own setting.

• I've long been personally tempted to write a system based on the rogue-like dungeon crawl genre, and I was delighted when I stumbled across Morkin: The Lords of Midnight Solo Adventure Game. It's a system based on and inspired by the classic Lords of Midnight rpg computer game from the 80s, reimagined for solo tabletop play. It looks amazing. my only concern is that it will be printed and distributed from Spain, and with the current tariff uncertainty nonsense I'm worried US backers might be left in a lurch. But it's definitely a project I recommend checking out.

• Published by Archon Games, Ferric Resonance is a system-neutral adventure filled with doom and dread, and focused more on investigation and survival than combat. The art is top-notch and really evokes the game's themes.

• I saw Heroes and Beggars mentioned on socials and knew it was one I wanted to mention. It's a collection of twenty NPCs statted for OSE, each with their own illustration, goals, and motivations.

• I was glad to see that The Worm that Gnaws is statted for OSRIC, just in time for the new edition. While I do have deep love for BX-style games, I'm glad to see products for the Advanced-style games come out as well. This adventure is by the well-regarded Expeditious Retreat Press, and is designed for a party of level 4-7 characters.

• Justin Sirois of Severed Books has been posting pics of the soon-to-be released offset copies of Sickest Witch, and they look gorgeous. They've also just released Blood Property, a follow-up adventure to the introductory Salt of the Earth.

• Dungeon Meal Class Pack is a collection of five new classes for OSE, inspired by a certain current manga/anime. It's cute and clever.

• Richard Watt has just published The Lesser Key, a collection of demons for Mork Borg. They're designed less as creatures to be fought than foes to be tricked or unlikely, and untrustworthy, allies.

• The Bowl of Gunnfried is a short adventure written by Vance Atkins that uses some random generation tables they had previously published. It's statted for Shadowdark.

• Every so often I think back fondly to the Redwall books, and so I was excited to see Burrows and Bobcats: Storms over Bendell. It's a one-shot written for Into the Odd or Cairn, and I think I may run this adventure as part of SabreCon2025.

• The ever creative Melsonian Arts Council has just released Stay Frosty Remastered, a game of sci-fi marines against the worst aliens the universe has to throw at them.