“A compilation of four short, open-ended adventure outlines leading to uncanny locales and perplexing situations, this zine offers scenarios that could serve as one-shots or digressions from longer campaigns. Herein, you can visit a comet-struck town living in perpetual gloom, abandoned by its inhabitants but sought by rich eccentrics; resolve an ancient family feud in a place of unravelling time; seek the resting place of a saint in the Undercity to avert a most unusual calamity befalling the City’s dead; and travel beyond space and time to a sanctuary of learning… where the books read you. Some assembly required!”
The print version of the module is available from my Bigcartel store; the PDF edition will be published through DriveThruRPG with a few months’ delay. As always, customers who buy the print edition will receive the PDF version free of charge.
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Artist for hire!
You might know Lithuanian artist Vincentas Saladis from his previous contributions to Echoes From Fomalhaut and Weird Fates, vol. 01. He has also contributed to vol. 02, and multiple forthcoming titles. Vincentas walks a fine line between an almost 19th century-style line art and grim fantasy realism. In any event, he is available for commissions at katorga-art@protonmail.com, and has an Instagram account at https://www.instagram.com/katorga.art/. I can say every time we worked together has been excellent, so contact him with confidence! You can find a sampler of his art below, one from a published zine, and two from titles yet to be released.
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| The Gates of Sorrow |
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| Connor the Barbarian, Sole Survivor |
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| The Gates of Panthozar |
Forthcoming projects, and where they are
Things have been quiet around here for a while, and that’s with good reason – a lot of my time went into my day job, plus multiple larger slow-burn projects that take time to get into a shape where I am comfortable about releasing them. Thus, here is a minor update of sorts:
- The Well of Frogs: a Swords & Wizardry adventure for levels 1–2 by Istvan Boldog-Bernad (author of In the Shadow), featuring adventures in a dirty and chaotic city, as well as the dungeons beneath it. This is the most honest module title in history, with more frogs than you can shake a stick at. It is ready to go once Mythmere’s new S&W license is released, although I may delay it a little if Echoes #11 is sufficiently far along at that time.
- Echoes From Fomalhaut #11: this issue took some time to assemble. However, it is close to complete, and it is going to be a fairly large one, perhaps as large as the Baklin supplement. This issue will be dedicated solely to the Twelve Kingdoms, and shall contain the hefty hex key for the parts of the setting we have played in, as well as a larger and smaller adventure scenario. Layout is in its final stages, and then it’s time to commission illustrations, create the final maps, and that sort of thing. Late June would be a realistic release date. See you soon… On Windswept Shores!
- Khosura: King of the Wastelands: This is not only overdue, but it will take some time to finish in a way that does it justice. A lot of the material is done (since a large part of it is based on previously published materials), the majority of art is done, but it grew in revision, and that pushed it out of the Q1 2023 window. The more realistic projection is late 2023, or even very early 2024. Those responsible have been sent to the Pits of Lamentation!
- Caught in the Webs of Past and Present: This No Artpunk I-winning adventure by Gabor Csomos is set for publication in the Fall, for OSRIC.
very cool!
ReplyDeletePlease, please, please can we have more Helvéczia material?
ReplyDeleteA second regional supplement/adventure collection, Zwillings and the Graubundsee, has been written and published in the Hungarian. This only needs to be translated, but it is a good 72 pages, so it takes some work. I will do what I can to get it out!
DeleteThat Gates of Sorrow illustration always makes me stop and stare for a second.
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ReplyDeleteIt would be nice to have some low-level adventures set in Fomalhaut. There don't seem to be any low-level sword & sorcery OSR style adventures around (okay, there are probably several DCC RPG ones I don't know about).
ReplyDeleteAlthough my very short-lived attempt at a sword & sorcery dungeon for Dungeon23 made me realise there is a lack of sword & sorcery style standard D&D monsters that aren't very risky for low-level characters (I ended up relying heavily on ghouls, giant insects and traps).
Depends on how low it has to get. I have published a lot of S&S-focused material ( the list at Guy Fullerton's blog at https://unvisiblecitadel.blogspot.com/2015/05/melan-gabor-lux-bibliography-and.html could be a good start), but we usually start our campaigns at level 3. That's where S&S characters start to get competent enough. For the leve 1-2 range, I could recommend the Vaults of Volokarnos from Echoes #09 (only using human smugglers in place of orcs), or the forthcoming Well of Frogs. Using human NPCs instead of humanoids and hydras/dinosaurs instead of dragons can also turn a lot of D&D adventures useful.
DeleteI recently posted a few more module tips on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/osr/comments/12j3uju/good_sword_sorcery_modules/
Thanks for the overview, I'm excited for all of that!
ReplyDeleteI'm wondering about Khosura. There's a lot older material for Fomalhaut. Which of them does the new version update? "Just" the city of Khorura (using quotes because it's quite big) or others as well? I admin I don't have a clear idea of everything that's out there but there are things like The Isles on the Emerald Sea, The Bird Tower etc.
The book incorporates the city state and its underworld (updated and expanded), the surrounding wilderness (this was never published), and various mini-adventures that came out in Fight On! So for instance the Tower of Birds is included. Isles on and Emerald Sea is a different thing, and will be republished separately when it comes to that.
Deletesorry for asking you here, but i don't quite understand how poisons work in Helveczia. What is the difference between primary and secondary effects? How many saves do players have to do?
ReplyDeleteNo problem! Two saves have to be made, the first immediately, and the second slightly afterwards (after the encounter, or when some time passes). So the character may be affected by both, one, or neither. Making the first save still does not obviate the second.
DeleteThank you for responding so quickly. If the player fails the second save, do they have to keep making saves? after a day has passed, or longer
ReplyDeleteAs one of Melan's long-standing players, I might be able to answer that: once the second roll is made, there are no further ones, regardless of the result.
Deletethank you. Played last night and someone got poisoned properly. Appreciate the help, althought the player didn't.
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