[BLOG] The Rustic Monster Hunter Campaign (Concept)

Your bog standard podunk fantasy barony is menaced by monsters. The goblins are stealing the chickens, the werewolves are eyeing the chicks, you can’t go visit Uncle Rufus in the graveyard over the hill without him repaying the visit, orcs are plundering the merchant caravans, and there are rumours of a doom of wyverns nesting in the Raewynskill (the big dark forest to the north, a ways away). Heroes are needed to save the day! Unfortunately, the heroes are all busy saving the day for more important people, or they are just doing their stuff somewhere else. What you get instead are mercenary monster hunters. So the villagers/townsfolk grit their teeth, pool their money, and establish a common fund to finance monster hunting. Good luck, the campaign is on.

This is a low level campaign framework inspired by a discussion on LFG.HU (link in Hungarian), David Pignedoli’s Black Dogs fanzine (also about a monster hunting company, but more gritty and mediaeval), the DCC funnel, my old domain management campaigns, and of course the wilderness clearing concepts from various versions of D&D. It is basically low-level D&D where you grow a character pool instead of one or two main PCs. Here is how it works.

The GM creates a small wilderness sandbox, and seeds it very liberally with monsters and small adventure sites. Go over the top with low-level monsters, they should be lurking behind every tree. You could use any generic fantasy setting to run the campaign. Perhaps it even needs to be utterly generic, you just need a home base village (or small town), and a bunch of interesting terrain and landmarks around it. Something like 4e’s Nentir Vale would do – why not? (Or you can use The Stoneheart Valley, the classic Necromancer Games wilderness romp. Or you can easily make your own.) Then, monster lairs – the kind of not terribly ambitious mini-dungeons you can find on the net by the dozens, or just make up on your own. Be generous. Keep it deadly for low-level groups.

The Nentir Vale

The big limitation is on the character side. This is a low-scale campaign. Not even E6-style. You will each be playing low-level fighters rolled with the 3d6 in order method, or more like a growing roster of them. Every player starts with one 1^st level guy (or gal – the villagers don’t really care) down on his luck, and these guys can band together to go on expeditions to claim bounties posted on the tavern wall, or announced by the town crier. Your first character – and replacements – are free. You must hire the rest out of the gp budget you raise by killing monsters, and you must also pay to train up your guys to higher levels. It is a bit like a pyramid scheme for adventurers. Adventures take place on a weekly basis, the rest being spent carousing, wooing lasses, making a fool of yourself and getting into local trouble.

For example: Claude, Jehan and Karl go on an expedition against the orcs. They plunder a small tower which is an advance orc outpost, but they are beset by giant spiders in the cellar, and Karl goes down, stone cold dead. However, the other two survive, and now they have enough money to pay for a month’s upkeep and hire a few more first-level guys to go out with. Next week, Player A keeps Claude, and hires Sarah and Fred. Player B makes Jehan stay at home (he has good stats, and he’d rather not lose them) while he hires Lefty, Hank and Little Tim. Player C is stuck with a new entry-level guy he names Bullfrog Bill. They head out for the orcish keep.

Finally, a use for all those maps

Remember, it is the bounties that matter. If you just kill something randomly, the villagers may or may not care (you could give it a 1:6 probability of a halved “pity fee”). Everyone is interested in The Orc Problem, and The Giant Rats Down the Cellar (you thought you would be rid of them by now? Think again!), while the Raewynskill wyverns and Sir Otto’s Undead Keep are probably distant concerns, for now (as long as the wyverns only carry off the odd cow, and not the mayor’s niece).

You are not running real adventurers, more like a growing band of disposable miscreants. Beyond the funds for training, you need to keep up a number of troops to support higher-level characters. You first have to raise a stable of ten mercenaries before you can promote one to second level status, and at least 50 to raise an elite leader (4^th level, this could be a party-based limit). Perhaps you can only have one of those guys. Perhaps special classes (in this case, non-fighters) are also available, but proportionally more expensive. You need twice as much for a ranger or a thief, and three times as much for a cleric (magic-users are all NPCs in this campaign… although you could persuade one to join your team on a special errand). You need to keep the mercenary ecosystem going or your guys will just pack up and look for trouble elsewhere in the kingdom, or marry the innkeeper’s daughter and settle down.

Another fine map by Mike Schley

Gradually, you work your way up to try larger targets with a whole bunch of disposable mercenaries led by your precious few 2^nd and 3^rd level guys (who are almost heroes by now). There can be all kinds of complications: a bunch of do-gooders show up to ruin your business by killing monsters for free. A sinister merchant offers to rent some monsters which are trained to run away for you and let you triumph easily… for a small price. There is a fair and you can use those jousting rules from Chainmail. Some of the monsters finally have enough and band together to protect themselves from The Mercenary Problem. The local landlord decides that what the villagers do with their money is their business, but treasures found in his lands should be subject to proper taxation. And so on.

You could actually also use this structure to play out a peasant uprising, except with the bourgeoisie corrupt landlords and evil barons instead of the monsters, Robin Hood and company style.

[REVIEW] The Red Prophet Rises

The Red Prophet Rises (2018)

by Aaron Fairbrook (Malrex) and Prince of Nothing

Published by The Merciless Merchants

3^rd to 5^th level

The Red Prophet Rises

There are probably more good sword&sorcery rulesets than there are good sword&sorcery adventure modules. You can try it yourself, and the list in the left column will be longer than the one in the right. After a lot of hullaballoo about D&D’s pulp fantasy roots, and the importance of reading the “Appendix N” books to truly understand where Gary and friends were coming from, we still get more lip service in this area than the actual good stuff. S&S-style modules either miss something essential from the genre ingredients (most of them are just regular ol’ D&D with a thin S&S veneer), or – almost as often – they work better as stories than complex, open-ended game scenarios. It is a sad state of affairs. This review is about an exception.

The big thing about The Red Prophet Rises is that it does three things very well. It taps into the earnest violence of the genre, it presents an interesting situation offering a variety of in-game approaches in a complex, dynamic environment, and it is written in a way that combines functionality with flavour (proving once and for all that the two can be reconciled). Here is why it is great.

This is a module that takes one of the things sword&sorcery is famous for – unflinching brutality in barren, hostile natural environments – and sticks to its theme with both talent and consistency. Now, this is not “all” S&S is about, but it is S&S at its most recognisable – Frazetta, Brom, Conan (the movie version), buff people in S&M gear with horned helmets, butchery and raw violence. The module is set in a series of canyons in the middle of a rocky wasteland, as well as a series of caverns off to the sides. This unpleasant place is currently inhabited by a crazed cult of plainsmen engaged in a frenzy of killing, feasting and drugged orgies, awaiting the opening of their new paradise foretold by Khazra, their new prophet. It is the good stuff, and where the D&Disms creep in, they are handled in a way that doesn’t diminish the vision of this bloody spectacle.

There is a visceral quality to the writing which creates a great sense of place. You can smell the fires and smoke, hear the nomads carousing as they gorge themselves on charred rabbit by their fire pits, hear the brutal overseers bellow with whips in their hands, and feel the chaos as livestock runs wild among the plainsmen. There is blood, dust, an arena of death with a great throne above it, something called The Pit of Despair (hell yes!), a temple of blood, and living quarters carved into the rocks.  There is something feverish about the bacchanalian festivities in this wasteland hellhole, part the drugged orgy of the snake-cult from Conan the Barbarian, part the raiders from Mad Max 2 (Khazra and his underlings are basically Lord Humungus and his psycho bikers). This kind of thing hasn’t really been done before in old-school D&D modules.

Best of all, The Red Prophet Rises is an actually well-designed adventure scenario. The canyons and the surrounding caverns serve as a complex, dynamic environment which operates under its own logic and rules. As a dungeon (it is a dungeon kind of the same way Steading of the Hill Giant Chief is a dungeon), it is a dangerous cul-de-sac where it is much easier to get in than to get out, not to mention it is packed to the gills with frenzied marauders out for blood, run by two distracted but fairly wily leaders. However, it is also a sufficiently chaotic and busy place that a party of adventurers can come up with any number of plans to infiltrate it and accomplish whatever they came for (by default, the module was written for a paladin to find his special mount). There are great opportunities for strategy, underpinned by a fairly simple, yet reasonably believable timetable to determine what the cultists are doing any specific time of the day, robust encounter tables to complicate things (lots of hidden agendas and odd personalities in this camp of misfits), and notes on tactics to determine the inhabitants’ reactions when the party inevitably mess up.

The care also shows in the encounter design. Most locations on the key have their own, small-scale encounter dynamic or conflict going on, which can impact the way the scenario unfolds in multiple ways. There are hard decisions, surprises that call for quick thinking and improvisation, and there are also opportunities to seize, allies to find and hidden enmities to exploit. Getting into parts of the canyon system through social engineering, stealth, disguise, or a (potentially suicidal, although surely awesome) frontal assault can be a challenge by itself. The design really rewards groups who can think on their feet and move with the flow – there may even be ways to keep the action moving if the party’s cover is blown and they find themselves surrounded by a small army of armed killers. There is also good exploration, which puts the focus on being observant and imaginative rather than repeating rote dungeon routines (this is also the case for finding the magic items, which are almost all interesting new items with non-standard capabilities).

There is a second level to the module, in the same way In Search of Unknown has a second level – of course it does, but you tend to gloss over it because while it is not bad, it is superfluous. It does not really add to the experience, and it might even distract from the brutal revelry of the barbarian camp one level higher. The infiltration of an unholy yet living place gives way to more straightforward dungeon fare in a mostly abandoned environment, one that is altogether more in the vein of high-level D&D than the grim chaos of the canyon encampment. There is less to do, there are fewer ways to do it, and it is fairly disconnected from the things going up above ground (even in the physical sense). Finally, this dungeon level ends up revealing some of the mysteries behind the canyon and its holy site, and as it so often happens, we are better off not knowing – something raw and powerful is lost once things are made too literal, and we have an explanation instead of a hunch. I would just cut the whole thing (including area 27 on level 1) and reuse it elsewhere – it would work as a standalone mini-dungeon with some fairly cool obsidian-centric monsters and traps.

The Red Prophet Rises features good, effective writing, the kind I would like to see more often in game products. It is economic, and written to help the GM, but it is not a dry, soulless technical text. It is expressive without wasting words, giving you just the right kind of impressions to get the idea. “A brute with arms covered in ritual scars whips and brutalizes a bleeding and injured man kneeling on the ground”, or “The walls of the cavern are decorated with a variety of weapons, shields, and tapestries depicting lurid scenes of sacrifice, murder and war. Red curtains frame a throne of carved stone (…)”. Location information is broken down into a bullet point list, giving you more specific details after establishing the general scene. Helpful tables and side bars contain additional information. The booklet is well-edited; the information you need is placed at your fingertips, or you receive helpful references to help running the game. This is the kind of polish you don’t tend to notice consciously, but it makes a difference at the table. There is a monster cheat sheet.

The Red Prophet Rises is one of the pleasant surprises of the year. It holds up well any way I look at it, and achieves such a high level of overall polish that it sets a good standard to look up to and learn from. Furthermore, it is one of the rare sword&sorcery modules which combines a great understanding of the genre with the considerations of a fantasy RPG. As I argued above, the module does not really need its second level, and I would recommend just omitting it in play. Sure, you’d miss nine pages of fairly good stuff (in the three or lower four star range), but you are left with about 20 or so pages of pitch-perfect material, and that’s the real treasure.

No playtesters have been listed for this publication, but multiple signs point at it having been playtested.

Rating: ***** / *****

[REVIEW] City Backdrop: Languard

City Backdrop: Languard (2018)

by Creighton Broadhurst

Published by Raging Swan Press

City supplement

Yes, that's the cover

Languard is one in a long series of system-neutral supplements released by Raging Swan Press. The 24-page booklet contains no game statistics except NPC alignment and class and level designations, but the content is obviously meant for use with D&D and its various offshoots – the main audience seems to be 5^th edition players.

Here is a coastal city with its aristocracy, merchants, gates and wharves; realistic in tone with many shades of grey. It is right there in the middle between idealised fantasy feudalism and the grim urban hellholes where you will get mugged going out for a beer, twice. The streets are muddy and the city’s enemies are displayed on the parapets of Traitor’s Gate, but it is not a bad place to visit. The feeling is distinctly North European (most everyone has a Finnish name), with maybe a little bit of London thrown in. It is fairly lawful and organised, except for the Shambles, the run-down part where the poor live; the Fishshambles, which is the same but on the waterfront, and the Wrecks, a maze of rotting boats moored along the river, which has its own pariah group, the slightly fishy Takolen.

The guidebook first describes the city in the general, then location by location. It is potentially useful information – you learn how to get into and out of the city, who are the main power groups and religions, and there are a lot of adventure hooks, rumours and minor event tables along the way. The important locations are summed up across the map on a one-page spread, and there are text boxes throughout the supplement to help you with useful references. There are two maps, one keyed for the GM and one unlabelled for the players.

Languard does not go too deep into the fantastic, although it has its thieves, assassins and evil cults. Depending on what you value in your games, this can make it appealing or uninteresting. It gives you an internally consistent place with its own power dynamics, and the feel of an up-and-coming mercantile city. But it is mostly about the regular things, the society with its power dynamics and stock characters, not the strange edge cases. That is, you can meet your favourite “nondescript men in cloaks” on the waterfront, get in trouble with the Duke’s men, and hear rumours about a haunted building, but it is the kind of fantasy you expect to be there, not the kind that makes you jump. It would be more surprising if there was no murderous cult and Low Market wasn’t a den of thievery. The Duke, he is not the Duke of New York. Likewise, sometimes it feels too much like window dressing and not like material for adventures. Some of the random events are things like the sounds of an argument, or a weary peasant in a crowd carrying a sack over his shoulder. Part of the city experience? Absolutely. Useful for creating adventures? Only if you imbue them with your own meaning.

There are no surprises here, although all the middle-of-the-road stuff is well executed. It is not overwritten, and it serves its purpose. It is perhaps too low-key for its own good. Could Languard be the most True Neutral RPG supplement?

No playtesters have been listed for this publication.

Rating: *** / *****

[MODULE] New Module Announcement and Preview

Original Module Cover

At long last, under special arrangements from TSR, Inc. and rights owner Lorraine Williams, E.M.D.T., Inc. is proud to present the newest addition to our growing product family: the republication of a “lost” TSR, Inc. module! The legendary, rarely discussed and even more rarely seen Velour Palace of the Disco Emperor™ was produced under license for MoodCon 1980, but after the scandalous events at the venue, and increasingly hostile press coverage about what was going on in Official Advanced Dungeons & Dragons™ tournament games, the module never saw general release. In fact, remaining copies were shortly withdrawn from the TSR, Inc. design room, and they were pulped shortly thereafter. Even collectors thought all copies had been lost forever. They thought wrong.

Lovingly scanned and remastered based on a weather-beaten and rather suspiciously stained copy which had seen much use, and been found in a garage among stacks of vintage “magazines”, Velour Palace of the Disco Emperor™ can be yours at a special introductory price on this very special day.

Velour Palace of the Disco Emperor™ is currently available in two editions:

• A regular edition featuring a full reprint of the real deal, including the remaining parts of the illustration booklet (see Fig 2). $19.95 + S&H
• A very special collector’s edition featuring the real deal, a reconstruction of the original centrefold featuring Pam Grier in all her glory, as well as a real ziplock baggie of the special stuff that had delighted gamers, and even “Big Ernesto G” in those halcyon days of yore, all lovingly wrapped in Original Shrinkwrap™ (Original Shrinkwrap™ also available separately at $49.95 a huff). $79.95 + S&H

Fig 2: The Disco Emperor (presumably)

[REVIEW] Halls of the Minotaur

DCC #35A: Halls of the Minotaur (2006)

by Harley Stroh

Published by Goodman Games

0-level funnel

Halls of the Minotaur

We knew we were royally fucked one minute into the game, in round one of our first encounter. Two PCs had just gone down in combat, and it was clear we were both outnumbered and outclassed by our enemies. We had miscalculated the odds, and were on a suicide mission right from the first step. One of my characters had a Strength of 3, and another was a hobbit haberdasher with a pair of sharp scissors; our opponents had real weapons, including crossbows, and they were dug in in an ambush among the bushes. Then it happened. In the face of certain death, you might as well give it your best shot, and go all out. We rushed them out of sheer desperation and hacked at them until they went down and we won. Then we won and won again while expecting the worst, usually at terrible costs, but we got better and won some more. And we killed the minotaur.

This combination of overwhelming odds and reckless heroism is the addictive idea Goodman Games had hit on with what would eventually become the DCC “funnel” concept, pitching a handful of zero-level nobodies into the meat grinder and seeing what comes out at the other end: ideally, a few battered heroes, and lots of bloody paste. The play style is one way to achieve an approximation of the low-level D&D experience under 3^rd edition rules, and it has been canonised in the DCC RPG as an element of the character creation process. DCC’s power level is a kind of compromise between the 3e and old D&D approach – the characters are fragile, but there are mechanisms and extra abilities to compensate for that weakness, including a post-battle body recovery rule (essentially a saving throw against actually buying the farm). In this review, I am looking at one of the early examples of these “grinder” modules; it was originally made for 3.5, while we played it at a convention DCC game, with six players running three zero-level characters each. The review will also contrast how the module reads vs. how it was run by our GM.

As mentioned above, Halls of the Minotaur pits a bunch of hapless villagers against a marauding minotaur and its underlings. The action begins in a monster-infested forest, before it moves into a dungeon dug into a steep cliff, then a citadel on top of the cliff. Most of the keyed encounters begin as combat encounters – you move into a new area, fight a group of monsters (and if you are careless, deadly reinforcements), then you can check out the local details. Setpiece combats in cool locations – at a forest ambush site, before a demonic idol flanked by braziers, on a rope bridge, etc. – serve as the key attraction. The module has an element of infiltration/stealth that can make the combat situations (the preparedness and grouping of enemies) easier or harder, and the PCs will need all the advantages they can wrest from their environment. There is also an element of non-linearity that is almost real and feels real for about half of the adventure, but turns out to be largely illusory (there are a few branches and alternate routes early on, but the true way through most of the place is one way only, and the rest are blocked off by increasingly contrived ways).

As a typical feature of the early DCC modules, the room descriptions often give you the kind of wacky, imaginative room ideas you’d get in the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks – say, a dragon’s head rising out of an underground river, or a throne room concealing a deadly ambush, or fighting your way through the dungeon to emerge in a castle on top of the cliff – but they are somehow never actually as wild and out there when you interact with them. Likewise, the environment has layers of history and some really decent visuals, but again, it doesn’t amount to much, since it is a series of kobold battles in a fancier than average dungeon environment.

Or is it? This was an adventure that had gained a lot in the telling. Around the table – and remember, this was a casual convention pickup game – it felt real. Fairly standard areas took on a character they didn’t have in the text I read later. The desperation of the action – whose unfairness had turned us into crafty, vicious little opportunists – imbued the game with authenticity and a sense of working against time. Little touches to make the environment more mysterious – like turning some fairly standard kobolds into strange beastmen, or refining  standard encounters into indecipherable enigmas – gave it a touch of fantasy that had gone beyond the standard D&D playbook. That is to say, a good GM can do much with the material even with a fairly light touch; but also, this is a module with more untapped potential than it seems to have on first sight. It really did play better than it reads – had I come across it when I was still trying to find gems in DCC’s 3.5 module library in vain, I might not have seen the gem in the rough.

Which is not to say Halls of the Minotaur is a great module. It is a decentish one with typical design issues of its time and publisher. It always feels like the encounters are overwritten – much boxed text and followup writing are expended to say relatively little (developments in the old-school scene since 2006 have been massive in this respect). The 3.5 stat blocks are cumbersome, using mechanically complex methods to express interesting, but relatively simple ideas. I have already mentioned the other stuff. It is 12-16 decent pages lurking in a 32-page package (although with a Doug Kovacs cover and great illustrations by Stefan Poag). However, if you don’t mind giving it a thorough read and some thought to adapt it for yourself, the good stuff is more than enough to carry a fun, action-packed adventure.

The module credits its playtesters.

Rating: *** / *****

[ZINE] Echoes From Fomalhaut #01 (NOW AVAILABLE!)

Beware the Beekeeper!

I am proud to announce the publication of the first issue of Echoes From Fomalhaut, my old-school fanzine. After a long time on the drawing board, the print version is available from the Shop.

What?
Echoes From Fomalhaut is an old-school RPG zine focused on adventures and game-relevant, GM-friendly campaign materials. Each issue is planned to feature a larger adventure module, accompanied by shorter scenarios, city states, and other things useful and interesting in a campaign. Rules-related material will be limited to a few pieces of interest. A long time ago, Judges Guild’s campaign instalments established the general idea, and that’s the road I intend to follow. A small city-state? An interesting wilderness area? An island ruled by a society of assassins? Guidelines for magical pools? That kind of stuff.

The philosophy of the zine is to follow the “Creativity aid, not creativity replacement” motto, and to treat its materials as departure points – to inspire GMs without restraining them by spelling out every mystery and filling in every blank.

The content will feature both vanilla and weird fantasy, mostly drawn from our home games, with occasional contributions by guest authors from the Hungarian old-school scene. Most of the articles will follow AD&D (well, OSRIC) conventions, but remain compatible with most OSR systems – and there will be detours.

An average issue is expected to run 32-40 pages plus the cover. The print edition, produced in the A5 format, is set to ship with larger extras like fold-out maps or what have you; the PDF edition will include these as downloadables.

Why?

I have always wanted to publish homemade game materials, an idea that has grown on me ever since I fell in love with the rough charm of Judge Guild instalments. I released my first PDF adventure in 2001, and the first printed one in 2003 (through my E.M.D.T. – First Hungarian d20 Society label – the first issue of Echoes is E.M.D.T. 46). Over the years, I have mostly stuck to free PDF releases and community fanzines (with the occasional detour, like the Helvéczia boxed set), but something has always been missing. This is an opportunity to fix that. Finally.

When?
The print edition is now available for order. A PDF/POD version will be published through RPGNow with a delay of a few months.

How much?
A print issue sells for $8.00 plus priority shipping ($3.5 to Europe, $4 to the US and worldwide). The price for the PDF edition is expected to be set around $5. POD is still TBD. All buyers of the print edition will receive a free copy of the PDF edition at the date of its publication.

This is slightly above the average in zine pricing (I did an Excel comparison of 39 OSR and indie zines, and they come out at $11.44 for print/worldwide), but gives you some 14,800 words worth of content per issue (not including the OGL and front/end matter), pays for the commissioned artwork, and Hungary’s prestigiously large tax wedge. I will also spend the proceeds on future publishing projects.

What else?

Since set up a sole proprietorship to make this thing work, I am planning to republish some of my older adventure modules with new artwork in a reader-friendly format. The first such module is planned to become available in May, to be followed by Echoes From Fomalhaut #02 in early Summer. In due time, once I have tested out how publishing works, I would also like to try my hands at a few larger projects. But first things first...

Assembling Installments

[ZINE] Catalogue

Echoes From Fomalhaut #08: Welcome to Castle Sullogh

Welcome to Castle Sullogh

A 52-page fanzine featuring adventures and GM-friendly campaign materials for Advanced old-school RPG rules, with cover art by Stefan Poag, and illustrations by Denis McCarthy, Graphite Prime, and the Dead Victorians. This issue contains...

Yrrtwano’s Repose: The great hunter Lord Yrrtwano sleeps uneasy under the ruined husk of Varorlum Manor – if you dare disturb his rest, his enchanted horn may be yours! Dungeon module for 3rd to 4th level characters, 15 keyed loations.

You Meet in a Tavern…: and then what? Start campaigns with a bang using a tried and true cliché!

Castle Sullogh: A fabled castle reputed to be as old as mankind has lived on the Isle of Erillion (and perhaps older), now ruined but not at all abandoned. Four levels with 55 keyed areas containing challenges for 5th to 9th level characters, including a strange museum created by a famous adventuress, a tower of three powerful witches, and an old mystery. Beware the sullogh!

Thasan: Beyond the City of Vultures: Hex-crawl guide to the strange lands of Thasan surrounding the sinful city, describing its burning wastelands, glittering seas, ruined cities and bizarre phantasms in 103 keyed locations.

Two map sheets: one with a map of Castle Sullogh, one with the lands of Thasan – and a separate sheet with a colour player’s hex map of the Isle of Erillion!

Baklin: Jewel of the Seas

Baklin: Jewel of the Seas

A 72-page setting guide and adventure module for low to mid-level player characters, Baklin: Jewel of the Seas describes a medium-sized merchant city, including its rulers, criminal underworld, establishments, and three-level Undercity. Baklin is meant as both a campaign hub a party can depart from and return to (with numerous hooks for wilderness adventures), and as a complex adventure location of its own. It can be used along with the materials published for the Isle of Erillion mini-setting (Echoes #02–05), or it can double as almost any neutral-aligned port town in your own setting.

In any case, Baklin is meant to be played: it is focused on city intrigue, exploration, and dungeon crawling. Go shopping for great deals in port or at the stores of the reclusive Masters’ Guild; be careful not to fall afoul of the Sea Laws or anger the Knights of Yolanthus Kar; discover what lurks in the Tower of Gulls; and brave the Shrine of Roxana and the Thrones of Judgement!

This is two identical-length modules in one: a city guide with 39 major locations and a dungeon setting with 112 keyed areas, connected and bound together via multiple secret entrances, plot threads, and NPC agendas.

“Oh Baklin, Jewel of the Seas, great gateway of Erillion! Minstrels sing of its wealth and marine power; and of the refinement and taste of its magnates and nobility. Minstrels of all kinds, of course, are prone to grandiloquence; and perhaps Baklin is neither as mighty nor as fair as the ballads claim. And yet, there is reason the minstrels sing so, for Baklin has wealthy patrons, its fleet is not inconsiderable – and are its streets not the loveliest within so many weeks of travel? Indeed, those who brave the high seas often believe so… and they will gladly pay for a song to remember their visit. This booklet presents a complete city supplements describing the streets, personalities, and conflicts of a bustling port town, from the heights of power to the deepest undercellars. In Baklin, all streets lead to adventure – and a single life would not be enough to complete all of them.”

This supplement has been illustrated by Denis McCarthy (who also did the cover), Stefan Poag, Graphite Prime, Jerry Boucher, and the Dead Victorians.

Trail of the Sea Demon

Trail of the Sea Demon

Trail of the Sea Demon is a 32-page collection of three loosely connected weird fantasy scenarios for 3rd to 5th level characters. These mini-adventures revolve around a secretive mystery-religion, and the hidden paths which lead to it in a fantastic, labyrinthine city. They can be inserted into any gloomy fantasy metropolis, and may be smoothly integrated into an ongoing campaign. The three scenarios are:

The House of Rogat Demazien: The mysterious sculptor and magician is out of town, and his house lies unguarded. What treasures and dangers are to be found in the Beggars’ Quarter, and where does it all lead to? 37 keyed areas.

Temple of the Sea Demon: Hidden somewhere in the city, a strange temple awaits. Who will outwit the secretive priests and magical guardians to claim its treasures, and who will risk the wrath of the Sea Demon doing so? 19 keyed areas.

Shadow Court: a true bazaar of the bizarre where shadowy merchants mingle with those looking for exotic wares – and deceit lurks around every corner. Yet why does nobody here speak of the abandoned garden shrine and its nightly visitors? 20 keyed areas, and the strange merchants of Shadow Court are revealed in this module!

“The Temple has stood in an abandoned plaza since time immemorial. It is part of the city, but no known street or alleyway leads to it. Only those who wait for the appointed time can embark on a pilgrimage of shadows and dreams to walk new ways through the silent and dark city. It is said that only a select few know the way except for the fanatical priests who worship the destructive powers of the sea. Those who have sought the Sea Demon’s advice seek it rarely; those who seek its riches have never returned to tell the tale. But now, the city’s past may grant a key to solve an occult mystery… Trail of the Sea Demon is a collection of three short adventures concerning the way to the Sea Demon’s sinister temple, the secrets and perils that await therein, and what may follow afterwards.”

Originally published in Fight On! magazine, these adventures have been revised and expanded based on further play, and presented in an accessible, user-friendly format in the current edition, with new illustrations by Peter Mullen (whose cover is one for the ages), Graphite Prime, Jerry Boucher, and Stefan Poag.

In the Shadow of the City-God

In the Shadow of the
City-God

A 32-page adventure module for 3rd to 4th level player characters, In the Shadow of the City-God combines urban intrigue, cloak-and-dagger action, and dungeon crawling in a single package. Visit Mur, a city-state worshipped and forever constructed by its citizens as a living god, and discover the secrets the scheming noble families do not want you to know. Inspired by Shakespeare and the bloody renaissance authors who had preceded him, Mur is one of the great charismatic locations in fantasy RPGs, and an excellent place to set your own adventures – after you have played this one. Visit Mur’s sights, and descend into three dungeons crisscrossing its convoluted undercity. Also included is The Valley of the Skull, a wilderness adventure taking you to a lost world designed by a mad emperor, and a fold-out player’s map of the city of Mur.

“Mur’s fortunes have been built on tear salt, and merchants from distant lands travel to the city for this healing elixir. There are two tear salt springs in town, owned by two rival patrician families: the Falconi and the Capullo. Mur’s laws forbid open conflict, and like most crimes against citizens, the punishment for breaking the peace is severe: live entombment within the living city’s ever-growing walls! Nevertheless, cloak-and-dagger intrigue always claims new victims, and discord between the two families has now escalated into almost open warfare after the elderly Ercol Falconi’s young wife has disappeared. Time is ticking away, and only a bold company of outsiders can resolve the feuds and discover the masterminds behind it all… under the watchful eyes of the City-God!”

This module by Istvan Boldog-Bernad has been translated into the English, with illustrations by Denis McCarthy (who also did the cover), Stefan Poag, and the Dead Victorians.

Reviews:

Bryce Lynch, Ten Foot Pole: "I’m ending this review early to go pass out. It’s the day after election, I’ve been ignoring all of the news channels and instead drinking."

Echoes From Fomalhaut #07: From Beneath the Glacier

From Beneath
the Glacier

A 40-page fanzine featuring adventures and GM-friendly campaign materials for Advanced old-school RPG rules, with cover art by Matthew Ray, and illustrations by Denis McCarthy, Stefan Poag, Graphite Prime and the Dead Victorians. This issue contains...

From Beneath the Glacier: Venture into the ice caves underneath a melting glacier, and discover the source of the nighttime raids on the mountain valleys. Dungeon module for 5th to 7th level characters, 21 keyed loations.

The Hecatomb of Morthevole: Morthevole has skeletons in the basement, and he needs to have them cleared out. Fun side job soon turns into horrible slaughterfest. Mini-dungeon for 2nd to 4th level adventurers (or plucky first-levelers!), 12 keyed locations.

The Tomb of Ali Shulwar: An article presenting one of the major Underworld complexes beneath the City of Vultures. Two entrance levels, three main levels and multiple sub-levels, from the hideouts of fantastic conspiracies to locked-away secrets and an enchanted forest beneath the face of the earth! 4th to 6th level (mostly), 66 keyed areas.

The White Hand: Crime-fighting vigilante organisation or armed thugs carrying out extrajudicial killings? Or something much worse? Look behind the face of this secret society and those who seek to control its every movement in this article.

Review:

Bryce Lynch, Ten Foot Pole: "The preview, at ten pages, shows you sixteen of the glacier rooms as well as the map. It’s a great preview."

Castle Xyntillan

Castle Xyntillan

“The immense, rambling complex of Castle Xyntillan has stood in its mountain valley for many years. Built over several generations, it has now been deserted by its former owners, and left to time and the elements. However, that is not the end of the story, for Xyntillan’s fabulous treasures and Machiavellian deathtraps continue to fascinate the fortune-seekers of a dozen lands – and never mind the ghost stories!”

A 132-page hardcover describing the three massive levels of the eponymous funhouse megadungeon, Castle Xyntillan has been designed for the Swords&Wizardry game, and is suitable for 1st to 6th level characters. Built on surrealism and dream logic, Castle Xyntillan has been designed to be versatile, open-ended, complex, and accessible - and always a bit mysterious. From the soaring tower of the Donjon to the inky depths of the Oubliette (and beyond), this module should provide ample opportunities for exploration, confrontation, and subterfuge. Whether you would like a dungeon for one-off expeditions and convention play, or repeated forays and full campaigns, this book should suit the demands of your campaign!

With cover art by Peter Mullen, and interior illustrations by Denis McCarthy, Stefan Poag, Peter Mullen (again) and The Dead Victorians, Castle Xyntillan ships with four map sheets featuring GM’s and player’s cartography of the labyrinthine complex (the work of Robert S. Conley).

Reviews:

Grodog, From Kuroth's Quill (part 1, part 2): "Castle Xyntillan is a brilliant product, and it achieves what I wish T1-4 The Temple of Elemental Evil had turned out to be---a living, breathing large-scale adventuring environment with a distinct flavor of its own that calls out to me to fill it out further!"

James Mishler, Adventures in Gaming: "Castle Xyntillan goes a step beyond mere homage, and creates a new pinnacle from which to measure "Fun-house Dungeons." It is the Ultimate Gothic Fun-house Dungeon; it is an instant classic. It is the kind of game book that you can lose yourself in for hours, as you trace all the interconnected characters and situations presented in the adventure. It is so thorough -- and yet, still so eminently and easily playable -- that one must assume that Gabor Lux discovered some lost classic of Gothic horror and cribbed off of it to create this huge, ruined pile of awesomeness."

Bryce Lynch, Ten Foot Pole: "A perfect OD&D product, with whimsy and wonder without going off in to Funhouse territory."

The Byzantine, Espharel: "The content inside doesn't disappoint. It oozes flavor, and there's no shortage of ideas I've already stolen. Joseph Manola, in the ever-useful post 'Conceptual Density', asks how many actual ideas there are on each page. For my money, Castle Xyntillan maintains a solid rate of at least one per page. (...) The real draw here, especially for analysis, is the layout."

Echoes From Fomalhaut #06: The Gallery of Rising Tombs

The Gallery of Rising Tombs

A 44-page fanzine featuring adventures and GM-friendly campaign materials for Advanced old-school RPG rules, with cover art by Stefan Poag, and illustrations by Denis McCarthy, Stefan Poag, and the Dead Victorians. This issue contains...

The Wandering Glade: A wilderness module for (mostly) 4th to 6th level characters, describing an enchanted forest that may be found in different corners of the land, and hides lost treasures and the mysteries of bygone eras. For some, the challenge is getting in… and for some, it is getting out in one piece! 26+13 keyed locations.

The City of Vultures: Visit the decaying metropolis of the City of Vultures, domain of the great Mirvander Khan, where every street conceals a lure for the unwary, and where fabulous wealth and grinding poverty exist side by side! This primer introduces the City and its subjugated rivals, its coterie of gods and mystery cults, its peculiar customs, and the conspiracies which lurk behind the façade of its crumbling buildings.

The Gallery of Rising Tombs: An article presenting one of the four great Underworld complexes beneath the City of Vultures. Three entrance levels and numerous sub-levels combine for dungeoneering over 81 keyed areas; from a seedy caravanserai to the under-temple of the rat god, the domain of a damned warrior yearning for his lost love, and more! Characters level 4 to 6 (but sufficiently open-ended to accommodate greater power differences).

The Armoury: A storehouse of 30 enchanted weapons. Confound your foes with The Sword of Barriers, master the treacherous Axe of Many Runes, or take up the choice of champions, mighty Frogbringer!

Also... a double-sided players' map of the City of Vultures, as well as the arid lands of Thasan!

The Nocturnal Table

The Nocturnal Table

A 60-page game aid dedicated to city-based adventures, lavishly illustrated by Matthew Ray (cover), Peter Mullen, Stefan Poag and Denis McCarthy. This is a game aid designed for regular table use, and formatted to be comfortable and accessible, offering a handy guide to design and run adventure scenarios in a large, sinful city filled with action and intrigue.

“The City is a maze. A labyrinth of alleyways, plazas, shortcuts and hidden thoroughfares, it isn’t any less treacherous to navigate than a dungeon. At least during the day, the worst one can expect is a greedy patrol of guards eager for a shakedown, or a thief in the crowd, ready to make a grab and run for it. At night, the sensible and the timid hurry home and bolt their doors. Ecstatic revellers, madmen, assassins, religious fanatics, thrill-seekers, enigmatic apparitions and tiger-headed opium nightmares prowl the streets. And the guards are still not helping. The Nocturnal Table is a supplement intended to bring you this city by way of an encounter system, random inspiration tables, NPC and monster statistics, as well as a giant nighttime random encounter table, whose three hundred entries can serve as interludes as well as springboards for complicated investigative scenarios and fantastic conspiracies.”

At the core of The Nocturnal Table is a 300-entry table of random encounters and odd events you can run into at night in a busy fantasy metropolis. From a patrol of guards carrying a slain comrade, to a sinister beggar-catcher soliciting the aid of dishonest adventurers, or a skeleton covered in grey ooze, its eyes glittering gemstones shambling towards the party, all the wonder and menace of a city-crawl are at hand. But that is not all. With The Nocturnal Table, you can…

• ...create general encounters with the aid of a comprehensive encounter system…
• …generate merchants selling strange and fantastic goods (as seen in Echoes From Fomalhaut #01)…
• …find out what’s in their pockets…
• …generate local colour on the fly…
• …stock warehouses with exotic goods to plunder…
• …and set up secret meetings and investigation sites!

Guidelines are also offered to re-use the encounters and chart contents for the construction of bizarre plotlines and sinister conspiracies which rule from the shadows… while the City sleeps. All that, and more are at your disposal in… The Nocturnal Table!

Echoes From Fomalhaut #05: The Enchantment of Vashundara

The Enchantment of Vashundara

A 40-page fanzine featuring adventures and GM-friendly campaign materials for Advanced old-school RPG rules, with cover art and illustrations by Denis McCarthy, Stefan Poag, and the Dead Victorians. This issue contains... 

The Enchantment of Vashundara: An otherworldly adventure module for 3rd to 4th level PCs. Explore the fabulous palace of a god in peril, brave its dangers and outwit the invaders who have seized it for their own evil purposes… or die trying. 21 keyed locations. 

The Divided Town of Tirwas: Once an overgrown village governed by communal customs, and now a small town divided among a group of feudal Landlords, Tirwas is a place of perpetual tension. Can it be changed for the good, or can its hidden conflicts be exploited for personal gain? The answer lies in your scenarios, and your players’ decisions. 18 keyed locations. 

Plunder of the Stone Sacks: Formerly a set of communal shelters under the town of Tirwas, now a half-abandoned set of storerooms and a repository of discarded things. A dungeon module for 3rd to 5th level characters, 45 keyed locations. 

All is Well in Sleepy Haven: An idyllic, quiet little coastal town – an ideal springboard for adventures on the high seas, or in the monster-haunted wilderness. Or does something more insidious lurk in this friendly community? Is Sleepy Haven’s peace and quiet a comfortable illusion? You be the Judge. 8 keyed locations.

The Lost Valley of Kishar

The Lost Valley of Kishar

A 32-page adventure module for 6th to 8th level player characters, The Lost Valley of Kishar is a wilderness scenario with multiple mini-dungeons spread out over 28 keyed locations. Venture into a lost world of savage beasts and ancient sorceries – and discover an old mystery from beyond the stars! Whether you have come for the strange fruits of an enchanted tree, in pursuit of a great winged ape, the gold of a lost temple or a magic mirror, glory and death await in equal measure in… The Lost Valley of Kishar!

“Somewhere, only a few days’ travel from a busy trade route, there lies a valley surrounded by untamed wilderness. It is surrounded by cliffs forming the shape a ring, unnaturally steep and tall, as if they had been wrought by human hand. No one remembers who had originally erected the ruins standing within the valley, and who had nurtured the wondrous tree which had once drawn pilgrims from distant lands. Kishar’s priestesses have been long forgotten – but the tree’s blessed radiance persists. As if under an odd compulsion, all manner of beasts have been drawn to the valley, and in time, there emerged others. Those who came from far beyond human imagination, and were already here before the first priestesses…”

This module by Gabor Csomos was originally written for a 2018 adventure writing contest, where it won first place. This edition has been translated into the English, with illustrations by Peter Mullen (who also did the cover), Stefan Poag, and Denis McCarthy.

Reviews:
Edgewise, Artifacts and Relics: "There are a lot of different genre elements that manage to hang together well - winged apes, science fantasy, liches and curses - it's all there. And the organization is tight; Lost Valley gets in and out in 36 pages. It's not dry and it never overstays its welcome, and its all digestible enough for a GM to quickly get the big picture."
Jeremy, OSR News and Reviews: "The Lost Valley of Kishar represents both the best and worst of the OSR. It's clearly a labor of love, but at the same time, also really pretentious, cliched, and overpriced. Most importantly, there's really no legitimate reason for the players to get involved, as there is really no reward, just misery tourism. But that's something much of the OSR seems to love for some reason, so YMMV. "
Bryce Lynch, Ten Foot Pole: "I might liken it to an older Judges Guild product, like Dark Tower. You have to fight the text a little to get the big picture of whats going on and that makes immediate understanding suffer. But, in both cases, the content is worth it. (...) Still, it’s a pretty good lost valley adventure. Lots going on. The setups are understandable, easy for the DM to grok. They interact with each other. It’s got a lot of tough shit running around to overcome. (And may be a little light on the treasure for a 1E game …) It’s also taken the single-column format about as far as it can go. I don’t think you could make some of the encounters any longer and preserve usability. "

Echoes From Fomalhaut #04: Revenge of the Frogs

Revenge of the Frogs

A 40-page fanzine featuring adventures and GM-friendly campaign materials for Advanced old-school RPG rules, with cover art by Matthew Ray, and illustrations by Denis McCarthy, Stefan Poag, and Andrew Walter. This issue contains... 

The Technological Table: Destructive futuristic weapons and sinister technological artifacts from Fomalhaut’s fallen utopias and underworld realms. 

Revenge of the Frogs: A wilderness adventure module for 3rd to 5th level PCs. Certain doom awaits the dying port town of Silvash, and its only chance of survival lies in the marshlands, a place of bizarre inhabitants, labyrinthine waterways, and lots and lots of… well, let’s not spoil it. 16 keyed locations.

Arfel: City State of the Charnel God: Dominated by a great temple-complex that forms a vast necropolis, death looms over Arfel like a funereal shroud. Yet beyond the haunts of the veiled priests and the silent palaces of a reclusive aristocracy, the alleyways are busy both day and night, and adventure awaits those who would explore the city’s mysteries. 20 keyed locations.

Erillion, West: an article describing the western half of the Isle of Erillion, from lost places of pilgrimage to brooding manor houses, and lowly bandits’ nests to sites of high wizardry. 

Also... a detailed fold-out players’ map of the City State of Arfel!

Echoes From Fomalhaut #03: Blood, Death, and Tourism

Blood, Death, and Tourism

A 44-page fanzine featuring adventures and GM-friendly campaign materials for Advanced old-school RPG rules, with artwork by Stefan Poag, Denis McCarthy, and more. This issue contains... 

The Great Wheel: A mighty 50’ wheel rolls through the wastelands of Fomalhaut, destroying all in its path, and followed by a ragged host of raiders, fanatics, desperate camp followers and wily opportunists. What purpose drives this great device, and who are its followers? 

Terror on Tridentfish Island: A 3rd to 5th level sword&sorcery module set on a formerly wealthy resort island, dotted with ruined pleasure palaces, enigmatic caverns, and the relics of a bygone age. 17 keyed locations plus two mini-dungeons. 

Monsters of Wizardry: a collection of monsters adapted from the excellent CRPG, Wizardry VII: Crusaders of the Dark Savant. 

Erillion, East: an article describing the eastern half of the Isle of Erillion, from the city of Baklin to the island kingdoms of the Northmen, and from gloomy highlands to enchanted forests. 

Also... a detailed fold-out GM’s map of the Isle of Erillion!

Reviews:
Pookie, Reviews From R'lyeh: "Overall, Echoes From Fomalhaut #03: Blood, Death, and Tourism pulls away from the ‘vanila’ fantasy of previous issue and in doing begins to give the fanzine more of a focus, more of an identity, and more of a reason to want to read future issues. That can only bode well for future issues."

Echoes From Fomalhaut #02: Gont, Nest of Spies

Gont, Nest of Spies

A 44-page fanzine featuring adventures and GM-friendly campaign materials for Advanced old-school RPG rules, with artwork by Denis McCarthy, Matthew J. Finch, Stefan Poag, Andrew Walter and more. This issue contains...

The Four Wives of Xantun: fantasy scenario in the Dreamlands for 2nd to 4th level characters – what haunts the city-state of Hlanith, what does it have to do with lost love, and what is it about those flowers?

A Guide to Erillion: an introduction to the Isle of Erillion, a vanilla fantasy mini-campaign setting.

Eldritch Experiments: what happens when the PCs find an abandoned laboratory and start experimenting?

Does Energy Drain Suck? (and what to do about it)

Gont, Nest of Spies: all is not what it seems in the port town of Gont. Features adventure hooks, 21 keyed locations, treacherous NPCs and a lot of ways to get into trouble.

Down the Smugglers’ Walk: the tunnels and dungeons beneath Gont, and the secrets they harbour. 40 keyed locations from underground fighting rings to gateways to other worlds!

The Swine Lord: a small wilderness scenario for 4th to 6th level characters, featuring a valley with an unwholesome reputation, and those who aren’t bothered by it. 11 keyed locations.

Also... a fold-out players’ map of the Isle of Erillion, and of the town of Gont!

Reviews:
Pookie, Reviews From R'lyeh: "Echoes From Fomalhaut #02: Gont, Nest of Spies is certainly lives up to the author’s aim of it being designed to present ‘good vanilla’, that is, standard fantasy, but with a heart. It presents good material in the main, but it feels just slightly bland, as if there should be stronger hook or reason for a gamer to want to use that material."

The Barbarian King

The Barbarian King

A 20-page adventure module for 4th to 6th level player characters, The Barbarian King pits the company against the ruined empire of the mountain barbarians... and the evil that still slumbers therein! This gloomy wilderness and dungeon scenario features deals with malevolent and ultra-powerful spirits, the burial places of a now defeated people, shadowy hosts and deadly traps. 

First published in 2002 as a standalone mini-module and in 2011 in an expanded version in Fight On! magazine, The Barbarian King has seen quite a lot of play in those sixteen years (and held up rather well at the table). It has been disassembled, reassembled, bootlegged on the DM’s Guild (no kidding) and put back together again. This edition has been re-edited for easy use, and includes illustrations by Matthew Ray (who also did the cover art), Stefan Poag and Denis McCarthy.

Reviews:

• Bryce Lynch (2011 version): "This is a decent adventure; I was pretty happy with it."
• Bryce Lynch (2018 version): "It’s got a GREAT vibe going on, and Gabor takes things just a little bit further than usual for an adventure, thinking about things just enough more to make things make sense. It’s a good adventure."
• Prince of Nothing: "Barbarian King is a module with a feel so classic it should have been written with a typewriter and printed on cheap paper."

Echoes From Fomalhaut #01: Beware the Beekeeper!

Beware the Beekeeper!

A 40-page fanzine featuring adventures and GM-friendly campaign materials for Advanced old-school RPG rules, with artwork by Denis McCarthy, Stefan Poag, and past masters. This issue contains...

Bazaar of the Bizarre: a 1d100 table to generate strange merchants, with caravan guidelines.

The Rules of the Game: sets out the conventions followed in the zine.

The Singing Caverns: a two-level cavern system with 49 keyed areas, inhabited by orcs, bandits, and the mysteries of a bygone age. 2nd to 4th level.

Philtres & Dusts: a sampler of magical potions and dusts.

Red Mound: a mysterious adventure location found in the wastelands.

Morale & Men: a simple, fun set of follower and morale rules, written by two guest-authors.

The Mysterious Manor: the dilapidated manor house of an extinct noble family, now with new occupants... or is there more to it? 23 keyed areas, 2nd to 4th level.

Also... an unkeyed city map! (extra fold-out supplement)

Reviews: 

• Steve C, Google+: "This is a great example of what I love about RPG zines and the DIY OSR community: creator-written and published gaming material with a unique flavor and feel to it."
• Pookie, Reviews From R'lyeh: "In setting out to offer ‘good vanilla’, that is, standard fantasy, but with a heart, the issue has certainly achieved that. (...) Echoes From Fomalhaut #01: Beware the Beekeeper! is an assured first issue whose teething problems will be easy to overcome for the second issue."
• Vorpal Mace: "Don't let the small size fool you: this baby is jam-packed with actually useful articles."
• Ynas Midgard: "Gábor aims for "good vanilla", and it is indeed some very sweet vanilla."
• Bryce Lynch: "Terse writing, interesting encounters and a good map all combine to create a delightful little complex to explore … reminding me more than a bit of Thracia. Could there be a higher compliment?"
• Ben L.: "While I have more nuanced things to say below, the basic message is: it's packed to the gills with fantastic stuff. It has the spirit of the best early Judge's Guild stuff and a quirky sword & sorcery flavor. If you like that sort of thing you would be a fool not to buy it."
• Plus One Longsword: "Echoes From Fomalhaut has a lot to offer those ready to delve into its fun, and unique content. Multiple adventures with a surprising amount of care and consideration put into them, as well as useful tables and great art, this zine rolled a natural 20 for sure. I thought this to be a great first installment to a successful zine."

Yes, there is a downloadable sample!

You can buy these items at my Bigcartel store. They are also sold as PDFs on RPGNow with a delay of a few months.

Please note that your print order also makes you eligible for free PDF copies of your ordered items when they become available (should be a few months after the print edition). PDFs will be delivered via RPGNow to your regular e-mail address, unless you request otherwise.

How shipping works

I try to ship orders within a few days of receipt. I ship via the Hungarian Post, priority mail (there are no major price differences between priority and regular). As of 2019, I have switched to a flat $6.50 fee for worldwide, and $5.40 for European customers. (See the explanation here.) The most cost-conscious solution is to place order for two to five products at once.

I package every zine in an envelope. For larger orders, I am packing the items in a larger, sturdier envelope. If you’d place a bulk order, we’ll probably need a cardboard box. Based on preliminary test mailings, priority mail takes a few days to reach most European addresses, and approximately 10-12 days to arrive in the USA. If your package arrives damaged, please contact me at beyond.fomalhaut [at] gmail.com with a photo of the damage.

Privacy Policy

In accordance with the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the following privacy policy is in effect with respect to your orders:

• Orders are handled by Bigcartel and Paypal, who have their own privacy policies.
• Data collection: I store the following data to process and ship orders, and to maintain communication with you: your name, shipping address, and mailing address. Outside Bigcartel and Paypal's automated systems, I maintain an offline Excel spreadsheet for shipping data, and a cloud-based accounting program where I prepare and store individual invoices.
• Data storage: I store your personal data for the purposes of fulfillment, customer service, and tax records. No personal data will be shared with public or private parties outside Bigcartel and Paypal unless required by law. Once the original purpose of the data storage is realized, your personal data will be erased. Local tax regulations require me to retain records for two years after my annual tax declaration (due in February after the current year).
• I will not send you unsolicited e-mails. If you wish to be notified of new releases, I would recommend subscribing to this MeWe group (and while G+ is still around, this Google Plus collection). I will also post about new releases on this blog, and various forums.

Thank you for your understanding. Happiness, like the GDPR, is mandatory.