[Review] Slügs by Lamentations of the Flame Princess

Slügs was a free RPG day sourcebook, now available for everyone in print for a very reasonable price, and when they're all gone, a pay-what-you-want PDF will be released.

Most of the LotFP publications are adventures or settings, few being sourcebooks (like Vornheim for city adventures or The Seclusium Of Orphone for creating mages' towers). LotFP doesn't believe in traditional monster books, as its weird fantasy philosophy is, that each creature/monster encountered should be unique instead of just something out from monster manual. Slügs is a compilation of monsters - slugs in this case - but they are all unique and individuals. Or that's the impression the text gives. You don't meet 10 "muscle slügs" (yes, they're there) guarding a treasure in a dungeon.

 There are 16 different slügs in total, each different. Generally the aren't just meatbags and hit points for player characters to grind for experience and loot, they all have a gimmick or two - but the gimmicks are not stupid. Well, some of them are, like the christmas slüg what you get presents from if you're lucky, or breakfast slüg which is a slimy bowl of cereal. These slügs can be a big part of campaign, and a quest to find, for example the doctor slug to be found to cure horrible wounds and damage an adventurer party member has suffered. Some will make a quest, like mentallo slüg, who knows the future and wants you to prevent something horrible from happening. Some of them just have an effect, like sluggish slüg. But for those who want to fight horrible monsters, there are more traditional slügs like the vomit slug.

There are NSFW work included, but the quality of drawings is great. Kelvin Green's (Forgive Us) slüg drawings are great and he has captured the different qualities of the various slügs very well. Yannick Bouchard's inside covers are his usual great quality. And Rich Longmore's cover that expands to the back is very colorful.

Slügs was a fun read. There are many different slugs from which almost any Game Master can find something to throw into their campaign world. Many of them are humorous, some even stupid, but most of them are easily usable (the humorous and stupid depend on the players and campaign, rest don't that much). Even IF Slügs was just a big joke, you can use it without making your campaign just silly.

For the price of less than a dollar, when you order anything from LotFP strore, there is no excuse of not including this to it. I say, go get it!

[LotFP] Witchfinders, Demonhunters and Inquisitors

In the world where weird monsters and horrors are reality lurking behind the veils of everyday life, some brave and determined men and women have dedicated their lives to seek out and destroy these things. They are marked with a sacred brand on their forehead to grand special powers against the infernal and cosmic forces of evil.

Any new character from any class from the beginning of the campaign can be branded to gain a special power, which you determine rolling 1d6 from the table. Also roll for a disadvantage of the devotion. A character might later on a campaign become one going through a sacred ritual of branding. They must devote their adventuring life for the cause they have chosen.

WITCHFINDER

They are professionals that seek out those who have powers beyond the man for selling their soul to the forces of evil. They know how to deal with witches and protect themselves against their malicious spells.

Advantages

1. Immune to any charm or mind affecting powers of witches.

2. Can make a special balsam against witches powers. The balsam costs 100 GP of protection per level of witch's HD. The balsam, when applied to the skin, protects against one direct spell of the witch except charm and mind affecting spells.

3. Can sense a presence of a witch within 100 feet per their level.

4. When making a finishing blow against a witch, they can absorb one random power of her if they will. They must success a save versus Magic or be corrupted of the witchtanic power and lose their special ability for 1d6 levels.

5. Specialist in long-distance murder and take advantage on technology. +2 using gunpowder weapons. Also all maintenance work for gunpowder weapons are halved.

6. Resistant to poisons, but must drink a dose of poison daily or die, if doesn't save versus poison.

Disadvantages

1. Every witch she kills reminds her of her own mother for a reason or another. She must save against paralyze or be depressed the next adventure suffering a -1 penalty to any roll.

2. She is hypersensitive for witch's body. Any time witch inflicts unarmed damage, she suffer extra 1d4 damage per witch's HD.

3. Her ancestor was a witch, and in her blood thin witchtanic trace. If she comes in touch with witch's blood, there is 1-in-6 chance that the witch within is invoked. Her alignment changes to chaotic and as she loses her advantage, she gains witchtanic powers.

4. All potions and alchemical fluids have double effect on her. Both helpful and harmful.

5. Has saved someone from witch's claws and now her responsibility is to protect him.

6. Is permanently ill, thanks to witch's curse. Needs medicine once every 2d4 days. Ingredients for one dose costs 10 GP per level and needs one special incredient to produce. With a successful Intelligence roll (under), can produce the medicine herself. Even though she doesn't success, the GP used for the ingredients is lost. If she buys the medicine prepared, one dose costs 25 GP per her level.

DEMONHUNTER

Infernal, demonic, monstrous and otherworldly beings are their enemies. Their mind is strong against the temptations and body resistant of their corruption. Their blade cuts precise and deep.

Advantages

1. Against demonic creatures they deal extra 1d6 damage.

2. Can roll two dices to save against demonic powers and corruption.

3. Can learn from the demons they destroy, giving them +1 to attack rolls, damage rolls and saves against same types.

4. Has 5% chance per their level to learn a spell cast against them. They can use it once, until learned again.

5. Has one special weapon you have used to kill your first monster. With this weapon you get +2 to damage, to-hit and armor class. Without that weapon you suffer severe effects of fright and self-esteem problems causing you to be extremely insecure and undetermined also suffering -1 to all actions you take.

6. Can brand others. In exchange of permanent bonus of 1 to saves versus demonic and monstrous powers they suffer 1d4 permanent damage to HP.

Disadvantages

1. The lure of demonic powers is strong against her. Every time she encounters a demon she must success in save against magic. If she fails six times in her life, her soul is lost and possessed by a demon (roll summon spell chart to see what abomination she will become).

2. There is a 1-in-6 chance a day that she will mistake something ordinary (a peon, a goat, a windmill) for a demon and she will try to destroy. It is possible to stop her and talk sense to her, but it is not an easy task.

3. She is like a magnet for the demons. Demons can sense her from a distance and from beyond the curtains of dimensions. Every week there is a 1-in-6 chance that a demon finds her and tries to destroy her.

4. All the evil she has seen and conquered has tainted her soul, and no clerical magic works on her.

5. Has had a taste of blood of her enemies and must drink demonic or monstrous blood at least once per week or die if doesn't save against poison.

6. Has hunted creatures of darkness so long, that suffers from sunlight. It burns her skin and she cannot see well. -2 to all eyesight related tasks and 1 HP damage per hour when exposed to direct sunlight.

INQUISITOR

Not necessarily the forces of evil are always witches or demons. Also ordinary people are capable of horrible things and crimes against humanity. You are the one who weeds the evil from the hoi polloi. Your actions might be horrible or brutal, but it is for the good of the humanity.

Advantages

1. Knows how to torture and get information or confessions out of anyone. It takes one hour and 1d4 damage per HD of the victim to squeeze out whatever the inquisitor wants to know. Unfortunately, there is a 50% chance that the victim just says what inquisitor wants to hear, so he can get a release from the pains and horrors of torture.

2. Knows how to hurt people. When your attack roll is 19 or 20, you can aim your opponent and cause him severe pain with extra 1d4 +1 per level damage.

3. Gets +2 bonus to your Charisma every time you intimidate someone.

4. No pain, no gain. They have caused so much suffering, they almost live out of it. As a bonus action inquisitor can wound himself to gain half of that damage to next attack as a to-hit bonus.

5. Harsh training has made her tougher. She needs half the amount of rations and can resist harsh weather effects with doubled efficiency.

6. Can prevent evil spells from harming her and her group if will sacrifice as many people as the spell level in 12 hours. If doesn't, all the spell effects will fire on her with double effect.

Disadvantages

1. Has seen so much blood and suffering you have inflicted, that you cannot feel empathy anymore. Every action you take is aggressive against normal people and you can only see the worst in them.

2. Is scarred from the burning firebrands and self-inflicted wounds and need to hide your monstrous skin under a hood not to scare people. You look like a monster yourself.

3. Is haunted by ghosts of innocent people she has killed in torture. In the beginning of game there are 1d4 souls to haunt her, and every time an innocent person is dead by her hands she must save against magic or suffer of another haunt. Naturally, there are psychological effects to this every day there is 2% chance per haunting soul that her conscience is making her question her cause and her advantage doesn't work that day.

4. Is twisted and bloodlusty and will always kill if there is a chance. No enemy or victim of her should remain alive.

5. Must daily repent her own sins or lose her advantage for a day. Repenting sins demands two hours of prayer and self whipping.

6. There is something holy in her, god knows what twisted god thinks so. She has stigmata that bleeds constantly. Lose 1d2 HP daily from bleeding palms. Also handling weapons is harder without gloves or straps as blood soaked hands are slick.

You can download the pdf, with slightly revised text, from my Patreon page!
https://www.patreon.com/posts/witchfinder-and-6535360

Forsaken Soul session 1: Faces Without Screams

Campaign idea draft and rules draft can be found HERE.

The Character

A student in a mages' school who got sick of slow pace of learning. She wanted true power, not to start with controlling some light balls. So she left to pursue eldrich knowledge on her own. Unfortunately she was killed by a wild animal during her journey. But death is not the end, and now she is forsaken...

The Mini Manor: Faces Without Screams

(You can get this adventure from RPGNow for free. I'm a lucky SOB for owning a print copy of it! +Tim Shorts is one of my favorite adventure writer and I highly recommend his stuff!

DISCLAIMER: This post will include spoilers of aforementioned adventure! I made some minor changes during the play, though.

Shackled, naked, a big guy cutting up faces of other chained persons. Nameless removes a sharp bone from severed foot waiting for the big guy to get closer. Then she attacks. She only deals one point of damage, but wins initiative attacking again again and dealing 4 more points of damage (exploding dice). Big guy misses critically and slips on bloody floor missing his next round. Nameless stabs the guy on neck killing him and taking the key. Then unshackles herself and opens the door to a corridor...

Slowly proceeding she passes the first crossing pushing forward, until she finds a dead corpse wearing a leather armor and a short sword leaning against the wall (random encounter, actuall). The corpse is rotting and bloated and in his cut wounds awful maggots roam. Nameless is considering should she take the armor and the sword, as they are on corpse slime, but decides to cover her naked body with some kind of a protection...

She passes the next opening to the right but decides to check out the following to the right. Behind a corner there is a beastly man chained on the wall; he is covered with spikes, and he growls animalisticly and madly at Nameless. Luckily the shackle restrains the spiked man-beast from making contact to Nameless, who decides to withdraw back to the main corridor.

In the end of the main corridor there is a door, barred from this side. As Nameless approaches it, she feels how air gets chilly and she can see her breath. Lifting the boards, she hears whispers behind her but no one's there. Determined she enters the room...

A desk with two candles and a chair, nothing more. She goes to the desk ready to search it, finding a parchment on it. She reads it - "Welcome" -  and the door shuts in before her. And a face appears and whispers get really loud. She ignores the face, saves versus the whispers few times (failing once and losing one point of Wisdom) and searched the room to find a new placing on the wall. She broke it with the pommer of her newly found short sword to discover a hidden Soul Dunjon. The soul dunjon is a vessel with prisoned souls. Mages use these kind of "batteries" for eldrich purposes. But undead and forsaken like Nameless could use it to power herself (edible soul experience). Away from the room and back to the corridor.

Nameless doesn't want to go back to where spiked man was so she decides to go to the corridor next to it. In the end she finds a door of hundreds of faces. As she touches it she feels pain, but bears it (save successful), and the faces start to move. Inside is an empty huge room where a corridor leads onwards.

This corridor has a metal veil preventing the spirits to venture any further. After the veil is a red carpet leading into a big room. In the middle of this big room there is a comely man wearing a dress (originally a female, but for a female player I switched gender). He invites Nameless to step further, but she dithers. Man shows off his gown made out of faces stitched together, all faces blink and open their mouths without a sound. Then man winks and hows Nameless' own face sewed on the gown! And Nameless touches her face, but there is only bone and muscles and soft tissue, not faces of her!

Man declares, that even though Nameless is interesting and all, it would not be fair to other victims of him if Nameless didn't also die. So he attacks. But Nameless initiative kick ass and she stabs her shortsword deep int the guts of the protagonist (great roll, great exploding damage worth of 15 points). In pain man blasts magic missile at Nameless, who jerks the sword deeper. Second magic missile doesn't stop her either! But neither Nameless can kill her opponent yet. Man casts hold person, keeps a speech and finally slays Nameless breaking her forsaken neck.

Next time it will be Pamphlet 1: Fields Of Forsaken (PWYW PDF and PRINT)! And maybe Nameless will get a name, too!

Notes

The rules worked extremely well! Swords & Wizardry combat action is so smooth (well damn, Dungeons & Dragons combat system) and fun and fast and quick. We used Lamentations Of The Flame Princess playtest document saves, which in spite of my doubts worked very well. Full success, half success and failure are actually very intuative using dicepool system: Wisdom for all saves and Charisma for magic saves, attribute score determines dicepool of d6s. Roll two sixes and you success, one for half success, zero for failed save. Quite nice!

Starting a campaign with Swords & Wizardry Core + Lamentations Of The Flame Princess playtest document 0.1 mash-up

Today my girlfriend asked if I'd like to run a campaign for her. It's been a while since she was interested in roleplaying games, so naturally I said yes! As I have been waiting for this day for over six months, I was prepared. I am going to use +Tim Shorts' The Mini Manor, and from there go to my Pamphlet 1: Fields Of Forsaken and continue to The Flayed King. From there... I don't know yet.

The setting is inspired by Dark Souls videogames.

Image from Dark Souls 3

The rules are a mix of Swords & Wizardry Core, Lamentations Of The Flame Princess playtest document 0.1 and some of my own house rules I've used for a while. I don't have details for the rules, but basically game play will be close to S&W, character has options from LotFP playtest rules and rest is house rules. For example the character sheet is custom made.

There are some big differences to characters. This is one-Gamemaster-one-player situation, so character is more important as an individual.

• All attributes are 3d6, arrange as you want to
• Each level get one point to put in any desired attribute to rise it
• 1000 experience (soul) points per level. You die, you loose your soul points of the moment
• Free multiclassing. You can choose any class to add when you've collected 1000 experience points. Core classes (Fighter, Thief, Magic-User, Cleric) are always usable, special and other classes must be "found" in the game world to "unlock".
• Total of your class levels is your character level
• Experience (soul points) only from killing monsters (freeing souls) or doing some deeds that are worthy. Also rewards
• Spells are not memorized, character has as many spell points as his Magic-Using level of spell category is. When all spell points are used, character can cast spells, but there is a risk of failure (table from Liberation of the Demon Slayer by +Venger Satanis).
• Death & Dismemberment table by +kirin robinson when at negative hitpoints. Death effect will result as 1 point loss of appropriate attribute
• Character starts at third level

In a nutshell, it's like that.

After character is rolled (no equipment), the player will answer three questions.

1. Who are you?

2. How did you die?

3. Why do you wake up after you have died?

DIY LotFP Booklets: Tales Of The Scarecrow & The Grinding Gear | WITH INSTRUCTIONS FOR BOOKLET PRINTING

I didn't own Tales Of The Scarecrow or The Grinding Gear in print, but had purchased the pdfs. I wanted to get them where they belong, on my shelf with other LotFP products. So printing time it is!

Tools I Used

• PDF24 (free) software for easily arrange pdf pages.
• Usually I use 100g paper for the pages, but this time I was cheap and used normal 80g copy paper.
• A4 photo paper for Tales cover.
• 160g high quality paper for The Grinding cover.
• Canon MG3550 printer.
• Long-neck stapler I got cheap from eBay.

Basics For Booklet Printing

• Go through the pdf and see how covers are arranged. Should the cover insides be empty, or are the covers designed so both sides are printed?
• Where is the back cover? Second page in pdf file, or the last page of the pdf? Is there back cover at all?
• BONUS STEP: If there is no real back cover and you don't want the back of the file be empty, create one! See the pdf file dimensions, GIMP/Photoshop/Word/Libreoffice a cover. Slip it in the file using PDF24.
• Now that you've figured out the cover layout and order, print the pages. If covers are pages 1 and 32, print pages 2 and 31. If covers are Two first pages, start printing from third page to the end etc.
• I have duplex printer with booklet option, so I only need to hit "PRINT" and it spits the booklet out - only thing I need to do is fold, nothing else! To figure out how to print booklets with your printer without automatic options, Google it. There are plenty of answers around, I bet!
• Next, print covers! My printer gets jammed if I try to duplex print heavier paper, so I need to print covers a bit differently. I choose MULTIPLE PAGES. That way it prints two pages on one sheet, that's front and back cover! In the preview you see the order of the pages. The front cover should be on the right side, in my printer I choose VERTICAL (paper orientation) REVERSED (first page (cover) before the second (back cover)). If there are inner covers feed the paper back in when front covers are printed (your printer instructions should tell you which way the paper goes in to print the back of the sheet). PAGE ORDER SHOULD NOT BE REVERSED ANYMORE.
• Now that you have pages and cover sheet printed, fold them. Don't try to fold the whole pile at once. You'll get best results the less sheets you fold at a time. I usually fold 2-4 pages. There are tools built for folding, but I use something hard and round-ish I can find. Try out what you find the best thing for you to get sharp edges.
• Long-neck stapler is great, it can reach the fold! If you don't own one, use normal stapler. Just staple on something thicker than the staples and soft. I have used styrofoam pad. Just staple, turn it around (be careful removing the staple from the styrofoam so it doesn't get out of the booklet also) and push the staple heads inwards with a butter knife or something similar.
• If you want to, you might use carpet knife or something super sharp to trim the pages even.
• DONE!

The Grinding Gear

Tales was simple. I tweaked The Grinding Gear a bit. I replaced the maps with additional maps, because they were more printer friendly in color. I also added the cheat sheet in the end of the pdf, so it's included in the booklet.

Pictures Of Booklet Prints

Super glossy photo paper cover.

100g paper. When I printed this ages ago I was running low on ink. That's where the weird red tone came.
But I really, really like it! Gives character!

160g premium paper cover.

Normal 80g copy paper. Despite that images look really, really good.

[LotFP/LL/S&W/OSR] Knife fighting

Pic from: http://www.gutterfighting.org/

Introduction

In The Brotherhood Of Rose novel by David Morell there was a knife fighting scene between two agents. They used knife hand to attack and off-hand to parry opponent's attack. That is an inspiration for this post. I decided to use LotFP as a default for writing this, but this is easy to adapt to other OSR games like Swords & Wizardry and Labyrinth Lord, as long as you remember that Armor Class values are a bit different in those. LotFP unarmored default is 12, in S&W it is 10. Both of those are ascending. In Labyrinth Lord default unarmored AC is 9 and it is descending.

Mechanics

In this example I use a character with leather armor which is 2 better than unarmored in every edition. In addition the example character has +1 modifier (-1 in descending) to AC from his Dexterity Score.

This is how his AC looks:
Unarmored--with Dexterity--With leather armor--TOTAL
------12------------13--------------------15-----------------15

When using a fighting technique, where you use your main hand to attack with knife AND your off-hand to parry opponents knife strikes, add 2 to armor class. The AC would consist of the following:

Unarmored--Dex--Leather--Technique--TOTAL
------12--------13------15----------17----------17

So, to hit the character and inflict knife's d4 damage to HP opponent needs to roll 17 or higher. Just like by-the-book. But parrying with your hand hurts, am I right?

When the attack roll hits the range of the "technique", which in above example would be 16 and 17 of AC, one point of damage is suffered. Why?

0-12 is the default how hard anything human sized is to hit. 12-13 is how much the guy with DEX bonus dodges and moves around. 14-15 is where the actual armor comes in play. 16 and 17 are your hand blocking the knife's sharp blade, so naturally roll results of 16 and 17, which in AC scale represent your hand result damage.

In A Nut Shell:

Fighting with a knife using off-hand to parry gives +2 to AC, but the AC values in that +2 ranges when rolled with to-hit (with attack bonuses) deal 1 HP damage.

[Review] The Grinding Gear from LotFP

I am writing another review at the moment, but when I browsed google plus I found out that The Grinding Gear (TGG for now on) is currently pay-what-you-want at RPGNow. So I got it (even beat the average amount of gold pieces). I decided to review it immediately as I read it. So if the review is a bit weird and disorganized it's supposed to be like that.

Onwards!
________

The zip file comes with two folders. These folders are for A4 and letter size files. Good for US and EU guys who want to print this.

The cover is very cool. Layout is simple, well you cannot call that layout because there is no tricks. One column is not my favorite to read. This is older product (2009) so it is understandable. But if you know today's LotFP publishing standards TGG looks very rough.

Few pieces of interior art are nice if you like the cover.

Maps are functional and quite nice. They don't look professional but I like these maps more than those computer generated maps.

The book starts with author's notes about the adventure and introduction for referee which both explain this adventure. There is a suggestion not to change anything, because that's the point of adventures you buy to give different styles to run besides your own style. I quite agree with this. This claim might sound a little dickish but hey, you change stuff if you want to, at least this gives you something to think about and consider not modifying it. For me this simple sentence was a good advice.

Also it is stated here that this adventure will be tough. If you know LotFP you should know that already.

I just realized that it is not too long ago when I thought that I'd like James Raggi to write adventures again. He does publish awesome stuff but it's been a while since he wrote anything. This is not new but now I got something Raggi wrote I haven't read before. And baaaaaack to the topic...

The adventure is very easy to drop in your campaign (setting). Inns are generic, ammirite? Also this adventure is for adventurers! Not in meta, but in-game-setting-lore. Nice. It does not tell how to get players involved though. But it should be easy enough. You can just use the oldest motive in dungeon delving ever: treasure!

There are random encounters what might give nice roleplaying opportunities. Good, because random encounters what are 100% just monsters that bite you are a little dull in my opinion.

In this adventure there are still bits more fantastic than current LotFP line of 17th century Europe. Not too much, though, to make this a Lord of the Rings gone wrong.

The adventure might be deadly and dangerous, but if you are careful, clever and a little lucky this is not impossible. There are lots of interesting and fun bits and you need to investigate to advance. Really. Because puzzles.

There are some nasty tricks you can't do nothing about it. Especially one part where you must save, save, save, and save or take damage. That's your decision though so it is not forced against you. But still. If your character has lots of HP that can be exciting, but first level dudes don't want any kind of damage die to be rolled against them. Many of the traps are not invisible so careful advancing and some thinking might save your butt several times. If you run around like a jerk opening every door you just dig blood from your nose.

The dungeon is kinda random, with different content in every room. It's basically the point of this adventure, though. The content is not too random (zombies in this room, orcs playing chess in next, acid pit trap ooze beyond etc.) and it varies nicely trying to keep a theme going on. This dungeon is a trick place in the game world, so it is not just a meta-challenge.

This feels like a solid dungeon adventure where there is challenge and fun things. Not fun like amusement part but fun like great one evening's session. Traps, treasures, tricks... it's all there. Obviously I haven't ran this (seriously, bought, opened, started reading and writing this) but I bet this is easy to run in a table. I don't like complicated adventures what are unclear and what you need to memorize inside out and do a book worth of notes to make it run smooth. This is not an adventure like that.

Also the writing is very good. I enjoyed reading this a lot. I like James' writing style. It is... just easy and simple but not cheap.

And the last puzzle is evil! You need to know stuff. I can imagine players brainstorming around a table. I love it. I'd love to hear how many player groups have passed these.

Oh and there's a "cheatsheet" PDF what explains the dungeon so it isn't just a "this after that because challenges". This is mainly meta-information for Referees who might think that this is a "christmas calendar" with random stuff just because fuck you that's why. This file was very informative though, because I was wondering about those horses in good condition...

Get this if you want to know what LotFP dungeons were back then. This is a great dungeon what is more like old Dungeons & Dragons material than new LotFP products what "try too much". And by trying too much I don't mean that they are bad. I mean that production values are cranked to 11, everything is big and flashy and the "weird" is gore and guts and boobies.

The Grinding Gear is a dungeon. Where adventuring characters go because they want treasures, they want to adventure, and because players around the table want to have fun exploring it.

The concept is simple and the amount of fun is huge.

You want a dungeon to run, go get this.
_________________________________

Available at LotFP store and RPGNow.

[Review] No Salvation For Witches

Blue bookmark ribbon for those who beat crowdfunding average.

You might already know what a premise for +Lamentations of the Flame Princess products is. If you don't, this product has gore and full frontal nudity illustrated. This truly is not safe for work.

Written by +Rafael Chandler, the metal dude of OSR and RPGs.

Physical Quality

Hardback, 64 sturdy pages, full color illustration. Great layout. Inside covers with maps. If you think that hardcover Rules & Magic LotFP rules book is a 10, this book is 11 in my opinion. One of the best physical product qualities in LotFP line (cannot make comments of A Red & Pleasant Land because don't own it).

The Premise

Witches are performing a ritual. If the ritual is a success it will have huge impact on the world. If it doesn't it still might have a big impact on characters' lifes.

The Setting

What now is LotFP standard also this adventure takes place in 17th century Europe, England in this case. The area has five encounter areas. Three pieces that can also work alone to access the finale. Whole area is a trick. Once you enter, you cannot get out that easily anymore.

The area is affected by a ritual what makes it hostile, horrific and weird.

This Is What It Is Like

The encounter areas are easy to run and each have something weird or horrible going on. I also like how some things, especially nearing the finale, might start to interact more or less.

You might make allies or enemies. You can fight monsters, or might never find them. There are some treasures magical in nature. Of course these also have drawbacks. No +3 sword of flames here.

There is a time limit and after it things happen in one way or another (two endings). It is up to players and a Referee to drive the characters. There are no suggestion why or how the characters should start exploring and starting to figure out what is going on and how to deal with it. Witty Referee can imagine motives for the characters but it would have been great if the author gave some rough ideas. It's always interesting to read how the author has thought the adventure could work out.

If you already are familiar with LotFP core rules summon spell you get something similar here. A gory manuscript what details human sacrifices to perform a ritual to summon a monster. What is great about this it also can be a monster generator for weird, horrific, and unique monsters for any of your LotFP adventures!

Witches are great NPCs!

Problems

There could be some ideas for motives why and how characters get into this area and some guidelines how they might start to figure out the puzzle pieces. Simple exploring here and there is a little pointless with strict time limit.

Some of the parts of this adventure are a little bland. Horrific and weird and gory for sure, but a little out of place. They feel like they're just there for additional bloody effects. I don't say it is bad if you think it in B-horror style with random gore (talking about woods encounter here).

Even if the page number clocks at 64 pages the adventure itself is not that big. As I already stated only five encounter areas. But it can be interesting, if you play NPCs right and there could be some very nice interaction. Up to players and how they roll.

Did I Like It And Should You Get It?

Of course I liked this! My perception is fogged by my fanboy-ism! This is good shorter location based adventure with lots of "yuck" in it. And it looks good and was fun to read. Also "monster generator" is great addition because it gives longevity for the book even after you've run it for your group.

Also if you like gore and shocking content this is top quality.

Avoid if you don't like full frontal nudity, gore, and not safe for work content.
_______________________________________________________________

Print + PDF available at LotFP store HERE.
PDF available at LotFP store HERE.
PDF also available at RPGNow HERE.

[Review] Forgive Us

Forgive Us is a small adventure written and illustrated by +Kelvin Green  for Lamentations of the Flame Princess weird fantasy rpg. What you get is not only one completed adventure with awesome nicely detailed maps but additional two smaller adventures.

The illustration is more cartoonish than you are used to in LotFP products. Some don't like it and think it doesn't fit LotFP-verse, but I think the art is cool. The cover alone shows you already that things are bad in this adventure, doesn't it? Also the maps are awesome with small details, and there are plenty of those.

1625 was a plague year in Norwich. History tells us that it was an outbreak of the Black Death. History is wrong.

An adventure for a party of the 4th level, for use with...

The adventure is simple. There's always something you need. And where you need it the adventure begins. In Forgive Us it means horror. The adventure is well written and interesting and the tension builds very well. The monsters are not thrown in ya face all the time, but there's still some minor action. It is the end when you realize, that things are really bad. I think the adventure goes very well. There's lots of hints of bad things going on but life-threatening situations are scarce, at the beginning. The details are also cool. Normal houses, normal life, some gore here and there. Nothing supernatural WTF in my opinion what makes this more scary investigation.

Also you'll get nice set of random loot!

RUN!!!

I hoped that the city of Norwich had a little more meat around it. I do understand that the adventure is the point and focus here and more pages means more cost but a little more detailed mini-setting would have been nice addition. Well, you can't have everything! There's little detail on the city you can work with to create your own Norwich with the help of internet (for example, or use library like a pro!).

Pleasure to the eye.

Two other adventures are nice addition to make sure that after you have ran Forgive Us the book doesn't just go to your LotFP archives. In Heaven Everything Is Fine is weird adventure. Ghost story with trapped tower (you need to detail yourself) and alien. Not bad, but you need to work a bit yourself with details to run this. Death and Taxes is very short adventure. Old dead friend, a little mystery, a hidden treasure.

Overall Forgive Us is very good adventure.

GET IT if you like suspense, movies like The Thing (Kelvin's inspiration) or suspense of the first Alien (my idea). Also if you like some exploration and ending that jumps on your face and wants to eat it.

Print and PDF available at LotFP store.
PDF also available at RPGNow.

[Review] The Undercroft zine #2

Hear me out. If you like weird fantasy, horror and/or Lamentations of the Flame Princess you should not waste your time here reading this review. The time you spend reading this review you could spend reading The Undercroft issue 2. You'll get it from HERE in print and PDF. Now go.

You are still here? Alright. Either I was not convincing or you really want to hear what I have to say.

For first, look at the cover to the left. It is fucking sweet! +Cédric Plante is a guy I found in G+ and have been following him. He is a brilliant artist. Look at that picture and see how brilliant the cover is. It is damn sweet! You should also follow Cédric if you are in G+. He does draw some crazy sweet stuff!

The main guy behind The Undercroft is one individual called +Daniel Sell. This is already second zine, but unfortunately I haven't read the first one so I cannot say where the zine is going. This I can say; this second issue is very, very good!

As I already said, this is perfect for those who like weird, horror and LotFP. In my humble opinion there can never be enough material like this. Something what is imaginative, weird, horrific and terrific. Something you enjoy reading and what gives you creeps. And as you read it you imagine how you could screw your players with the material in hand. This is like it. Lots of great ideas, and creepy stuff.

Here I want to mention other artist (of four), Matthew Adams. His style is very creepy and somewhat familiar. Good stuff.

But what you, we, get? 24 actual pages of content (if you add the one page comic). Monsters, potions, a small dungeon and a short story.

The monsters are good. Except the waste disposal hog the monsters are also creepy. These are not just your average "one new thing for player characters to kill for exp, lulz and fun" but creatures what can live up for a small adventure! Nice touch is that two of these monsters are statless, there is only fiction of them. Not a bad call because everyone knows that (LotFP) OSR statting is super simple. Basically you get the information what the monster is like, what it does etc. and can stat it up to match your own game. But does everything need stats afterall? Stats mean it can be killed... should everything be killable?

Awesome is a monster called That Which Slips Between. For me it was very, very creepy creature! And it is tied to the small dungeon, what makes the dungeon extremely creepy! The dungeon is not creepy but the creature, damn. It's like Stephen King decided that Mythos needed some creepiness and Ray Bradbury gave a blessing for it!

Also the potions are very good! I think they fit the weird fantasy and Raggi's style of magic items very well. These potions are to screw you in a way or other. Well, at least characters might learn not everything they find in a weird fantasy adventure should be chucked in!

Also bonus points for The Visitor. I liked it a lot. Very creepy in X-Files way... with some Mythos style writing. One of those monsters you can make adventure around. Liked it very much.

So as you see I really, really liked this zine! Lots of good stuff, and fortunately everything (except the short story and comic) you can actually easily use in your games!

See, was it worth to read my ramblings? You could have spent this time reading The Undercroft issue 2 instead! Now, go and download it and let me know did you like it also!

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Daniel's blog: http://whatwouldconando.blogspot.co.uk

The Melsonian Arts Council store: http://melsonia.storenvy.com

Biography of Daniel Sell:

"I am quite boring as far as RPG writers go. I don't moonlight as an astronaut or a sex worker, I write fiction and RPGs and barely survive off the proceeds. Living the dream."

[Review] Lamentations Of The Flame Princess (hc Rules & Magic + Grindhouse Edition)

Lamentations of the Flame Princess is a retro clone of basic and expert rules of the original fantasy roleplaying game. It is not 100% faithful in cloning the original (as Labyrinth Lord tries to be as far as it legally can) as it has some house-rules embedded. These house rules make game more simple, but add some neat options.

The premise of Lamentations of the Flame Princess is weird fantasy. Weird fantasy means (in LotFP) that magic is chaotic and most of the people are unaware of it or afraid of it. Monsters are unique beings instead of everyday annoyance (orcs, looking at you!). Life is tough, world is dark.

Tutorial

In Grindhouse Edition one of the three books is named Tutorial. If you are familiar with Mentzer basic set of Dungeons & Dragons you now what the tutorial is like. As you read you are suddenly thrown into a solo adventure, where you learn the rules as you play. This is extremely beginner friendly method to teach roleplaying. Instead of reading rules and explanations you actually get to do something yourself. It is a bit funny, that LotFP has this great tutorial for beginners, but I am not so sure if LotFP is beginner friendly game! Rules wise it is, but artwork and mood tells something else.

The Weird

The weird in illustration and wording means gore, disgusting things, and despair. You get the basic seven races as classes (Fighter, Cleric, Magic-User, Specialist replacing Thief, Dwarf, Elf, and Halfling) but the class descriptions exude dark fantasy. Fighters life is described not valorous but the hell of war. Magic-Users reveal darkness instead of cowering away from it. Dwarfs are a dying race without pleasure in life. Also most of the spells are familiar, but written in darker tone. Your Magic-User can access Summon in first level. But before you get anxious summoning some dragons to fight with you remember, this is weird fantasy. Summon spell might screw you and everything around.

Design

If you haven't lived in a barrel for a couple of years you should have heard (or seen yourself) that LotFP products are top notch! The art is magnificent, print quality is amazing. The books are smaller than normal rpg books (half the size) but that makes them more appealing. The Grindhouse box includes three books, character sheets and tiny dice. You only need pen and some paper and you are ready to go - out of the box! (As I mentioned above about the Tutorial book you can start playing very quickly without even starting to read the rules book!)

Grindhouse box books are paperbacks (I hope I am using the term correctly here). Soft covers, rough and thick yellowish paper. I really like the feel and looks of Grindhouse books. They are appealing to me. Very sweet. You still can see that these are not yet perfect, but that makes them even more personal. The headline font is wonky to read and some things could have been arranged better for clearer read.

But that's what the new hardcover fixes. Editing is better, font is better, layout is better, paper quality is better (glossy, if that's the right word). The hardcover is easier and better in actual use, but still there's more charm in Grindhouse version! LotFP Grindhouse Edition cover art is legendary, but hardcover cover art is not worse.

Rules

Advance levels gaining experience. But monsters don't give you experience so you want to avoid those. And you should, if you have read the adventures. Gold and treasures are what give you ding. Ascending AC makes game easier so you don't have to check the table to know what you need to hit or calculate Thac0. If you will this is super simplified version of the 3rd edition of D&D. Or improved and modernized version of basic.

Character classes are a little different. Clerics get first spell at first level (same in Labyrinth Lord). Only Fighters advance in hitting better. Specialists get skill points so they can choose in which skills advance faster.

Skills are now one in six change, everyone has 1 in 6 (Elves spot secret doors 2 in 6, Halflings hide better but those are exceptions). Only Specialists advance in skills but everyone can try to pick locks or climb walls.

Encumbrance is a big improvement. Instead counting what every coin and torch weights LotFP uses encumbrance points. Some items don't add encumbrance, some add, some are heavy and it shows. Makes inventory management smoother and easier.

There are also extra rules like maritime adventures and rules for property and finance. Also you find everything you need from mapping (these are not rules actually but suggestions) to retainers.You could quite easily just convert your b/x campaign to LotFP without much trouble.

Hardcover also introduces firearms (LotFP default setting is 17th century) which earlier editions (Grindhouse and Deluxe) lack. Nice addition what most certainly adds the setting feel.

Setting

There is no setting in either of these products. There are hints of what weird fantasy is, but the setting is up to you to decide. New hardcover gives strong suggestions to 17th century pseudo-fantasy and in his house games the author James Raggi IV doesn't use demi-humans. In the rules demi-humans are there to make game compatible. If you want setting for LotFP you should buy LotFP adventures. Those give flesh for the bones of the game. There are adventures what strongly give the 17th century pseudo-fantasy vibe. But there are also other weird settings, for example Quelong for south east Asian weirdness and Carcosa for science fantasy weirdness.

Conclusion

• LotFP is a solid set of old-school rules with modern solutions.
• It is also easily compatible with other OSR games and in Grindhouse Edition's Referee book you get conversion tables for most popular OSR games.
• The art might turn some people off being gross, but if you don't like the NSFW art you can get the rules for free to enjoy the solid system.
• Even though the rules are extremely great where LotFP shines it is in its products. And you don't even need LotFP to play these supplements and adventures, because they are easily compatible with other games (LotFP statblocks are simple).

Where To Get?

Grindhouse Edition is out of print, so you need some luck. Some bookstores or gaming stores might have few in stock. Or you might find it second hand in different places from stores and online.

You can buy the new hardcover rules from:

• LotFP store. Both print and PDF available there. The PDF is cheap so go get it!
• Free no-art PDF is available at RPGNow. You don't get the art (someone might prefer this game without art!) but you get the nifty rules!
• You can also check out what LotFP is about with these two free adventures: The Doom-Cave Of The Crystal-Headed Children and Better Than Any Man (in that there's two things I wrote so you better check that out!).

Special For Me

LotFP is not only an excellent game but also special for me. When I heard of this OSR I tried to understand and get it. I did download different free games (OSRIC and Labyrinth Lord for example) but didn't get it nor like it. LotFP had this awesome premise and box art and I just had to get it! I knew it was OSR I wasn't interested in but thought, that I can always use other rules. I just wanted that damn box!

And I bought it. And started to read it. After the Tutorial I was sold. When I started to read the rules I understood that OSR is for me! So without LotFP I am not sure if I would love OSR like I now do.

Thank you LotFP for making my gaming awesome again!