Sanctum Secorum Episode #01 Companion: The Shadow People

The Sanctum Secorum Episode #01 Companion: The Shadow People was written by Jen Brinkman, David Baity, and Bob Brinkman. Art is by Hitforsa and Pacomtois. The publisher is Sanctum Media. This product is produced in association with the Sanctum Secorum podcast.

This Episode Companion is based on Sanctum Secorum Episode 1: The Shadow People, by Margaret St. Clair. This book is also discussed on Episode 21 of the Appendix N Book Club. The featured adventure was Sailors on the Starless Sea, by Harley Stroh.

Within you will find:

Items

Atter-corn #1: There is a substance in The Shadow People that is produced by elves, and which is a highly addictive hallucinogen. David Baity gives the first of three Dungeon Crawl Classics statistics for this substance. Meargmelu in Stars in the Darkness is also inspired by the atter-corn of The Shadow People.

Atter-corn #2: Another version, by Bob Brinkman.

Atter-corn #3: And a final version, by Jen Brinkman.

Magic Items

Elfshot: "Being a projectile the size of a grain of rice, elfshot looks harmless. It is, however, a potent magical ammunition and is greatly feared (rightfully so) by the elves of Underearth." Written by Bob Brinkman. Elfshot also has a long history in folklore, and was used to describe several medical conditions in ancient times. It seems very likely that these were the sources Margaret St. Clair used to describe elf-shot in The Shadow People.

The Glain: Coming from a word of Welsh origin, meaning "jewel", within The Shadow People, this is a protective gem given its powers by Merlin. Write-up by Bob Brinkman.

Spirit Drum: "The origin of the Spirit Drum are unknown. Legend has it that an ancient elf of Underearth created the artifact in hopes to prolong his life for eternity. The drum is roughly the size of a small keg, constructed of a black lacquered wood traced with ornate veins of silver. The head is fashioned from elven skin, with elven scalps sewn into the bottom area."

With her interest in Wicca, Margaret St. Clair was probably conflating European and Native American or African traditions here. Written by David Baity.

Sword of Merlin: Bob Brinkman writes up this artifact, "Forged from the crystallized will of Merlin".

Monsters

Elves, Underearth #1: The elves of The Shadow People are a dark and sinister lot. The first write-up for them is by David Baity.

Elves, Underearth #2: Another write-up, by Bob Brinkman. Having multiple conversions of materials from novel to game is actually useful. There is no "right" way to do it, and there is no "wrong" way. These multiple write-ups for things like atter-corn and the underearth elves (the Shadow People of the novel's title) is useful to showcase this.

Patrons

Merlin: Bob Brinkman provides a partial patron write-up for Merlin, including invoke patron results and patron taint. It is noted that "Merlin cannot be bothered to teach spells to all who beseech him for aid. There are no spells unique to Merlin."

Weapons

Elven Club: Statistics provided by Bob Brinkman.

Noose: Statistics provided by Bob Brinkman.

It's free!

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Sanctum Secorum Christmas 2015 Bonus Companion

The Sanctum Secorum Christmas 2015 Bonus Companion was written by David Baity and Bob Brinkman. Art is by Chris Ng Fhze Yang, Clipartcottage, Eric T. Asaris, nikulina-helena, and Zeeksie. The publisher is Sanctum Media. This product is produced in association with the Sanctum Secorum podcast.

Within you will find:

Magic Items

Kringle’s Rod of Holiday Wonderment: Created by David Baity, this is similar to the old wand of wonder, except with a holiday theme.

Monsters

Candy Man: Created by Bob Brinkman. "Made up of bits of sweets and treacle, the creatures known as Candy Men exude sickly sweetness with their passing." Their weapons, made of candy, can be deadly!

Elemental, Snow: Another creation of Bob Brinkman, these creatures are "stacked spheres of snow and ice" with "expressionless faces made of coal and root vegetables."

Killer Dolly: Also by Bob Brinkman, this is exactly what it sounds like.

Jack Frost: Bob Brinkman provides statistics for a "demon of winter" who "is a harbinger of evil tidings to come." This is a tough customer, regardless of level, who can both do and take a surprising amount of damage.

Patrons

Nick’claus: "Appearing as a hell-fueled skeleton clad in winter furs and wearing a necklace of skulls, Nick’claus is a fearsome patron indeed. Once upon a time Nick’claus may have had a different name; he may have once been a figure of mirth and cheer. If it was once that way, but it is that way no longer. Nickl’claus is a dark patron even among the more grim facets of chaos. His servants are expected to aid him in sowing discord and the bringing of death and misery."

This is a partial patron write-up, with invoke patron check results and patron taint only, brought to you by Bob Brinkman.

It's free!

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Sanctum Secorum Podcast

Sanctum Secorum is a podcast which discusses various Appendix N (and similar) works, describing them both as literature and in terms of Dungeon Crawl Classics gaming, and then linking them to a Dungeon Crawl Classics adventure. It is hosted by the "Keepers of Mysteries": Jen Brinkman, Marc Bruner, Bob Brinkman, and Keeper Emeritus David Baity.

Disclosure: I have been tagged in 18 podcasts, and my work has been the featured adventure three times.

In addition to its regular podcast, Sanctum Secorum provides news, kickstarter information, and Road Crew shout outs/community events. It has included several monsters over the years on the site itself, especially related to "Bearmageddon", and produces a regular podcast companion.

Sanctum Secorum opened its doors on October 9, 2015 with The Shadow People by Margaret St. Clair, paired with Sailors of the Starless Sea by Harley Stroh. As of this writing, 34 episodes have been released.

A word about the regular episode companions: These are electronic documents which contain work by the podcasters and the community, often (but not always) related to the work being discussed in the regular podcast.

The Sanctum Secorum podcast plumbs the depths of Appendix N as it applies to DCC RPG. Each show reviews one piece of Appendix N media — be it literature or film — and then discusses how to bring aspects of it to the table for your DCC game. We explore how the selected piece might already easily fit into particular modules and DCC settings, and we highlight one specific DCC module that really ties into the Appendix N material.

Enter the Sanctum Secorum… and be inspired.

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Sailors on the Starless Sea

DCC #67: Sailors on the Starless Sea is a 0-level adventure by Harley Stroh, with art by Doug Kovacs (including original cover and cartography), William McAusland (additional cartography for the second printing), Jim Holloway, Russ Nicholson, and Stefan Poag. Variants have cover art by Stefan Poag, Peter Mullen, Russ Nicholson, Chuck Whelon, Brad McDevitt, Michael Wilson, Diesel Laforce, Doug Kovacs, and William McAusland. The publisher is Goodman Games.

Sailors on the Starless Sea has the distinction of being the adventure that launched a thousand campaigns. It is as seminal to Dungeon Crawl Classics as is The Keep on the Borderlands to Dungeons & Dragons players in the 80's.

I have personally run this adventure a half-dozen times or more, both in home games and in public "Road Crew" venues. Most recently, I ran it as a birthday gift (including a copy of the "Artist’s Choice edition" as a bonus) for a classmate of my youngest child. The first time I ran this, my eldest, then already an adult, was just boasting that he hadn't lost a single zero-level character when the Chaos Leviathan appeared....!

In one memorable session, the players decided to leave half their characters on the short and send half to the ziggurat. This is not possible in the adventure as written, but that didn't occur to me at the time, and I allowed it. The (diminished) party that sailed to the ziggurat failed to stop the rebirth of the Chaos Lord Molan, perishing in the attempt. The remaining characters slunk away.

Who knows? Perhaps they will one day become powerful enough to face Molan again, and undo the results of their failure? There is more than one way that Sailors on the Starless Sea can end!

This adventure has received coverage on Spellburn more than once, including Episode 2 (Welcome to the Funnel), Episode 7 (Invoke Harley Stroh), and Episode 55 (DCC Fan Favorites). Sailors on the Starless Sea was also the very first featured adventure on the Sanctum Secorum podcast.

I discussed Sailors on the Starless Sea here, and my opinion of the module has not changed at all: "Harley Stroh did a stellar job here."

The second printing of the adventure includes a new area, The Summoning Pits, also written by Harley Stroh.

Since time immemorial you and your people have toiled in the shadow of the cyclopean ruins. Of mysterious origins and the source of many a superstition, they have always been considered a secret best left unknown by the folk of your hamlet.

But now something stirs beneath the crumbling blocks. Beastmen howl in the night and your fellow villagers are snatched from their beds. With no heroes to defend you, who will rise to stand against the encircling darkness? The secrets of Chaos are yours to unearth, but at what cost to sanity or soul?

An introductory adventure for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, Sailors on the Starless Sea pits a mob of 0-level adventurers against the legacy of the Chaos Lords and their corrupted hordes. Delving beneath the crumbling ruins, the characters discover ancient crypts, a starless sea, and an ancient ziggurat, where death and treasure await in equal measure!

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RPGPundit Presents #26: Mutant Hordes of the Last Sun (Honorary)

RPGPundit Presents #26: Mutant Hordes of the Last Sun was written by RPGPundit, with artwork by Michael Clarke, Mikesilent, ddraw, gertot1967, and Vitaly_Gertsik. The publisher is Precis Intermedia.

Although not advertised as a Dungeon Crawl Classics product, readers of RPGPundit's blog will know that he runs (or ran) a gonzo post-Apocalyptic Dungeon Crawl Classics campaign known as the "Last Sun". This is not post-Apocalyptic in terms of our world having undergone an Apocalypse. Or maybe it is. It is difficult to tell.

Because not all of the RPGPundit Presents series are compatible with Dungeon Crawl Classics, and none of them are printed under the compatibility license, I shall do my best to list them when I believe they are designed for use with DCC. Others are more generic, or designed to be used for other games (in particular Lion & Dragon).

Referencing RPGPundit Presents #15, #16, and #20, this volume provides a quick and dirty method of generating mutants. It could be considered compatible with the method described in Crawling Under A Broken Moon #2, or could be used to make NPC mutants in a Mutant Crawl Classics campaign.

In the gonzo world of the Last Sun, human beings are an endangered species. The time of the Great Disaster caused an enormous amount of ecological damage to the world. Not only did many humans die, but many more were mutated into horrific monsters and monster-races. Create mutant characters for your gonzo games, from the Color and Gold Mutants to the Vegan and Mud Mutants. Determine special abilities like the cyclops, warted, and psychic.

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RPGPundit Presents #20: The Great City of Arkhome 2

RPGPundit Presents #20: The Great City of Arkhome 2 was written by RPGPundit, with artwork by Michael Clarke, Steve Robertson, Samiramay, Pavelmidi, kuco, and Songool. The publisher is Precis Intermedia.

Although not advertised as a Dungeon Crawl Classics product, readers of RPGPundit's blog will know that he runs (or ran) a gonzo post-Apocalyptic Dungeon Crawl Classics campaign known as the "Last Sun". This is not post-Apocalyptic in terms of our world having undergone an Apocalypse. Or maybe it is. It is difficult to tell.

Because not all of the RPGPundit Presents series are compatible with Dungeon Crawl Classics, and none of them are printed under the compatibility license, I shall do my best to list them when I believe they are designed for use with DCC. Others are more generic, or designed to be used for other games (in particular Lion & Dragon).

This product specifically relates to RPGPundit Presents #16: The Great City of Arkhome, adding more details and an Arkhome 0-level Occupations table. More random events and encounters are supplied, and more information is presented about various aspects and personalities of Arkhome. For example:

"The Evil Parrot was created by a chaotic wizard long ago, as a kind of familiar. He granted it an extraordinary intelligence in order to act as spy and assassin. The Evil Parrot was too evil, however, as it murdered its own master. It has since proceeded to enact a reign of terror, without anyone even suspecting it."

No game statistics are supplied, so you will have to invent your own.

From the annals of the RPGPundit's (in)famous Last Sun gonzo fantasy campaign, this supplement focuses on one of the last known cities that still has a majority of human inhabitants. Expands on issue #16 with a random 0-level occupation table, 3 random event/encounter tables (surface, canyon cave, and sub-surface), and more.

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RPGPundit Presents #19: Frantabulous Gonzo Robot Generator (Honorary)

RPGPundit Presents #19: Frantabulous Gonzo Robot Generator was written by RPGPundit, with artwork by Michael Clarke, svetlin, JuliannaMillion, studiostoks, and JoeBakal. The publisher is Precis Intermedia.

Although not advertised as a Dungeon Crawl Classics product, readers of RPGPundit's blog will know that he runs (or ran) a gonzo post-Apocalyptic Dungeon Crawl Classics campaign known as the "Last Sun". This is not post-Apocalyptic in terms of our world having undergone an Apocalypse. Or maybe it is. It is difficult to tell.

Because not all of the RPGPundit Presents series are compatible with Dungeon Crawl Classics, and none of them are printed under the compatibility license, I shall do my best to list them when I believe they are designed for use with DCC. Others are more generic, or designed to be used for other games (in particular Lion & Dragon).

Adding to this confusion, the sample robot, BOLT-o, definitely appears in RPGPundit's Dungeon Crawl Classics campaign. Nonetheless, the product itself is essentially system-neutral, and the statistics given for BOLT-o would need to be reworked to some degree in order to be used with DCC. For instance, BOLT-o's Hit Dice (needed for determining critical hit results) and save modifiers are not provided.

This is a useful product for judges running games in Mutant Crawl Classics, the Umerica of Crawling Under a Broken Moon, Crawljammer, or similar settings.

The generators included are:

Random Robot Names: Includes a d30 table for model, as well as a d30 table for prefixes and a d20 table for suffixes, to name your robot. For instance, IBID-Max is a Jacintian Fem-Bot model.

Random Statistics: Includes Robot Form (d20 table with 10 options), Hit Dice (d20 table with 8 options), Initiative (d20 table with 9 options), and AC (d20 table with 10 options).

IBID-Max was created by selecting 15 on the previous tables, so, keeping with that, our robot is a box on wheels with a 30' base movement, has 10d8 Hit Dice, causes 2d6+2 damage with an unarmed attack, has a +2 bonus to Initiative, and an AC of 20.

Random Weapons: A d20 table, with 10 options. The table refers you to RPGPundit Presents #3: High Tech Weapons for more information, but I am going to assume that the reader has access to Crawl! fanzine #8, High Caliber Hijinks, The Umerican Survival Guide, or Mutant Crawl Classics rather that create a listing for that volume.

Our robot now has an energy blade (2d8 damage, ignores 4 points of AC).

Random Special Qualities: A d20 table with 20 options. Our robot has a recording device to record and play back audio and/or video.

Other Random Qualities: Includes Robot's Creator (a d20 table with 20 entries), The Robot Is... (d30 table with 30 entries), The Robot Wants (d20, 20 entries) and Robot Hobbies (d20, 20 entries). Our robot was created by Sky-Nazis, is 40% mithral (immune to non-magical attacks), wants to perfect a time machine, and raises chickens as a hobby.

One could see how this process not only creates potential for encounters or long-term play, but also creates hooks by implying, for instance, that Sky-Nazis were (and perhaps are) a thing. Or that they might make a box-on-wheels as a fem-bot.

The product also includes BOLT-o as a sample robot.

Randomly generate robots, androids, cyborgs, and other artificial entities for gonzo-themed OSR (or other fantasy) games. Whether mindless machines or intelligent bots, this collection of random tables can produce a variety of model designations, names, forms, and other qualities.

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RPGPundit Presents #16: The Great City of Arkhome

RPGPundit Presents #16: The Great City of Arkhome was written by RPGPundit, with artwork by Michael Clarke, kreatiw, Rorius, and imagepluss. The publisher is Precis Intermedia.

Although not advertised as a Dungeon Crawl Classics product, readers of RPGPundit's blog will know that he runs (or ran) a gonzo post-Apocalyptic Dungeon Crawl Classics campaign known as the "Last Sun". This is not post-Apocalyptic in terms of our world having undergone an Apocalypse. Or maybe it is. It is difficult to tell.

Because not all of the RPGPundit Presents series are compatible with Dungeon Crawl Classics, and none of them are printed under the compatibility license, I shall do my best to list them when I believe they are designed for use with DCC. Others are more generic, or designed to be used for other games (in particular Lion & Dragon).

Adding to this confusion, the Great City of Arkhome is explicitly part of RPGPundit's Dungeon Crawl Classics campaign, to which he refers as "the crown jewel of my Last Sun setting". The relationship to DCC is obvious (for instance, "the Frog-Daemon Bobgobdabulz the Unspellable, who dreams of obtaining the magical power necessary to transform the whole canyon into an enormous swamp"), but the product itself is essentially system-neutral.

Within you will find a brief discussion of the Factions of Arkhome, as well as generators to determine the contents of various towers, based upon which levels you are in, and the events that might occur there.

For example:

"An entire level dedicated to the breeding, milking, and slaughtering of giant snails can be found here. This provides the bulk of lower-class food supplies for the city. Some of these farms occupy two levels of a tower. The single largest snail farm is in one of the towers controlled by the Snake Witch (it is four levels in size)."

Examples of events include:

"Students at a magical academy are dying under mysterious circumstances. The headmaster is a low-level wizard desperate to find the cause. A chaos-creature summoned by one of the hapless students may be responsible."

"The Thieves Guild has put out a reward for the live capture of one of their former members—One-Eyed Jack. He has skimmed a fortune from their earnings and is currently in hiding, trying to buy his way out of the city by subtle means."

"A mostly abandoned level has had an outbreak of zombie-ism among local beggars, who are now threatening to move into a more-populated residential shantytown."

Although this was obviously written with Dungeon Crawl Classics in mind, I would have marked in "honorary", except that it links directly to RPGPundit Presents #20: The Great City of Arkhome 2, which has an occupations table for Arkhome.

From the annals of the RPGPundit's (in)famous Last Sun gonzo fantasy campaign, this supplement focuses on one of the last known cities that still has a majority of human inhabitants. Surrounded by an immense desert region, Arkhome is littered with enormous towers that are linked to each other through bridges. The Assassin King, Snake Witch, Old Families, and various gangs vie for power. Random level and event tables are also included.

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Crawl-thulhu Form-fillable Character Sheet

Created by Todd McGowan, with art by Todd McGowan, this item is published by Discerning Dhole Productions.

This is a form-fillable character sheet for Crawl-thulhu.

It has been made available at no cost.

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Night Soil #0

Night Soil #0 was written by bygrinstow and illustrated by Claytonian, realitybreak, and bygrinstow. The publisher is Inner Ham.

Night Soil #0 is the first of what are intended to be eleven issues of a zine inspired by artwork in the 4th printing of the Dungeon Crawl Classics core rulebook. It contains monsters, magic items, spells, and more. Each listing tells you exactly what page to look at for the inspirational artwork.

When I created Pesh Joomang for the Angels, Daemons, and Beings Between Indiegogo campaign, I did something somewhat akin to this. All of the monsters in the first level patron spell, creatures of the visual hieroglyphics, come from DCC illustrations on the pages equal to the spell range. Likewise, the Artefacts of Pesh Joomang were based on items Goodman Games had produced. This patron was printed in the Extended, Otherworldly Edition of that tome.

The only overlap I noticed is that I used an illustration for the  immortal death worm, and bygrinstow was inspired by the same illustration to create the spell shadow blend.

Within this modest-sized zine, you will find three complete spells, at least seven creatures, eleven magic items, and nine other entries that defy easy classification. If is a fountain of creativity. Often, when discussing zines, I have given a list of contents and described each item separately, but that would be a disservice to both writer and reader in this case.

Night Soil is warm and malleable.

It’s made from assorted, random things which have been consumed, digested, and may or may not resemble what they started off as...

Night Soil contains a bunch of grab-and-use elements for your campaigns and one-shot games -- all inspired by the ART in the 4th Printing of your favorite RPG.

Inside you’ll find new magical items, new spells, new threats, and new ideas to push your games into new directions and give your players something to mess with.

Warm up your dice, and maybe set some extra character sheets within arm’s reach...

This is Night Soil.

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Porsaiko's DCC RPG Sheet 1: 0-Level

Porsaiko's DCC RPG Sheet 1: 0-Level are created, illustrated, and published by Bruno Prosaiko.

This item is "A chaotic character sheet for DCC RPG 0-Level characters". Purchase includes options for two or four character sheets per page, in black and white or color formats.

Files are not form-fillable.

This is a Pay What You Want item.

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Cyber Sprawl Classics #1

Cyber Sprawl Classics #1 was written by Brent Ault. Art is by Korotitskiy Igor (cover), Mike Jackson, [ tfxr ] 3.0, Simon Cardew, and Victor Marguerite. The publisher is not listed.

Cyber Sprawl Classics is "Corruption & Creds Won by Console & Chrome": a cyberpunk version of Dungeon Crawl Classics that harkens back to the late 80s to the mid 90s. As the other puts it:

"There is a certain aesthetic that comes to mind when I think about cyberpunk. It is not a place of sleek design and Apple minimalism, but flickering LCDs and spraypaint. It has no glitz. No glamour. It is dystopian wreckage to it’s core, riddled with addicts high on second-life wetware, hackers plugging data-cables in their body’s cyberware, Runners disemboweling corporate security on rooftops and in between them all: a high-tech, low-life world colored in overcast grays and neon lights."

Access to The Umerican Survival Guide and Mutant Crawl Classics are specifically called out by the author as being useful. I would suggest that Nowhere City Nights may also supply worthwhile inspiration, especially if you wish "to run the fantasy-cyberpunk mashup of Shadowrun".

Let's look inside.

Introduction: Already quoted from liberally above, the Introduction is standard fare, explaining where the author is coming from and what he's trying to achieve.

Notable is this paragraph:

"Lastly, credit where credit is due: All of this art was found and reappropriated (stolen) from browsing the internet; Many from the old Shadowrun modules of the early 90’s. I’ve done my best to include artist credit. Mechanically, the Street Samurai and Infiltrator are the DCC Warrior and Thief, nearly verbatim, while the Medic is a reworked version of the Healer from Mutant Crawl Classics. The Firearms tables were largely from Crawl! Issue #8 and the Umerican Survival Guide."

What’s New: Training & Armor: Characters in Cyber Sprawl Classics learn to use weapons randomly, rather than by class. The exception is the Street Samurai, who is trained in all weaponry.

Armor is based on general type (Light, Medium, Heavy, or Shield) rather than specific types.

0-Level Occupations: This is a 1d30 table that provides only human characters, in keeping with the general theme of the cyberpunk genre. Your character could be a Musician (Punk), a Scientist, or a Programmer. This table is useful for any sort of "modern characters enter the fantasy world" version of Dungeon Crawl Classics, in addition to its obvious use here.

Luck Augur: Birth Augurs in Cyber Sprawl Classics do not have clever titles. No one is born under the sign of Crossed Computers.

Etiquette: This is knowing how to fit into certain types of society, including understanding the slang and expectations of a group. The types are: Academic, Corporate, Gang, Security, Runner, Socialite, and Street. Street is used by Information Brokers, the Homeless, and Bartenders, as opposed to Gang, which is used by Gang Members.

Classes: Provided herein are the Street Samurai, Medic, Console Cowboy, Infiltrator, Rigger, and Face. A character sheet is available here.

Basic Equipment: Exactly what it sounds like.

Appendix C:\ : An appendix of books, comics, films, videogames, and RPGs for inspirational reading, viewing, and playing.

You're no hero.

You're a Runner: a rigger, an infiltator, a street samurai, a cool-headed hacker executing programs in the metaverse. You seek corruption and creds, winning it with console and chrome, bathed in the blood and filth of the oppresive, the megacorps, the police, and the artificial. There are payloads to be won deep in the Sprawl, and you shall have them.

Return to the glory days of cyberpunk with Cyber Sprawl Classics. Adventure as 1984 intended you to.

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Crawl! fanzine #10 - Character Record Sheets

Crawl! fanzine #10 - Character Record Sheets were created by Richard Smith, and list both Richard Smith and Dak Ultimak as authors. Art is by Richard Smith. The publisher is Straycouches Press.

These are the Official Character Record Sheets for the character classes found in Crawl Fanzine #10, and are included free with the purchase thereof.

Includes record sheets for:

• Dwarven Priest
• Elven Rogue
• Halfling Burglar
• Halfling Champion

Sheets come in a single pdf file that is not form-fillable.

This product is Pay What You Want.

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Crawl! fanzine #6 - Character Record Sheets

Crawl! fanzine #6 - Character Record Sheets were created by Richard Smith, and list both Richard Smith and Dak Ultimak as authors. Art is by Richard Smith. The publisher is Straycouches Press.

These are the Official Character Record Sheets for the character classes found in Crawl Fanzine #6, and are included free with the purchase thereof.

Includes record sheets for:

• Bard
• Gnome
• Paladin
• Ranger 

Sheets come in a single pdf file that is not form-fillable.

This product is Pay What You Want.

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AutoFill Dungeon Crawl Classics Character Sheets

Auto-Fill Dungeon Crawl Classics Character Sheets were created by Jason Edwards and published by Horseshark Games.

These are form-fill pdfs with sheets for the Cleric, Dwarf, Elf, Halfling, Thief, Warrior, and Wizard.

The sheets are designed to be easy to use, including:

Auto-Fill Fields: Class Title, Class, Ability Score Modifiers, Speed, Initiative, Armor Class, Action Dice, Attack, Crit Die, Crit Table, Saves, Melee Attack, Missile Attack, Lucky Sign. Crit Threat Range for Warrior. Luck Die & Skills for Thief, Sneak for Halflings.


Multiple Field Synergy: Lucky Sign, Saves, Thief Skills, Ability Modifiers with most auto fill fields.

Drop-downs: Level, Ability Scores, Alignment. Spell Level on the Elf and Wizard, Armor Type, Armor Check Penalty, Armor Speed Check Penalty.

Character Portrait: Upload image file functionality

This item is Pay What You Want.

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Alma Mongel Student Handbook, v2.0

Alma Mongel Student Handbook, V2.0, was written by Noah Stevens. No publisher is listed.

What is this? The author writes:

If you wish to turn your MCC or DCC games into an 80’s high school in which drug use, sex, and violence are rampant – that is to say to make it MORE REALISTIC – well then, here you go. I am sorry.

I stole this from a corrupted document, found in a pile of worm-eaten, irradiated 4.5 inch floppy disks. They glowed there in the sewage, and whispered me something about the fear that people had of high school and teenagers just before I was one. Some of the digital text was recoverable, and in that case I have had no qualms about stealing it verbatim. Whole pages missing. Sometimes the text is hilariously corrupted by the conversion process and I may leave those bits in. I am grievously sorry to Mr. Otus and those naïve, terrified, spiteful, insightful Canadian guys who wrote the original, but for their sakes I tried to stay as close to the words I found as possible.

Herein you will find information to determine the Social Levels of your hapless high school PCs, their Student Subtypes (Cheerleader, Brain, Criminal, etc.), their Problems (because everyone has problems, especially in high school), and their Skills (Crudeness, Smuggling, Studying, and so on).

Rules are given for those important Tests and Quizzes as well as Reaction Rolls to allow for the "long-term developments of ongoing relationships and animosities, as well as friendships and even sexual relationships" which would be a focus of play.

Throw in some monsters and adventures, and you can have a game reminiscent of Todd and the Book of Pure Evil or early seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

If you are running a more standard Dungeon Crawl Classics or Mutant Crawl Classics campaign, it would be easy to envision a series of adventures that draws the PCs into the mortal shells of high school kids, where they have to deal with some problem from that vantage point before resuming their own lives. When they return to the same haunted high school, it quickly becomes apparent that their actions from the previous adventure have had consequences, for good or ill, on those that they inhabited.

Making it a series of adventures grants the players the opportunity to become aware that their social gaffes will, sooner or later, also affect them. In this adventure or another. Dead in the teen body might mean dead in their regular lives. Socially dead might have consequences as well!

It's free.

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The Ruins of Ramat

Appendix N Adventures Toolkit #1: The Ruins of Ramat is a 0-level funnel adventure written by John Adams and Colin Chapman with Bill Ellis, Moritz Mehlem, David Macauley, Alphonso Warden, and Jeremy Deram. Art is by Doug Kovacs (cover), Mark Allen, and Steve Zieser. Cartography is by Mark Allen. The publisher is Brave Halfling Publishing.

This product came about as part of a successful Kickstarter campaign, which has unfortunately been less successful in delivering the goods. I know that this has been, at least in part, due to personal tragedy, and I know that Brave Halfling has made efforts to catch up on the backlog. Eventually, Brave Halfling moved to a print-on-demand format, although this adventure is now currently available only in pdf as far as I can tell.

Nonetheless, I note that, at the time of this writing, there was an update on the Kickstarter on February 24, 2018, even though there are people still waiting for shipments (as is clear in the comments). Personally, I like John Adams, and my dealings with him have always been completely satisfactory. While I understand the frustrations this, and other, Kickstarters have caused, I do not believe that there is intended malfeasance. But I do understand the frustration.

The first three offerings in the Appendix N Adventures series seem to be riffs off of wilderness encounters in The Keep on the Borderlands. The Ruins of Ramat would correspond to the Mound of the Lizard Men (after much time has passed). The Vile Worm would correspond to the Mad Hermit, and The Treacherous Cobtraps appears to correspond to the Spiders' Lair (all found on pages 12-13 of Module B2).

There is also a Swords & Wizardry and a Castles & Crusades version of this adventure, which might be of some interest to judges seeking examples of conversions.

I discussed The Ruins of Ramat briefly in this blog post:

The Ruins of Ramat (Brave Halfling):  As we get to the end of my list, I would like to emphasize again that I am putting great material in order, not ordering from great to mediocre.  The Ruins of Ramat has a lot going for it, but there were a few things that I thought kept it from a higher ranking.  First, the descriptions did not always match the visual aids.  Second, the khopesh swords have no damage listed.  Finally, I dislike the way D&D has handled confusion, and one encounter in this module relies upon the same handling.  That said, when I ran this module, a lot of fun was had.  The confusion bit was the only really questionable bit, and it can be fixed by treating the confusion descriptively, allowing the players to decide not to make attacks at shadows, and then allowing those shadows to attack them!  After than, any PC who attacks a shadow has an equal chance to target a friendly or enemy figure.

More information on Ramat, "a radiant god of righteousness and light [that] was worshipped in a distant land" would not be amiss.

It is mid-spring, the time when the land’s rulers and their men-at-arms go to war with their neighbors. Nearly every able person is already involved in such conflicts, or helping the remaining militia protect the local village.

A little girl comes running and crying into the center of the village. When questioned, she sobs that she and her dog were playing just outside of town, by Rose Hill, when a giant, clawed creature came up out of the ground and took her dog. The girl is completely terrified and her dog, which never normally leaves her side, is nowhere to be seen. You and your companions volunteer to look into the matter.

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RPGPundit Presents Volume 15: Last Sun: Gazetteer of the Middle-Northern Wilderlands

RPGPundit Presents Volume 15: Last Sun: Gazetteer of the   Middle-Northern Wilderlands was written by RPGPundit, with artwork by Michael Clarke, Microstocker1, imagepluss, ddraw, and filkusto. The publisher is Precis Intermedia.

Although not advertised as a Dungeon Crawl Classics product, readers of RPGPundit's blog will know that he runs (or ran) a gonzo post-Apocalyptic Dungeon Crawl Classics campaign known as the "Last Sun". This is not post-Apocalyptic in terms of our world having undergone an Apocalypse. Or maybe it is. It is difficult to tell.

Because not all of the RPGPundit Presents series are compatible with Dungeon Crawl Classics, and none of them are printed under the compatibility license, I shall do my best to list them when I believe they are designed for use with DCC. Others are more generic, or designed to be used for other games (in particular  Lion & Dragon). In this particular case, there is at least a blog post describing this product as being specifically related to the author's DCC campaign.

Despite the name, you will find neither a map of the Middle-Northern Wilderness, nor any long description of the same. There is a five-paragraph outline of the region, but that hardly qualifies as a gazetteer in my books.

What you will find is a 0-level profession table for the region, which allows for the creation of Dwarven Mole-Ranchers, Elven Human-Advocates, Halfling Stranglers. and Human Torchbearers. In many ways, the humans get the short end of the stick as far as interesting occupations go.

There are also notes on professions, in case you don't know what an Elven Blogger's recording device does, or need stats for a Halfling Chicken Rider's mount. Given that this also describes items like the blaster gun and the jetpack, it may be useful to judges running games in the Umerica of Crawling Under a Broken Moon, or mined for ideas usable in Mutant Crawl Classics.

From the annals of the RPGPundit's (in)famous Last Sun gonzo fantasy campaign, this supplement focuses on the Middle-Northern Wilderlands. This is home to tiny groups of human survivors that were devastated by a zombie outbreak, the Rose Dome populated with Hipster Elves (see issue 4), cannibal halflings, and more. Also included is a table of 75 0-level professions for Dwarf, Hipster Elf, Human Survivor, and Feral Halfling characters. 

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RPGPundit Presents Volume 4: Last Sun: Hipster Elves!

RPGPundit Presents Volume 4: Last Sun: Hipster Elves! was written by RPGPundit, with artwork by Michael Clarke, itskatjas, and OlyaTropinina. The publisher is Precis Intermedia.

Although not advertised as a Dungeon Crawl Classics product, readers of RPGPundit's blog will know that he runs (or ran) a gonzo post-Apocalyptic Dungeon Crawl Classics campaign known as the "Last Sun". This is not post-Apocalyptic in terms of our world having undergone an Apocalypse. Or maybe it is. It is difficult to tell.

Because not all of the RPGPundit Presents series are compatible with Dungeon Crawl Classics, and none of them are printed under the compatibility license, I shall do my best to list them when I believe they are designed for use with DCC. Others are more generic, or designed to be used for other games (in particular Lion & Dragon).

Hipster Elves are the dominant elven culture on the Northern Continent, living in domes that they no longer know how to use or maintain. "In the best of cases, only about 7% of all Hipster Elves bother to learn anything these days. Those who do tend to know very little. The other 93% have no idea about the outside world, though they are sure it is just like they imagine from the safe space of their bubble-shaped dome. This makes the Hipster Elves inevitably doomed."

This product includes a basic description of Hipster Elves, a description of Hipster Elf domes (including the information you need to determine if they are inhabited, and, if so, by what), and a Hipster Elf occupation table. Hipster Elves can have occupations like "Activist: Pointless", armed with a "Staple-Gun (1d2)" and carrying "1d100 leaflets about a cause no one actually opposes" or a "Vegan Barbecue Cook" armed with a "Knife (1d3)" and carrying "inedible garbage he claims tastes just like meat".

Descriptions of some of the more unusual Hipster Elf occupations are also given. For instance, a Professional Allergic is described as: "These Elves have no actual allergies, but feign having several life-threatening ones that limit what they can eat or how much they can work. They often worry about the presence of gluten in foods that have no gluten by definition."

Clearly, RPGPundit's sociopolitical views color his descriptions in Hipster Elves, but whether this is a good thing or a bad thing must be determined by the individual reader. So long as you don't take yourself too seriously, you might find some useful gaming material here.

From the annals of the RPGPundit's (in)famous Last Sun gonzo fantasy campaign, this supplement details the most common surviving species of Elves on the surface world: Hipster Elves. Discover the secrets of this decadent and largely useless people's high-tech domes, their culture, and a hilarious table of over 50 new 0-level professions for Hipster Elf characters.

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Rock God Death-Fugue

Rock God Death-Fugue was written by Steve Bean with fair use, public domain or CC BY-SA illustrations. The publisher is Steve Bean Games.

Rock God Death-Fugue is similar to Country Crawl Classics, Inferno Road, Null Singularity, and Black Sun Deathcrawl, in that it is a one-shot adventure that, in the end, the PCs are not expected to "win". They can, however, have better or worse outcomes.

In this case, your characters are members of a heavy metal band on on the German leg of its first world tour. Everything that can go wrong will go wrong, and everything that can go right will also probably turn out to be wrong in the long run. This is the rock-and-roll lifestyle, baby, and no one gets out of it alive...or at least, not significantly worse for the wear.

There is a cool mechanic modifying the spell duel rules so that your band members may "Contend for The Limelight" during each performance. The judge provides every PC equal opportunities throughout the adventure to Contend for The Limelight, but the judge chooses who gets the opportunity in each case, generally dependent upon events away from the stage.

Every Rock God also has a dark flaw that influences role-playing, and manifests in various encounters.

Two second level spells, aura of the Dark Muse and the Dark Muse provides, are included in the adventure. Their applicability to other settings is open for debate, but it is not at all impossible that these could see play outside Rock God Death-Fugue itself.

One cool potential use for this product would occur, in particular, in a post-Apocalyptic setting, such as Mutant Crawl Classics or the Umerica of Crawling Under a Broken Moon: After playing through Rock God Death-Fugue, the players' new characters are reincarnations of their band-mate PCs. Events in the funnel allow each player to choose a survivor to "remember" past events. Depending upon how Rock God Death-Fugue plays out (there is a section called "Burn Out, Fade Away or... Worse?"), each new PC may have some modifications. Penalties might even be removed if they can somehow "best" the other PC(s) who stole their limelight in their previous incarnation....

In fact, those modifications could replace the funnel if characters were created at 1st level (or higher).

Rock God Death-Fugue "explores themes of artistry, envy, excess, hubris and the cost of immortality-through-popular-media." Judges are warned that, "if you’re going to play it in public, make sure you’re in a place where you won’t cause (yourself) problems if your players get carried away." Because they will.

The PCs are “rock gods” weaving musical “magic” and indulging in all the debaucheries and dangerous habits of the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle. To make matters worse, the PCs all show up listening to Writhe Through Shadow by the band Atramentous – also known as “The Cursed Album.” It’s certain they’re headed for a bad end, the only question is whether they go out in a blaze of glory or as sad self-parodies like Axl, Elvis or the Ozzy of The Osbournes era.

The adventure alternates between encounters on the road that threaten to derail the tour – or worse – and the band’s shows. In concert, egos, insecurities & aspirations to true artistry take over, creating PvP musical duels. The outcome of these duels determine how history remembers each rock god!

ROCK GOD DEATH-FUGUE is a 8.5" x 8.5", graphics-rich product designed and laid out as the liner notes of Writhe Through Shadow, the legendary "Cursed Album" by the fictional alt-rock band Atramentous.

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The Rock Awakens

DCC #84.1: The Rock Awakens is a level 4 adventure written by Terry Olson with art by Doug Kovacs (cover), Brad McDevitt, and Stefan Poag. Cartography is by Mark Allen. The publisher is Goodman Games.

This is the first of several supplimental adventures supporting Peril on the Purple Planet. As with the Barsoom stories of Edgar Rice Burroughs, each additional "tale" adds new elements to the complexity of the Purple Planet without undoing what has gone before.

This is not a very long adventure - 16 digest-sized pages plus covers, covering eight encounter areas - but it is a good one, and it is one that could easily be run in a four-hour convention slot.

Because the adventure is short, I am going to avoid any spoilers. Terry Olson does talk about it on Spellburn, in this podcast, for those who want a bit more.

Among the Purple Planet's irradiated dunes, a freakish ebon cliff crests over a mysterious city. Even giant death orms avoid this place, which hides colossal creatures, deadly quakes, a powerful relic, and certain peril…when The Rock Awakes!

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Revenge of the Over-Kobold

WK3 Revenge of the Over-Kobold is a 2nd level adventure by “Weird Dave” Olson, with art by Aaron Ostman and cartography by Glynn Seal. The publisher is Cut to the Chase Games.

This is the third and final adventure in the Wrath of the Kobolds series. It makes good use of the PCs' earlier adventures (if they played through the series) to establish characters and locations. Like other offerings from Cut to the Chase Games, the Weird Dave's Notebook asides are highlights for me, as I always enjoy reading (or hearing) about how other GMs run their games.

Revenge of the Over-Kobold suffers from having been written for multiple systems. The monsters are not mysterious (with one exception), although the author does include appendixes to help make individual kobolds stand out. The treasure is based on a Dungeons & Dragons/Pathfinder model - a 1 gp bounty on kobold ears is a bit high for Dungeon Crawl Classics! - but this is easily remedied by the aspiring judge. It is likewise unfortunate that some items, especially the Bane of Kobolds, are not given the full DCC treatment!

As with other adventures in this series, I encourage the judge to read the material thoroughly, making changes as she goes. Although the monsters will be largely familiar to your players, that is not necessarily a problem. Certainly, the series as a whole lays a good groundwork for a larger campaign, which can include all the DCC weirdness that you like! I have taken a look at XP requirements in DCC, and imagine that you could use Wrath of the Kobolds exclusively to reach Level 2, and possibly Level 3, but thereafter you won't be able to rely on any single series of adventures to generate a campaign. This is not a bad thing; weaving storylines is generally better than a linear series, and as PCs gain levels, the judge is perforce required to add additional materials to enable this sort of play. A background of "normal" creatures makes the exceptional beings stand out!

The adventure itself starts with a battle against a large array of kobold forces, which is a nice change of pace. This is similar to Crypt of Bones, and uses a similar mechanic to determine how successful the PCs are.

The adventure also assumes (but does not require) that the PCs have become part of the life of the town of Ormkirk and the surrounding area, due to their actions in previous adventures of the series. Relationships with NPCs - both friendly and not - are worth cultivating!

The middle third of the adventure requires that the PCs follow a series of clues to find the Over-Kobold. Although this is linear in terms of the order of clues, how the players choose to resolve the conflicts is not prescripted. The author relies on rolls in one instance where I think the judge is better off using role-playing (and perhaps a single roll) rather than what amounts to a 4th Edition skill challenge. Again, this is easily adjusted in play. The author advises the judge that failure is an option, but also provides the means to ameliorate failure if desired. Enough information is provided that, if the judge chooses not to ameliorate failure, she could extrapolate the events of the Over-Kobold's armies sweeping through the region...the option that I would personally go for, even though it is not specifically called out.

This adventure relies less on the Dungeons & Dragons-based enmity between gnomes and kobolds, although if a compiled edition ever comes out, I would still hope to see a gnome class included. Until such a time, I still recommend using Yves Larochelle's gnome class in Crawl Fanzine #6.

The final portion of the adventure requires stealth and wits as well as combat prowess, as the PCs invade the sanctum of the Over-Kobold. Imagine a combining the giants' encampment from Colossus, Arise! with The Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, except with kobolds, and you'll have some idea of what this part of the adventure is like.

The ground rumbles beneath the feet of hundreds of marching kobolds. A great force has been assembled by a mysterious warlord known as the Over-Kobold, and no power can stop him—or so he believes. Only a brave band of adventurers are positioned to strike back against the Over-Kobold’s march of revenge against the world.

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