Hobbs & Friends of the OSR Zine #1 and 2

As I mentioned earlier in the week I met Jason Hobbs of Hobbs & Friends of the OSR at Origins last week. We both played in a DCC Lankhmar session with Michael Curtis and later in the day I played in a DCC session ran by Jason that will be in the newest issue of D.A.M.N.  While talking with him I found out he the podcast has a Zine.

The primary focus of Issue 1 is the adventure, The Excavation of the Tomb of Lornnane. The party take part in the exploration of the tomb of a dead magic-user of some power. The location is the source of raw magical energy, which has mutated the local flora and fauna. The adventure is a nice delve that introduced a variety of foes and obstacles. There are tribal warriors, mutant ants (and ant-people), undead, undead spellcasters, elementals, and puzzles. There are big risks and big rewards. Everything you could want in a delve. The last part of the zine deals with magical corruption. The section is short but presents one of my favorite aspects of DCC and focuses it puts it in more of a classic OSR light.

The focus of Issue 2 is the northern wilderness outpost of Bettlebee Ridge. The issue is almost entirely systemless, primarily detailing the settlement, its inhabitants, and the surrounding areas. The only game stats are in the 2d20 random encounter table and they are bare bones). I really like this, to be honest. It makes it even more universal. The settlement is well fleshed out and feel alive. Honestly I think it would be a good replacement for the titular keep of The Keep on the Borderlands. Next time I run it, I might use Bettlebee Ridge instead.

Both of these adventures use Jason's setting. So there are lots of references to rebellions and ethnicities and the like. When I use these, I'm just going to ignore all that and use things from my own campaign.