Friday, July 12, 2024

Green Devil Face #7

Earlier this week I discovered that  that Green Devil Face #7 (the official zine of Lamentations of the Flame Princess) includes a succubus class. Of course that means I needed to grab it. 

The zine starts with a introduction by James Raggi. He gives a manifesto for this issue of GDF (while also being cheeky and admits that it's cheaper and easier to release). Unlike the typical slick looking release by LotFP, this one looks like an old school zine. The text looks like it was typed on a type writer and some of it looks taped on. There is little art and it's all amateurish and hand drawn. This isn't a critique, because that's the point.

Leo Ruotsalo's 48 Ways To Use A Dead Princess is a table with 48 entries. This is the first of  two d48 charts. Each entry presents a new magic item created from the macabre remains of a dead princess. Some of these are really humorous, like the asshat and noble money maker (made from the buttocks and lady bits of a princess respectively). I will never use this chart as a whole. However, I really do like some of the items and will probably use them as twisted treasures. 

Tim "Samwise7" Harper's 2D6 Death & Dismemberment Table of Doom is a 2d6 chart you can roll on when a character dies. Some of these actually allow your character to survive, though you might be maimed in the process. This one is fun and despite its name, can add some life to your game.

Nik Stanosheck's Succubus class is next.  The class is short and sweet taking up only a page of the nearly 50 page zine. Obviously not going to reproduce the class or be too specific. I'll just say the class is essentially a variant cleric, with special consideration to spells and healing. This is the reason I bought the zine. I'm not saying I love this one, but its solid and definitely usable. 

Luca Negri's Esperantian Standoff is an interesting encounter. It involves inquisitors, a "witch," some bandits in disguise, and a relic tongue. Awh Rats is another encounter that takes the cliche "killing rats in the basement" hook and adds a failed magical apprentice, a portal, and a new rat-related magic item. Of these two, I think I like Awh Rats more, though both seem memorable.

Another chart from Tim "Samwise7" Harper, d66 is a Critical Hit Damage Table. This one is pretty straightforward. In addition to the tables, there are two optional rules included, as well. This is a cool table, but considering how lethal old school D&D is, do we need it to be deadlier?

C.A. Paul's Think of the Children! is a short adventure idea. The party are hired by a conservative church to find missing children. If you want to role-play as some self-righteous parents. this could be fun to run.

Alucard Finch's The Barber Surgeon's Ruin is another short adventure. The party find a miniature girl in their pocket. She leads them to her home where they encounter miniature malformed psychopaths created by a magic Brazier. Of the adventure/encounters in the zine, this is my favorite. 

Tim "Samwise7" Harper is at it again with Revised LotFP OSR Spells: First Level. This article takes the 20 1st-level magic-user spells from LotFP and reskins and reworks them a bit. The spells are more visceral, thematic, and appropriate for the game. For example Magic Missile becomes Arcane Vivisection which calls forth a blade of magical energy to strike surgically at the magic-user's foes.

Aarok Eckstrand's The Gaol of Hubert Bristol is an adventure that definitely plays to the weird of LotFP's weird fantasy theme. They tricked into going to a strange prison with a poo-eating monstrosity and hunchback jailers. I don't ever seeing myself using this one.

Sah's Vampire Eaters is an interesting adventure location. Players come to an out of the way prospering town. They are welcomed by the friendly residents. They may seek out the mystery of the town's prosperity. You might have guessed by the title, but they have a chained up vampire that they harvest meat from. This one is gross and weird, but could be a interesting village to add to your game.

 J. Smaug Vestergaard's Heksen (The Witch) aka The Salem Post Office Incident aka New England Deliverance is an adventure for levels 1-5. Loosely inspired by the Nic Cage flick Season of the Witch (which despite reviews, I loved), the party needs to deliver a wagon (that seems to simple mail) to a fort. This is a nice adventure that is a race against time. 

OSR icon, Jeff Rients, presents The Tomb of St. Satan. This is a fun idea. Basically a community got it in their idea that Satan was converted to Christianity by Jesus. The adventure site features one of Jeff's blasphemous spellbooks (The Middle Testament, The Grimoir of St. Satan).

The final article is another d48 chart, this time we get Leo Ruotsalo's The 48 Weirds. This is d48 random outworldly phenomenon to permanently change with a person is. This isn't something that would be used often, but I'm sure it would be handy if you need to do something like this.

There's some fun OSR stuff in this one. If you want some new bits and bobs to add to your game check it out. The pdf of Green Devil Face #7 can be found here and the print/pdf combo is found here.

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