Hobbs & Friends of the OSR #1

By Jason Hobbs
Rock RIver Games
OSR
Level ... 2?

[…] Unfortunately, a Kamaran rebellion overtook the excavation site and Chandri nor his findings or results were ever found. Since then, the Vitem (raw magical energy) has mutated natural creatures into abominations and drawn further horrors to the location. What mysteries lie in Chandri’s Minaret and further … ?

This 32 page digest presents an environment to explore. It is interesting. I don’t know how the hell else to describe this one briefly. You gotta read the full review on this one, Guy. There’s one adventure here, The Excavation of the Tomb of Lorninane, with one small article on corruption magic, in support of the adventure. So,it’s a zine with one thing in t: an adventure.

I have a negative view on digest sized products. The zines have been, generally garbage. And yet, this was not always the case. They were once, I think, the sign that some wack job had put something out and that you should check it out. Arduin, I’m looking at you. But, I had an epiphany yesterday. What if I went looking for digest things that were NOT a part of some zine-quest something or other. And, thus, this thing from 2018, with one three star review. Plus, it’s an excavation site! Those ALWAYS suck, right?! 

There’s so much going on here and it’s such a glorious mess. And every element hits just right. First you’ve got this outside area. A small gully/valley. Caves in the walls. A sandstone mesa-thing in the middle. And remnants of a previous excavation. Collapsed building references, piles of shoring timber. And shit running around, termites in the timber, some giant desert geckos. Darkmantles hiding in sandstone spires. And some local native folk, a shamans warriors. And, a hole in the ground. Dig out. And inside that hole, at the bottom, another hole that the sand is spilling in to. Someone has broken down in to some place ELSE. Pop in to it and you’ll end up through the roof of a tall minaret, covered in sand. Keep going down to find some giant albino ant tunnels. And keep going down to find the tomb in question, proper. Along the way are a variety of situations to interact with. Which, doesn’t do this thing justice.

At one point there are some giant albino ant tunnels running through the minaret walls. FOllow them back and you get to a throne room with a drider-like ant-queen “Her throne is a raised dais of ant skulls and she’s protected by two albino warriors.” Sweet! Turns out she some ancient dudes wife, turned in to a mutated ant to protect her from … someone else … who is represented here by a bunch of elementals roaming around. 

Or, in the words of the adventure “a plan to save his wife Ahira, by mutating her into a Queen of ants and giving her the ability to control the enlarged Nkosan Albino Ants. Bargrival cannot return home to the Elemental Plane of Earth until he kills Ahira, and Ahira cannot escape the Elemental’s symbiote Sentinels or the buried Minaret while Bargrival lives.” That description could go one of two ways. I could fucking hate it and make fun of it or I could marvel at the wonder of it all. I’m leaning toward the second. Don’t forget that the tribal shaman a couple of his dudes are running around in here also. As well as a few undead. “A Dusk ghoul resides here and will be awoken upon entering the desiccated remnants of its bedchamber. The creature appears an emaciated woman, fine long black hair still lustrous, hanging about her head and shoulders. She is dressed in adequate silks cut in the Mibishal way.” GREAT description! That’s exactly what the fuck I am looking for in a monster description. It’s not undead, it’s an emaciated woman with long black hair. I love it! “The Mudman’s bloated body flab covers an average sized naked male form. His head is mostly bald with sporadic patches of hair clumped about his scalp, which are beginning to grow up and over the electrum crown perched awkwardly on his fleshy skull.” Now THATS a mudman! Great fucking monster descriptions. And, I mentioned elementals earlier? Great use of them. They don’t feel perfunctory here. They are integrated in and feel like they should belong there. A force of nature. Duh, of course!

There’s great art here, supplementing the text and the monsters. A nice little overview pic of the outside gully, providing that scenic overview that I’m always looking for. Monsters integrated in to the environment, like an embalming romo with some oche jelly. Great little descriptions everywhere. “Sand piles dot the stairs and chamber as a bloody ichor trails down the spiral staircase.” or “A soft breeze draws the flames of open light sources down into the depths of the stair”

There’s no real level range mentioned and the treasure can be hit or miss, ranging from nice little descriptive items to “silver trinket.” But, I should touch on the length and formatting of this thing. And overall … confusion?

Each entry here is getting about one paragraph, regardless of what is going on. That is … seven or eight sentences, I’d guess, on the more common entries? The density of the information is great and there is very little space or words wasted on useless bloat. But, instead, you get seven or eight sentences of useful information. And those sentences tend to be dense. This is right on the edge of what I think a person can run, and, in fact, may be over it given the density. If every single entry were like this I’d probably complain more. Instead I’ll just say that this comes across as some work of the idiosyncratic. And we do love us some Dark Tower around here, right? And Arduin? 

There are puzzles here, but more of the situations variety, which are my favorite. A room swirling with dust and glass shards, a bridge to move to get in to position. The shaman and his men to negotiate with. And always, the looming threat of the sand guardians showing up (your wandering monster to keep things moving along.)

This is straight out the early days, or the better scenarios from the OSR. Idiosyncratic and not overstaying its welcome … and with some text that you almost have to fight through.

This is $4 at DriveThru. The preview is six pages … just enough to see some of the encounters

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/241000/Hobbs–Friends-of-the-OSR-Issue-1?1892600