{"id":8924,"date":"2023-12-18T07:11:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-18T12:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=8924"},"modified":"2023-12-05T13:01:03","modified_gmt":"2023-12-05T18:01:03","slug":"hobbs-friends-of-the-osr-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=8924","title":{"rendered":"Hobbs & Friends of the OSR #1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Jason Hobbs\nRock RIver Games\nOSR\nLevel ... 2?\n<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
[…] 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\u2019s Minaret and further \u2026 ?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This 32 page digest presents an environment to explore. It is interesting. I don\u2019t know how the hell else to describe this one briefly. You gotta read the full review on this one, Guy. There\u2019s one adventure here, The Excavation of the Tomb of Lorninane, with one small article on corruption magic, in support of the adventure. So,it\u2019s a zine with one thing in t: an adventure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\u2019m 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\u2019s an excavation site! Those ALWAYS suck, right?! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s so much going on here and it\u2019s such a glorious mess. And every element hits just right. First you\u2019ve 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\u2019ll 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\u2019t do this thing justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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 \u201cHer throne is a raised dais of ant skulls and she\u2019s protected by two albino warriors.\u201d Sweet! Turns out she some ancient dudes wife, turned in to a mutated ant to protect her from \u2026 someone else \u2026 who is represented here by a bunch of elementals roaming around. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Or, in the words of the adventure \u201ca 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\u2019s symbiote Sentinels or the buried Minaret while Bargrival lives.\u201d 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\u2019m leaning toward the second. Don\u2019t forget that the tribal shaman a couple of his dudes are running around in here also. As well as a few undead. \u201cA 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.\u201d GREAT description! That\u2019s exactly what the fuck I am looking for in a monster description. It\u2019s not undead, it\u2019s an emaciated woman with long black hair. I love it! \u201cThe Mudman\u2019s 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.\u201d Now THATS a mudman! Great fucking monster descriptions. And, I mentioned elementals earlier? Great use of them. They don\u2019t feel perfunctory here. They are integrated in and feel like they should belong there. A force of nature. Duh, of course!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s great art here, supplementing the text and the monsters. A nice little overview pic of the outside gully, providing that scenic overview that I\u2019m always looking for. Monsters integrated in to the environment, like an embalming romo with some oche jelly. Great little descriptions everywhere. \u201cSand piles dot the stairs and chamber as a bloody ichor trails down the spiral staircase.\u201d or \u201cA soft breeze draws the flames of open light sources down into the depths of the stair\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s no real level range mentioned and the treasure can be hit or miss, ranging from nice little descriptive items to \u201csilver trinket.\u201d But, I should touch on the length and formatting of this thing. And overall \u2026 confusion?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Each entry here is getting about one paragraph, regardless of what is going on. That is \u2026 seven or eight sentences, I\u2019d 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\u2019d probably complain more. Instead I\u2019ll 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? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is straight out the early days, or the better scenarios from the OSR. Idiosyncratic and not overstaying its welcome \u2026 and with some text that you almost have to fight through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is $4 at DriveThru. The preview is six pages … just enough to see some of the encounters<\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/product\/241000\/Hobbs–Friends-of-the-OSR-Issue-1?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8923,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","category-the-best"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/hibbs.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8924"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8925,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8924\/revisions\/8925"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}