Back in the misty days of October 2019, Old-School Essentials was launched in two formats: a chunky hardcover Rules Tome and a box set. While the Rules Tome has been reprinted several times since then, the now legendary box set sold out by January 2020 and has never been reprinted — until now!
After 2+ years of constant demand, we're preparing to bring the Old-School Essentials box set back into print — and now also to be accompanied by an Advanced Fantasy expansion box set! We have everything lined up: a brand new box cover by the legendary Erol Otus, all new cover art for the books by the amazing David Hoskins, loads of new interior art, an improved structure of the books, and all known errata fixed.
There's just one more thing we need: your support! As producing box sets is an extremely expensive business, we're launching a Kickstarter to ensure there's sufficient demand.
The first 48 hours of a Kickstarter are critical to its success, so please jump in early and spread the word to your gaming friends! If you pledge in the first24 hours, you'll get some extra special freebies as a big thank you for your support — a fantastic T-shirt with art by David Hoskins and a copy of issue #2 of Carcass Crawler, the official Old-School Essentials zine!
The box sets themselves contain the same Old-School Essentials game that you already know, just presented in a different format for people who share our love of RPG box sets.
We'll have some extra material in the form of stretch goals, including a series of mini-adventures written for Old-School Essentials by different authors. All stretch goal material will be available separately later on, for those who don't back the new Kickstarter.
All For Now
Hope to see some of you over at the box sets Kickstarter!
Exalted Funeral & Necrotic Gnome
Holy Mountain Shaker Shipping Soon! Advanced Generators!
over 2 years ago
– Tue, Oct 19, 2021 at 10:00:44 PM
Holy Mountain Shaker Shipping Details!
We are super pleased to announce that Holy Mountain Shaker will start shipping soon! US and Canadian orders have already started and UK/ROW should commence next week. The EU should also start next week but just waiting for the schedule confirmation!
Online Generators Updated With Advanced Fantasy Material
We also have a bit of news on the digital front: the Old-School Essentials generators have now been updated to also (optionally) include Advanced Fantasy monsters, classes, spells, and magic items!
To include the Advanced Fantasy material when using the generators, just use the handy Edition switch at the top of each page:
Here are a couple of examples of the kinds of awesome Advanced Fantasy things the generators can conjure up at the click of a button.
The online generators are a great resource for referees running games, now complete with material from both the Classic and Advanced Fantasy rules at your fingertips. Check out the generators here!
Stay Connected With the Old-School Essentials Community
We're super excited that Old-School Essentials is growing and growing in popularity! Check out these communities and resources to stay in touch with news and developments and chat with other OSE fans.
Overview of the game: The Necrotic Gnome website front page now features an introduction to Old-School Essentials, answering a lot of the most commonly asked questions. We hope this will be especially helpful in introducing new people to the game, so please share the link with interested friends! https://necroticgnome.com
OSE newsletter: We've started publishing a regular, official Old-School Essentials newsletter, packed with news on upcoming products, highlighted third party products, free resources, and much more! Sign up at https://necroticgnome.com (bottom of the page).
New Issue of Carcass Crawler, UK / Rest of World Fulfillment Update
over 2 years ago
– Fri, Aug 27, 2021 at 01:42:49 AM
Hey everyone,
We've got a few exciting pieces of news today, plus an update on the final stages of fulfillment (the UK hub — handling backers everywhere outside of the US, Canada, and EU.)
New Issue of Carcass Crawler!
Remember the Kickstarter exclusive issue of the official Old-School Essentials zine, Carcass Crawler, that you received as backers? Well, we're super excited to announce that the nextissue (the first publicly available issue) is out now! This issue includes the following content:
New classes: Six new character classes! The acolyte, the gargantua, the goblin, the hephaestan, the kineticist, and the mage*.
New races: Three new character races for Advanced Fantasy games! The gargantua, the goblin, and the hephaestan.
Black powder weapons: Complete rules for introducing renaissance-style black powder firearms into your game!
Fighter combat talents: Optional rules to give fighters a little extra mechanical perk.
d6 thief skills: An optional alternative system for thief skills.
Adjudicating thief skills: Optional guidelines for adjudicating the use of thief skills and attempts by other characters to perform similar tasks.
* Note that the mage class also appeared in the Kickstarter exclusive inaugural issue of Carcass Crawler. Due to popular demand, we decided to include it in the first public issue as well.
Halls of the Blood King ENNIES Nominations!
We’re incredibly proud to announce that the Old-School Essentials adventure Halls of the Blood King has been nominated for 2 ENNIES awards, Best Adventure and Best Cartography! Necrotic Gnome and Exalted Funeral Press have also been shortlisted in the Fan Award for Best Publisher!
Congrats to everyone involved! Diogo Nogueria (writer), Justine Jones (artist), Glynn Seal (cartographer), Anna Urbanek (layout), Fiona Maeve Geist (editing), Jarrett Crader (editing), Gavin Norman (OSE adventures overlord).
ENNIES Voting is live! Voting will be open until 12 AM PST on August 27th. Go to vote.ennie-awards.com, select 1 as your first choice for each category we’ve been nominated in, and VOTE!
Old-School Essentials Newsletter
We've also just started publishing a regular email newsletter, bringing the latest news about official projects, new releases from third-party publishers, and other topics of note straight into your inbox.
Most of the UK and ROW orders have been shipped out. Yaay!! We will post another update when they have all been shipped and at that time you can contact us if you have not received your items or a shipping notice.
There is an issue with Brazilian shipments over a certain weight being rejected by the Brazilian postal system and sent back to sender. We are working with our US warehouse to split the orders into smaller parcels and to get these orders out from there. I will reach out directly to those backers that are affected. Puerto Rican backers will also now be fulfilled from the US warehouse as well.
If you filled out your survey late, your pledge will ship in the next week or so.
September 1st Advanced Fantasy Release date!
Look for the Old-School Essentials Advanced Fantasy products from the Kickstarter to be released on exaltedfuneral.com next Wednesday, September 1st! The stickers and 4 shirts from the campaign will also be available, as well as a SPECIAL LIMITED EDITION shirt! Sign up for the EF newsletter here for the latest on this release and more!
All For Now
Everyone at Exalted Funeral and Necrotic Gnome
UK Hub Fulfillment and Customer Service Issues
over 2 years ago
– Fri, Aug 06, 2021 at 01:51:12 PM
Hello patient, lovely backers!
UK Hub Fulfillment
Received from Gamesquest this morning:
"Hopefully we can get packaging and the invoicing done early next week and try to get the project started as soon as possible."
Looks like next week is the updated start date. I know you guys are frustrated and we completely understand. We are too. I will update you with any changes as soon as I get them, but it looks promising for next week to actually be the UK hub start date.
Damaged or Missing Shipments
If you received your package from the US, then the initial point of contact is me, Cristin, at [email protected]
If you received your package from GamesQuest, then the initial point of contact to create a ticket is [email protected] .
Please do not only post comments or send KS messages for missing or damaged products. The tickets need to be opened as mentioned above so all of the communication about the issue can be kept in the same thread.
If you have reached out about an issue and have not received a response, I promise I am working on it; whether it is responding to emails at [email protected] or following up with Gamesquest support emails. We will make sure you get your pledge items and and replacements, if necessary!
Thank you everyone!
-Cristin @ EF
US and Canadian fulfillment COMPLETE!! Update on International Fulfillment
almost 3 years ago
– Sat, Jul 17, 2021 at 10:55:13 PM
US and CA Fulfillment Complete!
Our US warehouse has now finished fulfillment of the US and Canadian pledges! If you are located within the US or Canada and have not received a tracking number for your shipment, please reach out to Cristin at [email protected]. If you have reached out about a damaged or lost shipment, we are continuing to work through those and will respond soon with a resolution. Thank you all for your patience!
EU Hub Fulfillment
I have confirmation from GamesQuest that the EU pledges being fulfilled from the Germany GamesQuest hub are now booked and have been assigned tracking numbers for each shipment. Next step is for them to be packed up and shipped, which I have been told will start next week.
UK Hub Fulfillment
Fulfillment for UK and International backers serviced by the UK GamesQuest hub is scheduled to commence the week beginning August 2nd. I will communicate any changes or updates that I received from Gamesquest.
Thank you everyone for your continued patience! We appreciate you guys!
