The essential old-school fantasy RPG, now expanded with advanced character options, magic, and monsters — plus brand new adventures!
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Adventures Going to Print Soon! Holy Mountain Shaker Delayed
about 3 years ago
– Sat, Feb 13, 2021 at 07:30:09 PM
Hey everyone,
And now the promised update on the status of the adventures!
As you saw in the title of this update, there's some good news and some bad news. A quick summary:
Holy Mountain Shaker (the adventure written by Luka Rejec which many of you have selected as an add-on) is delayed.
The other 3 new adventures (The Incandescent Grottoes by Gavin Norman, The Isle of the Plangent Mage by Donn Stroud, and Halls of the Blood King by Diogo Nogueira) are finished and are looking amazing! (See below for some previews!)
We wanted to ship all the books out at the same time and have been waiting for Holy Mountain Shaker to be finished, but have now decided to proceed with printing the other adventures and to go ahead with fulfillment.
The delay caused by waiting means that fulfillment of the project is now unlikely to begin in March. It's now expected in April to June. (So around a 2 month delay.)
We will print and ship Holy Mountain Shaker separately, at a later date.
Obviously, shipping one book separately will incur additional shipping expenses. We will cover these costs.
Ok so that was the quick version. Now the more detailed version.
Holy Mountain Shaker is Delayed
Holy Mountain Shaker is the adventure written by Luka Rejec which many of you have selected as an add-on. As you may have noticed in previous updates on the status of the 4 new adventures, Holy Mountain Shaker has been lagging behind a bit, in terms of development. We have some words from Luka below, explaining a bit about this.
Until now, we've been waiting for Holy Mountain Shaker to be completed. As it's not ready, though, and we don't want to delay things further by continuing to wait, we've decided to make some changes.
Printing 3 Adventures Now, 1 Later
As the other 3 new adventures (The Incandescent Grottoes by Gavin Norman, The Isle of the Plangent Mage by Donn Stroud, and Halls of the Blood King by Diogo Nogueira) are finished, we've made the decision to not wait any longer for Holy Mountain Shaker and to go ahead and print the 3 adventures that are finished. It's looking like they'll be going to print at the end of February.
We'll print Holy Mountain Shaker separately, at a later date, once it's done.
Fulfillment of Books Will Then Commence!
As soon as the 3 finished adventures are printed and in the warehouses, we'll start the main fulfillment of this project! The Advanced Fantasy rule books, along with all of the add-ons (apart from Holy Mountain Shaker and the T-shirts and posters, which will start shipping earlier — see yesterday's update) will start being sent out.
When?
Obviously, we wanted to ship out all the books together and have thus been waiting for Holy Mountain Shaker to be finished. As mentioned in the last update on this topic, we included significant time buffers in the project timeline to account for delays like this. Those buffers have now been completely eaten away and then some. So, unfortunately, the fulfillment of the whole project has been delayed a bit. It's looking highly unlikely that we'll be able to start fulfillment in March.
However, despite the delays caused by waiting, it's looking safe that the main fulfillment will happen in the 2nd quarter of this year — that is some time in April to June. So we're probably looking at a delay of a couple of months.
Holy Mountain Shaker Will Ship Separately, Later
Once Holy Mountain Shaker is finished, we'll print it and ship it out to everyone who selected it as an add-on. We don't currently have an accurate estimate of when this will be, so won't attempt to make any guesses right now. Of course we'll keep you all updated as things progress.
We will cover shipping costs: As you can imagine, shipping out one book separately will incur additional shipping costs. But fear not! We will cover these costs.
A Message From Luka
Dear backers,
Luka here.
I ran into writer’s block with Holy Mountain Shaker. What was supposed to be a simple project became quite challenging, both personally and technically.
It deals with stories from my homeland of Slovenia. They reminded me of my father's passing, of my mother's vulnerability in this time of plague, of the many more months till I can visit again. Distance and the migrant experience are hard.
On the mechanical side, I’m adapting a pointcrawl structure to the OSE system to create both the feel of a vast mythic underworld and a sense of urgency. This is not as easy as it looked.
This means Holy Mountain Shaker will be late and a little different from how it was pitched in the kickstarter. Fortunately, Matt and Gavin have helped me over the worst of the block, and the project is now proceeding.
To help focus the adventure, I’ve split the setting lore and background stories off into its own thing, an Apocrypha of the God Carp. It’ll be available to backers as a free companion .pdf; but I can’t say exactly when because it’s not part of the original project.
I’d like to say there’s some lesson here about scope and structure and professionalism, but there isn’t. The great dreaming earthquake god beneath the ground of our lives demanded it, and so it was. To quote Goran Bregović (This is a Film):
“The fish doesn’t think
the fish is mute
expressionless
the fish doesn’t think
because the fish knows
everything.”
See you soon on the other side of the adventure.
—peace and health,
—Luka
Our Apologies for the Delay
This wasn't part of the plan and we feel bad that a delay with one book has caused everything else to be set back. But such is the nature of a large project like this, unfortunately. (And this is a big project! We're producing 8 brand new books and doing revised reprints of 4 previous books.)
We've made some hard decisions to get things back on track and the delay will be pretty small in the end, but we want to apologize and thank everyone for their patience.
And Now Some Pretty Pictures!
Some renders of the 3 finished adventures. Coming soon!
Halls of the Blood King — cover art by Justine Jones
The Incandescent Grottoes — cover art by Nate Treme
The Isle of the Plangent Mage — cover art by David Hoskins
Halls of the Blood King — art by Justine Jones
The Incandescent Grottoes — art by Nate Treme
The Isle of the Plangent Mage — art by David Hoskins
Adventure PDFs
Once the adventures are at the printers, we'll be sending out the PDFs to everyone via DriveThruRPG. We'll make an update when this happens.
All For Now
Gavin, Matt, and Luka
Ready to lock addresses! Please make any address changes now
about 3 years ago
– Sat, Feb 13, 2021 at 05:14:06 PM
Hello Everyone!
We are ready to lock addresses in anticipation of sending out the first wave of add-ons! This first wave will include only Posters, Canvas Prints, and T-shirts. (Note: Stickers and exclusive t-shirts from the Dungeon Deity pledge are NOT included in this wave as they will ship together with the rest of the items in your pledge.)
We will be sending out the final notice next Tuesday February 16th and then addresses will automatically lock on Thursday February 18th. Please make any adjustments now to your address, if necessary.
Look out for an update about the adventures in the next few days!
Thanks!
-EF
Old-School Essentials ZineQuest Projects!
about 3 years ago
– Thu, Feb 04, 2021 at 10:56:38 PM
Hey everyone,
Just a really quick note today, not directly related to the Advanced Fantasy Kickstarter.
ZineQuest 3 is Upon Us!
As you may have seen, Kickstarter's annual celebration of RPG zines has begun. There are some fantastic projects for Old-School Essentials running or coming soon, so I wanted to share the news with everyone here. If you're looking for more adventures and content for your OSE games, look no further! Here are links to the projects that I know of at this time:
In the Shadow of Tower Silveraxe: A classic fantasy roleplaying adventure module zine for use with Old School Essentials or Basic/Expert classic fantasy rules.
Into the Wild: A supplement for wilderness exploration and domain management for OSR-style tabletop games.
The Many Crypts of Lady Ingrade: A series of short, deadly adventures. Crypts created out of Lady Ingrade's hatred of tomb raiding adventurers.
I told you it was going to be quick! We'll be back soon with an update on how everything with Advanced Fantasy is progressing, including some fantastic art previews from the adventures and some exciting news on the enhancements to the Old-School Essentials generators website.
Hope you have fun browsing the new projects at ZineQuest!
Gavin / Moss Master at Necrotic Gnome
New Year Update, Adventure Layout and Cover Previews!
over 3 years ago
– Wed, Jan 06, 2021 at 05:11:42 PM
Hey everyone,
First of all, wishing you all a happy 2021! May this year be filled with old-school wonder!
Following the holidays, I wanted to write a quick update on where things stand with everything right now.
Rule Books Printed!
As was mentioned in the previous update, the Advanced Fantasy rule books plus the staple-bound booklets (Carcass Crawler and the Reference Booklet) started printing in early December. The printing finished in mid December and the books were all packed up and shipped out to our warehouses. The shipment bound for the European warehouse has arrived and the US shipment is safely in transit. (A sub-shipment will be sent on from the EU warehouse to the UK.)
Adventures Progressing
Work on the new adventures is progressing, though they haven't yet gone to print. Here's the status of each of them:
The Incandescent Grottoes: Finished! Writing, editing, illustration, and layout done.
The Halls of the Blood King: In the final stages of editing. Going into layout soon.
Isle of the Plangent Mage: In the final stages of editing. Going into layout soon.
Holy Mountain Shaker: In the final stages of writing. Going into editing soon.
To be completely transparent, we're a little behind schedule with the adventures now. Knowing that delays were possible at many points in our production chain, we built some substantial time buffers into the schedule, which are now being eaten into. As things stand right now, we're still just about on track for fulfillment to begin some time in March. Further delays with anything, though, may push fulfillment back a little. We're doing all we can to prevent that from happening of course, but we'd prefer a small delay to having to rush anything or compromise on quality. We have an awesome team of people working on these adventures so we want to give them time to do their thing.
These are going to be some seriously creative and fun adventures, so will be worth the wait!
Adventure Layout and Cover Previews
And now for some tantalising images!
First a glimpse inside one of the books:
Example 2-page spread from The Incandescent Grottoes. Art by Nate Treme, layout by Anna at DoubleProficiency, cartography by Glynn Seal.
And now some previews of the covers. Imaginethese on the front of glorious sewn-binding hardcovers!
Cover of The Incandescent Grottoes. Art by Nate Treme.
Cover of The Halls of the Blood King. Art by Justine Jones.
Cover of Isle of the Plangent Mage. Art by David Hoskins.
All For Now!
Gavin / Moss Master at Necrotic Gnome
Books Printing! Dolmenwood Setting for Old-School Essentials
over 3 years ago
– Sat, Dec 05, 2020 at 10:09:01 PM
Hey everyone,
A couple of pieces of exciting news today!
The Advanced Fantasy Books are Now Printing!
I got the news from the manufacturer this week that the Advanced Fantasy rule books have started being printed. (Hoping to have some photos to share soon!)
Not the adventures? Work on the four new adventures is also progressing well but they're not at the printing stage just yet. Two of the adventures have been written, edited, and are now entering layout, while the other two are in the final stages of writing and play testing.
Onward Into Dolmenwood!
As many of you know, in addition to Old-School Essentials I've been working on another major project over the last few years: the Dolmenwood campaign setting. Well, now that the Advanced Fantasy books are rolling off the production line, my thoughts have been wandering back to Dolmenwood.
In case you're not familiar with Dolmenwood: it's a folklore-themed campaign setting for Old-School Essentials, located in a creepy, fungus-encrusted forest. The free Welcome to Dolmenwood PDF gives a great (and spoiler-free!) introduction to the setting and its flavour.
The project: Dolmenwood will be published in the form of three big hardback books (of the quality you know from the Old-School Essentials books!): the Dolmenwood Player's Book, the Dolmenwood Campaign Book, and the Dolmenwood Monster Book. The plan is to run a Kickstarter for the books once they're ready. There's a lot of work still to do, though, so the exact date of that is as yet undefined.
A regular dose of Dolmenwood: In the meantime, I've launched a Patreon for the ongoing development of Dolmenwood. Patrons will get access to roughly monthly packages of Dolmenwood content, ranging from playable classes and races, weird folkloric monsters, descriptions of clusters of hexes on the campaign map, write-ups on factions and settlements in the forest, and so on.
Finally, just a quick note for the small number of backers who hadn't completed their BackerKit surveyswhen we sent out the final PDFs of the Advanced Fantasy books: we'll be sending out a second batch next week. If you still have to fill out your survey: do so now if you want to be included in the next batch of PDFs sent out!
