Update for Those Who Give Two Squats

Overall Update:

"Tax Collector" by Eric V. Art

I'm going to try to come out of blogger retirement here.  Let's see how it goes. 

My daughters, Chaos and Mayhem, are both much older.  Chaos being at college and Mayhem now in high school.

• A few things stacked up that put me on a partial hiatus of sorts for a few years: we moved; I took a promotion at work (more coin, less time); and my daughters' activities ramped up.

• Despite invites by my crew, I had trouble syncing up with them over the years. It's definitely a "me" problem. Bad timing and me being a lazy arse. Hopefully, I can correct this long-overdue matter. 

• Over time, I somehow stumbled into two new groups.  The stars aligning as my kids got older and their after-school demands slowing down.
• Group 1: Some remote friends talked me into playing Pathfinder 1e... and God bless them for doing so. It was a freaking blast.
• Group 2: I was invited to a 5e D&D game by run by a G.A.S.P. DM.... and God bless them for doing so. It too was a freaking blast.

• These two groups have morphed:
• Group 1: The Pathfinder 1e game concluded and we started up a Pathfinder 2e game for a while. That tapered off but we now meet online semi-regularly to play one-shots of a variety of things, such as Crypts & Things, Through Sunken Lands and Other Adventures, Blades in the Dark, Nights Black Agents, and others.
• Group 2: The 5e D&D campaign also fizzled out a bit, so I started up running a "beer & pretzels" Castles & Crusades sandbox set in the Haunted Highlands. 

Crypts & Things has arrived!

Surprisingly, it's not digest-sized (the excellent Wilderness Alphabet shown for scale)

Ah yes, I received a Valentine's Day gift from Newt Newport today: my hard-copy of Crypts & Things.  This Swords & Wizardry variant is damn sweet and is a nice mix of Conan, Leiber, and Lovecraft.  In short, it feels like this: link.

For some reason, it seems to have flown under the OSR radar (at least compared to other S&W variants).  It's definitely worth checking out.


I mean, how can you not like a game that has art like this...

 ... and includes an Appendix M listing music like this!

Crypts & Things: Conan, the OSR way

There are a ton of retro-clones out there, but I couldn't pass up on this one.  Crypts & Things tweaks the Swords & Wizardry rule set for some Conan-style greatness. If nothing else, it should be useful as source material for my C&C hex crawl, which has a nice sword and sorcery vibe going for it.

It's available from IndieGogo site, some kind of Kickstarter clone (I can't tell any differences).  I chipped in $30.00 (and that includes S&H) for the softcover edition. Hopefully, he reaches the goal.