It's the middle of July and the heat is here, as are preparations for GenCon 2023, which will be happening in three weeks time. New releases always seem to thin out around this time of year, as creators are busy prepping for one of the biggest events in gaming, and gamers lucky enough to go are guarding their wallets for the upcoming festivities.
*Stout Stoat is raising funds for a really cool looking project that is printed as a large, fold-out map. Border Ridings is "a game about maps, boundaries, borders, and the way we use rituals to maintain and shape our community." It doesn't require a GM, but does require at least four players that work together to collaboratively build a map.
*Maynard is having a summer adventure sale on itch. Get their three adventures -- The Gemaria Code (I plugged this a few months back), Through the Foglands, and the Folly of the Fox -- for 5.00.
*I'm a big fan of Cairn, and there's a large community of 3pp stuff written for it. Yochai is currently in the process of developing a second edition of the game, and I'm really excited to see what he does with it. You can get the playtest here.
*Speaking of Cairn, Mystery on Big Rock Candy Mountain is an adventure written by RUN DMG for the currently ongoing Cairn jam on itch.
*Mettle Core is a ruleset by Planarian designed to emulate pulp adventure gaming. It's up on itch as part of the SRD-jam, so is specifically been written so that the community can use and hack it as desired.
*Taking Mark of the Odd and adding a healthy dose of inspiration from the action flicks of the 80s and 90s, SPAR is now out in Beta on itch. Like most stuff on itch, as it goes through playtesting it will be updated for free.
*Pariah, Vol 1, by Atelier Hwei bills itself as "PSYCHEDELIC NEOLITHIC ANIMIST OLD SCHOOL ROLE PLAY" and is now available on Drivethru as a POD book. I'm glad to see it is back in print, having been sold out in the original print run I've been able to find it.
*Written by Fellipe da Silva, The Way is a BX and Cairn-compatible fantasy system that features character advancement based upon the completion of quests, rather than standard XP.
*Delver Magazine #9, by James Floyd Kelly, is now available on Drivethru as a pdf. These issues are filled with random tables, adventures, and advice for old school games.
*Vaults of Vaarn is a fantastic science fantasy game, and the newly released Pariahs of Vaarn #1 is a bestiary for said game. They're weird, they're fun, and they can be adapted to other systems relatively easily, as well.
*The Dark Contracts, written for Shadowdark, takes elements of Arthurian legends and twists them to make a deadly one-shot for lower level characters.
*It's written for 5th edition, but Poggin's Passage is billed as being simple and easily adapted to older systems. Plus, the art is absolutely charming. The author has also just released a couple of other titles (Forest Flurry and The Halls of Gralk) that are more system-neutral.
*The Hounds of Hendenburgh is an adventure/mini-hexcrawl written for Cairn and designed for lower level parties.
*I'm sure many of the readers have been waiting with bated breath, and Gavin Norman has finally announced a date for the Dolmenwood Kickstarter, and has also released a free preview of the book on Drivethru.
*Monsters! Monsters!, by the Black Fortress, offers a selection of system-neutral printable monster cutouts for use as tokens on the game table. This set is themed around ice creatures.
*CY_BORG gets a lot of love and a fair number of supplements; Idols of Flesh and Silicone is a supplement that offers a couple of new character classes based on an entertainer theme.
*Written for Shadowdark, the Fey and Druid Essentials does just what it says; adds fey and druid-themed option to Shadowdark, but they can also be mined for ideas for other OSR-systems.