Tuesday 13 December 2022

Reviews for X9, recent OSE Gold





































Tomb Robbers of the Crystal Frontier 💓💓💓💓
This is by Gus L and I'm not normally into names much but Gus had work and style that were a huge influence on me even getting into blogging and playing D&D again. There are probably another dozen or so such people out there who occasionally publish stuff. Its a humancentric world with lots of alien crystals and these crystal tombs fall from the sky where a divine race uses them. Grungy gangs want this loot and you get to be one of them. This is a dangerous trap and puzzle dungeon with strange hazards and toxic crystal dust that might kill or taint you, Maybe I need to do a d100 crystal mutation. It has very nice layouts and design and one of the prettiest dungeon books ever. It has multiple versions of maps and bits of maps cut out on other spreads to find your way around. It has a nice use of white space which I miss in gaming books. In a strange way, this might work in UV Grasslands and I will easily add to several of my weirder settings. I have some other weird crystal scenarios and posts I've done in the past I could use with this.

Inspiring stuff, readable, usable and very pretty.

X9 The Savage Coast 💓💓💥💥
Another POD reprint and this is one of the better more readable scans so no complaints there. Its kind of odd as it has several locations much like the ones in X1 the Isle of dread. It fits into some of the other D&D coastal exploration adventures like X6 Quagmire or even saltmarsh. we have had several of them and could be part of a campaign. It also has Tortles for BX D&D and several features that feel like people. It details the various monsters and pagan savages to kill but we have seen a few of these before. There is a ruined city and a lawful monastery and coastal maps and player handouts. The adventure seems like a footnote of a typical wilderness adventure with some ok encounters. The Aranea webs and Phanaton treehouse maps seem like reruns from other adventures. It has some other villages for other people typical of the types you might meet so I guess its actually useful. It feels a bit flawed and thin. What there is ok but I'm also penalising it for more fighting natives in lost swamp cities. There are lots of modules with a convincing wilderness and then a dungeon but this kinda falls short of that

Temple of 1000 Swords 
💓💓💓💓
This is an interesting dungeon and a classic of the G+ Gonzo spirit. It's grimy with weird curses and so many magic swords you wont know what to do with them. There are situations you don't see in most games and many memorable scenes. Good cover and design and some good artwork and a professional but zine vibe. Old style adventure but weirder. It should be fun to run. Nice series format and design.

Hideous Daylight 
💓💓💓💓
A royal funpark has had problems with the sun setting and driving beasts mad. Has lots of gonzo elements that are all connected and interesting. It's a garden estate with follies, various features and creatures to meet. Similar format to Temple of 1000 swords. It's a small hexcrawl you should be able to finish in a session. The problem and the solution and the side effects are all interesting.

3 comments:

  1. Thanks for taking a look at Tomb Robbers! Very glad you liked it.

    Praise from folks like you who have such a long history of creative RPG work themselves is really nice to hear. If you do run it or write up some crystal stuff yourself I'd love to see it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. i have a pile of d100 crystal tables here

      Delete
    2. still dreaming of your ship campagn and mega dungeon

      Delete

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