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The irresistible X-Men met the immovable Blob in their third issue. “The first two issues were notable for just how off-model the characters were, as Stan (Lee) had not yet…

The post JUST IMAGINE! January 1964: And Blobby Makes Three appeared first on First Comics News.

By Operant Game Lab
Self Published
OSR/Rovers & Riches
Level ??

Even the most ignorant children know the realm is divided by a massive, transparent wall. Everything outside the wall is “normal.” Everything that lies inside is “wrong.” The “wrong” lands are called Zu. Today, we take a field trip into strangest Zu…

This 35 page decently-sized hexcrawl adventure presents a bunch of hexes in Zu, a weirdo land full of bizarre things going on in a fantasy/post-apoc/PoMo mashup. The hexes can be interesting and are certainly creative, but they lack tension.

Let’s call this a farcical Rifts setting. A giant glass wall separates the Normal lands from the Weirdo place beyond the wall, which everyone calls Zu. There’s a break in the wall at Happy Town, to let you in. Tonally, a giant mecha made of junk is on the wanderers table and is described as “It powered by a dozen subjects running on human treadwheels. Six troopers (p. 24) with scoped rifles float from balloons lashed to the giant’s shoulders, poised to rain down leaden death.” 

This thing has a niche audience and it’s not me. And I mean this in two regards. First, the setting. It might be closest to that 4e D&D version of Gamma World, the Paranoia Zap of gamma worlds. Those things like Troika and Mork Borg come to mind as well.There is a strong element of absurdity here, maybe even Theater of the Absurd if I get a little meta. There’s an old school with a janitor in it and a teddy bear that needs stories read to it. Or, a water slide aqueduct trickling water to an empty pool where cleric chicks covered in sponge suits dole out the water to bedraggled people standing in line ala Fury Road. Happy Town itself is ruled by a little twilight zone Anthony with a wand of transmutation who turns people in to stuff if she doesn’t get her way, so the people there only make candy and cakes and force smiles here in Peaksville. Tonally, you’re going to have to be ok with this kind of content being your game if you want to use this, and I suspect the more niche sides of the OSR are where this is aimed. You not gonna be happy with this if you don’t like zaniness.

I’m struggling to find a way to frame this second point. There is, in my mind, a difference in game play in certain systems. D&D, of the classic OSR style, leans more towards a game. You are typing to stay alive and level. There’s an inherent tension in that, and staying alive and leveling is ‘winning’ at D&D. It lends itself to campaign play well since there is continuity, your character. This is one of the reasons that ‘museum adventures’ are so frustrating to me; you are actively discouraged to interact, which works against what you are playing. Other RPGs fall more in to an Activity. Baron Muchausen is the classic example. Your enjoyment comes from something different. And that, I think, is where this adventure lies.

The hexes in this have two general types of encounters. First there are some filler hexes, making up about half of the hexes. Short, with only two-three sentences, they provide some flavor. A hex full of wines, walking through them wakes them up, and they feel the party members and pat them on the back before opening up to allow them to pass. Freaky? Absolutely. But nothing else going on.

The second type of hex, representing the other half of the hexes, take about a page or so each. There is more text and whats happening is more involved. But, i would assert, to the same end. There’s nothing really TO DO. Oh, you can get involved, but why? Touching things and getting involved brings trouble. And there’s not really anything to exploit, as one might in a traditional hex crawl game. If you were just trying to interact to have a good time then you’re chill, yeah, freaky things will happen. But no one is going out out their way to gack you (other than perhaps the wanderers) and there’s not really treasure to loot to exploit, at least in a traditional sense. Some of the hooks DO send you on the hunt for something. Happy Town wants you to go get a candle. Ok, so, I guess we can explore and look for that. SOme hexes ARE mentioned in other hexes, but they are not really interconnected, either explicitly or, I would assert, implicitly, in that you can, say, break the dam in hex X to flood the orc caves in hex Y, or some other wacky scheme that the party were to come up with. You enter a hex, have a wacky encounter, and move on to repeat.

For the more Activity-based RPG”s this is going to be a great adventure. I think it serves everything they need to get in to wacky situations. But for a more campaign/game based game I’m not sure its overly useful. (Not that you can’t campaign Mork Borg or Troika or DCC, but I don’t think it works out that way in practice.) 

This is Pay What You Want at DriveThru with a suggested price of $5. PWYW and then preview is the entire thing, so good preview.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/483434/field-trip-to-zu?1892600

The post Video of the Day – Big Finish, 2026 appeared first on Blogtor Who.

Papercutz Announces JANE AMERICAN A Young Girl Forever Changed by War Must Decide Whether to Hide Who She Is or Become the Hero the World Needs FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: MAY…

The post A wartime hero rises in a coming-of-age story about identity, loss, and finding the courage to be yourself appeared first on First Comics News.

 I am happy to announce the release of the Premium Color edition of Into the Majestic Fantasy Realms: The Northern Marches. Because of a mistake on my part, I wasn't able to enable this version of the Northern Marches during my public release on April 30th. For those wanting to purchase this version, I have attached a $5 off coupon valid until June 15th. 

Discount DriveThruRPG coupon

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse.php?discountId=9ceee3becb

Product Link

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/555490/into-the-majestic-fantasy-realms-the-northern-marches

Here are some examples of what the Premium color version looks like.

Note the shine on the image of the watchtower

 The Fog-Shrouded Sanctuary: Halloween TownLocation: Beneath the Abandoned Fleet Ditch Sewers, LondonEra: Victorian Steampunk / Supernatural (Victorious RPG)In the soot-stained heart of Victorian London, where the smog of the Industrial Revolution meets the ancient ley lines of Britain, lies a sanctuary for those deemed "unnatural." Halloween Town is not a myth to the monsters of the Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

An admission, dear readers: I had no idea who Awkward GM Corbin was until I started writing this post. Now I’ve discovered his YouTube Channel and know exactly who created the “About Me: Tabletop” template that inspired today’s entry. It really goes to show my age that I had no idea these were so popular in online fandoms! I might have seen a few floating around online spaces, but the trend didn’t truly catch my attention until Angel (aka Enyol) posted his About Me Tabletop RPG in the Puerto Rico Role Players Facebook group.

While searching online, I saw that the original Awkward GM post was made on Reddit about 20 days ago. You can get the template here.

The idea of completing the template challenged me, and I honestly thought I’d be done with it in no time. That was not the case. A few categories were easy to fill out, but others took real time, and I went back and forth on several of my responses. Surprisingly, only one answer is repeated!

I was originally going to just post the image and be done with it. But you know me: I can’t help but add details and explanations. If you just want the quick visual, here is the image on its own. Feel free to comment away here on the blog or on my socials—I’d be happy to engage!

However, if you want the deep dive into my choices, read on.

First, a quick caveat. These are my current thoughts as of late May 2026. Some of these might have been different in the past, or they may evolve in the future. It might be obvious, but I’ll say it anyway: these are MY opinions, not the opinions of Michael (aka the titular Stargazer) or any of the other blog contributors. You may disagree with some of my takes. Good! Leave a comment, fill out your own “About Me: Tabletop RPG” form, and share it with us. I’d love to have that conversation.

Now that the housekeeping is out of the way, on to the categories!

Favorite Game: Savage Worlds

I recently posted about my two current favorite games on the blog, so this should be no surprise. The real challenge was picking which ONE to put in the top spot. This may just be a matter of what I’m currently planning and running, but it feels right.

• Runner-up: The Without Number series (Stars, Worlds, Cities, and Ashes)

Best Lore: Raiding the Obsidian Keep

There is a lot of fantastic lore content in TTRPGs. A LOT. Picking just one is incredibly hard. Do I go with the wonderfully convoluted and bizarre Torg? The setting I’m currently playing, Fading Suns? The brilliant Ravenloft: Masque of the Red Death? The Whispering Vault? I ultimately went with Raiding the Obsidian Keep by Joseph R. Lewis.

Why? It is an incredibly succinct adventure with a highly imaginative story and setting, packed full of great details. It features engaging lore, a self-contained OSR structure, and clocks in at 72 marvelously illustrated pages in the Merry Mushmen edition (with an even shorter version, The Obsidian Keep, which is D&D 5e-compatible and self-published by Mr. Lewis). Of all the content I’ve read recently, this was just the most imaginative old-school adventure I’ve seen, and I simply could not put it down. I am usually not a big fan of pre-written adventures, but this one had it all.

• Runners-up: Fading Suns, The Whispering Vault, and Ravenloft: Masque of the Red Death

Best Art: UVG 2E: Ultraviolet Grasslands and the Black City

This book is a work of art. It is a brilliant combination of rules and visuals that seamlessly tells a cohesive story. This pick might surprise some of my friends, as the art style isn’t what they typically think of as my favorite, but the book as a whole achieves something truly incredible.

• Runners-up: Symbaroum, Vaesen, Coriolis, and Dragonbane (all by Free League Publishing)

Best Mechanics: Call of Cthulhu

“But wait!” you’re saying. “Why not your favorite game?” Because I approached this category looking for the game where the mechanics perfectly mesh with the specific tone it is trying to achieve. Call of Cthulhu is an absolute masterclass in combining rules with genre. The Sanity rules and the skill system are all so seamless in bringing the feeling of Mythos to the table. It’s a classic for a reason.

• Runner-up: All variations of the d20 system. Yes, it is overdone, and no, it is not the perfect mechanical representation of varying skills or degrees of success. Regardless, it is a core mechanic common to millions of players, incredibly easy to understand, and acts as the lingua franca of TTRPGs. It is hard to beat that chassis.

Biggest Personal Impact: Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game

I am talking about the classic D6 version from West End Games. The dice pool system was entirely new to me as a young gamer. I had played other TTRPGs, but this was the first one that truly captured the cinematic feel of the movies. It pushed me to play in entirely new ways; for example, it was the first place I read about using cut-aways (jumping to action the characters aren’t even participating in) as a dramatic narrative tool. This game fundamentally changed how I run games at table.

• Runner-up: The Black Hack. It offers simple, succinct, player-facing combat. It is also where I first encountered the genius concept of the usage die.

Overhated: D&D 4th Edition

I was entirely guilty of this! I was so excited when this edition came out, but ultimately disappointed when we sat down to play it. Looking back, I think it got far too much flak. It is a very tight, highly functional application of rules. With just a few tweaks, it would have been a system I’d happily keep using, but it unfortunately became the whipping boy of D&D editions. Truthfully, 5e borrows heavily from it—it just reworded and reworked the presentation.

• Runner-up: None. This was one of the easiest picks on the list for me.

Underrated: Prime Time Adventures

A TTRPG designed specifically to run games in the structural vein of a TV show? What’s not to like! In a society where television shows range from influential art forms to daily escapist entertainment, I am genuinely surprised this game isn’t wildly popular. Almost everyone inherently understands the pacing and structure of a TV episode, making this incredibly easy to learn.

• Runner-up: The original Alternity. Doomed to come out right as TSR was being sold to WotC, this game had massive potential and an interesting dice mechanic that elegantly handled degrees of failure. It has its fans, but I am amazed there isn’t a massive retro-clone for it yet.

Overrated: Vampire: The Masquerade

This is probably my most controversial take! This game was all the rage in the 90s while I was in college. It has an undeniably interesting setting, and while I’m not a super fan of the rules, you don’t really play it for the mechanics. It absolutely brought a massive wave of new gamers into the hobby, and I certainly own my fair share of World of Darkness books. However, it is often talked about as the absolute pinnacle of gaming, and for me, that’s just a bit too much. It was a good game, but way overrated in my book.

• Runner-up: Mörk Borg! This is my category for controversy, clearly. I really like the ruleset and the wave of creativity it has inspired in the indie scene—I am a huge fan of Pirate Borg, for instance. But when I ordered Mörk Borg, I saw it as a beautiful, punk-metal artifact. It is a profound piece of art and a distinct mood, but ultimately, it’s just not a game I would run at my table using that book.

Criminally Overlooked: Legacy: Life Among the Ruins

This was my introduction to Powered by the Apocalypse games, and it caused a paradigm shift for me. It offers powerful tools for players and GMs, as well as richly realized worlds. I honestly thought this game was going to explode in popularity. More people need to be playing this.

• Runner-up: Psi*Run. This is my favorite simple indie game, ideal for a quick one-shot. I’ve raved about it before, and I highly recommend checking it out.

Has Aged Well: Traveller

The venerable sci-fi original. Traveller has had so many iterations, editions, and adaptations over the decades. Yet it continues to thrive, from the official Mongoose 2nd Edition to older rule sets, all the way to Traveller5. I am a massive fan and am so happy to see it continuing to find an audience.

• Runner-up: Dungeons & Dragons. From the new 5.5 edition to the endless sea of retro-clones and hacks, the granddaddy of TTRPGs is still doing the heavy lifting of introducing new generations to the hobby.

Needs a New Edition: Rifts

Yes, we have Savage Rifts (which is great!), but I would love to see a true, ground-up modern take on the original Palladium system. I’m talking about a complete system overhaul, modernization of the mechanics, and books with a clean, contemporary layout. I was a huge fan of the system back in high school, and I’d love to see what a modern design team could do with it today.

• Runner-up: The Whispering Vault. I want a sleek, modern take on this game’s mythology so badly.

Not Usually My Thing, But…: Ten Candles

Highly experimental indie games aren’t usually in my wheelhouse, but my friend José Garcia (aka SushiBacon) is always bringing fantastic new ideas to my gaming experience. I loved playing this and would love to run it myself sometime.

• Runner-up: Alice is Missing. I haven’t played it yet, but I’ve read through it, and I am champing at the bit to get it to the table.

Current Game: Savage Worlds

We’ve been playing it consistently for three years now, and I fully expect to be playing it for the remainder of 2026. It is my favorite game, after all!

What Am I Playing Next: Not Sure! Most likely a Savage Worlds superhero campaign, or perhaps diving into Worlds Without Number. I also really want to give TinyD6 a try!

First Game: D&D (Mentzer Red Box)

Just a simple, historical fact. This was easily the fastest category for me to complete.

Game Everyone Should Play: Shadowdark

Why? Because it emulates the hobby’s origins so perfectly while applying modern sensibilities and streamlined rules. It encapsulates the dungeon-crawling roots of tabletop gaming while using common, modern mechanics in an instantly understandable way. For players who have only ever experienced D&D 5e, it can be a massive eye-opener, showing them entirely new (and old) ways to play. It teaches the pure joy of early D&D without the mechanical clunkiness. It is incredibly fun, and I think every gamer should give it a try at least once.

So, what does your “About Me: Tabletop RPG” look like? I want to see it!

 One idea for my new campaign I'm working on that I'm borrowing from the Japanese rpg Sword World (or at least its unofficial translations into English) are Local Experience Tables. These show up in some of the setting books and are just random tables of events themed to varying degrees to specific locales. They don't typically provide any mechanical benefit (though I could see it in limited situations), but they are still potentially useful, and they certainly provide a roleplaying hook.

Here's one I came up with for Salvage:

Salvage and the Field of the Fallen Colossi

Roll

Experience

1

Swindle. You either suckered someone or got suckered.

2

Dust Up. You were involved in a violent altercation.

3

Busted. You were once down and out.

4

Scarred but Smarter. You got caught in a trap in a colossi, but now you know better.

5

New Part. A part of your body is Magitech.

6

Poisonville. You once lived in a pretty toxic area.

7

Bad Blood. You made an enemy, and someone is still after you.

8

Took a Bullet. You’ve been shot before and have the scar to prove it.

9

Lost Mine. You believe you know the location of treasure.

10

Tech Friends. You have a friend that is a construct or otherwise Magitech.

And here's one that covers the region outside the major cities:

General

Roll

Experience

1

Courier. You once delivered a sealed letter to an important person.

2

Marshlander. You’ve spent a good deal of time in the marshes.

3

Mad Season. You’ve experienced the mad ecstasy brought on by exposure to the pollen of the irrsin flowers in the scrublands

4

Rail journey. You’ve traveled by train.

5

Runaway Construct. You had a dangerous encounter with a magitech construct.

6

Under Strange Stars. You were once lost in the Stargazer’s Garden.

7

Fantastic fishing. You have fished in the Prismatic Lake

8

Captive. You were once captured by a Fomori (humanoid) raiding party.

9

Birthing. You witnessed a Mothernode produce a Mek.

10

Searcher. You are looking or have looked for a friend or relative lost in Berlaith.

The post Video of the Day – Doctor Who: The Masque of Mandragora, 1976 appeared first on Blogtor Who.

 In Search of the Unknown (Module B1, written by Mike Carr in 1978) is arguably the foundational text of the dungeon crawl. As an introductory module, its most defining characteristic is that it is unstocked: the maps and descriptive text of the Caverns of Quasqueton are provided, but the placement of monsters and treasure is left entirely as an exercise for the Dungeon Master using providedNeedleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

So now you're looking for free crochet lowercase letter patterns? The Moogly Crochet Lowercase Alphabet is here to help! This collection features all 26 lowercase crochet letters in an easy applique style that’s quick to stitch, beginner-friendly, and perfect for customizing blankets, baby gifts, pillows, totes, wall hangings, and more. Spell out names, create sweet […]

The post The Moogly Crochet Lowercase Alphabet appeared first on moogly. Please visit www.mooglyblog.com for this post.

57

The first collection of the Doctor Who Adventures comic strips arrives with Save the Humans!

It’s finally happening. For fans of a certain age, the Doctor Who Adventures magazine holds a special, very nostalgic, place in their hearts. Aimed at younger readers than DWM, it ran for almost 400 issues between 2006 and 2017, not counting the odd special here and there since. At the heart of each issue, packed with puzzles, character guides, and fun, was the DWA comic strip. Those comic book adventures have never been reprinted… until now. Save the Humans! will collect the first fifteen issues worth of adventures for the Tenth Doctor and Rose.

The DWA comic strip is famous for using the format to create wild, imaginative visuals. It created its own vision of the Whoniverse beyond even the biggest TV show budget. Its short, largely self-contained, stories also helped create the frenetic energy which defined the strip.

Save the Humans! arrives on the 18th of August and will be available in two editions. The mass market version features a cover by series artist John Ross, which captures the joyful chaos of the strips, as the Doctor and Rose bound happily into danger, surrounded by a collage of villains from these stories. You can also order an exclusive variant directly from Panini. This has an alternative cover by fellow strip artist Adrian Salmon, featuring our heroes facing off against the theme park dinosaurs from the title comic.

 

 

Doctor Who: Save the Humans! Panini Exclusive cover by Ardrian Salmon (c) Panini Doctor Who: Save the Humans!

Step back into one of the most beloved eras of Doctor Who as the Doctor and Rose dash across time and space, facing a host of brilliantly bonkers monsters – from the diabolical Mirrorlings to malfunctioning Disinfectoroids, and even giant vampire bats stalking the streets of Victorian London! Packed with action, humour and heart, this all-ages collection is a certified classic – and the perfect nostalgia hit for fans who grew up with the Tenth Doctor!

Collecting comic strips from Doctor Who Adventures #1-15. 

The post Doctor Who Adventures: Save the Humans! appeared first on Blogtor Who.

 Integrating Adventurer Conqueror King System II (ACKS II) with the legendary, chaotic, and maximum-gonzo DNA of Dave Hargrave’s Arduin Grimoires is a brilliant, if volatile, design space.On paper, they look like oil and water: ACKS II is a masterpiece of rigorous, simulationist, micro-economically sound world-building. Arduin is a Technicolor fever dream of multi-classed Elven Cyber-Monks, Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

The post Video of the Day – Official Pop Drop, 2026 appeared first on Blogtor Who.

Sometimes a crochet project needs a little surgery! Previously, I covered how to remove the beginning rows of crochet, but that led to the next question - how do we remove the ends of rows, or the side of our work? When your piece is just too wide, and for whatever reason (we don't judge!), […]

The post How to Cut the Sides of Crochet Rows appeared first on moogly. Please visit www.mooglyblog.com for this post.

1

By Dale Houston
Duck & Crow Press
OSR
Levels: Low/"Rookies"

Under a raging river of turbulent, caustic water that melts organic material in moments lies the decrepit remains of a nefarious wizard’s lair. Opening a passage under the river would mean commerce and prosperity, and every brave adventurer worth their salt knows that a wizard’s den is guaranteed to have some reality-bending magical loot! Get ready for some liquefactive necrosis.

This 32 page adventure uses about eight pages to describe seventeen rooms in a wizard lair/passage under a river. Great specificity. Good challenges. Good formatting. A good and solid basic adventure that, white not exactly the most memorable, is setting everything up for success.

This is the first adventure in Dale’s Undying Expanse series. It’s not Thundarr, or even gonzo, but there are absolutely hints of it, at least in this adventure. The premise here is that there was once this fortress spanning a river. The river is caustic, like, full on acid. Up and down the river for ten miles along both banks is a prismatic wall. One of the former fortress dwellers was a wizard who hated the locals, it seems. Anyway, time passes, wizard dies, fortress collapses, and now there are just some crumbling remains, a passage UNDER the river. Trade routes anyone? And, as usual, there are some bandits hole up and some wizard leftovers. 

The rumors here are interesting. You get about a page of them, sixty, arrayed in ten tables of six each, by topic. So, each village, the bandits, the river, etc. That’s a nice way to zero in on various topics the party may be asking about. The villages in the surrounding area map are tied in to the hooks and half about a column each; a couple of notable businesses that an adventurer might visit and a couple of people, all don in a manner that’s easy to follow, terse, and full of flavor. “Big Hierome: Always laughing, compulsively eats sweets; this brute manages the bulls when they get a bit too feisty” The hooks, likewise, are short but have that specificity to them that helps a DM bring them alive. “Magistrate Yeldo of Flont will pay the crew six month’s wage to open the passage.” or “Jane Blood, local crime boss in Rockton, will forgive your incredible debt if you open the passage. She wants it to be a toll road.” One of these is exactly a “pay the party” thing, but its founded in something realistic, wanting to open a trade road. This helps elevate it beyond the normal old “someone hires you” hook that people toss out. And the crime boss one is grounded in her entry in the village, “Unassuming and simply dressed local business woman; rumored to be a heartless psychopath in charge of a criminal gang, has a large number of ‘cousins’ always nearby. “ There is MORE than enough there to make Jane a mainstay of the adventurers life, both in this adventure and in future ones. You can really riff on that and yet it’s terse. That’s good writing. It’s specific. Cousins. The rumor. Dale hits these very well and is certainly in the top tier of folks when it comes to that part of the adventure. 

Each room entry is offset in a little light green box with an entry that could be read-aloud or room details to summarize to the players, and then some well formatted bullets, starting with a bolded keyword, to help focus the DMs attention in on the things of import in the room. There are little embedded tables or “tracker boxes” present as well, where appropriate. Nothing goes on for more than a couple of sentences, making it easy to scan and parse information at the table during play. A little “modern” in terms of generous whitespace, with rooms taking between a third of a page or a full page to describe, but it’s all easy to use. 

The text does a decent job of being evocative as well. “Low oily fires giving little light” or “Cauldron: A mess of “villager stew” is thickening in the cauldron. “ or “Tarp: Made of human skin leather, faces and hair still intact. It is recently made and still a bit damp. “ Still intact. A bit damp. It’s a tarp. Good word choices to really bring these things to life. 

Interactivity is decent as well, both in terms of individual rooms and in the larger context. One room has a trapped demon in it. Pulling a lever in an earlier room releases the demon and he starts to move throughout the dungeon. Peepholes show you other places. An initial room has a bunch of skeletons on stakes in it … it’s full of crude traps (think jugs of river water and sharp sticks) … but the skeletons face the individual traps, so you can use them to help navigate across the room. Of course that’s how the bandits inside navigate it. There are consequences for your actions. It’s not world ending, but you can feel them. You could do enough damage to collapse the ceiling and flood the place. Oops. No trade route. And if the demon gets loose then there are some notes on what happens in the game world; not the end of the world but trouble for a while. Coming out of the dungeon on the other side of the river “This is where some of the “bad” kids from Rockton come to smoke, drink, and make out.” and you freak the kids out. Drunk bandits. Stripping magic inlaid circles of their inlaid silver. The rooms have consequences, many of which are telegraphed in subtle ways for those paying attention. A rubble filled room with gold braziers stuck in the rubble. Dig em out? What about those crumbling walls, signs of impending collapse? Prisoners of the bandits to free, connected to the town (and, potentially, hooks.) You’ve got the dungeon environment to interact with, the walls and rubble and leaks and such. You’ve got the bandits and their ogre boss at the beginning. You’ve got old wizard shit. Lots to do.

Things are also supported well. There are a couple of art handouts, one of which cleverly conceals some imps hiding that negates surprise if you notice them in the drawing. Handwritten notes. A good hex map, new monsters, notes on the dungeon map about “always on” things like the leaking walls, so the DM can emphasize them

The dungeon map, proper, is a little busy and not the easiest to read. While the use of color to highlight text is done well through the rest of the adventure, the dark maroon keying blends in a bit much, and the “art” use of shading on the map, with rubble, makes things a little less clear then I would prefer. It’s not a disaster in any sense, just not as clear as I would prefer. And, we get a little sloppy with the use of the word “turns.” That skeleton/trap room “Following the paths takes 3 Turns to get to any other wall, 4 turns if moving cautiously” Thirty to forty minutes, or three to four actions, you think? 

These are just nits. This is a solid adventure. Easy to use, evocative, interactive, with lots of fun specificity. There’s a 4HD ogre and an 8HD demon, so, challenging for a level one group, but it does a solid job. 

This is $12.50 at DriveThru. The preview is fourteen pages, showing you the intro, hooks, rumors, villages, and numerous dungeon rooms. Great preview.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/540645/under-the-caustic-river-ahnd?1892600

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to the end of Crisis! This week, I read the comics on sale on May 23, 1985.

Batman and the Outsiders #23: Barr and Davis send most of the Outsiders to the Gotham Zoo where Rex and Sapphire have a tense meeting with Simon Stagg over their wedding plans. A group of armed men attack, and the Outsiders have to deal with the chaos they cause. In the aftermath, it's revealed the attack was cover for the attempted assassination of Stagg orchestrated by his assistant. After Rex saves his life, Stagg warms on the idea of the hero marrying his daughter.
Meanwhile, Halo is in the city by herself and encounters a friendly hippie guy in a van who calls himself Brother Abraham. Meanwhile, he offers her a place stay and drives her to a secluded commune called Eden.

Blue Devil #15: Truly the DCU most be overrun with geniuses because an inventor on the level of Cassidy just winds up doing special effects and theme park animatronics. In this issue, as Blue Devil contends with Verner's Vanquisher (Verner's chaffeur that he had empower by scientists as a superhero), the two fight a King Kong-esque robot running amuck that Cassidy made for the studio tour. The process that created the Vanquisher seems to have made him mentally unstable, and he kidnaps Marla with whom he's infatuated.

Green Lantern #191: Engelhart and Staton/Patterson reveal the Predators identity at last, and it is certainly unexpected. After Hal's discover of Carol's perfume lingering in the Predator's hideout, he also finds the reporter's videotape showing the meeting between Green Arrow, Black Canary, Carol, and himself, that on one else involved with seems to remember. Hal calls Ollie, Dinah, and John Stewart, but no one's home, so he heads to Carol's place and shows her. Even with the reveal, I'm still not sure why the Predator doesn't want them to remember this, but luckily, I don't have to think about that long, because the Predator shows up and kidnaps Carol. He takes her to his old theater hide out. Powerless Hal suits up for battle and confronts the villain. He gives a good showing, but he can't stop the Predator from playing the old organ (something Carol thinks is important). When he does, Carol declares her love for the Predator, as he does for her. Then they merge into one being: Star Sapphire!

Infinity, Inc. #17: The Thomases and McFarlane/DeZuniga introduce the rest of Mr. Bones crew, and they are an odd bunch. I don't know quite what to think about Thomas and DeZuniga creating Arak as a historical S&S hero then doing a modern, minor villain that bears his name but is unrelated presumably other than being Native American. Does him calling himself (or someone else naming him) Arak suggest that the original Arak is a well-known historical figure in the DC Universe? 
Anyway, Fury finds herself prisoner of this team who call themselves Helix. They want to ransom her for millions from Carter Hall. Hector tries to rescue her but gets defeated.

New Teen Titans #11: Wolfman and García-López/Tanghal continue the story from last issue. After sleeping on it, Joe is still weirded out by the mutated bug people, and I mean, who wouldn't be? He and Kole get the other Titans and they head out to the mansion where we follow the familiar pattern to this title of our heroes getting captured so they can talk with the villain while he puts them in one trap, then they escape and end up in another, then they escape and the bad guy is neutralized in some way. In this case, Weathers and his mutant followers (including his own grasshopper mutant wife) expose themselves to a gas that turns them completely into bugs so they can survive the nuclear devastation he's sure is coming, and they let the Titans go. Other than following the typical Titans formula, this story is just weird. With its Hellstrom Chronicle vibe and schlocky mutants, it feels like something from a 70s Marvel comic, or done a different way, one of DC's now-defunct horror/sci-fi anthologies.

Sgt. Rock #403: The main story by Kanigher/Catan involves Rock and an Italian resistance fighter pursuing a German officer guilty of war crimes to a church in Terza, Italy, where the officer has asked for sanctuary--and Pope Pius XII. This story is another one that has that weird story beat that comes up on occasion where Rock seems to really want to capture a German officer (it's always an officer) to make him stand trial instead of killing him. And this is after the guy just shot the Pope. Rock's hesitancy leads to the resistance fighter getting shot. Rock then pursues the Nazi into the church's bell tower where in the scuffle, the German gets knocked out of the tower by the bell and falls to his death.
The second story is the first publication of Tom McWeeney, who will go on to do a lot of work in the 90s, particularly at Wildstorm. This goofy story is not a career high point, though, and would have made more sense in Weird War Tales, if anywhere. Soldiers die and are burnt to a crisp on a deserted battlefield. Is it nuclear war or at least are they caught in a nuclear test? No, it's a pizza in the oven and they're...anchovies? 

Saga of Swamp Thing #39: Moore and Bissette/Totleben continue the story with Swamp Thing walking into the reservoir covering Rosewood to deal with the vampires. The vampires aren't a threat to him, that is until the next generation is born. The survivor of the brood is an inhuman monster that rends Swamp Things body apart. That doesn't stop Swamp Thing, though. He just moves through the Green and becomes a whole hillside of vegetation. He moves and diverts the water of the reservoir into the river again (likely flooding places downstream, but anyway...) and the vampires die in moving water. Before all that, the parents of the boys who went missing come to Rosewood, and one of them is killed by their own vampire son, but the rest escape. Constantine tells Swamp Thing he didn't take care of things quick enough. Now word will get out, and people will believe in vampires. That's what the enemy he's trying to defeat needs. Constantine tells Swampie to meet him in Maine.

Warlord #95: I reviewed this issue here.

Talent Showcase #18: The editorial reiterates the reason for the name change and tells us that the next issue will be the last. This issue is a weird mix of sci-fi stories done by established pros (Bruce Jones, Shawn McManus, and Dan Adkins) sometimes with the assistance of relative newcomers that could have been anthology book inventor stories from a few years ago. Then there are several short, humor cartoons, and even a text piece by John Constanza. The only complete newcomer story is a superhero humor piece with everything but the lettering done by Kerry Callen, who will go on mostly to work for Mad.

Who's Who #6: We're into the D's and we get Darkseid, the Demon, DeSaad, Doctor Bedlam, and the Deep Six courtesy of their creator, Jack Kirby. Atari Force is well represented with Dark Destroyer and Dart by José Luis García-López. García-López also does Deadman, perhaps because he's the artist on the limited series that will be published at the end of '85. Amethyst's Dark Opal also shows up with art by his original artists, Colon. Marshall Rogers renders Deadshot who will become more prominent in the next few years. Deimos shows up from Warlord, courtesy of Grell. The then-recent Demolition Team is here, courtesy of their co-creator, Dave Gibbons. There are, of course, a lot of "Doctors." Giffen and Mahlstedt give us Doctor Fate instead of whoever's drawing All-Star Squadron this month.

 Gary Gygax’s 1979 module B2: The Keep on the Borderlands is the foundational text of the sandbox campaign. Ostensibly written as an introductory adventure for the D&D Basic Set, it functions under the hood as a masterclass in dynamic world-building, spatial economics, and emergent play. This is going to pick right up from OSR Commentary - Adapting AX2: Secrets of the Nethercity ForNeedleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

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So Lar and I were talking, while he’s still with us, and the topic of LFG Books came up. More specifically, the lack of books in recent years. And the more we chatted, the more we both came to the
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