REVIEW: In the Shadow of Tower Silveraxe

Product: In the Shadow of Tower Silveraxe

Author: Jacob Fleming

System: Old School Essentials

Score: 4.5/5

OVERVIEW

This is a simple-to-run hex crawl with a generic (in a good way) old-school theme. There is a large regional map with  multiple keyed dungeons and settlements that are very clearly presented allowing for no-prep and low-prep gaming. Highly recommended.

CONTENT

This is a 60-page staple-bound A5 book. It has 8 pages of setting and background, a cool topographic map, 9 keyed multi-level dungeons with monster stats almost always presented in-line. There are 6 locations with rumors, quests, and NPCs on two-page spreads. 

The content is terse: this is a boon in my opinion when it comes to describing the settlements, NPCs and lore. I found it to be just enough and no more. Sometimes the dungeons would have benefited from a little more description. Even a note at the start of each dungeon to describe some common environmental details in each different dungeon like whether it is damp, collapsed, flooded, etc. would have been of help. I was able to make do but someone less comfortable with ad-libbing dungeon dressing would find it lacking.

Depending on your game-session length and how strictly you adhere to hex-crawling procedures there is a lot of gaming content here: I've been playing this book for over a month now and we've hardly scratched the surface. 

LAYOUT 

The book is exceptionally well-laid out. The locations and dungeons are presented in hex-number order based on the regional map and clearly labeled. 

Every dungeon has bulleted & tabbed text in the Necrotic Gnome style - the first things you would see entering a room are easily recognized in the text. Two-page spreads are used to good effect: page turning is never required when running a level of a dungeon. The only confusing bit for me was reading the topographic map: the diagonal numbering was confusing to me and I frequently was unable to easily determine the proper letter and number for each cell. Other folks might not struggle with this: but it gets me almost every time. 

ART 

Fantastic. Old school aesthetics win the day with black line art filling the book. The characters themselves have a more cartoonish or "Tintin" style look about them, which I find to be really endearing. All of the images are depictions of horrified characters in life-threatening situations in true old-school style. If I could draw better this is how I would want to draw. Gorgeous! *chef's kiss*

The maps are plain white gridded rooms with the classic icons on solid black backgrounds: don't try to print this PDF or you will most definitely run out of ink. 

The regional map is very unique: it is a modern-looking colored topographic map that seems out-of-synch with the rest of the art yet somehow works. You don't see this kind of map often and it's pretty useful. I will admit that at times the number of contour lines confused me and I wasn't really able to put all of the information that it contains to full use. In my case I could have done without most of the contour lines for the most part: a couple of times it was useful to know when the party was at a high point and what would be visible in the distance.

AT THE TABLE 

Smooth like butter. You can play this 'zine with absolutely no prep, I promise. I've been doing it myself for a couple of weeks now with my son. It's easy enough to pick up and play for half an hour, take a few notes to remember where we left off, and then return to the next day or whenever without missing a beat. 

The console-style layout for dungeons works a charm and keyed encounters have the monster stat blocks in-line. I wish that the random encounter tables included the stat blocks, too. I had to reach for OSE a couple of times to look up monster stats. It's a minor gripe and only worth mentioning because the rest of the book is so slick and amazingly user-friendly. 

WHAT MAKES IT SPECIAL

If you like generic (in a good way) old-school gaming and want a module you can play for quite some time with little to no prep between sessions then "In the Shadow of Tower Silveraxe" is for you! 

If your players require elaborate backstory-linked motivations to adventure then this might not be your cup of tea. That being said, the regional map has plenty of room to include your own homebrew content or other dungeons you might want to add. 

It's not often you find a module that adheres so closely to a gonzo-free approach to Old School gaming. That, and how awesomely playable this with little to no prep makes it a great little book to own! I'm enjoying it like crazy right now and I think you might, too!

*NOTE: I bought and paid for this 'zine with my own hard-earned coins! No secret back-room deals exist between me and the author or publisher! Just sayin'!

The Jungle is Dark but Full of Diamonds: Prepping a Pulp Jungle Hex Crawl #8

The lion sleeps tonight . . . 

This is a first.

I have closed a project that I began without seeing it done. I’m putting my Jungle Hex Crawl on hiatus and will revisit it later.

As a general rule, I’m a stick-to-it type who sets pretty high goals and problem-solves hard to achieve them. That has been a great boon to me as a professional and I’ve happily leveraged that to meet with a good deal of success. I’ve used that personality trait in the past to create content for my table as well. I’ve tenaciously worked through creative blocks to come up with fun ideas for play.

This time I’m throwing in the towel for a few reasons.

1. Wrong project at the wrong time: When I began this project I was excited and enthused about creating it for use at the table with my group. When I began we were just beginning a sci-fi desert-planet hex crawl that was loads of fun. Having come to the end of that campaign after 20+ sessions, I think we all want a break from large-scope hex crawling. It doesn’t jive anymore.

2. Real-life Responsibilities: Covid stinks. It really does. I’m in a leadership position and have to spend extra time to shift my organization to respond to quarantines, government regulations, and individuals struggling due to personal mental health issues. It’s just not a good time for a large-scale side project.

3. OPP (other peoples’ products): I have so much fun stuff made by others that I want to play! My Covid concession these past few years has been retail therapy: I’ve bought loads of cool modules, dungeons, and ‘zines from the OSR community and I want to use them at the table!

So, I’m going to give up on this project for now. I might chip away at it and update bits. When it is finished it will be improved and informed by my experiences playing all the great stuff I’ve found from others in the community.

In the jungle, the lion sleeps tonight!

THE JUNGLE IS DARK BUT FULL OF DIAMONDS: PREPPING A PULP JUNGLE HEXCRAWL PT. 8

 The holiday season has been in full swing and family fun has kept me away from posting on this blog. That doesn't mean that I've stopped working (intermittently) on the next campaign . . . in fact, we're just about ready to go. 

The last big thing to do was to create a 'random encounter' table for the jungle. I decided to use my brand new copy of "Old School Essentials Classic Fantasy Rules Tome" (woot) to make the list from. I really like the super-brief monster manual entries. 

I came up with the following list:

1) Acolyte

2) Trader 

3) Brigand (Pirate/Soldier/Lizardfolk)

4) Assassin

5) Elf (Kelapa Tribesfolk)

6) Centipede, Giant

7) Driver Ant

8) Green Slime

9) Killer Bee

10) Rhagodessa (Spider)

11) Snake, Poison

12) Ape, White

13) Lizard, Giant (Tuatara)

14) Crocodile, Large

15) Cat, Great (Tiger)

16) Stirge (Giant Mozzie)

17) Zombie

18) Elephant (Skelephant)

19) T-Rex Fossil (re-animated)

20) Space Vampire

A few of the OSE entries will be re-flavored for this campaign to match the factions/storylines. When we decided to do a turn-of-the-century jungle hexcrawl weeks ago, I asked my group to provide me with three things that were scary or interesting about the jungle to them. I used that feedback to come up with some factions and to populate this list a bit. 

We won't be super fantasy-style, so elves are being re-skinned as 'coconut tribesfolk' called the Kelapa. It's unclear if they are just small people or some other type of creature, but they wear coconut shell helmets that cover their faces and drop from the trees to surprise attack.  Stirges will turn into giant mosquitoes. Stuff like that.

I used our booklet "A Village a Forest a Dungeon a Beast" to roll up a big bad for this campaign and got 'space vampire' as a result. That sounds fun enough, so I included that on the list and some undead creatures as well. 

Now that I've got this list, I'll supplement it at the table with d4caltrops amazing OSE Encounter d100 tables. With that, I should be good to go for the hexcrawling encounters.

The Jungle is Dark, but Full of Diamonds: Prepping a Pulp Jungle Hexcrawl #7

 I've been posting on this blog as I plan my group's next campaign: voted by them to be a "pulp jungle hex crawl".

I've been pretty busy with real life responsibilities, and that's kept me away from deep dives into prep. One element of prep that I've gotten into for the first time is public domain art.

My group plays online, and I find that in that environment it can be helpful to have shared maps and visuals to help facilitate the game. I decided that to support the "turn-of-the-century" motif I'm going for in this campaign, I'd use old-timey public domain art for our monster, NPC, and player tokens. I had a blast sifting through Pixabay for open source and public domain content that brought the vibe I was looking for.

Since doing that, I took a second look at my minimalist campaign map and decided to do it all over again with old-timey public domain art. 

If you've seen this blog in the last couple of months, you know that I've spent a bit of time and thought on how best to prepare and present my hex map. Here's the latest iteration. I created it using Dungeon Scrawl and a bunch of public domain line art from Pixabay. 

This scratches the itch I didn't know I had. As of right now this one is hitting the table. What do you think? How does it compare to the others in your opinion?

The Jungle is Dark But Full of Diamonds: Prepping a Pulp Jungle Hexcrawl #6

I've been slowly but surely prepping a 'pulp jungle hex crawl' for my group's next campaign. I've been all over the place with regard to what resources to use and how to make best use of my time.

Last time, I posted a very minimalist hex map of a jungle island. Since then, I've been wrestling with how best to balance using content from other sources while still scratching a creative itch. My main inspirations are Hot Springs Island, Isle of Dread, and A Thousand Thousand Islands. Right now, the breadth of those sources of inspiration is competing with my natural tendency for minimalism and streamlined everything.

Honestly, reading and re-reading the above sources was super engaging, but working on how to synthesize them was kind of giving me a headache. I decided to pull myself away from analysis paralysis and just get started on some usable items for the table. Time for a checklist and some maps.

Based on the hex map I slapped together, I needed the following:

• 9 Jungle Tombs/Temples
• 5 Mines
• 4 Villages
• 4 Forts

I decided to start with the tombs and temples. I felt briefly compelled to make my own from scratch, but I quickly realized that I just don't have the time resources right now for it. Plus, there are loads of amazing tools online that could help. 

I embraced minimalist prep and headed to Watabou's page on itch.io. Whatabou has a jillion amazing random generators for just about anything you could ever need. They are kind enough to allow folks to use the output of the generators in private and commercial creations as well. The look of the dungeons matches a jungle motif (in my opinion) since it has flooding built into the generator and includes random debris and crumbly bits. 

I quickly zapped out nine small-medium sized dungeons with and without room numbers. I'll stock the dungeons after. Here's a peek at one of the dungeons. If you need a slick dungeon map on the quick for a session, you really gotta check out Watabou's one page dungeon generator page.

Next was the mines. I took a trip to Dyson's Dodecahedron and flipped through the free commercial use content in the Release the Kraken section. There was a bunch of gorgeous maps, as usual, but I found myself having to think too much again. I really wanted to get table-ready fast and stick to my minimalist philosophy. 

So, I veered off to Donjon to see what I could find. I used the random dungeon generator to create some caverns. I like the look of the raw output, but I'm not sure what the usage rights are for the site. Not wanting to misuse anyone's stuff, I figured I should somehow jumble-ify the output to make it my own.

 To do that I downloaded the caverns as .tsv files and uploaded them into Dungeon Scrawl. Dungeon scrawl spit out some slightly boxier versions of the content. I don't quite like the look as much as the raw output from Donjon, but I don't mind it too much either.

As for Dungeon Scrawl, it's a phenomenal resource and just one more great example of the generosity and creativity in the OSR community. 

The last item that I was able to check off the list were villages. Back to Watabou who has one more awesome generator that I would use for this. The village generator creates different sizes of villages on different landscapes with all kinds of options. I just wanted small, low density jungle villages. Here's an example of what I was able to retrieve:

So, not distinctly a jungle village I guess, but by removing roads from being displayed I think it looks a bit more rustic. I cranked the forest setting up full blast to get as much foliage on the map as possible to represent the dense jungle environment. I think it's fit to serve. 

The last step is the trading/military forts. I've not yet found a generator or source of maps that really has wooden pallisade protected forts. The search continues!

I'll share more about my process of prepping this campaign as I go along!