A modular adventure game in the tradition of the beloved 1980s role-playing rules. 100% old-school rules, 100% modern design.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Old-School Essentials: Advanced Fantasy — Kickstarter Now Live and 500% Funded!
over 3 years ago
– Fri, Aug 14, 2020 at 09:24:31 AM
Hey everyone,
As I mentioned in the last update, we're running a Kickstarter for some delicious new Old-School Essentials books. It's now live! And we've already (in less than 24 hours) unlocked all of the initial stretch goals! (We have more stretch goals to roll out soon.)
Join us!
What's New?
Following this Kickstarter last year, we produced the first two Advanced Fantasy supplements for Old-School Essentials, bringing extra classes, spells, and rules options inspired by 1st edition AD&D on top of the streamlined, B/X-based chassis of Old-School Essentials. The new Kickstarter completes the set, with twomore Advanced Fantasy supplementsadding hundreds of new monsters and treasures to the game!
Advanced Fantasy: Monsters: 120 new horrifying monsters inspired by the AD&D classics of yesteryear. Mimics, xorns, deep ones, coffer corpses, gibbering mouthers, piercers, merrows, liches, and many more. Even the dreaded tarrasque is here!
Advanced Fantasy: Treasures: 150 new weird and wondrous magic items inspired by AD&D classics. Ioun stones, tomes of power, magical dusts and oils, vorpal swords, holy avengers, and many more. Even the fabled deck of many things is here!
These supplements are designed to bring some of that delicious, esoteric Advanced Edition flavour into your Old-School Essentials games. They're all optional additions to the base game and can be freely mixed and matched with other Old-School Essentials books.
What's Been Unlocked?
In the first 24 hours, we've already unlocked the first wave of stretch goals:
Physical upgrades: Ribbon markers and printed end papers.
New adventure #1:The Incandescent Grottoes by Gavin Norman. A classic expedition into the Mythic Underworld: a bubbling stream cascades into a hole in the earth, leading to a series of pools, underground watercourses, and scintillating grottoes. Adventurers who delve within may discover a profusion of odd mosses and fungi, an ancient tomb complex, the lairs of weird, subterranean monsters, and the hide-out of an exiled illusionist. The Incandescent Grottoes is a companion adventure to Gavin's previous scenario, The Hole in the Oak. The two adventures can be played independently of each other or can be connected to form a larger dungeon.
New adventure #2:Holy Mountain Shaker by Luka Rejec. The earth shakes. Trees sway like grass before the hungry wind. Again. Chimneys fall like childrens' toys in the streets of Doll Town. Again. The capstone of the tomb of the first folk tumbles and breaks. The divine carp beneath the sacred mountain is angry. The town needs heroes. Brave souls to enter the deep places, the abandoned temples, the lightless waters at the roots of the mountains. Holy fools to appease the wonder fish. Is service to the community not draw enough? The townsfolk wag eyebrows and mutter and complain. Then admit. There are old treasures there, too. Glittery scales of gold and adamant, yes. But also doors to the other worlds, where demons of disease may be banished, whence lost friends may be retrieved from death's dusty grasp.
New adventure #3:Isle of the Plangent Mage by Donn Stroud. This adventure takes players to multiple locations above and below the ocean. Areas worth exploring include a hidden cove, an old rickety lighthouse, a small fishing village, a weird island, and a mysterious lair that plunges the to depths of the underwater world. Ultrasonic magics, strange aural puzzles, monstrosities from the deep, suspicious villagers, and beached whales all stand between discovering the truth behind the dealings and the demise of the Plangent Mage.
(We also have more stretch goals up our necrotic sleeves... To be revealed soon!)
Ghast says "more stretch goals coming soon!". Illustration by Chris Malec from Advanced Fantasy: Monsters
Hope You Will Join Us!
It's great to already see many backers of this Kickstarter over at the new Kickstarter for more Old-School Essentials tastiness! If you've not checked out the new Kickstarter yet, have a look. There are still some spots in the highly limited pledge levels available.
Gavin / Moss Master at Necrotic Gnome
Old-School Essentials: Advanced Fantasy — Kickstarter Launching August 12th!
over 3 years ago
– Thu, Aug 06, 2020 at 07:26:28 PM
Hey everyone,
It's been a while since I posted an update here but in those intervening months I have not been idle!
New Old-School Essentials Books Coming to Kickstarter August 12th!
As you may remember, one of the meatiest stretch goals we unlocked in this Kickstarter last year was the production of the first two Advanced Fantasy supplements for Old-School Essentials, bringing extra classes, spells, and rules options inspired by 1st edition AD&D on top of the streamlined, B/X-based chassis of Old-School Essentials. The set is soon to be completed, with twomore Advanced Fantasy supplementsadding hundreds of new monsters and treasures to the game! In conjunction with Exalted Funeral, we'll be launching a Kickstarter next week.
The soon-to-be-complete Advanced Fantasy line-up looks like this:
Advanced Fantasy: Genre Rules: 9 new human classes, 6 new demihuman classes, an optional system for separating race and class, and a selection of optional advanced rules.
Advanced Fantasy: Druid and Illusionist Spells: 106 new spells that can be used by bards, druids, gnomes, and illusionists.
NEW!Advanced Fantasy: Monsters: 120 new horrifying monsters inspired by the AD&D classics of yesteryear. Mimics, xorns, deep ones, coffer corpses, gibbering mouthers, piercers, merrows, liches, and many more. Even the dreaded tarrasque is here!
NEW!Advanced Fantasy: Treasures: 150 new weird and wondrous magic items inspired by AD&D classics. Ioun stones, tomes of power, magical dusts and oils, vorpal swords, holy avengers, and many more. Even the fabled deck of many things is here!
All of these supplements are designed to bring some of that delicious, esoteric Advanced Edition flavour into your Old-School Essentials games. They're all optional additions to the base game and can be freely mixed and matched. (Of course, if you just want to play pure B/X, you already have what you need in the Old-School Essentials base game — the Black Box / Rules Tome.)
Product Renders!
Check out the gorgeous new cover art by Stefan Poag.
What's Going to be in the Kickstarter?
The Advanced Fantasy supplements: As described above.
Advanced Fantasy Tomes: We're also going to publish a pair of tomes (one for players and one for referees) compiling the base game along with the new Advanced Fantasy supplements. These books are primarily aimed at people who don't already have the base Old-School Essentials game.
Gorgeous cover art: By Stefan Poag, Peter Mullen, and Andrew Walter.
Highlylimited editions: The top level pledge will include limited edition books with a fancy book plate signed by myself! Get in quick, as these are strictly limited (I can only sign so many books!).
Physical quality upgrades: As with this Kickstarter, we'll have an assortment of stretch goals to improve the physical quality of the books with ribbon markers, printed end papers, etc.
New adventures: We're also primed to produce a set of brand new adventure scenarios for Old-School Essentials!
Want More Info?
The easiest way is wait a week and you'll be able to read about the whole thing in great detail oncethe Kickstarter goes live!
In the meantime, I've made a few blog posts over the past couple of weeks going into a bit more detail on the Kickstarter and the new books, for example:
Hope to see lots of you over at the new Kickstarter next week! I'll post here again once it's live.
Gavin / Moss Master at Necrotic Gnome
Advanced Fantasy: Monsters Coming Soon!
almost 4 years ago
– Thu, Apr 23, 2020 at 12:49:54 AM
Hey everyone,
You may have already seen this announcement on various Necrotic Gnome social media / communities or heard about it in the recent podcast where I was interviewed about Old-School Essentials, but I thought I'd share the news here as well: the Advanced Fantasy: Monsters book is coming this summer!
What's the Book About?
In a nutshell: more monsters for your Old-School Essentials games! This book continues the Advanced Fantasy line of OSE books, joining the already published Advanced Fantasy: Genre Rules and Advanced Fantasy: Druid and Illusionist Spells. Like those other books, Advanced Fantasy: Monsters adds material inspired by the 1st edition Advanced game to Old-School Essentials. Naturally, the new monsters are all presented in the standard OSE format.
Current Status
Here's where things stand as of right now:
The writing and layout of the book are finished.
The roster of monsters comes in at 118. (See below for the full list.)
Stefan Poag — who did the art for the first two Advanced Fantasy books — is on board for cover art once more.
Layout and illustration are expected to be finished by June.
Printing and shipping are a bit of an unknown right now, due to the ongoing pandemic. The manufacturer has said they are operating normally and will be able to print the book in June. Hopefully the problems with international shipping will have settled down by then and everything will run smoothly.
A Few Art Previews
Work on the cover hasn't started yet, so I can't give a preview of that. However, quite a fer interior pieces are ready for action. Here's a small selection...
Greater efreeti by Chris Malec, Flail snail by Jerry Boucher, Gullygug by Frank Scacalossi
The eagle-eyed may notice a distinct lack of devils and demons in the list above. A quote directly from the book itself: "Despite their presence in the original Advanced monster books, devils and demons are not included here. They will be featured in a future supplement devoted entirely to the fiendish denizens of other planes."
All For Now
More news as things with the new book progress!
Gavin / Moss Master at Necrotic Gnome
New Products: Deluxe Referee's Screen + Player's Rules Tome!
about 4 years ago
– Sat, Mar 21, 2020 at 03:14:43 AM
Hi everyone,
Great news from Old-School Essentials land: some new products are available now!
Where to Order
You can order these products from two places:
Shipping from within the USA: For those of you in the USA, you can place a pre-order with our partners Exalted Funeral which will be fulfilled internally in the US—no international shipping fees! For people in non-US North America, this is probably also the cheapest option. https://www.exaltedfuneral.com/collections/necrotic-gnome
Shipping from the UK: For people outside North America, ordering directly from Necrotic Gnome is probably the best option. https://necroticgnome.com/
Deluxe Referee's Screen
Remember the universal GM screen inserts that were a stretch goal for the Kickstarter? Well, we've produced a deluxe quality print run of them, on thick 3mm card. This deluxe 3-panel screen provides a quick reference to the most common rules and procedures needed to run Old-School Essentials games (or any other game based on the classic 1981 Basic/Expert rules):
Master attack matrix.
Saving throw tables for monsters and all Classic Fantasy character classes.
Combat rules summary.
Procedures for encounters, dungeon adventures, and wilderness adventures.
Summary of options available during downtime between adventures.
Tables for thief skills and turning the undead.
Weapon combat stats, armour types, and rules for common adventuring gear.
Master movement rate table, listing base, encounter, and overland movement rates.
The front of the screen is graced by a fantastic, three-panel dungeon diorama painting by the legendary Peter Mullen!
This is a cut-down version of the full Rules Tome, including only information required by players (as opposed to referee's). It comes in at 144 pages and is produced to the same deluxe hardcover standards as the full Rules Tome, including 22 pages of full colour art, printed endpapers, and a ribbon marker. This book makes a perfect entry point into old-school gaming.
Additionally, we've done a 2nd print run of the Rules Tome, which sold out early this year. For the new printing, we fixed the few extremely minor points of errata which had been spotted (full list here) and commissioned Stefan Poag to create new cover art. There's also a super deluxe foil-stamped leatherette edition available!
...And That's a Wrap!
about 4 years ago
– Fri, Feb 28, 2020 at 03:08:53 AM
Hi everyone,
Exciting news today: I am delighted to report that the final digital content for this Kickstarter is now complete!
Cover art by Sam Mameli
Classic Fantasy Rogues Gallery I
I've just uploaded the finished PDF (v1.0) to DriveThruRPG, now featuring all 21 characters, with full write-ups and an illustration each. Here's what's in the PDF:
7 characters of each alignment (lawful, neutral, chaotic).
3 charactrs of each class (cleric, dwarf, elf, fighter, halfling, magic-user, thief).
One-page layout puts everything players need on a single page.
Perfect for use in one-shots or for introducing new players to the game.
Also great for use as hirelings or rival NPC parties.
Each character comes with:
All stats you need to play, also including rules summaries.
Detailed and quirky equipment selection, packed with flavour.
Fun character background in 4-5 sentences.
A delightful illustration by Sam Mameli.
Characters are presented in a dual-AC format for use with either Ascending AC or Descending AC options.
How to Get It
All backers received a download code for the initial release of this PDF (v0.1) some months back.
If you downloaded an older version: You'll now see the updated version in your library at DriveThruRPG. (Go to "Account", see "My Library".)
If you didn't download an older version: Have a look back through your emails for the download code.
If you can't find the download code: Let us know and we'll send it again. (The best way to ask for this is to email us at [email protected].)
A few people have asked about the possibility of a print version of the Rogues Gallery. It's something we're considering at present. The main question is what format it would take exactly. The PDF is laid out as A4 pages (i.e. double the size of the Old-School Essentials rule books), so it would either be printed at that larger size or would require some reformatting work to bring it down to the same size as the rule books. Printing as individual card sheets (rather than a bound book) is another possibility we're considering.
If anyone has any thoughts on this, please feel free to comment!
So That's It!
The release of this PDF concludes this Kickstarter! It's a crazy and amazing feeling to type that. Wow / phew.
Thank you all once again for supporting this ambitious project. I hope you're happy with how everything has turned out — I know I am!
Coming Soon...
Coincidentally, the manufacturer sent me some photos this morning of the first deluxe referee's screen to pop off the production line. So I thought why not share them here as a preview of what's coming up next! Check it out:
The front of the screen, featuring that gorgeous Peter Mullen painting!
A view from the top, showing the thickness of the card (3mm, to be precise)
The inside of the screen, with all the tables and rules summaries for running your games!
All for Now
I'll post further updates here occasionally in the future, when there are announcements about new products, future Kickstarters, and so on. Until then!
