Just as we close out the Op U
Kickstarter (oh yeah by the by Misty Isles of the Eld and a heap of
A-side OSR work is on super sale at the Bundle of Holding), we
started down the last phase of the Dunes series. I finally, finally
passed over the draft manuscript to the distracted hands of my
editors the fourth and last adventure What Ho, Frog Demons. While
it's not the 100+ page monster of the Misty Isles, at 30 pages and
growing it's still a lot more than the 12-16 page product of
micro-dungeons we promised.
After
a good deal of insomnia agonizing about whether it all hung together
as well as its sequels I think I am getting to the place about
feeling good about what's rolling off the line. The master of font
and trade-dress mimicry magic of Trey Causey working with a lovely
anuran illustration from Luka Rejec (another brother from another mother)
have us already good to go with this great little homage/satire
cover--very fitting for the terribly misguided mix of Wodehouse,
gonzo D&D and cosmic horror satire that's the theme for this one.
Basically beyond my
usual quirky meandering sections, you get two quite different, but
ballpark theme-linked small-scale adventures that have been
specifically designed to be either wholly slottable in most home
campaigns or run alongside the hooks and chaos index of
Fever-Dreaming Marlinko, Misty Isles and the Dunes.
On one hand you
have the low-level trap-hell dungeon of the Frog Demon Temple with
its wandering squads of booby-trap laying frog-demonettes, gratuitous
deadliness and hell-spawned literary salon on one side and on the
other the building tongue-in-cheek horror of the Manor of the Beet
God, with a rising Infection Index dynamically changing the nature of
the site as the players chose to explore or ignore the mounting
menace and mystery.
Let's see if it
works.
The Penguin Classics homage is an interesting design choice. Quite a unique aesthetic for an OSR module. Can't wait to pick this one up; looks like just my kind of gonzo (the Beet God made me chuckle). I'll make sure to get my hands on the Bundle of Holding as well. Need to complete my Hill Cantons collection!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on getting the manuscript done! The cover-as-homage is a fun idea.
ReplyDeleteNow I'm gonna be an asshole and ask when you except 'What Ho' is on Drivethru?