Zine Quest 2: That OSR Tingle

Having somehow missed the original Zine quest, I came at the current one with a vengeance. And why wouldn't you? To me its a cornucopia of weird ideas, settings and mechanics in a very digestible format. So because I lack self-control and too many things are cool, I am looking at a smaller wave of publications hitting my doorstep in the coming months, and I thought I'd go through them now in anticipation. Some of these have already ended, but since I am posting them in my order of discovery the latest ones are likely still running.

#1: The Artefact

First on the list is The Artefact, a solo RPG about being a legendary item. I like the premise both as a way to design actual magical items with backgrounds for other roleplaying games, but also the sort of nostalgia you can get in games that span hundreds of years. So you'll live through your creation, be wielded or worn with purpose by a original hero or villain. Then get end in a museum, get lost to time or even break, only to be rediscovered years later. And as you gain power and will you can begin to influence your wielder and shape history too. It promises to be an interesting worldbuilding exercise with loss and melancholy of a game like Thousand Year Old Vampire.

#2: Planet 28

A d10 based 28mm scale narrative skirmish game with obvious an obvious oldhammer soul. I love my model agnostic skirmish games, especially the ones with a high degree of customizability and application across a variaty of themes. Because unlike larger more established games, these allow you to be creative and weird. So if you want to play that story of a space inquisitor travelling to the feudal past, rounding up and arming a posse, to take down a local knightly order because they will in the future become the foundation for an evil alliance. Then here's your chance, laser muskets and everything. I excited for getting to round up and build models I might not otherwise use, and curious to see what the community and homebrewing might hold in its future.

#3: DELVE

This game hits the same vein (get it?) for me as The Artefact. Its another example of gamified worldbuilding. In Delve you are the founders of a great dwarven hold, or at least you hope to be. You will be excavating a cavern, adding rooms, discovering treasure and shooing local monstrosities. Its lightweight and has that dwarf fortress vibe, while also serving as a map making exercise as you are doodling in new rooms, traps and halls. And at the end of it all you will have a long forgotten dwarven keep with a detailed history that you can put your regular roleplayers through. They have also made two sister games due to the success, once where you are tunneling underground monstrocities going for the surface and another where you are miners on not-quite-derelict asteroids.

#5: The Bone Age

Well... holy mother of aesthetics. Being a huge fan of weird scifi and Jim Hensons works this hit home with a crash. Its an OSR d20 roleplaying game taking place in a weird broken world, where tribes of turtle beings carve weapons and homes from the great carcasses of the beings that came before them. But distant travellers have crashed here, their broken ships spilling radioactive fumes. Wildlife and local tribes go mad and grow bestial shapes, communities are in turmoil at this impending disaster and then on the horizon comes the alloy clad pilots waging hideous war with hissing lasers and alien technology. SIGN ME THE FUCK UP.

#6: Bunker

Another weird post-apocalyptic OSR RPG? But of course. It is a world born from environmental disaster, pollution and capitalist negligence. You walk the earth as young warriors, druids and sages trying to uncover the depth of the sins of the past while forging neo-arthurian legends of high fantasy, battling forces not universal evil but of our own doomed making. Its a union of pessimism and romantisim I find quite intriguing and I am hoping to get blown away.

#7: GLAIVE

Is a lightweight OSR toolkit that can help convert, streamline and unify various OSR releases d20 systems, old monster manuals etcetera. Being a huge fan of old D&D modules like Expedition to Barrier Peaks, as well as Black Hack games such as Furies of the Barrens, whatever amazing nonsense Red Box Vancouver is making and of course what other amazing OSR zines the community puts out it would be very nice to have a rosetta stone of sorts to help me translate and intergrate things from various sources without me having to math-hammer it all.

#8: The Insectiary

If there is three things I love, its roleplaying games, the insane world of entomology and striking colour choices. The Insectiary is a collection of weird and terrifying insects to include where-ever. It uses a classic d20 system and is compatible with most things like it. What I think really sold me is the grotesque overly detailed non-symmetrical illustrations within. Something I rather despise in contemporary releases from Wizards of the Coast is how clean, polished and conventionally beautiful or aesthetically pleasing art has to be. But the Insectiary much like the art from Nathan Jones, has this sort of anti-aesthetic feel that is a breath of fresh air and a welcome return to the more home-made punkrock basement style of early games. Before everything became too commercial.

The Astral Glutton, by Nathan Jones

Surprise Entry: MÖRK BORG

Okay okay, lets be honest it isn't actually a Zine Quest entry. Also before you read on, please put this on. MÖRK BORG is a swedish OSR roleplaying game that got kickstarted last november and somehow completely flew under my radar. The link between comics, art, metal and wargames have always been there and its a spirit I love to see indulged. A sort of creative and rebellious flame, we create to show the world our colours and dare exist outside norms and because its like breathing ot us. But of course as is the case with themes they are often simply copied, I mean how many heavy metal inspired games have you seen? But MÖRK BORK is doom, despair and blackened sludge to the very bone. It draws upon a myriad of great bands to fuel the creative space they wanna shape the world into. And pair it with striking grotesque imagery and tight game design. Its a game, a system, a world, but most importantly a mood, an impulse to be experienced. And while I will likely borrow themes to inspire a miniature warband or pick enemies to tie into other games, what I really and wholeheartedly want to is seeing a group of players on their last expedition through the broken doomed landscape, looking up in despair or indifference as the final portents show themselves before the stars go out and everything turns to sweet oblivion.