Being in the Main the Mouth of Olde House Rules

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Into the Mist We Go...

Attention, Blood of Pangea and Pits & Perils fans, there's a new zine in town - and it's good stuff!  Into the Mist (#0) comes to us courtesy of Talon Waite and Tainted Edge Games!  So if you enjoy barbarian battles in the Blood of Pangea vein or aliens and blasters after Retrospace - or even just the traditional old-school whimsy offered by Pits & Perils, this zine has it covered...

So, as a bit of introduction, Talon is an enthusiast of simple, narrative-driven games and has some impeccable credentials in this area with his excellent OneDice Supers game.  So when he said he planned on publishing something under our Open Supplement Licenses, we were understandably thrilled at the prospect!

Big things come in small packages.  For a buck you get 12 pages of new content, all presented in Olde House Rules style, meaning typewritten in someone's basement in 1974!  But there's also some evocative, full-color interior artwork from Guillaume Jentey, lately seen in Macchiato Monsters, that perfectly fits the mood:

But what's IN this mystic tome?  Let's see...

First, we get an overview of Pits & Perils classes provided in coordination with us.  This is important because he goes on to offer two NEW classes: The Half-Demon and Ursine (intelligent bears) to round out your games, and laying it all out helps.  This is material from an ongoing P&P campaign, folks!  But did we say classes?  We meant to say "races", because Talon eliminates the old race-as-class paradigm, and we heartily approve of such house-ruling...


And speaking of classes, you can now be a NECROMANCER.  Fun!

Needless to say, the whole thing reads like the best referee's campaign-specific notebook.  A playable Grave Touched race and the Shadow Guards (an alternate cleric) map a macabre new direction, perfect for Halloween or any other occasion.  You really get a sense of a unique setting implied by these new additions. 

But you also get some new materials for Blood of Pangea and Retrospace under our new OSL.  Among other things, Talon offers an optional critical system for those who fall to zero MIGHT in the heat of battle.  This is simple and easily integrated into whatever your campaign is already doing here.  Oh, and one standout is the Bloodless, an elven race for Blood of Pangea.  

You see, Talon knows that Robyn likes elves and understood her disappointment at their absence in sword and sorcery, offering up something in the best spirit of both.  She says thanks!

Finally, you get some stuff for Retrospace as well.  First, an extremely helpful guide to psionics and his own campaign's approach to the Psion Order.  You get Psion-specific armor and Furians; a duck-like humanoid race that he feels like Howard the Duck perfectly integrated into the Marvel Universe.  All in all, this is a great little campaign expansion ready to be printed out and added to your own Judge's/referee folder.  It's a LOT of world for a buck...

Into the Mist is available as a ready-to-print PDF, so check it out!

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