Great Free OSR stuff ,some by yours truly!

There a couple of new new OSR freebies out you might want to know about

1st up is Secret Santicore 2013

This is a 3 parter, part one having appeared yesterday.

While Santi did not bring this good little gamer what he wanted (a kickass rune system) I have no compliants. Its totally cool and totally free.

As an added bonus, I have an article in Part 2 which will appear at the end of next month.

You can get it at Metal vs. Skin.

 Oh yeah and in case you've wandered over here, thanks to Joel , Scrap Princess and everybody involved in this project.I'd have thanked y'all on M.vs.S. but it uses G+ to comment  which , well no.It was great working with ya and if you want to try that again, let me know.

Anyway. The other  one is the 3rd issue of Gorgonmilk's fantastic OSR zine Underworld Lore.

Its set in the Hyperborean age (aka Conan's time) and it and its two older sibs are both free and awesome.

You can get them at the Gorgonmilk Blog.

Magic is not that magic

Over the years I've heard people complain that D&D magical isn't very well magical or mystical and it seems awfully prosaic and pragmatic.

That is true but its pretty historical in its used as well.

Not much of that  historical magic survives but what we have  from Rome and other periods were used for rather pragmatic things, increasing the food supply, healing, protection from disease or foes  getting sex and at times  as a weapon.

It really wasn't very mystical at all and D&D magic in any  edition especially any  that had overt real world physical effects would end up used for perfectly mundane  purposes.

 To my way of thinking, this is how it should be. YMMV of course.

A Worthy New Years Cause

If you have a dollar or two to spare after the holidays may I suggest a worthy cause. Its not tax deductible but it does help a member of our OSR community.

Our friends over at RetroRoleplaying ,creators of the Microlight 81 RPG ,  are in pretty dire economic straits do to family illness and a few bucks might be the difference between keeping their  house and losing it.