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7/11/2023 4:32 am  #1


Judges' Guild

Years ago when I was on an OSR kick, I came upon a lot of files related to Judges' Guild booklets and magazines. Its core setting, City-State of the Invincible Overload (AKA The Wilderlands Fantasy), is MASSIVE with each area a fantasy genre. There are lots of adventures to pick though and you can use them for nearly any setting. Most are simple dungeon crawlers, but there are gems that shine.

The systems they use are AD&D, RQ, T&T and Traveler, until T$R treated legal action so they use their own in-house "system" called "Universal Role Playing" that listed stats for everything but no rules to run it. Basically, it gives you superfluous amounts of stats allowing you to convert it into D&D, RQ, T&T or what else was popular at the time. Once you know how to read it, conversion is quit and simple. And even though it is made with D&D in mind, its no hassle to convert into BoL.

While I have not read all of them, as there are a little too much to read, I do look over a book and and there and pick out what I like. Going beyond the adventures alone, I like to use them as a wellspring of ideas. Of the ones I like?

It goes without saying that The Caverns of Thracia and Dark Tower are classics. They are on a lot of top 10 old-school adventures. Maybe a little quint now, they were ahead of their time and inspired countless RPG writers. Jennell Jaquays is a goddamn legend!

Shield Maidens of Sea Rune is another popular adventure I quite enjoy. This takes to on quite an adventure and has some interesting characters.

While I played the above once to twice, the next ones are about what I draw from for long-term play.

I find Prey of Darkness in underrated gem where you have to opportunity to join a bandit gang, with the leaders Red Honohon and Black McDabb being favorite NPCs of mine. Then those two appear in my games, you know things are going to get crazy. Mind you, the dungeon adventure is so crap, but the NPCs are memorable. Not just the bandits, who come off like drunk and horny college kids, but also the Bounty Hunters and the remote outlaw bar fulled with oddballs and run by a diminutive owner whom I play as a crass mix of Danny DeVito and Peter Dinklage.

I also cant get enough of Ignoble Inns from Pegasus #12 as it make for some memorable hangouts for the PCs, The Anaconda Inn is basically huts in a small jungle village. I have made it into a treetop village for an adventure. The Marry Mug Inn is a hidden countryside inn that I covered into a "Tulou"-styled keep out in the frontier that is also the center of trade with its open plaza. Lemear's Inn is a caravan camp within a desert cave with tamed riding scorpions. And The Raging Mane Inn is a pirate haven within an ancient temple to a lost race hidden on a remote island known only to pirates. Quite a number of memorable characters. And the whole place is over the den of some Lovecaftian horrors!!

Mind you, I don't support company that owns Judges' Guild due to what played out with the relaunch that blowup on the tarmac like a SpaceX rocket. There are lots to find, and if you can find them though... ehh... "alternative channels" ...then yeah, check them out.

 

7/11/2023 4:57 am  #2


Re: Judges' Guild

I remember using some of the stuff from the City-State of the Invincible Overload for my TFT games.  No longer have any of the items, but I remember that it was a pretty detailed setting.  It was my first city based setting.

 

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