#057 - May 2026 TTRPG newsletter
Shadowdark, Call of Cthulhu, D&D 5E, OSE, Elric
I took almost two weeks off thanks to the public holidays but I managed to do five ttrpg sessions this month!
What’s new at my gaming table?
We had a hard time finding time to play the Rise of the Drows campaign for D&D 5E (2014) as the DM wasn't very available so only one session this month. We fought some gargoyles who helped the drow kidnap the village commoners, but we're behind the evil elves, so who knows if and when we'll find them.
Still in a Call of Cthulhu mini-campaign inside a coal mine. Lots of mysteries and ancient rituals!
I hadn’t played an OSE open table game from my friend Daron in a while, but this month I was able to. The group explores the second level of a dungeon and we fought a troll! My thief was only level 2 (and now 3 thanks to the experience points he gained) but we managed to lure the troll into a trap down to the lower level. The bad news is that we might see him again later!
In May, I was able to master two sessions of my open table of Shadowdark. After ignoring the location for a long time, a group went to an old fort where a band of goblins reside. After being almost killed by a gelatinous cube, the group retreated after painfully destroying the monster. The second group managed to fight goblins, kill a bugbear and free prisoners. But the monster leaders are still alive. Will they wait patiently to face their fate?
Readings
Still in the Elric series, this time I’m reading volume 5, The Sleeping Sorceress. And it’s pretty good! After that, I’ll change for a bit with a re-reading of Dracula as I was gifted a premium edition for Christmas.
I also had a look at the classic Appendix N from AD&D as it will be my reading challenge of 2027 but quickly found out that a small number of the writers 1- where not translated in french (remember I’m french?) 2-have their books out of stock. The good news it that I will have less books to read but I still find it a bit frustrating as I’ll not be able to discover their art.
Movies/series
Nothing this month!
Video Games
A couple of days ago, I re-installed Guild Wars 2. I was a founder at its launch in 2012 but I think I didn’t play since maybe 2015 (10 years go ! Damned !). That made me think about levels as, in this game, the level of the character adapts to the zone he/she is visiting. I know (and like) levelless ttrpg but I don’t know of ‘level-adaptative’ games. Do you?
Creations, tips, shop…
I spent some time to think about my Patreon page and to decide what I will publish on it. So you will mainly see OSR maps of dungeons and caves, and small adventures (One Page Dungeons, short modules). Black and white, maybe classic TSR blue versions, hand-drawn, of course no AI. I rediscovered the pleasure of drawing with pen and paper (it began with my Dungeon23 megadungeon) and I think I’ll stick to it.
Some maps are public, more maps are only for free members and even more stuff, variants, source files are, of course, for the patrons. I’m also looking on how to package maps and adventures for FoundryVTT so the highest tier patrons (Gold Dragons!) can get it ready-to-play with their favorite system : OSE, B/X-BECMI, Shadowdark and more.
So this month I released The Smugglers' Caves and soon will come the Dungeons of the Dark Wizard (the map is just above and is free).
Last week, I asked a question here on Substack and was given a lot of ideas for a magic pool. This note was almost seen 2000 times! This pool, and the dungeon around of course, will be featured in a June’s free adventure.
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