All this talk of Black Ziggurats has me thinking about one of my favorite D&D supplements, Necromancer Games' (R.I.P.?)/Morten Braten's ANCIENT KINGDOMS: MESOPOTAMIA. This book is composed of two parts: a guide for adventuring in ancient Mesopotamia with notes about the world, races, classes, magic and religion; and a series of desert adventures culminating with a well-detailed massive lost city.Sorry, did I say "adventures?" How about a fully realized mini-sandbox setting, "The Red Wastes!" This adventure section consists of several linked locations, all gently prodding towards The Lost City of Ibnath.
Although this is a 3.5 edition D&D product, the material within could easily be used with any previous editions (and I did use it for my short-lived 4e campaign...please don't judge me...). Every page is practically dripping with inspiration and the contents are very "Clark Ashton Smith-esque."
Plus lurking in one of the detailed adventure locations is one of my favorite all-time iconic D&D monsters...The Froghemoth! Now let me go on a little ranting aside here. Froghemoth's rule. Return to the Barrier Peaks. Monster Manual II. Necromancer Games' superb resource Tome of Horrors.
So which retro-clone contains stats for the Froghemoth? Remember that since it is featured in the Tome of Horrors one can easily use it as open-game-content with proper licensing. It's one of the iconic gonzo Gygaxian monstrosities. It's a giant frog..with tentacles...
...I don't know of any retro-clone publication containing the stats for the Froghemoth. It's not in OSRIC, or Labyrinth Lord AEC, or the Swords & Wizardry Monster Book, or anything else I can think of. (I believe it's in a Pathfinder product..but that's not an "old tyme D&D" version) Seriously...what's wrong with these jerks? No love for the Froghemoth? For shame OSR...For Shame!
I've always liked that Mesopotamia supplement. It's got some great content.
ReplyDeleteMesopotamia is excellent. Don't forget that the author, Morten Braten, is also responsible for the self-published and therefore easily overlooked XP1: The Spider God's Bride, which you can order from his website at http://xoth.net/publishing/xp1/index.htm. It has the downside of being an adventure path instead of a sandbox, so the default presentations is a linear set of adventures, but the individual sections are 200 pages of good to excellent sword&sorcery content which could be used piecemeal without too much work. The stats are 3.5, but are in an appendix if I recall (I don't have the book before me to check), so you can just forget about them.
ReplyDeleteSupport a creative designer and buy it!
Hi guys, thanks for the nice reviews of my books. I'm a big fan of all things "old school" and tentacled, so obviously the froghemoth is one of my favorite monsters! :-)
ReplyDeleteI've recently started my own blog, check it out at http://xoth.net/blog
- Morten, aka Thulsa
Simply based upon this I WILL be adding this to my current, let the hate begin, 4E campaign. It's just perfect. And based upon your recommendations I'll be hunting down the supplement as well.
ReplyDelete@CitizenBen: No hate man. Play what you want. That's the way it should be.
ReplyDeleteI feel terrible for forgetting to mention Chqwiz(sp?) "Land of Two River Rivers" project in this post
ReplyDeleteMelan: And I feel terrible for not mentioning "The Spider God's Bride" either. The other DM in our group bought it when it came out so it is forbidden for me to peruse!
Thulsa: Thanks for dropping by! I'm a big fan of your website and work!
Ben: Ahem... http://planetalgol.blogspot.com/2010/03/doing-it-your-own-feaking-way.html
ReplyDeleteIt actually worked pretty dang well for 4E!