As the year comes to a close, I'd like to ask you to consider joining the Vintage RPG Patreon. If you dig my work, there is going to be quite a lot of it next year with five books in progress (the dungeon analects Down, Down, Down; the monster book, Monstrous Descents; my "mystery crawl" for Old-School Essentials, Erehwesle; 25 Years of Goodman Games; and one more I can't yet reveal). The best way to find out more about these projects is to get my monthly patron newsletter. The mystery crawl play test is also coming back in a month or two, and we're currently in a phase where player input is going to really help shape the project.

In short, the Patreon is a way to get more of this stuff if this stuff is what you desire! It also helps fund, fuel and otherwise sustain my work (and my house, where I gotta replace my windows, and I got a leak in my roof, eesh [update: roof leak seems fixed!]). 

And if you can't join the Patreon (no judgement, it's tough out there) you should definitely join the Discord at the very least. It's a relaxed, fun, supportive community that I am extremely grateful for - it'd be rad to see you there. 

The deluxe edition of Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is still just $45 on Amazon. It won't necessarily arrive by Christmas (I don't have Prime, so I can't say for sure) but that is a lower price than the regular edition! (The regular still seems out of distro, alas, but will be hitting shelves soon; I suspect Amazon's steep discount on the deluxe will disappear when the regular edition restocks).

Let’s finish out TSR’s Lankhmar campaign setting, eh? This is Tales of Lankhmar (1991). The module is sort of billed as a set of unconnected scenarios, as the name implies, but that isn’t strictly true. It isn’t strictly untrue, either, I guess. Let me explain.

The first “scenario” is actually just source material for the Silver Eel, beloved watering hole of Lankhmar’s lower classes. The second scenario is a job put forth by the owner of the bar (protect the valuable cask of wine) that, if the party is successful, sets them up as long-term tenants of the place. Most of the rest of the scenarios come about thanks to the players being fixtures at the Eel. I like this a lot. It is maybe the most Leiber-ish frame for a TSR Lankhmar book thus far.

The scenarios are fine. Lull a dragon back to sleep, hunt a behemoth, steal some stuff. None of the scenarios are long enough to be bad, honestly, and all of them are ripe for embellishment at the table. My favorite is “Red God’s Curse,” which involves putting a stolen treasure back. Close runner-up is the four part scenario (the longest, and least connected to the others) involving a civil war among the rats of Lankhmar.

A pretty good Clyde Caldwell cover. Mostly Terry Dykstra on the interiors. Love his wererat swashbucklers!

Last December I was made aware of the British Library's handsome Tales of the Weird anthology series, I think by one of the Derek's in the Discord (typing that made me instantly think of the Future of the Left song "Donny of the Decks"). I arrived at the sales site amid their buy two, get one free sale and got...a lot of them. It's a monthly series that has been going for five years, so there are a lot to choose from. Among my selections were the four volumes of ghost stories set on or about Christmas. They arrived too late for me to indulge in them last year, so I am reading them now, along with Robert Lloyd Parry's Chit-Chat Club anthologies (where M.R. James' career as a teller of ghost stories was born) and a slight detour into non-Christmas horror by the dissolute Belgian Jean Ray.

As of this writing, I've read 59 ghost and horror stories since Thanksgiving (and I'm not finished!). I've got some recommendations, if you're interested! First, from the BL series, E. Nesbit's "The Shadow" is a recent fave, perhaps the most writerly of what I've read thus far. A.M. Burrage's "Oberon Road" is an uncanny tale of regret and impossible places. Margaret Irwin's "The Earlier Service" is delightfully Satanic. L.P. Hartley's "The Waits" is like a Scary Story to Tell in the Dark in all the best ways. "The Crown Derby Plate," by Marjorie Bowen, is one of those stories where you get to the end only to realize the terrible danger that lurked just off the path. "The Old Portrait," by Hume Nisbet, is more a Christmas vampire story and Jerome K. Jerome's Told After Supper is very funny.

The whole Ghosts of the Chit-Chat is quite good, if you can find a copy. My favorite was Pargiton and Harby, by Desmond MacCarthy, which features a chilling reveal that is surprisingly cinematic. And, if the cozy scares of ghost stories don't do it for you, Jean Ray's cosmic horror might be what you need. Both "The Mainz Psalter" and "The Gloomy Alley" crawled into my brain by being terrifying but also by refusing to explain what is happening. Terrifying and enigmatic, a chilling combination. "The Gloomy Alley" is sort of miserably wintery, too, so perhaps it counts as a Christmas tale.