Lowcountry Crawl (2019) is such a great and strange little zine, written by John Gregory, with layout and design by Technical Grimoire’s David Schirduan and art contributions by Charles Ferguson Avery. 20% of the proceeds go to the Penn Center, an organization dedicated to South Carolina’s African American cultural heritage. The zine seeks to fictionalize South Carolina’s coastal Lowcountry and Sea Islands, using the 19th folklore of the region for exploration in D&D and OSR campaigns.

19th century folklore may seem like a weird thing to synthesize into a D&D game, but it works rather well. This issue presents a series of barrier islands, full of pirates, giant crabs, fish men, a wizard’s tower situated in a lighthouse and a mysterious fellow known as the Low Tide Merchant, who always has what you want though not necessarily at a price you’re willing to pay. There are charts for rolling up new, random islands and a couple new monsters, including the delightful Tommy Rawbones, who reminds me of that skeleton from Castlevania who is always chasing his head. Except much more horrible.

Everything described holds on to a certain 19th century-ness. There’s magic chewing tobacco, colonels and forts. But I also find it surprisingly easy to picture a group of standard fantasy adventurers roaming these dunes. I find that sort of aesthetic elasticity appealing in the same way I do the mix of sci-fi and fantasy in Barrier Peaks, say. Cool stuff. Looking forward to future issues.