Dungeons Deep & Caverns Old

 

Way back in 2010 I began working on a set of house-rules for my Swords & Wizardry whitebox campaign, and over the years they evolved, slowly metamorphosing from a set of house-rules into a unique game.  The final product, Dungeons Deep & Caverns Old, is now finally finished and is now available as a pay-what-you-want PDF on DriveThru RPG.

My goal with this game was to create a pulp sword & sorcery rpg, that represented the tropes of the genre while remaining faithful to the spirit of old-school games.  This product description sums it up:

Dive into fantasy role-playing 1970's style! Dungeons Deep & Caverns Old is a pulp sword & sorcery role-playing game in the old school tradition with simple, elegant rules that fade into the background and let you focus on what's really important: exploring ancient dungeons, recovering fantastic treasures, then squandering it all in a night of ribald revelry. Break out the miniatures and the Crown Royal dice bags, crank up the Led Zeppelin, and get ready for a night of adventure torn from the pages of Weird Tales, with characters bursting from a Frank Frazetta painting.

This project has been a labour of love that has taken many years.  It was quite a time-consuming undertaking to do all the writing and artwork myself, and the project went on hiatus during the years I was dealing with cancer, which sapped my enthusiasm.  Also, when I first started this project, as far as I am aware, there were no other OSR games devoted specifically to pulp sword & sorcery, but since that time several have been published, so I wasn't sure that it was worthwhile to carry on, and the hiatus nearly became permanent.  Last year, however, I became determined to finish the game I always wanted to play, and think in the end Dungeons Deep & Caverns Old offers a unique take on sword & sorcery role playing, and I'm very proud of the result.

If you're interested, you can check the game out for free by following this link: Dungeons Deep & Caverns Old, or by clicking the banner on the sidebar, which will take you to my publisher account at DriveThru RPG.  I also have a character record PDF available, and in a day or so I'll be adding quick reference sheets, in which all the important tables are compiled.  You can print these out and store them in a binder for easy reference, or insert them into any 8.5 x 11" universal game master screen.

The game has only been live on DriveThru for a couple of days, so I was very surprised to find that a review has already been posted to YouTube.  Check out this great review by RPG Freebies, which neatly summarizes the game.