New OSE 2026 PDFs, New Store, New Adventures!

Coming Soon: The Necrotic Gnome Store!

That’s right! Soon, you’ll be able to buy all our Old-School Essentials and Dolmenwood products directly on our website, rather than being redirected to a partner site.

The plan is for future products to debut directly on our store, resulting in a smoother shopping experience for everyone, plus the added benefit of that warm fuzzy feeling you get from knowing that 100% of the proceeds support Necrotic Gnome and our development of more OSE and Dolmenwood goodness.

We’re aiming to have the storefront live on the same Necrotic Gnome website you know and love sometime in September. Watch this space for updates on exactly when!

Quick Delve: Shadows and Flesh Out Now!

Shadows and Flesh by Noah Green is our latest Quick Delve, designed for 1–2 sessions of play, perfect for side quests, conventions, or dropping into an ongoing campaign with minimal prep.

This compact adventure challenges six 2nd–3rd-level characters to explore the shattered tower of the arch-wizard Rakius, with precious and perilous abandoned arcana buried beneath its stones. To complicate matters, a band of gnoll fugitives squatting in the ruins has awakened long-forgotten horrors. 

Shadows and Flesh is presented as a beautifully illustrated 20-page zine and PDF, complete with maps printed on the inside covers. Delve into the ruins of Rakius's tower, brave the dangers of shadows and flesh, and escape with gold and glory!

OSE 2026 Update Digital Rollout

The updated Old-School Essentials books are now at the printers, which means we're beginning to roll out the digital editions!

• The revised PDFs are now available on DriveThruRPG. If you previously purchased the Advanced Fantasy Player's Tome or the Advanced Fantasy Referee's Tome on DTRPG, the updated versions should already be waiting in your library.
• The updated PDFs will be going out to Demonic Grimoire crowdfunding backers very soon, along with the pledge manager survey. Exalted Funeral has informed us of a delay in setting up the pledge manager, so distribution has taken a little longer than expected. Thank you for your patience, and apologies for the wait—the files will be sent out as soon as everything is ready.
• If you previously purchased the Advanced Fantasy Player's Tome or the Advanced Fantasy Referee's Tome through Exalted Funeral, updated PDFs will also be distributed via their store in due course.
• Finally, if you're using the Old-School Essentials Foundry VTT Premium Module, the new PDFs will be incorporated into the system's next update.
  

We’re really excited to roll out these robust, fine-tuned, and gorgeous-looking rulebooks. Old-School Essentials is in a great place and has tons of exciting content in the pipeline (watch this space).

Free PDFs

In addition to updating the Referee’s Book and Player’s Book, we are also releasing two free PDFs designed to bring you up to speed on the main changes made in the 2026 Update, as well as provide a way for owners of other OSE products (e.g., the boxed set or older versions) to access the latest rules.

Notes on the 2026 Update: A handy reference summarising the new optional rules, class tweaks, clarifications, and minor changes introduced in the 2026 printing of Old-School Essentials.

Rules Options Checklist: A quick-reference guide to every optional rule in Old-School Essentials, making it easy for referees to decide which options they'll use in their campaigns.

New Online Rules Reference Site

We're pleased to announce that the new Old-School Essentials Online Rules Reference is now live and feature-complete!

Built using text from the 2026 OSE books, it's our most accurate and up-to-date presentation of the classic B/X rules. Whether you need to check a spell, monster, combat rule, or obscure edge case during play, the complete rules are now available in a fast, searchable online reference.

Note that the old rules reference site from 2019 is no longer active due to stability and maintenance issues. The new site is built from the ground up with stability and longevity, built on the same base as our Dolmenwood rules reference site. 

As with the 2026 books, we're committed to making the rules as clear and accurate as possible. If you spot an error or typo, please let us know by reporting it on our GitHub issue tracker. 

Exalted Funeral Summer Sale

Our publishing partners at Exalted Funeral are currently running a major sale, including on Old-School Essentials and Dolmenwood physical books, for example:

• 30% off the Dolmenwood Campaign Book
• 50% off the Dolmenwood Adventuring Party Minis Set
• 30% off Adventure Anthology I

Dungeon adventures and faerie fantasy are the feel-good hits of the summer, and the sale is live until the 25th of August, so stock up on old-school RPG goodness before those back-to-school blues!

The Tomb of Armansquagulat

Our friends at 3d6 Down the Line have just released a new OSE adventure! The creators of the popular old-school actual play show challenge you to explore the legendary tomb of the goblin war chief Armansquagulat, full of deadly traps, unknown foes, and unique treasures.

Designed for 4–6 characters of 1st–3rd level, The Tomb of Armansquagulat packs some serious old-school dungeon design chops into a tight 28-pages, perfect for a session or two. Inside, you’ll find an easy-to-understand, compelling scenario complete with new monsters, magic items, full-color illustrations, and ready-to-run integration with 3D6TDL’s Feats of Exploration XP system.

We enjoyed this one a lot, and recommend it for both introducing new players to old-school gaming and challenging seasoned adventurers.

The Old-School Essentials and Dolmenwood community continues to produce an incredible range of adventures, settings, and supplements. Here are a few recent releases that caught our eye:

• Weird Little Freaks, a "lethal, dumb-ass fun house module" by Brad Kerr and Sam Mameli (Skullboy).
• Speaking of Brad, his sheer awesomeness could not be contained in the gnome’s burrow, so he has a new Patreon for his personal projects and general creative effluvia. Toss him a coin!
• M. Allen Hall is selling The Green Ooze King (a wizard tower dungeon adventure) and Out of the Iron Labyrinth (his Demon Month solo player adventure) on his webstore!
• Tomb of Tog, a low-level OSE adventure themed around the distinct schools of magic.
• BX Advanced Bestiary Vol. 3, with a horde of new monsters now out in print!
• And a special shout-out to our earlier mention, Barrow of the Five Kings for Dolmenwood, winning ‘The Best’ over at tenfootpole.org

Thinking of publishing your own adventures or supplements? Our third-party licences provide the guidance and resources you need to get started.

If you'd like your work featured in a future newsletter, send us the details (and a copy, if possible) at 3pp@necroticgnome.com