Announcement: Old-School Essentials: Advanced Fantasy

Announcement: Old-School Essentials: Advanced Fantasy

Necrotic Gnome and Exalted Funeral have been working on something wondrous. You may have heard rumours that something big is brewing. You may have seen various teasers I've posted. You may even have seen tasty-looking renders of mysteriously nameless products. All will now be revealed!

The Kickstarter pre-launch page is live now—sign up to be notified on launch!

Coming to Kickstarter soon: Old-School Essentials: Advanced Fantasy!

Advanced Fantasy

As part of the Old-School Essentials Kickstarter in 2019, we produced the first two books in the Advanced Fantasy line (Advanced Fantasy: Genre Rules and Advanced Fantasy: Druid and Illusionist Spells). These two books build on the content of the core Old-School Essentials game, adding new spells and character options inspired by AD&D, all carefully adapted to the power and complexity levels of the Basic/Expert game which OSE is based on.

We're now ready to complete the set, with the addition of a horde of 120 AD&D-inspired monsters and a hoard of 140 AD&D-inspired magic items.

Tomes and Modular Books

All of the Advanced Fantasy content will be available in two forms:

  • Modular books: Like a set of slim books to pass around at the table? This is the option for you. The complete set of Advanced Fantasy books consists of the following, building on top of the core Old-School Essentials books in the Black Box: Advanced Fantasy: Genre RulesAdvanced Fantasy: Druid and Illusionist SpellsAdvanced Fantasy: MonstersAdvanced Fantasy: Treasures.
  • Chunky tomes: Like everything compiled? This is the option for you. The complete Old-School Essentials Advanced Fantasy game compiled into two massive tomes — one for players and one for referees. Together, these tomes form a complete game, compiling the core Old-School Essentials game with the new Advanced Fantasy material.

(Some people are probably asking at this point "why two tomes? why not put everything in one tome?". The reason is simple: if we compiled all of the player's and referee's content into a single book, it'd be over 2 inches thick. With a digest sized book, this is just unusable.)

So How Many New Books is That?

This will be a monster project! Check out what we're going to produce:

  1. Advanced Fantasy: Monsters: A 56 page book containing 120 AD&D-inspired monsters statted for Old-School Essentials.
  2. Advanced Fantasy: Treasures: A 56 page book containing 140 AD&D-inspired magic items statted for Old-School Essentials.
  3. Advanced Fantasy: Player's Tome: A 240 page tome containing the core rules of the game, 13 character classes, 10 character races (with rules for race-classes and separate race and class), 200+ spells (cleric, druid, illusionist, and magic-user), full lists of equipment, vessels, mounts, and hirelings, and rules for stronghold construction.
  4. Advanced Fantasy: Referee's Tome: A 250+ page tome (page count not yet finalised) containing 300+ monsters and nearly 300 magic items, along with guidelines for refereeing and adventure design.

What's more, the tomes will be available in two editions: a standard edition and a collector's leatherette / foil-stamped edition.

And That's Not All!

We're also going to produce a set of brand new adventure scenarios for Old-School Essentials! We're engaging a crack team of renowned authors to each write an adventure for OSE. If you've been waiting for more official OSE adventures, the wait will soon be over!

There will also (of course!) be a tantalising selection of stretch goals, add-ons, and extras!

    Alright Just Show Me the Pictures!

    Ok, here we go. Product mockups!

    Standard edition tomes, with art by Peter Mullen.

    Collector's edition leatherette tomes, with foil stamp art by Andrew Walter.

    Modular books, with art by Stefan Poag. (The cover art for Advanced Fantasy: Treasures isn't quite finished yet, so no mockup of that one.)

    When, Where, What, How???

    I imagine there may be a lot of questions racing through people's minds right now. We'll be releasing more details over the coming weeks. We don't quite have the launch date for the Kickstarter lined up yet, but it'll be some time in August*. Rest assured, we will blast out updates on this project from the highest towers in all social media platforms!

    Follow us to keep up to date:

    (* we're waiting for the big shipment of Necrotic Gnome stock to arrive with Exalted Funeral in the US before we launch into this next project.)

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    36 comments

    Makes complete sense. Thank you for the fast reply. Really looking forward to this and wishing you a VERY successful kickstarter!

    Anthony

    >Will there be a new DM screen(to purchase) to accompany the new books, which includes the combined information? Or does the most recent DM screen have all the info needed?

    There are no plans currently for an Advanced Fantasy screen.

    The currently available screen has everything you need to run Old-School Essentials (either Classic or Advanced). About 85% of the space on the screen is taken up with core rules and tables for adventuring and combat. The remaining 15% is saving throw and class ability tables for the Classic Fantasy classes.

    As the manufacturer we work with physically can’t print screens any wider than the current one, adding class info for the Advanced Fantasy classes would mean removing half of the core rules and tables from the screen. This isn’t a worthwhile trade-off.

    Gavin Norman

    Will there be a new DM screen(to purchase) to accompany the new books, which includes the combined information? Or does the most recent DM screen have all the info needed?

    Anthony

    YES!!

    B. A. Buckel

    >In the two-book version of the complete collection of classic and advanced fantasy, will the gorgeous art from the previous books be used, or will absolutely all the illustrations be new?

    It varies by book and by section. The Player’s Tome features almost all of the illustrations from the already published books, plus a few new pieces. The Referee’s Books features a mix of old and new art. (The reason for this is that the layout of the monsters and treasures has been completely redone, as the Classic and Advanced Fantasy monsters and treasures are now interleaved.)

    Gavin Norman

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