Raise Your Swords Against the Horselord! Quick Delve 3 Rides Forth, Along with OSE Updates and Third-Party Goodies!

Quick Delve #3: Against the Horselord

Our new adventure by Brad Kerr rides forth! Against the Horselord is the latest in our Quick Delves series, featuring original scenarios designed for tight, focused adventures of 1-2 sessions.

We invite bold adventurers of 5th–7th level to infiltrate the fortress of a ruthless warlord who hoards horses, wealth, and dark secrets at the edge of civilisation. His stronghold teems with danger, opportunity, strangeness, and a unique villain your players will love to hate—can your players outwit its defenders, plunder its riches, and free the borderlands from his iron grip?

OSE 2026 Reference Booklet Available in Print!

The updated Old-School Essentials Reference Booklet is now available in print form. The new printing now includes full Wilderness Encounter tables, as well as minor revisions to reflect the clarified rules in the upcoming OSE 2026 Update. A fantastic new cover illustration by Peter Mullen tops it all off, making it a treat for any RPG bookshelf.

OSE Portrait Screen Inserts

Whichever way you want it, that’s the way you get it! We are now offering portrait-oriented Referee Screen inserts alongside landscape ones. Never be caught off-guard at the table with these beautifully illustrated handy references to the most frequently used OSE rules, such as combat, exploration, saves, equipment, and more!

Gavin Boards the Ship of the Dead

Limithron’s Ship of the Dead podcast invites Necrotic Gnome founder Gavin Norman for a wide-ranging discussion on our current projects and OSR topics in general. Listen for details about the OSE Starter Set, mechanics, sandbox settings, the origins of OSE and Dolmenwood, and much more!

Chinese OSE Crowdfunding

That’s right. Classic fantasy role-playing is going to take over the world! Our Chinese localisation partners have launched a new crowdfunding campaign to bring Old-School Essentials to the Middle Kingdom.

Running until March 24th, back it now to grab the complete OSE ruleset, plus a host of official and third-party adventures, in Mandarin Chinese.

Become an Exalted Funeral Grave Master

Our publishing partners at Exalted Funeral are launching a new program to give exclusive swag to people who run public games for Exalted Funeral-published RPGs (including OSE and Dolmenwood, of course).

The Grave Master program is slated to start at Gen Con 2026. If you'd like to run OSE or Dolmenwood at Indianapolis for this year’s convention, please sign up below:

OSE Month Collaborators: Psychoda Press & Crumbling Keep

This May, OSE Month 2026 unites many of the old-school RPG scene’s most celebrated creators in a demon-fuelled crowdfunding extravaganza, spearheaded by our own Demonic Grimoire. Here are more of the fiendish talents preparing to loose their infernal creations upon the world:

Psychoda Press

Psychoda Press is the publishing vehicle for the genius of Donn Stroud, author of Necrotic Gnome adventure Isle of the Plangent Mage and creator of Ruination Pilgrimage, a medieval horror RPG that draws from the grim darkness of the past for ghoulish delights at the game table. Stroud has also penned spooky third-party supplements for other games, including 25 Apparitions, Spirits, and Hauntings for OSE.

For OSE Month, Donn Stroud is teaming up with artist Tiger Wizard, a.k.a. Andrew Bellury, a self-admitted pretty nice guy whose graphic work spans the worlds of film and TV as well as indie TTRPGs galore.  You can also hear him drop bars as strong as Immovable Rods as part of nerdcore rap outfit Epic Levels.

Together, Donn and Tiger present Abattoir Hymnal as a blood offering. This “disgusting” demonic horror adventure set in the Butchered Realm promises horror, intrigue, and buckets of gruesome gore.

Crumbling Keep

Crumbling Keep is known for innovative ideas in the OSR scene, including the 1-2 person RPG Marching Order and a host of gameable bits and pieces for different systems. We especially liked Mercs and Masters, a deck of cards featuring quirky hirelings for OSE, which we recommend to complement our own Rogue’s Gallery deck!

One of its nifty product lines is Bekir’s Battlers, affordable wooden minis for tabletop skirmishes and encounters. For OSE Month, they’re offering miniatures in this style representing the various horrors detailed in our Demonic Grimoire, allowing you to field fiendish foes with ease.