#TBT review - Miniature Treasures - The Moldy Unicorn

Title: The Moldy Unicorn
Code: N/A
Author: Nate Treme
Rule Set: Angostic
Year: 2019
Pages: 6
Number of characters: As needed
Levels: N/A
Rating: ★★★★★

If a book has a good cover, I'll probably take a look. If it has that haute 70's look, the smash of day old banana and lime colored paste, I'll do a double take. If it has both of the above, plus the childish, rounded look of a composition notebook, my brain shuts down and the money comes out, no questions asked.

Well, that's what happened with The Moldy Unicorn a few days ago. I purchased one of a few physical copies based on a single image on MeWe.com. And then I forgot about it.

It arrived today.

I opened the envelope and was all disappointed. It was tiny. Really tiny. "I paid money for this?"

Then I opened the booklet. And the frisson hit. Suddenly, I was 8 year old me, standing in Walden Books, smelling nasty carpet chemicals and mall pretzels, looking a copy of the Red Basic D&D rule book. Gary, Dave and Tom whispered, "Go ahead, turn the page."

The thing is six g-ddamn pages, packed with amazing stuff. Pages 1 and 2 describe The Moldy Unicorn with a colorful map. Page 3 lists encounters for the Inn. The next page describes how to design a Demon, with 3 tables, conveniently labeled 1-12 for easy die rolling. The last two pages are a mini dungeon, Grotburk Crypt.

The artwork is excellent. It isn't excellent in the sense of a masterpiece, but the odd, brightly colored outsider art that masters cannot duplicate. The text is tight, it has to be in a volume this small.

While its only 6 pages (8 if you count the covers, the thing that made me **WANT** this 'zine), those pages are highly concentrated. Being so tiny, it is delicate. I already know that I am going to buy a special picture frame for this. I am just moments away from heading to DriveThruRPG and purchasing an electronic copy, to jealously protect the physical copy like mage protects his spell book.

It's been decades since I have been this happy with a purchase. Of course, I've read it cover to cover. But I'm going to do it again tomorrow. And the next day. This is great buy. This is well worth the $6.00 for the physical copy (Sold out, sorry), $10.00 for the PDF.

To put some perspective on the Star Rating above, I review a lot of things. Computer hardware and software, novels, games, historical books, etc. If I'm not going to give something 3 stars, I'm not giving any stars. If you're not going to give at least 3 stars, its like trash talking people. This is the first time I have been compelled to give 5 gold stars, underlined. I've reviewed several of my mom and dad's books. I don't hand out gold stars. It is very rare that I am so enchanted with any product to completely rethink my rating system.

#TBT review - Dunromin University Press' SM00 A Traveller's Atlas of Dunromin and the Land of the Young Review

I just picked up a copy of SM00 A Traveller's Atlas of Dunromin and the Land of the Young and it is my new favorite item.

Title:  SM00 A Traveller's Atlas of Dunromin and the Land of the Young
Author: Dunromin University Press (Simon Miles)
Rule Set: OSRIC
Year: 2018
Pages: 28
Number of Players: N/A
Rating: ★★★★★

This is supposed to be a full color map folio of the Free City of Dunromin, but the work goes so much further. In addition to the beautifully drawn Free City, Mr. Miles killed it with amazing details of the surrounding area, political and physical maps of the Land of the Young, barony maps, maps of the continent and of the world.

The artwork is incredible, a great addition to any old school gaming campaign. Being a set of maps designed for OSRIC, it is generic enough to fit into any fantasy game system.

I just can't get over the art. The cover and some other images are wholly digital, but others look hand drawn. It's a near thing, I can usually tell the difference, but not in this product. Many of the pages are on a graph, but I can't tell if it's pencil on graphpaper, or digital work meant to look old school. There are a few pages where I think I can see blowthrough, like a scanner picked up information from a page behind the scanned page, but I can't be certain it isn't photoshopped to look like that.

I probably won't use this in my campaign, but I am already looking to see which pages I will print and frame. Simply put, it's awesome!

Priced a pay what you want, you can't go wrong with this title. I can't wait to check out the rest of the series.

If you need a Christmas gift and you have a nice printer and paper, this is perfect.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 057 – Feb 26th

We break orbit in the first hour of the day. We have 9 left. Where do I go from here? We are going to make a double jump for Cubro.

On entry, we stumble across a 4 CU status chamber from e103. We pick it up, but have no way to open it now. There is not much on Cubro, so we head for the slums with 4 hours of day light. We run right into a riot in progress. Duke has to make a save vs. cunning or every person and every vehicle will take a point of damage. We succeed in escaping unharmed.

Each roll takes 2 hours and we have 3 hours to spend. The rules say that if you can start before time runs out, you complete that last action, so I can make two rolls. Except I roll a 4, which results in no more rolls.

Sigh.

1 Antelope starship with TL-5 Guns. I owe nothing.
1 TL-1 Ship’s Guns.
1 Hopper with boat guns, TL-3.
2 Boat guns, TL-2.
2 CU Status unit in Cockpit and Engineering, 8 1 CU Status units in Crew Quarters and 1 1 CU unit in Gunnery.
4 CU Status Unit (e103).
10 Fuel Units in the Ship’s Boat.
8 Repair units,
5 Life Support Units in the Ship’s boat.
7 PS-bots, 1 per character,
10 TL-1 military U-suits
6 TL-1 Heavy Hand Weapons for sale, 4 for characters use,
7 Side Arms TL-1, 1 Side Arm TL-3, and one TL-4.
10 TL-4 heavy hand weapons with explosive effects
4 Doses of pheromones (e009) in Duke’s pocket.
and the ship is fueled with 6 hypercharges.

I have 38,731 secs. We are wanted in the Palatek system.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 056 – Feb 25th

Where do I go from here? I have technically won the game as I no longer owe on my ship. If Duke is supposed to break the law, perhaps I could bend the rules for fun.

Sounds like a plan. Let’s break some of the solo rules for Star Smuggler. I’d like a bigger ship, but let’s not go that far. We could do some other things and check for consequences as we go.

Let’s start with where I am. I’m on Imperia, at the spaceport. I didn’t mention this move yesterday, but that is what I had to do to sell the boat guns. It takes 3 rolls to purchase hypercharges. I top up and keep rolling. I have hired a second engineer and another starship gunner. I’ll call them Lucy and David.

That took seven rolls, so I have three hours of daylight. We make for orbit and get three units out.

1 Antelope starship with TL-5 Guns. I owe nothing.
1 TL-1 Ship’s Guns.
1 Hopper with boat guns, TL-3.
2 Boat guns, TL-2.
2 CU Status unit in Cockpit and Engineering, 8 1 CU Status units in Crew Quarters and 1 1 CU unit in Gunnery.
10 Fuel Units in the Ship’s Boat.
8 Repair units,
5 Life Support Units in the Ship’s boat.
7 PS-bots, 1 per character,
10 TL-1 military U-suits
6 TL-1 Heavy Hand Weapons for sale, 4 for characters use,
7 Side Arms TL-1, 1 Side Arm TL-3, and one TL-4.
10 TL-4 heavy hand weapons with explosive effects
4 Doses of pheromones (e009) in Duke’s pocket.
and the ship is fueled with 6 hypercharges.

I have 38,731 secs. We are wanted in the Palatek system.

Dad at Nashcon 2018, with Yanks & Tanks

Here is a video of my Dad showing off his set up for a game at Nashcon 2018. Not only does he build these things, he takes them on the road.




My Dad made a video for his game Yanks & Tanks, which is available at DriveThruRPG. Each click supports him and my website.You can read a review of Yanks & Tanks right here at theseoldgames.com. I haven't had a chance to play, but I hope to do that soon.