The Good

• Evocative and atmospheric
• Random Tables (Dark Secrets table)
• Fun treasure
• Hex Crawl with unique encounters (clowns man)
• Juvenile fun
• Great art The Bad
• Unorganized
• Vengers motif is not for everyone, tongue firmly in cheek

Venger Satanis makes bawdy tongue in cheek adventures and this was the first one I ever bought in hard cover too. Its easy to use but does require a full read or two to find everything.

Google trad : Most definitely THE best campaign to date for me. I am MJ d & d3 / 3.5 30 year old MJ for 23 years. The map is excellent and the groups on each "case" make the world complex and coherent. My readers do not support linear scenarios and the world has explored is beautiful. Adding items from other books on can change places to another campaign for another replayability. Look forward to another open world style campaign.

Original : Très certainement LA meilleure campagne a se jour pour moi. Je suis MJ d&d3/3.5 de 30 ans MJ depuis 23 ans. La carte est excellente et les groupes sur chaque ‘’case’’ rende se monde complexe et cohérent. Mes joueurs ne supporte pas les scénarios linéaire et se monde a exploré est magnifique. En ajoutant des éléments d’autres livres on peut faire changer totalement cet endroit d’une campagne à l’autre permettant une énorme re-jouabilité. Attend avec impatience une autre campagne de style bac-a-sable

"The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence" is a 110 pages hexcrawl by Venger Satanis. Let's begin to notice that this book is more carefully organized than some of his other products. The book describes three islands populated by a mix of primitives, aberrations and remnants of sci-fi; a first part is dedicated to setting rules and the second one gives encounters and scenes for most of the hexes (2 nice maps are provided at the end of the book).

Yes, some contents are "mature", but, as a Continental European, I have no problem with this : our real world is full of ugly ideologies and religions that enslave women while, on these islands, nothing keeps you from having a chivalrous behaviour and set free those female slaves...

As is often the case with VS, many random tables are given to spice up your gaming pleasure. I like the "While they're sleeping" and the "going native" tables. Yes, this book is weird... but that may be the best module I have found for "tropical" adventures, and you are free to adapt it as you like. Just remember, in the real world, Stanley's expedition deep into the Congo, less than 200 years ago. That was no "walk in the park", rolling just random encounters like "Oh ! A monster attacks you!", but unexpected, unknown, gruesome things...

Here, cruelty is counterbalanced by sci-fi and derision, so why not give it a try ?

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This hex-crawl sandbox clocks in at 110 pages, 1 page front cover, 3 pages of editorial, 1 page Index, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 104 massive pages of content, so let's take a look!

This was moved up in my review-queue due to me receiving a print-copy in exchange for a critical and honest review.

Well, before we do, let's make one thing clear (if the cover hasn't already...) - this is declared as "mature content"...though, at least to my European sensibilities, it does not require this declaration. There are literally more butts in just about any music videos and there is no full-frontal nudity or the like herein. While not particularly tame regarding the subject matter, the artworks are pretty tasteful and subdued and, at least to me, this pretty much is PG-13 - I quite literally could rattle off a number of regular modules with themes as grim or even darker, which made me conclude that this one's rating mostly stems from a Kali-esque statue's rendition that shows nipples (gasp) and perhaps the two artworks that do depict the backs/sides of women. shrugs That being said, this is, tone-wise, a pretty irreverent book, so if green-skinned slave girls that may tear you limb from limb offend you, this may not be for you - in this way, the cover is pretty much genius: Offended by the female behind on the cover? Well, then this may not be for you....but before you do judge, please consider reading this review...there's a reason why I review this book...

All right, much like other Kort'thalis Publishing books, we begin this massive sandbox with an array of basically house-rules intended to run with this module. While this book introduces the VSd6-system, which is dead simple - basically, you roll a pool of d6s and take a tally of the numbers, with the highest determining the degree of success/failure and the pool-size depending on the difficulty of the task at hand. The system per se runs fast and pretty decent for this sort of gameplay, though admittedly, after playtesting it, we went for the slightly more refined iteration that would be featured after the release of this book in "Crimson Dragon Slayer". That being said, advice like situational bonuses for properly roleplayed actions and uniqueness of characters retain their validity. On the character-building side of things, the rather cool idea of dark secrets, as pioneered in "Liberation of the Demon Slayer", Kort'thalis Publishing's inspired, but also rather flawed freshman offering, is expanded upon via even darker secrets, which present significant stains on a characters karma and may well represent the very driving forces of the respective PCs. On the narrative side, 20 sample flashbacks and a list of so-called "purple spellcasting" is presented: Basically, this is an add-on to any existing spellcasting system, highlighting the magic-warping effects of the islands portrayed herein - upon spellcasting a d6 is rolled - on a 6, spell-efficiency is enhanced...on a 1 a disastrous failure occurs...and on a 3, something chaotic and odd (think: Purple-themed, icky wild magic...) happens.

Beyond these, quick rules for the instability of dimensional gateways, radioactivity, fighting harder once you're almost down and for time-travel backlash are provided - though I can dispel any groans this topic may have caused on your behalf if you're like me and subscribe to the rather complex notions of the concept à la Primer rather than the more popularized and story-hole-prone renditions in popular media: The theme, while existent, is thankfully relegated to the background.

Beyond a relatively decent, if not perfect monk-class, the book also features a d12 critical hit table as well as quirks for magical swords and their odd egos. Oh, and for those of you who think this monstrous meat-grinder is too easy - what about a brief table of permanent injuries, to be heaped upon poor characters unfortunate enough to drop below 0 Hp? Yep, there is quite a bit of material in this regard in the book... but ultimately, this component will not be the one at the focus of your interest, right?

Rather than that, you want to know about these islands, right? Well, I shall oblige, but in order to do so, I will have to resort to SPOILERS. Potential players are advised to jump to the conclusion or be forever traumatized of anything purple before even adventuring on these 3 cursed rocks...

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All right, only GMs left? Great! So, in this module/sandbox, we return to the world of Razira, grim and deadly as it was depicted in the previous mega-adventure - only this time around, we dive head-first into true sandboxing, with numerous reasons for expeditions to the 3 islands being part of the set-up - and on it, the whole thing becomes pretty much player-driven. However, the GM actually receives some rather interesting tools - like micro-tribe-relations-generators to determine tribal relationships between e.g. the cyber-sorcerors and the beast-men. Cyber-sorcerors? Well, yes. This is pretty much science-fantasy at its finest, sporting numerous crash-landed alien-ships, strange interplanar travelers, slavers from galaxies far, far away...there are a number of such encounters to be found alongside radioactive material that has mutated local flora horribly (not that this would seem too much out of place here...)...there is a lot to work with.

Now if you're a purist, you may pretty much easily reskin these components or further emphasize them - a practice you can similarly extend to encounters where a dimensionally stranded adult movie actress is looking for fabled Alpha Blue (Kort'thalis' most recent supplement!) or to the credit cards that can be found upon other unfortunate souls stranded here. Unfortunate? Well, beyond the warring tribes and diverging technology-levels, there obviously are multiple factions vying for control over the islands, seeking to decipher the true purpose of the black monoliths that dot the landmasses? Beyond the character's individual story-seeds and suggested metaplots and elements, there are other components that can drive day to day adventuring here - for example the disturbing random events in the night table...or the encounters themselves: When highly lethal and completely bonkers purple harlequin assassins start targeting your PCs, you know you're in for a treat that is pretty much bonkers...and who wouldn't consider undead dinosaurs awesome? Basically, you can picture this as a sandbox defined by what just about anything rock/metal-related you'd consider awesome - but it's not that simple.

The key defining feature that unifies the whole atoll and makes the mega-adventure's seemingly disparate elements come together would be, obviously, the eponymous purple putrescence: This thing, the Thing That Rots From the Sky, is basically a Great Old One-level deity, potentially all-consuming and awful, with godlike powers - and its secretions, mutating purple rains and mists, generate a climate that suddenly makes flying ape-men with tentacles and the like seem...plausible. The same goes for the various disparate tribes and factions detailed herein, all of which, in some way, can draw upon hooks that tie in with meta-plot components strewn throughout this book..though, as usual for such free-form sandboxes, it remains ultimately up to the PCs how they play this glorious monster...and speaking of "playing" and " monster" - yes, there are actually rules for initiation into some nasty cults herein.

The book also contains numerous new spells and magic items, which btw. are more precise in their effects in direct comparison to Liberation of the Demon Slayer. The book closes with two lavishly-drawn maps of the islands, one of which is in full-color in the pdf.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are very good - I noticed no significant errors. Layout adheres to a printer-friendly 2-column b/w-.standard and the interior artwork is unanimously of a very high caliber that captures well the eldritch atmosphere of this islands. The pdf, alas, does not have any bookmarks, which renders navigation pretty much a colossal pain - I'd strongly suggest getting this in print. The print copy is inexpensive for its page-count and very much production-values wise a great deal. The maps are awesome, though travel-directions and similar comfort-notes are not included - much like in the modules of old, the GM has to work with this mega-adventure a bit before running it - though I do not hold that against the book.

So, I'll just say it: This book hits all the right notes for me. Lovecraftiana? Check. Gonzo elements? Check. Sword & Sorcery flair? Check. Brutal difficulty (your players can't just die - they can blow up the world!)? Check. This is Venger As'Nas Satanis' second book and the increase in quality of "Liberation of the Demon Slayer" is vast - the wording s more concise, the bonkers ideas are more pronounced - where LotDS was pretty much geared towards highly lethal dark fantasy, this book's genius lies in its variety: You could, obviously, run this as an exceedingly dark, brutal and savage module; you could emphasize the gritty, but still heroic components. You could emphasize the strangeness of the place and basically have the PCs tackle this like Redshirts exploring a planet...or you could blend all of them. While heavy metal aesthetics unquestioningly inform the overall base-line and theme of this sandbox, whether you prefer Death Metal or Classic Metal, whether you want a bloody, brutal experience or rather a gonzo, odd one - the emphasis and control lie with the GM. The brilliance of this module lies in the constant skirting of the darkly humorous and potentially completely disturbing, allowing GMs to set their own individual tones, to properly and truly own this massive sandbox.

In my first iteration of this review, I went into more detail regarding the individual encounters and the like, but I decided against retaining this version of the review, since the reading experience of this book is what actually makes the sum of its parts come together like some hideously-tentacled eldritch clockwork. The brilliance of this adventure lies in the fact that it should be an unmitigated mess of tones and concepts and manages to instead blend everything together in a thoroughly unique playing experience instead, one that works best if seen as a whole and not as the sum of its parts.

One note for inexperienced GMs - dungeon-wise and settlement-wise, there is, as with all hex-crawls, a need and requirement to do some work of your own (due to the sheer scope covered)- but if this wonderfully deranged and fun beast doesn't do the job of getting your creative juices flowing, I don't know what will. This is pretty much everything that makes the excited boy within this cynical reviewer jump around with excitement and squee and the book runs just as well as it reads...and if you truly need some material to scavenge, there's a lot out there...feel free to drop me a line if you're looking for some ideas to further enhance this magnificent sandbox.

My final verdict will clock in with a heart-felt, fist-pumping 5 stars + seal of approval for the print version -for the pdf, detract 1 star for the missing bookmarks.

Endzeitgeist out.

The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence Described as weird fantasy/sci-fi/gonzo, I also wondered if it was a subtle jab at "The Big Purple". Let's start of with the easy stuff. Yeah, some people are likely to get offended by this adventure. That's not a bug, but a feature, as we say. Typically anything done either to purely offend or go out of it's way to push an agenda is going to suck. I get the feeling here that this is the sort of game he plays all the time. The art is still more "Heavy Metal" than it is "Hustler" and there is a solid 80s vibe to reading it all. Please keep in mind this aesthetic when reading; it is a guiding principle that fits the art and the game design. I think in someone else's hand it would have come off as crass or even as complete shit, but VS owns this. There is an honesty here that can be respected.

This book is a campaign book/hexcrawl/sandbox. The PDF is 110 pages and packed. It would make for a gorgeous looking book and it would sit nicely on my shelf with my other books circa 1983.

VSd6: This is a new mechanic introduced for skill checks/ability checks. He mentioned it has been influenced by 100s of other d6 based mechanics and you can see that here. It is an interesting system and provides some nice dramatic elements to the game, but not something I am planning on using myself.

Darker Secrets: This book also brings over the "Dark Secrets" idea/tables from Demon Slayer. So in some respects you can use this book as a means to "beef up" the Demon Slayer adventure, although you don't really need too. Though adding in the changes to magic that this book does might be fun.

The Monk: This campaign guide also features a Monk class. It is not too far from the AD&D1 standard, though not as much detail is given.

We get into the islands proper and are given some background; 20,000 years of background to be precise, but only in a couple of pages. The interesting bits happened in the more recent past including turning the "Purple Islands" into a penal colony. Yeah, no jabs here at all...

There is a lot going on with these islands and the worship of the Great Old ones is just a small part of it. The wording of the monsters, settings and even location is basic or even vague enough to allow you to put this anywhere. It feels kitchen-sinky enough to fit into places like Mystara (which has a little bit of everything anyway) but focused enough to give you hints that is part of a much larger world. Though I do like the appearance of the Shiny Demon and a preview of "Alpha Blue".

There are pop-culture references galore here, and it is very obvious that VS pulled out every bit of fantasy, sci-fi, euro-sleaze horror and 70s metal he had at his disposal and threw it into a blender with plenty of purple dye. It could have turned out to be a horrible mess, but it doesn't. Instead we get a ton of options spread over three islands.

I have to point out, don't play this as a single adventure. The purpose here really is not to clean out the island, but to explore it. It's a great place to strand some PCs after an ocean-going adventure.

At the end of the book we are given new spells and new magic items.

In the Afterword VS mentions that this product should not be used in isolation. I agree, again I think that this would make for a great semi-tropical island in Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. The mythos are similar enough, or at least enough to fit together. The only thing that would make it more perfect is if this book could be printed in 7.0" x 8.5" format to fit in my AS&SH box.

Not sure where or how I want to use this yet, but I know I really want to.

The challenges while formidable are not impossible – and remain that challenges – much like White Plume Mountain – presents quirky elements for the players to dissect. So, too, does the Purple Islands, it is the grounds for a mini-campaign or DCC RPG-type struggle – for there is no reasonable way to defeat the dungeon in one sitting. There are times that the adventure is straight out of Monty Python rather than Monty Haul, and other times, it is deadly serious. The author apologies in advance not having every locale and encounter mapped out. However, I do not find this to be a weakness, first, it is the fallacy of computer gaming that every encounter has to be mapped out. It is this very sandbox feel that marvellously captures the Old School movement.

Great stuff! But... I bought 3 of your adventures in PDF I always buy in PDF to avoid international shipping costs and time. I like to laser print what I'm really going to play only. PDFs are print protected...

The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence

Let's get right down to it, with the cover art. That behind has been bothering me for months! Where on Earth have I seen that behind? And then it suddenly came to me. That behind belongs to one of the Taarna fighters whose landed on the time haunted isle. But my feeling is that this Venger's homage and love letter to the Heavy Metal movie from 1981. And that's really one of the things that this module is all about. I suspect that the author Venger Satanis is about right around the same age as I. Which means he grew up with all of the same nerd and pop culture influences. This is a huge hex crawl that takes place on a set of islands lost to the dimensional winds that's haunted by a malevolent ever present purple cloud monster and the black sand beaches of this mini campaign. Venger has infused this place not as simply an adventure which it is but an entire mini hex crawl campaign. 'The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescene' has charts and lots of them for every sort of background and encounter that links back to the islands. This is the sort of adventure that could take years and years to play, there are alien races,crashed space craft, high weirdness, random mutation, and much more. This is done with the sort of stylish humor and old school weirdness that we've come to expect. There are really two parts to the module, one is a straight up balls to the walls hex crawl of incredible potency, and the other part is an OSR tool kit that brings forth the Satanis formula of PC infusion with purple laced madness. There's a new PC class called the monk and more. The artwork is fantastic for a gonzo module but that's because that's exactly what it is but don't let it fool you. This is a slight of hand trick on the author/designer's part,he's created a gonzo module but with some really nice even quality that emulates products that never existed. There are over forty pages of house rules, tweaks for connecting PC's to the Islands to sword personality roll charts, and much,much, more. Note that the maps are really nice and completely fit the tone of the adventure.I've been a huge fan of Faustie and Zarono for years now and they're used to comeplete effect in this adventure. Every square inch of tenticle rending artwork is simply perfect for setting the tone of this adventure. This is an island out to play merry havoc with the PC's. And there are a ton of backhanded and well done pop-culture references and more.This entire set of islands is like having your campaign in the second Fallout video game on the special encounters mode. There are going to all kinds of weird and deadly encounters cropping up again and again. Some beneficial and some deadly. And this set of islands is out to get your characters,in fact the islands reward your PC's for putting their needs first. There's plenty of NPC's that will push your PC's to their limits and beyond. This is a hex crawl that your never know what is going to come up in the next hex,and this fits exactly where this module's strength is. 'The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescene' can be used as an entire mini campaign. There are dimensional gates being opened all the time by sorcerers,mad scientists, and a ton of other NPC factions across the islands. There are a ton of weird locations,mini dungeons,downed space craft, dimensional gateways, and much more. Used correctly and this adventure could be used as a side campaign for a very long time to come. I love,love, this module and I think its one of the best things to come down the pike for a while. I hardly give a five out of five but this adventure deserves it!

In the sea of supplements, modules, campaign settings, and other old-school role-playing products available to the discerning reader, it can be hard to know exactly where to steer your ship. And by ship I mean your gaming time and hard-earned cash. You could do far worse than to steer your ship to the Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence, and here is why:

It is an incredibly detailed and intensely personal "road map" to running games in a trio of cursed islands populated with all manner of interesting things for players to become entangled in. Perhaps they shall meet a veteran of the Psychic Wars? Or put an end to the Spawn of the Slug-Beast? Maybe they will best the Giant Super-Computer or enter a spell duel with a Cyber-Sorcerer? The possibilities are limitless, with over one hundred hex's worth of adventure presented with various levels of detail. These entries range from well-mapped and stocked dungeons to detailed encounters on down to vague location descriptions, with much variety in between.

The book also includes a large amount of tables, house rules, and other resources that cover nearly everything from character background generation, magic swords, enchanted crystals, and many other fun ideas. These rules and ideas are written in an intuitive and conversational style that harkens back to the old White Wolf books, which this reviewer feels places this book in good company. Although only tested with DCC RPG, these rules, items, and tables could be used to drop nearly any group of eager adventurers into the madness that is the Purple Isles regardless of which rules system they favor. In fact, this book makes a good campaign world for the fledgling DCC Judge, presenting a world map for you to set each of the different modules you run, with all kinds of take it or leave it house rule goodness to keep your campaign weird, wild, and cranked up to 11!

This is an RPG campaign setting of about 110 pages with lots black and white illustrations (nearly one illustration per page, some full-page) and has roughly 20 lists and tables of various types used for character building, encounters, rumors and other rich setting material. There are 2 maps: a full color one and a black and white, numbered hex version for the GM. Also there are nearly 30 magic items, over a dozen new spells and about 120 different map encounters.

This book is, in essence, a sandbox setting, but there is much more to it. About half of the book is composed of notes, tips and additional rules to make the whole experience more immersive and unique for both the GM and for players.

There’s simply lots of material in this product:

Game master notes and advice

The Foreword paints a sympathetic portrait of the author’s mindset, expressing a view of the RPG hobby as a form of escapism from the traditional expectations of storytelling as well as from daily monotony. The tone starts off as light-hearted and conversational; the author sounds friendly and considerate.

The Introduction includes some short but good advice on how to manage the players’ expectations. There is a suggestion for GMs wanting to maintain the decent level of strangeness of the setting by striving to keep some baseline of realism. I believe that this is good advice in any campaign: if everything is always weird, fantastic, horrific or grim all of the time, then none of it is. An occasional dose of “mundane” reality in a game world helps to contrast other extremes. Good advice so far.

After there are descriptions of positive gaming techniques that can be used by both GMs and players. I’ve encountered similar advice in other books and gaming blogs under the moniker of “Yes, and…”. The author also emphasizes collaborative exchanges between GMs and players. I was pleasantly surprised to find this in an OSR product.

Altogether I was pleased by the author’s tips and tricks to bridge the gap between perceived new and old school gaming styles. This was pretty refreshing to me because I feel that gaming styles don’t have to be broken up into walled up factions or schools: there’s more overlap than we’d like to believe and that gamers are much more complex than we give them credit for. But I digress…

Alternate Rules

Within the campaign notes is a very nifty d6-based task resolution system called VSD6. This system could be applied to many different games (especially OSR ones without formal skill lists). I found it familiar with Apocalypse World-based systems: it includes the possibility of varying degrees of success and failure (of which I’m a fan of). The basic version is tidy and simple: if you’re familiar with similar concepts, like the ones in games like Dungeon World, then you’ll get it right away. Then the author provides an advanced version of the rules if the GM wishes to fully embrace it. Good stuff in here and very modular: however, be warned that I’m not very good at math, so I may have missed any issues with probability. I “feels” like a good and workable system and that is good enough for me.

Also included are some extra rules for things like combat and travel to better reinforce some of the core thematic elements of the setting.

Playtest Notes

Since this book claims that it is compatible “with virtually every fantasy paper & pencil tabletop roleplaying game”, I decided to use the latest (5th) edition of Dungeons and Dragons. There were two reasons for this: I find that it is just enough of a rules-light system that grants enough freedom to make rulings on the fly (which is suitable to OSR style games) and because it is the latest game that I had sold onto my players.

The drawback was that we’d miss out on a few features, such as the VSD6 system mentioned earlier, but I fully integrated the varying degrees of success of this mechanic into D&D’s Ability Checks. Since the many tools for character building and for generating encounters are rather system-agnostic, we didn’t have any issues. So I agree with the claim that this is a very system-agnostic or at least flexible module: your group could easily use this with your preferred OSR, D&D or D20 game of choice.

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Character Building and Hooks

This book contains several lists of character-defining hooks and traits that can help to integrate player characters into the setting. I believe that this type of extra detail is hugely beneficial as it gets players more invested or interested in the game’s mood. Most of these list items consistently promote the weird, the mysterious, the fantastic and the horrifying. One could end up with a really twisted PC with a troubled past and/or very dark alterior motives.

The Darker Secrets section has a list that is meant to be used during character creation: specifically while rolling attribute scores. Basically, if a player requests a re-roll they roll on this list to gain a dark secret or character flaw. If you’re doing it the old fashioned way (3d6, in order), odds are that you’ll roll at least once or twice. These interesting traits are almost all sinister, horrifying or twisted background elements that could completely define a character. Some of them remind me of the weird, crazy stuff found in modules for Lamentations of the Flame Princess.

In the wrong person’s hands, these traits could be extremely disruptive without GM supervision or group buy-in. I know my players’ tastes and limits very well, but if I was playing with strangers, I might omit one or two of these items as they could rub some people the wrong way.

There are also some cool background flashbacks and a list of possible rumors that each character can know about the Islands (some false, some true). I felt that these were thoughtful and considerate additions. I appreciated all of this extra character-driven fluff: it’s one thing to present a hexcrawl, but to go an extra mile to provide motivations and goals to interact with the sandbox is very good design.

There’s a new Monk class included as a character option. I first I assumed that this was another version of the D&D trope of the Kung-Fu warrior (I first encountered the “Monk” with 3rd edition), but I was mistaken. This is an intriguing take on the concept of a sort-of Cleric mixed with traits of a cultist. Again, very appropriate to the setting.

Playtest Notes

When we did this section, I allowed players to re-roll their background traits and flashbacks if they were not happy or seemed uncomfortable with their results. Surprisingly, nearly all of my friends were cool with their results, although afterward I read out a few of the more disturbing ones to hear what they thought: some agreed that they didn’t really feel like dealing with the subject matter of one or two of the darker options. My instincts were correct upon initial review: if you don’t know your players, you may want to spend a bit of time reviewing these lists before using them. But otherwise they liked what they came up with: it all really helped to set the tone and they liked the pre-game character hooks. Some players really got into it, adding more fluff to the setting. It was rather awesome.

Most of my players were already familiar with the concept of setting tie-in hooks during character creation. They bought into it very positively. I had introduced it back in the day with Dungeon World and have been using that feature ever since. I still appreciated the fact that this module had these traits included because it saved me some work. It was a welcome feature and I wish that more pre-written adventures did the same.

Setting Features

This book also contains plenty of material to emphasize the setting’s mood and lore. These options are consistently imaginative, horrifying, disturbing and weird. A word of warning: some of these events could end the game rather quickly, so the GM better be familiar with these lists before the campaign starts.

There’s a brief, high-level chronological history of the Islands as well as ways to generate their “wants”: it appears that the Islands themselves have some kind of sentience. Players can be rewarded for behaving in certain ways if they match up with the “personality” of the setting itself. Really cool and creepy: it reminds me of Ravenloft.

There’s a random list/table that makes spell-casting crazy and unpredictable, reminding me of the Wild Magic table for the Sorcerer in D&D 5e and of the Psychic Backlash tables in Dark Heresy (which were always good for a chuckle and/or a groan).

The rest of this section covers more atmospheric and thematic elements of the Islands. There are expanded rules for making Magical Swords unique and cool (definitely a re-usable resource for a GM), as well as a short table reminiscent of the critical injury charts from Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. There’s also lists of stuff that happens while the characters sleep, different and occasionally disturbing forms of island currency, dangerous alien weather and a few different explanations for the titular Purple Putrescence, one of which is a huge twist that was quite the surprise to me. The author suggests that this one in particular is purely optional, but I’m very much eager to use it. I’m very certain that it is an homage to something from film or t.v.,, but I can’t quite place it…

There’s some stuff about various Crystals that may be found: each type (or color) has various features and utilities. Many of them have weird or nasty side-effects such as attribute draining. I thought that these were neat but I can see some players not wanting to use them after their stats start dropping. The author includes some brief advice on how to incorporate these items to better suit the style of your campaign. Good stuff.

There’s a section covering the main factions of people living on the island, as well as tables to randomly generate NPC encounters. What I liked about this section is how each group of villagers that the characters encounter can differ greatly from each other depending on recent events, their relationship with other settlements and even their attitudes toward the PCs. So while each faction may have universal traits they are not monolithic in their behaviors and values (a trope that I’m bored to death with in traditional fantasy and sci-fi media). Kudos to the author for this. Those of my readers who are familiar with the books by Sine Nomine (ex Stars Without Number) will feel a familiarity with this section as a useful, quick tool to create NPCs and settlements.

Each faction (race) is pretty unique and interesting in terms of goals and motivations, although superficially most of them could appear as robed cultists to the players (with two obvious exceptions). But I’m always glad to get away from the usual token Tolkien-isms, though.

Finally there’s a Wandering Monster table full of surprises and unconventional beasties. There are some brief stat-blocks, but the main descriptors were sufficiently imaginative and useful. This table looks very easy to use with any d20 or OSR system.

The author notes that all of this material is optional. One could pick and choose which parts to use to better suit their own gaming style. While I’ve seen some of these ideas here and there in other RPGs, it is very handy to have them all in one place along with the campaign.

Regardless of how much you’d use I believe that all of these colorful options will make any campaign set on the Islands feel unique and memorable. This isn’t just a sandbox setting with things to find, fight and loot, it’s an experience. All of it embraces the weird and fantastic.

Playtest Notes

When I informed my players of the existence of the critical hit charts, the ones who’d played WFRP cheered and grimaced at the same time, which was awesome. We only had one magic backlash occur and it was just bizarre and kind of hilarious (my players were also kind of relieved: in other games that sort of thing usually meant that someone’s face melted off or that a demon popped into reality).

I included a few crystals, but the players became hesitant to use them after they started to lose Constitution and another one got a gruesome skin fungus. I was a bit saddened by that turn of events because I love the crazy devil’s bargain that these items offer.

I decided to have fun with the party and had them encounter a settlement of Snake-men but gave them a troubled condition that made them almost sympathetic. All of that got derailed when the players started telling “snake-talk” jokes (how many s-words can you string together at once for laughs?). They got so carried away with this that I asked them if one of their characters actually said those things. The player nodded with a smirk and so the Snake-men instantly became indignant and tried to capture them as slaves. I was hoping that they’d make unconventional allies but oh well; better luck next time with the ape-men (or not…).

As for the other factions, the players were just skeptical of all these “cultists”, never sure if their intentions were good or ill. Using the faction tables really shuffled my expectations on how the players perceived most NPCs. The weirdness of the setting put everyone on edge a little. After all, a robed cultist usually means “bad things will happen”. One player decided to feign devotion to whichever cause the NPC followed- one time to awkward results when the seemingly benign, white robed missionaries turned out to be planning a genocide of their neighbours. The character’s attempts to graciously back down from participating were pretty hilarious. The last game ended with some tension between the party and those people.

Combined with everything else in the setting, the Wandering Monster table was fun and easy to use with D&D 5e. I had no trouble incorporating whatever the dice created, although it helps that the mood and theme of the Islands is pretty wacky and bizarre. Just about anything goes, to be honest and nothing felt out of place.

Hex map encounters

Things get very interesting in this setting. Up to this point, I was expecting standard weird fantasy but I forgot that this often includes a heavy dose of science fiction. There are encounters with advanced technology, space ships and beings from other worlds or dimensions (unrelated to magical planes). Again, this makes sense because Lovecraftian tropes often include alien futurism intermixed with the arcane. Still, I wasn’t expecting that at all prior to reading the hex descriptions.

There are lots of interesting encounters here. Not all trigger combat: there are lots of things to explore and discover that don’t include any immediate peril or conflict. There are also lots of NPCs and creatures that aren’t hostile by default, but may be depending on the party’s motives and behavior. Some locations have more than one encounter in them, depending on distance, population density or if the party decides to explore some mini-dungeons.

There are plenty of pop culture and cult film references, sometimes quite anachronistic or bizarre. Some are really obvious, others clever enough to be missed by more casual fans of certain media. Possibly my favorite was [SPOILER] Amazing Larry, a nod to one of my favorite Tim Burton movies, Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure. If you’re a person who can catch this reference, I consider you to be a soul mate.

The monster stats were usable right out of the book with the game system we were using (D&D 5th edition), and seemed to be easily compatible with typical OSR games (Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess). The stat blocks are brief and self-contained unless they’re magic users in which case the GM will have to reference their spell list of choice. It’s all easily adaptable.

That all said, there are some nasty, deadly encounters too. Some of which are Save or Die with very little advanced warning. Old School GMs will probably like these “Gotcha!” traps. They’re not my style, but again, the exact mechanics were easily altered without changing the encounter too much (I used D&D 5e’s Death Save mechanics which at least give the party a chance).

A couple of the encounters had subject matter that might not be a good fit with certain groups of players. Frazetta-inspired damsels in distress, plenty of slave girls and scenes out of horror/sci-fi movies and comics with sexualized peril. Luckily none of those details are hugely integral to each encounter and a GM could easily change or omit them. Basically, even if a reader actively dislikes to include those things, they could remove them without too much effort and still get a lot out of this material.

Strangely, some of the most interesting entries are the briefest and most vague. There are several hex locations which are basically just “water” or “crashed spaceship”. I felt that it was a bit of wasted opportunity: the book could’ve included a handful of encounter and location generators for these places. I may write up some and share them on my blog at some point.

While not as chaotic and disjointed as other sandbox offerings I’ve read, I did feel that some of these encounters were a little too “random”. While they were all consistent in terms of mood, the overall setting became almost surrealist. It was like feverish crazy dream world. While that is fine in itself, I strongly recommend using all of the setting material and character hooks in the rest of the book (especially the “Fun things to do” Scenario Seeds table) to give some structure or “meaning” to everything.

Playtest Notes

Knowing my players, I changed a few NPCs by simply using the books’ NPC Faction generating lists and tables. So instead of a “voluptuous, red-haired maiden” for one encounter, I rolled up an ape-like Koshi, one of the natives. The tables dictated that he was an escaped prisoner from his tribe (and I grabbed the option that he was royalty). Instantly, I had created a really cool and interesting NPC ally for the party. The players gave him a name and everything: one wanted to call him George and the other Jenkins. It was pretty awesome.

Notes on the art and Design

The Artwork is pretty good but varies in technical skill. Overall the art matches the established themes of the product: weird fantasy horror with touches of sword and sorcery and Lovecraftian overtones. The quality seems to be standard with other OSR materials that I’ve encountered: the best work is on the cover and on the occasional full-page illustration, while the rest is decent and only occasionally kind of amateurish. I liked it, having a fondness for hand-drawn black and white artwork lately, which may be partially due to nostalgia. While digital art can be beautiful I feel that it lacks a certain warmth, so I appreciated the art style of this book.

I can see that some readers would find some of the illustrations problematic. The cover is obvious cheesecake, as are some of the other works by the same artist (Faustie). The vast majority of the artwork inside doesn’t share that tone. However I’m guessing that a person who doesn’t like that style of art in their RPG products won’t likely look into this book after seeing the cover.

Playtest Notes

I showed my players the cover image. The reactions: laughter, a few eye rolls and a few acknowledgments of Heavy Metal magazine. I communicated to them what the campaign style was (I believe my exact terms included “kind of old school gonzo fantasy horror”), so they were not wholly surprised. Still, two of my friends were not crazy about it, but that didn’t stop them from giving the campaign a try.

Other Notes

The Fiction is well written and relevant, adding some context, mystique and lore to the setting. Typically my eyes glaze over when I encounter fiction in RPG books and so I usually skip it all. However my intrigue about this weird setting, and my enthusiasm from what I’d read so far, got me invested in reading it.

The first entry that I read began as standard fantasy fare, name-dropping a lot of familiar tropes but gradually becoming a bit more interesting. At one point it tapped right into good old sword and sorcery style, harkening to Howard and Burroughs and so my attention was kept. There’s some neat stuff going on in the Islands… The Fiction drops a few hints at what is to come.

One complaint that I have is that the first half (the non-hex descriptions) felt a bit disorganized. I would have liked some traditional section headings or chapters to group similar material together. For example, the section on the crystals is separated from a very useful bit on how to adapt their use in different campaign types. I’m not sure why these sections were separated. Similarly, all of the background info and character hooks are here and there: I would’ve liked them all in one chapter, in one place. As one reads this material, though, it all made “sense” because each topic flowed into the next. But during character creation I had to do some page flipping back and forth and I don’t like to do that.

Summary

I was very impressed by this product: it was far more than I originally envisioned. There’s plenty of material in this campaign that can make each visit to the Islands very different and unique. A GM can get a lot of re-use of this material. There’s lots of good advice and optional rules that can be used outside of this specific campaign, so that’s a big bonus.

That being said, the “weird fantasy” genre isn’t for everyone. While there’s plenty of comedic and tongue-in-cheek humor, there are some darker elements and some cheesecake that might not be appropriate for some. The cover art might be some hint to this to any potential buyers. But if one can look past that, there’s plenty of cool material in there that I could see as being useful even if you never run the campaign as-is and just use the goldmine of idea generators.

The cover is off-putting, and since many of the games I run involve after-school programs or young kids, I wouldn't feel comfortable waving those cover-cheeks around the table.

But will I use the content in my games? YES!

This is an excellent resource for DMs, and if it was just the hexcrawl (full of weird beasties and bizarre situations and strange time-tossed artifacts), it would be worth the price. But we get more than just the hexcrawl, with an OSR monk character class, a VSd6 resolution system, dark secrets (darker, actually), and a super-cool chaotic magic die roll and table that I will absolutely try out to create some uncertainty and danger and wonder with the spell casters.

And more!

I won't use everything in this book, but I will use a lot of it, and I plan to add some of the locations and encounters into an AS&SH game I'm running right now. I hope my players don't read this review. I don't want them to worry about tripping over that ancient Commodore 64 while running from the tentacled-ape men or cyber-sorcerers.

Full disclosure time: Venger Satanis asked me to review The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence and gave me a complimentary copy to do so.

So, what did I think? Short answer: WOW! Long answer: There is a LOT of gonzo Old School goodness in these 110 pages.

I do feel that it should be mentioned right away that the "Caution: Mature Content" warning on the cover is justified. There is a fair amount of sexual content, female slaves as a type of currency, dark twisted concepts, and possibly disturbing art. I mention this not to dissuade anyone but to alert possible purchasers that it might not be acceptable for children or the easily offended.

The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence begins with 40+ pages of optional house rules compatible with most OSR games, a new monk class, setting specific rules, tons of useful random tables, and a boatload of background for the islands interspersed amongst all of the above. I would say this part of the book is pleasantly unorganized and very much reminiscent of RPG supplements written in the 70’s and 80’s. You may need to flip around a bit to find the table or section you are looking for but it is not too difficult. I really enjoyed traversing through this section as it felt like you never knew what the next pages would hold.

Starting on Page 44 is the individual hex content listings. These continue until page 95. The best way I can describe this section is that the previous 40 pages were Alice chasing after the Rabbit and now she has jumped down the hole into Wonderland, as written by Robert E. Howard on month long acid trip. It is a random assortment of SciFi and fantasy, depraved cult activity, the familiar and the strange. Then it just gets WEIRD.

The last pages are dedicated to new setting specific spells and magic items befitting the insanity already displayed in the setting.

Honestly I am not sure a grouping of paragraphs containing words can describe what takes place on this Island. If the byline “An old school weird science-fantasy campaign setting and wilderness hex-crawl” written on the cover caught your interest at all, do yourself a favor and pick this up.

Expedition to the Barrier Peaks meets Stewart Gordon’s From Beyond. A gonzo fantasy wilderness hexcrawl/campaign setting with sentient islands, giant tentacles, crashed spaceships, alien parasites and elder gods.

Make no mistake, this is a mature setting (not sure how one could think otherwise, but then people never cease to disappoint me). Taking elements from both weird fiction and 70’s/80’s exploitation movies and mixing them together with Gygaxian fantasy results in a product that is crazy, unpredictable and (most of all) fun, without shying away from the grimy, disgusting and depraved. In a sense, the cover is a good litmus test. If that image turns you off for whatever reason, you may not like what lurks beneath.

The book also contains an extensive set of tools for tweaking this and other adventures, from dice pool mechanics to a sword personality roll-chart, the book is littered with extras and casual references to pop culture (I giggled when I saw the nod to the old D&D cartoon).

The art also begs mentioning, especially the pieces from Faustie and Zarono - they bring the world to life, but are used just often enough. The works from Zarono would even work well as handouts (with the appropriate tie-ins from the GM); the cryptic symbols and horrifying illustrations seem ripe for player speculation and/or foreshadowing.

Satanis’s conversant tone and casual approach to describing the hows and whys of his world to curious GMs is refreshingly straightforward. He is speaking directly to the GM, not just bloviating with loaded backstory and “might as well just read all this aloud since I’ll never remember it” walls of prose. He never talks down or preaches, merely lays out the facts and makes some helpful suggestions on how to keep things moving.

This book doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s written for those groups willing to keep an open mind and embrace a wild ride in a crazy world; for them, there is more than enough content and thrills to keep them playing for some time. Well worth the asking price.

When i first saw this i thought was going to be like Liberation of the Demon Slayer. I was thinking I could fit in my planet Psychon game or with Anomalous Subsurface environment. The libation book would in with those two products fine. This new one goes somewhere quite different and altogether stranger.

I saw the map of The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence first and was surprised and charmed. Crashed space craft everywhere. Mysterious things. It satisfied my Clark Ashton Smith sense of weird and suggested science fantasy and mythos and more. Even a bit of star trek. In fact it would be a nice holiday for adventurers from Carcosa.

It had some things in common with previous work. A section of local rule mods. Some which are quite good and a bit more deadly. Others lend to the 70s occult fantasy genre. One rule a bit macho for me but has its place in lots of 70s fantasy and amused me even if not all of those literary antecedents did. Are interesting and a few inspire some stuff for my game.

The background tables are truly awesome and awful. A few will outrage some players. I like that the island has own rule mods from local chaos. I like idea of localised rule mods. Dr Strange would be more at home here than Merlin. Some possibilities on tables are world breaking and a challenge to DM. The setting is weird enough your cop out world fixes will seem plausible here. Characters with magic face awful risk to themselves and the world.

Gods, elder religion and more details of setting are really interesting. Some might gasp at some elements of this content so you should probably look away. Some nice art too. Some professional. Others have weird naive intensity of 70s zines and retro weird fiction. It is all lurid and enthusiastic. Nice maps by Dyson. An all round good product. Refreshingly adult and occasionally a bit nasty. Good to see campaign detail like this and rule mods to suggest local genre flavour. Everyone could learn from this.

The Adventures are taking longer to digest and I will keep reading in detail. The hexcrawl is marvelous. First book Ive got in a while I really wanted to run. Very satisfying product and glad to see success of kickstarter. It would be exiting to see a adventurer party from a nice DnD setting wind up stranded on the purple Islands.

One of my favorite things www.drivethrurpg.com the last two years (need your adult setting on log-in).

May Enki murder those in they're sleep who defile this wonderful book