SM2 Dullahan for OSR

DULLAHAN FOR OSR

A Seasonal Holiday Beastie
Compatible with Most OSR Retro-Clone Systems

Within these pages you will learn of the fearsome fey dullahan.
A headless horseman who stalks the night, searching for victims.
With his cruel whip, sickle and exploding pumpkins, he is quite deadly!
Can your players best this ancient Halloween beastie?

Greetings adventurers and Game Masters!

I am very please to release DULLAHAN FOR OSR. Just in time for Halloween/Samhain, this supplement details the frightening folkloric creature called the  called the DULLAHAN, also known as the headless horseman; and it provides the OSR statistics which I designed to bring it to life in my OSRIC campaign world of Terrans.

Synopsis: Everyone has heard of the headless horseman, made famous by the classic American Colonia-era horror tale “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving. That delightfully spooky tale features a Hessian soldier, decapitated by a cannonball in the American Revolutionary War, who rises again to terrorize the populace of Sleepy Hollow. Cultural luminaries from Mel Blanc (“Bunker Hill Bunny”) to Tim Burton (“Sleepy Hollow”) have retold the tale, and the headless horseman has become a staple baddie in our Halloween celebrations.

But do you know where that headless horseman myth comes from? Allow me to introduce you to the fearsome Dullahan, a faerie creature from Irish mythology. He is like the horseman we know, but much grimmer and creepier, as only Old World folkloric monsters can be (I'm looking at you Krampus)! This supplement contains a full monster listing (a la the Monster Manual) for my version of the Dullahan, which will be compatible with most OSR retroclones.

The OSR version of the Dullahan in this supplement first appeared in the pages of my 2019 holiday one-shot adventure “Headman’s Revenge”, but I also wanted to release the beastie separately, for folks to make use of in their own personal OSR campaigns! The Dullahan I present is easily modified to challenge players of any level by merely adjusting his hit dice and hit points. The book also includes several different illustrations of the beastie, to liven-up your Halloween/Samhain gaming sessions!

PLUS you also get a free copy of my 2022 Starry Knight Press Catalog, which has information on all of my modules and supplements, as well as maps of the known portions of my campaign world of Terrans, and bonus content (new monsters and magic items for OSR/5E) from my published books!

Louis “sirlou” Kahn
Starry Knight Press
October 2019