OSRIC -- The Embiggening

The good folks over at Black Blade have, as many of you will already know, done a massive and luxurious hardcover imprint of OSRIC. They added some art, replacing the old green divider pages with full-page black&white drawings, one of which was supplied by Your's Truly (page 307, for those who are interested). Since dealing with small sums internationally is a huge pain in the arse, I asked Jon Hershberger if he'd be willing to pay me in kind (that is, with lovely shiny RPG material) instead of in Yankeedollah, and he agreed.

Yesterday, the package arrived. It made quite a thump when the courier dumped it unceremoniously on my front porch and took off like an amphetamine-fuelled greyhound out of the starting-blocks.

The packaging was.... thorough. Yes, let's say thorough. Multiple layers of cardboard, bubble-wrap and water-resistant tyvek FedEx envelopes. The OSRIC book itself was encased in no less than FOUR FedEx envelopes! Fortunately I keep sharp knives to hand, or I'd be struggling still to penetrate to the inner layers. Anyway, I got through it and revealed the booty...

The new imprint of OSRIC is a pretty hefty tome. It's about as thick as the AD&D PHB and DMG together, though that's not bad considering that it also includes pretty much all of the 1e Monster Manual as well (minus the critters not covered by the OGL, and including a few others from the FF and MMII).

Here it is, sitting with Monsters of Myth, alongside my 1e and 2e manuals and the D&D Rules Cyclopædia (the other stuff are various of my workbooks and sketchbooks). I keep them on a shelf right by my computer; I don't really know why, as I seldom refer to them while I'm sitting here, but it makes me feel good to have them close to hand where I can gloat over them, my precioussss. Yessssss.

Now I'm really tempted to run an OSRIC/AD&D1e game. I suspect though, that what I'll actually do, is keep playing my hideous bastardized frankenstein S&W/D&D/RC/AD&D1e/2e campaign.

And why not?