Adventure Lookup - Intriguing DM Tool

I'm a big sucker for lists and databases, and my recent discovery of Adventure Lookup is squarely in that wheelhouse. It is, in essence, a big list of adventures for the various versions of Dungeons & Dragons - from the Basic set to 5th Edition, with options for Pathfinder, Dungeon Crawl Classics, and various OSR rulesets. But not only is it possible to filter the list by system, but by player level, setting, publisher - even by what treasure is included or what kinds of monsters there are to fight.

Once an adventure is located, most entries will have some kind of indication of where it can currently be obtained - often a direct link to DriveThru or some other host (However, many that were originally from Dungeon magazine just have the issue number, and only a couple include a link to the Internet Archive Dungeon collection). After that, well, it's all up the the DM . . .

Wacky Campaign Concepts: Bookhounds of Freeport!

Art by Everwho

So the other day I was reading the recent-ish Freeport: City of Adventure* from Green Ronin and noticed something interesting. For all that Freeport is a pirate-founded tropical port at the semi-pre-industrial tech level standard to Dungeons & Dragons settings, there's an awful lot of factions gathering secret libraries of information - from the Wizard's Guild, for whom scrolls and spellbooks are key professional accessories, to the orc settlement founded by a half-orc historian, to the secret archives of the local guides/explorers for hire, not to mention the map shops, alchemy labs, and more bookishly inclined temples.

Art by ilacha

This odd juxtaposition got me thinking about Bookhounds of London*, Ken Hite's Trail of Cthulhu* supplement about Depression-era booksellers getting caught up in the Tome of Eldritch Lore trade. While deeply tied to its London setting, the flavor of hardscrabble book scouts and inquiry agents is very strong, and I think there's enough to transfer to Freeport. There are a few points of similarity between the two cities, too - both are cosmopolitan port cities with sharp class divides and deep histories, although London obviously has a much vaster base to draw on. The Cthulhu Mythos, too, is a point of convergence between the two settings, although it's much more subtle in Freeport. Ironically, the non-Earth setting of Freeport means that the standard library of Mythos tomes are not as easily used - however, a crafty GM can turn this to his advantage, Who would, after all, suspect a book with a nice, safe, Elvish-sounding name like Parmofírinesse?

Which all begs the question of what system to use for this game. The Freeport booked linked above is for Pathfinder, although if I was going to run it in a D20 I might use ACKS for the economic emphasis, instead. There is not currently a GUMSHOE variant that would fit really well; however, rumors fly of an in-development game (with the delightful code-name "GUMTHEWS") that is basically a sword-and-sorcery take on the GUMSHOE engine. This sounds like the perfect way to run this game - and I'm apparently not the only one who thinks so:

Playing Bookhounds of Waterdeep using the #gumthews rules. Holy crap, I'm having fun. Conniving, skullduggery and book acquisition!&

— Kevin Kulp (@KevinKulp) April 28, 2018

Even without being able to play a book pirate this sounds like a terrific game - I'll certainly be keeping an eye out for it!

*Drive-thru-RPG Affiliate link. I make money, but not from you.

Yo-ho, Yo-ho . . .

Ah, pirates. In a way, the sword-and-cannon genre is even more appropriate for Dungeons & Dragons-type games than your more traditional fantasies, what with the ready-made adventuring parties/ship crews and the chests of treasure buried under X-shaped palm trees which may or may not be cursed. Long John Silver has, after all, been part of the popular consciousness much longer than Gandalf, and even Conan, you might recall, was a pirate a time or two.

It's no wonder, then that one of the recently-announced 2014 Ennie Award winners is Frog God Games' Razor Coast: Heart of the Razor, an adventure series for their swashbuckling-fantasy mash-up setting.

It's a setting I've been intrigued with for quite some time, and there's no better time dive in, as FGG is giving away the Razor Coast Freebooter's Guide in PDF in celebration of the win (A tip of the tricorn to Peter at Dungeon Fantastic for passing the news along). It;s available for either the Pathfinder or Swords & Wizardry rule-sets - I'm looking at it in the later, but at first glance the setting is cool enough that I'd be interested even if it was only the former.