Tuesday, April 5, 2022

The best adventures from Footprints --- seven free old-school modules!

After going through all 25 issues of the old-school zine Footprints, I am in a good position to say that
a.) it's a treasure trove of gaming materials and a real community effort, and
b.) it has a bunch of GREAT adventure modules.

The modules, I think, don't get enough attention and love, perhaps because they are hidden inside the sometimes quite sizable zines. So, without further ado, I present here my subjective list of the seven best adventures from the pages of Footprints!

*drumroll*

Behold... The Magnificent Seven!

  1. "Gilded Dream of the Incandescent Queen", by H.D.A. (levels 3-6), Footprints #25. A floating double-tetrahedron, with lots of weirdness and psychedelic vibes!
  2. "The Emperor's Lost Army", by John A. Turcotte (levels 5-7), Footprints #9. Sandbox exploration adventure set in an overgrown ruined city; lost world, A. Merritt vibes.
  3. "The Secret of the Wood of Dark Boughs", by R.N. Bailey (levels 3-5), Footprints #20. Mystery/investigation module with many moving parts, set in a rural area, with folk horror vibes.
  4. "The Tenebristic Orb", by Malrex (levels 4-7), Footprints #25. Weird dungeon enclosed in an orb! Strong light/shadow/darkness theming.
  5. "The Haunted Inn of the Little Bear: Revenant’s Revenge", by Brian Wells (low levels), Footprints #15. Mystery adventure with a Solomon Kane vibe.
  6. "The Mired Cathedral", by C. Wesley Clough (levels 4-6), Footprints #18. A small but solid location-based adventure.
  7. "Death From Above", by Michael Haskell (levels 6-9), Footprints #10. Flying cloud giant fortress.
Looking back at my own list, it's pretty obvious that I have a soft spot for two kinds of adventures: bonkers psychedelic floating orbs/pyramids or low-magic folk horror locations... Oh, and pulpy "lost worlds", too.

I shared longer write-ups of all the materials that caught my attention in my previous posts:  #1 through #5, #6 through #10, #11 through #15, #16 through #20, #21 through #23, #24 and #25.




4 comments:

  1. Thanks for doing this!

    Looking forward to checking these out.

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  2. Glad you enjoyed Tenebristic Orb. Part 2...or really, Part 1--The Sun Orb is coming out soon....somewhere... --Malrex

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  3. This is great, wonderful write up. Thanks!

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    Replies
    1. Cheers! Going through the whole back catalog was a cool experience, found a lot of interesting articles, and, yeah, a number of very solid adventures.

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