OSR: 7 Island-Based Reviews

I wanted to build an archipelago of tropical OSR island hexcrawls, similar to Dan D's "Distant Lands of DIY" map.

Turns out, a lot of the adventures I found are... kind of bad.

In this post, I hastily review:
1. Isle of the Unknown
2. World of the Lost
3. Hot Springs Island
4. Isle of Dread
5. Tomb of Annihilation
6. Island of the Lizard God
7. Isle of the Ape

I'm going to focus on the map and hex key and the random encounter table. The module might contain other stuff and the other stuff might be very good... but I've found these two sections are a good barometer for how useful I'll find a given product. 

Does the module contain the 3 most common tropes for island adventures: volcanoes, dinosaurs, and invisible walls that gate certain areas or otherwise limit player options?

And the final verdict:
Drop In: I don't need to edit this module to run it in a wavecrawl-type game. I might need to add things, but I don't need to rearrange or remove anything.
Mangle: I'd need to rewrite, copy-paste, edit, and substantially rework this module to make it meet my standards. The module isn't mangled as is; I'll need to mangle it to use it.
Pass: I won't be using it.

If you've got any other island, nautical, piratical, aquatical, or tropical adventures you'd like me to review, feel free to add a comment.

Isle of the Unknown

LotFP, Geoffrey McKinney, 2011
Volcano: No
Dinosaurs: No
Magical GM-Conveniencing Energy Barrier: No
Use: Pass
Hex Map
The map itself is OK. It's a big island with some mountains in the middle. Hexes use the numbernumber format for row-column (0101). It's not ideal, but it works. A fair bit of work was put into making the hex map easy to use. All the hexes are keyed. All the hex descriptions are colour coded (though you have to flip all the way to the back to find out what the colours mean). The categories might be odd, but it's definitely useful.

The prose is High Gygaxian in places. A merciless editor could excise 10% of the book.

Random Encounter Table
There isn't one. All these unique and interesting creatures and they aren't even tabulated. Such a shame.

Final Notes
As other reviewers have noted, it's just a list of random things. The island is huge but the hexes don't actually contain much of value. "A bench that teleports you." "A pool that teleports you", and "An octopus-chinchilla that breathes chow mein noodles" occupy 3 separate 6 mile hexes. The GM is expected to fill in the rest themselves and given no tools to do it.

Are there ideas worth stealing? Probably. Do I feel like looking for them? Not right now. It's like a neural network project. Some good, some bad, mostly chaff. Just because an idea is new doesn't mean it's good. How many creatures from the Fiend Folio are memorable?

World of the Lost

LotFP, Rafael Chandler, 2016
Volcano: No Yes Arguable. Some sort of blood-spraying mutating world-abscess.
Dinosaurs: Yes. Optional mutant ones too.
Magical GM-Conveniencing Energy Barrier: Yes
Use: Mangle

Hex Map
The map is one of the most frustrating things I've ever seen in a hexcrawl. There are gaps and an invisible wall.

This is the map provided

These are the hexes with descriptions.

There's no way of telling what's keyed and what's not from looking at the map. Here's how this works in play:
1. Players move to a new hex.
2. GM looks up hex (slower than expected because of the numbering system described below).
3. GM discovers hex is not keyed.
4. GM is disappointed.
5. GM rolls on random encounter table.
This will happen every single time! The core gameplay loop of running this module is being disappointed!

And the numbering system! Good lord, the numbering system. If you're going to use number-letter for column-row notation, don't skip "O"! It makes counting hard. I'm very much in favour of number-number for column-row. Avoids the whole 0=O issue! In any case, use the same format on the map as you do in the text. The map has "1B" but the text has "01-B". It's just... minor usability issues all over the place, adding up to the impression that the authors didn't really care. There's 2 pages with art for 10 local traditional weapons, but less than half the hexes have descriptions?
And also! There are different rates of travel and random encounters listed for each terrain type, but the hex descriptions don't tell you what the local terrain is.

I do like the "hex storylines" section that lists all linked hexes and there's a nice quick reference page at the start of the book, but the letter-number layout makes finding a hex in a hurry or getting a sense of place difficult.

Random Encounter Tables
This is no longer an acceptable format.

No page number references to help out the GM. No descriptive words. Nothing but a list of creatures. You can use the weather table and the hazard table to make it slightly more interesting, but not easily.

Final Notes
There's good stuff to nick from the book, but it could have been so much easier to use. Make the map smaller and denser. Write good encounter tables. Make it a little less interconnected and fiddly. Try to figure out which of your ideas are good ideas and which are just... things you thought up.

Hot Springs Island

The Swordfish Islands, Jacob Hurst and co., 2017
Volcano: Yes
Dinosaurs: Sort of.
Magical GM-Conveniencing Energy Barrier: Yes
Use: Drop-In

Hex Map
25 2-mile hexes. The island is sensibly tiny. You could drop the whole thing into the Isle of Dread's central plateau... three times over. There's  2-page quick reference hex sheet, which is absolutely amazing. The contents are great. Hexes have a "what you see" bit for the players and a "what you know" bit for the GM. Very handy.

My only complaint is the giant black boxes used as headers. It's a waste of ink if I need to photocopy one sheet.

Random Encounter Tables
I like that HSI tries to explain its tables from the very start. I don't like their format. It's mathematically neat but... it's just silly. The examples aren't great either.

These tables use 3d6, and they are nested (p. 16). If the party is in an area of Heavy Jungle, you roll 3d6 on the Heavy Jungle table. All of its results (Elemental, Intelligent, Beast) point to the next table. A result of “Beast,” for example, sends you to roll 3d6 on the Heavy Jungle Beast table, and then another 3d6 for the motivation of the creature indicated... We elect to set up the characters’ first encounter, resulting in three boar with a motivation of "dying" (roll: 12, 10, 13, 4).

Maybe it's  just me, but I didn't "get" this method for several minutes. EDIT: and even then, I had to go back and edit it. Bloody tables...

1. The first 3d6 roll (12) for the first column. The result is "Beast". 
2. We now go to the "Beast" table for that section (Heavy Jungle) and roll 3d6 again (10). That's "Boar".
3. Roll 3d6 again in that numbered column (the one with 1,2, d4, d4+1) in it for the number of boars appearing. We get (13). Result is "1d4+1", and we get a 3 (it's in the text, not the roll list, but Ok).
4. Roll 3d6 for behavior. We get (4), Dying.

See? That makes a lot more sense. But for goodness sake, that's a lot of rolling just to get a stuck pig! All the encounter tables fit on 2 pages, it's true, and I'm sure the probabilities of certain things happening is really quite interesting and well weighted, but... it feels like it's too clever. It's almost too slick to be practical. I just want an encounter. I need to spend all my GM energy describing, running, and organizing the game! Why make the getting encounter so complex? Surely there's a better way to show off the natural realism of HSI. How often are these tables going to be rolled on that the probabilities will bell curve nicely anyway?

Don't get me wrong, it's leagues ahead of most modules.

Final Notes
It's good. You can use it out of the box. It's full of useful innovations and helpful tools.

X1: Isle of Dread

TSR, David Cook and Tom Moldvay, 1981
Volcano: Yes
Dinosaurs: Yes
Magical GM-Conveniencing Energy Barrier: No
Use: Mangle

Hex Map
The island is fairly large. It's bigger than Jamaica. Wisconsin scaling, I suppose. The hexes aren't keyed. The numbers are tricky to see sometimes, but it's an old module. There are modern maps available.

Stripping out the intro and maps, the module is just 19 pages long. It's got a few key locations and factions, some nice set pieces, and, amazingly, a feeling of real exploration. The "fill in the blanks" map is a fun idea. 

Random Encounters
A list of monsters, fairly standard for the era. At least it has "number appearing" conveniently in the table.

Final Notes
It's a product of its time, but for all that, the Isle of Dread is still excellent. It has no plot to speak of. It's just a location, some people, and some monsters. All you really need to do to run it as-is is print a new map, work on a better encounter table, and link the setting to the rest of the world.

Tomb of Annihilation

Wizards of the Coast, Wizards of the Coast, 2017
Volcano: Yes, many
Dinosaurs: Yes
Magical GM-Conveniencing Energy Barrier: Maybe? Too many words to check. Didn't find anything for "force field" or "barrier"
Use: Mangle

Hex Map
The hexcrawl itself is 1/4 of the book. Rather than keyed hexes, it lists a few vital locations (and several boring ones). The core loop is:
1. Set off from a location.
2. Roll several random encounters based on the terrain type.
3. Get to new location.
It's a sort of distributed pointcrawl.

Everything is spread out. All the factions and locations look interesting... but if they are separated by 50 or more miles, they'll never interact. It's a series of safe, predictable set pieces.

Random Encounter Table
It's one of those classic distributed tables.

It's not particularly easy to use and it's even worse than the one in World of the Lost, which is saying something. No page references for the monsters,  no chance of multiple encounters at the same time, no terrain type table, no complications table...

But there is hope! Each encounter here doesn't refer to a Monster Manual entry. Instead, most (possibly all; didn't check) refer to a more detailed description on the subsequent pages. And those include terrain and utility notes and adjectives; the stuff I like to pay for. Some of them are really good too! Witches pretending to be stranded travelers. Notes on what animals can be trained. It's like someone actually thought about what questions a GM might need to answer.

Doesn't help that the exploration part will just be a long series of location->fight->fight->fight->location loops, but so it goes.
Final Notes
So many words! Gah

Soldiers' Tents
Each tent is intended to house four people in reasonable comfort. They have log floors to keep the occupants above the mud, and reed-filled cloth mattresses for sleeping on. None of the material, however, is suitable for long-term use in Chult. The canvas is riddled with mildew and fungus, dampness quickly seeps up through the floors, and vermin of every imaginable variety thrives in the mattresses.

Latrines
Anywhere but Chult, these latrines would be excellent. Here, daily rain floods the pits and flushes their contents through the camp. As if that’s not bad enough, the wooden structures are sinking into the soft ground around the pits, threatening at any moment to collapse utterly. Most soldiers in the camp avoid the latrines and instead relieve themselves in the jungle (if they can volunteer for outside work details) or over the top of the palisade wall. Either option is safer and more sanitary than using the latrines.

Typing minion! I need 100 words on the latrines, stat! 

Island of the Lizard God

Self-published, Will Doyle, 2014. It's a one-page hexcrawl. Get it here.
Volcano: Yes
Dinosaurs: Yes
Magical GM-Conveniencing Energy Barrier: No.
Use: Drop In
Hex Map
Hexes aren't numbered... but there are only 17 hexes and they're drawn in a cute art style, so it's forgivable. All hexes can be described in relation to one of the island's main features.

8 of the hexes are described (as much as you can on a single page) and they're all excellent.

Random Encounter Table
There isn't one. There is a very nice weather table.

Final Notes
It's short, it's got 2 dungeons in it, and it's full of interesting little details. Including it in a list of longer, more lavish modules feels like cheating, but it succeeds at being an excellent one-page adventure.

EDIT: There's an official faction list here. It might help.

Isle of the Ape

TSR, Gary Gygax, 1985
Volcano: Yes
Dinosaurs: Yes
Magical GM-Conveniencing Energy Barrier: Yes, in the form of demi-plane rules that make a whole host of spells useless. No summoning, no teleporting, no augry, no illusions, no invisibility, no psionics, no divine intervention. Flying carpets still work though. Shouldn've banned those too, Gygax.
Use: Pass

Hex Map
Finally, 1 mile hexes instead of 6 miles. It's still 43 miles long, but that's not too bad. It's about 1/3rd of the size of the Isle of Dread. Once again, no hex key, just vital numbered locations.

Random Encounter Table
A classic distributed table (see Tomb of Annihilation), but the next page contains the Combien Monster Statistics page! Glory glory hallelujah! Sure, it's  not very evocative or interesting, but at last you can get the stats without flipping for ages. It's something.

Final Notes
This module is legendarily tough. Most classes should be 14th level and up. Assassins, bards, cavaliers, illusionists, and monks should straight-up stay home. If you strip out the AD&D-specific cruft, the NPC cards, the boxed intro, and the maps, the module is just 25 pages long. But there is a lot of boxed text. It's all terrible. Completely useless, ridiculously overwrought, and utterly bizarre in many places.

It's the Isle of Dread again, but with bigger monsters and a giant ape. King Kong callouts everywhere. It feels like a modern Hollywood sequel to a classic. What does it really add, other than artificial difficulty and more pulp references? Is it worth picking apart? Probably not.

In Conclusion

Hex Descriptions
If you've got a hex map, either describe every hex in a full hex key, or describe only a few points of interest. Don't mix and match.

Use the key format "column-row" as "number-number". Eg. 01-01. Use the same format in the text. Start at 01.

If you have more than 1 page of hex descriptions, each page should include, at a minimum.
Title: ##-## - Name - Terrain
Description of hex: (what the PCs see)
[Line break or separate section]
GM notes: (what's really going on)

You can design your map based on travel time, not miles. It's OK. It's 2018. Sure, give an overall scale or an estimated size of a hex, but it's honestly more useful to hear, "hexes are 6 hours across at a normal travel pace." Everything else - light, food, magic - is measured in hours. It also means you can do interesting things with the map. A tiny canyon might take up a whole hex; it'll take 6 hours to cross. It's a very handy abstraction.

If you're worried about visible landmarks, include them in the hex description. You probably should do that anyway. GMs tend to forget to check what can be seen from a given hex.

Encounter Tables
If you don't want to fiddle around with HSI's format, I'd recommend the following:

# - Omen - Description of Encounter (creature name in bold) - page reference

E.g.

1d20	Omen	Encounter	Page Ref.
13	Shuffling, rustling. Occasional pained snort.	1 boar, dying from stab wounds. 2d6 villagers follow it at a distance.	HSI pg. 22

Players traveling slowly or cautiously get the Omen. Otherwise, they blunder into the encounter. Try to figure out how often you'll need to roll on the table and add content accordingly. Once per session? Once per module? You don't need twenty entries if you don't think a group will use it more than twice.

I also recommend a "Where They Find You" table with interesting places the encounter could occur.  Feel free to 3d6 weight it or something; outer edges are dangerous, centre of the bell curve is nice and sensible. "On the edge of a waterfall" vs. "a grassy meadow".

A 12th Century Tour, Part 7 - Egypt, North Africa, and Home Again

In the 12th century, Benjamin of Tudela traveled from his home in northern Spain to Baghdad and beyond. I'm turning his record - his itinerary - into a series of posts on medieval travel. You probably thought I forgot about him. Well, I didn't.

In the last section, Benjamin described - as best he could - lands beyond those he visited. In this section, he finally returns home.

Series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6,

Part 7: Egypt, North Africa, and Home Again

[From Lybia] to the land of Assuan is a journey of twenty days through the desert. This is Seba on the river Pishon (Nile) which descends from the land of Cush. And some of these sons of Cush have a king whom they call the Sultan Al-Habash. There is a people among them who, like animals, eat of the herbs that grow on the banks of the Nile and in the fields. They go about naked and have not the intelligence of ordinary men. They cohabit with their sisters and any one they find. The climate is very hot. When the men of Assuan make a raid into their land, they take with them bread and wheat, dry grapes and figs, and throw the food to these people, who run after it. Thus they bring many of them back prisoners, and sell them in the land of Egypt and in the surrounding countries. And these are the black slaves, the sons of Ham.

I've written about the medieval worldview and the "other" before. This is the flip side of the coin. A medieval traveler will happily treat the king of the dog-headed people as a king before anything else. But if a group lacks a recognizable power structure, if they don't behave like "people" at all, then, according to the medieval view, they are closer to beasts. It's not about skin colour, it's about behavior and categorization.

If you are going to exploit someone, it's easier to justify - both to yourself and to bystanders - if you emphasize that the people you are exploiting have "not the intelligence of ordinary men." Dehumanizing people is easier when you are certain they aren't not, and could never be, as smart as you.

One final note: the entire story of Noah and his sons is remarkably strange and inconsistent.

From Assuan it is a distance of twelve days to Heluan where there are about 300 Jews. Thence people travel in caravans a journey of fifty days through the great desert called Sahara, to the land of Zawilah, which is Havilah in the land of Gana. In this desert there are mountains of sand, and when the wind rises, it covers the caravans with the sand, and many die from suffocation. Those that escape bring back with them copper, wheat, fruit, all manner of lentils, and salt. And from thence they bring gold, and all kinds of jewels. This is in the land of Cush which is called Al-Habash on the western confines.

From Heluan it is thirteen days' journey to Kutz which is Kūs, and this is the commencement of the land of Egypt. At Kutz there are 300 Jews. Thence it is 300 miles to Fayum, which is Pithom, where there are 200 Jews; and unto this very day one can see ruins of the buildings which our forefathers erected there.

Thence to Mizraim is a journey of four days. This Mizraim is the great city situated on the banks of the Nile, which is Pison or Al-Nil. The number of Jewish inhabitants is about 7,000. Two large synagogues are there, one belonging to the men of the land of Israel and one belonging to the men of the land of Babylon.

A section on the different practices between the two synagogues has been omitted. You can read it here.

Twice in the year the Egyptian monarch goes forth, once on the occasion of the great festival, and again when the river Nile rises. Zoan is surrounded by a wall, but Mizraim has no wall, for the river encompasses it on one side. It is a great city, and it has market-places as well as inns in great number. The Jews that dwell there are very rich. No rain falls, neither is ice or snow ever seen. The climate is very hot.

The river Nile rises once a year in the month of Elul; it covers all the land, and irrigates it to a distance of fifteen days' journey. The waters remain upon the surface of the land during the months of Elul and Tishri, and irrigate and fertilize it.

The inhabitants have a pillar of marble, erected with much skill, in order to ascertain the extent of the rise of the Nile. It stands in the front of an island in the midst of the water, and is twelve cubits high. When the Nile rises and covers the column, they know that the river has risen and has covered the land for a distance of fifteen days' journey to its full extent. If only half the column is covered, the water only covers half the extent of the land. And day by day an officer takes a measurement on the column and makes proclamation thereof in Zoan and in the city of Mizraim, proclaiming: "Give praise unto the Creator, for the river this day has risen to such and such a height"; each day he takes the measurement and makes his proclamation. If the water covers the entire column, there will be abundance throughout Egypt. The river continues to rise gradually till it covers the land to the extent of fifteen days' journey. He who owns a field hires workmen, who dig deep trenches in his field, and fish come with the rise of the water and enter the trenches. Then, when the waters have receded, the fish remain behind in the trenches, and the owners of the fields take them and either eat them or sell them to the fishmongers, who salt them and deal in them in every place. These fish are exceedingly fat and large, and the oil obtained from them is used in this land for lamp-oil. Though a man eat a great quantity of these fish, if he but drink Nile water afterwards they will not hurt him, for the waters have medicinal properties.

Egypt was seen as the cradle of medicine.

People ask, what causes the Nile to rise? The Egyptians say that up the river, in the land of Al-Habash (Abyssinia), which is the land of Havilah, much rain descends at the time of the rising of the river, and that this abundance of rain causes the river to rise and to cover the surface of the land. If the river does not rise, there is no sowing, and famine is sore in the land. Sowing is done in the month of Marheshwan, after the river has gone back to its ordinary channel. In the month of Adar is the barley-harvest, and in the month of Nisan the wheat-harvest.

This is one of the rare times Benjamin seems to speak to the reader directly.

In the month of Nisan they have cherries, pears, cucumbers, and gourds in plenty, also beans, peas, chickpeas, and many kinds of vegetables, such as purslane, asparagus, pulse, lettuce, coriander, endive, cabbage, leek, and cardoon. The land is full of all good things, and the gardens and plantations are watered from the various reservoirs and by the river-water.

The river Nile, after flowing past (the city of) Mizraim, divides into four heads: one channel proceeds in the direction of Damietta, which is Caphtor, where it falls into the sea. The second channel flows to the city of Reshid (Rosetta), which is near Alexandria, and there falls into the sea; the third channel goes by way of Ashmun, where it falls into the sea; and the fourth channel goes as far as the frontier of Egypt. Along both banks of these four river-heads are cities, towns and villages, and people visit these places either by ship or by land. There is no such thickly-populated land as this elsewhere. It is extensive too and abundant in all good things.

From New Mizraim unto Old Mizraim is a distance of two parasangs. The latter is in ruins, and the place where walls and houses stood can be seen to the present day. The store-houses also of Joseph of blessed memory are to be found in great numbers in many places. They are built of lime and stone, and are exceedingly strong. A pillar is there of marvellous workmanship, the like of which cannot be seen throughout the world.

The "store-houses of Joseph" are, according to Adler, the ruins of Memphis.

Outside the city is the ancient synagogue of Moses our master, of blessed memory, and the overseer and clerk of this place of worship is a venerable old man; he is a man of learning, and they call him Al Sheik Abu al-Nazr. The extent of Mizraim, which is in ruins, is three miles.

Thence to the land of Goshen is eight parasangs; here is Bilbais. There are about 300 Jews in the city, which is a large one. Thence it is half a day's journey to Ain-al-Shams or Ramses, which is in ruins. Traces are there to be seen of the buildings which our fore-fathers raised, namely, towers built of bricks.

From here it is a day's journey to Al Bubizig, where there are about 200 Jews. Thence it is half a day to Benha, where there are about 60 Jews. Thence it takes half a day to Muneh Sifte, where there are 500 Jews. From there it is half a day's journey to Samnu, where there are about 200 Jews. Thence it is four parasangs to Damira, where there are about 700 Jews. From there it is five days to Lammanah, where there are about 500 Jews.
Two days' journey takes one to Alexandria of Egypt, which is Ammon of No; but when Alexander of Macedon built the city, he called it after his own name, and made it exceedingly strong and beautiful. The houses, the palaces, and the walls are of excellent architecture. Outside the town is the academy of Aristotle, the teacher of Alexander. This is a large building, standing between other academies to the number of twenty, with a column of marble between each. People from the whole world were wont to come hither in order to study the wisdom of Aristotle the philosopher. The city is built over a hollow by means of arches. Alexander built it with great understanding. The streets are wide and straight, so that a man can look along them for a mile from gate to gate, from the gate of Reshid to the gate by the sea.

Alexander also built for the harbour of Alexandria a pier, a king's highway running into the midst of the sea. And there he erected a large tower, a lighthouse, called Manar al Iskandriyyah in Arabic. On the top of the tower there is a glass mirror. Any ships that attempted to attack or molest the city, coming from Greece or from the Western lands, could be seen by means of this mirror of glass at a distance of twenty days' journey, and the inhabitants could thereupon put themselves on their guard. It happened once, many years after the death of Alexander, that a ship came from the land of Greece, and the name of the captain was Theodoros, a Greek of great cleverness. The Greeks at that time were under the yoke of Egypt. The captain brought great gifts in silver and gold and garments of silk to the King of Egypt, and he moored his ship in front of the lighthouse, as was the custom of all merchants.

Every day the guardian of the lighthouse and his servants had their meals with him, until the captain came to be on such friendly terms with the keeper that he could go in and out at all times. And one day he gave a banquet, and caused the keeper and all his servants to drink a great deal of wine. When they were all asleep, the captain and his servants arose and broke the mirror and departed that very night. From that day onward the Christians began to come thither with boats and large ships, and eventually captured the large island called Crete and also Cyprus, which are under the dominion of the Greeks. Ever since then, the men of the King of Egypt have been unable to prevail over the Greeks. To this day the lighthouse is a landmark to all seafarers who come to Alexandria; for one can see it at a distance of 100 miles by day, and at night the keeper lights a torch which the mariners can see from a distance, and thus sail towards it.

Alexandria is a commercial market for all nations. Merchants come thither from all the Christian kingdoms: on the one side, from the land of Venetia and Lombardy, Tuscany, Apulia, Amalfi, Sicilia, Calabria, Romagna, Khazaria, Patzinakia, Hungaria, Bulgaria, Rakuvia (Ragusa?), Croatia, Slavonia, Russia, Alamannia (Germany), Saxony, Danemark, Kurland? Ireland? Norway (Norge?), Frisia, Scotia, Angleterre, Wales, Flanders, Hainault? Normandy, France, Poitiers, Anjou, Burgundy, Maurienne, Provence, Genoa, Pisa, Gascony, Aragon, and Navarra, and towards the west under the sway of the Mohammedans, Andalusia, Algarve, Africa and the land of the Arabs: and on the other side India, Zawilah, Abyssinia, Lybia, El-Yemen, Shinar, Esh-Sham (Syria); also Javan, whose people are called the Greeks, and the Turks. And merchants of India bring thither all kinds of spices, and the merchants of Edom buy of them. And the city is a busy one and full of traffic. Each nation has an inn of its own.

Translating this section was, apparently, quite difficult, but nearly everyone is listed. Having region-specific inns seems like an innovation few city-based D&D modules use.

By the sea-coast there is a sepulchre of marble on which are engraved all manner of beasts and birds; an effigy is in the midst thereof, and all the writing is in ancient characters, which no one knows now. Men suppose that it is the sepulchre of a king who lived in early times before the Deluge. The length of the sepulchre is fifteen spans, and its breadth is six spans. There are about 3,000 Jews in Alexandria.

Thence it is two days' journey to Damietta which is Caphtor, where there are about 200 Jews, and it lies upon the sea. Thence it is one day's journey to Simasim; it contains about 100 Jews. From there it is half a day to Sunbat; the inhabitants sow flax and weave linen, which they export to all parts of the world. Thence it is four days to Ailam, which is Elim. It belongs to the Arabs who dwell in the wilderness. Thence it is two days' journey to Rephidim where the Arabs dwell, but there are no Jews there. A day's journey from thence takes one to Mount Sinai. On the top of the mountain is a large convent belonging to the great monks called Syrians. At the foot of the mountain is a large town called Tur Sinai; the inhabitants speak the language of the Targum (Syriac). It is close to a small mountain, five days distant from Egypt. The inhabitants are under Egyptian rule. At a day's journey from Mount Sinai is the Red Sea, which is an arm of the Indian Ocean. We return to Damietta. From there it is a day's journey to Tanis, which is Hanes, where there are about 40 Jews. It is an island in the midst of the sea. Thus far extends the empire of Egypt.

Benjamin's long journey is finally arcing home.

Thence it takes twenty days by sea to Messina, which is the commencement of Sicily and is situated on the arm of the sea that is called Lipar, which divides it from Calabria. Here about 200 Jews dwell. It is a land full of everything good, with gardens and plantations. Here most of the pilgrims assemble to cross over to Jerusalem, as this is the best crossing. Thence it is about two days' journey to Palermo, which is a large city. Here is the palace of King William. Palermo contains about 1,500 Jews and a large number of Christians and Mohammedans. It is in a district abounding in springs and brooks of water, a land of wheat and barley, likewise of gardens and plantations, and there is not the like thereof in the whole island of Sicily. Here is the domain and garden of the king, which is called Al Harbina (Al Hacina), containing all sorts of fruit-trees. And in it is a large fountain. The garden is encompassed by a wall. And a reservoir has been made there which is called Al Buheira, and in it are many sorts of fish. Ships overlaid with silver and gold are there, belonging to the king, who takes pleasure-trips in them with his women. In the park there is also a great palace, the walls of which are painted, and overlaid with gold and silver; the paving of the floors is of marble, picked out in gold and silver in all manner of designs. There is no building like this anywhere. And this island, the commencement of which is Messina, contains all the pleasant things of this world. It embraces Syracuse, Marsala, Catania, Petralia, and Trapani, the circumference of the island being six days' journey. In Trapani coral is found, which is called Al Murgan.

Thence people pass to the city of Rome in ten days. And from Rome they proceed by land to Lucca, which is a five days' journey.

Last time around, Benjamin said it was 5 days from Rome to Lucca. In any case, he now lists some of the major cities of Europe, but not in the same level of detail as the rest of his itinerary.

Thence they cross the mountain of Jean de Maurienne, and the passes of Italy. It is twenty days' journey to Verdun, which is the commencement of Alamannia, a land of mountains and hills. All the congregations of Alamannia are situated on the great river Rhine, from the city of Cologne, which is the principal town of the Empire, to the city of Regensburg, a distance of fifteen days' journey at the other extremity of Alamannia, otherwise called Ashkenaz.

A list of cities in the Holy Roman Empire has been omitted. You can read it here.

Thence extends the land of Bohemia, called Prague. This is the commencement of the land of Slavonia, and the Jews who dwell there call it Canaan, because the men of that land (the Slavs) sell their sons and their daughters to the other nations. These are the men of Russia, which is a great empire stretching from the gate of Prague to the gates of Kieff, the large city which is at the extremity of that empire. It is a land of mountains and forests, where there are to be found the animals called vair, ermine, and sable. No one issues forth from his house in winter-time on account of the cold. People are to be found there who have lost the tips of their noses by reason of the frost. Thus far reaches the empire of Russia.

The kingdom of France, which is Zarfath, extends from the town of Auxerre[216] unto Paris, the great city—a journey of six days. The city belongs to King Louis. It is situated on the river Seine. Scholars are there, unequalled in the whole world, who study the Law day and night. They are charitable and hospitable to all travellers, and are as brothers and friends unto all their brethren the Jews. May God, the Blessed One, have mercy upon us and upon them!

Finished and completed.

Trade Route Map of Part 7

Martin Jan Månsson's Medieval Trade Networks map

Representative Map of Benjamin's Entire Journey

a

This is the world as Benjamin saw it.

His journey lasted approximately eight years. Some scholars say it was fifteen, some say as few as five. In any case, he recorded over 300 cities and towns.

If you want to run a 12th century pointcrawl, you now have a map and a key. Bolt on the Ultraviolet Grasslands caravan rules and you've got a game.

Summary of Part 7

Once again, it is difficult to calculate Benjamin's route. We can plot a circuit on a modern map: Tudela to Rome, Rome to Istanbul, to Jerusalem, Baghdad, Cairo, Alexandria, and back. Very approximately, it's a loop of 15,000 km or 9,300 miles. Assuming the total journey took eight years, he traveled an average of 5km or 3 miles per day. Every day. For eight years.

On this, the last leg of his journey, he saw:
-people like animals, who are trapped and enslaved
-a desert which swallows people alive
-an enormous river which floods once a year
-a marble column used to predict the time and height of a river's flood
-a city built by an all-conquering king
-a city built on arches over a hollow
-a city on a perfect grid
-a lighthouse that can be seen for a hundred miles
-a city with traders from every nation, and a specialized inn for each nation
-a people who sell their sons and daughters into slavery
-a very cold place, unbearable in the winter

OSR: Veinscrawl Session 7 & 8

Last session, the party discovered they were being hunted by a cave giant, several people encountered the dEr0 Conspiracy, and almost everyone went to a lovely dinner party with a Ghoul Baron.

The party consists of:
Cazael the spiderling fighter. The leader of the group by default.
Bill the wormling Orthodox Wizard. Has antlers, telekinesis, permanent wizard vision, etc. Is slowly growing even stranger.
Swainson the Garden Wizard. Formerly a hawkling, currently a dryad. Sensible wizard.
Christen Bell the weasel-ling Bell Exorcist. Keeps vanishing and returning, possibly on secret errands. Many Goblins. Full of teeth, bad plans, and poor impulse control.
Tuck the Flealing Summoner. Wants everyone to be his friend.

Just a reminder; these maps are player-created. Some information may be missing, mangled, or illustrated oddly.

The full map is getting difficult to read. Here's a zoomed-in section of just sessions 7 and 8.

Starting in the bottom right.

1. The party left Ghoul Baron Sulyvhan's fortress. They decided to head to the Fungid Valley, reasoning that fungus = cheap food and cheap food = easy money.

2. While traveling, the party finds a long shallow lake. A temple lit by green flames can be seen on the other side. Cazael falls in a pit while traversing the lake and nearly drowns. He is saved by Tuck the Summoner and his summoned rope.

3. The party cautiously enters the Temple of Arithane. An invisible oracle, dwelling in sulphrous fog, tells them it will trade spines for answers. The oracle can tell them the location of any person or object. It wants diseased, deformed, or unusual spines.

4. After not looting anything in the temple, the party follows the water down. After hiding from some sort of cave bear (who may or may not have been a dEr0 construct), the party found a path next to the river. On the side of a river, they encounter a traveling group of masked medicine sellers. Clad in heavy robes and carrying many strange bundles and flasks, the medicine sellers greet the party on friendly terms.

Swainson: "Potion seller, I am in need of your strongest poisons."
Medicine Seller: "You don't know what you ask, traveler. My strongest potions will kill a dragon let alone... tree... person.."
Swainson: "Perfect. I said poisons. Got anything that can kill a cave giant?"
Medicine Seller: "We may. Our strongest poison could kill a cave giant or a lesser being... and their entire family."
Swainson: "Excellent. One giant-killing poison please and thank you!"

After swaddling the flask of giant-killer potion (a waterproof clay jar marked with four skulls), Swainson left the medicine sellers alone. Bill, however, was negotiating his own deal.

Bill: "I'm tired of sleeping. Terrible things happen whenever I fall asleep. Do you have anything that will let me stay awake forever?"
Medicine Seller: "We do, but I must warn you..."
Bill: "Done. Yoink!"

And so, Bill the Wizard can no longer fall asleep on his own.

5. The Many Goblins were temporarily unsupervised. They explained to the medicine sellers that they wanted a potion to, "make more pig", pointing at their sonic piglet pet. The medicine sellers took most of the gold the goblins had and handed over a glowing green flask of something volatile and rattling. They then ran away with as much dignity as they could muster.

The next few things happened in quick succession. It's important to note that the party was on a narrow downward-sloping path next to a rushing river.

6. The goblins fed the duplication potion to the sonic pig. The sonic pig split into 2 sonic pigs. The goblins squealed with delight.

7. The rest of the party realized that the goblins were up to something and moved closer to investigate.

8. The pigs split again into 4 sonic pigs. They also started glowing slightly. The goblins cheered again.

9. The pigs split again into 8 sonic pigs and began attacking the goblins in mindless bloodlust. The characteristic dubstep wub wub wub of the sonic pigs, the screams of the goblins, and the consternation of the party filled the air.

10. Swainson decides that things are getting out of hand. She uses woodbend on herself to make her hand gigantic and slaps it down over the rambunctious pigs. One accidentally detonates on impact, filling a 30' cube with spam-flavoured foam.

11. Bill panics and fires prismatic ray at another pig. He suffers his first DOOM, loses all magic for a day, and also panics. The pig explodes into a further 30' cube of pink oily foam.

12. Chaos ensues. Swainson hangs onto her pig. Tuck attaches one end of  his summoned rope to the ceiling and the other end to a pig, then hoists himself above the foamy battle below. Cazael, sick of pigs and goblins, starts hitting them left right and centre, adding more foam to the battle every time he explodes a pig. His enchanted ice sword starts freezing the foam and the mist from the river, adding to the environmental chaos.

13. Bill, now devoid of magic, realizes he's leaking poison gas from his ears. His capture wind spell that he'd banked many weeks ago had three hours of poison gas from a trap inside it. It was now boiling out of his brain. Heroically, but perhaps not wisely, Bill leapt into the river to save his friends. He would spend the next three hours clinging to a rock, periodically dipping his head into the water, and shivering.

14. The foam briefly cleared to give the party a glimpse of the sonic pigs signing a formal treaty with the goblins. No one was sure if that actually happened, but when the foam finally faded into a thick layer of spam-grease, the goblins were just as excitable as before. They also has 12 identical pig spines to trade to the Temple of Arithane.

15. Secretly, the goblins ran back to buy a second duplication potion from the medicine sellers "for later".

Sherbakov Stanislav

16. The party returned to the Temple of Arithane. On the way, a strange swarm of void wisps, little semi-magical creatures, swarmed the party. They demanded they break their oath to Yorminthal the Giant and kill him. The party readily agreed. When strange little elemental things tell you to do something, you do it, especially when you're down a wizard and up several coats of pig foam.

17. Only Swainson and Cazael had questions for the oracle. They banked the rest of their spines for future questions. Swainson wanted to know where Yorminthal was. "Just 200 yards away". And where was Tschana, the knight Cazael had once served? "In the land between life and death. Not dead, not dying, but living neither."

18. After resting overnight, the party continues their journey along the river. They get lost, hear screaming, and encounter a belligerent Beholder. The multi-eyed horror began firing eye-rays at everyone. As, once again, panic broke out, Christen Bell used her magic bells to put the creature to sleep. 

"Hurry friends!" Tuck said, handing one end of his summoned rope Postidon-Pru to Cazael. The two ran in opposite directions around the slumbering Beholder, wrapping it in 230' of rope. As the Beholder, now wrapped like a ball of yarn, began to wake up, Tuck connected the two ends of the rope. It began to rapidly contract to 5' long, squeezing the surprised Beholder. It tried one last burst of disintegrate, but the rope held. The Beholder... burst.

Magical chunks of meat and strange fluids rained down on the party. The Beholder's meat was too tempting for Swainson, Bill, and the Goblins to resist. Despite Cazael's protests, they gulped down gobbets of octarine-tinged flesh.

Swainson became more charismatic. She also gained a second face on the back of her head, a smile that lingered in the air like a floating crescent, and a few other minor mutations and perks.

The Many Goblins became wizards, sort of. Mechanically, they gained a magic dice and a spell slot. No one was quite sure what happened, but the goblins all started wearing pointy hats, cobweb beards, and going, "hrrrm, wozard stuff," from this day forward.

Bill tried a few lumps of flesh and only felt a bit wiser. Disappointed, he gorged himself and went permanently insane.

19. Luckily, Bill still couldn't cast spells, and he was physically unimpressive. The party tied him up, gagged him, and Christen Bell put him to sleep with her bells. They debated what to do next. Cazael seriously suggested leaving him behind, but Tuck had a better idea. He had a silver key that let him access dreams.

"My cult once used this key to enter the dreams of... initiates. We would feast on their dreams of food and emerge fully nourished. Nice boring dreams, nice boring initiates. And drugged too. But..."
"No," Cazael said.
"To rescue your friend?" Tuck said, playing on the fighter's sympathies.
"Fine," the spiderling sighed. "Anyone else want to go into the wizard's dreams?"
"I should stay out here," Christen Bell said hastily, "in case he starts to wake up."
"And I'm the only wizard left. Besides, putting one wizard inside another one is probably a sin or something," Swainson said.
"Yap," said the goblins, nodding in unison.

20. And so it was that Cazael, Tuck, and an entire string of goblins grasped the silver key, stuck it into Bill's ear, turned it, and vanished in a smooth schlorp of magic.

21. Inside Bill's fevered and nightmarish visions, the diverse and terrified group battled through fragments of memory, delusions, and false paths to reach the metastasizing beholder-madness clawing at Bill's mind. The goblins blinded it while Cazael, dream-ice-sword in hand, smashed it's central eye. The anti-magic core shattered, blasting all magic out of Bill's head, but also all magically-induced magic.

It was very lucky indeed that Bill was cut off from magic. If the dream-explorers had entered while he still had spells in his head, the spells would probably have devoured them. If he'd been fully charged with magic when a dream-beholder's anti-magic burst went off inside his mind, he would no doubt have died, or been driven mad. But for 24hrs, thanks to his Doom, he was a mundane wormling.

Cazael, Tuck, and (one can only hope) all of the Goblins were ejected from Bill's ear. The wizard woke up refreshed and at least as sane as he'd been before his Beholder-induced madness.

During their escape, the goblins had grabbed a dream-spellbook from dream-Bill and, somehow, brought it into the real world. The dream-spellbook contained only dream spells which, ordinarily, wouldn't have any effect in the real world (because they use dream-logic and dream-physics), but in the hands of the goblins...

22. Continuing their journey, the party ran into two leather-wrapped squidlings setting up a trap. The party set up an ambush of their own. While they suceeded in dispatching two of the servile humanoids, they did not expect a strange tentacled creature in black robes to slither around the corner. It fixed the party with a hungry, inhuman glare, and unleashed its full mind powers.

23. The party proved too stupid for its psychic assault (none of the characters have an Int above 11). It took control of Bill, but the wizard still lacked magic and could only flail as the rest of the party beat the tentacled horror to death. They looted several valuable occultum pieces from its purse along with a few articles of strange technology.


What else would they find on their journey to the Fungid Valley? Can Bill continue to avoid his well-deserved demise? How many dangerous items can the party carry at once?

Find out next session.

OSR: The Mysterious Menagerie of Doctor Orville Boros

People keep asking me, "Skerples, your Epochrypha book is very nice and all, but what can do with it?"

Well, here's one possible use. I've written a free dungeon. It's a theme park disaster. It's 29 pages long and full of the silliest things you're likely to see this week.

The Mysterious Menagerie of Doctor Orville Boros

Reviews

"It's a comedy Jurassic-park dungeon, the bits I've seen made me laugh out loud, I want more of this."
-Emmy Allen

"I lost it at the final verse of the fossil song."
-Tom McGrenery

"I know you're making this for free but honestly this sort of thing could get a little art and be sold. It just screams weird little module that people rant and rave about."
-An Anonymous Reviewer

"Is this for your Monopoly thing?"
-My relatives

Go check it out. Go tell your friends. It's in a very different style than either Tomb of the Serpent Kings or Kidnap the Archpriest, but it includes all the same ease-of-use techniques that you've grown to know and love. It has no frills, no art, no extras. It's perfect for con games, one shots, comic relief in a more serious game, and mucking up an existing setting.

Do I Really Need To Buy Epochrypha To Use This Dungeon?
Well, no. Most (but not all!) of the entries were put up on my blog, Dan D's blog, and Dunkey Halton's blog. If you're willing to scrounge around and write your own table you can get away without spending a cent.

But buying my books helps me make more free dungeons. If you've already bought Epochrypha, feel free to use the Donate link on my sidebar. But if you really want to help, run this dungeon and tell me how it went, or tell other people about it, or write your own dungeon or module that uses the 100 fictional eras in Epochrypha.

OSR: Epochrypha Megapost

Good news! I've published a new book! You can buy it here.

Why?

So settings have a prehistory--the stuff that happened way before the common era.  They're usually either:

(a) tediously enumerated with faux-mythology, or
(b) just sort of ignored, and assumed to be the same as Vanilla Earth

Both of them are fine, but there's a lot of fertile ground between those two fence posts.

-Arnold Kemp

Everyone talks about history, but nobody does anything about it. Well I've done something about it. I've listed 100 speculative eras - time periods that didn't actually happen but could  have happened - with illustrations and suggestions.

If your players travel back in time you no longer need to default to dinosaurs. You can roll for an era and immediately transport them to another stranger time. It's not a heavy, complex dungeon. It won't massively change the way you run games. It's a nice, neatly put together, amusing little reference book.

Inspiration
The book itself is inspired by David Macaulay's Motel of the Mysteries.

Some of the eras were written by my esteemed colleagues Dan D and Dunkey Halton. David Shugars did the editing and proofing. FM Geist did some copyediting and last-minute revisions. Arnold K started the whole fad. Anne Hunter helped organize it.

Teaser image for the main book

Art
All art is by Logan Stahl. He's completely new to the OSR "scene" (whatever that is), but he does excellent work. You need stuff illustrated? Drop him a line. He was a pleasure to work with.

Layout
Once again, David Shugars has done an excellent job. The book is clear and crisp and easy to read and use. I'm sure it made a nice change from Kidnap the Archpriest's fiddly tables and maps.

The printed book is A5; a nice convenient size for a fun quick reference book... or a gift for a GM who has it all. Hint hint. Etc.

Reviews
Ben Milton's review on Questing Beast (youtube).


Final Notes
You can use it to run my new free dungeon, The Mysterious Menagerie of Doctor Orville Boros.

OSR: How to Design GLOG Races

Before we start:
The GLOG is Arnold K's fantasy heartbreaker homebrew. You can find bits of it scattered around his blog. I've combined some of it into a homebrew document here.

I use a Table of Races in my games. In a medieval setting it's hard to get players to care about the petty regional feuds between people from not-Wessex and not-Sussex, but they immediately "get" the local friction between froglings vs flylings. It also provides variation between characters in a high-mortality system. Playing a Slothling Fighter is going to feel very different than playing a Foxling Fighter, even if everything else was identical.

Charro-Art

Format

Races are rolled randomly. It prevents minmaxing.

1. Name
Should be fairly obvious. For races based on real-world animals, I use the gender-neutral -ling ending. You can use -man if you'd like.

2. Reroll Stat
At character creation, reroll this stat and pick the higher value. This is much better than providing a flat +2 bonus or penalty or whatever. It means, on average, Owl-lings are a little wiser than most people but they aren't all wiser. If you're building a table, try to ensure all stats are evenly represented.

3. Bonuses and Weaknesses
Each race gets one each. These are tricky. A good bonus or weakness should:

• happen automatically or not require a huge number of rolls to use
• come up at least once a session
• influence the way the character is roleplayed
• be completely clear to a new player or GM
• be easy to remember
• not completely dominate the way the character is played
• not completely negate a core principle of OSR games (inventory, exploration, HP, etc.)

In general, for races, cool concepts > flat bonuses > weapons or damage. The cool concept has to be taken to a useful conclusion though. It's not enough to just have an idea and list it. You need to format it in a way players and GMs can immediately use.

Also, players will try to bend abilities. If they have "No Move penalties for broken or hilly terrain", they'll try to use it to leap over boulder fields, pit traps, sand dunes, and anything else that's even tangentially related. Just accept it.

Examples

Since names and stats are fairly obvious, I'll focus on bonuses and weaknesses. Your mileage may vary, etc. I've only picked a few entries off each list. Obviously, there are lots of examples that didn't make the short lists below. Hot takes abound.

Dazabiel vial

The Good

My List

Spiderling: Bonus: Can secrete 30' of rope per day
This is a very good bonus without being overpowered. Rope is always useful in a dungeon. The spiderling character always has a good reason to generate rope and use it for unexpected and interesting plans.

Gnome: Bonus: Can become invisible if you close eyes, hold breath, don't move
A hilarious take on at-will invisibility. Gnomes can't hold their breath forever, but they can duck around a corner and vanish to evade pursuit, surprise an enemy by appearing to vanish, and generally get up to all sorts of gnomish mischief (or murder and larceny, depending on your setting)

Dan D's List

Sea Elf: Bonus: Speak with sea creatures + Weakness: Sink like a stone
These are both clear, evocative, and interesting. As a player, I know immediately what "speak with sea creatures" means and how my character could use it. As a GM, I know immediately how to react if the Sea Elf's player says, "Yeah, I can talk to that fish. What does it say?"

Goliath: Bonus: Shrug off d12 damage 1/day
This is very good. It's like having a spare shield or the Fighter's Parry ability. It makes the Goliath extra tank-y (and a Goliath Fighter with a shield triply so), but not in an overpowered or particularly dangerous way. It's not a flat damage reduction to all attacks.

Luke Thomson's List

Frog-man: Bonus: Sticky tongue can grab objects 20' away
This is clear, obvious, and useful. It's perfect. 20' range might be excessive for realism purposes but it's just right for gaming purposes. If the item was 10' away you could just grab it with your hand.

Dwarf: Weakness: Save or be transfixed by the full moon
This is such a cool weakness with an obvious effect. Sure, who tracks moon phases... but still! This implies something about the race!

Igor Krstic

The Mediocre

My List

Human: Bonus: Start with 1 extra random item
This isn't particularly interesting outside of session 1. It does immediately give the player a cool tool and it helps them make up a story about how their character got it, but it's not likely to come up every single session. It's clearly phrased though. One of the most memorable characters started with a bonus wheel of cheese... and nearly killed his friend with it.

Flyling: Weakness: Will never notice details unless they move
In a group, the flyling's weakness is both difficult to remember and difficult for the GM to use. It's not clear exactly what "details" are. On their own, it's easier to remember and more interesting to describe the blurry world a flyling sees.

Dan D's List

Dragonborn: Bonus: 2d6 dragonbreath + Physical stat mods decrease by 1 w/ breath for the day
This isn't clear enough to make it work. Range? How exactly does the use per day thing work? Uh, element? Modifying stats in the middle of the game is tricky as well, as you'll need to recalculate stat bonuses, remember that you've taken a penalty, etc. One-off damage or drain is fine, but constantly shuffling them to use a core racial ability...  eech.

Half-Elf: Weakness: Cat-like sociopaths
This is a cool idea... but it doesn't give the GM or the player a lot of flexibility or leeway. How, as a player, do I run a half-elf? Like a fat housecat, desiring food and warmth and completely unperturbed? Like a feral cat, territorial and strange? It's the start of an idea, but it also limits the type of character you can play. No nice half-elves.

Luke Thomson's List

Deer-man: Bonus: Leave no tracks in wilderness
Good on its own and clearly phrased, but of limited use in a party. A whole herd of deer-lings could be fun to play though, I suppose.

Mole-man: Bonus: Can burrow beneath the ground as a movement action + Penalty: Vision limited to 10'
The bonus is clear enough (but should probably state what "ground" is. Maybe "earth" or "soil"? The 10' vision limit is a real pain for most characters. 30' is bad enough, but 10' means minimal ranged spellcasting, ranged weapons, or even navigating through large rooms. It'd be tricky to play.

Karl Lindberg

The Bad

My List

Elf: Weakness: Save vs Ugliness or shun it.

This effect isn't terribly clear. I use it as "if an Elf sees an ugly thing, they must Save or shun the ugly thing". Screaming, throwing something, diving out the window, weeping uncontrollably, getting angry, or reflexively casting a spell are also acceptable results. Elves love beauty. It's a good effect with bad phrasing.

Fishling: Weakness: Drink twice as much water as usual
Finding water isn't usually a problem. Rations are one thing, but water is assumed to be abundant in most settings. If a weakness never comes up it's a bad weakness.

Dan D's List
Dan, sorry, but there are are a lot of things on your list that fall under the "I don't know what this means" heading. They're cool ideas but they need to be rephrased or reworked. I noticed the same thing with your planet series.

High Elf: Bonus: An eye for magical secrets
Hobgoblin: Bonus: Military discipline + Weakness: Had all their sociability beaten out of them
Bugbear: Bonus: Carries a sack filled with child ghosts
Orc: Bonus: Can shrug off death 1/day
Eladrin: Bonus: Seasonal-cycle forms and rebirth + Weakness: All magic has mutagenic properties
Gnome: Can create tiny clockwork toys.

I have no idea what these mean as a GM or a player. Sure, I can make it up on the fly, but that's not a great solution. My "sack of child ghosts" might be overpowered, it might dominate the way the bugbear is played, or it might be completely useless and mechanically unsound. The point of a table is to do this hard work for me so I can be a lazy GM. :D

Kobold: Bonus: Cannot get lost in enclosed spaces
I'm not sure when this would come up or how it would be implemented. Most of the time, "getting lost" is a function of no light + panic or bad mapping.

Luke Thomson's List
Finding bad entries on Luke's list was very difficult. Go Luke.

Locust-man: Bonus: Can leap 100'
How often? Because if this is a once/round thing, the locust-man is going to be a holy terror. Movement and positioning are really important. A locust-man can jump out of a 50' deep pit with room to spare, jump across a 100' chasm, or leap around in combat like a crazed fiend.

Crab-man: Weakness: Mouthparts can't speak humanoid languages
I know this is in-setting, but it's a crippling penalty for characters. The Paladins of the Word are mute but there's a significant upside to playing one. Poor crab-men. Can't even hold a pencil with their big 2d8 damage claws.