Zombies & Ziggurats

Mankind's God-King, Sadar, ascended to the Heavens and slew its inhabitants in revenge for his slain brother-in-arms. His people expanded and have enjoyed the benefits of his mercy and strength. However, for every god he sends crashing down, another dungeon will be spawned. Foolhardy adventurers and noble Keepers plunge into the depths for riches, glory, and to stop the comatose godling from waking back up.

YOU are the Keepers of Sadar's temples. YOU must venture deep into the depths of surreal dungeons. YOU must slay the dreamer to have them lapse back into slumber yet again. You are a Keeper, a Cleric of Sadar. You cannot fail your holy task.

---

Zombies and Ziggurats was born out of one thing and one thing alone: "Can I make an OSR without making an OSR?"

But first a little history, OSR, or the Old School Renaissance, is / was / its complicated "revival" of Old School design, namely AD&D and its ilk. Now, the term of OSR over the years has been diluted to the point where, according to one of my followers, anyone can make an OSR by virtue of SAYING it's OSR.

But I want to go into this with some basic ideas.

First, an OSR game has to be "roughly" about Characters doing adventure stuff. But those Character's are not necessarily "Superheroes," they are people, in a situation. Fantastic situations, yes, but just relatively normal people. 

Second, an OSR game has to be "Play-First," which is to say, FUCK THE NARRATIVE! These games usually thrive when little is specifically detailed, instead allowing the GM to slap what they want on it. However this has been abused by just recreating the same game over and over again to run the same dungeons over and over again.

Finally, an OSR game is about Rulings not Rules, easily summarized as "Yeah, you can do that, I think, I'll allow it." This philosophy permeates the design as it forces the Characters to think on their toes and use their wits instead of stats to solve problems. It also means they must use their stats to solve problems, but you can also just kind of convince the DM to let you do things, but I digress. 

Z&Z is, and is not, an OSR. 

Z&Z is my own perpetual delusion and ego showing itself, again. The goal is simple, take as much OSR as possible and unga-bunga it until it's MY personal OSR nightmare. 

---

This is a pretty simple version all things considering, it's fast and simple. Things get prettier later. Before I forget, "AI Art is Unethical," and it is also very cheap (i.e. nothing in my case). You can freely use any of the images here, all are either Public Domain or AI (Stable Diffusion // NovelAI). 

Also, if you notice anything glaringly wrong or you want to call me various names, click here. Comments, as always, are open.