The Carcass Crawler Index

From B/X to OSE: 1981-2020

“B/X D&D” is fandom’s name for the famous edition of Basic Dungeons & Dragons that includes the D&D Basic Set (1981) authored by Tom Moldvay and the D&D Expert Set (1981) authored by David “Zeb” Cook with Steve Marsh. Though it quickly was put aside for BECMI D&D (1983), it was nonetheless the gateway for numerous young players, as D&D was in its biggest growth curve at the time.

Twenty years later, the OGL came along, allowing third-parties to produce D&D products. It was Matt Finch who realized that the OGL could be used to legally recreate old editions of D&D, leading to his publication of a close copy of AD&D 1e (1977-1979) called OSRIC (2006). Thus was the retroclone movement begun. Chris Gonnerman’s Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game (2006) was the first near-retroclone of B/X D&D, but it was Daniel Proctor’s Labyrinth Lord (2007) that made it into the mass-market due to a commercial publishing plan. Around 2013, Labyrinth Lord was back-burnered as Proctor moved on to other game designs, and it wouldn’t be strongly supported again until Proctor began working on a second edition a decade later. That left room for a new B/X retroclone to appear.

Enter Gavin Norman, who began blogging his own rules variants for Labyrinth Lord in 2011 and began producing his own professional work a few years later, starting with The Complete Vivimancer (2014), a supplement for Labyrinth Lord. After some work on his famous Wormskin magazine (2015-2018), which would later lead to the Dolmenwood RPG (2024), Norman decided that he wanted his own copy of the B/X rules that was more accessible than the huge Labyrinth Lord rulebook. The result was the newest B/X retoclone, B/X Essentials (2017-2018), which was released as a set of five small, digest-sized books from Norman’s company, Necrotic Gnome. It was then revised as Old-School Essentials (2019), or OSE, which was even more focused than B/X Essentials had been on a tight, accessible graphic design.

As part of the 2019 Kickstarter for Old-School Essentials, Norman also offered two “Advanced” supplements, “Genre Rules” and “Druid & Illusionist Spells”. These books expanded the modular design of Old-School Essentials with AD&D-inspired classes, spells, and other mechanics that were compatible with OSE. A year and a half later, Necrotic Gnome had partnered with Exalted Funeral to help out with distribution, and Exalted Funeral was holding a Kickstarter for an entire set of “Advanced Fantasy” books, to match the original OSE volumes. Which brings us, at last, to Carcass Crawler.

The Coming of Carcass Crawler: 2020-Present

On September 25, 2020, about two weeks after the “Advanced Fantasy” Kickstarter closed, Necrotic Gnome anounced that “Advanced Fantasy” backers would also get a free copy of the “inaugural” issue of Necrotic Gnome’s new OSE fanzine, Carcass Crawler. It was to be an exclusive reward that wasn't the official first issue of the new magazine. That “inaugural issue” (commonly called issue #0) was initially released as a PDF, alongside the rest of the “Advanced Fantasy” PDFs, in November 2020. A softcover digest followed for print backers in the new year.

Necrotic Gnome has published additional issues of Carcass Crawler on an irregular basis, one or so a year starting with issue #1 (2021) in June 2021. They tend to be small books, digest-sized and just 32 pages, but with considerable content and matching the quality graphic design of OSE. Some sources say Norman has regretted the exclusivity of the "inaugural issue", and though he's stayed fast in not making that Kickstarter-exclusive more widely available, much of the content has since been reprinted, with Carcass Crawler #3 (April 2023) being the biggest beneficiary.

Every issue of Carcass Crawler has featured new character classes, at least two per issues, many of them "demihuman classes". These classes also tend to appear as races, one of the variant rules for OSE differentiating it from B/X D&D. The rest of the 'zines tend to be more varied, but invariably focus on crunch.

Gavin Norman was the main author of the first three issues, with a few pieces by others, but starting with issue #4 (2024), he's had two major co-conspirators, Chance Dudinack and Brad Kerr. Dudinack's work dates back to a few D&D-compatible adventures that he published through DriveThruRPG in 2019 while Kerr more directly debuted as an OSE designer with Hideous Daylight (2020), published under his own imprint, Swordlords Publishing, also through DriveThuRPG.

OSE is today rich with supportive 'zines, with other OSE-focused periodicals including Delver (2021-Present), Gary's Appendix (2023-Present), Old School & Cool (2021-Present), and Planar Compass (2020-Present).

About the Contents

Carcass Crawler is a rules-focused magazine intended to support both the “Basic” and “Advanced” versions of Old-School Essentials as well as B/X D&D.

About the Title

When Wizards of the Coast released D&D under the OGL for free usage, they protected some of their best-known creatures (and other game elements) as “Product Identity”. One of the protected monsters was the carrion crawler. As a result, when Norman statted up the carrion crawler for Essentials, he had to choose a new name: carcass crawler. Choosing the same name for the magazine is a nice reflection of how OSE differs from Wizards' D&D.

Obtaining the Magazines

Carcass Crawler is available in print or PDF from Exalted Funeral or as a PDF from DTRPG with the exception of issue #0, which has stayed exclusive to “Advance Fantasy” patrons.

This index is © Copyright 2024 by Shannon Appelcline. It is released under a cc-by-4.0 license, allowing reuse with attribution. Background image is Catacombs of the Flayed Minotaurs by Dyson Logos, released for personal and/or commercial use. Support Dyson's Patreon.