The year is 1998 -- Furbies are flying off of the shelves, your aunt has seen Titanic in theaters 11 times, and the pen & paper role playing game world is abuzz about the resurgence of: Nether Regionz!
The game had reached new heights in popularity and the primary source of updates on the sword & planet tabletop classic was Nether Regionz Magazine. Month after month, issue after issue flew off of comic book and hobby shop shelves. Until... the incident.
Coming Soon to Kickstarter! Nether Regionz Magazine: The Lost Issues
We're all familiar with the tragic series of maritime disasters that resulted in the early 1998 heavily anticipated issues 158 and 159 of Nether Regionz Magazine never showing up in mailboxes or on store shelves, so I won't bore you with those details, but needless to say disappointment rang out through the gaming community and the financial fallout was devastating, circulation was never quite the same. Worse still, the issues themselves remained lost, unnerded, in the murky depths of Puerto Rico Trench... or so we thought!
The printer found a few cases of them in the back of the warehouse! Netherheads can FINALLY fill that two-issue gap in their display cases and discover all the cool shit that could have been in their 1998 games.
The Nether Regionz campaign setting is an homage to early 80s sword and planet franchises such as ThunderCats, Thundarr the Barbarian, and most especially Filmation's Masters of the Universe, this time wrapped in an homage to late 90s era game and pop culture magazines. The rules contained in the magazine are 5E compatible with modifications inspired by the setting, earlier editions of D&D, and others 80s games, like Palladium Book's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness.
The heavily illustrated issues include introductions to the campaign world, detailed maps, COMICS, tons of illustrations, articles on the history of fantasy RPGs, guest artists, parody ads, letters, maps, puzzles, and mor-- HAIKUS!
Game content includes Nether Regionz unique take on playable slimepeople with the ability to increase their size by absorbing more slime, harpies with questionable flying abilities, rock-hurling cyclops PCs with poor depth perception, and grappling plantperson brutes. There are also rules for fantastic technology, an alignment-based background generation system, and a deep dive into some of the more unique Nether Regionz locales to inspire your games. There are parody letters from readers, parody ads, real ads, reviews and previews of other games and media seemingly from the late 90s, and by some miracle of time dilation, all the material is 5E compatible!
Guest contributors include Bill Ward (Black Gate Magazine, Tales From the Magician's Skull Online) writing about the influence of genre fiction like Jack Vance's Planet of Adventure and Michael Moorcock's Elric series on tabletop roleplaying games. Illustrations and comics from Tom O'Halloren (Shark McGill, Sugarplum Chronicles), Melvin Jarvis (Dungeon Crawlers), Michael Bracco (The Creators, Adam Wreck), and Kata Kane (Altar Girl, Ana and the Cosmic Race). There is an excerpt from Neon Barbarian, a comic by David Crispino (Ancient Noise, Taft Sturgeon) and Tony Gregori (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Rick & Morty), cartoons by Jonny Wags (You Are Now Encumbered, Be Gentle I'm Stupid), and me, Mike Riley (I Taste Sound, Irregulordz).
Did I mention this link to the KS pre-launch? Checki it out!: NRMag.INFO
If this goes really well, there are rumors that some earlier issue might turn up.
