Powder Monkeys (OSR) PDF

Powder Monkeys

Fantasy stopped being strictly medieval a long time ago.

Adventurers carry pocket watches, sail ocean-going warships, operate printing presses and wander through cities whose politics owe rather more to the Renaissance than to Charlemagne. Yet firearms are still sometimes treated as though one arquebus will cause the entire genre to collapse.

Nonsense.

Powder Monkeys is a compact OSR supplement for introducing early firearms, black powder and explosives into fantasy games without turning every dungeon into the gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

The sweet spot lies in the weapons of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: powerful, smoky and frightening, but slow, temperamental and sufficiently awkward that swords, bows, armour and magic still have something to do.

Smoke, Thunder and Lead

Early firearms changed warfare because they allowed ordinary soldiers to deliver lethal force without spending a lifetime mastering the longbow.

Fantasy magic has already done much the same thing.

Spells undermine fortifications, bypass armour, destroy formations and project force across great distances. In such a world, gunpowder is not necessarily a disruptive intrusion. It may be the natural next step taken by rulers, artificers, mercenaries and ambitious lunatics looking for a cheaper alternative to maintaining a college of battle-wizards.

Firearms also bring their own atmosphere:

• Deafening reports in confined spaces

• Dense clouds of smoke obscuring the battlefield

• Devastating wounds from musket balls

• Slow and vulnerable reloading

• Powder magazines waiting for the inevitable stray spark

• Bombs, grenades and other portable arguments

• New opportunities for magical ammunition and enchanted explosives

• Excellent reasons to reconsider carrying a lit torch through the armoury

Guns Without Modernity

The aim is not to make firearms into faster crossbows with absurd damage values.

Early guns should feel different. They are brutally effective when properly prepared, but they remain cumbersome weapons from an age of matchlocks, wheellocks, pikes, cuirasses and massed volleys.

Keeping the technology within the early-modern period preserves the balance and texture of fantasy. Once revolvers and repeating weapons appear, the assumptions of the setting begin to change rapidly.

A brace of loaded pistols is swashbuckling.

A belt-fed machine gun is a campaign meeting.

Suitable For

• Renaissance and Restoration-inspired fantasy

• Pirate and privateer campaigns

• Pike-and-shot warfare

• War-torn cities and mercenary companies

• Naval adventures

• Alchemists, artificers and explosive magic

• Old-school games ready to advance beyond perpetual pseudo-medievalism

• Players who believe every locked door is secretly requesting artillery

Rough as Toast

Powder Monkeys belongs to the Rough as Toast range: cheap, experimental gaming material built around strange, narrow or cheerfully irresponsible ideas.

It was created for Schlocktoberfest, where peculiar concepts are thrown against the wall to see what sticks.

In this case, what sticks is mostly soot.

Format

Digital PDF download.

• Compact OSR fantasy supplement

• Early firearms, black powder and explosives

• Best suited to sixteenth- and seventeenth-century levels of technology

• Part of the Rough as Toast range

• Originally produced for Schlocktoberfest

This is supplementary material rather than a complete roleplaying game. No printed booklet, loaded musket or smouldering parcel will be posted.