Dirk Stanley is pushing out the fulfillment to Kickstarter backers and I got mine. And boy is it pretty sweet. So in case you missed it, there was a Kickstarter for an OSR version of Far Away Land. Far Away Land has been out for quite a while and uses it’s own system which is pretty cool. I ranted about it in a much earlier post. So you can read that and get quick overview on that. Let me do a little recap on the setting. To put it simply, Faraway Land is a strange gonzo setting. That may put some off but you can go as gonzo as you want. And for me personally I like coloring outside the lines of Tolkien and weird stuff. Sure it’s weird but doesn’t rely on shock to be weird. It’s weird just because it is. And it’s that fun kind of weird.

But this rant is about the OSR version and like I said. It’s pretty sweet. Setting-wise it’s still the same but many of the creatures, races, and spells have been converted over to an OSR system. And yes I know there are many OSR systems. In this case, Dirk used White Box or more specifically Swords & Wizardry Continual Light as a base for the rules. So most of the rules should be pretty much familiar to many.
The biggest change for FALOSR is the magic system. It’s pretty simple in a useful sort of way. First, there technically aren’t clerics in the game. There are Light Mages which are sort of like clerics and Chaos Mages which are more like your standard blow-stuff-up Magic-User. Spells are broken down into three categories White, Gray, and Black. Gray spells either of the classes can cast. However, a Light Mage casting a Black Magic spell takes a penalty to casting. And vice versa for the Chaos Mage casting White Magic. They can do it but there’s a penalty. Also, the number of spells a mage may cast is simplified. It’s Level+3. And no preparation of spells. If you know it then you can cast it. Basically. Once again there is a little exception and difference. Spells are broken down by level which corresponds to character level. This makes what level a spell is totally different than other OSR games that mimic the original sources. So a 2nd level character can safely cast second level spells. They can try to cast higher level spells but it’s pretty dangerous. Like I said, the actual spell levels have changed because of this and FALOSR’s own internal logic. A prime example is that Sleep is an 8th Level spell. You read that right. But there’s plenty of new and interesting spells to play around with.

So in case you were wondering, the other two classes are Fighter and Thief. That’s it. Just the classic four classes. For races, you have the standards less Halfling and then the Far Away Land specific races: Agnun, Blonin, Clockwork,Exions, Glacerian, Numan, Orka, Poomkin, and Simian. Plus there’s a few of the monsters you can easily convert. FALOSR has a whole host of little rules tweaks and mini games as well. Want to do 0-Level funnel. No problem. Collaborative wording building? It’s there too. Plus there’s vehicles and naval combat. Special weird powers and training montages. There’s a ton of little useful bits in there.
So if you were already a fan of Far Away Land, chances are you backed the Kickstarter. If you’re a collector of OSR rules sets. Grab it up for your collection. Heck, the art is even fun in the one. If you are an aficionado of White Box games then definitely grab this one up. There’s virtually no conversion to do. So you’re just adding to what you are already using. That’s what I plan on doing a crazy mash up of my own tweaks on the White Box rules and FALOSR.
As of this writing, the Far Away Land-OSR Version hasn’t hit the virtual shelves. You can keep track of that over on DrivethruRPG. And you can learn a whole lot more about the world and the whole product line, a wiki, and some adventures over at FarUniverse.