Free Role Playing Game Supplement Review: The Lake of Abominations – Hex 17.23

The Lake of Abominations – Hex 17.23 by Todd Leback is a role playing game supplement published by Third Kingdom Games primarily intended for use with Old School Essentials from Necrotic Gnome but it can be used with other OSR systems. As such, it is covered by the Open Game License and some parts are considered to be Open Game Content as a result.

The supplement is available for free from DriveThruRPG as a 23-page PDF. One page is the front cover, one the Credits and Table of Contents and one the Open Game License.

Introduction to Populated Hexes explains that this is the first in a series that provides populated 6-mile hexes from the world of Absalom. These can be dropped into an existing campaign if desired. Hexcrawling Rules gives a list of various useful supplements, including Hexcrawl Basics. Absalom gives some details on the world and Campaign Settings explains the setting’s assumptions. Using Populated Hexes recaps how they can be used, explains that each will be released in a series of seven and how each release works, as they also include optional rules. A page and a half are then taken up by two hex maps, generated using Hexographer from Inkwell Ideas, showing the small local area around the hex then the larger one.

Hex 17.23 – The Lake of Abominations has a subhex map of the covered hex. It starts with an overview of the hex, including its history, then has details on various points of interest in the subhexes, including a minidungeon. This is followed by a wandering monster table.

The Appendix then has new rules. There are rules on Skills, with 13 listed and Poisons, which gives some extra rules on poisons. An extensive section on Magical Item Components, which is related to creating magic items, has different types of magic items, what they would cost to make, how they are created, the major part of an item and rules on harvesting things from monsters.

Following this are seven pages of maps. The overview of Absalom and the regional referee map are reproduced from earlier. There is also a regional player map, referee and player maps for the covered hex and a map of the minidungeon.

The Lake of Abominations – Hex 17.23 in Review

The PDF is well bookmarked with major and minor sections linked. The Table of Contents is to a similar level of depth and is also hyperlinked. Navigation is excellent. The text maintains a two-column format and appeared to be free of error. There are no illustrations bar the front cover and the colour hex maps. Presentation is okay.

The hex itself is nicely detailed, and should be easy enough to drop into a campaign; any using typical hexes – 24 miles for instance – can easily swallow a 6-mile hex with no problems. As stated, it should also be easy enough to adapt to other OSR systems. In and of itself, the supplement is worth it for the hex alone. Then, there is all the other optional rules. These may or may not be used, but there is a lot of useful additional content, including that weak spot of OSR games, magic item creation. The Lake of Abominations – Hex 17.23 is really an excellent little product and it can be downloaded for free by clicking here.