Interview: Merry Mushmen on Hounds of Hendenburg & The Obsidian Keep
A chat with the creators behind two adventures being Kickstarted by the Merry Mushmen: Horrendous Hounds of Hendenburg by Liam Pigeon-Quinlan and Raiding the Obsidian Keep by Joseph R Lewis.
The Expansions
These aren’t just reprints. I did a quick comparison of the originals vs the new versions:
Hounds of Hendenburg → Horrendous Hounds of Hendenburg: The original was primarily a village and a centerpiece dungeon with a hex crawl linking them. The new version is a much larger sandbox hex crawl - about 46 hexes, half populated. Think mini Dolmenwood. Two new dungeons, more factions, more things to encounter.
The Obsidian Keep → Raiding the Obsidian Keep: The original was mostly about getting to the castle. Now there’s a fully-featured 50+ room, four-level dungeon when you arrive. Plus a refugee encampment for finding hirelings, and detailed “what happens after” timelines for success or failure.
What Makes These Adventures Different
Both adventures are situations, not stories. Here’s a problem, we don’t have a solution, off you go.
Joe: “I can’t outsmart my players. There’s too many of them and they have too many spells and powers and items. No matter how clever I think I’m being, they’ll instantly come up with some bizarre abstract solution. So I don’t bother worrying about that in design. I just put things that are interesting in front of them and let them play.”
Neither adventure tells you where to start and where to end. They’re powder kegs to be lit by players. Pull on one thread and the whole thing changes.
The Design Philosophy
Liam: “A lot of the way I design adventures is to do the opposite of what Wizards do. Pick up a Wizards of the Coast book and just do the opposite.”
Joe: “As a GM I’m always trying to make my job easier at the table. When I’m writing, I’m trying to make other GMs’ jobs easier. We’re playing a game - it shouldn’t feel like work.”
The thing I found reading through both: there’s more adventure in these 37 double-sided pages than you’d get in a 200-page adventure by certain coastal-dwelling magic users.
The Merry Mushmen Approach
Their covers are designed like old school modules but functional - inside covers have the maps so you never need to flip. Every square inch has something interesting.
Eric (editor): “We’ve had a decade of game Kickstarters to learn from. We’ve seen the mistakes others have made. We don’t have significant stretch goals because we want to get the work to you fast and move on to the next one.”
Advice for New Adventure Writers
Joe: Start with something small. If you don’t finish it, you start something else. If you finish it and no one reads it, it’s not that bad.
Liam: Read the best of the OSR. Pay close attention not just to content but to layout. Look at who has both the writing and the layout down - Joseph, Gavin Norman, Gus L, Emmy Allen, Brad Kerr. Emulate those principles.
Eric: Get feedback. Talk to people. Offer feedback yourself - it’s a two-way street. Make friends. There’s nothing worse than stuff no one sees.
What’s Next
Liam: A grimy I Claudius-inspired swords and sandals funnel called “Zeus Is Dead” and a Persian sci-fi fantasy western Shadow Dark adventure.
Joe: The Undying Sea - Into the Odd rules welded with Emmy Allen’s depth crawl system. Jason and the Argonauts meets Pirates of the Caribbean. Sail from your home island and discover stranger, more dangerous places the further you go.
Both of these adventures are already on my list to drop into my Blackmarsh campaign. The Kickstarter is mostly done already - not one of those two-years-in-the-waiting things.