The evil mage cowers from the chaos and destruction his spell has caused.
An evil wizard has inadvertently created a tear in reality, a gateway out of which spill demons, oozes, and acid-slime rain from the very realm of Oblivex. The earth sizzles and dissolves and sulfurous clouds shroud the land in a sickly yellow haze. People and animals caught in the storm melt into hungry, ambling, blobs. Puddings and lesser demons slither about and consume anything within reach. Powerless under the weight of his own terror, the wizard flees into his Fortress Maze to weather out his accidental apocalypse. All the while, the vast growing ooze crawls steadily behind the adventurers devouring everything it touches. While the gateway remains open, the ooze threatens to feed and grow endlessly until all life is destroyed.
The adventurers must survive the toxic landscape, defeat the maze and the monsters that lurk there, and shut the gate to the noxious realm without becoming part of TheOOZE.
The OOZE zine pack will contain adventure zine modules for Old-School Essentials, each themed around, Ooyxblix, the demon of slime and oozes and its inhospitable realm of dissolution and acidic denizens, from Necrotic Gnome's Demonic Grimoire.
Cover Art. [production image. not final]
The modules will be printed on 11" x 17" Ledger/tabloid sheets folded into 8-page quarter-letter booklets, (aka, 8-page zines). Each zine in this pack is a self-contained adventure location or area (Dungeon or Wilderness) that together form a longer adventure. A hex-crawl across a land overrun by ooze demons followed by a dungeon crawl through a perilous fortress maze which is slowly sinking into the ooze. Utilizing the classic single-sheet zine format, this project aims to create a handy game aid that is easy to read and run at the table and fun to use.
Out of the Ooze and Maze in the Muck, the two core zines of the pack.
Out of the OOZE - A dangerous hex-crawl in a land being dissolved by a tide of acidic ooze after a cataclysmic event. Find the wizard to stop the rising ooze from consuming the world. 11" x 17" folded to quarter-letter booklet (4.25" x 5.5").
Cropped preview of the hex map side of the sheet [production image. not final]. The contour lines are used to track the rising level of ooze as the players face challenges and wandering demon-kind. The bold line between hexes represent impassable terrain (by normal means). 1 hex = 6 miles.
Maze in the Muck - A labyrinthine multi-level dungeon that is slowly sinking into the surrounding ooze. 11" x 17" cut and folded to quarter-letter booklet (4.25" x 5.5").
Below are the estimated shipping rates for The Ooze by itself and group shipping.
Shipping for just The OOZE:
US - $9 - $12
CA - $18 - $20
UK - $10 - $13
EU + EFTA - $12 - $15
AU - $14 - $17
Rest of the World - $20 - $25
Group Shipping:
SAVE BIG with DISCOUNTED GROUP SHIPPING! Thirteen of the seventeen projects in OSE Month are participating in group shipping with Demonic Grimoire. This means all rewards from these projects will be grouped and shipped together so that you can back multiple projects without paying a ton for shipping! For instance, if you're in the US and back the Demonic Grimoire Ritualist Pledge Level + 9 other projects, you are paying up to $29; saving you $124 vs. the approx $153 if you had backed each project individually.
As we are part of the Group Shipping, The OOZE will ship along with the other OSE Month projects (Estimated January 2027). Digital files will be sent out to backers before The OOZE goes to print.
My name is Jacob and I write, illustrate, and publish my work under Gelatinous Cubism. Past releases for Old-school Essentials include In the Shadow of Tower Silveraxe, Through the Valley of the Manticore, and The Scourge of Northland.
Logo and other works.
Old-School Essentials Month
Old-School Essentials Month is a group-collab project led by Exalted Funeral and Necrotic Gnome, featuring a new 176-page OSE book — the Demonic Grimoire — and sister projects from 16 other renowned creators in the OSE community.
The theme of OSE Month 2026 is: DEMONS! Get ready for hordes of new monsters, adventures set in the realms of hell, fiendish new character options, and lashings of blood-dripping art.
Group Achievements
We will be announcing a series of achievements tied to the success of all OSE Month projects jointly! To start with:
All projects funded: When all OSE Month projects fund, we will arrange a community Ask Me Anything session on Discord, featuring creators from across the projects. This will be a chance to chat with the OSE Month creators about their projects.
Old-School Essentials (OSE) is a role-playing game of fantastic adventure inspired by classic games of the 1970s and 1980s. Players delve into forsaken ruins, battle fearsome monsters, explore haunted forests and perilous mountain ranges, sail the high seas in search of lost lands, recover fabulous treasures, and unearth secrets of ancient magic.
