Let's not do the embarrassing standard promotional copy here, ok? You don't want to read that sort of thing, and I certainly don't want to write it. So we'll be a little bit more real, and leave the creative writing to the actual products.
Lamentations of the Flame Princess is a Helsinki-based tabletop role-playing publisher, and the one game we publish is also called Lamentations of the Flame Princess. We've been in business since July 2009, and have published over 100 titles in that time.
LotFP is an OSR game, a proper one, which means the core of our rules emulate 1970s and 80s Dungeons & Dragons as closely as the OGL allows. You know, six ability scores, classes, levels, that whole thing. Yeah, it's the worst system to use for role-playing, except for all the other ones out there.
This means that you can use LotFP adventures and supplements with other OSR games as well as the 70s and 80s original version of the game, and use other OSR publishers' work with our rules.
LotFP's real strength lies in its adventure and supplementary material. Even though we use the classic rulesset, this game largely doesn't feel like traditional fantasy gaming. The vibe is different. We advertise ourselves as a "weird horror and fantasy" game, and at conventions we have a banner that says "mindbending and merciless role-playing."
What does that mean?
Depends on the author of the individual book. LotFP isn't a cohesive product line; each author expresses their own style and voice and interpretation of "weird fantasy."
So across our releases you can find cosmic horror, grindhouse/video nasty vibes, humor, sci-fi, historical fantasy, swords and sorcery, some good ol' traditional adventure gaming, bad attitudes, good attitudes, profane ideas, progressive ideas, conservative ideas, tools to enhance your game, tools to disrupt your game, experimental formats, traditional formats... you can find anything lurking in the catalog.
As a result of this broad thinking, our books are usually pretty good. Yeah, sometimes we shit the bed. And sometimes we produce books as good as anything this hobby and industry has ever seen. Really.
To get started, you can download a no-art version of the rules here. You will notice that our rulebook is just a table reference book. We've omitted a lot of the flavor and fluff that others stuff into their core books because after you read it once all that garbage just gets in the way when you're trying to use the book during actual play.
So we'd recommend an adventure or two to go with the rules. The homepage here has links to a number of free adventure and supplement downloads.
If you want to go deeper, Death Frost Doom is the classic starter adventure and was the company's first proper release.
I'd also recommend the Adventure Anthology series, as they each contain a number of good starter adventures. Adventure Anthology: Fire is fine collection of weird adventures that aren't too explicit, should be good for most people, Adventure Anthology: Blood has adventures that are good bridges between traditional and weird fantasy, and Adventure Anthology: Death is perfect for those without morals or basic human empathy.
(You'll notice the Adventure Anthology series is Blood - Fire - Death, named after the Bathory album, and I'll mention here that heavy metal music and the attitude behind it is a prime inspiration for Lamentations of the Flame Princess. True metal in all its forms, not the poser shit.)
LotFP uses an implied early 17th century Earth as its setting, although some authors disregard this or give it only the most passing of lip service. It's only directly relevant to a few releases, and even then you can easily reskin them for your preferred setting as you do any published work. If you'd like to explore our releases that do explicitly feature the historical setting, I'd recommend A True Relation of the Great Virginia Disastrum 1633, Terror in the Streets, No Rest for the Wicked, and the Staffortonshire Company Works of John Williams.
If you'd like to explore releases that have more of a sci-fi/alien basis for the weirdness, I'd recommend Big Puppet, Earth Incubation Crisis, Qelong, Idea from Space, and World of the Lost.
If you want our more traditional fare with dungeoncrawls, there is Broodmother SkyFortress, Lair of the Brain Eaters, Temple of the Worm, and Meanderings of the Mine Mind.
If you want charming and subliminally disturbing works of great atmosphere, I'll give a special shoutout to the works of Kelvin Green, particularly Green Messiah, Winnie the Shit, Strict Time Records Must Be Kept, and possibly the most painful book we've ever published, Bee-Ware!
If you'd like to explore the fucked up shit of our transgressive works, I'd recommend Don't Fuck the Priest, Wight Power, The Book of Antitheses, and Curse of the Daughterbrides.
If you want to get your hands on those "as good as anything this hobby and industry has ever seen" releases, that's going to be the Disastrum, A Red & Pleasant Land, Nebulith, Veins of the Earth, and Carcosa. (some are no longer in print... good luck.)
(apologies to authors whose works weren't mentioned, I don't mean to cause drama with the collaborators but this page is already way too fucking long)
So that's us. It's not for everybody, but it just might be for you.
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James Edward Raggi IV
LotFP Publisher and Author
(basically an amalgam of Garth Marenghi and Dean Learner)
Helsinki, Finland
ps
watch movies by Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead, David Cronenberg, Lloyd Kaufman, Sam Raimi, and Ben Wheatley
listen to music by Agalloch, Cynic, Hammers of Misfortune, Reverend Bizarre, and Runemagick
read stories by Clive Barker, Ryan Harding, Thomas Ligotti, HP Lovecraft, and Jason Pargin/David Wong
