> Home
5/8/2026- I've been working on contructing the skeleton of this website. I think its pretty navigatable at this point. While the content might not be there, the structure is. Once the content for Ancient Khares is edited and reviewed, I will begin posting it here.
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5/4/2026- Ran the first playtest of this ruleset over the weekend. I had written a starter adventure over the last month. The adventure was set in an oasis that was fed by a strange underground machine that pumped up water from deep underground. Unfortunately, the water had been recently turned off. The party was charged with finding out why the water had been shut off and to fix it. After tricking a group of gullible jinn, slaying a fearsome two-headed fiend, chatting with stone faces and tinkering with an alien device, the party managed to recover a missing axle and resume the water flow. There are still loose ends as the party learned a necromancer also dwelled below.
Overall, I had a ton of fun and hope my friends I ran it for did too. It was my first time running a game set in Ancient Khares in almost 3 years.
I am continuing to slowly update this website. Its really enjoyable to re-create a little slice of the old internet on Neocities.
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5/1/2026-
Happy May Day! Today is the start of me compiling rules for my
updated TTRPG rules I use to run games in Ancient Khares. Ancient Khares is a bronze age world I designed for my first TTRPG project, the Golden Age of Khares. The last 6 months or so, I've been making new rules which line up more with my RPG tastes. I'll update this periodically.
Please take a moment today to learn about your local labor history..
> Rules
The rules for playing in Ancient Khares.
> References
Reference Material for Ancient Khares.
> Tables
Tables for use while playing in Ancient Khares
Character Generation Tables
Reference Tables
>Links
A treasure trove of links for websites I like, RPG creators I like and artists who have worked on Khares.
RPGs
Cairn-The TTRPG that forms the skeleton of Khairn.Block, Dodge, Parry-Another TTRPG that heavily inspired this work.
Pickpocket Press-The first work in Khares was built off of Stephen's work.
Tunnels&Trolls-T&T's embrace of silliness and rolling lots of dice found its way into Khairn.
Artists
These artists made the illustrations for my first work set in Ancient Khares. Check them out and if you can commission some work for your own projects or buy their stock art!Carlos Castilho
Fagner Mathias
Felipe Faira
Karoline Fudo
HodagRPG
Rich Longmore
Geraldo Marinho
Ricardo Gabriel Telles
Yuri Purkowski Domingos
Ink Potion Studios
Mental Foundry
Renan Oliveira
Guztavo Fabian
Ryan S Thomason
Del Teigeler
Jeff Ward
Other
Dungeon Scrawl-Lets you make high quality dungeon maps for free in your browser.Wiby Search-Search the old internet with this search enginge that indexes old school websites.
Dinosaur Dracula- A pop culture blog. I've been following the author in some form since I was in middle school.
Sweet 8-Bitterness-Dungeon chip music! I listen to a lot of this when working on Ancient Khares content.
Crystal Links-Middle school me lived on this website. Truly a relic of the old internet and TONS of weird New Age and Occult articles for inspiration.
The Shadowlands-Another absolute gem of the 90s internet. Its been online since 1994! Compiles a bunch of paranormal stuff.
Neocities Neighbors
BadGraph1csGhost-Really reminds me of the old pre-corporate internet. The webmaster gives tons of information regarding digital privacy and how to sever yourself from our feudal tech overlords.> About
Learn more about what this is here!
Who made this?
My name is Jeff. I have been playing TTRPGs for over two decades. I started with the 3rd Edition of the world's most famous roleplaying game back in middle school. In the last decade, I found myself attracted to the OSR and NSR scene, as these seemed to be able to run the type of idealized game I always imagined myself playing.What else am I? What else am I into? I'm a proud union member for one. I worked as a teacher for a decade and still continue to work in education.
Here's a list of things I like:
- Cartoons
- Vintage Computers
- Labor and union politics/history
- Sword & Sorcery Fantasy
- Pulp action
- Indie rock, emo, punk, heavy metal, garage rock, freakbeat, surf rock, funk, soul etc etc
- Preservation and sustainability
- Brewing
- Local history
- Folk Catholicism
- Retro Video Games
- Bronze age civilizations
- Urban legends and modern folklore
- Analog Horror
- Campy TV
- Television Preservation
- Deep cable television
- Sci-Fi, horror, martial arts and action b films
- VHS and other physical media
- Oddities
- Antlered critters
- Comic books
- Vaporwave/Mallsoft
- Working-class solidarity
What is this?
“After narrowly escaping from the horde of beastmen you find yourselves locked in a large antechamber. The echo of the heavy bronze door slamming into the aged stone floor still rings out in the otherwise silent room. The glow of your torch light illuminates a collection of stone statues, each in the shape of an abstract human. The statues have their arms stretched, tempting you to pull one down like a lever. From what you can see, this appears to be the Room of the Silent Sentries, the last location the old vagabond in Mesidju told you about between pomegranate wine induced slurring. The ring binding the Jinn of the Dead is near, but you must be quick or the soul of the Vizier will be lost forever. What do you do?Ancient Khares is my personal bronze age TTRPG campaign setting! The world of Ancient Khares is one of weird sword & sandal high adventure that takes inspiration from Biblical Epics, Italian Peplum films, Saturday morning cartoons, schlocky television and hard acid rock. Contained within this website is a self-contained TableTop Roleplaying Game built off of Yochai Gal’s Cairn.
Do you like this setting and want to see more? Check out my first work,The Golden Age of Khares: A Psychedelic Sword & Sandal RPG for an extended gazetteer and a crunchier RPG experience!
But why?!
We live in a forced AI, late stage capitalist hellscape. My country's Jim Crow and Know Nothing past is rearing its ugly head once again. For my own mental health, I have been delving into my own analog projects and trying to sever my connection to Big Tech and other corporate slop as much as I can.One way this has manifested is by trying to get back to the internet of old. Remember that? It wasn't perfect but at least we didn't have tech companies collecting our data at all times, algorithms trying to ragebait us and some degree of local control. I saw a meme once that said the internet used to be a cool, alternative place you went to. I know when I was a teen, I went to the internet to look up occult nonsense, anime fansites, video game rumors, toyline catalogs, UFOs, D&D content, browse weird personal websites and post on forums. I long for that. That's one reason I decided to put my new RPG ruleset up onto this website. Its like a little bit of that old internet back. A website you can really spend some time just exploring and isn't full of ads or losers trying to piss you off with their hateful gobbledygook.
I was also inspired by Yochai Gal's philosophy regarding Cairn and various other open-source projects I've admired over the years. When I wrote my first RPG, there was a part of me that thought I could make a little bit of money doing that. My slightly older, slightly wiser self now sees the value of passion projects and making things available to all for no other reason than love of the game. I am not making this website or ruleset for anyone except myself and the people I play RPGs with. If others find it cool and interesting, awesome! If not, oh well. Maybe one day, I'll offer a commercial version but for now the website and barebones PDF suffices.
>Content
Looking for adventures? More lore? More items? More magic? Updates on the MEGADUNGEON? More Khares stuff you can use at the table? Look no further!
>Support
Do you want to support me and what I do? There are a few ways you can do that.
I will only ever use the money you generously donate to me to comission Ancient Khares artwork made by human artists! That is a Moose Lodge Games promise!