limaxiad

No. Enc.: 0 (1d6)
Alignment: Chaotic
Movement: 120' (40')
Armor Class: 7
Hit Dice: 2d8
Attacks: Charm
Damage: 0
Save: F4
Morale: 6
Hoard Class: VI

Brazen, fickle and easily distracted by anything of value, limaxiads appear as pallid human women slicked in oil with damp, dark hair.  A limaxiad is tied by spirit to a giant slug, they may not  move further than 240' from it or they die after 1 turn.  Limaxiads can charm person when they remember to do so, if threatened or if they take a particular like to someone.  Their victim must save vs. spells or go to the giant slug and stand helpless before it as it consumes him (this usually means they are lost forever).  Limaxiads wear their treasure from past victims and rarely carry more than that.

review: weird adventures by armchair planet

Metric: Maltese Falcons.  Was going with dimes but this needs better. 
DISCLAIMER: Review based on a PDF copy. I'm credited for doing some proofreading.
Overall: 4.5 Maltese Falcons (excellent & original setting for games)
Those familiar with From The Sorcerer's Skull will know of the pulp/noir adventure setting of the City and the Strange New World.  One of the most original and engaging settings I've read for some time. A magical New York in a mythic America with ancient Old World roots woven from Great War horror, gaslight mysticism and Age of Exploration folklore hung from a framework of classic D&D, pulp adventure stories and monochrome movies. 

Contents: 5 Maltese Falcons (innovative re-imaging of classic concepts)
An introduction to the setting is offered along with pointers to From The Sorceror's Skull and Strange Trails, a free companion PDF.  Like all good introductions it's brief and to the point.  What follows next is a flavourful guide to the Strange New World.
Information Please offers potted history, calendar and cosmology.  Text is interspersed with comic/Ripley's-esque pages.  From the downfall of Meropis to the Hell Syndicate, the setting is accessible.  Ethnicity is not dodged but part of the setting.  The treatment of magic and divine elements is interesting with organised magic and religion counterpointed by wild cards. 
A Strange New World takes you on a whistlestop tour of Septentrion (this world's America) and points North and South.  Zingara (their Mexico) gets some love and The Ten Ways to Die in Asciana sidebar is a great example how setting can be concise and flavourful.
On A Weird Road zooms in on how Septentrion is divided yet united.  Political tensions and divisions are presented as adventure hooks.  From the Union to New Lludd and the South, then across the Smaragdine Mountains west to Freedonia, Hesperia and San Tiburon.  Each area has distinctive identities and the smaller cities and other locations offer road-trip opportunities.
City Confidential zooms in on the City of Empire and its' four duchies, includes a whistle-stop tour of Empire Island neighbourhoods from Aldwood to Yiantown.  The city's infrastructure has opportunities for the enterprising.  Monster-hunting, mixing it up with criminal gangs and uncovering mysteries are just some of the diversions the city has to offer.  Maps of Empire Island and parts of the City make this easy to visualise.
Weird Menaces offers monsters ranging from re-skinned classics like the brain invader, goon and rust beetle to original twists like the hobogoblin, living house, lounge lizard and skunk ape.  Monsters are loosely grouped by type.  Minimalist statblocks cater for ascending and descending armour-class systems while providing enough detail for a GM to customise as needed.

Art & Layout: 4 Maltese Falcons (stunning cover, owes plenty to it's dime-novel roots)
If you recognise Doug Stambaugh's homage to the Trampier Players Handbook cover, you're in for a treat.  There are adverts redolent of Moore/O'Neill's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comics.  The layout hearkens to newsprint-era/dime-novel roots with callouts to it's comic-book roots.  While I like the Ripley's-style pages, the classic newsprint approach isn't quite to my taste.  The artwork is excellent, pieces by Rene Manoquis, Stefan Poag and Adam Moore as well as Chris Huth and Jonathan Bingham among others compliment the text wonderfully.

In conclusion, Weird Adventures is worth your consideration.  The blend of pulp, noir and horror makes this a must for fans of those genres.  System considerations are kept to a minimum and for those wondering if using public domain media can inspire games, Trey Causey provides a pioneering glimpse into how this works.  While ostensibly for d20/d20 Modern, I could easily envisage Weird Adventures using a Lamentations of The Flame Princess chassis with minimal difficulty.  And yes, playing spot the shout-out/in-joke is it's own game.

damned city: animardente

The Bridge of Smoke crosses the Bruciatura south-east of the Avernine at the foot of Animardente's northern slope.  Here the Black Road runs northwest past Lacunero's tar pits to Oroguida and southwest to the southern slopes and Bacino.  The Black Road is miles of bitumen-mortared flagstones.  The slopes rise to Riccoferro's walls.  The Spike casts a shadow at sunset on the Spine Road leaving Riccoferro's famed Centaur Gate.  Merchants travel this jagged road atop the slopes, fearing ambush by gangs of drunken centaur reavers. Animardente centaurs are hard-working, hard-drinking and violent.  They dye their manes black with walnut oil to accentuate paleness, which for them is a status symbol.  Indentured to the lords of Animardente centuries ago, rebellion surfaces in their cups on feverish summers.  Drunken centaur gangs are hunted by the lords' troops.

On the northern ridge, the keep of Arcemalba guards the first crossroads of the Spine Road.  This keep defends against centaurs and Riccoferran exiles.  Pale granite walls hold a garrison of malicious soldiers clad in spiked splint mail and helm, wielding halberd, longspear and bow. Their prisoners endure sadistic brutality. Running across caltrop beds, gauntlets of spiked fists and living archery targets are some examples.  Their cruel behaviour fuels their martial reputation.  These spinati are drilled in anti-cavalry tactics by the bellicose, brilliant and overweight general Gazar.  Gazar holds Arcemalba for Animardente. Spinati enjoy some notoriety outside the city walls, enemies of the city dread their presence in battle.

The northern slope is split into two neighbourhoods.  Balineum has bitumen, salt and sulphur mines.  The oily Bruciatura spills from a cistern high on the northern slope stained maroon with aromatic naphtha.  It's bitter waters causes dizziness and burning rashes, with prolonged exposure resulting in fainting.  It carves a lifeless course to the Black Road. There it sinks into a morass of tar pits, the Black Road and it's branches providing safe passage.  Balineum's mines has a mix of indentured centaurs and humans using slaves to toil in mine and refinery.  Centaur overseers drown troublemakers in refinery baths. 

The other, Ossarogis, sits on the north-east slope, behind the tar pits of the Bruciatura.  Centaurs avoid Ossarogis though some gangs launch destructive raids.  Smoke from conical stone kilns provide charcoal, pottery and smelt metal while disposing of dead bodies.  Locals are patient souls as likely to use nearby white oak as corpses to fuel kilns.  Where Balineum residents are passionate, they have cooler heads.  Animardente's lords are watching them, they argue, so actions remain circumspect and words civil lest someone awakens.

The second crossroads sits on the edge of a crater housing a smelter and a busy market.  The Spine Market trades in hematite, metal ingots and food.  Traders often cough, smoke from the smelter is distracting.  It processes Riccoferran ore with local rocks to make carbon steel sold exclusively at the Spine Market. Whispers persist that meteoric iron is smelted for the lords of the city on certain nights. Such rumours would alarm factions in the city.  As a result they are played down by all hearing them lest the lords get involved.

The southern slope is taken up by one community.  Palepratis is agrarian, growing persimmon, black walnut, inkberry, juniper, sweet magnolia and white oak. Beehives prosper amid the trees.  Yew and white poplar stands offer shade.  Slaves and centaurs here serve the farms, who work to feed both themselves and the lords.  Farms keep goats and swine for meat.  Yet not all is idyllic here.  Centaurs are abused, foreign slaves get better treatment.  All toil under the sun.  Farmers bloom early and perish in their prime, this land is difficult to keep maintained.  The Black Road terminates halfway around feeding into Bacino.  Beyond the Black Road, the Fiumorte widens out.

Petranera, a smoke-wreathed citadel of black stone guards the Spine Road's final crossroad where easternmost roads converge.  This is home to Lord Belias, attorney for the city and his beguiling, libertine daughter Fiammera.  Belias tolerates the dissolutes she collects, Fiammera makes an efficient chatelaine during his duty-driven absences. When he does return, the halls empty of sybarites. Belias is a serial widower, though dark whispers insinuate unwholesome liaisons with Fiammera in Petronera.  Guarded by a spinati garrison, the lords scheme and plot. 

The Black Road girds Animardente, with traffic from the crossroads, Oroguida and Bacino. Where the Bridge of Smoke arrives is the halfway point.  The kilns of Ossarogis and pig-pens of Palepratis meet in a permanent market where people buy district goods to bear to their allies.  The craft is excellent, not prolific as Oroguida or Riccoferro yet skilled in construction and presentation.  Notable is a post where a greataxe is buried in it's head.  This post announces local executions and mercenaries for hire.

laniar

No. Enc.: 1d4 (1d8)
Alignment: Neutral
Movement: 120' (40')
Armor Class: 6
Hit Dice: 6d8
Attacks: 3 (claw/claw/bite)
Damage: 1d4/1d4/2d4+2, trample (2d6).
Save: F4
Morale: 9
Hoard Class: VI

The laniar is a wooly, fanged creature like a maned bear with a lustrous grey pelt.  It's jaws hold two rows of serrated fangs. If both claws strike, the laniar will trample their opponent if they are man-sized or smaller doing 2d6 damage.  Creatures trampled may (1-3 on a d4) be trampled on following  at +4 to hit.  If an opponent flees, there is a 50% chance a laniar will chase.  A laniar can track creatures if they have spilled their blood and can be cruel predators.