Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...

The Miskatonic University Library Association brand is no more, alas, but what we have in its stead is the Miskatonic Repository, based on the same format as the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

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Name: The Thing in Tunnel 12Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Alison Cybe

Setting: North of EnglandProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Twenty-Three page, 1.41 KB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Sometimes locals really do have something to hide...Plot Hook: A body in the mine means murder!
Plot Support: Five pre-generated Investigators, two NPCs, and one Mythos monster.Production Values: Plain.
Pros# One session industrial horror# Easy to adjust to the eighties or twenties
# Nice sense of locals with something to hide# Claustrophobia# Cleithrophobia# Taphephobia# Submechanophobia
Cons# Needs an edit# Not clear who the Investigators are meant to be# Underdeveloped historical background# No maps# Underdeveloped pre-generated Investigators
Conclusion# Underdeveloped historical and Investigator background# Solid one session industrial horror easily adapted to other time periods

Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...

The Miskatonic University Library Association brand is no more, alas, but what we have in its stead is the Miskatonic Repository, based on the same format as the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

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The Grindhouse: Ultimate Collection – Vol. 1-3 is an anthology of seven scenarios within the grindhouse genre of cinema—low-budget horror, splatter, and exploitation films for adults which had their heyday in the seventies. Each one is short, designed to be played in a single session, involves a locked room type of situation—sometimes literally, which keeps the action and the horror focused, and involves desperate, often bloody and brutal horror. Each scenario is presented in full colour, comes with its own set of pre-generated Investigators, and follows the same format. This consists of ‘Prelude’, ‘Objectives’, ‘Secrets’, ‘Cast’, ‘Signs’, ‘Threats’, and ‘Changes’. The ‘Prelude’ sets up and explains the scenario, the ‘Objectives’ the Player Characters’ involvement, ‘Secrets’ reveals what is really going on, ‘Cast’ lists minor NPCs, ‘Signs’ details clues which can be found, ‘Threats’ the dangers both Mythos and mundane, and ‘Changes’ the major events which occur during the scenario. The format does not always though, as in some places there is a lengthy description of the locations where the scenario takes place before the Keeper gets to the ‘Secrets’. In addition, there are Keeper Notes throughout and options, decent maps or floorplans of the location for each scenario, and indications of the type of horror each involves at the start of each scenario. Not all of the scenarios involve the Mythos, but their horror is all strong and bloody.
The Grindhouse: Ultimate Collection – Vol. 1-3 opens in underwhelming fashion with a non-Mythos scenario which involves a literal locked-room situation and little if any real investigation or agency. ‘The Crimson King’ is set in the early eighties and has the Player Characters invited to an exclusive Goth nightclub. Perhaps they want to attend, perhaps they are looking for a missing young woman? Unfortunately, there is very little for them to do or find out before the situation suddenly changes and they suddenly find themselves fighting for their lives and trying to escape. Which would be fine, but there is no other plot than this. The result is underplotted and one-note.
Fortunately, the next and subsequent scenarios are much better. ‘Isle of the Damned’ takes the Player Characters to a small island off the coast of Maine. It is 1974 and they have rented a small holiday home, intending to relax, fish, drink, and spend time away from the grind of modern life. Unfortunately, the island idyll is ruined by multiple somethings which a previous owner left behind after he had to flee following his name being linked to the disappearances of fresh corpses. That name is West, and since this is a Mythos scenario, that means reanimated bodies and body parts. The author has some fun with creating some freshly animated corpses and corpse cuts with which to scare the Player Characters, foreshadowing some of the bloody horror with bumps and knocks from below. Thus, the Player Characters find themselves trapped on an island surviving a zombie-style ‘uprising’ of a different kind.
‘The Dark Brood’ takes place in 1977 at a summer camp in the Appalachian mountains where the Player Characters are camp counsellors. Summer camp horror scenarios are a cliché unto themselves, invariably involving a madman who will stalk the counsellors and students, slashing them, and picking them off, one-by-one. Fortunately, ‘The Dark Brood’ eschews this cliché completely. When the children complain of upset stomachs and nausea, they are given something to settle their stomachs and set to bed early, but later, when the Player Characters suddenly awaken, the children have gone missing. Investigation reveals there is something very sour going on, something similar to that done in other scenarios for Call of Cthulhu, but made all the worse by being inflicted on children. Although they do not know it, the Player Characters are up against a time limit in what is one of the creepier scenarios in the anthology.
‘Jacknife’ is a classic road about to go very, very wrong. When the driver of an eighteen-wheeler picks up hitchhikers, he drives himself into a world of trouble. There is really only the one location for the scenario and that the truck and the flatbed of lumber it is hauling from Colorado to Texas. Anyone who has played the author’s The Highway of Blood will suffer flashbacks as the Player Characters are chased across New Mexico by snake cultists and dustbillies. On the downside, the Keeper will need to acquaint herself with the Chase Rules from the Keeper Rulebook, but on the plus side, a chase sets up plenty of tension and action, and setting the majority of the scenario aboard one moving vehicle adds a sense of claustrophobia to that too. The scenario could be run as part of The Highway of Blood or even a sequel of sorts, but gives too much away to run as a prequel. Otherwise, a great set-up for a horror scenario.
‘Hell Block Five’ casts the Player Characters as inmates of Irongate Penitentiary in Aylesbury, Massachusetts, incarcerated with some of the most infamous criminals in the United States. One night in 1978, the cell doors unlock and slide open in Cell Block Five, but without any alarms going off or sign of any guards. The blood and bodies of other inmates lie everywhere and the cell block seems infested with fungi and insects. The set-up and development has an intentionally nightmarish feel to it as the cell block fluctuates between its current state and something increasingly unreal. One issue is that the Player Characters do need to be driven to a bout of madness in order to discover an important clue and potentially push the story onwards. Another possible issue is that the Player Characters may encounter their worst fears, but none are listed for the pre-generated Player Characters. The players are, of course, free to create their own, but hints would have been useful. Overall, this is a solid prison-set horror scenario.
‘First Night’ takes another horror film cliché and does something interesting with it. It is 1980 and a group of college girls decides to spend the night in the mansion that was recently purchased by their sorority. So, we have a sorority house slumber party which takes a horrifying murderous turn after they find a witch board, which of course, they decide to play around with. Awaking later in the middle of the night to the sound of their bedroom doorknob being turned, something moving about the house, and the house being surrounded by a thick fog. The next few hours consist of the girls being chased round the house by nightmarish, incredibly stealthy monsters which can crawl across the ceilings and simply refuse to die. ‘First Night’ is a spiritual successor to ‘Hell Block Five’, but it apes its inspirations more closely by having the last girl standing receive a bonus to her Luck and a Bonus Die to all her actions. If it comes to this, then the players whose characters did not survive, should definitely control some of the monsters. Like ‘Hell Block Five’, there is the issue of the Player Characters possibly encountering their worst fears, but none being listed for them. The scenario also requires the Player Characters to participate in the use of the witch board, as it does not work without it happening. The players should be encouraged to have their characters do so in order to get this survival horror, monster chase scenario started.
Lastly, ‘The Hoodlums’ is a bonus scenario in The Grindhouse: Ultimate Collection – Vol. 1-3. Set in Worcester, Massachusetts, during the summer of 1983, it begins when a group of high school friends breaks into an abandoned train station to smoke some weed and one of their number suddenly disappears with cry for help! Following the cries leads into the sewers below and what seems to be a buried mansion decades old… The place feels old and macabre and plays out initially in exploratory fashion, which can turn into a deadly hunt depending upon how the young Player Characters interact with the inhabitants. The pre-generated Player Characters are nicely invidualised, they play Dungeons & Dragons, which lends itself to interesting roleplaying possibilities, and there is even a rule given for peer pressure.
Physically, The Grindhouse: Ultimate Collection – Vol. 1-3 is decently presented. Although it needs a slight edit in places, it is well written, and it decently illustrated throughout. In fact, some of the artwork is very good. The cartography is also good throughout.
The Grindhouse: Ultimate Collection – Vol. 1-3 would be an excellent anthology of Grindhouse-style horror one-shots. However, it is let down by the first scenario, ‘The Crimson King’, which is simply not of the same quality as the rest that follow. In fact, had ‘The Crimson King’ been left out or the bonus scenario ‘The Hoodlums’ simply replaced it, The Grindhouse: Ultimate Collection – Vol. 1-3 would be that excellent anthology. Consequently, The Grindhouse: Ultimate Collection – Vol. 1-3 is a good Grindhouse collection, providing the Keeper with a selection of easily prepared, brutal, often bloody, one-shots.

Everyday Heroes is the spiritual successor to d20 Modern. What d20 Modern did for Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition in 2002, Everyday Heroes does for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition in 2202. It is designed to facilitate and handle roleplaying in the here and now, in the world we see outside our windows, on our television screens, and at the cinema. It can cover military or mercenary scenarios, police procedurals, urban fantasy and investigating the supernatural, visits to lost worlds, conspiracy thrillers, dinosaur rampages, face-offs against killer robots (whether from the future or not), run or defuse scams, and more. Although it does not delve into any one of these genres or scenarios in any depth, the core rulebook provides all of the rules and the mechanical tools the Game Master will need to run and her players to roleplay them. There are tweaks and adjustments throughout the rules to account for the modern genre, but the core rules remain faithful, and will be familiar, to anyone who has played Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. In keeping with the setting, all of the Player Characters are human, and in keeping with the scale and concept of ‘Everyday Heroes’, are limited to between Levels one and ten. Further, Everyday Heroes provides some twenty character Classes, divided into six Archetypes, modern skills, proficiencies, and feats, rules for modern gun combat, vehicles and chases, hacking, modern environments and hazards, and a bestiary. Essentially, all of the tools the Game Master needs to run a campaign today.

Everyday Heroes is published by Evil Genius Games, following a successful Kickstarter campaign and begins with the Player Character. Everyday Heroes is a Class and Level roleplaying game, so it begins there, along with the six abilities—Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. A Player Character also has a Background and a Profession, which each provide languages known, Proficiencies, Iconic Equipment, Ability increases, and a Special Feature; and an Archetype and Class. Backgrounds can be Activist, Book Worm, Caregiver, Misfit, Social Butterfly, and more, whilst the professions include Academia, Creative, Law, Trades, and so on. There are six Archetypes—Strong, Agile, Tough, Smart, Wise, and Charisma—corresponding to the six abilities—Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. These are divided into three or four Classes. So, the Brawler and Heavy Gunner fall into the Strong Archetype, the Scoundrel and the Sharpshooter into the Agile Archetype, the Commando and the Bodyguard into the Tough Archetype, the Engineer and the Hacker into the Smart Archetype, the Hunter and the Sleuth into the Wise Archetype, and the Duellist and the Leader into the Charming Archetype. Together, Archetype and Class provides a Player Character’s Hit Dice, Defence rating, Proficiency Bonus, Talents, and Feats. The latter, Feats, are intrinsic part of Player Character development in Everyday Heroes.

Creating a Player Character in Everyday Heroes is a matter of making choices. A player selects his character’s Background, Profession, Archetype, and Class, and decides on the options they provide. He has the choice of determining his abilities randomly (roll four six-sided dice, discarded the lowest), assigning points, or using an array. The process is relatively straightforward and enables a player a wide range of character types. A player can decide to specialise in his choice of Background, Profession, Archetype, and Class. For example, a hacker could have Gamer as a Background, Information Technology as a Profession, and then the Smart Hero Archetype and the Hacker Class. Or he could mix and match to reflect wider experience. For example, an Ordinary Background could lead to the Emergency Services Profession and then be a Smart Archetype and the Scientist Class or a Tough Archetype and the Bodyguard Class. Notably though, the twenty Classes are also divided by complexity. Thus, the Heavy Gunner is a Simple Class, the Hacker a Complex Class, and the Leader a Medium Class in terms of their relative complexities. This is a useful guide for the players and can influence their choices when it comes to creating characters. Lastly, a player decides on his character’s Motivation, Attachments, Beliefs, Virtues, Flaws, and Quirks. As a Player Character advances in Level, he will improve via new or better Talents, Feats—some general, some specific to the Class and Archetype, Hit Points, and Proficiency Rating, so on.

Name: Henry Brinded III
Archetype: Mastermind Level: 1
Background: Bookworm
Profession: Military
Motivation: Duty Attachment: Family Belief: Not so much a statement of belief as a methodology
Role: Intellectual Virtue: Thoughtful Flaw: Nosy Quirk: Claps when excited

Strength 11 Dexterity 15 (+2) Constitution 15 (+2)
Intelligence 19 (+4) Wisdom 15 (+2) Charisma 16 (+3)
Defence: 14
Hit Points: 8
Passive Perception: 14
Proficiency Bonus: +2
Skills: Athletics +2, Computers +6, Insight +4, Investigation +8, Perception +4, Persuasion +7, Social Sciences +6, Stealth +4
Mental Expertise: Insight, Persuasion
Skill Proficiencies: Athletics, Computers, Insight, Investigation, Perception, Persuasion, Social Sciences, Stealth
Saving Throw Proficiencies: Intelligence, Wisdom
Equipment Proficiencies: Basic Equipment, Advanced Equipment, Military Equipment
Languages: English, Latin, Spanish
Talents: Plans, Genius, Know-It-All, You’re Doing It Wrong
Special Features: Have You Ever Read?, Servicemember

Everyday Heroes includes a lengthy equipment section. Starting equipment is handled via equipment packs, such as a Hacker Pack or a Weekend Warrior Pack, but the extensive list includes weapons of all types—from knives and 9 mm handguns to rocket launchers and tanks, vehicles from bicycles, golf carts, pickup trucks, and bulldozers to tanks, eighteen-wheeler trucks, wingsuits, and bullet trains. The vehicles and weapons are listed by type rather than name and model, but it is easy for the Game Master and player to assign these details if they want them in their game.

Mechanically, the core rules of Everyday Heroes are the same as those of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Throw a twenty-sided die and add Ability and Proficiency bonuses as appropriate, the aim being to roll equal to, or higher than, a Difficulty Class, which ranges from ten for Easy, fifteen for Challenging, twenty for Difficult, and so on. The rules for Advantage and Disadvantage also work as they do in Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Saving throws are based on the six abilities. Combat works the same too, but changes have been made to account for modern conflict. This includes firearms capable of suppressive fire and burst fire, as well as the use of explosive devices. Armour Class is replaced by a Defence value, which represents how hard a target is to hit, and can come from the cover a target is behind or the innate ability of a target to avoid being hit. Personal armour worn has an Armour Value. If the Penetration Value of an attack is higher than the Armour Value, the attack has penetrated the armour without reducing any of the damage, but if the Armour Value is higher than the Penetration Value, than an Armour Saving Throw can be made. A successful saving throw prevents all damage, but damages the armour, reducing its effectiveness, whilst a failed saving throw stops none of the damage.

The rules also cover environmental challenges such as dehydration and underwater combat, using companions—the Hunter Class has animal companions and the Engineer Class robot companions, laying and disabling traps, and of course, chases and vehicles. Vehicles have their own ratings for Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution, Armour Value, and in some cases, special abilities particular to the vehicle. Chases, whether on foot or by vehicle, are played out round by round, with the participants accumulating Chase Points. The aim is acquire more than the other participants before the end of the chase, by overcoming hazards or challenges like dodging around two men carrying a long rolled up carpet or leaping from one building to the next. Success grants a participant Chase Points, failure Chase Points to his opponent. The chase rules scale up to take account of vehicles and combat, including actions such as aiming at tires, ramming, and the like.

For the Game Master, there is advice on handling the rules, including chases—the latter with lots of complications to throw into the path of the Player Character in a wide variety of environments, different types of encounters, computer hacking and security, and more. The advice on hacking is to keep its use in check lest it become too powerful a feature of the game, but the rules handle it in a simple enough fashion, also avoiding it becoming too technical. They make a point that the Security and Deception skills are as equally important as the Computer skill. There is guidance too on common, but often difficult situations in modern set games, such as snipers, standoffs, and calling in the authorities, which is so obvious in its inclusion, but so very helpful. Optional rules cover sudden death, tracking ammunition, poison, injuries above beyond simple Hit Point loss, diseases, and recreational drugs. Advice for the Game Master begins with the basics and builds from there, including ‘Saying, “Yes, and…”’, giving time in the spotlight for each Player Character, and knowing the players and their play styles. It also examines adventure structure and creation and some of the key points of the genres that Everyday Heroes is designed to cover—action, adventure, comedy, drama, horror, mystery, and survival.

Almost a fifth of Everyday Heroes dedicated to opponents and allies, and it is here that Everyday Heroes goes further than suggesting the various genres and settings and types of scenarios which can be run using its rules. There are numerous ordinary NPCs from all walks of life, but these are joined by cultists, crazed maniacs, mad scientists, and slashers. Alongside these, there are robots and animals, including a swarm of piranha, before the selection delves into historic and prehistoric NPCs, Science Fiction aliens and bugs, futuristic robots, mutants, and supernatural creatures from demons and vampires to zombies and werewolves. Variants are included too, so for zombies, there are zombie bloaters, zombie dogs, zombie lickers, and elite zombie warriors. These are all ready for the Game Master to use and build as part of a scenario.

Physically, Everyday Heroes is very well presented. It is well written, easy to read, and comes with a good index. The artwork varies in quality a little, but is all decent enough. Also included is an appendix of the changes between Everyday Heroes and Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. This is useful, but would have been more useful if page references had been included.

There is one final addition to Everyday Heroes which is not included in the core rulebook. This is access to a number of source and scenario supplements all based upon a surprising range of films. In fact, a range of films which nobody expected to see turned into roleplaying material despite their popularity in the hobby. These consist of The Crow™ Cinematic Adventure, Escape From New York™ Cinematic Adventure, Highlander Cinematic Adventure, Kong: Skull Island Cinematic Adventure, Pacific Rim Cinematic Adventure, and Total Recall Cinematic Adventure. These showcase at least, what Everyday Heroes can do and are, equally, six good reasons to play Everyday Heroes. Beyond these of course, there is plenty of scope for supplements which could explore the genres suggested in the Everyday Heroes core rulebook, as well as other support and useable content.

Everyday Heroes takes the bones of the Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition rules and adjusts them with a surprising degree of comfort to fit the modern day. From that basis, the core rules fleshes out the here and now with a wide range of Player Character options and monsters and NPCs which together lend themselves to genres and settings both ordinary and outré. In between there is literally all of the rules, backed up with solid advice, needed to support a modern day set roleplaying campaign. With Everyday Heroes, Evil Genius Games has not so much created the spiritual successor to d20 Modern, as taken on its mantle.

Tales of the RED: Street Stories is an anthology of missions for Cyberpunk RED, the fourth edition of the classic Cyberpunk roleplaying game. It provides the Game Master with nine—technically eight because the last two in the book make up a two-part adventure—scenarios which take place in and around the Night City of 2045. The scenarios are all easy to add to an ongoing campaign, as well as to mix and match with missions of the Game Master’s own devising or Screamsheets from a supplement such as the Cyberpunk RED Data Pack. Published by R. Talsorian Games, Inc., the nine missions will find the Edgerunners chasing vampires, investigating a kidnapping, working a film set, diving off the coast of Night City, making a delivery run of the best threads in town, hunting down a deadly A.I. program gone rogue, fending off an attacker who is hunting Edgerunner teams, investigating murder on the virtual club floor, and ultimately tracking down the perpetrator of the murder! Whilst offering a wide variety of mission types, they all adhere to the same format as seen in the core rules for Cyberpunk RED. This is the Beat Chart system which breaks a Mission down into a ‘Background’—intended to read aloud to the players, ‘The Rest of Story’ which summarises the Mission for the Game Master, ‘The Opposition’ which describes the threats the Edgerunners will face, and ‘The Hook’, which is what will draws them into the Mission. The remainder is divided into Developments—non-action beats, and Cliffhangers—action beats, before coming to a close with the Mission’s ‘Climax’ and ‘Resolution’. These are all labels as much as beats and of course, the nature of each beat will vary from Mission to Mission.

From the start, there are a couple of issues with the anthology. One is that the Beat Chart system does read a little oddly in that ‘The Hook’, the beat which covers how the Edgerunners get involved in the Mission, comes after several beats. So, the Missions need to be read carefully and their format adjusted to in order for the Game Master to get used to the format. The other issue that a lot of the context and stats for the nine Missions are not placed with the individual Missions, but in a set of three appendices at the back of the book. ‘Mooks and Defences’ provides the stats for the generic threats that can be encountered in the various Missions; ‘Locations’ marks every place and location visited by the nine Missions; and ‘Biographies’ provides thumbnail backgrounds for all of the named NPCs in the nine Missions. This includes the maitre’d at a fancy restaurant in the second scenario! Thankfully each entry also tells the Game Master which of the Missions they appear in or are mentioned in. Not all of them have stat blocks, but they do, it is in the Missions where they appear. Having the biographies all in one place sort of works for easy reference, but separating them from their stats, not as much…

Tales of the RED: Street Stories opens with ‘A Night at the Opera – Darkness and Desire in Night City’. Night City’s University District has been beset by a rash of disappearances of young women over the past four weeks, but to date neither Campus Security nor Night City Police Department have made any progress. So the father of the latest victim hires the Edgerunners to investigate and find his daughters. Canvassing the campus—which involves some fun encounters with members of the student body—points to the involvement of a poser gang, the Philharmonic Vampyres, who embrace the whole vampire aesthetic—fangs, pale skin, Goth-style clothing, and pale skin. The best way to contact the Philharmonic Vampyres is to attend one of their parties. Unfortunately, when the Edgerunners do, the event erupts into a gang-on-gang gunfight! The Edgerunners do need to pay attention to the ordinary events going on around them to get the most out of the scenario, but this is a fairly, direct simple scenario underneath its gothic trappings.

If the first Mission in the anthology looked weird, then the second, ‘Agents Desire – The Case of the Missing Girlfriend’, actually is weird. A fixer—who may be just little impatient for the Edgerunners, if not their players—puts the Edgerunners in touch with a high-ranking corporate whose partner was kidnapped from one of Night City’s top restaurants, La Lune Bleu, and he fears that he will only get her back if he gives up company secrets. The biggest problem for the Edgerunners is actually getting past the restaurant’s snooty maitre’d, and numerous options are suggested, including buying the right quality outfits and booking a table, hiring on as waiting staff, and so on. This presents a great social challenge for the Edgerunners and their players. Once inside, they can get further information and the story takes a turn for the strange, which foreshadows, but is not connected to, the events of Cyberpunk 2077.

The third Mission is different again. ‘A Bucket Full of Popcorn-Flavoured Kibble – Lights, Camera, Drama!’ gives the chance for the Edgerunners to hit the silver screen and be extras in the latest film by one of burgeoning Addis Ababa film studios. Not only do the Edgerunners get to make money from this job, there is opportunity aplenty for them to make money on the side. These include tracking down a supply of actual organic food for the film’s picky star, plant a listening device for a sleazy journalist, provide cybertech support, make a delivery for the film’s other star following his divorce, and so on. The Edgerunners are free to pick and choose which tasks they undertake, but the Mission has a picaresque quality to it, as the Edgerunners bounce from one small task to the next. There are some nice rewards too if the Edgerunners do play it—mostly—straight and promise of extra work too.

The change in the nature and style of the Missions continues with ‘Drummer and the Whale – Treasure Beneath the Sea’, in which the Edgerunners are hired for an easy job in—or under—Night City Bay. Their employer, whose hobby is looking for patterns in in the remnants of the global Net which got shattered during the Fourth Corporate War, and he has detected a patten off the coast of Night City. With limited funds, he hires to locate some washed up cargo container, which means searching the shore, part-shanty town, part-waste dump, all one environmental hazard. It seems that something is operating on the bed of the bay and shipping containers ashore on a regular basis. The question is, what is it, how dangerous is it, and how much will the right people pay for it? The aquatic nature of the Mission is challenging in itself and is in parts more technical than the earlier Missions, which should challenge the Edgerunners’ Tech and Netrunner. Overall, the Mission has a claustrophobic, dated feel to it as traditional rivalries straight out of Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. surface in Night City Bay and threaten a legal incident!

‘Haven’t Got a Stitch to Wear – A Suit Worth Dying For’ is more straightforward. High-end tailors Torrell and Chiang have proved popular with Night City’s rich and famous and demand for their suits and outfits has grown and grown in recent months. The demand is such that Torrell and Chiang have been forced to out-source minor alterations as their own staff are too busy working on new commissions, but that solution has gone awry when the couriers they normally use stop doing deliveries. With a growing number of impatient clients, the tailors hire the Edgerunners to find out why. The problem is that the couriers have competition. The Mission covers most eventualities, including the Edgerunners dealing with the problem, siding with the competition, or even setting themselves up as the competition. In whatever way the Mission is resolved, the Edgerunners do get to look at how Night City’s small business economy works and potentially make some contacts.

‘Reaping the Reaper – The Call is Coming From Inside Your Head!’ is a classic Cyberpunk scenario. A Night City urban legend tells of a rogue A.I. known as The Reaper, which body-hops Netrunner after Netrunner killing them one by one, only turns out that there is very much a basis of truth to the legend. This is a good scenario to run if the Edgerunners have played through ‘Digital Divas Burn It Down’ and ‘Don’t Fear the Reaper’ Missions from the Cyberpunk RED Data Pack, especially for Tech or Netrunner Edgerunners. However, it is potentially problematic in a number of ways. First, it is combat heavy in comparison to the other scenarios in Tales of the RED: Street Stories. Second, the Edgerunners are accompanied by a pair of NPCs, one a Solo, the other a Tech, which are there to cover the Edgerunners if they fail. Their presence definitely gives the Game Master more to keep track of, potentially undermines the efforts of the Edgerunners, and feels clumsy in terms of storytelling.

‘Staying Vigilant – Three Crews Dead, Will Yours Be Next?’ brings the action to the Edgerunners. It starts with them being invited to the Afterlife, the bar from the computer game, Cyberpunk 2077, as opposed to the Forlorn Hope, where they have been meeting previously. Trace Santiago, the Media and son of famed Nomad Santiago, wants help in investigating the recent deaths of three Edgerunner crews. With his media drone in tow, the Edgerunners need must battle their way past Night City’s Hot Zone to locate the ‘killer’. Like the previous Mission, this is combat orientated, but is more nuanced.

It seems like they are being plagued by vampires when another group of them seems to have committed murder at Delirium, a virtuality club, on the Edgerunners’ night out in ‘Bathed in Red – A Night of Fun or Night of Terror?’. With a body on the dance floor, their night is over and their reputation too when they are framed for the death. This is a murder mystery that builds into a conspiracy, with the vampire posers, who out to be homeless street children, holding some of the initial answers. There is a great contrast here as the story switches from a grubby virtual reality dance club where everyone wears visors to view the night as one of five different environments—Dark Cabaret, Deathpunk, Horrorpunk, Skatepunk, or Synthpunk—to the squalid home of the street children, and then again, as the mother of the murder victim, a rich corporate, gets involved. This is most complex of the Missions in the anthology and the most adult in tone, and that continues in the Mission’s sequel, the last Mission in the anthology. ‘One Red Night – The Final Curtain Falls’ picks up where ‘Bathed in Red – A Night of Fun or Night of Terror?’ left off, involves yet more of the murder victim’s family, and comes to a close in bloody, physical confrontation with the true perpetrator of the murders.

Physically, Tales of the RED: Street Stories is well presented with excellent artwork and cartography. It needs an edit here and there, but the Missions themselves are easy to read and digest.

What is so good about Tales of the RED: Street Stories is the diversity of Missions and stories in the anthology. Yes, there is a Mission involving a rogue killer A.I., which is classic cyberpunk and consequently a cliché, but the majority of the Missions will first surprise the Game Master and then her players with the situations their Edgerunners will find themselves in and having to resolve. Nor do they always focus on combat, though there is plenty of that as well as solutions to the Missions which involve means other than force. Although some are better than others, there is not a single bad Mission in the pages of Tales of the RED: Street Stories, the best including becoming couriers for a tailoring firm, working a film set, diving for salvage, and more. Tales of the RED: Street Stories is an inventive and challenging anthology of scenarios for the Cyberpunk RED which gives the Game Master a great range of choice to choose from. In fact, the choice is so good that she will probably end up running most of them!

Have you ever wondered what would happen if the adventurers from your Monday night Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition game was put in charge of a café? Or the shadowrunners from your Shadowrun campaign decide to open a coffee shack in the Barrens of Seattle? Or the heroes, protectors of Freedom City, from Dave’s Mutants & Masterminds game inherit a bohemian restaurant? Or just for a change in Mel’s Call of Cthulhu game, one of the investigators inherits a tea shop from her uncle rather than a mystery about his disappearance? All of these are possible in the Coffee & Chaos – Comedy Café Roleplaying Game. In fact, not only are these options possible, but they almost do also not matter, because what does matter, is how the Player Characters cope with the ever-changing nature of the day-to-day business of running a café. Published by Cobblepath Games—best known for Locus: A roleplaying game of personal horror (and guilt)—Coffee & Chaos – Comedy Café Roleplaying Game is actually two things. First, it is a standalone storytelling game which can be set up and run without a Game Master, everyone working towards telling a story of a single day, or perhaps more… Second, it is a corollary storytelling game which can be used to explore some of the time that the Player Characters in an ongoing campaign might have in between longer, probably more dangerous activities. In whatever way a playing group decides to use the Coffee & Chaos – Comedy Café Roleplaying Game, they will also need a standard deck of playing cards and a selection of cutlery.
No matter the genre or setting for the café, the first thing that the players decide is where their establishment sits on three scales. These are Fresh/Cosy, Small/Big, and Professional/Friendly. The score in each, which ranges between one and ten determines the number of items the players have in their Cutlery Pool, whether Teaspoons, Forks, or Knives. Each of the three items represents a different way of approaching and solving a situation in the café. Knives are used for a quick decisive approach, Forks for the resourceful, creative approach, and Teaspoons for the considered, well-thought-out approach. Each item of cutlery is also associated with a suit in the card deck—diamonds for Knives, clubs for Forks, and spades for Teaspoons. In addition, each player also creates a character who has two notable methods—and thus two associated items of Cutlery—of dealing with problems. One is his favoured approach, which he can always use even if he runs out of Cutlery, whilst the other he has learned to use through experience. A character begins play with an item of Cutlery associated with his learned approach and a Teaspoon. A Teaspoon can be discarded to allow the character to go on a break and whilst on the break, the character can gain Cutlery based on the learned way of dealing with issues.
If a character is brought into the Coffee & Chaos – Comedy Café Roleplaying Game from another roleplaying game, the rules from that roleplaying game do not come with him. Instead, the Cutlery rules in the Coffee & Chaos – Comedy Café Roleplaying Game are used, but when dealing with a difficult situation or problem, the character is still roleplayed and his stats, skills, abilities, spells, superpowers, cyberware, favourite gear, and so on, can be used to influence how the character resolves a problem at the café. In effect, it is a classic fish out of water situation and the character has do his very best the only way he knows how…
Coffee & Chaos – Comedy Café Roleplaying Game is played in rounds. At the start of a game, a Hitch is drawn. This is a persistent problem that cannot be resolved at all and instead, must be worked around. It is a constant presence throughout the game. At the beginning of the round, the first player draws a single card from the deck. This the Catastrophe for the round and it is resolved immediately by a single player. It is followed by each player drawing a card which indicates the Snafus besetting the café that round. Tables are provided of Catastrophes, Snafus, and Hitches. For example, a Hitch could be a visiting Film Crew, the Catastrophe might be a Power Cut or a Scam Artist, whilst a Snafu could be involve Happy Hour, a Wardrobe Malfunction, a Bad Tipper, or Broken Glass.
To deal with a Snafu, a player wages an item of Cutlery. This can come from their own stock of Cutlery or the general pool of Cutlery. The item of Cutlery waged determines the defending suit. The outcome is determined by comparing the suites of the Cutlery used and a new card drawn. Knives or diamonds beat Spoons, Forks or clubs beat Knives, and Spoons or spaces beat Forks. Hearts beat everything and count as an automatic success. If the player wins, the Snafu is resolved and discarded. If the player loses, the wagered Cutlery is lost, the Snafu remains in play, and worse, an item of Cutlery already dedicated to a Catastrophe is also lost.
A Catastrophe requires Cutlery to be dedicated to it. As long as an item of Cutlery is dedicated to it, it remains resolved. However, if the Cutlery dedicated to it is lost because a player loses a Wager on a Snafu, the Catastrophe reoccurs and becomes a problem for every character until resolved.
A game of Coffee & Chaos – Comedy Café Roleplaying Game begins with everyone possessing an item of Cutlery and there being Cutlery in the café’s pool. It will not be long before any Cutlery is in short supply as play progresses, primarily through failed Wagers on attempts to deal with Snafus and Cutlery having to be dedicated to catastrophes. Lost or discarded Cutlery can be recovered by a player going on a Break. This requires the expenditure of a Teaspoon and is done with another player. A cup of tea is also recommended as is taking the time to reflect and discuss the events of the day so far. This enables the players on the break to recover an item of Cutlery related to their learned means of resolving problems rather than the one they favour. In the meantime, the players still work will continue the round without them, attempting to deal with a new catastrophe and more Snafus as they are drawn. The players on a break are free to return at any time.
There is no set ending for a game of Coffee & Chaos – Comedy Café Roleplaying Game, but perhaps a shift should end when everyone is out of Knives, Forks, and Spoons. It is a game of storytelling in the face of dwindling resources and mounting problems, most temporary, but all too quickly, too many permanent unless a solution—however temporary—is applied to them. Initially, successes will drive the storytelling, but that will change as failures to deal with both the Snafus and the Catastrophes mount. In some ways, this works better when the staff of the café are drawn from other roleplaying games, their inexperience at running a café quickly becoming evident as the failures mount and their methods, invariably useful in the other roleplaying game setting, not being as useful in the ordinary place of work.
Physically, Coffee & Chaos – Comedy Café Roleplaying Game is well presented, coming as a folder containing two trifold pamphlets. They are bright, colourful, and easy to read.
Coffee & Chaos – Comedy Café Roleplaying Game is playable as is, a storytelling game about running a café and coping with the problems that beset its staff and customers almost every day. Its lack of ending and objective, whether as a whole or for individual characters, does leave its purpose hanging, whereas if the Player Characters are drawn in from another game, Coffee & Chaos – Comedy Café Roleplaying Game comes into its own. When that happens, the players get to explore their characters through a slice of life, doing something very ordinary, but often only having the most extraordinary means to do that ordinary thing. That exploration gives Coffee & Chaos – Comedy Café Roleplaying Game its purpose and its comedy as the ordinary and extraordinary clash over coffee and cake.

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

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Judge Dredd: The Game of Crime-Fighting in Mega-City One is back! Originally designed by Sir Ian Livingstone and published by Games Workshop in 1982, it was the very first board game to be inspired by the Judge Dredd comic strip from the pages of 2000 AD. In the original game, the players control Judges patrolling the streets of Mega-City One, the vast twenty-second century metropolis on the Atlantic coast of North America, home to eight hundred million citizens and all of them potential lawbreakers. Every Judge is trained from the age of five to arrest criminals, pass sentence, and carry out the sentence—even if that means a death sentence!—all in the name of keeping the city and its inhabitants safe. Every turn a player sends his Judge to the scene of a reported crime, perhaps the Palais De Boing—the only place in the city where it is legal to go Boinging, Otto Sump’s Ugly Clinic for the very best in uglification surgery, or the Alien Zoo where wonders and weird creatures from across the universe can be seen— and attempts to arrest the perpetrator. Perhaps Joseph ‘Mad Tooth’ McKill for Tobacco Smoking, Ma Jong for Stookie Glanding, or Dobey Queeg for Robot Smashing. Notoriously, this is the board game where you could be arresting Judge Death for Littering, or Ma ‘Green Fingers’ Mahaffy for Murder. Unfortunately, only one Judge gets be top dog in Mega-City One, and that is Judge Dredd. Which means the player with greatest total strength of Crime and Perp cards in his score pile at the end of the game is the winner and thus next top dog.

Much like the later Block Mania, the good news is that Judge Dredd: The Game of Crime-Fighting in Mega-City One has returned to the fold of 2000 AD and is now published by Rebellion Unplugged. Like Block Mania, it has undergone a redesign and makeover, but not by very much, and the game play remains very much the same. What has been added are clearer rules for ending the game and a simple expansion to make play a little more interesting and worth revisiting. Everything else remains the same. Same game rules, same art style, same set of perps and crimes, and same take that style of play. So, although a classic, Judge Dredd: The Game of Crime-Fighting in Mega-City One is still a game from 1982. What that means is that the game is easy to learn and easy to play, has bags and bags of theme—even if that theme dates back between 1977 and 1982, a degree of players acting against each other, and a high degree of luck. Judge Dredd: The Game of Crime-Fighting in Mega-City One is by any definition, an ‘Ameritrash’ board game. That by no means is necessarily a bad thing as the game can also be funny and silly, and it is playable by anyone—not just those who played it first time around in 1982 and are noshing down on the nostalgia.

Judge Dredd: The Game of Crime-Fighting in Mega-City One is designed to be played by two to six players aged fourteen plus and has a playing time of between an hour and an hour-and-a-half. The board depicts twenty-eight locations in Mega-City One. Over the course of the game, each sector will be seeded with a reported Crime and Perp. The Judges will proceed to the Sectors where these Crimes and Perps have been reported, reveal them, and attempt to arrest the Perp. Failing that, they may be able to stop the Crime in progress. At the end of the game, the player who has scored the most points from Perps arrested and Crimes stopped, wins the game.
Set-up first requires the group to choose a game length—‘Hotdog Run’, ‘Day Shift’, or ‘Night Shift’—and decide whether or not to use the Specialist Judges expansion. Each player receives six Action cards, and the Crime, Perp, and Sector cards are shuffled. Sector cards are drawn and these indicate where reports of crimes have been made, Perp cards and Crime cards being drawn and placed face down in the indicated Sectors. Each round consists of three phases. In the Movement Phase, the Judges move two Sectors in a direction, taking accounting of bridges to cross the river, but primarily to the nearest Sector containing Perp and Crime cards. When a Judge moves into a Sector Perp and Crime cards, both are turned over and revealed. In the Arrest Phase, a Judge attempts to bring a Perp and his Crime to justice. To do this, his player rolls the game’s black Judge die and adds his Judge’s Strength. Another player roll’s the game red Perp die and adds the result to Perp’s Strength, a total of the value on the Perp card plus the value on the Crime card. Highest total wins. If the Judge’s result is higher, he arrests the Perp and his player takes both Perp and Crime cards and adds it to his score pile. If the Judge’s result is lower, the Judge has failed, is knocked out, and has to discard and refresh his hand of Action cards. If the result is a draw, the crime is stopped and the Crime is added to the player’s score pile, but the Perp runs away, ready to be arrested by another Judge! In the third Refill Phase, new Sector cards and Crime and Perp cards are drawn to bring the number in play back up to six, any Judges knocked out go to the Justice Department Hospital, and each player receives a new Action card, more if their Judge is in certain sectors.

Of course, it is not always possible for a Judge to beat a Perp and a Crime on a singe roll. For example, if Fink Angel And Ratty with a Strength of eight was Body Sharking, which has a value of five, the total Strength the player has to roll higher than is thirteen. Which is not possible with the addition of a Judge’s Strength of six plus a die roll. Fortunately, a Judge has access to Action cards. Most are Support cards, which add a bonus to the arresting Judge’s Strength. For example, ‘Judge Hershey is with you today’ adds three and ‘The Perp is Kill Crazy. You send in the Sonic Cannon.’ adds five. Others though, are Sabotage cards, and can be used by a player to make an arrest attempt by another player’s Judge even harder. For example, ‘Your breakfast of plasti-flakes and synthi-lix is giving you chronic indigestion. You are not in tip-top fighting condition’ levies a -2 penalty or ‘The Perp you are fighting is secretly an East-Meg spy. Add an Extra Die to their Strength’. The worst of these cards, of course, the Escape card, which reveals the Perp to be the notorious Edwin Parsey, notorious confessor of other people’s crimes, which forces all Support cards used in the arrest attempt to be discarded and the attempt be treated as a tie. Other Action cards allow extra movement, send the Judge to a particular Sector, grants on the spot healing, and so on.

Judge Dredd: The Game of Crime-Fighting in Mega-City One adds one expansion—Specialist Judges. There are six of these—or seven if the Judge Fish from ‘The Day the Law Died’ storyline promo is included—and each Judge has a different ability. They include Chief Judge, SJS Judge, Psi-Judge, Wally Squad, Cadet, and Mechanismo. For example, the Cadet Judge only has a Strength of four, but begins play with and can hold seven Action cards, and draws an extra card; the SJS Judge can look at another player’s Actions each turn and wins ties in combat; and the Wally Squad Judge can move through Sectors containing revealed Perps, but does not have to arrest them. All six are nicely thematic and give a player a good little edge in play. The mix means that the players can come back to the game, try another Specialist Judge and a slightly style of play.

Physically, Judge Dredd: The Game of Crime-Fighting in Mega-City One is well presented. The artwork on the board is in colour, whilst the cards is black and white, but also is sharply and crisply handled. The rulebook is clearly written, easy to read, and supported with examples of the rules. In addition, the rulebook includes all of the UMPTY CANDY CARDs from the Jack Caldwell’s Old-fashioned Umpty Candy packs. All three series—‘SECTORS of Mega-City One’, ‘CRIMES of Mega-City One’, and ‘PERPS of Mega-City One’ explain the three sets of cards in the game, giving background for each of them.

Judge Dredd: The Game of Crime-Fighting in Mega-City One is not a perfect game by modern standards. It is too luck driven, the game allows one player to directly hamper another with the Sabotage cards, and towards the end of play, players can congregate around the remaining Sectors that have not yet been drawn if they have been keeping an eye on the cards that have been drawn to date. That said, they were part of the game’s design in 1982 and they should be there also in 2022 because the new edition is intended as a nostalgia piece and to change the game’s design too radically would break from that. Another issue is that the game only draws from the first five or so years of the Judge Dredd strips in 2000 AD—1977 to 1982—so that means forty-year-old stories which may not be as familiar to younger players. Perhaps yet, there is room for further expansions involving the more recent stories and thus more Crimes and Perp cards?
Judge Dredd: The Game of Crime-Fighting in Mega-City One is a fun game, easy to play and all the more enjoyable if the players know the lore, know the crimes, and know the Perps. Rebellion Unplugged have done a fantastic job of updating the quality of the game whilst both retaining the same game play and adding an expansion for more varied play. Judge Dredd: The Game of Crime-Fighting in Mega-City One marks the welcome return of a beloved classic, British in both design and inspiration, in turns funny, frustrating, and evocative of our gaming youth and another age.

Konrad Spiegel is dead. Burned to a crisp, a gold coin in his mouth. It is the strangest thing to have occurred in the village for Schwarzfuß for many years. Jakob Falkenartig was a friend of Konrad Spiegel and fears he will be next, so he wants to hire some bodyguards. The otherwise feckless Bürgermeister Lorenz Künstler wants something done about the situation, as long as it does not involve him, and so hires an errant band of adventurers to do the job for him. Then, of course, there is the matter of the gold. Who has enough gold to leave in the mouths of dead, burned bodies? These are all reasons for the Player Characters to get involved in the events in and around Schwarzfuß. What they will find is a village fearful of what will happen next and who the next victim will be and who the perpetrator is of this terrible crime is. This is the set-up for The Curious Conundrum of the Conflagrated Condottiero, a short scenario for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay. Like other scenarios published by Lamentations of the Flame Princess it is set in the game’s default early Modern Period, this time following a war, the suggested year being 1630 and the war being the Thirty Years’ War. Written by Kevin Green, it is another of his ‘village in peril, but only the Player Characters can save the day’ scenarios, but on a much smaller scale.

The Curious Conundrum of the Conflagrated Condottiero is essentially Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Sign of the Four adapted to the seventeenth century, a fantasy roleplaying game, Germany, but with added flames and less monkey and more The Terminator. Not literally, but the antagonist is an unstoppable killing machine. Actually, the author actually states that the scenario’s inspiration lies in John Carpenter’s The Fog and Kelly’s Heroes, which is all well and good, but since his opinions and tastes in films have proven to be suspect with previous scenarios for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay, he may not be entirely, or indeed, at all, accurate. The author’s taste and opinion with regard to films aside, its set-up is simple, flexible, and easy to use, whether that is the retroclone of the Referee’s choice or another setting or even another roleplaying game. The most obvious of which would be Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.

The village of Schwarzfuß is not described in any great detail and instead, the scenario focuses on the victims and where they live, the antagonist, and the few NPCs of any note in the village. Most of the NPCs receive a half page of description each, whilst the three remaining victims several pages each, being accompanied by details of where they live, including very nicely done floorplans of their homes. Each of the three remaining victims is very different in personality and the Referee will enjoy portraying each one of them as well as the other NPCs. The venerable, but crotchety old monster hunter stands out as the most fun to roleplay.

Much of the scenario is dedicated to suggested ways and means of dealing with the nigh on unstoppable monster threatening the three victims. It includes faking the deaths of the victims as well as actually cutting to the chase and the Player Characters killing them themselves, and everything in between. There are lots of options discussed here, essentially covering most of the solutions that the players will think of and there is even a suggestion for the Referee to substitute a non-supernatural option if she does not necessarily want her Player Characters facing an unstoppable flaming monster or she wants to run a Scooby Doo-style scenario.

Physically, The Curious Conundrum of the Conflagrated Condottiero is very well presented and written. The artwork is decent, but the maps are excellent.

The Curious Conundrum of the Conflagrated Condottiero is a short scenario. In fact, it could be run in a single session and even as a convention scenario, though it would be unlikely to last more than two sessions. Its set-up is simple and its plot, well, not exactly original, so what matters is how well the plot is done and how well the plot is supported, and to be fair, The Curious Conundrum of the Conflagrated Condottiero does a good job of handling both. The result is that The Curious Conundrum of the Conflagrated Condottiero is a decently presented, well explored, if familiar scenario that is easy to prepare, easy to run, and easy to adapt.

Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...

The Miskatonic University Library Association brand is no more, alas, but what we have in its stead is the Miskatonic Repository, based on the same format as the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

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Name: Dossier No. I – The MawPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Matthias Sperling & Björn Soentgerath

Setting: Jazz Age Germany & EgyptProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Ninety-Three page, 93.71 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: The ancient horrors of Egypt have a long reach... a very long reach.Plot Hook: Employees of the ‘Obscuriat’ are directed to locate an expected artefact because of Harry Houdini.Plot Support: Staging advice, two pre-generated Investigators, twelve NPCs, nine handouts, one Mythos artefact, and six Mythos monsters.Production Values: Plain.
Pros# Dense, highly detailed investigation# Excellent end of scene summaries# Designed for two players and Keeper# Physical props also available
# Enjoyable small town, Weimar Republic period feel
# Nice sense of environment# Inspired by ‘Imprisoned with the Pharaohs’ by H.P. Lovecraft and Harry Houdini# Taphophobia# Anthropomorphobia# Necrophobia# Pharaohphobia
Cons# Needs a strong edit# Densely plotted# No clear summation of the scenario# No historical context# Designed for two players and Keeper
Conclusion# Densely plotted, heavily backgrounded scenario needs a lot of unpacking by the Keeper to run properly# Really needs historical Jazz Age context explained# Enjoyable period investigation which surprisingly turns tomb trawl

Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...

The Miskatonic University Library Association brand is no more, alas, but what we have in its stead is the Miskatonic Repository, based on the same format as the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

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Name: 52 HzPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Michał Pietrzak

Setting: Modern Day PacificProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Fifteen page, 380.02 KB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: The song of the loneliest whale reveals horrors out of time.Plot Hook: A Miskatonic University research expedition reveals horrors in the most unexpected of places.
Plot Support: One handout, five (forty) NPCs, one map, and seventeen Mythos monsters.Production Values: Plain.
Pros# One session Scientific Action one-shot# Suitable for two to three Investigators
# Mythos on Mythos action
# Nice sense of environment# Literally ends with a big bang# Thalassophobia# Aquaphobia# Megalohydrothalassophobia# Nucleomituphobia
Cons# Needs a slight edit# Tightly plotted# Bland layout# Bland maps# No pre-generated Investigators
Conclusion# Exciting one session scientific action aquatic one-shot let down by a lack of pre-generated Investigators# Horrors out of the past drive a Mythos conflict with everyone else caught up in the Mythos on Mythos action

The Gamma Quadrant Sourcebook is the third setting supplement for Modiphius Entertainment’s Star Trek Adventures roleplaying game following on from the Beta Quadrant Sourcebook and the Alpha Quadrant Sourcebook. Effectively, it lies at the far end of the Bajoran Wormhole which connects the Gamma Quadrant to the Alpha Quadrant and it is what comes through the Bajoran Wormhole which is the primary focus of the Gamma Quadrant Sourcebook. For the supplement is as much a setting update as much a setting sourcebook and as much a companion to the Alpha Quadrant Sourcebook. What the Alpha Quadrant Sourcebook did was to examine the world of Bajor, and the major polities of the region, including the Cardassian Union, the Ferengi Alliance, the Tzenkethi Coalition, the Breen Confederacy, and the Tholian Assembly. It also looked at the Bajoran Wormhole and explored its ramifications of upon the quadrant, in the process, updating the default starting year for Star Trek Adventures of 2371 to 2372 as the early years of Deep Space 9 was explored. The Gamma Quadrant Sourcebook goes further. Not only does it update the default starting year from 2372 to 2375, but it also examines the whole of the Dominion War, looks at the major factions and events involved, supporting with details of new species, ways to involve the Player Characters and run campaigns set during the war, and more. What this means is that the Gamma Quadrant Sourcebook is really only a book for one of the period settings in Star Trek Adventures, that of Star Trek: The Next Generation rather than the earlier Star Trek: The Original Series or Enterprise.

What the Gamma Quadrant Sourcebook does not include is a map of the Gamma Quadrant. As with the television series, Deep Space 9, it remains for the most part, a great unknown, its exploration and possible contact with worlds there made all the challenging by the presence—both implied and actually present—of the Dominion. Nevertheless, there is plenty of scope for the crew of a starship to explore beyond the Bajoran Wormhole, make contact with the various species there, begin to learn hints of the Dominion, its masters and subject species, and wonder at its strangeness. In fact, almost a half of the supplement is dedicated to examining the Dominion and the Dominion war itself. The former starts with the history of the Changelings, how they fled, hounded by the ‘solids’—as they call most other species, to eventually find a world where they could be safe their Great Link, the world-spanning gestalt formed of their combined bodies and minds. It examines their politics, best described as a ‘fascist theocracy’ in which they are worshipped by their subjects upon whom they impose a strict order through their agents, the manipulative Vorta and the feared Jem’Hadar. Numerous worlds and species both within Dominion space and adjacent to it, are also detailed, such as the Drai, who serve as the Dominion’s geneticists and are thus regarded as a privileged member of the Dominion, and the T-Rogorans, a warlike species that aggressively expanding from its homeworld before encountering the Jem’Hadar and being almost wiped out… Notable worlds include the Founders’ Homeworld, essentially rock with little more than an atmosphere and the Great Link as a singular ocean; an Hur’q Outpost, an archaeological treasure house for anyone interested in Klingon history, the Hur’q having fled the Klingon homeworld thousands of years ago; and the Cursed Penal Moon, where the incarcerated are forced to fight in an ongoing war between two factions again and again as they find themselves resurrected each time they are killed. None can leave lest they die. All of these worlds and many of the species are ripe for visit by the Player Characters, whether as members of Starfleet or another faction.

Besides examining various species in the Gamma Quadrant, the supplement also looks at the various species in the Alpha Quadrant and their relationship with the Dominion. This includes the Breen, Cardassians, the Son’a, and the Orions, as well as potential allies like the Tholian Assembly, the Gorn, and the Nausicaans. The consequences of these potential alliances are also explored. Perhaps the most interesting inclusion here is that of the Kzin, a species rarely mentioned by Star Trek. Originally appearing in ‘The Slaver Weapon’, an episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series adapted by Larry Niven from his Known Space setting stories. However, they have been reintroduced into Star Trek in passing, or at least in mention. No stats are provided for them though in the Gamma Quadrant Sourcebook.

A detailed timeline of the Dominion War is also provided. It provides a background to the conflict as well as a look at the Cold War in which the Dominion began to infiltrate the Alpha Quadrant, secure allies, and foment conflict. This would lead to wars between the Klingons and Cardassians and then the Klingons and the Federation. Options are discussed for roleplaying in this Cold War period, before moving on to the loss and recapture of Deep Space 9, and coming to close with the current state of the war in 2374. Fortunately, supplement does not leave it there. Rather, it both gives 2374 as a default starting, ready for the Player Characters and their starship to become involved in the final operations against the Dominion, and then outlines the events of 2375 ready for the Game Master to run a campaign through this period.

To go with the numerous species discussed earlier, some twelve new species are given stats and details to make playable as both NPCs and Player Characters. This includes the Changelings! Their inclusion, of course, allows a player to roleplay a character similar to Constable Odo from Deep Space 9, and to that end, there is a discussion of how to include ‘Non-Starfleet, Unusual, Or Unique Characters’ in a Star Trek Adventures campaign. This is not confined to Changelings, of course, and there are plenty of species in the Gamma Quadrant Sourcebook, such as Lurians, Rakhari, or Wadi, which could be added as an unusual character to a campaign, let alone those in other supplements. A campaign based in a starbase, whether on a planet or in space, would more readily support this option than perhaps aboard a starship, but there are plenty of examples of such characters aboard a starship seen in Star Trek. Another option for a Changeling Player Character is to have them as infiltrators, undermining the efforts of Starfleet, the Federation, and its allies from within. Such an option does need careful handling, by both player and Game Master, with potential for redemption once the Changeling has been revealed and perhaps the person it was impersonating rescued from imprisonment. Notably, neither the Vorta nor the Jem’Hadar are included here. Instead, they remain adversaries, and are fully detailed in the core rulebook for Star Trek Adventures.

Numerous starships of the Gamma Quadrant are also described. These start with those vessels of the Dominion and its allies. Thus, the Jem’Hadar battleship and the Vorta Explorer, and the Son’a flagship and battlecruiser. The majority of the vessels are those of the Dominion War, all of them notable vessels. Amongst them are the U.S.S. Prometheus, the first vessel capable of Multi-Vector Assault Mode and the U.S.S. Valiant, the Defiant Class operated by members of Red Squadron from Starfleet Academy. An interesting option given is the vessels from the so-called ‘Frankenstein Fleet’, which saw starship frames previously mothballed by Starfleet upgraded with more advanced equipment and technologies. This would result in a radically different and genuinely unique vessel, a mixture of the old with the new.

Lastly, the Gamma Quadrant Sourcebook includes a wide selection of encounters and adversaries. Alongside a handful of encounter seeds for the Gamma Quadrant, there is a discussion of the Bajoran Wormhole and the role of the Prophets, and the nature of exploring the Gamma Quadrant. There is discussion too, of the types of campaigns that can be played throughout the period of the Dominion War, accompanied by several mission seeds and encounter types. Major NPCs given include General Martok of the Klingon Empire, Kai Winna Bajoran Vedek, the Cardassian leader, Gul Dukat, and the leading member of the Vorta species, Weyoun. Their inclusion enables the Player Characters to encounter and interact with some of the major adversaries of the Dominion War.

Physically, the Gamma Quadrant Sourcebook is a decent looking book. There are some inconsistencies in the layout, but otherwise the book is generally well-written and decently illustrated—though not always effectively—with a fully painted images. It does need a slight edit in places. The layout is done in the style of the LCARS—Library Computer Access/Retrieval System—operating system used by Starfleet. So, everything is laid out over a rich black background with the text done in soft colours. This is very in keeping with the theme and period setting of Star Trek Adventures, but it is imposing, even intimidating in its look, and it is not always easy to find things on the page because of the book’s look. The other issue is that the none-more black pages are easy to mark with fingerprints.

Throughout the supplement, the descriptions and game content are supported by a series of in-game documents, reports, diary excerpts, and the like. These typically reflect the mysterious nature of the Dominion and then the fraught nature of facing them and their agents in war, adding a sense of desperation in terms of its flavour and feel.

The Gamma Quadrant Sourcebook is three books in one, covering the Dominion, the worlds in and around Dominion space, and the Dominion War. It is also a companion volume, that to the Alpha Quadrant Sourcebook, which will provide the setting material for the Bajoran end of the Wormhole—Bajor, the Cardassian Union, the Ferengi Alliance, the Badlands, and the Demilitarised Zone. Like the Alpha Quadrant Sourcebook, the Gamma Quadrant Sourcebook sort of tiptoes around the subject of Deep Space 9. Yet despite this omission, the Gamma Quadrant Sourcebook is actually the most enjoyable and the most useful of the three sourcebooks dedicated to Star Trek’s quadrants to date. This is because it does not spread itself as thin as they do, its focus being firmly on the Dominion and their allies, the Dominion War, the consequences of the war, and involving the Player Characters. All of which is backed up by solid advice on running a campaign during just four or five years of Star Trek’s history.

To get the best out of the Gamma Quadrant Sourcebook, the Game Master will want access to the Alpha Quadrant Sourcebook, as that will anchor one end of the Bajoran Wormhole and Dominion War. Nevertheless, the Gamma Quadrant Sourcebook is the definite guide to the Dominion and the Dominion War for Star Trek Adventures, as well as the other end of the Bajoran Wormhole.

The year is 2225. For the last seventy-five years, hyperdrive starships have enabled mankind to colonise, settle, explore, and most importantly, exploit the more than three hundred planets in the interstellar space surrounding the Earth. Three arms of exploration and settlement have been developed—American, German, and Japanese. The majority of settled worlds lie within a four to six Parsec radius of Earth, but there are worked, settled, and visited worlds out to a radius of forty Parsecs. It turned out that none of them are true garden worlds. Many of them are tidally locked worlds and all have environmental conditions which make survival difficult if not outright challenging or dangerous. None have been found to be home to intelligent alien species, although many are home to indigenous species deadly, or at least a danger, to man. Even the Earth is no longer safe having suffered partial environmental collapse. Billions reside on the planet, but many make the long journey in hypersleep to make a new life on another world or to work contracts on resource worlds, for in the main, deep space is a place to work. Metals and rare earths, but above all petrochemicals for the plastics industry, remain in great demand.
The need for these resources has led to the rise of several South Korean chaebol and Japanese keiretsu-like corporations whose reach extends to the far edge of explored space, greater than that of any nation. Mining and aerospace company Reiner-Gama dominates and has its operations confined to the Solar System, but others include the engineering-based Leyland-Okuda; the British-based Erebus, built up from oil extraction in the Antarctic; Russian conglomerate Voroncovo, which provides data brokerage and security services alongside heavy engineering; Hong Kong-based manufacturer, Wu-Ketai; the Tokyo-based Matsuyama which specialises in colony construction and support; and the Tharsis Corporation, a mining company which originated on Mars and is led by Compton de Vaille, who at 223, is the longest lived human in history. The activities of these and lesser corporations are regulated by the United Corporate Combine, but peace, law enforcement, and labour relations across human space are still regulated by the political blocs and organisations of Earth. In the American Arm, the Federal Colonial Marshal Service stations officers on every colony, the Union of American Space Labor supports the safety and well-being of the workers everywhere, and the United States Marines provides military protection and peacekeeping. This includes the Tau Ceti 4 colony, originally divided between China and the United States of America, where the collapse of the newly democratic China in 2166 led to the foundation five new states all of whom claimed control of the former Chinese colony, civil unrest on the colony, and then insurgency and counter-insurgency as the United States Marines stepped in as a peacekeeping force, welcomed and rejected at the same time.

This is the setting for Hostile, a gritty, near future roleplaying setting inspired by the Blue-Collar Science Fiction of the seventies and eights, including the films, Alien, Outland, and Aliens. It is a future in which space exploration and colonisation is difficult, harsh, and dangerous, but in which there are asteroid systems and worlds to be exploited and great profits to be made. Conflict is not unknown—between colonies, between colonies and corporations, between corporations, and when that gets too much the Interstellar Commerce Organisation steps in or peacekeepers such as the United States Marine Corps are sent in, but in the main, space is a working environment. One with numerous hazards—the vacuum of space, radiation, adversely high and low temperatures, poisonous planetary atmospheres, potential insanity from being exposed to hyperspace, and strange alien creatures which see you as intruder, food, or incubation for its brood—which humanity must cope with in addition to the stresses of space travel and working away from Earth.

Hostile Setting is published by Zozer Games. It is the companion volume and setting guide for the publisher’s Hostile Rules, derived from Samardan Press’ Cepheus Engine System Reference Document, the Classic Era Science Fiction 2D6-Based Open Gaming System based on Traveller. The Hostile Setting can be run using the Hostile Rules or the Cepheus rules, but is primarily designed as the setting guide for the former. Instead of offering the chance to begin again in a golden age of opportunity and adventure, the Hostile Setting instead explores a new age of work, industrialisation, danger, retrofuturism, and cynicism. The supplement provides a complete that includes a future history that runs into the twenty-third century, details of major government, corporate, and criminal players along the American Arm, data for some one-hundred-and-fifty world worlds and detailed descriptions of over twenty, rules for character creation, equipment, arms, and armour, a space bestiary, rules for handling and working the hazardous environments of the future—including zero-g, radiation, and mining, starship construction and current designs, a write-up of the USCS Hercules—a newly released commercial towing vessel, including deckplans, over thirty detailed scenario hooks, and nods aplenty to the subgenres it is inspired by.

There is some crossover between Hostile Setting and Hostile Rules. This is primarily mechanically in terms of the Career options—including Corporate Agent, Corporate Executive, Colonist, Commercial Spacer, Marine, Marshal, Military Spacer, Physician, Ranger, Roughneck, Scientist, Survey Scout, and Technician. The Android Career is included also, but primarily for NPCs. The possibility of an Android as a Player Character is discussed and it is strongly—in fact, very strongly—advised that should a Player Character Android be included in a campaign, it should not be able to break its programming. Only six general options are suggested for androids—spacer, survey, scout, physician, scientist and technician. Elsewhere, Hostile Setting and Hostile Rules complement each other. Hostile Setting provides not just the setting that Hostile Rules lacks, but also details of specific arms and armour, equipment, and starships, as well as the rules for creating the latter. The rules for spaceship construction does feel slightly superfluous given the number of vessels detailed as part of the setting, but doubtless, there will be some Game Masters and readers who enjoy tinkering with them and designing their own starships.

In terms of what type of campaigns can be run in the Hostile Setting background, several options are discussed. These include working as troubleshooters, working as a crew of an interstellar transport, members of the United States Marine Corps or Federal Colonial Marshal Service, or explorers out on the frontier. The peacekeeping mission of Tau Ceti 4 lends itself to a low intensity military campaign and Hostile Setting focuses on this colony more than any other in the book with some colourful fiction for the situation there. A Hostile Setting campaign need not even leave a colony or mining station though, the Game Master could easily develop a colony which could support any number of situations involving exploration, survival, criminal activities, technical difficulties, labour relations, and more. For the Game Master wanting a nod to the primary inspiration for Hostile Setting, the film, Alien, there is guidance for creating and handling horror in the setting and a discussion of the types of exomorph—or alien horror—that the Player Characters might encounter in the far, dark reaches of space. Whilst several examples are included, the Game Master is advised to introduce these with care. A number of hyperspace anomalies are also discussed as potential sources of fear. Whatever the type of campaign chosen, there is some solid advice on how to describe the setting, including excellent lists of elements which can help enforce the look and feel of the environment.

Physically, Hostile Setting is serviceably done. The artwork is decent, capturing very much the grim and gritty feel of space being a working environment. One noticeable design feature is the text size, which although sans serif, is large.

The contents of Hostile Setting will feel familiar to anyone who played or read either Traveller or Cepheus, but very much filtered through not one, but three different Science Fiction subgenres—Blue Collar Science Fiction, Horror Science Fiction, and Military Science Fiction—and combined into one heavily implied setting with obvious inspirations. Hostile Setting can use either of those rules, but best works with Hostile Rules, since they complement each other. Further, the Hostile Setting showcases a setting not just where a Xenomorph—or in this case, an Exomorph—could be encountered somewhere far out from the safety of the Earth, but a Science Fiction setting rife with other dangers and other story possibilities. In fact, to come to the Hostile Setting expecting to focus mainly on encounters with dangerous alien lifeforms would lead to disappointment and to solely focus on that in play, would be to ignore those other, in many ways, more interesting story possibilities.

For the Game Master who wants a near future, grim and gritty Science Fiction setting which focuses upon Blue Collar protagonists rather than heroes, the Hostile Setting is a very good choice. The Hostile Setting takes its Blue-Collar Science Fiction inspirations and provides a well-realised background with support and scenario suggestions aplenty.

Scenarios set on or within the bodies of enormous creatures are not new. For example, Genial Jack, is set entirely within the body of a blue whale and On the Shoulders of Giants is set not on the body of a single god, but the bodies of twelve gods. However, Tyrannosaur Inside – A T-Rex Crawl Adventure is very probably the first scenario to be set inside the body of the most notorious dinosaur of all time—the tyrannosaurus rex. Which is both bonkers and fun, but also, a bit “Tell me again, how I use this?”. Published by Beyond Cataclysm Books following a successful Kickstarter campaign, the scenario is designed to be played using with Mörk Borg, the Swedish pre-apocalypse Old School Renaissance retroclone designed by Ockult Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell and published by Free League Publishing. (In addition, it should be noted that a version is also available for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition.) It is not specifically set in the same doomed land as Mörk Borg, in fact, it is probably too over the top, if not a little silly, yet if the Game Master wants to set it in the same world, there is nothing to stop her. At best, and because it does involve a fifteen-thousand-pound meat-eating theropod, Tyrannosaur Inside – A T-Rex Crawl Adventure, works as a one-shot. This does not mean Tyrannosaur Inside – A T-Rex Crawl Adventure cannot be dropped into a campaign. It has the same effect as dropping a tyrannosaurus rex onto a village, which is exactly how the scenario starts.
Tyrannosaur Inside – A T-Rex Crawl Adventure begins in small village whose inhabitants have been scared out of their wits after a dinosaur out of the cretaceous period has appeared their midst. Of course, the Player Characters are tasked with dealing with because they are not the ones running away. The first two questions they have to answer are, how much they know about tyrannosaurus rex and how are they going to get into inside to take it down. The answer to the first question, is not very much, no more than their players do, unless one of the players happens to be a palaeontologist, in which that player is going to be very, very, and the author means, very surprised. Otherwise, the nearest town’s leper can tell you that the tyrannosaurus rex is renowned for having an ‘out’ door (underneath the tail) which can be used as a means of access if you are brave and bring lots of hand sanitiser and for having a helter-skelter which spirals down its spine… The answer is either to use the ‘in’ door, the ‘out’ door, or drill their way in via a toenail… In addition, Tyrannosaur Inside – A T-Rex Crawl Adventure does include extra answers to the earlier question, “Tell me again, how I use this?”. ‘d10 Things To Do With a T-Rex In A Fantasy Kingdom’ provides exactly ten answers by Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan, the best of which includes using it as the hiding place for a lich’s soul jar, grabbing it as a wizard’s tower after casting Flesh to Stone, and never, ever giving a Ring of Wishes to a six-year-old (which reads ever so slightly, as if Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan has actually done this…)

So the first really big surprise about the tyrannosaurus rex is that it not actually a tyrannosaurus rex. Well, it is, but just not the traditional sense. It is in fact, a tyrannosaurus rex operated by comparatively tiny—and that we mean, man-sized—tyrannosaurus rexes, some of whom are actually really bored of being the crew of a tyrannosaurus rex, some of which really hate their tyrannosaurus rex being boarded. Especially by the mostly hairless ape-like descendants of tree rats. So essentially, the tyrannosaurus rex is a giant t-rex-shaped mecha, but with teeth and really good skin. In game terms, Tyrannosaur Inside – A T-Rex Crawl Adventure is a hexcrawl adventure up the length of a tyrannosaurus rex, with each of the creature’s limbs, tail, abdomen, thorax, and head making up one hex. Some of the locations are quite expansive, such as the thorax with its maze of intestinal pumps, whilst others, like the Piddly Left Arm and the Piddly Right Arm, are narrow and constrained. There are some entertaining encounters throughout, such as the Dinogängers, which appear and attempt to replace the Player Characters, a lecture on dental hygiene by a T-Rentist, and a very cosy stop-off with the Old-Rexes!

As to getting around the insides the non-tyrannosaurus rex, it is relatively easy, even it is technically a tight squeeze, since this being a relatively modern tyrannosaurus rex, it is wheelchair accessible with signage in braille, the language of the user’s choice, and so on.

For the Game Master, there is mixture of tips and playtest notes—which mostly point out how silly the adventure is—and a table of motivations for the tyrannosaurus rex actually in charge, written by Grant Howitt. Dave Emerson contributes ‘d6 Reasons You Are Scared Of Dinosaurs’ which does not quite work with the medieval style settings of the roleplaying games that Tyrannosaur Inside – A T-Rex Crawl Adventure is actually written for.

Physically, Tyrannosaur Inside – A T-Rex Crawl Adventure is very well laid out and a lot of thought has gone into how the whole thing is organised. The various locations are always marked with a mini-version of the tyrannosaurus rex map with the right hex highlighted in red. Directions to nearby locations are marked with big teeth, very big teeth…

Tyrannosaur Inside – A T-Rex Crawl Adventure is dinosaurously ridiculous, but for that one instance where the Game Master wants to run a t-rex incursion recursion, Tyrannosaur Inside – A T-Rex Crawl Adventure is exactly what she wants.

Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #3: Acting Up In Lankhmar is a scenario for Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and the third scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set. Scenarios for Dungeon Crawl Classics tend be darker, gimmer, and even pulpier than traditional Dungeons & Dragons scenarios, even veering close to the Swords & Sorcery subgenre. Scenarios for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set are set in and around the City of the Black Toga, Lankhmar, the home to the adventures of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, the creation of author Fritz Leiber. The city is described as an urban jungle, rife with cutpurses and corruption, guilds and graft, temples and trouble, whores and wonders, and more. Under the cover the frequent fogs and smogs, the streets of the city are home to thieves, pickpockets, burglars, cutpurses, muggers, and anyone else who would skulk in the night! Which includes the Player Characters. And it is these roles which the Player Characters get to be in Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #3: Acting Up In Lankhmar, small time crooks trying to make a living and a name for themselves, but without attracting the attention of either the city constabulary or worse, the Thieves’ Guild! The job in this scenario is a night spent proving protection to a theatre performance.
Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #3: Acting Up In Lankhmar is a short, one-session scenario which takes place over the course of a single evening. Designed for four Player Characters of Second Level, it opens with them being approached by Jallo, the lead actor and head of a troupe of actors, mummers, dancers, and street performers, known as the Dungsweep Players. Performing at the run down Marshlight Theatre, Jallo has a hit on his hands, ‘The Fiascos of Duke Hogfat’, a satire about the personal habits of one Duke Borvat, a relatively important noble in Lankhmar. Unfortunately, the success of the play means that word of the play and its scurrilous subject matter, has reached the ear of the subject and he is not happy. He has already despatched the head of his house guard, Captain Dimman, and several of his men to threaten the theatre and the troupe with closure, and if they fail to comply, the inference that the troupe will end up dead. Thus, Jallo and the Dungsweep Players want protection and Jallo is prepared to pay for it. For one night’s work, this pay is perfectly reasonable.

Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #3: Acting Up In Lankhmar is all about the Marshlight Theatre. Apart from being located down an alleyway in an old warehouse, the theatre can be placed anywhere in the city and could easily be placed near the slums between the Old Slave Barracks on Chapel Street, Rookery Way, the Shrine of the Rat God on Squalor Row, and Pimp Street, the setting for Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #1: Gang Lords of Lankhmar. In fact, Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #3: Acting Up In Lankhmar can easily be run as a sequel to Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #1: Gang Lords of Lankhmar, and it can be the events of that scenario which led to Jallo learning of their exploits and their reputation and thus hiring them. The scenario describes the theatre in some detail, and there is a large map of the building which can be placed in front of the players as their characters attempt to stop any attacks by Captain Dimman and his agents.

Bar an initial scene, all of the action of the scenario takes place in and around the theatre. At its core, it plays out as a theatrical ‘tower defence’ style scenario as the Duke’s men and his agents—plus other forces, make their play in striking at the theatre and the performers. There are also scenes unconnected with this main plot thread, which add colour and flavour to the activities in and around the theatre. In addition, the scenario adds an ‘Audience Mood’ tracker as an adventure specific to keep a gauge of the audience and its reaction to the play. Depending upon the actions of the Player Characters, this ranges from the performance being heralded as a triumph to the audience breaking out into a riot! Further, there is a big event in the scenario which potentially, literally puts a Player Character centre stage...
Physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #3: Acting Up In Lankhmar is as decently presented as you would expect from Goodman Games. The scenario’s ‘Audience Mood’ tracker and its use is clearly explained and should be easy to use.

Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #3: Acting Up In Lankhmar is huge fun—for both the players and the Judge. The Judge gets some juicy NPCs to portray and verily roleplay, whilst the players and their characters get a fun, exciting adventure with lots going on and a desperate situation to deal with which gets ever more fraught as the night goes on. Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #3: Acting Up In Lankhmar is a short adventure, but it inventively shows another type of story and scenario that can be played out and run in a specific setting such as Lankhmar. Clever, witty, and engaging, Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #3: Acting Up In Lankhmar is a great addition to campaign run using the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set.

Andy Prisbylla / June 16, 2023

Other Cinema Peace Sign Flyer. Source: SF Cinematheque Digital Archives

In our current technocratic society, it’s incredibly rare to meet someone who is genuinely free. The erosion of the Consent Decrees of 1948—which allowed media conglomerates to own and control movie theaters—drastically altered the landscape of film and video production, further destabilizing an already unlevel playing field between corporate interests, content creators, and consumers. The trickle-down economics Reagan touted in his 1981 tax act proved only to favor the affluent, further alienating independent creators who were frozen out of a livelihood through economic blacklisting, a perpetual attack that continues to this day. Bill Clinton’s elimination of the fin-syn rules that required television networks to source 35% of their content from independent producers only helped to continue this trend into the new millennium, and soon the mainstream movie and TV-consuming public was offered a slate of hegemonic programming supplied by a monopoly rule. 

With traditional avenues of information exchange becoming more restricted, pockets of transgressive media resistance—inspired by the countercultural film and video collectives of the ‘60s and ‘70s—gained 501(c)(3) non-profit status in 1980s America. These artist-run community organizations championed alternative educational perspectives on media literacy and performance, such as Artists’ Television Access in the Mission District of San Francisco, California. Operating under the umbrella of this community space exists a cinematic collective with a subversive trajectory: a film screening series and analog archive curated from the margins of mainstream media and acceptable art practice. Under the stewardship of underground filmmaker and curator Craig Baldwin, Other Cinema stands as the vanguard of Baldwin’s personal artistic conviction—what he calls “cinema povera,” an anti-capitalist filmmaking creed where artists only use the materials at their disposal to create art. Combine this practice with an ethos of media archeology and mixed-media collage that predates our current remix culture activities and what’s generated is an exhibition calendar of the modern avant-garde—a thirty-six week screening schedule projecting experimental film and video to the masses. Every Saturday night, cartoons, B movies, and commercials hold equal ground with industrial, educational, documentary, personal essay, and public domain/orphan films, bringing together numerous artists and filmmakers from around the world under one cinematic ceiling for close to 40 years.

Craig Baldwin video interview for Guerilla News Network’s Channel Zero, 1995. Source: Internet Archive

Specific details surrounding the origins of Other Cinema are hard to quantify, partially due to the vastly prolific yet oddly cryptic career of founder Craig Baldwin. Born into a self-admitted 1950s middle-class existence in the Sacramento suburb of Carmichael, California, Baldwin spent his teenage years nurturing a ravenous curiosity for subversive cultures and media. During high school, he was often at the local Towne Theater enjoying the latest midnight show of underground programming, absorbing the cinematic combustion of the ‘60s experimental scene led by filmmakers like George Kuchar and Bruce Conner, who as a teacher would later kick Baldwin out of his film class while attending San Francisco State University. In college Baldwin also indulged in subterranean films such as Peter Watkins’s 1966 pseudo-doc The War Game and exploitation flicks like Paul Bartel’s 1975 sci-fi dystopian romp Death Race 2000. Forming a fascination with film exhibition, Baldwin worked as a projectionist at several movie houses throughout the city, navigating the film worlds through an eclecticism of arthouse, exploitation, pornography, and political activism—including contributing programming and film services to El Salvador Film and Video Projects for the Salvadoran solidarity movement of northern California. His early activism with the artistic political action collective the Urban Rats saw him and his cohorts reclaim San Francisco’s urban landscape through adverse possession or “squatter’s rights,” which allowed Baldwin to experiment with expanded cinema performance, such as projecting film in abandoned buildings and other derelict dwellings. 

This direct approach towards genre and social action speaks to Baldwin’s personal opposition towards the status quo, an attitude that not only informs Other Cinema’s motion picture programming but also Baldwin’s own filmmaking forays. His early experiments with Super 8 film—such as the prototypical culture jam/situationist prank Stolen Movie—bled into his 16mm attacks on advertising, consumerism, and colonialism in Wild Gunman and RocketKitKongoKit before gaining maximum velocity with his Dexedrine-driven, countermyth conspiracy report Tribulation 99. Making up the pure found footage/collage aesthetic of his filmography until introducing live-action performance into the mix with his films !O No Coronado!, Spectres of the Spectrum, and Mock Up on Mu, these early works draw heavily from Baldwin’s now massive archive of analog film. Housed beneath the Artists’ Television Access property, this subterranean scroll of marginalized media is continuously rescued from the bowels of civilization’s ever evolving technological burden and given new purpose. The shift from film in the 1970s to magnetic tape in the 1980s saw major institutions overhaul their audio/visual collections in favor of more economical video formats, sending reels of celluloid to the dumpsters and landfills. Much like the Dadaists of the early 20th century avant-garde, whose use of appropriation and photomontage expressed anti-bourgeois protest through their art, Baldwin and company salvaged these bastardized works from material obscurity and celebrated their ephemeral nature through collage and remix. These hybrid works of the late 20th century serve as precursor to many of our current 21st century new media innovations, resulting in the continued radicalization of modern artistic folklore, such as the mashups and supercuts of Everything Is Terrible! and the radical anti-authoritarian statements of the sister collective Soda Jerk. 

Craig Baldwin projecting films in an abandoned structure for a Urban Rats squatters rights protest. Drawing by Mike Mosher, 1984. Source: Artists’ Television Access

Baldwin and Other Cinema’s defense of the diminished and discarded extends not only to the physical media he interacts with but to the audience he exhibits for. Maintaining a dialectical attitude, Baldwin expresses both respect and disrespect towards film genre and classification by spinning one off the other and forming new categories. Each screening is meant to give equal weight to diverse voices and provoke participation amongst attendees—an ethos Baldwin codified with his underground screening series The RAD, The MAD & The BAD while programming film events for Artists’ Television Access during the organization’s formative years. A protean yet practical film genre grouping system sorted through three major categories stripped of pretense and soaked in punk rock colloquialism, each selection was designated its own time slot on Wednesdays and Saturdays with those represented creating a continuity across each section:

The RAD: showcasing political and social action films 

The MAD: mad genius or auteur cinema

The BAD: psychotronic themes of horror/sci-fi/exploitation

Defying the unspoken restraint behind many traditional classification systems that favor a false high-brow aesthetic to an honest low-brow sensibility, The RAD, The MAD & The BAD crossed the cultural demarcation line with an egalitarian stance towards genre representation, allowing for serious discussion about what constitutes a film’s importance and its commodification within society. More importantly, it displayed through example that poor production doesn’t always mean poor quality, and films created on the margins of capital contain a certain cultural influence and accessibility that corporate-backed productions can only hope to afford or inspire.

Detail from a RAD, MAD & BAD programming flier for Anti-Films & Film Offensive, 1987. Source: SF Cinematheque Digital Archives

The authentic response audiences gave towards the weekly film schedule at Artists’ Television Access saw the prestigious San Francisco Cinematheque approach Baldwin to bring his street sensibility to their precocious crowd with Sub-Cinema, a RAD, MAD & BAD-inspired program that ran over the course of 1985. The creation of other pop-up programs like Anti-Films and Eyes of Hell inspired Baldwin to consolidate his film selections under his own programming umbrella, and soon the ethos that fueled The RAD, The MAD & The BAD manifested itself into the physical embodiment of Baldwin’s own psyche and practice with the foundation of Other Cinema. 

If the RAD, MAD & BAD helped bring acceptance to the concept of marginalization in film selection and exhibition during the 1980s, the programming behind Other Cinema built upon this provocation by introducing new alternative voices from the microcinema scene of the 1990s. One of the forefronts of this new cinematic experience, Other Cinema became a home for a subculture of film using and reusing old and new technologies to create future underground works, with filmmakers and exhibitors from across the country like Sam Green, Martha Colburn, Greta Snider, Bill Daniel, Orgone Cinema, 3Ton Cinema, and “others” coalescing to this space like the children of Hamelin to the Pied Piper’s whimsical flute. Many of these groups and individuals appear in Baldwin’s upcoming career monograph Avant to Live!, a 500-page treatise detailing his cinematic trajectory in the media arts.

Baldwin in the archive, circa 2005. Photo by Lauren DeFilippo. Source: Internet Archive

The decline of physical media coupled with our perpetual progression towards a digital state continues to divide us, with some championing the virtual realm and its democratization of new technologies and others questioning its effect on the human experience and how we interact with each other. The popularity of streaming services continues to challenge the economic longevity of physical media, forcing film formats into a wave of obsolescence. Despite this, Craig Baldwin and Other Cinema rise against the tide with an analog assault of expanded cinema every Saturday night. Filmmakers on the fringe and maverick media archeologists with an overwhelming responsibility to film history, yet hamstrung by a lack of resources, congregate at Other Cinema to embrace the struggle in an ever evolving motion picture renaissance. It’s a form of masochism one needs to make it on this side of the art world—the “masochism of the margins,” as Baldwin often says. It takes pain and sacrifice to live here, yet the psychic rewards far outweigh the material loss. 

Craig Baldwin: Avant to Live! is a collaborative project between San Francisco Cinematheque and INCITE: Journal of Experimental Media and was released on May 30, 2023.

Andy Prisbylla is an underground filmmaker and exhibitor from the rust belt apocalypse of Steel City, PA. His screening series SUBCINEMA showcases subterranean movies and art through digital programming and live pop-up events. Find out more through Letterboxd and Mastodon. 

A city under siege. The City by the Bay sits in the crosshairs of a gunsight, the scope of a sniper rifle wandering across the buildings and streets of San Francisco ready for the trigger to be pulled and another victim felled. The sniper has sent city hall demands for money and is holding all of San Francisco to ransom. Fortunately, San Francisco Police Department has assigned its finest police officers to deal with both the demands and track down the psychopathic killer before he strikes again. If that sounds like the plot of the 1971 film, Dirty Harry, starring Clint Eastwood and directed by Don Siegel, it is. However, it is also the set-up for a board game inspired by Dirty Harry and the cop cinema of the seventies. Published by Next Dimension Games, Go Ahead Punk! is a game set in the San Francisco of the seventies in which the sadistic killer known only as ‘Stinger’ stalks the streets and rooftops, looking for his next victim. Instead of the San Francisco Police Department assigning only the one Cop to the case, it has assigned three—Inspectors Katherine Lacey, Eddie Johnson, and Frank Brannigan. Stinger only needs to carry three more hits, which can be from atop a building if he can obtain a Janitor Key to its side entrance or in the city’s parks if he can find a Park Ranger uniform. Then it is a matter of making his escape from one of the city’s four port exits and the man who scared San Francisco will have eluded the law! All the Cops have to do is locate Stinger and bring him to justice, whether that is before he has made all of his planned hits or after, during his escape attempt.

Go Ahead Punk! is a classic hidden movement game of one player versus many, much in the mode of the classic Fury of Dracula or the more recent Jaws. It pitches one player—Stinger, up against one to three Cops, each with their own means of handling sadistic killers like Scorpio. Inspector Frank Brannigan always knows where to put a bullet in a criminal if he has to; Inspector Eddie Johnson’s preferred weapon is a pump action shotgun, so up close, he rarely misses; and Inspector Katherine Lacey’s knowledge of Personnel & Records means she brings police intelligence to the streets in the manhunt for the marauding murderer. When she spends cash on intel to reveal Stinger’s location, his player must reveal Stinger’s exact location, not just the district. They start with their own equipment, but can find more and make themselves deadlier in a fight. Stinger has his sniper rifle, but might find a .38 revolver, a silencer for his sniper rifle to make hits harder to detect, or even a LAW rocket launcher (useful for taking down that pesky police chopper), whereas the Cops can equip themselves with shotguns and rifles, don bulletproof vests, keep track of each other with police radios, and if they have cash, get intel from their connections on where Stinger might be. They can even get the keys to a muscle car and race across the city in pursuit of the unknown sniper.

Go Ahead Punk! is played out on a 17¼ by 28½ inch map of San Francisco, divided into its various districts and parks and crisscrossed with the major roads and freeways as well as Street Car and Cable Car routes. All players can move using the major roads and freeways, but only Stinger can use the Street Car and Cable Car routes and then only when he has a Transit Pass. There are over one-hundred-and-fifty numbered locations on the map which the Cops will move across openly, whilst Stinger will move across them in secret, his player tracking Stinger’s movement and location on the Movement Tracker sheet which he keeps hidden behind a screen. The various districts are also marked with Hit Locations—black for rooftops, green for the parks, and red for locations where a hit cannot be performed for the third and final hit. There are several hospitals, marked with ER, where both the Cops and Stinger can gain first aid, but Stinger must reveal his location if he does so and there are also four Port locations, the Stinger needing to get to one of these to escape and win the game after performing the three hits. Lastly, there is Hunch Tracker, which tracks the San Francisco Police Department’s general progress in hunting for Stinger. The net closes on him every fourth round, forcing his player to reveal Stinger’s current district, which will narrow it down to a handful of locations.

At the beginning of the game, each player receives a board for his character. This has a health Tracker and space for equipment carried—up to eight spaces’ worth of equipment can be carried in this inventory—and for the Cops, space for any vehicle currently in their possession. Each player is also given their character’s starting equipment, a set of combat dice in their character’s colour, and a reference card. Stinger’s player has access to the Stinger Deck and the Stinger Key Deck. During play, these provide Stinger’s player with key cards to particular locations, the Park Ranger uniform, weapons, and so on. In addition, the Stinger’s player also receives the Movement Tracker sheet and a screen to hide it behind. This screen has a great image of Stinger, sniper rifle in hand, looming over the city as a whole, making him a constant presence, despite everyone not knowing where he is.

The Cop players have access to the Cop Deck and the Cop Inventory Deck and together these provide the Cop players with weapons, vehicles, cash for intelligence, and more. There are some fun cards in here too. For example, ‘Complaint’ sends Inspector Brannigan straight to city hall following a claim of police brutality; ‘Donuts!’ ends a player’s turn; when ‘Car’ card is drawn, the Cop not only gets that card, but gets to pop the trunk of the car and draw another card to see what is inside it; and a ‘Hood! Fight Now’ card means that the Cop has busted down the wrong door and the occupant is not taking it lying down!

A turn consists of two phases. In ‘Phase 1: The Hunt’, Stinger acts first. He can either move, play a card from his hand, draw a new card (and play it if he wants), declare a Hit, or get some first aid at an ER. Both declaring a Hit and going to the ER reveals Stinger’s location. Next the Hunch Tracker marker is moved. If on the ‘Reveal’ space, Stinger’s player reveals the district where he currently is. Then the Cop players take it to turn to do one of five actions. This can be to move—three spaces as opposed to the four of Stinger, play a card, draw a new card to play or keep, share inventory items with another Cop if they are in the same location, or get some first aid at an ER. Play progresses through ‘Phase 1: The Hunt’ again and again until Stinger has performed three Hits. This triggers ‘Phase 2: The Escape’. However, play in ‘Phase 2: The Escape’ is pretty much the same as ‘Phase 1: The Hunt’, but without the need to perform any further Hits.

Stinger’s location can be revealed through four means. A Cop moves into the space he is currently on, Stinger’s player draws a ‘Spotted’ card, a ‘Location Intel’ card is drawn—backed up by Lacey’s knowledge of Personnel & Records or extra cash, or Stinger moves into a location with a Cop there. The latter is a possibility if a Cop has already been injured, whether due to a ‘Hood! Fight Now’ card or an earlier encounter with Stinger, and Stinger’s player thinks he can do enough damage to send him to the ER. Performing a Hit also reveals Stinger’s location, but if Stinger has the Silencer for his sniper rifle, Stinger gets another turn to act before revealing the Hit, reflecting how difficult the Hit was to detect.

Combat takes place between Stinger and the Cops when or more of them are in the same location. It involves the players taking it in turns to roll dice as determined by the weapon they are carrying, modified by combat cards, if any, aiming to inflict damage on the other. Combat continues until Stinger is killed and thus the Cops win the game, Stinger sends the Cops to the ER, or one side attempts to escape and move immediately away. In general, this requires the ‘Escape’ symbol to be rolled on a die, and if the ‘Escape’ symbol does not appear, a player can burn cards from his hand. This removes them from the game, which can be serious for Stinger if those cards are a Janitor Key card or a Park Ranger Uniform card as this prevents Stinger from performing Hits at those locations. Notably, Stinger’s play begins the game with an Escape Token. This can be used once instead of a failed Escape roll and ensures that Stinger escapes once in the game.

In addition to the standard game, Go Ahead Punk! includes rules for solo play. This plays much in the same fashion as the standard game, but the player controls Stinger only—who has been blackmailed into performing the Hits—and the Cops are controlled by the game. The token for Stinger remains on the board at all times with the Cop tokens constantly moving towards Stinger. To make an allowance for solo play, Go Ahead Punk! does feel like a more complex game in comparison to the standard rules.

Go Ahead Punk! is a nicely and highly thematically presented game. All of the components are of solid quality, including the tokens, cards, and various boards—even for a preview version of the game. (Actual figures for the Cops are included in a deluxe version of the game.) The rule book is relatively short, but includes examples of play, combat, and card clarifications. The artwork is terrific though, for example, Stinger is shown on one card wearing the same Mexican style cardigan that Paul Michael Glaser wore on Starsky & Hutch. There are lots of little references like this, and players with any knowledge of the genre will enjoy spotting them.

Go Ahead Punk! has a pleasing ebb and flow to its play. Primarily this is due to the Hunch Tracker, which forces Stinger’s player to reveal the current district he is currently in, tightening the noose around Stinger, forcing his player to send him scurrying away if he does not want to be caught or run into a Cop. Then loosening again, if only for a little while... This in addition to clues left behind by any Hits which can build and build as the Cop players try and work out Stinger’s movements and possible intended location as he performs more hits. Consequently, there is never really a moment after the first Hit when Stinger does not feel like he is being hunted. The Cops are always going to feel like they are responding and successfully tracking Stinger will involve deduction based on first the Hit locations and second, the ‘Location Intel’ cards, as well as a bit of luck. That is, when they are not being distracted by claims of police brutality or doughnuts! Then there is the theme. Go Ahead Punk! feels like the film it is inspired by and familiarity with it will have the players wanting to play in the style of the characters from the cop films and television series and roleplay a little as the game progresses.

Overall, Go Ahead Punk! is a solidly designed classic hidden movement game of one player versus many built around a highly appropriate theme. The combination of the two sets up a brooding sense of uncertainty, never quite knowing when the Stinger will strike again as the Cops desperately search for the deranged killer—and all under the sunny skies of San Francisco.

—oOo—
Go Ahead Punk! is currently being funded via Kickstarter and an Unboxing in the Nook video is available on YouTube.

Lisa Fernandes / June 15, 2023

All of the characters in Paul Schrader’s Light of Day (1987) are looking for a way out. They’re stuck in menial nine to five jobs, on the line in factories and behind candy-colored checkout stands in supermarkets. Their families are suffocatingly close-knit, with parents watching punitively over rainbow-colored birthday cakes, wondering silently what they did to deserve such ungrateful spawn. Why won’t their children go to church, buy a car, come to Sunday dinner, and settle down? The Rasnick siblings, fronting their small band The Barbusters, wander the crowded barrooms and smoldering arcades of a Cleveland that no longer exists: they’re in a state of freefall, but they’re looking for a state of grace. Salvation ends up being but a breath away.

The fact that Light of Day exists at all is amazing in its own right. It started life as a Bruce Springsteen vehicle called Born in the USA, and though The Boss liked Schrader’s script, he ultimately passed on the project. He did give Schrader a new title, and wrote the title song, on the way out the door. We all know what happened to Born in the USA—the album and the song—after that. But Springsteen wasn’t the only musician connected to the project. Light of Day marks the big screen debut of another popular MTV star and rock icon—Joan Jett, who still performs the film’s title track at live shows. 

Jett is a powerful revelation in the part of Patti Rasnick, who holds down various day jobs (barely) to keep her kid fed while keeping her eyes on the prizes of leather and neon, full arenas and autograph-hungry fans. Playing Patti allows Jett to soar within the bruised and tightly-wound skin of a down-at-heels woman struggling to get up while refusing to compromise her ideals. Patti doesn’t care about her bad reputation either, and Schrader wisely doesn’t force her to. Patti is wise enough to know how good she is, how much more she deserves, and how different her life might be had her luck gone differently. Part of Schrader’s point is that the world is filled with Pattis, and Jett brilliantly plays the difference between what she knows and what Patti knows.

Michael J. Fox splits screen time with Jett as Joe Rasnick, Patti’s more settled brother. While Joe clearly has a love of rock music and an artistic temperament, it’s clear that his dreams are simpler. Patti won’t rest until her pain is consecrated and made worthwhile by a major career breakthrough; all Joe seems to want is a regular gig, a nice girlfriend, and for his family to get along for once. While they’re both talented, the level of commitment they bring to the band is very different. Patti is meant for bigger successes, destined to end up a viral sensation twenty years after the movie’s conclusion. Joe is destined to inherit his parent’s nice suburban house, work a good union job, raise a family, and play in bars on the weekends. He’s a nice guy who’s easily pushed around by the stronger personalities surrounding him. Because Patti is the flashier character, Fox’s performance has been somewhat underrated. But he absolutely aces Joe’s smallness, his inability to make bold moves; only when he acts in defense of his vulnerable nephew and tries to please his mother does he finally break out from under his big sister’s spell. Fox stands out in the film’s smaller dramatic moments, as when Joe is seen alone outside of his dying mother’s hospital room, as hunched and withered as the woman in the bed. He makes Joe likable, sympathetic.  

Joe’s everyman dreams anchor a life with no fixed stars. He dates a nice, upstanding-seeming blonde girl from a richer background, but she fades out of his life when she realizes how messy things are between him and the rest of his family, and how poorly she fits into his working class world. Patti herself has no steady significant other, mainly dedicating her life to music, even at the expense of her young son Benji (Billy L. Sullivan). She commits petty burglary to get the band a new sound board and shoplifts steaks with her son’s unwitting help to reward the band after a brief, anemic wintertime tour leads them nowhere. It’s not Patti but Joe who suffers in both incidents—Patti burglarizes a cousin of a co-worker, who knows exactly who took his tools and demands she pay up, forcing Joe to lean on their angelic mom. And Joe witnesses her shoplift and chews her out over it, leading to an explosive fight and the band’s temporary breakup.

Patti is never clever enough in her schemes to avoid detection, necessitating Joe’s apologies, his bowing and scraping to those who Patti has wronged. This is, we know, how it is between the two. His embarrassed apologies to their parents, who stand back and sigh and tisk at their daughter’s misfortunes, are accepted and received with almost presidential superiority. They all know they can’t really help her. The truth is that Patti sold her soul to rock ‘n’ roll years ago. It’s the only thing that saved her life when the family priest raped and impregnated her as a teenager, a fact she can’t bring herself to confess to her uber-religious mother Jeanette (Gena Rowlands), who still looks to the preacher as a spiritual advisor and looks down on Patti as a fallen Christian.

In turn, Patti has rejected her suburban childhood, the manicured lawns, the safety of the snowbound lanes surrounding their split-level house and the bromides of Jeanette and their cipher-like father, who loves his kids but stays out of Jeanette’s way. Even worse, Patti has rejected God and churchgoing itself. Joe still needs and loves all of these things; he’s never seen to pray, but their parents aren’t worried for his immortal soul. As a duo, Patti and Joe’s united dreams are beginning to untangle. The older Joe gets, the more he begins to yearn for the safety that his parents offer with every home-cooked meal and trip to the mall. The conflict that wears upon them all is a doozy—Joe, Benjamin Senior (Jason Miller), and Jeanette don’t know who Benji’s father is, and Patti simply wants to forget his name and that of the God he claims to serve. 

Interestingly, Patti does not reject or blame her son for what has happened to her. She is shown to be strict but loving, and parents with a sense of humor; she also would rather die than allow Jeanette to raise her child even for a couple of weeks. While Patti tries to prove she’s a good mom by trying to do right by Benji, she also pulls him out of school abruptly in the name of rock ‘n’ roll righteousness. She’s not interested in looking like a good mom to anyone. Ultimately, her choices are another act of defiance against Jeannette.

Joe is a conventionally good uncle, and becomes something of a surrogate father to Benji as Patti joins a different band and spends most of her nights performing. He wants Benji to have an ordinary life instead of whatever haphazard world Patti can offer him. Little Benji, seen strumming a plastic guitar in several scenes, clearly plans on taking after them both—and Joe will do anything to prevent that. He inserts himself nonstop into the boy’s life to offer him a sense of regularity and shouts down Patti for turning Benji into a pawn in her war of attrition with their mother. Joe’s the one who’s stuck making most of the decisions when Jeanette suddenly begins to decline in a way that seems to portend Alzheimer’s Disease but instead presages a quick, devastating cancer death. Only Gena Rowlands’s haunting, gentle performance helps make that part of the story work. Really, Jeanette’s death only exists as an object lesson for Patti (less of one for Joe, whose mourning seems secondary to the situation). 

And die she must, for Jeanette is just one in a long line of suffering, imperfect, Christlike figures who haunt Schrader’s writing. She’s the most human among them, the most easy to relate to, and the easiest to sympathize with. She’s no radical like Travis Bickle, but she causes a storm and a revolution in her own limited way. In Jeanette, forever forgiving, forever faithful, forever motherly—even when she’s trying not to be—Schrader finds maybe the most holy and sacrificing of all the female characters in his entire canon.  

Martyrdom may rule the entire Rasnick household, but it’s Patti who refuses to kneel. It takes Jeanette’s death to change anything, to bring about reconciliation. Patti promises that she’ll do what she must to join Jeanette in heaven, but one cannot picture her in church every Sunday. One can’t imagine her accepting communion, or subjecting Benji to the rituals she has rejected for so long, doled out by the man who abused her. Nor should she. If she spends more time in an arcade than at Sunday services, Jeanette will never know. The important thing is that they come to understand one another before Jeannette dies.

All of the Rasnicks are failed, in one way or another, by the great Gods in their lives. Jeanette‘s prayers draw Patti back to the fold of both home and religion, but don’t provide much succor as she lays dying, much of her recent recall obliterated by the strain of the illness. Joe quits his job to take The Barbusters beyond their regional roots, but returns to pressing out TV trays and taking care of his mother. Benji is let down by his mom’s choices and his family’s infighting. Benjamin Senior, who has spent his adult life worshiping his wife, now has no one in his bed. Patti is betrayed by the gods of rock; she ends up the lead singer of a Vixen-like pop metal band called the Hunzz, precipitating The Barbusters’ breakup and ever-so-slightly selling out to the mainstream in the process. What keeps them all going is their love for one another in the face of their imploding dreams, tied together like lifeboats on a sinking ship. 

The grimy and arid depictions of life in Cleveland in the mid-to-late 1980s shows a town slowly calcifying into a mini desert—the vanishing dream of Reagan’s Morning in America. Schrader’s visual palette snakes between the muted pastels of a shopping mall (stuffed with luxuries the Rasnicks can barely afford) to vermillion neon signs and concrete-colored urban landscapes filled with foreboding looking factories, which look rusted out and precarious, as if they’re about to chug to a stop at any moment. Schrader has derided his work on the film as visually uninteresting, claiming that his landscapes are flat. And yet he plays with the colors of the night and the late-day sunshine in a way that feels natural and unique. The scrubby parks and roadside motels and gloomy supermarkets are compelling precisely because of their glorious ordinariness. And the beautifully framed shots of the band rehearsing together as light streams into an otherwise silent and dark bar are as striking as a Renaissance painting. 

Decades later, the landscape the Rasnick siblings inhabited is long gone. The MarshAlan Industries building where Joe and bandmate Bu (Michael McKean) plied their trade was abandoned in 2000 and razed in 2006; the Euclid Tavern, where The Barbusters play their triumphant film-ending gig, shuttered in the late teens. Light of Day memorializes the Rasnicks’ America, a world frozen forever on a tightrope between what could be and what has died. 

To quote Dennis Potter, the song has ended, but the melody lingers on.

Lisa Fernandes has been writing since she could talk. Her bylines include Newsweek; Women Write About Comics; Smart Bitches, Trashy Books; and All About Romance.

Let's kick off this inaugural Deities & Demigods II post by trying to figure out what should be in the standard stat block for these gods. Let me begin with some assumptions.

The Triple Hecate, 1795. William Blake

1. I will favor AD&D 1st Edition. This is the system I have used the most. This is also the system that was the genesis of my original One Man's God feature. So I would like as much overlap as I can.
2. I will pull in material from any other edition or variation of D&D as I see fit. In particular, some of the Avatar details from AD&D2 and D&D3 as well as any other material that might fit the bill.
3. I am working under the assumption that these stat blocks ARE NOT designed as super-powerful monsters to kill. In already borrowing from AD&D2, and a house rule we used in the 80s, these stat blocks represent their avatars or mortal manifestations on/in the Prime Material. Their true forms on their own plane are at least 10x more powerful. Likely more.

Now these assumptions are working under a much larger assumption of how my Deities & Demigods II posts will be like moving forward.

Today I want to focus on the stat block. I am not detailing anything about this god, yet nor am I even defining things like standard divine abilities or power levels. Let's go with AD&D 1st Ed standard until I have reason to do otherwise and see where this goes.

I am going to start with the example of Hecate from Greek Mythology. After this, I will use her and this example to develop a new pantheon of gods. I spent a lot of time with her yesterday in preparation for this post. 

Let's look at how Hecate is presented in the various D&D books.

Deities & Demigods: AD&D 1st Edition

For this I want to break down the AD&D 1st Ed Deities stat block.

HECATE (goddess of magic)
Lesser goddess

ARMOR CLASS: -2
MOVE: 12"
HIT POINTS: 289
NO. OF ATTACKS: 1
DAMAGE/ATTACK: See below
SPECIAL ATTACKS: See below
SPECIAL DEFENSES: See below
MAGIC RESISTANCE: 89%

SIZE: M (51⁄4')
ALIGNMENT: Lawful evil
WORSHIPER'S ALIGN: Any being working with magic
SYMBOL: Setting moon
PLANE: Nine Hells

CLERIC/DRUID: 14th level druid
FIGHTER: Nil
MAGIC-USER/ILLUSIONIST: Special
THIEF/ASSASSIN: Nil
MONK/BARD: Nil
PSIONIC ABILITY: I
S: 12 1:25 W: 9 D: 20 C: 22 CH:25

I separated the sections with hard returns. I would use color, but that gives some screen readers for the visually impaired issues. So instead, I will go with the sections.

The first section starting with AC is very combat-focused. The number of attacks, damage per attack, special attacks, and more.

The second section starting with size is personal information and worshiper's information. This one is great for expansion.

The last section starting with classes is somewhat combat-focused and somewhat personal. For Hecate here, we expect she has some spellcasting ability but maybe not a lot of fighting.  Though as a personal note, I disagree with her Wisdom being so low.

After this follows her description. 

Ok. One of the most common complaints about the presentation in the D&DG is that this is too much like a monster. I high-level monster, but a monster all the same. It has AC and HP, so it must be able to be attacked and killed.  This is not what we want or need. We have nothing here about her Clerics (save for those that use magic), holy days, or anything a worshiper might need/want.

There is a table in back that is actually much more useful than anything in the stat-block above.

This includes their name, Sphere of Control, Clerics [M,F,N-H], Rainment [head, body], Colors, Holy Days, Sacrifice [Frequency, Form], and Place of Worship.

For Hecate, these are: Magic, Hell Hound, yes, yes, no, bare head, tunic, blue-white, fall equinox, monthly on the full moon, ox, and mountain glen. 

This is good material. 

Legends & Lore: AD&D 2nd Edition

I don't need to go into as much detail here since the entries for all gods are typically shorter. But let's have a look at what we have anyway.

Here we get into the concept that the stats are not the God, but their avatars on the Mortal plane.

Ok, so you can't fight the god, but their avatar instead. A little better I guess.

There is mention here of the duties of the priesthood, what spell domains they gain, what Weapon and Non-Weapon prophecies they have access to, and so on. Though nothing about holy days, animals, colors or the like. Each pantheon/mythos does have some new spells and artifacts listed so that is also nice. 

So the avatar and details on the priest characters are a good takeaways from this one.

Deities & Demigods: D&D 3rd Edition

Lastly, let's look at 3rd Edition, even if it is very different than the first two.

Ok I did pick this for a reason. There is a lot of information here for the players of the Clerics of these gods, which also gives us a Rosetta Stone of how to talk about the gods of other editions. That Rosetta Stone is the D&D Patheon, which at this time was primarily the Greyhawk one. Other editions use a similar set of gods and talk about what their priests can, can't, and could do.  BUT that is all for another time. Let's get back to Hecate.

We get Domains, Divine Rank, her Alignment, favored weapons (which can be used by her priests) and Portfolio.  All good information.

Unfortunately, 3.x goes on to embrace the worse parts of the 1st and 2nd Ed's books and then makes a bunch of their own. 

I mean yeah, there is lot of information here, but is any of it needed by her clergy? Ok the sections on Dogma and Clergy and Temples is good. But do I *really* need to know or care how many Feats she has. No. Not unless she is going into combat. Which she shouldn't do.

There is an "Avatar of Hecate" on the next page that is reminiscent of the AD&D 2nd Ed one, but still, not exactly something we need.

What, if anything, can I get from all of this?

Well. Sadly the default presentation for the first 25 years of D&D appears to be "God as High-level Monster," which is not at all helpful.

I broke down these stat-blocks WAY back in 2010 when I was detailing a new cult, the Church of Lolth Ascendant, for the Drow Goddess Araushnee. There I captured the stats that seemed most valuable to the clerics (and players of the clerics) of that particular Goddess.

This has me wondering.

What should the format of a "Deities & Demigods II" be? What is the purpose of a book of gods for a D&D-like game?

Given what I have worked through here and in previous posts, I can see two different but related projects.

First, I can see a need/desire/want for a continuation of the format of the 1st Ed AD&D Deities & Demigods, monster-like stats, and all. 

Secondly, I also see a need for a book of gods, demi-gods, and heroes, along with all the above-identified positive things like duties of the priesthood, holy days, and more. I would add new divine spells that are only available to those priesthoods. That's a much larger and more exciting project to be sure.

Deities & Demigods II is something I can do here, with some work.  The other project, the so far unnamed one, that will be something that will take longer. 

I think for the next post, I should first figure out what would be needed for a D&D-game god write-up.

Moving through the city the sounds of animals fighting can be heard. In a small depression, what looks like three panthers are attacking a large lizard.

 These creatures are not panthers of course, but Displacer/Warp Beasts. 

There are three, but sometimes it can be difficult to tell. They ignore the lizard and move towards tastier prey, the party.

They have treasure type D.

Hecate. Encyclopedia Britannica.Trying out a few things today.

First, I wanted to play-test a Sorcerer character, which is the Wasted Lands equivalent of the Witch from NIGHT SHIFT.  In particular, I wanted to try out Hecate since I had already done Ereshkigal, even though I knew they shared certain similarities. 

Secondly, I wanted to do Hecate because she is the first focal point of my new series on the Deities & Demigods II project/feature here.

Thirdly, and related to both points above I wanted to work out how my Heka (the Hecate of my Grecco-Egyptian myths) and Helga (the Hecate of my Roman-Norse myths) would work out.

And lastly, I wanted to try out the Divine Touchstones feature of this game. As it turns out, this feature makes all the difference in the world. 

The Character: Hecate

For my second (and third and fourth) character, I am choosing Hecate, the goddess of witches, magic, the crossroads, and ghosts. She has been a favorite for a long time.  She will also be the first Goddess I cover for my D&DGII project.

Hecate is a Sorceress in the Wasted Lands, no doubt. Well...some doubt. While her main deal is magic, she also has that aspect of Ghosts. In the end, I stuck with Sorceress and found a nice way to add the spooky stuff I wanted.

Hecate

Class: Sorceress (Persona Aspect)
Level: 7
Species: Human

Alignment: Dark Neutral

Abilities
Strength: 12 (0)
Agility: 14 (+1)
Toughness: 16 (+2) N +1
Intelligence: 15 (+1) N +1
Wits: 13 (+1)
Persona: 17 (+2) A +2

Fate Points: 10
Defense Value: 8
Vitality: 5 (d6)
Degeneracy:
Corruption:

Check Bonus (A/N/D): +4/+2/+1
Melee Bonus: +0
Ranged Bonus: +1
Saves: +4 to Magic based

Special Abilities
Arcana, Arcane Powers

Corruption
- Unnatural Parlor

Divine Touchstones
1st: Sense Ghosts
2nd: First Level Spell: Nightvision
3rd: Summon Hellhound
4th: Class level: Necromancer (1 level)

Necromancer (Divine Touchstone 4th)
Channel the Dead 22%
See Dead People
Summon the Dead 15%
Command (Spirits)
Protection from Undead
Turn Undead 20%

Spells
1st: Mystical Senses, Create/Extinguish Light, Sense Death
2nd: Animal Summoning, Eternal Flame
3rd: Fly

Arcane Powers
1st: Beguile
4th: Shadow Walking
7th: Exorcist

Divine Notes: Magic, Witchcraft, Crossroads, Ghosts
Background: Priestess

Gear
Dagger: 1d4

This version of Hecate is the Greek Goddess of magic, witches, ghosts and the crossroads. I leaned into the last two to give her powers over spirits and undead. She gains her Divine Touchstones as part of significant aspects in her adventuring career. Sense Ghosts would be something that came to her naturally along with Nightvision, she is also the Goddess of the Night. Giving her a level for her 4th Divine touchstone was really what sold me on the touchstones. If she wants another level then she will need a higher-level touchstone to get it.

This is really what sets Wasted Lands apart from other gritty Swords & Sorcery games. 

It is also what helps set one character apart from another.

Heka and Helga are by definition just other versions of Hecate with something a little different. What is that something? Well here it is the arcane powers they get, but mostly it is the Divine Touchstones they earn.

For these next two characters I am keeping the base stats all the same. Human, 7th level Sorceress. But the differences now come from the spells, Arcane powers, the Divine Touchstones. One note since Sorcerers can choose their Aspect between Intelligence, Wits, and Persona, I picked different ones for each. 

The Character: Heka

Heka is the Hecate of the Greeco-Egyptian mythology.  While she is not a goddess that research into the Ptolemaic dynasty existed and would have worshiped (like Serapis or even later Hermes Trismegistus), she could have been in a D&D-like world. 

In this mythology, Heka is more focused on the learning aspect of magic and is the goddess of Dark Secrets. Her relationship with Isis is the same as that of Ishtar with Ereshkigal.  Dark and Light sisters. So for this, I switched her Aspect to Intelligence.

Like Hecate, Isis is connected to the underworld, so Heka would also be an underworld guardian and more of a protector of occult secrets.  While this could lead to "Wisdom" and "Wits" I felt intelligence was the better choice. I have also always felt that Isis was one of the more intelligent gods in any myth.

Heka

Class: Sorceress (Intelligence Aspect)
Level: 7
Species: Human

Alignment: Neutral

Abilities
Strength: 12 (0)
Agility: 14 (+1)
Toughness: 16 (+2) N +1
Intelligence: 17 (+2) A +2
Wits: 13 (+1)
Persona: 15 (+1) N +1

Fate Points: 10
Defense Value: 8
Vitality: 5 (d6)
Degeneracy:
Corruption:

Check Bonus (A/N/D): +4/+2/+1
Melee Bonus: +0
Ranged Bonus: +1
Saves: +4 to Magic based

Special Abilities
Arcana, Arcane Powers

Corruption
- Uncomfortable Aura

Divine Touchstones
1st: First Level Spell: Read Languages
2nd: Enhanced Senses
3rd: Class level: Sage (1 level)
4th: 1 level of Necromancer

Sage (Divine Touchstone 3rd)
Lore: 27%
Mesmerize Others: 10%
Spells: 1st Level: Prestidigitation

Spells
1st: Beast Speech, Command, Protection from Undead
2nd: Beguile Person, Extra Sensory Perception
3rd: Clairvoyance

Arcane Powers
1st: Detect Thoughts
4th: Telepathic Transmission 
7th: Polymath

Divine Notes: Magic, Witchcraft, the Dead, Occultism
Background: Priestess

Gear
Dagger: 1d4

This version of Hecate combines part of the concept of Isis. So her connections to magic and the underworld are the same. As I said I consider Isis one of the most intelligent gods, so Heka reflects this. By combining that with magic, witchcraft, and the underworld she becomes a figure of Occult knowledge. Much like her fellow syncretized god, Hermes Trismegistus. Indeed, if Hermes Trismegistus is the "patron" of the various Hermtic Orders, then Heka would be the patroness of various Occult orders. Maybe even laying claim to secrets from that great temple of learning from the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, the Library of Alexandria. It certainly ties into the lesser-known Roman Goddess Cardea, the Goddess of Doors, and access to knowledge that has been conflated with Hecate before. 

I deal with the Roman Hecate below.

The Character: Helga

Helga is the Hecate of my Roman-Norse mythology. She combines aspects of Hecate, Hel, Hades, and Frau Holt. She also has connections to Frigga and Freya and would be the patroness of seers and seiðr. For this reason and the Frau Holt connection, I see her as more of a Crone-like figure. 

I also gave her the Wits Aspect for her connection to wisdom. 

Helga

Class: Sorceress (Wits Aspect)
Level: 7
Species: Human

Alignment: Dark Neutral

Abilities
Strength: 12 (0)
Agility: 14 (+1)
Toughness: 16 (+2) N +1
Intelligence: 15 (+1)
Wits: 17 (+2) A +2
Persona: 13 (+1)  N +1

Fate Points: 10
Defense Value: 8
Vitality: 5 (d6)
Degeneracy:
Corruption:

Check Bonus (A/N/D): +4/+2/+1
Melee Bonus: +0
Ranged Bonus: +1
Saves: +4 to Magic based

Special Abilities
Arcana, Arcane Powers

Corruption
- Unnatural Parlor

Divine Touchstones

1st: Empathy
2nd: First Level Spell: Sense Death
3rd: Class level: Psychic (1 level)
4th: Spirit Guide: Hound

Psychic (Divine Touchstone 3rd)
Psychic Power: Temporal Sense
Supernatural Attack
Sixth Sense
Supernatural Power: Precognition

Spells
1st: Command, Glamour, Predict Weather
2nd: Invisibility, Invoke Fear
3rd: Fly

Arcane Powers
1st: Enhanced Senses
4th: Beguile
7th: Wild Form

Divine Notes: Magic, Witchcraft, Seer
Background: Priestess

Gear
Dagger: 1d4

This version of Hecate leans more into the dark side as befitting a Goddess of Magic, Ghosts, and Witchcraft that was syncretized with the Goddess of the Underworld and Goddess of Magic and Witches. 

In many ways Helga feels like a better fit to me. Maybe because my whole idea of a Roman-Norse pantheon stretches back to a time when I was first reading myths and had a book that had both of them (along with Beowulf), which was the same time I was learning to play D&D.

Helga is the darker side of Witchcraft. while she has "good" figures in her mix like Freya, Frigga, and Frau Holt, she has Hel as well. 

Taking the base "Hecate" stats wand moving forward I emphasized her connection to the psychic world and her Seer powers. This gives her the Divine Touchstone of Psychic to gain some of those powers and a few more spells and powers.

--

I am EXTREMELY pleased with these characters. Not just as characters but as a means to work out my ideas on who these Gods should be.  The Divine Touchstones are a great way to help build what later could be called divine abilities. I also see all three of these goddesses as being active as goddesses in a NIGHT SHIFT game. 

This game, the WASTED LANDS, is going to be really great and I am looking forward to seeing the final versions in print.  Please sign up for Kickstarter if you can. 

This also gives me a LOT of ideas for my new Deities & Demigods II feature. 

 Leaving the Necropolis, there are rows of what could be homes. There are plenty of over-run mushroom farms.  None of these mushrooms look like the edible ones from earlier in this cave.

These homes are not just abandoned; they are overrun with mushrooms. There are even dead bodies, or the remains of them, covered in mushrooms.

The surfaces are also covered with Yellow Mould. 

Additionally, there is a type of Zombie found in a few of these homes (1 in 1d6) that have 1d4+1 Yellow Mould Zombies.

These are treated as normal zombies but are not undead. They are covered with the same yellow mould and any character killed by the zombies or the mould will rise up in 1d4+6 hours as yellow mould zombie.  Once this happens they can not be raised.

Note: If the party has any of the healing wands from the level above they cause damage to the mould and zombies at 1d4+2 per charge used. Likewise, any healing magic will cause damage instead of healing.