This tunnel in the back and to the right of Room 14 leads to long hallway. This goes some 50' and then splits to the left and to the right.  

Going right, the corridor straightens out and opens to a carved out room glowing with eldritch light.

Inside are Seven (7) Ghouls.  The ghouls appear to be orc-like in appearance.

These ghouls are worshiping around a giant idol of a demon. When the party enters, the ghouls will stop their chanting. At this point it will come down to initiative.

The Ghouls have 3* HD instead of the normal 2 HD. In fact, they are not even aware they are ghouls; they still think of themselves as living orcs.  The paralysis WILL affect elves.

These orc-ghouls have an extra Treasure Type C as a group. 

There is a secret door underneath the idol that leads to Level 5.

(I will detail that next month)

Before the advent of the internet, the magazine was the focus of the hobby’s attention, a platform in whose pages could be news, reviews, and content for the roleplaying game of each reader’s choice, as well as a classified section and a letters page where the issues of day—or at least month—could be raised and discussed in chronically lengthy manner. In this way, such magazines as White Dwarf, Imagine, Dragon, and many others since, came to be our community’s focal point and sounding board, especially a magazine that was long running. Yet depending upon when you entered the hobby and picked up your first issue of a roleplaying magazine, you could have missed a mere handful of issues or many. Which would have left you wondering what was in those prior issues. Today, tracking down back issues to find out and complete a magazine’s run is much easier than it was then, but many publishers offered another solution—the ‘Best of…’ magazine. This was a compilation of curated articles and support, containing the best content to have appeared in the magazine’s pages.

1980 got the format off to a good start with both The Best of White Dwarf Scenarios and The Best of White Dwarf Articles from Games Workshop as well as the Best of Dragon from TSR, Inc. Both publishers would release further volumes of all three series, and TSR, Inc. would also reprint its volumes. Other publishers have published similar volumes and in more recent times, creators in the Old School Renaissance have begun to collate and collect content despite the relative youth of that movement. This includes The Gongfarmer’s Almanac which has collected community content for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game since 2015 and Populated Hexes Monthly Year One which collected the content from the Populated Hexes Monthly fanzine. The ‘Best of…’ series of reviews will look at these and many of the curated and compiled from the last four decades of roleplaying.

—oOo—

The Best of White Dwarf Articles was published in 1980. Containing “Selected material from the first 3 years of White Dwarf”, from White Dwarf Issue No. 1 to White Dwarf Issue No. 20, its focus is Dungeons & Dragons and Traveller. This is no surprise given the popularity of the world’s first roleplaying game and the world’s leading Science Fiction roleplaying game. It is also no surprise that the versions of Dungeons & Dragons supported within the pages of The Best of White Dwarf Articles were the original version published in 1974 and the J. Eric Holmes designed Basic Dungeons & Dragons. By 1980, the three-core books for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons had only just been published, and consequently the content of the compilation predates them. This is not to say that The Best of White Dwarf Articles lacks sophisticated content, either for 1980 or now. However, gaming needs and tastes have greatly changed in the last forty years and not everything in the pages of The Best of White Dwarf Articles would find its way into Dungeons & Dragons today.

The Best of White Dwarf Articles opens with the majestic ‘The Monstermark System’ by Don Turnbull. Appearing in the first three issues of White Dwarf, this is a system of rating monsters in Dungeons & Dragons for their lethality versus the ability of base Player Characters to defeat them. It first rates them for their Defence and Aggressive values to provide a Monstermark value which could be further modified by their abilities and special powers—paralysation, poison, regeneration, and others. Turnbull first works through fairly standard monsters such as Kobolds and Manticores before moving on through undead, fire-breathing monsters, demons, and more. Throughout he compares the completed Monstermark Level for each monster versus their Greyhawk Level, the latter more often than, not quite providing an accurate measurement of their lethality versus the Player Characters. Turnbull also uses his Monstermark System as a means to more fairly award Experience Points, but avoids extending it as a means to measure treasure.

‘The Monstermark System’ was much lauded in its day. It is still a good example of a writer dissatisfied with a mechanical aspect of a roleplaying game and devising and working through an alternative system. There is no doubt that at the time, some groups would have adopted this over the Greyhawk system, but of course, it would have remained a house rule. These days it is a hard read, feeling outdated and outmoded, and it would have probably felt the same fairly quickly as new versions of Dungeons & Dragons were taken up. There are points of interest in the article though, Turnbull often referring to his ‘Greenlands’ dungeon. These sadly, are only in passing, the only existing details being here and other mentions in the pages of White Dwarf magazine.

‘The Magic Brush – Fantasy Figure Painting As An Art’ by Shaun Fuller is another three-part series. It ran from White Dwarf Issue No. 17 to White Dwarf Issue No. 20 and provided a comprehensive guide to figure painting. With the roleplaying hobby only being six years by this time and having strong roots in miniatures wargaming, it is no surprise that miniatures would feature in the early issues of White Dwarf. Coverage of them would lessen during the early eighties, but would make a resurgence as the importance of Citadel Miniatures to Games Workshop grew and grew. Nevertheless, painting guides always proved popular and it is subject that White Dwarf would return to again in subsequent issues. Even if the paints and styles have changed over the years, this is a solid article on the subject whose advice could still be followed today.

The compilation includes two new Classes, one familiar, one unfamiliar, for Dungeons & Dragons by Brian Asbury, another regular contributor to White Dwarf. ‘The Barbarian’ is from White Dwarf Issue No. 4. There are similarities between it and the Barbarian Class which E. Gary Gygax would design and include in Unearthed Arcana and thus the Class we have today in Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. It combines features of the other Classes with those new to it. Thus, the Class can track like the Ranger and hear noise, climb, and hide in the shadows like the Thief, and catch missiles like the Monk, but cannot wear armour until later Levels, possess a Fearlessness which can send them berserk any time it is subject to fear effects, and has a First-Attack Ferocity which grants a bonus to hit and damage if the Class attacks on the first round and has the initiative. Notably, this version of the Class is allowed to use magical items. There is an option to treat the Barbarian Class as a Race as per Basic Dungeons & Dragons. This version of the Barbarian Class is more constructed than built from the ground up, and with elements such as First-Attack Ferocity is fiddly in places.

The second Class is ‘The HOURI character class’, published in White Dwarf Issue No. 13. The Houri is an alternate magic-using Class whose primary abilities focus is on the seduction of members of the opposite sex and a combination of Charm-related spells and spells whose somatic component involves kissing the target. There is even a seduction mechanic in which Paladins, Rangers, and Monks are very hard to seduce, whereas Barbarians and Half-Orcs and Orcs are relatively easy. Primarily intended to be a female only Class—the option to play a Gigolo rather than a Houri is male is suggested, the description includes new spells, such as Impotence and Ecstasy, and entertaining new magic items like the Manual of Advanced Lovemaking and Lipstick of Irresistibility. Subtle the Houri Class is not and it feels very much out of place in a magazine which had a primarily male readership. The salaciousness of the Class borders on the tasteless if not the offensive—and yet… The Houri Class is not unplayable. It would be unsuitable for most campaigns, especially any focused-on dungeon adventures as much of her magic and certainly her abilities would have little application down there, unless as suggested, she also has Levels in the Thief Class as well. Instead, use the Class in an urban campaign with pulp or noir sensibilities and plenty of roleplaying and it would really work. It would take a mature audience. Ultimately, the Houri is too specialised a Class and as a subject for inclusion in the pages of White Dwarf, best regarded as a misstep.

The barbarian theme is continued with ‘The Barbarian’ a two-player board game designed by Ian Livingstone for White Dwarf Issue No. 15. One player takes the role of Vaarn, a barbarian seeking to restore civilisation and withstand the onslaught of mutated beasts and the undead. He can only do this by locating the magical sword and shield of the Old Fathers. The other player controls the werewolves, wild hill men, wraiths, zombies, goblins, and giants arrayed against him. Vaarn’s player wins by locating both sword and shield and leaving the play area, whilst the creature player wins by killing him. Vaarn must explore six types of terrain to locate the magical items, although there are decoys and cursed items to be found too. It is a serviceable hex and counter, fantasy-themed game, not dissimilar to the highly regarded solo board from Heritage, Barbarian Prince, but simpler and more straightforward. Enjoyable for a playthrough or two.

‘Chronicle Monsters’ is the first of two contributions from designer Lewis Pulsipher. Published in White Dwarf Issue No. 15, this presents the various monsters from Stephen Donaldson’s ‘The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever’ for Dungeons & Dragons. The novels were very popular at the time and these adaptations would have been welcomed by the magazine’s readership. However, the novels have not been fully adapted in their own right and this is likely one of the few times where material from them has received such a treatment. Including such creatures as the Raver, the Ur-Vile, Cavewrights, and Seareach Giants they look to be well done and made all the better by being illustrated by Russ Nicholson.

Andy Slack’s ‘Expanding Universe’ ran for four issues from White Dwarf Issue No. 13 to White Dwarf Issue No. 16. Written for use with Game Designers’ Workshop’s Traveller roleplaying game—and thus the only non-Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying content in The Best of White Dwarf Articles—this greatly expanded upon the core rules with additions for skills, poisons and chemical warfare, ship weaponry, artillery, and explosives, campaign locations, alien life, and robots, and social status and psionics. In many cases, they supplement the often-sparse rules in Traveller—the ‘Classic Little Black Books’ original edition still available today, such as handling skill rolls by Player Characters without a relevant skill and suggesting an Experience and improvement mechanic, something that Traveller lacked. In the main, the articles cover aspects of a far future setting not covered in the rules, such as those for poison gas and other weapons of mass destruction, more detailed missile design, and so on. The rules here are excellent, efficiently expanding and supplementing the core rules of Traveller in useful fashion. Slack has since expressed his unhappiness with the editing and updating of the contents of the four original articles for inclusion in The Best of White Dwarf Articles and in their original format can be found at the Citizens of the Imperium Traveller website.

‘The Fiend Factory’ collates some of the best monsters from the long-running department that appeared in the first fifteen or so issues of the White Dwarf. First appearing in White Dwarf Issue No. 6 and edited by Don Turnbull, the department grew out of an earlier series in the magazine called ‘Monsters Mild and Malign’, also edited by Turnbull. With White Dwarf issue No. 18, Albie Fiore would edit the reader-submitted content of ‘The Fiend Factory’, but the entries in ‘The Fiend Factory’ in The Best of White Dwarf Articles consist of the ten best creatures as voted for by the magazine’s readership. The article includes some classics, many of which would be included in the Fiend Folio, which Don Turnbull would edit for TSR UK Ltd. Here then, are the Hook Horror, created by Ian Livingstone, Cricky Hitchcock’s Svart, the Necrophidius (or Death Worm) by Simon Tilbrook, and of course, the Githyanki, by one C. Stross. Stross, of course, would go on to become a Science Fiction and horror author. These are all fun, entertaining monsters and this ‘The Fiend Factory’ collation is one of the highlights of The Best of White Dwarf Articles.

Lastly, ‘D&D Campaigns’ is Lewis Pulsipher’s second contribution to The Best of White Dwarf Articles. This ran in White Dwarf Issue No. 1, White Dwarf Issue No. 3, White Dwarf Issue No. 4, and White Dwarf Issue No. 5, but not White Dwarf Issue No. 2. In this series, Pulsipher examines what Dungeons & Dragons and how he views it can be best played, particularly as a campaign. For example, in terms of style whether as the players versus the game and its monsters, puzzles, or traps, or as a fantasy novel and thus telling or experiencing a story. It is interesting that he notes that the latter style prevails in California, which would be related and explored in more detail in Jon Peterson’s The Elusive Shift. There is advice on being a fair Referee, be logical in in the design and play of both dungeon and campaign, the dangers of a Player Character being played in more than one campaign world (an odd practice by modern standards), handling the division of treasure according to Alignment (Lawful Player Characters fairly, Chaotic Player Characters on a who grabs it first basis), regulating the learning of spells and the time to do so, and more. Some of the advice has dated because both the rules have since changed—multiple times in fact—and how Dungeons & Dragons is played differently. If many of the specifics are now obsolescent, there is nevertheless, broader advice here that still holds and would be could for the latest version of Dungeons & Dragons. For 1977 and 1978, when Dungeons & Dragons was just four years old and ‘D&D Campaigns’ was serialised, this was all good advice.

However, interspersed between all of this is content from the other long-running department in White Dwarf focusing on reader-submitted content—‘Treasure Trap’. Four themed compilations for ‘The Best Of Treasure Trap’ appear in the pages of The Best of White Dwarf Articles. These are ‘Magic Items’, ‘Potions’, ‘Tricks and Traps’, and ‘Spells’. For example, Roger Coult’s ‘The Swords of Meryn Caradeth’ presents two powerful blades and some flavoursome background to work them into a setting. Drink James Meek’s Potion of Truth and the imbiber must tell the truth; David Bell’s Potion of Ultravisibility and the imbiber shines like a torch, the colour of light depending on his Alignment; and a Dragon Breath Potion by Kathryn George—one of the few female contributors to White Dwarf—and the imbiber gains a one-shot breath weapon that varies according to the dragon’s colour. David Bradbury’s ‘Frozen Food!’ is an old trick of setting up the Player Characters to eat frozen Troll meat and then have it regenerate inside them, whilst Roger Musson’s ‘The Pit and Rope Trick’ sets up several Gelatinous Cubes as traps above and below the Player Characters. These definitely feel ‘Old School’ in their design. Phil Masters’ spell, Sword of Warning, is inspired by the sword of Damocles and can be cast by a Cleric as symbol of divine displeasure, whilst ‘Jebansalf’s Eye of Back-Seeing’ by Daniel Adler is for both Cleric and Magic-User and turns the caster’s Pineal gland into a backwards facing eye, thus preventing attacks from behind or backstab attempts. Whilst some of the traps might not make it into a modern dungeon, the content of all four parts of ‘The Best Of Treasure Trap’ are playable today as they were in the late seventies. If not for Dungeons & Dragons, then certainly for the retroclone of the group’s choice.

There is one last aspect of The Best of White Dwarf Articles which deserves mention and that is the adverts. There is a sense of nostalgia and wonder in examining these adverts from the past, for shops that have long since closed down such as Dungeons & Starships or Forever People and for products long out of print, like the Knights of Camelot board game from TSR, Inc. Ral Patha’s board games—Witch’s Cauldron, Final Frontier, Galactic Grenadiers, and Caverns Deep, and then Metagaming’s The Fantasy Trip.

Physically, The Best of White Dwarf Articles is cleanly, tidily presented. It does need an edit here and there, but what stands out is the amount of art on display. All of the monsters in ‘The Fiend Factory’, many of the traps in ‘The Best Of Treasure Trap’, and so on are illustrated, and it gives the compilation an airy feel. The Conan-esque cover by Steve Brown—complementing the one which would appear on the cover of The Best of White Dwarf Scenarios—is excellent.

The Best of White Dwarf Articles is a bit hit and miss, primarily because what might have been seen as the best content drawn from the first three years of issues of White Dwarf in 1980 do not look like the best today. The Houri Character Class deserves mention as a miss, even in 1980, unnecessarily prurient and unsuitable for much of its readership, and perhaps ‘The Monstermark System’ might be regarded as miss today, but not in 1980 when dissatisfaction with an aspect of the rules could be expressed in the pages of a leading magazine in the industry and an alternative readily suggested. The rest of The Best of White Dwarf Articles consists of hits and that is how it should be for a compilation or ‘Best of…’ volume. The Best of White Dwarf Articles highlights how even though the magazine might not yet have hit its stride—and when that was, is dependent on the reader—there was still a lot to be found within the pages of White Dwarf that was useful, playable content then and surprisingly, now. Consequently, The Best of White Dwarf Articles manages to show how the hobby has, and has not, changed since it was published in 1980. The Best of White Dwarf Articles is a snapshot of the British roleplaying hobby in the seventies, that for the most part, remains still readable and if you want, still useful.

"Empty threats, Rutan. Enjoy your death as I enjoyed killing you."

Leela to a Rutan, Horror of Fang Rock

I mentioned that the role of the Companions in Doctor Who was largely one of screaming, getting captured, and going, "what Doctor?" every so often. 

That is not true for Leela. 

If Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor was my first Doctor, then Leela was my first Companion. And what an impression she made! She was from a savage tribe descended from human space travelers that crash-landed on her planet. Her tribe, The Seevtem, aka "Survey Team," had reverted back to savagery and superstition. Leela herself when first meet her is on trail for disobeying the will of her elders. So she was head strong, and intelligent from the very start.  And actress Louise Jamison played the character with undisguised gusto.  Louise Jamison rather famously talked about getting scripts and seeing "Leela screams" with her crossing it out and writing in "No she does not!"

Leela didn't scream, at least not typically, and she usually ran into danger than from it. She had a knife and a bag full of Janis thorns that would paralyze and then kill.  Unlike other companions before (and since really), Leela had a body count. Though in her mind, the world, and then the universe was a savage kill-or-be-killed place.  

She was unlearned but obviously very bright and she picked up on concepts the doctor threw at her quickly, although sometimes in her own way.

For reasons unknown the production team made Jamison wear these red contact to turn her normally blue eyes brown.

She hated them and they were uncomfortable. So in the episodes of "Horror of Fang Rock" and exploding Rutan spaceship blinds her temporarily (and in typical Leela fashion she asks the Doctor to kill her because she is no use to him) and her eyes heal and turn blue.  

Leela is the prototype companion that would later give us Ace and the modern companions but in particular River Song.

 

All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.

Dungeon Crawl Classics #79: Frozen in Time is a scenario for Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, the Dungeons & Dragons-style retroclone inspired by ‘Appendix N’ of the Dungeon Master’s Guide for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition. Published by Goodman Games, 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. One of the signature features of Dungeon Crawl Classics and its post-apocalyptic counterpart, Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, is the ‘Character Funnel’. This is a scenario specifically designed for Zero Level Player Characters in which initially, a player is expected to roll up three or four Level Zero characters and have them play through a generally nasty, deadly adventure, which surviving will prove a challenge. Those that do survive receive enough Experience Points to advance to First Level and gain all of the advantages of their Class. Dungeon Crawl Classics #79: Frozen in Time is designed for a party of six First Level Player Characters and thus is not a Character Funnel. However, it includes notes on how to run it as a Character Funnel, suggestions on how to use it as a campaign starter, and although predating the publication of the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game by five years, the scenario could easily be run as part of a campaign for that post-apocalyptic roleplaying game, with some adaptation, since it veers heavily into the realms of Science Fiction.
Dungeon Crawl Classics #79: Frozen in Time is set in the Forlorn North, home to various barbarian tribes where there stands a mighty and deadly glacier known as Ghost Ice, infamous for the number of tribesmen who have perished on its frigid reaches, ripped apart by the claws and teeth of the ice demons known to live there. The Elders of the tribe have long forbidden exploration of Ghost Ice, declaring it to be taboo, but now Ghost Ice has shattered, leaving two holes in the face of the glacier from which green smoke emanates. The Elders of the tribe have decided to send their best champions to investigate and determine if the breaking of the glacier means that the ice demons have gone. The set-up is simple—a group of humble tribesmen, a nearby mystery or taboo to be revealed or examined due to a circumstantial change or cataclysm, and the need for it to be investigated for the safety of the tribe. It is a formula which has been well tread in previous releases for both the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game and the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, which means that the scenario needs to be inventive and interesting to make it other than formulaic.
This however is only the default set-up and the scenario suggests several others. One is still as standard Player Characters approached by barbarian envoys wanting ‘great champions of the southlands’ who could explore and investigate the Ghost Ice glacier when taboo prevents them from doing so. Another is to use the scenario as the start of a campaign with the Player Characters all members of a primitive tribe who know the legends of the Ghost Ice. This can still be with First Level Player Characters or it can be with Zero Level Player Characters who sent out to investigate the Ghost Ice as part of their ‘Rites of Passage’. The latter would thus mean running the scenario as a ‘Character Funnel’. Appendix A of the scenario includes a ‘Primitive Occupations Table’ to determine the starting occupations of such Zero Level tribesmen. All together, this gives Dungeon Crawl Classics #79: Frozen in Time a pleasing degree of flexibility when it comes to running the scenario.

It should be noted that later printings of Dungeon Crawl Classics #79: Frozen in Time go further than this by including a guide to the Forlorn North. This is a mini-campaign setting which provides a history and gazetteer of the region as well as several scenario hooks. The history of the scenario ties in with Dungeon Crawl Classics 2013 Holiday Module: The Old God’s Return, but otherwise this provides the Judge with the basis upon which to develop further adventures in the Forlorn North once the Player Characters have finished playing through Dungeon Crawl Classics #79: Frozen in Time.
Once the Player Characters have ascended Ghost Ice and find their way through the tunnels, they discover a strange complex of objects covered in blinking lights, objects and creatures held perfectly immobile in stasis, pools of ice and slush, and empty columns which connect areas with no obvious explanation for how they work. The dichotomy at the heart of the scenario is that the players will quickly realise what their Player Characters are exploring, but their Player Characters will not. This is because they will recognise many of the features of the ‘dungeon’ as machinery and devices, the ‘dungeon’ itself as some kind of technological habitat, and many of the items being held in stasis, including a tyrannosaurus rex, the Mona Lisa, and more. In fact, the Judge is encouraged to add his own preferred artefacts and pieces of artwork here as well. There is also a lone human held here as well. He could easily be a replacement Player Character, but who is not say that this could be Jimmy Hoffa, Elvis Presley, or anyone interesting that the Judge chooses. There is also an amusing encounter with a very Robby the Robot-like robot much like that of Lost in Space—as depicted on the cover of the scenario.

The location is in fact, ‘The Vault of Zepes Null-Eleven’. This the secret hideout and last resting place of a time traveller from the far future who rode the timestream looting art and artefacts for both himself and to order. The vault is where kept everything far from the prying eyes of his fellow, but more law-abiding time travellers. What this sets up is an obvious nod to S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, but the scenario feels like Gamma World too. Either way the scenario embraces Arthur C. Clarke’s Third law that ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’

The play of Dungeon Crawl Classics #79: Frozen in Time primarily focuses on exploration of Zepes Null-Eleven’s complex, the Player Characters prodding and poking at buttons and not always getting a very interesting response. The scenario involves relatively little combat, although it has its moments. The scenario does end on an exciting, action driven climax though. Where the scenario is weakest is roleplaying as there are few opportunities for it written into the scenario. The scenario also misses opportunities for further adventure, primarily because it is limited by length. The scenario includes a time machine and artefacts and persons from across time and space, including a Mark III blaster rifle from the Android Wars, a katana dating from the Eternal Shogunate of the Lich, and more. The question is, how exactly are the Player Characters expected to find these details out? There are some cases where the Wizard in the party can cast Comprehend Languages, but that does not apply to every situation and will definitely not if the scenario is being run as a ‘Character Funnel’. Other than that, they remain amusing little Easter Eggs for the Judge’s eyes only.
There is an opportunity to use the time machine in the scenario, but really only to trap a Player Character or two in the primordial past. Besides wanting to keep time travel out of the hands of the players and their characters, this misses opportunities in not allowing the Player Characters to visit these epochs mentioned in the artefact descriptions and adventure there, if only temporarily. Or indeed to have the colleagues of Zepes Null-Eleven turn up and deal with the mess he left behind as well as interact with the Player Characters. Another issue is that whatever the Player Characters do and do not do, the complex explodes, which undercuts their agency and makes the scenario rather linear.
Physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics #79: Frozen in Time is well presented. The artwork is excellent and the scenario is clearly written and easy to understand. The maps are as decent as you would expect.

Dungeon Crawl Classics #79: Frozen in Time was the first Science Fiction crossover scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. It can be played through in a single session or two, in the main because it is exploration rather than combat or roleplaying driven. As written, it is a fun adventure, with lots of detail, but as much as the scenario is written to present a Science Fiction experience for a fantasy roleplaying scenario, it also wants to reign those elements in, to never let the players and their characters explore them fully despite their throwaway mention in the text. Dungeon Crawl Classics #79: Frozen in Time is a fun if linear Science Fiction scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, which is never fully allowed to play with all of its ideas. If it had, it could have been an even more fun and fantastic adventure for ‘Appendix N’ style gaming.

The tunnel in the back of Room 13 leads down to another cave.  This one features the bones of a great beast embedded in the walls.

The bones are the fossilized remains of some ancient beast. They were part of the walls when the Necromancers got here.  Repeated unsuccessful necromantic magics have left this cave magically charged.

If the party remains more than 3 turns they must make a saving throw vs. Paralysis or take 1d4 hp of damage. The energies are draining the very life from the characters.

The bones are difficult to remove from the walls, the easy ones were removed a long time ago, but if they somehow manage (dealing 24 hp of damage to the bones will break off a chip), then they can be sold to a wizard or necromancer for 50gp each. But while the characters possess these bones, they will not heal any wounds, either by normal or magical means.

Rose Tyler: [referring to K-9] Why does it look so... disco?
The Doctor: Oi! Listen, in the year 5000, this was cutting edge!

- Doctor Who, School Reunion

Most of the Doctor's companions have been human, most of whom are from Earth. But two stand out as not only non-human but non-living robots. I am talking about K9 and Kamelion.

K9 was a robot dog (get it, K9?) from the year 5,000 during the Tom Baker years. Invented by Prof. Marius who lived on a space station and wanted to bring his real dog but couldn't. 

K9 went on to join the Doctor and Leela, who he referred to as "Master" and "Mistress." He stayed behind on Gallifrey with Leela. When the Doctor left he introduced his new version K9-Mk2 who traveled with him and both Romanas.  He stayed behind in E-Space with Romana and that was the last time we saw him. For a while.

K9, this time Mk-3 was given to Sarah Jane Smith as a present and for the start of his own spin-off show K9 and Company. But that only lasted one episode. We would not see him, or Sarah Jane again until the 10th Doctor episode, School Reunion. The Doctor rebuilt him to give us K9 Mk-4.

K9 would appear again, briefly in the Sarah Jane Smith spin-off and in his own Australian version, "K9" with a different look. We only got such brief glimpses of him because the character is still owned by its creators, Bob Baker and Dave Martin. So to use him, the BBC has to pay Baker and Martin. 

K9 though was extremely popular and I can remember my younger brother desperately wanting to build one (he is an engineer now, so I suppose he could) and I know others that loved that "little tin dog" as well.

On the other end of the popularity spectrum is Kamelion. Originally a tool of the Master to disrupt the signing of the Magna Carta in "The King's Demons." He was a robot that could appear as anyone commanded. 

Let's be honest here. The episode he stared in was a bit weak. Even the Doctor admitted that the plan was small time by the Master's standards. And Kamelion, well he was really kind of lame.  The prop used was not built for the show, but was found by then producer John Nathan-Turner as a K9 replacement.  Plus it was a prop and not an actor in a suit, so it was always breaking down.  

Kamlion seems to have been cursed from the start. The man who designed it's software, Mike Power, had been killed in a boating accident around the time the show was aired and no one knew how to operate it properly.  Terence Dudley (1988) and Peter Grimwade (1983), who scripted the robot companion's appearances, left the show or died while the show was running. His voice, Gerald Flood, died in 1984. And the last actor to play him as a human also died. 

The companion/prop was so hated in fact that Peter Davison has said that any sign of regret shown by him/the Doctor during Kamelion's (the prop's) "death" scene was pure acting. He was happy it was gone.

I remember the fans at the time also rather hated it. I guess they all can't be winners. 

All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.

Going back to Room #9 and hitting the other tunnel, straight ahead, leads to another cave.  Though this cave is not the home to some creature, it is a tomb. 

Inside this room are 5 Wights. Their ancient tattered uniforms gives the characters the idea that these had been guards at some point. Their magically compelled orders said they could not leave this room and that compulsion remained after their deaths.

They will attack on sight.

There are the remains of other humans and humanoids here. So in addition to their treasure, (B x5) there is type C, D, and T.

Michael Gonzales / April 12, 2023

Tower Records on 4th Street and Broadway, 1984. Photo by Brandi Merolla

Having grown up in the 1970s, an era when record shops were a fixture in communities and often served as neighborhood social centers, I became obsessed with a small store located on 146th and Broadway. Owned by my father’s friend Mr. Freddy, I visited that record shop weekly to buy 45s to jam on my blue record player. From the Jackson 5 to Gladys Knight & the Pips, he carried all the latest soul records. There were promotional posters taped in the windows and tacked to the exterior walls, and packages of fragrant incense on the counter next to the register. If needed, Mr. Freddy, a sharp-dressed and kindly man, played the disc for me to make sure it was the right one.

As I got older and my musical taste broadened, I began spreading my wings throughout Manhattan, where I discovered other record stores, including Kappy’s in Washington Heights, Bobby’s Happy House in Central Harlem, and Bondy’s, which was across the street from City Hall. Often, I went alone and spent hours flipping through the stacks in search of old soul, new wave, early rap, free jazz, and on-the-money funk. I was a fiend for cut-out bins where I could find discounted records, mostly from artists I’d never heard of—but I liked the covers.

I dug all them shops, but I had no particular favorite until 1983, when Tower Records opened on Fourth and Broadway. Back then the neighborhood was rather bleak. With the exception of New York University and music venue The Bottom Line, there wasn’t much else. Recently, while watching the wonderful Tower Records documentary All Things Must Pass (2015), a senior West Coast employee described the location as “the bowels of the East Village” and claimed he saw a dead dog in the gutter. As the talking heads dropped Tower Records history and lore, I thought about the many hours I spent in that store as both patron and employee. 

With their custom designed window displays that were done by in-house artists, Tower Records was bigger than most New York City record stores. They had large jazz and classical departments, sold cool import and rap singles, and carried an array of music publications, including British papers Melody Maker and New Music Express (NME). Inside the trademarked yellow bags stamped with the red logo, I often carried out lots of goodies. Additionally, Tower stayed open until midnight, which made it the perfect place to drift into after happy hour when some jukebox song was stuck in your head. I can remember my buddy Jerry and I going down there one night when my drunk self believed I needed to buy the soundtrack for Valley of the Dolls just to hear Dionne Warwick singing the theme. 

Though I lived in Harlem and Jerry dwelled in Brooklyn, we often met in front of Tower when we planned on “hangin’ in the village.” We’d flip through racks of records for an hour or so, which was usually followed by smoking a joint in Washington Square Park while watching comedian Charlie Barnett. Back in those days, I had a bad habit of running late and, on one occasion, he befriended a guy begging for change in front of the store. An aspiring playwright, Jerry wrote a one-act about the encounter. Years later, I heard how fallen Grandmaster Flowers, a pioneering DJ from Brooklyn, used to shake his coin cup on that spot and I just knew that’s who Jerry had met. That same year I hung out with Jerry as he waited in line overnight to buy tickets for The Police’s Synchronicity Tour. That year we both worked as messengers in Manhattan, but we were ready to splurge our minimum wages on Sting.

In 1985, two years after Tower’s doors opened, I abruptly quit my gig at midtown coffee shop Miss Brooks after a transgression with a married older woman manager. After leaving, I went to Baltimore for a few weeks. I’d gone to high school there and my mom still called it home. For two weeks I bummed around with old friends and had a fling with a former classmate. When I returned to the Big Apple, I needed to find a new job. As a lover of books and music, my first thought was going to a favorite bookshop, but I was afraid I might get fired for hiding in the aisle reading the latest Harlan Ellison short story collection or a Chester Himes reissue. Instead, I went down to Tower Records the first week in September.

After being directed to the cassette department, I met with the manager, who had me fill out an application. During that era, when most Americans had tape players in their homes and cars, as well as the millions that carried Walkman’s every day, cassettes were a popular format. Tower also sold a variety of blank tapes, cassette player head cleaners, and carrying cases. There were numerous blank tape companies including TDK, Maxell, Fuji, and Memorex.            

With his neo-rockabilly style, the manager was a few years older than me. I don’t recall much about the interview process, but when he asked who my favorite artists were, I went back to my old standards: “James Brown and Led Zeppelin,” I replied. He smiled and hired me. If I had said Lionel Richie and A-Ha I might’ve been kicked to the curb, but instead I was asked to report on Saturday morning at 8:00. As with most retail stores, Saturday was Tower’s busiest day and I was thrown straight into the fire. 

Beastie Boys display window designed by Brandi Merolla, 1986. Photo by Brandi Merolla

That morning I was shown around the cassette department and, for the next few hours, restocked the shelves with co-worker Barry Walters, an NYU student as well as a music critic for The Village Voice. As an aspiring writer and music critic myself, I was both impressed and a little jealous. Barry was a soft-spoken white guy who helped get me through that first day. Later that morning he introduced me to Bryan Ferry’s smooth solo album Boys and Girls and the music of an English band called Prefab Sprout, whose second album Two Wheels Good (aka Steve McQueen) he was reviewing for the Voice. From the first listen I loved the songs (“When Love Break Down,” “Horsin’ Around,” and “Appetite”) written and sung by Prefab’s bitterly charming leader Paddy McAloon, with whom I connected as I pulled overstock from beneath the bins. With each repeated listening, the album only got better, richer, and more tragically poetic.

At noon my manager instructed me to go upstairs and work bag check. That was the area where, for security purposes, customers checked their various sized briefcases, duffle bags, shopping bags, and knapsacks. It was the most rowdy section of the store. Though there was a security guard a few feet away, that didn’t stop people from not making a line, barking orders, flinging their sacks, and basically treating me like a non-person. What made it worse was that I was alone for the first forty-five minutes—and I was a mess. People were throwing bags and yelling as I handed out numbers and placed the belongings in lockers. I felt as though I’d been jumped, punched, and kicked into a gang. Thankfully, one of the guys from the 12-inch singles section on the mezzanine saw that I was struggling and came downstairs to help. At the end of the hour I bolted to the basement and hid in the back. Later, someone told me that if I learned to work the register I could get out of the bag check nightmare.

I enjoyed running the register and was sometimes impressed with the people who popped up in line. Fourth Street and Broadway was still an arty hood that consisted of various galleries, artist lofts, recording studios, and restaurants. Jean-Michel Basquiat lived a few blocks away at 57 Great Jones Street. One afternoon film director Jim Jarmusch came to the counter carrying an assortment of musical genres. I’d seen Stranger than Paradise the previous year, a flick that inspired me to take a few film classes—until I realized it was cheaper to be a writer.

On another day, artist Keith Haring was my customer, and that time I got excited. “I saw you a few months back in the 145th Street subway station doing one of those radiant babies in chalk,” I said. “I love your work.” Keith smiled. “Thank you,” he replied. Before I knew it I blurted, “Can you do a sketch for me?” He looked at me and nodded his head. “Sure, no problem.” I got my notebook from beneath the counter and handed him a black marker. He drew one of his trademark men dancing across the page. Three minutes later he passed the pad back. There was a plain clothes security guard standing next to me. “Can you do one for me too?” he asked. Keith chuckled, but he complied. Later, the security guy regaled me with stories of catching guys shoplifting. “One was that crazy bassist Jaco Pastorius. He came in and tried to steal Weather Report albums that he’d played on. When I caught him he kept screaming, insisting that the records belonged to him.”

A few weeks after I was hired, New York City was supposed to be hit hard by Hurricane Gloria. I was recruited to be part of the Tower team to tape giant X’s across the windows. While goofing around with one of my co-workers, I saw an earth angel descending the stairs. Her name was Pauline and she was a beautiful black woman with long, curly hair and a full figure. Later, I overheard her Brit accent, which made her even more alluring. I went back to taping the windows, but I never released her from my mind. That night the winds were strong and the heavy rain lasted for hours. 

As the King of Crushes, I instantly fell in love with Pauline, though she had no idea that I existed. Unfortunately, every time I ventured upstairs to play the Romeo role, I chickened out. One night I called Jerry and asked if he’d do me a favor. He agreed and the following day met me outside of the store. I’d written Pauline a secret admirer letter with a poem and bought her a dozen roses. In those days, I was always writing poetry, filling notebooks with words of joyful decadence as though I was an uptown Rimbaud. Jerry was assigned to deliver the package for me. Everything went as planned and the following day I introduced myself. Pauline and I stood in the front of the store next to stacks of Pulse magazine, Tower’s own music rag.

“So you’re my secret admirer,” she smiled. “The poem you wrote was very nice.”

“Thank you,” I said, nervous as a school boy. “I was hoping, maybe… can I take you out to dinner?” As Beaver Cleaver would say, I think I sounded creepy, but she was still smiling.

“You’re sweet,” she said, “but I’m dating someone right now.”

I chuckled to keep from weeping. “Of course you are,” I sighed. “It’s cool.” Pauline and I became friendly, and a week later she invited me to a get-together at the Rivington Street apartment she shared with her boyfriend. She scribbled the address on the back of a Pulse that had Stevie Wonder on the cover. The night of the party, “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” played at least four times. Outside, a couple of teenagers set fire to Pauline’s boyfriend’s motorcycle. From their fourth floor window, I watched the rising flames.

Preparing for Hurricane Gloria by taping up all the plate glass windows. Photo: Brandi Merolla

Back then “in-stores,” when artists came by for a few hours and signed their latest release, were a major part of the industry. Though I’d never attended any before, I was thrilled when word went around that Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam were coming to the store. The year before, when the group’s debut single “I Wonder If I Take You Home” came out, they’d been a sensation in the city. Radio played Lisa Lisa constantly and at the nightclubs, especially the Roxy and the Funhouse, that track was elevated to an anthem. 

Hours before the band arrived, there were young girls of all races and nationalities dressed like Lisa, with hair swept over to cover their right eye. Thankfully, when the group arrived, they were just as excited as their fans. Lisa’s smile was genuine as she chatted with her fans and signed autographs. I was checking out the scene from the mezzanine with my security guard buddy, who decided to dis Lisa. “She sure has put on weight since the video came out,” he said. Mocking her song, he sang, “I wonder if I take you home if you’ll fit through my door.” I glared at him. “That’s rude,” I snapped. “Why is it always you fat, ugly dudes trying to call somebody unattractive?” Nervously, he chuckled. “Damn Mike, you act like she’s your woman or something.”

Everyone in the cassette department got along, but there was always a little tension when it was time to change the music. One person might want to hear L.L. Cool J or Mantronix while someone else might want to play The Smiths or Eurythmics; my choice was usually Prince or something he wrote, including “The Dance Electric” (André Cymone), “Screams of Passion” (The Family) or “A Love Bizarre” (Shelia E.). After a while it was comical the way people raced to the tape deck to (hopefully) jam their favorite joint.

Upstairs, not far from the employee bathrooms, was where the art team worked. Though not much of a visual artist myself, I’ve always been an aficionado—a fan of comics, commercial illustration, and fine art equally. If I’m not mistaken, it was mostly women working in the art department, and they were overseen by Brandi Merolla. Though I didn’t know her personally, her team’s work was seen throughout the store in the many 3D displays. In 2011, when writer/musician Greg Tate co-founded and edited the lit-mag Coon Bidness with poet Latasha Natasha Diggs, I contributed the short story “Daddy Gone Blues,” about fem-rocker Andrea Holiday, who works in Tower’s art department while trying to be a star. Merolla got to be creative with band posters of Tears for Fears, a-Ha, Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam, Wham!, Scritti Politti, Prefab Sprout, Aretha Franklin, and everybody else who put out a hit record in 1985.

Although Tower Records was a chain, the owners allowed staff to be as creative as they wanted to be and, personally, I never felt any corporate pressure to act or dress in any certain way. Our managers were cool folks who had our backs. One afternoon I went to lunch with my mother at a nearby Mexican place called Camambra where I drank three very strong frozen margaritas and stumbled back to the store with “cocktail flu.” After standing behind the register for a few minutes, the manager came over and whispered, “I’m not firing you, but you have to go home. I can’t have you drunk behind the register.” The following day I apologized. “Don’t worry about it, man, it happens.” If I was anywhere else, I would’ve been picking up my last check. 

For struggling writers, visual artists, musicians, and future record company executives, Tower was the starting place for many creative souls who needed a job, but didn’t want to work around “regular” people. That 4th and Broadway store had many oddballs who went on to greatness, including bassist Melvin Gibbs, jazz producer Brian Michel Bacchus, A&R man Gary Harris, composer/conductor Butch Morris, and Burnt Sugar keyboardist Bruce Mack.

I was there for a year before I left to work at a homeless shelter the city opened in part of the psychiatric ward at Bellevue Hospital. However, eight years later, when I’d finally become a full-time writer, I was commissioned by Tower Pulse editor Marc Weidenbaum to write the Gang Starr cover story for the May 1994 issue. That relationship lasted for the next two years.

Days before my Tower Records closed down in 2006, I visited the damn near empty store and almost wept. To this day, I’ve never stopped thinking about that music sanctuary for the twenty years it existed at that location. 

Michael A. Gonzales is an essayist/short story writer who has published fiction in The Oxford American, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. He contributes pop culture/true crime features to CrimeReads, Soulhead, and Longreads.

At my day job, my work is increasingly trying to adapt to AI generative techniques. I am not going to go into any details here about that. Suffice it to say that about 20% of my day is given over to AI now. 

I am coming into today's post with about four+ months of doing nothing but deep diving into all sorts of AI tools.  I decided to turn these powerful tools over to what is essentially one of my bread-and-butter topics here; creating new witch characters.

Now before I go on here, I want to state this unequivocally. I have no desire to use AI-generated text in any future blog posts unless it is clearly stated (like this one), and NO desire to put any generated text into my books. 

It's not that I have issues with AI or on moral grounds. I just believe that people like to buy my stuff because it is my stuff; written by me. Having used these tools, you all can go out and do this on your own. You don't need me for that.

But today's post is about seeing just what these powerful tools can do.

For today's post, I am using the tools ChatGPT, Google Bard, and MidJourney. I choose these three because they are right now the most powerful at what they do. Let's see if they can replace me.

Today's experiment. Can these tools create a new witch character with a background, art, and, better still, D&D stats?

I asked both Chat GPT and Bard to generate a legendary witch on par with Circe, Medea, Morgan LeFey, and other mytho-historical witches. I also asked the same of Bard.  Once I got these, I then copied and pasted text into MidJourney to produce an image of this witch. 

Here are the results.

Luna Moonshadow

From ChatGPT:

Born during the Dark Ages in a small village nestled deep in the woods, Luna was known for her mysterious aura and captivating beauty.

From a young age, Luna exhibited a natural talent for magic, drawing power from the moon and the stars. She honed her skills in secret, practicing ancient and forbidden spells that she discovered in ancient tomes hidden in the depths of the forest. As she grew older, her powers grew stronger, and she became known for her ability to control the elements and manipulate time itself.

Luna's reputation as a witch spread far and wide, and many sought her counsel and assistance. She was revered by some as a wise and benevolent witch, using her powers to heal the sick and protect the innocent. However, others feared her power and saw her as a threat to their beliefs and way of life.

In history, Luna Moonshadow played a pivotal role in a conflict known as the "War of the Witches." This was a dark period in history when witches and sorcerers were hunted down and persecuted by the ruling powers. Luna was a staunch advocate for the rights of witches, leading a rebellion against the oppression they faced. Her mastery of magic and strategic prowess led her to become a formidable leader in the battle against the witch hunters.

Despite facing numerous challenges and betrayals, Luna's unwavering determination and bravery inspired others to join her cause. She used her magical abilities to defend her fellow witches and fight for their freedom. Her legend grew as tales of her exploits spread, and she became a symbol of resistance against tyranny.

Ultimately, Luna Moonshadow's efforts led to a turning point in history, as the tide of the war shifted in favor of the witches. Her leadership and sacrifices paved the way for a new era of acceptance and tolerance towards witches and their magical abilities. Luna's legacy endured, and she became a revered figure in history, celebrated as a powerful and influential witch who fought for justice and equality for her fellow witches, leaving a lasting impact on the world of magic.

Not bad. Maybe a bit clichéd. So I asked it to generate "Dungeons & Dragons stats" for her.

Again, ChatGPT: 

Character Name: Luna Moonshadow
Race: Elf
Class: Sorcerer
Background: Folk Hero
Alignment: Chaotic Good

Ability Scores:
Strength: 10
Dexterity: 16
Constitution: 12
Intelligence: 14
Wisdom: 10
Charisma: 18
Proficiencies:

Saving Throws: Constitution, Charisma
Skills: Arcana, Persuasion, Medicine, Nature
Armor: None
Weapons: Daggers, Quarterstaffs, Darts, Slings
Features and Abilities:

Sorcerer's Spellcasting: Luna can cast spells using Charisma as her spellcasting ability, and she knows a number of spells from the Sorcerer spell list.

Font of Magic: Luna has access to sorcery points, which she can use to fuel her metamagic abilities or to convert into additional spell slots.

Metamagic: Luna can use her sorcery points to manipulate her spells, choosing from options such as Twin Spell, Quickened Spell, or Subtle Spell, among others.

Fey Ancestry: Being an Elf, Luna has advantage on saving throws against being charmed, and she can't be put to sleep by magical means.

Folk Hero Background: Luna is well-respected among her fellow witches and is seen as a hero for her role in the War of the Witches. She has proficiency in Animal Handling and gains a set of artisan's tools.

Equipment:
Quarterstaff
Component pouch
Explorer's pack
Common clothes
A pouch containing 15 gold pieces

Spells Known:
Cantrips: Eldritch Blast, Mage Hand, Prestidigitation, Ray of Frost
1st Level Spells: Shield, Sleep, Charm Person, Thunderwave
2nd Level Spells: Invisibility, Misty Step, Scorching Ray
3rd Level Spells: Fireball, Counterspell, Fly

Luna Moonshadow is a powerful sorcerer with a keen understanding of magic and a reputation as a folk hero. Her abilities as a sorcerer and her determination to fight for the rights of witches make her a formidable and respected character in any Dungeons & Dragons campaign.

Well...not exactly right, but not bad for an AI. It defaulted to some strange version of D&D 5e. I ran the same thing in Google's Bard:

Race: Human
Class: Warlock
Background: Sage
Alignment: Chaotic Good

Strength: 8 (+0)
Dexterity: 14 (+2)
Constitution: 12 (+1)
Intelligence: 16 (+3)
Wisdom: 14 (+2)
Charisma: 18 (+4)

Hit Points: 12 (1d8 + 2)
Armor Class: 12 (studded leather)
Speed: 30 ft.

Skills: Arcana +6, Deception +8, History +6, Insight +6, Investigation +6, Nature +6, Perception +6, Persuasion +8, Prestidigitation +6, Stealth +4

Senses: darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 16

Languages: Common, Elvish

Equipment: a dagger, a component pouch, a book of spells, a set of common clothes, and a traveler's clothes

Spellcasting: Morrigan is a 1st-level warlock. She knows the following warlock spells:
Cantrips (0-level): light, mage hand, prestidigitation
1st level (4 slots): hex, magic missile, shield

Luna's Other Abilities:
Shapechanger. Luna can use her action to polymorph into a crow or raven, or back into her true form. She can remain in her alternate form for up to 1 hour. Any equipment she is wearing or carrying melds into her new form. She reverts to her true form if she dies, falls unconscious, or chooses to do so (no action required).

Witch Sight. Luna can see innately into the Ethereal Plane. She can see invisible creatures on the Ethereal Plane, and she can see into the Border Ethereal as if it were lightly obscured.

Fey Presence. Luna has advantage on Charisma (Deception, Intimidation, Performance, Persuasion) checks against humanoids. She can use her action to frighten humanoids that can see her within 30 feet of her. Each frightened humanoid must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw (DC 14) or be frightened of Morrigan for 1 minute. A frightened creature can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success.

Not too dissimilar, but I like it a bit better. Again, D&D 5e and Bard told me it grabbed all this data from the 5e d20 SRD. So that was a nice touch, really. 

My next test was can it do the same thing if I specified AD&D 1st Edition.  The results were pretty interesting and surprising.

Certainly! Here's a character sheet for Luna Moonshadow in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition:

Name: Luna Moonshadow
Class: Witch
Race: Elf
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Level: 10

Ability Scores:
Strength: 10
Dexterity: 16
Constitution: 12
Intelligence: 14
Wisdom: 10
Charisma: 18

Saving Throws:
Paralyzation/Poison/Death Magic: 10
Rod/Staff/Wand: 12
Petrification/Polymorph: 11
Breath Weapon: 13
Spell: 14

Hit Points: 55
Armor Class: 6 (Leather Armor)

Weapons:
Quarterstaff: 1d6
Dagger: 1d4

Equipment:
Quarterstaff
Dagger
Component pouch
Backpack
10 torches
Bedroll
Rations (1 week)
Waterskin
Healing potions (2)
Spellbook

Spells:
1st Level: Charm Person, Detect Magic, Light, Sleep, Magic Missile
2nd Level: Invisibility, Levitate, Web, Mirror Image, Scorching Ray
3rd Level: Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Fly, Counterspell, Dispel Magic

Special Abilities:
Familiar: Luna has a familiar in the form of a black raven named Shadow, who aids her in her spellcasting and grants her additional abilities.
Witchcraft: Luna has access to various witchcraft abilities, such as brewing potions, divination, and the ability to curse or bless others.

Luna Moonshadow is a skilled and experienced witch who has honed her craft through years of study and practice. Her expertise in spellcasting, combined with her wit and resourcefulness, make her a formidable ally in any AD&D 1st Edition campaign. Her reputation as a folk hero and her dedication to fighting for the rights of witches further add depth and intrigue to her character.

OK! It's not a perfect write-up by any means, BUT it is surprisingly close. 

I then dumped all of this into MidJourney and had it render out a witch for me based on the descriptions.  That is the art you see here.

What To Do With This?

I am sure of one thing here. I am not out of a job just yet. Luna is a lot of fun, but there is not much to her. Well, not yet anyway.

Since I generated every aspect of her via AI tools, I am releasing her into the public domain. Not that I have to, she already was there by means of how she was made, but this particular combination of all of this text and imagery is unique. So I am releasing that. 

What does this mean? It means you are all free to take her and use her as you like. 

Put her into your games. Make her an NPC. Hell put her in a book and publish it and make a lot of money. You don't even need to tell me about it, but I would like to hear about it, though. If you kill her out of spite in your games because you don't like AI, well, I'd rather not hear about it, but you do you.

I'll tweak her myself later using my own witch rules. Based on both versions, I would make her half-elf and, given some of the other material generated, make her Patron the Morrigan. I do love that "War of the Witches" bit above too. I'll have to work that in.

I can see a lot with her now that I have been doing this. AI may have been the ground she grew in, but the seed was mine, and how I take it from here on out will be mine as well. 

Or yours.

I'll put this at the end again for the good serial position effect.

I will not use any AI generative text in any published book. Also, I will not use any AI generative text in any blog post unless I clearly mark it.

You see the "AI" label below? That is how you will know, BUT I will also clearly indicate it.

Of all the secondary characters (not companions), one of the standout successes has been the ongoing adventures of Henry Gordon Jago and Professor George Litefoot. Jago & Litfoot were first introduced to us in the wonderful Tom Baker-era story "The Talons of Weng-Chiang" in 1977.  The pair, a somewhat shady theatre manager and a semi-retired academic went on to solve mysterious crimes and mysteries in Victorian London courtesy of various audio dramas from Big Finish Audio.

They were popular in their time but grew increasingly popular with the airing of the Tom Baker Doctor on PBS.

The audio dramas have also been big hits for Big Finish, with 17 completed dramas. Each one features the original actors, Christopher Benjamin and Trevor Baxter, resuming their roles. Some even feature other Doctor Who companions such as Leela (4th Doctor) and Strax (11th Doctor). They are even sometimes guests on their contemporaries' Madam Vastra & Jenny (11th Doctor) audio dramas.

 Of course, I love the Victorian-era. So I liked "Talons" from the word go. Yes, there is some unfortunate "Yellowface" going on in the episode, something the cast and production team (who are still alive) regret and have mentioned many times. But the story is good, and the characters from this tale are wonderful. 

If Jago and Litefoot have been given new life in these audio dramas, then their Victorian-era contemporaries Vastra & Jenny (and Strax) have been given continued life in the Cubicle 7 Doctor Who RPG.

In both mediums (audio and RPGs) there are some cross-overs. But for me I love the RPG structure the best for further adventures (though the audio dramas are very, very close!)

The best thing about Jago & Litefoot is the implication that once the Doctor enters someone's life, they are forever changed and want to do more to improve their world. This has been an explicit detail in the newer series. 

All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.

Going all the way back to Room 9 there were two tunnels, left and right.  Choosing the left tunnel (previously the right) takes the party on a twisty path that almost doubles back to a small cave.

This cave is swarming with 6 Rhagodessa. These giant spider-like monsters feed on the victims the trolls didn't finish off. Due to the influence of the chaos stone, these creatures are now Chaotic.  

They have collected treasure (U x6) in a small pile. 

Busy time. I have not written anything in over two weeks, but I am hardly idle.  On my plate this week?  Playtesting the newest game from Elf Lair Games.

Wasted Lands: The Dreaming Age

This is a new Swords and Sorcery RPG set in a savage lost epoch, millions of years ago. A time lost to current humanity.  Players will take on the roles of human (near human) characters struggling against the remains of the Old Ones, ancient gods and alien threats. 

These characters will fight, and struggle and eventually, they will become the Gods we know today. 

This game uses the same rule system as NIGHT SHIFT: Veteran of the Supernatural Wars.

Playtest is now underway.

I am hoping to use some of the material I have created for my own One Man's God posts in my Wasted Lands game.  In particular, I will use this to flesh out my Roman-Norse Pantheon, actually play out the legends that would later become these gods.  And of course, because I have a rep to maintain, expect to see some gods/goddesses of magic and witchcraft.

I am quite excited about this game and I hope to get you all excited about it as well. 

Something a little different again since I will talk about a single serial of Doctor Who. This time it is 1970's "Inferno."  It is the second serial (from the seventh season) to feature Jon Pertwee as the Doctor in exile on Earth.  The Time Lords have crippled his TARDIS and removed all knowledge of how to Time Travel from his mind. He is stuck on Earth and not taking it well, so he tinkers with the TARDIS all the time with mostly disastrous results. 

In Inferno he manages to slip into a parallel universe with a Fascist Britain. In both universes there is an experiment to drill through the Earth's crust, but at the point they are doing will cause catastrophic problems. The fascist universe is slight ahead in time as the "prime" universe so the Doctor knows what needs to be done.

I liked this episode for a lot of reasons. First it played into my growing interest in the idea of the Multi-verse, something that I began to explore in the comic "Crisis on Infinite Earths" and later in books like "Job: A Comedy of Justice" and "The Coming of the Quantum Cats."  It was something that at the time I was really ready to enjoy.  

Secondly, and this is the big one, it was the Doctor Who episode that introduced me to other Doctors. 

Growing up I watched Doctor Who on my local (St. Louis) PBS station KETC.  Now KETC has a huge market, and they played the Tom Baker era almost exclusively. But they were not the only local PBS station. Just to the north of me was WILL out of Urbana IL and it was connected with the University of Illinois at Urbana.  While I did not get that station on our cable package there were some in town that had access to it. Also there was a steady stream of VHS tapes coming down from Urbana to my hometown from people going to school there. Inferno was one such tape.

I remember watching it in, of all places, my High School's library. One of my friends had it and was watching in the "media room" which was supposed to be off limits to general students unless you worked there. I didn't. But I was fascinated by this episode and mostly by this "new to me" Doctor. I knew Pertwee came before Baker and that his Doctor was a different sort, but this episode was an eye-opener for me.

Recently, I had the chance to rewatch in prep for today's post. It is slower than I remember, but just as good.  Though I do find it very odd that I am right now older than Pertwee was in this episode (he was 51).

I have made a habit since first watching this one to check out all the Pertwee/3rd Doctor episodes I can. I know there are a few I have never seen. I have not sought them out because I do enjoy the joy of stumbling upon them just like I did with Inferno.

Since moving to the Chicago area I have had the chance to talk to others who watched Doctor Who from the same time period and how their PBS stations differed from my local St. Louis one. It has been very interesting and I'll talk more about it on "P" day.

All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.

A small passageway in the back of Room #10 leads down to a rough-cut cave.  

A small glowing stone is stuck into a small pedestal in the middle of the cave.  There is plenty of track around the stone, wearing out the stone ground. The area 5' radius around the stone is untouched. 

The stone is a Chaos Stone, one of the artifacts of the mages.  It is made of pure chaos and its effects are random.

Any character touching the stone rolls a 2d6 and consults the table below.

• 2: The character is transported to a random location within 100 feet of the stone.
• 3-4: The character is granted a temporary penalty to one of their ability scores by -1.
• 5-6: The character is cursed with a minor ailment, such as -3 on attack rolls or saving throws. 
• 7: The stone has no effect.
• 8-9: The character is blessed with a minor boon, such as +3 on all attack rolls or saving throws.
• 10-11: The character gains a powerful boon, such as a +2 bonus to one of their ability scores.
• 12: The character gains a permanent +1 to one ability score determined at random.

A character can only touch the stone once for effect.  Unless noted, the effects last 1d6+6 turns.

The stone is fixed to the pedestal. Any attempts to remove it will cause it to shatter. If the shards are collected they could be sold to a high level magic-user or alchemist for 20-50 gp (1d4+1 x10).

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another Dungeon Master and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will be compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. However, for fanzines of some roleplaying games, it is necessary to look to the past.

Polaris Issue 1 was published in the summer of 1987. As the cover states, it is “For Players Of The ‘Call Of Cthulhu’ FRPG’, it is a British fanzine—actually published less than two miles from where I write this review in Birmingham, which came out towards the end of the British fanzine boom of the period and at a time when the highly regarded Dagon fanzine from Carl Ford was going strong. The concerns of the thirty-six-page volume will be familiar to the Keepers of today, and certainly will be familiar to veteran players and Keepers of Call of Cthulhu. Thus, it contains articles about how to create and maintain an atmosphere of fear around the table, examinations of particular Occupations and Mythos tomes, a description of an occult tradition and its parallels with the Cthulhu Mythos. It also contains two scenarios and so edited by Simon Prest, the issue contains quite a lot of content that is both playable and applicable today.

Written for use for Call of Cthulhu, Third Edition and named after H.P. Lovecraft’s short story of the same name, Polaris Issue 1  opens with a very English concern. This is Green and Pleasant Land: The British 1920s-30s Cthulhu Source Pack, Games Workshop’s seminal sourcebook for the United Kingdom. First, in ‘The Lamp of Alhazred’, Andy Smith reviews the book to positive effect, although he does not think much of either Brian Lumley’s short story, ‘The Running Man’ or the scenario which precedes it, ‘Shadows over Darkbank’. Both are notable low points in the supplement, which otherwise still stands up as a very playable affair. ‘Down To Earth With A Bump’ by Peter F. Jeffery is a set of optional rules for handling aircraft damage, whether from another attacking aeroplane or a flying Mythos creature, such as a Byakhee. Originally submitted as an accompaniment to the aviation article in Green and Pleasant Land, the rules were ultimately rejected and printed in the pages of Polaris. They handle the effects of damage as a series of escalating saving throws, with the amount of damage determining the percentile target which if rolled under has the undesired effect. The base roll is to see if the aeroplane crashes, makes a crash landing, a forced landing, or suffers structural damage, the percentile target more or less doubling each time. Supported by several examples, this is both simple and complex at the same time, with lots of dice rolls which would slow down play at the table and it is clear to see why they might not have been accepted for inclusion in Green and Pleasant Land.

Andy Bennison’s ‘The Heat on the Streets’ is the first of the two scenarios in Polaris Issue 1 . It casts the Investigators as private detectives thrown into a classic Film Noir-like case involving a mysterious femme fatale, a missing man, gangsters, Prohibition, and a grumpy police detective. Not only does the police detective not like the Investigators, but he is also not far off retirement, and these are just the most obvious of the scenario’s clichés. Angelica Peach wants her brother, Jonathan, found as their mother is terribly sick. Given some names to contact, the investigation leads to the door The Dragon Club, a restaurant owned by local gangster, Valentino D’Al, and the first of many shootouts in the scenario. The author admits the scenario is linear and it is also heavily plotted. It leans more into the Pulp style of play and is suitable for a group who prefers a more action orientated type of mystery. The Keeper will also need to provide more a few sets of stats for the various NPCs and there are a few areas where she will also need to add names and personalities to various NPCs. It is also never explained who the femme fatale is, but her presence does lead to some nice moments of horror in the scenario.

Under the Keeper’s Lore department, Dave Hallett makes the point that ‘Fear Is The Key’. This looks at ways in which fear can be invoked in Call of Cthulhu and maintained. His advice is to ground the game in the mundane, the engage and keep the attention of the players, involve all of the senses, and so on, before moving on to undermine the Investigators’ sense of reality, and using tools such as false alarms and ambiguity. It is a well-worn path, seen in subsequent articles over and over, but good advice, nonetheless. ‘The Dark Brotherhood’ by Simon Prest is not a regular feature about cults as the title might allude to, but rather a look at Occupations, that, what the Investigator did before he began investigating the unknown and tries to do whilst suffering its travails. Here the Occupation is the Author, with suggestions as to what the author might be writing about, what publications he writes for, and so on. Overall, it provides some useful questions for the player to think about when creating his Investigator.

The subject of ‘Illuminating Manuscripts’ is another perennial favourite of Call of Cthulhu—Mythos tomes, showing even back in 1987, the roleplaying game did not provide much in the way of information about for the Keeper. The particular tome covered by Adrian Jones here is The G’harne Manuscripts, taken from Brain Lumley’s The Burrowers Beneath. The article examines its history and its content, referencing the various works by Lumley where the book has appeared. It is a decent examination of the book with plenty of detail that the Keeper can include should her Investigators want to find and study a copy. Even in 2023, it shows how the Mythos tome is an important part of the game, but there is no definite treatment of them for the roleplaying game. They very much deserve their own supplement. The article adds the spell, Call Shudde-M’ell, and provides guidelines for handling the Chthonian susceptibility to water.

‘The Secret Doctrine’ by Michael S. Carter is an article about Kabbalism, the Jewish esoteric mysticism which for Call of Cthulhu, played a significant role in the scenario The City Without a Name from Curse of the Chthonians. Explored in more detail elsewhere for Call of Cthulhu, the article does not delve too deeply into its subject before making an odd swerve into discussing the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and its dissolution and then back again to link Kabbalism to the Mythos by drawing parallels between the former’s Tree of Life and its circles and Yog-Sothoth of the latter. This includes the travel required by separating spirit from body and journeying onwards to make contact with god. The article avoids the subject of numerology and is thus short, direct, and to the point.

It is also the inspiration for the second scenario in Polaris Issue 1 . ‘The Acolyte Of The Ultimate Gate’ by Simon Prest is set in London, but feels a little like ‘The Vanishing Conjurer’ from The Vanishing Conjurer & The Statue of the Sorcerer and ‘The Hermetic Order of the Silver Twilight’ from Shadows of Yog-Sothoth: A Global Campaign to Save Mankind with a secret cult operating in the city about the enact a terrible ritual. The scenario opens with the Investigators staying at a friend’s house for Christmas, when one of the guests collapses to the floor, and before he dies, thrusts a letter into an investigator’s hand and utters a warning. What dread occurrence is he warning about and what was it that was keeping him working even as the other guests enjoyed the celebrations? The Investigators must overcome doctor-patient privilege to get to the nub of the situation and identify the threat, before finding a way to deal with it. Of the two scenarios in the fanzine, this needs less effort upon the part of the Keeper, the Investigators have greater freedom to explore the situation, and the tone is far more restrained and mannerly. It is thus the better of the two and much easier to add to a  United Kingdom campaign set during the eighteen nineties, nineteen twenties, or nineteen thirties.

Elsewhere in the fanzine, there is a decent piece of poetry from J. Pentalow, The Beast of Yaem’, and as with all fanzines, the adverts capture the feel of hobby at the time of their publication. As the first issue, there is very little in the way of adverts or classified adverts in Polaris Issue 1 , but there is a little dig by author Paul Mason at Games Fair for his own convention, Koancon, which points to the attitudes of the hobby at the time.

Physically, Polaris Issue 1  feels slightly rough and is slightly difficult to read in its choice of typewriter typeface, but this is really only at the beginning of readily available desktop publishing software. Yet, much of the artwork is quite reasonable and the layout is tidy.

It is disappointing that it only ran to the one issue because Polaris Issue 1 is a surprisingly good first issue. There is much that will be familiar to veterans of the Call of Cthulhu, and the various articles would have definitely useful at the time of its publication, if not today. That said, both scenarios could be run today if the Keeper wanted, and likewise, the Keeper could definitely draw inspiration from one or two of the other articles. Overall, Polaris Issue 1 is impressively solid and any Keeper would have been glad to have had this in 1987.

—oOo—
An unboxing of Polaris issue 1 can be found here.

Back in 1966/67 a Doctor Who serial aired called "The Highlanders" and it featured the Second Doctor and introduced us to the soon-to-be companion Jamie McCrimmon, played by Frazer Hines during the Battle of Culloden.

Jaime quickly became a favorite among the fans. In the late sixties, he was often voted the #1 fan favorite, and this also included "the best legs on TV."

One of those fans was author Diana Gabaldon. Who took her love of this episode and crafted her own tale about the Scottish Highlands, the Battle of Culloden, and Time Travel. One of the stars of these novels (and later) series was a Highlander named Jamie Fraser. 

Of course I am talking about the wildly successful "Outlander" novels and TV series.

I have never read the novels, but I have seen the series. It is quite fun really. The time-travel elements are only a plot device, as opposed to something central as in Doctor Who.  Frazer Hines even made a guest appearance. 

Outlander is not the only property inspired by Doctor Who, either directly or indirectly.

"DC's Legends of Tomorrow" (2016-2022) was part of the "Arrowverse" subset of DC Comics TV shows. It dealt with a group of misfit heroes, led by Rip Hunter, played by Arthur "Rory" Darvill (fresh off of Doctor Who). Now DC has always had time travel and Rip is an established character, but the Doctor Who elements here are turned way up.

Douglas Adams who was a script editor and writer for Doctor Who in the Tom Baker years gave us "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."  Not only was the book inspired by Adams, but Adams was also good friends with Lala "Romana II" Ward, and the Tenth Doctor even name-drops Adam's famous protagonist, Arthur Dent in "The Christmas Invasion."

One could argue that the Borg from Star Trek: The Next Generation are more or less Cybermen.  Comics publisher IDW makes this even clearer with their Doctor Who / Star Trek Crossovers.  It doesn't end there. For years fans speculated that Guinan, Whoopi Goldberg's character, was something akin to a Time Lord.  Same with the Travellers, which now include Wesley Crusher, and the "Supervisors" Tallinn (Star Trek Picard), and Gary Seven (Star Trek The Original Series).  Gary even has a sonic screwdriver-like device. So many in fact that this topic really deserves a post on it's own. Maybe I'll touch more on that later on.  IDW Comics also featured an "Assignment: Earth" comic and the original episode, "Assignment: Earth" which introduces Gary Seven, began with the Enterprise slingshotting to Earth in the 1960.

Bill & Ted, in their movies travels in time and space use a phone booth. You could argue that Rufus, played by George Carlin, was pretty close to a Time Lord.

The shadow of the Doctor is long. Both in their universe and ours.

All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another Dungeon Master and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will be compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. Another popular choice of system for fanzines, is Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, seen in titles such as Crawl! One notable feature of the range of fanzines for Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game is that they often support and showcase the settings and campaigns created by their authors. Crawl Under a Broken Moon, for example, details a post-apocalyptic setting which would be collated in the pages of the Goodman Games distributed The Umerican Survival Guide – Core Setting Guide, whilst Ghostlike Crime #01, One of Us, Ninja City, and Black Powder, Black Magic: A ’Zine of Six-Guns and Sorcery Volume 1 all explored familiar genres of their own for the mechanics of the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game.

Similarly, Bronx Beasts Volume 1: Games Rules supports a very familiar genre, one that has much in common with Ninja City. One of the cultural hits of the eighties was the indie comic, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and then for roleplaying, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness roleplaying game, published by Palladium Books. Bronx Beasts provides the rules to create and play bizarre mutant animal characters in wild eighties urban action, much in the mode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but written of course, for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. In fact, not so much in the mode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness, but exactly like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness. Republished via a Kickstarter campaign as part of ZineQuest #3 by Bronx Beasts, Bronx Beasts Volume 1: Games Rules provides the rules to create anthropomorphic animals and mutate and modify them, and then the rules for playing them.

Character creation in Bronx Beasts Volume 1: Games Rules is built around a series of tables. Beast Origin is random mutation or deliberate experimentation. Determined randomly, if the former, the player rolls on the Random Mutation Experience Table’, but if the latter, he rolls on the ‘Deliberate Experimentation Origin Table’. The results for this are further tables for ‘Biological Research Origin Experience’, ‘Military Origin Experience’, ‘Criminal Origin Experience’, or ‘Special Interest Origin Experience’. None of these add stat bonuses or other benefits, instead simply creating elements of the Player Character’s background. The ‘Beast Type’ table provides a hundred entries, from aardvark, alligator, and ape to wolf, wolverine, and zebra. None are described, so the player will need to do some further reading, but in the main, these animals are all familiar and easy to read up about. ‘Beast Size’ does modify the character, adjusting Armour Class, Strength and melee check die, Hide and Sneak die, Hit Dice, Movement, and weight. Bigger creatures will have lower Armour Class and Hide and Sneak die, but everything else will be higher.

The player is then free to adjust the ‘Beast Form’ of his animal character, shifting his speech, legs, hands, and looks to be more human-like or more animal-like. Either full, partial, or none, these are randomly determined and adjusted by expending Evolution Points. These can also be spent to change a Beast’s size, for example, to play a larger mouse or smaller elephant, add abilities such as a prehensile tail, natural weapons or natural armour, and better movement. These are not hard and fast rules, so instead the player and Judge will need to work together to create Beast-type character that fits the style and setting of the genre. Otherwise, character creation follows the standard rules for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, although Bronx Beasts Volume 1: Games Rules does have its own ‘Lucky Signs’ table.

Bronx Beasts Volume 1: Games Rules does not provide any new Classes. In fact, a Beast has no Class, and instead, a player can choose between increasing his character’s Base Attack Modifier or Saving Throws Level by Level. In terms of game play, Beasts are Lucky. They always have a bonus on the Lucky Sign and they both benefit and suffer from Fleeting Luck. One way of gaining Fleeting Luck is for the Beast to give into his animalistic urges, typically in socially or intellectually challenging situations. If the player declines the offer of Fleeting Luck in return for his Beast succumbing to his urges, a Beast Check against Personality or Intelligence is required to overcome them. A Player can also do ‘Fur Burn’ or temporarily burn points of Personality or Intelligence to gain a modifier to die rolls. The last big change is to the rules for Armour Class, which is based on Reflex, Beast Size, and any shield carried. Armour is represented by a die and is instead rolled to soak damage. The armour worn is damaged and steps down a die size any time a one is rolled on the Armour Die. The rules for armour use are similar to those for The Umerican Survival Guide – Core Setting Guide, but not as developed.

Bronx Beasts Volume 1: Games Rules ends with an announcement of what is in the next issue. This includes an adventure against a criminal ninja gang and ‘Natural Weapon Crit Tables’ amongst other things. It would have been useful to have had the latter in the pages of Bronx Beasts Volume 1: Games Rules to make it more versatile.

Physically, Bronx Beasts Volume 1: Games Rules is well presented. The artwork has a certain rough quality, but is as cartoonish as you would expect.

As standalone product Bronx Beasts Volume 1: Games Rules can be played as is, but it feels incomplete. Certainly, the ‘Natural Weapon Crit Tables’ would have rounded it out. However, plug the pages of Bronx Beasts Volume 1: Games Rules into another setting or genre and the content comes alive. Take it into the post apocalypse of The Umerican Survival Guide – Core Setting Guide for possible mutant action or throw it down alongside Ninja City for some real new York eighties action, and Bronx Beasts Volume 1: Games Rules feels right at home.

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another Dungeon Master and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will be compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. Not every fanzine is written with the Old School Renaissance in mind, with more recent fanzines being inspired by roleplaying games that, if not part of the Old School Renaissance, are often adjacent to it. One such roleplaying game is CY_BORG, a cyberpunk purgatory that is modelled upon Mörk Borg, the Swedish pre-apocalypse Old School Renaissance retroclone designed by Ockult Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell and published by Free League Publishing.

CY_OPS Issue.One has the distinction of being the first issue of the first fanzine for CY_BORG. Published by LETTUCE following a successful Kickstarter campaign, it also has the distinction of being one of the smallest fanzines, being only A6 in size. Then, at least in its physical format, it has the distinction of coming with its own cloth patches and its sticker, which is designed to be used to fill in the picture of the empty vest (or possibly body armour) found in ‘PATCHES!’ on pages fifty-seven and fifty-eight of the fanzine and then submitted to the editor to not win a prize. Which one of the three distinctions is actually important, if any of them are, is up to the reader to decide. What is important is that CY_OPS Issue.One provides a lot of support and content for CY_BORG and CY_BORG being a Cyberpunk roleplaying game, a lot of that support is technical in nature. Essentially guns and gear. There is more than that in the pages of the fanzine, but nevertheless, a great deal of it consists of guns and gear. Surprisingly, given that its genre is Cyberpunk and it contains a lot of guns and gear, there are no stats in CY_OPS Issue.One. This lack of stats is also intentional. CY_OPS Issue.One is designed to be player facing, meaning that it can be read by both the player and his character and is thus an in-world artefact in its own right. And doing something as low grade as a physical print fanzine would be both punk and low fi, even anti-corporate if you will.

However, the player-facing nature and the lack of stats in CY_OPS Issue.One raises issues of their own. The lack of stats means that the fanzine is all front and no backend. There is nothing for the Game Master to use readily and easily. So the Game Master will need to supply them. Fortunately, the mechanical simplicity of CY_BORG means that this is relatively simple. The downside to the fact that CY_OPS Issue.One is player-facing means that the fanzine is not necessarily a sourcebook for the roleplaying game that the Game Master can simply take something from and add to her game, ready for her players and their characters to encounter and interact with. Instead much of the fanzine works as a series of prompts that the players can choose from and have their characters go and do something with, whether that is undertake a job, make a purchase, or visit. Which the Game Master will respond to, meaning that CY_OPS Issue.One is an improvisation tool as much as it is a fanzine.

Yet the first article in the fanzine very cleverly helps the Game Master out no matter whether she has a copy in print or PDF. The ‘Classified’ section provides a set of adverts that suggest jobs the Player Characters can get involved in. On one level, the Game Master could go away and create her own, but each classified advert is linked to a published adventure, by a QR code in the printed fanzine and a hyperlink in the PDF. For example, “Alert. Reward available for any information on missing C.A.U Board members. Rogue crazed experiment on the loose. Ignore its lies.” links to the scenario, Cybergorgon. This is clever and subtle and nicely done, serving not only as a series of in-game adverts, but adverts for other authors’ adventures.

Only the first article in the fanzine makes use of this device. Elsewhere, ‘BREAKING INTO A CREDITS TELLER MACHINE’ is a guide to robbing every cash dispenser in the city and ensuring the Player Characters have a ready supply of petty cash until some corpo notices and puts in a fix, whilst ‘Know Your Enemy – Rehabilitation Frame’ describes a ghastly piece of ‘police brutality technology’, a prisoner mounted in a remote controlled drone forced to conduct pacification duties and who cannot be freed without setting off the tamper sensors and crushing the captive. Gear comes in a range of forms. The first is in ‘AD BY UNINF3CT3D_R4P3RD0C_666’, who is selling anti-nanite devices, such as the ‘TL.5HAd3s.rcd’ eye mod which visualises nanoswarms and ‘SCREECH_E-Z’ which encrypts your audio and text outputs against nanite detection. There are services too, the best of which is ‘BOTS.4.HIRE’, which offers bots for hire, the payment being a portion of any job undertaken, though a deposit is required if there is the possibility of the bot being damaged. Several sample bots are detailed and nicely illustrated. ‘Bounties’ provide a wide range of targets for the Player Characters to take down, for example, ‘DOLLY _XD’, a pleasure cydroid gone rogue, whilst ‘NuRelics’ describes items and things which the Player Characters could find, retrieve, or steal, such as ‘0x2020’, a master timepiece whose hands stopped at the moment of thermonuclear impact. Doubtless, there are collectors willing to pay to have them. ‘Tech Request’ gets inventively weird with its devices and weapons. For example, the ‘Head_Cannon’, unnervingly, really does shoot heads at targets, whilst the massive ‘Dreihander’ is a sword so big it has to be supported by a mechanical arm all of its own grafted onto the wielder!

Longer pieces such as ‘[Dispatch from an Abandoned Terminal]’ suggest a hacker at work, using a combination of social hacking and subtle hacking to free the bonds of A.I.; ‘Cold Storage Club’ a venue to frequent and an event, a battle of the bands to get involved in—whether as participants, support, or protection; and ‘Rumours About STNGR’ takes the reader into the underground world of street races to talk about “The Queen of the Streets”, known for her electronic eye-scrambling vehicle and her rumoured generosity as well as her determination to win every race. Their length means they are not quite as easy to bring into play. Lastly, ‘Cydonia Hanging Gardens’ describes a hanging footbridge which has been taken over and turned into a venue of sorts, which seems to be a mycobotanist’s dream gone wild, a sterilised, air gapped bar where lichen and other plant life is allowed to grow unfettered and free of the contaminants rife in the rest of the city. The question is, is it just a bar or is there something going on there? And just what are the staff growing and why?

Physically, CY_OPS Issue.One is presented in the Doom Punk style of both CY_BORG and Mörk Borg, though leaning more heavily into the punk style of the former. Consequently, it has a very busy, frazzled and fractured style, though it is not quite as artful as the core rulebook and is thus easier to read.

Ultimately, the contents of CY_OPS Issue.One do need a bit of effort upon the part of the Game Master to bring into play. Some, like the ‘Classified’ section and their linked scenarios are much easier to use than others, but there still is a wide range of content to pick and choose from. This though, is all for the players and their characters to pick and choose from, and for the group wanting more player facing, player driven play, CY_OPS Issue.One is a solid option.

On the tail of Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another Dungeon Master and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. Some fanzines though are not written for a specific roleplaying game or roleplaying games, but are instead about roleplaying and the hobby.

Love Letters from the Baker House Band is not a fanzine about one author’s campaign or his thought upon gaming, but instead a collaborative project put together by the various members of a long running gaming group hosted by the games designers, Vincent and Meguey Baker. Funded via Kickstarter as part of Zine Quest #2, its content includes art, reviews, and game design firmly placed in the Indie style or storytelling style of roleplaying, which should be no surprise given that Vincent Baker is the designer of Apocalypse World, the 2010 roleplaying game whose Powered by the Apocalypse mechanics have been adapted to numerous roleplaying games such as Matrons of Mystery and Cartel: Mexican Narcofiction Powered by the Apocalypse to drive strong storytelling. However, there is relatively little that is specifically for Powered by the Apocalypse roleplaying games in the pages of the fanzine, and what there is, is easily adapted to the roleplaying game of the reader’s choice.

Love Letters from the Baker House Band opens with Roxanne Gariepy’s tribute to the group, ‘Love Makes a Family’, depicting a group of misfits—the characters if not necessarily, but probably as much, their players—who come together (to play) and are bound by love. Including a bird and a sentient ‘pile of laundry’ and nicely illustrated, this captures the feel of a gaming group sharing experiences and coming together as a family and hints what it is like being a member of the Baker House Band. The gaming group’s influence is also seen in Evan Janssen’s ‘How Gaming at the Bakers’ Helped Me Design Better Video Games’, which recounts how his experience playing and running roleplaying games influenced and changed how he designs video games. Of course, roleplaying and Dungeons & Dragons have been a strong influence upon video games and especially video roleplaying games, but here the author uses the languages and the tools used by a Game Master to improve how he designs video games. The parallels between the two are fascinating and highlight how the skills used in gaming can be useful beyond its confines.

The first gaming content in the fanzine is ‘Barbara’s Book Club & Motorcycle Gang’ by Alix Janssen. This is both a book club and hardcore motorcycle gang of tough women in crisp print dresses, headscarves, heels, and big motorcycles who read and ride. Armed with their rides, their books, their big handbags containing all manner of useful items, the ladies ride the apocalypse bringing manners and a helpful attitude wherever they go. Obviously written for use with Apocalypse World, but pointers and tags rather than stats, this gang would fit into most post-apocalyptic settings, but also a great many other settings if the Game Master wants a memorable set of eccentric old biddies. ‘Tales of Timberwind’ by Elliot Baker and Tovey Baker introduces an anthropomorphic cosy woodland setting in the style of Mouse Guard or Root: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game, which sounds intriguing, but leaves the reader wanting more. However, to learn more, the reader will need to sign up for the family’s Patreon.

Tovey Baker’s other contribution to Love Letters from the Baker House Band is ‘Hvanrost City’. This is a setting for Blades in the Dark, the roleplaying game crime and gang activity set in a Dickensian industrial city. Notably, this city is powered by pipes filled with electric eels or leeches, but it is also ghost haunted and surrounded by a toxic mist which rolls off the sea and changes creatures into giant mindless animals. There is plenty to work with here for the Game Master to use the city for his own campaign.

The highlight and the bulk of Love Letters from the Baker House Band consists of Meguey Baker’s ‘Baker House LARP’. Each year, as a teacher, she has hosted a LARP for her teenage students over a five-day period. This is full of advice on how to set up, run, adjudicate, and get the most out of such event, along with advice and commentary based on her experiences. There is a great deal to work through here and perhaps could have been better presented—likely as a separate guide for other educators—but it is fascinating to how this is done. For most readers, this will be an interesting article rather than a useful one, but for the teacher, or someone with a similar role, looking to host something along the same lines, this is to be recommended.

‘The Care and Keeping of Waifs, Strays, and Castaways – A Practical Guide’ by Adin Klotz is a set of pointers and warnings that works as a narrative too, whilst Micah’s ‘Legend of Mandoom’s Leg’ is a short, four-page comic which hilariously turns a Dirty Harry style confrontation aboard a school bus on its head with an ‘Unnatural Lust Transfixion’ Powered by the Apocalypse-style move. It is funny and weird, but captures that moment a desperate dice roll can send a situation in a completely different direction with an unexpected move. ‘PBTA reviews from the BHB’ by Josh Savoie reviews six Powered by the Apocalypse roleplaying games including Dungeon World and Masks: A New generation, and is a good overview of some of the best of the very many roleplaying games available using its mechanics.

Josh Savoie also provides the Powered by the Apocalypse move, ‘Last Breath’. It is made when a Player Character is reduced to zero Hit points and has the opportunity to utter his last words. It begins by asking the other players round the table a number of questions, the bonus to the roll being determined by their answers. The Player Character is going to die, but this gives him one last action, whether glorious or helpful. It is pleasingly dramatic. ‘Shadow Magic’ by Annika Sturmer is more straightforward and designed for long term play, providing a means of teleportation or travel via the shadows, though it is not without its perils. Failure gives the result, “You bring something with you or leave something behind that you did not intend.”, which is again a dramatically great result. This move would work in a number of genres, whether fantasy, superheroes, or urban fantasy. It would be good to see this developed into a suite of moves rather than just the one here.

Love Letters from the Baker House Band comes to a close just as it started with tribute. Again, this is to the family and the gaming group as a family. Sebastian’s ‘D&D Day’ captures the feel and joy of play in an all-day session which runs to midnight. It is a lovely memory, which perhaps wistfully, as adults we miss a great deal.

Physically, Love Letters from the Baker House Band is a lovely fanzine. It needs an edit here or there, but is decently presented.

Love Letters from the Baker House Band is a snapshot of a gaming group and the pleasure its members take in gaming together and being in each other’s company. There are useful things to be found in its pages, especially for educator wanting to host a LARP for his students, but those are not necessarily what this fanzine is about. As a fanzine, Love Letters from the Baker House Band achieves a rare sense of warmth and feeling that radiates from the title on the cover to the very last page—and that is what sets it apart.

On the tail of Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another Dungeon Master and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. Another popular choice of system for fanzines, is Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, such as Crawl! and Crawling Under a Broken Moon. Some of these fanzines provide fantasy support for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, but others explore other genres for use with Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. One such fanzine is the aforementioned Crawling Under A Broken Moon.

Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 1 was published in in June, 2014 by Shield of Faith Studios. It introduced the post-apocalyptic setting of Umerica and Urth, which would go on to be presented in more detail in The Umerican Survival Guide – Core Setting Guide, now distributed by Goodman Games. This provides the setting’s first details of a world brought about after a rogue object from deep space passed between the Earth and the Moon and ripped apart time and space, leaving behind a planet which would recover and it inhabitants ruled by savagery, cruel sorcery, and twisted science. ‘Welcome to Umerica’ introduces the setting and the ideas behind it properly, exploring its themes—the world is fragmented and strange, very little is new, and advanced science is as rare and as frightening as powerful sorcery, and presents the setting’s first table. This is ‘Table DDD: Found Item Condition Table’, which enforces the idea that very little is new. Then it quickly leaps into the first of the setting’s character Classes. This is the Technologist, which is good at Tinkering, including with weapons, robots, computers, and other devices. He gains different bonuses for tinkering with each depending upon his Alignment. For example, the Class has better bonuses for Weapon Tinkering rather than Computer Use, Vehicle Repair, or General Tech. The Class also receives a ‘Use Alien Tech’ Die which works similar to that of the Action Die in Dungeon Crawl Classics, and again, this varies according to the Player Character’s Alignment. The Technologist Class is rounded out with a set of tables to roll on whenever a Tinkering check is fumbled.

Part-engineer/part-repairman/part-scientist, the Technologist is a really good Class. It gives the Player Character a great deal to do and the player lots of ways in which to interact with an aspect of the setting. In general, Player Characters in the setting know what technology is, and even if not everyone knows how any one item actually works, they often have an idea of how it is operated. The Technologist takes this a step further and embraces it fully.

‘Weapons of the Wastelands’ draws from articles previously presented in Crawl! No. 8: Firearms! to provide rules for their use in the Umerica setting. It breaks guns down into four eras—primitive, Western-era, Modern-era, and Futuristic—and provides rules for gunsmithing for each era as well as a table of weapons in the game. Like much of the rest of Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 1, these will work in most Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game settings.

The ’Twisted Menagerie’ is a short bestiary of creatures and species for the setting and has four entries. The Sharkhana are descendants of humanoid shock troops engineered by an alien race and since abandoned after their creators were wiped out by a virus. They now live a nomadic existence, driven by hunger rather than anything else. So, their reaction to anyone else will depend upon whether or not they have fed lately! The ‘Debris Elemental, Lesser and Greater’ is a Trash Titan, comprised entirely of rubble and rubbish, which can be several storeys tall and stalk the ruined cities of Umerica hunting the living. They have slightly different abilities depending what rubbish they are made of. For example, if rubbery, they have extra reach for their melee attacks, whilst if wrapped in wire, can lash out with it. Sentrybots can be programmed for different purposes, such as pest control or crime patrol. The most fun use is as a programmed bodyguard, the Sentrybot attaching itself to a random Human and protecting that person at all costs, but refusing to take orders. Imagine the fun the Judge can have with this? The last monster is the Lobstrosity, an alien crustacean which eats processed wood (which is one way to get rid of MDF!) and is difficult to stop given its size. However, if one of them can be killed, its meat can be turned into a stew that grants a special ability, which depends upon the colour of the Lobstrosity. For example, a Lobstrosity with a black carapace can spray acid, but a stew made from its meat is the equivalent to imbibing a potion of Giant Strength. All but the three of the four entries in this section are relatively easy to use and introduce to a post-apocalyptic setting, lending themselves readily to Player Character involvement. The Sharkhana are suitable for a post-apocalyptic setting, but the Judge will need to work harder to bring them into play.

Lastly, ‘Interesting Places To Die’ presents locations for the Player Characters to explore. Here there is just the one, ‘Blooms Fashions: a store with clothes to die for’. It describes a fashion store where the mannequins are actually undead underneath the plastic of their bodies, or rather ‘Mannekills’ created by a necromancer operating out of the shopping mall. It is a fun, dark little encounter which is easily added to the campaign and further developed by the Judge.

Physically, Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 1 is serviceably presented. It is a little rough around the edges, but overall, it is a decent affair.

The problem with Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 1 is that much of its contents have been represented to a more professional standard in the pages of The Umerican Survival Guide – Core Setting Guide, so it has been superseded. There are several ways in which the Umerica setting can be explored and the fanzine on an individual and thus piecemeal basis is probably not the best. However, this is where the setting has its origins and from here future issues whose content has not been included in the pages of The Umerican Survival Guide – Core Setting Guide can be looked at—and often looked at in more detail than can be done in a review of that book. Nevertheless, Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 1 is a tentative, yet promising beginning to the author’s exploration of Umerica.