Now in its fifteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2022, was celebrated not once, but twice. First on Saturday, 25th June in the USA, and then on Saturday, 23rd July internationally. This was to prevent problem with past events when certain books did not arrive in time to be shipped internationally and so were not available outside of the USA. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Thanks to the generosity of David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3, Reviews from R’lyeh was get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day, both in the USA and elsewhere.

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Epic Encounters: Bridge of the Duergar Cult is a scenario part of the Epic Encounters series. Published by Steamforged Games for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, the Epic Encounters line is a series of boxed adventure sets which include a scenario and both floor plans and miniatures for use with the scenario. Steamforged Games divides its Epic Encounters series in three Tiers of Play—Lower, Middle, and Higher—which determine the standard Difficulty Check value that a Player Characters has to roll and Damage Level (or die type) suffered by a Player Character throughout the scenario. For Bridge of the Duergar Cult, there is no set Tier of Play, which means the scenario can be easily adjusted to suit the Level of the Player Characters. However, the high Challenge Rating of the end of level boss makes the scenario unsuitable for the lower Tier of Play. In addition, the scenario includes numerous motivations for the Duergar to explain their actions and hooks for the Player Characters to get involved. This immediately gives Epic Encounters: Bridge of the Duergar Cult a pleasing flexibility when it comes to the Dungeon Master adding it to her campaign.
Epic Encounters: Bridge of the Duergar Cult reveals that the stone-willed and brutally logical and darkly cruel Duergar have plan to extend their domination of the Underways and give their hatred of the surface world a physical reality. Under the leadership of the Duergar king, Roarie mac Nessa, they want to raise an ancient and terrible demon from the Abyss and then have it lead them into war across the Underworld and beyond… The ritual will be performed in the Temple of Medb, dedicated to the first ruler of the Duergar. Yet before anyone can enter the temple and prevent the ritual before it can be completed, they must cross the great Bridge of Cathbad, the formidable piece of engineering that is the last bastion of defence before the temple doors. Epic Encounters: Bridge of the Duergar Cult focuses upon these two locations—the Bridge of Cathbad and the Temple of Medb—and their defenders and their defences. Both are suspended over the abyss and require full on assaults by the Player Characters.
The Duergar are stalwart defenders. First, the Player Characters will need to overcome a phalanx of Duergar soldiers supported by archers; make their way across a bridge which shifts under their feet, its iron tiles trapping their ankles and impeding their progress; and the while being sniped at by Duergar Mages. The Player Characters will find that the environment favours the Duergar—stone giving them strength, knowledge of the defences an Armour Class bonus, and the magic that has seeped into the stone granting the Deep Dwarves Mages a definitive advantage. That is the least of the defences—at least on the bridge. Once in the Temple of Medb, the Player Characters are beset by a great gale which threatens to gust them over the edge and into the Abyss; by fire, blood, bile, and even gold, which jets out of the broken network of pipes which just from the temple walls; and by Duergar berserkers willing to throw themselves at the Player Characters, and then both themselves and the Player Characters into the Abyss to defend the temple to their great mistress. Throughout all of this chaos and battle sits Roarie mac Nessa, waiting, watching, and preparing to face those who would stop his plans. He himself has a Challenge Rating of eight, and is likely too tough an opponent for the lower Tier of Play.
Physically, Epic Encounters: Bridge of the Duergar Cult is cleanly and tidily presented. The artwork is excellent and the layout of the various NPCs and monsters easy to use. The two maps—one each for the Bridge of Cathbad and the Temple of Medb—are dark, if clear. These are slightly small for use with miniatures, but do look great. One problem with both maps is that neither is numbered. So, it is not obvious where particular locations are, which makes them a little difficult to use for the Dungeon Master.
Epic Encounters: Bridge of the Duergar Cult lives up to its title of being a genuinely ‘epic’ encounter. Its two great battles will challenge any group of Player Characters, though perhaps the rewards for all of that effort may be disappointing for some playing groups. Epic Encounters: Bridge of the Duergar Cult is a really good addition to any Dungeons & Dragons campaign set in the Underworld. If the Player Characters have been actively campaigning against the Duergar, then it can work as the culmination of the campaign, otherwise it can be slipped into the campaign as an epic sidequest. 

Now in its fifteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2022, was celebrated not once, but twice. First on Saturday, 25th June in the USA, and then on Saturday, 23rd July internationally. This was to prevent problem with past events when certain books did not arrive in time to be shipped internationally and so were not available outside of the USA. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Thanks to the generosity of David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3, Reviews from R’lyeh was get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day, both in the USA and elsewhere.

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Goodman Games provided two titles to support Free RPG 2022, one of which was more highly anticipated than the other. As you would expect, the highly anticipated titles was Danger in the Air, an adventure for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. Yet as highly anticipated as Danger in the Air was, the other release should not be dismissed out of hand. The other release asks the question, “What do adventurers do between adventures?” Well, in the case of The Three-Wizard Conundrum, they get themselves involved in more adventures, of course! As the scenario opens, the party of brave adventurers is unwinding in a tavern, when they receive word that not one, not two, but three mighty wizards are in town, each looking for a band of capable adventurers to retrieve a fabled Ring of Wizardry. In return, they will pay a decent reward and let the Player Characters take whatever other treasure they recover. However, the task must involve great peril, for otherwise the wizards would have already found and obtained the ring for themselves.
The Three-Wizard Conundrum is an adventure for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition designed to be played by a party of Third and Fourth Level Player Characters. It is delightfully simple affair, really divided between the nicely detailed descriptions of the three scenario’s antagonists—Humboldt of Hightower, Dunbar the Arcane, and Rialto the Resplendent—and the three area dungeon that they send the protagonists to. All three wizards will approach the Player Characters and make them an offer if they will climb Cleft Mountain and once near its summit, descend into the depths of a deep gorge, the result of a great divine battle in ages past which has left magic reliable in the area. Hence their reluctance to descend into their depths themselves. This is reflected by the ‘Wild Magic Effects’ table which is rolled upon any time that a Player Character attempts to cast a spell and fails.
The Player Characters have the chance to check up on the three wizards and may learn a secret or two about the wizards before they climb the mountain and descend into its depths. There is more going on than meets the eye—though not much more given the length of the scenario—and ultimately, if the Player Characters survive they will have made an enemy or two, or three, or more. However, they are unlikely to have grabbed much in the way of treasure and extremely unlikely to have been paid, and for a very good reason. The whole situation is a scam, a fairly dark scam, which will keep both Dungeon Master and her players and their characters on their toes. The other reason that the lack of treasure is unlikely to be a bother is that The Three-Wizard Conundrum is an in-between adventure, a side trek affair, which slots very easily into any campaign.
Physically, The Three-Wizard Conundrum is superbly presented. The cover is excellent and internal artwork good. It does a careful read through to quite grasp what is going on, but the scenario is well written.
The Three-Wizard Conundrum is a really fun little adventure which should provide one or two sessions’ worth of play when the Dungeon Master slots it into her campaign. Although not specifically written for it, the scenario has all of the knavery and insouciance of Jack Vance’s The Dying Earth series of stories, which of course, Goodman Games is publishing as an adaptation of for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. Overall, The Three-Wizard Problem is a delightful in-between adventure which would slots into any Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition campaign or can be adapted to The Dying Earth Sourcebook for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. In the meantime, can we have more scams from Humboldt of Hightower, Dunbar the Arcane, and Rialto the Resplendent please?

Now in its fifteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2022, was celebrated not once, but twice. First on Saturday, 25th June in the USA, and then on Saturday, 23rd July internationally. This was to prevent problem with past events when certain books did not arrive in time to be shipped internationally and so were not available outside of the USA. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Thanks to the generosity of David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3, Reviews from R’lyeh was get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day, both in the USA and elsewhere.

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One of the perennial contributors to Free RPG Day is Paizo, Inc., a publisher whose titles for both the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and the Starfinder Roleplaying Game have proved popular and often in demand long after the event. For Free RPG Day 2022, the publisher again provides a title for each of these two roleplaying games, A Fistful of Flowers for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, Second Edition, the other being Skitter Warp for the Starfinder Roleplaying Game. As in past years, this is an adventure involving four of the cheerfully manic, gleefully helpful, vibrantly coloured, six-armed and furry creatures known as Skittermanders—Dakoyo, Gazigaz, Nako, and Quonx. They were introduced in the Free RPG Day adventure for 2018, Starfinder: Skitter Shot, in which as the crew of the starship Clutch performed salvage tasks in the Vast beyond the Pact Worlds and then came across a derelict luxury liner, before being boarded by pirates and forced to crash land on a nearby world and survive as detailed in the Free RPG Day adventure for 2019, Starfinder: Skitter Crash. The foursome returned for Free RPG Day 2020 in Starfinder: Skitter Home—not to have adventures, but to have fun!
Starfinder: Skitter Warp is designed to be played by four Player Characters of Fifth Level. In addition to the core rules, the supplements Starfinder Alien Archive 2 and Starfinder Drift Crisis will be useful in running the adventure, but neither are required. The scenario returns to the planet Varkulon 4, the setting for Starfinder: Skitter Crash. In that scenario, a confrontation with a pirate ship combined with a strange natural phenomenon—now identified as the annual cosmic event known as a Drift cyclone—forced both ships to crash. The Player Characters must fight off the surviving pirates, repair their own ship, and make friends with the members of a scientific outpost, the Helix Lyceum, staffed by the slug-like Osharus. As a result of their efforts, the Player Characters acquired the salvage rights to the interesting debris which the Drift cyclone deposits on Varkulon 4. As Starfinder: Skitter Warp opens, the quartet of Skittermanders have returned to the world to collect more salvage—and once again, they are affected by a Drift cyclone.
The Drift cyclone is an annual cosmic event which occurs where the barrier between the Material Plane and Drift is thin. Varkulon 4 regularly passes through this region and so the crew of the Clutch is used to navigating its way around the phenomenon, but this year the ship is caught up in a miasma of planar energy which wreaks damage on the ship and as desperate message from the scientific outpost warns, on the planet below. Starfinder: Skitter Crash is primarily set up as a series of tasks built around events. So first, the Player Characters must repair their ship—which involves multiple tasks, such as using the Computer skill to plot the fastest route out of the miasma or the Athletics to rush to the engineering deck to heft power cables through access ports to reach power junctions—and then fending off an undead spaceship! Once the Player Characters reach the Helix Lyceum, they discover what is going on Varkulon 4—the planar energy unleashed by the Drift cyclone has transformed both planet and its inhabitants. The latter have transformed into either the best or the worst versions of themselves, so the majority of the scientists and inhabitants of the Helix Lyceum have become angelic and good, but those outside the scientific outpost have become demonic and evil, which includes friends of the Player Characters. Not only that, but the demonically transformed are now hellbent on smashing the Helix Lyceum and its inhabitants!
In the second half of the scenario, the Player Characters must defend the Helix Lyceum, including guiding civilians to safety, constructing defences, and holding off an attack by planar energy-transformed demons. These tasks can be done in any order, but get increasing difficult no matter which order they are dealt with. In addition, they are designed so that they have to be done with all four Player Characters rather than them splitting up and dealing with the tasks separately. This feels forced and some advice to handle what happens if the players decide their characters split up to deal with these tasks, would have been useful. Perhaps having the Player Characters realise that they cannot face a situation alone and they come to the rescue of each other? Once the Helix Lyceum is safe, the Player Characters can go out and track down their friends and hopefully save them and deal with the cause of the demonic outbreak which is attacking the Helix Lyceum.
Starfinder Skitter Warp is short and linear, no surprise given the format for Free RPG Day and the fact that it is intended as a demonstration adventure. Ideally, it should provide a session or two’s worth of entertaining play. Where the scenario differs from the previous scenarios involving the Skittermanders, is in the quartet of pre-generated characters provided for the players to roleplay. In the previous entries in the series, the four Player Characters are the Skittermanders—Dakoyo, Gazigaz, Nako, and Quonx. In Starfinder Skitter Warp, three of the Player Characters are Skittermanders. These are Dakoyo, Gazigaz, and Quonx. They are joined by Nakonechkin Ginnady, the male Vesk who is the others’ boss. It is great to see him play, his presence having been felt in the previous scenarios. However, this leaves the problem of what has happened to the fourth Skittermander, Nako. In the previous titles in the serious, he has always been a Player Character, but in Starfinder: Skitter Warp, he is shifted from being a Player Characters to NPC and discovering what happened to him is part of the scenario’s plot. Yet what if a player has roleplayed through the previous scenarios as Nako and wants to play him again? The obvious choice is to make Nakonechkin Ginnady the NPC, but Starfinder: Skitter Warp does not explore this option.
Physically, as with previous entries in the series, Starfinder: Skitter Warp is very nicely laid out and presented. The artwork is excellent, the writing clear, and the maps—placed inside the front cover—easy to use, if a little small. All exactly as you would expect for a scenario from Paizo, Inc.
If a group has played Starfinder: Skitter Shot, Starfinder: Skitter Crash, and Starfinder: Skitter Home before it, then doubtless they will be pleased to return to playing the humorous, if not silly, Skittermanders with Starfinder: Skitter Warp. Players new to Starfinder and the Skitterfinders may find the rules of the Starfinder Roleplaying Game slightly more complex than they expect and they certainly will not have the same sense of attachment to the Skittermander quartet as someone who has played the previous entries in the series. Even someone who played the previous scenarios may feel a sense of disconnect with the normally Player Character Nako being made an NPC.
Starfinder: Skitter Warp is a simple, straightforward scenario with a sense of both energy and urgency. Engagingly presented as you would expect for a title from Paizo, Inc. Starfinder: Skitter Warp is too deep into the story of the Skittermanders to quite work as an introduction to the Starfinder Roleplaying Game and ultimately, it is fans of both that will enjoy this scenario the most.

Hmm.  These questions can sometimes be a little cringe. BUT I am going to take it at face value.

I rather like my Ordinary World setting for NIGHT SHIFT.  The supernatural is real, but it largely wants to be left alone.  I just kinda like the idea that vampires work the morgue night shifts, werewolves are postal carriers, and the scary old lady down the street really is a witch.

Who knows. It might be fun!

Something a little different today, although I am not moving on from Pathfinder just yet. Today I want to explore the amazing reference that is the Echelon Reference Series from Keith Davies.  There are a bunch of these, but I am going to focus my attention on the witch.

As always I will be following my rules for these reviews.

Echelon Reference Series: Witch Spells Compiled (3pp+PRD)

2 PDFs. $33.99. 186 pages (PF) and 544 pages (3PP).

Yes. 730 pages total. This compiled collection covers both spells from various Pathfinder products and the 3rd Party Pathfinder products.  There is no fluff. Very little art.  Here is how each book breaks down.  There is a cover page, and OGL statement of Open Content page, a table of contents, and two pages on what this book is.  For the Pathfinder book there is three pages of OGL. For the 3rd Party book there are seven pages for the OGL. There is a hyperlinked index for both and hyperlinked table of contents.

The rest is solid text of spells.

And by spells. I mean every single witch spell ever published by the date of this book.  The 3rd Party book for example has nearly 30 pages of cantrips, 50 pages of 1st level spells, 60 2nd level spells and so on. 

The spells are given an editorial clean-up so that they all look similar and can flow well. 

What these books lack (and were never trying to cover) is all the fluff or explanatory pieces that might go with the background of a spell.  For example "Air Bubble" mentions a firearm can be loaded within an Air Bubble, but makes no attempt to explain anything more.  This is perfectly within the scope of this product.

The number of spells break down as follows:

Witch 3pp
Cantrips: 123
1st level: 200
2nd level: 251
3rd level: 221
4th level: 188
5th level: 163
6th level: 142
7th level: 131
8th level: 122
9th level: 109
Total 1,650

Witch Prd
Cantrips: 15
1st level: 83
2nd level: 107
3rd level: 88
4th level: 70
5th level: 51
6th level: 39
7th level: 40
8th level: 28
9th level: 22
Total 543

That's insane really. 

He also has these per level and for every spell casting class in Pathfinder.

You might ask if you buy this does that get rid of the need to buy other Pathfinder spell books? I say no since there is nothing here but the spells.  Other products often have the spells, explanatory notes, monsters, feats, and items that might go with them.  These books are a fancy SRDs. Highly organized and very useful ones at that.

If you are like me this is a treasure trove.

When did I start Game Mastering?  Right away to be honest.

It would have been with the D&D Basic Set edited by Tom Moldvay. I am sure I ran my younger brother and sister through some adventures.  I know I had made my own dungeons then and still have a couple of the maps. One, in particular, had a red dragon in one room and a green dragon in another.  No idea how they got through the doors.

I would like to think I got better.

Going back to some Pathfinder tonight. I can't help it there is a lot of great Pathfinder content out there. 

As always I will be following my rules for these reviews.

Character Options: Witches

PDF. $1.49. 7 pages. 1 page cover.  ½page OGL. 5½ pages of content.

This PDF gives us what I consider the "usual bag" of options for the Pathfinder Witch class. NOTE that is not a slight on this book or even a bad thing.  It is very, very often exactly what people want.

There are 10 new Patrons with their bonus spells. There are 10 new hexes as well.

There are three (3) new archetypes as well. These include the Devoted Witch (I might call this a Divine Witch or Witch Priestess), Green Witch (largely the same as mine in feel), and the Storyteller Witch which is a lot of fun.  It is closest to my "Good Walker" witch.

So for just under $1.50 you can get all of this. Not at all bad really. If you need some new witch options then this is a good choice.

I took advantage of the latest Christmas in July Sales at DriveThruRPG to get myself some Print on Demand deals.

I wanted a new Dragonlance hardcover to replace the one my son absconded with when he was little. I have also been wanting copies of City System and A Paladin in Hell for a while now.  Cult of the Dragon and Minsc and Boo's Journal of Villainy are gifts for the aforementioned son.

While that was getting printed and shipped to me my youngest was 3D printing my Sagarassi minis.  

They are a little hard to see, here is a close-up.

Yeah, still a little hard. Here is what they will look like painted.

I am pleased with how the prints turned out.

Ok. This one is up for some debate.

D&D and its variants of the time were all my "First" RPG.  I played them like they were all one game.  

My Second RPG?

That one was a bit fuzzier.  I know where I bought it though. It was from the Mail Order Hobby shop.  I know this because I am sure I bought them both at the same time because they were not available at my local book store.

It was either Chill or Traveller.  

For my "street cred" I will say Chill, but in my gut, I think it was Traveller. I do know that I did not get a chance to play either of them until much later in life. 

I still rather enjoy both games.

We are back to Pathfinder today, but honestly, with a name like this how can I possibly say no? 

Incantations from the Other Side: Spirit Magic

PDF. $9.99. 38 pages. 1-page cover. 1 credits page. 1-page table of contents. 1 page for OGL and index. 34 pages of content. Landscape page orientation (sometimes this cuts off art).

As always I will be following my rules for these reviews.

This book is divided into four major sections, each with a different author from the cover.  Each covers a different type of magic.

The Spirit World by Scott Gable introduces us to the book and the three types of spirit magic we will cover here. 

Vodou by Scott Gable. This is our first and is familiar by name. It involves working with various spirits, the Loa, many listed later in this section.  There seems to be some campaign setting specifics here. This is not a surprise because in our world Vodou, Vodun, and Voodoo are very location specific. This is mentioned in a sidebar here. 

There are some new spells, but beyond that there is plenty of information on how these spells are supposed to be used.  This section will not replace any of the works of say C.J. Carella on the subject, but it works great for Pathfinder.

The Middle World by Uri Kurlianchik. Covers the magic found in the tales from Russia and the Slavs. This includes a number of "House spirits."  Again we are treated to some familiar names; the Leshy, the Domovoi, but here they are spirits and not fae creatures exactly. Here we also have a few spells associated with the various creatures.

The Arcanum by Clinton Boomer. Lastly we have the Arcanum. This one covers "Starry Patrons" but there is a solid "from beyond the stars" feel to these. You can read these as Lovecraftian horrors, but they seem more aloof and alien even than that. 

This book succeeds in giving us a very different felling magic system that still works with the rules of Pathfinder. Since the publication of this book there have been more book on magic for Pathfinder, so it would be interesting to see how this works with these new works.

The art is full color and quite good.

The Monster Manual II for the 3.0 version of 3rd Edition appeared in 2002, just before the big transition to 3.5.  Like its namesake from 1st Edition, this MMII brings us some new monsters, but it also gives us a number of updated old favorites. 

Monster Manual II (3.0)

For this review, I am considering both the PDF from DriveThruRPG and the hardcover version I bought back in the early 2000s.

In the the 2 years since the Monster Manual was printed the designers of the 3rd Edition game had gotten a lot of feedback from players and also have seen the designs that other monster books have been able to do.  They knew what the players and the DMs were saying about monsters.  So the MMII has two overt purposes. The first, and the obvious one, is give us more monsters to use in out games. The second, and likely more helpful one, is to help clarify how the monster stat blocks are used and can be altered.  I want to discuss the second one first.

The first section of the book covers the monster stat blocks. How to read them and what sorts of details you are likely to find in them.  This is largely similar to the list to the MMI but there are a lot of additions, like the table of typic creature damage types by type and size.  Each creature type is broken down into what makes that type different than the other types with much more detail than in the MMI.

There are new guidelines on advancing monsters. This really is the reason to get this book. It expands greatly on the rules and lets you know how to do it with an example.

On the back side of the book, there are also new templates to apply to monsters to make other monsters.

In the middle, we have the reason that most people pick up the book, the monsters.  There are over 130 monsters listed here and some are new, others are old favorites.

We get some 1st Ed. MM1 favorites like the banshee, the catoblepas, the sylphs, the water weird (though now expanded into elemental weirds), and ixitxachitls.  There are a good number of Fiend Folio monsters too in the hook horror, grell, death knight (as a template), meenlock, dune stalker, Son of Kyuss, and needleman er needlefolk.  

The Daemons return, but this time they keep their 2nd Edition name of Yugoloths. Actually, I am good with that. Yugoloth always was cooler sounding than daemon anyway.  There are more demons and devils too and even some weird Lovecraftian beasts like the Moon Beast and more.

This addition to the Monster Manual line feels like it was more completing the MMI than it was a second book. I consider it a must-have book for any 3.x DM  with even a slight interest in monsters.

The art is great throughout and you can see the design is leaning into what will become known as "dungeon punk" later on.

Is this one of my favorite monster books? No. But it is a great work-horse book that has great designer information and a few really great monsters on top of that.

That one is a little harder to figure out.  I feel like that in the late 70s and early 80s D&D was all over the place. I knew of it as far back as 77 or 78. I didn't read any of it until 1979 though.

I borrowed the Monster Manual from my classmate Geordie Herald. I got a copy of Holmes' Basic from someone. My first real DM was Jon Cook. 

In truth, there was this critical mass of D&D in my town in the late 70s. I DO remember I almost didn't get involved with it due to my interest in video games. But reading mythology and "The Hobbit" and watching all sorts of horror movies I think made my involvement in the game at the time rather inevitable.

All roads lead to the Keep on the Borderlands it seemed.

Now in its fifteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2022, was celebrated not once, but twice. First on Saturday, 25th June in the USA, and then on Saturday, 23rd July internationally. This was to prevent problem with past events when certain books did not arrive in time to be shipped internationally and so were not available outside of the USA. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Thanks to the generosity of David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3, Reviews from R’lyeh was get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day, both in the USA and elsewhere.

—oOo—

Curse of the Dread Marsh Crew is an adventure for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Published by Loke BattleMats, a publisher best known for its maps for roleplaying games, such as The Towns & Taverns Books of Battle Mats, The Wilderness Books of Battle Mats, and The Dungeon Books of Battle Mats, the scenario takes place in the same setting as the Box of Adventure 2: Coast of Dread. It involves pirates, a cemetery, a curse, and undead in short encounter which easily be played in a session. It comes with four pre-generated Player Characters of Second Level as well as a doubled-sided map and a sheet of counters, both on heavy cardboard. The adventure involves a good mix of combat, interaction, and a big puzzle, and is highly thematic, but in terms of its plotting, it needs a bit work.

In Curse of the Dread Marsh Crew the Player Characters are members of the privateer, Dread Marsh, who have been sent on a mission by the ship’s quartermaster, Axell. They were to acquire the Emerald Eye, a great gem, said to be held in the tomb of the legendary pirate, Foxbeard, which is in the Windward Cemetery. As the scenario opens, with Axell’s advice, they have successfully entered the tomb and exited with the Emerald Eye in hand. Yet as soon as they make their exit, the tomb entry slams shut, a mist surrounds the cemetery, and their very flesh begins to rot. It appears that they have been afflicted by the ‘Curse of the Black Mark!’

So the Player Characters begin the scenario being dead! Which brings with it a host of problems—terrible speech, looking and smelling like a zombie, a vulnerability to Radiant damage, and being unable to benefit from any type of Rest, as well as being unable to leave the cemetery. Their first problem though, is that the cemetery watchman along with his dog, Snuffles, arrives to keep an eye on the place overnight. Fortunately, he is short-sighted and so will not spot that they undead so easily. This is not the only difficulty the Player Characters will face as a torch and pitchfork-wielding mob will turn up from the nearest village, but for either encounter, there are plenty of options detailed, so the players can approach them in numerous ways, not necessarily via combat. Similarly, the two locations of the scenario—Windward Cemetery and Foxbeard’s crypt—are both nicely detailed.

In the second part of the scenario, arcane symbols light up around the entrance to Foxbeard’s Crypt. These are part of puzzle which must be solved before the Player Characters can get back into the crypt, but surely, they would have solved that when they broke into the tomb the first time? Inside, they face Foxbeard himself, wanting revenge for their having stolen the Emerald Eye, as well as members of his undead crew. Also, why did Foxbeard not rise and take his revenge when they were they broke into the tomb the first time? The obvious solution would be for the Player Characters to have been brilliant when they originally plundered the tomb and not disturbed the dread pirate in his final resting place  and then forgotten the solution to the puzzle as a result of their suffering from the ‘Curse of the Black Mark!’ The Dungeon Master may instead come up with a solution of her own, but either way, it is a problem in terms of the narrative.
All the while this is going on, the Player Characters are under the effects of the ‘Curse of the Black Mark!’. If they kill anyone in the cemetery—and there is a warning to found if they search the cemetery—the Black Mark on their hand will grow. Kill too many persons and the Black Mark will grow and grow until they are permanently transformed into one of the undead. There is a means to lift the curse to be found, but that means entering the tomb of course.

The four Player Characters include a Fighter, a Rogue, a Warlock, and a Wizard, all Second Level. All come with a back story, a thumbnail portrait, and a tracker for the ‘Curse of the Black Mark!’. The latter s nicely done as a hand, but there are no other mechanical effects as the Black Mark grows. It might have been fun if there had been to help enforce a sense of impending doom if there had been.

Physically, Curse of the Dread Marsh Crew is decently presented. The scenario booklet is general, well written and laid out. It lacks a card cover and so is flimsy. The double-sided map is done on sturdy card and in full colour. One side depicts the cemetery and the entry to the tomb, whilst the other shows the tomb proper. Both maps are easy to use with either the included counters, or with miniatures if the Dungeon Master and her players have them. The counters are decently done, but do need to be cut out carefully.

Curse of the Dread Marsh Crew is potentially a lot of fun and it takes the classic combination of pirates and the undead and does something different with it. The scenario also contains some nicely scenes as a consequence, such as making friends with a dog when you appear to be undead and persuading a baying mob that you are actually alive. Whilst the scenario can be played straight as written, it does have some plot holes which the Dungeon Master will have to fix to really bring out the fun to be had in Curse of the Dread Marsh Crew.

Now for something a little different. Pathfinder is great, but it is not the only 3.x-based game out there not named Dungeons & Dragons.  For a while there I did a lot stuff for D20 Modern and I still like to pick up material for it.  Though today I think a 5e-based Modern might be the way to go.

As always I will be following my rules for these reviews.

Witchology 101

PDF. 60 pages, $2.99. 1 page cover, 1 title page, 1 page introduction, 3 pages table of contents. 3 pages Creative Common license, 1 page OGL.  Rest content.

This book is punching way above its weight class, to be honest.   The organization is a bit odd, but nothing I can't navigate. 

We get a Glossary at the start, which I guess works to help people unfamiliar with some of these terms.  An introduction to a Who's Who of magical people and places. This includes the various school of magic as if they were actual schools. Each school gets its Latin motto, its center of studies, and titles. It is a pretty cool idea really.  Spells by school are listed with their appropriate colleges. 

There is a whole implicit setting here that can be used in conjunction with any Modern d20 game that also has magic, say like Urban Arcana. It can also be used with other modern games that are built on a d20 system.  I am not 100% sure, but I bet it would work with Mutants and Masterminds for example.

This is a d20-based rule book so there are some features of that. What am I saying? There are Feats! Quite a few in fact. There are spells, some new, some we have seen before (this is fine).  Also to my pleasure, there are new creatures or some reskinned ones. This is a must I think.

It has a Creative Commons License and the OGL. I am not really sure if you can mix the two.  But that does not detract from my enjoyment of it.

So for just under $3 you get 50 pages of solid content. There is no art to speak of, but that is fine really.

Solid work.

I have to admit, I am a big fan of the "Rule of 2" we use for NIGHT SHIFT.

From the rules:

The rule of 2: this is my name for a sub-system in D&D that has never been precisely codified, but is buried deep in the bones of the game. Any time a situation needs to be adjudicated in D&D for which there is not another system, throw a die, and on a result of 1 or 2, it happens. Listening at a door (and not a thief)? You hear noise on a 1 or 2. Looking to notice a secret door (and not a dwarf or elf)? Roll a d6 and you find it on a 1 or 2. Surprise? 1 or 2. The only thing that changes, for the most part, is the type of die--rangers, for example, use a d8 surprise die--and some character types may adjust the probability (elves noticing a secret door without searching is a 1 on a d6).

A nice simple rule that covers a bunch of situations. 

Now in its fifteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2022, was celebrated not once, but twice. First on Saturday, 25th June in the USA, and then on Saturday, 23rd July internationally. This was to prevent problem with past events when certain books did not arrive in time to be shipped internationally and so were not available outside of the USA. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Thanks to the generosity of David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3, Reviews from R’lyeh was get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day, both in the USA and elsewhere.

—oOo—

Iron Kingdoms: A Strange Light Breaks is a scenario fo Iron Kingdoms: Requiem, the version of the Steampunk and high fantasy setting best known for its miniatures combat game, Warmachine: Prime, for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Published by Privateer Press, Iron Kingdoms: Requiem and thus Iron Kingdoms: A Strange Light Breaks—and Iron Kingdoms: An Echo in the Darkness before it for Free RPG Day 2021 bring the setting and intellectual property full circle, both having been first seen in The Longest Night, Shadow of the Exile, and The Legion of the Lost, the trilogy of scenarios published for use with the d20 System in 2001. The three would later be collected as The Witchfire Trilogy.
The Iron Kingdoms is noted for three things. First, its interesting mix of races—Gobbers, Ogrun, and Trollkin alongside the traditional Humans, Elves, and Dwarves. There are no Halflings or Gnomes, and even the Elves are different to those of more traditional Dungeons & Dragons-style fantasy. Second, the prevalence of technology, in particular, the use of firearms and Steamjacks and Warjacks, steam-driven robots with magical brains, used in heavy industry and on the field of battle. Third, the tone of the setting is fairly grim, there being an island to the west, Cryx, where the sorcerers have long experimented with combing the undead with Steamjacks and Warjacks, and have long planned to invade the Iron Kingdoms.
Iron Kingdoms: A Strange Light Breaks is not a quick-start for Iron Kingdoms: Requiem, but a scenario, so the Game Master will need access to a copy of Iron Kingdoms: Requiem as well as Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, to run the scenario. It is designed to be played by between three and seven Player Characters of First to Fourth Level, but is optimised for five First Level Player Characters. As the scenario opens, a new branch of the Strangelight Workshop, the premier organisation in the Iron Kingdoms dedicated to investigating the supernatural, which has opened up a new branch in the city of Merin in the nation of Ord. It is looking for candidates and the Player Characters have decided to apply for whatever reason. Several motivations are provided to that end. A large sign above the door to the new branch reads ‘Post Delivery Outpost #113’ and the scenario feels reminiscent of Terry Pratchett’s Going Postal as well as possessing an enormous dollop of Ghostbusters.

The Ghostbusters feel starts with the equipment that the Player Characters are assigned. This includes antispectral ammunition for targeting ghosts, charged gauntlets to deal lightning damage to or grapple with ghosts, a Handheld Lumitype to take ‘spectragraphs’ of ghosts, and Strangelight Goggles and Strangelight Projectors, which gives the scenario a very technological feel.

The scenario is built around a job board on which are pinned three little jobs, each with a little commentary by the branch clerk, Emil Todmann, a constantly scowling if friendly ex-postman. These are quite colourful and should influence the order in which the Player Characters tackle them. They are free to do them in any order, but ideally should be run in the order that they are presented. In the first gig, ‘Branston Gunwerks’, the Player Characters, now newly-minted ‘spectral investigators’, are directed to a manufactory which is beset by gremlins doing all sorts of damage. They need to get into the building and in and amongst the machinery to ferret out the Gremlins who are having way too much fun in the Gunwerks. It is an action orientated opener which should be fun.

The second gig is ‘210 Aurora Street’ which takes place a few streets away from the branch office. There the occupants of a house have been beset by a spirit known as ‘Headless John’. The Player Characters have a chance to do a little research before he makes an appearance. When he does, they are free to approach however they want, so they can fight ‘Headless John’ or persuade him to move on. The latter is a less bruising option as ‘Headless John’ is quite a tough opponent, but again, this is another decent little encounter.

The third and final gig is ‘The Red Mare of Lime Gate’. A burning figure astride a red horse has been setting warehouses in the dock alight and Emil Todmann warns the Player Characters that this is an unknown entity and needs to be careful of what it might be. This is a slightly more complex scenario and there is plenty of opportunity for the Player Characters to conduct some investigation—interacting with the locals, examining some of the warehouses, and so on, before the spectre strikes! Ideally before then the player Characters will have picked up some clues that something is not right here and so it proves in a rousing finale to the scenario. Its secret is not the only one to be revealed in the scenario, as there is another in the scenario’s epilogue, which is entitled ‘End of Watch’ and has a double meaning. Both the finale and the epilogue can be played out in a few different ways, all of which are covered in the scenario.Physically, Iron Kingdoms: A Strange Light Breaks also comes with plain and simple, decent maps of each location for the scenario’s three gigs, as well as ‘Post Delivery Outpost #113’, full stats for all of its monsters and NPCs—from Gremlins to Emil Todmann, and full descriptions and stats for all of the equipment that the Player Characters are assigned as newly hired members of the Strangelight Workshop. Many of these are illustrated, as appropriate.
Iron Kingdoms: A Strange Light Breaks contains three very different ‘gigs’ or encounters and offers players a very different style of play to that of traditional Dungeons & Dragons in Iron Kingdoms. It involves a more investigative and technological mode of play and thus has a more modern feel. Iron Kingdoms: A Strange Light Breaks is an entertaining Ghostbusters-style scenario which is not fun to play, but definitely deserves a sequel.

A couple of PDFs tonight. Both giving me some new feats for the Pathfinder 1st Edition Witch.

As always I will be following my rules for these reviews.

Witch Feats
from Island Of Bees

PDF. 5 pages, PWYW, suggested $1.00. No cover. No OGL.

This one is oddly presented and I had to go back and make sure I had the right file. But once I got into it then yes it is the right PDF.  The cover to the right is not in the file (as a cover) and it jumps right into the content. The art takes up half of every page, so not really 5 pages, but 2.5 pages of content (more like 2). The art is good, very visually striking and I like it (our cover girl here is on page 4 for the Witch Brew), but there is one of what looks like a young girl in a Civil War-era Union uniform with a rat familiar.  It is good and I rather like it, but it looks very out of place, to be honest.

While presented as feats, these are really patron pacts.  So you get these if you take the feat. The text is mostly fluff. The advantage to this is you could use them with Pathfinder 2nd Ed or D&D 5th Ed warlocks too. It's just not what I thought it might be.

Fantastic Feats Volume XXVII - Witches
from Ennead Games

PDF. 5 pages. $1.25. 1 page for cover, 1 page for Preface/Table of Contents, 1 page for the OGL. 2 pages of content.

This file has seven witch feats presented in the traditional manner for the Pathfinder 1st Edition RPG. There are some interesting ones here too. The Stable Spell gives the witch more control over the damage she can do while Unstable Spell adds some randomness. Aura of Menace should be taken by all witches I think!

Certainly some fun ideas here. 

Since 2013, Goodman Games, the publisher of the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic has released a book especially for Gen Con, the largest tabletop hobby gaming event in the world. That book is the Goodman Games Gen Con Program Book, a look back at the previous year, a preview of the year to come, staff biographies, and a whole lot more, including adventures and lots tidbits and silliness. The first was the Goodman Games Gen Con 2013 Program Book, but not being able to pick up a copy from Goodman Games when they first attended UK Games Expo in 2019, the first to be reviewed was the Goodman Games Gen Con 2014 Program Book. Fortunately, a little patience and a copy of the Goodman Games Gen Con 2013 Program Book was located and reviewed, so now in 2021, normal order is resumed with the Goodman Games Gen Con 2016 Program Book.
The Goodman Games Gen Con 2017 Program Book is a slimmer, more focused edition than in previous years, with a double combination of source material and scenarios, not once, but twice, another scenario, as well as the usual mix of Goodman Games community content. The first of the source material/scenario combinations is ‘Dinosaur Crawl Classics’ and ‘The Return of Scravis’ both by Marc Bruner, adapts an earlier setting published by Goodman Games to the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. This is Dinosaur Planet: Broncosaurus Rex, the setting which Goodman Games published for the d20 System back in 2991. This is a Science Fiction setting in which mankind went to the stars in a timeline where the American Civil War ended in stalemate and two factions—the Federal Union of Planets and the Confederate States of America—are the leading powers. When dinosaurs are discovered on the Earth-like world of Cretasus, they rush to exploit it. Adventurers come for the wealth and glory; industrialists for the mineral wealth; colonists for the new world; and hunters for the biggest game of all—dinosaurs! Putting aside the fact that the setting draws from the American Civil War for some of its background, the obvious problem with ‘Dinosaur Crawl Classics’ is that it is a Science Fiction setting and Dungeon Crawl Classics is not. ‘Dinosaur Crawl Classics’ does not wholly address this as it is only a partial adaptation. What it suggests instead is using Cretasus and ‘Dinosaur Crawl Classics’ as a ‘Lost World’ a made mage’s experiment that perhaps the adventurers from a Dungeon Crawl Classics campaign end up on. However, that is not the default set-up in ‘Dinosaur Crawl Classics’.
In ‘Dinosaur Crawl Classics’, the players take the role of Velociraptor tribesmen! Options are given for playing at Zero Level, perhaps in Character Funnel, but the primary focus is on the five new Classes. These are Velociraptor Warrior, Velociraptor Tactician, Velociraptor Shaman, Velociraptor Exile, and the Wild One. These are mini Classes, just five Levels each. The Velociraptor Warrior is like the Warrior Class of the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game; the Velociraptor Tactician lays traps, uses stealth, and can co-ordinate others in battle with tactics; the Velociraptor Shaman knows alchemy, casts Clerical spells, and can often predict the actions of a creature with natural premonitions; the Velociraptor Exile live apart from any tribe and have a greater understanding of the wider world and human technology—both of which the Velociraptor Shaman does value them for; and the Wild One is a human who feels a tighter bond with nature than with technology, has a greater understanding of nature, and is uncomfortable around other humans. The Velociraptor Shaman also has ‘Ways’, reflecting how they bond with one particular type of dinosaur, like the ‘Way of the Tyrannosaur’, ‘Way of the Triceratops’, and ‘Way of the Pteranodon’, which grants them spells and other abilities. There are notes too on human technology and writeups of various dinosaurs.

‘The Return of Scravis’ is the accompanying scenario, written for use with Second Level Velociraptor Player Characters. The Player Characters are members of the L’dena tribe whose hunters have reported that their traditional hunting herds in the East Valley have been disrupted from their traditional hunting grounds. The scenario is quite short, a mini-sandbox, which shows off the potential of the ‘Dinosaur Crawl Classics’ setting. Hopefully Goodman Games will find the time to revisit this entertaining update of a title deep out of its back catalogue.
The second of the source material/scenario combinations in the Goodman Games Gen Con 2017 Program Book is ‘Lovecraftian Monsters for Dungeon Crawl Classics’ and the scenario ‘The Thing That Should Not Be’ both by Jon Hook. The author of course has history with Call of Cthulhu, in particular, the Age of Cthulhu line. With ‘Lovecraftian Monsters for Dungeon Crawl Classics’ provides stats and descriptions for twenty-two of the classic Lovecraftian creatures, from Byakhee and Colour Out of Space to Star Vampire and Yithian. In terms of fantasy, this is a good treatment of them, though of course it does lose some of the horror elements traditionally seen in their gaming versions. Nevertheless, this opens up options for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game and the Judge who wants to take her game into Cosmic Horror.
The scenario, ‘The Thing That Should Not Be’, is for Third Level Player Characters and sees them entering the Black Moss Woods and heading for a landmark known as the Screaming Ash to find out why local farmers were slaughtered and kidnapped. In the caverns below the Screaming Ash they discover the lair of a dread cult dedicated to the Great old One, Nyogtha. The cavern complex is relatively short and firmly steps into a territory that would normally be eschewed by roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror—the Cthuloid dungeon—because the result is invariably a Mythos mishmash. Here though, it works because of the format and the fact that the Player Characters are better equipped to handle monsters, whether of the Mythos variety or not. ‘The Thing That Should Not Be’ though, is a nasty and weird slice of pulp, fantasy horror.
The third and final scenario in the Goodman Games Gen Con 2017 Program Book is ‘Sisters of the Moon Furnace’ by Marc Bishop. This is a classic Character Funnel, one of the features of both the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game and the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game—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. Here the Player Characters awake to find themselves atop a strange complex amidst the clouds, from which they must descend to find out where they are and what they are doing there. There is the sense that they are being gently manipulated and then rewarded and penalised for their choices, suggesting perhaps that the Player Characters have a special destiny. The Player Characters need not fulfil the destiny in the scenario, and the likelihood is that it will be interesting if they do not, especially if the scenario is being used as a campaign starter. ‘Sisters of the Moon Furnace’ is an excellent example of the Character Funnel.
Also included in the Goodman Games Gen Con 2017 Program Book is more of ‘The Dungeon Alphabet’ by Michael Curtis, exploring particular aspects of dungeon delving and encounters and providing a table for each of ideas and encounter possibilities. Thus, we have ‘Q for Quests’ and ‘U for Underwater’ and simple tables for each that the Judge can pick and choose from. As expected, Goodman Games Gen Con 2017 Program Book very much focuses on the community aspect of being part of the Goodman Games family. ‘2016-2017 Mailing Labels’ by Stefan Poag and Brad McDevitt highlight the artwork which appeared on the mailing labels for anyone who ordered from Goodman Games; Doug Kovacs’ ‘A Visual History of the Band’ continues the history of the characters who continue to appear in Dungeon Crawl Classics scenarios, this time running from Dungeon Crawl Classics #68: People of the Pit to Dungeon Crawl Classics #93: Moon Slaves of the Cannibal Kingdom; and ‘Goodman Games Poster Contest’ by the Goodman Games Community collects all of the entries from the Road Crew Flyer Design Contest 2016.
Three entries in the Goodman Games Gen Con 2017 Program Book capture the energy Judges Crew and the Goodman Games community. ‘Real Life Adventures: The Alamo’ by Marc Bruner takes some inspiration from history and backs that up with several suggestions on using the Alamo—or situation like it—for the Judge, whilst Company owner Joseph Goodman recalls the ‘Real Life Adventures: The Goodman Games 2017 Creative Retreat’ and the ‘Con and Event Recap’ by the Goodman Games Community provide a fantastic range of photographs of both events. These bring the Goodman Games Gen Con 2017 Program Book to a colourful close, with the ‘Con and Event Recap’ giving a great feel for what just a little bit of Gen Con can be like.
Physically, the Goodman Games Gen Con 2017 Program Book is a slim softback book. It is decently laid out, easy to read, lavishly illustrated throughout, and a good-looking book both in black and white, and in colour.
On one level, the Goodman Games Gen Con 2017 Program Book, as with other entries in the annual series, is an anthology of magazine articles, but in this day and age of course—as well as 2016—there is no such thing as the roleplaying magazine. So what you have instead is the equivalent of a comic book’s Christmas annual—but published in the summer rather than in the winter—for fans of Goodman Games’ roleplaying games. The Goodman Games Gen Con 2017 Program Book differs from previous entries in the series, there being no gaming history or previews, instead focusing on solid gaming content, whether revisiting an old setting or taking fantasy in the direction of cosmic horror. The Goodman Games Gen Con 2017 Program Book is leaner and cleaner and all the better for it with some entertaining gaming content.

In the past, I would have focused on the adventure, the excitement and the interactivity of it all. Today I would still do that, but I would also focus on the things that mean more to me these days; playing with family and friends.

I'd also point out how it is a great creative effort.  Want to write an 11 backstory for your character? Sure! Go ahead. But keep in mind they might die at any point.  What to do then? New character and new backstory!

There are so many reasons people get into RPGs now and so many different kinds to choose from. Getting people into RPGs may not be the right question. Instead, how do we help people find the right RPG for their needs and wants?

Now in its fifteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2022, was celebrated not once, but twice. First on Saturday, 25th June in the USA, and then on Saturday, 23rd July internationally. This was to prevent problem with past events when certain books did not arrive in time to be shipped internationally and so were not available outside of the USA. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Thanks to the generosity of David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3, Reviews from R’lyeh was get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day, both in the USA and elsewhere.

—oOo—
Homeworld: Revelations – A Tabletop Roleplaying Odyssey Quick-Start is the release from Modiphius Entertainment for Free RPG Day 2022. It is the quick-start for Homeworld: Revelations, the roleplaying based on the real-time strategy video game series Homeworld, which includes Homeworld, Homeworld: Cataclysm, Homeworld 2, and Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak, as well as the forthcoming Homeworld 3. The series tells the story of the  Kushan, a people lost in space after the destruction of their home planet, Kharak, and their attempt to find Hiigara, a new homeworld, journeying in fleet lead by a massive mothership. In Homeworld: Revelations – A Tabletop Roleplaying Odyssey Quick-Start, the players take the roles of members of The Dreamlands team, archaeologists brought together to gather historical records and artefacts from the wreckage of the great ship, the Khar-Toba, on the planet Kharak. Unfortunately, they are not the only ones interested the Khar-Toba. Others want to stop anyone from discovering the knowledge and technology which lies within the bowels of the great ship, and will do anything to prevent that from happening.
Homeworld: Revelations – A Tabletop Roleplaying Odyssey Quick-Start is designed for play by five players and come with five pre-generated Player Characters, printed separately. It contains all the rules necessary to play, including skills, action, combat, and interaction, all the way up to ship-to-ship combat. The five pre-generated characters include a security officer, a researcher, a medical officer, a technological operations manager, and pilot. All five are simply and clearly laid out and easy to read and use. Each also comes with a good illustration as well as a little background.

A Player Character in Homeworld: Revelations – A Tabletop Roleplaying Odyssey Quick-Start and thus Homeworld: Revelations is defined by Attributes, Disciplines, Focuses, Values, Traits, Talents, and Truths. The six Attributes—Agility, Brawn, Coordination, Insight, Reason, and Will—represent ways of or approaches to doing things as well as intrinsic capabilities. They are rated between seven and twelve. There are six skills—Combat, Command, Engineering, Exploration, Flight, and Medical—which are fairly broad and rated between one and five, whilst Focuses represent narrow areas of study or skill specialities, for example, Expert Pilot, Jury Rigging, Field Surgery, Unfamiliar Technology, and Chain of Command. Truths are single words or short phrases, which describe a significant fact or aspect about its subject, whether that is a scene, person, place, environment, or object. A Truth can make an action easier or more difficult, or even simply make it possible or impossible.To undertake an action in the 2d20 System in Homeworld: Revelations, a character’s player rolls two twenty-sided dice, aiming to have both roll under the total of an Attribute and a Skill. Each roll under this total counts as a success, an average task requiring two successes. Rolls of one count as two successes and if a Player Character has an appropriate Focus, rolls under the value of the Skill also count as two successes. In the main, because a typical difficulty will only be a Target Number of one, players will find themselves rolling excess Successes which becomes Momentum. This is a resource shared between all of the players which can be spent to create an Opportunity and so add more dice to a roll—typically needed because more than two successes are required to succeed, to create an advantage in a situation or remove a complication, create a problem for the opposition, and to obtain information. It is a finite ever-decreasing resource, so the players need to roll well and keep generating it, especially if they want to save some for the big scene or climatic battle in an adventure.
Now where the players generate Momentum to spend on their characters, the Game Master has Threat which can be spent on similar things for the NPCs as well as to trigger their special abilities. She begins each session with a pool of Threat, but can gain more through various circumstances. These include a player purchasing extra dice to roll on a test, a player rolling a natural twenty and so adding two Threat (instead of the usual Complication), the situation itself being threatening, or NPCs rolling well and generating Momentum and so adding that to Threat pool. In return, the Game Master can spend it on minor inconveniences, complications, and serious complications to inflict upon the player characters, as well as triggering NPC special abilities, having NPCs seize the initiative, and bringing the environment dramatically into play.
Combat uses the same mechanics, but offers more options in terms of what Momentum can be spent on. This includes doing extra damage, disarming an opponent, keeping the initiative—initiative works by alternating between the player characters and the NPCs and keeping it allows two player characters to act before an NPC does, avoid an injury, and so on. Damage in combat is rolled on the Challenge dice, the number of ‘Homeworld: Revelations’ symbols rolled determining how much damage is inflicted. A similar roll is made to resist the damage, and any leftover is deducted from a character’s Stress. If a character’s Stress is reduced to zero or five or more damage is inflicted, then a character is injured. Any ‘Homeworld: Revelations’ symbols rolled indicate an effect as well as the damage. In keeping with the tone of the various series, weapon damage can be deadly (and nearly every character—Player Character or NPC, is armed with a firearm of some kind), melee or hand-to-hand, less so.

Lastly, the Player Characters all begin play with several points of Fortune, which can be used to pull off extraordinary actions, perform exciting stunts, make one-in-a-million shots, or provide an edge during life-or-death situations. These can be spent to gain a Critical Success on any roll, reroll any dice, gain an additional action in a round, to avoid imminent defeat, and to add new element to the current scene. More can be earned through play, such as accepting a Complication, changing a Defining Aspect about a character, or good roleplaying.

The rules themselves in the Homeworld: Revelations – A Tabletop Roleplaying Odyssey Quick-Start take up almost two thirds of its pages. The rest is taken up by the scenario. This starts in the outer desert region known as The Dreamlands where the wreck of the Khar-Toba can be found. The Player Characters are part of a team lead buy by the archaeologist Mevath Sagald, sent to investigate the wreck and glean what historical records and artefacts they can from it. However, the wreck is guarded by the Gaalsien, a kiith or clan religiously opposed to all thoughts of discovery and exploration, fearing that the Kushan took part in a great evil long ago and were punished by being exiled. The Player Characters will need to find a way into the wreck and avoid detection, exploring the ships and recover archaeological artefacts, and then escape both the ship and any attempts by the Gaalsien to stop them. Divided into five scenes, the scenario primarily involves stealth and exploration, although there is scope for combat and interaction depending upon what the players decide to do. There are moments throughout for each Player Character to shine and the scenario builds to an exciting climax chased by Gaalsien spacecraft. Overall, it is good adventure, and it should provide a good two sessions’ worth of play or so.
Physically, Homeworld: Revelations – A Tabletop Roleplaying Odyssey Quick-Start is a good looking affair with excellent artwork and decent layout. Unfortunately, the whole affair does feel rushed and needs another good edit. On the plus side though, it is well written, and there are lots and lots of examples of play and sections of advice for the Game Master. There is no cartography and thus no deckplans of the Khar-Toba. The scenario is not difficult to run without them, but their inclusion would have helped.
Ultimately, Homeworld: Revelations – A Tabletop Roleplaying Odyssey Quick-Start is let down by one factor and one factor alone. It has rules, it has pre-generated Player Characters, and it has a scenario. What it entirely lacks is background. There is no explanation of what Homeworld is or what the setting of Homeworld: Revelations is like, so leaves the Game Master to do her own research and prepare it for her players. This is disappointing as a quick-start is designed to both introduce a setting and a roleplaying game to players unaware of the setting and introduce a roleplaying game to those who know the setting. Homeworld: Revelations – A Tabletop Roleplaying Odyssey Quick-Start does a better job of doing the latter than the former and so does not fully succeed as a quick-start.