Ok, so strictly speaking, this was never distributed by TSR but I wanted to read it anyway and I think others may want to conclude the Wee Warriors trilogy as well.

So, here we get a huge expansion in scope. Palace of the Vampire Queen was a single building. Dwarven Glory was slightly larger – a system of caverns. Misty Isles is the whole chain of islands that contain those two locations as but tiny points of interest. Basically it’s a campaign setting.

There are 9, count ’em, 9 islands – each map having 21 large hexes which are all keyed. The only thing missing is a map that shows where all the islands are situated.

There’s a lot of great background information for each island. And there’s quite a bit of interaction between them – warring factions, kidnapped princesses, etc. And it’s quite interesting going back and reading the background info in the other two modules, now that I can see how it all fits together.

Two more things to say.

1. there are lots of speling mestakes
2. a lot of the locations are on a big scale – eg “300 orcs guard the wood ramparts with 500 goblin archers”

A reprint is available at DriveThruRPG.

Date Info

Copyright is 1977. I can’t find any other info. Obviously it’s after Dwarven Glory which I’ve placed in June. The only date related information comes from the product page. After listing current products, it has a list of two products “Available soon”, with both “Available Fall/Winter ’77”. So it can’t be too late in the year. I’m going with September.

The gods have always fought against the generations of gods that came before them. In Greek myth, the Olympians—the gods with which we are most familiar from Greek and Roman mythology—fought a decade-long battle to see who would have dominion over the world. This is the ‘Titanomachy’, or War of the Titans. It is this war and this intergenerational conflict of young gods rebelling against and ultimately defeating their parents which is a major influence for Scion, the roleplaying game in which players roleplay the mortal descendants of gods—or Scions—who grow to become both the agents and the active presence of their parents in The World, the mortal realms as we know them. Of course, such tales of intergenerational godly conflict are not confined to Greek and Roman mythology, and neither are the Scions. Thus, in Scion: Origin and Scion: Hero, they include not just the Theoi or Greco-Roman pantheon, but also the Aesir or Norse Gods, the Manitou or Algonquian pantheon, Netjer or Egyptian pantheon, the Kami or Japanese Gods, the Tuatha Dé Danann or Irish Gods, the Óríshá or Yórúba pantheon, the Devá or Gods of South Asia, the Shén or Chinese pantheon, and Teōtl or Aztec pantheon. And each pantheon has its own set of Titans, older deities more archetypal embodiments of a particular purview whose pursuit of their primal urges tend to have destructive effects, especially on the mortal realms. Consequently, the Gods, many of them children of the Titans, imprisoned the Titans, who have rattled their chains ever since, more recently weakening them and allowing their more monstrous offspring to enter The World and threaten humanity. However, the relationships between the Gods and their Titans varies from one Pantheon to the next, and it is these relationships which are explored in Titanomachy, a supplement for both Scion: Origin and Scion: Hero which brings the second War against the Gods one step closer.

Published by Onyx Path Publishing, Titanomachy can be divided into three large chapters. The first of these is devoted to ‘The Titans’ and details the various Titans of Scion’s ten pantheons—or rather it does not. In each case, the Titan is fully detailed, including aliases, callings and purviews, relationships and agendas, view of other pantheons, and current priorities. There are typically three or four entries per pantheon, plus the Birthrights for the Scions of the Titans of that pantheon. These include creatures, followers, guides, and relics.

For example, the Titans for the Aesir are Jörð, Nidhoggr, Surtur, and Ymir. Jörð is described as the most beautiful of Aesir, an Earth Mother and creator of the Dwarves, whose father was killed by Asgardians and who was in turn abandoned by Odin, and ultimately, their son, Thor. Although she misses her son, her heart has grown bitter at the treatment by both him and his father. Jörð’s Callings are Guardian, Lover, and Primaeval,  and her Purviews are Beauty, Earth, Epic Stamina, Fertility, and Passion (Love). Her relationships and agendas primarily involve looking for companionship beyond the confines of the Pantheon, having grown bored of their repetitive behaviour, but as intelligent and skilled as she is, her own behaviour is often smothering and repetitive. Jörð holds the other Aesir in contempt, but is beginning beyond its confines for ideas and companionship, and her current priorities include protecting endangered species, and protecting and loving those Scions she creates—and of course, expecting much love in return. Automatically, Jörð makes for a great—or is that terrible mother figure?—especially if the Scion Player Character is related to Thor or Odin, or even simply red-headed. She could even be supporting radical eco-activists in their efforts to protect endangered species.

The other Titans of the Aesir—and of course, those of the other pantheons, are given a similar treatment. Thus for the rest of the Aesir, Nidhoggr is either the ‘Corpse-Chewer’ or ‘The Pretender’, who might be the serpent who gnaws the roots of Yggdrasil, the World Tree, or who might be the nemesis or simply a trick of Niõhöggr, who also gnaws the roots of Yggdrasil. It is intentionally confusing, but Scions of either are bent on the destruction of the other. As for Surtur, he is only concerned with his duty—fiery destruction and causing natural disasters for regrowth, and lastly, Ymir, the father-of-himself and all of the Aesir, plots to take Asgard as is his right, but his head-in-clouds mind and drive to micro-manage his fellow Titans and his own Scions means that he is rarely successful.

In terms of Birthrights, the Scions of the Titans of the Aesir might have access to creatures such as the cows sacred to Ymir, which he uses to send messages—whether in the slaughterhouse house or on the dairy farm, whilst Jörð uses her Followers the Dvergar, as her Messengers and Guides. An unaligned Guide and Messenger is Ratatoskr, the squirrel of the World Tree, who when not annoying Nidhoggr (or Niõhöggr) carries news and spreads lies, surely a great role model for a scurrilous gossip mongering Titan Scion! Then for relics, the ‘Brains in a Bottle’ provides a means of very limited communication with Ymir, ‘Jörð’s Bracelets’ allow the wearer to draw power directly from earth, ‘Nidhoggr’s Tooth’ is a dagger carved from a tooth capable of piercing any armour and holding any poison, and ‘Ymir’s Skull Fragment’ enables the user to view anywhere visible from the sky.

Titanomachy does this in turn for each of the Titans for almost all of the Pantheons, giving the Storyguide a wide range of options and foes to bring into her campaign. Where this diversity gets really interesting though, is how each of the various pantheons relates to its Titans. The Devá or Gods of South Asia loathe not only their own Titans, but those of other pantheons and take exception to pantheons who are more forgiving of them. The Titans and the Kami or Japanese Gods simply hate each other over a betrayal which happened centuries before, whilst those of the Manitou or Algonquian pantheon are simply seen as troublesome members of the same family. Similarly, the Titans of the Netjer or Egyptian pantheon are also accepted, but more as a balancing counterparts to their corresponding gods who defeat them over and over. The Titans facing the Shén of the Chinese pantheon are mired and quantified into the celestial bureaucracy, whilst those of the Teōtl or Aztec pantheon work to destroy the world completely, just as they have four times before. Of course, the gods of the Theoi or Greco-Roman pantheon hate their Titans, whilst the Tuatha Dé Domnann are only Titans because they lost their battle against the Tuatha Dé Danann or Irish Gods. Lastly, the exceptions are the gods of the Óríshá or Yórúba pantheon, which lacks Titans and dismisses the concept, fundamentally because of the divisive and delegitimizing nature of the categorisation.

Having presented the Storyguide with such a diverse range of mythological creatures, would be gods, former gods, and more, the second chapter to Titanomachy delves into ‘Storyguiding’. This highlights the questions a Storyguide needs to address before bringing Titans into her campaign—how big a role, which pantheons, has the Cold War between the gods and the Titans turned ‘hot’, and so on. What level are the Player Characters involved in the war—hot or cold—at street level, globetrotting across The World, or delving in and out of Terra Incognita, increasing the mythic stakes at each level? Along with numerous plot hooks covering numerous Titans presented in the previous chapter, there is also good advice on how to use the Titans. As NPCs, they might range free, come to the Player Characters for help (or vice versa), languish in prison (which is traditional) and thus requiring a visit, and even serve as allies. One interesting option covered is as Titan Scions, that is as Player Characters, having a Titan Calling instead of a Scion Calling. This lends itself to some great roleplaying challenges and storytelling possibilities as Titans are often prone to inhuman behaviour due to their parentage (whether actual or adopted). However, this may not be welcome in every playing group, and the authors suggest that for this reason, the inclusion of Titan Scions as Player Characters be discussed first.

The various levels of play—street level, globetrotting around The World, and into Terra Incognita are supported with three extended scenario outlines, each three acts long and accompanied by stats for the Storyguide characters. The street level scenario is  ‘Diaspora’, a locked room type mystery where the room is actually a whole airport in which the Scion must find some stolen relics, uncover imposters, solve a murder, and survive an apocalyptic boss fight in the course of an afternoon. The World scenario, ‘Lunar New Year’ is more open and can either start a campaign or be dropped into it as the Scions investigate the disruptive activities of a chaotic Titan Scion in New York. ‘Bring Forth a Greater Thunder’ is the Terra Incognito scenario and is far more open in its structure, consisting of key scenes and various subplots. All three scenarios involve the three areas of play intrinsic to Storypath games—action-adventure, intrigue, and procedural, and all nicely show what a Scion scenario can involve.

Lastly, the chapter on ‘Storyguiding’ discusses another type of entity key to many pantheons and mythologies—dragons! Dragons claim to have existed before the creation of The World and to have been the first in The World, which many Titans find objectionable. This is exacerbated by there being some overlap between Titans and Dragons, so that there may be two beings of the same name, but be different all together and be the same at the same time. As with the earlier Nidhoggr (or Niõhöggr), this is intended to be slightly confusing. Potentially though, Dragons represent a threat that Scions and Titans can both agree on.

The third and final chapter in Titanomachy consists of ‘Antagonists’, a wide range of enemies, potential allies, and other Storyguide characters. There is a guide to adjusting adversaries up and down to match the Scions and building archetypes adding Qualities and Flairs like ‘Bringing the House Down’, ‘Entrap’, and ‘Miasma’ to  base Spawn or Titanic minions, before listing over eighty examples. These include the familiar creatures of myth and legend, from Banshee, Fomorians, Gremlins to Internet Trolls (Lesser and Greater), Phouka, and Wendigo, alongside the unfamiliar and the individual. The former are drawn from mythologies less familiar to a Western audience, for example, the Harionago, female monsters who stalk the streets strangling with their hair anyone who returns their smiles or the Tikoloshe, creatures of polluted water and spite born to make the lives of others miserable. The latter are individual Titan Scions, such as Ed and Edie Jackson, sweet old pensioners adopted by Prometheus who setting fire to buildings and even Timothy Allgood, a tireless advocate for the release of Titans everywhere, who may be simply a good talk show guest or an actual Titan Scion.

Lastly, an appendix provides a raft of new rules. These include Collateral, a means of handling damage or events  to the environment around them when the Scions face Titan Scions or creatures of legendary size, and numerous Birthrights, from Cyclops, Dragon Secretary, and Grigori Rasputin to Cursed Copper Goods, Silk Spider Shawls, and Sinister Hands. The appendix is rounded off with a wide selection of Knacks that any Storyguide character or Player Character Titan Scion can have, depending upon their Titan Calling.

Physically, Titanomachy is well written and well presented. The artwork varies a little in quality, but otherwise, this is a decent looking book.

Titanomachy could simply have just been a book of monsters and their stats. Fortunately, it is much more than that. Many of the Titans and creatures and Titan Scions are monsters and are likely to serve as enemies to the Player Character Scions, but Titanomachy provides and discusses options to make them much more—frenemies, potential and/or temporary allies, and thus more interesting. In doing so, it builds on the thoroughly enjoyable descriptions of the Titans given for each of the pantheons that in turn lend themselves to great story hooks, interesting relationships with the Player Character Scions, and good roleplaying. All that and the descriptions also serve as more great introductions to the stories and myths of each pantheon such that the reader wants to find out more. Plus there are the detailed scenario outlines and plot hooks and actual monster, creature, and Titan Scion descriptions and stats which all together almost feel like a bonus!

Titanomachy is not just a great read for the Storyguide, but an indispensable guide to both the obvious foes of the Player Character Scions and how to turn a few of them into something more than just foes. Once the Storyguide has her Player Character Scions on their paths to divinity, Titanomachy is a next-step purchase for both Scion: Origin and Scion: Hero.

Let's be honest. Few tales grab the epic feel of Fantasy RPG as well as the tale of King Authur, and few retellings of King Arthur's tale are as epic as John Boorman's Excalibur. 

Excalibur (1981)

Ok. So it's not perfect in its retelling of King Authur's tale, nor is it a great representation of say Dark Ages, post-Roman-Britain arms, and armor.  But it is still a fun movie with some seriously epic scenes and moments.

First, let's take a moment to appreciate this cast;  Nigel Terry as King Arthur, Nicol Williamson as Merlin, Nicholas Clay as Lancelot, Cherie Lunghi as Guenevere, Helen Mirren as Morgana, Liam Neeson as Gawain, Gabriel Byrne as Uther Pendragon, Corin Redgrave as Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall, and Patrick Stewart as Leondegrance.  Seriously.  It would have been enough for me just to have Helen Mirren as Morgana. Everything else is just gravy. 

Rewatching it now, after a lifetime of reading and rereading various tales of King Authur, I am pleased with how well this one holds up.  I do recall there being a bit of gore, but it was more than even I remembered. 

Watching this now makes me want to do a "King Authur" film fest.  There are a few really great ones and a few terrible ones. But all the same, it would be fun.

The tale is largely what we all know, but that doesn't make it less fun.  On the contrary, it makes even more enjoyable at times because you are expecting certain things. 

I think Nicol Williamson might very well be one of the best cinematic Merlin's ever.  Not just in the look and manner, but pretty much everything he does. Equal parts wizard and fool. Perfect as the advisor to a King. 

Authur: No riddles Merlin, a simple "yes." That really frightens me. 

The exchange between Merlin and Morgana at Authur's and Guenevere's wedding imprinted so deep on my unconsciousness that I don't doubt that my fascination with pagan witches wasn't intensified 100 fold here. Also, my enduring love for Helen Mirren certainly began here.  

Can you really blame me?

Ultimately King Authur, like most Celtic stories, is a tragedy.  The betrayal of Lancelot, the birth of Modred, the Quest for the Grail. 

Merlin: A dream to some. A nightmare to others!

While the first half is much better than the latter half, the return of Lancelot to Authur's side is one of the great and saddest cinematic moments in Authur's tale. 

Yes.  An Authurian filmfest is in order.

Gaming Content

Again, are you serious? 

One of the best bits, for me, was the Charm of Making, spoken in old Irish (sorta).

Anál nathrach,
orth’ bháis's bethad,
do chél dénmha

or

Serpent's breath,
charm of death and life,
thy omen of making.

Great stuff really.

In comparison to Tales from the Loop, there is relatively little support for its sequel, Things from the Flood. Both share a setting in Mälaröarna, the islands of Lake Mälaren, east of Stockholm, first in the 1980s and then in 1990s, the site of the Facility for Research in High Energy Physics—or ‘The Loop’—the world’s largest particle accelerator, constructed and run by the government agency, Riksenergi. Both are settings drawn from Simon Stålenhag’s artwork, Tales from the Loop contrasting an almost pastoral idyll against a hi-tech world of the Loop, robots, and skies filled with ‘magnetrine vessels’, freighters and slow liners whose engines repel against the Earth’s magnetic field, an effect only possible in northern latitudes. In Things from the Flood, the pastoral idyll has been spoiled, the lands around the Loop spoiled by a hot, brown liquid bubbling up out of the ground, Riksenergi being shut down and the Loop being sold off, robots suffering from a strange cancer, and the resulting economic crisis would lead to depression, personality changes, divorces, gambling disorders, and more… Where Tales from the Loop is positive in tone and has a fascination with technology, Things from the Flood is darker and has a fear of technology.

Thankfully for fans of Things from the Flood—and other titles from Free League Publishing, there is the Free League Workshop. Much like the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons, this is a platform for creators to publish and distribute their own original content, which means that they also have a space to showcase their creativity and their inventiveness, to do something different, and perhaps even surprise us. So it is with Somethings are Better Left Unsaid.

Somethings are Better Left Unsaid is a scenario for Things from the Flood, and whilst it does involve things, it does not involve either floods, Loops, or even Sweden. It is still set in the 1990s though, but Australia, rather than Sweden, and the Teens are still teenagers. It is the second in a series of adventures—the first being Shakespeare’s Monkeys—involving the efforts of the research company, Northstar R&D, led by its founding CEO, Jeremy Longstaff, which wants to bring some of the technological and scientific benefits, in particular, the magic of magnetite, from the Loops in Sweden and Boulder City, Nevada, to the Southern Hemisphere. It is a short, one or two session scenario set in the lakeside town of Jindabyne, a small tourist resort in the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales, Australia.

Despite sharing the same location and being set in Australia, Somethings are Better Left Unsaid is a little different in comparison to Shakespeare’s Monkeys. In a way, it feels less Australian because it does not involve an intelligent creature a la the series, Skippy the Bush Kangaroo (which in Shakespeare’s Monkeys manages to feel simultaneously appropriate and inappropriate). However, because it forgoes this obvious potential for parody, it allows the authors to bring in something which is genuinely Australian and so brings colour into the scenario which was not present in Shakespeare’s Monkeys. This is Behind the News, a long-running news programme broadcast on Australia’s ABC TV and aimed at upper primary and lower secondary students to help them understand issues and events outside their own lives. Show the players an episode of this—especially those from the nineties and perhaps worked into scenes earlier in Shakespeare’s Monkeys and that would go towards adding colour to the four scenarios.

The other difference between the two scenarios is that Somethings are Better Left Unsaid brings the threat at its heart closer to home—or at least closer to school. The Teens of Jindabyne begin to have the weirder feelings than the norm—that they almost know what others are thinking and of floating just above their bodies as they fall asleep at night, just as radios keep squawking static and the sound of voices begging. Could these be connected? The one day at school, just as they are about to watch the latest episode of Behind the News, their science teacher, along with a fellow student,  faints in class. If they go to check on either of them in hospital the next day, they discover that the local doctors are both perplexed and worried, but a strange old man, accompanied by bodyguards no less, seems to be taking an interest in them. Things take a really weird turn the next day when the substitute the science teacher who is sick, Doctor Matianov, is actually the strange old man who was seen at the hospital the day before. This is not just weird, for it gets worse when it becomes obvious that Doctor Matianov is actually a terrible teacher! Just what is going on and just what does it have to do with Doctor Matianov? Is he really a teacher? Has he joined the staff at the school for reasons of his own?

Somethings are Better Left Unsaid is creepy and weird and ties into our fears—and those of the Teens—of conspiracies (Doctor Matianov is actually Russian), loss (in particular of important mentors and friends), and the supernatural (the weird voices heard over the radio, at the very least). It is darker in tone than the earlier Shakespeare’s Monkeys and is more focused and confined to just the school and the hospital, rather than being more open in terms of its play area. The result is that Somethings are Better Left Unsaid is shorter and more likely to played through in a single, intense session (though it could stretch to two). Similarly, just as with Shakespeare’s Monkeys, the decently explained plot is easily adapted to other settings—even back to Mälaröarna or Boulder City! There is however one issue with Somethings are Better Left Unsaid which it shared with Shakespeare’s Monkeys. It leaves the connections to Northstar R&D undeveloped and unexplored, and perhaps it would have been better for this scenario and the previous one to have dropped some hints or foreshadowed at the corporation’s involvement.

Physically, Somethings are Better Left Unsaid is a decently laid out document and follows the format for Things from the Flood. Some of the artwork is decent too, and the maps are nicely done. The darker turn of Somethings are Better Left Unsaid is not unwelcome scenario in what is another likeable enough affair that offers the chance to explore the world of Things from the Flood from a different perspective. It feels as if it is laying the foundation for something larger, but not telling the Game Master what it is yet, and that really needs to come through in the next scenarios to be released.

FATE of Cthulhu added two elements to Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying—time travel and foreknowledge. Published by Evil Hat Games, the 2020 horror roleplaying game was built around campaign frameworks that cast the Player Characters as survivors in a post-apocalyptic future thirty years into the future, the apocalypse itself involving various aspects and entities of the Mythos. Not only as survivors though, because having entered into a pact with the Old One, Yog-Sothoth, they have unlocked the secret of time travel and come back to the present. They have come back aware of the steps along the way which brought about the apocalypse and they come back ready to fight it. This though is not a fight against the Cthulhu Mythos in general, but rather a single Old One and its cultists, and each thwarting of an Old One is a self-contained campaign in its own right, in which no other element of the Mythos appears.

The five campaigns, or timelines, presented in FATE of Cthulhu in turn have the Investigators facing Cthulhu, Dagon, Shub-Nigggurath, Nyarlathotep, and the King in Yellow. Each consists of  five events, the last of which is always the rise of the Old One itself. The events represent the roadmap to that last apocalyptic confrontation, and can each be further broken down into four event catalysts which can be people, places, foes, and things. The significance of these events are represented by a die face, that is either a bank, a ‘–’, or a ‘+’. These start out with two blanks and two ‘–’, the aim of the players and their investigators being to try to prevent their being too many, if any ‘–’ symbols in play and ideally to flip them from ‘–’ to blank and from blank to ‘+’. Ultimately the more ‘+’ there are, the more positive the ripple will be back down the timeline and the more of a chance the investigators have to defeat or prevent the rise of the Old One. Conversely, too many ‘–’ and the known timeline will play out as follows and the less likely the chance the investigators have in stopping the Old One.

Each of the five timelines comes with details of what a time traveller from 2050 would know about it, more detail for the Game Master with a breakdown of the events and their Aspects, Stunts, Mythos creatures, and NPCs. Most of these can serve as useful inspiration for the Game Master as well as the advice given on running FATE of Cthulhu and her creating her own timelines. After all, there are numerous Mythos entities presenting the prospective Game Master ready to create her own timeline with a variety of different aspects, purviews, and even degrees of power, but nevertheless capable of bringing about an apocalypse. However, Evil Hat Games has already begun to do that with its own series of timelines, each again dealing with a different Mythos entity and a different downfall for mankind. The first of these is The Rise of Yig.

Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Yig is different. It is triggered by a surprise eclipse in 2020, visible only in northern Mexico and in the southern United States, casting the whole of the region into shadow and it was into this darkness that Yig—the Father of Serpents—awoke. Wherever he walked, civilisation was destroyed in his wake; his full psychic emanations led to terrifying dreams of snakes and other reptiles; new species of snakes appeared with a painfully venomous bite that defied science, only those that pledged themselves to the Father of Serpents and became his foot soldiers, the Children of Yig, proved to be immune; Serpentmen appeared and struck at important leaders; and the weather heated up the planet leading to the spread of a hothouse jungle which would swallow up city after city in less than a year. Only in the polar regions has mankind been able to find a refuge…

In that year, organisations also appeared to combat the threat faced by humanity. Organisations such as the Center for Defense against Elder Threats from the UN, the Chimalli Union, and the Dark Light Net which had all long prepared in secret in case such an event as this occurred. However, the one of the Old Ones that they had not been prepared for is Yig. That is the first difference in Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Yig in comparison with the five timelines given in FATE of Cthulhu. Yig is almost comprehensible in his actions, and has a reputation for benevolence when it comes to mankind, being mostly concerned with the well-being of his children—reptiles, snakes, and of course, Serpentmen. So the question is, was Yig planning the downfall of mankind in 2020, or was there something else going on with this most benign of Old Ones?

As with the timelines in the core rules, Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Yig details the history of its apocalypse and the four events which led up to it for the benefit of the Investigators who will be aware when they jump back from the future. It is accompanied by a more detailed timeline for Game Master along with their four event catalysts (which can be people, places, foes, or things) and their die face settings which the players and their Investigators will need to change by making enquiries and working to defeat the cult. There are details of threats and situations, including cultists like the Agents of the Snake and Snakepersons, the relics and magic associated with the cult, and in particular, the agents of Center for Defense against Elder Threats from the UN, the Chimalli Union, and the Dark Light Net.

If there is an issue with Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Yig it is that it is very busy and there is a lot going on, but the Game Master is given a clearer explanation at the end of the supplement. That is the other difference between Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Yig and the five timelines given in FATE of Cthulhu. It is more complex, not as straightforward, and there are multiple factions involved across the timeline. This makes for a much more challenging campaign, both to run and play, for the players and their Investigators to determine what is going on and what the motives are of the various factions involved in the apocalypse—on both sides. Then for the Game Master to depict the various members of these factions. Again, the clearer explanation at the end of the supplement is a big help with that.

Physically, Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Yig is cleanly presented. It is easy to read and the lay out is tidy, though it needs an edit in places. The artwork is good also.

Although Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Yig is specially written for use with FATE of Cthulhu and very much built around the Investigators coming back from the future forearmed with knowledge of the past, there is nothing to stop a Game Master from using to run from the opposite direction and from a point of ignorance. That is, as a standard campaign a la other roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror, whether that is actually for FATE of Cthulhu or another roleplaying game. Plus, given the nature of the threat faced in Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Yig, it is easy to comb the support for roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror to find, if not more Yig-related scenarios, then at least more Serpentmen scenarios. Which gives it a flexibility beyond FATE of Cthulhu.

Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Yig gets the ‘Darkest Timeline’ series off to a strong start. It serves up a horridly ophidiophobic and fairly complex framework that will take some effort to really run right, but delivers a surprising take on Yig and his associated Mythos.

I have some great ones for you all today! Hang on, there is a lot here!

Asian Monsters: 90+ magnificent monsters for DnD 5E!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/legendarygames/asian-monsters-90-magnificent-monsters-for-dnd-5e?ref=theotherside 

This one looks like a lot of fun. And I was just lamenting that people had not taken advantage of an obvious market and to do it the right way.  Legendary Games looks like they are taking the right approach here.  Good job.  This one ends today!

Now heading to the old-school side of things.

Chromatic Dungeons

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1693797308/chromatic-dungeons?theotherside

I have been following the development of this one for some time now.  Glad to see it hit Kickstarter. Quote from the Kickstarter page:

The driving goal behind Chromatic Dungeons is to act as a clone of the early TSR era games, incorporating elements from each of those editions to allow you to play in a style that emulates the experience of playing tabletop RPGs in the 80s, while also being welcoming to all gamers of every demographic to better represent just how diverse our industry has become since the 80s.

Sounds great to me! They just got started and it really looks like a lot of fun.

and one I must have.

Book of Lost Lore & Book of Lost Beasts

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/brwgames/book-of-lost-lore-and-book-of-lost-beasts?ref=theotherside

Greyhawk Gognard runs a tight Kickstarter.  The only times he doesn't hit his target date is when he is early.  These books scratch that old-school itch better than what most companies are coming out with.

And you really can't beat the prices.

AND Finally, and this one is brand new.

HYPERBOREA 3E

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jeffreytalanian/hyperborea-3e?ref=theotherside

Honestly, what can I say about this one?  I LOVED my 1st and 2nd editions of Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea and this one looks crazy!  

I was all set NOT to get this one, my other editions are still perfect in my mind, but it just looks so good.  Jeffrey Talanian also runs a great Kickstarter, so this will be great.

The Christmas Annual is a traditional thing—and all manner of things can receive a Christmas Annual. Those of our childhoods would have been tie-ins to the comic books we read, such as the Dandy or the Beano, or the television series that we enjoyed, for example, Doctor Who. Typically, here in the United Kingdom, they take the form of slim hardback books, full of extra stories and comic strips and puzzles and games, but annuals are found elsewhere too. In the USA, ongoing comic book series, like Batman or The X-Men, receive their own annuals, though these are simply longer stories or collections of stories rather than the combination of extra stories and comic strips and puzzles and games. In gaming, TSR, Inc.’s Dragon magazine received its own equivalent, the Dragon Annual, beginning in 1996, which would go from being a thick magazine to being a hardcover book of its own with the advent of Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition. For the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2021, the format is very much a British one—puzzles and games, yes, and all themed with the fantasy and mechanics of Dungeons & Dragons, along with content designed to get you into the world’s premier roleplaying game.

Published by Harper Collins Publishers, the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2021 opens with a history, done as a timeline, which runs from the Dungeons & Dragons of 1974 to the recent release of the Baldur’s Gate III and Dark Alliance computer games. It includes each of the roleplaying game’s various editions, and highlights their best features, plus notable highlights such as the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon and the estimated number of players. The ‘D&D Quick-Start Guide’ suggests the first steps that a prospective player take to get into the game, from choosing the party and deciding who would be Dungeon Master to grabbing pencil and paper and selecting a campaign. Then it is onto ‘Creating a Character’, which actually serves as an easier to grasp guide to the process, and actually better than that given in the Player’s Handbook. As you would expect, it neatly breaks the character sheet down and takes the reader through the process step-by-step—though of course, the reader will still need to refer to the full rules.

The would-be Dungeon Master receives a similar treatment, beginning with ‘Master Dungeon-Mastering’, looking at a possible next step the player might want to take after playing a few games of Dungeons & Dragons. This takes her from ‘Choosing your Campaign’ and ‘Setting the Scene’ through to ‘Planning Encounters’ and ‘Roleplaying’, and includes a quick guide to running combat. The one issue with this article is really the choice of illustration for when choosing the beginning campaign—Dungeons & Dragons Essentials rather than the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set. There is nothing wrong with including the illustration of Dungeons & Dragons Essentials, but the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set is the more obvious entry point. The next step for the Dungeon Master is ‘Tips for World-Building’ which poses her several questions should she want to begin creating her own setting, her own campaign world. Unsurprisingly, it is fairly basic, but it serves as a set of beginning pointers.

One of the best features about any new roleplaying game is an example of play since it showcases how the game is intended to be played and be played. ‘A Tale of a First Encounter’ is a lengthy, three-part example of play which is set in an inn where several adventurers come together to form a party before an unexpected showdown with a bunch of bandits. It weaves in and out of game play and table talk and ultimately shows how dangerous combat can be as well as giving some idea of how Dungeons & Dragons can be played. Unfortunately not set in a dungeon, it does however show it is very much a social game, a game played by a diversity of players. If ‘A Tale of a First Encounter’ shows how the game is played, two other articles showcase how Dungeons & Dragons can also be consumed. The first is ‘Spectator Mode’ which features the seven most well-known real-play live streams, with Critical Role at the top of course. The second is ‘Audiophile’, which does the same for podcasts. Although there are no links, but they point to another way in which a prospective player can learn how the game can be played and enjoyed if he cannot immediately begin playing, and so ease himself into Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition vicariously. ‘Beyond the Tabletop’ does a similar thing, but points towards some of the card games, computer games, and comics currently available for Dungeons & Dragons.

Once a player begins play, the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2021 suggests options to improve both his gaming experience and that of his fellow players. ‘Level Up Your Table’ gives a host of accessories that he can add, such as DM Screens, maps, miniatures, apps, and more. Similarly, ‘Adventurers League’ and ‘Extra Life’ point to how a player can take his Dungeons & Dragons away from home and into the gaming community itself. The former with regular events at his local games shop (and ‘Your Friendly Neighbourhood Game Store’ points to just a very few of the very many available, as well as giving a player an idea of what they look like), whilst the latter tells the player how the gaming he normally does for fun can mean a bit more by raising money for charity through playing Dungeons & Dragons, and is a worthy inclusion in the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2021.

Much of the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2021 can be divided into four strands, including ‘A Tale of a First Encounter’, that run throughout its pages. The first of these is ‘Xanathar’s Classes 101’, which provides an overview of each of the twelve Classes from the Player’s Handbook. Each profile states what a Class is good for, what Proficiencies and Special Skills it has, and why a player should select that particular Class and why he should avoid it. Thus a Bard is described as a jack-of-all-trades, has boosts to his Performance-based skills, and his special skill is Inspiration, used to boost the attacks and saving throws of his allies. Lastly, the descriptions suggest that a player chose the Bard if he wants a character who can perform, persuade, and strategise, but avoid if he instead wants to inflict lots of damage. The counterpart to this is ‘Folk of the Realms’ which does the same for the Player Character Races in the Forgotten Realms and thus the Player’s Handbook. ‘Adventures Across the Multiverse’ guides the reader round some of the most notable worlds and locations in Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Thus for ‘Adventures Across the Multiverse: Forgotten Realms’ it identifies Icewind Dale, Neverwinter, and the Lost Mine of Phandelver, whilst Waterdeep is linked to the campaign, Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, Baldur’s Gate to Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus, and Chult to Tomb of Annihilation. The series does the same for Ravenloft and Eberron, although there are very few actual campaigns and supplements associated with them for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition in comparison to the Forgotten Realms. Later on though, the ‘Adventure Collection’ highlights all of the releases and campaigns for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition to date.

If ‘Xanathar’s Classes 101’ showcases the Classes of Dungeons & Dragons, then ‘Volo’s [Abridged] Guide to…’ does the same for its monsters. It covers the classics, including Rakshasa, Mimics, Wights, Liches, Beholder, and Duergar, telling the reader what they look like, what their favoured attacks are, how to defeat them, and other pertinent facts. This is a decent enough strand, but perhaps the choice of monsters is not as interesting as it could have been, but with so many to choose from…

Scattered throughout the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2021 is a handful of puzzles and games. This includes ‘Scrambled Spells’, anagrams of spells taken from Player’s Handbook, Sudukos for both spells and Player Character details, a treasure hunt set on the Sword Coast of the Forgotten Realms; a wordsearch of Dungeons & Dragons monsters, a spot the difference puzzle, a maze, and more. They are clearly designed for a younger audience—as is the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2021—but do show whatever theme you apply to them, the puzzles themselves have hardly changed, if at all, in decades.

Physically, the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2021 is snappily presented. There is plenty of full colour artwork drawn from Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, and the writing is clear and kept short, so is an easy read for its intended audience. One nice touch is the inclusion of photographs of game shops and people playing, showing that the game has a broader appeal than just at the potential player’s table and that they are having fun at the table. In comparison, the annuals past, the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2021 is slim, but packs a lot into its pages.

Unfortunately, the two elements that are missing from the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2021 those of the very title of the roleplaying game itself—no dungeons and no dragons. As inclusive and as well written and as well presented as the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2021 actually is, that really is a major omission.

Over the years, there have been plenty of introductions to Dungeons & Dragons, some of them decent, some them of utterly pointless and useless, such as the Dungeon Survival Guide and the ‘What exactly were you thinking, Wizards of the Coast?!’ Wizards Presents: Races and Classes and Wizards Presents: Worlds and Monsters books that heralded the arrival of the Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition. Fortunately, the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2021 is far superior to any of those.

The Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2021 is genuinely an interesting and informative read. To be fair, this is not a book or supplement that a dedicated player or Dungeon Master is going to need, or even want, to read. After all, much of this will be familiar to him or her. However, the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2021 provides a good introduction to the roleplaying game, especially as a next step after reading the Dungeons & Dragons Young Adventurer’s Guides series and playing the Endless Quest series. It provides a broader overview than either of those two series and better showcases the next steps that a player and a Dungeon Master take should he or she want to start playing. And like all Christmas annuals, the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2021 is a good gift to the younger reader, especially one with an interest in fantasy and games, but better than those Christmas annuals of old, for there is much, much more fun to be had beyond the pages of the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2021.

Yesterday I reviewed the 3rd Edition of the Bunnies & Burrows RPG. So given my desire to stick with cute and fluffy bunnies, I thought a character was in order.

The Game: Bunnie & Burrows

I detailed this game yesterday, so no need to go into a lot of details here and now.

The Character: Simon

Simon is a dwarf Jersey Wooley rabbit. He is a good bunny and a bit of a rascal. 

Name: Simon Bunny
Species: Rabbit (Jersey Wooley)

Profession: Maverick

STR: 7 (+0)
SPD: 16 (+2)
INT: 16 (+2)
AGI: 17 (+2)
CON: 12 (+0)
MYS: 7 (+0)
SML: 13 (+1)
CHA: 15 (+1)

Abilities
Tumble, Stealing, Handle Man-things

Simon is a Maverick.  Thought this was best given what an escape artist this little stinker is.  

Bunnies & Burrows has always been one of those games that elicits a variety of responses from gamers and non-gamer alike.  Most often it is "really? there is a game of that?"

I will admit I was and am a fan of the original 1976 Edition.  I never really got to play it, save for one time, but that was it. It was fun and I wrote a review for it. 

I did, however, spend a lot of time back in 2007 rewriting the Bunnies & Burrows article on Wikipedia.  Not only was I and others able to get the article to Good Article status, but I also had a Furry Advocacy group offer to send me money because of it.  I just asked them to donate the money to the Humane Society.  I didn't want my edits called into question if I Was doing them for pay.  I was doing it to further my own RPG knowledge.

So when the Kickstarter for the new edition from Frog God Games came up, well yes, I had to back it. They delivered it and it looked great. And I promptly put it on my shelf never to be seen again.  I was cleaning up some shelves to make room for more Traveller books when I found it.  I figure I should give it a go again.

If you have never checked out this game then I say do yourself a favor and remedy that. This is a great piece of the RPG past and should not go ignored.

I am going to review Bunnies & Burrows 3rd Edition from Frog God Games.  For this review, I am considering both the PDF and the Print version I received from Kickstarter.  There is a Print on Demand version, I have not seen it. 

Bunnies & Burrows, 3rd Edition

Bunnies & Burrows 3rd Ed comes to us from Frog God Games. Maybe more well known for the Swords & Wizardry line of books than rabbits, this game is still a solid contender for the Old School market. More so I say than some other games that people think of as "Old School."

In this game, you play rabbits.  Not anthropomorphic rabbits. Not mutant rabbits. But normal, everyday, common in your backyard rabbits.  If this feels a bit "Watership Down" then you are right on track.

Part I: Traits and Characteristics

Characters have 8 base traits, Strength, Speed, Intelligence, Agility, Constitution, Mysticism (was Wisdom in 1st and 2nd Ed), Smell, and Charisma.  Different Professions (Runners, Spies, Shamans...) all have a primary trait.  Traits are rolled like D&D, 3d6, and the bonuses are similar. 

Every profession gets some special abilities. So for example the Fighter gets a double attack and a killing blow.  It is assumed that your starting character is a rabbit or bunny. 

There are other choices too, Raccoon, Jackrabbit, chipmunk, skunk, porcupine, opossum, armadillo, and gray squirrel.  With the examples given, other small furry wild animals could be chosen.

Part II: Playing the Game

This covers the rules of the game and more importantly, the sorts of things you can do in the game. Covered are important topics like Habitats, Grooming, Sleep, Foraging, Diseases, and dealing with other animals and at worse, Man-Things.

There is a huge section on encounters and how basically everything out there is harmful to you. There are predators, humans, dangerous terrain, rival animals, and the ever-present search for food and water.

There are many sample scenarios and even a few mini-games to play.

Part III: For the Gamemaster

The last part covers the last half of the book.  It has a lot of information on setting up a game, how to roleplay, and stats of all sorts.  A lot of rival and predatory creatures are also listed in what would the "monster" section of other games.

There are a bunch of maps, scenarios, and encounters all throughout the book.  There is no unified theme, nothing that ties them all together, other than "survive as a little thing in a world full of bigger, scarier things."
There is certainly a lot of Role0playing potential in that. 




B&B makes you feel like it could all be happening in your backyard.  That while we Man-Things sit on our decks and grill our burgers and drink out ices tea, there is a world not that far from us distance-wise, but one that is as different and far away as we can get. A world of survival just under our noses. 

The game is quite attractive in terms of color and art. It looks fantastic.

There is a feel from this, I am going to call it the S&W effect, that I didn't feel when reading the original game.  This is a polished game that is trying to feel old. As opposed to an old that was trying to feel polished.

The original B&B looks cheap by today's standards but it was such an "out there" idea for the time that it felt more important than say the representation it got in RPG circles.  This new B&B has a similar feel, but maybe lacks a little of the gravitas of the original.

In any case, it is a fun game, and one every gamer would at least try.  I don't think you can call yourself an old-school gamer unless you have played it at least once.

This game is Simon Bunny approved!

Hopefully, I can put the latest tempest-in-a-teapot away for the one that was consuming us all last year.  

It was one year ago that the whole Oriental Adventures deal went down.  I am not going to go into all of it; there were petitions, camels, and a lot of chicken-little hysterics.  But here are some of the salient details.

A year ago game designer Daniel Kwan posted his concerns to Twitter about how culturally insensitive WotC's (formerly TSR's) Oriental Adventures is. 

This quickly devolved into the lowest sniping that is typical of these cultural debates. 

The end result was Wizards of the Coast putting a disclaimer on all older products about how they are an artifact of their times that honestly did not appease anyone.

We (Wizards) recognize that some of the legacy content available on this website does not reflect the values of the Dungeons & Dragons franchise today. Some older content may reflect ethnic, racial, and gender prejudice that were commonplace in American society at that time. These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today. This content is presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed. Dungeons & Dragons teaches that diversity is a strength, and we strive to make our D&D products as welcoming and inclusive as possible. This part of our work will never end.

So where are we now?

People made a HUGE outcry that they were going to be censored and that the older PDFs were going to get pulled or worse, they were going to be edited. People kept screaming slippery slope and other weak arguments.

None of that happened.

What did happen is that OA went from just a small handful of reviews and "just" a Platinum bestseller to a couple of score ratings (not actually reviews) and a Mithral best seller.

Screenshot 2020-01-03
Screenshot 2021-04-12. Only difference? Disclaimer and greater sales rank.

Comparing the files I downloaded when it was first offered in 2014, the one I downloaded in July of 2020, and the one I downloaded just now, they are all the exact same.  There is a difference of 11 bytes between the 2020 and 2021 versions that I can't account for yet, but every page is the same.

Your file sizes may vary due to name and customer ID#

Nothing in the file itself has changed.

I said at the time that WotC was not going to take it down and they were not going to change it.  I was right not because I had faith in WotC (far from it) I had faith in the money involved.

• To take down a best-selling, low-cost, high ROI product is foolish.
• To edit the same product incurs a cost, a high cost in many cases, that greatly reduces that ROI.

The intelligent thing to do is always make a new, better product to support the new current rules system, not anything at all for a nearly 50-year-old system with a diminishing customer base.

Also, the assertion that this would cause WotC to stop selling classic D&D pdfs altogether was easily dismissed. They kept adding more and more pdfs and PoD ready books. Focus has shifted a little from adding new pdfs (though the most recent ones are from June 18th or so) to get current pdfs PoD ready.

At the end of the day, Daniel Kwan was still making some very good claims.  These have been carefully spelled out in this series of videos. Warning this is over 26 hours long. If you want to dispute his point of view you need to watch this first.

Back then I said:

If I were in charge of the D&D line I would get in front of this now saying "Yeah, you have some great points. Let's assemble a dream team of experts both in history and in RPGs to make a new BETTER book."

I stand by that.  I have no idea if WotC is doing this or not, but I am a bit disappointed that no 3rd party publisher came forward to do it.  Now to be fair, Paizo very well could have done this and I just missed it. Brian Young has been doing exactly this for Castles & Crusades at Troll Lord Games.  Maybe the closest we have is Joesph Bloch's / BRWGames' The Golden Scroll of Justice. I don't have it, but I have read that it is good.  (edited to add. I just bought it to see how it is. First reaction, it looks good and has the level of quality I have come to expect from BRWGames, but I have no idea how representative it is, I am not qualified to measure that.)

People need to stop looking at these as "threats" and see them as opportunities to do better or at very, very least sell more books. 

 Been playing around with this one for a bit.  They started out as something akin to a mushroom person and changed.  Was out working in the garden with my wife all weekend and they kind of came together for me.

Groundling
Small Elemental (Earth, Fey)

Frequency: Rare
Number Appearing: 1d4 (2d8)
Alignment: Lawful [Neutral Good]
Movement: 90' (30') [9"]
  Burrow: 120' (40') [12"]
Armor Class: 8 [11]
Hit Dice: 1d8* (5 hp)
  Small 1d6* (4 hp)
Attacks: 1 weapon (garden tools)
Damage: 1d4
Special: Camouflage, damage by cold-iron, druid magic, spores, See below
Size: Small
Save: Elf 1
Morale: 8 (10)
Treasure Hoard Class: See below
XP: 13 (OSE) 13 (LL)

Str: 9 (0) Dex: 13 (+1) Con: 11 (0) Int: 12 (0) Wis: 15 (+1) Cha: 16 (+2)

Groundlings are small earth elementals that live on the material plane and parts of the lands of faerie.  They are distantly related to gnomes and other faerie races, in particular brownies.  They appear much as gnomes or brownies do; small with long noses and ears, quick and nimble fingers.  They are small, just under 2 ft in size with some only reaching 1 ft.  Their skin tone range from dark browns, to lighter shades all the way to a pale almost white.  They wear similar shades of light clothing making them 90% undetectable when they are hiding in the underbrush of their preferred forest homes. They wear large mushroom caps for hats. Groundling my travel underground via a natural burrowing ability.

Groundlings are rather peaceful and wish to be left alone to attend their mushroom patches and farms. If attacked they can defend themselves with their only weapons, their garden tools, for 1d4 points of damage. They can be hit by cold-iron to take an additional +1 points of damage.    If four or more groundlings are encountered then 1 will be a druid of the 2nd level and can cast spells.  Eight or more will have a druid of the 4th level.  Any creature or character foolish enough to try to attack a grounding within their own community is subject to a deadly spore attack that the entire community can release.  This attack affects all living animals in a 30-yard radius of the community.  The victim must save vs. poisons or choke to death. Groundlings are loathed to use this attack of last resort as they do not enjoy killing any creature.  

The most notable detail about groundlings is they do not have permanent biological sex or gender.  Groundlings reproduce via spores similar to mushrooms.  During the spring of each year, a grounding can choose to be "male" and release spores that are collected by groundlings who have chosen to be "female."  Within one month new groundlings are born and will maturity in 10 years.   Groundling may also choose either a male or female and maintain this choice for as long as they wish.  It is in this mode they will often try to relate to other species. It is during this time that they can also have offspring with brownies, gnomes, or other faerie creatures of similar size.

Groundlings have a simple society based around a family unit of 3 to 5 adults and up to 15 immature children. Their joys are tending their gardens, keeping small rodents as pets, and participating in a special form of community "theatre" where specialized spores are released to provide vivid hallucinations guided by the elders of their group. 

Groundlings do not keep treasure preferring to live off of the land. There is often enough in the community for the purchase of their garden tools.  They do make a particularly potent wine made from mushrooms that is a favorite among some of the wilder fey species. They do sell it, but often prefer to trade.

Groundlings as Characters:  A grounding may be used as a Player Character background.  They tend to favor classes like druids and witches of the Faerie, Green Witch, or Hedgewitch traditions.

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

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


—oOo—

Name: Prisoners’ DilemmaPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Aaron Sinner and Todd Walden

Setting: Soviet Era Russia
Product: One-shot survival horror
What You Get: Fifty-five page, 30.90 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Soviet Era Survival Horror.Plot Hook: Some horrors lie outside the Gulag.Plot Support: Detailed plot, four decent handouts, five maps, three pre-generated Investigators, and a new thing from beyond. Production Values: Good.
Pros
# Soviet Era Survival Horror# Pre-generated prisoners # Environmental survival horror# Challenging NPCs for the Keeper to roleplay# Challenging NPCs for the Investigators to interact with# Scope for conflict between the Investigators# Short, tightly plotted, one or two session one-shot# Inspired by real events, the Dyatlov Pass Incident
# Strong plot
Cons
# Linear, often heavy-handed plot
# Limited scope for player agency# Challenging NPCs for the Keeper to roleplay# Challenging NPCs for the Investigators to interact with# Scope for conflict between the Investigators# Potential Total Party Kill
Conclusion
# Soviet Era Survival Horror# Strong, but linear, and often heavy-handed plot# Scope for conflict between the Investigators# Nasty one-shot

England under the reign of Elizabeth Tudor is imperilled from all sides. From the Church of Rome and all of its adherent nations across Europe, as well as those within England who had not renounced their Catholicism and become members of the Church of England. And also from the supernatural and the practitioners of magick who grow stranger and more prevalent as the wall of blind faith that protected the country and the monarchy had been weakened. First, by her father, Henry VIII’s break from Rome, his establishment of the Church of England, and Dissolution of the Monasteries; second, by her sister, Queen Mary’s reestablishment of Catholicism in the country in an attempt to undo her father’s scheming; and third, by the schism in Christianity that would give rise to fanatics upon both sides. The resultant rise in magical and incidences of the supernatural were not seen as being due to a loss of faith, but to a rise in the practice of witchcraft, such that five years after succeeding to the throne, Queen Elizabeth passed an Act Against Conjurations, Enchantments and Witchcrafts, which particular made it a capital offence to employ magick to kill another and a felony to use it to maim or to consort with evil spirits, provoke love, or seek buried treasure. However, at the urging of Francis Walsingham, master of the Queen’s spy network in Europe, and Doctor John Dee, astrologer, alchemist, and companion in words to the Queen, she made an amendment—The Dee Sanction. This permitted the practice of magick in defence of the realm; it permitted those with heretical knowledge to work off their sentence in service to, and in protection of, Her Majesty; and it gave England a first line of defence against magick, its practitioners, and the supernatural. The fate of such agents would remain in the hands of Walsingham and Dee, their punishment abated—at least for the time being, and perhaps, just perhaps, despite what they have seen and what they have done, both in service of the Queen and before it, they might find absolution, they might have their sentences commuted.

This is the set-up for The Dee Sanction, a roleplaying game of ‘Covert Enochian Intelligence’ in which the Player Characters—or Agents of Dee—are drawn into adventures in magick and politics across supernatural Tudor Europe. Designed and published by the creator of The Cthulhu Hack following a successful Kickstarter campaign, it is a stripped back, Old School Renaissance-style (but not actual Old School Renaissance) roleplaying game of Tudor horror, investigation, and magic. The Agents of Dee, the Player Characters, are vulnerable and expendable, amateurs at best only slightly supernatural, criminals marked for death, and thus beneath the contempt of the privileged. They are duty bound to investigate and stop supernatural threats which could kill them, for should they run, they will be hunted and hanged for the criminals they are, and being expendable kept in the dark as to the truth of any situation or even any monster they might face, and ultimately if their efforts to stop the horrors and the supernatural which might threaten the realm fail, they are the ones to blame.

An Agent in The Dee Sanction is first defined by three Resources—Physicall, Intellectuall, and Supernaturall. These are rated by die type—initially a six-sided die for all, but one or more of these can be stepped down a die type in order to increase one or the other two according to the player’s preference. An Agent also has a Back Story which represents crucial steps in their life leading up to and beyond the point they stepped onto the black path that resulted in both their enlightenment and the dark mark on their soul. It also includes an Occupation, which provides a choice of eight Abilities, of which a player selects three; a damning Association and a Focus for enlightenment; and a Favour, a minor, very low key magical, Angelic means of influence that the Agent can bear upon the world. An Agent has Hits—how much harm he can withstand when wavering in face of Threats or Hazards; Unravelling, a further Resource which represents the balance of his humours, which can be upset through fear and exposure to the Unnatural; and lastly, a single Fortune token which allows a reroll. Elements such as the Back Story and Favour are determined randomly, either by rolling dice or drawing cards from a standard deck.

Mistress Conquest works the streets of London at night with a crew disposing of its rubbish. Always wanting to better herself and find a better place for women in general, in the discovery of a strange book— The Voynich Manuscript—she saw an opportunity to learn and perhaps gain knowledge that would help her. Unfortunately, she was able to learn little before the book’s previous owners came for her, but the members of The Octagon Society recognised her ambitions and believed that they could be aligned with their aims to find balance in both mind and spirit as a route to a higher purpose or form. She was able to learn a little before the society was rounded up as part of the enforcement of the Act Against Conjurations, Enchantments and Witchcrafts.

Janet Conquest
Intellectuall d8
Physicall d6
Supernaturall d4

Back Story
Occupation – Scavenger
Abilities – Scavenging, Night-Work, Astrology
Association – The Octagon Society
Focus – The Voynich Manuscript
Favour – Moisten (Stain, Spatter, Damp)

Hits 3
Unravelling d8
Fortune 1

Mechanically, The Dee Sanction has the feel of The Black Hack and Cthulhu Hack, but instead of deploying the standard attributes, uses its Resource mechanics instead. Thus whenever an Agent faces a Challenge, whether a Threat or a Hazard, his player rolls the appropriate Resource die. A roll of three or more and the Agent succeeds. However, if the result is a one or a two, the Challenge Falters and the Agent suffers a Consequence. This does not mean that an Agent has failed, but rather that his progress is slowed or achieved with unforeseen ramifications or a complication. In combat, this is typically not an unforeseen ramification but rather a loss of a Hit, but in other situations an Agent could be Humiliated with a social Challenge or Exhausted after an endurance Challenge. In addition, a Resource can be stepped up to the next higher die type or down to the next lower die type due to environmental factors, preparation, enemy power, and even Abilities. If the die type drops below d4, the Challenge becomes a Call to Fail, and the player has the option for his Agent to step back from the situation or take the Consequence. Combat is handled in a similar fashion, with a Moment representing a few seconds and initiative only failed on Falter. As with The Black Hack, the mechanics are player-facing, so in combat he rolls for his Agent to attack and to defend against attacks. A success on an attack and typically a single Hit is inflicted and a success on a defend, the Agent avoids harm, but suffers it on a Falter. If an Agent is reduced to zero Hits, he is dying and if his player rolls a Falter three times he dies. Otherwise, he is Out of Action and suffers a Consequence of the Game Master’s choice.

The Dee Sanction being a horror roleplaying game has its equivalent of a Sanity mechanic, in its case, the Unravelling. When the uniformity of belief divided and called into question and the Dissolution of the Monasteries scouring England’s symbols of belief, the Unravelling began… Across the country, in dense and trackless forest, along stretches of rambling roads, and within the ruins of broken churches and abbeys, somethings otherworldly snaked into the mortal world, Chaos blossomed in dark places, and there have been many nights when the Wild Hunt rides out. Exposure to unnatural horrors, rampant chaos, or the influence of other worlds is disruptive, traumatic, and unsettling, and when an Agent encounters the inhuman, the abhorrent, and the impossible, his player rolls the Unravelling Resource. Again, rolls of three or more and the Agent has the mental and perhaps moral fortitude to withstand the otherwise horrid effects of the unnatural, whilst a roll of one or two indicates a Falter. Where in other situations, a Falter indicates a success with complications, when facing the otherworldly, a Falter indicates that the Agent has suffered mental, soul scouring complications and one of his Humours has been upset. Not only is the Agent’s Unravelling die stepped down to its next lower step, the Agent suffers an Immediate Effect which lasts for a scene and an Ongoing Consequence which lasts until the Agent has had an overnight rest. Major frights may require the Unravelling die to be stepped down before the roll is made!
For example, Mistress Conquest has been directed to investigate sightings of a pony with blazing eyes in the Queen’s forests to the south. Near the village of Allum Green, she sets out to locate and confirm the truth of the matter. The Game Master says that searching for signs at night is a Challenge and will force her Intellectuall Resource to be stepped down, but Mistress Conquest’s player suggests that her Night-Work Ability would help in the situation. The Game Master agrees and Mistress Conquest’s player rolls her full Intellectuall Resource die. The roll is successful and some hours later, Mistress Conquest comes across the strange beast in the middle of a track. As it turns and snorts at its new watcher, its eyes blaze with fire and Mistress Conquest is taken afrit. The Game Master asks her player to roll her Agent’s Unravelling die. Unfortunately, the result is a Falter and Mistress Conquest must suffer the effects. Her player rolls an eight-sided die for the Immediate Effect and a six-sided die for the Ongoing Consequence. Mistress Conquest’s Black Bile Humour is up and the Immediate Effect is that she is overwhelmed by extreme emotion, her eyes filling with tears, and her body given over to deep sobs. The Ongoing Consequence is that once her tears and sobs have dried up, she is struck Sullen into a resentful silence and despondent, having been scared by the unnatural beast.Besides their own Abilities and Resources, the Agents have access to a number of tools and devices. One set is narrative in nature, the others not. The narrative tools are six broad influences in Tradecraft—Access, Conspiracy, Kit, Magic, System, and Vigilance. Access represents contacts and associations that the Agents can take advantage of; Conspiracy dealings with anything which questions the status quo and common sense; Kit, the right equipment or ingredient; Magic, knowledge of the Other World; System, the ability to work the country’s bureaucracy; and Vigilance, watchfulness, caution, and curiosity. Each facet of Tradecraft is a shared Resource between the Agents, and just the one is chosen at the beginning of each adventure or mission, representing how the Agents plan to deal with the unexpected or unknown they might encounter as part of their investigations. At the end of the mission, that facet is lost, whether it has been used as part of the Agents’ enquiries or not. Its primary use is to counter the Marks possessed by the enemies, hazards, and other threats that the Agents will encounter. Marks are narrative objectives, representing tasks that the Agents need to fulfil in order to successfully investigate and deal with a threat to the realm, and since only one can be addressed in each adventure, they lend themselves to play over the course of two or more adventures in dealing with a single mission.
For example, the Agents have been tasked with investigating the activities of one Sidney Montague, a student at Oxford who has been taking an interest in particular books at the college and so his tutors have alerted Doctor Dee. Montague’s mother regularly attends court and so has the favour of the Queen, so the Agents have to be careful in how they proceed. The Game Master sets three Marks. One is Conspiracy to determine what the Montague is bringing into his country retreat from the continent; the second is Kit, finding the right device to deal with the Barghest Montague has summoned and is roaming the forest; and the third is System, the Agents needing to obtain a signed and sealed legal writ giving them permission to search the house.The other tools are magical devices which aid the Agents in their investigations. They each have a Black Seal or amulet which allows them to communicate with Dee from a distance and also eventually, understand other languages and they have access to Stone Houses, a series of refuges and sanctuaries across Europe and the Middle East, that only those wearing the Black Seal may enter. Dee himself has Mercator’s Void, used as part of scrying rituals, and he can send Mister Garland, a supernatural manifestation, either a ghost or even an archangel, to serve as a briefing officer for the Agents and a contact for Dee. Specifically, the designer notes that Mister Garland serves as the equivalent of the character Al from Quantum Leap and the miniature tape recorder from Mission: Impossible, and that is an indicator of the tone of The Dee Sanction. It is an investigative horror roleplaying game set in the Tudor period, but it is not written as a strictly historical roleplaying game. It is intended to be played more as a horror mystery television series set in the Tudor period of an alternate Europe which makes the elements of magick, conspiracies, and so on, are real. And the devices themselves are reskinned anachronisms which facilitate, but break neither the narrative nor the tone of the television series.

For the Game Master there is a listing of the major enemies of the Queen, including the Pope and the Catholic Church, Mary, Queen of Scots, the Fae of the Great Wood, and more, plus a short bestiary—with it being easy to add more from other sources, background information about the Tudor Age and on both Walsingham and Dee, advice on running the game and even on converting adventures and their plots from elsewhere. Notably, it highlights how fragile the Agents are, having only a few Hits and their Unravelling almost a certainty… It also suggests that the Agents and their players keep a journal, both as means to record their progress and suspicions, and perhaps a means of the Game Master to develop further adventures from, and also a way for a replacement Agent to come up to speed quickly in an investigation should one of them die! Rounding out The Dee Sanction is the one-shot, ‘Lost in Translation’. It takes place during the great tour of European courts undertaken by John Dee and Edward Kelley in pursuit of occult knowledge, with the Agents being sent to recover a lost relic whilst they are in Poland. In doing so, they confront the creeping incursion of the unnatural that has come about with the weakening of faith across the continent, and whilst there are political benefits to be gained from a successful outcome, they will not be without their consequences… It feels a little odd to have a scenario in a roleplaying game which focuses on Tudor England set on the continent, especially in the core book. That said, as a one-shot it is fine and it can be adjusted back to England if that is what the Game Master wants, plus it would work later on in a campaign which could go abroad. Despite it being a solid introduction to the setting, it would have been perhaps stronger in storytelling terms to have gone with the pilot for The Dee Sanction television series, that is, the ‘how the Agents got into this mess and this is how they get out of it’ story and explored that aspect of the setting a bit further.

Physically, The Dee Sanction comes as a handy, digest-sized supplement. It is perhaps a little busy in terms of its layout, with a lot of bold text and so it does need a closer read in places than its then obvious simplicity warrants. The artwork has a nicely idiosyncratic feel to it and overall, there is no denying the certain charm to its physical look and feel.

Despite some missed opportunities in the choice of scenario, The Dee Sanction is a fantastical little offering of desperate horror and occult investigative roleplaying in a different age, but one with which we will be familiar from our fascination with the period. It is thus easily accessible in terms of the setting, just as is its horror and its set-up, all eased by simple mechanics that both create interesting Agents and make game play quick.

I have been wanting to see this one for some time now.  My wife and I have been on a Vikings and Norse Mythology kick for a while now and we both like Karl Urban. So I thought tonight was a good night for it.

I mean I had heard it was not great, but I wanted to see it for myself.

So from the start, there are some issues here.  There were no horses in America during the Viking era and the Vikings certainly didn't use them.  Nor was chain mail as depicted here used.  So yeah, this 

Karl Urban stars as "Ghost" a Viking boy, left behind after a raid. He is raised by the locals and has built a life for himself.    Fifteen years later the Vikings return and kill everyone except for Ghost, who is out hunting. Ghost watches them kill his father, and he attacks, killing many of the Northmen, called "The Dragonmen" by the Native Americans.

Ghost finds the other tribe, the one with Pathfinder and his daughter Starfire and warns them of the Vikings. 

The villagers leave and Ghost prepares to fight the Vikings.  There is a battle and Ghost kills a lot, but the braves from the village come back and they are slaughtered. 

The Vikings capture Ghost, Starfire, and Pathfinder.  They draw and quarter Pathfinder and force Ghost to show them where the next village is. He does so to protect Starfire.

All the Vikings are killed. Starfire becomes the new Pathfinder and Ghost guards the coast, watching for more invaders.

So yeah. It was not great.  My wife called it "Dances with Vikings."  I think that is being overly generous.  Clancy Brown is in it, but you can hardly tell. 

Gaming Content

This movie came out in 2007 around the same time as the Pathfinder RPG (2009).  I always conflated the two even though I was aware of the differences.  Though part of me would still like stat up the Pathfinder movie with the Pathfinder rules. 

The Vikings in this are more like Orcs than they are like Ragnarr Loðbrók. With their centuries too early arms and armor, this actually has more in common with Pathfinder the RPG than it does with the historical Vikings.  Their armor looks like they got from a GWAR yard sale.

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Tim Knight of Hero Press and Pun Isaac of Halls of the Nephilim along with myself are getting together at the Facebook Group I'd Rather Be Killing Monsters to discuss these movies.  Follow along with the hashtag #IdRatherBeWatchingMonsters.

If you have been online at all this week then you likely have heard about the new new TSR. Justin LaNasa secured the trademarks that were lapsed (again).  There was a TSR Games that produced the new Top Secret game and were involved with the short-lived Gygax magazine. 

The tale began before this, but let's take the June 15th date as a start of the new TSR in the public eye when they sent out their press release.

Lots of people have dissected this already and I have no desire to retread that ground.  There are a few things I want to talk about and for that, I need to start here.  So let's establish some facts. From the PR.

The team includes Justin LaNasa (CEO), Ernest G. Gygax Jr (EVP), Jeff R. Leason (COO, and Stephen E. Dinehart (CCO).

Ok. So far so good...almost. 

LaNasa has posted some questionable material online, on his own FB page, and on the Dungeon Hobby Shop page, now since deleted.  Now people are allowed to have opinions and they don't have to agree with mine. If someone deletes something they posted I am going to assume they had a moment, thought better of it, and deleted it.  That's fine. No need for me to bring it up. But there are others, and when a pattern begins to emerge well it is less like a momentary lapse of reason and more like behavior.

Here is one from a little more recently.

As a card-carrying member of the "Woke Nation," I take exception to this.  You don't have to like my opinions to take my money, but don't hold your nose and laugh while doing it.  Sorry, but if "woke" means I actually care about the opinions and feelings of others, then fuck it, I am woke.  Not only that I am a pretty big Social Justice Warrior and I have the receipts (in many cases actual receipts) to back that up.  Guess what, I can spend my money elsewhere.

If that were all, I could almost ignore it. I certainly would post anything about it, I'd just not buy your stuff and move on with my life.  There are lots of things I don't like; I want to talk about the things I do like. 

But then there was this bit from Executive VP Ernie Gygax.  It's a long video. The salient bits have been transcribed over at ENWorld. 

Look. It's an interview, not a presentation, not a press junket, so there are some rough bits in the presentation. But the real rough bits are really rough.

There is an absolute misunderstanding of IPs and copyright. The complete dismissal of the players of 5e is also poor professionalism.  I get you don't like the game, you don't have to like it, but dismissing the players of 5e? Sorry, my kids are huge 5e fans and they are having every bit as much as we did; maybe more. Referring to them as lemmings, also not a fan.  Also dismissing the largest population of role-players with money right now? That's just really bad business practice. 

Again, irritating, but not 100% damnable. Anyone can say something stupid once.  

But completely insulting the LGBT players by dismissing "gender identities" is so not cool and extremely unprofessional. 

Online, Justin, in his capacity as CEO of TSR, has made the claim that this is just Ernie expressing his own opinions.  Well, that doesn't really fly. The interview was in his capacity as a spokesperson for the company he is Executive VP for.  Let's be honest. No one will pay the "nostalgia dollar" based on LaNasa's name alone.  They are banking that despite not having a real plan that I can see and a lot of hope that people will buy these products based on the "TSR" and "Gygax" name. 

They want to produce a new "Star Frontiers," they own the name, but that is all. None of the IP, none of the rules.  Nothing really.

I fear they are poking a very large bear (WotC/Hasbro) and I am not sure they get that.  

Shannon Appelcline has written an update on TSR 2.0 and TSR 3.0 for his Designers & Dragons and has posted it to his Facebook page.

There is more. Lots more. But I am not really interested anymore.  This feels like a cheap cash grab to go after the nostalgia dollar and doing it by appealing to the lowest common denominator of that fan base.

Sorry but the whole thing is leaving a rather bad taste in my mouth.   I hope to see some changes, but I am not holding my breath. But I don't need to give any more of my cash to people that utterly dismiss the experiences of people I know and care about. 

Get your act together TSR or you will follow the business trajectory of the last two TSRs. And doubling down on Social Media is not only unprofessional but it is also a bad look. 

BTW: Jeff Dee is not working for them. 

 It is impossible to ignore the influence of Dungeons & Dragons and the effect that its imprint has had on the gaming hobby. It remains the most popular roleplaying game some forty or more years since it was first published, and it is a design and a set-up which for many was their first experience of roleplaying—and one to which they return again and again. This explains the popularity of the Old School Renaissance and the many retroclones—roleplaying games which seek to emulate the mechanics and play style of previous editions Dungeons & Dragons—which that movement has spawned in the last fifteen years. Just as with the Indie Game movement before it began as an amateur endeavour, so did the Old School Renaissance, and just as with the Indie Game movement before it, many of the aspects of the Old School Renaissance are being adopted by mainstream roleplaying publishers who go on to publish retroclones of their own. Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, published by Goodman Games is a perfect example of this. Other publishers have been around long enough for them to publish new editions of their games which originally appeared in the first few years of the hobby, whilst still others are taking their new, more contemporary games and mapping them onto the retroclone.

Yet there are other roleplaying games which draw upon the roleplaying games of the 1970s, part of the Old School Renaissance, but which may not necessarily draw directly upon Dungeons & Dragons. Some are new, like Forbidden Lands – Raiders & Rogues in a Cursed World and Classic Fantasy: Dungeoneering Adventures, d100 Style!, but others are almost as old as Dungeons & Dragons. One of these is The Fantasy Trip, published by Metagaming Concepts in 1980. Designed by Steve Jackson, this was a fantasy roleplaying game built around two earlier microgames, also designed by Steve Jackson, MicroGame #3: Melee in 1977 and MicroGame #6: Wizard in 1978. With the closure of Metagaming Concepts in 1983, The Fantasy Trip and its various titles went out of print. Steve Jackson would go on to found Steve Jackson Games and design further titles like Car Wars and Munchkin as well as the detailed, universal roleplaying game, GURPS. Then in December, 2017, Steve Jackson announced that he had got the rights back to The Fantasy Trip and then in April, 2019, following a successful Kickstarter campaign Steve Jackson Games republished The Fantasy Trip. The mascot version of The Fantasy Trip is of course, The Fantasy Trip: Legacy Edition. 

The Fantasy Trip: Legacy Edition is a big box of things, including the original two microgames. So instead of reviewing the deep box as a whole, it is worth examining the constituent parts of The Fantasy Trip: Legacy Edition one by one, delving ever deeper into its depths bit by bit. The first of these is Melee, quick to set up, quick to play game of man-to-man combat, followed by Wizard, which did exactly the same for sorcerers and other magic-users. The third part of this triumvirate is Death Test, which combined the two original scenarios—‘Death Test’ and ‘Death Test 2’—both originally published as MicroQuest 1: Death Test and MicroQuest 1: Death Test 2 in 1980. bringing the trilogy of mini-boxed sets together is The Fantasy Trip: In the Labyrinth. This is not yet another mini-box, but a book which combines their content into one volume and expands upon with further rules, expansions, and options which lift Melee and Wizard up from being combat and magical skirmish games respectively into an actual roleplaying game. What it lacks though is the counters and maps to be found both in Melee and Wizard, but that is not an issue with The Fantasy Trip: Legacy Edition.
The Fantasy Trip: In the Labyrinth is a combination of three books for The Fantasy Trip. The first two are Advanced Melee and Advanced Wizard which provided expanded rules for Melee and Wizard respectively. The third is In the Labyrinth: Game Masters’ Campaign and Adventure Guide, published originally in 1980, which added a role-playing system and a fantasy-world background for the whole of The Fantasy Trip line, as well as introducing a point-buy skill system for the system as whole—rather than just spells in Wizard. The new version of In the Labyrinth collates all of that content into one supplement for The Fantasy Trip Legacy Edition. It includes rules for creating characters, the core mechanics, notes on designing labyrinths, rules for both advanced combat and advanced magic, and it introduces the setting of Cidri, including a lengthy bestiary. All that, that there are two notable aspects to In the Labyrinth. First, the Game Master and her players could just start with In the Labyrinth as their introduction to The Fantasy Trip, instead of Melee and Wizard (and Death Test). That might steepen the learning curve though, and there is something to be said of the experience of trying out the basics of both games prior to coming to In the Labyrinth, though the supplement does serve as the capstone for The Fantasy Trip. Second, In the Labyrinth and The Fantasy Trip look like any other generic fantasy system, but dig down into the mechanics and the setting details, and whilst on one level, it does look fairly generic—and could be run as generic fantasy, it really is quite a bit different.
After introducing and explaining the concept of roleplaying, In the Labyrinth introduces the world of Cidri. This is a large world with an Earth-like gravity and environments, which until a few hundred years ago was the playground of an ancient all-powerful race of dimension travellers called the Mnoren. It was one of many worlds they created before they disappeared, but this has many continents, many of them connected by magical gates, and many peoples imported from the original Earth. Consequently, historical faiths and cultures of Earth can be found on Cidri, so Vikings, Aztecs, Persians, Samurai, and so on, can all be found on the world—somewhere. As can adherents of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, as well as those faith to gods and goddesses and pantheons unknown on Earth. Notably, whilst there are numerous faiths and religions to be found on Cidri, along with their priests, churches, and temples, the gods themselves do not appear in the world, and it is actually possible for the devout to achieve apotheosis. This mix of the fantastic and the real explains the cover to In the Labyrinth, which shows a wizard, a priest, a Norman knight, and a Roman legionnaire together best by monsters, a mix which otherwise be incongruous. What it also means is that almost any fantasy or historical setting can be dropped into the Cidri, such is the scale and scope of the planet.
In comparison to most fantasy settings, Cidri is relatively technologically advanced, gunpowder being known, but expensive—requiring dragon dung, and gunpowder weapons being unreliable. Despite these technological advances, magic is more prevalent and the Wizards’ Guild holds no little influence and power—far more than the Mechanicians’ Guild. Other guilds include the Thieves’ Guild, the Scholars’ Guild, the Mercenaries’ Guild. Alongside the guilds, In the Labyrinth covers various jobs and occupations which the Player Characters can have when not actually adventuring and so earn an honest (or dishonest depending upon occupation) income. 
A character in In the Labyrinth and thus The Fantasy Trip is defined by three attributes—Strength (ST),  Dexterity (DX), and Intelligence (IQ). Strength covers how many hits a character has, what weapons he can use, how effective he is in hand-to-hand combat, and for a Wizard, how many spells he can cast, each spell having a cost that is paid in Strength points, not only to cast the spell, but also maintain it if necessary. Dexterity covers how easily a Hero or Wizard can hit an opponent, disengage from the enemy, and how quickly he can attack. Intelligence governs the number of spells a Wizard knows, the maximum level of spells he knows—each spell has an IQ rating between eight and sixteen which the Wizard’s Intelligence must match for him to know, and his resistance to illusions and Control spells. With In the Labyrinth, Intelligence is also how many Talents a character knows. Both Heroes and Wizards can learn spells and Talents, but Heroes learn spells with great difficulty, just as Wizards learn Talents with great difficulty. 
In the Labyrinth and The Fantasy Trip is not a Class and Level system, but a Class and Spell or Talent system. It has only has the two Classes—Hero and Wizard. Yet, a Hero need not be the fighter of Melee and a Wizard need not be the classic adventuring wizard a la Dungeons & Dragons, guidelines being included to cover everything from the barbarian, the gadgeteer, and the merchant to the martial wizard, townsman wizard, and the wizardly thief. It is possible to create a priest, which can be a simple cleric or monk, or may actually know a limited number of spells. However, technically such priests would be Wizards with a Talent or two or a Hero who knows a spell or two. 
In the Labyrinth expands upon Wizard to include over one-hundred-and-fifty spells. These all have a minimum IQ rating to understand, from IQ 8 to IQ 20 and a ST cost to cast, and if necessary, to maintain. So they range from the simple Blur at IQ 8, a defensive spell which levies a penalty on DX when attacking the caster and costs 1 ST to cast and maintain to the IQ 20 Word of Command which costs 3 ST and affects those that fail their save for a whole minute. Typical words include ‘Believe’, ‘Come’, and ‘Quiet’, and the Wizard needs to learn the spell for each word. Similarly, it adds a range of Talents, which again have a minimum IQ rating for a character to know, from IQ 7 to IQ 14. These have a purchase cost, so the IQ 7 Talent of Brawling costs a point to purchase, whilst the IQ 14 Talent of Alchemy costs three points. Most grant the simple ability to use something like a knife or do something like diplomacy or undertake a profession such as Engineer or Theologian. Many Talents have prerequisites, so that Unarmed Combat I grants the ability to attack punches and kicks more effectively, and then Unarmed Combat II increases the effectiveness and adds ability to throw opponents or evade them, and so on up to Unarmed Combat V. 
To create a character, a player takes a base character with ST 8, DX 8, and IQ 8, and divides eight points between them with ten being the human average. Dwarves, Elves, Goblins, and Halflings have different starting values. Then, if a Wizard, the player has points equal to his character’s IQ with which to purchase spells, whilst similarly with a Hero, the player has points equal to his character’s IQ with which to purchase Talents. The process is relatively easy, but a random character generator is provided to speed the process up. 
Deodato Patriarca
Human – Hero – HealerMotivation: Desire for adventure 
Appearance: Average (5)Bravery: Brave (9)Friendliness: Friendly (8)Honesty: Less than truthful (5)Mood: Shy (4)
Strength 08Dexterity 12Intelligence 12MA 08
Talents: Diplomacy (1), Naturalist (1), Detect Lies (2), Physicker (2), Expert Naturalist (2), Woodsman (1), Courtly Graces (1), Unarmed Combat (1) 
Mechanically, In the Labyrinth and The Fantasy Trip are simple and straightforward. Whether a character undertakes an action, such as striking an opponent with a sword or following some tracks, or needs to make a Save to avoid an unpleasant or difficult situation, such withstanding the effects of a spell or dodging a falling log trap, his player rolls three six-sided dice and attempts to roll under the appropriate attribute. Rolls of three, four, and five indicate degrees of critical success, whilst rolls of sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen, indicate degrees of critical failure. The attribute may be adjusted, whether that is due to wearing armour or environmental conditions, but the main means of adjusting the difficulty of a task is by increasing or reducing the number of dice a player has to roll, and guidelines cover both critical successes and failures with the adjusted number of dice. It is simple and it is quick, and as a logical extension of both Melee and Wizard it presents a relatively easy learning curve.
Where In the Labyrinth and The Fantasy Trip becomes complex is in the advanced rules for both combat and magic. Advanced Combat is designed to cover just about every situation imaginable, starting from the combat order and options such as dodging, charging, disengaging, and casting spells to weapon types, fighting on broken ground, stairs, and in narrow tunnels, ambushes, unarmed combat, gunpowder bombs, taking prisoners, and more… The options are neatly explained and the Advanced Combat rules are backed up with a solid example of combat in play. Magic is treated as comprehensively in Advanced Magic. Thus types of spells—missile and thrown spells, control spells, illusions—including their limitations and even their disbelief by animals, and casting from both books and spells. Both of the latter take more time, but where casting from a scroll can be done in combat, casting from a book cannot. There is a complete guide to casting that most wanted spell, Wish, plus Advanced Magic takes the Wizard away from adventuring and into the laboratory with rules for alchemy, the enchantment of magical items, and more, accompanied by lists of potions and magical items that the Wizard can manufacture, or perhaps when adventuring, discover with his fellow Wizards and Heroes. 
Expanding upon Melee and Wizard, the bestiary for the world of Cidri in In the Labyrinth includes over hundred different entries, from humanoids, intelligent monsters, and ghosts, wights, and revenants to water creatures, plants, and nuisance creatures—the latter amusingly including children! All of the humanoid races are playable, with Orcs being more vicious rather than evil, Goblins being crafty and capable of giving and keeping their word rather than again being evil or nasty, and Gargoyles turn out to be tough and trustworthy, but distrust others because their gallbladders are used by alchemists in various different potions. The only addition to the humanoids on Cidri are the silly, annoying Prootwaddles, whilst the major addition to intelligent races are Octopi, which are capable of walking on land and wielding weapons and shields, but are cowardly, greedy, and dishonest! In the main, the various entries in In the Labyrinth’s bestiary will be familiar from other fantasy roleplaying games, but in many cases, there are little differences which will make adventuring on Cidri a different experience. So Vampires and Werewolves are actually suffering from a disease which they can pass on and can be cured of, and Wights, whilst undead, have a physical form that can attack and be attacked, and further, may not necessarily be evil. In some ways, it is this bestiary which showcases the default setting for The Fantasy Trip the best. 
In addition, In the Labyrinth includes rules and guidelines on creating and stocking labyrinths and on taking the game beyond the confines of such a labyrinth. Along with a few random tables to help stock both locations, these sections are relatively short, almost as if the actual labyrinths are not necessarily the focus despite the title of the supplement. There is a sample labyrinth included though, just a few locations and it is used in the example of combat later in the supplement. That said, the labyrinths do look weird done on hex maps rather than the square maps we are used to after decades of Dungeons & Dragons. Rounding out In the Labyrinth are descriptions of the village of Bendwyn and the Duchy of Dran in Southern Elyntia, both a couple of pages in length. These are very much a starting point for the prospective Game Master to develop, so a little basic, but nevertheless with a few hooks that she can employ. 
Physically, In the Labyrinth looks a little old-fashioned by being black and white throughout, and whilst the artwork varies in quality, some of it is excellent and some of it feels anachronistic in places. Nevertheless, it is a cleanly presented book and it is all very readable. 
Despite originally having been published in 1980, In the Labyrinth feels modern. Part of this is down to the presentation—clean, bright, and tidy, just as you would expect from Steve Jackson Games, but in the main, it is due to it being a point-buy system. In fact, one of the earliest of point-buy systems and probably one of the simplest. That simplicity is where In the Labyrinth shines, providing the means to run a fantasy roleplaying system that the Game Master and her group with a solid starting point upon which to add the advanced rules. The simplicity also provides a flexibility in terms character creation, suggestions being given to create numerous different types of character, but still only using what are effectively, two different Classes. Another reason that In the Labyrinth feels modern is that in its design can be seen the genesis of Steve Jackson Games’ other great roleplaying design—GURPS. So many of the elements of In the Labyrinth would go on to inform or even appear in one of the great generic point-buy roleplaying systems. 
As much as In the Labyrinth effectively explains and showcases the mechanics of The Fantasy Trip, it is less successful at showcasing the world of Cidri. At best the description of the giant multi-continent world of Cidri is an introduction to and explanation of why it is, but at worst, that explanation is bland and uninteresting. The problem here is that Cidri is presented as an every-world, a world that can have every historical setting in it plus fantasy, and whilst that gives the Game Master a lot of scope, it is also intimidating and it really does not give the Game Master a starting point. It should feel fantastic, but despite being fantasy, it does not. A more experienced Game Master will have less of a problem with this and be able to develop more of the setting herself, playing around with the potentially intriguing mix of real world and fantasy cultures rubbing up against each other. 
In the Labyrinth is a great supplement, packing a lot of well-explained and well-presented options into its pages. The result lifts the combat and magic-focused play of Melee and Wizard into a fully rounded The Fantasy Trip roleplaying game.

In comparison to Tales from the Loop, there is relatively little support for its sequel, Things from the Flood. Both share a setting in Mälaröarna, the islands of Lake Mälaren, east of Stockholm, first in the 1980s and then in 1990s, the site of the Facility for Research in High Energy Physics—or ‘The Loop’—the world’s largest particle accelerator, constructed and run by the government agency, Riksenergi. Both are settings drawn from Simon Stålenhag’s artwork, Tales from the Loop contrasting an almost pastoral idyll against a hi-tech world of the Loop, robots, and skies filled with ‘magnetrine vessels’, freighters and slow liners whose engines repel against the Earth’s magnetic field, an effect only possible in northern latitudes. In Things from the Flood, the pastoral idyll has been spoiled, the lands around the Loop spoiled by a hot, brown liquid bubbling up out of the ground, Riksenergi being shut down and the Loop being sold off, robots suffering from a strange cancer, and the resulting economic crisis would lead to depression, personality changes, divorces, gambling disorders, and more… Where Tales from the Loop is positive in tone and has a fascination with technology, Things from the Flood is darker and has a fear of technology.

Thankfully for fans of Things from the Flood—and other titles from Free League Publishing, there is the Free League Workshop. Much like the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons, this is a platform for creators to publish and distribute their own original content, which means that they also have a space to showcase their creativity and their inventiveness, to do something different, and perhaps even surprise us. So it is with Shakespeare’s Monkeys.

Shakespeare’s Monkeys is a scenario for Things from the Flood, and whilst it does involve things, it does not involve either floods, Loops, or even Sweden. It is still set in the 1990s though, but Australia, rather than Sweden, and the Teens are still teenagers. It is the first in a series of adventures involving the efforts of the research company, Northstar R&D, led by its founding CEO, Jeremy Longstaff, which wants to bring some of the technological and scientific benefits, in particular, the magic of magnetite, from the Loops in Sweden and Boulder City, Nevada, to the Southern Hemisphere. It is a short, one or two session scenario set in the lakeside town of Jindabyne, a small tourist resort in the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales, Australia.

As the title suggests, the scenario concerns a monkey—or rather a troop of monkeys, or rather it starts with one monkey and then involves a whole lot of them. Perhaps one of the Teen finds out he has a really smart possum breaking into the garden shed for food, but it turns out to be a monkey or the Teens hear about (or encounter) some weird, hippy American asking questions about the new buildings on the island out in the lake or they even hear about monkey sightings round the town. Either way, the Teens will soon encounter a troop of monkeys about town and in particular, one monkey who appears to have been modified with an antenna and ultimately wants to make friends. However, the Teens will not be only ones interested in the monkeys, or rather the one monkey, and when they investigate further, they will discover the presence of the strange American in town and his interest in the buildings on the island on the lake. Ultimately, they will follow the clues out to the island and discover not only what is going on there, but also how it affects the monkey who has befriended them, as well as the other monkeys.

Shakespeare’s Monkeys is the first in a series of adventures for Things from the Flood and a fairly sad one at that. It is short, playable in a session or two, and in general, its well-explained plot is easily adapted to other settings—even back to Mälaröarna or Boulder City! This may be a solution to a problem which the author of the scenario fails to address, and that is its setting. In Things from the Flood—and before that, Tales from the Loop—there is background information on both the Sweden and the USA of the nineties and eighties, but Shakespeare’s Monkeys has none. Just as American culture and Swedish culture are different, so is that of Australia. Whilst there is a map of Jindabyne, there is no background given either. Which leaves the Game Master with a lot of information to research to get the setting right, unless both players and Game Master want to rely upon soap operas for their knowledge of Australia, or given the fact thatShakespeare’s Monkeys involves an intelligent animal, episodes of Skippy the Bush Kangaroo (which manages to feel simultaneously appropriate and inappropriate). Now to some extent, the players and their Game Master will construct some of the elements of the setting of Jindabyne around their characters, that is built into Things from the Flood, but to shift the roleplaying game to somewhere else and not provide this is an oversight.

Another consequence of the lack of background, is that the consequences to the scenario—not the conclusion—is underwritten. Again, the Game Master will need to work out what these are, but again that will be derived from whatever she and her players develop in terms of their setting.

Physically, Shakespeare’s Monkeys is a decently laid out document and follows the format for Things from the Flood. Some of the artwork is decent too, and the maps are nicely done. Ultimately, when coming to run and play Shakespeare’s Monkeys, the issue that both Game Master and players will have address is the fact that it is set in Australia and it does involve an animal, so that may lead to some humour around the table. The issues with the background and lack of it aside, Shakespeare’s Monkeys is a likeable enough scenario that offers the chance to explore the world of Things from the Flood from a different perspective.

I have two Kickstarters today that look fantastic.

Up first is my friend Holly G's To the Heart of Bliss

To the Heart of Bliss by Holly G!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hollyg/to-the-heart-of-bliss-by-holly-g?ref=theotherside

Holly is the artist that gave us "School Bites" and works with her husband Jim Balent on their comic "Tarot Witch of the Black Rose."

While this Kickstarter is for her oracle deck, the reason I am backing is for her wonderful art.

Holly has a perfect track record with her own Kickstarters and I expect this will be no different.

5e Adventures in Oz: Setting, Monsters & Maps (Oh my!)

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doublecritical/adventures-in-oz-5th-edition-setting-and-sourcebooks?ref=theotherside

I have always had a soft spot in my heart for Oz.  I had the books as a very young child and I was absolutely fascinated with the Wicked Witch of the West.  Yeah I imprinted early and hard.

This new Kickstarter looks fantastic. It is for 5e and given some of the retellings of Oz of late I think this going to be great.

Isolated by nature and isolated by attitude and elitism, Ambershine Isle is known across the realm of Aashiyana for its illustrious academies and guilds, its power and influence which spreads far and wide—especially when it comes to the arts, and thus for its discerning critics and aesthetes whose opinions and tastes have the capacity to make an artist or a performer into one of the greats or cast him into obscurity. Every three years, Ambershine Isle holds the ‘Festival of Ambitions’, a magnificent gala which attracts the ambitious and the aspiring from across the realm, hoping to be picked from amongst the throngs and be recognised for their skill and their talent. Some are fortunate enough to have had their potential has already been noted by the isle’s academies and guilds and so been offered a magical invitation to Ambershine Isle. Others will have to make their own way there—whether one of the would-be artistes, or simply a merchant or grifter, wanting to take advantage of the ‘Festival of Ambitions’. However, the route to Ambershine Isle is not easy, leading across a series of atolls which only seasonally connect the mainland with the Isle and with the upcoming festival, is jammed with slowing moving carriages and crowds undertaking what is a pilgrimage to the arts, only further impeded by the tortuously complex bureaucracy at the gates to Ambershine Isle. There is another route though—across the Steaming Sea, but it takes a special ship to be able to withstand its corrosive waters and a special crew (or set of passengers) to hold off the dangerous aquatic monsters and pirates to be found in and on those waters. The Dreamer is that ship and those passengers are the Player Characters.

This is the set-up for Voyage to Ambershine Isle, the inaugural scenario for the Aashiyana Campaign setting—Aashiyana being the Urdu word for home—from PanicNot!, a collective of creators based in Mumbai. Designed to be both run using Dungeons & Dragons & Fifth Edition and ‘Systems Agnostic’, both scenario and setting are inspired by inspired by South Asian—and specifically Indian—culture, with Voyage to Ambershine Isle being written for First Level characters and intended to be played in a session or two. Over the course of the adventure’s three acts, the Player Characters will get to know Captain Wannaba and his wife, First Mate Mistress Wannafi, the owners of The Dreamer, meet the passengers, deal with stowaways, face some of the Steaming Sea’s deadly wildlife, and get involved in one or two of the schemes of the passengers aboard the vessel.

Voyage to Ambershine Isle begins slowly, but quickly gets the action going. After an opportunity for the Player Characters and the NPCs to introduce themselves, discuss their future plans, and perhaps pick up a hint or two as the secrets and motives of others, The Dreamer—a converted garbage barge sitting in a mithral hull to withstand the corrosive waters of the Steaming Sea—lurches as its hits something—hard! As the captain and his wife attempt to bring the vessel under control, they call for help, tasks made all the more difficult by a horde of Steamed Crabs which scuttle aboard at the same time. The crustaceans seem particularly drawn to below decks and following in their wake into the cramped corridors and quarters, the Player Characters have opportunities for both combat in the close confines and the discovery or two of secrets belonging to both crew and passengers as they check the various cabins, quarters, and other spaces below deck. Eventually, the Player Characters will discover the cause of The Dreamer lurching—the hull has been pierced and plugged by a Giant Mithral Crab! The Player Characters are free to handle this encounter in any way they like and it is nicely explained, going over the various options and outcomes. This can involve combat or roleplaying, though there is an optimal solution to the situation.

Once the situation below has been sorted, the Game Master has two options, or routes, for the scenario’s third act. ‘Route A’ is the shorter of the two, intended to bring Voyage to Ambershine Isle to close if the playing group is short of time, perhaps if the Game Master is running it as a convention scenario. It is very much a case of ‘wham-bam and we are done’ with little in the way of Player Character input and so is the least satisfying. ‘Route B’ is the longer of the two, and sees the Player Characters involved with a passenger complaint—a theft. The situation is not too difficult to resolve and may benefit from the Player Characters’ investigations below deck earlier in the scenario. Again, the encounter is nicely explained and gives options for the outcome, one of which would be to run the first option, ‘Route A’ as the scenario’s big climax if things go really wrong—really wrong! Once the dust has settled, culprits apprehended, secrets revealed, and perhaps a mighty monster defeated (perhaps), the Player Characters will have arrived on the shores of Ambershine Isle.

In addition to the advice on managing the encounters in the first and second acts, the Game Master is given further support for Voyage to Ambershine Isle with a series of appendices. These provide the stats for all of the NPCs and monsters—motivations for each is given earlier in the text, deck plans for The Dreamer, descriptions of the magic items and loot to found in the adventure, a big set of URLs for links to ‘GM Resources’ to help her run the scenario, and a table of trinkets to be found aboard the ship. The list of Game Master resources is particularly useful if the Game Master has never run a combat or a roleplaying adventure set at sea before, but includes links to general advice also.

Voyage to Ambershine Isle is not badly laid out and it makes good use of its art, as well as sporting the rather fetching painting of a Dutch Ship by Utagawa Yoshitomi. The scenario needs a tighter edit in places, but is otherwise well written and easy to understand.

The main issue with Voyage to Ambershine Isle is its brevity. It is too short to really get a feel of the Aashiyana setting and what makes it different from any other campaign other than it being from a collective of Mumbai-based authors. This is not necessarily to criticise the adventure itself, which though short, is action-packed and has plenty of opportunities for both roleplaying and investigation. Perhaps the best way to showcase the Aashiyana setting would have included some pre-generated Player Characters, each with their own motivations for wanting to go to Ambershine Isle and attend the ‘Festival of Ambitions’. As a short, sea-based adventure, Voyage to Ambershine Isle is pretty good and easily adapted to the setting of the Game Master’s choice, the encounter advice very much helping with that. For example, 50 Fathoms for Savage Worlds would be a suitable setting for it.

As the first scenario from new publisher PanicNot!, Voyage to Ambershine Isle is a short, but exciting combination of roleplaying, investigation, and combat, backed up with solid support for the Game Master. As an introduction to the Aashiyana setting Voyage to Ambershine Isle is underwritten and needs something more to really entice either Game Master or her players.

Been in a bit of a creative rut when it comes to D&D and D&D-like games lately.  I get my best ideas when running and I have not been doing that in the morning due to the day job.

In the meantime, I have been thinking about my two Trek games BlackStar and Mercy.

For BlackStar I spent some money and had a 3D model designed for my ship, the USS Protector.  I got the STL file from the designer and had my youngest print them out on our resin printer.  The results?  Well, I have to say I am thrilled to death with them.

Looking now I see the blue resin one is a little hard to see.  The green resin one I painted with a light-gray/off-white "Corax White" from Citadel paints.

The painted/green resin/smallest is the largest size we can print with the ship length on the y axis.  The blue is the largest we can do with the ship length on the z axis.

I am actually pretty happy with both sizes to be honest.

You can see the blue resin one better here.  The front of the saucer section was where it was connected to the build plate.  Connor raised it by a couple of mm and it looks much better.  I gave that one to my friend Greg for his birthday and his own Trek game.

The blue resin also looks like it is the same scale as this little USS Reliant model I have. I also have an Enterprise A that is very nearly the same scale.

The smaller one matches the scale (nearly) of the Enterprise D model I have too. 

If I compare to this sizing, the Protector uses the same space frame as does the Ambassador Class Enterprise-C.

I said originally that the Protector was 700 meters, that looks like a typo to me.  I am now saying 600 meters, so still longer that than the Enterprise C.  Most of that is in the nacelles.

It's kinda cool to have my own little starships coming out of what is this century's version of the replicator.

Speaking of centuries.  I have been discussing my Mystoerth Timeline with some others and it is a little like sticking a square peg into a round hole.  But it is still nowhere near as bad as trying to get my Star Trek timeline to line up.   I am not talking about trying to figure out how to work things like Discovery and Axanar into the mix, I am talking about trying to figure out how Trek and real-world history can co-exist!

One of the bigger issues comes from the episode The Space Seed, the one that introduced Khan.  In the episode Khan was supposed to rise to power during the Eugenics Wars in the 1990s. He then left Earth on a DY-100 sleeper ship around 2018.  

uh...Ok.  Look. The Space Seed aired in 1967. No one at the time thought people would still be watching Trek in the 1990s, let alone new Star Treks on the air at that time. 

How do I fix this?  Thankfully I stumbled on a video that neatly solves this problem (and some others) for me.

Moving it all to 2090?  Well, that works out great for me to be honest.  But I might even fudge it a bit more and say it happened in 2067, 100 years after the episode aired. Though that is only 46 years from now!

We know that  Zefram Cochrane made his warp flight on April 4, 2063, but there had to be sleeper ships still in use.  It works. It is inelegant in a way, there are other dates I'll have to move, but for *my* Trek universe it is fine.

In any case, it might not even come up in my games, though I am sure Mercy will deal with something from the Eugenics Wars. It's just too fruitful of a playground not to do something with it.