It is a Monstrous Monday, but since I am going to be spending all of April dedicated to monsters I wanted to take this one to discuss something I am working on and working out for April.   That is what form should my stat block take?

If you have followed my Monstrous Mondays over the years you may have seen the evolution of my monster stat blocks.  There have been variances depending on which system I am favoring at that time, but I had not settled on one until the last year or so.  After working with it for a while I am now looking to make some minor tweaks to it. 

But before I do that I want to do some baselines and see what has been used in the past and by other OSR designers.  Keep in mind that each stat block represented below was designed with that system in mind, I am not making any claims for cross-system use in these blocks, but I do hope to find something like that for my own.

Since I am going to be comparing several versions of the D&D game and various clones, I am going to need to pick a monster that is present in each one.   

I can think of no better creature than the humble orc.

Actually, I have other reasons for that as well.  Among the reasons, they are the archetypical D&D/Fantasy monster.  Goblins would have worked too.

Hang on, this is going to be a long one.

Basic Stat Blocks

Let's look at the various stat blocks among what I call Basic Era Compatible games.  I am not going to put up images of the entire entry.

Original Edition

Like much of OD&D it is simple enough IF you know where to go digging for all the data.  But this one leaves some details to be desired.  The emphasis on what sort of things orcs do in a wargame are nice.

Holmes Basic 

Here we get to what can be considered the first of the true stat blocks. We can get the basic information we need at a glance. Movement, HD, AC, Treasure, Alignment, Attacks, and damage.  There is more, but for now, let's consider this the absolute minimum. 

Moldvay Basic B/X

Here the stat block expands to take on features from the new Basic game. Largely they are the same. A slight change in AC and Move is different.  We now also have a No. Appearing category and Morale. Also, there is more description here. Moldvay is not assuming that readers already know what an orc is. 

Mentzer Basic / BECMI

As expected this one is very much like Moldvay.  We do have variance in Morale now based on leaders and Treasure Type is divided into individuals and hordes. The most useful though, and this is the influence from later in AD&D, we get a line for XP value.  It's a straight number as opposed to a variable one based on hp (like in AD&D's later books).

Rules Cyclopedia/ RC

The Rules Cyclopedia follows the same evolution from Holmes as we see in Moldvay to Mentzer.  For the number appearing, we get the actual dice mechanic, not the range, and there is an added line of Monster Type.  Now all of these are largely compatible with the others and you can see how each one is describing the same creature.  Also, all the blocks are very much the same.

Let's make things a little more Advanced.

Advanced Stat Blocks

Essentially this includes AD&D 1st Ed and AD&D 2nd, but I am going to include Editions 3 to 5 for completeness sake. I want to map some of the later editions' additions.

First Edition AD&D

Now here are few more changes.  To get the right feel for the evolution here we need to go back to Holmes Basic.  What is new?  Well we get Frequency, Move is now map-based, Treasure Types lair and individuals, special attacks and defenses (even when they are nil), Magic Resistance (in a percentage), Intelligence (not a score, but a nominal rank), Size, and Psionic ability.  

A few notes.  Orcs switch over from Holmes Chaotic Evil to Lawful Evil. The art makes their pig-like features more prominent.  These are largely the same creatures from Holmes and even other Basic games, but differences are beginning to creep in.   Everything from the Basic stat block is here except for Morale (not used) and Save As (there is a chart).

Second Edition AD&D

OK.  AD&D 2nd Ed was the king of robust monster write-ups.  I loved the one full page per monster format even though I admit there was often a lot of fluff added.  This stat block adds a lot more information.  We are still talking about the same creature and the Holmes stat block is still visible here.  Morale is back, though based on a d20 rather than d12/2d6. Still Lawful Evil.  This block includes the Orog or half-orc/half-ogre creature.  Do we know more about the orc than before? A little.  A lot more in the descriptions.

While later AD&D 1 blocks included calculations, AD&D 2 made them standard from the start.

I want to take the next editions of D&D largely as a whole even though the compatibility between the newer editions (of the last 20 years) is less than the editions that came before them.

Post-2000 D&D: 3rd, 4th, and 5th Editions

Third Edition D&D

Third edition had a noble goal. Monsters should be built just like characters. It was good. Yes, it made creating high-level monsters more difficult but it all held together mechanically.  3e also introduced some new ideas in a stat block that I believe are worth looking into.

Things are grouped together well. Something that Pathfinder would later improve on.  On our orc here we see a few things. AC is broken down into what is worn, what is natural, and what is due to dexterity.  What is the orc's dex?  Well that, and all their average abilities are listed here. Nice touch. Same with the saves.  Alignment gets a shift. Not just that the orc here is back to Chaotic Evil (ala Holmes) but also there is the qualifier Often.  Orcs by the way shifted to Chaotic because Barbarians can't be of Lawful alignment and that was their "Prefered" class.  Though by looking at the level and advancement an orc can start out in any class and move up.  So again this one harkens back to Holmes in terms of monsters as characters.  

As we move through the editions the more verbose the stat block gets.  In some ways this good and expected as the complexity of the game increased and more rules to cover more of the things DMs run into are needed.  The downside is how much of that information is needed in combat?  3e added skills and feats, so we need to know those.  Knowing the typical strength of an Orc is 17 is nice.  But we are a long way from the seven lines in Holmes.

The biggest addition here though is the notion of CR or Challenge Rating. This gave DMs an idea of how tough the monster was when setting them against an average party.  A CR 1/2 is easy for a party of 1st level characters.  It was also how XP is calculated. A CR 1/2 orc is worth 150 xp by itself to a party of 1st level characters. But to a party of 8th level characters it is only worth 100xp. To 9th level characters it is worth 0 XP unless there are a lot of them.  I liked this sliding scale and it made sense given the combat abilities of higher-level D&D 3 characters.

Fourth Edition D&D

Building monsters like characters is a great idea on paper, but in practice, we get some very, very complicated monsters at a high level.  Quick. How many feats does an Adult Gold Dragon have?  4e attempted to fix that issue some. 

Where previous editions (2nd is the best example here) gave us additional lines for different types of orcs or gave us the tools to advance them (3rd edition), 4th edition gave us different stat blocks that could get more detailed as needed. 

Monsters are built less like characters, but still use some of the same principles.  The stat blocks are tighter than 1st through 3rd, but you need a lot more of them.  For example, in the 4e Monster Manual, there are seven orc stat blocks to cover the different sorts of orcs.  

Like 2nd Ed, the stat blocks and monster descriptions are "modular."  That is that the entry for most monsters are limited to one full page.  In fact all of D&D 4 is like that. One could conceivably make D&D 4 so modular it is an à la carte D&D.  I could assemble my own monster book with entries from the three monster manuals plus any adventure or other source book.  As a game designer, it is appealing.

What is new here though?  Well, 4e introduces the idea of "unaligned" alignment.  It's like "True Neutral" but more of a "you do you and I'll do me and we will be fine" and less of "the balance must be preserved."  There is also a line for languages known which is a good addition in my mind.  Though I notice that orcs no longer speak "orc."  Well. Actually, they do, "orc" is just a corrupt form of "Giant" here, which in turn is a debased form of Primordial.

Fifth Edition D&D

In its goal to be all things to everyone 5th edition tries to strike a balance.  The stat blocks are robust enough to give you all the information you need, but significantly different versions of the monsters are separated off.

I can't help but think that D&D5 was looking over the shoulder of Pathfinder when organizing their blocks.  Basic combat "Defense" is at the top. What do I need to hit and how often do I need to hit it? Size and type appear right under the name as they have since 3e and a little bit of the Rules Cyclopedia. We get their typical abilities.  We get skill listings that are not just +0. Senses, Languages (oh look! "Orc" is back!) AND a combo CR and XP.  While not listed above, 5e retains the "unaligned" alignment.

Hitpoints are more important than HD here.  All their attacks and saves are already calculated and listed.  They do follow the same rules as do characters, but not slavishly so like 3e.  The war chief has a Gruumsh's Fury ability that you won't find in a character write-up.  I mean yeah they are similar to barbarians, but not exactly. 

Like 1st ed and 3rd ed these monster entries span pages.  While this messes with my sense of design, it does mean that we don't 300 pages where 250 pages will suffice. The unneeded padding and white space is gone.   

Judging solely by this it looks like Orcs are back to being a threat to 1st levels.  The 4e orc could mow through first-level characters.

That is the evolution of the D&D monster stat block over the first 40 years of D&D.  They say hindsight is 20/20 so what have the retro-clone designers done?

Retro Clones of the OSR

Here are a couple of stat blocks.

Starting with OSRIC it does exactly as we would expect.  It lays material out much like AD&D 1st ed with the knowledge that Level/XP will be useful in the block.  Orcs come out to an average of 15 XP this way; same as 1st and 2nd ed.  Movement is now done in terms relative to the creature, not map movement.  For various reasons, there is no treasure type listed.  Treasure is spelled out in the description. This does give the DM more flexibility.  

Labyrinth Lord comes very, close to OSRIC, but is more Basic in its presentation. The same information is given.  LL gets past the Treasure Type and goes with Horde Class, but there are translations out there.  Again when talking about hindsight; the XP value is included. Morale is back.

Basic Fantasy covers similar ground, but its 3rd Ed DNA shows through in AC. The block also leaves room for expansion as see here with N. Appearing.

I am posting more of the Old-School Essentials block to make a point here about design.  Gavin Norman at Necrotic Gnome took the idea of modularity and really went with it.  I can't say for certain he played D&D 4, but there are some ideas here that really call back to it.  OSE gives us the most compact basic stat block so far.  Like 5e all the defense and attack information is upfront.  Brief description.  Saves are detailed, morale is back and detailed. There are even XP values.  The text of the monster is bullet-pointed.  It is a model of efficiency really. We know nothing about languages or climate these creatures favor, but that is fine. It is mimicking the detail of the source game; Moldvay Basic.

Dark Dungeons, a Rules Cyclopedia clone, uses long columns for their monster entries, usually three to a page and filling a page.  So similar modularity as 4e and OSE.  In fact the stat blocks could be used with OSE with no issues. No surprise given the relationship of their spiritual ancestors; RC to Dark Dungeons and Moldvay Basic/Cook Expert to OSE.   Morale is presented a bit differently, but average hp is included along with the XP values.  Saves are listed out.  There is a habitat now included along with Type. 

Moving out to other games that don't specifically try to emulate any game in particular but the "D&D experience in general.

Adventurer, Conquerer, King System (ACKS) is largely based on Basic-era D&D and Moldvay Basic in particular, though it has some house rules.  Move is back to Basic (as was LL and OSE).  Percent in lair is lifted from AD&D style games.  The text descriptions match the world ACKS works in.  Notably these orcs seem to be a little harder to hit.

If ACKS is Basic moving towards Advanced, then Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperboria (AS&SH) is Advanced presented like Basic.   Again we see similar entries.  Saves are a single number (more on that in a bit), morale is present (like Basic) and XP (still 10) are listed.  Like ACKS, the orcs of AS&SH fit their world a little differently than a generic D&D world.   Here they are offspring of humans and dæmons. This also uses the 1st and 2nd ed (and really Basic) means of displaying variants; via a table.  3e leaves you to recalculate everything and 4e and 5e have separate sub-entries.

Moving out to even more different games.

Swords & Wizardry shares DNA with OSRIC but has become its own thing. While many will claim it emulates OD&D it is a really slimed-down version of AD&D to Basic-era levels. The stat block is more basic in its organization and content.  Alignment is a simple three-axis (like Basic), the move is "map relative" like AD&D and Challenge Level is from AD&D.  XP values are also AD&D derived.

The big thing that you should notice here is the advent of the single saving throw number.  AS&SH does this too, but S&W did it first.  It does simplify things to a large degree.  It does have a very simple layout.  The massive monster books for S&W; Monstrosities (544 pages) and Tomes of Horrors Complete (688 pages) are huge books. Both books expand the monster entries to fill a complete page in the same manner as 2nd Ed or 4th Ed.

There are a few more. Castles & Crusades and Adventures Dark & Deep are two more that also take our Orc to different places, but are still close enough to be familiar. 

Looking at all of these, knowing that each is needed for their own specific game, I need to figure out what is necessary for my own stat block, or even what is needed for a good "universal" stat block.  One that can be read and used for any "old school" version of *D&D or clone.  I also want to learn from what has come after that as well.

What seems to be central are HD, hp, AC, attacks.   Saves, XP, Treasure can all be derived.  Alignment can be figured out.  I am hoping to figure that all out during April.   In the meantime, lets use my obsessive-compulsive nature to have some fun with monsters!

Much like the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, the Jonstown Compendium is a curated platform for user-made content, but for material set in Greg Stafford's mythic universe of Glorantha. It enables creators to sell their own original content for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and HeroQuest Glorantha (Questworlds). This can include original scenarios, background material, cults, mythology, details of NPCs and monsters, and so on, but none of this content should be considered to be ‘canon’, but rather fall under ‘Your Glorantha Will Vary’. This means that there is still scope for the authors to create interesting and useful content that others can bring to their Glorantha-set campaigns.

—oOo—

What is it?
Secrets of HeroQuesting is a guide to HeroQuesting—becoming a hero, creating and running HeroQuests, and other secrets of HeroQuesting.
It is 10.43 MB, eighty-one page full colour PDF.

It is generally well written and illustrated throughout with a range of Public Domain artwork. The layout is tight in places and it needs another edit.

Where is it set?
Secrets of HeroQuesting can be set anywhere in Glorantha, but focuses on Central Genertela.
Who do you play?
Secrets of HeroQuesting does not require any specific character types, but Player Characters should possess magic, be capable and willing to embody the tenets of their cults and the characteristics of the gods they worship.
What do you need?
Secrets of HeroQuesting requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, but will apply to, but is not specifically for, QuestWorlds: Glorantha and 13th Age Glorantha.
Secrets of HeroQuesting makes reference to numerous supplements for Hero Wars, Questworlds, and HeroQuest Glorantha, including Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes and The Eleven Lights. It also references numerous titles from the Stafford Library and fanzines. None of these are necessary to run the content in Secrets of HeroQuesting, but they will help the Game Master with examples.

What do you get?
HeroQuesting—the ability to engage with the mythology and beliefs of Glorantha’s many cults and legends, to learn from them, to enforce them, and to embody the original participants, has long been a long-term aim of roleplaying in Glorantha, from RuneQuest II to RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. After all, the Lightbringers’ Quest in which Orlanth, Chalana Arroy, Lhankor Mhy, Issaries, Eurmal, Flesh Man, and Ginna Jar quested into the depths of Hell to find the Bright Emperor Yelm whom Orlanth had slain with the newly discovered Death, and return him to his rightful place and so bring about an end to the Great Darkness, is a myth central to Glorantha’s lore, which great heroes can enact again and again to enforce a fundamental truth about the world. This re-enactment and enforcing of a myth is known as a HeroQuest and its participants are HeroQuesters, and whilst the Lightbringers’ Quest may be the greatest of HeroQuests—especially if you belong to one of the cults which worships its original participants—there are innumerable cults in Glorantha, and all of them have myths to replicate and HeroQuests to be fulfilled. Secrets of HeroQuesting explores and examines the ideas and concepts behind HeroQuesting and suggests ways in which the Player Characters—if they are powerful enough and sufficiently devout—can undertake and so become greater heroes for their cults.
A HeroQuest is the bringing of a myth into the world, typically enacted through a divinely inspired, tightly regulated mythical journey, designed to ‘Achieve the Impossible’. Secrets of HeroQuesting identifies and examines various types in some detail—‘Short Form’, ‘Long Form’, ‘Riddling Contests’, ‘Wagering Contests’, ‘Re-enactment’, ‘Magic Roads’, ‘Raid Quests’—noting the potential controversy of the latter given that we are gaming in a modern world, ‘Exploration’, ‘Mundane’, and even ‘Spell-Learning’ in which Rune and other spells can be learned through mini-HeroQuests which echo how they were originally learned. In moving on to look at their individual steps or ‘Stations’ it suggests that HeroQuests become something that a HeroQuester actually invest points of Power into—much as he did for Rune spells—so that he can access a particular HeroQuest more easily later. Similarly, individual Stations can be invested in, which sets a greater flexibility in how the HeroQuester approaches each Station and can substitute different Stations for another and even use one Station to leap to another and potentially into another HeroQuest. In terms of objectives, a HeroQuester will not only be enforcing a Myth, but more personally learning a spell, performing an improbable act or task, gaining a magical weapon or item, gaining allies, and more. It might be that a HeroQuester is undertaking a HeroQuest to gain the means and support to start a bigger more important HeroQuest which he would otherwise be unable to start, let alone complete.
What is emphasised throughout is that although a HeroQuester is enforcing a particular myth, his approach need not rigidly adhere to how the HeroQuest is completed according to said myth. The HeroQuester can be flexible in how he attempts each Station, especially if successful. If a HeroQuester’s approach can be flexible, then so can the HeroQuest in that it is possible to alter or warp a HeroQuest, not just for the HeroQuester who completed it, but for anyone who attempts it afterwards. The flexibility extends to improvising stations as well, but this requires a higher degree of knowledge upon the part of both Game Master and her players, so is better suited to veterans who have been playing for a while and whose characters have also been HeroQuesting for as long. 
Numerous examples of HeroQuests are discussed throughout, though the Game Master will still need to track them down in order to deploy them in her campaign. Also discussed are the advantages of being Illuminated and going on HeroQuests, as well as covering the different planes—from the Mundane Plane to the God Plane, and the Ages of Gloranthan Mythology—from the Formless Age and the Dark Age to the Chaos Age and the Silver Age. Advice is given on designing and running a HeroQuest, tailoring to the players and their HeroQuesters, and suggested Game Master styles. It even takes the concept of ‘Achieving the Impossible’ up a notch or nine and suggests quite how HeroQuesters could potentially save those who have been consumed by the Crimson Bat! This falls under ‘Your Glorantha Will Vary’ of course, but would make for an epic mini-campaign since it would require a great deal of preparation, research and adventuring to even attempt it, including numerous HeroQuests before the big event. Throughout, the author adds commentary to the content, personalising it and giving much of what he writes some context.
Now as good as the advice in Secrets of HeroQuesting is, and as interesting a read on the subject as it is, there are issues with Secrets of HeroQuesting which preclude it from being totally useful for your RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha or other Glorantha-set campaign. First, it is one author’s view of what it is and what it involves, born of forty years of gaming in Glorantha, so it is unlikely to be the ‘official’ approach to the subject matter when the official guidelines are released. Second, the author draws heavily on forty years of assembling an extensive library of roleplaying games, supplements, scenarios and campaigns, and fanzines—the majority of which the reader is unlikely to possess or have access to. This is particularly noticeable inthe suggested use of ‘Virtues’, the equivalent of personality Traits from King Arthur Pendragon, which although present in earlier supplements for RuneQuest: Classic Edition (and also in the fanzines Tales of the Reaching Moon #6 and Enclosure #1), they are not present in RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, though the Power Runes do use its model. The inclusion of Virtues is not the only mechanical additions in Secrets of HeroQuesting, the others being the investment of Power into HeroQuests and individual Stations, and the inclusion of a ‘Hero Soul’, a magical part of a HeroQuestor which is awakened upon a Player Character first participating in a HeroQuest and left permanently on the God Plane. These contribute towards the third issue, the inclusion of extra mechanics and elements for the Player Character and Game Master alike to keep track of in addition to the fairly complex character sheet for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. Fourth and last, is that although the author identifies that most of what has been written about HeoQuests in the past is “fragmentary and self-contradicting” and states that his aim is to reconcile these fragments together with his “…most recent ideas and gaming experiences”, as much light as is thrown on HeroQuesting, Secrets of HeroQuesting still cannot quite get away from the enigmatic and mystifying nature of its subject matter. Especially for the Game Master not as learned when it comes to the lore. Perhaps the promised Secrets of HeroQuesting: Storm will provide concrete worked examples and advice on staging and varying HeroQuests when it is released.
Despite these issues, this does not mean that content presented in Secrets of HeroQuesting is neither interesting or useful, and it really has a lot of potential, especially if the Game Master has access to the same content as the author. Bringing that potential to the table is another matter, especially if the Game Master is new to Glorantha and RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.
Secrets of HeroQuesting ends with a detailed bibliography of roleplaying games, supplements, campaigns, and fanzines in which HeroQuesting is explored, a glossary of terminology, and full table of contents.
Is it worth your time?
Yes—Secrets of HeroQuesting provides an in-depth exploration of HeroQuesting, an important aspect of roleplaying in Glorantha and careful study will enable the Game Master to take her campaign and players and their characters onto another plane.No—Secrets of HeroQuesting provides an in-depth exploration of HeroQuesting, an important aspect of roleplaying in Glorantha, but it is not the official version from Chaosium, Inc. and it cannot quite escape being still a mystifying and enigmatic subject.Maybe—Secrets of HeroQuesting provides an in-depth exploration of HeroQuesting, an important aspect of roleplaying in Glorantha, but it is not the official version from Chaosium, Inc. and it cannot quite escape being still mystifying and enigmatic despite going some way to clarify the ideas and concepts behind the subject.

Imagine growing up in Lovecraft Country? What sights and hints of the Cthulhu Mythos might the children of that benighted corner of New England been exposed to, growing up as they have in or near its darker and more mystical corners—Arkham, Dunwich, Innsmouth, and Kingsport? Since being coined by the late Keith Herber, the setting has been more widely explored in supplements for Call of Cthulhu, such as Arkham Unveiled and Tales of the Miskatonic Valley during the nineties, and relatively recently in New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley and More Adventures in Arkham Country in the noughties. The point of view for all of these is always that of the Investigator core to Call of Cthulhu, but the very latest campaign to explore the region does so from the point of view of children, who perhaps suspect that the world around them is perhaps a little stranger than some of the adults around them would know or even admit, and in investigating that strangeness, may lay groundwork for their becoming fully fledged Investigators as adults. This is the set-up for The Eldritch New England Holiday Collection, a campaign which takes place over the course of a single year in New England, at four family get togethers, that will see cousins come together to discover dark secrets about their family and truths about the world around them, and confront mysteries and the Mythos, wonders and magic, horrors and truth, ultimately to form friendships which will last long into adulthood.

The Eldritch New England Holiday Collection from Golden Goblin Press, best known for titles such as An Inner Darkness: Fighting for Justice Against Eldritch Horrors and Our Own Inhumanity, The 7th Edition Guide to Cthulhu Invictus: Cosmic Horror Roleplaying in Ancient Rome, and Tales of the Crescent City: Adventures in Jazz Era New Orleans. Published following a successful Kickstarter campaign, it is a campaign for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, which is set in New England in 1925 and 1926 and which requires the players to take the roles of six eleven-, twelve-, and thirteen-year-old children. They each live and have relatives in the towns of Arkham, Dunwich, Innsmouth, and Kingsport, and during the course of the year will spend Halloween in Dunwich, Christmas in Kingsport, Easter in Arkham, and Independence day in Innsmouth. The campaign consists of ‘Halloween in Dunwich’, ‘Christmas in Kingsport’, ‘Easter in Arkham’, and ‘Innsmouth Independence Day’. Of the four lengthy scenarios, the first two are not new. ‘Halloween in Dunwich’ originally appeared in the Miskatonic University Library Association monograph, Halloween Horror, one of the winners of Chaosium, Inc.’s 2005 Halloween Adventure contest, whilst its sequel, ‘Christmas in Kingsport’ appeared in the 2006 eponymous Miskatonic University Library Association monograph, Christmas in Kingsport, following Chaosium, Inc.’s Holiday Season Adventure Contest. For the Keeper who has access to them, the following supplements will be useful in adding colour and detail to each of the four scenarios in The Eldritch New England Holiday Collection. These are Return to Dunwich, Kingsport: The City In The Mists, Arkham Unveiled, and Escape from Innsmouth, as well as Miskatonic University, but whilst they can be a source of colour and detail, none of them are necessary to run the scenarios in the campaign.

Interest in combining horror and playing children in roleplaying games has picked up in the last decade, with television series like Stranger Things and roleplaying games like Kids on Bikes and Tales from the Loop – Roleplaying in the '80s That Never Was. For Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, scenarios like The Dare and The Haunted Clubhouse have explored the more modern periods, but The Eldritch New England Holiday Collection predates them all—not only in the genesis of the four scenarios in the anthology, but also in the period they are set. Further, as much as the players are called upon to roleplay children in the campaign, they will be confronted with elements of the Cthulhu Mythos and cosmic horror as well as horrific elements of the mundane world, including racism, prejudice, child abuse, bullying, and worse. Whilst none of these elements are specifically aimed at the Investigators the players will be roleplaying, they are present in several of the scenarios and they are likely to witness them. Consequently, many of the scenarios do carry warnings and both they and the pre-generated Investigators are designed to be played by mature players.

The six pre-generated Investigators consist of Donald Sutton, Gertrude ‘Gerdie’ Constance Pope, Gordon Brewster, Edward Derby, George Weedon, and Alice Sanders. Donald Sutton, the son of Kingsport artists and gallery owners, is a sensitive artist who is also friends with a ghost; Gertrude ‘Gerdie’ Constance Pope is from Dunwich and has strange white hair and ice blue eyes and has the gift of knowing things she should not, but does not know who her parents are; Gordon Brewster is also from Dunwich, a sturdy and hardworking farm boy who knows that the local hills are home to strange things; the studious and intelligent Edward Derby lives just off campus from Miskatonic University in Arkham, and has managed to read the strange books his father left him; George Weedon, also from Arkham, is athletic and principled; and the oldest cousin, Alice Sanders is a resident of Innsmouth, sturdy and stocky, but with keen mind and a slightly devious streak. All six are given full Investigator sheets and more—the more of which comes at the end of the book.

The campaign opens with ‘Halloween in Dunwich’. As members of the extended Morgan family, the cousins and their parents or guardians are invited to spend Halloween at the farm of the family patriarch, Great-Grandpa Silas. As the adults gather and catch up with the family gossip and rumours—some of which the Investigators have an opportunity to overhear and presages plots and events to come in the rest of the campaign’s scenarios—Great-Grandpa Silas takes the children away for a day of activities, games, and competitions. These include apple picking, pumpkin harvesting and carving, singalongs, and more, ending with a family feast and ghost tales round the fire. These activities serve functions in and out of the game. They get the Investigators to interact with each other and with their family, to begin forging relationships with each other in play rather than simply as written. They also serve to get the players rolling dice and have their Investigators be active and gain Experience Checks so that they are more skilled as the campaign progresses, and they also show how children’s lives can be fun, especially in a period where the fun was not so technologically sophisticated to what it is today. This is a device which the author pulls again and again as the campaign progresses, but each time the setting is different, the family dynamics are different, and the activities are different.

The activities also establish a very nicely balanced contrast between the mundane and the Mythos, again a device which will be used in all four scenarios. Of course, when it comes, the Mythos is no less horrifying than you would expect. One of the old family ghost stories told round the fire proves to have more than a ring of truth to it as a vengeful spirit returns from the family’s past to enact a ghastly plan. The adolescent Investigators are the only ones capable of defending their family against the predations of this spirit, and must fight through a swarm of Halloween-themed threats to confront the evil spirit and put an end to its dread ambitions.

If the Investigators looked forward to spending time with Great-Grandpa Silas in Dunwich, they are resigned to spending ‘Christmas in Kingsport’ at the home of their joyless Great Aunt Nora. She expects children to be ‘seen and not heard’, so there is little likelihood of any laughter or fun. Fortunately, Aunt Nora’s ward, the Investigators’ beloved older cousin Melba, a carefree flapper and black sheep of the family, comes to their rescue. She sneaks them out of the house and takes them on a guided tour of Kingsport—sledding, visiting friends, feeding cats, snowball fights, and more. There is something delightfully picaresque about this day out and despite her reputation as the black sheep of the family, Melba is a very positive character who likely reminds both the players and the Keeper of someone in their own family and childhood. Unfortunately, the joie de vivre of the cousins’ grand day out comes to a crashing halt when they are discovered and then the opprobrium heaped upon them and their cousin, Melba, is upstaged by the arrival of their uncle, who has returned from Europe with his new wife. Who is German, no less! Which all threatens to sour Christmas even more.

However, ‘Christmas in Kingsport’ takes a stranger and more wondrous turn when cousin Melba leads the Investigators Beyond the Walls of Sleep and into the Dreamlands. This strange realm of sleep and dreams has always been portrayed as strange and weird, but ‘Christmas in Kingsport’ focuses on the magic and the joy of exploring a mythical, almost Narnia-like, realm. Having made their day in the mundane world, Melba makes the Investigators’ sleep a magical holiday adventure, but it suddenly takes a scary turn when a party in their honour is literally crashed by Christmas demons! Captured, they must find out by whom and why, using clues they have learned in both the waking and the dreaming world—the Investigators will definitely need to listen, and hopefully solve the mystery before they wake up on Christmas morning. Ultimately, there is a great deal at stake in ‘Christmas in Kingsport’, but it is a wonderfully entertaining and thoroughly enjoyable scenario.

The third scenario, ‘Easter in Arkham’, is darker in tone and pulls the Investigators deeper into the Mythos and the secrets of Arkham. Staying at the homes of both Edward Derby and George Weedon, the Investigators have a lot of freedom to visit some of their favourite places in the town and get up to a lot. These include going to the cinema to see films such as The Thief of Bagdad or The Gold Rush, getting ice cream, visiting the penny arcade, bicycling, and more. Chief amongst these though, is attending and even participating in the Miskatonic University Easter Parade, there being opportunities for the Investigators to bake goods, paint Easter eggs, and make Easter bonnets, as well as enter their associated competitions. The pleasure of these activities is first interrupted by strange rumours of missing pets, evil lunch ladies, swarms of killer rats, and worse, and then fraught encounters with one of Edward Derby and George Weedon’s classmates playing truant and a horrid attack by one of the animals in the petting zoo at the Easter Parade. Investigation will reveal that recently departed pets have been returning to their owners, but changed, tainted, and unstable, which for Call of Cthulhu veterans can only point to one cause—and they would be right! However, the Investigators do not know that and getting to that cause will entail dealing with terribly afflicted animals, making friends with a gang of would-be members of the feared O’Bannion mob each of their own age, and negotiating with a figure out of witch-haunted Arkham’s past in a very nicely judged and staged encounter.

The fourth and last scenario in The Eldritch New England Holiday Collection is ‘Innsmouth Independence Day’. Almost like the film Jaws, the Investigators get to spend and celebrate the Fourth of July on the New England coast, but this takes place on Haven Cove, an island opposite the harbour of Innsmouth, the most shunned and reviled towns in New England. This is a chance for the Innsmouth side of the Morgan family to meet the rest of the family, and vice versa, and do so on neutral ground, just sufficiently far away from the mildewed and mouldering seaport and its strangely inbred and evolving inhabitants, to gain the grudging acceptance of the High Council of the Esoteric Order of Dagon. However, one of the Investigators, Alice Sanders, a resident of Innsmouth has a plan. Once all of the competitions—swimming, sailing, fishing, sandcastle building, and more—are out of the way, she wants to sneak off the island and into Innsmouth and locate her family records. There are elements of The Shadow Over Innsmouth here, but the Investigators are sneaking in as well as sneaking out, and whilst there are plenty of watchful eyes who will alert the authorities to their presence, the Investigators can find allies too—and make friends. ‘Innsmouth Independence Day’ culminates in some quite nasty confrontations with some family secrets and truths, and whilst the protagonists are children, the scenario does not shy away from the sometimes brutal and inhuman way of life in Innsmouth.

Almost the last fifth of The Eldritch New England Holiday Collection is dedicated to Investigators sheets for the six children at the heart of the campaign. This is fifty pages long, which is somewhat unnecessarily over the top given the size of the cast. However, The Eldritch New England Holiday Collection does not just give Investigator sheets for the six children for the four scenarios in the campaign, but for later in their lives as well. The first set take the sextet into their early twenties, whilst the second presents them as Investigators for use with Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos. Hopefully, their inclusion will see the Investigators who have come of age and aware of the Mythos during the events of The Eldritch New England Holiday Collection return again to conduct further investigations.

In terms of staging the four scenarios in The Eldritch New England Holiday Collection, the Keeper will need to do some preparation. Primarily this will be to create the various adult members of the family in addition to those mentioned in the text. In terms of running the scenarios, the Keeper is encouraged to have his players spend Luck as needed on their Investigator’s tasks and actions, and in return be generous with restored Luck between adventures. In terms of staging the scenarios and the campaign there are, nevertheless, a number of issues with the campaign. First, The Eldritch New England Holiday Collection really only works with the full six players. Second, the scenarios are linear in places, though this is offset by the fact that there is a lot for the Investigators to do throughout, both in the linear sequences and in the sequences where they have greater freedom of action. Third, the campaign negates the parents and guardians of the Investigators. They are named, but they are never really developed and it would have been useful if the Keeper had been given some roleplaying notes about both how to roleplay them and how each of them feels about the Investigators.

Physically, The Eldritch New England Holiday Collection is very well presented. In contrast to most releases for Call of Cthulhu, there is a sense of warmth to the book and a vibrancy to its illustrations. Many of these are taken from period festival illustrations of the day, whilst the illustrations of the Investigators have a suitably slight cartoonish feel to them that enhances the childhood sensibilities of the campaign. Not all of the illustrations quite match the text, but that is a minor issue. 

As a piece of writing for a roleplaying game, The Eldritch New England Holiday Collection is simply an entertaining read. There are moments of tragedy and joy and outright humour in the writing and it is easy to see that the author is actually enjoying himself in writing the four scenarios in the campaign. As a campaign, The Eldritch New England Holiday Collection is linear in places and it does demand all six players, but it captures the feel of being a child again and pulls the players into roleplaying children again with all of its fun and disappointment and excitement and frustration of dealing with adults—and it does this without being patronising or belittling any one of them. It also brings alive a sense of family, with its gossip and secrets and difficulties. All of which will be familiar to so many players and Keepers from their own childhoods. As individual scenarios, The Eldritch New England Holiday Collection adeptly contrasts the mundane with the Mythos, whilst giving time for the Investigators to be children and revealing step by step some of the darker secrets about the world around them.

Golden Goblin Press has a well-deserved reputation for publishing excellent anthologies and campaigns for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, but The Eldritch New England Holiday Collection is the exception. The Eldritch New England Holiday Collection is a superb piece of writing, which in capturing our childhoods and taking a new, fresh angle to Lovecraft Country, brings charm to Call of Cthulhu and Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying. The late, much missed Keith ‘Doc’ Herber would have been proud.

Time for a rather notorious Sword & Sorcery & Cinema choice.  Another Roger Corman flick and it stars David Carradine as Kain, a holy warrior.  Not to be confused with Kwai Chang Caine, a monk.  But you know, it works here so let's go with it. 

The Warrior and the Sorceress (1984)

Well. We have two suns, so that is a cool thing.  I wonder what else we are getting double of? 

Caine, er rather, Kain comes to a village with one well and two warlords protecting it.  Each keeps the other from controlling it.   Kain kills the guards.  Not 10 mins in and we have both gratuitous violence and nudity.  Right on time Corman.

The movie is a retelling of Yojimbo or A Fistful of Dollars or Red Harvest.  This doesn't make it less enjoyable mind you, the story is pretty classic.  Kain plays the two warlords, Zeg (Luke Askew) and Bal Caz (Guillermo Marín) off of each other well.  

María Socas plays Naja the Sorceress (not the one on the poster) and spends most of her time topless.  Yeah, we are not dealing with a top-tier studio here.   Anthony De Longis is also in this as Zeg's captain Kief.  He was a familiar face in a lot of 80s movies. 

The two fools, Blather and Gabble, make fairly decent enough goblins.  Burgo, the Slaver, appears to be some sort of lizard man.  There is even a little bullywug looking creature that Bal Caz has.

Kain goes back and forth between the camps killing as he likes and is getting paid by everyone.  He is the most self-actualized mercenary adventurer on film. 

I'd like to know what the writer was thinking with the dancer at 55 mins in.  No, the dancer, Cecilia Narova does not look like the poster girl either.  She is a brunette.  I'd also like to know about the stinger that came out of her...navel, was that it?  I'd love to blame Corman for this one, but I don't think I can.

If you have seen any movie, ever, you know how this ends really. 

Maybe all these Sword & Sorcery movies all take place on the same world. 

Gaming Content

Sacred Sword of Ura

This looks like a sword of sharpness or a vorpal blade.  The blade is much lighter than one would expect from steel.  Only the Sorceress of Ura knows the secret of how it was forged. It is a +3 sword and can cut through an anvil, but not leather armor apparently. 

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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.

I took some time today to revisit the 2017 "Justice League" movie in preparation for Zack Synder's Justice League.  I have to admit, I am glad I did.
So I watched four hours of this movie and I have this to say.

I freaking loved it.  It 100% totally lived up to the hype.
For now, I am going to avoid spoilers but this version of the movie totally fixes nearly all the mistakes for the 2017 version.  I'll have more to say later, but right now consider me pleased!

It has been almost a decade since the previous edition of Savage Worlds was published, but following a successful Kickstarter campaign, Pinnacle Entertainment Group released an updated version, Savage Worlds Adventure Edition, or ‘SWADE’ in 2019. Originally published in 2003 and derived from Deadlands: the Great Rail Wars, the simplified skirmish rules for use with Deadlands, what Savage Worlds is, is a generic roleplaying game which promises to be ‘Fast! Furious! Fun!’. The RPG focuses on action orientated, cinematic style play, with the player characters able to take down mooks or Extras with ease, but always having a fight on their hands when they face any villains, either minor or major. The system is also designed to handle skirmishes between multiple opponents, so that the players can easily engage in small-scale wargaming as part of a campaign. It is capable of handling, and in its time, has handled a wide variety of genres and settings, including fantasy and pirates with 50 Fathoms, gritty fantasy with Lankhmar: City of Thieves, horror and the Wild West with Deadlands, ancient military horror with Weird Wars Rome, college and horror with East Texas University, pulp sci-fi with Flash Gordon, and more.

A character in Savage Worlds Adventure Edition is a known as a Wild Card because he brings in a degree of unpredictability to a situation. He is defined by his Attributes, Skills, Edges, and Hindrances (disadvantages), with both Attributes and Skills defined by die type—four, six, eight, ten, or the twelve-sided die. The bigger the die type, the better the Attribute or Skill. Edges include Attractive, Brawny, Gadgeteer, and Two-Fisted, whilst Hindrances include All-Thumbs, Clumsy, Heroic, or Mild-Mannered. Many of the Edges have requirements in terms of skills and attributes, experience or Power Level, or other Edges. Hindrances are either Major or Minor. To create a character, a player selects some Hindrances, which will give him points which he can spend to purchase Edges or improve attributes or skills. Choice of Race will give the character some beginning Edges, Hindrances, attributes and skills. Race is not an Edge in itself, but a package of Edges, Hindrances, and skill and attribute bonuses which can be selected during character creation. For example, a Saurian begins play with Armour +2 (scaly skin), a Bite natural weapon, Environmental Weakness to the cold, Keen Senses which gives him the Alertness Edge, and the Outsider (Minor) Hindrance which penalises his Persuasion skill. The average heroic Human of Savage Worlds, begins play with an extra Edge. A player has five points to raise his character’s attributes from their base of a four-sided die each and twelve points to raise his character’s skills.

Henry Brinded, Antiquarian
Attributes: Agility d4, Smarts d8, Spirit d8, Strength d4, Vigour d6
Skills: Academics d6, Athletics d4, Common Knowledge d4, Language (Latin) d6, Notice d6, Occult d8, Persuasion d4, Research d8, Spellcasting d6, Stealth d4
Charisma: 0
Pace: 6” Parry: 4 Toughness: 5 Bennies: 3
Power Points: 10
Hindrances: All-Thumbs (Minor), Bad Eyes (Major), Mild Mannered (Minor)
Edges: Arcane Background (Magic), Investigator, Strong-Willed
Powers: Arcane Protection, Detect Arcana, Speak Language

To do anything, a player rolls the die associated with his character’s Attribute or the Skill as well as an extra six-sided Wild Die because the heroes—and some villains—are Wild Cards and thus unique in the Savage Worlds setting. The highest result of either die is chosen by the player as his result, with the maximum result or Ace on either die allowing a player to reroll and add to the total. The base target for most rolls is four, but can be higher depending on the situation. Rolling Aces usually enables a player to roll higher than the target, with results of four higher than the target providing Raises that give extra benefits. Every Wild Card has one or more Bennies. These can be expended to reroll a trait, recover from shaken, soak rolls to prevent damage, draw a new action card and so gain a better place in the initiative order, to reroll damage, regain Power Points, and to influence the story. They are awarded for clever actions, good roleplaying, and acts of heroism, and so on, plus whenever a player character draws a Joker during combat. In which case, all Player Characters receive a Benny! The Game Master is encouraged to be generous with Bennies and the players to expend them to facilitate the action.
For example, there have been attacks in the city over the past few weeks and Henry Brinded suspects it might be some supernatural entity. He conducts some research based on the clues he has already discovered. The Game Master sets the target at four as it is a standard task. Henry’s player rolls two dice for the task—an eight-sided die for Henry’s Research skill and a six-sided die because Henry is a Wild Card. He will add two to the resulting roll because he has the Investigator Edge. Henry’s player rolls a one on the six-sided die and an eight on the eight-sided die. He selects the latter because it is higher and because it is an Ace, meaning that Henry’s player can roll again and add. The result of the second roll is a five, which Henry’s player adds to the first roll, as well as the bonus, for a total of fifteen. This is four, then eight higher than the target of four, so it grants a Raise or two. This means that Game Master will reveal a lot more information about the threat that Henry is hunting.Combat uses the same mechanics with initiative being determined by an ordinary deck of cards. In general, Wild Card characters have the edge over their opponents, able to shrug off damage or soak it with the expenditure of Bennies before they start suffering Wounds. The combat rules in Savage Worlds cover not just man-to-man, man-to-Orc, or man-to-Xenomorph combat, but mass combat and vehicular combat too. The rules for mass combat lend themselves towards the use of miniatures, either actual miniatures or counters, and the book comes with effect templates that can be copied and used with them.

The treatment of Powers, whether they be Magic, Miracles, Psionics, or Weird Science, is kept very uniform in Savage Worlds. Each is fuelled by Power Points, each has an associated Arcane Background Edge and Skill, and each of the Powers can have an associated set of Trappings. So, for example, the common Bolt Power could have different Trappings depending upon its source, which means that a wizard’s fire Bolt spell could have the flammable Trapping, potentially causing materials to catch alight, whilst a Gadgeteer’s Bolt Power could be an Electro-Zapper that with the Electricity Trapping causes target’s to spasm. The one type of Power which Savage Worlds Adventure Edition does not do effectively, is superpowers. They do fall under the Arcane Background (Gifted) Edge, but would be very low powered in comparison to a proper superhero roleplaying game and do not stretch as far as a ‘Four Colour’ style of game.

There are changes and tweaks throughout Savage Worlds Adventure Edition. To begin with, every character has some beginning or basic skills—Athletics, Common Knowledge, Notice, Persuasion, and Stealth, but have fewer points to spend on skills during character creation. Climbing, Swimming, and Throwing have been folded in Athletics, Lockpicking into Thievery, Common Knowledge is a skill of its own, Knowledge been replaced by a range of skills—Academics, Battle, Electronics, Hacking, Language, Occult, and Science, Streetwise is an Edge rather than a skill, and so on. Elsewhere, for vehicles, Acceleration is now factored into Handling and Top Speed, and Top Speed has replaced the earlier Pace to better reflect real world vehicles rather than vehicles on the table. Other changes have been to the way in which stories are told using Savage Worlds.

The rules for Dramatic Tasks, Interludes, and Social Conflicts are retained from earlier editions. Dramatic Tasks handle nail-biting scenes such as diffusing a bomb, hacking a computer, casting a ritual, or even escaping a deathtrap, and involve the players making skill checks for their characters in order to collect enough ‘Task Tokens’ to overcome the Dramatic Task—the more involved the Dramatic Task, the more ‘Task Tokens’ required. Interludes involve either Downtime, Backstory, or a Trek, and give scope to a player to roleplay and explore more of his character during more quiet times in the narrative. Social Conflicts work a little like Dramatic Tasks and are again, designed to add tension to a social situation, such as a negotiation or arguing a case in court, and involve a player rolling his character’s Persuasion or Intimidation skill to accumulate Influence Tokens which are compared to table to determine the outcome. Added to these tools are mechanics for Networking and Quick Encounters. Networking covers social characters interacting with clients to get information and clues, whilst scholarly type characters are in the library, and require no more than a single Persuasion or Intimidation skill check to determine the outcome. Similarly, Quick Encounters also use a single skill check, but what skill is used depends on the nature of the encounter. A chase might require Common Knowledge, Driving, Repair, and Shooting, whilst a heist might make use of Hacking, Notice, Stealth, and Thievery. Quick Encounters are designed to cover situations where the Game Master is pressed for time or has not prepared a big encounter, or there is simply no need to play out a situation roll by roll. There is scope here for the Game Master and her players to develop and combine these scenes, so that they could be run as montages. Another narrative change is to Experience Points, which have been replaced with a simple advancement scheme based on campaign length.

Savage Worlds Adventure Edition also comes with mechanics rules for creating races for both Player Characters and NPCs, a list of spells along with the means for a player to colour and modify their magic, and a bestiary of thirty or so animals, beasts, and monsters. It is rounded out with solid advice for the Game Master, which is worth reading whether she is new to Savage Worlds or has run it before.

Savage Worlds Adventure Edition follows the format of the earlier Explorer Edition of Savage Worlds in coming as a smaller sized—though not digest-sized—book. It is a full colour hardback, illustrated throughout with plenty of artwork which showcases the potential ranges of genres the rules can cover, emphasises the action, and focuses on the Player Characters. The book is well written, it is easy to read, there are decent examples of play, and where there are changes from the previous editions of the rules, the Savage Worlds Adventure Edition makes it clear what they are. If perhaps there is a niggle to the book it is that the elements of the Player Characters, the advantages, disadvantages, and skills, known as Edges, Hindrances, and skills, are organised in an odd order in the book. Any other roleplaying game would do attributes, advantages, disadvantages, and skills, but not Savage Worlds Adventure Edition, in which the order is Hindrances, Traits—attributes and skills, and then Edges. This is a holdover from previous editions of the rules and it made no sense in those editions, just as it makes absolutely no sense in Savage Worlds Adventure Edition.

Of course, like any new edition of a set of rules, it is primarily there to support new content, but one of the fantastic aspects of Savage Worlds Adventure Edition is that it is still compatible with earlier versions of the rules and thus with much of the support which was published for those rules, such as the 50 Fathoms or Sundered Skies campaigns. Plus, notes highlight the changes, making them easy for the Game Master to spot. There is also a shift in Savage Worlds Adventure Edition over previous editions, which is that as much as it supports mass battles, there is less of a military emphasis in the feel of the rules. Instead, the new rules emphasise the narrative flow of the game more in keeping with a contemporary style of play. Overall, Savage Worlds Adventure Edition is a slickly presented, well written new version of the action orientated, cinematic rules.

The tales of Robin Hood, of a band of outlaws standing up to the tyrant King John in the Forest of Nottingham are so strongly woven into the folklore, legends, and myths ‘Merrye Olde Englande’ that they are familiar across the English-speaking world. Over the decades, the tales have been reinforced again and again by film and television, from the 1938 The Adventures of Robin Hood with Errol Flynn and the 1950s television series The Adventures of Robin Hood with Richard Greene to more recent adaptations such as the BBC’s Robin Hood of the noughties and the 2018 film, Robin Hood. These adaptations and retellings, of course, vary in quality, tone, and humour, some even having been done as comedies. Similarly, Robin Hood has been the subject of numerous roleplaying games and supplements. Some have been quite comprehensive in their treatment of the outlaw and his band, for example, the supplements Steve Jackson Games’ GURPS Robin Hood and Iron Crown Enterprises’ Robin Hood: The Role Playing Campaign are both highly regarded in this respect, whilst other supplements take a broad approach, such as Sherwood: The Legend of Robin Hood for use with Savage Worlds, or simply touch upon the subject of Robin Hood, such as Romance of the Perilous Land from Osprey Games.

It is the author of Romance of the Perilous Land, Scott Malthouse who explores the aftermath of the Robin Hood legend in Merry Outlaws: A roleplaying game of folk ballads and justice, a roleplaying game in fanzine format. This takes place in the thirteenth century after the death of the tyrant, King John, during the reign of his son, Henry III or Henry of Winchester. Robin Hood has been dead five years, Little John has disappeared, Friar Tuck was burnt at the stake for heresy, and Marian has become a sullen sellsword. Although a better king than his father, Henry of Winchester’s England is rife with corruption, the powers of the barons unchecked, and the poor suffer. The Player Characters are Merry Outlaws, wanting to take up the mantle of Robin Hood’s justice and rob from the rich to give to the poor. Over the course of a campaign, they will scheme and steal, spreading their newly acquired wealth in acts of largess, and for each adventure they have, they will write a Stanza. When they have ten Stanzas, perhaps they will have a ballad worthy of ensuring their place in English folklore. Much like Robin Hood.

To play Merry Outlaws, each player requires two six-sided dice and two coins—the latter the older the better (though only for aesthetic reasons). Each Outlaw is defined by an Outlaw Code, two Outlaw Abilities, Stamina, and starting equipment. Apart from Stamina, which starts at ten, everything else is randomly determined. More Outlaw Abilities will be gained as the Outlaw has more adventures and writes more Stanzas.

Ralph of Bridport is an unassuming man who only came alive on the stage, performing for others. This was his downfall, for he was not noticed when the lord his troupe was performing for got into an argument with a merchant. When the merchant was later found murdered, it was Ralph who noticed the spots of blood on the noble’s blood. Before he said anything, the noble noticed his stare and denounced him as the murderer. Ralph was forced to go into exile and now works with fellow outlaws and exiles to make restitution for damage that the nobility inflict on the peasantry.

Ralph of Bridport
Outlaw Abilities: Warden (Roll with Edge when spotting something hidden), Disguise (Roll with Edge when disguising yourself or others)
Outlaw Code: Never break bread with the wealthy
Starting Gear: Broken lute, drinking horn
Stamina: 10

Mechanically, Merry Outlaws: A roleplaying game of folk ballads and justice is simple. It is player-facing in that the Game Master never has to roll dice. Thus, a player rolls for his character to undertake an action, make an attack, and to avoid an attack, but the Game Master does not make any rolls to attack. An action requires the roll of a six-sided die. Rolls of three or less are a failure, a one being a botch. Rolls of four or more are a success, a six being a Triumph. If a Player Character has an Edge, then the player rolls two six-sided dice and selects the best one, but if faced with a Setback, he rolls two dice and uses the worst one.

Combat uses the same mechanics, better rolls inflicting more damage when attacking, and avoiding more damage when defending against damage. Damage reduces a character’s Stamina by between one and three points, depending upon whether the attacker was armed and the quality of the roll. A Player Character whose Stamina is reduced to zero is ‘On Death’s Door’ and has a fifty percent chance of surviving and gaining a wound. Otherwise, he dies. At the beginning of each Stanza (or adventure), each Player Character has two Fate Coins. These can be used to lose a wound, gain five Stamina, or reroll a ‘Dying Roll’.

Merry Outlaws: A roleplaying game of folk ballads and justice adds two mechanical wrinkles at the end of any Stanza. The first is to describe how the wealth the Outlaws acquired during their Stanza is distributed amongst the deserving poor and every player writes a stanza, a four-line verse which will contribute towards the ballad of their do gooding. An Outlaw will gain three more Abilities over the course of his helping the poor, but with the tenth Stanza, his tale is over and the ballad is complete.

Physically, Merry Outlaws: A roleplaying game of folk ballads and justice is cleanly and simply laid out. It explains everything quickly and everything is easy to grasp. It is illustrated throughout with public domain artwork, all appropriate to the genre.

What Merry Outlaws: A roleplaying game of folk ballads and justice does not do is present the world of the thirteenth century or the detail of Robin Hood and his legend. Indeed, there is almost no background in this roleplaying game. What it instead relies upon is the knowledge of the Game Master and her players of the Robin Hood legend and the period when it is set. Having seen a Robin Hood film or television series would probably be enough, the folklore around the legend being enough and common knowledge. Which is fine because what the players are doing with their Outlaws is creating their legend or ballad to be sung down the centuries. Nevertheless, the Game Master will still need to develop some setting material, a scenario or two, and so forth for the Outlaws to get involved in.

Merry Outlaws: A roleplaying game of folk ballads and justice is easy to play with characters who are simply, but clearly defined by their abilities, which of course will colour play because of what they can do well. For example, Ralph of Bridport is definitely going undercover rather than engaging in a lot of fights! Ultimately, Merry Outlaws: A roleplaying game of folk ballads and justice is a quick and dirty version of—if not the Robin Hood legend—then the means for the players and their characters to step into his shoes and compose their own legend.

Quick one today.  Lots going on at the day job to keep me busy! 

I had not noticed it, but with the moving around of my various cloud accounts, I had killed my Downloads Page.

Well I spent some time on it yesterday and now I have it working with Google Drive.  And because I am never satisfied with just a link, there are Grid View and List View windows to see all the files.

I figure since I spent so much time on the code for this I should add a few things.

So I included the PDF previews of all my witch books on DriveThruRPG. There are few files that Eden studios have given me permission to host/share and I figured, what the hell, there are a few of my AD&D 2nd Ed "Netbooks" there.  You can find my original "Complete Netbook of Witches & Warlocks" as well as the AD&D 2nd Ed Priest Kit, the Sun Priest here. 

The Sun Priest shares DNA with the witch as one of the classes I created back in my earliest days of gaming.  The Healer and Necromance complete the quad.  One day I really should finish up that healer class.

I also included the free "Basic" and "S&W" witch character sheets here and a copy of the AD&D Tournament scorecard I have used in the past.

I will be adding to this as I can.  If there are enough files then I'll start a nested folder structure, but right now there are only 30 odd files here.

One thing I *will* add are the Google Sheets of the witch spells I have made.  This help people figure out which witch book they want to buy and if anyone needs an OGC spell they now know where to look.

Let me know if there is anything you would like to see added to this.

Lá Fhéile Pádraig sona daoibh!
Been a LONG time coming for this part 2.  I wanted to read some more myths of Ireland and Wales in particular before moving on.  One book, in particular, I wanted to make sure I read was Irish Witchcraft & Demonology by St. John D. Seymour. It is such a fun book that I could not pass up owning a copy, especially when I could buy it from the personal collection of Wednesday Mourning!

One of the things we must keep in mind when reading any Celtic myth or story is that the ones we have now were handed down to us from oral traditions and then recorded by Irish Christian monks.  While I am sure they did their best to preserve what they could they undoubtedly recorded them from the point of view of a Christian.  Even the later King Cycle of Irish myths included Christian themes. 

What does that mean to us, or more to the point, me and One Man's God?  Often it is not easy to tell if a "demon" from a Celtic Myth is a demon in their own world view OR a demon from the Christian world view.  Don't claim they all have to be Christian, we don't know and the experts are also split. But that honestly should not matter to us.  I don't care if they are a "Celtic demon" or "Christian demon,"  are they a "Monster Manual Demon?"

Thankfully we have some candidates. But first let's go back to our primary source, the AD&D Deities & Demigods. 

I mentioned in my Part 1 that there are not a lot of great candidates for demons in the text of the D&DG. I even disagree with the idea that Arawn is Lawful Evil. After rereading the First Branch of the Mabinogi I see the Lawful, but not the Evil.  Lawful Neutral is a better fit really. His abode, Annwn, is described as beautiful, unchanging, and without pain or suffering.  Hardly the MO of an evil god.

There are creatures though that could be described as demons.

Air Demon

I did a write-up a bit ago about the Swan Maidens and the Children of Lir.  In the tale Aoifé, step-mother of the Children of Lir, turned the children into swans. As punishment, she was changed into a Demon of the Air.  We know from the tale that demons of the air are immortal.  

Air Demon
FREQUENCY:  Very Rare
NO.  APPEARING:  1-4
ARMOR CLASS: 2
MOVE:  0" Fly 24"
HIT DICE:  4+4 (22 hp)
%  IN  LAIR:  0%
TREASURE  TYPE:  Nil
NO.  OF  ATTACKS:  1
DAMAGE/ATTACK:  Wind Blast 1d6 (60')
SPECIAL  ATTACKS:  Chill (2d4) x3, Invisible
SPECIAL  DEFENSES:  +1  or  better weapon to hit
MAGIC  RESISTANCE:  25%
INTELLIGENCE:  Average
ALIGNMENT:  Chaotic  Evil
SIZE:  M  (5')
PSIONIC ABILITY:  Nil

Wind Demons are among the weakest of demons.  They lack physical bodies and are functionally invisible.  Detect magic, detect evil, or detect invisible will reveal the location of the demon, which will appear as a faint outline of a humanoid creature.  The creature's evil intent is dampened only by their inability to interact with physical items including people. 
They try to cause havoc as much as they can in their own limited way.  They can attack with blasts of wind that whip up items to cause damage.  Additionally, three times per day the Air Demon can cause a blast of chill wind for 2d4 hp of damage to anyone within 15' of the location of the demon.
Air Demons are pitied more often than feared.  Their blasts of wind are ineffective from a distance and their howls of rage are sounds of a gale. They are immortal but lacking substance they can never interact with anything.  Even other air demons are as mist to them.

Demon Boar

The importance of the wild boar and the boar hunt in Celtic myth and even life can't be understated. The Welsh prince Twrch Trwyth was transformed into a boar.  Diarmuid the Irish warrior and member of the Fianna goes on a boar hunt but is killed by the Great Boar of Ben Bulben who had been his transformed half-brother. There are plenty of other examples of boars as monsters in Irish my including one with Cú Chulainn about a giant boar with tusks of gold and a hide as thick as armor. 

Demon Boar
FREQUENCY:  Very Rare
NO.  APPEARING:  1
ARMOR CLASS: -1
MOVE:  18"
HIT DICE:  9+9 (50 hp)
%  IN  LAIR:  25%
TREASURE  TYPE:  Nil
NO.  OF  ATTACKS:  1 gore (slashing)
DAMAGE/ATTACK:  2d8+4
SPECIAL  ATTACKS: Cause Fear
SPECIAL  DEFENSES:  Magic weapon to hit
MAGIC  RESISTANCE:  25%
INTELLIGENCE:  Low
ALIGNMENT:  Chaotic  Evil
SIZE:  L  (8')
PSIONIC ABILITY:  Nil

The demon boar is a demonic spirit that inhabits the body of a boar and creates a true monster. 

The boar grows large and fierce. Its tusks become gold and razor-sharp.  Its hooves become iron and cause flames to erupt as it runs.   Its natural hide is thick as armor. It is immune to all but magical weapons.

The Demon Boar is intelligent enough to plan and scheme.  Some can even speak.  Its normal tactic is to encounter a group of hunters and use its Cause Fear to scatter them into smaller groups.   It then will pick off the hunters one by one.  It relishes in the death and fear it causes.    It lives only to kill great heroes.

Only great weapons such as the Gáe Bulg of Cú Chulainn or the Claíomh Solais of Nuada Airgeadlámh have any chance of bringing this fiend down.

Irish Ways and Irish Laws

I love Celtic myth and history. It is all just so fantastic and fascinates me a in way that Greek and Norse myths never did, though the Norse myths come close.

Since I mentioned the book Irish Witchcraft & Demonology I should link out to the write-up I did on Ireland's most notorious witch, Alice Kyteler.

One of my favorite bits of Irish and Celtic mythology for a game is Brian Young's Castles & Crusades Codex Celtarum.  Brian has a Ph.D. in Bythronic languages and has been a gamer even longer.  He is exactly the sort of person I'd want to write a book like this.  Sure, you don't need a Ph.D. to write game materials, but it sure helps! 

And finally here is one I just found today, but it has been up for a bit.  FilmRise has the entire 1987, 6-part BBC Studios documentary, The Celts, on YouTube.  This fantastic documentary educated many on the history and archeology of the Celts as well as introducing the world to the music of Enya.

Go n-éirí an bóthar leat!

Much like the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, the Jonstown Compendium is a curated platform for user-made content, but for material set in Greg Stafford's mythic universe of Glorantha. It enables creators to sell their own original content for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and HeroQuest Glorantha (Questworlds). This can include original scenarios, background material, cults, mythology, details of NPCs and monsters, and so on, but none of this content should be considered to be ‘canon’, but rather fall under ‘Your Glorantha Will Vary’. This means that there is still scope for the authors to create interesting and useful content that others can bring to their Glorantha-set campaigns.

—oOo—

What is it?
Rivendell Maps is a publisher of maps drawn from RuneQuest Classic supplements.
Map of Apple Lane is a map of Apple Lane, the village in Dragon Pass as described in Apple Lane: Two Beginning Scenarios - Gringle’s Pawnshop & The Rainbow Mounds (Scenario Pack 2).

It is 4.99 MB, full colour PDF.

Map of Tin Inn is a map of the Tin Inn, the inn located in Apple Lane, the village in Dragon Pass as described in Apple Lane: Two Beginning Scenarios - Gringle’s Pawnshop & The Rainbow Mounds (Scenario Pack 2).

It is 499 KB, full colour PDF.

Map of Gringle’s Pawnshop is a map of Gringle’s Pawnshop, the trading house located in Apple Lane, the village in Dragon Pass as described in Apple Lane: Two Beginning Scenarios - Gringle’s Pawnshop & The Rainbow Mounds (Scenario Pack 2).

It is 4.82 MB, full colour PDF.

Map of The Rubble of Old Pavis is a map of a section of The Rubble, the ruins of Old Pavis, as described in the boxed set, Big Rubble.

It is 3.83 MB, full colour PDF.

Map of Zebra Fort in the Big Rubble is a map of a location in The Rubble, the ruins of Old Pavis, as described in the boxed set, Big Rubble.

It is 5.66 MB, full colour PDF.

Map of the Topside of Balastor’s Barracks is a map of a location in The Rubble, the ruins of Old Pavis, as described in the scenario, RuneQuest Scenario Pack 1: Balastor’s Barracks.

It is 3.12 MB, full colour PDF.

Map of Balastor’s Barracks is a map of a location in The Rubble, the ruins of Old Pavis, as described in the scenario, RuneQuest Scenario Pack 1: Balastor’s Barracks.

It is 4.93 MB, full colour PDF.

Map of The Sea Cave is a map of the location east of Corflu on the coast of Prax, as described in the scenario, RuneQuest Scenario Pack 2: SP8 The Sea Cave.

It is 288 KB, full colour PDF.

The majority of the eight are generally clear and easy to understand, mostly done in tones of brown and grey. The exceptions are the Map of the Topside of Balastor’s Barracks and the Map of Balastor’s Barracks, both of which suffer from a lack of detail and are not easy to understand.

Where is it set?
The Map of Apple Lane, the Map of Gringle’s Pawnshop, and the Map of Tin Inn are all set in Apple Lane in Sartar.
The Map of The Rubble of Old Pavis, the Map of Zebra Fort, the Map of the Topside of Balastor’s Barracks, and Map of Balastor’s Barracks are all set in the Big Rubble.
The Map of The Sea Cave is set east of Corflu on the coast of Prax.
Who do you play?
None of the maps have specific play requirements in terms of the Player Characters.
What do you need?
All of the maps from Rivendell Maps require RuneQuest: Classic Edition, but can also be used with RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. All eight are designed to be imported into the virtual tabletop, Roll20. (Other virtual tabletops are available.)
The Map of Apple Lane, the Map of Gringle’s Pawnshop, and the Map of Tin Inn require Apple Lane: Two Beginning Scenarios - Gringle’s Pawnshop & The Rainbow Mounds (Scenario Pack 2).
The Map of The Rubble of Old Pavis and the Map of Zebra Fort require The Big Rubble.
The Map of the Topside of Balastor’s Barracks and the Map of Balastor’s Barracks require RuneQuest Scenario Pack 1: Balastor’s Barracks.
The Map of The Sea Cave requires RuneQuest Scenario Pack 2: SP8 The Sea Cave.
What do you get?
One of the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting lockdown is the rise in online gaming, such that in some parts of the world, this is the prevalent way in which many roleplayers now play, whether one-shots, regular games, and virtual conventions. So Virtual Tabletops have become platforms on which roleplayers game, their handling elements which would have physical form when playing at the table (pre-COVID)—dice rolling, handouts, miniatures, and maps, and more. In some cases, publishers work with Virtual Tabletops to make their scenarios available, but in others, the Game Master creates and imports her own content, the handouts, the maps, and so on. This is where the maps from Rivendell Maps are useful. Each one was designed to be imported into Roll20, one of the more popular Virtual Tabletops. This is their primary advantage.
There are eight maps available from Rivendell Maps. They are of locations detailed in titles explored in RuneQuest: Classic Edition, so not locations immediately associated with the more recent RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. This limits their usefulness, as does the fact that beyond the confines of their individual scenarios, they are unlikely to brought to the Virtual Tabletop again. Of the eight maps, the Map of The Rubble of Old Pavis, the Map of the Topside of Balastor’s Barracks, and the Map of Balastor’s Barracks are rough and indistinct, again impeding their utility. To be fair, the map of Balastor’s Barracks given in RuneQuest Scenario Pack 1: Balastor’s Barracks is plain anyway, but this map is not an improvement. Of the eight maps, the Map of the Sea Cave is the most pleasing, being clearly and simply drawn, makes good use of colour, and is free of clutter.
Is it worth your time?
Yes—The maps from Rivendell Maps vary in quality and are often a little too dark to read clearly. However, should the Game Master require a map in an emergency for her Virtual Tabletop game, they offer a solution at least.
No—The maps from Rivendell Maps vary in quality and are often a little too dark to read clearly. They are also an expensive option, when it may be simpler for the Game Master to draw and upload her own.Maybe—The maps from Rivendell Maps vary in quality and are often a little too dark to read clearly. Serviceable at best, they are also an expensive option, when it may be simpler for the Game Master to draw and upload her own.

Today is an interesting monster from German folklore.  The Drude is a type of malevolent nocturnal spirit.  Depending on who is doing the classification it could be a spirit, an elf, a kobold, a demon, a hag, or even a witch.  Like many creatures of folklore, they do not conform to the notions of RPG creatures.

The question is what sort of thing a Drude (pl. Druden) is.   Even when one considers it a kobold, there is a lot of debate about what THAT is as well.  

But I think I have an interesting idea.

Drude
Small Humanoid

Frequency: Very Rare
Number Appearing: 1d2 (1d4)
Alignment: Chaotic [Chaotic Evil]
Movement: 90' (30') [9"]
Armor Class: 7 [12]
Hit Dice: 3d8* (14 hp)
   Small: 3d6* (11 hp)
Attacks: dagger or witch spell
Damage: 1d4-1
Special: daylight sensitivity, infravision, witch magic. 
Save: Witch 3
Morale: 6 (8)
Treasure Hoard Class: None
XP: 50 (OSE) 65 (LL)

Kobolds can be found in the underground caverns of nearly any climate or environment.  Their ability to adapt and even thrive in areas where other creatures would perish is one of their greatest strengths is a world that only recognizes strength.

When a kobold group moves into an area near a hag the hag's corrupting influence will cause a Drude to be born among the Kobolds.  A drude, plural druden, is a type of kobold but is usually smarter and has the ability to use magic.  Often called "kobold witches" these creatures will seek out the hag, or hags, that caused them to spawn in an attempt to serve them.  The hag will often teach the kobold their magic instead of killing and eating them.  No one is exactly sure why this happens, save that it might grant the hags a bit of attention and even veneration they crave.

A drude can cast spells as a 3rd level witch and may advance to as high as the 7th level.  They are treated as if they are either part of the Faerie or Malefic Traditions. A drude typically favors spells that create fire or cause fire damage.  A drude will typically take a hag as their patron, usually the hag that is local to them.  The hag teaches the drude witchcraft and magic and in return, the kobold tribe serves the hag or hags.

In combat, the drude, despite their eldritch powers, are still weak in a battle.  They will avoid combat when they can and would rather strike an opponent from a distance.  A drude among a group of kobolds will raise their overall morale by 2 since the combination of both magic and normal kobold strike tactics mesh well. 

Druden are vulnerable to sunlight. They attack at -2 in any form of bright sunlight or at -1 for reduced sunlight or a Continual Light spell.  They have infravision to 90'.

The offspring of a drude and a kobold will be a drude.

--

Klash-Nak is a kobold witch of the 4th level. Her patron is an Annis hag she calls "Mother Nightmare." 

Most Lovecraftian investigative horror is about preventing the apocalypse, about preventing the disaster which would end the world as we know it and instigate the fall of mankind, which would arise because the Stars have come Right, and some powerful entity—god?—of the Mythos or the Unnatural has appeared or been summoned to unleash a hell hitherto unimagined. Whole scenarios and even campaigns have been dedicated to preventing such an occurrence, but what if it did? It is a question that devotees of the genre have constantly asked themselves, and over the years it has been visited a handful of times. First in print with End Time, Doctor Michael C. LaBossiere’s Miskatonic University Library Association monograph which took humanity off of Earth and out into the universe following the end of the world, whilst the more recent Cthulhu Apocalypse from Pelgrane Press and Fate of Cthulhu from Evil Hat Productions answered the question in very different ways. The former by presenting the ‘Apocalypse Machine’, a tool/flowchart that provides the means to build an apocalyptic disaster and track its effects on both mankind and the planet, the latter presenting the apocalypse as something which could be stopped by going back in time. The latest entry into this subgenre is the Apocthulhu Roleplaying Game.

The Apocthulhu Roleplaying Game is published by Cthulhu Reborn, best known as the publisher of the well-received Convicts & Cthulhu: Call of Cthulhu Roleplaying in the Penal Colonies of 18th Century Australia. It explores futures and futures past—the Post-Apocalyptic worlds it posits all stem from the modern world, from the Victorian era onwards—in which the calendar has turned and Great Cthulhu has risen from his slumber under the Pacific and the coasts washed over with the oceans and strangely batrachian creatures; in which the Black Pharaoh was restored in Egypt and all became enthralled to his dark worship; in which the Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young strides out of the deep jungle and the gifts the world with a rewilding of such fecundity that it boils over with rabidly radical births that spawn change after change; in which strange fungoid insects appear with promises of great gifts and new technology, only to enslave mankind in rapacious drive to strip the planet of its resources, including humanity itself; and in which Serpentine Humanoids are awoken from their aeons’ old slumber to reclaim their ancient empire and reclaim the planet from the primitive ape descendants which have stolen it in their absence.

Such disastrous turn of events may have only happened recently, they may have happened hundreds of years of the past, but as with many imagined Post-Apocalyptic worlds, the survivors are forced to pick over the bones of former civilisations and societies and compete with other survivors for scare resources in order to merely get by, let alone attempt to build a better future. Yet in a future where the forces of the Unnatural run wild, the survivors must contend with the knowledge of what exactly happened being all but lost, the lawless of the new world, with cultists and devotees of the Unnatural reveling in the worship of their true masters and their victory over mankind, and with confronting both devotees and masters, the resulting shocks to their psyche likely to claw at the bonds forged with family and community, if not drive them insane.

It should be noted that the Apocthulhu Roleplaying Game is both a roleplaying game of its very own and not a roleplaying game of its very own. It is not a roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror a la Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition or Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game, but somewhere in between and hewing towards the latter rather than former. It is a percentile driven roleplaying game, but not a Basic Roleplay variant. Rather it has been written under an ‘Open Game Licence’ much like Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game. It is not a Mythos roleplaying game in the sense that it does not simply replicate entity after entity, race after race of the Mythos or the Unnatural. In fact, it limits what entities it can mention to those which are out of copyright and points the Game Moderator in the direction of both Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition and Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game, as well as Trail of Cthulhu, as ready sources of such things, as well as spells and Mythos tomes (and that is in addition to the possibility of borrowing the ‘Apocalypse Machine’ from Trail of Cthulhu). Being written under an ‘Open Game Licence’ also means that there is a wide number of shifts in terminology to be found in the Apocthulhu Roleplaying Game, such as Rituals for spells and Tomes of Terror for Mythos tomes. These shifts are no more than a simple step to the left though, and the adjustment for a Keeper and her players from any other roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror will be relative slight. As much as the Apocthulhu Roleplaying Game encourages reference to those other earlier works, it does stand alone, and it does something further, it presents a future—or futures—of those games if the Investigators fail…

A Survivor in the Apocthulhu Roleplaying Game has six statistics—Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Power, and Charisma, all ranging between three and eighteen. Willpower represents a Survivor’s mental fortitude and drive, and is equal to his Power. Willpower Points are lost when a Survivor attempts to suppress his mental illness, is exhausted, attempts to resist persuasion, suffers emotional burnout, or fuel unnatural phenomena—such as casting rituals. Besides a range of skills and a Sanity score, both rated as percentage values, a Survivor has Resources and Bonds. Resources, rated between one and twenty, represent supplies and personal possessions, their value determined by a Survivor’s Archetype (or Occupation), but can be increased at the cost of skill points. Bonds come in two types. Individual Bonds represent a Survivor’s relationships with friends, family, and so on, and are each equal to a Survivor’s Charisma, whilst his Community Bond represents the strength of the connection with a group and is equal to half his Resources rating. Both Bonds and Resources can be tested during play like statistics and both can change over time through play.

To create a Survivor in the Apocthulhu Roleplaying Game, a player rolls for his statistics (or chooses from an array), selects an Archetype, calculates his Resources and selects his Bonds. Archetypes are divided between those of the Recent Apocalypse, such as Former Military or Former Student, and those who Post-Apocalypse-Born, such as Muscle and Technology Salvager. Each recommends a particular statistic, grants some set skills and some further options, all at a set value, plus staring Resources and number of Bonds. A player can also customise his Survivor’s skills with extra Skill Point Picks. A player has ten of these, each of which adds twenty percentile points or they can be sacrificed to increase a Survivor’s level of Resources. A Survivor can also have more depending on the harshness of the post-apocalypse, but these can only be assigned to Post-Apocalypse skills, such as Scavenge or Survival.

Deved, Son of Bunker 242
Law Giver
Age 19

STR 14/70 (Wiry)
CON 12/60
DEX 13/65 (Agile)
INT 14/70 (Perceptive)
POW 15/75 (Determined)
CHA 17/85 (Magnetic)

Hit Points 13
Damage Bonus +1
Willpower Points 60
Sanity Points 60
Breaking Point 45

Mental Disorder: Dendrophilia

Bonds
My father, Commander of Bunker 242 17
Old Man John, Keeper of the Statutes 17
Nency, friend and companion 17
Community (Bunker 242) 14

Resources 10

Skills: Dodge 50%, Firearms 40%, Insight 70%, Law (Regulations According to Bunker 242) 60%, Melee Weapons 50%, Persuade 80%, Post-Apocalypse Lore (Fecund Forest) 40%, Research 30%, Scavenge 50%, Search 60%, Survival (Fecund Forest) 30%, Technology use 40%, Unarmed Combat 60%, Unnatural 20%

Mechanically, the Apocthulhu Roleplaying Game is a percentile game. The results of any test—statistic or skill related—can be a critical success, success, failure, or fumble. A critical success is a result of one or doubles up to the value of the statistic or skill being tested; a success is a roll equal to or under the statistic or skill; a failure is result over the statistic or skill; and a fumble is a result of double zero or doubles above the value of the statistic or skill. The deadliness of the Apocthulhu Roleplaying Game is reflected in the Luck mechanic, which is a straight 50% roll and many weapons, such as grenades or submachine guns possessing a Lethality percentile rating. If an attack is successful and the Lethality roll is also successful, the target is killed straight, and even if failed, the dice results of the Lethality roll are added together and inflicted as damage, so the larger the failure, the more damage inflicted!

The Sanity mechanics in the Apocthulhu Roleplaying Game are similar to those of the Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game. Sanity can be lost through exposure to three sources—Violence, Helplessness, and the Unnatural, and in the case of Violence and Helplessness, a Survivor can become inured to such sources, though this comes at cost to their personality and their Bonds. If a Sanity test is failed, a Survivor suffers from Temporary Insanity, and will either Flee, Struggle against the source of the insanity, or Submit and collapse. When a Survivor’s Sanity is reduced to below his Breaking Point—equal to four fifths of his starting Sanity score—the effects of the Sanity loss are not temporary, the Survivor gaining a Mental Disorder. The Mental Disorder can be triggered by further exposure to whatever caused it in the first place. Lost Sanity can be recovered by interacting with a Bond, defeating Unnatural creatures, destroying accounts of the Unnatural (which sets up a tension between the need to study such accounts in order to destroy them and the need to destroy the tomes to remove them from the world), fulfilling personal goals, and looking after others. The last two are conducted during periods of Downtime which follow any investigation into the Unnatural and narratively serve as a counterpoint to the horror which has gone on before.

In addition to rules for confronting the Unnatural, researching Tomes of Terror, and handling Supernatural Effects just as you would expect for a roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror, the Apocthulhu Roleplaying Game also includes rules for living and surviving in the apocalypse. These include rules for scavenging and jury-rigging found technology, resource scarcity, vehicles, and heavy weapons, all mainstays of the Post Apocalypse genre. It also integrates the effects of the Post Apocalypse futures in sanity. Each Post Apocalypse is graded on its degree of Harshness—either Normal(ish), Harsh, Very Harsh, or Nightmarish. The greater the degree of Harshness, the lower a Survivor’s beginning Sanity and the greater the likelihood of his beginning play with a Mental Disorder. This is offset by more skill adjustments and increased statistics during Survivor creation. For the Game Moderator, the Apocthulhu Roleplaying Game poses a number of questions such as, “What event triggered the Apocalypse?”, “What changed?”, “Is there any hope?”, and so on, which answering should ideally spur the creation of an Apocalypse of her own. In addition to this, the Apocthulhu Roleplaying Game provides eight example Apocalypses, each very different. For example, in ‘Apocalypse 1: The Stars Turn, Turn, Turn’, the stars have come right and multiple entities of the Mythos stalk the Earth, whilst in ‘Apocalypse 2: Nyarlathotep Unmasked’, the failure to prevent a summoning off the coast of China in the 1920s—in a knowing nod to Masks of Nyarlathotep indicative of the Apocthulhu Roleplaying Game’s potential role as a sequel—pushed the world into a nuclear strike and nuclear winter. Each of the eight Apocalypses provides answers to the eight questions plus some threats and tomes of terror, but is really only a snapshot of the Apocalypse in question, ready for further development upon the part of Game Moderator.

The Apocthulhu Roleplaying Game also comes with a campaign setting plus two quite lengthy, and very different scenarios, which together showcase the possibilities of the Lovecraftian-Post-Apocalypse genre. The campaign setting is an adaptation by Kevin Ross of William Hope Hodgson’s 1913 novel, The Night Land. Set millions of years into the future, this has the last of humanity surviving under a dwindling sun in the Great Redoubt, an eight-mile high pyramid, watched over by the leviathan Watchers, waiting to be able to crack open the Great Redoubt and consume the souls of the last of mankind. Although due to be developed into a full campaign setting of its own from Cthulhu Reborn, it comes with everything that a Game Moderator would need to get started. It covers technology and life in the Great Redoubt, psychic powers, and the geography and threats and allies of the Night Land, plus several scenario hooks. What is interesting about the setting is that although The Night Land has also been acknowledged as an influence upon H.P. Lovecraft, it has never been translated into a gameable setting before, primarily because, as Ross explains, the novel is impenetrable. The result of his efforts though, is a fascinating campaign setting, in some ways more of a Science Fiction setting akin to that of Marcus L Rowland’s Forgotten Futures, but combined with a terrifying and weird mythos of its very own.

The first of the two scenario’s in the Apocthulhu Roleplaying Game is ‘Kick the Can’ by Jeffrey Moeller, which is set in one of the earlier example Apocalypses given in the book, ‘Apocalypse 4: The Firelands of Melqart’. It takes place a year after civilisation has been reduced to ashes by a rain of fire following a prophecy by the weird cult-like, Church of Melqart. The Survivors, each of whom was initiated into the Church of Melqart, have spent the last year in a bunker and emerge into the ash-laden world because their supplies are running low and because they received a summons from the Church of Melqart to come to Washington, D.C. to participate in a great ceremony. As the Survivors make their way towards the capitol, they will discover some of the secrets of the apocalyptic event and the Church of Melqart, all of which point to a greater catastrophe to come. The scenario is linear, but has the scope for the Game Moderator to add her own scenes and the potential to become something of a slog as the Survivors cycle their way across America to Washington, D.C. Another problem is that it involves graphic, violent acts towards women and children, and whilst the Apocthulhu Roleplaying Game is a horror game, this may be outside of the players’ comfort zones. So, at the very least, the Game Moderator will want to establish that the players are fine with this in the context of the scenario or at least alter some of the more graphic elements. Otherwise, ‘Kick the Can’ is a solid one-shot with quite a lot of information and detail to it.

Similarly, Jo Kreil’s ‘A Yellow and Unpleasant Land’ will require some discussion with regard to the degrees of debauchery it involves and to what degree the Game Moderator wants to describe them. The scenario is set in Victorian England in the 1890s following multiple performances of a play called The King in Yellow, including for the late Queen Victoria, which saw the Yellow King come to Earth and corrupt the morals of every upstanding Englishman. This is an apocalypse of decadence and debauchery rather than death and destruction, one which the Survivors can hope to overturn if they follow the instructions of Myrddin and ensure the return of England’s one true king to bring an end to the rule of the Yellow King. ‘A Yellow and Unpleasant Land’ then, is a combination of The King in Yellow and Arthurian legend, a combination which could have clashed and it may take a little convincing upon the part of the players to accept the combination, since the Arthurian elements are not subtle, but as it turns out, works well together. ‘A Yellow and Unpleasant Land’ provides two possible endings—‘hopeful’ and ‘nihilistic’. The former is the more positive and grants the Survivors the capacity to defeat the Yellow King, whereas the latter does not, it being revealed to them that their efforts were naught but an entertainment for the Yellow King’s benefit. ‘A Yellow and Unpleasant Land’ is the least traditional Apocalypse in the Apocthulhu Roleplaying Game and is all the more interesting for it, highlighting not just the continued flexibility of the corruptive mythos of the Yellow King, but also the Post-Apocalyptic format too.

Physically, the Apocthulhu Roleplaying Game is presented in quite a bold fashion in terms of colours used and the layout. The full colour artwork is excellent throughout, but the maps do vary in quality. It also needs an edit in places. In general, the book is well written, but the title of the running example throughout the book, ‘The Making of ‘Mad’ Maxine’, is trite.

As a Post-Apocalyptic roleplaying game, the Apocthulhu Roleplaying Game is perhaps one of the harshest and deadliest available, though it avoids the more gonzo elements to be found amongst many of the similar treatments of the genre. As roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror, the Apocthulhu Roleplaying Game draws from many elements that are familiar, including mechanics, making it easy to adjust to—at least in terms of the streamlined rules and terminology, if not the setting. As a roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror, it adds a weirdness to the Post-Apocalypse’s brutal survival horror. As a roleplaying game of Post-Apocalyptic Lovecraftian investigative horror the Apocthulhu Roleplaying Game is far from innovative or ground-breaking, since it draws heavily on elements which have gone before it. However, it does push at the boundaries of the genre and it does provide the means for the Game Moderator to create and explore Apocalypses of her own, whether created from the ground up, or as a result of failure upon the part of her players’ Investigators. Perhaps in having the opportunity to explore the consequences of their failure, the Investigators—as Survivors—will have the opportunity to undo what they could not stop in the first place?

Ok. Confession time, and this might get me kicked out of "I'd Rather Be Killing Monsters."

I have never seen "Hawk the Slayer." 

Not even once. That is until today.

Hawk the Slayer

Well, it has Jack Palance chewing up scenes like he always does. A funky post-disco soundtrack that is so 1980 it makes me want to find a pair of roller skates.   But it also features the recently late William Morgan Sheppard as Ranulf. Patricia "Magenta" Quinn as a sorceress.  And Christopher Benjamin (Jago from Doctor Who). So certainly an interesting cast.  

The "Adventuring Party" is made up of Hawk  (a fighter or ranger), Ranulf an old fighter, Gort (a giant), Crow (an elf), Baldin (a dwarf), even a sorceress. I have to admit they are kind of fun.

With some of the music and scenes, there is a solid spaghetti western feel to this. 

Jack Palance must have had the time of his life with this.  Overacting. Running around like a Ren Faire Darth Vader.  The dynamic between Hawk, Voltan, and Eliane is not entirely unlike that of  Sergei, Strahd, and Tatyana. 

The movie is fun, if predictable. But not exactly a classic really.  Sorry, Tim. 

Though I can see why everyone wanted a sequel, but I think it works best as D&D inspiration.  The characters would make fun NPCs for anyone familiar with the movie.

Gaming Content

Elfin Mind Stone and Mind Sword - this sword has the ability to detect the thoughts and actions of anyone the wielder is fighting against. This translates to a +4 to hit and a +3 to AC and even allows the wielder to fight in conditions that would otherwise blind them.  It can cast light once per day.  The wielder of the mind sword can summon the sword to hand at will.

--

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 that is if I can get my co-admins to agree this is the best hashtag for this!

I am really enjoying HeroForge.

Maybe, too much really. I have nearly a hundred characters I have made and I have bought a few as well that I love.

So really it was only a matter of time before I made my own HeroForge Zatanna.

I could not quite get her fishnets and her tux did not have tails, but otherwise, I think she is great.You can get yours here, https://www.heroforge.com/load_config%3D16149885/

I also used the lighting effects on her.  It works out well in the screenshots, but I still trying to find the proper "magic" for the printed minis.  For example here is another mistress of magic, The Simbul holding silver flame.

And here is how it looks printed.

Not bad, but I can certainly tweak it a bit more.

Z would be a welcome addition to my growing group of magical people.

And while I was working on this we are NOW getting reports that an HBO Max series or movie for Zatanna is on the way!

Looks like we could be getting Batgirl, Batwoman, and more Shazam!  This could be great!

Fever-Dreaming Marlinko – A City Adventure Supplement for Labyrinth Lord details a borderlands city where life takes a strange fever-dream cast, where confidence tricks and scams are an accepted way of life, where its each of four contradas—or quarters—worships one of the four gods (and pointedly ignores the fifth) entombed in the squat, black bulk of the Tomb of the Town Gods, and where adventurers can find respite, relaxation, rumours, and more from the wilderness beyond… It stands amidst the Greater Marlinko Canton in the world of Zěm—as detailed in What Ho, Frog Demons! – Further Adventures in Greater Marlinko Canton, not too far from the Slumbering Ursine Dunes, and from there, Misty Isles of the Eld. It is published by Hydra Collective LLC and is an Old School Renaissance setting supplement designed to be run using Goblinoid Games’ Labyrinth Lord. Of course, it can easily be adapted to the Retroclone of the Game Master’s choice.

As a city located in the Hill Cantons, a region described as, “A Slavic-myth inspired, acid fantasy world of Moorcockian extradimensional incursions and Vancian swindlers and petty bureaucrats.”, Marlinko matches much of that description. Both of its four contradas and their inhabitants have Slavic names and many of its monsters are drawn from Slavic legend. For example, one of the city’s leading socialites is Lady Szara, organiser of the annual Bathe in the Blood of your Servants charity ball, is secretly an ancient and evil strigoi—a Romanian version of the vampire—who it is suggested, should speak in the style of the actress, Zsa Zsa Gabor, only more sinister. She may even employ the Player Characters to locate certain magical gewgaws and knick-knacks, that is, if she simply does not decide to consume them... The Eld—essentially ‘space elves’ from another dimension with a distinctly Melnibonéan-like, decadent sensibility—slink secretly into the city, and the bureaucracy extends to unions, such as The Guild of Condottiere, Linkboys, Roustabouts, and Stevedores, a union for adventuring party hirelings, which really objects to scab hirelings! Numerous swindlers and scam artists are mentioned throughout the description of the city, and there is even a section on ‘Running Long and Short Cons’.

Intended to be regularly visited by Player Characters of Second and Third Levels, what Fever-Dreaming Marlinko – A City Adventure Supplement for Labyrinth Lord is not, is a traditional city supplement. There is no building-by-building description, no great history of the city, or great overview. Instead, it focuses on the pertinent details about four contradas and the things that can be found there and more importantly, can be interacted with by the Player Characters. Včelar is home to Marlinko’s wealthy, dominated by their great painted-plastered town-manses and famed for Jarek’s Manse and Tiger Pit where the perpetually name dropping and bragging owner has built a domed all-weather tiger pit in which he stages tiger wrestling! Obchodník is the city’s business district, where at Fraža’s Brokerhouse, the Player Characters might make purchases from the radically—for Marlinko, that is—honest and unfortunately terribly racist, Fraža the Curios Dealer, or pay for at fortune at The Serene Guild of Seers, Augurs, Runecasters, and Wainwrights—the clarity (at least) of any such fortune depending on the cost. Svině is home to Marlinko’s slums, but also many guilds, such as The Illustrious Workers of Wood or The Guild of Condotierre, Linkboys, Roustabouts and Stevedores’ Dome of Supernal Dealings, but also home to the Catacombs of St. Jack’s Church of the Blood Jesus, whose disturbingly bloody misinterpretations of Christianity has the potential to unleash murderous mayhem upon the city. Soudce is home to the city’s suburbs, their skyline dominated by the Onion Tower of the Checkered Mage, the home of the city’s resident arch-mage, František, a surprisingly level-headed wizard, who might pay well for certain items.

Each of the four contradas is accompanied by a table of random encounters, a mixture of the mundane, the silly, and the weird. For example, a group of flirts who if a Player Character parties with might wake up the next morning at his own shotgun wedding; Kytel the Duellist, a thoroughly bored swordmaster who will fight anyone to first blood; Old Slinky Panc, an escaped tiger, probably drugged and quite harmless, who Jarek the Nagsman would probably want returned—and returned unharmed; and a Hairless Hustler who will offer to sell the Player Characters two bars of surprisingly warm to the touch silver metal—and there is a reason that the Hairless Hustler lacks hair… These are all engaging encounters which make getting about the city memorable and interesting, some of them having the capacity to turn into interesting adventures depending upon the actions of the Player Characters.

Marlinko’s notables are described in some detail, but perhaps the best part of their descriptions are the suggestions on how to speak like them. The Game Master should have enormous fun portraying any one of them. In comparison, only two adventure sites are detailed in Fever-Dreaming Marlinko—‘Lady Szara’s Town-Manse’ and ‘Catacombs of the Church of the Blood Jesus’. Ultimately, they are both places to raid and ransack, home to respective evils present in the city, but not raid and ransack without reason. A Player Character might be kidnapped and find himself locked up in the catacombs first or the Player Characters all together might be hired to find a missing person, whilst Lady Szara could hire the Player Characters rather than give them cause to attack her and so have them visit her home. Of the two, ‘Lady Szara’s Town-Manse’ is the more interesting and the more thoughtful in its design, being an actual home rather than just another monster lair. It is also better mapped.

Beyond describing might be found in each contrada, Fever-Dreaming Marlinko details crime—sanctioned and unsanctioned crime—and punishment in the city, advice on running cons in the city, and buying and selling in the city—everything from War Ocelots and Radegast’s Dark ale to the Poignard of the Overworld and a campy, faux-barbarian meadhall. Emphasising Marlinko as a place to visit and unwind in its taverns and other entertainment establishments, Fever-Dreaming Marlinko includes a guide to carousing in the city and potential outcomes whichever contrada the Player Characters are visiting. There are even three locations for the Labyrinth Lord to expand as potential adventure sites, though of course, it would be nice to have had more ready-to-play adventure sites in the book.

However, as odd and as weird as the city of Marlinko is, it can get weirder. As with the other titles set in the Hill Cantons, Fever-Dreaming Marlinko has a Chaos Index, which tracks the ebb and flow of the weirdness in the city, much of it being driven by the actions of the Player Characters, including making trips back and forth to the Slumbering Ursine Dunes. This is indicative of the design of Fever-Dreaming Marlinko, that it is ideally meant to be played in tandem with Slumbering Ursine Dunes. As the weirdness factor grows, the cultists of the Church of the Blood Jesus might commit more, and bloodier murders, mass hallucinations might break out, hundreds participate in a group wedding, and more. The weirdness factor also affects the ‘News of the Day’, the rumours and truths which spread throughout the city.

Rounding out Fever-Dreaming Marlinko is a set of five appendices. The first is a bestiary which adds three monsters—the Robo-Dwarf, the Wobbly Giant, and the Cantonal Strigoi, whilst the second, a ‘Tiger Wrestling Mini-Game’, provides the rules for handling events at Jarek’s Manse and Tiger Pit, the only tiger-wrestling arena in town. It is definitely a dangerous pastime, but good luck to any Player Character who throws his hat into the ring! Two new Classes are detailed in the third appendix. The Mountebank is a Thief-subclass which has the Sleight-of-Hand skill for moving and switching out objects as part of a scam, can use Illusionist spells—though they can only be learned by swindling them out of actual Illusionists, and even temporarily raise their Charisma to eighteen! The other Class is the Robo-Dwarf, which is more of a strange mechanical variant upon the actual Dwarf Class. The last two appendices provide the Labyrinth Lord with a useful list of ‘Common NPC names and Nicknames’ and a pronunciation guide.

Physically, Fever-Dreaming Marlinko is generally well laid out, the writing is clear, and the artwork is excellent. It needs an edit in places, the real problem with the physical book is that it is not well organised, lacking an introduction which would help the Labyrinth Lord understand how the city functions as a game setting and the order in which the book’s contents come not always in the right place. Once the Labyrinth Lord has read through the book, it is relatively easy to grasp how the city works as a setting.

Apart from the less than useful organisation, there are really only one or two other issues with Fever-Dreaming Marlinko—both of which could cause offence. The first is that St. Jack’s Church of the Blood Jesus is a potentially offensive misinterpretation of Christianity, whilst the second is that one or two of the NPCs are described as fervent racists and that the Labyrinth Lord is expected to portray this in character. Now this does take place in a fantasy world, but that does not mean that neither a player nor the Labyrinth Lord cannot or should be necessarily comfortable about this. This is one aspect of the setting which will require a discussion between all of the players before play begins to see whether they are prepared to accept it or not as part of the setting. The likelihood is not and the Labyrinth Lord should be prepared to replace it with potentially less offensive character quirks or attitudes for the NPCs concerned.

Fever-Dreaming Marlinko is designed as campaign base, one which the Player Characters will return to again and again after exploring first the Slumbering Ursine Dunes, then the Misty Isles of the Eld, and from there, the wider world of Zěm as detailed in What Ho, Frog Demons! – Further Adventures in Greater Marlinko Canton. Although the Labyrinth Lord could use it in another setting, it does work best with those other books. And each time the Player Characters visit Marlinko, the Labyrinth Lord is given the means to make that visit memorable—with locations they might want to go to, random encounters which can become something more, rumours, and eventually weird things going on around them. There is no part of Marlinko as described which cannot be interacted with or does not add to the sense of oddness which pervades the city and which will probably be worse with every visit. Overall, Fever-Dreaming Marlinko – A City Adventure Supplement for Labyrinth Lord is a brilliantly written, incredibly gameable setting supplement which provides the Labyrinth Lord with an excellent toolkit to bring a fantastical city setting to life.

"A fine website, but even more than that...THANKS FOR THE GREAT PARODY OF THE DARK DUNGEONS TRASH! Best wishes."

Gary Gygax circa 1999

Back in 1994, I moved to Chicago to work on my Ph.D. and be closer to my then-girlfriend (spoiler, I married her in 1995).   I was working at the College of Education at the time as their tech-monkey.  I told them I knew how to write code. I did/do, but it was all Pascal, Fortran, and some C and VisualBasic.  What they wanted was HTML though they really didn't know it at the time.   I built their student databases and worked on their nascent website.  

My very first website, made in 1995, was The Chicago Campus Crusade for Cthulhu.  I had all my Call of Cthulhu materials online and it was a parody site.  This was quickly followed by my Gateway2000 PC site (yes I was a huge fan of Gateway computers). I had built them both in Notepad, a tool I still use today to edit all my HTML.

The earliest captures were 1998, but by then I had been on for 2-3 years. I was using the "noarchive" tag and "Frame breaker" scripts a lot back then because there was a real concern for webpage theft and spaghetti publishers. I thought that would help. What they do was keep my site from being archived by bots.

This kept me from finding the very first versions of my sites, though I still have all the HTML code backed up.  I did notice that when I went back for my second Ph.D. my student account was reactivated and there are some captures from around then as well.

In any case, the knowledge I gained from those sites was poured into my newest site, The Other Side.

So dark. Very Internet. Much frames.

I named it after an old newspaper column I wrote for my school newspaper in High School and then my first year of undergrad.  Plus it sounded mystical and new agey.

I am not 100% sure of the exact day it went live. I know it was between March 10th and the 12th because that was my wife's birthday.  Also, I was in a Cognition of Memory course at the time when I jotted down my first ideas for it in my notebook.  So that was Spring term 96.

The site changed over the years. I added more and more material and soon it was the home of my first Netbook of Witches and Warlocks, published in 1999. I had moved from my campus site to RPGHost for the longest time. From there I was also on Xoom, NBCi, Tripod, and then PlanetADnD.

Whoa, easy there Darklord.

Around 2003 or so I kept getting hacked and my sie taken down.  My host asked me to take it down for a bit because of all the DoS attacks he was getting.  So for a while, all that remained were some mirrors of the site that I rarely updated.

The site was revived in 2007 on this blog. 

I still use the same background, though in a much-lightened fashion. Some of the material written for that old site has also come back here. 

Sadly many of my then contemporaries are gone. PlanetADnD is no more. BlueTroll has been gone a long time. All the old hosting services are long gone. I see that ADnDDownloads is still up after a fashion. Mimir, the Planescape site, is still going and looks the same as it did back in the 1990s, though I don't think it has been updated in 10 years and many links are broken.

While I miss some of the "wild west" days of finding the perfect, or the perfectly odd, netbook, things are better now.  DriveThruRPG gives me legal means to complete my collection and DMGsguild covers my need for fan-created material. And that is just the tip of the iceberg as it were. 

Do I have it in me to go another 25? Well...I'll be in my mid to late 70s then, so no idea.  But I am going to keep having fun with this as long as I can.

Thanks for being with me this long!

Robots Among Us is a supplement for Metamorphosis Alpha: Fantastic Role-Playing Game of Science Fiction Adventures on a Lost Starship. The first Science Fiction roleplaying game and the first post-apocalypse roleplaying game, Metamorphosis Alpha is set aboard the Starship Warden, a generation spaceship which has suffered an unknown catastrophic event which killed the crew and most of the million or so colonists and left the ship irradiated and many of the survivors and the flora and fauna aboard mutated. Some three centuries later, as Humans, Mutated Humans, Mutated Animals, and Mutated Plants, the Player Characters, knowing nothing of their captive universe, would leave their village to explore strange realm around them, wielding fantastic mutant powers and discovering how to wield fantastic devices of the gods and the ancients that is technology, ultimately learn of their enclosed world. Originally published in 1976, it would go on to influence a whole genre of roleplaying games, starting with Gamma World, right down to Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic from Goodman Games. And it would be Goodman Games which brought the roleplaying game back with the stunning Metamorphosis Alpha Collector’s Edition in 2016, and support the forty-year old roleplaying game with a number of supplements, many which would be collected in the ‘Metamorphosis Alpha Treasure Chest’.

The Starship Warden was stocked not just with thousands of robots, ready to help humanity settle the new world that the colony ship was destined for, but also large factories intended to manufacture yet more useful robots and automated terraforming machines ready to begin transforming the new world into a new paradise for humanity. However, these many robots were just as affected by the radiation cloud that caused the change as were the ship’s crew and colonists, and plant and animal stock, their A.I. brains warped and twisted and their programming altered beyond what their original designers intended. Metamorphosis Alpha focuses on the biological inhabitants of the Starship Warden, the Humans, Mutated Humans, Mutated Animals, and Mutated Plants. Robots Among Us switches the focus to the mechanical inhabitants of the Starship Warden to present a set of seventeen encounters with robots aboard the colony ship.

Written by Jim Ward, the designer of Metamorphosis Alpha, with many of them entertainingly illustrated by Jim Holloway, the entries in Robots Among Us range in length from half a page to two pages long. Each includes a subtitle which suggests what the encounter is about, such as ‘ Arc Bots – More Than Just Security’ and ‘300 Years And Counting – Butler Robot Ready To Serve’, an explanation of what is going on, some colour text—in bold—ready for the Game Master to read out to her players, and the stats for the one or more robots involved in the encounter. The writeup for each robot includes its normal reactions, so that the Game Master can easily gauge its actions. The Game Master will need to refer to the Metamorphosis Alpha rules for descriptions of the various Miscellaneous, Defensive, Weapon, and other systems installed into each of the robots, and in some cases will need to prepare an encounter to fit into her campaign, but others can be dropped straight in with almost no or little preparation. Their theme is always though, that of ‘robots gone awry’.

Robots Among Us includes encounters with warbots, security bots, horticultural bots, cargo bots, servant droids, bomb disposal bots, cleaning bots, med bots, and more. In ‘Bunker Bots’ the Player Characters are attacked out of the blue by a damaged bot, and tracking it back to its source reveals more; in ‘War Unit’, the Player Characters are visiting a village when they see a battle involving military bots nearby—do they join in, wait to salvage the battle, locate the source of the robots, or all three?; whilst in another village, everyone comes under attack by a host of war machines, but is saved by an intelligent tank that sat dormant for centuries almost like a statue outside the village! Given the short length of the encounters in Robots Among Us, it should be no surprise that many of them are combat orientated. Some of the more interesting encounters involve more roleplaying—upon the part of both Game Master and her players—than combat and whose events will play out over the course of several sessions beyond the pages of Robots Among Us. For example, in ‘300 Years And Counting’, the Player Characters encounter a robot butler who is still awaiting the return of its former masters and will treat them differently depending upon whether they are Humans, Mutated Humans, Mutated Animals, or Mutated Plants, a theme which runs throughout Robots Among Us and Metamorphosis Alpha and its subsequent descendants. Similarly, in ‘Mother Knows Best’, the Game Master gets to ramp up the camp when the Player Characters encounters a ‘Orabelle 3,000 Matron Unit’, and it starts to clean up after them and actually clean them and admonish them when they take actions which it perceives is dangerous!

Physically, Robots Among Us is well presented , neat and tidy, and an engaging read. In places, it could have been better organised to make it clear quite what is happening in each encounter. If there is an issue with Robots Among Us, it is perhaps that too many of the encounters do involve combat rather than other forms of conflict or engagement. However, that does make them easier to use by the Game Master, but it does also mean that the Game Master will want to use the encounters to be found in Robots Among Us judiciously, to mix them up with encounters. Of course, Robots Among Us provides plenty of support for the Metamorphosis Alpha Game Master, but this is supplement for a post apocalypse roleplaying game, so there is also a lot here which could be brought into the post apocalypse roleplaying game of the Game Master’s choice, whether that is Gamma World or Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic or any of the others. The content in the individual entries would require some adjustment, but the parred-back stats in Metamorphosis Alpha would make that relatively easy.

Robots Among Us is a useful supplement, a supplement which the Game Master can pull off the shelf and peruse and prepare an encounter with relative ease—some encounters require more preparation times than others. Robots Among Us provides solid support for Metamorphosis Alpha, and with a little bit of effort, for other post apocalypse roleplaying games too.

I will admit it.  I kinda take GaryCon for granted.  It's a fun con and it usually happens around my kid's spring breaks and it is only about an hour-long drive.  We can go there, play some games and sleep in our own beds afterward.

 Well, leave it to this pandemic to let me know what got once it is gone!

This year I, along with the rest of Elf Lair Games, will be running some NIGHT SHIFT games for Ethereal Gary Con XIII. 

This year I am running NIGHT SHIFT: Veterans of the Supernatural Wars along with Elf Lair Games founder Jason Vey and Derek Stoelting (one of our long-time collaborators from our Eden Studios days).

Registration for badges is ongoing, event registration has begun for some badge holders and will open up next week.

Here are the games we are running.

Spector Detectors! is my game.  Here are some details.You are the SPECTOR DETECTORS! The hottest ghost hunting channel on FaceTube! Or at least you will be, one day. Right now you are busy checking out every reported haunted house in the tri-county area. Your team knows that the ghosts are fake, with a little bit of technological know-how and some good-sounding esoterica. You hope your next assignment, the historic Willow Crest Manor, will be your ticket to internet fame, glory, and plenty of advertising impressions.

Let’s Get Detecting!

This introductory NIGHT SHIFT game is run by RPG co-designer Tim Brannan.

Event Number 1026
Saturday at 2:00 PM (Central Time)
Hosts Timothy S. Brannan (1749)
Room 04 - Fate of the Norns Room
Duration 3 hoursHere are all the other games running as well.

I wish I could play them all, to be honest.  It has been YEARS since Derek, Jason and I have thrown dice together at a Con.  

NIGHT SHIFT should appeal to fans of old-school games and modern supernatural/paranormal fiction fans.   Essentially if you like the work we all have done of previous games (Buffy, AFMBE, Ghosts, AA, and more) then you should enjoy this.

I'll post when the games are ready for registration.

Annie Parnell / March 10, 2021

Originally released one month after the Apollo 11 moon landing, Jim Sullivan’s psych-folk hidden gem UFO (1969) is characterized by a drifting kind of hopefulness. Over the floating strings and upbeat horns of The Wrecking Crew, who famously backed The Beach Boys and Phil Spector, the album’s lyrics consider alien abduction and psychic links with loved ones with a curiosity tinged with despair. Sullivan weaves these unearthly themes together with transitory imagery of highways and train stations, a cosmic American landscape that calls to mind Gram Parsons, who he is frequently compared to. Throughout, he searches earnestly for connection, in “Whistle Stop” asking, “Do you know the feeling? Can you love someone you’ve only met a while ago?”

UFO paints love as an otherworldly link with another person who can “hear what I am thinking,” and the album’s title track extrapolates this idea further to consider the notion of divine love. Sullivan, who was raised Irish Catholic and is described by his son Chris as having grown up in an “age of exploration,” wonders in the song if the Second Coming of Christ might arrive by UFO, an idea that’s since been amplified by his better-known space-rock contemporary David Bowie. Jim, however, is no Ziggy Stardust—where Bowie’s odes to an alien messiah are jubilant, “UFO” is inquisitive and a little guarded, with a refrain that insists that he’s only “checking out the show.” For Sullivan, it’s not only hard to comprehend the seemingly telepathic sense of connection that true love offers—on both an interpersonal and a godly scale, it’s almost impossible to believe in it.

It’s a potent sentiment, and Sullivan’s idiosyncratic, wandering lyrics parallel the mystery that surrounds his life. Chris Sullivan explained to the New York Times in 2016 that Jim resented “the idea that he might have to be a square and go work for someone else,” but despite attracting the attention of Playboy Records and celebrity fans like Farah Fawcett and Harry Dean Stanton, his music career failed to pick up steam. This struggle between the talent he so clearly possessed and the recognition that stayed out of his reach is preternaturally visible on his debut album: in the song “Highways,” Sullivan is both dogged and lost, clearly stuck but stubbornly rebuking a world that refuses to let him live by his own rules. 

Six years after UFO’s release, Sullivan decided to drive cross-country to try and catch a break in Nashville. Along the way, he checked into a hotel in Santa Rosa, New Mexico, bought a bottle of vodka at a local liquor store, and disappeared without a trace. His Volkswagen Beetle was found abandoned at a nearby ranch. In the passenger seat were his wallet, his guitar, and a box full of copies of both his sophomore release Jim Sullivan (1972) and UFO. The latter’s listing on the label Light in the Attic’s website describes a conversation in which he claimed that if he ever had to disappear, “he’d walk into the desert and never come back.” Others point to a stop by police near Santa Rosa, which, as Chris notes grimly in an interview with FLOOD Magazine, has “a way of making people disappear.” A short documentary made by Light in the Attic touches on another theory: that he was abducted by aliens. Regardless, as his son points out, Jim was “great at what he did,” and the music on UFO is as intimate as it is enigmatic, asking questions about existence, the universe, and our place in each.

Sullivan’s quip in “UFO” that “too much goodness is a sin today,” as well as his gaze towards the stars for salvation, might have resonated with Judee Sill—another unsung singer-songwriter whose debut album Judee Sill (1971) is stuffed with references to aliens and the paranormal. A former church organist, she mixes these occult images more explicitly than Sullivan with Christian spirituality, crafting an intimate assortment of lyrical confessions that she once described as “Country-Cult-Baroque.” On “Crayon Angels,” the album’s opener, she sings gently that she is “waiting for God and a train to the astral plane.” Throughout the album, Christ continues to appear to her in a variety of far-out forms, including an “archetypal man” who’s “fleeter even than Mercury” and whose “moon mirage is shining.” 

In “Enchanted Sky Machines,” a gospel-influenced ballad near the album’s close, Judee is especially hopeful, blending salvation and spacecraft in a way that distinctly evokes “UFO.” On the live album Songs of Rapture and Redemption, she explains candidly that this song is “a religious song about flying saucers coming… to take all of the deserving people away.” Her Live in London BBC recordings reveal a deep-seated belief, explored through this alien metaphor, that “deserving people will be saved.” Unlike Jim Sullivan’s passive and cautious “checking out the show,” however, Judee’s hope for an alien, ’70s-style rapture is yearning, open, and at times deeply anxious. Early on, she admits—to God or to us?—that she “could easily love you if you’d just let me feel”; by the second chorus, she begs the titular “sky machines” to “please hurry.”

This urgency behind Sill’s search for space-age saviors seems intrinsically tied to the adversity she faced during her life on Earth. Sill began her career after spending time in jail for forgery and narcotics possession; a letter she sent along with her demos to Asylum Records detailed the ways her struggles with addiction had informed her music. She died at age 35 of an apparent drug overdose that was controversially ruled a suicide. A musing note about life after death that was found on the scene has been contended by those who knew her as a misinterpreted diary entry, or else the first draft of a song. 

Just as there’s more to Jim Sullivan than his disappearance, though, Judee Sill’s music goes well beyond a reflection of her personal tragedies, and her transformative ideas about God, love, and the universe are intrinsic to her work. Openly bisexual, she had public relationships with both men and women, and once described to Rolling Stone a fluid vision of gender, sexuality, and religion drawn from Carl Jung’s masculine force of the “animus” and feminine force of the “anima.” Her music is preoccupied with radical philosophical senses of redemption and acceptance, each with its own unearthly tint. “Jesus Was a Cross Maker,” for instance, delves into the grueling process of forgiving a former lover, written while she read Nikos Kazantzakis’s 1955 novel The Last Temptation of Christ. “Lopin’ Along Through the Cosmos” portrays her searching for answers among the stars, all the while insisting serenely to her listeners that “however we are is okay.” 

Outer space seems to suggest some of the same possibilities to both Sullivan and Sill: acceptance, transcendence, the possibility of leaving behind a flawed world where good and deserving people who chafe against societal norms are punished for it. Turning to the universe for solace when the world rejects you is an intrinsically reclamatory act—not only does it argue that the bindings of normative society are escapable, it also suggests that they’re not inherently natural or inborn. Jim Sullivan’s search for love and freedom within a repressive capitalistic framework is perhaps most zealous on “Highways,” when he insists that “my world is real, yours a dream,” while Judee Sill’s earnest belief in a better place is clearest on “Enchanted Sky Machines,” as she reassures the listener (or herself) that it “won’t be too far away.” 

This idea of a futuristic alien society more accepting than our own is certainly not a foreign one. In fact, it’s now a hallmark of the way that science-fiction themes have been explored in modern music, from Janelle Monáe’s Afrofuturist android-centric concept albums to The Butchies’ audacious queer punk anthem “The Galaxy is Gay.” Sullivan and Sill’s metaphysical pickings, however, came long before the social justice crossroads currently faced by modern country music, a realm that’s historically been considered a bastion of American conservatism. Like fellow ’70s trailblazers Lavender Country, UFO and Judee Sill not only call this characterization into question, but turn it on its head, using interplanetary imagery to imagine an open-minded world of country and folk decades before Nashville’s Music Row began to catch up with them. The holy connections each artist makes lend an additional layer of sanctity to the search—Sullivan and Sill suggest that not only is it natural and acceptable to diverge from the prescribed earthly norm, but it’s also righteous, sacred, and true.

In the decades since its original release, Jim Sullivan’s UFO has gone on to inspire folksy indie darlings like Okkervil River and Laura Marling, who have carried his ruminations to a new millennium of listeners. On the 2016 collaboration album case/lang/veirs, artists Neko Case, k.d. lang, and Laura Veirs paid tribute to Sill with “Song for Judee.” Another tribute album, Down Where the Valleys Are Low: Another Otherworld for Judee Sill, is due to come out this month. The modern resonance of these artists’ messages, half a century after they slipped into relative obscurity, is both tragic and hopeful. We certainly haven’t reached the utopia of Jim Sullivan’s UFOs and Judee Sill’s sky machines, but perhaps their songs provide their own kind of deliverance—a soothing, abiding prayer that a better world may be out there after all.

Annie Parnell is a writer and student based in Washington, D.C. who hails from Derry, Maine.

 

I am considering doing the A to Z Blogging Challenge again this year.  It's been a couple of years since I have done it.  I was feeling I was alienating my regular readers with it in favor of people just coming through from the Challenge.

So this year I wanted to do something that any and all readers would enjoy.   This year I am doing Monsters.

The idea here is to give me some external motivation to get my two monster books done.

For new readers, there will monsters which are always fun. Since many come from the tales of fantasy,  myth, and folklore maybe there will be something they can use for their own writing or just enjoyment. For my regular readers, new monsters with stats.  I am also looking for all sorts of feedback on not just the monsters, but the stat blocks as well.

The one I have been using on my Monstrous Mondays has been working well for me, but I am sure I can tweak it some more.

The monsters for April A to Z will likely favor the Basic Bestiary I, covering all sorts of witchcraft-related monsters with plenty of fae and undead, but I am not ruling out some demons for Basic Bestiary II.

Both books will come in softcover (Basic red) and hardcover (orange spine) versions.  So they will work with whatever version of the game you are playing.  The interiors are the same with stat blocks designed to work with both the "Basic" and "Advanced" versions of the game.

So far Basic Bestiary has over 330 monsters with 156 of them complete.  The others are various points. 

Basic Bestiary II has over 500 demons, devils, and related monsters.

I am also going with my own compatibility logos on these since they really have gone beyond one system or the other.  They are still largely "Basic" in nature, but as you can see from my Monstrous Mondays stat blocks they have a little bit of everything in the OGC.  I am going to use this month to experiment.

You can see others doing their theme reveal over at the A to Z Blog until March 20.