Latin for ‘from among (the) forgotten’ and sharing its name with a poem by H.P. Lovecraft, Ex Oblivione is a scenario for Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game, the roleplaying game of conspiratorial and Lovecraftian investigative horror published by Arc Dream Publishing. It can be played using the roleplaying game’s full rules or those from Delta Green: Need to Know. Be warned though, this is a brutal, bloody affair involving mass violence and absolutely not for the faint of heart. In fact, Ex Oblivione is not a subtle affair in terms of its horror or its violence, but although the scenario will not mark the end of Delta Green as an organisation—after all, that has already happened with the original iteration of Delta Green, and it came back—but it very much mirrors the very first encounter with the Unnatural by the agency which would one day become Delta Green. A horror out of the agency’s deep past is about to take its very bloody revenge.

Agents of Delta Green—whether of the Program or the Outlaws—get involved when ‘HOME DAGON HOME HOME YHANTHLEI SEA TO THE SEA.’ is found graffitied on the wall at a gruesome crime scene. A family of five in Mustang, Arizona, a remote town originally founded to support the long since shutdown nearby U.S. Navy base have been ritually butchered and whilst the local police force suggest that ‘Dagon’ might have occult links, given that it is mentioned in the Bible as the name of a god worshipped by the Philistines, its investigators have no clues as to the motives or perpetrators of this heinous act. Delta Green knows otherwise and strongly suspects the involvement of the Unnatural in the crime. Consequently, a team is dispatched to Arizona to investigate, identify, and nullify the threat.

Unless complicated by setting up (or even breaking) cover identities, the initial investigation in Mustang is quite straightforward—the crime scene, local witnesses, and so on. Clues though, point towards the ruins of the old Naval base, little more than a hangout for the local teenagers, drifters, and the homeless, and from there to New England. This will likely confirm the suspicions of veteran players of Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying, but Ex Oblivione does not go in that direction. Certainly, it draws heavily from that direction—or source material—for inspiration… What Ex Oblivione does instead though…

What Ex Oblivione does instead though, is something unlike almost any other ending to a Call of Cthulhu or Delta Green scenario. First, there is the creeping realisation as to who the murderers are, and that is shocking enough, but then there is climax itself, which will require careful staging upon the part of the Handler. It is brutal, it is violent, and the horror of it is exactly that—horrifying. To say anything more would be to reveal too much about what is a monumental confrontation with the Unnatural.

Physically, Ex Oblivione is well presented, the illustrations and cartography as you would expect. Although decently written, the scenario does feel rushed in places and could have done with another edit.

It is almost traditional for scenarios of Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying to involve a threat to humanity or the world, a threat of immense scale. Here the threat is far, far smaller, but still of a staggering scale that Ex Oblivione is likely to remain a memorable scenario for the players and their Delta Green agent characters. Unlike the meaning of title, the final confrontation in Ex Oblivione is not going to be forgotten for anyone who plays it.

Now here is something truly unexpected!

DC Universe wants to get in on the "Critical Role" action and do a live-action unscripted 5-part special with actors playing the 1980s DC Adventures RPG.



Here is the information for DC.
DC UNIVERSE Announces Original Unscripted Gaming Mini-Series'DC UNIVERSE All Star Games'
Clare Grant, Vanessa Marshall, Sam Witwer and WWE’s Xavier Woods Join Freddie Prinze Jr. For Five-Part Role-Playing Game Adventure Set in The Classic 1980s Game DC HEROES
DC UNIVERSE has announced its first original unscripted gaming mini-series, DC UNIVERSE All Star Games. This new anthology series brings famous DC fans together to play a variety of games in the increasingly popular gaming show genre. Season One features a nostalgic role-playing adventure, The Breakfast League, from Executive Producers Freddie Prinze, Jr. and Sam Witwer. The first episode of the five-part series will premiere exclusively on the DC UNIVERSE digital subscription service on Friday, February 28.

DC HEROES, the famous post-crisis role-playing game, sets the stage for the first season in which Vanessa Marshall, Clare Grant and WWE superstar Xavier Woods also join as players. Set in the same 80s era as when the game was first published, the five participants role-play as a group of high schoolers stuck in Saturday detention. As they improv their way through a variety of situations familiar to fans of beloved movies from that time period, they soon discover their destinies as the world’s greatest super-heroes.

“DC Heroes was the first RPG I ever played as a kid. It was also my introduction to the DC Universe, its Heroes and, most importantly, its rich pool of villains.” said Prinze. “ I had a blast making this series and I hope all of you love it as much as I do.”

Directed by Jon Lee Brody and produced by Telepictures, “DC UNIVERSE All Star Games” is the first unscripted addition to DC UNIVERSE’s expanding original programming slate which includes “DCYou Unscripted” and “DC Daily.” New episodes will go live exclusively on DC UNIVERSE every Friday after the series premiere on February 28.

For more information on DC UNIVERSE and “DCU All Star Games” please visit dcuniverse.com and follow DC UNIVERSE on Facebook and Twitter.



This could be a lot of fun.

Join Freddie Prinze Jr (Buffy's Husband), Clare Grant (Oz's wife), Sam Witwer (multiple DC shows), and more. I am looking forward to this!

Mutant Crawl Classics #8: The Data Orb of Metakind is the eighth release for Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, the spiritual successor to Gamma World published by Goodman Games. It is also radically different to all of the previous releases for Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. The previous seven releases for the post-apocalyptic roleplaying game have all been scenarios. These have either been standard scenarios like Mutant Crawl Classics #6: The Apocalypse Ark or Mutant Crawl Classics #4: Warlords of ATOZ, or scenarios designed for use with player characters who are Zero Level. Such scenarios, like Mutant Crawl Classics #1: Hive of the Overmind and Mutant Crawl Classics #7: Reliquary of the Ancient Ones are known as Character Funnels, one of the features of both the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game and the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game it is mechanically based upon—in which initially, a player is expected to roll up three or four Level Zero characters and have them play through a generally nasty, deadly adventure, which surviving will prove a challenge. Those that do survive receive enough Experience Points to advance to First Level and gain all of the advantages of their Class. In terms of the setting, known as Terra A.D., or ‘Terra After Disaster’, this is a ‘Rite of Passage’ and in Mutants, Manimals, and Plantients, the stress of it will trigger ‘Metagenesis’, their DNA expressing itself and their mutations blossoming forth. Mutant Crawl Classics #8: The Data Orb of Metakind is not a scenario, but a supplement—and a supplement dedicated to just the one artefact.

That artefact is the most holy of ancient relics, the Data Orb of Metakind, a device which has been handed down from shaman to shaman, from mystic mutant to mystic mutant for generations. Only Shamans, Mutants, Manimals, and Plantients can use the hand-sized golden orb—Purse Strain Humans cannot—and they need to be intelligent to do so. Once the user has understood and bonded with the device, what he gains access to accumulated knowledge of everyone who has ever handled and used it. So thousands of memories and experiences, knowledges, skills, and more. Though usually only a few times a day. Each time the character interfaces with the Data Orb, it is usually to extract a specific piece of information or answer to a particular question, but every time the character does so, his player has to make a roll to determine the character’s success. Now the likelihood of a player character extracting the information he is after is quite low, but it is possible.

Now the fun of the Data Orb and Mutant Crawl Classics #8: The Data Orb of Metakind is when the player fails the roll. Then the player character’s request might be misinterpreted, partially interpreted, or simply ignored, but if misinterpreted or partially interpreted , then the Game Master gets to roll on the indicated table. Most of the supplement is dedicated to the various tables representing the various categories of information contained within the data matrices of the Data Orb. Five of these deal with various types of technology to be found in Terra A.D.—including power sources, medical, arms and armour, and artificial intelligences. This grants a player character a bit of new information, generally helpful, for example, on the Weapons & Armour Technology Table, if the player rolls Dazer Pistol, the player character learns a new setting for the weapon.

The other tables send the player character off in another direction, all of them providing them a benefit in some way, either permanent or temporary. So from ‘Voices of the Past’, accessing Bulbar the Odd’s “When confronted by an unknown creature, it is far better that you assume that it is poisonous, blindingly fast and utterly ferocious. This attitude does not condone mindless extinction of the new and the novel, but it does lessen the chance of your corpse looking surprised.” will grant the user a temporary bonus to his attack rolls. Whereas accessing the Thought Records of the Ancients, “It is by will alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the juice of Sapho that thoughts acquire speed, the lips acquire stains, stains become a warning. It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.” grants the character a permanent bonus to his Personality attribute. Mutant Crawl Classics #8: The Data Orb of Metakind includes lots of fun quotes like this and back them up with juicy benefits.

On the one hand, the Data Orb of Metakind essentially acts as a Patron AI, the means by which a Shaman gains his Patron AI Bond wetware programs—the nearest thing that the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game has to spells. It does not though, actually grant wetware programs as having a Shaman praying to his Patron AI would. On the other hand, it grants access to knowledge, typically random knowledge (because the player character has failed to access the specified information he was looking for), and that is where the fun comes in. When that happens, the Data Orb becomes a source of random knowledge and benefits—tables and tables of them—much like the famed Deck of Many Things of Dungeons & Dragons. In comparison though, a Shaman can access the Data Orb again and again, several times a day.

Of course, none of this is without its dangers. Roll poorly and the user may simply get an electric shock from attempting to use the Data Orb. Roll really poorly and—well, why spoil it for the user? The Data Orb of Metakind is brimming over with secrets and dangers, all of which are best learned through play and discovery. If there is an issue with the supplement, it is that there is no scenario detailing where it might be found, but the Game Master will have to write one.

Physically, Mutant Crawl Classics #8: The Data Orb of Metakind is somewhat unprepossessing. It is fundamentally, one big set of tables, but they are all neatly laid out, well written, and easy to use. The supplement uses a range of artwork, including a fun one of the publisher himself on the back page.

The Data Orb of Metakind is the equivalent of a Magic Eight Ball in the post-apocalyptic world of Terra A.D. Think of a question, shake the Data Orb of Metakind, and see what answers, secrets, or dangers it gives. Mutant Crawl Classics #8: The Data Orb of Metakind provides a big artefact with plenty of potential for fun and failure, plus there is lots of gaming life to it, for once found, a Shaman is going to consult this again and again, making this a supplement for the whole of a Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game campaign.

One question I constantly get is "why witches?" To which I usually reply, "why not witches?"
I have talked here about how it has been a subject that I have been fascinated with since even before my D&D days.

Well, a few things have gone on this week to make me want to look back at why I am interested and to try to capture some of the initial excitement.

First up was, of course, my coverage of the classic adventure B1 In Search of the Unknown, and what I started calling my First Witch Marissia. Not a lot of information there, but still a lot of fun while going back to look over my history.

I also talked about the first time I started putting a visual image to my iconic witch Larina from Dragon Magazine #65 from September 1982.  I am sure to talk more about her in this series in the future.

Another interesting bit is a new series of posts on the illusionist from Jonathan Becker over at B/X Blackrazor. 

He talks about the spell color spray (one I am including in my Pagan Witch book) and how it is kind of a wreck.   But that was not what got me thinking today. It was his inclusion of some Bill Willingham art from the module D1-2 Descent into the Depths of the Earth.  Here it is:


That Illusionist was the art I used for another one of my early witches, Cara Niemand (German for "nobody" since her last name was supposed to be a secret). She was a witch I tried to build using just the PHB "by the book".  I didn't like how she turned out, but she was a great character all the same.

Part of what is really extended navel-gazing under the guise of *serious research* is my work on the Basic-Era witch books I have been doing lately, with the Pagan Witch due out soon.

Last night though I got a HUGE piece of my pre-D&D witch past back. 
For years I could not remember the name of this author who had written a lot of children's books about monsters, ufos and all sorts of stuff.  Well, thanks to my sister I finally remembered.  Daniel Cohen.  Yesterday I got a few of his books in the mail.


Not all the books, but these were the big ones.


That Hodag! (from "Monsters")  Seriously I have been dying to put him into a game since forever.



From the witch book. Look at all that great woodcut art!  If you ever wanted to know why I have so much of these woodcuts in my books, well it started here.   I have one more of his books on the way, but after that the re-writes start.

My plan is to go over all these old books and my old notes from the time and make sure my Pagan Witch book is something that would have been on my shelves then.   Yeah, these are "kids books" but the point is not to provide you with Ph.D.-level work (I can do that if you like) but instead capture that feel of the early 80s by reading the same books I did then and in the late 70s.

So the heist went like clockwork. You got in, emptied the safe, grabbed the jewelry, and filled all of the holdalls with cash. Now all you need to do is get it back to the rendezvous point and divide the loot. Except… you know that the gang has been infiltrated by undercover cops, either because of an informant or because you are one of the undercover cops. Unfortunately, you only know what you are—a loyal Hardened Criminal or a sneaky Undercover Cop, or a villainous Hardened Criminal or an upright Undercover Cop enforcing the law. Anyone else could be either… And as questions are asked, protestations of loyalty and honesty are made, tempers flare, and the only way the matter is going to be settled is with a showdown shootout!

And if that sounds like the plot of almost any ‘Heist Gone Wrong’ film, from Rififi to Reservoir Dogs, you would not be wrong. It is also the set-up to Never Bring a Knife, a social deduction game from Atlas Games which can be best described as Reservoir Dogs meets The Resistance. Accusations and bullets will fly in this game until one of the gang goes down in a hail of lead and loyalties are revealed, betrayals are suffered, and either the Hardened Criminals are arrested by the Undercover Cops or make their escape from the police. Designed for four to eight players, it should be no surprise that the adult and violent inspiration and game play of Never Bring a Knife means that it carries a minimum playing age of seventeen years old and over. Now this does not mean that younger participants cannot play Never Bring a Knife, the rules being simple enough, but parental permission should be sought. That said, not every game needs to be designed with younger players in mind, and that is certainly the case with Never Bring a Knife.

Besides the short rulebook, Never Bring a Knife consists of sixty two cards. Eight are handy Reference cards, though all of the cards used in play have clear instructions on their use on them. Ten are Role Cards, divided between five Hardened Criminal and five Undercover Cop cards. Sixteen are Wound Cards, used to track each gang member’s Wounds as he suffers them. The first gang member to suffer three Wounds triggers the end of the game. The rest of the cards form the play deck.

The Gun cards inflict Wounds, a gang member suffering a Wound for every two Gun cards which end up in his stack at the end of a round. Armour cards cancel out Gun cards, but only the one each. If this reduces the number of Gun cards in a gang member’s stack at the end of a round, he suffers one less, or even no Wounds. Money cards in a player’s stack at the end of a round can be kept and banked and is expended to heal a Wound or to be able to look at another gang member’s Role card. Crime cards are used to force a gang member to discard Money cards, which will prevent him from paying for healing or to look at other gang members’ Role cards. A Hit can be purchased using Money cards and used to inflict a Wound on a gang member or banked for later in the game, so great for that last inevitable betrayal so in keeping with the game’s genre. An Intel card enables a gang member to examine, but not reveal, another gang member’s Role card. The Mole card forces a gang member to swap his Role card with that of the Boss, which may or not change the gang member’s allegiance.

Game set-up is simple. Each gang member receives a Role card and can look at it. One last Role card is placed in the middle of the table to represent the Boss. He will come into play when the Mole card ends up in a gang member’s stack. The Hit card and the Mole card go into the discard pile and so will come into play in later rounds, hopefully when dramatically appropriate! Each gang member not only gets to look at his own Role card, but also of that to gang member to his left. This is each player’s initial clue as to the true identities of his fellow gang members.

Never Bring a Knife is played over a series of rounds. At the start of each round, each gang member receives four cards. They then take it in turn to play one card at a time. The first card a gang member plays must be on another gang member and the first card played on a gang member must be face up. After that, a gang member is free to play his cards on anyone, including himself, but all cards are now played face down. Obviously, a gang member will want to play Gun cards on his rivals—especially if he knows them to be of an opposite Role, but keep the Armour and Money cards for himself. The former as protection, the latter because they can be used to purchase further actions. Once a gang member has had four cards played onto his stack, he cannot receive any more, but play continues until each gang member has had four cards played on him.

Once done, each gang member reveals the four cards in his stack and resolves them. This can be done in any order and may involve spending Money cards saved from earlier rounds. Wounds will be suffered, Money cards will be used heal Wounds or examine the Role cards of other gang members or the Boss (in the middle of the table, so this is useful if the Mole card is played at any time), Armour cards to stop Gun cards, Intel cards to examine the Role cards of other gang members or the Boss, and so on. Money cards and Hit cards can be kept to be used in subsequent rounds. At the end of the round, each gang member keeps any Wounds he suffered during the round which he could not heal by spending Money cards or stop with an Armour card. If at the end of a round, any gang member has three Wound cards in front of him, then he has fallen, and not only does the game end, but everyone on his team—either Hardened Criminals or Undercover Cops—loses and everyone on the other team wins.

Mechanically, play is quick, and the four-card hand combined with the four-card limit on each gang member’s stack keeps everything simple and elegant. A gang member might be killed in a couple of rounds, but a game will probably last a round or two longer than that. Physically, Never Bring a Knife is nicely presented. The rule book is easy to read, whilst the cards themselves are clear and easy to understand. A nice touch is that the artwork varies on each of the Role cards and different designs are used on the Gun cards. This gives the game a little more variety in its look. 

What is interesting in Never Bring a Knife as a social deduction game, is not just that each gang member will need to identify the Hardened Criminals and Undercover Cops in the gang, but will need to keep himself and his fellow team members alive. So the Money cards play as big a role in the game as the Gun cards. Initially each gang member will know about himself and the gang member to his left, whilst also wondering about the gang member to his right who knows whether he is a Hardened Criminal and a Undercover Cops. This is each gang member’s initial clue, the second being the first cards played on each gang member, which may or may not suggest their allegiance. After that, gang members will have to rely on Money and possibly Intel cards to discover who their friends and enemies are.

Throughout the game though, gang members are free to say whatever they want to each other, so they can agree to work together, issue threats, spread lies, debate about the Roles of their fellow gang members, share information, and even outright lie. A gang member’s role will only be revealed to everyone at the end of the game. It is here that gang members are free to roleplay too and given the genre which inspired it, Never Bring a Knife is ripe for film quotes and film-inspired roleplaying, which adds to the flavour of the game. Or, of course, a gang member might have enough of all the talking, cajoling, and threatening, lose his temper and just blaze away with his Gun (cards). Lastly, both the Hit and Mole cards have the capacity to add last minute twists to the outcome of the game if played at the right time, further emulating the genre that the game is inspired by. 

Never Bring a Knife is a fun stand-up, shootout showdown, which fans of heist films will enjoy roleplaying their way through. Its simple rules enable gang members to play out the story of heist gone wrong in hail of bullets, desperation, and recriminations. 

Mail call last night!  These were waiting for me when I got home.


In particular, I am happy to get a copy of B1 Legacy of the Unknown, the spiritual sequel to B1 In Search of the Unknown.


The module is pretty big at 68 pages and works great as a sequel to the original B1.

It is also a GREAT fit for Pacesetter's own B/X RPG rules.



Can't wait to run it.

Links

• Classic Adventures Revisited: B1 In Search of the Unknown
• Marissia, Daughter of Zelligar, The "First Witch"

 Exhibit / February 13, 2020 

Patti Smith, New York, 1978. Photo by David Godlis

Notting Hill, London, 1977. Photo by Roger Perry

Object Name: “Eat the rich”
Maker and Year: Unknown
Object Type: Political slogan
Description: (K.E. Roberts)

As Talia Levin noted last year in an Esquire article, “eat the rich” has become a popular expression among a new generation of leftists who have inherited, among many other obscenities, the most extreme income inequality of the last 50 years. The phrase is attributed to Enlightenment philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau in Adolphe Thiers’ 10-volume History of the French Revolution (1823-1827, English ed. 1838): “When the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich.” It is very likely a misattribution, as no version of the line appears anywhere in Rousseau’s written works. Thiers, who Marx called a “monstrous gnome” for sucking up to the bourgeoisie, claims it comes from a speech Rousseau made to the post-1789 revolutionary government—at which point Rousseau (Jean-Jacques, anyway) had been dead for more than 10 years. The truth is that it is probably a creative inversion of something else Rousseau said in his posthumously published and heavily embellished Confessions (1782): “At length I recollected the thoughtless saying of a great princess, who, on being informed that the country people had no bread, replied, ‘Then let them eat pastry!'” This became, of course, “Let them eat cake,” and was itself (purposely) misattributed to Marie Antoinette by French revolutionaries. Whatever the case, the “eat the rich” quote appears extensively in subsequent 19th century political and historical texts.

How it came to the American counterculture in the late ’60s or early ’70s is something of a mystery, but the answer may be a new edition of Thiers’ book that was published in 1971 by Books for Libraries Press, a popular (and populist) New York publisher reprinting significant historical and fictional works. I can’t find any evidence of the slogan being used in the Paris uprising of 1968, but in the summer of 1975 a group of young anarchists, inspired by Jean Baudrillard and the Situationists, staged a coup at the Detroit-based underground newspaper Fifth Estate, “[abolishing] all paid positions and [refusing] to take any paid advertisements.” They called themselves the Eat the Rich Gang. Forming the year before, they had already produced and distributed a cookbook/pamphlet—following the lead of 1971’s infamous The Anarchist Cookbook—called To Serve the Rich, which included recipes for Hearst Patty, Rocky Mountain Oysters Rockefeller, Justice Burger, Split Priest Soup, Bourgeois Bouillabaisse, Lenin Harangue Pie, and Pope-pourri. 1975’s The Eat the Rich Cookbook, published by The Workers Revenge Party, reprinted large sections of To Serve the Rich and sported a cover illustration of a skull and crossbones, the latter fashioned out of a knife and fork.

It was this cover (which may have been taken from To Serve the Rich) that directly led to the slogan’s entry into wider consciousness by means of, no surprise, the emergent East Coast punk scene. In 1978, a series of photos taken by David Godlis show Patti Smith at a New York record signing (for Easter) wearing a shirt that says EAT THE RICH (in one shot, she is very defiantly set against a background of Abba posters and standees). The illustration is different from the Eat the Rich Cookbook cover but exactly replicates the skull and knife/fork crossbones. The letters U.S.L.F. (United States Liberation Front?) appear below the image. A slightly different illustration, using the Fraktur font to great effect and minus the U.S.L.F., was produced around the same time: Dee Dee Ramone wore one, as did outlaw country singer-songwriter Terry Allen. Smith and her cohorts were anarchists of a different stripe: they didn’t give a shit about French theory, or any theory; instead, they agitated with amplified distortion and impudence, all the while struggling to survive in a decidedly more desperate and destitute urban reality.

Things were arguably grimmer in the UK. Photographer Roger Perry’s 1976 The Writing on the Wall documented London’s suddenly rampant dissident graffiti, just as Jon Naar and Norman Mailer had explored New York’s subway street art in 1974’s The Faith of Graffiti (Mailer argued that graffiti was not vandalism, but art and activism). The respective elections of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (1979) and President Ronald Reagan (1980) made life for the masses even more deplorable, and by the mid-1980s “eat the rich” was forever codified in pop culture and the popular lexicon, emblazoned on pinbacks, walls and bridges, album covers, and several more t-shirts, some of them making cameos in the films of the day. It was the name of a 1987 British comedy and a 1987 Motörhead single. P.J. O’Rourke, in his book Eat the Rich: A Treatise on Economics, claims that he “first saw the phrase on T-shirts worn by the Shi’ite Amal militia in Lebanon in 1984 or 1985.”

The expression became flaccid and flatulent in the ’90s, was resurrected by student debtors and summarily re-executed by Wall Streeters and their federal accomplices during Occupy Wall Street, and today simply represents the fury and terror of millions of souls who are tied to the tracks, the increasingly persistent bleat of a runaway train in the near distance.

I am often asked if one witch book can be used with another or with a game I didn't overtly design it for.  Say for example using The Warlock with Basic-era D&D, or The Amazon Witch Tradition with AD&D or S&W.   Well, the short answer is YES!


My goals for every book are simple. Make it a fun class. Make it compatible with every other book. Make it so the someone can pick one up and play it.   Any book I have can be and will be, someone's first book in the series.  So I want maximum playability.

So what can you do to mix them?  Well like I said I spend a lot of time trying to make it easy and avoid any potential issues.  In all things your GM has the say (and you or they can also always ask me) but here is an example.

Today I want to rebuild a character from Necromancer's Fane of the Witch King.
The character is Kytarra Bane, the "Witch Queen" of the adventure.  In the D&D3/d20 is a half-fiend/half-nymph 4th level druid.  Here nymph and druid levels "stack" in d20 so she ends up something like an 11th level druid.  But I don't want a druid. I want a witch.  So how could I build her using my books?

Well, given that she is half-fiend I am going to opt to make her part of the Mara Tradition.   To handle her handful of druid spells I will also grab some material from the S&W Green Witch book.  Finally, to deal with her half-nymph side I am going to use the multiclassing and use any race rules from the Classical Tradition book.  That book also has a large variety of nymphs to choose from.   Her bonus spells due to high Charisma (from The Mara book) and her Occult powers will help cover her nymph and fiend abilities.

Since I have all the books I can choose from a wider variety of spells for her.  There is some overlap in spells, that can't be helped. All witched get a Curse spell of some sort, but it makes for a nicer variety all the same.  I will also grab some cantrips from my original The Witch for Basic-Era Games book.

Kytarra Bane, The Witch Queen
From Fane of the Witch King
11th Level Witch, Mara Tradition
Half-nymph/Half-demon

Strength: 19
Intelligence: 20
Wisdom: 20
Dexterity: 17
Constitution: 17
Charisma: 20

Saves (unadjusted)
Death Ray or Poison:  9
Magic wand or devices: 10
Paralysis, Polymorph or Turn to Stone: 9
Dragon Breath: 12
Rods, Staffs, and Spells: 11

Hit Points: 52
Alignment: Chaotic (Evil)
AC: -1 (-2 dex, -1 natural, -3 bracers, Death Armor +1)

Occult Powers
Familiar:  Fiendish Dire Tiger
Herb use
Lesser:  Blinding Beauty (as per Blindness spell, once per day)

Spells
Cantrips (6): Black Flame, Chill, Flare, Mend Minor Wounds (x2), Object Reading
First (4+3): Bewitch I, Endure Elements, Fey Step, Häxen Talons, Mend Light Wounds, Obedient Beast, Obscuring Cloud
Second (3+3): Burning Gaze, Burning Hands, Defiling Touch, Fury of the Sun, Produce Flame, Stunning Allure
Third (3+2): Bewitch III, Brave the Flames, Contagion, Continual Fire, Witch Fire
Fourth (2+2): Dispel Magic, Dryad's Door, Elemental Armor, Rain of Spite
Fifth (2): Death Curse, Flame Strike
Sixth (1): Fire Seeds

Magic Items: Bracers (+3), Death Armor

I am pretty pleased with this build. I grabbed unique spells from all my sources listed about and it made for a nice witch. The mixing worked well and I ended up with a character very close to that of the original d20 product.  Since she is not part of an organized coven, or any coven really, I opted NOT to give her any witch Rituals.  That is not a hard and fast rule in the books, but one I use in my own games.

The are more ways to combine the books.  I should have a few more NPC witches coming up.

Michael Grasso / February 12, 2020

Over the past year of the seemingly interminable 2020 presidential campaign in the United States, the public political history of Senator Bernie Sanders has been fêted and castigated from both sides of the political aisle. An avowed democratic socialist throughout his life and political career, Sanders has taken the side of some very unpopular movements and causes during his time as an activist and Mayor of Burlington, Vermont before coming to Washington as an independent Congressman in 1991. But throughout his career in local and state-level politics, Sanders consistently possessed an ambivalent-yet-canny sense of the utility and power of mass media to shape the political conversation in America and to educate and raise the consciousness of the American working class. In Sanders’s love-hate relationship with broadcast television, we see a microcosm of a generation of activists’ ambivalence with the power of both corporate authority and American hegemony as embodied and reinforced by television. Our image of Sanders’s decidedly more radical political past is shaped by his appearances on, uses of, and critiques of mass media, film, and television. And Sanders’s clever détournement of these media during a deeply transitional period in the American media landscape—the 1970s and 1980s—makes him potentially America’s first hauntological President.

Some definitions are probably in order. Marxist philosopher Jacques Derrida coined the term “hauntology” in his 1993 book Specters of Marx, based on a series of lectures in which Derrida was asked to address the question “Whither Marxism” in the aftermath of the end of the USSR and Soviet bloc. Derrida returns to Marx and Engels’ vivid use of gothic imagery from the very first lines of The Communist Manifesto (“a specter is haunting Europe”) to explicate upon the “death” of international communism. Hauntings are warnings, Derrida implies, as he examines Marx’s well-attested love of Shakespeare and specifically how Hamlet’s father’s ghost embodies an historical warning from a vanished, better past. Derrida views Hamlet’s blind faith in following his father’s ghost, the ghost’s warning that “something [is] rotten in the state of Denmark,” and the so-called “victory” of liberal democracy and death of communism as elements of this schema of “hauntology.” If communism is dead, it can return from its grave; moreover, a specter cannot be killed, it can only return to its haunt again and again. “Repetition and first time, but also repetition and last time, since the singularity of any first time, makes of it also a last time. Each time it is the event itself, a first time is a last time. Altogether other. Staging for the end of history. Let us call it a hauntology.” This evocation of the paradox of simultaneous existence and non-existence, beginning and ending, is sealed with a pun: “hauntology” is a near-homonym for “ontology.”

Derrida’s admittedly cryptic and quasi-mystical evocation of ghosts, eternal return, and teleology/eschatology as they relate to the end of the Cold War, paired with the seeming eternal stability and final victory of liberal capitalism, deeply fascinated (and, in his words, “frustrated”) British cultural critic Mark Fisher, whose work I have previously reviewed in great detail. In his own formulation of “hauntology” from his 2014 Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology, and Lost Futures, Fisher offers a more solid definition of the term in a very specific cultural and artistic (as opposed to Derrida’s specifically political and ontological) context:

When it was applied to music culture—in my own writing, and in that of other critics such as Simon Reynolds and Joseph Stannard—hauntology first of all named a confluence of artists… What they shared was not a sound so much as a sensibility, an existential orientation… suffused with an overwhelming melancholy; and they were preoccupied with the way in which technology materialised music memory—hence a fascination with television, vinyl records, audiotape, and with the sounds of these technologies breaking down.

For those of us in the increasingly accurately named, all-but-forgotten Generation X, watching the analog media of our childhood crackle and fade away on a new plane—the forever-archive of cyberspace—offers a combination of poignancy and lost opportunity. Fisher acknowledges in the opening essay from Ghosts of My Life, “Lost Futures,” that both Derrida and Jean Baudrillard saw before their deaths how the new media landscape was beginning to destroy history—how it had “radically contracted space and time,” in Fisher’s words—and was leaving us in an eternal neoliberal present where nostalgia and remember-whenning are strip-mined, commodified, and drained of their political possibility. Fisher identifies the synthesis within hauntological music—that it paradoxically contains both the past and the future—as crucial in hauntology’s startling political effect for those who grew up in an era of “popular modernism.” In reifying an extinct medium’s aesthetics (the crackle of vinyl, the faded colors of Polaroid film, the warp of an audiocassette) in a contemporary context, hauntology summons the ghost of the (at the time largely occulted) political struggle of the 1970s, of a hidden fight between a decaying Western social democracy and the oncoming libidinal freight train of globalist neoliberalism. Fisher notes the writing of Jeremy Gilbert, who said, “Almost everything I was afraid of happening over the past 30 years has happened. Everything my political mentors warned might happen… has turned out just as badly as they said it would. And yet I don’t wish I was living 40 years ago. The point seems to be: this is the world we were all afraid of; but it’s also sort of the world we wanted.” In Fisher’s mourning of a world where popular modernism diverted us from this inevitability of the end of history and an end to class struggle, he very clearly sees the dream that was taken from us: “But we shouldn’t have to choose between, say, the internet and social security. One way of thinking about hauntology is that its lost futures do not force such false choices; instead, what haunts is the spectre of a world in which all the marvels of communicative technology could be combined with a sense of solidarity much stronger than anything social democracy could muster.” This, I would argue, is the appeal of Bernie Sanders, trapped in the amber of public television and public access videotape from the 1980s, to the American hauntologist.

One clearly sees the dialectical synthesis between Derrida’s political-ontological formulation of hauntology and Fisher’s cultural one in what’s become one of the most famous pieces of Bernie video from the 1980s: the grainy videotape account of Mayor Bernie and his fellow Burlingtonians in the Soviet Union in June of 1988. As Gorbachev’s perestroika began to break down the physical and cultural barriers between East and West, a concomitant collapse of the Soviet Union, thanks to generations of American sabotage, mass murder, and assassination, was occurring. Mayor Sanders’s trip was occurring as the Baltic republics, victims of Stalinist/Soviet oppression and annexation since World War II, were beginning to rebel against Moscow, kicking off the end of the Cold War and the USSR itself. Bernie and his traveling companions traveled to Russia to establish a sister city in Yaroslavl (it was also a de facto “honeymoon” for Mayor Sanders and his new wife Jane). The American contingent, in their final days in Yaroslavl, participated in a traditional series of Russian activities at a workers’ recreational facility attached to an oil refinery—hot and cold saunas, then dinner, toasts, and shared songs late into the night. Sanders noted that two of the women on his trip saw that both Americans and Soviets were dissatisfied with elements of their societies, and the conclusion the Americans came to was, “Let’s take the strengths of both systems. Let’s learn from each other.” In their “congenial” reception in Moscow and Yaroslavl, in Bernie and the Burlingtonians’ singing of American socialist folk songs at a traditional Russian toast, we see the possibility of yet another lost future, one of brotherhood between a possible post-Reagan America and a resurgent, revitalized, and most importantly no-longer-Stalinist Soviet Union, a lost future captured forever on videotape and viewable endlessly in our own nether-realm after the end of history itself. 1980s Mayor Bernie—and Woody Guthrie, and Vladimir Lenin—are the ghosts haunting the parapets of our Castle Elsinore.

In postulating Bernie Sanders as the possible first hauntological President, we need to examine his entire life story around media, television, and their political uses. From the very beginning of his political activism, as part of the civil rights movement in the early ’60s, there was an awareness of the visuals around protest and civil disobedience, a leveraging of the new global mass media to effect sea changes in public opinion. As Bernie’s participation in direct action around improving the rights of African-Americans demonstrates, the movement organized by fellow democratic socialist Martin Luther King, Jr. knew that, while the new mass medium of television was used primarily to rehabilitate the existing hegemonic order, it could also be used to appeal to the better angels of white Americans’ nature. In spectacular events like the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and the Freedom Riders program, King and his hundreds of thousands of individual voices put forth a vision of an America unriven by racial strife—while simultaneously and dialectically forcing white America to vividly confront its own complicity in the centuries-old historical evil of white terrorism. Bernie’s 2020 campaign often uses an image of a young Sanders being dragged by cops at a protest in 1963 on the South Side of Chicago as a concrete portrayal of his more than half-century of activism and civil disobedience; it’s tremendously effective as a piece of media from a forgotten past many white Americans would prefer to forget. More ghosts, more haunting.

Bernie continued with organizing after graduating from the University of Chicago, but drifted from job to job, from Chicago to New York City and, eventually, like many members of the counterculture, out to the country of Vermont, unable to find a place or a job he felt comfortable with inside the dominant culture. His early 1970s political career with the Liberty Union Party prepared him for his eventual foray into politics in the ’80s, but his quixotic runs for governor and Senate left him jobless by 1977. It was at this time that sometime activist, carpenter, and third-party candidate Bernard Sanders decided it was time for him to be an educator.

In 1977, Sanders left his role as the Liberty Union Party’s perennial candidate and founded the Vermont-based American People’s Historical Society, a producer of filmstrips and educational media that focused on local Vermont and New England history. Its first releases are of a more traditional pedagogical and ideological bent for use in public schools: tales of the American Revolution and Vermont’s Presidents. But it was clear that Sanders sought to expand the horizons of students beyond these usual narrow educational avenues; filmstrips would soon include productions on New England women and the Amistad slave rebellion. The filmstrip itself is a powerful nostalgic symbol for those who attended American public schools between the 1960s and the 1980s. Offered to schools because of cheaper cost as compared to educational films on actual threaded film, they were an economical and practical medium that lacked the dynamism and excitement of actual film; one could easily consider them a socialist technological compromise. The tropes of the medium (warbly soundtrack, the trademark “beep” meant to remind the teacher or AV club member to advance the filmstrip) still live on, strongly, in the memories of late Boomers and Generation X-ers. But it was the APHS’s dramatic shift in 1979 to covering an explicitly socialist topic, the career of American labor organizer, socialist politician, political prisoner, and Presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs, that marked Sanders’s commitment to producing media that was an alternative to the predominant political and historical pedagogical discourse in American schools. In his announcement of the new line of video cassettes (which would of course soon supplant the filmstrip in schools) dedicated to “The Other Side of American History,” Sanders notes that the APHS wanted to present an educational account of “people and ideas that the major profit oriented manufacturers of audio-visual material will not cover because of economic and political reasons.”

Sanders was long aware that conventional education (and media) had a hegemonic role to play in American society. Nowhere is this distaste for “profit oriented manufacturers of audio-visual material” clearer than in a Sanders opinion column from alternative publication The Vermont Vanguard Press in February 1979, titled “Social Control and the Tube.” Sanders wrote columns for left-wing publications throughout the 1970s, using the alternative media available at the time to spread unorthodox political ideas. In “Social Control and the Tube,” Sanders takes aim at broadcast television with fiery invective, calling the television’s role in American lives no better than “heroin” or “alcohol,” a numbing “escapist mechanism which allows people to ‘space out’ and avoid the pain and conflict of their lives—and the causes of those problems.” The monstrous chimera of television, which not only seeks to numb but also to assure corporate profits (through television advertising) and social control (through the limited range of acceptable political views seen on news and opinion programming) fulfills a centrally hegemonic role in America at the end of the 1970s, arguably the peak of broadcast television’s power before the coming of cable television. Television programs under capitalism can never be of good quality, Sanders asserts, because if they do increase in quality, the commercials will look ridiculous by comparison. What is Sanders’s solution for this monolith which hovers over the American body politic, turning viewers into consumerist morons and zombies? A release of the airwaves back into public hands from the grasping greed of the television networks and their corporate sponsors:

The potential of television, democratically owned and controlled by the people, is literally beyond comprehension because it is such a relatively new medium and we have no experience with it under democratic control. At the least, with the present state of technology, we could have a choice of dozens of channels of commercial-free TV.

At the moment serious writers are, by and large, not allowed to write for commercial television for fear they might produce something that is true and hence, upsetting to the owners of the media. Under democratic control people with all kinds of views could make their presentations, and serious artists would be encouraged to produce work for the tube.

Is this dream of a socially-conscious, democratically-controlled television in America merely the naive wish of a late-’70s socialist crank? Perhaps. Views like these about television have been pilloried and parodied again and again in pop culture (notably, on television) in the person of the character who is “too much of an intellectual to own a TV.” Still, Sanders respects the potential of the medium in the hands of the people. And one of the only existing venues in America at the end of the ’70s where a citizen could possibly participate in the medium as a citizen (apart from local TV stations) was through the Great Society experiment which, by the end of the 1970s, was beamed into millions of American homes and thousands of American nurseries and classrooms with a mission to educate, inform, and entertain the public in much the way Sanders details: the Public Broadcasting System.

(Above: audio version of Bernie Sanders’s documentary on Eugene V. Debs; courtesy Jacobin)

Other nations, like the United Kingdom, had long had governmental control of radio and television broadcasting. In America, a patchwork of disorganized local, nominally-public educational television stations had formed the PBS in 1970, changing the television landscape. Sanders sought the imprimatur of his local Vermont PBS affiliate, Vermont Educational Television (still known locally as ETV) in 1979 to broadcast his APHS video on Eugene Debs. ETV refused. Sanders subsequently gathered a citizen group to act as a watchdog for ETV’s programming, Concerned Citizens on ETV, to protest this refusal. Sanders was certain that ETV’s refusal was for the same political reasons he outlined in his APHS brochure and Vermont Vanguard Press piece; despite PBS affiliates’ nominal public funding, they were also by 1979 more and more dependent on private endowments and even corporate funding (Exxon, for example, was a longtime underwriter for a number of PBS series). The establishment of Concerned Citizens on ETV led to an eventual citizen council on programming at ETV; Sanders even appeared on ETV in 1980, before his election to the office of Mayor of Burlington, to introduce documentary segments on poor Vermonters living in the inner city, on Vermont’s Indian tribes, on working women, and the functionally illiterate. In his introduction, Sanders, sitting on an empty soundstage featuring an ETV video camera and a television monitor showing color bars, explicitly states—on ETV airwaves!—that the programming of ETV and PBS has not been serving the working class and poor population of Vermont up to this point: “We’re going to briefly discuss Vermont Educational Television—this station—and strongly suggest that Vermont ETV undergo a major transformation so that it begins to become relevant to the low-income and working people of this state who constitute the vast majority of our population but who presently watch ETV very rarely.” For a network in PBS whose high-toned programming included opera and stage plays, trying to make ETV into a true proletarian television station, democratically-controlled, was a fulfillment of Sanders’s beliefs as expressed in “Social Control and the Tube.”

After years of failure with the Liberty Union Party trying to achieve state-wide office, Sanders was elected Mayor of Burlington in 1981, shocking the staid Vermont political (and national media) establishment and surprising many political commentators to the point of public embarrassment. While in office, Sanders didn’t leave behind the idea of using broadcasting to both communicate his ideas and empower the working class. With the 1980s, a new form of public broadcasting was becoming popular throughout many cities and towns in the United States: cable public access. In the embryonic days of cable television, FCC regulations stated that all cable television systems with 3,500 or more subscribers would be required to host programs of local interest: in broadcasting terminology, for “public, educational, or governmental use” (PEG). Throughout the 1970s, as local cable systems grew their infrastructure with cameras and sets to host programs and broadcasts of interest to locals in individual towns, governmental requirements waxed and waned as the nascent cable industry fought back against the FCC provisions. In 1984, a compromise legislation was achieved (with the help of Barry Goldwater of all people), not requiring PEG programming at local cable systems but assuring that local authorities could mandate it for their local cable franchises outside of the interference of the federal government. Mayor Sanders used his local Burlington cable TV station, Channel 15, as a platform for his overall political program: to give the people of Burlington a voice in front of their fellow citizens.

“Bernie Speaks to the Community” began on December 3, 1986 with a half-hour introduction to and interview with Bernie Sanders, now mayor for over five years, and the issues facing Burlington at the time. For the next two years, Sanders would shift into the role of host and programmer, introducing Burlington cable viewers to a dizzying array of issues and individuals, from taxes to police funding, from local arts and cultural events to nuclear power, from women’s and Native American issues to education and children’s issues. The show often takes the form of a bog-standard public affairs show, but it really shines when Bernie introduces ordinary citizens, engages in a conversation with them, and lets them do the talking. Most observers were likely introduced to “Bernie Speaks” by this piece in Politico, which presents the program as a series of possible contemporary political liabilities for Bernie, focusing on issues of international socialist import which Sanders continued to pursue as Mayor, such as improving relations with the Soviet Union and protesting against the U.S.-backed Contra atrocities in Nicaragua. Over the brief history of “Bernie Speaks” we can see an evolution occur in Bernie’s political demeanor: from an activist whose blunt affect and approach to politics was frequently direct and uncompromising to a politician with a deft human touch and an ordinary everyday schlub-ness (Bernie is almost always seen in a sweater vest that can’t help but recall Fred Rogers’s studied casualness) that makes him an effective human face for the alien idea (to many Vermonters and Americans) of democratic socialism. In many ways, “Bernie Speaks” had accomplished the dream he outlined in his “Social Control” essay: it turned local television, in some small way, into a democratic and interactive medium from the instrument of control it was on the national level.

Probably the most well-known and well-trafficked memes from Bernie’s local cable access show involve his interaction with the social and built landscape of the 1980s that those of us who were alive then remember so well. The episode where Bernie decides to talk to ordinary citizens at the Burlington Square Mall is, to the eyes of the typical Generation X-er, positively haunting. The architecture of the mall can’t help but evoke memories of similar shopping centers all across America in viewers of a certain age. It’s also clear by looking at the quality of the video throughout the run of “Bernie Speaks” that the Channel 15 crew is using camcorders that are barely better than consumer-grade models available in the mid-1980s, adding yet another layer of nostalgic hauntology to the series. And in Bernie’s conversations with high school students, security guards, Vermonters disappointed in Jesse Jackson’s poor showing on Super Tuesday in 1988, and probably most famously, a pair of young goth-punks who treat Bernie with a combination of bemused respect and surprisingly astute political engagement (they tell Bernie “to heck with society… I don’t like the way society is run, it’s a cop-out, everybody’s plastic…”), we see a politician whose sincerity (and whose own life experience in choosing to opt out of what society had expected of him) echoes across multiple generations, to those on the political fringe or those traditionally excluded from the political process. In the 2020 campaign, Bernie’s strategy has centered the slogan “Not me, us” and has used interviews nearly identical to those in “Bernie Speaks,” with Sanders handing the microphone to town hall attendees to tell their stories of six-figure hospital bills, of economic and social injustice, of a society whose ability and desire to take care of its most vulnerable members has corroded to its very bones.

The mainstream media aligned with both major parties has viewed the media history of Bernie Sanders as a goldmine for hit pieces, a 50-plus year documentation of the biography of a worthless Communist layabout, someone clearly who was on the wrong side of America’s great late-20th century conflict, the Cold War. A closer look and understanding of Bernie Sanders’s history in print and on the airwaves, however, says something different. It offers a parallel history of the dominant American political and media narrative of the 20th century. Through citizen and alternative media, Bernard Sanders built a life in activism, a political career, and a broad-based left-wing political movement. Through those same citizen and alternative media, Bernard Sanders leaves behind an afterimage full of ghosts of a better and different world, one where control was wrested from the incomprehensible behemoths of mainstream media and politics that have steered our nation’s history since the end of World War II. The ghost of ’80s Bernie appears before us in analog, on the warmth and familiarity of cable access videotape, from a strange alternative past that paradoxically offers us a bolder, better future. Bernie’s words and image, from Burlington to Yaroslavl, may haunt us, but the movement he remained faithful to—during the most broadly reactionary period in American history—is alive again: “repetition and first time, but also repetition and last time.” As Mark Fisher said, hauntology offers us the spectre of a different world. Bernie at the mall, Bernie in the Soviet Union, Bernie on video on an empty set in a PBS affiliate: these are not merely flickering images of a dead timeline, forever inaccessible to us. We don’t have to settle for a hollow, repackaged and reconstituted kitsch nostalgia for socialism, for a “left melancholy,” for the end of history and a haunted political landscape bereft of alternatives. While Bernie’s ghost still wanders the food courts of the mall, he yet emerges, large and real as life, no longer on warbling videotape or going school-to-school in Vermont pitching crackly filmstrips to our childhood selves. He is an historical force, part of a movement dedicated to workers’ solidarity. He is on the ballot in a state near you in the coming weeks and months. He is the past inside the present.

This piece is dedicated to Mary Sweeney.

Michael Grasso is a Senior Editor at We Are the Mutants. He is a Bostonian, a museum professional, and a podcaster. Follow him on Twitter at @MutantsMichael.

Audrey Fox / February 11, 2020

Ready or Not, 2019

The ever-widening division between social classes has always been popular fodder in film and television. It seems as though few films that address class disparity can escape at least some oblique commentary that casts the wealthy elite in a negative light. From the early days of cinema with Erich von Stroheim’s Greed (1924) and Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) to Wall Street (1987) to the brutal satire American Psycho (2000), film has rarely let the rich off easy. But 2019 turned hating the rich into a blood sport, with Parasite and Hustlers both finding new ways to strike back at the one percent. The year saw a remarkable amount of media that didn’t just criticize the structures of inequality that allow the rich to remain in power, but specifically targeted beneficiaries of inherited wealth.

The ultra-rich are frequently depicted at best as self-absorbed, entitled children who can’t do a thing for themselves, and at worst as immoral sociopaths. This presentation is unique in that it seemingly transcends political background. We’ve seen plenty of films that denigrate the policies of one party or another as being detrimental to the well-being of the general populace, but, according to many 2019 films, politics are a secondary factor in this criticism of the wealthy. They instead posit that there is a certain amount of wealth that one can acquire, particularly if it is inherited, that precludes moral behavior. Simply put, there’s no such thing as a good billionaire. That this is a message we see repeated again and again over the course of 2019 suggests an evolution of political commentary in popular culture.

The depiction of dynastic wealth over the past few decades has allowed the ultra-wealthy to take on a certain aspirational quality. Dynasty, Dallas, The O.C., and Gossip Girl are all examples of shows that portrayed this sort of vast wealth as a much envied lifestyle, where existence was not only easier and more glamorous but vastly more interesting. Not so since the Great Recession, and especially not so since the election of Donald Trump, himself the product of his father’s wealth. Many of the films and television series we’ve seen this year are openly contemptuous of the sense of entitlement characters who inherit wealth have, painting them as oblivious farces of the upper class, worthy of little more than derision. In Ready or Not, the family members of a board game dynasty are so convinced that they alone deserve prosperity that they’re willing to brutally hunt down and murder anyone who threatens their supposed birthright. The reveal of this violent action as a mechanism for their very survival reflects how they view the possession of wealth: if they can’t maintain their high social status, they may as well be dead.

Succession, 2019

In the first two seasons of HBO’s Succession, the overarching question is who is going to take control of the massive media conglomerate Waystar Royco in the wake of its founder Logan Roy’s (Brian Cox) declining health. Regardless of whoever may have the most experience or be the most temperamentally fit to run such an organization, the Roy children are the only ones who are seriously considered for the position. It’s a race for one of the most powerful jobs in the world run by only three potential contenders. And the behavior exhibited by each of the Roy kids (excluding Connor, played by Alan Ruck) shows how much they think they’ve genuinely earned the largely ceremonial positions they’ve been given within the organization. The same idea stands in HBO’s The Righteous Gemstones, the sillier version of Succession, where characters frequently declare “I’m a Gemstone” as the only justification as to why they should be allowed to do things or be given special privileges. We see an extension of this in Knives Out, where an entire family of freeloaders, all financially problematic in their own unique ways, cannot fathom their father’s fortune being given to anyone outside of the family. In their minds, they have earned this money, though by what means it’s hard to say.

These narratives fundamentally subvert the myth of the self-made man, which is especially prevalent in Knives Out. Each member of the Thrombey family could not have achieved success without significant financial help from their father, Harlan Thrombey (the actual self-made man, played by Christopher Plummer). Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis) is a real estate mogul, but she never would have been able to start her company without her father’s initial funding. Walt (Michael Shannon) serves as CEO of his father’s publishing company, a position he was handed not through merit but because he was the oldest living son and first in line to the throne. And even then, despite his title, he’s not trusted with the power to license adaptations of his father’s work, which is where the real money is. Joni (Toni Collette) is a Gwyneth Paltrow-esque lifestyle guru, entirely dependent on an allowance from her father-in-law, and Ransom (Chris Evans) has nothing to bank on in life except for an anticipated future inheritance.

Based on the comments they make about one another to detectives during the investigation of Harlan’s unusual death, they seem to know that every member of the family (except themselves, of course) owes all their success to dad. But they consider themselves to be inherently deserving of wealth not because of the things they have done, but because of their surname. If this is their logic, it only stands to reason that if there are certain people who are entitled to good fortune by their very blood, so too there must also be people who are inherently undeserving. After all, if they were able to make something of themselves (which they truly believe they have done), there must be something wrong with those who can’t. It’s galling to see people extol the virtues of a meritocracy when they owe all their success in life to an accident of birth, and it highlights both the hypocrisy of this type of upper-class thinking as well as the mental gymnastics required to perpetuate a certain social order as they perceive it.

Knives Out, 2019

We find the meritocracy myth in Succession as well. Where Kendall and Roman are certainly aware of the fact that they would not have their lofty positions within Waystar Royco if they weren’t part of the family, daughter Siobhan chose instead to work in politics, which allows her the luxury of believing she got her job on her own merits. She’s shrewd and calculating, so she may have done well on her own, but one would have to be naive to ignore the role of her father’s influence in her career progression, as well as the appeal it would have for a politician to have an “in” at one of the world’s largest news outlets.

All of this is interesting, but not necessarily unusual for films and television shows that are critical of the ultra-rich. What is novel about the media released in 2019 is that it doesn’t seem to care whether the wealthy people in question self-identify as liberal or conservative. In the eyes of these filmmakers, the upper class is apolitical, because it has no primary political conviction other than maintaining wealth. Knives Out takes aim at the more conservative Thrombeys with a particular relish (they all insist that Marta is like family, yet none of them can remember which country she comes from, and the way that Walt forces her into a dialogue about immigration is unreservedly cruel), but it also suggests that the liberal members of the family are just as bad. No matter how much they signal a sort of performative “wokeness,” when push comes to shove and money is on the line, their loyalty is to their class, not their political beliefs. Joni is the stereotypical upper-class white liberal who knows how to say all the things that sound progressive, and her daughter Meg attends a left-leaning liberal arts college. But the pull of their inherited wealth and attachment to their class is so strong that they willingly attempt to manipulate a lower-middle-class immigrant into giving up an inheritance that is by rights legally hers just because—they somehow deserve it more? Even without their inheritance, they will still be able to lead a lifestyle well beyond the reach of most Americans, but they believe that they deserve their father’s house, his money, and the right to profit from all of his literary works. We see a similar situation play out in Succession with Siobhan, who chooses to work on a Democratic senator’s presidential campaign and by all accounts supports left-leaning politicians. But despite her personal political inclinations, she reliably acts to protect Waystar Royco, and by extension her own financial interests.

This very specific argument against the wealthy—so repeatedly on screen in 2019, not to mention Parasite‘s unprecedented run at the 2020 Oscars—is a reflection of a growing awareness that casts the ultra-rich as the true cause of our massive class divide, suggesting that those wrapped in power and privilege have pitted the rest of us against each other so that we’re too busy fighting for our lives to realize we’re being manipulated. Of course, it’s ironic when you think about the fact that these hyper-critical narratives are being bankrolled by and make a massive profit for the studios, which are themselves owned and operated by the wealthy class of people these films denigrate. The same applies to the mostly wealthy actors who play the wealthy characters. The Righteous Gemstones and Succession have the added effect of highlighting the misdeeds of large media empires, which one could assume would be a particularly unpalatable commentary for HBO, itself part of a massive media empire. Does this high-powered, ubiquitous corporate infiltration dilute the potency of such narratives? Regardless, that they exist at all showcases a shift in thinking that redirects anger towards those who actually hold real power and, worst of all, those who have done nothing to earn it.

Audrey Fox is an ex-film student, which means that she prefers to spend her days in the dark, watching movies and pondering the director’s use of diegetic sound. She currently works as an entertainment writer, joyfully rambling about all things film and television related.

Because I am not including other screencapsYears ago, so long I don't remember exactly when or how I was told that "you must choose a side or one will be chosen for you."

I think it was my dad and it was while I was in Boy Scouts (yes. I was a Boy Scout until my Atheism made it difficult) and he meant it a means of choosing good over evil, right over wrong.  The point is that sometimes making the choice is hard and sometimes good or evil is not clear cut or easily defined.

Sometimes though choosing the right side is easy.

Growing up in Central Illinois it was easy to be a fan of Judges Guild. They were "local guys" by the standards of TSR being all the way up in WI and other companies even further.  I remember playing in the City-State of the Invincible Overlord a lot back then and lamenting that we didn't have all the products we wanted for it.   I picked up Witch's Court Marshes and other books and added them happily to my collections.  Even in my D&D/TSR "purity" days, Judges' Guild products got a pass.

I liked Judges Guild.

Yet with the recent posts by current JG owner (and son of the founder) Bob Bledsaw II has changed all of that.   I was not friends with Bob Bledsaw, so I had not seen that this was a pattern of behavior that was one of those "open secrets".

I can no longer support Judges Guild. 

Frog God Games and Bat in the Attic are also cutting ties with BBII/JG and I applaud them for it.  You can see more posts from BBII's Facebook on Rob's site so I do not feel the need to repost them here.

My financial contribution to JG's bottom line is practically non-existent; anything I did buy was on the second-hand market for rare items.  But I was planning on doing a series of posts on  The Dungeoneer and Pegasus magazines and I wanted to review a couple of adventures.  I cannot in good conscience do that now.

Gaming is inclusive. We welcome all and actively seek to bring in others that may not have a place to call their own. That's our DNA, that is who we should be always.  Gaming was there for the disenfranchised teens of the 70s and 80s that were not part of the in-crowds. We are not part of a movement to bring in so many others that want a place to be themselves.

But there is no room for bigots, racists, anti-semites or anyone at all like that.
Hate has no place in my games.

No gaming for me this past weekend.  One game for Connor and two for Liam though, so I was left to my own devices.  Those devices were going over my Mōdiphiüs Star Trek and John Carter of Mars RPGs.  Both use the same 2d20 system, or close enough to make conversions and blending easy.   And Mōdiphiüs is also doing the new Dune RPG.   This has my desire to run an epic Space Opera up into hyperdrive.

BUT.  Let's be honest. There is no good way, thematically, to combine John Carter and Star Trek.  Their Mars' are too different.    The problem is, I love Mars.  Both in terms of fiction and back when I was studying to be an astrophysicist.   Scientific/realistic Mars would be great for a Trek game, especially with all the things going on on Mars in the new Picard series.  But what about my need for fantasy Mars?


I have talked about Clark Ashton Smith's Mars in relationship to BlackStar and my love of the various pulp games for Mars.  So I am not lacking in desire, or material, I just need a home game for it.  So this idea hit me over the weekend.

Why not Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Barsoom?

AS&SH is obviously more Clark Ashton Smith and less Edgar Rice Burroughs, but both are there.  While I enjoy the works of CAS much more, ERB's Barsoom captures my attention much more.  Besides, in a game I can mix and match as I please, especially in a game like AS&SH.

I am not planning, yet, to send any characters to Barsoom, but it makes perfect sense to bring some Martians to Hyperborea.

These Martians are designed for Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea (Compleat Second Edition) and heavily based on Warriors of the Red Planet (which you should get if you love everything Mars, like me.)

Martian Princess by Will NicholsMartian, Green
No. Encountered: 1 (1d3)
Alignment: Neutral
Size: L
Movement: 40
Dexterity: 16
Armour Class: 5
Hit Dice: 4+4 to 6+6
Attack Rate: 4/1 (sword x4 or radium pistol x4)
Damage: 1d8 (×4) or 1d8 (x4)
Saving Throw: 14 to 12
Morale: 12
Experience Points: 400 to  850
Treasure Class:  Nil (see below)

Green Martians are tall, 8' tall, humanoids with green skin and four arms.  The males are bald and have huge tusks. The females are just as tall but appear more human.  Some even have ancestry related to the ancient Red Martians.  Many of the Martians found in Hyperborea are these Green with Red Martian blood to adapt better to the Hyperborean world.
It has been assumed that came here centuries ago and have been able to return to Barsoom.  Those sages in the know claim they are here as advanced scouts prior to a Martian invasion.

Green Martians are a warrior race and adapt to the weapons found in Hyperborea with ease.  Green Chieftans, the Jedaks, also wield radium pistols that fire a bolt of burning radium.  The range is the same as a crossbow.

Martians eschew armor of any kind and rely on their dexterity and natural toughness.  They also do not keep any treasure they find.  The exception are any weapons. They have a 20% chance of having a magical sword, short sword or dagger.  They do not use bows, but will have a 10% of having a magical crossbow.

I like this. Can't wait to give it a go.

• Review: Warriors of the Red Planet
• Review: Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea 2E

The Zhodani Candidate is the second scenario from the designer of the superlative freeform, Eve of Rebellion. Set in the Third Imperium of Mongoose Publishing’s Traveller and published by March Harrier Publishing via Mongoose Publishing, The Zhodani Candidate won the Zhodani Base Awards 2019 for Best Adventure. It is a one-shot scenario suitable for conventions or campaign breaks, designed to be played by five players, plus the Referee. In terms of mechanics, The Zhodani Candidate is written for the current rules for Traveller, but is so rules light, it can be run by almost every previous version of Traveller, or indeed, be adapted to almost any system of the gaming group’s choice. Indeed, the primary game content in The Zhodani Candidate in terms mechanics are the stats and skills of the five characters involved, although stats are also provided for the Cepheus Engine.

Inspired by the television series Homeland and the Cold War brainwashing thriller The Manchurian Candidate, plus the Trust and Betrayal mechanics of Contested Ground Studio’s Cold City roleplaying game, The Zhodani Candidate is a scenario about intrigue, deception, and conflicting agendas. It takes place in the year 1098 on the planet of Mora in the Spinward Marches. Lady Isolde Ling Muudashir, the heir to the Duchy of Mora, is planning to marry ex-Imperial Marine Sergeant Darius Cantu, a love match rather than the traditional marriage of securing dynasties and economic alliances. Cantu is a war hero who fought in the Fourth Frontier War against the invading forces of the Zhodani Consulate and after being captured, spent a decade in the Zhodani re-education camps before being returned to the Third Imperium as part of a prisoner exchange. Cantu would simply have remained an ex-war hero, content to do charity work for veterans of the Fourth Frontier War, were it not the fact that he met Lady Isolde and they fell in love.

Consequently, various Imperial agencies with an interest in the security and stability of the rich and technologically advanced Duchy of Mora given its role as the gateway to the Spinward Marches, have concerns about the intending nuptials. They are worried that Sergeant may have been brainwashed by the Zhodani during his decade-long captivity and may be a secret sleeper agent. As husband-consort to the Duchess of Mora, he would have access to a great deal of classified information and would represent a major security risk. Informing the current Duchess, Delphine Adorania Muudashir, of their suspicions, the agencies have come to a compromise with her. They will form an Inter-Agency Taskforce to perform a security vetting of Sergeant Darius Cantu and determine if he can be cleared to marry Lady Isolde, or whether he is the Zhodani Candidate—a sleeper agent programmed to betray the Imperium. They will then approve the wedding guest list, should the wedding go ahead.

The Inter-Agency Taskforce consists of five members. They include Undersecretary Eon Jaxon, Undersecretary to the Ministry of State, Spinward Bureau, who formed and heads the Inter-Agency Emergency Vetting Taskforce; Senior Ducal Bodyguard Sir Jans Hillier, the head of Her Grace’s Security Service; Perrin Davos Senior Security Vetting Agent, Ministry of Justice, a specialist in security vetting; Lieutenant Samanthe Rosen, Imperial Naval Intelligence, a junior member of Naval Intelligence recommended by the Admiralty as an investigator and interrogator; and Senior Scout Evelyn Tremayne, a representative of the Intelligence Branch of the Interstellar Imperial Scout Service with information to present to the Inter-Agency Emergency Vetting Taskforce. All five player characters are presented in some detail and come with full stats, skills, background, and equipment, as well as a Departmental Agenda, a Personal Agenda, and more. What this means is that there is quite a lot of information for the players to absorb in terms of their characters—and then there is the addition of Traveller’s Library Data pertinent to the scenario.

The scenario itself is divided into two parts. The first is the investigation of Sergeant Darius Cantu, the second is the vetting of the wedding guests and the wedding itself. Now although there is a central objective in the scenario, that of ensuring that Lady Isolde Ling Muudashir is married to a safe husband, achieving it is only half of the scenario’s playthrough. The other half is the interplay of the player characters and their sometimes conflicting objectives. Here, as with the earlier Eve of Rebellion, is where the author’s experience with playing and creating freeforms come to the fore. That said, the objectives in Eve of Rebellion are tightly supported by the links between the player characters, but in The Zhodani Candidate, these are not present, at least not initially. At the start of the scenario, the player characters do not know each other, so the players will need to work harder to involve their characters in the scenario. Now the investigation serves to pull them into the scenario, but after that, the players will need to work hard to work bring their objectives into play without exposing them.

The actual adventure in The Zhodani Candidate runs to less than a third of its length, but includes staging advice, the scenario’s events, and possible outcomes. Besides this, it comes with the five player characters, Library Data, timeline of events, and reference sheets for the Game Master. In comparison, The Zhodani Candidate is mechanically more complex than Eve of Rebellion, and the Game Master may want to have access to both Traveller, First Edition and Traveller, Second Edition from Mongoose Publishing to the fullest out of it. The complexity comes in the fact that unlike in Eve of Rebellion, the player characters in The Zhodani Candidate are going to be doing a lot more than just talking and deceiving. Stats and guidelines are given should the Game Master want to run the scenario using the Cepheus Engine.

One new mechanic which The Zhodani Candidate does add is for handling trust between the player characters. Adapted from Cold City, it measures the degrees of trust between the scenario’s cast, which can grant a bonus between two trusting characters. Conversely woe betide anyone who breaks their trust with another character, or rather expect trust to be lost and broken as the player characters’ differing objectives clash and conflict with each other.

Physically, The Zhodani Candidate is a 1.44 Mb, thirty-six page, colour PDF (though only the cover and some maps use any colour). It is well written, the characters are solidly designed, and the advice is excellent throughout. If there is anything missing, it is that the scenario could have done with a few more handouts, perhaps to give out as part of the briefing handouts and so establish a sense of verisimilitude right from the start. No doubt a Game Master could create these herself as part of her preparations to run the scenario—and even better if she did them as folders of briefing material, one for each player and his character, ready to be opened at the inaugural meeting of the Inter-Agency Emergency Vetting Taskforce.

What The Zhodani Candidate lacks in comparison to Eve of Rebellion is a sense of grandeur and elegance. Now this is due to differences in their subject matters, Eve of Rebellion with high politics and family matters, The Zhodani Candidate with subterfuge, espionage, and deception. So there is more machination to The Zhodani Candidate, more grit and more paranoia. Eventually though, The Zhodani Candidate will probably confirm everyone’s perceptions of the nasty, underhand, and perfidious Zhodani and their sneaky use of Psionics, and drive everyone on the taskforce into a showdown from which none are going to walk away unscathed.

It is the year 2050. Twenty years ago, an island rose in the Pacific Ocean and a horde of loathsome octopus-headed beasts swarmed over every ship sent to investigate, even withstanding multiple nuclear strikes. With a great being known as Cthulhu at their head, the creatures launched neurological attacks that warped and corrupted the survivors. Within a month, humanity survived only in a handful of enclaves. 

It is the year 2050. Twenty-two years ago, an island rose off the coast of Massachusetts and as the resulting tsunami floods the coast up and down the east coast of the USA there came reports of ships and towns being attacked by fish people. Then in the isolated town of Innsmouth, a search and rescue team saw survivors transforming into the fish people—quickly identified as Deep Ones. They were only the first, for what became known as the Innsmouth Plague spread around the world. Billions transform, millions die. What they have in common is that they were taking Palliagil, a cure to an MRSA plague from eight years before. Could it be linked?

It is the year 2050. On Hexenacht, April 30th, 2030, the top of Brocken, Germany’s highest mountain exploded to reveal a thousand foot tall, eight-legged and hoof-footed, tentacled monstrosity. Its appearance instigated a wave of cannibalism amongst the nearby Hexenacht celebrants that would leave thousands dead. But then from the corpses exploded miniature versions of the giant thing that had appeared earlier that night. They killed anyone who investigated, then more spawned from the new corpses. Within days, these tentacled horrors dominated the planet bar three, slowly contracting exclusion zones in New England, Nigeria, and Australia.

It is the year 2050. Twenty-two years ago, the unknown Nour Al Hasan walked out of the desert and won the Egyptian presidential election. He declared himself Nyarlathotep, the Dark Pharaoh, and that he would return Egypt to its former glory, whilst in Antarctica, over a hundred volcanoes exploded and revealed great cities and waves of star-headed, barrel-shaped and winged creatures which fly north to meet up with the armies of Faceless Ones that the Dark Pharaoh freed from below the pyramids. Within weeks, humanity is dead.

It is the year 2050. Twenty years ago a strange figure appeared in Covent Garden in London, all in yellow and masked, a strange mist spreading in its wake. Those touched by the mist exhibit symptoms of diseases in seconds that normally take days, either dying almost immediately or undergoing grisly transformations. Within hours this King in Yellow appears in cities around the world, spreading disease, and in weeks, there is nowhere in the world that remains untouched, most of humanity dead by then.

It is the year 2050. You are one of the few survivors of an unholy apocalypse that struck the world two decades ago. Scientists and researchers have developed the means to effect limited time travel and it has been decided that they will send one or more men or women—forewarned of knowledge of the future—back in time to meddle with one of these timelines and thwart the efforts of an Old Ones and its cultists. This is not without a cost though, for every time traveller must connect with another alien being known as Yog-Sothoth in order to come back to 2020, literally connect with the corruptive power of the Mythos, and that leaves a mark. It likely gives the time traveller a strange power, one beyond science, a power that itself will be of use in combating the Mythos and its influence, but even that will corrupt the user even further, however beneficial it may well be…

It seems that despite Call of Cthulhu having been in print for almost four decades and both initiating and dominating the Cosmic Horror subgenre, the long reach of Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying seems to touch upon roleplaying game upon roleplaying game. From Savage Worlds and Realms of Cthulhu and GURPS and Cthulhupunk, numerous roleplaying games have provided different takes upon the role of H.P. Lovecraft’s Mythos and approaches to it, so it is no surprise that it has finally reached FATE Core. The highly anticipated FATE of Cthulhu is radically different to the roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror that have come before it.

FATE of Cthulhu is a roleplaying game—a standalone roleplaying game which does not require FATE Core to play or run— of confronting the Mythos a la the James Cameron film, The Terminator. One or more of the investigators will have come back from 2050 to 2020 to stop the apocalyptic plans of an Old One and its cultists. They come back aware of the steps along the way which brought about the apocalypse and they come back ready to fight it. This though is not the Cthulhu Mythos in general, but rather a single Old One and its cultists, and each thwarting of an Old One is a self-contained campaign in its own right, in which no other element of the Mythos appears. So no cultist dedicated to another Old One or Nyarlathotep himself stepping in, even if only mockingly, to help the investigators thwart a common enemy. Unless the Game Master wants them to, that is… So what FATE of Cthulhu is not, is a roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror, but is instead, a roleplaying game of Lovecraftian action horror. Now this does not mean that the Game Master could not take the elements of the Lovecraft Mythos in FATE of Cthulhu and use them to run a scenario or campaign of Lovecraftian investigative horror as per other similar roleplaying games. That would take a little more effort upon the part of the Game Master, as FATE of Cthulhu is not written or organised to support that, in part because the Mythos is compartmentalised timeline by timeline.

Investigators in FATE of Cthulhu are defined by their Aspects, Skills, and Stunts. Aspects describe elements of a character and to work effectively, they need to be double-edged, that is, each should be both an advantage or a disadvantage. For example, the Aspect ‘An eye for the ladies’ could be used as an Advantage to spot a particular woman in a crowd or a bonus to seduction attempts, but as a Disadvantage, it would mean that the character would be easily distracted in female company. Each investigator has an Aspect each for his High Concept and his Trouble, plus two free Aspects. In play, an Aspect is Invoked by the player to gain an advantageous bonus or a reroll, but Compelled to trigger its disadvantageous elements. It costs a player a Fate point to Invoke an Aspect, but he will gain a Fate point if the Aspect is Compelled. (A Compel can be resisted by a player, but this costs him a Fate point). Stunts provide advantages or bonuses under certain circumstances, usually to skills, and they can be Corrupted by exposure to the Mythos. Skills simply provide a bonus to skill rolls, there being a limited number of broad skills in the game, one of which is Lore, expanded here to cover knowledge and its application of the Mythos.

Francine Hernandez
Personal Timeline: 2050
High Concept (Aspect): Desperate Housewife who knows too much
Trouble (Aspect): My husband was a cultist
Relationship: I trust John, but he doesn’t trust me
Aspects: Ex-Society Matron, Gets lost in the Future (Corrupted) 
Stunts: The Voice of Reason, Hound of Tinadalos’ Eye (Corrupted)
Skills: Deceive (Great +4); Contacts, Resources (Good +3); Fight, Rapport, Shoot (Fair +2); Drive, Lore, Notice, Will (Average +1)
Physical Stress (Physique): 1 2 3
Mental Stress (Will): 1 2 3
Corruption Clock: O O O O
Refresh Rate: 3 Fate Points: 3

Mechanically, whenever a player wants to undertake an action, he selects a skill and rolls four Fudge dice—FATE having originally been derived from the Fudge RPG mechanics—special six-sided dice, each of which has two faces marked with a ‘+’ symbol, two faces marked with a ‘–’ symbol, and two faces left blank. The ‘+’ and ‘–’ symbols cancel each out and the blank faces add nothing, so the results range simply between +4 and –4. The result is added to the player’s skill, aim being to beat a target set by the Game Master, an Average target being +1, a Fair target being +2, and so on, the targets matching the skill values in terms of progression. Should a player’s result match the target, then he succeeds at a cost; if the result is one or two points or shifts above the target, he simply succeeds; and if the result is three or more  shifts, he succeeds with style. In combat, shifts usually represent damage inflicted upon a target, but should a character succeed with style, then he can place a temporary Aspect in play, that can either be used once and then it is lost, or used once for free with subsequent uses requiring a Fate point to be expended.

Aspects like this can be set up on locations, objects, on NPCs, and on player characters, and then during play both the players and the Game Master can interact with them, Invoking and Compelling as necessary. Similarly, the Game Master can design and create places, people, and things all with the simple use of Aspects that get to the core of anything that he designs and creates, and again these can be Invoked or Compelled as part of FATE Core collaborative play between the players and between the Game Master and the players. Unlike FATE Core there is less of this collaborative effort involved during character creation, primarily because FATE of Cthulhu does not involve the worldbuilding that is part of the core rules.

One of the big differences between FATE of Cthulhu and other roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror is that where in those roleplaying games the corrosive effect of witnessing or employing the Mythos, whether that is seeing a Mythos entity or reading a Mythos tome, or casting a Mythos spell, is mental. In other words, investigators lose Sanity. Now in FATE of Cthulhu, the corrupting effect of the Mythos can work that way, but in the main, its effects are physical. Every time an investigator is exposed to the Mythos or uses it in the case of casting a spell or ritual, or using a Corrupted Aspect or Stunt, the investigator will face backlash as the universe tries to protect itself against the changes forced upon by the unnatural nature of the Mythos. If the investigator cannot withstand this backlash—the backlash being equal to the success of the use or power of the Mythos—he adds points to his Corruption Clock. Fill that in, the Corruption Clock is emptied, but the investigator is drawn further into the influence of the Old Ones and one of his Aspects is corrupted. Should an investigator have all of his Aspects corrupted, he is lost to the Mythos.
For example, Francine Hernandez is attempting to find where her husband, Hector,  is going to be as she knows that he will be participating in a great ritual to learn the location of a lost tomb. He has already managed to deceive her as to where he is going, but Francine and her compatriots need to know. Francine’s player decides to use her Gets lost in the Future Corrupted Aspect. Francine’s player pays the Fate point to Invoke the Aspect. This will give a bonus of +2 to Francine’s Notice of +1. The Game Master takes Hector’s Deceive of +4 and rolls blank, blank, ‘–’, and ‘–’, to give Hector a total of +2. Francine’s player rolls blank, ‘–’, ‘+’, and ‘+’, for a total of +5. This beats Hector’s attempt at Deception, and means that Francine learns where he has gone. Unfortunately Francine suffers backlash equal to the roll her player made or +5. Her player has to make a roll using her Will of +1  and rolls blank, ‘–’, ‘+’, and ‘+’, for a total of +2, which is not good enough as it leaves three mental shifts to absorb. Francine can absorb one of the shifts on her mental stress boxes, the other two having been filled earlier in the investigation. For the remaining two mental shifts, Francine can either take a point of Corruption and have part of her Corruption Clock filled in, or suffer a Consequence. Francine’s player decides on the latter and Francine gains ‘Visions of an alternate failed timeline’.Despite the physicality of the Corruption Clock versus the Sanity mechanics of other Lovecraftian investigative horror roleplaying games, there is still a downward spiral of being exposed to, and in this case, using the Mythos to fight the Mythos, over and over. Essentially, it may well be necessary to fight fire with fire, but the cost…? Once gained, Corruption is fairly difficult to lose, though it is possible if no Corruption has been gained during an investigation or through a supreme act of sacrifice upon the part of another investigator.

Instead of giving a greater sense of the Mythos, FATE of Cthulhu focuses on five distinct threats—five distinct threats powerful enough to bring about an apocalypse. Each threat is essentially a separate campaign or timeline in which someone from the future of 2050 has some knowledge of. Each of the five timelines—which in turn deal with Cthulhu, Dagon, Shub-Nigggurath, Nyarlathotep, and the King in Yellow—consists of five events, the last of which is always the rise of the Old One itself. The events represent the roadmap to that last apocalyptic confrontation, and can each be further broken down into four event catalysts which can be people, places, foes, and things. The significance of these events are represented by a die face, that is either a bank, a ‘–’, or a ‘+’. These starts out with two blanks and two ‘–’, the aim of the players and their investigators being to try prevent their being too many, if any ‘–’ symbols in play and ideally to flip them from ‘–’ to blank and from blank to ‘+’. Ultimately the more ‘+’ there are, the more positive the ripple will be back down the timeline and the more of chance the investigators have to defeat or prevent the rise of the Old One. Conversely, too many ‘–’ and the known timeline will play out as follows and the less likely the chance the investigators have in stopping the Old One.

Each of the five timelines comes with details of what a time traveller from 2050 would know about it, more detail for the Game Master with a breakdown of the events and their Aspects, Stunts, Mythos creatures, and NPCs. Most of these can serve as useful inspiration for the Game Master as well as the advice given on running FATE of Cthulhu and her creating her own timelines. In addition, FATE of Cthulhu highlights two issues with Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying. First it makes clear that in spite of his deplorable social views, H.P. Lovecraft’s writings and creations are worth examining as sources of inspiration, as are the writings of more modern writers who do not share Lovecraft’s views, race, or gender. Second, it makes clear that in FATE of Cthulhu, Corruption is not Sanity—or the loss of it—and that in Corruption, it not only has a far wider array of effects to apply to investigators, it wants to avoid any stereotypes or insensitivity that the portrayal of insanity or other mental illness might lead to. It goes on to give good advice about the portrayal of those affected by Corruption and how to avoid clichés. Both are fair, balanced, and mature approaches to their subject matters, being aware of the sensitivity and difficulty that some gamers may have with either subject.

Physically, FATE of Cthulhu is well produced, nicely illustrated, and well written, including numerous detailed examples. It is however more limited in scope than other roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror, being focused on a certain type of campaign, and if a Game Master wanted to do more with it than run those campaigns—although any of the five offers opportunities for roleplaying and action—she would have to make more of an effort. In terms of the five timelines and the concept behind FATE of Cthulhu, what is really missing is the point of departure for any time traveller (or time travellers if the Game Master was running a full on ‘Chrono-Commandos versus Cthulhu-style campaign), so no details of what the future is like. There is advice on how time travel works, how it is possible to meet your past self and even have them die in your past, but no background about what life is like in 2050. Also as written, it is very much focussed upon the timelines, so writing a solo adventure would also be challenging.

As befitting a FATE Core roleplaying game, FATE of Cthulhu is more action-orientated, more direct, and more upfront about its confrontation with the forces of the Mythos. It definitely veers to being Pulp in nature rather than Purist and can probably be best described as High Derlethian. Further, its ‘time commando comes back from the future to stop…’ may not be original, but FATE of Cthulhu does provide a fresh approach to confronting the Mythos with Lovercraftian action horror.

Published by Livres de l’Ours, what Rats in the Walls: A roleplaying game of cosmic horror offers is a mechanically light roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror with consequences. Set in the Jazz Age of the nineteen twenties and the Desperate Decade of the nineteen thirties, it is very much inspired by the writings and Mythos of H.P. Lovecraft, but does not actually use the writings and Mythos of H.P. Lovecraft. The consequences come with failure upon the part of an investigator, whether that is in combat, when he casts a spell, his will suffers from a sanity-draining incident or encounter. As well as facing Old Ones such as The Feeder, The Grinder, and The Void Mother, and their cultists, investigators in Rats in the Walls may discover wonders and dangers beyond the Walls of Sleep in worlds that reflect the dreams of the Old Ones. What drives the investigators is the knowledge that only they are in a position to defeat the terrifying machinations of the Old Ones and their cultists, that only they can prevent all of mankind being exposed to the horrifying truths of the universe.

An investigator in Rats in the Walls is defined by five attributes, which range in value between 0 and +3. These are Brawn, Dexterity, Violence, Wits, and Willpower. He also has a Profession, such as Artist, Boxer, or Magician, and a Reputation, like Anonymous, Old, or Shady. These provide a particular benefit. For example, the Lumberjack is used to living in harsh conditions and receives two extra Hit Points and the Occultist knows one spell and two dead languages, whilst a Feared Reputation means that most people will back down if they know who you are and Well-Travelled means that you never get lost above ground and learn languages easily. A Profession also allows an Investigator to succeed at the mundane aspects of his job and affords him several contacts in the field. An investigator also has a couple of pieces of equipment, perhaps a weapon as well, and some languages. To create an investigator, a player divides five points between the five attributes, and chooses a Profession, a Reputation, and some equipment and languages for him. With the rulebook in hand, the process takes mere minutes.

Our sample investigator is Henry Brinded, a Bostonian from a wealthy family who studied Classics at Yale before serving as an artillery officer with the American Expeditionary Force in Northern France during the Great War. As a consequence he is slightly deaf and abhors loud noises. He owns and runs a small antiquarian shop which specialises in ancient and medieval manuscripts.

Henry Brinded
Profession: Occultist
Reputation: Dilettante

Brawn 0, Dexterity 0, Violence +1, Wits +3, Willpower +1

Hit Points: 10
Sanity Points: 11

Languages: Latin, Ancient Greek, Hebrew
Spells:
Equipment: Notebook & Pen, Magnifying Glass

Mechanically, Rats in the Walls uses two six-sided dice. For an investigator to undertake an action, his player rolls the dice and attempts to get a high result. Bonuses are flat, either a +2 because the task is easy—due to the investigator’s Profession or he has the right tools or time, or -2 because the task is hard—due to a lack of time, tools, help, and so on. The target for the roll is typically an eight, but whilst that is always a success, it is a success with consequences. A player will need to roll ten or more for his investigator to succeed without consequences. Further, the Game Master does not roll, only the player does.

Before the roll is made though, player and Game Master discuss and set the terms of the task. Now a player can roll and the result be a failure, but it can instead be a partial success rather than an out and out failure. For example, in attempting to break into a house to view an occult tome which the owner is believed to possess, a player and the Game Master negotiate not an unsuccessful attempt if the player rolls a failure, but the fact that although the investigator manages to break in, find the occult tome, and get the information he needs, he leaves evidence of his intrusion that the house’s owner might find. 

Now, this act of negotiation is not carried out throughout the whole of Rats in the Walls. For tasks that take time, a player is simply rolling to determine how long the task takes, the better the skill check, the quicker it takes. Combat works in a similar fashion. At its most basic, with the average investigator having just ten Hit Points and a rifle inflicting 2d6 points of damage, combat in Rats in the Walls is deadly, and if an investigator is reduced to zero Hit Points and survives, then he suffers a scar, which might a limp, chronic pain, or a nasty scar. What a player is really doing in combat is rolling to see whether his investigator will inflict Consequences or suffer them. If a player rolls poorly, then his investigator will suffer one or two Consequences—decided upon by the Game Master, but roll well and his investigator can inflict them on his opponents. Potential Consequences include Harm, Ignore Armour, Stray Bullet, Vulnerable, and Stress, but the Game Master and the players are free to make them up.
For example, Henry Brinded confronts a cultist about to slice open the throat of a wouldbe sacrifice. His player states that he wants to disarm the cultist. He rushes forward and attempts to stop him by grabbing the knife. His player rolls two dice and adds Brinded’s Violence of +1. Unfortunately, he only manages to get a result of a nine and not the target number of ten he needs. This means that Game Master can inflict a Consequence on Brinded. Since Brinded was attempting to disarm the cultist, the Game Master rules that it be Harm as although he does not disarm the cultist, but he does in effect stop the cultist from cutting the victim’s throat when the cultist plunges the dagger into Brinded’s shoulder.Like most good roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror, Rats in the Walls has a Sanity mechanic. Whenever an investigator encounters a supernatural event or monster rather than any mundane horror, his player makes a Willpower roll. He can roll and succeed and lose nothing, but gain a bonus when encountering either again, or he can fail and lose Sanity Points. How many depends on how poorly the Willpower roll was failed by, either one to three or one to six points. Once an investigator suffers one shock too many and loses all of his Sanity Points, he may do something silly—run away in a random direction, shoot mindlessly, abandon his friends, and so on, faint, or even continue to act normally. The latter is not without its consequences, so the investigator might be shell-shocked and lose one Sanity Point permanently, gain a scar which aches in the presence of the unnatural or a third eye which detects the use of sorcery, a weak heart, or suffer from PTSD. Once a player has made his choice, the investigator gains a die’s worth of Sanity Points back, but it can also be gained between sessions by an investigator engaging in favourite activity.

Should an investigator permanently lose all of his Sanity Points, he becomes permanently insane and thus an NPC. There are two ways in which Sanity Points can be permanently lost. One is through being Shell-shocked, another is by learning a spell. Learning sorcery requires finding and deciphering an old tome. Casting a spell is a Willpower check and can lose the caster Sanity Points. Spells include Curse of the Mute which renders the target incapable of speech, Murmurs inflicts strange whispering voices on the target revealing dark secrets and a loss of Sanity Points, and Withering which gives the target the strength and vitality of a nonagenarian for a few hours. Now one of the things that Rats in the Walls does omit here are the tomes which contain these spells.

In terms of its mythos, Rats in the Walls does step over into the Cthulhu Mythos with the inclusion of the Ghoul and the Shoggoth, but in the main it offers its own Horrors Behind the WAlls of Sanity. Abyssals are creatures of living water which can teleport between any body of water in sight and manipulate water tendrils to attack; the Dying Light come from the centre of the universe in search of life to take back to the Void and can absorb life, but the sight of which is the same as seeing into the Void; and Memory Hounds target those humans who have killed other humans, possessing the face of the person who was killed. The Old Ones of Rats in the Walls’ mythos are unstoppable, almost unquantifiable entities who have found a home on Earth, Consequently, they have no statistics and cannot be killed, rather their plans can be delayed, the efforts of their cultists thwarted, and so Humanity saved for a while. They include the Feeder, the Grinder, the Howler, the Mad Dancer, the Stranger, and the Void Mother, each being conceptual in nature, and each comes with thumbnail descriptions of three cults, one from the Middle Ages, one from the Jazz Age, and one from the future, a Science Fiction setting.

The mythos of Rats in the Walls and the reach of the Old Ones stretches ‘Beyond the Walls of Sleep’. Here their inhuman dreams intermingle with Humanity’s imagination to create medieval cities lit by gaslight, lands reached by ships that sail the skies, souks populated by peoples and creatures out of myth, so realms of the fantastic, but also the disturbing and the weird, such as the Iron Plain, a wide plain covered in flowers of brass populated by the victims of the Great War, perhaps hunted by the first war machines or the City of a Hundred Summers where everything is bought and traded for in facts. Although it is possible to learn a ritual that will enable you to enter the Old Ones’ dreams, the greater likelihood is that an investigator will be drawn in after being embroiled in their machinations.

In terms of support for the Game Master, Rats in the Walls provides solid advice on running Cosmic Horror at the table, primarily that her task is not to scare the players, but the investigators. It advises using contrast to highlight the weird versus the mundane, making sure that the world is worth saving, and not to draw upon the Mythos of H.P. Lovecraft. It makes clear that although Rats in the Walls is inspired by his writings in its treatment of Cosmic Horror, it does not set out to emulate it. Further, on the Purist to Pulp scale, Rats on the Walls veers away from the former, being about stalwarts caring enough about the world to fight to save it from the alien beings which embody Cosmic Horror, even if that fight is daunting and there is the possibility that the investigators will die or go insane. Further advice guides the Game Master through creating investigations, whilst an appendix provides means to create investigators in The Past—the Victorian era and the Wild West, for example, and during the Crusades.

Physically, Rats in the Walls is available as an art free version or a version with full colour artwork. The latter consists of full page pieces, all fairly decent. The book is well written, although it needs an edit in places. If there is anything missing from Rats in the Walls it is a sample investigation or scenario.

What Rats in the Walls offers is rules-light cosmic horror roleplaying inspired by H.P. Lovecraft, but not emulating him. Its player-facing mechanics—a combination of Advanced Fighting Fantasy and Powered by the Apocalypse—make for faster, easier play and enable the Game Master to focus on guiding the narrative and portraying the NPCs. The lightly drawn mythos of Rats in the Walls: A roleplaying game of cosmic horror, means that there is plenty of scope also for the Game Master to create new content and develop new scenarios that may avoid some of the familiarity of similar horror roleplaying games.

I am a Trekkie, and I have always preferred "Trekkie" over "Trekker" as well.  No negative connotations for me, I embrace them.

To that end, I am a fan of both "Axanar" and "Discovery" even if they are competing and incompatible with versions of the war with the Klingon Empire. 


In Discovery the war takes place around 2256-2257.
In the Axanar and FASA Trek RPG continuity, this is known as the Four Years War and takes place between 2247 and 2250.
(Note the Enterprise NCC 1701 launches in 2245, so that tracks with Discovery but off a bit for Axanar.)

Once you start digging more and more with Disco, Axanar, and FASA it becomes obvious that the continuities will never line up even by my normal desire to handwave some details in favor of others.

I enjoyed Star Trek Discovery, I also happen to like Star Trek Axanar maybe just a little bit better. Mainly for all the same reasons spelled out here: Star Trek Discovery vs Axanar Choose Your Klingon War.



I do want a universe where Adm. Ramirez gets to say, "For myself I have but one fear: destroying the dream of the Federation. Compared to such a loss I DO NOT FEAR THE KLINGON EMPIRE!" 

Hey, I said I was a Trekkie.

BUT I also want a universe with Anson Mount's Captain Pike and Sonequa Martin-Green as Commander Michael Burnham.

How do I have my cake and eat it too?

So I am going to steal a page from myself.
Back when I was playtesting the Doctor Who Adventures in Time and Space RPG I converted a bunch of Angel and Ghosts of Albion characters to DWAITAS characters (easy enough to do) and ran them all through The Ghost Tower of  Inverness. Only I called it the Ghost Tower of Inverness, Illinois.

Why does Inverness, IL need a Lighthouse??In that adventure, the Soul Gen is replaced by the Time Beacon.  A lighthouse for time travelers.
I can replace the lighthouse and tower with the 23rd Century equivalent; a Starbase.

The Ghost Station of Inverness Five

Inverness Five.  During the Federation-Klingon War, this colony was the site of one of the bloodiest battles and the greatest defeat of the Federation.  Hundreds of thousands of souls were lost and many more were made homeless overnight.   Inverness was a colony of four inhabited worlds rich in dilithium.  To the Klingon Empire, the Inverness system is a sacred, if not holy place.

I'll take a page from Discovery and TNG and make Inverness like the Klingon monastery on Boreth.  Not just holy, but also the home of Time Crystals.   At the time of the war no one knew this.   The humans just knew that there were large deposits of dilithium.  The Klingons knew it was holy to Kahless.  The battle managed to disrupt the crystals, one of which was located in the science lab on the Inverness Station, and now the place is like the Bermuda Triangle in space.

In 2352 the Protector is sent the Inverness system, getting strange readings.  The system is unstable and both the Federation and the Klingon Empire have agreed to stay out of the system.  The Federation considers it too dangerous and the Klingons want everyone to stay out.  Both sides treat it like something akin to a battlefield graveyard.

When the Protector shows up they should send an Away Team over to the station, the source of the readings, but "chronometric interference" makes it impossible to get a good lock.  So they are sent to what is basically the bottom of the station.  The team has to work its way to the science lab.
Here I basically will run a version of the Ghost Tower of Inverness.
In space, the Protector is fired upon by a Klingon D6 from Axanar's time.  Communications are ignored and channels to Federation Space are blocked.  They are then both attacked by a Klingon cruiser from Discovery's time.

Both teams end up having to battle with Klingons from Axanar, Discovery and even smooth ridged Klingons from the time between Enterprise and The Original Series.


So weird time dilations effects.  Battling anywhere from two to four different sorts of Klingons.  Starfleet chatter from nearly 100 years ago about the Klingon war and the Federation is getting it's ass kicked.

I need to figure out how to up the horror elements too.  After all, that is what makes this BlackStar and not just Star Trek.  I do know how it will end though.  Once the Away Team gets the Time Crystal aligned/sealed/destroyed/reversed to the polarity of the neutron flow, the battle will stop and the Protector will be hailed by the current era Klingons asking if they need assistance.  A reminder that at this time (2352) the Klingons and the Federation are allies.

This is my homage to not just Axanar and Discovery, but also Yesterday's Enterprise, the Bermuda Triangle and the chance to do the one thing that all old school Trekkies love, and that is to battle Klingons.

In the end, the players will not know if they had really gone back in time OR if they were battling ghosts of some sort.  Also, they might never find out which version of history, Axanar or Discovery, was the correct one since they all remember it both ways.

This one will be fun too.

There is no denying the continued and growing popularity of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, with it having appeared on the television series Stranger Things and the YouTube series, Critical Role, it no longer being seen as a hobby solely the preserve of typically male, nerdy teenagers and young adults. Yet as acceptable a hobby as roleplaying and in particular, playing Dungeons & Dragons has become, getting into the hobby is still a daunting prospect. Imagine if you will, being faced with making your first character for your first game of Dungeons & Dragons? Then what monsters will face? What adventures will you have? For nearly all of us, answering these questions are not all that far from being a challenge, for all started somewhere and we all had to make that first step—making our first character, entering our first dungeon, and encountering our first monster. As well written as both Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set and the Player’s Handbook are, both still present the prospective reader and player with a lot of choices, but without really answering these questions in an easy to read and reference fashion.

Step forward the ‘Dungeons & Dragons Young Adventurer’s Guides Series’ published by Ten Speed Press. This is a series of introductory guides to Dungeons & Dragons, designed as primers to various aspects of the world’s leading roleplaying game. Each in the series is profusely illustrated, no page consisting entirely of text. The artwork is all drawn from and matches the style of Dungeon & Dragons, Fifth Edition, so as much as it provides an introduction to the different aspects of the roleplaying game covered in each book in the series, it provides an introduction to the look of the roleplaying game, so providing continuity between the other books in the ‘Dungeons & Dragons Young Adventurer’s Guides Series’ and the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set and the core rulebooks. This use of art and the digest size of the book means that from the start, every entry in the ‘Dungeons & Dragons Young Adventurer’s Guides Series’ is an attractive little package.

The first in the series, Warriors & Weapons provided an introduction to the various Races of Dungeons & Dragons, the martial character Classes, and the equipment they use. Second is not Wizards & Spells, the companion to Warriors & Weapons which covers Clerics, Sorcerers, and Wizards, or indeed any of the other spellcasting character types in Dungeons & Dragons. Instead the second book in the series is Monsters & Creatures. As the title suggests, this presents an introduction to the monsters, creatures, and animals that the prospective player may well have his character encounter on his adventures, many of them—like the Beholder, the Mind Flayer, the Owl Bear, and more—iconic to Dungeons & Dragons. Equally, the third in the series is not the eagerly anticipated Wizards & Spells, but Dungeons & Tombs, a guide to the dungeons, tombs, castles, crypts, cave networks, and other complexes which populate the many fantasy words of Dungeons & Dragons.

Dungeons & Tombs begins in promising fashion, warning of the dangers of dungeon delving, but highlighting also that they are places of mystery and adventure before discussing a little just some of the preparations necessary to venture into such places. Then the book leaps into the first of its three parts, ‘The Most Dangerous Dungeons’ which looks at six of the strange, sinister places ready to be explored by the adventurers. These are Ironslag from Storm King's Thunder, The Temple of Elemental Evil from Princes of the Apocalypse, The Sea Ghost from Ghosts of Saltmarsh, Ravenloft from Curse of Strahd, Chult from Tomb of Annihilation, and Undermountain from Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage. Each is given an overview, highlights its important places, shines a spotlight on a specific area, and outlines a key encounter in the dungeon where the adventurers will have to make a critical choice.

So for example, Ironslag is a former iron mine and fortress which has been reopened by the Fire Giant, Duke Zalto, who wants to construct a mighty warmachine. Besides Duke Zalto himself, other threats include the treacherous Yakfolk, salamanders, and other Fire Giants, as well getting into the dungeon itself—behind a high cliff face protected by the village of the Yakfolk. The latter is included listed in the dungeon’s important places, alongside the mines, the foundry, assembly hall, and at last, the Adamantite Forge. The spotlight is on The Foundry where Fire Giants are smelting iron and Duke Zalto’s son, Zaltember is about to toss a prisoner into the molten metal! Here is a chance for the adventurers to intervene, story prompts suggesting an idea for the Dungeon Master and an idea for the player characters. Lastly, the Encounter is presented in a short piece of fiction, here describing the final scenes in the dungeon and asking the reader what the character in the fiction should do next.

Now there is nothing wrong in Dungeons & Tombs showcasing the dungeons and campaigns available for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, and it has the benefit of all six ‘Most Dangerous Dungeons’ actually being in print—unlike the last time that Wizards of the Coast did something similar with the near useless, Dungeon Survival Guide. Yet Dungeons & Tombs only highlights six of the campaigns when at the time of publication there are ten available and it ignores the excellent Lost Mine of Phandelver from the excellent Dungeons & Dragons, Starter Set. Further, it exposes secrets (spoilers?) about each of these dungeons when perhaps the write-ups could have been more circumspect in what was revealed. Nevertheless, the six do showcase various types of dungeons—a ship, a mine, a castle, and so on.

The middle section returns to the territory of Monsters & Creatures, but specifically focusing on creatures found underground with the ‘Dungeon Bestiary’. Some fifteen monsters are detailed, each entry accorded a double page spread, the left hand page showing an illustration of the creature or monster, a listing of its special powers, a description of its size, and an indication of its Danger Level, from ‘0’ or harmless to ‘5’ for really nasty. On the right hand page there is a description of the monster or creature and its lair, accompanied by a list of things to do or not do when dealing with it. Many of the entries are Dungeons & Dragons classics, like the Basilisk, Mimic, Oozes like Black Puddings and Gelatinous Cubes, and Ropers. Others, like the Grung, the Sea Elf, and the Yikaria, are simply not, leaving the reader to wonder why such a random selection was included. The simple reason is that these monsters and creatures appear in the ‘Most Dangerous Dungeons’ rather than because they are classic Dungeons & Dragons creatures.

The last of the three parts in Dungeons & Tombs, is ‘Building Your Own Dungeon’, a relatively short guide for the potential Dungeon Master wanting to create her own dungeon. This looks at potential concepts—location, creator, and purpose; populating a dungeon with inhabitants and traps; mapmaking with examples and map symbols; quests and exploring dungeons; and using dungeons to tell stories. All of this is good advice, a solid introduction to designing dungeons and running them, but it is all for the Dungeon Master. The fundamental problem with Dungeons & Tombs is that it does not do the same for the potential player. There is no equivalent introduction to dungeoneering and its dangers for the player and his character, because instead, Dungeons & Tombs is focusing on specific dungeons and their dangers, which both player and character are likely to encounter just the once.

Now there is nothing wrong with a book for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition examining dungeons or adventures and their dangers for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Yet in devoting over half of the book to specific dungeons, including the monsters and creatures which are specific to those dungeons, it forgoes the opportunity to give more general advice on dungeoneering for the prospective player and Dungeon Master. General advice which would enhance the utility of Dungeons & Tombs, potentially serving as general reference which could sit on the playing table or close at hand, ready to be checked for advice and hints. Much like the Monsters & Creatures book can work.

Physically, Dungeons & Tombs is an attractive little hardback. It is bright, it is breezy, and it shows a prospective player what his character might face, both in the art and the writing. Further, the art shows lots of adventuring scenes which can only spur the prospective player’s imagination.

The problem with Dungeons & Tombs is that it does not deliver on its tagline of ‘Explore the Magical Worlds of D&D’, but rather the bulk of it delivers ‘Explore SIX of the Magical Worlds of D&D’. Apart from the last section, the last fifth of Dungeons & Tombs, which is specifically written for the Dungeon Master, its approach to its subject matter is just not general enough to be useful in the long term. Dungeons & Tombs is disappointingly specific and the least useful, least interesting of the three Young Adventurer’s Guide’ titles to date.

In my post yesterday I talked about my favorite adventure, B1 In Search Of The Unknown.


One of the things that brought back memories for me was Cavern #43.  It is blank in the adventure, but I added something special, a witch named "Marissia" (sic, I was 11 ok).  She might not be the very first witch I ever made, but I am having a hard time figuring out who exactly was.  Until some other proof comes up, it will be Marissia.


Her name comes from me miss hearing the Jerry Reed version of "Pretty Mary Sunlight".  I thought he was saying "Pretty Marissa mine".  Hey, I was little and I certainly heard from The New Scooby-Doo Movies.  In fact a lot of my early ideas about witches came from Scooby-Doo. In fact it is also very, very likely I based her and her name also on Millissa Wilcox, The Ghost Witch of Salem, from the Scooby-Doo episode "To Switch a Witch." An interesting episode since since it featured a gravestone for the witch with a Leviathan Cross on it.   I mean seriously, a goddamn Leviathan Cross in 1978? That was a ballsy move on the eve of the Satanic Panic.



Marissia
7th level Witch, Mara Tradition
Chaotic

Strength: 11
Intelligence: 17
Wisdom: 17
Dexterity: 12
Constitution: 15
Charisma: 18

AC: 7
HP: 36

Magic items: Dagger +1, Ring of Protection +2

Occult Powers
Familiar: Dog (looks like a Hell Hound)
Dream Invasion

Spells
First: Allure, Bewitch I, Cause Fear, Chill of Death, Ghostly Slashing
Second: Bewitch II, Death Armor, Scare, Summon Olitiau
Third: Bestow Curse, Danse Macabre, Lover’s Vengeance, Summon and Bind Imp of the Perverse (Ritual)
Fourth: Intangible Cloak of Shadows, Witch's Cradle

I made her into a Mara witch since I wanted her to be a Basic-era witch and the Mara was one of the first traditions I ever wrote.  Marissia was also an early archetype of the evil, or at least chaotic, seductress type witch. Something the Mara does perfectly.  Marissia was not actually all that evil, just a little evil or really mostly chaotic.

Also, I thought let's make her Zelligar's daughter. Seemed liked a good thing. Given the Caves of Chaos she should be a witch of Ereshkigal, but I likely at the time thought more about Hecate.  Maybe a syncretized Ereshkigal with Hecate.  She is a nice perky blonde goth witch.  She was my late 70s Taylor Momsen.

I found these images of Elmore's Green Witch and Early Snow witch pained by the same artist.  The images are really perfect. First off these minis are the same ones I have used for my Larina.


This one is blonde (which Marissia was), wearing green (ditto), and a purple dress. It is a nice call-back to the Scooby-doo witch above.  I wish I had a spare $330.00 to buy them both.

This has been a fun romp down memory lane. It's like reconnecting with an old girl-friend and hearing she is ok and doing great.

I want to look back at some of my favorite classic adventures both from TSR and others.  I'll give a review, though most everyone knows what is in these adventures by now, I'll also talk about how I have used them in the past and I'll also talk about what other games I have used them with or would like too.  So there is a little bit of Plays Well With Others in this too.

Why do classic adventures? Easy, I love these adventures.  I have written hundreds of my own adventures, some I have even published, but these are the adventures that everyone knows and we all have a history with.

B1 In Search of the Unknown
In Search of the Unknown was not the first adventure ever created, it was not even the first TSR adventure ever created.  It was though one of the very first adventures I ever encountered and one of the first I ever ran.

This is my "go-to" adventure anytime I want to start up a new group or game.  It's a ritual for me, roll up characters and run them through the halls of the lost Castle of Quasqueton. I still have my copy that I bought all those years ago and it was also one of the first PDFs I purchased from WotC. I also have the DriveThruRPG Print on Demand copy and it is very nice.



It is one of those adventures I can run with zero prep time and each time I learn something new or remember something I forgot. This module is simple, easy to use and can be adapted to any campaign world and even any game. It is a perfect module for the Basic game.

The adventure is a great case of both teaching tool for learning DMs (we were all new to this once) and DIY Dungeon.  Some areas are detailed, but many are not, leaving room for the neophyte DM to record what monsters and treasure were in each room.  There are also a plethora of cliche spawning Dungeon tropes, that were just getting started here.  Magic mouths, one-way secret doors, a mysterious creator of the dungeon, or in this case, two, and strange magical artifacts.

This adventure was the perfect learning tool for me at the time since my own version of D&D was a mix of Holmes Basic and the AD&D Monster Manual.   This "Basic" introductory module was released before the Basic game, but it moves elegantly between Basic and Advanced that begs you to mix and match your rules systems.  Author Mike Carr even gives some guidelines on how to use this adventure with AD&D.


Note how the using this adventure with AD&D is absent from the later printings.


The module is pretty typical for the time. 32 pages of b/w art and text. Detached cover with blue maps printed on the inside of the cover. The first 6 pages are dedicated to running the adventure and how to run this one in particular.

I have used this adventure to start every new campaign I have ever run in D&D, regardless of the edition.  The dungeon crawl here is so primal that it calls out to you. A true In Search of the Unknown indeed.   The one thing I never did, however, was to investigate more about who Rogahn and Zelligar were and why they left their lair of Castle Quasquenton.

One thing that B1 did give me, in a roundabout way, was my very first witch NPC Marissia.  She is in the lower parts of Quasquenton and she is attempting to summon the spirit of her master Zelligar and her father Rogahn.




The adventure has stood the test of time and it is a great combination of flexible dungeon design.  Nearly anything can be put into this adventure to raise or lower the difficulty as needed.

DriveThruRPG and DMSGuild offer this as both a PDF and Print On Demand.






B1 Legacy of the Unknown
This adventure is billed as a "sequel" from Pacesetter Games & Simulations.  It furthers the mystery of Rogahn and Zelligar and what they were doing.  There is a druid in this adventure named "Melissia" which I thought was very fun and worked as some sort of relative (daughter may be) of my own "Marissia", a witch NPC I always included in my own runnings of B1 In Search of the Unknown.

You can get this adventure from DriveThruRPG (PDF only) or from Pacesetter's own store (Print and PDF). While overtly designed for AD&D1/OSRIC, it would be a great fit for Pacesetter's own BX RPG.  In fact, it might fit better.

Other Games / Plays Well With Others

Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition
The simplicity of B1 has made it an enduring adventure for over 40 years.  I have used it with every version of D&D I have ever played. But if you want everything at your fingertips for easy conversions I do recommend the Classic Modules Today conversion of B1 In Search of the Unknown.
Goodman Games also offers their Original Adventures Reincarnated, with B1 and it's various printings going into their Into the Borderlands Hardcover. It features the original printings of the original module as a complete 5th edition update.
There is also a set of maps that can be printed out or used with virtual tabletops.

B1 and Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea
Like many old-school adventures, one merely needs to turn up the horror aspect to give it a good run in Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea.  Though there is not much that needs to be done to change it.  There is a feeling that Rogahn and Zelligar were messing with the forces of chaos a little more than they should have been.  Make that Chaos now with a capital "C" and we are getting the adventure closer to what we might see in AS&SH.  The one thing that always struck me about Quasquenton is that it is all underground.  It's not a castle, not really, but a warren.  Eric Fabiaschi suggests that the complex had been built by one of the older Lovecraftian races and the adventurers Rogahn and Zelligar only found it later.  It seems to fit for me.
Also given that B1 is an odd admixture of proto-Basic D&D, OD&D, and AD&D, the feel is perfect for AS&SH.


B1 and Blue Rose
In this mix, the chaos elements run the other direction so to speak.  Here Rogahn and Zelligar stumble upon an element of Shadow while constructing their castle/lair.   Maybe it has something to do with what I call the "Chaos Stone", Room 45/XLV "Cavern of the Mystical Stone".  This is obviously some artifact of Shadow and it either drone Rogahn and Zelligar mad, killed them or caused them to kill each other, or destroyed them outright.  Maybe all the above.
When converting ANY D&D adventure to Blue Rose I take some points from Fantasy Age where I can. In particular the monsters.  Typically in Blue Rose, you would not see this concentration of monsters in one place, the Chaos Stone/Mystical Stone is drawing them near.   As Envoys of the Sovereign, it would the character's jobs to find out what is going on and how to stop it.   I would give more background to Rogahn and Zelligar and stat up Marrissia a little more.
While this is a good "first-level" adventure in D&D, the implication of Shadow here makes this a much more dangerous enterprise.

Step with care here Envoys. More than your life is at stake.


B1 and Army of Darkness
One of my favorite mixes, but not my top favorite (more on that one next time).  Army of Darkness allows for all sorts of crazy adventures.  For the same reasons that B1 works for Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea, it works for this.  So imagine this, you have a party of Primative Screwheads, they are out in the woods. It starts to rain.  They find an entrance to a cave and boom, suddenly it is horror movie shenanigans. Monsters chasing you, weird-ass artifacts and cultists who are somehow still alive from the Middle Ages.  Have at least one archeologist to talk about how insane this all is and then go monster hunting and maybe, just maybe stop the forces of Chaos from ruling the world.  Use Dungeons & Zombies as your guide to covert D&D to Cinematic Unisystem.

“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt
So.  I missed my next deadline for the Pagan Witch for OSE.  I was working on getting things done for Night Shift and my day job has been pretty busy.  But this is fine, it has given me a chance to make it a better book and to review the OSE rules and style guide some more.

The OSE style guide has a short monster stat block template and a long one.  The short one is the one seen in the current OSE books and what I have been posting for a while.
The long one though is more to my liking.  So let's give it a go.



Lithobolia*
Stone-throwing "demons" summoned by witches to plague homes. They are invisible and intangible.

Armour Class 3 [17]
Hit Dice 5 (hp)
Attacks 1 × rock (1d4)
THAC0 15 [4]
Movement Rate 90’ (30’)
Saves D10 W11 P12 B13 S 14 (5)
Morale 10
Alignment Chaotic
XP for Defeating 300
Number Appearing 1d4 (2d10)
Treasure Type None

• Intangible: Lithobolia are spirits and cannot be seen or hit by anything other than magic.  A Detect Invisible spell will locate them and they take damage from magic and magical weapons.
• Elemental Spirit: Lithobolia are elemental spirits of the land.  They are not undead but can be turned by a Druid as if they were a cleric of the same level.
• Immune to charm, hold or sleep spells.
• Can be dismissed by clerics, druids or witches with Dispel Magic or Dispel Evil spell.  Creature can return after 24 hours.

I like this format better.

So. The Pagan Witch is coming. 2020 is shaping up to be a big year for me publication wise. I have heard from three publishers who have manuscripts of mine saying this is the year they will get them out.  Looking forward to it.