You know I love my theme-Weeks.  On Tuesday we get the new "Tasha's Cauldron of Everything" from Wizards of the Coast featuring Tasha, aka Natasha the Dark aka Iggwilv.

So far we have learned that this book will be focusing on the younger Tasha. The girl who was adopted by Baba Yaga.  While I have always thought that Eva Green would make a fantastic Iggwilv, here is cosplayer, D&D streamer, and all-around cool gal Ginny Di cosplaying AS Tasha in a WotC sponsored shoot.

Her Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/p/CHdiPg0FUgb/ 

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"Tasha, in her brilliant curiosity, is untroubled by the various moral variations in the planes of existence." ⁠⠀ — Jeremy Crawford, Lead Rules Designer of "Tasha's Cauldron of Everything"⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ I couldn't resist my own little attempt at recreating the cover of the new @dndwizards sourcebook!! Mine has a completely different vibe, but I still love it. ????⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ By the way, thank you to everyone congratulating me on the partnership with Wizards!! I couldn't believe it when they emailed me saying they wanted to sponsor a costume, and it has been such an incredible experience working with them on this project and seeing all these names I recognize complimenting the cosplay on Twitter ???? I'm so grateful for how the tabletop community has welcomed me over the last few years, and I can't wait for what the next few years hold!!⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ ✨ Tasha is from Dungeons & Dragons⁠⠀ ✨ Costume made & modeled by me⁠⠀ ✨ Watch the whole build on YouTube (link in bio!)⁠⠀ #TashasCoE #sponsored #tashascauldronofeverything #tashathewitch #tashacosplay #dnd #dungeonsanddragons #dndwizards #dndcosplay #dndcostume #witch #witchyvibes

A post shared by Ginny Di ???? #Natural2021 (@itsginnydi) on Nov 11, 2020 at 11:02am PST

And her YouTube video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySRmaMYaV6I

This is just another example of what I love about the new gamers to D&D, they bring so much love and energy to their creations in and out of the game.

Let's hope the book lives up to all this hype. But even if it doesn't this has all still been great fun!

As a country, Spain is rarely visited by roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror—and when they do, it is primarily during periods of great conflict or turbulence, such as the Spanish Inquisition of fifteenth and sixteenth century or the Spanish Civil War of the nineteen thirties. Examples of the latter include ‘No Pasaran!’ from the Miskatonic University Library Association monograph Shadows of War: Four Scenarios Set In and Around the Second World War published by Chaosium, Inc. for Call of Cthulhu and Soldiers of Pen and Ink, a scenario for Pelgrane Press’ RPG of clue orientated Lovecraftian investigative horror, Trail of Cthulhu, whilst ‘Garden of Earthly Delights’ in Strange Aeons from Chaosium, Inc. and ‘Fires of Hatred Defile the Sky’ in Red Eye of Azathoth: Unspeakable Adventures Straddling a Millennium by Open Design, LLC, are examples of the former. There is not even a Call of Cthulhu campaign supplement for Spain in any period, so it was pleasing to see to see the publication of Campo De Mitos: A Campaign Setting of Lovecraftian Mythology Based in El Campo De Gibraltar, despite the fact that it is not a Call of Cthulhu campaign supplement for Spain. Rather, it is a campaign supplement for part of southern Spain, the ‘El Campo De Gibraltar’ of the subtitle, focusing in particular upon the town of Algeciras. Also pleasingly, it is written by a native, Paco García Jaén, and it is systemless, which means that its contents can be adapted for use with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, Trail of Cthulhu, or the roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative of your choice. However, Campo De Mitos is also the first book from a new publisher, Mindscape Publishing, and that is not without its consequences.

Presenting a fictionalised rather than a historical version of the town and region, specifically in 1924, Campo De Mitos is designed as a sort of sandbox, the Investigators able to go anywhere and encounter anyone in the region, but particularly in the town of Algeciras. Primarily the sandbox is built around numerous NPCs and their places of work, whether that is Manolo the ‘Ice Cream Man’, a street vendor who sells ice cream, sweets, and treats all year round from his cart in the Plaza Alta in the centre of the town, or Anselmo Arrubal, the quiet and fastidious, but also misogynist owner of Santos Bookstore, who worked with Aleister Crowley to open up access to a seemly infinite library behind the counter of the bookshop. Being a systemless book, none of the NPCs have any stats, but what they do have is a set of three profiles—friendly, neutral, and antagonist, each of which sets their attitude towards not just the Investigators, but also other NPCs, who in turn will also have their own attitudes towards the Investigators and other NPCs. This is a nice, simple gauge that helps the Game Master roleplay each NPC when the Investigators interact with them.

The various locations in Algeciras are all outwardly ordinary, ranging from La Alicantina Pastry Shop to the Post and Telegraph Office. Some are, of course, inherently Spanish, such as the Convent Of San José, the Bullring La Perseverancia, and the White Cross Monastery, and their inclusion go towards emphasising the atmosphere and feel of the town and region—which are obviously different to that of locations typically seen in Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying. All of the locations and NPCs have their secrets, many of them weird or odd, or connected to the Mythos. Some of them are perhaps in terms of Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying prosaic, but others are inventive and engaging. For example, the Juan Moya Barbershop whose owner is renowned for the ointments, balms, and other concoctions he has on his shelves, many of which repulse women as much as they attract men. Juan Moya mixes them from the plants he harvests from the Dreamlands, not by going into the Dreamlands himself, but by reaching into the Dreamlands via a portal he is able to open in the basement of his shop.

Throughout the book, boxed sections add adventure seeds and little snippets of background material, typically where they relate to a location or establishment being described, such as the box discussing female bullfighters next to the description of the Bullring La Perseverancia. Beyond Algeciras, there are entries on a handful of nearby towns and villages, including the surprisingly nearby Rock of Gibraltar, which has been in British possession for over two centuries. A Bestiary also describes a number of creatures and beings. They include a Cyäegha Tick, a rare parasite which feeds on its host’s brain energy and amplifies it in psionic attacks, as well as turning the host into a tentacles ending stingers, eyes, and tweezer-like claws; the sea-dwelling, mermaid-like Gnorri which have asymmetrical arms and long tails and little regard for humanity; and Meigas, beings of the Dreamlands which appear as women when on Earth, and which come in various types. For example, the Feiticeira, or Sorceress, is ancient and lives near rivers or streams and uses its hypnotically beautiful voice to attract children, and then drown and devour them, or the Vedoira, slender and pleasant diviners, who for a price, can contact someone in the afterlife and determine whether he is enjoying eternity in Heaven or is still in Purgatory. Many of these are drawn from Spanish folklore, but others will be familiar from other roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror. It would have been nice to have seen some of these used in the supplement’s setting content, but the Game Master will have to do that herself.

Physically, Campo De Mitos is a handsome book and the publisher has put a great deal of thought into the choice of period appropriate photographs and had it illustrated with some delightful artwork that looks great in greyscale, but really makes you wish that the book was in colour. However, the book lacks any usable map of any kind, either of Spain, the region of El Campo De Gibraltar, or indeed, of Algeciras. Which hinders the supplement’s intended use as a sandbox. That though, is not the real issue with Campo De Mitos. Nor is the fact that entries in the index refer to the wrong pages. The real issue with Campo De Mitos is that it has not been professionally edited and as a consequence, it reads poorly, it is obvious that English is not the author’s first language, and it lacks the development necessary to make it an accessible, easily referenced, and easily utilised sourcebook for the region it sets out to describe. To be clear, the English is not necessarily bad English—the author’s English is infinitely superior to the reviewer’s Spanish, but to a native speaker it simply does not read sufficiently natural. Thus, Campo De Mitos needs editing, needs localising, and needs developing—and the latter would probably have solved the supplement’s other issues and pushed the supplement towards what author and publisher intended it to be.

As a supplement dealing with Spain—or at least a part of a region of Spain—in 1924, it does not pull back enough to introduce to the country as a whole. There is no idea of its politics, its religions, its culture, and so on, or how to get there during the Jazz Age. From a roleplaying point of view, it does not address what type of Investigators might be found there or ask if there are any careers that they might have which are common or native to the setting. There are mentions of historical events, but which are completely left unexplored. For example, the Rif War is mentioned, but no explanation of who, what, and why it is, is given. As a consequence, Campo De Mitos lacks context and feels disconnected from the rest of the world, let alone the rest of Spain.

In terms of its descriptions, Algeciras fluctuates in size—from village to city, and back again; numerous details are added, often suggesting mysteries, but very rarely with any explanation and simply left as unknown; and too many of the NPCs in Campo De Mitos share traits in common, such as having perfect recall as to their clients and what they purchased or reasons for coming to the region and Algeciras, and that they keep secret—from both their fellow townsfolk and the Game Master! Also, so many of them possess strange devices whose origins and workings are left up to the Game Master to determine. For example, a pair of needles which ease the creation of fine ladies’ hats, the hats when worn imparting a sense of euphoria to the wearer and the needles when inserted into the spine, travelling up into the brain to take possession of the victim’s consciousness—to unpredictable effects. The effects are left up to the reader or Game Master to decide, as are the origins of the needles, just as the secrets of too many NPCs are left to the Game Master to decide and develop.

In terms of the Mythos, Campo De Mitos again suffers from inconsistency. For example, for all that Algeciras is a port town and that the Deep Ones have played a role in the region, they are barely mentioned, whereas Ghouls have strong ties to the town’s cemeteries and authorities. However, the Ghouls themselves are left unexplored—and the same can be said of the Mi-go, who also have had a presence in the region. As to other entities and races of the Mythos, there is no mention. Of course, there are limitations upon what such elements from Lovecraft’s fiction can be used, but Campo De Mitos does not sufficiently develop the ones it does use—or at least mention. And whilst the supplement does provide an overview of the Mythos in the region, it is again underwritten and underdeveloped.

Campo De Mitos is not without its charm, which shows in its artwork, its atmosphere and feel for small town life in Southern Spain, and some of its ideas. Yet the fundamental failure to either edit or develop the supplement sufficiently leaves a prospective Game Master with too much to decide or create on her own. For the publisher, Campo De Mitos: A Campaign Setting of Lovecraftian Mythology Based in El Campo De Gibraltar can be described as a flawed, but not unworthy first effort, and definitely something to learn from. In the meantime, Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying awaits the publication of a good supplement dealing with Spain.

In the ecologically ravaged future, twelve billion people live on Earth in environmentally sealed kilometre high city blocks clustered around ‘lungs’, the colossal city-sized atmosphere processors located on the coasts. They grow and  process the algae that provides humanity with air, and eventually, food. Life is about surviving, but there is a way to make it better—work in space. Sign up to crew the service vessels maintaining stations, outposts, and mines in other star systems; the tugboats hauling the refineries back to Earth; the Arbiter ships as Colonial Marshals investigating crimes on behalf of the Interstellar Department of Trading; as military units preventing (or even conducting) civil unrest or hostile takeovers; as scientific survey teams; or as Deep Space Support Teams—DSSTs, or ‘Dusters’, effectively serving as troubleshooters for their employers. Last twenty-five years and you get to retire to a life of luxury. However, it is not that easy… 

Space travel takes time. Even with the Gravity Assisted Drive, a minimum of a week per light year. It means that trips can take months with most of that time spent in LongSleep. Fortunately, that time counts towards time served. When not in LongSleep crews work to maintain their ship, because if anything went wrong, it could be weeks before anyone responded. Starships are not luxurious, but places to work and protect you from the vacuum of space, radiation, and random asteroids. Yet despite the safety standards, there are budget considerations, especially if your employer is a corporation, and whilst your ship might protect you, it will still have been built on the cheap. The same goes for outposts and mining facilities and the few settlements on other worlds—for no one has struck it lucky and found the equivalent of an Earth as she was planet. So living and working space is rough, hard, and sometimes lonely. And that is before you consider the dangers of corporate feuds, off-the-books scientific research, the psychological stresses of working cooped up with others for long periods, and then there is always the unknown… 

This is the set-up for Those Dark Places: Industrial Science Fiction Roleplaying, a roleplaying game inspired by the Blue Collar Science Fiction of the nineteen seventies and early nineteen eighties, such as Alien, Outland, Silent Running, and Blade Runner, plus computer games like Dead Space. Published by OspreyGames—the imprint of Osprey Publishing best known for its highly illustrated military history books—Those Dark Places is its third roleplaying game after Paleomythic and Romance of the Perilous Land. Although it very much wears its influences on the hard-wearing material of its sleeves, Those Dark Places is not necessarily a Science Fiction roleplaying game in which the crew will encounter strange aliens which morph into xenomorphs that want to hunt them and turn them into incubators. This is not to say that it could not be, but that is very down to what type of game that the General Monitor—as the Game Master is known in Those Dark Places—wants to run. Instead it is a game of environmental horror and dread, of loneliness and fear, of stress and strain, at the limits of mankind’s survival. Expect encounters with crazed killers driven to madness and murder by loneliness and never being able to walk under an open sky—or poisoned by their environment or the drugs they have been taking to numb the boredom; feuds over scientific discoveries and research which have escalated from industrial espionage to open conflict between corporate militaries; scientific discoveries and research gone to devastatingly deadly effect and which a corporation will do anything to cover up or prevent from being stolen; and more… 

A Crew Member is defined by his name and description, CASE File, Crew Positions he is qualified for, and Pressure. His CASE File represents his actual attributes—Charisma-Agility-Strength-Education, which are rated between one and four. It should be noted that Strength works as the equivalent of a Crew Member’s Hit Points, as well as his physical presence. His Crew Position can be Helm Officer, Navigation Officer, Science Officer, Security Officer, Liaison Officer,  Engineering Officer, or Medical Officer. To create a Crew Member, a player assigns values of one, two, three, and four to his Crew Member’s CASE File. Then he selects his Crew Member’s primary Crew Position, which is rated at +2, and his secondary Crew Position, which is rated at +1. The process is as simple as that! 

Warrant Officer Grieg is an Engineering Officer aboard the CSV Lullaby, a commercial tug owned by Bellerophon Incorporated. He is six years into his contract and is a strong advocate of workers’ rights. He is always the Union representative on any vessel he serves aboard. 

Oran Greig
Charisma 3 Agility 1 Strength 4 Education 2
Pressure: 6
Pressure Level: 0

Crew Position: Engineering (Primary)
Crew Position: Liaison (Secondary) 

Mechanically, Those Dark Places is very simple and requires no more than a six-sided die or two per player. To have his Crew Member undertake a task, a player rolls a six-sided die and adds the values for the appropriate Attribute and Crew Position. The target difficulty is typically seven, but may be adjusted down to six if easier, or up to eight if more difficult. If the task warrants it, rolling the target number exactly counts as a partial success rather than a complete success. In that case, the player needs to roll over the target difficulty. Combat uses the same mechanics, with damage inflicted being deducted from an opponent’s Strength. A Crew Member is unconscious when his Strength is reduced to zero and dead when it drops to minus two. Sample damage is just one for a punch, three for a pistol, and four for a rifle. 

However, Those Dark Places does get more complex when dealing with stress and difficult situations, or Pressure. A Crew Member has a Pressure Bonus, equal to his Strength and Education, and a Pressure Level, which runs from one to six. A Pressure Roll is made when a Crew Member is under duress or stress, and all a player has to do is roll a six-sided die and add his Crew Member’s Pressure Bonus to beat a difficulty number of ten. Succeed and the Crew Member withstands the stress of the situation, but fail and his Pressure Level rises by one level. However, when a Crew Member’s Pressure Level rises to two, and each time it rises another level due to a failed Pressure Roll, the Crew Member’s player rolls a six-sided die and the result is under the current value of his Pressure Level, the Crew Member suffers an Episode. This requires a roll on the Episode table, the results ranging from ‘In Shock’ and losing points from a Crew Member’s Attributes , up through Rigid, Catatonia, and ‘Insane Fear and Driven to Violent Flight’. Whenever a Crew Member’s player needs to make a roll on the Episode Table, the maximum result possible is limited by the Crew Member’s Pressure Level. So at Pressure Level 3, a Crew Member can only be In Shock and suffer points lost from either his Agility or Strength, but not anything worse. 

One issue with Pressure Level and Episodes is that a Crew Member cannot immediately recover from either. It takes time in LongSleep or back on Earth to even begin to recover… Worse, once a Crew Member suffers an Episode, its effects linger, and he can suffer from it again and again until he manages to control his personal demons. 

And that is the extent of the rules to Those Dark Places. For the General Monitor, there is a more detailed discussion of how they work, the various roles or Crew Positions aboard ship, the types of campaigns that can be run—typically based around the type of ship that the Crew Members are operating. So tugboats, passenger ships, science vessels, arbiter ships, tactical vessels, and more, each suggesting ideas about what such a crew would be doing and it might be tasked with doing. These are accompanied with descriptions of the types of reports that the Crew Members will be expected to make. These include Personnel Reports, Accident Reports, Industrial Espionage Reports, and more. Essentially combine a Personnel Report and a ship type and a General Monitor has a decent selection of campaign ideas to inspire her. Rounding out Those Dark Places is The Argent III Report, a complete scenario surrounding the sudden appearance of a research vessel thought lost for decades. It is playable in a session or two. 

Physically, Those Dark Places is well presented, although untidy in one or two places. The artwork is good, definitely showcasing its inspirations. 

Although clearly inspired by films like Alien, Those Dark Places is not a roleplaying game about facing strange, horrible creatures. This is reflected in the fact that there are no rules for creating such things in the book. Indeed, the rules for creatures focus on creating pets like cats and dogs for companionship in space rather than monsters. There are though, rules for running and playing Synthetic Automatons if the General Monitor includes them. Essentially, Those Dark Places is about facing horrors human and environmental rather than actual monsters. Nor is it a roleplaying game with a set background, although one is outlined should the General Monitor want one. At two pages, even this background is short enough to allow the General Monitor room aplenty to insert content of her own, that is if she does not want to create a background of her own. 

However, all of this is not about roleplaying Blue Collar or Industrial Science Fiction and Horror in space—although Those Dark Places could be run like that. In actuality, what Those Dark Places is about is applying for a career working in deep space. The process of creating a Crew Member, of filling in a CASE File, is writing the application form. And then, the playing of Those Dark Places is not roleplaying missions out on the frontier, but simulations—run by the interviewer as part of the application process—run to test their suitability for working between Earth and the frontier of space. All of this is delivered in an game voice that is a mix of wearied tone, corporate cheeriness, and faux ‘I believe in you’ attitude of a Human Resources interviewer that manages to both capture the tiresome nature of applying for employment and make the reader/potential Crew Member want to punch the writer/speaker. It is a brilliant conceit which creeps up on the reader as he works his way through the book. 

Unfortunately, Those Dark Places is being released when there are already two roleplaying games within its genre, the Alien Roleplaying Game from Free League Publishing and Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG from Tuesday Knight Games, both having been released relatively recently onto the market. However, Those Dark Places is very much its own thing, a combination of simple mechanics and human and environmental horror—plus its simulation/employment application conceit rather than necessarily being a game of facing horror and horrible monsters in deep space or being based on a licence. 

Combining light mechanics and an easily familiar genre, Those Dark Places: Industrial Science Fiction Roleplaying is a pleasingly accessible treatment of Blue-Collar Science Fiction of the seventies and eighties. It enables the General Monitor to run simulations in which the horror lies not only in isolation and what we might find on the fringes of space, but also in what humanity brings with it.

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 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. Subsequent entries in the series have examined Monsters & Creatures and Dungeons & Tombs, culminating in the surprisingly late and seemingly out of sequence, Wizards & Spells. And there it would seem that the ‘Dungeons & Dragons Young Adventurer’s Guides Series’ had covered just about everything that the reader and potential play of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition need to know before progressing onto the roleplaying game itself. So the publication of Beasts & Behemoths, the fifth entry in the series, comes as something of a surprise, the unexpected equivalent in the series of the Monster Manual II to the Monster Manual. Of course, another book about monsters makes sense, since not only are books about monsters fun, but there are an awful lot of monsters and creatures in Dungeons & Dragons, and the earlier Monsters & Creatures cannot have been expected to cover all of them!

Where Monsters & Creatures categorised its entries by terrain, so Caverns & Dark Places, Forests, Mountains & Other Terrain, Oceans, Lakes, & Waterways, and more, Beasts & Behemoths breaks them down by size—Tiny & Small, Medium, Large & Huge, and Gargantuan. Its forty or so entries include Cranium Rats, Demilich, and Pseudodragon under Tiny & Small; Drow, Gnoll, and Sahuagin are listed as Medium creatures; Corpse Flower, Minotaur, and Umber Hulk for Large & Huge; and Purple Worm, Roc, and the dread Tarrasque for Gargantuan. The mix includes the familiar, such as the Hobgoblin, Orc, and Minotaur alongside the little known, like the Yuan-Ti and the Oni, but all are classic Dungeons & Dragons monsters and creatures. In addition, Beasts & Behemoths includes two subcategories, Lycanthropes and Metallic Dragons—or Good-aligned Dragons. So the former category has descriptions of the Wereboar, Wererat, and Weretiger as well as the Werewolf, whilst the latter ranges from the Brass Dragon to the Gold Dragon. This compliments the writeups of the Dragons of various colours in Monsters & Creatures. Every entry is given 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.

Thus for the Medusa, the given Danger Level is ‘1’ and her Special Powers are, of course, her Petrifying Gaze. Her size is listed as being typically Human-sized—except that is, for her hair, which might be a whole bigger (and writhing, of course). Her write-up includes a description of how she comes upon the transformation into a Medusa and the price paid, plus the types of lair she prefers. The entry advises that when encountering a Medusa, an adventurer should carry a mirror with which to catch her reflection, as well as a powerful healing potion which undo the effects of her Petrifying Gaze. It also advises that an adventurer not catch her gaze nor seek out immortality.

Like Monsters & Creatures before it, Beasts & Behemoths adds legendary entries and encounters to complement its ordinary encounters. The description of the Death Knight is accompanied by a  legendary entry for Lord Soth, the fallen Knight of Solamnia from the world of Krynn who would later be plucked from Krynn by the mysterious mists of Ravenloft. It covers his history, his lair, and the fearsome skeleton army he has at his command. Again, this is a nice accompaniment to the legendary entry for Vampires, the feared Count Strahd von Zarovich, to be found in Monsters & Creatures. These legendary creatures are foes that the adventurers are unlikely to face for a very long time, but they are ones to be whispered about in hushed tones—even the ones who are not evil or chaotic. Each of encounters consists of a short piece of fiction which sets up a situation that ultimately ends the reader being asked how he might react or what he might do next. To accompany the description of Pseudodragon, the encounter describes how Florizan Blank, the bard known as the ‘Dandy Duellist’ who combines dance moves and swordsmanship, comes upon such a creature in woods whilst he is tracking down a Hobgoblin tribe which attacked a nearby village. Will he attempt to tame the creature and take it as a companion—and if so, how? Will continue on his way, hurrying after his quarry lest they launch a raid on another village? These encounters nicely illustrate the play of Dungeons & Dragons and the type of encounters and questions that players will be dealing with from session to session. In addition, the inclusion of Florizan Blank is a nice call back to the fourth book in the ‘Dungeons & Dragons Young Adventurer’s Guides Series’, Wizards & Spells.

Just as in Monsters & Creatures, the last words in Beasts & Behemoths are about using beasts to create stories and build a hero, taking the reader on his first steps to composing his adventurer’s story. It opens up a little to ask the player to wonder about the other heroes his character will adventure alongside, what and where his adventures take place, and of course, why? It explains a bit more about the play of Dungeons & Dragons, so serving as a light primer before the player gets to the table.

There are just two issues with Beasts & Behemoths. First, for a book filled with great Dungeons & Dragons artwork, it does not list or credit one single artist. This is really disappointing, not so say inexcusable, and both the publisher and Wizards of the Coast should know better. Second, Beasts & Behemoths commits the same error as Monsters & Creatures in using anachronisms when it comes to describing the size of the monsters and creatures in the book. For example, the Cranium Rat is described as being the size of a sneaker or Hobgoblin as being the size of a professional (American) football player in all of his gear. Again, the inclusion of such modernisms breaks the verisimilitude of the book, making very much a reference work out of the game when it could have been a reference work both out of the game and in the game.

Physically, Beasts & Behemoths 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.

Now obviously, Beasts & Behemoths is designed to showcase Dungeons & Dragons and introduce the prospective player to what his character might encounter—especially in Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. However, much of its content would work just as well as introduction to some of the monsters of Dungeons & Dragons-style retroclones, though in its look, it is brighter and breezier than the style and tone of the typical fantasy roleplaying game from the Old School Renaissance.

Monsters & Creatures introduced the prospective player to just a tiny, but often iconic, few of the monsters and creatures in Dungeons & Dragons. Beasts & Behemoths adds to that, but also stands alone in that a player could read it rather than Monsters & Creatures to get an idea of some of the foes his character might face or encounter in the game. Similarly, Beasts & Behemoths is more of a general reference work, something suitable to have at the table during play, since its contents can serve as the legends and the folklore that a player character in a fantasy world might have learned about said monsters and creatures as he was growing up. That said, doing so adds another book to the table, and that may add unnecessary clutter during play. When it comes to clutter, are two books devoted to monsters in the ‘Dungeons & Dragons Young Adventurer’s Guides Series’ enough—or will there be a slew of them, cluttering up the series?

Beasts & Behemoths is another bright and engaging entry in the series, providing another light introduction to the monsters of Dungeons & Dragons, and the game itself. It again nicely works as a gift as much as it does a useful reference work, but as an entry in the ‘Dungeons & Dragons Young Adventurer’s Guides Series’, it feels very much like an extra in the series rather than part of the essential quartet of titles.

Something a little different today.  I had always wanted to combine two of my regular features, "This Old Dragon" and "One Man's God" into a series of the gods and goddesses presented in the pages of Dragon Magazine.  I can think of a few examples off the top of my head without cracking the musty pages.  I had always wanted to start with the Suel Pantheon, but I wanted to wait till I was done with the Deities & Demigods.  

Well, last month we all learned about the death of Len Lakofka and I wanted to mark it in some way.  I thought maybe this would be a good way of doing that.

Introduction

A little bit of background here on This Old Dragon. I had purchased a couple of large gaming collections over the last few years. My brother also gave me a box of Dragons in really bad shape. After combining, keeping some, selling off others, and tossing (yeah, had too) ones that were in terrible shape I was left with about 100 or so Dragons that were in pretty bad shape. Most were missing covers, many are missing pages and maybe one or two are fully intact. In This Old Dragon, I am grabbing an issue out at random and reviewing them. I can only review what I have, so if it is missing I won't talk about it. The only exception I make is the covers. If I feel too much is missing or something important is missing I'll check my Dragon-Magazine CD-ROM. 

One Man's God is my feature on the various mythos, gods, and goddesses as presented in the AD&D 1st Edition Deities & Demigods.  Here I look through the various gods and monsters and see which ones would be better classified as AD&D 1st Ed Demons as defined by the Monster Manual.  When there is nothing I look to the original myths to see what we can find.

Today I am going to do both features for the Suel Pantheon.

This Old Dragon: The Suel and their Gods

This feature began in Dragon Magazine #86 from June 1984 to #92 in December 1984. Or in my prime AD&D time.  The feature was authored by Len Lakofka and had Gary Gygax's official stamp of approval on them.  Len had also created the L Series of modules and the Lendore Isles.  So in my mind, that meant there was still active Suel worship in the Isles and that the wizard on the cover of L1 The Secret of Bone Hill was a worshiper of Wee Jas.  But I am getting ahead of myself. 

The Suel made their very first appearance in the pages of the first The World of Greyhawk folio as an ancient empire whose language was still used. The Gods would get names, but not information blocks in the boxed set World of Greyhawk Fantasy Game Setting.  Soon after we began to get the gods in Dragon.

Before I get into the Gods proper, there are a few other issues we should cover.

Dragon Issue #52

This issue gives us a very new looking Leomund's Tiny Hut from  Len Lakofka. This is so new in fact that I think this might be the first-ever Tiny Hut article.  There is an introduction by Gary himself.  This installment covers giving more depth to the humans and languages of the Flanaess.  Cool article and one that every Greyhawk DM should have handy.  Actually, it is good for most DMs. The article is pretty long, longer than most Tiny Hut articles in my memory.  

This is the article that lets us know that Suel are very near albino looking save with shades of violet for eyes.  Given that these were the forerunners of the Lawful Evil Scarlet Brotherhood then it was kind of obvious that the Empire was some kind of a cross between the Melnibonéans and the Nazis.

Dragon Issue #55

In his From the Sorcerer's Scroll Gary gives us some more details on the Suel and how they moved across the continent to the Snow, Frost, and Ice Barbarian lands and how these peoples are the purest strains of the Suel bloodline. If the picture being painted is these are not particularly nice people then consider the painting done.  Still, there are some interesting tidbits and it made me want to find out more and it made me want to find an offshoot of the Suel that weren't such xenophobic dicks.

I think Len made a lot of that possible in his series.

Dragon Issue #86

Dragon #86 was one of those issues that punched way above its weight class. I mean there was just so much in this that one would be excused if Len's article, Presenting the Suel Pantheon, was ignored.  Here we are introduced to Lendor (the chief god) and Norebo (the god of thieves).  The gods are presented in the same format as the D&DG gods; which sadly in the early 80s meant these were creatures that could be fought and could be killed.  But I want to ignore that for bit and instead focus on what is really one of these first full (A)D&D pantheons.  In the 3e era some of these gods would be folded back into the "Greyhawk" pantheon, but here they are on their own with their fellow Suel.  

Lendor has a solid Odin feel to him and Norebo (maybe one of the most popular gods during my AD&D years) is like a slightly less evil Loki.  This trend is going to continue.

Dragon Issue #87

This issue covers the gods Kord and Phaulkon.   Kord is the son of the lesser gods Phaulkon and Syrul, though he himself is a greater god.  He is also one of the most popular and worshiped Suel god.  He is the god of battle, swordsmanship, and berserk rage. He has thousands of semi-mortal/semi-divine children, any of which who meet his challenges can claim demi-god status.  If you are thinking Thor with a sword mixed with Conan then you are not too far off.  Since this issue also featured the Ecology of the Dryad, I figured that Kord had a particular affection for them.  In fact I am going to say that the Korreds, who would later appear in the Monster Manual II, began as the offspring of Kord and the multitude of dryads he..uh.seduced. Sure let's go with that word. 

Phaulkon is the winged god of air, flying and archers. If Kord is the superior melee combatant, then Phaulkon is the superior missile combatant. He can speak with any bird or any creature that uses wings to fly, including demons and devils.  He is Chaotic Good so I always felt there would a natural rivalry between Phaulkon and Pazuzu, both striving for control over the air and air creatures. 

Dragon Issue #88

Here we get Syrul, Fortubo, and Wee Jas the unrequited love of my life (circa age 14).  Wee Jas, of course, grabbed my attention like nothing else in this issue. She was a gorgeous goddess of magic known as the Witch Queen?  How in the hell was I supposed to ignore that?  For years I thought this art was a Larry Elmore piece, but it is actually Jeff Butler.  I think the wide eyes are what really sets this piece off. Bella Donna indeed.

Of all the Suel gods it is Wee Jas that has had her best life in the years following this publication. What do we learn about her?  Well at this point she is still a greater goddess of magic and death.  She knows every magic-user spell and all other spells to 5th level (why only 5th??).  She can cast up to 9 spell levels worth of spells each round; so 1 9th level spell or 9 1st level or any combination.  She has 90% magic resistance and a globe of invulnerability that floats around her. She is attractive (Charisma 20) and always appears so.

If she is anything she is very lawful.  To the point where good and evil are mostly meaningless to her just as long as you are not chaotic.  In fact, she pretty much hates anything chaotic except for the chaotic neutral god Norebo; who is her brother (or half-brother) and occasional lover.  Gods. Go figure.

In the letters section in a couple Dragons later it is mentioned that Norebo's entry mentions Wee Jas, but Wee Jas' doesn't.  The editors reply that it is because Wee Jas is loathed to admit it and Norebo could also be bragging.

Also, have a look at her name "Wee Jas" or "Wee" and "Ja" or "Oui Ja".  She is the goddess of the Ouija board as well. Magic. Death and Spirits. Clever Gary.

Syrul is the evil goddess of lies and false promises.  Fortubo is the dwarf-like god of mountains, stone, and metals. Neither are half as interesting as Wee Jas.  Well, Fortubo was interesting on his own, but not compared to my 1984 girlfriend here. 

To stretch out Norse analogies a bit Wee Jass is a bit of Hel and Freyja combined. But there is also a good amount of Hecate in her.

Since Len also created the Death Master NPC class I figured at least a few Death Masters were aligned with Wee Jas instead of Orcus.  This was part of their strong rivalry for the dead. 

Dragon Issue #89

This issue continues those wonderful Denis Beauvais "Chess" covers.  So therefore the Suel Empire invented chess on Oerth.  

In this issue, Len features Pyremius, Beltar, and Llerg.  It is interesting to see which of these gods survived to today. These gods made it to the 3.x Living Greyhawk Gaz and Complete Divine. Pyremius is the God of Fire, Poison, and Murder. He looks like a conehead to be honest.  The next goddess, Beltar, just has a Conehead sounding name.  She is the Goddess of Deep Caves, Pits, and Malice.  She appears as an old crone, a beholder or as a Type V, or Marilith, demon.  I would say she has a few of both types of creatures under her command.  Llerg is the God of Beasts and Strength and appears a bear-like man. He seems like a decent enough god. He prefers to live on his own in the woods and deals more with animals and other beasts. I was half-tempted back in the day to also make him the God of Bears, in the sub-culture sense. Now I am fully tempted. 

This issue also gave us the first Creature Catalog from Dragon. Here are a number of creatures that could easily be re-classified as demons; at least in the OMG sense. These include the Fachan, the Ghuuna (already has a demonic origin), and the Utukku.  Beltar in particular would have Utukku under her control. I went back to the original myths and did my own Utukku and Umu demons for Ghosts of Albion and a completely different version was created for Pathfinder.

Dragon Issue #90

Before we get to the Suel article proper, Out on a Limb covers the seemingly impossible relationship between chaotic to the core Norebo and hard-line lawful Wee Jas.  Kim Mohan makes two suggestions. First, opposites attract and Norebo has a big mouth.  Second, they goofed.   I like the idea of them being together, to be honest.  Gods need to be complicated.  Though given that Norebo and Wee Jas are also half-siblings, I guess really complicated. Well, no one bats an eye when it happens in Egyptian and Greek pantheons. 

You can also go with Mike's take on it over at Greyhawkery.

On to the article proper we have a collection of sea gods. Phyton, Xerbo, and Osprem.    Phyton is the God of Beuty and Nature, he is our ersatz Baldur.  Xerbo is our God of the Sea, Money, and Business, so a cross between Nord and Poseidon/Neptune.  Osprem is the Goddess of Sea Voyages. Our two sea gods Xerbo and Osprem both have tridents.  I guess there is a rule that sea gods must have one. They only have cool relations with each other.  They try not to fight each other and when a threat challenges the seas they are allied. But otherwise, they do not get along.  Osprem is in particular worship in and around the Lendore Isles.

This issue also featured the Incantatrix. Under normal situations, I would figure out a way to bring her into the fold with the Suel gods, but the write-up is not only so Realms specific, the Incantatrix has a history in the Realms.  So she stays where she is. 

Dragon Issue #92

Here again, we come to the end. Not just of 1984, but of this series. 

This issue also covers some new rules and ideas for clerics. Since I played a lot of clerics back then I rather enjoyed this issue.  Gary offers up some advice ("Clerics Play by Different Rules")  and a few others. This issue also gave us installment III of Pages from the Mages, but that was covered in a previous retrospective. 

Out Suel gods are Lydia, Bralm, and Jascar.  Lydia is the goddess of light and song. Bralm the Goddess of Insects and Industriousness, and Jascar the God of Hills and Mountains. No mention of his relationship to the other mountain god, Fortubo.  These gods and their write-ups were a nice working model of what Gygax was saying above about how clerics need to be different.

That is all the Suel gods from the World of Greyhawk.  These gods all survived to the 3rd Edition Living Greyhawk Gazetteer with some edits.  I guess the Suel Empire is not so forgotten after all!

One Man's God: The Demons

The nature of these articles did not include demons or even demonic creatures. They were very focused on the Gods themselves.  For demons that fit into this pantheon, I would suggest we go back to the source, the Monster Manual.  Here are the demons of this pantheon.  

Of the ones mentioned above, I think Orcus, Pazuzu, and Yeenoughu are the obvious choices.  

The Demihuman Mythos from the D&DG is another good source.  The Oerth gods though do have their own "devil" in the form of Tharizdûn.  He is a god, or was, or still is, but a fallen one. 

The Suel were a people of such xenophobia that any non-lawful god, godling, or monster would have been considered a demon. The Suel in fact would have more in common with devils and the 4e lost empire of Bael Turath.  In fact there could even be a link between Bael Turath and the Suel Empire.

In my own games, the Suel Empire were still the xenophobic dicks they always are, but they also had a special hatred for demons. The great artifact sword "Demonbane" was of Suel manufacture.

There is always more to hear about the World of Greyhawk and the Suel. Sadly one of the voices is now no more.   Gonna miss you Len!

Quick one today.  My NIGHT SHIFT Co-designer and the main author, Jason Vey, has been posting about some of the game design choices we made in NIGHT SHIFT and why we wanted to stick with an old-school feel instead of creating a new system.

You can read his thought over on his blog for Elf Lair Games.

• What Does Night Shift: VSW Bring to the Old School Table?
• Why Re-Use Old Mechanics? Why Not Create a New System?

For my part, I agree with Jason.  I have played around with dozens of systems for my two Night Worlds; "Generation HEX" and "Ordinary World." 
Long time readers here will recall a time when Generation HEX was part of my magic-school project which had a lot of homes and even spent some time as a "D&D" world.  The great thing with these rules I can STILL do that.
Ordinary World began as a Cinematic Unisystem idea, morphed over to Mutants & Masterminds, and even spent some time as a BESM 3.0 idea.  I enjoyed all these forms of the setting, but none gave me what I wanted.  So one night during a huge snowstorm where I was stuck in traffic for over 2 and a half hours I came up with a new system for OW.  I thought it was great. I half-jokingly referred to as the Power of Three System since it only had three attributes.  But as I worked on it it became obvious to me at least all I was doing was creating the bastard child of BESM/Tri-Stat and Unisystem.

The points Jason makes in his posts are salient here.  Going back to a well-known system at least for me has solved a number of problems. 

New GMs Screen & Amazon

Jason just released the new GM screen on DriveThruRPG.  Grab these for your Portrait style screens.

Also, you can now get hardcover versions of NIGHT SHIFT from Amazon.

You can still get your hardcover and the special edition, numbered, hardcover from the Elf Lair Games store.

Can't wait to share more with you!

NIGHT SHIFT Links

• Elf Lair Games Store
• DriveThruRPG Links
• Night Shift: Veterans of the Supernatural Wars, Core Rules
• Quick Start Kit
• Errata and Frequently Asked Questions
• GM Screen Inserts

Work has me really busy right now, so I have been slow on getting new material out.  Either in book form or for this blog (except for Halloween).  But I wanted to give an update on what I am working on now.

I recently went through all my research notes, books, and files.  This has been a good thing and something I like to do every so often to keep me grounded in what sort of game I want.  It is far, far too easy in game design to drift away from your core principles into something else.  One example of this power-creep in games, though there are other reasons for power-creep too.  The other is scope-creep and that is when a project gets too unwieldy and becomes much larger than intended. 

Both types have hit my latest two works in progress, so I have been taking a step back to see what I really have.

Basic Bestiary

This is the "Big" project that has my focus now.  The project began with collecting all the monsters from all my witch books, plus all the monsters for Monstrous Mondays, and additional ones I have but have not published.  Once I pull them all together I had over 220 pages with 300 or so monsters with no art (yet).  For me that felt like a "good size" but I got to thinking.  Even if I edit them all and standardize them all, which is no small amount of work, these are all essentially "re-runs" material people have already seen and in some cases paid for.   That didn't feel right to me.  So I started adding more (power and scope creep!) and that is where the issues began.

For starters, I publish most for Basic-era (B/X, BECMI, OSE, LL) and Swords & Wizardry games.  Add in all the other games I post about here I have monsters in six to seven different but still largely compatible systems.  I needed to standardize my monster stat block.  You have seen it's evolution here on my blog. The current and most stable version can be seen in yesterday's Fenodyree.  Essentially a Labyrinth Lord stat block with some other information thrown in that I like to use in my games.   If you go back and look at something like the Wendigo then you can see that there are three different, similar but not the same, stat blocks.   So there is that process now going on.  Some stat blocks like S&W and OSE are great, but far too minimal for me. 

Also since the hardcover of The Craft of the Wise went over so well I decided that the Basic Bestiary needed softcover (Basic) and hardcover (Advanced) options.  Here are the covers as they sit now.  These very likely will change again.

For these covers, I made two changes.  First I switched to Goya's "The Witches' Sabbath" to reflect the feel that this book is mostly witch related monsters.  It also fits better with the quote I use in the Preface, "El sueño de la razón produce monstruos." or "The sleep of reason produces monsters."
I am also going with my own compatibility logos on these since they really have gone beyond one system or the other.  They are still largely "Basic" in nature, but as you can see from my stat blocks they have a little bit of everything in the OGC. 
Switching from Fuseli to Goya also was an outward sign of another issue.   I had WAY too many demons.  Not just demons, but devils and all sorts of fiends.  I also had my own demonic families of Baalserph, Lilim, Eodemons, Calabim, and Shedim.  I mean you can't do as much reading, researching, and writing about witches like I do and not collect some demons.    There really was only one solution.
Split them into two books. 
This actually works well since in my discussions with people there are decidedly two camps. The ones that use demons in basic-era games and those who don't.   This gives both groups buying options.

Regardless of whether you buy the "Basic" softcover or the "Advanced" hardcover, the material inside will be the same.  The Basic Bestiary I will be heavy on undead, vampires, fey, hags, and other witch-related monsters.   The Basic Bestiary II will cover demons, devils, and all sorts of fiends.
Right now there is no projected publication dates.  BUT I want to get BBI out and follow up with BBII maybe three or six months later.
Between those two I will also publish my "Last Witch Book,"  The High Secret Order Witchcraft book.

Going back to Rosetti for this one, a perennial favorite of mine.  The piece is "Astarte Syriaca" which harkens back to the first witch coven I ever wrote, the Coven of Astártē Queen of Heaven.
All three books (five covers) will be under my "Basic-Era Compatible" banner to indicate greater compatibility with each other and my desire to use what I consider the best or best of all the systems along with my own additions. Compatibility is key, but innovation is the driving goal here. 
The weakest link right now is The Secret Order book.  I have a ton of material and none of it put together the way I want yet.

Personally, I am really excited about all of these. 

Working through some notes for my two current projects; The High Witchcraft Tradition and the Basic Bestiary.  One of the things is to move around some content.  Items, mostly monsters, that I had considered for the High Witchcraft book are now moving over to the Basic Bestiary.  Some notes I had written for witches, in general, are also moving over the Basic Bestiary. This one of those.

There are a lot of Celtic creatures in mythology and many have similar-sounding names and others have different names in different locales.  The Fenodyree from the Ilse of Man might be the same creature as the Brownie or the Woodwose. Or it might not.  

Fenodyree
Small Fey
Frequency: Very Rare
Number Appearing: 1 (1)
Alignment: Neutral [Chaotic Neutral]
Movement: 60' (20') [6"]
Armor Class: 6 [13]
Hit Dice: 1d8* (5 hp)
Attacks: 1 harvest scythe
Damage: 1d6
Special: double damaged by cold iron, invisibility, teleport
Size: Small
Save: Elf 1
Morale: 6 
Treasure Hoard Class: None
XP: 23

The Fenodyree are small fey that at first appear to be some sort of fur brown creature. They are very hairy small man-like creatures that appear like a brownie, woodwose, or even a small satyr.  Their long brown hair covers their entire body.  If they are wearing clothes, no one has been able to tell.

Like many solitary faeries, the fenodyree are very shy around humans, or anyone larger than a halfling. They are on decent terms with gnomes but do not make a habit of socializing with them.

The fenodyree lives to mow.  They love nothing more than to be able to use their miniature harvest scythe and cut grass, wheat, barley, or any grain ready to harvest.  Often they will harvest all the grain of a family in need, especially widows with young children. Like many fey, an offering should be left out for them. Fenodyree are fond of whiskey and rye. Also like most fey, they will disappear if spotted. If by turning invisible or by teleporting away.  They can use either power at will or once per day respectively.

They prefer never to attack but will do so to protect their lives. They will teleport away at the first sign of trouble. 

Much like the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, the Jonstown Compendium is a curated platform for user-made content, but for material set in Greg Stafford’s mythic universe of Glorantha. It enables creators to sell their own original content for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, 13th Age Glorantha, and HeroQuest Glorantha (Questworlds). This can include original scenarios, background material, cults, mythology, details of NPCs and monsters, and so on, but none of this content should be considered to be ‘canon’, but rather fall under ‘Your Glorantha Will Vary’. This means that there is still scope for the authors to create interesting and useful content that others can bring to their Glorantha-set campaigns.

—oOo—

What is it?
Monster of the Month #10: The Troupe of Terror presents a band of ‘occluded’ entertainers prepared to delight and dine anywhere for use with RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.
It is an thirteen-page, full colour, 1.24 MB PDF.
The layout is clean and tidy, and the illustrations good. It needs a slight edit.

Where is it set?
Monster of the Month #10: The Troupe of Terror can be set almost anywhere. Given suggestions include on the road or wherever the Player Characters live or are staying. 
Who do you play?No specific character types are required when encountering Monster of the Month #10: The Troupe of Terror. Having an entertainer, or a worshipper of Eurmal the Trickster or Donandar the Musician, in the group is not necessary, but may add to the fun and drama of any encounter with the ‘Troupe of Terror’.
What do you need?
Monster of the Month #10: The Troupe of Terror requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. HeroQuest Glorantha, the Guide to Glorantha, and The Glorantha Sourcebook may provide further illumination for the Game Master, but are not necessary to run Monster of the Month #10: The Troupe of Terror.
What do you get?
Monster of the Month #10: The Troupe of Terror provides the Game Master and his players with three things. The first is a hextet of individuals and creatures that although will outwardly appear colourful and entertaining, are more than willing to wine and dine at anyone’s expense—including the Player Characters. They make up a troupe of minstrels, mimes, and clowns each of whose consciousness was awakened by a magical performance given by the  Puppeteer Troupe. Unfortunately, ill prepared for such illuminating revelations, each has fallen into madness and been transformed in another way. Now they wander Glorantha, wining and dining on their audiences as they go…
All six members of the ‘Troupe of Terror’ are given full stats and write-up. This includes their backgrounds, their Illuminate abilities, and some interesting magical items a few of them possess. Although they still possess magic which the Player Characters will recognise, their Illuminate magic will likely confuse and confound them. In particular, the members troupe will be particularly powerful if they are allowed to perform. Both the strangeness and potency of their magic means that the Game Master will need to prepare any encounter with the ‘Troupe of Terror’ with care.
The second is a trio of adventure seeds which provide ways in which the Game Master can introduce the ‘Troupe of Terror’ to her players. Two of the adventure seeds, involving an encounter with the hextet on the road and hunting them for their bounty, are mundane and it is only the third which really explores the fullest potential of the ‘Troupe of Terror’, in which the troupe pulls the Player Characters into its performance and it very much becomes something else… This requires careful staging upon the part of the Game Master as well as a delve back into the Player Characters’ previous adventures. This has the potential to be a really entertaining encounter and performance which highlights the magical nature of Glorantha, although of course, in a slightly warped way.
Lastly, it serves as an introduction to Illumination. Especially the dark side of Illumination. It is not an extensive introduction and provides a short bibliography should the Game Master want to read further. On the other hand, an encounter with the ‘Troupe of Terror’ would also serve as a warning as the dangers of Illumination.
Is it worth your time?Yes—Monster of the Month #10: The Troupe of Terror presents an entertaining bunch of anthropophages who not only know too much, but also know how to put on horrific performances, plus staging advice for the Game Master. No—Monster of the Month #10: The Troupe of Terror is probably worth avoiding if the Game Master does not want to bring Illumination into her campaign.Maybe—Monster of the Month #10: The Troupe of Terror needs a careful read through and consideration prior to being run, especially given its magical and dining subject matters

Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000 AD is the fourth roleplaying game to explore the world of Judge Dredd and Mega-City One as depicted in 2000AD. Not only that, it lays the groundwork and the core rules for any number of comic strips to appear in the pages of the long running British weekly comic, including ABC Warriors, Rogue Trooper, Strontium Dog—and more. The focus of Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000AD though, is firmly on the post-apocalyptic, dystopic satire of the police state—or ‘Judge state’—that is the setting of Judge Dredd. Published by EN Publishing following a successful Kickstarter campaign, Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000 AD shares some comparisons to earlier iterations of roleplaying games based on the Judge Dredd licence. Like Judge Dredd: The Role-Playing Game from Games Workshop, it uses its own mechanics, in this case being powered by the W.O.I.N.—or ‘What’s OLD is NEW’—dice pool mechanics. Like The Judge Dredd Role-Playing Game, the d20 System version from Mongoose Publishing, that it allows players to create ordinary citizens and perps, as well as Judges, and like Judge Dredd, the Traveller version also from Mongoose Publishing, it allows the creation of Psi-Judges, Tek-Judges, and Med-Judges as well as Street Judges from the start. Another difference between Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000AD the previous iterations is that it is set in 2099, so a few years earlier in the timeline of Mega-City One.

A Player Character in Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000AD is defined by a fair number of factors. At the narrative level, this factor is a descriptor, ‘A[n] [Age] [Trait] [Species] [Career] who [Hook]’ which sums up the character, for example, ‘An elderly egotistical Orangutan Fence who enjoys a real cigar’. On a mechanical level, a character has eight attributes—Strength, Agility, Endurance, Willpower, Intuition, Logic, Charisma, and Luck, as well as two secondary attributes, Reputation and Psionics. He will have any number of skills, ranging from Accounting, Light Armour, and Insight to clairsentience, boinging, and flirtation. Now all of these have a rating, typically four for the average Human and each has an associated dice pool of six-sided dice, typically two six-sided dice for the rating for four, which a player or the Referee rolls for character or NPC to undertake an action. A character will also have various Exploits, essentially talents and abilities gained from a character’s species and various careers, such as Pacification from the Applied Violence course a Cadet Judge can take at the Academy of Law which grants bonus baton damage or Art Savant from the Scrawler (graffiti artist) career which improves his Reputation with fellow Scrawlers. Lastly, a character has a Grade, which is a measure of the number of Careers a character can have. Typically, this is set at five for beginning characters, and besides limiting the number of careers a character have, it also limits the size of the dice pool a player can roll for his character.

To create a character, a player selects a species and its exploits, then three species skills. He then chooses five careers. From each he chooses two of the listed skills, either the Aim or Feint Exploit, and one more universal Exploit. Adjustments are made to Attribute and Skill rating as the player makes his choices. Each Career also adds one or more years to a character’s age. The process takes a little time and is slightly fiddley, but a player is given a lot of options to create an interesting character and a Referee to create interesting NPCs.

Our sample Player Character is Ookie Whithers, a Chimpanzee who grew up and lives in Apetown. Since he was a Juve he has been an associate of the Chimpolini crime family, but never rose high in its ranks because of his love of gambling. He has a minor record as a Juve and in more recent years has become a nark for the Department of Justice. He always has a book running on all manner of events and is never seen in the same waistcoat twice.

Ookie Whithers
A Suave Chimp Fence who can never turn down a bet
Age: 23
Grade: Five
Careers: Juve Gang, Gamer, Pongo, Fence, Nark

Strength 5 (2d6) Agility 5 (2d6) Endurance 3 (2d6) Willpower 2 (1d6) Intuition 8 (3d6) Logic 5 (2d6) Charisma 9 (3d6) Luck 7 (3d6)
Reputation 3 (2d6) Psionics 0 (0d6)

Health 11 Speed 19 Jump 10’/5’ Carry 80 lbs. Initiative 3d6
Melee Defence 11 Ranged 7 Mental Defence 11 Vital Defence 7

Skills
Accounting 1 (1d6), Appraisal 1 (1d6), Bluffing 2 (1d6), Brawling 1 (1d6), Carousing 1 (1d6), Forgery 2 (1d6), Gambling 3 (2d6), Insight 1 (1d6), Movies 1 (1d6)

Exploits
Agile, Beguiling, Feint, Great Leap, Lucky Escape, Natural Climber, Profit, Stone Cold Stare, Thrower, Weak-willed, What’s the Plan?, Where the Action is, Zero-g

Where creating a citizen or perp type character is supported by a wide range of options—though there is no equivalent of the ex-prisoner who has done time, the options for creating a Judge are more proscribed. A Judge has to be Human or a Clone, must take Cadet followed by two advanced courses, such as Basic Psionics or Citizen Manipulation, and then Rookie. The last Career is a Judge Career such as Med Judge, Psi-Judge, Street Judge, or Tek-Judge. More options are available in terms of Speciality Judge Career, which include Block Judge, Crime Scene Processor, Interrogator, Wally Squad, and more. These become available if the Referee is planning a game with more experienced Player Characters, and equally, a Referee could reduce the number of Careers to just four if she wants to start a campaign with Rookie Judges.

Our sample Judge is a clone taken from the same biological material as Judge Dredd. He wants to emulate his genetic stock and be a Judge worthy of his forebears. On the streets he relies upon his presence and his intimidating manner, and when that does not work, is a dab hand at pacification.

Judge Leonov
An Alert Street Judge who wants to be worthy of his clone source
Age: 24
Grade: Five
Careers: Cadet, Citizen Manipulation, Applied Violence, Rookie, Street Judge

Strength 7 (3d6) Agility 5 (2d6) Endurance 7 (3d6) Willpower 6 (3d6) Intuition 8 (3d6) Logic 6 (3d6) Charisma 5 (2d6) Luck 3 (2d6)
Reputation 2 (1d6) Psionics 0 (0d6)

Health 34 Speed 19 Jump 10’/7’ Carry 140 lbs. Initiative 10d6
Melee Defence 18 Ranged 7 Mental Defence 11 Vital Defence 11

Skills
Bravery 1 (1d6), Boxing 1 (1d6), Clubs 2 (1d6), Hardy 1 (1d6), Insight 1 (1d6), Interrogation 1 (1d6), Intimidate 3 (2d6), Law 3 (2d6), Light Armour 1 (1d6), Perception 1 (1d6), Pistols 1 (1d6), Riding 1 (1d6), Running 1 (1d6), Tactics 2 (1d6)

Exploits
Ingrained Skill Package, Fast Healing, Academy of Law Curriculum, Voice of the Law, Pacification, Obey the Law, Freeze!, Feint, Knockdown

Mechanically, Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000AD uses W.O.I.N., or ‘What’s OLD is New’. This is a dice pool system which uses six-sided dice, the size of the dice pool being determined by a character’s attribute, skill, and the quality of equipment used. This is then rolled and the results totalled to beat a Difficulty Score, which can range from Easy or seven all the way up to Mythic or forty-five. A typical Difficulty Score will be Routine or ten, Difficult or sixteen, and Demanding or twenty-one. If three or more of the dice rolled are sixes, then a critical result has been achieved. The number of dice rolled can be adjusted by Complications , such as shooting at someone behind cover, scaling the side of a building in a snowstorm, or simply not having the right equipment.

However, whatever the size of the dice pool a player or Game Master has built, the maximum number of dice rolled is determined by a Player Character or NPC’s Grade. For most Player Characters, this will be five. Further, the player or Referee can spend dice for various effects. In combat, this will typically be to increase damage, at a cost of two dice from the pool to add an extra die to the damage roll, but many Exploits also require dice to be spent. For example, Blind Shot enables a character in cover to shoot at an opponent without looking at them at a cost of two dice.

The mechanics also cover common situations like chases, engineering problems, hacking and computing, tailing, and more. Countdown situations, such as a Judge being critically injured and in danger of dying or picking a lock before a guard patrol comes in sight, are handled by dice pools. The dice pool is rolled from turn to turn, each roll of a six reducing the size of the pool, until the pool is depleted and the effect of the countdown counting down is triggered.

Each Player Character also has a Luck pool of dice equal to the number of dice derived from his Luck attribute. These dice are spent on a one for one basis to add to an attribute check or to reduce the size of an opponent’s attribute check, reduce damage dice suffered or increase damage dice inflicted, and to trigger Exploits. The expenditure of one Luck will also grant a character an extra action, buy off a Condition (typically suffered in combat, but it may also come from an environment), and so on. Luck dice do need to be of a different colour as unlike ordinary dice, they explode on a result of six or more. Luck dice can typically be replenished once per day.

Combat in Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000AD is designed to be a tactical skirmish system, ideally using miniatures and a combat map, although it need not be run that way. The rules cover position, overwatch, flanking and crossfire, dual-wielding, and more. As well as accounting for the environment and its effects, such as a snowy street or underwater, the rules also add Stunt Areas, like a hanging cable, a patch of ice, or a banister, which a character can take advantage of. Using a Stunt Area not only grants a bonus to a character, often a bonus to a damage roll, but also nicely captures the comic book feel action of Judge Dredd.

Psionics are covered through the Psionic attribute and its dice pool, plus skills such as Biopsionics, Clairvoyance, Telepathy, and Teleportation and their associated abilities. So Clairsentience covers Hypcognition, Necrophony, Combat Precognition, and Retrocognition, whilst Telepathy covers Empathy, Mind Control, Mindprobe, Mindread, Mindwipe, and a whole lot more. These are powered by Psionic Power Points—derived from the Willpower and Psionic dice pools, and are learned through taking a career like a Psi-Judge or a Psyker. The rules themselves are workable, but being covered in just three pages feel brief as if waiting for the full supplement on the subject.

Overall, the mechanics are workable and at their core, are easy enough to understand. Obviously, situations like combat or handling chases or psionic encounters will complicate things, but not overly so. In play, a player will need to need to pay attention to what his character’s Exploits can do to get the most out of W.O.I.N., whilst in general, W.O.I.N. does feel as if it should be more cinematic than it necessarily is, but elements of the mechanics, such as various Exploits and Stunt Zones do push Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000AD towards a comic book style of play. Rules are provided should the Game Master want a cinematic style of game.

The list of equipment for Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000AD covers everything that a Judge would use, from the Birdie lie detector to Riot Foam Cutters, as well as civilian and criminal gear, including Bat Glider Suit and Spray Paint Aerosol. It would have perhaps been useful if the equipment issued or available to Judges had been more clearly marked.

The setting of Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000AD—Mega-City One and beyond, is given a good overview before focusing on particular locations in the metropolis, each of which is pleasingly accompanied by suggestions as to how to use that location. However, for a roleplaying game which focuses on law enforcement, the section on crime and punishment and the list of crimes and their typical sentences is at best brusque. It does not help that this section is hidden in the book or that the list is not repeated in the appendix of tables at the back of the book.

For the Game Master, there is solid advice on running scenarios and campaigns set in Mega-City One, as well as capturing the atmosphere of the setting, types of campaign and scenario, and handling opponents and rewards. Suggested campaign types include Citizen- and Perp-based campaigns as well as Judge-based campaigns. Rules are provided for the Game Master to create her own foes, monsters, and other NPCs, as well as listing typical foes, ranging from Blitz Agents, Citizens, and members of Citi-Def to Tek-Judges, Vagrants, and Workers. Sadly, the selection of foes does not include any of the classic criminals and enemies faced by Judge Dredd himself, which is undeniably disappointing. 

Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000AD includes a starting scenario or ‘Crime Blotter’. This is ‘State of the Empire’ and revisits the very first Judge Dredd comic strip back in Prog #2 of 200AD when Judge Dredd went into the ruins of the Empire State Building to arrest ‘Whitey’, the vicious leader of a gang of perps who killed Judge Alvin. It can be run with a team of Judges going into apprehend the perp, but it could also be run with a group of perps doing a retrieval job for a local hoodlum or ordinary citizens who go in search of a missing child at the wrong time. It is primarily an exploration and combat scenario designed to showcase the rules more than the satire and humour of the setting. However, that aside, it works well enough.

Fortunately, Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000AD also provides a number of further Crime Blotters for the Game Master to develop. Whether it is investigating a break in at a Munce foodstuffs laboratory or a potential block-war, all five are nicely detailed and include guidelines on how to run them for Judges, perps, or citizens. The quintet also delve further into the setting of Mega-City One and provide some great action for all character types.

Rounding out Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000AD is an appendix of various tables for the game. The appendix also includes a set of pregenerated Judges ready to play ‘State of the Empire’ and the other Crime Blotters. The Lawmaster and the Lawgiver, the famous motorbike driven by all Judges and feared handgun wielded by all Judges retrospectively, are also given their character sheets of their own here. Fans of Judge Dredd as a roleplaying game will be pleased to note that the Lawmaster is designed to complement a Judge rather than outperform him.

Physically, Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000AD is breezily and brightly presented. It needs an edit in places, but one clever feature is that each chapter is colour-coded for easy reference and access. Another enjoyable feature of the design is that comic strips are used to illustrate aspects of the rules, including a sample of play and character creation. The use and choice of artwork taken from the Judge Dredd comic is also well done, capturing a lot of its action and tone. However, the layout of Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000AD is just a little too busy and fussy in places and it is difficult to find things despite the inclusion of an index.

There are a trio of omissions from Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000AD. One is the aforementioned menagerie of criminals, enemies, and foes faced by Judge Dredd. Another is rules for vehicle combat, which really would have complemented the guidelines for handling chases, their lack meaning that the Game Master will have to improvise in order to bring the Lawmaster into play, something that happens often in the comic strip. Lastly, there are no rules for handling arrests, which feels really, really weird given how intrinsic that is to the setting of Mega-City One and what a Judge will be doing from one shift to the next. Now, there are skills which can be used, such as Intimidate and Exploits, to handle arrests, but really, not having a discussion of it is a major omission.

Ultimately, the omissions in Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000AD mean that it is not the best treatment of Judge Dredd in a roleplaying game. Not all of those omissions are insurmountable, and it is likely that there will be supplements which will address them in the future, but their absence just does not feel right. However, there is a great deal to like about Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000AD. It presents three different campaign options—Citizen, Perp, or Judge, and supports all three with the means to create a wide range of character types and multiple scenarios which can be used in all three campaign types. The W.O.I.N. mechanics are serviceable, and the rulebook brightly and breezily captures the tone and energy of the comic strip. Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000AD might need more fleshing out than a core rulebook really should, but as an introduction to the setting and the first few games in the setting, it more than adequately lays the groundwork and sets everything up for roleplaying in Mega-City One of the Judge Dredd comic strip and the various roleplaying treatments of 2000AD comic strips to come.

Almost a quarter of century after Games Workshop published Judge Dredd: The Role-Playing Game, Mongoose Publishing would revisit the licence based upon the famous 2000AD titular character—the third time for the licence and the second time for the publisher. Mongoose Publishing had already released The Judge Dredd Role-Playing Game in 2002 for the then system de jour—the d20 System, but by 2009, the d20 System had run its course. In response, the publisher turned to another of its licences, its first edition of its version of the venerable Science Fiction roleplaying game, Traveller, to power its other licences, the results being the Universe of Babylon 5, Strontium Dog, and of course, Judge Dredd.

Like The Judge Dredd Role-Playing Game before it, Judge Dredd was published as a full colour hardback which contained the means to play in its milieu. Actually, it was published as a more colour hardback, for it does not make use of the black and white artwork which long graced the pages of 2000AD. Its setting remains a future America (and beyond) after a nuclear war which irradiated much of the Earth and forced most of the world’s population to live in a number of megalopolises—or supercities. Each is home to millions and millions living in great city-blocks, most of whom are unemployed and turn to hobbies, brand new trends or crazes, or even crime to keep themselves sane. The teeming masses are difficult to police and it takes a special dedicated individual, one who has trained for nearly all of his or her childhood to patrol and enforce the law in these great cities. These are the Judges, trained to be the best, armed with the best equipment, and ready to patrol the streets as combined policeman, judge, jury, and executioner. They enforce the law and do so fairly—and none no more fairly than Judge Dredd himself, a figure who is both authoritarian and an anti-hero, the most well-known and feared Judge in Mega-City One on the eastern seaboard of what was once the United States of America. On a daily basis, Judge Dredd has to deal with litterers and jaywalkers, slowsters and sponts, robbers and murderers, smokers and boingers, illegal comic book dealers and gangster apes, and even Judge Death from a parallel earth. Over the years, the Judge Dredd comic has presented a carnival of crazy crimes and criminals, certainly more than enough to provide a rich, bonkers background, just as it did for Judge Dredd: The Role-Playing Game when it was published in 1985 and then again for The Judge Dredd Role-Playing Game when it was published in 2002. However, Judge Dredd pushes the timeline on seven years to the year 2131 with the appointment Chief Judge Dan Francisco, a former Street Judge made famous by his starring in a twenty-four-hour reality television show following his exploits, who would reinstitute the anti-mutant acts.

Besides being from the same publisher, what both The Judge Dredd Role-Playing Game and Judge Dredd have in common is that they require core rules books to play. Being a d20 System supplement, Judge Dredd required the Player’s Handbook for Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition, whilst Judge Dredd requires the Traveller rulebook to run and play. However, there are a number of major differences between The Judge Dredd Role-Playing Game and Judge Dredd. Notably, the former allows players to take the roles of citizens and perps (perpetrators) instead of Judges, enabling a very different, crime or resistance-driven campaign in Mega-City One, whereas the latter does not. At the beginning of the game, The Judge Dredd Role-Playing Game only allows players to create Street Judges and Psi-Judges, whereas in Judge Dredd, a player can create a Street Judge, a Psi-Judge, a Tek-Judge, or a Med-Judge. Where The Judge Dredd Role-Playing Game uses the spells of Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition to model the psionic abilities of the Psi-Judge and threats capable of using psionics, Judge Dredd uses the Psionics rules and abilities of Traveller. Where The Judge Dredd Role-Playing Game uses the skills and Feats of Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition to model both Player Character Judges and NPCs, Judge Dredd uses the skills of Traveller—though with a few new additions, and adds Feat-like abilities called Techniques. And where The Judge Dredd Role-Playing Game simply has a player roll his character’s attributes, assign skill points, and choose a Feat or two, Judge Dredd has a player roll his character’s attributes, and then take along a lifepath that tracks his time at the Academy of Law. The result is a Rookie Judge with a bit of a history and a background, rather than someone faceless and anodyne, which would result from the character creation rules in both Judge Dredd and The Judge Dredd Role-Playing Game.

A Judge is defined by six attributes—Strength, Dexterity, Endurance, Intelligence, Education, and Influence (see below). Of these, Influence, the measure of a Judge’s commanding presence when dealing with the innumerable criminals and perps of Mega-City One, is something that only Judges have. Normal NPCs do not have it and instead have Social Standing as they would in Traveller. A Judge does not have the Social Standing attribute. All are initially rated between two and twelve, but can go higher. To create a Judge, a player randomly generates his Judge’s attributes—except for Education and rolls on a series of tables for each of the four terms his Judge serves at the Academy of Law. Normally four years long, one of the terms is only three years long and the Judge also has to undertake the Hot Dog Run, mandatory trip into the Cursed Earth to test the cadet’s skills, tenacity and to educate him in the hellish wilderness beyond limits of the city walls, as well as Full Eagle Day, when the Rookie Judge spends a day on the streets with a seasoned Judge to see if he is suitable for graduation. A cadet enters the Academy of Law at age five and graduates at the age of twenty.

Tek-Judge Gagarin
Judge Gagarin’s technical aptitude was spotted during his second term and he was transferred into the Tek Branch during his third term, studying the Robot War in particular. He also passed the flight simulator course. However, despite passing his Hot Dog Run, Tek-Judge Gagarin returned with a case of Recurring Radiation Sickness.

Str 04 (-1) Dex 11 (+2) End 10 (+1)
Int 13 (+3) Edu 10 (+1) Inf 09 (+1)

Skills
Athletics (Co-ordination) 1, Athletics (Endurance) 1, Combat Engineering 1, Computers 2, Drive (Lawmaster) 1, Engineer (Electronics) 2, Flyer (Grav) 0, Gun Combat (Lawgiver) 1, Jack of All Trades 1, Law 2, Mega-City One 1, Geography 1, Mechanic 1, Melee (Unarmed Combat) 1, Space Sciences (Robotics) 2, Street Perception 1, Survival 1, Tactics 1

Special Techniques
Data Access, Jerry-Rig

Rules are also provided for creating more experienced Judges, but not civilians, and the Referee is advised to use the standard Traveller rules to create them—though of course, this would be without the benefit of any of the weirdness and wackiness to be found in Mega-City One. Nevertheless, the rules are creating a Judge are undeniably engaging and a whole lot more fun than in previous roleplaying games based on Judge Dredd, plus they help a player build a rapport with his Judge. The rules add a few new skills such as Combat Engineering and its Specialities of Fortifications, Camouflage, and IEDs and Mines, Gun Combat (Lawgiver)—which a Judge trains in exclusively, Law, Street Perception, and more. All of the new skill descriptions include examples of their use. Special Techniques—essentially the equivalent of Feats from the d20 System—are talents and abilities that give a Judge the edge over a perp. So Dead Halt enables a Judge to bring his Lawmaster or other vehicle to a sharp stop safely and under control, Formidable Presence grants a Judge the full weight of the law in his stance and attitude such that ordinary citizens are rooted to the spot in fear, and Rapid Aim enables a Judge to get a bead on a perp with incredible precision.

Mechanically, Judge Dredd uses the Traveller system. In general, this is a straightforward set of rules designed to handle Science Fiction settings. Which means it can handle technical aspects, like computers and vehicles as well as the action and the interpersonal. The first mechanic that Judge Dredd adds is that for making an arrest. To do this the Judge’s player makes an influence roll, aiming to  get eight or more, modified by the Judge’s Influence modifier and the arrestee’s Desperation value. This ranges from minus six to plus six, any perp with a level of minus four or below prepared to do anything to escape, whilst at plus four and above, the perp is desperate to get arrested. The rule for handling arrests is accompanied by a guide to sentencing and the types of back-up and support a Judge can expect.

In terms of background information, Judge Dredd provides quite a lot. This covers not just the history of Mega-City One and a timeline, but also its transit systems, various types of habitat from city blocks and cardboard cities to Luxy-Blocks and the Jungle—home to genetically modified primates, and notable landmarks like the Big Smelly (concreted over Hudson River), the transported White Cliffs of Dover (complete with ‘genuine’ Brit-Citters including dancing chimney sweeps, singing academics, and Pearly Kings and Queens), and Moonray Tower from which lasers beam advertisements onto the lunar surface. Sport, leisure, and fun is also covered, as crazes, organisations, and more. Judge Dredd also provides a brief introduction to places beyond the walls of Mega-City one. Extensive equipment lists detail everything that a Judge would routinely carry on him or might have access to, whilst the rest will equip potential perps. This also includes numerous vehicles, but not spaceships, the Referee being advised to check out Traveller and High Guard for more information.

Psi Division and Psi-Judges get a chapter all of their very own. As with the rest of Judge Dredd, it expands upon rules given in the core Traveller rulebook. It adds Advanced Talents particular to the setting of Judge Dredd, for example Aura Perception and Energy Kinesis, but these are the least powerful. Dimensional Manipulation and Temporal Manipulation are powerful abilities in themselves, but they are also powerful in terms of narrative, able to affect the flow and status of a story during play far more than most other powers. However, such powers are rare and are not available during Judge generation. They are accompanied by some guidance on handling the effects and consequences of temporal travel. As powerful as psionics can be, their use is not without its consequences and psionic trauma can be suffered for overusing powers and psionic strength, and being exposed to mental or emotional stress. Suffer too much psionic trauma and a Judge may fall victim to mental instability or even insanity. The rules cover the potential effects of all of these as well the means to recover from them, plus a range of psionic equipment.

The Judge Dredd comic strip is of course known for the wonderfully weird and wacky nature of its perps, from the Angel Gang to Judge Death—and back again. Judge Dredd has rules for rolling up perps, as well as aliens and mutants, but the ‘Most Wanted’ list of classic criminals faced by Judge Dredd himself over the years is here kept to just a handful or two. And so few of them are actually illustrated. This is perhaps one of the more disappointing aspects of Judge Dredd as a roleplaying game.

For the Referee there is some decent advice on running campaigns and the types of crimes and story-arcs which work together, and in addition to the general background and the timeline, Judge Dredd includes a description of Sector 13, an individual sector of Mega-City One and its features. It pays particular attention to Sector 13’s seven major city blocks, two of which follow a heavy theme of twentieth century rock music—Jon Bon Jovi Block and Bruce Springsteen Block, both of whose citizens hate each other and typically war against the other using very loud music. The contemporary references of Judge Dredd are, of course, very contemporary to 2009, but many still work today. This takes the place of a traditional scenario in any other roleplaying game, but there are lots of details and roleplaying hooks which the Referee can develop into running a campaign of her own in Sector 13.

Physically, Judge Dredd is well presented and as expected uses a full colour artwork drawn from the comic strip. It is not always the most evocative artwork and it often feels a bit dark. The other issue with the presentation is that although there is a map of the world inside the front cover, there are no other maps in the book. So no map of Mega-City One and no map of Sector 13. To some extent, the map for Sector 13 is not quite as important as that of Mega-City One, primarily because the geography of Sector 13 is not as tightly defined, and the Referee can easily create it if necessary.

If there is a disappointment to Judge Dredd, it is in its treatment of the criminals and perps that are fundamentally intrinsic to the setting, their lack of entries just feeling mean-spirited. Similarly, the lack of illustrations for the criminals and perps who are included feels the same way and is actually unhelpful for the Referee. Yet as a consequence of using the Traveller core rules, Judge Dredd feels far more competent in handling the technical aspects of the setting—vehicles and vehicle combat, psionics, and more, than the previous iterations of roleplaying games based on Judge Dredd. Similarly, whilst character generation feels technical in nature, the process is actually fun, and it produces Judges who are both competent and possess a degree of backstory that a player can bring to the roleplaying of his Judge. Judge Dredd may not have quite the charm of Games Workshop’s Judge Dredd: The Role-Playing Game, but it definitely has more character than Mongoose Publishing’s earlier The Judge Dredd Role-Playing Game, and the technical efficiency of its design makes it playable and engaging. 

Ok, now this one has my attention!

Dark Places & Demogorgons 5e

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jiangshi/dark-places-and-demogorgons-5e?ref=theotherside
Spend ANY time here and you know that I love Dark Places & Demogorgons.
This seems like a perfect match for anyone that is a fan of D&D really.Go to the page, read up and then back it.  It is going to be great!

Colony of Death – Weird Fantasy Roleplaying in 17th Century Maryland is a campaign setting set in the New World of the mid-seventeenth century. Designed for use with Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying, but easily adapted to the retroclone of your choice, it takes the Player Characters to the Americas, but not where you would expect. In general, when a supplement is set in early colonial America, it is set in Massachusetts, or elsewhere in New England. Examples of this includes Atlas Games’ Northern Crown and StatCom Simulations Inc.’s 1983 Witch Hunt. The setting for Colony of Death though, is further south, the rough and ready Maryland Province, which in 1650, is not even twenty years old. Although the war between King and parliament back in England led to an uprising in the province, this was put down, and the governor reinstalled, as was its policy of religious tolerance between Protestants and Catholics. Also restored was its promise of fifty acres of land to farm for each new settler—and this a potential reason for the Player Characters to come to the frontier of the empire that is the young Maryland Province.

Colony of Death starts with the history of the new province, how King Charles I of England granted its charter to Lord Baltimore to the recent war with the Susquehannock natives and their allies from nearby New Sweden; the various peoples of the colony, including Catholics, Protestants, indentured servants, Virginians who want to claim the area, natives from the various tribes of the area, and more; and details of diseases rampant in the area, such as Dysentery, Hookworm Infestation, and Yellow Fever; and encounter tables for the various terrain types in and beyond the province. A lengthier section is devoted to a bestiary of the region, detailing the varied creatures and things to be found in Maryland. These include the mundane, such as the Black Bear and the Black Widow Spider, alongside a number of monsters, for example, the Goatman, said to be the devil and to haunt the forests west of the Chesapeake; the Hexenwolf, a type of lycanthrope also found in Maryland’s woods and its arch enemy, the Schneller Geist, or Snallygaster, a dragon-like best. Stats are also included for English pirates and natives, and the monsters also veer into Mythos territory with the inclusion of the Mi-Go and the Sasquatch. However, none of these count as the oddest threat in Colony of Death, and that award goes to a Squirrel Swarm. Altogether, the range of the monsters in the book covers a number of genres—more traditional combined with folklore the Hexenwolf, for example, whilst the Mi-Go are definitely Lovecraftian.

Roughly half of Colony of Death is devoted to the supplement’s four scenarios. The first of these is ‘St. Mary’s Shoemaker’ takes place in St. Mary’s City, the capital of the province. Still suffering from the aftermath of The Plundering Times—the Protestant Uprising during the time of the English Civil War, the people of the tiny city are shocked to learn that the body of a well-dressed woman has been found in a nearby river, minus her feet! This is more of a scenario set-up and the opportunity to detail St. Mary’s City than a plotted scenario and the Referee will need to develop a good reason for the Player Characters to be visiting the city, let alone investigating a podophiliac murder.

However, if the Player Characters are successful in investigating the strange death, ‘St. Mary’s Shoemaker’ does set up the second scenario. ‘Hell’s Bell’ takes them exploring or surveying up the Potomac River, perhaps visiting a parcel of land they have been given. On their way, they pass through the village of Lebenstadt, settled by Germans and notable for the large, engraved bell hung at its centre. The people of Lebenstadt are welcoming and hospitable, but hide a supernatural secret which is revealed when the settlement is attacked by another creature. Again, this is more of a set-up than an adventure with a plot and there is the possibility that even if the secret is revealed, that the Player Characters walk away from the village with nothing really happening. Another settlement, a Swedish trading post, beset by attacks by a red-haired giant, is the location for ‘The Hand and Eye of Loki’, the third scenario. If the Player Characters have reason to visit the trading post, there is more reason for them to get involved and this scenario is stronger for that and its greater use of Europeans’ historical involvement in the New World. The last scenario in Colony of Death is ‘To Burn a Witch’ and it oddly takes the Player Characters out of Maryland and across the Delaware River and to the city of Providence. There they come across the sight of the city’s Puritans burning a young girl accused of witchcraft. This is not really even a set-up , more of an encounter in which the Player Characters can choose to get involved in or not. If they refrain, nothing happens, but even if they do, ‘To Burn a Witch’ does not explore the ramifications. Ultimately, it suffers from being based around twentieth century attitudes towards what is a horrid happening rather than the attitudes of the period.

Rounding out Colony of Death is a lengthy appendix. This gives tables of names suitable for the region, including Algonquin, English, and German, an expanded map of the region, and a guide to growing tobacco in Maryland—which turns out to be really hard work! This is all useful content and the latter guide adds depth to making a life in the province.

Physically, Colony of Death is reasonably well presented. The maps are okay and if the artwork is amateurish in style, it at least works well enough for all that.

Although Colony of Death – Weird Fantasy Roleplaying in 17th Century Maryland is to be welcomed for taking Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying (and other retroclones) to the New World and a hitherto unexplored region of the New World, as a supplement it is underdeveloped. It could have done with reasons for bringing the Player Characters to the New World—and Maryland in particular, and for involving them in the scenarios. Perhaps also some rumours that the Referee could develop into scenarios and help get the Player Characters get more involved in the region would have also been useful. As would a bibliography and perhaps a look at the folklore of the region, especially for the Referee who wants to bring it further to life.

Ultimately, Colony of Death – Weird Fantasy Roleplaying in 17th Century Maryland is not a book which can be picked up and used with any ease. As the groundwork for a setting which the Referee can research and develop further herself, Colony of Death – Weird Fantasy Roleplaying in 17th Century Maryland is not an unreasonable starting point.

Last week I talked about an Other Side perennial favorite, Dark Places & Demogorgons and using it as a central feature of a generational game. Today I want expand on that idea a little more.  While this is a "Plays Well With Others" and I normally use that to talk about how the subject be used in conjunction with a lot of other, maybe unrelated, games.  Today I am going to focus exclusively on Dark Places & Demogorgons and NIGHT SHIFT: Veterans of the Supernatural Wars, but there is no reason why the same logic could not apply to say Kids on Bikes/Brooms and other modern supernatural games like Dark Streets & Darker Secrets.

Reminder: Dark Places & Demogorgons 5e is having a Kickstarter RIGHT NOW to update DP&D to the 5th edition of D&D.  Go. Pledge now and come back here. 

Playing Kids' Games

Dark Places & Demogorgns (DP&D) is fantastic. Full Stop. But, I should say a little more than that, and I have and I will. I have even dedicated other PWWO to their Cryptid Manual.

DP&D is a "Stranger Things" like game of playing kids in the 80s, early and mid-80s in particular, when the audience for this game was the age at the time their characters would be.  It is a great game that captures a time that many remember as simpler (though I also remember trying to get "online" with a 300 baud (bps) modem...nothing simple about that!) time. 

That is the main focus of the game, playing kids and 80s kids in particular.  But that is not all it can do.  It is a great game of "mild" supernatural terror.  A lot less than Call of Cthulhu, or even Chill, but greater than say Scooby-doo or Ghostbusters. For me, it is exactly the sort of shenanigans I wish I could have gotten in to.  You know, but minus all the death. 

But let's say for example you don't play DP&D (and why not?) you play something like NIGHT SHIFT that deals with more adult matters? Not R or X rated mind you or even bills and jobs, just people over 18.  What can a game like DP&D do for you?

DP&D is such a delight. It really is. I am very fond of this game and I still enjoy playing it.  On the surface it looks like DP&D and NIGHT SHIFT could be used to tell the same sorts of stories, and that is true to a degree, but that really underplays what makes both games special.  

NIGHT SHIFT covers adults in a very dangerous supernatural modern world.

Dark Places & Demogorgons covers kids in a very dangerous supernatural world of the 1980s.

Getting the Characters to Play Well With Others

It seems to be an unpopular topic among old-schoolers, but new gamers love this stuff. They want to know about their character's backstory, what they did when they were younger.  Even down to things like what their favorite foods are, who was their childhood crush, and more.  Personally, I think it is fun as hell and I love that these newer players have so much excitement for their characters and games.

But how can an old guy like me do that and still stay true to my own roots?

Easy.  Take my characters and play them as kids.  There are a few ways to make this work.

The Flashback

This is the technique used in the Stephen King movie "It" and a couple of times on Supernatural. 

Take your NIGHT SHIFT characters and re-do them as DP&D characters.  Something I mentioned before, and it is true here as well, do not try to make a one to one correspondence between the classes. Think about yourself, what you were, and what you were doing when you were 13 vs. now.  I would not be the same "class" at all.  In fact, this is part of the fun.  What was your character back then that made them who they are now?  Were the actions of the DP&D game what made your character into who they are now?  OR, and I will admit this is a favorite, was the event so traumatic that your adult character forgot it so you have to replay it as a kid.

The forgotten flashback is a good way to build some background and then they can get XP or perk once they remember.  So in a NIGHT SHIFT based game, I'd give a character some perk from DP&D related to their "kid" class.  Nothing to unbalance the game, but certainly something to add to each character. Making them something a little "more" than they were before.

Lifespan Development

Another great option is to start as a kid in DP&D and progress to the logical end (18) and then pick up as an adult, maybe a couple of years later even, in NIGHT SHIFT.

Again, there is not a good one to one class correspondence between the games and nor would I want there to be.  A Jock (DP&D) might end up as a Veteran (NS) or even as a Chosen One (NS).  In truth, I would give any DP&D kid character some "free" levels in Survivor but allow them to keep some of the perks of their original DP&D class.  So Goths still see ghosts, Karate Kids still kick ass, and so on.  

This is the option for people that want a rich backstory for their characters, but don't want to write it, they want to live it.

Age Regression

There are also a few ways to do this one. In Star Trek: The Next Generation there was a great episode "Rascals" where Picard, Ensing Ro, Keiko O'Brein, and Guinan were transformed into pre-teens due to a "transporter accident".  Their bodies were de-aged, but their minds were the same. 

In the third season of Charmed the episode "Once Upon a Time" did it the other way around; the cast stayed in their own adult bodies but their minds were like children.  They needed to do this because only children can see fairies.   In this case, it was a spell and this also makes it more useful for your NIGHT SHIFT game.  Your character stays the same, but not your mental attributes are DP&D.

Alternate Reality

Finally, one I have been using a lot lately is an alternate reality/timeline.  In this one the characters are children.  It's not necessarily the same character, but certainly the same character in a different situation. 

Case in point I run a "Sunny Valley, OH" game is an alternate version of my Buffy RPG.  Same characters (mostly) but the differences are the characters are all younger than they were in the show/RPG, they are set in the ironically names Sunny Valley, Ohio instead of Sunnydale, CA, and it is set in DP&D's proper 1980s instead of the late 1990s/early 2000s.

Pulling it Together: The Characters

One of my better examples and I have a few, would be my versions of Willow and Tara for both NIGHT SHIFT (my "The Dragon and the Phoenix" timeline) and DP&D (my "Sunny Valley, OH" timeline).

This split allows me to different things, have different sorts of adventures, tell different sorts of stories. 

Can I do this all in one system? Of course. Especially for a game like NIGHT SHIFT.  BUT changing the system allows me to do two things. It allows me to give the different times/ages a different feel via the system.  Do I feel the same way now as I did in the 1980s? No. Do I do things the same way? No.  The mechanics are a good way to reflect it. 

It also allows me to force the players to feel the experience as being different.  ESPECIALLY if it is a game that is similar but slightly different. Like NIGHT SHIFT and DP&D are.  Combat is largely the same for example, but saves are different. Skills are different.  This difference helps mimic the feel of being younger and not always knowing what to do or how to do it. 

I have always said a "rising tide raises all ships."  Other designers/games are not my competitors, they are my colleagues. Playing games from other designers gives me new insights into my own games. 

For more details and examples I am providing some links below to other posts.

And don't forget the Kickstarter!

Dark Places & Demogorgons

• All DP&D Posts
• Plays Well With Others: DP&D Cryptid Manual
• Plays Wells With Others: Dark Places & Demogorgons and Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Review: Survive This! Dark Places & Demogorgons Companions
• Review: Survive This! Dark Places & Demogorgons

Sunny Valley, OH

• Welcome to Sunny Valley, OH
• Willow & Tara: Survive This! Dark Places & Demogorgons
• Survive This! Dark Places and Demogorgons - Supernatural / Buffy Crossover
• Dark Places & Demogorgons: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Charmed; How Soon is Now?
• Dark Places & Demogorgons: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Hex Girls; Bizzare Love Triangle
• Survive This! Dark Places and Demogorgons - Carmilla / Buffy Crossover

NIGHT SHIFT Veterans of the Supernatural Wars

• All NIGHT SHIFT Posts
• Plays Well With Others, Generation HEX, and my Traveller Envy
• Plays Well With Others: Night Shift and Modern Supernatural Games
• Willow & Tara: NIGHT SHIFT Veterans of the Supernatural Wars

"Suomi Neito" the Maiden of Finland.
She is in the shape of Finland.

Seems like a good day to talk about fallen gods and demons.  We are also getting into mythos I know less and less about. So let's begin our tour in a country I have always liked, Finnland.
I don't think it is too much to say that the myths and characters presented in the Deities & Demigods for Finnland are largely, if not exclusively taken from the Finnish national epic, The Kalevala.  I have a copy of the audio-book I had been meaning to listen to before this, but since I no longer drive to work it has been taking a bit longer to get through my backlist.   I have had some exposure to the myths in comparative mythology books and of course, every D&D gamers knows that Gary Gygax was also a big fan of these stories.
The Mythos of the Finnish people are maybe some of the most relatable to long time D&D players since so much of them have been adopted into D&D proper.  Goddess Loviatar and Mielikki have been adopted wholesale into the Forgotten Realms campaign and remained unchanged from the D&DG counterparts. Mordenkainen sounds like he could have been a traveling companion to Vainamoinen and Lemminkainen.  Let's also not forget the Louhi, the Witch Queen of Pohjola is also an alternate name/guise for Tasha/Iggwilv.  
It is hard to say if the Finnish Mythos have a more D&D feel to them because of how they are presented in the D&DG OR is because so much of D&D has strands of Finnish/Kalevala DNA in it.  Those ties only got deeper as the development of D&D from the early 70s to the 80s went on.  So it would then reason that any Finnish "demons" would convert over to AD&D demons fairly well.  
Except there is one little problem.
There are no monsters listed in the D&DG Finnish mythos that could even be considered demonic, with maybe one exception.  The mythos are filled with Gods, but they are more background to the stories of the heroes.  The Kalevala is a Heroic epic.  So it has more akin with the stories of Gilgamesh and Heracles than it does with say the neighboring Norse myths which tend to be more about the exploits of the Gods.
So let's look at what we have and expand it out.
Louhi, Loviatar and MielikkiLoviatar/LouhiThere is not a single male D&D player aged 40 and up that doesn't know Loviatar from the D&DG. Expand that outward and there isn't a single Forgotten Realms player of any age that doesn't know Loviatar.  She is the beautiful, cold, and strikingly topless, Goddess of Pain.  She is the intersection of D&D Dungeon Masters and S&M Dungeon Masters. she has been sexed up and everyone knows her.
Or do they?
In the Kalevala Loviatar is the blind daughter of Tuoni/Tuonetar.  The part about the cold wind blowing is spot on, but she is also the mother of the Nine Diseases.  Back in my AD&D witch playtests (late 80s) I had a witch of Loviatar who specialized in disease spells. So I do recall reading that much then in this comparative mythology book. 
There is also some conjecture that in the earliest tales Loviatar and Louhi were the same characters. Called Louhi in some areas and Loviatar in others. Though I think you would have trouble telling a Forgotten Realms fan that their Maiden of Pain is an ancient wrinkled crone. 
At one point I wanted to stat out the nine sons (or in my mind, eight sons and one daughter) of Loviatar as demon-like monsters.  But I never got it to come together in a way I liked.  I may try again after reading the Kalevala. 
If Loviatar went in one direction, Louhi went in the opposite.   Loviatar might be more popular with the D&D crowd, but it is Louhi who is more well known.  A lot can be said about Louhi and maybe one day I'll devote some more time to her. We do know that she was the model/alternate name for Tasha/Iggwilv. Which brings up an interesting idea. We know she has a son and she is the main antagonist of the Kalevala, though she also sometimes helps the heroes.  
Side note: I am sorry, the whole time writing this I keep hearing "Bring me the Sampo!" from the 1959 movie "The Sampo" or better known here in the US and to MST3k fans as "The Day the Earth Froze."  It has been my tradition to watch an MST3k movie while decorating for Christmas ever since I first saw this one. 
I do find one thing about the whole Louhi/Iggwilv connection interesting.  You have a Finnish girl (Louhi) essentially kidnapped and raised by a Russian witch, Baba Yaga.  Allegorical of the Russian occupation of Finnland from 1809 to 1917? Maybe.  OH! here is an idea.  The PCs need something from Iggwilv's past BUT her past is in Russia and Finnland during the Victorian era.  Would give me a chance to play some Ghosts of Albion.  It would work well since the "Suomi Neito" or the Maiden of Finland is a concept similar to "Britannia" or "Éire / Ériu" and what the Protectors are. 
In the D&DG Louhi has 45 total levels of spell casting, she is certainly a very powerful character. She stole the sun and the moon for example. 
Edvard Isto "The Attack" 
The eagle of Russia attacks the Maiden of Finland.
Again her shape is the shape of the country.
Hiisi and LempoThe closest thing we have to a demon is Hiisi the God of Evil.  I say closest, but the entry in the D&DG does not lend itself to being a demon.  Sure he is Chaotic Evil, but he seems to be more human or at least a giant. 
When doing my research I found that much like "The Devil" and "devils" Hiisi is both the name of a god of evil, evil beings in general and the place name where these beings are found.
We know from the D&DG that no evil creature can cause Hiisi damage.  Could it be that these evil creatures are his?   The plural of hiisi is hiidet. It usually translates to "malicious creature " or even demon.
HiidetFREQUENCY:  Very RareNO.  APPEARING:  1 (1-3)ARMOR CLASS: 5MOVE:  12"/24"HIT DICE:  10+30 (60 hp)%  IN  LAIR:  95%TREASURE  TYPE:  Nil, SpecialNO.  OF  ATTACKS:  2 fists or 1 weaponDAMAGE/ATTACK:  2d6 x2 or 2d8SPECIAL  ATTACKS:  NoneSPECIAL  DEFENSES:  +1 or better weapon to hit, hide 90%, Immune to cold and fireMAGIC  RESISTANCE:  10%INTELLIGENCE:  Animal (savage)ALIGNMENT:  Chaotic  EvilSIZE:  L  (12' to 18' tall)PSIONIC ABILITY:  Nil
Hiidet are often confused with hill giants, ogres, and trolls.  Each one is unique in that it takes on the coloration and form best suited to its chosen lair.  A Hiidet of the stoney mountains will appear to made of stone with moss-like hair.  One living in the forests will have brownish or greenish skin and leaf-like hair.  This camouflage is part of their demonic heritage and is set once they find a lair to settle in.  It does not change though as they move around.  It does confer a 90% chance that they will remain unseen in their lairs. 
Hiidet attack with their fists or a weapon. They are immune to the environmental effects of cold and are immune to both fire and cold effects including magic and dragon breath.
Hiidet are something of a cross-species between elementals, giants, and demons.  They are quick to anger and will lash out at anyone invading their lands, but they are also cowards who will avoid attacking large parties.  Their lairs are natural areas such as caves, or holes in the ground that would fit them.  They keep nothing of value, preferring to eat their victim whole.  Every so often though a rare magical item will be found in their lairs (10%). 
Lempo is a similar case.  There was a god (sometimes goddess), Lempo, of love, but of the irrationality of love that causes people to make bad decisions.  Lempo seems similar to the god Pan in many respects including his "demonization" by Christians.  Another character, Paha, is also mentioned. 
LempoFREQUENCY:  Very RareNO.  APPEARING:  1ARMOR CLASS: -1 or 9MOVE:  24"/48"HIT DICE:  6+6 (42 hp)%  IN  LAIR:  0%TREASURE  TYPE:  NilNO.  OF  ATTACKS:  NADAMAGE/ATTACK:  NASPECIAL  ATTACKS:  Cause chaosSPECIAL  DEFENSES:  +1 or better weapon to hit, invisibleMAGIC  RESISTANCE:  25%INTELLIGENCE:  AverageALIGNMENT:  Chaotic  Evil (Chaotic Neutral)SIZE:  L  (12' to 18' tall)PSIONIC ABILITY:  Nil
Lempo are nature and fertility spirits that have been corrupted by evil.  Their former function was to ensure fertility and crop growth, they became corrupted and now sow lasciviousness and chaotic behavior.  They cause faithful couples to stray and young people to behave in an erratic manner.
As spirits, they have no physical presence in the world. Though any weapon that can target ethereal creatures can strike them (AC -1).  Likewise they have no physical attacks save their corrupting influence.  The tactic of a lempo is to rest on the roof of a home to cause all inside to come under it's influence. Characters and creatures under 4 HD have no save and act in a chaotic manner.  Creatures 4hd and above are allowed a save vs. spells.
A priest of 4th level and higher can see the lempo, it appears as a humanoid shape (male or female) with a crow's head, feet, and wings.  The priest can "turn" this creature as if it were a wriath.  A result of T means the lempo has fled but is not destroyed.  A result of "D" means the lempo has been forced out of the spirit realm into the physical.  Here it may be attacked with magic weapons (AC 9), but it has no attacks to counter. 
If the lempo has fled or has caused enough damage in one village it will move on to the next one.
Lempo–Hiisi is also a trans-Neptunian trinary object along with Paha. Like many of these planetoids, they are named for creatures and characters from the underground, afterlife, and chthonic gods/creatures. 
Depending on your read, Hiisi, Lempo, and Paha could be three unique characters or one with two lesser cohorts, or the name of all such creatures.  
Finnish MaidenI have mentioned her a few times above, but the personification of Finland is the Finish Maiden.  I am not sure if there is any relation between them and Ukko's Air Maidens from the D&DG, but it does seem like there could be a thread connecting them.
Finland and her maiden
She joins the others from nearby lands, Lady of the Mountains (Iceland). Ola Nordmann (Norway), Holger the Dane (Denmark), and Mother Svea (Sweden).
My feeling is there is a lot more to these myths and stories and like always the D&DG is just scratching the surface.  Again, this is not a bad thing.  The D&DG is not a textbook on mythology. 
ETA: I am also submitting this as part of November's RPG Blog Carnival.

A few months back I was digging through a bunch of old notes.  We were cleaning up my game room and as typical of me, I took the opportunity to reorganize my accumulated notes. 

One of the things I found was some hand-written notes on various personages from my games.  A couple that had a very strange genesis and how I worked around to get them to where I have them now.  Vague? Yeah. But let me start at the beginning and work my way back up.

Let's go back to Christmas 1982.  I was full-on in my Star Wars fandom.  I had seen Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back a couple of times. I had read everything I could my hands on about Star Wars and I was hungry for more.  Also at this time, I was really getting into D&D. My introduction three years prior and my gift of the Basic and Expert Sets had kept me going for a long, long time.  Anyway Christmas. We would always go to my mom's sister's house for Christmas eve or close to that. Here we would get small gifts.  Nothing huge, my mom had a big family, and getting something for everyone was expensive.

This year (and I don't remember many other gifts we got to be honest) I got something that was very strange to me.  I got a deck of Slap Jack cards.  I thought it was an odd gift really, I was 13 and this was a game for little kids. But this set was different.  At least my Aunt or whoever bought it knew of my love of Star Wars and this was a "Space Age Slap Jack."

While I might have played it as RAW once or twice that Christmas, that is not why I grew to enjoy this set. It was the art and the overall concept.

Jack, The Lord of Aggression was an obvious Dollar Store Darth Vader.  He may have been the "star" but he was also the least interesting.  There were cards named "Interstellar Demon" and "Guardian of the Oathbreakers" and "Orbital Guardians."  The art is not fantastic, but it is very compelling.

But it was the Queen of Goodness that captured my attention.

She was a Queen. She had a glowing sword. Not a "lightsaber" a glowing sword. And she looked profoundly sad to me. I wanted to know more about this deck, the story it was trying to tell me. But what was it? It was 1982, there was no Internet, BitNet was still new and no one had access to it. So I did what I always do.  I made a story up.

In a way, these cards became an ersatz tarot deck.  I would deal out the cards and whatever came up I created a narrative in my mind.   Jack was what I'd call today a Warlock. He was the great traitor of the Galactic Peace. The Queen was the young ruler of the Galaxy, now in charge after the untimely death of her father the old King.  She ruled, but Jack strove to take it away from her.  In this tale, my Galaxy had both high tech and old magic. If this sounds familiar, then yes I have adopted some of these broad strokes for my BlackStar game.

I don't think I ever wrote any of this down. The material I found was recycling some years later. 

Fast-forward a couple of years. Now I am in my hardcore AD&D phase.  While I had been listening to music my whole life I was actually "listening" to the music instead of just "hearing" it as my late brother Mike would tell me.  One of the albums (tapes really) that also captured my imagination was Led Zeppelin's Four, or IV.   The song "Battle of Evermore" on side A, right before "Stairway to Heaven" grabbed a hold of my imagination with its epic Tolkienesqe imagery. But what really grabbed me more than anything were the haunting vocals of Sandy Denny.  I found the voice of my Queen.

But by this time I had moved my sci-fi fandom and my fantasy fandom further apart. Another little tidbit. While listening to the Battle of Evermore for the first time I misheard the lyrics (as we often did in the 80s).  The lyrics go:

Queen of Light took her bow
And then she turned to go,
The Prince of Peace embraced the gloom
And walked the night alone.

But I heard: Queen of Lies and Prince of Beasts.  These names took over the meta-story of the Queen of Goodness and the Lord of Aggression, but of course, they had changed a little.  The Queen of Lies was the Queen not because of lying, but because of the only lie she ever told, a lie that caused the death of her father (remember she was sad).  The Prince of Beasts, the former Lord of Aggression was also changed into a character that was aggressive, but not due to evil, but because he was protecting the wild spaces he lived. He became more of a Beorn-like character. Their stories are linked. And don't get me started on the Angels of Avalon or the Dragon of Darkness. Though my Orange Dragon from the Pumpkin Spice Witch certainly fits that.

The Queen of Lies and the Pince of Beasts eventually became something akin to faerie lords in my games. Both are sad figures and represent the melancholia of certain heroes in various tales.

The Tale of the Queen of Lies and Prince of Beasts

A long time ago a Faerie King had a beautiful daughter. Her mother had been human and died in childbirth.  The King, being a wise King, did not blame the girl as other monarchs might have, and instead of bemoaning the lack of a son he raise his beautiful, but sad daughter to be ready to rule in his place one day.

The King's lands were beset by all sorts of beasts so much so that his Kingdom and the surrounding lands became known as the Wild.  While the King loved his daughter, his people did not. In their minds, she was the cause of her mother's death and the reason the King would not remarry to have sons.  Over time the King's advisors suggested he marry her to the local Lord who had control over all the wild beasts.  The King saw the wisdom of this and prepared the marriage.  His daughter however did not want to marry the Prince, whom she felt was an uncouth savage, even if he was a Faerie Lord.

On the night before the wedding, there was a great feast. The daughter though, not being able to stand it any longer, broke hospitality and claimed she was already betrothed to another.  When it was discovered that the girl had done something no other fey in the kingdom could do. She had lied, but no one knew this or suspected it. 

The Prince, insulted waged war on the Kingdom. The war lasted for what felt like forever. Until a fateful day when the Prince was ready to kill the defeated King did his daughter admit her wrongdoing. 

The Prince, realizing his war was built on a falsehood, left the Kingdom and was never seen by it's inhabitants again, though he could be seen roaming the wilder places of the lands.  The princess, shamed, sat by her father's side. He forgave her and within a few nights had died from his wounds.  The girl, being the only one of royal blood, became the Queen.  She has been ajust, if unloved Queen, but her subjects still refer to her as The Queen of Lies.  Her lands are now known as the Kingdom of Rain.

Queen of Lies
Faerie Lady
Frequency: Unique
Number Appearing: 1 (1)
Alignment: Neutral [Lawful Neutral]
Movement: 120' (40') [12"]
Armor Class: -1 [20]
Hit Dice: 14d8+28** (91 hp)
Attacks: Sword or by spell
Damage: 1d8+4 or by spell
Special: Witch spells (13th level), damaged by magic weapons
Size: Medium
Save: Witch 14
Morale: 10
Treasure Hoard Class: NA
XP: 3,250
The Queen of Lies rules the lands known as the Kingdom of Rain. Named so for rain that always seems to be falling or threatening to fall at any moment.   She called the Queen of Lie because it was a lie that put her on the throne when her father died. 

The Queen is a beautiful, but sad and lonely Faerie ruler. She is a fair and just ruler and her people thrive, despite the weather, but they openly dislike her. She has gained the enmity of the Prince of Beasts, lord of the neighboring kingdom, an enmity that has earned her the attention of both the Erlking and the King of Goblins. While she has no interest in either suitor she knows she must choose one faithfully or the curse of rain her kingdom is under will not be lifted.

The Queen possesses her father's great Sword of Light, which provides her protection as well as magical fighting prowess. However, she prefers to use her magic when needed.  The Queen turned to sorcery and witchcraft to be able to lift her Kingdom's curse. She has not but can cast spells as a 13th level Faerie Witch.

Despite her name, the Queen never lies. She is half-human and can lie, but now she chooses not to.

Prince of Beasts
Faerie Lord
Frequency: Unique
Number Appearing: 1 (1)
Alignment: Neutral [Chaotic Neutral]
Movement: 240' (80') [24"]
Armor Class: 2 [17]
Hit Dice: 11d8+33** (83 hp)
Attacks: Fists or by animal type
Damage: 1d8+4 x2 or by animal type
Special: Beast form, damaged only by magic weapons, summon beasts
Size: Large
Save: Monster 11
Morale: 10
Treasure Hoard Class: NA
XP: 3,500

The Prince of Beasts is an odd fey lord in he does not like the company of other faerie lords and ladies, or faeries of any status. Instead, he prefers to spend his time in the wild running with the animals and communing with them.  

The Prince appears as a huge elf lord, standing 8' tall. He is broad and muscular. He is often mistaken for a large human or even a smaller hill giant. He wears simple animal skins though nothing can hide his regal bearing. 

Like all faerie lords he has a personal weapon, a sword, he can use. But the Prince prefers to fight with his bare hands or by transforming into any natural animal.  He can shape-shift into an animal and back 3/per day in the daylight hours.  At night he chooses a shape and sticks with it till the dawn.

He can summon any animal as per the Druid spells, Animal Summoning, they will obey his calls till the death.

The Prince of Beasts is on good terms with the various Animal Lords, but doesn't belong to their numbers. He ignores most of the Faerie Lords when he can.  He has a special enmity with theQueen of Lies, though he would rather avoid her at all costs.  He is also the enemy of the Erlking.  The Goblin King fancies himself as a rival, but the Prince does not take the Goblin King seriously.

NIGHT SHIFT Content

In NIGHT SHIFT the Lords of the Faerie continue into the modern-day.  The Queen of Lies is a real estate developer living in Seatle.  She has plans for the wild areas surrounding the Pacific Northwest.  The Prince of Beasts is a Wildlife conservationist.  Their battles are less about sword and claw and more about permits and lawsuits.  Both though are still powerful in their respective realms.

Another Halloween is now part of the history books.  I am sad to see it go, but now it is time to sit back and see what I did here.

October saw a whopping 92 new posts here at The Other Side!  That beat my previous record of 72 in October of 2013.

In that time I watched 60 horror movies, with 41 one of them being first-time views.

You can see all my movies from the October Horror Movie marathon on my Pinterest board.

Follow Timothy's board October Horror Movie Challenge on Pinterest.

This translated into 74,587 hits for the month.

The Pumpkin Spice Witch was offered for free as part of DriveThruRPG's Halloween Sales. 

You can find it by going to your Wishlist (you need to be logged in),

Scrolling down and clicking on the Pumpkin,

Then it will be added to your cart for the price of a few clicks!

The promotion went so well that as of right now 1,213 were downloaded!  I also got a few sales and few dead tree versions too.  Not bad for a year-old niche product in a niche market.

In fact, it was so popular that Aubrey Spivey from the Old-School Essentials group on Facebook dressed up as a Pumpkin Spice Witch for Halloween!

I have gotten a lot of nice accolades and nice words about my books over the years. But Aubrey Spivey 's cosplay of my Pumpkin Spice Witch cover has REALLY made my Halloween ????! Thank you!

Posted by Timothy S. Brannan on Saturday, October 31, 2020
I mean really. How cool is that?
NIGHT SHIFT also did remarkably well.  I don't have the final numbers yet, but my payment for the month was great.
Stated up 12 new characters here for Night Shift and a few new monsters. 
I have a few "loose ends" and other ideas I didn't get around to posting. But don't expect this level of posting in November or December! 

The Shadow Over Providence is a short, one-shot, one-session scenario for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition. Published by Chaosium, Inc. to celebrate NecronomiCon 2019, it is mostly set within the confines of the Milton Hotel, based on Providence’s iconic Biltmore Hotel in the year 1928. In addition to a number of other events, the hotel is playing host to ‘The Kingdom of Fire – Egypt’s 18th Dynasty.’ This is a travelling exhibition showcasing some of the finest exhibits and artefacts from the British Museum, including treasures of Tutankhamun and Hatshepsut, and a prize exhibit, the mysterious canopic jar of Ibnhotep the Mad! Whether attending the Sterling-Homes Wedding Reception, the Society of Geological Sudies Annual Convention, or visiting the hotel because of the exhibition, all of the Investigators will have given tickets to see it and as the scenario begins, will be perusing its displays. However, as any good Call of Cthulhu player knows, almost nothing good can come of having Ancient Egyptian artefacts on display—and so it is with The Shadow Over Providence. Within minutes of it starting, it is lights out and away we go—a robbery, a bizarre and grizzly death, a crime to be investigated, abductions of guests and staff—and more… Just what is going on in Providence’s most famous hotel?

The opening scene of The Shadow Over Providence is actually tightly scripted, but this script sets everything up and does it with a bang—or a fusillade of bangs! Once the lights go on and the investigation, the likelihood is that the Investigators will be deputised by the local police and so will have permission to investigate the robbery and both the mundane and the outré deaths on the night. Barring a single excursion to the city’s morgue to examine one or more of the corpses that turn up during the scenario, The Shadow Over Providence is set within the confines of the Milton Hotel. There are actually just a few locations for them to investigate in the hotel and relatively few NPCs for them to interview, and the scenario will play out slightly differently and be more of a challenge if the Investigators are not deputised. So probably more like a traditional Call of Cthulhu scenario. 

Beyond the initial scenes, there are no set events in The Shadow Over Providence, meaning that at the same time as the Investigators carry out their efforts, the Keeper will be pushing events along with an expanding number of strange deaths and disappearances, including potentially, attacks upon the Investigators. There is a sense throughout that the Investigators and the hotel guests are being hunted and stalked through the halls and walls of the Milton Hotel, and despite the size of the building, there is a claustrophobic feel to The Shadow Over Providence. Ultimately, the Keeper will stage a confrontation between the Investigators and the antagonist, its nature depending upon the actions of the Investigators so far. This does mean that although the scenario is of a length and suitability to be run for inexperienced players or those new to Call of Cthulhu, the open structure of the scenarios mean that it better suited to be run by a more experienced Keeper.

One of the strengths of The Shadow Over Providence from the outset is that it can and does bring a diverse group of characters together to investigate the mystery at the heart of the scenario. The six pregenerated Investigators, for example, include a Sikh Psychiatrist from India, a New England elementary teacher, an African American journalist, a Moroccan artist, one of the hotel’s concierges, and the hotel handyman. One issue with these is that they do not have all of the skills listed in the checks throughout the scenario—Locksmith and Egyptian Hieroglyphs in particular. Neither issue is insurmountable should the Keeper allow her players some extra skills points with which to customise their Investigators. Were the players to create their own investigators, this might be less of an issue. Similarly, were the players to create their own investigators, they could also be of almost any background as long as they have a reason to be at the Milton Hotel—the scenario providing three already. That is, the wedding reception, the geology symposium, and of course, the Ancient Egyptian exhibition itself. Then, once the Investigators have successfully solved the mystery behind the horrid events that follow the opening of the exhibition, they have a reason to know each other and a reason to investigate similar mysteries. In this way, The Shadow Over Providence works  as a ‘Gateway’ scenario to further adventures and mysteries, just as much as it does a one-shot.

Should one of the Investigators die during the scenario, it is suggested that he be replaced by one of the NPCs. However, some of these NPCs have abilities more akin to those of Investigators created for Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos, so the Keeper might want to be careful in selecting which one she assigns to a player whose Investigator has been killed. Another issue is that one of the NPCs knows more about the attempted robbery than any other NPC. This probably makes that NPC unsuitable as a replacement Investigator, but the Keeper could actually develop the NPC into a full Investigator right from the off and include it amongst the starting Investigators. Doing so would add a degree of Investigator versus Investigator conflict to the play of The Shadow Over Providence, which could be entertaining if run as a convention scenario or for more veteran players.

Physically, The Shadow Over Providence is as cleanly laid out as you would expect for a Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, although it is in black and white rather than colour. It is generally well presented with suitable illustrations of Ancient Egyptian artefacts. The floorplans of the Milton Hotel are simple and clear, if small, and appropriately for the scenario, includes the air ducts. For all that the scenario is set in a real world location, it is a pity that none of the illustrations depict—if not the actual hotel the scenario’s Milton Hotel is supposed to be based upon, then of a similar hotel to help the Keeper describe the building to her players. Indicative of both the shortness of the scenario and the focus upon the diverse cast of Investigators is that half of The Shadow Over Providence is made up of the pregenerated Investigators.

After its opening action, The Shadow Over Providence settles down into a haunted house—‘haunted hotel’?—style scenario in which the Investigators are hunted as they themselves hunt for clues. This requires careful handling by the Keeper to maintain the pacing, but in the right hands The Shadow Over Providence delivers a solid balance of creepy investigation and scary action, whether as a one-shot or potential campaign starter.

It has been almost thirty years since there has been a roleplaying game set in the universe of the films Alien and Aliens, but that roleplaying game—the Aliens Adventure Game from Leading Edge Games—is primarily remembered for its complexity and emphasis upon combat over horror. That said, the publisher did produce Aliens, a highly effective treatment of the film which was also one of the earliest co-operative games. However, Free League Publishing, best known as the publisher of Mutant: Year Zero – Roleplaying at the End of Days and Tales from the Loop – Roleplaying in the ’80s That Never Was, obtained the licence and published Alien: The Roleplaying Game in 2019. Drawing from the films Alien, Aliens, Alien 3, and Prometheus, this explores the future of mankind in the late twenty-second century, where out on the frontiers of space, colonists scratch a living on barely terraformed worlds, starships towing mammoth refineries processing resources leave for the inner worlds with their crew in hibernation, corporations own and run worlds, rivalries between corporations escalate in cold wars and hot wars, and the United States Colonial Marine Corps attempts to keep the peace. Out on the frontier, in the coldness of space there are secrets too, some corporate, others unimaginably ancient, many of which will get you killed or kill you. There are rumours of old ruins, of impossible aliens, of lost colonies, and coverups—and maybe they will get a person killed too. This is the set-up for Alien: The Roleplaying Game, its future one of body horror, survival horror, corporate malfeasance, and worse…

The Alien Starter Set is designed as an introduction to the setting and the game. It comes richly appointed. Open up the deep box and you will find two sets of dice, a deck of cards, a large, double-sided poster map, two books—one a rulebook, the other a scenario, five pregenerated Player Characters, and a sheet of counters. Everything is done in a trade dress which evokes the Alien and Aliens milieu, muted blues and greens against a black star field, with superb fully painted artwork done by the same artist who illustrated Symbaroum. Essentially, the Alien Starter Set comes with everything that the Game Mother—as the Game Master is known in Alien: The Roleplaying Game—and five players need to enjoy their first experience of the horror setting and the roleplaying game’s mechanics.

The first of the books in the Alien Starter Set is the Rule Book. Now this is not the full rulebook, but the pared down version you would expect of a Starter Box. It introduces the setting and its history up until after the events of Alien 3, its themes—Space Horror and Sci-Fi Action, combined with a Sense of Wonder, and it explains the rules—skills, combat, panic and stress, and of course, xenomorphs. It also covers the types of characters that can be played and their associated campaign frameworks—Space Truckers, Colonial Marines, and Frontier Colonists. It also mentions Company Reps and Androids, both of which are playable using the full rules. Notably, it also explains the Alien: The Roleplaying Game can be played in one of two modes—Cinematic and Campaign mode. Cinematic mode is designed to emulate the drama of a film set within the Alien universe, and so emphasises high stakes, faster, more brutal play, and will be deadlier, whilst the Campaign mode is for longer play, still brutal, if not deadly, but more survivable. Of the two, the Cinematic mode is suited to one-shots, to convention play, and as introductions to the mechanics and setting of Alien: The Roleplaying Game. ‘Chariot of the Gods’, the scenario which comes in the Alien Starter Set, is written for the Cinematic mode.

Although the Rule Book in the Alien Starter Set does not include rules for creating characters, it explains what they are made of and how they work. A Player Character is defined by four attributes—Strength, Agility, Wits, and Empathy, each of which has three associated skills, for a total of twelve skills. For example, Heavy Machinery, Stamina, and Close Combat are associated with Strength, whilst Observation, Comtech, and Survival are associated with Wits. All skills also have stunts which come into play when a player rolls two or more successes in an action. A Player Character also has one or more Talents, essentially advantages that give him a benefit in addition to his skills. None are listed in the Rule Book in the Alien Starter Set, each of the pregenerated Player Characters in the Alien Starter Set has one.

In addition, a Player Character has a buddy and rival from amongst his fellow Player Characters—intended to create tensions and roleplaying opportunities; Personal Agendas—again to create tensions and roleplaying opportunities, but also to earn a player Story Points—which can be spent to gain automatic successes) for his Player Character; and both equipment and consumables. The latter consist primarily of air, food, and water, for whilst there are monsters—inhuman and human, out there on the frontier which will kill you, so will a lack of the right consumables.

Mechanically, Alien: The Roleplaying Game and the Alien Starter Set use the Year Zero engine first seen in Mutant: Year Zero – Roleplaying at the End of Days. The rules are light and fair quick, with dice rolls primarily intended for dramatic or difficult situations such as combat, hiding from a strange creature bent on doing unspeakable things to you, making repairs in a hurry, and so on. To have a Player Character undertake an action, a player rolls a number of Base dice equal to a combination of attribute and skill (or just attribute if the Player Character lacks the skill), aiming to roll one or more sixes. One result is enough to succeed, whilst extra successes can be used to purchase Stunts, like halving a task’s time or doing extra damage in combat. Although one Player Character can help another, the Alien: The Roleplaying Game—just like the films it is based upon—will involve conflicts between Player Characters as well as NPCs, especially when Personal Agendas clash, and where opposed rolls come into play from such situations, successes rolled by either side cancel each other out. If a Player Character fails, or wants to generate more successes, then his player can push the roll. Although this can only be done just the once for each roll, it can generate successes, but it also leads to the core mechanic in Alien: The Roleplaying Game—Stress (and panic)!

Stress in the Alien: The Roleplaying Game is designed to build and build over the course of a scenario, particularly in Cinematic mode. It is not gained just for pushing a roll, but also for firing a firearm in fully automatic mode, suffering damage, being attacked by a fellow crewman, when someone is revealed as an android, and so forth. For each level of Stress suffered by a Player Character, whenever that Player Character takes another action that requires dice to be rolled, his player not only rolls the Base dice as usual, he also rolls a Stress die. So, the more levels of Stress suffered by a Player Character, the more dice—Base dice and Stress dice—his player has to roll. This has both advantages and disadvantages. On the plus side, it increases the chances of rolling successes, but on the downside, any ones rolled have negative effects. First, they prevent the roll from being pushed; second, they trigger a Panic Roll. This requires the roll of a six-sided die plus the Player Character’s current Stress level. Results of six and below have no effect, but results of seven and above include a nervous twitch which increases everyone’s Stress level, dropping an item, immediately seeking cover, screaming, fleeing, going berserk, and more. Although rest and recuperation can reduce Stress, for the most part, over the course of a scenario, a Player Character’s Stress is going to grow and grow...

Combat in the Alien: The Roleplaying Game is designed to be straightforward, but with one or two tweaks to fit the setting. One of these is Stealth Mode, the initial state for any combat situation. This is designed to cover hidden movement by NPCs and other unknown threats, attempts to detect hidden movement and threats, and the like before actual combat occurs. The rules also cover Initiative—handled by draw of a card, rated between one and ten; actions—a Player Character receives a Fast Action and a Slow Action or two Fast Actions per turn; ranged and close combat; damage and critical injuries—the latter suffered when a Player Character’s Health is reduced to zero, some of them deadly; and Overwatch, the ability for trained soldiers to monitor a particular area and be ready to shoot when something happens within it. Other hazards covered in the Rule Book in the Alien Starter Set include starvation and dehydration, the cold vacuum of space, fire, explosions, disease, and more. The Rule Book ends with a surprisingly extensive list of guns and other equipment, the firearms in particular being illustrated.

In all of this, the Xenomorphs do get their own section. It amounts to half a page. This might seem to be somewhat sparse, but to be fair it is enough to run ‘Chariot of the Gods’, the scenario which comes in the Alien Starter Set. Plus the scenario has more detail about the threat it thrusts in the Player Characters’ way… Written by Science Fiction author, Andrew E.C. Gaska, ‘Chariot of the Gods’ written for Alien: The Roleplaying Game’s Cinematic mode. It falls into the ‘Space Truckers’ framework and is very much a Blue Collar Sci-Fi horror scenario, covering all of the themes of the setting and the roleplaying game—space horror and Sci-Fi action with both survival and body horror along with corporate malfeasance. Its fairly heavily plotted storyline  is supported with a combination of Personal Agendas and events that get increasingly horrifying as it progresses. Unlike the Rule Book in Alien Starter Set, it includes all of the details of the Xenomorph that the Game Mother will need, but this is by design and will obvious why once the Game Mother begins preparing the scenario. It should be noted that given the importance of Personal Agendas in Alien: The Roleplaying Game, ‘Chariot of the Gods’ really only works when all five pregenerated Player Characters are in play and it can benefit from the tensions and conflicts that their Personal Agendas will promote. Overall, this is a nasty one-shot which should provide one or two sessions of play and deliver a film-like plot.

Supporting both ‘Chariot of the Gods’ and Alien Starter Set, the box also includes a number of extras. These start with the two sets of dice—the Base dice and the Stress dice. Both are six-sided dice and there are ten of each. The six face of both the black Base dice and the yellow Stress dice is marked with a ‘blip’ or ‘ping’ a la the Motion Tracker of Alien and Aliens fame. When one of these is rolled during the game, it is counted as a success.  However, the one face of each Stress die is also marked with a Facehugger symbol. When one of these is rolled, it prevents a roll from being pushed as well as triggering a Panic Roll.

The five pregenerated Player Characters make up the crew of the USCSS Montero, the small cargo ship which appears in ‘Chariot of the Gods’. They are double-sided and include an illustration and background on the one side, and a filled in character sheet on the other. They are clear and easy to read.

The deck of cards consists of fifty-six cards. They include the ten Initiative cards and twelve Weapon cards, which can be used when playing any scenario or campaign of the Alien: The Roleplaying Game, whilst the remainder are tied into the ‘Chariot of the Gods’ scenario. These include ten NPC cards for the scenario and twenty-four Personal Agenda cards to be handed out as the plot progresses in the scenario. Lastly, the large foldout map, done on heavy paper stock, is also double-sided. On the one side it depicts the limits of explored space and on the other a full set of starship deck plans. This is designed for play, making use of the sheet of cardboard counters that includes USCMC marines, ship’s crew, Xenomorphs, ship counters, and status counters. One notable feature of the starship deck plans is that they include the ship’s vents—perfect for hidden movement and hunting monsters in the dark!

Physically, Alien Starter Set is superbly presented. The look and trade dress of the box and its contents screams Alien and Aliens to anyone who looks at it. Both books could have been shorter, yet the more spacious layout makes them much easier to read and digest. The cards and the pregenerated character sheets feel a little thin, and perhaps it would have been nice if the counters had been in more then the one colour. The poster map though, is pleasingly sturdy. The writing does a slight edit in places, but it is direct and to the point, getting across the dangerous and dystopic nature of the future of the twenty-second century and presenting the rules in a simple, easy-to-read, and easy-to-grasp fashion. The standard feature of the Alien Starter Set is the artwork, which is just stunning.

The Alien Starter Set does exactly what it should. It introduces the setting and explains the rules, before providing a playing experience within that setting. It does this very well and it does a good job of supporting all three of these objectives. However, the Alien Starter Set is for a licensed property and it has high production values—and both factors are reflected in the price. The Alien Starter Set does cost more than the average starter set. Yet once the Game Mother has run ‘Chariot of the Gods’, the Rule Book can easily serve as a ready reference guide for the rules at the table where it is likely to be more accessible than the Alien: The Roleplaying Game core rulebook. Both counters and the poster map can be used again, and there is no denying the utility of having more dice at the table. Further, future adventures could be run using the rules in the Alien Starter Set alone, especially if they come with pregenerated Player Characters and written for the Cinematic mode. 

The Alien Starter Set is an impressive introduction to the Alien: The Roleplaying Game. It not only looks fantastic, it also comes with everything necessary to deliver and roleplay a frighteningly nasty experience in the cold darkness of space where the horrors faced include the feared Xenomorphs and your fellow man.

Managed to get one last one in for October 2020.  And this one is rather perfect for this week.

The Craft: Legacy (2020)

This one was released to much fanfare online on Wednesday.

The movie begins with three witches, Lourdes (Zoey Luna), Franky (Gideon Adlon), and Tabby (Lovie Simone) trying to get their magic to work.  They lament the lack of their "fourth."

Enter Lily (newcomer Cailee Spaeny) and her mother Helen (the always wonderful Michelle Monaghan) moving to a new town and home to live with Helen's new boyfriend Adam (David Duchovny) and his three sons.   

From here the movie follows the same trajectory as the first Craft movie.  This is not an accident, nor is it sloppy writing.  There are a lot callbacks to the previous movie and a lot of nods.  When this movie comes to the point of climax of the previous movie it takes a turn. 

Spoilers follow.

The coven turns against Lily, not because they are abusing their power, but because she is.  They blame her for the death of Timmy. So the other members of the coven bind her and all of their powers.  

Before Timmy's funeral, Lily learns that she was adopted and she begins to suspect that Adam is not what he says he is.  We learn that Adam is some sort of warlock himself. He takes on Helen's form to get Lily to give him her powers.  When she refuses he decides to kill her.  While fighting she manages to freeze him revealing her powers were back and the other members of her coven were there.  Together they all manage to subdue and then eliminate Adam. 

The coven reconstituted Lily is taken to an institute to meet her biological mother, Nancy Downs from the first movie.  Yes, Fairuza Balk makes a cameo as Nancy. 

So. Yeah not quite as scary as the first, but it also keeps it open for future sequels.  There is the question of Adam and what he was doing all over the world.  There was certainly a vibe of "Warlocks vs. Witches" implied here.  I was expecting more horror given this is a Blumehouse flick. 

In truth, I rather enjoyed it even with its lack of real horror.  Nice nod to the first while moving ahead on its own path.

NIGHT SHIFT Content:  My NIGHT SHIFT co-author Jason Vey also watched this movie a couple of days ago and agrees it would make for a very fun NIGHT SHIFT setting. So expect to see some more from either or both of us on this. 

Watched: 60
New: 41

And that is it. Another October Horror Challenge in the bag. 60 total movies, 41 new. I am already looking at the movies for next year.