Witchcraft Wednesday Edition

In most games, when the party gathers for the first time, there's a fairly straightforward motive: treasure, fame, glory, revenge. Maybe they’re trying to save their village. Maybe they just need to pay off a bar tab. Whatever the case, the classic adventurer is easy to motivate. Dangle gold or justice in front of them, and they’ll go down into the dungeon willingly.

But witches and warlocks?

Their motives tend to be… different.

“She didn’t go into the ruins for gold. She went looking for the name she saw in her dreams.”

 - page, recovered from the bog near Meirath’s Hollow

Witches often aren’t chasing wealth. They might live in crumbling cottages or vine-covered towers filled with tea, bones, and books. They have what they need. Their magic doesn’t come from loot, it comes from knowing. From power earned through pacts, practices, and pain.

When a witch goes on a journey, it’s usually because something has shifted in the world:

• The stars have changed their alignment.
• A long-forgotten spirit has begun to whisper again.
• A charm buried under a tree has broken.
• A name has been spoken that should not have been known.

Their motive isn’t external. It’s internal, symbolic, spiritual. Sometimes it’s not even clear to them at first. But they feel it. A pull. A path. The wind shifts through the birches in a different way, and suddenly she knows it’s time to move.

Warlocks, too, have unique motives, but theirs are often tied to obligation.

 Their power comes at a cost, after all. And sometimes that cost is paid in quests, souls, or favors. Maybe they heard their patron whisper something in their sleep. Maybe they found a rune etched into the frost on their window and knew they had to follow it. Or maybe they have no choice. Maybe the pact has come due.

That’s the thing about occult characters in fantasy RPGs: their motives aren’t lesser or greater than the standard adventurer’s, they’re just deeper. More tangled in the weird threads of fate and prophecy and intuition. Sometimes they’ll ride alongside the party for gold and steel and good company, but eventually, something will pull them off the path. And that’s when the story really begins.

So next time a witch joins your adventuring party, ask her why she’s there.

 If she tells you it’s for gold, she’s lying.

 She already knows something’s coming.

 She just doesn’t want to be the only one standing when it arrives.

Questions

How. Optimistic. Accessory.

Hmm. How does a particular accessory keep you optimistic? 

As I mentioned yesterday, I often take the point of view of the characters. A while back, I got some art done of Larina. I don't remember which one it was, but around her waist she wore chain and it was threaded with dragon teeth. I had asked for a dragon tooth charm, and that is what I got back. I like to trust the artists with their vision, and this was a good choice. In my games from that point, it was a "charm" she wore to provide protection. While mechanically it added to her saving throws, I said it was something that gave her hope. She could collect all these dragon teeth and know she helped defeat those monsters, so whatever challenge was next, she could handle. 

https://www.autocratik.com/ • https://www.castingshadowsblog.com/

 "Before the first cleric lifted a holy symbol, before the first wizard penned a scroll, they were already here, gathering in moonlight."

- From the Journal of Larina Nix

A lot of what goes into the assumptions of D&D, or really any fantasy RPG, is that there were once glorious empires (or terrible ones), long before the current age. Civilizations rose, ruled, and collapsed. Names were lost. Gods were forgotten. Ruins now dot the land like scars on old skin. And the heroes of today walk through the bones of that forgotten world, looting what little wisdom and gold remains.

It’s a familiar formula. And it works. Even the Greeks did it with the Egyptians, and that’s where some of the myth of Atlantis comes from, trying to make sense of a culture already ancient when theirs was young.

We build that same idea into our games.

Why does this dungeon have magic no wizard understands?  Why is this sword sealed behind twelve runes in a language no one speaks?  Why are there pyramids on this island when no one remembers building them?

Because something came before.

 And whatever it was, it was older, deeper, and probably stranger.

But for me, “Ancient” doesn’t always mean “a thousand years ago.” Sometimes it means before memory. Before civilization. Before the gods got organized.

When Larina speaks of “they,” she means the ones who practiced the old ways before spells had names and magic had schools. The ones who made offerings in stone circles, who brewed potions by feel, who danced naked in the moonlight, not because it was part of a ritual, but because that was the ritual.

They didn’t even call themselves witches. They didn’t call themselves anything. They were simply those who knew.

And sometimes… still do.

That’s one of the things I love about Wasted Lands: The Dreaming Age.

 It flips the paradigm. The world isn’t ancient yet, but you’re playing in the mythic past that future bards will whisper about. You are the ancients, carving out the foundations of legend. The ruined towers in your 5e game? Yeah, maybe your hero built one of those. Or destroyed it. Or died there.

There’s a strange beauty to playing in the age before the age. You’re not unearthing forgotten relics, you’re making them.

And for witches, who remember too much and live too long, every new age is just another layer of dust on a story that began long before gods had names.

Questions

How. Contemplative. Character.

I often will contemplate what a bit of writing means from the point of view of the characters, or a specific character. With the quote above, I often view my witch writing from the point of view of the witches in the game. Like Larina or Emse or Amaranth. When doing my Forgotten Realms reviews I'll often take the point of view of the characters in that. Moria, Jaromir, or Sinéad.

It helps me get immersed in what the world looks like to those in it.

https://www.autocratik.com/ • https://www.castingshadowsblog.com/

Much like the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition and the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, The Companions of Arthur is a curated platform for user-made content, but for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon. It enables creators to sell their own original content for use with Pendragon, Sixth Edition. This can be original scenarios, background material, alternate Arthurian settings, and more, but none of this content should be considered to be ‘canon’, but rather fall under ‘Your Pendragon Will Vary’. This means that there is still scope for the authors to create interesting and useful content that others can bring to their Pendragon campaigns.

—oOo—
What is the Nature of the Quest?The Love and Labours of Sir Cauline is a scenario for use with Pendragon, Sixth Edition. It is primarily designed to be played using its four pre-generated Player Characters.

It is inspired by the traditional folksong, Sir Cawline.

It is a full colour, forty-eight page, 74.89 MB PDF.

The layout is tidy, though it does need a slight edit.
Where is the Quest Set?The Love and Labours of Sir Cauline is a scenario for Pendragon, Sixth Edition. It can be set in any year, ideally after 515 CE, at Pentecost (or Whitsun), in late May. Due to the traditional activities its events celebrate, it should also ideally take place near Cooper’s Hill, at Brockworth near Gloucester, England.
Who should go on this Quest?
As written, the four pre-generated Player Characters should be used to play The Love and Labours of Sir Cauline, one of whom is Sir Cauline of the title. He can be roleplayed if there is only one player, but others include a squire, a household knight, and an ex-knight, now friar.

If the scenario is played in more traditional fashion, there is no limit upon the type of Player-knight that can be played. Knights with a strong Spiritual Trait, the skills of Religion (Christian), Religion (Pagan), and Folklore will have an advantage in certain situations. Skills associated with courtship will also be very useful for any Player-knight involved in the romance at the heart of the scenario.

What does the Quest require?
The Love and Labours of Sir Cauline requires the Pendragon, Sixth Edition Core Rulebook and the Pendragon: Gamemaster’s Handbook.

Where will the Quest take the Knights?
In The Love and Labours of Sir Cauline, the Player-knights travel to Aldric castle, home to King Aleric and Queen Gwendoline, as well as their daughter, the Lady Christabelle, in order to celebrate Pentecost. There are opportunities to worship, feast, and enjoy the peasant activities. Any Player Character who is not a knight may even join in, including even a cheese-rolling contest! However, Sir Cauline is soon not be seen, taken to his bed in deep melancholy as the Lady Christabelle is the subject of his deep adoration. This requires some directed roleplaying upon the part of Sir Cauline’s player, but he should soon perk up when the Lady Christabelle suggests some deeds of arms to prove himself worthy. This is to face the Eldrige Knight on Eldrige Hill and return with the thorn atop the hill. If he is successful, the romance between the Lady Christabelle and Sir Cawline begins to blossom, but faces several hurdles in the coming days. This includes revenge, treachery, and promises tested, plus there is scope to extend the scenario and add labours of love as well.
The scenario is very nicely detailed and shows how to play out a romance and its difficulties. The primary problem is that this means that it focuses upon Sir Cawline and his relationship with the Lady Christabelle, so that the other Player Characters are not as intrinsic to the plot and despite using pre-generated Player Characters, it does not make The Love and Labours of Sir Cauline a good demonstration scenario and it is certainly too long to be run as a convention scenario. This is also means that as strictly written, the scenario is not particularly suitable to be run as a campaign.
However, the scenario could be run as part of campaign without any of the pre-generated Player Characters if a Player-knight has developed an Adoration for an NPC whom he is not quite of sufficient station to marry, thus having to prove himself worthy of the NPC’s affection. In this way, The Love and Labours of Sir Cauline could be run to place a particular Player-knight in the spotlight or as an adventure separate to the main campaign with even just the one Player-knight involved.
Should the Knights ride out on this Quest?The Love and Labours of Sir Cauline is an engagingly detailed scenario that gives time for ardor to be proven and a romance to develop as told in the folksong that inspired it. However, as written its set-up is quite restraining given its primary focus upon the one Player-knight, limiting its usefulness. With some adjustments upon the part of the Game Master this need not be the case and it could prove to be a worthy addition to a campaign.

 Monstrous Monday Edition

It’s a quiet night in the tavern (for yesterday!)

The fire has burned low. The regulars have stumbled home. The bard’s stopped playing and is asleep in the stables. Just you, your companions, the dregs of your drinks, and a few moments of rare peace.

Then the door creaks open and a message arrives.

Not a letter. Not a scroll. Not a pigeon with a satchel. 

A thing, bone-thin, cloaked in rags that hang like wet skin, with eyes like coins held too long in the mouth. It doesn’t speak. It simply places something on the table and turns to leave.

What did it leave behind?

That’s the start of the adventure I’m working on.

See, I’ve always loved the idea that not all messengers are human, or even alive. Some messages come from older places, places where ink isn’t used and paper doesn’t burn. Where secrets aren’t written so much as bound. And sometimes, the thing carrying the message doesn’t even understand it. It’s just a vessel. A warning. A test.

This whole adventure started with that moment:

 A creature. A message. A choice.

What do you do when something too old to name brings you a letter with your name on it?

What if the wax seal bears a symbol you saw once in a dream you forgot?

What if the ink moves when no one’s looking?

What if you break the seal and something breaks back?

The message in this case? It’s not a quest hook. Not exactly.

It’s a summons.

Something ancient remembers you.

And it’s time to remember it back.

That’s the thread I’m pulling on right now, something I’m weaving into the adventure that begins at the most clichéd tavern I could dream up. I want the players to laugh at the trope… until it gets quiet… and the thing at the door isn’t part of the trope anymore.

It’s part of the world.

And now, so are they.

Questions

When. Grateful. Genre.

When was I grateful for a particular genre? Hmm. I think that would have to be when I approached Christopher Golden about collaborating on a Buffy adventure for Eden Studios, and he instead asked me if I knew Victorian/Gothic horror. I stepped up and said I was practically an expert! I wasn't, I was just an enthusiastic fan, but it worked and that is one of the reasons why we all have Ghosts of Albion now.

https://www.autocratik.com/ • https://www.castingshadowsblog.com/

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—
Name: The HaunterPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Joshua S. Vallejo

Setting: Jazz Age BaltimoreProduct: Outline
What You Get: Twenty-seven page, 2.94 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: What if the Investigators failed both ‘The Haunting’ and ‘Of Wrath and Blood’?Plot Hook: Walter J. Corbitt lives!Plot Support: Staging advice, six NPCs, sixteen handouts, one map, six Mythos artefacts, thirteen Mythos & occult tomes, & four Mythos entitiesProduction Values: Plain
Pros# Sequel to a sequel, Of Wrath and Blood, sequel to the classic, ‘The Haunting’# Turns the ‘The Haunting’ into a trilogy# One half-investigation, one half-bloody battle# Atychiphobia# Cloacaphobia# Coimetrophobia
Cons# Sequel to a sequel, Of Wrath and Blood, sequel to the classic, ‘The Haunting’# Turns the ‘The Haunting’ into a trilogy
# Really, really encourages the Investigators to arm up for ghouls
Conclusion# Absolutely only necessary of the Investigators failed both ‘The Haunting’ and ‘Of Wrath and Blood’# Assault on the Chapel of Contemplation

 I’ve been working on an adventure for a little while now, off and on, between other projects, late at night when inspiration strikes and I let myself go back to being just a DM for a while.

And yes, I’m going to start it in a tavern.

 Not a mysterious tower. Not a burning village. Not a cosmic rift in the sky.

 A tavern. 

(ok, to be fair, all those other things are going to show up as well.)

And not just any tavern.

 The most clichéd, wood-paneled, hearth-warmed, ale-soaked, smoke-filled tavern you’ve ever seen. There’s a fire in the hearth, a surly dwarf in the corner, a nervous man with a hood who keeps checking the door, and a barmaid named Tilly who’s much more than she seems.

Why? Because I love it.

We’ve spent the last few decades trying to subvert the tropes, and that’s good; it keeps things fresh. But sometimes, I just want to embrace the classic feel. I want it to smell like spilled beer and pipe smoke and wet cloaks. I want the players to know the adventure is starting the moment they walk through that door.

This adventure I’m writing is a bit of an homage. It draws from the games I played in high school and college, when our graph paper was full of hastily drawn rooms and our taverns were, honestly, just ways to get the party together before we threw owlbears or goblins at them. But those games mattered. And I want to recapture that feeling. Not just nostalgia, but the invitation that those early games always offered:

You are here. The world is waiting. What will you do next?

Writing this for others, though, is a whole different challenge. I’ve written plenty of adventures for my own groups, messy, notes-in-the-margins kind of things. But polishing it up for other DMs? That’s a skill I’m re-learning.

And I still need a name for the tavern itself. Something that feels like it could exist in any D&D world, just off a dirt road outside of town. The kind of place travelers mutter about and locals warn you not to drink the green stuff.

No idea what the name is yet, but I’ll figure it out.

For now, the fire’s warm, the mugs are full, and someone just walked through the door who shouldn’t be here.

Got a good name for me?

Questions

Who. Envious. Accessory. 

Back in the day, I was always envious of the guys who had lead minis AND could do a good job of painting them. Back then (1980s) gaming dollars were tight and lead minis were rare and an expense I could never justify. 

Today I am drowning in minis. Plastic minis are so much cheaper and I can get them pre-painted, printed in color, hire people to pain them, have my wife paint them (something she loves to do), or most recently, paint them myself. I am rather terrible at it to be honest, but looking to my left and my two most recent ones I can say I am getting better. Better than I ever thought I would be.

https://www.autocratik.com/ • https://www.castingshadowsblog.com/

It was always feared that avian influenza—or bird flu—would be the one to get us. Despite numerous outbreaks over the past few decades, the world has been lucky. No worldwide bird flu pandemic. Instead, it was a coronavirus—COVID-19—that did for us, killing millions between 2019 and 2022, and forcing the world into a series of lockdowns that brought societies to a halt. In the world of Chew, it was bird flu that killed one hundred millions, including twenty-three million in the USA. In response the US government banned chicken and other poultry and like the War on Terror declared war on terrorism and sponsors of terrorism, declared war on all fowl. It poured billions of dollars into the funding of both the U.S. Food and Drug Agency (FDA) and the U.S. Dairy and Agriculture Administration (USDA), weaponizing both of them, and taking the FDA’s Special Crimes Division with investigating all food-related crimes, especially those connected to the farming, smuggling, and selling of chicken. Narcotics are not so much of a problem in the world of Chew, when there is more money to be made from dealing in chicken and terrorists with other issues will farm and smuggle them to fund their activities. Tony Chu, former Philadelphia police detective, is an agent for the FDA, not just a highly dedicated agent, but also a ‘cibopath’, which means he psychically reads the history of anything he bites—where it has been, who touched it, what is in it, and so on. It helps him with his investigations, but it also means that eating is not something he and others with his gift can enjoy. Chew is a sixty-issue comic published by Image Comics between 2009 and 2016 and the winner of numerous comic book awards during its run.

Chew: The Roleplaying Game, ‘A Foodie Crime Drama Roleplaying’, is the roleplaying adaptation published by Imagining Games following a successful Kickstarter campaign. It is a police procedural in which the core concept, best described as ‘Poultry Prohibition’, so think Elliot Ness, but with chickens, is the least weird thing about it. There is also cannibal crime, gourmet grievances, DNA dereliction, cockfighting capers, and a whole lot more. And when that is not enough, there is office politics, inter-agency rivalries, and the complicated home lives of the agents to deal with. Chew: The Roleplaying Game is a ‘Forged in the dark’ roleplaying game, meaning that it uses the rules first seen in Blades in the Dark and is a narrative roleplaying game with an emphasis on investigation. Its play is intended to be built around a ‘Conspiracy Board’, complete with different coloured sticky notes, connected, of course, by string, which the players and their characters can follow and amend to track their current case, combined with the use of Progress Clocks to track time, challenges, danger, and more.

The Player Characters are built around a set of Playbooks. These are ‘The Expert’, ‘The Hotshot’, ‘The Inspector’, ‘The Lowlife’, ‘The Mascot’, ‘The Prodigy’, ‘The Veteran’, and ‘The Wronged’. These are all derived from the comic book series. A Player Character has four attributes. These are Charm, Guts, Instinct, and Training, and they are rated between one and three. He also has three ‘Approaches’, traits representing physical or personality traits. These are all food-related. For example, ‘100% Raw’ means that the Player Character cannot tell a lie, whilst ‘Sunny Side Up’ means that you are always, always positive about life. These will affect the ‘Position’ and ‘Effect’ of any action a Player Character takes. Then there is the Player Character’s Quirk, his special power, like Tony Chu’s cibopathy. Suggestions include ‘USDAnimal’, a specially-trained cybernetic animal assigned to partner a USA special agent and serve as a Wi-Fi hotspot, being an actual cyborg, being a celebrity of some kind, having undergone some special training, and so on. Some are detailed, but players are allowed to create and name their own, with a table being provided for this. Perks represent a Player Character’s skills and are provided by the Playbook, whilst his Appetite Dice, refreshed at the start of each new case, can be spent to improve the action roll of any Player Character, to make a Resistance roll, to propose a flashback, or to grab an unscheduled break. Trouble will bring the Player Character intermittent difficulties, suggested categories including Debt, Family, Secret, Rivalry, Romance, and Vice. Over the long term, a Player Character can overcome his Trouble and ‘Stick a Fork in it’, but will then acquire a new Trouble. A Trouble has three dice of its own, which can be spent to reroll a failed Action roll, but means he automatically acquires a Condition and a worse Position.

Creating a Player Character involves choosing three Approaches, a Playbook, two Perks from the Playbook, detailing the Playbook’s Gear, and picking a Job. Three Attribute points are assigned in addition to the one provided by the Playbook. A Quirk is selected and lastly, a look is defined for the Player Character. Tables of Approaches and Quirks are provided that the player can choose from or roll on.

Our sample Player Character is Zillah Murgia, a scientist renowned for her study of the industrial properties of the hyperbolic paraboloid in age of food terrorism. Her brilliance is offset by an unpleasant manner instilled in her by an equally bitter, if not more so, mother, who to this day, claims that her daughter will amount to nothing, and a know-it-all attitude. At the age of fifty-four, Zillah still lives at home with her mother after a failed marriage, and to keep her mother happy, still wears what her mother suggests and gets her hair cut the same way. This does nor make her mother happy. After graduating from Harvard, Zillah attended graduate school. Unfortunately, her arrogance and unpleasantness antagonised the faculty and they attempted to persuade her to leave, which only made her more bitter and feeling further betrayed. Zillah typically found that a bowl of soup seemed to change the mind of whatever member of the faculty was sent to inform her and if that did not quite work, the hint afterwards that Zillah would go to H.R. seemed to solve the problem for her. After getting her PH.D., Zillah was asked to leave Harvard, but was quietly given a letter of recommendation, a pattern that has seen her bounce from one Ivy League college after another. Currently, she is permanent sabbatical from Dartmouth College where she has tenure and is working for the FDA to do something other spend more time with her mother.

Zillah Murgia
PLAYBOOK: The Expert
JOB: FDA Egghead

ATTRIBUTES
Charm 0 Guts 1 Instinct 1 Training 2

APPROACHES
Lemonhead – Cynical and leaves a sour taste in people’s mouths
Egg Head – Tried and True Nerd
Bitter – Holds a grudge

PERKS
Knowledge Bomb
Think Tank

QUIRKS
Donepulmentar – Onlookers lust after you when you slurp soup

GEAR
Tools of the Trade, A Goddamn PH.D., Portable Lab, Sat-Link, Tenure

LOOK
How your mother would dress as a Federal Agent

Mechanically, to have his character undertake an action or attempt to gather information, a player rolls a number of dice equal to the appropriate attribute, plus any bonus dice from special action or perks. The Gourmet Master sets the Position and Effect—abbreviated to ‘PEE’—for the Action Roll. The Position represents the Threat Level, ranging from zero and ‘No Risk’ to three and ‘Nuts’, and determines how many consequences a Player Character will suffer if the roll is failed. Whereas, the Effect level is the reward, ranging from zero or ‘None’ to three and ‘Great’. The Effect can be narrative or it can advance a Progress Clock. Only the highest result is counted. A roll of six is a success, a roll of four or five is a mixed result or a result with Consequences, and a roll of one, two, or three is a bad outcome. A critical roll is made if more than a single six is rolled, whilst a fumble occurs on a roll of one when the Position is ‘Nuts’. Consequences can result in complications, a worse position, lost opportunity, and/or Conditions. There are four Conditions and they apply directly to a Player Character’s Attributes. These will make a Player Character’s Position for an Action Roll worse and if a Player Characters all four, he suffers a Knock Out. Consequences can be withstood by making a Resistance Roll, which requires the expenditure of Appetite Dice, and if they are all used up, a Player Character will also suffer a Knock Out and Burnout, meaning he will also permanently lose one of his Appetite Die.

All of this is player-facing, that is, the players make the rolls rather the Gourmet Master. This applies to combat too, the NPCs acting as consequence of the rolls and decisions made by the players, and then the players making Action or Resistance in response. The players are encouraged to add to the narrative as much as the Gourmet Master—and use as much food-based terminology as they can when doing so, and whilst the rules look more complex than they actually are, they are quite straightforward. It also helps that the book includes plenty of examples, including a thirty-four page example of play.

Play and investigation of a Case is structured into three phases. These consist of ‘Off Duty’, where the Player Characters’ can be explored away from an active case or their jobs; ‘Investigation’ beginning with a briefing and then continuing with the search for the case’s three key details in an attempt to crack the case; and the ‘Action Phase’ where the perpetrators are caught or identified. The three phases are followed by a ‘Debriefing’, which can be both in game and out.

For the Gourmet Master there is a breakdown of a Case File and how to create one, backed up with a table of crime names and tables to generate random crimes, as well as advice on handling and resolving the investigation, handling conspiracies, unscheduled breaks, and more. All covering the game play’s core phases. The background covers both the FDA and USDA as employers of the Player Characters, and advice on how to portray their boss. Numerous factions are detailed and categorised according to the threat they pose to the Player Characters, from Tier I and limited influence to Tier V and possessing global influence. For example, a Tier I threat might be the Crime Alley Ramblers and the Philly Goths, whilst an Amazon Necromantic Death Cult and the Chicken Colonels are Tier II. All of these factions are nicely detailed, with their typical looks, possible Clocks, assets, notable NPCs, allies and enemies, and so on. Some eighty or so factions are detailed in this fashion. Various places of interest, again drawn from the comic book, are also detailed, including their first appearance, locations, notable details and reasons to go there, possible NPCs and scenes, and these together with the earlier descriptions of the main characters from the comic book and the multiple factions, the Chew: The Roleplaying Game serves as a decent sourcebook for the comic book.

Rounding out the Chew: The Roleplaying Game are two scenarios. This is in addition to a couple of case file descriptions slotted earlier into the book which could be adapted for play by the Gourmet Master. The first scenario is ‘Over an Open Flame’ by Banana Chan’ in which the Player Characters have to solve the kidnapping of reality television chefs to make them cook over an open volcano whilst in Bridgett Jefferies’ ‘Thigh Man, Thigh Man’, the Player Characters have to identify and track down the mysterious prankster who has been breaking into the homes of FDA agents and broadcasting from there. This offers the opportunity for the Gourmet Master to play lots of tricks and pranks on the Player Characters, increasingly frustrating them. The Player Characters are ‘Rogue Agents’, recognising something of the prankster’s escapades and in investigating and potentially capturing him, perhaps proving themselves to be FDA agents once again. Both scenarios are entertaining, both are spiced with food puns aplenty, and both coming with plenty of cooking tips, as the advice for Gourmet Master is called.

Physically, Chew: The Roleplaying Game is a frenzy of vibrant colour and action, liberally illustrated with artwork from the comic book, alongside what is actually quite a lot of text. In places it does feel dense and lean towards being overwritten, the numerous examples and the extended example of play very much serve to counter this. What this means is that Chew: The Roleplaying Game is actually a lot simpler than it first looks.

Chicken is kind of an everyman kind of food, a meat whose flavour and texture lends itself to a multitude of ingredients, herbs, and recipes, giving a great flexibility, whereas Chew: The Roleplaying Game is very much not that. It is specifically designed to handle the weird zaniness and wacky action depicted in the comic, a world of taco terrorism, food fears given form, alien invasive plants, cannibal crime, but definitely, definitely not vampires. Which means unlike the ubiquity of chicken, it is not a roleplaying game that is going to appeal to everyone and it definitely pays to have read the comics. Of course, fans of the comic will definitely want to get their teeth into Chew: The Roleplaying Game, and they will find generous servings of everything they enjoyed about Chew.

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

—oOo—
Fragments of Fear: The Second Cthulhu Companion was published in 1985. It was the second supplement for Call of Cthulhu, a roleplaying game which in its forty-year history has had relatively few supplements compared to the number of campaigns and scenario anthologies. Following on from its forebear, Cthulhu Companion – Ghastly adventures & Erudite Lore, which was published in 1983, it brings together a collection of essays and scenarios, some of which are drawn from the pages of Different Worlds, providing the Keeper with source material and extra scenarios, all set within the classic period of the Jazz Age. In comparison to the Cthulhu Companion, this second volume is noticeably slimmer, being forty-eight pages in length whereas the Cthulhu Companion is sixty-four pages.
Behind its gripping cover, Fragments of Fear opens with what almost feels like an editorial from Sandy Petersen. It is interesting to note that that the planned revision for Investigator creation for Call of Cthulhu, Second Edition had not been adopted since it was time consuming and spread an Investigator’s skill points too thinly. He added some errata from the Cthulhu Companion, but in particular, noted that as of time of writing (June, 1985), Call of Cthulhu was continuing to grow and prosper. By this time, Chaosium, Inc. had published nine books for the line and various licensees had published another six. That included two solo adventures, Alone Against the Wendigo (since republished as Alone Against the Frost) and Alone Against the Dark, and three campaigns, Shadows of Yog-Sothoth, Masks of Nyarlathotep, and The Fungi from Yuggoth. Apart from the Cthulhu Companion, the rest were scenario anthologies, as were those from the licensees.
In terms of content, the bulk of Fragments of Fear is written by Sandy Petersen. The actual gaming content begins with ‘Call of Cthulhu Questions Answered’, the equivalent of an F.A.Q. by Sandy Petersen. This does what it says, answering and explaining three different aspects of the rules that require further clarification. They consist of “Why does it take so long to read a Cthulhu Mythos book?”, “How Do I Learn a Language in Call of Cthulhu?”, and “Why Can’t My Investigator Get ‘Used-To’ Seeing Common Types of Monsters?”. These look very familiar, having been asked and answered multiple times over the forty-year history of Call of Cthulhu, most notably in the highly regarded The Keeper’s Companion Vol. 1. Familiarity though, does not negate the usefulness of the questions or the answers, but rather highlighting their relative complexity compared to the rest of the rules.
‘Mythos Comparative SIZes’ provides the weight equivalency in pounds and tones from SIZ 1 to SIZ 330, so if the Keeper wants to know how much Great Cthulhu weighs, it is roughly 950 tons! It complements another feature in Fragments of Fear and that is the ‘Size Comparisons’ foldout that appears in the centre of the book. Four pages long (plus a half page nearby), this shows how various entities of the Cthulhu Mythos, from Mighty Cthulhu, a Star-Spawn of Cthulhu, and Ithaqua to a Star Vampire, Gug, and in the background, a Large Dhole, compare in size to the average Human. The artwork is all done as silhouettes as per the cutout standees provided in the Call of Cthulhu core boxed set. The result though is both useful and silly, many of them of such behemothic size that actual SIZ does not matter.
Flavour and verisimilitude comes in the form of Sandy Petersen’s ‘Ritual Curses’. Whether an ‘Excommunication Ritual by Pope Clement VI’ or an ‘Ancient Egyptian Curse to Inflict Catalepsy or Death’, these are delightful inspiration for the Keeper and thoroughly deserve to be inflicted upon the Investigators in one form or another. It continues with ‘On the Ubiquity of Cthulhu’ by William Hamblin, which is itself a continuation of his translation [sic] of the Bulgarian scholar, Phileus P. Sadowsky’s ‘Further Notes on the Necronomicon’ from the Cthulhu Companion. It examines the linguistic appearance of Cthulhu in a variety of languages, including Hebrew, Arabic, and Sanskrit. Though short it lends itself to a linguistic underpinning of a global campaign against various cults dedicated to Cthulhu, especially in conjunction with the first article. Obviously, such a campaign would need a fair degree of effort, but together there two articles have potential.
Elsewhere, there is a map of Innsmouth, but perhaps the most useful inclusion in Fragments of Fear is ‘A Cthulhu Grimoire’, in which Sandy Petersen collates all of the spells from the nine supplements, campaigns, and anthologies so far then published by Chaosium. Some of these are very specific, such as Call the Beast from The Fungi from Yuggoth and Curse of the Stone from The Asylum & Other Tales, but there are many spells here that are regarded as classics of the roleplaying game, such as Cloud Memory, Consume Likeness, Flesh Ward, and Wither Limb. He also adds stats for numerous creatures and Mythos entities. First with ‘Lions and Tigers and Bears, etc.’, which adds a mix of big, dangerous, but mundane animals’, whilst ‘New Mythos Deities, Races, and Monsters’ gives stats and descriptions of entities including Bast, Doaloth, Glaaki and its servants, Insects from Shaggai, and Beings From Xiclotl, these entries making their first appearance here for Call of Cthulhu.
There are two scenarios in Fragments of Fear, one short, one long. The first, the uncredited ‘The Underground Menace’, originally appeared in Different Worlds Issue 19, runs to four pages and is set in northern Michigan, on the shores of Lake Superior. The area around the town of Winnemuck, has been beset by earthquakes, despite not being seismically active and the Investigators are hired to investigate. However, there is little investigation to really do, as even the townsfolk will reluctantly point out the likely cause, Bill Whittaker, who was run out of town a while back. With no other leads, the Investigators trek out into the deep woods and there confront him, making the awful discovery that he has transformed into a Ghoul and is about to summon something awful out of the woods in an effort to spread the influence of Cthulhu. Unfortunately, the only solution offered is a fight and that is against a very nasty opponent and the thing that he summoned. If the Investigators do not come armed for bear, they are going to find this a daunting encounter to survive. Perhaps the best part of this scenario is dealing with the scared townsfolk of Winnemuck, but overall, this is an underwhelming scenario that presents a tough challenge that the players and their Investigators are unlikely to be prepared for, and if they do survive, rewards the Investigators with some surprisingly high Sanity bonuses.
The second scenario is ‘Valley of the Four Shrines’. Written by Bob Heggie, at seventeen pages, it takes up the last third of the supplement. It is a rare scenario set in Africa outside of Egypt, taking place in the Belgian Congo. It begins with the discovery of a map and a few pages of a journal that falls out of a copy of Unausprechlichen Kulten in the Investigators’ possession. Both are written in German and describe a journey to a location identified as the ‘Valley of the Gods’, entered via the carved maw of a statue of Great Cthulhu. The scenario details the journey to this location via Cape Town in South Africa to the seaport of Banana, and from there up the Congo River to Leopoldville via various methods as travel along the river is blocked by multiple cataracts. Passing through several villages, the Investigators will reach the statue described in the journal and enter its maw. This leads into the valley of the title. The valley is infested with zombies, although they are magically constrained from certain paths and from entering the village at the head of the valley. The villagers fear and worship the zombies, which together with their awareness of the Mythos, means that they could be described as cultists. Yet they are not evil, but are in general, very happy with their lot and surprisingly benign in outlook.
Further exploration of the valley reveals several locations of note. One appears to float above the Lake of the Gods that dominates the valley. This is the very top of a Great Race city, one that collapsed millions of year before and now lies below the waters of the lake. Described as a floating temple, the only thing of note it contains is a member of the Great Race who has survived in stasis from since before the city’s destruction at the hands of the Flying Polyps, one of which lurks in the valley walls. It is possible, but very difficult, to communicate with this surviving member of the Great Race, and although the Investigators might gain its help against the Flying Polyp, what form this aid might take is left up to the Keeper’s imagination to determine. The other four are the shrines of the scenario’s title, in turn dedicated to Cthulhu, Cthugha, Hastur (or ‘He Who is Not to Be Named’), and an unknown Great Old One. These four are all identical offering a variety of strange effects and experiences and magical gewgaws that are best left untouched. Although it is very far obvious, destroying these shrines is the only way in the scenario to regain any lost Sanity.
‘Valley of the Four Shrines’ is problematic in many ways and fails to answer any questions that the Keeper and her players might have. The first of which is, “Why?” Apart from being set in the Belgian Congo and offering the opportunity for the Investigators to visit the remnants of a Great Race, why would the Keeper even run this scenario? The Investigators will only have an inkling of what might be found there, so why would they make the dangerous trek into the jungles of deepest Africa? The scenario certainly does not offer any suggestions and barring the possibility of aiding or hampering a coup d’état in a village the Investigators pass through, the scenario is completely devoid of any plot or story. It does not help that the author of the journal, Mannheim Dorffman, is left completely undescribed and that one person mentioned in that journal shares the surname with an NPC that the Investigators can meet, but no connection is made between the two. Thus, leaving the Keeper to wonder if there is something missing from the scenario or if the name is a pure coincidence.
The depiction of the inhabitants of various villages is mostly transactional and those outside the villages hostile, whilst beyond the dangers and details of journey up the Congo river, including an extensive list of encounters, the description of the Belgian Congo is non-existent. It would be a little rich to expect details of the terrible colonial history of the Belgian Congo, but there is nothing. There is no background, no history, no context, and it all feels like an overly ambitious, but poorly shot Saturday morning serial filmed on a backlot. ‘Valley of the Four Shrines’ is a terrible travelogue and an unremittingly uninteresting scenario.
Physically, Fragments of Fear is very well presented. The artwork is uniformly good, whilst the cartography is serviceable enough. In general, the supplement is well written and presented and an easy read.—oOo—
Fragments of Fear was reviewed three times following its release in 1985. The first was by Phil Frances in Open Box in White Dwarf Issue 75 (March, 1986). From the start, he was not positive, opening with, “Chaosium’s companion packs should be pretty familiar by now, and the company’s intention to publish bits of lore to fit in elsewhere is essentially an admirable one. The latest collection of oddities is the Second Cthulhu Companion, also known as Fragments of Fear, which unfortunately falls into most of the pits that its predecessor managed to avoid.” He continued by describing ‘Valley of the Four Shrines’ as “[T]he direst scenario for Call of Cthulhu I have ever seen”, before concluding that, “Overall, Fragments of Fear disappoints me, especially as it follows in the wake of Masks of Nyarlathotep, the best CoC campaign to date. The biggest weakness is the ‘Valley’ scenario; surely Chaosium has better works than this on file? It lowers the whole tone of the supplement and takes up so much space that the other items truly appear to be Fragments.” Nevertheless, he awarded it an overall score of seven out of ten.
The supplement was reviewed in ‘Game Reviews’ by Michael Szymanski in Different Worlds Issue 43 (July/August, 1986). He was more positive, stating that, “The greatest achievement of this companion has to be the Cthulhu Grimoire, which lists and describes all new spells that were created for the previous seven supplements for the game.”, which was, “[A]n excellent timesaving reference for those Keepers who wish to create their own scenarios.” He also described ‘Valley of Fear’ as “[A]n excellent adventure for experienced Investigators, and it will certainly make them work for their rewards.” Before awarding it three stars, Szymanski, finished by saying, “Overall, Fragments Of Fear is an excellent supplement; though some may argue over the inclusion of certain pieces, everything in it can be used in one form or another, either to enhance the game or to provide for smoother play.” and “The book was well thought out and put together in an orderly manner. Fragments Of Fear displays the brand of quality we’ve come to expect from Chaosium, and this supplement is a definite step forward for a very unique game.”
Guy Hail reviewed Fragments of Fear in Space Gamer/Fantasy Gamer Issue 79 (August/September, 1987). Although he complained that ‘A Cthulhu Grimoire’ was not complete, omitting one spell from Masks of Nyarlathotep, he commented that, “Aside from this slip the supplement is better than the supplement for the first edition. The Sadowsky material is extremely fanciful and has thankfully been kept to entertaining length.” and of the other content, he said, “ The other miscellany here is offbeat or potentially useful.” Hail was positive about ‘Valley of the Four Shrines’ suggesting that, “Keeper emphasizing the remoteness of the valley and harmlessness of its human inhabitants will stun the investigating party with the strangeness of the uninhabited city of the Great Race.” He concluded by saying that, “Chaosium has published a lightly flawed and reasonably priced supplement for the many feverish fans of Call of Cthulhu.”
—oOo—Ultimately, Fragments of Fear is always going to compared to the Cthulhu Companion, and unlike the Cthulhu Companion, little of the contents of Fragments of Fear would be collected into later editions of the Call of Cthulhu rules or subsequent supplements. In fact, only the new Mythos entities from ‘New Mythos Deities, Races, and Monsters’ would appear in subsequent editions of the roleplaying game, and it was not until the publication of the Call of Cthulhu Classic box set that celebrated the fortieth anniversary of Call of Cthulhu that it would be reprinted. What this indicates is both how highly the Cthulhu Companion is regarded, then and now, and how poorly Fragments of Fear is regarded in comparison, then and now. When this was published in 1985, it was highly anticipated like any scenario for Call of Cthulhu, but even in 1985, reading Fragments of Fear was disappointing.
Had it not been republished as part of the Call of Cthulhu Classic box set, the honest truth is that Fragments of Fear might have remained a forgotten supplement. There is no denying the then usefulness of some of the content in the supplement when it was originally published, but really there is there is nothing in its pages that really stands out as being worthy of a Keeper’s attention, either today or in 1985. What does stand out is just how underwhelmingly dissatisfying Fragments of Fear: The Second Cthulhu Companion very much was and is.
—oOo—
An unboxing of Fragments of Fear: The Second Cthulhu Companion can be found here.

Today's prompt is, well, Prompt.

Not every adventure begins with a map and a reward poster.

Sometimes, the adventure starts with a whisper you didn’t expect to hear. A shadow in the same place every night. A child saying something they shouldn’t know. The sound of something scratching inside the walls, but there are no mice, and the walls aren’t hollow.

These are the kinds of prompts I love best. The ones that feel like a dare from the world.

Sure, a good old-fashioned “Help us, adventurers!” hook is tried and true, and it works well. But what keeps me coming back, what really gets me writing, is when the prompt is uncanny. Subtle. Occult even. Note I will often use "occult" here in the original sense of "hidden" or "unknown."

It’s the dream you can’t shake.  It’s the name you don’t remember learning but now can’t forget.  It’s the cracked mirror in the old inn that only reflects one of the party members, and no one else.

These are the prompts that get the witch involved. The ones that pull the warlock out of their tower. That make the players sit forward in their chairs.

The best part? You can drop these kinds of prompts anywhere.

 The party’s resting in a sleepy village? One of the locals offers them tea and casually mentions that no one’s seen the moon in three nights. 

 They’re walking through a forest? A dead bird falls from the sky, but its body is still warm. Or maybe it is frozen solid. 

 They open a letter meant for someone else. There’s no writing inside, just a sigil, drawn in blood, that starts to glow faintly when it rains.

You don’t have to explain it right away. In fact, please don’t. Let it linger. Let it get under their skin, worm its way into their brains. Let the players dig. Let them argue over what it means. If they follow down the wrong path, let them go.

The Prompt is not the Plot. The Prompt is the door.

Let them decide whether to knock, kick it down, or walk away.

But if they walk away… it might follow.

Questions

Let's roll again!

Who, Excited, Art. "Who's art am I most excited to see in a book?"

I think it would have to have been Clyde Caldwell back in the day, or Larry Elmore. They defined the "old-school" look for me. 

https://www.autocratik.com/ • https://www.castingshadowsblog.com/

Quick-starts are a means of trying out a roleplaying game before you buy. Each should provide a Game Master with sufficient background to introduce and explain the setting to her players, the rules to run the scenario included, and a set of ready-to-play, pre-generated characters that the players can pick up and understand almost as soon as they have sat down to play. The scenario itself should provide an introduction to the setting for the players as well as to the type of adventures that their characters will have and just an idea of some of the things their characters will be doing on said adventures. All of which should be packaged up in an easy-to-understand booklet whose contents, with a minimum of preparation upon the part of the Game Master, can be brought to the table and run for her gaming group in a single evening’s session—or perhaps two. And at the end of it, Game Master and players alike should ideally know whether they want to play the game again, perhaps purchasing another adventure or even the full rules for the roleplaying game.

Alternatively, if the Game Master already has the full rules for the roleplaying game the quick-start is for, then what it provides is a sample scenario that she still run as an introduction or even as part of her campaign for the roleplaying game. The ideal quick-start should entice and intrigue a playing group, but above all effectively introduce and teach the roleplaying game, as well as showcase both rules and setting.

—oOo—
What is it?
Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide is the quick-start for Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age, the latest version of the venerable fantasy roleplaying game first published in 1975 by Flying Buffalo, Inc. It is being published by Rebellion Unplugged, best known as the games arm of Rebellion, the publisher of long running British Science Fiction comic, 2000 AD, but in game terms for republishing the Games Workshop classics, Judge Dredd: The Game of Crime-Fighting in Mega-City One and Block Mania.

It is a thirty-two page, 730 MB full colour PDF.

However, it it does need an edit and the authors need to beg for forgiveness for the use of the word ‘stunting’ as a verb instead of the correct English language phrasing, ‘performing a stunt’.

The use of the word, ‘Knackered’, as a Tag though, is delightfully British, but in no way makes up for the erroneous error of ‘stunting’.

How long will it take to play?
Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide is designed to be played through in a single session, two at the very most. This includes Player Character creation.
What else do you need to play?
The Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide needs a handful of six-sided dice per player plus some tokens to represent Threat.
Who do you play?
The Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide does not come with any pre-generated Player Characters. Instead, rules are provided for the players to create their own.
How is a Player Character defined?An Adventurer the Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide has six attributes—Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Willpower, Intelligence, and Charisma, as well as three stats—Luck, Mana, and Stamina. These range in value between two and four. He also has a Kindred, of which six are suggested. These are Humankin, Halfkin, Dwarfkin, Elfkin, Orckin, and Goblinkin. The Kindred is a Player Character’s background, whilst his Motto sums up his approach to life and his traits provide a once-per-session ability. A Player Character’s Kindred provides both a trait and a motto, whilst a second trait will come from his choice of Path. Six paths are given. These are Path of Might, Path of Shadow, Path of Endurance, Path of Spirit, Path of Craft, and Path of Wizardry.

The rules also cover the creation of the Player Character party, which explains why they are all together.
How do the mechanics work?
Mechanically, Tunnels & Trolls has always employed a dice pool system, whether that is rolled against the monsters’ dice pool (derived from their combined Monster Rating) or as a Saving Throw against one of a Player Character’s attributes. The Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide also uses dice pools, but they are radically scaled down and both the players and the Game Master will be rolling more often rather than rolling more dice.
To have his character undertake an action, a player rolls a number of six-sided dice equal to an attribute. A roll of four or more is counted as a hit, whilst three or less is a miss. The aim is to roll as many hits as possible. Target Numbers range between one and five, with two being the standard Target Number. A Blessed roll means that hits are rolled on three and over, misses on two or less, whilst a Cursed roll means that hits are rolled on five and over, misses on four or less. Rolls of multiple values result in the dice pool exploding and a player being able to add more dice to the roll. A double adds two more dice to roll, a triple adds three more dice, and so on. An exceptional success occurs if three sixes are rolled, whilst a dramatic setback happens if three ones are rolled.
Luck can be spent to reroll dice on a one-for-one basis.
How does combat work?
Combat in the Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide starts with initiative, with Player Characters who succeed on the roll going before the monsters, and those who fail, after. A Player Character can perform one action per round, either a ‘Strike’, ‘Shoot’, ‘Spell’, or ‘Stunt’ action. A Stunt can be physical or verbal, and could be swinging on a chandelier to get across a room, taunting a villain, or diving into a pool of water to avoid a blast of magical fire. A Stunt can modify another action or an action in its own right. Most monsters will perform the ‘Strike’ action, whilst enemies or monsters with the ‘Elite’ tag are likely to have more options. The round ends when everyone has acted. If the Player Characters decide to keep going, they can each either gain a point of Stamina or a point of Luck. If they decide on the latter, they also gain a point of Threat, up to a maximum of three. If the monsters decide to keep going, they can trigger their escalation abilities, which might be special abilities, call for reinforcements, and so on.
To perform an attack, the player rolls a number of equal to the appropriate attribute, whilst the Game Master will roll the enemies’ Monster Rating. An enemy’s Monster Rating ranges between two and the average mook all the way up to six and thoroughly dangerous. The roll itself is an opposed roll, the aim being to roll more hits than the opponent. Tags, whether from the weapons and gear used, from the situation, or the monsters’ abilities, will affect the number of dice rolled, the amount of damage inflicted, and more.

Both sides will also add extra dice equal to their opponents’ Threat to the dice they roll. In addition, enemies will tend to target opponents who have higher Threat.
If the attacker rolls more hits than the defender, he wins, and the difference in the number of hits rolled is the amount of damage inflicted. If the defender rolls more hits than the attacker, no damage is inflicted. Armour reduces the damage suffered. Damage reduces Stamina. If reduced to zero for a monster, it is defeated, but for a Player Character, it means that he is wounded. His Stamina is then reset, but whilst he is wounded, if it is reduced to zero again, he is dead. For the enemies, Monster Rating does not reduce.
How does magic work?
Magic in the Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide is primarily gained from the Path of Wizardry selected during Player Character creation. A Player Character on the Path of Wizardry begins play with the ‘Wellspring’ Talent that enables him to regain or increase mana by spending Luck. His bonus talent will either be ‘Hexology’ or ‘Weaving’. The latter provides the Mending spell, whilst the latter gives Blasting Hex. Mending is actually a healing spell, restoring Stamina equal to the number of hits rolled. Blasting Hex is a damage spell, requiring an Intelligence roll versus an enemy’s Monster Rating. Damage inflicted ignores armour and the spell requires the caster to yell out something like, “Take That You Fiend!” in a nod to classic Tunnels & Trolls spell of the same name. All spells cost Mana to cast, with each point cast also increasing the number of dice a player rolls. 
What do you play?
The scenario in the Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide is ‘Trouble Brewing’. The world of Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age is one of trolls. In ages past, during the Eclipse, the Trolls smashed the great kingdoms and empires of the time, burying their secrets, technologies, and magic deep in the earth, where they remain today. When the sun returned, the Trolls fled and the world was rebuilt. Both Trolls and the past remain underground where would be heroes might find them. In ‘Trouble Brewing’, the Player Characters have come to Rust Bucket, the very run-down and only tavern in Market Tharnley where they have heard there is a tunnel entrance to be found. It is a detailed, two-act affair, initially focusing upon interaction and investigation along with some roleplay, as the Player Characters attempt to find out more from the Owlfolk barkeep, the adventuring patrons, and the locals. In the second act, the barkeep hires/cajoles/blackmails the Player Characters into investigating the cellar, having a fight with some surprisingly tough rats, and discovering a troll tunnel.
‘Trouble Brewing’ is more of a means to showcase the new Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age rules in play rather than provide a complete story from beginning to end.
Is there anything missing?
No. The Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide has everything the Game Master and her players will need to play. However, the scenario is very much an introduction at only two scenes long and thus provides only a limited play experience.
Is it easy to prepare?
Unfortunately, the Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide is not as easy to prepare as it could have been as it is quite detailed and there is a lot to go through, including character generation, before play can begin. There is a greater number of factors—Luck, Mana, Tags, and so on—for the Game Master and her players to keep track off during play as well. Players of previous versions of Tunnels & Trolls will find a much changed game, although there elements present from those previous editions. The roleplaying game is also not as fast playing as those previous editions, but does offer more options in terms of what the Player Characters can do.
Is it worth it?
Yes—for the most part. The Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide presents a solid introduction to the rules, including combat, character generation, and interaction. It is also supported by examples of both play and combat and there is advice for the Game Master. However, the included adventure, ‘Trouble Brewing’, is short and will only provide a limited play experience. 
The Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide is published by Rebellion Unplugged and is available to download here.

As well as contributing to Free RPG Day every year Goodman Games also has its own ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day’. The day is notable not only for the events and the range of adventures being played for Goodman Games’ roleplaying games, but also for the scenarios it releases specifically to be played on the day. For ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day 2025’, which took place today on Saturday, July 19th, 2025,* the publisher is releasing not one, not two, but three scenarios, plus a limited edition printing of Dungeon Crawl Classics #108: The Seventh Thrall of Sekrekan. Two of the scenarios, ‘The Fall of Al-Razi’ and ‘Balticrawl Blitz’, appear in the duology, the DCC Day 2025 Adventure Pack. The third is DCC Day #6: The Key to Castle Whiterock. Both DCC Day #6: The Key to Castle Whiterock and ‘The Fall of Al-Razi’ are written for use with Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, whilst ‘Balticrawl Blitz’ is the first scenario for use with the Xcrawl Classics Role-Playing Game, the ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics’ adaptation and upgrade of the earlier Xcrawl Core Rulebook for use with Dungeons & Dragons 3.5, which turns the concept of dungeoneering into an arena sport and monetises it!

* The late international delivery of titles for DCC Day #6 means that these reviews are also late. Apologies.

DCC Day #6: The Key to Castle Whiterock does come with a bit of backstory. It is a preview and adventure for Castle Whiterock: The Greatest Dungeon Story Ever Told published by Goodman Games, which is the subject of a forthcoming crowdfunding campaign. This crowdfunding campaign brings back and updates Dungeon Crawl Classics #51: Castle Whiterock, originally published in 2007. It received its own preview for Free RPG Day, in 2007, in the form of Dungeon Crawl Classics #51.5: The Sinister Secret of Whiterock, and Castle Whiterock: The Greatest Dungeon Story Ever Told has already been given a preview in the form of The Dying Light of Castle Whiterock, published for Free RPG Day 2025. Both Dungeon Crawl Classics #51: Castle Whiterock and Dungeon Crawl Classics #51.5: The Sinister Secret of Whiterock were written for use with Dungeons & Dragons 3.5, but both Castle Whiterock: The Dying Light of Castle Whiterock and Castle Whiterock: The Greatest Dungeon Story Ever Told are written for use with two separate roleplaying games. These are the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. DCC Day #6: The Key to Castle Whiterock differs in that it is solely written for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game.

DCC Day #6: The Key to Castle Whiterock is designed for a party of First Level Player Characters and designed to introduce Castle Whiterock: The Greatest Dungeon Story Ever Told. If completed, the adventure will provide the Player Characters with a map of part of Castle Whiterock, details of one of its secrets, and some treasure, as well as some surprising allies. In doing so, they will go all the way back to Castle Whiterock’s origins as Clynnoise, a monastery that was home to the Order of the Dawning Sun, over a thousand years ago. Since that time, it has been sacked multiple times and been occupied by Orcs, cultists, a Red Dragon, and more recently, a band of slavers. In doing so, they will go all the way back to Castle Whiterock’s origins as Clynnoise, a monastery that was home to the Order of the Dawning Sun, over a thousand years ago. Since that time, it has been sacked multiple times and been occupied by Orcs, cultists, a Red Dragon, and more recently, a band of slavers. The Player Characters have set out to explore the dungeon of Castle Whiterock, but due to good fortune have come into possession of another map. This shows the location of a lone tomb in the Ul Dominor Mountains near Castle Whiterock. Deciphering the text on the map reveals that the tomb is the burial place of Reglee Callim, famed architect of the Clynnoise, and that she was buried with “[H]er wisdom, plans, and keys”. It suggests that she might have gone to her grave with notes about the building and layout of Clynnoise as well as the means to access the ancient ruins.

The adventure itself begins at the entrance as marked on the map, high up a circuitous path overlooking a valley. Beyond the entrance lies the Callim family tomb complex, a simple, two-level complex of tombs, chapels, and more, marked by sarcophagi, burial niches, and the like. There are undead and there are ghosts, just as you would expect in a tomb complex. There is also some treasure to loot, but not a great amount and barely a handful magical items. All in keeping with the low treasure rates to be expected of a Dungeon Crawl Classics scenario. However, the scenario is not just a tomb to be looted and there are a couple of good story strands to what is quite a simple dungeon. The first is that the dungeon is not infested with evil monsters, rather that the resting dead tends towards Law rather than Chaos. The second is that despite being dead for over a thousand years, the Player Characters can talk to Reglee Callim and gain some clues as to what to expect on the second level. However, whilst the third and final strand of the scenario is to be found on the second level, it is wholly unexpected. This is that the Player Characters are not the only invaders to the tomb. As the Player Characters have entered from above, a band of Goblins, lead by a would be Hobgoblin warlord, has entered from below and as the Player Characters discover, are looting from below.

The scenario offers two options in terms of how the Player Characters might react to the goblinoid presence. In classic style, they could slaughter the lot, though the band is quite large for a group of First Level Player Characters to defeat. Alternatively, the Player Characters could negotiate and even enter an alliance with the Hobgoblin warlord. For a share of the treasure, the warlord even provides several Goblins to fight alongside the Player Characters as well as to make sure their Hobgoblin boss gets her share. It brings a degree of co-operation to play that is not normally present in this style of roleplaying and often not at First Level as well as an unexpected element of roleplaying. The Hobgoblin warlord and her Goblin cohorts are nicely detailed, helping the Judge to portray them as they interact with the Player Characters.

Physically, DCC Day #6: The Key to Castle Whiterock is as well done as you would expect for a release from Goodman Games. The artwork is decent, but a little cartoonish in places, whilst the cartography is not as interesting as that usually found in Dungeon Crawl Classics scenarios. The cover is very nicely done, showing the moment the final confrontation in the dungeon.
DCC Day #6: The Key to Castle Whiterock has a lighter, though a not humorous, feel than most adventures for Dungeon Crawl Classics. If the Dungeon Master was willing, it is easily adapted to Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition as per the guidelines given in Castle Whiterock: The Dying Light of Castle Whiterock. If the scenario is lacking, it is perhaps a good hook to keep the players and their characters interested to want to explore Castle Whiterock, but as a prequel to the campaign and if a playing group has set out to play Castle Whiterock: The Greatest Dungeon Story Ever Told, then DCC Day #6: The Key to Castle Whiterock is a solid addition to the campaign and sets the Player Characters with an advantage or two in readiness.

 Today is the start of the #RPGaDAY2025. 

This year, in addition to the prompts detailed below, I am going to write a lot on my Occult D&D project and some upcoming adventure ideas. It will help me focus on where those projects need to go.

We start this year’s #RPGaDAY with Patron, and I’m diving in with something near and dear to my design heart: Patrons for witches and warlocks.

Now, the usual suspects are easy to name; demons, devils, faerie lords and ladies, and Lovecraftian horrors from beyond the veil. And yes, I use all of them. Often. Enthusiastically.

But lately I’ve been thinking more about the other kinds of patrons. The less obvious ones. The ones that add flavor and complexity beyond the usual infernal bargain.

Here are a few I’ve been playing around with:

Dragons

Honestly, I should have done this ages ago. My oldest is dragon-obsessed, and I’ve lost count of how many dragon miniatures, plushies, and LEGO sets we have in the house.

Dragons are ancient, magical, and powerful. Why wouldn’t a warlock or witch swear themselves to a mighty drake of time or flame? Not just as treasure-hoarding monsters, but as elemental, almost divine beings with long memories and stranger agendas. Only the most ancient and cunning ones offer pacts, and they always come with a price.

Angels

This one’s a bit unexpected, but stick with me.

Crack open any New Age spellbook or Victorian spiritualist guide, and you’ll find incantations invoking angels, Raphael, Michael, Uriel, and so on.

Why should only demons offer deals?

The Watchers of Enochian lore taught witchcraft, after all. And their punishment? Eternal exile, watching their children, the Nephilim, fall. There’s something beautiful and tragic there. An angelic patron might offer guidance, power, or forbidden knowledge, but at what cost to their divine purpose?

Animal Lords

Briefly touched on this in one of my warlock projects, but worth revisiting. These are like the Archfey, but aligned with the primal wild. Lords of the Fox, the Raven, the Serpent, the Stag, each with their own ancient cults, taboos, and riddles. A warlock bound to the Panther Lord might wear shadows like a cloak. A witch devoted to the La Lechuza, the Owl Queen, might speak only in questions and dreams.

Witch Queens

When a witch becomes powerful enough, she doesn’t kneel to a patron, she becomes one.

Witch Queens are legendary figures of folklore and power. Some, like Aradia, are benevolent guides. Others, like Babylon, the Mother of Harlots, demand devotion, transformation, and sacrifice. These patrons are perfect for witches who walk the line between mortal and myth.

Daimons

Not demons. Not daemons. Not even spirits in the traditional D&D sense.

Daimons, in the Platonic and Gnostic traditions, are spirits of knowledge—divine intermediaries who speak in symbols, guide seekers to hidden truths, and sometimes lead them into madness. A warlock who binds themselves to a daimon may not fully understand what they've done. But the dreams come anyway. And the visions never lie.

Honestly, I have way more, an absurd number, really. But these are some of my favorites right now. I love patrons that aren’t just “here’s some spells, go cause chaos,” but instead add weight and weirdness to a character’s story. The best patrons change their warlocks and witches. Slowly. Irrevocably.

And that’s where the real fun begins.

Questions

There are also questions I can answer. So let's roll and see what I get. 

I got "How," "Grateful," and "Person." 

Translating..."Who is a Person I am Grateful for and How?"

Hmm...Assuming I am keeping this in the game sphere...I am going to say Len Lakofka. Len passed away a few years ago, but not before we could establish a good online correspondence. His articles in Dragon were some of my favorite, so being able to talk to him much later in my life was a real treat. I am sad to see he is gone.

Shall we go shopping? Shopping can be a necessity, it can be a chore, and it can be fun. Whether online or in person, we need to shop for essentials, but there are times when it can be a pleasure. Perhaps browsing for a new book or looking for the perfect outfit for that big event. Shopping in roleplaying though? Exactly the same. For the Game Master, it can be an exercise in tedium as her players pick over the contents of the rulebook’s equipment list or the roleplaying game’s equipment guide. For the player, it can be all part of the roleplaying experience, building his characters with the right gear, whether for flavour or the right effect. It even has a certain mystique of its own, because in most cases, what a player is buying for his character, is not a pint of milk, a loaf of bread, and a box of tea bags, but everything he could never imagine buying for himself. A chain hauberk, a short sword, a silver mirror, sleeping furs, a bag of caltrops, a Geiger counter, a Bergmann M.P.18,I submachine gun, a vial of black scorpion contact poison, and whatnot and so on and so on… What then of the staff? The life of the shop worker is very rarely exciting, bar the occasional encounter with a shoplifter or a fire evacuation, but what if that was not the case? Could a day in the life of a shop worker actually be exciting, or even interesting? With Get It At Sutler’s, it could actually be both.
Get It At Sutler’s is a supplement for TROIKA!, the science-fantasy role-playing game of exploring the multiverse. It is published by the Melsonian Arts Council, and much like the recent Whalgravaak’s Warehouse and The Hand of God adventures, it presents another aspect of the great city of Troika which lies at the heart of said multiverse. Its focus is firmly upon shopping, but firmly upon the staff perspective, and upon the hijinks and misadventures they have as employees of the greatest, the most fashionable, and the most prestigious department store in all of Troika. Whether it is Harrods, Liberty, Selfridges, Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, Le Bon Marché, and even Grace Brothers from the BBC comedy series, Are You Being Served?, the department store not only sells you everything, but it does also so with courtesy and a degree of prestige. Its halls are places to be seen and its name carries a certain cachet, and its always polite staff have a certain way of doing things, for a department store is a world unto itself. Sutler’s is no different. It is just a whole weirder—and it really, really specialises in fish.
There is no call for any particular character type for Get It At Sutler’s. The Player Characters have simply applied for a job at the department store and in this age of the gig economy, can put in a shift at any time of the day or night. Except bank holidays, when Sutler’s is closed. The management pays only for shifts worked. After all, a Player Character cannot spend all of his time adventuring across the multiverse and does have rent and food to pay for. Plus, all that time spent adventuring across the multiverse does not always pay for said rent and food. Putting in a shift at Sutler’s might just mean keeping the turbot from the door.
What Get It At Sutler’s is not is a complete guide to a department store, from the basement to the top floor, from department to department, from deliveries in to deliveries out, from just out the back to the department’s café where being seen is all that matters, from its prestigious food hall to the office of the night manager. Rather, it is an adventure or encounter generator. All the players have to do is to decide that their characters are to put in a shift and the Game Master can make a roll on the ‘shop business matrix’ to determine the time of year, how busy the shift will be, and what the most exciting thing that will happen to the characters on that shift. The six categories are ‘Quiet Day’, ‘Helping Customers’, ‘Stock Control’, ‘Feast Day’, ‘Tourists’, and ‘Heaving Wall of Flesh’, the latter referring to a day when Sutler’s is very busy and the Player Characters are facing ‘Too Many Customers’.For example, a roll for ‘Heaving Wall of Flesh’ might be “A live-catch tank leaked overnight, and the stain looks like the gaping face of St Mungo. People looking for his blessings are queuing along every isle, mixed in with innocent fish buyers. Tensions flare.” whilst a roll for ‘Stock Control’ a day might involve, “The Society of Porters and Basin Fillers is on strike, meaning you must collect your own fish from the back warehouses. You may TEST YOUR LUCK or else get lost and trapped in the store overnight. Beware the Nightmanager.”Beyond an adventure or encounter generator, What Get It At Sutler’s is also a bestiary of Enemies that the Player Characters might face on a shift at the department store. From the All-Terrain Shark, the Cutter Clam that can be used as weapons with their fleshy siphons, and the Palyngers, the city’s eels that are known to be incumbent souls standing ready to be reborn, but are still a staple food, to the members of Troika’s great and good, such as the Alcalde, the city’s unpredictable peacekeepers and spies commanded by the Great Cairo, the Cocksure Gamins, juveniles on great adventures of armies, kings, and queens, which actually look delinquency, and simply, Too Many Customers. There are also members of Sutler’s’ staff, such as the genial Daymanager, who everyone sees once, but rarely sees again; the long-legged, pinstriped Floorwalkers whose bodies lurk near the ceiling, only descending to deal with violent incidences; and the well-built and sunburnt barbarians who work as Florists despite their violent sense of humour and toxic work culture. Then there is the Nightmanager, the counterbalance and sinister shadow to the Daymanager, again rarely seen, but known to break the rules, replenish the stock, and creepily observe the doings of the department store. As you would expect from a Troika! supplement, these are all weird and odd and intriguing, and there are even mini-adventures or hooks, like those for the Disciplinary Ordeal, that can take place instead of a Player Character being fired!
Get It At Sutler’s closes with three appendices. In turn, these detail the Troikan year, a selection of fish products, and ‘Pisceans in the Second House – A Sutler’s Adventure’. This introduces Sutler’s and takes the Player Characters from their interview with the beatific Daymanager and into their first shift as a probationary member of staff. It is an unsettlingly fishy affair, and rightly so. The suggestion is that this could happen after the events detailed in ‘The Blancmange & Thistle’, the scenario in the Troika! rulebook. Of course, it would be fascinating to see an anthology of scenarios set just within the halls and departments of Sutler’s.
Physically, Get It At Sutler’s is a delightful book. Troika!’s art is always off kilter and Get It At Sutler’s is no different. In between, full page greyscale pieces capture the vastness and scope of the department store, as well as just how busy it can get.
Get It At Sutler’s is not a campaign setting or a sourcebook in the traditional sense. It does depict and describe a setting, but rather than simply laying out the details, it places them in encounters to be found by the Game Master, and then developed and presented to her players. It gives ideas and encounters—and lots of them—in a world within a world, that of a department store, that the Player Characters will visit when they need money or the Game Master wants to run something in between fuller, more traditional scenarios. Such traditional scenarios might even be run as ‘Disciplinary Ordeals’ since the management at Sutler’s is loath to truly fire anyone. The supplement is thus particularly useful when not all of the players are present or the campaign is between scenarios.
Get It At Sutler’s is a delightfully unconventional framework and book of encounters and hooks for the Game Master to develop and so bring to life, the world of the department store, in true Troika! style. It is a world of piscine peculiarity and harrowing hierarchy, one that gives the Player Characters something to do and somewhere to be, on their quite literally, odd offdays.

 This week's Into the Forgotten Realms game was interrupted again. My oldest, Liam, wanted to go to Games Plus to buy a particular FFG/Edge Star Wars book. I had been wanting to go to pick up some paints and primer for all the demons and devils I have been printing out lately. 

Aside...don't expect to see many of my painted minis here. I am really just not that good, but looking over the Shadowheart I finished last night, I am getting better. 

Anyway, they didn't have the book he wanted, so he bought a bunch of others. Hey, he is a professional with a full-time job.  He can spend his money how he likes. He is saving for a condo so he can move out, and in truth, I am not rushing the professional live-in-chef out the door.

Game night became a session of character creation and painting. 

The new EDGE (previously Fantasy Flight Games) Star Wars RPG is fun. I am not a huge fan of a bunch of unique fiddly dice, but it seems fine here. He is starting a game with his group set during the Old Republic Days.

We had a blast, I even threatened to take my old Star Wars figures out of storage. 

While my fondness for the d20 Star Wars game is largely based on my desire back in the early 1980s to mix "D&D and Star Wars," this game is pretty good.  The books are gorgeous with a good mix of screen stills from the movies and art. Plus we keep remarking on how they had the "new book" smell.

We printed out some character sheets and got to work.

Ever since he was little, Liam loved Mandalorians. He has outgrown two different Jango Fett cosplay outfits, and he has a huge collection of Mandalorian Lego mini-figs and two (or three) Lego Slave-I kits. so he made a whole cadre of Mandalorian commandos. Which is also the next set of minis he wants me to paint. 

Of course, he was not the only one there with obsessions.

One of his players is playing a Nightsister. I told him I had a Nightsister mini he could use for it in my "witch box."  I told him he could have it.

I told Liam to offer the Bugbear first!

You already know where I am going with this. I mean if Liam recreated his iconic Bounty Hunter he plays in every game, and I am given the option of playing a goth, Force-wielding witch then what do you think I am going to do?

Jedis are so 1980s, new game, new (ish) idea.  Besides, I already had an action figure for her.

Larina Nix

Species: Human
Career: Mystic
Specialization Trees: Nightsister Witch

Soak Value 0
Wounds 11
Strain 13
Defense 0

Characteristics
Brawn 1
Agility 1
Intellect 2
Cunning 2
Willpower 3
Presence 3

Skills
General: Charm 3, Discipline 2, Medicine 1, Perception 2, Stealth 1, Survival 2
Combat: Melee 1
Knowledge: Lore 1, Outer Rim 1

Talents
Witchcraft: Force Rating +1
Summon Item: Duskblade

Force Powers
Conjure. Magnitude 1, Control 1
Move (aka TK). Magnitude 2, Range 1, Control 1

Force Rating 2

Weapons
Duskblade, Dam +3, Pierce 2, Superior. Summonable

Motivations
Faith (Natural World), Ambition (Enlightenment and Discovery)

Morality
Strength: Curiosity
Weakness: Obsession
Morality: 50

Gender: Female
Age: 25
Height: 1.6 meters
Build: Average
Hair: Red
Eyes: Blue

So who is this Larina? She is a brand new character (just 110 XP used). I figure she was left on Dathomir and raised by the Nightsisters. I am hesitant to say she is/was the only human on Dathomir because I know very little about Star Wars outside of the movies and Disney+ shows. But she is rare enough and at the time of the game she was the only human she knew. 

She is adventuring out into the galaxy to discover who she is and why she was left there. As she progresses, I want to give me more mental/psychic force powers.  I am not sure if she ran away from Dathomir (say like the Doctor) or was allowed to leave to further the goals of the Mother Superior (like Shadowheart). Either way she is discovering the galaxy is much, much larger than she knew. 

This allows me to play my favorite archetype with her, the country-girl/pagan visiting the big city. She is naïve, but not dumb, on the contrary, she is quite intelligent (strange that is exactly the sort of girl I married). I saw there was an option for religion, so she worships "The Winged Goddess."  I saw that and thought, if it was related to the Great Bird of the Galaxy, and almost immediately I began concocting a Star Wars/Star Trek crossover!

I'd also like her to get an astromech droid. Something that would act as her "familiar" and because I also loved those little guys. 

I am not sure how much of this game I will play. My son is very excited for it, but I'd love to get back to the Forgotten Realms sometime soon.

OH, and the book he wanted? Turns out it is a fan-made guide that we can download for free!

NOTE: It seems that Dathomiri are more or less human anyway. Ok. No worries.

 I am continuing on my journey through the titles of Appendix N, looking for the Witches that haunted those pages. This week, I have Part 2 of my overview of the Witches of Robert E. Howard, this time focusing on his horror tales.  As I covered in Part 1 of Howard, his DNA is deeply woven into the core of D&D. This is easy to see in Conan, the wandering mercenary (in many tales) having adventure after adventure. what I didn't expect was see so much, maybe even more, from his tales of horror.

Howard's horror runs all over the place.  He was obviously significantly influenced by Celtic history, especially with his Bran Mak Morn character, and a lot of these feed into his horror tales. There is a Conan-like character in his "The House of Arabu" doing battle with none other than Lilith herself and other demons. He even dips into Lovecraftian tales. Now, some people have called these "pastiches," but to me, they are nothing of the sort; they are original contributions to the mythos that are every bit as valid as Lovecraft's own and on par with Clark Ashton Smith. Where Howard shined, though, was "Southern Gothic"; he was to the south and south-west (esp. Texas) what Lovecraft was to New England. Many of tales are interlinked and there is some good opportunities for deep scholarship on how his tales link to each other and to his contemporaries (like Lovecraft) and even how his stories influenced others. I can't say for certainty, but his tale "The Haunter of the Ring" (already steeped in his own mythos connected to Conan) feels like it could have influenced Fritz Leiber's "Conjure Wife."  

What really surprised me was not that Howard was a good writer; he is full stop. But how great his horror stories are. Lovecraft himself sang Howard's praises, and he was worthy of them.

So who are the witches of Howard's Horror tales? Let's take a look.  Instead of going by witch, I am going to go by tale. Each witch is very much situated in each tale.

"Sea Curse" (1928)

Moll Farrell is an archetypical "Sea Witch." She lives in an old hut near the sea, where the tide almost comes to her doorstep, with her daughter. She collects shells and mussels and everyone thinks she is a witch. She proves it by laying a deadly curse on the two men who raped and killed her daughter. The men die, more or less, at each other's hands.

The tale drips with old-world superstition, the inevitability of doom, and the slow, creeping vengeance of the sea. Moll is an agent of vengeance and could have been found on a different coast on the Atlantic in some Celtic dream-hidden past.

The best part of the tale is the Ghost Ship filled with sailors who have committed foul crimes coming up from Hell to take the souls of the men. The image is fantastic. 

"Rattle of Bones" (1929)

A short Solomon Kane tale involving a haunted inn, a skeleton that rises from its resting place, and hints of ancient sorcery. Our "witch" here is an ancient necromancer from Russia who comes back from the dead for his vengeance. Not explicitly a witch, but the tale feels like it was ripped right out of a D&D adventure. 

"The Hills of the Dead" (1930)

Another pivotal Solomon Kane story where Kane teams up with N’Longa, a powerful African shaman and necromancer. N’Longa gifts Kane the magical Staff of Solomon, a potent artifact used to destroy vampires. N’Longa’s magic includes spirit possession and resurrection.

N'Longa's magic is called "voodoo" but that word wasn't used in Kane's time. The religious practices that went into voodoo (Vodún) did exist. 

Again, no explicit witch, though N'Longa is a great character, this tale is great for the abandoned city of vampires.

"Dig Me No Grave" (1937)

What would you get if Howard decided to write about the death Aleister Crowley 10 years before he died? You might get something very much like "Dig Me No Grave."

This tale deals with the temptation of forbidden knowledge. A scholar inherits an occult tome linked to a demon-worshipping cult. The story is Lovecraftian in tone, but the ritual magic and descent into damnation echo the witch-pact trope.

"The Children of the Night" (1931)

This tale is filled with ideas that Howard would come back to many times. 

First, there is the dream/reincarnation story that ties modern characters to ancient, savage rites. In later tales he even he explicitly links Conan and Bran Mak Morn to modern day people. 

Secondly, it features the Serpent People and hints at sorcerous cults and blood sacrifice. The Serpent People are the literary creature from whence a lot of D&D monsters spring. The Yuan-ti and Ophidians are the obvious ones, but in truth, these creatures bear more than a little resemblance to the class D&D Troglodytes. It might be that these were the root of those creatures. 

Third, and this one is big, it contributes to the Lovecraftian mythos by introducing the "Unaussprechlichen Kulten" of von Junzt. This is it's first appearance in print. This is one of the reasons why I say that Howard is not an imitator of the Lovecraftian mythos, he is a bona fide contributor. 

Lastly, the infamous "Black Stone," which will feature in many of his tales in one form or another.

"The Black Stone" (1931)

Speaking of which. This tale also features the Black Stone and "Unaussprechlichen Kulten." 

Arguably Howard’s most Lovecraftian tale. A monolithic stone and the rites performed there by a degenerate cult speak to primal, prehistoric sorcery. There’s an implied witch-queen who led the rites.  The monolith is now located in a village in Hungary called "Stregoicavar," meaning something like "Witch Town."  

Howard gives us a lot of history with ancient rites and even connects this to Margaret Murray's work on the Witch Cult of Europe. The toad-god the witches are worshiping is likely CAS;s Tsathoggua, a creature who would appear again in "The Thing on the Roof."

The Necronomicon gets name checked here as well.

"The Thing on the Roof" (1932)

This tale features forbidden books (Unaussprechlichen Kulten) , temple ruins, and an occultist who ignores all warnings. 

There is even a pre-Aztec Lich worshiping evil gods (likely Tsathoggua, but only described as a toad-like thing), and evil rituals.

I included this tale and the previous two not so much for their witches, but for their cults and their connection to the Mythos. 

"People of the Dark" (1932)

A man relives a past life where he was involved in betrayal and murder. This tale our narrator, John O'Brien, is the reincarnated Conan, and he enters Dagon's Cave to kill a rival for the hand of a woman. This one features almost everything. Conan, Lovecraftian connections, and even the Little People/Children of the Night. 

"Worms of the Earth" (1932)

Bran Mak Morn allies with a banished witch named Atla to awaken the Worms, ancient subterranean horrors, to take vengeance on the Romans. The story is primal, grim, and unrelenting. 

The worms appear to be another name for the quasi-human Children of the Night. The more and more I read about them the more I am convinced this where the D&D interpretation of the Troglodytes came from. 

Alta, the witch-woman of Dagon-moor, is one of our very few named witches. She is half-human and "half-worm" or Children of the Night. The implication here is that the Children were human or at least akin to humans.  She is human enough that her price to help Bran is that he must spend the night with her. Likely meaning there is some new half-human descendant of Bran out there now. 

This also features the Black Stone. Are these pieces all part of the monolith of ancient times? Hard to say. The piece that Bran uses is small enough for him to carry. 

Dagon's Moor, Dagon's Meer, and Dagon's Barrow are all mentioned here as further connections to the Mythos.

"The House of Arabu" (1952)

This tale was also published as "Witch From Hell’s Kitchen" though that title doesn't do it any justice. 

This tale features Pyrrhas, who is Conan in all but name really. Our main antagonist (well...) is Lilitu (really summoned by one of Conan's, I mean Pyrrhas's enemies), she appears very much as does the Lilitu of ancient myth with her mate Ardat-Lili. Of course Ardat-lilî is also a female demon (like the same sources as Lilitu) so imagine my humor when Howard describes Ardat-Lili as male. I guess somethings were still a bridge to far when he wrote this.

There are spells and the most interesting thing to me is the Lilith - Tiamat connection. Something I have explored more on these pages. 

"Black Canaan" (1936)

Southern gothic horror meets voodoo-style witchcraft. The antagonist is Zekura, a beautiful and deadly sorceress who wields spiritual power and commands zombies. She’s both feared and revered.

Normally I don't comment on the racism of some of these tales, but this one seem a bit much even for the time. Or maybe I just know how bad it actually was. Apropos of nothing, Lovecraft thought this was one of Howard's best tales. 

"The Haunter of the Ring" (1934)

A ghostly avenger stalks the land after being wronged in life. The haunting is linked to curses and violated oaths. No witches, but damn, this feels like it could have influenced "Conjure Wife."

It does feature the Ring of Thoth-Amon, a magical artifact possessed by a spirit that can possess its wearer. A form of sympathetic magic, where the curse leaps through the ages. This ring has appeared in Conan tales before. 

"Pigeons from Hell" (1938)

Howard’s most famous horror story. Southern gothic with heavy voodoo and ghost-witch elements. A woman in the Blassenville family turned to witchcraft and exacts revenge from beyond the grave as a zuvembie. Features zombified servants and spectral appearances.

Stephen King called this Howard's finest tale.

--

So there is a lot to dig into here. Howard obviously had heard of or read Murray's Witch Cult Hypothesis, since so many of tales embrace the central themes. Where Murray saw a continuous line of ancient fertility cults in a positive light, Howard saw an ancient pre-Christian and degenerate religion honoring dark, forgotten gods. In reality both points of view are as real as the other, and both suit my purposes well.

Moll Farrell and Atla are his main "named" witches, and each serves her role well. Moll feels like a solid Sea Witch, whereas Atla is something else. I have been exploring the concept of "Dragon Witches" within a tradition I've coined the Scaled Sisterhood. I could include ideas from ancient serpent cults too. 

Again, no "Conclusion." I want to venture deeper into the tales of Kull, Solomon Kane, and Bran Mak Morn for Part 3.

Photo by Pavel Danilyuk This week’s "Monstrous Monday" post isn’t a spotlight on a new monster or a dive into old-school related myths. Instead, I will talk about something more urgent: censorship. And no, not the hand-wringing, moral-panic kind from the 1980s. I’m talking about what’s happening right now on platforms like Itch.io and Steam, where a right-wing, conservative activist group is working hard to reshape what creators are allowed to make and what audiences are allowed to see.

So let’s get some background.

Recently, Itch.io, one of the best havens for indie games, visual novels, and tabletop RPGs (including a wide range of weird, odd, and experimental content), published a troubling update. They announced new changes to their adult content policy, citing legal pressures and platform hosting concerns:

• Update on NSFW content - Itch.io

They were, as expected, dragged on Bluesky. 

Meanwhile, Steam, the world’s largest digital distribution platform for games, began removing or suppressing adult titles, including ones that had been live for years. Devs have reported de-listings, warnings, and murky policy enforcement.

• Steam Tracker: List of games no longer available on Steam (click "Changed" to sort by date)
• Steam DB: Recent Events

At the center of this firestorm is Collective Shout (no, I am not going to link), an Australian evangelical anti-porn group led by Melinda Tankard Reist. This group openly brags about pressuring Valve (the company behind Steam), and even seems to be taking credit for Itch.io’s recent clampdown.

• Collective Shout's letter to the payment processors
• Wired: Steam and Itch Are Pulling Porn Games. Devs Say It's Censorship.
• Vice (archived): Group Behind Steam Censorship Has Powerful Allies*

(*Note: this is an archived article. Collective Shout convinced Vice to remove it.)

Collective Shout brands itself as a protector of women and children, but its tactics lean toward religious authoritarianism and a disdain for anything outside its narrow moral view. And their rhetoric? Let’s just say it’s unhinged enough that it would make Jack Thompson (you know, the Godfather of Censoring Video Games) raise an eyebrow. They’ve publicly accused creators of being “pedo-gamer fetishists” and cheered on the removal of queer, kink-positive, and sex-worker-inclusive games.

• PC Gamer: “Pedo-gamer fetishists” and censorship rules

Even Yoko Taro, creator of NieR: Automata, has weighed in, calling out how this sort of censorship affects global creative freedom.

• GamesRadar: “You can even censor another country’s free speech” – Yoko Taro

Let me be 100% clear: This isn’t about “defending porn.” This is about defending expression. Games, like books, films, and zines, explore all corners of the human experience, including sexuality, trauma, queerness, kink, power dynamics, and yes, pleasure. When we allow puritanical groups with political connections to dictate what stories can be told or which creators get silenced, we all lose.

Censorship doesn’t protect anyone. It punishes the marginalized, erases nuance, and sanitizes creativity until all that’s left is bland, corporate-safe pap.

More to the point, games (and really all media) that seem to be disproportionately targeted are ones with an LGBTQI+ point of view. 

• On itch.io, payment processors, and the developers and creatives affected

I have seen Collective Shout members described as TERFs (Trans-exclusionary Radical Feminists), but I can't confirm or deny that. 

Tabletop RPGs, like the ones hosted on Itch.io, have always thrived on the edges of queer voices, indie voices, outsider art, and strange ideas. If we let these spaces get steamrolled by a group with an agenda straight out of a 1980s morality panic or a 1990s purity pledge, we risk losing not just games, but an entire movement.

We’ve fought this battle before, whether it was Tipper Gore and the PMRC, Jack Chick and his satanic panic tracts, or TSR’s late-stage moral cleanup. And we’ll fight it again. Because games are worth defending. Art is worth defending. And freedom, messy, complicated, deeply human freedom, is always worth defending.

So what can we do?

No doubt, Itch.io and Steam caved to these internet bullies, but they were not given much of an option. The real fault lies with Collective Shout and the payment processors they contacted. But they could have handled it much better. 
Obviously, going after Collective Shout is precisely what they want people to do. These types of groups thrive on this and like to show how they are really the innocents, only thinking of the children, and the rest of the world is out to get them.  So, don't give them the satisfaction. They are not protecting anyone; they are just the next level of book-banners. 

• Support creators whose work is under threat. Buy directly when you can. Leave reviews. Share links. Seriously. This is the best thing you can do to help the creators.

• Push back on platform censorship. Write to Valve and other storefronts and ask for clear, fair policies that don’t buckle to extremist pressure.

• Contact Payment Processors. Pressure works both ways.

• Stay informed about groups like Collective Shout. Know what they really stand for.

• Speak up. Silence only helps the status quo, and that is how these groups win.

• Visit. https://stopcollectiveshout.com/ to learn more.

And please. Don't try invoking the 1st Amendment here. That is about protecting American citizens against having their speech impaired by the American government. This is a global situation. 
Full Disclosure Statement: I do not have any games on Itch.io or on Steam. This doesn't affect me at all, but that is not a good reason to stay silent. 

Since 2015, we have been able to leave the Ark and explore the post-apocalypse, perhaps discover what happened, and even search for somewhere safe to live alongside the different groups. First with the mutants of Mutant: Year Zero – Roleplaying at the End of Days, then with the uplifted animals of Mutant: Genlab Alpha, the robots of Mutant: Year Zero – Mechatron – Rise of the Robots Roleplaying, and with the surviving humans of Mutant: Year Zero – Elysium. These four books consist of campaigns in their own right and they come together in The Gray Death, but the relationships between these diverse groups is not always an easy one and with resources scarce, including artefacts left over from before in the Old Age, it can lead to these very different groups coming to blows—and worse! This then, is the set-up for Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars, a skirmish wargame set in a post-apocalyptic future which takes place in an area known as the Zone.

Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars – Skirmish Mayhem in the Mutant: Year Zero Universe is a complete skirmish game which comes with everything that you need to play. This includes miniatures, rules, dice, cards, terrain, and more, all designed to be played by two players, aged fourteen and up, and plays in roughly ninety minutes. An expansion, Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars – Robots & Psionics adds a second set of factions so that four players can play. Published by Free League Publishing following a successful Kickstarter campaign, Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars is notable for a number of things. Most obviously, that it is set in the Mutant: Year Zero universe, and not only that, but it is compatible with the four setting and campaign books for Mutant: Year Zero and the Year Zero mechanics such that it is possible to take a Player Character from one of the roleplaying games and adapt it to Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars. In fact, fans of Mutant: Year Zero – Roleplaying at the End of Days and Mutant: Genlab Alpha will recognise many of figures in Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars – Skirmish Mayhem in the Mutant: Year Zero Universe as being based on the artwork from those books. As will fans of the computer game, Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden. Both Dux, a duck hybrid, and Bormin, a pig hybrid, are included as miniatures in the core game.

Further, it is designed by Andy Chambers, whose wargames pedigree is unparalleled—Necromunda, Battlefleet Gothic, and Warhammer Fantasy Battle for Games Workshop and Dropzone Commander from Hawk Games. Altogether, Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars – Skirmish Mayhem in the Mutant: Year Zero Universe sounds like an attractive package—and that is before you even get to open the box.
Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars – Robots & Psionics is to date, the only expansion for the game. As with Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars, this comes with can be found ten miniatures, nearly eighty cards, one hundred tokens, ten custom dice, three sheets of cardboard terrain, and a measuring rule. What it does not come with is the rulebook or the map sheet, so the core box is still required to play. The terrain is done in full colour and on heavy cardstock, slotting together easily to create a total of thirteen pieces, consisting of walls, trees, and the ruins of buildings, some of them with an upper floor. The terrain is urban rather than rural, consisting of buildings and walls, with no trees. Notable are the walkways which allow the miniatures to move between buildings above ground level and the damaged remains of a bus, although it could be a train or underground train carriage too. Either way, it is possible to put the miniatures inside it. The terrain also comes apart easily for easy storage. The measuring rule and the tokens are bright and breezy and easy to use and see. The dice consist of two sets, the yellow base dice and the black gear dice, and they are easy to read and feel good in the hand. The cards come in two sizes. The standard size cards consist of the character cards which list each character’s stats, starting gear, and mutations or modules. They are double-sided, one side showing the character healthy, the other when he is bloodied. Other standard size cards depict obstacles and monsters that might be encountered during play, as well as Trigger cards initiate events in a scenario when they are drawn. The small cards consist of the starting equipment, modules, and mutations for the characters, as well as artefacts that can be found and are often being fought over in Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars.
Then of course, there are the miniatures. These are done in 32 millimetre, a durable plastic, and divided into two sets of five. One set of five from the Nova Cult Psionicists and one set of five from the Mechatron Robots. All ten miniatures are highly detailed and highly individualised and really stand out in play. As with the miniatures in the core game, they have been given a simple wash that makes them stand out a little more on the table and gives them a matt finish that makes them easier to handle. Fans of the roleplaying games Mutant: Year Zero – Mechatron – Rise of the Robots Roleplaying and Mutant: Year Zero – Roleplaying at the End of Days will recognise some of the characters portrayed by the miniatures. Lastly, the miniatures, cards, and dice all sit in their own tray which has a lid, for very easy storage. There is even an empty slot on the try in which the game’s tokens can be readily stored.
The scenario booklet for Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars – Robots & Psionics runs to just eight pages and is mostly dominated by the expansion set’s five scenarios. Together they form a linked mini-campaign that plays out across the Zone. A new threat has arisen, one capable of taking control of factions and turning them against each other. This begins with ‘Scenario 1: Monster Bonanza’, which sees more and monsters driven to attack the factions, whilst the true nature of the threat, a murderous mutant chieftain called the Hydra, is revealed in ‘Scenario 2: The Hydra Rises’. In ‘Scenario 3: Escorting the Emperor’, the humans of the Ancients—as depicted in Mutant: Year Zero – Elysium—have returned to build the future of the Dawnworld, but needs protection from the Hydra. In this scenario, the Emperor’s Scrap Carriage—making use of the new terrain piece included in Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars – Robots & Psionics—needs to be escorted across the map as it is attacked by Hydra forces, and again, a player’s faction may find itself fulling under Hydra’s influence. The Hydra’s ability to spread his psionic influence is revealed in ‘Scenario 4: Beacons of Hope’, whilst he is finally confronted in ‘Scenario 5: Final Showdown’. All but the first scenario requires a minimum of three players, and all can be played with four players, so at least one of the factions from the core box is required to play through the campaign. They all make use of the Trigger cards to add events and escalate the threat present throughout the mini-campaign.
Each of the two factions in Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars – Robots & Psionics are notably different to each other. The Mechatron Robots all have low Survival scores, reflecting their weakness when it comes to avoiding or taking advantage the dangers of the Zone or take of them, whereas the Nova Cult Psionicists are more varied in their ability scores. The Mechatron Robots are also equipped differently to the Nova Cult Psionicists. Where the Nova Cult Psionicists have Mutations such as ‘Puppeteer’, ‘Magnetism’, and ‘Clairvoyance’, the Mechatron Robots have Modules like ‘Pincers’, ‘System Override’, and ‘Grenade Launch’. Each of the models in Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars – Robots & Psionics, as in the core game, begins play with a standard Mutation or Module, to which is added a random one at the beginning of play. Other cards add a range of threats and encounters, such as ‘Acid Grass’, ‘Psionic Butterflies’, and ‘Magnetic Field’.
Physically, Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars – Robots & Psionics is very well put together and every is of a decent quality. The cards and the tokens are bright and colourful, the terrain and the map sheet are sturdy if suitably drab, the dice feel good in the hand, and the rulebook is light and easy to read. Above all, the miniatures are superb and really stand out in play, and are pleasingly individual so that you do get attached to them.
Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars – Robots & Psionics opens up a lot of utility and versatility for Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars – Skirmish Mayhem in the Mutant: Year Zero Universe. New factions and thus new character types, plus new monsters and a new campaign. The only downside to the new campaign is that most of its scenarios require a minimum of three players, limiting its use. There are ways around that, such as the players taking it in turn to control a third faction or playing with two factions each. Of course, there is nothing to stop the scenarios from the core set being played through again, but with the two new factions from Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars – Robots & Psionics. In fact, this a good option if there are only two players and if the players want to get used to playing the new factions before leaping into the campaign in Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars – Robots & Psionics.
If you enjoyed Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars – Skirmish Mayhem in the Mutant: Year Zero Universe, then Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars – Robots & Psionics is definitely going to give you more of what you want.

The gaming magazine is dead. After all, when was the last time that you were able to purchase a gaming magazine at your nearest newsagent? Games Workshop’s White Dwarf is of course the exception, but it has been over a decade since Dragon appeared in print. However, in more recent times, the hobby has found other means to bring the magazine format to the market. Digitally, of course, but publishers have also created their own in-house titles and sold them direct or through distribution. Another vehicle has been Kickststarter.com, which has allowed amateurs to write, create, fund, and publish titles of their own, much like the fanzines of Kickstarter’s ZineQuest. The resulting titles are not fanzines though, being longer, tackling broader subject matters, and more professional in terms of their layout and design.
—oOo—Senet is a print magazine about the craft, creativity, and community of board gaming. Bearing the tagline of “Board games are beautiful”, it is about the play and the experience of board games, it is about the creative thoughts and processes which go into each and every board game, and it is about board games as both artistry and art form. Published by Senet Magazine Limited, each issue promises previews of forthcoming, interesting titles, features which explore how and why we play, interviews with those involved in the process of creating a game, and reviews of the latest and most interesting releases. Senet is also one of the very few magazines about games to actually be available for sale on the high street.

Senet Issue 14 was published in the spring of 2024 and is physically notable for its four-part, split cover inspired by the game Art Society and some classic pieces of artwork from around the world. The editorial highlights the fact that 2024 marked the fiftieth anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons and that as well as being the first and most successful roleplaying game, it has had its own influence upon boardgames, the editor noting that the first Eurogame inspired by Dungeons & Dragons—2012’s Lords of Waterdeep—was the editor’s first Eurogame. Which means that the editor has been playing Euro-style games for less time than you would think and playing roleplaying games for longer than you would think! Plus the article is a bit of nostalgia upon his part.

The issue proper begins with highlighting some of the forthcoming games with its regular preview, ‘Behold’. There is an unintended theme running through the previewed games, the board game Nature exploring evolution through a series of modules; players finding undiscovered animals on an unexplored mythical island and establishing nature reserves for them in Wondrous Creatures; and critters living in ice floe villages fighting monsters in FLOE, and that is animals and creatures of various kinds. The combat continues in Tibetana, but this is a game in which the aim is to grow by spreading cultures rather than being a game about war without confrontation. It is the most intriguing of titles previewed in the issue, though perhaps not as quite as intriguing as in previous issues of the magazine. ‘Points’, the regular column of readers’ letters, contains a mix of praise for the magazine and a discussion of gaming culture, including suggestions of how to interact with other gamers by focusing on them rather than oneself and a quick report on board game display at the Young Victoria & Albert museum in London. It shoehorns in more letters in than normal, rising from four to five, but as with the previous issues, there is scope here for expansion of this letters page to give space to more voices and readers of Senet, and so build a community. ‘For Love of the Game’, continuing the journey of the designer Tristian Hall towards the completion and publication of his Gloom of Kilforth—and beyond. Here he looks at what to do after the game has been fulfilled via Kickstarter and what the options are if a designer wants to keep the momentum going for his game. As Hall points out, the designer is in sales now. The question is, how more life is there in this journey and should space be made other voices?

The tried and tested format of the magazine continues in Senet Issue 14: Two interviews, one with a designer, one with an artist, and one article exploring a game mechanic whilst another looks at a game theme. It is a format that works well since it throws a light on different aspects of the hobby and its creators. The mechanic in the issue is ‘Conflict of Interest’. Dan Thurot examines the prisoner’s dilemma, the classic scenario in game theory that shows why two rational individuals might not cooperate, even if it is in their best interest to do so. It begins with its historical origins and development by the RAND Corporation and sees how it has been extended into board game design. In doing so, it hits some classic board game designs from the last seventy years. Most notably, Diplomacy, but also Cosmic Encounter from EON and its subsequent reimplementation, Avalon Hill’s Dune. The article looks at the balance between self-interest and the needs of the group, often expressed as the semi-co-operative style of play, and what becomes clear is that the mechanic is used to explore some really interesting themes. In Cosmic Encounter, Dune, and Diplomacy, this was the balance of power, but in games like We’re Sinking! A Pirate’s Dilemma and HMS Dolores, it is about the division of loot, and in the very recent Molly House, from Wehrlegig Games, this is between the need to maintain a group lifestyle and being forced to inform.

Dan Jolin also conducts issue’s first interview in ‘Larger Than Life’. This is with Brazilian board-game illustrator Weberson Santiago. His artwork was first seen in the international version of Coup, but his art, which he describes as possessing personality, has been seen since in The Bloody Inn, a game of murderous innkeepers from 2015; Avalon: Big Box, a re-implementation of The Resistance: Avalon, the Arthurian version of The Resistance, set in the same universe as Coup; and Kelp, the octopus versus shark game previewed in the previous issue of the magazine. The style is varied, but there is a theatricality and a little of the gothic to much of the artwork on show here. What is always enjoyable about these interviews is that they give an artist the chance to talk about his inspirations and how he interpreted a project.

To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the world’s first roleplaying game, Senet Issue 14 does not sidestep into the world of roleplaying, but explores how the world’s first roleplaying game has sidestepped into board games. In ‘The Advance of D&D’, Matt Thrower goes all the back to the first Dungeons & Dragons-inspired, but not an actual official Dungeons & Dragons board game, Dungeon!, before looking at more modern implementations. It points out how Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition was more board game like with its grid-based play, annoying some of the roleplaying game’s players, but attracting board game players in its board game implementation, starting off with Castle Ravenloft. Many of the Dungeons & Dragons-inspired board games are battle rather than dungeon-based, so Lords of Waterdeep is one of the most radical designs to be based on the roleplaying game. This has interesting history, having been developed during lunch hours, but to date, the application of Dungeons & Dragons in board games has mainly been on battles rather than subtler conflicts as in Lords of Waterdeep. The article also suggests some other board games inspired by roleplaying games, but the inclusion of a trading card game like Vampire: The Eternal Struggle, feels like a stretch. Overall, an interesting read that explores Dungeons & Dragons-inspired board games which do more than simulate roleplaying or offer very light roleplaying.

The issue’s designer interview is with David Thompson. In ‘The Good Soldier’, Alexandra Sonechkina interviews the co-designer of Undaunted, the squad-level infantry wargame set in Normandy. The notable feature of his designs, nearly all of them with other designers, is how they focus on the individual. He talks about how the original design came about and then how the Science Fiction version of the Undaunted series, Undaunted 2200: Callisto, was developed. Another good interview which really piques the interest in the designer’s titles.

‘Unboxed’, Senet’s reviews section covers a wide range of games. The most notable are of Le Scorpion Masqué’s Sky Team, the two-player, limited communication board game of landing passenger aeroplanes and of the ecology and climate control-themed, 2024 Kennerspiel des Jahres Winner from CMYK and co-designer, Matt Leacock, Daybreak, and it is the latter that is ‘Senet’s Top Choice’. The inspiration for the issue’s cover, Art Society, is reviewed too, as The Fox Experiment, the new game from Elizabeth Hargreaves, the designer of the highly regarded Wingspan. The review strays into roleplaying a little with Acturus’ Endless Destinies: The Clockwork City, but with a card rather than dice mechanic, but its inclusion reflects another cross section of interesting games put under the lens.

As is traditional, Senet Issue 14 comes to a close with the regular end columns, ‘How to Play’ and ‘Shelf of Shame’. For ‘How to Play’, ‘Lord of the flies: how to win at Hive’ by Joe Schulz, in which he explains how he switched from judo following a shoulder injury to the two-player game Hive in 2015 and has since been world champion four times. Lastly, Pasan Fernando and Damian Armitage, the duo behind Meeples Abroad, pull out Merv: The Heart of Silk for their ‘Shelf of Shame’ and discover a strategic, city-building game and the wealth of options it offers.

Physically, Senet Issue 14 is shows off the board games it previews and reviews to great effect, just as you would expect. It contains a good mix of interesting and informative articles, ‘Conflict of Interest’ showing off a surprising mix of games that the prisoner’s dilemma has been applied to and ‘The Advance of D&D’ explores another side of the roleplaying game in its anniversary year. This is all backed up by some informative reviews. Senet Issue 14 is another good issue with a wide rage of content in a well presented package.

In the heavens there is a war between the Stars, between the stars of light and darkness, and of life and consumption. The black hole stars called ‘Photovores’ seek to consume all other Stars, and where they cannot, they cajole others to steal and enslave the other Stars. They are opposed by all other Stars, led by the wise White Dwarf Stars. When a Photovore dies, its death echoes across the heavens and echoes on worlds as lightning. On the world of Zós, the death of the most evil of Photovores, Pséphtes, struck a boy and in time, the ghost of Pséphtes corrupted him and helped him become Photiós, the King known as ‘The Pantokrator’. His most loyal and fouled servants, the Corrupted Men, spread and controlled time through their Timekeepers, interfaces between space and time, from which hatched The Pantokrator’s other minions, the Spider Lords. The Pantokrator raised armies and took to the skies, murdering Stars and enslaving Planets, even personally stabbing in the heart, Ánthraka, the much beloved Moon of Zós. In response to the rise of The Pantokrator’s empire, the Stars attacked its many colonies and even Zós itself. Their mightiest weapon was Átmos, the Stellar Wind, which brought an austere nuclear winter to every world it touched. A hatred for the Stars grew in the heart of Pséphtes and his puppet, The Pantokrator, and even as they were driven back to the world of Zós, they plotted to restore their empire. Yet as they do so, the Star whose light bathes Zós is dying and there are those who plot in spite of The Pantokrator, seeking to replace the Star with something manmade, a Sun whose light and warmth can be taxed and thus fund The Pantokrator’s desire for empire again. Even then there are those who would take advantage of this plot to instigate a seemingly never ending solar eclipse and elevate themselves to sit alongside Pséphtes!

This is the background for Astromythos: Lair of the Spider Lord, one of the strangest of adventures for Dungeons & Dragons—for any edition, let along Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Published by Hit Point Press, it is based upon Astromythos: Book One – World Art Book, an epic mythology presented in heroic verse created by artist and author, Jon Sideriadis. Thankfully, Astromythos: Lair of the Spider Lord is not in heroic verse, but it is epic in scale and requirements. It is designed for a party of Tenth Level Player Characters, who by the end of the campaign, will reach Fifteenth Level. The scenario combines cosmic horror and—very—high fantasy in a universe that is biological on an astronomical scale and will see the Player Characters crossing the dead bones of a dying world and plunging quite literally into the heart and bowels of a mountain before ascending to the heavens to confront a mistress Spider Lord at the heart of her lair, from which she woven a web around the Sun and planet of Zós. All of which is depicted in stunning artwork which captures the cosmic mythology of the setting. And the Game Master is definitely going to want to show the artwork in Astromythos: Lair of the Spider Lord to her players, so that they can grasp the alien grandeur of the Astromythos through which their characters are journeying. (There is, though, a deck of spell and item cards, which do show off the author’s artwork, but this is a campaign or scenario that really warrants a book of artwork to show the players, a la S1 Tomb of Horrors.)
There is, though, the matter of getting the Player Characters to the start of the scenario. The suggested hooks all boil down to the Player Characters beginning the scenario in the dungeons of King Photiós’ meteor castle on Zós and their being summoned to his court to be sent on a mission. They might be natives to Zós, but there is no suggestion as to what a native of Zós might look like in Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition given in Astromythos: Lair of the Spider Lord. The extremely otherworldly nature of Astromythos: Lair of the Spider Lord lends itself to it being run as if it were a shared dream, but the reality of Astromythos: Lair of the Spider Lord also suggests that it could be run in conjunction with any setting involving alternate planes or travel between the stars, most obviously the Planescape Campaign Setting or Spelljammer: Adventures in Space, or their more modern iterations.

At the beginning of the scenario, the Player Characters are directed by King Photiós to fetch Dulos, a man whom the rather unpleasant monarch tells them is key to the restoration of his kingdom. This requires a journey, first on a train pulled by a biomechanical heart—the Artery Railway—and then on foot through the Flayed Wood to Nanókora, a poisoned village of bone. There are few if any survivors, but Dulos is one of them, and whilst he will thank the Player Characters for rescuing him, he will also plead for their aid. He will tell them of the truth of King Photiós’ evil and that only by allowing the trees to grow once again can the world of Zós be saved from his poison. Dulos will join the Player Characters if they decide to help him—King Photiós will attempt to kill them as thanks for their help even if they decide otherwise, and Dulos will guide them through much of the rest of the scenario. Travelling under what is now a perpetual solar eclipse, Dulos directs the Player Characters up the nearby mountains to find someone who can help recultivate the trees, but when their way back down is blocked, they are forced to make a detour into the mountain itself. The caves themselves have a very organic feel and layout, though it may not necessarily be obvious to players and their characters unless they map it out.

Once they are free of the mountain, having been captured by a two-headed ogre of cratered rock and been thrown into his pot along the way in classic fantasy style, the Player Characters enter the Skeletal Wood and search for the Zenith Door, a magical door in the sky which should open at noon daily and allow travellers to be transported into orbit and beyond. However, the perpetual solar eclipse means that it remains permanently closed, so another route is needed. This is aboard a garbage barge, for which its captain which charge a fortune, but it will get the Player Characters to the heavens to first confront one Spider Lord, Lord Skurigelos, in his dead asteroid lair and then another, Lady Klevastis, his mistress in her Horned Moon Keep on the lunar surface, after having penetrated the moonflesh mines. As befitting their Spider Lords, both asteroid lair and castle are overrun by spiders and festooned with webs, although they are not the only threat that the Player Characters will face. There is the possibility of their being captured in the asteroid lair and having to escape a torture chamber, but the exploration in both locations will culminate in a confrontation with a Spider Lord. The final fight in the scenario is incredibly tough, and unless they spot and take advantage of Lady Klevastis’ weakness, there is the possibility of a total party kill. (If that happens, it is almost worth playing through this part of the scenario again, as it might emphasise the dream-like nature of Astromythos: Lair of the Spider Lord.)

There are some suggestions as to how to continue the scenario, which will require no little development by the Game Master, but in this and the scenario itself, the Game Master is decently supported in Astromythos: Lair of the Spider Lord, something that is really useful given how different the nature of the scenario really is. This includes a good overview of the background to the setting and the scenario itself, as well as a list and descriptions of the scenario’s named NPCs. The first of the scenario’s three appendices describes new magic items, the second its bestiary, and the third, its new spells. The new magic items include some fearsome weapons, like Bone Divider, a Moonflesh great axe that requires a Strength of twenty to wield, is enchanted by Tidal Force so that it knocks opponents back thirty feet with a blow, and on a natural twenty cleaves an opponent in two in a shower of sparks and stardust! The bestiary describes some twenty-seven new creatures, including ‘Clock Mites, Mites of Many Colours and Neon Corruptors of Time’, ‘Spider Ghouls, Half-Man/Half-Spider Failed Experiments of Lord Skurigelos’, and ‘Star-Slayers, Dreaded Warriors of the Pantokrator King and Superhuman Slayers of Stars’, some of which should find their way into other cosmic or planar settings for Dungeons & Dragons.

Physically, Astromythos: Lair of the Spider Lord is incredibly well presented with fantastic artwork that will amaze the reader. Depictions of things such as ‘Opticos, Asteroid Abomination, Lord of the Opticons and the Spies of Photovóros’, all blue-grey and beautiful eyes looking in different directions, is genuinely creepy, even Gilliam-esque, whilst elsewhere, there is a dark religiosity to the artwork.

Astromythos: Lair of the Spider Lord is a linear scenario, one that is not difficult to run, but given the fearsome nature of many of the foes, difficult to overcome by the players and their characters. It is also difficult, or at least awkward, to add to a campaign easily, given the cosmic nature of its fantasy. Running it as a dream is likely the easiest way, since it requires the least explanation and will have the least effect upon an ongoing campaign, and it can be run alongside an existing campaign. In whatever way a Game Master decides to run it, Astromythos: Lair of the Spider Lord is a genuinely fantastical scenario played out on an astronomical-biomechanical scale with some amazing imagery.

The LitRPG genre appears to have got a loot box of its own with the Dungeon Crawler Carl series by Matt Dinniman. LitRPG—or ‘Literary Role Playing Game’ is a genre of fiction in which the protagonists of the story are in a computerised game world, one that they are aware of being in, and have an understanding of the mechanics of the game world they are in. The term itself is barely more than a decade old, but it can be argued that books such as the 1978 Quag Keep by Andre Norton and the 1981 Dream Park by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes are its precursors. With Dungeon Crawler Carl, the genre reaches a wider audience as the reader follows the exploits of an ordinary joe and his ex-girlfriend’s super-precious show cat, as together they attempt to survive a mega-dungeon and in the process save the world. The result is a knowing satire of roleplaying that combines the fish-out-of-water oddness of Douglas Adams’ The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy with the bureaucratic cruelty of Stephen King’s The Running Man.

The book opens with the destruction of the Earth, although not all of it, and not by a Vogon Constructor fleet. The Borant Corporation, an alien company from outer space, has bought the planet’s mineral rights and because no-one put in an objection, has flattened every building and turned the inside of the planet into a megadungeon with eighteen levels that the remaining fourteen million survivors of the planet must fight their way through. Of course, not everyone is going to survive, and the book maintains a running count that rapidly decreases as the secrets and lethality of the dungeon are revealed. All of which will be broadcast to the galaxy as one big reality video event—Big Brother or Survivor in a dungeon, if you will. This is how the purchasing corporation plans to recover its costs in the short term, focusing on the exploits and travails of the survivors who do well as Dungeon Crawlers. One such is Carl, ex-Coast Guard marine mechanic, who happens to be outside in the freezing winds of Seattle when the flattening occurs, wearing a leather jacket, no trousers, and a pair of crocs. His choice of clothes, certainly the lack of trousers and proper shoes, becomes a running joke throughout the book. As does his means of fighting—kicking and applying explosives to almost any situation, and his navigating his way around the interface. The latter is done as a computer roleplaying game interface that plays out in the minds of the Dungeon Crawlers.

The reason he is outside is Princess Donut the Queen Anne Chonk. This is the prize-winning show cat belonging to Beatrice, Carl’s girlfriend. Quickly after Carl finds himself in the dungeon, Princess Donut gets uplifted and turned from a pet into a Dungeon Crawler, and thus into a character in her own right, whilst Carl is classified as her bodyguard. After getting a briefing in a Safe Room, Carl and Donut set out to explore and find an entrance to the next level down, taking down mobs and bosses on the way. As they progress, Carl and Donut learn that there is much more to the dungeon than at first seems. It is built on a regular floorplan with blocks with district bosses rather than something more organic in design and the Artificial Intelligence behind the dungeon tailors the loot boxes that both Carl and Donut receive. So, Donut receives items that enhance her Charisma—after all, she is a princess—and lots of torches, whilst Carl receives items that enhance his feet and ability to stamp and kick, but is never destined to receive any trousers. There are daily updates on the dungeon that occur in response to the Dungeon Crawlers’ actions, television shows which Carl and Donut get scheduled to appear on once they begin to get famous and accrue followers, and politics playing out behind the scenes that this first book only hints at, but which will likely play out in the subsequent books in the series.

In terms of character, Carl himself, does not entirely come across as entirely likeable. More of an everyman than a hero, in keeping with the genre, he is both aware of Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder and uses that knowledge to his advantage. Given the circumstances, it is understandable that he is exasperated, sometimes angry, by his situation, and that extends to his attitude to his girlfriend, Bea, who is first revealed to be cheating on him and then promiscuously cheating on him. It is a note of poor characterisation, not just in terms of Carl, but also of Bea, upon the part of the author, and it is not the only negative portrayal of women in the book. Several of the monsters, especially the boss monsters are more gross caricatures than monsters. Yet, Carl is driven to be the hero, to want to help the survivors from the old peoples’ home that was nearby his home and get them down to Level Two and then Level Three. To do that, he is forced to kill a lot of monsters, including a nursery of goblins, and he does feel guilty about it in exactly the opposite way that the average player of Dungeons & Dragons likely does not. The need to kill to Level up to survive almost assuages the feelings of guilt that Carl suffers from these actions, whilst the revelation that many of the monster denizens are literally waiting in fear for a dungeon crawler to turn up and kill them all, does the exact opposite.

In comparison, Queen Donut is a more interesting and likeable character even though she has the morality and attitude of a cat, uplifted to sentience and full expression. Queen Donut is often more insightful and aware than Carl is, but as a cat she is self-centred and embraces the fame of being a social media star where Carl bridles against it.

Dungeon Crawler Carl combines horror and humour, but not always effectively. The megadunegon as reality and what Carl and Donut have to do is the source for both, but it emphasises the horror more than the humour, which is from the absurdity of the situation. Both begin to weary after a while from the repetition of both and the book being just a little too long to really sustain either. The humour is also a bit too obvious and just not sharp enough to be really satirical, rarely getting above being amusing rather laugh out loud or clever.

Dungeon Crawler Carl ends almost midsentence, or at least mid-decision, rather than on definite conclusion or cliffhanger, so there is no impetus to start reading the next book if the reader has not decided already. Any reader who is not a roleplayer, whether of tabletop roleplaying games or computer games, is less likely to do so, whereas role-players are more likely to do so, since the series is squarely aimed at them, they are going to get the references, and really, there is not a lot of fiction aimed directly at them anyway. For them, the fact that they can buy this at their local bookshop is a bonus as is the fact that they might see the series adapted for television.

Dungeon Crawler Carl is an amiable read, a very knowing poke at traditional roleplaying played out on an absurd stage. It does not quite outstay its welcome, but it could have been sharper and leaner.