Taking the Right-hand turn in the chamber, you move about 20' in, and another cell is on your right.

This cell is large and empty save for the glowing light coming from it.

Standing in the light for a full turn will heal 1 hp of damage.  Characters can be healed for a total of 1d6+1 hp in this manner.

 Continuing on the hallway opens up to a large semi-circular chamber.  The hallway continues on beyond the chamber and there is another hallway to the right.

There are signs here of a recent battle. There is blood on the ground and spent arrows.

There are no bodies and no treasure.

Continuing down this hallway, there is another cell on the right.

The door to this cell is open. Inside are three Zombies. Two are visible in the center of the cell, and the other is propped up against the wall and blends in.

The first two will attack per normal, the other will not attack until the characters are within arm's reach (5 ft).  The third zombie is the experiment, it has a bit more intelligence and cunning for an undead corpse and can move faster. It surprises on a roll of 3 or less on a d6 and can attack at any point with its initiative rolls.  It attacks as a 3HD monster and has the respective XP.

The zombies have no treasure.

The Sunless Garden was originally published in 2004 as Dungeon Crawl Classics #10: The Sunless Garden. This meant that that it was first published for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition, but in 2022, publisher Goodman Games took the original module—regarded as a classic of its time—and updated it to not one, but two different fantasy roleplaying games. One is for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition as Fifth Edition Fantasy: The Sunless Garden, and the other is for Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, as Dungeon Crawl Classics: The Sunless Garden, and both as Gen Con Exclusives at Gen Con 2022. However, the version for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition would be subsequently released as Fifth Edition Fantasy #23: The Sunless Garden. However, it is the version for Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game that is being reviewed here. Dungeon Crawl Classics: The Sunless Garden is designed for a party of Fourth Level Player Characters and details a strange cave below which there is a lengthy dungeon. Whether run for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game or Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, the scenario is easy to add to most ongoing campaigns and needs nothing more than a small village and a forest known for smugglers and Treants.
The Sunless Garden begins in or around the trading post of Garland’s Fork. Perhaps the Player Characters are passing through or visiting, or they have come to investigate reports of smugglers in the area, but when they discover to their horror that all of the inhabitants have been transformed into black trees! The trail of clues quickly leads to a strange cave, full of vegetation which seems to have been warped and mutated under a nauseous purple light. What has twisted the plants and fungi so, and caused the former guardians of the forest to turn dark and monstrous, if not outright evil?

The scenario consists of two levels—‘The Sunless Garden’ and ‘The Dark Garden’. It is entirely possible that the Player Characters will miss the entrance to the lower level, The Dark Garden, and even if they do, it will not necessarily affect the outcome of the scenario. The solution to the problem presented at the beginning of scenario—the villagers transformed into trees and the mutated vegetation—can be found in ‘The Sunless Garden’ and thus never need to go any further. However, this would be miss out on the contrast between the two levels and the contrast in tone between this scenario and others directly written for use with the for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game rather having been adapted. ‘The Sunless Garden’ and ‘The Dark Garden’ vary in several ways. The upper level of ‘The Sunless Garden’ is wide open cavern that almost has the feel of a mini-wilderness area with its lush plots of vegetation, trees, fungi, and mulch, all of it twisted—such as the infamous exploding apples which go off if plucked from the tree—and all under the baleful purple light. In addition, there are several side locations off the main cavern, mostly worked areas in contrast to the main cave, and all populated in intelligent fashion with plenty of detail for the Judge to describe to her players.

Once they discover its entrance, what the Player Characters find below in ‘The Dark Garden’ is much more of a traditional dungeon. It has long, worked corridors, traps, stairs going up and down, mostly empty storage rooms, and so on. Progress is mostly linear through the dungeon, especially through its later parts. There are some fantastic encounters on the lower level, such as with a Sea Hag—washed in via the level’s big trap—who waits manacled to a wall, waiting to be rescued, but ready to strike, and a handful of delightful locations like the smuggler chief’s secret sewing room and display room, the latter including a giant copper piece a la the penny in the Batcave. There are some fantastic treasures to found too. Some are mundane, but many are incredibly bulky and difficult to transport. There is the possibility here of the Player Characters surviving the dungeon with a lot of money if they carry it off. The magical treasures are delightfully inventive, such as a Ring of Dryness, which prevents the wearer from getting wet at all, including sweat. Which means that the wearer pants heavily to help regulate his body’s temperature!

The other contrast to The Sunless Garden is between its editions. The Dungeon Crawl Classics line has always harked back to an earlier age of adventure and dungeon design, indeed that was its selling point when Dungeon Crawl Classics #1: Idylls of the Rat King was published in 2004. Yet the original style of the Dungeon Crawl Classics line was to emulate the style, look, and feel of the modules for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition, right down to the shade of blue used for the maps. This is not something that modules for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game aim for, having their own distinctive look and feel—especially in the isometric perspective of their maps and the taking of inspiration from Appendix N of the Dungeon Master’s Guide. As a consequence, Dungeon Crawl Classics: The Sunless Garden does not feel like a scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, or rather, one half does and one half does not. The upper half of ‘The Sunless Garden’ does feel like a classic Dungeon Crawl Classics, darker, twisted, and murkier, but the lower half of ‘The Dark Garden’ does not. It is bigger, emptier, and not strongly connected to the cavern above. Part of the issue is the lack of motivation in the scenario for the Player Characters to proceed further into the dungeon if they have cleared the cavern. Here a good Judge should be able to add motivation, perhaps connected to the band of smugglers mentioned at the beginning of the scenario.

Physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics: The Sunless Garden is presented in the classic style of the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. Thus, artwork is decent, the maps good, and the writing clear. However, it does need an edit in places and feels slightly rushed.

Dungeon Crawl Classics: The Sunless Garden is an adaptation of an earlier module and it shows. The adaptation does not feel as smooth as it could have been and is better in the first half than the second half. Consequently, the scenario will need some input from the Judge to make ‘The Dark Garden’ work as well as ‘The Sunless Garden’ does.

This cell is around the corner on the right. The cell door on the right is open and inside is a glowing portal. 

Standing in the room is a human woman. She has two crystals in one hand and is furiously writing notes. She speaks to the party very excitedly, but her language is unknown. She ignores whatever the party says to her; she is too excited about whatever it is she writing. 

She is really only interested in this portal. She has no treasure to mention. If she is attacked she jumps through the portal and runs off.

If the characters follow, the portal will close behind. Take the character sheets from the players and hand them their new Castles & Crusades character sheets for the same characters. 

You come to a turn in the hallway. It turns to right, but before it does, there is another cell door on your left.  These cell doors are open.

This room is empty. There are signs of a recent battle. A pile of bones that look like they belonged to a couple of dire wolves is here. 

There is no treasure in this room.

--

There is still a group of ahead of the party and they dealt with the skeletal dire wolves.

 Continuing down the hall there is another cell on the right.

This cell appears to be used as a storage area.  There are several chests, all are empty except for two.

Chest #1: has a Small Bag of Holding inside. The bag itself is empty.

Chest #2: Is actually a Mimic and it is starving.

The mimic itself has no treasure.

 Well...not exactly a Mail Call Tuesday today. Though it will be sometime in June/July.  But I had to mention these.

ReAction, the company that makes action figures for various properties in the style of the old Kenner Star Wars figures (3.75" scale), has a new series coming out.

Wave 1 of their Dungeons & Dragons line has some very familiar faces.

There is the Sorceress (D&D Moldvay Basic), the Efreeti (DMG), and the Githyanki (Fiend Folio) in the first wave for preorder now.

Damn it. Just when I was in a good place NOT to give WotC any money out of protest for the OGL shenanigans. 

Anyway. As someone who really went hardcore with D&D with the Moldvay Basic (my first proper D&D) and writes so much about witches, I am morally obligated to buy the Sorceress.  I owe it to that 11-year-old I once was. Besides, she is certainly popular.

The other figures also look great.

The Efreeti also has another advantage. At 3.75", that translates to 18.75' in D&D 3/4/5 scale.  So I could use it as the Efreeti Pasha. It would have a certain level of "street cred" to use the same figure as the front of the DMG for it.  Everyone in my current gaming groups knows all about 1st Ed AD&D, so to them, pulling this guy would have the same effect as pulling out Tiamat or Orcus.

All three of these figures have also, in one form or another, have had premium statues made of them. The Efreeti and the Githyanki from Wizkids and the Sorceress, in her modern guise of Seoni, from Dynamite. These figures are a lot cheaper.

You should be able to preorder these anywhere.

I am getting mine from Super7, which has better shipping. But I have seen them at Entertainment Earth as well. They will likely be on Amazon soon.  Of course you could order them from your FLGS or FLCS.

These are not the same scale as the new D&D Cartoon figures, but they are close to last year's NECA Skyla and Kelek figures. Come back around in June/July, and we will see.

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

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

—oOo—
Name: The Tunnels Under Temple MeadsPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Peter Willington

Setting: Jazz Age Bristol, United Kingdom
Product: ScenarioWhat You Get: Eighteen page, 2.59 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Hell is being hunted for reasons unknown...Plot Hook: The Investigator must find out who he is and why he is there.Plot Support: Two NPCs, four handouts, and three maps.Production Values: Plain.
Pros# One-to-one format more engaging# Good staging advice for the Keeper# Short, one-session, one-to-one scenario# Strong sense of personal horror# Memories recovered via actions and exploration# Could be run player versus player with more players# Potential campaign starter for one Investigator
# Different setting in Temple Meads railway station# Nyctophobia# Diokophobia# Paranoia
Cons# No background beyond the scenario# No advice for continuing the scenario
# No Sanity rewards# No Sanity losses# Combat-focused scenario
Conclusion# Short, one player, one Keeper amnesia-to-memory hunt as the Investigator is thrown into a hunting ground in a railway station. # Potential introduction for an Investigator to a campaign, but no advice or background for that.

Hard City: Noir Roleplaying is a roleplaying game which takes the player into the dark, dangerous world of high streets and long shadows, of uncertainty and ambiguity, of desperation and dedication, of beguilement and betrayal, of the lonely man who would seek the truth and the many who would hide it, where ultimately any resolution will end badly. This is the world of Film Noir and hardboiled fiction, both a genre and a style, best typified by films such as The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, and Double Indemnity, and the works of James M. Cain, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and Mickey Spillane. The heroes are always cynical, often as dangerous and damned as their enemies, who might employ lowlifes and punks, but they are invariably as clever, classy, and charming as they are callous. Some, like the classic femme fatale, is ultimately all of that, often at first demure and desirable, but eventually revealed to be cunning and selfish, ready to betray not just the hero, but her co-conspirators and fellow crooks too. These play out in a city of soaring skyscrapers, between the cracks where the light of what is right and just never seems to shine, even if the cracks run all the way to the highest office.

Hard City: Noir Roleplaying is published by Osprey Games, best known for roleplaying games such as Gran Meccanismo: Clockpunk Roleplaying in da Vinci’s Florence and Jackals – Bronze Age Fantasy Roleplaying, and board games such as Undaunted: Normandy. It enables the creation of Player Characters through trademarks rather than skills, enabling players to create classic archetypes of the genre, and combines this with light, dice pool mechanics designed to facilitate fast play and resolution in a grim, gritty city of America of the middle decades of the twentieth century. The result is a storytelling game in a classic genre, both black and white in its look and in the tales it tells.

A Player Character in Hard City is defined by his Trademarks, Edges, Flaws, Drives, Ties, and Belongings. Trademarks are broad, thematic Tags which are the most obvious interesting thing about a Player Character; Edges are specialisations or advantages; Flaws are difficulties, passions, or disadvantages; and Drives are a Player Character’s motivations. A Player Character has three Trademarks, one from his Past, his Present, and his Perk, five Edges, two Flaws, a single Drive, and two Ties. The Edges are listed under the Trademarks, which also provide options for Flaws. Past Trademarks include Bureaucrat, Button Man, Grifter, and Newshound; Present Trademarks include Enforcer, Finder, Infiltrator, and Performer; and Perk Trademarks include Badge, Dirty Fighter, Femme Fatale, and Weasel. Drives can be Altruistic, Debt-related, and Selfish, and Ties can be with people and places, positive, and problematic, and ideally, they should be with other Player Characters. Lastly, a Player Character has Moxie and Grit, the former a Player Character’s luck and willpower, the latter his toughness and capacity to survive.

The creation process is a matter of making several choices and the choices do lend themselves to creating some classic characters from the genre. So, the Veteran, Investigator, and Brave Trademarks could model Sam Spade; Grifter, Charmer, and Femme Fatale for Brigid O’Shaughnessy; Criminal, Finder, and Weasel for Joel Cairo; and High Society, Leader, and Huge for Caspar Gutman. It is eased by a table of flaws and a table of names, the latter including a list of regular surnames and hardboiled surnames. So, for example, an ordinary name might be Audrey Lewin or Ronald Scott, but their hardboiled versions could be Audrey Shields or Ronald Hawk.

Eudoxia Lionidze
Trademarks
Past: High Society (Edges: Educated, Charm)
Present: Infiltrator (Edges: Break & Enter, Escape)
Perk: Femme Fatale (Edges: Cunning, Strong-willed)
Flaw: Lack of Trust, Irresponsible
Drive: Pay off my brother’s gambling debts
Ties: I don’t trust Anton Powell because he gambles too much; I’m pretty sure Burt Torres knows who killed Gladys Janes
Moxie: 3
Grit: 3

Mechanically, Hard City uses a dice pool of six-sided dice, consisting of two sets of dice, Action Dice and Danger Dice, each in a different colour. To undertake an action, a player assembles the pool using Action Dice, starting with a single die, whilst the Game Master adds Danger Dice. Action Dice are drawn from a Player Character’s Trademark and an appropriate Edge, plus from any Tags from the Threat or Scene, Position, Belongings, and Help the Player Character might be receiving. Danger Dice come from Injuries and Conditions the Player Character is suffering, plus from any Tags from the Threat or Scene, Position, Belongings, and the Scale of the obstacle. Once the dice pool is assembled, the dice are rolled. Matches between the Action Dice and the Danger Dice are cancelled and the highest remaining Action Dice are counted. A six is a success, four or five a partial success, and three or less a failure. Extra results of six count as Boons and can have an Increased Effect of the success, Set Up an Ally with an extra success, can speed Extended Checks, and Add a Tag to a Scene or Threat. Botches occur when only results of one remain and can lead to Increased Danger, Inflict Serious Harm, and Extra Strikes in an Extended Check.

A Player Character also has Moxie. This can be spent to Demonstrate Expertise and add a second Trademark to a roll, gain A Little Luck to change a single die up or down by one result on both Action Dice or Danger Dice, Take a Breath to remove a Condition, or even details to a scene with a Voice-over. Moxie is refreshed when one of a Player Character’s Flaws comes into play and makes life complicated for everyone.

The outcome of a roll is to inflict Consequences which mean that a Player Character or NPC can suffer a cost or complication, a Tag can be added or removed, whether from the Player Character, Scene, or Threat, a Threat can be added or increased to a Scene, or Harm can be inflicted. Harm can be a Condition such as Angry, Dazed, or Dishevelled, or it can be an Injury of varying severity. All of these can be used to add Action Dice and Danger Dice to the dice pool, depending on the situation. When it comes to what a Player Character might be doing, Hard City does not so much provide extra rules for how investigations, chases, interrogations, arguments, and fights work, as suggest how the rules apply and what the possible Consequences might be, whether to the Player Characters or the NPCs. When it comes to actions within a turn, any shooting and fighting is done last, talking and moving first, emphasising the hard talking and words have meaning nature of the genre.
Eudoxia Lionidze has been hired to retrieve some letters that the mobster, Carlo Garcia, is using to blackmail her client. She has already managed to get the letters by attending a party at Garcia’s house and climbing over the balcony into his study from the room next door. As she exits into the hallway, bottle of champagne and glass in hand, slightly dishevelled after clambering over the balcony, she is confronted by one of Garcia’s goons, asking what she is doing there. Eudoxia is going to have to bluff her way past, and with a grin, says, “Oh I am so sorry. I just needed to lie down. Get my head straight. Too much to drink…” Eudoxia’s player creates his pool of Action Dice by starting out with a single die and adds one for her High Society Trademark since she is dressed like she should be at the party, another for her Charm, and suggests that her appearance and Belongings would earn her another die. The Game Master agrees, means that Eudoxia’s player has four Action Dice to roll. The Game Master adds six Danger Dice to the pool, including one for Goon and another for his Condition, which is Suspicious. The player rolls the dice and gets a one, five, five and six on the Action Dice and three and five on the Danger Dice. The five on the Action Dice and the Danger Dice cancel each other out, which leaves the six from the Action Dice as the highest result, and means that the security goon believes Eudoxia, giving him the Trusting Condition. With a slight misstep of the slightly drunk, she makes her way back down to the party and her companion for the night. In terms of progression, Hard City is about the School of Hard Knocks, and a Player Character can learn from his setbacks as much as he can his successes. Two many setbacks and a Player Character can begin the next case or investigation with lower Moxie or even a Condition even as the Player Character improves.

Hard City is set in 1946 in a large, nameless city, either by the sea or the bay. It could be Los Angeles, San Francisco, or Chicago, but its particulars are described in more than enough detail to be a playable space, covering a little of its history, its movers and shakers and troublemakers, crime, but paying particular attention to its districts, complete with Tags, place suggestions and possible story hooks.

For both the players and the Game Master, there is an introduction to the genre with a decent bibliography, whilst for the Game Master there is advice on running the various aspects of the roleplaying game. This does include avoiding the social attitudes of the period in which the genre is set, but in the main focuses on two types of Case—or scenario. These are investigations and capers, the former more complex than the latter, but the latter requiring more planning upon the Player Characters. There is also a discussion of MacGuffins and suggestions as to possible campaign frames, primarily investigative in nature, but all supported by a list of example films which exemplify their set-ups. Only the ’Wrong Time, Wrong Place’ campaign frame differs from this, which explores ordinary men and women getting caught up in bad situations, typified by Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice. This is all accompanied by a Case Generator.

The advice itself focuses on the fiction and playing to it, and on making the most out of scenes. This includes ‘Enter Late, Exit Early’ and Raymond Chandler’s famous adage that, “When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand.” In modelling its genre, the framing of scenes in Hard City is intended to be succinct, focused, and interesting. The players are meant to engage with this, bring their characters’ Drives and Flaws into play as much as their Trademarks, to make the lives of their characters if not difficult, then at the very least, interesting. Though ideally, difficult. As a consequence of this and the need for the players to embrace the various aspects of the genre, Hard City does demand more of its players, that they roleplay hard in every scene their characters appear in. Rounding Hard City is a pair of ready-to-play Cases—‘Engagement with Death’ is an investigation into the disappearance of a wealthy industrialist’s son, whilst ‘In at the Deep End’ is a caper in which the Player Characters must recover a piece of missing artwork. Both are classic Film Noir plots which nicely emulate the genre.

Physically, Hard City is very nicely presented. The book is tidily laid out and quite easy to read, but the best feature is the artwork. Luis F. Sanz’s illustrations are excellent, really capturing the feel and tone of the genre with a wide cast of characters and varying situations. If there is anything missing from the book it is a handy rules reference at the end of the book.

Hard City: Noir Roleplaying is a roleplaying game in which the players need to play hard and talk hard in order to bring out the best and the worst of their characters. Thematically and mechanically, it keeps everything simple by focusing on the trademark aspects of the genre and encouraging the players to bring them into play. The result is an impressively presented and clearly written storytelling roleplaying game whose look and play is designed to emulate the desperate, dangerous, and morally ambiguous tales of the Film Noir and Hardboiled genres.

The reputation of B2 Keep on the Borderlands and its influence on fantasy roleplaying is such that publishers keep returning to it. TSR, Inc. of course published the original as well as including it in the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set, which is where many gamers encountered it. The publisher would also revisit it with Return to the Keep on the Borderlands for its twenty-fifth anniversary, and the module would serve as the basis for Keep on the Borderlands, part of Wizards of the Coast’s ‘Encounters Program’ for Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition. Yet since then, Wizards of the Coast has all but ignored B2 Keep on the Borderlands and the module that preceded it, B1 In Search of the Unknown, barring the publisher’s 2012 Dungeon Module B2 The Caves of Chaos: An Adventure for Character Levels 1-3. This was the playtest scenario for D&D Next, first seen in Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle, which was essentially previewing what would go on to become Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition.

Instead, it would be other publishers who would revisit both scenarios in the twenty-first century. So Kenzer & Company first published B1 Quest for the Unknown, a version of B1 In Search of the Unknown for use with HackMaster, Fourth Edition, and would follow it up with not one, but two versions of B2 Keep on the Borderlands. First with B2 Little Keep on the Borderlands: An Introductory Module for Characters Level 1–4 in 2002, and then again in 2009 with Frandor’s Keep: An immersive setting for adventure. Another publisher to revisit B2 Keep on the Borderlands was Chris Gonnerman, with JN1 The Chaotic Caves, a scenario written for the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game. In addition, Faster Monkey Games published its own homage to B1 In Search for the Unknown with The Hidden Serpent, whilst Pacesetter Games & Simulations has published a number of extra encounters and sequels for both scenarios, most notably B1 Legacy of the Unknown and B2.5 Blizzard on the Borderland.

Yet Wizards of the Coast did not ignore its extensive back catalogue. It would release numerous titles in PDF, and even allow Print on Demand reprints, including both B1 In Search of the Unknown and ;B2 Keep on the Borderlands. Further, in 2017, it published Tales from the Yawning Portal, a collection of scenarios that had originally been published for previous editions of Dungeons & Dragons, including Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition, Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition, and even D&D Next. These scenarios though, did not include either B1 In Search of the Unknown or B2 Keep on the Borderlands. Which upon first glance seemed a strange omission, but then came the announcement from Goodman Games about Original Adventures Reincarnated #1: Into the Borderlands.

Arguably, Original Adventures Reincarnated #1: Into the Borderlands would prove to be the ultimate version of the classic module, but authors have continued to revisit the original even since such as with the fanzine version from Swordfish Islands LLC, which so far consists of Beyond the Borderlands Issue #1 and Beyond the Borderlands Issue #2. Yet there remain oft forgotten visits to the famous ‘Keep on the Borderlands’ and the equally infamous, ‘Caves of Chaos’, which are worth examining and shining light upon. For example, ‘Warriors of the Gray Lady’ is a prequel to Return to the Keep of the Borderlands by Jeff Grub, but there have also been expansions to B2 Keep on the Borderlands. It is often forgotten that the infamous Caves of Chaos are not the only cavern system to be found in the region. Located in the unforested area between the Caves of Chaos and the eponymous keep are the Caves of the Unknown, mislabelled on the wilderness map as the ‘Cave of the Unknown’. This is mentioned twice in the module. Once on page 12 where it says, “The Caves of the Unknown area is left for you to use as a place to devise your own cavern complex or dungeon maze.” and then again, in location #51, in the ‘Shrine of Evil Chaos’, where a “Boulder Filled Passage” can lead to the Cave of the Unknown. Left up to the Dungeon Master to design and detail, one option has been to simply insert the Caverns of Quasqueton from B1 In Search of the Unknown and this was the option chosen for Original Adventures Reincarnated #1: Into the Borderlands. However, other designers have embraced Gygax’s advice in B2 Keep on the Borderlands and created their own dungeons to fill this spot. Perhaps the earliest was Keep on the Borderlands: The Expansion, published by Usherwood Publishing in 2013, but RC Pinnell, who has a history of writing sequels to classic Dungeons & Dragons modules, would release his own version at about the same time as Original Adventures Reincarnated #1: Into the Borderlands was published.
a designed for a party of between four and nine Third to Sixth Level Player Characters, and consequently intended to be played after the Player Characters have explored the Caves of Chaos. Published in 2018, it is written for use with editions of prior to Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition, and details a cave network of some twenty caves and connecting tunnels which is home to a tribe of Troglodytes. The tribe are refugees from a civil war taking place deeper into the earth and having found a new home in the caves led several raids on the Caves of Chaos above, feeding on the Humanoids they killed and captured until the leaders in the Caves of Chaos determined the source of attacks, invaded the Troglodyte caves, killed many of the tribes’ members, and then sealed the tunnel leading from the ‘Shrine of Evil Chaos’. In other words, the evil clergy practicing their vile faith in the ‘Shrine of Evil Chaos’ and pulling the Humanoids of the Caves of the Chaos into a rough alliance are also responsible for filling in the “Boulder Filled Passage”.

The Cave of the Unknown is much like the other Caves of Chaos home to the various Humanoid tribes. Although a natural cave system with no worked areas, there are guard posts, caves and chambers for the chief of the Troglodytes, his queen, his elite warriors, both teenage males and females, and so on. A supply cavern contains boxes and crates of items gained through and trade which are perfect for adding objects and items that could be stolen or missing and perhaps serve as a possible hook to explore the caverns. Some of the cave descriptions are far from interesting, but there are exceptions. The queen’s chamber is connected to a bubbling mud pool which is difficult to traverse and fight in and she also has a pack of Cave-Dogs, specially bred by the queen so that they have immunity to the infamous stench that Troglodytes excrete. However, this does mean that these Cave-Dogs lack the sense of smell they are typically known for.

Overall, locations and encounters such as with the queen are far and few between and in this, the description of the Caves of the Unknown feels very much in keeping with the Caves of Chaos of B2 Keep on the Borderlands. They are static, all but waiting for an incursion by the Player Characters. There are potential roleplaying hooks present, although they are not explicitly stated. The Player Characters could ally with Gothmog, the Troglodyte chief, in taking his revenge on the clergy in the Shrine of Evil Chaos and their allies and the queen could be turned against Gothmog. There is also the fact that the Troglodytes are trading with someone deeper into the earth. It is not stated who, but that could easily be linked to another scenario—perhaps in the mode of G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief and its sequels. In any of these cases, the Player Characters will need to be more circumspect in their approach to investigating the Cave of the Unknown rather than simply slaughtering everything before them. If they do take that approach, they do face some tough opponents and a good number of them, but if they are successful, then there is plenty of treasure to be found. 
Physically, BEX-1 Descent Into The Caves of the Unknown is plain. The map nicely apes the style of B2 Keep on the Borderlands right down to the blue background.

BEX-1 Descent Into The Caves of the Unknown feels as if it could be something more and as if it could be more interesting. The Dungeon Master will need to work hard to bring the back story to the Troglodyte presence in the Caves of the Unknown into play and involve the Player Characters, thus turning the adventure into more of a sidequest than the side note  it reads as written.

March 4th is International GM’s Day which commemorates the death of the later E. Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons and father of the roleplaying hobby in 2008. DrivethruRPG has its own GM’s Day Sale which runs through the first half of the month, but Goodman Games is celebrating with its own ‘Dungeon Day’ which includes the release of three scenarios for free—two old and one new. The two old are Danger Crawl Classics: Danger in the Air and Fifth Edition Fantasy: The Three Wizard Conundrum, both of which were previously released for Free RPG 2023. The all-new adventure is Fifth Edition Fantasy: Ambush at Dragon’s Cove. This is an adventure for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition and is designed for four to six First Level Player Characters. Although suitable as a means to introduce players to the roleplaying hobby, it is not written as an introductory product. So, it will need an experienced Danger Master.

Fifth Edition Fantasy: Ambush at Dragon’s Cove is a wilderness adventure with an environmental theme. The village of Port Knell is home to oldest known nesting beaches for dragon turtles, Dragon’s Cove, and both the village and local sailors benefit from the protection of one of these creatures, Lyrdella the Brave. This year, her duties means that she cannot protect her eggs as the young dragon turtles hatch and begin their perilous journey to the sea, so she asks a local druid called Sycamore, to stand in for her. However, the somewhat flirtatious druid has other plans and so hires the Player Characters to stand guard over the dunes. Other suggestions are included as to how to start the adventure, but as written and as is traditional, it starts in a tavern. Since the adventure is set in the wilderness—or at least on a beach—and involves interaction with the dragon turtle hatchlings, a Druid or a Ranger amongst the party will be useful, especially if they have a good Animal Handling skill.

The adventure consists of four encounter areas and has the feel of a race in that the Player Characters have to prepare their charges, that is, the dragon turtle hatchlings, and then hurry them safely to the sea. It also means that the adventure is linear, but for a short, one-session adventure like Fifth Edition Fantasy: Ambush at Dragon’s Cove, designed for First Level Player Characters, this is not really an issue. In the first encounter, the Player Characters will ready their charges for the journey, whilst in each of the subsequent encounters, they will be challenged by foes natural and unnatural, who all see the young dragon turtles as potential food. The natural foes are those which would likely be faced by turtles in our environment, whilst the unnatural foes are more akin to hunters or egg thieves, but both of course, adapted to fit the fantasy setting of the adventure. The unnatural foes are also tied into the background of the scenario and Sycamore’s involvement, although that will not be immediately obvious, and may not be revealed until the very end of the scenario.

Rounding out the scenario are suggestions as to what to play next in the Fifth Edition Fantasy series and rounding out Fifth Edition Fantasy: Ambush at Dragon’s Cove is the regular column for the line, ‘Flog’s Eye Sees All!’ which usually provides updates for the line. It explains the point of GM’s Day and Dungeon Day and extolls the virtues of the hobby and is a slightly tongue cheek to both Gygax and Game Master’s everywhere.

Fifth Edition Fantasy: Ambush at Dragon’s Cove is cleanly and tidily laid out in the standard style for the line. It is easy to read and consequently should be both quick and easy for the Dungeon Master to prepare for her group with no fuss whatsoever. The artwork is excellent and overall, this could easily have been included in a magazine or anthology of adventures and made a fine-looking addition to either.

The Fifth Edition Fantasy line consists of stand-alone, setting-neutral adventure modules, typically one-shots that can be played in one or two sessions. Fifth Edition Fantasy: Ambush at Dragon’s Cove fits that brief, playable in a single session and setting-neutral. However, this makes it easy to slot into an existing campaign or setting, or being for First Level Player Characters, form part of the beginnings of a campaign. Although there is plenty of combat involved, this is not the scenario’s only challenge and the overall objective of getting the newly hatched dragon turtles to the sea gives it a theme and challenge that will probably be more appealing to some prospective players than a simple combat-focused affair.

Overall, Fifth Edition Fantasy: Ambush at Dragon’s Cove is an environmentally engaging one-session race to the sea.

Quick-starts are 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 too. 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 for 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.

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What is it?Aegean Quick Start Rules is the quick-start for Aegean, a roleplaying game about a group of mythic heroes building a new, free city on the shores of the Aegean Sea..

It includes a basic explanation of the setting, rules for actions and combat, the gods, the adventure, ‘The Nesaean Boar’, and five ready-to-play, Player Characters.

It is a one-hundred-and-one-page, black and white digest-sized book.

The quick-start is lightly illustrated, but tidily laid out. There are a lot of examples of the rules which speed the learning of the game.

How long will it take to play?
Aegean Quick Start Rules and its adventure, ‘The Nesaean Boar’, is designed to be played through in three to five sessions. Notes are included for the Game Master who wants to run it in a single session.

Who do you play?
The five Player Characters are all would be mythic heroes. They consist of a ranger and hunter, a famous athlete, a healer, an oracle, a merchant, and a wealthy soldier. All are available to download from the publisher’s website.

How is a Player Character defined?
A Player Character in Aegean has five characteristics—Might, Reflexes, Cool, Insight, and Cunning—and several broad skills, such as Lore, Melee, and Perform. All are rated between one and five, although specialisations increase the rating of skills by one. He also has the attributes Resolve, Risk, Endurance, Standing, Wounds, Hubris, Glory, and Fate. He can also Gifts and Talents, the first bestowed by the gods upon heroes of divine parentage, the second representing his greater expertise.

Resolve represents the gods’ favour and is spent to add to a story detail, gain a single success, or activate an item property. A Player Character does not begin play with Resolve, but can earn it when tens are rolled on the dice. It has to be used by the end of a session or the Player Character gains the disfavour of the gods and earns Hubris. Risk represents the danger he is in and can be gained through play involuntarily or voluntarily, the latter to add successes to a roll or to activate an item property. When Risk exceeds a Player Character’s Endurance, he gains a Wound. Gain enough Wounds and they can be spent as Scars in a fashion similar to Experience Points. Hubris is a Player Character’s Pride and if it exceeds his Glory, the gods’ disfavour is gained and he is Cursed. Fate can be a Player Character’s Goal, Belief, or Passion.

How do the mechanics work?
To have his player undertake an action, a player rolls a pool of ten-sided dice. This is equal to the value of the characteristic and the skill being used, plus any appropriate specialisation. Rolls of eight or more are counted as a Success. A Standard Difficulty does not require extra Successes for a Player Character to succeed, but harder tasks do, all the way up to a Difficulty Factor of five or Divine. Risk and Resolve can be spent to gain extra Successes. Rolls of ten can be used to gain an extra Success, a point of Resolve, remove a point of Risk, activate an item property, or give another Player Character a Success.

How does combat work?
Combat in Aegean is quite tactical taking into account terrain, range, and a variety of manoeuvres and actions. Actions include Defend, Disarm, Harm, and Taunt, whilst manoeuvres include Aim, Prepare, and Sacrifice Item. Initiative is interesting in that it can flow back and forth between the Player Characters and the NPCs. When the Player Characters have the initiative and continue to succeed in their combat rolls, the players can decide who acts next. If a roll is failed, the initiative passes to the Game Master and NPCs and if the Game Master fails a roll, it passes back to the players to decide who acts next. This continues until both Player Characters and NPCs have acted, but it can flow into the next round because whomever acts last in the round and succeeds gets to decide who acts first in the next.

How does magic work?
One of the pre-generated Player Characters does have the gift of Oracle, which grants him the ability to predict the future once per session. This is represented by an Insight (Lore) roll and this can be used to replace the results of a roll by another Player Character or NPC. If good roll, it can benefit the Player Character, if a bad, it can penalise an NPC.

What do you play?
Aegean is set in a mythic age which combines the periods of before the fall of Troy and the Greek dark age and Classical Greece when Sparta is at her military might and Athens a beacon of democracy. The given adventure, ‘The Nesaean Boar’, begins in Vlokis, a coastal colony recently founded by Athens where the Player Characters live. They are asked to investigate an attack upon a farm belonging to Nesaea by a boar in which her family died. The adventure will take the Player Characters from Vlokis to Delphi to consult the oracle and discover a means of dealing with the creature, before locating said means and returning to confront the beast in its lair.

Is there anything missing?
Surprisingly not. Aegean Quick Start Rules also includes rules for item properties, downtime activities, and dealing with the gods, as well as advice for the Game Master in running the adventure. Further, there is scope for the Player Characters to gain Experience Points and their players to spend them to improve skills and purchase Talents. This enables a group to play further adventures, such as those in the Aegean Adventure anthology.

Is it easy to prepare?
The core rules presented in the Aegean Quick Start Rules are easy to prepare. The Game Master will need to pay closer attention to how the Resolve, Risk, and Hubris rules work as well as how to to handle interaction with, and portrayal of, the gods.
Is it worth it?
Yes. The Aegean Quick Start Rules present a concise, but detailed version of the rules that are tactical and engaging and encourage the players to roleplay through the need to balance their characters’ Risk, Resolve, and Hubris on the path to their characters becoming heroes. Although the Aegean Quick Start Rules are not free to download, they do offer scope for long term play, something that most other quick-starts do not. Whether or not a group decides to play beyond the given adventure, the Aegean Quick Start Rules are still a solid introduction to the rules and roleplaying in Mythic Greece.
Where can you get it?
The Aegean Quick Start Rules are available to download here. 

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

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What is it?The Children of Hykim: The Totem Animal Peoples of Glorantha is a sourcebook for use with RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.

It is a one-hundred-and-seventy page, full colour, 28.23 MB PDF.

It is a one-hundred-and-seventy page, full colour book.

The layout is clean and tidy and the artwork is decent, the illustrations of the totem masks being very nicely done.

It needs an edit in places.

There is a terrible, unforgivable pun.

Where is it set?
The Children of Hykim is set beyond the boundraries of civilisation across Genertela, in particular of Fronela, Ralios, and Maniria.

Who do you play?In The Children of Hykim, the Player Characters and NPCs are members of the Hsunchen, the shape-changing totem animal tribes who live at the fringes of more advanced societies. They are hunters, fishers, and assistant shaman who are, live amongst, and venerate their totem animals.
What do you need?
The Children of Hykim requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, the Glorantha Bestiary, and The Red Book of Magic. In addition, access to the Guide to Glorantha, Bearwalkers, Hsunchen of the East, and Armies and Enemies of Dragon Pass may provide extra background, but are not required to use the material in The Children of Hykim.
What do you get?With the emphasis upon the more civilised peoples of Dragon Pass and its environs, the Stone Age peoples of Glorantha and thus RuneQuest, especially those who both live alongside their totem animals and are able to transform into them and back again, known as the Hsunchen, are oft overlooked and forgotten. Which is how they like it. Found across much of the continent of Genertela, they keep themselves to themselves, interacting with fellow tribes when they must more than the so-called civilised people whom they regard as having been trapped by the need to grow crops and the desire to write everything down. The Children of Hykim is an exploration of their culture, mythology, technology, religious practices, relationships between tribes, and above all the way in which they embody, live with, and become their totem animals. In doing so, the author draws upon sources that date back to RuneQuest II to create a detailed and different outlook from which to view the world of Glorantha and potentially alongside the Glorantha we know and here are almost hidden from.

The Children of the Hykim begins with an explanation and overview of who they are. At the core of this is their relationship with their totem animals, so it details the nature of their transformation into animals and back again which begins when they become adults, although a rare few can do it from birth, and in the case of ‘Uncolings’, the reindeer tribe, their children are born born as reindeer. Birthed by the two dragons Mikyh and Hykim—hence the dual wording on the spine—the tribes share a similar mythology, primarily differing in the role that animal played in it and how their fall from paradise would lead to the separation of man and beast and the introduction of Death into the world. This is either at the hands of the Trickster or Telmor, the great wolf from which the Telmori—the only Hsunchen to be found in Dragon Pass—are descended. Parallel to this fall are the collapse of several Hsunchen empires and the extinction of several tribes, all of which would drive the surviving tribes to the margains. In modern times, the best known Hsunchen is Harrek the Berserk, a Rathori or bear tribesman who slew the White Bear and was cast out of his tribe, murdered the Red Emperor, and became the King of the Wolf Pirates.
The Children of the Hykim highlights the Hsunchen’s closeness with the spirit world and their tribal shaman and suggests this connection as a means to learn Rune magic rather than through the tribal cult. This is perhaps where the supplement differs the most, at least mechanically, from RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, as means that Hsunchen need to access the spirit world more readily than non-Hsunchen and non-shaman do. It also highlights the importance of the shaman in a tribe. Backed up by flavour text written in the HeroQuest Voices or ‘What My Uncle Told Me’ format for the Oppussum tribe which really helps capture the outlook of one tribe of the Hsunchen, the bulk of The Children of Hykim is dedicated to describing over twenty different tribes. These include the badger, bear, black owl, mammoth, raccoon, reindeer, skunk, yellow quill porcupine, and more. Of course, the wolf tribe is there too for the Telmori, and the Puma, who are not considered to be Hsunchen. Each is accorded several pages which covers their mythology, history, appearance—Hsunchen often possessing features of their totem animals, society, religion, and magic, including their associated Rune magic. There are some fantastic spell creations here, for example, Musk Spray of the skunk or Akkari tribe, Coat of Quills for the Yellow Quill Porcupine or Zonati tribe, and Play Dead for the Opposum or Didelfi tribe. A full list of the Hsunchen and their spells is given in the supplement’s appendix.
Given the relative simplicity of the Hsunchen lifestyle, it is no surprise that character creation reflects this. Several options are discussed for playing and running a Hsunchen-based games, covering the themes, advantages, and disadvantages of an all-Hsunchen group—from one tribe or several, including the Telmori, Hsunchen mercenaries, and suggesting possible Hsunchen-themed campaigns, like reviving the White Bear in Fronela after the traitor Harrek slew him. All of these would require a great deal of development upon the part of the Game Master, but would make excellent use of the material presented in the supplement. Also discussed is the nature of Hsunchen heroquests and how they differ from those undertaken by other peoples. Rounding the supplement is a set of nine appendices. Their inclusion is an indication perhaps that The Children of Hykim is not a professionally published book given that they take up a fifth of its total pages and a professionally published book might not have included them. They cover the origins of the Hsunchen in both print and Glorantha, a Questions & Answers section, and the author’s notes, and more. 
Is it worth your time?Yes—The Children of Hykim is superbly researched and richly detailed examination of the Hsunchen and their world and world view, which although very much falling under the category of ‘Your Glorantha Will Vary’, really feels as that should not be case, that it should be an official release. It may not be the official guide to the Hsunchen, but The Children of Hykim feels like the definitive guide until there is one. No—The Children of Hykim is too a broad subject matter to readily incorporate into a campaign and set too far from civilisation for some Game Masters. Plus there is the matter of that pun. Unforgivable.Maybe—The Children of Hykim is an excellent sourcebook on the Hsunchen and their world which could be worth exploring or using to include a character from an entirely different culture for the player who wants a challenge. At the very least, it is an engaging read to learn about a marginalised and almost forgotten people in Glorantha.

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.

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Senet—named for the Ancient Egyptian board game, 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 Issue 3 was published in the Winter of 2020 and opens with ‘Behold’, a preview of some of the then-forthcoming board game titles, such as Moonshine Empire, a game about moving bootleg alcohol around; Lawyer Up, a card game about courtroom drama; Gladius, a card game about spectators betting on gladiators in Ancient Rome; the Cyberpunk espionage board game, Into Too Deep; and quite a few more. Given as much prominence as a full review, what is interesting about these is previews is that each give ‘What they might be’, so Lawyer Up could be the next Watergate and Frostpunk: The Board Game could be the next This War of Mine. Many, if not all, of these titles have since been released and been subject to their own reviews and analysis, so these previews can be read with the benefit of hindsight to see whether their predictions were right. However, they are pleasingly detailed and enjoyable some two years on.

‘Points’ provides a selection of readers’ letters, including a poem dedicated to the city of Caracassonne in south-west France and the board game based on it. whilst in ‘For Love of the Game’, Tristian Hall continues his designer’s journey towards Gloom of Kilforth. Here he examines how the game has become a vehicle for roleplaying and storytelling and how this enhances the play experience of some players. This is not often highlighted in board game design bar the obvious titles with clear roleplaying origins or influences, such as the critical juggernaut, Gloomhaven. This series continues to be a fascinating path and it will be interesting to follow in in future columns.

As with previous issues of Senet, the third issue of the magazine dedicates its centre section to a quartet of lengthy articles. In Senet Issue Two, the article ‘Decks in Effect’ examined the very short history of the deckbuilding mechanic, but the mechanic examined by Alexandra Sonechkina in Senet Issue 3 has a much longer history. The eponymous ‘Roll-and-Write’ article explores the history and development of the roll-and-write mechanic from Yahtzee in the 1950s to Rome & Roll in 2020, in particular at the seeming proliferation of titles since the nomination of Qwixx for the Spiel des Jahres in 2013. The article also tracks the history of the mechanic as implemented in various games via a timeline, but the article never comes to a particular conclusion beyond that the mechanic is yet to mature and very much remains under development. Thus this is more of an introduction to the mechanic waiting to see where it might go.

Owen Duffy’s ‘Game of Life’ has a more serious tone and subject matter. Prompted by the playthrough of Holding On: The Troubled Life of Billy Kerr that drove his wife to tears—though in a good way rather than a bad way—Duffy’s article looks at games inspired by real life rather than fantasy of Science Fiction or trading of goods in the past, and games that are about more than just winning or losing. In part, this does go back to the earlier ‘For Love of the Game’, since in games such as Holding On: The Troubled Life of Billy Kerr and Fog of Love where stories are told and lives roleplayed, but it also examines older games which were designed to teach morality or explore aspects of society. Thus, The Noble Game of the Swan, The Chequered Game of Life, and the more recent Tokaido are examples of the former, and Suffragetto, about raising awareness of votes for women, an example of the latter. Of these, The Chequered Game of Life is interesting in that its modern incarnation is Game of Life, a game now about getting on in capitalist, consumerist USA, more about making a good life than living a good life. (Game of Life is also one of the games I loved as a twelve-year-old would be games player.) This is a fascinating introduction to a different type of board game and showcases what the form can do to emotions and how they can make you feel.

The artist and designer interviewed in Senet issue 3 are Kyle Ferrin and Eric M. Lang respectively. Kyle Ferrin’s anthropomorphic, bold cartoon style best known from Root: A Game of Woodland Might And Right—and consequently, the roleplaying game from Magpie Games, Root: The Roleplaying Game—is given an excellent showcase here in ‘Animal Magic’, including a full centre spread. Attention is also paid to his work on Vast: The Mysterious Tower and its family of skeletal warriors and interesting hero. His artwork is delightfully cute and this is an enjoyable interview by editor Dan Jolin. He also interviews Eric M. Lang, the designer of Cthulhu: Death May Die, Blood Rage, and Rising Sun, in ‘Myth Maker’. The interview begins by describing him as a ‘rock star’ designer due to the impact of his games and their use of big, heavy metal themes, many of them being adaptations. Accompanied by some fantastic artwork from Lang’s than forthcoming Ankh, the interview explores his origins as a games player and then designer, how he compares collaborating with other designers to working with fellow musicians, before coming up-to-date with his approach to designing a game based on the works of an author as difficult as Lovecraft and how the Black Lives Matter movement affects the board game industry. This is a solid piece, continuing the strand of good interviews in the magazine.

The ‘Unboxing’ section of Senet Issue 3 includes solid reviews of titles such as Santa Monica, High Rise, Abandon All Artichokes, Herd Mentality, Isle of Cats, and more. It is invariably difficult to really keep up with the constant of board games being released, and of course, Senet Issue 3 does not even attempt to do so, instead reviewing a wide range of titles and types of board game. For example, Herd Mentality is a party game, whereas Undaunted: North Africa is a card driven war game and Oceans a rich Eurogame. In each case, the reviews are not too long, but they give just about the right amount of space for each title. Elsewhere, Matt Thrower, author of the Haynes Tabletop Gaming Manual, explores his love of playing games solo—even games not designed to do so, such as Pandemic and Target Arnhem—in ‘How I learned to stop worrying and love playing solo’. There are some titles mentioned here whose appeal reaches out into the wider gaming hobby, including Space Hulk and Wrath of Ashardalon, highlighting the crossover potential. Coming up to date, the author notes that there are more and more board games which include options for solo play, so there are pointers here for the board game player and roleplayer both to explore solo play through such titles. Lastly, Fiona and Amy Dickinson of The Game Shelf reveal just one of the games on their ‘Shelf of Shame’.

Physically, Senet Issue 3 is very nicely presented, all pristine and beautifully laid out. Whether drawing on board game graphics and images, or the magazine’s own illustrations, the issue’s graphics are very sharply handled, living up to the issue’s motto of  “Board games are beautiful” as much as its subject matter does. 

Senet Issue 3 maintains the high standards set by the previous issues, another fine looking magazine with a good mix of reviews, interviews, and articles. However, its articles are not all  quite as interesting as in previous issues, with ‘Roll-and-Write’ feeling shorter, if less conclusive. This does not stop the issue from being engaging and informative and still treating board games as a form that can engage and have something to say.

The reputation of B2 Keep on the Borderlands and its influence on fantasy roleplaying is such that publishers keep returning to it. TSR, Inc. of course published the original as well as including it in the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set, which is where many gamers encountered it. The publisher would also revisit it with Return to the Keep on the Borderlands for its twenty-fifth anniversary, and the module would serve as the basis for Keep on the Borderlands, part of Wizards of the Coast’s ‘Encounters Program’ for Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition. Yet since then, Wizards of the Coast has all but ignored B2 Keep on the Borderlands and the module that preceded it, B1 In Search of the Unknown, barring the publisher’s 2012 Dungeon Module B2 The Caves of Chaos: An Adventure for Character Levels 1-3. This was the playtest scenario for D&D Next, first seen in Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle, which was essentially previewing what would go on to become Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition.

Instead, it would be other publishers who would revisit both scenarios in the twenty-first century. So Kenzer & Company first published B1 Quest for the Unknown, a version of B1 In Search of the Unknown for use with HackMaster, Fourth Edition, and would follow it up with not one, but two versions of B2 Keep on the Borderlands. First with B2 Little Keep on the Borderlands: An Introductory Module for Characters Level 1–4 in 2002, and then again in 2009 with Frandor’s Keep: An immersive setting for adventure. Another publisher to revisit B2 Keep on the Borderlands was Chris Gonnerman, with JN1 The Chaotic Caves, a scenario written for the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game. In addition, Faster Monkey Games published its own homage to B1 In Search for the Unknown with The Hidden Serpent, whilst Pacesetter Games & Simulations has published a number of extra encounters and sequels for both scenarios, most notably B1 Legacy of the Unknown and B2.5 Blizzard on the Borderland.

Yet Wizards of the Coast did not ignore its extensive back catalogue. It would release numerous titles in PDF, and even allow Print on Demand reprints, including both B1 In Search of the Unknown and ;B2 Keep on the Borderlands. Further, in 2017, it published Tales from the Yawning Portal, a collection of scenarios that had originally been published for previous editions of Dungeons & Dragons, including Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition, Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition, and even D&D Next. These scenarios though, did not include either B1 In Search of the Unknown or B2 Keep on the Borderlands. Which upon first glance seemed a strange omission, but then came the announcement from Goodman Games about Original Adventures Reincarnated #1: Into the Borderlands.

Arguably, Original Adventures Reincarnated #1: Into the Borderlands would prove to be the ultimate version of the classic module, but authors have continued to revisit the original even since such as with the fanzine version from Swordfish Islands LLC, which so far consists of Beyond the Borderlands Issue #1 and Beyond the Borderlands Issue #2. Yet there remain oft forgotten visits to the famous ‘Keep on the Borderlands’ and the equally infamous, ‘Caves of Chaos’, which are worth examining and shining light upon. For example, ‘Warriors of the Gray Lady’ is a prequel to Return to the Keep of the Borderlands by Jeff Grub, but there have also been expansions to B2 Keep on the Borderlands. It is often forgotten that the infamous Caves of Chaos are not the only cavern system to be found in the region. Located in the large unforested area between the Caves of Chaos and the eponymous keep are the Caves of the Unknown, mislabelled on the wilderness map as the ‘Cave of the Unknown’. This is mentioned twice in the module. Once on page 12 where it says, “The Caves of the Unknown area is left for you to use as a place to devise your own cavern complex or dungeon maze.” and then again, in location #51, in the ‘Shrine of Evil Chaos’, where a “Boulder Filled Passage” can lead to the Cave of the Unknown. Left up to the Dungeon Master to design and detail, one option has been to simply insert the Caverns of Quasqueton from B1 In Search of the Unknown and this was the option chosen for Original Adventures Reincarnated #1: Into the Borderlands. However, other designers have embraced Gygax’s advice in B2 Keep on the Borderlands and created their own dungeons to fill this spot. Perhaps the earliest was Keep on the Borderlands: The Expansion, published by Usherwood Publishing in 2013, but it would be followed by others, including RC Pinnell, who has a history of writing sequels to classic Dungeons & Dragons modules, would release his own version at about the same time as Original Adventures Reincarnated #1: Into the Borderlands was published.
Keep on the Borderlands: The Expansion is written for use with both Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition and OSRIC, or ‘Old School Reference and Index Compilation’, the retroclone based upon Advanced Dungeons & Dragons originally published in 2006. It is part of the publisher’s ‘High-Adventure from Middle-School’ line of adventures designed to ape the style and look of the adventures that we wrote for Dungeons & Dragons in our school days when we were first beginning to roleplay. Consequently, Keep on the Borderlands: The Expansion has a certain look. It is presented in a font designed to look like handwriting and done on the type of paper which has holes along one edge for it to be clipped into a file and both of the scenario’s maps are drawn on squared paper, with the ‘Supplemental map 1 to: Keep on the Borderlands (The Environs of the Keep)’ coloured with pencils. It gives the whole look of the scenario a certain charm, perhaps best from a sense of nostalgia, but also a certain tackiness. It does not help that the choice of font makes the scenario awkward to read and use. However, get past that and surprisingly, Keep on the Borderlands: The Expansion does exactly what the title says as well adding a new threat and a new storyline.
Keep on the Borderlands: The Expansion focuses first on the Cave of the Unknown. Although there is a cave entrance, here it is more of a dungeon complex with some twelve rooms. Together with the addition of a tower above the complex, they are the forward base for a group of bandits. In fact, a large number of bandits. Altogether, there are some eighty-five bandits in the complex together with their stores and equipment. Most of the bandits are Level One, although sergeants are Level Two, a Lieutenant Level Three, and a Captain, Level Four. They are led by Malthus the Grey wizard and Gwethlos the Red Cleric, both evil NPCs and both Fifth Level. The complex of rooms feels too small for this number of men and the descriptions of the rooms themselves are simplistic and plain. To some extent this can be explained by the ethos of the scenario, the ‘High-Adventure from Middle-School’ look and feel, but it leaves the Dungeon Master to do all of the hard work in adding flavour and detail to the scenario.
If the description of the Cave of the Unknown fails to intrigue or entice, the plot, whilst still simple, more than makes up for that. Malthus the Grey wizard and Gwethlos the Red Cleric are gathering men to make an assault upon the keep, and not only that, but they are also negotiating with the goblins and hobgoblins in the Caves of Chaos to recruit them to their cause. In addition, Palthos, the son of the Castellan of the keep, disappeared near the caves. The Castellan, greatly worried at his son’s disappearance, has put out a huge reward for the return of his son. In addition, there is a second force of bandits just outside of the area detailed in B2 Keep in the Borderlands. They have begun raiding caravans travelling back and forth from the keep and are holding several prisoners. The prisoners include merchants who will pay the Player Characters a monetary reward if rescued and several mercenaries who will serve the Player Characters for a limited amount of time if also rescued. The camp itself is not described, but is clearly marked on the ‘Supplemental map 1 to: Keep on the Borderlands (The Environs of the Keep)’ map.

Keep on the Borderlands: The Expansion is basic, perhaps too basic. It has three major problems. The first is is the lack of description and flavour and detail. The second is the fact that Palthos, the son of the Castellan of the keep, is mentioned at the beginning of the scenario and never mentioned again, and arguably, his disappearance and the potential reward for his return are the major hook for the Player Characters. This is a major omission. However, neither problem is insurmountable and with some effort upon the part of the Dungeon Master, better descriptions can be added to the scenario’s dungeon and the location where Palthos is being held prisoner can be decided upon. The third is the lack of description of the region beyond that described in B2 Keep in the Borderlands bar the mention and location of the bandit camp. Again, it is left up to the Dungeon Master to not only describe, but actually develop.
Keep on the Borderlands: The Expansion is a really more of a framework to expand to B2 Keep on the Borderlands than a ready-to-play addition. It has a pair of decent story hooks and these are worth developing to expand and enhance the play of a classic module. Keep on the Borderlands: The Expansion is worth looking at for these very reasons and the fact that it is free is bonus.

Cy is a hell. The city is ripped apart by poverty and pollution. The haves, the corporates and the celebrities get to escape to their gated communities on the hills, whilst the have-nots exist in slums between the industrial districts and the enterprise regions where consumerism and corporate greed runs rampant. The industrial districts pump out a poisonous pall that never parts to reveal the sky, toxic waste is dumped into the harbour to float along with the fatbergs in the acidic waters, and nanoswarms and new diseases run rampant. In between the unchecked ecological emergencies and capitalist supremacy, everyone seems at war. The corporations against each other, gangs against each other and the cults, the cults against the militias, the militias against the rioters, and SecCorps against anyone they are paid to war against. There are rumours of a space rock which fell and unleashed a space poison, nuclear bombs exploded without a care… At the centre of it is ‘G0’. Supposedly created by ‘The Incident’. This is where the rock fell or this is where the bombs fell. It is walled off; access is denied upon pain of death. If the auto-turrets do not blast you apart, the Nanophreaks will infect you and rip you apart, pockets of nerve gas poison you, radiation dust twist your DNA… Yet smugglers use it as a means to transport illicit goods; cultists look for proof of their unhallowed beliefs; scientists conduct research in the hope of making a discovery worth selling to a corporation; and scrapheads scavenge the ruins of the past, the medieval ruins of Cy’s origins. There are worse things, let alone THAT NOISE that constantly sounds… Across all of this is the NET, a shared, consensual hallucination combination of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality where you can buy what they want, worship the latest craze or faith or none at all, and even hack your opinion. Anyone can access the NET via their Retinal Communication Device and everyone is interfaced, injected, infected, and infested with something, and the cybertech is just another vector. This CYstainable Planet™ Certified dystopia is a future of Miserable Headlines amongst the untrammelled tumult of terrible news and corporate corruption. They say that one too many Miserable Headlines, one too many Actual Terrible Truths revealed, and the world ends. Maybe that will be a blessed relief, or maybe that it is what they want…

This is the set-up for CY_BORG, a cyberpunk purgatory that is modelled upon Mörk Borg, the Swedish pre-apocalypse Old School Renaissance retroclone designed by Ockult Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell and published by Free League Publishing. It is another doom driven roleplaying game, set in a nightmarish future in which the existence of the medieval ruins beg the question, is Cy the future of the city of Galgenbeck in the land of Tveland? Or is the city of Galgenbeck in the land of Tveland with its prophecies of the Two-Headed Basilisks just one more MMORPG in the NET. Or even CY_BORG itself a virtual reality simulation gaming out a future and waiting for a reset? Published following a Kickstarter campaign, CY_BORG is a roleplaying game in which the Player Characters kick out against the consumerist conspiracy and the supremacy of corporate capitalism run rampant and their government, police, and mercenary tools. They are Forsaken Gang-Goons, the Shunned Nanomancers, Burned Hackers, Discharged Corp Killers, Orphaned Gearheads, and Renegade Cyberslashers. Their loyalties are not to the system or the man. Even as they take jobs from one Mister Johansen or Ms. Johansen to keep afloat, to maintain the struggle, they want to burn it all down, destroy the system, and kill and die to do it. If they fail, there will always someone else to assume the cause. Unless that last Miserable Headline leads the breaking news and CY ends…

Yet much like, what grabs you from the start is the look of CY_BORG. It employs the same Artpunk style, but here the bold swathes of neon colour are constantly broken as if the artwork is under assault from the nanites, toxins, and chemicals affecting the city of CY itself. This is less heavy metal and more punk; its jagged uncertainty only contributing to the tone and feel of the book. Similarly, there no explanation as to what a roleplaying game is and what roleplaying is. Once you open the book, you are straight into the game. And that is fine. Neither Mörk Borg nor CY_BORG are roleplaying games for anyone new to the hobby. One other difference between CY_BORG and Mörk Borg is that it does not start with the end of the world. Whilst the last Miserable Headline will mark the end of the CY, the rate at which they can appear can be adjusted by the Game Master for a longer or shorter game.

A Player Character in CY_BORG is defined by five Abilities—Agility, Knowledge, Presence, Strength, and Toughness. These are rated between -3 and +3. He also has some cash and some cheap gear as well as Retinal Communication Device. A Player Character also has a Class, of which there are five—Forsaken Gang-Goon, Shunned Nanomancer, Burned Hacker, Discharged Corp Killer, Orphaned Gearhead, and Renegade Cyberslasher. Each provides a bonus to an Ability, a value for his Hit Points, plus one or more items of equipment, including armour. For example, the Shunned Nanomancer also gains a reason why he got infected, such as spending a night practising profane rites with neo-pagan cultists or kidnapped and subjected to horrible experiments and a strange leaf-looking blade which inflicts wounds that bleed or an elongated, pointed skull and semi-translucent skin which enables his brain to shine when the Shunned Nanomancer is thinking. The creation process is quick and easy and Player Characters are simple to replace. A player rolls three six-sided dice for his character’s Abilities, then rolls for cash and gear, then various aspects of the Class, weapon and armour, and lastly debt and to whom it is owed. Elements such as style, feature, wants, quirk, and current obsession can also be rolled for, but are optional.

Name: Kratar
Class: Discharged Corp Killer
Agility +0 Knowledge +0 Presence -1 Strength +1 Toughness +3
Toughness: 8
Glitches: 2
Armour: Combat Armor (Tier III) with A_HST auto-injector
Weapon: Monosword
Item Stolen From The Corp: Prototype Smart™ Assault Rifle
Deployment: PeriGlacial SecCorp (Plundering released gas and bioweapons)
Style: Kill Mode Feature: Unnatural Eyes Wants: Anarchy Quirk: Rapid Blinking
Current Obsession: Belts
Debts: 7000¤ (owed to fixer cops on the payroll)
Cash: 110¤
Gear: CWPC Metro Card, Small Bottle of Pulverised Acid, Tiny Surveillance Drone (300 m)

Mechanically, CY_BORG is simple. A player rolls a twenty-sided die, modifies the result by one of his character’s Abilities, and attempts to beat a Difficulty Rating. A normal Difficulty Rating is twelve, but it can go as low as six or a Simple Difficulty Rating or as high as eighteen or an Almost Impossible Difficulty Rating. The Difficulty Rating may go up or down depending on the situation, but whatever the situation, the player always rolls, even in combat. So, a player will roll for his character to hit in melee using his Strength and his Agility to avoid being hit, whereas Agility is used to both hit and avoid being hit in ranged combat. Autofire in gun combat is kept simple with the first successful hit allowing a second roll and so on up to three hits. So essentially, more three round bursts than full auto. Simple rules also allow for criticals, fumbles, and ammunition use. Optional rules take into account cover, aiming, range, hits always hurting, and suppressive fire. The rules are quick and dirty rather than necessarily realistic, but arguably CY_BORG is gritty enough. Armour is represented by a die value, from -d2 for light armour to -d6 for heavy armour, representing the amount of damage it stops. Medium and heavy armour each add a modifier to any Agility action by the character, including defending himself. This is pleasingly simple and offers a character some tactical choice—just when is it better to avoid taking the blows or avoid taking the damage? In addition, each Player Character has one or more Glitches. These are spent to inflict maximum damage in an attack, enable a reroll of any die, lower damage done to the Player Character, neutralise a critical or a fumble, or decrease the difficulty of a skill test.

The genre specific rules of CY_BORG cover cybertech, drugs, and hacking. Both drugs and cybertech are covered in a page each, and it should be noted that not every Player Character begins play with any cybertech. Only the Renegade Cyberslasher begins play with any cybertech, although a Player Character may have some as a result of a roll for his gear. The rules for hacking are given a bit more attention though. This is no surprise, but unlike many other Cyberpunk-themed roleplaying games where they grind play to a halt as the hacker Player Character is run through an entire little rules subsystem all of his very own, here they are covered in just four pages—and two of those are devoted to possible backlashes if a hacking roll is fumbled. In CY_BORG hacking is done on the spot by a hacker activating Apps, custom-made cartridges and cassettes, slotted into his cyberdeck, for example, the Nok_Nok App opens a nearby door whilst the CTechAttak App inflicts damage on targets connected to the network. To do this, the hacker has to be jacked not the cyberdeck and the more an App is used, the more likely it has of causing a fumble and inflicting a backlash, such as corrupting the hacker’s Retinal Communication Device or the hacker getting identified by a hacker collective and being extorted.

In addition, it is possible to have Nanopowers, such as Psychic Scalpels which inflict damage or a half metre cube of inorganic matter can be reduced to dust. These abilities are rumoured to be from an infection of alien bacteria riding nanobots that has swept the city of CY following The Incident. In addition to the power granted by the infection, the user suffers an infestation, like Gills or Barbed Skeleton. They have two effects. One is permanent, such as the being able to breath underwater for the Gills and for Barbed Skeleton, having sharp pieces of bone piercing the skin around the sufferer’s joints, hindering his movement, unless he grinds them down. The other is a triggered effect when excess damage is suffered, which prevents the sufferer from breathing air if he has Gills and a painful growth spurt of sharp bone for Barbed Skeleton.

For the Game Master, there is section of opponents, from Generic SecOp or Gang Goons and United Citadel Security Operatives, through raging menaces, enhanced beasts, drones, and cydroids to combat vehicles, mechs, and ghosts. Then there is the extensive mission generator, based on Backswords & Bucklers: Adventuring in Gloriana’s Britain, which when combined with the random tables for generating corporations and events, enables the Game Master to generate the basics of numerous scenarios. CY_BORG includes a sample mission, ‘Lucky Flight Takedown’, which has the Player Characters take a job from a shady salaryman to destroy the influence of a newly opened casino upon a neighbourhood. It is a strike mission, one which the Player Characters are tasked with attempting with some delicacy, rather than simply conducting a smash and grab. So, although in some ways it reads as a dungeon similar to that of Mörk Borg, this is more demanding and thoughtful and if gone at in the wrong way, will likely teach the Player Characters just how fragile they can be. Notes are included which could link to future scenarios.

Physically, CY_BORG does suffer to an extent to the same issues as Mörk Borg. Their Artpunk style does not always make the content the easiest to access, so the summary of the mechanics included inside the back cover is a good idea. The illustrations are often heavy and oppressive, veering between the doom metal genre and the doom punk genre, both highlighted by neon and blighted by poisons. Overall, CY_BORG is still a handy little rulebook.

CY_BORG brings the Grim Dark to the cyberpunk genre, stripping back the complexities of both the genre and its associated mechanics, but revving up the maelstrom of the media, the unbridled ambition and greed of the corporations, the suffering of the have-nots, and driving them towards another doom. Its combination of brutal, in-your-face dread, and despair never really lets up and even as the often already unpleasant Player Characters are damaged by this, they do care about the state of CY, if not the world. CY_BORG is a roleplaying game in which the world appears free of moral certainties—except one. Corporations are evil, capitalism will be death of us all, and they need to be smashed and their crimes revealed.

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—

The Valley Of The Pharaohs: Role Playing Adventure in Ancient Egypt has the distinction of being the first roleplaying game to explore the idea of roleplaying in ancient Egypt, the first historical roleplaying game published by Palladium Games, the only boxed roleplaying game from Palladium Games, and the only roleplaying game from Palladium Games to not use its Megaverse rules. Published in 1983, the result is a game with a surprisingly simple and straightforward rules system, plenty of solidly researched background and historical material, and some superb illustrations and maps. However, even by the standards of the day, it suffers from cheap production values and a lack of development. Unlike other titles from Palladium Games, such as the Mechanoid Invasion Trilogy, it has not been reprinted. Consequently, The Valley Of The Pharaohs: Role Playing Adventure in Ancient Egypt has remained a historical curio, little remembered by anyone.
The Valley Of The Pharaohs: Role Playing Adventure in Ancient Egypt is a boxed set. Inside is a fifty-page, black and white rulebook, a full colour map of Ancient Egypt, and several sheets which depict the Nile Valley, routes across the deserts and ‘Nomes’ (a regional division of the country), city fortifications, house floorplans, the True Pyramid, the Step Pyramid, the Temple of Hatshepsut, and more. In the roleplaying game, players take on the roles of members of Egyptian society who go and well, not adventure exactly. Society in the setting is described as stable and as is made clear in the ‘G.M. Notes’, “…[T]he government will not allow a band of marauders to plunder the countryside (at least not within Egypt proper).” Instead, it is suggested that the adventurers undertake business trips or pilgrimages, perhaps be representatives of noble or merchant patrons. Alternatively, there are ruins to explore or military ventures to engage in beyond the borders of the country, even though none of Egypt’s enemies are detailed, but suggestions as to what the Player Characters might do in a scenario or campaign are really covered in the barest of details. In some ways this parallels the feel of an earlier roleplaying game, Empire of the Petal Throne, which has always had the repetition of being dense and impenetrable and not easy to run from the material contained in the rules. That said, an experienced Game Master will be able to develop an adventure from the material in the book.
A Player Character in is, of course, Human and Egyptian. He is defined by his Caste, Attributes, Hit Points, Occupation, and Skills. There are four Castes—Nobility, Clergy, Bureaucracy, and Commons—and each Caste suggests possible Occupations and gives an Attribute bonus. For example, the Occupations for the Clergy Caste are Priest and Scholar and its grants a bonus to the Power Attribute. The five attributes are Strength, Speed, Intellect, Power, and Persona, and these range between three and eighteen. Hit Points are equal to double the Player Character’s Strength. There are five Occupations—Soldier, Priest, Scholar, Merchant, and Thief. Skills are given as percentile values, and come from a Player Character’s Caste and Occupation. To create a Player Character, a player rolls for his Caste, Attributes, selects an occupation, rolls for the number of Caste skills and selects them, and then picks four skills from those available from the Occupation. Oddly, the rulebook does not include a list of names. The process is quick, but not necessarily clearly explained. For example, Priests and Scholars can learn spells, but it is not how many they know at game’s start.
AkhethetepCaste: BureaucracyOccupation: Scholar
Strength 06 Speed 09 Intellect 18 Power 16 Persona 14
Hit Points: 12
SKILLSAgriculture 20%, Gaming 26%, Law 18%, Magick 32%, Philosophy 18%, Reading 18%, Swimming 09%, Writing 18%
SPELLSClairvoyance, Detect Truth, Illumination
Mechanically, The Valley Of The Pharaohs employs the percentile system. A player rolls under percentile dice against a particular skill to succeed. Beginning Player Characters are thus far from being very skilled and one of the stated aims of play, at least mechanically, is to improve skills. Skill improvement is done at the end of each session and is done with a roll over the skill as in other percentile systems. A Player Character can also gain training in a skill. Combat is different and uses a twenty-sided die. To attack an opponent, a player rolls the die and adds bonuses based on the character’s Speed Attribute and Combat Skill. The Valley Of The Pharaohs differentiates between the Combat, Military Combat, Shield, Archery, and Throw Skills, and the higher the skill, the more bonuses provided. If the player rolls higher than the Resistance Factor of the target’s armour, which can range from six for simple clothing and eight for padded to eleven for leather and fourteen for scale, then the character is successful in penetrating the armour. Damage is then rolled for and applied directly to the target’s Hit Points. However, if the roll is equal to the Resistance Factor and up to five less than the Resistance Factor of the armour, the attack hits and damage is applied to the armour’s damage capacity before the target. A defending character, though, does have the option of parrying or dodging, which requires a player to roll higher than the attack roll. Either way, a roll of a natural twenty is a critical hit and inflicts double damage.
In comparison to the combat rules, the base mechanic and the rulebook’s explanation of it are woefully underwritten. The combat rules are given much more detail and have a bit of cut and thrust to them with combatants able to parry and dodge as well as attack. Soldiers do feel more skilled though, because there is direct correlation between a Warrior’s skill and what he can do in mechanical terms. As he gains in skill, he has more attacks, bonuses to attack and parry, and more. So even the average warrior is going to have two attacks per round and a bonus to parry if he has the Military Combat skill, although it is not clear what the difference between the Combat and Miliary Combat skills are. 
Magic uses the Magick skill to determine both how well a Player Character casts spells and what spells he might possibly know. His Magick skill is rolled against whenever he wants to cast a spell as per the roleplaying game’s skill mechanic. Its value is also used as the level of a Player Character’s magical knowledge in that a Player Character might know or be able to learn and cast all of the spells of a level under the value of his Magick. Thus, a Priest or Scholar with a Magick skill of 25 might only know the Illumination, Detect Truth, Clairvoyance, and Move Water spells, which are levels ten, fifteen, twenty, and twenty-five, respectively. Spells have a Magic Point cost to cast, a duration, and a casting time, ranging from two to twelve combat rounds, such as with the spells Portal and Speak with Gods, depending on spell level. A caster can also extend a spell and attempt to ward or counter a spell if he knows the spell being cast at him. Characters of all types can access to passive magick through amulets, wax figures, Ushabti, magic pictures, and more. Amulets provide minor bonuses, such as the Serpent’s Head, a red stone amulet that protects the wearer from snakes and to a certain extent from magical snakes, whilst Ushabti resemble objects in the real world which come to life and magically perform tasks that their real-world equivalents would. For example, a bull Ushabti could come to life and plough a field or a soldier Ushabti protect its owner. In the case of amulets, the more someone wears, the less effective they are. Of the two, the passive magic of the amulets and similar objects is much more interesting and much more immersive than that of the active magic. This is not to say that active magic is not powerful, but it is not as flashy as in other fantasy roleplaying games, there are a limited number of spells, and there are few if direct combat spells. Another issue is that the spells feel generic, rather than being specifically tied to the setting of Ancient Egypt, its priesthoods, and its gods, and that is not the case with the passive magic. 
In terms of setting, The Valley Of The Pharaohs provides information on the history of Ancient Egypt, its society, government, law, slavery, army, and more. It pays particular attention to the clergy, which includes temples, medicine, beliefs, and of course, burial customs, plus the gods themselves. A bestiary gives stats for ordinary creatures such as crocodiles and baboons, and for monsters like great serpents and several unnamed man-eating beasts believed to inhabit the deserts. The range of monsters feels threadbare. Rounding out The Valley Of The Pharaohs is a set of tables for random encounters and treasures, the latter slightly at odds with non-marauding style of play the author informs the Game Master is ill-suited to the setting. Even the limited number of spells with their even more limited number of direct combat spells enforce this style of play. Yet the advice for the Game Master is limited in terms of explaining what sort of games and campaigns can be run using The Valley Of The Pharaohs. In particular, military campaigns are severely curtailed because although the roleplaying game is set at a time when Egypt is conducting military campaigns beyond its borders, only neighbouring Nubia is mentioned, and then only in passing. So, no idea is given of who these possible rivals are and what their armies look like. Similarly, whilst priests are discussed in general, the only difference between them is that they worship different gods. So, it is not easy to develop scenarios involving inter-temple rivalries and factionalism because there is not enough information here. This is not to dismiss the amount of information in what is a forty-year-old roleplaying game just fifty pages in length, but rather it can at best be described as a decent introduction to the period—at least for 1983. An experienced Game Master would be able to overcome these issues with research, and there is a bibliography included in the back of the rulebook. Of course, there have been developments in Egyptology since, so even what is here may have become outdated by contemporary standards. Plus, research today is going to be much easier to conduct than it was in 1983. Ultimately in terms of a setting, The Valley Of The Pharaohs is almost too settled and too stable, so that there are no real tensions or rivalries or differences which might drive adventure, conflict, or obvious story.
Physically, The Valley Of The Pharaohs: Role Playing Adventure in Ancient Egypt manages to both please and disappoint at the same time. The production values are disappointingly poor, the quality of the paper a significant factor in that—especially for the various separate maps and illustrations, which consequently feel flimsy. The rulebook’s text is also small and cramped and not easy to read. Yet the artwork, the maps, and so on are really particularly good, strong, bold, and really capture the feel of the setting.
—oOo—The Valley Of The Pharaohs: Role Playing Adventure in Ancient Egypt appears to have been reviewed just the once. This was by designer Jonathan Tweet, in the ‘Game Reviews’ department of Different Worlds Issue 45 (March/April 1987). He wrote, “The biggest obstacle to running a Valley of the Pharaohs campaign is the lack of motives for adventuring. The rules sanely remind gamemasters that armed adventurers freelancing as monster exterminators do not belong in 'the civilized, orderly land of Egypt but do not offer alternatives to the kinds of adventures players usually enjoy. If the game was designed so that the scholar, merchant, and soldier characters could have exciting adventures in civilized country like Egypt using all the noncombat skills described, Valley of the Pharaohs would have been given a better rating, but the game left me with no excitement as to the possibilities for scenarios.” before concluding that, “The Valley of the Pharaohs, then, would be a worthwhile game for those with deep interest in ancient Egypt and for those gamemasters with enough energy and imagination to synthesize historical background and basic game mechanics into an original and exciting campaign. Good luck to those of you who try.” He awarded The Valley Of The Pharaohs: Role Playing Adventure in Ancient Egypt just one-and-a-half stars.—oOo—
The Valley Of The Pharaohs: Role Playing Adventure in Ancient Egypt has all of the right substance—solid, if basic rules, a decent amount of background and history, and plenty of excellent illustrations and maps, but where it comes up short is application. What exactly do you do with it and what sort of scenarios and campaigns do you play? The basic advice that The Valley Of The Pharaohs is a stable and settled society does not leave the Game Master with a great to work with in terms of setting up a campaign or even a scenario. There is no denying that there is the basics of a solid enough roleplaying game in The Valley Of The Pharaohs: Role Playing Adventure in Ancient Egypt, but in terms what adventures can be run, it is underdeveloped and leaves a lot of work for the Game Master to do. One might say that it is all ‘Valley of the Pharaohs’ and not enough ‘adventure’.

Given the origins of the roleplaying hobby—in wargaming and in the drawing of dungeons that the first player characters, and a great many since, explored and plundered—it should be no surprise just how important maps are to the hobby. They serve as a means to show a tactical situation when using miniatures or tokens and to track the progress of the player characters through the dungeon—by both the players and the Dungeon Master. And since the publication of Dungeon Geomorphs, Set One: Basic Dungeon by TSR, Inc. in 1976, the hobby has found different ways in which to provide us with maps. Games Workshop published several Dungeon Floor Sets in the 1980s, culminating in Dungeon Planner Set 1: Caverns of the Dead and Dungeon Planner Set 2: Nightmare in Blackmarsh; Dwarven Forge has supplied dungeon enthusiasts with highly detailed, three-dimensional modular terrain since 1996; and any number of publishers have sold maps as PDFs via Drivethrurpg.com. Loke Battle Mats does something a little different with its maps. It publishes them as books.

A Loke BattleMats book comes as a spiral-bound book. Every page is a map and every page actually light card with a plastic covering. The fact that it is spiral-bound means that the book lies completely flat and because there is a map on every page, every map can be used on its own or combined with the map on the opposite page to work as one big, double-page spread map. The fact that the book is spiral bound means that it can be folded back on itself and thus just one map used with ease or the book unfolded to reveal the other half of the map as necessary. The fact that every page has a plastic covering means that every page can be drawn on using a write-on/wipe-off pen. It is a brilliantly simple concept which has already garnered the publisher the UK Games Expo 2019 People’s Choice Awards for Best Accessory for the Big Book of Battlemats and both the UK Games Expo 2019 Best Accessory and UK Games Expo 2019 People’s Choice Awards Best Accessory for the Giant Book of Battle Mats.
The Castles, Crypts, & Caverns Books of Battle Mats is a ‘Set of 2 Battle Map Books for RPG’. As a set, it comes as two volume set of map books in a slipcase—open ended at either side for easy access. Each of the two volumes is a twelve-inch squire square, spiral bound book, with each containing sixty maps, all marked with a square grid. These start with a pair of maps with just a plain, but quickly leap into depicting particular locations. There are castle walls with towers and stables, great spiraling stairs, a mess hall, temples and dormitories, libraries and ritual rooms, ornamental gardens, befouled sewer tunnels, and caverns set across a variety of terrain types, and much, much more. And this is more or less the same in each of the two books. This does not mean that the maps are exactly the same in each book. Rather they are thematically similar and this leads into what is perhaps the greatest feature of the Castles, Crypts, & Caverns Books of Battle Mats.
Each two-page spread of the two volumes of the Castles, Crypts, & Caverns Books of Battle Mats consists of two linked maps—physically and thematically. The Game Master can use either of the maps on the two-page spread on their own or together, as a twelve by twenty-four-inch rectangular map. That though is with the one volume. With two volumes together, the Game Master can combine any single map from one volume with any single map from the other, and if that is not flexible enough, any two-page spread from one volume can be placed next to a two-page spread from the other, in the process, creating a twenty-four by twenty-four-inch square map. What is means is that the Game Master can connect the two sections of castle walls to create a longer section, the sewers can be extended, and the mess hall, dormitories, and other sections placed together to form a barracks, for example. As with the other titles in the range, this gives the Castles, Crypts, & Caverns Books a fantastic versatility which the Game Master can take advantage of again and again in choosing a combination of map pages from the two volumes to create location after location, and then use them to build encounter after encounter.
The individual maps are excellent, being bright, vibrant, detailed, and clear. They are easy to use and easy to modify. A Game Master can easily adjust them with a write-on/wipe-off pen to add features of her own. This is especially important if the Game Master wants to use a map which has previously featured in one of her adventures. She can also add stickers if she wants new features or even actual physical terrain features.
There are four books in the series—the Castles, Crypts, & Caverns Books of Battle Mats, The Wilderness Books of Battle Mats, The Dungeon Books of Battle Mats, and The Towns & Taverns Books of Battle Mats. There is a difference between the Castles, Crypts, & Caverns Books of Battle Mats and the other titles which is both an advantage and a disadvantage for this set of books. The difference is that instead of focusing of one or two themes, such as dungeons or towns and taverns, the Castles, Crypts, & Caverns Books of Battle Mats obviously focuses on three. This gives its a flexibility which means it slots easily alongside a wider range of maps from the other three books in the series. For example, the castle maps from the Castles, Crypts, & Caverns Books of Battle Mats can abut against the street maps from The Towns & Taverns Books of Battle Mats or the caverns added to those in The Dungeon Books of Battle Mats. However, it is not quite possible to create a complete castle or fortress or other buildings or similar buildings with this book set. Rather, it feels as if the Castles, Crypts, & Caverns Books of Battle Mats is a book of abutments, sections that support and expand the maps in the other entries in the series, ratehr than being a standalone product. Consequently, they are not necessarily that easy to use on the fly, to ready up an encounter at a moment’s notice. Instead, they are easier to use as part of the Game Master’s preparation and then have everything necessary to play. Then obviously, the maps cannot be used over and over lest familiarity become an issue. Neither of these are issues which will prevent a Game Master from using the Castles, Crypts, & Caverns Books of Battle Mats, but rather that she should be aware of them prior to bringing them to the table.
Physically, the Castles, Crypts, & Caverns Books of Battle Mats is very nicely produced. The maps are clear, easy to use, fully painted, and vibrant with colour. One issue may well be with binding and the user might want to be a little careful folding the pages back and forth lest the pages crease or break around the spiral comb of the binding. Although there is some writing involved in the Castles, Crypts, & Caverns Books of Battle Mats, it is not really what a Game Master is looking for with this two-volume set. Fortunately, the writing is a little sharper than in previous entries in the series.
There is no denying the usefulness of maps when it comes to the tabletop gaming hobby. They help players and Game Masters alike visualise an area, they help track movement and position, and so on. If a gaming group does not regularly use miniatures in their fantasy games, the Castles, Crypts, & Caverns Books of Battle Mats might not be useful, but it will still help them visualise an area, and it may even encourage them to use them. If they already use miniatures, whether fantasy roleplaying or wargaming, then the maps in the Castles, Crypts, & Caverns Books of Battle Mats will be useful—but only to an extent and then really only best used with the other volumes in the series. Still there are so many fantasy roleplaying games which Castles, Crypts, & Caverns Books of Battle Mats will work with, almost too many to list here…
The Castles, Crypts, & Caverns Books of Battle Mats is full of attractive, ready-to-use maps that the Game Master can bring to the table for the fantasy roleplaying game of her choice. As with other entries in the series, the Castles, Crypts, & Caverns Books of Battle Mats is both practical and pretty, but its broader focus that it is not quite as useful an accessory for fantasy gaming in general with the rest of the line.

The year is 1635. The village of Landskrona has nothing to recommend it except perhaps for a legend about a dragon having been killed in the past—nobody can remember exactly when—and that is all. Landskrona is utterly forgettable except… In the past few months two teenage girls have gone missing, as have several children. There are rumours of witches in the area, because, well, it is 1635 and there are witches in the area. Also, a unit of mercenaries recently passed through the area looking for bandits. However, the missing girls and children, let alone the rumours of witchcraft are not the only problems besetting the village of Landskrona, let alone the rest of Norway, Europe, and even the whole of the Earth—though they are just the most obvious ones! This is the set-up for Earth Incubation Crisis, a scenario for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay. Written by the designer of Wight Power, the good news is that whilst Earth Incubation Crisis is another ‘hidden, apocalyptic monster waiting to be unleashed, whilst surrounded by monsters’, it is more interesting, better developed, and less provocatively titled than Wight Power, and whilst it contains content that is prurient in places and is adult in tone throughout, it is not thoroughly as unpleasant or as tasteless as Curse of the Daughterbrides. In fact, inspired by Japanese Science Fiction, Earth Incubation Crisis has the potential to be a lot of fun.
Earth Incubation Crisis is essentially a hexcrawl set in the Norwegian countryside. Like other scenarios published by Lamentations of the Flame Princess it is set in the game’s default early Modern Period. Specifically, in 1635 Norway, so it could work with several of the other publisher’s titles or equally easily adapted to the retroclone of the Game Master’s choice. It could even be shifted to another similar location. The scenario begins when the Player Characters arrive in the village of Landskrona and quickly learn of its problems—the missing persons and the rumours of witchcraft, as well as the possibility of discovering a dragon’s hoard. This is motivation for them to set out and investigate the nearby forests, marsh, and mountains. Barring the village of Landskrona, there are only five set locations in the scenario, set across the region. As the Player Characters move about the area, they will run into encounter after encounter, and it is with these encounters that the scenario begins to come its own. The author has made an effort to make every encounter detailed and interesting. For example, brown bears are sighted in the area, but a pair of corpses are later found which turn out to be of a couple who tried to live in harmony with the bears and unfortunately, it did not go as they intended. An abandoned home will be found, but its former occupant might be found later. There is the mercenary band out looking for the bandits and the bandits themselves, hiding out after a robbery went wrong—which is why they are being hunted. The mercenaries are not just soldiers and the bandits not just bandits, there is a bit more to them in each case, which can work in the Player Characters’ favour as much as it could hinder them under different circumstances. Some of the NPCs are monstrous, but the major NPCs in particular are well drawn and often elicit the sympathies of the Referee, let alone the players and their characters. In other cases, what would ordinarily be seen as in monsters in other Dungeons & Dragons-style adventures are here treated as completely sympathetic. There are some genuinely entertaining NPCs in Earth Incubation Crisis and the Referee will have a lot of fun portraying them.
Ultimately, clues found across the area will point to something else going on in the region and following those clues will reveal a secret area where the real threat at the heart of the scenario can be found. Directly inspired by classic Japanese Science Fiction films, this is a truly gargantuan threat. Discovery of this sets up the second of two moral dilemmas in the scenario. This is a much bigger one, one which fits the scale of the threat. The scenario includes a solution, again on a similarly grand scale. If there is a downside to the solution and the final denouement in the scenario, it is that it can only really involve the one Player Character, who gets a very big role in the spotlight. 
Physically, Earth Incubation Crisis is a handsome hardback, done in orange shades throughout with slightly cartoonish illustrations. However, the artwork is unnecessarily prurient in places in way that adds nothing to the situation described in the book. Also, giving a robot the name ‘P3N1S’ is immature, if not puerile.
Like many scenarios for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay, Earth Incubation Crisis is best run a as one-shot, because with the likelihood of the world being ended, a campaign is really difficult to carry on. Despite that, Earth Incubation Crisis is a lot of fun. It takes the standard format for a Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay scenario of there being a ‘hidden, apocalyptic monster waiting to be unleashed, whilst surrounded by monsters’, and themes it around two genres which normally do not meet, but clash suitably here, whilst also presenting the players and their characters with a moral dilemma (and a way out of it). Earth Incubation Crisis then sets this in a superbly detailed, hexcrawl populated with interesting encounters and a cast of grotesques, and then lets the Player Characters loose upon the Norwegian countryside to discover the horrors, both natural and unnatural for themselves.