Now in its fourteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2021, after a little delay due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, took place on Saturday, 16th October. As per usual, it came with an array of new and interesting little releases, which traditionally would have been tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Of course, in 2021, Free RPG Day took place after GenCon despite it also taking place later than its traditional start of August dates, but Reviews from R’lyeh was able to gain access to the titles released on the day due to a friendly local gaming shop and both Keith Mageau and David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3 in together sourcing and providing copies of the Free RPG Day 2020 titles. Reviews from R’lyeh would like to thank all three for their help.

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Enter the Collection: An Adventure for the Essence20 Roleplaying System is Renegade Game Studios’ offering for Free RPG Day in 2021. It is the first scenario designed using the publisher’s Essence20 Roleplaying System and is written to be used with any of three roleplaying games it is planning based in turn on the G.I. Joe, Power Rangers, and Transformers intellectual properties. The scenario provides a little investigation and interaction, a fair degree of stealth, and plenty of action, but it is not specifically written for any one of those three roleplaying games. This has its advantages and its disadvantages, all of which stem from the fact that the scenario is generic in its set-up, its plotting, and its tone. Now whilst that means it can be run easily with the G.I. Joe Roleplaying Game, Power Rangers Roleplaying Game, or the Transformers Roleplaying Game, it also means that it could run with almost any other modern set roleplaying game. It also means that it feels like a Saturday morning cartoon, but though is very much what Renegade Game Studios is aiming for with this scenario and the three roleplaying games in general.

Enter the Collection takes place in Crystal Springs, a community just half an hour away from the nearest major shipping and transportation hub where nothing extraordinary ever happens. That until the past few weeks when there has been a rash of missing person reports, an increased number of patients coming into Accident & Emergency due to anonymous violent crimes, and a sharp rise in late night activity outside of city limits in the industrial park. Despite complaints made to the mayor and the city police department, neither have responded and nothing seems to have been done about any of this strangeness. Then the Player Characters’ contact (command leader?) gets in touch and asks them to investigate, telling that they should meet, Doctor Caroline Benedict, a biology professor at a local college.

When they meet Doctor Benedict, she shows them the strange blue mussels she has in the nearby Lake Vermillion and tells them that a colleague, Terrance Brighton, is missing. After investigating his house (and avoiding his nosey neighbours) and then going to Lake Vermillion, the Player Characters will quickly discover that someone is dumping toxic chemicals into the lake and that the culprits are prepared to go to great lengths to protect their operations. The Player Characters will be able to track the culprits back to their base of operations. There they can confront the masterminds behind the operation and perhaps learn a little more about what is going on in Crystal Springs.

Mechanically, Enter the Collection: An Adventure for the Essence20 Roleplaying System does not include any explanation of the Essence20 mechanics. It is clear that it is a d20 System-based with Player Characters and NPCs having skills rated by die type, from a four-sided die to a twenty-sided die, which is rolled and added to the result of a twenty-sided die to exceed the difficulty of the test in order to succeed. Devices and vehicles can have similar die-based bonuses as evidenced by the various vehicles detailed in the scenario, which range from a half-track to a stealth fighter. What this means is that it is relatively easy for the Game Master to discern skill ratings and bonuses from devices and vehicles and so potentially be able to run the scenario for the roleplaying game of her choice if she does not have access to either the G.I. Joe Roleplaying Game, Power Rangers Roleplaying Game, or the Transformers Roleplaying Game.

Physically, Enter the Collection: An Adventure for the Essence20 Roleplaying System is well presented and written. The artwork is good, although no NPC is depicted and the depictions of the vehicles are from top down only. There are maps of two of the locations, but not of the final area or the general area, so the Game Master might want to provide both—and the one of the actual area could be real if the Game Master wants to set the scenario somewhere that actually exists.

Enter the Collection: An Adventure for the Essence20 Roleplaying System leaves some questions to be answered, especially if the Game Master wants to run a sequel. On its own though, Enter the Collection: An Adventure for the Essence20 Roleplaying System is a perfectly adequate scenario which will easily fit the G.I. Joe Roleplaying Game, Power Rangers Roleplaying Game, or the Transformers Roleplaying Game—or in fact, the modern-set roleplaying game of the Game Master’s choice.

Now in its fourteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2021, after a little delay due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, took place on Saturday, 16th October. As per usual, it came with an array of new and interesting little releases, which traditionally would have been tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Of course, in 2021, Free RPG Day took place after GenCon despite it also taking place later than its traditional start of August dates, but Reviews from R’lyeh was able to gain access to the titles released on the day due to a friendly local gaming shop and both Keith Mageau and David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3 in together sourcing and providing copies of the Free RPG Day 2020 titles. Reviews from R’lyeh would like to thank all three for their help.
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Cubicle7 Entertainment Ltd. offered two titles for Free RPG Day 2021. One is Going Underground, an adventure for the forthcoming version of Victoriana, the roleplaying game of intrigue, sorcery, and steam for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. The other is Reap and Sow, a scenario and quick-start for Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound. This is the roleplaying game in which the Soulbound, heroes chosen by the gods, stand defiantly against the horrors that plague the Mortal Realms, tasked with preventing a new age of Chaos, Death, and Destruction. Sigmar’s Storm has already stopped the hordes of Chaos once and given the people of the Mortal Realms hope and time to plant the first seeds of civilisation and establish the new bastions of Order. Yet Chaos has not gone quietly. The Necroquake saw the undead legions of Nagash rise up to shatter the newly founded bastions of law and order. If civilisation is to survive, the Soulbound must face roving bands of cannibals, legions of undead, and hordes of daemons in a desperate struggle for survival.

Reap and Sow provides a location within one of the realms; an adventure of the same name which sees the Player Characters protecting it against an assault by the undead and should provide between two and three hours of play; and four ready-to-play pregenerated Player Characters for use with the adventure. In terms of rules, it does not use the full rules from Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound, but instead employs a streamlined and simplified version that has most of the tasks that the Player Characters might want to undertake already written up in terms of the mechanics—the target number required and the number of successes needed. Alternatively, the scenario could be played using Player Characters created by the players using the rules in the core rules for Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound and the full rules themselves. This would require some development upon the part of the Game Master.

Mechanically, Reap and Sow and thus Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound uses dice pools consisting of six-sided dice. Tests are rolled against a Difficulty Number and a Complexity. The Difficulty Number is the number which a player must roll equal to or greater than on a die, whilst the Complexity is the number of successes which the player must roll from the pool. For example, Malgra Dainsson, one of the four pre-generated Player Characters included in Reap and Sow, is armed with a Rapid-fire Rivet. To make an attack with this weapon, their player must make a DN 3:1 Test, meaning a Difficulty Number of Three and a Complexity of one. For this he rolls the five dice for Malgra’s Ballistic Skill. The weapon will inflict one damage with a successful attack, but generate extra damage the more successes the player rolls. As a stripped-down presentation of the rules to Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound, this works more than well enough, and is both fast playing and quick to grasp.

Reap and Sow includes a quartet of pre-generated Player Characters. They include Xan Bemyer, a Warpriest of the Devoted of Sigmar, who can bring down the holy searing Light of Sigmar; Vel Arturious, a Knight-Questor of the Stormcast Eternals, who is a Bulwark, a stalwart defender who hold off hordes on her own; Malgra Dainsson, an Endrinrigger of the Kharadron Overlords whose Aether-rig renders her capable of flight; and Darach, a Kurnoth Hunter, a grown defender of the Sylvaneth armed with a greatbow, who can launch down a Hail of Doom in a zone or adjacent zone. All have three attributes—Body, Mind, and Soul—and various skills, plus ratings for Toughness, Wounds, and Armour. Toughness is essentially a character’s Hit Points, and when a character is hit, his Armour reduces the damage suffered. When a character’s Toughness is reduced to zero, he suffers Wounds. The effect of suffering Wounds is more complex in the core rules, but has been simplified here to each Player Character just having the four Wounds. The various NPCs and monsters in the scenario simply have Toughness and when that is reduced to zero, they are dead. Most characters—Player Characters and NPCs—have another rating for Mettle, the equivalent of Hero Points in other roleplaying games. Here though, it is simplified to just two uses. One is to allow a character a second action in a combat round, the other to have Xan Bemyer use his Light of Sigmar ability slightly differently and have it ignore Armour.

The scenario, ‘Reap and Sow’, takes place in Shyish, the Realm of the Dead, where the dead far outnumber the living. The latter includes colonists who have travelled through realmgates to establish settlements and a new life scratched from the grey soil of the haunted realm with its suspended decay. The realm is dominated by Nagash, the Unliving King, who has subsumed all of the other gods of death who once held power here. Grimreach is such a settlement, recently founded by the Dawnbringer Crusade. Here, the Player Characters, as members of a Soulbinding, go about their daily duties, whether that is conducting sermons in the temple of Sigmar, mounting patrols in the immediate area, performing maintenance on the settlement, or training the settlement’s defence forces, when each is approached by another member of the community about a strange event. This includes discovering evidence of an earlier settlement in the caves below Grimreach, somebody suffering a terrible sense of foreboding, of a mechanical breakdown, an accident, and so on, but at nightfall, a trio of Morghasts—great winged skeletons, servants of Nagash—come before the gates the settlement and demand a tithe! Not a tithe of food or goods or money or even souls, but bone!

Naturally, the Player Characters—as the leaders of Grimreach—refuse, and so battle ensues! The scenario is entirely defensive, with the Player Characters have time first to bolster Grimreach’s defences, and then hold off the attackers in ‘The Night of Shattered Bone’. The attacks come in waves as the undead lay siege to the settlement, and there is certain wargaming element here. In part, this is reinforced by Grimreach itself being organised into zones, and to help the Player Characters enact the defence of the settlement, the Game Master may want to print out a copy and have it on the table so that the players can more easily track where their characters are. Overall, the scenario is fun, offering a little roleplaying, some planning, and a lot of combat over the course of the session, which should be no more than four hours, if that.

Physically, Reap and Sow is decently written and nicely illustrated as you would expect for a roleplaying title set in a Games Workshop setting. It needs a slight edit here and there, and is written to be learned as the scenario progresses. The map of Grimreach is excellent and should ideally also serve as a good handout for the players. Reap and Sow is a solid adventure combined with basic rules, which should ideally serve as a good, though not full, introduction to Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound. More of a hors d’oeuvre than full starter—and certainly not the equivalent of a starter set. That said, Reap and Sow could be run using either the Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound Starter Set or Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound, and that way, might provide a more fulsome and detailed adventure. On its own, Reap and Sow will provide a solid session’s worth of play and action for a quartet of players.

I have some great-looking Kickstarters for your consideration going into the weekend.  So's let get at it!

SURVIVE THIS!! Dark Places & Demogorgons RPG Hardcover

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ericfrombloatgames/survive-this-dark-places-and-demogorgons-rpg-hardcover?ref=theotherside

This is not for a new book but rather a hardcover option for the fantastic Dark Places & Demogorgons RPG. For this the original red hardcover art from the first Kickstart is available and the blue softcover art in hardcover format.

I have the blue in softcover and the red in hardcover, so I have to admit that the blue hardcover is very, very tempting. 

Moonlight on Roseville Beach

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/r-rook/moonlight-on-roseville-beach?ref=theotherside

Now this "Queer Game of Disco & Cosmic Horror" has my attention.  I have known the designer, Richard Ruane, for many, many years. We have worked together in our days jobs at various companies for a while. He does great work.  He was one of the developers for White Wolf and worked a lot on their Mummy line. 

From the Kickstarter:

Moonlight on Roseville Beach: A Queer Game of Disco & Cosmic Horror is a tabletop roleplaying game that brings together the supernatural investigations and monster hunting of the weird fiction tales of the 20s and 30s from pulp magazines like Weird Tales with the queer romance and adventure of the 50s, 60s, and 70s novelists like Ann Bannon and Joseph Hansen.

I would like to say "I was there" when Richard came up with this idea.  He was talking a lot about Ann Bannon online so I asked about her stories.  As per our normal conversations, the topic went to RPGs.  

In any case, I backed this one and threw in some extra cash so copies can be donated. 

Red Shoes: An Urban Fantasy Novel

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/red-shoes-an-urban-fantasy-novel#/

This is not a game, but a new book Satyros Phil Brucato one of the lead designers (or really THE designer) of White Wolf's Mage. 

From the Indiegogo page.

After a friend’s mysterious death, Genét Shilling delves into the world of Red Shoes, a drug whose effects alter time, space, and form. That journey challenges all she thought she knew about herself and reveals how strange her world truly is.

Propelled by wide-eyed attitude and inspired by its author’s experiences with music, dance and metaphysical subcultures, Red Shoes presents an urban fantasy tale set in the Appalachian town of Riverhaven, where magic hides just out of sight.

Time warps. Modern bards. Sexual confusion. Grief and revenge.  

A dance begins.

The dance of Red Shoes.

It sounds fantastic. 

LYLITH & MARA Comic Book

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/620209721/lylith-and-mara-comic-book?ref=theotherside

Now this is right up my alley!  

From the Kickstarter:

“LYLITH & MARA” are twin sisters and the original Vampire and Succubus from who all other vampire races were evolved from. Born and raised in “The Dark”, their destiny seemed clear cut until on the age of their “becoming” when something within them stirs. A conflict between power and desires struggles with a morality of a soul they didn’t realized existed.

This also looks like a lot of fun.  Sure some of the cover art is cheesy, but I think it is cheesy, or cheese cakey, on purpose. So that is fine.

It looks like something that would work well with my Mara witch book.

The Dark Heart of Roskem is an adventure for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Published by Critical Kit, it is designed for a party of four to five Player Characters of Fourth Level and is intended to be played in a single session, either as a one-shot or as part of an ongoing campaign. It involves disappearances from a village, a nearby vile swamp, and dark, ancient magic. The scenario involves some interaction and investigation, but primarily emphasises combat and exploration.

The Dark Heart of Roskem takes place along the banks of the river Roskem, in and around the fishing settlement of Myristat, and then in the Roskem swamp. It opens as the Player Characters are on the Scar Road travelling  towards to the village, which is best known for the Roskite, the giant freshwater lobsters that are farmed along the river’s banks. Suddenly, a man lurches out of the swamp, delirious and covered with a green sludge—not to attack the Player Characters, but wanting their aid and to deliver a warning. There is a danger to Myristat in the swamp and the man keeps saying the word, “Krutz.” If the Player Characters take the man into town, they discover that he is a member of the town guard, who went into the swamp a few days before along with Krutz—who happens to be the captain of the town guard. However, Krutz himself has not returned, and neither have the other guards who accompanied him, and that is not all, a man and woman have also disappeared from the village, leaving their daughter behind. The mayor of Myristat offers the Player Characters a handsome reward if they find out what happened to Captain Krutz and the missing couple.

After a little investigation and interaction—perhaps hindered by an overly officious Halfling mayoral assistant, the Player Characters learn that Captain Krutz was actually going into the swamp to hunt for treasure. Speak to the right people and they can learn that Roskem Swamp has a dark secret—long ago a mage disappeared into the swamp and there took control of the Thornscale Lizardmen, perhaps to conduct his research in solitude even as he claimed to be a god! The swamp itself is as bad as can be imagined—if not worse, with its maddening mist that drives those caught in its whisps to repeat the word ‘green’ or become entangled in vines. Along the way, they may encounter a surprisingly chatty and genial Lizardman, who will give pointers towards the Temple of Vines and warn them of its Dark Heart.

The temple itself is quite small, amounting to no more than six rooms. Here the Player Characters will find the disappeared men and women, who like the rest of the temple, are draped and wrapped in vines. At their heart is the Swamp King, a humanoid statue of writhing vines and fungal mass which seems to want to control everything in the temple. Can the Player Characters defeat the Swamp King, drive back the vines, and so discover the true secrets of the temple?

Rounding out The Dark Heart of Roskem are two appendices. The first is longer and gives the details of the scenario’s various monsters. These include the more traditional denizens of the swamp—Giant Swamp Leeches, Swarms of Poisonous Snakes, and Lizardfolk, but alongside this are the Bog Bodies, leathery undead which exhale a thick cloud of fog that they can sense any creature within it; Lizard Gargoyles (which are exactly what they say they are); and the Swamp King itself. The latter can pierce and ensnare with its vines, raise Bog Bodies, and it can cast Druidic spells too. The shorter has the single entry, a description of a magical item, a Vine Whip. This splits into three and can do a little damage to three targets as well as ensnaring one of them.

Physically, The Dark Heart of Roskem is decently laid out and easy to read. There is no map of the area or the swamp, so either the Dungeon Master will want to draw one herself or find a place in her campaign to locate the adventure. The map of the Temple of Vines is decent enough though. The artwork is fairly light and sees a degree of repetition in its use. The writing is generally clear, although the dark history of Roskem Swamp is written for the Dungeon Master rather than the player, and she will probably want to adapt it so that it presents sufficient information without giving too much away.

As soon as ‘Krutz’, the name of the guard captain is mentioned, the first thought is to wonder if The Dark Heart of Roskem has anything to do with Colonel Kurtz of Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now fame? The author confirms that it was at least the scenario’s inspiration in the  afterword, though it is up to the Dungeon Master if she wants to develop that inspiration any further. There is scope too for a sequel, but that is something that the Dungeon Master will need to0 develop on her own. Such a sequel hints of a Lord of the Rings-style journey at the very least… Although it is short—specifically designed for a single session—The Dark Heart of Roskem has a foetid, hot, and sweaty feel of a swamp fallen under a dark influence, and is easy to run as a one-shot or add to a campaign.

Been thinking a lot about all the modern supernatural games I have (and I think I have all of them) and in particular the ones that have come out from the Old-School gaming scene.  These games all cover roughly the same sort of topics and themes but they all do them in different ways that I keep thinking they would all work great together. 

In other words, it sounds like a perfect topic for a Plays Well With Others. 

So the games I am talking about are Dark Places & Demogorgons, We Die Young, Dark Streets & Darker Secrets, and my own NIGHT SHIFT.  These are the big modern supernatural, occult horror games from the OSR. 

I have reviewed these games in the past.

• Review: Survive This! Dark Places & Demogorgons
• SURVIVE THIS!! We Die Young RPG Core Rules (2021)
• Review: Dark Streets & Darker Secrets

Obviously, I have not reviewed NIGHT SHIFT. Reviewing your own game is incredibly tacky and remarkably dishonest. 

I have covered many of these games in other Plays Well With Others too.

• Night Shift and Modern Supernatural Games
• Dark Places & Demogorgons: Cryptid Manual
• Kids Games, Dark Places & Demogorgons (with NIGHT SHIFT)

With the addition of Dark Streets & Darker Secrets to my occult library, I wanted to revisit some of these ideas. Though I want to take a different approach today.

With this Plays Well With Others, I am going to mention each game and talk about what can be used from that game in any of the other three.  In some cases, this is easy like moving from Dark Places & Demogorgons to We Die Young which are essentially the same system.  In others, it will be converting characters from one system to the other. 

At the core of all four games (three systems) is the old-school, the OSR, design.  All of these games have the same "godfather" as it were in Original or Basic D&D.  They have the same uncle (mother's brother), the d20 SRD. And their mother is all the D&D games we all played and the supernatural, occult, horror and urban fantasy media we consumed when not playing. 

Dark Streets & Darker Secrets 

This is the newest game, for me, and the one on my mind the most.  Thankfully it is also the one that has the most to offer all the games.  

For starters, the classes can be imported rather easily into the other three games.  In particular the Tough, the Nimble, and the Smart can be used as subtypes of the Veteran or Survivor in NIGHT SHIFT or as a class in We Die Young.  Maybe not so much for DP&D since those are supposed to be kids. The Gifted of DS&DS is similar to the Supernatural in NS.

The real gift of DS&DS is all the tables.  Someone online described the game as a great toolkit game. Some of the best ones to use in all games are the Complication table (p.20), Weird Items (p.32- 33), almost all the Gear. The Magic and Psychic backlash tables are also fun. ALL the artifact tables. The various "signs" in Chapter 7.  In fact, pretty much all of Chapter 7 to be honest.

Survive This!!

Both Dark Places & Demogorgons and We Die Young from Bloat Games use the same Survive This!! basic rule system, so right out of the gate they are compatible with each other.   Dark Places & Demogorgons focuses on kids in the 1980s and We Die Young on young adults in the 1990s.  So there is a continuum there for any that wish to use it.  There are plenty of "classes" in both games that can be used and mixed and matched.  Like DS&DS there are a lot of great toolbox-like tables and ideas that can be imported into another game.

I can easily see a game then of people in their 30s in the 2000s with large chunks of DS&DS mixed into the Survive This!! system.  Would this game be called "Survive This!! Dark Streets" or "Dark Streets, Dark Places, Darker Secrets & Demogorgons?"  I don't know, but I LOVE the idea of kids experiencing weird shit in the 80s, taking a bunch of drugs to forget them in the 90s (both DS&DS and WDY have these) and finally having to deal with this shit all over again in 2000-2020s as older adults.  Very "It" if you think about it.

The jewel though in the Survive This!! (and there are many) though HAS to be the DP&D Cryptid Manual.  DS&DS takes a toolkit view on monsters.  NIGHT SHIFT has a minimalist view (a very OD&D view if I can add) on monsters.  But the Cryptid Manual gives us a proper monster book.

Of note. Both DS&DS and We Die Young use the newer D&D5-ish Advantage and Disadvantage mechanic. Albeit in slightly different ways.  I have been using this in NIGHT SHIFT as well and find it works better for me than a simple +3 or +5 to rolls. 

Also, both games have a Madness mechanic.  I like the one in We Die Young much better.  Bits from DS&DS could be added to this, but in general, I think I'd use the one in WDY. 

We Die Young also has some really cool races that can help fill out the "Gifted" of DS&DS.

Don't forget you can get the new Hardcover version of Dark Places & Demogorns on Kickstarter now.

NIGHT SHIFT: Veterans of the Supernatural Wars

I talk a lot about NIGHT SHIFT here and with good reason, I am quite proud of the work I have done it.  It fills the void in my life left by the Buffy RPG and everything I wanted from all three editions of Chill, but never exactly got (no slight on Chill, fantastic game), a little more approachable and less nihilistic than Kult, and none of the baggage of The World of Darkness (though I do get the urge to play that again.  My oldest want to give it a try sometime).

Dark Places & Demogorgons makes some assumptions in the game that makes it what it is.  The characters are kids and there is also the Jeffersontown setting, all of which are central to the game and make it work.

Dark Street & Darker Secrets is on the other end of the spectrum with no assumed setting other than "The City" which also works fantastic for this game and one of it's great strengths.

In between those two, we have NIGHT SHIFT (and We Die Young, but I'll get to that).  NIGHT SHIFT does not have a default setting. There are different levels of difficulty you can configure the game in, Cinematic, Realistic, or Gritty.  DP&D would be Cinematic, DS&DS is the poster boy for Gritty, and WDY is around Realistic.  So I would use ideas from those games to inform my choices in the three levels of NS and vice-versa. 

What NIGHT SHIFT has to offer these other games are our "Night Worlds" or mini-settings.  Any of these can be used in any of the other games and the other games can be used to add more details.  Jason's "The Noctnurmverse" can be supplemented either by or used in DS&DS.  The "City" in DS&DS becomes the Noctnurmverse's Pittsburgh.  Or dialing back the Way-Back Machine use it with We Die Young in the 1990s.  My own "Generation HEX" benefits from the ideas on playing kids in DP&D.  You could even take Generation HEX and play it as a DP&D setting if you wanted.  My "Ordinary World" can be used in DS&DS IF you ever decide to move out of the city into the suburbs. 

I already talked a lot about how NIGHT SHIFT and Dark Places & Demogorgons can be used together.  The same logic applies when adding in the other two games.  In fact one place where this might work great is my own Sunny Valley, OH game of the Buffyverse in the 1980s rather than the late 90s/early 2000s.  This works well since a.) NIGHT SHIFT was made to fit the "Buffy-shaped" hole in my life and b.) DS&DS takes a lot of cues from and was influenced by Buffy in all media.  I might just be the best melting pot for all these games. Or crucible. Time will tell.

Putting it All Together

Honestly, there are just too many ways to combine these four games into something you can use.  Start with one and add what you need.  Start with two and be pickier about what you add from the others.  One of the ways I am using it is in my Life-Path Development ideas. Each game represents a different point the characters' lives and each is used to model that time.  The obvious reasons are that DP&D takes place in the 80s with kids, WDY in the 90s with younger adults, and DS&DS and NIGHT SHIFT go beyond that.  To go with personal experience, I was living in Chicago proper in the mid to late 90s and then in the suburbs after that.  To use my ordinary world example my progression would look like this:

DP&D (high school, small town) -> WDY (college, college town) -> DS&DS (grad school, city) -> NIGHT SHIFT (adulthood, suburbs).

In a weird way, it makes sense to me.  But I am not stating up myself. I don't live in a magical world, I live in this one.  BUT I do have my Drosophila melanogaster of these sorts of experiments, Willow and Tara.   I have done stats for them for Dark Places & Demogorgons and NIGHT SHIFT.  Doing ones for We Die Young and Dark Streets & Darker Secrets would be easy enough.  BUT.  Those are not the same characters really. They fall under my "Alternate Reality" versions rather than "Lifespan or Lifepath Development."   Though doing DS&DS versions of Willow and Tara should be in my future.

No for this I need a character that has been around for a while, for that I am going to have to turn to my Iconic Witch Larina.

Fortunately for me, the witch is one of the few character classes/archetypes/concepts that can be found in all these games (the weird psychic is as well, but witches are my thing).  So building a witch feels right.

I worked up all the sheets and this is what I ended up with.  Purple is the color of all of Larina's sheets. Click for larger. 

Dark Places & Demogorgons

It's 1984 and Larina is 14 and 4th level.  She lives in a small town where her mom runs a spice shop and her dad is a Professor of Anthropology and teaches music.  She is called "creepy girl" by the kids in school.  At this point, she is shy and can't quite understand why others can't see the strange things all around them. 

Most of these adventures are of the "Scooby-Doo" sort; short ones that are resolved by the end.  Easily Monster of Week sorts.

We Die Young

We are moving to the early 90s now and she is 7th level. Larina is in grad school and is now Larina Macalester. She was married at age 19 but obviously, it is not working out well.  She is living in Chicago while her estranged husband is still living in Ireland. Her stats nudge up a little but she largely is similar to her 1DP&D version.  There are some differences between the two types of Witch classes (and DP&D still has others) but nothing I consider earth-shattering.  I did get to add her two tattoos. One is a protection tattoo (a large Triple Moon Goddess on her back) and one on her left wrist that allows her to cast a magic bolt. 

Dark Streets & Darker Secrets

Things are getting darker.  Larina is now 35, 10th level, and back to going back to using "Nichols" as her last name.  Her complication is she is hiding from her ex-husband who was in the IRA.  (NOTE: I actually played through this back in the early 2000s.  The big twist was that while she was hiding out, her ex had moved on and was living his own life with his new wife.)  I wanted to use my new idea for Sanity by having it as Intellect +  Willpower /2. BUT for Larina here both scores are 17 giving me an average of 17. 

NIGHT SHIFT

Here is the one closest to my heart, obviously.  She has more spells, but this is expected at 13th level. 

As expected the powers don't always match up right and I could have taken more care in aligning the spells with each version. But I figure that these changes can be chalked up to learning and experiences.  I do feel that all versions reflect the character at the time well.   

Looking forward to trying this with other characters to see how they work out. Also, I am keeping all of these books together to use as needed.  By themselves, they give me a wonderful experience. Together they give me an epic experience.

Dark Streets & Darker Secrets has been on my "To Be Reviewed" pile for a very long time.  I grabbed the PDF when it came out, but set it aside for the longest time because I was working on a bunch of other things and didn't get the chance.  I picked it back up and really enjoyed it. So much so I also picked it up in hardcover Print on Demand.  

A couple of things though to get started.  Dark Streets & Darker Secrets (DS&DS) is a modern occult horror game based on old-school style mechanics. I also have a modern occult horror game based on old-school style mechanics.  So I am aware that any criticism I might lay on this game could come off as sounding self-serving. I want to always be aware of this and have you the reader keep this in mind as you read my review here.  Also the author, Diogo Nogueira, also lists the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG from Eden as one of his inspirations.  This game was also Jason Vey's and my inspiration for NIGHT SHIFT.  Jason and I met while working on Buffy.  NIGHT SHIFT was designed to fit "the Buffy shaped hole" in our lives as I have said before.  So both games come from very, very similar backgrounds with very, very similar goals.  That all being said, DS&DS is NOT in competition with NIGHT SHIFT.  Nor is Diogo a competitor.  I consider him a colleague.   Both Dark Streets & Darker Secrets and NIGHT SHIFT can, and do, live on my shelves and game table in complete peace with each other.  I am going to spend some time tomorrow talking about how both games (and two more) can be used together.   Today though I am going to talk about where DS&DS shines (is that the proper word for a "dark" game?) and what it does. 

So let's get to it.

Dark Streets & Darker Secrets

by Diogo Nogueira.  222 pages, hardcover. Color cover with black and white interior art.  For this review, I am considering both the PDF and the Print on Demand hardcovers from DriveThruRPG. 

Dark Streets & Darker Secrets (DS&DS) is a modern occult horror game from ENnie Award winner Diogo Nogueira. The book is digest size so it fit well with many "old school" style books of the last 10 years.  It not only fits on the shelf physically but thematically as well.  The game is based on Nogueira's earlier works Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells and Solar Blades & Cosmic Spells, so out of the gate there are more resources for this game if you desire.

The game itself is a gritty, modern occult/supernatural horror game.  The normal humans are just slightly above average for the most part and the monsters are way more powerful.  Immediately I thought of it as a bit of Chill mixed in with Kult. The feel is very much "humanity alone against the darkness."

The book is laid out in eight chapters with some appendices.

Chapter 1: Introduction  

This chapter covers the basics of what is in the book.  

Chapter 2: Character Creation  

If you have played any old-school-like game in the last 45+ years you have an idea what this chapter is about.  The differences here fit the tone of the game.  Character attributes are rolled using a 2d6+3 (not a 3d6 or even 4d6 drop the lowest), this creates a narrower band of character attributes, 5-15 but still on the same human range of 3-18.  There is a chance to increase these later on.  The attribute themselves are a simplified version of the Basic 6; Physique (combining Strength and Constitution), Agility (Dexterity), Intellect (Intelligence), and Willpower (Wisdom and Charisma).   Once those are done you create a character concept which is a basic couple word description and not a backstory.

After this, it is time to choose the Archetype or essentially the class of the character.  They are The Tough, The Nimble, The Smart, and The Gifted.  These align with the attributes above. The Gifted is special in that you can be a spell-caster or even a supernatural creature like a vampire, werewolf, or even an alien.  Each archetype also gets a "recovery roll" which decides how quick they can bounce back from injury. 

Since this is a gritty sort of universe all characters have a complication. These can come into play in the game to keep things "difficult and exciting" for the characters.  It includes a d66 table (roll 2d6 and use the rolls like d%.  Traveller people know this one well). 

Then you pick out some gear. If it is mundane gear you have it. You also get some weapons and "weird" gear. These are detailed in the next chapter.

Finally, we have derived scores. Vitality (Physique + Level) are your "hit points."   Sanity, or mental stability, is equal to your Intellect.  Now I have mentioned before I do not like how many games handle insanity or madness.  Sadly this game is not an exception.  I spent a few years working in a mental health facility back when I was in grad school.  There is no relationship between intelligence and mental health.  In fact, I had one guy who was schizophrenic and could speak 3 or 4 languages including German and Swahili. He learned I also spoke German and would use that when he wanted to talk about the other clients "in secret" to me. So yeah. I am not really a fan of this one. I'd rather roll a 2d6 and then add a bonus from Willpower (and maybe Intellect) to get my Sanity score.   There is also Luck points which are like fate points or drama points (everyone starts with 3) and Money.

Chapter 3: Gear  

Covers mundane gear, expendable gear (like ammunition and things that wear out) and even some weird gear.   Weird items are the best part.  Every character has one weird item they start off with.  This is easily explainable either they found it and thus introduced to the weirder world OR they have always had it and the world is waiting for them.  There is a d100 table that covers a bunch of different sorts of items.  Note, we just get the names of the items, what they do will be discovered in-game. 

Additionally, drugs, services, illegal goods, and money points (abstraction of money carried) are also dealt with. 

Chapter 4: Rules of the City  

Here are our basic rules for the game.  Everything is an attribute check (roll under your attribute modified by level and difficulty).  There are some neat quirks.  There is an advantage/disadvantage system here called Positive and Negative rolls. Rolling on your attribute is considered a critical success. You roll lower than your attribute to succeed, BUT higher than the difficulty.  So if something has a difficulty of 8 and my attribute is 12 I have to roll a 12 or lower BUT also higher than an 8. So only rolls of 9, 10, 11, and 12 will get me a success. 

Players can add a Luck roll to their challenges. This is not a matter of just adding points. You have to roll a d6. If it is equal to or lower than their luck score then you get to make a situation more favorable. 

This chapter also covers sanity and madness. You lose Sanity if you encounter something strange and fail a Willpower test. Difficulty set by the situation. Points lost also can vary. When the character's Sanit score reaches 0 then they get a Madness.   Thankfully there is no list of "madnesses" here.  Most game designers get these horribly wrong anyways.  In game you get a minor "quirk" on your first loss.  If you suffer 4 losses then the character has succumbed to madness and can't be played. 

Level advancement is a form of Milestone advancement that looks like it should work rather well.  Again individual GMs can (and should) alter this to fit their needs. 

Chapter 5: Combat  

Like many RPGs combat gets a special chapter even if it is just a particular form of the rules stated above.  But if one is going to fight the armies of darkness then one is expected to actually fight.  Reading through this you get the idea that yes the characters can be tough. You also get the idea that the things they are fighting are a lot tougher.  While there are a few ways the players can save their character's bacon, there are still a lot of grisly ways to die in this game. 

Chapter 6: Sorcery and Psychic Powers  

Ah, now this is the meat of the game in my mind. A Gifted character can be a sorcerer, a witch, a psychic or some other type of creature.  Their powers and how to use them are detailed here.  Regardless of the origin or the nature of the powers, game-wise they are treated in similar manners, the difference largely being different Backlash tables.  How they are played can vary wildly.   I mentioned that this is grittier game than one would see in say a Buffy-like game. The previously mentioned Backlash is one and Corruption is another.  These include simple things like a "witch's mark" to changes to one's body and mind or just getting pulled right into the Abyss.  Pro-tip, don't botch your rolls.

A very nice (and long) list of powers is given with their effects.  While the list is long (60 entries) it is not exhaustive. 

Additionally, Arcane artifacts are covered. How they are made, what they do, powers, cost (to make AND to use), and some samples.

Chapter 7: Running the Game  

This covers the world of DS&DS.  There is a bias (is that the right word? Preference is better) to an urbane game.  Thus the title really.  Outside of this there is no set theme or even setting. This would be a sandbox game if it were a FRPG. What we do get here is a ton of tables full of ideas for a a game, campaign, or an entire world. 

Chapter 8: Monsters  

Our Monster chapter differs from other games in that there is not a bestiary here per se, but example creatures and the means to make others of a similar nature.  So for example there is a Cultis section that covers some sample cultists from 1-3 HD to demon-possessed leaders of 4-8 HD.  This includes a table of "What are They Doing?" and "What do They Want?"  A very effective means of repurposing content.  The more powerful the creature the more detail they need obviously, but there is not a lot of detail in most cases.  This works well here since the players (mostly the GM) provide all the details.  There are powers listed for random creatures as well.

Appendix O: Optional Rules 

Here are a group of optional rules you can add to your game. Things like Drunken Luck, Daring Points, Single Hero games and Multi-Archetype (Multi-Class) Characters. 

Appendix I: Inspirational Materials  

Covers the various books, movies, TV Shows, and other RPGs for inspiration. 

Appendix S: Simple Scenario Structure  

This discusses how to build a quick scenario and an example.

We end with a Character Sheet (and a Form Fillable one is provided with the PDF) and the OGL statement.  I do feel the need to point out that Nogueira has released this game as 100% Open Gaming Content.

Dark Streets & Darker Secrets certainly lives up to the hype and has a lot going for it.  If you have a world already in your mind and just need a system to flesh it out then this is a great choice for you.  In this respect, it is very similar to old-school D&D. No default world type, just the tools to play in the world of your imagination with some assumptions built-in. 

If you are looking for huge meta-plotting like the World of Darkness or even the baked-in mythology of Buffy the Vampire Slayer you find that here, which is refreshing. The players all have maximum flexibility to do what they want and that is the key strength of this game.

I know I am running behind on this one.  Super busy at work and the last few posts here have been ones I have been sitting on for just this time.  But I am going to pause on today's scheduled post to do this one instead.  Plus the Internet is down in the Chicagoland area as of this writing, so I might as well do this.

Back on Halloween, the news came out that Pathfinder Drops Phylactery From In-Game Terminology. Instead of using "phylactery", It is a Greek word to describe the Hebrew word "Tefillin" which Jewish people will keep small scrolls of the Torah.  They have decided to go with the term "Soul Cage."

Maybe not these Soul Cages exactly.

As you can imagine the RPG folks on the internet freaked out.  Especially it seemed to me people that at the same time claimed they don't or no longer play Pathfinder, let alone Pathfinder Second Edition, the game, and the only game, this effects.

Personally, I find it confusing that so many roleplayers out there have so little imagination.

Nor do I even see what the trouble is.  So a company, Paizo, drops a term they are uncomfortable with.  THEY feel it is disrespectful.  At no point have I heard they changed due to a complaint. They did it as a creative choice.  Are some gamers now suggesting that a company can't change the terms they use to better suit their products/games?

No. This is fake outrage from the same lot that gets mad any time anyone decides to deviate from the holy writ of Gygax. 

Personally. I have been using Soul Cages for years. I was even talking about it with liches and succubi over a decade ago and as recently as this past year. I am likely to keep using them too. 

Don't like the term? Fine. Don't use it.  Want to keep phylactery? Fine, keep it. It likely isn't going to change in the game you are playing now anyway. But honestly, unless you are playing Pathfinder Second Edition, why do you even care?

Eve Tushnet / November 8, 2021

Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950 to 1985
Edited by Andrew Nette and Iain McIntyre
PM Press, 2021

Disclosure: This collection includes an essay by Kelly Roberts, editor-in-chief of We Are the Mutants.

In troubled times, we must be grateful for every touch of the ridiculous. And so let’s raise a glass to psychologist and pop scientist Steven Pinker, who in his most recent book burbles forth: “Rationality is uncool.” Pinker pledges fealty to Reason, the chaste goddess, even though he “cannot argue that reason is dope, phat, chill, fly, sick, or da bomb.” This delightful complaint evokes a vanished era in which we all were just vibing on reason, knowledge, hexagons and vaccines and supercolliders and, I don’t know, eugenics. But this timeline, if it ever existed, ended long ago. For the authors whose works are explored in PM Press’s new collection, Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950 to 1985, cool rationality was the old religion — and they were the acolytes of the strange new gods who displaced it.

Dangerous Visions is the third in a series, edited by Andrew Nette and Iain McIntyre, exploring the radical elements in pulp and genre publishing of the Cold War era. (We Are the Mutants has reviewed the first volume, on postwar youth culture, and the second, on revolution and the 1960s counterculture.) Like the first two installments, this one combines short essays with plentiful examples of weird, enticing cover art — such as a 1955 cover for 1984 that looks like nothing so much as a juvenile-delinquency pulp. The book is punctuated with little round-ups, less like essays and more like annotated lists of sci-fi on subjects like nuclear war, drugs, or animals, which show how cover illustrators could depict similar themes as dream or nightmare, action-adventure or inner journey. The “dystopias” list, for example, includes a threatening cover for Stephen King’s The Long Walk (1979) and an eerily seductive one for Mary Vigliante’s The Colony (also 1979).

The book begins with the opposing open letters published in 1968 in Galaxy Science Fiction, one supporting the war in Vietnam and the other protesting it. This contrast offers an obvious political gloss on the word “radical” in the book’s subtitle: “Radical” means left-wing politics; it means the antiwar stance of Samuel R. Delany, Philip K. Dick, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Kate Wilhelm set against the conservatism of the pro-war Marion Zimmer Bradley, L. Sprague de Camp, Robert A. Heinlein, and Larry Niven. But an early mention of the transition from the term “science fiction” to “speculative fiction” is a more accurate guide to the kind of radicalism Dangerous Visions celebrates. Both Heinlein and the pro-war R.A. Lafferty get thoughtful essays in this volume, suggesting that they, too, were in some way radical visionaries.

There’s little explicit effort to tie the works together or nail down what makes something radical, dangerous, or new. It’s a wise choice that allows the essayists to avoid fixed narratives and Procrustean politics. The new world is a place where a new kind of person lives — although many would argue that this new and dangerous person was always the only kind of person around. The old SF hero was that rational man you used to hear so much about: the imagined actor in liberal political philosophy, the person without dependents or dependencies, who confronted the stars with reason, self-control, and a spirit of adventure. He travels, as the introduction puts it, “from the suburbs to the stars.” The old guard’s heroes were white, even when they were green. The old SF hero might die, but he’d never worry about getting pregnant. Mind and body were manageable; desires were reasonable, inspiring, and above all intelligible, both to the hero himself and to the reader. Whether this is a fair description of the old-school hero, I can’t say. I only like this kind of guy when he’s played by William Shatner — in a book, I just can’t see the appeal. I can say that the works explored in the PM Press collection are rebelling against this hero. These books are populated by mystics and criminals, artists and threatened children, even animals and creatures who are some blend of human and Other. The political apparatus of the state does not enable constructive action; it provokes fear or anger. In these books knowledge is less like an equation and more like a hallucination.

Speaking of Samuel R. Delany, Dangerous Visions avoids the more thoroughly-trampled pathways in his work in favor of a 1979 memoir of his brief stint in a commune called Heavenly Breakfast. Daniel Shank Cruz highlights not only novel sexual arrangements (“they all get gonorrhea […] because intra-commune sexual encounters are commonplace”) but the group’s economic strategy of drug dealing, and its belief — perhaps even more touching and necessary now than then — “that people have value aside from their financial status, and that it is worth living with someone… even if they are unable to contribute their ‘fair share.’” “It is inaccurate to say that its members shared funds,” Cruz writes, “because many of them had no funds to share, but they all shared in the work of caring for one another.” The whole thing only lasted one winter, which the book’s subtitle calls The Winter of Love. Cruz argues that the winter with Heavenly Breakfast taught Delany that he could live in a fully new way, and infused his later work with communal values and greater “sexual openness.” Delany always insisted that the polymorphic sexual community, no matter how perverse, can offer a postsecondary education in love. Sex is his means of reasoning, not his means of getting beyond rational thought; it’s his language, not his apophatic and apocalyptic self-immolation.

And so he is the happy radical, whereas J.G. Ballard and Philip K. Dick represent more lacerating visions. Erica L. Satifka’s essay suggests that Dick’s work “reflects the at times bizarre course of his own relatively short life more than any radical political beliefs” — but if you’re literally approached by the FBI to spy on your fellow students, it’s not your life that’s weird, it’s your times. Dick lived out many of his age’s forms of altered consciousness, from psychotherapy to amphetamines; his experience with alternative homemaking was also harder than Delany’s, as he went through five divorces and found himself “invit[ing] hippies and/or junkies to live with him on a rotating basis,” which is sweet but not nostalgia fodder. All this touched his work with a poignant separation between the self and some true hidden knowledge. Ballard, by contrast, led a stable domestic life, deranged only by the surrounding culture. He expressed this derangement in funhouse-mirror worlds, dreamscapes and projections, where the shock of the real could only be attained through technology-enabled violence. And these worlds were not future but present, because, as Ballard said in the 1960s, “We live inside an enormous novel…The fiction is already there. The writer’s task is to invent the reality.” The more your world is manmade, shaped by technology and terraforming, the more you live in dreams and fetishes: the substance of our inner lives. (I’m sitting in my bedroom and I can’t see a single object I know how to make.) Delany probes wounds and bruises with his tongue and likes the taste; Ballard gets a mouthful of blood and chromium menace, the taste of a self-discovery that’s also a self-loss. Delany winds up a contented eminence grise, replete with memory like a bee with honey; Dick possibly broke into his own house, blocked out the memories, went on a paranoid tear against fellow SF luminary Stanislaw Lem, and a year later entered rehab after a suicide attempt. I love Delany’s work but his luck is too good — it veils some of the harder truths.

As with any collection, Dangerous Visions is uneven, both in the quality of its own essays and (more intentionally) in that of the works it surveys. The experiments in rebellion and discovery conducted by the books’ motley heroes (and by the authors) brought results that were sometimes exhilarating, sometimes disturbing, and sometimes both at once. An early essay on “sextrapolation” includes a lot of taboo-breaking that just seems silly or gross. The best I can say for the quotes here from Bug Jack Barron is that without them maybe we wouldn’t have actually good stories like “Aye, and Gomorrah…,” in which sex is less of a Sharper Image store and more of a mystery play. Meanwhile, a few essays in Dangerous Visions show individual style, like Nick Mamatas’s feverish, slightly aggro tribute to R.A. Lafferty, but the entire first column of Maitland McDonagh’s essay on gay adult SF is bland boilerplate. Stronger editing would have allowed McDonagh’s camp humor to emerge earlier and with less padding. Scott Adlerberg offers an essay about the radical SF of Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, authors of Roadside Picnic (later adapted by Andrei Tarkovsky as the 1979 film Stalker). The critical assessment emerges through biographical data about the grinding, increasing conflict between the brothers and the Soviet censorship apparatus: the Strugatskys seem attuned to fun, adventure, and playful anti-bureaucratic humor in the Douglas Adams vein, but the censorship and fear of a totalitarian system, including a harrowing encounter with the KGB, led them into sharper satire and more hallucinatory blurs of dream and reality. But Michael A. Gonzales’s similarly biography-focused essay on Octavia Butler avoids any real critical engagement with her work’s themes. Her mentors within the genre are listed, which is useful as part of the collection’s overall portrayal of radical SF as a community relying on particular institutions (New Worlds magazine, the Women’s Press) and central figures (in Butler’s case, the author and writing teacher Harlan Ellison). No effort is made, though, to place Butler in dialogue with larger movements, from Afrofuturism to Afro-pessimism; there’s no real exploration of her work’s vision of the body’s metamorphoses, her portrayals of youth and inheritance, her prose style — the texture of her work dissolves and she’s left as a generic Black Woman Pioneer.

Dangerous Visions, as its understanding of “radical” SF emerges, suggests unexpected links between authors: Mamatas’s essay on the gonzo Catholicism of R.A. Lafferty finds a home beside Iain McIntyre’s homage to the anti-imperialist mysticism of William Bloom, whose Himalayan action-adventure hero Qhe is a “cosmic [James] Bond.” A late essay by Donna Glee Williams contrasts the visions of anarchism in Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed and Robert A. Heinlein’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. These two novels suggest possible syntheses between old and new. They both offer metaphysics and political reasoning, while still being recognizably “radical”: both take place in criminalized communities and depict alternatives to the liberal state.

The anthology opens by noting that the radicalism of its authors didn’t vanish, but disseminated itself throughout mainstream SF, suggesting a longing for some synthesis; some recognition of the poignant beauty of human reason and the quest for knowledge, alongside a taut awareness of reason’s propensity to serve violence; some hope for new communal forms of life, new mysticisms in the face of new apocalypses.

Eve Tushnet is the author of two novels, Amends and Punishment: A Love Story, as well as the nonfiction Gay and Catholic: Accepting My Sexuality, Finding Community, Living My Faith. She lives in Washington, DC and writes and speaks on topics ranging from medieval covenants of friendship to underrated vampire films. Her hobbies include sin, confession, and ecstasy.

Joseph Bloch at BRW games is really the model of how you should run a Kickstarter.  When I look at a Kickstarter I want to know that the person running it has experience.  The Kickstarter for Book of Lost Lore & Book of Lost Beasts was back in July. We were promised the books in March of 2022.  I believe I got mine in late September or early October. Was there padding? Maybe, but I don't care. Getting books just a couple of months after pledging is still pretty good.  Not to mention this has been true for the other five I have backed from Joseph/BRW.

Plus I also like to see that the person running the knows what to expect. So I look to see how many they have backed.  If it is a low number, or worse, zero, then I stay away. That is not the case with BRW Games.  

That is all great and everything, but does the book hold up to all this excitement?  Let's find out.

Adventures Dark & Deep Book of Lost Beasts

This is one of two books that were part of BRW's Summer 2021 Kickstarter and the one I was looking forward to the most.  The reasons should be obvious to anyone who has read my reviews over the years; I love monster books and consider the 1st Edition Monster Manual to be one of the greatest RPG books ever written.  Sure there are better-written ones, but few that have had the impact of this one. 

For this review, I am considering the Hardcover I received as a Kickstarter backer and the PDF from DriveThruRPG.  BRW does their print fulfillment via DriveThru, so I conveniently have my PDFs where I expect them and I know what sort of product I am getting in terms of Print on Demand.

The book itself is 132 page (about 128 of pure content), full-color cover and black and white interior art.  The layout and art is a tribute to the "2nd covers" of the AD&D 1st Edition line. So it looks nice with your original books and other OSR books designed the same way. 

Adventures Dark & Deep Book of Lost Beasts is a collection of 205 monsters for the AD&D 1st Edition RPG.  The book feels familiar (in more than one way) and can easily be added to your AD&D game.  The monsters are alphabetically listed. At the start of the book, there are some details about playing Monster spell casters (Witch-doctors or Shamans) as well as some other minor rule changes/alterations.  These chiefly involve whether a monster has psionics or not, and how an undead creature is turned.

Additionally, there is more detail on the monster's treasure. While a Treasure Type is given it is asl broken down between Treasure Value and Magical Treasure.  Monsters all get a Morale bonus listed to indicate if they will flee combat.

In the Preface, Bloch gives us a bit of history on his Adventures Dark and Deep RPG.  While this book carries that heading, it does not use the Adventures Dark and Deep RPG rules except as noted above. IT uses the tried and true AD&D 1st Ed system.  Also it is noted that many of these monsters presented here already appeared in his Adventures Dark and Deep Bestiary, which I reviewed here.   The Bestiary is 450+ pages and has monsters from the SRD plus more in the Adventures Dark and Deep RPG format.  So you could convert them back to AD&D 1st Ed if you wanted.  But this current book, the Book of Lost Beasts, has the new monsters from the Bestiary plus a few more already converted.

The brings up a good question.  Should I buy this book? 
I am going to say yes, but here are some caveats. If you have the Adventures Dark and Deep Bestiary AND you are comfortable enough converting then maybe you don't need this.  If you play AD&D and want more monsters then you should get this.  If you don't have the Adventures Dark and Deep Bestiary and like monsters then you should get this.  If you are like me and just love monsters and already have the Adventures Dark and Deep Bestiary then you should get this.  I hope to make these points a little better below, but do keep in mind that some people have seen these monsters before.

That is just one of the ways this book feels familiar.  The other way really lives up to its name of the Book of Lost Beasts.   This book feels like Bloch took the Monster Manuals I and II (and to a lesser degree the Fiend Folio) and set out with the goal of "What monsters are missing?" and got to it.  For example, the Quasi-Elementals are more filled out.

Another great example of providing us with "what was missing" AND giving us something new are the ranks of nobility of the Dao, Djinn, Effrti, Madrid, and Rakasha. While these creatures are found in the Monster Manuals and expanded on in the ADD Bestiary, they get a longer and more detailed treatment here. 

After the 205 or so monsters there are appendices on Treasure Types and a random Creature for the Lower Planes generator. These were very popular in the pages of Dragon Magazine if you recall. 

The PDF is currently $9.95 which is a good price for a PDF of a monster book, and $24.95 for the hardcover.

One minor point, the book was not released under the OGL.  Doesn't matter for play or use only if you wanted to reuse a monster in an adventure.  Though given the use I have seen of the OGL over the last 20+ years this is also likely not an issue. 

If you are looking for a new monster book for use in your AD&D 1st Edition games then I can highly recommend this one.  Plus it will look great sitting next to all your other AD&D 1st books.

 

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

—oOo—

What is it?
Ehnval Tallspear presents an NPC and his entourage, and trinkets for use with RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.

It is a twenty-four page, full colour, 2.49 MB PDF.
The layout is clean and tidy, and its illustrations good.

Where is it set?
Ehnval Tallspear is nominally set in and along the edge of the Astrola Forest in northern Esrolia, but the NPC and his entourage can be encountered almost anywhere the Game Master decides.

Who do you play?
No specific character types are required to encounter Ehnval Tallspear. Worshippers of Odalya may have an interesting encounter with one of his companions though and anyone who destroys parts of the forest it is his sacred duty to protect will find him a fierce enemy. A worhsipper of Chalana Arroy or another healing deity will be presented with an interesting challenge in one of the adventure seeds.

What do you need?
Ehnval Tallspear requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, the Glorantha Bestiary, and The Red Book of Magic.
What do you get?
The second volume of ‘Monster of the Month’ presents not monsters in the sense of creatures and spirits and gods that was the feature of the first volume. Instead, it focuses upon Rune Masters, those who have achieved affinity with their Runes and gained great magics, mastered skills, and accrued allies—corporeal and spiritual. They are powerful, influential, and potentially important in the Hero Wars to come that herald the end of the age and beginning of another. They can be allies, they can be enemies, and whether ally or enemy, some of them can still be monsters.
The Ehnval Tallspear entry is Ehnval Tallspear, which describes a Wood Lord of Aldrya whose duty is to protect Derstrovil Grove and the Old Woods as both Speaker to Foreignersand Defender of the Grove. He is surprisingly outgoing for an Aldryami and has had dealings with humans, both as a fierce protector of, and an envoy from the forest. Ultimately his motives may seem alien to humans, but he is outwardly cheerful, even extroverted in most of his dealings when visiting beyond the treeline.
In addition to presenting the stats, history, and personality of the Wood Lord, the supplement suggests how he might be used as a friend or an enemy, also detailing his tactic should he become the latter. Both options are supported by an adventure seed each. In the first, he leaves the forest desperate to find a worshipper of Chalana Arroy or another healing deity who can help with a strange blight which has beset the forest that Aldryami has been unable to heal, whilst in the second, he begins a series of unprovoked strikes against the farms and communities abutting the forest. Can the adventurers determine the cause?
Ehnval Tallspear also details a number of interesting items. These start with a number of Elvish trinkets which can add flavour and detail to dealings with the Aldryami, and can either be used as gifts or items for trade. They include Arstolan honey and its flavours and effects (for example, black honey has little flavour, but greatly enhances fruit pies and sends anyone who knows a sorcery spell who eats such pies, to sleep), grown woodwork, Luck-Sprigs, and more. The secrets of the Icola Seed and Living Copper are also revealed. When thrown and the Accelerate Growth Rune spell is cast on an Icola Seed, it rapidly grows into vines that coil around and ensnare a target, whilst Living Copper is grown in Aldryami Dryad groves and when ultimately harvested—growing a branch can take centuries—can be enchanted and coldworked into various objects, including weapons. Ehnval Tallspear himself wields a spear of living copper.
Ehnval Tallspear’s entourage is also fully detailed. Andovar the Watcher is another Elf, but Green where Ehnval Tallspear is Brown, an Initiate of Yelmalio whose duty is to protect the grove during Dark and Storm Seams when the Wood Lord hibernates, whilst the most fun are  incredibly ancient Runner, and Borulgus, an Elf-Friend and talking bear who enjoys stalking hunters and then startling them when he speaks! An encounter with him should be interesting for any Initiate of Odayla. Rounding out the supplement of course, are the full stats and sheets for the four NPCs, plus generic Elf bodyguards.
Is it worth your time?Yes—Ehnval Tallspear presents a potentially interesting ally or enemy, plus supporting cast, should the Game Master want to include Aldryami in her campaign or her campaign is specifically set in Esrolia (although the supplement can be set elsewhere).No—Ehnval Tallspear presents a potentially interesting ally or enemy, plus supporting cast, should the Game Master want to include Aldryami in her campaign or her campaign is specifically set in Esrolia, but it definitely adheres to ‘Your Glorantha May Vary’. So it may not be in line with how the Game Master views the Aldryami—or indeed, even Chaosium, Inc.Maybe—Ehnval Tallspear presents a potentially interesting ally or enemy, but the Game Master may simply not want to involve the Aldryami in her campaign, or even take her campaign to Esrolia.

Leagues of Cthulhu: Codicil is a supplement for use with both Leagues of Cthulhu, the supplement of Lovecraftian horror for use with Leagues of Adventure: A Rip-Roaring Setting of Exploration and Derring Do in the Late Victorian Age! and its expansion, Leagues of Gothic Horror. Published by Triple Ace Games, it expands greatly upon the information and details of the Cthulhu Mythos given in the previous supplements. It describes new bloodline Talents and Leagues, a wide array of rituals, tomes, locations, and dread horrors, expanded advice for the Game Master running a Leagues of Cthulhu campaign, and more. In fact, that more is a detailed exploration of the mystical Dreamlands, including rules for dreamers and altering the landscape of the Dreamlands, rituals and tomes unique to that fabled land, a complete gazetteer, and a bestiary of its notable human and inhuman denizens. This is a first for Leagues of Cthulhu, but in effect, the section on the Dreamlands is a supplement all of its very own. Literally, because its chapter numbering starts anew! In addition, what few stats there are for use with the Ubiquity system are easy to interpret and adapt to the system of the Game Master’s choice, whether that is Cthulhu by Gaslight for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, Trail of Cthulhu, or Victoriana.
In the main, the Leagues of Cthulhu: Codicil is for the Game Master, but there are a handful of elements for the player too. These include the new Hobby Skill, which can include things like Cartography, Fossil Collecting, or Numismatics, and new Bloodlines and new Leagues. The new Bloodlines include LeBlanc, which provides political Contacts, and Northam, which provides Status, as well as dire effects detailed later in the book. The new Leagues include the Elder Club whose members possess sufficient status to keep the truth of the Mythos from society at large and the Elder Race Society, which holds that Human history is far longer than is normally accepted. Various Mythos languages are discussed, such as Aklo and Yithian, and there is a list of Manias to have the Globetrotters suffer, and glorious new Flaws like Blabber Mouth, Fainter, and Screamer!
The content for the Game Master begins with ‘Magic & Manuscripts’ and provides several new Rituals. With Drain Life a caster can inflict lethal damage upon a target to heal his nonlethal wounds (or downgrade a lethal wound to the nonlethal); with Mark of Madness he can inflict Sanity loss upon a victim; and even gain protection against the fell beasts which hunt down along the angles with Sign of Tindalos. The forty or so Eldritch Books—or Mythos Tomes—are all new and are nicely detailed such that the Game Master can draw inspiration from and further, ties into further content elsewhere in the supplement. For example, The Assassin’s Creed: An Expose of the True Hashshashin is a diary of conversations between a crusader and a fellow prisoner about the true nature of the Old Man of the Mountain and details the links between both the fabled and feared assassins. It is not a little tongue in cheek, but does tie into the extensive entry on the Templars, the possible nature of the order’s actual treasure, and the description of what they do in the modern day of the Purple Decade given in the lengthy ‘Gods, Monsters, & Cultists’ chapter. As you would expect, each Eldritch Book description includes its language, author, date of publication, Complexity, Horror, and Mythos values, and contents in terms of spells. This is accompanied by a decent description as to the origins and history of the volume, plus what it actually describes. For example, The Serpent Through History is in English, was written by Sir Reginald Grosvenor and published in 1818, has Complexity 2, Horror 2, and Mythos 1, and contains the spells Commune Yig, Summon Child of Yig, and Summon Serpent Men. It is an examination of snake cults throughout history, including the Voodoo loa Damballa, cults in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Rome, and Mesoamerica, plus numerous snake spirits known to American Indians and the nagas known in Indo-China. Grosvenor makes it clear that the presence of so many snake cults is no coincidence, that they are linked to an ancient race of serpent people and that behind it is a universal cult—or at least a cult which set the pattern for those to come—dedicated to an entity that he names as Father of Serpents.
The Eldritch Relics are given a similar treatment, such as Aladdin’s Lamp, which unlike the late addition to the Arabian Nights tells, was discovered in Iram of the Pillars and does not contain a genie. Instead, greatly enhances—almost automatically—the user’s ability to summon a Flying Polyp! Woe betide any daring Globetrotter who decides to give it a rub in case of three wishes… One or two of the items here are not new, such as Liao, which when injected grants the user the capacity to understand the mathematics of traveling through time if not the means, plus items such as the Fungi Brain Cylinder and the Gnoph-Keh Horn Dagger. Or rather, they are not necessarily new to Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying, but new to Leagues of Cthulhu. Which still leaves a lot which is new to both.
The trend of the mix of the new to Leagues of Cthulhu, but not new to Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying continues with the gazetteer. Thus as it guides us around the five main continents—and beyond, it takes us to such well-known places as the original Dunwich, Kingsport, Ponape, and Roanoke Colony, along with innumerable lesser-known locales. All are quite lengthy descriptions, especially the counties of Somerset and Cumbria in the United Kingdom, which is no surprise that they have been previously explored in the supplements Avalon – The County of Somerset and Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Cumbria and thus in more detail. The principality of Wales receives some attention too, whether it is the dark history of Anglesey—also known as Yns Dywyll or the ‘Dark isle’, the sparse are of the Cambrian Mountains identified as the ‘Desert of Wales’, or St. Brides Bay with its sea-caves with tunnels which are said to run deep under the sea, bulbous-eyed, wattle-necked inhabitants, and the ancient, inscribed menhir that it is said the locals dance and cavort around. What this highlights is that Call of Cthullhu—or at least Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying—deserves its own supplement devoted to Wales. This section is a good start though. Further, all of these locations are accompanied by an adventure seed that the Game Master can develop.
Perhaps the longest chapter in Leagues of Cthulhu: Codicil is devoted to ‘Gods, Monsters, and Cultists’, a collection of new creatures and entities of the Mythos, such as the Beast of K’n-Yan and Courtier of Azathoth, alongside the old like the Serpent Man and the Tcho-Tcho, all joined by the Giant Albino Penguin. However, these are minor additions in the face of the nineteen cults described in the book, all of them accompanied with write-ups of two NPCs, one a typical NPC cultist, one a named member. For example, the Order of the Fisher-God is a quasi-Christian cult which began as a secret society on the Society Islands before adopting Christian beliefs, whose practice of child sacrifice led it to be driven from the islands and forced to adapt in distant lands. Members seek ascent to a higher plane, which includes transformation to forms better suited to life under the sea, and so their cultists preach those parts of the Bible involving the sea. Thus, the sample NPC, Pastor Andrew, is a popular figure and preacher along the docks. Also included is a discussion of Scaninavian cults as they relate to Azathoth, Nyarlathotep, and Shub-Niggaurath. Here perhaps Leagues of Cthulhu: Codicil may diverge from how some Keepers view the Mythos, whether they necessarily equate certain entities of the Mythos with real world gods—Azathoth as Odin for example, or even Nyarlathotep as Loki (although actually, that would not be wholly inappropriate). Of course, such an interpretation is up to the Keeper to include or ignore, and it is only one of multiple cults presented in the supplement. Other cults include a new take upon the Thuggee—complete with an entertaining nod to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, the aforementioned Templars, and The Universal Hive, a bee cult with some decidedly fungal infestations… Rounding out the chapter are descriptions of various notables from Lovecraft’s stories, many of them, like John Raymond Legrasse, appearing in earlier incarnations than their appearances later in the fiction. All useful should the Game Master want them in her Leagues of Cthulhu set in the 1890s.
In addition, boxes throughout Leagues of Cthulhu: Codicil add further detail and flavour. This includes trapped tomes and self-activating spells, the exact meaning of Nephren-Ka’s name, the nature of genies in the Mythos—Flying Polyps or Fungi from Yuggoth?, and Sherlock Holmes and the Mythos. This provides some of Holmes’ cases which might be developed into Mythos mysteries, rather than suggesting how the great detective might become involved in confronting the Mythos.
Leagues of Cthulhu: Codicil sort of ends at this point, yet there is more in the volume. ‘The Realms of Morpheus: The Dreamlands’ starts the numbering of the chapters again and presents a four-chapter exploration of the Dreamlands for Leagues of Cthulhu. As well as suggesting the stories which the Game Master should read as inspiration, it provides new Globetrotter options, details the means of entering the realm of sleep, and gives a gazetteer that covers the places, peoples, and monsters of the Dreamlands. It includes the Dreamlands Lore skill, the Adept Dreamer Talent and the Dreamlands Persona Talent—the latter enabling a player to create a second character specific to the Dreamlands, and Leagues such as the Feline Club whose members might just follow the cats into the Dreamlands and the Morpheus Club, whose members learn to shape dreams. Archetypes like the Addicted Artist, Friend to Cats, and Seeker of Justice provide ready-to-play Globetrotters (or NPCs if necessary), whilst the gazetteer takes the reader from the entryway that is the Cavern of Flame and the magnificent port of Celephaïs to the Plateau of Leng and the port of Dylath-Leen with its thin basalt towers and berths to the much feared, black-sailed galleys whose crews are never seen. Gods include Bast and Nodens, the creatures Ghasts, Ghouls, and Gugs, and of course, Zoogs, and the NPCs, Kuranes, mysterious king of Celephaïs, and both Nasht and Kaman-Thah, guardians of the Cavern of Flame. 
‘The Realms of Morpheus: The Dreamlands’ does feel out of place in Leagues of Cthulhu: Codicil. Not just the fact of the separate numbering, but really an abrupt and unexpected switch in subject matter. This is not to say that the material is neither good nor informative—it is. More so at the time of publication when there is limited information available for the Dreamlands for Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying, whether for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition or other roleplaying games. So then it may perhaps be seen as an unexpected bonus, but still, at almost a third of the length of the Leagues of Cthulhu: Codicil, ‘The Realms of Morpheus: The Dreamlands’ does feel as if it should have been a Leagues of Cthulhu: The Dreamlands supplement of its very own (perhaps with the addition of an adventure or two).
Physically, Leagues of Cthulhu: Codicil is well written and presented, although there are few illustrations to break up the text, so it is fairly dense. It does lack an index—for both parts—and so that density is not ameliorated.
Leagues of Cthulhu: Codicil contains a huge amount of lore and ideas, along with cults and monsters and items of the even weirder science found in Leagues of Cthulhu, adventure seeds, NPCs, and more. It could be argued that this one volume is the equivalent of both The Keeper’s Companion vol. 1 and The Keeper’s Companion vol. 2, such is the richness of its content. Even discounting ‘The Realms of Morpheus: The Dreamlands’—which is a bonus, Leagues of Cthulhu: Codicil is a cornucopia of Cthulhoid content, containing a wealth of material for Leagues of Cthulhu that will provide the Game Master of any roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror with support and ideas until almost the stars come right...

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.

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Yaquinto Publications was a publisher of board games—in particular war games—and roleplaying games between 1979 and 1983. Its most successful was The Ironclads, which simulated combat between the first armoured ships, or ironclads, during the American Civil War and won the Charles S. Roberts Award for ‘Best Initial Release of 1979’. It also published a number of roleplaying games such as Man, Myth & Magic and Timeship—both now published by Precis Intermedia. However, perhaps the publisher’s most interesting innovation was its packaging design for a line of board games known as the ‘Album Games’. Essentially, titles in this series were packaged in what were double-LP record albums. The game board would be presented on the inside cover, and where the record or records were sleeved were stored the rules, counters, and other components for the game. In later entries in the series, a spacer was used which made each Album game an inch or so thick. This made the game less like a record sleeve (each Album game carried a disclaimer on the cover stating it was a game only and that no phonograph record was to be found inside) and the spacer could be used for storage. Over the course of twenty-titles, the Album series covered fantasy, Science Fiction, historical wargames, and family games, including a game based on then extremely popular soap opera, Dallas.

Published in 1981, Attack of the Mutants! is a two-player board which depicts the last moments of Humanity following the Big Melt-Down of 1993. In the Science Building at Central State Tech, kindly old Professor Applewhite, assisted by his daughter and research assistant, the wholesome, clean-scrubbed Penny, has discovered Dynamic Ultimate Place and is about to open a gate to another, safer world. This is only just in time, for outside the building, clamouring to get in is horde (or four) of multi-armed/bodied/headed and/or tentacular mutants, all intent on smashing their way in, taking their revenge on mankind’s last survivors, and if not that, capturing the bright, but eligible marriage Penny! As the absentminded old professor races to activate the device, doors have been locked, barricades put up, Kamigawa 4697J Janibots armed with appliers, saws, files, and laser welders have been posted as guards, and the surviving members of the ROTC—including Leon ‘Buck’ Bukaw, who just happens to be Penny’s recently found, first love, stand ready to take the fight to the mutants as they smash down one door after another and spill into the next room or corridor, getting ever closer to the Tech Room and the means of mankind’s survival!

What you get with Attack of the Mutants! is a three-part board, twenty-five by twelve inches in size. One side depicts the main play area of the Science Building with its various corridors and rooms—including a summoning circle! On the other side is the Combat Display and the game’s various tables, whilst in between them in the crease of the packaging is a turn tracker. The game requires two six-sided dice, one per player, which do not come with it, but are easy to find. The game comes with over a hundred, small but on thick card, counters. On the Human side, these consist of the eight survivors and twenty-four Janibots, whilst the more than fifty Mutants consist of the Mutant Leaders (black), Radioactive Mutants (red), and ‘normal’ Mutants (green). There are also counters to indicate broken doors, barricades, and turn order. All of the Human and Mutant counters have a number on them to indicate their combat strength. This is either four or five for the Humans and three for the Janibots, whilst each of the Mutants has two combat values—one against Humans (which is either three or four) and one against the Janibots (two or three).

The Humans are all illustrated with their respective faces, whilst the Mutants and the Janibots are done as single colour silhouettes. Notably all of the characters—whether Human or Mutant—are named. So the Humans include Joey Cabelli and Percy Fitzwalter as well as Penny and her father. The Mutants include Amos, Ozzy, Rusty, Bud, Bodine, Hoss, and others. This adds an element of individuality to the game and in play can lead to some storytelling and table talk as the game proceeds and the players come to identify more and more with their counters and their characters. For the Human player, this is helped by the thumbnail descriptions given in the Designer Notes.

Set-up is simple enough. The Human player sets up first, placing Professor Applewhite and Penny—the two Techs—in the Tech Room, then stationing the other Humans and the Janibots throughout the Science Building. He also places a number of barricades which are impassable by the Mutants. These can be placed anywhere on the board, so their placement will vary from game to game. The Mutant player then places his forces around the four sides of the Science Building, making sure that there is one Mutant Leader on each side.

A turn consists of six phases. In the first two phases, the Mutants move and attack. This will also mean that they have to smash down doors, requiring a die roll, the more Mutants involved, the greater the chance of success. If there are Mutants on both sides of a door, they can open it. Once a door has been smashed, the Mutants can freely back and forth through the doorway. In the second two phases, the Humans move and attack. Humans do not have to smash down doors, even if they are members of the ROTC. Movement for either side is one space only and Janibots cannot move unless accompanying a Human.

Combat, in both the Mutant Combat Phase and the Human Combat Phase is handled on the Combat Display on the other half of the board. In groups of five against five, the Humans and Mutants face off against each other, their respective players rolling a die simultaneously, trying roll equal to, or less then, their respective Combat Values. If they do, their opponent is eliminated. Although the Humans and Mutant Leaders have higher chances of defeating their opponents, lucky rolls can lead to both sides killing each other! Combat continues until one side defeats the other in a location, and involves a lot of dice rolls and thus a lot of luck.

The final phase is the ‘Glow and Go’ phase. For each red or Radioactive Mutants in play, the Mutant player rolls a single die. If a six is rolled, the Radioactive Mutant succumbs to the effects of his radiation sickness and dies. His counter is removed from the game.

Play continues until the end of turn ten. To win a decisive victory, the Human player must have one Tech and three Human Guards in the Tech Room at the end of the game. If he has at least two Humans—Guards or Techs in the Tech Room, it is a Marginal Victory. Similarly, to win a decisive victory, the Mutant player must one Mutant Leader and three other Mutants in the Tech Room at the end of the game. If he has at least two Mutants, of any type—Leader, Radioactive, or Ordinary, it is a Marginal Victory. Anything else is a draw.

In addition to the basic rules, Attack of the Mutants! includes options for adjusting the balance between the Humans and the Mutants, facing Overwhelming odds, Humans and Mutants running away because of the latter, and adding hidden movement. This hidden movement is done on a separate and reduced game board, repeated in black and white rather than colour, and on the reverse of that is an alternate scenario where the Mutants have come from another world and are escaping into ours via the newly opened gate. Can the world be saved from this invasion from a doomed world? The sheet also includes some developer’s notes which provide more background about the Science Building and the Humans defending it.

Physically, Attack of the Mutants! is decently done. The cover of the album is brilliantly gaudy pastiche of the schlocky Sci-Fi horror ‘B’ movies and cheap paperbacks the game is inspired by, and the game board is clear and simple to see and play on. However, it does get a little cramped with all of the counters in play and then the constant movement of them from the main board to the Combat display and back again needs to be done carefully so as not to shift counters already there. It is accompanied by Robert Crumb-like cartoon illustrations that capture the horror and the desperation of the setting. The counters are also bright and easy to read, but the rules booklet and the developer’s notes are plain and unillustrated. However, they are easy to read and understand.

In addition, Yaquinto Publications published a second version of Attack of the Mutants! This was a simplified version that came as a two-page cardboard folder and was designed as an introductory version, intended to, “…[I]ntroduce people to the general concept of Adventure Gaming.” This was packaged with orders from the publisher and was also available via Game Workshop mail order in the early nineteen eighties. This version would have been many a player’s first introduction to the concept of Album Games, and may well have spurred them to purchase a full copy of Attack of the Mutants!, and potentially, other titles in the line.

Attack of the Mutants! is a two-player wargame, a tower defence style game long before there were such things. It is intended as an introductory level game, easy to learn, and providing a decent degree of playability and challenge, but little in terms of the type of simulation which might be found in a more traditional type of wargame. It is also designed to be fun for players new to the hobby and for those who have some experience of it. The introductory level means basic movement and combat, the latter involving a lot of dice rolls, but the results can often be wild and chaotic, which would fit the game’s theme. It also means that there is little in the way of tactics or planning as the two opposing sides clash again and again, although if he can, the Human player might want to target the Mutant Leaders as that would prevent a decisive victory for the Mutant player. Conversely, the Mutant player just needs to kill Humans, and if he can get to the Tech Room, kill one Tech to prevent a decisive victory for the Human player. All of which not only makes it sound bad, but also makes it sound bad because it is an old design. Nothing could be further from the truth, because forty years on and Attack of the Mutants! is easily comparable with a game like Zombies!!!, and if you were comparing the two, Attack of the Mutants! is more focused, has a shorter playing time, and is self-contained. Remake Attack of the Mutants! today as Attack of the Zombies! and would anyone raise an eyebrow?

Attack of the Mutants! is simple in its design, but it is intended to be an introductory board game. It is also chaotic, but that fits the theme of the last few Humans holding off the hordes of Mutants, making a last desperate stand with a Janibot by their side or scrambling to get back to the Tech Room and through the gate just in time to escape. As the game progresses and the Humans and Mutants fight, their stories can emerge in play and they become just a bit more than counters with names on, all helping us to engage with the theme of Attack of the Mutants! And what a gloriously cheesy theme that is—rampaging Mutants, stalwart heroes with jaws made of granite, a heroine ready to scream at the right moment, and mankind’s last stand!

Attack of the Mutants! not only succeeds as a fun way to introduce people to the general concept of adventure gaming, but as a very light, highly thematic game full of glorious clichés and fifties ‘B’-movie bravado. Ameritrash it might be, but by god, it’s American Ameritrash!

Now in its fourteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2021, after a little delay due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, took place on Saturday, 16th October. As per usual, it came with an array of new and interesting little releases, which traditionally would have been tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Of course, in 2021, Free RPG Day took place after GenCon despite it also taking place later than its traditional start of August dates, but Reviews from R’lyeh was able to gain access to the titles released on the day due to a friendly local gaming shop and both Keith Mageau and David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3 in together sourcing and providing copies of the Free RPG Day 2020 titles. Reviews from R’lyeh would like to thank all three for their help.

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For Free RPG Day 2021, Modiphius Entertainment released not one, but three titles, two for existing roleplaying games, one for a forthcoming title. The one for the forthcoming roleplaying game is the Achtung! Cthulhu Quick-Start (reviewed here) for Achtung! Cthulhu. The first for the existing roleplaying game is the Star Trek: Adventures Quick-Start (reviewed here), an introduction to Star Trek Adventures, whilst the second is Dune: Adventures in the Imperium Wormsign Quick-start Guide for Dune: Adventures in the Imperium. As with other quick-starts, it provides an explanation of the rules, a complete adventure, and six ready-to-play Player Characters. All of which comes in a full colour in the sandy shades of Arrakis punctuated by the colours of the sample Player Characters.

A Player Character in Dune: Adventures in the Imperium is defined by Skills, Focuses, Drives, Traits, Complications, and Assets. The five Skills are Battle, Communicate, Discipline, Move, and Understand, whilst the five Drives are Duty, Faith, Justice, Power, and Truth—both of which are rated between four and eight. Focuses represent skill specialisations, such as Deductive Reasoning for Understand or Dirty Fighting for Battle. Traits can be Talents, which make a test possible or make it harder or easier depending upon its nature. So the Bene Gesserit Talent of Hyperawareness grants a Bene Gesserit Sister the ability to ask two questions rather than one when spending Momentum to Obtain Information, whereas the Bold Talent can be selected by anyone and when used with the Battle skill, the player can additional twenty-sided dice by generating Threat for the Game Master to use, the player can reroll one of the dice in the pool. Assets include equipment, contacts, and so on, for example, a personal shield or someone in a criminal gang on Arrakis. Although the six ready-to-play Player Characters in the Dune: Adventures in the Imperium Wormsign Quick-start Guide have Statements attached to their Drives, the explanation for these and how they work is saved for the Dune: Adventures in the Imperium core rules. Lastly, each Player Character begins play with a point of Determination, which can be spent to ensure that one die rolled for an action is considered to be a one and thus a critical result.

Dune: Adventures in the Imperium employs the 2d20 System first used in the publisher’s Mutant Chronicles: Techno Fantasy Roleplaying Game and Robert E. Howard’s Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of , and since developed into the publisher’s house system. To undertake an action, a character’s player rolls two twenty-sided dice, aiming to have both roll under the total of a Skill and a Drive. Each roll under this total counts as a success, an average task requiring two successes. Rolls of one count as two successes and if a character has an appropriate Focus, rolls under the value of the Skill also count as two successes.

In the main, because a typical difficulty will only be a Target Number of one, players will find themselves rolling excess Successes which becomes Momentum. This is a resource shared between all of the players which can be spent to create an Opportunity and so add more dice to a roll—typically needed because more than two successes are required to succeed, to create an advantage in a situation or remove a complication, create a problem for the opposition, and to obtain information. It is a finite ever-decreasing resource, so the players need to roll well and keep generating it, especially if they want to save for the big scene or climatic battle in an adventure.

Now where the players generate Momentum to spend on their characters, the Game Master has Threat which can be spent on similar things for the NPCs as well as to trigger their special abilities. She begins each session with a pool of Threat, but can gain more through various circumstances. These include a player purchasing extra dice to roll on a test, a player rolling a natural twenty and so adding two Threat (instead of the usual Complication), the situation itself being threatening, or NPCs rolling well and generating Momentum and so adding that to Threat pool. In return, the Gamemaster can spend it on minor inconveniences, complications, and serious complications to inflict upon the player characters, as well as triggering NPC special abilities, having NPCs seize the initiative, and bringing the environment dramatically into play.

Combat uses the same mechanics, but offers more options in terms of what Momentum can be spent on. This includes creating a Trait or an Asset, either of which can then be brought into the combat, and keeping the initiative—initiative works by alternating between the player characters and the NPCs and keeping it allows two player characters to act before an NPC does. Where Dune: Adventures in the Imperium differs from other 2d20 System roleplaying games is the lack of Challenge dice, and instead of inflicting damage directly via the loss of Hit Points, combatants are trying to defeat each through the removal of Assets and attempting to create—cumulatively—Successes equal to or greater than the Quality of the task or the opponent. Minor NPCs or situations are easily overcome, but difficult situations and major NPCs will be more challenging to defeat and will require extended tests.

The system is intended to cover the various types of situations which can occur in a story in Dune: Adventures in the Imperium. So, individual duels, skirmishes and open battles, espionage, and social intrigue. However, this is not well explained in the Dune: Adventures in the Imperium Wormsign Quick-start Guide—or at least not well explained enough for somebody who has not roleplayed to grasp with any great ease. Anyone with more experience will see that the iteration of the 2d20 System presented here has shifted into more of a narrative, storytelling style of play, where the aim is not necessarily to kill an opponent, but defeat them, and thus make that adjustment. Anyone with that experience may have more difficulty doing so, and an example or two of how the combat system works would have not gone amiss.

Overall, the iteration of the 2d20 System in theDune: Adventures in the Imperium Wormsign Quick-start Guide and Dune: Adventures in the Imperium lies at the simpler and easier end of its implementation. It is not as simple as Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars: Adventures on the Dying World of Barsoom , but is roughly on a par with Star Trek Adventures.

‘Wormsign’ is the given scenario in the Dune: Adventures in the Imperium Wormsign Quick-start Guide. It can be run using the same cast as the core rules—they are given as the pre-generated Player Characters here in the Dune: Adventures in the Imperium Wormsign Quick-start Guide—or with those of the players’ own creation using the core rules. This means that it can be run as a sequel to the scenario core rules or as a standalone or beginning scenario. The Player Characters—a Mentat, a Criminal, a Servant (Spy), Bene Gesserit Novice, Swordmaster Apprentice, and Reformed Spice Smuggler—are all intended to be in service with one of the houses. The default is House Atreides, but it could be another house awarded a spicemining contract if the campaign involves one of the players’ and Game Master’s creation. It should not be House Harkonnen, or an affiliated house.

Consisting of six scenes, ‘Wormsign’ sees the Player Characters sent out over the Shield Wall on Arrakis into the desert to investigate the activities of a group of spice smugglers. When they discover their operation it is relatively small and the Player Characters have choice as to what to do—destroy it, arrest the smugglers, co-opt them into their house’s own operation, or cultivate them as contacts, but this opportunity does not last long, when the forces of a rival house intervene and attack. Then if that is not challenging enough, ‘Wormsign’ ups the ante with a wormsign and the incoming movement of a worm! The scenario becomes a fight for survival and if the Player Characters do survive and act with any degree of probity, they may come away with further potential allies.

Now this all feels in keeping with a story set on Arrakis, but ‘Wormsign’ manages to be both challenging and unsatisfying… The Player Characters are faced with some fierce choices. Go one way—in fact, go more than one way—and the likelihood is that they will end up dead, and there is little in the way of warnings as the possible actions. In the final scenes, they have the opportunity to interact with Fremen, and only one means of doing so is provided. To the point where no stats are provided for the Fremen and the Game Master is told that they will avoid any kind of physical conflict. In the event that they even fail at this, the Player Characters fail at this, they have another struggle to survive, which the Game Master will need to develop. Ideally, the Player Characters should survive the scenario, make contacts with both the spice smugglers and the Fremen, and get back to Arrakeen. However, this is not all that interesting by itself and very much feels like the middle part of a campaign or the first half of a scenario, as if there is a second part to come.

The Dune: Adventures in the Imperium Wormsign Quick-start Guide is not quite the introduction to Dune: Adventures in the Imperium and roleplaying on Arrakis that it deserves to be. In the hands of an experienced Game Master, there is a reasonable scenario and adventure to be had from the pages of Dune: Adventures in the Imperium Wormsign Quick-start Guide, but for anyone with less experience or who lacks access to the Dune: Adventures in the Imperium full rules, the combination of underwritten—or at least under explained—conflict rules and the underwhelming nature of the scenario means that running the quick-start will be much more of a challenge.

Edited to add:  Here are all the parts to this series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.
I am ending my week (or so) with Chromatic Dungeons today. It has been a real treat going through this game.  There is a feeling here of the first time I went through the AD&D 1st Ed Player's Handbook in terms of the potential I feel for my games.  There are some really great ideas here I plan to use, either running a CD game or adopting them for my other Old-School games.

Ancestry & Heritage

Along with such products such as Ancestry & Culture: An Alternative to Race in 5e from Arcanist Press and the new material in Pathfinder 2e, this is the way all games are going to move towards. I could go into the racist history of why "race" was originally used starting with examples from the Victorian age and moving on to practices in educational and biological "research" but the truth is the people that are least likely to change are also the most likely to ignore all of that. So what's the point.  I don't teach fish to read and I don't try to talk to people who have their minds made up.  I am convinced that we will see this in D&D 5.5/5r and it will soon migrate to other, even old-school, games.

I am likely to give it a try in my OSE-Advanced games. I would likely tweak it a bit more to fit my needs a little better.

No Alignments for Sentient Humanoids

Again, this is a sea-change in many games.  I have no issues with it at all.  I have had good orcs for years, and a lot of mostly neutral ones, and scores of completely evil ones.  Yes, yes, insert Tolkien arguments here...BUT as much as I adore the Professor and his works, he is not my DM.  Neither is Gygax, or Arneson, nor any others.  I get to decide what my world does or does not do.  Goblins are already all over the place in regards to alignment for me, I am even getting to a place where Drow might not all be evil. Yes the vast, vast majority of them are demon-worshiping sadists. But not all of them.  Interestingly enough, the one humanoid I have always seen as Always Evil are Gnolls.  Something the Gnoll Sage line rejects. 

Again there are things going on here that are just on paper that I have been doing (and posting about here) forever.

Which Witch to Use?

This is my blog so I want to talk about which witch I would use with this RPG.  Design-wise Chromatic Dungeons can be used with just about every or any version of D&D or clones thereof.  So by that logic, any of my witch books should work fine.  But some work better than others, to be honest.

Given when my Chromatic Dungeons books came in the mail I also got my new Pumpkin Spice Witch mini with some Candy Corn Dice.   So I have always felt that my Pumpkin Spice Witch book for Advanced Labyrinth Lord would be perfect.

Rule wise the Classical Witch or Amazon Witch is a better choice. But in any case, if you are playing CD then use the XP values in the CD books and the powers from whichever book you choose.

Personally, I like the idea of Fleabag coming into a "Home, Hearth & Heart" and having a conversation with Becky my Pumpkin Spice Witch.  She would offer them a PSL (though I see Fleabag more as an herbal tea drinker) and go on about their fur ("It looks so soft! Do you use conditioner? We have one here that I LOVE, it's on the house! Wait, you are not allergic to lavender are you?") and have a nice conversation about witches in the world.

In true Chromatic Dungeons fashion though I think there should be a coven with a witch from every Tradition I have represented.  So Pumpkin Spice, White, Green, Classical, Amazon, Mara, Aiséiligh, Winter, Faerie, Aquarian, Maleficia, Hedge, and Pagan.  That would be a lot of fun.  Not sure how they would all get along though.  Chromatic coven to be sure.

Now in its fourteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2021, after a little delay due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, took place on Saturday, 16th October. As per usual, it came with an array of new and interesting little releases, which traditionally would have been tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Of course, in 2021, Free RPG Day took place after GenCon despite it also taking place later than its traditional start of August dates, but Reviews from R’lyeh was able to gain access to the titles released on the day due to a friendly local gaming shop and both Keith Mageau and David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3 in together sourcing and providing copies of the Free RPG Day 2020 titles. Reviews from R’lyeh would like to thank all three for their help.

—oOo—
How to Build a Boss-Fight Final Chamber is perhaps the most different—or at least most singular—of the releases for Free RPG Day in 2021. It is not a quick-start or a scenario for a roleplaying game, but a set of instructions booklet on how to build and paint a piece of terrain which can be added to a dungeon and provide space in which the brave heroes can confront its big boss. This is the final chamber in a dungeon, the site for a showdown between the adventurers the villain and his acolytes, filled with treasure, loots, and possibly secrets. Designed and written by Dave Taylor Miniatures, it shows a Game Master—or of course, a Dungeon Master—how to use a combination of using the Gamemaster Dungeons and Caverns Set from The Army Painter and Mantic Games’ Dungeon Treasure Terrain Crate.

Although it is clear that you get a lot in the Gamemaster Dungeons and Caverns Set—lots of XPS Foam with which to build the terrain and the tools to prepare it, including knife, glue, hot wire cutter, and so on—How to Build a Boss-Fight Final Chamber does not show this. There are lots of photographs though, which illustrates the various steps that the author takes in building the scene. This includes preparing it, such as scoring the floor with a one-inch grid to mark out stone flagstones and even adding a little variation to floor by using a metal ruler to press down in the corners of some of the squares. The walls of the chamber look to be more complex to build, but the instructions are clear enough and there is plenty of detail in the photographs. Then how to paint the terrain and the treasure piles and the other treasure pieces are all given a similar treatment.

However, all of this advice and guidance is not quite written from a beginner’s point of view. As much as it says that it introduces the prospective builder to “[S]ome basic building painting approaches – including techniques like washing and drybrushing…” it really does not quite do that. Rather, it explains that the author used them, but does not explain what they are. So it is not quite introductory enough, which means that the reader will need to do a little research beyond the pages of How to Build a Boss-Fight Final Chamber. Fortunately, finding this information out should not be difficult, whether on a website or on YouTube. The prospective builder should be aware that she needs to do so though.

The penultimate two pages are devoted to ideas as to how to use the end result of following the instructions in How to Build a Boss-Fight Final Chamber and bring it into a campaign. There are three hooks suggested. In the first, ‘Lair of the Minotaur’, the brave adventurers must confront Gharus Vilehoof, a canny Minotaur who has been luring adventurers into his lair in the service of his master, Baphomet and keeping their treasure, whilst in the second, ‘The Summoning’, the chamber is home to a great portal that the sorcerer Illikar is attempting to open and so bring his long-banished people back from their exile. This would result in a new era of darkness and so the adventurers must rush to thwart the ritual. The third, ‘Eternal Slumber’, is the longest of the three and sees the adventurers rush into the depths of a former Dwarven stronghold which has been long been occupied by hordes of Goblins and their Fomorian masters. The stronghold has a secret though, the Rune Chamber of Vaul contains the former Dwarven Runelords and their artefacts held in stasis—and the magic behind is weakening. Can the adventurers hold off the Goblin hordes long enough to save the Dwarves from the past?

These hooks get better as you read along. ‘Lair of the Minotaur’ amounts to no more than a room description and encounter rather than a hook, and whilst there is a hook in ‘The Summoning’, it is adequate at best. Fortunately, ‘Eternal Slumber’ makes up for the underwhelming nature of the first and there is plenty here for the prospective Game Master to get her teeth into. In fact, there is a whole dungeon, or rather a former Dwarven stronghold, for her to design to fit this final boss chamber. Perhaps if the illustration at the top of the page containing ‘Lair of the Minotaur’ and ‘The Summoning’ the author would have had more room to give them the development they so need.

The hooks are followed by descriptions the treasures to be found in the various versions of the final boss-fight chamber. These include the Axe of Gharus, wielded by the Minotaur Gharus Vilehoof, possessed by a demon servant of Baphomet that whispers to its wielder to fulfils its master’s goals and drips blood that infects wounds and the Seven Stones of Cinderac, ioun stones created by an ancient wyrm that contain the secrets of the universe… So a little like Stormbringer in the case of the first and Marvel Universe’s Infinity Stones in the case of the latter, but of course, the Game Master to free to design the items however she wants to fit her game.

Physically, How to Build a Boss-Fight Final Chamber is decently presented with lots of photographs as illustrations. It is perhaps a little underwritten in places, both the instructions and the hooks.

Of all the releases on Free RPG Day 2021, How to Build a Boss-Fight Final Chamber is the least useful—at least in the short term. It will take time for the Game Master to bring any of the contents to the table. Most obviously because she will need to have access to the Gamemaster Dungeons and Caverns Set and the Dungeon Treasure Terrain Crate, and then build the terrain, and then prepare the scenario in which to set the final boss-fight. In comparison, most of the other titles released are quick-starts and scenarios and so can be brought to the much more immediately. And of course, because How to Build a Boss-Fight Final Chamber is designed to make use of the Gamemaster Dungeons and Caverns Set and the Dungeon Treasure Terrain Crate, it is also very much obviously designed to sell both them and other terrain sets. The other releases are similarly designed to do that too, so that is no criticism, but with How to Build a Boss-Fight Final Chamber, it is more obvious.

Edited to add:  Here are all the parts to this series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

Heading into the last of my three-part series on Izegrim Creations' Chromatic Dungeons game.  Today I want to review the first 5 issues of their Zine-like publication The Gnoll Sage.  What it adds to Chromatic Dungeons and what you can get out of these even if you are not a Chromatic Dungeons player.

The Gnoll Sage

For this review, I am considering the PDFs from DriveThruRPG as well as the printed, digest-sized, soft-covers I received via Kickstarter.

Each book is 24 or so pages with Issue #5 coming in at 42 pages.  Color covers and black and white interiors. Each one is released under the OGL so a couple of pages go to the license statement.

On the surface, there is a strong influence from Dragon magazine, but not in the way say Gygax magazine tried to do.  The influence here is easily one of someone that had read and grown up on Dragon and wanted to recreate the feeling rather than the actual layout.  It serves The Gnoll Sage (TGS) well.  

The unifying thread through all these issues is the involvement of "Fleabag" the eponymous Gnoll Sage.  Not Phoebe Waller-Bridge (but that would be hilarious) but an intelligent, erudite, be-spectacled, and maybe a bit of a pacifist, Gnoll who presents topics from the issue/zine from their point of view.  I personally rather like it.  It fits well into the idea that no humanoid race in Chromatic Dungeons has a default alignment.  The funny part, for me at any rate, is I have often agreed with this idea on my blog EXCEPT for Gnolls.  Maybe I'll give Fleabag a try anyway.

Each zine has a main feature, usually depicted on the cover, and other details like some magic items, equipment, spells, and so on.  There is a comic section reminiscent of "Dragon Mirth" as well.  There is an editorial in each issue talking about the issue and what might be coming next. 

The material presented in each issue is overtly for the Chromatic Dungeons game, but it is all written in such a way, with extra notes when needed, that it can be used with just about any 80s or 90s versions of *D&D or any clone that emulates them.  In particular, I felt they would be very handy to use with B/X D&D or Old-School Essentials. 

The Gnoll Sage #1

The first issue details the Mrav Covjecka, a group of insectoid/humanoid hybrids that need humanoid blood to nurse their brood. We get an "Ecology of" article as told to us by Fleabag. A monster statblock that can be used by any d20 based game including D&D 5. 

There is also a brief adventure featuring the new monsters.  There is the humor section, some new magic items, some NPCs you can meet, a section of new spells and upcoming topics in future books. 

There is also the OGL statement at the end.

The Gnoll Sage #2

In this second issue we are given the Animist class which is designed to replace classes like "the Witch doctor" or Shaman or even "Spirit Guide."  This is a good thing since the term Animist encapsulates all of these ideas. It is a divine spellcaster in Chromatic Dungeons terms, but can easily be ported over to any other D&D/Clone.  It could also be tweaked and added to D&D 5 if you like.  The class and all it's powers take up 18 of the zine's 28 pages.  I have not played it yet but it looks pretty solid.

The remainder of the book is given over to humor, the look forward, and a copy of the OGL.

The Gnoll Sage #3

The third issue of The Gnoll Sage gives us the ecology of a monster introduced in the Chromatic Dungeons hardcover, the Mushropod. In the Ecology Of article, we get more details from our Gnoll on the Scene, Fleabag as they let us know what they have uncovered about the sentient mushrooms.  Again the stat block reminds me of a 5e one, but everything here lends itself well to use of any 20th century D&D or clone.

There is a very brief adventure featuring these guys, some humor, three new magic items, some new NPCs, and a new spell. We end with the State of the Business note from Waibel where he mentions his Rise of Authur project.  If you follow him at all online now (late Fall 2021) you have seen the characters he has been working on. 

The Gnoll Sage #4

Now here is one I was quite excited for.  This issue introduces us to the Psionist class for Chromatic Dungeons or any other clone.  We start with some fluff with Fleabag and the aftermath of the Mushropod attack from the last issue. Fleabag describes a unique "spellcaster" they had met who what not a spellcaster at all. We then get into the class proper.  Now I am very particular about my psychic and psionic using classes. Even to the point where I have a preferred term (it's "psychic" btw) and I need them to be very different than my spell-using classes. Also if their powers can be built up over time with disciplines, then all the better.  This class satisfies two of those three. The class is flexible to use just about anywhere and easy to introduce. In fact, with the most minor of tweaks, a 5th Edition class can be found here. The psionist can choose one of three disciplines; Psychometabolism, Telekinesis, and Telepathy.  There are powers with each one and they grow as the character levels up. 

We also get an ersatz Mind Flayer in the Mind Eater and some comics.  In the State of the Business, we learn this was the last issue of the original four set, with issue #5 coming as a stretch goal.

The Gnoll Sage #5

This issue is the last of the Kickstarter issues and also the largest so far at 42 pages.  This issue covers the Ecology of the Orc and sets out to challenge our notions, or at least stereotypes of orcs.  This is introduced in the starting fiction with Fleabag challenging the party to think about what sorts of orcs they might be dealing with.  What follows is a very long Ecology Of and details of seven very different Orc clans.  

In the Ecology Of we learn the basic structure of an orc clan including numbers, leadership, and organization.  What follows are descriptions of seven example clans.  They are, briefly: Small Clans are the various orc clans represented in pretty much all other RPGs.  The Iron Shield Clan, a group of orcs more interested in making weapons, and selling them, than using them. Yellow Fang, a group of plains orcs that wear the skins of their enemies as clothing. Chaka Plains orcs are not pacifists per see, but understand the value of life and death and respect it. Meet them peacefully and you will be respected, meet them with violence and they will happily escort you to your next life. There are the sea-faring orc pirates and privateers of the Red Sails, but they only attack the wealthiest of ships.  There are the imperialistic and arrogant orcs of the Baildan Daguulalt (Empire) that combine the best, and worst, characteristics of Imperialisy Britain and the Roman Empire. They are brilliant and utterly convinced of their own superiority, in fact they made the cover.  Finally the orcs of the Silver Glacier might be the most dangerous of all these clans. 

That is a lot! There are still a couple of magic items, some comics, new spells, and some hints about the next issue and a new class The Commander.

Each issue runs for $5.00 for the PDF and $6.00 for the print or print/PDF combination. 

Their digest size makes me think they will fit in well with the newest versions of Old-School Essentials or Swords & Wizardry. So even if you don't play the Chromatic Dungeons game, these are still great resources.

Today I want to cover the big game in the Chromatic Dungeons line.  I call it the "Advanced" game, but the name on the cover is just Chromatic Dungeons RPG.

Note.  I do want to point out that nowhere in the game nor in any online conversation has Roderic Waibel or Izegrim Creations called these rules "Advanced."  This is just what I am calling them to differentiate them from the Basic Rules.

Again for this review, I am considering the hardcover I got as a Kickstarter Backer and the PDF from DriveThruRPG.

Note 2: I'll make allusions to the Basic game here.  This is only to describe how these rules go above and beyond the basic rules.  At no point in these rules did I see something that had you refer to the Basic rules for more details.  This rulebook is complete on its own.

Chromatic Dungeons RPG

330 pages, hardcover, color cover art, black & white interior art.

If the Basic Game was meant to invoke feelings of the 1981 Moldvay Basic set then this book is clearly influenced by the earlier AD&D 1st Edition core rules. It is a hardcover for starters, larger, and provides more details for playing a CD game.

The rules are largely in line with and much more compatible with each other than say Basic D&D was to AD&D.  This is one of the biggest reasons I was excited about this particular game.  Back in the day we played D&D and AD&D interchangeably and tried to deal with the rule contradictions the very best we could.  Here those contradictions do not exist except in the way that specific rules override general ones.  Characters are more detailed, as are spells, monsters, and a host of other options, but never in a way they feel contradictory to the Basic Rules.  Characters can move fairly freely between the games. 

Ability Scores are chosen the same way 4d6 and drop the lowest.  Here the general modifiers of the Basic game give way to specific ones for each ability and subscores, ie. to hit and damage adjustment for Strength, number of spells for Intelligence, followers for Charisma, and so on.  Ability Checks are handled in the same fashion.  Scores still cap at 18 for rolls or 20 with bonuses, but the charts go to 25 for the use of exceptional characters and monsters.

Ancestry covers what species you were born into. Dwarves come in Hill, Mountain, and Deep varieties. Elves can be High, Wood, or Deep. Humans and Halflings are back and joined by Gnomes.  A table of alternate Ancestries is also given so you could play Gnolls, Centaurs, Orcs, or Goblins to name but a few.  The system is simple enough that almost any sort of ancestry can be used.    

Heritage, like the Basic game, covers the character's upbringing. This chart is the same as the Basic game, but expanded with more types.  

Character Classes.  This is the first of the really big changes. Where the Basic game has only three basic character types, this one has four major class groups with many sub-classes underneath.  The feeling is that of Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea or AD&D 2nd Edition to be honest, with maybe just a touch of 5th Edition D&D.  Each group shares an advancement table for HD calculations and to hit bonus along with a shared Saving Throw table.  All groups share the same single XP per level table as per D&D 3rd through 5th Editions.

The first group is the Divine, which gives us Clerics and Druids. Divine Spellcasters are limited to 7th level spells.  Warriors include the fighter, berserker, ranger, and paladin.  Rogues are the most diverse lot with thieves, assassins, bards, and monks.  Magic-users are arcane spellcasters and they get spells to 9th level.  They include the Wizard and the Sorcerer which is a spell-point-based spell caster. Like the sorcerers of 3rd to 5th edition, they have a bloodline and some examples are detailed.

Multiclassing and Alignment are the same here as the Basic game.  The unified XP chart makes multiclassing easier. Alignment is a three-point system of Law-Neutrality-Chaos. 

Equipment is next. Very similar but expanded over the Basic game. 

Spells is the next largest section of the book and also one of the three that gets the most changes.  Spells are split out into classes with the Divine first (Cleric then Druid) then all the Arcane spells. The spells are all listed out alphabetically.  Included now are staples like Area of Effect, Components, casting time, and saving throws. Each spell also has a school listed. 

How to Play covers the game. This is roughly similar to the Basic Game, but it is expanded.  Saving Throws are now added to the game. They are an interesting remix of Basic/AD&D and D&D3 style saves.  More on traps, diseases, and hirelings are covered here. 

Combat gets its own section.  Here initiative is back to a d20 (not the d10 of the Basic game). 

The Campaign deals with adventures, granting XP and what kinds of monsters can be found where. It ends with a sample play session.

The Bestiary is the last of the three big changes. Not only are all the monsters expanded on, but there are also more of them.  The monsters are still sorted by categories or groups, but now there are more. There are Beasts, Demons, Devils, Dinosaurs, Dragons, Elementals, Fey, Giants, Golems, Humanoids, Lycanthropes, Monstrosities, Oozes, and Undead. The stat blocks are expanded to give average scores for Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, Constitution, and Charisma. Special Attacks. Special Defenses and Magic Resistance are all now included. 

As with the Basic game, many monsters do not have an alignment. Or rather their alignment is listed as n/a.  In the case of animals (Beasts and Dinosaurs), it is because they lack intelligence or awareness. Others like humanoids it is because the Game Master can choose what they want.  Notably, all Demons and Devils are Chaotic, Dragons are split between Lawful and Chaotic along the lines you think they are, Elementals are now properly Neutral, and Fey runs the spectrum.  We get the usual suspects here, nothing jumping out at me as new save for the Mi-Go (not new, but not usual) and the mushropod (sorta new, but certainly NOT usual). 

The Treasure section is also expanded. Included new are Sentient Weapons and rarity tables. There is a new section on crafting items including an ingredient listing with measures of rarity. 

We end with appendices of tables, blank character sheets, indexes, and our OGL statement. 

The PDF is fully bookmarked.

Like the Basic books, this book is filled with evocative old-school style art.  Some of it is from various stock art artists the Old-School community knows, but a good deal is original and new art.  Much of it is clearly influenced by 40 years of playing.  The art goes beyond "Euro-centric" D&D art and a variety of ethnicities, genders, and peoples are represented. 

Again like the Basic books this is really directed at and written for people coming into the Old-School RPG scene anew. While there is a lot to enjoy here if you are an old Grog, and the art, in this case, is a particular treat, the audience that will get the most out of this are a generation younger.  If you still have your original D&D books from the 1970s and 80s you will still find enjoyment here. Especially if you are like me and enjoy seeing the design choices of "D&D's Greatest Hits" here.

The book "feels" like AD&D 1st Ed. Or maybe it is a 2nd Edition clone if that game had been produced later.

Because of how it is built it also feels like nearly anything can be used with it from nearly any area of D&D's history.   

Who Should Buy This?

I said this yesterday about the Basic Chromatic Dungeons game, and it is true for this version as well. This game is a great game to introduce new players, new to RPGs or new to Old-School style games, to the ways of playing of the 1980s.  Sure it is not exactly how we did it, but it is a great compromise between Old and New school.  Finally, someone has made a "Basic" game that works great as an introduction to an "Advanced" game and one that works well enough on its own.  Yes, yes there is Old-School Essentials and Labyrinth Lord that have both Basic and Advanced options, but Chromatic Dungeons' Basic game is truly that, an introductory game, "Basic" and "basic" at the same time and it is the perfect introduction to this "Advanced" game. 

If you are like me and grew up on old-school games and now have a family that loves the newest version of the game then this is a good way to introduce them to old-school play.  OR if you are new school player and want to try your hand at some old school play, but want to retain some of the options that make the new games so attractive, then this is a great game for you.   

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I am posting this as part of this month's RPG Blog Carnival on Indie Games hosted by The Rat Hole.

So yes this book wasn’t published by TSR but I decided to read it and include it in this list because it was featured in The Dragon magazine and mainly because it’s considered the first ever D&D novel. This is a long time before the first DragonLance book!

Sometimes D&D books have the accusation levelled at them that you can hear the dice rolling in the background. In this one, that’s not the case. Instead you can literally hear the dice rolling in the foreground because all the main characters have bracelets with dice that occasionally spin whenever there’s something crucial happening.

The plot is so so. Real gamers in our world drawn into the fantasy world yadda yadda.

The main thing is… it’s just kind of boring. It felt very plodding. Even when there were fights it was boring. I guess I just didn’t like the writing style. The descriptions didn’t evoke very strong pictures in my mind.

Of course, the book’s main draw is as a portal into the then unknown world of Greyhawk. We get to visit the Sea of Dust and hear of other places that would later become known to us. There’s one interesting reference to the Temple of the Frog from Blackmoor, funnily enough because the player in the real world (in the novel) has played the scenario.

Ultimately the worst crime is that the story is frustratingly pointless.

I don’t regret reading it but I gave this 2 stars on Goodreads as a warning to anyone else wanting to go on this drab quest.

And don’t get too excited about the prospect of some sort of castle adventure – the damn Quag Keep doesn’t appear till about the last 10 pages! (No, that’s not a spoiler, it’s just making you aware of the false advertising in the title.)

Date Information

A preview was in Dragon 12 (February). It gets a mention in Dragon 15 (June). Copyright date of publication is March 10, 1978, so March it is.

The craziness that  is October is behind me now, time to settle in and read some books and do some reviews.  I have been planning to do this one now for some time and this feels like the best time for me.

For the next few days I am going to review the new Old-School Game on the block, Chromatic Dungeons from Roderic Waibel and Izegrim Creations.  Waibel ran a very successful Kickstarter for this over the Summer and the physical books and PDFs have been in my hands since the very start of Fall. I am happy to report I am very pleased with what I have received. I interviewed Waibel back when his Kickstarter was live so you can get an idea of the goals of Chromatic Dungeons.   I'll refer back to that to see how well his stated goals were met for me.

Let me begin with noting that that there three distinct reviews I am doing here this week.  The first covers the "Basic Rules" made up of Player's Book and a Monsters & Treasures book.  The "advanced" or full game of Chromatic Dungeons will be tomorrow. Finally a zine-like product, The Gnoll Sage, will be after that.

Chromatic Dungeons, Basic Rules

Basic Rules, Player's Book. 86 pages, soft-cover, color cover art, black & white interior art.
Basic Rules, Monsters & Treasures. 58 pages, soft-cover, color cover art, black & white interior art.

For this review I am considering the two soft-cover Basic Rules books and PDFs.  

The Basic Rules of Chromatic Dungeons consists of two books a Players Book and a Monsters & Treasures book.  The material for the Game Masters is split between the two books.  Players only need the Player's book, but the GM will need both.  Considering the prices of the books this is not a problem.

The guiding principle for Chromatic Dungeons is to provide an old-school ruleset, say circa 1981, but still have some new school sensibilities.  Because of this it does not make much sense to call Chromatic Dungeons a "retro clone."  It is an old school game yes, but the rules inside are an interesting mix of old and new school mechanics.  I will point these out as I move through the text but to put the major selling point up front, this is the game you are likely to have the most success with when introducing old school play to newer players.  I will detail more (and a few more times) as we progress.

The Basic Rules are designed to introduce new players to the CD game.  It has a lot in common with it's progenitor game, Dungeons & Dragons, in particular the 1981 Moldvay Basic set.  It is written for people that have never played before.  This is still a good thing since one of the goals I believe of this game IS to introduce new players to old-school gaming.  

Basic Rules, Player's Book

We get an Introduction and Forward that helps explain the nature of this game, but also to set the stage for what we will see. The author wants to make it plain up front that this is an inclusive game and that everyone should feel welcome to it.  This includes a brief overview of the game and a brief glosary of game terms to get everyone going.

Character Creation is first with the character concept and the rolling of ability scores.  The method used here is 4d6, drop the lowest and arrange to suit your concept. This strikes a good balance between getting the character you want and old-school randomness. Want 3d6 in order? That game was already written and likely you already have it.  After this you choose your Ancestry (and Heritage), Class and get equipment.  Lets go into some detail here.

XP per Level is covered first. Each class uses the same XP value much like you see in 21st century D&D games (3rd Edition and beyond).  This has a number of advantages of course.  Multi-classing becomes easier and it helps keep level progression fairly even.  Also it helps the intended audience, new gamers, become acclimated faster.  (Editorial aside: I have taught many players whose first experiences were 3e, Pathfinder or 5e and they adapt to differing XP level charts fine; often with an occasional reminder that the thief is higher level because of it. But still this is easier.)

Ability Scores are the standard six we are all familiar with.  Like the Moldvay Basic set the scores run 3-18 with simple modifiers they all share. Note. These mods are slightly different than what you might find in B/X, Labyrinth Lord, or Swords & Wizardry, so make sure you put them on your character sheet and don't go by memory.  A simple ability check system that is compatible with, well, really all sorts of versions of D&D/Clones is presented.

Note in this version of the Chromatic Dragons game there are no "Saving Throws" but rather specialized ability checks.  For example to "save" against some mind affecting magic you need to make a Wisdom check.  This actually works rather well in my mind.

Ancestry and Heritage is the system used to replace the antiquated notions of "Race."  Essentially this is a "Nature and Nurture" idea where Ancestry is your genetic or biologic make up and Heritage is how and under what conditions you were raised.   For ancestry you can choose Dwarf, Elf, Halfling, and Human. Each has details common to members of the same Ancestry. Dwarves are short, live to 300 years or so, and also something called "solid build" which gives them the ability to reduce damage by blunt object by 1 point. Humans get to add 1 point to any ability score, elves don't need to sleep and so on.  Heritages are how you you were raised.  So this helps give players a bit of character creation control to that backstory in their minds.  You choose two heritages and the list can easily expanded.  For example you can be born a halfling and have all the benefits of the halfling ancestry, but maybe you lived in a a Dwarf community, so you have the heritages of "Crafting" and "Subterranean."

This is a great concept and one I would wholesale adopt for all my games in the future. It just works too well for me. But I do have a couple of nitpicks with how it is done here.  First under Ancestry everyone gets a language of their ancestry.  This is something I feel better goes under Heritage.  And there are some heritages that are better suited for ancestry.  For example my Halfling who grew up in the Dwarven community knows how to speak Halfling due to their Ancestry and has Infravision due their "Subterranean" heritage.  I can see "Dark Adapted" working, or even the ability to detect sloping corridors; but infravision feels like something you should be born with and languages are something that are learned later.  Again, a minor nitpick, but one I will adjust when playing.

Character Classes cover the three basic classes; Fighter, Rogues, and Wizard.  Other 3-class games call these Warriors, Rogue (or Expert) and Adept, but the names in the book are more suited to this genre and make translations to the "Advanced" game easier.  Each class get an ability bonus, much like you see in newer games.  So fighters get a +1 bonus to Strength, Constitution, or Dexterity.  This can be easily rationalized as training. Each class also gets a set of abilities.  Note, the Rogue abilities are presented using the same system as all other ability checks.  They get bonuses for particular abilities; same name as the thief abilities of other games.  Each level they gain 6 points to improve their 9 abilities as they choose (reminds me of 2nd Ed AD&D's Rogues).  I do rather like this, yes it is different from the multiple subsystems that was either the curse or the charm of old-school games (depending on your point of view) but it also makes for a speedier game.  Wizards for this game cover wizards, magic-users and clerics.  Another small nitpick, since there is the Advanced game, I would have called this class a Magic-user, and then when the classes are separated out in the Advanced game called the Magic-users Wizards.  But again, this is minor.

Alignment is a basic, or rather Basic, affair of just Law, Neutrality and Chaos. 

Equipment covers everything you can buy.  I remember running some friend through the Keep on the Borderlands years decades ago and they spent the entire adventure shopping in the Keep and trying to get deals.

How to Play covers all the Basic rules starting with movement.  Movement scale is closer to that of newer, 21st century forms on D&D. We also get good coverage on time, vision, stealth and more.  Discussions on what you can do on your turn are detailed.  At this point we have read a little about about combat, but not all of it. That comes up now with initiative.  Here we are using a hybrid of Basic and 2nd Edition inspired initiative sequence.  We also get Morale another Basic/2nd Ed hybrid, but based on a max score of 10 as opposed to 12 (Basic) or 20 (2nd Ed). 

Armor class is Ascending, not Descending.  This is good since it gets rid of the need for attack tables. Characters have an attack bonus and they roll vs. AC. 

Experience Points are pretty much the same as seen in earlier versions of D&D.  A bit on creating adventures is given and a sample adventure is provided.

Wizard Spells follow.  Since there is only one spell casting class, all the spells to 5th level are here.

We end with a blank character sheet, Appendices of tables, sample characters and a combat quick guide.

Basic Rules, Monster & Treasure

This book is primarily for Game Masters.  

The bulk (2/3) of the book is about monsters.  It starts off with what the descriptions of the monsters mean, how to read the stat blocks and so on. The stat block is pretty similar to what is found in *D&D circa 1981, so reading or even adapting to other games is easy.  While XP values are listed Treasure type is not. 

There is a section on special monsters, such as having the abilities of a character type or class. As well as assigning numbers for ability checks for monsters.  Something that will be easier in the "Advanced" version of the game. 

The monsters are grouped by category rather than all alphabetical. The Categories are Beasts, Dinosaurs, Dragons, Elementals, Fey, Fiends, Giants, Humanoids, Lycanthropes, Monstrosities, and Undead. Nearly all the usual suspects are here. 

Some monsters are given the alignment of "n/a."  This is typically true of creatures that are too unintelligent for alignment such as dinosaurs, or humanoids that can be any alignment.  I do think for creatures like beasts, dinosaurs and elementals that "neutral" would have been fine and for humanoids "any" would have worked.  Fiends are all Chaotic and so are most of the Dragons, Giants, and Undead.  

The Treasure section covers not only magical treasures as expected, but gives us an alternate treasure type system based on the monster's HD.  So not dissimilar to 3e or 5e. 

Both Books

Both books are filled with evocative old-school style art.  Some of it from various stock art artists the Old-School community knows, but a good deal is original and new art.  Much of it clearly enfluenced by 40 years of playing.  The art goes beyond "Euro-centric" D&D art and variety of ethnicities, genders and peoples are represented. 

Both books are really directed and written for people coming into the Old-School RPG scene anew. While there is a lot to enjoy here if you are an old Grog, and the art in this case is a particular treat, the audience that will get the most out of this are a generation younger.  If you still have your original D&D books from the 1970s and 80s you will still find enjoyment here. Especially if you are like me and enjoy seeing the design choices of "D&D's Greatest Hits" here.

Both PDFs are fully bookmarked.  Both books are fully OGC.

This game is a great game to introduce new players, new to RPGs or new to Old-School style games, to the ways of playing of the 1980s.  Sure it is not exactly how we did it, but it is a great compromise between Old and New school.  This game is also the perfect introduction to the "Advanced" game of Chromatic Dungeons.  Finally, someone has made a "Basic" game that works great as an introduction to an "Advanced" game and one that works well enough on it's own.  Yes, yes there is Old-School Essentials and Labyrinth Lord that have both Basic and Advanced options, but Chromatic Dungeons' Basic game is truly that, an introductory game, "Basic" and "basic" at the same time.

Tomorrow I'll talk about the full Advanced game.

Now in its fourteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2021, after a little delay due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, took place on Saturday, 16th October. As per usual, it came with an array of new and interesting little releases, which traditionally would have been tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Of course, in 2021, Free RPG Day took place after GenCon despite it also taking place later than its traditional start of August dates, but Reviews from R’lyeh was able to gain access to the titles released on the day due to a friendly local gaming shop and both Keith Mageau and David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3 in together sourcing and providing copies of the Free RPG Day 2020 titles. Reviews from R’lyeh would like to thank all three for their help.

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It is more common for roleplaying games to get turned into board games, for example,
Exalted: Legacy of the Unconquered Sun for the Exalted roleplaying game from White Wolf Entertainment and Grand Tribunal, the board game set in the world of Atlas Games’ Ars Magica, but that trend is on the turn. Root: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game from Magpie Games is based on Leder Games’ Root: A Game of Woodland Might and Right, whilst the popular Zombicide board game from CMON Global Limited now has its own stand-alone roleplaying game in the form of Zombicide: Chronicles – The Roleplaying Game. For Free RPG Day 2021, CMON Global Limited released the Zombicide: Chronicles Free RPG Day Mission Booklet. This contains a trio of short scenarios which can either set up or continue with post-apocalyptic campaign in which the dead rise, walk, shamble, or even run, and want to much on your brains. However, it does not any rules from Zombicide: Chronicles—for that the Zombie Master will need to download the Zombicide: Chronicles Quick-Start, which has everything necessary to play through the three scenarios in the Zombicide: Chronicles Free RPG Day Mission Booklet.

The first of the three new missions in the Zombicide: Chronicles Free RPG Day Mission Booklet is ‘Cruise of the Dead’. This is a solid campaign starter with the Player Characters thrown together as Survivors aboard a classic cruise ship complete with its own promenade deck, swimming pool, night club, grand ballroom, and more. Whether as former members of the crew or passengers, the Survivors must battle across the decks of the Childlike Empress and up to the bridge where perhaps they might be able to get a message out and someone can come and rescue them! There are some entertaining scenes here, whether on the promenade deck and in and around the swimming pool, the nightmare blaring lights of the ship’s night club, or the remnants of a magician’s stage show in the grand ballroom, and the author lays on the cheesiness you would expect aboard a cruise ship. This is very much a combat focused scenario combined with some elements of stealth, so it feels very much like the board game that Zombicide: Chronicles is derived from. Nevertheless, its big action and big battles combined with a narrow focus—well, it is set aboard a cruise ship—does mean that it works as a good campaign opener. Plus, the ship can reach land wherever the Zombie Master wants and so continue the campaign from there.

The second mission, ‘Death is Just a State of Mind’ takes place at a celebrity health spa and clinic run by actress Willow Rhiannon Meagre, who is best known for her restorative goo known as Slop. In the wake of the zombie rising, there is a rumour that Slop can be applied to zombies to cure them! So the mission opens with the Survivors outside the city’s Willow Rhiannon Meagre Wellness Centre, which caters to often famous clientele, all ready to break in, grab some pots of Slop and perhaps run into a celebrity or two—whether they are still alive or have been turned into zombies! The centre is nicely detailed, complete with a surprisingly deep Zen Garden, a hot sauna, brochures with a complete guide to the best and most effective places to apply your Slop, and probably the best use of adult toys in a zombie roleplaying game—ever! Being for Zombicide: Chronicles, the scenario involves a lot of combat with the members of the corpse cortege, but it involves some investigation too, and there is a bit more story involved too. ‘Death is Just a State of Mind’ does not so much as ladle irony and splatter bloody satire around the Willow Rhiannon Meagre Wellness Centre as generally slop it everywhere it can. It contains some very obvious knowing digs at a certain celebrity, social media conspiracies, and more recent events, and is fairly tongue in cheek. Or is that tongue in cheek and out the other side? ‘Death is Just a State of Mind’ is great fun and very silly.

The last of the three missions in in the Zombicide: Chronicles Free RPG Day Mission Booklet is ‘Third Level Underground’. This is definitely a city-based mission which begins with the Player Characters, having learned that there is a delivery van full of medicine on the third level of a multi-storey car park nearby. Are they prepared to descend into the darkness below, not knowing what might be down there, break into the van, and get out again? This is primarily a stealth mission, with the Survivors creeping down into the car park’s lower levels, trying to take advantage of the many unlooted vehicles still parked, whilst avoiding any encounters with the cadaver cavalcade which bound to be down there. If that sounds all too simple, then you would be right, but not that much more simple. There are the broken facilities of the car park to work around, a reluctant survivor to encounter, and something quite fun for the Zombie Master to throw at the Player Characters. ‘Third Level Underground’ is a fairly straight forward encounter, one which is relatively easy to drop into a campaign or city set scenario.

Physically, the Zombicide: Chronicles Free RPG Day Mission Booklet is breezily presented with plenty of the cartoon artwork taken from the Zombicide board game. Although it needs a slight edit in places, it is very easy to read and understand, such that the preparation time for any one of its three missions is actually fairly low.

The Zombicide: Chronicles Free RPG Day Mission Booklet is mixture of fun, clichés, satire, and classic zombie action. The mechanical elements to the three scenarios are incredibly light, such that the Zombie Master need not have a copy of Zombicide: Chronicles to run any of three. A little adaptation and the Zombicide: Chronicles Free RPG Day Mission Booklet would work with any zombie roleplaying game or any modern roleplaying game to which zombies can be added. Above all though, the Zombicide: Chronicles Free RPG Day Mission Booklet is solid support for Zombicide: Chronicles – The Roleplaying Game, especially if you want a campaign starter and something to run later in the campaign