Imagine that there is a world with one castle. Imagine that castle is the world. Imagine that castle covers the world. Were it possible to ascend to the battlements or climb up one of the castle’s many towers, but all that would be seen more of the castle’s roof, battlements, and towers. The rooms of the castle extend in all directions. Beyond the villages, towns, and cities where people live lie the Roomlands. Out in the wilds of the Roomlands can be found mountains, lakes, deserts, forests, caves, and ancient ruins. Oceans stretch across rooms as far as the eye can see and beyond. Desert sands whip and whirl down long corridors. Forests climb the stairs that seem to rise to nowhere. Wherever a traveller goes and whatever the environment, there is a constant danger to be faced—Rooks. These are walking castles, stone giants that seem to have no purpose, other than to wander aimlessly until something captures their attention and then they erupt in incredible aggression. On the oceans, there are Sea Rooks, and on and above the battlements, there are Astrolithic Rooks, great flying beasts, and out the Tundroom wastes, Rooknaughts, Rook husks crewed to raid villagers or hold off other Rooknaughts. Even Parapette, the greatest city in the Known Roomlands is built into the body of a Colossal Rook. This is the setting for Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure in which a brave adventurer, either with a piece of a Rook grafted on to him, accompanied by a Rookling companion, wearing a scrap helm taken a Rook that grants its wearer magic, or riding a mount devised from Rook scrap, sets out to explore the Roomlands. Perhaps to discover new rooms of the Roomlands. Perhaps to protect a town or village from the aroused ire of a Rook. Perhaps to hunt Rooks themselves, to gather the precious resources it contains—devices and magical gems which provide the Helmed with their magic and provide many of the technologies used by the inhabitants of Colostle.
Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure is a Journaling game in which a player will write and keep a journal telling of the exploits of an adventurer across the ecumenopolis-sized castle of Colostle. As is usual with this type of game, the player will need no more than an ordinary deck of playing cards, pen and pencil, and a notebook of some kind. Over the course of his play, the player will draw cards from the deck. Initially, this will be to determine the nature and the call of the player’s character, but as the character steps out to explore, the player draws cards to find out what the character has discovered and then in combat, he draws cards to determine his character’s effectiveness and thus the outcome. When the character reaches the city, the player draws cards to determine the city’s features and what is available there. If the city features a Hunter’s Guild, then the character can take up quests on the organisation’s behalf, and again, these are determined by drawing more cards. Similarly, cards are drawn to determine the nature of opponents—Rook and non-Rook—and what either of them wants. At each stage, the player uses the cards to refer to various tables throughout the book and then connects the prompts from the table indicated by the cards in a narrative which he records in his character’s journal.
A Player Character in Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure is defined by a Calling, a Nature, a Class, and a Weapon. A Calling is why a Player Character adventures and explores out in the Roomlands, his Nature how he reacts to the world around him, his Class how he explores the world and how he fights, and his Weapon what he fights with. Both Calling and Nature are determined randomly. The four Classes—‘The Armed’, ‘The Followed’, ‘The Helmed’, and ‘The Mounted’—each determine two values out of five for the Player Character, Exploration Score and Combat Score, and suggest various traits and motivations. Apart from the Exploration Score and the Combat Score, these traits along with Magic, either Electric, Rumble, or Ice, are used to help describe and flavour the narrative that player writes rather than providing any mechanical benefit. 
Audrina
Classed: The Helmed
Exploration Score: 2
Combat Score: 5
Calling: Your mother told you fabulous tales of the Fabled Rookstones which gave Rooks and those who scavenge them amazing powers. Now grown up, you know that there are three types of Rookstone— Electric, Rumble, and Ice—but perhaps there really are more and there was truth in your mother’s tales?
Nature: Impatient, quick-to-anger, grumpy
Motivation: To understand Rook technology and mechanisms
Weapon: Rook Fists that shake with Rumble Magic
To play Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure, a player draws cards in two different phases—the Exploration Phase and the Combat Phase. The Player Character’s Exploration Score determines how many cards his player draws and his Combat Score how many cards he draws in combat. In the Exploration Phase, Red cards drawn indicate encountering organic things, people, and creatures, whilst black are scenic things, structures, and objects, the entries divided between the four suits. Some point to the Events table in which case a further card is drawn. Together, they provide prompts to events and encounters that the player pieces together in a whole journal entry. If a combat encounter is indicated, the player can insert a Combat Phase anywhere in the Exploration as fits the narrative.For example, in Audrina’s Exploration Phase, her player draws two cards for her Exploration Score. First the four of Spades followed by the four of Diamonds. The four of Spades indicates the ruins of people that Audrina has never heard of who likely lived long ago and tells the player to draw an Event card. The latter is the five of Diamonds, telling the player that Audrina hears a loud noise. The four of Diamonds suggests that she meet someone who asks for her help in finding something and that she will be rewarded for help. The latter requires another card to be drawn, this time for the Item that will be the reward. This is the King of Clubs, so is two Treasures which can be used for trade purposes if Audrina returns to the city. However, the four of Diamonds indicates that the person for help is untrustworthy. If combat ensues, the player will generate the opponent and a Combat Phase will take place.An opponent is defined by his Intention and Weapon Type if another person. A Rook has instead a Magic Type, Body Type, Weapon Type, and Reward if defeated. Combat is a matter of drawing cards, the number determined by the Combat Score for the Player Character and the opponent type for whomever the Player Character is fighting. One card is drawn if another person, but three or five for a Rook, depending on its size. The player allocates his character’s cards against those of his opponent in an attempt to beat him. The suit on the card used indicates the type of attack used and all one side has to do is defeat the majority of the other’s attacks. When a Player Character cannot stop an attack because he does not have a card high enough, he suffers a wound, which reduces either his Exploration Score or his Combat Score. If either score is reduced to zero, the Player Character dies. This does not look good for Audrina. The player draws a two of Clubs, a five of Hearts, an eight of Spades, and a nine of both Hearts and Spades, the five cards for Audrina’s Combat Score. None of this enough for Audrina to defeat or block the attack and so she suffers a Wound, reducing her Exploration Score from two to one. The opponent presses the attack. This time, the player draws a ten of Hearts, a magic attack. In response, the player draws a four, eight, Queen, and King of Hearts as well as a four of Clubs, for Audrina. He selects the King of hearts. This not only beats the opponent’s nine of Clubs, it beats it with the same suit and so is a critical attack which reduces the number of cards the opponent draw by one. Since this is only one anyway, it has no real effect except to mean that the opponent is defeated. She receives one Treasure for defeating the opponent and leaves nursing his wound.So when the player comes to record this in Audrina’s journal he might write the following.“I had not ranged far from the city, barely into the next Room, a great space where I strode through a rich forest until I came upon a city that I had not seen before, even heard of. None of the sages in the city had mentioned this place and its stones seemed old and marked in a language I did not recognise. As I skirted the outer ruins, I heard a cry. I followed it and came across an old man, leaning over an opening into the ground. I asked what he was about and he said he was looking for his dog who had chased a rabbit down the hole. I was about to leave the grimy and gnarled figure to it when he asked if I could help him. He said he could give me treasure in return for me rescuing his dog. I looked at him and wondered if that was a cold gleam in his eye or a tear for his lost, but I took pity and promised to help. More fool I. Barely was I in the hall, when there came a big booming sound from below and a rush of air, such that I did not the crotchety old bastard behind, only felt the weight of his club upon my leg as a he attempted to brain me! He stood over me cackling against the light of the cave mouth and I did not know if he intended to kill me, but he raised his staff which crackled with energy, and in response I thrust out my Rumble Gloves, unleashing a blast of force that caused him to lose his footing. Getting to my knees, my leg still smarting, I threatened with a follow up attack, but he surrendered. When asked, he told me he had been stealing from others and intended to steal from me. I left him what little food he had when I rifled through his belongings, but I took his staff with its Electric Rookstone. Mere recompense for the injury he had caused me. If I cannot sell it, I can study it.”Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure includes table for encounters on the ocean and on the battlements—the latter only becoming available when the Player Character first climbs to their heights, for no one else has yet, and the means to generate a city, where the Player Character can rest, spend a Treasure or two—perhaps for improvement in his two Scores, perhaps to purchase a weapon or device to improve his ability to explore and survive in the Rooklands. The list of items to purchase is few in number though. There is also a map of the Known Roomlands and a cross section of a Rook. One definite table which is missing is one for what might be found within the confines of a Rook.
Physically, Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure is stunning. The illustrations are cartoonish, but beautiful. The writing is clear, but as a whole the roleplaying game is underwritten. This shows in the few differences between the Classes in the roleplaying game, in the mechanics which will often push a player to make one ruling or another—and push the Player Character into a fight because there is no other means of resolving situations, and in the number of entries in the various tables. There simply is not enough tables and content in the tables of Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure to warrant more than a few plays without encounters and solutions being repeated. As a series of prompts for a solo journaling that may be enough, but if as the book suggests, it is used a source for roleplaying game, it is going to leave the Game Master and ultimately her players wanting more.
As a play experience, Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure is perhaps harder work than it should, prompts only pushing the player so far and leaving him with a lot of answers and rulings to make up. It reveals parts of the world and leaves the player wanting more. As a roleplaying sourcebook, it is very much far from enough, but would work with any number of roleplaying mechanics. The setting lends itself to lighter rulesets, Into the Odd, for example, would be a good choice to build an actual Colostle Roleplaying Game around, but equally, a retroclone like Old School Essentials could be built around it with some effort.
Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure is breath-taking in its scope and scale, with beautifully illustrated vistas done in a style that echoes that of the Zeldacomputer game series, and both the Ico and The Shadow of the Colossus, if not a little of Horizon Zero Dawn. Open up Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure and you want to explore the vast halls and corridors of the Roomlands. Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure possesses literally huge promise, grandeur and whimsy at the same time, a magical and mystical place to visit—as far as the book will allow. Yet really, Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure feels as if it wants to be opened up, its furthest extents explored and exposed, and for the players to travel together.

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

—oOo—
In 1982 we learned that roleplaying could be dangerous. We learned that it could drive Tom Hanks into identifying with his character to the point where he became the character and so would step out onto the road on his character’s great quest, only this was across New England and not some fantasy land. He would drive his friends away and once lost in a great metropolis—New York (this is the New York in the eighties) and its tunnels below—would be driven mad by dragons above, be menaced by monsters (again New York in the eighties), commit acts of violence against monsters (yes, still the New York of the eighties), and using his spells, desire to fly from the top of the Twin Towers. Ultimately, even after being rescued by his friends and being returned home, he would never escape that character even as his friends became proper adults and left such trivial pursuits behind them. This was a story told on our television screens in the made for television film, Mazes and Monsters, based on the novel by Rona Jaffe, which had been published the year before. The film was the first leading role for actor Tom Hanks and where it had been rushed from print to screen, the book had been rushed from the news to print, for both the film and the book it was based upon were based upon a true story.
In 1979, a young student at Michigan State University, James Dallas Egbert III, had gone missing. Initial investigations and subsequent newspaper reporting linked the disappearance to Egbert having played a strange new game called Dungeons & Dragons. Egbert would be later found by private investigator, William Dear, but the reasons behind the disappearance would not be revealed until after the student’s subsequent suicide and only be properly explained in Dear’s own 1984 book The Dungeon Master. Both Mazes and Monsters and The Dungeon Master would precede the backlash against Dungeons & Dragons that was part of the Satanic Panic of the eighties.
In Mazes and Monsters, Robbie Wheeling (Tom Hanks) attends the small Grant University where he forms a group of friends who play the titular game. All four of them have difficult family backgrounds to one degree or another. Robbie has an alcoholic mother and strict father who fight constantly, and is still tormented by the mysterious disappearance of his older brother, Hall. Jay-Jay (Chris Makepeace) is neglected by his mother who constantly redecorates his room since she can never make up her mind about the best look—the opening look is a brilliantly white Science Fiction room which could be in a Cyberpunk novel—and so wears an ever-changing selection of hats as a means of self-identification. (Of course, as the story progresses and he grows up, he gives up the hats.) Kate (Wendy Crewson) has suffered a number of difficult relationships and comes from a broken home, and Daniel wants to become a video game designer, but his parents have other ideas. All find solace in the game and when Jay-Jay suggests that they take the game to another level by acting it out in the nearby and forbidden Pequod Caverns—accessed by the most cave entrance possible—they agree. However, when they separate to search for the treasure (never separate the party!), Robbie suffers a psychotic episode connected to his brother’s disappearance and now believes he is actually his character, the cleric Pardieu. Consequently, he will break off his relationship with Kate—because clerics are celibate—and disappear on a quest to find his brother. This leads his friends on the quest too in order to find him, because the police, in the form of Lieutenant John Martini (as portrayed by Murray Hamilton, best known for playing the mayor in Jaws), have no idea. After Robbie is returned home, they visit him, and it is made clear that Robbie will never recover from his psychotic episode and will always believe himself to be Pardieu. Together, feeling sorry for him and their contribution towards his current condition, they join Robbie on a game of Mazes and Monsters with Robbie as the Maze Controller. The final words of the film are Kate’s: “And so ... we played the game again ... for one last time.”
Mazes and Monsters is a strange film, a treatment of roleplaying games disassociated from its subject, a film made about roleplaying games in which the author of the book and thus the film have no real idea what a roleplaying game is. For example, in Mazes and Monsters the game, the players finally have the right to be their own Maze Controllers at Ninth Level and the game is played out by candlelight with just the Maze Controller and the three players. It also makes clear that this is a game played by young people with difficult home lives and worse, roleplaying games like Mazes and Monsters have the capacity to exacerbate existing mental health issues and entwine them with the game. There is no real effort to portray roleplaying as a positive activity and there is a certain goofiness to the script that the actors do their very best with, but cannot ultimately escape.
—oOo—Both Rona Jaffe’s original novel and another which involved roleplaying, John Coyne’s Hobgoblin were reviewed in Dragon Magazine #75 (July, 1983). In ‘Tales stranger than fantasy’, Michael Lowery highlights that in both novels, “Above all else, both writers view fantasy gaming as something that must be explained, like teenage alcoholism or joining the Moonies. And examined: Just what is it, anyway, that leads intelligent, seemingly normal people into fantasy role-playing? In both works, game players are eventually shown suffering from dissociative schizophrenia (or some similar malady), which the reader is invited to blame on fantasy role-playing.” He identifies Mazes and Monsters as the better novel, but still calls it, “…[A] Problem Novel, and the Problem is role-playing games.” before concluding that, “Neither of these books is likely to be enlightening to the FRP gamer, except as examples of what reasonably intelligent adult non-players imagine we must be like. In both books, the attainment of mature adulthood is accompanied by the abandonment of role-playing games. Need I say more?”
John J. O’Connor’s review, ‘TV: 'MAZES AND MONSTERS,' FANTASY’ in The New York Times (December, 28, 1982) in contrast, was more positive. “Miss Jaffe takes her story and characters through some fairly predictable turns as the game proceeds to its ''logical extension.'' At one point, the underlying message is spelled out directly: ''The most frightening monsters are the ones that exist in our minds.'' But, gradually, her carefully diagrammed contraption begins to work with reasonable effectiveness. He concludes, “And in the end, the film achieves a broader ''ritesof-passage'' experience than most viewers might be expecting.”—oOo—
Mazes and Monsters is forty years old in 1982 and to mark the occasion, Plumeria Pictures has released the Mazes and Monsters 40th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray. In the words of Lieutenant John Martini, it promises “Swords… poison… spells… battles… maiming… killing!” The production values for the release are basic, but to be fair, it is debatable whether Mazes and Monsters warrants more than that. However, the release features an eight-page booklet containing the essay, ‘The real-life tragedy and sensationalised fantasy behind D&D-inspired movie Mazes and Monsters’ which explores the reality and fantasy behind the film. This is a decent read, but does not throw any more light upon the matter than is already known. It is there more for those who are new to both film and its origins rather than the amateur historian of the hobby or the roleplayer who lived through the period. The film itself is simply presented and as a television film feels dark and claustrophobic.
The release has two extras. The first is a set of English language subtitles, which are absolutely necessary if the viewer wants to watch the film with the other extra, a commentary track from roleplaying luminaries Seth Skorkowsky, Scott Dorward, Joe Trier, Veronica Escamilla-Brady, and Eoghan Falvey. This is a fairly jokey, occasionally funny commentary which ultimately does not add much to the film itself. Only Seth Skorkowsky and Scott Dorward appear to have seen the film before, and both add heft to the commentary where the other participants have little to add. Dorward in particular adds significant context and background to the commentary, not only having familiarity with the film, but also the period when it was made and the New York of the time. There is an interesting conversation to be had about the film and its context, but the Mazes and Monsters 40th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray misses that opportunity with what is an unbalanced commentary cast.
Mazes and Monsters and the Mazes and Monsters 40th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray together look back at a period in the hobby when the wider world is only beginning to become aware of it and it is clear that it has no understanding of what it was. With a film which is more curio than actually good, the Mazes and Monsters 40th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray provides an interesting snapshot of the early eighties that shows how lucky we and the hobby are in the twenty-first century. 

Just A Stupid Dungeon is pointless. It is also a dungeon published by Lamentations of the Flame Princess for use with Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying. It is suitable for use with other retroclones. It is also a dungeon which can be played by characters of any Level. It is a dungeon which is located in the default setting for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying of the early to mid-seventeenth century. It is though, easy to drop into almost any setting. It is a dungeon in the style of a death trap dungeon with not a lot of death traps. It is a plain dungeon in comparison to the tone of some titles for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying. It is an exercise in trap design by the author, James Edward Raggi IV. It is potentially a means to really overturn the status quo of a Referee’s campaign. It is all those things, and still, Just A Stupid Dungeon is pointless.

Just A Stupid Dungeon does not even come with an introduction. It promises and delivers a dungeon without anything in the way of a backstory, setting, or context. The nearest it gets to that is the fact that local children have been warned not to touch the key in the door to the dungeon entrance lest they drop down dead. Instead, it starts at the door to the dungeon and goes from there. Inside, the complex consists of several similar rooms around a central hall. The hall consists of just a statue and a lectern, both holding valuable treasure. However, getting to either is unlikely to be certain given the surprisingly bouncy flooring of the hall and both treasures being destroyed is more likely. The surrounding rooms are all identical bar the nature of the traps they contain, most of which have an elemental theme. By the time the Player Characters have set off and experienced survived two or more, then they should have an idea how each room works. Here the designer gets to play with deep water, fire, light, darkness, and more, and in the main, not in a way that will necessarily kill the Player Characters. They will be hurt and they will be imperilled and they will be punished.

Just A Stupid Dungeon involves almost no combat and despite it being set in a tomb, there are no undead. Instead, it is built around traps and the designer playing around with time. There are traps in the complex, itself consisting of twenty-four locations—less if the repetitious nature of some of the doors is taken into account—that will really twist the continuity and confluence and the causality of the campaign. One trap in the short term and one trap in the long term. These traps are fantastic in their scope and repercussions and the effects of long-term trap will effectively undo a campaign. They are brilliant in their simplicity and capacity for entertainment, though more for the Referee than her players and their characters.

Physically, Just A Stupid Dungeon is clean, tidy, easy to read, and comes with a clear map.
Just A Stupid Dungeon can just be dropped into a setting and left there. It does nothing, it is inert. It awaits the arrival of the Player Characters. Of course, the Referee is free to add context, detail, and backstory to entice the Player Characters to investigate further. Or indeed, not. The Referee could drop it into a session and run it as is, and that is essentially what Just A Stupid Dungeon is designed as—a scenario that can be run without any fuss or mess. Once the Player Characters do penetrate the halls of the not-tomb in Just A Stupid Dungeon, rewards will be few and the punishments harsh, all in response to the curiosity of the players and their characters. Ultimately, Just A Stupid Dungeon is pointless, but if the Player Characters do push through to the end, the effects of the final trap will be entertainingly disruptive.

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

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

—oOo—
Name: Branches of Bone - A Viking Age Cthulhu Dark Ages ScenarioPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Michael Reid

Setting: Dark Ages EnglandProduct: One-shot
What You Get: Forty page, 8.18 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Locked Room Horror Hell in a House of WorshipPlot Hook: Survival horror in the Dark Ages as a Viking raid unleashes an abhorrent arboresque aberration
Plot Support: Staging advice, eight handouts, one Keeper handout, six pre-generated Investigators, a spell, some NPCs, and five Mythos monsters. Production Values: Decent.
Pros# Single-session, countdown horror# Locked room (monastery) situation forces co-operation# Pictorial handouts# Entertainingly wooden twist upon the zombie# Clue rich# Includes Viking mini-supplement# Dendrophobia# Goat-chicken thing
Cons# NPCs need more detail# No Viking names# Investigation-Monk communication requires careful handling# Tight timeline
Conclusion# Tightly plotted and timed, locked room (monastery) mystery which forces the Player Characters to co-operate with those they are raiding if they are to survive.# Survival horror in the Dark Ages in which the Player Characters need to overcome the language barrier for the scenario to really work.

In the years of the Desperate Decade, adventurers, explorers, soldiers of fortune, spies, journalists, and men of action—heroes all, pushed to the four corners of the Earth and beyond into the darkest of corners! These stalwart men and women heroically overcame great danger and terrible terror to reveal ancient secrets, discover lost civilisations, and find priceless treasures and in the deepest, darkest, wildest reaches of the world thwart the plans of villains and would-be world conquerors. They evaded traps, leaped over pits, dodged bullets and spears, and even punched a Nazi or three, all in the name of fortune and glory. Their exploits would be told in the pulp magazines of the period and form the basis for films such as Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Mummy (from 1999), and Romancing the Stone. And now they can be told again by playing Temples & Tombs, a pulp action roleplaying published by Gallant Knight Games which employs the Year Zero Engine previously seen in Mutant: Year Zero – Roleplaying at the End of Days, the Alien: The Roleplaying Game, and Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying, all roleplaying games published by Free League Publishing.

Temples & Tombs is designed to accessible, fast playing, with the focus firmly on the Player Characters or Adventurers and their adventures, with the heroes often having to push themselves and raise the stakes in order to succeed. The template of Mutant: Year Zero – Roleplaying at the End of Days and subsequent Year Zero Engine can very much be seen in this pulp-action roleplaying game. It uses six-sided dice in three different colours—for primary or standard dice, Luck Dice, and Hero Dice—with the aim being to roll a single six as a success. Each Adventurer has a Profession, an Age which determines the points to be assigned to the four attributes and skills (younger Adventurers have higher attributes and lower skills, older have lower attributes and higher skills), one or more Talents derived from the Profession (there are other generic Talents available when an Adventurer gains experience), an Ambition which will drive the character to act, and together with other Adventurers, an institution which they all belong to. Each Adventurer will also have Relationships with his fellow adventurers and a Signature Item which will help him in certain situations, such as a bullwhip or a really sparkly red dress. Talents, Relationships, and Signature Items are all suggested by the Professions. The twelve Professions are Ace, Archaeologist, Doctor, Genius, Hunter, Journalist, Outlaw, Professional, Socialite, Soldier, Spy, and Thief.

James McTavish
Age: In Your Prime
Profession: Ace

Grit: 03 Fight 1 Endure 0 Feat 1
Quick: 05 Drive 3 Shoot 1 Stunt 1
Wit: 03 Fix 1 Savvy 1 Lore 0
Style: 03 Scare 0 Sway 1 Trick 0

Talents
Gets an additional Hero Die when using a skill to do something life-threatening.
Ambition
Relive your glory days.

Gear
Vehicle (single-propeller plane), pistol, survival gear, bag
Income: 3 (modest)

Signature Item
Lucky deck of cards

Mechanically, the core mechanic in Temples & Tombs is the Year Zero Engine. To undertake an action or skill test, an Adventurer’s player rolls dice equal to the character’s skill and its associated attribute. Any roll of six counts as success. If an Adventurer lacks points in a skill, his player just rolls a single attribute die. Modifiers can adjust the number of dice up and down. For example, a Signature Item can add a single die whenever an Adventurer brings it into play, whilst once per session, an Adventurer can use his Ambition to automatically succeed at any test.

In addition, a player can add Hero Dice to the pool. Each Hero Die is used only the once and always on the next test that the player rolls. They cannot be saved. They earned as an award from the Director for an Adventurer being amazing, for every success rolled over one on a text, and for using specific talents in a Profession. So, when added to a pool and a six is rolled on the Hero Die, they trigger a Heroic Action. These include all Adventurers losing a Catch with ‘Inspire’, give them all a Hero Die for their next test with ‘Strong Presence’, lose all of an Adventurer’s with ‘Rise Up’, clear the Adventurer’s Luck tracker with ‘Persevere’, succeed automatically on the next test with ‘Break Through’, and force an NPC to flee or surrender with ‘Ferocity’.

Temples & Tombs is designed to emulate the great swings in the fortunes of the genre’s protagonists, so failure is as much part of the game as is success—sometimes great success. However, instead when an Adventurer fails, he does not suffer harm or damage. Instead, he takes Catches. These represent the Adventurer being pushed to his limits and potentially being taken out of the action—which happens if he suffers five Catches—rather than being hurt or killed. Ranging from ‘Off Guard’ and ‘Emotional’ to ‘On the Run’ and ‘In need of Rescue’, each Catch has an immediate narrative effect which the player describes and a mechanical effect on the number of dice in an Adventurer’s dice pool. This can be negative or positive and are permanent until the triggering Catches are cleared. Alternatively, an Adventurer can lose all of his Hero Dice instead of taking a Catch.

If a player fails a roll or he wants more than the one success to garner more Hero Dice, he can push his Adventurer’s luck. Pushing an Adventurer’s luck allows a re-roll and adds one to the Adventurer’s Luck Tracker. The re-roll is made with number of dice equal to the Luck Tracker. This increases the Adventurer’s dice pool, but if one of the Luck Dice results in a roll of a one, the Adventurer’s Luck Tracker is cleared, and the Adventurer takes a Catch. The maximum the Luck Tracker can be increased to is five, after which it is cleared, and the Adventurer gains an automatic success on the last roll. What means is that an Adventurer is literally pushing his luck—to gain more dice to roll, with the increased potential for both success or failure—until he either succeeds or fails, so his luck runs out.
For example, pilot James McTavish is racing to get his team out of China where they have acquired some artefacts to bring back to put on display at the museum they work for before a warlord could and sell them to a collector. As he pilots his Beechcraft Model 17 Staggerwing out of the mountains and down river, he is jumped by a pair of Blackburn F.2 Lincock biplanes loaned out to the warlord after a well-placed bribe. The Staggerwing is not armed, but it is fast and manoeuvrable and one of his fellow passengers is armed with a Mauser M712 Schnellfeuer, and if McTavish can manoeuvre just right, then a good burst or three might be enough to drive off the Chinese pilots.

James McTavish’s player starts with a dice pool of eight, derived from James’ Quick of five and Drive of three. To this he adds a Hero Die because James is definitely doing something life-threatening. So, eight standard dice and one Hero Dice. Unfortunately, the player does not roll a single success, and decides to Push James’ Luck. This moves James’ Luck Tracker up by one and gives his player nine dice to roll—eight plus the Hero Die and the Luck Die. This time, he rolls four successes, including one on the Hero Die. One Success means that James succeeds—sliding his aircraft perfectly along one of the enemy aeroplanes, but the other three become Hero Dice he can roll on his next action. The success on the Hero Die gives him a Heroic Action and his player selects ‘Strong Presence’ which gives all Adventurers a Hero Die on their next action. James’ fellow Adventurer draws a bead on the enemy pilot with his machine pistol and her player takes up her dice, which will include a Hero Die thanks to James.Combat in Temples & Tombs uses the same mechanics, including close combat, ranged combat, and social combat. Damage is inflicted in terms of Catches, reflecting that an Adventurer can be hurt, knocked out, and put out of the action, but not killed. Weapons add only a single die to an Adventurer’s dice pool. An Adventurer cannot take any more than five Catches and are thus ‘In Need of Rescue’ and need to recuperate before he can act again. Gear is broadly handled and includes travel as well as equipment. If an Adventurer wants a piece of gear higher than his Income, his player makes an Income test with any successes indicating that the Adventurer can.
For the Director, there is advice to ensure that there is Never a Dull Moment, that it be made awesome, and to make it wondrous. It suggests using blocks—having bad guys show up, a ceiling collapse, or a trap door shuts—as narrative devices in line with the genre, always presenting the Adventurers with hard choices—equally bad, escalate the situation and more, make it visual, and so on. In terms of storytelling, Temples & Tombs uses the same model or set of story beats to emulate its genre and hang the Director’s plot on. These begin with the ‘Cold Open’, and then go through the ‘Call of Adventure’, ‘The Journey’, and ‘The Dungeon’ to finally get to ‘The Wrap’. These supported by discussions of and table for MacGuffins, set pieces (or archetypal locations), dungeon (or rather tomb), threats, and more. There is only a very broad overview of the thirties—the default setting for Temples & Tombs—which includes a list of the aspects of the period to avoid. This combination of overview and the lists of potential dungeons and treasures does mean that the Director will have to conduct some research to bring these places and MacGuffins to life in her game.

In general, Threats such as NPCs are relatively easy for the Adventurers to deal with and do not have Hero Dice or Luck Dice, although some powerful NPCs might utilise Luck Dice. More powerful NPCs can suffer more Catch conditions, as can beasts. What NPCs and beasts do have is Moments. These can be things like ‘Use a gadget to cause a diversion’ or ‘Dispatch goons’, but are not used to attack or harm an Adventurer directly. Instead, they are NPC or Villain moves which occur when an Adventurer fails a test against a threat, an extra narrative consequence to the Adventurer suffering a Catch. Numerous groups from barons and presidents and blue blood society to heroes gone bad and menacing museums all the way up to mutants and supervillains are examined and given suggested names, aims, set pieces, and more. They do feel undeveloped in places. Temples & Tombs is designed to be “somewhat agnostic”, but a bit more history would not have gone amiss.

Over a third of Temples & Tombs is devoted to three adventures. These are ‘Temple of the Feather of Ma’at’, ‘Sky Zeppelin and the Valley of Yesteryear’, and ‘The Lost Works of William Shakespeare and the Oak Island Mystery’. The first sends the Adventurers after Ma’at’s Feather of Truth from Egyptian mythology across the ancient world from Turkey to Egypt; the second to South America in search of a missing scientific expedition and mixes dinosaurs with lost cities; and the third from Germany to the USA to find a treasure which many have looked for, including Franklin D. Roosevelt. In fact, the president is included as a threat in this scenario which makes for an interesting twist. All three follow the story beats outlined earlier in the book, except for ‘The Lost Works of William Shakespeare and the Oak Island Mystery’ which omits a Cold Open and means the Director will have to add one of her own. Of the three ‘Temple of the Feather of Ma’at’ feels like Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, ‘Sky Zeppelin and the Valley of Yesteryear’ feels like an Edgar Rice Burroughs story, and ‘The Lost Works of William Shakespeare and the Oak Island Mystery’ like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Physically, Temples & Tombs is a plain, greyscale book. It is very lightly illustrated, it does suffer from repetition in places, and it does need an edit in others. There is no index. One oddity is the fact that the name of the roleplaying game is Temples & Tombs, but the generic term used for the roleplaying game’s grand set pieces is ‘dungeon’. Why not ‘tomb’?

Temples & Tombs feels rushed and consequently rough around the edges. Some of the rule explanations could have been clearer, there are no examples of play or Adventurer creation, and it does not help that there is no index. Nor is there a bibliography, filmography, or a timeline. These are all major omissions which make the roleplaying game that little bit harder to grasp or use with each missing element. In addition, the three omissions make it harder for the Director to write her own adventures because she has to look for the starting points which a bibliography, filmography, or timeline would have provided. To some extent the authors are relying upon the familiarity of the Director and her players with Year Zero Engine, the period when the roleplaying game is set, and definitely the genre. If that is the case, then these omissions are less of a problem, otherwise that is not so.

Temples & Tombs has a pick and up feel with its easy Adventurer creation rules and its fast-playing implementation of the Year Zero Engine which emphasises heroic action and firmly places the Adventurers in the centre of both action and story. This is supported by three entertaining adventures which romp around the genre in pursuit of their respective MacGuffins, but beyond these, the Director will need to conduct some research to create adventures of her own. Ultimately, Temples & Tombs is a solid implementation of the Year Zero Engine in the Pulp genre, but remains underdeveloped where it could have been more helpful.

With The Zhodani Candidate and Eve of Rebellion, the author Stephen J. Ellis brought his experience of freeforms and LARP—Live Action Roleplaying—to the Third Imperium, the setting for the Mongoose Publishing’s Traveller and published by March Harrier Publishing via Mongoose Publishing. In traditional scenarios and campaigns for Traveller, the Player Characters own a starship, such as an A2 Far Trader or a Type S Scout, and as the eponymous travellers, move from world to world, trading, thwarting crimes, uncovering mysteries and making discoveries, and so on. Alternatively, they go to war, undertaking contracts as mercenaries in low-conflict engagements. Either way, the focus is firmly on their adventures and their narrative. In both The Zhodani Candidate and Eve of Rebellion, the play switched to high above that. In the former, a team investigate a marriage between a war hero and potential sleeper agent and an important noble, whilst in the latter, the events leading up to the assassination of Emperor Strephon are explored, with the players taking the roles of those present. These two scenarios take place on a grander scale, their events often having wider repercussions, and with their mixture of secrets and secret agendas, designed to clash and interact through play, often offer more of a roleplaying challenge then the average scenario. Mirabilis, the author’s third scenario, is likewise inspired by freeform play with its often-interlocking secrets and agendas, but shifts focus whilst retaining a grander scale of play and whilst also being radically different. Mirabilis is diceless.

Mirabilis shifts the focus in both terms of time and space, but is still set in Traveller’s Third Imperium. It takes place on the world of Mirabilis, a low gravity, resource poor, but technologically advanced and important planet in the 82 Eirdani system of the Capella subsector of the Solomani Rim, near the border with the Third Imperium. The year is 1125. Strephon Aella Alkhalikoi, Emperor of the Third Imperium, has been dead for almost a decade and the Third Imperium is beset by rebellion and civil. In response to what it saw as a weakened enemy, the Solomani Confederation made a dash for Terra in an attempt to reclaim the Solomani Autonomous Sphere. Unfortunately, the Solomani Confederation has overextended itself, leaving it vulnerable to disrupted trade, pirate raids, and internal strife. Mirabilis has not yet suffered this fate, but it is up to its ruling Tech Council to ensure that if it cannot avoid such incidents, then it can at least survive them, and potentially survive the dangers to come. The Tech Council of Mirabilis consists of five members, controlling and representing different aspects of its society—Party Chairman Boris Gupta (Technical Maintenance & Party Administration), SolSec Co-Ordinator Jamal Goren (Solomani Security), Admiral Helen Treygar (Military Forces), Commerce Secretary Mario Niemeyer (Merchant Marine & Traders), and Chief Scientist Esme Hawking (Science, Research, & Education). Each council member has his or own agenda and secret, but also knows a secret about a fellow council member and has the means to bribe another. Each also has a power. For example, Admiral Helen Treygar can launch a military coup, Party Chairman Boris Gupta can declare someone guilty of unSolomani activities and strip them of Party membership and thus eligibility to sit on the council, SolSec Co-Ordinator Jamal Goren as the head of Solomani Security can imprison and interrogate anyone as a traitor to the Solomani cause, and so on. Thus, every council member has his or her advantages and disadvantages.

Mirabilis is designed to be played by five players exactly, who will each take the role of a member of Tech Council of Mirabilis. Each is provided with a character sheet and background information on the situation on the planet and its surrounding systems in the year 1125. As the Tech Council of Mirabilis, they take control of five levers of power or planetary stats—Tech Level (Science), Population (Maintenance), Law Level (Social Order), Wealth (Foreign Relations/Trade), and Military Power (Defence)—in order to push their agenda and respond to threats and dangers. Over the course of five turns and a decade from 1125 to 1135, they will negotiate, bribe, and blackmail each other to place these in order of priority. Those given priority will improve, but those not given priority, will suffer and not be as capable of responding to future situations and threats. The planetary stats are the only numbers given in the scenario, and will go up and down over the course of the scenario depending upon what the players and their characters decide. For example, a population increase might come about because of refugees, but a decrease because on of the planet’s flying cities crashes, the military’s capability is increased because the construction of new fleets or is reduced because maintenance time is neglected. Every turn there are trade-offs between improving a planetary factor and not improving planetary stats.

Mirabilis is based on the Prisoners’ Dilemma game theory. In a Prisoners’ Dilemma, the participants have the reasons and the means to individually do better if they betray others, but better overall if they co-operate. Ultimately, the outcome of this scenario and the fate of the world of Mirabilis being in the hands of the players and their negotiating ability and how they react to events revealed from one turn to the next. If events and the actions of other council members do not go his way, a Player character has the means to conduct a single coup, although a coup has a deleterious effect upon Mirabilis’ planetary stats.

For the Game Master there is a complete guide to staging and running the scenario as well as the rules. There are also events from year to year that the Game Master will provide as briefings to the council. These are all made available to the council members, but for a more complex game they could be handled as individual briefings given to the appropriate council members who then have to brief the council—or not. As an aside, there is everything here to run this game as a play by email instead of a convention one-shot.

There are some elements of Mirabilis which some players may find unpleasant or uncomfortable playing. Most obviously, they are roleplaying Solomani and Solomani in the Traveller setting tend to be racial supremacists. There is also a race of Uplifted Apes on the world of Mirabilis which are regarded as lesser. In addition, the players will find themselves controlling the fate of millions, who may well die because of their decisions. The scenario though, is definitely about the latter rather than the former.

Physically, Mirabilis is lightly illustrated and laid out in simple fashion. It could do with a slight edit in places.

Whether run as a one-shot or a convention scenario, Mirabilis is a really taut, fractious scenario, forcing the players as members of Tech Council of Mirabilis to make difficult decisions over the course of a few hours. Together they hold the fate of a planet in their hands in the face of encroaching Hard Times and what they decide will determine if it survives the coming dark age or falls to it.

The DARK PLACES & DEMOGORGONS Cryptid Manual is a cryptozoological bestiary for the Dark Places & Demogorgons, the roleplaying game of being students at high school in the nineteen eighties in a small town by mysterious attacks and disappearances. With the adults at a loss as to what to do and the local police department possessing no idea, let alone the local preacher whipping up another moral panic, it is invariably down to the teenagers to find out what is going on, where the victims have disappeared to, and who or what is responsible. With the DARK PLACES & DEMOGORGONS Cryptid Manual, the who or what responsible is drawn from the pseudoscience of cryptozoology. Creatures like Bigfoot, The Mothman, The Jersey Devil, The Pope Lick Monster, Chupacabra, Gremlins, and Lake Monsters, and more. Initially, this gives the DARK PLACES & DEMOGORGONS Cryptid Manual a distinctly North American focus with Cryptids native to Canada, Mexico, and the USA, but there are numerous creatures included too from around the world. On the plus side, this means that the players and their students are going to be challenged by something they will probably never have heard of and not know how to deal with, but on the downside, the Game Master will need to be creative in how she brings such creatures into the campaign.

The DARK PLACES & DEMOGORGONS Cryptid Manual is published by Bloat Games, and is supposedly a secret printing of a file taken from an evidence locker at Quantico. These are the Hope Excerpts, the collected notes and reports of an explorer, Joel Harrison Hope, who long searched for an ancient artefact known as the Staff of Bel, which had been used Sumerian priests to defeat monsters. Over time, heroes and priests from across the ancient world used the staff before it ended up in Rome and was broken and its pieces scattered during by a barbarian invasion. Fortunately, Hope was able to locate the staff and find notes and details of other ‘monsters’ and other artefacts. However, the Staff of Bel is not detailed in the supplement and Hope’s notes play little further role either, and for as potentially as an interesting set-up as that is, it is disappointing not to see this followed through.

The DARK PLACES & DEMOGORGONS Cryptid Manual contains some fifty or so different monsters that come from North America, Mexico, Africa, Europe, Asia, and Australia. They include seven types of the Bigfoot, with the Almasti being the Russian equivalent to the North American beast and the Yeren the Chinese, whilst the Grassman Bigfoot is the Ohio version, the Skunk Ape, the swamp dwelling from the South, the Yowie the Australian version, and the Sasquatch, the most well-known version from the Pacific Northwest, and the Yeti, the Asian version. The often-connected Wendigo is alongside as a spirit monster, whilst the Sheepsquatch is a newcomer to the fold, essentially a seven-foot tall ruminant known for its aggressive love of meth and other drugs, and rumoured to have been seen fighting the Mothman, which deserves a all of its very own. Similarly, there are five versions of the Extra-terrestrial, including ranging from the little-known Flatwoods Monster to the Greys and Little Green Men via the Nordic and Reptilian types. A campaign could easily mix these up for the students to get involved in the secret war between the Nordic and the Grey and the Reptilian Extra-terrestrials.

From Mexico and the America Southwest, there is the Chupacabra, and from the legends of the North Americans natives come the Mishipeshu and the Thunderbird. The African creatures include the Grootslang, a giant snake with the head of an elephant known to be wise and crafty, which resides in deep caverns, whilst the Mokele-Mbembe is a giant dinosaur occasionally spotted in the deepest jungles. The Bunyip is the only Australian entry. From Europe, the DARK PLACES & DEMOGORGONS Cryptid Manual includes the Dobhar-Chu—the Irish Otter King—which protect rivers and streams from pollution and overuse, and are considered lucky to see, and the Kelpie from Scottish myth, as well as a more generic fairy. The Shuck comes from English folklore and is a good stand in for any black dog, whilst Greek myth is the source of both Cerberus and Medusa. There are silly creatures too, such as the Crocoduck, which has the body of a duck and the head of a crocodile, and a penchant for bananas. Thankfully they are duck-sized, but do hunt in packs.

Each entry in the DARK PLACES & DEMOGORGONS Cryptid Manual is a given a one or two-page spread, with clear and easy to read stats and explanations of its powers. It is also accompanied by a heavy, black and white illustration, some of which are quite creepy, such as the Black-eyed Children and the Reptilian Extra-terrestrial, the latter a nice nod to the V television series. Notably, quite a lot of effort has gone into making the various types of Extra-terrestrial different from each other, though this is not necessarily the case with the Sasquatch. In places the descriptions of the creatures do feel underwritten, consisting of descriptions of their habits and physiologies, but the accompanying eyewitness statements, like that of the county dog catcher who thought a Psi-Rat might have been a dog or the drug addict and meth manufacturer who threatened the Sheepsquatch with the double-barreled shotgun add some decent flavour and detail.

Rounding out the DARK PLACES & DEMOGORGONS Cryptid Manual is set of templates which can be applied to any of the entries in the book. These include Dire, rabid, radioactive, vampiric, and zombie, plus options to enhance or weaken them. Along with the rules for morale, and explanations of both game terms and updated game terms, there is a lot of flexibility built into the supplement, allowing the Game Master to modify and adjust the various cryptids with little difficulty.

If there is a downside to the DARK PLACES & DEMOGORGONS Cryptid Manual, it is that its various monsters and creatures could have benefited from more background and detailing of their origins, as otherwise, it leaves the Game Master with a fair bit of research and investigation to do of her own. Nevertheless, there are nice little details of each to be found, especially in each entry’s flavour text. The DARK PLACES & DEMOGORGONS Cryptid Manual pleasingly brings the strange and the weird and the modern into the small-town life of DARK PLACES & DEMOGORGONS, as well as the Old School Renaissance itself, with a varied and interesting collection of cryptozoological critters.

As well as contributing to Free RPG Day every year Goodman Games also has its own ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day’, which sadly, is a very North American event. The day is notable not only for the events and the range of adventures being played for Goodman Games’ roleplaying games, but also for the scenarios it releases specifically to be played on the day. For ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day 2022’, which took place on Saturday, July 16th, 2022, the publisher released not one, not two, but three booklets. Two of these were specifically for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game—the supplement, Dungeon Crawl Classics Day: The Book of Fallen Gods, and the scenario, Dungeon Crawl Classics Day #3: Chanters in the Dark. The third, DCC Day 2022 Adventure Pack, is a duology of scenarios for both the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic. Both scenarios are designed for Player Characters of Second Level, both are nicely detailed, and both can be played in a single session, but neither should take no longer than two sessions to complete.
Dungeon Crawl Classics Day: The Book of Fallen Gods is different to what you would normally expect Goodman Games to release for either Free RPG Day or ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day’. Instead of a scenario, it is a sourcebook for the roleplaying game, one presents a set of new Patrons. In the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, these are typically gods and deities and entities that the spellcasting Classes such as the Cleric, the Wizard, and the Elf can turn to in order for greater power and surety. In the case of the Cleric, this is typically a god who in return for the Cleric’s worship and proselytising their shared faith, grants him spells and blessings, but will punish the Cleric if he sins against the strictures of the faith. Wizards can turn to greater powers and invoke their aid to gain potent, but dangerous magic, whilst Elves must work closely with an extra planar patron to do so. Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game includes numerous gods, deities, and entities that Clerics, Elves, and Wizards can entreat and invoke. Dungeon Crawl Classics Day: The Book of Fallen Gods introduces entities that are and are not gods.
For those that know where to look, there are the legends of the Ones Who Were. They were the gods who arose when the multiverse was new and shaped it according to their whims, their time one of turbulence and turmoil, upheaval and unrest, of chaos and change unfettered. It took newly arisen gods to reign in this unbalance and as the new gods rose in power, they built empyral structures and projections that reigned in the reach of chaos and with it the power of the Ones Who Were. So they were diminished and they fell and they were forgotten. Yet they are not gone, merely reduced to the status of beggars, divine down-and-outs, stripped of their power and priestly hierarchies, but nevertheless remaining the personifications of endless certainties… For those in the know, these Un-Gods can be reached out to, invoked, and called upon for the aid of what cosmic power they still possess.
What Dungeon Crawl Classics Day: The Book of Fallen Gods presents is seven of these Un-Gods, representing everything from the eternal night and the power behind the throne to celestial Radiance and inspiration and devastation. Each the seven Un-God descriptions includes an invoke patron table, a patron taint table, and a spellburn table. What the descriptions do not include any patron spells, primarily due to size constraints, but there is the possibility that they will be included in future supplements. On the one hand, this perfectly reflects the status and lack of power and influence held by each of the Un-Gods, but on the other, it limits the usefulness of the supplement. Without the patron spells, the Judge is limited in how she can create interesting NPCs linked to the Un-Gods or present Player Characters seeking the aid of the Un-Gods with interesting rewards. Yet it also leaves room for the Judge to create her own and perhaps build a story around discovering what they are.
Should a Player Character (or NPC) manage to forge a patron bond with one of the Un-Gods, there is another way in which he can benefit. If his player possesses the dice set associated with the Un-God—available from Impact Miniatures—then the Player Character can call upon the Un-God and in doing so, grant the player a bump in die size for the action. Should the player roll a one, the Player Character immediately gains patron taint. One reason why the Un-Gods lack priests is that they have long been unconcerned with the trivialities of the mortal realms, are the doings of Player Characters are nothing if not trivial. Fortunately, these are not expensive dice sets, but it is very specific means of getting this bonus.
Dungeon Crawl Classics Day: The Book of Fallen Gods opens with Chaar, Titan of Eternal Night, confined to his throne at the centre of everything, he is the manifestation of the inevitable exhaustion and decay of all things. When invoked, he can cause eternal night to envelop the Player Character and all around him, or even cause his hand to become an entropic conduit, increasing his melee damage, especially against Lawful creatures. His Patron Taint might cause the Player Character to age or cause everything in his hand to decay to dust, whilst the Spellburn has similar effects. All of the Un-Gods are like this, so the Ianthinian is the silver-tongued voice that negotiates treaties and the knife at the throat that launches coups, the power behind a billion thrones, who can animate the Player Character’s shadow to slip under doors and spy on others or dispatches a venomous, purple spider to attack a single target nearby. His Patron Taint might leave the Player Character with an unnatural and unsettling aura, which can affect his Personality or punish him by stealing his voice, whilst the effects of his Spellburn can steal Player Character’s memories or remind him that he is worth no more than the creatures that skulk and creep in the shadows, so dozens of spiders, centipedes, crawlers, and other creepy insects burst forth from the caster’s orifices in traumatic and painful fashion.
All seven Un-Gods are described in similar fashion. The others include Ivyeel the Entwining is the vibrant force of growth unchecked, Olathvee personifies passions unchecked, The Sallow Blight manipulates emotions into negative ones, Shayl, the Celestial Radiance is the potential of the righteous and the possibility of redemption for the wicked, and Tuanna and Djahlbak are the sundered remnants of lost Un-God now representative of Inspiration and Devastation. All seven are given four pages each and accompanied by a lot of artwork, a lot more than often appears in the scenarios for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. So physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics Day: The Book of Fallen Gods is very nicely presented.
The lack of Patron Spells aside, Dungeon Crawl Classics Day: The Book of Fallen Gods is an entertaining collection of entities and effects that the Player Characters can both benefit and suffer from in interacting with them. Hopefully, Goodman Games will develop further in the future and perhaps use them in a campaign or a scenario or two. In the meantime, the Judge can use and develop them as suits her campaign.

The last time there was a board game based on the 1986 film, Top Gun, it was Top Gun: The Game of Modern Fighter Combat, published by FASA, also in 1986. It was a game of aerial combat which took the players from Pensacola: Flight School to Miramar: Top Gun School and pitched them into simulated battles between the fighters from the USA, the USSR, and other world powers of the late Cold war period. It even included rules for incorporating the game into FASA’s BattleTech universe and allowed players to field atmospheric fighters against aerospace fighters, although the technologies between the two differ greatly. The Top Gun Strategy Game is the second board game based on the 1986 film and it is a very different beast.
The Top Gun Strategy Game is designed by Prospero Hall, the collaborative game design studio responsible for games such as Horrified and Jaws. Both of which are fantastically thematic designs and highly playable adaptations of their source material. Published by Mixlore, the Top Gun Strategy Game is designed to be played two to four players, aged ten and up. It draws directly upon the film itself, but does not send the players into direct combat—only mock combat—and employs the same two-stage game play as seen in Jaws. The players take the roles of Team Maverick/Goose and Team Iceman/Slider, pilot and WSO or Weapons System Operator, respectively. In the first half of the game, the ‘Volleyball Phase’, the two teams face off against each other on the volleyball court. The team that beats the other gains self-confidence or intimidates the team, which grants them an advantage in the ‘Hop Phase’ when the two teams engage in an aerial dogfight in an attempt to acquire valuable target lock on their opponent and so secure a swift victory. The game play will switch back and forth between the ‘Volleyball Phase’ and the ‘Hop Phase’ until one team scores sufficient points to win.
The components for the ‘Volleyball Phase’ consist of nineteen Volleyball cards, a Volleyball token, and a Volleyball Net, the latter two items in thick card. The Volleyball cards are divided into two identical sets, the same for each team, a pink set for Maverick and Goose, and a blue set for Iceman and Slider. Each set is laid out face down as a three-by-three grid on each side of the Volleyball Net and consists of five card types. When revealed, the Set card and the Bump cards allow the player with control of the ball to move it orthogonally to another card and reveal it. This can be one of his own cards or his rival’s across the net. The Set card allows the ball to be moved one space and the Bump card one or two spaces. The Spike card enables the controlling player to place the ball on one of his opponent’s cards which is still face down. The aim for each team is to find and reveal its opponent’s Whiff cards. When this happens, the team who reveals this, can draw Pilot Tiles or WSO Cards which will provide an advantage in the ‘Hop Phase’. Each team has three Whiff cards and once a team has revealed all three of its opposing team, it wins the volleyball match. The winning team decides who will play as the Attacker and the Defender in the ‘Hop Phase’.
In addition, there is a fifth card type, the Bump Save card. Each team can use it once to prevent a face-down card from being revealed. It is instead used as a Bump. Overall, the ‘Volleyball Phase’ plays quickly and easily, and has the feel of a volleyball game.
The components for the ‘Hop Phase’ are more complex. Each team has a Cockpit Shield, a set of Pilot Tiles and WSO cards, and a plane. In addition, there is a Hop Board, six Hop Scenario cards, a set of Waypoint Tokens, Target Lock Tokens, green Pilot Tiles, green WSO cards, and a set of four dice. The Cockpit Shields are used to keep each Team’s decision hidden, whilst the Pilot Tiles are used to determine a plane’s movement. Each Pilot Tile consists of two joined hexes, one indicating the plane’s starting position and finishing position and direction, as a potential change of elevation. Each plane slots into a stand on which its elevation can be adjusted to one of four positions. Each WSO card shows a hex grid at the centre of which is marked a plane. In front of it are several numbered ‘Target lock Attack Hexes’, whilst behind it are several ‘Countermeasure Defence Hexes’, again numbered. Each WSO card in a team’s hand can only be played once unless the Retrieve card is played, which returns all played cards to a team’s hand, but prevents them from attacking or defending that turn. The Hop Board shows a seven by eight grid of hexes of the skies near TOPGUN, the Naval Fighter Weapons School at Naval Air Station Miramar. The Waypoint Tokens are placed on the Hop Board on spaces marked on the Hop Scenario cards. These are double-sided and as well as hexes indicating where the Waypoint Tokens are placed, each Hop Scenario card gives the starting position and elevation for each plane. The four dice are marked with blanks and Target Lock icons and are rolled when attempting a target lock. The green WSO cards and the green Pilot Tiles show different ‘Target lock Attack Hexes’ and ‘Countermeasure Defence Hexes’ and manoeuvres to the standard ones which each team starts play with.
To play, a Hop Scenario card is selected, and the Hop Board set according to its layout. Each team chooses two Pilot Tiles and a WSO card. The Pilot Tiles are played, the defending team moving first, followed by the attacking team. This will result in a change of position and potentially, elevation. The WSO cards are revealed and if a defending plane falls within the ‘Target lock Attack Hexes’ marked on the WSO card, the attacking team rolls a number of dice equal to the number on hex that the targeted plane is in. The number of dice can be reduced if the attacking plane is in the ‘Countermeasure Defence Hexes’ marked on the defending team’s WSO card. Being at a higher elevation will grant an extra die, or lose a die if at a lower elevation. If a Target Lock symbol on any of the dice is rolled, Target Lock is achieved, and the attacking receives a Target Lock token.
Play continues like this from turn to turn until one team achieves a Target Lock, the defending team has collected three of the Waypoint tokens, or either team manages to achieve the ‘Flipping the Bird’ manoeuvre as per the film. Once achieved, the ‘Hop Phase’ is over. At this point, if a team has scored a total of twelve or more points from achieving Target Locks and/or collecting Waypoint Tokens, it has won the game. If not, play switches back to the ‘Volleyball Phase’, then to the ‘Hop Phase’, and so on until one team wins.
Physically, the Top Gun Strategy Game reflects it low price. The cards are a bit thin and do need to be sleeved if the game is be played more than a few times. The Volleyball Net is difficult to set up and to be honest does not add that much to the game anyway. The planes and their stands with their poles for changing elevation are decently produced and although slightly fiddly to use, do add a lot to the game and give it a sense of space. The rules are easy to read and understand. One last issue is the choice of colours. Pink and blue neon. Which do give the game a singular look.
The Top Gun Strategy Game is two games in one. The ‘Volleyball Phase’ is a short, primarily luck-based mini-game whose game play will quickly pale in comparison to the complexities and options in the ‘Hop Phase’. It also does not really work as a game for more than two players as there are not enough decisions to be made in playing it, whereas the ‘Hop Phase’ actually works better with four players rather than two. With two players on each team, one can be the pilot and one the Weapons System Operator, responsible each turn for selecting the Pilot Tiles and WSO card respectively. This forces them to work together as shown in the film as attacker and defender attempt to out manoeuvre each other and line up the Target Lock needed to win each ‘Hop Phase’. The Waypoint Tokens add a tactical element too, as the defending plane races through them to collect them and the attacking plane chases, attempting to stop it from collecting too many whilst the remaining Waypoint Tokens predict where the defending plane might be headed.
The Top Gun Strategy Game is an odd game. An aerial combat game combined with a volleyball game and done in neon colours like the cover to an eighties’ computer game. Nor is it a ‘strategy’ game, but rather one that is tactical and that really only in the dogfights. The ‘Volleyball Phase’ does not add all that much to the play of the ‘Hop Phase’ and actually having to go back, set it up again and replay it soon becomes a chore, especially if there are four players, because it leaves a player on each team with little to really do. It is possible to alternate, but it does not really matter that much in what is a random phase anyway. Thankfully, the ‘Hop Phase’ offers actual decisions and a little deduction to work out the best Pilot Tiles and WSO card to use, and whilst the Hop Scenario cards add some variety in terms of set-up, it is not that much.
Ultimately, the Top Gun Strategy Game is a game for the fan of the film who does not mind playing the odd board game. For the regular board game player, there is not enough depth to the game to really want to replay it more than once or twice and it is certainly too light a game for devotees of aerial combat games. Prospero Hall has designed some excellent games, matching up mechanics with theme to create some excellent emulations of the films they draw from, but the Top Gun Strategy Game is not one of them. The best of the Prospero Hall designs do two things. One is to engage the players in the story of the film or source material, the second is to enable them to play and make that story their own, but the Top Gun Strategy Game only just achieves the first and never manages the second. If you feel the need for speed, then the Top Gun Strategy Game might be all you need, but there are definitely better and more fun air combat games available that do not require you to simulate a game of volleyball.

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

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What is it?The Sunken Dead is a scenario for use with RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.

It is an eleven page, full colour, 4.42 MB PDF.

The layout is tight and it needs an edit. The cover is decent, but the scenario name is lost among the canopy. It is art free.

Where is it set?
The Sunken Dead is nominally set in and near the territory of the Orleving Clan of the Malani Tribe in Sartar. With some light adjustment it can be located to anywhere where the practice of cattle raids is seen as honourable conduct.

Who do you play?
Player Characters of all types could play this scenario, but The Sunken Dead is intended for new players and their characters, as well as the relatively inexperienced Game Master (who may be confused by the use of the Storm Rune rather than the Air Rune).
What do you need?
The Sunken Dead requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and the Glorantha Bestiary. The RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack will useful about the area around the Colymar Tribe and Apple Lane if the Game Master is basing her campaign there.
What do you get?The Sunken Dead is a straightforward and simple scenario. Yantar Raelston, a loyal Thane, of the Colymar tribe, offers to guide the Player Characters on their first cattle raid. He clearly lays out the rules for the benefit of the characters (and their players) and then everyone sets out the next morning. The first half of the scenario consists of a series of skill rolls as the Player Characters attempt to overcome various obstacles their journey. Of course things do not go as planned, and just as the Player Characters is about to snatch up the cattle, both target herd and its shepherds are attacked. Do the Player Characters take advantage of the Chaos—literally—and take the cattle they came out for or do they go to the aid of the herders?

The choice is simple and either way, leads to some decent roleplaying, as does another challenge on the way home from the cattle raid. This challenge can easily be omitted if time is short, otherwise, the scenario offers two good sessions’ worth of play at the most.
The Sunken Dead showcases an element of Heortling culture—cattle raiding—in a short and easy scenario which can be slotted into an ongoing campaign in its early days or perhaps used as a flashback. The details of honourable cattle raiding are a pleasing inclusion.
Is it worth your time?Yes—The Sunken Dead is short filler scenario that pleasingly showcases, ‘How to Conduct a Cattle Raid’, an aspect of Heortling culture and puts it into practice.No—The Sunken Dead is not really useful if cattle raids are not part of the culture where the Game Master’s campaign is set.Maybe—The Sunken Dead is not a sophisticated scenario and may be too action orientated for some groups, although it does have potential if the Game Master wants to turn it around and have her players and their characters defend against a cattle raid.

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

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

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Name: The HeatPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Michał Pietrzak

Setting: Jazz Age KingsportProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Eighteen page, 729.45 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: The family that feuds spreads its love as Kingsport heats up...Plot Hook: Frayed tempers seem strange in a happy family, could it be the heatwave?
Plot Support: Staging advice, three handouts, seven NPCs, one floorplan, two Mythos monsters, three new spells, and one Mythos tome. Production Values: Reasonable.
Pros# One night one-shot# Straightforward investigation# Potential Lovecraft Country campaign starter# Low key, Mythos-infused twist upon Greek myth# Underplayed introduction to the Mythos# Interesting options given for scenario’s end# Sympathetically portrayed villain
Cons# Needs a good edit# Backstory remains hidden, so hides the more subtle horror# Straightforward investigation# Big clue on the front page!# Options given for scenario’s end incomplete
Conclusion# Short, but direct investigative one-shot which could work as a Lovecraft Country campaign starter# Horrifying Mythos-infused twist upon Greek myth that needs development in places, but still works despite that.

Under the guidance and protection of His Imperial Majesty Emperor Karl-Franz I, the Glorious Empire is a bountiful bastion of civilisation and order, together with its faith in the great gods Sigmar and Ulric, a redoubtable fortress against its many enemies and the forces of Chaos that threaten it from without. Great armies of Orcs, Goblins, and worse—Chaos Warriors, Beastmen, Mutants, and Daemons. Yet there are dangers from within too. Bickering nobles, fumbling and feuding for power and influence undermine both defences and resolve of the greatest and most powerful nation in the Old World, pirates who prey on the shipping of the empire’s mighty rivers and bandits who pick at the weary traveller on its network or roads that bisect the deep swathes of forest, and worse. Numerous cults hide in the shadows, some appearing to be no more than excuses for frowned upon frivolity and debauchery, but all too many dedicated to the Ruinous Powers, those dark gods from which the Winds of Magic do blow and threaten to corrupt the unwary and the ambitious, even as they are studied and harnessed by the Colleges of Magic. The practices and beliefs of such cult threaten mind, body, and soul of the members, twisting them, mutating them, and driving them to spread the reach of Chaos until the Witchfinders act, burn them out and put them to the sword, before covering their activities up. Meanwhile, the citizens labour for themselves and their families and pay their taxes to the Empire for protection by day, drink and gamble and gossip as agitators cry out for better life and the overthrow of some noble or other (or even the Emperor himself—what heresy!) if they can by evening, before retiring to behind closed doors by night, fearful of what stalks the forests, what lies in the village over yonder, what curse a witch may lay upon them, and what Beastmen might catch them unwary on the morrow, rip them limb from limb—or worse! Yet there are some who see there is more to life than mere drudgery. They may never be nobles, but they might make coin enough to get by, they might make a difference in driving off monsters and mutants even as the locals look at them in fear and wonderment, and they might just help keep the Empire safe!

This is the Empire and the Old World, the setting for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. The publication of its fourth edition by Cubicle Seven Entertainment is a reminder that once upon a time, Games Workshop published roleplaying games. Chief amongst these was of course Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, which even thirty years on, remains the definitive British roleplaying game. Its mix of fantasy, European history—the Holy Roman Empire in particular, Moorcockian cosmology, humour, grim and perilous feel, disease and damnation, and mud and shit underfoot, very much set it apart from the fantasy found in other roleplaying games of the time—and arguably since. Perhaps the best expression of those elements is not in the roleplaying game itself, but in what is arguably the greatest British roleplaying campaign ever published—The Enemy Within. Subsequently published by Hogshead Publishing, before returning to Games Workshop via Black Industries with a second edition designed by Green Ronin Publishing, and then by Fantasy Flight Games as a third edition which combined the roleplaying with physical elements such as cards and counters usually found in board games and so was not compatible with either the first or the second editions (although it was still playable as a roleplaying game). Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition shares the same setting as the previous editions, but mechanically draws from the first and second editions, remaining a relatively low, percentile driven set of mechanics, designed to do ‘grim and perilous’ roleplaying in a world of mud and blood, Chaos and fear, and desperation and danger. It is a roleplaying game in which minor nobles, dwarf slayers, witch hunters, ex-soldiers, merchants, road wardens, petty wizards, priests to Sigmar and Ulrich, and of course, rat catchers—plus little dog, hold back incursions by the forces of Chaos, run scams, uncover cults and conspiracies, and more, all in the face of intransigence and callousness upon the part of the ruling classes and the churches.

A Player Character in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition has a Species—Human (Reiklander), Halfling, Dwarf, High Elf, or Wood Elf; a Class—Academic, Burgher, Courtier, Peasant, Ranger, Riverfolk, Rogue, or Warrior; and Career, such as Nun, Watchman, Duellist, Hedge Witch, Pedlar, Wrecker, Grave Robber, or Warrior Priest. He has ten attributes—Weapon Skill, Ballistic Skill, Strength, Toughness, Initiative, Agility, Dexterity, Intelligence, Willpower, and Fellowship—expressed as percentages. His Fate and Fortune are linked together as destiny and his luck, and his Resilience is his inner strength and linked to grit through the ‘single word’ Motivation which drives him to act. Skills, both Basic and Advanced, as well as Talents are derived from the character’s Species and Career. Advanced skills are only available to those who have studied or practiced them and require at least one Advance in them to use. An Advance is an improvement of a skill by +1%, and these can be applied to skills and characteristics. Each Class and Career provides trappings and items of equipment. A Player Character also has Ambitions, short term and long. Fulfilling the former will grant an Experience Point bonus, whilst fulfilling the latter might reward an even larger Experience Point reward or even see the Player Character retire! Similarly, the Party of Player Characters will also have its own ambitions.

One notable facet of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is that of Careers and how Player Characters can advance through or even change them, and it is no different in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition. Each Career has four levels, presented on the same page, and when a Player Character wants to change Career, he either moves up to the next level of the Career he is in or a completely new one. It costs Experience Points to change a Career, more if the Career is in an entirely different Class. All of the Classes, Careers, Species, and so on, are nicely detailed, including the thoughts of the various Species on other Species and options for Species aspects such as ‘Animosity (Elves)’ for the Dwarfs, which let a player decide rather than adhere to a stereotype.

Character creation in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition—apart from attributes, which are all random—can be random or chosen by the player. If the former, extra Experience Points are awarded to the Player Character, for each stage the player decides to roll and keep the result. The last step process is answering questions about the character’s origins, family life and childhood, why he left home, best friends, greatest desire, and more. This can include adding Psychological Traits like Fear (Snakes), Frenzy, or Hatred (Slavers), primarily for roleplaying opportunities rather than mechanical benefits. The process is not particularly quick, if only because there is a fair amount of information to note down. In general, if rolled, the chances of roll up a non-Human Player Character is slim and certain Careers are unavailable to some Species. For example, the Priest is a Human-only Career, the are no Dwarf or Halfling Wizards, and of course, the Slayer is a Dwarf-only Career.

Sigfreda von Stark is the youngest daughter of House Stark, sister to several older brothers. Where her brothers were taught to fight, she was not allowed to, and her brothers made fun of her. She learned to give as good as she got, and this went from taunting to punches and she gave as good as she got. Forbidden to enlist in the army and despite being married (he avoids her for the black eye she gave him on their wedding night), she applies her muscle and underhand means of applying it to making a living without him or his annoying mother. What she can, she saves for training.

Name: Sigfreda von Stark
Species: Human (Reiklander)
Class: Warrior
Career: Protagonist
Motivation: Greed
Ambition: To beat the snot out of her brothers

Age: 22 Height: 5’ 6”
Eye Colour: Blue Hair Colour: Dark Brown

Weapon Skill 32 Ballistic Skill 33
Strength 38 Toughness 31
Initiative 33 Agility 34
Dexterity 34 Intelligence 35
Willpower 34 Fellowship 27

Wounds: 12
Fate: 3
Resilience: 3
Movement: 4

Skills: Athletics +5, Cool +5, Dodge +5, Endurance +5, Entertain (Taunt) +5, Evaluate +5, Gossip +5, Haggle +5, Intimidate +5, Language (Bretonnian) +3, Language (Wastelander) +3, Lore (Reikland) +3, Melee (Basic) +5, Melee (Brawling) +7
Talents: Acute Sense (Listen), Dirty Fighting, Noble Blood, Savvy, Sixth Sense, Warrior Born
Trappings: Mask, Clothing, Hand Weapon, Dagger, Pouch, Knuckledusters, Leather Jack

Mechanically, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition uses percentile dice. A Simple test is roll against an attribute or skill plus attribute. If the situation requires the Game Master and player to know how well his character did, he rolls a Dramatic Test. This is slightly more complex in that the ‘tens’ value on the dice roll is subtracted from the ‘tens’ value of the skill. This determines the Player Character’s Success Level, which can be positive or negative. The higher it is, the better the outcome, the lower—or more negative—it is, the worse the outcome. Opposed rolls generally compare Success Levels, the Player Character or NPC with more succeeding over the other.

For example, Sigfreda is a hired by a brewery to persuade the landlord of a rough, riverside tavern, Klatt’s Bier Haus, to pay his bills. Her player will roll Sigfreda’s Intimidate plus Strength (42%), which will be opposed by Klatt the landlord’s Cool plus Will Power (32). Sigfreda’s player rolls 23. Subtracting ‘tens’ value of the dice roll, or two, from the ‘tens’ value of the skill value gives two Success Levels. The Game Master rolls 63 for the landlord, which leaves him with minus three Success Levels. Without having to lay a hand on him, Sigfreda has reduced him to a quivering mess, and he quickly apologises, saying that it is not his fault because some local toughs have been taking nearly all takings in protection money. Sigfreda’s player spots an opportunity and asks how much Klatt the landlord would pay to get these toughs off his back…

Melee combat also uses opposed rolls—Weapon Skill versus Weapon Skill if parrying or the Dodge Skill if trying to get out of the way, whereas missile attacks, rolled on Ballistic Skill are Simple Tests. Success Levels not only determine if a Player Character manages to strike his opponent in combat, but also the amount of extra damage inflicted. Damage is determined by a combination of the Success Levels from the attack roll, the weapon, and the Strength Bonus, with armour and the target’s inherent Toughness counting against the incoming damage. If a double is rolled—eleven, twenty-two, thirty-three, and so on—then a critical hit has been made. This can be made when attacking or parrying, and it can even be made when an opponent has rolled more Success Levels than the character’s player. Thus, a character can lose an exchange of blows, but still inflict an effect. In addition, the combat mechanics in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition are designed to have a character build upon success, gaining Advantage when attacking an opponent who is surprised, charging into combat, defeating an important NPC, and so on, gaining a +10 bonus to combat actions each time. This is lost if a Player Character or NPC loses an opposed roll or suffers a wound, but is designed to give a Player Character an edge as he gains momentum in a fight. Both players and Game Master are expected to keep track of Advantage for both the Player Characters and NPCs, the suggestion being that tokens be used where everyone can see them.

Later that morning, the two toughs, Klaus and Karl, call in to take the day’s takings from Klatt’s Bier Haus. As Karl keeps an eye on the door, Sigfreda informs Klaus at the bar that the tavern’s takings are not available and that neither of them is welcome at the establishment. Unfortunately, Sigfreda fails to intimidate him like she did Klatt and Klaus steps in close and asks, “Says who?” “Me—and this mug” she responds and with that she slams the mug of beer into his face. Klaus is no fool and the Game Master gives him a chance of spotting the attack, but fails the Perception Test. Klaus now has the Surprised Condition, which grants Sigfreda a +20% bonus on the Melee (Brawling) Test for her attack. For this one attack, she has a 59% attack chance, opposed by Klaus’ Melee (Brawling) Test of 32%. Sigfreda’s player rolls 22%, which gives her three Success Levels and is a Critical Hit too. The Game Master rolls 98%, which minus six Success Levels! Sigfreda is using an improvised weapon, which means that she inflicts a base of her Strength Bonus (three) plus Success Levels (three) plus weapon base damage (one) plus her one level of Dirty Fighting (one), for a total of eight! In addition, Sigfreda has +1 Advantage.

Normally, the result of the Melee (Brawling) Test would be reversed to determine the location struck, which in this case would be Klaus’ left arm. However, the Critical Hit means it is randomly determined, which is a roll of the 05% and the head! Klaus’ Toughness Bonus of three means the thug suffers five Wounds. Plus, Sigfreda’s player rolls 32% on the Head Critical Wounds table. This means that Klaus suffers two more Wounds, which ignore armour and Toughness, and suffers the Stunned Condition. Until the Game Master can make a successful Endurance Test for Klaus, the thug cannot take an action and is at a penalty to all Tests. In addition, Sigfreda has +1 Advantage. At the end of the round, she is at +2 Advantage. As Klaus wavers, Karl grips his club and rushes towards Sigfreda as she slips her knuckledusters onto her hands.

Combat in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition is designed to have the Player Characters’ fortunes fluctuate back and forth across the battle, as well as encourage their players to be tactical in order to take and maintain Advantage. It covers not simple hand-to-hand melees, but also two-weapon fighting, mounted combat, movement, chases, pulling blows, and more. Damage is not just a case of inflicting as many Wounds as possible, but also Conditions which will be typically inflicted through Critical Wounds. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition has a table for each location, and the results are all brutal. Long time fans of the roleplaying game will be pleased to see the last entry for the Head Critical Wounds table: “Your head is entirely severed from your neck and soars through the air, landing 1d10 feet away in a random direction (see Scatter). Your body collapses, instantly dead.”

However, the Player Characters do have number of factors in their favour. First, they have Fate Points and Fortune Points. Fortune Points grant a Player Character a little luck and allow his player to reroll a failed Test, add a Success Level to a Dramatic Test after it is rolled, and to disregard Initiative order and have the character act when they want. Fate Points are spent to avoid death or completely avoid taking incoming damage. Second, they have Resilience Points and Resolve Points. Resilience Points grant immunity to a Psychological Trait or effect for a round, enable the Player Character to ignore all modifiers from all Critical Wounds for a round, or remove a Condition. Resilience Points are spent to prevent a Player Character from suffering a mutation due to Corruption or to select the result of a Test, which in combat can be right down to location and the Critical Wounds table. These do all give a Player Character an advantage, something to fall back on in an emergency, but mechanically, are four different types of points really necessary? It is cumbersome and difficult to remember what does what. Why not reduce the number of types and increase the costs of what they can do? (Of course, this increases the number of times a player can use the lesser benefit, but this is cumbersome still.)

In addition to suffering horrible, scarring wounds in bar fights, let alone on the battlefield, Player Characters can encounter Lesser Daemons, Mutants, Warpstone, Chaos worshippers and their temples, and worse, let alone suffering despair, all of which can lead to them suffering Corruption and gaining Corruption Points. Corruption and gaining Corruption Points can even be gained for making a ‘Dark Deal’ with the Ruinous Power, the player choosing—and it is always the player’s choice in what is a Faustian Pact—this option when out of Fortune Points and really, really needing to reroll a failed Test. Except for Elves, which are only affected mentally, Corruption twists both body and mind. Corruption Points can be lost in a number of ways. Absolution, but that requires a great deed, such as cleansing a Chaos temple; accepting a Mutation, but has its own dangers, especially if the witchfinders find out; and listening to Dark Whispers. Again, this is the player’s choice, but in return for the Corruption Point, something bad will happen, such as a prisoner being allowed to escape, an ally being accidentally shot, or falling asleep on watch… Which is a delightful narrative mechanic with the Game Master literally leaning over the table and whispering into the player’s ear. Also covered are ailments, diseases, and infections—all of which are as unpleasant as you would expect, but not quite as much fun as the rules for Corruption.

A campaign of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition could entirely focus upon the adventures that the Player Characters have, but the rules do cover what they can do on their downtime as option. A Player Character is subject to random events, but he can simply spend money, train an animal, bank his treasure, consult an expert, craft an object, train, invention something, and more. There are potential endeavours for Species and Classes as well as general ones, but all together, they help the Player Characters’ develop and grow, and explore their lives away from the stresses of adventuring.

Religion and faith play important roles in The Empire and the Old World. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition presents numerous gods and cults in accessible fashion, the primary focus being Sigmar and his associated pantheon. There are lots of little details here that help bring their worship alive, most notably the various strictures for each deity which their most devout or Blessed worshippers follow, and which if violated, will earn them Sin Points. Gain too many and if the worshipper appeals to his god, then he may bring the Wrath of the Gods down upon his head. Careers such as Nun, Priest, and Warrior Priest, provide the Bless Talent enabling such Blessed to enact Blessings, whilst the Invoke Talent lets the Blessed call on their gods for the more powerful miracles. There are only a limited number of Blessings and Miracles per god, and then only for primary gods worshipped in The Empire. In comparison, the Chaos Gods are only given a cursory examination.

Magic is one of the most powerful aspects of the Old World, drawing as it does from the Winds of Magic which can only be seen by those who possess the Second Sight. Only Elves and Humans use magic, but where Elves can harness more than the one of the eight Winds of Magic, Humans rarely can, and often follow such a path to damnation and the influence of the Ruinous Powers. Accepted, but rarely trusted by the populace at large, magic is studied at the Colleges of Magic in Altdorf, the capital of The Empire, as eight different lores—The Lore of Light, The Lore of Metal, The Lore of Life, The Lore of Heavens, The Lore of Shadows, The Lore of Death, The Lore of Fire, and The Lore of Beasts. The Lore of Hedgecraft and the Lore of Witchcraft are also known, but not sanctioned by Colleges of Magic, and both are rarely practiced. Divided into Petty, Arcane, Lore, and Chaos spells, casting requires the Language (Magick) Skill for minor spells and the Channelling skill for major ones. It is possible to Overcast, extending the Range, Area of Effect, Duration, or number of Targets, though this requires a greater number of Success Levels when making the test, but a critical roll, whether a Critical success or a Fumble, the player’s caster has to roll on the miscast tables—the ‘Minor Miscast Table’ for lesser spells and the ‘Major Miscast Table’ for the more powerful spells. For example, ‘Unfasten’ on the former causes all belts, buckles, and laces undo, causing pouches to drop, armour to fall off, and trews fall down, whilst ‘Traitor’s Heart’ on the latter prompts the Dark Gods to entice the caster to commit horrendous perfidy. They will grant him all Fortune Points he has lost should he betray or attack a friend and a gift of one Fate Point if the caster causes a friend to lose a fate Point. Overall, the rules for magic and spell casting, are straightforward and easy to use, and they do cover the both the Lore of Hedgecraft and Lore of Witchcraft, as well as Dark Magic, the latter primarily for the Game Master’s NPCs.

On addition to some decent advice on running the game for the Game Master, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition includes a good guide to Reikland—though not the greater Empire, a timeline of The Empire, an extensive look at goods and crafting in ‘The Consumer’s Guide’, and a bestiary, complete with illustrations and an explanation of the bestial traits. It covers ordinary animals such as bears and boars, green-skinned hordes like Orcs, Goblins, and Snotlings, Daemons, Beastmen, Mutants, and a whole lot more. All good supporting material and all useful to running the roleplaying game, although ‘The Consumer’s Guide’ feels oddly placed so far back in the book. The bestiary is far from complete, but is certainly comprehensive enough for most starting campaigns. The one omission here is the lack of a scenario. Although there are several hooks given in the guide to Reikland, the omission feels even odder given that the last page of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition is an advert for scenario anthology Rough Nights & Hard Nights, which opens with, “Continue Your Adventures With…” which is really difficult to do if the core book does not provide the Game Master and her players that starting adventure to actually continue from!

Physically, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition is very well presented. The layout is clean and tidy, and from the start, the artwork is excellent, and the world of The Empire is very well illustrated throughout. There is initially an idyllic feel to The Empire in its depiction early in the book, shifting to a grimmer and grimier feel later on. Throughout, the writing is good, although it could have benefited from more fulsome examples in places to really to get a feel for the flow of the game.

Long-time fans of this roleplaying game will pick up Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition and feel very much at home with its dingy, dangerous, and sometimes decadent depiction of the Old World and The Empire in particular, combined with often brutal and bruising mechanics. Though not quite as brutal and bruising as perhaps in previous iterations, with Player Characters having to access to Fate Points and Fortune Points, Resilience Points and Resolve Points, and then trying to achieve and maintain control of Advantage in combat. The addition of the four Hero Point types does feel like it is overegging the mechanics’ attempt to keep the Player Characters alive, but the addition of Corruption Points and Sin Points, and their use are entertaining narrative-focused additions. Despite these additions, newer players may find the sometimes-unforgiving mechanics too much and potentially be uncomfortable with the often-intolerant attitudes and politics that are part and parcel of the setting and always have been. Well then, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Editionis not their roleplaying game.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition is fantastic iteration of the classic British roleplaying game, returning grim and perilous roleplaying to where it started in the Old World. There is mud and blood to be trudged though, there is Chaos to be faced, there are cults to be looked into and smashed in disgust, and there are Beastmen to be hacked down, and by Sigmar’s hammer, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition is the right way to do it.

Beyond the great frontier lies the Lost Frontier, dominated by Covett City, a teeming, bloated city of exploited masses and stinking industries, which arises out of the tarry swamps its factories pollute. Melanethon P. Murrsom, sits at the head of the Incorporation which controls this coastal city and whose influence reaches far and wide. Inland across to Sunken Hill where coffins are chained shut before burial and the dead are said to ring their grave bells still even as looters plunder the coffins that rise from the swamp. Across Carcass County where the roots of the ancient bloodgum trees have a taste for flesh. To Slackgaff-by-the-Sea in Stubbshead County, strife riven by an unpaid debt owed to the Incorporation. To frozen Dalliance in the south across the sea, where the Allied Governess rules with a love as cold as the artic wastes beyond the newly reopened silver mines that the Incorporation previously closed and claimed to have been worked out. West to Fort Gullet, an oil city where the gun rules and Marshal Betjemen Knapp and his posse of ne’er-do-wells enforce their law at gunpoint. Beyond to Palace in the Dust Barrens where the Redrum Boys, outlaws all, protect the exiles, homesteaders, bushwhackers, and deserters from Incorporation carpetbaggers, sending them packing after taking all they have on them—plus a pound of flesh—back to Covett city, even as they ensure that the hill around remain lawless. To Sickwater Oasis in the north, where the klepto-meritocratic Outlaw Union recognises only the licences it issues, otherwise killing all lawmen and bounty hunters, and hates any other legalise otherwise to the point of murder. At the edge of the Lost Frontier stretches the Western Expanse, accessible by the hellmouth of Allhallows Canyon, and beyond that lies the Scree Knives, a purgatory of slat flats where only the desperate pioneer and sanctimonious sect finds a home.

This is the setting for Frontier Scum: A Game About WantedOutlaws Making Their Mark on a Lost Frontier. It is inspired by the Acid Westerns, such as Jodorowsky’s El Topo, Jarmusch’s Dead Man, and Zahler’s Bone Tomahawk, which twisted the traditional westerns of the twentieth century and their conservatism with the radical counterculture of the sixties. Instead of codes of honour and morality and the mythic search for justice and a chance to begin again in a land of golden opportunity, the west of the Acid Western is infused with uncertainty and loss, the landscape and its promise of renewal subverted by avarice and ambition. The Lost Frontier of Frontier Scum is not the frontier of the Wild West, nor the frontier of the Weird West—its horrors being mundane and manmade, but a frontier, almost a hallucination of a twisted frontier of its very own. Published by GamesOmnivorous, Frontier Scum is an Old School Renaissance adjacent roleplaying game, inspired mechanically by Mörk Borg, in which the players take the roles of Outlaws. They are criminals and they are guilty. They did the crime they are accused of and are going to be hanged. Perhaps, if they can escape their fate at the end of a noose, then perhaps they can make their mark—pull off the biggest heist, win the biggest pot in a poker game, hit a silver motherlode, or even reap their own brand of justice—on the Lost Frontier.

An Outlaw in Frontier Scum has four stats—Grit, Slick, Wits, and Luck—which range in value from -3 to +3. He also has a pair of traits which make him stand out, a crime which he most definitely did commit and why he is wanted (dead or alive), a background which helps define starting skills and equipment, plus a bonus skill and a bonus item. He also has a canteen of water, a stolen horse, and a gun and some ammunition. Most importantly, he has a hat. This hat will save his life. Probably. So, he should keep it close. Probably wear it. Character creation is entirely randomly, except skills. These are devised by the player, though the event which inspired their selection is randomly determined. 

Windor ‘Grubworm’ Casket
A Charlatan and a Fraud
Outlaw Scum with ‘An Artist’s Soul’ and ‘Plague-Pox Scars’
Who is Wanted Dead or Alive for the Crime of Attempted Fraud

Grit -2 Slick 0 Wits +1 Luck -2
Hit Points: 2

Skills
Sympathetic Begging (lost all his stock)
Bargaining (sold some actual treasure)
Disguise Disease (you caught the Plague-Pox)

Items
Self-Help Bible
Expensive Perfume
Tin of sixteen biscuits

Stolen Mount
Donkey (HP 2, Morale 8, slow, bad at manoeuvring)

Gun
Pocket pistol (d6)

Hat
A stiff bowler, brushed to perfection, with an emergency ten dollar note inside the hat.

Mechanically, Frontier Scum requires a simple roll of a twenty-sided die against a Difficulty Rating, the standard Difficulty Rating being twelve, with the appropriate stat applied as a modifier. The standard rules for Advantage and Disadvantage are used, the former primarily derived from a Outlaw’s skills, and each player has an Ace up his Sleeve, which can be expended to reroll any die result which is not a one or twenty. If a player rolls a natural twenty on an ability check, he has the choice of choosing an additional Ace or a new skill. (This new skill must relate to the situation under which it was rolled, up to a maximum of six skills.) However, if a player rolls a natural one on an ability check, every player loses all of their Aces! In general, Frontier Scum is player-facing, so the players roll the dice, for example, to hit with an attack or to avoid an attack rather than the Game Master rolling an NPC’s attack.

Gun combat is nasty, and shots always hit (except tricky shots which require a roll). Damage dice can explode, so characters can be killed with a single shot or hit with extra shots from fanning a pistol or slamming in more rounds from a repeater rifle! Fortunately, every good character should be wearing a hat. If a player is shot, he can ignore damage by having his hat shot off his head. Which is an entertaining emulation of the genre! Then afterwards, once the fight is over, a player can roll his character’s Luck to retrieve his hat and see if it is still wearable.

An Outlaw can take damage that reduces him to zero Hit Points, necessitating a Death Check. This can result in straight death, but it might leave him dying and losing ability points, but it could also result in the Outlaw gaining ability points! An Outlaw can also suffer one of two Conditions—Drunk and Miserable. Of the two, Drunk is the more entertaining, with the Miserable Condition either due to being skunked, rain-sodden, frostbitten poisoned, exhausted, or some other cause, which prevents the Outlaw from healing when rested until the cause is addressed. When Drunk, an Outlaw swaps two abilities at random and that is always how he reacts when drunk. It is a potentially entertaining effect, and depending on the value of the abilities swapped, could be disadvantageous to the Outlaw or advantageous.

For the Game Master there are numerous tables upon which to roll for inspiration, from ‘Scum on the Trail’ and ‘Scum on the Streets’ to ‘House Loot’, Pocket Loot’, and ‘Tomb Loot’. There is even a ‘Going on a Bender’ table, followed by ‘What Was Won’, ‘What was Lost’, and ‘Who You Owe’ tables for evening’s carousing at the saloon. There are tables of employment opportunities and bounties too, sufficient enough to provide a variety of encounters, set-ups, and developments. Frontier Scum also includes the scenario, ‘Escape the Organ Rail’, which begins with the Outlaws held aboard a black penal train being transported to their execution. Naturally linear in design—after all, the Outlaws have to fight and make their way up the train to the engine to effect an escape, the scenario is presented in car order from the Outlaws’ cells to the engine. Each car is shown in cross section rather than floor plan. The Outlaws begin play shackled together hand and feet, which should challenge the players until they find the right keys. Although Frontier Scum is intended to be a more mundane version of the Old West than the horror of the Weird West, the scenario does involve elements of the weird and horror. If the Outlaws succeed in stopping the train and escaping, there is the chance they get away with some loot, find themselves a patron, or if they want, there is an ‘Epilogue Or How To Spend 10,000 Silver’ table if they scarper.

Physically, Frontier Scum has an immediate presence. It is done as a board book, with a non-glossy, plain matte cover and no spine so that the glue binding is visible. The feeling in the hand is rough and tactile like no other roleplaying game. Inside, the black and white layout is done as a Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalogue and it is incredibly atmospheric, pulling the reader into the setting with tight blocks of black and white, and period style illustrations. The graphic design on Frontier Scum really brings the game to life and adds so much to its atmosphere.

Imagine in 1895 if the paste up artist at Sears, Roebuck and Co., high on absinthe and laudanum, sat down to create a game of the vanishing frontier. Frontier Scum: A Game About Wanted Outlaws Making Their Mark on a Lost Frontier is what you would get, a roleplaying game of the last, dark days of desperate Outlaws surviving on a dream of the frontier turned nightmare, ravaged by avarice and ambition, and the vicissitudes of modernity and misuse.

Mutant Crawl Classics #12: When Manimals Attack is the eleventh release for Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, the spiritual successor to Gamma World published by Goodman Games. Designed for Second Level player characters, what this means is that Mutant Crawl Classics 12: When Manimals Attack is not a Character Funnel, one of the signature features of both the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game and the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game it is mechanically based upon—in which initially, a player is expected to roll up three or four Level Zero characters and have them play through a generally nasty, deadly adventure, which surviving will prove a challenge. Those that do survive receive enough Experience Points to advance to First Level and gain all of the advantages of their Class. In terms of the setting, known as Terra A.D., or ‘Terra After Disaster’, this is a ‘Rite of Passage’ and in Mutants, Manimals, and Plantients, the stress of it will trigger ‘Metagenesis’, their DNA expressing itself and their mutations blossoming forth. By the time the Player Characters in Mutant Crawl Classics #12: When Manimals Attack have reached Second Level, they will have had numerous adventures, should have understanding as to how their mutant powers and how at least some of the various weapons, devices, and artefacts of the Ancients they have found work and can use on their future adventures.
Mutant Crawl Classics #12: When Manimals Attack begins with the Player Characters coming to the rescue of a young Manimal, who has been chased up a tree by some ravenous preyor beasts. They will learn that although she cannot talk very much, her name is ‘Anji’. She is friendly, seems fascinated by the village’s sole pure Strain Human, and despite her Mustelid appearance, claims she comes she is ‘ooman’ and that she comes from the fabled lands of ‘tsoo’. She seems to settle into the Player Characters’ village, but in the middle of the night attackers loom out of the darkness, setting hut after hut alight. In the morning, the tracks are easy to find—with signs of something apelike, something feline, and something unknown—and lead out into the jungle. Barring an encounter or two, the Player Characters are able to follow the tracks back to a large domed structure. On the side can be seen the word, ‘ZUU’.
The scenario assumes that the most likely approach the Player Characters will take is stealth, following Anji’s escape route out of the ‘tsoo’ back to within its confines. There they find themselves not in a building as such but a stretch of open grasslands, the sky a different colour… Once they have dealt with the robots informing visitors that park is a closed and they are trespassing and that any Manimals are in the wrong zone, interacting with the Manimals will reveal the situation. They are trapped in a habitant, ruled over by the Savage One and his brutal guards, but it was the Savage One who made them stronger and better than they were. Finding out further information means breaking out of this one habitant and into the others, and there is some fun to be had seeing the Player Characters exploring some radically different climes than the ones they are used to. It is interesting to see the Player Characters challenged in this. Ultimately, they will be able to determine what is going on at the ‘ZUU’, and either rescue or free the numerous Manimals in its various habitats.
Mutant Crawl Classics #12: When Manimals Attack is a short scenario, emphasising stealth and investigation in preparation for a confrontation with the Savage One and his brutal guards. The strangely bestial creature has plans for more than just the ‘ZUU’, wanting to convert Terrans of all types into the Manimals they were meant to be. He certainly has the means to do so. The scenario is reminiscent of H.G. Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau as well as two Cryptic Alliances from Gamma World—the ‘Zoopremisists’ and ‘The Ranks of the Fit’. They are not the same of course, but there are similarities. The scenario is, though, about confronting and fighting the supremacy of one species type over another in the world of Terra A.D. It should be no surprise that the Savage One is portrayed as a supremacist monster and certainly as a monster by the artist, Kelly Jones, on the front cover of the module.
Physically, Mutant Crawl Classics #12: When Manimals Attack is cleanly and tidily laid out. As you would expect for a book from Goodman Games, the scenario—especially its locations—is highly detailed and is given a decent piece of cartography. However, the Savage One is illustrated not once, but three times if the cover is included, and it is too much. Ideally, an illustration and even a map—after all, it would have had a visitors’ map before the Great Disaster—of the ‘ZUU’ could have been included as handouts, both of them helping to enhance and improve game play.
Mutant Crawl Classics #12: When Manimals Attack is decent scenario which should provide two good sessions worth of play or so. Full of detail, it which presents an interesting confrontation for Manimal Player Characters in particular.

In the year of our lord, 1631, a strange island came to be on the coast of the city of Plymouth, in the fair county of Devon, where none had stood before. From all around it could be seen, far and wide, for a great light shone from atop a lighthouse that stood at very centre of the strangely circular isle. When sailors saw the light, their only thought was to sail their ships until they beach them upon the shores of that very island, and soon there was not one ship at sea for many miles to see. The merchants of the city did rain much in the way of complaints, for the light was clearly a danger to their livelihoods and did raise fair sum with which to reward brave adventurers who would venture to the shores of the aberrant isle and seek out the reason for the beguiling light. This is the set-up for The Obsidian Anti-Pharos, a scenario designed for low Level Player Characters for use with Lamentations ofthe Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay. Published by Lamentations of the Flame Princess, the scenario is primarily a short mini-dungeon that slots easily into the default historical period for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay—that is, the early modern period of the seventeenth century—and equally, is as easy to adapt to the retroclone of the Game Master’s choice. The dungeon though is tough and unforgiving and if the Player Characters are to survive, they are going to need to have a lot of luck on their side.
The Obsidian Ant-Pharos provides the Player Characters with two options for their getting involved. However, whether offered a reward of a thousand silver or being shipwrecked on the shore of the island itself, what the Player Characters discover is a perfectly round island at the centre of which stands the strange tower, fifty foot tall and apparently cut from one piece of black stone. The thickly wooded island itself is divided into two hemispheres by a barricade, each occupied by a different, but antagonistic tribe. In addition to each tribe hating the other, primarily because of the way it worships the occupant of the tower, Khepegoris, each tribe practises cannibalism and will happily eat any sailor washed up on the shore. Which is just the second problem that the Player Characters has to deal with getting onto the island—the first being withstanding the effects of the hypnotic light beams cast by the type of the tower. (Of course, the aim is the scenario to get to and investigate the tower, but players do object to their characters being pulled about so obviously…) Neither tribe, both descended from the Khepegoris’ servants, can agree on what colour the doors to the tower should be either—one side believes it should blue, the other it should be yellow, and wear wooden masks painted accordingly.
The third big problem that the Player Characters will face is getting into the tower. The doors on the outside—the ones which one tribe wants to paint yellow, the other tribe blue—are false and if anyone touches them, they vanish. This is the fourth big problem. The actual entrance is a hatch in the ground that appears at random, so initially, the players are going think that there are multiple hatches across the island. The key to the hatch is also missing (sort of). The Game Master will definitely need to drop some hints as to how the Player Characters might find the clues to getting into the tower. That fourth big problem remains in the meantime, because when a Player Character touches either of the false doors, not only does he vanish, but reappears on a platform in a room, surrounded by water (but which is actually potent acid) with a door by the wall, some forty feet away. This is the tower prison. It is left up to the player’s ingenuity to work out exactly how his character is going to get out of the situation, but the fourth big problem is not the true nature of the problem. Instead, it is the fact that it separates the Player Characters from each other and splits the party. Touching the false doors on the outside of the tower is not the only method the scenario has of splitting the party by dumping one or more in this prison.
As the Player Characters proceed up the tower, they will encounter a maze, a grotto with a bejewelled alligator-shaped automaton, a bed chamber, and more. There is a clue to be found to how to proceed through the maze, but beyond that? The tower has very much been built to dissuade visitors and intruders and so any attempt to move forward upon the part of the Player Characters will be down to guess work as there are no clues whatsoever. For example, the bejewelled alligator-shaped automaton contains two keys, one of which will open the door to the next room. Pull that one out and the Player Character will be fine, but pull the other out and the Player Character loses a limb. There is no way of knowing which is the right key. In effect, The Obsidian Anti-Pharos shares elements of the death-trap dungeon a la S1 The Tomb of Horrors, but with less of a reliance on puzzles. Plus, Khepegoris returns and is really not very happy about anyone having been meddling in his home. How exactly he returns is unlikely to turn out well for at least one Player Character…
Which leaves the fifth and final big problem for the Player Characters—what do they do about Khepegoris if he does return? He need not return, that being down to Player Character invention, but if he does, Khepegoris is very much of a higher Level than they are and they unlikely to pose a real threat to him. He may even reward them for bringing him back to life. If he stays, his research will remain a regular threat to local shipping, so the Player Characters may be back again, this time to kill him—if they can. Ultimately, the best outcome for the Player Characters is not to summon him at all—inadvertently or otherwise, as his presence will radically alter the campaign.
Physically, The Obsidian Anti-Pharos is laid out white on black and has solid artwork and cartography. Unfortunately, the editing is slipshod, and the result is the scenario feels rushed in places.
The Obsidian Anti-Pharos does have its moments—the interaction and roleplaying with either of the two tribes should prove entertaining and watching the players come up means to escape the acid pool prison should prove either inventive or frustrating. Yet the end result is underwhelming, a dissatisfying death-trap dungeon that does not seem to reward the players and their characters for their guesswork and is likely to end in an exercise in frustration for both.

Escape the Dark Sector: The Game of Deep Space Adventure brought the brutality of the Fighting Fantasy solo adventure books of the eighties to both Science Fiction and co-operative game play for up to four players in which their characters begin incarcerated in the detention block of a vast space station and must work together to ensure their escape. Published by Themeborne, with its multiple encounters, traps, aliens, robots, objects, and more as well as a different end of game Boss every time, Escape the Dark Sector offered a high replay value, especially as a game never lasted longer than thirty minutes. Now, like its predecessor, Escape the Dark Castle: The Game of Atmospheric Adventure, the game has not one, but three expansions! Funded via a Kickstarter campaign, each of the three expansions—Escape the Dark Sector – Mission Pack 1: Twisted Tech, Escape the Dark Sector – Mission Pack 2: Mutant Syndrome, and Escape the Dark Sector – Mission Pack 3: Quantum Rift—adds a new Boss, new Chapters, new Items, and more, taking the path of the escapees off in new directions to face new encounters and new dangers. Each expansion can be played on its own with the base game, or mixed and matched to add one, two, or three mission packs that increase the replay value of the core game.
Escape the Dark Sector: The Collector’s Box is no mere pretty box to hold the core game and all three of its expansions, although it is pretty. The large, square, and sturdy box is matte black and has circuitry picked out in UV detailing for quite a subtle effect and a quiet, but imposing presence on your shelf. Inside there is space to hold and organise all of the game’s cards—sleeved or unsleeved—as well as dice, playmats for the escapees, scorepads, pencils, and the various rulebooks. If you are looking for somewhere to hold your copy of Escape the Dark Sector and its three expansions, both to store and organise for play, then Escape the Dark Sector: The Collector’s Box is very much what you need. That is not all though.
In addition to holding everything for the game, Escape the Dark Sector: The Collector’s Box also comes with its own content. These begin with not one, but four new Bosses which could be faced at the end of a game as part of the players’ escape attempt. They include ‘The Changeling’, which can never take two consecutive wounds of the same type so that the escapees need to vary their attack types; ‘The Monolith’, simply inflicts damage by its very presence and cannot be flanked, so there is no teaming up for attacks; ‘Grottle & Snork’ are a pair of murderous aliens who also cannot be flanked, but vary their attack type from round to round; and ‘Madame Chrome’, a cyborg or robot defended by a drone swarm.
The three new Start cards provide new beginning points for the escapees, all three of which have them finding a way out of their cells. For example, having prised their cell doors open, one Start card presents the players with two options. If they take the left door, the players ‘Discard the first Act 1 Chapter Card’ and each draw a ‘Starting Weapon Card’ for each escapee. If they take the right door, the players ‘Add one Act 1 Chapter Card’ to the mission deck and then a ‘Starting Weapon Card’ for each escapee as well as two new Item Cards. This Start Card presents the players with a simple choice—reduce the number of Chapter Cards and thus the difficulty of the escape attempt and get a simple reward, or increase the number of Chapter Cards and thus the difficulty of the escape attempt and get a bigger reward. The most fun involves a scavenger breaking into the escapees’ cell and the players having the choice of fighting it or making a bargain with it. If they defeat it, the escapees gain all of the scavenger’s items, but if they strike a bargain, they gain one item it has previously stolen, and they get to ‘Discard the first Act 1 Chapter Card’. It is delightfully thematic.
The new crew member is K-100, an android escapee. It rolls an entirely different die—a twelve-sided die. One faced is marked with a ‘Triple’, the face being marked with all three traits. This counts as a Double when rolled and a Block in close combat. However, one face of the die is ‘Blank!’ and this is rolled, the android’s neural-net freezes and it is forced to reboot for the next round. This is the player missing a go, but again, it is thematically appropriate.
Escape the Dark Sector: The Collector’s Box adds three new Items or pieces of equipment. The ‘Alien Blaster’ can fire both ballistic ammunition and energy ammunition, the player being able to choose between them. Since it is an ‘Alien Blaster’, sometimes its bio-identification feature will discourage the escapee from using it with its imposter repulsion system, converting an ammo die into damage it inflicts on the wielder! The escapees begin play with the ‘Life Support Module’ in their inventory and can be used be transfer Hit Points between escapees. It is then discarded after use.
The biggest Item in the Escape the Dark Sector: The Collector’s Box is the ‘Demolition Mech’! This has its reference card and Event Card, which is drawn randomly from the Item Deck. Any escapee can pilot it, but cannot carry Items when doing so. The ‘Demolition Mech’ itself is represented by four mech section cards which together form the image of the mech itself. Although the pilot cannot use any Items or mutations (from Escape the Dark Sector – Mission Pack 2: Mutant Syndrome), he can use the mech’s Demo-Cannon in ranged combat or Wrecking Ball in close combat. Both are powerful weapons. In addition, the ‘Demolition Mech’ is armoured, able to take any amount of damage on each of the four locations—represented by its four mech section cards—but only the once. When that happens, the damaged mech section card is turned over and cannot take any further damage. Damage to the torso can destroy the Demo-Cannon or it can hinder the use of the Wrecking Ball. Should all four section cards of the ‘Demolition Mech’ be damaged, it explodes! The pilot is thrown from the wreckage and suffers a lot of damage. The pilot can eject from the ‘Demolition Mech’ before this happens.
The ‘Demolition Mech’ adds a new level to the play of Escape the Dark Sector, literally powering it up. Of course, it has a downside or two. Push its use to far when it takes damage and an escapee can be badly injured, and it also limits what an escapee can carry. Its use is fun though and energises the game when the event card for the ‘Demolition Mech’ is drawn.
Lastly, Escape the Dark Sector: The Collector’s Box comes with a new ‘YOU’. This is in sturdy metal and has a hefty weight to it as it passes from one player to the next, Chapter Card after Chapter Card.
Physically, Escape the Dark Sector: The Collector’s Box is as well produced as the core game. The new Start Card and Boss Cards are large and in general easy to read and understand, whilst the ‘Demolition Mech’ includes its own reference card. Each one is illustrated in Black and White, in a style which echoes that of the Fighting Fantasy series and Warhammer 40K last seen in the nineteen eighties. The box itself is sturdy and capacious.
Escape the Dark Sector: The Collector’s Box is both an entertaining and a practical addition to Escape the Dark Sector. As with the three Mission Packs for Escape the Dark Sector, this box adds more randomness and just a little more flavour to the play of the game, but always balances the advantage that any one card—Crew Member, Chapter Card, Start Card, Boss Card, and even the ‘Demolition Mech’ cards—with potential disadvantages too. The Escape the Dark Sector: The Collector’s Box provides more choice and more randomness and more Sci-Fi theme, as well as more storage space, nicely rounding (or squaring off) out the game with its own big box.

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another DM and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.
Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will be compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. A more recent retroclone of choice to support has been Mörk Borg.
Published in November, 2020, Strange Citizens of the City is one of three similar fanzines released by Philip Reed Games as a result of the Strange Citizens of the City Kickstarter campaign, the others being Strange Inhabitants of the Forest and Strange Visitors to the City. It follows on from the publisher’s Delayed Blast Gamemaster fanzine, by presenting a set of tables upon which the Game Master can roll and bring in elements to her game. Whilst Delayed Blast Gamemaster detailed monsters, environments, and more, with a cover which reads, “Roll 2d6 and say hello to Evil”, Strange Citizens of the City is all about the encounter and all about encounters with evil.
Strange Citizens of the City follows the format of Strange Inhabitants of the Forest, consisting of four tables—or rather sets of entries—which populate and add detail to a large location, in this case, a nameless city. The issue opens with the eponymous ‘Strange Citizens of the City’ which presents a table of villains or villain-like NPCs to be encountered in the forest. Each is given their own two-page spread, with a large illustration, a full page of text providing background, and of course, notes and stats. The notes typically suggest how much money the Player Characters might make from their loot or handing in proof of their deaths, though not always. They include Günter Buckler, Back-Alley Merchant, a dealer in all manner of goods who never steps out of the shadows, but who has no premises and no inventory, but can always get what you want—in a few days. The strange, twisted man is a wanted, known criminal, but sometimes demand exceeds what he can deal with his own and then he employs others to obtain items for him, which of course, could be the Player Characters. As to the thing that rides his back, it is best not to ask… Dinko and Bruno, Disciples of Skullheart, are unholy twins swathed in heavy robes and wearing strange masks, dedicated to a dead god. These zealots have acquired a small following, but want to establish a temple to Skullheart and so revive him. What happens when they do, remains to be seen, but for the moment, the city authorities regard them as no more than charlatans. Roland Repnik, Priest and Inventor, is held in high regard, hypnotically preaching against the evil which he claims pervades the city, but which he himself promulgates and helps bring about the End of Days… In secret, he conducts ghastly secrets in body manipulation. One of the victims of these experiments is Iapio Eskola, Reconstructed Warrior, a shattered survivor of a great battle whose armless and legless torso Repnik bonded to an infernally-fired, multi-legged, body that gives him the centaur form. Although the priest wanted Iapio Eskola as his bodyguard, the warrior fled, driven by his anger and desire to be free, and now works in the city as guard and enforcer despite being shunned and reviled for his appearance. Repnik wants him back and has commanded his followers to leave alone, but fears that Iapio Eskola will have his vengeance one day…
‘Strange Citizens of the City’ takes up over half of Strange Citizens of the City. It presents a collection of monsters and the monstrous, many of them evil in nature, and if not that, evil looking. They are invariably challenging opponents should the Player Characters go after then for their bounty. One difference between Strange Citizens of the City and Strange Inhabitants of the Forest, is that all of the NPCs described in this table—and elsewhere in the fanzine—do all feel as if they would fit in the one city. A dark twisted city where arcanotech, a mixture of magic and technology is available.
‘Strange Citizens of the City’ is followed by a shorter table, ‘Hired Goons’. This is a small collection of hirelings, simply detailed and each with a special trait, such as ‘Cowardly’ or ‘Intimidating’. Some are beneficial, such as ‘Calculating Leader’ for Arnold Jespersen, whose ability to command and direct grants combatants a small bonus to damage in a fight. Most are negative. For example, Sis Ermengol suffers from ‘Overwhelming Greed’ and will even change sides in a fight if offered enough coin (his description suggesting a perception check be made, even in battle, to notice this, and potentially take advantage of it), whilst the very presence of the ‘Spell-Touched’ Samuel Paasio will erase any scroll he comes near. This is an entertaining selection of minor NPCs which should add extra detail and flavour to any party expedition or task.
Similarly, the entries on the ‘(Possibly) Harmless Wanderers’ will also add colour and detail to a game, but this time on the streets of the city. None come with stats as they are there for flavour rather than anything else. They include Niene Meirer, the old and wrinkled pie seller, whose wares contain whatever meat she is able to find that day—including rat! The resulting pie might be tasty, but not the resulting stomach upset. Others range from a skilled puppeteer who performs unsettling shows using puppets carved from sewage-soaked wood to a pickpocket who specialises in rolling drunks and who might have something interesting to sell the next day. The selection is accompanied by an extra table of rumours.

Lastly, ‘Places in the City’ describes various locations. These include ‘Harbold’s Raceway’, a crumbling arena where the city watch once trained, but is now a drinking and gambling den where races of all sorts are held, on all manner of beasts and mounts, including fan-favourite, Uudo Kuusk and his six-legged biomechanical undead creature built by Roland Repnik. At ‘Yesterday’s Lost Wares’, the wooden golems will push to make a deal over any and all of the goods on sale in this two-storey pawnshop, whilst ‘The Statue of the Defeated Dragon’, a piece of public art considered so wasteful that both the artist and the city official who commissioned were cornered and murdered, has become a meeting for thieves, though in certain light, the statue is so life-like that the unwary might believe it to be an actual red dragon!
Physically, Strange Citizens of the City is very nicely presented. Although it makes strong use of colour, it uses a softer palette than Mörk Borg, so is easier on the eye. The artwork throughout is excellent.
Strange Citizens of the City is a set in some strange city where twisted men and women and other things lurk in the side streets, where great evil hides behind populism, and arcanotech is put to dark uses. Although intended for use with Mörk Borg—and it shares the same doom-laden sensibility—the contents of the fanzine would work with any retroclone or be easily adapted to the roleplaying game of the Game Master’s choice. However, they do all feel as if they live in the same city, a city waiting to be detailed. Perhaps a city that Philip Reed Games could detail in a future fanzine? In the meantime, Strange Citizens of the City is an entertaining and useful collection of NPCs for the Grimdark roleplaying game of the Game Master’s choice.

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another DM and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. Another choice is the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game.
One of Us #1 is a post-apocalyptic fanzine for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. Published by Starry Wisdom Press in January, 2021, it casts the Player Characters as drifters, grifters, ne’er-do-wells, and desperate cast asunder following the Big Mistake, a war of some kind that was perhaps a decade or two ago. This places it roughly in the desperate, dirty decade of the thirties or even ‘Golden Era’ of the fifties. The Player Characters are specifically carnies, members of a travelling carnival, indentured to the mysterious being known as The Madame. In exchange for wondrous powers and “a more perfect self,” The Madame calls upon the carnies to procure for her, magnificent artifacts, as the carnival crisscrosses the dusty and dangerous remains of a once robust and proud land. Their efforts and their presence do not go unnoticed—cannibal hobos, shadowy cults, and uncouth hecklers will do everything in their power to prevent your caravan from carrying out its mission.
One of Us #1 is primarily about the Classes and Races of the setting—all of which come from the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. This includes the Dwarves, Elves, and Halflings. The fanzine opens with ‘OCCUPTATIONS Now Hiring!’, a table of Occupations suitable for backgrounds and of course, Zero Level characters, all of them for a modern set period. All Classes can use two Signature Weapons from First Level. These are two weapons a Player Character or NPC can use without a penalty, whereas other weapons suffer a step down in die type as a penalty. The first of the Classes is the Strong-Person, which uses ‘Table G: Giants’ for critical hits, ‘Titan’s Might’ means a thirty-sided die is used for Strength checks, Strength of Will grants a Might Die used for all attacks and Strength checks, and Hidden Reserves allows Personality to be temporarily expended to gain an additional Might Die. The second Class, the Acrobat can ‘Roll with the Punches’ and has a better base Armour Class, Cat’s Grace which means the Acrobat can avoid damage too, and as a ‘Land Sailor’, is fast on land and in the air due to climbing, flipping, and leaping over obstacles. The Acrobat is also Ambidextrous and has a ‘Tumbling Die’ which is used for acrobatics and Mighty Deeds for ranged attacks. The Natural Wonder is the third Class and is one of ‘The Madame’s Perfect Children’ and so has Luck like a Halfling, has mutations due to ‘Atomic Singularities’, but due to ‘Mother’s Milk’, is fortified against radiation. An accompanying table provides the mutations.
The three Classes—Strong-Person, Acrobat, or Natural Wonder are all obvious in their inspiration, being archetypal Carnival types, and all well done in their design. Other Classes from both the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game and the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game can be imported with little changes, but the Wizard becomes the Mystic, the Cleric the Revivalist, and the Elf, Dwarf, and Halfling The Stranger From A Strange Land. Backed up with a short selection of equipment, these are thematically interesting Classes which should also be fun to play.
Quite what The Madame is never defined in One of Us #1. She could be a demon, the devil herself, a god, or she something in between. She does serve as a Patron for the Player Characters and so can be invoked and there is the danger of suffering Patron Taint. What she wants is trinkets and gewgaws which together will free her from the bondage which confines her to her magical caravan. And this really is the extent of the setting notes and background given in One of Us #1, and that really is the big issue with the fanzine. It is full of brilliant content that suggests possibilities of a type and style of game or campaign, but does not explore either or suggest scenario ideas. Or indeed, give a Character Funnel or scenario, either of which would have shown the Judge what the designers intended. Hopefully that will be provided in the pages of One of Us #2.
Rounding out One of Us #1 is a half dozen monsters particular to the Dust Bowl. These include the Rag Creep, a thing wrapped in rags soaked in grain alcohol, psychedelic desert flower, and camphor to sooth their radiation-burned skin; the Witherer, the spirit of an old woman who haunts water sources who begs others to help her find her lost children and then feeds on their goodwill and hope; and the Dust Preacher, a preacher in his former life not only failed to protect his flock, but made demands of them in return for his protection. Now it demands a tithe of its own Hit Points to gain one-shot actions such as second attack or a static lightning blast! All six monsters are nicely detailed and fit the setting.
Physically, One of Us #1 is well presented with excellent artwork. One of Us #1 is a superb little read, combining elements of horror and the fantastic against a backdrop of broken Americana. One of Us #1 is incomplete though, and more background and some scenarios and scenario hooks would be very, very welcome.

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another DM and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.
Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will be compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. A more recent retroclone of choice to support has been Old School Essentials.
The Planar Compass series takes Dungeons & Dragons and the Old School Renaissance on a journey that out where it rarely goes—onto the Astral Realm and out between the planes. Of course, the option for travel in this liminal space has always been there in Dungeons & Dragons, most notably from Manual of the Planes all the way up to Spelljammer: Adventures in Space and the Planescape Campaign Setting. Whilst those supplements were for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Second Edition, the Planar Compass series is written for use with Old School Essentials, and it not only introduces the Astral Realm, but adds new Classes and rules for one very contentious aspect of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons—psionics! Planar Compass #1 introduced both the setting of the Astral Realm, presented Dreamhaven, a first calling point for the Player Characters to visit and explore, and provided details of several new Races found across the Astral Realm as well as the rules for psionics. Which turned to be easy to use and did not break the game. Planar Compass #2 takes the Player Characters further out onto the Astral Realms, or rather prevents everything that the Referee will need to take her campaign further out into the Astral Realms.

Planar Compass #2 was published in November 2021. Following on from Planar Compass #1, it promises strange sights, ever changing environmental dangers, and monsters the likes of which the Player Characters will never seen. Opening with a quick table listing all of the planes and explaining that the contents of issue are designed for mid-level play, Fourth Level and higher, and what titles are required to use it contents. It notes that the waters of the Astral Realms are the thoughts, hopes and dreams, and nightmares of all sentient beings of the multiverse, physical matter alien to it and are always either an intrusion or a traveller. Such waters are endless and there are many places that a good crew with a solid ship will be able to sail far and away to strange places—if both survive the dangers of the Astral Plane, many of which are intrusions and breakthroughs from other planes.
The dangers begin with the monsters—oddly placed before the sections on astral ships, astral sailing, and so on. These are all native to the Astral Realm and include Bubonic Barnacles which feeds on the wood ships and can grow into humanoid forms or algae blooms; the Astral Amphiptere, a semi-translucent dragon which dwells in island caves, and whose can cause planar tears which it can escape through or even others to use; Psychic Dugong, capable of telepathy, whose Psionic Milk restores psionic energy; and the Kear Imago. This last is a much-feared astral predator which scoops up ships and feeds on the psionic energy of their crews, leaving them husks ready for their larvae to occupy and grow in… A table of ‘Pirate Encounters’ is ready for the Referee to flesh out.
The rules for Astral Ships use the rules for water vehicles found in Old School Essentials, but adds five classes of Saving Throw similar to those for Player Characters and monsters. These are Storm, Collison, Fire, Water, and Plane Shift. These are rolled when a ship is subject to wind and gale forces, strikes an object or is struck by an object, is subject to flames or extreme heat, is subject to facing huge waves and torrential rains, and when transitioning between planes or suffering planar stress respectively. Two pieces of artillery are given to outfit ships on the Astral Plane—ballista and the Onauki fire thrower. Stats are given for ten types of astral ship, which include pirate ships and trading ships and warships, more or less what a Referee will need to run an Astral Sea campaign. They range from the Aldhelsi Drakkar and the Aldhelsi Knarr to the Tortuga and the Psionic Ship! Some of these, like the Human Catamaran, lie within the scope of a group of Player Characters purchasing the, rather than travelling on ships belonging to others. There are pirate ships and trading ships and warships
A handful of magical items are detailed too. The nastiest is the Sword of Astral Tether Cutting, a cruel, thin blade made from the remains of a meteor which can cut the tether between the physical and Astral bodies of the target, killing them instantly! The most interesting is the Sand from the Shores of Dreams, which can be sprinkled on someone so that the next time he sleeps, everyone nearby experiences his dreams. This presents interesting story possibilities, potentially another realm to explore and more.
The rules for astral sailing uses what it calls a ‘hex-flower’ or rosette to determine prevailing conditions around an astral ship, the direction of nearby encounters, and the direction of movement. Effectively, it sits under the astral ship as it sails from one hex to the next. Each turn of movement is handled through the same sequence of play in which the players roll for navigation, weather, and nearby planes, which the Referee uses to determine hazards and create encounters, and rolls to see if a Kear Imago has detected the vessel. The Referee and her players work together to describe the region the ship is sailing through.
Notably, the direction of movement is randomly determined, though the Onauk and Astral Sailors—both detailed in Planar Compass #1—have the ability to nudge the roll so that it is in the right direction. If the Kear Imago detects the ship, then the leviathan-sized creature will come hunting for it. Options for the encounters, weather, and planes near and far, are detailed separately along with a lovely set of hexes illustrated with icons that the Referee is going to want to be able to pull out and slip under the appropriate hex on the hex-flower. Large and small icons are used to represent everything from sighted vessel or signs of land, instruction of a plane, and more, with the size indicating distance away. Large are of course hear, small are faraway.
What is not made clear until the Referee gets to the adventure, ‘The Hunter Beneath the Waves’ is that the crew of ship needs to mask its ‘psychic load’ lest it be detected by a Kear Imago. This can be done by Astral Sailors or by consuming Psychic Ambergris, one of the magic items given earlier. If detected though, the Kear Imago will hunt the ship until either the ship and her crew get away or the leviathan swallows it whole. This lands the ship in its gut and the crew—that is, the Player Characters—have to navigate their way out of the beast. This is simulated using the hex-flower again, but here the crew are navigating the corporeal body of a beast rather than the Astral Sea, hoping to find the brain and engineer an escape. As you would expect it is nasty environment, the various descriptions of rooms such as the stomach, intestines, and waste chamber accompanied by optional tables for traps, NPCs, and location details. The rules are more or less the same for navigating the Astral Sea using the hex-flower, but instead of being able to nudge the direction roll through abilities innate to certain Classes, the Player Characters acquire ‘Travelling Points’ for encountering denizens of this ‘Kear Dungeon’, discovering and disarming traps, gaining information from friendly NPCs, and so on. The adventure is intentionally odd, surprisingly non-linear given its origins, and it does include some tough encounters. Plus although the players are unlikely to replay the ‘Kear Dungeon’ again, there is the possibility of their encountering a Kear Imago again. The fanzine does leave the Referee wondering what to do in that instance. Of course, there are always to get the Player Characters needing to climb back into a Kear Imago again, such as having to find a Wizard who has not been seen for years or go after a criminal. Lastly, the issue includes a table for ‘Astral Fishing’ and a set of adventure hooks waiting to be developed by the Referee as well a decent little comic strip which follows on from Planar Compass #1.
Physically, Planar Compass #2 is hit and miss. It is well written and it is gorgeous-looking. In places, individual hexes are are too dark and too murky, whilst the layout feels a bit tight in places and odd in others. Plus the organisation is odd with the monster descriptions placed up front. Nevertheless, it is engagingly written, the artwork is excellent, and all together, it is a lovely little book.
Planar Compass #2 is a solid set of rules taking Old School Essentials and almost any Old School Renaissance retroclone in an expected direction, out into the beyond of the Astral Sea. It does feel like a transition, going from the Dreamhaven of Planar Compass #1 to the somewhere else, but not telling you where necessarily. Ideally that will be revealed in Planar Compass #3. In the meantime, Planar Compass #2 has all the rules to enjoy boat trip or sail away to location of the Referee’s own devising across the Astral Sea and back again, effectively, ‘Astral-jammer’ for Old School Essentials.

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another DM and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.
Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. Another choice is the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game.
Night Soil #Zero takes the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game as its direct inspiration. Specifically, it draws from the artwork of the fourth printing of the core rules to provide images that have in turn inspired the creation of monsters, magical items, spells, tables, and more that the Judge can bring to her game or campaign. It is a lovely idea, but the result is a bit of a mess, a hodgepodge of miscellaneous things and entries that unless you somehow know the artwork and its order in the fourth printing of the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, may have you leafing through the pages of the admittedly short Night Soil #Zero in order to find something. Even at twenty-four pages, an index or list of contents and page numbers would not have gone amiss here.
Published by Inner Ham—previously known for Fantastic Exciting Imaginative: The Holmes Art ’Zine—Night Soil #Zero, opens with its first monster, the Terrordactyl, a giant reptile bird with retchingly awful bad breath and capable of snapping a target’s neck on a roll of a natural twenty, so a nasty thing to confront the Player Characters with. Not that interesting though. Weirder though, and definitely more modern, are the Horned Lobsterclops, which fight luchadors and underprepared explorers and scientists. Beating one in initiative trades accuracy for speed—the attacker’s die decreases by one step, and if a Horned Lobsterclop licks an opponent, on a failed Will save, it can cause them to scream and writhe, attempt to persuade the nearest ally to run (causing both to lose their actions in the next round), pass out temporarily, or simply flay uselessly at the creature’s sturdy carapace. This has a much pulpier feel then the other monsters and though fun, does need a suitably pulpy style of game to use it. An easier to use creature is the Phlogiston Elemental, which can appear whenever magic goes awry and takes more damage from wooden weapons than metal ones, making it a more difficult thing to defeat.
Perhaps the most flexible monster in the inaugural issue of the fanzine, is the Dogmen. Their love of bones means they often serve necromancer, and they often make good Warriors and Clerics. They can use all four Human Classes, but only up to Third Level. Although small, they have a strong bite, possess a keen sense of smell, and even their very presence enhances the effects of bone magic! On the downside, they are easily distracted, having to make Personality checks to avoid an Action Die and being bumped down a die for Saving Throws. Amusingly, this is called ‘Squirrel!’ and is a suitably silly feature for the henchmen role they are designed to fulfil. The other henchmen-type monsters are Death Guards, who have been hired and erroneously led to believe that they have been imbued with magical ability and otherworldly prowess. As terrible as they are, what they actually have is incredible self-belief and working together can inspire themselves to improve their Armour Class, Hit Points, speed, and so on, though only once per combat for each of the four such tricks they know. This is a concept worth exploring, as it could also be applied to cultists or other devotees, and more, but here it is rough and undeveloped.
The magical items begin with Horseshoes of Returning, innocuous, but favourite weapons for Halflings as they return to the hand once thrown. The other Halfling item of magic is the Pipe of Contentment, which can be smoked to regain points of Luck and even restore damage done to Intelligence or Personality. These are nicely done, flavoursome items that will please any halfling Player Character. From small to large as ‘Dead Giant, Uses of a’ suggests exactly that, whether keeping Chaos magic at bay if properly preserved, allowing its blood to spill and render the land infertile, feasted upon to increase Personality, the skull stolen to use as a cauldron by witches, and so on. For the Wizard, there is the Horned Cap, which makes him look like a badass and so might get him a free drink or a warmer bed, just to ensure that he is happy, or even potentially gain bonuses if Luck is burned, when casting spells related to bones, animals, or fear, and the Dragon Staff, which grants the user proficiency in, but not the capability of flight and a unique, randomly determined dragon power. There is even an Enchanted Skull Bookrest against which wizards and other magic-users rest their tomes and digests of knowledge where they can easily be read and understood, only for their content to shift into gibberish the moment they are taken away from the skull. It might protect a spell or other work of magic from prying eyes, but what if an Enchanted Skull Bookrest was stolen and one of the books which rested upon it, contained something of vital importance? Who would pay to get back and why?
The Cauldron of Contact aids in the fashioning of alchemical substances from other realms when burned over wood from Elfland, Faerie Forests, or Dryad Groves, or even contacting beings from those realms if wood cauldron from Elfland, Faerie Forests, or Dryad Groves is heated in the cauldron. There are potential side effects, such as the King of Elfland finding a future opportunity to strike the user or rolling corruption or all footwear being wet inside, causing the user’s feet to rot. This could be an interesting item, but is rather undeveloped as there are no mechanics as to when the side effects occur. 
The three spells in the issue are The Eye of Chaos, Shadowblend, and Seeking Shrieking Shrike. The first is a Second Level spell for Clerics which creates a glowing eye-like symbol that grants a bonus to Chaos-aligned creatures or zaps Law-aligned creatures; the second a First Level Wizard spell that enables him and his companions to blend into the shadows to increase their Armour Class; and the third a Second Level Cleric spell that creates an animal-shaped bolt which seeks out its target and hits on the next round after being cast. Seeking Shrieking Shrike is a fun spell, the others less so, but interesting additions to find in spell books or being cast by NPCs.
Other items are found in certain locations, such as the Speaking Headstone, which might not know much about the person whose grave it marks, but has seen a lot of vistors to the cemetery over the years, so may have the answers that the Player Characters are looking for. Unfortunately, it has a tendency to complain about the lack of crematorial etiquette and actually, would like a change of scenery, or even a holiday… The Speaking Headstone is just such a ridiculous idea, but it sounds a lot of fun for the Judge to roleplay, and her players and their characters are sure to loath it. Other locations include the partially submerged skull of a titan, which can be entered and then the length of its bones explored, the deeper the Player Characters penetrate, the better their magic, and a Hanging Tree whose potential effects include wiping from existence anyone who is hung from its branches or transforming them into some form of restitution for their crimes, or even causing another corpse to animate as one of the various undead. The Judge is free to choose, two of the options suggesting story possibilities, which the last feels almost traditional.
Physically, Night Soil #Zero is scrappy—intentionally scrappy. The artwork is likewise intentionally rough. Together with the use of the typewriter style font, the look of the fanzine is designed to match that of the fanzines and books of the seventies and even then their lack of professionalism. It may or may not trigger your sense of nostalgia, but that does not necessarily detract from the readability of the contents of the fanzine.
Night Soil #Zero is a mostly entertaining medley of the miscellaneous and the muddled, organised only by reference to another book. (Which is its major problem.) The inspired sits alongside the indifferent and reading the slim volume is very much a matter of whether you are going to get the former or latter, from one page to the next—or even on the same page! Night Soil #Zero is the equivalent of the blind box purchase for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game—there are definitely things in here that will inspire the Judge and there are definitely things which will leave him uninspired.