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. As popular in the Old School Renaissance as the format is, not all fanzines are devoted to Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying games—and in the nineties, many fanzines appeared dedicated to roleplaying games other than Dungeons & Dragons.

The world of Glorantha has had any number of fanzines dedicated to it over its forty year or so history, most notably, Wyrm’s Footnotes and Tales of the Reaching Moon. Published by John Castellucci, RQ Adventures Fanzine ran for six issues between 1993 and 1998, each issue containing scenarios written around a particular theme or location. Published in 1993, the inaugural issue of RQ Adventures Fanzine contains just the one scenario, ‘Escape from Duckland’, which the author and publisher had previously released as a standalone title. The scenario is set in 1621 ST in the kingdom of Sartar and sees a band of adventurers tasked with locating a small band of outlaw Ducks which has been struck down with the Red-Feather plague, a disease which fortunately only seems to affect Ducks and seems to be directly related to the intensity of the Red Moon in the sky. The only healer known to be capable of curing this disease resides by the mouth of the Marzeel River where it flows into the Mirrorsea Bay, many days travel away in the Holy Country. The adventurers must make their way to Apple Lane where they can find a guide, the famed Quackjohn, and then travel south and west into the Delecti Marsh to locate the stricken ducks, and from there escort them south to the border between Sartar and Esrolia. They will need to take some care, as not only are the Ducks outlaws and have a price on their heads (or beaks), but the infamous proclamation issued by General Fazzur Wideread, blaming the Ducks for the 1613 ST rebellion led by Kallyr Starbrow and placing a bounty of one year’s Imperial taxes for every Duck head/bill turned over to the provincial Lunar government is still in effect.

The scenario proper begins in Apple Lane. After they have dealt with a would-be Lunar tax collector and his bully boys on the make, the adventurers can sneak their guide out of the village and west to Runegate, but to avoid Dragonewt entanglements they are diverted south along Starfire Ridge and then over into Greydog territory. There are a couple of nasty encounters along the way—a band of Broo and horde of the undead which comes swarming up out of Upland Marsh. After both locating and placating the refugee ducks, the adventurers can begin their long journey south. There are some more nasty encounters along the way, a band of mercenary Tusk Riders which has decided to go Duck hunting—and have some horrid plans for any they catch, and there is one last attack by a threat encountered earlier. Not all of the encounters are quite so confrontational, an old man on Starfire Ridge proves to be good company and potentially helpful in speeding their journey, and there are dinosaurs to be found along the way, who might prove to be nuisances, or they might actually be helpful.

Consisting of ten encounters, ‘Escape from Duckland’ is a linear scenario, but then it is designed to be a journey. In terms of framing, being set in 1621 ST and thus written around elements of the Lunar occupation, it would be challenging for the Game Master to set the scenario elsewhere—or else when. That said, it could be adjusted to a few years earlier, but only few as they have to be after the Lunar proclamation on Ducks. This does not mean that the scenario could not be run today despite its strict time period. Since it takes place following the destruction of Gringle’s Pawn Shop in Apple Lane, it could be run as a flashback for Player Characters being run in the current timeline of RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, especially if they have played through the events of Apple Lane at the very start of their careers. If so, then the old man they encounter on the Starfire Ridge early in the scenario could easily be the shaman they would have run into at the beginning of ‘The Broken Tower’ from the RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha – QuickStart Rules and Adventure. Alternatively, it could be run as part of The Company of the Dragon campaign which takes place during this period.

Mechanically, ‘Escape from Duckland’ is written for use with Avalon Hill’s RuneQuest III—as would all six issues of RQ Adventures Fanzine would be. The differences between those rules and the previous and subsequent rules for RuneQuest are relatively minor, such that ‘Escape from Duckland’ can be run with relatively few changes. In terms of support it is suggested that the Game Master be familiar with Apple Lane, Snakepipe Hollow, King of Sartar, and Gods of Glorantha. Were ‘Escape from Duckland’ be run today, The RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack would be useful for information about Apple Lane, and the RuneQuest: Glorantha Bestiary and The Red Book of Magic will be useful for details on the various creatures and magics encountered as part of the scenario, but otherwise it is easy to set up and run. An experienced Game Master would have no problem running the scenario.

‘Escape from Duckland’ is supported with a total of eight pre-generated adventurers. Ranging from a young and headstrong Orlanthi and a cold, hard Tarsh Exile to a peaceful centaur from Beast Valley to a bachelor of the Newtling race, they run the gamut of the standard Gloranthan types to the slightly odd, even weird. The scenario suggests the type of player each is suitable for and each is given a full page, including stats and nicely done background briefing. It also includes a copy of the Lunar proclamation on Ducks, some reasonable maps, and an enjoyable write-up of both Hueymakt Deathdrake, Druulz God of Death & War and the Indroduck Greydog subcult. Plus there are full stats for all of the creatures and monsters encountered in the scenario.

Physically, RQ Adventures Fanzine Issue 1 is scrappily presented. It is very far from unreadable, but it does need another edit and the art is rough. The maps are decent though. Another issue is the tone, that taken with the Ducks, which involves more than a few puns. Of course, ‘Escape from Duckland’ is very much a case of ‘Your Glorantha May Vary’ and another Game Master will have a different approach. The scenario includes a lot of flavour and detail about the various locations it visits over the course of its journey and each of the NPCs is decently done as well.

RQ Adventures Fanzine Issue 1 is rough around the edges, but ‘Escape from Duckland’ is decently serviceable and playable, taking the Player Characters on a challenging and nicely described tour of southern Sartar. For a modern campaign and a scenario of its vintage, ‘Escape from Duckland’ is a far more flexible scenario than at first seems.

New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley was published in 2008 by Miskatonic River Press. Under the aegis of the late Keith Herber, this anthology would breathe new life into the revered Miskatonic Valley setting for Call of Cthulhu and new life into Call of Cthulhu itself at a time when the venerable roleplaying game’s publisher was not able to fully support it. Both this anthology, and its sequel, More Adventures in Arkham Country, would provide a platform for a new generation of new authors for Call of Cthulhu, many of whose previous works had appeared in Chaosium, Inc.’s long-running series of Miskatonic University Library Association monographs. In terms of content and look, New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley was inspired by the original series of supplements dedicated to Lovecraft Country that Chaosium had published in the nineties, but it had its own look that was fresh and clean, and overall, it felt like the hobby had a publisher for Call of Cthulhu who actually liked Call of Cthulhu once again. Sadly, Miskatonic River Press closed in 2013, its fifth and last book released being Tales of the Sleepless City. All five of its Call of Cthulhu supplements would go on to become collectible.

Fortunately, New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley, Second Edition, was published in 2020, this time by Stygian Fox. The British publisher has updated the anthology to Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition and upgraded it to be full colour, with new maps, handouts, and illustrations, and in hardback format. The new edition has also increased the scenario count from the original’s six to seven, with the inclusion of an all-new scenario from Seth Skorkowsky. This is a collection which will take a Keeper and her players up the Miskatonic Valley, from Arkham to Dunwich and back again via Foxfield to dream-spoiled Kingsport and sea-sodden Innsmouth—the latter the new addition—and so provide both with delicious slices of dark and dangerous horror.

New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley, Second Edition opens with a poignant forward from Tom Lynch, the head of Miskatonic River Press, before presenting his ‘The Reeling Midnight’. This is the first of two Arkham-set scenarios in the collection, a piece of louche detective legwork which emphasises interaction and investigation rather than academia. The Wilcoxes are worried that their son, Eugene, is hanging around with the wrong crowd and attending scandalous parties hosted by Hungarian nobility émigrés. They fear the daughter is a gold digger and hire the investigators to look into both their son’s activities and hers. The scenario opens up with a big set piece at one of the parties—the first problem being to get an invitation—which gives the players and their Investigators lots of attendees to interact with, and the Keeper a fun cast to portray. The investigation is nicely detailed and the scenario has a nasty sting in the tale, but ‘The Reeling Midnight’ is primarily a criminal investigation which the Mythos seems to slide into rather than necessarily be the driving force. It possesses a pleasing physicality and would work as an introduction to the Mythos along the Miskatonic Valley.

The second Arkham-set scenario is ‘Wasted Youth’ by Christopher Smith Adair. Again, this possesses both a physicality and a nasty, if not nastier, sting in the tale than ‘The Reeling Midnight’. The physicality here differs though, for it involves a ragged, often grueling chase across the countryside forcing the players to roll checks for skills that their Investigators are unlikely to possess given the typical intellectual, technical, or pugilistic bent of most. This forms the climax of the scenario which begins with Arkham being beset by a rash of dangerous juvenile delinquency, including acts of murderous violence and vandalism. The investigation is made all the more challenging by the fact that it involves children as both victims and protagonists, this also its sting in the tale, as it means directly confronting them. Children being involved may mean it is difficult to get the Investigators involved, but once they are, this is an effectively horrid affair.

Oscar Rios’ ‘Spirit of Industry’ takes the Investigators to Dunwich on a ghost hunt in the company of a journalist (who appeared in the earlier ‘The Reeling Midnight’) in search of a scoop—an old sawmill is reputed to be haunted and there is a reward for proof of the existence of ghosts. This is not necessarily a Mythos scenario in the classic sense, being more like the Stephen King story, ‘The Mangler’, in that the sawmill is possessed and malignly so. However, this is set against the pervading sense of bucolic unease which suffuses through Dunwich, whether from the town’s all too knowing inhabitants or the all too unknowing ones. The scenario is likely to involve two brutal, and potentially, bloody climaxes, but even offers the possibility of a happy ending.

A happy ending is unlikely in ‘Proof of Life’ by Keith Herber. This is set in the small town of Foxfield—introduced here in the pages of New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley—where a disagreement between local farmers and the town supervisor over whether or not to log nearby forests has escalated into blows and a death threat! Investigation reveals that the town supervisor is hiding something and even acting oddly, but the Investigators will need to navigate their way between the town’s factions and interview many of the townsfolk to get this far. This is a type of story which has been told before, that of a Mythos entity or race protecting its long-held presence in an area which annoying ape descendants are now encroaching upon. Fortunately, the scenario never quite tips into cliché, but the motivations of the Mythos threat feel underwhelming given the length to which they go to protect their interests and the monstrous effect this has on the town supervisor and his family.

Oscar Rios’ second contribution to the anthology is ‘Malice Everlasting’, which is the first of two scenarios set in Kingsport, City of Dreams. Like the earlier, this is a tale of possession and possession of a teenage antagonist, but it comes with a classic Lovecraftian ‘revenge from beyond the grave’ plot. There is nothing childish about this villain as he unleashes his revenge upon the descendants of those who hunted him down and executed him in the seventeenth century by striking them suddenly blind. As the Investigators get closer to making this connection, they come to the attention of the antagonist, who begins to hinder their progress to varying degrees—as both eager ally and vengeful villain. The weakest point of the scenario is when that connection is made, and it could have been better handled. Otherwise, this is an excellent combination of investigation and desperate action which climaxes with bang—a summoning of Y’golonac. Unlike ‘Wasted Youth’ where the Investigators are likely to have proof of the antagonists’ actions (or at least witnesses), here they do not, and ultimately, they will be faced by a dilemma which if they get wrong will land them in prison—or worse.

The second scenario set in Kingsport is ‘The Night War’ by Kevin A. Ross, which takes full advantage of the port’s reputation as the city of dreams. Inspired by the works of William Hope Hodgson, the Investigators begin experiencing seemingly realistic nightmares in which they fight in the trenches of the Western Front, night after night, men and women, quickly followed by the rest of Kingsport. The action switches back and forth over the course of several days and nights, the Investigators spending their nights surviving and hunting for clues in this unreal landscape haunted by monsters unknown on the battlefield, and their days following up on those clues in the hope that what they find out will help both them and the people of Kingsport back in the nightmare. A darker and grander depiction of a Dreamlands than that typically seen in Call of Cthulhu, its subject matter and its staging, imposing and perhaps heavy-going rather than delicate, may be off-putting for some players. Seen though as a desperate mission to save a man’s mind in somewhere the Investigators either never thought they would return to or even thought they would have experienced, and the scenario is an interesting take on what a Dreamlands scenario could be like.

New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley ended with ‘The Night War’, but New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley, Second Edition has one more scenario. This is ‘A Mother’s Love’ by Seth Skorkowsky, which brings crime to Innsmouth. The Frog Gang, led by Tobias ‘Frog’ Sisk, has robbed a local bank and hightailed it into his hometown of Innsmouth, with the local police and Federal agents on their tail. The officers of the town’s police department are prepared to help—to an extent—but their main motivation is avoiding bringing further attention to Innsmouth and its secrets. Not the first time that crime has come to Innsmouth—it did that in ‘The Innsmouth Connection’ from Before the Fall, but to much lesser effect. ‘A Mother’s Love’ is a short, slightly strange investigation that will quickly lead to a blazing shootout between the Innsmouth Police Department, the Federal Agents, and the survivors of the Frog Gang. Of course, if the Federal Agents learn too much, it could turn into a shootout and clawfest between them and the Innsmouth Police Department (as well as others). Unlike the other scenarios in the anthology, ‘A Mother’s Love’ is best suited as a one-shot, perhaps as a prequel to Escape from Innsmouth, as it works best with one Investigator being a member of the Bureau of Investigation and so is more difficult to work into a campaign. ‘A Mother’s Love’ is punchier than most scenarios set in Lovecraft Country, but it has a nice sense of tension to it though, whether that is between the Federal Agents and the Innsmouth Police Department, or between what the players are likely to know and their Investigators otherwise.

Physically, New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley, Second Edition is hit and miss, though more hit than miss. Behind the bland cover, the layout is clean and tidy. It needs a slight edit in places and the illustrations vary in quality, some of them bland and muddy, some of them decent, plus the internal cartography is more serviceable then characterful. Unfortunately, the colour artwork in this second edition does not have the charm of the pen and ink illustrations of the original. However, the regional cartography is decent, the handouts are excellent—especially the newspaper articles which are hidden in full page handouts, and town vistas of Arkham, Dunwich, Foxfield, Kingsport, and Innsmouth that preface their respective sections, are handsome indeed. Included in the new hardback is a set of six pre-generated Investigators (including one from my hometown) which again, are decently done and all on a new, alternate version of the Investigator sheet for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition.

New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley was the best supplement published for Call of Cthulhu in 2008. In fact, it was the best release for the roleplaying game since 2007’s Secrets of Kenya and 2006’s Tatters of the King. It gave a platform for new voices and new ideas for Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying and proved that the then new rash of third-party publishers could produce content that was mature and sophisticated. Not every scenario in New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley could be regarded as perfect in 2008, or indeed perfect with the publication of the second edition in 2020, but it was an audacious debut. New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley, Second Edition returns that audacity to print, bringing back support for Lovecraft Country just as it did in 2008.

Since 2018, the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG, beginning with the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG – Player’s Survival Guide has proved to be a popular choice when it comes to self-publishing. Numerous authors have written and published scenarios for the roleplaying game, many of them as part of Kickstarter’s annual ZineQuest event, of which The Drain was published following a successful Kickstarter campaign as part of ZineQuest 3. Written and published by Ian Yusem, this ashamedly steals the signature feature of Goodman Games’ highly popular Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and adapts it to the far future of the MOTHERSHIP Sci-Fi Horror Roleplaying Game. This feature is the concept of the Character Funnel 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. The result is a bloody, brutal scenario which can used as one-shot or as the means to create a set of ready-to-play Player Characters complete with shared backgrounds, histories, and relationships.
The Drain: A Funnel Adventure for use with MOTHERSHIP Sci-Fi Horror RPG sends the Player Characters into the hellish battlefield aboard the Within Wheels, a colony ship broadcasting the heresy of the 3rd Testament across the universe in order to retrieve a legendary religious relic—and this is not the grim and perilous future of Warhammer 40,000 and the Player Characters are not even soldiers or necessarily trained to fight. Instead they are prisoners, serving time for crimes they definitely did commit, their sentences being executed by corporate jailors, PrayCo. As the ship they are aboard, dodges its way through the ring of scavenging and salvage vessels, warships, and the wrecks of civilians which have already tried to get through, the Player Characters are given a choice—fight their way down through the four decks of the Within Wheels to its Command Centre and there recover whatever is broadcasting the 3rd Testament and return it to PrayCo. In return, the Player Characters will have their sentences commuted.
The digital version of The Drain comes with a set of pre-generated Player Characters, but the scenario includes quick and dirty rules for creating prisoner Player Characters. Being Level Zero, they have no Class, low stats, an absolute minimum of Hits, minimal responses to Stress Checks, and no skills. What a Player Character will have is a conviction for a crime, a single possession, and a piece of materiel which may or may not help him survive the assault. As with a Character Funnel for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, the latter is generated randomly, and if the crime is Android related, the Player Character is an Android. In addition, each prisoner is made to wear a PrayCo tinsel halo battle uniform and a Command Collar. The latter will explode if the Player Characters get too far away from each other! The players are expected to create three or four five of these characters.
Name: Bracket (Android)Crime: Domestic InsufficiencyClass: None Level: 0AttributesStrength: 20 Speed: 25 Intellect: 30 Combat: 25SavesSanity: 25 Fear: 50 Body: 25 Armour: 25Hit Points: 25
SkillsTrained (+10%): Theology
Loadout: Tinsel halo, flyswatter, flare gun 
NotesFear saves made in the presence of Androids have disadvantages.
The flight through the ring of scavenger and warships can be handled using Wrath of God, but either way, The Drain begins with the Prison Soldiers at the top of the Within Wheels, in a series of trenches, opposing forces of the farmer-martyrs occupying the other trenches. Thus the scenario begins in a scene out of the Great War, right down to poison gas rolling across the battlefield. But from here it can only get worse. There are signs of battle everywhere, including a church full of refugees hoping for an armistice, a military dropship still tethered to the colony ship, but trying to get away, signs of the overengineered environmental collapse that forced the colonists to turn to their strange faith, an amusement park adjusted to be full of fire and brimstone warning, and more… 
Along the way there are encounters to be had with other Prison Soldiers, who may be as bad as or even worse than the Player Characters, Corporate Operators with plans of their own, Pilgrim Irregulars determined to protect the 3rd Testament, and worse. The Warden is also provided with a standard set of random events and features tables, as well as tables for every location, and a pair of general tables searching the area or looting the body, discovering equipment caches. The latter will be very useful given the minimal amount equipment the Prison Soldiers are given at the start of their mission. Of course, they have to survive long to find these caches… Either way, the tables will drive a lot of the game play in The Drain, as will the interaction between the multiple Player Characters.
Physically, The Drain is decently presented and organised. It needs a slight edit in places, but every location is given a good half page at least, and the set-up is nicely explained. The artwork suits the raggedy feel of the hell aboard the Within Wheels.
If the Player Characters deliver on their mission, then PrayCo delivers on its promise and that makes for a refreshing change—inserting an inevitable betrayal would have been boring. There is potential for a sequel though, with Meat Grinder, which together with The Drain and Wrath of God forms The Inferno Trilogy. If there is an issue with The Drain, it is perhaps that the description of its McGuffin feels underwritten, so the Warden may want to develop that.

The Drain serves up exactly what a Character Funnel should—a brutal, bloody experience in which survival is an achievement in itself. It combines war-as-hell with the dark horror of heresy and creates Player Characters with memorable back stories for Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG in the process. 

—oOo—
An Unboxing in the Nook video of The Drain can be found here.

The gaming magazine is dead. After all, when was the last time that you were able to purchase a gaming magazine at your nearest newsagent? Games Workshop’s White Dwarf is of course the exception, but it has been over a decade since Dragon appeared in print. However, in more recent times, the hobby has found other means to bring the magazine format to the market. Digitally, of course, but publishers have also created their own in-house titles and sold them direct or through distribution. Another vehicle has been Kickstarter.com, which has allowed amateurs to write, create, fund, and publish titles of their own, much like the fanzines of Kickstarter’s ZineQuest. The resulting titles are not fanzines though, being longer, tackling broader subject matters, and more professional in terms of their layout and design.

—oOo—

The inaugural issue of Parallel Worlds magazine was published in September 2019. It contains no gaming content as such, but rather discusses and aspects of not just the hobby, but different hobbies—board games, roleplaying games, computer games, and more. Unlike later issues, for example, Parallel Worlds #21 and Parallel Worlds #22, this first issue is very much about games, and that is not necessarily a bad thing if something interesting is said about them. Unfortunately, that is not always the case in Parallel Worlds #01, but the issue contains some interesting articles and they do possess a degree of brevity which makes the issue as a whole a quick read. Of course, Parallel Worlds #01 is readily available in print, but all of the issues of Parallel Worlds, published by Parallel Publishing can also be purchased in digital format, because it is very much not back in the day of classic White Dwarf, but here and now. 
Parallel Worlds #01 opens with an interview with Isaac Childres, the designer of Gloomhaven, one of biggest—quite literally—boardgames published in the last few years. It is quite a lengthy piece and nicely captures the designer’s enthusiasm for creating and playing games. What is interesting in the piece is the discussion of the influences upon the design, which include Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition, and it includes a range of illustrations which should intrigue the reader to take a closer look at Gloomhaven. The other board game-focused piece in the issue is ‘Tiny Epic Mechs’, part of the magazine’s ‘Tabletop Games’ series of articles. Christopher Jarvis’ article is actually a review of the arena-set game of ’mech combat published by Gamelyn Games as part of its Tiny Epic series, which packages big games in small boxes and thus delivers greater game play than their size readily suggests. In comparison to the other games in the line, and there are plenty of them, Tiny Epic Mechs, is short and punchy in its game play and does not necessarily lend itself to telling an epic story. Nevertheless, the review is informative and again, should point the reader in the direction of the line.
Unfortunately, these decent articles are followed by a pair of frustratingly bad and unhelpful articles, both by Connor Eddles. In ‘Box Full of Knives: Why Dungeons & Dragons needs to step away from its wargaming roots’ he complains that Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition is a ‘box full of knives’, that its mechanics are too focused on delivered the means to kill things and take their loot and not enough on providing the tools to provide stories. There is some validity to the argument, but the author completely ignores how far Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition has come in supporting both roleplaying and storytelling in its rules in comparison to the Dungeons & Dragons of 1974 and even the Dungeons & Dragons of the year 2000. Likewise, he complains that Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition has too many rules and not enough tools, and again, he ignores how far the game has come. Admittedly, in either case, it is not as far as other roleplaying games, but the shift is there. Further, he ignores the then reality of the situation with regard to Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition and Wizards of the Coast, that in 2019, there was no real possibility of the world’s premier roleplaying game necessarily going in the direction he wants. Despite stating that a proper critique of the system that is Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition requires the reader to go back and look at where it all began, he completely fails to do so. Similarly, whilst stating that, “This article may look like yet another hit-piece on the 5th Edition of D&D (often referred to as ‘5e’) but accusation would only be half correct.”, never fully addresses the other half that is not a ‘hit-piece’, never really offers concrete or helpful solutions, and ultimately the piece reads like a wishful whinge that Dungeons & Dragons was different.
‘Call of Cthulhu – Intermediate Frustration: The Call of Cthulhu Starter Set’ is not so much a review of the Call of Cthulhu Starter Set, as a review of Connor Eddles’ experience of running it and his impression of it. The review is profoundly uninformative and unhelpful. It does not tell the reader what is in the starter set and it does not give any context to what is in the starter set and it ignores who the starter set is for, instead complaining that its cover is reminiscent of Scooby Doo, that one of the pre-generated Investigators has a silly name, and that adventures are written in what is to him a heavy style that he does not use. Of these three issues, he has a point about the silly name—Nevada Jones—for the pre-generated Investigator, but of the other two, they are dubious points upon which to base a whole review, and whilst the author is entitled to his opinion, the result, as in his previous article, is unbalanced and uninteresting.

The coverage of Lovecraft continues with ‘H.P. Lovecraft, 100 Years On’ by Ben Potts, but not before Allen Stroud fills up two pages with a ‘Mini of the Month’ which looks at a thirty-year old miniature of an elf from Grenadier. Despite needing an edit, Ben Potts’ article is balanced and interesting, serving as decent introduction to the author, his works and his failings, and gives both context to his writings and his influence. Especially if the reader knows nothing about H.P. Lovecraft.
Allen Stroud’s ‘UK Games Expo 2019’ takes the reader on a guided tour of the United Kingdom’s biggest gaming convention. It captures the scale of the event, highlighting the number of attendees, the breadth of stalls and exhibitors present, and the array of events staged across the weekend. Supported by numerous photographs, the article brings the event to life and really makes the reader want to attend. This of course, was pre-pandemic, and so they would have been unable to until UK Games Expo came back in a much-reduced capacity in 2021. Hopefully, it will return in 2022 and be as good as this article describes it was in 2019.
‘Call of Demons’ by Allen Stroud both continues the issue’s Lovecraftian theme and presages the issue’s coverage of video games. It brings the horror of the Mythos to a virtual world in a short and enjoyable piece of would-be military action. The first of the articles on video games is both the longest in the issue and the longest. Tom Grundy’s ‘Promising the Stars: The three biggest space games of the 2010s’ examines the promise and expectations of the three big, spacefaring computer games of the tweenies. These are Elite Dangerous, No Man’s Sky, and Star Citizen, and all three are explored in some depth and detail, looking at their high points and their low, and seeing whether they have delivered. The truth is that none of them quite have, and they remain in various states of playability, from the complete No Man’s Sky to the yet to be fulfilled Star Citizen. The author makes the case for each one and again makes the reader want to investigate more. Perhaps the article could have suggested the ways in which to do so, but otherwise, this is an enjoyable article.
The second article about video games in Parallel Worlds #01 is by Thomas Turnbull-Ross. ‘Two Knights & their Hollow Souls’ is a comparison of two games, Dark Souls and Hollow Knight, drawing together the similarities of their worlds, their lead characters, and their game play. It is not quite as interesting as the previous article, but nevertheless, a good read. Rounding out the issue is Allen Stroud’s ‘Review: Blood of an Exile’, a decent review of the first book in the fantasy trilogy by Brian Naslund.
Physically, Parallel Worlds #01 is printed in full colour, on very sturdy paper, which gives it a high-quality feel. It does suffer from a lot of white space and one or two of the articles do feel stretched out.
Apart from the misinformative misfires from Connor Eddles, Parallel Worlds #01 is a solid, first issue. It sets out what its aims are, that of the exploration of the parallel worlds of our imagination, and then takes the reader there in a range of mostly informative and interesting articles.

Jon Peterson begins his latest book, Game Wizards: The Epic Battle for Dungeons & Dragons at exactly the point where his previous book, The Elusive Shift: How Role-Playing Games Forged Their Identity, left off—that history repeats itself. The Elusive Shift explored the debate as to what a roleplaying game is and what roleplaying is, and not only how that debate was settled, but also how it has been repeated by successive generations of gamers since the first decade or so that we have had roleplaying as a hobby. In Game Wizards, Peterson examines the creation of Dungeons & Dragons and the first decade or so of how it became the foundation of the business that was TSR and how the feud between the game’s co-creators, E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, would ultimately lead to their ousting from TSR, and following a debt crisis, the company’s takeover by Lorraine Williams. This was not a dissimilar pattern that Charles S. Roberts had followed in his founding of the board wargaming company, Avalon Hill, and its subsequent sale to a creditor a decade before the founding of TSR. Neither Roberts, and certainly not Gygax and Arneson set out to make a great deal of money, but in the case of Gygax and TSR, as much as they were unprepared for it, they did. Dungeons & Dragons would become a cultural phenomenon and long after the death of its co-creators, in the hands of Wizards of the Coast, become a highly profitable intellectual property. Of course, the story of how Gygax and Arneson created Dungeons & Dragons has been told many times, but in that telling the story has become mythologised and what really happened coloured by the personalities and the feuds between them. Peterson goes back to the source documents—letters, agreements, share evaluations, and even court depositions—to get a first-hand, as it happened account and thus cast Legend Lore on the first decade of TSR.

Also published by The MIT Press, Game Wizards is not a book about the evolution of Dungeons & Dragons—the author’s Playing at the World: A History of Simulating Wars, People and Fantastic Adventures, from Chess to Role-Playing Games is a better book for that—it is where this book starts. Before that, it recounts how Gary Gygax and Don Kaye form Tactical Studies Rules to self-publish games, with Brian Blume providing capital and becoming an equal partner with the death of Kaye, and then Gygax develops Arneson’s concepts with his own and creates Dungeons & Dragons. The key document and really the starting point for the book, out of which would stem the feud between Gygax and Arneson over who created what and how much was owed to whom, is the copyright and royalties agreement they signed in early 1974. Like Gygax and Arneson, and eventually their lawyers, Game Wizards returns to this document as well as the issue of who owns what shares in TSR again and again in its pages.

Once TSR is founded, Peterson rolls through its history year-by-year, from 1974 until 1985, charting its rise and fortunes. At the end of each year he lists various indicators, such as revenue, number of employees, stock evaluation, and Gen Con versus origin attendance figures—the later being a particular bone of contention with Gygax. Listed here also are the sales rankings as presented by Howard Barasch of SPI in comparison with both SPI and Avalon Hill, tracking how the company went from ‘Other’ to first place, and then looked back. There are small moments of humour here as well, such as ‘Players Eliminated: Heritage’, referring to the miniatures and games company that was an early rival for TSR. These chapters also track the relationship between Arneson and Gygax as it goes from friendly to standoffish into outright adversarial with Gygax having TSR’s lawyers altering how Arneson can be referred to on projects from other publishers and Arneson even accepting the H.G. Wells Award for ‘All Time Best Role Playing Rules’ at the Origins convention in 1978 when it was clearly meant for Dungeons & Dragons and its publisher, TSR, Inc. Once the feud become litigious—and it does very quickly, Game Wizards brings in numerous court documents and begins to chart the effect of the litigation of both the case between Arneson and TSR (Gygax), and all too often, other employees at TSR. The year-by-year telling of the history, together with the figures at the end of each year, gives the story a game like feel, and that, together with the back and forth between Gygax and Arneson reads like a very personal game of Diplomacy, almost played out across the whole of the hobby, culminating in the infamous ‘The Ambush at Sherdian Springs’ in 1985.

Peterson makes the point that the infamous disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III and its widespread publicity—often at the hands of the private investigator, William Dear, would give Dungeons & Dragons and thus both TSR and Gygax press coverage like never before. It would fuel increased interest in the game and lead to a massive boost in sales. The ensuring Moral Panic surrounding the controversy of supposed Satanism in Dungeons & Dragons would do the same. The resulting sales would lead to the rapid expansion of TSR, not just in terms of turnover, but also growth, staff and corporate acquisition, and ambition. The company might have weathered the increase in the number of staff from less than thirty to several hundred, the purchase of Greenfield Needlewomen, and Gygax’s excursion to Hollywood on their, but all together? It is clear in Game Wizards that TSR was ill-equipped to manage that number of people, and the nepotism which run rampant did not help. Of course, in its early days, members of both the Blume and the Gygax families were employed out of necessity, but in the early eighties, the Blumes employed their in-laws too, often to disastrous effect and with no comeback. Purchases like that of Greenfield Needlewomen, would amount to nothing, and although the fondly remembered Dungeons Dragons Cartoon would result from Gygax’s time in Hollywood, little else did. Meanwhile, the raising of wrecks from Lake Geneva and the sponsorship of the US Winter Olympics team simply wasted money. Together though, it meant that TSR and its management, led by Gygax and the Blues were ill prepared to when the downturn in the economy in the early eighties hit…

Throughout, there are fascinating asides and missed opportunities. For example, the combination of TSR deciding to step out of the miniatures field and the proposed purchase of Games Workshop—the early distributor of Dungeons & Dragons in the United Kingdom before the establishment of TSR UK—by TSR, never coming to pass, would mean that the British company would be free to pursue its own path. If it had happened, the history of the British hobby would have been very different, there would probably have been no Warhammer or Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, and probably a much more polarised hobby in the United Kingdom as a result. There are indications too of just how small roleplaying companies were during this period, certainly in comparison to TSR, which is often something that we forget, enclosed as we were back then (and still are to an extent) in the closed bubble of the hobby.

Ultimately, what we have in Game Wizards is a clash of personalities unwilling to concede to each other. Gygax wants to protect what he has built and provide for his family, but cannot balance his desire to simply write and create against the desire to maintain control of a business that he co-founded but was ill-suited to run. His brilliance lay in proselytising Dungeons & Dragons and bringing people together just as he did in the early days of TSR—he was a facilitator, not necessarily a businessman. Arneson wants to be recognised and paid his dues, and though ultimately he would be, in Game Wizards he is often shown as his own worst enemy. A font of creative ideas who did not respond well to either editing or criticism, and who comes across as petulant and a poor team player. Whereas Gygax’s posturing and protectionism, which would often drive much of both the hobby and the industry to side with the insecure Arneson, feels petty and vindictive. Similarly his feuds with other creatives and even with the Origins convention over which was bigger—Origins or Gen Con, possess a pettiness which has been lost in the retelling of his legend. If both Arneson and Gygax are far from perfect, they are not the villains of the piece. The Blumes—Kevin and Brian—fill that role, especially with the extent of the nepotism that saw them employ their extended family and grant them often ridiculous privileges. The reputation of the Blume brothers has long suffered in the telling of the history of TSR, and despite their seeding the company with start-up capital back in 1974, Game Wizards does them no favours.

Surprisingly, the biggest villain of all in the history of TSR, is revealed in Game Wizards to be anything but that! The reputation of Lorraine Williams, admittedly never a gamer, has perhaps been poorer than that of the Blume Brothers. Here she steps in at the last minute as the saviour of TSR from bankruptcy, working with the Blumes to oust Gygax lest he remain in control and unfortunately inflict more damage upon the company.

Throughout, Peterson draws from numerous documents and sources, including fanzines, convention programmes, news articles, and court documents and financial reports. This often gives the telling an impersonal feel, which histories with more personal recollections would obviously lack, but he counters this numerous quotations from letters between Gygax and Arneson, and then Gygax and Arneson with others. This gives Game Wizards its personal touch and immediacy whilst at the same avoiding the issues that might arise through recollection and adherence to any orthodoxy or mythology attached to its subject matter.

Game Wizards ends in 1985, covering just the first twelve years of TSR’s history. It would have another twelve before being bought out by Wizards of the Coast in 1997. These years—and those after—are only treated briefly in Game Wizards and even though the author’s aim is tell the story of the relationship between Arneson and Gygax and the first twelve years of TSR, the book feels incomplete because of it. Fortunately, Slaying the Dragon: A Secret History of Dungeons & Dragons by Ben Riggs will cover this period. Like the earlier The Elusive Shift, it would have been nice to have included some thumbnail bibliographies of the men and women whose story is told in Game Wizards. Without them, this is very much a book for those already knowledgeable about the leading figures of the hobby in its early days and what they did.

Game Wizards: The Epic Battle for Dungeons & Dragons is a fascinating read and anyone with an interest in the history of roleplaying should read it. The reader will come away with the impression that the original and premier roleplaying game still today, was created by two imperfect men, and whether because of their foibles, or in spite of them, their influence is still felt today. With Game Wizards: The Epic Battle for Dungeons & Dragons, Jon Peterson has slain the mythology and the orthodoxy by going back to source to give us a clearer, almost Shakepearian history of E. Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson, and TSR, Inc. than we were aware of.

Some games have table presence. They simply look good out and set up—even before anyone sits down to play. For example, the Spiele des Jahres award winning Colt Express is a fun game to play, but with its slot-together Wild West train, great artwork, and individualised Meeples, it really looks great on the table. Similarly, Captain Sonar looks good when set up and ready to play, but its actual table presence is incredibly simple and is really down to a pair of large dividing screens and the number of players. Published by Editions du Matagot, Captain Sonar is a cat-and-mouse game of co-operative hidden movement and deduction played in real time by two teams. Each team is control of a state-of-the-art submarine-and as the Captain, the Chief Mate, the Radio Operator, and the Engineer, you work together to manoeuvre your boat, keep it from breaking down, determine where the enemy is, and then blow it out of the water by launching torpedoes and dropping depth charges. It can be an incredibly tense experience, quickly switching from barked orders to whispered responses and back again, and if a team wants to defeat their rival submarine, they must co-operate, listen to each other, and listen to their rivals to locate exactly where they are.

Captain Sonar is designed for two to eight players, aged fourteen and up, and can be played in less than an hour. The components consist of two sets role sheets, two transparent sheets, eight erasable marker pens, and two screens. The role sheets are divided between the game’s four roles, with the First Mate and Engineer receiving the same role sheet each game, and the Captain and Radio Operator using a different one depending which scenario is being played. There are five scenarios in the game. In addition, each role sheet is double-sided, the side used depending on the game’s mode. One mode is for real time play, the other is for turn-by-turn play. The two screens are large, four-panel affairs and are illustrated with a scene on the bridge aboard a submarine. They are intentionally difficult to see over and their artwork really gives the impression of being aboard a submarine. Their combination of artwork and size is one factor giving Captain Sonar its presence at the table. The other is the number of players and the number of chairs they need and a reasonably sized table. Captain Sonar can be played with just two players, each controlling their respective submarines, or played with teams of two, three, or four players. With one, two, or three players on either side, some of the game’s roles have to be combined, and with fewer players, the game played turn-by-turn rather than in real time. However many the number of players, Captain Sonar has a presence at the table—and that only increases the more players there are.

The four roles in Captain Sonar are Captain, Chief Mate, Radio Operator, and Engineer. The Captain begins each turn by announcing out loud the direction in which the submarine is going to move—north, east, south, or west—one space and plots that on the Captain’s sheet. He cannot announce another move until both the First Mate and the Engineer have given him a verbal ‘Okay’. The Radio Operator’s sheet is identical to that of the Captain—on both teams—and it is his job to listen into the directions given by the opposing Captain on the other side of the screen and map them on a transparent sheet which is placed over his role sheet. By successfully marking down the directions and adjusting this overlay so that it ignores obstacles such as islands and mines, the Radio Operator may be able to deduce where the enemy submarine is.The First Mate’s task is to monitor the submarine’s equipment—Mine, Drone, Silence, Torpedo, Sonar, and Scenario specific item—and alert the Captain when it is ready to activate or launch. Each piece of equipment has a gauge and when the Captain announces the submarine’s movement, the First Mate fills in one space on one of the gauges. When one is full, he announces it as ready. Again, this done out loud. At any time, the Captain can launch a Torpedo or drop a Mine, and then later detonate a Mine. If a Mine or Torpedo detonates adjacent to the enemy submarine, it inflicts a point of damage, two on a direct hit. He can also activate the Silence and send his submarine up to four spaces away in any direction in a straight line. This also erases the track which the Captain has been tracing on his sheet, which is important the submarine cannot cross its track. The First Mate can launch the Drone and ask the enemy Captain if his submarine is in particular sector, and he has to answer truthfully; he can activate Sonar, which will force the enemy Captain to provide him with two pieces of information about his submarine’s position (either row, column, or sector), though one of them is false; and the Scenario varies according to the map being played.

Lastly, the Engineer is in charge of keeping track of the breakdowns which occur as the Captain orders the submarine in different directions. His sheet consists of the submarine’s systems indicated by various symbols—‘Mine + Torpedo’, ‘Drone + Sonar’, and ‘Silence + Scenario’, plus ‘Radiation’—divided across four boxes corresponding to the cardinal directions in which the submarine can travel. When the Captain declares a move, the Engineer must mark off one of the symbols in the corresponding box. If any ‘Mine + Torpedo’, ‘Drone + Sonar’, or ‘Silence + Scenario’ is crossed out, then none of the corresponding systems work. If all of the symbols in a box are crossed out, the submarine suffers a point of damage, and likewise, if all of the ‘Radiation’ symbols are crossed out, the submarine suffers a point of damage. It is part of the Engineer’s role to communicate this damage back to the First Mate and Captain, since it limits the direction in which the submarine can move and what systems can be used.

Fortunately, a submarine can be repaired. When all of the symbols in a box or the ‘Radiation’ symbols are crossed out, repairs can be carried out, the damage is erased and the submarine can use all of the systems and movement directions again. The submarine still suffers a point of damage in either case. Alternatively, the Captain can command that the submarine will surface. This erases all damage, but to do that, the Captain, the Chief Mate, the Radio Operator, and the Engineer has to take in turn to draw around one of the four sections of the submarine marked on the Engineer’s role sheet, making sure to remain in the white border. Once done, the enemy Engineer must verify it has been done correctly, and if so, the damage is erased, the submarine can dive, and begin hunting for the enemy and start a new track. If not, everyone has to do it again until it is…

In the meantime, what is the enemy submarine doing? Since Captain Sonar is played in real time, the enemy submarine is steaming towards the very sector where your submarine is on the surface effecting repairs. So no hurry then… Or rather try not to panic, because that enemy submarine could be really, really close and have a mine or torpedo ready! This is when Captain Sonar gets really tense.

Play continues like this until one submarine has suffered four damage—whether from Mines, Torpedoes, or that inflicted on its various systems, and is destroyed. In which case, the other submarine and its crew (and thus the players) are the winners.

Captain Sonar can be played in two mode—turn-by-turn or real time. Both are fun, and turn-by-turn can be used as means of teaching the game if necessary, but the game comes alive when played in real time. For that, you need a minimum of five players, but really—really—Captain Sonar comes alive with the full crew complement of eight players. Not only that, it comes alive and you can really imagine yourself in a submarine, having turned the light down low and have some submarine noises playing in the background, not knowing where the enemy is, but hunting them, and knowing they are in exactly the same situation.

This though, is only the standard game, played on the basic map. Captain Sonar includes five maps of increasing complexity. Most open up the space between the islands, because having more islands restricts movement and makes it easier to track the enemy submarine, but the more advanced maps have the submarine hunt play out under the ice pack with only limited holes through which either submarine can surface, effectively restricting where a submarine can conduct repairs or lace the map with a network of mines ready to detonate.

Physically, Captain Sonar is comprised of relatively few components. All though are of good quality. The screens are sturdy, the maps and role sheets easy to use, and the rules are easy to read and come with plenty of examples to help understand the game. If there is a downside to Captain Sonar, it is that whilst both enjoyable and playable with fewer players, it really delivers its best playing experience at eight, the maximum number of players. For which of course a sizeable playing area is required.

Captain Sonar is on one level, a party game—especially given the number of players it is designed for, but that hides the sophistication of play behind its simple concept and rules. This does not mean that you could not take this game and introduce it at that level and then pull everyone into its taut little game play and the nervousness of the situations it sets up. It could also be described as a game of team Battleships and on one level it is, but it is much, much more than that. First, it is a clever development of that base idea, of hunting for enemy vessels (or vessel), but having them constantly moving and then turning it into an experience that can be shared. Second, it is a game of co-operation and in particular of communication, as the players need to listen to each other and work together in order to use their submarine effectively and find and destroy their enemy. Third, it is an amazing means of playing out and telling an incredibly tense story, just like the submarine films. Captain Sonar is a great game and a great playing experience, and short of joining the navy together, this is the closest you and your friends are going to go on a submarine hunt.

The carnival is everything that society is not—exciting and exhilarating, romantic and raucous, uncertain and unsettled, even freakish and fearful. It seems appropriate that the modern idea of the carnival—at least the travelling carnival—would be propelled out of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition with its rides, games of chance, freak shows, and burlesque, let alone the horrors it would hide. From Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked this Way Comes to the television series Carnivàle, the carnival and its workers, the often-mistrusted Carnies, have always been something to fear, the apprehension of the unknown tipping over into abhorrence as this classic slice of Americana slipped into our consciousness, set up its booths and displays, switched on the bright lights and jaunty pipes, barked out its delights, promised gaiety and fun, before switching off the lights and slipping away in the morning, leaving behind just memories and the promise of a return the next year. Almost from the start, the carnival became a vehicle behind which the horrors of the Mythos could wend their way across America, their impact barely felt from one town to the next, including in Call of Cthulhu with David A. Hargrave’s scenario ‘Dark Carnival’ from Curse of the Chthonians: Four Odysseys Into Deadly Intrigue. However, that was all setting with neither narrative nor background; the setting populated by a gallery of grotesques devoted to an unexplained cult – the Society of the Great Dark – and sitting over what is essentially a dungeon. Fortunately, the newest scenario for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition to offer a carnival of consternation is far more chilling and much more cunning. Welcome to Carnival Pandemonium.

Carnival of Madness: A Call of Cthulhu Scenario for the 1970s is from the same team behind Highway of Blood and The Pipeline. It is inspired by the low-budget horror, splatter, and exploitation films of the period, shown in a ‘grindhouse’ or ‘action house’ cinema, such as Duel, I Spit on Your Grave, Last House on the Left, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes, and the more recent Death Proof. Carnival of Madness is a one-session, one-shot which takes place on the Friday the day before Halloween in 1970 just off the Aylesbury Pike in western Massachusetts. The Player Characters—who may or not be investigators—are visiting a carnival which has set up there, whether for fun, looking for Alice, a little girl who has been abducted from Worcester State Hospital (she will come to play a significant role in the scenario whatever the Player Characters’ motivations), or to investigate a curious cluster of similar dreams in the area. This is as either a quartet of ‘Meddling Kids’ in the mode of Scooby Doo—though minus the Great Dane, a team of Mythos dream investigators, a pair of Massachusetts State Police detectives, or a team of Private Investigators. Of these, Carnival of Madness includes pre-generated Investigators for the Meddling Kids and the two Detectives.

Carnival of Madness opens with the Investigators on the road and directed onto the grounds of the Carnival Pandemonium to the sound of jaunty party pipes [https://youtu.be/pct1uEhAqBQ] and encouraged to play games such as Whack-A-Monkey, Ring Toss, Duck Pond, Wheel-O-Fortune, and more. They are pushed, even pulled towards various booths and other events, including a series of performances announced by a classic carnival barker, as well as a Fortune Teller and the Asylum, the carnival’s Funhouse and Freak Show. The Freak Show contains the most obvious and most immediate evidence of the presence of the Mythos at the carnival and despite being a cliché, is appropriate. Yet there are oddities amongst the Carnies too, some of which are obvious and perhaps easily passed off, but if the Investigators look close enough (or is that too close?) many have something disturbing about them... The Asylum is subtler in its horror, being based on the classic facility for the mentally disturbed which constantly seems to play with the Investigators’ sense of perspective and that runs throughout Carnival of Madness.

Carnival of Madness is also a timed event and as the Investigators spend more time on the carnival grounds, reality seems to slip in and out around them, and they seem to slip in and out of reality. In actuality, they are descending deeper and deeper into Pandemonium, a space which distorts the world around them. What is pulling them is a vector, an Unreality, an infection which is making them more susceptible to the effects of the Pandemonium. At first there are only minor differences—colours not as bright, flavours blander, and sounds flatter, whilst those around the Investigators who are already one of the Infected, will seem to act strangely and see madness in everyone but themselves, but further and further in, the world will wear out, the people will disappear and reappear, the sun will take on a golden corona, chaos reigns as thoughts and emotions run rampant and have a physical presence, until the point where they are no longer at the carnival, or even on Earth. In and out of this slips Alice, sometimes taking an Investigator by the hand, sometimes stepping out of sight… The Investigators’ descent into Pandemonium is measured by Sanity loss and requires some extra tracking upon the part of the Keeper, the effects of any occurrence of any Bout of Insanity being marked by a drop further on that descent and a roll on the provided Unreality Tables.

For the players and their Investigators, Carnival of Madness comes with some excellent handouts, including tickets, photographs and images, posters, and maps, one of which delightfully hints at the Mythos entity at the heart of the scenario. The standout handout is the leaflet for the Carnival Pandemonium itself, which definitely needs to be printed out and handed to the players as it adds so much verisimilitude to the scenario. Six Investigator sheets—though only the front of the sheets—are given for the four Meddling Kids and the two Detectives.

For the Keeper there is the complete background to the scenario and the antagonists’ plans which come to fruition at the climax of the scenario, an explanation for Pandemonium is and how it works, a complete description of all the booths and events at the carnival—including all of the games, so the Investigators can get involved, stats for the major NPCs, descriptions of three Mythos artifacts, spells, and tomes, and a new Mythos creature. There is also advice and a warning or two—all of which are needed. Carnival of Madness is upfront about the fact that it involves body horror, graphic violence, drug use, adult language, gaslighting, and mental health issues—the gaslighting in particular. Across the course of the evening on which the scenario takes place, the Keeper is constantly presenting the players and their Investigators with seemingly false narratives and manipulating and misleading their perceptions. The scenario advises that the Keeper should be upfront with her players as well.

Carnival of Madness is a busy scenario, perhaps too busy to run in a single session and the Keeper will need to maintain a tight rein on the pace of the scenario as it builds to the climax. There is the suggestion that it could be run in two or three sessions, though that may lessen some of the scenario’s impact, for this is a scenario which is designed to build and build in intensity and some of that may be lost between sessions. The scenario is flexible enough that it could easily be set at any time from the Purple Decade of Cthulhu by Gaslight to nineteen eighties without any real changes.

Physically, Carnival of Madness is a fantastic looking book. The artwork is good, the writing decent, and the handouts excellent. Perhaps an index or a cheat sheet of tables to cover the rules additions would have been useful, but the book is relatively short.

Carnival of Madness is a scenario whose fantastic atmosphere and creepiness and weirdness grows and grows in intensity as the Investigators descend into Pandemonium and madness. It not only brings the raucous and rowdy nature of a carnival to life with all of the games and performances and booths, but infuses them with an unmellow yellow that will play and play again with the Investigators’ perceptions like a carousel of consternation.

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

—oOo—

What is it?
The Cups of Clearwine: A Sourcebook for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha presents the dozen or so households, twenty-seven fully written up inhabitants and more, plus maps and plot hooks of ‘Elisanda’s Grove’ (or ‘Sandy Corner’), a district in the corner of the tribal city of the Colymar for use with RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.

It also includes the spell, Command Goose.

It is a follow-up to the earlier The Dregs of Clearwine: A Sourcebook for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha which described another corner of Clearwine.

It is a sixty-three page, full colour, soft cover book.
The layout is clean and tidy, and the portrait thumbnails are nicely done.

Where is it set?
The Cups of Clearwine is specifically set to the right of Oldgate in the tribal city of the Colymar. With some adjustment it could be moved to another Sartarite city.
Who do you play?No specific character types are required when encountering the inhabitants of The Dregs of Clearwine. Engizi and Heler worshippers will enjoy the included scenario.

What do you need?
The Cups of Clearwine requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha as well as The RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack for wider information about the city of Clearwine. The RuneQuest: Glorantha Bestiary will be useful for details on the Telmori and Trolls and The Red Book of Magic for certain spells, whilst The Smoking Ruin & Other Stories details NPCs who may be important to the inhabitants of Clearwine. To get the very fullest out of The Cups of Clearwine, both Cults of Glorantha and the Sartar Boxed Set will be useful.
What do you get?
The typical supplement for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha focuses naturally on adventurers and the great and the good and the bad, that is, Player Characters and NPCs who possess the agency and freedom to go anywhere or do anything. The Cups of Clearwine: A Sourcebook for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha is radically different, focusing on the lives and loves of those further down the social ladder, but unlike the earlier  supplement, The Dregs of Clearwine, not all that far down the social ladder, most of them being middle class. The inhabitants of the area make a good living and certainly enough to get by. The supplement details the eleven households and establishments of the neighbourhood and their inhabitants, as well as various family members and employees who live and work there. The majority of these are fully statted up and nicely illustrated, and all include detailed descriptions of their hopes and relationships with others in their household and the wider community.
For example, Oraninna Goodwine and her husband Rastadath, she a respected vintner and Initiate of Minlister, he a retired warrior, own two properties in the neighbourhood. One is a draughty, but impressive stone tower, the other, a larger, more homely home. However, the effects of the Great Winter forced them to let their house to tenant farmers with a large family, headed by Jenyr the Weaver, something that Oraninna is jealous of, her children having died or been killed as a result of the Lunar occupation of Sartar. Further, whilst renting out the house has restored their fortunes, Oraninna and Rastadath want to move back in, but cannot. However, Jenyr’s son, Fararan, is fascinated with Rastadath’s war stories, as are several of the boys in the neighbourhood, much to their parents’ dismay, who want them to follow in their safer footsteps. Rastadath drinks with Findaral, an old comrade, at the wine shop, complaining about both the changes locally, especially those his niece has made to his wife’s pottery shop, now turning it into ‘The Hot Food Shop’, and any newcomers to the area, despite the fact that outsiders come to both ‘The Hot Food Shop’ and the wine shop, let alone the others visiting the neighbourhood’s other craftsmen and women. One of these is the argumentative Tifira Wolf-Friend, a Telmori who has become friends with Indromast, the introverted perfume maker, who is the subject of gossip as to who he should marry and there are occasional attempts to match-make for him. He sells to the Earth Temple and the Temple of Uleria in Apple Lane, as well as private citizens, including Brudelia Norinel, an Ersolian courtesan, who resides here, far away from her family politics and who buys from all of the sellers in the neighbourhood, if she can. She has no dislike for anyone nearby, but Rastadath’s conservatism is at odds with her progressive views, and she pities Oraninna Goodwine for the loss of her family. Threads like this weave in and out of the nearly thirty or so fully written up NPCs, and to a certain extent the others as well, creating a web of relationships that in play, the Player Characters can follow and unpick.
The eleven households include a perfume maker, landlords and tenants, a wine shop, a food shop, an entertainer, a courtesan, jewellers, glassmakers, and a foreign farmer. These all cluster around a courtyard at the centre of which is a well and a tree that Sartar himself changed from an old oak into a new sapling to prevent the tree from dying when new walls were built. The neighbourhood is busy as the wine shop and the food shop both attract outside custom, as do the perfume maker, jewellers, and glassmakers, all three of whom have regular patrons across the city of Clearwine. The courtyard throngs with geese—who also act as guard animals, and pigs, and at least one alynx whom the geese hate and will chase! Apart from the wine shop and food shop, the courtyard is quiet at night, and when closed, the area is patrolled by a recently hired Trollkin, though not everyone in the neighbourhood is happy with his situation.
Every household is accompanied by a big box of plot hooks—and that in addition to a selection of general plot hooks, a side elevation of the house, and the maps of the neighbourhood includes a rooftop map as well as a footprint map showing the floorplans of the mostly one-room households. Throughout, sections of boxed texts cover supplementary information, ranging from detailing the neighbourhood committee and spindles and spinning to how the disposal of  night soil is handled and the nature of courtesans in Glorantha. Rounding out The Cups of Clearwine is ‘The Cursed House’, an investigation into an abandoned house in the centre of the neighourhood which seems to be making people ill, which blossoms into a delightful exploration of the magical realism of Glorantha.
At the heart of The Cups of Clearwine is a very nicely constructed web of relationships and sense of community that the supplement’s many plot hooks dig their barbs into. There is material here that could fuel session after session of roleplaying as the Player Characters come to involve themselves into the doings of the neighbourhood, and unlike in The Dregs of Clearwine, it is likely to be easier to pull the Player Chaarcters into the doings of the locals presented in The Cups of Clearwine. This is because the Player Characters are likely to be on an equal footing in terms of social standing, at least for the most part.
The set-up of The Cups of Clearwine however, suggests another possibility. That is to run it as a mini-campaign location with the Player Characters are inhabitants of the neighbourhood, either having grown up there or moved there very recently as a result of recent events. This would lead to a campaign of small lives, but strong emotions, essentially a soap opera amongst the middle classes of Clearwine a la the BBC television series, EastEnders or the ITV series, Coronation Street. It is a pity that the supplement does not include ready-to-play sample Player Characters or guidelines to create such characters, but perhaps that is scope for some such supplementary support. The other alternative is to have the players take the roles of the NPCs themselves, though it would depend if the players want to take the roles of NPCs rather than characters of their own creation.
However the Game Master decides to use The Cups of Clearwine: A Sourcebook for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, it is full of detail, flavour, and rife with roleplaying and adventure possibilities.
Is it worth your time?Yes—The Cups of Clearwine presents a rich slice of almost soap opera life that will involve your Player Characters in the big stories of small lives, whether they are simply visiting or even residents themselves.No—The Cups of Clearwine presents a busy suburban corner of Clearwine and your campaign may not even be set there, let alone want to pay a visit.Maybe—The Cups of Clearwine presents an array of NPCs, relationships, and plot hooks which the Game Master can adapt to other locations if she does not want to use them as written.

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. However, whilst the fanzine format is typically used to support other roleplaying games, it has also been used as a vehicle for complete, if small roleplaying games of their own.
The Dead Are Coming: a zombie apocalypse survival rpg is a minimalist roleplaying game built on the architecture of Into the Odd. It was published by Gallant Knight Games in 2020, following a successful Kickstarter campaign as part of the Old Skull Zine RPG Trilogy—the others being Running Out of Time and Screams Amongst The Stars—for ZineQuest #2. As the title suggests, it is a post apocalyptic roleplaying game in which the dead have arisen and the survivors are forced into a struggle to survive, look after their friends and family and keep them safe, and perhaps build a refuge from which they can gain some measure of protection. Arrayed against them are not just small bands of the living dead, but potentially hordes—and not necessarily of the ordinary members of the shambling corpse cortège. They include the Sluggish, the Runner, the Hulk, the Spitter, the Toxic, and more... The Dead Are Coming includes thirty-six character backgrounds, simple player-facing mechanics, a deadly combat system which emphasises some potentially deadly nasty outcomes, simple rules for handling communities and their actions, ten zombie types, and a set of tables around which the Game Master can build a scenario or campaign. Throughout the world of The Dead Are Coming is presented as a dangerous one, a world where choices have consequences, and a world where death is just around the corner... Typically shuffling towards you on two legs.
A Survivor in The Dead Are Coming is defined by three attributes—Strength, Dexterity, and Willpower, his Hit Points, his Resources, and his Background. Resources consist of Food, Water, Bullets, and Fuel, whilst a Background can be anything from a Highschool Student or Foodtruck Chef to Clown or Soccer Star. To create a Survivor, a player rolls two six-sided dice and adds three for each attribute, and can swap two, and rolls one six-sided die for both Hit Points and Resources, the latter determining how many the Survivor has for all four types of Resource. Cross-referencing the results for Hit Points and Resources determines the Survivor’s Background, which gives him one or two useful items. Name, physical details, and personality traits can be rolled on separate tables. The process is quick and easy and takes a few minutes.
Name: Ryan MurdockStrength 9Dexterity 10Willpower 11Hit Points 4Background: ZookeeperResources: 2 (Food 1 Water 1 Bullets 0 Fuel 0)Equipment: Torch, photograph of partner, monkey, tranquiliser darts, dart gunDescription: Goatee, Fanatical
Resources and a Survivor’s Inventory are an important aspect of the game. Food and Water are required daily, Fuel is consumed per four hours of travel, and Bullets are expended only when a one is rolled on a damage die. For ease of play, there is no difference between Fuel types or Bullet types, the emphasis being on survival and play rather than unnecessary details. A Survivor’s Inventory is not just important because of what he is carrying, but how he is carrying it is. It is listed in order of packing and accessibility on the Survivor’s character sheet and if he needs to pull something out of a bag or backpack fast, his player needs to roll higher than the number it is stored on. Of course, this only comes into play when dramatically appropriate, but when it does, it adds to the tension. In addition, every items has a limited durability, after which a Survivor will need to repair, recharge, or refill it that item to use it again—if the item has not been destroyed.
Mechanically, The Dead Are Coming uses Saves. These are rolls of a twenty-sided die against the appropriate attribute. Depending upon how well prepared a Survivor is, what equipment he has, or whether he an appropriate Background, his player will roll with Advantage, that is roll two twenty-sided dice and use the lowest result. Conversely, if the Survivor is ill-prepared, outmatched, or hindered, his player will roll with Disadvantage.
Combat in The Dead Are Coming is deadly. Initiative is handled narratively, the Game Master determining who acts depending upon the situation. Any attack always hits, so instead of rolling to hit, the player or Game Master just rolls damage. All weapons ‘explode’ and allow an extra die to be rolled and added to the total if the maximum number on a die is rolled. It is also possible to attack with an advantage or a disadvantage. The former increases the damage inflicted, whilst the later reduces it. Defence, whether unnatural for a Zombie or cover for a Survivor, and any armour worn by a Survivor will reduce the amount of damage done, but after that, it is first deducted from their Hit Points and their Strength. Once a Survivor suffers damage to his Strength, this is Critical Damage and his player must make saves against his Strength and if failed, he becomes Incapacitated. If a Survivor’s Strength is reduced to zero, he is dead, and similarly, if his Dexterity is reduced to zero, he is paralyzed.
In between Strength and Hit Points, there is the Scars table. This is rolled on if a Survivor’s Hit Points is reduced to exactly zero without any Strength damage. The amount of damage suffered determines the result. For example, a two means that the Survivor falters and shakes his head, is forced to reroll his Hit Points, and can Save against one of his attributes, which if failed, will increase its value by one. This and other options are the only way to increase a Survivor’s attributes or Hit Points. The entries on the Scar table are all interesting and can lead to some fun roleplaying outcomes, but because attacks are more likely to inflict damage that will result in Critical Damage, the likelihood of these results coming into play is uncommon.
The Dead Are Coming is a horror roleplaying game and it includes rules for the effect of encountering the cadaver cavalcade. Seeing someone devoured by zombies results in the loss of Willpower and when that is reduced to zero, a Survivor suffers a Stressful Event. This can be anything from the Survivor holding it together and having Advantage for all saves for a short while, to suffering a heart attack and either dying or passing out. Willpower is regained by resting and spending time with a personal item.
The Dead Are Coming is not just about fighting the undead threat, but also dealing with other Survivors, gaining Followers, and eventually forming a Band and perhaps even a Community. Guidance is given for how many Resource Units it might take to gain a favours or trade deals, and simple rules acquiring Followers and how to use them when they coalesce into a Band of twenty people and then a Community of a hundred or more, composed of five Bands. Mechanically, they are treated like a large Survivor, and in battles, they can become broken when they suffer Critical Damage. As part of a Community, a Band can be assigned activities such as scouting ahead, recruiting other Survivors, searching for Resources, and reinforcing the walls of the Community’s home.
For the Game Master there are rules for handling travel, the weather, and encounters, the latter supported with some NPC stats—which are not your average Survivors, for example, Death Cultists and Opportunities pricks—and tables for their gear. Another set of tables, the ‘Apocalypse Toolkit’, provides landmarks, structures, findings, and hazards to be found in the countryside, small towns, and cities. Another pair of tables gives simple adventure hooks and ideas on what to do in the zombie apocalypse. Then there are the zombies. Unlike Survivors, they do not suffer Critical Damage when they suffer Strength damage, but all damage against them explodes when the highest result on any dice is rolled. However, if a Survivor suffers Critical damage against, his player make Saves against Strength, first to avoid being Infected, and when Infected, three more for it to be permanent. The zombies are nasty, and include the expected Sluggish and Runner type zombies, as well as the Zombie Mass, the Exploding Zombie, the Z Dog, and the Z Elephant! Plus there is a table of mutations to spice them up a bit…
The Dead Are Coming includes advice for both the player and the Game Master. For the player, this is ask questions and plan and work with others, build alliances, especially to avoid both risk and dice rolls, the latter because dice rolls because they have consequences. He should also play to survive and play hard—dirty if necessary—but enjoy his Survivor’s death. After all, Survivors are replaceable. For the Game Master, the world of The Dead Are Coming should be presented as dangerous and make that danger obvious to her players, present choices, show the consequences of those choices, and have her players roll Saves as a result of their making choices. 
Physically, The Dead Are Coming is well presented, its discordant and sometimes urgent layout stressing the unnatural of its post apocalypse. The writing is succinct and to the point, and the artwork decent.
As mechanically simple and straightforward as The Dead Are Coming is, it will require some set-up upon the part of the Game Master, but that will typically amount to no more than the details of an environment where the Survivors will come together, whether that is one of the Game Master’s devising or one based on a real-world location. Either way, since the game is set in the real world just a few moments into the future, it is a world that is easy to imagine and a world that will be easy to contribute by both players and the Game Master working together. Plus, there is the familiarity of the zombie genre and the roleplaying does come with a good of tables for added inspiration. 

The Dead Are Coming combines simple rules with a familiar set-up and genre in which the Survivors need to learn from their Scars to withstand the dangerous nature of the world they now find themselves in. However, that world is brutal and nasty, a post apocalypse in which sometimes the best option is to run—whether that is from the zombies or other Survivors—and that should be a lesson learned fast...

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

A Loke BattleMats book comes as a spiral-bound book. Every page is a map and every page actually light card with a plastic covering. The fact that it is spiral-bound means that the book lies completely flat and because there is a map on every page, every map can be used on its own or combined with the map on the opposite page to work as one big, double-page spread map. The fact that the book is spiral bound means that it can be folded back on itself and thus just one map used with ease or the book unfolded to reveal the other half of the map as necessary. The fact that every page has a plastic covering means that every page can be drawn on using a write-on/wipe-off pen. It is a brilliantly simple concept which has already garnered the publisher the UK Games Expo 2019 People’s Choice Awards for Best Accessory for the Big Book of Battlemats and both the UK Games Expo 2019 Best Accessory and UK Games Expo 2019 People’s Choice Awards Best Accessory for Giant Book of Battle Mats.
The Wilderness Books of Battle Mats is a ‘Set of 2 Battle Map Books for RPG’. As a set, it comes as two volume set of map books in a slipcase—open ended at either side for easy access. Each of the two volumes is a twelve-inch squire square, spiral bound book, with each containing sixty maps, all marked with a square grid. These start with a pair of maps depicting in turn plain grasslands, tundra, and desert—the nearest that the two volumes get to blank, unfeatured maps, but quickly leap into depicting particular locations. There are rivers, waterfalls, and pools; stretches of worked forest with nothing but stumps left; the ruins of a tower and its nearby outbuildings; desert and rocky desert ravines; narrow ravines crossed over by both a log and a bridge, with a stream running the length of the ravine; rich jungle undergrowth; the shores of both arctic temperate territory; and much, much more. And this is more or less the same in each of the two books. This does not mean that the maps are exactly the same in each book. Rather they are thematically similar and this leads into what is perhaps the greatest feature of The Wilderness Books of Battle Mats.
Each two-page spread of the two volumes of The Wilderness Books of Battle Mats consists of two linked maps—physically and thematically. The Game Master can use either of the maps on the two-page spread on their own or together, as a twelve by twenty-four-inch rectangular map. That though is with the one volume. With two volumes together, the Game Master can combine any single map from one volume with any single map from the other, and if that is not flexible enough, any two-page spread from one volume can be placed next to a two-page spread from the other, in the process, creating a twenty-four by twenty-four-inch square map. What is means is that the Game Master can connect the river to the pool via the waterfall, have the ruined tower guarding the shore of a lake or the sea, and so on. Thus this gives The Wilderness Books of Battle Mats a fantastic versatility which the Game Master can take advantage of again and again in choosing a combination of map pages from the two volumes to create location after location, and then use them to build encounter after encounter.
The individual maps are excellent, being bright, vibrant, detailed, and clear. They are easy to use and easy to modify. A Game Master can easily adjust them with a write-on/wipe-off pen to add features of her own. This is especially important if the Game Master wants to use a map which has previously featured in one of her adventures. She can also add stickers if she wants new features or even actual physical terrain features.
Where perhaps The Wilderness Books of Battle Mats improves on the The Dungeon Books of Battle Mats is that there are fewer limitations on how and when the contents of the two volumes can or should be used. This is primarily because their locations—unlike those of The Dungeon Books of Battle Mats—are not as specific in terms of their role. Unlike the dungeon maps, they are obviously more open and there are fewer elements of their design that the Game Master has to consider when bringing them to the table. This also means that the maps can be used again and again without familiarity becoming too much of an issue. Of course, creating an encounter at a moment’s notice is not necessarily easy, and to really get the best out of The Wilderness Books of Battle Mats, the Game Master should definitely prepare some with the maps in mind that she wants to use, but it is easier with this two-volume set.
Physically, The Wilderness Books of Battle Mats is very nicely produced. The maps are clear, easy to use, fully painted, and vibrant with colour. One issue may well be with binding and the user might want to be a little careful folding the pages back and forth lest the pages crease or break around the spiral comb of the binding. Although there is some writing involved in The Wilderness Books of Battle Mats, it is not really what a Game Master is looking for with this two-volume set. Nevertheless, that writing very much needs the attention of an editor—just as it was with The Dungeon Books of Battle Mats.
There is no denying the usefulness of maps when it comes to the tabletop gaming hobby. They help players and Game Masters alike visualise an area, they help track movement and position, and so on. If a gaming group does not regularly use miniatures in their fantasy games, The Wilderness Books of Battle Mats might not be useful, but it will still help them visualise an area, and it may even encourage them to use them. If they already use miniatures, whether fantasy roleplaying or wargaming, then the maps in The Wilderness Books of Battle Mats will be undeniably useful. And there are so many fantasy roleplaying games which The Wilderness Books of Battle Mats will work with, almost too many to list here…
The Wilderness Books of Battle Mats is full of attractive, ready-to-use maps that the Game Master can bring to the table for the fantasy roleplaying game of her choice. Both practical and pretty, The Wilderness Books of Battle Mats is an undeniably useful accessory for fantasy gaming in general. 

Warden Adventures is a book of scenarios designed for Metamorphosis Alpha: Fantastic Role-Playing Game of Science Fiction Adventures on a Lost Starship. The first Science Fiction roleplaying game and the first post-apocalypse roleplaying game, Metamorphosis Alpha is set aboard the Starship Warden, a generation spaceship which has suffered an unknown catastrophic event which killed the crew and most of the million or so colonists and left the ship irradiated and many of the survivors and the flora and fauna aboard mutated. Some three centuries later, as Humans, Mutated Humans, Mutated Animals, and Mutated Plants, the Player Characters, knowing nothing of their captive universe, would leave their village to explore strange realm around them, wielding fantastic mutant powers and discovering how to wield fantastic devices of the gods and the ancients that is technology, ultimately learn of their enclosed world. Originally published in 1976, it would go on to influence a whole genre of roleplaying games, starting with Gamma World, right down to Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic from Goodman Games. And it would be Goodman Games which brought the roleplaying game back with the stunning Metamorphosis Alpha Collector’s Edition in 2016, and support the forty-year old roleplaying game with a number of supplements, many which would be collected in the ‘Metamorphosis Alpha Treasure Chest’.

Warden Adventures presents eight adventures for Metamorphosis Alpha, all written by the designer of the roleplaying game, James M. Ward. Each is accorded a two-page spread and each comes with an explanation of its story, its situation, and essentially what is its development. This is typically accompanied by a map and whatever stats are necessary. They are designed to be placed anywhere on the Starship Warden—though some are connected to Epsilon City and thus to the Epsilon City boxed set—and whilst some can played in a single session or encounter, some may well take longer than that to explore or deal with the issue or threat at hand.

‘Adventure Two: Security At Its Best’ actually presents the Player Characters with a problem and so something that they can obviously act against. Explorers have long known about the swarms of exploding flying bots to found at the crossroads in one of the built areas on the level of Starship Warden, and these bots have become a threat to anyone nearby. Numerous attempts have been made to destroy the swarms, but the bots always keep coming back. Where do they come from and what is it that they protecting? This is primarily a big combat encounter combined with exploration once the swarms have been dealt with, so the Player Characters will definitely need to come armed for more than bear.

‘Adventure Three: Sanpetra Rift’ describes a nasty creature which makes hit and run attacks out of the darkness and can track its quarry for miles. The Player Characters may never actually encounter it (enabling the Game Master to save it for later), but when they come across a seemingly abandoned raft curiosity is likely to get the better of them. There is plenty to be found here, all of it interesting, but not all of it safe. There is fun here though, for the Game Master who has an interesting NPC to roleplay, an engineer recently unfrozen from cryo-sleep, and not happy to be in his current situation. There are plenty of details here which the Game Master can develop further depending upon what her Player Characters decided to do.

‘Adventure Four: Willow Tree’ describes the Metamorphosis Alpha version of the deadly willow tree which has formed a symbiotic relationship with a bear mutant which inhabits the adjacent swamp. Metal can be seen the lake, so that may mean artefacts—and of course, the Player Characters always want and need more artefacts. However, they will find themselves assailed from above by the tree and from below as the swamp seems to rise up and attack them! This is a messy encounter that has a mucky, fetid feel.

‘Adventure Five: The Ultimate Boss’ confronts the Player Characters with a ‘holy knight’ who prevents them from entering into Epsilon City. Scketre stands tall, sometimes flanked by a pair of stalwart spearmen, in front of a portal—hung with Wolfoid pelts—through which can be smelled fresh food dispensers and beyond that seen a park of strange trees. He will challenge anyone who attempts to pass through the portal, but will be distracted by the nearby Wolfoid packs who send their warriors out to face him in a rite of passage. However, Scketre can be engaged in conversation and reasoned with, so clever Player Characters may be able to take advantage of him, which will take good roleplaying upon the part of the Game Master.

‘Adventure Six: Encounter Among The Trees’ is the third of three scenarios involving trees in Warden Adventures. Perhaps the Player Characters are attracted by the strange piles under the canopies of the five Mutated Australian Baobab Trees, but when they go to investigate, they are attacked. It does not amount to much more than that and so is the least interesting of the eight scenarios in the anthology.

The Player Characters encounter another big android-type in ‘Adventure Seven: Clowny The Android Clown’, this as the title suggests, a clown android! Standing at an entrance to Epsilon City, he only wants to make everyone he meets happy and is particularly militant about it. Wolfoids are another matter, since they seem to lack a sense of humour, but if the Player Characters are prepared to take a joke and have a laugh, then they will be rewarded. Of course, there is the loot that Clowny has taken from the unreceptive Wolfoids to grabbed if Clowny can be dealt with. He is a tough old clown, even ready to turn ‘killer clown’, and even if the Player Characters do defeat him, there are problems with the loot they find.

The last entry in the anthology is ‘Adventure Eight: Erector Pit’. This details a bacterial research lab, which of course, was drastically affected when the Starship Warden passed through the radiation cloud which caused the ship-wide breakdown. Trapped within its walls is a nasty, intelligent virus which is looking to escape. This is nicely described and quickly turns into a locked room filled with blind panic.

Physically, Warden Adventures is cleanly presented. The maps are clear and simple, the illustrations decently done, and lastly, it includes some sample character sheets for Human, Mutant, and Robot type characters. As a collection, Warden Adventures does feel as if involves one too many trees, but the anthology includes a good mix of horror and combat encounters as well as some roleplaying. The adventures are all easy to use and place (especially if the Game Master has access to Epsilon City boxed set) and would even work for other post-apocalypse set roleplaying games like Mutant Crawl Classics.

The City of a Hundred Ships is an adventure for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Published by Critical Kit, it is designed for a party of four to five Player Characters of Sixth Level and is intended to be played in a single session, either as a one-shot or as part of an ongoing campaign. As part of a campaign, it is a direct sequel to the earlier Lady Trevant’s Bones, but whether it is used as a one-shot or a sequel, it involves a revolution (or a counter-revolution) which takes place on a strange night celebrating twilight, the period between day and night, aboard a giant fleet of seagoing vessels. The scenario will very probably involve some combat in its dénouement, but it primarily emphasises intrigue and interaction.

In Lady Trevant’s Bones the Player Characters became involved in a long-standing feud and subsequent Perigee Summit between two rival nations of Elves, the underworld dwelling Evershades and the maritime Midnight Banner, both descended from the same sea-faring Sea Elves that split roughly four thousand years ago. The summit is being held because the necromancer and Moonshade exile, T’Zraam, had broken into the tomb of Lady Trevant, the first leader of the Evershades, and attempted to raise her from the dead and in doing so, take command of the Evershades Elves. Neither faction could send anyone into the tomb because both regard it as hallowed ground, so thus the Player Characters were called upon to enter the tomb on the Elves’ behalf. At the end of the scenario, they will have stopped T’Zraam and taken possession of Lady Trevant’s Bones—which are regarded as equally sacred by the Evershades and the Midnight Banner—and in The City of a Hundred Ships, those bones will play a major role in the future of both groups of Elves.

The City of a Hundred Ships begins with the Player Characters aboard The Regolith, the flagship of Admiral Kalen Thriz, which is returning to the floating city of Maradusc, the famed ‘City of a Hundred Ships’, which is home to the Midnight Banner. They are the guests of the admiral, who wants to recognise them for their efforts in saving Lady Trevant’s Bones in the previous scenario. However, Admiral Kalen Thriz has another agenda. She wants a seat on the Umbra Ministry, the ruling council for Maradusc, currently split equally between the conservative theocrats and the progressive New Moon, with the former dominating because the head of the Umbra Ministry, Grandmaster T’Alath breaks ties and is a theocrat. Admiral Kalen Thriz is a known progressive and would stand alongside the New Moon, which would enable the faction to dominate the Umbra Ministry. This is not something that Grandmaster T’Alath and theocratic allies are prepared to tolerate.

Admiral Kalen Thriz and the Player Characters arrive on an auspicious night. Located in the far south, Maradusc spends half of the year in permanent night and half in permanent daylight with short periods of twilight between them. Great festivals are held on these twilight days, and one of these, the Festival of Shadows, is due to be celebrated during the twilight between the long night and long day. The Player Characters are invited to participate in this celebration, but when Grandmaster T’Alath moves against Admiral Kalen Thriz, they find themselves in an awkward situation as effectively, they no longer have the protection of  their patron and employer. However, they are given the means to move around and so have at least the length of the Festival of Shadows to decide what to do.

The City of a Hundred Ships provides a small sandbox—or since it takes place aboard a city of ships, is that a ‘shipbox’?—for which the Player Characters to explore and aboard which they can formulate their plans. Various NPCs and locations are detailed, including all six members of the Umbra Ministry, the Faculty of Diegesis where scholars record the history of the Midnight Banner through poetry, the prison ship where Admiral Kalen Thriz is being held, and The Aphelion, the largest vessel at the centre of Maradusc where the Umbra Ministry meets. For the Dungeon Master and her players there are two or three plot threads to follow—kept purposefully simple and straightforward because The City of a Hundred Ships is designed to played in the one evening, plus one or two random events, as well as the ceremonies for the Festival of Shadows. How it all plays is down to the players…

The Dungeon Master is also supported with stats for the scenario’s NPCs and a description of the Midnight Banner cannons which are to be used in the Festival of Shadows. These use the firepowder mined and milled in the town of Sercana, which suggests a possible link to the scenario, Lock-in at the Blind Raven. Unlike the other scenarios from Critical Kit, there are no treasures included in The City of a Hundred Ships. The centrespread for The City of a Hundred Ships consists of a map of Maradusc and there is a small poster map included too.

Physically, The City of a Hundred Ships is decently presented, everything is easy to grasp, and the map is decent enough. It is an easy scenario to use, but not as easy a scenario to use in other settings as other scenarios are from Critical Kit. This is because, ultimately, The City of a Hundred Ships really works best as a sequel to Lady Trevant’s Bones. Where The City of a Hundred Ships is lacking is in the possible rewards that the Player Characters might earn in helping Admiral Kalen Thriz bring the bones of Lady Trevant to Maradusc or those that they might earn in coming to his aid when he is arrested. Some individual deck plans for the various ships in Maradusc might have also been useful, but those are something that the Dungeon Master can find and use herself.

Although it is not as developed in places as perhaps it should be, The City of a Hundred Ships is definitely best run as a sequel to Lady Trevant’s Bones and these is scope too, for the Dungeon Master to expand the scenario beyond its one night’s playing time. If it is run as a sequel to Lady Trevant’s Bones, then The City of a Hundred Ships packs a decent enough story for one night’s worth of intrigue, interaction, and stealth. 

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

—oOo—

What is it?
Jallupel Goodwind presents an encounter with a ‘monster’ for use with RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.

It is a fourteen page, full colour, 1.94 MB PDF.
The layout is clean and tidy, and its illustrations and cartography are decent. It does need a slight edit in places.

Where is it set?
Jallupel Goodwind is set in the Valley of the Blight near the village of Greenhaft on the lands of the Greenhaft Clan of the Cinsina Tribe.

Who do you play?
No specific character types are required to encounter Jallupel Goodwind, but Orlanthi and Lunar characters will find it interesting. A Lankhor Mhy may prove useful for his research skills.

What do you need?
Jallupel Goodwind requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, the Glorantha Bestiary, and The Red Book of Magic. 
What do you get?
The second volume of ‘Monster of the Month’ presents not monsters in the sense of creatures and spirits and gods that was the feature of the first volume. Instead, it focuses upon Rune Masters, those who have achieved affinity with their Runes and gained great magics, mastered skills, and accrued allies—corporeal and spiritual. They are powerful, influential, and potentially important in the Hero Wars to come that herald the end of the age and beginning of another. They can be allies, they can be enemies, and whether ally or enemy, some of them can still be monsters. However, Jallupel Goodwind differs from this pattern in presenting a mini-scenario rather than an NPC and his entourage.
The Player Characters are asked to investigate and kill an evil red whirlwind, known as the ‘Whirling Moon’, which has been stalking a nearby valley at night since Dragonrise. This is a simple enough set-up, but everything else is far from it. The monster appears to be tougher and weaker than at first seems and if the Player Characters can communicate with it or possibly conduct some research, they can learn that it might be connected to a local tribal hero who fought a battle and died in the valley long ago and the ‘Whirling Moon’ might not be one thing, but two. Finding the former out should not be too difficult, whilst finding out the latter will be only slightly more so, but the really challenging aspect of the scenario is actually deciding what to do about the ‘monster’...
Jallupel Goodwind presents the Player Characters with an interesting problem—how do you seperate two souls which have been entwined with each other for centuries? The primary method discussed is physical, that is combat, in part because this will be hampered by the cyclical nature of the ‘monster’ and in part because it is likely to be the obvious—or at least, the initial—solution for the Player Characters. However, alternative solutions to the problem are not explored in depth and ultimately it really is down to the players and their characters to come up with an idea of their own and see if it works. This may be an issue if neither the players of their Game Master have sufficient experience with either the roleplaying game or the setting.
If Jallupel Goodwind does not explore any solutions to any real degree, it at least provides plenty of support and storytelling potential around the situation, which is a clever personification of the relationship between the Orlanthi and the Lunars. This includes the event which created the ‘Whirling Moon’, the reaction of the locals to it at the time, and the reaction of the locals now. The latter includes the possibility of the Player Characters gaining a reputation for not doing a proper job if the situation goes awry...
Designed to be played in a single session, Jallupel Goodwind is also easy to relocate elsewhere and the authors include a number of options to that end. These include Prax as well as being asked by the City Ring of Jonstown to look into the problem, meaning that Jallupel Goodwind could be run in connection with the RuneQuest Starter Set (although the Game Master will still need access to the other supplements).
Is it worth your time?Yes—Jallupel Goodwind presents an intriguing challenge, nicely tied into the background for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha which can be set almost anywhere and be played in a single session.No—Jallupel Goodwind presents an intriguing challenge, but does not really help the Game Master with sufficient advice as to how to deal with it and this may leave both her and her players floundering.Maybe—Jallupel Goodwind presents an intriguing challenge, but does leave the handling of any solutions to the challenge in the hands of the Game Master. If she is fine with that, then okay, but if not...

In the year 2150, the Great Nuclear War wipes out 70% of Britain’s population and results in a huge increase of mutant births due to exposure to the nuclear fallout of strontium-90, the children typically afflicted with one or more physical deformities. As the number of mutant births grows, so does the adverse reaction to them until the prejudice against them is open and adverse, with politicians, in particular, Nelson Bunker Kreelman of New Britain and his anti-mutant police force known as the ‘Kreelers’, actively campaigning on an anti-mutant platform. The prejudice would grow to the point where the Mutants banded together and formed a Mutant Army that would lead a Mutant Uprising in 2167. Although the rebellion fails, Kreelman is forced to resign and the Kreelers disband and whilst they continue to face prejudice, there are no pogroms against them. Most either move into the segregated ghettos set up for them, such as the large settlement of Milton Keynes, or because their work and business opportunities are severely limited, leave Earth all together.

The surviving members of the Mutant Army are also forced to leave Earth. They are also given a pardon in return for their joining the Search/Destroy Agency as galactic bounty hunters, tasked with hunting down criminals and threats deemed too dangerous to be handled by ‘norms’. The combination of their mutations being the result of strontium-90 radiation and the distinctive ‘S/D’ (for ‘Search/Destroy’) badges they wear, means that they are nicknamed Strontium Dogs, and their orbital base the Doghouse. This is set-up for the Strontium Dog comic strip from the pages of 2000 AD, which tells the tales of one of the most famous S/D bounty hunters, Johnny Alpha, a former leader of the 2167 Mutant Uprising, including going back in time to collect a bounty on one Adolf Schicklegruber! The comic strip, which originally appeared in the pages of Starlord in 1978 before transferring to 2000 AD in 1980 ran until 2018 with the death of its artist, Carlos Ezquerra. It is also the basis for Strontium Dog, a roleplaying supplement for Judge Dredd & The Worlds of 2000 AD.

Strontium Dog, published by En Publishing, is not the first roleplaying treatment for Strontium Dog. Mongoose Publishing released a version using the Traveller mechanics, and before that, there was a version from Games Workshop based on Judge Dredd: The Role-Playing Game, but which was never published. In Strontium Dog for Judge Dredd & The Worlds of 2000 AD the players take the role of Mutant Search/Destroy Agents, collecting bounties on the scum of the universe, travelling in the cargo hold from system to system, and suffering prejudice against Mutants along way—and not just from Norms, but from other Muties too. This can be because the Muties are criminals or simply because they hate the idea of Muties acting against other Muties. And although Strontium Dog is all about bringing in the scum of universe—dead or alive—and sometimes of the scum of other dimensions and other time periods, it is also possible for the players to take the roles of the scum of the universe and play criminals rather than bounty hunters! This would use the rules for creating criminals from Judge Dredd & The Worlds of 2000 AD, which can also be used for potential Strontium Dog/Judge Dredd crossovers—just like the comic—as they share the same universe.

Strontium Dog leaps straight into creating a character for the setting, beginning with options for Species. These include Humans and Mutants as well as Gronks, the intrepidly cowardly aliens known for their timidity and medical skills, whilst the Mutants, there are tables for physical, cosmetic, and metabolic/metaphysical mutations. Thus it is possible to play a mutant with boils or warts, tentacles, a rubberised body, acidic blood, an ice-cold metabolism, shimmering skin, a rash of fake eyes, a face full of teeth, and more. All of these individualise a mutant and should suggest a possible nickname, not necessarily a serious one, in addition to their skills and exploits. An option is included for the selecting the cruel and identical Strix as a species, and there is a guide to including robots in the setting too (although they do not appear in the comic strip as bounty hunters). Outlaw and Civilian careers includes everything from the Animal Rights Activist, Anti-Mutant Enforcer, and Bandit to the Theme Park Staffer, Vis Presenter, and Xenodiplomat, whilst specific Mutant Careers include Mutant Cultist, Mutant Stalker, and Sideshow Freak. Many of these could be used in the Judge Dredd and other settings for Judge Dredd & The Worlds of 2000 AD. Less easily adapted are the S/D Careers, which cover both recruitment and actual careers with the agency. The former include Born to It, mentored by an Older Dog, and Score to Settle, whilst the path for every S/D Agent is the same from Rookie S/D Agent to Veteran S/D Agent, with a choice of Agent in Time, Dimensional Agent, and S/D Agent in between. These are accompanied by a choice of Exploits such as ‘Nux for All’, which causes extra damage when using Electronux, ‘Making a Name for Yourself’ which grants a bonus to REP (reputation) checks because the rookie is trying to make a name for himself, and ‘I’ve SEEN Things’ (in other dimensions) enables an S/S Agent to initially ignore the Afraid condition!

The life of an S/D Agent means collecting bounties and making, hopefully big, money, but it also means paying out too. A Mutant gets nothing for free, and that includes his equipment. Strontium Dog includes a lengthy list of guns, grenades, and gadgets. These start off with the ubiquitous Westinghouse Variable-Cartridge Blaster and the dreaded ‘Der Happy Sick’ Warhammer wielded by Johnny Alpha’s friend, Wulf Sternhammer, and go from there… Some of the devices and bombs are extremely powerful, such as Dimension Warp which opens up a rift to another dimension, the Pocket Nuke (Throwing) capable of levelling a city, the Time Drogue for rewinding time on a victim or target, interrogating them, and then letting them die a second time, and the Time Shrinker, which speeds up time for the target to the point of death and beyond. It is suggested that the Player Characters only have access to these as plot devices rather than being readily available, but in general, they will have access to a lot of the gear and guns presented—if they have the credits, but then so are the criminals!

For the Game Master, there is a lot of support in the pages of Strontium Dog. This begins with advice about setting the tone, which is very much that of a Sci-Fi Spaghetti Western with blasters, mutant powers, and heavy prejudice. The latter runs throughout the setting and the players will need to have a thick skin when playing a campaign set in this twenty-second century. That said, their characters are armed—often heavily armed—and they have a lot of agency. Similarly, this future is not one in which there is a lot of trust, not even with the Player Characters’ fellow Muties, especially if they are rival bounty hunters. The notes on describing the world of Strontium Dog are pleasingly evocative, and this is backed up with descriptions of typical locations and then the various locations visited by Johnny Alpha in the pages of the comic strip. Both are really quite detailed and give the Game Master plenty to work with when taking her Player Characters there. Plus, there is a timeline for Johnny Alpha and the comic strip running from 793 AD to the 37th Century.

Almost a fifth of Strontium Dog is devoted to a series of Bounty Contracts. There are six of these, which can either run standalone, but they really work as a full campaign—the ‘En System’ Campaign. The campaign begins on Weaver’s Rock with a bounty of the Wispa gang, who have gone from robbing cargo trucks to murder! The first bounty is fairly simple and once completed, there are plenty of hooks if the Game Master wants to expand the Player Characters’ time in the backwaters of Weaver’s World. The second bounty takes the Player Characters to the planet’s big settlement, Paradise City, where they can continue tracking down the remaining members of the Wispa gang. Besides the main bounty, the Game Master is given another list of bounties available in the city, but once on the main trail, they become involved in a big chase across the city skyline. The third takes a darker turn when on the trail of an assassin, the Player Characters are inadvertently diverted—or are they?—to another planet and probably the best pun in what is a campaign packed with puns as they have to assault the ‘Merlock of Firestop Mountain’! The final encounter turns up the gonzo and the Merlock theme for an underwater, shark-infested big fight. In the fourth part it quickly becomes clear that the authors are really big fans of Doctor Who as the names and references fly thick and fast when the Player Characters are tasked with tracking down the creator of a gas which quickly grows anyone who breathes it into a zombie! They accidentally get dumped into an alternate dimension in the fifth part after they have to deal with a Mutie who has been terrorising Gronks—there is a bonus if no Gronks die during the apprehension of this bounty, so good luck with that!—and then fight their way out of it in readiness for the final showdown in the last part of the campaign. As the Player Characters have bounced from one bounty to the next, it has become clear that someone has been monitoring their actions and there they learn that it has been much more than that—the real villain has been broadcasting them across the galaxy! Cue lots of television jokes and shenanigans which bring the campaign to an entertaining close.

The ‘En System’ Campaign is not just a lot of fun, but it is clear that the authors had a lot of fun writing it. The jokes are as silly and as groanworthy as you would expect and they should be, and both Game Master and her players will appreciate the campaign even more if they get them. The Strontium Dog supplement is rounded with a lengthy section of Allies and Enemies, including Johnny Alpha, Wulf Sternhammer, the Gronk, Durham Red, Middenface McNulty, and a whole cast of criminals. This is the only section where the black and white artwork from the comic strip’s early days is seen, which is a pity. However, it is the ‘En System’ Campaign which pulls everything together and gives a playing group something to get started with.

Physically, Strontium Dog is a bright and breezy affair, which lots colour artwork drawn from the comic strip. It needs a slight edit in places, but is an easy read otherwise.

Strontium Dog is an impressive supplement for Judge Dredd & The Worlds of 2000 AD that with the addition of the ‘En System’ Campaign the Strontium Dog feels complete and succinct. It gives the Game Master and her players everything necessary to play an entertainingly gonzo, over the top game of hunting bounty on the scum of the universe and more!

Rogue Trooper: Tour of Nu-Earth 1 is a supplement for Rogue Trooper. Which itself is a supplement for Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000 AD. Published by En Publishing, Rogue Trooper is based on the 2000 AD comic strip of the same name, set in the far future. Two great empires, the Greater Nordland Republic and the Southern Cross Confederacy constantly clash, in particular on Nu Earth. In the past fifty years, this has become a world war, the planet divided between the two factions, known as the Norts and the Southers, and turned into a nuclear, biological, and chemical ravaged wasteland. In order to break the stalemate, Milli-Com of the Southern Cross Confederacy develops elite clones known as G.I.s or Genetic Infantry. When they are deployed in the year ’86, most of the G.I.s are killed in the Quartz Zone Massacre. There would be only one survivor, Rogue, who accompanied by his former squad mates, Bagman, Gunnar, and Helm, downloaded onto biochips and slotted into his gear, would ultimately unmask the traitor responsible for the massacre. With obvious parallels between with the American Civil War, but also drawing on other modern conflicts, especially the First World War and the Vietnam War, Rogue Trooper has been running as an ongoing if irregular series since 1981 and has been developed into a board game from Games Workshop and a computer game. Like many series that appear in the pages of 2000 AD, there is an element of satire to many of the stories, though not as strong as that found within the Judge Dredd stories, and the humour in the stories veers towards the gallows. Rogue Trooper from En Publishing is the first roleplaying treatment of it and enables the players to take the roles of Genetic Infantry or ordinary conscripts and get shipped down to Nu Earth as part of the war effort. The blue-skinned G.I.s are designed to survive in the toxic landscape of Nu Earth. Anyone else will need to wear a chemsuit…

Rogue Trooper: Tour of Nu-Earth 1 is sadly, the only supplement for Rogue Trooper. Like Judge Dredd: Case File Compendium 1 it is an anthology of scenarios. The seven scenarios or ‘Mission Reports’ within its pages are all set on Nu-Earth, the toxic hellhole and battleground which is the main setting for the Rogue Trooper series. Each scenario comes with a full explanation of its plot, clues, NPC stats, details of its aftermath, and a discussion of possible extra plots and developments which can be added or might come about because of the actions of the Player Characters. Many include suggestions on how to use the scenarios with the Judge Dredd setting for Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000 AD or the other roleplaying setting, Strontium Dog.

The anthology opens with ‘Horror At Camp Vlad’, the first of three Mission Reports by John White. The Player Characters are a team of Nort military investigators working for the Office of Public Truth sent to Camp Vlad to find out why so many Prisoners of War have been shot making escape attempts. Other options are discussed, including making Camp Vlad a mutant detention camp in Judge Dredd or Strontium Dog. Camp Vlad is located in a stifling jungle far from the frontlines and apart from the escape attempts, everyone is bored stiff and none too happy to see the Player Characters. This is a solid piece of investigation involving an interesting mystery and a fun scenario which gives the Game Master some good NPCs to portray and plays up a few clichés. Plus the players get to roleplay Nort investigators which means they have latitude in how they conduct themselves, which can be fun to roleplay.

It is followed by ‘Killer in the Night’, also by John White. The Game Master has a few NPCs to portray in this Mission Report when the Player Characters, a Southern combat team is an obvious routine mission—guard a group of Nort Prisoners of War being moved from the frontlines to internment elsewhere. The scenario is intentionally linear, since the Player Characters have to travel along a set route, but along the way, something begins to strike at the prisoners—and if not the prisoners, then the guards. Rumours fly around the convoy about ‘Baba Yaga’ stalking both prisoners and guards and so fear mounts. Backed up with random events, this is a creepy game of ‘Ten Little Indians’ on the move across hostile territory (well, almost everywhere is hostile on Nu-Earth).

Benjamin Rogers’ first Mission Report in Rogue Trooper: Tour of Nu-Earth 1 is not so much a ‘Mission Report’ as a campaign concept, but it does include a short scenario. ‘Unlucky 7s’ provides an alternative to the standard campaign set-up in Rogue Trooper which has the Player Characters as ground pounders, or infantry types. Instead of infantry, the Player Characters are the crew of a Hopper, a VTOL vehicle used for a variety of purposes. This discusses the various roles aboard the Hopper, including Commander, Medic, Engineer, EWS/SIGINT (Signals Intelligence) officer, Gunner, Navigator, Pilot, and Sysop, and suggests the skills for each of them. Equipment and several variants are listed too, as well as a table of vehicle traits and the description of the 29th Assault Hopper Squadron, 7th Souther Air Cav, which as the Unlucky 7s, has an ‘unlucky’ reputation. The sample encounter, ‘Relieving Squad Costa’ is a evacuate under fire mission which would get an air cavalry style campaign off to a good start.

‘Deep Trouble’ is John Rogers’ third and final Mission Report in Rogue Trooper: Tour of Nu-Earth 1 and it is designed for use with the previous Mission Report, ‘Unlucky 7s’. When a Souther flier vanishes near Klumpflot Lake in a remote part of the Hell Hunt Jungle with an important intelligence officer aboard, Milli-Comm assigns the recovery mission to the Unlucky 7s and the Player Characters’ vehicle. This mission ups the ante by inverting the environment and making the Player Characters explore the depths of a lake in order to find the wreck of the crashed VTOL. Since this is a lake on Nu-Earth, this is not a pleasant experience and is made all the more challenging by the local flora and fauna and the danger of Nort patrols and possible intervention. ‘Deep Trouble’ is an enjoyably inventive scenario and its inclusion suggests that a campaign revolving around air cavalry and air support could be a lot of fun.

Ben Rogers’ third and final Mission Report in Rogue Trooper: Tour of Nu-Earth 1 is ‘Black Market Shenanigans’ and it continues to support the author’s ‘Unlucky 7s’ campaign set-up. When a fellow soldier is beaten up, the Player Characters go to his aid and in doing so, bring them to the attention of the base’s black-market dealer, ‘Big Moxie’. It turns out the soldier they helped is in debt to the dealer and effectively, so are the Player Characters. Do the Player Characters help him out, and if so how? How do they deal with ‘Big Moxie’—do they pay her off, get into debt themselves, or even end up working for her? This is an entirely base set scenario. Its one weakness is whether or not the Player Characters decide to get involved—and if not, the scenario has ‘Big Moxie’ come after them until they are forced to act. Alternatively, the victim of the thugs sent by ‘Big Moxie’ could have been set up as an NPC earlier in the campaign, perhaps even be one of those rescued in the earlier ‘Relieving Squad Costa’. Apart from this, ‘Black Market Shenanigans’ makes for a nice change of pace, primarily involving social interaction skills and when combat does occur, brawling.

The final Mission Report in Rogue Trooper: Tour of Nu-Earth 1 is ‘Assault on Nu-Everest’ by Adrian Smith. This is another ‘Unlucky 7s’ scenario, more Where Eagle’s Dare than anything else as the Player Characters are assigned a covert extraction mission which turns into an assault and rescue up a mountain whilst being hunted by monsters! The Player Characters can be as loud or as quiet as they want and it should all climax in a chase back down the mountain in order to escape back to their VTOL. If the Player Characters are successful, they have the chance to redeem the reputation of their regiment. This is an entertaining scenario let down by the fact that its plot is explained in the reading rather than at the start, so the Game Master is not forewarned.

Rogue Trooper: Tour of Nu-Earth 1 is in general well written with decent maps as needed and illustrations taken from the comic. It does need an edit in places.

Rogue Trooper: Tour of Nu-Earth 1 is a solid selection of scenarios for Rogue Trooper. One issue is that the majority of the Mission Reports are for the ‘Unlucky 7s’ campaign set-up, so they are difficult to use in a general campaign set on Nu-Earth. If perhaps all of the Mission Reports in the anthology had been written for the ‘Unlucky 7s’ campaign framework, the supplement could have had more focus and some of the scenarios would have been easier to set up. In fact, the other two scenarios could have been moved elsewhere and made way for more scenarios and more development for the ‘Unlucky 7s’ campaign framework. Ultimately, Rogue Trooper: Tour of Nu-Earth 1 is one third one thing, a scenario anthology, and two third another, a campaign. Consequently, it does not as if it is one whole thing. Nevertheless, Rogue Trooper: Tour of Nu-Earth 1 does contain some entertaining and inventive scenarios, and it does come with a decent campaign starter and if a Game Master for Rogue Trooper does not have this supplement, she should definitely buy it as quickly as she can.

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. 
The Beyond the Borderlands trilogy of fanzines is different. Beginning with Beyond the Borderlands Issue #1, this is a systems neutral regional hexcrawl inspired by B2 Keep on the Borderlands, most recently implemented by Goodman Games’ Original Adventures Reincarnated #1: Into the Borderlands. The setting for the Beyond the Borderlands, like B2 Keep on the Borderlands before it, is the edge—or just beyond it—of the civilised lands, the frontier outside of which lies untrammeled wilderness, barbaric tribes, and Chaos run rampant. Here a solid fortress has been established as the last outpost of civilisation, to provide a degree of protection to travellers making the journey beyond and against the possibility of an incursion from the ghastly Goblins, horrible Hobgoblins, obnoxious Orcs, grim Gnolls, and more, which lurk just out of sight, ready to strike…
Published by Swordfish Islands LLC (but also available in PDF from the author), best known for publishing Swordfish Islands: Hexcrawl Adventures on Hot Springs Island, the first part of a trilogy detailed the last bastion of a civilisation on the frontier, Stronglaw Keep, and the surrounding Wicked Palovalley. What was particularly noticeable about Beyond the Borderlands Issue #1 was that all of its maps were presented in isometric format, which when combined with their bright, vibrant colours, make them leap off the page. This feature is continued in Beyond the Borderlands Issue #2, which when combined with spare nature of the text makes the descriptions and details given nicely accessible and easy to run from the page.

Beyond the Borderlands Issue #2 takes both Dungeon Master and her players into that den of evil which so threatens the Keep, the Caves of Chaos! Or rather, it does not. For in Beyond the Borderlands Issue #2, the Caves of Chaos become The Bloody Ravine, a sharp valley whose walls are pockmarked by cave entrances, beyond which many different tribes of Humanoids find their home. Traditionally the Caves of Chaos have always been presented from right to left with the head of the valley to the left. Here, it is turned ninety degrees, so that when the Player Characters enter the valley, it is more obvious that they are ascending its dangers. The Game Master is given simple rules for handling the Alert Level from one cave to the next, starting at ‘Off Guard’ to ‘Can’t be Surprised’ and comes with a trio of Adventure Hooks, two out of the three potentially leading to the doom of Stronglaw Keep!
One big difference between the Caves of Chaos and the Bloody Ravine is that there are only six caves instead of ten. These consist of the Kobold Lair, the Bugboar Quarters, the Goblin Labs, the Hynoll Chambers, and the Owlbear Den. Notably missing from the range are the Orcs and the Minotaurs, though Hobgoblins can be found in the Goblin Labs. Two of the caves—Rockfall Range and the Empty Cave—are left undetailed and unmapped, currently under construction. If the Player Characters explore these, they will lead to random locations. The other caves are each given a two-page spread, with an Encounter Table, behaviour notes, and a list of potential loot on the left, and individual room descriptions on the right. Most rooms are given no more than a couple of sentences’ worth of description. That does not sound very much, but it should be enough for the Dungeon Master and her players to get a feel for each location. Each of the six cave networks is sufficiently different from their inspiration. For example, the Goblins of the Goblin Caves are under the thumb of both Hobgoblins and a Troll—who normally lives in what would be the Ogre’s Cave—and often plays marbles with the Goblins! The Goblins farm Mushrooms, who do try to run away, and then mash and distil them in a potent spirit. Another difference is the length of the Encounter Table for each cave, which adds flavour and detail and suggests that there is a lot going on in each cave. Despite all that though, the map of each cave feels exactly like its inspiration, but brought to live in three dimensions and little details.
At the head of the Bloody Ravine is the infamous Chaos Temple. This is noticeably different in that it is not as such an active Chaos temple. Rather, it has the feel of an abandoned temple that has been taken over by another Chaos faction. It has a weird, creepy feel and a tense atmosphere, all succinctly captured in just a two-page spread and all very much different to previous iterations of B2 Keep on the Borderlands. Also very different is the addition of the Elven Catacombs below the  Bloody Ravine, which is full of skeletons and other undead threats, but there is plenty of treasure to be found. However, the map is not as easy to navigate or read, and its design is drier than that of the other caves in the Bloody Ravine.
Rounding out Beyond the Borderlands Issue #2 are write-ups for forty-eight of the NPCs and monsters encountered in both Beyond the Borderlands Issue #1 and Beyond the Borderlands Issue #2. The stats have been stripped back to a minimum and are actually written for use with Dungeon Reavers, a Micro Retroclone designed to handle Dungeons & Dragons-style play, which is also included in the issue. What this points to is that the Beyond the Borderlands Issue #2—and thus Beyond the Borderlands Issue #1 before it—can not just be played with the included Dungeon Reavers, but other Micro retroclones too. The language and terminology of Dungeon Reavers is still that of Dungeons & Dragons, so a gaming group can still play through this fanzine trilogy with the retroclone of its choice. Every entry is accompanied by a thumbnail illustration which matches the style of the maps. They include monsters and inhabitants of Stronglaw Keep, as well as possible NPC Hirelings and even potentially, replacement Player Characters. The illustrations are fiercely cute!  
All of the maps in Beyond the Borderlands Issue #2 are presented in isometric format, which when combined with their bright, vibrant colours, make them leap off the page. The writing needs an edit in places, but everything is well organised and packs a lot of information into relatively limited amounts of space. The format of the two-page spread used for each location and mini-region makes the contents of Beyond the Borderlands Issue #2 very easy to run from the page. If there is an issue with Beyond the Borderlands Issue #2 as a physical object, it is that like Beyond the Borderlands Issue #1, the issue lacks a sturdy card cover.
The Beyond the Borderlands series is intended to be a trilogy, but together Beyond the Borderlands Issue #1 and Beyond the Borderlands Issue #2 provide everything that the Dungeon Master and her gaming group needs to explore the Wicked Palovalley and climb the slopes of the Bloody Ravine to descend into the various caves along its walls. That does not mean that Beyond the Borderlands is totally complete, for there are dungeons yet to be detailed, but the contents of Beyond the Borderlands Issue #1 and Beyond the Borderlands Issue #2 are sufficient to play through a solid campaign inspired by B2 Keep on the Borderlands. The third issue will be worth waiting for though and not just for the as yet undetailed dungeons. Beyond the Borderlands Issue #3 will be taking a leaf out of Original Adventures Reincarnated #1: Into the Borderlands and include the author’s version of B1 In Search of the Unknown. That will be worth the wait, but in the meantime, Beyond the Borderlands Issue #2 caps a charming and engaging take upon the classic B2 Keep on the Borderlands.

Judge Dredd: Case File Compendium 1 is an anthology of investigations, scenarios, and adventures for Judge Dredd & The Worlds of 2000 AD, the fourth roleplaying to be based on the famous character from the long running weekly comic, 2000 AD. Published by En Publishing, it compiles the five previously available titles in the Judge Dredd Case File series—named after the compilations of the comic strips—and adds two new ones for a total of seven. Some come ready to play, some need a bit of preparation, some are full scenarios, other vignettes, but all are relatively easy to slot into a campaign. All can be run as scenarios for the other options in Judge Dredd & The Worlds of 2000 AD that have the Player Characters as either Civilians or Perps in Mega-City One, but primarily, the contents of Judge Dredd: Case File Compendium 1 are intended to be played using Judges, typically of Grade 5 and above.
The analogy opens with Judge Dredd Case File #1: Monkey Business by Russ Morrissey. This is a fairly uncomplicated affair, intended to be run as a one-shot or convention scenario, preferably with the pregenerated Player Characters from the core rulebook. That said, it is easy to run with Judges of the players’ own creation, or even with Civilians dealing with the problem because the Judges are busy or with a gang of Perps looking to take down their rivals. Bronson & Sons, a small and not very modern department store, has been taken over by a gang of apes. One is atop the roof, armed with a bazooka and causing mayhem, whilst the rest are inside awaiting the rival of the Judges (or their rivals). This includes a Gorilla ready and waiting in full football gear to bat up, and the rest of the gang all in Prohibition-era suits and fedoras. There is a wrinkle or two, and the Game Master will have fun hamming it up with the Ape gang, but otherwise, this is easy to run and drop into an ongoing campaign.

Judge Dredd Case File #2: Nobody Expects the SJS! by Benjamin Rogers is intended as an interlude. The totalitarian nature of the regime governing Mega-City One comes to the fore when the Judges are pulled from an investigation, whether in the middle or at the end of a shift and told to report to another station house. The Judges are stripped of their equipment and interviewed and interrogated by Judge Mordant of the Special Judge Squad to determine if they are guilty of misconduct. Several methods of interrogations are provided for Judge Mordant, up to and including ‘The Random Physical Coercion Test’ or Corporal Punishment. Consequently the scenario includes warnings about the content and rightfully so. The scenario is highly adversarial, involving harsh interrogation and psychological and physical abuse, with essentially the Game Master acting directly against the players’ Judges, who depending upon if they are guilty of misconduct, may end up sentenced to Titan and thus out of the campaign. Other outcomes are also discussed and both these and the situation itself, are interesting to roleplay if the group is not too uncomfortable with it. Lastly, ‘Judge Dredd Case File #2: Nobody Expects the SJS!’ does feel too early to run in campaign.
Judge Dredd Case File #3: Night of the Living Dredd by Richard August has a lovely pun for a title and takes the Judges (or other character types) below Mega-City One and onto the banks of the Big Smelly. Occasionally, the Justice Department sends Judges down below of a sweep of the underground area and the player Judges might be on such a sweep or another case, when they are best by a horde of zombies and forced to take refuge in the dilapidated remains of a suburban house. This is the end of Night of the Living Dead played out with daysticks and Lawgivers in which the Judges have to survive a terrible night in hope of rescue, all the while wondering what was the cause of the corpse cortege.

Judge Dredd Case File #4: Obstructing the Law by Benjamin Rogers presents a big challenge for the Judges when a Citi-Block is thrown into disarray when the local eating champion gets stuck on the way out of his apartment in Gordon Ramsay Block on the way to a local eating competition. This is fantastic situation which requires careful intervention by the Judges, not just in freeing the Fattie from where his stuck, but in dealing with the consequences if they fail. This includes dealing with citizens from the rival Jamie Oliver Block, the chances of the situation escalating into a Block War, Gordon Ramsay Block residents rioting, and more. This is a fun roleplaying situation which makes inventive use of the Judge Dredd setting.

Judge Dredd Case File #5: Red Dredd Redemption by Richard August is more of a set-up than an actual adventure or investigation. It is, however, a classic set-up. A Perp whom the Judges previous put away has been released from the Iso-Cubes and wants to revenge. To do this, the Perp conducts a reign of terror against the Judge (or his family if he has one), which should culminate in the kidnapping of an ally or a family member, perhaps a particularly reliable informant. For the Judges, the scenario should start with them coming to the rescue of the victim and the apprehension of the Perp. There are some nice suggestions as where this should take place, but it should be isolated and it will require some development upon the part of the Game Master. Like the earlier ‘Judge Dredd Case File #2: Nobody Expects the SJS!’, the set-up for ‘Judge Dredd Case File #5: Red Dredd Redemption’ means that it is better suited for Judges with more than a few cases and arrests on their record.
‘Judge Dredd Case File #6: All Boxed Up’ by Shaun Cook is a longer scenario in which the philanthropist Quququey, an alien trader, wants to redevelop one of Mega-City One’s shanty towns, Cardboard City, as part of a trade deal. The Judges are tasked with assisting him and keeping him safe, which means checking the area prior to his visit. There are lots of opportunities for investigation into minor crime, dealing with members of the Anti-Alien League who object to Quququey’s presence, and interacting with the citizens of Cardboard City. The Game Master will certainly have a lot of fun portraying the ordinary citizenry and oddballs that the Judges run into. There is scope also for Perp Player Characters in particular, their objectives being at odds with those of the Judges, of course. This will require a little adjustment upon the part of the Game Master. This is another solid slice of Judges working the streets and will probably take a session or two to play. If there is an issue with the scenario, it is that it could have done with better organising to make the various plots and motivations clearer.

‘Judge Dredd Case File #7: The Future of Law Enforcement’ by Marc Langworthy is the last scenario in the anthology. Where many a Judge Dredd campaign begins with the Player Characters as Cadet Judges on their Hot Dog Run or Eagle Day, here the Judges are summoned by Judge Dredd himself and assigned to oversee the latest batch of Cadets on their Hot Dog Run, a test run of their capabilities and training into the Cursed Earth. In particular, this Hot Dog Run is targeting a band of mutant raiders, ‘Cherpo’s Crusaders’, which has been active recently in the Alabama Morass. The Judges, accompanied by the Cadets, will need to search the area around Sausage Tree Farm, which is where most of the convoys that ‘Cherpo’s Crusaders’ has targeted, has come from. Along the way there are random encounters and the Cadets to keep an eye on. They take a supporting role mechanically and there is a random chance that they will mess up in one encounter. Each Player Character Judge is expected to take charge of one Cadet and it is suggested that each player also roleplay one of the other Cadets. The scenario includes rules and guidelines for this. This is solid, meaty little scenario which will culminate in the Judges giving assessments of their charges.

Physically, Judge Dredd: Case File Compendium 1 is nicely presented and well written. The scenarios do vary in quality and some of them do require development upon the part of the Game Master. Some though really are good and will be fun to both run and play as part of your Judge Dredd & The Worlds of 2000 AD campaign.

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. Another choice is the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game.
Ninja City is different type of fanzine for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. Published by Get Haunted Industries as part of ZineQuest 3, adapts the roleplaying game from Goodman Games to run adventures inspired by the Ninja movies and craze of the eighties, cheap straight to VHS tales of crime and retribution, and just a little bit, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. In Ninja City, the streets of the Player Characters’ hometown have been taken over by Bad Guyz—drug lords, street gangs, crooked cops, and worse—and nobody is doing a damned thing about it! Fortunately for the town and the Player Characters, they have rediscovered the Lost Secrets of the Ninja, found a sensei, set up a Clan in a secret hideout, and at the end of the day, when their day jobs are over, sneak out to strike at the Bad Guyz! Disrupt their operations, destroy their product, free the cheap labour they employ, rescue victims held hostage, defeat the Big Boss and unmask him, ultimately, free the town for good folk everywhere!
A Ninja in Ninja City uses the SWORDZ Attribute System—Stealth, Wisdom, Offence, Respect, Discipline, and Z-Force—instead of the standard set of attributes found in Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. Of these six, Wisdom covers knowledge and technology use, Respect includes Leadership, Connections, and Trust; Discipline a Ninja’s use of Kuji-in; and Z-Force both his Luck as per Dungeon Crawl Classics and Super Moves. A Ninja has the same Hit Points as every other Ninja, and a Melee Weapon and a Ranged Weapon which defines him. He also has a day job, anything from a Sponsored Skateboarder, Bartender, or Aerobics Instructor to Street Performer – Portrait Artist, Street Performer – Musician, or Telephone Psychic. To create a Ninja, a player rolls four six-sided dice and keeps the best three for each attribute, selects his two weapons, and rolls for his Day Job on the lengthy table of options.
Jeanette SomersLevel 1 NinjaDay Job: MechanicArmour Class: 12 Hit Points: 10Stealth 14 (+1) Wisdom 12 (+0) Offence 15 (+1) Respect 13 (+1) Discipline 16 (+2) Z-Force 16 (+2)Weapons: Bo Staff, ShurikenUnarmed Strike: +1/1d4+1 Damage 
Mechanically, Ninja City uses the rules from the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, but with a tweak or two designed to make it cinematic. First, a Ninja can use Force of Tiger, Force of Monkey, and Force of Butterfly to do amazing things, each of which costs a point of Z-Force. Force of Tiger grants access to the Fighter Class’ Mighty Deed of Arms; Force of Monkey enables a Ninja to climb sheer surfaces and leap over obstacles; and Force of Butterfly lets him descend falls in freefall. A Ninja can inflict greater damage in unarmed combat, even a single point of damage if he misses in combat!

Kuji-In are powerful Hand Seals which require hand signals and concentration which also require Z-Force points to use. Ten Kuji-In Hand Seals are listed, each the equivalent of a spell—Cleric or Wizard—from the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. For example, Rin or Strength is the equivalent of the Blessing spell and Retsu or Control of Time and Space has the same effect of the Sleep spell. Once expended, Z-Force can be recovered after a full day’s meditation. Ninja are also notoriously hard to kill. In fact, they cannot truly die and if a Ninja’s Hit Points are reduced to zero, another Ninja can share his Hit Points, binding the two together, meaning they share damage taken; ‘Embrace the Darkness’ and recover, but remain in danger of turning to the dark side and attacking his fellow Ninja; and even have his energy transferred into an item or be dispersed into the universe. The first option means that the player can continue playing his Ninja as a possessed item or weapon, whilst the second allows him to play his Ninja as a ghost!
Tables also enable the players to roll for their Sensei—including a Sewer Dwelling Mutant, and Hideout, such as a Movie Rental Shop or a Fireworks Shop. For the Game Master there are stats descriptions given for a variety of Bad Dudez, such as Rival Ninja, Karate Fighters, Renegades, and more, as well as suggestions for the contraband they might be dealing in. Put the entries on these two tables together and the Game Master has a ready set of mission hooks. Advice for the Game Master takes the form of a basic framework, very much based on the Ninja movies which inspire Ninja City. This all comes together in ‘Rise of the Cyborgs’, which takes up a third of the fanzine. The Ninjas’ hometown is beset by a rash of crime carried out by the Aviators mercenary crime gang, backed up with Cyborgs. Where are the Cyborgs coming from and who are the Aviators working for? ‘Rise of the Cyborgs’ includes a large map of the antagonists’ base of operations and is a decent adventure which can be played in a single session, so perhaps could be run as a convention scenario, but should take no more than two sessions to play through.
Physically, Ninja City is decently written and illustrated with a mix of artwork, some of it cartoonish, some of it quite decent. If Ninja City is missing anything, it is a bibliography of inspiration for the fanzine. In fact, the map from the ‘Rise of the Cyborgs’ could easily have been shrunk to a single page and the space used for such a bibliography.
As written, Ninja City deserves some expansion. In addition to the bibliography, it would have been nice for Ninja City to have included the description of a town in the thrall of multiple gangs and criminal organisations, a sort of ‘crime sandbox’ for the Ninja to investigate and take down crook by crook. Essentially, an actual ‘Ninja City’ for the Player Characters to make their own. That could have easily been included without breaking the limits or page count of the fanzine format.
Ninja City is a fun little option for an alternate campaign for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. As presented, it will provide a gaming group with a session or two of cheesy chop-socky action, but the Game Master will need to develop a lot more if the group wants to keep on playing.

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 a 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 Curse of Black Teeth KeetesPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Perry Grosshans

Setting: An island off Kingsport, New England (Lovecraft Country) for Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos in the Desperate Decade of the nineteen thirties.
Product: Scenario
What You Get: Twenty-Eight page, 2.27 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Pirates of the Caribbean meets The Goonies off Lovecraft Country.Plot Hook: A friend has gone missing on a mysterious island off the New England coast.Plot Support: Detailed plot, staging advice for the Keeper, seven handouts, three maps, two NPCs, one Mythos entity, Zombie Pirates, and thirty Dimensional Shamblers.Production Values: Decent.
Pros# Pirates and/or zombies on a ghost island!# Can be run with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, but better suited to Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos# Easy to adjust Cthulhu by Gaslight or the here and now# Easy to set off other coasts# Solid, straightforward plot# Very useful staging advice# Excellent illustrations# Good one-shot or convention scenario
Cons# Needs an edit in places# Potential for too much combat# Finale needs careful stanging# Minor Mythos details may not always match
Conclusion# Detailed Pulp one-shot with potential Zombie Squad Action
# Pirates Zombies on a ghost island! (Is that not enough for you?)

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?
Creatures of Glorantha is a bestiary for use with RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.

It is an eight page, full colour, 1.45 MB PDF.

The layout is clean and tidy, but could have been better organised and it needs an edit. The artwork is decent.
Where is it set?
Creatures of Glorantha does not involve a specific setting, but most of its entries can be found anywhere.
Who do you play?Player Characters of all types can encounter the entries detailed in this supplement. Storm Bull worshippers will want to destroy most of them and Orlanth and Yinkin worshippers will hate one of the entries in particular.
What do you need?
Creatures of Glorantha requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and the RuneQuest: Glorantha Bestiary.
What do you get?Creatures of Glorantha describes seven new creatures of a vile nature, all complete with stat blocks and illustrations. They include the undead, Chaos creatures, and simple monsters, some more useful others, some which lurk around settlements and some which do not. The seven are the Pale Masks, Limbscutters, Corrupted Shadows, Tuskapes, Lamias, Goat Suckers, and Chimeric Hydras.

The septet opens with the Pale Mask, an arachnoid Chaos thing, the result of several creatures, mutilated by the God of Entropy, Kajabor, fusing together. These things stalk Chaos tainted lands in search of victims to share its pain with and instill fear in before impaling them with its bladed pedipalps. This is not an interesting start to the selection, more a beast to be killed by Chaos hunters than anything else, but fortunately the second entry, the Limbcutter, is better, if only slightly. This though is the insatiable hunger of the Uz given form in the deepest recesses of their caves, driven to eat again and again, everything it consumes being lost in the void that is its stomach. Sometimes though, it escapes to the surface where it lurks around settlements hit by famine or the slave labour camps of the Lunar Empire.
Potentially more interesting is the Corrupted Shadow. This is a Shadow Cat, captured by Lunar forces and subjected to Chaotic magic and dark Nysalorean rituals, and thus transformed into a twisted version of their former self. With a bite attack more dangerous to anyone with a high Air Rune, the Corrupted Shadow and its creation process will be seen as abominable by Orlanth and Yinkin worshippers, and so lend itself to stories involving the capture of Alynxs by Lunar forces, their rescue, taking of revenge upon the Lunar priests carrying out the vile ritual. However, it is followed by the Tuskape, the result of fusing black gorillas and trolls via a thunderous intercourse between Kyger Litor and Daka Fal, which is rarely seen and prefers solitude in its deserted lairs, and so does not readily lend itself to story potential.
The Lamia is a Gloranthan version of the child-eating monster of Greek myth. Again, this feels more developed and useable than other entries in the supplement, a negative manifestation of the parenting instinct which kidnaps, scares, and hurts children. It raises them in cruel fashion to create further Lamia. The Goat Sucker is the result of Broo breaking their taboo against eating other Chaos creatures and consequently transforming into a quadruped with a thirst for the blood of other Broo. It is still a Chaos beast and Broo related, so it is difficult to separate the two, at least in terms of storytelling. Lastly, the Chimeric Hydra is a Lesser Hydra which has been transformed by exposure to extreme Chaos, and again, it is just a monster to be killed rather than anything else.
The monsters in Creatures of Glorantha do vary in terms of their story potential and how interesting they are. All of the artwork is in the Public Domain and it is hard not to wonder which came first, the pictures or the ideas, and how inspired by the pictures the author was. Despite the varying quality of the monsters, this is arguably the best thing that the author has written for the Jonstown Compendium, but equally it is debatable as to whether RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha needs more monsters.
Is it worth your time?Yes—Creatures of Glorantha contains some interesting monsters with story potential.No—Creatures of Glorantha only contains a few monsters which are interesting and possess story potential, and given how many there are in the RuneQuest: Glorantha Bestiary, does the Game Master really need more?Maybe—Creatures of Glorantha contains some potentially interesting monsters, but again, it is a case of ‘Your Glorantha May Vary’ and there may already be too many monsters in the RuneQuest: Glorantha Bestiary.