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?
Renharth Blackveins presents an NPC, his entourage, and associated cult for use with RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.
It is a twenty page, full colour, 1.46 MB PDF.
The layout is clean and tidy, and its illustrations good.

Where is it set?
Renharth Blackveins is nominally set in Sartar, but the NPC and his entourage can be encountered almost anywhere the Game Master decides.

Who do you play?
No specific character types are required to encounter Renharth Blackveins. Humakti characters may benefit from their interactions with Renharth Blackveins.

What do you need?
Renharth Blackveins requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha as well as The Red Book of Magic.

What do you get?
The second volume of ‘Monster of the Month’ presents not monsters in the sense of creatures and spirits and gods that was the feature of the first volume. Instead, it focuses upon Rune Masters, those who have achieved affinity with their Runes and gained great magics, mastered skills, and accrued allies—corporeal and spiritual. They are powerful, influential, and potentially important in the Hero Wars to come that herald the end of the age and beginning of another. They can be allies, they can be enemies, and whether ally or enemy, some of them can still be monsters.
The second entry is Renharth Blackveins, which details a Death Lord, a Rune Lord of Humakt who embodies his master through ‘Humakt Indomitable’, a subcult of Humakt. Deeply honourable, he is feared duellist who always fights fairly to match any opponent, including the use of support of some fearsome bound spirits, chief of which is Liberator, an woken enchanted iron sword that is a fragment of the Unbreakable Sword known as Humakt. Challaren, Renhearth’s swordboy, normally carries Liberator and Renhearth only calls for it when faced with a worthy opponent. Despite currently leading Boldhome’s ‘Household of Death’, Renhearth prefers single engagements to mass battles, and as Death Lord of Humakt Indomitable has overcome ‘death as malice’ and his former hatred of the Lunar Empire which drove both himself and his brother to resist the Lunar occupation of his homeland. Captured and forced to serve himself as a swordboy to a Lunar captain, Renharth would come to see the honour in his former enemies.
In addition to detailing and providing full write-ups of Renharth and his entourage—including several very powerful allied spirits, Renharth Blackvein includes a write-up of the subcult, ‘Humakt Indomitable’ which represents the enduring, impossible to subdue or defeat nature of Humakt. It can be joined by the usual means and requires the initiate to swear another geas, specifically an undertaking that requires dedication to a lifelong task or prohibition. Especially if the new geas has the potential for tragic consequences.
Several suggestions are given as to how to use Renharth, noting that he is a deadly enemy, capable of killing most Player Characters. Perhaps the most interesting way to use him in the long term is as a swordmaster as he accepts students from many religions or as an actual mentor to a Player Character. Above all though, it makes clear that in conquering both his malice and that of death, Renhearth is a pleasant rather than a miserable character. The supplement comes with two scenario seeds, both of which need a little development upon the part of the Game Master.
Is it worth your time?Yes—Renharth Blackveins presents a straightforward, even pleasant aspect of Humakt, who can be an interesting supporting NPC or mentor, and if the Player Characters are powerful enough, a truly indomitable foe.No—Renharth Blackveins present a straightforward, even pleasant aspect of Humakt, who may differ too much from the traditional view of Humakt and who might be too strong a rival for the Player Characters or too powerful an NPC if they are prone to antagonising others.Maybe—Renharth Blackveins presents a straightforward, even pleasant aspect of Humakt, who may differ too much from the traditional view of Humakt and who might be too strong a rival for the Player Characters or too powerful an NPC if they are prone to antagonising others.

A Wicked Secret and Other Mysteries is an anthology of scenarios for Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying, the Sweden-set roleplaying of folkloric horror set during the nineteenth century. It presents four mysteries which will take the members of the Society, the organisation which investigates the situations which arise from the clash between modern society and the traditions that have grown up from living alongside the supernatural creatures called Vaesen, to the boundaries of Sweden—and just beyond. In turn they take the Player Characters to the west coast of Sweden where sudden wealth has been found on Wrecker Isle, into the northern forests where logging expansions have been hampered by tales of a strange beast, to the resort town of Mölle on the south where sin and murder can be found together, and to an island off the coast of Estonia where a mother has been driven to try and drown her new born baby.

All four adventures follow the same structure. The ‘Background’ and ‘Conflict’ explains the situation for each scenario, whilst the ‘Invitation’ tells the Game Master how to get the Player Characters involved. In A Wicked Secret and Other Mysteries, the primary form of ‘Invitation’ is the letter, which will typically summon the Player Characters to the town or village where the mystery is taking place, the getting there detailed in the ‘Journey’, typically a mix of railway and coach journeys. It should be noted that every mystery has moment or two when the Player Characters can prepare and goes into some detail about the journey. There is an opportunity for roleplaying here, perhaps resulting in longer travel scenes than the core rulebook necessarily recommends. The ‘Countdown and Catastrophe’ presents the Game Master with one or two sets of events which take place as the Player Characters’ investigation proceeds, sometimes triggered by the Player Characters, sometimes triggered by the NPCs, whilst ‘Locations’ cover NPCs, Challenges, and Clues, all leading to a ‘Confrontation’ and its eventual ‘Aftermath’. For the most part, the mysteries are well organised, a mix of the sandbox and events which the Game Master will need to carefully orchestrate around the actions of her Player Characters. Only the most pertinent of the locations in each town or village is described and the Game Master is advised to create others as needed, though she will very likely need a ready list of Swedish names to hand for whenever the Player Characters run into an NPC or two.

One issue with the anthology is its lack of geography and history. Sweden at the time when A Wicked Secret and Other Mysteries and Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying is unlikely to be a familiar place to many Game Masters or their players. So, some context might have been useful, such as why the island of Oesel, located off the coast of Estonia, is part of Sweden rather than Estonia at this time or the seaside resort of Mölle’s scandalous reputation for mixed bathing on its beaches at this time. However, a little research upon the part of the Game Master will offset this. Another is that there is advice as to how to use these in a campaign. They would themselves all together not work as a campaign as beyond the letters to the Society summoning the Player Characters to each mystery and each mystery involving Vaesen there is nothing which connects the quartet. They are better used as one-shots or slotted into an existing campaign.

Another issue is the similarities between the four scenarios. Each of the four takes place at the four corners of Sweden—North, East, South, and West—and that does mean that getting to any one of them involves lengthy travel. All have priests who play ultimately negative roles in the mysteries, and it would have been interesting to see some variation to that. Likewise, it would have been interesting to see what an urban mystery for Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying looks like to contrast this similarity.

The anthology opens with ‘The Silver of the Sea’. A priest requests the Society’s help after his mentor has been found dead, supposedly of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, after visiting Wrecker Isle, the bleak, rocky archipelago off the west coast of Sweden. Here the Player Characters will discover something fishy is going on—and not just the smell from the fishing industry which has made many men rich. Combining insular natives with a piscine theme lends ‘The Silver of the Sea’ a hint of Lovecraft’s dread Innsmouth, but there are no Deep Ones here. This is Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying, not Call of Cthulhu. The Game Master has some fun NPCs to portray and ultimately, whatever way the Player Characters resolve the situation on Wrecker Island, someone will suffer—and not necessarily the villains of the piece. This will occur more than once in the scenarios in A Wicked Secret and Other Mysteries.

If ‘The Silver of the Sea’ feels open and bleak, exposed to the Baltic Sea, ‘A Wicked Secret’ feels constrained and isolated in comparison. The Player Characters are hired by an industrialist who wants to log the rich forests around the village of Färnsta, but his opening efforts to negotiate with the villagers have come to nothing after one employee fled the village babbling about a beast with red eyes and the other went missing. The village will initially feel welcoming, but all too quickly the Player Characters will find themselves being hunted as their inquiries trigger a response from the same threat faced by their patron’s employees. There is potential here for a red herring, but otherwise this is an entertaining scenario.

‘The Night Sow’ takes place in the seaside resort of Mölle in southern Sweden where amongst sun, recreation, and mixed bathing, there have been a series of murders and disappearances. This time, the members of the Society are asked to investigate by the women who encouraged the Player Characters to re-establish the Society, as one of her former colleagues is staying in the town. The relationship between the two women is mentioned, but not explored in depth, the likelihood being that it will be expanded upon in a future supplement. Once in Mölle, against a background of social tension over the scandalous activities on the beaches—an aspect which the adventure could have made more of, the Player Characters will encounter strange hotel guests, a reclusive lighthouse keeper, and a beast which hunts the Mölle peninsula.

The last scenario, ‘The Son of the Falling Star’, takes a more personal turn when one of the Player Characters receives a letter from his cousin and noted sociologist, Hugo von Kaiserling, requesting his help. Hugo’s wife recently gave birth to their first child, but she has turned against the boy, believing him to be evil so much that she attempted to drown him—forcing her husband to commit her to the local sanitorium. The local priest’s solution is an exorcism, but Hugo refuses to believe in any of this supernatural nonsense, so wants the Player Characters’ help. They of course, know better, and once on the island of Oesel, will need to steer a course between the husband’s scientific rationalism and the wife’s (and that of the priest) fears of the ungodly. Of the four scenarios in A Wicked Secret and Other Mysteries, ‘The Son of the Falling Star’ takes a slightly different tone in not presenting the Vaesen as monsters and presenting opportunities for the Player Characters to interact with them rather than confront them. This is a refreshing change that brings the quartet in the anthology to a more interesting and nuanced climax.

As with the core book, A Wicked Secret and Other Mysteries is a beautiful book. It is nicely laid out, the artwork is excellent, the handouts are good, and the maps are good too. It should be noted that as a physical artefact . the book actually feels good in the hand. Two nice touches are the inclusion of some sketches at the end of the book and there being two versions of each handout—a plain text one for the Game Master for easy reference and one for the players and their characters done in period style. This really is a good reason to see the handouts printed twice and other publishers should take note.

The investigations in A Wicked Secret and Other Mysteries are not necessarily wholly original, their mysteries and threats being easily replaced by something from the Mythos or something from common folklore. However, what makes the mysteries stand out is the Vaesen, the morality which underpins each mystery, and the consequences of upsetting the balance between the Vaesen and men. These are folkloric mysteries which result from the breakdown in the relationship between men and Vaesen which comes with the clash between tradition and modernity, and there is invariably a price to be paid for this breakdown, often in resolving each mystery and after… A Wicked Secret and Other Mysteries is an excellent and engaging quartet of mysteries, pleasingly different in the challenges and mysteries they present, and absolutely what the Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying Game Master should have on her shelf.

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

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The Journal of the Travellers’ Aid Society has a long and storied history. The long running magazine dedicated to GDW’s classic roleplaying game of Imperial Science Fiction originally ran to twenty-four issues, before being folded into Challenge magazine. The twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth issues were published by Imperium Games in 1996 and 1997, before appearing as an online magazine licensed by Steve Jackson Games. More recently, The Journal of the Travellers’ Aid Society was resurrected as a set of six volumes by Mongoose Publishing for the second edition of its version of Traveller and funded via a Kickstarter campaign.

The Journal of the Travellers’ Aid Society Vol. 1 is a one-hundred-and-twenty-eight page digest-sized book, done in full colour and organised into nine different departments which provide all together provide a range of content and support set across the charted space and history of the Traveller universe. The volume opens with the first entry in the issue’s department with the most entries—‘Charted Space’, which covers a wide variety of different subjects. This is ‘SuSAG’, a history of Schunamann und Sohn, AG, one the Third Imperium’s largest megacorporations and one that specialises in biology, chemistry, genetic engineering, and pharmaceuticals, both production and research—the latter resulting in a wide range of closely guarded patents and discoveries. The article provides a history and an explanation of how the company works, both within the borders of the Third Imperium and without, notably the secret production of psionic drugs. It also covers its policies, goals, corporate and government relations, and the major spheres of operation. It is a good overview let down by first by a diagram of the corporation’s organisation that is astounding in its utter pointlessness and second a certain lack of advice as to how to use the content.

The entries in the ‘Charted Space’ department continue with ‘Emperors of the Third Imperium’, a list of the forty-two individuals recognised as Emperor of the Third Imperium. This is the straightforward iteration of material which has been printed over and over—to the point that it can be found verbatim online—and only of interest if the reader is wholly new to the Third Imperium setting. The ‘Vargr Corsairs’ article is more interesting and useful though, examine how the lifecycle of the atypical Vargr corsair band, from ships coalescing around charismatic leaders and growing and collapsing or growing and growing. It is supported by a history of the Kforuzeng corsair band as an example, which should inform the Game Master should she want to use one as an NPC faction and the players should they want to run one! ‘A Concise History of the Vilani’ covers the thousands of years of history from the first time the Vilani explored space through the Grand Empire of Stars, the Ziru Sirka of the First Imperium and the ossification of the empire to its eventual conquering at the hands of the Terran Confederation. It provides a decent introduction to the broad history of charted space and the lead up to the Third Imperium. ‘Within the Two Thousand Worlds’ is more interesting, primarily because it engages the reader in a first perspective, that of the Noble K’agzi, a K’kree diplomat posted to Capital, the seat of the Emperor of the Third Imperium, as he answers questions posed by an interviewer. It does an excellent job of showing how alien the K’kree really are. Last in the Charted Space department and entry in the magazine is ‘Gazulin Starport’, a description of Gazulin Highport and Downport on Gazulin, the capital of the Gazulin subsector in the Trojan Reaches. Accompanied by a reasonable map, the article will certainly be of use if a campaign visits the world, but can also be a source of inspiration for the Game Master too in developing descriptions and details of her own starports.

The ‘High Guard’ department has three entries. The first of these is really only a paragraph, but offers ‘Burst Lasers’ as an option between pulse and beam lasers. The other two are longer and provide two alternative ships small enough for a group of Player Characters to operate. The ‘Soho class Light Freighter’ is a variation upon the Empress Marava Far Trader, refitted to carry cargo rather than passengers in frontier regions and be able to protect itself using a triple pulse laser turret and a laser barbette! They have also been adopted as Q-ships and been employed by pirates as corsairs. The other ship is the ‘Delphinus-class Starliner’ or pleasure yacht. This is a mini-starliner, just one hundred tonnes, completely streamlined and capable of operating submerged in planetary oceans, intended to carry a limited number of High Passage passengers in greater comfort than is standard for a High Passage. However, it has a light hull, energy-inefficient thrusters, late-Jump Drive, and other detracting factors, but it would be suitable for a campaign which focusses on interaction with NPC passengers or as an alternative to the noble’s standard yacht.

The bulk of the departments in The Journal of the Travellers’ Aid Society Vol. 1 have two entries each. These begin with the ‘Adventure’ department. The first adventure in the issue is ‘The Ship in the Lake’. This is set on the world of Hazel in the Trin’s Veil subsector of the Spinward Marches where mineral survey data has been lost following a rebellion. The Player Characters are hired to locate and retrieve the data, believed to be at the bottom of a lake in the wreck of a ship lost during the early days of the rebellion. They will need to locate and dive on the wreck, but do it without alerting either the planetary authorities or the rebels. This is a nicely done adventure which will need some preparation upon the part of the Game Master especially in terms of developing NPCs, vehicles, and the politics of Hazel—in particular, why there is a rebellion going on. The second adventure is ‘Embassy in Arms’, which is set on the world of Aramanx in the Aramis Subsector. Vargr mercenaries, ideally connected to the Kforuzeng corsair faction or band, are hired to conduct an extraction mission from an embassy using air carriers. Again, the scenario will need some development upon the part of the Game Master. Of the two, ‘Embassy in Arms’ is the shorter and will probably only provide a session or two’s worth of play, whilst ‘The Ship in the Lake’ will provide two or three. What is interesting about both scenarios is their preoccupation with low-military conflicts. ‘Embassy in Arms’ in particular is a nod to the Iranian Embassy occupation in the late nineteen seventies and an attempt to conduct a rescue in-game when the one in the real world failed.

One issue is that both scenarios involve Sternmetal Horizons, LIC, a megacorporation specialising in mining operations and manufacturing. No information about the corporation is given in the pages of The Journal of the Travellers’ Aid Society Vol. 1, yet there is a whole article dedicated to SuSAG, which has no support for it. There is an obvious disconnect here and it makes no sense. Why not curate the content so that articles and adventures are connected and support each other? So that the reader and the Game Master are not forced to ask, “How do I use SuSAG?” and “What is Sternmetal Horizons, LIC?”. Now to be fair, the Vargr Corsairs article does support the ‘Embassy in Arms’ scenario to some degree, but the connections between the various articles in The Journal of the Travellers’ Aid Society Vol. 1 could have been given stronger consideration.

Equipment is covered by two departments—‘Central Supply’ and ‘Vehicle Handbook’, both of which have two entries in the magazine. The two for ‘Central Supply’ are the ‘Remotely Piloted Reconnaissance Drone’ or RPRU, a half-metre sized Tech Level 11 sphere, and the ‘Assault Rocket Launcher’, essentially a magazine-fed mini-rocket launcher, suitable for use in low or zero gravity environments. The first of the entries in ‘Vehicle Handbook’ department details the wheeled ATV or All-Terrain Vehicle in all of its variety. All at Tech Level 12, they include the standard ATV, the Large ATV, the Grav-Assisted ATV, and the Aquatic ATV. The second details the Light Patrol Vehicle and the Light APC—essentially the armoured car/scout and armoured personnel carrier. These are both Tech Level 9 vehicles and the type that can be found across numerous worlds. The contents of all four articles lean towards the utilitarian more than the interesting, especially the vehicles, though the likelihood is that the entry on the ATV will add a little colour to a game since that is what many Player Characters will find themselves crewing in adventures.

The ‘Alien’ department has write-ups of two different species. The first is the Dynchia, a Minor Human Race known for their warriors, but for not being warlike, their highly refined Tech Level 12 technology, and possessing an honour-driven, competitive culture which transcends territory. The second is all but the complete opposite in temperate. The Girug’kagh are a humanoid, Minor Non-Human Race which possess full subject status in the Two Thousand Worlds, and who are mainly seen beyond the borders of the Two Thousand Worlds as the translators and intermediaries among for K’kree. As the first species to attain full subject status, they see themselves as inferior to the K’kree, but superior to every other species in charted space! Full stats are provided for both and each is detailed enough to create Player Characters or NPCs.

The two entries in the ‘Travelling Department’ are connected thematically, both dealing with crime in an age of space travel. The first, ‘Smuggler’s Luck’ looks at the means and economics of transporting goods illegally due to their origin or their destination. Along with advice as to good regions to conduct smuggling operations, also covered is the best type of ships to employ, tools of the trade—like concealed compartments and fake drive components with secret compartments, and an example region where smuggling can be practiced. This is the Collace Arm in the District 268 and Five Sisters subsectors, but would need to be further developed to bring into a campaign. The second is ‘Piracy on the Spinward Main’ which examines the means, motives, and methods of conducting piracy in general before identifying several worlds which could double as pirate havens in the Spinward Marches. Both ‘Smuggler’s Luck’ and ‘Piracy’ on the Spinward Main could add to, or form the basis of a campaign dedicated to, or involving, smuggling or piracy.

Departments with fewer entries include ‘Bestiary’ and ‘Encounters’, both of which have the one article each. The ‘Bestiary’ article details six creatures found across Charted Space. These include the Bushrunner, an omnivorous grazer known for its blue meat and musk glands which are prized by the perfume industry; the hermaphroditic Tree Kraken which drops onto its prey, wrapping its arms around it and grinding at its with its teeth; and the Speedspitter, a shrew-like mammal which can spit seeds from its nose and is often kept as pets. ‘Encounters’ details ‘Simone Garbaldi’, an academic and linguist who claims to have discovered the lost works of an ancient Vilani poet. However, opinion is split as to the veracity of the text—are they real or forgeries? It is up to the Game Master to decide and several ways are suggested as to how this NPC might be used. Both of these articles are nicely done and their content would be fairly easy to add to a game.

Physically, The Journal of the Travellers’ Aid Society Vol. 1 is neatly, tidily laid out. The artwork varies in quality, but most of it is reasonable, and the ships’ deck plans are decent. It needs a slight edit here or there.

Now the six new volumes of The Journal of the Travellers’ Aid Society were never going to contain all new material. It was always planned that they would contain a mix of the old and the new, but the old outweighs the new—thirteen to eight—and in the treatment of the old, let alone the new, there is a sense of appropriation and a certain lack of professionalism to The Journal of the Travellers’ Aid Society Vol. 1. The issue is that although the magazine does list its various authors, it does not attribute individual articles to their respective authors and it does not acknowledge where its various articles have previously or originally appeared. For example, the scenario, ‘The Ship in the Lake’ is by Loren K. Wiseman and originally appeared in Journal of the Travellers’ Aid Society 02, published in 1979, whilst the ‘Soho class Light Freighter’ originally appeared in 1997 in the Traveller Chronicle 13, the Sword of the Knight Publications’ periodical. In neither case, is the author or the source acknowledged. (Traveller fandom though, has provided the information where Mongoose Publishing has pointedly not.) In not properly acknowledging either, what the publisher is doing is presenting the information within its pages as its own, presenting it as new when it is not, and taking a degree of ownership that it does not possess. It is disingenuous and it is disrespectful and it is unprofessional.

If the reader is new to Traveller and The Journal of the Travellers’ Aid Society Vol. 1, then none of the issues with the magazine really matter, since its content will be all new. If the reader is not new to Traveller, then the likelihood is that he will have seen many of the articles the magazine contains before, and yes, some do update content to the current version of the rules, but not all. In fact, the new stats are relatively light in the issue. For the veteran fan of the roleplaying game and its setting, The Journal of the Travellers’ Aid Society Vol. 1 is more a collector’s piece than a brand-new Traveller publication. This is not to say that the content is not good or uninteresting. Much of it is good and much of it is interesting, but that is down to the source, not the publisher.

It is commonly agreed that Dungeons & Dragons, published in 1974 by TSR, Inc. was the first roleplaying game, but was it? If not, what then was Dungeons & Dragons and where did roleplaying come from? How did roleplaying evolve and develop into the widely accepted practice that we accept today and that we see proliferated into other media? When did what we know of today as a roleplaying game, actually become a ‘roleplaying game’? These are the questions which Jon Peterson, the author of Playing at the World: A History of Simulating Wars, People and Fantastic Adventures, from Chess to Role-Playing Games, the highly regarded early history of Dungeons & Dragons and Dungeons & Dragons Art & Arcana: A Visual History, explores in his new work, The Elusive Shift: How Role-Playing Games Forged Their Identity, published by The MIT Press. In this new tome, Peterson delves back into that fabled ‘Golden Age’ at the dawn of the roleplaying hobby and beyond to examine the precursors which would influence E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson in their creation of Dungeons & Dragons, the debates between the players of Dungeons & Dragons and between the players and Gygax himself about how Dungeons & Dragons should be played and refereed, and ultimately the shift that occurred in the widespread understanding and acceptance of what a roleplaying game was.
Peterson’s starting point is that Dungeons & Dragons was not marketed as a roleplaying game, nor identified as one. It was a wargame—a wargame in which each player controlled one character or wargaming figure and there was Referee who would moderate the actions of each character and their outcome. Although it had an example of play, it did not explain how to play the game and certainly not how to roleplay, an issue which would beset the hobby for years to come. Instead, players had to learn by example, perhaps drawing upon their experience in the two cultures and communities which Dungeons & Dragons drew from and Gygax would market to. One was wargaming, with its history of refereed battles and then more recent focus on simulations using one figure per player, whilst the other was Science Fiction, with its rich source material and its tradition of telling refereed stories. Both would inform how Dungeons & Dragons would be played, but none of the new wargame’s adherents could agree as to exactly how. This would lead to a discourse which proliferated throughout the hobby over what was the right way as players and Referees grappled with such questions as to the role of the Referee, was he impartial or did he game against the players and their characters? What was the right way to create characters—adhere to the strict roll of the dice or adjust as necessary? How far should character competency factor into play versus player competency? Who should roll the dice—the Referee or the players? How much should the player know about the game’s mechanics? How should Alignment work and affect a character? And what is the point of play—to acquire Experience Points and become superhuman, to explore and tell a story, or a combination of the two?

These questions would be first answered and debated around the table, through actual play of the new game that was Dungeons & Dragons—and then later through other roleplaying games such as Tunnels & Trolls, Bunnies & Burrows, Traveller, and Empire of the Petal Throne, but first and foremost, always Dungeons & Dragons. As the first ‘roleplaying’ game, it provided both the first terminology and a common language for the hobby. In the years to come the resulting debates would subsequently be played out in magazines, such as White Dwarf and Different Worlds, and in more recent times, the Internet. The difference between then and now is that the discussion itself was new and the ideas behind it were being formulated, rather than necessarily reiterated. To explore these debates, Petersen notably draws heavily upon the fora readily available in the nineteen seventies to discuss roleplaying, what its was, and how it should be done—fanzines and amateur press association titles. Thus, in the pages of The Elusive Shift one can read about Lee Gold’s approach to in-character roleplaying, how Steve Perrin had his players roll up their characters, and how Greg Costikyan had implemented a ‘sex affiliation’ system instead of the traditional Alignment system of Dungeons & Dragons. The focus though is constantly on the first five or six years of the hobby following the publication of Dungeons & Dragons and the debate between the leading adherents of the differing philosophies in the ongoing debate over whether the first roleplaying game was a simulationist wargame in which the aim was to accumulate power, magic, gold, and more to become superhuman or a means to tell stories of fantastic adventure.

Ultimately, as thoroughly researched as The Elusive Shift actually is, it cannot quite identify when the shift of its title occurred. That is, when the roleplaying hobby identified itself as such rather than as a variation upon wargaming or Science Fiction fandom’s storytelling. Instead, it sets out the landscape for and highlights a number of shifts. One is the maturing of the discourse, undoubtedly fierce at times, but a discourse which would culminate in Glenn Blacow’s ‘Aspects of Adventure Gaming’ which appeared in Different Worlds #10 which suggested a model with four basic categories into which roleplayers could be put—‘Roleplaying’, ‘Story Telling’, ‘Powergaming’, and ‘Wargaming’. (An examination of the model can be found here.) This model would go on to form the basis for other models and inform the discussion henceforth. Another shift is the move from open sets of mechanics and games to closed sets of mechanics and games, at the forefront of which was the commercial move by E. Gary Gygax from the openness of Dungeons & Dragons where the Dungeon Master had the freedom to run the game as he wanted and to import or devise whatever rules or mechanics he liked (and was a widely accepted practice, but would also add to a debate as to whether Dungeons & Dragons was a design toolkit or a game) to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons which was closed because it was not designed to accommodate ‘unofficial’ content from elsewhere. Lastly, there is the shift in generations, when the growing popularity of Dungeons & Dragons brought in a wave of younger, immature players, who had not had the benefit of the five years of discourse that had helped form and inform the hobby. Most of whom of course, would be locked into the closed world of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and its orthodoxy, but who of some would go on to have the same conversations explored by The Elusive Shift and greatly influence the hobby today.

The Elusive Shift is a dense and not always an easy read. As an academic work it is not necessarily a casual read, but it is a fascinating one, capturing a history that few of us remember or have access to. It also throws a spotlight on the leading contributors to those first debates—Glenn Blacow, Sandy Eisen, Kevin Slimak, Mark Swanson, and others. (If there is perhaps something lacking in its pages, it would have been pleasing to least include some details on each of these figures in the pages of The Elusive Shift.) Ultimately, there is the sense that the debate as to what a roleplaying game is and what roleplaying is, is never going to be settled, but reiterated and explored again and again, but in the pages of The Elusive Shift: How Role-Playing Games Forged Their Identity that debate is examined when it was wholly new and captures it for posterity. Perhaps it might be worth examining this first debate before engaging in the next?

E. Gary Gygax died thirteen years ago on March 4th, 2008. His contributions to roleplaying cannot be underestimated. He codified what became the first commonly accepted roleplaying game—Dungeons & Dragons. He created a hobby. He launched an industry. His creation would influence other industries and hobbies too. However, his role and his influence is not widely known outside of the hobby and the industry. In the years since, two works have examined his life specifically. One is Empire of the Imagination: Gary Gygax and the Birth of Dungeons & Dragons, very much a traditional biography of the man, whereas Rise of the Dungeon Master: Gary Gygax and the Creation of D&D is not. Instead, Rise of the Dungeon Master: Gary Gygax and the Creation of D&D is a graphic novel.

Published in 2017 by Nation Books, Rise of the Dungeon Master: Gary Gygax and the Creation of D&D is written by David Kushner and illustrated by Koren Shadmi. It is based upon Dungeon Master: The Life and Legacy of Gary Gygax, an interview with Gygax which the author conducted in 2008 in the run up to the then upcoming revised edition of Dungeons & Dragons—what would be Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition. It tells the story of Gygax from when he was a little boy, enjoying adventures and stories, to his enjoying playing games and ultimately developing and publishing games as an adult, before exploring some of the influence that he and Dungeons & Dragons would have on wider culture. This would include controversy that would grow from the disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III in 1979, on computer games such as the Ultima series and World of Warcraft, and its more recent wider acceptance with the release of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, its appearance on the television series, Stranger Things, and the popularity of Game of Thrones.

Rise of the Dungeon Master is not, however, a traditional graphic novel, just as it is not a traditional biography in the choice of format. Where Empire of the Imagination is written in the third person, Rise of the Dungeon Master is written in the second person, beginning each chapter and many of its subsequent panels with the words, “You are…” It is immediately immersive, literally casting the reader as Gygax himself and involving the reader in the decisions that Gygax makes himself. (Although the second person of “You are…” echoes the format of the ‘Choose Your Adventure’ books such as The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, the graphic novel is not the reader’s adventure. This is E. Gary Gygax’s adventure after all, and the reader is passive throughout.) It switches from this format at times to allow Gygax to explain things almost as if he is being interviewed—to go back to the author’s original 2008 interview—and it also switches viewpoints too, to that of two other men which prominently in the history of Dungeons & Dragons. One is Dave Arneson, Gygax’s co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, the other is the detective, William Dear, who would conduct the search for the missing teenager, James Dallas Egbert III, and write about it in the book, The Dungeon Master. Of the two, Arneson is portrayed in a better light, but his relegation to a more minor role than he necessarily deserves in the development of Dungeons & Dragons arises from Rise of the Dungeon Master: Gary Gygax and the Creation of D&D being Gygax’s tale rather than that of Arneson and from the graphic not being an actual history per se, like Jon Petersen’s Playing at the World: A History of Simulating Wars, People and Fantastic Adventures, from Chess to Role-Playing Games or Shannon Appelcine’s Designers & Dragons: the ‘70s. In comparison, Lorraine Williams, who succeeded Gygax in controlling the company between 1986 and its eventual sale to Wizards of the Coast in 1997, is cast in a very dark light.

Ultimately, the format and the relative lack of space in the one-hundred-and-thirty-six pages of Rise of the Dungeon Master: Gary Gygax and the Creation of D&D means that the graphic novel cannot do the man and his story justice. It seems to leap from big event to the next, and whilst Dave Arneson receives and deserves a chapter of his own, there are many figures in Gygax’s life who barely get a mention or not all—Don Kaye, his wives, Kevin and Brian Blume, all of whom played a role in his life. The format also means that as much as the author wants the reader to engage with Gygax, there is never time to engage with him as a person, flaws and all—the nearest we get to that is Gygax’s often dismissive attitude towards Arneson, and so Rise of the Dungeon Master: Gary Gygax and the Creation of D&D is not a true biography of the man. It is arguably, more a hagiography. Although not perfect, Empire of the Imagination: Gary Gygax and the Birth of Dungeons & Dragons, is a better choice if the reader wants that, as are the two aforementioned history books.

If the reader is looking for an introduction as to E. Gary Gygax was and what he accomplished, then Rise of the Dungeon Master: Gary Gygax and the Creation of D&D is a very acceptable starting point. It is delightfully and engagingly illustrated, the writing light, perhaps suffering from the functionality of the “You are…” second person format as much as it pulls the reader in. Overall, Rise of the Dungeon Master: Gary Gygax and the Creation of D&D will set the reader up to ask more questions about E. Gary Gygax and the origins and history of Dungeons & Dragons, whilst also serving as a well-drawn homage to the man, his creation, and the effect he would have on millions and millions of gamers.

At the heart of Delta Green: The Roleplaying Game is the conspiracy with the US government which knows about the ‘Unnatural’ and the existential threat it represents to humanity, let alone the USA, and secretly appropriates funds and agents from a wide variety of Federal agencies to investigate ‘Unnatural’ incidents and prevent them from becoming both a greater threat and their triggering revelations as to their nature to the wider public. As detailed in the Delta Green Agent’s Handbook and Delta Green: Need to Know, most Player Characters in Delta Green: The Roleplaying Game will be Agents from the Law Enforcement, Intelligence, and Military communities. These include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Marine Corps, and more. Each examination of the various agencies and organisation details its budget, whether its operatives can carry weapons and have powers of arrest, how it is organised, what its remit is, areas of friction with other agencies, and in addition to advice on roleplaying a member of said agency, offers suggestions as particular Professions and their associated skills. In terms of roleplaying, each agency or organisation is not just a set of skills for the Player Character, but part of his background, what he does on a daily basis, his areas of knowledge and specialities, and so on, all of which go towards suggesting how he might first encounter the ‘Unnatural’ or be recruited by Delta Green itself. However, they are not the only agencies or organisations belonging to the Federal government, and whether inside the government or outside, the conspiracy that is Delta Green has a long reach into the many agencies and organisations connected to the Federal government. Which is where The Complex comes in.

Delta Green: The Complex is a supplement for Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game published by Arc Dream Publishing. It presents over twenty dossiers covering numerous Federal agencies—many of them not new to the setting of Delta Green, but new to Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game. In turn, it presents each organisation in the standard fashion. Thus each entry covers the organisation’s budget, whether its operatives can carry weapons and possess powers of arrest, how it is organised, what its remit is, areas of friction with other agencies, and in addition to advice on roleplaying a member of said agency, offers suggestions as particular Professions and their associated skills. In terms of federal agencies, it breaks them into six categories—Law Enforcement, Defence, Intelligence, Interior, Public Safety, and Research. Thus, the ATF, Customs and Border Protection, and the U.S. Secret Service fall under the Law Enforcement category, and the Intelligence category includes the National Counterterrorism Center, the Office of Naval Intelligence, the NSA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, and the National Reconnaissance Office. The Research category includes NASA, DARPA, and National Nuclear Security Administration. Each of the Defence, the Interior, Public Safety, and Treasury categories has the one entry each, the U.S. Coast Guard, the National Park Service, Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the IRS respectively. Of these, The Complex notes that many Delta Green agents are drawn from the Natural Park Service, since the great natural parks that it oversees are likely to be where agents of the ‘Unnatural’ perform their dread ceremonies, strange creatures are to be encountered far from civilisation, and so on.

In addition, The Complex adds an eighth category. This is the Private Sector. It includes the Constellis Group, Lockheed Martin, Consolidated Analysis Center Incorporated, Booz Allen Hamilton, and the RAND Corporation. This is where the supplement gets interesting, enabling a broader range of ‘Friendlies’ as Delta Green terms its civilian ‘agents’ rather than those from the federal or military sectors. However, rather than being an academic or a private investigator a la traditional Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying, the entries in these categories allow Agents with military, intelligence, law enforcement, and technical backgrounds who can be connected to the federal government, but not employed by, or part of, the federal government. The Constellis Group, for example, formerly known as Blackwater and thus connected to number of scandals, provides security personnel and training; Lockheed Martin, is a military engineering contractor, which pushes at the boundaries of science and technology, so a Player Character could even be a test pilot for the company’s infamous ‘skunk works’; and both Consolidated Analysis Center Incorporated and Booz Allen Hamilton provide specialised contractors in intelligence, analytics, cybersecurity, and more for various federal agencies, potentially providing its employees with a wider experience of having worked for numerous agencies rather than the single one. Lastly, the RAND Corporation is a non-profit thinktank whose studies and research influences government policies.

All suggest potential new ways to approach investigating the ‘Unnatural’. For example, a Constellis Group security team could be contracted to guard or investigate something in the field when a government organisation wants to keep its hands clean, a Lockheed Martin teams of engineers could be brought into examine a strange piece of technology, and so on. However, as interesting and as useful as the information is on these non-governmental organisations is, especially in how to play an Agent from these organisations, the Handler is left somewhat on her own when bringing said organisations into play. Perhaps some advice on having them in a campaign could have been included in The Complex.

Details of the various agencies and organisations do make not make up all of the content in The Complex. Sidebars cover how Background Checks are run, the ATF traces firearms and handles trace requests from other agencies, the U.S. Coast Guard’s use of the terms ‘cutter’ and boat’, what a SCIF or ‘Sensitive Compartmentalised Facility’ is and how it works when accessing classified material, which countries are part of ‘Five Eyes’ Coordination (FVEY), what ‘Type 1 Hotshots’ are—teams of twenty wildland firefighters drawn from various agencies and services, and ‘Firing and Prosecution in the Private Sector’. This is all useful extra information which may come into play should the various organisations figure in a Handler’s campaign.

Physically, The Complex is as cleanly laid out and as decently illustrated as you would expect for the supplement for Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game. It does not have an index, but the supplement is short enough that it covers both the various agencies and the extra information found in the sidebars.

Arguably there are a sufficient number of agencies and organisations and their associated professions to be found in Delta Green Agent’s Handbook such that The Complex is not a supplement that the Handler needs to buy. However, the expanded information upon the various federal agencies is useful, enabling the Handler to create NPCs as well as player Agents from these agencies, and perhaps have the Agents clash or have to deal with these agencies as part of their investigations into the ‘Unnatural’. The inclusion of corporations and thinktanks from the Private Sector is undeniably interesting and it offers different approaches to investigating the ‘Unnatural’ that the simply using the federal agencies might not. Overall, The Complex is a useful and interesting supplement which provides new options for player Agents and potentially new avenues to investigating the ‘Unnatural’.

Since the publication of Call of Cthulhu in 1981, the Mythos has proliferated into numerous other genres and roleplaying games, including the fantasy of Dungeons & Dragons. For example, Wizards of the Coast published Call of Cthulhu d20 in 2001, whilst Realms of Crawling Chaos from Goblinoid Games explored the Mythos for the Old School Renaissance. More recently, Petersen Games presented the entities, races, gods, and spells of the Mythos for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, enabling the Dungeon Master to bring those elements of cosmic horror in her fantasy campaign. What though, about using Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition to run campaigns involving cosmic horror in the more modern periods normally associated with Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying—much like Wizards of the Coast did with Call of Cthulhu d20? For that, there is Whispers in the Dark from Saturday Morning Scenarios, also the publisher of Harper’s Tale: A Forest Adventure Path for 5e, a campaign for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, suitable for a younger or family audience. Whispers in the Dark is definitely not, being a horror setting in which stalwart Investigators confront the forces of the Mythos or ‘Yog-Sothothery’, and do not always succeed or come away unscathed—physically or mentally. The starting point is Whispers in the Dark: Quickstart Rules for 5e.

Whispers in the Dark: Quickstart Rules for 5e requires the Player’s Handbook to run and play. Other than that, it provides the Game Master with everything she needs to get started. This includes rules for Player Character generation, equipment, adjusted rules for damage, healing, resting, and lingering injuries, madness and sanity, a set of pre-generated Investigators, and a lengthy scenario set in 1875 in New Orleans. The setting is thus our world, but of course, one beset by cosmic threats from beyond and those that would foolishly entreat with them. Using the Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition mechanics means that Investigators in Whispers in the Dark will look like their fantasy counterparts. However, there are differences. First, an Investigator does not have a Race in the traditional sense, since all Investigators are Human, or appear so. Instead they have an Ancestry, of which three are provided in Whispers in the Dark: Quickstart Rules for 5e—Human, Human (Lengian), and Human (Deep Blooded), the latter two of which tie a Player Character into the Mythos itself. For example, an Investigator with the Human (Deep Blooded) Ancestry, has Darkvision, Deep Ancestry—which enables the Investigator to hold his breath for hours, Deep Connections—which potentially grants the Investigator Deep One contacts in any coastal town or city, and speaks Aklo, but is Monstrous, suffering a penalty to Persuasion checks. Instead of a Class, an Investigator has a Background, a profession or calling, such as Antiquarian or Hobo, which provide Skill, Tool, Weapon, and Saving Throw Proficiencies, and more. Feats such as Ardent Scholar, Gifted Healer, and Whimpering Minion add further colour and flavour to Investigators. Where in Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition a Player Character will gain new features as he acquires Levels, an Investigator can acquire new skills, languages, tools, weapons, feats, and so on. The maximum Level in Whispers in the Dark: Quickstart Rules for 5e is tenth Level.

Henry Brinded
First Level Antiquarian
Medium Humanoid (Lengian)
Armor Class 11
Hit Points 5
Speed 30 ft.

Strength 08 (-1) Dexterity 13 (+1) Constitution 12 (+1)
Intelligence 16 (+3) Wisdom 10 (-0) Charisma 17 (+3)

Sanity: 18 (+)

Saving Throws: Charisma, Intelligence, (Advantage versus spells and other magical effects)
Skills: Arcana +5, History +5, Investigation +5, Persuasion +5, Sleight of Hand +3
Proficiencies: Arcana, History, Investigation, Persuasion, Sleight of Hand, Simple Weapons, Intelligence, Charisma
Languages: Egyptian Hieroglyphs, English, French, Greek, Latin, Leng
Savings: $1000
Income: $600/month
Equipment: A set of fine clothes, a notebook, several pencils, and collection of curiosities

Whispers in the Dark offers a number of options for making skill checks, including training being required in an Intelligence-based skill to avoid rolling at a Disadvantage, and always making the roll of one on a twenty-sided die, always a failure. These though are optional rules, whereas, there are plenty in Whispers in the Dark which are not. These include making healing more realistic, so Short Rests at eight hours and Long Rests at seven consecutive days, during which an Investigator will be doing little except sleep and rest, will make most players reconsider rushing into action as they might once of have done in their Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition games. An Investigator reduced to zero Hit Points or less, must make Death Saves as per Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, the Difficulty Class is twelve rather than ten, but the Investigator can be stabilised with a successful Medicine skill check—unlike in Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition where the Medicine skill is of little use given that a Cleric can cast healing magic, it assumes a much greater prominence in Whispers in the Dark. In addition, if the Investigator does survive, his player will have to roll on the ‘Lingering Injuries Table’, which may mean, for example, that he has a ‘Lost Eye’ and so is at a permanent disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight and on ranged weapon attacks.

The three omissions in Whispers in the Dark: Quickstart Rules for 5e are that it does not do magic, though it hints at its nature in a word beset by Yog-Sothothery, and it does not include any Mythos creatures or entities and it does not list any Mythos tomes. This though is fine, it after all, being a quick-start rather than the full rules. It does include rules for Sanity and Madness, just as you would expect for a roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror. Every Investigator has a Sanity Score, equal to his Charisma plus Wisdom modifier. The resulting score provides a modifier just an Investigator’s primary abilities. This modifier is applied to all Sanity checks, which will be against a Difficulty Class set by the Game Master, triggered by discovering ‘Forbidden Knowledge’ in a Mythos tome, encountering ‘Unspeakable Horrors’, ‘Mind-Numbing Terror’, ‘Primal Fear’, and ‘Brushes With Death’, the latter being when an Investigator is reduced to zero Hit Points. Unlike other ability scores, an Investigator’s Sanity Score can fluctuate up and down—mostly down. There are two consequences to this. The first is that of course, an Investigator’s Sanity modifier can also fluctuate up and down—mostly down. The second is that a player will also need to track his Investigator’s Sanity Score as it fluctuates up and down.

When an Investigator does fail a Sanity check, the amount lost is always determined by a roll of a four-sided idea—and doubled if the Sanity check is a fumble. As is traditional in Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying, Sanity loss is a downward spiral, once an Investigator having lost Sanity, the harder it is to succeed at a Sanity check, so the greater the likelihood of losing Sanity, and so on and so on. Whilst Sanity loss spirals downward, the effect of the loss spirals upward. In addition to the point loss, the Investigator suffers a bout of Madness, for example the Investigator loses sight while his mind processes the weirdness before him (and is effectively blind for a Turn) or his stomach churns and rumbles as her body reacts to the unnatural scene before him (and is effectively Poisoned for a few Rounds). The first bout of Madness is termed a ‘transient episode’, which lasts until the end of the encounter that triggered the Madness, but if an Investigator loses Sanity whilst in this ‘transient episode’, the ‘transient episode’ escalates into ‘short-term episode’ and last until the Investigator has had a Short Rest. If the Investigator loses further Sanity whilst in this ‘short-term episode’ or loses half of his Sanity, the bout becomes a ‘long-term episode’, which requires weeks of downtime to recover. It is also possible to recover Sanity loss between adventures. Lastly, indefinite Madness occurs when an Investigator’s Sanity is reduced to a quarter of her maximum Sanity and that cannot be cured, short of a wish spell or divine intervention. Here then is another marked difference between Whispers in the Dark and the archetypal roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror—the possibility of recovery from indefinite madness and the existence of the Wish spell! Divine intervention is always possible—typically at the hands of Nyarlathotep—but at a cost.

Whispers in the Dark: Quickstart Rules for 5e comes with a beginning scenario, ‘The Crow Road’. Intended for Investigators of First and Second Level, this is set in and around the French Quarter in New Orleans in 1875 during the period of Reconstruction following the American Civil War. As the city suffers a rash of gruesome murders—murders which echo the Jack the Ripper kills in London a decade or so later—the Investigators are engaged to look into the deaths. Either because they come across one of the bodies after a night out in the French Quarter or because the local police consults them for their expertise with the outré. Built around combination of a number of timed encounters over the course of a few days and particular locations, this is not obviously an investigation into the Mythos a la Lovecraft, but long-time devotees of the Mythos and Call of Cthulhu will recognise the scenario’s links to the Mythos. ‘The Crow Road’ is an engaging scenario, nicely organised, especially the way in which the clues are arranged, and will take two or three sessions to complete. It will need a bit of careful preparation upon the part of the Game Master given its structure. The scenario is supported by a short guide to New Orleans and six pre-generated Investigators, all Second Level and all pleasingly detailed and encompassing a solid range of skills and backgrounds. Of course, players are free to create their own Investigators using the rules presented in Whispers in the Dark: Quickstart Rules for 5e to play ‘The Crow Man’.

Throughout Whispers in the Dark: Quickstart Rules for 5e there are notes for the Game Master. These do note the issues with H.P. Lovecraft, but in the main they highlight the differences between Whispers in the Dark: Quickstart Rules for 5e and Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. These being that there no dungeons or fantastical creatures, and violence has consequences in that it might land the Investigators in gaol. Instead, play relies on finding and interpreting clues, rather than on going toe-to-toe with the threats behind the mysteries inherent to the setting.

Physically, Whispers in the Dark: Quickstart Rules for 5e is presented in full colour and engaging fashion. Many of the new rules presented in Whispers in the Dark: Quickstart Rules for 5e are highlighted in red to make it easy for the Game Master to spot them. The artwork varies in quality though, and if ‘The Crow Road’ scenario is missing anything, it is a map of New Orleans.

Mechanically, the tone in Whispers in the Dark: Quickstart Rules for 5e is very different to that of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Fundamentally, Investigators are frail—mentally and physically—in comparison to the heroes of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Play is radically shifted to investigation and interaction, the emphasis on combat greatly reduced. There is a sense of the Whispers in the Dark setting being more fantastical than traditional Lovecraftian investigative horror in the mention of the Wish spell, but that will have to wait until the full roleplaying game.

Whispers in the Dark: Quickstart Rules for 5e is a crossover title, designed to attract players of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition into Lovecraftian investigative horror with its familiarity of mechanics. It is not though, a crossover title in the other direction. Players of Call of Cthulhu or Trail of Cthulhu are far less likely to use Whispers in the Dark: Quickstart Rules for 5e as a stepping-stone into playing Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. They might want to play ‘The Crowman’ because it is an investigative horror scenario and it is set during a period rarely visited in other Lovecraftian investigative horror roleplaying games. Another option would be to adapt ‘The Crowman’ to those Lovecraftian investigative horror roleplaying games, but the period setting of Whispers in the Dark: Quickstart Rules for 5e suggests another possibility. It feels reminiscent of Masque of the Red Death and Other Tales, the Gothic Earth setting published by TSR, Inc. for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Second Edition in 1994. Perhaps it could be used in conjunction with that setting, especially with the forthcoming Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition.

As an introduction to Lovecraftian investigative horror, Whispers in the Dark: Quickstart Rules for 5e more than ably makes the shift over from Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, making it easy for players of the world’s most popular roleplaying game to make that shift too. Players of other roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror may find the shift towards Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition a little more difficult to adjust to, but either way, the players of both games will find ‘The Crowman’ an entertaining and horrifying scenario, one which definitely deserves a sequel.

Almost from the start, Call of Cthulhu has been fascinated by South and Central America. From the Peru chapter in the original The Fungi from the Yuggoth in 1984, the scenarios ‘The Pits of Bendal-Dolum’ and ‘The Temple of the Moon’ from 1986’s Terror from the Stars, all the way up to the Peru prequel chapter found in Masks of Nyarlathotep: Dark Schemes Herald the End of the World and the Bolivia chapter of The Two-Headed Serpent: An Epic Action-Packed and Globe-Spanning Campaign for Pulp Cthulhu. Perhaps the best treatment of the region is The Mysteries of Mesoamerica, published by Pagan Publishing in 2009. What has run through each of these scenarios and support is a fascination with the strange, complex, if notoriously bloodthirsty stone age cultures found throughout the region, with their rich pantheons of gods, and the sophisticated structures they left behind in the wake of their societal collapses and later subjugation at the hands of the Spanish invaders. The latest supplement for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition to visit the region is A Time for Sacrifice.

A Time for Sacrifice is published by New Comet Games, following a successful Kickstarter campaign. It is the publisher’s third title for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, following on from The Star on the Sure – Struggles Against Evil in 1920s New England and Devil’s Swamp – Encountering Ancient Terrors in the Hockomock, both of which were ambitious in terms of their production values, but ultimately let down by their lack of development and editing. A Time for Sacrifice is an anthology of five scenarios set deep in the jungles of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, in Honduras, and on the island of Cuba during the nineteen twenties and early nineteen thirties. It is not, however, a sourcebook on the region with regard to the Cthulhu Mythos or Call of Cthulhu, with the aforementioned The Mysteries of Mesoamerica probably the best source as well having its own excellent scenarios. Otherwise, as the publisher mentions, the Keeper will need to do her own research with regard to the region and its history. As with the previous two books for Call of Cthulhu from New Comet Games, the production values for A Time of Sacrifice are high, including full colour throughout and glossy paper, but it remains to be seen if the issues with editing and development.

A Time for Sacrifice opens with ‘Egg Out of Time’, the first of three scenarios by the anthology’s publisher, Ben Burns. It opens en media res, the Investigators members of an expedition on the Yucatán Peninsula, running to the rescue of a college and fellow expedition member who has fallen ill mysteriously at the entrance to a ruin, and then racing him to the nearest hotel. Then upon receiving a note intended for their ill colleague, they come to the aid of an expedition which has been attacked by the locals who appear to be performing a pagan summoning of some kind. Of course, it turns out to be a bait and switch and the likelihood is that the Investigators will need to find a way to stop the terrible danger they have unleashed. ‘Egg Out of Time’ does have an entertaining idea at the heart of its plot, but as presented it never really lays out the groundwork for the plot and it compounds this problem with a page-and-a-half of exposition explaining the plot which the Keeper is expected to read out to her players. In terms of a story, this works fine, but in terms of a roleplaying scenario, it is unengaging and breaks the narrative. This combined with the underwritten set-up, the insufficient advice on who the Investigators might be and why they are on the expedition, as well a lack of information that they might know at the start of the scenario—instead the Investigators are expected to research much of it—and ‘Egg Out of Time’ launches A Time for Sacrifice in underwhelming fashion.

It is followed by Brian Courtemanche’s ‘Pyramid Scheme’, which specifically takes place after the Wall Street Crash of 1929, at the start of the Desperate Decade of the nineteen thirties. The bulk of this scenario is again set on the Yucatán Peninsula, but it begins in New York. Here the Investigators—who are presumed to have conducted numerous previous enquiries into the outré—are hired by a lawyer to infiltrate Ritterville, a company town in Mexico belonging to Ritter Nautical and Industrial Supply, a rival to his employer’s company. Research soon reveals that the owners of Ritterville suffered terribly during the Wall Street Crash and possess some outré interests, so the lawyer wants the Investigators to determine what is happening in the town. The set-up leads to delightful opening scenes which capture the desperate nature of life during this period, but which otherwise set the Investigators on a linear path—and not just because they will be taking a number of train and boat trips to get to their destination. The timing of these journeys structures the scenario quite tightly, so that the Investigators will have limited scope for optional activities throughout. Consequently, the scenario feels like a connected series of scenes, but many of them are at least engaging and there is a constant sense of the Investigators being toyed with throughout and this sense of being played continues right into the dénouement which has the Investigators actually engaging in a pok-ta-pok faceoff! The scenario has a knowing title and borders on a Pulpy sensibility and would not be too difficult to adapt to be run using Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos.

Ben Burn’s second scenario in the anthology is ‘Space Between Time’, which at first is not set in Central or South America at all, but on the island of Cuba, before actually switching to the island of Cozumel, off the coast of Mexico. The Investigators are hired by Miskatonic University to attend a cultural exchange conference in Cuba, but the team leader, Doctor Donald Sanderson has other plans. He has evidence that his father, William Sanderson, whom everyone claims to have been killed on an expedition when Donald was a boy, is still alive and he wants the Investigators’ help in finding him. If the Investigators agree—and there is no scenario if they decline—he takes them to where his father disappeared, and into the strangeness that is the ‘Space Between Time’. This is a space between from travellers can access any world, any time, and any dimension, and contained within are any number of dangers and things best left untouched, although Investigator and player curiosity may dictate otherwise. Apart from one or two interesting interactions with the Mythos, ‘Space Between Time’ is primarily the equivalent of an escape room made all the more dangerous because something is hunting the Investigators. There is very much the danger of a ‘Total Party Kill’ here if the Investigators do not solve the mystery to the scenario, and even if they do, the end result may not be all that satisfying given that one Investigator may need to sacrifice himself to let the others escape.

The fourth scenario is ‘The Thirteenth Bak’tun’ by Jonathan Bagelman. Set in Mexico, this is the best written of the five scenarios in A Time for Sacrifice. The Investigators are hired by Miskatonic University to join an expedition already in the field as experts and extra security, but by the time they reach Vera Cruz, they learn that it has been attacked by bandits and the task becomes a rescue mission. The scenario nicely brings in Mexico’s febrile interwar politics—the one scenario to really make use of the setting in the anthology—and comes with a lot of backstory and a solid plot. However, in places it feels a little like a tourist handbook and the plot itself is essentially a variation upon one which has been seen again and again in Call of Cthulhu, that of a Serpent Person wanting to restore his people to greatness after their millennia old slumber. Overall, the scenario is decent and could even serve as the lead into a campaign of the Keeper’s own devising, or even perhaps tied into The Two-Headed Serpent: An Epic Action-Packed and Globe-Spanning Campaign for Pulp Cthulhu.

The anthology ends with ‘Doorway of the Gods’, Ben Burns’ third scenario. Again, linear and again, the Investigators are hired by Miskatonic University to join an expedition, this time in Honduras. After another sea voyage beset by strange dreams, the Investigators arrive in Honduras to learn that contact has been lost with the expedition and once at the site—at the base of a step pyramid with a strange doorway, that everyone is missing. However, the author drastically ups the action in this scenario—first, crew and passengers on the sea voyage from Boston being hunted by something which returns to the ship again and again; second, the Investigators and their guides are hunted at the site of the missing expedition; and third, the head guide, having learned that his men have been snatched, is not only determined to enter through the strange doorway, but has come armed for bear! Or is that Dimensional Shambler? M1921 Thompson Submachine Guns with drum rounds, Short Magazine Lee–Enfield Mk III rifles, twelve-gauge shotguns, .38 automatic pistols, and grenades! It is such a radical change of tone after the previous four scenarios, but ‘Doorway of the Gods’ essentially becomes a ‘Search and rescue’ mission combined with a ‘bug hunt’, and with such an emphasis on action and combat, is really better suited to Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos than standard Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition.

As with previous titles for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh edition from New Comet Games, A Time for Sacrifice is physically ambitious. So, it is full colour throughout and fairly heavily illustrated. However, the artwork varies greatly in quality—some being quite decent, some bland, and a lot of it being quite dark and murky, whilst the numerous handouts, also in full colour, are dull and rarely benefit from being in colour. Similarly, the maps vary in quality, many being quite plain, others having something of a period feel. Of course, it goes without saying that all of the scenarios in A Time for Sacrifice demand another edit, let alone the need for further development in some cases.

As an anthology, A Time for Sacrifice is at best uneven in tone, plotting, production values, and support. In addition to preparing anyone of the five scenarios in its pages, Keeper will need to research some basic background on the Mayans, and both the Mexico and Honduras of the period—not just for herself, but for her players and their investigators too. As a campaign, which the publisher suggests that the five scenarios could form if run in chronological order, A Time for Sacrifice would need a great deal of work upon the part of the Keeper. Although they share a general location and themes—the Mayans and Mesoamerica in common, there is little here to hang a campaign on. Better still to use them as one-shots or pick and choose the ones that a Keeper wants to run, just as she might with any other anthology. Whilst there are perhaps one or two decent scenarios in the collection, in the main, their set-up is too similar and their plots linear, such that running one too soon after another would make it too familiar. Ultimately, it is difficult to get really excited or enticed by A Time for Sacrifice, and the combined effect of the anthology is to make Mesoamerica mundane.

Fear’s Sharp Little Needles: Twenty-Six Hunting Forays into Horror is an anthology of scenarios published by Stygian Fox for use with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition. Published following a successful Kickstarterter campaign, it follows on from the highly-regarded Things We Leave Behind in being set in the modern day, in dealing with mature themes, and in containing contributions from a number of tried-and-tested scenario authors from the last decade or so. What sets it apart though, is that Fear’s Sharp Little Needles contains some twenty-six scenarios, all but one of them, short, sharp stabs of horror—typically each five or six pages in length and thus the length of a magazine scenario or so. All twenty-six can work as one-shots, all but the last can work as convention scenarios, and all but the last require minimum preparation—the latter feature making Fear’s Sharp Little Needles a useful anthology for the Keeper to pull off the shelf at the last minute and have something ready for her gaming group with relatively little effort. In many cases, the scenarios would also work with just the one player and Investigator and the one Keeper. However, with a little more effort, many of the scenarios in the campaign would also work in an ongoing campaign, and in fact, some of them would work with Arc Dream Publishing’s Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game and some of them are actually linked together. Fear’s Sharp Little Needles also has its companion in the form of Aspirations.

Aspirations – A Modern Day Call of Cthulhu Supplement for Fear’s Sharp Little Needles differs from Fear’s Sharp Little Needles in that it is not just a collection of scenarios. It includes both scenarios and articles, adding extra mysteries and strange situations to be investigated, a potential patron, and more, all for the Modern Day. As with Fear’s Sharp Little Needles, each of the nine entries in the anthology is quite short, no more than seven pages in length, but typically four pages in length. All nine are fully illustrated and many of them come with maps too. The anthology opens with ‘All for a Good Cause’ by Jeffrey Moeller. This presents a potential patron for the Investigators, a Hollywood-based charitable organisation, The Barry Crawford Trust. Named for a now dead actor renowned for his hedonism, it is run by his wife, an adult entertainment actress, and has a secret agenda all of its own—its head hates the Mythos! The foundation will secretly fund investigations into strange mysteries and Mythos activities, and even help out with legal fees and help when the authorities are alerted to the Investigators’ inquiries. All that the foundation asks in return is that they hand over any Mythos artefacts and tomes for destruction. However, their contact seems just a little twitchy, and there is more going on here, nicely hinted at with the illustrations which the Investigators might be able to find and so double as handouts, but what ‘All for a Good Cause’ provides is a ready-made patron and the basis of an over-arching narrative structure into which the Keeper can run any modern-set Call of Cthulhu scenario, whether from elsewhere in Aspirations or Fear’s Sharp Little Needles, or indeed, any modern-set campaign.

Jeffrey Moeller follows ‘All for a Good Cause’ with ‘The Blackthorns’. This details Fair Oaks, a popular and highly regarded suburb—easily located to a town or city of the Keeper’s choice—which hides its dark secret behind its obvious idyllic. It suffers from a rash of disappearances, especially child disappearances. Two weeks ago, another boy disappeared, whilst another boy was found unconscious. If the Keeper is using The Barry Crawford Trust as a patron, the foundation sends the Investigators to the suburb to look into the disappearances, suggesting a  potential supernatural link to them. Alternatively, the Investigators might be hired as Private Investigators by the parents of the missing boy. The is some delicacy required here, since it does involve children, but the investigation does present an interesting moral twist upon the Mythos, and in a long-term campaign, that twist might just be too compelling for an Investigator or two. Certainly the Keeper is encouraged to review their actions in past scenarios and campaigns.

Adam Gauntlett provides three entries in Aspirations. The first of these is ‘Dead Mall’, set in and around the dying Diamond Arcade mall in New England, where a blogger charting the region’s dying mall was found dead in the car park of hypothermia on an otherwise warm night. Investigation reveals that the mall is located on site which has been beset by lethally cold weather in the past, so could this death be connected? ‘Dead Mall’ is a short investigation, clues quickly pointing to one of the facility operators in the mall itself. It is likely that the investigation will end in a confrontation and turn physical, so the Investigators will need to be prepared. If using The Barry Crawford Trust, the Investigators’ contact will suggest that witchcraft might be involved.

‘Dead Mall’ is followed by ‘Granny’s Tales’. Rather than a mini-scenario, this details a Mythos tome, but one unlike the traditional ‘bound in unknown leather’, battered, and deeply annotated volume typically beloved of Call of Cthulhu. Granny’s Tales is a seventies adult underground comic, one inspired by artist R. Crumb before it goes off in its own Mythos-inspired direction. Consisting of twelve issues, the early issues are easy to find, but the last one is almost never seen for sale. There are echoes of The Revelations of Gla’aki in Granny’s Tales, in format if not content, and this Mythos tome is nicely detailed and ready to add to a Keeper’s campaign.

The third entry from Adam Gauntlett is ‘The Bay of Nouadhibou’. Again, this is different in being a set-up rather than a full scenario. It will take the Investigators to the Islamic Republic of Mauritania in West Africa where there have been reports of a radical cult operating in the derelicts of the ship graveyard off the city of Nouadhibou. With its mix of religious militantism, slave gangs, immigrant transfers, and Mythos activity on the edge of the Sahara desert, ‘The Bay of Nouadhibou’ is the most suitable entry in Aspirations to use with Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game and it is a pity that this runs to just four pages, as it deserves to be developed into a fuller scenario all of its own.

In Jo Kreil’s ‘Bring Me Your Sick’, William Northfield is dying of cancer and in his search for a cure has begun attending and donating large amounts of money to a health spa where he has been receiving surprisingly effective treatment from its owner, Doctor Baum. The Investigators might be hired by one of Northfield’s relatives or the Board of Directors of his company, either being concerned at the time and wealth that he is pouring into the health spa. The Investigators may benefit having a scientist or doctor involved, or least have one as a contact, but very quickly their enquiries point towards the clinic and a terrible confrontation with Doctor Baum and exactly what he is planning.

Where ‘Granny’s Tales’ detailed a Mythos tome, ‘The Treader of the Stars’ by Brian M. Sammons and Glynn Owen Barrass describes an Alien entity previously presented in their short story, ‘Fall of Empire’ from the Steampunk Cthulhu anthology published by Chaosium, Inc. On the rare occasions it turns its extradimensional attention to earth it whispers secrets into the minds of its cultists who in return build it a body of flesh—from any source. Including mass murder. Once brought to Earth, it enjoys our dimension, causing chaos and rending reality before disappearing again. Along with full stats, the entity is given a detailed description of what it looks like and what it is capable of, which is quite a lot. However, it is not accompanied by any suggestions as to how to use it or scenario hooks, so of all the content in Aspirations, this is not the most immediate of use, or indeed, the easiest

Simon Yee’s ‘Urban Pentimento’ adds another location, this time Japan. This describes Unsu City, a small town which stands in the shadow of Hiroshima and whose secrets are tied into events at the end of World War Two. The town has not just a strange history, but also a Christian of a strange denomination, a satellite office for a German computer company, ghosts lingering from World War Two in the hospital, and a literally underground nightlife… This is a setting waiting for a plot to be developed around it and to it, so will need some development upon the part of the Keeper. It could also have benefited from a map or two.

Rounding out Aspirations is ‘The Lumber Barons’ Ball’ by Chitin Proctor with John Shimmin. This is very much more of a scenario and is very modern in that it involves Kickstarter! Brian Carr successfully funded the first part of his twenties-set horror web comic, Carcosa, on Kickstarter and the second part has been chosen as a Kickstarter Staff Pick, which means that a new interpretation of the King in Yellow will probably be reaching a wider audience. If The Barry Crawford Trust is their patron, then the Investigators will definitely be pointed towards preventing such an occurrence. As well potentially tying in a lost typeface into the Mythos, the scenario provides some solid investigation which the Investigators can do from home before trying to locate Carr at his home in Muskegon, Michigan. Here the investigation is more physical as the Investigators have the opportunity to stay in the converted apartment house and explore the rest of the building as AirBnB guests. The finale takes on the grand affair typical of a scenario involving the King in Yellow, but injects an extra degree of menace and topicality by fronting it as a protest against police shootings. This adds a feeling of freshness to the otherwise decaying and decadent whole affair. Overall, ‘The Lumber Barons’ Ball’ brings Aspirations to a pleasing finish, though some of the content is a little dense and will careful preparation upon the part of the Keeper, and again, it could have done with an extra map or two.

Physically, Aspirations is a slim book, but neatly and tidily presented in full colour with plenty of illustrations and decent maps. In some cases, though, the Keeper will need to provide extra maps herself.

As a companion to Fear’s Sharp Little Needles: Twenty-Six Hunting Forays into Horror, the truth is that Aspirations is not essential. Its content is extra and does not add to or develop the content to be found in Fear’s Little Needles. In some ways, that is a pity. Perhaps The Barry Crawford Trust presented in ‘All for a Good Cause’ could have been expanded to cover how it might involve the Investigators in each of the scenarios in Fear’s Little Needles—or at least those which would have been appropriate. As it is, Aspirations leaves the Keeper to do that and as a result is very much a mixed bag, feeling a little too much like the things that there was no room for in  Fear’s Sharp Little Needles. That is, a decent handful of scenarios, one or two settings or ideas begging for richer development, and some needing development upon the part of the Keeper to be truly useful or usable. Overall, Aspirations – A Modern Day Call of Cthulhu Supplement for Fear’s Sharp Little Needles is more an anthology for the completist than a must-have.

 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.


—oOo—

Name: Hand of Glory

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Allan Carey

Setting: Jazz Age Yorkshire
Product: Scenario Set-up
What You Get: Twenty-three page, 29.91 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Sometimes fate hands you a terrible choice.
Plot Hook:  A day’s walk takes a terrifying turn atop the Yorkshire Moors. Maybe the locals really are weird, maybe they just don’t like outsiders. Or both.Plot Support: Plot set-up, single period maps, three handouts, and five pre-generated Investigators.Production Values: Clean and tidy, decent map, lovely handouts, and clearly done pre-generated Investigators.
Pros
# Type40 one-night, one-shot set-up
# Potential convention scenario
# Solid moral choice# Superb handouts
# Pre-generated Investigators nicely fit the set-up# Easily adjustable to other periods# Nasty, even cruel scenario# Minimal set-up time# Playable in an hour or two!

Cons
# Nasty, even cruel scenario
# Stark, difficult choices# Playable in an hour or two!# Investigator interaction hooks and relationships could have enhanced the tension.
Conclusion
# Great production values
# Minimal set-up time# Underwritten Investigator relationships undermine simple, really nasty plot.

Imagine a roleplaying game which gives you two hundred pages of character options. Imagine a roleplaying game with a large expansive setting. Imagine a roleplaying game which builds the details of its setting from its character options—all two hundred pages of them. Imagine that Player Character generation in such a roleplaying game—with all two hundred pages of its options would take a mere five minutes. Actually less. Imagine a roleplaying game in which the Player Characters are adventurers and treasure hunters across this large expansive setting. Imagine that such a roleplaying game has Old School Renaissance sensibilities in terms of its simple mechanics—simple mechanics which are explained in four pages—and the dauntingly dangerous nature of its world. Combine all of these aspects together and what you have is Electric Bastionland, a roleplaying game of failed careers, debt and treasure hunting, and exploration and survival, across, under, and beyond a vast metropolis which is created and improvised through play and from tables.

Electric Bastionland: Deeper into the Odd is published by Bastionland Press, following a successful Kickstarter campaign. As its title suggests, it is an expansion to the author’s earlier Into the Odd and Bastion Ein Sof, but a standalone expansion, one that takes the seemingly formerly wretched city of Bastion into the Electric Age and sees it glow with the fierce yellow of Electricity and grow and encroach upon other cities, to become a modern metropolis of bright lights and possibilities. It is a city that juxtaposes the familiar and the odd, the latter making those that engage with the oddness also odd. It is a city without a council, but many councils and many boroughs. It is a city which is constantly being built, but nobody claims to have built. It is a city of modernity with the sensibility of the past. It is a city of electricity and the consequences of that electricity—strange transmissions on the Radio, unnerving headaches near power stations, and machines that serve themselves. It is a city without a history and a city whose history has become a physical thing. Bastion is the present. Deep Country, beyond the limits of the city where everything was better, but simplistic and inconvenient, is the past. The Living Stars are the future. Connecting the three—Bastion, Deep Country, the Living Stars—is The Underground. It connects everything, tests everyone, and lies beneath reality, but it will get you where you want to go—eventually. Bastion as a city and a setting has the feel of La Belle Époque and of La Ville Lumière, and then hints of the Jazz Age verging on an ecumenopolis, but stranger, weirder, and odder the closer you look. Just how strange, just how weird, and just how odd, begins with the Player Characters.

Each Player Character begins play in debt, their career a failure, desperate to pay off this debt such that they embark on ‘great’ treasure hunts. Working with a fellow band of Debtors, they know that if they can find it, the treasure will surely be enough to pay off their debts. Yet they have a rival, and he also knows of the treasure. Tarry long in their expedition and the rival may retrieve the treasure and so their debt remains, grows even. In working to retrieve the treasure the Debtors will encounter the oddities and the weirdness of Bastion. Both will rub off on the Debtors, leaving also weird and odd, and that is in addition to the scars and bruises they may gain along the way. If they survive, they may also become Grizzled as well as scarred.

A Player Character in Electric Bastionland has three abilities—Strength, Dexterity, and Charisma. These are rated between three and eighteen. He has a six-sided die’s worth of Hit Protection and a six-sided die’s worth of New Pounds—this is not a lot of money. Together with his fellow Debtors, he owes £10,000. The exact nature of the debt is determined by the Failed Career of the youngest player. For example, a Fashionista owes The Lion Council—a literal council of lions—£10,000 and its members want the debt to be repaid in interesting meat, whilst a Petty Officer simply owes The Petty Court that amount, but can pay off half that amount by personally attending The Petty Court and representing himself in a tediously long trial of trivial affairs. Every Debtor has a Failed Career. Exactly what is determined by cross matching the Debtor’s lowest Ability score with his highest, and that gives a page number.

Every Failed Career is given a two-page spread and with one hundred Failed Careers in Electric Bastionland, that is the aforementioned two hundred pages of character options and a third of the book already taken up! However, each Failed Career is described in relatively broad detail. Along with an illustration, each Failed Career is accompanied by a simple explanation, some sample names, and the reason for the Debtors’ debt. Besides one or two items of equipment, each Failed Career gives options which add further detail and flavour. Exactly is determined by many New Pounds a Debtor has and how many points of Hit Protection he has. For example, the Necro-Engineer specialises in the most modern means of dealing with the growing industry of corpse production. His name might be Do, Jincey, Gognon, or Zephryne; he owes money to The Jolity Engine, a sentient, building-sized gambling machine; and he owns sombre formal wear and a shovel. A pair of tables ask two questions—‘how did you get your start in the corpse disposal industry?’ and ‘what was your great project? (you couldn’t get funding)’. If Necro-Engineer begins play with £6, then the answer to the first question is, by ‘Chasing Scavengers Away’ and he is accompanied by a barely-domesticated hyena which sticks with him. If he begins play with £2, he was a ‘Professional Grave Visitor’ and has a lifetime’s supply of bouquets from various florists around the city. As to his greatest project, if the Necro-Engineer only has the one point of Hit Protection, it was The Incineration Dome and he has a fire-proof protective suit which fits over his formal wear, whereas if he has four points of Hit Protection, it was The Protein Reclamation Initiative and he has a jar of flavour-masking rub, which makes anything palatable! Each of these tables is different for each Failed Career, but each balances the amount of Hit Protection and New Pounds with a piece of equipment or a power or other benefit. The lower the amount of Hit Protection and New Pounds, the potentially more powerful the piece of equipment or power or other benefit—and vice versa.

Name: Slipper
Failed Career: Academic Debater
Strength: 13
Dexterity: 13
Charisma: 11

Hit Protection: 5
£5

Debt: Conglomerated Taxes (You are exempt from certain taxes, gaining an effective 50% discount on pets, hair products, and offal.)

Possessions: Cane (d6), pocket-watch

What Can You Debate Forever?: Formal Wear (Headgear)
What Did Your University Provide As A Leaving Gift?: A Novelty Umbrella (also a clarinet).

Go through the list of Failed Careers and what Electric Bastionland is doing is not just providing the means to create characters, but detailing aspects of the world. Thus, Gutter Minder Failed Career might establish that the Debtor is Rat given human form in a lab experiment or a former High Society member, the only survivor of a mob uprising. The first establishes that somewhere in Bastion, someone is experimenting on animals, and that perhaps there might be a laboratory where they might be working on more, that there might be other, similar creatures out there, and so on. The second that of an uprising which could be any number of reasons. From the Trench Conscript which suggests a war and a battle and a Criminal Bureaucrat who specialises the legal loopholes which make every crime legal to the Wall-Born which suggests Bastion is surrounded by walls to the Integrated Alien passing as human which suggests a Science Fiction aspect to the city and the Un-Revolutionary, who seeks to prevent, even undo change in a city that is changing, the Failed Careers each hint at and add aspects to Bastion. Of course, not all of them will come into play necessarily, though those pertaining to the Debtors currently being played, certainly should.

Mechanically, Electric Bastionland shares much in common with the earlier Into the Odd. If a Debtor wants to undertake an action, his player rolls a twenty-sided die against the appropriate Ability, aiming to equal to or under to pass. For initiative in combat is handled with a Dexterity save. Combat is equally as simple. A player rolls the die for the weapon used to determine how much might damage be inflicted—there is no ‘to hit roll’. The target’s armour is subtracted from this and the remainder is subtracted from first his Hit Protection and then his Strength. Once damage is inflicted upon his Strength, a Debtor must make a save against his Strength in order to avoid being debilitated—which of course gets harder and harder the more Strength lost. Lastly, should a Debtor be reduced to exactly zero Hit Protection without suffering damage to his Strength, then he also scarred, which can be anything from an actual scar to doomed to die! And that is it in terms of mechanics, which are fully explained in just four pages! They are mostly player-facing, meaning that the players will probably roll more than the Conductor—as the Game Master is known in Electric Bastionland, and combat is in general, short and nasty, and best avoided if possible.

The last third of Electric Bastionland is for the Conductor. Advice, even direction for the Conductor, is to the point and laid out in short, easily grasped bullet points in ‘Preparing The Game’. The point of the roleplaying game is to find the treasure which will lift the Debtor out of penury, and so the treasure should be valuable rather than useful, there should be an explanation as to why it has not been found yet, and it should be thought-provoking. In a series of three bullet point blocks, the Conductor is guided through a range of subjects covering preparing and conducting the game, essentially presented as the principles behind the game. In turn, Bastion, Deep Country, and the Underground are presented in the same fashion, looking at how to understand, map, stock, and conduct (or referee) each of these weird and wonderful locations, often accompanied by tables that the Conductor can use as inspiration.

The advice for creating the inhabitants of Bastion is to make them interesting and memorable. Although they make up the majority, Humans are not the inhabitants of the city and beyond. Others include Mockeries, creatures of felt, wood, and string given life, hated by animals, but loved by children. Each has a particular talent and acts as if on the stage. In Bastion, they tend to be based on animals, Mock People though are loathed and Mock Objects stick to the Underground. Machines, connected to the Underground or a part of it, initiate change and monitor it, creating and modifying rather than destroying—and that can include the Debtors when encountered on their treasure hunt. Aliens are more advanced than the inhabitants of Bastion, but typically just a very specific way, and cannot truly integrate into society. Out in Deep Country, some have become gods or monsters of myth and legend. Monstrosities are each unique, each made rather than born, each mundane before it became what it is now.

The last part of Electric Bastionland is ‘The Oddendum’, a collection of short articles which the Conductor can include in her game. The first of these though, ‘A Player’s Handbook: Strategy Guide’, is not for the Conductor, but the players. It is a two-page spread on how to play Electric Bastionland and explore its city and beyond, and it is very useful. However, situated so very near the end of the book, it feels very much out of place, when really it should have been placed earlier, after the rules explanations and examples, where prospective players could have more readily found it. The rest of ‘The Oddendum’ covers a wide range of subjects, from Oddities, the strange devices and things whose workings defy explanation, but which might be magic or Sci-Fi and which everyone will want to buy or steal to an explanation of why the designer named the Game Master the ‘Conductor’ and how the city of Bastion is not a refuge or sanctuary to come back to from the Deep Country or Underground, but a continuation of the adventure. It includes sections of advice for the Conductor alongside sections of things to put in the game, so ‘The Balancing Act’ examines the balance between mechanics and making things interesting is followed by a list of Noble Weapons. This is followed by ‘Example Content’ such as ‘Unions and Rituals’—cults, clubs, and armies, ‘Dedicated Followers of Fashion’—an emporium of haute couture, and ‘The Bureaucrolabyrinth’, a table for running and complicating any bureaucratic process. All of these can be added to a Conductor’s game as she desires, but these final pieces do feel a bit of a jumble. And that in a way is fine, since Bastion as a setting is not meant to be a coherent whole, it is meant to be cluttered and discordant, part-patchwork, part-tangle.

Finally, the designer steps in with ‘The Last Word’. Here the designer makes clear that Electric Bastionland is designed to be played by anybody, to be played at the table, and to be created at the table. Further, that what it is not is a textbook intended to be studied. For the most part, the designer succeeds. Electric Bastionland is simple enough that it can be played by anyone, and it is definitely not a textbook, but very much more of a toolkit, one set of inspirations after another. Mechanically though, despite its simplicity, Electric Bastionland is not very forgiving—especially in combat where every attack succeeds and what matters is the amount of damage rolled. This is an issue continued from Into the Odd and it may be off-putting for some players. Electric Bastionland does include advice that addresses this—all of it good, but despite the simplicity and the advice, Electric Bastionland is not necessarily a roleplaying game for the beginning Game Master—or Conductor, since it relies heavily on improvisation. Which simply may be too daunting for the prospective Conductor. For the more experienced Game Master, the advice and simplicity will be nowhere near as daunting and should nicely ease her into running her first Electric Bastionland treasure hunt.

One side effect of the improvisation inherent to running and playing Electric Bastionland is that unlike the earlier Into the Odd, there is no traditional adventure or scenario, or in this case, treasure hunt, included in its pages. Into the Odd had a hexcrawl, a town, and a dungeon, and whilst Electric Bastionland has sample boroughs, what it does not have is a sample treasure hunt. Perhaps including one would have pulled away at the degree of improvisation which the designer of Electric Bastionland wants the Conductor to engage in and the lack of proscription that he wants Electric Bastionland to have, but certainly a working example of how treasure hunt can be put together and improvised might have been a useful edition, especially for the new or less experienced Conductor.

Another issue that Electric Bastionland shares with Into the Odd is just how much play can be got out of the roleplaying game. The set-up is simple: the Player Characters are in debt and each having a Failed Career need to find treasure to pay off what they owe. In the process, there is a magical, fantastical cityscape and beyond to explore, interesting NPCs to interact with, interesting other Debtors to interact with, obstacles to be overcome, and more. But what then? What next once the debt is paid off? There is potential in perhaps the Debtors having become part of the city becoming involved in its events and in perhaps exploring further aspects of their Failed Career, but that is beyond the scope of Electric Bastionland. Ultimately, Electric Bastionland is best suited for short campaigns, and since it includes one hundred Failed Careers, each one very different, each one adding to the nature of the city, there are multiple stories to be told and debts to be repaid. Thus, Electric Bastionland is better suited for repeated play rather than long term play.

Physically, it feels odd that a roleplaying book as large as Electric Bastionland is not in colour, the use of one artist—Alec Sorenson—and the judicious use of yellow colour palette as a highlight gives the book a uniform look throughout. Further, the illustrations impart a strong sense of the ordinary and the outré which pervades the city of Bastion and beyond. In terms of look and layout, Electric Bastionland is notably spacious, which when combined with the three-bullet point motif which mostly runs throughout the book, makes everything accessible and easy to find. If there is an issue with Electric Bastionland as a book, it is that towards the end it becomes a little disjointed, a collection of things, and as much as that fits the tone of the roleplaying game, it may not be to everyone’s taste. Otherwise, the book is well written, it is engaging, and it is well presented.

There is an elegance which runs throughout Electric Bastionland: Deeper into the Odd, from the simplicity of its mechanics to the delightfully evocative nature of the Failed Careers which build story into a campaign and across the sprawling metropolis of Bastion. The city itself has a surreal, almost ethereal feel to it that is just waiting for the Conductor to improvise and work with her Debtors to explore and perhaps make a little more real. Ultimately, Electric Bastionland: Deeper into the Odd is a roleplaying game whose every page is begging you to be played and explored, and just for a little while, you really should.

As the Kickstarter for The One Ring Roleplaying Game, Second Edition continues apace, one of the most interesting additions to the new version is that of a Starter Set. Now The One Ring, originally published by Cubicle Seven Entertainment never actually did not receive a Starter Set, but publisher of the forthcoming second edition, Free League Publishing has an interesting track record with both the Alien Starter Set for the Aliens Adventure Game and the Tales from the Loop Starter Set for Tales from the Loop – Roleplaying in the ’80s That Never Was—and the forthcoming The One Ring Starter Set looks interesting. If Cubicle Seven Entertainment did not publish a Starter Set, then what it did publish was Bree. Instead of a Starter Set, what Bree can be best described as is a starting supplement.

Although this is not a starter set, it is focused on a smaller area and its three scenarios are designed for beginning Player Characters. It takes The One Ring further west from the Misty Mountains, Rivendell, and Eriador, and can serve as both an expansion to that supplement and region, both in terms of its description of the village of Bree and its immediate environs. And then, the three scenarios presented in Bree could easily be added to those set in Eastern Eriador, as detailed as in Ruins of the North. Alternatively, the Loremaster can use the content and scenarios in Bree as an introduction to The One Ring for both the players and their characters, and then go on to explore the wider area and undertake the scenarios set there with Rivendell and Ruins of the North. Essentially, come west from Rivendell with experienced Player Characters or go east from Bree with new ones. With established Player Characters, they could be of any Heroic Culture, but for new ones, it is intimated that players select either Hobbits of the Shire, Men of Bree, Bree-Hobbits, and perhaps the odd Dwarf Heroic Cultures for their Player Characters. This will serve to keep some of the mystery of the wider world to be revealed through the three scenarios in Bree and then on to Rivendell and Ruins of the North. This option would also work well with the forthcoming The One Ring Starter Set from Free League Publishing which focuses on The Shire, so the Hobbits who have had adventures in their homeland, can have their next in and around Bree.

Bree presents Bree-land and its four constituent villages—Archet, Combe, Staddle, and of course Bree for The One Ring. In character, despite the number of traders passing through Bree itself, the village and area is conservative, its inhabitants, both the Men of Bree and the Hobbits of Bree, its Big Folk and Little Folk, sensible and not given to adventures and wild doings. Those that are, of course, are deeply frowned upon, because there is just not something right about them. There is relatively little history to Bree and Bree-land, the village having stood at the crossroads of the Greenway which runs north into a land of dark hills and ruins and south towards the Gap of Rohan, and the East Road which runs from the Misty Mountains in the east to the Shire in the west, for many centuries. It is a bastion of quiet civilisation beyond which lies wilderness and danger, which mostly obviously relies upon the Bree-Wardens and their big sticks and the ancient hedge which encircles the village of Bree for its protection, but the reality is that neither could truly withstand a concerted effort by a force of Orcs or the influence of the Shadow… Thus, at the direction of Gandalf the Grey, the Rangers of the North undertake the duty to protect both Bree and Bree-land, though few Bree-landers realise it and most distrust any Ranger they see.

All four villages of Bree-land are described in some detail, though only Bree is given a map of its own. Understandably, The Prancing Pony, perhaps the most famous inn in all of Middle Earth is described in detail, as the owner, Barnabus Butterbur—the forgetful Barliman is his son—and full plans of the building are provided as is a table of encounters. The Prancing Pony is likely to be the focal point of most of the Player Characters when in Bree, but the supplement suggests several new activities which members of a Fellowship can conduct during the Fellowship Phase. The first is Opening Bree as a Sanctuary—though Bree is so small that the Fellowship will need to earn the trust of Bree’s important personalities and of the Rangers, and become regulars at The Prancing Pony. The others include Guard the East Road, Building the Refuge at Girdley Island—the latter to better support Ranger missions in the area; Write a Letter—this needs to be delivered, but can inform the recipient of the author’s arrival, ask for aid, arrange a meeting, and more; have a Chance-Meeting in the Inn; and more.

Bree adds one new Heroic Culture and makes alterations to a second. The former is Men of Bree, which enables players to create characters from Bree-land with one of six Backgrounds, as per other Heroic Cultures in The One Ring. They include a character having been away to the Blue Mountains as a caravan guard, serving as a Gate-warden, and having become aware of the presence of the Rangers in and around Bree-land. The Heroic Culture captures the sheltered nature and upbringing of the Bree-landers. For Bree-Hobbits, the supplement mixes elements of the Men of Bree and Hobbit of the Shire Heroic Cultures.

Although there are suggestions as to adventuring in and around Bree, the supplement comes with three scenarios which take place over the course of two to three years. They can take place in any year, but the supplement suggests that the first, ‘Old Bones and Skin’ takes place in the autumn of 2950, then the second, ‘Strange Men, Strange Roads’, the summer of 2951, and the third, ‘Holed Up in Staddle’, in the autumn of 2951. The scenarios could be run separately, but really work together as a trilogy which forms a mini-campaign. Each is nicely set up with an explanation as to when, where, what, why, and who before breaking the scenario down into easy parts. All three scenarios are relatively lengthy, and should take two to three sessions to complete.

The first scenario is ‘Old Bones and Skin’, which is in part inspired by a song by Sam Gamgee. It opens amidst a scandal, young Tomas Heatherton having failed to attend his uncle’s funeral, but the discussion of scandal is interrupted when the young man rushes into The Prancing Pony, white as a sheet and blathering about a ghost in the graveyard! This is the opportunity for the Player Characters to strike out as heroes for the first time, and lengthy investigation of the graveyard reveals a more corporeal threat—an old Troll! Chasing the Old Troll across the South Downs is a challenging task, but success leads to a trove of treasure—using the rules for treasure from the Rivendell supplement—and revelation of family secrets. These family secrets tie into the plot behind the trilogy, whilst the adventure will see the Player Characters first make a name for themselves. Although the Player Characters will find themselves going up hill and down dale, this adventure is a bit of a romp, in turns exciting and scary, and mysterious.

The second scenario, ‘Strange Men, Strange Roads’ requires a little bit of a set-up, but this gets the Player Characters their first assignment—meet a contact at the Forsaken Inn, a disreputable and unwelcoming stop further along on the East Road. Unfortunately, the contact is found dead and the most likely culprits are amongst a trade caravan heading back to Bree and beyond. Investigating a trade caravan on the move is a challenge and will require a mix of stealth and guile. The Loremaster has a good cast of NPCs to portray—perhaps slightly too many for the Loremaster new to roleplaying—and even as a murder mystery set in Middle Earth, the scenario has echoes of Film Noir. There are some pleasing encounters along the way, not all of them dangerous, and not all of them casting the villains as truly black-hearted. It should all come to a head in the corridors of The Prancing Pony and present the Player Characters with a moral dilemma. If there is an issue with the scenario it is perhaps that the events it sets up happen off screen. Now these could be played out, but would require more experienced Player Characters and the Loremaster to design the situation to be played out. Otherwise, this is another good scenario, one which brings the darkness to found beyond the borders of Bree to within its thick hedge.

The third scenario, ‘Holed Up in Staddle’ takes place entirely in Bree-land and in bringing the trilogy of scenarios in Bree to close, also brings the consequences of the first two scenarios to head as well. The Player Characters come to the aid of the Rangers in tracking down some of the villains, but despite the aid of a notable figure in the area, lose track of them. With no further leads, the Player Characters are forced to return to Bree. There rumour spreads that one of the richer families of Hobbits in nearby Staddle is acting out of the ordinary, its members having become more reclusive and insular than is the norm. Ideally, Player Characters will follow up on this and ferret out an idea or two as what might be going on. The finale of the scenario and the campaign will see them launch an attack on a Hobbit hole! Which will be a challenge for anyone not Hobbit-sized. The scenario is decent enough, but not as satisfying as the first two and it does feel like the authors are in a hurry to get to its climax and that of the campaign.

Overall, the campaign should ready the Player Characters for adventuring in the wider world beyond the borders of Bree-land. The three scenarios are sophisticated and deep and rich, and involve a good mix of tasks and challenges—physical, social, and combat. The campaign has more of a self-contained feel to it, being confined to one small area, but this more readily allows the Loremaster and her players to bring this smaller part of Middle Earth to life and to have the Player Characters invest themselves in it and in protecting it, likely to open up Bree as their first Sanctuary. One thing that the Loremaster will need to do is prepare a list of NPC names for inhabitants of Bree-land that the Player Characters might run into in any one of the villages and thereabouts, as well as for nefarious ne’er-do-wells—like certain members of the Ferny family—and strangers who might take an interest in their activities.

Physically, Bree is a relatively slim book by the standards of supplements for The One Ring. It is a pretty book, done in earthy tones throughout that give it a homely feel that befits the setting of Middle Earth. The illustrations are excellent, the cartography decent, and the writing is clear and easy to understand. It even comes with a good index.

Bree nicely fits onto the realm of Eriador as an expansion to or lead into Rivendell and Ruins of the North, as much danger and mystery as there is presented—and that danger is very well-presented and explained in Bree—there is ultimately a pleasing cosiness and homeliness to both the supplement and the area it describes. Bree is a charming introductory setting for The One Ring and a fantastic stepping stone onto exploring the wider Middle Earth.

Published in 2014, Colt Express is a super fun game of bandits raiding a train in the Wild West, which would go to be the 2015 Spiel des Jahres Winner. From one round to the next, each player programs the actions of bandit and then at end of each round, these actions are played out in order, and as each action happens, the bandits aboard the train interact with each other, plans go awry, and chaos ensues! The fact that this takes place aboard a cardboard model of a train that sits on the table in front of the players and they get to program their bandits’ maneuvres up and down and along the train, only serves to make the game more entertaining. In the years since, Colt Express has been supported by a handful of expansions, such as Colt Express: Horses & Stagecoach, including even a Delorean! However, as good as it looks and as fun as it is to play, Colt Express is at its best when there are players sat round the table and all six bandits are involved, and a game can devolve into maximum chaos and in the space of thirty minutes or so, tales of how each bandit successfully—or unsuccessfully robbed the Colt Express. So, what do you do if there are fewer than six players? Five players is fine, four maybe… With fewer players how do you back up to that maximum fun? Well, publisher Ludonaute has a solution—the Colt Express Bandits series.

The Colt Express Bandits series consists of not one expansion, but six. One for each of the six bandits in Colt Express— Belle, Cheyenne, Django, Doc, Ghost, and Tuco. Each expansion replaces its particular bandit in the game, but not when the bandit is being played by a player. Rather an expansion takes the place of a bandit who is not being controlled by a player and hands that control to the game itself. Each Colt Express: Bandits expansion adds new deck of eight Action cards which will control the bandit from one turn to the next and two special moves or effects.

So, what can each bandit do?

In Colt Express, with a “Liddle ol’ me?”, Belle cannot be targeted by a Fire or Punch action if another Bandit can be targeted instead. In Colt Express Bandits – Belle, her Action cards consist of Move—always towards where there is the most jewels to be picked; Punch—everyone in the same carriage and always towards the back of the train!; Theft—steal a Jewel from every Bandit in the same carriage; Robbery—jewels if she can; and Charm—make all of the Bandits aboard the train move towards her. Lastly, when she encounters the Marshal, she charms him into not shooting her! Belle is all about using her charm to steal as many jewels as she possibly can.

In Colt Express, Cheyenne is a pickpocket and when she punches a Bandit, also steals a Purse from her victim. In Colt Express Bandits – Cheyenne, her Action cards consist of a Double Move—two carriages if in the train or four if on the roof, or a Single Move—one carriage if in the train or two if on the roof, and always towards the most Bandits, after which she pickpockets a Purse from a random Bandit in her new location. She also a Bow Attack which replaces her pistol attack, enabling her to fire poisoned arrows at her rivals. These are treated like bullets as in the standard game and clog up a Bandit’s Action Deck. A poisoned Bandit must grab one of the Antidotes—to be found throughout the train—to be consumed per Poisoned Arrow taken. A Bandit who has suffered one or more Poisoned Arrows cannot win the game. Thus, Cheyenne is all about stealing Purses from her rival Bandits and preventing them from winning with her Poisoned Arrows. 

In Colt Express, Django is a crackshot and when he shoots another Bandit, he or she is knocked into the next carriage. In Colt Express Bandits – Django, he still has that capability, but here he fires a volley, the bullets hitting the nearest group of Bandits rather than a single Bandit! In addition, at the beginning of the game, each other Bandit receives two Ejection tokens, and at the beginning of each turn, Django places a Dynamite token in the carriage he is currently in if it does not have one. When the Explosion Action card is draw, all of the Bandits caught in the explosions are ejected from the train and must use their next action to reboard the train. Any Bandit ejected from the train in this fashion must give one of their Ejection tokens to Django and these are worth money at the end of the game. Django then, is also about using brute force, with a big gun or a big bang to drive everyone off the train and enable him to scoop up the loot.

In Colt Express, Doc is in smartest Bandit and always starts each round with seven Action cards rather than six like everyone else. In Colt Express Bandits – Doc gets to be cleverer too. First the Bandit who shoots or punches Doc earns his respect and his Respect card, allowing that Bandit’s Player to control Doc until another Bandit shoots or punches Doc. Doc also shoots special bullets which deny the shot Bandit particular actions, such as Fire, Floor Change, Punch, or Move, depending on the card. Doc also sets up a Poker Game, which forces every Bandit with loot to participate by contributing one of their already purloined loot, with Doc adding one from his stake. The player controlling Doc gets to redistribute this loot, Doc receiving two, and everyone else one bar a single Bandit who gets nothing. This is a slightly fiddly, slightly more complex expansion, the player controlling Doc getting to feather his Bandit’s own nest whilst ensuring his rival Bandits, including Doc does not receive as much.

In Colt Express, Ghost is the sneakiest of the Bandits and can place his first Action card face down into the common deck rather face up as is standard. In Colt Express Bandits – Ghost, he is after the Special Suitcase which replaces the Strongbox which begins play in the locomotive, guarded by Marshal. Any Moves he makes is always towards the Special Suitcase, but he also has combined action which enable him to do a Floor Change and then Fire, and his Fire and Punch actions affect every Bandit in the same carriage. Ghost is all about obtaining the Special Suitcase and will win the game if he has at game’s end, so when Ghost is in play, the game becomes about denying him the Special Suitcase as much as it is stealing as much loot as possible.

In Colt Express, Tuco can shoot up or down through the roof of the carriage he is, targeting a Bandit who is on the roof if he is in the carriage or a Bandit who is in the carriage if Tuco is on the roof. In Colt Express Bandits – Tuco, he can still do that. When he takes a Move Action, it is always towards the largest group of Bandits and as with other Bandits, his Punch and Shoot attacks affect multiple Bandits in or on the same Carriage. Tuco’s double-barrelled shotgun fires more bullets though and although Tuco cannot win by expending all of his bullets, he gets extra bullets and receives loot for each bullet fired. In addition, Tuco can swap places with the Marshal and if another Bandit forces Tuco to be in the same carriage as the Marshal, the offending Bandit receives a Wanted token. Each Wanted token adds to a Bandit’s final score, including Tuco’s. So Tuco wants to avoid the Marshal if he can because he is wanted and rival Bandits want to get Tuco and the Marshal together.

Set-up is simple enough. The Action deck for each Colt Express: Bandits expansion is placed to the right of the first player. Between the first player’s action and the second player’s action, one card is drawn randomly from the Bandit’s Action deck and added to the common deck which will be resolved at the end of the round. Each of the Bandits in the Colt Express Bandits series can be shot by his or her rival Bandits and when shot three times, he or she loses her next action.  Each also has his or her own winning conditions. Belle wins by having the most jewels at the end of the game. In which case all of the actual players and their Bandits lose! Cheyenne wins by being the richest of the Bandits at the end of the game who has not been poisoned. Django wins the game immediately if he gets all of the Ejection Tokens—essentially if every other Bandit is blown or shot from the train twice! He can also win by being the richest Bandit. Doc wins by having the most loot. Ghost wins by having the Special Suitcase at the end of the game or having the most loot. Tuco wins by having the most loot.

What is interesting is that elements of the Colt Express Bandits could be incorporated into the main game. So Belle could use her charm on the Marshal, Cheyenne could use her Poisoned Arrows, Django could seed the train with Dynamite and set off the explosions, Doc could play the Poker game, Ghost by possessing his Special Suitcase, and Tuco by avoiding the Marshal. However, they are not necessarily designed for that and they are not designed as written to be used as more than one entry in the Colt Express: Bandits expansion at a time. This is not to say that an enterprising group could do that, or even an enterprising player, with the latter actually controlling his own Bandit, whilst the game controls the rest. This would make it fairly complex in working out what happens and when, but if the players are methodical about it, then it should not necessarily be an issue.

Physically, each entry in the Colt Express: Bandits series is well done. The cards are the same quality as those found in Colt Express, the tokens are on thick cardboard, and the little rules leaflet—print in French and English is generally easy to read. However, the English translation is not quite as smooth as it could have been and it could have done with another edit.

Each of six entries in the Colt Express: Bandits series is, to varying degrees, interesting and engaging, and brings out more character from each of the Bandits. The owner of the game is free to pick and choose which of them he wants to, but the likelihood is that he will want all of them, to give him and his gaming group the option to play the Bandits that they want and still have the equivalent of six Bandits in the game. However, this does feel like an expensive option, when perhaps all six expansions could have been collected into the one box (that said, all six expansions in the series will fit the box for Colt Express) and then expanded perhaps with advice on using them for solo play—that is, one player Bandit and five game-controlled bandits and how they might interact. Or on adding the abilities given in this series to the standard play of the Bandits with any of the entries in the Colt Express: Bandits series. As it is, a gaming group, and possibly a single player will have to find that out for themselves how the entries in the series for themselves.

Colt Express is still a great game and the Colt Express: Bandits series adds further flavour and character to each of the Bandits in play. Some options are more complex than others, but overall, adding one or two of these to game should keep the game play fun and add a little challenge and chaos at the same time.

 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 and HeroQuest Glorantha (Questworlds). This can include original scenarios, background material, cults, mythology, details of NPCs and monsters, and so on, but none of this content should be considered to be ‘canon’, but rather fall under ‘Your Glorantha Will Vary’. This means that there is still scope for the authors to create interesting and useful content that others can bring to their Glorantha-set campaigns.

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What is it?
The Gifts of Prax is a short scenario set in Dragon Pass wherever Shamans may be found.
It is a sequel (or prequel) to Stone and Bone.

It is a forty page, full colour, 39.94 MB PDF with a three-page, full colour 10.99 MB handout.

The Gifts of Prax is well presented with decent artwork and clear maps. It needs a slight edit in places.
Where is it set?
The Gifts of Prax is set in Prax amongst the Straw Weaver Clan of the Bison tribe during the wet season. Notes are included to enable the Game Master to set it elsewhere.
Who do you play?
Praxians who are members of the Straw Weaver Clan. A shaman may be useful, as well as a mix of genders amongst the Player Characters. Notes are included to run the scenario using other character types, including non-Praxians.
What do you need?
The Gifts of Prax requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. Access to the RuneQuest: Glorantha Bestiary may be useful, but is not essential to play.

What do you get?
Erhehta, shaman of the Stone Weaver Clan has been attacked by a rival, Maserelt of the Impala Tribe—and he must have his revenge! This will take the form of an attack upon her in the spirit realm, using a bison herd. However, to do this, he requires several items and he requires that the Player Characters fetch them. These include a stone to sharpen horns, flood water from the Stealer’s River, Graro plant and sand mushrooms, and more. Each of these will enhance the shaman’s attack upon his rival and obtaining each of them is a mini-quest in itself. The Player Characters are presented with a Map Bag, which will not only serve to carry each item as it is collected, but as a set of directions to where each is located. However, the Map Bag is women’s magic and if there are no female Player Characters in the group, the male Player Characters will have to handle it with great care.
There are two parallel strands to The Gifts of Prax. One is following the Map Bag to each of the locations where the items that Erhehta needs can be found, the other is a series of encounters along the way, each of which may bestow upon the Player Characters a ‘gift of Prax’. These can help or hinder the Player Characters in their progress—having to look after a baby Condor for example will prove to be something of a challenge, for example, but by finding the items that the Stone Weaver Clan shaman wants and by bringing him the ‘Gifts of Prax’, the Player Characters will underpin and bolster his chances of success in taking his revenge from the Spirit World upon his rival. Both searching for the various items and especially receiving the ‘Gifts of Prax’ make good use of the Player Characters’ Runes and each of the encounters is accompanied by notes suggesting ways in which the Game Master can scale it up for more experienced Player Characters. Ultimately though, as much as Erhehta needs to take his revenge upon Maserelt, for both his standing and that of the Stone Weaver Clan, the Player Characters will be faced with a dilemma—just how far should this revenge go? This brings in a degree of morality that the Player Characters will need to address, one which nicely counterpoints the physicality of the quests they undertook to set up the revenge attempt.
The Gifts of Prax also includes a colouring-in sheet for the pleasure of the players.

Is it worth your time?
Yes—The Gifts of Prax is a well written, entertaining, and challenging scenario if you are running a campaign set amongst the Tribes of Prax. Especially if the Player Characters include a shaman amongst their number.
No—The Gifts of Prax is set in Prax, and if your campaign is not set in Prax, then the scenario is harder to use, especially as the time of year and the environment plays a strong role.Maybe—The Gifts of Prax is potentially flexible enough to be set elsewhere away from Prax, but the Game Master will develop much of the geography and details herself to successfully adapt the scenario.

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

—oOo—

In 1995, the hobby gaming industry was deep into the collectible card game craze. Magic: The Gathering has been published in 1993, had become incredibly popular, and made its publisher, Wizards of the Coast, a lot of money. In response, other publishers—large and small—understandably, followed suit, and as they competed in this market, so the hobby gaming industry turned away from the types of games which had supported it over the previous two decades. By 1995, the number of new roleplaying games published that year had diminished to less than half that in previous years. Yet in that year, Wizards of the Coast would publish a roleplaying game which was radically different in concept and format to almost anything which had come before it. A roleplaying game which was so radically different, it would flop. Despite the lack of success though, its simplicity, its focused concept, and its emphasis upon storytelling and drama would all flower in the ‘Indie Roleplaying-Movement’ of the noughties, the concepts of which would go on to be absorbed into the mainstream during the teens. That roleplaying game is Everway Visionary Roleplaying.

Everway Visionary Roleplaying comes in a large box and looks like a traditional roleplaying game, but open up the box and it is clear that it is anything but. In addition to the one-hundred-and-six-two page ‘Playing Guide’, the sixty-four page ‘Gamemastering Guide’ and the fourteen page ‘Guide to the Fortune Deck’, the roleplaying game includes over a hundred, full-colour cards. These consist of the ninety card Vision card Deck, ten Source cards, and thirty-six Fortune card Deck. This is in addition to the two maps, twelve blank Spherewalker sheets, and eleven pre-generated ready-to-play Spherewalker sheets, but what was missing from the box for Everway Visionary Roleplaying is dice. This is because in terms of its mechanics Everway Visionary Roleplaying is diceless. Instead, it uses a combination of the Fortune card Deck and narrative efficacy to determine the outcome of a task or story. Of course, diceless roleplaying games had been seen before, notably Phage Press’ Amber Diceless Roleplaying from 1991, as had card-driven roleplaying games, such as R. Talsorian Games, Inc.’s Castle Falkenstein from 1994. Everway Visionary Roleplaying, though, does not use numbered cards as in the use of a standard playing Deck of cards by Castle Falkenstein, but rather the images upon its cards. Hence Everway Visionary Roleplaying was a visionary roleplaying game in more ways than one.

The setting for Everway Visionary Roleplaying is a multiverse of Spheres—or worlds, each world consisting of numerous different Realms—each connected by a series of Gates. Known Spheres include Ashland, a land of smoking volcanos, nasty cockatrices, and scheming goblins; Canopy, a singular, enormous tree, its inside populated by humans, its roots home to extensive cave systems filled with fantastic creatures; and Pearl of Waves, an undersea kingdom where travel is conducted via bubbles of air or the mouths of giant fish. Typical Realms include the Land of a Million Deities, a conservative Realm of hereditary kings and queens sanctioned by the priests and priestesses of many gods; The Middle Kingdom, a sophisticated Realm dedicated to knowledge and bureaucracy; and the Smith’s Realm, a realm of conquered territories, controlled by regional governors. It is a fantasy setting, one of low magic and high magic, in which demons, angels, godlings, spirits, fairies, dragons, unicorns, and other creatures can be found, but the most common species, in various shapes and forms, to be found throughout the Spheres is mankind, all able to understand the common language known as ‘The Tongue’, a gift from the gods. Perhaps the most famous location in all of the Spheres is that of Everway, a city at the heart of Sphere that has not the two gates typical to most Spheres, but a grand total of three-score-and-ten—if not more!

Every ‘Outsider’ who comes to Everway, experiences the city in a different way. To some it can be well-mannered and bright, to others a city of dark alleys and citizens ready to exploit every visitor or sell them any vice, or ordered and cosmopolitan. It is though, an ancient city, matriarchal, but with a king, and numerous families of note, each of which controls a particular aspect of the city. For example, the Keeper family maintains and guards the Gates, the Scratch family consists of scholars and bureaucrats, and the Wailer family specialises in ceremony of any kind. One type of rare individual drawn to the city of Everway is the ‘Spherewalker’, capable of using the Gates freely and taking the one-week journey to traverse between one Sphere and the next. They can be powerful mages, mighty warriors, enigmatic Shaman, and more, but in becoming Spherewalker, they may be seeking to fulfil a personal quest, to bring justice and an end to evil in any or all Spheres, to search for treasure and personal gain, to atone for crimes committed, or even to gather research and information for the Library of All Worlds in the city of Everway. Each Player Character in Everway Visionary Roleplaying is one of these Spherewalkers.

A Spherewalker is defined first by his Name, typically a common word, or one based on a common word, then a Motive, for example, Mystery, Wanderlust, or Adversity. He also has a Virtue, some way in which he is gifted—it could be a personal trait, a magical gift, or an aspect of fortune. His Fault represents a particular weakness or vulnerability, again a personal trait, magical curse, or aspect of fortune, whilst his Fate is the challenge he currently faces. He is likely to have one or more Powers, limited in scope, but still powerful and distinctive, for example, ‘Fast Healing’, ‘Magical Singing’, ‘Cat Familiar’, ‘Throw Fire’, ‘Invulnerable’, and so on. The ‘Playing Guide’ includes many examples, but a player is encouraged to create his own, a Power typically being a combination of Major, Frequent, and Versatile. This is in addition to the free power which each Player Character Spherewalker possesses. A Spherewalker has four Elements—Air, Earth, Fire, and Water. Air is intellect and communication; Fire, force, athleticism, and combat prowess; Earth, toughness and willpower; and Water, empathy, perception, and wisdom. These are rated between two and nine, each value exponentially greater than the one below it. For each Element, a Spherewalker has a speciality, a skill or ability in which he is better when using that Element. An Element can also suggest a career, such as warrior or acrobat for Fire or poet or physician for Air and Water.

A Spherewalker can also have magic, a mage typically specialising in one of the elements. Thus, Words of Power for Air, Soil and Stone for Earth, Flux for Fire, and Open Chalice for Water. As with Elements, Magic is exponentially more powerful the greater a rating a mage has in it, each rating granting particular advantages. So at a Fluxx rating of three, a Spherewalker can alter minor features, for example, aging milk, freshening the air, rusting metal, and so on, whilst a Soil and Stone rating of six would enable a Mage to save a Realm from a plague or heal a person. How often and for how long a Mage can perform such magics is measured by his Earth Element.

To create a Spherewalker, a player goes through six stages. These start with the player selecting or drawing five cards from the Vision card Deck. In addition to the full-colour illustration on the front, each Vision card has four or five questions on the back about the image on the front. For example, the card depicting two goatherds amidst a field of goats, one of goatherds seeming to steal away with a goat in his arms, has the questions, “How are the two goatherds related?”, “What is the sundial for?”, “How far away is the nearest village? Where is their home?”, and “Why is one goatherd crying?”. The player uses the Vision cards and the questions as inspiration. After deciding upon a Name, Motive, Virtue, Fault, and Fate, the player assigns twenty points between his Spherewalker’s Powers, Elements, and Magic, though all Spherewalkers will have Powers or Magic. The process is in part meant to be collaborative, each player specifically taking the time to introduce his Spherewalker and who he is, whilst the last stage involves the players asking questions about each other’s Spherewalkers, helping each other to understand who their Spherewalkers are. The end result though—and the author’s advice is that everyone should work towards this—should be playable, compatible with the rest of the party, and be prepared to grow and change.

Goat-sent grew up a simple goatherder, alongside her father, tending to the herds belonging to the village in the valley below until she turned thirteen and one goat began talking to her. Not just talking to her, but talking to her things that would happen—and then they did. When the villagers learned of it, they were at first curious, then fearful, and ordered the goat killed. This would happen at the sundial where many of the village’s religious ceremonies took place, but she could not let the goat be killed and ran away with it. Escaping for the first time through a Gate, she sought sanctuary and answers with a Sage, who taught her to focus upon a candle to enter into trances in which she would foretell the future. In time, the rich and powerful of his Realm came to hear their fortune, but not once was she able to tell of the Sage’s future. Yet ultimately, she found the sanctuary constraining and decided to leave, not to go back through the Gate she had used but via the harbour. The ship she embarked upon took her far away, further than the ship had sailed before, from one Realm to the next, where Capybara and her human companion, told her that she was a Spherewalker and that she should follow the sun through to Everway, where perhaps she might find answers. So far, the peoples of Everway have presented with answer upon answer as to the nature of her gift, but none can agree which is correct. So, she seeks answers beyond in the Realms.

Name: Goat-sent
Motive: Mystery
Virtue: Truth (Knowledge) 
Fault: Effort Misspent (War)
Fate: Maturity (Winter)

Air: 5 (Singing)
Earth: 4  (Herding)
Fire: 4 (Living under the sun)
Water: 5 (Tracking)

Powers:
Goat companion, 3 (frequent, major, versatile)
Mystic Eye, 3 (frequent, major, versatile)
Goat Tongue, 0

Mechanically, Everway Visionary Roleplaying provides not one, but three means of resolution—the Law of Karma, the Law of Drama, and the Law of Fortune—and the Game Master is free to use whichever one she prefers or feels best fits the situation. With the Law of Karma, a Spherewalker’s Elements, Specialities, Powers, and Magic determine the outcome of an intended action. If the Game Master judges that the appropriate Element, Speciality, Power, or Magic is sufficient, then the Spherewalker will succeed. If not, he will fail. The Law of Karma also comes into play in the long term, potentially rewarding or penalising a Spherewalker depending upon whether an action can be seen as positive or negative. This is of course, up to the Game Master to judge.

The Law of Drama is even simpler. Essentially, the needs of the narrative and the story determines the outcome of an action. Is it appropriate or satisfying at the point in a story that a Spherewalker escape from the cell or does the villain need to turn up to deliver a monologue? Which outcome would make the story better—more interesting, more exciting, more intriguing? The Law of Fortune is slightly more complex, but again relies upon a high degree of improvisation and interpretation upon the part of the Game Master. To determine the outcome of an action, the Game Master draws from the Fortune Deck and interprets the Fortune card as it relates to the situation. Typically, this simply requires the Game Master to draw the one card per situation, whether that is for use of an Element, a Power, or Magic. Going from one law to the next, from the Law of Karma to the Law of Drama to the Law of Fortune involves increasing levels of improvisation upon the part of Game Master and acceptance and participation upon the part of the players and their Spherewalkers to buy into and engage with that improvisation.

Now all of these resolution mechanics also apply to combat as well, whether that is the Law of Karma determining that a Spherewalker is skilled or powerful enough to overcome a foe, the Law of Drama determining that it is appropriate in terms of the narrative for a Spherewalker to win or lose a conflict, or the Law of Fortune relying upon a Fortune card and its interpretation to determine if a Spherewalker wins the conflict or not. This makes combat simple and fast, effectively deemphasising combat as a means of overcoming problems in Everway Visionary Roleplaying. However, combat can be handled in more dramatic fashion, still using the Law of Fortune, but drawing not the once, but from round to round, exchange to exchange. This really works best when a fight or conflict is important, rather than with every single scuffle or brawl.

Mechanically—and thematically, the Fortune Deck lies at the heart of Everway Visionary Roleplaying. Out of the box, it is a deck of thirty-six, full colour, illustrated cards. Every card can be reversed and besides a title, has two simple pieces of text. For example, the text for the Inspiration card is ‘Creativity’, but ‘Lack of Imagination’ when reversed. It is this text which the Game Master is interpreting when applying the Law of Fortune. In the game though, the Fortune Deck is divination tool found in every Realm, but not necessarily as a deck of cards. It could be a great series of bells rung and interpreted in random order each day or the order in which a flock of birds returns to roost at dusk, but it is present in every Realm. The Fortune Deck influences every character—NPC or Spherewalker—and every Realm, so that they each have a Virtue, a Flaw, and a Fate, all drawn from the Fortune Deck. Similarly, each Realm can be created by drawing cards from the Vision Deck and interpreting them just as each player did during the creation of his Spherewalker. The Fortune Deck though, is flawed—by intention out of game, and because in-game, it adds an element of chaos. It was a deity of chaos who stole the thirty-sixth card, leaving a void, and this void, known as the Usurper, is filled with a profoundly negative influence, such as Despair, Sacrifice, or Vengeance, from one Realm to the next. The influence of the Usurper and this negative influence in each Realm will ultimately underlie any Quest that the Spherewalkers undertake there.

Everway Visionary Roleplaying is played as a series of Quests, and again, these can be created using the Vision cards as inspiration and the Fortune Deck to create the conflict in the Quest. Advice for the Game Master covers both the creation of Quests and Realms, and what makes both a good Quest and a good Realm. It also covers running the Quest, bringing the Spherewalkers together, and more. Half of the ‘Gamemastering Guide’ is given over to ‘Journey to Stonedeep’, a lengthy, detailed Quest designed to get a Game Master started with her Everway Visionary Roleplaying game. Several other Quests are outlined in the rest of the ‘Gamemastering Guide’ along with the advice. The much longer ‘Playing Guide’ introduces the setting of Everway in broad detail, enabling the Game Master to develop the particular details as necessary, should she want to involve her Spherewalkers in its daily life, politics, and other events, before guiding both player and Game Master through the stages of Spherewalker creation, and explaining and advising about the rules. The ‘Guide to the Fortune Deck’ explains the Fortune Deck in more detail, its use as a means of divination, and the cards in the Fortune Deck—their correspondences, their meanings, and reversed meanings. If the mechanics to Everway Visionary Roleplaying are simple and easy to learn, in comparison, learning to interpret the meanings of the cards in the Fortune Deck is not. So careful study of the ‘Guide to the Fortune Deck’ is warranted, though as a guide and means of interpretation, rather than being proscriptive. Some advice though could have been included though on how to interpret various situations using the Fortune Deck.

Physically, Everway Visionary Roleplaying is nicely produced and presented. The three books, each 8½ by 7-inches in size, are done in black and white and either pale blue or pale ochre, illustrated throughout with art taken from the Vision Deck, though in black and white rather than colour. The pre-generated Spherewalker sheets are attractively done in full colour, as are all of the cards in the various Decks. The cards in the Vision Deck are done on thick card, and have the feel of collectable trading cards, whilst the cards of the Fortune Deck are more like traditional playing cards—or those of Magic: the Gathering. (That said, it is surprising that the cards of the Vision Deck were not printed on similar card stock.) All of this nicely fits into the plastic insert tray in the box and which has room for further cards—more cards were published for the game.

Yet, for all the high quality of the production values—which for 1995 are excellent, what stands out about Everway Visionary Roleplaying is the quality of the writing. It is engaging throughout, it is helpful throughout, it gives numerous examples throughout, it gives advice throughout, it explains what the game is about and what the job of each player is and what he should do to make the game enjoyable for everyone around the table, and what the job of the Game Master is and what she should do to make the game enjoyable for everyone around the table. Alongside the advice and examples, there is discussion of what happened in the designer’s own campaign, which helps to bring the setting to life and to help the prospective Game Master understand the designer’s intentions. It is all fantastically, superbly useful.

All of this advice is necessary, because with as a trio of mechanics as light as presented in the Law of Karma, the Law of Drama, and the Law of Fortune, those mechanics are open to interpretation—though this is both a feature and the very point of the mechanics, and thus not a negative—and if not necessarily bias, then potential misinterpretation. Everway Visionary Roleplaying is designed to be a game suitable for those new to roleplaying and both its writing style and its advice is helpful in that regard. However, the step from a more tradition, dice and stats, simulationist roleplaying game to a narrative driven, diceless roleplaying game like Everway Visionary Roleplaying will be more of a challenge. Players and Game Master alike, more accustomed to such mainstream roleplaying games will find themselves perplexed by the lack of dice, by the very light, interpretative mechanics, by the emphasis upon the narrative rather than the mechanics, and the questions posed as part of Spherewalker creation will find themselves needing to make some adjustments in how they approach and play the roleplaying game. That though was in 1995. They did gaming differently then, but come forward a quarter of a century, and so many of the ideas and concepts behind Everway Visionary Roleplaying have been taken up by wide aspects of the hobby in the time since its publication, such that if they are not part of the mainstream hobby now, they are an accepted part of gaming. 

—oOo—

Rick Swan began his review of Everway Visionary Roleplaying in Dragon Magazine No. 224 (December 1995) by being surprised at the choice of designer for Wizards of the Coast’s new and original roleplaying game and the roleplaying game itself. He described Jonathan Tweet as being talented, but “…not a mainstream kind of guy.” and that whilst he would have expected Wizards of the Coast to want a mainstream product, “In fact, Everway is so far out of the mainstream, it’s barely recognizable as an RPG.” After going into some depth about the roleplaying he states that, “Everway codifies the freeform style favored by me and (I suspect) thousands of other referees. It makes for a brisk game, and Everway, to its credit, plays at blinding speed. But to an unprecedented extent, the success of an Everway adventure depends on the improvisational skills of the referee, his ability to come up with interesting plot twists, characters, and scenic details on the spur of the moment. And players must respond in kind, relying on their imaginations instead of die-rolls to forge their characters’ destinies.” before concluding, “I suspect Tweet has underestimated the average gamer’s aptitude for improvisation. But I could be wrong.”

[As a side note, it curious that Swan concluded with, “I suspect Tweet has underestimated the average gamer’s aptitude for improvisation. But I could be wrong.” (My emphasis.) Given the tone of the review and that Swan thought that Tweet’s earlier Ars Magica would last a year or two, it is quite possible that that what he actually meant was ‘overestimated’. This would better fit the tone and conclusion that the review comes to.] 

Ken & Jo Walton made Everway Visionary Roleplaying a Pyramid Pick in Pyramid Number 17 (January/February ’96). After a lengthy review, they concluded, “By now, you’re probably thinking either “That sounds interesting” or “That sounds awful.” This game is not one for simulationists, who want every detail of the physical world accurately portrayed. But for those roleplayers who want to roleplay in a free-form, improvisational way, Everway is a system which actually supports such play, rather than hemming the game round with rules that straitjacket the players’ character conceptions and hamper speed of play with tables and charts.”

Everway Visionary Roleplaying was reviewed by John Wick in Shadis Issue 25 (March 1996), by which time, the roleplaying game had been picked up by Pagan Publishing, the first of several subsequent publishers. He wrote, “Everyway is a game quite unlike anything else I’ve ever seen. The cost is a little high, it may be a bit too off the mainstream for many, and the characters presented arc definitely not Conan clones (white Anglo-Saxon males) which many may interpret as a tip of the hat to “political Correctness”, but all in all, it’s a great game that looks at every aspect of gaming from a different perspective. And that’s what “visionary” roleplaying is all about.” (Note that in 1995, Everway Visionary Roleplaying cost $34.95.)

—oOo—

Everway Visionary Roleplaying is the television series Sliders meets Roger Zelazny’s Amber, played out across a multiverse where patterns in terms of civilisations and the Fortune Deck resonate and repeat again and again. All focused through a lens of the mythic and the mystic, the latter verging on New Ageism, especially with the use of the Tarot card-like Fortune Deck. (This is in addition to the pattern of three which runs throughout the game—the three laws of resolution, the three aspects of divination, and so on.) It seems amazing that this roleplaying game, with its sparse mechanics, emphasis on the narrative, player-focused questions asked during Spherewalker creation, and lack of dice would be released in the nineties at the height of Magic: the Gathering’s popularity. When almost no other roleplaying games were being published and the roleplaying industry looked to be all but upon its death knell. Yet, all these aspects of its design would be explored further in the late nineties with designs like Robin D. Laws’ Hero Wars—which would become HeroQuest and Jenna K. Moran’s Nobilis, before the ‘Indie Roleplaying-Movement’ enthusiastically took them up and ran helter skelter with them. Designer Jonathan Tweet would himself be subsumed by the mainstream by the end of the nineties, becoming the lead designer on Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition, again for Wizards of the Coast, and then as co-designer, bring some of that radicalism, non-mainstream design into the mainstream with 13th Age for Pelgrane Press.

In 1995, Everway Visionary Roleplaying was ground-breaking. With its advice and extensive examples, it showed how diceless roleplaying could be achieved and played and run with a strong emphasis upon the narrative. Both the means of Spherewalker creation—the use of the Vision Deck and the Fortune deck, along with the questions during the process, and the downplay of combat as a means of resolution, fostered engaging roleplaying and alternative means of solving conflicts and problems. It was incredibly well written, packed with advice, and supported with numerous examples, and yet… In 1995, it was too ground-breaking, it was too radical, and with its Tarot-like Fortune Deck, perhaps overly influenced by New Age religion. Ultimately though, it was not mainstream enough, not commercial enough. In 2021, though…?

Today, Everway Visionary Roleplaying still feels sleek, modern, and elegant. Game design has undergone radical changes since its original publication and now, Everway Visionary Roleplaying fits into the marketplace. It does not feel out of place. If the production values look dated, the design does not. Everway Visionary Roleplaying could be played today and nobody would think it weird or different. As radical as it was in 1995 and as influential as it has been over the last twenty-five years, Everway Visionary Roleplaying is a game from the past that fits today.

 —oOo—

A new version of Everway Mythic Roleplaying is currently being funded as part of a Kickstarter campaign. It will be published by The Everway Company.

The tales of Robin Hood, of a band of outlaws standing up to the tyrant King John in the Forest of Nottingham are so strongly woven into the folklore, legends, and myths ‘Merrye Olde Englande’ that they are familiar across the English-speaking world. Over the decades, the tales have been reinforced again and again by film and television, from the 1938 The Adventures of Robin Hood with Errol Flynn and the 1950s television series The Adventures of Robin Hood with Richard Greene to more recent adaptations such as the BBC’s Robin Hood of the noughties and the 2018 film, Robin Hood. These adaptions and retellings, of course, vary in quality, tone, and humour, some even having been done as comedies. Similarly, Robin Hood has been the subject of numerous roleplaying games and supplements. Some have been quite comprehensive in their treatment of the outlaw and his band, for example, the supplements Steve Jackson Games’ GURPS Robin Hood and Iron Crown Enterprises’ Robin Hood: The Role Playing Campaign are both highly regarded in this respect, whilst other supplements take a broad approach or simply touch upon the subject of Robin Hood, such as Romance of the Perilous Land from Osprey Games.

Sherwood: The Legend of Robin Hood takes a broad to the tales of Robin Hood and his merry men. Published by Battlefield Press, it is written for use with Savage Worlds, Third Edition, but versions of the supplement are also available for Pathfinder, First Edition, Swords & Wizardry, and Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, and since it is written for Savage Worlds, Third Edition, it is easily adapted to the more recent edition, Savage Worlds Adventure Edition.

Sherwood: The Legend of Robin Hood begins with a ‘Gazetteer of the 13th Century England’, which provides a historical and geographical overview of England—and to an extent, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales—for the period. It covers geography, economy, religion, everyday life, and more, including useful little details such as a list of the religious holidays during the period. Overall, it is a decent overview, giving some context for creating Player Characters and the setting. In terms of setting rules, Sherwood: The Legend of Robin Hood offers three different modes of play. These are Historical—realistic, superstition rather than magic, and relying upon Outlaw skill, luck, and confidence; Mythic England—a combination of mysticism, the supernatural, and the fantastic; and Swashbuckling—cinematic and sword-swinging! Each mode of play comes with a list of its Disallowed Hindrances and Edges, Setting Rules, and new Edges, along with a nod to its particular inspirations. Thus, for the Swashbuckling mode, it is The Adventures of Robin Hood, starring Errol Flynn; for Mythic England, it is the British Robin of Sherwood television series of the eighties; and for Historical, it is Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves from 1991. Of the three modes, Swashbuckling is actually intended to work with the first two, either Historical or Mythic England, so that the Game Master could run a Swashbuckling Historical campaign or a Swashbuckling Mythic England campaign. It should be noted that for role-players of a certain age, Mythic England, based upon Robin of Sherwood, is likely to be the default mode.

Player Characters in Sherwood: The Legend of Robin Hood are all Human. Along with a range of new Knowledge subskills, it gives a variety of new Edges and Hindrances. Thus for the latter there is Love, the type of love which going to bring a Player Character serious trouble, ‘Maladie Du Pays’, the medieval equivalent of Shell Shock, and Xenophobia, this last probably needing to carefully adjudicated by the Game Master lest it lead to inappropriate play at the table. Alongside various modified Edges, new Background Edges can make a Player Character have the Blood of the Fey, be a Knight of the Order—three are given, Knight Templar, Knight Hospitaller, and Knight Teutonic, or be Landed, for particularly rich characters; Combat Edges include Long Shot and One Shot Left, both useful for the Player Characters who want to be as good at archery as Robin Hood himself; and Social Edges include Quip!, Witty Banter, and Taunt, which all work with the Taunt skill to grant more than one attack per round.

If a campaign does involve magic, then Arcane Backgrounds include Alchemist, Conjurer, Druid, Priest, and Witch, the latter reflecting the period attitudes towards witchcraft rather than modern ones. These are nicely done and mechanically distinct, so the Alchemist concocts his spell effects into potions and the Druid casts rituals which take several rounds. The last Arcane Background is Engineer, which functions more like the Weird Science Arcane Background than magic, and enables  a character to design and build various devices.

Mechanically, Sherwood: The Legend of Robin Hood adds three new options. First, Bennies, the equivalent of Luck or Hero Points in Savage Worlds, are called Swashbuckling Points. Like Bennies, Swashbuckling Points can be used to reroll a Trait Test or Soak damage, but in Sherwood: The Legend of Robin Hood, they can also be used to add a bonus to a Trait Test, increase the success of an Agility Trick to a Raise, and for one or two Swashbuckling Points, depending upon the degree of alteration, a player can alter the story or immediate surrounds to his character’s benefit. Second, Agility can be used to perform Tricks like Attack from Above, Blade Ballet, Running Up Walls, Swinging Attacks, and more, which the players are encouraged to use Swashbuckling Points to set up. Lastly, rules for archery contests, target shooting, including the splitting of an opponent’s arrow, and speed shooting cover the signature elements of the Robin Hood legend.

Besides equipment, Sherwood: The Legend of Robin Hood gives several archetypes, including Engineer, Knave, Man-at-arms, Noble, Priest, and Yeoman, all ready for play. In each case, their role in both the setting and gaming group is discussed, as well as ways in which they might vary. For the Game Master, there is ‘Trouble in Sherwood: Adventuring in Nottingham’, covering various types of campaign, Gritty Outlaws or Political Outlaws, for example. What it highlights upfront is that whatever the type of campaign, a Robin Hood-style campaign should ideally be episodic—which nicely ties back into Robin of Sherwood—and rather than be about combat or facing monsters, should be more like an espionage campaign, involving secrecy and subterfuge. Rounding out the supplement is a set of write-ups for the major figures of  the Robin Hood legend, from Robin Hood himself and Little John to Guy of Gisborne. Lastly, ‘Mythic Sherwood’ guides the Game Master through bringing mythic elements and magic into the setting, the primary advice being to keep the effects of magic subtle, whether real or not. The aim being with the introduction of magic or any of the ‘Legends and Monsters’, from dragons and gargoyles to pookas and banshees, is to avoid the campaign from straying into territory already covered by traditional fantasy gaming.

As much content as there is in Sherwood: The Legend of Robin Hood, it is lacking a couple of areas. First, as much as the gazetteer gives context for a potential campaign, a timeline would have been useful to give more context for the history, and second, a better map would have been useful to give more context for the geography. Of course, both of these omissions can be addressed with some research upon the part of the Game Master, but the loss of a piece of art or two would certainly give room for either. 

Physically, Sherwood: The Legend of Robin Hood is a decent little book. It is well written and illustrated with public domain artwork, but it does need an edit in places and the layout could definitely have been tidier. By contemporary standards, it does feel a little too grey and plain in terms of its look, but to be fair, it would not have been greatly improved by being full colour.

Sherwood: The Legend of Robin Hood packs a lot into its seventy-two pages, playable Player Characters, new Edges and Hindrances and skills, NPC write-ups, and both campaign ideas and modes. Together, Sherwood: The Legend of Robin Hood should just about cover anything that a Game Master and her players would want in a Robin Hood campaign in what is a serviceable little supplement.

Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror: The Corpse That Love Built – 2018 Halloween Module is a scenario for Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. Designed for Player Characters of Second Level, as well as being a Halloween scenario for the popular retroclone, it is a sequel to the author’s earlier Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #1: They Served Brandolyn Red—of a sort. In Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #1: They Served Brandolyn Red, the Player Characters—all Zero Level and all members of the major families in the village of Portnelle were at the wedding of a young couple whose marriage might have healed a long running rift between two of the families. Of course, it was not to be, as wedding guests were decapitated and stolen away by strange creatures which erupted from beneath the ground. Eventually, after a weirdly crunchy encounter at the nearby abandoned vineyard and a delve underground, they revealed both the culprit behind the attacks at the wedding and darker family secrets. These darker family secrets play out in the events of Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror: The Corpse That Love Built – 2018 Halloween Module—sort of.

Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror: The Corpse That Love Built – 2018 Halloween Module opens with the inhabitants of Portnelle and the Player Characters in the local church. Recently, the townsfolk have suffered a rash of abductions and mutilations, and as a fierce lightning storm rages outside, the senile Father Giralt cries out that he has been granted a vision identifying the person responsible for both. None other than Doctor Lotrin von Weißgras-Geisterblut, a local Elf who resides in a strange castle down by the coast and a recluse who has long been estranged from his family. Of course, as the local priest makes his declaration, there is a crash of lightning, the doors get knocked down, and the congregation is attacked by strangely earthy golems! Who could have ordered such an attack, could it have been Doctor Lotrin von Weißgras-Geisterblut?

Armed with the few rumours they know about the reclusive Elf—the adventure comes with an extensive rumour table—the Player Characters proceed to Castle von Weißgras-Geisterblut! Behind its high walls, they will find all manner of strangeness. First is that the tower keep has been transformed into the head and torso of a woman reaching up out of the earth and into the sky. Second, there is all manner of odd constructed creatures. They include things like ‘Crude Fleshy-Contraption Archers’, collections of gears and levers, powered by enchanted sinews; ‘Weredoggins’, a combination of were-hound and scorpion, whose traditional curse is more spiritual than medical in nature; and the ‘Halfling-Hand Luck-Sucking Lizard’, which is as weird and as nasty as it sounds. There is some enjoyably inventive monster creations here, so it is a pity that so few of them are illustrated in the module. However, the signs of Doctor Lotrin von Weißgras-Geisterblut’s research can be found throughout the tower and together with the constructs, they add to the sense that a mad scientist is at work, which pervades the scenario.

Ultimately, signs point to the top and bottom of the tower. At the top of the staircase which climbs all the way up the arm can be found a local woman, imprisoned and at the mercy of the lightning storm, whilst at the bottom is Doctor Lotrin von Weißgras-Geisterblut’s laboratory. Between the two runs a lengthy coil of mithril. Could the mad doctor be seeking to harness the lightning for a purpose of his own? To which, of course, the answer is ‘yes’, and it is one that the Player Characters will confront—as depicted in the scenario’s centrefold of the Bride Giant, an obvious homage to Bride of Frankenstein!

There are one or two issues with Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror: The Corpse That Love Built – 2018 Halloween Module. One is that the dungeon, essentially, the inside of the tower, is small, just nine locations. It does not feel like somewhere that Doctor Lotrin von Weißgras-Geisterblut lives and perhaps another level, one in the ‘head’ of the tower, could have been included to flesh it out a little. Another is that although Exact Spirit Animal, the spell that works in conjunction with the effect of the bite of the ‘Weredoggins’, is included in the scenario, another spell, Geisterblut’s Squirming Flesh, is not. And there is also the matter of the scenario’s centrefold of the Bride Giant. It is not titillating as such, but there is plenty of ‘flesh’ on show, and it may not be to everyone’s taste.

If the horror in Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #1: They Served Brandolyn Red is gothic, its inspiration that of Edgar Allen Poe, then the horror of Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror: The Corpse That Love Built – 2018 Halloween Module is that of Universal Monsters—in particular, Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein, as well as Hammer Horror. The scenario is horrifying, challenging, nasty, and in the right hands, campy fun too. That though is Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror: The Corpse That Love Built – 2018 Halloween Module as a standalone scenario.

As a sequel to Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #1: They Served Brandolyn Red, this scenario is disappointing. Not just the fact that Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #1: They Served Brandolyn Red is a Character Funnel for Zero Level Player Characters and Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror: The Corpse That Love Built – 2018 Halloween Module is designed for Second Level, meaning that the Judge will need to run a scenario or two to get the Player Characters who survived Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #1: They Served Brandolyn Red up to the required Level to player this scenario, but that there are so few links between the two. Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #1: They Served Brandolyn Red ended by indicating that Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror: The Corpse That Love Built – 2018 Halloween Module is a sequel, but as written, the links between the two are underwritten. The villain of this scenario, Doctor Lotrin von Weißgras-Geisterblut, is a nod at least to Lotrin Whitegrass, husband of the betrayed Brandolyn from Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #1: They Served Brandolyn Red—and besides the fact that the two scenarios are set in the same location, Portnelle (whether town or village), that is really all there is in terms of links. There is no family set-up as there is in Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #1: They Served Brandolyn Red, there is no advice to link the two, which is both frustrating and disappointing. It just means that the Judge will have to create some of his own.

Ultimately, as a standalone horror scenario, Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror: The Corpse That Love Built – 2018 Halloween Module is entertaining, being a fan and campy challenge. As a sequel to Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #1: They Served Brandolyn Red, it is very much a missed opportunity.

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?
Shaivalla, Well-Loved presents an NPC for use with RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.
It is a nineteen page, full colour, 1.67 MB PDF.
The layout is clean and tidy, and its illustrations good.

Where is it set?
Shaivalla, Well-Loved is nominally set in Sartar, but the NPC and her entourage can be encountered almost anywhere the Game Master decides.

Who do you play?
No specific character types are required to encounter Shaivalla, Well-Loved.

What do you need?
Shaivalla, Well-Loved requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha as well as the RuneQuest: Glorantha Bestiary. In addition, The Red Book of Magic will be useful and Shaivalla, Well-Loved can also be tied into The Pegasus Plateau & Other Stories.
What do you get?
The second volume of ‘Monster of the Month’ presents not monsters in the sense of creatures and spirits and gods that was the feature of the first volume. Instead, it focuses upon Rune Masters, those who have achieved affinity with their Runes and gained great magics, mastered skills, and accrued allies—corporeal and spiritual. They are powerful, influential, and potentially important in the Hero Wars to come that herald the end of the age and beginning of another. They can be allies, they can be enemies, and whether ally or enemy, some of them can still be monsters.
The inaugural entry is Shaivalla, Well-Loved, which details a power-hungry, revenge-driven priestess of Ernalda, including her background, motivation, magical items and allies, and her retinue, accompanied by their statistics and full NPC sheets for each. Shaivalla, Well-Loved is an expatriate Sartarite, a member of the Locaem Tribe’s ‘royal’ clan, the Salvi, whose family was forced to flee south into Heortland following the Lunar occupation. After time spent in Esrolia, she has returned to her homeland a Priestess of the Earth, but not to her tribe, many of whose leaders she cannot forgive for their cooperation with the Lunar occupiers. Instead, she and her retinue wander Sartar, looking for allies, lovers, and anyone who might support her campaign against those she regards as traitors.
Shaivalla, Well-Loved is presented as both enemy and ally. She is cunning and Machiavellian, preferring to work behind the scenes rather than directly confront her enemies, working her way into the local cult of Ernalda and coming to influence a clan’s leadership—whether that is against the aims or beliefs of the Player Characters, or in line with them. To that end, four adventure seeds are included, some of which are easier to use than others, all of which will require development upon the part of the Game Master to some varying degrees.
Alongside the full stats for Shaivalla, Well-Loved, there are details of each of her bound spirits and the major members of her retinue. These feel a little underwritten in comparison, especially the Initiate of Eurmal the Vain, who is along for Shaivalla’s amusement and as a disruptive influence. Lastly, there is a full write-up of a magical artefact, ‘Lengarthen’s Head’, done in the style of Treasures Of Glorantha: Volume One — Dragon Pass. This grants the Ernalda priestess a powerful advantage should events turn against her and which should confound the Player Characters should they think that they have defeated her—at least the first two or three times… Thus she can become a recurring villain.
Although discussion of Shaivalla’s tactics—in and out of combat—are discussed, her long-term plans are not quite as detailed and possibly an outline of her campaign against Aritha, the High Priestess of the Three Emeralds Temple of the Locaem could have been useful. One definite omission is an illustration of ‘Lengarthen’s Head’.

Shaivalla, Well-Loved will definitely need some development upon the part of the Game Master to bring into her game, she should have both roleplaying her and developing her devious plans. However, the NPC it presents will easily play upon any hatred the Player Characters have for the Lunar Empire, and for those who do not, potentially lead to a potential rift between the Player Characters, and thus dynamic storytelling.
Is it worth your time?Yes—Shaivalla, Well-Loved presents a devious, potentially disruptive presence in a campaign, one that potentially could lead to war against another clan—rival or not—especially if the Player Characters have a dislike of Lunars, and dynamic storytelling if they do not.No—Shaivalla, Well-Loved presents a devious, potentially disruptive presence in a campaign, and whilst there is potential for dynamic storytelling, the Game Master may not want the playing group of her campaign so disrupted o.Maybe—Shaivalla, Well-Loved presents a devious, potentially disruptive presence, especially in a Sartar-set campaign, but she does need a degree of development to work effectively.

Mansions of Madness – Vol. 1: Behind Closed Doors is an anthology of five scenarios for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition. Published by Chaosium, Inc., the anthology is an update and reimplementation of two previously published anthologies. The original Mansions of Madness: Five Frightening Adventures in Dark and Deserted Places was published in 1990, with a second edition, Mansions of Madness: Six Classic Explorations of the Unknown, the Deserted, and the Insane, following in 2007 and adding a sixth scenario. Mansions of Madness – Vol. 1: Behind Closed Doors reduces the number of scenarios back to five, keeps two of the entries from the previous editions of the supplement, and adds three new scenarios. Whether or not the other three (or four) scenarios from the previous editions will return is another matter, although with one, ‘The Plantation’, its treatment of its subject matter may not be as socially acceptable today as it was in 1990. In reimplementing the title, Chaosium, Inc. also turns it into a series, so that further volumes will follow on from Mansions of Madness – Vol. 1: Behind Closed Doors. Lastly, although the scenarios in this reimplementation can be played by Call of Cthulhu veterans and neophytes alike, Mansions of Madness – Vol. 1: Behind Closed Doors is designed as the next step up from the anthology, Doors to Darkness: Five Scenarios for Beginning Keepers and to be played using the contents of the Call of Cthulhu Starter Set, its scenarios being intermediate affairs rather than scenarios for beginner or experienced players of Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition.

Mansions of Madness – Vol. 1: Behind Closed Doors opens with a little bit history and explanation before diving straight into a classic scenario. Shawn De Wolfe’s ‘Mister Corbitt’ takes place in the well-to-do neighbourhood where one of the Investigators, or his family live. One Sunday afternoon, this Investigator sees his neighbour, the eponymous Mister Corbitt, drop something as he returns home—something ghoulishly unpleasant and disturbing. The question is, where did it come from and what is the mild-mannered, well-regarded, and indeed, neighbourly man going to do with it? Suitable for one or two Investigators, as well as larger groups, ‘Mister Corbitt’ will probably see the Investigators following the neighbour, looking into his backstory, and ultimately breaking into his house. What they find inside is truly disturbing and weird, setting up some entertaining set pieces within the Corbitt residence. There is a pleasing sense of self-containment to ‘Mister Corbitt’. This is a small scenario, but it has everything that the Keeper needs, whether that is advice on how to run Mister Corbitt—typically to nudge the Investigators into action, involving the Police, or what happens if things break loose. The scenario’s scale also  makes it easy to use as a side-scenario or expand it out into a series of scenarios if the Keeper so desires. The scenario is also easy to adjust to other countries or time frames. Lastly, should the Investigators delve deeply into the scenario, they will discover that there is more going on, and that perhaps the villain of the piece may not necessarily be who they think it is. Overall, ‘Mister Corbitt’ is a straightforward scenario, but very much a classic which deserved to be updated to Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition.

‘The Crack’d and Crook’d Manse’ is the second scenario to be included in Mansions of Madness – Vol. 1: Behind Closed Doors from previous editions of the anthology. Originally written by the author, Mark Morrison, for a convention in 1984, the scenario is set in 1925 and has the Investigators hired by a small-town firm of lawyers to investigate a property in out-of-way Gamwell belonging to one of their clients. This is the explorer and archaeologist, Arthur Cornthwaite, who is also missing. There is some history to the house to be discovered, much of which will add to the creepy, damp sense of desolation which permeates throughout its walls and halls. Although the  Investigators will have to deal with the insular nature of some of Gamwell’s inhabitants, they will spend most of their time examining and exploring the house, trying to work out what happened to Arthur Cornthwaite. The scenario includes solid advice for the Keeper, some fun events for her to throw at the Investigators, and overall, is an entertaining twist upon both the haunted house genre and the Mythos—veteran players of the game who have not played ‘The Crack’d and Crook’d Manse’ may quickly deduce the Mythos threat, but the likelihood is that they would be wrong.

The first of the three new scenarios in Mansions of Madness – Vol. 1: Behind Closed Doors is Chris Lackey’s ‘The Code’. If the first two scenarios in the collection are intended to be intermediate scenarios for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, it is fair to say that ‘The Code’ is a step up in terms of complexity. This is because it is a Science Fiction horror scenario and because it involves time travel. The Investigators are summoned by a former colleague or teacher, the physics professor, Doctor Kenneth Connelly, to his home because he has made a scientific breakthrough. By the time they arrive at his home, the Investigators will already have been warned that something is amiss, but exactly what is another matter. What they discover is that Doctor Connelly has invented a ‘time suit’, but it is not functioning. There are Mythos elements to ‘The Code’, but the scenario mostly focuses on NPC interaction with the Investigators and there is quite a varied cast the Keeper has to portray. A couple of them do feel extraneous and do add to the Keeper’s workload during play, though there is good advice on how to portray the antagonists. This is in addition to the time travel elements which the Keeper has to handle, and this is where the scenario becomes complex. Along with numerous time-related encounters, the Keeper has to cope with the potential consequences of the Investigators’ actions once the scenario’s time travel comes into play, and adjust the narrative as necessary. There is some advice to that end and beyond the limits of the story, ‘The Code’ could take a Call of Cthulhu campaign in a very odd direction.

‘The Code’ is followed by ‘The House of Memphis’ by Gavin Iglis. The Investigators are hired by lawyers to look into the disappearance of their client, the noted stage magician, Memphis the Great, who has not been seen at his house for over a month, and into the strange deaths of three burglars in the weeks since. Alternatively, for Investigators with criminal connections, a local crime boss will ask them to look into the latter. There is a minor tradition of stage magicians and the Mythos and of strangely inexplicable stage performances (though mostly connected to the Yellow Sign, but not here) in Call of Cthulhu, and ‘The House of Memphis’ is no exception to that tradition. The scenario even adds a new Occupation, that of Stage Magician, as well as a lengthy description of the new skill, Art/Craft (Stage Magic), which the Investigators are likely to need a little of, since they will need to enter the world of stage magicians—though only as amateurs—to learn some of the background to the mystery. The Keeper will also need to understand how the skill works and will probably want to learn how a few card tricks and the like work to give some colour and detail to the Investigators’ interactions with the actual stage magicians they will meet—amateur and professional.

The scenario’s initial investigation is primarily interpersonal in nature and that does mean that the scenario has a large cast for the Keeper to portray, and again, not all of them are truly necessary to the plot. With its plot of protegee-turned rival and devoted magician’s assistant, ‘The House of Memphis’  does feel a little familiar in places, but the scenario is decently put together and there are plenty of opportunities for roleplaying and investigation before the horror really kicks in. Overall, ‘The House of Memphis’ is a solid scenario, especially if the Investigators include a stage magician amongst their number.

The last scenario in the anthology is ‘The Nineteenth Hole’ and is the only scenario set outside of the USA. As its title suggests, it takes place on a golf course and being set in Scotland, it seems only appropriate that it should be by Stuart Boon, the author of Shadows Over Scotland: Call of Cthulhu Roleplaying in 1920s’ Scotland. The investigators are hired by Crystal Macmillan, whose husband, Arthur, a retired publisher, has not been since he visited the golf course he was having restored. The police have shown little interest in his disappearance and the workers at the golf course, many of whom complained of suffering headaches and feeling sick during the restoration work, have little to say either. Again, the scenario involves a lot of interpersonal investigation, first at the Macmillan residence, then in the village and perhaps elsewhere, before proceeding onto the grounds of the golf course and into the club house itself. Here it continues the exploration theme which has been running through all of the scenarios in Mansions of Madness – Vol. 1: Behind Closed Doors, though of course, specifically exploration of a house, but the change of venue is refreshing. In comparison to the description given to some of the houses in earlier scenarios there is more detail to the clubhouse in ‘The Nineteenth Hole’ and it very much benefits from it. ‘The Nineteenth Hole’ does come with a sizeable cast, but unlike some of the other scenarios, does not overburden the Keeper with them. These NPCs are all nicely done though, as is the advice for the Keeper, which includes a few red herrings and nasty encounters to throw at the Investigators. The scenario also includes some entertaining, almost Inception-like encounters which are likely to surprise and confound both players and their Investigators. The second Science Fiction horror scenario in the anthology, with a fairly obvious inspiration in the form of H.P. Lovecraft’s ‘From Beyond’, ‘The Nineteenth Hole’ presents another entertaining twist upon the haunted house (haunted clubhouse?) genre, one that is nicely constructed and feels weird and unsettling rather out and out scary. Of the three new additions in Mansions of Madness – Vol. 1: Behind Closed Doors, ‘The Nineteenth Hole’ is the most satisfying.

Physically, Mansions of Madness – Vol. 1: Behind Closed Doors is as well presented as has become standard for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition. The artwork is not always as good as it could be though, and it does not always match the descriptions in the text. One consequence of the switch to full colour is that some of the really great black and white artwork has been left behind in previous editions. The maps are clear, but many feel as if they could do with more detail, especially the contents, which are often left up to the Keeper to describe. One nice touch is that every scenario includes suggestions as to which skills might be useful if the players are creating their Investigators specifically for the scenario and notes towards potential sequels depending upon how the events of each scenario played out.

Chaosium, Inc. could have simply reprinted Mansions of Madness: Five Frightening Adventures in Dark and Deserted Places or Mansions of Madness: Six Classic Explorations of the Unknown, the Deserted, and the Insane, and with some adjustments, that would have been fine. It would not though, have been interesting. With Mansions of Madness – Vol. 1: Behind Closed Doors, the publishers provide Keepers and players of Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition with something old, scenarios which very much deserved to be updated and showcase those new to the game why they have always been regarded as classics, and something new, for veteran Keepers and players and those new to the roleplaying game. The choices are all good in either case, and they also lay the groundwork for further volumes in the series, each bringing back classics from editions past alongside the new. Overall, Mansions of Madness – Vol. 1: Behind Closed Doors is a solidly scary set of scenarios, showing off the new, whilst remembering the past.

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

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Land of the Rising Sun: Role Playing game of myths and legends in the age of Samurai was published by Fantasy Games Unlimited in 1980. For the publisher, it predates Bushido, although that was previously published by two other publishers. Designed by Lee Gold, the editor of the long running monthly amateur press association, Alarums and Excursions, Land of the Rising Sun began life as a supplement for Chivalry & Sorcery dedicated to the samurai system of feudal Japan, but ultimately became a roleplaying game of its own. This gives Land of the Rising Sun the distinction of being first roleplaying game to be designed by a woman. It is a Class and Level system, in which samurai and nobles conduct themselves honourably; clerics—Buddhist and Shinto dispense blessings, write scrolls, conduct exorcisms, and more; merchants trade and make themselves richer than the nobility; mages of all types seek to perfect their art and studies; craftsmen make and sell their goods; bureaucrats keep the wheels of government running; and thieves, bandits, and ninja steal, rob, sabotage, and assassinate… This is a roleplaying game set in feudal Japan in which a wide array of character types can be played, including gamblers and geisha, and earn Experience Points for doing so. It presents a rich array of magical traditions, as well as extensive notes on religion and a bestiary of spirits, bakemono, demons, gaki, goblins, kami, and more. However, Land of the Rising Sun: Role Playing game of myths and legends in the age of Samurai does use the Chivalry & Sorcery mechanics, and together with a layout and organisation which is ponderous at best, does make this roleplaying game very much of a challenge to learn and play.

Land of the Rising Sun comes as a boxed set. Inside can be found the rulebook and five reference sheets which cover magic and combat. The rulebook itself, without much preamble, quickly dives into how to create a character. A Player Character in Land of the Rising Sun is first defined by his Species. This can be Japanese Human; Hengeyokai or Shapechanger, such as Fox or Cat; or Bakemono, a monster such as Kappa or Tengu. He has a Horoscope—Well-, Average-, or Poorly Aspected, which will primarily be of import should the character become a mage, followed by gender, height, and frame. The seven stats, Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Appearance, Bardic Voice, Intelligence, and Wisdom, are all rolled on two ten-sided dice for Humans, but can be modified for non-humans. Lastly, Charisma is the average of all of these factors. He has an Alignment, which ranges from Saintly to Depraved. As well as Charisma, derived factors include Body Points (or Hit Points) and Fatigue Points, then Military Ability (talent as a field commander), Command Level (ability to lead troops), and Personal Combat Factor (ability to fight). The latter is modified by a Player Character’s Class and reflects the size of a weapon he can use and how well. Father’s social class and position determines a Player Character’s initial social class, and from this a player can work out how many siblings the Player Character has, birth order, how much money he has, and what gift his family might give him.

Our sample character is Kugojiro, the younger son of a samurai noble who is a justice of the peace in a small town, a reward for loyal service to his daimyo. The plain, homely-looking Kugojiro is ill-favoured by his family, which has not yet found a position for him, his older brother being groomed to take over from his father. Kugojiro wants to be a warrior, but his family will not support him and he is prepared to undertake less than honourable work.

Name: Kugojiro
Species: Human
Horoscope: Well-Aspected
Gender: Male
Height: Medium (5’ 2”) Frame: Heavy (123 lbs.)
Alignment: Worldly (Corruptible)
Profession: Fighter
Level: 1

Father’s Social Class: Noble (Level 18)
Father’s Clan Lord: Clan Head
Position: Department of Justice (Senior Official) Income: 65
Siblings: 3 (Two older sisters, one older brother)
Family Status: Poor Child
Birthplace: Town (Small Town)
Income: – Money: 72 bu/2 Oban

Basic Influence: 21
Social Status: 15

Strength 09
Dexterity 19 Dex Factor: +10%
Constitution 18 Disease Resistance: +5% BP Regen: +1/+2/+3 FP Regen: 3/6/9}
Appearance 04 Homely (-3 Charisma)
Bardic Voice 20 Orphic (+5 Charisma, +1 Military Ability)
Intelligence 13 Language Points: 3/LVL Detect Factor: +5% Research Limit: VI Remember Spells: 65% Read Scrolls: 85% BP: –

Wisdom 11 Average
Charisma 14 Influential

Military Ability: 7
Command Level: 3
Personal Combat Factor: 10.5

Light Weapons
BL: +1 DMG/WDF: 3 Hit: +15% Parry: -15%
Light/Heavy Weapons
BL: – DMG/WDF: 3 Hit: +12% Parry: -8% Shielding: -12% Dodge: -18%
Dex Bonuses: +2% to hit/Level, -2% to parry/Level; Weapon Specialisation 5, one extra Dodge per turn, two free missile shots per turn

Class Bonus: One free active shield/weapon parry

AC: 3

Body Points: 12
Fatigue Points: 3
Carrying Capacity: 198 lbs.

There is no denying that the end result of character generation is detailed, with the random determination of a character’s social status, family, and position within the family, it is possible to begin to get some idea about who the character might. However, both the end result and the process is far from perfect. It takes both a lot of flipping back and forth through the rulebook’s first twenty pages to get to this point as well as a lot of arithmetic—the author is not kidding when she suggests that the reader requires a calculator. Nor does the Player Character feel complete. Does the character have skills apart from a low chance to hit things—or Personal Combat Factor? Or a low chance for casting magic—Personal Magic Factor—for the Mage? Digging deeper—and it takes a lot of digging—the Cleric at least begins play with one miracle, Purify. The various types of Mage have learned some spells. An Artisan or Merchant begins play with the Production, Trading, and Investment skills, and there is a Dex Skill for Thieves, Bandits, and Ninja. No skills for the gambler or entertainer or geisha though.

Nor do the write-ups of the various professions—Fighter, Mage, Cleric, Thief, Bandit, Ninja, Government, Artisan, Peasant, Merchant, and Other (which covers gamblers and entertainers)—help, since they are all about their place in society and how they earn their Experience Points, and certainly not about what they can do. And the sections on martial arts and fine arts and magic and stealth are all about how to learn them and then be able to do anything of note. In many cases, too much attention is paid to how much money a Player Character will earn and essentially Land of the Rising Sun provides a means to create characters who know their place and role in society, know that they can do things and benefit or earn from doing them, but actually have very little idea how they actually do those things. Roleplaying games are all about things that the characters can do and being able to do cool things, and whilst Land of the Rising Sun will let the Player Characters do them, they have to learn them first.

So what of the mechanics? Land of the Rising Sun is a percentile system. Yet like many roleplaying games of its generation, it does not have a universal mechanic, but rather a set of rules for different circumstances. For example, the rules for Influence and Relationships are based upon the Charisma, Social Status, Level, and Honour Points of the Player Characters and NPCs, and covers ways to increase Influence as well as exert it, before discussing various relationships, from alliances between clan lords and different types of obligations to codes of justice and the nature of seppuku. Magic is broken down into not just a few, but eighteen types of mage, including Primitive, Dancer, Shaman, Medium, Herbalist, Divine, Artificer, Enchanter, Illusionist, Summoner, Symbolist, Poet, Calligrapher, and I Ching Master! Further, Symbolists include Origami, Painter, and Carver Symbolists, whilst Artificers Weaponsmiths, Jewelsmiths, and Weaver Mages. And each type of Mage has his own magic and mechanics, whether that is using I Ching rods to forecast the coming day or the Artificer constructing a magical device—which includes magical or Ego swords by the Weaponsmith. All of these different Mages, despite possessing different mechanics, are all nicely done and would be interesting to roleplay, whether that is the Origami Symbolist folding and animating paper to make it fly or run, or a Diviner reading the stars or writing a horoscope. There is a lengthy list of spells too. Clerics, Shintoism, and Buddhism are all treated in informative fashion. The rules over exorcism plus numerous Miracles, many of which the two faiths share.

The Martial Arts section covers everything from Tessen Jutsu or use of fans to Chikujojutsu or fortifications, and all have a number of skill points which need to be invested in them to be mastered. This is at least one hundred skill points, and because only a few points can be learned through training it can take a while to master a skill. Fine Arts, like Appreciating Embroidery and Dyeing and Playing Go, are treated the same way, but Stealth skills are not. They simply use a combination of a Player Character’s Dex Skill, Detect factor, and Level. Again, this section provides more background, this time about banditry, fences, ninja, and the like. And again, the Ninja is slightly different, first learning Ninjitsu, which of course, takes a while, and then being able to learn another raft of skills.

Combat covers morale, loss of fatigue for undertaking actions, parrying, mounted and a lot more, whilst later, separate sections provide rules for aerial, water, and mass combat. At the heart of combat, attackers are rolling on Missile or Melee Matrices—or attack tables—against an Armour Class rating, which goes from zero to ten. This gives a chance for the attack to succeed, primarily modified by the attacker’s Personal Combat Factor, and there are Melee matrices for different types of weapon and natural weapons. The rules do include a pair of examples, quite lengthy ones, and to be honest, they are necessary, because the rules are not only poorly explained, but there are a lot of them, whether that is aimed hits, desperate defence, attacking with chain weapons, and so on.

Oddly, the author suggests the reader purchase a geographical map of Japan rather than provide one, and instead of looking at Japan as whole, it concentrates on the types of buildings to be found in the country. There is certainly no history given and it would be nice to have some more context for the roleplaying game. Penultimately, Land of the Rising Sun includes a lengthy bestiary, which together with the tables for encounters and intentions of those met, provides the Game Master with plenty of threats, NPCs, and mysteries to present to her players and their characters. Lastly, there is a short bibliography, a handful of scenario ideas, and a piece of fiction, which though it might serve as inspiration for an encounter, feels out of place here.

Physically, Land of the Rising Sun is laid out in the classic wargames style with numbered sections. The layout is generally tidy, the writing reasonable, illustrations vary in quality, but the organisation leaves much to be desired. After covering elements such as character creation and influence and the prices of goods, it wanders off into the thirty-page section of magic, which though good, leaves the reader to wonder how a character does anything except magic, before finally arriving at the section on martial skills and fine arts, which of course, leaves the reader bewildered. It is a case of having to learn the rulebook as much as learn the game. And whilst there is an index, it not always of any help.

—oOo—Land of the Rising Sun was extensively reviewed at the time of its publication. Eric Goldberg reviewed both of the roleplaying games set in Japan from Fantasy Games Unlimited—both Bushido and Land of the Rising Sun in Ares Nr. 7 (March 1981). He was not wholly positive, but said, “Land of the Rising Sun is an estimable addition to a FRP afficionado’s library. Aside from being well-explained, it is necessary for those who want to fully understand C&S. The care with which Japanese myth has been reproduced is simply amazing.” before concluding that, “It can also be said that the game is impossible to play, and requires too much of the players. Designer Gold achieved her objective, and did it in most impressive fashion. In doing so, however, she may have lost a greater audience.”

Writing in The Space Gamer Number 36 (February 1981), Forrest Johnson praised the roleplaying game, saying, “LOTRS is a very impressive effort. Lee Gold spent a little time in Japan. A lot of time studying the subject. Her game is complete and authentic.” before concluding that, “LOTRS is a beautiful treasure in an unopenable package. Recommended to zealots, and as a source-book to D&D.”

Wes Ives accorded Land of the Rising Sun a lengthy review in Different Worlds Issue 13 (August 1981). He detailed why the roleplaying game was not suitable for the wargamer or the dungeoneer, but for the romantic medievalist, it was, “A decent treatment of all those romantic, alien legends from medieval Japan! The medievalists will justifiably love LRS, even if they don’t have a Japanese FRP campaign to enjoy. After years of reading, in the hobby press (both apa-zines, which can be excused, and prozines, which should know better). treatments of various segments of Japan, held up and analysed in a vacuum, it is a glorious relief to see the strange weapons, the mysterious social classes, and the flabbergasting monsters collected and presented into an integral whole. If your wish is to run a campaign based on medieval Japan, then you will be in the care of someone who lavished as much attention on this set of rules as the Chivalry & Sorcery authors lavished on their treatment of medieval Europe.” He strongly recommended Land of the Rising Sun, describing it as, “It is a complete, entertaining game. Even if you don’t start a campaign based on the culture given, this is a good book to read to find out “How It’s Done When It’s Done Right.” LRS has all of the detail of Chivalry & Sorcery, with the added advantage of being a product of the second generation of those rules, so that the rough spots have been somewhat sanded down and refinished. And those of you who want to run a campaign in Old Japan will be in the best of care.”—oOo—
There is no denying the wealth of detail about Japan ensconced in various sections throughout Land of the Rising Sun, all of them interesting and informative, but the author never pulls back to look at Japan in any great depth, to give context to the game, instead relying upon the reader’s expectations. The sections on magic and religion and the monsters are all good, but Land of the Rising Sun is lacking in so many other ways. Whether that is the frustrating organisation, the underwhelming, but overly complex nature of the Player Characters, the dearth of advice for the Game Master, they all serve to hamper both learning and playing the game. Land of the Rising Sun: Role Playing game of myths and legends in the age of Samurai is an attempt to do a roleplaying set in feudal Japan and do it well and do it comprehensively. Unfortunately, it comes up short of its goals. There are some fantastic elements in the roleplaying game, but it is too complex for what it is trying to do.