Deep in the rainforests of Central America, there are many animals, both rare and common, to be found, counted, and photographed. The common Basilisk Lizard and the rare Red-eyed Stream Frog on the coast and in the wetlands. The common Capuchin Monkey and the rare Rhinoceros Beetle in the forest. The common Chestnut-mandibled Toucan and the rare Jaguar in the mountains. Multiple expeditions have been launched to count all of these animals, each competing to not only spot as many as they can, but also to try and spot one of each. Each expedition leader can decide to explore where he wants and as far as he wants, but push too far and he might get bitten by mosquitoes ending the expedition. Or the others in his group might choose to end the expedition early and take all the credit for what has been found so far.

This is the set-up for Costa Rica: Reveal the Rainforest, a light, push-your-luck game published by Mayfair Games designed to be played by between two and five players, aged eight and up. The game consists of seventy-tiles, thirty Explorers, an Expedition Leader, five Play Aids, and an eight-page rulebook. The tiles depict a type of terrain on the back, either coast/wetlands, forest, or mountains, and a photograph of an animal on the front. Sometimes two animals and sometimes a Threat symbol of a mosquito as well. The Explorers, meeples complete with broadbrimmed hat, come in five colours, six of each, whilst the Expedition Leader is a solid black piece. The Play Aids indicate both how many points a player will score based on the number of each type of animals his expedition has photographed and for photographing all of them and their rarity according to terrain type. Lastly, the rules both explain the rules to the game and give a little background on each of the game’s six animals and Costa Rica itself. Although the rulebook is eight pages long, half of it is in German, so the rules themselves are short and easy to learn.

The aim of the game is to score as many points as possible. This is done by collecting as many tiles—each of which depicts one or two animals—as possible and scoring points for the animals shown on them and for collecting tiles which all together show all six animals in the game. The player with the most points is the winner and the game plays through in about thirty minutes or so.

The set-up for Costa Rica is simple. Sixty-four of the tiles are laid out, face down, in a grid, forming a hexagon, five tiles per side. The remaining tiles are put aside. This adds a further degree of randomisation. Each player places one of his Explorers at each corner of the play area. Together, the group of Explorers made up of one from each player forms an Expedition so that there are six Expeditions in total. The Expedition Leader piece is given to the starting player—either determined randomly or given to the player who has most recently been to Costa Rica. The starting player picks an Expedition and the game begins.

On a turn, a player picks an Expedition and turns over a tile adjacent to the Expedition. This will reveal either one or two animals and also a Threat or mosquito symbol. The player can decide to take the newly revealed tile or continue moving on. If he takes the tile, he adds to the collection in front of him and removes his Explorer from that Expedition. He cannot move that Expedition on subsequent turns. If he decides not to take the tile and instead move on, he first offers the other players the opportunity to take the tile, going round the table one-by-one. If another player accepts this opportunity, then he takes the tile, adds it to his collection, and removes his Explorer from that Expedition. The turn for the current player then ends. However, if nobody decides to accept the tile, the current player continues turning over adjacent tiles, repeating the same process each time.

A player’s turn can also end in another way—too many Threats. If the current player turns over two tiles on his turn that have mosquito or Threat symbol on them, his turn is over and his Explorer is removed from play. He still gains the tiles that have been previously revealed, whilst those with the two Threats on them are discarded. If only one Threat has been revealed when a player collects tiles, its tile is not discarded.

Each player is attempting to push further into the rainforest in search of rarer animals to count. Since he has an Explorer in every Expedition, he has multiple ways of finding them. However, because every Expedition has an Explorer from every player, there is always the chance that if a player decides to push on and explore further in search of better tiles, another player will collect them before the current player has a chance to advance further, undoing all of the current player’s efforts and adding to his score rather than them going toward the current player’s score. This is the ‘push-your-luck’ element of Costa Rica, a player needing to find the balance between the tiles that he has revealed and can take now and tiles that he might turn over if he continues exploring, but in doing so gives the other players the opportunity take what he has already revealed.

On subsequent turns, a player can move any of the Expeditions in which he still has an Explorer. This will decrease as the game goes on and his Explorers return from their Expeditions laden with tiles. If an Expedition consists of just one Explorer, this gives its player a lot of freedom to move and collect tiles as there is no-one to collect the ones revealed before he does.

There is another way in which a player can impede the other players. This is to cut them off in the rainforest. The core game play is all about exploring deeper into the rainforest in search of more animals to count, but a player could choose to lead an Expedition back out of the rainforest. If an Expedition has no adjacent tiles to reveal, it is cutoff and cannot continue exploring. In which case, all of its Explorers go back to their respective players. This can be a devastating tactic, especially if an Expedition contains multiple Explorers as it will hinder the score of multiple players.

The game ends when the last Explorer has finished moving and tiles have been taken. Everyone totals the score for their tiles collected and thus animals counted, and the player with the highest score is the winner.

Costa Rica is simple and straightforward, and both easy to teach and play. Games tend to be quite tight in terms of scoring, but different in terms of collecting tiles, depending upon the number of players. With two or three players, more tiles are going to be collected and scores higher as there is going to be less competition to collect them, whilst game play is tighter and more competitive with four or five players as there are more players competing for the same number of tiles. In general, the game plays best with three or four players as the competition for tiles is not quite so desperate.

Physically, Costa Rica is nicely presented. The Explorer meeples are decent and tiles of sturdy card with pleasing illustrations of the creatures on the front. The rules are written and the extra background is a nice bonus.

There is a pleasing clarity to Costa Rica in its game play. There is no hidden complexity or nuance to the game. It is easy to learn and teach, and barring the possibility of cutting off an Expedition, there is no ‘take that!’ element to the game. Meaning it is suitable to be played by both adults and younger players. A solidly simple, straightforward filler suitable for the family.

Much like the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition and the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, The Companions of Arthur is a curated platform for user-made content, but for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon. It enables creators to sell their own original content for use with Pendragon, Sixth Edition. This can be original scenarios, background material, alternate Arthurian settings, and more, but none of this content should be considered to be ‘canon’, but rather fall under ‘Your Pendragon Will Vary’. This means that there is still scope for the authors to create interesting and useful content that others can bring to their Pendragon campaigns.

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What is the Nature of the Quest?Heirs & Spares is a supplement for use with Pendragon, Sixth Edition.

It is a full colour, Seventy-six page, 97.90 MB PDF.

The layout is tidy and it is nicely illustrated.

Where is the Quest Set?Heirs & Spares is suitable to run with any campaign for Pendragon, Sixth Edition, but has content specific to the Pendragon Starter Set.
Who should go on this Quest?
Heirs & Spares is suitable for knights of all types, works exceedingly well with the Knights provided as pre-generated Player-knights in the Pendragon Starter Set.
What does the Quest require?
Heirs & Spares requires the Pendragon, Sixth Edition rules or use it at its fullest the Pendragon Starter Set. In addition, Squires Rampant may also be useful.
Where will the Quest take the Knights?
One of the key aspects of Pendragon is the lethality of its combat combined with dynastic play. Players are expected to not just roleplay their characters, but the sons and daughters of those characters, and in turn, the grandsons and granddaughters of those characters, and so on, over the course of several decades. As knights and thus members of the nobility, it is important that the Player-knights not only have designated heirs, but also spares. The heir is the one who will inherit a Player-knight’s mantle and position as well as his wealth and his duties, should something catastrophic happen to the Player-knight. The spare—a slightly dismissive term suggesting a certain uselessness—is there should something terrible happen to the heir. Thus, it is both vitally important that a Player-knight should have an heir and a spare to continue the family line and honour and full of potential in terms of storytelling.
Heirs & Spares is a supplement which explores these roles in Pendragon, Sixth Edition, but goes further than this by examining in greater depth their role and place in the lives of the Player-knights given as pre-generated Player Characters in the Pendragon Starter Set. In addition, it gives advice on how to integrate these heirs and spares to the Player-knights into the campaign—which will lead from the Pendragon Starter Set and into The Grey Knight and beyond—and provides plot hooks and story seeds for all eight pre-generated Player-knights and their heirs and spares. There is a wealth information and detail in this supplement that will add depth to the lives of the Player-knights and the beginnings of the official Great Pendragon Campaign as whole. However, although the content is very much tied to the pre-generated Player-knights, it is important to stress that none of it is official and that it definitely falls under the purview of ‘Your Pendragon Will Vary’.

Heirs & Spares opens with a discussion of the nature of both roles and where they can be drawn from in game terms. From the backgrounds of pre-generated Player-knights and families of Player-knights, with glance at simply replacing the deceased with someone unconnected and wholly new. It also looks at the degree of Player-knight creation, either taking a pre-generated Player-knight—as is presented for the Player-knights from the Pendragon Starter Set in Heirs & Spares, simply cloning an existing Player-knight (even one of the Player-knight who has just died), or full character generation. It notes the limited scope for this using just the Pendragon Starter Set and the Game master will need the Pendragon Core Rulebook.
The largest section in Heirs & Spares is devoted to the eight Player-knights from the Pendragon Starter Set, providing an overview of why each is interesting to play before detailing their heirs and spares. It is followed by a timeline of their family history. All expand their backgrounds in interesting ways. For example, Dame Lynelle and her squire, Booth, share a history, but are not related, and so technically, she has no family heir. Further, it is suggested that Lynelle’s younger brother and actual heir, might still be alive. Were he to be found, then he would become her heir and Booth, her spare. The heir to Asterius, the Byzantine knight, is his cousin, Callinicus, described as “the Slippery Exile”, more courtier than knight who fled Byzantium after his father was arrested by the emperor for corruption. Dame Cwenhild’s family is expanded with the addition of a half-brother, Oswain, but more Cymric than Saxon like Cwenhild, whilst their cousin, Eahild, whom Cwenhild regards as a younger sister, follows in her footsteps in wielding a heavy axe and a vengeful nature. All eight Player-knights are explored and expanded in this fashion.
The Player-knights and their heirs and spares are supported with advice for the Game Master on how to use them, primarily as NPCs, as well as suggesting alternatives to their respective Luck Benefits. Each Player-knight is given two pages of plot hooks and story seeds, the most obvious being to explore whether or not Dame Lynelle reveals her lack of status as a knight and potentially, her attempt to reclaim her family seat. To that end, her estate is detailed. Dame Cwenhild’s story hooks examine the politics and bureaucracy of Londinium, Dame Tamura her connection with the Ladies of the Lake, and so on. Of course, these will need development, but all are worth looking at, if only for their ideas. Lastly, Heirs & Spares details three NPCs that can be added to a campaign. Morcades of the White Tower is the daughter of the Constable of the White Tower in Londinium, renowned as a nunnery-raised, literate tomboy healer with an independent streak a mile wide, who could become firm friends with a female Player-knight, appear as part of Londinium-based adventures, and be the subject of courtship attempts by other Player-knights despite her father’s protestations! Her father is also detailed. The other two consist of Griflet de Carduel, actually a squire in the Pendragon Starter Set, and his sister, Lore de Carduel, both of whom are secondary characters in the Arthurian canon. Their detail enables the Game Master to bring them into play and so further the Player-knights’ involvement in telling the chronicles of King Arthur’s legend.
Should the Knights ride out on this Quest?The usefulness of Heirs & Spares depends very much upon if the Game Master is running the campaign in the Pendragon Starter Set with the included pre-generated Player-knights or not. If not, Heirs & Spares will be of limited use and application, perhaps best serving as a ready source of NPCs and replacement Player-knights, plus associated story hooks and plots.
However, if the Game Master is running the campaign in the Pendragon Starter Set with the included pre-generated Player-knights, then Heirs & Spares is very, very useful. It expands greatly upon the backgrounds of the eight Player-knights, giving them heirs and spares when it even seemed unlikely that they would have any, and in the process, adding a wealth of story possibilities that can be told alongside the events of the great chronicle that makes up Pendragon. The fact that Heirs & Spares falls under ‘Your Pendragon Will Vary’ is actually disappointing. The content in the pages of Heirs & Spares is not only useful in terms of what it will add to a Game Master’s Pendragon campaign, but also so well developed and thought out that it will enrich the lives of the Player-knights and the campaign as a whole. Heirs & Spares may not be official, but it is very good and it is the companion to the Pendragon Starter Set—and beyond—that Pendragon, Sixth Edition did not know it needed.

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

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Name: Omega Kappa DIE!!! – A Highly Inebriated, Modern(ish) Horror-Comedy Scenario For Call of CthulhuPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author Colin Richards

Setting: USA, 1930 and 1999Product: One-shot
What You Get: Seven page, 877.91 KB PDFElevator Pitch: Animal House meets Call of CthulhuPlot Hook: “’Cause they say2000, zero-zero, party over, oops, out of timeSo tonight, I’m gonna party like it’s 1999” – 1999, PrincePlot Support: Staging advice, ten pre-generated Investigators, eight handouts, one set of floorplans, six NPCs, a robot, three Mythos monsters, and a goat.Production Values: Excellent.
Pros# Thematically brilliant design# Good handouts# Inventively macabre description of the ritual# En media res action# Every player gets a Drunkometer# Dipsophobia# Social anxiety disorder# Phasmophobia
Cons# Astrology or Astronomy?# A lot of mature elements and the caveats are deserved# Some scenes are going make you go, “Ick!”, let alone the players# “Nyarlathogoat”
Conclusion# Don’t say Omega Kappa Pi, say Omega Kappa DIE!# An orgy of witting nastiness that highlights the horror of the Mythos # Reviews from R’lyeh Recommends & Discommends

The set-up for Capers: A Super-Powered Game of Gangsters in the Roaring Twenties is really simple. It is the 1920s. It is the USA. Prohibition is in full swing and under the terms of the Volstead Act, the sale of alcohol is outlawed. Which means there is money to be made from making the stuff in illegal stills or smuggling it across the border from Canada. Which means criminals are getting rich from making people happy and officials and cops are topping up their pensions by looking the other way. However, not every cop or bureau agent is on the take. Some want to enforce the law and are brave enough to do it. Some even have the power to back it up, not just with a sense of fairness and justice and a Smith & Wesson .38 Special Model 1899 Military and Police Hand Ejector, but the ability to fly or create a stream of acid or pick up things up with their hair or manipulate probability or control small objects. Used at the right time and in the right fashion, any one of these abilities can help the law bust criminal activities or arrest a crook. However, the life of a law enforcement Caper—as these powered individuals are known—is not that easy, because just as a would-be Caper is drawn to uphold the law, another Caper is drawn to break it. There are Capers protecting gangs and syndicates, running numbers games, cooking the books, bootlegging, and bringing the number one prohibited substance into the country—alcohol.

Capers: A Super-Powered Game of Gangsters in the Roaring Twenties is published by Nedburger Games, following a successful Kickstarter campaign. It is a super-powered roleplaying set in a Jazz Age, but not a Jazz Age that we would fully recognise. Capers are a known and recognised phenomenon, appearing in newspapers and news reports, many stories being of a sensationalist nature, whilst the Department of Justice has established a Registry of Abnormal Persons and begun tracking their locations and activities. Currently, registration is voluntary. Capers may face religious intolerance and there are doctors and hospitals who will not treat them, but the US Army is actively recruiting them and the media loves them! Elsewhere, Carla ‘Lucky’ Luciano is the right-hand-woman to New York Boss Arnold Rothstein and Al Capone’s mentor is Giada Torrio, and a broader range of ethnicities and genders are accepted at all levels of society. It is thus ahistorical, rather than truly historical and more representative of modern sensibilities. As is the feel of the roleplaying game and its look, is more akin to a cartoon show. A cartoon show that can be told from two different angles. One is with the cast of Capers as members of law enforcement and the other is with the cast of Capers as members of a criminal gang or organisation. In that, it shares some resemblance with the set-up in TSR, Inc.’s Gangbusters: 1920’s Role-Playing Adventure. However, as a super-powered roleplaying game, Capers: A Super-Powered Game of Gangsters in the Roaring Twenties is very much a ‘Street Level’ campaign and very much not a ‘Four Colour’ setting. Essentially, this is not a traditional cowl and capes style of superhero roleplaying game, but a setting more akin to the masked adventurers style of the following decade of the thirties—and that is even if the Caper wears a costume at all. All of which is detailed in a simple, easy to grasp introduction that explains its situation within a few pages.

A Player Character in Capers: A Super-Powered Game of Gangsters in the Roaring Twenties is either an Exceptional or an actual Caper. There are also Regulars, but these are normal people and so not what a player will be typically roleplaying. An Exceptional will not have full superpowers, but will instead have Perks, such as ‘Lucky’, ‘Power-Resistant’, or ‘Speciality Skill’. There are only nine Perks given in the roleplaying game, as compared to the thirty-nine major and minor powers. What an Exceptional makes up for in terms of a limited choice of Perks is having a wider choice of general abilities, whereas a Caper will have a limited choice of general abilities and more powers. Beyond a concept, such as gangster, enforcer, bounty hunter, journalist, or federal agent, a Player Character has three Anchors. Consisting of Identity, Virtue, and Vice, these define who the Player Character is, and by roleplaying them, provide a means of the Player Character regaining Moxie. He also has six Traits—Charisma, Agility, Perception, Expertise, Resilience, and Strength—which are rated between one and three for Regulars, but can go as high as four or five for Capers. Each Trait has an associated Defence value, which is sets how difficult it is for an opponent to overcome a Player Character. He will have between three and five skills, and if a Caper either one or two Minor Powers or one Major Power, whilst if an Exceptional, a combination of either Perks or Trem-Gear. The latter consists of devices, weapons, and suits powered by the previously unknown radioactive element called Trembium, which is also found in the blood of Capers. It is possible to be injected with Trembium and temporarily gain powers, but similarly, it is possible to be injected with Anti-Trembium and Powers be temporarily negated. This sets up some interesting story possibilities, whilst the quick guide Trem-Gear in the book, with careful adjudication upon the part of the Game Master, might lend itself to some possible gadgeteering.

In general, skills are fairly broad, so Conveyances covers all vehicles, Sciences all of the sciences, and so on. How they are used varies though, depending on what a Player Character wants to do. To perform an impressive driving feat, for example, a bootlegger reverse, a player might combine his character’s Charisma Trait with his Conveyances skill, whilst attempting to drive into a narrow alley at high speed would use Agility and Conveyances instead. Notably, there is no Gambling skill or Performance skill, so the Game Master and player will need to work together to get skill and Trait combinations that work.

In comparison, Perks and Powers in Capers: A Super-Powered Game of Gangsters in the Roaring Twenties are much narrower in scope. Perks tend to provide better protection against an Exceptional’s powers than a Regular has. Minor Powers are more tightly focused and flashier in their use, and include Acid Stream, Body Armour, Concussion Beam, Dimensional Manipulation, Force Field, Mental Shield, and more. Major Powers are broader and include Dimension Step, Elasticity, Invisibility, Mimic, Speedster, and many enhancement to Traits, like Super Expertise or Super Strength. Some Powers are simply active all the time, whilst others require a Power Check to activate. Many also provide a range of different effects or Boosts. For example, the Speedster Major Power has the Chaperone Boost, the Damage Boost, the Lightning Boost, the Speed Boost, the Water Walk Boost, and the Whirlwind Boost. When creating his character, a player selects one of these Boosts as the standard effect for that Power. He can still do the others, but they are not as easy for him to do.
Creating an Exceptional or a Caper is a matter of making choices and assigning a few points to the Player Character’s Traits. The only random element is determining his Anchors—done by drawing cards from an ordinary deck of playing cards, but even this does not need to be done randomly.

Our example Caper is Arabella Bellange. She is a former magician’s assistant who graduated to stage magician when the magician had an unfortunate accident that meant he could not perform for a few months. Not Arabella’s doing, but rather he was unlucky and she was lucky. It seems that life goes that way for Arabella. She looks good on stage or when doing close-up tricks, but things just seem to go her way—and that includes the cards. Which suits her fine. She wants fame and money and she has the ambition to drive her into crime if she met the right person. She might come out of whatever they do smelling of roses, but her friend might not be so lucky…

Name: Arabella Bellange
Type: Caper
Identity: Leader
Virtue: Moderate
Vice: Vain

Body 9 Mind 9 Hits 14
Speed 30’
Level 1

TRAITS
Charisma 3 (Defence 10) Agility 2 (Defence 9) Perception 2 (Defence 9)
Expertise 2 (Defence 9) Resilience 2 (Defence 9) Strength 1 (Defence 8)

SKILLS
Deception, Insight, Sciences, Sleight of Hand

POWER
Minor – Probability Manipulation (Rank 1)
Minor – Hypnosis (Rank 1)

Mechanically, Capers: A Super-Powered Game of Gangsters in the Roaring Twenties uses decks of ordinary playing cards and every player needs to have a deck of his own. Whenever a player wants his character to act, he flips over a card. The value of the card, its suit, and its colour determines the outcome and specific effects from the desired action. The value of the card determines if the action is a success or a failure, ranging from a Task Difficulty of Routine or four to Incredible or Ace. The Task Difficulty is set by the Game Master and kept secret until the Player Character succeeds or fails. The suit of the card will determine the degree of the success or failure, with Spades cards being the best and Clubs cards being the worst. So, if the value of the card indicates the action is successful and its suit is Spades, it is a ‘Success with a Boon’, but a ‘Success with a Complication’ if the suit is Clubs. Conversely, if the value of the card indicates the action is a failure and its suit is Spades, it is a ‘Failure with a Motivation’, but a ‘Botch’ if the suit is Clubs. The ‘Failure with a Motivation’ result means that the Player Character is pushed to try again and receive a point of Moxie to use on his next action. Drawing an Ace means that the Player Character succeeds with a Boon, or two, if the Ace of Spades. Drawing the red Joker will end the player’s turn and means the Player Character suffers a botch, but the black Joker means the Player Character succeeds with a boon and can take another action.

This is drawing just the one card, but a player can draw more. His Caper or Exceptional has a Card Count equal to the Trait being used. If using an appropriate skill, the Card Count will increase by one and if the Game Master grants Advantage on the action, it increases by one again. (Conversely, having Disadvantage on an action will decrease it by one and if the card Count is reduced to zero, the action cannot be attempted.) Each extra card flipped after the first replaces the previous card, the aim being to draw the best card possible, effectively turning every action into a gamble! A player’s deck is typically reshuffled after the end of a fight or significant scene.

For most actions, a player will determine the Card Count from a Trait or a combination of a Trait and an appropriate Skill if his character has one. For a Power Check, when a player wants his character to use a Power, the Card Count is equal to the Rank of the Power.

In addition, a Player Character has access to Moxie. It can be spent to increase the Card Count on an action, reduce incoming damage, gain a Boon, shape the narrative, take an extra action related to a Trait, recall a card (which must be a card used in current action rather than a previous one), reshuffle the deck immediately, and to have an Exceptional or a Caper commit an act of self-sacrifice, meaning that he takes damage from an attack rather than a colleague or NPC. Moxie is gained at the end of significant encounters, a player roleplaying his character’s Anchors—such as staying true to a Virtue or suffering a complication due to a Vice, or his character doing something cool or entertaining.
For example, Arabella Bellange is playing a high stakes Poker game. If she wins, she gets top billing at the speakeasy where she has been performing. If she loses, she has to work for the owner, Domenic ‘Peanuts’ Conigliaro, in the speakeasy for free for a year. Arabella wants to play this as straight possible, since she does not want to suffer any slight to her reputation that an accusation of cheating would cause, so is counting the cards and working the odds rather than resorting to deception. This will use her Expertise Trait, which gives her a base Card Count of two. Her Sciences skill will increase this by one to a total of three. The Game Master sets the Task Difficulty at Challenging or ten.

Arabella’s player turns over the top card of her deck. The card is a three of Hearts. This is not good enough to beat Arabella’s boss’ hand, so her player draws a second card, the nine of Spades, followed by the seven of Spades. Again, not enough. Arabella’s player decides to spend some Moxie. First to increase her Card Count by one. This means she can draw another card, but she spends a second to reshuffle her deck. Then she uses Probability Manipulation Power and its Control Boost to look at the top three cards of her deck and rearrange them. The cards are the ten of Diamonds, the eight of Clubs, and the Ace of Hearts in that order. Now the ten of Diamonds is enough to win the Poker game, but the Ace of Hearts is a surefire win and it grants Arabella a boon. She moves this to the top of her deck and with her last card drawn because of her increased Card Count draws the Ace of Hearts. Arabella’s boon is not only top billing at the speakeasy, but a better clothing allowance because a girl has to look her best… The Game Master agrees to this, but also because this ties in with her Vice of Vanity, awards her a point of Moxie.Combat in Capers: A Super-Powered Game of Gangsters in the Roaring Twenties uses the same mechanic. Each participant will make an Agility/Sense Reaction Check to determine his place in the Initiative order, whilst Agility/Guns or Agility/Ranged Weapons are used for ranged attacks and Strength/Fisticuffs or Strength/Melee Weapons are used for melee combat. In either case, the Target Difficulty for the attacker is equal to the Defence value of the defender’s Body value. The amount of damage inflicted is determined by the Suit and Colour of the card used for the attack, Black and Spades inflicting the most damage. Damage typically ranges between one and six points, but can be higher, as the weapon used will modify this. If a Player Character’s Hits are reduced to zero, he is either temporarily removed from the story or dead, player’s choice. If a player chooses to have his character die, then he gets one final turn in which he can use all of his Moxie to affect the narrative. Similarly, if a character reduces an enemy to zero Hits, his player get to decide whether he is merely knocked unconscious or is killed.

An important or unexpected fight can be preceded by a standoff, in which the participants stare each other out and attempt to assess the abilities of their would-be opponents. Played out over three rounds, it can gain a Player Character the initiative and more cards to play on the resulting action check. Other actions include assessing an opponent, intimidating him, or using a Power to boost the Player Character.

Overall, there is pleasing depth to game play, with players not just aiming to draw cards of a value sufficient to overcome a challenge or inflict damage, but also of the right colour and suit to get a more beneficial outcome. Although a player will mainly be relying upon better Card Counts to increase the possibility of drawing better cards, the use of Moxie allows for some limited manipulation of the cards , hopefully, towards a better outcome.

In terms of setting, Capers: A Super-Powered Game of Gangsters in the Roaring Twenties provides a short section of goods and services that noticeably includes prices for speakeasies, breweries, casinos, and hotels for gangster Exceptionals and Capers who want something to invest their ill-gotten gains in, as well as thirteen different Backdrops in which the Game Master can set her campaign. These are the big cities of the USA, notorious for their criminal underworlds during the era of Prohibition. Atlantic City, Chicago, and New York have several pages devoted to them each, covering recent history and the current state in the city, notable organisations and places, and people of note. Plus, stats are provided for the latter as well as a map of the city and story hooks for both law enforcement and gangster campaigns. The others, including Atlanta, Boston, Cincinnati, and Miami, only receive a page each, so will require some development upon the part of the Game Master to bring into play, especially if she wants to base her campaign in any one of them. The main three though, are very playable location write-ups ready for a campaign.

Similarly, law enforcement is given a broad overview before the Capers: A Super-Powered Game of Gangsters in the Roaring Twenties delves into a toolbox containing all manner of strange elements to bring into play. These include a selection of alternative earths, like ‘Capek’s Earth’ where automata have become part of everyday society; ‘Flipside’ where anyone from Principal Earth occupies the mind of their counterpart on this openly violent world where Al Capone is already dead; and ‘Madworld’, where the Central Powers used Capers to slaughter thousands in France, Capers in the USA are hated, hunted, and outlawed. These are all given the same degree of detail as the Backdrops of Atlantic City, Chicago, and New York, and together expand the storytelling possibilities of a campaign set in the world of Capers: A Super-Powered Game of Gangsters in the Roaring Twenties. There is a lot here that the Game Master can play around with in combining classic superhero style stories and elements with the cop with powers versus robbers powers nature of the setting. There is even Stone Island Beach, a secure island prison off the coast of New York for Capers, much like The Raft from the Marvel Universe.

All of this supported with advice for the Game Master on how to run the game, allow scope for player agency and input, adjudicate the rules, design adventures and encounters, and even on how to give animals powers and set up ‘events’ in which more people—either around the world or in one city—suddenly become Capers and explore the consequences that ensue. It is good solid advice, but there is a certain brevity to it. What it does not do is look at long term play in any of the roleplaying game’s three genres—law enforcement, crime, or superheroes—and the differences between them. What does a campaign look like? After all, a law enforcement campaign is going to be different from a criminal enterprise gang. The first is all about investigating criminal empires and tearing them down, whilst the second is all about building criminal empires up and preventing them from being torn down. The bibliography will provide some inspiration, as will familiarity with the genres, but this is definitely where the Game Master wanting to run a longer game of Capers: A Super-Powered Game of Gangsters could have done with more help and advice.

Physically, Capers: A Super-Powered Game of Gangsters in the Roaring Twenties is neatly, cleanly presented. The artwork has a cartoon style, and there is a short, but engaging cartoon strip in the middle of the book.

Capers: A Super-Powered Game of Gangsters in the Roaring Twenties has a setting that is actually unique and sounds cool—superheroes and supervillains in the Roaring Twenties fighting for law and order or crime and corruption. The addition of superpowers is the game changer, of course, both in terms of the setting and play, but the various abilities feel suitably low key and never like they are going to overwhelm the setting or the storytelling. This is helped by the fact that the card-based always make the game play feel as if the players and their characters are pushing their luck and gambling on the outcome. If underdeveloped with regard to long term play, Capers: A Super-Powered Game of Gangsters in the Roaring Twenties offers a breezy, fast-paced, and intriguingly different combination of genres in a familiar setting.

To be upfront and absolutely clear, the World Builder and Game Master’s Guide is not necessary to run Savage Worlds. It is not, in the traditional roleplaying sense, a guide to being a Game Master. All the advice that the Savage Worlds Game Master needs to run Savage Worlds Adventure Edition, or ‘SWADE’, is in the core rulebook. If it is not a traditional guide to being a Game Master for Savage Worlds, what then is the World Builder and Game Master’s Guide? This is the book for the Savage Worlds Game Master who wants to go a bit further than simply running the game for her friends on a week-by-week basis. The book is a collection of articles divided into three categories—guides to world building and writing content for Savage Worlds, running the game in situations other than at home, and advice on tweaking the game here and there, plus a handful of anecdotes that capture how fun Savage Worlds is to play and run. Published by Pinnacle Entertainment Group [https://peginc.com/], the World Builder and Game Master’s Guide is written by the publisher’s members of staff as well as freelancers and Game Masters who have writing and running Savage Worlds for more than a decade.

The World Builder and Game Master’s Guide opens with ‘World Building’, the first of the two articles on world building and writing content for Savage Worlds. The uncredited article explores how a Game Master might go about creating worlds and settings of her own. It is not extensive article—indeed whole books have dedicated to the subject—but it does boil the process down to a handful of questions such as what makes this new world special and exciting? What is its genre? Or as in the case of so many worlds for Savage Worlds, its genres? It suggests summing this up in an elevator pitch before discussing the various elements that make up the setting. Naturally, this is done through the lens of Savage Worlds, so looks at Edges and Hindrances, various types of adventure, and of course, Plot Point campaigns. These are Pinnacle Entertainment Group’s signature campaign format, providing a means to tell a big story in a setting, but also explore different aspects of the setting as well. Backed up with the ‘Pinnacle Style Guide’, this is a solid introduction to world creation, especially for Savage Worlds. Beyond this, the Game Master will likely want more detailed advice.

Some of that does come in Richard Woolcock’s ‘Turning Ideas into SWAG’. This gives advice on how the prospective author can create his own content and then publish it as part of the Savage Worlds Adventurer’s Guild, Pinnacle Entertainment Group’s community content programme. It covers first principles in terms of the working process, structuring the setting and the wordcount, editing and proofreading, playtesting and feedback, and so on, all the way up to making it available as Print on Demand, marketing the release, and even setting a price. The specifics do relate to Savage Worlds as you would expect, but there is advice here too that applies to any of the community content programmes that feature on DriveThruRPG. Combined with the first article in the supplement and the ‘Pinnacle Style Guide’, and this is a good introduction to the process of getting published.

Jodi Black’s ‘Savage Worlds For All Ages’ is the first of two articles which look at running Savage Worlds under different circumstances. As its title suggests, this one looks at the challenges of running Savage Worlds and gives tips on how to prepare a game, run a game, and keep player interest in a game going for different ages, from six years old to sixty-five and older, as well as groups of mixed ages. There are houses rules for each age group, such as for players aged six and up, awarding Bennies for good manners, initiative run in seating order rather than drawing cards, and the need for ‘wiggle breaks’ when the players get restless, as well as suggested plots. For example, making them feel epic in terms of scope for those aged between fifteen and twenty-five who have more time for this sort of game. Accompanied by the author’s guide to running a game club at her school, this is the best article in the supplement, applying to any roleplaying game and not just Savage Worlds. Of all the articles in the World Builder and Game Master’s Guide, this should be freely available.

The other article on running Savage Worlds under different circumstances is ‘Building Your Tribe’ by Chris Fuchs and Chris Landauer. This charts their establishment of the Rocky Mountain Savages, a team of Game Masters that run Savage Worlds at conventions. There are numerous teams that do this, not necessarily for single games or just Savage Worlds, and some actually handle the demonstration games for various publishers. At conventions, these groups and their Game Masters have become part of the public face for the publishers in question, such as the Rocky Mountain Savages for Pinnacle Entertainment Group. It is not just a guide on how to create and run a team of semi-professional Game Masters, but also how to run games at conventions and how to play in games at conventions. The latter gives the article a surprising third strand to its advice, but one that has a broader application than the other two strands since most roleplayers are more likely to play at a convention than be the Game Master or set up a Game Master group. Nevertheless, despite the limited application of the other advice in the article—an aspect common to the supplement as a whole—this is all good advice.

Despite it not being a supplement of general advice on running Savage Worlds, there is still advice to do so in World Builder and Game Master’s Guide. This starts with Owen Lean’s ‘Risks & Reversals’, which is all about the benefits of risk in a game, that essentially, it makes it exciting and whatever the outcome, often memorable. Together with its discussion of ‘reversals’, the joy of going from success to failure and back again as a situation changes, the article throws a bucket-load of examples at the reader, all taken from films with which he is very likely familiar—Pirates of the Caribbean, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and so on—that illustrate both situations. He neatly scales this up from scenes to adventures and campaigns to show how reversals work on that bigger scale. The scaling up continues with ‘High Powered Games’ by Tracy Sizemore. This examines the power progression in Savage Worlds, from Player Characters rising in power vertically initially and then horizontally as their power broadens in application before offering advice on how to use the rules and mechanics of Savage Worlds to adjust to the play and lethality of high-powered play. This includes setting a Wound Cap to limit the amount of damage a Player Character will suffer, but also using the Gritty Damage Setting for deadlier games. It also looks at the unpredictability of the core mechanic to Savage Worlds, how the dice results can swing wildly from one roll to the next, potentially causing disappointment and excitement from one round to the next, and how that can be managed. Suggestions include creating non-combat goals, making villains complex and interesting to give them a role other than wanting to destroy the Player Characters, and so on. There are numerous options and ideas here which support both high-powered play and high-end play.

In ‘The Long Game’, Shane Hensley charts the history of how Deadlands came about and its development over the years, and how the game has been kept fresh since its publication in 1996 and how a Game Master’s campaign can be kept going. Lastly, World Builder and Game Master’s Guide, ‘Anecdotes’ offers not a selection of stories and memories as the title suggests, but further advice on a variety of differing aspects of running Savage Worlds, such as ‘The Art of the Celebrity Con Game’ by Ed Wetterman on running audience participation games with celebrity players, Sean Patrick Fannon on ‘Running the Big Game’ with eight to sixteen players, and recording and making available your game play with Jordan Caves-Callarman’s ‘Savage Steaming’. None of these sections of advice is bad and some of it is useful, but not one of them is an ‘anecdote’, not one of them is story, and labelling them as such is an annoyingly misleading misnomer. Lastly, Clint Black gets ‘Under the Hood’ and discusses ideas on how the Game Master and player might tweak their Savage Worlds game, bringing the supplement to close with the broadest of advice.

Physically, World Builder and Game Master’s Guide is well presented, easy to read, and a nice-looking book.

Ultimately, the World Builder and Game Master’s Guide is not a book that is essential for any Savage Worlds Game Master. There is no denying that there is plenty of advice within its pages, but it is too specialised to be of general use to the average Savage Worlds Game Master. For the Game Master looking to do more than run the game for her friends, then the World Builder and Game Master’s Guide has the possibility of being useful and have the advice that she wants—and if so, then it is useful, it is good, it is helpful. Otherwise, the World Builder and Game Master’s Guide is too specific and too specialised for the average Game Master’s needs.

Quick-starts are a means of trying out a roleplaying game before you buy. Each should provide a Game Master with sufficient background to introduce and explain the setting to her players, the rules to run the scenario included, and a set of ready-to-play, pre-generated characters that the players can pick up and understand almost as soon as they have sat down to play. The scenario itself should provide an introduction to the setting for the players as well as to the type of adventures that their characters will have and just an idea of some of the things their characters will be doing on said adventures. All of which should be packaged up in an easy-to-understand booklet whose contents, with a minimum of preparation upon the part of the Game Master, can be brought to the table and run for her gaming group in a single evening’s session—or perhaps two. And at the end of it, Game Master and players alike should ideally know whether they want to play the game again, perhaps purchasing another adventure or even the full rules for the roleplaying game.

Alternatively, if the Game Master already has the full rules for the roleplaying game the quick-start is for, then what it provides is a sample scenario that she still run as an introduction or even as part of her campaign for the roleplaying game. The ideal quick-start should entice and intrigue a playing group, but above all effectively introduce and teach the roleplaying game, as well as showcase both rules and setting.

—oOo—

What is it?
The Smurfs Roleplaying Game – Quick-start Guide is the quick-start for The Smurfs Roleplaying Game, based on the Belgian comic created by Peyo and The Smurfs cartoon series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions and broadcast between 1981 and 1989. It is published by Maestro Media Ventures.

It is a twenty-page, 5.24 MB full colour PDF.

How long will it take to play?
The Smurfs Roleplaying Game – Quick-start Guide is designed to be played through in a single session, two at most.
What else do you need to play?
The Smurfs Roleplaying Game – Quick-start Guide needs five six-sided dice per player.
Who do you play?
The five Player Characters—or Smurfs—in The Smurfs Roleplaying Game – Quick-start Guide consist of Smurfette, Hefty, Jokey, Smurflily, and Clumsy Smurf.
How is a Player Character defined?A Smurf in The Smurfs Roleplaying Game – Quick-start Guide is defined by his name which provides a broad description of him and a motivation which explains how he thinks. A Smurf also has an Advantage, a special power which ties into his name or motivation. Each Advantage provides a bonus which applies to certain situations, modifies action rolls, or grants access to certain equipment. For example, Hefty has an Advantage that grants a bonus to any test of strength, whilst Smurflily, who has the Motivation of, “I will do my best to be friends with, and not hurt, any Smurf or other creature.” has an Advantage that reduces the difficulty of skill tests to persuade, calm, or befriend any NPC. Each Smurf also has four attributes—Quick, Brawn, Mind, and Heart—rated between four and twelve.
How do the mechanics work?
Mechanically, The Smurfs Roleplaying Game – Quick-start Guide uses the BURN 2d6 published by Saltheart RPG. To have his Smurf undertake an action, a player rolls two or more six-sided dice, aiming to roll under the appropriate attribute. If the roll is under the attribute value, the action succeeds, but if it is equal to the attribute value, it is only a partial success. A roll higher than the attribute is a failure. Bonuses can come from equipment, Advantages, and Smurfberries.

The difficulty of the action is set by the number of dice a player has to roll. This ranges from two for a Challenging difficulty to five dice for an Impossible difficulty. The Storyteller can make an action more challenging by adding another die, whilst a player can add another die if he wants the outcome of the action to have greater effect. A player can also reduce the number of dice ha has to roll by spending Effort. Each attribute has a number of points of Effort equal to its value and they can only be spent on actions related to that attribute. If a Smurf runs out of Effort for a single attribute, all of his actions are penalised an extra die. If Effect is exhausted for a second attribute, a Smurf falls unconscious or rather, is smurfed...

To avoid this and other dangerous situations, for example, a dragon breathing fire on a Smurf or a Smurf falling from a great height, a player can make a Safety Roll. It is rolled on two six-sided dice and difficulty for is determined by the Smurf’s own Smurf House (but is set to three for the purposes of The Smurfs Roleplaying Game – Quick-start Guide). If the Safety Roll is successful, the Smurf wakes up in his bed, fully refreshed, but with no idea of how he got there. If a failure, the Smurf will probably start the next session in dire circumstances.
In addition to Advantages, bonuses to any action can come from equipment and Smurfberries. Smurfberries are enjoyed by every Smurf and by every player because they are rewarded for good roleplaying. Each Smurf begins play with one and their primary use is to give a player a one-point advantage on any roll. Their secondary use is to restore a point of Effort to a single attribute. This can be for the player’s Smurf or the Smurf of another player, and is more expensive, costing three Smurfberries.
Lastly, each Smurf has access to Smurf Power! This is represented by the Smurf Power Die, and can be used in one of two ways. When rolled, it replaces one of the standard dice a Smurf’s player rolls for any action. It is a standard six-sided die, but marked with the Smurf Symbol on five of its six faces and the Smurf Critical symbol on the one face. It does not add anything to a roll, but when the Smurf Critical symbol is rolled, one of two things can happen. If the roll is a success, with the Smurf Critical symbol, it becomes an amazing absolutely smurfy success. However, if a failure, it becomes the unsmurfiest of failures possible. Alternatively, it can be used to add a narrative element to the play of the game. The ability to roll or use the Smurf Power Die becomes possible once a player rolls all sixes on a previous roll. Otherwise, it is inactive.
Besides the possibility of a critical failure, there is another downside to using the Smurf Power Die. This is that when used, it grants the Game Master a Thorn, which she can then use to make the lives of the Smurfs that much more difficult. This can be by describing a change in circumstances and adding an extra die to a roll, adding a complication by adding or removing a story element, allowing an opponent to act first (as Smurfs always act first otherwise), or cause a piece of equipment to become lost.
Mechanically, The Smurfs Roleplaying Game – Quick-start Guide is player-facing. This means that the players make all the dice rolls rather than the Game Master.
How does combat work?
Combat? In a roleplaying game about Smurfs?

What do you play?
The scenario in The Smurfs Roleplaying Game – Quick-start Guide is ‘Papa Smurf Goes Missing: An Introductory Adventure for The Smurfs RPG’. The adventure begins when the Smurfs wake up to find that Papa Smurf and his Mushroom House has gone missing, leaving a big hole in the ground where it stood the previous day. Investigating the hole reveals the wreckage of his house at the bottom and a tunnel leading deep into the earth! Where will lead and where has Papa Smurf gone? The adventure is quite straightforward, primarily involving a mixture of stealth and exploration. It also comes with plenty of staging advice that the Game Master can use simply as examples of play or inspiration for when she runs the scenario. It playable in a single session.
Is there anything missing?
Yes. The Smurfs Roleplaying Game – Quick-start Guide does not come with a Smurf Power die, so the Game Master will need to provide something in its stead.
Is it easy to prepare?
The core rules presented in The Smurfs Roleplaying Game – Quick-start Guide are very easy to prepare. They are light and easy to use as much as they are to teach, making them and the quick-start as a whole suitable for running for a younger audience.
Is it worth it?
Yes. The Smurfs Roleplaying Game – Quick-start Guide presents everything you you need to play a fun, happy-go-lucky session of Smurfiness, with a little dash of mild peril. The rules are easy to grasp and teach and the scenario is an uncomplicated affair. However, this is a quick-start (and a roleplaying game) for fans of The Smurfs rather than the casual player necessarily and they are likely to get more out of this than the said casual player. Otherwise, this is a well done quick-start, one that roleplaying fans of The Smurfs will pick up with ease and enjoy. Plus, if there are younger fans of The Smurfs, this is something that they will enjoy playing and being run for them.
The Smurfs Roleplaying Game – Quick-start Guide is published by Maestro Media and is available to download here.

The village of Hirot stands besieged, its inhabitants cowering and scared at who they might have to give up next. Standing atop a hillock, jutting up above windswept moors and rain sodden forests, for the past six months a monster, a devil-hound, has climbed over its palisade walls every night and stalked its few streets looking for victims. Once found, the creature from hell butchers and plays with their corpses, before vanishing into the mists leaving a bloody and rent corpse for the survivors to render funeral rites to. No one is safe and to date, neither the Jarl, master of Hirot, nor his thegns, have been able to kill the best, for every time they do, it quickly returns another night to kill yet another victim. The Jarl’s seer, Sylle Ru, has advised that a random villager should be sacrificed to the killer very third day and this has been taking place over the past few weeks, reducing the population of the village by a third. It is one of these sacrifices, being driven forward by a village mob and overseen by the Jarl and his thegns, to be placed upon ancient altar stones, that the Player Characters come across at the start of Dungeon Crawl Classics #66.5: Doom of the Savage Kings, a scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game published by Goodman Games.

Dungeon Crawl Classics #66.5: Doom of the Savage Kings is a special scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. For although it was not the first to be published as a standalone scenario—that would be Dungeon Crawl Classics #67: Sailors on the Starless Sea—Dungeon Crawl Classics #66.5: Doom of the Savage Kings was the first scenario that many players roleplayed, for it was included as a separate item in the rulebook for Dungeon Crawl Classics as the first scenario to be played after they had played through the roleplaying game’s signature feature, a ‘Character Funnel’. Written by Harley Stroh, It is designed to be played by between six and twelve First Player Characters and mixes the classic ‘village in peril’ set-up of so many a fantasy roleplaying scenario with the classic tale of Beowulf and the Sherlock Holmes novel, The Hound of the Baskervilles with more than a dash of Hammer Horror. Much like the author’s later Dungeon Crawl Classics #72: Beyond the Black Gate, it has a grim, northern European feel to it that suggests Saxon or Scandinavian influences upon its dark Swords & Sorcery.

When the Player Characters offer to help deal with the creature, nicknamed the ‘Hound of Hirot’, the Jarl seems oddly disinterested in offer of aid, rebuking them for their meddling and suggesting instead that giving themselves as sacrifices to the creature is the best thing that they can do. In comparison—and despite their pessimism, the thegns and the commoners will be welcoming, looking to the Player Characters for hope and perhaps a solution to the ghastly situation in which the village and its inhabitants find themselves in. Both Jarl and his thegns will tell the Player Characters why the situation is hopeless. Simply that the ‘Hound of Hirot’ cannot be killed. Of course, this is not the case, because the creature can be dealt with. It is not easy though, and will require some investigation and interaction, some exploration, and some brute strength upon the part of the Player Characters. Or combination of all three. The scenario provides multiple means—shackles woven from the hair of the dead that will bind the hound, the Wolf-spear of Ulfheonar which can pin the creature in place, and simply wrestling with it—and it is just up to the Player Characters to find out about these methods and decide which ones they want to use. Of course, in the first means, they will need to find some dead men with hair still on their heads and bring it back, whilst in the latter, they need to find where the Wolf-spear of Ulfheonar is and how they can get it.

The scenario consists of three distinct acts. In the first, the Player Characters arrive at Hirot and investigate the village, talking to the inhabitants, and winkling out some rumours and secrets that might help them defeat the beast. To that end, the Judge is furnished with a table of ready rumours and a detailed description of the village and its inhabitants. The descriptions nicely brings to life the morose sense of hopelessness that pervades Hirot whilst also providing the players with plenty of opportunities to roleplay. The encounter with the village’s old crone, known as the mad widow, is a delight and has a fantastic payoff at the end of the scenario. What is also great about the encounters in the village is that none of the NPCs are truly evil. Venal, desperate, resigned, and most of all, fearful, but not evil.

If the emphasis in the first act is on investigation and interaction in the village of Hirot, the second is on exploration of the ‘Tomb of the Ulfheonar’, where hopefully the Player Characters will be able to find the other primary means of defeating the ‘Hound of Hirot’, the Wolf-spear of Ulfheonar. The barrow-mound is quite sparse in look and feel, all rough stone slabs and earth and roots. It is quite small and barely—and only recently—inhabited by a nasty trio of monsters, that lurk in the dark ready to ambush intruders. The tomb also narrows towards the end setting up a really nasty, claustrophobic ambush that should really scare the players, let alone their characters. Combined with a deadly trap at the end—this being a tomb after all—the Player Characters will likely be very relieved to get out of the tomb. And the moment when they exit is when the Jarl strikes, ambushing them as threat to even the dark situation and his hold over it in the village of Hirot. Of course, if the Player Characters decide not to hunt for the Wolf-spear of Ulfheonar, then the entire dungeon is optional. (In some ways, this spoils the adventure for the Judge, denying her the opportunity to throw some horrible little encounters at her players, but that does not stop her from repurposing the dungeon-tomb and placing it elsewhere in another adventure.)

The third act of the scenario is the confrontation with the beast, using whatever means the Player Characters have gathered. Here the emphasis is on exploration and combat, a slog through the mire of a foul swamp and down into the maw of the creature’s lair. The sinkhole is a nasty place to have a fight, but it makes a great scene for a grand climax.

Physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics #66.5: Doom of the Savage Kings is a good-looking book. For the most part, the artwork is good, but the cartography is excellent. The adventure is well written and explained, making it easy to prepare.

Dungeon Crawl Classics #66.5: Doom of the Savage Kings packs a lot of adventure, a good monster, and plenty of decent NPCs into its sixteen pages. It also includes quite a bit of treasure, all nicely unique and different as well as lots of little details that might play out well beyond the pages of the scenario. Finally, Dungeon Crawl Classics #66.5: Doom of the Savage Kings has atmosphere aplenty, grim and foreboding, a genuinely epic mini-saga for First Level Player Characters.

It has been over six hundred years since the First Prophecy of Fatuma came to pass. The SIX, the Disciples of Fatuma, who following the prophecies put down in the Book of Fatuma, made a pilgrimage to the Primordial Mausoleum of THEY and deployed the Power of Tributes to decrypt the Mystical Lock sealing the Mausoleum. It was then that the They drew in the stale air of the Mausoleum, becoming one with the THEY and breathing out the parasites. The Six scattered, bringing the word and the infection of THEY to every corner of the ’verse. Then the Gnawing began. The parasites of THEY gnawed their way out of the infected. They spread. They gnawed their way out of planets. They spread. The infected split open. The planets split apart. Now mankind clings to life, looking out for any signs of THEY or hiding it inside them in the hope that it never erupts and spreads… The Earth is gone. Shattered into large pieces. There are places and planets where the remnants of Mankind survive, squabbling over resources and power, fearing the parasitical infectious word of THEY, but not without hope. There are whispers of a means to escape the end of this universe by entering another, one entirely free of THEY. It is called the Gate of Infinite Stars. Yet time is running out. The First Prophecy of Fatuma came to pass and so has every other Prophecy of Fatuma since. Except the last Seven Torments. Will the last Seven Torments come to pass and allow the Würms and the Grimm to consume the ’verse and with it, the last of Mankind? Or will the lucky few find their way to the Gate of Infinite Stars and at last be free of the Würms and the Grimm in a better, brighter future? That is, of course, if everyone fleeing through the Gate of Infinite Stars is free of the gnawing…
This is the set-up for Vast Grimm. Published by Infinite Black, it is a pre-apocalypse Science Fiction roleplaying game compatible in tone and structure with Mörk Borg, the Swedish pre-apocalypse Old School Renaissance style roleplaying game designed by Ockult Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell and published by Free League Publishing. To get around the shattered solar system of the Vast Grimm’s ghastly future, let alone out into ’verse, the survivors are going to need transport and places to go. This is where Vast Grimm: Space Cruisers comes to the fore.
Vast Grimm: Space Cruisers expands on the rules for starships given in Vast Grimm. It provides the means to both create and modify them, gives rules for starship combat, and it describes three new locations that the Game Master can add to her game and her Player Characters can visit. Lastly, it includes rules for generating abandoned starships. The latter is particularly useful as it adds further uncertainty to the setting, provides somewhere for the Player Characters to explore, investigate, and loot. Effectively, mini-dungeons in space, if you will. Further, such vessels also serve as a ready source of parts and resources to scavenge, as well as potential replacement starships. The latter is important because the last starship to roll out of the shipyards was three hundred years ago. In a universe where the Grimm are the biggest threat that Mankind had ever faced, building the then current spaceship models and developing new spaceship designs was very quickly low on everyone’s priorities. Which means that the Player Characters may start play with one starship and end up with another and then another, just due to wear and tear and use and a lack of parts.

Creating a starship for Vast Grimm is quick and easy. It involves choosing or rolling for a Starship Class and following the various steps listed for each Starship Class in terms of capabilities, equipment, and modifications. Then rolls are made for the Starship’s Abilities, Hit Points, characteristics, battle scars, and Modifications. There are six Starship Classes and there are six options given for each. These are ‘Minimal Crew’, ‘Transports’, ‘Cruisers’, ‘Freighters’, ‘Warships’, and ‘Shotrods’, the latter being intergalactic hotrods. The ‘Minimal Crew’ Class includes ‘Family Truckster’, ‘Intergalactic Trucker’, and ‘DIY Death Trap’; ‘Transports’ like a ‘Yachthole’ or ‘Jailboat’; ‘Cruisers’ such as a ‘Light Cruiser’ or ‘Ram Jam’; ‘Freighters’ include ‘Garbage Getter’ and ‘Crowdfunded Slow Boat’; ‘Warships’ such as a ‘Frackin’ Frigate’ or ‘Dreadnought’; and ‘Chopper’ and ‘Domed Disc’ for the ‘Shotrods’. Starship Abilities consist of Manoeuvre, Accuracy, Fortitude, and Power, ranging in value from three to eight, modified by Class.

Most Starships have an A.I. on board, but it is possible to purchase the code to install a new one or replace an old, possibly damaged one. There is a table of A.I. personalities included, but these is quite short at six entries, especially given the Starship-hopping/Starship-scavenging nature of play. The likelihood is that the Game Master is going to run out of A.I. personalities quickly.

Name: The Slim Grimm ExpressClass: Transport
Type: Galaxy Express
Size: 1 Speed: 2 Crew: 2Armour: Tier 6 (-2d6)Hit Points: 35
Pilot Presence dR12Well-Engineered
Starship’s Log: A.I. Overkill (each section of the starship is controlled by a different A.I. personality)
Battle Scars: All original seating gutted. Replaced with lawn furniture.Modifications: Escape Pod, Surge Protector, Armour (Tier 2), Slam ShockerWeapon: Laser Turret (3d8 damage)Manoeuvre 7 (-2) Accuracy 13 (+1) Fortitude 15 (+3) Power 18 (+4)

The process is not difficult and provides a total of thirty-six Starship types from which to choose or generate. Consequently, the likelihood of the Player Characters finding a similar ship to their own is quite low and even if they do, it will still be very different. Starship operation requires minimum Power to operate and also use weapons and other capabilities. A Power Core can be recharged, but can also be scavenged from other Starships.
Starship combat is played out on a hex grid. One player takes the role of Captain, who is then responsible for manoeuvring the starship in combat. Possible other actions available to the Player Characters include using a weapon, a capability, activating a Tribute (data chips containing the Neuromantic energy released at the same time as the Grimm when THEY opened the Primordial Mausoleum of THEY and used for various effects), defending the Starship, conducting repairs, and even a launching a raiding party if the two Starships are close enough. Although the combatants do roll for initiative, damage occurs simultaneously. Critical rolls inflict double damage and reduce the target Starship’s armour by a tier, whilst on a critical Defence roll, the damage bounces back and inflicts damage on the attacker or the attack is Evaded, and the defending Starship manoeuvre’s away. Fumbles include temporary weapon malfunctions, a Player Character spilling a drink on a console and having to clean it up before it works again, and so on. If the Hit Points of a Starship are reduced to zero, then the Starship is broken, possibly leading to a loss of oxygen, all systems shutting down to maintain life support, and worse. If the damage is reduced to below zero, the damage is worse.
In addition to the rules for Starships and Starship combat, Vast Grimm: Space Cruisers details three locations that the Player Characters can visit in their vessel. They include ‘Guthrie’s Fuel & Fix’, a former waste barge turned travelling station and source of parts, repairs, and fuel. There are tables for Power Core recharge rates, availability of parts, and so on, plus stats for its operator, a short and rusty service bot that records everything. ‘Tangle Station’ is a small planetoid run by the necrotic cyborg Kid Arachnid—the only non-robot on the facility—and dedicated to keeping the Netwürk running. He will sell all sorts of information to any manner of buyers, though not all of it is safe. The ‘Roach Coach 2’ is probably the last place that anyone might want to eat, what with its ‘Mystery Meat pie’, ‘Sautéed Gooey Gland’, and ‘Crunchy Sugar Larvae’ on its menu and the fact that it is run by Cockroach Karl, Jr. Then there are the side effects, which might be positive, might be negative…
There is a brevity to the content of Vast Grimm: Space Cruisers, but in many cases that makes the content easy to grasp and use in play, even when rolling at the table. It also leaves scope for the Game Master to develop that content herself and tailor it to fit her campaign. This is made all the easier by the engaging and entertaining nature of the content.
Lastly, Vast Grimm: Space Cruisers comes with lots of tables. The main set will help the Game master determine the appearance, current occupiers, and some sample rooms that might be found aboard a seemingly abandoned Starship. Others include a table of parts that might break down on a trip and tables of things and person who might be found on a Starship.
Physically, Vast Grimm: Space Cruisers adheres to the Artpunk aesthetic of both Vast Grimm and Mörk Borg, with its use of vibrant, often neon colours and heavy typefaces. It looks amazing, a swirling riot of colour that wants to reach out and infect everything, but where the core rules were not always the easiest to read, the simplicity of the content in this supplement make it easier to read and use.

Mechanically, Vast Grimm: Space Cruisers is not as easily explained as it could have been, especially when it comes to Starship combat. Another page and probably an example of play would not have gone amiss and it would make the grasping of what should be relatively straightforward rules that much easier. This is not to say that they are difficult, but that the explanation could have been clearer. besides that, Vast Grimm: Space Cruisers neatly expands on the single aspect of the dark future that is Vast Grimm and provides the means for the Game Master to bring Starships into her campaign in greater and more entertaining fashion.

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. 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: Shadow of the EaglePublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author Jordan Falcon

Setting: Vietnam, 1968Product: One-shot
What You Get: Seven page, 877.91 KB PDFElevator Pitch: “In the jungle, the mighty jungleThe Mi-go hunts tonightIn the jungle the quiet jungleThe Mi-go hunts tonight”Plot Hook: “Near the village, the peaceful villageThe Tcho-Tcho sleeps tonightNear the village, the quiet villageThe Tcho-Tcho sleeps tonight”Plot Support: Staging advice, no pre-generated Investigators, no handouts, no maps, one NPCs, and two Mythos monsters.Production Values: Plain.
Pros# Interesting period for Mythos investigation# Straightforward and easy to run# Could form the basis for an anti-Delta Green campaign for use with Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game and/or The Fall of Delta Green# Gephyrophobia# Vorarephobia# Entomophobia
Cons# No pre-generated Investigators# No advice on creating Investigators# Short and linear
Conclusion# Potential starter to a campaign, but too basic# Pre-generated Investigators with backgrounds would make it 100% better

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—
Name: The Demon of the Deep LeadsPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author David Waldron

Setting: Ballarat, 1854Product: One-shot
What You Get: Forty-three page, 21.49 MB PDFElevator Pitch: The Blue Mountains panther hunts by nightPlot Hook: Hunt for a missing man in time of chaos
Plot Support: Staging advice, five pre-generated Investigators, three handouts, two maps, four NPCs, one non-Mythos monster, and one Mythos monster.Production Values: Reasonable.
Pros# Combines Cthulhu by Gaslight and Call of Cthulhu: Darker Trails, but in Australia!# Engaging historically based scenario# Solid interaction investigation# Straightforward, uncomplicated # Can be run as a non-Mythos horror scenario# Ailurophobia# Teratophobia# Amychophobia
Cons# Needs an edit# No pre-generated Investigator backgrounds# Underwritten introduction
Conclusion# Uncomplicated scenario against a chaotic background# Engaging sense of history combined with an urban legend

The land and all of its good people face a threat. One that has lingered far from the farms and villages, towns and cities, plotting, waiting, slumbering, brooding, all for the time when it is right to rise again and send forth its agents and minions, even its armies and its magics to destroy all that it good, to bring under its yoke, and to cast a darkness everlasting upon the land. Yet land and all of its good people are not without hope and their hearts are strong, for even as the great hosts of the dark lord outnumber what armies the forces of good can muster, they have heroes. Mighty of sword, stout of character, strong in magic, and wily in cunning, perhaps it is they who will be able to step forth from their thresholds and make the great journey across the land, best done in secret, to strike at the lord of shadow. This sounds not unlike the plot of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings or Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn series or Margaret Weis and Tracey Hickman’s Dragonlance Chronicles series—and it is. It is also the underlying plot to Against the Darkmaster: The Classic Game of Fantasy Adventure, which describes itself as an “Epic Fantasy roleplaying game of high adventure, heroic action, and heavy metal combat.” This is a roleplaying game of high fantasy and high stakes and a roleplaying game with a pedigree. Its mechanics derive ultimately from two games published by Iron Crown Enterprises. The first was RoleMaster, but the real inspiration for Against the Darkmaster is the simpler, more streamlined version of RoleMaster that was Middle-earth Role Playing: a complete system for adventuring in J.R.R. Tolkien’s World. That inspiration is both mechanical and thematic, but although veterans of both RoleMaster and Middle-earth Role Playing will find much that is familiar in the pages of Against the Darkmaster, they will not find their characters forming a fellowship and going on a great journey across the land to heroically confront the dark lord himself, Sauron, but instead a different great evil, either one of the Game Master’s own devising or one of the three provided as examples in the book. This is the roleplaying game with which to play campaigns of high fantasy and adventure, in the process, save the world.

Against the Darkmaster: The Classic Game of Fantasy Adventure is published by Open Ended Games, Inc. and in addition to providing the means for the Game Master to create her own Darkmaster, it explains the rules, provides the means to create a fellowship, covers travel, combat, and magic, details a bestiary, and supports the roleplaying game with a setting and scenario. It starts though, with a discussion of its principles. These include the fact that it is a tale of good versus evil, that the presence and influence of the Darkmaster looms over the world, that previous conflicts between nations and with the Darkmaster have left the landscape dotted with ruins and secrets, magic is dangerous and rare and that the gods watch from afar rather than being directly involved in the doings of the land, and that despite all of this, there is still room for heroism and hope. Along with a lengthy bibliography of the books, films, heavy metal music, and other roleplaying games that influenced Against the Darkmaster this neatly sums up what the roleplaying game is about.

A Player Character in Against the Darkmaster consists of six Stats—Brawn, Swiftness, Fortitude, Wits, Wisdom, and Bearing, and then a Kin and a Culture. He will also have a Vocation, Background Options, and Passions. The six Stats range in value between -20 and +35 and serve directly as bonuses to skill and action rolls. This is a change from roleplaying games such as RoleMaster, Middle-earth Role Playing, and HARP Fantasy where there are stats ranging in value from one to one hundred and bonuses are derived from them. There are thirteen different Kin: Dwarf, Halfling, Man, Wildfolk, High Man, Half-Elf, Dusk Elf, Silver Elf, Star Elf, Half-Orc, Orc, Stone Troll, and Firbolg. Each provides bonuses to a Player Character’s Stats, Hit Points, Magic Points, Toughness Save Roll, and Willpower Save Roll, as well as Maximum Hit Points, Background Points, and starting Wealth Level. Each Kin also suggests suitable Cultures. There are thirteen Cultures, including Arctic, City, Deep, Desert, Fey, Hill, Marauding, Noble, Pastoral, Plains, Seafaring, Weald, and Woad. A Culture provides Ranks in a Player Character’s skills and Spell Lores, typical outfit and equipment, Passions, and additional starting Wealth Level. The Vocations consist of Warrior, Rogue, Wizard, Animist, Dabbler, and Champion. The Animist is a druid or shaman, the Dabbler can do a mix of everything rather than specialising, and the Champion is a mystic warrior. A Vocation provides Development Points for the player to assign to his character as well as skill bonuses.

Skills are divided into seven categories—Armour, Combat, Adventuring, Roguery, Lore, Spells, and Body. The individual skills with each category are broad in nature, for example, Blunt, Blades, Ranged, Polearms, and Brawl for Combat, and Acrobatics, Stealth, Locks & Traps, Perception, and Deceive. Several Speciality Skills are suggested, such as ‘Assassination’, ‘Craftsmanship’, ‘Dual Weapons Training’, ‘Swashbuckling’, and more, but these are optional.

Background Options represent a Player Character’s Back Story and what he did before joining the Fellowship. They include ‘Ancient Heirloom’, ‘Burglar’, ‘Heroic Bloodline’, ‘Mundane’, ‘Strider’, and more, each providing a wide range of bonuses and benefits. They are either Minor or Major Tier, of which the player chooses one or the other. A Player Character will have between one and three Passions, typically either a Nature, Allegiance, or Motivation. Here is where the Heavy Metal aspect of Against the Darkmaster first comes to the fore, the book suggesting that a player select a Passion based on a Heavy Metal song along with providing numerous examples, such as ‘All men are equal when their memory fades’ inspired by Motorhead’s ‘Deaf Forever’ and ‘I was born under omens of greatness and doom’ inspired by Iron Maiden’s ‘Seventh Son of a Seventh Son’. By adhering to his Passions, a character can earn Drive, up to a total of five, and this can then be spent to gain various effects, such as gaining a +10 bonus to a Skill, Attack, or Save roll, reroll a failed Roll with a +10 bonus, reroll a Critical Strike just suffered to try and lower its effect, and so on. Five points of Drive can be spent to set the result of a roll to 100, add a +20 bonus to a Critical Strike Roll, and so on.

One interesting use of Drive is to track Milestones and Revelations. For every ten points of Drive spent, a Player Character gains a ‘Milestone’. This can then be used to unlock a ‘Revelation’ about themself, perhaps when they are resting after an adventure and have had time to reflect or at a moment of crisis. Mechanically, it is used to permanently improve a Stat, the number of Magic Points a Player Character has, or improve an item as they come to master its use. Narratively, this should make sense within the flow of play and it needs to be approved by all of the players.

Of the choices for character creation, the Dusk Elf is roughly the equivalent of the Wood Elf and the Star Elf the High Elf, and the Wildfolk the Woses and the High Man the Númenóreans or Dúnedain from Middle-earth. So, there are parallels between Against the Darkmaster and Middle-earth Role Playing in the options open to the players. Some of the options are not necessarily heroically Tolkienesque, such as the Orc and Half-Orc, but nevertheless, they could be in the Game Master’s own campaign or kept as servants of the Darkmaster. Of the Cultures, the Marauding Culture is not intended for the Player Characters, but for use by the Game Master to create servants of the Darkmaster.

To create a character, a player can either roll for his Stats or opt for a point-buy method. Similarly, he can roll for or choose his character’s Kin and Culture, but then selects a Vocation. He notes down the bonuses, skill Ranks, and traits gained, before spending Development Points and selecting Background Options and Passions. The process is not complex, but is a little lengthy. One issue perhaps is keeping track of the differences between the Skill bonuses from Kin and Vocation, the skill Ranks provided by a Vocation, and the Development Points also provided by a Vocation which the player spends to assign further skill Ranks. Ultimately, they all provide bonuses, but from slightly different sources.

Name: Jarbad Duskheart
Kin: Dwarf
Culture: Weald
Vocation: Animist

STATS
Brawn +05 Swiftness +05 Fortitude +30 Wits +15 Wisdom +15 Bearing +20

Hit Points: 80 Maximum Hit Points: 150
Magic Points: 04 Drive: 1
Toughness Save Roll: +55 Willpower Save Roll: +40
Wealth Level: 1
Movement: 15
Defence: +05

TRAITS
Dark Sight, Forgekin, Stoneborn, Superstitious

BACKGROUNDS
Dark Past (Minor), Shapechanger (Major)

PASSIONS
Nature: I will live by the Laws of Nature under the Silver Stars.
Allegiance: My tribe, freed of Darkmaster’s grasp
Motivation: I will free my tribe, I will free all

SKILLS
Skill / Stat / Rank & Bonus / Vocation / Kin / Special / Item / Total
Armour
Armour / +05 (SWI) / 01 & +05 / +00 / +00 / +00 / +00 / +05
Combat
Blunt / +05 (BRN) / 01 & +05 / +00 / +00 / +00 / +00 / +10
Blades / +05 (BRN) / 00 & +00 / +00 / +00 / +00 / +00 / +05
Ranged / +05 (SWI) / 01 & +05 / +00 / +00 / +00 / +00 / +10
Polearms / +05 (BRN) / 02 & +10 / +00 / +00 / +00 / +00 / +15
Brawl / +05 (BRN) / 02 & +10 / +00 / +00 / +00 / +00 / +15
Adventuring
Athletics / +05 (BRN) / 02 & +10 / +00 / +00 / +00 / +00 / +15
Ride / +05 (SWI) / 00 & +00 / +00 / +00 / +00 / +00 / +05
Hunting / +15 (WIT) / 04 & +20 / +05 / +00 / +00 / +00 / +40
Nature / +15 (WSD) / 04 & +20 / +15 / +20 / +00 / +00 / +70
Wandering / +15 (WSD) / 03 & +15 / +20 / +00 / +00 / +00 / +50
Roguery
Acrobatics / +05 (SWI) / 00 & +00 / +00 / +00 / +00 / +00 / +05
Stealth / +05 (SWI) / 02 & +10 / +00 / +00 / +00 / +00 / +15
Locks & Traps / +15 (WIT) / 00 & +00 / +00 / +00 / +00 / +00 / +15
Perception / +15 (WSD) / 02 & +10 / +05 / +00 / +00 / +00 / +30
Deceive WIT / +15 (WIT) / 00 & +00 / +00 / +00 / +00 / +00 / +15
Lore
Arcana / +15 (WIT) / 01 & +05 / +10 / +00 / +00 / +00 / +30
Charisma / +20 (BEA) / 01 & +05 / +05 / +00 / +00 / +00 / +30
Cultures / +15 (WIT) / 02 & +10 / +05 / +00 / +00 / +00 / +30
Healer / +15 (WSD) / 01 & +05 / +20 / +00 / +00 / +00 / +40
Songs & Tales / +20 (BEA) / 01 & +05 / +05 / +00 / +00 / +00 / +30
Spell Lores
Aspects of Nature / +15 (WSD) / 01 & +05 / +10 / +00 / +00 / +00 / +20
Master of Animals / +15 (WSD) / 01 & +05 / +10 / +00 / +00 / +00 / +20
Master of Plants / +15 (WSD) / 01 & +05 / +10 / +00 / +00 / +00 / +20
Healing / +15 (WSD) / 02 & +10 / +10 / +00 / +00 / +00 / +35
Body
Body / +30 (FOR) / 02 & +10 / +00 / +00 / +00 / +00 / +40

Mechanically, Against the Darkmaster is ‘Powered by Open00’. The core resolution involves rolling percentile dice and adding the value of a Stat or Skill total. The roll is open-ended, meaning that if the player rolls ninety-six or above, he rolls again and adds to the total. Similarly, if he rolls four or less, he rolls again and deducts from the total. A result of four or less is a critical failure, between five and seventy-four is a failure, between seventy-five and ninety-nine is a partial success, a result of one-hundred or more is a success, and anything over one-hundred-and-seventy-five is a critical success. Modifiers range from Challenging and ‘-10’ to Insane and ‘-70’. Once rolled, dice results are final. Save Rolls are made against a Player Character’s Toughness Save for physical effects and Willpower Save Roll against fear, illusion, and mind control. Either way, the roll is made against the Save Roll Difficulty. Either way, the roll is made against the Save Roll Difficulty which is determined by the Attack Level of the effect or the result of the spell rolled by the caster.

Combat in Against the Darkmaster breaks its action down into rounds consisting of several phases—Assessment, Action Declaration, Move, Spell A, Ranged A, Melee, Ranged B, Spell B, and Other Actions. Actions in combat consist of Full Actions, Half Actions, and Free Actions. Full Actions include making a melee or ranged attack, casting a non-instantaneous spell, and moving at full Move Rate, whilst Half Actions can be readying an item or drawing a weapon, casting an instantaneous spell, and taking a Half Movement to engage a foe in melee. During a Round, a Player Character can take a Full Action and a Free Action, two Half Actions, or a Full Action and a Half Action, but both with a penalty. Free Actions include talking, singing, or chanting, making an Assessment Roll, and dropping a wielded weapon or item. The rules also cover aiming, charging, improvised weapons, fighting with two weapons, and more, including parrying, which involves reducing an attacker’s Combat Bonus and increasing his Defence by the same amount.

The actual Attack Roll uses the same open-ended roll mechanic to which is added the attacker’s Combat Bonus—derived from the total skill bonus for the weapon used or attack type spell cast and any situational modifiers—whilst the defendant’s Defence value is deducted from it. The result is cross-referenced on the appropriate table for the attack type (notably weapons are either edged or blunt, there is no piercing damage table) against the type of armour worn—none, light, medium, or heavy—to determine the damage. The damage indicates how many Hit Points are lost by the defendant and may also indicate a Critical Strike. This can be Superficial, Light, Moderate, Grievous, or Lethal, the severity indicating the bonus to be added to roll on the appropriate Critical Strike Table. Here is where there is a Critical Strike Table for piercing weapons as well as cutting and impact weapons, plus Critical Strike Tables for beasts, area effects, and various types of spell damage. Damage can come from a variety of sources, including the darkest of magic and the touch of the undead which can scar a Player Character’s very own soul. This Soul Damage drains the life of the sufferer and typically takes magic or special herbs to heal.
For example, Jarbad is part of a band that has been ambushed by a band of Orcs in the service to the Darkmaster. He is not a skilled warrior, but aids where he can. His friend has been beaten back by a marauding Orc and Jarbad runs over to help him, hoping that he can be enough of a distraction for his friend to rally. Jarbad’s player declares that the Dwarf will charge the Orc and strike him from behind. This grants him a +20 bonus to his Combat Bonus, and since he is striking from behind, the Orc will not get his Defence bonus. So Jarbad’s player is rolling the dice and adding a total Combat Bonus of +35. He rolls 91 and adds the Combat Bonus to get a result of 126. The Game Master consults the Edged Attack Table and cross-references the result against the Orc’s lamellar armour, which counts as medium. The result is that the Orc suffers 14 points of damage and a Moderate Critical Strike, which grants a +20 bonus when rolling the Critical Strike. Jarbad’s player rolls the dice (the roll is not open-ended) and with the bonus, the total is 74 which gives the result of, “Direct shot the chest. If the target’s unarmoured, the strike pierces deep: +8 Damage, 4 Bleed, and Stunned. If the target’s wearing armour: +4 Damage and 2 Bleed.” However, Jarbad’s player decides that this is not enough and declares that he will spend a point of Drive to reroll the Critical Strike, declaring that this is in line with his Allegiance Passion of ‘My tribe, freed of Darkmaster’s grasp’. The Game Master allows it and Jarbad’s player rerolls. This time the total is 144, which gives the result, “Piercing strike to the chest. If the target’s wearing rigid armor: +5 Damage, 4 Bleed, Stunned, and -20 to all actions for a deep side cut. If not: lung pierced, +15 Damage, Stunned, and -50 activity, dies in 6 hours.” The Orc staggers as Jarbad shoves his spear under his armour, forcing him to one knee, unable to act… Magic in Against the Darkmaster includes the enchanted songs of the Elves sung under the stars, the eldritch might of wizardry, and the foul sorcery of the Darkmaster and his minions. It is divided into Spell Lores, which grant the practitioner knowledge of the ten Weaves within each branch of magic covered by the Spell Lore, from simple cantrips to major feats of world changing magic. The spells are divided into Common Spell Lores, Vocational Spell Lores, and Kin Spell Lores. The Common Spell Lores—Detections, Chanting, Cleansing, Eldritch Visions, Eldritch Might, Eldritch Wards, Lore of Nature, Movements of Nature, Nature’s Path, and Sounds & Lights—can be learnt by anyone, but only to a limited extent. Both the Silver Elf and Star Elf Kin have access to the Vocational Spell Lores of Elven Lore and Spell Songs, and can learn these whatever their Vocations. The Animist Vocation learns Spell Lores like Channelling, Earth Mould, and Master of Animals, whilst the Wizard learns Spell Lores such as Eldritch Fire, Eldritch Storm, Illusions, and Mind Control.

A Spell Lore has ten Ranks and each Rank grants knowledge of one Weave or spell. For example, as Jarbad Duskheart has only the one Rank in the Masters of Nature Spell Lore, the only spell he knows is Hinder, which turns the surrounding terrain into arduous for his enemies as roots and branches seem to grasp at them, whilst for the Healing Spell Lore, he has two Ranks and knows the Heal spell which hastens natural healing and the Clotting spell which reduces the blood loss from Bleeding Wounds.

Casting spells requires concentration and a caster can gain a bonus for concentrating for a single round and longer. A spell can also be cast without this concentration, but is done at a penalty. Some spells can be cast to greater effect, improving both their Weave and their Magic Point cost. This is called Warping. For example, Frostbite is a Rank Two spell from the Eldritch Frost Spell Lore. Its effect is to numb a target with cold, leaving them sluggish, inflicting a -20 penalty on all actions, but a caster could increase this penalty by another -20 up to a maximum of -100 for increase in the Weave of two each time. Spells can also be overcast for greater effect, typically from a magical ritual, self-sacrifice, and the correct celestial alignment. Overcasting a spell is more difficult, but does increase the Weave.

However, casting spells is not without its dangers within a land beset by the Darkmaster. If a player rolls doubles whilst his character casts a spell, the Game Master must make a ‘Magical Resonance Roll’. Depending on the location where the spell is cast and the type of spell, nothing might happen except for an inquisitive shadow fleetingly passing over, or the Darkmaster might be alerted to the caster’s presence or location and send his servants after him. A simple failure to cast a spell can also leave the caster stunned, the spell affecting someone other than the target, or worse.

Against the Darkmaster also provides detailed rules for movement—and specifically, extended travel, and the hazards and perils that a fellowship might face, complete with tables of possible hazards, terrain by terrain. The rules also cover campsites and the establishment, finding, and use of safe havens. These are intended to be exceptional locations, places where the Player Characters can rest and recuperate, but also train and mediate, study and conduct research, or simply relax, and eventually, even retire. Beyond the core rules, there is advice for the Game Master in terms of preparing and running the game, covering the principles of the role, how to pitch the game to the players, develop a scenario and a campaign, handling NPCs, running battles and war and how to involve the Player Characters, and more. There are options for generational play, play beyond Level Ten, and low magic campaigns, in which case, the Animist, Champion, Dabbler, and Wizard Vocations are replaced by the Sage Vocation. The bestiary, from Awakened Tree, Boggart, and Demon to Wild Best, Wight, and Wraith, is short with just thirty entries, but all feel appropriate to add to a Tolkienesque setting.

Against the Darkmaster does include magical items, but they are not intended to be common within a campaign, each item feeling special and unique, complete with a history. They include potions, items that grant skill or Stat bonuses or extra Magic Points, items that cast spells, weapons that have slaying ability woven into them that always ensure that any Critical Strike is lethal, and so on. There are notes on cursed items, enchanted materials, items of power that require attunement. The rules are supported with a treasury of various potencies.

Of course, the signature NPC in Against the Darkmaster is the Darkmaster itself. In Middle-earth and The Lord of the Rings, the Darkmaster is, of course, Sauron, the Dark Lord. In Against the Darkmaster, the Game Master gets to create her own. This includes creating a suitable epithet like ‘The Timeless Dark of Hate’ or ‘The Black Angel of Despair’, and a Covet Artefact, complete with power, drawback, bane, and prophecy. For example, the spear, which can be thrown at any foe in sight, slaying them, but there is one champion who will be able to catch it and throw it back at the wielder, killing him, whilst the spear will impale the heart of the Darkmaster, putting Him at rest. Should it ever be pulled out, the Darkmaster will be returned to life. To this, the Game Master can add servants, a dark place, and dark powers, including eldritch horror, life scourge, offering dark temptation, and heralding eternal winter. The mark of the Darkmaster upon a Player Character is measured by Taint, typically when a Dark Spell Lore is learned or a Tainted Magic Item is used. Taint corrupts a Player Character’s Passions, so that his Motivation becomes an Obsession, then his Allegiance a Dark Oath, and their Nature a Perversion. After this, the Player Character becomes an NPC. It is possible to find redemption from this, but only the one attempt can be made. There is good advice on exploring the how and why a Darkmaster came to be, and how to create his appearance and goals, and there are also three, ready-to-use examples, including ‘The Horned King of Annwn’, ‘The Witch Queen of Despair’, and ‘The Blood Lord of War’. These three and the details of the Dark Sorcery and Necromancy Spell Lores that follow, are presented on, thematically and appropriately, enough, black pages!

Rounding out Against the Darkmaster is ‘Shadows of the Northern Woods’, a complete mini-setting and campaign consisting of three scenarios, plus six pre-generated Player Characters and example Passions appropriate to the setting. That setting is the fortified settlement of Willow Lake and the surrounding vale. Whilst an ancient Darkmaster lurks on the other side of the mountains to the north, the scenarios involve hunting for a beast that stalks the surrounding area that has recently gone from killing livestock and stealing things to killing an inhabitant of Willow Lake, attempting to deal with the real threat to Willow Lake as the settlement is attacked by a scouting party from the Darkmaster’s army to the north, and preventing the destruction of Willow Lake, so saving everyone in the process. The region is nicely detailed and together the three scenarios should provide multiple session’s worth of playing, taking the Player Characters up to Level Three. If the tone of the campaign is suitably Tolkienesque, the setting still feels like a setting for a more generic fantasy roleplaying campaign. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but an indication that it is written to be played and concessions have had to be made.
Against the Darkmaster can be played as a traditional fantasy roleplaying game and the rules and content do support that. Where it shines though is in setting up and supporting a world imperilled by a great threat personified in the form of the Darkmaster, whilst at the same constraining some of the wider excesses of more traditional fantasy roleplaying games with a relatively limited bestiary and availability and choice of magical items. The lack of the latter makes them more interesting and important when they do appear and means that the Player Characters will be relying very much on their own skills and spells. In some ways this feels more like low rather than high fantasy, but the Player Characters do all have access to magic if they want it and they and their world are threatened by a great and powerful magic. In addition, within this framework, Against the Darkmaster provides plenty of options and advice on changing aspects of the rules, so that the Game Master and her players can play the game how they want.

Physically, Against the Darkmaster is a massive book, done in black and white. It is well written—though it does need an edit in places, it is easy to read, the artwork has a classic fantasy roleplaying feel to it, and its looks are deceptive. It is a big book, but the layout is quite open so that it never feels cramped or as if you can never find anything.

Against the Darkmaster: The Classic Game of Fantasy Adventure is not a direct retroclone of Middle-earth Role Playing: a complete system for adventuring in J.R.R. Tolkien’s World, but then it does not claim to be. Instead, it is heavily inspired by Middle-earth Role Playing, so much so that it does not so much wear that inspiration on its sleeve as wrap it around itself like a hooded elven cloak with an evil lord (who is definitely not Sauron) attached like an elven brooch. This it builds around a classic percentile system that is presented in an impressively clean, tidy, and accessible fashion with options and suggestions to adjust the game however the Game Master and her players want. The result is that for the group that wants to play classic roleplaying game in a Tolkienesque style, then Against the Darkmaster: The Classic Game of Fantasy Adventure is a great choice.

For many, their first expose to the world of Lovecraftian investigative horror and conspiracy that is Delta Green would have been the scenario, Puppet Shows and Shadow Plays, which appeared in the Delta Green sourcebook published for use with Call of Cthulhu by Pagan Publishing in 1997. However, it was not the first scenario for Delta Green. That was Convergence and if On the Trail of the Loathsome Slime is not only one of the most important scenarios ever to be published for Call of Cthulhu and certainly the one with the best ever title, then Convergence is certainly its equal, in importance, if not the humour of its title. On the Trail of the Loathsome Slime, published in 1983 by Games Workshop, based on the article, ‘Cthulhu Now! - Call of Cthulhu in the 1980s’ which appeared in White Dwarf #42 (June 1983), followed by ‘Cthulhu Now! - Part 2: Mini-Scenario outlines for Call of Cthulhu in the 1980s’ in the next issue, introduced the concept of roleplaying in the modern day for Call of Cthulhu. Up until that point, scenarios and campaigns had been set in the Jazz Age of the Roaring Twenties. With On the Trail of the Loathsome Slime, players could have their Investigators encounter the Cthulhu Mythos in the world that they were familiar with, that is, their then here and now. If On the Trail of the Loathsome Slime updated Call of Cthulhu, then Convergence not only updated it by another decade, but it also introduced both an entirely new way of playing it and an entirely new reason to play it. In introducing Delta Green, what Convergence did was give a reason as to why the Player Characters are investigating the Mythos, that they are both investigating and covering up evidence of the Mythos.

Convergence, though, was not widely available when first published. This was in the pages of The Unspeakable Oath, Issue 7, published in the Autumn of 1992 by Pagan Publishing. Originally published for Call of Cthulhu, Fifth Edition, Arc Dream Publishing [has since updated the scenario for use with Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game. The scenario begins in September 1996, after the FBI and Georgia state troopers arrest Billy Ray Spivey, a teenager who has been on a strangely reluctant rampage, robbing gas stations and killing an attendant with punch, in pain, and fleeing his family after killing his father. Medical analysis of the teenager reveals that the muscles in his arms and legs have been entirely replaced with a strange tissue that mimics human muscle, but possesses non-human characteristics, and his arms and legs are covered with microscopic scars. This occurred after he disappeared for two days some nine days ago. The contact for the Agents—as the Player Characters in Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game—assigns them to travel to Spivey’s hometown of Groversville, Tennessee, investigate what happened to him and find out who or what performed the surgery on him.

The Player Characters are Federal Agents, but for this operation go undercover conducting an investigation into Spivey’s drug connections. Their investigation should be as low key as the town is sleepy and quiet, there being an air of melancholy to the place. In the course of their investigation, the Agents will discover classic signs of UFO activity—signs of abductions, cattle mutilation, and more… Then, Convergence really puts the knife in. The Agents are given a means of detecting the cause of Spivey’s condition and it is everywhere… If that is not enough, Convergence takes a firm grip of the handle of the knife and gives it a hard twist or two. Not only are the Agents being monitored—not once, but thrice over, by agents human and inhuman, and cowboy media ready to put them under the spotlight. In both ways, Convergence quickly amplifies its horror and the horror in which the Agents find themselves in. It serves this up in a couple of really great set-pieces, one of which will put the players off from going into motel bathrooms for life! There really are some scenes in the scenario which are going to make the players go, “Oh shit!” This is an indication of the quality of the writing, combined with the quality of the ideas underlying Delta Green. Ultimately, the play of Convergence boils down to two things. One is surviving. The other is surviving and conducting a successful cover up of the investigation. Both are incredibly challenging and there is high chance of a total party kill in the scenario.
If there is an issue with Convergence it is the television series, The X-Files. Both the setting of Delta Green and The X-Files deal with similar subjects and feel similar. However, Delta Green predates The X-Files, but nevertheless, Convergence very feels like an episode of the television series. A very nasty episode. Any player who goes into the scenario thinking that it was going to be like the television series would have received a big shock.

Physically, Convergence is superbly presented in the standard style for Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game. The artwork is also great, as you would expect from Dennis Detwiller.

Convergence is short, no surprise given its original appearance as a scenario in a semi-professional magazine. But it packs a punch—quite literally. Convergence was a great introduction to the conspiratorial world of Delta Green in 1992, establishing the pattern for Delta Green operations and scenarios for decades to come. It is still a horrifyingly scary three decades on…

The Cave of Our People is a scenario for Primal Quest – Weird Stone & Sorcery Adventure Game. This roleplaying game of a Stone Age that never was, inspired by the fiction and films of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Thundarr the Barbarian, Horizon Zero Dawn, the Cavemaster RPG and Hollow Earth Expedition, and more. This is a world in which humanity survives alongside dinosaurs and other creatures and ancient secrets and aliens lurk, with the Player Characters as warriors and hunters, shamans and sorcerers, exploring an environment dominated by a nature untrammeled by mankind. The Cave of Our People is a short, one session—two at most—scenario designed to introduce players and their characters to the Stone Age world of Primal Quest. The Player Characters want to join the People of the Vale. This can be as children wanting to become adult members of the tribe or it can be as newcomers to the area wanting to join the tribe. The latter is the default for the scenario, but either way, the Player Characters will have to undergo an initiation, and it is this initiation that will take the Player Characters into ‘The Cave of Our People’. This cave is located in a stony hill just north of Lakit and it is here that the people of Lakit bury their ancestors. In this way, the cave also serves as a link between them and the wise spirits who reside inside, and this is why it is thus used to initiate newcomers to the customs of the People of the Vale.
The Cave of Our People begins with the Player Characters in a cave with no other exit than the one to the outside,, drinking tea made with rare herbs and magic mushrooms by Brikla, the village elder, shaman, and leader. Under the influence of the tea, the Player Characters undergo a series of challenges. They will fight the Ape King, harvest fruits from an ancient mother tree, be tested by the environment, come to the help of others—both dead and alive, and even make a leap into the unknown… Each encounter will both mystify and challenge the players and their characters in different ways. This will seem like a random series of encounters and for the most part it is. However, there are acts that may not be obvious, but if done, the Player Characters will earn more Experience Points and if they can make it to the end of the cave system (though there is scope for the Game Master to expand it if she wants), they may be able to learn about some of the particular tasks which will earn them these Experience Points, so tenacity and clever play will prevail.
At the end of the initiation, the Player Characters awaken to find themselves in the cave where they started. This brings the scenario to a close as well, but it also sets up what is the most fun part of the scenario. Each of the Player Characters gets to draw a cave painting to add to the wall based on their experiences in the cave, but the best bit is that the players get to draw this out themselves. Even better, is the fact is that given that these are cave paintings, the players do not have to be the best artists to draw them. The scenario even has a blank page of stone where the players could draw them.

Physically, The Cave of Our People is cleanly and simply laid out. The scenario is solidly written, whilst the artwork and the cartography are both excellent.

The Cave of Our People is simple and straightforward, an easy introduction to Primal Quest – Weird Stone & Sorcery Adventure Game. It is also simple to adapt so that a Game Master could run it for Paleomythic: A Stone and Sorcery Roleplaying Game and other Stone Age roleplaying games.

On the night of Sunday, 21st August 1955 and the early morning of Monday, 22nd August 1955, five adults and seven children, residents near the communities of near the communities of Kelly and Hopkinsville in Christian County, Kentucky, were attacked in their farmhouse home. For four hours they held off an assault by small, dark alien creatures peering in their windows and doors. Were the strange creatures, nicknamed the ‘Hopkinsville Goblins’, actually extraterrestrials from outer space, having just landed in their UFO, something else, or as the United States Air Force officially classified the encounter for a Project Blue Book, a hoax? Although the event has passed into folklore and become a renowned close encounter case amongst UFOlogists, even celebrated as the Little Green Men Days Festival in Kelly community, most regard it as a hoax. Now, your players have an opportunity to find out for themselves as their characters investigate a similar case in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. Published by Yeti Spaghetti and Friends, Horror in Hopkinsville is a short, one-night horror scenario, part of and first in the publisher’s ‘Frightshow Classics’ line. Ostensibly written for use with Chill or Cryptworld: Chilling Adventures into the Unexplained, the percentile mechanics of the scenario mean that it could easily be adapted to run with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition and similar roleplaying games, whilst its UFOlogical themes that it would very well with Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game.

Horror in Hopkinsville does not concern the infamous Kelly-Hopkinsville encounter directly. Rather it is a sequel in which the Player Characters investigate another incident and so might posit a cause for both. David and Julia Wright have been terrorised in recent weeks by strange and unusual occurrences in and around their house. Scratching sounds on the roof late at night, followed chittering or ‘clicking’ noises, loud thumps on the side of the house, the electricity in the house flickering, and the camera system that the Wrights installed to capture evidence of the culprits broke down, whilst the motion-sensor lights have proven ineffective, having detected nothing. The Wrights have been unable to find any cause and are almost at their wits’ end, so they want the matter investigated. The scenario suggests several ways in which the Player Characters might get involved—being a friend or relation of the Wrights, other inhabitants in the town having suffered similar incidences and indicate that the Wrights might have witnessed something, the Wrights revealed their story to a local paranormal or UFO study group of which the Player Characters are members, or the Player Characters are members of a secret organisation that investigates the paranormal or UFOs and are responding to a report made by the Wrights. However, the eight Player Characters provided in Horror in Hopkinsville are really only suited to the first three options rather than the fourth.

Prior to the start of the adventure proper, the Player Characters get to do some research, either using the Humanities/History, Journalism, or Paranormal/Folklore skills. Both the skills and their results reveal at the very least the details of the Kelly-Hopkinsville, and are also easily adapted to the roleplaying game of the Game Master’s choice. The scenario proper begins with the arrival of the Player Characters at the Wright family home on a quiet Wednesday evening. There they have the opportunity to both interview the family, including with some care, the Wright’s eight-year-old daughter, Tianna, and investigate the house. The inference is, of course, that whatever is plaguing the house, has some connection with Tianna, that, for example, she might be psychic. Investigation quickly reveals evidence that something is going on and this is confirmed as the action quickly heats up. The scenario neatly accounts for most of the options that the Player Characters might take, such as one of their number watching from outside whilst the rest investigate inside, but whatever the Player Characters do, it should lead up to a couple of jump scares and the revelation that there is something under the Wright family home—in the sewers!

If the scenario is fairly tightly plotted up until this point, the Player Characters have more freedom of action after they descend into the sewers under the street around the Wright family home and begin searching for the strange creatures that have been lurking near and scratching the house. Effectively, the scenario becomes a bug hunt in the dark, broken by the cold beam of their torches and the hissing of the white, pasty creatures. The scenario includes some encounter descriptions for when the Player Characters are down in the sewers, but does feel underwritten. Perhaps the possibility of the creatures having kidnapped the Wrights’ baby son might have provided some impetus for the Player Characters to act and it would have been interesting if the creatures’ lair were described so that the Player Characters could not only find it, but also find evidence that the activities of the creatures are connected to the Kelly-Hopkinsville encounter?

By the end of the scenario, the authorities will have arrived and the Player Characters will need to justify their actions, running around in the sewers, firing guns being frowned upon. This will take some persuasion, but will be easier if the Player Characters are members of a secret government agency. That agency might want to clean up the area and cover up the story even if they are not.

Physically, Horror in Hopkinsville is well presented, although the choice of font and artwork is a little heavy in style. This though, does not mean that it is bad. The scenario is not badly written, although it does need an edit in places and it is written for an American audience, so the Game Master may need to look up a term or two. The cartography of both the house and the sewers is decent, whilst the front cover is excellent, echoing the look and feel of the classic covers for the Chill roleplaying game and pulp horror paperback books.

Horror in Hopkinsville is designed to be a pulp horror scenario, one that is easy to run and quick to prepare—and that is the case, no matter which roleplaying rules the Game Master decides to use. However, it is not a sophisticated plot or story and the Game Master may want to develop it a bit further herself. However, for a single evening’s worth of straightforward, easy-to-prepare, pulp action horror, Horror in Hopkinsville is a decent choice.

There are days when its gets really dreary and boring, such as every late Sunday afternoon before you go back to school or that last week of the holidays before you back to school. When you are down in the dump or got lost in the doldrums, what is a kid to do? Well, when your friends come round to play and when your mother is not looking, why not summon demons? Which is exactly what the kids do in Let’s Summon Demons. This is a card and dice game published by Cryptozoic Entertainment following a successful Kickstarter campaign and based on the art of Steven Rhodes, noted for its sly, subversive dig at the social attitudes and fears of the seventies and eighties. The idea behind is simple. Collect and take advantage of the souls of boys and girls and animals, and when the right moment comes, sacrifice three of them to summon a demon. Summon a total of three demons and have enough souls and the player will win the game. Designed for two to five players, aged fourteen and up, Let’s Summon Demons can be played in about thirty minutes or so and is a fast-paced, fun experience. Of course, there is the problem of theme. It is silly and ridiculous, but its theme means that it is not going be to everyone’s taste, so they need not read this review, let alone play Let’s Summon Demons.

So… Still here?

Great.

I will carry on.

Let’s Summon Demons consists of one-hundred-and-twenty-five cards, forty Soul Tokens, and two six-sided dice, and a twelve-page mini-rulebook. The cards are broken down into five Candle Cards, twenty Demon Cards, and one hundred The Block Cards. There are two noticeable features of these cards. One is that they round rather than rectangular and some 5 cm in diameter, and the other is the vibrancy of their colour and artwork. They also have numbers on them. When these numbers are rolled in the game, they will trigger the action on the card. Sometimes even when it is not your turn and sometimes only when it is your turn. The Candle Cards are what each player starts the game with. Each is marked with a candle and a range of numbers between two and twelve which differs from one Candle Card to the next. When the numbers are rolled on the Candle Cards, even when it is not a player’s turn, let him collect a Soul Token, the currency in the game. The Candle Cards include the ‘Good Candle’, the ‘Kind Candle’, the ‘Beginner’s Candle’, ‘Rotten Candle’, and the ‘Evil Candle’, which add flavour rather than a mechanical benefit.

The Demon Cards include ‘Baphometal’, ‘Rosemary’s Egg’, ‘Re-Rollucifer’, ‘Dollargorgon’, and more. Their effects are either on-going or triggered when the player owning them rolls the number on them. For example, ‘Dice-Zuzzu’ lets a player Soul Tokens equal to the result of one of the dice when he rolls doubles and ‘The Serpent’ which automatically wins the game for the player when rolls a two.

The Block Cards consist of boys and girls and animals. Some of the boys and girls are described as ‘Sweet’, some as ‘Rotten’, others neither, and the animals are neither ‘Sweet’ or ‘Rotten’. For example, ‘Sweet Lisa’, ‘Sweet Chuck’, and ‘Sweet Pippi’ and ‘Rotten Regan’, ‘Rotten Donnie’, and ‘Rotten Carrie’. The Block Cards differ from the Candle Cards in two ways. One is that they only have a single number on them and the other is that each boy or girl or animal has a special ability that is activated when rolled. For example, ‘Sweet Marilyn’ gains the player a boy from The Block; ‘Rotten Delores’ forces every player to discard very ‘Sweet’ boy or girl they have in play and replace with a new card drawn from The Block whilst the owning player receives a new ‘Rotten’ boy or girl; and the ‘Rabid Dog’ lets a player collect two Soul Tokens if he has no boys or girls.

At the start of the game, each player receives a Candle Card, five Soul Tokens, and three Demon Cards. The latter he holds in his hand until each is summoned. Five cards from The Block are drawn and laid out face up. On his turn, a player can do three things in any order. The first is roll the dice, the second is to buy one of The Block Cards on the table, and the third is to summon a Demon from his hand. It costs three Soul Tokens to buy one of The Block cards on the table and it takes three of The Block Cards from in front of a player for him to summon a Demon in his hand. It is generally better to buy one of The Block Cards before the dice are rolled because this will increase the range of numbers that a player might roll and because each new The Block Card grants an extra effect when rolled. When the dice are rolled, the current player compares the result with the numbers on The Block Cards in front of him, and if any of them match, he activates their results in any order. Then the player next to him does the same and so on and son on round the table. If the current player has any Demons in play, can activate or use its action if it is an ongoing one or can compare the result with the number on the card to activate its effect. This happens only for the current player.

Play continues like this until one player has summoned all three Demons from his hand and is declared the winner. Which sounds simple enough—and it is. Let’s Summon Demons is a simple, straightforward ‘engine builder’, the type of game in which the player attempts to set up as efficient a system as he can to improve what he can do on later turns. Thus, a player wants to get as good a spread of numbers on The Block Cards he has so their actions are regularly activated when he rolls their numbers, but so do the other players. Ideally, this will generate more Soul Tokens with which to purchase more boys and girls and animals and with more boys and girls and animals he potentially has more actions and he can sacrifice them more quickly to summon Demons. However, Let’s Summon Demons is a game about summoning demons and demons are notoriously chaotic and so is Let’s Summon Demons. Further, summoning demons requires sacrifices and so does Let’s Summon Demons. What this means that whilst some of The Block Cards will give as player more Soul Tokens or let him draw a card from The Block, others will let him steal one from another player or force him to discard or replace one or more The Block Cards from in front of him. So, the play of the game is chaotic as The Block Cards a player has to roll on from one turn to the next can change, forcing him to adapt. Added to this chaos is the fact that to summon a Demon, a player must sacrifice three of The Block Cards he has in front him, which removes options in terms of rolling the dice and their outcome. Every time then, a player summons a Demon, he steps back a bit in terms of progress and has to build up the engine again by buying more boys and girls and animals.

There is a knowing sense of humour to the game. For example, ‘Rosemary’s Egg’, depicting a demonic egg on a pram, forces the player who summoned it to discard ‘Rosemary’s Egg’, but let the player summon three Demons, keep one, and discard the other two. From The Block Cards, ‘Sweet Lisa’ is based on Lisa Simpson from The Simpsons, ‘Sweet Pippi’ is Pippi Longstockings, ‘Rotten Regan’ is from The Exorcist, ‘Rotten Annie’ is from Misery, and the ‘Stray Cat’ is surrounded by a guitar and lots of records. Spotting these references—most of which are obvious—is part of the fun of playing Let’s Summon Demons.

Physically, Let’s Summon Demons is very nicely presented. The artwork is lot of fun and adds a great deal to the play of the game with its knowing references. The rulebook is simple and easy to understand, but the Soul Tokens are a bit plain given the decent production values of the rest of the game.

Whilst the theme might not be for everyone, for those have no issue with the theme, Let’s Summon Demons is probably the game with the most depth to its play from any of those based on Steve Rhodes’ artwork. That said, it is a very light game with plenty of luck and some take that elements, the relative depth of the game play coming from the players’ need to adapt to its constant chaotic and disruptive nature. Let’s Summon Demons is a disrupted engine builder with an easy theme to grasp and a quite literally artful sense of humour.

The Cypher System was introduced in 2013 with Numenera, the Science Fantasy roleplaying game of exploration and adventure the very far future, published by Monte Cook Games. Numenera would go on to win the 2014 Origins Award for ‘Best New Roleplaying Game’, the 2014 Ennie Award for Best Writing, the 2014 Ennie Award for Best Setting, and 2014 Ennie Award for Product of the Year, be the basis of its own set of mechanics in the form of the Cypher System, and introduce new ideas in terms of roleplaying, such as player-facing mechanics and Game Master Intrusions, a new way of narratively increasing tension and awarding Experience Points. The Cypher System also offered numerous options in terms of Player Characters, expressed in a way that clearly described what each did and which was also exciting. Since the Cypher System first appeared, it has gone on to cover numerous different genres and even be used as the rules for roleplaying games based on a podcast or two. Whilst Numenera would receive its introduction to the game and setting in the form of the Numenera Starter Set in 2017, and even a starter campaign in 2024 with The Glimmering Valley, it is surprising to note that the Cypher System has not had its own starter set, its own introduction to the core game rules in all of that time. However, the Cypher System Starter Set, published in 2024, changes that.
The Cypher System Starter Set comes with two books, ten character sheets, a cheat sheet, a poster map, two mini-decks of cards, and two dice. The two books are the ‘Player’s Book’ and the ‘Game Master’s Book’, both thirty-two pages in length. The ten characters provide pre-generated Player Characters for the two scenarios included in the ‘Game Master’s Book’, one Science Fiction and one fantasy. The poster map provides maps of two locations, the cards—the XP cards and the GM Intrusion Cards—are for handling certain aspects of play, and the dice consist of one twenty-sided die and one six-sided die.
The ‘Player’s Book’ is marked ‘Read This First’. The starting point is an introduction to the Cypher System rather than roleplaying in general, but it provides an overview of what is in the box before leaping into an explanation of the rules. These begin with the eight basic rules, explaining in turn that there are four character types—Warrior, Adept, Explorer, and Speaker, there are three stats—Might, Speed, and Intellect that are pools of points which can be spend for various effects, that players make all the rolls, that the use of abilities can cost points, by spending points or ‘applying Effort’ an action can be made easier, damage suffered reduces the stat pools, but they can be recovered through rest, and any skill can be learned and both skills and assets can make actions easier. With this groundwork laid, the ‘Player’s Book’ expands on these so that in five pages, including how a GM Intrusion works on a roll of one, spending XP for rerolls, the benefits of high rolls, and the damage track, and the reader has a clear and simple explanation of how the rules work. This is followed by an example of play, which to be fair, is not a new example of play, but it works, illustrating how the game works for the reader after he has been told how it works. Having it this close to the rules is also more helpful than having it appear at the end of the book as in some rulebooks for the Cypher System.
This is followed by an explanation of the system’s namesake, the Cyphers, the one-use benefits or powers that can grant a Player Character in play, a list of arms, armour, and equipment for the fantasy and Science Fiction genres as well as the modern day.
Perhaps the biggest surprise in the Cypher System Starter Set is it includes rules for character generation. This is unheard of in any starter set which instead makes use of pre-generated Player Characters. It begins with explaining how the descriptive sentence at heart of every Player Character in the Cypher System works. This sentence has the structure of “I am a [adjective] [noun] who [verbs]”, where the noun is the character’s Type; the adjective a Descriptor, such as Clever or Swift, that defines the character and how he does things; and the verb is the Focus or what the character does that makes him unique. For example, “I am a Fast Warrior Who Needs No Weapons” or “I am a Clever Adept Who Command Mental Powers”. There is a guide for modifying characters, but the rules here, complete with explanations of what each character Type—Warrior, Adept, Explorer, and Speaker—can do along with options for both the Descriptor and Focus. This allows a player to create a wide range of characters, though they cannot advance beyond Tier 1 (the full rules take a Player Character up to Tier 6). Rounded out with a glossary, the ‘Player’s Book’ is a very good introduction to the Cypher System, which the players could refer to in play beyond the contents of the Cypher System Starter Set. It also provides a means of creating characters as well, one with limited options, but also one that does not threaten to overwhelm the prospective player like the Cypher System Rulebook might.
The longer ‘Game Master’s Book’ is marked ‘Read This Second’. It explains how to be a Game Master and handle the rules, including setting task difficulties, awarding XP, combat, and so on. There is an explanation of how Cyphers work in the game and a list of twenty or so Cyphers that can be used in either scenario contained in the ‘Game Master’s Book’. GM Instructions have been mentioned previously in both books, but here they are given a fuller explanation. They are designed to make a situation and the Player Character’s life more interesting or more complicated. For example, the Player Character might automatically set off a trap or an NPC important to the Player Character is imperilled. When this happens, the Game Master hands the character’s player two XP cards. He can keep one of these, but must give one to another player. The player can refuse the intrusion, but that means his character and someone else’s character do not earn any XP. Plus, it is not any fun. A GM Intrusion can also occur if a player rolls a one on any action. There is also a short bestiary in the ‘Game Master’s Book’, but the latter half of the book is taken up by two scenarios.
‘Creeping Ooze’ is the fantasy scenario. In it, the Player Characters are hunting for an Elf Necromancer when they are ambushed by a Necromantic Ooze (and the players’ first GM Intrusion) whose slime leads back to a vault known as the Shattered Seal. The scenario is short, but offers opportunities for combat, exploration, and interaction, including being able to deal with a threat without having to resort to combat. Notes and stats are given in the sidebars, including some inventive GM Intrusions. The Science Fiction scenario is ‘Xambit Station’. The Player Characters are accompanying their friend, Arbiter Jemsen, to Xambit Station where they are to act as his bodyguards and eyes and ears whilst he conducts some talks between the rival Crimson Conglomerate and Ranj Alliance factions. This adventure is more complex than ‘Creeping Ooze’, having a plot and requiring the players and their characters to be more proactive. Arbiter Jemsen directs the Player Characters to essentially snoop around and investigate the station and its personnel to determine if there is any plan or attempt to disrupt the talks. The relative complexity of the scenario means that the sidebars are much busier and there is much for the Player Characters to do, especially in technical and social terms. There is scope for combat in the scenario, but consists primarily of tavern brawls and fistfights in space. Overall, a decent little adventure. Of the two, the ‘Creeping Ooze’ will probably take a session to play through whilst ‘Xambit Station’ will probably take two.
Both scenarios are supported with a set of five pre-generated Player Characters each. The fantasy ones consist of a ‘Stealthy Explorer who Moves Like a Cat’, a ‘Learned Adept who Bears a Halo of Fire’, a ‘Clever Speaker who Works Miracles’, and an ‘Exiled Explorer who Masters Weaponry’, whilst the Science Fiction ones consist of a ‘Stealthy Explorer who Moves Like a Cat’, a ‘Sharp-Eyed Explorer who Pilots Starcraft’, a ‘Clever Adept who Talks to Machines’, an ‘Honourable Warrior who Fuses Flesh and Steel’. Effectively, there are only slight variations in terms of the Player Characters between the two scenarios and whilst that does showcase how very similar characters can work in different genres, it does mean that Player Characters do not make the fullest use of the options presented in the ‘Player’s Book’.
In addition, the poster map gives a map of the Sealed Vault in the ‘Creeping Ooze’ and a map for the scenario called ‘Entombed in Ice’. Which is odd, because that scenario does not appear in the Cypher System Starter Set. The cards in the Cypher System Starter Set consist of two types. The XP Deck is made up of just XP cards. These are nicely illustrated and come with tips for the players and Game Master. The Intrusion deck consists of ideas for GM Intrusions for combat, interaction, and miscellaneous situations that the Game Master can draw from for inspiration.
Physically, Cypher System Starter Set is very nicely produced. It is superbly illustrated and solidly written, so that anyone with some roleplaying experience can pick up the rules very easily.
However, the Cypher System Starter Set is far from perfect. The tuck-style box that it comes in is flimsy, more so given the current format for starter sets. There is probably too much similarity between the Player Characters for the different genres of the two scenarios and more than one Reference Card would have been useful. As would a map of the space station in ‘Xambit Station’, which is a major omission. And the players are definitely going to want more twenty-sided dice. One is not enough. Lastly, it would be nice to see further support for the content of Cypher System Starter Set, perhaps a book of scenarios that would allow the Player Characters in the two scenarios have further adventures.

Overall, the Cypher System Starter Set is a solid introduction to the Cypher System. It is well written and presented with character options aplenty to showcase some of the choices available, and if the scenarios are a little short, they do demonstrate some of the flexibility and possibilities of genre that the Cypher System is capable of supporting.

Your nation and your homeland is peaceful. You and your fellow citizens have known peace for a thousand years. You have prospered and gained great knowledge, but not in the arts of war. That lacking in the arts of war is both your undoing and that of your homeland. For it is under attack. The conquering armies of Styrovites have invaded Lannia and are now sweeping across its green and pleasant land, putting all to the sword and the flame. What hope have you, if not soldiers to field in battle and to protect the innocent, than to turn to that great knowledge—of science and of magic—and seek a remedy in that? As a member of the Council of Sages you have decided that if you cannot train and field an army in time to save Lannia, then you will create an army. Through ancient sorcery and desperate science, you will create soldiers that will serve Lannia and save Lannia, capable of standing up against the barbaric hordes of the Styrovites. In so doing, you have turned to ancient myths and legends for inspiration and named your creations after a spirit who killed the wicked. That spirit was called Orcus. Thus, your super soldiers will be called Orcs, and although you do not know it, they may well be your nation’s undoing and not the Styrovites!

This is the set-up for Dawn of the Orcs, a collective storytelling game played without a Game Master. Published by Lyme and Plasmophage, it can be played solo or it can be played by as many as eight players. It is designed to be played in about two hours or less and requires a six-sided and a ten-sided die to play. The rise of the orcs, the defeat of the Styrovites, and ultimately, the fall of Lannia is told over the course of eight chapters. In the first chapter, the players, as members of the Council of Sages create the Orcs, then in subsequent chapters, they send the Orcs to war and have a chance to modify the Orcs, either to improve their prowess or curb it if a trait is proving too difficult to handle. Whilst all of the members of the Council of Sages agree on the aims of creating the Orcs and using them to defend Lannia, there is scope for betrayal—at least in terms of what the Orcs are. Lastly, although the roleplaying game does not require a Game Master, the players do take it in turn to narrate the outcome of each chapter and break any ties if disagreements about what the council should do are deadlocked.

Each player in Dawn of the Orcs roleplays a member of the Council of Sages. He does not have any stats, but does have a descriptor, an area of expertise, and a title, as well as a motivation. These can be rolled for or created by the player and provide the basis for his roleplaying. The process is simple and fast.

Title: Assistant General of the West
Motivation: Wreak terrible vengeance for all that I have suffered

The Orcs are different. They have four stats—Numbers, Loyalty, Brute, and Clever. Their creation involves deciding how they are made and how they are bound in loyalty to the Lannia. So, if they are forged from sorcery and raw materials, they gain +1 Numbers, but +1 Loyalty if any Lannian can be turned into an Orc. Similarly, if they are bound in loyalty to one person, they gain +2 Loyalty, or bound in loyalty to nothing, they gain +1 to any other stat. In each, the players decide on the answer to a prompt, such as in the case of the being forged from sorcery and raw materials, what they are made from, and if they are bound in loyalty to one person, who that is.

Orcs
Numbers -1 Loyalty 2 Brute 1 Clever 0
Only children under five can be turned into Orcs
They are loyal to the Holy Mother

In subsequent chapters, the Orcs are sent into battle. For example, the first is ‘The Slaughter of Shrike Forest’ when the Orcs strike at an encampment of Styrovites in the middle of the night. To determine if the Orcs win, the Council of Sages decides on a stratagem. This is a value equal to the combination of any two of the Orcs’ stats, to which the roll of a six-sided die is added. If it beats the target set for the battle, the Orcs are victorious. At the end of the battle, the Orcs Warp and almost bodily learn from the conflict, as if in constant flux through the stress of combat. For example, the Orcs might learn to fly into a battle rage and gain +1 Brute or gain the ability to see at night and +1 Clever. The Orcs gain more of these Warps from victory than from defeat. In the aftermath of the battle, the Council of Sages can Shift the Orcs, each Shift granting a benefit as well as a penalty. For example, the Council of Sages could decide to educate the Orcs which means that they gain +1 Clever and suffer -1 Loyalty. The Council of Sages can choose as many or as few Shifts as it once, but they do balance each other out and they may also be cancelled if a Sage decides to betray the council to change a decision. Each Sage only gets to betray the council once.

The play of the game revolves around selecting the right stratagem—the combination of two stats—to add to the roll to defeat the enemy and win or lose each battle, and decide on what stats to improve afterwards. The catch is that once a combination has been used, whether that is Clever plus Numbers or Loyalty plus Brute, it cannot be used again. So, the players also need to improve as many stats as they can to defeat the invaders rather than focus on the one stat, since it can only be used a limited number of times. At the end of each chapter, the narrator will tell the story of what happened, whether the Orcs were defeated or triumphed.

After five chapters, which will see the Orcs fight the Styrovites again and again, eventually invading the Styrovite heartlands, the Orcs are no longer wanted in Lannia and no longer want to serve Lannia. They mutiny. The members of the Council of Sages can side with Lannia or with the Orcs and the outcome of the mutiny decided on the highest roll of the two factions. There are multiple outcomes for the result, depending upon whether the mutiny was successful and what the highest Orc stat is. For example, if the Orc mutiny is a success and Clever is their highest stat, they overthrow the government of Lannia, but if a failure and their highest stat is Clever, they form nomadic bands which serve as mercenaries. Each of the possible outcomes is accompanied by a narrative prompt.

Although there are eight different outcomes at the end of Dawn of the Orcs, there is limited variation in terms of the battles fought. To that end, Dawn of the Orcs includes four bonus chapters that can randomly replace the middle chapters of the campaign against the Styrovites. This adds further variety and replayability beyond the first few playthroughs of Dawn of the Orcs. The roleplaying game does include forms that the players can use in chapter, but they are not absolutely required to play.

Physically, Dawn of the Orcs is a short, clean and tidy book. It is easy to read and the artwork is decent. The forms for the game are slightly tight in their layout.

Dawn of the Orcs is a dark fantasy roleplaying game that tells the story of the desperate defence of a country and its possible victory and potential fall. The clarity of writing means that it is easy to pick up and play, and in fact, anyone with roleplaying experience will be able to play this from the page. The familiarity of the theme—a country in peril turning to desperate measures and the creation of Orcs as effectively, super soldiers—contributes to that ease of play, that theme almost being a twisted version of Saruman creating his army of Uruk-hai in The Lord of the Rings. To the point that the non-gamers will find it as easy to play as veteran gamers. Lastly, its size and brevity means that Dawn of the Orcs is easy to carry and play almost anywhere. Dawn of the Orcs is a very accessible and very easy to play storytelling game that needs no preparation and has a story that everyone can grasp.

In the weird and otherworldly Bazaar of the Gods in Punjar, the City of a Thousand Gates, stand temples, chapels, and churches to gods, goddesses, and demi-gods of almost an unknown number. Cults and faiths have risen and fallen, been promoted and persecuted, banished and proselytised, yet still wide-eyed madmen stalk the streets pronouncing the end of days, heathens fall under mail-clad priests their skulls crushed underfoot, and pale, trembling virgins are offered up in sacrifice within soot-stained temples. Yet none of these cults and faiths have the power and will to challenge the greatest of mysteries and the last great step that every man will take—the terrifying finality of death! Death, though, has come to the company of Player Characters and perhaps they have the audacity to challenge that mystery and not only take that last great step, but come back to the land of the living. For this, they will need to approach the Witch of Saulim, for it is widely believed that this wretched crone, whose strange prophecies are often bewildering, but always unerringly true, holds the secret to stealing souls from death.

This is the set-up for Dungeon Crawl Classics #74: Blades Against Death, the seventh scenario to be published by Goodman Games for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. Designed by Harley Stroh for a group of six to ten Fourth Level Player Characters, this is a swords & sorcery-style city-based adventure that takes place in Punjar, a city in the land of Aéreth, which previously appeared in earlier iterations of Dungeon Crawl Classics scenarios, mostly recently, Dungeon Crawl Classics #70: Jewels of the Carnifex. Where that scenario dealt with one aspect death in the world of Aéreth, Dungeon Crawl Classics #74: Blades Against Death deals with the other, so in some ways, it might be seen as a companion piece to Dungeon Crawl Classics #70: Jewels of the Carnifex. Consequently, it does suffer from the same issue as Dungeon Crawl Classics #70: Jewels of the Carnifex, and that is that the lack of information about Punjar readily available. Fortunately, the scenario does include some knowledge—common and uncommon—that the Player Characters might know, ranging from what serfs, peasants, and common freemen know to what priests, the nobility, and sages know. This at least, should provide the players and their characters with the basics. Also provided is another hook to get the Player Characters if they have not lost a companion to death and want to see him returned to the land of the living. This is a job offer by a pampered son of a merchant lord for the Player Characters to steal back his lover. Now, of course, as the scenario makes clear, Dungeon Crawl Classics is not a roleplaying game that has much truck with the dead coming back to life and even lacks the equivalent of a Raise Dead spell. So, a scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game which does deal with the Player Characters bringing someone back from the dead has at least to be some different, if not something special, and definitely not to be taken lightly.

The quest consists of three acts. In the first, the Player Characters pay a visit to the Witch of Saulim, a seemingly mad old crone who will perform a reading for them using her tarot-like deck of cards, plaques of Thoth-Ruin. These predications both provide a course of action for the Player Characters and the direction of the scenario’s plot. The reading boils down to four cards—all nicely done as full-colour handouts that the Judge can lay out before her players—of which the Witch of Saulim informs them they must choose one. For the players there is no wrong choice. Whichever card they decide on, their characters gain an immediate blessing that lasts the whole of the adventure and also grants a permanent bonus if they survive. In the second act, the Player Characters undertakes the quest’s first task proper. This is to break or sneak into the Temple of the Moon and from there steal the cult’s most sacred relic, the Argent Falx. This is a legendary weapon said to be capable of cutting the chains of death. Stealing this is no easy task as the sword only manifests at the culmination of a ceremony held on the night of the full moon and so the players and their characters have to be both timely and clever if they are to carry of the heist. Staged in the great pyramid Temple of the Moon, this has an epic if sinister feel and once the Player Characters pull the heist off, they will have greatly enhanced their reputations in some quarters. If, however, the Player Characters are careless and leave clues behind as to their identities, the Temple of the Moon will send thief takers after them to capture them and bring them back to the temple for retribution!

The third is where the scenario crosses over with Dungeon Crawl Classics #70: Jewels of the Carnifex as the Player Characters descend into the Charnel Pits below Punjar’s streets. This is a place of foul unreality in which a combination of desire, madness, and revenge have gummed up the works, preventing hundreds of souls from crossing over into the lands of the dead, suffusing the house with ghosts and other undead. There is a tragedy at the heart of this act, one whose groundwork is laid at its start, that perceptive players and their characters can use to their advantage, but to do so, they must pick their way past a perverse bureaucracy and a Masque of the Red-like banquet for the undead. If the Temple of the Moon is ancient in its feel, then the Charnel Pits have a gothic tone of death and decay. Lastly, once the Player Characters have overcome the impasse prevents the dead from passing on, they can following in their footsteps and enter the Realms of the Dead. In gloriously classic fashion, here the Player Characters have to play a game of cards with Death’s concubine and vicereine (and if they dare it, even with Death himself), gambling with their souls for the return of their friend (or the mistress of the merchant lord’s son). The game makes use of the cards used earlier in the scenario in the Witch of Saulim’s reading. It is a great ending to the scenario.

Dungeon Crawl Classics #74: Blades Against Death is a tough adventure—well, the Player Characters are going up against Death—and it may be too tough for Third Level Player Characters. Like the earlier Dungeon Crawl Classics #70: Jewels of the Carnifex, it does feel as if it would be suitable addition to a campaign set in the city of Lankhmar as detailed in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set, though unlike Dungeon Crawl Classics #70: Jewels of the Carnifex, it is not directly inspired by the tales of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. Again though, being designed for Third Level Player Characters for standard Dungeon Crawl Classics play, it is probably too tough an adventure, given the comparitive lack of healing and magic in Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar, for similar Level Player Characters, but adjust that and the Judge will have a fine addition to her campaign. That aside, whether the Judge decides to set it in the city of Lankhmar or not, it is still a great Swords & Sorcery-style scenario.

In addition to the main adventure, Dungeon Crawl Classics #74: Blades Against Death also includes a second adventure, ‘The Abbot of the Woods’, also by Harley Stroh. This is a mini-adventure for a party of five to eight Player Characters of First to Third Level in which they follow the legend of the Abbott’s Hoard, which tells of a high priest who led his congregation into the wilderness in search of a life free of vice and sin and who took with him much in way of treasure and relics. There are also whispers of heresy and rumours of the priest’s true aims, so more than enough to attract the Player Characters. In fact, it turns out that both whispers and rumours are true, for like many a villain in fantasy roleplaying playing, he sought out a way to live beyond his years and stave off death. What the Player Characters discover is a giant reliquary which contains both the treasures that the priest brought with him and the various parts of the priest that live on immortal. As the Player Characters investigate and loot, they quickly unleash him enabling him to take control of the dungeon and turn it against them. It is a really entertaining twist on immortal evil and mad NPCs and dungeons as the enemy, though slightly too tough an adventure, especially for Player Characters of First Level. They are recommended as being accompanied by a ready supply of Zero Level NPCs ready to step in case of Player Characters death, which suggests that the scenario is not quite suitable for player Characters of First Level. Nevertheless, ‘The Abbot of the Woods’ is an entertaining dungeon, which with its theme of immortality could carry on the theme of death from the main scenario in the book.

Physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics #74: Blades Against Death is well done. The scenario is decently written and the artwork is overall good as is the cartography.

Dungeon Crawl Classics #74: Blades Against Death takes what is almost a formality in some Dungeons & Dragons-style games and turns it into an adventure. In other words, instead of simply casting Resurrection to restore a Player Character to life, the other Player Characters have to go and rescue him from Death! And if they manage to do so, not only will they have had a memorable adventure, then they will also have cemented party comradeship. This is definitely a scenario that works better if the Player Characters have to rescue one of their own number, rather than doing it for an NPC because in the case the latter, the stakes are simply not as high. That said, what the player of the dead character who is being rescued is doing in the meantime is left for the Judge to address. In whatever way the scenario is run, it provides a great mix of combat, stealth, and roleplaying encounters.

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.

—oOo—

Most magazines for the roleplaying hobby give the gamer support for the game of his choice, or at the very least, support for the hobby’s more popular roleplaying games. Whether that is new monsters, spells, treasures, reviews of newly released titles, scenarios, discussions of how to play, painting guides, and the like… That is how it has been all the way back to the earliest days of The Dragon and White Dwarf magazines. Wyrd Science is different in that it is about gaming and the culture of gaming as well as the games themselves rather providing support for specific titles—and Wyrd Science Vol. 1/Issue 4 is different to the previous issues. Where both Wyrd Science Session Zero and Wyrd Science – Expert Rules adopted the ‘BECMI’ colour coding of the colours and the focus upon fantasy and the Old School Renaissance, and Wyrd Science – The Horror Issue (Wyrd Science Vol. 1/Issue 3) focused on the horror genre, Wyrd Science Vol. 1/Issue 4 comes with no announced theme. This does not mean that there are no themes with the issue, but rather that they are simply part of the issue rather than a feature. Thus, Wyrd Science Vol. 1/Issue 4 is very much more of an ordinary issue, setting the standard for future non-special issues to come.
Wyrd Science Vol. 1/Issue 4 was published in April, 2023 by Best in Show. It opens with a quartet of interviews. ‘PUBLISH AND BE DAMNED: SoulMuppet Publishing’ is with Zach Cox and explores how he co-founded the company and has developed it to the point where he began to experiment and begin to support authors from outside of the English-speaking hobby, such as with the ‘LATAM Breakout series’ for South American creators. Cox gives his views on the then changing nature of the hobby, how Kickstarter is being used by fewer and fewer would be publishers, who are then looking for other options. Nevertheless, he offers advice on how to run a successful Kickstarter project, but also highlights the difficulties in distribution that affect retail in particular. Although two years old, there is much within the interview that are still pertinent now. ‘CAST POD: What Am I Rolling?’ is part of the magazine’s regular series with podcasters, this time with Fiona Howat of the What I am Rolling? podcast, which hosts and runs one-shot games and in the process, showcases a wide variety of games. It is a nice introduction to the podcast and includes advice on trying new games and introducing new games to other players. ‘MAGIC GATHERINGS: Big Bad Con’ interviews the organisers of the California gaming convention which in recent years has shifted to offering a safer, more diverse, and inclusive space and encouraging the participation of persons from minority and LGBTQI+ groups. This showcases a fantastic effort to make the hobby a more welcoming place, one that should perhaps be looked to by other conventions.
Where the interviews are conducted by John Power Jr., Stuart Martyn kicks off the first of the issue’s themes with ‘The Game is Afoot’. As the title of the article suggests, that theme is investigative games, Martyn highlights roleplaying hobby’s fascination with mysteries and investigations. It pinpoints the issues with this type of scenario—their inherent logic puzzle nature which can frustrate some players and the capacity to miss clues. The primary solutions are twofold. First is to make the clues easy to find or automatically found, as in the GUMSHOE System, or have the solution to the mystery determined through play, as in Brindlewood Bay. Both feature heavily in the article and show how to date, the hobby has yet to come up with any better for the investigative style of scenario. ‘Scry Me a River’ by John Power Jr. neatly complements ‘The Game is Afoot’ and continues the investigative theme. This is a look at Rivers of London: The Roleplaying Game, which is based on the series of Urban Fantasy procedurals by Ben Aaronovitch and includes an interview with its creator, Lynn Hardy, exploring its genesis and development, made all the more interesting because the author has experience of gaming. There is even a list of tips from Hardy about running investigative games to go alongside it.
‘Bandes On The Run’ by Luke Frostick brings the investigative theme to a close with a look at and interview with Krister Sundelin, the creator of The Troubleshooters: An Action-Adventure Roleplaying Game, Swedish publisher Helmgast’s roleplaying game based on French and Belgian bande dessinée comics. This covers a wide range of inspirations from James Bond to the action-adventure television of the nineteen sixties and explores the heavier feeling mechanics. The Troubleshooters is a great little game that has not made the impact it deserved and it is nice to see it covered here. ‘Bad Moon Rising’, Mira Manga’s interview with Becky Annison, author of Werewolves of Britain for Liminal, continues the Urban Fantasy theme of Rivers of London: The Roleplaying Game, in exploring her inspirations for the supplement, some of it quite personal, in creating a very good expansion for the game and its setting.
‘Now is The Time of Monsters’ takes interviewer John Power Jr and Dave Allen, producer for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition in a then totally different direction, something that the roleplaying game had been waiting decades for, despite the wargame it is based upon, visiting it more than once across its numerous editions. This is the supplement, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Lustria, which details the mysterious continent far away from the Old World. It quickly catches up with the history of the current edition in publishing what is a director’s cut of the classic campaign, The Enemy Within, and then moves beyond that. It explores what an updated version of the Lustria looks like for the twenty-first century hobby and how it presents the players and their characters to engage in different, but no less deadly environment.
Walton Wood’s examination of the retroclone, Errant, and interview with its creator, Ava Islam, ‘Dragons Are Fucking Cool, Man’ starts off in slightly abstract fashion, explaining it pushes away from the classic design of Dungeons & Dragons-style play, attempting to be rules light, but ‘procedure heavy’ in terms of scope. The explanation is not really clear enough, but once the article begins telling you what you play—downtrodden outcasts ever wanting to improve their lifestyles and fund the lifestyles they have combined with Levelling requiring high expenditure of gold pieces in acts of ‘Conspicuous Consumption’—it does impart a sense of what the is about at the least. Ultimately, what is clear is that Errant is the designer’s commentary on the Old School Renaissance movement and it is far from a positive one. This combined with often obtuse explanations upon the part of the designer and the reader is left feeling dissatisfied.
‘Veni, Vidi, Ludo’ by Ciro Alessandro Sacco presents a fascinating history of the Italian gaming and roleplaying hobby, beginning with the importation of Avalon Hill and SPI wargames in the nineteen sixties and seventies and moving through bootleg versions of Dungeons & Dragons to early roleplaying games such as Signori del Caos—or The Lords of Chaos—published by Black Out Editrice in 1983 and then most spectacularly, the Mentzer version of Basic Dungeons & Dragons by Editrice Giochi in 1985. It is a great introduction and it is a pity that there is not scope for further examination of these early Italian roleplaying games. The breezy article comes to a close all too soon, leaving the reader with any interest in the history of roleplaying games wanting more. It is followed by a short overview of some of the Italian roleplaying games and settings then available in English, including Lex Arcana, Fabula Ultima, and Brancalonia.
The last few articles in the issue explore a handful of boardgames that are very close to the roleplaying hobby, whether that is because of their subject matter or because their publisher also publishes roleplaying games. Three of them combine to give the magazine its second theme—dungeon crawling and board games. The first, ‘Dungeon Crawling Classics’ by Matt Thrower is not, as the title might suggest about the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game from Goodman Games, but a history of the dungeon crawler board game, from Dungeon!, published by TSR, Inc. in 1975 to Descent: Journeys in the Dark published by Fantasy Flight Games in 2005 and its more recent 2021 update, Descent: Legends of the Dark. Also discussed here is HeroQuest, the boardgame from Milton Bradley and Games Workshop that introduced dungeon exploration-style play to a wider audience in the early nineteen nineties. It explores the enduring appeal of the format—its familiarity, excitement, and camaraderie—combined with a physical format that leans into the roleplaying style of Dungeons & Dragons, whilst providing a ready realisation of the action that Dungeons & Dragons does not (at least not without a lot of extra accessories). There are a lot of dungeon crawler board games that the article could have covered and it would have been interesting to look at those options, but overall, this is good introduction to the genre.
Matt Thrower follows this up with ‘The Big Chill’ in which he interviews Isaac Childres, the designer of the mammoth dungeon crawler and adventure game, Gloomhaven, discussing its development and that of its follow up, Frosthaven. There is some similarity between this and other interviews with the designer, such as that which has appeared in the pages of Senet magazine. What this means is that there is not much being said here that is new, but for anyone unaware of Gloomhaven and its heft and effect upon the hobby, this is worth reading. Andi Ewington returns to the classic HeroQuest with ‘Quest Drive’ and how he brought the new version of the board game from Avalon Hill into his home and got his family, some of them slightly reluctantly. It is a fun piece that brings the theme to a close with large dollop of nostalgia.
Finally, the issue comes to close with ‘Trading Places’. Here Emma Partlow talks to Max McCall from Wizards of the Coast to explore how Magic: the Gathering has with its ‘Universes Beyond’ line, produced expansions that draw on the intellectual properties of other publishers. For example, the television series, Stranger Things, and the miniatures wargame, Warhammer 40,000. It does point out that the response to these expansions have been mixed, some embracing them, others seeing them as a distraction from the more traditional fantasy releases for the collectible trading card game, but the point is made that the ‘Universes Beyond’ sets are attracting the interest of fans of the universes they are based on and thus attracting new players. The article is illustrated with some great artwork drawn from the series, but does not show how that artwork will be displayed on the cards, which would perhaps have sold the idea better.
‘LOOT DROP: Automatic Dice Roller’ and ‘LOOT DROP: More Random Treasure’ highlights some gaming knickknacks that might appeal to some gamers, the former also including an interview with the creator of the electronic dice roller from Critical Machine for those who want another means apart from rolling dice, whilst the latter includes a The Wicker Man-style effigy wax candle, complete with wax Sergeant Howe and the Win or Booze beer from breweryDeviant + Dandy which has a game on the back of the label. The best though is the Githyanki action figure from Super7 based on the Erol Otus’s classic cover image for the Fiend Folio. More interesting though, is ‘Hit Points’, the reviews section which takes in a good mix of board games, roleplaying games, and books. The board games include Undaunted Stalingrad from Osprey Games and the magazine’s ‘Game of the Month’ and Rebellion Games’ redone Judge Dredd: The Game of Crime-Fighting in Mega-City One, whilst the roleplaying games reviewed range from Cy_Borg and The Blade Runner – The Roleplaying Game Starter Set to Out of the Ashes and A Folklore Bestiary. Of course, reviewing reviews is something of a busman’s holiday, so ultimately, although the reviews all both interesting and informative, the most interesting are those of the books, Alan Moore and Ian Gibson’s The Ballard of Halo Jones, and Michael Molcher’s I Am The Law about 2000 AD’s Judge Dredd and how it influenced modern policing, both from Rebellion, are the more intriguing.

Physically, Wyrd Science Vol. 1/Issue 4 is clean and tidy, neatly laid out and well written. The artwork is well judged too and overall, the magazine looks great.

Wyrd Science Vol. 1/Issue 4 is a good rather than great issue. It is at its best when exploring something lesser known like Big Bad Con in ‘MAGIC GATHERINGS: Big Bad Con’ and its diversity programme or the look at Italian roleplaying games in ‘Veni, Vidi, Ludo’, but also taking a sidestep to look at something familiar, the dungeon crawl style game, in a different format, the board game with ‘Dungeon Crawling Classics’ and ‘Quest Drive’.

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

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Name: Blackthorne Bridge Club: New TricksPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Gavin Bastiensz

Setting: New York, 1924Product: Scenario
What You Get: Fifty-five page, 4.39 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Madness in an asylum, who would have thought it?
Plot Hook: Will it take half the corpse to put the plot together, or the whole body?Plot Support: Staging advice, four pre-generated Investigators, thirteen NPCs, and one Mythos monster.Production Values: Plain
Pros# A sequel to Blackthorne Bridge Club# More of a standard investigation than its predecessor# Nicely detailed pre-generated Investigators, complete with secrets# Intriguing showdown# Pleasing sense of closure to one personal plot strand# Chronomentrophobia# Apotemnohobia# Chronophobia
Cons# Needs a slight edit# A timeline would have helped with the structure# What are the Investigators supposed to do with Theodore Roosevelt in 1923?
Conclusion# Disappointing sequel that just feels a bit woolly# Showdown has mammoth ramifications barely touched upon