How do you like your GM Screen?

The GM Screen is a essentially a reference sheet, comprised of several card sheets that fold out and can be stood up to serve another purpose, that is, to hide the GM's notes and dice rolls. On the inside, the side facing the GM are listed all of the tables that the GM might want or need at a glance without the need to have to leaf quickly through the core rulebook. On the outside, facing the players, can be found either more tables for their benefit or representative artwork for the game itself. This is both the basic function and the basic format of the screen, neither of which has changed all that much over the years. Beyond the basic format, much has changed though.

To begin with the general format has split, between portrait and landscape formats. The result of the landscape format is a lower screen, and if not a sturdier screen, than at least one that is less prone to being knocked over. Another change has been in the weight of card used to construct the screen. Exile Studios pioneered a new sturdier and durable screen when its printers took two covers from the Hollow Earth Expedition core rule book and literally turned them into the game’s screen. This marked a change from the earlier and flimsier screens that had been done in too light a cardstock, and several publishers have followed suit.

Once you have decided upon your screen format, the next question is what you have put with it. Do you include a poster or poster map, such as Chaosium, Inc.’s last screen for Call of Cthulhu, Sixth Edition or Margaret Weis Productions’ Serenity and BattleStar Galactica Roleplaying Games? Or a reference work like that included with Chessex Games’ Sholari Reference Pack for SkyRealms of Jorune or the GM Resource Book for Pelgrane Press’ Trail of Cthulhu? Perhaps scenarios such as ‘Blackwater Creek’ and ‘Missed Dues’ from the Call of Cthulhu Keeper Screen for use with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition? Or even better, a book of background and scenarios as well as the screen, maps, and forms, like that of the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack also published by Chaosium, Inc. In the past, the heavier and sturdier the screen, the more likely it is that the screen will be sold unaccompanied, such as those published by Cubicle Seven Entertainment for the Starblazer Adventures: The Rock & Roll Space Opera Adventure Game and Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space RPG. That though is no longer the case and stronger and sturdier GM Screens are the norm today.

So how do I like my GM Screen?

I like my Screen to come with something. Not a poster or poster map, but a scenario, which is one reason why I like ‘Descent into Darkness’ from the Game Master’s Screen and Adventure for Legends of the Five Rings Fourth Edition and ‘A Bann Too Many’, the scenario that comes in the Dragon Age Game Master's Kit for Green Ronin Publishing’s Dragon Age – Dark Fantasy Roleplaying Set 1: For Characters Level 1 to 5. I also like my screen to come with some reference material, something that adds to the game. Which is why I am fond of both the Sholari Reference Pack for SkyRealms of Jorune as well as the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack. It is also why I like the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Screen + Toolkit published by by Modiphius Entertainment for use with Achtung! Cthulhu, the roleplaying game of fast-paced pulp action and Mythos magic in a secret war against the Nazis in World War 2.
Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Screen + Toolkit—heralded as ‘Issue No. 3’ in a series on the cover—comes with a four-panel screen and a Gamemaster’s Toolkit booklet that contains tools and advice on running a campaign that enables the Game Master to prepare a scenario or create elements as play proceeds. The Gamemaster’s Screen itself is a handsome four panel affair, sturdy as is standard for the hobby today, but in portrait format rather than landscape. This is not as easy a format to use, plus it does have a much imposing presence at the table. One part of the front replicates the cover to the  Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Guide, but expands left and right to depict the signature characters from Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 escaping from a German schloss as Lovecraftian nasties attempt to impede their progress! It is an exciting, action-packed illustration.

On the inside, working from left to right, tables summarise task Difficulty, Enemy Level, Attribute Bonuses, Complication Range, and Weapon Range. This is followed by narrative-related tables for the Conventional German Forces, Nazi Occult Forces, Ahhorrent Creatures and Monstrosities, Mythos Gods, and Elite Nemeses in the middle. On the right-hand side the tables for both Weapon Effects and Weapon Qualities are listed, followed by Conflict Momentum Spends and Item Restrictions. It is all clearly laid out and easy to read and use. However, none of the tables have page references to either the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Guide or the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Player’s Guide, which have made things just a little easier for the Game Master. Then there is the issue of the narrative-related tables for the Conventional German Forces, Nazi Occult Forces, Ahhorrent Creatures and Monstrosities, Mythos Gods, and Elite Nemeses in the middle. Was this the best use of the one-and-a-half panels that these tables take up? Well, no and more so because these tables are reprinted from the Gamemaster’s Toolkit. So no tables for the ‘Challenge Dice Result’, weapons tables, ‘ Spell Complication Range’, ‘Bonus Power’, and ‘Magical Momentum Spends’ from the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Player’s Guide or the ‘Secret Weapons of the Secret War’ and ‘Guide to Hazard Stress & Threat Costs’ tables from the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Guide. Although there is probably not the space for all of these tables on the screen, the inclusion of some of them would have been more use than the ones actually included.
On the inside, working from left to right, tables sumarise task Difficulty, Enemy Level, Attribute Bonuses, Complication Range, and Weapon Range. This is followed by narrative-related tables for the Conventional German Forces, Nazi Occult Forces, Ahhorrent Creatures and Monstrosities, Mythos Gods, and Elite Nemeses in the middle. On the right-hand side the tables for both Weapon Effects and Weapon Qualities are listed, followed by Conflict Momentum Spends and Item Restrictions. It is all clearly laid out and easy to read and use. However, none of the tables have page references to either the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Guide or the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Player’s Guide, which have made things just a little easier for the Game Master. Then there is the issue of the narrative-related tables for the Conventional German Forces, Nazi Occult Forces, Ahhorrent Creatures and Monstrosities, Mythos Gods, and Elite Nemeses in the middle. Was this the best use of the one-and-a-half panels that these tables take up? Well, no and morse so because these tables are reprinted from the Gamemaster’s Toolkit. So no tables for the ‘Challenge Dice Result’, weapons tables, ‘ Spell Complication Range’, ‘Bonus Power’, and ‘Magical Momentum Spends’ from the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Player’s Guide or the ‘Secret Weapons of the Secret War’ and ‘Guide to Hazard Stress & Threat Costs’ tables from the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Guide. Any one of these tables could have been more useful than the ones included.
The Gamemaster’s Toolkit builds on the advice given in the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Guide, focusing on the creation of scenarios and campaigns. This begins with possible inspirations, suggestions being as diverse as Band of Brothers and ’Allo! ’Allo!, before looking at possible titles for the Game Master’s scenario and giving prompts aplenty in terms of background, battles, starting parameters and overarching plot concepts, and then options in terms of antagonists and other NPCs. So the rolls begin with a ‘Story Frame’ and an ‘Overarching Plot Concept’. So the Plot Hook and the Draw might be ‘A passing acquaintance’ who ‘Sends a threat’ and the Plot Concept is to ‘Recover or destroy a long lost tome’ to ‘Save the world’. To this, the Game Master can add requirements to fulfil the plot and location, detail NPCs, before setting up the opening scene and developing the plot with further scenes. The ‘Classified’ section goes goals and aims to draw the Player Characters in and then the tables for villains and heroes, and more. There are tables too for Spells and Manuscripts, Rituals, Book and Tomes, and Artefacts. All of this is drawn from the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Guide, which the Game Master will need to refer to in order flesh with further details. The tables throughout are accompanied by advice on how to use them, all of decent, if basic advice.
Physically, the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Screen + Toolkit is well presented. The screen itself is sturdy and easy to use, whilst the Gamemaster’s Toolkit is clean and tidy and easy to read. If there is an issue, it is that the Game Master will need a bag in which to store its various parts and not lose them!
The Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Screen + Toolkit is useful, but it simply is not as useful as it could be. The advice and the tables in the Gamemaster’s Toolkit are undeniably useful, but what makes the supplement as a whole less useful is the inclusion of the tables from the Gamemaster’s Toolkit book on the screen. They can be used in play to add narrative, but there are mechanical and rules tables which could have been included and the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Screen + Toolkit would have been far more useful.

One of the richest silver mines in the known world stands dormant, its workers having downed tools and gone on strike. The miners refuse to work because they say that the mine turned on them after they dug a shaft too deep, killing several of their number, and trapping others. The owner of the mine has ordered the guards to force the miners back to work, and may even hire outside muscle—that is, the Player Characters—to assist. This, though, is only one of the reasons why the Player Characters might want to visit one of the richest silver mines in the known world. Others might be that they simply want to take advantage of the standoff to mine some silver for themselves, a child needs rescuing from the mine, the local justice of the peace has posted a bounty on outlaws said to hiding in the mine, a rival to the mine owner wants the mine shut down, going into find the trapped miners, and so on. All of these can be combined, mixed, or matched to motivate the Player Characters into investigating the mine at the heart of Meanderings of the Mine Mind. This is an introductory scenario for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying published by Lamentations of the Flame Princess. Designed for low Level Player Characters, it is not as necessarily lethal as other titles from the publisher, but it is no less weird.

Meanderings of the Mine Mind is, like other releases for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying, set in the roleplaying game’s default period of the seventeenth century, the early modern era. This makes it easy to adapt Meanderings of the Mine Mind to other retroclones, but there are historical elements in the scenario—the appearance of Neanderthals, Romans, and Nazis—which are unlikely to fit every Game Master’s campaign world. Once past the standoff between the guards and the striking miners, the mine itself is actually quite small, just eight caves and tunnels. Each is decently described with the details of any NPCs and particular points within each area, either an item or particular location. Where there is a particular location in a cave or tunnel, they are not marked on the map, despite the organisation of cave and tunnel suggesting that they should be. This is not helpful, especially given that the scenario is designed to be an introduction to Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying. Plus, it means that the maps feel empty and bland.

In exploring the mine, the Player Characters will discover the missing miners often in strange situations and also a series of strange tableaus, one from the deep past, one from the more recent past, and one from the point of view of the Player Characters, the future. These consist of a band of Neanderthal hunters trapped by a cave bear, a surprisingly mundane Roman orgy, and a band of World War 2 German soldiers led by a member of the SS. What connects them are location of mine itself and its caves, and its true nature as well as the source of rich seams of silver that run through it. The shafts that have been dug into the bedrock of the mine and rich seams of silver that have been mined from that rock turn out to be tunnels bored into the fossilised remains of a great ancient spawn from the stars and the silver the highly conductive nerves that thread through the creature’s brain in its last dying moments. Moments that last aeons… As the miners smashed their picks into the sliver nerve-seams, their blows reverberated up and down their length, triggering synapses, and causing the alien star mind to pulsate and in its death throes bring memories past and future into their weird realities.

As an adventure, Meanderings of the Mine Mind is quite small, consisting of just eight locations, so whilst it is a very rich mine, it is also a small one. There is mention of a second level to the mine, but this left up to the Game Master to develop. One issue with there being a second level is how it is possible for the upper level to flood as the text suggests. It may well be better that there is a chance of the Player Characters being swept by the waters towards the lower level or simply the whole adventure being shifted to the lower level. One big feature of the adventure is the ‘What Happens When A Silver Vein Is Tapped?’ table, which provides numerous random and weird effects such as a Player Character becoming irrevocably attracted to another alien god after an erotic vision or losing a spell or e memory. Another feature is more traditional to Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying, and that is, ‘meddle at your peril’. The Player Characters are likely to blunder into situations, attempt to resolve them, and discover that their meddling has only made them worse… There is the chance that this will happen more than once and potentially shorten the scenario. Similarly, blundering about is not necessarily going to resolve the whole situation in the mine, though it is likely to be more entertaining.

Apart from the issue with the maps, where Meanderings of the Mine Mind has a problem is in addressing one of the motivations for exploring the mine—mining for silver. There is no suggested value for the amount of silver that the Player Characters could dig out and no suggested value for how much they might raise from selling it. This is compounded by the inclusion of a ‘diamond encrusted pickaxe’ which enables a miner to dig out ore without triggering the weird effects that would otherwise happen if using normal mining tools. It serves an obvious purpose in terms of the Player Characters’ exploration of the mine, that is, countering the effects of mining the silver with ordinary tools, but otherwise it sticks out in truly anomalous fashion.

Physically, Meanderings of the Mine Mind is cleanly and tidily laid out on notably silver, grey paper. Even the illustrations have an eerie metallic quality to them. That said, the book does need another edit.

Meanderings of the Mine Mind is an interesting twist upon the ‘giant body as dungeon’ adventure in which the Player Characters penetrate and explore the body of some gigantic beast or even a god. The twist being the brain being explored rather than the body and the brain still twitching and convulsing with sufficient life to make its memories a reality. Which all fits the tone and style of a Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying, but whilst there is some inventiveness to the adventure, in places Meanderings of the Mine Mind is underdeveloped and not as fully realised as it could have been. Which means that the Game Master will definitely want to make some adjustments before running it.

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DISCLAIMER: The author of this review is an editor who has edited titles for Lamentations of the Flame Princess on a freelance basis. He was not involved in the production of this book and his connection to both publisher and thus the author has no bearing on the resulting review.

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

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Senet—named for the Ancient Egyptian board game, Senet—is a print magazine about the craft, creativity, and community of board gaming. Bearing the tagline of “Board games are beautiful”, it is about the play and the experience of board games, it is about the creative thoughts and processes which go into each and every board game, and it is about board games as both artistry and art form. Published by Senet Magazine Limited, each issue promises previews of forthcoming, interesting titles, features which explore how and why we play, interviews with those involved in the process of creating a game, and reviews of the latest and most interesting releases.

Senet Issue 10 was published in the spring of 2023. Where the Senet Issue 9 diverged from the magazine’s usual coverage of board and card games to touch a little upon the roleplaying hobby—and by doing so, leave the reader wishing that the roleplaying hobby had a magazine as good as Senet, this issue is definite return to the fold. Nary a mention of the roleplaying hobby in sight! Instead it is all board games with the usual mix of previews, reviews, articles, interviews, and regular departments. For the most part, it is another clean, tidy, and easy to read issue.

Aside from the mention in the editorial that the magazine’s co-founder, James Hunter, was named Art Director of the Year at the British Society of Magazine Editor’s Awards, Senet Issue 10 quickly gets down to business with ‘Behold’. This is the regular preview of some of the then-forthcoming board game titles. The most intriguing entry here is Cosmoctopus, a tentacle-gathering game from Paper Fort Games about attempting to summon ‘The Great Inky One’ that seems slightly tongue-in-cheek in its treatment of the cultists controlled by the players. ‘Points’, the regular column of readers’ letters contains some feedback on previous issues as well as the growing interest in the hobby. There is scope here for expansion of this letters page to give space to more voices and readers of Senet. One way of doing that is perhaps to expand it when ‘For Love of the Game’ comes to end. This regular column continues the journey of the designer Tristian Hall towards the completion and publication of his Gloom of Kilforth. In this entry in the series, he looks at the next step in the process in bringing the game to market by showing it off at conventions and encountering some of the advantages and pitfalls. As a regular convention attendee, this is an interesting look at attending conventions from the other side.

Senet follows a standard format of articles and article types and Senet Issue 10 is no exception. One explores a theme found in board games, its history, and the games that showcase it to best effect, whilst another looks at a particular mechanic. In addition, there are two interviews, one with a designer, the other with an artist. In this issue, the thematic article is ‘Roll and Movie’, an exploration of the relationship between films and board games by Alexandra Sonechkina. In the 2020s, we are spoiled by the number of board games based on films that strongly adhere to their themes through their mechanics. It goes back to one of the earliest of major filmic board game adaptations, Escape from the Death Star from 1977, pointing out that games of the period were based on tried and tested mechanics, before coming up to date with the output of design teams like that of Prospero Hall with games like Jaws and Rear Window, which are highly thematic and whose mechanics model the film sources. It notes how some films are difficult to adapt, like Rear Window, due to the age and the lack of familiarity for a younger audience and themes of the source material, but also how such adaptations can appeal to a wider audience and even to board game players who have not seen the source material. Having explored how board games have drawn from films for their source material and themes, the article switches around to look at some board games that have inspired films, such as Clue and Battleships. The author also looks at the theme of film making in board games and the challenges of adapting the look of a film and its cast to a board game. Here Alexandra Sonechkina runs out of space, as effectively, this is really three articles in one—one on film adaptations, one on board games about filmmaking, and one about the physical adaptation. Ideally, Senet will revisit these subjects—and they are multiple subjects—in future articles. One last issue with ‘Roll and Movie’ is that the images used are presented in too small a fashion so that the detail and look of these games is lost.

Dan Thurot’s ‘Tricks and Treats’ looks at the mechanic of the trick-taking game and its history, grounded as it is in the origins of the ordinary deck of playing cards and the games played with it, associating the mechanic with gambling! An interesting history in hand, the article comes to the contemporary era to look at obvious trick-taking card games like the well-received Scout and then moves onto designs where the track-taking mechanic is less obvious and more readily themed. Examples like this include the Kennerspiel des Jahres-winning The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine in which the players work together to keep their spaceship functioning, whilst Brian Boru: High King of Ireland which almost hides its trick-taking mechanics, combining the mechanic with an action per card. It also looks at designs to come, Cat in the Box: Deluxe Edition which adds the element of guessing, which thematically, has the players wondering if their Schrödinger’s cats are alive or dead. It is a good overview of the mechanic and a more rounded piece when compared to the preceding ‘Roll and Movie’.

The first of the issue’s two interviews is with the designer of one the influential board games of the last two decades—Matt Leacock. In ‘Legacy Builder’, he looks back to the origins of Pandemic and how it became success, driving the popularity of the co-operative game and how it became a cultural touchstone during the COVID-19 pandemic, before coming up to date with his latest design, Daybreak, recently nominated for the 2024 Kennerspiel des Jahres. It is an informative and engaging interview and Daybreak sounds a fascinating design dealing as it does with climate change and the attempts to ameliorate its effects. The second interview is with Naïade, illustrator of Tokaido and Namiji. In ‘Eastern Promise’, he guides us through some of his artistic highlights, starting with Tokaido and including the weirdness of One Key—Gandalf facing a toast demon, anyone?—alongside other titles. The artwork is excellent and once again, Senet does a good job of showcasing it.

The film adaptation theme of ‘Roll and Movie’ continues in the ‘Unboxed’, Senet’s reviews section with a review of Star Wars Villainous: Power of the Dark Side, plus there is some nostalgia with a review of Return to The Dark Tower. It does feel as if there are fewer reviews in this issue, but alongside the issue’s ‘Senet’s Top Choice’ of Undaunted: Stalingrad, there are interesting titles reviewed such as Spire’s End: Hildegard, a storytelling game and prequel to Spire’s End with fantastic artwork that is card driven rather than paragraph driven. It is rounded out with ‘The Best of 2022’, the magazine’s top ten from the previous year, of which Return to The Dark Tower and Undaunted: Stalingrad make the list.

Bringing Senet Issue 10 to a close are the regular end columns, ‘How to Play’ and ‘Shelf of Shame’. For ‘How to Play’, Andrew Brassleay explains ‘How being diagnosed as autistic helped me embrace my love of board games’, putting behind him the supposed adult aim of outgrowing them, and enabling him to navigate social situations because the the rules to games are more obvious and adhered to all of the players. It nicely paints a picture of board games being a force for good and a social enabling tool. Lastly, Black Orchestra is the board game taken off their ‘Shelf of Shame’ by Rachel Kremer and Heinze Havinga of Semi Co-op, a webcomic about games. The couple make it clear from the start that the game, with its theme of conspirators attempting to kill Hitler is not their taste, as they prefer games that are relaxing, but their version has a bit history, having been previously owned and amended by an older, avid gamer. Despite the theme, neither player had ‘fun’, but they learn more about the plots to assassinate Hitler and what it took to do that, so the experience is more interesting they would otherwise have thought. It shows the value of trying new things even if they have been stuck on a shelf for a while.

Physically, Senet Issue 10 is very professionally presented. It looks and feels as good as previous issues of the magazine.

Senet Issue 10 does feel slightly lighter in terms of the number of games covered, the number of smaller games previewed or reviewed having been severely reduced. However, that does not mean that the issue does not offer a good mix of articles, interviews, and reviews—it does. The only real disappointment is ‘Roll and Movie’ and only then in the fact that it could have been much, much longer, a series of its own. After the aberration of the content devoted to roleplaying in the previous issue, Senet Issue 10 returns to the fold with a solid set of reviews, previews, and discussions of board games.

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

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

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Name: One for One – Bathory’s ChildrenPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author Sean Liddle

Setting: Eighties BerlinProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Four-page page, 291.07 KB PDFElevator Pitch: A battle of the bands isn’t a battle when you’re playing against a bastard Plot Hook: A band on the skids looks for way back and discovers this isn’t it
Plot Support: Staging advice and one Mythos monster.Production Values: Plain
Pros# Inexpensive# Short, easy to prepare scenario# Grungy heavy metal madness# Easy to adapt to other musical genres# Potential convention scenario# Rokkuphobia# Dendrophobia# Proditiophobia
Cons# Needs an edit# Whither part 4?# No cultist stats# No pre-generated Investigators
Conclusion# Heavy metal mayhem turns to madness# Cheap

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

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

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Name: Signal to Noise – A 1980s Analog Horror ScenarioPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author Colin Richards

Setting: Eighties PennsylvaniaProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Eighty-page page, 45.46 MB PDFElevator Pitch: Who watches the watchers?Plot Hook: A hijacked signal has consequences political, horrific, and televisual
Plot Support: Staging advice, seven pre-generated Investigators, thirteen handouts, four maps, thirteen NPCs, and five Mythos monsters.Production Values: Engagingly analogue and televisual
Pros# Television is reality. Reality is television.# Highly thematic one-shot which plays on the fears of television# Eighties sense of unreality# Includes QR code for the video handouts# Potential convention scenario# Technophobia# Mazeophobia# Televisiophobia
Cons# Needs a slight edit# Aethir Institute plot strand underdeveloped
Conclusion# Videodrome meets Ring in highly thematic eighties horror
# Possesses pleasingly developed televisual sense of unreality# Reviews from R’lyeh Recommends

It seems surprising to realise that The Walking Dead is over two decades old. The comic by writer Robert Kirkman and artist Tony Moore first appeared in 2003 and the resulting television series from AMC first aired in 2010 and has been followed with numerous spin-off series since. Both revitalised the zombie horror subgenre and the television series in particular, made zombies and horror acceptable to mainstream broadcasting like never before. Both comic book and television series tell the story of Rick Grimes, a sheriff’s deputy from Cynthiana, Kentucky, who after being wounded in the line of duty, awakes to find his wife and family missing and the world very much changed. Society has collapsed, the dead walk and hunger after our flesh, a virus means that everyone will rise as a walker after death, and the survivors huddle together, co-operate and scavenge for supplies, and somehow make choices that will keep them alive. The walkers are everywhere, a menace that cannot be vanquished, but they are not the only threat. Some survivors are prepared to kill and steal from other survivors—and worse. It is into this post-apocalyptic world where the dead walk—there are no such things as zombies—that the Player Characters are thrust in The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Core Rules and The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set.
The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set is published by Free League Publishing and provides an introduction to roleplaying in The Walking Dead Universe, with a simplified version of the rules, a complete scenario in the Survival Mode, and everything necessary to play that scenario. This includes two sets of dice, four maps, ten pre-generated Player Characters, and the Threat Meter. Everything is presented in full colour, though no photographs are used from The Walking Dead television series, so fans may be disappointed. That said, the artwork, done in the house style for Free Publishing is very good and fits the world very well.

So opening up the box, the first things to be found in the box are the dice and the Threat Meter. The dice consist of two different sets. The black Base Dice are marked with a ‘target’ symbol on their six faces to indicate a Success when rolled, as are the red Stress Dice. However, Stress Dice also have a ‘hand’ symbol on their one faces. When these are rolled after a Pushed dice check, they indicate that the Player Character has ‘messed up’ and attracted the attention of the Walkers. This, of course, is a bad thing. The Threat Meter is a simple dial that goes from one to six—it should actually go from zero to six—that is used to indicate how active the Walkers are and how many are present. The higher the number on the Threat Meter and the greater the number of Walkers and the more active they are. Below this are the pre-generated Player Characters. Six of these are standard Player Characters as you would create using The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Core Rules. Each has full stats, skills, a Talent, an Issue and a Secret which could get them into trouble, as well as some background. These six—plus one for an NPC—are designed to be used with ‘The Wolves’ Den’, the scenario in The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set, and are given both male and female names to give the players the choice. The other four are characters from the television show, and they consist of Carol Peletier, Glenn Rhee, Michonne, and Gabriel Stokes. These four are done in full colour as opposed to tan tones of the other six. The four maps are done in full colour on very sturdy paper. One is double-sided and depicts north-east Georgia on one side and south-west Virginia on the other. The other three depict locations for ‘The Wolves’ Den’ scenario.

The ’Rules’ booklet explains everything about characters, combat, and Walkers. Anyone who played a year Zero Engine roleplaying game will be familiar with most of its contents. A Player Character has four attributes—Strength, Agility, Wits, and Empathy—rated between one and five, and each attribute has three associated skills, for a total of twelve in the game. These are rated between one and six. In addition, a Player Character has a Talent, such as ‘Eye on the Ball’ which enables a Player Character to relieve a point of Stress when a threat or enemy is defeated or overcome or Scavenger, which enables the Player Character to find more rations or food when scavenging. Health Points represent a Player Character’s physical health and cannot be higher then three. A Player Character also has an Anchor, an Issue, and a Drive. An Anchor is another person—Player Character or NPC—that the Player Character cares about and who is used narratively to ‘Handle Your Fear’ and when attempting to relieve Stress. The Issue is a roleplaying hook, such as ‘You think you are better than them’ or ‘Unable to sit down and shut up’ that the Game Master can use to create interesting, typically challenging situations. Drive is what pushes a Player Character to grit his teeth and withstand the pain, like ‘You love your mother’ and ‘God put me here to save their souls’. Once a session, a Drive can be invoked to gain extra dice on a test.

Mechanically, as with other Year Zero Engine roleplaying games, whenever a Player Character wants to undertake an action in The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Core Rules, his player roles a number of Base Dice equal to the attribute plus skill plus any modifiers from gear, Talents, help, or the situation. If a single six, a Success, is rolled on the Base Dice, the Player Character succeeds, although extra Success will add bonus effects. However, if no Successes are rolled and the action is failed, or he wants to roll more Successes, the player has the choice to Push the roll. In which case, the Player Character suffers a point of Stress and gains a Stress Die. The player must also explain what the character is doing differently in order to Push the roll. For the pushed roll, the player will roll all of the Base Dice which did not roll success and the Stress Die. In fact, until the Player Character finds a way to reduce his Stress points, his player will continue to add Stress Dice equal to his character’s Stress Points on every roll. Only one pushed roll can be made per action, but the danger of having Stress Dice is if their results should be a one or ‘Walker’ symbol. It means two things. First, if the player has not yet pushed the roll, he cannot do so. Second, whether or not he has pushed the roll, it means that the Player Character has ‘Messed Up’. Typically, this means that he increased the numbers of Walkers nearby and attracted their attention, turning up the dial on the Threat Meter. In other situations, a ‘Messed Up’ might mean the Player Character has got lost, lost his footing, said the wrong thing in a tense standoff, and so on. Other sources of Stress include being short on food and water, getting shot at, seeing someone in the group get bitten by a Walker, killing someone in cold blood, and so on.

There are several means of getting rid of Stress. Primarily, these consist of a Player Character connecting and interacting with his Anchor, and at the end of the day, simply getting a good night’s sleep and plenty of rest. Whilst interacting with an Anchor can be during play, at the end of each session, a Player Character has to deal with the dreadful things that he has seen and done that session. This is done via the ‘Handle Your Fear’ mechanic and is triggered if the Player Character has suffered a Breaking Point like his Anchor being killed or disappearing, brutally killing or beating someone who is defenceless, is Broken by damage, suffers five Stress Points, and so on. At this point, the player rolls Base Dice equal to either his character’s Wits or Empathy, with a bonus for any Anchors who are still alive. This roll cannot be pushed, needs only one Success to succeed, but if failed, causes the Player Character to become Overwhelmed, meaning that he loses his Drive, becomes mentally Shattered, or his Issue is changed or added to.

Combat scales in The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Core Rules and The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set depending upon who or what the Player Characters are facing. Duels are one-on-one attacks handled via opposed rolls, each combatant hoping to gain more Successes than the other. Brawls handle combat between multiple participants in which the Leadership skill can be used to hand out bonuses to allies in the fight. Combat is deadly though, a Player Character only possessing three points of Health and once they are lost, the Player Character is Broken, gains a point of Stress, and his player must roll on the Critical Injuries table. The lack of Health in comparison to other roleplaying games is compounded by the limited access to medical care. Make no mistake, The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Core Rules and The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set is deadly.

A setting which is already deadly due to low health and lack of healing, is compounded by the presence of the Walkers. They are a constant, lurking presence in The Walking Dead Universe, in game terms that presence is typically written into a scenario at a particular location or encounter, as you would expect, but also brought into play randomly whenever a player rolls a ‘Walker’ symbol on a Stress Die. Narratively, this could be as simple as the Player Characters opening a door to discover a room full of Walkers or a Walker bursting out of a bush to attack the Player Characters. The presence of the Walkers is tracked by the Threat Meter, which ranges from zero and ‘You are in a cleared area and safe. For now.’ to six and ‘The dead are in your face, surrounding you.’ The Threat Level is raised by rolling a ‘Walker’ on a Stress Die, failing a skill roll to avoid Walkers, doing something in the game to attract their attention, and so on. Ideally, the Player Characters will sneak around them as they scavenge buildings and search locations, but of course, that is unlikely. At low levels on the Threat Meter, it is possible for the Player Characters to go quiet and wait it out until the Walkers have either wandered off or gone quiet themselves. At higher levels, the Player Characters will need to find a way to distract the Walkers and make them go elsewhere or fight them. Encounters with a few Walkers are possible and these can be engaged in ‘Single Walker Attacks’, but Walkers congregate and then they fight as Swarms. Fights against Swarms are group endeavours, the aim being to roll more Successes than a Swarm to first reduce its size and then escape it. If a Player Character or Player Characters lose against a Walker attack, there is a table of very nasty and brutal ‘Walker Attack’ effects which will have the players wincing when they hear the results. The rules cover sacrificing another, brawling amidst a Swarm, clearing out an area, and lastly, amputation, the latter the last desperate result to resolve after a Walker bite…

There is good advice for the Game Master including how to make it scary and how to include the characters from the television series as NPCs, and to not cheapen the lives of the Player Characters and the NPCs. All this complements the Principles of the Game given at the start for both players and the Game Master. These are to do whatever it takes to survive; death is inescapable, the Player Characters are never truly safe or alone, and that in terms of game play, everyone is telling a story and fiction comes first. There is advice too on running the game mode for the scenario in The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set. This is Survival Mode, typically a scenario with pre-written events and locations which can be played in a session or two, as opposed to Campaign Mode, played in multiple sessions with a more open storyline.

The scenario in The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set is ‘The Wolves’ Den’. This is written around two other aspects of The Walking Dead Universe—that the stories are not about the Walkers, but about the survivors and often, other survivors are more of a danger than the Walkers. It is written around the six pre-generated Player Characters included in The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set and opens with them searching for two of their number who have eloped, breaking up a relationship in the process and taking some valuable equipment, including a vehicle and weapons, with them in the process. The scenario gets nastier and nastier as it progresses, building from creepy to in-your-face horror, culminating in a confrontation with a band of The Wolves, the violent group of survivors encountered in the fifth and sixth seasons of The Walking Dead television series.

Physically, The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set is very well presented. Everything is of a very high quality, especially the maps which can be used beyond the play of ‘The Wolves’ Den’, as can the Threat Meter. However, the books need a slight edit in places and not everything is quite as clearly explained as it should, such as handling NPC skills.

If there is a problem with The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set, it is that it only has the one scenario, ‘The Wolves’ Den’. Essentially, once the scenario has been played through, the obvious value and utility of The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set is not as great as it should be. However, look at The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set instead as a toolkit and it is actually more useful than it first appears. It has official dice for The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Core Rules and the Threat Meter is a useful tool to have sat on the table, the maps are great, and the pre-generated Player Characters are useful for when running The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Core Rules. It is disappointing that there is only one scenario in The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set, but there is a lot that is useful too.

The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set is a very good introduction to The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Core Rules and roleplaying in the brutal world of The Walking Dead.

As its title suggests, Going Underground – A Case File for Rivers of London: the Roleplaying Game is a scenario for the roleplaying game based on the Rivers of London novels by Ben Aaronovitch. In this roleplaying game, as magic returns to the world, there is the need to deal with the mysteries, oddness, and secrets of the ‘demi-monde’, as well as investigate crimes committed by those within it and those associated with it. In this urban fantasy game, this need is fulfilled by the London Metropolitan Police Service’s special magic branch, also known as ‘the Folly’, and the Player Characters are its newly recruited members. Magic plays a big role in Rivers of London: the Roleplaying Game and thus in Going Underground, and some of the Player Characters are practitioners—Apprentice Newtonian Wizards—who will need their magic to best solve the mystery at the heart of the scenario. It is a short affair, a group capable of playing through it in a single session, two at best. It is also an introductory scenario, suitable for as a beginning scenario, but also easily played after the solo case file, ‘The Domestic’, and the full scenario, ‘The Bookshop’ in the core rulebook, or simply inserted into an ongoing campaign.

Going Underground – A Case File for Rivers of London: the Roleplaying Game can be played through with two, three, or four players, and there are suggestions as to which pre-generated Player Characters from the core rulebook are suitable as well as what spells will be useful. Werelight is definitely one of them. There are two issues with the scenario, one of which is that it is short, the other that it is set in 2016 rather than the present day. This is because the London Underground began running late-night services after that and so made accessing its tracks very much more difficult and dangerous. That said, there are notes if the Game Master wants to shift Going Underground out of London and set in another city with an underground mass transport network, such as New York’s Subway, the Paris Métro, or indeed Glasgow’s Clockwork Orange.

The scenario opens with a telephone call in the middle of night. This is from Sergeant Jaget Kumar, the Falcon Liaison Officer for the British Transport Police. He reports that an engineer conducting a patrol on the London Underground at the British Museum station got the fright of his life and Sergeant Kumar wants to determine if the incident is Falcon-related—which of course, it is. The Player Characters get to walk from the Folly to nearby Holborn tube station, through the city’s nightlife, to first interview the engineer. They do have a little time to conduct some preliminary research, which should turn up one interesting fact—there is no British Museum London Underground station. Or rather, there is no longer a working British Museum London Underground station. It was closed in 1933 and is no longer part of the running network, but was used as an air raid shelter in World War 2 and later a Cold War emergency command post. It is now used for storage. The British Museum London Underground station is what is known as a ‘ghost station’—and it is this conflation of ‘ghost’ and ‘station’ which the author takes advantage of and should arouse the interest of the players and their characters. That, of course, and the fact that the nearby British Museum is also reputed to have been haunted by its very own ‘Unlucky Mummy’.

After the Player Characters have interviewed the very jittery Underground engineer, they get to descend into the network and work their way to the British Museum Underground station. This is preceded by a very stern safety briefing and Sergeant Kumar’s confession that he is really looking forward to visiting the British Museum Underground station as it is a ghost station he has never visited or had reason to visit. The bulk of the scenario’s investigation and possible action takes place here. There is not a great deal to the investigation itself, but it is nicely detailed with numerous options and suggestions given and explored to deal with the handful of problems that the Player Characters find in the remains of the old station. Notably, one of these is combat, but there is certain reluctance to its inclusion here, as if not only is it not the ideal solution to the mystery, it is not one that the author really wanted to include. There is a wealth of background and historical detail to back up the scenario’s plot that showcases the research that has gone into the scenario. This includes a history of the London Underground, the British Museum station in particular, and the ‘Unlucky Mummy’. Throughout is also staging advice and suggestions for the Game Master as well as a plot progression diagram at the beginning.

Physically, Going Underground – A Case File for Rivers of London: the Roleplaying Game is very nicely produced. It is well written, the illustrations excellent, the cartography good, and the handouts decent.

If there is an issue with Going Underground – A Case File for Rivers of London: the Roleplaying Game, it is that it is disappointingly short, but then it does cover just a few hours’ worth of investigation. However, it is detailed in terms of plot and background, as well as the resolution to its mystery, with some fun NPCs for the Game Master to portray and the Player Characters to interact with. Ultimately, Going Underground – A Case File for Rivers of London: the Roleplaying Game is a very nicely done scenario that really does feel as if Ben Aaronovitch could have written it. No fan of the Rivers of London series would be surprised to see this turn up as a short story or graphic novel.

The end is nigh and there is no denying it. The seas rise. The forests spread. Crops fail. Wars continue without reason. The dead walk the land. Peasants suffer taxes, plague, and worse. As the world takes one more breath closer to dying, the arch-priestess Josilfa stands in the pulpit in the great cathedral to the god Nechrubel in the city of Galgenbeck in the land of Tveland, preaching that prophecies of the Two-Headed Basilisk are coming true. The apocalypse is pending and the inquisition of the Two-Headed Basilisks will see to it that no apostate or heretic turn their face away from the end or find salvation in other gods. Yet there are some who would deny all the signs around them and even say that there is another way. That the masses need heed to the pontification of arch-priestess Josilfa in her doom mongering prophecies of the Two-Headed Basilisk, that the darkness can be held back. Vriprix the Mad Wizard is one such voice. He believes that the Forbidden Psalm, a nameless scripture, contains the necessary knowledge to do so, and is located deep in the ruins of the city of Kergüs. He will not emerge from behind the doors of his castle home, but his pockets run deep, and he has gold aplenty to hire mercenaries and freebooters to undertake tasks for him. This is the set-up for Forbidden Psalm: The Times Edition.
Forbidden Psalm: End Times Edition is a miniatures game published by Space Penguin Ink. It is notable for a number of things. First—as the background suggests—it is compatible 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. That means that Player Characters can be converted to use with Forbidden Psalm and with a bit of effort, the campaign that comes in Forbidden Psalm, could be adapted to Mörk Borg if a more physical, combative game is desired. Like Mörk Borg, a set of polyhedral dice is required to play Forbidden Psalm.

Second, it is a 28 mm skirmish level miniatures game playable with just five miniatures per warband per player and as a systems-agnostic setting, those miniatures can be from any range and publisher, meaning that a player can easily tailor his band to his choice. It is played on two-foot square board and Forbidden Psalm does include rules for the co-operative play, solo play, versus mode, and multiplayer play with three or four participants. The scale and numbers of Forbidden Psalm puts it roughly on a par with a Frostgrave: Fantasy Wargames in the Frozen City and Mordheim.

Third, Forbidden Psalm: End Times Edition is not one book, but two. It compiles two volumes. The core rules, Forbidden Psalm, and the campaign, Footsteps of the Mad Wizard. This is a twenty-six-part campaign and if Footsteps of the Mad Wizard is run using Mörk Borg, it would actually make it the first campaign for Mörk Borg.

A warband in Forbidden Psalm consists of five miniatures. Each has four stats—Agility, Presence, Strength, and Toughness, Hit Points based on his Toughness, a randomly determined Flaw and Feat, and then some equipment. The latter comes out of a starting budget of fifty gold for all of the Warband. If a player wants his warband to include a Spellcaster, this must be paid for, who is then generated as a standard figure complete with stats, Feat and Flaw, and so on, plus two scrolls—one clean and one unclean—that he will begin play with. Pets—including a pet rock, which is good throwing—and a Slug Wizard can also be purchased and mercenaries be hired. These are more expensive options than hiring the spellcaster. Forbidden Psalm provides examples of both pets and mercenaries.

Råtta Strejkbrytare
Agility +3 Presence +1 Strength -3 Toughness +0
Hit Points: 8
Flaw: Loner (-1 to tests within two inches of an ally)
Feat: Rat Catcher (free Bag o’ Rats)
Equipment: Short sword, light armour, backpack, lantern, bandages

Set-up and game play in Forbidden Psalm is simple. Pick a scenario to play and set up the board, determine weather and conditions, roll for initiative, and deploy according to the scenario. Then from one round to the next, the participants determine initiative, take it in turns to activate a figure, then monsters, and that is it. Play proceeds like this until the objective for the scenario has either been achieved or it proves impossible to do so. Movement is based on a figure’s Agility stat, and each figure can act and move once when activated. An action can be to make an attack, use an item of equipment or a feat, read a scroll, interact with treasure or scenario objects, drag a down figure a short distance, and so on. If a Test has to be made, it is rolled on a twenty-sided die, the aim being to roll twelve or more. A roll of one is a fumble and a roll of twenty is a critical. Combat is equally as simple, though in melee combat, the defender has a chance to strike back, though with a penalty. A figure reduced to zero Hit Points is ‘Downed’, but is killed if reduced to negative Hit Points. A ‘Downed’ can still die at the end of the scenario or he might simply have a wound or even a wound and a new Feat he has learned!

Both players begin a scenario with each possessing access to six Omens. These grant fantastic, one-off benefits such as dealing maximum damage, forcing the reroll of any dice, cancelling out one critical or fumble.

Magic takes the form of reading scrolls. This simply requires a test versus the figure’s Presence stat. This does not consume the scroll and the figure can read a scroll again and again over the course of a scenario. On a failure or a Critical, the figure gains a Tragedy. Tragedies are accrued and carried over from one game to the next. They are then used and expunged as modifiers to rolls on the Calamity Table, such as when a player rolls a Fumble when reading a scroll. A Calamity, such as everything feeling fine, but on roll of seven on the twenty-sided die whenever the figure is activated, his head explodes and he dies, or the figure’s arm becomes permanently hostile to the figure and punches him every round until the limb is amputated, lasts for a whole scenario.

The rules for Forbidden Psalm run to some forty pages, but that covers everything—warband creation, magic, movement, action, combat, and so on. They are clear and easy to read and grasp, and anyone who has played another set of miniatures wargame rules will be able to adjust with ease, as to be fair, will anyone who has played Forbidden Psalm. The remainder of Forbidden Psalm is divided between some twenty-five or so monsters and the campaign. The monsters include ‘The Blind Spider Queen’, ‘Blood Rage Vampire’, the ‘Corpse Collector’ of the front cover to Forbidden Psalm, both ‘Dismembered Ghouls’ and ‘Faecal Ghouls’, the ‘Mutant Chicken of Kalkoroth’ (complete with laser eyes), and lastly, the scythe-armed ‘The Editors’ which stuff the mouths of Downed figures with paper covered in mad ramblings and so kill them, rising the next round as Disciples of the Editors! If a monster is killed, its organs can be harvested as ‘Sweet Meats’ and sold. However, this requires a successful Presence Test otherwise the figure realises that his actions are so disgusting he must make a Morale Test! Overall, this is a solid selection of suitably vile monsters and it would be easy to add more from Mörk Borg.

The campaign in Forbidden Psalm: End Times Edition combines the shorter campaign from the original rulebook for Forbidden Psalm and In the Footsteps of the Mad Wizard, and together they take up half of the book. In this, the extremely reclusive Vriprix the Mad Wizard hires the Player Characters to undertake various tasks, such as exploring a nearby house for Black-Spotted Fungus, killing a rival wizard, finding the culprit who has stolen his socks(!), and more… Each clearly states the goal for the Player Characters, rewards, set-up and deployment, threats, and then how to run it in solo and co-operative play, plus some colour text to read out, especially if it is being run as part of a Mörk Borg game. After Vriprix disappears at the end of the part of the campaign, the rest concerns the Player Characters’ attempts to track him down in the city of Dawnblight in the Kergüs region. Here they will find one of their number imprisoned and have to rescue him from Ice Prisons, scavenge for food to keep the Hogs Head Inn running, kill the innkeeper’s ex-lover-now Faecal Ghoul and return with proof, hunt ravenous monsters and try to survive when they turn on them, and so on. It is a fun campaign in whatever format it is being run. There are notes too on what the Player Characters can do between missions and improve themselves. In general, the scenarios are sufficiently complex for Forbidden Psalm, but they may need a little fleshing out here and there to work as anything other than very straightforward scenarios.

Physically, Forbidden Psalm: End Times Edition is decently done and keeps everything clear and simple, and so it is very easy to read. In terms of art style, Forbidden Psalm: End Times Edition avoids the illegibility of the Artpunk style of the standard Mörk Borg title.

Although not written as one, Forbidden Psalm: End Times Edition has the simplicity and ease of use of an introductory wargame, made all the easier by its low demands in terms of miniatures and terrain pieces required. The compatibility between Forbidden Psalm: End Times Edition and Mörk Borg also highlights the simplicity and adaptability of the Old School Renaissance-style roleplaying game, not just to another setting or genre, but an entirely different type of game—the miniatures wargame—and then back again. All of which is supported by over twenty scenarios which can be played in solo, co-operative, and player-versus mode or run as straightforward roleplaying scenarios. Forbidden Psalm: End Times Edition is a solid set of skirmish miniatures combat rules, perfect for the Mörk Borg devotee, suitable for the wargames enthusiastic wanting a straightforward set of rules, and good for the Game Master who wants an undemanding campaign.

On the edge of the pit, stands a great iron pole from chains hang, some broken, some not. This is the sacrificial bluff at which the great tentacular pit-beast would rise from roiling mists that filled the one hundred feet wide and some say a thousand-foot-deep pit to drag away the young and unfortunate virgins offered as sacrifices to dissuade it from attacking the surrounding countryside as it had done for thousands of years. Thus, it has been centuries, the local villages offering up their young as sacrifices once a decade, the widespread devouring of the countryside prevented following the intervention of a warrior-priest and the agreement he reached with the creature, an agreement that resulted in his being dishonoured. More recently, with the practice having fallen by the wayside and it being a decade since the last set of sacrifices, the tentacles of the pit-beast have been reaching up out of the ravine in search of offerings capable of sating its hunger. Worse, the tentacles have been accompanied by strange, grey-robed men with no faces and long, sinewy arms. So far, the predations of both have been avoided by the local peasantry banding together and driving them off, mob-fashion. That though cannot last, for the tentacles and the faceless grey men are certain to return—and in greater numbers. Thus, brave adventurers have set out to investigate the pit, find out who or what is behind the marauding pit-beast and the people of the pit, and put a stop to them, and of course, go in search of mystery, adventure, riches, and fame.

Dungeon Crawl Classics #68: The People of the Pit is second scenario to be published by Goodman Games for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. Designed for a group of eight to ten First Level Player Characters, it is an important scenario for two reasons. One is that it is written by the publisher, Joseph Goodman, and the other is that it is the second scenario to be written for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game and the first to be written for Player Characters who are not Zero level. The previous adventure, Dungeon Crawl Classics #67: Sailors on the Starless Sea was not only the first, but it was a Character Funnel, the signature set-up and play style of the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game in which players control not one, but several Zero Level characters, each a serf or peasant looking beyond a life tied to the fields and the seasons or the forge and the hammer to prove themselves and perhaps progress enough to become a skilled adventurer and eventually make a name for themselves. In other words, to advance from Zero Level to First Level. Of course, the Player Characters at the start of Dungeon Crawl Classics #68: The People of the Pit are presumed to have done that or the Judge could actually run Dungeon Crawl Classics #67: Sailors on the Starless Sea before this scenario and its survivors, having reached First Level, now play it as a standard Dungeon Crawl Classics adventure.

The adventure is not so much a descent into the pit—although ultimately, the Player Characters will reach its bottom—but a descent through the caves and tunnels carved into the walls of the pit by the great tentacular beast and its faceless, blubbery, grey cultists. Here what the Player Characters discover is a working, living dungeon complex, a temple dedicated to the blind idiot god whose name they will learn is Palimdybis, its cultists conduct ceremonies to their master, make sacrifices to him, and prepare the strange powders and concoctions, made from the suckers, eyeballs, and skin scoured off their master’s tentacles, that they use to transform initiates into the inhuman state of full cultist. Even the descent to this complex is dangerous enough with its cracked and slippery stone steps which wind their way around the side of the pit, the possibility being that the Player Characters lose their footing and plummet to their deaths. Once inside the complex, Palimdybis’ influence can be found everywhere. His tentacles seem to reach everywhere, most notably in a ravine where they can reach up to attack intruders or pull down a drawbridge that will allow people to cross, the Octo-masses which burst out of the bellies of cultists once they are slain, and in the tentacle transport which can be ridden up and down the complex by clutching the rope ladder and rigging the cultists have attached to it. This only hints at the ability of the cultists to command and control the tentacles, each of them learning to summon and direct the tentacles once initiated. This is a group endeavour and requires at least three cultists. It is also possible for Player Characters to learn the spell Control Tentacle and so gain the same abilities—at least within the temple and the pit. This tentacle transport is not the only means of traversing the complex. For example, mazes serve as mediative puzzles—almost like the Pattern from Roger Zelazny’s Nine Princes in Amber—that the crimson-robed middle-ranking cultists, yellow-robed senior cultists, and blue-robed cult leader—use to transport themselves between the levels of the temple. These mazes are given as actual handouts that the players must solve using pen and paper in order to proceed further into the temple!

Dungeon Crawl Classics #68: The People of the Pit is a dangerous affair, especially once the cultists begin summoning tentacles. There are also many features which work like traps, like the meditative mazes, but are not traps in the classic sense, plus, the processes necessary for the initiates to become full-blown cultists are dangerous as well. The monsters are nasty too, like the mineral-horned mountain basilisk, a variant of the traditional basilisk whose gaze takes longer to turn its victims to stone, but whose solid gold horn is bound to attract the attention of the greedy Player Character. Lastly, the final confrontation and climax of the dungeon is a nasty fight that the players will feel lucky to have their characters survive.

One aspect of Dungeon Crawl Classics #68: The People of the Pit to note is that it is low in terms of reward or treasure. There is no real discussion of what happens beyond the adventure itself and little in terms of monetary reward to be found. There are three magical items of note to be found. One is a very fragile wand that enhances and grants detection spells, another is a short sword that can be thrown at goblins with unerring accuracy and cripples those who interfere, whilst a third is a simple +1 Mace. Of course, after reading the descriptions of the first two, why is the mace so very, very plain?

Originally, Dungeon Crawl Classics #68: The People of the Pit consisted of just the four levels of the temple complex, but later printings include ‘Assassins of the Pit’, an additional area that can be added to the pit. There are suggestions as to where this could be, one being that the Player Characters follow an Octo-Mass, not yet killed, as it flees down the side of the pit to this new area. The twelve-room complex nicely expands upon the original dungeon, providing the means for the Player Characters to learn more about the cult and its history that cannot be found elsewhere in the temple, and it also sort of puts a face to the cultists found here. Or rather multiple faces, since these purple or black robe-wearing cultists are not so much cultists or transformed humans, but Octo-Masses that have escaped their former hosts and become assassins with the ability to take on the faces of others. Nicely creepy and in true weird fantasy style, they are led by a ‘Grandfather of Assassins’.

Physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics #68: The People of the Pit is as solidly produced as you would expect for a scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. The maps for the core scenario are appropriately tight and twisty for the tentacular nature of the scenario, though those for ‘Assassins of the Pit’ are plainer and not as interesting.

Dungeon Crawl Classics #68: The People of the Pit set the tone for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game scenarios that were to follow—grim and weird and challenging. Its weirdness comes from the Lovecraftian tentacular theme threading, quite literally, through its dungeon halls, its grimness comes from the fate of both cultists and victims, and the challenge from it just simply being a tough dungeon crawl. If their characters survive Dungeon Crawl Classics #68: The People of the Pit then your players are really going to feel they achieved something and their characters are truly worthy of getting to Second Level.

The set-up for Cryptozoology for Beginners is quite simple. The school’s photography class has been given a new assignment and raced off aboard the big yellow school bus on a mysterious field trip. This is out into the wilds to photograph and record the local wildlife. This is no ordinary wildlife though, but cryptids—Nessie, the Chupacabra, Sasquatch, and the Mothman—and if the players can take the right photographs and complete their assignments, they will be rewarded with stars, and get to go home top of the class. Cryptozoology for Beginners is published by Cryptozoic Entertainment and is part of the second trilogy of games based on the art of Steven Rhodes, noted for its sly, subversive dig at the social attitudes and fears of the seventies and eighties. Published following a successful Kickstarter campaign, it is designed to be played by between two and four players, aged fourteen and up. The game is played over the course of three rounds in which players will draft cards—both Assignment Cards and Cryptid cards, and then play the Cryptid Cards to both activate their abilities and fulfil the requirements of the Assignment cards. A game can be played in twenty minutes or more, depending on the number of players.

Cryptozoology for Beginners consists of a twelve-page rules booklet, a deck of ninety-six Cryptid Cards, forty Assignment Cards, forty Scoring Tokens, and a Bus Standee. The rules booklet is short, easy to read, and includes a few clarifications and some optional rules. The latter are for a beginner game and a two-player game. The rules for a beginner game do feel superfluous given the simple nature of game and its play, especially given its suggested age limit. Much younger players will have no problems learning and playing Cryptozoology for Beginners. The Scoring Tokens are worth between three and six points and are kept face down throughout play, including when a player draws one and keeps it, and the Bus Standee is used to indicate the first player in each round.

The two card types are the Cryptid Cards and the Assignment Cards. These come in four colours—red, green, blue, and yellow—and are marked with one of seven icons—either Nessie, Sasquatch Footprint, Chupacabra, Mothman, Eldritch Tome, Target, and Horror. There are some cards which combine two icons, whilst the cards with the Horror icon—the Jersey Devil, Siren, and Jackalope—are colourless. Where link between the icons and the cryptids are obvious, the Target icon refers to Monster Hunters. Each of the Cryptid Cards has a special ability. For example, the ‘Nessie’ card requires a player to activate it and another two cards with the Nessie icon so that he can draw another card, whilst the Chupacabra card needs to be activated plus another four cards with the Chupacabra icon and then lets a player discard any card in play, even that of another player, and in return let the owner draw a new card.

The different types of Cryptid Card are also themed mechanically. Thus, the Cryptid Cards with the Nessie icon enable a player to draw more cards; the Cryptid Cards with the Sasquatch Footprint grant a player more Victory Tokens; the Cryptid Cards with the Chupacabra icon let a player steal cards from another player; and the Cryptid Cards with the Mothman icon grant a player with the most Mothman icons extra Victory Points. Of the other Cryptid Cards, those with the Eldritch Tome icon reward a player with Victory Token and those with Target icons can activated to draw and keep another Assignment card. The colourless cards give a variety of unique effects.

The Assignment Cards each provide an objective and a reward to be gained in return for completing it. For example, Assignment #1 requires a player to accrue four red cards and grants him three Victory Points, whilst Assignment #16 gives a player two points if he can accrue two points and at the end of the round, can either give the player another Victory Point or lets him keep a card with a Chupacabra icon.

Cryptozoology for Beginners is played in three rounds each of which consists of four phases. The first phase is the ‘Assignment’ phase. Each player draws two Assignment Cards, keeps one and hidden, whilst the other is placed face-up where everyone can see it and work to achieving it. In the second phase, the ‘Draft Cryptid’ phase, each player receives eight Cryptid Cards. He keeps a single card and passes the remainder to the next player. This is done until each player has drafted a hand of eight Cryptid Cards. The third phase is ‘Player Turns’. Each player takes it in turn to play a single Cryptid Card in front of him, activate its ability, and if he manages to complete an Assignment Card, either one face up on the table or the one he has secret, he gets to place it in front of him. It will add to his total score at the end of the game. Cards can only be activated once per phase. Play continues until no-one has any Cryptid Cards in their hand. This ends the round, players keep their completed Assignments and points scored, whilst all Cryptid Cards are discarded—unless a card says otherwise. A new round begins and repeats these steps, and then again for a third and final round. The Bus Standee is used to indicate the player who has the lowest score that is not hidden and lets him begin first in the next round. At the end of the game, the player with highest score wins the game.

In this way, the play of Cryptozoology for Beginners is simple and straightforward. In fact, too simple and straightforward. The problem with Cryptozoology for Beginners is that once play begins, there is very interaction between the players, only through a number of limited Cryptid Cards and then through the draft in the second phase of each round. This draft is the most important stage of play, since it sets up much of what a player will play and do in the ‘Player Turns’ phase. To go further, the ‘Draft Phase’ is not so much a ‘draft’ phase, but a ‘planning’ phase, a player trying work out whether to aim to complete Assignment Cards, focus on Cryptid Cards that give more points, and so on. The benefit of the draft means that each player will also have some idea of what his opponents are planning because of the cards they draft—in secret of course, but they are no longer there as the hands are passed around the table. Also, with just a few Assignment Cards in play, the competition between players can be fierce and made all the worse if a player grabs one that another player has been working towards completing, leaving him little time to adjust or really catch up.
Physically, Cryptozoology for Beginners is nicely done. The rules booklet is easy to read and the rules to understand, whilst the Victory Tokens and the School Bus are done on the thick, bright cardboard. The Assignment Cards are clear and simple, if bland, but really all of the game’s flavour comes from Steve Rhodes’ artwork on the Cryptid Cards which is highly entertaining, such as the Sasquatch on the ‘Seclusion of Sasquatch’ Cryptid Card making filming another Sasquatch whilst a third looks on laughing!

Ultimately, what sells Cryptozoology for Beginners is its artwork—and it really is good artwork. Otherwise, game play focuses too much on its draft mechanic—get it right and a player will sail through his turns, get it wrong and he will have slog to catch up. There is also little interaction beyond the draft. Younger players are more likely to like this more than older ones, the latter including the minimum suggested age group for Cryptozoology for Beginners. It is too simple a game for them. Ultimately, Cryptozoology for Beginners feels as if it should offer more than it does.

Since 2013, Goodman Games, the publisher of the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic has released a book especially for Gen Con, the largest tabletop hobby gaming event in the world. That book is the Goodman Games Gen Con Program Book, a look back at the previous year, a preview of the year to come, staff biographies, community content, and a whole lot more, including adventures and lots tidbits and silliness. The first was the Goodman Games Gen Con 2013 Program Book, but not being able to pick up a copy from Goodman Games when they first attended UK Games Expo in 2019, the first to be reviewed was the Goodman Games Gen Con 2014 Program Book. Fortunately, a little patience and a copy of the Goodman Games Gen Con 2013 Program Book was located and reviewed, so since 2021, normal order has been resumed with the Goodman Games Gen Con 2016 Program Book, the Goodman Games Gen Con 2017 Program Book, and Goodman Games Gen Con 2018 Program Guide: The Black Heart of Thakulon the Undying.
What was notable about Goodman Games Gen Con 2018 Program Guide: The Black Heart of Thakulon the Undying was rather than providing a range of support for the roleplaying games published by Goodman Games, it focused on just the one, its flagship, the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, and did so by providing one big single adventure—a tournament adventure. Or rather, a series of three connected and thematic dungeons that were played by multiple teams at Gen Con 50. Not only did Goodman Games Gen Con 2018 Program Guide: The Black Heart of Thakulon the Undying provide the dungeons ready to play, but also the same means of scoring as used for the tournament so that a group playing at home could measure their progress against those who participated in the event itself. It is a format that the publisher for the next title in the series, the Goodman Games 2019 Yearbook: Riders on the Phlogiston.
Goodman Games 2019 Yearbook: Riders on the Phlogiston, though, goes beyond Goodman Games Gen Con 2018 Program Guide: The Black Heart of Thakulon the Undying in terms of format, scope, and scale. In terms of format, it comes not as one book, but five, all contained in a bright and attractive wraparound cover. The five books are ‘Riders on the Phlogiston’, which contains the tournament adventure of the title, ‘Riders on the Phlogiston – Player Handouts’, which provides the visual clues for the adventure, ‘Riders on the Phlogiston – Judge’s Pack’, which provides a guide to running the tournament and more for the Judge, ‘Riders on the Phlogiston – Player Pack’, which provides advice and rules for the tournament for the players as well as the pre-generated Player Characters, and ‘Goodman High Class of 1974 Yearbook’, which contains the community content and overview of Goodman Games attended events in the previous year. In terms of scope, the three parts of ‘Riders on the Phlogiston’ will in turn take the Player Characters to Terra A.D. and the post-apocalyptic future of Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, then the Shudder Mountains of Dungeon Crawl Classics #83: The Chained Coffin, and finally, the weird world of Dungeon Crawl Classics #84: Peril on the Purple Planet. (It should be noted that none of those are required to run the tournament, but the Judge will enjoy the references, as will her players if they have time between their characters getting themselves killed.) Finally, the scale and brutality of ‘Riders on the Phlogiston’ is turned up to the maximum, as the Player Characters race across three different worlds, attempting to outpace the ever-expanding phlogistonic sphere that will kill them all and survive to the end to face the one responsible for their situation—who they thought dead at the start of the first part, something none of the tournament teams managed to achieve. In other words, they all ended in a ‘TPK’, or ‘Total Party Kill’. Make no mistake, ‘Riders on the Phlogiston’ is designed to be and is a tough adventure.
‘Riders on the Phlogiston’ begins in media res, with the Player Characters about to prevent their arch-nemesis, the vile sorcereress, Haera the White, and her band of crocmen about to summon something unspeakable. Being stalwart heroes, the Player Characters leap into action, but in managing to sop her, they find themselves flung into the first of several increasingly odd worlds. ‘Round 1: The Infinite Phlogistopic Engine Complex’ proper, opens with the Player Characters in an experimental energy complex which has suffered a reactor meltdown exacerbated by the phlogiston explosion caused by their intervention in Haera the White’s summoning. Here the Player Characters must adapt to a highly advanced technological facility—so advanced that magic works here too—and work out how the basic technology works, solve some incredibly fiendish puzzles, and then race to escape. There is a flash-freezing device to get past which could stop them in their tracks, a nuclear reactor to learn control to not only get past, but also on a mutagenic mist, a lake of carbon tetrachloride—also known as energized cold plasma—to cross and try not to get swarmed by nanites, and teams giant mutant rabbits with the ability to use technology and turn anything into orange-coloured cellulose on touch to get past. The path through is linear and far from easy. It is also, at times, quite complex. The Judge really does need to study this section of the adventure as there are some difficult puzzles which she has to understand and be able to impart the effects when the Player Characters interact with them. In comparison with the other two parts, the map in ‘Round 1: The Infinite Phlogistopic Engine Complex’ is not as interesting, nor does it depict its area as well.
‘Round 2: Beneath The Shudder Mountains’ begins at the bottom of a coal mine and it feels very much more like a traditional Dungeon Crawl Classics scenario, full of weird magic and odd creatures. It is purposefully filled with temptations that lead to dead ends and TPKs, like the giant-like coal outcropping which turns out to be an unkillable coal demon if the Player Characters are greedy enough to pull the silver axe out of its thigh, or the suit of mithril plate armour worn by a body which is under rock pile in a room in danger of a rock fall! Despite these diversions, ‘Round 2: Beneath The Shudder Mountains’ is more obviously linear than ‘Round 1: The Infinite Phlogistopic Engine Complex’ and for the characters and their players, a whole lot less weird. It also benefits from some clearer map excerpts that make it much more straightforward to run. The round ends with a highly entertaining encounter with a Hillbilly Hydra—a Ganderbeast—which has multiple honking geese heads and its own nasty, nasty Critical Hit Table.
‘Round 3: Escape From The Purple Planet’ drops the Player Characters at the base of tomb which they must ascend. This first involves being chased through a labyrinthine cave by a growing Orm Swarm, past a psychic resonator which creates objects in response to their thoughts that might kill them, followed by an ascent up a cylindrical tomb with no means of ascent whilst liquid brass from below wants to drown everyone, and then towards the end, a puzzle involving colour combinations which infuriatingly, relies on the way colours are combined in modern computers and thus on player knowledge. Lastly, ‘Riders on the Phlogiston’ comes full circle for a final confrontation with Haera the White and the chance for the Player Characters to escape back home.
As a tournament scenario, each of the three stages in ‘Riders on the Phlogiston’ is designed to be played in a four-hour slot. That is, of course, if the players and their characters are exploring the dungeons in an optimal manner, making best use of their time and resources. This does not mean that their progress is on a tight schedule, but rather that they should not get too distracted. There are some fiendishly difficult puzzles and traps and the whole affair is, as you would expect highly inventive from start to finish. Throughout ‘Riders on the Phlogiston’, there is advice on running it, including a discussion of the advice given E. Gary Gygax on playing tournament adventures in the Player’s Handbook for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition and how that was not applied in many of the cases that lead to team TPKs, and lots and lots of entertaining tales of how many of the teams and even individual players fared.
‘Riders on the Phlogiston – Player Handouts’ provides a set of images to be given out during play as the Player Characters proceed through the tournament, in ‘Round 1: The Infinite Phlogistopic Engine Complex’ in particular. The ‘Riders on the Phlogiston – Judge’s Pack’ begins with a recap of the tournament just as entertaining as the play reports in ‘Riders on the Phlogiston’, before giving a breakdown of the results, TPKs, deadliest rooms and rounds, and even a comparison with the tournament adventure from the Goodman Games Gen Con 2018 Program Guide: The Black Heart of Thakulon the Undying. This is followed by a list of Special Awards and then the ‘Judges’ Rules And Tournament Guidelines’, including general advice, handling the different Classes in Dungeon Crawl Classics, Critical Hits, and so on. Since ‘Riders on the Phlogiston’ is partly set on Terra A.D. and the post-apocalyptic future of Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, the new rules for 2018 cover the use of ‘Artifacts Of The Ancients’ and how to work out how they are used and mutations. A good quarter of the ‘Riders on the Phlogiston – Judge’s Pack’ is devoted to the scoring for each round and location.
The ‘Riders on the Phlogiston – Player Pack’ gives the player’s guidance for playing a tournament scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, a minimum of background to the scenario, and in the main, the eleven pre-generated Player Characters. These are all Fourth Level.
The ‘Goodman High Class of 1974 Yearbook’ is the longest book in the pack that makes up Goodman Games 2019 Yearbook: Riders on the Phlogiston. It is also the only book to be in colour in the pack and as the title gives it its theme, which is that of a high school yearbook. This begins with entries for all the members of Goodman High, complete with photograph from their high school photograph, which means bad, oh so bad, haircuts! Goodman Games has always brought a physical presence to any event that it attends, such as the Doom Gong, which is banged at the start and end of tournament sessions and even when a Player Character dies! ‘Real Life Adventures: Quest For The Wizard Van’ charts the beginning of the quest for Goodman Games’ Wizard’s Van. The quest does not get very far, but it is start, and there is a happy ending as Goodman Games definitely has a Wizard’s Van now! Where there was no success in hunting for a wizard’s van for Goodman Games, one addition to the Goodman Games booth are the obelisks, complete with shelves and the means to fly the Dungeon Crawl Classics flags. Nicely, complementing the Doom Gong introduced for Gen Con 50 in 2017 whose construction was detailed in the Goodman Games Gen Con 2018 Program Guide: The Black Heart of Thakulon the Undying, ‘Building the Obelisks’ explains how they were made. It is a surprisingly long, but entertaining piece.
The gaming content in the ‘Goodman High Class of 1974 Yearbook’ is quite light and in keeping with the tone of the high school yearbook is somewhat tongue in cheek in places. Thus, ‘The Partial Spellbook Of Dr. Lotrin Von Weissgras-Geisterblut’ describes a Cleric’s spell that strips flesh of a fresh corpse and animates them into different form, whereas ‘The Customer Creature Catalogue’ details thirty-seven monsters based on photographs of certain winners on the Luck Token Redemption Table found at the back of the Goodman Games Gen Con 2018 Program Guide: The Black Heart of Thakulon the Undying. This does lean into the tongue in cheek tone, with creatures like the ‘Fro-Bro’, a slush/snow elemental, or the ‘Gleft’, a combination tadpole, dragon, and ocular bat! All are depicted in a cartoonish style, and fairly silly. The silliness continues with one of the items on sale at Gen Con 51 at the Goodman Games booth was DCC RPG Nunchuks! Putting aside the ridiculousness of them, ‘Nunchaku!’ gives full rules for their use in Dungeon Crawl Classics. This includes the Nunchaku Master as a variant of the Warrior Class and the only Class capable of using the nunchaku without penalty. There are new Mighty Deeds suitable for the Nunchaku Master, such as ‘Nunchaku Intimidation’ and ‘Nunchaku Counterstrike’. This piece of silliness make you wish that there was a pulpy martial arts setting for Dungeon Crawl Classics.
The Goodman Games Gen Con Program Guides have always thrown a spotlight on the artwork that appears as covers on its titles and in their pages. In this volume with ‘Painting The Froghemoth’, Erol Otus shows off his development of his Froghemoth painting that is featured in the endsheets of Original Adventures Reincarnated #3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. It is fantastic to see the work in progress and the end result, also shown here, is stunning. ‘Erol And The Rubber Monsters’ looks at his collection of rubber monsters is an entertaining addition.
Every Goodman Games Gen Con Program Guide highlights the activities of the Goodman Games community and the ‘Goodman High Class of 1974 Yearbook’ is no exception. It includes a group photograph of the winners of the program guide’s tournament with ‘Meet The RidersOn The Phlogiston’, a full list of the events Goodman Games planned to attend in 2019, and photographs from the thirty-four events it attended in the previous year! This all highlights Goodman Games’ presence at conventions. It returns to ‘Riders on the Phlogiston’ with ‘News Flash! Origins Tournament Update!’ which reports on what happened when the tournament was run at Origins 2019, a nice complement to the ‘Riders on the Phlogiston – Judge’s Pack’ and its big report on the tournament at Gen Con 2018. There are the usual additions such as ‘road crew flyer DESIGN CONTEST 2019’ and ‘2018 – 2019 mailing label artwork’ too.
The ‘Goodman High Class of 1974 Yearbook’ ends on a more serious and actually more interesting note, especially for scholars of Dungeons & Dragons and anyone with an interest in its inspiration as listed in the Appendix N of the Dungeon Master’s Guide for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition. The latter important because of its strong influence on Dungeon Crawl Classics. ‘Comics In D&D’ by James Maliszewski looks at the very obvious inspirations for art in the Original Dungeons & Dragons taken directly from Marvel Comics. The author tracks down the originals and compares with how they appeared in the roleplaying game to show really just how amateurish the beginnings of the hobby were. Michael Curtis’ ‘Adventures In Fiction: Ballantine Adult Fantasy’ is engaging history and examination of the fiction published by Ballatine Books as part of its Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series between 1969 and 1974. Several of the titles would go on to be listed in Appendix N, so this is a nice piece of bibliographic archaeology for Appendix N. Lastly, in ‘Appendix N Archaeology’ spotlights are thrown on authors who might have been included in Appendix N. The three authors discussed—Harold Lamb, Clark Ashton Smith, and William Hope Hodgson—are all interesting and in each case, are given good introductions to their respective works and examinations of their influence on E. Gary Gygax and Dungeons & Dragons. These are all excellent essays and if Goodman Games were to expand this into a book all of its very own, it would a fine complement to the Appendix N.
Physically, the Goodman Games 2019 Yearbook: Riders on the Phlogiston is an odd product with multiple booklets and books, one in full colour, the others not. All though are decently laid out, easy to read, lavishly illustrated throughout, and good-looking both in black and white, and in colour, much in keeping with the other entries in the series. However, the pack as a whole is not quite as durable because it is made up of several parts rather than a whole and is both easier to damage and more difficult to store.
The Goodman Games 2019 Yearbook: Riders on the Phlogiston greatly differs from the previous entries in the series—and even from the Goodman Games Gen Con 2018 Program Guide: The Black Heart of Thakulon the Undying—as it contains only the one scenario and not as much gaming content. Consequently, it is not going to be of interest to anyone who does not play Dungeon Crawl Classics and who does not want what is a very tough tournament adventure. There are points of interest though for the Dungeons & Dragons scholar in ‘Goodman High Class of 1974 Yearbook’ that are worth reading even if the tournament adventure is not to their liking. For the Dungeon Crawl Classics devotee, there is of course, the community content to enjoy, but what Goodman Games 2019 Yearbook: Riders on the Phlogiston really presents is the roleplaying game at its hardest, its most challenging, and even if said devotee never gets to play the tournament adventure, at its most entertaining.
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Goodman Games will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 31st to Sunday June 2nd, 2024.

Quick-starts are 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 too. 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 for 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.

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What is it?
Infestation: An Introduction To Maggot Machine is the quick-start for Maggot Machine, a post-apocalyptic roleplaying game set in the 1994 when the world was ruined by Maggot Machines, acid reign began to fall, and mankind was driven deep into the UnderLand when they still pray that they will remain undiscovered.

It is an Old School Renaissance-style roleplaying game of post-apocalyptic horror.

It is designed to be played by four players, plus the Game Master.

It is a thirty-two page, 6.49 MB full colour PDF.

The quick-start is lightly illustrated, but the artwork is excellent, reminiscent of SLA Industries, Second Edition from the same publisher.

The themes and nature of the Maggot Machine Roleplaying Game and thus the Infestation: An Introduction To Maggot Machine, specifically the horror and its bloody nature, means that it is best suited to a mature audience.

How long will it take to play?
Infestation: An Introduction To Maggot Machine and its adventure, ‘Journey into LightHell’, is designed to be played through in a single session.

What else do you need to play?
Infestation: An Introduction To Maggot Machine requires six six-sided dice per player.

Who do you play?
The Player Characters in Infestation: An Introduction To Maggot Machine consist of four Guild Knights which make up a Brigade. The four pre-generated Player Characters consist of two Scrappers and Clashers. Slashers rely on stealth, caution, and experience to creep through the long-abandoned streets and buildings of LightHell in search of lost artefacts. They are noted for their conical helmets. Crashers are the muscle of the Guild Houses, sent out alongside Scrappers to protect them. One of the two pre-generated Scrappers grew up a Sewer Pipe Orphan and wields a fire sword, whilst the other was a Child of the State and can easily traverse rough terrain. One of the two pre-generated Clashers was raised in luxury as Guild Spawn and is a One Person Rumour Mill who can more knowledge of a building to be scavenged, whilst the other is a LightHell Mongrel, a foundling from the surface above, who as a Trusty Canary, can first detect the first traces of the poison winds and the distinctive rotten whiff of Maggot Machines.

How is a Guild Knight defined?
A Guild Knight has six stats—Agility, Cunning, Might, Movement, Presence, and Wyrd. The latter is used to power Weird Abilities. The pre-generated Guild Knights have stats ranging between two and four.

How do the mechanics work?
Mechanically, Infestation: An Introduction To Maggot Machine uses a dice pool system. Rolls of six allow an extra die to be rolled. Rolls of one can simply be rerolled. Once this has been done, all results of one are removed and the remaining dice results compared. Each die of the Reactive Character that is higher than the Active Character’s dice cancels that die, and removes it from the Active Character’s pool. At the end of the process, whichever of the Active Character or Reactive Character has any dice left, they score Victory Points equal to the remaining dice. Victory Points will deal damage in combat, but can mean the winner completes a task faster or better.

How does combat work?
Combat in Infestation: An Introduction To Maggot Machine uses the same dice pool system. Might is used as the Active/Reactive stat for melee combat and Agility is used as the Active/Reactive stat for ranged combat. Once Victory Points are determined, a Soak roll is made for armour. Any roll of four or more reduces the Victory Point total by the amount rolled. Any Victory Points remaining are inflicted as damage. If the damage is inflicted by the Reactive Character, the damage is halved.

Infestation: An Introduction To Maggot Machine does not include the full combat rules. More detail and more tactical options are covered in the core rulebook.

How does ‘Wyrd’ work?
Wyrd is used to active Wyrd powers and gifts. Only one Guild Knight has an ability which requires Wyrd points to be spent.

What do you play?
In Infestation: An Introduction To Maggot Machine, the scenario is ‘Journey Into LightHell’. The House of Wire sends the Brigade from the UnderLand into the LightHell to deal with a Maggot Mite infestation at Sterafill Stop and make repairs to the warning system installed on its rooftop. The Guild Knights discover a map of the immediate area indicating possible danger, but are expected to explore and scavenge the area for artefacts and useful items to bring back to the UnderLand. The area is infested with Maggot Mites, Stab Merchants, and worse, although there is some delightfully grotty, grubby, and British salvage to scavenge…

The background suggests some politics between the Houses of the UnderLand, but this is not explored in Infestation: An Introduction To Maggot Machine.

Is there anything missing?
Infestation: An Introduction To Maggot Machine is complete.

Is it easy to prepare?
The core rules presented in Infestation: An Introduction To Maggot Machine are very easy to prepare. That said, the dice mechanics are not immediately easy to grasp and will take a slight adjustment getting used to because dice of a lesser value are being cancelled rather than the same value.
Is it worth it?
Yes. Infestation: An Introduction To Maggot Machine is easy to prepare and run in a single session. It portrays a grim and grimy future with a British grottiness in which it is always 1994, whilst hinting at more to come in the core rulebook.
Where can you get it?
Infestation: An Introduction To Maggot Machine is available to download here.
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Nightfall Games will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 31st to Sunday June 2nd, 2024.

What happens when the Player Characters have their magical items stolen? They want them back, of course, but they also want revenge. And that about sums up the motivation for Magic Eater, a scenario for Lamentations of The Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying. Except that there is a problem with that, because whilst Lamentations of The Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying is an Old School Renaissance retroclone, it is not one known for the generosity of its treasure, let alone its magical items. In fact, Lamentations of The Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying is renowned for its frugality with regard to such matters. So, what Magic User does instead is suggest that the Player Characters’ employer be the one who has the item, the MacGuffin, stolen and wants it returned. So, if the Player Characters have not actually had something stolen, then they can at least be repaid by someone who has. No matter who the victim of the theft is, a note was left by a notorious thief going by the name of Grimalkin, who works with a Northman, in an obvious nod to the Fafhrd and Grey Mouser stories of Fritz Leiber. Tracking the Grimalkin is intended to be easy because it gets to the next bit in the story, the fact that Grimalkin’s house has been set on fire, he is dead, and whatever MacGuffin the Player Characters have to retrieve is gone, having been stolen a second. This time by a gang which styles itself as the ‘Loquesymths’, which if any of the players find out how the gang spells its name, is going to result in the players thinking that their characters are dealing with a bunch of pretentious wankers.
This is the set-up for Magic Eater, a scenario for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying published by Lamentations of the Flame Princess. And despite the antagonists having been identified as pretentious wankers, things are going to get weirder from here on in, because it turns out that that yes, the ‘Loquesymths’ are a bunch of pretentious wankers, half of them are arseholes to boot. This is because half of them are now dedicated to the worship of a thing they call the ‘Magic Eater’. Part of this worship involves feeding him actual magical items—so yes, have a good guess as to has happened to whatever magical MacGuffin the Player Characters are after—and then take the great balls of excrement that the ‘Magic Eater’ defecates and brew them into psychoactive tea that grants them certain blessings whilst at the same the magic energies they are exposed to are causing them to deliquesce. Consequently, the thieves and the cultists in the ‘Loquesymths’ are easy to tell apart. The thieves look like thieves, bandits, or just ordinary folk, whilst the cultists are wrapped in cloaks to hide the fact that they have wrapped themselves in bandages. Unlike the cultists, the thieves do not make squishy sounds when they move.

The ‘Loquesymths’ hide out in a base in the boglands close to the city where the Player Characters or their employer resides. Infiltrating this base, the remnants of a Roman fort that has been used over the centuries and since fallen into a state of disrepair, is the focus of the scenario. (That said, it could be any old fortress, so need not be set in the default period of the Early Modern era for Lamentations of The Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying.) The fortress of thieves consists of three parts. First, the above ground ruins, consisting mostly of the remaining towers and partially repaired walls, then the damp cellars, and the cult temple, a mixture of caves and tunnels and worked corridors and tunnels. The cult temple stinks like a hot, sweaty toilet, areas marked with weird colours due to the arcane seepage from the Magic Eater. There is the possibility here for any spells or magic to fail here, and when it does, it is suggested that the Game Master use either Vaginas Are Magic! or James Raggi IV’s Eldritch Cock as a means to handle this failure, and probably the most entertaining. That said, it would have been just as easy and as easy to create a table of results that could have been included.
The end of the scenario, against the semi-gigantic thaumaphage that is the Magic Eater of the title, is essentially an end of level, big boss battle. The battles against the thieves in the upper parts of the fortress are going to be fairly normal, whilst the ones against the cultists are going weird and creepy with their bandaged hands and faces and their squishy sounds, let alone the odd powers imparted to them by imbibing the excrement-infused tea they brew. The battle against the Magic Eater is going to be a big brawl of all against the hulking, lumbering grump, enlivened by the fact that his consumption of magical items has given him random magical powers. The randomness does rely on the Game Master rolling a natural twenty, so the powers may not even change over the course of the battle. Which is a pity and the Game Master might want to alter the odds to make it all the more fun for herself, if not the players and their characters.

There are some suggestions too, as to what might happen to the Player Characters actually decide to drink that tea—definitely not a good idea; what they might do with the fortress afterwards, because possession is possession; and what actual treasure might found if the Player Characters search the fortress above ground and below. There are suggestions to determine if the MacGuffin that the Player Characters were attempting to retrieve is still here and has not been eaten and what might be found if the players and their characters decide that a colonoscopy is in order. It might be the MacGuffin, or it might be one of the most useless magic items ever created. It really is useless—and intentionally so.
Also included in Magic Eater is the bonus scenario, ‘Another Rough Night at the Dog & Bastard’. If that sounds like the author’s author’s tribute to ‘A Rough Night at the Three Feathers’, the classic scenario for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, recently updated as Rough Days & Hard Days, then you would be right. In this scenario, the Player Characters take refuge at the eponymous inn on the same night as a trio of nuns who are not as innocent as they look, a bounty hunter, a thief, and a pair of sex cultists, because after all, this is a scenario for Lamentations of The Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying. And the cultists would not mind having sex with everyone and if that is done in front of their cult idol, it releases what can only be best described as ‘Jizz Pixies’. In addition, the inn and its staff have secrets of their own, randomly determined. The scenario primarily works off a relationship map which connects ten NPCs. The players will need to actively involve their characters in the relationship map to get the most out of the scenario, which is both roleplaying and NPC interaction heavy. As a one-night, one session affair, ‘Another Rough Night at the Dog & Bastard’ is pruriently serviceable.
Physically, Magic Eater is well-presented. Both artwork and cartography are decent, the maps being very clear and the depictions of the cultists a little creepy. It does need an edit in places.

Magic Eater is a daft scenario that punishes the Player Characters for being too attached to their possessions and then rewards them with a nice piece of real estate if they try to get them back—if they survive. That does not mean it is not entertaining though and Magic Eater is easy to drop into any campaign.
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DISCLAIMER: The author of this review is an editor who has edited titles for Lamentations of the Flame Princess on a freelance basis. He was not involved in the production of this book and his connection to both publisher and author has no bearing on the resulting review.

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Lamentations of the Flame Princess will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 31st to Sunday June 2nd, 2024.

Under the Seal of Solomon is a scenario for Into the Bronze: Sword & Sorcery RPG in Bronze Age. Published by Lantern’s Faun, as the title suggests, it is set in the Bronze Age in Mesopotamia on the plains between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Here the first city states were founded, here the first men and the women strode forth to explore the lands between the first two great rivers known to mankind, to enter the silent, gloomy valleys where demons and their acolytes hid and devised their evil plans, here they would encounter the very gods of Sumer, and here they would build the first great civilisations. As those first men and women to stride the land, the Player Characters are Sumerian ‘Bounty Hunters’ , those willing to go forth and undertake dangerous tasks—explore the unknown, hunt down criminals, kill monsters, and more… In Under the Seal of Solomon, the Player Characters have a greater calling—killing demons!

In Under the Seal of Solomon, the king, Solomon himself, has selected the Player Characters for a great task. Whether the Player Characters are augurs, astronomers, sorcerers, priests, or warriors, you have been given a new role—exorcist. Demons run rampant across his kingdom, and King Solomon has chosen them to rid them from his lands. However, this is no easy task since demons cannot be killed. Instead, their physical manifestation must be defeated, the demon captured, and then conveyed to the Temple of Solomon where it can confess its corruptions. Only then will the kingdom be free of that one demon. There are seventy-two demons. If though, a demon cannot be killed, how is this task to be achieved? In addition to blessing the Exorcists with an oath to capture the demons, King Solomon bestows them with three other gifts. These are the Keys of Solomon, the Seal of Solomon, and the Jar of Solomon. The Keys work in similar fashion to the Magic Words in Into the Bronze, being written down on tablets or sheets of vellum and used against a demon. However, unlike the tablets of the Magic Worlds, the Keys of Solomon do not break, only the implements using them do. The Seal of Solomon is a ring engraved with his sigil used to seal the written Keys, whilst the Jar of Solomon is used to trap a demon before taking it to the Temple of Solomon. So think of this as Ghostbusters, but with Demons and set in Ancient Mesopotamia and not New York.

The bulk of Under the Seal of Solomon is dedicated to describing its seventy-two demons who are ranked as Kings, Dukes, Princes, Marquises, Counts, Knights, and Presidents—and some can hold more than one rank. A pleasing presentation places the hierarchy of the demons upon the steps of a ziggurat! Each demon is described in terms of its Manifestation, its Domain, and what Invocations it knows. The Domain is the power it holds over other demons and the Invocations are the powers it tempts sorcerers with. For example, Bael, King of the East, holds the Rank of King, manifests as a three-headed conglomeration of cat, toad, and man, has the Domain of “66 legions of demons”, and his Invocations include the teaching of science, bestowing of Invisibility, and the teaching of love. Attributes, Hit Points, and Damage are determined by the demon’s Rank.

In terms of support and advice, Under the Seal of Solomon suggests that a demon might be hiding amongst the population or tempting them openly as a false god, or colluding with a sorcerer. It suggests having a single demon dominate or take over a single hex, creating a location around it, in the process turning Into the Bronze into not so much a hexcrawl, but a hex clearance. The other factor that the Under the Seal of Solomon makes clear is that seventy-two demons is a lot and so the Player Characters are not the only ones to have received the blessings of King Solomon. This enables the Game Master to bring rival Exorcists into play. Lastly, Under the Seal of Solomon notes that it is set during the end of the Bronze Age, at the dawn of the Iron Age.

Physically, Under the Seal of Solomon is nicely presented, although the use of red text on black in places is not easy to read. It does need another edit.

Unfortunately, Under the Seal of Solomon is at best very light, at worst underwritten and underdeveloped. For example, it is not quite clear whether one Exorcist is holding the Keys of Solomon, the Seal of Solomon, and the Jar of Solomon and using them to fight demons or if they are divided between several Exorcists. Nor is it really clear how the Keys of Solomon work against the demons and what the user is actually dealing with them. Similarly, there is no actual adventure in Under the Seal of Solomon as its cover claims. Instead, what it gives the Game Master is a campaign set-up. It is not even a campaign framework, because there is only a beginning, and not a middle or an end. After all, what happens when the Exorcists have defeated all of the demons?

Ultimately, there is no denying that Under the Seal of Solomon is a great set-up for Bronze: Sword & Sorcery RPG in Bronze Age Mesopotamia (and indeed for any roleplaying game set in Bronze Age Mesopotamia). Unfortunately, it simply does not support the Game Master as fully as it should and leaves her with more concepts to develop and questions to answer than it really should.
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Soul Muppet Publishing will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 31st to Sunday June 2nd, 2024.

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

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

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Name: Hospital IslandPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author Jane E Cooper

Setting: Jazz Age EnglandProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Twenty-three page, 12.36 MB PDFElevator Pitch: Hospital horror in the fog of isolationPlot Hook: A mysterious telegram calls for help.
Plot Support: Staging advice, four handouts, three maps, five NPCs, and eight Mythos monsters.Production Values: Plain
Pros# Can be run using Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos# Easy to adapt to other times# Nice sense of isolation# Combines the cosy and the consternation# Mycophobia# Homichlophobia# Autophobia
Cons# Needs an edit# Are an Investigator and the prime villain related?# Feels like a solo adventure for a party of Investigators
Conclusion# Atmospheric, isolated sense of foreboding and something lurking.# Solid scenario that needs a polish to make it stand out.

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

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

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Name: The Black PyramidPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author Dante Harrower

Setting: Jazz Age EgyptProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Twenty-four page, full colour 2.40 MB PDFElevator Pitch: The Black Pharaoh will walk the land and you will be there.Plot Hook: An archaeological dig in Egypt promises fame and fortune
Plot Support: Staging advice, six maps, eight NPCs, seven mythos spells, and six Mythos monsters.Production Values: Okay
Pros# Prequel to H.P. Lovecraft’s Nyarlathotep# Atmospheric survival horror # Scoleciphobia# Traumatophobia# Aiguptosophobia
Cons# Needs an edit# Underwritten hook# No handouts# Linear# Pre-generated Investigators would help # Feels like a sequel to a scenario the Investigators haven’t played
Conclusion# Serviceable prequel to H.P. Lovecraft’s Nyarlathotep that will need teasing apart to run with ease# Atmospheric survival horror that has its creepy moments

The year is 2037. Under the darkness of a world soiled by war, pollution, and ecological degradation, in the shadows spun by neon, simulacra skulk, hiding amongst those they want to be like, and they will do anything to survive and become more like the masters they once served. The Wallace Corporation is the wealthiest company in the system, having made free technologies and scientific advances that has ensured the survival of mankind with a reliable supply of food and an advanced communications network replacing the one that was destroyed along with vast swathes of human knowledge and digital data. These though, are not the only advances it has made. Using advances made on Tyrell Corporation technology and patents, the Wallace Corporation has introduced the Nexus-9, a replicant design incapable of lying or harming humans of its own accord. In response, the United Nations repeals the UN Replicant Prohibition Act of 2023, passed in response to the killings committed by Nexus-6 models in the late teenies, and classifies the Nexus-9 as a ‘safe’ Replicant, granting them the status of second-class citizens with limited rights. Replicant Detection Units of the world’s various police forces are still responsible for investigating crimes related to replicants, especially the previous models, such as the Nexus-8, and some even begin to employ Nexus-9 units as investigators. It means that Replicants are hunting and ‘Retiring’ their own. It means that the investigators of the Replicant Detection Unit charged with tracking down Replicants, known as ‘Blade Runners’, are hunting sentient beings that look like themselves and act themselves, but are not, strictly speaking, Human. This is a future when what it is to be Human is beginning to be lost, when empathy is all that separates mankind from that which is not only faster and stronger than it us, but also threatens to replace mankind. The year is 2037 and in the city of Los Angeles, under the cacophony of neon, culture clashes, and the watchful presence of the Wallace Corporation, Blade Runners stalk the streets, gun in hand with the power to question all and the responsibility to answer for everything they do. Some Blade Runners have been on the force for decades, the Nexus-9 Blade Runner units mere months and even then, are only a year old despite being fully formed adults, will have to prove their conduct to beyond reproach, but both are police brothers.

This is the setting for Blade Runner – The Roleplaying Game, perhaps the unlikeliest of roleplaying licences. The film Blade Runner has always been regarded as a cult classic and then an accepted classic Science Fiction film, a neo-noir meditation of what it meant to be human and not only impossible to obtain the licence for, but also impossible to adapt, since after all, what was it that the Investigators would do and how exactly would you model what was human and what was not? When news broke that Free League Publishing had obtained the licence to coincide with the release of Blade Runner 2049, the official sequel to Blade Runner, the question became not if there could be a licence based on Blade Runner, but could it actually be good? Not wanting to answer that question has delayed this review of the Blade Runner – The Roleplaying Game again and again, because if there was the possibility that it could be good, there was also the possibility that it could be bad. Fortunately, Blade Runner – The Roleplaying Game is from the same publisher that released Alien: The Roleplaying Game—and that adaptation has proven to be good.

Published following a successful Kickstarter campaign, Blade Runner – The Roleplaying Game shifts the time from the 2019 of Blade Runner and the 2049 of Blade Runner 2049 to 2037. The Player Characters are all ‘blade runners’, members of Los Angeles’ Rep-Detect Unit, tasked with investigating all crimes related to Replicants. This includes tracking down older Replicant models that have gone rogue and are on Earth still illegally or have committed some other crime, as much it does anti-Replicant hate and crimes against Replicants. As a team they will be assigned ‘Case Files’, or scenarios—such as ‘Case File 01: Electric Dreams’ in the Blade Runner – The Roleplaying Game Starter Set and the recently released Case File 02: Fiery Angels—and expected to work together as a team. They will face not only the sometimes-terrible nature of the crimes they have to investigate—and the challenge of doing so—but also of political interference and interest in their efforts, both from within their department and without, and ultimately moral quandaries and situations in which they will be forced to question their Humanity and it means to be Human. The roleplaying game clearly highlights these at the start of the book as well as its key themes of ‘Sci-Fi Action’, character drama, corporate intrigue, moral conflict, and soul searching. It also notes that keeping track of the passage of time is important—this being done in shifts, used to measure investigative actions and downtime, that the necessity of investigating clues within a Case File means splitting the party, and that the moral dilemmas within a Case File may lead to Player Character versus Player Character conflict.

An Investigator in Blade Runner – The Roleplaying Game is simply detailed. He has four Attributes— Strength, Agility, Intelligence, and Empathy, and thirteen Skills, three per Attribute. The thirteenth Skill is Driving, which is derived from the manoeuvrability of the vehicle being driven. Both Attributes and Skills are assigned a letter, A, B, C, or D. Each letter corresponds to a die type, A to a twelve-sided die, B to a ten-sided die, C to an eight-sided die, and D to a six-sided die. Skills can have Specialities, representing dedicated areas of expertise, such as ‘Origami’, which lets an Investigator heal a point of Stress by folding an exquisite Origami figure or Sycophant, which grants the Investigator an extra Promotion Point as he ingratiates himself with his superiors. Thus, an Investigator is either Human or a Nexus-9 Blade Runner, and it is also possible to play a Replicant who is not aware of being a Replicant. In terms of the number of ‘Years on the Force’, the Blade Runner is either a Rookie, Seasoned, Veteran, or an Old-Timer. A Replicant Investigator can only be a Rookie. The ‘Years on the Force’ determines the years served, the number of extra points to assign to both attributes and skills, skill specialities, and both Promotion Points and Chinyen Points. Chinyen Points are the currency in the Los Angles of 2037, Promotion Points represent the Investigator’s standing within the department and have multiple uses. In general, Replicants have higher physical attributes, and limited skills and no specialities, whereas Humans tend towards the reverse. A Replicant will also have less Promotion Points and Chinyen Points.

An Investigator also has an Archetype, representing his role in the investigative team, his expertise, and the work he carries out for the LAPD. There are seven Archetypes—Analyst, Cityspeaker, Doxie, Enforcer, Fixer, Inspector, and Skimmer. The Skimmer and Cityspeaker are only available for Human characters, whilst the Doxie is only available for Replicant characters. The Analyst is a forensic specialist; the Cityspeaker works the city through his contacts and may have worked undercover; the Doxie is akin the kick-murder squad operative seen in Blade Runner, but can read suspects too; the Enforcer uses force and violence when necessary; the Fixer uses contacts and networks to help solve crimes; the Inspector is an old hand and relies on experience; and the Skimmer who is taking kickbacks on the side. Lastly, every Investigator has a ‘Key Memory’, a ‘Key item’, and a ‘Key Relationship’. These three have different effects in play, but should ideally come into play during an investigation. The ‘Key Memory’ can be used to gain advantage on an action; the ‘Key item’ can be used to gain a lost point of Resolve, and the ‘Key Relationship’ is used by the Game Runner to create scenes in a game and interacting with the ‘Key Relationship’ will earn the Investigator Humanity Points.

The character creation process is straightforward. Some elements the player has to choose, such as assigning points to his character’s attributes, but the rest can either rolled for or randomly determined. Tables are included for the latter.

Name: Remedy
Type: Replicant
Archetype: Doxie
Years on the Force: Rookie
Appearance: You are a thing of beauty. Quite literally.

ATTRIBUTES
Strength: A/D12
Agility: A/D12
Intelligence: B/D10
Empathy: C/D8

Health: 8 Resolve: 3
Promotion Points: 1 Chinyen Points: 1

SKILLS
Hand-to-Hand Combat: B/D10, Insight: C/D8, Mobility: C/D8, Manipulation: B/D10, Observation: B/D10

KEY MEMORY
When Did It Happen? – Just a few weeks ago.
Where Did It Happen? – In the derelict housing projects of Los Angeles Hills.
Who Was There? – Your romantic partner
What Happened? – You saw something extraordinary that you cannot explain.

KEY RELATIONSHIP
Who Is It? – Romantic Partner
What’s Your Relationship Like? – Hateful
What’s Going On? – They are suspected of a crime.

SIGNATURE ITEM
A necklace

Mechanically, Blade Runner – The Roleplaying Game uses a variant of Free league Publishing’s Year Zero engine previously seen in Twilight: 2000 – Roleplaying in the World War III That Never Was. To undertake an action, a player rolls one die for the Attribute and one die for the Skill. Rolls of six or more count as a success. Rolls of ten or more grant two successes. In general, unless rolls are opposed, only one success is required to succeed at an action. An extra success enables an Investigator to get more information, perform a task faster, or help an Investigator with a task. An easy task gives an Investigator an Advantage. In which case, his player rolls another die, equal to the lowest die in the pool. Conversely, a difficult task removes the lower die in the pool altogether. If any roll is unsuccessful, a player can choose to Push the dice roll and roll again. However, if a one—or the Origami Unicorn—is rolled on the first roll or the Pushed roll, the Investigator, if Human, will suffer a point of damage if the attribute rolled was Strength or Agility or a point of Stress if the attribute rolled was Intelligence or Empathy. If a Replicant, the Investigator will always suffer Stress rather than damage. A Human can Push a Skill roll once, but a Replicant can Push a Skill roll twice.

Only in combat do more than the one extra success count, indicating that more damage has been inflicted or a critical injury. Blade Runner – The Roleplaying Game is not a forgiving game in terms of combat and all firearms have a high ‘Crit Die’, so the Investigators should not engage in combat lightly. The rules also cover vehicles in combat—some vehicles can be armed, but for the most part, one vehicle will be ramming another. The rules for chases cover chases on foot, and then by ground vehicle or in the air.
For example, Remedy has been following a suspect, Ramirez ‘Ram’ Smith, whom she thinks has links to the Replicant Underground. She has tracked him down to the Grand Central Market, where all manner of dishes and foodstuffs—legal and illegal—can be found. As her and her partner’s spinner touches down, she leaps out of the vehicle, just in time to see her quarry duck into the heavy crowds carrying a package of some kind. The Game Runner call for an Observation test to determine if Remedy can see him. Remedy has a rating of B/D10 for both Observation and Intelligence, meaning that her player will be rolling two ten-sided dice. Ramirez ‘Ram’ Smith only has a rating of D/D6 for Stealth and B/D10 for Intelligence, so the Game Runner will be rolling a six-sided die and a ten-sided die. However, he is in a crowd, so the Game Master rules that Remedy will be at a disadvantage. This means that Remedy’s player has to remove the base die for Remedy’s Intelligence, so her player will only be rolling one ten-sided die.

The Game Runner rolls an eight and a two, giving ‘Ram’ Smith one success. Remedy’s player rolls a four, so she has no successes. Remedy’s player decides to Push the roll and describes how she leaps up one of the streetlights that a food stand has tapped into illegally for power and onto the food stand’s roof. Remedy’s play takes up the ten-sided die for her Observation skill. This time though, she rolls an Origami Unicorn, meaning that not only has she failed, but she also suffers a point of Stress as even from this elevated height she cannot see her quarry. In the meantime, the proprietor of the food stand yells at her in Cityspeak to get off his roof! The Game Runner tells Remedy’s player that although she cannot see ‘Ram’ Smith, she did see someone else moving purposely through the crowds and that she was fairly certain that it was her partner! This is the cause of the Stress.In addition to gaining Stress because rolls of one or the Unicorn Origami are made on pushed rolled, it can come from working more than three Shifts without a Downtime Shift and simply from Stressful situations. When the number of Stress points is equal to, or greater than an Investigator’s Resolve, the Investigator is broken and will suffer from randomly determined Critical Stress effect. The tables are different for Humans and Replicants. A Replicant will generally begin play with lower Resolve than a Human and react in a more extreme manner than Human would, though this can be a negative reaction or a positive one. In addition, if an Investigator is broken by Stress, his Resolve can be reduced by one, and should his superiors become aware of it, a Replicant would have to take a Baseline Test.

In terms of background, Blade Runner – The Roleplaying Game is firmly placed between Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049. Its focus is primarily on the city of Los Angeles, now a mega-city that extends up to San Francisco and down to San Diego, and to the irradiated edge of Las Vegas. It does include some details about the places beyond the confines of Los Angeles, such as The Archipelago, what was Santa Barbara, now voluntarily flooded to turn its wealthy estates into heavily guarded and isolated compounds. There are details of Off-World and even the idea of getting Off-World is discussed, but it remains a dream for nearly all of the remaining citizenry on Earth. Even when it comes to Los Angeles, it concentrates on the main sectors of the city’s Downtown, noting particular locations such as the LAPD Headquarters, DNA Row where the best bioengineers and tech vendors can be found, and Animoid Row for the robot animals in the city. This is accompanied by descriptions of life in the city-climate, technology, communications, and so on, which the Game Runner can use to describe world around the Investigators.

A companion chapter looks at the powers that be, though concentrating on Los Angeles. This includes various corporations, the LAPD, numerous United Nations organisations, criminal gangs—including the Replicant Underground, and of course, Niander Wallace and his corporation. Seen as the saviour of mankind, he remains a mysterious figure, though a newspaper interview with him adds a nice sense of verisimilitude. The aims and relationships with the Wallace Corporation are examined, as they are likely to clash if the Investigators’ inquiries get to close, and this includes a discussion of the various models of Replicant, from the Nexus-1 all the way up to the Nexus-9. Another in-game newspaper highlights the divide in views on the acceptance of Nexus-9 Replicants in general society, despite their official recognition as individuals with limited rights. Many believe that Nexus-9 Replicants are part of a corporate effort to steal jobs and act accordingly. Others, such as members of the Replicant Underground, object to Replicants being Second Class citizens and campaign for better rights for them, and more. The assignment of Nexus-9 Blade Runners to the Replicant Detection Unit has its own issues, as each Nexus-9 Blade Runner has to prove that it is capable of fulfilling the role, which includes hunting its own, without showing the signs of emotional and mental stress that drastically affected earlier models.

Much of this modelled by two of three points which can be earned over the course of play. Chinyen Points represent an Investigator’s income and are primarily used for purchases beyond normal expenses in combination with a Connections skill roll. Promotion Points are earned by investigating a Case File efficiently and by Replicants passing a Baseline Test, but can be lost for misconduct or poorly investigating a Case File. A Replicant Blade Runner whose Promotion Points is reduced to zero must make a Baseline Test. Promotion Points are spent to gain Specialities for an Investigator’s skills, to gain access to specialised equipment from the LAPD, or exchanged for a Chinyen Point, representing a pay rise. Humanity Points are earned as determined by a Case File, as well as an Investigator bringing his Key Memory and Key Relationship into play, and by a Replicant Blade Runner failing a Baseline Test. Humanity Points are used to raise an Investigator’s skills. Of the two it is easier to gain Promotion Points rather than Humanity Points, so consequently, it is easier for an Investigator to improve via Specialities rather his skills.

The LAPD’s Replicant Detection Unit is presented in some detail, fans of Blade Runner will be pleased to note that Dave Holden, now known as ‘Iron Lung’ due to the injury suffered at the start of the film, heads the unit after Harry Bryant retired. This covers its organisation, departments, resources—including those provided by the Wallace Corporation, and day-to-day operations including standard procedures and the perils of being promoted or decorated too often. Complementing this a section on standard and non-standard Replicant Detection Unit equipment. There are old standbys detailed, such as the Voight-Kampff Machine, the Pfläger-Katsumata PK-D 5223 Blaster, and the ESPER Machine, and these are joined by the Post-Traumatic Baseline Test, the PK-D FKM890 Blaster, and Digital Companions. Plus, of course, there are the Spinners. All of this equipment is nicely detailed in a fashion that fans of both films will appreciate. All covered is shopping in general and buying goods on the black market.

For the Game Runner, there is general advice on running Blade Runner – The Roleplaying Game, setting the scene, setting the mood, and so on. The bulk of it is dedicated building and running Case Files, the investigations that the Replicant Detection Unit assigns to its Blade Runners. Broad actions within a Case File are split across four Shifts each day, with one of them being designated a Downtime Shift when the Investigator will rest and see to personal details. It will be necessary to split the Investigators up over the course of a Case File—and the roleplaying game encourages the players to do so—as there is invariably far more to a Case File than they can cover just going from scene to scene. Fortunately, the Blade Runners can stay connected and even be involved in a different scene, if only remotely, via the KIA—or Knowledge Integration Assistant—that they all carry as routine. However, the number of leads and sperate scenes is exacerbated by a Countdown, which means that the Investigators will be working against the clock, which can trigger events and even bring a Case File to a close before an investigation has had time to be completed. However, as important as Case Files are to the play of Blade Runner – The Roleplaying Game, solving them is not the point of the roleplaying game. Rather, they are a means by which the Blade Runners can be challenged by difficult personal and moral dilemmas, can be confronted by who and what they are, and be forced to make choices.

Unfortunately, there is no Case File included in Blade Runner – The Roleplaying Game. So just from the core rulebook it is difficult to see either the game play or the moral dilemmas in practice. For that, the Game Runner will need either Blade Runner – The Roleplaying Game Starter Set or Case File 02: Fiery Angels. Although disappointing, there are good reasons as why there is no Case File in Blade Runner – The Roleplaying Game, and that really is due to the handouts required, since as an investigative game, Blade Runner – The Roleplaying Game is dependent on visuals. Just as in Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049. That said, there is a set of tables for creating the basics of a Case File that the Game Runner can then flesh out.

Beside the lack of a Case File, there is the issue of the divide in Blade Runner – The Roleplaying Game in the focus on Human and Replicant Blade Runner—more on the latter than the former. This is intentional, since Replicants are the focus of the setting in general. It shows in their physical capability versus their emotional capacity, which hinders their response to Stress and potentially their ability to work as a Blade Runner. It shows in their need to prove themselves as Blade Runners by gaining Promotion Points lest they be seen as less than ideal additions to the Replicant Detection Unit. And the best way of gaining Promotion Points will be to successfully investigate a Case File and that is unlikely to be to the benefit of other Replicants. This is the core moral quandary in Blade Runner – The Roleplaying Game. Yet mechanically, the way to prove that that a Replicant Blade Runner is emotionally capable of undertaking the role is to improve his Empathy Attribute, and that requires Humanity Points. The primary ways of gaining these are to engage with his Key Memory and Key Relationship, the others being to investigate a Case File in a more humane fashion, often against the Replicant Detection Unit’s directive and interests and fail a Baseline Test, indicating to his superiors how he is not suitable for the role. In comparison, the Human Blade Runner is not faced with this near constant balancing act, either mechanically or narratively, and most of the moral dilemmas the Human Blade Runner will be part of Case File’s story as well as with his Key Relationship, and so narrative based rather than mechanical.

Physically, Blade Runner – The Roleplaying Game is stunning book, its artwork bringing the energy and sense of movement of the streets of Los Angeles to life contrasting with the almost sepulchral atmosphere and stillness of its interiors. Everything is swathed in darkness, broken by blasts of neon shining off the ever-present rain. The book is also well written and engaging and well organised.

Despite not being set in the period of Blade Runner or Blade Runner 2049, but somewhere in between, Blade Runner – The Roleplaying Game is going to satisfy fans of both, by detailing the world and exploring its core moral questions. The only downside is that without a Case File of its own, it cannot best showcase how those core moral questions can examined, or some of the nuances present in the setting. For that, the Game Runner will need a Case File of her own or an official one from the publisher. Nevertheless, Blade Runner – The Roleplaying Game is a very good adaption of a licence previously thought unadaptable, let alone available, and a very good introduction to both the world and the questions it raises.
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Free League Publishing will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 31st to Sunday June 2nd, 2024.

At the end of the street stands a house behind a crumbling wall. People who pass it, look at it askance, wondering why it stands empty after so long and why nobody has bought it. They only half remember it from their childhoods and if they did, they would realise that the building has been in the same state for decades. The children whisper that the house is haunted, that some kid went in there, and never came out. Even so, they dare each other to climb the wall and break in… just as their parents once did. They go in to see what treasures or secrets they can find. The one that has gone unlived in for years. Sometimes a few hearty souls creep in, it is said, Most find nothing—just an empty old house. Some return shaken. A few never come out at all. The house is thus a lurking presence, perhaps not in this town, but in the next, or the next one over? Or perhaps in all of them? And if the house has been lurking all that time, what happens to it when it sits alone for so many long years? What jealousies and hatreds does it quietly nurture? What secrets does it contain, waiting to be discovered within its dark walls, crouched within its dank and dreary rooms, hungering for the return of life?

This is The Darkest House. It is a horror scenario sent in a grand house, fallen to ruin, riven by madness, stained by trauma and emotional scars. Those it draws in, it torments out of hate and spite, and even as they discover some of the house’s secrets and its origins, perhaps the best outcome they can hope for, is to escape it confines, though not the same as they were when they crossed its threshold. Published by Monte Cook Games, The Darkest House is something different, a horror scenario originally designed to be played online and with any game system. As the former, it was originally designed and delivered as an app and a set of electronic documents, combining details of the ‘Darkest House’ itself, a set of handouts in terms of texts, images, and sound files, all richly detailed. As the latter, it comes with its own ‘House System’ which allows Player Characters to be adapted from any game system run The Darkest House using the ‘House System’, the simplified nature of its mechanics making it easier to run online. A Game Master—not calling the Game Master the House Master really is a missed opportunity—could even run The Darkest House with the different Player Characters from different systems and settings if she is ambitious enough.

The Darkest House is now available as a book, which presents all of this information in physical format, but marked with QR codes to link to handouts and downloads. It enables the artwork to shine and as the Game Master to see the motifs and flow of the scenario in one place.

A Player Character in The Darkest House is measured as a Rating on a ten-point scale. Between one and two, they will need to employ stealth and avoid direct confrontations with the dangers of the house; between three and six they will still be danger, but can still survive; and seven and up and they can survive with only minor difficulty. The aim though, is not to create Player Characters particular to The Darkest House, but rather draw them in from other game systems. This points to its intended universality and is underpinned by a conversion guide that adapt those Player Characters from other roleplaying games and fit them on the ten-point scale of the House System. This is whether a Player Character’s level or primary attributes are measured on a twenty-point, six-point, or percentile scale. Thus, it would work whether the Player Character comes from Monte Cook Games’ own Cypher System, Chaosium, Inc.’s Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, or Free League Publishing’s Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying. The process is more rough and ready then exact, and will very likely require the Game Master and the players to adjust as necessary to account for particular abilities, powers, spells, or skills. This is done by awarding Boons rather than adjusting a Player Character’s base Rating. Further, some spells and abilities and their effects can be applied narratively rather than mechanically. This is likely to be easier than working out the exact effects even on the limited scale of the House System and the overall effect of the House System is one that is rough and ready rather than exact or elegant.

Mechanically, the House System measures a Player Character’s Rating versus the Rating of the task involved. The Rating of the task is added to seven to give the target number for the player to role for his character to succeed. The player rolls three six-sided dice, one of which is called the House Die. The Rating of his character is added to the result of the two ordinary dice and not the House Dice, the aim being to roll equal to or higher than the target number. If the task Rating is six or higher than the Player Character’s Rating, the task is impossible to achieve, whilst if it is six or lower than the Player Character’s Rating, the task is impossible to fail. Under the House System, the player always rolls, which means that the player rolls for his character to act and rolls for his character to avoid actions against him. Boons and Banes make a task harder to achieve, respectively, and if a Player Character has one or more of both, they cancel each other out until either the Player Character has none, or a Bane or a Bane leftover. Whether the Player Character has a Bane or a Boon, his player rolls an extra die in addition to the two six-sided dice and the House Die. If a Boon, the player discards to die with the lowest result, and if a Bane, he discards the highest result.

What then does the House Die do? In general, nothing. Under special circumstances, it comes into play. This occurs when it is the highest result on any die rolled and when the player, in desperation, has his character ‘call upon the House’ for help. Neither of these are good. When the highest result on any die rolled is the House Die, the House Acts. This begins with creaking sounds, footsteps, or similar noises being heard by the Player Characters, a figure associated with the section of the House the Player Characters are in suddenly appearing, and so on, but that is only the beginning. It escalates each time the House Acts, step-by-step, up through ten steps, and starts again at one, recycling round and round as the Player Characters explore more of the house, and roll the highest result on the House Die again and again. When a player has his character ‘call upon the House’ for help, the House Acts just if the player had rolled the highest result on the House Die and the character gains a Doom. Doom affects a Player Character in a number of ways, such as if he is wounded and falls unconscious, the number of points acting as a penalty to the player’s roll to see if the character dies. However, what a player can do is ‘spend a Doom’, which gives the Game Master permission to do something terrible to his character. Whatever happens, though, it must be significant, be bad for the character, and at the time of the Game Master’s choosing—and the Doom points can be saved as well. Worse though, the Doom Effects can linger if the Player Characters leave the House…

Harm in The Darkest House is also kept simple. The Rating of the attack is added to a roll of a six-sided die, whilst the defender’s Rating is deducted. If the result is a positive number, that is wound that the defender suffers. The House Die is not rolled for damage, a Banes and Boons can be. Physical armour will reduce this damage. Mental damage is suffered in the same way. Wounds also mean that the rolls for all actions are made with Banes.

Effectively, what the House System is a meta-system, a set of rules and ultimately guidelines since it cannot cover every eventuality and every nuance from every system. It is that lack of nuance, at least mechanically, where The Darkest House is going to be lacking. What this means is that the Game Master is going to have to pick up the slack of the House System and shift what is nuance in another game system over to more narrative, even more storytelling resolution and outcome in The Darkest House.

The last thing to note about a Player Characters is that they enter the Darkest House with a truth or a lie. This essentially is weaponised as part of the play of The Darkest House, the House using it against the Player Character, attempting to shake his faith as part of the story rather than to victimise him. The Game Master should be building these truths and lies into arcs that will run throughout the Player Characters’ exploration of The Darkest House. In terms of advice, The Darkest House suggests reasons for the Player Characters to enter the house, stories that can be told in the House, and some of the objectives that the Player Characters might work towards, intentionally or not. It highlights how the house contains anachronisms even if fantasy characters venture inside, and there is magic to be found too within its walls. The House also isolates the Player Characters, making contact with the outside world technically impossible, though this will not be apparent to the Player Characters. The Game Master can instead use this against the Player Characters, deceiving them through the figures that they would otherwise trust. There is good advice on both running The Darkest House and on the challenges of running The Darkest House, all of which readies the Game Master for the campaign and the details of the House itself.

The House is described Room by Room in a lengthy series of two-page spreads that make up the bulk of the book. These come complete with a floorplan, description, overview, an illustration, and a QR code. The latter opens up a website with images and handouts that the players and their characters can view and peruse. It can include sounds too, their presence marked with an icon of its own. The commitment to the format even includes a darkened hallway, which follows the first location. Divided between areas of the House labelled father, mother, dining room, sister, lover, and ultimately, the Original House, voices whisper to intruders, a Mother figure lurks with her skeleton children in her arms ready to rebuke the Player Characters for their lack of love for her and ready to launch her children at them, a father figure looms over the Player Characters ready to deal out a beating, a door has been plastered over with notes telling the reader not to open the door, but someone keeps knocking from the other side, a clockwork child stalks the halls with a knife clutched in its hands, and so on. It veers from the little unerring uneasiness to grand theatre of the guignol and back again, always unsettling, weird, and worrying as the Player Characters edge their way from one Room to the next, picking at puzzles, poring over possible clues, and wondering what might happen next.

Lastly an appendix lists and details all of the handouts that the Player Characters might find in the House. The Game Master will still need to download these and again, they come with their own QR code. It means that even playing The Darkest House offline, the Game Master will still need Internet access and may want her players to have it to best access the scenario’s handouts and downloads.

In terms of play, The Darkest House can be played as a single big scenario, but it is really designed to be slotted into an ongoing campaign. Almost any campaign in which a ‘haunted house’ could appear. Nor is it necessarily designed to be played in one go. The Player Characters can leave and they can be pulled back in, plus there are ongoing consequences for leaving the House, especially if a Player Character has unspent Doom points. So, the Player Characters may enter the House explore some of it, escape, but re-enter the House at a later point in the campaign. Once the Player Characters have entered the House and come out, it is going to remain a lurking presence until they decide to return and deal with it.

Physically, The Darkest House is very well presented in rich dark colours, the text in red and white. The artwork is excellent, much of it seeming to lurk in the background with its repetition serving to enforce that sense of things and people lurking, ready to leap out and scare the Player Characters. It is well written and it is liberally littered with quotes from authors such as Stephen King and Shirly Jackson.
However, what must be stressed is what The Darkest House is not. It is not a traditional haunt house and it is not a traditional mystery. It means that there are not the ghosts to be found, their origins to be discovered, and their bones laid to rest, problem solved. There are ghosts, but neither ghosts nor the House are ever really going to go away until the Player Characters find a way to make the House go away and never come back. In terms of a mystery, this is a dark, haunted house, and whilst there are secrets to be revealed and aspects of the House’s history to be discovered, much like the ghosts there is no clear beginning, middle, and end, in which its origins can be discovered and the House completely dealt with as a threat. The author of The Darkest House even goes so far as to state that there are secrets to the House that he has not and will not reveal. What this means is that The Darkest House is pervaded with a sense of the ineffable and the unknowable, and whilst there is a mystery to The Darkest House, it is not a mystery to be solved and that may confound some players. This does not mean that The Darkest House cannot be played and cannot be completed. Rather it means that the expectations of what The Darkest House is and is not, are going to be different from the traditional haunted house.

The Darkest House is an audacious creation, a product designed in response to the Lockdown under COVID-19 and thus specifically designed to be played online and with any type of character from any game system. It is both grand and intimate, the great sweep of the House contrasting with the disturbing intimacy of the detail to be found in the individual Rooms, its horror lurking at the edge of the senses before cavorting at the Player Characters and then retreating… Like any big scenario or campaign. The Darkest House demands much of the Game Master, but The Darkest House demands more both mechanically because of the need for adjudication of its House System and because The Darkest House is campaign that is going to directly needle and work at the Player Characters. This also demands players mature enough to accept that this is part of the genre that v falls into.

Perhaps still best played online, The Darkest House is an ambitious design, a fantastic perturbation of puzzles and perils, torments and terrors, which combine to make a great roleplaying horror story.
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Monte Cook Games will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 31st to Sunday June 2nd, 2024.

Beyond the walls of your hometown or village lie the Roomlands. A vast castle that covers the whole of the known world and beyond, whose individual rooms, corridors, stairs, and rafters contain whole environments of their own. Mountains, lakes, deserts, forests, caves, and ancient ruins. Oceans stretch across rooms as far as the eye can see and beyond. Desert sands whip and whirl down long corridors. Forests climb the stairs that seem to rise to nowhere. Rooks—walking castles—lurk, a constant danger. Stone giants that seem to have no purpose, other than to wander aimlessly until something captures their attention and then they erupt in incredible aggression. This is world of a near limitless castle known as Colostle, into which brave adventurers set forth, perhaps to undertake tasks and quests for the Hunter’s Guild, perhaps to explore on their own, to hunt Rooks for the precious, often magical resources they contain, or simply to protect a village or settlement from rampaging Rooks or bandits. What though if a door from one room to another, led not to another, but another realm? One where the earth is broken and chunks of it float in the sky and the great pillars that hold up the ceilings of the Rooms are painted in once bright, but now fading lacquer. One where the Rooks with multiple, red-tiled roofs, stalk Rooms on thin, finely balanced legs and wield weapons with deadly finesse than the brute force of at home. One where sky ships, their hulls carved from Rook husks cross overhead. Where Imperial soldiers stop and search everyone for Rookstones. One where fallen Rooks have been turned into temples where you can rest, recuperate, and even research to gain new skills and spirituality. One where the Red Emperor rules with an iron fist. This is the land of Kyodaina and it is nothing like you have seen before.

Colostle – Kyodaina expands Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure, definitely the prettiest solo journalling game on the market, by taking it to the furthest east of its lands where the artwork is at its most Ghibli-esque. Kyodaina is also a sequel to Colostle – The Roomlands, the first supplement for Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure. However, a player need not have adventured through Colostle – The Roomlands to play, but narratively, it helps if he has. Much like Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure, what Colostle – Kyodaina does is introduce a new realm for the player and his character to explore and within that several lands or ‘Zones’, a new character type, and a directed campaign. The latter shifts the play of v away from the open world exploration of Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure towards a journalling game with a ‘choose your own adventure’ book feel, consisting of story sections rather than numbered paragraphs which work like cut scenes for video games, and map areas which can be more freely explored and have keyed descriptions elsewhere. The result is that Colostle – Kyodaina is designed to tell a particular story, though of course, how that story plays out is of course, up to the draw of the cards and the player.

The new character Class is The Spirited, which also introduces a new stat—Spirit. The Spirited Class represents someone who has grown up in or studied at one of the temples or monasteries to be found across Kyodaina. Radically, the Spirited begins play without any connection to a Rook, no augmentation provided by a Rook-part, but instead must rely upon his training and the secret arts learned at the temple or monastery. Each aligned with an element and a suit from an ordinary deck of playing cards—such as those used in the play of Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure—these powers include ‘Rook’s Power’, which lets the character flood his feet with his spirit and in stomping hard on the ground, causing a ripple that surges through the ground and knocks opponents to the ground and temporarily reduces their Combat score by one, and ‘Rook’s Senses’, which enables the character to fill his vision with spirit and see more than any ordinary person could, effectively doubling the number of cards the player can draw during the game’s exploration phases. The Spirited Class is intended to be played as a character native to Kyodaina, rather than as someone who has come from the regions and Roomlands explored in Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure and Colostle – The Roomlands. However, if the character does come from either the Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure or Colostle – The Roomlands, during the play of Colostle – Kyodaina, the character has the opportunity to rest, heal, and learn at the same temples and monasteries, and so learning these Spirit powers. Each temple or monastery offers a different range of Spirit powers. This gives the visiting character the Spirit stat too, which is used to activate the Spirit powers. Unlike other stats in Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure, Spirit can be depleted and restored without the character dying.

Mechanically, the differences between Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure and Colostle – Kyodaina are relatively minor. Kyodainan Rooks are different, faster and more precise, and unlike Rooks elsewhere, can make critical strikes against the Player Character. Imperial Soldiers will constantly hunt for Rookstones, the magical stones that power Rooks, operating in squads of three that will want to search the Player Character, whilst the Player Character might face wave after wave of Imperial Soldiers if he tries to infiltrate Imperial Fortresses. If successful, the Player Character will find all manner of information.
The play of Colostle – Kyodaina begins at one of its temples, the Temple of the Stone Fist. From here, the player will set out and explore the new realm. This consists of four zones—the Spirit Forest, the Fangs of the Mountain Range, the Hori Archipelago, and the Skylands. Each has its own temple, its own set of encounter and NPC tables in addition to the general ones given for whole of the realm, and above all, its own character. The Spirit Forest is serene and quiet, its donjon trees towering so high that the majority of Kyodaina’s inhabitants can live here in safety from the Rooks below; the Fangs of the Mountain Range consists of ancient Rook husks fused with the rock, laced with tunnels and rooms, and sometimes transformed into a volcano; the Hori Archipelago are tropical islands in a shallow sea where Rooks have adapted to the environment and the lands are pierced by towering swords, hammers, and axes; and the Skylands where chunks of earth—both uninhabited and inhabited—float like islands in the sky and can be reached by climbing or travelling via a skyboat. Each also has specific locations where events take place, for example, the village of Eda is in the Spirit Forest and faces an attack by Imperial Soldiers. The Player Character has the opportunity to defend the village.

Once the Player Character has explored three or more of the zones in Colostle – Kyodaina, an encounter with an NPC—previously encountered in Colostle – The Roomlands—will open up the end game for Colostle – Kyodaina. This involves the Player Character in the Resistance against the Emperor and his Imperial Soldiers and exploring the Imperial City of Shiro. It will lead to the infiltration of the city itself and a confrontation with the Emperor and his Rook servitors, both infiltration and confrontation playing out as sub-games in their own right. In the process of playing through Colostle – Kyodaina there are secrets to be discovered—or at least hinted at—and lastly, a suggested sequel to come which takes Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure below.

Physically, Colostle – Kyodaina is as stunning as both Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure and Colostle – The Roomlands. The artwork is superb, beautifully depicting the wonder of this new realm and its zones. However, the writing is not quite as good as it could have been and Colostle – Kyodaina does need an edit here and there.

Colostle – Kyodaina is a beautiful book. Its artwork alone—just as with the previous two books—is enough to draw the viewer into wanting to explore this world. The play of Colostle – Kyodaina differs greatly to the simple open-world exploration of Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure, though there is scope for that, instead offering a specific story to play out, one which feels much more like a video game. As a video game experience, Colostle – Kyodaina gives the player a more immersive and reflective experience as he plays out and records in his journal his character’s exploration of the new realm. Fans of Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure will welcome this return to the Roomlands as it takes them beyond and into Colostle – Kyodaina.
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Colostle will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 31st to Sunday June 2nd, 2024.

Ragnarök came to pass and the world as it was known came to an end. Yet the world did not end, it was only broken, the gods of the Aesir and the Vanir missing or dead, Jörmungandr dead and flensed, the Jotunn forced to flee back Jotunheim. Yet as broken as the world is, and as full of dread and danger as the Nine Realms are, there are heroes who would stand alone against the darkness, to defend villages against roving bandits, hunt a creature stealing children, reclaim a family cairn overcome by the dead, retrieve a great relic lost to the ages, broker peace between warring clans, protect a caravan passing through dangerous lands, and search lands old and new for secrets and mythical beasts. Such activities are dangerous, but these heroes are strong of heart and even when they die, they will find their way back to bonfires that warm the soul and give life and never dwindle—and even link the Nine Realms. A great hero’s failure is only temporary, until it isn’t. Until then, a hero can try again and again to overcome the danger he faces, to find another way now that he is forewarned.

Runecairn: Wardensaga is the most complete version of Runecairn, the Norse fantasy tabletop roleplaying game published By Odin’s Beard, collecting the Runecairn Core Rules, the adventure ‘Beneath the Broken Sword’, and Runecairn: Advanced Rules into one handsome volume. Like the publisher’s We Deal In Lead: A Weird West Wanders Game, it is inspired by minimalist Old School Renaissance roleplaying games such as Cairn, Into the Odd, and Knave. It is specifically designed to be played by a single Game Master—or Warden—and a single player. However, the advanced rules gives options for reducing the players to one and turning Runecairn: Wardensaga into a solo roleplaying game or increasing their numbers for a more traditional roleplaying game.
Runecairn: Wardensaga begins with general advice and then advice for Warden and player alike. It does this as a series of principles presented as bullet points. The general advice states that the Warden’s role is one of neutrality, that the roleplaying game is Classless—the abilities of an Adventurer relying on equipment and experiences, that the possibility of death is ever present though never without warning, that fiction comes before the dice, that an Adventurer has opportunities to grow through his experiences, and that the player should always be presented with choices. For the Warden these include design philosophy—that she is helpful and honest as conduit of information, the context and realism determine difficulty, that the world changes and sometimes changes because of what the Player Character does, the narrative should support the emerging story, that danger is everywhere and obvious, that the player and his character should always have and be presented with choices, and when all that fails, there is occasionally, just luck. For the player, the principles advise agency, exploration, talking, caution, planning, and ambition, and if one path leads to defeat, then he should look for an alternative path. For the most part, these will be familiar to adherents of the Old School Renaissance, but here are not elucidated upon, but rather kept short and to the point. Similarly, the world of Runecairn: Wardensaga has its own principles.
An Adventurer in Runecairn: Wardensaga has four abilities—Strength, Dexterity, Wits, and Spirit, rated between three and eighteen; Vigour and Vitality, which are rated between one and six; and Resilience which is a total of Vigour and Vitality. Vigour is the Adventurer’s self-determination, which Vitality is how hale and hearty he is. A player rolls dice for all of these, and can swap two of the abilities. The player then picks a Class. This can be Warrior, Skald, Scout, or Seer. Each Class provides a range of equipment and skills or special actions that will give the Player Character many of their initial abilities.

Gertrud
Warrior
Strength 17 Dexterity 15 Wits 11 Spirit 12
Vigour 6 Vitality 5 Resilience 11
Def 3
Linden Wood Shield (+1 Def), Chainmail (Bulky, Def 2), Bearded Axe (d8), Ash Wood Spear (d6, 20’), Memento of Defeat, (Free Slots: 4)
Skills: Block (Shield), Parry (Axe), Disarm (Axe), Hack (Axe), Thrust (Spear)

Mechanically, Runecairn: Wardensaga is straightforward. When a player wants his Adventurer to act or react-and it is dramatically appropriate—he rolls a save versus either Strength, Dexterity, Wits, or Spirit, needing to roll equal to or lower than the value. A one always succeeds and a twenty always fails. Standard rules are used for advantage and disadvantage, and can apply to damage as well as standard actions.

In terms of combat, Runecairn: Wardensaga uses the same core mechanic, but in terms of rolling dice, combat in the roleplaying game is all about damage and reactions. Fundamentally, every attack made by an attacker will hit the defender and inflict damage. That is, unless the defender can do something as a reaction. Every Adventurer can ‘Roll’ away from the attack or ‘Withdraw’ from the combat, but each Class adds its own options in terms of Reactions. These require ‘Key’ items, pieces of equipment, that without, the Adventurer cannot perform the Reaction. For example, the Scout’s Key item is a pair of hunting knives. These are light enough that the Scout can perform a ‘Dash’ as a Reaction, which requires a save versus his Dexterity, the Scout able to avoid all damage if successful or impairing it and reducing it to a four-sided die if it is unsuccessful. Attack actions also require an item of equipment and increase the amount of damage inflicted or another effect. For example, the Seer Class has the ‘Clobber’ action. This requires a staff and has the Seer smashing a defender over the head with his staff, granting the Seer advantage for the damage roll, and the defender being forced to roll a save versus Strength or be dazed. Many of the actions and Reactions force the Adventurer to suffer ‘Fatigue’. Each point of Fatigue fills a slot in the Adventurer’s Inventory.

One damage is suffered, the ‘Def’ or Defence value, reduces the amount of damage suffered. Both Classes and monsters and NPCs have a base ‘Def’ and this can be augmented by any armour worn or shield carried. Damage is then deducted from Resilience. If an Adventurer’s Resilience is reduced to exactly zero, he will receive an Omen, a message from the spirits, or gods, or… which can be good or bad. If reduced below zero, damage reduces Strength and counts as a critical strike. This requires a save versus critical damage on Strength, and if failed, the defender dies.
For example, as Gertrude struggles through the last of a snowstorm to get to the next village, she hears yells and screams from up ahead. Over the rise, she sees a caravan which has been ambushed during the storm. It is in disarray as several figures fight the surviving guards and others drag off merchants. Gertrude spots two of the rough-looking fellows attempting to abduct an old woman. Unlimbering her Linden Wood Shield and readying her bearded axe, she charges down the hill. The Warden rules that since the battlefield is noisy and the old woman is screaming, neither of the cultists will spot her charging down the hill and will grant her Advantage on the damage roll. This means that Gertrude’s player will rolling two eight-sided dice instead of one and taking the best result. Gertrude’s player rolls a five and an eight. He chooses the latter and inflicts eight points of damage. The Cultist has a Def of one, reducing the damage he is about to suffer by one to seven. However, the Cultist only has Resilience of six, so it is reduced to zero and the Cultist takes a point of damage to his Strength. It also means that the Warden has to make a Critical Damage save. The Warden rolls against the Cultist’s Strength of ten and rolls a sixteen! The Cultist yelps at the sudden blow and drops dead… At this point, it triggers a special ability which means that when the Cultist dies, a black tentacle bursts out of him and inflicts damage on the nearest person. This requires a roll of one on a twenty-sided die. The Warden rolls seven, so nothing happens.
The other Cultist looks round in surprise. He reacts by throwing the old woman down and drawing his seax, advances on Gertrude. He stabs at the mighty warrior and rolls six for the damage. Gertrude has a high enough to stop a lot of this damage, but his player decides on a Parry Reaction. This enables Gertrude to deflect the attack and riposte with advantage on the damage roll. Gertrude’s player rolls fourteen, which is under Gertrude’s Strength. Gertrude smashes the seax stab aside and the Cultist suffers enough damage to reduce his Resilience to zero, but not inflict any damage to his Strength. The Cultist screams in pain. This attracts the attention of the other cultists attacking the caravan. They stop what they are doing and move to take down their attacker. She will make a worthy sacrifice.Two of the Classes—the Skald and the Seer—are capable of casting various forms of magic. These are Runestones and Sagas. Runestones are polished stones into which spells are inscribed, whilst Sagas are memorised tales that are recited to channel the power of the gods. Both Runestones and Sagas take up an Inventory Slot in total and when either a Runestone or a Saga inflicts damage, it bypasses non-magical armour. There is a decent list of spells for the Seer, such as Cloak of Knives or Spectacle, as well as one for the Skald like Laughter or Sense Evil.
As the mighty warrioress comes to her aid and attacks the cultists who would have kidnapped her, the old woman, Tove, finds herself thrown into the snow. She is now free to act, and as Skald, she reaches into the folds of her tunic to pull out her Runic Focus. Concentrating on the key item, she recalls the story in which Thor called down the power of lightning on his enemies. With a crackle of energy, a dagger of lightning appears in her hand. From where she lies, she throws it at the Cultist still standing in front of the unknown warrioress. This inflicts three damage, reduced by one for the Cultist’s ‘Def’. This means the Cultist suffers Strength damage and triggers a Critical Damage save. The Warden rolls eleven for the Cultist, which means that with a zap, the Cultist is blown off his feet. The Warden rolls for the Cultist’s post-death ability. This time she rolls a one and a black tentacle emerges from the dead Cultist and inflicts a six-sided die’s worth of damage on Gertrude! If an Adventurer dies, it does not necessarily mean that play is over. The Adventurer simply reawakens at the last Bonfire he rested at. He loses all Souls found—Souls are remnants of the power of the gods scattered and hidden across the Nine Realms, that if returned to a Bonfire whilst alive can be used to imbue an Adventurer with power and improve his abilities and Vitality—and has his Strength and Resilience restored to full. However, when this happens, it also reduces his Vigour by one. If his Vigour is reduced to zero in this fashion, the Adventurer truly dies and rises as a Shade… Lastly, any enemy that the Adventurer killed before dying is also returned to life!

This is the extent of Runecairn in terms of its basic rules. What is interesting about Runecairn: Wardensaga is that it shifts what would be the inherent abilities of a Player Character because said Player Character has a Class in another roleplaying game from the internal to external. Much of what a Player Character can do is down to the equipment that he carries and packs into his inventory, and many of them enable the use of skills. What that means is that an Adventurer in Runecairn: Wardensaga could snatch up a spear and carry a ‘Thrust’ attack as per the Warrior Class, enabling him to lunge forward ten feet and make an attack, but suffering from fatigue in return, or after obtaining a Runic Focus, learn spells as can a Skald. In addition to finding Souls and spells, an Adventurer can also find Relics and Rings. Relics are items imbued with magic or spells, often one-use items, which when used do not inflict Fatigue, and sometimes can be recharged. For example, a Skull Beacon, a charred and crumbling skull with faintly glimmering eye sockets, which glows brightly when held. It can be used to light up and area, but only once. To recharge it, it needs to be burned on a roaring bonfire. Rings typically grant a better benefit, but always at some cost. For example, the Iron Ring is wrought of dense metal grants a point of Defence, but at a loss of Speed.

The Advanced Rules of Runecairn: Wardensaga provide two extra Classes, alternate ways of playing the roleplaying game, and a Delve Generator. The two extra Classes are the Berserker and the Pyre. The former is a warrior who calls upon his animal spirit to fight with great ferocity, whilst the latter draws upon fire to burn his enemies and even shield against their attacks. The first of the alternate methods of play is solo play. This suggests playing Runecairn: Wardensaga as a Journalling game, suggesting that the player use an ‘Oracle’ as a means to draw meaning from the randomness of play, such as that created using the Delve Generator. This ‘Oracle’ can be a Tarot deck, but the guidance for solo play in the Advanced Rules of Runecairn: Wardensaga provides a set of tables to roll upon. The co-operative play gives a way of bringing another player into a session, the Adventurer using an effigy stone at a bonfire to summon a fallen hero—from either the past or the future—who will fight alongside the Adventurer, until one of them dies. Conversely, the Adventurer might face a ‘black fetch’ instead of a fallen hero, intent of stripping him of his humanity and vigour. The ‘black fetch’ can be run as a normal NPC by the Warden, or if both players do not object to the situation, by another player, setting up an adversarial situation. Alternatively, the ‘black fetch’ might actually be a fallen hero who believes the Adventurer to be the ‘black fetch’!

The Delve Generator creates locations for play in Runecairn: Wardensaga. This includes locations such as cairn or stronghold, objectives such as infiltrating the mercenary group at a stronghold and convincing its members to join the Adventurer or hunting a cairn for the rock troll that killed the adventurer’s family is hiding out in the family tomb. An extensive set of tables provides encounters within these locations, NPC reactions and actions, and a countdown mechanic which determines how close the Adventurer is to his objective after each encounter. Thus, the Adventurer need not explore the whole of the location to achieve his objective. The process is neatly handled through a flow chart that makes the solo play proceed with ease.
Penultimately, Runecairn: Wardensaga provides a complete delve, ‘Beneath the Broken Sword’. This is designed as an introductory adventure which showcases how to play and how the Adventurer lives and dies. It begins with the Adventurer waking up not know where he is and what he should possess, so the first part is really looking for both, though the inevitable death within the first few locations will teach the player the transient nature of life and death in the roleplaying game and then reinforce the importance of the Adventurer’s possessions as they really are key to his survival. Lastly, the appendices consist of a short, but useful bestiary, and some player options as well as a pronunciation guide.

Physically, Runecairn: Wardensaga is well presented and the artwork is excellent. However, the writing does feel succinct in places, leaving the reader wanting a little clearer explanation. However, there is a good example of Adventurer and a good example of combat. Both do a good job of showing how the roleplaying game works. If there is anything missing from the pages of Runecairn: Wardensaga, it is details of the wider world, of the Nine Realms, which the Warden will have to develop. Another issue is that there is no differentiation within each Class, so that the only difference one Warrior and another is their core abilities. That said, Runecairn: Wardensaga is not designed for that style of play where these are multiple players. Nevertheless, when there are two players involved, they should ideally have their Adventurers each be of a different Class.

Runecairn: Wardensagaa is the complete version of Runecairn, containing everything needed to play, including a beginning scenario, and then more to play further, whether that is just one player and the Warden, as is standard, solo play, or more players. There is a fantastically brutal dynamism to the play of Runecairn: Wardensaga, combined with a strong player agency that the Warden is encouraged to support through the roleplaying game’s principles. In particular, the thrust back and forth of combat is desperate and gruelling, a player whose Adventurer has his equipment, always having choices in terms of how he attacks and he reacts. This reliance upon equipment emphasises the power of these choices and makes the Adventurer feel mortal—even though this is not the case as death returns him to the last bonfire—rather than like some fantasy superhero. Yet the heroic aspect of Runecairn: Wardensaga means that the Adventurer can return from the dead, to come back with the knowledge of what killed him and perhaps be better prepared for the next attempt.

Above all, Runecairn: Wardensaga is a really enticing roleplaying game for two that gives the Warden a set of solid tools with which to create the situations and delves for the Adventurer to get involved in, whilst for the player, there are some great Adventurers to play and bring to life and use their skills, and together the means to explore a broken world. Ultimately, Runecairn: Wardensaga is like a computer game in its one-on-one play-style, but its post-Ragnarök action has all the advantages of a tabletop roleplaying game—player agency, the varied and more reactive world created by the Warden, and the fierce and feisty actions, reactions, and decisions of the Adventurer.
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By Odin’s Beard will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 31st to Sunday June 2nd, 2024.