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

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

—oOo—
Name: A Place Just For UsPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Charles Huysman

Setting: Modern day Product: One-shot
What You Get: Eighteen page, 2.89 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: “When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.” – C.S. Lewis.Plot Hook: Going home means coming home to play...
Plot Support: Staging advice, two NPCs, and one map.Production Values: Reasonable.
Pros# Bucolic horror# Non-Mythos horror scenario# Flexible storytelling elements# Suitable for small groups# Easy to adjust to other time periods# Fennecaphobia# Xylophobia# Ludophobia

Cons# No clear explanation of the plot# Underwritten set-up and town description# Non-Mythos horror scenario
Conclusion# Bucolic hometown horror which takes the Investigators back to their childhoods# Underwritten set-up leaves Keeper with development to make play easier

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

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

—oOo—
Name: As the Stars FallPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Jamie Burke

Setting: Modern day North American gaming conventionProduct: One-shot
What You Get: Thirty-three page, 18.06 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Your mother warned you about the dangers of your hobby. She was right.Plot Hook: Some people think gaming conventions are odd. The attendees, even odder. This time, they’re right.
Plot Support: Staging advice, four/Five pre-generated Investigators, three NPCs, five handouts, and some monsters.Production Values: Reasonable.
Pros# Familiar setting for many gamers# Creepy tale of blood and possession# Scope to create the convention# Easy to adjust to the nineties, eighties, seventies, or sixties# Hemophobia# Demonophobia# Chapodiphobia

Cons# Could end in a bloodbath and possession
Conclusion# Unsettling tale of blood and possession which ends under the stars.# Short one-shot in a familiar setting

Godforsaken is one of several genre sourcebooks for the Cypher System published by Monte Cook Games. The others, such as The Stars Are Fire covers Science Fiction, Stay Alive! covers horror, and We Are All Mad Here covers fairy tales, but Godforsaken tackles that most ubiquitous of genres—at least when it comes to roleplaying—fantasy. In each case, these four genre supplements build on specific chapters in the Cypher System Rulebook providing a range of rules and rules tweaks, character ideas, options and modules, monsters and more, including settings and scenarios, that together help the Game Master and her players explore the genre and its many facets and aspects, create characters, and adventure in worlds inspired by a wide range of sources, including books, films, and even other roleplaying games. As a supplement, Godforsaken has to cover a wide array of subgenres, from high and low fantasy to dark fantasy and fairy tales, from the future of a dying Earth and historical fantasy to contemporary fantasy and paranormal romance, from whimsical fantasy and wuxia to Dungeons & Dragons-style fantasy.
Godforsaken is really a collection of questions and answers. Asking how one aspect or another of the genre can be done and then explaining or showing how. This is not just for the Cypher System, although that of course, is its focus, but with the genre in general. It starts with two options. The first is inspirations, touching upon classics such as Arthurian legend or the tales of Sinbad, but surprisingly suggesting a range of fantasy roleplaying games which could also serve as the basis for a Cypher System fantasy game. This complemented later in the book with more specific discussions and lists of possible inspirational works, covering fiction, film, and television, even fantasy artists, essentially a bibliography with suggestions. It feels odd having it placed further into the book when it could easily have followed the opening chapters. The other is creating a new setting and is more expansive, looking initially at the role of magic—knowledge, power levels, availability, history, and its interplay with technology and actual history—in broad strokes. It is a subject that the supplement will return to for obvious reasons. It also asks whether death will be permanent in the Game Master’s setting (similarly, this is expanded upon later in the book) and suggests ways to create maps and advise the players about the nature of the world that the Game Master has created. It is all fairly broad, as is the discussion and samples of fantasy.

The specifics really begin with character options which suggest ways in which various character types can be done using the Cypher System “I am an adjective noun who verbs.” format. For example, a Druidic character could be created in numerous ways depending upon what he does. For a druid with an animal companion, the Focus might be ‘Controls Beasts’ or ‘Masters the Swarm’ or who transforms, it might be ‘Takes Animal Shape’ or ‘Walks the Wild Woods’. Numerous options are suggested for the traditional fantasy roles like barbarian, the bard, priest, fighter, holy knight, warlock, and wizard, as well as for less traditional ones such as gunslinger and inquisitor. Several of the Foci are new, including ‘Takes Animal Shape’ and ‘Wields an Enchanted Weapon’, but in the main draws from the hundred or so given in the Cypher System Rulebook. However, not all of those are suitable for the fantasy genre and there is advice too on adjusting them to fit. For example, ‘Grows to Towering height’ could mean the character has giantish blood or be descended from a titan, ‘Licensed to Carry’ gives the character an unusual or magical weapon and applies the Focus’ bonuses to it, and ‘Talks to Machines’ could mean that the character instead communicates with golems or even the undead.

Equipment is handled in two ways in Godforsaken. First it gives descriptions and prices of a wide range of weapons, armour, tools, and adventuring gear. It will look familiar to anyone who has played a fantasy roleplaying game, but unlike in the Cypher System Rulebook, it gives prices in gold pieces rather than broad price categories. Second, it suggests ways in which Cyphers—the means by which the Cypher System awards Player Character one-time bonuses, whether potions or scrolls, software, luck, divine favour, or influence—can be brought into the fantasy genre. In the fantasy genre, these can obviously be potions, scrolls, talismans, and the like, which are relatively easy to make. Godforsaken gives complete rules for their creation as a series of step-by-step challenges, with higher level Cyphers requiring more time and more expensive ingredients. These are easy to use and nicely complement the main rules for crafting to be found in the Cypher System Rulebook. Crafting artefacts is also covered. Also discussed is why the Player Characters might craft Cyphers rather than expect to have them rewarded through play as is the norm, which might be preparation to overcome a foe or challenge, because the Player Character is a crafter, or it is thematically appropriate.

The rules for crafting Cyphers are one of several modules, divided between magical and fantasy rules, which Godforsaken provides and discusses that the Game Master can plug into her setting. The other modules for magical rules include antimagic, death and resurrection, ritual magic, magical technology, mind control, mystical martial arts, the power of names, and secrets. The modules for ritual magic and magic and technology include numerous examples too. There is specific advice about how to handle mind control in play, since not every player likes his character to be taken out of his control necessarily, suggesting that its parameters be set prior to play and reward a Player Character extra Experience Points when it does come into play, perhaps as a ‘GM Intrusion’. The module about using antimagic is more advice than mechanics, since the Cypher System does not actually define whether a Player Character’s abilities, Cyphers, and artefacts are magical or non-magical. If the former, antimagic effects remove them from play and that can be a problem from situation to situation, because they are integral to the Player Character. Ultimately the advice is to use antimagic in play sparingly. The fantasy rules modules cover the rewarding of treasure, including Cyphers and artefacts, and then the exploration of the dungeon environment. Walls, doors, traps—both as challenges and ‘GM Intrusions’, with numerous examples, are described here.

For running the Cypher System in a manner similar to Dungeons & Dragons, the chapter on fantasy species details several classic examples—Catfolk, Dragonfolk, Gnomes, Halflings, and Lizardfolk—in addition to those found in the Cypher System Rulebook. There is the suggestion too that they can be used as a Descriptor during Player Character creation, not once, but twice, so that Player Character could be an Inquisitive Halfling Explorer who Works the Back Alleys. Similarly, there are also suggestions on how to get near the Vancian style—that is, memorise, cast, and forget—which is challenging given that the Cypher System defaults a spontaneous style of casting. Godforsaken includes a trio of Cypher Shorts that can be used as single encounters or short scenarios, all of them classic fantasy situations. This is followed by a bestiary of forty or so monsters and NPCs to complement those in the Cypher System Rulebook and a selection of Cyphers and artefacts to add to a campaign.
Godforsaken is also the eponymous name of the setting described in the book. Comprising the second part of the supplement, it describes the ‘Godforsaken Setting’ and supports it with a pair of adventures. The ‘Godforsaken Setting’ is split into two realms. ‘Bontherre: The Blessed Lands’ are a green and pleasant land where nobody goes for want of anything, a pantheon of five revered gods known as the ‘Sacrante’, walk the lands and are worshipped by all, and for some, is a dull place to life. Beyond these lands of milk and honey lie the ‘Godforsaken Lands’ where the influence and power of the ‘Sacrante’ cannot reach and the sun and sky are different. As brave explorers, the Player Characters step through from ‘Bontherre: The Blessed Lands’ into the ‘Godforsaken Lands’ where they must survive radically dangerous environments, such as viciously biting weapons and acid rain, in search of resources valued by crafters. For example, Flevame, lies across the River of Souls and is easily accessible, and has a smaller sun and no moon, is colder, visitors from Bontherre suffer from a ‘weakening’, and visiting adventurers are often hunted by the forces of a necromancer called Crumellia Encomium. As well as being able to explore a new world, adventurers search for spirit threads which can be used to enhance artefacts. The other two lands detailed in the ‘Godforsaken Lands’ are different and there is scope too for the Game Master to add more. The setting is supported by two scenarios which introduce the ‘Godforsaken Setting’ and notes for the types of characters that the players can create and roleplay.

Physically, Godforsaken is very well presented, but that is what you would expect for a book from Monte Cook Games. It is well written, and both the artwork and the cartography are also good. Sidebars are used extensively throughout the book, adding detail, advice, stats, and references to the Cypher System Rulebook, and in the process, being very handy.

Godforsaken has two big hurdles that it has to overcome. One is that it has to encompass a wide swathe of subgenres and the second is Dungeons & Dragons. Although Godforsaken discusses numerous subgenres, it does not actually explore them in any great depth, its focus being broader and more generic. Further, it does not so much attempt to escape the influence of Dungeons & Dragons as in parts embrace it and show how a fantasy game in its style can be run using the Cypher System. By no means is this a bad thing, but rather it does leave less room for more detailed treatments of the other subgenres, which perhaps a supplement of their own.
Godforsaken presents a solid set of tools and advice for running the fantasy genre under the Cypher System, which altogether ask the Game Master numerous questions which will help her create and run her own fantasy setting. Ultimately though, Godforsaken cannot encompass everything in the fantasy genre and leaves a lot of subgenres waiting to be explored in greater depth for the Cypher System.

First published in 2006, the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game reaches its fourth edition in 2023. The good news is that the latest edition of the Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying game is not guilty of a strange swerve into MMORPG-style play as was the case when the most famous of roleplaying games reached its fourth edition. Instead, the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game, Fourth Edition is compatible with each of the previous three editions of the roleplaying game and it is compatible with the rest of Old School Renaissance too. Which means that the Game Master can still use all of the content and supplements previously published for the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game for her game as well as supplements and content released by too many other publishers to mention. What the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game, Fourth Edition offers is Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying, dungeon-delving adventures, epic magic, and big battles against two hundred and more different monsters, the discovery and wielding of magical items—minor and major, and more. All supported with advice for the Game Master and packaged in a simple, even basic, volume that combines the equivalent of the Player’s Handbook, Monster Manual, and the Dungeon Master’s Guide, all without the need for the Open Game Licence.

The Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game, Fourth Edition is published by The Basic Fantasy Project. It takes its cue from the Dungeons & Dragons of the early nineteen eighties, so is more akin to Basic Dungeons & Dragons than Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. There are differences though, but there is a great deal more that will be very familiar. It is a Class and Level roleplaying game, up to Twentieth Level, rather than a Class and Level and Class as Race and Level roleplaying game. It offers four Races—Elf, Dwarf, Halfling, and Human, and four Classes—Cleric, Fighter, Magic-User, and Thief. Only Elves and Humans can be Magic-Users. Other than that, there are no limits on the choice of Class and Race. The familiarity mean that Dwarves have a minimum Constitution, Darkvision, and know their way around worked stone; Elves have a minimum Intelligence, Darkvision, are immune to the paralyzing attack of ghouls, are less likely to be surprised, and are better at finding secret doors; Halflings have a bonus to ranged attacks and initiative as well as Armour Class when facing large creatures, and are naturally stealthy; and Humans gain a bonus to Experience Points earned. Clerics can wear any armour, must wield blunt weapons, can turn undead, and gain their first spell at Second Level. Fighters can wield any weapon, wear any armour, and are simply better in a fight. Magic-Users begin play knowing the spell Read Magic and another spell of the Game Master’s choice! Thieves cannot wear metal armour, can perform a sneak attack with a melee weapon, and have a range of Thief Abilities such as Open Locks, Remove Traps, Pick Pockets, and more, all rolled on percentile dice.

Mechanically, the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game, Fourth Edition is mish-mash of different mechanics. Attack rolls and Saving Throws are rolled with a twenty-sided die, the aim being to roll high. Thus, Armour Class is ascending, with just three types of armour in the roleplaying game—leather, chain, and plate, plus shield—and beyond bonuses from either a high Strength or Dexterity, a Player Character’s attack bonus being determined by his Class and Level. A roll of one is always a miss, whereas a roll of twenty is always a success, but there are no rules for critical successes or fumbles. However, Hit Points reduced to zero for both Player Characters and monsters means they are dead. Other tasks are rolled on different dice. Thus, an attempt to open a stuck door is rolled on a six-sided die, but a locked door on a ten-sided die, the aim being to roll low, modified by the Strength bonus. Similarly, all Player Characters have a very low—one-in-six—chance of detecting traps, though the Thief’s Ability supersedes this. Both Surprise and Initiative are rolled on a six-sided die, but low for determining the former and high for the latter. The Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game, Fourth Edition is therefore highly idiosyncratic in its rules and their application, but no more so than many other Dungeons & Dragons-style retroclone and certainly no reason to be surprised given its origins and inspiration. However, this mechanical motley does have repercussions. Fundamentally, it makes the roleplaying game less easy to learn, even arcane by modern standards, because almost every rule is mechanically situational. This is not to say that the roleplaying game is impossible to learn, but it contributes towards the hurdle of doing so.

Conversely, any experience with a retroclone or Dungeons & Dragons, and the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game, Fourth Edition is easy to pick up and begin playing. The differences between the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game, Fourth Edition and any other retroclone dot the rules. Most notably, they include the use of ascending Armour Class, but other rules provide clear and easy rules for unarmed combat and brawling and subdual damage. Spellcasting is Vancian for Magic-Users and all spellcasters require a hand free to successfully cast a spell. Clerics pray for their spells, whilst Magic-Users prepare and memorise them from a spellbook, except for Read Magic, which is so ingrained, it does not require the spellbook. Dig into the spells, and there are small differences here and there. For example, Mind Reading replaces ESP, Magic Missile inflicts a six-sided die’s worth of damage rather than a four-sided die’s worth, and so on. Some of the spells are highly detailed, such as Teleport, which is given a description almost a page in length whereas Read Magic runs to just three sentences in length. There are some forty-eight spells for Clerics and some sixty-two spells for Magic-User, from First Level to Sixth Level.

Similarly, the chapter on monsters—which runs to some one hundred pages—contains a mix of the familiar and the unfamiliar. Instead of the Displacer Beast, there is the Deceiver (or Panther-Hydra); the Gelatinous Cube is classified as a Glass Jelly, the Black Pudding as the Black Jelly, and Gray Ooze as the Gray Jelly, and so on; and the Golem entry includes Amber, Bone, and Wood Golem as well as Clay, Flesh, and Iron Golem. New additions include the Ironbane, an armadillo-like creature with hare’s legs and anteater-like snout with a long flicking tongue which transforms iron into rust (this does not replace Rust Monster), the Trollwife is included alongside the Troll as well as the Trollkin, the latter a young Troll, and the Urgoblin is a mutant Hobgoblin capable of regenerating Hit Points!

As you would expect, the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game, Fourth Edition covers most situations and elements that could come up in a Dungeons & Dragons. Equipment includes everything from arms and armour to land and water transportation and siege engines, traps and secret doors, wilderness travel, retainers and specialists to hire, handling encounters—including combat, and treasure. There is a complete set of tables for generating treasure types and hoards, the best feature of which are the list of effects, such as Courage, Invisibility, Protection, Flames on Command, Locate Objects, and Obsession, which can be applied to any weapons—not necessarily swords, and miscellaneous items. This is alongside the usual range of magic items and even rare items like the Bag of Holding, Boots of Travelling and Leaping, Girdle of Giant Strength, and Rope of Climbing.

For the Game Master, there is advice on various Player Character options in terms of the creation process, learning spells, weapon and armour restrictions, and so on. Added here is guidance on handling one of the most difficult issues in Dungeons & Dragons—wishes. The aim here is game balance versus literal accuracy. A similarly difficult issue, that of Energy Drain, is handled in more mechanical fashion. This is handled as negative levels which inflict a semi-permanent loss of one Hit Die’s worth of Hit Points and a -1 penalty on all rolls, plus spellcasters lose a spell slot. The effect is more granular, though still potentially deadly. Optional rules cover raising the dead, saving throws versus death and poison, ability rolls, awarding Experience Points for treasure, and more. There are rules here too for magical research for the Magic-User Player Character or NPC, and of course, for the Game Master to create both dungeon and wilderness adventures. There is no adventure included in the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game, Fourth Edition, but the advice is a decent introduction to creating both.

Physically, the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game, Fourth Edition is cleanly presented. The book is well written and fairly liberally illustrated, much of which appears in the monster chapter. The quality of the artwork varies, some of it is quite scrappy, but some of it is decent.

There are no real issues with the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game, Fourth Edition, but one potential issue is that the roleplaying game does not work as an introductory roleplaying game as written. The Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game is intended to be simple enough for the younger player to play, and that is true, although with the supervision of older or adult players. The roleplaying game is written for the latter rather than the former, for example, there being no example of play, though there is fiction at the start and a decent explanation of what a roleplaying game is, plus there is an example of character generation. However, the meat of the rules and their mishmash nature are not easy to grasp, but again, to be fair, this applies to numerous other retroclones as well. For the experienced player, this would not be an issue.

There are plenty of Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying games available to choose from. The Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game, Fourth Edition offers a comprehensive set of rules in a cleanly presented rule book, covering just about any situation that might come up in play. There are also two major advantages to the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game, Fourth Edition. One, it is slightly cheaper—even free as a download—than most other Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying games available. Two, it gives access to a range of scenarios and mini-campaigns, such as JN1 The Chaotic Caves: A Basic Fantasy RPG Adventure Series For Characters of Levels 1-3. Overall, the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game, Fourth Edition is a serviceable fantasy roleplaying game.

Roleplaying games can have you portraying some strange characters. Not just elves or aliens inhibited by their emotions, but really strange characters. For example, in Marquee Press’ Khaotic, the characters’ minds are projected into the bodies of aliens on another world to fight a would-be invader, but end up all controlling the same alien body. In both Asmodee’s Bloodlust and John Wick’s WIELD: Chronicles of the Vatcha, the players portray the magical items and weapons being wielded, not the wielder. In the transhuman roleplaying game Eclipse Phase, the character is split between Ego and form, able to resleeve the Ego into a myriad of different body types, from cheap labour morphs and Olympian biomorphs to Uplifted species such as Chimpanzees and Octopuses and robotic flexbots and swarmoids. In the eponymously named A Set of Scrubs, you get to roleplay something that is perhaps the strangest, yet most ordinary item of all.
A Set of Scrubs is a journaling game which tells the story of a single set of scrubs at a hospital. Due to budget cuts, scrubs need to be worn multiple times, being deep cleaned between use, and handed back out as necessary. From the moment the scrubs are handed out for the first time, fresh and with a newness you just wish would never fade, to the time they have worn through and been stained with marks—both emotional and physical—that never truly shift, via being worn into something unremarkable, then perhaps a little scratchy, the scrubs will have been multiple times by numerous different people. Doctors, nurses, patients, porters, never management, visitors (yes, even them), security guards. Told over the course of three acts, A Set of Scrubs uses the Lost & Found system which is designed to produce solo games telling the story of an Object over a long stretch of time, typically from its creation to destruction. So it is with A Set of Scrubs.
A Set of Scrubs is published by Beyond Cataclysm Books and written by a medical doctor. To play—or rather to tell the story—of the single set of scrubs takes about an hour and requires pens, paper, a clock (or other means of tracking time), and a candle. The use of the latter and the subject matter of A Set of Scrubs, with dark and difficult themes since hospitals are places where life and death are decided, means that it is for mature audiences only.

A Set of Scrubs begins with the player establishing and describing the hospital, its age, management, and progress. Then it does the same for its staff and its patients. Is the hospital old or new, underfinanced or getting by, dirty or clean, the management honest or dishonest, and does the hospital have a motto? Do the staff want to do a good job or are they overworked and undermanned, professional or not, what are their opinions of the motto? Are the patients wealthy or poor, from all corners of society or one, what do they think of the hospital and does it have a good reputation, and how do they treat the staff? Is there a change in patient numbers, and if so, why? Penultimately, what does the set of scrubs look like? Cheap or well made, colourful or one tone, comfortable or uncomfortable, and so on? Lastly, the player draws the set of scrubs. There is even space in the book for this.

A Set of Scrubs is played in three acts. In each act, the scrubs will be worn by two or three Wearers. These change from act to act, each accompanied by a set of prompts which the player uses to tell the story going on around the scrubs. The prompts may also ask the player to roll on or choose from the ‘Illness’ Table or the ‘Clinical Procedure’ as appropriate. Doctor, Nurse, and Patient are consistent across all three acts, but the Porter appears in Act One, the Visitor in Act Two, and the Security Guard in Act Three.

The prompts for the Doctor, the Nurse, and the Patient vary slightly from act to act. For example, the prompts for the Patient in Act One ask the player to explain why the patient is in hospital, to choose and answer a question from the ‘Illness’ table, give an event that happens on the day which sticks with them for a long time, and lastly, how the patient Marks the scrubs. For a Patient in Act Two, the player must explain how the patient got to the hospital, choose and answer a question from the ‘Illness’ table, and both how the patient Marks the scrubs and whether or not the patient is marked in a similar way. A Mark is the effect that the encounter had on the scrubs. It can be as simple as a pulled thread or a spilled cup of coffee, as visceral as a string of bullet holes, swathes of blood and gore—or worse, or even a sleeve torn lose in an encounter with frightened Patient, or as ephemeral as an odour or a sound, a lingering presence, and so on. These are literally made on the scrubs, the player drawing them on the picture he drew of the set at the start of play.
In between wearers, the player rests, from a few seconds to a few minutes, before the scrubs are pulled on by the next wearer and both player and scrubs thrown back into the action—physical, emotional, or both—of hospital life. Longer rests means that when the scrubs return to duty, the hospital will also have changed somehow and that will have an effect on the wearer and the scrubs. For the player, the moments of rest take place with his eyes closed (or in the dark). The shorter the period, the less time the player has to contemplate what happened in that day’s encounter, to wonder how the scrubs were affected and the nature of the Mark. The ultimate period of reflection comes at the end after Act Three, when the scrubs have worn out and been incinerated. This is when the candle is lit and the player takes one last moment to consider the events and encounters that the scrubs have been witness to.

Physically, A Set of Scrubs is very well produced, a sturdy digest-size booklet with intentionally rough illustrations.

A Set of Scrubs is very much a contemplative writing experience rather than a roleplaying game. It prompts the player to consider events and encounters in a place dedicated to life and healing, but where death and even danger are a constant presence. The stories that result are peripatetic, flitting from wearer to wearer like a shared world, mostly ordinary, but influenced by the building around them and the care that the staff provide. Doubtlessly influenced by the numerous medical dramas we have seen, A Set of Scrubs nevertheless pushes us to explore something we know is there and something that we know at some point we will encounter, but from an unexpected emotional quarter.

As well as contributing to Free RPG Day every year Goodman Games also has its own ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day’, which sadly, is a very North American event. The day is notable not only for the events and the range of adventures being played for Goodman Games’ roleplaying games, but also for the scenarios it releases specifically to be played on the day. For ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day 2023’, which takes place on Saturday, July 22nd, 2023, the publisher is releasing not one, not two, but three scenarios, plus a limited edition printing of Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic. Two of the scenarios, ‘The Rift of the Seeping Night’ and ‘Grave of the Gearwright’, are written for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and appear in the duology, the DCC Day 2023 Adventure Pack. The third, Crash of the Titans, is a scenario for Mutant Crawl Classics notable for sharing the same cover as that for the limited edition printing of the rulebook. It is the DCC Day 2023 Adventure Pack which is being reviewed here as a preview of ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day 2023’.

The first adventure in the DCC Day 2023 Adventure Pack is ‘The Rift of the Seeping Night’. Designed for a party of between five and seven First Level Player Characters, it is notable for being the winner of the of the ‘2022 Mystery Map Contest. The scenario begins with the Player Characters summoned to the normally sunlit city of Sphyre high in the Torrith Mountains. Here the people have worshipped the sun for centuries, but now the pattern of day and night has changed, the latter longer, the former shorter. Normally, the city is protected by the immortal wizard, Baltothume, but something must have happened to him for the light of the sun to have begun failing, so the Player Characters are expected to enter the and explore the outpost when he has lived for thousands of years. The outpost is quite small, consisting of just nineteen locations divided between two halves. The first half is where Baltothume lived and worked and feels quite tight and worked to be liveable, whereas the second half is darker and has rougher-hewn, natural feel to it, of a far wider space than the Player Characters can see.

To progress beyond the first half, the Player Characters will need to explore the facility and solve several puzzles, all possessing a solar nature, requiring either light or shadow. There are a few encounters here, but in the main they are just about enough of a threat to First Level Player Characters. The scenario is puzzle-orientated—so much so that they require their own notes—their being solved opens the way into the dungeon’s second half and then back again for its dénouement after that. Surprisingly, for a scenario of this size, it does includes more than the route between the two, preventing the scenario from stalling when the Player Characters cannot make any further progress. That said, the players and their characters may find themselves stalling when attempting to solve the scenario’s puzzles. Careful attention to detail is required and the Judge should definitely make notes as part of her preparation to run ‘The Rift of the Seeping Night’, both to help her understanding and to help her players and their characters come to understand how it works.

‘The Rift of the Seeping Night’ is a neat, nicely self-contained—of course, decently detailed, dungeon which can played through in a session or two. The detail extends to a pair of entertainingly memorable magical items that will help the Player Characters in the exploration of the dungeon. The combination of its puzzles and theme of night and day that split the dungeon should engage players who like to think their way through a situation and the Judge should definitely prepare for that.

The second adventure in the DCC Day 2023 Adventure Pack is ‘Grave of the Gearwright’. Designed for a party of between four and six Second Level Player Characters, it is actually inspired by DragonMech, the fantasy-steampunk-mecha setting published by Goodman Games in 2004. (Perhaps the scenario is a precursor to it being re-released, this time for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game? Who knows? Watch this space in 2024 on the roleplaying game’s twentieth anniversary.) That said, the scenario is not specifically designed to be run using that setting, but rather as an adventure for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game which combines magic and machinery. The scenario definitely requires a Thief, whilst Player Characters with a mechanical or engineering inclination will also be useful. Clerics or Wizards with mind or nature-affecting spells will find their spells to be less effective in the scenario given the nature of the dangers that the Player Characters will face.

Master Gearwright Alia Coppermantle has not been from in weeks. Perhaps they are tasked with checking on her well-being by a friend or stealing some of her secrets by a rival, but in whatever way they get involved, the Player Characters begin the scenario outside her tower, about to break in. That is quickly achieved and once inside, they will find the tower and its workshops below to be occupied by creatures that resemble weird balls of spiked tentacles and Dwarves very mechanically going about their work. If the Player Characters can defeat one of the constantly working Dwarves, they should learn some of what has been going on at the workshop (the Judge will need to prepare exactly what each Dwarf can remember as it will be different for each one), but not quite the true nature of the threat. That is invasion! From the Moon, no less! Ultimately, whether they sneak their way through the complex via its ventilation shafts—because ‘Grave of the Gearwright’ is as much Science Fiction as it is Fantasy and technological as much as it is magical, and therefore really, really needs ventilation shafts—the Player Characters can locate the missing Gearwright and learn what has happened in the workshop. Here the Judge will need to be a little inventive as Master Gearwright Alia Coppermantle has lost her voice. Nevertheless, that is not going to stop her and the scenario will climax with a battle for possession of the mecha that she was constructing.

‘Grave of the Gearwright’ is definitely more Science Fiction than fantasy in its feel and trappings. It does offer the opportunity for a Player Character to begin to learn engineering as a skill and even take the Great Machine as a Patron. What it does not do is let the Player Characters take control of the mecha, which would have been fun for the final scenes in the scenario. The fight up and down the giant robot, as well as atop it, is a great stage upon which to have a battle though. Otherwise, ‘Grave of the Gearwright’ is the more straightforward of the two scenarios in DCC Day 2023 Adventure Pack with an emphasis on combat and stealth. It also pushes the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game slightly in a direction that the roleplaying game as a whole is not quite compatible with as written, but this will vary from one Judge to the next. Physically, the DCC Day 2023 Adventure Pack is decently done. The artwork is fun and the maps clear, and both scenarios are well written and easy to read.

Of the two scenarios in the DCC Day 2023 Adventure Pack, ‘The Rift of the Seeping Night’ is both more interesting and more challenging, as well as easier to add to campaign. Otherwise, with two different scenarios in terms of tone and mystery for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, the DCC Day 2023 Adventure Pack contains two entertaining scenarios as you would expect from Goodman Games.

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

—oOo—
It is surprising to realise that Cranium is twenty-five years old. Originally published by Cranium, Inc. via Amazon and Starbucks—of all places!—‘The Game for Your Whole Brain’ was subsequently published by Hasbro, Inc. and sold everywhere. To celebrate its silver anniversary, its current publisher, Funko Games has released the Cranium 25th Anniversary Edition, which combines its sketching, acting, humming, sculpting, picture-puzzling, and word unscrambling game into a very attractive and sturdy package. Designed for four players aged twelve and up, it still is what it always was—a party package of games, which asks the players to guess answers based on an image drawn on a card, or from a sound or a song, answer trivia questions, solve word or picture puzzles, and infamously, sculpt an object which hopefully will be the clue to what is on the card. So, one part Pictionary, one-part Trivial Pursuit, one-part Scrabble, one-part Charades. The challenges in Cranium 25th Anniversary Edition can be divided into four categories—red Fact & Picture Challenges, yellow Word & Letter Puzzles, red Drawing & Sculpting, and green Acting & Sound Effects—and with a grand total of eighteen specific challenges divided between the four, there is always something new and interesting for the players to do. And given the silliness of some of the tasks, laugh at them as well.

What strikes you first about the Cranium 25th Anniversary Edition is how it is packaged. It comes as a fat disc or case. The top half is purple, the lower half white, and with an undulating edge to the top and bottom of the case, what the Cranium 25th Anniversary Edition actually looks like is a cake. In fact, a celebratory cake with purple icing on the top! What strikes you second about the Cranium 25th Anniversary Edition is the fact that everything is contained within the case. This includes challenge cards, the mini-white boards and their dry-erase pens, the timer, the team pawns, the counters, the movement die, and of course, the pot of ‘Cranium Clay’ used for the sculpture challenge. What strikes you third about the Cranium 25th Anniversary Edition is the movement die. It is a ten-sided die, but marked with five colours—twice. If you are an experienced gamer, then you will have seen this in the last twenty-five years, but for the casual gamer, it could be a first.
At the start of the game, the players divide into two teams. The blue team and the orange team. Each team has a mover in a corresponding colour. Everything is removed from the case in readiness for play and one of the game’s two decks is shuffled and placed in the slot in the middle of the case. This is where the cards are drawn from, turn to turn. Each team receives a reference sheet, which explains all eighteen categories, and a set of four Bonus Coins. There are two ‘Reroll’ coins, a ‘Move +1’ coin, and a ‘Move +2’ coin. The first two allow the die to be rerolled, whereas the other two grant a bonus to movement if a challenge is successful. All four can only be used once per game and are dropped into the slot atop the case when used. On a turn, each team will roll the die. This determines the category or colour of challenge they will perform. The opposing team will draw a card and set the challenge for the team based on the colour on the die. If the current team rolled purple, it can choose any colour. The team can also choose whether or not to use a ‘Bonus Coin’. Once the challenge is set and the timer readied, the player doing the challenge has two minutes to complete it and for the rest of the team to get it right from the clues provided by the player. Some challenges given are marked as ‘ALL PLAY’ in which case a player on both teams attempts it and the first team to get it right wins. When a team gets a challenge right, its Mover is moved round the track on the case to the next space matching the colour of the challenge it just completed. The game is won by the team which gets its Lover back round the track to the starting space.
In terms of game play then, the Cranium 25th Anniversary Edition is all about the challenges. Each card has one challenge from each category—Fact & Picture Challenges, Word & Letter Puzzles, Drawing & Sculpting, and Acting & Sound Effects—with corresponding answers on the back. For example, a card could have the ‘Soundstage’ challenge of the player having to perform ‘Glassblowing’ using sounds and gestures the rest of the team identify it correctly; identity the ‘Odd Couple’ or two items which do not belong on a list from ‘Chupacabra/Seattle Kraken/Jersey Devil/Beast of Exmoor/Cleveland Monsters’; ‘Jargonaut’ or choose the word which matches the definition for ‘The vapour line behind a high-flying plane’ from ‘Contrail, Delta wave, Phytoplasma, or Gasconade’; and in ‘Sensosketch’, the player must draw a ‘Katana’ with his eyes closed and the rest of the team identify it correctly from the drawing.
The fun of the game is in these challenges. And the fun in the challenges is in getting them wrong as much as you do right. Especially the more physical challenges, whether that is drawing or sculpting or performing. This is what will make everyone laugh as much as groan with frustration. The range of challenges provides lots of variety and that variety will appeal to a wider age group, young and old. Unfortunately, there is a problem with the Fact & Picture Challenges category in that the trivia questions are based on American knowledge rather than general knowledge. So, anyone outside of the USA is going to have a harder time with the category.
Physically, the Cranium 25th Anniversary Edition is very sturdily and attractively presented. Everything packs into the solid, very cake-like case, which looks good on the table. The cards are on thick stock, the Cranium Clay is malleable, and both the case and the Mover pieces are solid plastic.
All right, so the Cranium 25th Anniversary Edition is not a gamer’s game. It is too random, too simple, no real game play, no real rules or tactics or strategy. Which is true. In fact, the only tactic might be to use the purple result on the die to choose a colour and thus a category of challenge the team thinks it has a chance of succeeding at and move further than a random roll might have allowed. Yet despite these issues, every gamer needs a party game, a game that he can bring out and play with friends or family who do not ordinarily play games, especially at certain times of the year. Cranium is challenging in ways that friends and family will understand and silly and fun that they can enjoy playing it. Even a gamer can enjoy it for those reasons. Think of it as a palette cleanser, played very, very occasionally between more complex and demanding games.
The Cranium 25th Anniversary Edition is a great version of the classic party game. It looks good on the table, its team play encourages co-operation, and it plays well with family and friends, offering them a wide variety of tasks and challenges that are often fun and silly. Every gaming collection needs a party game and if that party game is Cranium, then the Cranium 25th Anniversary Edition is the version to have.

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

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

—oOo—
Name: The Colour of CattlePublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: John LeMaire

Setting: Illinois, 1885
Product: Scenario for Down Darker Trails: Terrors of the Mythos
What You Get: Sixty-three page, 142.09 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Colour Out of Space drains the colour out of cattle!Plot Hook: A cattle drive takes a short cut to death
Plot Support: Staging advice, three handouts, six pre-generated Cowpokes, four maps, twelve NPCs, one creature, one bad bear, and one Mythos monster.Production Values: Unworldly.
Pros# Scenario for Down Darker Trails: Terrors of the Mythos
# Can make use of Get Along, Little Dogies
# The snake oil turns out to be the balm needed# Mostly a physical and combative investigation# Plenty of extra background material provided# Includes bonus encounter# Chromophobia# Arkoudaphobia# Bovinophobia
Cons# Needs a slight edit# More a change of genre than a change of story# Can make use of Get Along, Little Dogies
Conclusion# Solid, slowpoke of a scenario as the cowpokes try to drive the Colour from the region in order to drive their cattle through # Brings a fresh approach to dealing with a Mythos threat which really cannot be dealt with and offers limited story use.

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

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

—oOo—
Name: To The Tolling of The BellPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: J. Michael Arons

Setting: United KingdomProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Nine page, 3.13 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: For Whom the Grounded Bell TollsPlot Hook: When an unmounted bell rings, ghosts walk the streets
Plot Support: Staging advice, one handout, two NPCs, and one Mythos monster.Production Values: Plain.
Pros# Underplayed, but decent small village mystery# Potential priests in peril# One-session investigation# Leans towards Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos# Needs development, but can be slotted into an ongoing campaign# Could work with one or two Investigators# More Hammer Horror than Cosmic Horror# Easy to adjust to Cthulhu by Gaslight or the modern day# Kampanaphobia# Ecclesiophobia# Religiophobia

Cons# Needs a slight edit# Undeveloped set-up for the Investigators# The NPC has his own Investigator sheet?# Unclear if the NPC is an NPC or an Investigator# No pre-generated Investigators# No maps# More Hammer Horror than Cosmic Horror# Leans towards Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos
Conclusion# Underdeveloped, but promising ecumenical horror, which with work, would slot easily into a campaign# More Hammer Horror than Cosmic Horror

The city of Spireholm stands at the southern tip of Karanthia, a country on the coast of the Balkans known as Europe’s Fang. Its isolation and its surrounding savage landscape has made it a feared target for any would-be conqueror, but that is not the only reason. In an age of modernity, industrialisation, and enlightenment, Spireholm and Karanthia are the last refuge of monsters and horrors, cast out from the rest of the continent. In Spireholm and Karanthia, myth and legend are real, and monsters walk the streets, let alone stalk the night, some welcome, others not. Constructs and creations given form and life. Shapeshifters and werewolves and the invisible. The Mad Genius. Vampires and warriors cursed with immortality. The Lucky fools who have made Faustian pacts and deals with dark patrons. The undead and those who would deal with the undead. The Monster Hunter as well as the biologist more concerned with cataloguing such creatures rather than killing them. Yet there are those in the city who do look to the outside world and trade has begun to flow readily through Spireholm’s harbour as the city’s four great families vie for power, influence, and money, the watch and the militia keep the temporal peace, the Divine Order the ecumenical and moral peace, and the Ragged Lords run crime and protect the poor in the city’s worst districts. All of which takes place behind Mayor Blumquist, who despite his wheedling and grovelling, keeps all of the city’s factions happy. As social and economic change comes to Spireholm, there is another faction, one that dates all the way back to the city’s foundation and has remained hidden since, which plots to reclaim what once belonged to it. If this faction succeeds, it will turn the clock back centuries and unleash monsters the likes of which not even the good folk of Spireholm have seen on their streets!

This is the set-up for SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm, a supplement for Shiver – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown. Published by Parable Games, Shiver is a generic horror roleplaying game, designed to do a variety of subgenres, from modern slasher and cosmic horror to zombie outbreaks and Hammer Horror melodramas, using easy to build Player Characters archetypes and the Doom Clock as a device to ratchet up tension and push the story to a horrifying climax combined with its own dice mechanics. It is great for one-shots, especially ones inspired by horror films. If that seems limiting, SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm shows how Shiver can do more—a lot more. SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm is a guide to the Gothic for Shiver, highlighting the subgenre’s sense of isolation, decaying old order versus the new, hidden secrets, and transgressive urges. SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm is a guide to roleplaying the monsters of the Gothic subgenre. SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm is a guide to the city of Spireholm. SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm is a complete campaign within the city of Spireholm. SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm introduces a new mechanic that tracks Doom, not in hours, but days. Thus, SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm provides an array of new Player Character archetypes, city where they are accepted—for the most part, and a complete ten-part campaign for them to explore the city, its politics and its secrets.

To be fair, SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm does not dwell on the nature of the Gothic for very long and nor does it provide an extensive guide to the city, but it is sufficient in both cases. Arguably then, its main focus is on playing as monsters and the campaign. The idea behind playing as monsters is that it grants the Player Characters access to supernatural powers that they will in turn use to fight the supernatural, but at the same time, they must constantly struggle with the light and the dark within themselves as well as their inner demons, and they must always be societal outcasts. What makes them monsters makes them untrustworthy. This will come into play through role playing rather than a given mechanic. If there is a disappointing aspect to SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm, it is this lack of mechanical means of handling the monstrous side to roleplaying these monsters. Their inclusion would have at least supported the players’ portrayal of their characters and their characters’ darker side.

SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm provides seven Archetypes. These are Construct, the Changed, the Mad Genius, the Immortal, the Lucky Devil, the Oddly Undead, and the Slayer. For example, the Construct has the Paths of Flesh, Machine, and Stone; the Mad Genius, the Paths of the Creator and the Alchemist; and the Immortal, the Paths of the Endless and the Vampyr. Each Archetype also has access to ten abilities, from Tier One to Tier Ten. Some of these are common to each of the Paths within an Archetype, but others are specific to a Path. Then there are over twenty Backgrounds particular to the subgenre, including Sentient Machine, Coach Driver, Regal Beast, Taxidermist, Gourmet, and more. Each provides an Ability and a Flaw. For example, the ‘Person in the Portrait’ has the Ability of Cumulative Inheritance, which provides the Player Character with plenty of wealth and an opulent home that serves as a Sanctuary to hide his secret, whilst the Flaw is ‘The Aging Artifact’, which the Player Character cannot look at, lest he be Slowed, lose Hit Points, and become Cursed. He can recover, but if ‘The Aging Artifact’ is destroyed, the Player Character dies.

With seven Archetypes, fourteen Paths, and twenty-one Backgrounds, SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm provides the players with a wide array of build options and choices enabling them to create some classic monster types. Most of these are reinforced by the Archetypes and Paths, with the Backgrounds being used to emphasise or tweak the combination of Archetype and Path. For example, the Endless Path from the Immortal Archetype would work with the ‘Person in the Portrait’, ‘The Holy Knight’, or ‘The Regal Beast’. The end result is that the players can create characters in the style of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Penny Dreadful, or Hellboy.

The second part of SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm is dedicated to the city and its associated campaign. It details the city itself, its history, factions, and districts in broad detail, dedicating roughly a page to each of its twelve districts. It does describe the world beyond the walls of Spireholm, if only a little, revealing that it is an alternative nineteenth century not too dissimilar to the Victorian era. It suggests ways of getting the Player Characters together, whether as members of the city watch or local militia, members or servants to the Four Families, monster hunters, or even ambassadors from abroad! Of course, the Director can just as easily mix and match these too to add further variety to the backgrounds of each of the Player Characters. SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm also introduces the Doom Calendar. In Shiver, the Doom Clock starts at eleven o’clock at night and counts up minute by minute to Midnight and the Player Characters’ inevitable Doooommm(!), with events triggered at ‘Quarter Past’, ‘Half Past’, ‘Quarter To’, and ‘Midnight’. The Doom Calendar instead tracks this over a month rather than an hour. Each chapter in the campaign in SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm has its Doom Calendar and as the days pass, the events—or ‘Doom Tolls’—on certain days will be triggered. This though, is on a day-to-day basis, but if in the course of a chapter, the Player Characters trigger the Midnight Doom Event on the Doom Clock, two days pass instead of one, hurrying the Doom Calendar towards the next ‘Doom Toll’. A Doom Calendar can be turned back, though this is challenging and done by performing certain deeds within the story. There are notes too for the Director to create her own Doom Calendar.

Almost three-quarters of SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm is dedicated to a ten-part campaign. Each of the ten chapters is bookended by ‘What the Director Knows’ at the beginning and at the finish, ‘Exploring the Wider Mystery’ which suggests how the Director might expand the campaign and ‘Doom Events’ which are triggered on the Doom Chapter for the chapter. Between the start and the end is the meat of the scenario, which varies from one chapter to the next, but between the chapters are a series of interludes. Initially, they cover setting up a sanctuary for the Player Characters and dealing with an NPC who can prove to be a useful ally to the Player Characters if they remain on his good side. Later, they explore the backgrounds and details of the numerous factions within the threat facing Spireholm that the Player Characters will fight and investigate.

The opening two chapters of the campaign involve the city’s major families. First, the aristocratic and influential Pontwhistles, whose fortunes are on the decline, and then the extremely wealthy and surprisingly technocratic Silvarri. In ‘A Mournful Howl’, the heir to the Pontwhistle is found dead. Investigating with the help of the city’s leading information broker, the trail leads into an abandoned library and a nest of ghouls before turning back to where it all started. The Player Characters may cheated at its end, but at least learn there are dangerous foes abroad in the city. The head of the Silvarri family, a noted inventor, engages the Player Characters to test the security of ‘The Clockwork Vault’ by breaking into the clockwork maze. This presents the Player Characters with a series of technical puzzles and traps to overcome, but once in the vault gives them access, at least temporarily, to a number of artefacts and devices. In fact, the campaign is littered with these, ready to be found and used by the Player Characters, some of the most fun being suitable for a masked ball that they will attend later in the campaign. However, none of those in the Clockwork Vault can be removed unless the Player Characters are very careful. One is integral to the plot and reveals the first hints as to the nature of the threat the city faces.

The various factions threatening the city make their first moves in ‘On Strange Tides’ when rumours of disappearances and strangers draw the Player Characters to the city’s docks. Investigating one of the ships leads to a confrontation with vampires, but there are too many and the Player Characters are forced to escape from the docks in what should be an exciting carriage chase. A local detective from the Watch guides the Player Characters into the Stacks, the behest of one of the Ragged Lords, the city’s poorest district, which has been beset by a rash of murders and disappearances. Investigating again sends them to the docks, but not the official docks. These are the Smuggler’s Dock and beyond lies the Flooded District where the Player Characters will find themselves chased by pirates, before descending upon a nest, not of vampires or spiders, but spider vampires! This is a big creepy battle with another vampiric faction. It is followed by ‘The House on the Harrowed Hill’ when the Ragged Lords invite the Player Characters to a symposium to reward them and to discuss further action, but when another guest, Archbishop Orcini of the Divine Order, is found dead, they are perfectly placed to investigate. This is the most traditional of the chapters to date, but includes advice on the order of events and how to link the clues together.

The city begins to react in ‘Quarantine’. The Divine Order, in response to the monsters kept at Madame Mordeaux’s Arena being released to run wild in the Stacks, places the city in lockdown. This takes place whilst the Player Characters are solving the murder the house on Harrowed Hill, which of course, sits atop the Stacks. Somehow the Player Characters must get across the district and escape back into the city. Before them lies a district in which monsters are running amok and cultists dedicated to the vampires are moving openly on the streets. The Player Characters may be able to rest and resupply at their sanctuary, but ultimately, they are going to have to fight their way out. More paranoia is sewn in ‘The Reaper’s Letters’ as some of the city’s most powerful figures receive notes and promptly die afterwards. At the bequest of the wheedling Mayor Blumquist, the Player Characters investigate, a process made all the more difficult by the Divine Order’s patrols. Much of the action takes place in one of Spireholm’s few green spaces, first in the woods, then in exotic gardens and wetlands, before climaxing in a poison garden. The different environment is a radical change from the campaign to date, enabling the authors to present the Player Characters with a new range of challenges.

By the end of ‘The Masquerade Falls’, the Player Characters should have learned that every reward comes with two sides, though at least they get to dress up and go to the ball. The highlight is an auction for the benefit of the city’s poor, and the highlight of the auction is another artefact the vampires want. So, the Player Characters are not just going to the ball, they are going to a heist. This chapter switches the action so that the Player Characters are more active than reactive, but whether they succeed or fail, the vampires now make their move to remove what they regard as the real threat to their plans—the Divine Order. They strike in ‘The Divine District’, turning the Divine Order’s sacrament upon itself and thus making part of it a threat rather than an obstacle. Defeating the suborned members of the Divine Order potentially gives the Player Characters access to items that will help them in the final confrontation in ‘The Sunken Spire’. The campaign comes to a climax as the Player Characters descend below, discovering Spireholm’s darkest secrets and hopefully putting an end to the plans that the vampires have for the city.

In addition, SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm includes the bonus Spireholm tale, ‘It Lives!’, which can be run early in the campaign. It does not actually relate to the campaign directly, but the scenario’s major NPC is the author of some of the background content given in the interludes. Playing this scenario would introduce her to the Player Characters and thus possibly give them access to this information.

SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm is a big pulpy campaign built on a trough of archetypes. It is a horror campaign with vampires, so there are vampires on a ship, there is a masked ball, there is subversion of the blood, there is a murder mystery, there is a poison garden. The setting of Spireholm is a weird clash of archetypes too, that of Transylvania meets the fog-bound streets of London. On paper, it should not work, it is too much. Yet given that the starting point for the Player Characters is archetypal monsters and associated characters—Dorian Gray, Dracula, Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde, the Invisible Man, the Werewolf, Allan Quartermain—the players will already have accepted the premise for both setting and campaign by the time they have created their characters. However, the campaign is rough around the edges and as much as the players and their characters are expected to accept all of its archetypal elements, they should also expect some clichés when it comes to the storytelling. It is literally the nature of the beast.

Physically, SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm is a decent looking book. The illustrations feel very much like the style of Mike Mignola and Hellboy, much like the core rulebook, so have a comic book look. The book does look busy in places with some pages feeling cluttered with various stats and details which need to be highlighted and placed in boxes of their own. Lastly, the book does need an edit as there is missing text and other errors in places.

SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm showcases how Shiver – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown can do more than one-shots, that with the introduction of the Doom Calendar, it can do longer stories and campaigns. Which is very welcome. Above all though, SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm is a chance to play out a grand pulpy campaign of Gothic action in a horrifying alternate nineteenth century. It lets the players create characters like those of the Universal Monsters—and others, and then roleplay them in the style of Hammer Horror. Which is a delicious combination.

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.

—oOo—

What is it?The Cohors Cthulhu Quickstart Guide is the quick-start for Cohors Cthulhu, the roleplaying game of Lovecraftian pulp investigative horror and action set at the height of the Roman Empire. It is published by Modiphius Entertainment, which also publishes Achtung! Cthulhu, set during World War II.

It includes a basic explanation of the setting, its factions, rules for actions and combat, magic in the setting, weapon qualities, the mission, ‘Rude Awakening’, six ready-to-play, Player Characters, and a Quick Reference Sheet for Tests.

It is an eighty-three page, full colour 48.20 MB PDF.

It needs a slight edit in places.

The quick-start is illustrated with some excellent, full colour, painted artwork. The rules do need to be carefully read through as they are moderately complex, especially when it comes to both magic and mêlée combat. The Cohors Cthulhu Quickstart Guide and thus Cohors Cthulhu place an emphasis on mêlée combat over ranged combat.

The scenario, ‘Rude Awakening’, and of course, Cohors Cthulhu, do involve horror. They are suited for a mature audience. There is some safety advice included to take account of this.

It should be noted that Cohors Cthulhu is not the first roleplaying game or supplement to explore Ancient Rome through the lens of Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying. The 7th Edition Guide to Cthulhu Invictus: Cosmic Horror Roleplaying in Ancient Rome does that for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, but the tone of Cohors Cthulhu is Pulpier and more action orientated.

How long will it take to play?
The Cohors Cthulhu Quick Start and its adventure, ‘Rude Awakening’, is designed to be played through in one or two sessions.

What else do you need to play?
The Cohors Cthulhu Quick Start requires five twenty-sided dice per player, several six-sided dice, and twelve tokens, divided into two colours. The tokens will be used to represent Momentum and Threat throughout the scenario.

Who do you play?
The four Player Characters include a Germanic priest of Tiwaz (or Tyr)—he is the only Player Character who can cast magic, an Aegyptus scholar and occultist, a North African legionary, a Germanic archer and scout, a Greek courier, and a Gaulish smuggler and bandit. The priest is capable of casting traditional magic.

How is a Player Character defined?
A Player Character has seven stats—Agility, Brawn, Coordination, Gravitas, Insight, Reason, and Will. Stats are rated between seven and twelve, whilst the twelve skills in the roleplaying game are rated between zero and five. He has one or more Foci, each Focus being attached to a skill and representing greater specialisation, and one or more Truths. These are facts which when applied to a situation, can make a task easier or harder, or even possible, depending on the Truth and situation. Each Player Character also has a Fortune point. This is used to let a Player Character perform a heroic action or gain an advantage in a life or death situation.

How do the mechanics work?
Mechanically, the Cohors Cthulhu Quick Start uses the 2d20 System used in many of the roleplaying games published by Modiphius Entertainment, such as Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 or Dune – Adventures in the Imperium. To undertake an action in the 2d20 System in Cohors Cthulhu, a character’s player rolls two twenty-sided dice, aiming to have both roll under the total of an Attribute and a Skill. Each roll under this total counts as a success, an average task requiring two successes. Rolls of one count as two successes and if a character has an appropriate Focus, rolls under the value of the Skill also count as two successes. In the main, because a typical difficulty will only be a Target Number of one, players will find themselves rolling excess Successes which becomes Momentum. This is a resource shared between all of the players which can be spent to create an Opportunity and so add more dice to a roll—typically needed because more than two successes are required to succeed, to create an advantage in a situation or remove a complication, create a problem for the opposition, and to obtain information. It is a finite ever-decreasing resource, so the players need to roll well and keep generating it, especially if they want to save some for the big scene or climatic battle in an adventure.

Where the players and their characters have access to Momentum, the Game Master has Threat. This can be used for similar functions as Momentum, but also to trigger NPC special abilities. She begins each session with a pool of Threat, but can gain more through various circumstances. These include a player purchasing extra dice to roll on a test, a player rolling a natural twenty and so adding two Threat (instead of the usual Complication), the situation itself being threatening, or NPCs rolling well and generating Momentum and so adding that to Threat pool. In return, the Game Master can spend it on minor inconveniences, complications, and serious complications to inflict upon the player characters, as well as triggering NPC special abilities, having NPCs seize the initiative, and bringing the environment dramatically into play.

Each Agent has a point of Fortune. It can be spent to perform cinematic feats such as ‘Critical Success’, ‘Re-Roll’, ‘Additional Major Action’, ‘Avoid Defeat’, and ‘Make It Happen’.

How does combat work?
Combat in Cohors Cthulhu uses the same mechanics, but offers more options in terms of what Momentum can be spent on. This includes doing extra damage, disarming an opponent, keeping the initiative—initiative works by alternating between the player characters and the NPCs and keeping it allows two player characters to act before an NPC does, avoid an injury, and so on. Damage in combat is rolled on the Challenge dice, the number of Achtung! Cthulhu symbols rolled determining how much damage is inflicted. A similar roll is made to resist the damage, and any leftover is deducted from a Player Character’s Stress. If a character’s Stress is reduced to zero or five or more damage is inflicted, then a Player Character is injured. Any Cohors Cthulhu symbols rolled indicate an effect as well as the damage. Damage can be deadly, but can be offset by the use of armour and shields.

How does magic work?
Magic in Cohors Cthulhu is divided into two disciplines—battlefield magic and ritualistic magic. The former consists of spells, curses, hexes, charms, and blessings, which are primarily used in combat. The latter is more complex and takes longer to cast, and is used to contact or summon the entities of the Mythos, travel to other planes of existence, and make lasting changes. Magic is also split into traditions, such as Runic and Oracular, or can be learned via Research. Spells are first bound into a spellcaster’s ‘mantle’, such as a staff or wand, and then can be cast from the mantle. Casting a spell has a cost in terms of mental damage to the spellcaster, whether successful or not, and if a damage spell, inflicts stress damage on the target. Momentum can be spent on ‘Cost Resistance’ for the spellcaster, ‘Bonus Damage’, and ‘Duration Increase’.

What do you play?
The setting for Cohors Cthulhu is the Second Century CE. A Hidden War is taking place behind Rome’s politicking and border expansion. The acolytes of the malign gods of the Mythos—Nyarlathotep, the God of a Thousand Forms, Sarthothus, the Shattered God, who infected the relics of lost Atlantis, and Mormo, Lord of the Woods—work in secret to subvert the temples and cults of the empire and beyond. Athena herself lends her wisdom in directing the activities of ‘The Temperari’, whilst an inner cabal within the temple to the Aurora, the Goddess of Dawn, called the ‘Fingers of Dawn’ dedicate themselves to defeating the forces of Mythos.

The scenario, ‘Rude Awakening’ begins en media res. The Player Characters are travelling with a caravan on the border with Germania which has just been attacked by bandits. The caravan master suggests travelling to a nearby village where help might be acquired. However, not all is well in the village, including a number of strange deaths. Investigation reveals the source might be a local farm on the outskirts of the village, and when the Player Characters go to look, they discover dark, horrific secrets. Overall, the scenario has the feel of a traditional fantasy adventure, but infused with the Mythos.

Is there anything missing?
The Cohors Cthulhu Quick Start is complete.

Is it easy to prepare?
The core rules presented in the Cohors Cthulhu Quick Start are relatively straightforward, but the Game Master will need to pay close attention to how both combat and magic works in the roleplaying game as they are more complex. The scenario, ‘Rude Awakening’, also requires a similar degree of attention and preparation.
Is it worth it?
Yes. The Cohors Cthulhu Quick Start introduces the Cohors Cthulhu roleplaying game and setting, which combines pulp with Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying. The result is more action orientated and more muscular in its approach to investigating the Mythos.
Where can you get it?
The Cohors Cthulhu Quick Start is available to download here.

The apocalypse was as sudden as it was unexpected. The sun, whose light and radiation, had been the source of life and energy for time immemorial, changed. Its radiation spiked. Within days, billions were dying of radiation poisoning. Ecologies collapsed as flora and fauna perished. Governments rushed to impose martial law and ration clean food and water. It was too late. The world’s electronic infrastructure was fried, rendered useless, and with it, communication and so many devices that humanity had come to rely on. The lucky found refuge in underground fortified Rad Bunkers or heavy concrete buildings, leaving anyone outside to a life of irradiated banditry and lawlessness. Yet even those inside the bunkers needed more to survive. Materials, food, water, medical supplies, fuel, equipment, raw materials, and more. Ideally, survivors who can help ensure the long-term survival of everyone in the bunker, and maybe, even beyond. It means going out into the irradiated world on the other side of the bunker door. Always at night, and never longer than twenty-four hours, lest a bad dose of radiation is suffered. And for the same reason, never more than two excursions in a row. This is the future of Rad Zone Totality – The Print and Play, Roll and Write, 1-2 Player Game.

Rad Zone Totality – The Print and Play, Roll and Write, 1-2 Player Game is a post-apocalyptic, solo game of exploration and survival in which the player will direct the movement and action of his character across a series of maps. For each excursion, this is divided into three maps. The first shows the terrain to be covered on the journey to the city, the second a building in the city which the character will explore, and the third, the journey home to the Rad Bunker. Each of the three maps is marked with a square grid on which there are symbols for Low Levels and High Levels of radiation, Bandits, Car Wrecks, Survivors, and Peril. Some of these are worth investigating—Car Wrecks, Perils, and definitely Survivors, and some are definitely worth avoiding—the Low Levels and High Levels of radiation, and the Bandits. In fact, combat in Rad Zone Totality favours evasion rather than fighting. All of the maps come as print and play. The player chooses the three maps for his character’s excursion, whereas the various encounters and Missions are all randomly generated.

To play Rad Zone Totality – The Print and Play, Roll and Write, 1-2 Player Game, a player will need some colour pencils—red, green, and yellow work best, and three six-sided dice. Ideally, the dice should match the colours of the pencils. He will also need to be able to print out the various sheets required to play.

When play begins, a player has a team of ten characters who will go out on the Missions. He also has ten Survivors, who do not go out on Missions. A complete game of Rad Zone Totality is ten Missions. The player wins by surviving the whole campaign of ten Missions and preventing the Rad Bunker’s Survivor count from falling to zero or by increasing the Survivor count to twenty. If the Survivor count is reduced to zero, the player definitely loses. Although initially designed as a solo game, Rad Zone Totality – The Print and Play, Roll and Write, 1-2 Player Game includes rules for two players who work together rather than against each other. The solo roleplaying game is published by DR Games, following a successful Kickstarter campaign.

Rad Zone Totality begins with character creation. The base character is simply defined with just a name, a Trait, and four Fable Dice. A Trait is rolled randomly. For example, ‘Patient Watcher’ enables a player to re-roll three Radiation Scan dice per location or ‘Sprinting Burst’, which lets him run past an NPC before an encounter is triggered. Further Traits are gained for completing Missions. Fable Dice are used for rerolls of any die roll, but are a finite resource and do not regenerate. Essentially, when a character runs out of Fable Dice, he is out of luck. A character can have an animal Companion, such as a fox or a horse. An animal Companion provides an extra Fable Die and an extra ability. For example, the fox is particularly good at sensing radiation hotspots and so the character being accompanied by the fox ignores a Radiation Icon on a Journey Map, whilst the horse speeds up travel between the Rad Bunker and the city. A character can also have an Affliction, which might be a ‘Busted Foot’, which slows travel by hour, or ‘Scaly Skin’, which gives the benefit of long leather gloves (which prevent hand damage), but appear too scary to keep or gain an animal Companion.

A Mission is played out on an Episode Sheet. This has spaces for the Character Sheet in the middle, plus spaces for the ‘Journey To’ and ‘Journey From’ Charts as well as the ‘Mission’, ‘Equipment’, and ‘Gathered Resources’. There are tracks for the ‘Time Line’, twenty-four hours long and a ‘Radiation Slide’ to track the amount of radiation damage suffered. There is also space for the ‘Extra Vigilant Doubles’. These are four numbers, decided upon by the player, which if all four numbers are rolled as doubles during the Mission, will grant the character a bonus at the end of the Mission. To begin an episode, the player places the Character Sheet on the Episode Sheet and rolls for a Mission on the Mission Inbound Table. For example, ‘Water Leak’ states that the Rad Bunker’s water tank has a crack in it and water is running empty. The character has to gather six Water, but if the character fails, four Survivors flee! To this, a player can add a Side Mission, which makes the overall Mission more challenging and whilst out on the Mission, can also locate ‘Rumours to Confirm’. Doing so reduces the resources the characters need to scavenge on the Mission.

An Episode of Rad Zone Totality is played out over three stages. The ‘Journey To’ and ‘Journey From’ stages each have their Journey Chart. These are marked with the various Event Icons. Each hour is spent moving across the terrain, interacting with or avoiding the Event Icons as best they can, but if a character gets too close, he can trigger an Event Icon. These can be positive or negative, with the Survivor, Peril, and Bandit all necessitating further rolls on their own tables. Specifically for the Bandit encounter, is the ‘Combat Evasion Table’, which lists various means of dealing with the Bandit, such as using an animal Companion or the ‘Sacrifice Loot’ option. Rad Zone Totality – The Print and Play, Roll and Write, 1-2 Player Game includes some twenty small for the travel to and from the Rad Bunker.

The second of the three stages is the Locations stage when the character will explore one or more buildings. Some thirty or so floorplans include a church, factory, gym, large house, office, police station, retail centre, school, and more. These are done in an isometric view as opposed to the flat view of the Journey Charts, and are marked with doors, individual rooms, and radiation hotspots. Every location is different, including what can be found there, and is accompanied in an earlier section by the ‘Search Matrix’, which provides loot and encounter tables specific to the various locations. Before a character begins exploring a location, his player checks on the number of NPCs—and potential Survivors—that the character might encounter. From turn to turn, the character scans for radiation, his player rolling randomly to determine the radiation in the squares ahead of him. He then attempts to plot his way forward via the safest path possible. Sometimes he will find radiation hotspots, sometimes low spots. Naturally, he wants to find the latter, not the former. Eventually, either because he has explored sufficient locations or he has run out of time, a character will want to return home. Once the character is back at the Rad Bunker, the player can check to see if the mission was a success or a failure, whether or not Survivors were gained or lost, and so on, before preparing the next Mission and the next Episode.

The two-player option for Rad Zone Totality – The Print and Play, Roll and Write, 1-2 Player Game adds a new set of more challenging Missions and provides twenty large grids for the Journey Charts for the travel to and from the Rad Bunker to account for the two characters rather than the one. These are played separately in that Encounters are handled individually, rather than both characters dealing with them. The larger Journey Charts add an extra Encounter, the ‘Manhole Cover’, which enables a character to travel more safely underground. Similarly, the larger Locations are included for the two-player option, but there is nothing to stop both characters exploring a smaller Location. Other than this, the play of the game remains mostly the same. What it means is that the characters are not working directly together, although they can still communicate and pass information back and forth to enable them to progress together. So, this is more playing in tandem than together and whilst the option is perfectly playable, there is a slight disconnect between the two characters.

Playing Rad Zone Totality – The Print and Play, Roll and Write, 1-2 Player Game is very much a procedural game, but it balances the need to roll on its various tables, for everything from the nature of the Encounters on a Journey To and Journey From the Location to the radiation levels at a Location and the Resources found in a Location, with decisions as what direction to move in, what Encounters to have or avoid, and so on being entirely in the player’s hands. Similarly, the player is free to select what Journey Charts he wants to use on his Journey To and Journey From the Location, as well as the Location. It needs adjusting to upon first play, a player working through the procedure at the heart of the game and book itself, but actually learning to play as he goes. Once learned, there are enough Journey Charts and more than enough Locations with Resources and Survivors to be found, which together create enough variation for Playing Rad Zone Totality to be repayable.

There are other options too, Playing Rad Zone Totality, though these are not explored within its pages. Since it is primarily a solo game, it lends itself to Journalling, a player creating his Characters’ attempts to survive on their excursions from the Rad Bunker. This is helped by background information about the setting, including how the apocalypse came about and the irradiated threats the characters will face. Similarly, these elements could inform the basis of a more traditional roleplaying game, the Locations and their associated content in the Search Matrix forming the basis of places that a group of Player Characters can explore and scavenge. The tone of Rad Zone Totality is far less fantastic than the settings for most post-apocalyptic roleplaying games, but that means its content is easy to slip into the setting or the setting’s more fantastical elements be layered on that content.

Physically, Rad Zone Totality is cluttered, with a lot of tables and elements that at first, makes it a daunting prospect to read through. However, it takes the player through the game step-by-step on a learning curve that is actually far from difficult. It just looks more difficult than it is. Otherwise, the artwork, mostly black and white, is decent, and both the tables and maps are clear and easy to read.

Playing Rad Zone Totality – The Print and Play, Roll and Write, 1-2 Player Game is a challenging game in which the player can explore a world radically altered from what it was just a few months ago and work—rather than fight—for the future of the Survivors in his Rad Bunker. It is grimmer than most post-apocalyptic settings, but the use of maps and floorplans gives the game a real sense of exploration, of what might be found, and what has been lost.

Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #4: Violence for Votishal is a scenario for Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and the third scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set. Scenarios for Dungeon Crawl Classics tend be darker, grimmer, and even pulpier than traditional Dungeons & Dragons scenarios, even veering close to the Swords & Sorcery subgenre. Scenarios for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set are set in and around the City of the Black Toga, Lankhmar, the home to the adventures of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, the creation of author Fritz Leiber. The city is described as an urban jungle, rife with cutpurses and corruption, guilds and graft, temples and trouble, whores and wonders, and more. Under the cover the frequent fogs and smogs, the streets of the city are home to thieves, pickpockets, burglars, cutpurses, muggers, and anyone else who would skulk in the night! Which includes the Player Characters. And it is these roles which the Player Characters get to be in Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #4: Violence for Votishal, small time crooks trying to make a living and a name for themselves, but without attracting the attention of either the city constabulary or worse, the Thieves’ Guild! The job in this scenario is a night spent prowling around a temple on a murder investigation.
Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #4: Violence for Votishal is a longer, location-based scenario which should take between two and three sessions to play. Designed for two to three Player Characters of Fourth Level, it opens with them being approached by a gagged priest. The priest passes them a message to go to the temple of Votishal the Silent—a god dedicated to silence, self-improvement, discipline, and getting what one deserves—on the Street of the Gods. Worship of the god has been on the increase of late and so it has come to occupy the second-best temple on the street. However, its priests and worshippers have been driven out of the building due to their high priest having been murdered, followed by other priests on subsequent nights. The Player Characters are hired to enter the temple and catch and deal with the murderer when he returns that night. The priest—who only has a few minutes to speak according to the tenets of his faith—promises to pay well, but not before presenting the Player Characters with their first problem. The temple is now locked to prevent robberies with it now being vacant and non-priests cannot have a key. So, the Player Characters will have to break into the building in order to investigate and stop the murderer. This being Lankhmar and the Player Characters being thieves, this is not really a problem, but it must be a first, being paid by a client to break into his own building!

Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #4: Violence for Votishal is all about the temple to Votishal. This is a large, two-storey building with connected sewers and catacombs below. Over half of the scenario is dedicated to describing the building and its contents, including the floorplans for each storey. Numerous means are given for the Player Characters gaining access to the building, including via the sewers, and once inside, they find a baroque building dedicated to silence. They will also find that someone has got their before them and like them, is taking advantage of the quiet and the fact that nobody else is meant to be in the temple. There are thieves and assassins—and given that is the City of the Black Toga, their presence should be anything other than a surprise—skulking in the halls and rooms of the temple in their search for valuables and victims respectively. Yet, there is also something else, something whose presence suggests that the temple and worship of Votishal is more fractious than their gagged and silent façade suggests. It all lends itself to an eerie atmosphere, the hallowed silence inside the temple walls contrasting with the hubbub that the Player Characters are used to out on the streets outside.

As the Player Characters explore and investigate the temple, the Judge is provided with some great set pieces that she will definitely want to include if she can. For example, an attempt to garrote a Player Character from the floor above, which is not intended to kill the Player Character, but provide a fraught cinematic scene. There is also an encounter with the main threat in the scenario where breaking the silence will get the Player Characters into deadly danger and lastly with the ratfolk of Lankhmar, also seen in previous scenarios for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set. Primarily an exploration and investigation scenario, there is relatively little roleplaying in Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #4: Violence for Votishal in comparison to earlier scenarios, such as Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #1: Gang Lords of Lankhmar and Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #3: Acting Up In Lankhmar. Thieves will be in their element, especially as the Player Characters explore the building and begin to discover some of the secrets that the priests of Votishal have been hiding within the walls of the temple.
Unfortunately, Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #4: Violence for Votishal does have a quite complex background, not all of which may become apparent during the scenario. However, for the Judge, the back story becomes more apparent as she reads deeper into the scenario. The description of the temple of Votishal is quite detailed, so the Judge will need to pay careful attention to these details as part of her preparation. There is advice for the Judge in terms of hooks for getting the Player Characters involved, roleplaying the primary antagonist for the scenario, and adjusting the scenario to be run with four or five players rather then two to three. The scenario ends with an epilogue listing possible adventure ideas based on the discoveries that the Player Characters might have made in their exploration of the temple and expulsion of the various intruders.
Physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #4: Violence for Votishal is as decently presented as you would expect from Goodman Games. It is well written, the handouts nice and clear, and the cartography decent. The floorplans of the temple would work very well on a virtual tabletop with their secrets and numbers excised.

Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #4: Violence for Votishal is a solid edition to the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set. It is not as exciting or as fun as the earlier Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #1: Gang Lords of Lankhmar and Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #3: Acting Up In Lankhmar, instead a situation that owes much to the traditional style of play of Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. However, mix in the religious and criminal elements of Lankhmar—and Votishal, in particular—and what you have in Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #4: Violence for Votishal is an eerie, even creepy ‘temple crawl’.

You have been put in charge of the circus and are determined to put on the best series of acts and performers possible in order to wow the audience and make your circus the best. However, the running order has already been set, but you might be able to pull the performers you have out of that order knowing that they will outperform the previous act directed by a rival circus. If that is not possible, then you can scout the previous act and hire its best performer to join your circus, slotting into the running order you already have. Sometimes, you can even scout the previous act, hire its best performer, slot them into your running order, and have them perform immediately to really outdo the previous act. Do all of that enough times, and your circus will undoubtedly be the best!

This is the set-up for Scout, a quick-playing card game from Oink Games. Like nearly all of the Japanese publisher’s games, the game is small, tightly packaged, and comes with simple rules, but delivers terrific game play. The game was a Spiel des Jahres nominee in 2022 and won the Origins Award for Best Card Game in 2023. It is designed for two to five players, aged nine and up, and can be played in about twenty minutes. It is also easy to teach, plays quickly, and it can be enjoyed by the casual gamer as much as the veteran. In fact, its simplicity makes it a good family game whilst still providing a challenge for the experienced gamer. Plus, it is incredibly portable. That said, its theme is about as thick as the canvas on a worn circus tent, but then every card is named, such as ‘Anthony the Clown’ or ‘Jennifer the Bicyclist’. So, there is a personal touch to the game—just about.

Scout consists of forty-five cards, twenty-three Scout Tokens, thirty Score Tokens, five ‘Scout & Show’ Tokens, a Starting Player Marker, and a Game Manual. The forty-five, brightly coloured cards are numbered from one to ten, not once, but twice—at the top or bottom of the cards. In fact, the cards do not have a top or a bottom as such, because they are intended to be played with one number at the top. Notably, the numbers at either end of a card are never the same. This is important because a player can choose which way a card is orientated and thus which number is on display at certain points in the game. The game consists of a number of rounds equal to the number of players. Once the round have been completed, the player with the highest score is the winner.

The game’s key mechanics are ‘Hand Management’ and ‘Ladder Climbing’. Unlike other card games, Scout limits the degree of hand management a player can conduct—adding or playing cards in his hand, but not arranging the order of the card. ‘Ladder Climbing’ has the players attempting to play better cards or sets of cards than those currently on the table. In Scout, this is sets of the same value or runs of sequential number.

At the start of the round, adjustments are made for the number of players and the cards are shuffled and dealt out so that everyone has a hand the same size. A player also receives a ‘Scout & Show’ Token. Here appears the first wrinkle in the play of Scout. When a player receives his hand, he looks at it in order to see the numbers at the top or the bottom. Having done so, he choses one or the other. What he cannot do is change the order of the cards in his hand. The order will not change throughout the whole of the round unless he either plays cards or adds a card to his hand. This has two effects. It constrains what he can play, but it also gives him the foundation of something he can build upon to create a better hand and hopefully outscore his rivals.

On a turn, a player has a choice of three actions— ‘Show’, ‘Scout’, or ‘Scout & Show’—of which he must do one. To ‘Show’, he plays a set or run of cards. A set is multiple cards of the same number, whilst a run is a sequential series, but when played that set or run must be better than the cards in play on the table. If this replaces the current set or run of cards on the table, the player picks them up and adds them to his score pile. To ‘Scout’, the player takes one card from those on the table, which come from either end rather than the middle and adds it to his hand. When he does so, it can be added to anywhere in his hand and with either number. With careful or lucky choice of a card from a ‘Scout’ action, a player can begin to build a bigger set or run of cards in his hand that will hopefully be better than that on the table in another turn. A ‘Scout’ action also scores a ‘Scout Token’ for the player who played the current set or run of cards on the table. The ‘Scout & Show’ combines both actions and is the most powerful action in the game. Each player begins a round with a ‘Scout & Show Token’ which is turned in once a player decides to do a ‘Scout & Show’ action. Once handed in, a player cannot do another ‘Scout & Show’ action, so it is a one-use action.

Play continues until either a player has played all of the cards in his hand or a player plays a high enough set or run that no-one else can do anything else except the ‘Scout’ action and play passes back to the player who played that set or run. Each player determines his score for the round. This is equal to the number of cards in his score pile and ‘Scout Tokens’ he earned in the round, minus the number of cards in his hand. The player who played the last set or run does not have to deduct points for the cards in his hand. Play continues like this until a number of rounds equal to the number of players have been completed.

Scout is simple to play, but it has a surprising amount of depth and requires a bit more thought than at first glance. The inability to rearrange a player’s hand is frustrating, but it presents a player with a challenge as he is forced to ‘Scout’ over and over in search of the right cards that will enable him to create the best set or run that he can. The double and differently numbered cards make this less of a challenge and add some flexibility in the choices available to the players. Also, as a round progresses and better and higher sets and runs are played, the players will potentially—as long as they are on the end of a set or run—have access to the better and higher cards that they need and can acquire via a ‘Scout’ action. Playing a good set or run early on in the game can be devastating as the other players are likely to be unable to outdo it with the hands they have, forcing them to ‘Scout’, and if they all ‘Scout’, the round is over, forcing them to score negative points because they have been unable to play cards from their hands. However, the right card from a ‘Scout’ action or the right card and then cards played with the ‘Scout & Show’ action can be devastating when done at the right time. Plus, a player can benefit when it is not his turn, because if another player does the ‘Scout’ action and takes from the set or run of cards he played, he scores points for doing nothing. So, there is balance between the luck of the cards a player begins a round with and the choices he makes as round progresses.

Where Scout suffers is in the number of players. It is designed for two to five players, but at two players, the players do very little more than ‘Scout & Show’ actions most of the time. It is not as engrossing or as challenging as games played with more participants. It is thus better with three players, but with four or five, it becomes a great game. Then there is the theme, which is really neither here nor there.

Physically, Scout is, for the most part, well presented. The card quality is decent, but it is definitely worth sleeving the cards for repeated play. The Scout Tokens, Score Tokens, and ‘Scout & Show’ Tokens, plus the Starting Player Marker are all bright and cheerful and on good stock cardboard. The rulebook though, is a bit small and a bit flimsy.

Scout is great game. It would be an almost perfect game were it good to play with two players. It is not, so it is merely great. Easy to learn, easy to play, challenging enough to win at its play length, and easy to transport, Scout is a great addition to any games collection and a great go to filler game.

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

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

—oOo—
Name: Camp Hollow LakePublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Daniel Stephens

Setting: Modern day New EnglandProduct: One-shot
What You Get: Twenty-Eight page, 2.15 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Summer camp clichéPlot Hook: Sometimes the best thing to do is buy into the clichés and run with them.
Plot Support: Four pre-generated Investigators, seven handouts, two floorplans, one map, and two monsters.Production Values: Reasonable.
Pros# Fully embraces the Summer camp clichés# Multiple inventive mini-scenes of unnamed students getting slashed# Easy to adjust to the nineties, eighties, seventies, or sixties# Scopophobia# Phonophobia# Aichmophobia

Cons# Needs a strong edit# Another summer camp slasher stalker horror# Non-Mythos scenario# Unlikeable pre-generated Investigators# Fully embraces the Summer camp clichés# A runaround until the solution can be found
Conclusion# Another summer camp slasher stalker horror with all the clichés# Unlikeable pre-generated Investigators who deserve to die, but sadly the scenario drags their time to die out until the climax

Lucky for None: A comedy-horror game could almost be said to not be a roleplaying game. This is because its mechanics amount to about three rules. Those rules consist of character generation, which is a single roll, an action mechanic—roll high and add a bonus from the character’s occupation, and then roll for just about everything in the game—mostly bad things and random things. It consists mostly of tables, each with thirteen entries—for good reason—which the players will roll as play progresses. The entries act as prompts, which can be used in two way, either as a group of players, or as a single player, who records his character’s reactions or actions in a journal. The nominal setting for Lucky for None is the village of Grimhaven, which is about to be beset by dark, strange things. In fact, they will be beset by a rash of dark, strange things and bad things to the point where they die or wish they had. Standing between them and the strange events are the Player Characters, residents themselves. The setting for Lucky for None is nominally the village of Grimhaven, located on the coast of Monshire. So it has a quaint British feel to it. That said, it can easily be adapted to other settings.

Published by Beyond Cataclysm Books other notable aspect to Lucky for None is that it uses a thirteen-sided die or ‘d13’ and only a thirteen-sided die. The number thirteen proliferates through the whole roleplaying game. Every table uses the thirteen-sided die, the village has thirteen locations, and events take place every thirteen minutes in real time. The game begins with a roll on the ‘Village Problem table’. This could be ‘sky’ and ‘hunger’ or ‘local government’ and ‘size’. The players develop the actual problem from these prompts, and then create a character. This again, is a simple a roll on ‘The Character Table’. This can be a Labourer, Barkeeper, Child, Mayor, Farmer, or Police Officer, and each has an associated skill. For example, the Mayor has Leading, the Police Officer has Securing, and the Labourer has Building.

To undertake an action, a player rolls the die and consults ‘The Action Table’. The outcome ranges from Absolute Failure to Absolute Success. If a Player Character has a skill related to the action, he can add two to the result. He also has two Luck Points. These can be expended to each add four to the roll, but if used up completely, he is out of luck and all rolls are made at disadvantage.

Of course, rolling a thirteen-sided die means that bad things above and beyond what is normally rolled whenever a player rolls thirteen. On ‘The Character Table’ this means that the character has an occupation and associated skill, and is also personally afflicted by the Village Problem. On ‘The Action Table’, it means that the action has been an ‘Absolute Success’, but also requires that the player roll on the on ‘The Bad Things Table’. This develops a ‘Vibe’, ‘Who It Affects’, and a ‘Severity’. For example, ‘Asphyxiation’, ‘A loved one/another PC’, and ‘Death, explosive’. In addition, Events are rolled or every thirteen minutes of real time on ‘The Events Table’, which give a ‘Location’, ‘Incident type’, and ‘Severity’. For example, ‘Church’, ‘Disease’, and ‘Inconvenient’. In general, the higher the roll, the worse the effect…

Play continues like this until the last and thirteenth Event is rolled and its effects play. The game is then over. The minimalist storytelling rules do intrude upon play, of course, most obviously in ‘The Bad Things Table’ and ‘The Events Table’, but between that, the players are free to discuss and develop the world around their characters, and how first the Village Problem, Events, and then Bad Things affects them, the locations in the village, and the residents. The story of this near constant cavalcade of catastrophes should play out of this as series of disasters and consequences that compounds each other, over and over, building and connecting as it progresses and the Player Characters react to everything around them.

That then is all there is to Lucky for None: A comedy-horror game. At least mechanically. There is an ‘Important and Useful Facts About the Number 13’ table and an ‘Alternative Village Problem Table’, but both are extra additions beyond the core of the game. There is an example of play and tips for the Game Master, both of which are actually useful.

Physically, Lucky for None: A comedy-horror game is a cleanly presented, vibrantly red booklet. It is simply written, very easy to grasp, and thus bring to the table. A combined ‘Character Sheet & Disaster’ is included, which sits in the middle of the table.

Lucky for None: A comedy-horror game is a one-session torrent of terror in which the Player Characters are inundated with issues and deluged with difficulties. It is an impossible situation, a dirty disaster drama of ridiculous proportions, played out in a single session or recorded in a dreadful diary, all good for a refreshingly farcical folly in between playing other roleplaying games. Or just good for getting your hands on a ‘d13’.

Halls of the Blood King is a scenario published by Necrotic Gnome. It is written for use with Old School Essentials, the Old School Renaissance retroclone based on the version of Basic Dungeons & Dragons designed by Tom Moldvay and published in 1980. It is designed to be played by a party of Third to Fifth Level Player Characters and is a standalone affair, but can be easily added to a campaign by the Referee. What it primarily needs is a world where vampires are known about, either as actual threats or legendary ones, and perhaps an old tale about a vampire hunter having gone missing a century ago. Since it involves the vampires and the undead, if the scenario is run using Old School Essentials Classic Fantasy, then a Cleric will be useful, and possibly a Paladin if it is being run using Old School Essentials: Advanced Fantasy. Unlike the earlier, official scenarios for Old School Essentials, such as The Hole in the Oak and The Incandescent Grottoes, it is not a suitable addition to the publisher’s own Dolmenwood setting. The scenario is also notable for winning the 2021 ENNIE Award for Best Adventure and the 2021 ENNIE Award for Best Cartography.
The Halls of the Blood King appears once a century, on night of a blood moon. It stays for that night and then is gone. It is home to the Blood King, the the first vampire, and on this night, as he does on nights like this on other worlds, he calls all of his children from across the lands to come pay him both homage and what they owe him—blood tax. The appearance of the Blood King and his mansion is a temporary stain upon the land where it appears, its baleful influence spreading fear and terror as every vampire in the land descends upon it and the lands and villages nearby... Several reasons are suggested why the Player Characters might want to break into the mansion. This includes rescuing any villagers who have been kidnapped from nearby, merely wanting to loot the place, or looking for a specific magical item known to be in the possession of the Blood King. Perhaps the most interesting are having the Player Characters seek revenge for a vampire said to have been lost in the halls of the Blood King—whether because one of their number is descended from the vampire hunter or they are hired by a descendant, or because they have been receiving the desperate dreams from a princess imprisoned by the Blood King, imploring them to rescue her. It is also possible to mix and match these hooks too.

The Halls of the Blood King follows the same format as the other scenarios for Old School Essentials. This includes an overview, which covers history, rumours, and a complete list of the adventure’s treasure by location. What sets it apart is two things. One is a time limit. The Blood King’s mansion is only present for one night. If the Player Characters stay too long, who knows what world or plane they will end up on? The other is a single page of vampire details, this included to save space from having to repeat their abilities in every monster entry, but it also makes it a handy reference for the Game Master—especially as it is reprinted on the inside back cover. Included at the end of the long list of their capabilities and unfortunately for the Player Characters, few vulnerabilities, are several alternatives to the Energy Drain ability, which leeches Levels, Experience Points, and Hit Points from an afflicted Player Character. Options include ability damage, permanent Hit Point loss, and a global penalty levied on all actions. Also included is a breakdown of the various factions and their relationships in The Halls of the Blood King, and it is here that the scenario begins to shine.
The factions in the Blood King’s begin with the Blood King himself, bored and disdainful, but under the right circumstances willing to see the Player Characters as more then a food source. Around him is his court and its guests, several of them quite alien, but all wanting something, and in many cases having something to hide. His daughter—who of course, is the one sending dreams to the Player Characters of an imprisoned princess—plots with a desperate vassal and other allies to supplant her father. His mother—or is she?—now a Banshee, lurks, seeking recognition by her son. Below the mansion, the Blood King’s pet, the Blood Spider Queen, grown big and fat on diet of blood, wants her court to be the equal of his. Elsewhere, the vampire hunter, thought lost a century ago, hides out behind a barricade of traps, waiting for an opportunity to strike at the Blood King... All of these factions want something and see the Player Characters as a means to strengthen their hands. Some will prove to be the allies the Player Characters need to survive The Halls of the Blood King, others not.

What this all means is that The Halls of the Blood King is not an adventure at which to go full tilt. Players and their characters wanting to rampage their way through the halls and room of the Blood King’s mansion, will first face guards with flesh-ripping blades and then the vampires themselves. The immunity from mundane weapons, the charming gaze, and the ability to drain Levels combined their numbers means that the vampires are too tough to face directly—and that is for Fifth Level Player Characters, let alone Third Level. Instead, the Player Characters need to find a less direct way to deal with the Blood King and his vampires. The scenario provides several, including gathering information, finding certain important items, and of course, creating alliances. Whilst there are opportunities for combat in the scenario, what this means is that The Halls of the Blood King is much more of a social and roleplaying scenario than it looks at first sight. Whomever the Player Characters decide to ally with, they have a chance to really change the status quo at the Blood King’s court.

Physically, The Halls of the Blood King is as well presented and as organised as previous scenarios for Old School Essentials from Necrotic Gnome. The maps are excellent with excerpts used on every page where individual locations are described. The location descriptions use the same sparse, almost bullet-point style seen in the other other scenarios with key points in bold. There is plenty of rich detail in those descriptions though, such as Shadow Hounds that are as “Dark as night” and “Long and tall but very lean (as if stretched)” and dungeon stairs “Made of rough hewn stone (looks like a stone beast’s gullet).” All of which makes the scenario very easy to use from the page. What really stands out is the artwork. Done in rich blues, purples, and reds with yellow highlights, it echoes the style of Philippe Druillet in his depiction of Michael Moorcock’s Elric of Melniboné, making The Halls of the Blood King have more of a baroque look than a gothic one.
The Halls of the Blood King is not without precedent, all the way back to Palace of the Vampire Queen from 1976. Of course, it would be remiss not to compare The Halls of the Blood King with its more well known precedent, I6 Raveloft. The Halls of the Blood King is a far less grand affair, in every sense, lacking the Gothic romance backstory of I6 Ravenloft’s Count Strahd von Zarovich and the love of his life, his former sister-in-law, Tatyana, and the epic scale of his castle. The lower scale has advantages, the mansion having less room for the seemingly endless swathe of the undead to be found in Ravenloft, making both exploration and accessing the social aspects of The Halls of the Blood King that little bit easier. It also means that The Halls of the Blood King is no mere imitation, possessing an atmosphere and sense of horror that is its own.

More social minefield than gory bloodbath—though it has plenty of potential to end that way—The Halls of the Blood King is a genuinely challenging adventure, presenting a highly detailed and atmospheric vampire lair in which the Player Characters will have to tread very lightly if they are to survive, let alone succeed.

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

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

—oOo—
Name: The Thing in Tunnel 12Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Alison Cybe

Setting: North of EnglandProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Twenty-Three page, 1.41 KB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Sometimes locals really do have something to hide...Plot Hook: A body in the mine means murder!
Plot Support: Five pre-generated Investigators, two NPCs, and one Mythos monster.Production Values: Plain.
Pros# One session industrial horror# Easy to adjust to the eighties or twenties
# Nice sense of locals with something to hide# Claustrophobia# Cleithrophobia# Taphephobia# Submechanophobia
Cons# Needs an edit# Not clear who the Investigators are meant to be# Underdeveloped historical background# No maps# Underdeveloped pre-generated Investigators
Conclusion# Underdeveloped historical and Investigator background# Solid one session industrial horror easily adapted to other time periods

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

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

—oOo—
The Grindhouse: Ultimate Collection – Vol. 1-3 is an anthology of seven scenarios within the grindhouse genre of cinema—low-budget horror, splatter, and exploitation films for adults which had their heyday in the seventies. Each one is short, designed to be played in a single session, involves a locked room type of situation—sometimes literally, which keeps the action and the horror focused, and involves desperate, often bloody and brutal horror. Each scenario is presented in full colour, comes with its own set of pre-generated Investigators, and follows the same format. This consists of ‘Prelude’, ‘Objectives’, ‘Secrets’, ‘Cast’, ‘Signs’, ‘Threats’, and ‘Changes’. The ‘Prelude’ sets up and explains the scenario, the ‘Objectives’ the Player Characters’ involvement, ‘Secrets’ reveals what is really going on, ‘Cast’ lists minor NPCs, ‘Signs’ details clues which can be found, ‘Threats’ the dangers both Mythos and mundane, and ‘Changes’ the major events which occur during the scenario. The format does not always though, as in some places there is a lengthy description of the locations where the scenario takes place before the Keeper gets to the ‘Secrets’. In addition, there are Keeper Notes throughout and options, decent maps or floorplans of the location for each scenario, and indications of the type of horror each involves at the start of each scenario. Not all of the scenarios involve the Mythos, but their horror is all strong and bloody.
The Grindhouse: Ultimate Collection – Vol. 1-3 opens in underwhelming fashion with a non-Mythos scenario which involves a literal locked-room situation and little if any real investigation or agency. ‘The Crimson King’ is set in the early eighties and has the Player Characters invited to an exclusive Goth nightclub. Perhaps they want to attend, perhaps they are looking for a missing young woman? Unfortunately, there is very little for them to do or find out before the situation suddenly changes and they suddenly find themselves fighting for their lives and trying to escape. Which would be fine, but there is no other plot than this. The result is underplotted and one-note.
Fortunately, the next and subsequent scenarios are much better. ‘Isle of the Damned’ takes the Player Characters to a small island off the coast of Maine. It is 1974 and they have rented a small holiday home, intending to relax, fish, drink, and spend time away from the grind of modern life. Unfortunately, the island idyll is ruined by multiple somethings which a previous owner left behind after he had to flee following his name being linked to the disappearances of fresh corpses. That name is West, and since this is a Mythos scenario, that means reanimated bodies and body parts. The author has some fun with creating some freshly animated corpses and corpse cuts with which to scare the Player Characters, foreshadowing some of the bloody horror with bumps and knocks from below. Thus, the Player Characters find themselves trapped on an island surviving a zombie-style ‘uprising’ of a different kind.
‘The Dark Brood’ takes place in 1977 at a summer camp in the Appalachian mountains where the Player Characters are camp counsellors. Summer camp horror scenarios are a cliché unto themselves, invariably involving a madman who will stalk the counsellors and students, slashing them, and picking them off, one-by-one. Fortunately, ‘The Dark Brood’ eschews this cliché completely. When the children complain of upset stomachs and nausea, they are given something to settle their stomachs and set to bed early, but later, when the Player Characters suddenly awaken, the children have gone missing. Investigation reveals there is something very sour going on, something similar to that done in other scenarios for Call of Cthulhu, but made all the worse by being inflicted on children. Although they do not know it, the Player Characters are up against a time limit in what is one of the creepier scenarios in the anthology.
‘Jacknife’ is a classic road about to go very, very wrong. When the driver of an eighteen-wheeler picks up hitchhikers, he drives himself into a world of trouble. There is really only the one location for the scenario and that the truck and the flatbed of lumber it is hauling from Colorado to Texas. Anyone who has played the author’s The Highway of Blood will suffer flashbacks as the Player Characters are chased across New Mexico by snake cultists and dustbillies. On the downside, the Keeper will need to acquaint herself with the Chase Rules from the Keeper Rulebook, but on the plus side, a chase sets up plenty of tension and action, and setting the majority of the scenario aboard one moving vehicle adds a sense of claustrophobia to that too. The scenario could be run as part of The Highway of Blood or even a sequel of sorts, but gives too much away to run as a prequel. Otherwise, a great set-up for a horror scenario.
‘Hell Block Five’ casts the Player Characters as inmates of Irongate Penitentiary in Aylesbury, Massachusetts, incarcerated with some of the most infamous criminals in the United States. One night in 1978, the cell doors unlock and slide open in Cell Block Five, but without any alarms going off or sign of any guards. The blood and bodies of other inmates lie everywhere and the cell block seems infested with fungi and insects. The set-up and development has an intentionally nightmarish feel to it as the cell block fluctuates between its current state and something increasingly unreal. One issue is that the Player Characters do need to be driven to a bout of madness in order to discover an important clue and potentially push the story onwards. Another possible issue is that the Player Characters may encounter their worst fears, but none are listed for the pre-generated Player Characters. The players are, of course, free to create their own, but hints would have been useful. Overall, this is a solid prison-set horror scenario.
‘First Night’ takes another horror film cliché and does something interesting with it. It is 1980 and a group of college girls decides to spend the night in the mansion that was recently purchased by their sorority. So, we have a sorority house slumber party which takes a horrifying murderous turn after they find a witch board, which of course, they decide to play around with. Awaking later in the middle of the night to the sound of their bedroom doorknob being turned, something moving about the house, and the house being surrounded by a thick fog. The next few hours consist of the girls being chased round the house by nightmarish, incredibly stealthy monsters which can crawl across the ceilings and simply refuse to die. ‘First Night’ is a spiritual successor to ‘Hell Block Five’, but it apes its inspirations more closely by having the last girl standing receive a bonus to her Luck and a Bonus Die to all her actions. If it comes to this, then the players whose characters did not survive, should definitely control some of the monsters. Like ‘Hell Block Five’, there is the issue of the Player Characters possibly encountering their worst fears, but none being listed for them. The scenario also requires the Player Characters to participate in the use of the witch board, as it does not work without it happening. The players should be encouraged to have their characters do so in order to get this survival horror, monster chase scenario started.
Lastly, ‘The Hoodlums’ is a bonus scenario in The Grindhouse: Ultimate Collection – Vol. 1-3. Set in Worcester, Massachusetts, during the summer of 1983, it begins when a group of high school friends breaks into an abandoned train station to smoke some weed and one of their number suddenly disappears with cry for help! Following the cries leads into the sewers below and what seems to be a buried mansion decades old… The place feels old and macabre and plays out initially in exploratory fashion, which can turn into a deadly hunt depending upon how the young Player Characters interact with the inhabitants. The pre-generated Player Characters are nicely invidualised, they play Dungeons & Dragons, which lends itself to interesting roleplaying possibilities, and there is even a rule given for peer pressure.
Physically, The Grindhouse: Ultimate Collection – Vol. 1-3 is decently presented. Although it needs a slight edit in places, it is well written, and it decently illustrated throughout. In fact, some of the artwork is very good. The cartography is also good throughout.
The Grindhouse: Ultimate Collection – Vol. 1-3 would be an excellent anthology of Grindhouse-style horror one-shots. However, it is let down by the first scenario, ‘The Crimson King’, which is simply not of the same quality as the rest that follow. In fact, had ‘The Crimson King’ been left out or the bonus scenario ‘The Hoodlums’ simply replaced it, The Grindhouse: Ultimate Collection – Vol. 1-3 would be that excellent anthology. Consequently, The Grindhouse: Ultimate Collection – Vol. 1-3 is a good Grindhouse collection, providing the Keeper with a selection of easily prepared, brutal, often bloody, one-shots.

Everyday Heroes is the spiritual successor to d20 Modern. What d20 Modern did for Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition in 2002, Everyday Heroes does for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition in 2202. It is designed to facilitate and handle roleplaying in the here and now, in the world we see outside our windows, on our television screens, and at the cinema. It can cover military or mercenary scenarios, police procedurals, urban fantasy and investigating the supernatural, visits to lost worlds, conspiracy thrillers, dinosaur rampages, face-offs against killer robots (whether from the future or not), run or defuse scams, and more. Although it does not delve into any one of these genres or scenarios in any depth, the core rulebook provides all of the rules and the mechanical tools the Game Master will need to run and her players to roleplay them. There are tweaks and adjustments throughout the rules to account for the modern genre, but the core rules remain faithful, and will be familiar, to anyone who has played Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. In keeping with the setting, all of the Player Characters are human, and in keeping with the scale and concept of ‘Everyday Heroes’, are limited to between Levels one and ten. Further, Everyday Heroes provides some twenty character Classes, divided into six Archetypes, modern skills, proficiencies, and feats, rules for modern gun combat, vehicles and chases, hacking, modern environments and hazards, and a bestiary. Essentially, all of the tools the Game Master needs to run a campaign today.

Everyday Heroes is published by Evil Genius Games, following a successful Kickstarter campaign and begins with the Player Character. Everyday Heroes is a Class and Level roleplaying game, so it begins there, along with the six abilities—Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. A Player Character also has a Background and a Profession, which each provide languages known, Proficiencies, Iconic Equipment, Ability increases, and a Special Feature; and an Archetype and Class. Backgrounds can be Activist, Book Worm, Caregiver, Misfit, Social Butterfly, and more, whilst the professions include Academia, Creative, Law, Trades, and so on. There are six Archetypes—Strong, Agile, Tough, Smart, Wise, and Charisma—corresponding to the six abilities—Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. These are divided into three or four Classes. So, the Brawler and Heavy Gunner fall into the Strong Archetype, the Scoundrel and the Sharpshooter into the Agile Archetype, the Commando and the Bodyguard into the Tough Archetype, the Engineer and the Hacker into the Smart Archetype, the Hunter and the Sleuth into the Wise Archetype, and the Duellist and the Leader into the Charming Archetype. Together, Archetype and Class provides a Player Character’s Hit Dice, Defence rating, Proficiency Bonus, Talents, and Feats. The latter, Feats, are intrinsic part of Player Character development in Everyday Heroes.

Creating a Player Character in Everyday Heroes is a matter of making choices. A player selects his character’s Background, Profession, Archetype, and Class, and decides on the options they provide. He has the choice of determining his abilities randomly (roll four six-sided dice, discarded the lowest), assigning points, or using an array. The process is relatively straightforward and enables a player a wide range of character types. A player can decide to specialise in his choice of Background, Profession, Archetype, and Class. For example, a hacker could have Gamer as a Background, Information Technology as a Profession, and then the Smart Hero Archetype and the Hacker Class. Or he could mix and match to reflect wider experience. For example, an Ordinary Background could lead to the Emergency Services Profession and then be a Smart Archetype and the Scientist Class or a Tough Archetype and the Bodyguard Class. Notably though, the twenty Classes are also divided by complexity. Thus, the Heavy Gunner is a Simple Class, the Hacker a Complex Class, and the Leader a Medium Class in terms of their relative complexities. This is a useful guide for the players and can influence their choices when it comes to creating characters. Lastly, a player decides on his character’s Motivation, Attachments, Beliefs, Virtues, Flaws, and Quirks. As a Player Character advances in Level, he will improve via new or better Talents, Feats—some general, some specific to the Class and Archetype, Hit Points, and Proficiency Rating, so on.

Name: Henry Brinded III
Archetype: Mastermind Level: 1
Background: Bookworm
Profession: Military
Motivation: Duty Attachment: Family Belief: Not so much a statement of belief as a methodology
Role: Intellectual Virtue: Thoughtful Flaw: Nosy Quirk: Claps when excited

Strength 11 Dexterity 15 (+2) Constitution 15 (+2)
Intelligence 19 (+4) Wisdom 15 (+2) Charisma 16 (+3)
Defence: 14
Hit Points: 8
Passive Perception: 14
Proficiency Bonus: +2
Skills: Athletics +2, Computers +6, Insight +4, Investigation +8, Perception +4, Persuasion +7, Social Sciences +6, Stealth +4
Mental Expertise: Insight, Persuasion
Skill Proficiencies: Athletics, Computers, Insight, Investigation, Perception, Persuasion, Social Sciences, Stealth
Saving Throw Proficiencies: Intelligence, Wisdom
Equipment Proficiencies: Basic Equipment, Advanced Equipment, Military Equipment
Languages: English, Latin, Spanish
Talents: Plans, Genius, Know-It-All, You’re Doing It Wrong
Special Features: Have You Ever Read?, Servicemember

Everyday Heroes includes a lengthy equipment section. Starting equipment is handled via equipment packs, such as a Hacker Pack or a Weekend Warrior Pack, but the extensive list includes weapons of all types—from knives and 9 mm handguns to rocket launchers and tanks, vehicles from bicycles, golf carts, pickup trucks, and bulldozers to tanks, eighteen-wheeler trucks, wingsuits, and bullet trains. The vehicles and weapons are listed by type rather than name and model, but it is easy for the Game Master and player to assign these details if they want them in their game.

Mechanically, the core rules of Everyday Heroes are the same as those of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Throw a twenty-sided die and add Ability and Proficiency bonuses as appropriate, the aim being to roll equal to, or higher than, a Difficulty Class, which ranges from ten for Easy, fifteen for Challenging, twenty for Difficult, and so on. The rules for Advantage and Disadvantage also work as they do in Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Saving throws are based on the six abilities. Combat works the same too, but changes have been made to account for modern conflict. This includes firearms capable of suppressive fire and burst fire, as well as the use of explosive devices. Armour Class is replaced by a Defence value, which represents how hard a target is to hit, and can come from the cover a target is behind or the innate ability of a target to avoid being hit. Personal armour worn has an Armour Value. If the Penetration Value of an attack is higher than the Armour Value, the attack has penetrated the armour without reducing any of the damage, but if the Armour Value is higher than the Penetration Value, than an Armour Saving Throw can be made. A successful saving throw prevents all damage, but damages the armour, reducing its effectiveness, whilst a failed saving throw stops none of the damage.

The rules also cover environmental challenges such as dehydration and underwater combat, using companions—the Hunter Class has animal companions and the Engineer Class robot companions, laying and disabling traps, and of course, chases and vehicles. Vehicles have their own ratings for Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution, Armour Value, and in some cases, special abilities particular to the vehicle. Chases, whether on foot or by vehicle, are played out round by round, with the participants accumulating Chase Points. The aim is acquire more than the other participants before the end of the chase, by overcoming hazards or challenges like dodging around two men carrying a long rolled up carpet or leaping from one building to the next. Success grants a participant Chase Points, failure Chase Points to his opponent. The chase rules scale up to take account of vehicles and combat, including actions such as aiming at tires, ramming, and the like.

For the Game Master, there is advice on handling the rules, including chases—the latter with lots of complications to throw into the path of the Player Character in a wide variety of environments, different types of encounters, computer hacking and security, and more. The advice on hacking is to keep its use in check lest it become too powerful a feature of the game, but the rules handle it in a simple enough fashion, also avoiding it becoming too technical. They make a point that the Security and Deception skills are as equally important as the Computer skill. There is guidance too on common, but often difficult situations in modern set games, such as snipers, standoffs, and calling in the authorities, which is so obvious in its inclusion, but so very helpful. Optional rules cover sudden death, tracking ammunition, poison, injuries above beyond simple Hit Point loss, diseases, and recreational drugs. Advice for the Game Master begins with the basics and builds from there, including ‘Saying, “Yes, and…”’, giving time in the spotlight for each Player Character, and knowing the players and their play styles. It also examines adventure structure and creation and some of the key points of the genres that Everyday Heroes is designed to cover—action, adventure, comedy, drama, horror, mystery, and survival.

Almost a fifth of Everyday Heroes dedicated to opponents and allies, and it is here that Everyday Heroes goes further than suggesting the various genres and settings and types of scenarios which can be run using its rules. There are numerous ordinary NPCs from all walks of life, but these are joined by cultists, crazed maniacs, mad scientists, and slashers. Alongside these, there are robots and animals, including a swarm of piranha, before the selection delves into historic and prehistoric NPCs, Science Fiction aliens and bugs, futuristic robots, mutants, and supernatural creatures from demons and vampires to zombies and werewolves. Variants are included too, so for zombies, there are zombie bloaters, zombie dogs, zombie lickers, and elite zombie warriors. These are all ready for the Game Master to use and build as part of a scenario.

Physically, Everyday Heroes is very well presented. It is well written, easy to read, and comes with a good index. The artwork varies in quality a little, but is all decent enough. Also included is an appendix of the changes between Everyday Heroes and Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. This is useful, but would have been more useful if page references had been included.

There is one final addition to Everyday Heroes which is not included in the core rulebook. This is access to a number of source and scenario supplements all based upon a surprising range of films. In fact, a range of films which nobody expected to see turned into roleplaying material despite their popularity in the hobby. These consist of The Crow™ Cinematic Adventure, Escape From New York™ Cinematic Adventure, Highlander Cinematic Adventure, Kong: Skull Island Cinematic Adventure, Pacific Rim Cinematic Adventure, and Total Recall Cinematic Adventure. These showcase at least, what Everyday Heroes can do and are, equally, six good reasons to play Everyday Heroes. Beyond these of course, there is plenty of scope for supplements which could explore the genres suggested in the Everyday Heroes core rulebook, as well as other support and useable content.

Everyday Heroes takes the bones of the Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition rules and adjusts them with a surprising degree of comfort to fit the modern day. From that basis, the core rules fleshes out the here and now with a wide range of Player Character options and monsters and NPCs which together lend themselves to genres and settings both ordinary and outré. In between there is literally all of the rules, backed up with solid advice, needed to support a modern day set roleplaying campaign. With Everyday Heroes, Evil Genius Games has not so much created the spiritual successor to d20 Modern, as taken on its mantle.