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—
Published in 1978 in TSR, Inc., Gamma World introduced the roleplaying hobby to the post-apocalypse genre of surviving after the bomb and the fall of civilisation, although its progenitor, Metamorphosis Alpha had explored similar ideas, but set on a giant generation starship rather than the Earth. Gamma World, Second Edition was published five years later in 1983 and shift the setting to a different part of the USA, inherit and develop some of the mechanics, embrace the gonzo aspects of the setting even further, and present a new scenario. Gamma World, Second Edition is also a boxed set, containing the sixty-four-page ‘Basic Rules Booklet’ and the thirty-two-page ‘Adventure Booklet’, as well as dice and a large poster map. Gamma World, Second Edition was designed to be accessible and serve as an introduction to roleplaying taking as its model, Dungeons & Dragons Set 1: Basic Rules, the famous ‘red box’ edition designed by Frank Mentzer which began what is known as the ‘BECMI’ line. This consisted of Dungeons & Dragons Set 1: Basic Rules, Dungeons & Dragons Set 2: Expert Rules, Dungeons & Dragons Set 3: Companion Rules, Dungeons & Dragons Set 4: Master Rules, and Dungeons & Dragons Set 5: Immortals Rules. Yet Gamma World, Second Edition would not fully achieve its intended accessibility and introductory aims, primarily because of an organisation that although better than Gamma World, First Edition, was still not perfect, and because its rules, also inspired by Gamma World, First Edition, are not as easy and as easily presented as they should have been.

Gamma World, Second Edition, as described in the ‘Adventure Booklet’ takes place in a savage wasteland ravaged by radiation, biological agents, and chemical agents used in the ‘Social Wars’ of the early twenty-fourth century. The conflict bent and broke the very land itself, shattering parts of it and sending it into seas as less than one in five thousand of Humanity’s teeming billions survived and the mutagenic cocktail left behind twisted the genetics of every form of life on the planet—including man. Mutated men, animals, and plants twisted into new forms and gained wondrous new powers, both mental and physical. So now humanoid raccoons capable of generating illusions and repulsion fields and of telekinesis and telepathy scavenge for the advanced technology and weapons left behind by the Ancients, three-metre-high jack rabbits with chameleon powers and antlers serve as herd animals or mounts, and land sharks literately swim under the ground of deserts or deep snow using telekinesis, hunting prey. In the century-and-a-half since the conflict, societies have organised into tribal clans and feudal states, varying in their technology use, with highly technological enclaves rare. Found across these blasted landscapes, there are those that seek to forge a better world, though not always for the better… For example, the Knights of the Genetic Purity want to preserve the ‘purity’ of Humanity by wiping out Humanoids, The Iron Society wants to destroy all Pure Strain Humans, the Zoopremisists would stamp out all Humanoids and Pure Strain Humans in favour of Mutated Animals, and the Friends of Entropy would smash all life and mechanical activity! Others, like the Brotherhood of Thought, which fosters a sense of benevolence in all and the semi-monastic Healers who tend to the sick and the injured, seek a more positive future…

A Player Character in Gamma World, Second Edition can either be a Pure Strain Human, a Humanoid with mutant powers, or a Mutated Animal. He cannot be a Mutated Plant—unless allowed by the Game Master. He has six attributes—Mental Strength, Intelligence, Dexterity, Charisma, Constitution, and Physical Strength—which range in value between three and eighteen. A Pure Strain Human does not suffer mutations of any kind, will find it easier to work out how artefacts operate, and be recognised by robots, security systems, and A.I.s as such, which sometimes means the Pure Strain Human will not be attacked by them or can even give them orders. He also has better stats and more Hit Points. A Humanoid can look like a Pure Strain Human, but if he has any physical Mutations that make him look different, he will not be recognised as a Pure Strain Human by robots, security systems, or A.I.s, which will thus not obey his orders and may even attack him. A Mutated Animal can never pass a security check and be recognised by robots, security systems, or A.I.s. He will probably have claws or a similar feature meaning he is better in unarmed combat, and like the Humanoid, will have a number of Mutations and may gain more if exposed to anything mutagentic.

To create a character, the player rolls four six-sided dice and discards the lowest for all six attributes. If the Player Character is a Pure Strain Human, the lowest die is not discarded for Intelligence, Charisma, or Constitution. However, the maximum that a Pure Strain Human can have for Intelligence and Charisma is a twenty-one, and eighteen for his Constitution. To determine the number of Hit Points for a Humanoid or Mutated Animal, the player rolls a number of six-sided dice equal to the character’s Constitution, whereas eight-sided dice are rolled for the Pure Strain Human. A four-sided die is rolled to determine the number of Physical Mutations a Humanoid or Mutated Animal has, and then again for Mental Mutations, both types of mutation being rolled for randomly.

Name: Gronson
Type: Pure Strain Human
Mental Strength 14 Intelligence 14 Dexterity 08
Charisma 18 Constitution 18 Physical Strength 16
Hit Points: 78

Name: Neek
Type: Humanoid
Mental Strength 17 Intelligence 13 Dexterity 11
Charisma 10 Constitution 10 Physical Strength 15
Hit Points: 32

Mental Mutations: Dual Brain – Brain #1: Fear Generation, Heightened Intelligence, Will Force; Brain #2: Genius Capability (Mechanical), Telekinetic Arm, Teleportation
Physical Mutations: Regeneration, Vision Defect (Tunnel Vision)

It is clear that going from Gamma World, First Edition to Gamma World, Second Edition, the designers have not entirely solved the problem of a Pure Strain Human not actually being very interesting to play. It is a problem which besets post-apocalypse roleplaying games. Although Pure Strain Human has higher stats, more Hit Points, and can better interact with technology, both the Humanoid and the Mutated Animal receive mutations which make them different, sometimes difficult to play, but obviously more powerful and more fun. Some powers are limited by the number of times a day they can be used, but others are permanent, but they can be very powerful. It is also possible to roll for defect mutations, both physical and mental. Consequently, it is possible to create a Player Character with more defect mutations useful ones. In the long term though, the Pure Strain Human can find, identify, and use the artefacts of the Ancients. Gaining access to and using technology is not an intrinsic power though, and a Player Character Pure Strain Human has to go adventure to find that technology and the likelihood is that the technology will use a power cell and run out and… Plus this is exactly what the other character types will be doing, although not as handily as the Pure Strain Human. So, until such times as a Pure Strain Human can gain access to advanced technology, he is the ‘weakest’ character type.

The mutations can be what you expect and weird and wacky. So, a defect could be Attraction Odour, mean the Mutated Animal or Humanoid exudes a fragrance that attracts carnivores, but he could have Death Field Generation which means he drains every living within range of all but a single Hit Point, before dropping unconscious, antlers or horns that inflict damage, or Radiation Eyes that emit blasts of deadly radiation. In general, the more powerful a mutation, the more the roleplaying game places a limit on its use. Some do require further explanation or are super powerful, like Time Manipulation, which has the possibility of sending either the user or a target decades into the past or future, or Planar Travel, which opens a temporal portal to another plane. Its use is never fully explained.

Mechanically, Gamma World, Second Edition is quite simple. To have his character undertake an action, a player multiplies the appropriate attribute for the action by the difficulty factor, typically between one and five, set by the Game Master, and attempts to roll equal to or under it on percentile dice. That essentially is it and the rules do not go into any detail than that. Combat is different though and works much like it did in Gamma World, First Edition and Metamorphosis Alpha. It uses three ‘Attack Matrixes’, one for physical combat, one for ranged combat, and one for mental combat. Each weapon has a Weapon Class, such as nine for a blowgun and fifteen for a Black Ray Pistol. The Weapon Class—the higher the better—is cross-referenced against the target’s Armour Class—the lower the better—and this gives a target to roll equal to or greater on a twenty-sided die. Armour Class represents the armour worn only as there is no Dexterity bonus to Armour Class. There are, however, modifiers from high and low Dexterity to attack a target, and from high and low Strength when determining damage for physical attacks. Many advanced weapons can be deadly. The Black Ray Pistol instantly kills an organic target!

The rules also cover Tech Level—either Tech Level I, Tech Level II, or Tech Level III, indicating a tribal, feudal/pre-industrial, or industrial society, respectively; movement and time; encounters and searching—the Player Characters will likely end up doing this a lot; and interacting with NPCs and recruiting NPCs. In general, the rules are straightforward, though they do feel influenced by Basic Dungeons & Dragons in places. The rules also cover the discover and use of artefacts.

As with Metamorphosis Alpha, the setting for Gamma World includes lots and lots of artefacts. These range from stun rays and laser pistols to energy maces and fusion rifles, from photon grenades and concussion bombs to mutation bombs and negation missiles, from plastic armour and powered attack armour to turbine cars and bubble cars, from energy cloaks and anti-grav sleds to atomic energy cells to pain reducer drugs and life rays, from light cargo lifter and ecology bots to security robotoids to warbots. Robots, bots, and borgs get their own section, and there are even some useful descriptions and details given of fixed machinery like broadcast power stations, rejuv chambers, and think tanks. There is, though, a distinct emphasis on weapons and armour to the equipment, all of which the player characters can find in various conditions and use—if they can work out how each device operates. Where Metamorphosis Alpha had the players describe and roleplay what their characters were doing to work out what a device does, in Gamma World, First Edition there were ‘flow’ charts. In Gamma World, Second Edition, there is a simple matrix for this. Each artefact has a complexity number and for every ten minutes a Player Character spends examining an artefact, both he and the Game Master roll a die. The Game Master adds her result to the complexity number, whilst the player’s result reduces the complexity number. Essentially, the player and Game Master are attempting to out roll each other, but the result is time consuming both in and out of the game.

Gamma World, Second Edition describes some sixty monsters of the post-apocalyptic future. From Androids (Thinkers, Workers, and Warriors), Arks (Hound Folk), and Arns (Dragon Bugs) to Yexils (Orange Scarfers), Zarns (Borer Beetles), and Zeeth (Gamma Grass), there are some entertaining creations and some favourites of the genre. For example, Badders or Digger Folk are anthropomorphic badgers with an evil disposition, the power of Empathy, and a penchant for raiding; Hoops or Floppsies are mutant rabbitoids who have the Mass Mind and Telepathy Mutations and the ability to change metal into rubber; and Perths or Gamma Bushes, whose flowers can emit deadly blasts of light or radiation. Plus, some thirteen Cryptic Alliances are detailed, including their Tech Levels, membership, numbers encountered, and secret sign along with their descriptions. These provide a ready source of potential allies and enemies for a campaign.

One thing missing from the ‘Basic Rules Booklet’ are the roleplaying game’s tables. It turns out that these are given at the end of the ‘Adventure Booklet’. So, the table for rolling for Mutations, matrixes for attacks, poison, and radiation, encounters, weapons, and more, are all in the ‘Adventure Booklet’. These are designed to be separated from the booklet, but it is odd to have the rules necessary for character creation in a separate book well away from where they are actually needed.

The primary content in the ‘Adventure Booklet’ is the adventure ‘Rite of Passage’. It sets up the Player Characters as inhabitants of the small village of Grover, a Tech Level I settlement part of Clan Cambol in the remains of western Pennsylvania. To become adults, they must undergo a rite of passage in which they travel to the dead city of Pitz Burke and return with an item which will become their personal totem. In addition to the rite of passage, the Player Characters are assigned a special mission. This is to rescue three fellow clan members held hostage by a band of Carrin and Bloodbird brigands in the city. The Player Characters must cross part of Allegheny—which is nicely detailed in the descriptions of the region—and have encounters and make contacts along the way, including with the Lil, small, graceful humanoids with fairy wings. The Lil actually want the help of the Player Characters as they have a similar situation with their own also being held hostage. The Lil hideout—or Bramble—feels not dissimilar to that of James M. Ward’s ‘Paths of the Lil’, which originally appeared in White Dwarf Issue No. 16 and was then reprinted in The Best of White Dwarf Scenarios. The ruins of Pitz Burke are nicely detailed with particular attention paid to the locations that feature in the hostage plot ‘Rite of Passage’. It is a fairly tough adventure overall, and the Player Characters will want to find and determine how to use some arms and armour above the very basic they begin with to give themselves more of an edge. The Lil will help with this, which will go some way to addressing the initial powerlessness of the Pure Strain Human versus the Humanoid and Mutated Animal Player Characters.

The ‘Adventure Booklet’ also includes advice on running and creating Gamma World campaigns, which emphasises the need to have the Player Characters act with both society and the Cryptic Alliances. The standing of a Player Character with a particular society or Cryptic Alliance is measured by his Rank with it. Rank affects a Player Character’s Charisma when interacting with the society or Cryptic Alliance and his chancing of obtaining or borrowing an artefact from the society or Cryptic Alliance. In order to increase a Player Character’s Rank with any one society or Cryptic Alliance, he must spend Status Points. These are earned for defeating NPCs, donating artefacts, successfully completing missions, and so on. Basically, what a Player Character would do on an adventure. They are the equivalent of Experience Points in another roleplaying game, but spent to acquire Ranks with a society or Cryptic Alliance. Indeed, Gamma World, Second Edition does not actually have Experience Points, it is not a Class and Level roleplaying game, and there is no way for a player to improve his character except through discovering better and better equipment and potentially, improving the equivalent of his social standing.

Physically, Gamma World, Second Edition is well presented, but not necessarily well organised. Everything feels just a little bit too crammed in, especially in the ‘Basic Rules Booklet’, so that finding particular rules is not easy and that is not helped by having the rules for the roleplaying game and explanations of how its tables are intended to work and the tables needed to run the game in a separate book. The artwork is all very good and the cartography, whether of the locations in Pitz Burke, or Pitz Burke itself, the Allegheny region, and the remains of North America on the roleplaying game’s double-sided poster map, are excellent and colourful.

—oOo—Chris Baylis reviewed Gamma World, Second Edition in ‘Game Reviews’ in Imagine No. 7 (October 1983) and was positive throughout. “For a post nuclear holocaust role-playing game, GAMMA WORLD game has just about all the right ingredients, in the correct proportions. It is a very good introduction into the fantasy world of role-playing, and should seriously rival all other RPGs.”

Dana Lombardy reviewed Gamma World, Second Edition in ‘Gaming’ in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Vol. 8, No. 8. (August 1984), describing its redesign as being, “[S]o extensive it should be considered a new game ... Gamma World offers one of the more bizarre and hostile environments to role-play in.” and highlighted how, “[T]he technology is disjointed. You can have a dog-man with a spear fighting alongside a robot with a laser, allied against humanoids with pistols and swords.” Her conclusion was measured, stating that, “If you prefer more straightforward science fiction with known and approximately equal abilities and weapons, then Gamma World may not be for you. It’s a topsy-turvy world, where the average pure-strain human is hard-pressed to exist among plants and animals mutated by humanity’s wars. But if you like a challenge, and want to role-play something really different — Gamma World could be it.”—oOo—
What stands out with Gamma World, Second Edition in comparison with Gamma World, First Edition is the effort to reorganise, codify, and clarify the rules and the setting and bring its presentation more in line with Basic Dungeons & Dragons and Star Frontiers. For the most part, the designers succeeded, although the ‘Basic Rules Booklet’ is just a bit too busy to be fully successful. Nevertheless, it is a far more accessible and easier to understand edition of the roleplaying game than its predecessor, all done with an eye by TSR, Inc. to make it appeal to a wider and more commercial audience. However, with that eye to commercialism, there is a corresponding reining in of the setting’s weirder, wackier elements, that though still there, are kept very much in the background. They would only creep forward and be embraced by later editions, most notably in the D&D Gamma World Roleplaying Game (or Gamma World, Seventh Edition) and arguably in what is its spiritual successor, Goodman Games’ Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic.

Often regarded as the definitive version of the roleplaying game, Gamma World, Second Edition is definitely the classic version and the version that introduced its post-apocalyptic setting and the post-apocalyptic genre to a wider audience.

The Imperium of Mankind has stood for over ten millennia and spans a million worlds across the galaxy. At its heart sits the Emperor, the beacon whose light touches the billions and billions of Humanity unquestioned and blesses them all. Some though, feel his benign imperial blessings more than most. For they are the lucky ones. They have been chosen from amongst the teeming masses to serve him through one of his great servants elevated in great service to forward the Emperor’s divine might and ensure the safety of the empire. At the direction of such a patron, these Imperial Citizens will gain privileges far beyond that imagined by their fellows—the chance to travel and see worlds far beyond their own, enjoy wealth and comfort that though modest is more than they could have dreamed of, and witness great events that they might have heard of years later by rumour or newscast. In return, they will be directed to investigate mysteries and murders, experience horror and heresies, expose corruption and callousness by their patron, whether in pursuit of their patron’s agenda, his faction’s agenda, the Emperor’s will, or all three. Their patron can help them, but not too much lest his involvement become too overt, or it can hinder their efforts, and whilst their success in any mission will ensure they retain his favour, failure can lead to death, exile, or worse. In the Forty-First Millennium, everyone is an asset and everyone is expendable, but some can survive long enough to make a difference in the face of an uncaring universe and the machinery of the Imperium of Mankind grinding its way forward into a glorious future.

This is the set-up for Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Imperium Maledictum, the latest roleplaying game published by Cubicle 7 Entertainment to be set in Games Workshop’s far future of the Forty-First Millennium. In scale it shares much with Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition, but in terms of tone and scope, as well as what characters the players roleplay, it harks back to Dark Heresy, the very first roleplaying game to be set within the Warhammer 40,000 milieu and published in 2008, the very first roleplaying game that Game Workshop had published in two decades. Dark Heresy would, of course, be later published by Fantasy Flight Games and receive a second edition. Although the scale is similar, there are differences. Apart from being derived mechanically from Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition and the Player Characters serving a Patron rather than a member of the Inquisition—although that is a possibility for the Patron—the major difference is the change in setting. Each edition of Dark Heresy had its own setting, and so does Imperium Maledictum. This is the Macharian Sector. Conquered and then founded by General Macharius, later Lord Solar and Saint Macharius, his death would result in the Macharian Heresy as his generals squabbled over who should succeed him and whole worlds he had conquered rebelled in his absence. Order would eventually be restored, but the sector would subsequently suffer further catastrophic losses as the Great Rift opened and the Noctis Aeterna spread, cutting off communication, trade, and psychic links with rest of the Galactic West that lay between it and Terra. Only recently has the mysterious Noctis Aeterna begun to recede, the Days of Blinding ended, and links reforged with worlds lost under its pall and beyond the sector itself. As the Imperium re-establishes and solidifies its authority, there remain dangers from within and without. From within, heretics turn to the Dark Gods with their promises and falsehoods and corruption is rife, wasting the Emperor’s resources and wealth, and from without, there is always the danger of raids by Orks or worse, Tyranoids.

Play in Imperium Maledictum does not begin with character creation, but with the selection and creation of a Patron. For the Game Master and her players, this is the most important NPC in the roleplaying game. The Patron, a powerful individual, employs the Player Characters, directs and supports missions he assigns to them, and rewards them for their successes. The Patron comes from one of nine factions—Adeptus Administratum, Adeptus Astra Telepathica, Adeptus Mechanicus, Adeptus Ministorum, Astra Militarum, Imperial Fleet, Infractionists, Inquisition, and Rogue Trader Dynasty—and each has a degree of Influence within the faction and owes a Duty to faction. Two roles are suggested for each Faction, for example, Astropath and Sister of Silence for Adeptus Astra Telepathica, and Criminal Mastermind and Guildmaster for Infractionists. These provide the Boon, which the players and their characters will be aware of, whilst the Game Master will secretly select a Liability for the Patron, one per Boon. The Patron has a Motivation and a Demeanour. Apart from the Liability, the creation of the Patron is a collaborative process between the players and the Game Master, and there are tables upon which can both roll for during the process.

Patron Faction: Imperial Fleet
Influence: +2 with the Imperial Fleet
Duty: Voidship Captain
Duty Boon: Voidship
Boon: Astropathic Communication
Liability: Dealbreaker
Motivation: Unity
Demeanour: Sombre
A Player Character in Imperium Maledictum is defined by his characteristics, Origin, Faction, and Role. The nine characteristics are Weapon Skill, Ballistic Skill, Strength, Toughness, Agility, Intelligence, Perception, Willpower, and Fellowship. The Origin is the Player Character’s homeworld, such as a Forge World or a Hive World, and it which provides bonuses to some of the characteristics and an item of equipment. The faction is the organisation which trained the Player Character and to which he belongs to. It provides bonuses to the Player Character’s characteristics, skills and skill specialisations, a Talent, Influence with the Faction, and equipment. These can either from the generic list or a Duty , which provides a complete package. For example, the Duty option for the Adeptus Administratum consist of Clerk, Officio Medicae, and Scrivener. A Player Character has a Role, of which there are six in Imperium Maledictum. These are the Interlocuter, typically investigators and diplomats; Mystic, Psykers who use Warp powers; Savant, scholars who conduct and retain knowledge; Penumbra, spies, thieves, and assassins who specialise in stealth; Warrior, skilled fighters; and Zealot, ultra loyalists who often put their loyalty before their lives. To create a character, a player rolls for his characteristics on 2d10+20 each, and then for Origin, Faction, and Role. At each stage—as per Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition—the player can make choices or keep the results of each roll. If he does the latter, he earns extra Experience Points to spend on improving his character. That is, except for Role, which the Game Master—as the Patron—can select and the Player Character earn more Experience Points or choose himself and gain none. In addition, a player can roll for, or choose, a name, appearance, and connections, and then through answering a few questions develop some background, a Divination, and some goals for the character.

Name: Gaius
Origin: Hive World
Faction: Adeptus Ministorum (Missionary)
Role: Zealot
Divination: Mercy is a sign of weakness
XP: 200

CHARACTERISTICS
Weapon Skill 31 (3) Ballistic Skill 37 (3) Strength 36 (3) Toughness 31 (3) Agility 39 (3)
Intelligence 27 (2) Perception 31 (3) Willpower 39 (3) Fellowship 27 (2)

SKILLS
Discipline 49 (Fear 54), Lore 37, Melee 36 (One-Handed 41), Presence 44, Rapport 37

TALENTS
Faithful (Imperial Cult), Flagellant, Martyrdom

EQUIPMENT
Ugly Filtration Plugs, Autopistol, Chainsword, Laud Hailer, Robes, Holy Icon, Backpack, 200 Solars

APPEARANCE
23, old eyes, orange hair, pox marks

Mechanically, Imperium Maledictum is a percentile system for both characteristics and skills. Notably, there is a relatively limited number of skills, which are quite broad in what they cover, and then three specialisations per skill. There is a limit of how many advances that a Player Character can have assigned to a skill or a specialisation—four or a total of twenty points each—and an advance is worth a flat five-point increase. So, in comparison to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition, there is a certain streamlining to skills, specialisations, and advances in Imperium Maledictum. The core roll is of the percentile dice versus a characteristic or a skill or a specialisation. Success Levels determine how well a Player Character or opponent did and are determined by deducting the tens digit of the dice result from the tens digit of the characteristic, skill, or specialisation being tested. The situation or a Talent can alter the number of Success Levels generated. Advantage in a situation enables a player to swap the tens and unit dice around if it benefits his character, whilst Disadvantage forces the player to swap the tens and unit dice around if it penalises his character. Rolling the same numbers on the dice indicates a Critical result if successful or a Fumble if a failure, especially in combat.

Throughout the game, players will keep track of two important factors. One is Influence, ranging from ‘+5’ and ‘Honoured’ to ‘-5’ and ‘Hunted’, for each Faction. It can be derived from a Player Character’s own or Personal Level or it can from a Patron, although there may be consequences for bringing the Patron’s Influence to bear on a situation depending upon the circumstances. Influence not only represents standing with a Faction, but when Social Tests are made, indicates the number of extra Success Levels to be added to the roll, and these can, of course, be positive or negative, depending on the Influence value. Influence can be gained or lost through play. The other factor is Superiority, a group resource, which the Player Characters can gain via good play and preparing for situations and in combat by good rolls, and is then spent to add Success Levels. However, it can also be lost for the reverse. Superiority is also measured against the Resolve factor of an NPC and if greater can make the NPC desperate or even run away.

Combat in Imperium Maledictum uses the same core mechanics, typically fought out over two or three zones. As you would expect, the rules cover movement, the environment, actions, and more, with options or miniature or grid-based combat if the playing group prefers. A Player Character has a single action and a single movement per round. If an attack is successful, the number on the units die indicates the location of the strike. Critical wounds are gained when either a Critical roll is made on an attack or when the damage suffered exceeds the defendant’s total number of Wounds. There is a set of Critical Hit tables for each body part at the back of the Imperium Maledictum book. The rules also cover vehicles and vehicle combat.

A Player Character also begins play with three points of Fate. This can be spent or burnt. It can be spent to reroll a failed Test, to gain Advantage on a Test, add a Success Level to a test after it is rolled, to gain the Initiative in combat, and to ignore the effects of a Critical Wound or remove a Condition. It can be burnt to avoid dying (‘Die Another Day’), completely avoid one source of incoming damage (‘The Emperor protects’), to not develop a rolled mutation (‘Steel Your Soul’), choose the results of a test (‘For the Emperor’), and to gain Superiority (‘Turn the Tide’), especially when the Player Characters have none. It is also possible for a Player Character to gain Corruption, ranging from one points and Minor Corruption to four points and Major Exposure. This can include witnessing a Lesser Daemon or having contact with a Chaos Mutant or being exposed to the site of a Chaos Ritual or making a deal with a daemon. It can be resisted by a Fortitude Test or a Discipline Test, depending on the source of the Corruption, reducing the Corruption suffered by one point per Success Level rolled. If the amount of Corruption becomes too much, a Player Character can succumb to the Corruption and suffer from mutations or malignancies—and there is a table of both results.

It is also possible to play a Psyker, such as a Sanctioned Psyker of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica, and who have taken the Mystic Role during character creation. A Psyker can have minor psychic powers like ‘Call Vermin’ or ‘Jinx’ and study disciplines such as Divination or Pyromancy. To use a power his character possesses, a player rolls a Psychic Mastery Test, modified by the difficulty of the power, and if successful, applies the effect. The Psyker also gains Warp Charge for using the power, and as long as the total Warp Charge does not exceed the Psyker’s Warp Threshold—equal to the Willpower bonus—he has everything under control. To bleed off Warp Charge, the Psyker’s player must successfully roll a Purgation test, although is only required to do so in stressful situations, like combat. This also requires a roll on the ‘Psychic Phenomena’ table and gives results such as ‘Rot and Decaying’ destroying any foodstuffs in the area or unleashing a ‘Banshee Howl’. If total Warp Charge does exceed the Psyker’s Warp Threshold, a successful Psychic Mastery Test will still keep it under control, but if failed, the power of the Warp contained within the Psyker’s body is bled off catastrophically, requiring a roll on the ‘Perils of the Warp’ table, with results such as ‘Gibbering Wreck’ which causes the Psyker to scream as the insights of the Warp twists his mind, stuns him, and exposes him to Moderate Corruption or ‘Daemonic Emergence’ in which a daemon forces its way out of the Warp. Once a character has the Psyker Talent, he immediately gains a Minor Psychic Power and access to a Discipline, and can later spend Experience Points to purchase further Minor Psychic Powers and Powers within a Discipline. Purchasing the Psyker Talent grants access to another Discipline.

Imperium Maledictum has an extensive equipment list, which includes classic Warhammer 40,000 weapons like the boltgun and the power sword. Services and transport are also covered, as is augmetics, the replacement of missing body parts. There is guidance too, on what the Player Characters can do during between missions, which might be endeavours, like combat training, commissioning a new piece of gear, engaging in religious worship, and more. For the Game Master, there is a very good overview of the Imperium and how the Macharian Sector is tied to the Imperium, and in more detail, Macharian Sector and its history. The various factions and their motivations in the sector are discussed, there are descriptions of each of the major planets—nearly forty of them—and their notable features, personalities, particular cults, and so on. There is also a good bestiary, which provides details of various NPCs such as a Manfactorum Labourer of the Adeptus Mechanicus or a Voidsman of the Imperial Fleet, with advice on how to use them as well as their stats. Enemies include a range of cultists, rogue psykers, daemons, and more.

The advice for the Game Master includes game set-up and Session Zero, getting the tone right for the players, how to create and run investigations, and general advice on handling various aspects of the rules, like encounters and giving out rewards for the Player Characters. There is a map of the Marcharius Sector inside the front and back cover. What there is not in Imperium Maledictum is a beginning scenario and that is its biggest omission. There is plenty of background from which the Game Master can create her own scenarios, but there is no starting point to get the group playing straight away.

In terms of play style, the Player Characters do have limited, but powerful agency and motivation. Theirs is the agency to conduct investigations on behalf of their Patron, but also at his suffrage. If they fail, they embarrass their Patron at the very least, at the very worst they could be discarded and replaced by their Patron just as easily as he plucked them from their ordinary obscurity to serve him. They are also at the mercy of their Patron’s enemies, likely as equally powerful, if not more, so they have to be careful of Imperial factional politics in the Marcharius sector in a way they never had to be before. Consequently, potentially running foul of the system presents almost as much danger as the cultists, rogue psykers, Chaos daemons, and other threats they might face as the obvious dangers to the Imperium. This balance between the ordinary and the outré is one that really did call for a scenario to see how it works and to showcase how an investigation is handled in Imperium Maledictum.

Physically, Imperium Maledictum is very well presented with great art as you would expect from a volume with access to Games Workshop’s vast library of artwork. The book is also decently written and the rules are easy to grasp and understand.

Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Imperium Maledictum looks both backwards and forwards. Backwards to Dark Heresy and the first Warhammer 40,000 roleplaying game published in 2008 with its emphasis upon investigations into dark cults, Chaos, corruption, and mysteries in the Forty-First Millennium on a par in terms of power level with Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, but forwards because Cubicle 7 Entertainment uses its own setting and also a streamlined version of the same mechanics as Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition, but designed for slicker, faster play. The result is that Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Imperium Maledictum is a solid introduction to roleplaying in the Imperium of Mankind and facing its perils.

On the tail of Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another Dungeon Master and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. Another popular choice of system for fanzines, is Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, such as Crawl! and Crawling Under a Broken Moon. One aspect of Crawling Under a Broken Moon is that it is designed to be played using the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game and not the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, despite it presenting a post-apocalyptic setting. Not so Mutant High School.

Mutant High School is a fanzine inspired by The Toxic Avenger, Class of Nuke ’Em High, Weird Science, et al—and although it does not list it, at least tonally, the roleplaying game, Teenagers from Outerspace, published by R. Talsorian Games, Inc. Published by Goodman Games, Mutant High School is set in No-Go City, some time in the near future. Formerly the city of Fresno, California, the radioactive waste capital of North America, an earthquake burst the underground storage tank for the waste, causing a geyser to erupt and shower the inhabitants in mutagenic goo that not only mutated every single one of them, but also made them sufficiently toxic themselves that any encounter with them who is not already mutated, has a chance of mutating them. So, the authorities swept in, locked down the city, built a wall around it, and with the enactment of the ‘Maximum Extreme Disproportionate Response to Emergent Mutations Act’—also known as the ‘MEDeR’M’ act—strictly controlled access to the city, with guards in hazmat suits on the walls and the ever-present buzzing of surveillance drones. Both internet access and mobile connection have been severely curtailed. Since Ooze Day, the former Fresno has been dubbed No-Go City or the Mutant Quarter.

As a consequence, the inhabitants of No-Go City have to get by on limited resources and information access. Which includes its students at Bullroar High School. For example, with no other high school to compete against, Coach Phelan, a Plantient strain of the coffee plant, has set up rival teams. Elsewhere, the inhabitants of No-Go City have been forced to recycle over and over, including turning vehicles into rough and ready jalopies (or rickety rides), cloths and so on, whilst there is a thriving black market—if the smugglers can get it past the guards and the roly-polys (or robo-police, who only have an occasional identifying No-Go City inhabitants as actually being human!)—for almost everything else. Alternatively, the inhabitants have access to their own homegrown drugs, including ‘27/7 Dust’, a potent stimulant, and ‘Telepathashish’, a telepathic weed that is sentient and encourages everyone nearby to say, “Just say yes”.

In terms of characters, a player takes the role of either a Mutant, Manimal, or Plantient, but not Pure Strain Human, who is a high school student. Otherwise, Player Characters are normal, First Level rather than Zero Level, and instead of rolling for Background, a player rolls for Archetype, such as Band Geek, Goth, or Punk. This provides some equipment and a special ability. For example, the Motorhead starts play with a rickety ride, a piecemeal toolkit, and +1d on all attempts to repair automobile and small engines. Besides their mutations, each Player Character is also ‘Best in Town’ at something, making them stand out, whether that is a specific form of attack, using a mutation, a skill check, and so on, and possesses a ‘Cool Mutation’, a mutation that makes them physically stand out even more, but which does not provide any other detail.
Since the inhabitants of No-Go City have the misfortune to live there, they are prone to bad luck. Instead of Fleeting Luck as per Mutant Crawl Classics, the inhabitants and thus the Player Characters have ‘Oozing Luck’. Gained for rolls of natural twenty and good play and lost for rolls of natural one, Luck ion No-Go City tends to either stick around or ooze away. It can actually go below zero and impose a penalty to the Player Character’s Luck attribute. The use of Oozing Luck is tied into the ‘Mute-Guffin’, which is badly named because it is not a silent ‘guffin’, but rather an NPC with an agenda that is connected to the one of the Judge’s storylines. A Player Character can earn a point of Oozing Luck for successfully identifying the ‘Mute-Guffin’ and for successfully supporting the ‘Mute-Guffin’, but lose a point if the ‘Mute-Guffin’ is identified incorrectly. There is an option suggested for the opposite of a ‘Mute-Guffin’, the ‘Anti-Mute-Guffin’.

Running to just sixteen pages, there is still a lot of background in Mutant High School, covering studying and exams, find equipment, the wall surrounding the city, and various factions in and outside the city. Inside the city, ‘The Church of the Burbling Redeemer’, a law-abiding new cult lead by the mutant fusion of five interfaith council members who preach the beneficence of mutating slime and want to spread its effects beyond the wall; the sheriff and his Robo-Polys in near constant conflict with the criminal motorcycle gang, the Ultras; and the ‘Toxic Truthers’, outsiders who refuse to believe in Ooze Day and its effects, and resent not being able to walk about the twenty-five square miles blocked off by the wall as every true patriot should be allowed to do. Some even believe that the toxicity of No-Go City will cure all manner of ailments, which is why big pharma is denying them access!

Rounding out Mutant City High is a set of descriptions of various events that happen in No-Go City and an adventure hook, ‘Prom Night’. There is just about enough here to help a Judge get a mini-campaign started.

Physically, Mutant City High is decently produced, as you would expect for a release from Goodman games. It is lightly illustrated, but everything else is well explained, although the background does come after the rules for character creation, so that does read oddly, at least initially. A map of No-Go City would have been useful.

Mutant High School offers an alternative to the post-apocalyptic future of Terra A.D. of Mutant Crawl Classics. On one level it reads an alternative roleplaying setting of the nineteen eighties, but there is contemporary strand to it that effectively makes Mutant High School a Lockdown-era roleplaying setting, although one seen through a weird and wacky lens. Mutant High School packs a lot into its scant few pages, its combination of the weird and the familiar making it easy to develop further content for by the Judge, but really Mutant High School deserves more than just the one issue of the fanzine and even its own supplement.

On the tail of Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another Dungeon Master and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry and Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. Some fanzines though, do traditional fantasy, but not in the way that you might expect.

Pregame Lobby Issue #1 is a fanzine for .Dungeon – an alternate reality RPG. Published by Project NERVES, .Dungeon is a storytelling game which plays around with ideas and conventions behind the play of a MMORPG, using this to help the players build and explore a shared experience of playing in a shared play space. The conceit behind Pregame Lobby Issue #1 continues that of .Dungeon as a MMORPG in that it moves the online game from a beta test and into full release, presenting the space onscreen in the game where the publisher can gives updates about the game, a player can find other players, and so on, before leaping into the game’s first event. So there is a ‘Your friend’s list’, a list of your friends that are playing and what their current status and an introduction to the game’s launch event quest. This primarily focuses upon the release of a new play area, ‘Snowbleak’, and even carries the warning, “Don’t fast travel to Snowbleak”. Snowbleak is also a hexcrawl in terms of the pen and paper roleplaying and it turns out that the village and its surrounds atop the wintery mountain are infested with zombies. Zombies that are very difficult to kill! At every server reset, a fresh blanket of snow drops onto both mountain and village and every day at 12:01 Pacific Standard Time, all of the surviving zombies get up and make a co-ordinated attack on the village. The problem is that it takes a lot of co-ordinated damage—for which the players/Player Characters—are going to have to work together to inflict. If they succeed, the zombie is removed from the server, but if they fail, the zombie just gets up again. Worse, if a player/Player Character loses all of his Connection (to the server)—the equivalent of Hit Points in .Dungeon—he will not only die, but a zombie will rise in his image, thus increasing the number of zombies blighting Snowbleak!

As a hexcrawl/region to explore, Pregame Lobby Issue #1 includes a PVP Arena, a cave home to a roaming boss monster, a couple of NPCs to encounter, the location of Snowbleak, and a table of random encounters. The ‘PVP Enabled Dueling Arena’ allows an aspect of the MMORPG to be brought into the traditional roleplaying, which the latter traditionally avoids, and that is player versus player combat. Or rather, the conceit of it. For whilst ‘PVP Enabled Dueling Arena’ includes tables to generate players to face in the arena in .Dungeon, these are, of course, not Player Characters in the traditional roleplaying sense. In this way, Pregame Lobby Issue #1 continues the conceit of .Dungeon. Several NPCs are detailed, including Colossus, a roaming Boss monster which the players/Player Characters can persuade to help them if they know how.

Snowbleak—variously described as a city and a village in Pregame Lobby Issue #1, but definitely a randomly generated settlement from pre-beta best known for the ease of the beginning quests in and around the area. All that seems to remain is a few buildings around a river crossing, inhabited by those NPCs who not yet been driven out by the zombies. The descriptions do feel underwritten, in particular, it would have been useful to have included a Quest or two that the players/Player Characters can undertake. That said, there is plenty of scope for the Game Master to develop these and further content in and around Snowbleak, including on the backside of the mountain, given a cursory description in its own region/hexcrawl at the back of the fanzine. Pregame Lobby Issue #1 is rounded out with a list of cheat codes for .Dungeon to further enforce its conceit.

Physically, Pregame Lobby Issue #1 eschews the landscape format of .Dungeon, but not the bold colours and bitmapped style font for its titles. The layout feel perfunctory, but the artwork throughout is excellent.

Pregame Lobby Issue #1 is both a lovely little supplement for .Dungeon and slightly disappointing. It does feel underwritten, as if there should be more to the location of Snowbleak. Some of that is due to the conceit, that .Dungeon and thus the region of Snowbleak is a MMORPG and their play is not as demanding or as involving as a traditional pen and paper, tabletop roleplaying game typically is. However, .Dungeon – an alternate reality RPG is actually played as a traditional pen and paper, tabletop roleplaying game, so the details and the involvement required are greater. Ultimately, Pregame Lobby Issue #1 provides a good introductory setting for .Dungeon – an alternate reality RPG, but the Game Master will probably want to add her own content to flesh it out further...

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another DM and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.
Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will be compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. Then there is also Old School Essentials.
Carcass Crawler is ‘The Official Fanzine Old-School Essentials zine’. Published by Necrotic Gnome, Old School Essentials is the retroclone based upon the version of Basic Dungeons & Dragons designed by Tom Moldvay and published in 1981, and Carcass Crawler provides content and options for it. It is pleasingly ‘old school’ in its sensibilities, being a medley of things in its content rather than just the one thing or the one roleplaying game as has been the trend in gaming fanzines, especially with ZineQuest. Carcass Crawler #1 focused on Classes and Races alongside its other support for Old School Essentials, whereas although Carcass Crawler Issue #2 does provide new Races and Classes, it instead focuses on general support for the Player Character and playing Old School Essentials. Carcass Crawler Issue #3 continues the fanzine’s thread of providing new Classes for Old School Essentials.

Carcass Crawler Issue #3 describes five new character Classes and four new Races. What this means is that it follows standard Old School Essentials rules in that it allows for ‘Race as Class’ as well as supporting the separation of Race and Class as per Old School Essentials: Advanced Fantasy. ‘New Classes and Races’ by Gavin Norman opens with the first of its new Classes, the ‘Beast Master’. This Class gains a number of loyal animal companions equal to its Level, can identify tracks, and can come to understand the speech of animals and communicate with them. Essentially, this is a Class is going to see the Player Character controlling a pack of animals for various purposes depending upon the animal. Exactly what each animal can do is going for the player and the Game Master to decide. The ‘Dragonborn’ is the first of the four ‘Race as Class’ options in the issue and the first which harks back to an earlier edition of Dungeons & Dragons, in this case, Dungeons & Dragons 3.5. The Dragonborn has a breath weapon and partial immunity according to its draconic bloodline, and so on, and is generally similar to the Dragonborn of Dungeons & Dragons. The ‘Mutoid’ is the first of two radically different Classes. It consists of a demihuman with randomly determined mismatched body parts, such as Beast Ears for improved hearing and Spring Legs for a leap attack. The Class has several Thief skills, plus Mimicry, and can eventually set up a secret lair and start a Thieves’ Guild, but in general, are shunned by society. The second radically different Class is the Mycellian, a humanoid mushroom who can emit a spray of Fungal Spores—either pacifying or hallucinogenic, grow in stature increasing its unarmed combat damage and natural Armour Class, and relies on telepathy for communication. Once a Mycellian reaches Sixth Level it can found an underground stronghold and create a fungal zombie as a minion. The Mycellian is a pleasingly personal take upon the mushroom men-style monster of Dungeons & Dragons. The last of the new races is the second to be obviously drawn from a previous version of Dungeons & Dragons, this time from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Second Edition. The Race is the Tielfling and it has Fiendish Heritage, Fiendish Appearance, and a Fiendish Gift, typically a spell or resistance. It also has the power to Beguile with its words and knows the Thief’s stealth skills.
These are all a nice selection of Classes, presenting the Game Master with plenty of choice in terms of deciding what Races she has in her campaign and she is given advice to that end. All five Classes though are presented in the standard two-page spread for Old School Essentials, making them highly accessible. Four of the ‘Race as Class’ Classes—Dragonborn, Mutoid, Mycellian, and Tielfling—are in turn presented as Races. This enables their use in combination with a Class as per Old School Essentials: Advanced Fantasy.
Also by Gavin Norman is ‘Expanded Equipment’. For Adventuring Gear, this adds thing such as the bucket, magnifying glass, sledgehammer, and more. Weapons & Armour lists padded armour, furs, studded leather, banded mail, and full plate, so encompassing the wider range of armour found in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, whilst new weapons include bastard sword, blackjack, blowgun, bolas, and more. These also have weapon qualities, like Entangle for the whip and Versatile for the bastard sword, which can be used one-handed or two-handed. Overall, it expands the range of equipment and options available to a campaign and the players and their characters.
Donn Stroud pens ‘Woodland Monsters’. This is a bestiary of eight creatures. It includes the ‘Bracketfolk’, humanoid bracket fungi who live in families on a single tree; ‘Burlbug’ are gnarled nocturnal, and territorial simians who howl when disturbed or annoyed and like to collect gems; the ‘Corpse Vine’ is a carnivorous plant that hangs from trees and pulls up its victims to constrict and slowly digest them, tempting them with prior victims turned into twitching corpses; the ‘Ghoul-Stag’ is a horrible decaying corpse of a deer animated after the bite of a Ghoul; the Skull Spider Nettle is a mobile carnivorous plant which occupies skulls and scuttles around injecting its spores into its victims using its lashes; the ‘Spell Croaker’ is a giant tree frog infused with magic as a tadpole, which can randomly disgorge a spell, whilst the ‘Spell Croaker Tadpole’ is the immature form, which flies around disenchanting magical items and spell-casters; and lastly, ‘Stick-Children’ are insects which cover themselves in branches they saw from trees with their mandibles, giving them a humanoid appearance. There is a good mix here which the Game Master can pick and choose from to populate the woodlands in her campaign.

Lastly, Gavin Norman gives advice on monsters in ‘Creating Monsters’. It is a very straightforward piece, suggesting that the Game Master begin with tweaking or re-skinning an existing monster rather than starting from scratch. However, if that does not work in the given situation, it guides the Game Master through an eight-step process, looking at factors to consider at each step. This starts with the imagination and then goes through Hit Dice, Armour Class, Movement Rate, Attacks, and Special Abilities before calculating Derived Stats and taking into account any final details. To be honest the article is one the like of which has been written again and again about Dungeons & Dragons-style monsters and their creation. This does not mean that the advice or the article are poor. In fact, this is a useful article which lets the Game Master look at monsters from another angle.
Physically, Carcass Crawler Issue #3 is well written and well presented. The artwork is excellent.
Carcass Crawler Issue #3 feels as if it is capping off a trilogy that comprises a character Class compendium for Old School Essentials. Indeed, Necrotic Gnome could present all of the Classes and Races to appear in the pages of the fanzine and it would be a serviceable supplement providing further options for player and Game Master alike. Hopefully, future issues will contain fewer new Classes and open up the otherwise excellent support for Old School Essentials that Carcass Crawler provides to wider content. That said, Carcass Crawler #3 is a solid issue and its Classes and monsters are interesting and the fanzine continues to be an enjoyable old school-style publication.

Now in its sixteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2023 took place on Saturday, June 24th. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Thanks to the generosity of David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3, Fil Baldowski at All Rolled Up, and others, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day, both in the USA and elsewhere.

—oOo—

Published by Magpie Games, Root: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game is a roleplaying game based on the award-winning Root: A Game of Woodland Might & Right board game, about conflict and power, featuring struggles between cats, birds, mice, and more. The Woodland consists of dense forest interspersed by ‘Clearings’ where its many inhabitants—dominated by foxes, mice, rabbits, and birds live, work, and trade from their villages. Birds can also be found spread out in the canopy throughout the forest. Recently, the Woodland was thrown into chaos when the ruling Eyrie Dynasties tore themselves apart in a civil war and left power vacuums throughout the Woodland. With no single governing power, the many Clearings of the Woodland have coped as best they can—or not at all, but many fell under the sway or the occupation of the forces of the Marquise de Cat, leader of an industrious empire from far away. More recently, the civil war between the Eyrie Dynasties has ended and is regroupings its forces to retake its ancestral domains, whilst other denizens of the Woodland, wanting to be free of both the Marquisate and the Eyrie Dynasties, have formed the Woodland Alliance and secretly foment for independence.

Between the Clearings and the Paths which connect them, creatures, individuals, and bands live in the dense, often dangerous forest. Amongst these are the Vagabonds—exiles, outcasts, strangers, oddities, idealists, rebels, criminals, freethinkers. They are hardened to the toughness of life in the forest, but whilst some turn to crime and banditry, others come to Clearings to trade, work, and sometimes take jobs that no other upstanding citizens of any Clearing would do—or have the skill to undertake. Of course, in Root: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game, Vagabonds are the Player Characters.

Root: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game is ‘Powered by the Apocalypse’, the mechanics based on the award-winning post-apocalyptic roleplaying game, Apocalypse World, published by Lumpley Games in 2010. At the heart of these mechanics are Playbooks and their sets of Moves. Now, Playbooks are really Player Characters and their character sheets, and Moves are actions, skills, and knowledges, and every Playbook is a collection of Moves. Some of these Moves are generic in nature, such as ‘Persuade an NPC’ or ‘Attempt a Roguish Feat’, and every Player Character or Vagabond can attempt them. Others are particular to a Playbook, for example, ‘Silent Paws’ for a Ranger Vagabond or ‘Arsonist’ for the Scoundrel Vagabond.

To undertake an action or Move in a ‘Powered by the Apocalypse’ roleplaying game—or Root: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game, a character’s player rolls two six-sided dice and adds the value of an attribute such as Charm, Cunning, Finesse, Luck, or Might, or Reputation, to the result. A full success is achieved on a result of ten or more; a partial success is achieved with a cost, complication, or consequence on a result of seven, eight, or nine; and a failure is scored on a result of six or less. Essentially, this generates results of ‘yes’, ‘yes, but…’ with consequences, and ‘no’. Notably though, the Game Master does not roll in ‘Powered by the Apocalypse’ roleplaying game—or Root: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game.

So for example, if a Player Character wants to ‘Read a Tense Situation’, his player is rolling to have his character learn the answers to questions such as ‘What’s my best way out/in/through?’, ‘Who or what is the biggest threat?’, ‘Who or what is most vulnerable to me?’, ‘What should I be on the lookout for?’, or ‘Who is in control here?’. To make the Move, the player rolls the dice and his character’s Cunning to the result. On a result of ten or more, the player can ask three of these questions, whilst on a result of seven, eight, or nine, he only gets to ask one.

Moves particular to a Playbook can add to an attribute, such as ‘Master Thief’, which adds one to a character’s Finesse or allow another attribute to be substituted for a particular Move, for example, ‘Threatening Visage’, which enables a Player Character to use his Might instead of Charm when using open threats or naked steel on attempts to ‘Persuade an NPC’. Others are fully detailed Moves, such as ‘Grab and Smash’. When a Player Character wants to smash through some scenery to reach someone or something, his player rolls the character’s Might in a test. The Move enables the character to reach the target on a hit. However, this is not without its consequences. This can the character hurting himself and the player marking an injury, break an important part of his surroundings, or damage or leave behind a piece of gear. One a roll of 10+, the character suffers one of these consequences; on a roll of 7-9, he suffers two; and on a miss, he smashes but is left totally vulnerable on the other side.

Root: Hacksaw Dell Quickstart is the Free RPG Day 2023 from Magpie Games for Root: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game. It includes an explanation of the core rules, six pregenerated Player Characters or Vagabonds and their Playbooks, and a complete setting or Clearing for them to explore. From the overview of the game and an explanation of the characters to playing the game and its many Moves, the introduction to the Root: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game in Root: Hacksaw Dell Quickstart is well-written. It is notable that all of the Vagabonds are essentially roguish in nature, so in addition to the Basic Moves, such as ‘Figure Someone Out’, ‘Persuade an NPC’, ‘Trick an NPC’, ‘Trust Fate’, and ‘Wreck Something’, they can ‘Attempt a Roguish Feat’. This covers Acrobatics, Blindside, Counterfeit, Disable Device, Hide, Pick Lock, Pick Pocket, Sleight of Hand, and Sneak. Each of these requires an associated Feat to attempt, and each of the six pregenerated Vagabonds has one, two, or more of the Feats depending just how roguish they are. Otherwise, a Vagabond’s player rolls the ‘Trust to Fate’ Move.

The six pre-generated Vagabonds include Laeliana the Arbiter, an experienced Mole mercenary who is looking for the right battles to fight; Jexri the Champion, a Lizard who is devout follower of the Great Wyrm and defender of those who need it; Yates the Envoy, a Toad envoy who works as a diplomat for hire; Mint the Prince, a young Fox trying to live up to the reputation of her mother; Rackham the Thief, a bird thief who has returned to Hacksaw Dell to show off their expertise as a burglar; and Knohadd the Vagrant, a Possum ex-Riverfolk Company captain, who comes with plenty of baggage. All six of these Vagabonds have links to the given Clearing and its NPCs in Root: Hacksaw Dell Quickstart, and all six are complete with Natures and Drives, stats, backgrounds, Moves, Feats, and equipment. All a player has to do is decide on a couple of connections and each Playbook is ready to play.
As its title suggests, the given Clearing in Root: Hacksaw Dell Quickstart is Hacksaw Dell. Its description comes with an overarching issue and conflicts within the Clearing, important NPCs, places to go, and more. The situation in Hacksaw Dell is different to that of most Clearings. Until recently, the Marquisate operated a lumbermill in the Clearing, but this was targeted by the Woodland Alliance and burnt down, only a month ago. An Assembly of Citizens has been established to create a charter to govern the newly freed Clearing, but progress is not fast enough for some. This is includes the Woodland Alliance provocateurs who liberated the Clearing, some of whom want to repeat the action they took in liberating the Clearing and many other citizens who have found succour in the Lizard Cult. Others want to install a prince like they had in the days when the Eyrie Dynasties ruled the Clearing. These four Conflicts make up the plots to be explored and developed in the Clearing and each is fully detailed and includes notes on what happens if the vagabonds do not get involved and leave the Conflict to develop on its own. For the Game Master there is a good overview of the Clearing and notes of where to begin when running the Root: Hacksaw Dell Quickstart and getting the Vagabonds involved. There suggestions also as to how escalate the situation for each of the Vagabonds to draw them further into the ongoing events in Hacksaw Dell.

Physically, Root: Hacksaw Dell Quickstart is a fantastic looking booklet, done in full colour and printed on heavy paper stock. It is well written and the artwork, taken from or inspired by the Root: A Game of Woodland Might & Right board game, is bright and breezy, and really attractive. Even cute. Simply, just as Root: The Pellenicky Glade Quickstart was for Free RPG Day 2020, Root: The Bertram’s Cove Quickstart was for Free RPG Day 2021, and Root: Talon Hill Quickstart for Free RPG 2022, so too Root: Hacksaw Dell Quickstart is physically the most impressive of all the releases for Free RPG Day 2023.

If there is an issue with Root: Hacksaw Dell Quickstart it is that it looks busy and it looks complex—something that often besets ‘Powered by the Apocalypse’ roleplaying games. Not only do players need their Vagabond’s Playbooks, but also reference sheets for all of the game’s Basic Moves and Weapon Moves—and that is a lot of information. However, it means that a player has all of the information he needs to play his Vagabond to hand, he does not need to refer to the rules for explanations of the rules or his Vagabond’s Moves. That also means that there is some preparation required to make sure that each player has the lists of Moves his Vagabond needs. Another issue is that the relative complexity and the density of the information in Root: Hacksaw Dell Quickstart means that it is not a beginner’s game and the Game Master will need a bit of experience to run Hacksaw Dell and its conflicts.

Ultimately, the Root: Hacksaw Dell Quickstart comes with everything necessary to play and keep the attention of a playing group for probably three or four sessions, possibly more. Although it needs a careful read through and preparation by the Game Master, Root: Hacksaw Dell Quickstart is a very good introduction to the rules, the setting, and conflicts in Root: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game—and it looks damned good too. For the Game Master who is already running a Root: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game campaign, the Root: Hacksaw Dell Quickstart provides another Clearing that she can add to her campaign with the others available in the proper quick-start for the roleplaying game as well as releases for previous Free RPG Days.

Faecal Lands is quite possibly the dirtiest book published for use with Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay. The simplest description of the book is that it details a pocket dimension for use with that roleplaying game, or indeed any Old School Renaissance-style retroclone—and this is true. Which it does. However, the very nature of that pocket dimension and what it contains is certain to make every player, every character, and every Game Master recoil in a combination of horror and disgust. And seriously, if any of them react differently, you should be worried. So be prepared to be disgusted at the content of this book and even be disgusted at this review, because such a reaction to either is perfectly understandable. If though, you have no desire to read further, whether because of the warnings given so far or because even the title hints at too much, that is also understandable. Faecal Lands is definitely not a book for everyone and it is definitely difficult to quite work out who Faecal Lands is actually for. So last warning then…

Faecal Lands, published by Lamentations of the Flame Princess, is written by the publisher and creator of The Midderlands setting and the author of the highly regarded The Staffortonshire Trading Company Works of John Williams. It details a pocket dimension where all of the worlds’ excrement and urine are dumped. This is the Faecal Lands of the title, a brown-stained, stench-laden mini-world consisting of hills and valleys of compacted excreta cut through by lakes and rivers of urine. Here swarms of Bloated Shit Flies go in search of corpses to feed on and implant eggs that will hatch into Bloated Shit Fly Maggots; the black serpentine Egg Collectors burrow in search of the eggs laid by the Bloated Shit Flies, often herded by Excrement Golems; Pisscatore, demonic angler fish hunt in the lakes, even waddling ashore to pull corpses into the lakes; Faecal Goblins, the creation of Dreadmaster Balayoch in the Flatulent Pits, conduct tunnelling and other menial tasks; and Lord Faecius, twelve feet tall, sits on his throne of compacted ordure in his tower of compacted dung from where he rules his domain as the white juice of Bloated Shit Fly eggs dribbles down his belly… The Faecal Lands are home to various other demons too, typically the excretory analogues to the demons of Dungeons & Dragons, and even a Faecal Dragon.

In addition to all of these monsters and a size character for all of them, Faecal Lands describes several locations, as well as how to travel and survive in this rancid region, suggests ways to bring the Player Characters there, lists two hundred encounters and plot hooks, and explains how the Player Characters can escape their poopy prison and gives them several means to do so. So, the question is, how do you use Faecal Lands? As written, the Player Characters find themselves in this dimensional dung heap, either through reading the wrong tome, suffering a curse, being punished by a demon, or similar things, and have to find their out of the pocket dimension. Thankfully, the Faecal Lands are small and their options limited, but exploration will discover ways through which they can make their escape—and even a potential ally!

Physically, Faecal Lands is well presented and easy to use. Especially if you like shades of brown (and yellow). The artwork cannot be described—for the most part—as anything other than grotty, but the maps are unsurprisingly decent given the identity of the author.

So the other question is, how would you even use Faecal Lands? Well, definitely not as a one-shot, probably not somewhere to take the Player Characters intentionally, and unless your players have the strongest of stomachs, not somewhere to spring on them and their characters unexpectedly. Yet there are ways of using it. The contents describe a hellish pocket dimension where demon lords banish others as a punishment and if you can have Hell in your campaign, why not Hell for the hellish and the demonic? It could exist in a campaign and maybe never be visited, just hinted at in dark tomes and whispered about in furtive conversations between demonologists, demon hunters, and demon-worshipping cultists, as one of the nastiest places imaginable, a hell for other demons. The Player Characters might hear about it, know of its existence, and so, in way, at least be slightly mentally prepared when they end up in the Faecal Lands, whether through a miscast Teleport spell, reading from the wrong book, being cursed, or being punished by demon for reneging on a deal…

Faecal Lands is an unpleasant book and undeniably and intentionally so. It is not unusable though, and the book is well done, but whether a Game Master actually would use it is another matter. It would take a strong stomach as well as a good reason to do so. Ultimately, the appeal of Faecal Lands, let alone its utility is limited, probably extremely so. As to the author, who knew he had a book, let alone a setting like this, in him? Well, now he doesn’t.

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

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

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

Senet Issue 7 was published in the spring of 2022. It opens with an editorial that highlights the reach and width of board games, often to unexpected corners and fans. This includes, in this case, the late lyricist and composer, Steven Sondheim, who was a subscriber of the magazine. This quite made the editor’s week. It an aspect of the hobby that is highlighted elsewhere in the magazine, notably in the ‘Points’, the regular column of readers’ letters.

The issues gets down to its contents with ‘Behold’, its regular preview of some of the then-forthcoming board game titles. As expected, ‘Behold’ showcases its previewed titles to intriguing effect, a combination of simple write-ups with artwork and depictions of the board games. The standouts here are Don’t Go In There, a spooky exploration of a haunted house that is strong on apprehension versus the desire to delve deeper into the house and has some fantastically gothic style artwork, and Crescent Moon, an asymmetrical area-control game whose theme is the five factions and their differences of the Abbasid Caliphate.

‘Points’, the regular column of readers’ letters, covers a number of different topics. One discusses the misuse of the word ‘cull’ in terms of excising boardgames from your library, whilst another highlights the issues with the use of apps in games and their likely obsolescence, essentially making the games unplayable. There is also a lovely letter about a teenage gamer having discovered not only the joy of boardgames, but also the joy of introducing the hobby to his friends and family. The most interesting letter is from an American in Korea who was amazed to discover the cultural differences between the USA and Korea in terms of boardgame mechanics. These differences have been highlighted, at least for Call of Cthulhu, in the pages of Bayt al Azif – A magazine for Cthulhu Mythos roleplaying games, and perhaps this is a possible thread that Senet magazine could follow up in future issues. In ‘For Love of the Game’, Tristian Hall continues his designer’s journey towards the completion and publication of his Gloom of Kilforth. In previous issues he explored how the game became a vehicle for roleplaying and storytelling, used the mechanics to bring the game and its background to life, marketing options, and dealing with feedback and criticism about a game’s design, but in this issue, he writes about world-building and immersion through text and art, and how historical research can really benefit the design of a game.

Senet follows a standard format of articles and article types. One explores a theme found in board games, its history, and the games that showcase it to best effect, whilst another looks at a particular mechanic. In between there are two interviews, one with a designer, the other with an artist. The mechanical article in Senet Issue 7 is quite short and is on word games. Of course, ‘Word Play’ by Owen Duffy, begins with Scrabble—and arguably a whole article could be devoted to that game—but it quickly expands to explore more modern designs, such as Paperback and Wibbell++ (or The Ell Deck). The article also highlights five word games that can used as party games that also pull the word game away from its dry spelling contest origins. Though a little short, the article is a good overview of the format.

The artist interviewed in ‘The Pathfinder’ is with Francesca Baerald, best known for her work on Gloomhaven and Descent: Legends of the Dark, big boardgames with strong roleplaying aspects to them, as well as to roleplaying games such as Legend of the Five Rings. The article explores her background and how she became an artist before providing her space to comment upon a handful of her pieces. Not all of them are maps, but those maps do stand out, presenting rich and detailed worlds that beg to be explored. There is no pullout in this issue showcasing her artwork, but nevertheless, this is artwork that pulls the viewer into its depth and detail. The artist interviewed in the previous issue was with Miguel Coimbra, best known for illustrating the mini-civilisation-style 7 Wonders and the fantasy wargame of variable races and powers, Small World. So its seems apt that the games designer interviewed in Senet Issue 7 in ‘Wonder Man’ is with Antoine Bauza, the designer of the award-winning 7 Wonders and Hanabi. Interviewed at the same time as his new game, Oltréé, was published, the interview is far ranging, covering his gaming and publishing history, his love of co-operative games, his fascination with Japan as seen in Takenoko and Tokaïdo, and unfortunately, his frustrations and disillusionment with the hobby. This is not something that has been seen in interviews in previous issues and here it ends the interview on a downbeat tone. Nevertheless, this is an interesting interview and Antoine Bauza’s games are shown off to best effect.

The theme or genre of game showcased in Senet Issue 7 is the trading card game or ‘TCG’. Where the earlier ‘Word Play’ began at the obvious starting point of Scrabble, in ‘Trade Wars’, Alexandra Sonechkina begins with Magic: The Gathering and its history. This is quickly rushed through—no surprise given that it could have taken up the whole article, but it has its own history in the form of Generation Decks: The Unofficial History of Gaming Phenomenon Magic: The Gathering—before the article looks at some of the variations and concepts behind the format. Unfortunately, there is an emphasis in the article on the bigger games such as Magic: The Gathering and Pokémon, which is understandable, and there no real exploration of smaller trading card games bar the one, Flesh and Blood. There have been hundreds of trading card games since the publication of Magic: The Gathering and it seems so limiting to have explored some of them. Worse perhaps, is that the article does not explore in any depth variations upon the trading card game format, so that for example, Arkham Horror: The Card Game, is mentioned as a co-operative trading card game format, but it only a mention and that element of co-operation is then ignored. Overall, the article is decent enough, but there are aspects of the trading card game format that the article sadly ignores.

‘Unboxed’, Senet’s reviews includes a review of Antoine Bauza’s Oltréé, and is joined by good reviews of Cascadia, Ankh: Gods of Egypt, The Adventures of Robin Hood, and others. it is a good mix and the reviews are all useful and informative. The reviews section is rounded out with top ten list of the Senet’s ‘The Best of 2021’, which is worth comparing with the reviews that appeared in previous issues.

Rounding out Senet Issue 7 are regular end columns, ‘How to Play’ and ‘Shelf of Shame’. For the former, Fred Cronin explores ‘Cultivating a collection’, suggesting ways to build a game library you can enjoy whilst avoiding some of the missteps he took himself. It is good advice and in a callback to the latter in ‘Points’, the readers’ letters column, in which a reader discusses the misuse of the word ‘cull’, suggests using the term ‘prune’ for removing games from your collection. For the latter, comedian and boardgames fan, John Robertson, looks at the heist game, Theives. It was a title he he was enticed by at UK Games Expo in 2018 after he handed the designer an award for it, but never got to play until after the copy he bought then he gave to his flatmate.

Physically, Senet Issue 7 is very professionally presented. It looks and feels as good as previous issues of the magazine.

As with previous issues, Senet Issue 7 offers a good mix of articles, interviews, and reviews. In places its articles feel slightly limited in their scope, but not to the point they where they needlessly detract from their content. For the boardgames fan, Senet continues to be a solid read.

As the world turns and dies and the prophecies of the Two-Headed Basilisk come true one after another, the coming apocalypse edges ever closer. On the last land in the Endless Sea there is no hope for those who have survived the pre-apocalyptic events to date, but for some faith in the Two-Headed Basilisk and her prophecies can blind them to all else and for others it can them away from the prophecies of the Two-Headed Basilisk seeking solace and hope in other gods, false gods. In the family of one priest of one church, both of these things have happened. When her father’s devotion to the Two-Headed Basilisk blinded him to the love she sought, jealousy took root in the daughter and impregnated her, leading to the birth of a demon son. Aghast at the two-headed monstrosity and its wailing from mouth and the heresies whispered from the other, the father’s faith was broken and cast both daughter and grandson into the earth under his church, where they fell under the influence of the vile-servant of They, the Seamstress. As the boy grew and wailed in the darkness, the Seamstress filled son and daughter with dark dreams until she became the Queen of the Darkest Chamber and he founded the Order of the Two-Headed Man. She wants her son to be worshipped as a god and he wants to take the prophecies of his demonic grandson to the people and the Order of the Two-Headed Man to supplant the Church of the Two-Headed Basilisk. Are their wishes one more heresy against the Church of the Two-Headed Basilisk or do they actually fulfil the prophecies of the Two-Headed Basilisk as was foretold?

This is the set-up for Psalm IV:I, a scenario for Mörk Borg, the Swedish pre-apocalypse Old School Renaissance retroclone designed by Ockult Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell and published by Free League Publishing. Published by Storeywood following a successful Kickstarter campaign, Psalm IV:I is a short, vile and bloody scenario that interprets ‘Psalm IV:I’ of the Two-Headed Basilisk’s prophecies, enabling the Player Characters to explore its revelations and both its ramifications and those of their actions as events in and under the church of the Two-Headed Man play out. Thus, it is designed around a specific timed event in the pre-apocalypse of Mörk Borg, although the Player Characters—and even the players—will not be aware of this. Alternatively, Psalm IV:I can simply be used as a short encounter in the Game Master’s campaign, easily slotting into that or any one of the various hexcrawl adventures published for Mörk Borg as a singular encounter of its own.
Psalm IV:I includes several hooks to get the Player Characters involved, including a local priest—the Father—beginning to flay and crucify the local townspeople, the Church of the Two-Headed Basilisk hiring them to suppress the Father’s heresy, a priest escaped from the Order of the Two-Headed Man asking them for their help, and their hearing rumours of a Two-Headed Man promising to save them. It provides a detailed background and backstory to the situation at the single church dedicated to the Order of the Two-Headed Man, including a lengthy timeline. Motivations are given for the quartet of involved in the story—the Daughter/Queen of the Darkest Chamber, her son, her Father, and the Seamstress—so that it is possible to interact with them and even side with them depending upon their actions and attitudes. Ways are suggested how such interactions might play out as are the possible effects of the Player Characters’ choices.
As a place to explore Psalm IV:I describes three distinct areas. These consist of the Courtyard with the Father’s crucified victims and the blood-trailed church; the Undercroft, the cramped crypts which have been twisted into the service of worshipping the Queen of the Darkest Chamber even as the Seamstress lurks, and ‘The Darkest Chambers’, where no light can reach or shine, and the Son wails and whispers piteously… The maps to each location are clear and Psalm IV:I adheres to the Mörk Borg format of keying maps and locations and their descriptions on the same page.
Psalm IV:I only introduces the one monster, the ‘Undead Courtier’, drawing primarily upon those in the Mörk Borg rule book. It does provide a guide for handling fear in the Undercroft, which includes exploiting the possible phobias of the Player Characters, which can be accrued either during character creation or through the result of trauma during play. There is also the means detailed to overcome the phobia as well. These phobia rules are optional though.
Physically, Psalm IV:I is a small book. It is mostly done in black with its artwork almost scratched into the pages in white or crayon-like colours. The effect is weird and creepy and adds to the gloom and sense of darkness that pervades the whole book.
Psalm IV:I is a solid scenario for Mörk Borg. The Game Master will need to make sure that she grasps the motivations of the four NPCs in the scenario, but otherwise Psalm IV:I is easy to add to a campaign, drop into a hexcrawl, or run as a one-shot, serving up a helping of spurned love and double heresy.

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

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What is it?Porcupine Cat is a “A 2 page terror for padding out Prax” for use with RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha which presents a creature and three hooks to use the creature in a campaign that the Game Master can develop and run as a single session’s worth of play.

It is a two page, full colour 255.71 KB PDF.

The layout is tidy, the artwork rough, but serviceable.

The creature and the scenario hooks can be easily be adapted to the rules system of the Game Master’s choice.
Where is it set?As written, Porcupine Cat details a creature found in Prax and the Big Rubble.

Who do you play?
Porcupine Cat does not require any specific character type, but as it can be found anywhere where there are granaries or rats and other vermin, almost any type of character encounter it.
What do you need?
Porcupine Cat requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha only.
What do you get?Porcupine Cat details a simple creature and provides three hooks involving the creature. The Porcupine Cat is a feline-like creature noted for the quills that run along its back and protrude from the end of its tail. It is not a threat to most adults, but can be to children. It can fire the quills from its tail. Quills that get stuck in the flesh are difficult to remove and painful enough to impede movement and other physical activity.

The supplement provides a general description of the Porcupine Cat, the effect of its quills, and an illustration along with the stats. This followed by the three adventure hooks. These are quite inventive, including spine getting stuck in the spirit of a warrior, obtaining quills for a Tarshite Lunar scribe who believes them to be perfect for writing the New Pelorian script, and going into the Big Rubble to find a sample beast for a local alchemist. These contain a reasonable amount of basic information, but will require the Game Master to develop further details.
Ultimately the usefulness of Porcupine Cat will depend upon if the Game Master does not mind adding another creature to Glorantha and does not mind developing the included scenario hooks.

Is it worth your time?Yes—Porcupine Cat is a short and simple supplement, and surprisingly better than anything intended “... for padding out Prax” deserves to be.No—Porcupine Cat is either set in Prax where the Game Master’s campaign is not or leaves too much for the Game Master to do given the simplicity of the content—if not both.Maybe—Porcupine Cat is not as bad as it sounds and the scenario hooks are workable.

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

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It is over a thousand years since the founding of the Empire of Thera with the establishment of the Eternal Library by the Elves to study and decipher the Books of Harrow. These volumes revealed that as the magic rose in the world, it enabled unimaginable horrors—previously only seen by wizards entering Astral Space—to break into the world and spread chaos, death, and destruction. Magic was yet to peak, and as the Theran Empire spread its influence and conquered new territories in search of more Books of Harrow, it traded—even warred—for orichalcum, the magically rich metal that would further the research of the Eternal Library, and it preached of the dangers to come. Ultimately, the staff at the Eternal Library determined that the only way for people to protect themselves was to magically seal whole communities in kaers and citadels, there to wait out the centuries until after magic had peaked and begun to decrease. Centuries passed before the Scourge of the Horrors ended and the inhabitants of the kaers knew it was safe to leave, but the land their ancestors had known is changed. Horrors still exist, in dark corners and the kaers whose defences they managed to breach, and there are still kaers that remain sealed, the fate of their inhabitants unknown. In Barsaive, a former province of the Theran Empire, the Dwarf kingdom of Throal arose as the Theran Empire retreated and has already driven back an initial attempt to reclaim the province by the empire. The many peoples of Barsaive, declared by the Kingdom of Throal free from being slaves of the Theran Empire as their ancestors had been, are thriving and there are many, known as ‘Adepts’ for their magical connection to the world, who aid the kingdom and explore its new lands.
This is the setting for Earthdawn, a new roleplaying game published by FASA in 1993. It was a big fantasy roleplaying game published at a time when no other fantasy roleplaying games were being published—except for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Second Edition. At the time it looked like an aberration, because after all, if you had Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Second Edition, did you actually need another fantasy roleplaying game? After all, what did Earthdawn offer that Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Second Edition did? The answer to that is both plenty and not a lot. Plenty, because it offered a detailed setting from the start, that of Barsaive; it provided a reason to explore the underground locations of its setting, the kaers, in way that the dungeons of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Second Edition did not; it offered plenty for the Player Characters to do, such as exploring kaers, sealed and unsealed, exploring the new world, protecting others from the remaining Horrors, and so on; it offered lots of character archetypes that enabled the Player Characters to do exciting things; and it had a rules system that was coherent and consistent from start to finish. Not a lot because it was still high fantasy like that of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Second Edition and you are still playing Elves, Dwarves, and the like; and kaers are still dungeons even if they are called kaers.
A Player Character or Adept in Earthdawn is defined by his Race, Attributes, Discipline and Circle, Talents, skills, and spells. There are eight core Races, known as the ‘Name-giver’ races, detailed in the Earthdawn core book: Dwarf, Elf, Human, Ork, and Troll are similar to their depiction in other fantasy roleplaying games, but in Barsaive, Dwarves are the dominant Race and culture. The other three are Obsidiman, creatures of living rock, over seven feet tall and weighing hundreds of pounds; T’Skrang, reptilian humanoids, matriarchal, flamboyant and sometimes frivolous; and Windlings, eighteen-inch tall fairie-like creatures with dragonfly-like wings. Obsidiman are seen as slow, but dependable; Orks as nomads, whose tribes will raid the civilised lands; Trolls as feared sky raiders, aerial pirates who crew longship-like sky boats; and T’Skrang as river traders when they are not part of the river pirate federations. Each Race has its own innate abilities. For example, Obsidiman are stronger and tougher, T’Skrang have a tail attack, Trolls are stronger and tougher and have heat vision, and Windlings are not as tough, but possess Astral Sensitive Sight and Flight. Humans have the Versatility Talent, which enables them to learn Talents from Disciplines other than their own. The six Attributes are Dexterity, Strength, Toughness, Perception, Willpower, and Charisma, and they range in value between two and eighteen.
There are thirteen Disciplines in Earthdawn. A Discipline is a way of studying magic and connecting to the magic of the world, and is both a profession and a way of life. They are Archer, Beastmaster, Cavalryman, Elementalist, Illusionist, Nethermancer, Sky Raider, Swordmaster, Thief, Troubadour, Warrior, Weaponsmith, and Wizard. The Elementalist, the Illusionist, the Nethermancer, and the Wizard are the specific spellcasters, with the Nethermancer’s magic involving the other planes. Each Discipline has eight Circles, representing the overall skill and experience of the Adept. In effect, Discipline is the equivalent of Class and Circle the equivalent of level, making Earthdawn as much as a Class and Level roleplaying game as it is a Discipline and Circle roleplaying game.
One of the features of Earthdawn is that both Races and Disciplines are strongly presented in the roleplaying game’s artwork. A colour section depicts all eight Races and each of the eight Discipline listings is accompanied by a ready-to-play archetype of that Discipline. Thus, the Beastmaster is accompanied by an Ork Beastmaster, the Sky Raider by the Troll Sky Raider, the Swordmaster by a T’Skrang Swordmaster, and the Weaponsmith by the Dwarf Weaponsmith. This is typical of roleplaying games designed in the nineties, but very much helped to enforce the feel and look of the world of Earthdawn.
To create an Adept in Earthdawn, a player selects a Race, Discipline, generates Attributes—either randomly or by a point-buy method, determines Step Number and Action Dice for each Attribute, assigns Ranks to the Talents from his first Circle, and assigns Ranks to Knowledge Skills, an Artisan Skills, and Language Skills. Knowledge Skills are areas of study, whilst Artisan Skills represent the arts and craft skills that the people of Barsaive practice in order to prove their creativity and thus not corrupted by the Horrors. Lastly, after equipping his Adept, a player selects one or two personality traits—one of which can be hidden if two are selected, and decides upon some background details.
Name: SheerRace: WindlingDiscipline: Archer Circle: First
ATTRIBUTE – STEP – ACTION DIEDexterity (17): 7/1D12Strength (11): 5/1D8Toughness (12): 5/1D8Perception (15): 6/1D10Willpower (15): 6/1D10Charisma (16): 7/1D12
TALENTSAvoid Blow (2): 9/1D8+1D6Direction Arrow (1): 8/2D6Karma Ritual (1): 8/2D6Missile Weapons (2): 9/1D8+1D6Mystic Aim (1): 8/2D6True Shot (1): 8/2D6
MOVEMENTFull: 48 (Land)/90 (Flight)Combat: 24 (Land)/45 (Flight)
SKILLSArtisan/Fletching (1): 8/2D6Knowledge/Windling Lore (1): 8/2D6Knowledge/Heroes & Legends (1): 8/2D6
LANGUAGESLanguage/Windling (1): 8/2D6Language/Dwarven (1): 8/2D6Read/Write/Dwarven (1): 8/2D6
KARMADice: D10 Points: 15
COMBATPhysical Defence: 10 Spell Defence: 8 Social Defence: 9 Armour: 4 Mystic Armour: 2
DAMAGEDeath Rating: 34 Wound Threshold: 9
Mechanically, Earthdawn uses all of the standard polyhedral dice and to succeed at an action, must roll high to beat a Difficulty Number. Every Attribute, Skill, and Talent has a Step Number. The base Step Numbers for an Adept are derived directly from the Attributes and the ranks that an Adept has in his Skills and Talents will increase their Step Number. The Step Number determines the Action Die or Action Dice that the player will roll for his Adept when using a Skill or Talent. Each Step Number is equal to the average roll on the Action Die or Action Dice. For example, the Action Die for a Step Number of six is a ten-sided die, the average roll for which is six. As an Adept increases the ranks he has in his Skills and Talents, the Step Number and Action Die for each will also increase. In combat, the Difficulty Numbers are determined by the opponent’s Physical Defence, Spell Defence, and Social Defence values, but for other actions, the Game Master assigns a Difficulty Number according to the difficulty of the task. The result of the roll is then compared to the difficulty of the task on the Success Level Table. The result can be Poor, Average, Good, Excellent, or Extraordinary. Higher results are possible because rolling the maximum on any die allows the player to roll and add the result of another die of the same type.For example, Sheer and his friends are exploring a kaer when they discover some ghouls. As his friends move to attack, Sheer draws an arrow and fires at a ghoul. The ghoul has a Physical Defence of seven and an Armour rating of four. Sheer’s player decides to use his Missile Weapons, for which he will roll an eight-sided die and a six-sided die and add the results together. He rolls a six on the eight-sided die and a six on six-sided die, which means he can roll another six-sided die and add that to the total. He rolls five and the grand total is seventeen. The Game Master compares this result versus the Difficulty Number of the Ghoul’s Physical Defence. This is not quite enough to get an Extraordinary result, but it is enough to get an Excellent result. This means that Sheer’s attack bypasses the ghoul’s armour (or hit it in a soft spot if no armour is worn) and it will suffer the full effect of the Damage Test.In addition, all Adepts—and some creatures—have Karma, which can be spent in two ways. Some Talents require Karma to be activated, but it can also be spent to add another Action Die to a test. The size of the die is determined by Race. The amount of Karma an adept has is limited, but it can be replenished through the Karma Ritual Talent and through expenditure of Legend Points, the equivalent of Experience Points in Earthdawn.
Magic forms a major part of the setting and background to Earthdawn and four of the Disciplines—the Elementalist, the Illusionist, the Nethermancer, and the Wizard—can cast spells. All four have their own spell lists and start play with several spells, but for each, this requires the Spellcasting, Thread Weaving, and Spell Matrix Talents. Effectively, casting spells is a three-step process, of which Spellcasting is the third and last. The first is Thread Weaving, which enables the spellcaster to weave threads of magic into a spell’s pattern which is then stored in Spell Matrix. Some spells require more than one thread. The Spell Matrix enables the spellcaster to hold and cast a spell free of interference from astral space. Otherwise, the magic would pass through the caster’s body and in the process, do him harm. Other Adepts can also have Thread Weaving, but this is tied to what their Disciplines do rather than enabling them to formulate spells. A spellcaster can have multiple threads being woven at any one time and will have more than the one Spell Matrix, often enabling him to have more than the one spell ready to cast at any one time. Each Spell Matrix is treated as its own Talent and stores the spell until it is cast or the caster dies. It is possible reattune the Spell Matrix to store a different spell, but this is challenging. Spells can also be cast from a grimoire, but if desperate, a spellcaster could cast raw magic, tapping directly from astral space. This though, makes him vulnerable to Warping, damage, and a Horror Mark Test, as astral space has been warped itself by the Horrors. If the Game Master succeeds at the Horror Mark Test, it means that things have gone badly for the spellcaster. In this case, his use of raw magic leaves a mark on the caster that acts a beacon for Horrors for a year and a day! A Horror Mark can also be gained through encounters with actual Horrors.
During play an Adept will earn Legend Points through play and this is directly spent by the player to increase the Ranks in his Adept’s Talents. In general, Ranks in Talents, because of their magical nature, are easier to increase than those in Skills. An Adept must train to advance to a new Rank and this requires some roleplaying too. One of the most unusual methods of training can be gained from a Ghost Master, one who has died, but whose spirit can be contacted. The requirements for this are demanding and the Adept will need to prepare for it.
For the Game Master, there is advice on the perils of adventuring, handling creatures and Horrors, exploring kaers, and travel, the latter the faster means by river and by air. This accompanied by good solid advice on running the roleplaying game in general, as well as creating adventures and NPCs, and how to award Legend Points. Only here though, is where the Success Level table given and the mechanics of Earthdawn fully explained—and this is some two-hundred-and forty-three pages, almost three-quarters of the way through the book!
One of the notable features of the core rulebook for Earthdawn is the inclusion of a pull-out insert of sixteen cards, each representing a single magical item. Each magical item in Earthdawn is unique—there are no generic items. Instead, a magical item has a pattern, like the spells, that an Adept can attach threads to and weave himself into. This cannot be done randomly, but requires research and tests of knowledge to discover aspects of a magical item. This starts with the Name of the item, then its creator’s Name, its abilities, the source of its materials and the Name of the creature who aided in its creation, and so on. Once this has been done, the Adept can weave threads into the item, the player expend Legend Points, and then make the item not only becomes part of the Adept’s legend, but the Adept also part of the item’s legend. In this way, magical items become important and attached to an Adept both mechanically and narratively in a way that other fantasy roleplaying books did not do.
The creatures in Earthdawn include a mix of creatures, monsters, and Horrors. Some like the ghouls and the zombie-like cadaver men are similar to those of other fantasy roleplaying games. Dragons are immensely powerful creatures, said to be millennia old, but tend to stay away from mortals. Three Dragon types, the Cathay Dragon, the Common Dragon, and the Great Dragon are detailed as are three dragons by name, but unlike in Shadowrun, Dragons do not themselves play a great role in the setting, at least in the core book. Shadowrun is important here, since would be later be revealed that Earthdawn was actually a prequel to the fantasy cyberpunk roleplaying game, which was set at another point in the cycle of magic. However, the ties between the two have been subsequently severed. Where Dragons are powerful, Horrors are powerful and nasty. They can animate the dead, corrupt Karma, shift damage it has suffered to other targets, leave Horror Marks, cast spells, inflect Terror, and more. They can be generic in nature like the Bloatforms which manipulate communities into acts of suicide and murder, and the Kreesca, misshapen humanoids that inflict horrible nightmares on the wounded, preventing them from healing. Or they can be of a singular nature, such as Chantrel’s Horror, named for the troubadour who dreamed it into existence. Some nine Horrors are described, all inventively horrible and difficult to defeat, representing strong challenges for any Adept. They are Earthdawn’s signature monster, but allow for lots of inventive variation.
Lastly, Earthdawn is rounded out with two sections which expand upon the background. The first explores the Passions that shape the spiritual beliefs and customs in Barsaive. Each embodies a trait such as love, art, revelry, and so on. Most Passions are positive forces, but there are mad Passions such as Raggok, who embodies vengeance, bitterness, and jealousy, and Vestrial, which embodies who embodies manipulation and deceit. Passions are worshipped, though not as organised faiths, whilst Questors pledge themselves to a particular Passion. There are no specific mechanical benefit to doing so, although Questers are respected across Barsaive whereas Adepts are too closely connected to magic to gain everyone’s trust or respect. Otherwise, the inclusion of the Passions is interesting to read, but there is not much in the way of application to play. The second is an expanded section of Barsaive, which provides an overview of the province.
Physically, Earthdawn is very well presented. The artwork, a mix of black and white and colour inserts is great, really bringing the setting to life. Yet the writing and certainly not the organisation is not as good as it should be. The spellcasting system, actually a pleasing mix flavour and mechanic, is not as well as explained as it could be since it requires much more work than simply casting a spell and rolling dice. The explanation of the mechanics is scattered across the book, with the actual explanation of the core mechanic and working out how successful a roll is, not appearing until almost three quarters of the way through the book. It really should have been given upfront so that the reader and the Game Master has a good grasp of them before reading the rest of the book. Nevertheless, Earthdawn is a good-looking book, even with the magic item cards removed (though most copies still retain them to this day). If it lacks anything, it is a scenario to play right from the off.

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Stewart Wieck reviewed Earthdawn as a ‘Feature Review’ in White Wolf Magazine #37 (July/August 1993). His review began the same that other initial reviews did. Comparing it with the then as now biggest roleplaying game in the industry, he opened with “What can be said about Earthdawn? Well, it’s better than AD&D. Then again, you’d have to wonder about a company that went to the trouble of releasing a fantasy game that isn’t better than AD&D. Even an outstanding game is going to have little chance of overtaking this grandfather of games, so what hope does a crappy game have? None. What chance does Earthdawn have, even though it’s better? None. There’s just not enough that’s new in the game to make it really stand out in the minds of current fantasy gamers.” The review continued in this fashion until Wieck awarded the roleplaying game a score of three out of five, and concluding with, “Earthdawn is a solid game, but the “innovations” seem like unnecessary complications. The world is fun, but not fresh. This is not the fantasy game to leave your current campaign for unless you want to bank on the ever-fulfilled FASA promise— an extensive line of support material, much of which will be very good and will undoubtedly add a lot to the game.”
Alongside Wieck, Sam Chupp and Travis Williams added their own brief reviews. Chupp also awarded Earthdawn a score of three and compared it to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, suggesting that, “If, however, you are looking for a new twist in fantasy roleplaying, you going to be patient and wait for another company to get brave enough (in a crowded market) to put out a brand-new, radical, out-of-this-world fantasy role-playing game.” Williams was more positive, awarding it four out of five, and praising it for its story, artwork, and sense of why the things were that they were, and, “Last, but not least, I gave Earthdawn one more point for their effort to make the game more colorful, and I mean this in an ethnic sense, I never really wanted to play a white person in AD&D, and [I] to play someone black I had to choose a dark elf. I respect FASA for making the effort to include black people in their fantasy games. Maybe more of us will play them as a result.”
Earthdawn would be reviewed in Shadis magazine, not once but twice. First in a ‘Feature Review’ by Jeff Zitomer in Shadis #10 (November/December 1993), which he began with the almost formulaic response of, “What, yet another fantasy RPG? Wrongo folks. Let’s face it, the market is flooded with bland fantasy role playing games. Has this become the hack genre of choice? Today’s gamers are a pretty savvy bunch. Sure, a big company like FASA certainly has the resources and talent to put together a snazzy-looking game, but can this newcomer compete?” Ultimately, Zitomer would be more positive than other reviewers, bring his review to a finish with “To sum it up, I think EARTHDAWN is going to be a classic. The background is unique and rich with adventuring possibilities. The rules, though voluminous, won’t take a lifetime to understand and won’t turn an adventure into a numbercrunching session. The game isn’t 100% perfect, however. There are some problems, such as the organization of the rules. In addition, I would’ve liked to have seen more background in the basic book instead of having to wait for supplements. As I mentioned before, these problems are more of an inconvenience than an impediment, and can be excused considering the sheer size of the game.” before closing with, “I give EARTHDAWN an “A-“. Check it out.”
The second review would appear in Shadis #24 (February 1996), again as a ‘Feature Review’, but this time by Jerome Rybak. As much an overview of the then range of supplements available as a review, Rybak’s review is by far the most positive: “Earthdawn has it all . Fantasy role-playing with dashes of horror (sec the Horrors supplement), exploration and adventure. It has enough of the traditional so I feel the swirls of nostalgia inside and enough innovation to keep me on my toes when I start to take things for granted. While the system is a bit too innovative for my taste, I highly recommend Earthdawn to anyone who runs a fantasy campaign. It really gives the fantasy genre a long-needed (albeit friendly) kick in the pants.”
Earthdawn was a ‘Pyramid Pick’ in Pyramid Vol. 1 Number 3 (September/October 1993). Reviewer, Chris W. McCubbin noted that, “The neat thing about Earthdawn’s setting is that it provides a completely logical framework for all the traditional fantasy roleplaying adventures. In D&D-style games, the realism-minded player is forever wondering, “if this kingdom is so ancient and civilized, why is this treasure-filled, haunted ruin sitting undisturbed ten miles outside the capital city?” He concluded the review by saying, “Although it never becomes bogged down in cliches and avoids outmoded concepts, Earthdawn is, at heart, a very traditional heroic fantasy RPG. In fact, it might be, in a very literal sense, the last word in heroic fantasy roleplaying – as the art of the RPG continues to expand beyond its sword-and-sorcery roots, Earthdawn might just turn out to be the last great FRPG. I predict it’s going to be a hit, and a fan favorite for years to come.”
Rick Swan reviewed Earthdawn in ‘Role-playing Reviews’ in Dragon #202 (February 1994), initially noting that a decade earlier, he would have questioned the “…[S]anity of any publisher attempting to go head-to-head with the AD&D® game.” He countered this with that wisdom that, “Almost any new fantasy RPG has a shot at elbowing its way into the market providing the publisher has a professional quality package, commits enough resources to promote it, and supports it with supplements. A good hook, preferably one that can be summarized in one line of ad copy, doesn’t hurt. (“Every character a spell-caster!” “Our dwarves are 10’ tall!”) It also pays to be different, but not too different. Successful RPGs tend to favor new twists on familiar concepts, not radical re-inventions; no one’s going to get rich with a game about magic-wielding kitchen appliances.” Yet his initial assessment was not favourable since it is clear that he felt that Earthdawn was not different enough, his opinion being that, “Despite workable rules and a clever setting, EARTHDAWN is more frosting than cake, with little of substance to distinguish it from the competition. Much of the game seems to parallel the AD&D system, including the archetypes (dwarves, dragons, and wizards), terminology (“circle” for “level”) (“legend points” for “experience Points”), even its polyhedral dice (d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, and d20). Maybe a better title would’ve been “DÉJÀ VU”.” These reservations would continue with his summation: “Wall-to-wall innovation isn’t necessary or even desirable for a new RPG. On the heels of FASA’s imaginative SHADOWRUN* game though, EARTHDAWN feels like a step back. The best stuff (the thread magic) doesn’t make the so-so stuff (the knotty mechanics) any more palatable.”, but similarly balanced with, “The more I played it however, the better it got. I liked the spells. I liked the background. I loved the t’skrang. Mists of Betrayal made me hungry for the next round of supplements. This game ain’t RUNEQUEST. It ain’t even TUNNELS & TROLLS. But in a greasy pizza, let’s-not-take-this-too seriously kind of way, EARTHDAWN holds its own. Will it be around in five years? I wouldn’t be surprised. Will I still be playing it? Now that would surprise me.”
In a 1996 reader poll conducted by Arcane magazine to determine the 50 most popular roleplaying games of all time, Earthdawn was ranked twenty-fourth. Editor Paul Pettengale commented that, “Very good indeed. Earthdawn combined traditional fantasy with Call of Cthulhu-style horror and a detailed background to create an evocative and interesting setting. Combined with a clear, well-designed rules system and an impressive range of supporting supplements and adventures, this is an excellent fantasy game. It’s also of special interest to fans of Shadowrun, because it describes the past of the same gameworld.”
Lastly, in 1999, Earthdawn was included in ‘Second Sight: The Millennium’s Most Influential Company and The Millennium’s Most Underrated Game’ in Pyramid (Online) (November 25th, 1999). He stated that, “Earthdawn had an original, inventive magic system (no mean trick given the hundreds of fantasy RPGs that came before), and a game world that gave you the classic ‘monsters and dungeons’ sort of RPG experience, but made sense doing it.”
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It is clear that at the time of its publication that Earthdawn drew strong comparisons with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Second Edition and questions as to whether there was any need for another big fantasy roleplaying game, since after all, Earthdawn offered a lot of similar things to the world’s most popular roleplaying game. Yet it offered a whole lot more—a coherent rules system, an interesting magic system, and a fascinating world right from the opening pages of the book, with everything designed to support and service that world.
With its emphasis on its setting, its combination of genres, fantasy and horror, and its coherent Step Number and Action Dice mechanics, Earthdawn does feel like a roleplaying game from the nineties, but one from the second half of the nineties rather than the first half. Earthdawn offered Dungeons & Dragons-style play in 1993, but explained that why style of play existed and how it worked by sliding it into a setting where it did not look of place and did make sense. And although designed in the early nineties, none of those choices or the mechanics have dated. Earthdawn is a roleplaying game that you pick up and play and not really know that it was published decades ago. With its big, bold treatment of high fantasy, magic, and horror, Earthdawn stands out as the preeminent fantasy roleplaying game of the decade.

Now in its sixteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2023 took place on Saturday, June 24th. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Thanks to the generosity of David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3, Fil Baldowski at All Rolled Up, and others, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day, both in the USA and elsewhere.

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Animal Adventures: Apocalypse Miaow is the release from Steamforged Games Ltd for Free RPG Day 2023. It is a scenario and preview of Animal Adventures: The Faraway Sea, the new expansion to the publisher’s Animal Adventures: Secrets of Gullet Cove, the cats and dogs anthropomorphic campaign and setting for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Where Animal Adventures: Secrets of Gullet Cove takes place in and around an English style port, Animal Adventures: The Faraway Sea moves the action and story to sea where the Player Characters, based in the floating city of Flotsam, set sail to explore the nearby islands that shift in and out of a magical vortex which lies a few miles travel from the Flotsam. Designed for group of three to six awakened animal Player Characters of Second and Third Levels, it is a short, intriguing affair combining action and mystery that can be played in a single session or so...

Animal Adventures: Apocalypse Miaow lets the Player Characters ‘Journey to the Heart of Barkness’* on the trail of Sadie the Corgi, an explorer of legendary repute, who led an expedition to explore the recently appeared Spine Fish Island. Unfortunately, only a few of her companions have returned, battered and bruised, with strange tales of ‘Clawptain Katz’ and the ‘spine fish’. Brave adventurers—in this case the Player Characters—are wanted to sail out to the island to discover what has happened to Sadie, and hopefully rescue her.

* Publisher’s pun, not mine.

The Player Characters do have the opportunity to prepare for the voyage, both by taking some expert advice about Spine Fish Island and asking the survivors of the expedition led by Sadie the Corgi. Armed with this, the voyage itself is easy and the seas are calm. The Player Characters’ trouble begin when they reach the island, which turns out to be mostly desert, but there is a river running through it, which is only accessible by trekking overland. The initial problem is the welcoming committee, a bunch of poorly armed cats who shout at the Player Characters to leave the island, but are otherwise not aggressive. Which seems odd given that both they and Clawptain Katz want the Player Characters to leave the island. Whether the Player Characters decide to attack or negotiate, the defending cats quickly reveal their true character and turn tail, almost apologetically, as if they have no fight in them. This encounter is staged on the map included in the centre of Animal Adventures: Apocalypse Miaow.
With the knowledge gained from the cats and likely a clearer explanation of what is going on, the Player Characters can make their way to the encampment of Clawptain Katz and there confront him. This requires them to cross a short stretch of the desert and then travel along the river, on which they will have to protect their boat from the predating Spine Fish. At Clawptain Katz’s encampment, it is quickly clear that he is holding Sadie the Corgi prisoner—but not so that she is unable to shout a few hints—and that Clawptain Katz seems to have the rest of the cats held under his rather selfish and autocratic sway. Has he turned dictator whilst he has been on the island, or is there another explanation?

Animal Adventures: Apocalypse Miaow is a likeable affair. It is more about the investigation and the interaction than the fight necessarily as the confrontation when the Player Characters land on the island might not result in a fight. Overall, it showcases some of basic details to Animal Adventures: The Faraway Sea and provides a good solid, session’s worth of play.

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

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For Faerie, Queen, and Country was the first ‘Universe Book’ to be published for the Amazing Engine game system, the first attempt at a generic system from TSR, Inc. It is set in an alternate Victorian Era, roughly in the 1870s, with Queen Victoria on the throne, with some radical differences. The most obvious of these is the presence of magic and the fae. The Unseelie Court has long been a presence on British Isles, ever since its horde rampaged out south from the Highlands of Scotland to be defeated by Aurelius Ambrosius and they continue to be a threat today, often hand-in-hand with the Esteemed Order of Thaumaturgists, which has connections in both Scotland and Ireland. In particular, it claims that James of Calais is the rightful claimant to the throne that Queen Victoria currently occupies. This is despite the Prince of Scotland having an important role in Scotland’s governance title established in 1701 as a condition of accepting the Hanoverian Succession to the throne. Ireland remains part of the empire, but Tir Nan Og remains under the independent rule of the Tuatha de Dannan, only adding to friction between the authorities and those fomenting for the settlement of the Irish question. Even so, every Tuatha sidhe barrow requires a sperate embassy of its own lest a fairie noble be slighted.
Abroad, France remains a rival led by Napoleon III, the grandson of the Corsican Ogre, whilst Otto von Bismarck foments not just a Prussian resurgence, but a German one. America is the crown in the British Empire, returned to her embrace following the defeat of the rebels in the War of 1812 and the Limited Rule and Tax Reform Acts of 1821. Great Britain has colonies dotted here and there around the world, but to date, the magic of the Moguls of India have limited European inroads into the Indian subcontinent.
In For Faerie, Queen, and Country, the Player Characters can be Human or Tainted, Marked, Blooded by Fairy Blood, or even be Full Fairy. Fairy features include arched eyebrows, bulging eyes, hooves, pointed ears, and more. A Fairy can be a Brownie, Bwca, Grugach, Gwragedd Annwn, Killmoulis, Piskie, Tuatha de Dannan, Urisk, or Wag-at-the-Wa’. The greater the degree of Fairy Blood a character has, the greater his susceptibility to cold iron, resistance to fairy glamours, and may even be able to cast glamours himself. A Player Character must either be English, Welsh, Scottish, Irish, Anglo-Irish, or Foreign, although a Foreign character cannot have fairy blood. There is some social distinction between the Pagan Irish and the Church Irish, not dissimilar to that between Protestants and Catholics of our own history. The type of Fairy will also determine where he comes from in the United Kingdom, since fairies vary from region to region. His Social Class—Working Class, Bourgeoisie, or Gentry—determines the professions open to him.
To create a Player Character in For Faerie, Queen, and Country, a player takes the base character he created using the Amazing Engine System Guide and adds a flat twenty points to each attribute. He rolls for Fairy Blood and Fairy Type—if necessary, selects Nationality, and determines his Class from his Position attribute, and thus the Professions open to him. A Player Character typically has one or two Professions, each Profession offering a number of skill pools from the player can choose from. A Full Fairy will not have a Profession, but instead selects skills based on his Intuition rather than his Learning attribute.
Our example Player Character is a Blooded Fairy, a half-fairy whose father was an Urisk, half-man, half-goat. Douglas Gunn is a farmer’s son, who was always willing to defend his Fairy origins with his fists and until this got him arrested and given a choice of gaol time or taking the Queen’s shilling. He choose the latter and served for ten years in Queen Nicnevin’s Own Highlanders. He earned a battlefield commission for bravery which he retained upon retirement.
Douglas GunnFairy Blood: BloodedFairy Type: UriskNationality: ScottishProfession: Farmer/Soldier (2nd Lieutenant, Queen Nicnevin’s Own Highlanders (Ret.))
Physique (Rank 1/Dice 8): Fitness 61 Reflexes 53Intellect (Rank 4/Dice 4): Learning 30 Intuition 42Spirit (Rank 2/Dice 5): Psyche 38 Willpower 52Influence (Rank 3/Dice 5): Charm 56 Position 28
Stamina: 21Body Points: 13
Skills: Brawling 53% (Athletics), Fairie Lore 30% (The Craft), Farming 42% (Rural), Rifle 53% (Marksmanship), Woodlore 42% (Rural)
Glamours: ConcealNotes: +10 resisting glamours, +5% to all reaction rolls by the fairy folk, -5% on all reaction rolls involving non-fairy NPCs, suffer one point of extra damage from cold iron.
Languages: English, Scots Gaelic
Mechanically, of course, For Faerie, Queen, and Country uses the percentile of the Amazing Engine, as does the combat system. In the Victorian Era, brawls and knife fights are not uncommon, whilst firearms are primarily used to commit crime, and are wielded by criminals and some police. General ownership is not uncommon, but mostly in the home or on the owner’s land. Combat can be brutal in For Faerie, Queen, and Country, not just because a Player Character has lower Hit Points than in other Universe Books, but because alongside their loss, there is a chance of the injured suffering a complication, ranging from a scar, fever, or infection to deafness in one ear, mild paralysis, or a limb requiring amputation!
The most mechanical attention in For Faerie, Queen, and Country is given to its magic system. Magic in the setting is so important that there are even several regiments of Royal Thaumaturges in the British army and magic can be studied at university. ‘The Art’ of magic falls under the sciences and can include Alchemy, Divination, Goetic, and Wizardry, whilst Divination, Fairie Lore, Folk Medicine, Herbalism, Hyperaesthesia, and Spiritualism fall under ‘The Craft’. ‘The Art’ is studied at universities and in colleges, though Goetic magic, the evil practice of trafficking with spirits is not taught at any reputable institution There are also innate spell effects that Fairie can cast called Glamours, primitive magic taking the form of either illusions to fool the senses or enchantments to betray the heart.
Apart from the Glamours for the benefit of the Game Master, For Faerie, Queen, and Country does not include a list of off-the-shelf, ready-to-cast spells, but instead asks a would be spellcaster to literally formulate a spell using several factors. These are Agent, Action(s), Target, Effect, and Conditions, which all increase the difficulty of casting the spell, whilst Taboos, which place restrictions on a spell, reduce the difficulty. Typically, this preparation takes time and it is also possible to research spells, although that takes days. Ultimately, the Game Master has to give her approval of any spell and total difficulty value reduces the ability of the spellcaster to cast the spell. It costs Stamina to cast a spell and spells can be resisted. It is possible to formulate and cast a spell on the fly, but this reduces the chance of being successfully cast. The system is handily supported with some examples, but this is perhaps, despite the intended simplicity of the Amazing Engine, quite a demanding aspect of the setting and any player wanting to play a spellcaster will need to have a good grasp of these mechanics work as each spell requires actual preparation and set-up upon the part of the player, let alone his character.
The counterpart to magic in For Faerie, Queen, and Country are the clergy and the church. Across the United Kingdom there are parallel denominations to those our own, such as the Church of Albion, the Old Church, and the Reformed Church of Scotland. Members of the clergy do not cast spells or perform miracles, but their faith enables them to use the powers of ‘Sanctify’, ‘Fortify’, and ‘Cast out’. The Church and its grounds are anathema to the Fairie, and in most cases, the Fairie loath the church. Whilst the chapter covers the equivalent of the different Christian denominations, For Faerie, Queen, and Country unfortunately not only ignores other faiths which might be found in the United Kingdom, it also ignores paganism, the practice of which is found across the country, often entwined with the Fairie.
For Faerie, Queen, and Country includes a wealth of background on the Albion of its 1870s. There is a list of goods and services and their prices, money and savings are discussed, an array of awards and forms of recognition are given, but For Faerie, Queen, and Country comes into its own when with a pair of chapters written as in-game pieces. The first is ‘Peak-Martin’s Index of Faerie’, a series of three lectures given to the Royal Academy of Sciences in 1877. This categorises the Fairie as well as giving stats for the Game Master to use for NPCs and providing an overview of the Unseelie Court, the Seelie Court, Tir Nan Og, and more. There is also a guide to portraying Fairie for the Game Master. The second is ‘Crompton’s Illustrated Tourbook of Great Britain’, a relatively decent guide to the United Kingdom, which begs for expansion and which any native of the British Isles will find wanting. Anyone from Wales will be disappointed to find folded into the description of England. This is followed by ‘The Glorious British Life’, a guide to life in the United Kingdom, which covers money, rural and urban life, how much your servants should be paid, how things are done without modern conveniences, transport, how to conduct research, government and politics, crime and law enforcement, pleasures and pastimes, and more. In comparison to ‘Crompton’s Illustrated Tourbook of Great Britain’, this is solidly useful content. Enjoyably, For Faerie, Queen, and Country comes to a close with ‘How to Speak Proper’, but not just in the Queen’s English, but also for rural speech, but also Scots and Irish Gaelic, briefly and poorly, a little Welsh, and a lexicon of criminal phrases.
There is a lot to like about For Faerie, Queen, and Country. Primarily this is the range of Fairies described, the magic system which will force players to think about their character’s spellcasting long before they cast anything, and the general background. In the fact, the latter feels not dissimilar to What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist-the Facts of Daily Life in Nineteenth-Century. However, anyone from Wales will be severely disappointed by its lack of coverage in For Faerie, Queen, and Country compared to that of Scotland and Ireland, similarly, its treatment of paganism is non-existent in comparison to that of the Church. Mechanically, For Faerie, Queen, and Country is simple, but it is not always explained as clearly as it could have been, especially the means of creating characters. Further—and despite the wealth of background—that background is not always easy to use or extract to be used, and it does not help that For Faerie, Queen, and Country lacks a scenario or even scenario hooks. Though an experienced and determined Game Master will be able to mine the background for ideas and hooks.
Where this leaves For Faerie, Queen, and Country is a setting that is playable, but not complete. In some ways, it works better as a sourcebook for other Victorian Era-set roleplaying games than it does stand alone. Had it been further developed, that might not have been the case.
Physically, For Faerie, Queen, and Country is decently presented, but lightly illustrated with publicly sourced artwork, so the book is text dense. It comes with a pull-out, full colour map of the United Kingdom.
As the first Universe Book for the Amazing Engine, what For Faerie, Queen, and Country does is showcase the possibilities of the system and what it can do. It also hints at the radicalism of the ideas that were to follow in subsequent Universe Books, as if the writers had been set free to design interesting settings with intriguing ideas that might not have been able to bring to fruition had they been for Dungeons & Dragons. Ultimately, For Faerie, Queen, and Country for the Amazing Engine is definitely not without its charms, but it does not feel as complete as it should and it leaves the reader wanting more.

Be Like a Crow: A Solo RPG is a journaling game which enables the player to take to the skies as a corvidae—crow, magpie, jackdaw, or rook—over multiple landscapes and differing genres, achieving objectives, exploring, and growing as they learn and grow old. Published by Critical Kit, a publisher better known for its scenarios for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. The roleplaying game combines the simple mechanics and use of a deck of playing cards typical of a journaling game with five genres—‘Urban Crow’, ‘Cyber-Crow’, ‘Gothic Crow’, ‘Fantasy Crow’, ‘Clockwork Crow’, and ‘Ravens of the Tower’. Each of these presents a different place and time for the bird to fly over, land on, encounter the denizens, and more, whilst Crowthulhu: A Cosmic Horror Setting For Be Like A Crow is a supplement that took the game in an entirely different direction, to the edge of Lovecraft Country. Now, A Fistful of Feathers – a Wild West Setting for Be Like a Crow takes the player all the way to American frontier. As in Be Like a Crow: A Solo RPG, the player’s crow will take to the air, but here fluttering and feathering over the Rooklands, perhaps as representative of the law deputised by the local sheriff or a bounty hunter, or even an outlaw on the run. Protect towns from predating gangs, take part in a sharpshooting contests (with a tiny gun), discover a nugget of gold and trade it in for cash, and more. From the Dread Canyon and Prospector’s Peril in the north to Storm Creek and the Howling Mines in the south, the Rooklands are a frontier for your crow to explore and make her own.

Mechanically, Be Like a Crow: A Solo RPG, and thus A Fistful of Feathers – a Wild West Setting for Be Like a Crow is simple. It uses a standard deck of playing cards and when a player wants his bird to undertake an action, he draws a card from the deck. This sets the difficulty number of the task. To see whether the bird succeeds, he draws another card and adds the value of a skill to the number of the card if appropriate. If it is equal or greater than the difficulty number, the bird succeeds. If an action is made with Authority, whether due to circumstances or a skill, the player draws two cards and uses the highest one, whereas if made at a Penalty, two cards are drawn and the lowest value one used. When drawn, a Joker can be used or saved for later. If the latter, it can be used to automatically succeed at a combat or skill check, to heal injuries, or to discard a card and draw again. Combat is a matter of drawing a card for each opponent, adding a skill if appropriate, and comparing the totals of the cards and the skills. The highest total wins each round and inflicts an injury. Eventually, when the deck is exhausted, the discard pile is reshuffled and becomes the new deck.

The play and thus the journaling of Be Like a Crow is driven by objectives as achieving these will enable a player’s crow to advance through his lifecycle. An objective for the ‘A Fistful of Feathers’ setting, might be for example, “A wealthy merchant is convinced her husband was murdered by [character] using [object] in [location]. Try to find the evidence and bring the culprit to justice. ($3 reward)”. The player will also need to draw cards to identify the character, the object, and the location, and then as his bird flies from hex to hex across the map, draw cards for events in flight, and then for events when he lands. The player is free to, and advised to, ignore prompts if they do not fit the story, and this may be necessary if a prompt is drawn again, but ideally, the player should be using the prompts as drawn to tell a story and build the life of his crow.

A Fistful of Feathers – a Wild West Setting for Be Like a Crow requires the core rules of Be Like a Crow, as well as a standard deck of playing cards. As well as providing the rules, it provides the prompts for events in flight and on land that are standard to each of the roleplaying game’s settings, but what A Fistful of Feathers – a Wild West Setting for Be Like a Crow provides is its own set of tables its objectives, objects, characters, and locations. Two sets of objectives are provided, one for the red suits and one for the black suits, the same again for characters or NPCs, and again for objects and locations for A Fistful of Feathers. Thus locations can be a hotel on main street or a broken stagecoach, an object might be a single Morgan silver dollar or the skull of a vulture, and a character a snake-oil seller whose product actually does what it claims or a town sheriff who will turn a blind eye to most things if they are bribed with the right object.

Most, if not all of the entries have a Wild West theme, whether that is having to rush to a town where a character is due to be hanged for crime that he did not commit with evidence that will exonerate the condemned or a debt-ridden gambler (human or otherwise), desperate and dangerous. In addition to the core play of Be Like a Crow, what A Fistful of Feathers – a Wild West Setting for Be Like a Crow does is extend the play to ‘suited, booted, and looted’. A player’s crow can earn dollars for achieving objectives and purchase objects with the money. He also has an archetype which grants a particular bonus. The Sharpshooter can inflict extra damage if the player draws a high enough card in combat. The Law Master can attempt to befriend or scare a character, and if successful, the character will give the player’s crow the information or an object in his possession. The Bounty Hunter can generate an objective to bring in a character when he lands as a bounty and if completed, will collect an object or $2. The Outlaw is hardy and resilient, suffering fewer injuries, has better navigate and search checks, and heals quicker.

In terms of locations, A Fistful of Feathers – a Wild West Setting for Be Like a Crow includes its own setting, the Rooklands, a Wild West frontier of rocks, semi-desert, mesas, canyons, mines, and more. This is a classic Wild West setting as depicted on screen.

Physically, A Fistful of Feathers – a Wild West Setting for Be Like a Crow is a slim affair. It is lightly illustrated with images appropriate to the genre and the map is nicely done, but it does need a slight edit. As a supplement to Be Like a Crow, there is a dusty, hot wind quality to A Fistful of Feathers – a Wild West Setting for Be Like a Crow. Between the vultures overhead and the varmints on the ground, A Fistful of Feathers – a Wild West Setting for Be Like a Crow is a new way to explore a crow’s life in a classic genre from a bird’s-eye view.

Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #5: Blasphemy & Larceny in Lankhmar is a scenario for Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and the fifth 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 #5: Blasphemy & Larceny in Lankhmar, 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 breaking into the abandoned tower temple dedicated to a long-forgotten god.
Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #5: Blasphemy & Larceny in Lankhmar is designed for two to three Player Characters of Fifth Level, but can be expanded to between four and six Player Characters. It could be played through in a single session, but will probably take two. The scenario takes advantage of one of the best features of the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set in building a story and a plot around the Player Characters’ activities around the city. Much like the first scenario for the setting, Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #1: Gang Lords of Lankhmar, it grounds them in the city as scum, trying to make a living or get by through grift or theft. It begins with one of their number, waking up in an alley, groggy and hung over after a night out, of which the Player Character only has a hazy memory. Staggering out of the fog comes someone he knows, a local pawnbroker, Vigomia, suffering from multiple stab wounds, and before he dies leaning over the Player Character, he whispers an apology for hiring him for a job into his ear. The alleyway is on the edge of the Forbidden Temple Quarter and the trail of Vogomia’s blood leads back to one of the city’s forbidden temples… No-one knows exactly what lies in these forbidden temples—secrets, treasures, mysteries, blasphemies?—but being caught breaking into one will land even the best of thieves in deep trouble with the city authorities and result in their execution. If though, such burglary could be carried out, it would be quite a coup for those in the know.
This is a good hook, one which the player of this character will need to use to bring his fellow players and their characters into the action. This is handled in the next scene in the Rat’s Nest tavern as the Player Character who went with Vigomia explains the situation and attempts to persuade his fellow thieves to investigate. The player is also helped with the first in a series of player handouts each of which represent his memories of the night before, dripping clues into his foggy memory as he and his fellow thieves investigate. Armed with a rumour or three, the scenario picks up with the Player Characters outside the walls of the forbidden temple that was the target of Vigomia and the Player Character the night before.
The forbidden temple consists of a tower, four storeys high, standing in narrow overgrown garden behind high walls. Consisting of eleven, quite detailed locations, the tower-temple is home to a forgotten cult which might be behind the rumours of abductions on the streets of Lankhmar recently and plenty of secrets as well as some nasty horrors. There is plenty of opportunity to explore and examine the rooms of the temple, plus combat against the aforementioned horrors and a little roleplaying too. With luck, the Player Characters will uncover why the servitors of this long-forgotten god—a vile deity in itself—have become active of late and what it is they are up to. Theirs is a plan to bury a stinger into the heart of Lankhmar, a plan which they are putting into action just as the Player Characters are exploring their tower-temple base! At this point, the Player Characters have a choice. Will they run away, let whatever plan the cultists have play out and the city suffer the consequences, and hope that no one finds out that they were in cultists’ base, discovered the plan, and did nothing about it? Or will they rush after the cultists in the hope that they can stop them before chaos is unleashed and maybe even come out of this looking like heroes?
Of course, Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #5: Blasphemy & Larceny in Lankhmar is designed to be run as part of a Lankhmar-based campaign. There are notes though on dropping the adventure into another city and on running the scenario as a convention scenario, as as well as suggestions throughout the scenario on how to expand it for two to three Player Characters to four to six. Best of all, though, are the suggestions for when to run the scenario, using the omens of the date to add a little extra mechanical effect, and so reinforce the superstitious nature of the inhabitants of the City of the Black Toga. If the Player Characters succeed and survive, they may be in for a big reward, but if they fail, they may earn the enmity of the city authorities, hopefully only temporarily though...
Physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #5: Blasphemy & Larceny in Lankhmar is as decently presented as you would expect from Goodman Games. It is well written, the handouts are plain, and the cartography decent. The floorplans of the temple would work very well on a virtual tabletop with their secrets and numbers excised.

If there is an issue with Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #5: Blasphemy & Larceny in Lankhmar, it is that the Player Characters find themselves in another temple so soon after Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #4: Violence for Votishal. In comparison to that scenario, Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #5: Blasphemy & Larceny in Lankhmar is both shorter and more dynamic, more action-orientated, but the Judge will likely want to run something between the two. Overall, Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #5: Blasphemy & Larceny in Lankhmar is a quick, grim, and nasty, but entertaining scenario that nicely mixes action and larceny.

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—
The origins of roleplaying, of course, lie in wargames and the development of both would weave back and forth between the two over the first decade or so of the history of the roleplaying game. They had begun, of course, with Chainmail out of which would come Dungeons & Dragons. In the United Kingdom, the interaction between the two would arguably culminate in the publication of the Warhammer: The Mass Combat Fantasy Roleplaying Game in 1983 by Games Workshop. This hybrid between the wargames rules and the roleplaying game would form the basis for the future of Games Workshop, and both a hobby and an industry in their own right. Its origins lie in Reaper: Fantasy Wargame Rules, which like Chainmail and Dungeons & Dragons, combined mediaeval warfare with the fantasy genre. Designed by Richard Halliwell and Rick Priestley, who would go on to design numerous games and supplements for Games Workshop, the first edition of Reaper: Fantasy Wargame Rules was published by Tabletop Games in 1978 with a second edition that followed in 1981. It is the latter, second edition of the rules that is being reviewed here.

Reaper: Fantasy Wargame Rules are not mass combat rules, but a set of skirmish rules designed to handle thirty figures per side. There is no setting as such, but there are descriptions of a mini-pantheon of gods and army lists of goblins, Wood Elves, High Elves, Dragon men, and more. Notably, it is advised that battles be conducted with an umpire—or Game Master—present to not only handle results difficulties, but also set up plots, games, work out the abilities of the troops on each side, and arrange the terrain and any hidden features. This is optional, but as an option, it removes the involvement of the players from any battle until they arrive at the table and begin writing orders. What it suggests, especially with the inclusion of single hero and magic user figures, is that Reaper: Fantasy Wargame Rules could be used as ‘Braunstein’ style of wargame, although it is not explored in its pages. Really, the role of the single Hero figure is undertake great feats of martial prowess and the role of the single Magic User figure is to employ great spells, both on the battlefield.

Once a battle has been set up, play progresses in a manner similar to many other wargames rules. Players write their orders, and then from one round to the next, players take in turns to move their troops, missile fire is conducted, morale tests are conducted for troops who have suffered missile fire, mêlée engagements are fought, morale is tested again for any remaining troops who have been fighting, and the round ends. This is simple and straightforward, and will be recognised by most wargamers today. Reaper: Fantasy Wargame Rules, though, wastes very little time in getting to the rules. Troops, of all types, are primarily classified by their Strength Value. This is where the rules—and we are only on page three—begin to get a bit fiddly. A figure has a Strength Value ranging between three and thirty, but this can go higher. Halflings have a Strength Value of three, Humans have six, Medium Giants have eighteen, and Large Giants have Thirty. Mythical creatures given stats in Reaper: Fantasy Wargame Rules include classics such as Wyverns, Centaurs, Harpies, and Gargoyles, whilst the inclusion of the Tree Men shows the influence of The Lord of the Rings and of Owl Bears the influence of Dungeons & Dragons. These are joined by sillier options like the incredibly lethal Fat Corgies—one of which could win a battle on its own, if you could find a suitable miniature, that is—and Stampeding Cattle. Of course, in the second edition of the rules there are a handful of suggested codes for various figures from the then fledgling Citadel Miniatures. The listed Strength Value though, is only a base. Armour increases Strength Value piece by piece, the value depending on the size of the wearer. It takes a bit of arithmetic to work what the final Strength Value is for a figure. The figure’s Ability Factor, ranging from -10% for peasant and slave troops to +1-% for household troops and guards, modifies this further. Morale Value ranges from ‘A’ for staunch household troops to ‘E’ for disgruntled or starving troops. Most troops are rated at ‘C’. A unit of troops can be ‘Drilled’, ‘Organised’, ‘Tribal’, or ‘Levy’, a categorisation which dictates the speed at which its troops can replace (or elect) a leader lost in combat. Every unit will have leader who can be targeted. The categorisation also helps determine whether a unit is routed, force to retire, or simply okay when it is forced to make a morale check, whether due to suffering high casualties, being attacked by a superior force or foe, or even a nearby allied unit suffering a loss of morale and breaking. Non-intelligent creatures suffer a panic test instead of a morale test.

Movement allows for Walk, Trot, and Run speeds, and flying too. Both mêlée and missile attacks have a base percentage chance of striking, varying by weapon type, and a Killing Power value according to the size of the wielder. Modified by range and size of the target, the final percentage chance of striking is multiplied by the number of figures in a unit. This results in a total equal to hundreds of percentile points. A single hit is scored for each full one hundred percent and then percentile dice are rolled for the remainder to see if another hit is scored. For example, a unit of ten peasant levy troops has a base chance of hitting with their billhooks of 35%. This is multiplied by ten to give a total of 350%, to give three guaranteed hits and a 50% chance of a fourth. To work out the effectiveness of an attack, the defendant’s Strength Value is divided by the attacker’s Killing Power. This is multiplied by the number of hits to determine the percentage chance of the defendant being killing. For example, unit of ten peasant levy troops with a Killing Power of seven attacks a single, fully armoured knight with a Strength Value of sixteen. Dividing the Strength Value by the Killing Power and then multiplying it by the number of peasant levies (16/7×10) gives a 22% chance of them killing the knight. To quote the rules, “This may sound complex but it isn’t.” In fact, it actually is because of the way in which it is worded. Thankfully, two handy charts, Chart A for determining the percentage chance of hitting and Chart B for working out the percentage chance of hitting a killing blow, both handle all of this heavy lifting for the player or the Umpire.

As you would expect, Reaper: Fantasy Wargame Rules provides rules for unit organisation, using bases, the observational awareness of units, and much more, but a third of the book is devoted to magic and spells. A Magic User is treated as a standard figure on the battlefield, but his use of magic adds a lot of extra detail. A Magic User is graded according to the type of spells he can cast, from ‘A’ to ‘Z’, with ‘A’ being the worst grade and ‘Z’ the best, so that he can be good at all spells, better at some, and worse at others. He also has a Constitution which indicates how many spells he can cast before he gets tired, sixteen or seventeen being the expected average. (It is suggested that this actually be rolled on three six-sided dice as in a roleplaying game.) The type and number of spells known by a Magic User is determined by the Campaign Organiser, otherwise known as the ‘Tin God’, by which of course, the writer means the Umpire. They are allotted randomly, but other methods are suggested to, though not in any great detail. If the rules are being used as a roleplaying game, only the one spell should be known to the novice Magic User, another nod to Dungeons & Dragons.

There are spells listed in Reaper: Fantasy Wargame Rules, as well as some good examples, such as ‘Swords into flowers’, which turns any non-magical weapon within 10” into a bunch of flowers, the rules are not just a simple listing system of spells, but by design, a costing system. They allow for the creation of spells with specific battlefield effects. Each spell takes into account nineteen factors. These start with range, and then take into account whether the effect of the spell is to kill, is on an area or individual targets, creates an object, raise the dead, inflict general or specific destruction, movement, immobilise, transmute, mind control, change the senses, illusionary, shrink or enlarge, protect against ordinary weapons or magic, raise a magic barrier, and lastly, its length of time. Each factor that the design of the spell takes into account increases the Difficulty Points value of the spell. For example, a Mind Control spell with a range of 5-15” (1 DP), affects a single target (1 DP), and influences the minds of sapient creatures (3 DP), for two throw periods (2 DP), has a total Difficulty Point value of 7. To successfully cast the spell, the Magic User’s player cross references the Magic User’s Grade, either in the specific type of magic or in general magic, with the Difficulty Point value of the spell. This gives a percentage vale that the player must roll under to succeed. Casting a spell, whether successfully or unsuccessfully, will temporarily tire a Magic User, preventing him form casting a spell again for a few rounds as well as reducing his Constitution, again, also temporarily. The lower his Constitution, the more difficult it becomes for the Magic User to at first cast spells, then move, and even speak. If a Magic User’s Constitution falls to zero, he is dead.

Alongside the rules for spell design, there are rules for variable magic and then spell specialities, including charms, necromancy, summoning, and elementalism. There is a lot of fully worked out detail in both the rules and effects of these, including the details of the types of creatures and elementals summoned by the summoner and the elementalist, respectively. This is followed by a set of sixteen pre-designed spells that the Umpire can pull of the shelf quickly as part of his preparation. To support the summoner, Reaper: Fantasy Wargame Rules includes a sample mini-pantheon and summoning circle of deities. The chief deity, Aarlum, sits in a circle of neutrality, but the two houses to his right, Ashra and Oona and Aleel are inclined towards law and good, whilst the two houses to his left, Calyn and Tanith, are inclined to chaos and evil. Only a true neutral summoner can summon Aarlum or his forces, and similarly, the summoner must be aligned with the other gods to summon their forces. When they are summoned, they will enter into a pact with the summoner for a number of rounds. Full details of their manifestations are given in each case. Lastly, a handful of magic items are briefly described.

The Reaper: Fantasy Wargame Rules are rounded out with a set of five appendices. These in turn covers the use of buildings and the laying of sieges, setting things on fire and its effects, several army lists and assorted monsters, some play hints, and rules for wounds and kills as well as creating heroes. A Hero has a random Strength Value and Ability Factor, with a high Strength Value also increasing his Killing Power. In general, a Hero fights in hand-to-hand combat, but there is an option for a missile specialist too. The hints in the fourth appendix are really more a collection of random ideas, such as anachronistic ideas like Science Fiction weapons, the use of the scenery to set the battlefield, converting miniatures, preparing games, and so on.

Physically, the Reaper: Fantasy Wargame Rules are well presented. Much of it is also well written and the artwork, mostly hewing to a Swords & Sorcery style, is serviceable enough. As befitting that genre, there is some nudity, but it feels out of place in the book itself. However, there are points where the writing is unclear, such as in the way in which kills are worked out.
—oOo—Ken Rolston reviewed the Reaper: Fantasy Wargame Rules in ‘Advanced hack-and-slash – Combat plays a big role in four fantasy games’ in Dragon #85 (May 1984) along with Warhammer: The Mass Combat Fantasy role-playing game. His evaluation was that, “Reaper is not a state-of-the-art fantasy wargame. The best thing that can be said about the vague and incomplete rules is that they are flexible and open to local customized variants. The real value will be for established fantasy miniatures gamers who already have satisfactory wargame rules (like Wargames Research Group’s War Game Rules, the standard rules for ancient, classical, and medieval historical miniatures warfare) but are looking for a good magic system. With the basic principles of Reaper’s magic system and a lot of work, the spells and magic items of a local campaign can be worked into large-scale fantasy engagements. At $8, Reaper’s price is a value for the experienced fantasy miniatures gamer. For a beginner unfamiliar with miniatures wargaming, it will not be a good introduction to the hobby; Warhammer would be far preferable.—oOo—
The Reaper: Fantasy Wargame Rules are over forty years old, but they could be brought to the table and a battle fought with them and it would provide an exciting game experience. It might not be as slick or as smooth as more modern designs, but the rules do work as intended. Whilst not necessarily complex in play, they are complex in terms of set-up, in designing units with the determination of the Strength Value of each figure and in the designing of individual spells. Nor is there any real advice on setting up a battle or specifically for the Umpire, on designing one. Yet the complexity—which has been eased between the two editions of the rules—has its benefits. The determination of the Strength Value means that a figure can be accurately represented on the battlefield according to the armour worn and the weapon wielded. Similarly, the spell design system allows the creation of individual spells to both great effect and variation, and this system really is the highlight of the Reaper: Fantasy Wargame Rules. The system was highly innovative at the time and were it to have been incorporated into a roleplaying game it would have been recognised as a great piece of design. There are hints that the Reaper: Fantasy Wargame Rules could handle roleplaying, though more likely on the battlefield in a ‘Braunstein’ style rather in the traditional fantasy roleplaying style of dungeon delving. This though, is an aspect that the rules do not explore.

The Reaper: Fantasy Wargame Rules combine classic fantasy with both complexity and choice. The magic rules and spell design system stand out and could have been a supplement all of their very own. As the precursor to the Warhammer: The Mass Combat Fantasy Roleplaying Game of 1983, the Reaper: Fantasy Wargame Rules foreshadow what was to come, but remain a playable and demanding—especially in terms of set-up—set of rules.

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 Pirate and the BridePublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Jazmin Ospa & Meghan Kuschner

Setting: Regency-era BahamasProduct: Scenario for In Strange Seas: Horror in the Royal Navy for Regency Cthulhu and Regency Cthulhu: Dark Designs in Jane Austen’s England
What You Get: Seventeen page, 6.21 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Dagon’s ‘Red Wedding’Plot Hook: A sudden society wedding threatens to reveal all manner of scandal
Plot Support: Staging advice, five pre-generated Investigators, eight NPCs, four handouts, and several hundred  (Mythos) monsters.Production Values: Decent
Pros# Strongly plotted combination of societal and nautical mystery# Easy to run once past its issues# Thalassophobia# Decantophobia# Kinemortophobia
Cons# Needs an edit and further development# Needs a clearer explanation# No maps
Conclusion# Solid scenario that needs a bit more work to make it run easily# A ‘Red Wedding’ meets Pirates of the Caribbean is a perfectly good combination

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: Season of GrowthPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Carrer Marco

Setting: 1990sProduct: One-on-One Scenario
What You Get: Fourteen page, 1.06 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Twin Peaks-style small town, forest mysteryPlot Hook: What secrets does the oldest tree in America hide?
Plot Support: Staging advice, one pre-generated Investigator, one NPC, four handouts, and one Mythos creature.Production Values: Rushed
Pros# More folk horror than Mythos# One Keeper, one Investigator one-shot# Nicely played sense of eeriness# Nice sense of small town paranoia# Dendrophobia# Seismophobia# Ruraphobia
Cons# Needs a strong edit# Familiar and linear plot# More folk horror than Mythos
# Why not just use Shub-Niggurath?
Conclusion# A familiar combination of Twin Peaks meets The Wicker Man# Strong atmosphere directed down a familiar and linear plot

ACE!—or the Awfully Cheerful Engine!—is a roleplaying game of fast, cinematic, action comedy. Published by EN Publishing, best known for the W.O.I.N. or What’s Old is New roleplaying System, as used in Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000 AD and Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition, this is designed to handle anything from ghost hunting in New York to mercenaries operating underground in Los Angeles and everything in between, whether heroic galactic guardians, vampire slayers, or even cartoon animals fighting crime. Beyond being fast, cinematic, action comedy, it is meant to be multi-dimensional time-hopping, genre-mashing in terms of what it can cover, so long as the combination can still be enjoyed with bucket of popcorn and extra-extra-extra-large bucket of whichever coke variant you prefer. The core rules for ACE! are short, just forty pages in length, but a tenth of those are devoted to a long, rambling, and silly introduction by designer Sandy Petersen which will lead you into thinking that he is dead and speaking from beyond the grave. (Fortunately, he is not, but if you want to run a scenario in which he is and the heroes have to rescue him from hell, then ACE! might be a good start.)

A Hero in ACE! has a Role; four Stats—Smarts, Moves, Style, and Brawn—rated between one and five, stats for Defence and Health, and Trait. A Role can be a Talking Animal, another species like an Alien or Goblin or Vampire, a figure out of fantasy such as a Ninja or a Knight, an occupation such an Actor or an Inventor, or a Superhero. A Role provides a special ability, for example, a Kangaroo packs a mighty punch, so inflicts an extra point of damage, whilst a Trait, is a descriptive adjective which primarily serves as a complication, but under the right circumstances, might even be helpful. For example, cynical, Punk Rock, or Vain. To create a Hero, a player divides twelve points between the four stats, adds a Focus—an area of specialisation or expertise—for each Stat, which gives a bonus when using the Focus, and then selects a Role and a Trait. The process is quick and easy.

Name: Dino
Trait/Role: Clumsy Dinosaur Detective
Health: 8 Defence: 9
Karma: 6

Smarts 2 (Perception 4)
Moves 3 (Juggling 5)
Style 2 (Persuasion 4)
Brawn 6 (Brawling 6)

Mechanically, ACE! uses handfuls of six-sided dice. One die is a different colour, the Calamity Die. To have his Hero undertake an action, a player rolls a number of dice equal to the appropriate Stat or Focus. An Easy Target Number is equal to ten or more, Hard twenty or more, Herculean or more, and so on. These rolls are open-ended as rolls of six explode. If a one is rolled on the Calamity Die and the roll is failure, something goes disastrously wrong for the Hero. The nature of the disaster is determined and narrated by the players of the other Heroes, always for comedic effect. Fortunately, every Hero also has a number of Karma points. These can be spent to add an extra die to a roll, reduce the damage suffered by an attack, negate the effect of the Calamity Die, or to instigate a Flashback to reveal a previous event or action which helps the current one.

Combat in ACE! uses the same rules. Initiative is determined by the Moves Stat and mêlée by Brawn, ranged attacks by Moves, unless the Hero has the Brawling Focus or Shooting Focus, respectively. In either case of the latter, the result of the roll has to be equal to or higher than the defendant’s Defence value. Damage ranges in value from one for a punch, two for a club, and three for a pistol to four for a machine gun, and five for a bazooka. Heroes in ACE! do not die, but they can be knocked out.

ACE! also adds rules for magic with the addition of the Power stat. In fact, the Power stat can be magic, psionics, the power of prayer, and so on. It just depends on the type of game being run, but the Power stat can be used to do anything in the game—it just costs a point of Karma per use. There is no list of spells or psionic abilities, but a player can easily come up with ones of his own.
For the Director—as the Game Master is known in ACE!—is given a selection of ready-to-use Extra, from Mooks to specific Extra, like a Dark Lord and a Tyrannosaur. What ACE! does not have is an adventure. Instead, it points to adventures already available, such as ACE #2: Spirits of Manhattan and ACE #3: Montana Drones and the Raiders of the Cutty Sark and presents a list of inspirations. These range from Ghostbusters, Dangermouse, and Guardians of the Galaxy to Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, Star Trek, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Of course, ACE! is itself inspired by the Ghostbusters roleplaying published by West End Games in 1986 and the publisher’s own W.O.I.N. or What’s Old is New roleplaying system.
Physically, ACE! is cleanly presented with lots of colour artwork. If there is anything to grumble about ACE!, it is perhaps the lack of an opposite to the Calamity Die. So, either a Hero can succeed, fail, or fail catastrophically, but cannot succeed with elan or great success. The most obvious would be to have a roll of six on the Calamity Die count as this if the roll succeeds or if a certain threshold above the Target Number is rolled. This though will be down to the Director rather than the rules.
ACE! is lightly written and designed. It is easy to pick up and play, and it wears its inspirations on its sleeves or rather, in its Roles. Whether Ghost, Druid, Archaeologist, Con Artist, or Stuntman, ACE! draws on a lot of genre sources for the types of Heroes that the players can roleplay, each one pointing to one or more films, comics, or television series. The lack of dramatic success in the mechanics means that it cannot necessarily be as cinematic as perhaps it wants to be, but the Flashback option for Karma use adds a fun storytelling option and the rules for magic or Power are pleasingly open and flexible, but without being overpowerful. ACE!—or the Awfully Cheerful Engine!—is just that, an awfully cheerful, light system that is easy to pick up and play whether inspired by a particular film or setting or mashing their genres together.

So, the first room presents a challenge, such as trapped or hidden entrance or is protected by a guardian placed to keep intruders out. The second room contains a puzzle or roleplaying challenge, like a chessboard puzzle across the whole floor or dirt floor filled with snakes. In the third room, the Player Characters will face a trick or a setback, which might be a one-way exit or a collapsed ceiling or the means to defeat the villain, but which is broken or has parts missing. The climax comes in the fourth room, when the Player Characters are forced into a battle or a conflict, for example, a villain already alerted to the progress in the previous rooms, a villain who offers to settle the dispute with a wager, a duel, or a villain who threatens to break the very item that they have come to get. Then at last, in the fifth, and last, room, the Player Characters gain their reward, are given a revelation, or come upon a plot twist, which could be another guardian in the chest of treasure, that the whole series of rooms have been set up to further another villain’s plot, or that the villain turns out to be the mother of a Player Character. This is the set-up for the ‘5 Room Dungeon’.
As explored in The Ultimate Guide to 5 Room Dungeons, the idea behind the concept of ‘5 Room Dungeon’ is that they can be slotted into any location and their short length means that they quick to run, quick to create, easy to move around in an actual dungeon, and easy to integrate into an existing dungeon. All this as opposed to the classic megadungeon, which takes a great of planning and design, months if not years to run and play, and is not as flexible or as easy to integrate. The ‘5 Room Dungeon’ can played through in a single session and together, offer a complete adventure and dungeon, but one very much in miniature, both in terms of time and design. Published by Roleplaying Tips Publishing, The Ultimate Guide to 5 Room Dungeons is a guide to the concept of the ‘5 Room Dungeon’ and more. It takes the format of ‘Entrance And Guardian, Puzzle Or Roleplaying Challenge, Red Herring, Climax, and Plot Twist’ and applies it to other genres, like the horror genre and running battles, it adds in further tools, whilst also adding new ones. The basic book does with a few examples of a ‘5 Room Dungeon’, some as worked through examples, others as ready-to-play examples. Then it goes one step further. It gives examples. Even more examples. Reader submitted examples. Eighty-seven of them. Really. Eighty-seven of them. The Ultimate Guide to 5 Room Dungeons is three-hundred-and-sixteen pages long. Two-hundred-and-fifty-five pages of that consists of sample ‘5 Room Dungeons’. Two-fifths or eighty percent of the book.

In some ways, the ‘5 Room Dungeon’ format is reminiscent of the short dungeon encounters that appeared in the pages of magazines and fanzines, independent of their origins and flexible enough that that they could dropped into the pages of the Dungeon Master’s own dungeon. The Ultimate Guide to 5 Room Dungeons goes beyond that to use the ‘5 Room Dungeon’ format as not just as dungeon-specific, but an encounter format. The Player Characters need to get into a nightclub to steal some evidence? That can be a ‘5 Room Dungeon’. Want to have the Player Characters engage in a mass, but not necessarily be aware of the whole picture? That can be a ‘5 Room Dungeon’. Want to run a short horror adventure? That can be a ‘5 Room Dungeon’. The author’s methods and advice builds from this, adding Game Master moves such as effects and feedback/counteraction loops, which a fan has taken used to present the Mines of Moria encounter in The Lord of the Rings as inspired by inspired by Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. It is a lovely bit of interaction between the author and one of his patrons and it is one of the best examples of the ‘5 Room Dungeon’ format presented in the book.

The Ultimate Guide to 5 Room Dungeons also includes advice on making encounters intense, avoiding the TPK or ‘Total Party Kill’, how to work secrets into campaign and their effects, using spikes of danger to add a sense of threat and thrill to a scenario, to add features to a dungeon and develop ideas around them, and more. All of it presented in a short punchy style befitting its origins as a series of blog posts, which makes it easy to read and digest. There are lots of ideas and lots of good advice, the ‘5 Room Dungeon’ core format fundamentally serving as a design framework as much as a constraint to help the Game Master focus upon what she needs. Of course, what The Ultimate Guide to 5 Room Dungeons does not do is step back from the format to look at its use in the wider framework of a Game Master’s campaign. Nor are the limitations of the format fully explored, the primary possibility being that the format could become too limiting in the long term or too familiar. Nevertheless, the ‘5 Room Dungeon’ format is a good starting for the Game Master and useful tool to have.

Unfortunately, the book takes a nosedive in quality, if not quantity, when it comes to the examples. The eighty-seven varies widely in terms of length, from half a page to five pages. There are pirate treasures to be discovered, delves to be made on a drowned realm, a haunted house to explore, and tombs aplenty to be plundered—and a whole lot more. The problem is none of them are edited, none are given stats, and the longer ones are often so overwritten as to be unreadable. Wading through the morass of raw text to get to the good ones is a disappointingly dispiriting challenge in its own right. There is nothing wrong with reader-submitted or inspired content, but the author has done nothing to curate them or even organise them, so that in the printed version, their use is severely hampered because there is index or categorisation. Consequently, the Game Master has to read all eighty-seven to not just find the good ones, but to find out what their themes and ideas are, so that she can take ones she wants to use because they fit her campaign or she needs one to quickly prepare a scenario for the next session. This is slightly less of an issue in the PDF because that can be searched through, but nevertheless, the utility factor of the eighty-seven worked examples never arises from being a hard slog.

Arguably, what The Ultimate Guide to 5 Room Dungeons should have done or would have been better, is if the author had curated the examples or even run a competition to present the best of them in this book. Or even included the eighty-seven in a book of their own rather than in The Ultimate Guide to 5 Room Dungeons, which would have given space for the author to present several (ideally five), fully worked, fully explained as to why he included this or that and why it fits the ‘5 Room Dungeon’ format, that put his ideas—and his ideas alone—into practice. That would have made the book shorter, infinitely more useful, Game Master friendly, and so much easier to use.

Physically, The Ultimate Guide to 5 Room Dungeons is punchily presented in its first sixty as befitting its origins as a series of blog posts. The remaining two-hundred-and-fifty-five pages are unreadable, unprofessional, and unbearably uncurated and undeveloped.

There is no denying that The Ultimate Guide to 5 Room Dungeons is full of good advice designed to help the Game Master create an exciting encounter for her players. The book shows how that advice and its format can be used and applied to different genres and situations, from the dungeon to the battlefield, and that is all good. However, The Ultimate Guide to 5 Room Dungeons is poorly supported, even burdened, by the content and examples that it has chosen to showcase its ideas. Given that four-fifths of the book is so poorly presented, it begs the question, is The Ultimate Guide to 5 Room Dungeons actually worth it? Well, yes and no. As a free PDF, available to download from the publisher’s website, of course. As a PDF to purchase, possibly. As a printed book? Definitely not. Ultimately, the Game Master will get some good advice and ideas on how to write and prepare quicker dungeons and encounters with The Ultimate Guide to 5 Room Dungeons, but has to weigh that against being given a deluge of raw ideas whose utility is negligible.