Now in its eighteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2025 took place on Saturday, June 21st. 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. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Thanks to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day.

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The Basic Roleplaying: Universal Game Engine Quickstart introduces the most recent version of the Basic Roleplaying: Universal Game Engine, the rules system which has underpinned a variety of roleplaying games over the past forty-five years. Call of Cthulhu, RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, and Pendragon, Sixth Edition all use a variation of Basic Roleplaying, and there are several others not published by Chaosium, Inc. which do not use the system. Key features of Basic Roleplaying are that its resolution mechanic is percentile-based, with rolls under the value—skill or attribute—ensuring success, low Hit Points which means that combat can be quite deadly, armour points reduce damage suffered and adaptability to a variety of different genres. Of all the releases for Free RPG Day 2025, it seems almost superfluous to review the Basic Roleplaying: Universal Game Engine Quickstart, since it is the one whose contents will be familiar to the majority of the readership for this blog. Nevertheless…

The Basic Roleplaying: Universal Game Engine Quickstart is very much written as a mini-roleplaying game. It explains what roleplaying is and what it entails, what is needed to play, and so on, before explaining the rules these start with characters and their creation. A Player Character has seven attributes—Strength, Constitution, Size, Intelligence, Power, Dexterity, and Charisma, rated between three and eighteen. Character creation begins by rolling for an array of values to assign. Each attribute also has its own active value that can rolled like a skill and skills themselves are divided in six categories—Communication, Manipulation, Mental, Perception, Physical, and Combat. Depending upon the type and genre of the setting or scenario, a Player Character will need to make use of Power Points, Fatigue, Sanity, Powers, and Attack Powers. (Only one pre-generated Player Character has spells rather than powers.) A Player Character will also have a Profession which provides a standard set of bonuses to apply. The Basic Roleplaying: Universal Game Engine Quickstart includes twelve, from Cowboy and Detective to Thief and Warrior, whilst the core rulebook provides four times as many. The Basic Roleplaying: Universal Game Engine Quickstart even go so far as to provide an example of the creation process.
The system is explained simply and easily. A standard task will not modify the chance of a success, but an easy chance simply means that a player rolls only to see if the result is a critical success or a fumble. A difficult task halves the chance of success, whilst an impossible task will always fail. A critical result is one tenth of the skill chance or less, while a fumble is equal to one tenth of the chance of the Player Character failing (unfortunately, the Basic Roleplaying: Universal Game Engine Quickstart does not make this clear). For opposed rolls, the quality of the rolls are compared, whether critical successes, successes, failures, or fumbles. For more granular detail, the mainstay of Basic Roleplaying, the Resistance Table is included.
The rules also coverts time for various actions and combat. The combat round is broken down into five phases—‘Preparation’, ‘Social’, Ranged’, ‘Movement’, and ‘Close’. Attacks can be parried or dodged, critical successes double base damage and ignore armour, so are very deadly. Otherwise, armour reduces damage taken, as can shields. The spot rules for cover ambushes, backstabbing, cover, disarming, knockout attacks, and more. Just as the Basic Roleplaying: Universal Game Engine Quickstart actually includes an example of character generation, it also includes an example combat, which amusing involves an anachronistic fight involving an Elf with a bow and a starship captain with a laser rifle.
The Basic Roleplaying: Universal Game Engine Quickstart comes with three adventures. These are ‘The Prisoner of Richelieu’ by Anthony Warren, ‘Footsteps in the Dark’ by Nick Middleton, and ‘The Lost Temple of Garthoon’ by Troy Wilhelmson.’ These are quite short affairs and each comes with its own set of four pre-generated Player Characters. In ‘The Prisoner of Richelieu’, the Player Characters are asked by the Queen to rescue her messenger, Monsieur Treville, who has been arrested by the evil Viceroy Renault. They have to break into Viceroy Renault’s secret prison and in the process will discover his own dark nature and why the prisoners look rather pale. ‘Footsteps in the Dark’ is a Science Fiction scenario in which the crew of a starship is forced to crash land on a planet after it has been fired upon when responding to a distress call. They must fight their way past robot sentries to get to the source of the signal, and then decide whether or not they actually want to save the source of the signal. ‘The Lost Temple of Garthoon’ is a mini-dungeon delve into a lost temple for treasure in a fantasy world. Now all four come with tips for the Game Master, but all three are really extended encounters that should take a group of players a couple of hours or so to play through. Of the three, ‘The Prisoner of Richelieu’ is the best one, allowing for that much more roleplaying and planning than the other two, which rather underwhelm the reader.
Physically, the Basic Roleplaying: Universal Game Engine Quickstart is clean and tidy. In terms of its content, it feels slightly dense, but the content is not at all that complex. So, it is easier to read than it looks. The artwork is good as is the cartography, the map and text do not always align as they should. It is easy to work out what the author means, it means that the Basic Roleplaying: Universal Game Engine Quickstart feels rushed in places.
Basic Roleplaying: Universal Game Engine Quickstart is a basic introduction to the Basic Roleplaying because it does not cover the more advanced aspects of the roleplaying game, such as Power Points, Fatigue, Sanity, Powers, and Attack Powers. In this, it feels like an update of the Basic Roleplay introduction published in 1981 and similar in complexity to the roleplaying game built directly off of that, Worlds of Wonder, which like the Basic Roleplaying: Universal Game Engine Quickstart, detailed three different settings. Overall, the Basic Roleplaying: Universal Game Engine Quickstart feels old as well as new and is a good basic introduction to the Basic Roleplaying.

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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Technically Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 2 is not a magazine. It collects some of the downloadable content made available for Cyberpunk RED , the fourth edition of R. Talsorian Games, Inc.’s Cyberpunk roleplaying game. So, its origins are not those of a magazine, but between 1990 and 1992, Prometheus Press published six issues of the magazine, Interface, which provided support for both Cyberpunk 2013 and Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. It this mantle that Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 1 and future issues is picking up in providing support for the current edition of the roleplaying game. As a consequence of the issue collecting previously available downloadable content, there is a lot in the issue that is both immediately useful and can be prepared for play with relative ease. There is also some that is not, and may not make it into a Game Master’s campaign.

Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 2 starts on a hard note, or rather, on a ‘hardened’ note. James Hutt begins the anthology with two connected articles—‘Hardened Mooks: break glass in case of powergaming’ and ‘Hardened Lieutenants: break glass in case of powergaming’, both of which provide tougher versions of the standard threats, mooks and lieutenants, to provide the Player Characters with more of a challenge. The former includes stats for the bodyguard, boosterganger, road ganger, and security, whilst the latter has stats for the netrunner—anti-personnel and anti-program; reclaimer chief, including a ‘lightning’ version for lieutenant who likes to fight form the front and a ‘thunder’ version’, who prefers to support from the back; and raid and siege versions of the security officer. None of these are suitable to be used against combat-orientated Player Characters, especially the lieutenants. In addition, the Game Master can customise them further with a table of complications for the mooks and tactics for the lieutenants. Further, the second article actually lists what a hardened Player Character actually looks like, so that the Game Master has a definitive ideas as to what that also looks like! Overall, solid support for when the Player Characters are finding things a little too easy.
Infamously, Night City is the site of a nuclear weapon being detonated, as well as having subject to numerous chemical spills and the ongoing effects of climate change over the years. All of which is reflected in ‘Night City Weather: The Sky Is Crying Blood’ by J Gray and James Hutt gives advice and a set of tables that the Game Master can use to colour her depiction of Night City. The latter are organised by season and each has a one-in-six chance of the weather turning strange. When it does, this could be anything from a radioactive windstorm or blood rain to dust storm or blackout. These are extremes, of course, but virtually all of Night’s Weather is extreme, whether that is suffering from exposure in a cold snap or increased armour penalties in a heatwave to suffering as if poisoned and a foreign object critical injury during an ash storm if not wearing a filter mask or nasal filters or simply being exposed to a biotoxin during a blood storm! All of it is nasty and extreme, and all of it is going to make the Player Characters value days when the weather is not a danger. The article details new gear and clothing designed to deal with this weather, including a Militech Combat Umbrellas, which of course, is also an umbrella gun! The article is the first of two in the that further develops Night City as a place and gives it some verisimilitude, being the sort of thing that can be worked into a scenario cannot only add atmosphere, but also affect how a mission might be played.
Infamously, Night City is the site of a nuclear weapon being detonated, as well as having subject to numerous chemical spills and the ongoing effects of climate change over the years. All of which is reflected in ‘Night City Weather: The Sky Is Crying Blood’ by J Gray and James Hutt gives advice and a set of tables that the Game Master can use to colour her depiction of Night City. The latter are organised by season and each has a one-in-six chance of the weather turning strange. When it does, this could be anything from a radioactive windstorm or blood rain to dust storm or blackout. These are extremes, of course, but virtually all of Night’s Weather is extreme, whether that is suffering from exposure in a cold snap or increased armour penalties in a heatwave to suffering as if poisoned and a foreign object critical injury during an ash storm if not wearing a filter mask or nasal filters or simply being exposed to a biotoxin during a blood storm! All of it is nasty and extreme, and all of it is going to make the Player Characters value days when the weather is not a danger. The article details new gear and clothing designed to deal with this weather, including a Militech Combat Umbrellas, which of course, is also an umbrella gun! The article is the first of two in the that further develops Night City as a place and gives it some verisimilitude.
The other is ‘Cargo Containers & Cube Hotels’ by James Hutt and J Gray, which asks the question, “Where might my character living and what is it that I am getting for rent each month?” Essentially, what can a Player Character can afford and with a few extra eurobucks afterwards, what he buy to make the place a little more homely. There are tables of locations and accompanying descriptions for both habitat types and then descriptions of potential upgrades, like some wall art, a fire safe, and even a hidden compartment.

In between, ‘Jumpstart Kit Conversion Guide: JSK adventures using core rules’, by James Hutt, Mike Pondsmith, and J Gray, addresses a problem with the Cyberpunk Red Jumpstart Kit. This is that its rules do not match those of Cyberpunk RED. The article is not simple an adaptation, but rather a rebalancing of its missions and adjustments so that it can form the basis of a starting point for a campaign. It includes advice too on how to run each of the missions in the Cyberpunk Red Jumpstart Kit. It is rare that game designers get to revisit an earlier product in their roleplaying game line—especially without the publication of an entirely new edition—but the release of the original PDF article and its inclusion here in Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 2 gives them space to do so. The article is easier to use if the Game Master has not run the Cyberpunk Red Jumpstart Kit, but makes it more accessible and easier to use overall.
‘Daeric Sylar’s Guide to Elflines Online’ by James Hutt continues exploring the online world of the most popular MMO played via Braindance in Night City, Elflines Online. First described in ‘Elflines Online: A Segotari Rush Revolution Exclusive’ and ‘Elflines Online: Expansion Pack’ in Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 1, this third article includes a map of the setting and a guide to levelling up in the game and when to visit the various locations in the game, plus various monsters. The level of detail in the article feels like gilding the lily, adding extra detail to a world that feels superfluous to most Cyberpunk RED campaigns. That said, Elflines can be added as an activity in the game that NPCs and Player Characters engage in as flavour, but there is nothing to stop that the Player Characters needing to play in order to find an NPC or hidden data, or even adding fantasy roleplaying game that uses the Interlock system of Cyberpunk RED.
One of the issues with Cyberpunk RED is that its technology is often genericised and that includes its guns. This is in comparison to the weapons of Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0., in which all of the weapons are named and branded. In part, this has been offset by the release of the Black Chrome, but that does not include weapons or piece of gears from the previous versions of the roleplaying game. This was addressed in part by ‘Old Guns Never Die: A step-by-step conversion guide for bringing weapons from Cyberpunk 2020 into Cyberpunk RED’ in Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 1, and is continued in Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 2 with by James Hutt’s ‘The 12 Days of Gunmas: A Cyberpunk Red Holiday Special’. As much a parody of The Twelve Days of Christmas, the article updates some classic weapons from Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0., such as the Arasaka WAA Bullpup Assault Weapon, Militech Crusher, and Stolbovoy ST-5 Assault Rifle. Drawn from various supplements, these are a welcome addition that add weapon variety and flavour.

Lastly, the issue gets a bit weird with ‘Exotics of 2045: There’s nothing you can’t become’. Again, written by James Hutt, this details some of the options available as part of the Biotechnica’s Bioexotics programme, which for two decades has offered a range of full body sculpts and modifications, evolving into a month-long intensive ‘Zoo camp’ that requires a fixer and money beyond the cost of any surgery done, to attend. It has become highly exclusive, but can be accessed during character creation with the purchase of an Exotic Package using non-fashion/fashionware locked money. Seventeen packages are detailed, including what each package includes and its resulting Humanity Loss. They divided between major and minor Bioexotic packages. The minor include the ‘Embrace Rodentia’ rat form, ‘LagoForm’ rabbit form, and ‘Serpentise Yourself’ snake form, whilst the major include the ‘AquaForm’ whale form, ‘Bughouse’ insect form, and ‘UrsaForm’ bear form. Added to these are the FantaForms, which represent classic fantasy biosculpts, such as with the ‘Draconic FantaForm’ and the ‘Elvish FantaForm’. All of the new cyberware for these Exotic Packages is given too, like the ‘Reflex Co-Processor’ to super enhance a character’s Reflexes and a Combat Tail which act as a Heavy Melee Weapon. All of the options here push Cyberpunk RED into the realms of the fantastic to one degree or another, even to the point where with the FantaForms, the Player Characters could find themselves in the LARP equivalent of the Elflines Online! Certainly, these provide Cyberpunk RED with an anime element not as extrovertly present in the setting.
Physically, Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 2 is cleanly, tidily laid out. The artwork is decent too and everything is easy to read.

Although much of it was originally available for free, with the publication of Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 2 it is nice to have it in print. Some of its content is more useful than others, and some of it is going to find less favour with some Game Masters. The latter includes the articles on Elflines Online and the Exotic Biosculpts, whereas the ‘Cargo Containers & Cube Hotels’ and ‘Night City Weather: The Sky Is Crying Blood’ articles will add flavour and verisimilitude to a Game Master’s campaign, however they are used. Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 2 is a mixed bag in terms of content, but not quality of content. There is definitely something in its pages that every Cyberpunk RED Game Master is going to find useful.

Now in its eighteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2025 took place on Saturday, June 21st. 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. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Thanks to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day.

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The Expanse RPG Transport Union Edition Quickstart is the introduction to, and quick-start for The Expanse RPG Transport Union Edition, which is an update and expansion to The Expanse Roleplaying Game. Both roleplaying games are published by Green Ronin Publishing, and both are based upon The Expanse series of Science Fiction novels by James S.A. Corey, and the television series of the same name. However, where The Expanse Roleplaying Game is set during the events of Leviathan Wakes, Caliban’s War, and Abaddon's Gate, the first three novels, The Expanse RPG Transport Union Edition moves the action on to the Transport Union era, the thirty-year period between Babylon’s Ashes and Persepolis Rising, the sixth and seventh books in the series. The events of the series to date have taken place across a settled Solar System with tensions between the United Nations of Earth, the Martian Congressional Republic, and the Belters of the outer planets, which would lead to the establishment of the Outer Planets Alliance to protect their interests. The discovery of a strange molecular technology on Phoebe, a moon of Saturn, would lead to radical changes across the Solar System. The Protogen Corporation, the corporation assigned by the Martian Congressional Republic to study it, branded it the Protomolecule and conducted experiments which would kill millions and ultimately threaten the Earth. Fortunately, there were some who could direct the threat away from the Earth and towards Venus, where it would radically transform the planet beyond all understanding. Further conflict would arise with the discovery of the first ring gate, but the establishment of the Transport Union has placed the Belters on an equal footing with the United Nations of Earth and the Martian Congressional Republic, and given them access to over a thousand worlds beyond the Solar System.

The Expanse RPG Transport Union Edition uses what has become known as the ‘AGE’ or ‘Adventure Game Engine’ was first seen 2010 in Dragon Age – Dark Fantasy Roleplaying Set 1: For Characters Level 1 to 5, the adaptation of Dragon Age: Origins, the computer game from Bioware. It has since been developed into the Dragon Age Roleplaying Game as well as the more generic Fantasy AGE Basic Rulebook and a more contemporary and futuristic setting with Modern AGE Basic Rulebook.

A Player Character in The Expanse RPG Transport Union Edition is defined by his Abilities, Focuses, and Talents. There are nine Abilities—Accuracy, Communication, Constitution, Dexterity, Fighting, Intelligence, Perception, Strength, and Willpower. Each attribute is rated between -2 and 4, with 1 being the average, and each can have a Focus, an area of expertise such as Accuracy (Gunnery), Communication (Leadership), Intelligence (Technology), or Willpower (Courage). A Focus provides a bonus to associated skill rolls and, in some cases, access to a particular area of knowledge. A Talent represents an area of natural aptitude or special training. A Player Character also has a Background, Social Class, and Profession, plus a Drive, Resources and Equipment, Health, Defence, Toughness, and Speed, and Goals, Ties, and Relationships. Instead of Hit Points, a Player Character has Fortune Points, which can be used to alter the result on the Drama Die or withstand damage, reflecting the Player Character’s luck being used up or running out.

Mechanically, the AGE System and thus The Expanse RPG Transport Union Edition, is simple enough. If a Player Character wants to undertake an action, his player rolls three six-sided dice and totals the result to beat the difficulty of the test, ranging from eleven or Average to twenty-one or Nigh Impossible. To this total, the player can add an appropriate Ability, and if it applies, an appropriate Focus, which adds two to the roll. Where the AGE System gets fun and where the Player Characters have a chance to shine, is in the rolling of the Drama die and the generation of Stunt Points. When a player rolls the three six-sided dice for an action, one of the dice is of a different colour. This is the Drama die. Whenever doubles are rolled on any of the dice—including the Drama die—and the result of the test is successful, the roll generates Stunt Points. The number of Stunt Points is determined by the result of the Drama die. For example, if a player rolls five, six, and five on the Drama die, then five Stunt Points are generated on the Drama die. What a player gets to spend these Stunt Points on depends on the action being undertaken. In the original 2010 Dragon Age – Dark Fantasy Roleplaying Set 1: For Characters Level 1 to 5, the only options were for combat actions and the casting of spells, but subsequent releases for the roleplaying game and then Modern AGE and The Expanse Roleplaying Game, have expanded the options. Now they include not just combat options, including firearm-related actions of all kinds, but also movement, exploration, and social situations, plus, of course spaceship operation and combat.
The Expanse RPG Transport Union Edition Quickstart explains all this in twelve pages and provides everything needed for the accompany scenario, ‘Lost, But Not Alone’. The Player Characters are the crew of the Miriam Makeba, bound for Castila, when they pick up a faint distress call coming from a moon orbiting one of the outer planets. Following the signal to its source reveals the Ratel, a cargo hauler that appears to have crash-landed after being attacked. Further investigation locates the crew in a nearby series of tunnels. Unfortunately, only one has survived, the others having been attacked by something in the tunnels. The lone survivor will be able to tell the Player Characters what happened, but now they find themselves also at the mercy of what killed the surviving crew. ‘Lost, But Not Alone’ is a survival horror scenario, which takes place in a complex built by the same species which built the rings that give access to so many extra-solar system planets. It is a classic Science Fiction survival horror scenario, so not too demanding for either the Game Master or her players.
The scenario does include options for adding it to a campaign or beginning one if the Player Characters have no spaceship. There are ways—legal and illegal—included to make some money as well. Six pre-generated Player Characters are also included with the quick-start. These consist of Cho Ha-Neul, an engineer with a zest for life who’s good at fixing things and making friends; Koa Garcia, a former MCRN engineer seeking adventure and opportunity; Marcus Toussard, an ex-UN soldier who survived the devastation of Earth during the Free Navy Conflict; Olivia Anand, a former combat medic who has seen their fair share of pain and suffering; Phoenix Wu, a hotshot pilot who is still haunted by their involvement in the Free Navy Conflict; Titiana Osun, a natural leader and activist from the Belt who seeks to help those still suffering from the depredations of war and disparity.
Physically, The Expanse RPG Transport Union Edition Quickstart is cleanly presented, illustrated throughout in full colour, the artwork nicely depicting the future of The Expanse, as well as its various characters. In places, it is perhaps slightly too busy in terms of its layout, sometimes making it less than an easy read. However, it is well written and an engaging read, especially the background and the advice for the Game Master on running a game.
The Expanse RPG Transport Union Edition Quickstart is a serviceable introduction to what is the second edition of The Expanse Roleplaying Game. The accompanying scenario is well presented and easy to slip into a campaign, but just feels a bit too familiar.

Now in its eighteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2025 took place on Saturday, June 21st. 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. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Thanks to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day.

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A Great Offering: An Obojima Adventure is a scenario for Obojima Tales From The Tall Grass: A 5E Campaign Setting published by 1985 Games. Obojima Tales From The Tall Grass is designed to be played using Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition and describes itself as ‘leisure fantasy’, in which the Player Characters do go on adventures, but take the time to ‘stop and smell the roses’, to regard the world around them and its wonders, and interact with the fairytale creatures that might live next door or up a mountain. It is a ‘lo-fi’ setting that takes as its primary influence as the anime films of Studio Ghibli, in particular, My Neighbour Totoro and Spirited Away, and sets in a version of eighties Japan. The result combines the modernism of the rise of the Electronic Age with Japanese folklore and fantasy in a rural island setting. A Great Offering: An Obojima Adventure is designed for two to four Player Characters of Third Level.
A Great Offering: An Obojima Adventure opens with the Player Characters completing a hike to the base of Mount Arbora and the village of Dorrin. Mount Arbora is also home to Jumaga, the Sky Salamander, one of the three great beasts of Obojima. Islanders from all across Obojima to Mount Arbora to make the difficult ascent and leave something of value on the Ledge of Offering, in the hope of appeasing Jumaga. Most of Dorrin’s income comes from the Rockwinders, guides who take people up the mountain, although recently, Dorrin Plate, a common stone that can be broken into sheets and used as roofing tiles, crockery, and building materials, has been discovered to be also good for enhancing the magic properties of potions. Not every Rockwinder, or indeed, visitor to Dorrin, is entirely honest or scrupulous, and some do visit the Ledge of Offering to steal and sell the most valuable items left there.
The Player Characters are approached by a clearly distressed brother and sister. She will explain that they have been robbed by a gaggle of Harpy thugs who stole their money and the family heirloom they were planning to place on the Ledge of Offering following the death of their father. The Player Characters can ask around about the Harpies and their boss, and will quickly learn the location of their hideout, a rusty old pickup on a nearby cliff. In other settings, the Harpies would be portrayed as thoroughly evil creatures, but whilst they are Neutral Evil in Alignment, in A Great Offering: An Obojima Adventure, they are depicted as teenagers, wearing shorts and tee-shirts, more bullies than true villains. This sets the tone for the adventure, not without confrontation, but certainly less combative.
The second part of the adventure focuses on the climb up to the Ledge of Offering, first in hiring a Rockwinder and then in making the climb. Two Rockwinders are given, one of whom is less scrupulous than the other, so the Player Characters had better make the right choice! The Player Characters will confront the Harpies’ boss, but before that they will have a few encounters up the mountain. Some of these are quite fun, even a little silly, such as being swarmed by a flock of chicken spirits or being joined by Buttercup, a goat spirit, who is not only very chatty, but also has no break between her inner and outer voices—so she should be fun for the Game Master to portray. Others are more dangerous and so the Game Master should mix and match. Ultimately, the Player Characters will get to place the brother and sister’s family heirloom on the Ledge of Offering and survey what has been left before. The adventure does explore the possibility that one or more Player Characters might actually want to steal from the Ledge of Offering, and certainly several of the items are actually worth sealing, but such a course of action is not without its consequences. The adventure ends with the confrontation with Big Bonnie, the Harpies’ boss.
Physically, A Great Offering: An Obojima Adventure is a very good looking scenario. The artwork is excellent, whether in line drawing and full colour, imparting a delightful sense of place and wonder. The scenario is well written and comes to a close with a short explanation of Obojima Tales From The Tall Grass: A 5E Campaign Setting.
A Great Offering: An Obojima Adventure is a thoroughly charming and engaging scenario. There is a lovely sense of whimsy to it from start to finish, and it does a good job of showcasing both setting and tone of Obojima Tales From The Tall Grass: A 5E Campaign Setting.

Now in its eighteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2025 took place on Saturday, June 21st. 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. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Thanks to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day.

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The year is 1348 and mankind is subject to a divine punishment for its sins. For the last two years, all of Europe has suffered the devastating Black Plague which seems to spread fire and kills almost everyone it touches. The symptoms are easy to spot, black spots on the skin and swollen lymph nodes called buboes. Yet there is a second symptom, one that remained secret, one that the Papacy fought in secret and one it managed to eradicate—the Revenant Plague. Victims of the Black Plague are known to rise and not only spread its symptoms, but also feed upon the flesh of the living. The Papacy instituted the Ordo Mortis, a military order dedicated to not only fighting the secret war against the Revenant Plague, but also to keeping knowledge of the war against the Revenant Plague a secret. Word of it cannot spread, for it would weaken faith in the Catholic Church. This is the set-up for Píaga 1348, a storytelling game from NEED! Games, the Italian publisher best known for the Fabula Ultima TTJRPG.

Píaga 1348 Quickdeath is the quick-start released for Free RPG Day 2025. It includes the core rules, three scenarios, and four pre-generated Player Characters. The core mechanics are simple and straightforward, but the roleplaying game is played with shifting focus on the Soldiers of the Ordo Mortis who take it in turn to be the Soldier on Duty, whilst the other Soldiers will provide him with support—if they can. A Soldier is simply defined by several traits. These are the ‘Motto of the Ordo’; ‘Name’, including both full name and nickname, if any; ‘Description’; ‘Weapon’, which can also be an ability; and ‘Armour’. These are the five core traits, but he also has entries for ‘What I Want’, ‘What I Don’t Want’, and ‘Traumas’, the latter physical, psychological, and social wounds suffered when a conflict is lost. A player simply has to define these traits in order to create his Soldier.
At a start of scene, the Ludi Magister—as the Game Master is known in Píaga 1348—asks the player whose Soldier is the Soldier on Duty what he perceives and based on those answers, frames the scene for her players. When a conflict ensues, the Soldier on Duty’s player decides what his Soldier wants to do and builds a dice pool based on his five core traits. For each of them that the player can persuade the Ludi Magister to include, a six-sided die is added to the pool. Every result of five or six counts as a Success and only one Success is required for Soldier to achieve the objective outlined by the player. The Ludi Magister will narrate the outcome of the dice roll, though if a failure because no Successes are rolled, the Soldier on Duty will suffer a Trauma.
Any excess Success go into the Morale Pool, which on subsequent turns, the Soldier on Duty can draw from to increase the size of dice pool. Additional dice can come from the two sources. One is the other Soldiers, who can contribute dice based on their traits. The second is from a ‘Gamble’, in which the player adds a die of another colour to his dice pool. On a result of one, two, or three, nothing happens, but on a four, five, or six, the Soldier is ‘Exposed’. What this means that is a Soldier on Duty can still succeed—that is, roll a five or six—and still be ‘Exposed’. When ‘Exposed’, a roll is made on the ‘Gamble’s Outcome’ table. The result might be that a Soldier cannot use any further ‘Gamble’ attempts in the mission or that the Soldier is wounded and infected by a Revenant! Whatever the result, the outcome is narrated by the player.
What is important here is there is an economy to a player’s use of his Soldier’s five core traits. If they can be used all in one go whilst a Soldier is the Soldier on Duty, then they can be refreshed to be used on subsequent turns. Whilst a Soldier can use them to help another Soldier who is the current Soldier on Duty, it will mean that he will have fewer to use when it is his turn to be Soldier on Duty. Running out of traits and having none to confront a situation when a Soldier is Soldier on Duty means that he will automatically fail. This forces a player to husband the use of those traits from turn to turn.
The aim in Píaga 1348, and thus the Píaga 1348 Quickdeath, is to tell a choral story of life and death in the Middle Ages. This need not be a wholly accurate treatment of the Middle Ages and the Ludi Magister is free to add whatever anachronistic elements fits her campaign. For example, one of the pre-generated Soldiers is a Plague Doctor, a decidedly seventeenth century figure, but still feeling appropriate to the secret world of Píaga 1348. The basic elements driving a story are the Mission itself and ‘What I Want’ and ‘What I Don’t Want’ for each Soldier. The Ludi Magister is provided with decent advice for what is a quick-start, a set of prompts to set up her Missions, and three ready-play scenarios. They include investigating a haunted villa where several nobles fled to avoid the plague, tracking down a strange group of knights in rusted armour, and even ascending into the Carpathians to confront Count Vlad III who is said to have survived the Plague and become something more. All three come with detailed backgrounds, locations, secondaries (as NPCs are termed), and rumours. Lastly, there are four pre-generated Soldiers ready to play. They include an actual knight, a noble nun, an ex-assassin, and a plague doctor!
Physically, Píaga 1348 Quickdeath is fantastically presented. The woodcut style artwork and the use of a Gothic fount very gives it a singular look and conveys a lot of atmosphere to the Ludi Magister.
Píaga 1348 Quickdeath is simple to play and easy to grasp. After all, it could be described as just another zombie apocalypse roleplaying game, but the setting is different and the inclusion of the Black Death makes it even grimmer than most zombie apocalypse roleplaying games. As does the need for secrecy, which might result in the Soldiers going to deadly lengths to carry out this part of their duty. Overall, the Píaga 1348 Quickdeath provides a thoroughly engaging introduction to the setting of Píaga 1348 and purpose of the Ordo Mortis, as well as a gaming group with three good sessions of play.

Now in its eighteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2025 took place on Saturday, June 21st. 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. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Thanks to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day.

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Battle for Nova Rush is a scenario for Starfinder, Second Edition and in terms of support for Free RPG Day 2025, feels very much like a reset. Back in 2018 for Free RPG Day, Paizo, Inc. published Starfinder: Skitter Shot, a scenario in which four of the cheerfully manic, gleefully helpful, vibrantly coloured, six-armed and furry creatures known as Skittermanders, have an adventure and find themselves in possession of their own starship. They would then have further adventures in subsequent releases for Free RPG Day. Battle for Nova Rush involves a familiar setting, though not Skittermanders. Well, almost not Skittermanders. The scenario is designed to played with four First Level Player Characters—all of which are provided—and can be played through in a single session.

The scenario begins in classic Science Fiction fashion. The Player Characters are locked up in the brig of a starship. The vessel is the Nova Rush, previously owned by a thrill-seeking amateur archaeologist, but recently captured following a violent hijack by Captain Phaedra Firestorm. The Player Characters will need to find their way out of their cell, several methods including persuasion, intimidation, and deception, being suggested. Their gaoler is surprisingly helpful and quite happy to see them go up against Captain Firestorm. The Player Characters will soon garner the aid and advice of the ship’s Virtual Intelligence, Captain Concierge, a Skittermander, who will be very helpful. As they proceed through the ship, dealing with pirates, it will quickly become apparent that the ship is under attack by the ghastly sounding ‘Corpse Fleet’, so repairs are required before the Player Characters can climb to the bridge and face the pirate captain. Once she is defeated, they can make their escape a second time, this time from the battle.
Battle for Nova Rush comes with four pre-generated Player Characters. They consist of Chk Chk, a male Shirren Mystic; Dae, a nonbinary Pahtra Solarian; Iseph, a nonbinary Android Operative; and Navasi, a female Human Envoy. All four are given a double-page spread, which includes an illustration, detailed background, advice on playing the character, explanations of how they operate in combat, exploration, and healing modes, what they think of their fellow inmates, and lastly their full stats. The Player Characters are very well presented, just as you would expect for a release for Free RPG Day from Paizo, Inc. The scenario also includes a nicely done set of deckplans for the Nova Rush.
Physically, Battle for Nova Rush is as professionally presented as you would expect for Paizo, Inc. It is in full colour, the art and cartography are excellent, and the adventure is well written.
Battle for Nova Rush is a straightforward, even clichéd Science Fiction adventure. The Player Characters begin as prisoners, have to escape, fix a few things and fight a few things before confronting the villain of the piece and escaping once again. Consequently, it is an undemanding affair, but one that still leaves room to showcase the Starfinder, Second Edition rules and let the players have a good time.

Now in its eighteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2025 took place on Saturday, June 21st. 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. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Thanks to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day.

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SHIFT Roleplaying Game Basic Rules is not a quick-start, but rather than an introduction to the rules. It is published by Hit Point Press, best known for the anthropomorphic Humblewood Campaign Setting, written for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. It is designed to be quick to learn with minimal rules. Both Player Characters, their Traits and those for everything else in the game are measured in SHIFT Dice. These form a ladder that starts with the four-sided die, and then runs down the ladder with the six-sided, eight-sided, and ten-sided die to the twelve-sided die. Lower dice are better than higher dice. When rolled, the aim is to a get a result of one, two, or three, no matter the die size. A result of one is a critical success, whilst results of two and three are ordinary successes. Any other number is a failure, except for the maximum number on the die, which is a critical failure. When a critical failure is rolled, the die type for the trait is shifted down and that is what the player will the next time he tests the trait. Ultimately, if the player rolls critical failure on the twelve-sided die, the trait becomes exhausted and is unable to use it until the character rests. What this means is that the lower the die type, the greater the chance of roll being successful. Of course, the lower the die type, the greater the likelihood of rolling a critical failure.

A Player Character has three Core Traits. These are Mind, Body, and Soul. A six-sided die is assigned to one Core Trait, an eight-sided die to a second Core Trait, and a ten-sided die to the third Core Trait. Other Traits are Focus Traits, the example given being ‘Ray Gun’. As well as a Keyword, the Focus Trait can also have a Drawback. A Drawback can gained because the roll with the Trait roll failed or the Trait’s die is shifted down.

Action rolls typically involve a combined roll of a Core Trait plus a Focus Trait. If both dice roll a one, then it is a critical success; if a success is rolled on one die and the highest value on the other die is not rolled, the action is a success; if a success is rolled on one die and highest value on the other die is rolled, the action is a mitigated success; if there are no successes rolled, the action is a failure; and if no successes are rolled and highest value on the other die is rolled, the action is a critical failure. A critical success grants a bonus, such as the player being able to shift a die up to a smaller die type for either his character or that of another, or shift an enemy’s die down twice to an even larger die size. Other options include a negate a Drawback, gain information, grant an advantageous situation, and so on. A roll can also be Risky or Inspired. A Risky roll means that all failures on the dice are counted as Critical Failures, and are going to be stepped down, whilst an Inspired roll means that all successes on the dice are treated as Critical Successes.

SHIFT Roleplaying Game Basic Rules explains some basics of encounters and combat. Initially, the Game Master determines which side has the advantage and acts first, whilst on subsequent rounds, each player will roll an Action Roll using his character’s Core Trait to determine if his characters acts before or after the enemies. Action Rolls are rolled as normal for anything that the player wants his character to do in a round.

And that essentially, is it as far as the SHIFT Roleplaying Game Basic Rules is concerned. There are no rules for combat included, there are no stats provided for anything other than the Ray Gun mentioned, and there is no setting or background material. Mention is made of ‘Dorado Station: A sci-Fi Western World Spark’, a micro-setting that the Game Master can download.

Physically, the SHIFT Roleplaying Game Basic Rules looks good, but the layout is untidy.

The SHIFT Roleplaying Game Basic Rules is an adequate introduction to the basic mechanic of the SHIFT Roleplaying Game. However, that is exactly what it is and no more, there is no explanation of combat, no sample Player Character or adversary, no sample setting or scenario… What it means is that the Game Master really cannot do anything with it beyond reading it.

The Third Horizon is a place of mystery and mysticism. The location of the thirty-six star systems that comprise the third wave of colonisation from Earth via a series of portals built and abandoned long ago by an alien species now known as the Portal Builders, it stands isolated once again following an interstellar war between the First Horizon and the Second Horizon that closed the Portals. The identity of the Portal Builders remains a mystery, as does the identity of the recently arrived faceless aliens known as the Emissaries who rose from the gas giant Xene. Compounding that is the fact that one of the Emissaries claims to be an Icon and ordinary men and women have been seen to use abilities said to be the province of the Icons themselves. Are they heretics, evolving, or the result of Emissary meddling? Then what secrets are hidden in the dark between the stars and the portals? This is the situation in the Middle East-influenced Science Fiction roleplaying game, Coriolis: The Third Horizon, originally published in Swedish by Free League Publishing, but since published in English. It is also the situation at the start of Mercy of the Icons, a campaign trilogy for Coriolis: The Third Horizon, that will explore them in detail and reveal some of the secrets to the setting.
By the end of the Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost, the first part of the campaign, the Player Characters discovered starting revelations in the wake of the disappearance of the Emissary. These were the identity of the organisation behind the death and disappearances of mystics from aboard the Coriolis station, the so called ‘The Mysticides’, and more information about who the Emissaries are and that they in danger after receiving a vision of the Second Horizon. It seems that despite the Third Horizon having been long isolated from both the First Horizon and the Second Horizon, the former is attempting to make long lost contact and manipulate events in its favour, whilst the latter is trying to prevent it. The action having shifted from Coriolis station to tracking across the world of Kua below, the first part of the campaign ends with the Player Characters wanting to get off planet knowing that some of the most important figures in the Third Horizon are in danger.
To continue playing the campaign, it is recommended that at least one Player Character be combat capable. In addition, a Player Character with the Data Djinn skill is definitely going to be useful and whilst a Mystic character is not mandatory, the presence of one will add an extra dimension to the campaign. The Player Characters do not necessarily need to have their own starship, but should have access to one. That said, they may able to recover their own spaceship, which they lost access to in Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost, and carry one from there. One way in which the Player Characters can acquire a ship from the start of the campaign is in playing The Last Voyage of the Ghazali, a prequel scenario to the Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost. It is worth running Last Voyage of the Ghazali before Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost, but it should be noted that the connection between The Last Voyage of the Ghazali and Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost is never really explored from the perspective of the Player Characters. However, it becomes much more important in Mercy of the Icons – Part 2: The Last Cyclade and then Mercy of the Icons – Part 3: Wake of the Icons. As with Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost before it, the Atlas Compendium is likely to be useful in running the ongoing campaign
The second part of the campaign, Mercy of the Icons – Part 2: The Last Cyclade, published following a Kickstarter campaign, is divided into three very different parts. The first part, ‘The Uharan Echo’, is really divided into two highly contrasting halves. It opens with the Player Characters having been hired to investigate the possible reappearance of the Zafirah, the destroyer lost during the rescue operation conducted during The Last Voyage of the Ghazali. This requires that they run a blockade from the long way round into Uharu system via the Taoan-Uharu portal, before the Player Characters literally dive on the wreck submerged in the chemical waters of a moon, perhaps prefiguring the tone of Coriolis: The Great Dark. This gives it a claustrophobic, unworldly feel that escalates as they reach the wreck where it lies on a cliff, ready to tip over and fall into the depths below, and begin to search the ship. Inside they make a startling discovery, a second wreck, that of one of the strange Butterfly Ships that the Player Characters encountered at the end of the first part of the campaign. The inside of the Butterfly Ship is nothing like the Player Characters will have seen before and is almost ‘alien’ in its creepiness. The scenario ends in a rush as the Butterfly Ship begins to collapse and force the wreck off the cliff, and then attacking the portal itself, which disrupts the whole of the Uharu system. The unexpected discovery of the Butterfly Ship is a fantastic payoff to the Player Characters’ encounter at the end of Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost.
The second half is a radical shift to the first, taking place back on the Coriolis station where the Player Characters find themselves the centre of attention, feted as heroes after the events in the Uharu system. After recovering in hospital, the Player Characters are approached by multiple factions wanting to employ them whilst also being the guests of honour at a grand banquet to celebrate the end of the year or Cyclade. They are dressed to nines and effectively paraded through the scenario, but there are plenty of opportunities for the Player Characters to interact with the great and the good along the way, with plenty of opportunities to roleplay and with some good Manipulation rolls potentially learn what each faction wants. What each faction wants and knows is nicely detailed, as is the support they will provide the Player Characters, what they will do if the Player Characters do not enter their employ, and what they will do if the Player Characters betray them. There are also plenty of other scenes too that the Game Master can add to contrast and display the varied reactions to the Player Characters’ being treated as the heroes of the hour.

By the end of the banquet (or not long after), the Player Characters will themselves having taken up one faction or another as a patron. It is possible to maintain links with some of the other lesser factions, but in the main, they will be working for and supported by a single patron throughout the next part of the campaign. What the different factions want is explored in further detail as the campaign shifts again in tone and structure. ‘The Cyclade Dance’, the second part of Mercy of the Icons – Part 2: The Last Cyclade is more open in structure, being built around a mission generator and a series of events that the Game Master can weave the Player Characters’ progress around. The Player Characters will not be present for every event nor do they have to play through all of the suggested adventures. Some of the events will take place off screen and the Player Characters will only learn about them afterwards, but they do serve to keep them updated as to ongoing events across the Third Horizon. Sixteen missions are detailed to varying degrees with the final four being more detailed and necessary to continue the campaign. The missions focus on the investigation of the Nazareem’s Sacrifice cult, originally a Firstcome faction, but long since reviled for its nihilistic and brutal practices, including alleged human sacrifice, performing dark rituals, and making unholy pacts with evil spirits and djinn. The Nazareem’s Sacrifice has long been driven underground in the Third Horizon, operating in secret, but has become more active in recent years. For the majority of the factions in the Third Horizon it is seen as the primary threat. The types of missions begin with the Player Characters hunting lone agents and cultists to Tier I and infiltrating Nazareem’s Sacrifice cells, through Tier II and exploring ruins associated with the cult, to Tier III and actually conducting a strike mission against active cells. Throughout, the Player Characters will have been gathering information that will ultimately set up the Tier III mission. However, not every mission involves Nazareem’s Sacrifice directly and one of the creepier missions is ‘Curse of Rusah’ in which the Player Characters explore the Ash Belt in the desolate Odacon in search of a rumoured lost weapon. The encounter verges on cosmic horror and has a creepy, weird feel that echoes the earlier exploration of the Butterfly Ship. The last mission, ‘The Fire of the Icons’, is the assault upon a Nazareem’s Sacrifice temple and it holds some weird encounters of its own, that again verge on being horrifying.
The last part of Mercy of the Icons – Part 2: The Last Cyclade is ‘In the Shadow of the Zenith’ returns the Player Characters to the Coriolis station, and Kua, it hangs over, for a more direct finale. Against a backdrop of a hastily called election to the Council of Factions called in the face of continued political polarisation and growing distrust by the electorate, the Player Characters’ patron asks them to locate a defector who has valuable information. Coriolis station is packed with pilgrims and refugees and this only adds to the tension as the Player Characters locate and search safehouse after safehouse and then, as they locate the defector and learn the truth behind the election, its results are called, the previous administration is denounced, martial law is declared, and rioting breaks out in response. It is against this backdrop that the Player Characters race to get off the station and the Emissaries make an open move that brings Mercy of the Icons – Part 2: The Last Cyclade to a shattering conclusion.
Physically, Mercy of the Icons – Part 2: The Last Cyclade is a good-looking book. The artwork is excellent, but the writing does need an edit in more than a few places, and it does feel as if the English translation of the campaign has been rushed. The campaign is light on handouts and there are very few physical clues. This is not an issue, but the campaign does feel as if a few more maps would have been useful, certainly ones suitable for use by the players and their characters.
The Mercy of the Icons campaign is a demanding campaign to play and run. There is a lot of information for the Game Master to take in and impart that to her players, and in Mercy of the Icons – Part 2: The Last Cyclade that comes to the fore as politics plays a big role in the story and there is a lot going on in the background as the events of the foreground where the Player Characters play out. Even if the players have characters who do not have as much interest in the politics of the Third Horizon as others, for example, agents and journalists versus merchants and ship’s crew, they are still going to need the same background since they are going to be dealing with the same factions. And whilst the Nazareem’s Sacrifice are definitely evil, the other factions are definitely shaded in a lot of grey. Nevertheless, Mercy of the Icons – Part 2: The Last Cyclade very effectively pushes the plot on, gets the Player Characters’ involved, and reveals more of the secrets and the horrors of the Third Horizon.

Now in its eighteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2025 took place on Saturday, June 21st. 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. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Thanks to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day.

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In the Beast’s Wake is a scenario for the Grim Hollow setting published by Ghostfire Gaming, one of three released by the publisher for Free RPG Day 2025. All three scenarios and settings are written for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition and designed to be played by a party of five to six Player Characters of Third Level. The scenario opens with ‘Welcome to the Grim Hollow’, a much needed description of the setting and its key features, because the scenario does not have a back cover blurb. What it tells the reader is that the setting for Grim Hollow is called Etharis, a realm of grim fantasy and horror in which true goodness is rare and beautiful, and darkness and terrible evil prevails such that moral choices are not between good and evil, but between the lesser of two evils. The specific setting for In the Beast’s Wake is the former Bürach Empire where a civil war instigated by Emperor Leopold I to determine which god should reign over the others led to both the provinces of the empire and the gods themselves fighting each other. God’s End led to The Era of the Beast in which there are no gods and the common folk turn to fake deities and demons for succour from the Great Beast that stalks the remnants of the Bürach Empire and casts its shadow long and deep. It is a grim dark setting not a little reminiscent of Ravenloft for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Second Edition and in its Germanic setting, not a little reminiscent of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay or even the Diablo series of computer games.
In In the Beast’s Wake, the Player Characters are hired by Lord General Vassily Roemer of Ulstenburg to investigate the violent attacks on trade caravans and villages near the village of Niederhalde. There are rumours of lycanthropes stalking the roads and of members of a cult dedicated to the Arch Daemon Tormach being responsible, and as such scurrilous talk verges on heresy, the puritanical Hearthkeepers have decided to conduct a spiritual intervention. The Player Characters are sent to aid Adele of the Hearthkeepers, beginning with investigation in the neighbouring village of Grünbach, before going on to Niederhalde. The investigation involves questioning those who have fled Niederhalde, which is actually quite challenging as they are reluctant to talk, either because they do not want to recall what they saw, have secrets to hide, or both.
The focus of the adventure, Niederhalde, is described in more detail and the Player Characters will have to investigate and literally dig deep in order to uncover the secrets of what has been going on the village. This includes the church and the cemetery, as well as a farm that is currently home to the most fearsome of beasts in all of fantasy roleplaying—the Gasdra! This is a three-headed goose with teeth. After that, it is probably going to be a relief that the Player Characters discover signs of demon worship and human sacrifice of the worst kind before confronting the creatures responsible for the attacks on the nearby villages and trade routes. Armed with the secrets uncovered in Niederhalde, the Player Characters can return to Grünbach and make choices as to what they should with the information they have learned.

The scenario comes with just the one appendix. This is the bestiary for the scenario, which of course, includes stats and description for the Gasdra. It is debatable whether the creature should have the Alignment of Neutral Evil, as opposed to just ‘Evil Evil’. A set of resources is also available for all three of the scenarios published by Ghostfire Gaming. They include maps, tokens, and pre-generated Player Characters for each. For In the Beast’s Wake, the Player Characters consist of a Grudgel Monster Hunter who belongs to the Carver Guild; a Wechselkind—a type of Construct—Rogue who is a Misfortune Bringer; a Wulven Barbarian of the Fractured Path; an Elf Wizard of the School of Sangromancy; a Human Cleric with the Purification Domain; and a Gnome Bard from the College of Fools. All six are nicely detailed and come with some background as well as an illustration and an explanation of all their abilities and features.

Physically, In the Beast’s Wake is well presented. The artwork and the maps are excellent, and the scenario is well written. The only disappointment is the lack of a back cover blurb to inform the reader what In the Beast’s Wake actually is.

In the Beast’s Wake is much more accessible than the other scenario published by Ghostfire Gaming, Whispers of Chaos. The background is easier to explain and there is a greater familiarity with its mix of horror and grim fantasy. Overall, In the Beast’s Wake serves up a dark and nasty mix of investigation and combat that reveal dreadful secrets and make the Player Characters deal with the consequences.

Now in its eighteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2025 took place on Saturday, June 21st. 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. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Thanks to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day.

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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: Laurel’s Canopy Quickstart is the Free RPG Day 2025 from Magpie Games for Root: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game. It includes an explanation of the core rules, six pre-generated 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: Laurel’s Canopy Quickstart is well-written. The publisher is well practised when it comes to presenting these Root quick-starts. 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 Nimble the Thief, a stealthy raccoon burglar and pickpocket looking to prove his skill; Saga the Chronicler, a possum and fearlessly inquisitive scholar; Lucasta the Raconteur, a weasel storyteller and singer who wants to hold truth to power in her performances; Keilee the Tinker, a messy, but adept beaver who advocates freethinking and is hunting her enemy, Minuet de León; Laeliana the Arbiter, a mole mercenary looking to defend those who cannot defend themselves; and Umberto the Raider, a mouse who loves the fight and being adored as a hero. All six of these Vagabonds have links to the given Clearing and its NPCs in Root: Laurel’s Canopy 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: Laurel’s Canopy Quickstart is Laurel’s Canopy. Its description comes with an overarching issue and conflicts within the Clearing, important NPCs, places to go, and more. The situation in Laurel’s Canopy is different to that of most Clearings, dominated as it is by the diktats of power from before the Grand Civil War. It is part of the Eyrie Dynasty, led by Nanit Osprey, whose uncle, Pandion, instituted a set of Decrees that ensured stability in the Clearing. However, in the wake of Grand Civil War, the strict interpretation of the decrees has led to famine with fish left rotting the warehouses, over foraging in the surrounding forest, and a standoff between Nanit Osprey and the Clerkdom which enforces the Decrees. Meanwhile, Corvid Conspiracy Leader Ambrosius Conroy campaigns for fairer representation of all, whilst seeking to undermine Nanit Osprey’s rule and Silver Sally leads a rebellion which gives her cover for her own objectives. Lastly, the mouse scholar, Theodore Twitchwhisker has been accused of plagiarism by Mister Stubby, a lizard who runs the Lost Tail Bakery. He contends that the mouse’s Book of Twin Dragons, an inflammatory description of the Lizard cult orthodoxy, was based on a work of fiction of his own, for which the manuscript is missing. This has led to the bakery being picketed, the relationship between the lizards and non-avian citizens of Laurel’s Canopy becoming strained.

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: Laurel’s Canopy Quickstart and getting the Vagabonds involved. This is enhanced by each Vagabond having a link to and thus a motivation for visiting Laurel’s Canopy. There are suggestions also as to how escalate the situation for each of the Vagabonds to draw them further into the ongoing events in Laurel’s Canopy. Some of the conflicts are a little subtle too, often with NPCs attempting to achieve the same quite personal aim, so the Game Master will need to read them more closely to understand them and be able to impart them to her players.

Physically, Root: Laurel’s Canopy 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, the Root: Talon Hill Quickstart for Free RPG 2022, and the Root: Hacksaw Dell Quickstart for Free RPG Day 2023, Root: Laurel’s Canopy Quickstart is physically one of the most impressive of all the releases for Free RPG Day 2023.

If there is an issue with Root: Laurel’s Canopy 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: Laurel’s Canopy Quickstart means that it is not a beginner’s game and the Game Master will need a bit of experience to run Laurel’s Canopy and its conflicts.

Ultimately, the Root: Laurel’s Canopy 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: Laurel’s Canopy 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: Laurel’s Canopy 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.

Now in its eighteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2025 took place on Saturday, June 21st. 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. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Thanks to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day.

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The Arzium Quickstart Guide 2 is the introduction to the Arzium Roleplaying Game, the second following the release of the Arzium Quickstart Guide for Free RPG Day 2024. It is not, though, an introduction to the World of Arzium. That would be the series of board games designed by Ryan Laudkat and published by Red Raven Games, including Above and Below, Near and Far, and others. It presents a fantasy world filled with mysteries, magic, and forgotten technology, above and below ground. The Arzium Quickstart Guide is a slim affair, providing a very basic overview of the setting, an explanation of the mechanics, a short adventure, and four pre-generated Player Characters. Arzium is described as a world of strange mechanics and strange magics, some of it scavenged from fallen civilisations, some of its developed by the newly arisen city-states, industrialised with devices powered by bottled demons and rare crystals. The world is also a diverse one, being home to Humans, Hogfolk, Fishfolk, Lizardfolk, Birdfolk, and other species, including Robots! In the City-state of Arc, far to the south of Surstrayne Forest, location of the village of Above, and underneath it, the village of Below, the Academy of Gom has been beset by a series of thefts, which are believed to have been committed by a mysterious organisation known as the Shattered Knife! Although the Academy of Gom has tight purse strings, the thefts need to be investigated!

Mechanically, the Arzium Quickstart Guide and thus the Arzium Roleplaying Game, is a dice and resource management game. A Player Character has six attributes—Strength, Reflexes, Knowledge, Cunning, Perception, and Craft. Each ranges in value between zero and ten, and presents a pool of points that a player can spend to modify dice rolls. A standard difficulty is seven, whilst a hard one is ten. The maximum that a player can spend on a challenge is five. To have his character undertake an action, a player rolls a ten-sided die and attempts to equal or exceed the difficulty. Results less than the difficulty have a failure forward outcome in that the story continues despite the negative outcome. The latter might be an actual failure, but it can also be that the action succeeds and the Player Character or an item of equipment suffers damage, or even that the whole situation changes. In addition, if a six is rolled on the die, then a complication is automatically added to the situation. Resting for at least half a day will restore a Player Character’s spent attribute points.

In combat, the Player Characters typically act first and then the enemy. When a Player Character acts, he moves first and then takes an action. All attacks succeed in hitting and inflict damage as per the die type for the weapon or type of attack. The damage inflicted can be increased by spending points from the associated attribute. Armour reduces the amount of damage suffered. Attacks, abilities, and spells can also temporarily affect Power, a measure of NPC and monster ability to inflict more damage. Each monster and NPC gains one Power at the start of each turn, but because the Player Characters act first, they directly affect the monster and NPC capacity to inflict more damage. The rules also allow for gambits, inventive actions which can change the environment or affect monsters and NPCs, but without inflicting damage.

Casting spells requires the expenditure of Attribute points, but not a dice roll. However, a dice roll is required to take account of magic being whimsical and occasionally dangerous. When a spell is cast, the Game Master rolls a ten-sided die and if a one or two is rolled, she also rolls on the ‘Whimsical Magic’ table. This might result in the caster smelling like rotting garbage for a day or temporarily grants a nearby object life as it grows limbs and runs around in a chaotic manner.

Other rules for the Arzium Quickstart Guide 2 and the Arzium Roleplaying Game can be found on the character sheet. For example, it uses an inventory system of boxes for gear and offers Memory Knots as a means to maximise a die roll. This requires the player to explain why a particular memory will help his character in the current situation. The Arzium Quickstart Guide 2 includes four pre-generated Player Characters. They include a Human Treasure Hunter good at exploring caves and old facilities, a Toadfolk Investigator with a grasping tongue, and a Hogfolk Curstic Mystic with a knowledge of curse-related spells.

The scenario in the Arzium Quickstart Guide 2 is ‘Flight into Madness’. The Player Characters are hired by the Academy of Gom in the City-state of Arc following a series of thefts by the secret organisation known as the Shattered Knife and following an attempt by the Academy of Gom’s best and brightest to investigate the thefts thwarted by sabotage upon the part of the Shattered Knife. Boarding a ramshackle airship, the Player Characters are only armed with a couple of leads that their employer, Professor Argof, gave them. Following both will lead them over the seas to a large island and eventually to the secret base where the Shattered Knife has its headquarters. There they will meet, Zaradin, the head of the organisation, who will give them to opportunity to join him. The Player Characters are fee to do, fight, or run away. Fighting is a difficult option as there are so many members of the Shattered Knife that can call upon Zaradin. However, no stats are given for Zaradin.

‘Flight into Madness’ is short. Playable in an hour—or two at the most. Yet, the whole of the Arzium Quickstart Guide 2 is short. Consequently, it feels underwritten and slightly underexplained, particularly when it comes to NPCs and combat, but the mechanics are simple enough that they can be understood. The scenario though is underwhelming and does not give the players and characters much to do beyond face a series of combat challenges.

Physically, the Arzium Quickstart Guide 2 is decently put together. The cartography and artwork are good, and it is all clean and tidy. Yet as nice as it looks, the Arzium Quickstart Guide 2 does not successfully bring the world of Arzium to life and make it a setting that you want to visit in play. There is not enough of the setting and the scenario is cursory and short and not enough to really sell the reader on the Arzium Quickstart Guide 2, let alone on the Arzium Roleplaying Game. Ultimately, the Arzium Quickstart Guide 2 showcases everything that the Arzium Quickstart Guide got wrong for Free RPG 2024 by repeating them exactly. As an introduction to the setting of Arzium,the Arzium Quickstart Guide 2 just about works. As as a quick-start the Arzium Quickstart Guide 2 comes up woefully short at barely four pages long of actual adventure...

Now in its eighteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2025 took place on Saturday, June 21st. 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. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Thanks to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day.

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Whispers of Chaos is a scenario for the Aetherial Expanse setting published by Ghostfire Gaming , one of three released by the publisher for Free RPG Day 2025. Both scenario and setting are written for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition and the scenario is designed to be played by a party of five to six Player Characters of Third Level. It opens with ‘Welcome to the Aetherial Expanse’, a much needed description of the setting and its key features, because the scenario does not have a back cover blurb. What it tells the reader is that Aetherial Expanse is a realm of high fantasy which lies on the Astral Plane, one which combines the Age of Sail and Golden Age of Piracy with magic and swashbuckling action under a sky of swirling stars. Wind flows from the Elemental Planes to fill the sails of the ships, rain falls from the Material Plane on the islands that dot the Astral Plane and swirl around the Maelstrom, the enormous aether-storm at the heart of the Astral Sea. Planar Portals lead elsewhere, lost civilisations lie beneath the poisonous liquid aether of the Astral Sea, and aether comes in three forms—liquid, vapour, and solid. Aetherium crystal can be found floating in the Astral Sea like icebergs, but is rare and can even be used as a power source or a weapon. The Astral Emergents are those reborn and healed in the bodies of the recently dead, having been lost in the waters of the Astral Sea. Two powers from the Material Plane have invaded the Aetherial Expanse and founded colonies, the Kingdom of Ayris, a small, but powerful mercantile kingdom, and the expansive Karelagne Empire. It is less than a decade since the warring powers signed an uneasy truce, their rivalry exhibiting in feuds and acts of piracy and privateering.

In Whispers of Chaos, the Player Characters are hired by Professor Delkin Doss, an anthropology teacher. He wants to recover an ancient book of dark secrets, Godlike: Research, Stories, and Theories, which has been stolen from him by a sage, Dr. Marigold Brambletoe. A student, the Gnome, Sophia Blush, has managed to get word to him of where Doctor Brambletoe has taken the tome. This is the uninhabited Tumult Isle which lies close to the Maelstrom, where Nth Degree, a cult of Karelagne zealots, have established a base of operations where she can conduct his research. Unfortunately, Professor Delkin Doss is on a budget and has a booked passage on the Ethnos, completely unaware that some of the crew are very unhappy. So unhappy that they mutiny! This is the first big event of the scenario, throwing the Player Characters into the action, ideally being able to deal with the mutineers before sailing on, though notes are given suggesting what might happen if the mutineers prevail. Either way, the Ethnos is left shorthanded and the Player Characters are expected to pitch in. Here is where the scenario mixes it up with fun with some activities aboard ship—cooking meals, coming across a derelict ship, searching for Moose, the ship’s cat, and much more… These are pleasingly entertaining and keep the Player Characters busy until it throws them into the main action of the scenario.

This takes place in the Tumult Facility. The Player Characters need to find a way past the partially open frond or, but once inside discover a scene of bloody devastation. There are bodies everywhere as if monsters have been rampaging through the facility, and as they explore further, they will not only find several of those monsters, but also that the Tumult Facility has a surprisingly modern feel, including a welcome centre, shower room, and games room! Their progress is marked by the whole facility suddenly shaking again and again, each time the intensity increasing as if Tumult Isle was beset by ground tremors building up to an earthquake. This adds to the creepy tension that pervades the blood spattered facility, but eventually the Player Characters will discover the cause—a Maw, a great toothy mouth protruding from a crack in the ground, spitting monsters into the realm, as its tentacles flail and attempt to draw power from several Astral Emergent prisoners! The Player Characters are likely to have found Godlike: Research, Stories, and Theories by now, but this monstrous thing, even one constrained by the size of the crack in the floor of the facility, needs to be defeated, and even though it is constrained by the size of the crack in the floor of the facility, it is a challenging foe. Defeating the toothy, tentacled terror will bring the scenario to an exciting close.

The scenario comes with three appendices. The first gives stats and details for the scenario’s monsters, including a ship mimic! The second and third describe a card game that the Player Characters might play aboard ship and the effects of aether poisoning. The scenario includes maps of the Tumult Facility, the Ethnos, and the Astral Sea. A set of resources is also available for all three of the scenarios published by Ghostfire Gaming. They include maps, tokens, and pre-generated Player Characters for each. They include a Kobold Cleric with the Aether Domain; a Dwarf Fighter with the Corsair Raider subclass and Starlight Sea Raider Background; an Automaton Wizard with the Technomage Subclass and the Karalagne Naval Magewright Background; a Dragonborn Rogue with the Veiled Guardian Subclass and the Ayrissian Magnate Background; a Bard from the College Of The Blade Dancer and with the Opportunist Of The Expanse Background; and an Astral Emergent Ranger with the Expanse Wayfinder Subclass and the Silvery Sea Wanderer. All six are nicely detailed and come with some background as well as an illustration and an explanation of all their abilities and features.

Physically, Whispers of Chaos is well presented. The artwork and the maps are excellent, and the scenario is well written. The only disappointment is the lack of a back cover blurb to inform the reader what Whispers of Chaos actually is.

The biggest problem with Whispers of Chaos is the background. Not that it is not a good background—it is. Rather that there is a fair bit of it to impart to the players before they can start to play the scenario. Once over this hurdle, Whispers of Chaos is a really entertaining scenario, especially the scenes aboard the ship, that all together serves as a solid introduction to an intriguing setting.

Now in its eighteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2025 took place on Saturday, June 21st. 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. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Thanks to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day.

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Dragonbane – The Magistrate’s Gambit is a preview of, and a quick-start for Dragonbane, the reimagining of Sweden’s first fantasy roleplaying game, Drakar och Demoner, originally published in 1982. Funded via a Kickstarter campaign by Free League Publishing in 2022, Dragonbane promises to be a roleplaying game of “mirth and mayhem”. It includes a basic explanation of the setting, rules for actions and combat, magic, the adventure, ‘The Sinking Tower’, and five ready-to-play, Player Characters.
‘The Magistrate’s Gambit’ scenario is designed as a tournament style adventure and can be played in two hours. This means that it is intended to be run for multiple groups and their scores at the end collected and compared to determine a winner. However, this does not mean that it cannot be added to an ongoing campaign, but rather that it includes a scoring sheet to determine how well one group of players fared compared to another. That said, two hours is tight for the scenario and outside of a tournament, the Game Master can easily prepare the scenario and run it in a single session. The Game Master will need a timer of some kind. The scenario includes everything necessary to play—pre-generated Player Characters, maps, puzzles, and more. If the scenario is being run as part of a standard campaign, a Rogue and a Wizard are recommended Player Characters. The scenario setting also suggests that it is located near a large town or city.
The five pre-generated Player Characters include a Human Wizard (Fire Elementalist), an Elf Hunter, a Mallard Knight (yes, a duck knight!), a Halfling Thief, and a Wolfkin Warrior. All five Player Characters are given a double-sided sheet with one side devoted to the character sheet whilst the other gives some background to the Player Character, an explanation of his abilities, and an excellent illustration. One issue is with the Human Wizard, whose player will need to refer to the magic section of the rules in Dragonbane – The Magistrate’s Gambit to find out how his spells work. It would have been far more useful for them to be at least listed along with costs for the benefit of the Wizard’s player.
A Player Character has a Kin, which can be human, halfling, dwarf, elf, mallard, or wolfkin. He also has six attributes—Strength, Constitution, Agility, Intelligence, Willpower, and Charisma—which range in value between three and eighteen, as well as a Profession. Both Kin and Profession provide an ability which are unavailable to other Kin and Professions. Various factors are derived from the attributes, notably different damage bonuses for Strength-based weapons and Agility-based weapons, plus Willpower Points. Willpower Points are expended to use magic and abilities derived from both Kin and Profession. A Player Character has sixteen skills, ranging in value from one to fourteen.
To have his player undertake an action, a player rolls a twenty-sided die. The aim is roll equal to or lower than the skill or attribute. A roll of one is called ‘rolling a dragon’ and is treated as a critical effect. A roll of twenty is called ‘rolling a demon’ and indicates a critical failure. Banes and boons are the equivalent of advantage and disadvantage. Opposed rolls are won by the player who rolls the lowest.

If a roll is failed, a player can choose to push the roll and reroll. The result supersedes the original. In pushing a roll, the Player Character acquires a Condition, for example, ‘Dazed’ for Strength or ‘Scared’ for Willpower. The player has to explain how his character acquires the Condition and his character can acquire a total of six—one for each attribute—and the player is expected to roleplay them. Mechanically, a Condition acts as a Bane in play. A Player Character can recover from one or more Conditions by resting.
Initiative is determined randomly by drawing cards numbered between one and ten, with one going first. A Player Character has two actions per round—a move and an actual action such as a melee attack, doing first aid, or casting a spell. Alternatively, a Player Character can undertake a Reaction, which takes place on an opponent’s turn in response to the opponent’s action. Typically, this is a parry or dodge, and means that the Player Character cannot take another action. If a dragon is rolled on the parry, the Player Character gets a free counterattack!

Combat takes into account weapon length, grip, length, and so on. The effects of a dragon roll, or a critical hit, can include damage being doubled and a dragon roll being needed to parry or dodge this attack, making a second attack, or piercing armour. Damage can be slashing, piercing, or bludgeoning, which determines the effectiveness of armour.

Armour has a rating, which reduces damage taken. Helmets increase Armour Rating, but work as a Bane for certain skills. If a Player Character’s Hit Points are reduced to zero, a death roll is required for him to survive, which can be pushed. Three successful rolls and the Player Character survives, whilst three failures indicate he has died. A Player Character on zero Hit Points can be rallied by another to keep fighting. Dragonbane – The Magistrate’s Gambit also includes rules for other forms of damage such as falling and poison, plus darkness and fear. Fear is covered by a Willpower check, and there is a Fear Table for the results.
A Wizard powers magic through the expenditure of Willpower Points. Typical spells cost two Willpower Points per Power Level of a spell, but just one Willpower Point for lesser spells or magic tricks. Spells are organised into schools and each school has an associated skill, which is rolled against when casting a spell. Willpower Points are lost even if the roll is failed, but rolling a dragon can double the range or damage of the spell, negate the Willpower Point cost, or allow another spell to be cast, but with a Bane. Rolling a demon simply means that the spell fails and cannot be pushed. A spell cannot be cast if the Wizard is in direct contact with either iron or steel.

Three spells and three magical tricks are given in Dragonbane – The Magistrate’s Gambit. These are all fire-related, designed for the Wizard Player Character. The magical tricks include Ignite, Heat/Chill, and Puff of Smoke, whilst the full spells are Fireball, Gust of Wind, and Pillar.
The scenario in Dragonbane – The Magistrate’s Gambit is ‘The Magistrate’s Gambit’. This takes place in Archmage Kalisial’s palace where each year she meets an old friend, Magistrate Stalomer, for a game of smickleboard. When they were young, they were adventurers, and together they found a magical necklace. Both wanted to wear it, but to decide who would for the following year, they decided to play the game, with the winner getting to wear it. Magistrate Stalomer has never won a single game despite his having studied smickleboard for years, and as he nears the end of his life, he just wants to wear it the once. Yet he suspects that Archmage Kalisial, his old friend, is cheating by using three magical artefacts. These are a wig, a pair of gilded spectacles, and an onyx game board and if he can replace them, he thinks that for once, he will prevail in the annual game. To that end, he hires the Player Characters and instructs them to attend the party, find each of the suspect artefacts and replace them with replicas he has made.

So what the Player Characters have to do is sneak away from Archmage Kalisial’s party and explore the rest of her palace for the location of the three artefacts. Given that they only have an hour to explore the palace, it is actually quite large, with eleven rooms that they will probably want to examine. There is a strong emphasis on puzzles and interaction, with the possibility of a little combat along the way, and the puzzles are actually supported by handouts that the Game Master can cut out and present to her players. All of the locations are highly detailed and there is usually a lot to examine and interact with in each room. The Player Characters will also find plenty of treasure to take away with them, which they will, as this is how Magistrate Stalomer plans to pay them. The Game Master will need to keep track of the Player Characters’ actions as they have the potential to first arouse Archmage Kalisial’s suspicions and eventually alert her to their activities. Her initial suspicions will make it increasingly difficult for the Player Character to sneak about and act surreptitiously, and will ultimately result in her sending servants to investigate if she becomes too concerned.
Eventually, a bell will ring (in other words, the timer set by the Game Master will go off) and the party proper will begin. This will be followed by the game itself being played between Archmage Kalisial and Magistrate Stalomer. How well he does will depend upon how successful the Player Characters have been in substituting the three items. In game terms, the Player Characters earn points for various objectives achieved throughout Archmage Kalisial’s palace, whilst her vigilance level is substracted from this and a twenty-sided die is rolled against the resulting value. If the roll is equal to, or below the value, then Magistrate Stalomer wins!
Physically, Dragonbane – The Magistrate’s Gambit is clean and tidy. The cartography is excellent, but the artwork and illustrations are superb. The handouts are also very good. They are done by Johan Egerkrans, who also illustrated Vaesen and possess a grim, if comic book sensibility.
Dragonbane – The Magistrate’s Gambit is a well done tournament adventure, packed with puzzles and secrets that the players and their characters need to discover and solve before the time limit of the scenario. It is effectively, an anti-heist scenario that is till played out with all of the stealth of a classic heist scenario. As a standard adventure, it can be played out at a more leisurely place and will be no less challenging, though without the time limit. Either way, Dragonbane – The Magistrate’s Gambit is a tightly designed and impressive little scenario, which not only has the potential to be a lot of fun, but which also feels refreshingly different from other scenarios for Dragonbane.

Now in its eighteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2025 took place on Saturday, June 21st. 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. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Thanks to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day.

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One of the perennial contributors to Free RPG Day is Paizo, Inc., a publisher whose titles for both the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and the Starfinder Roleplaying Game have proved popular and often in demand long after the event. The emphasis in these releases have invariably been upon small species. Thus, in past years, the titles released for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game have typically involved adventures with diminutive Player Characters, first Kobolds, then Goblins, and then with the release of A Fistful of Flowers for Free RPG Day 2022 and A Few Flowers More for Free RPG Day 2023, it was Leshies, where as for Free RPG Day 2024, it was the turn of toys with The Great Toy Heist! However, for Free RPG Day 2025 literally makes a big change by making the scale of its contribution for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game big and make the villain of the piece even bigger!

The Scourge of Sheerleaf is designed for four Tenth Level Player Characters and makes use of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Player Core, the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game GM Core, the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Monster Core, Pathfinder Rage of Elements, Pathfinder Secrets of Magic, and Pathfinder Last Omens Grand Bazaar. It is a lot of sourcebooks and rulebooks, and what it means is that it supports the Game Master and the gaming group who has already invested time in the roleplaying game. This is not to say that the Game Master who has access to all of those books could not run the adventure for players who do not, running it as one-shot or demonstration adventure. That said, being designed for use with Tenth Level Player Characters means that The Scourge of Sheerleaf is more complex to run and play than the useful offering for low Level Player Characters that Paizo, Inc., normally releases for Free RPG Day.
The Scourge of Sheerleaf is set in the town of Sheerleaf which stands below Mount Zoldos,  between the Arthfell Mountains and the Arthfell Forest. It comes to the attention of the Player Characters when come across a pamphlet being circulated in nearby taverns. It tells of how the village has been attacked by a dragon, demanding fealty from the villagers, and wrought its revenge when the demand was rebuffed. When they arrive in Sheerleaf to help, they will find several collapsed buildings, many people now living in tents, and the town’s the mayor, Eliana, waiting for them. She will be able to tell the Player Characters that Zikritrax, the dragon, is an Adamantine Dragon, and with its ‘Avalanche Breath’ attack, was able to pummel the buildings into collapsing; that he has a lair in a cave up on Mount Zoldos; and worse, that Zikritrax not only refuses to negotiate, but because the town has still not acquised to his demands, has kidnapped Eliana’s wife and children. So, not only do the Player Characters have to defeat an Adamantine Dragon, they have to recuse a women and her children!
The action part of the scenario sees the Player Characters ascend the mountain, avoiding an avalanche on the way, and entering the cave. Here, they will face Zikritrax and his Armoured Cave Bear minions. Zikritrax is a tough opponent, being thirteenth Level, possessing 220 Hit Points, fearsome claw and tail strike as well as the ‘Avalanche Breath’ attack, let alone the fact that it has a ‘Fearsome Presence’ and a ‘Resilient Form’. The former inflicts fear, of course, whilst the latter potentially downgrades critical attacks against the creature.
And that is it. As an adventure, The Scourge of Sheerleaf is short. It is also very combat focused and arguably really only consists of combat since there is no other way to resolve the situation.
The rest of The Scourge of Sheerleaf is dedicated to the four pre-generated Player Characters. They are all Tenth Level and they all share a similar feature—their Heritage is ‘Dragonblood’. They consist of Brave Wanderer, a Leshy Sorcerer; Kiana, a Human Figher who has the wings, horns, and scales of a dragon; Ruvior, an Elf Cleric who uses a wheelchair; and Sizkmi, a Kobold Rogue with dragon wings. All four are given a two-page spread each and each includes his background, a guide to playing the character, with notes on whet he will do in combat, exploration, and when healing is required, as well as what he thinks about the other characters. The four Player Characters are very well done and easy to read, and also include references for the various abilities.
Physically, The Scourge of Sheerleaf is professionally presented. The artwork is excellent and the writing is clear. The one map included, which is of Zikritrax’s lair, is serviceable.
Despite how professionally The Scourge of Sheerleaf is done, it is difficult not to be disappointed at the end result. The adventure consists of three scenes, an underwritten roleplaying scene, an exploration scene, and a combat scene, the combat scene being the one that dominates the whole scenario. And that is it. There is very little on the town of Sheerleaf, and certainly no map of it, and the players and their characters have no real agency as to how they tackle the scenario and there is almost no scope for roleplaying. Further, whilst the adventure is simple—arguably simplistic—its Player Characters are complex with a lot of mechanical detail as befitting a Tenth Level Player Character. The end result is that The Scourge of Sheerleaf is likely to be too complex for players new to the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and little more than a single encounter for players who have been playing it for a while. It is thus difficult to work who exactly, The Scourge of Sheerleaf is aimed at. 

Now in its eighteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2025 took place on Saturday, June 21st. 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. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Thanks to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day.

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Scry, Scry My Little Eye is a scenario for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. It is published by Loke BattleMats and a tester, not to say a taster, for the publisher’s Dungeon Designer Cards. It is designed to be played with four Player Characters, each of Second Level, and completed in a single session, two at most. The set-up is simple. A powerful Mage offers the Player Characters a job. This is to test a dungeon that he has designed and built. All the Player Characters have to do is survive, locate ten Runes that have been hidden around the dungeon, they will be rewarded with a 1000gp for their efforts. The mage, Sazovar, explains that he will monitoring their progress and in return promises no fatalities, even in the if it would appear that the entire party has been killed. What it means is that as far as they are concerned, the Player Characters are being paid to practise their dunegeoneering skills. What it actually means is slightly creepier...

Sazovar has designed the dungeon to be watched. However, not just by himself, but by his friends and colleagues too, and to keep the tension and excitement high, he is quite happy to change things in the dungeon and thus keep the hired adventurers on their toes. This is represented by the key feature dungeon, which itself consists of several connected rooms across two maps included in the centre of the adventure. This feature consists of the Dungeon Designer Cards. These are double-sided. The front depicts a piece of dungeon furniture or dressing, such as a chest, desk, storage shelves, broken floor, pool of water, and so on. Flip them over, and they present the Dungeon Master with a set of four choices. So, the ‘Pool of Water’, “A broken section of floor has filled up with brackish foul smelling water.” The choices on the back consist of a ‘Deep Dive’, ‘Acid’, ‘Damp Coins’, and ‘Watery Dead’. The Dungeon Master can chose one or roll for one, and in the case of ‘Pool of Water’, the ‘Deep Dive’ is a narrow, deep pool containing a glinting Clue; the ‘Acid’ will inflict damage to anything or anyone which falls in; the pool contains ‘Damp Coins’, but the water stinks; and in ‘Watery Dead’, there is a Ghoul hiding just under the surface of the water! The clues in the case of Sazovar’s test dungeon all give the Player Characters a Rune which they need to complete the dungeon and gain Sazovar’s reward. There is a total of sixteen Dungeon Designer Cards, each measuring roughly fifteen-by-twenty feet.

The scenario begins with ‘5E in 5 Minutes’, a very quick guide to Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, followed by an explanation of the scenario’s adventure, the hook to get the Player Characters involved, how the Dungeon Designer Cards work, an explanation of the background for the Dungeon Master. All of this is easy to read and prepare, and there is advice too, on how to run the dungeon. In this case, it means adding audience interaction, adjusting the difficulty as necessary, and so on. There are suggestions to, as how to use the scenario once the Player Characters have through it once. There is scope here, of course, for the Player Characters to replay the dungeon with the different options on Dungeon Designer Cards, ones they have not previously encountered, or for Sazovar to populate it with tougher challenges.

The Dungeon Master is supported, not just with maps she can use and the Dungeon Designer Cards she can cut out, but also tokens for the monsters and the Player Characters. The latter also have their own character sheets and consist of a Half-Orc Barbarian, a Halfling Bard, a Human Wizard, and a Half-Elf Rogue. These are all fully fledged characters with some background as well as their stats.

Physically, Scry, Scry My Little Eye is well presented. The artwork is decent, but the maps are very good. This should no surprise given the publisher. One nice touch is that references to monsters, items—magic or not, and clues are colour-coded to make them easier to spot.

Scry, Scry My Little Eye is an easy dungeon to run with very little preparation since the Dungeon Designer Cards do the dungeon design and dressing. It can be run as a one-shot, a convention scenario, or run as part of a campaign, perhaps with the Player Characters becoming dungeon scouts and surveyors to find wilder and more extravagant encounters to implement in their patron’s dungeon, and even expanding the size of test dungeons with further maps from Loke Battle Mats.

Now in its eighteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2025 took place on Saturday, June 21st. 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. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Thanks to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day.

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The Avengers Expansion Preview is the Free RPG Day release for 2025 for the Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game. It is superior in every way over the release for the Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game for Free RPG 2024. The X-Men Expansion Preview, was literally that, a preview of the then forthcoming title. The Avengers Expansion Preview is anything but a preview of the forthcoming supplement detailing Earth’s Mightiest Heroes for the roleplaying game. Instead, it presents a complete scenario that can be played in a single session. What is slightly misleading is that whilst the cover does depict members of the Avengers, the players do not get to roleplay them. Instead as the cover states, they get to roleplay members of the current version of the Thunderbolts! This is more in keeping with the current version of the team’s line-up as vigilantes, founded by Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier, prepared to deal out justice to those villains, who time and again, manage to avoid punishment. They are The Destroyer (Sharon Carter), Red Guardian (Alexi Shostakov), U.S. Agent (John Walker), White Widow (Yelena Belova), and The Winter Soldier (Bucky Barnes). Whilst not quite the same, this line-up is similar to that seen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film, The Thunderbolts, so players could take inspiration from the film in roleplaying them.
The scenario is designed for four or five players, it being suggested that the Narrator roleplay The Winter Soldier as an NPC. There is some advice on running the scenario, what the Narrator will need, and more, but ultimately, the Narrator will need the quick-start rules (available here) or the Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game rulebook, and also the character profiles for The Thunderbolts (also available here). The scenario is a two-act affair in which the Thunderbolts are invited to Tony Stark’s birthday party in the Avengers Tower. In the first act, the heroes arrive at the Avengers Tower in the secure garage, ready to go through security and ascend to the actual party. This is a social affair in which the heroes get to interact with fellow guests and others. They journalists such as Ben Urich of the Daily Bugle, archaeologist and adventurer, Doctor Kate Edwards, and even a celebrity mentalist, The Amazing Merlin. These can be selected by the Narrator or chosen randomly, but they present a good mix of characters, all with different motives and interests, some which actually align with those of the heroes. The scene takes the heroes out of their comfort zone and puts them on the red carpet as minor celebrities, with all of the challenges that entails.
The second act begins with a bang—onscreen! Having got through security and been able to watch the party upstairs on various video screens, the heroes see it crashed by a woman riding in a howdah atop a giant white swan. However, before the Avengers present at the party can react, the woman sends them all into a slumber using a Runestone. It is clear that the woman is using magic and the Runestone suggests that she might be an Asgardian. Security clears the Thunderbolts just in time and tells them to get in there and deal with the problem. If the first act was social, the second act is physical and a big fight. The Heroes are facing none other than the very powerful Enchantress and her henchman, Skurge. The fight is quite a tough one, as in addition to the Asgardians, the Heroes are facing trolls and ice giants. Simply facing them head on is likely to lead to defeat and the success of the Enchantress’ plans, but there are clues around which will suggest an alternate means of stopping her, at least for long enough until the Avengers can be woken up and are ready to enter the fray once again.
Again, the Narrator is given some advice on how to stage the battle and the adventure comes to a close with some suggestions as to what will happen next, which will vary depending upon how well the Thunderbolts succeeded. Lastly, there are some associated adventure seeds that the Game Master can develop if she wants to take the Thunderbolts on further missions.
Physically, The Avengers Expansion Preview is well presented. The map is nice and clear and it should be no surprise that the art is good too, given the sources that the designers can draw upon. The adventure does actually reference a lot of issues of various comics from the seventies, eighties, and nineties, though they are not required reading to run or play the scenario.
Some players may be disappointed that given that The Avengers Expansion Preview is a preview for the forthcoming Avengers sourcebook that they do not get to play the Avengers. This may be a fair point, but the Thunderbolts are far from uninteresting and anyway, according to Marvel Cinematic Universe continuity, they sort of are depicting the Avengers! Nevertheless, The Avengers Expansion Preview is a solid, serviceable scenario for the Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game.

The Empire, located at the heart of the Old World, has stood for two thousand years, ever since it was founded by Sigmar following his alliance with the Dwarves and defeated the hordes of goblins and orcs at the Battle of Black Fire Pass. Yet for half that time, scholars and Elector Princes have been muttering that it has been in decline, ever since the time of Emperor Boris Hohenback, divided into a series of independent counties, duchies, and principalities, feuding and occasionally skirmishing with each other. Unity between them is rare, the last time being during the Vampire Wars a century ago. Now, in the year 2276 IC, the Empire stands without an Emperor and four claimants. Count Sigismund Ulric of the Grand County of Osterlund and the great city of Middenheim, descendant of the Wolf Emperors of the north, who must contend with his own independently-minded subjects. Empress Elspeth Magritta VI rules the Barony of Westerland from the wealthy port city of Marienburg, but nicknamed the Empress of Coin, she is dismissed for her youth and the influence that the rich Burgomeisters of Marienburg and the volatile cult of the Sea God Manann have over her. Prince Wilhelm I of the Principality of Reikland and his subjects live in the heartlands of the Empire, but are often regarded as being fanatical Sigmar worshippers, ready to fall upon the neighbouring Duchy of Talabec which they claim to be rife with witches! Duke Ludwig XII of the Grand Duchy of Talabec looks to be a fool who prefers hunting and drinking, but his private political manoeuvring is limited since he cannot leave the city of Talabheim and the surrounding forest that filled the Taalbaston, the giant crater in which they stand, lest he lose his right to return. This is despite the fact that Talabheim and the lands within the Taalbaston remain independent. Internal strife is not the only threat that the Empire and its ordinary peasantry, who rather focus on the day-to-day, a good day’s pay for a good day’s pay, cold ale, and solid boots, let alone a warm fire, faces. The County of Sylvania and the marsh Hel Fenn remain sinister regions on the border, despite the Vampire Counts having been defeated a century ago. Orcs and Goblins skulk in the mountains, Beastmen and Undead lurk in the woods despite only being seen as old wives’ tales designed to scare children, and worshippers of the Dark Gods run rampant in the north and practise their vile entreaties in secret elsewhere…
Perched between the Talabec River and the towering walls of the Taalbaston, Talagaad stands on the Wizard’s Way, the road that crosses over the bridge known as the Wizard’s Crossing and up over the walls of the Taalbaston and is the only legal route into the crater. It is a rough, grimy port, its inhabitants working the docks and the ferry crossings and servicing the merchants and other visitors, but seeing relatively little of coin that is raised through sales or taxes. It is a town rife with crime and corruption, petty and otherwise, the town’s notorious ferrymen ready to transport goods and people across the river as much as they are stop mid-river, exhort additional payment, or toss passengers and cargo alike into the river. Smuggling operations closely guarding knowledge of other routes into the Taalbaston that can be followed to avoid paying taxes, whilst Talagaad’s excise officers have garnered a well-deserved reputation for corruption that rivals that of any other port in the Empire.
Taalbaston is the default setting and starting point for Warhammer: The Old World Roleplaying Game, with the game referring to it again and again. Published by Cubicle 7 Entertainment, this is the roleplaying adaptation of Warhammer: The Old World, the miniatures combat rules from Games Workshop. This is set in a period two centuries prior to the better-known roleplaying game set in the Old World, that is, the venerable Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition. Its focus is less on the assaults and attacks by the forces of Chaos and on the Chaos within, and more on internal strife, whether political, between the Elector Counts, or religious, between the Sigmarites and Ulricans and others. The Old World as a setting has always drawn heavily from history, particularly the Early Modern period of Europe, but with Warhammer: The Old World and thus Warhammer: The Old World Roleplaying Game, the inspiration is more heavily that of the Thirty Years War and its political and religious strife.
Warhammer: The Old World Roleplaying Game Player’s Guide is the first of two core rulebooks for the roleplaying game. It provides the means to create characters, the core rules, a guide to what Player Characters can do between adventures, details of both magic and religion, and some background on the setting. Essentially, it introduces the Warhammer: The Old World – Roleplaying Game, which combines an earlier setting in the history of the setting with lighter, faster playing rules than those presented in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition.
A Player Character in Warhammer: The Old World is defined by his Origins, Characteristics, Skills, and Careers. The six Origins, which provide the base value for Characteristics, consist of Dwarf, Halfling, High Elf, Human Bretonnian, Human Imperial, and Wood Elf. Each Origin provides a random Talent, base Skill ratings, Lores, and beginning Fate, plus it suggests some names. There are nine Characteristics which are Weapon Skill, Ballistics Skill, Strength, Toughness, Initiative, Agility, Reason, Fellowship, and Fate. Each Characteristic has two associated skills, for example, the skills for Weapon Skill are Melee and Defence, and Willpower and Recall for Reason. Both Characteristics and Skills range in value between two and six. Each Career adds further Skill bonuses and Lores, plus Trappings, Assets, and Contacts, as well as Career Recipe. The Careers range from Apothecary, Artisan, and Boathand to Wildwood Ranger, Witch, and Wizard. Many will be recognisable from Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, such as Bounty Hunter, Charlatan, Labourer, Rat Catcher, and Road Warden, whilst others are less so, such as a Lothern Sea Guard or Waywatcher. In addition, a Player Character has some connections and assets. Most of the Origins have a unique career. Thus, there is the Knight-Exile for the Bretonnian, the Brewguard and Slayer for the Dwarf, Lothern Sea Guard and Shadow Warrior for the High Elf, Priest for the Imperial, and Waywatcher and Wildwood Ranger for the Wood Elf. Sadly, nothing for the Halfling.
To create a character, a player rolls for his Origins, three random Characteristic bonuses, applies the bonuses from his Origins and rolls for another Talent, and then rolls for his Career. Contacts—all of which are tied into the roleplaying game’s NPCs in Talagaad, and assets—based on the Player Character’s Status are rolled as is physique, demeanour, extra quirks or accessories, and character relationships.
Name: BrittaOrigins: DwarfPhysique: Red-nosed, vigorous, bright as steel Demeanour: Angry, vengeful, fierce as brightstoneCareer: EngineerCharacteristics (Skills): Weapon Skill 3 (Melee 3, Defence 3), Ballistics Skill 3 (Shooting 3, Throwing 2), Strength 4 (Brawn 2, Toil 4), Toughness 4 (Survival 2, Endurance 3), Initiative 2 (Awareness 3, Dexterity 3), Agility 3 (Athletics 3, Stealth 2), Reason 3 (Willpower 3, Recall 2), Fellowship 2 (Leadership 2, Charm 2), Fate 2Lore: Blackpowder, Engineering, Literacy, Lore: Dwarf Mountain Holds, Smithing, Extra ModificationsTalents: Intense Scrutiny, Hatred: OrcsAssets: ArmouryTrappings: Warhammer, handgun, burgher’s apparel, worker’s leathers, engineering kit, blackpowder kit, writing kitContacts: Hunter Lord Leonard Van Obelmann, Commander of the Talabheim 11th regiment occupying Talagaad; They ignored your advice and lost a critical battle as a result—a fact you never let them forget. Malko Matasca, A reputed druid, tortured by visions of dark futures; You have fought alongside them, and seen what happens when they get angry.
Mechanically, Warhammer: The Old World uses a dice pool system. To have his character undertake an action, a player rolls the number of dice equal to the associated Characteristic, aiming to roll equal to or lower than the character’s skill on one or more dice. Each roll equal to or lower than the character’s skill counts as a success. The difficulty of the task will add or subtract dice depending upon if it is easier or harder, and various Lores, Talents, trappings, and Status expectations can also modify the number of dice a player has to roll.
Depending on the circumstances, a test can be Grim or Glorious. If it is Grim, then the player rerolls all successes again and determines his character’s success from that outcome, whilst if Glorious, the player rerolls all failures and determines his character’s success from that outcome. Typically, only a single success is required, but in certain situations, a Player Character might require as many as three successes for a Total Success. In this case, if only one success is rolled, the Game Master can impose a Complication, such as forced expenditure or the Player Character becoming flustered in front of someone important. If the player rolls a Total Success, he can suggest an extra bonus, such as the task being done more efficiently or impressively. If a task is going to take time or require the expenditure of resources, then an Exacting Test is rolled, which requires multiple success over time.For example, Britta is a gunsmith and her Engineering Lore enables her to invent, operate, and build prototypes of experimental mechanisms, whilst her Smithing Lore means that she knows how to work metal to produce weapons, armour, or tools. Her Blackpowder Lore means that she is used to using and firing blackpowder weapons. She wants to create a clockwork device that will automatically reload her pistol up to two times before it needs reloading. Her Game Master tells her that this will be a detailed test. On a marginal or one success, it will work, but there is a chance that it will take an extra round time to reload rather than doing so ready for the next round; with two rolled success, or a Success, the clockwork mechanism will reload without any problem; and three success, or a Total Success, there is a chance that the reload mechanism is so fast, it enables the pistol to be fired twice in a round!
Britta has a Strength of four and a Toil of four. Her player will be rolling four dice, equal to Britta’s Strength, the aim being to roll four or less on each die as per her Toil skill of four. Unfortunately, Britta’s player rolls a four, seven, eight, and ten, resulting in one or a marginal success. Britta’s player decides that the Dwarf thinks the spring is not strong enough and a new one needs to be fitted to get the right tension. Despite the majority of inhabitants of the Empire not quite realising that they are living in an age of relative peace and prosperity, their fears are not totally unwarranted. Some have begun to detect signs and patterns and for the Player Characters, this means that their fates are bound to a Grim Portent of things to come, having come to the attention of a powerful, probably evil person or entity. When this happens, it results in a life or death or struggle that will leave the Player Characters scared if they manage to survive. In game terms, a ‘Grim Portent’ is an adventure or session in itself, and really the only discussion of what a Player Character is going to be doing in Warhammer: The Old World. Even then, its description is obtuse.
To survive a Grim Portent, a Player Character will likely need to rely on Fate, of which he will have several points. Fate can be spent or burned. It can be spent to make a test Glorious, to gain a second action, or to help make a tactical retreat. It can be burned, thus reducing the Player Character’s total Fate permanently, to succeed on a test outright, to suffer a near miss and negate a wound, or to make a last stand, and do something incredibly heroic and memorable, but die in the attempt.
Combat is fought in Zones to handle range and each combatant can act and move once per turn. Athletics Tests are required to cross difficult or hazardous terrain without falling prone. It is possible to set up actions, like aiming or helping to set a trap, which will offer bonuses on a subsequent round, and it is also possible to Run to move an extra Zone, to Charge into combat to gain a bonus die on the melee attack, Move Quietly, and even Move carefully to better move around difficult terrain. The Improvise action covers everything else, including shoving a bandit off a cliff or disarming a drunk or taunting an opponent. Combat rolls themselves are opposed. So, an attacker will use his Melee skill to attack with a sword, whilst the defender will use Defence to parry or Athletics to dodge. Whichever combatant rolls the most successes is the winner, with ties going to the attacker.
Failed attacks will actually stagger the attacker, but successful attacks inflict damage equal to the weapon’s damage value plus the number of successes rolled. The resulting value is compared to the defender’s Resilience, which is equal to his Toughness, armour worn, shield carried, and any other abilities. If the total damage is greater than the defender’s Resilience, the defender suffers a wound. If not, the defender is just staggered. If the target is already Staggered, he must either Give Ground, fall Prone, or suffer a Wound. The Give Ground response enables the defender to put some space between himself and his attacker. If all else fails, Retreat is an action all of its very own.
Wounds and their effects are rolled on the ‘Wounds Table’ individually. For example, a ‘Battered Leg’ gives “Your legs buckle as the impact threatens to pitch you to the floor. Test Endurance to avoid suffering the Prone condition. You can remove this condition by using your free move, or the Recover action.” whilst ‘Decapitation’ gives “Your head is struck from your body — if your killer is in Close Range, and has a hand free, they may opt to catch your head and hold it aloft as a trophy. You are dead.” A ten-sided die is rolled for the first Wound suffered, two ten-sided dice for the second Wound, and so on and so on… In this way, damage suffered has the potential to escalate in severity and effect. The table is only used for Player Characters and Champion NPCs. Minions are defeated after suffering one Wound, whilst Brutes and Monstrosities are not, but how they suffer Wounds depends on their profile.
The combat rules also cover mounts and vehicles, whilst the other rules cover investigation, exploration, social encounters—including the class divide, and what the Player Characters do between adventures. This covers various endeavours, including aiding a contact, banking money, changing career, formalising a spell and inscribing it into your grimoire if a wizard, gathering information, investing money, laying low, labouring or crafting, rekindling fate—if the Player Character’s Fate is lower than starting Fate because it has been burned, study lore, test might, and so on. There are a lot of options, or endeavours, here that will definitely keep the Player Characters busy. However, undertaking endeavours is the only way to increase skills rather than from adventuring. Failures on associated tests are tallied and when they exceed the current skill value, the skill will increase.
Religion and belief is covered in the Warhammer: The Old World Roleplaying Game Player’s Guide with a particular emphasis on how the different gods—Ulric, Taal, Rhya, Sigmar, Manann, Morr, Ranald, Verena, Myrmidia, and Shallya—are worshipped and regarded in Talagaad. The gods of the Elves, Dwarves, and Halflings are also discussed, though to a lesser degree. A Priest Player Character does not immediately gain the ability to call upon his god for miracles. The Faith Talent grants him the favour of his god. For example, Ulric’s Favour grants immunity to the cold, recognition as an equal by any wolf, and after suffering a Wound in battle, makes the Favoured one’s next attack Glorious. The second time the Faith Talent is chosen, the Priest gains the blessings or prayers of the god and the third time, the miracles of his god. Each time the Faith Talent is acquired, the Priest is expected to undergo a trial of faith. Whilst several prayers are given for each god, the player is expected to talk with the Game Master to determine what is possible. In general, miracles are more narrative in nature than mechanical. In return, the Priest is expected to adhere to the strictures of his faith. Should he not do so, then there is the possibility of his losing the right to call for miracles, pray, and so on.
Name: SimoniusOrigins: Human (Imperial)Physique: Charmless Demeanour: BrashCareer: WizardCharacteristics (Skills): Weapon Skill 3 (Melee 2, Defence 4), Ballistics Skill 3 (Shooting 2, Throwing 2), Strength 3 (Brawn 2, Toil 2), Toughness 3 (Survival 2, Endurance 2), Initiative 3 (Awareness 3, Dexterity 4), Agility 3 (Athletics 2, Stealth 2), Reason 3 (Willpower 3, Recall 4), Fellowship 2 (Leadership 2, Charm 2), Fate 3Lore: Lore: The Empire, Lore: Altdorf, Talents: Thirst for Knowledge, Touched by the Winds, Arcane StudyAssets: LibraryTrappings: Staff, dagger, burgher’s apparel, arcane paraphernalia, writing kitContacts: Ambrosia Waxwing, Halfling librarian, studying the threat of the northern marauders; They pay you to bring them information, be it local gossip or scrolls from the Great Library of Altdorf. Valda Kracht, Devoted of Sigmar, spreading the proscribed faith in secret; Be they a fanatic of Sigmar, Ahalt the Drinker, or stranger gods still — you believe you can save them
The status of magic varies across the Empire. It is outlawed in the Reikland and its users are accused as witches and burnt at the stake, whereas in Talabecland, Wizards enjoy greater freedom to practise magic. However, Wizards everywhere are looked upon with superstition and distrust. Most are self-taught, but the recently founded Hexenguilde, attempts to protect and teach Wizards. A Wizard or a Witch has the career Talent of Wizard. Each level in the Wizard Talent grants the Wizard three spells from their Magic Lore. Every spell as a Casting Value, as well as a Target for the spell, and its Range and Duration. A Casting Test is needed to cast a spell, the caster’s player aiming to roll a number of successes equal to the Casting Value with his Willpower skill. No matter the total number of successes rolled, the final number of successes rolled determines a spell’s Potency. It is possible to keep rolling a Casting Value in order to get a better Potency value. The Potency value determines the actual effect of the spell, which will vary spell from spell. Rules are provided for improvised magic, but a selection of spells, organised Lore by Lore is also included. The Lores include Battle Magic, Elementalism, Illusion, and Necromancy.
Not rolling enough successes does not mean that the spell is miscast and a wizard’s player can continue making a Casting Test from one round to the next until the wizard has sufficient successes equal to the Casting Value. However, when the Casting Test is interrupted, the wizard adds a die to his Miscast Pool. As does rolling a nine, since this exceeds the Eight Winds of Magic. If the Miscast Pool exceeds the wizard’s level in the Wizard Talent, the Wizard’s player rolls all of the dice in his Miscast Pool and consults the Miscast Table. The results do not always mean that the spell fails, but rather that the Wizard has drawn too heavily on the Winds of Magic and the backlash causes noticeable side effects.For example, Simonius, the ‘Worst Wizard in the Old World’, is in a fierce fight with some goblins. His long-suffering companions are putting up a strong resistance and driving the goblins back, with many lying about in pieces from the Slayer’s axe or decapitated from the Halfling’s surprisingly deadly punches, but now a big brute is charging him. He attempts to cast Lightning Blast at the goblin, which inflicts four damage (or five if armoured) plus the casting Potency. It has a Casting Value of two—so unlikely to be too difficult, thinks Simonius’ player, who will be rolling four dice for Simonius’ Reason characteristic and attempting to roll equal to or under his Willpower skill of three. As the goblin charges at Simonius, his player rolls one, seven, nine, and ten. So, one success, but also three failures, one of which is a nine. A die is added to Simonius’ Miscast Pool. The spell has not yet attained its Casting Value, and on the next round, the charging goblin attacks, forcing Simonius to dodge. He is successful, but since this interrupts the casting, it adds a second die to his Miscast Pool. This means it exceeds his Wizard Level and forces a roll on the Miscast Table. Simonius’ player rolls the two dice in his Miscast Pool and gets the result of thirteen: “A hideous stench erupts from you. All those within Short Range of when you rolled this Miscast must immediately Give Ground or suffer a –1d penalty to their next Test. All your Fellowship Tests are Grim until you can next bathe.” This resets the Miscast Pool to zero and even though the goblin is used to horrible stenches, it gives ground. Simonius still has one success and continues his attempt to cast the Lightning Blast. His player makes a second roll with the results of three, six, seven, and nine. This means that Simonius has gained successes equal to the Casting Value and can cast the spell, but the Potency is only one, equal to the number of successes on this round. His Miscast Pool rises by one also. With the goblin on the ground, Simonius’ player decides to roll one more time to increase the Potency. Unfortunately, he rolls one, two, nine, and nine. This not only means that the spell succeeds with a better Potency of two, but it also means that Simonius’ Miscast Pool increases by two to a total of three because of the two nines rolled. This is, of course, a rare result, but then Simonius is the ‘Worst Wizard in the Old World’. Simonius’ player has to roll again on the Miscast Table and the result is twenty-one, or “An unnatural wind whips up around you. Anyone within Medium Range, including you, must make a Hard (–1d) Endurance Test or be knocked Prone.” This includes most of the other Player Characters and the goblins they are fighting, including the goblin that wanted to chop Simonius to bits. Simonius finally decides to unleash the spell and the goblin is blasted for four damage plus the Potency of two. Meanwhile, the other adventurers, now lying on the ground, are once again looking at Simonius askance…Overall, Warhammer: The Old World Roleplaying Game Player’s Guide presents a set of options that are Warhammer through and through, all set in the Empire, and backs it up with a fast playing, easy to use set of rules. The combat mechanics are straightforward and whilst they do not cover every eventuality, they do allow for some flexibility, especially under the Improvise action, which offers more options than just hitting things. In comparison, the magic rules are more complex, but not overly so, but they are still fast-playing whilst also being more than just a simple matter of casting a spell and triggering its effects. There is some nuance as the player attempts to balance the potential effect of the spell versus the possibility of a miscast and side effects. In comparison, the magic rules are better explained than the combat rules, primarily because as a player’s book, there are no monsters in the Warhammer: The Old World Roleplaying Game Player’s Guide and so there is not an effective example of combat to help the player or Game Master better grasp its play. A table giving the likely outcome for differing dice rolls would also have been useful.
Of course, Warhammer: The Old World Roleplaying Game is not Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition. It even states this on the cover with its subtitle, ‘Grim and Glorious Adventures in the World of Legend’ as opposed to ‘A Grim World of Perilous Adventure’. It does not have the options or the detail of the latter, but at the same time, it does not have the complexity of the latter either. To be fair, whatever its edition, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay has always been a relatively complex game, but to have a faster playing and easier ruleset will be an attractive feature to many players and Game Masters.
One of the big problems with Warhammer: The Old World Roleplaying Game Player’s Guide is that it does not really tell you what it is. The introduction to the setting is slight and it does not expand upon that until the very end of the book when there is more detail on the setting and on the four claimants to the Imperial throne. So, it leaves the reader wondering when, and to some extent, where, it is set. It is obviously a Warhammer roleplaying book, obviously not a Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition book, but it lacks context. If you are coming to the Warhammer: The Old World Roleplaying Game Player’s Guide new to the hobby there is a little note to explain what a roleplaying game is and that the best place for the reader to find out more is to look at the Warhammer: The Old World Roleplaying Game Starter Set. However, if you coming to the Warhammer: The Old World Roleplaying Game Player’s Guide from Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition—which is a distinct possibility—then the reader is likely to be at loss due to the lack of context and a direct explanation of what he is holding in his hands. When is this set? How does this differ from Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition? What does it offer that is different from Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition? What is it that the Player Characters will be doing that sets it apart from Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition? These are really simple direct questions whose answers could have been used to really sell the Warhammer: The Old World Roleplaying Game.
Physically, Warhammer: The Old World Roleplaying Game Player’s Guide is well presented and has some excellent artwork throughout. It does need an edit in places and in others the explanations need more careful read throughs than they necessarily should.
Ultimately, at this point, the main problem with the Warhammer: The Old World Roleplaying Game Player’s Guide is that it does not have its counterpart, Warhammer: The Old World Roleplaying Game Gamemaster’s Guide. Or even the Warhammer: The Old World Roleplaying Game Starter Set. There is nothing for the Game Master to run or the players and their characters to react to or fight. That will, of course, change, but even then the Warhammer: The Old World Roleplaying Game Player’s Guide does not really explain what it is that the Player Characters are going to be doing, what its differences are between it and its older forbear, and so on. There is a lack of context which means that it is not as grounded as it should be and means that it is not as easy for the Game Master to pitch the roleplaying game to her players as it should be.
The Warhammer: The Old World Roleplaying Game Player’s Guide is everything that a player needs to get started in a version of the Old World and the Empire that is both older and newer. It promises ‘Grim and Glorious Adventures in the World of Legend’ and with its faster playing, easier mechanics it offers a more heroic, more knockabout style of play.

Since 1979, what has been fundamental to RuneQuest and to the world of Greg Stafford’s Glorantha, has been the integration and prominence of its myths, pantheons, and their worship into the setting and as part of everyday life for the Player Characters. Although the original RuneQuest—more recently published as RuneQuest Classic—mentioned the importance of cults, it only detailed three of them, offering limited choices for the player and his character. That changed with the publication of Cults of Prax, which presented fifteen cults and their myths and magics dedicated to fifteen very different deities. Fifteen very different cults and deities which held very different world views and very different means of approaching problems and overcoming them. Fifteen cults which provided their worshippers with a link to their gods and in turn their gods with a link from god time to the real world. Fifteen cults which provided their worshippers with great magics granted by their gods and with paths to become Rune Lords and Rune Priests and so bring the power of their gods into the world. Cults of Prax provided the RuneQuest devotee or Gloranthaphile with a framework via which his character could enter the world of Glorantha, giving form and function to faith and above all, making it something that you could play and something that you wanted to play. For at its most mechanical, a player and his character’s choice of cult works almost like a character Class of Dungeons & Dragons, giving the character benefits and powers in terms of what he can do and how he does it. However, to reduce the cults of Glorantha to such mechanical simplicity is to ignore the ‘why’ of what the character can do, and it is this ‘why’ where the world of Glorantha and its gods, myths, and cults comes alive. Cults of Prax did not ignore this ‘why’, but introduced it, and that is arguably why it is the most important supplement ever for both Glorantha and RuneQuest. However, in 2023, some forty-four years after its publication, Cults of Prax has a successor—or rather, a series of successors.
Cults of RuneQuest is a ten-volume series of supplements each of which is dedicated to the different pantheons of Glorantha. Each entry in the series details the gods—both major and minor—within their pantheon, along with their myths and cults, magics, favoured skills, requirements and restrictions for membership, outlook and relationships with the other gods, and more. Each book is standalone, but because each of the gods and pantheons has connections and often entwining myths with other gods and pantheons, the series will together provide a wider overview of all the gods of Glorantha as well as differing approaches to them. This is further supported by the two companion volumes to the series—Cults of RuneQuest: The Prosopaedia and Cults of RuneQuest: Mythology. The standalone nature of the series means that the Game Master or the player—and it should be made clear that each of the ten volumes in the Cults of RuneQuest is intended to be used by both—can pick or chose their favourite pantheon and use the gods and cults from that book. However, some volumes are quite tightly bound to each other and some are, if not bound geographically, have strong ties to certain regions of Glorantha. So, for example, the first two entries in the series, Cults of RuneQuest: The Lightbringers and Cults of RuneQuest: The Earth Goddesses are tightly bound to each other as the myths of their gods often combine and cross paths, not least of which is the fact that the heads of the pantheons in both books are married to each other. Geographically, Cults of RuneQuest: The Lightbringers and Cults of RuneQuest: The Earth Goddesses provide support for the region of Dragon Pass, including Sartar, Esrolia, Prax, and Tarsh, whilst Cults of RuneQuest: The Lunar Way provides similar geographical support for the Lunar Empire and its client states. This is not to say that the presence of the cults in these volumes will not be found elsewhere, but rather that these are the regions where their worship is most prevalent and if a Game Master is running campaigns in these locations, then the relevant geographical volume will be very useful. Lastly, of course, the Gloranthaphile will want all of these volumes because he is a Gloranthaphile.
Each of the entries in the Cults of RuneQuest series is well-organised. The introduction explains the purpose and subject matter for the book, highlights how the book is useful for player and Game Master alike, and examines some of the book’s themes and both their nature as myth and mature treatment of subject matters including death, sex, gender, survival, vengeance, and unconscious fears given form. It also notes that the artwork throughout the book is divided between depictions ‘in-Glorantha’, seen within the world itself, and those seen from without in reading the book. All of this is tailored slightly to the pantheon presented in the particular entry in the series. This is followed by a group depiction of all of the gods of the pantheon—which the book notably returns to a few pages later with a labelled version—and a hymn to them all, and then an overview of the pantheon, answering questions such as, “Where does the world come from?”, “Where do I come from?”, “Why am I here?”, “How do I do magic?”, and more. Lastly, there is a discussion of the relationship that the pantheon has with other pantheons and a listing of all of the gods in the pantheon or associated with it.

The bulk of each book though is dedicated to individual entries in the pantheon. Each of these follows the same format. They begin with the Mythos and History of the god, the Nature of the Cult and its Organisation, its membership at various levels—lay member, initiate, God-Talker, Rune-Lord, Rune-Priest, and Chief Priest, and continue with subservient cults, associated cults, and subcults, and more. This will vary from god to god and from cult to cult. This follows the format seen in RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, but in every case greatly expands what is included in the core rulebook, whether in terms of individual entries or additional entries. The number of pages dedicated to each god and thus each cult will also vary. A god whose worship is widespread—and also a popular choice for players to select for their characters to worship—is explored over the course of multiple pages whereas a less popular and less worshipped god many only receive two or three pages. All gods though, receive a full colour depiction at the start of their entry that includes their runes too, in addition to their being depicted elsewhere.
Cults of RuneQuest: The Gods of Fire and Sky is the fourth examination of a pantheon in the series. It is a slimmer volume than the previous three, detailing just thirteen cults in comparison to the nineteen of Cults of RuneQuest: The Lightbringers, the sixteen of Cults of RuneQuest: The Earth Goddesses, and the fifteen of Cults of RuneQuest: The Lunar Way. With the mighty sun god, Yelm, at its head, it looks at the deities of heat and light, fire and sky, order and obedience, who regard the Orlanthi gods, those of the storm, as barbarians who rose up and threw down order, Orlanth himself striking the blow that would kill Yelm, and so began the Gods War. Despite their histories, the members of the differing pantheons maintain a rivalry between each other rather than an open hostility and there are gods, such as Chalana Arroy and Lankhor Mhy, who are part of, or strongly associated with, the Solar pantheon, yet are worshipped by the barbarians. On the other hand, Yelm and his celestial court maintains strong ties with the Lunar pantheon—which the Orlanthi despise—and know the Lunar pantheon as a subcult since the Red Goddess is the reborn daughter of Yelm. Within the Lunar Empire, worship of Yelm, the Red Goddess, and the Red Emperor is intertwined. In regions outside of the Lunar Empire, this is not the case, such as in Sun County, west of Prax, but nevertheless, worshippers of Yelm and his pantheon are far more tolerant of Lunars than any Orlanthi.
The supplement begins with an examination of Yelm’s foundation myth and an overview of the gods of the Solar pantheon in the style of Cults of RuneQuest: The Prosopaedia. The supplement begins with an examination of Yelm’s foundation myth and an overview of the gods of the Solar pantheon in the style of Cults of RuneQuest: The Prosopaedia. The former is examined in more detail in the first examination of the cult in Cults of RuneQuest: The Gods of Fire and Sky, which naturally enough, begins with Yelm. His worship is likely the one to be most recognised by those outside of his cult and so he takes pride of place. His ‘Mythos and History’ is a fascinating read since it directly counters and complements the foundation myth of his interaction given under the similar entry for Orlanth in Cults of RuneQuest: The Lightbringers, but even though they fundamentally tell the same story, the variances between foundation myths do not vary between pantheons, but also between gods. For example, according to Yelm, when the Earth appeared beneath the Sky, his elder brother, Dayzatar, withdrew from its impurity into the Sky World, whilst he ascended into the Middle Sky to become Emperor of the Universe. Their younger brother, Lodril, gave into the temptation of the world and descended into gross matter. According to Dayzatar, who remained the God of the Sky and Above, Yelm descended to the Middle World and Lodril to the Underworld, whilst Lodril, God of Peasants and the Fire Below, says that Dayzatar, his eldest brother, sleepy and selfish, turned his back upon the great work their father asked of them and was rewarded with emptiness, whilst Yelm, his elder brother, asked for another task and received a more challenging task, a disloyal family, and a strength that ebbs and flows. Thus, Lodril gained the greater inheritance, a larger family care of the Central World, and greater inner strength. This all serves to bring out the tensions and differences between the gods and their cults, and so add a little further depth that a player can help enhance his roleplaying.
Many of the entries in Cults of RuneQuest: The Gods of Fire and Sky do not lend themselves to ordinary adventuring types. Indeed, some cults are so dedicated to their respective gods that their members rarely excuse themselves from their worship. For example, worshippers of Dayzatar are monks, ex-priests of other Sky cults, who are typically retired and spend their days in solitary worship and meditation, staring at the sun and going blind! Similarly, the cult of Ourania, his virginal daughter, Goddess of the Sky and Heavens, consists of nuns who devote themselves to maintaining the Celestial Song through its highly regarded choirs. This is not to say that there are not roleplaying potential in the members of these cults and in many cases, they could be the basis of interesting NPCs. Conversely, cultists of Yelm, of course, are ready made as the basis for adventuring Player Characters, but potentially so are worshippers of Polaris, the Polestar and General of Heaven, who is a war god for some of the Dara Happen regiments, of Shargash, the God of War and Destruction, whose worshippers can summon Underground Demons, and of course, Yelmalio, the Bright God, as seen in Sun County and Tales of the Sun County Militia. Certainly, it should be no surprise that the write-ups of Yelm and Yelmalio are the longest in the supplement. Female warriors, seeking life free of the paternal, even misogynistic strictures of the cults of Yelm and Yelmalio, may seek membership of the cult of Yelorna, the Starbringer, though they still chafe under the attitudes of male warriors, despite being reknowned by the knowledgable for their prowess and for the fact that their cavalry ride unicorns into battle. 
Cults of RuneQuest: The Gods of Fire and Sky comes to a close with a guide to the Gloranthan celestial sky at night, when Yelm descends into the Underworld, followed by a description of the Orlanthi hijacking of the Celestial Realm to invade the new Temple of the Reaching Moon in Dragon Pass in Earth Season, ST. 1625, and disrupt the Lunar ritual to consecrate it and so trigger the Dragonrise. It brings the supplement to a dramatic close. In addition to detailing its thirteen cults, Cults of RuneQuest: The Gods of Fire and Sky also describes the various Rune spells known to each cult and delves into the history of the solar-worshipping empire of Dara Happa and its ties to both Yelm and the Lunar Empire today. The origins of the horse, ripped from Hippogrif, during the Gods War are also given. One aspect of Yelm not explored in the supplement though, is his Illumination. That though, lies outside the scope of traditional Solar worship.

Physically, Cults of RuneQuest: The Gods of Fire and Sky is very well written and presented, but needs a slight edit here and there. As with the earlier Cults of RuneQuest: The Prosopaedia, Cults of RuneQuest: The Lightbringers, Cults of RuneQuest: The Earth Goddessess, and Cults of RuneQuest: The Lunar Way, the artwork in this supplement is of an extremely high quality. Some of it is of an adult nature.
Cults of RuneQuest: The Gods of Fire and Sky is a great counter to Cults of RuneQuest: The Lightbringers and in that it complements Cults of RuneQuest: The Lunar Way. There are fewer cults in the book and fewer straightforward adventuring cults, but none of them are no less interesting for that, and some of the less adventuring cults would still be interesting to bring into a game. Ultimately, Cults of RuneQuest: The Gods of Fire and Sky presenting a fascinatingly different point of view than we normally see in RuneQuest through Orlanthi eyes, and makes it playable. There can be no doubt that for certain regions of Glorantha and for certain campaigns, Cults of RuneQuest: The Gods of Fire and Sky is going to be no less than indispensable. For elsewhere and in other campaigns, it still has the potential to be very useful and if not that, an informative and enlightening read.

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

Senet Issue 13 was published in the winter of 2023 and it comes with a seasonally appropriate theme, at least for one article. This is highlighted in the editorial, which asks the question, “Why aren’t there more board games about Christmas?”, before discussing the other contents and finishing with, “Please remember that a board game is for life, not just for Christmas.” Even putting aside its somewhat hackneyed, even hacked about a bit, nature, is that really true? Perhaps it is until you run out of room on your shelves and have to sell it on eBay or put it in the ‘Bring ‘n’ Buy’ at UK Games Expo… That might come sooner if the Christmas game turns out to be not very good, a distinct possibly that some designers are attempting to remedy.

The issue proper begins with highlighting some of the forthcoming games with its regular preview, ‘Behold’. The most intriguing title here is Kelp: Shark vs. Octopus, an asymmetrical game in which an octopus hides from a shark that is hunting for it. The Octopus player uses cards to move blocks it can move behind, whilst the shark player rolls dice to find the blocks and then reveal whether there is its prey behind it. ‘Points’, the regular column of readers’ letters, contains a mix of praise for the magazine and a discussion of gaming culture, including representation in the hobby and the appeal of co-operative games. Again, at just four letters, it really does not seem enough. As with the previous issues, there is scope here for expansion of this letters page to give space to more voices and readers of Senet. One way of doing that is perhaps to expand it when ‘For Love of the Game’ comes to end. This regular column continues the journey of the designer Tristian Hall towards the completion and publication of his Gloom of Kilforth. By this entry of his column, he has long moved past this and is more looking at the travails of being a game designer. This time, he discusses how to be an effective designer and representative of the company online. The advice he gives is solid and to the point, far more so than in the column in the previous issue, so is surprisingly useful.

By this the thirteenth issue, the format of Senet is well and truly tried and tested. Two interviews, one with a designer, one with an artist, and one article exploring a game mechanic whilst another looks at a game theme. It is a format that works well since it throws a light on different aspects of the hobby and its creators. However, Senet Issue 13 does strays ever slightly, in a tiny fashion if you will, from this format. Instead of looking at a game theme, it instead looks at a game format. This is the ‘microgame’, a game that has relatively few components packed into a pocket-friendly box and is relatively budget friendly as well. Matt Kelly’s ‘Small Worlds’ explores the history of microgame from Steve Jackson Games’ Ogre all the way to here and now with the superlative Scout, noting that there was a lengthy extensive interregnum between original heyday with Metagaming, Task Force Games, and even TSR, Inc., and their rebirth with what the article calls a ‘micro wave’, really beginning with Love Letter in 2012 from Alderac Entertainment Group, followed by a multitude of mini-games from Oink. This gives the article a pleasing balance with space aplenty given to both the past and the contemporary. It also explores the drive to make games as small as possible and still be playable. Overall, this is a good overview of the history of, and the phenomena that is, the microgame, though it feels all too short and it would have been fascinating to explore some of the titles published during the six years when they were first popular.

The issue’s first interview is with Polish designer, Adam Kwapiński. In ‘The Taskmaster’, he talks to Alexandra Sonechkina about his designs like Terracotta Army and Frostpunk: The Board Game, and the strong theming and difficulty of their play. Also discussed is his book about board game design, Board Games on my Mind. It would have been interesting to see the latter reviewed in the issue, but it is not. It is solid, interesting interview, as is the artist interview by Dan Jolin, which is with Alex Crispin. In ‘Blackout’, he explores the design, and specifically, the look of Escape the Dark Castle: The Game of Atmospheric Adventure and Escape the Dark Sector: The Game of Deep Space Adventure, amongst other games, including the forthcoming title from Themeborne Games based on the television series, The Last of Us. His is a distinctive, grim and scratchy style that also stands out because it is in black and white, and it is interesting to see the style develop into something more subtle with The Last of Us: Escape the Dark.

Matt Thrower examines the issue’s theme, included to catch the winter period when Senet Issue 13 was published, in ‘Christmas Play’. Despite the editor’s joy at the inclusion of the cut out and play game, ‘Sleigh Wars’, which appeared in White Dwarf #72 (December 1985), the theme provides rather paltry pickings and the author has to work hard to make the article interesting. Christmas is often seen as a time to play games, but not necessarily Christmas games. Instead, games like Monopoly are common—and everyone knows that such games are anything other than good. Similarly, the early Christmas-themed board games are all race games and it is not until games like Hen House Games’ Ugly Christmas Sweaters from 2020 and 25th Century Games’ Holly Jolly from 2021, that Christmas games appear to match theme and play. The article even includes a list of other holiday-themed games, so ultimately there is an air of desperation to the piece.

‘Unboxed’, Senet’s reviews section covers a wide range of games. This includes Cosmoctopus from Paper Fort Games, which not only continues the cephaloid theme from the earlier Kelp: Shark vs. Octopus, but also receives ‘Senet’s top choice’! Other titles reviewed include Stonemaier Games’ Expeditions, set in the same world as the publisher’s highly regarded Scythe; the odd Obey the Clay, a clay-moulding game designed by Aardman Animations and published by Big Potato Games; Call of Kilforth from Hall or Nothing, whose designer writes the ‘For Love of the Game’ column in the magazine; and even, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Slaughterhouse from Funko Games. The range of games reviewed is quite diverse and shows off a wide range of different games for different tastes and play styles in just a few pages. The magazine could easily expand this section or do a whole separate publication of reviews of this quality.

As is traditional, Senet Issue 13 comes to a close with the regular end columns, ‘How to Play’ and ‘Shelf of Shame’. For ‘How to Play’, ‘Growing Roots: lessons for parents in play’ by John Ankers looks at aspect of the board gaming hobby that has become increasingly common over the years—parents teaching their children to play board games. In his case, it is with the board game, Root, and how parent and child learned to play together and what they learned from it. It is a nicely enjoyable piece about forging memories as much it is lessons. Lastly, Rozie Powell of Cozy Boardgames pulls Moon Adventure for her ‘Shelf of Shame’ and discovers a counterpart Deep Sea Adventure—thus continuing the issue’s theme of microgames—that she would play again, but with a different group of players.

Physically, Senet Issue 13 is shows off the board games it previews and reviews to great effect. There are some entertaining articles in the issue, ‘Small Worlds’, in particular, stands out, as does ‘Christmas Play’, though more for the effort that the author has to put into it! Overall, Senet Issue 13 maintains the magazine’s high standards and is a good read.

Now in its eighteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2025 took place on Saturday, June 21st. 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. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Thanks to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day.

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Castle Whiterock: The Dying Light of Castle Whiterock is a preview and adventure for Castle Whiterock: The Greatest Dungeon Story Ever Told published by Goodman Games. It comes with a bit of backstory and is the subject of a forthcoming crowdfunding campaign. This crowdfunding campaign brings back and updates Dungeon Crawl Classics #51: Castle Whiterock, originally published in 2007. Further, Dungeon Crawl Classics #51: Castle Whiterock received its own preview for Free RPG Day, in 2007, in the form of Dungeon Crawl Classics #51.5: The Sinister Secret of Whiterock. Now both Dungeon Crawl Classics #51: Castle Whiterock and Dungeon Crawl Classics #51.5: The Sinister Secret of Whiterock were written for use with Dungeons & Dragons 3.5, but both Castle Whiterock: The Dying Light of Castle Whiterock and Castle Whiterock: The Greatest Dungeon Story Ever Told are written for use with two separate roleplaying games. These are the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition.
Castle Whiterock: The Dying Light of Castle Whiterock is an adventure for Second Level Player Characters for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition and is an adventure for First Level Player Characters for Dungeon Crawl Classics. It is written for use by the Judge in Dungeon Crawl Classics and the Dungeon Master in Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, so there is a lot of technical phrasing and terminology for both games throughout the adventure. This begins with a conversion guide between the two roleplaying games, which covers Level ranges and attribute, saving throw, difficulty class, and damage descriptor equivalents between the two, as well as an explanation of how Advantage and Disadvantage are handled in both. It is an interesting read which explores the differences between the two and how they handle various aspects of similar game play.
The scenario, Castle Whiterock: The Dying Light of Castle Whiterock, opens with news that a beacon of light has been seen shining out of a suddenly revealed watch tower, known as Swornlight Tower, over Galena Pass in the Ul-Dominor Mountains. The Player Characters may be simply travelling through the pass and want to investigate or look for refuge; they may have been sent by the Merchant-Lord, Nigel the Bald, to look for some missing merchants; or a monastic order of scholars, the Order of the Dawning Sun, seek to claim the watchtower, and so employ the Player Characters to clear it out of any dangerous creatures which have made their home within the walls.
The adventure begins with the Player Characters outside a crack in the rock below the watchtower. They can either explore the crack or make the difficult climb up the rock to the top of the exposed watch tower where they find weird moths circling the light. Inside, they will find signs that the watchtower has long been abandoned, covered with rock and debris, some of it filling the windows and flowing into rooms, as well as signs of recent occupation. This is by a lone monk of the Order of the Dawning Sun, who will be more than felicitous in his welcoming the adventurers, apologising for the traps he has laid to protect himself against intruders, and offering them food and ale. The Player Characters may have some idea that there is something wrong in the watchtower, depending upon their means of access. If they climb to the top and descend down through the floors, they will discover hints that something weird is going on, whereas if they enter from below via the crack, they will certainly pick up hints from the monk’s demeanour… There are some nice moments of horror in the tower and the monk is ever so slightly creepy.
Ultimately, the secret of Swornlight Tower will be revealed to the Player Characters in the antechamber below the tower following a tough little combat puzzle. This also sets them up for the scenario’s final confrontation and if successful, prepares for further exploration of Castle Whiterock when Castle Whiterock: The Greatest Dungeon Story Ever Told is published. There is potential that the Player Characters may suffer a curse during the adventure, but lifting it lies outside of the scope of the Castle Whiterock: The Dying Light of Castle Whiterock.
Rounding out Castle Whiterock: The Dying Light of Castle Whiterock is a pair of appendices. The first contains stats and descriptions for the monsters and NPCs in the adventure. The second details the two new magical items available in the campaign and two handouts which help lay the groundwork for the final confrontation and the puzzle before it.
Physically, Castle Whiterock: The Dying Light of Castle Whiterock is cleanly and tidily laid out. The look of the scenario feels like a blend of the two layout styles used by Goodman Games, one for Dungeon Crawl Classics and one for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. The cartography is very clear though is done in an overhead view rather than the isomorphic view normally used for Dungeon Crawl Classics. The artwork has some creepy moments that are very appropriate to the scenes they accompany.
Castle Whiterock: The Dying Light of Castle Whiterock can be run on its own, inserted into a Judge’s or Dungeon Master’s own campaign, or it can be run as a prequel to Castle Whiterock: The Greatest Dungeon Story Ever Told. Either way, this is a creepy, slightly horrifying scenario that works as written, but better as a prequel to Castle Whiterock: The Greatest Dungeon Story Ever Told.