Holiday Module #12: Love Mutants of Castle Heartache is a second St. Valentine’s Day scenario for Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game following on from 2022 Valentine’s Day Module: Love in the Age of Gongfarmers. It is again a short, love and romance-themed adventure designed to be played by between four and six Player Characters, this time of Third Level. So, it could be played as a sequel. Similarly, given the love and romance theme of the scenario, there is the issue of consent with the scenario—though to a far lesser degree. Consequently, although thematically appropriate, it is only a very minor part of the scenario, and the Judge is advised to consider her players’ comfort levels when portraying this in game. Another issue is that scenario has the potential to be bawdy in tone and when combined with the albeit minor issue of consent, Holiday Module #12: Love Mutants of Castle Heartache is probably best suited for mature players. Another element of the scenario is that it can be played with Player Characters from any background. So that can be the Judge’s own Dungeon Crawl Classics campaign, Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar, and even Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic!
Holiday Module #12: Love Mutants of Castle Heartache is all about lost love and broken hearts, in the case of the latter, literally. As opposed Valentine’s Day Module: Love in the Age of Gongfarmers, which was all about finding and celebrating love. The set-up to Holiday Module #12: Love Mutants of Castle Heartache is that Olathvee, Mad Un-God of mortal passion—who is detailed in The Book of Fallen Gods—has had his heart broken. His romantic overtures to a would-be patron god, a sorceress on the path to her own divinity, have been resoundingly rebuffed and he has fallen into despair and despondency. Being a god, these feelings and emotions have had repercussions. His wretchedness and woe has spread throughout the cosmos, from world to world, breaking up one relationship after another, until no partner can stand the sight of the other, and so threatening to end civilisation within a generation because of the birds and the bees.
The scenario begins with the Player Characters being invited to Castle Heartache. There his seneschal, Sanguecaldo, asks them to help restore the Mad Un-God’s broken heart. So almost like ‘The Key to Time’ storyline of Season Sixteen of Doctor Who, the Player Characters must search for its constituent parts and bring them all together and so repair not just Olathvee’s heart, but everyone’s heart across the entire cosmos. Holiday Module #12: Love Mutants of Castle Heartache takes place inside the lower levels of the castle, the upper levels being accessible, but not of any particular interest or relevance. These lower levels are a demi-plane, a reflection of the Mad Un-God which has been twisted and altered by his current melancholy—as to an extent, will the Player Characters. The resulting dungeon is short, consisting of just thirteen locations, and if not a physical reflection of Olathvee’s heart, then at least a weirdly thematic one. Rooms and locations are themed around tears, memories, misplaced desire, sorrows drowned, and poetry. The locations are each described in some detail, the majority of them involving interaction and roleplaying along with opportunities for combat and puzzle solving. The latter as well as several of the other locations will require some patience upon the part of the players and their characters, and certainly in the case of the puzzle, a knowledge of classic literature.
In addition, Holiday Module #12: Love Mutants of Castle Heartache includes what are either the worst Valentine’s Day cards or ones that the recipient really needs to have an understanding sense of humour upon being given. There is also an afterword from the author in which he explains how the adventure came about, drawing deeply, if (thankfully) humorously, from his own experiences with love and loneliness. A fair warning though, if the Judge has got that far and it is likely that she has, there is a shocking photograph of the author, one which really only his wife needed to see. Thankfully, he is not clutching a rose in his teeth by the stem. That might have been too much.
Physically, Holiday Module #12: Love Mutants of Castle Heartache is as decently done as you would expect for a title for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. It is lightly illustrated in a cheesy style and the map is fine. It needs a slight edit in places, but is otherwise easy to read.
Holiday Module #12: Love Mutants of Castle Heartache is a mini-dungeon or adventure that can be played in a single session or two. If the players can overcome their cynicism and engage with its themes drowning in the tears of the lovelorn and the lachrymose, Holiday Module #12: Love Mutants of Castle Heartache gives the players and their characters the opportunity to overcome its forlorn fantasy, set things right and return love to the world!

It seems amazing that Fluxx is over a quarter of a century old. The 1999 Mensa Select Winner is the perfect filler game. It is simple to play, but not easy to win. It is easy to learn and not too difficult to master. The difficulty though comes in the changes that will occur through play, because Fluxx is a card game in which its very nature can change from one player’s turn to the next. The number of cards a player can hold can change. The number of cards a player can play can change. The winning conditions can change. Random things will occur—cards will come back into play, cards will be swapped, and so on. The state of the game is literally in ‘fluxx’ and to win, a player must adapt to the changes and make the best use of the current rules and the cards in his hand on any one turn. Published by Looney Labs, Fluxx has proven to be a perennially popular game as well as one that served as the basis for a large number of differently themed variations. From science editions like Anatomy Fluxx, Astronmy Fluxx, and Chemistry Fluxx to Science Fiction such as Doctor Who Fluxx, Firefly Fluxx, and Star Trek Fluxx. With so many versions of the game available, there should be a version for just about everyone.

The core gameplay is simple. On his turn, a player draws one card and plays one card. His aim is to have two cards called Keepers in play, in front of him, which match the Keepers mentioned on the Goal card currently in play. For example, the ‘Squishy Chocolate’ Goal requires the ‘Sun’ and ‘Chocolate’ Keepers to be in front of a player for him to win, whilst the ‘Brain (No TV)’ Goal needs the player to have the ‘Brain’ Keeper in front of him and nobody to have the ‘TV’ Goal in front of them. Fluxx being as old as it is means that the game has become familiar to many players. An old standby that is easily remembered and brought to play. Fluxx Remixx – Extra Chaos Edition is designed not to be familiar. Its game play remains the same as the original 1997 version, but the Keepers have been reimagined to provide the players with a whole new set of unfamiliar challenges as well as a whole new rule and set of cards. Fluxx Remixx – Extra Chaos Edition is designed to be played by two to six players, aged eight and up, with a game lasting between five and thirty minutes. The game consists of one hundred cards, divided into five types. These are New Rule cards, Action cards, Keeper cards, Goal cards, and the new Surprise cards. All five card types are clearly designed, colour-coded by type, and easy to understand in play. Everything on the double-sided rules sheet is boldly presented and includes not just an ‘Exec Summary’ of what the game is, but also examples of a game in play and how the cards interact. Anyone who has played Fluxx before will be able to open up Fluxx Remixx – Extra Chaos Edition and begin play with very little preparation. Anyone unfamiliar with Fluxx will really only need five minutes to read through and prepare the game for play.

The core card for the game is the ‘Basic Rules’. This tells the players to draw one card and play one card each turn. The yellow New Rule cards either replace a New Rule card in play or add a New Rule card to play. They include ‘Draw 2’, which changes the number of cards each player draws on his turn; ‘Play All’ means that every player has to play all of the cards in his hand on a turn; and ‘Card Transfusion’ enables every player to discard as many cards from his hand as he wants to and draw as many cards as he discarded. The blue coloured Action cards provide single actions a player can play and do on his turn. For example, ‘Draw 3, Play 2 of Them’ means that the player draws three cards, chooses two of them to play, and discards the third; ‘Trade Hands’ allows a player to swap his hand of cards with that of another player; and ‘Taskmaster’, which instructs the player to draw a number of cards equal to the number of player and assign one to each player face down, including himself. The players then reveal and play these cards in turn. The green Keeper cards include Dreams, Love, Peace, Chocolate, Cookies, Music, Moon, and more. The pink Goal cards are the winning conditions for the game. When there is one on the table, all of the players are either working to play Keeper which match the Goal or change the Goal to match the Keepers they have in play in front of them. The Keepers, though, are the biggest change in the new version of Fluxx. They give the players new winning objectives, ones different from the original version of the game, but still using the familiar Keepers. For example, ‘The Wedding’ Goal requires ‘Love’ and ‘The Party’ Keepers to win; ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ Goal requires ‘Music’ and ‘The Moon’ Keepers to win; and ‘All You Need is Love’ Goal requires ‘Love’ and no other Keepers in front of a player to win.

In addition, Fluxx Remixx – Extra Chaos Edition adds a new card type. This is the Surprise card. Coloured purple, they are perhaps one of the most complex card types introduced to the game. This is because unlike the other four card types in the game, a Surprise card has not one play condition, but three! This is because a Surprise card can be played ‘Out of Turn’, ‘During your Turn’, and ‘At Any Time’. For example, if played ‘Out of Turn’, the ‘Cancelled Plans’ card forces a player to discard the Goal he just played, including if playing the Goal would mean he would win the game. If played ‘During your Turn’, they force the current Goal to be discarded and the other players to discard a Goal or other card in their hand. If played ‘At Any Time’, it cancels the effect of another Surprise as it is played. The ‘At Any Time’ option is common to all four Surprise cards in FFluxx Remixx – Extra Chaos Edition. The Surprise cards increase the interaction between the players in a game already known for its high interaction between the players. Yet the relative complexity of the Surprise cards may mean that they are not suited for play by the younger audience for this game, but this should be adjudicated on a case-by-case basis. That said, if the Surprise cards are removed, Fluxx Remixx – Extra Chaos Edition still plays as Fluxx.

If there is an issue with Fluxx Remixx – Extra Chaos Edition, it is that the cards do refer to a card type not actually present in this version—the Creeper. Originally introduced in Zombie Fluxx in 2007, this card type sits in front of a player and prevents him from winning, very likely increasing the length of game play. Fluxx Remixx – Extra Chaos Edition is a return to the original version of Fluxx, so the Creeper really does not warrant inclusion in its deck of cards. Mention of them here is likely to be confusing. On the other hand, mention of them is a nod to the fact that like many of the Fluxx sets, Fluxx Remixx – Extra Chaos Edition can be integrated with many of the Fluxx variants.

In play, Fluxx Remixx – Extra Chaos Edition is random, chaotic, and frustrating, but nevertheless. It is all but impossible to plan from one turn to the next as the state and nature of the rules fluctuate and change. A player can go from almost winning to having to start again, not necessarily on his turn, but on the turns of the other players. Then again, a player can find himself the winner as the rule changes, cards have to be played, forcing the play of a Goal and Keeper in just the right combination. The new Surprise cards add a new element of interaction and complexity, but more of the former than the latter as they add to the chaos of play. Games can be really quick. A winner could be lucky in the very first round, but a typical game will last no more than twenty minutes. (That said, I have played in games that have lasted twice as long!)
Physically, Fluxx Remixx – Extra Chaos Edition is clearly and tidily presented. The Fluxx format is tried and tested and this variant is no exception. The card stock is not as glossy as in previous variants and it might be an idea to sleeve this one.

The original Fluxx did not have a theme and neither does Fluxx Remixx – Extra Chaos Edition. Or rather, it does and it is a subtle one. The clue is in the title, Fluxx Remix because its theme is music and all of the goals are song titles. Fluxx Remixx – Extra Chaos Edition is as familiar and as fun as Fluxx was in 1997, simple to play, but still chaotic and enjoyably frustrating, with the addition of a new if quiet theme and a new card type for more interaction. Fluxx has always been a great filler game,Fluxx Remixx – Extra Chaos Edition is no exception.

Host and Hostility: Three Regency Scenarios for Call of Cthulhu is an anthology of scenarios for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, and more specifically, Regency Cthulhu: Dark Designs in Jane Austen’s England. Published by Chaosium, Inc., Regency Cthulhu presents a narrow world inspired by the life and times and the novels of Jane Austen, in which men and women of good character go in search of a worthy marital match in a highly conservative and disapproving society. Yet this highly stratified world faces a greater danger than simply the loss of one’s good name and fortune, scandal or sobriety, and the like—the insidiously ill-mannered forces and influences of the Cthulhu Mythos. Seemingly good men and women, indeed their whole families can hide the darkest of secrets, as can places and the very land itself. All of which are a threat to King and country, let alone society! Yet it would be scandalous to be investigating, even prying into such matters, so how can men and women of good name and sensibilities bring themselves to do so without imperilling both, let alone their very reputations? This is the crux of Regency Cthulhu: Dark Designs in Jane Austen’s England and it is again explored in Host and Hostility: Three Regency Scenarios for Call of Cthulhu.

Host and Hostility: Three Regency Scenarios for Call of Cthulhu is published via the Miskatonic Repository, Chaosium, Inc.’s community content programme for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition. Unlike the pair of scenarios in Regency Cthulhu, the trilogy are not designed for group play, but rather one-on-one player, with a single Investigator and the Keeper. They are designed to be run in a single session each, all have a female Investigator as the protagonist, and are in parts heavily influenced by both Austen’s own fiction and the gothic mysteries that were then in vogue. The set-up is simple. Three young ladies, all of marriageable age, have entered into the Season in 1812 in Brighton in order to themselves a good husband. They are Miss. Janitra Chatterjee, Miss. Marina Garrick, and Miss. Georgiana Dillwyn, and each is of different temperament. In turn they are a social meddler and matchmaker, a spirited and frank outdoorswoman, and an intelligent, passionate reader of books, respectively. They are also, in turn, based upon the protagonists of Jane Austen’s Emma, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Northanger Abbey. Full Investigator sheets are provided for each and although different, they all designed to be played with the three scenarios in the anthology. A player could simply choose one of the three to play through all three scenarios, play a different one for each scenario, or choose one and keep the other two as eminently marriageable replacements should the first have unfortunate cause to die under mysteries circumstances or be scandalously confined to the nearby infamous Bedlam hospital! Whatever way the trilogy is used, the Investigator is staying in Brighton as the guest of family friends, Mr. and Mrs. Hampton, and as the Season draws to a close, attends a public ball at the Assembly Rooms where she will receive invitations that involve three eligible men. Which invitation she accepts determines which scenario the Keeper runs, for all three men have secrets to hide and plans to enact—and they all involve the Cthulhu Mythos.

Inspired by the real-life medical case of James Tilly Matthews, ‘Loom and Lucidity’ opens with an invitation from a handsome naval captain with an oddly mysterious past. Scandal threatens the Investigator almost from the start when Lord Cosgrove, about to utter some truths about the man, drops dead at her feet! Nothing seems quite right at Captain King’s London soirée as evening turns odder and odder until the attendees are begin acting in a decidedly strange manner. ‘Loom and Lucidity’ is a short affair which in parts echoes the influences of the Yellow King, but instead combines the sciences, technology, and fears of the period to expose—literally—the Investigator to radical thought. The end does feel mechanical in nature and the outcome of the scenario, certainly in regard to what happens to the NPCs afterwards, is not explored as fully as it could be. It does include some interesting NPCs for Keeper to portray, notably the scenario’s villains, who surprisingly, are not insane, but merely radical! This does not stop them from being villains though, but they would be suitable to return appearance in a future scenario if they managed to escape.

Where ‘Loom and Lucidity’ combined Science Fiction horror with period radicalism, ‘Curate and Curability’ combines classic Lovecraftian horror with classic gothic melodrama. In this scenario, the suitor is the Reverend Henry Mortimer, a widower who recently lost his wife, who invites the Investigator to stay with him and his sister. The vicarage though is dusty and uncared for, perhaps a sign of the reverend’s grief, perhaps something more. There are odd signs about the house that something amiss, which perhaps crystalise when the Investigator sees a ghost in the churchyard! Could the house be haunted by the ghost of the reverend’s late wife? This scenario is linear in nature, although there is room for the Investigator to make enquiries and snoop about, and again, mechanical in terms of handling its denouement. This one is much more physical and combative in nature and the Keeper will need to be conversant with the Chase rules for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition. Overall, the scenario has a nice sense of loneliness and another presence in the house, as well as a certain ghoulishness, but again, does not really fully address what happens if the Investigator escapes the Reverend’s clutches and wants to do something about him.

In the third and last of the anthology’s scenarios, ‘Note and Notoriety’, the Investigator is invited a ball hosted by renowned aristocrat Sir Jasper d’Ulfrey. It promises to be a lavish affair, and will end with the performance of a new dance that the baronet has devised! What promises to be an exciting night, culminating fireworks, turns out to be so for all the wrong reasons. Sir Jasper’s demeanour veers between the oddly distracted and the oddly excitable, only coming alive when talking of the new dance which is due to take place in the ballroom under a ceiling newly painted with stars. Meanwhile his aunt looks on with disdain, likely to relate the strange family history as dismiss the Investigator out of hand, and Sir Jasper’s cousin, Harriet’s infatuation may lead her into folly and ruin. Then at heart of the family estate is a maze which has an otherworldly feel to it… There is a certain heady rush to the events of ‘Note and Notoriety’, the plot lightly tripping forward to a momentous event liked to the d’Ulfrey family history. This has the feel of more classic Call of Cthulhu scenario and it does a better job of dealing with its possible aftermath and in giving the Investigator multiple methods of foiling its plot.

One similarity that the three scenario shares is the procedurally mechanical nature of their final scenes. This would be less of an issue if there was more than the single Investigator involved as it would lessen the chance of complete failure upon the player’s, and thus the Investigator’s part. A way around that would be to have a companion accompany the Investigator, perhaps a chaperone and one of the other two pre-generated Investigators given in the anthology, portrayed by another player. However, there is no advice provided to that end in Host and Hostility, and only ‘Note and Notoriety’ has any advice on running it with more the single Investigator. Otherwise, the player had better be prepared to spend some Luck in completing any one of the three scenarios.

Host and Hostility comes with a lengthy set of appendices. In turn, these provide a further glossary to add to that of Regency Cthulhu, a description of Brighton during the period, reprints of the handouts, and an Investigator sheet each for Miss. Janitra Chatterjee, Miss. Marina Garrick, and Miss. Georgiana Dillwyn. However, these are only the fronts of each sheet and the Keeper and her player may want to develop the content on the back. The scenarios are themselves well written, the various NPCs decently presented, including roleplaying notes.

Physically, Host and Hostility: Three Regency Scenarios for Call of Cthulhu is genially and genteelly presented. Period-style artwork is used throughout and both the handouts and the maps have a suitably period feel. Although the anthology occasionally includes the manipulated portrait, one engaging touch is that where the outré does occur it is always depicted in a style akin to that of the cartoon satirist, James Gilray. It appropriately undermines the sobriety of Host and Hostility as much as the Mythos does society. Also enjoyable is the silhouette of bonneted member of the Great Race of Yith!

On one level, the title of Host and Hostility is a delightful play on words, highlighting the difficulty and unnatural natures of each of the places where the Investigator is invited to stay. On another, it is an exercise in misogamy, since any one of the three scenarios is likely to put the Investigator off the idea of marriage—let alone the player! Overall, Host and Hostility: Three Regency Scenarios for Call of Cthulhu is congenial trilogy of one-on-one scenarios for Regency Cthulhu: Dark Designs in Jane Austen’s England, their engaging plots and menaces all superbly supported and presented in period style.

The Fall that brought about the end of humanity was generations ago. Who knows how long? Most were lost in the balls of nuclear fire that blossomed around the world and then by the biological and chemical agents which ravaged the remainder, followed by disease and starvation. The survivors and their children and their children only lived because they were infected by a fungus, one that mutated into different strains until those infected were different from one strain to the next and they were definitely not human. Some were closer to the zombies which arose from the dead, though they retained a spark of intelligence and even what might be called humanity. Others have mastered the powers of the mind. Whilst the Infection, as the fungus which infects everyone and everyone is known, enables the different Strains to survive the new world, it is far from a safe world. Areas are still poisoned by radiation and other agents from the Fall, the Fungus has also mutated animals and plants, the dead can still rise as zombies or zeds, and towns, settlements, and trade caravans can be attacked by raider clans, cannibalistic scavengers who spread the Bad Brain disease, which turns those it infects and kills into yet more raiders of those clans! Yet there is hope. The survivors of Nor’Merica—and particular, the Nor’East—are rebuilding, recovering old technology and inventing new ones. There are ways to generate electricity, but it is always in short supply. Travel is possible via trade caravans which wend their way between the fortified settlements of the Wastes as well as by sea. Yet there is another strangeness to the Infection. The Grave Mind. Death is not the end. When a Survivor does return from the dead, they often come back having had deeply strange personal experiences… And the more often a Survivor is killed and returns from the Grave Mind, the more of his personal connections with the world are lost.

This is the setting for Dystopia Rising: Evolution, the Post Apocalypse roleplaying game from Onyx Path Publishing. Originally published as Dystopia Rising by Eschaton Media in 2011, the new edition was published in 2019 following a successful Kickstarter campaign. It employs the Storypath system, a simpler and streamlined version of the earlier Storyteller system designed for slightly cinematic, effect driven play, each player able to turn his character’s actions into stunts. The core rulebook includes everything necessary to play—rules for character generation, the Storypath system, the dangers of the wastes, factions and secret societies, faith and belief, psionics, descriptions of the Nor’East, an introductory scenario, and advice for the Storyguide as the Game Master is known.

A Player Character in Dystopia Rising: Evolution has nine Attributes—Intellect, Cunning, Resolve, Might, Dexterity, Stamina, Presence, Manipulation, and Composure; several of the roleplaying game’s sixteen skills plus Skill Tricks and Specialities associated with those skills; and Edges, Paths, and Aspirations. Both Attributes and Skills are rated between one and five. A Speciality provides an enhancement when using it, for example, ‘Knifework’ for the Close Combat skill or ‘Wound Treatment’ for the Medicine skill, whilst Skill Tricks can add more dice to a roll, increase scale of what a character can do, change the Target Number for an action, or provide a free Stunt, for example, ‘Born to Ride’ for Pilot skill or ‘Bomb Awareness’ for the Lore skill. Dystopia Rising: Evolution includes examples of three for each skill, but encourages the Storyguide and players to create their own. Either way, it costs of point of Momentum to activate a Skill Trick. Edges are the equivalent of advantages, and for certain characters can be Faith or Psi Edges. A Player Character has three Paths. His Strain Path represents his history and strain of humanity, as well as his Strain Condition; his Role Path is his occupation or what he is good at; and his Society Path represents his connection to a group or society. The Strain Condition represents a situation or response—whether by the Survivor or to the Survivor—which will penalise his actions. In some cases, it is possible to overcome a Strain Condition, at least temporarily, but with others it is impossible. For example, one of the five pre-generated characters has the Strain Path of Vegasian, which means she is flamboyant and an entertainer, and consequently, the Strain Condition of ‘Born Coward’, meaning she is not always trusted and suffers the complication of Shifty; the Role Path of Scoundrel, good at deceiving others and relieving them of their money; and the Society Path of Black Market. In play, Paths are avenues of progress for Survivors, but also storytelling tools that the Storyguide can pull a player and Survivor into the ongoing story of a scenario or campaign. Aspirations are a character’s goals and are either short or long term.

At the heart of a Survivor is a Strain. Dystopia Rising: Evolution presents eight Strains—Devoted, Elitariat, Evolved, Gorgers, Landsmen, Mutants, Nomads, and Townies. These are further divided into three Lineages to provide a total of twenty-four base archetypes upon which to base a character. For example, the Devolved Strain include the unbreakable Irons, the strong Reclaimers, and the Unstable who are capable of controlling psionicists and the undead. Not all of the Strains get on with each other, but what Dystopia Rising: Evolution makes clear is that they are very much not the equivalent of race. Further, it also makes clear that the post apocalypse of the Fall means that the Survivors have transcended the negative attitudes of humanity from before.

To create a Survivor, a player devises a concept and then selects a Strain Path, Role Path, and Society Path. Each Path provides dots or points to assign to associated skills. Plus, the player has another six to freely assign. Depending upon the rating of the skills, a Survivor can also have a Skill Trick and a Speciality. He has three pools of points to assign to his Survivor’s Attributes to the three Arenas they divided into—Mental, Physical, and Social. Lastly, the Survivor receives all of the associated Edges and gear from the Paths.

Name: Mortlake
Strain: Devoted – Unborn (Condition: Not Like the Others)

SKILLS
Academics 0, Athletics 0, Close Combat 1, Culture 0, Empathy 1, Firearms 0, Integrity 1, Leadership 0, Lore 3 (Grave Mind Expert), Medicine 3 (Medical Genius), Persuasion 1, Pilot 0, Science 1, Subterfuge 0, Survival 2, Technology 0

ATTRIBUTES
Force – Intellect 3 Might 1 Prescence 1
Finesse – Cunning 4 Dexterity 3 Manipulation 3
Resilience – Resolve 2 Stamina 1 Composure 3

PATHS
Strain: Devoted – Unborn 1
Role: Sawbones
Society: Psionicists’ Guild

ASPIRATIONS
Short: To rescue his mentor
Short: To find work as a sawbones
Long: To explore the Grave Mind

EDGES
Acute Sense 1
Meditation 1
Mentor 1
Psionicist 3 (Death Shroud, Whispered Insight, Borrowed Memories)
Skilled Healer 2
Unshakable Devotion

GEAR
Bandages, Healing Herbs, Shiv

Mechanically, Dystopia Rising: Evolution employs the Storypath system. The core mechanic uses dice pools of ten-sided dice, typically formed from the combination of a skill and an attribute, for example Pilot and Dexterity to sail a boat, Survival and Stamina to cross a wilderness, and Persuasion and Manipulation to unobtrusively get someone to do what a character wants. These skill and attribute combinations are designed to be flexible, with a character’s preferred method described as a character’s Favoured Approach. So, a character whose Favoured Approach is Force, would use Close Combat and Might in a melee fight; if Finesse, Close Combat and Dexterity; and if Resilience, then Close Combat and Stamina.

The aim when rolling, is to score Successes, a Success being a result of eight or more. Rolls of ten are added to the total and a player can roll them again. A player only needs to roll one Success for a character to complete task, but will want to roll more. Not only because Successes can be used to buy off Complications—ranging between one and five—but also because they can be used to buy Stunts which will impose Complications for others, create an Enhancement for another action, or one that it makes it difficult to act against a character. Some Stunts cost nothing, so ‘Inflict Damage’ costs nothing, though may cost more if the enemy is wearing soft armour, a ‘Critical Hit’ costs four Stunts, and so on. Instead of adding to the number of dice rolled, equipment used adds Enhancements or further Successes for a player to expend, but the player needs to roll at least one Success for equipment to be effective.

Under the Storypath system, and thus in Dystopia Rising: Evolution, failure is never complete. Rather, if a player does not roll any Successes, then he receives a Consolation. This can be a ‘Twist of Fate’, which reveals an alternative approach or new information; a ‘Chance Meeting’ introduces a new helpful NPC; or an ‘Unlooked-for Advantage’, an Enhancement which can be used in a future challenge. Alternatively, a character gains Momentum which can be expended to gain an Enhancement or to activate a Skill Trick or an Edge.

The rules in Dystopia Rising: Evolution cover narrative and dramatic scale, combat—players roll an appropriate Resilience Attribute to generate Successes to be expended on Defensive Stunts, and procedurals such as information gathering, intrigue, influence, and so on. These are all clearly explained and all easy to use in play. In general, the Storypath system is clearly presented and quick to pick up and have a cinematic quality to them, especially with the availability of Stunts and Consolations in the face of failure. The rules specific to Dystopia Rising: Evolution also cover what you would expect in a post-apocalyptic setting—food and water, the dangers of dehydration, weather and radiation, diseases from Bad Brain Disease to Necrosis, scavenging and crafting, and so on.

In addition, neither death nor disability marks the end of a Survivor in Dystopia Rising: Evolution. In the case of the latter, there is discussion of and rules for continuing to play a disabled Survivor, including with the use of assistive devices. Indeed, one of the pre-generated Survivors is depicted as being in an armoured wheelchair and equipped with armoured leg braces. In the case of the former, there is a chance that the Survivor will return anew, the fungus that infects him, breaking down his corpse, and rebuilding it to reappear at a settlement’s Morgue, a site enhanced by psionic crystals, a few days later, memories intact, wounds repaired, but emotional attachments stripped away. If this occurs too often the Survivor may come back as a Zed, a true zombie. It is also possible to actually walk among the Zeds undetected with the Necrokinesis psionic influence, and even reach into the Grave Mind ask questions of it. Other psionic influences are more traditional, for example, Pyrokinetics and Telekinetics.

In terms of setting, Dystopia Rising: Evolution adds factions, a bestiary of strange creatures and things locations, and more across the Nor’East. The factions include genre classics like the bounty hunters of the Lone Star Rangers and the postmen of the Post Walkers of the Postal Service, but also those particular to the setting, such as the Road Crew which scouts out locations for the ‘Guts N Bolts’ racing tournaments, the Psionicists’ Guild—the acceptable face of psionics, and the Priests of the Sound, whose members have the blueprints of radio equipment tattooed on their skin and are zealously dedicated to building radio networks. There are secret societies too, like the Black Market, the Dead Sight Society dedicated to the eradication of psionicists, Murder, Inc, the Servants of the Undying which holds that the Grave Mind is the path to immortality, and more. Add to this a variety of different faith and churches, such as the Church of Darwin and The Nuclear Family, and the Story Guide has a rich source of background and potential NPCs to build upon. The various faiths and their churches are actually more detailed than the other organisations. This is partly because faith can play a key role in the future of Dystopia Rising: Evolution and of the Survivors, especially if a Survivor adheres to a particular creed and backs this up with Faith related Edges. Although Dystopia Rising: Evolution is a not a supernatural roleplaying game and its zombies are not the zombies of classic horror, the use of some Faith Edges push the game in that direction if only slightly.

There is good advice for the Storyguide on running Dystopia Rising: Evolution, from adjusting the tone of the post-apocalypse to bringing the world to life, presenting hard questions and hard choices in play and dealing with difficult players, and more. In some ways it feels familiar, but this does not stop it from good advice. Specific advice is given on how to manage the Grave Mind in play since it is intended to be a traumatic experience for the Survivor. The background hints at the horrifying nature of the Fall, before going on to emphasis the efforts to made to rebuild civilisation, hold off the raider clans, and the wariness of over expanding and exploring too far, the Midwest having become dominated by a spreading mass of trees and foliage that is home to a vast array of mutant animals and creatures. The base setting is that of Philly del Phia, which is described in some details, as are parts of Old York. The rest of the Nor’East is described in broader details and the rest of the world in details broader still. These are areas for the Storyguide to develop. Rounding out Dystopia Rising: Evolution is ‘Let the Dead Lie’, an introductory scenario for the setting which takes place in Philly del Phia. It is a two-session affair which sees the Survivors investigating the death of the brother of an NPC who has suspicions that something is amiss following his own return from the Grave Mind. It should introduce the players to the core aspects of the setting and serve as the starting point for a campaign.

Physically, Dystopia Rising: Evolution is cleanly and tidily presented. It is done in full colour, often with a rust-streaked palette. If there is an issue with Dystopia Rising: Evolution it is that the character generation is not as easy as it could be. Not from a mechanical process, but a conceptual one. Putting together a Survivor means looking at a lot of options and trying to work out what works with what. In preparing a campaign of Dystopia Rising: Evolution, the Storyguide may want to work through some concepts before presenting them to her players.

Dystopia Rising: Evolution is an engaging entry into the post-apocalyptic genre. It shifts the zombie apocalypse in a different direction, dangerous and intriguing, of course making zombies the threat, but also pushing the Player Characters ever closer and right up to that line where they too might be considered zombies themselves. And while the aim of the roleplaying game—like any other—is not necessarily to die, the Grave Mind suggests that there is something more to dying than simple oblivion. As with Onyx Path Publishing roleplaying games, humanity remains at the forefront of the roleplaying game and in Dystopia Rising: Evolution, retaining is about not losing it to the Grave Mind, protecting the community, rebuilding civilisation, and holding off the dangers which threaten from beyond the Wastelands. Dystopia Rising: Evolution is a roleplaying game about still being human even if the body and the mind has evolved, sometimes to the point of near undeath, and it is superbly with an interesting array of character options for the players and a richly detailed background for the players and Storyguide.

Three great islands surround the forbidden Broken Heart Desert—Amberhaven, Alpengreen, and Umberleap. These are the Verdant Isles, formed and protected by The Great Tree that lifted them up from the sea and ultimately perished protecting in the Cataclysm, its remains forming the Broken Heart Desert. The Verdant Isles are a peaceful realm, inhabited by many different peoples who all agree that life is precious, that the best life isa calm and modest, and that both nature and others should be respected. The roots of The Great Tree still run deep and its sap, long crystalised into Amber has magical properties. Ambersmiths refine it using hives of Sprites, like beekeepers, and the resulting Amber used by Kitchen Witches to cast the more powerful Harmony magic. There are five types, known as the Astra—Flame, Flourish, Ripple, Storm, and Twilight. It is not unusual for the peoples, places, flora, and fauna of the Verdant Isles to be aligned with one of the Astra. Other magics are known, including the making of potions and salves, florists grow magical plants from Sprite-grown seeds, and architects design buildings using magical materials. The Verdant Isles are populated by several peoples of different ‘Ancestries’. The original six are the Deerkin, Finfolk, Floradops, Hoptops, Puffwings, and Snootlings. Finfolk are amphibious; Floradops have soft fuzzy skin and large, multi-coloured butterfly wings and fly; Hoptops are frog-like, amphibious, and like to leap; Puffwings are large, birdlike, and also capable of flight; and Snootlings are alligator-like, also capable of swimming.

However, the Verdant Isles are not entirely free of troubles and mysteries. Such as they are, they are not grand troubles and mysteries, but small intrigues and difficulties that upset or unbalance the calm and modesty, and take away the joy of everyday life across the Verdant Isles. It is some of these small troubles and mysteries that the Player Characters will investigate and sooth ruffled feathers—all helped by a nice hot cup of tea and a slice of cake—in Teatime Adventures: A Verdant Isles Roleplaying Game. Published by Snowbright Studios following a successful Kickstarter campaign, Teatime Adventures is an anthropomorphic roleplaying designed to be non-violent, identity and gender friendly, and compatible with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Thus, it does not have rules for combat or physical resolution, only the barest of suggestions—since it is considered incredibly rude, but it does include an extensive magic system, a gazetteer of the Verdant Isles, four adventures, and most importantly cake recipes galore, a suggested tea or each scenario, and a tea steeping guide!
A Player Character in Teatime Adventures: A Verdant Isles Roleplaying Game an Ancestry, six abilities, an Occupation, a Morale die, and an Astra Alignment. The six abilities are Bustle, Fidget, Vigour, Wits, Sensibility, and Personality, and they range in value from three to eighteen. An Occupation grants a Skill Bonus in three skills and a d8 Morale die or a Skill Bonus in one skill and a d10 Morale die. A Player Character’s Morale Points represents his motivation and will to continue. They can be lost through failure, sad situations, and discovering that you left that tray of scones in the oven for too long. They can be healed through magic, time, and roleplaying reflection. The Astra Alignment is really only important if the Player Character wants to use magic. Skills include Borrowing, Event Planning, Minding Details, Not Getting Lost, Random Facts, and Relish.
To create a character, a player selects an Ancestry, assigns an array to the abilities, and chooses an Occupation. However, deciding on an Occupation is slightly problematic since Teatime Adventures does not list any. Although the example Player Characters have Occupations such as Mason, Event Planner, and Mail Carrier, Teatime Adventures suggests that the Game Master and players work together to decide on their characters’ Occupations and suitable skills. It would have been useful if a list of suggested Occupations and their associated skills had been listed.
Otterlie
Ancestry: Hoptop
Occupation: Librarian
Level: 1
Bustle 10 (+0) Fidget 10 (+0) Vigour 12 (+1)
Wits 16 (+3) Sensibility 14 (+2) Personality 12 (+1)
Morale: 8 (d8)
Skills: The Arts +1, Borrowing +0, Charlatanism +1, Cooking +3, Daydreaming +3, Event Planning +1, Fauna Friendship +2, Flora Friendship +3, Focusing +2, Gardening +0, Labour +1, Local Lore +3, Minding Details +4, Not Getting Lost +2, Noticing +3, Random Facts +4, Relish +1, Snooping +2
Mechanically, Teatime Adventures is simple and straightforward. The Game Master sets the difficulty of a task and the appropriate skill, and the player rolls a twenty-sided die aiming to get a result equal to or greater than the difficulty, adding the skill value in the process. And that really is it to the base mechanics of Teatime Adventures and that is something of an issue with the roleplaying game. Just like the lack of suggestions for Occupations, there is no guidance on skill difficulties or what exactly constitutes a Morale loss and how much that loss might be. An experienced Game Master will have no issue with any of these problems, but Teatime Adventures is designed and written to attract an audience that does not want to embrace Dungeons & Dragons’ traditional focus on combat and ‘power fantasy’ and wants a roleplaying game that is LGBTQ+ and disability-friendly. This is undoubtedly a laudable aim and Teatime Adventures achieves this though the range of NPCs it includes who have their pronouns, details about how they identify and other information clearly presented. Yet if that the members of that audience have bounced off Dungeons & Dragons and similar roleplaying games because the aforementioned issues, the problem they will have is the lack of advice on running the Teatime Adventures, which conversely, Dungeons & Dragons, the roleplaying they do not want to play, actually has.
Where Teatime Adventures expands in terms of it mechanics. It has two types of magic—Kitchen Magic and Harmony Magic, but both are divided into five types of magic each aligned to the Astra. Kitchen Magic involves the casting of Innate spells or cantrips. For example, the Flourish Astra is all about growth and potential, and its Innate spells are Duplicate Food and Soil Check, whilst Twilight Astra is all about the edge of everyday life, hopes, and dreams, and its Innate spells are Beguile and Dim. Beyond that, Harmony Magic requires multiple participants to harmonise and cast a spell together. It is entirely in keeping with feel and tone of the setting, but Teatime Adventures completely undermines the concept. How it is works is that once the players have decided to cast a spell, they select harmony components necessary to cast it. For example, Snowfall has the components of Area, Cold, and Weather and the requirements of a cup of water and a smidge of soot. The players then add Harmony tokens to a pool face down on the table, the number based on their ability bonuses and Astra Alignment. Then against the clock, players flip the Harmony tokens and use them to match the Harmony component’s pattern on their mats. If this is done within the time limit, the spell is cast. It is a lovely idea, making spellcasting a weighty decision and part of play, but…
The section on Harmony magic in Teatime Adventures is a single page in length. The section on Harmony magic in Teatime Adventures is the first time anywhere in the roleplaying game that it is mentioned that physical components are required to play an aspect of the game. The section on Harmony magic in Teatime Adventures lacks an example of Harmony magic works. It is deeply frustrating that an intriguing system is so poorly, underwhelmingly treated in this fashion. It leaves the Game Master to try and interpret how it works on her own, and ultimately, the easiest and simplest solution, is to replace it with another magic system, which what the authors suggest as an alternative.
If the mechanics are underwhelming and poorly explained, where Teatime Adventures: A Verdant Isles Roleplaying Game comes into its own is in describing its setting. The world of The Verdant Isles is described in loving detail and flavour, covering their origins, the nature of the Astra, its holidays and festivals enjoyed by all, and its various places and locations in a lengthy gazetteer. The latter drills right down to Oakenbend, which is where the scenarios in Teatime Adventures are set, describing individual buildings and places in and around the village are set. Thirty or so of the villagers in Oakenbend are given full write-ups ready for the Game Master to portray. In addition, there is a full list of the ‘Spells of the Verdant Isles’, maps of the locations, a set of pre-generated Player Characters, and more.
However, the means to explore the Verdant Isles setting of Teatime Adventures are threefold—and each one is a delight. The first and most obvious, is the roleplaying game’s artwork, which is luscious and rich, echoing the style of children’s stories read to us when we were young or those we read to our own children and grandchildren. The second is plethora of recipes for cakes and sundries scattered through the book, clearly intended to be baked and served at every tea-infused sitting (or session) of an adventure. Golden Corn Cake, Oakenbread, Hoptop Harvest Pie, and more, plus each adventure includes the teas which should be served with it. The third is the adventures themselves, all set in and around the village of Oakenbend where the Player Characters are sent as part of the Arts & Culture Society of Amberhaven as part of a cultural exchange to learn about the village and its life. The scenarios involve the Player Characters attending the autumnal Leaping of the Hoptops festival in which all but one of the entries in the Hoptop Pie competition are sabotaged and find one of their number accused of the crime; investigating how and why the village’s crop of Star Light plants have withered to dust; working who or what is causing the villagers to disappear during the winter solstice festival of the Feast of Forge and Flame; and exactly what the strange crystalline plant is that has bloomed everywhere in the village during the Feast of Flourish. These are all lengthy adventures, typically requiring two or three sessions to play, plus there is plenty of scope and room for the Game Master to add her own content and scenarios.
Physically, Teatime Adventures is lovingly presented. Both the artwork and the maps are delightful and the writing is engaging. However, the lack of an index is inexcusable.
Teatime Adventures: A Verdant Isles Roleplaying Game is utterly charming and engaging, its aims highly laudable, but flawed. Its problems all stem from the underwhelming treatment and development of the rules, the lack of presentation and development of the Harmony magic system a thorough disappointment. Yet put those flaws aside, which is entirely possible because the roleplaying game’s mechanics are light enough for the Game Master to substitute a known system which works in the case of magic, and Teatime Adventures lives up to all of its aims. The roleplaying game is all the more relaxing and thoughtful without the threat of physical violence or combat being present, and of course, the combination of play with tea and cake enhances that. Teatime Adventures: A Verdant Isles Roleplaying Game is a lovely roleplaying game, friendly and amiable, which the Game Master will need to develop aspects of the roleplaying game to get it really working as the designers intended.

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

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

—oOo—
What is it?SINS: Deadly City is a quick-start for SINS, the post-apocalyptic survival horror roleplaying game. Its events take place during the apocalyptic event prior to the post-apocalyptic event so is therefore a prequel which explains the beginning of the setting. It is designed to be played by five players.
It is a thirty-three-page, full colour booklet.
It is published by Nightfall Games. (It was previously published by First Falling Leaf.)
How long will it take to play?
SINS: Deadly City is playable in between three and five hours, so can be played through in a single session.
Who do you play?
Five Player Characters are included. These consist of a group of friends who all live in New York city. The five are a firefighter (oddly listed as an ex-football player), a young bartender with a criminal past, a junior police officer, a graphic designer with a criminal past, and a student at medical school.
How is a Player Character defined?
The Player Character has six attributes. These are Body, Conviction, Cunning, Passion, Reason, and Prowess. Each is rated between one and six. He also has points in sixteen skills divided in three categories—Natural, Learnt, and Combat. Skills are broad in nature, for example, Athletics, Knowledge, Marksmanship, and Melee. These are rated between one and six and no Player Character has a rating higher than three. With a skill rating of one, the Target Number is six, and then five or six for a skill rating of two, four, five, or six for a skill rating of three, and three, four, five, or six for a skill rating of four. A Player Character also has a Fate point, although this is never used in the quick-start, and some Drama Points.
How do the mechanics work?SINS uses the HOPE Engine. This a dice pool system which uses six-sided dice. A dice pool is expressed as X/Y where the ‘X’ is the number of dice in the dice pool and equal to the attribute, plus one, and ‘Y’ is the number of successes the player must roll to succeed. A six can be rerolled to generate Successes. A typical difficulty requires one success, but harder tasks require two or more Successes. Modifiers add or subtract dice from the pool. Extra Successes will increase the amount of damage inflicted in combat or reduce the amount of time a task takes.
Drama Points are used to make an action dramatic. When played, it adds an extra die to the pool and reduces the Target Number needed to generate Successes.
SINS: Deadly City presents a streamlined version of the HOPE Engine. The full rules are detailed in the SINS core rulebook.
How does combat work?
Combat uses the same mechanics as the HOPE Engine. Awareness is used for an initiative roll and when an opponent attacks or acts against another, the defender is tagged and can act. When targeted by either a Close or Ranged attack, the defender can Evade. Any Successes generated will counter those generated by the attacker’s roll. Damage, which is calculated as the base damage of the weapon plus any Success, reduces a Player Character’s Vitality, first Light, then Wounded, and lastly Mauled. When the Player Character’s Vitality is at the Wounded or Mauled level, he suffers a penalty to all dice pools until healed.
How does the enemy work?
Although SINS and SINS: Deadly City both initially look like a ‘zombie apocalypse’ and its aftermath setting, but that is very much not the case and the SINS: Deadly Sins makes this explicitly clear. However, there is nothing to stope the players and their characters from believing this until the scenario reveals otherwise. They are presented with a minimum of details.
What do you play?
SINS: Deadly City is set in New York city. The scenario opens with the Player Characters meeting in a bar following a possible end of the world situation from a shower of meteorites which failed to do the predicted damage as they seemed to melt into a ‘Black Rain’. Suddenly, a car careens through the bar window and strange things start happening… The scenario as a whole is actually presented as a series of Scenarios, which are effectively scenes. These are organised so that they can be slotted into the order that the players will play them in. So, in ‘Scenario A’ the Player Characters begin in the bar, but ‘Scenario B’ presents what will happen if the Player Characters decide to hide out until the whole situation has blown over and ‘Scenario C’ what happens if they go the authorities. Other scenarios explore the possibility of their attempting to escape the city, their encountering the National Guard enforcing quarantine, and so on. Finally, the Player Characters can find some sanctuary, make a final stand, and discover more about what is going on.
Is there anything missing?
SINS: Deadly City could have done with a map of the various locations in the scenario. However, they are fairly generic and the Game Master should be able to find suitable floorplans.
Is it easy to prepare?
The rules are easy to grasp, but the scenario needs careful study. The ‘plug and play’ aspect of the seven scenarios (or scenes) makes the whole scenario easier to organise, but the individual scenes are fairly detailed and require preparation.
Is it worth it?
SINS: Deadly City is a prequel to SINS, which means that it does not present the world described in the SINS core rulebook. Technically, this means that in parts, SINS: Deadly City is not a quick-start for the roleplaying game except in a mechanical sense as it shows off the rules. However, SINS: Deadly City is not a poor prequel, preparing as it does the players and their characters for the Post Apocalyptic world of SINS.
Where can you get it?
The SINS: Deadly City is available here.

Chimneyhaus is a scenario for Mausritter –Sword-and-Whiskers roleplaying, the rules-light fantasy adventure microclone in which the very big and very dangerous world is explored from a mouse eye’s point of view. This is our world, but one in which the mice are anthropomorphic and can talk, as can other species. Beyond the walls of their home, the world is one of opportunity and adventure, fraught with hazards natural and unnatural, those untouched by mankind and those imposed by mankind. Using the base mechanics from Into the Odd, mice in Mausritter need to be brave, resourceful and clever, as well as lucky if they are to survive. Scenarios for Mausritter tend to be location based. Either the mice having to explore a single location, which could actually be a tree stump, a human-sized suit of armour, a grandfather clock, or an abandoned human-made shack, as in Mausritter: Honey in the Rafters or a sandbox setting containing numerous locations, such as Mausritter: TheEstate Adventure Collection or Mayfield. Chimneyhaus is sandbox setting.
Chimneyhaus is published by Fey Light Studio. It details a single location and the surrounding area. The single location is the McRheetz Farm, a fairly isolated dairy farm which stands in the middle of County Langlade. Here the mice have made their home in a disused chimney stack on the farmhouse and inhabit a series of cliffside-like homes up the inside of the chimney, with a smoker at the top where the mice smoke cheese and a cheese cave and brewery at the bottom. Home to a family of some sixty mice, they have an odd relationship with the farmer and his family. They think the mice are fairies and so leave a pint of milk out daily, lest the ‘fairies’ turn the rest of his milk sour. Of course, the mice turn the milk into cheese! However, Frey, the McRheetz family cat, is always hungry and has both the run of the farm and the trust of the farmer! The farm itself is nicely detailed, and include the Haystack Market where traders met, the Sugar Maple Orchard where the mice regularly tap the trees the syrup for mead, and the Chicken Coop where the chickens are plotting a revolution, but their short-term memory means that they forget and must start again in the morning!
Beyond the boundaries of the farm, Chimneyhaus presents County Langlade, a complete mega-hex full of locations. The McRheetz Farm stands at the centre with strange places like a cave, home to a bear, but which has strange markings on its walls; a lake home to a frog prince; and a cemetery where ghosts wander in search of the living to leech heat from. There is a hamlet nearby too, the site of an abandoned well that was once home to mice and pigeons strut the streets. These are supported by details of the factions, such as a centipede army, the Queen B’s Hive, and Willy the Weasel, plus more detailed adventure sites. These expand upon their descriptions in the County Langlade write-up and come with complete with plot hooks, and encounters and things that the Player Characters might find. There are four of these, plus a short bestiary with new creatures for Mausritter, some new conditions, and a handful of new spells.
Physically, Chimneyhaus is short and succinctly presented. The conciseness of the writing means that not only is everything is easy to grasp, but there is space too for the Game Master to add her own content. The artwork and look of the book does vary in quality though. One illustration is at least too big, whilst the actual chimney where the mince live is charmingly illustrated in rich colours, the map of farm itself is terribly bland and uninviting.
Chimneyhaus is a charmingly rural sandbox for Mausritter which can be run on its own, or combined with other titles for Mausritter. There is certainly space in County Langlade for Mausritter: The Estate Adventure Collection or Mayfield. Equally, the Game Master has plenty of room to add her own content, or even developing something already mentioned in the supplement, such as the abandoned well in the nearby hamlet. In whatever way it is used, Chimneyhaus will be a classic player-driven sandbox which the players can explore at their leisure, their mice discovering in the process a world of magic, mystery, and menace, whether as a campaign on its own or expanded by the Game Master.

Judges Guild is rightly renowned for its innovation in the hobby industry. It pioneered the concept of supplementary support for roleplaying games when those in charge at TSR, Inc. believed that there would be no demand for them. The publisher’s Judges Shield would be first Game Master’s screen, City State of the Invincible Overlord would be one of the first great city settings combined with the Wilderlands of High Fantasy setting, Tegel Manor the first haunted house as a dungeon adventure, and Dark Tower, the only scenario published by someone other than TSR to appear in ‘The 30 Greatest D&D Adventures of All Time’ in Dungeon #116 (November, 2004). Unfortunately, Judges Guild’s legacy has been tarnished by the social attitudes and comments of Robert Bledsoe II, son of the late Robert Bledsoe, one of the co-founders of Judges Guild. However, Robert Bledsoe did not start Judges Guild alone and had a partner, Bill Owen, who has a memoir, Judges Guild’s Bob & Bill – A Cautionary Tale, which covers the period in which he was involved in the company, and more. Originally published in 2008, it has been updated with addenda, not once, but twice. It would be fair to say Owen’s involvement is little known outside of the devotees of Judges Guild and hobby historians, but Judges Guild’s Bob & Bill – A Cautionary Tale is his chance to tell that story.

There is a certain familiarity in how the author began gaming. Later influxes to the hobby would begin with Dungeons & Dragons, a Fighting Fantasy solo adventure book, or even Vampire: The Masquerade, but Owen, like all gamers of his age, began with wargames and in particular, Avalon Hill titles like Africa Korps, before moving onto miniatures wargaming played across the traditional sand tray to simulate terrain. It would remain a hobby for all of his life and heavily influence his career working in the family travel business. As a travel agent, Owen was able to ease some of the logistics that Judges Guild would face in its first few years in terms of travel and printing, but it was his father’s first businesses—a regional chain of toyshops and a mall—that would arguably prepare him for the hobby market that burgeoned in the years following the publication of Dungeons & Dragons. Indeed, the Franklin Mall would be first headquarters for Judges Guild.

Owen’s involvement with Robert Bledsoe and Dungeons & Dragons begin when he ran his first dungeon using the Dungeons & Dragons boxed set that he had acquired at Gen Con in 1974. Bledsoe would borrow Owen’s copy and run his own campaign, heavily drawing from and influenced by Tolkien. Eventually, and now friends, Owen and Bledsoe would go into business as Judges Guild with their first products being play aids for Dungeons & Dragons—the Ready Ref Sheets and the Dungeon Tac Cards—that collated and better presented the charts for the roleplaying game, followed by the map and booklet for City State of the Invincible Overlord. Initially, these and other releases would be distributed via subscriptions. Owen reveals some of the challenges that he and Bledsoe faced in bring Judges Guild titles to print. Not just the fact that they were doing on it a budget, but also the technology involved. The initial difficulties of drawing and printing the map for the City State of the Invincible Overlord in colour that would push Bledsoe to redraw the whole map in black, and the Dungeon Tac Cards being typeset at a printing company between the time that its employees opened up and the office staff arrived! There are endearing tales of the first two times that Judges Guild was at Gen Con in 1976 and 1977. The first visit was done almost guerrilla style, selling subscriptions for future releases and even a few map sets out of the back of the car that Owen and a friend drove to Wisconsin in. The second visit has an even greater unreality to it, being hosted in the Playboy Mansion in Lake Geneva, which turned out to be an eyeopener for all concerned.

Yet Owen’s time with Judges Guild and as partner to Robert Bledsoe quickly comes to an end. By 1978, he had burnt himself out and lost the energy and drive that would keep Bledsoe in the hobby games industry for another five or so years. He sold his share of the business to Bledsoe and returned to the family travel business. Owen has not been involved in the roleplaying industry since, although he has remained a keen wargamer, both in terms of miniatures and wargames. It is at this point that the reader’s interest in Judges Guild’s Bob & Bill – A Cautionary Tale is likely to wane…

Updated and expanded in 2014, the third edition of Judges Guild’s Bob & Bill – A Cautionary Tale, which includes addenda for both the second and third editions, is some one-hundred-and-forty-eight pages long, but Owen’s direct involvement with Judges Guild ends at page sixty. Much of the longer rest of the book consists of rambling reminiscences and reflections. Most notably these look back upon the combined wargaming and World War II battlefields of Europe tour that Owen arranged, discuss some of the author’s favourite games, and so on, but there are snippets of interest to the Judges Guild and roleplaying fan here too. For example, Owen muses not just whether was paid enough when he sold his half of Judges Guild to Bledsoe, but more interestingly, what if he had remained at the company and sold it to E. Gary Gygax later on when Gygax began to have difficulties at TSR. Inc.? The author does not explore this idea very far, but there is the possibility of an interesting ‘What if?’ scenario there. Elsewhere, Owen provides a close up look at the original map for Tegel Manor; looks at early, pre-print history of City State of the Invincible Overlord when it was ‘No Name City’ located in Middle-earth; and just how the Bledsoe got away with some of the names of the shops and stores in the city, such as ‘Beat-a-Slave’ and ‘Messy Massage’… These are intermittent throughout the book though.

Perhaps one of the pleasures of the book is its many photographs. Judges Guild’s Bob & Bill – A Cautionary Tale is profusely illustrated with photographs from the author’s time with Judges Guild, the games he played, and much more. They are not always as clear or as light as the reader might want them to be, but they are included and they are all each clearly described by the author.

Perhaps one reason why a modern gamer might want to read Judges Guild’s Bob & Bill – A Cautionary Tale is the fact that it subtitled, ‘A Cautionary Tale’. Owen clearly faced the challenges of any young, fresh start-up business. A combination of long hours, great effort, and having to find its own way in an industry that had no precedent, that enthusiasm will only carry you so far in overcoming. Bill Owen burned out and left the industry after two years, and whilst his story of what happened and the mistakes the company made are now over forty years old, they retain some validity today.

Physically, Judges Guild’s Bob & Bill – A Cautionary Tale is presented as series of short essays accompanied by handfuls of photographs. It is an amiable enough read, often slipping into digression, and not always coming to any clear conclusion.

Judges Guild’s Bob & Bill – A Cautionary Tale is a rambling affair that is far from being an official history of Judges Guild. Of course, it does not set out to be, but if the author’s reminisces about his time at Judges Guild are the most interesting sections in the book, they are also the shortest. Meaning that for the roleplaying historian and devotee of Judges Guild there is not as much within its pages to really interest them as perhaps there could have been. Ultimately, what comes across from the amiable reminisces in the pages of Judges Guild’s Bob & Bill – A Cautionary Tale, is that Bill Owen does look back upon his time with Judges Guild and the late Robert Bledsoe with great fondness, as well as having greatly enjoyed his gaming.

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

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

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Name: The Shambler Between WorldsPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Jason Shayer

Setting: Jazz Age Arkham
Product: ScenarioWhat You Get: Twenty-five page, 2.78 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: A disappearing inmate from Arkham Assylum? This calls for the Miskatonic Mystery Club!*Plot Hook: A disappearing inmate from Arkham Assylum leads to occult shenanigans.
Plot Support: Staging advice, six pre-generated Investigators, three NPCs, one handout (justabout), five maps, and one Mythos monster.Production Values: Plain.
* Miskatonic Mystery Club Mobile not included
Pros# Miskatonic University horror scenario# Miskatonic Mystery Club is a great idea# Straightforward, simple plot# Teraphobia# Multiversophobia
Cons# Needs a slight edit# Underwhelming hook to get the Investigators involved# Is the island ‘unvisited’ or ‘uninhabited’?# Needs more handouts# No information about the emergency book reading# Investigators could kill an important to the plot NPC# Miskatonic Mystery Club only briefly detailed
Conclusion# Straightforward, simple plot needs further development and details fleshing out # Potentially serviceable Miskatonic University/Arkham-set scenario that needs more of the Miskatonic Mystery Club

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

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

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Name: Play, Repeat, ReturnPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Braydon Fiveash & Stars Are Right

Setting: Modern Day Alaska
Product: ScenarioWhat You Get: Twenty-nine page, 6.58 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Groundhog Day, but with dinosaurs!Plot Hook: Home just got really strange.
Plot Support: Staging advice, one NPC, three handouts, six maps, table of timelines, two dinosaurs, and one Mythos monster.Production Values: Decent.
Pros# House in a bottle weird mystery# Survival horror begins at home# Easy to prepare# Entertainingly different set-up and mode of play# Mythos twist upon a cliché which makes good use of the environment# Chronophobia# Frigophobia# Ornithoscelidaphobia
Cons# Scenario could last twenty minutes, could last four hours# Not all of the maps in the right places# Cliché is easy to work out
Conclusion# Infuses a cliché with the Mythos for an intriguingly different one-shot  # Short, sharp, easy-to-prepare weird Science Fiction horror one-shot that can be ready to play in minutes

Conan the Mercenary is a supplement for Robert E. Howard’s Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of published by Modiphius Entertainment. It is the third in the ‘Conan the…’ series of supplements which focus on and take their inspiration from Conan himself at various stages of his life and what he was doing. Over this series, the supplements will track our titular character’s growth and progress as he gains in skills and abilities and talents. Thus this third supplement, following on from Conan the Barbarian and Conan the Thief, looks at Conan as a young man and his life what he did after he left his homeland and took his next steps on his career which will take him from barbarian to king, essentially the equivalent of a Player Character having taken the first steps in his adventuring career. Yet whilst the stats for Conan himself at this stage of his life do appear in the pages of Conan the Mercenary, and so hint at his step as covered in the next supplement, Conan the Pirate, they are more a side note than a feature, for the supplement continues the path south begun in Conan the Barbarian to examine and explore more of the countries of the centre, where East meets West in the Hyperborean Age—Khoraja, Koth, Ophir, and Shem. Not necessarily the most warlike of countries, but the most likely to hire and in need of mercenaries, or sell-swords, dog soldiers, and sword-sisters. Conan the Mercenary supports the role of the mercenary and warfare in Robert E. Howard’s Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of. It includes new archetypes, talents, backgrounds, and equipment to help players create more varied Mercenary characters and Game Masters more varied Mercenary NPCs; a gazetteer and guide to the fractious lands where the rulers have good reason to employ mercenaries of all kinds, whether that is to protect borders, put down insurrection, buy off rampaging mercenaries, and to strike at their rivals—whether internal or external an array of detailed NPCs and monsters, including unique nemeses; and mechanics to help bring mercenary campaigns and other activities and attitudes to your game, including sieges, battles, skirmishes, small operations, and more.

Conan the Mercenary opens by introducing new options for the Mercenary type character, building upon the content in the core rulebook for Robert E. Howard’s Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of. This includes the fact that the mercenary can have two Homelands (although only gains the benefits of one) to reflect how well-travelled he is, and has access to two new Mercenary Castes, Born Soldier and Child of Camp Followers—the latter tying to the vivid description of the camp followers later in the supplement, and both complete with stories and associated traits, whilst there is just the single new caste Talent, ‘Scrounger’. Similarly, there are two Mercenary Natures—Professional and Blood-crazed, whilst the Archetypes include ‘Asshuri’, ‘Captain’, ‘Champion’, ‘Messenger’, ‘Unseasoned’, and ‘Veteran’. Mercenary Educations add tables for War Stories, Personal Belongings and Garments, notable Weapon and Provenance, possible Mercenary Names. These add flavour and detail, whilst the Mercenary Talents are primarily built around the ‘Veteran’ Talent tree, only available to those who have served in a mercenary company, whilst the other ten Talents, such as ‘Hostage Taker’ or ‘If it Bleeds…’, are available to all Player Characters. The new ‘Tools of War’ begin with ‘Engines of Destruction’, the siege weapons employed by armies and mercenary companies to break castles, fortresses, and cities, but they get more personal with oddities such as the mancatcher and repeating crossbow. Perhaps more interesting for most players is the examination of high quality Akbitanan steel, whose forging is kept secret by the skilled craftsmen of Shem. The resulting weapons can strike fear into the opponents of anyone wielding them and so they are in great demand.

Supporting these new character options is a gazetteer of the lands in the centre of the West—Khoraja, Koth, Ophir, and Shem. Khoraja is a nation founded by mercenaries. They captured the city of the same name from the kingdom of Koth, taking advantage of the mountains which separates it from the rest of the kingdom. It also controls Shamla Pass, not only an important trade route through the mountains, but also the route that a major invasion force would take going north or south. The kings of Khoraja repudiate their mercenary origins, but that does not stop them from employing them. Koth itself employs mercenaries not only to protect its borders, but to put down insurrections that intermittently arise as one city ruler or noble aspires to the throne. The country’s fractiousness severely hampers the efforts of King Strabonus, its much feared and much derided ruler, to chart its future, not helped by the presence of Tsotha-Lanti, the sorcerer who at best is regarded as an advisor to the king, at worst the power behind the throne. Ophir is the opposite of Koth, a settled, extremely wealthy, and decadent nation, unambitious under the rule of its king, Amalrus, but not his wife, Queen Yrrane, who secretly plans to take the throne from her husband. To that end she has gathered the fealty of many mercenary captains who would command their companies to aid the ambitious spouse. Shem, known for its highly skilled craftsmen, is divided between meadowlands and desert, the latter providing a protective bulwark against invaders from the east. In each case, an overview of each country is provided, along with a look at their major cities, traditions, culture and faiths, ruins, notable features and citizens, and more. In each case, the content of Conan the Mercenary is set before the events of Conan’s stories, enabling the Game Master to run them as adventures for her Player Characters.
If the Gazetteer examines the places where mercenaries are most frequently employed or stationed and particular reasons why, ‘Events’ is more about the general reasons for war in the Hyperborean Age—not just war between kingdoms, internecine warfare, barbaric raids, and religious upheavals, but also natural events such as plague and famine, and unnatural events like the rise of a sorcerer and incursion from the Outer Dark. These are relatively short overviews so feel slightly generic. Fortunately, the supplement shifts away from this when it focuses on the NPCs in the setting in ‘Encounters’. This includes both a look at Conan’s involvement in the politics and events of the nations of Khoraja, Koth, Ophir, and Shem, in particular, his command of mercenary companies in the defeat of the Thugra Khotan and later defeat during Prince Almuric’s uprising against King Strabonus in Koth. These are backed up by a good range of ‘Encounters’ or NPCs. Even the most basic of mercenaries, such as the Asshuri, the Free Company mercenary, or Khrajan Solider are all given good write-ups alongside their stats, those done for the persons of renown, such as Thugra Khotan—self-entombed sorcerer in the city of Kuthchemes in Khoraja, King Strabonus, and Tsotha-Lanti, are excellent, helping to bring their ambitions and resulting plots to live and ready for development by the Game Master. Oddly, although mentioned in the gazetteer, there are no stats or write-up for Queen Yrrane and given its focus later in the supplement, there are no camp followers detailed here. Nevertheless, the ‘Encounters’ section enables the Game Master to have her Player Characters encounter them if running her campaign before the events of Conan’s stories.
As with previous supplements for Robert E. Howard’s Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of, ‘Hither Came Conan…’ places our titular hero in the context of the supplement and provides a playable version of him early in his long career. This also ties him back into the contents of the previous two chapters and in doing so, outlines one possible plot for the Game Master. ‘The Mercenary Way’ explores mercenary life in the Hyperborean Age. It is the most entertaining chapter in the supplement, starting with a discussion of camp followers and their way of life training behind a mercenary company. Technically called a ‘tross’, it looks at the different roles—blacksmiths, camp boys, cooks, gamblers, healers, priests, prostitutes, and more—all of which lend itself to a scenario or two, if not a mini-campaign around the ‘tross’. Despite their not being involved in the thick of the action, such a setting still lends itself to plenty of conflict, roleplaying, and social dynamics that would lead to good, if likely grubby and sometimes desperate, storytelling. Several mercenary companies, from the good to the bad, from the Nemedian Adventurers which only serves the King of Nemedia to the Free Companions, are described and a Mercenary Code of conduct is given as well as an explanation of how mercenary companies are structured. Tables provide loot to be taken from a battlefield and a city, events whilst ransacking, and events whilst carousing as a mercenary. The latter are always fun, providing a nice selection of random encounters and events that the Game Master can develop. The loot tables though, do feel as if they could be longer.
Supporting the earlier discussion of reasons to go to war in ‘Event’, the section on ‘Mercenary Adventures’ looks at the types of scenarios and campaigns that the Game Master can run with the supplement. These start with scouting and reconnaissance missions, patrols, securing prisoners, and more before slipping into the weird looking how cursed ruins, ancient battlefields, and even demons and gods of the Outer Dark could get involved in a mercenary campaign. These sections are fairly broad in their overview and should be treated as starting points for the Game Master.
Surprisingly, it has taken to almost the end of Conan the Mercenary to include rules for battles and mass combat. Part of that is due to the format of the series, but it does seem like a long wait. In general, the rules for small skirmishes are provided in the core rules for Robert E. Howard’s Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of, but here they scale up to handle full battles and sieges. These are not wargaming rules, but a means to handle a battle in a more narrative fashion whilst still involving the Player Characters on an individual level. To that end there is advice on ‘Narrating Battles the Howard Way’ and using cut scenes for ‘Heroic Actions’ where a Player Character has an opportunity to influence the battle and be courageous, such as opening a gate to let soldiers through or sabotaging a siege engine. It does add complexity to play and the Game Master should definitely run through a few examples to get the feel for it before running it for her players. There is an example too, which can be studied. Lastly, ‘Heroes of the Age’ adds a pair of potential Player Characters or NPCs developed by backers for the Kickstarter campaign for Robert E. Howard’s Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of. Of the two, Freya the Red would make an interesting mercenary commander for any campaign, whether as employer or enemy.
Physically, Conan the Mercenary is a slim hardback, presented in full colour, illustrated with an excellent range of fully painted artwork. It is well written, is accessible, and comes with a reasonable index. The maps of the nations detailed in Gazetteer are a bit bland though.
Conan the Mercenary opens up new campaign and scenario possibilities, whether that is as a special operations squad involved in civil war or a rebellion in Koth or going to war against the forces lead by Thugra Khotan, as Conan did, or surviving in the tross from one campaign to the next. However, it does take a while before it comes together and begins to feel like a supplement for Robert E. Howard’s Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of, doing so when it begins to draw more directly from the adventures of Conan himself and the characters he involves himself with in Howard’s stories. The book needed more of that and so it comes across as being a rather slight book in places, not helped by it being shorter than other supplements in the series. 
Conan the Mercenary does feel slightly underwhelming in paces, but it shines through where it counts—and that is on the personal level. For the Robert E. Howard’s Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of Game Master who wants to send her Player Characters into the heat, blood, sweat, and hell of battle, to let them sell their martial skills to the highest bidder, and have them influence the fate of kingdoms at the point of a sword, Conan the Mercenary unsheathes its sword and strikes the right blow!

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

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What is it?In Search Of Baroshi is a scenario for use with RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.

It is a twenty-seven page, full colour, 1.56 MB PDF.

The layout is plain and it does need an edit. There is no artwork, but the scenario makes use of classic Glorantha maps.

Where is it set?
In Search Of Baroshi is set in Sartar, specifically near the Caves of Chaos as detailed in the classic scenario, Snakepipe Hollow. It is a sequel to events which occurred in that scenario.

Who do you play?Any type of Player Character can play In Search Of Baroshi, but worshippers of Babeester Gor, Ernalda, Humakt, and Storm Bull will all be useful.
What do you need?
In Search Of Baroshi requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, the Glorantha Bestiary, and The Red Book of Magic. In addition, The Smoking Ruin & Other Stories and the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack will both be useful for details on Clearwine and its notable inhabitants.
What do you get?In Search Of Baroshi is a scenario which takes the Player Characters from the city of Clearwine north to the outskirts of the Caves of Chaos in Snakepipe Hollow, the Chaos-infested valley in the north of Sartar. They are asked by the temple to Ernalda in Clearwine to rescue an ancient godling known as Baroshi who had been freed by a previous expedition which had subsequently worked to establish an Erath temple in his name. The temple was subject to multiple attacks by the forces of Chaos and during a recent attack, the body of Baroshi was destroyed and his spirit seized. The Player Characters are directed to locate the godling, free his spirit, and locate the surviving members of the expedition—if any.

In Search Of Baroshi is divided into three parts. In the first, the Player Characters are briefed and have a chance to gain some information about the region around Snakepipe Hollow, some of the threats they are likely to face, and more. In the second, they make their way from Clearwine to the other side of Snakepipe Hollow, the scenario discussing several routes and what might be encountered along the way. The third part describes the caves where the Chaos cultists have taken Baroshi and are now planning to sacrifice him. A third of the scenario is devoted to the various NPCs that the Player Characters will encounter first in Clearwine and then in the caves where the climax of the scenario takes place. These sets of stats are all decent enough and will present a group of Player Characters with a decent challenge.

In Search Of Baroshi has a solid plot and an interesting set-up, and opportunity to roleplay in the initial section. The last section is a strike and rescue mission. In some ways it is the least interesting aspect of the scenario. In no way unplayable, it nevertheless, does feel undeveloped and in places, bland. The NPC monsters are not particularly engaging and the descriptions of the caves where the action takes place is perfunctory at best. They do not feel lived in or occupied locations and some descriptive text would help the Game Master set the scene whilst descriptions of what might be found in individual caves would have given the Player Characters things to look at and interact with, rather than each location just being the site of another fight. Further, whilst the scenario gives two options as which of the Chaos factions is in charge, the description of what they plan to do is underwritten and consequently made all the more difficult for the Game Master to describe to her players.

In addition, the fate of only one of the original expedition is detailed in the adventure, and she is only rendered as both someone to rescue rather than as an NPC in her own right and a reward condition at the end of the scenario depending upon if the Player Characters save her or not. The other members are ignored all together and it would have least been useful to have been given their names, let alone few items belonging to them that might have wound up in the possession of the Chaos cultists.
Is it worth your time?Yes—In Search Of Baroshi is a straightforward scenario which does need development in terms of flavour and detail to help bring it alive and help the Game Master work it into her campaign. No—In Search Of Baroshi is too location specific being near Snakepipe Hollow and it involves fighting Chaos which may not be an activity that the Player Characters are ready for.Maybe—In Search Of Baroshi needs work in terms of flavour and detail to help bring out the details of its plot, but if the Game Master is willing to make that extra effort, the scenario is serviceable and it could lead into further activity in and around Snakepipe Hollow.

One of the fascinations with Traveller is with its starships. Ranging in size from one hundred tons up to hundreds of thousands of tons, the players are exposed to them in the rules fairly on—during the process of character creation. Careers such as Scouts, Merchants, and Nobles all have the possibility of giving the characters starships of a small, but capable size. Of course, a starship will take the Player Characters from star system to star system, from adventure to adventure, but the starship also becomes a home too. As a home, the players doubtless want to know what their starship looks like and if they have a role aboard her, as no doubt they do, where their normal station is and where their stateroom is. Then of course, starship deck plans are just like maps. They provide locations to visit, to adventure in, to explore, to attack and defend, and so on. Which can of course be for the theatre of the mind or with miniatures. Starships in Traveller are also highly technical, designed to be realistic within their setting of the Third Imperium, with much their displacement and tonnage given over to fuel, power plant, and jump and manoeuvre drives. There are plenty of supplements dedicated to starships in the Third Imperium—official and unofficial, but of these few, barely a handful are dedicated to the really large starships, space stations, and other big installations and locations. This is where Starship Geomorphs comes in handy.
Starship Geomorphs is a vast collection of geomorphs—or map sections—which can be slotted together to form larger locations in a wide variety of layouts. This includes starships, space stations, buildings, and massive structures. They are all designed using the architecture and map iconography of Traveller, so there is a high of familiarity for long-time fans of the venerable roleplaying game. However, none of the geomorphs are official Traveller content despite their compatibility. Further, their use lends itself to form and function rather than technical design, with the geomorphs here being slotted together to create their locations and ships rather than the Game Master designing a ship using the rules for naval architecture and adhere to the rules for realisation as a set of deck plans. Consequently, Starship Geomorphs possesses a greater utility than a set of deck plans for a single starship or location might.
Presented in landscape format, Starship Geomorphs opens with an introduction and an explanation of the geomorphs. These are organised into standard, edge, corner, and end sections. In addition, there are aerofins too, the aim being to reduce the starships being more aerodynamic and less boxy. There are suggestions too to flesh out a ship design, including its overall look, occupants, gear, age, level of wear, sounds heard aboard ship, and more. There are suggestions also, to add flavour and detail, including what might be found in the ship’s locker and down a ship’s corridor. Other uses of the geomorphs suggested include combining them to create space stations, like the small Dyson-Class modular Star port, corporate facilities, and so on. In the case of the sample starship and sample corporate facility, references are provided to the particular pages where the geomorphs can be found that make up the particular object or location.
The bulk of the book is understandably given over to the geomorphs themselves. They begin with a multipurpose geomorph, a research area geomorph, cargo bay—full and empty, engineering/sensor ops, flight hanger/crew area, brig/prison, arboretum—upper and lower, a drop capsule/troop deck, an auditorium, a sports complex, high passage (first class) passenger deck, promenade decks—food/retail and casino, cloning facility (or alternatively low berth facility), bride areas, gunnery and sandcaster decks, and much, much, more. Some are quite mundane, such as the battery deck, office space (or cubicle farm, proving that office design does not get better in the future), waste processing, and so on. Very quickly the Game Master can put together a troop or fighter carrier, an exploratory or laboratory vessel, a passenger liner, an imperial throne ship (yes, there really is a throne room geomorph!), a strike vessel complete with weapon turrets and barbettes, and more. Punctuating these are some delightful cross section three-dimensional illustrations of the various geomorphs, including a ‘Flight Hanger with Launch Tube’, a cargo bay with an armed crewman outside ready to shoot some scuttling creatures inside, a corridor with doors off and a window through which can be seen a poor, glowing man having suffered a strange mishap in the laboratory, a low berth area, a steerage compartment for passengers travelling on the cheap, and lots more. There is a sense of humour to a few of these, but in the main, they help bring their locations to life and add an extra dimension to the deck plans.
This is just the starships possible with Starship Geomorphs. Space stations and star ports are also possible, again using many of the same geomorphs. However, mix up the office space, auditorium, lobby, and so on, and what you have is a corporate building. The arboretum, promenade areas with and without casino, swimming pool, and passenger decks all combine to form a hotel, with the steerage decks becoming the equivalent of a coffin hotel. There are tram and train layouts, interstitial spaces for between floors and decks, connecting bridges between buildings and space station sections, and a lot more.
Starship Geomorphs is cleanly and clearly laid out. The writing is fairly light in tone and there are notes here and there throughout. The geomorphs are all well done and easy to use.
As a book, Starship Geomorphs is a superb catalogue of maps, plans, deck plans, and more. If there is an issue, it is that there is a high number of geomorphs labelled ‘Multipurpose’, in fact too many of them, to the point where their purpose is lost without the Game Master going through them one by one. Another issue is perhaps that whilst the print version is lovely, the PDF is actually of greater use because the user can separate the geomorphs and put them together onscreen. Further, Starship Geomorphs is not just of use for Traveller, but will work with any Science Fiction roleplaying. Thus, Star Wars: Edge of the Empire, The Expanse, Star Trek Adventures, Star Frontiers, and Cyberpunk Red—all of these would work with a lot of the geomorphs in Starship Geomorphs. If Starship Geomorphs is missing anything, it is a guide or suggestions to create particular ship’s deck plans or building floor plans, but there is plenty of inspiration to be found in the individual geomorphs. The geomorphs can of course be used to create locations for confrontations between miniatures in skirmish wargames.
Starship Geomorphs is delightfully, usefully utilitarian and inspirational in its design and purpose. This big book of map sections is a terrific addition to the toolkit of any Game Master running just about any Science Fiction roleplaying game or even wargame.

The Angry Sun bleeds on the Broken World. Some days it burns hot and cold. Some days it burns the land. Some days it drains the Wiz of their powers. Others it is cool and sleepy. Sky Wyrms hunt for meat below. Fallen towers radiate magic and hide spells. Ruins hide the secrets and treasures of the past. This is the Broken World. The Broken World is the world of the Gooz now. Warty, hairy, dirty, ugly, flute-eared Gooz. Once they were just vermin, but the Pretty Ones are long dead in the ground. The Gooz explore the world, search the ruins, and climb the towers, sometimes to save the Broken World, but mostly to get rich. They set out from Gooz City ready to face danger such as the Quetzplow, which will slurp out a Gooz’s brains, Assassin Bots, and coin-eating Mooku which can glue a Gooz to the ground with its snot. This is the setting for the Gozr – Sci-Fantasy RPG, a post-apocalyptic roleplaying game designed and drawn by James V. West. The author and illustrator is best known for the fanzine, Black Pudding, the Old School Renaissance, Swords & Sorcery fanzine, which he also draws and writes—just like the Gozr – Sci-Fantasy RPG. Black Pudding brought a slightly gonzo sensibility to the Old School Renaissance and every issue left the reader wanting to see a roleplaying based on its content. That roleplaying game is Doomslakers. It not the Gozr – Sci-Fantasy RPG, which instead is an over-the-top, gonzo, underground comic style post-apocalyptic roleplaying game in which everything is hand drawn and handwritten. Literally nothing in the Gozr – Sci-Fantasy RPG is printed using traditional founts or layout. Coloured in vibrant shades, it is a riotous mass of tables, rules, and illustrations that boggles the mind!

Gozr – Sci-Fantasy RPG is published by Random Order Creations following a successful Kickstarter campaign. It has an Old School Renaissance sensibility, one it shares with microclones such as Into the Odd, Knave, and Cairn, and in comparison with those roleplaying games and other retroclones, it has two primary issues—one obvious, one less so. The former is the presentation. It is bold, it is bright, it is a jumble, and that makes it inaccessible—or at least difficult to access with any ease. Everything jumps off the page, so it takes just that little more effort than another roleplaying game would. The latter is the lack of a ready to play scenario. Gozr – Sci-Fantasy RPG does include a table of ‘Recent Events of Some Gravity’, an ‘Adventure Machine’ table, and a ‘Towers’ table to help the Gooz Master create adventures from these prompts, but a scenario would have been a useful inclusion.

A Gooz in Gozr – Sci-Fantasy RPG starts with three attributes or Action Classes as they are called here—Cunning, Magic, and Prowess. Confusingly, they are abbreviated to ‘AC’, which sort of makes sense when the Gooz Master asks a player to roll against an ‘Action Class’. These are initially rated eight, ten, or fourteen, the lower the Action Class the better it is. He also has Hit Points; a Defence value, which reduces damage taken directly; and points of ‘Gooz’ to spend on doing extraordinary things. Creating a Gooz is a fourteen-point step, as a player rolls not just for starting Hit Points and armour, but also starting weapon, money, colour of blood, colour of skin, eyes, and hair, hair style, lucky symbol, talent, background, clothes, name, possessions, and ears. Talents include Alchemy, Psionic, Strong, Eyebeam, and more. Alternatively, many of these a player can simply pick from the table. A Gooz is just a Gooz unless he is a Gooz Wizard and even if not, there is a chance of his knowing a single vulgar spell or possibly more (if he knows more, he might as well be a wizard).

Name: Finus
Cunning: 8
Magic: 10
Prowess: 14

Hit Points 15

Gooz 5

Talent: Extra Arm
Armour: None
Weapons: Falx (2d4), Pistol (2d4 six-shot)
Lucky Symbol: Cat
Money: 3 Tossers
Blood: Orange
Skin: Pink Hair: None Hair Colour: Grey Eyes: Pink Ears: Triangles

Wearing: Crude loincloth
Possessions: Pyramid puzzle, lockpick kit, blanket
Background: Burglar
Need: Set up the best cat sanctuary in all of Gooz City
Deed: Stopped Kern from eating another cat

Mechanically, Gozr – Sci-Fantasy RPG is simple. It is player-facing, so a player rolls the dice both to attack and defend in combat, rather than the Gooz Master rolling for the latter. To have his Gooz undertake an action, a player rolls against the appropriate Action Class, aiming to roll equal to or higher than the value. Thus, lower Action Classes are better than higher ones. A natural twenty is a critical hit and a special effect will always apply, such as a knockdown or a disarm, whereas it may apply if the roll is a ‘Solid Hit’, five or more higher than the value of the Action Class and . A natural roll of one is a fumble, in which case the player describes the unfortunate outcome. However, a roll of just one under the Action Class is called a ‘Graze’ and while counted as a miss or failure, allows for a small benefit. A Gooz can be Lucky or Unlucky, in which case a +2 or -2 is levied on the roll, respectively. It is also possible for a Gooz to be luckier or unluckier than this. One nice touch about the Gooz Sheet for Gozr – Sci-Fantasy RPG is that space is given for both ‘Solid Hit’ and ‘Graze’ values for each Action Class.

Gooz can also be spent for the Gooz to be amazing. A point allows a Gooz to pull off a cool stunt, steal the initiative, succeed at die roll, learn a fact from the Gooz Master, gain an extra action, and even add a fact to current game. Gooz is the equivalent of hero or luck points and refreshes daily.

Combat in Gozr – Sci-Fantasy RPG is similarly simple, but can also be deadly. On a turn, a Gooz can do one thing—take an action or move, plus do something trivial. The Defence value is deducted from any damage rolled, but all damage dice explode, so can inflict a lot of damage and easily kill a Gooz. If an enemy’s Hit Points are reduced to zero, then it is dead, but a Gooz has a choice—death or debasement. The former is the noble choice and the player’s new Gooz gains a small boon. The latter means that the Gooz is knocked down, scarred, and suffers from the permanent effect of the deadly blow. Damage can also be ‘Real’ such as that suffered by a Wizard from his weakness. This ignores Defence. Beyond this, Gozr – Sci-Fantasy RPG covers rules for fumbles, cover, conditions, morale, poisons, nasty scars, travel, exploration, and more.

Magic in Gozr – Sci-Fantasy RPG is divided between the Vulgar, the Wizardly, and the True. . Vulgar magic includes spells such as Bite It or Sparkler or Hold Breath. Whilst magic requires a roll against a Gooz’s Magic Action Class, a Wizard can undo, counter, and even reverse the effects of Vulgar spells. True magic is not to be trifled with and all Gooz believe that doing so was what killed the Pretty Ones and really, really annoyed the Sun. An actual Wizard must adhere to the three Laws of True Magic—bear a Wizard’s mark, suffer a weakness that is his bane, and be followed by a Watcher who will always be following and judging the Wizard’s exploits. Wizard spells are more powerful than Vulgar spells and include spells such as Blend In, Exploding Doom, Ice Burst, and Liar. All cost Wiz to cast and a Wizard begins play with between two and twelve points of Wiz. Points of Wiz are recovered much like Hit Points, but the Wizard must choose between the two—he cannot recover both at the same time. A Wizard can also have a familiar and know a few tricks. One major difference between ordinary Gooz and Gooz Wizards, at least mechanically, is that ordinary Gooz begin with the equivalent of having gained a Level prior to beginning play. Gooz gain Levels by surviving adventures and with a new Level gain two out of more Hit Points, a spell, increased Wiz, a treasure, or some lucky rolls.

Treasure is where Gozr – Sci-Fantasy RPG begins show off the weirdness of its setting. Items of power can sacrificed in return for fortune. At worst, this result in scorched earth as the Sun rains down fireballs on the land and everyone knows about it, but at best, not only all the Gooz go up a Level, but the land is healed for a time… Quite what that means is left up to the Gooz Master to decode. There are long tables of treasure, including Frivolous Junk, Strange Items, Odd Armour, and Super Tech. The Gooz Master can even give any treasure secret properties with another table. In terms of setting, Goozer City, the last beacon of civilisation, first bastion of Gooz ascendancy, is detailed in terms of more tables that the Gooz Master can roll on to create streets, buildings, routes, smells, vendors, and more. Beyond the city there is map of the immediate regions with short encounter tables for each, an ‘Adventure Machine’ table and tables to create towers that leak sorcery and secrets, the daily effects of the Sun, and both a table to create monsters and a decent bestiary too.

Physically, Gozr – Sci-Fantasy RPG is cartoonishly presented, in a style that echoes Ralph Bakshi’s Wizards. It is busy, vibrant, and full of little embellishments that seem to sneak into view as you are trying to find something else. It is not so much well written as well hand drawn and written giving it a highly distinctive look. However, it could be better organised as the section on Wizards and magic is the middle of the section that ready should be for the Gooz Master.

There can be no doubt that the Gozr – Sci-Fantasy RPG is as much a piece of art—cartoonish art—but art nonetheless, as it is a roleplaying game. As a work of art it is more accessible than as a roleplaying game, its funky, gonzo fanzine-like style often inhibiting the technical nature of the roleplaying game. Not necessarily to the point where the Gozr – Sci-Fantasy RPG is unplayable, but rather to present the reader with a hurdle that has to be overcome in finding where everything is and thus learning how to play.  The other hurdle is the lack of scenario. Now there are plenty of tables which the Gooz Master can take inspiration from, but given that Gozr – Sci-Fantasy RPG includes a handful sample Player Characters, it seems odd not to have a starter scenario too.
Gozr – Sci-Fantasy RPG looks—and is—fun. Weird and wacky, funky and freaky, gonzo and goofy, Gozr – Sci-Fantasy RPG is a joyously higgledy-piggledy toolkit for cartoonishly post-apocalyptic fun.

The Incandescent Grottoes is a scenario published by Necrotic Gnome. It is written for use with Old School Essentials, the Old School Renaissance retroclone based on the version of Basic Dungeons & Dragons designed by Tom Moldvay and published in 1980. It is designed to be played by a party of First and Second Level Player Characters and is a standalone affair, but could be connected to another scenario from the publisher, The Hole in the Oak. Plus there is scope in the adventure to expand if the Referee so desires. Alternatively, it could simply be run on its own as a self-contained dungeon adventure. The scenario is intended to be set underneath a great mythic wood, so is a perfect addition to the publisher’s own Dolmenwood setting, but would be easy to add to the Game Master’s own campaign setting. Further, like so many other scenarios for the Old School Renaissance, The Incandescent Grottoes is incredibly easy to adapt to or run using the retroclone of the Referee’s choice. The tone of the dungeon is weird and earthy, part of the ‘Mythic Underworld’ where strangeness and a degree of inexplicability and otherworldly dream logic is to be expected.
The Incandescent Grottoes is, like the other official scenarios for Old School Essentials very well organised. The map of the whole dungeon is inside the front cover, and after the introduction, the adventure overview provides a history of the dungeon, an explanation of its factions and their relationships, and details—but definitely not any explanations—of its unanswered mysteries. The latter can be left as they are, unexplained, or they can be potentially tied into the rumours which will probably push the Player Characters into exploring its depths. Or of course, they can be tied into the Referee’s greater campaign world and lead to other adventures, or even developed from the players’ own explanations and hypothesises should the Referee be listening carefully. Besides the table of rumours, the adventure includes a listing of the treasure to be found in the dungeon and where, and a table of ‘Random Happenings’ (or encounters). These are not merely random encounters with wandering monsters, but a mix of those along with strange things like a sudden aura of cold that sends a shudder down the backs of the Player Characters or a floating skeletal hand which points to the nearest treasure before crumbling to dust.
In between are the descriptions of the rooms below The Incandescent Grottoes. All fifty-seven of them. These are arranged in order of course, but each is written in a parred down style, almost bullet point fashion, with key words in bold with details in accompanying parenthesis, followed by extra details and monster stats below. For example, the ‘Ritual Robes’ area is described as containing “Dark stone blocks (pockmarked, walls, ceiling 10’). Green tiled floor (zig-zag pattern). Black robes (flank the corridor, hanging from hooks).” It expands up this with “North (from Area 16): Intermittent crackles and blues flashes.” It expands upon this with descriptions of the door to another area and what happens when the Player Characters examine the black robes. There is a fantastic economy of words employed here to incredible effect. The descriptions are kept to a bare minimum, but their simplicity is evocative, easy to read from the page, and prepare. The Incandescent Grottoes is genuinely easy to bring to the table and made all the easier to run from the page because the relevant sections from the map are reproduced on the same page. In addition, the map itself is clear and easy to read, with coloured boxes used to mark locked doors and monster locations as well as the usual room numbers.
In places though, the design and layout does not quite work. This is primarily where single rooms require expanded detail beyond the simple thumbnail description. It adds complexity and these locations are not quite as easy to run straight from the page as other locations are in the dungeon.
The dungeon itself is driven by factions and their associated rumours. The factions include a demonic cult that has all but collapsed, a band of troglodytes riven by factionalism, a Necromancer who is using the caves as a base of operations, an Imperial Illusionist hiding out, and more… All are given quite simple motivations and wants, often clashing with each other, so that when the Player Characters do interreact with them, the dungeon will come to life and be more than a simple series of rooms, traps, and encounters. The Incandescent Grottoes definitely has the feel of a location on the edge of abandonment, one which swings back and forth between the weirdness and whimsy of caves and grottoes run through with strange crystals and mushrooms and the corridors and rooms of worked stone. Notably, the areas previously occupied by the cult are laced with deadly traps and puzzles, only adding to the often highly dangerous nature of the dungeon. Whilst this deadly nature is befitting of the Old School Renaissance, arguably The Incandescent Grottoes verges on being too deadly and dangerous for First and Second Level Player Characters especially if run as a first-time dungeon for players new to the genre. If so, it is perhaps better run as the deadlier half of The Hole in the Oak. Of course, there will be plenty of Game Masters who will see this as a feature rather than a negative aspect of the adventure and so will not have the potential issue. Either way, The Game Master should at least know beforehand and once at the table, it will encourage careful play, just as any classic Old School Renaissance dungeon or scenario should, and the likelihood is that the Player Characters will be making two or three delves down into it before exploring its fullest reaches.
Physically, The Incandescent Grottoes is a handsome little affair. The artwork is excellent, the cartography clear, and the writing to the point.
The Incandescent Grottoes can be used as an introductory dungeon—and it would be perfect for that, but it begs to be worked into a woodland realm of its own, its various details and connected rumours used by the Referee to connect it to the wider world and so develop context. Whichever way it is used, The Incandescent Grottoes is a superbly designed, low level dungeon, full of whimsy and weirdness and fungal flavour and crystalline detail that bring its complex of caves and rooms alive, all presented in a format that makes it incredibly accessible and easy to run.

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

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

—oOo—
Name: Camp KillPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Nicholas Reardon

Setting: 1980s California
Product: ScenarioWhat You Get: Twenty-six page, 11.15 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Always remember, kids, when making a slasher flick to check that the slasher isn’t already on the set!Plot Hook: A bad movie, just turned really bad and it is every bad person for themselves.
Plot Support: Staging advice, two NPCs, seven handouts, two maps, and one Mythos monster.Production Values: Decent.
Pros# Murder and mayhem on the movie set# Server hunt/slasher flick?# Period style handouts# Enjoyably unpleasant Investigators# Scopophobia# Masklophobia# Eremophobia# Voraephobia# Paranoia
Cons# Needs an edit# Server hunt/slasher flick?# Enjoyably unpleasant Investigators# Investigators could be more unpleasant# Everybody wants to be Kimberly
Conclusion# Slasher killers, UFOs, horrible people, oh my!# Messy twist upon the eighties serial killer in a mask horror film

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

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

—oOo—
Name: Blood on the ChocolatePublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Jarrod Lipshy

Setting: 1930s Pennsylvania
Product: ScenarioWhat You Get: Forty page, 2.21 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: A night in Whishly Chocolate FactoryPlot Hook: Sabotage—unions or something else?
Plot Support: Staging advice, eight NPCs, three handouts, two maps, and one non-Mythos monster.Production Values: Decent.
Pros# Highly detailed location-based investigation# Solid mystery# Claustrophobic setting# Easily adapted to Cthulhu by Gaslight# Easily adapted to other cities and countries# Masklophobia# Mechanophobia# Neraidaphobia# Xocolataphobia
Cons# Folkloric rather than Mythos# Highly detailed location-based investigation# A lot for the Keeper to grasp# Requires non-standard Investigators, but no pre-generated Investigators provided
Conclusion# Highly detailed, location-based investigation which turns into a game of cat and mouse and something else...# Pre-generated Investigators would strengthen player and character engagement in a thematically mechanical scenario

At its most basic, The Labyrinth is an anthology of organisations for Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game, published by Arc Dream Publishing. However, delve into this supplement for the modern roleplaying game of conspiratorial and Lovecraftian investigative horror with its conspiratorial agencies within the United States government investigating, confronting, and covering up the Unnatural—the forces and influences of Cosmic Horror—and it some becomes apparent that it is something much more. First, it marked the return of John Scott Tynes, one of the co-creators of Delta Green, to writing for the setting and for roleplaying in general. Second, that it won the Gold Ennie award for Best Supplement in 2020. Third, the organisations presented in the supplement are not just organisations, but also frameworks which slot onto a Handler’s existing campaign with plots and events which play out around that existing campaign. Fourth, although the organisations in The Labyrinth are split equally between four allies and four enemies (or four potential allies and four potential enemies), their roles within a campaign and how the Agents—the Player Characters—view them is likely to change. All eight organisations have their own agendas, their own reactions to the Agents, and that is likely to change as their interaction with the Agents grows. Fifth, these organisations are inspired by and drawn from the here and now. For a roleplaying game of modern conspiratorial horror like Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game, the enemies and allies of The Labyrinth are horrifically contemporary. Sixth, the eight organisations in The Labyrinth are connected. Not necessarily directly, but enough that if the Agents pull at one thread, they will find themselves wandering down a path and investigating and interacting with another organisation before they understand what they got themselves involved in with the first. Yet even as they get lost, the Agents may come to realise two things—that the influence and forces of the Unnatural reach deeper into the United States than they ever imagined, and that humanity is bad enough already…
The Labyrinth was published following a successful Kickstarter campaign. The book’s introduction begins with an overview of the eight organisations and some advice for the Handler on building or mapping her own ‘labyrinth’, essentially how to connect the eight organisations. Or rather connect those that the Handler feels will fit her campaign. Tynes provides his pinboard style, as well as suggesting how that labyrinth of connections can be used to build a campaign. The advice is not extensive, but forms a solid starting point. The other thing that the introduction does is suggest ways in which the Handler can also connect the various operations for Delta Green to the organisations presented in The Labyrinth. For example, ‘Agent Renko’ can be connected to the events of Music From a Darkened Room, Kali Ghati to the ‘Dream Syndicate’, Lover in the Ice to ‘The Prana Sodality’, and so on. Each of the organisations in the supplement is also connected to more than one operation, so there are multiple ways into the maze that The Labyrinth presents.

Each of the organisations is presented with a complete history, a description of its organisation, notable operatives and individuals, its beliefs and mandates, how it operates, and potential for friendly opportunities to work with them. It is followed by a suggested progression—or story arc—of how the interaction between the organisation and Agents will play out and how those involved will react, over the course of three stages. Lastly, the ramifications of this interaction is explored and possible connections between that other organisation and those elsewhere in the book. All of this is background, detail, and structure, but it is not a scenario. The Handler will need to develop the content to fit the nature and events of her campaign.

The first of the allies is the ‘Center for the Missing Child’, a non-profit organisation dedicated to locating missing children and supporting their families, which works closely with law enforcement. This potentially means the Agents as one of their number is likely to work in law enforcement. However, their involvement could lead to one of their consultants taking too much interest in their ‘other’ work and lead him down that path with disastrous consequences. ‘The Dream Syndicate’ examines the members of an online forum who have had very similar dreams of unnatural events. This organisation feels underplayed at first, but contact with them can become very personal for the Agents. ‘Agent Renko’—named in a nice nod to the novels by Martin Cruz Smith—is likely to be huge fun for the Handler to roleplay, an individual rather than an organisation, a GRU SV-8 agent who crashes into their lives and seems to be dogging their every move. The fourth possible ally is ‘The Witness Alliance’, another non-profit organisation, but one dedicated to tracking and exposing the activities of hate groups. Again, this organisation has knowledge that will prove useful to the Agents, but like the scenario, ‘Last Things Last’ in Delta Green: Need to Know, this story arc explores the calamitous effect that Delta Green operations have on their agents to the very last, putting the Agents in deadly peril.

Over half of The Labyrinth is dedicated to it quartet of antagonists, and if the allies were interesting enough and potential contact with them could lead to horror and despair, then the author really gets into his stride with this foursome of fear. The quartet starts with ‘New Life Fertility’, a private company that offers an extremely exclusive, one hundred percent successful fertility treatment and which has the means to protect itself and the families it helps—especially the families it helps. This combines modern science with a classic Old One and links back to the Severn Valley to potentially push forward to a ‘cuckoo in the nest’ situation on a scale never before imagined. ‘New Life Fertility’ could easily have been a campaign all by itself, but will likely form a major strand of any campaign run using The Labyrinth. In comparison, ‘The Lonely’ presents not so much a group as a number of individuals who are likely to prove to be irritants, although potentially very deadly irritants. Already isolated and alone, their loneliness is driven unnaturally deeper into misery, grim realisation, and then outright fury at the world. If other Delta Green content treats the Mythos surrounding the Hastaur Mythos and the Yellow King as a meme, here it is a vector that slips unseen through modern communication… Consequently, investigating this is going to be highly challenging. ‘The Sowers’ begins in the Rust Belt, a devout Christian sect with a secret path to absolution and near divinity, that appears to do good and brings its members prosperity and happiness—its male members at least. The entry points are interesting in that they take on a more personal touch in that an Agent could become involved with the sect as a possible path to redemption. The last antagonist is ‘The Prana Sodality’ and is perhaps the most complicated and isolated of the four in the supplement, primarily because it is so deeply tied into both the U.S. military-industrial complex and the history surrounding many of Delta Green’s adversaries. A photograph of a boy with a disturbing tumour in his eye draws the Agents to the town of Stanton, Washington state, one of the most polluted towns in the country and when they arrive, the Agents literally step into a mass shooting. Is this a coincidence? It only gets worse from there…

Physically, The Labyrinth is very well presented, as you would expect for a supplement for Delta Green. However, the artwork will feel familiar from previous Delta Green supplements. Lastly, if there is any issue perhaps with the antagonists, it is that ‘The Prana Sodality’ could benefit from a few more maps since the investigation is primarily based around the one location.

Ultimately, The Labyrinth is a toolkit, whether the Handler uses one of its tools—or organisations—in her campaign or several. Each one of the organisations, whether ally or antagonist, in The Labyrinth stands up on its own and can be used to supplement existing campaigns or even have campaigns built around them, such as ‘New Life Fertility’. Where The Labyrinth comes into its own is a campaign of its own, but in comparison to the classic campaign of Lovecraftian investigative horror, The Labyrinth greatly differs.
Fundamentally, it would not be a linear campaign and it would not be a campaign against one threat, but an interconnected web of allies and adversaries, threats and dangers, that the players and their Agents can navigate in a more open fashion. Although there would be a beginning and an end of sorts, at least in terms of the content presented in the page of The Labyrinth, neither would be obvious and consequently there is no cathartic sense of finality to the events of the campaign—just one aspect of cosmic horror in Delta Green. This is what the author describes as a ‘narrative sandbox’ and it means that a campaign involving The Labyrinth is going to be structured and very different to that run by another Handler. The horror of The Labyrinth is as evil and unpleasant as you would expect, though of course, dispersed far and wide by the ‘narrative sandbox’ nature of the campaign.

The Labyrinth is not ready to run—and that is the point. It is, however, ready for the Handler to prepare and run, to make it her own around the campaign she is already running. The Labyrinth brings a wealth of interconnected depth and detail to Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game, pulling its Agents deeper into an entanglement of the uncanny and the Unnatural, a secret world where the horrifying layers and links never seem to end.

Bastion stands as the world’s largest city, an industrial powerhouse whose factories pour out guns, chemicals, manufactured goods, and even newspapers that ships carry from the city’s wharfs. Citizens flock to the city for work—the factories chew up their employees almost as much as they take them on! Expeditions leave the city travelling far and wide, many returning with tales of places weird, wonderful, and worrisome, often too far to even map given the size of the world. Yet there are wonders and secrets to found closer to home. The Underground lies beneath Bastion, at first the sewers, then tunnels, and caves below, full of long-lost secrets and ancient vaults. Cultists plot the return of their strange masters, unions counter plot even as they try to protect workers’ rights, and the mill bosses squeeze more and more out of there employees heedless of the religious fervour that undo their industrial empire. Scattered and across these cities and the darkness below are the Arcana, devices from ages past that grant fantastic powers, from pieces of jewellery to almost unmoveable statuary. There are men and women who search for these Arcana, knowing they can make a name for themselves, make themselves rich, if they can find the rights ones and find a buyer. They are Explorers.
This is the setting for Into the Odd Remastered, an Old School Renaissance rules light microclone originally published in 2014 that has been beautifully redesigned and re-laid out and published by Free League Publishing following a successful Kickstarter campaign. It promises fast character creation, minimalist rules, strange things to encounter and be found, a complete hexcrawl and dungeon, and quite possibly the most fun set of tables available for any roleplaying game. However, it is very light in terms of setting, combining elements of cosmic horror, heavy industrial squalor, weirdness and wonder in the ruins of the past—above and below ground. Into the Odd Remastered is both a precursor to the author’s Electric Bastionland and an expanded version of the original, primarily in terms of supporting content.

An Explorer—or Player Character—in Into the Odd Remastered is lightly defined. He has three Abilities: Strength, Dexterity, and Willpower, which range in value between three and eighteen. He also a six-sided die’s worth of HP, or Hit Protection, rather than Hit Points, a Starter Package, potentially a Companion, and some silver shillings. To create an Explorer, a player rolls three six-sided dice each for the Abilities and one die for the Hit Protection. Then by cross-referencing the value of the Hit Protection with the Explorer’s highest Ability, he receives a Starter Package. An Explorer with either low Hit Protection or a low Ability will receive a more powerful Starter Package, including an Arcanum, whilst an Explorer with a high Ability or Hit Protection, will receive a more mundane Starter Package. Thus, an Explorer with six Hit Protection and a high Ability of twelve would start play with a Maul, a Dagger, and a length of chain, whereas if the Explorer’s highest Ability is nine and he only has two Hit Protection, he begins play with a Musket, a Sword (d6), a Flashbang, and the ability to ‘Sense nearby Arcana’. The process is incredibly simple and incredibly fast—two minutes if that!

Hattie Tuggery
Strength 8 Dexterity 10 Willpower 15
Hit Protection 3
Starter Package: Club (d6), Ether, Crowbar, Flute

Mechanically, if an Explorer wants to undertake an action, his player rolls a twenty-sided die against the appropriate Ability, aiming to equal to or under to pass. Initiative in combat is handled with a Dexterity save if needed. Combat is equally as simple. A player rolls the die for the weapon used to determine how much might damage be inflicted. The target’s armour is subtracted from this and the remainder is subtracted from first his Hit Protection and then his Strength. This necessitates a Strength Save and the possibility that the Explorer will be unable to act. Should a character lose all of his Strength, he dies. It takes only a Short Rest to recover lost Hit Protection, but a Long Rest lasting a week to recover lost Ability points. Saves against Willpower are used for several things, maintaining morale of course, but also in a pinch, maintaining civil discourse with others, and more interestingly, to manipulate the powers of Arcana.

Arcana are the motivating force of Into the Odd Remastered and are categorised into three types. Base Arcana are ‘Powers You Cannot Understand’, Greater Arcana are ‘Powers You Can Barely Control’, and Legendary Arcana are ‘Powers You Shouldn’t Control’, but any Arcanum does one specific thing and does it well. For example, a Soul Chain is a base Arcana which forces a Dexterity Save on a target lest he loses points of Will and gives away a glimpse of his current desire; the Book of Despair is a Greater Arcana that fills a floor area with tentacles that grab and constrain unless a Strength Save is made; and a Space Cube is a Legendary Arcana which transports the user and a companion to a location they have been to before. Some one hundred or so Arcana are detailed in Into the Odd Remastered, but there is scope for the Referee to create yet more and there is advice in the book on how they woke and should be handled.

Other advice for the Referee covers understanding how the game is played, handling obstacles, tricks, and hazards, monsters and encounters, money and treasure—including options for the Explorers to invest in enterprises and war, and how to award Experience Levels based on Expeditions completed. They are thus awarded on a narrative basis. Beyond Novice, there are only five Experience Levels and each gains an Explorer Increased Hit Protection and the possibility of an increased Ability. Notable of these is that hazards and traps can invariably be spotted unless an Explorer is running, locked doors can always be picked, and so on. Saves or rolls are required in these cases where there is a time factor involved or the course of action an Explorer is about to take might trigger the trap. In effect, this places the agency with the player and his Explorer and takes into account that when exploring, the Explorer is by nature being careful. Several sample hazards are provided as well as sample monsters. This is all accompanied by a lengthy example of play to help both player and Referee get the feel of how Into the Odd Remastered plays.

However, Into the Odd Remastered is not necessarily a forgiving system. Combat in particular, is deadly as every attack succeeds and what matters is the amount of damage rolled. So, hirelings or playing with multiple characters might be an option if a group wants to avoid a total party kill. That said, it does favour the players and their Explorers when it comes to the exploration and the discovery of obstacles and traps. Here in Into the Odd Remastered, the Explorers choose to engage with obstacles and traps and risk the consequences of doing so, rather than having such obstacles and traps sprung upon them as is the norm in other roleplaying games. Nevertheless, the unforgiving nature of its mechanics and play means that Into the Odd Remastered may initially have the feel of a Character Funnel as in Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game and Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, with its set-up of multiple Zero Level characters per player.

In terms of setting, Into the Odd Remastered gives its various locations—the city of Bastion, the Underground, Deep Country and other cities, and beyond civilisation to the Golden Lands and Polar Ocean little more description than a paragraph each. In this it does not expand upon what was in the first edition of the roleplaying game, and is in some ways its biggest disappointment. The Referee is definitely left wanting more flavour and detail about Bastion and the wider world. Some of that though, is covered in the ‘Oddpendium’ a set of tables at the rear of the book for name generation, occupations, abilities, manner, connections, and important little life events, all for quick NPC generation. Others generate city locations, routes, locations, weird creatures, cults, borough decisions and the reaction to the mob of this and anything else, whether or not a thing is an arcanum, and more. There are options for different character groups such as Mutants from the Underground and Simple Folk from the Deep Country unused to city ways, and alternative Starter Packages. These table are pointers, elements that the Referee can use to develop the world of Bastion and beyond around the Explorers.

In between the rules and advice for the Referee and the ‘Oddpendium’, Into the Odd Remastered details three locations as play environments. These are the scum-encrusted fishing town of Hopesend Port, the Last Port of the North; a dungeon, The Iron Coral, which lies off the coast off Hopesend Port; and the hexcrawl, The Fallen Marsh, the soggy stretch of coast which lies between them. Now these are presented in the order of The Iron Coral, The Fallen Marsh, and Hopesend Port, which feels counter-intuitive if the trio is run as a campaign, with the Explorers starting out from Hopesend and then travelling through The Fallen Marsh to The Iron Coral. That said, the inclusion of The Iron Coral first essentially means that it is good for getting straight into play as it can be run with very little preparation upon the part of the Referee.

This new edition of Into the Odd expands upon the original dungeon, The Iron Coral, adding depth and detail, but still presented in a succinct series of bullet points. There is plenty of detail packed into this strange, often random complex of rooms. Expanding out from this is The Fallen Marsh and then a point of civilisation, Hopesend Port, providing all together a complete hexcrawl campaign driven by exploration and rumour. As good as this is, it still leaves Bastion itself untapped and unexplored and even with the tools of the ‘Oddpendium’, a great deal of effort upon the part of the Referee will be needed if she is to do something with the greatest city in the world and actually bring it into play.

Physically, Into the Odd Remastered is as lovely a book as you would imagine given that Free League Publishing is releasing it and Johan Nohr—best known as the ‘Artpunk’ designer of Mörk Borg—did the graphic design. The result is a genuine remastering, elegant often subtle, but always hinting at a clash between the baroque and a lost modernity. The writing itself is succinct and always to the point, although that succinctness does not always help the Referee as it should. Primarily this means that as minimalist as Into the Odd Remastered is, it is not really suited to be played or run by anyone without some experience of doing either.

There is an undoubtable elegance to the highly economic combination of Into the Odd Remastered’s minimalism and its new presentation. Both the rules and the setting of Bastion are very light and very much open to interpretation by both players and the Referee, yet arguably, Into the Odd Remastered all but leaves the city itself and much of the setting begging be to be expanded upon and explored. Room perhaps for a city and underground book for the setting of Bastion? In comparison, Electric Bastionland, the sequel to Into the Odd, is far better at its implicit world building. Yet in comparison to other microclones, Into the Odd Remastered does present somewhere to start playing with The Iron Coral and its associated hexcrawl.

Ultimately, Into the Odd Remastered is a lovely re-representation of a world that is accessible and all but instantly playable mechanically, but remains strange and elusive, oddly Dickensian and technologically fantastical, in terms of setting, and that is by design.

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

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

—oOo—
What is it?The Pitcrawler Quickstart is a quick-start for a fantasy roleplaying game inspired by classic Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf solo adventure books, but instead of being a ‘Choose-Your-Own-Adventure’ game, it is designed to be played by two players. One is the Adventurer; the other is the Games Master.
The Pitcrawler Quickstart includes a basic version of the full game, but covers rules of Adventurer creation, an explanation of the rules and the roleplaying game’s implied setting, a table for creating scenario titles as inspiration, and four sample scenarios.
It is a twenty-seven-page, full colour booklet.

It is published by MacGuffin and Company.
How long will it take to play?
Each of the scenarios in the Pitcrawler Quickstart can be played through in a single session.

Who do you play?
One player is the Adventurer, but not a Wizard. The other player is the Games Master.

How is a Player Character defined?
The Player Character has five qualities. These are Face, Feet, Fingers, Fists, and Heart. Each is rated by a die type, from a four-sided die to a twelve-sided die. The die type attached to each quality is determined randomly. He starts play with seven Hit Points, a Background, three areas of Expertise, a Companion, and some equipment. The Backgrounds, which indicate what the Adventurer did before he came a Pitcrawler, include Artist, Burglar, Crop Farmer, Gravedigger, Mayor, and Sailor. Each Background provides two items of equipment and two areas of Expertise, one of which is mandatory, the other the player can choose. The third is determined randomly. The Background also provides some equipment, two other items are determined randomly, and the player choses a weapon.
The Companion assists with particular types of tests and can perform a particular ability once per scenario. For example, the Priest can assist with tests of willpower and pass a Complicated Heart test for the Adventurer once per scenario. The player should name the Companion and explain why the Companion is accompanying the Adventurer.
How do the mechanics work?
To undertake an action, the Adventurer’s player rolls an appropriate quality and aims to equal to or higher than a Difficulty set by the Game Master. The Difficulty ranges from three or Simple to eighteen or Inconceivable. When a quality die is rolled, it can explode, which means that it is possible for the Adventurer to overcome a challenge even if the die type is low. In addition, the difficulty of the test can be lowered one step if the Adventurer has a relevant Expertise, a Useful item, or is Assisted by a Companion or NPC willing to help.
Failure can lead to loss of Hit Points and/or a consequence which will send the scenario in a different direction. A critical success grants the Adventurer an extra reward.

If failure is likely, the Adventurer can instead ‘Put his heart Into It’ and his player roll the Heart quality die and add it to the total. If the roll is a failure, it is counted as a critical failure.
One clever mechanic is that of ‘Thumbs’, which apes the keeping of the thumb on a previous page in a solo adventure book as the player explores an option on another. In effect, this allows the player to turn back the clock in the scenario to a reset point and there make a different choice. A player can have up to five Thumbs depending upon the difficulty of the play.

In addition, the Game Master is advised to present actual physical or mental puzzles that the player as the Adventurer must solve at the table.
How does combat work?
Combat uses the same mechanics. Most weapons use the Fists quality to roll attacks, except where greater finesse is needed, in which case it is Feet instead. Fingers is used for missile attacks. If the quality roll is successful, the Adventurer inflicts a point of damage, more if it is a critical success. Failures mean that the Adventurer suffers damage. Enemies typically have one Hit Point each, so will be killed on a successful attack. Critical damage is inflicted against multiple opponents. 
How does magic work?
The Adventurer cannot cast magic in Pitcrawler. It is entirely the province of Wizards and their potentially world changing powers. The Adventurer can use arcane items.
What do you play?
There is no given world or world lore in the Pitcrawler Quickstart. It is presumed to be over-the-top grim fantasy, but one which eschews ‘Old School’ elements with its traditional treatment of females and races, alignments, and its play styles. It instead replaces these with Wizards who are powerful magicians capable of changing the world around them, not always to the benefit of the inhabitants. Wizards are also very rich and their tombs are often worth plundering. Wizards are sufficiently powerful that as a group they could destroy a minor god and even face down a major one!
The Pitcrawler Quickstart includes four sample scenarios. These include a raid on a tomb, an attempt to escape a murder-dungeon, a retrieval mission to recover a clockwork device from a swamp, and a retrieval mission on an island surrounded by a rainbow sea with the different colours having different magical effects.
Is there anything missing?
The Pitcrawler Quickstart could have done with more advice for the Game Master on running the individual scenarios and presenting the content to the player as well as mixing in the puzzles and traps, and giving the player meaningful choices.
Is it easy to prepare?
The rules are easy to grasp, but the preparation required by the Game Master could have been supported better.
Is it worth it?
The Pitcrawler Quickstart provides plenty of content to play with and it does something that few roleplaying games do and that is present a roleplaying game for one-on-one play. It is underwritten in terms of support for the Game Master, who will need to work a bit harder to prepare it for her player.
Where can you get it?
The Pitcrawler Quickstart is available here.