Seasons of Mysteries is an anthology of scenarios for Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying, the Sweden-set roleplaying of folkloric horror set during the nineteenth century published by Free League Publishing. It presents four mysteries which will take the members of the Society, the organisation which investigates the situations which arise from the clash between modern society and the traditions that have grown up from living alongside the supernatural creatures called Vaesen, to the boundaries of Sweden—and beyond. In turn they take the Player Characters to the central valleys of Sweden where strange things are happening—possibly an abduction, but definitely drowned cows; to an ironworks where the owner has been bewitched by a local preacher; across the Danish straits and onto Jutland to confront the guardian of the moors; and across the Gulf of Finland to northeast Russia as guests of honour at an event held by the ruling noble. What sets this quartet of adventures apart is their seasonal nature. They are all standalone, and there is one for each season—spring, summer, autumn, and winter.
All four adventures follow the same structure. The ‘Background’ and ‘Conflict’ explains the situation for each scenario, whilst the ‘Invitation’ tells the Game Master how to get the Player Characters involved. In Seasons of Mysteries, the primary form of ‘Invitation’ is the letter, which will typically summon the Player Characters to the town or village where the mystery is taking place, the getting there detailed in the ‘Journey’, typically a mix of railway and coach journeys. It should be noted that every mystery has moment or two when the Player Characters can prepare and goes into some detail about the journey. There is an opportunity for roleplaying here, perhaps resulting in longer travel scenes than the core rulebook necessarily recommends. The ‘Countdown and Catastrophe’ presents the Game Master with one or two sets of events which take place as the Player Characters’ investigation proceeds, sometimes triggered by the Player Characters, sometimes triggered by the NPCs, whilst ‘Locations’ cover NPCs, Challenges, and Clues, all leading to a ‘Confrontation’ and its eventual ‘Aftermath’. For the most part, the mysteries are well organised, a mix of the sandbox and events which the Game Master will need to carefully orchestrate around the actions of her Player Characters. Only the most pertinent of the locations in each town or village is described and the Game Master is advised to create others as needed, though she will very likely need a ready list of Swedish names to hand for whenever the Player Characters run into an NPC or two.
Also included with every scenario is a set of trigger warnings, kept to a minimum, and unobtrusively placed in the top, lefthand corner on the opening page of each scenario. Plus, there are notes too, for running each of the four scenarios with Vaesen – Mythic Britain & Ireland, although of course, the Game Master will need to make some adjustments in terms of names and geography.
Seasons of Mysteries opens with ‘A Dance with Death’ set in the ‘dales’ of central Sweden in the springtime. Here in a traditional farming community, mostly concerned with its cattle and its music. Here a farm labourer woke by the banks of the nearby lake unaware of how she got there and two cows have been found drowned. A local farm owner asks the Player Characters to investigate. What they discover is a miasma of paranoia and uncertainty, fuelled by an undercurrent of unrequited love and a Faustian pact. There is a degree of misdirection in the scenario, including a big floating clue, and a sense that the villains are not always what they seem. There are nice roleplaying touches too, such as making friends—or at least good impression—with the locals at a party, including finding out just how well the Player Characters can dance. This scenario has a lovely bucolic feel, a twisted tale of love and desire and possession at the appropriate time of the year.
Taking place at the heart of summer, ‘Fireheart’ literally boils with heat and everything is seen through a heat haze. The mystery focuses on the Häryd ironworks on Lake Hären in Smolandia, owned by two brothers. As drought dries up the land around them, one brother grows greedier and greedier as the other comes to believe that an evangelist preacher has bewitched the first, leading to a rift between the two. There is certainly something going at the ironworks, for the brother who remains is obsessed with his wealth and his foreman, known as ‘Swine’, drives the ironwork’s labourers mercilessly. If the Player Characters can get past Swine, whether through subterfuge or stealth, they can perhaps discover something about the first brother’s obsession, but get toom close they too might end up suffering from it as well! As the temperature rises, confrontation is all but inevitable, though it will perhaps force the truth to be revealed. This is fantastical on a grand scale, a back story out of myth and fairy tale, which will lead to an encounter with the greatest of mythical beasts. Unlike the other scenarios in the anthology, ‘Fireheart’ uses a mythic not found in Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying, but introduces it here.
One of the themes of Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying is the conflict between modernity and change, and the old ways, and this best explored in the anthology in ‘The Devil on the Moor’. This is set on the moors of Jutland where the Danish Society for Moorland Reclamation is conducting an engineering project to restore the land to its former fertility. Taking place during the Autumn, the lead engineer believes that a demon is sabotaging the project. The Player Characters will have the past notes from a reputed Danish folklorist to examine for clues, but must also find a way to get the recalcitrant locals to talk as everyone seems on edge and strange mists swirl about the place and seem to make people disappear. There are some gruesome moments too, though less of a sense of misdirection as in the other scenarios in the anthology. In the notes on adapting the scenario to Vaesen – Mythic Britain & Ireland, the author suggests referring Sir Arthur Conan Doyles’ The Hound of the Baskervilles for its sense of isolation and its mists swirling across boggy terrain, and that atmosphere fits this scenario too, which is a well-done retelling of a revenge from beyond the grave mystery. The scenario does not forget Linnea, the woman who originally invited the Player Characters to reform the Society, either, as she plays a central role in getting them involved in the events in Denmark.
Seasons of Mysteries comes to a close with the very, very wintery ‘A Winter’s Tale’. The Player Characters are invited by a Russian nobleman to a symposium on the strange and the supernatural at his home in the province of Ingria, once a Swedish possession, but now part of the Russian empire. Their journey is interrupted by a terrible snowstorm and they are forced to take refuge in a nearby inn, along with several other guests, some of whom were bound for the same symposium as the Player Characters—including two very well-known monster hunters! Unfortunately, not all is well at the inn. The owner’s sister died recently and as the weather closes in, the intensity of the snowstorm increases and the temperature drops, and try as they might, nobody can keep a fire going for very long. Potentially, this scenario could descend into one of survival horror, but investigation and interrogation lies at the heart of Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying. There is a lot of exposition to get through at points, but it is not like the Player Characters are going very far. Plus, all of the suspects and the clues are to be found in one place, the inn, in what is a bitterly claustrophobic scenario.
Physically, Seasons of Mysteries is a lovely looking book. The cover is stark and wintery, and has a lovely tactile feel. The scenarios are all well written, the handouts are well done—if a plain in places, and the cartography is excellent.
One issue with the previous anthology, A Wicked Secret, was its lack of geography and history. Sweden at the time when Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying, A Wicked Secret and Other Mysteries, and A Season of Mysteries is set, is unlikely to be a familiar place to many Game Masters or their players. There was not always the explanation of the whys and wherefores to a scenario, but that is not wholly an issue with Seasons of Mysteries. It could have done with a little more geographical explanation or a map, as to where its scenarios are set, at least for those set in Sweden, in relation the country as a whole. This is less of an issue with the two scenarios set outside of Sweden, where enough information is provided.
The investigations in Seasons of Mysteries are not necessarily wholly original, primarily because their threats are drawn from folklore and the stories around them, so there is often a sense of the familiarity to the scenarios. This does not mean that the scenarios are bad, because they are all well written and plotted, and they very effectively explore the clash between tradition and modernity, which often leads to a breakdown between man and Vaesen which is explored in Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying. If perhaps there is a downside to the adventures it is that they are seasonally based, which as much as that plays into and influences the nature and atmosphere of each scenario, it means that they are not quite as versatile. Nevertheless, Seasons of Mysteries is an excellent and engaging second quartet of mysteries, each markedly different in terms of tone and feel and each presenting different challenges for the Player Characters in Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying.

Be Like a Crow: A Solo RPG is a journaling game which enables the player to take to the skies as a corvidae—crow, magpie, jackdaw, or rook—over multiple landscapes and differing genres, achieving objectives, exploring, and growing as they learn and grow old. Published by Critical Kit, a publisher better known for its scenarios for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. The roleplaying game combines the simple mechanics and use of a deck of playing cards typical of a journaling game with five genres—‘Urban Crow’, ‘Cyber-Crow’, ‘Gothic Crow’, ‘Fantasy Crow’, ‘Clockwork Crow’, and ‘Ravens of the Tower’. Each of these presents a different place and time for the bird to fly over, land on, encounter the denizens, and more. Crowthulhu: A Cosmic Horror Setting For Be Like A Crow is a supplement that takes the game in an entirely different direction, to the edge of Lovecraft Country. As in Be Like a Crow: A Solo RPG, the player’s crow will take to the air, here encountering the weird and the eldritch, including cults of Pelicans, tentacled terrors terrorising boats traveling up and down the river, forests where the trees are dying from a luminously purple rot, as well as notables from Lovecraft Country, including Doctor Henry Armitage and Brown Jenkin.

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

The play and thus the journaling of Be Like a Crow is driven by objectives as achieving these will enable a bird to advance through his lifecycle. An objective for the ‘Crowthulhu’ setting, might be for example, “A cult of [characters] has stolen [object] from the museum. They are performing a dark ritual with it near [location]. Attempt to stop them.” The player will also need to draw cards to identify the character, the object, and the location, and then as his bird flies from hex to hex across the map, draw cards for events in flight, and then for events when he lands. The player is free to, and advised to, ignore prompts if they do not fit the story, and this may be necessary if a prompt is drawn again, but ideally, the player should be using the prompts as drawn to tell a story and build the life of his crow.

Crowthulhu: A Cosmic Horror Setting For Be Like A Crow requires the core rules of Be Like a Crow, as well as a standard deck of playing cards. As well as providing the rules, it provides the prompts for events in flight and on land that are standard to each of the roleplaying game’s settings, but what Crowthulhu provides is its own set of tables its objectives, objects, characters, and locations. Two sets of objectives are provided, one for the red suits and one for the black suits, the same again for characters or NPCs, and again for objects and locations for Crowthulhu. Thus locations can be the dreamer’s dimension or the bedsit of an ageing musician, an object could be a scroll of Egyptian hieroglyphics which can be traded with an academic for another object or a miniature flail made tentacles that can be used in an attack, a character a crazed sea captain who talks in riddles or Herbert West, a shamed medical student researching reanimation, and an objective that cats are disappearing from the local area and the crow must find them and prevent further disappearances or a professor at the university has found a dangerous tome and plans to harness its powers, and the crow must go there and destroy it before he can!

Most, if not all of the entries have a Lovecraftian theme, whether that is investigating why a geologist has been acting strangely after he visited a recent meteor crash or encountering Brown Jenkin who will befriend the crow, but his manner is antagonistic and he probably wants you to fail. Many of the encounters involve FEAR, whether that is with a Deep One or a swan high-priest of Crowthulhu. (Crowthulhu itself is not defined in the supplement, being left up to the player’s imagination to describe.) Fear is the new mechanic introduced in Crowthulhu: A Cosmic Horror Setting For Be Like A Crow. As with other roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror, this measures a character’s—or crow’s—reaction to the cosmic horror of the Mythos and ability to withstand its debilitating effects. It comes into play when the Fear prompt is drawn and is tested much like a standard skill or ability test in the game. However, failure means that the crow is fearful and his player must add a tick to his Fear section on the character sheet. Once a crow has any ticks marked off under his Fear, the number acts as a penalty to all of his actions including other Fear checks, representing the traditional downward spiral of the crow’s sanity typical of the genre, though kept simple for the journaling format and style of play. It is possible for a crow to become less afraid. Either by expending a Joker card, which removes all Fear ticks, or potentially just a single one when exploring a new location.

In terms of locations, Crowthulhu: A Cosmic Horror Setting For Be Like A Crow includes its own setting, the Massachusetts town of Rooksbridge. This is the town in the nineteen twenties, supposedly built on a site where witches were executed in the seventeenth century, but is now best known for its relatively isolated location, along with its asylum and its university, which specialises in American history, and of course, has a library which specialises in the occult. From Blasted Heath and Crowdaw River to Independence Hill and Wytch House, has a decently hinted New England, post-colonial feel to it.

Physically, Crowthulhu: A Cosmic Horror Setting For Be Like A Crow is a slim affair. It is lightly illustrated with images of odd creatures, but the map is nicely done and has a period feel, plus the supplement is decently written. Crowthulhu: A Cosmic Horror Setting For Be Like A Crow flies in and out of the Cthulhu Mythos, veering between it and its own corvidae cosmic horror. It might veer too far into its own avian weirdness for the Mythos purist, but for others it provides a whole new way in which to explore the New England touched upon by Lovecraft and look upon it from a bird’s-eye view.

It starts with a briefing on the move, before dropping off in the city. An agent is missing, but believed to have obtained information about a terrorist organisation known as SOUL, which has been conducting covert operations, including those designed to destabilise governments. The agent, Silver, has the information stored in a cranial data implant, and it can only be accessed by Ness, a hacker working with Silver. The agents’ mission is to locate and extract both Silver and Ness, but if something has happened to Silver, to extract the data with Ness’ help and ensure that it does not fall into the wrong hands. It is highly likely that SOUL agents will want to recover the data and will stop at nothing to ensure their success. The agents should expect determined opposition. Lastly, this is a covert operation. Under no circumstances should local law enforcement or intelligence agencies become aware of the mission or involved.

This is the set-up for The Spy Game: Mission Booklet 1 – Deadly Data, a mission or short scenario for The Spy Game: A Roleplaying Game of Action & Espionage. Published by Black Cat Gaming, this is the roleplaying game of cinematic Spy-Fi action set in the immediate future chases, subterfuge, high-tech equipment, and more, using the mechanics of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, but eschewing some of the social attitudes and mores of the genre. The Spy Game: Mission Booklet 1 – Deadly Data comes with everything that the Game Master needs to run the scenario—plot, NPCs, floor plans, details of the equipment the Player Character agents will be issued with, staging advice, and suggestions as what happens the SOUL agents succeed at certain points rather than the Player Characters.

The Spy Game: Mission Booklet 1 – Deadly Data is easy to add to a campaign. In fact, it is designed as a ‘mission-between-mission’ scenario, one that can be easily slotted between other scenarios. If the Game Master wants to take a more en media res approach, it could even be used as a campaign starter, with the Player Characters hastily assembled and sent on their first mission together. However, designed for Player Characters of Fourth and Fifth Levels, it best works as an addition to a campaign. In terms of character types, Classes from The Spy Game such as Face, Hacker, Infiltrator, Martial Artist, and Technician will probably have moments to shine in the scenario, but a Hacker is definitely needed, as is a Player Character who can drive.

Other than the plot, much of the scenario is flexible and can easily be replaced with details from the Game Master’s own campaign. The agency that the Player Characters work for is never named, and neither is the city where the action takes place, although it does have to be coastal city, ideally with port facilities. The feel of the scenario is very American, but again, that can also be changed. That said, if set in the USA, cities like Miami, Los Angeles, or San Francisco, are all good choices. Although SOUL is named as the villainous agency of the piece, it too is never defined, and the Game Master is free to substitute whichever enemy organisation she wants from her campaign, or even add SOUL to her campaign.

The Spy Game: Mission Booklet 1 – Deadly Data is divided into three acts. In the first, the Player Characters will begin their investigation and attempt to find Ness before the SOUL agents do. Whether or not they are able to find Ness initially, in the second act, they succeed in tracking both Silver and Ness to a city hospital. Confrontations with SOUL agents—preferably ones in which the police will not be alerted—are likely in both situations. In the third act, everything comes to a climax as either the SOUL agents attempt to escape the city with both Ness and Silver in their possession, chased by the Player Characters, or the Player Characters attempt to escape the city with both Ness and Silver in their possession, chased by the SOUL agents. This brings the scenario to an exciting climax and gives the Game Master the perfect reason to bring out the chase rules for The Spy Game.

In addition to the scenario, The Spy Game: Mission Booklet 1 – Deadly Data includes elements that the Game Master can reuse in her won campaign. They include equipment like the Remote Control SUV and Smart Watches, and stats for the SOUL Agents, and more. It is disappointing that the SOUL Agents are rather soulless and lack personalities.

Physically, The Spy Game: Mission Booklet 1 – Deadly Data is clean and tidy, and easy to read. Bar the front cover, it is not illustrated, but the scenario is short and boxes of supplementary text do break up the main text. The scenario comes with two sets of floorplans, both excellent, although why the smaller set is presented on a page of its own, whereas the smaller one is not, remains a mystery. The other issue with the scenario is that it is printed without a card cover, so although printed on good paper, it is not as sturdy as it could be.

The Spy Game: Mission Booklet 1 – Deadly Data is short, but not short on detail. It needs careful preparation, but once done, is easily dropped into a Game Master’s The Spy Game campaign, ready to provide a session or two’s worth exciting Spy-Fi action.

Word and rumour are spreading across the whole of Europe. Miucci Carnivo is the greatest fashion designer of his age, his clothes and outfits in high demand not only in his home city of Seville, but across the whole of Spain and beyond. The dress he has fashioned for the Countess Serena de Reya for her wedding is said to have cost eighteen thousand gold pieces and taken him three months to make. He is never short of clients with deep pockets ready to purchase his latest designs, and he himself has become a wealthy man. Yet, his private life is a matter of debate and it is rumoured that strange men and women are to come to his house at night on a regular basis. Then there is the matter of his greatest rival, Francisco Alcon, found slaughtered in his home. Is Miucci Carnivo connected to his death, and if so, then how? These rumours have even reached his ears and he is worried—though these are not his only concerns. The dress he has designed for Countess Serena de Reya has gone missing and several of his customers have also turned up dead. All of which could affect his business, if not ruin his good name. Thus, he hires the Player Characters to investigate all of this, and he is prepared to pay handsomely—which should be enough to pique their interest and get them involved!

This is the set-up for In a Deadly Fashion, a murder mystery and mystery scenario for use with Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay. Like other scenarios published by Lamentations of the Flame Princess it is set in the game’s default early Modern Period. Specifically, in Seville, Spain, so it would work well with several of the other publisher’s titles or equally easily adapted to the retroclone of the Game Master’s choice. Yet by its very nature, the scenario is easily adaptable to other roleplaying games set in the same period, such as Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, or even a time travel roleplaying game such as Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space! The scenario is not without its issues though, primarily due to its historical setting, which means that it involves religious bigotry. The scenario does not involve it directly in its story line, but it is present by implication. Further, the scenario involves a cult and some of the activities its members engage in are both listed and illustrated—the latter not explicitly, but it is clear what is happening. It is entirely up to the Game Master and her players how they want to deal with this aspect in play, but it is easy easy to draw a veil over this if necessary.

Whether hired by Carnivo, the government, a relative of one of the victims, or simply greedy enough to take an interest in some very valuable items of clothing, In a Deadly Fashion is easy to set-up and run. As Carnivo, the Game Master quickly points the Player Characters in the direction of the four avenues of investigation—the homes of Countess Serena de Reya, the two customers who died, and the rival tailor. Each of these has their own section in the book, which detail the locations, NPCs, clues, and so on, to be found there. The investigation itself is detailed, but limited. There are few if any clues beyond these locations, but if the Player Characters do come unstuck and are unable to progress any further, an NPC is provided who can point them in the right direction. There is also the equivalent of the local Catholic police who might be interested too, and could be helpful to the Player Characters, leading to an encounter with a bishop with a laconic and oddly elliptical manner.

Ultimately, the clues should lead back on themselves and point towards Miucci Carnivo as being the culprit—rather his clothes! For reasons unknown, they have taken on a life of their own and conducting a series of murderous acts. The scenario should ideally come to head as the Player Characters return to Carnivo’s mansion with all of its nouveau riche fripperies to confront him, only to find a cult party in full swing and the discovery of the missing dress before it animates and attacks! This is intended to be creepy, even unnerving, and should be a good set-piece with which to end the scenario.

In a Deadly Fashion is not a scenario which needs much in the way of maps. However, its one map, that of Carnivo’s mansion, is oddly placed, nowhere near the descriptions of its locations towards the back of the book. Nor is the actual presented in a fashion that makes it easy to read and use by the Game Master. The finale, or at least the aftermath, of the scenario is underwritten, as is the description of Seville. Of course, that makes the scenario to adapt elsewhere to the city of the Game Master’s choice, but if that is not an option, she will still needed to conduct some research on seventeenth century Spain and Seville. Even a page of information would have been useful, since it is rare for any scenario to be set there, let alone one for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay. There is though, decent advice on running a murder mystery and on running one in which the Player Characters are equipped with magic.

Physically, In a Deadly Fashion is a very presentable, if slim hardback. The writing is clear and easy to grasp, much of it little more than bullet points, such that a Game Master can prepare the scenario quickly and easily. The map is more pretty than serviceable, whilst the artwork is excellent, done in dense, rich palette of colours.

In a Deadly Fashion is easy to read and quick to prepare, and can be run more or less from the page. It is a solid murder mystery which should provide two or three session’s worth of creepy, horrific play

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: Annals of Flint’s Detective Agency Chapter 2: MESISTOPHELES’ MALICIOUS MILKPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Mark Potter

Setting: Jazz Age Chicago
Product: ScenarioWhat You Get: Thirty-Four page, 1.82 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: “First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great GatsbyPlot Hook: Investigating a young man affected by the demon drink leads to demons!
Plot Support: Eight NPCs, six handouts, five maps, four Mythos artefacts, and three Mythos monsters.Production Values: Variable.
Pros# Sequel to Annals of Flint’s Detective Agency: The Case of the Stolen Golf Clubs# Many Hobbit jokes# Throws the Mob and the cops into the mix# Decent investigation# More than the Mythos involved for extra storytelling elements# Familiar set-up and plot, but not badly done# Selaphobia# Dipsophobia
Cons# Needs a strong edit# Familiar set-up and plot, but not badly done# Too many Hobbit and other jokes# Maps a little too small
Conclusion# Solid investigation at the height of Prohibition undone by too many jokes and uneven production values, and a degree of familiarity with other Prohibition-set scenarios.# Good mix of the Mob, the Cops, plus extra storytelling elements gives some good roleplaying opportunities.

The Angry GM has made a name for himself dispensing advice and guidance on how to be a better game Master on his blog, which promises “RPG Advice with Attitude”. Some of that advice has been collected and collated in Game Angry: How to RPG The Angry Way. This promises that you can “Learn to play fantasy role-playing games”, “Run your first Dungeons & Dragons or Pathfinder game”, and “Improve your GMing skills and run great less worse games”, and if you take the advice and implement elements of it, then that is likely the case. This a book for the prospective player initially, but mostly the prospective Game Master, which has got her first roleplaying game—most likely Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, and wants to start running it for her friends or her existing group. It discusses narration and adjudication of running games, running the first game and then starting again, engaging with the players, handling combat, addresses risk and failure, portraying NPCs, dealing with problems at the table, and more. Though full of good advice, but for the most part, Game Angry: How to RPG The Angry Way is not a book for the experienced Game Master as she is likely already implementing the book’s suggestions and guidance. Of course, there is nothing to stop her from perusing the book to at least pick up the odd tip, or even confirm that she is at least game master the ‘Angry Way’.

However, Game Angry: How to RPG The Angry Way is not without its problems which get in the way of the good advice to be found in its pages. The first of which are its price and its length. The book is simply too expensive and too long. At over one-hundred-and-seventy pages, it is far too long. It could and should have been shorter and more concise. It is often overwritten and all often feels as if it could have got to the point a lot earlier. At $15 for the PDF, there are better looking books with more focused advice on being a good Game Master for less. Similarly, there are better looking books with more focused advice on being a good Game Master in print for the same cost as the PDF. Then there is the issue with tone and remit. The title of the book suggests that the book is going to be written a sense of energy and urgency, with anger, and there is none of that. Anyone coming to the book after reading the blog with its near rants and use of deleted expletives will be severely disappointed, for the style of the book is light and chatty—often too chatty. Which leads into the issue with remit, because if the book is written by the ‘Angry GM’ and he never gets angry in the book as he does on the blog, what is the point of the title? What Game Angry: How to RPG The Angry Way really means is that the player and prospective Game Master should be playing using the advice from a writer whose nickname is ‘Angry’, not be a Game Master with that emotion in mind. Which is misleading.

Game Angry: How to RPG The Angry Way is divided into three parts. ‘Part I: The World of Role-Playing Games’ is intended for the new player, ‘Part II: Getting Your (First) Game On’ is the first time Game Master’, and ‘Part III: Running Less Worse Games’ is the Game Master who wants to improve her skills. The opening of ‘Part I: The World of Role-Playing Games’ starts with first principles, taking the reader through the first steps of a Dungeons & Dragons-style game, what options has in terms of purchasing roleplaying games and what they offer, and giving a first examination of what a Game Master is. Veteran players and Game Masters are advised to skip this, but it feels too basic for the book, too much of a focus upon being the player in a book that is primarily for the Game Master. Perhaps this could have been saved for a book of advice on how to play roleplaying games the ‘Angry Way’—that is, a book of advice for the player, or retooled for the intended audience, the Game Master?

Thankfully, ‘Part II: Getting Your (First) Game On’ does begin getting to the point and telling the reader what a Game Master is and does. It starts with simple advice, such as ‘Keep It Simple, Stupid’, preparing the first adventure, explains the basic conversation involved in playing a roleplaying game, how to be a narrator and what the four types of narration are, and how to adjudicate the rules. This though, is forty pages in… It breaks down the nature of combat, examining the four things that the Game Master has to handle in the process—as a Referee, as monster wrangler, an accountant, and as a jockey, the latter to keep the pace of the combat appropriately fast and free flowing. Then it returns to the basic conversation involved in playing a roleplaying game, but examines it from the point of view of combat. This all sets the prospective Game Master up with the basic elements of her role.

At more than half its length, ‘Part III: Running Less Worse Games’ is the longest section in the book. It includes interesting sections on player agency and the power they and their characters have within a game, breaks down the time and framing units of roleplaying—action, scene, adventure, and campaign—before using them to build back up a Game Master’s approach to the structuring her game. There is standard advice too, such as only rolling the dice when it is important and running a Session Zero, and for the most part, the advice and suggestions are rules agnostic, but the book is heavily weighted towards playing and running Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, and Pathfinder, and where it does get mechanical it is always with those roleplaying games in mind. It also includes some mechanics of its own. This includes ‘Angry’s Ten-Point Scale’, used to track a Player Character’s success or failure and potential reaction points along that scale when he attempt’s a task that takes longer than a single roll, developing that as a means to handle loner, more involved conversations, for example. It differentiates between scene and encounter, and it also provides advice and suggestions as to how to create and portray NPCs in interesting and dramatic fashion in what is one of the more enjoyable sections of the book, and it also has advice on tone, a degree of improvisation, and finally potential issues and conflicts at the table. Here Game Angry moves into the social space of gaming. Lastly, the advice takes the reader to the verge of beginning campaign, but no further. That perhaps is the subject of another supplement?

Physically, Game Angry: How to RPG The Angry Way is a plain affair interspersed by pieces of cartoon artwork, much like the author’s blog posts. Here the artwork only serves to separate the chapters and adds nothing to the content. The writing is often over blown and it could have done with tighter editing for length and focus. The book lacks an index. Similarly, the author makes references to outside sources, such as to ‘The MDA Design Approach’, but does not cite them or include a bibliography. This is inexcusably unprofessional.

As decent as the advice in Game Angry: How to RPG The Angry Way is, it has dated slightly and it does not take into account different forms of gaming. Or even ways in which it can be consumed, stating “Now, RPGs don’t have audiences.” whereas even when the book was originally published, they did. Hence Critical Role. Anyway, no convention games or online games, the latter increasingly important and common since the pandemic. Now of course, the book was written before that occurred, but a section on running convention games would have been a very useful inclusion.

The author, the ‘Angry GM’, has neutered his voice for Game Angry: How to RPG The Angry Way. Had he not, then perhaps the book might have stood out from the range of titles on how to be a good Game Master. The advice given is good, but for experienced players and Game Masters will probably be familiar, whilst for the new or prospective Game Master, Game Angry: How to RPG The Angry Way takes a while to get the point and could have been far more concise.

The crew of the Pavel Sukhoi, an Albatross Class Armed Explorer, has been assigned to the Rizpah-160 system on a search and recovery mission. Operated by mankind’s preeminent space exploration and transport company, Galilee Heavy Industry, the Pavel Sukoi is to enter orbit above Rizpah-160B, recover a probe, Mother Three, and then descend to the surface to recover the three landers it launched to explore the planet below—the comically named Sister Nancy, Sister Sledge, and Brother Ben. Galilee Heavy Industries does not like to waste equipment, but it also wants to keep the fact that Rizpah-160B is potentially habitable a secret. Whilst in orbit, the Pavel Sukhoi is also conduct further surveys, but the Player Characters are assigned the recovery missions. This is the set-up for Darkness in the Void – A Sci-Fi Call of Cthulhu Scenario Set on an Alien World, a scenario for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition published Stygian Fox as part of its ‘Cthulhu Tomorrow’ line.

Unfortunately, Darkness in the Void – A Sci-Fi Call of Cthulhu Scenario Set on an Alien World is spectacularly uninteresting. To begin with, the plot, such as it is, is little more than series of mechanical rolls and skill checks to see how well the Player Characters recover the lost pieces of technology, enlivened by alien species of tree-like hunters which will attack the Player Characters, who are expected to run away. The scenario calls the Player Characters Investigators just as you would in any other Call of Cthulhu scenario, but the scenario does not call for any real investigation. The scenario is written for use with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, but does not involve any of the Mythos. Of course, there have been plenty of scenarios published for Call of Cthulhu which do not involve the Mythos and it is perfectly acceptable to have a non-Mythos horror scenario for the roleplaying game, but to not make that fact clear until fourteen pages into the scenario when discussing the rewards and repercussions? Rewards which include Sanity gains when there is no Mythos involved? Similarly, there is no scope for interaction or roleplaying either, since whilst six pre-generated ‘Investigators’ are provided with the scenario, they lack roleplaying hooks or hints as to the relationships between them which might have engendered or encouraged roleplaying.

Worse, Darkness in the Void completely fails to follow through on the promise given in the blurb on its back cover. It states, “The planet holds mysteries and terrors the likes of which they have never dreamed of, or experienced in their worst nightmares.” There are no mysteries whatsoever in the scenario, and whilst being attacked by an alien species, might be described as a terror, it is such a raging cliché that it will probably bore both the Keeper and her players. Some possible mysteries—the other regions of the planet might hold other horrors and treasures, the Pavel Sukhoi might detect a strange alien signal or remnant of an alien civilisation, are suggested under ‘Further Adventures’, but why promise them on the back cover if the scenario is not going to deliver and simply leave them for the Keeper to create?

Worse, there is an interesting setting behind Darkness in the Void, one which involves Galilee Heavy Industries’ links to the Mythos. Like everything else which might be labelled ‘interesting’ in Darkness in the Void, it is only hinted at. Salo’s Glory, another Science Horror scenario for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition published by Stygian Fox, addresses it in more direct fashion and does involve the Mythos.

Besides its thin plot, Darkness in the Void includes basic deck plans of the Pavel Sukhoi, details of the various pieces of equipment the Player Characters will use throughout the scenario, new skills for the Science Fiction setting, stats for various NPCs and two alien species, and the six pre-generated Player Characters. The illustrations are at least decent, especially of the pre-generated Player Characters, In fact, they may actually be the best thing about Darkness in the Void. Otherwise, Darkness in the Void is poorly written and developed, intermittently edited, but on the plus side, the layout is decent and it is in colour.

Darkness in the Void – A Sci-Fi Call of Cthulhu Scenario Set on an Alien World might be written for Call of Cthulhu, but it is not a Call of Cthulhu scenario. It is at best—and it should be made clear that there is nothing in this scenario which can be described as ‘best’—a Science Fiction scenario with a plot that is not only paper thin, but so much of a cliché, it would have been labelled trite at the dawn of the genre. How a scenario so unremittingly boring and uninvolving could have been foisted upon Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition beggars belief. Avoid at costs, and if you have bought it, seriously, not only ask for your money back, but ask for compensation for your time and effort. Stygian Fox should be paying you to read this scenario, not the other way around.

Mutant Crawl Classics #13: Into The Glowing Depths is the twelfth release for Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, the spiritual successor to Gamma World published by Goodman Games. Designed for Second Level player characters, what this means is that Mutant Crawl Classics #13: Into The Glowing Depths is not a Character Funnel, one of the signature features of both the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game and the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game it is mechanically based upon—in which initially, a player is expected to roll up three or four Level Zero characters and have them play through a generally nasty, deadly adventure, which surviving will prove a challenge. Those that do survive receive enough Experience Points to advance to First Level and gain all of the advantages of their Class. In terms of the setting, known as Terra A.D., or ‘Terra After Disaster’, this is a ‘Rite of Passage’ and in Mutants, Manimals, and Plantients, the stress of it will trigger ‘Metagenesis’, their DNA expressing itself and their mutations blossoming forth. By the time the Player Characters in Mutant Crawl Classics #13: Into The Glowing Depths have reached Second Level, they will have had numerous adventures, should have understanding as to how their mutant powers and how at least some of the various weapons, devices, and artefacts of the Ancients they have found work and can use on their future adventures.

Mutant Crawl Classics  #13: Into The Glowing Depths the Player Characters in a totally unexpected direction—under the sea—but begins in assuming fashion with the party travelling somewhere. The where is not important, but it means that the scenario is easy to set up or add to a campaign, because essentially, it is a side trek adventure. An interesting and engaging side trek adventure, but a side trek adventure nevertheless. On the journey, the Player Characters come across a small tubular building in a clearing which is clearly built by the Ancients and is being ransacked for artefacts by a band of the mutated humanoids known as Tri-eyes. After persuading the Tri-eyes to leave, whether through force or bribery, the Player Characters have  the opportunity to investigate themselves and hopefully find some useful devices left over from the Great Disaster which befell the Ancients. Unfortunately, their curiosity and their greed first gets them trapped, and then flings them into great danger.

Mutant Crawl Classics #13: Into The Glowing Depths will pull the Player Characters out of their comfort zone, because it takes place entirely under the sea and on the ocean floor. This is an environment which the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game has not yet explored, so no one has any idea idea of what the undersea world of Terra A.D. is like—both in-game and out of game—until now. What is revealed is the undersea world was only beginning to be explored and inhabited before the Great Disaster, and much like the world above, the seas of Terra were affected by the nuclear, biological, chemical, nanotech, and other weapons of mass destruction used in the Great Disaster. However, it took a lot longer, being protected initially by the oceans. Like the world above though, there remains pockets and outposts of civilisation from before the Great Disaster, and it is to one of these that the Player Characters find themselves in what should be an epic opening scene.

Many of the adventures for the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game combine a mix of exploration and combat, often in what are the isolated remains of buildings, facilities, outposts, stations, bunkers, museums, and the like of the future, now long in the past of Terra A.D. Mutant Crawl Classics #13: Into The Glowing Depths does this too, but it differs because it involves a plot and a number of tasks which the Player Characters must complete in order to finish the scenario, survive, and save the world. Consequently, the scenario feels more proactive, providing the Player Character with objectives and things to do, rather than just exploration and extermination.

The Player Characters find themselves  in an undersea outpost, partially flooded and only partially operational. They will find themselves sloshing through half-lit and darkened rooms, in a series of mini-quests. The first of which is restoring power, the second holding off an attack against invading forces, and the third preventing a further invasion—not just of the undersea outpost, but the whole of the surface world of Terra A.D.! Throughout, the Player Characters are guided by the A.I. which runs the outpost, a surprisingly benign presence in comparison to other computer intelligences found in the world of Terra A.D. (Or Science Fiction in general, especially post apocalyptic Science Fiction.) She—and it is a a she—impresses upon the Player Characters that time is short and invasion from the depths below is imminent.

Thus Mutant Crawl Classics #13: Into The Glowing Depths is played out in several steps, beginning with what is effecting the abduction of the Player Characters by the A.I. of the outpost. Then following an explanation, exploration of the outpost’s various levels to find the means to restore power—the latter involving an excursion along the seabed, followed by the defence of the outpost and then the attack on the invaders. Consequently, the scenario is really written in two halves. The first details the outpost itself, whilst the second the events which propel the scenario’s plot forward, culminating hopefully in the successful defeat of the invasion and saving of both outpost and life on Terra A.D. itself!

Both the outpost and the A.I. itself are described in some detail, the latter important because she is a major NPC in the scenario. The outpost is mapped out in pleasing detail, including wavy grid lines rather than straight to indicate locations which are under several feet of water. It is a lovely touch. If perhaps there is an issue with the scenario, it is that the outpost A.I. advises the Player Characters on much of what works and how, aboard the outpost, replacing the usual artifact checks of the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. In some ways, this unavoidable, since there is so much in the outpost that the Player Characters have to know how to work in order to complete the scenario and if the players have to roll, there is a chance of failure.  Another issue of course, is that the scenario opens a whole new world in the form of the subsea environment, but never goes beyond the outpost. Hopefully this world will further detailed in a future supplement or sequel scenario.

Physically, behind a suitably briny cover, Mutant Crawl Classics #13: Into The Glowing Depths is cleanly and tidily laid out, clearly written, and decently illustrated. As already mentioned, the maps are really nicely done.

Mutant Crawl Classics #13: Into The Glowing Depths is a real change of pace and environment for the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. As a side trek scenario, it is really easy to add to a campaign, but it is also a thoroughly engaging scenario for both player and Judge, opening up a whole new world in Terra A.D., one which will hopefully be revisited again in Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, as there really is a lot to explore.

DURF: An Adventure Game For Brave Adventurers is a rules-light dungeon-fantasy roleplaying game in the vein of games like Knave, Troika!, and Into the Odd. In fact, it is inspired by and draws from those roleplaying games in terms of its design. For example, it uses an Inventory Slot mechanic for both the equipment carried by the Player Characters and the casting of magic from Knave, and employs the three attributes, deadly combat, and absence of Classes commonly found in the lighter micro-clone designs emanating from the Old School Renaissance. The result is a generically light, retroclone-derived roleplaying game which emphasises the risky nature of combat, simplicity of rules and play, and the need for preparation prior to setting out on an expedition, whilst also adhering to reduced bookkeeping, quick character generation, and a simple advantage system. DURF is also intended to be hackable and purchasers are encouraged to alter and adapt as is their wont.
DURF includes rules for creating Player Characters, straightforward rules for handling most situations, opposed rolls, and combat, spells and spellcasting, NPCs and monsters, and magical items. Where possible, individual elements of the rules are kept to just a single page, and even when placed across two pages, the rules and their supporting content—for example, spellcasting and the spells themselves—are constrained to a page each. It makes everything all very accessible. There is no adventure in the core rules, but given that DURF is a rules-light dungeon-fantasy roleplaying game and Old School Renaissance adjacent, finding a ready source of dungeons and adventures should not be too difficult.

A Player Character in DURF has three attributes, Strength, Dexterity, and Willpower, initially rated between one and three. They can go as high as eight. A Player Character also begins play with one Hit Die, which is rolled to determine if wounds suffered are fatal. He also has a number of Inventory Slots, and begins play with two Supplies, which can be swapped with common dungeoneering equipment during play, a dagger, three random Belongings, and some gold. A Player Character can be created in mere minutes.

Dirk the Dice

Strength 2
Dexterity 3
Willpower 1

Slots 12
Supplies 2
Gold 90
Spells: Drain Life
Belongings: Dagger, Light armour, Tonic of Health


Mechanically, DURF uses a simple roll of a twenty-sided die whenever a player wants his character to act. An appropriate attribute is added to the result and if the result is fifteen or more, then the Player Character succeeds. Opposed rolls are simply determined by the highest result. Instead of Advantage and Disadvantage mechanics of rolling extra twenty-sided dice, DURF uses Buffs and Breaks, rolls of six-sided dice. Individual Buffs and Breaks cancel each other out, but if a Player Character has one or more Buffs, only the highest is counted and added to the player’s roll, whilst if the Player Character has one or more Breaks, only the highest is counted, but is subtracted from the player’s roll. Buffs can be gained from any number of factors, but a Player Character can gain a Buff by Pushing himself. The downside is that the Player Character takes Stress and this fills an Inventory Slot. This can only be done when a Player Character has an empty Inventory Slot.

Combat is fast and employs opposed rolls. This is Strength versus Strength in mêlée combat and Dexterity versus Dexterity in ranged combat. The winner inflicts damage equal to the weapon he wields. Armour reduces this damage, but is damaged in the process. A roll of twenty is a critical hit and inflicts double damage, whilst a roll of one means the weapon is worn and inflicts less damage until repaired. Any damage left over is suffered as Wounds. When this happens, the player rolls his character’s Hit Die or Hit Dice and if the result is less than or equal to the number of Wounds currently suffered, then the character dies. Whenever a Player Character acquires a new Level, his Hit Dice also increase by one, and consequently increase chances of his survival.


Spellcasting in DURF is available to any Player Character. If a Player Character knows or learns a spell, he can cast it. This requires a roll against his Willpower and causes Stress, further filling the Player Character’s Inventory Slots. A roll of one indicates a Blunder, the accompanying table giving a number of entertaining options, including gaining twenty pounds (potentially weight or gold) or a small gnome turning up, ringing a bell as he shames the Player Characters. Accompanying the rules is a selection of twenty spells, which include the familiar such as Levitate, Charm, and Turn Undead, but also the more interesting, like Grasp of Yahzahar which enables the caster to grab his opponents and pin them with shadowy hands.

Rounding out DURF is a guide to creating NPCs, hiring Hirelings—probably a necessity given the deadliness of the mechanics and game play, rules for converting monsters from the Old School Renaissance, and some sample NPCs/monsters, like the Echo Gecko, Dragon, and Eelfolk. The Game Master will definitely need to adapt or create some more. Lastly, there is a selection of magical items and rules for their use.

What distinguishes DURF is its Inventory and Slot management rules combined with the Stress mechanics. DURF is likely to become a roleplaying of resource management as each player manages what his character can carry and then, if he can cast spells, how far he is willing to exhaust himself, gain Stress, and literally choose between what he can carry and what he can cast. This is not new, having been seen elsewhere in the Old School Renaissance, but DURF is a roleplaying game whose designer admits his influences. In roleplaying game designed to be one of purely ‘dungeon-fantasy’, they are notable though.

Physically, DURF is cleanly, tidily laid out. The roleplaying game is well written, easy to read, and quick to learn. It is lightly illustrated in a comic style.

If DURF is missing anything, it is a scenario. Not necessarily to see how the game is played, since the rules are very light and easy to understand. Nor is it to see what the world of DURF is like, since there is no world implied, since DURF is meant to be a rules-light dungeon-fantasy roleplaying game and we know what such a world is like from Dungeons & Dragons and its numerous iterations. Rather, the point of having a scenario or dungeon in DURF is to get to the point where the Game Master can start running DURF and her players can start playing it. DURF is obviously designed so that it takes minutes to create a Player Character, so why not make it minutes to start play after that?

Overall, DURF: An Adventure Game For Brave Adventurers is what you want in a micro-clone. Rules light, quick to play, deadly where it counts, and open to tinkering and development if the Game Master wants too.

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Lair of the Gobbler: A Dungeon for Low Hit Dice Adventurers (1-2 HD) is the first official adventure for DURF. It is not part of the core rulebook, but is available to download. It details an eight-room dungeon location in a hill in the Barrenmoot Swamps, which the Player Characters will discover is where a missing chef is being held. The complex has a muddy, sodden feel to it, its locations nicely detailed and flavoursome. As per DURF’s remit, it is very easy to prepare and the Game Master should be able to run through it in a session or two.

The influence of Games Workshop upon the hobby—certainly in the United Kingdom, let alone beyond—cannot be underestimated. From its founding in 1975 to its current status as a FTSE 250 company, Games Workshop has come to represent the gaming hobby and latterly the wargaming hobby to first the United kingdom and later the world. Notably it imported the first commercially available copies in the United Kingdom of Dungeons & Dragons and as the first distributor and publisher of licensed versions of the new rulebooks for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, it would grow and grow the hobby in this country. Its main vehicle for this would be White Dwarf magazine, which would not only support Games Workshop’s titles licensed from publishers in the USA, but also its own growing range of board games and roleplaying games. So Apocalypse (or The Warlord) and Talisman, the Judge Dredd Roleplaying Game and Golden Heroes, and many more. Its spin-off, Citadel Miniatures, produced licensed miniatures and its own, ultimately leading to Warhammer The Mass Combat Fantasy Role-Playing Game and from there, Warhammer Fantasy Battle, Warhammer 40,000, and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. 
Alongside this, Games Workshop opened retail shops, if not on the high street, then at least close by, thus enabling games enthusiasts to pick up the latest games and miniatures, but also beginning that long road to normalisation and wider acceptance for the hobby, as well as being somewhere where hobby enthusiasts could meet. The refocus of Games Workshop in the late eighties and eventual buyout from the two surviving founders—Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson—in the early nineties would send the company down a different path to the company that it is now. That though, is another story, and not the one told in Dice Men: The Origin Story of Games Workshop.
Written by Sir Ian Livingstone with Steve Jackson—two of the three founders of Games Workshop—Dice Men is a memoir of the company’s first fifteen years. It begins with the two of them, together with their friend John Peake, deciding to set up their own games company. Initially, this was producing wooden puzzles and games, along their gaming fanzine, Owl & Weasel, but when a copy of that fell into the hands of the co-designer of Dungeons & Dragons, E. Gary Gygax, they were first offered a copy of the game to review, then placed an order to sell, and then were offered the distribution rights for the United Kingdom. Proselytising the merits of the first roleplaying game in the pages of Owl & Weazel and then White Dwarf, Livingstone and Jackson, now without Peake, would build the company as a games wholesaler, a magazine publisher, and then a retailor, with its first shop at Dalling Road in Hammersmith, and an events organiser, with Games Day. The company would publish its board games, beginning with Apocalypse: The Game of World War III, Doctor Who: The Game of Time and Space, Valley of the Four Winds: An Epic Game of Swords & Sorcery, and Warlock: The Game of Duelling Wizards and become a licensee for numerous roleplaying games as well publishing its own. Time and again, Games Workshop would publish fondly remembered titles, many of which have been reprinted since or remain in print today. Setting up Citadel Miniatures too to support fantasy gaming in general as well as Games Workshop’s own titles, ultimately of course, lead to Warhammer Fantasy Battles and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.
Physically, Games Workshop would grow too, moving from a flat to an office, the latter with Livingstone and Jackson living out a van, before opening the company’s first shop at Dalling Road, acquiring offices and warehouse space at Sunbeam Road, Citadel Miniatures opening premises in Nottingham, and so on, with many of the addresses being familiar to British gamers from the eighties. The book also looks at other aspects of the authors’ involvement in the hobby, most notably the Fighting Fantasy series of solo adventure books—detailed in You Are The Hero, but also the beginnings of the computer games industry.
Along the way, there are plenty of asides. They include Steve Jackson’s search for a copy of The Warlord, the map and key for ‘The Inner Temple of the Golden Skeleton’—Livingstone’s first dungeon, the authors’ first trip to Gen Con, and more. There are other contributors, including various employees, notably Bryan Ansell, who was so important in establishing Citadel Miniatures and eventually taking the company in a new direction. There is also a lovely message from Gail Gygax, the wife of the late E. Gary Gygax, highlighting how Gary felt about Ian Livingstone. In the main though, the voices heard are those of Jackson and Livingstone. There are controversies and failures along the way as well, but not many. Such as the time Games Workshop received a letter from Lucas Film because of an advert, the newspapers’ assertion that the company was distributing Mayfair Games’ War in the Falklands board game, and of course, Ian Marsh’s infamous acrostic in White Dwarf #77!
Physically, Dice Men is an engaging read, but what really catches the eye are its photographs. The book is lavishly illustrated. They begin the company’s first orders for its own games, covers for all of the copies of Owl & Weasel, catalogue covers, flyers for Games Day and Dragonmeet, photographs from these events and the authors’ Gen Con trip, White Dwarf covers, beautiful reproductions of figures from Citadel Miniatures, and more. The book is as much a visual history of the company as it is a personal memoir, and it is clear that the authors have dived deep onto the archives to pull out so many of its photographs.
Dice Men is not a history of Games Workshop. That book is yet to be written, whether of the first part of its history—the period covered here, or of the second part, its more recent history built around its own intellectual properties. It is instead a memoir, and so a personal history. As interesting as it is, to an extent this limits its readership. It is not necessarily going to be of interest to the fan of Games Workshop who has no interest in the company’s origins and for the roleplaying historian, it may not be critical enough. Yet what shines through is the hard work that both authors put into building and developing Games Workshop, as well as their love of games and gaming. 
For the role-player of certain age—especially if British, or the role-player with an interest in the history of gaming, then Dice Men: The Origin Story of Games Workshop is an absolute must-have. This is a sumptuously illustrated trip down memory lane for both reader and the book’s authors to look at the beginning of an institution and the gaming hobby in the United Kingdom.

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?GLORANTHA: Spirit Hunt is a scenario for use with RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.

It is a five page, full colour, 1.13 GB PDF.

The layout is clean and tidy. It is art free, but the cartography is excellent.

The map can be found here.

Where is it set?
GLORANTHA: Spirit Hunt is set in or near Esrolia. It is suggested that it be set in the hills between Helerdon and the Doktados mountains.

Who do you play?Player Characters of all types could play this scenario, but as written they are expected to be connected to Esrolia. A Player Character with either Hate (Lunars) or Hate (Lunar Empire) can be driven to undertake this scenario.
What do you need?
GLORANTHA: Spirit Hunt requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and the Glorantha Bestiary.
What do you get?GLORANTHA: Spirit Hunt details the hiding place of the Nyctalope sent by the Red Emperor in 1610 ST which successfully assassinated Queen Valinalda of Esrolia. The Player Characters are either sent by one of the Esrolian Queens or Ernalda’s priestess to destroy the spirit, have to do so as part of a heroquest, or simply stumbled across the lair. The scenario provides the basic background, a set of random encounters, and the floorplans of the ruined shrine where the Nyctalope is hiding.
Although the map is excellent, GLORANTHA: Spirit Hunt is uninteresting. There is perhaps an engaging and intriguing scenario which explores the hunt for the spirit which assassinated Queen Valinalda, GLORANTHA: Spirit Hunt is not that. The Game Master could develop it further, especially if one of more of the Player Characters is from Esrolia, is related or has links to one of the Queens, or actively hates the Lunars. However, there is no roleplaying or interaction involved here, no mystery, no anything except combat. So why bother starting with this when there so little to work from?
Again, the Game Master should download the map by Dyson Logos and use that to create her own scenario. It would be unlikely to be any worse or more uninspiring than GLORANTHA: Spirit Hunt is and it is definitely less expensive.
Is it worth your time?Yes—GLORANTHA: Spirit Hunt is straightforward and easy to run, and requires relatively little effort to prepare.No—GLORANTHA: A Grim Pilgrimage is another self-contained mini-dungeon which the author kindly leaves much of the interesting detail, stats, and flavour to be found in the back story—as is his standard practice—for the Game Master to develop herself. Cheap, cheerless, characterless, and charmless. Not mostly, but completely.Maybe—GLORANTHA: Spirit Hunt is straightforward and easy to run, and requires relatively little effort to prepare, but the Game Master could easily come up with an alternative which was interesting and involving.

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: Along Came a CrystalPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Alonso R. Serrano

Setting: Jazz Age Lovecraft Country
Product: ScenarioWhat You Get: Seventeen page, 2.60 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: All that glisters is not gold.Plot Hook: A hunt for a missing geologist lands the Investigators in a hole.
Plot Support: Two NPCs, five handouts, one map, and two Mythos monsters.Production Values: Variable.
Pros# Potential addition to a Miskatonic University campaign# Creepy use of replicated sound# Keeper could prepare the soundbites# Decent handouts# Geologically themed one-shot# Crystallophobia# Petraphobia
Cons# Needs an edit# Short investigation# More action than investigation
Conclusion# Short investigation leads to a confrontation with a near unstoppable geologically alien monster.# Along Came a Crystal uses the replication of soundbites to creepy effect. 

There is a gap between the one-shot and the campaign that is rarely filled. The gap between the one or two session scenario and the campaign that will run over the course of years in multiple sessions. The gap between one-shots like Viral and Lady Blackbird and full campaigns such as Impossible Landscapes and The Curse of Strahd. It is this gap where the shorter campaign takes place, somewhere between say four or five adventures and say, a maximum of twelve. Yet the hobby does not often offer campaigns of such length, tending towards the extremes in terms of length rather than the median. That though, is not an issue with Odd Jobs: RPG Micro Settings Vol. I. This is a collection of eleven mini- or micro-settings, each complete with a background, character options, NPCs, a detailed mini-campaign, adventure seeds, bonus material, and more. Taking in everything from collecting ghosts to return to Earth from across the Solar System and running the rails between bubbles of stable reality to playing the stock market which measures and tracks the worshippers of your god and searching signs of intelligent life on a distant planet as you become that life, this anthology brings a together a plethora of weird and wonderful campaign ideas designed to be played in three to four sessions (but can go longer if the extra content is used).

Odd Jobs: RPG Micro Settings Vol. I is published by MacGuffin & Co. following a successful Kickstarter campaign and the first thing that you really need to know about it is that it is systemless. There are no stats of any kind in the book. Which means that the Game Master will need to put in some extra effort when preparing one of the book’s campaigns, providing the necessary stats and abilities, and so on. However, after explaining what a roleplaying game and a micro-setting is, the authors do discuss the choice of system in the book’s introduction. What is great here is that they suggest a number of different roleplaying games, pairing them with each of the various micro-settings in the book. These range from Fate Condensed, The Black Hack, and Cthulhu Hack to Savage Worlds, the Cypher System, and Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Now any of the micro settings in Odd Jobs: RPG Micro Settings Vol. I can be adapted to the rules system of the Game Master’s choice, but the suggestions can lead a Game Master and her players to try out a new set of rules or if they already know one set of rules, the Game Master can pick up this book and prepare the setting paired with her preferred rules straight away. (And then look at the other settings.) It should be noted that two of the settings carry content warnings, but these are kept short and to the point.

Each of the settings and campaigns in Odd Jobs: RPG Micro Settings Vol. I follows roughly the same format. It opens with three pages of background, followed by a page or so each of character ideas and locations. These initial pages are for both player and Game Master, but the remaining pages, beginning with ‘Secrets’ are clearly for the Game Master’s eyes only. This is followed by a list of NPCs, the mini-campaign itself—consisting of four adventures, the latter full of surprising twists, before being rounded off with a handful of adventure seeds and some bonus content. The latter can be as simple as a bonus adventure, but can also include further character ideas and tables for creating random elements in the setting. The book itself is rounded out with bonus content for all eleven campaigns.

Odd Jobs: RPG Micro Settings Vol. I very quickly gets on with the first setting and campaign—and it grabs the reader from the off. ‘Ghost Ship’ combines Dead Like Me with Office Space, but in space! When somebody dies, their spirit passes on, but only on Earth. Which is a problem when someone dies off-world. Someone has to collect the ghosts—some of whom are not always friendly and need to be harpooned!—and return them to Earth. The setting classifies the ghosts by belligerency, and has the Player Characters as ghost collectors discovering that there is much more going on and that some of the ghosts really do not want to go back. It is followed by ‘Twisted Rails’ in which the Player Characters crew a steam train ferrying freight and passengers from one Bubble of stable reality to another, riding the rails which have been laid across the chaos in between that resulted when reality broke down. The Player Characters will have to contend with rail pirates on parallel lines attempting to capture their train. This campaign is accompanied by tables for creating new Bubbles. The third campaign, ‘Not Far to Bermuda’, gets a bit weird. It is set aboard the Wanderlust, a large passenger liner which has been on the Atlantic Islands Cruise for at least two-hundred-and-ninety-four days. Fortunately, the food has not run out, though it varies unexpectedly, and whilst discipline and society has not exactly broken down or broken out into violence, it has coalesced into a series of cliques which need to be carefully navigated. This is where the Player Characters come in, being members of the hospitality staff, such as poolside entertainer, excursion leader, or events manager, whose old roles seem to have fallen away as the trip has continued. Quite where the ship is and where it is going is the focus of the campaign as the voyage continues.

‘Guardians’ is a flashback to the seventies and rural France with the Player Characters as nuns whose reputation and conduct has resulted in their being seconded to the ‘les Sœurs de Notre-Dame de la Vérité’ (‘The Sisters of Our Lady of Truth) whose duty is to guard ‘la Fosse de l’Enfer’, literally a ‘Pit of Hell’. This campaign can vary in tone from dark comedy to psychological horror and comes with a table of options for the dark secrets that each of the nuns is harbouring, and plenty of suggestions as to what exactly is in the pit. This is potentially the darkest of the campaigns in the anthology. ‘Atlantis City’ goes under the sea to explore what happened to the mythical lost city when it was sunk in ages past. It turns to gambling and becomes a den of vice and criminality, the aquatic equivalent of Las Vegas or Atlantic City. As the Player Characters take over a casino, they have to contend with the Kingdom of the Merfolk and the Deep Ones of the Deep Collective attempting to muscle in on the vice trade along with rival casino crews and city politics which have been dominated by the same family for millennia. The other darker setting in the anthology is ‘Duskhollow P.D.’, which combines hard-boiled detective stories with horror in a weird interzone urban sprawl where the rain never stops and where the crimes can involve cults, sorcerers, revenants, and more, including something squamous. This campaign differs from the others in that there is no one secret to what is behind the nature of the city, but several which the Game Master can pick and choose from, and rather than run a campaign with a beginning, middle, and end, be run as a series of one-shots into which the Game Master can insert the clues. Of all the campaigns in Odd Jobs: RPG Micro Settings Vol. I, it is not a case of ‘run and done’, but intermittent cases which can be run in between other campaigns.

‘MIX: Missing In X-mas’ is the jolliest of campaigns in Odd Jobs: RPG Micro Settings Vol. I, but starts with a bang. It is Christmas night and Santa Claus has gone missing somewhere over Germany. Where could he be? This is no Nightmare Before Christmas, but the Player Characters—Elves, Reindeer, Gingerbread Persons, Snowpersons, Nutcrackers, and Toys—have to leap into the breach to continue the deliveries as well as discover quite where Father Christmas has got to. The campaign comes with a big table of presents to deliver and plenty of drops down the chimney to go wrong and get out again without any child being the wiser to the presence of the Player Characters. ‘Primetime Colosseum’ is a campaign in which the Player Characters are gladiators in an Ancient Rome where myth and magic are real, including resurrection potions. So gladiators can fight and die and come back and fight again. The various roles are not so much inspired by classic gladiator types, but by modern wrestling. The campaign itself sees the Player Characters and their gladiatorial school hit primetime, find fame and fortune, and suffer the consequences. Of all the campaigns in the anthology, ‘Wizard’s Staff’ feels the most familiar in which the staff and assistants of the notoriously evil enchanter Balphior who have to step up and fill in after he goes and dies in unsurprisingly bizarre circumstances. They are going to have to cover in his absence and survive the avaricious interest of others if they find out about their master’s death. This requires a degree of cunning and subterfuge, but can be comedic too.

The penultimate campaign is ‘Start-Up Culture’. This is a world in which the gods are real and their power and influence via the number of worshippers they have is tracked on the OSE or ‘Oracle Spiritual Exchange’. The players get to create their own god, such as the ‘God of Reluctant Teamwork’ or ‘God of Lazy Afternoons’, and power said god up the OSE by proselytising and gaining worshippers. Rounding out the anthology is ‘Fixer Upper’, a piece of straight Science Fiction in which the Player Characters are robots surveying a planet—the ‘Fixer Upper’ of the title, in the far future to determine three things. If it is suitable to be inhabited by humans, if it needs to be terraformed, and if it is already occupied by a species exhibiting ‘Personhood’. As the players roleplay through the campaign, their robots not only explore more of the world, but begin to diverge from their programming to the point where they are the ones exhibiting ‘Personhood’. It is a fascinating philosophical piece in the vein of Philip K. Dick with which to close the anthology.

Physically, RPG Micro Settings Vol. I is very nicely presented. It is done in full colour, with artwork and typography which is different for each and every campaign. This gives each a distinct feel and makes them standout when browsing the book.

Odd Jobs: RPG Micro Settings Vol. I offers some memorable, fully developed campaign ideas which it combines with flexibility in terms of choice of system and running time—any one of them could be run in the suggested three to four sessions, but also easily extended with the plentiful story hooks and seeds. Odd Jobs: RPG Micro Settings Vol. I is an exemplary elevensome, full of good ideas and entertainingly brilliant concepts that you will want to run as a Game Master and roleplay as a player.
—oOo—
Both Reviews from R’lyeh and MacGuffin & Co. will be at DragonMeet on Saturday, 3rd December, 2022.

NO FUTURE: Lovecraftian Horror Meets the Punk Revolution would normally be reviewed as part of the Fanzine Focus strand, but it is not really a fanzine. Although originally intended to be part of Kickstarter’s ZineQuest for 2022, the publisher decided to do it on its own via Itchio, when Kickstarter moved ZineQuest from march to August to coincide with Gen Con, its format—A4 rather than A5, its singular content, and the production standards all move it away from the ’zine ethos and look and towards a more professional product. As a result, it stands somewhere between a fanzine and prozine. It is a trend which has been growing with each successive ZineQuest, to the point where it is quite difficult to determine the difference between a fanzine and a publication simply using the format and the promotional support of ZineQuest to present a whole scenario or even an RPG. NO FUTURE: Lovecraftian Horror Meets the Punk Revolution does itself no favours in making a such a determination. Although the cover can be described as Punk Art and Punks are the protagonists of its scenario, the style and layout of the first issue’s content evokes neither Punk Art nor a fanzine sensibility, and the glossiness of the first issue just does not scream Punk! However, whether or not NO FUTURE: Lovecraftian Horror Meets the Punk Revolution is ’zine or not ’zine, it does not meet the criteria to fit the Fanzine Focus strand, but it does include content which is interesting and which does involve Punks.

NO FUTURE: Lovecraftian Horror Meets the Punk Revolution – Issue #1: “The Five Techniques” is published by Pent Up Press and contains a single scenario designed to be run using Trail of Cthulhu or Cthulhu Dark. The former is the clue orientated roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror from Pelgrane Press and the latter the rules light RPG of Lovecraftian investigative horror designed for simple, minimalist play. It could easily be adapted to the roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror of the Game Master’s choice. What makes the scenario stand out is its time period—the 1970s, its setting—Northern Ireland, and its protagonists—members of punk rock band. The set-up is this. The would-be Investigators are members of The Gutters which formed in London. The band’s bassist, Ciaron McCarthy, has died and his bandmate, Mickey Grayes, has persuaded everyone to give Ciaron a proper Punk wake in his home village of Conhale in County Armagh in Northern Ireland. This sets up some fantastic tensions. The Punks themselves are very much the ‘fish out of water’ amidst the tensions of the Troubles. Not just their clothes, but their anti-establishment sentiment will make them standout in the conservative society of Armagh, already tense from the locked down presence and influence of the British Army and the Royal Ulster Constabulary supposedly keeping them safe from the IRA.

The Investigators will feel and experience this tension almost from the start. The journey from London has been long and tiring when the Punks are stopped by an IRA checkpoint and questioned. The villagers are reluctant to talk to the interlopers, but will warm to them with a drink or two. The British Army will take a seemingly mild interest too—at least initially. All whilst the Investigators suffer odd dreams, or even daydreams of dreams, spiral patterns are marked here and there, and then one of their number runs off…

As written, “The Five Techniques” is systemless, but the scenario includes notes on running it in either Cthulhu Dark or the GUMSHOE System of Trail of Cthulhu. The latter comes with stats for some NPCs and new Investigative and General Abilities, all musical in nature. For either system, there is a set of tables for creating the background of the Punk, covering ‘Creating Your Punk’ and ‘Getting the Band Together’, as well the scenario’s set of dreams and four decently done handouts.

Whether run for Cthulhu Dark, Trail of Cthulhu, or another roleplaying of Lovecraftian investigative horror, “The Five Techniques” is more folk horror, more Green Room meets Junji Ito’s Uzumaki, rather than Lovecraftian horror per se. It also adheres to the style of play of Cthulhu Dark in which the Investigators can only confront the Mythos. They cannot fight it directly, for it is too powerful, too unknowable, and such efforts are doomed to end in failure, resulting in the Investigators’ deaths or insanity. Thus “The Five Techniques” is more Purist than the traditional Purist mode of Trail of Cthulhu to the point where the motivations of outré threat are never explained and the Game Master is not expected to explain them either. Only in the epilogue which each player gets to narrate for their Investigator is there time to wonder at what happened and the horror of it. Here though, is where “The Five Techniques” does not support the Game Master as the scenario does not say about the responses to what happened for those living in and around Clonhale, whether the villagers, the British Army, the R.U.C., or the I.R.A. There will be consequences and it would have been useful to be given pointers as to what they might be.

Physically, NO FUTURE: Lovecraftian Horror Meets the Punk Revolution – Issue #1: “The Five Techniques” is busily presented with plenty of decent artwork and good handouts. The writing is decent and the plot sufficiently straightforward that the Game Master can easily run this in a single session or as a convention one-shot. In addition, the scenario has a pleasing historicity, which includes the appearance of Northern Ireland’s most famous Punk band.

The seventies is a period which has been little explored in Lovecraftian investigative horror, and much of what has, has been inspired by the Grindhouse, exploitation cinema of the period. NO FUTURE: Lovecraftian Horror Meets the Punk Revolution – Issue #1: “The Five Techniques” shifts Lovecraftian investigative horror to the seventies in a historical sense and location, placing the unknowable against a framework of real-world tensions, making the already fraught situation all the more fraught, the result being a unique for Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying.

The Hole in the Oak 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 Incandescent Grottoes. 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 Hole in the Oak 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 is to be expected.
The first thing that strikes you about The Hole in the Oak is the way in which it is 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). The latter is placed inside the back cover where it is very convenient.
In between are the descriptions of the rooms below The Hole in the Oak. All sixty 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 ‘Nonsense Study’ is described as containing “Cobblestones (round and smooth). Root walls and roof (clean; hand-worn patches). Arched roof (8’ high),” It expands up this with “South: Smell of tea and crumpets. Warm light. Quiet bleating (words?).” It expands upon this with descriptions of the room’s bookshelves, upholstered chairs, and monster stats for the latter. 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 Hole in the Oak 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 in The Hole in the Oak, has an earthy, musty feel to it. Roots protrude in places from the walls and ceilings, and will sometimes lash out, talk to passers-by, or even hide things they steal. The inhabitants—factions even—have a mouldering feel to them too, many of them secretive and deceitful, and several of them would be more than willing to eat the adventurers if they can. Obviously, the Ghouls will—and will play dead as if drowned by the river—to ambush intruders, whilst the flock of sheep-headed fauns in its spiral-shaped home will invite visitors in for tea before striking. The most dangerous of the dungeon’s inhabitants consists of several giant lizards and a mutagenic Ogre whose breath could warp any adventurer he exhales on. There is plenty of weirdness too, including ghostly battles, black skeletons which seem to do nothing but stand there, and a strange cult of heretical Gnomes dedicated to decidedly odd, if megalomaniacal, object of veneration. Throughout, there are lots of lovely little details and oddities that make The Hole in the Oak much more than a simple series of connected rooms.
However, The Hole in the Oak can be a tough scenario. Not so much the traps, but the denizens. These include the aforementioned Ghouls and giant lizards, as well as the troglodytes. Of course, this encourages 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 Hole in the Oak is a handsome little affair. The artwork is excellent, the cartography clear, and the writing to the point.
The Hole in the Oak 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 Hole in the Oak is a superbly designed, low level dungeon, full of musty, fusty flavour and detail, presented in a format that makes it incredibly accessible and easy to run.

The Strange Land is a scenario for Space: 1889. First published by Game Designers’ Workshop in 1989, it was the first Steampunk roleplaying game. Inspired by the works Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, and Arthur Conan Doyle, it presented an alternate past of Victorian-era space-faring, in which Thomas Edison invented the ‘ether propeller’, a means to propel space vessels through the ‘luminiferous aether’ to first the Moon, then Mars, and later Venus and Mercury. All are proven to be inhabited, Venus by Lizardmen and dinosaurs, but Mars by Canal Martians, Steppe Martians, and High Martians, and the world itself was arid and dry, its cities connected by a network of canals that had been seen from Earth. Mars was also the source of Liftwood, the mysterious tree cultivated for the antigravity properties of its wood, which could be used to keep sky galleons and then when Earthmen arrived, their armoured, steam powered flyers aloft. The great powers rushed in make trade deals and ultimately establish colonies on the Red Planet, just as they would on Venus. In the two decades since Edison landed on the Moon and then on Mars, all of the Imperial tensions of the age have been brought to Mars and exacerbated by the lay of the land of the new world.

Space: 1889 would not remain in print for very long. Game Designers’ Workshop cancelled the line in 1990, but Heliograph, Inc. would reprint many of the titles at the turn of the century. In 2010, the Pinnacle Entertainment Group published a Savage Worlds edition of the game called Space 1889: Red Sands. More recently, in 2015, German publisher Uhrwerk Verlag/Clockwork Publishing published a new edition using the Ubiquity System, originally seen Hollow Earth Expedition from Exile Game Studio. Notably, this edition emphasised the role of the European powers, especially Prussia under Bismarck, in the setting, as opposed to the role of the British Empire in the previous versions. The Strange Land is available for both the Ubiquity System of Space: 1889 and the Savage Worlds rules for Space 1889: Red Sands. It is the latter version of The Strange Land that is being reviewed here.

The Strange Land concerns the fate of the young Canal Martian boy, Kime, and is divided into two parts. The first part is set on Earth and is an investigation into his kidnapping which leads into industrial unrest, whilst the second part takes place on Mars, and more directly involves industrial unrest. The scenario can be played straight through, but ideally, the second part should take place later in the campaign some time after the first. In particular, it is suggested that the Player Characters for the first part be from Novice to Seasoned Rank, and from Season to Veteran in the second part. The scenario also suggests that the Player Characters, or at least a few of them, be British. The scenario has a nice sense of historicity and although the scenario calls for more middle- and upper-class character types initially, any working-class character, or a character with radical leanings will have much to do in the scenario.

The Strange Land opens with the Player Characters invited to stay at the Hampshire estate of Lord John Feltam-Hithe, where at the end of a lengthy dinner, his young ward, an orphaned Canal Martian named Kime, will perform an amazing feat—he will levitate into the air! The Player Characters have the opportunity to interact with the other guests, including an explorer, an industrialist, a businessman, a poetess, and others, but after performing for the night and retiring, Kime has disappeared. Lord Feltam-Hithe presses upon the Player Characters that the boy is in danger and must be found. Their investigations lead first to one of the staff and from their to decidedly rotten circus, which has pitched its tents outside the nearby town. The circus owner is a vile piece of work, poorly treating both staff and exhibits, including, it turns out, one John Merrick! Who proves to be the most noble amongst all of the NPCs that the Player Characters will encounter as they conduct their investigation, which will also reveal more about Lord Feltam-Hithe’s parlous financial situation.

In the third scene of the first part to The Strange Land, the Player Characters literally follows the tracks to London and get involved in the London Dock Strike of 1889. In the setting of Space: 1889, this is exacerbated by taking place on the Southern Aerial Docks, which is currently being occupied the striking dockworkers. Rumour is flying about an ‘Angel of the Docks’, a figure who has become a figurehead to the striking dockworkers. Could this be Kime? If so, the Player Characters need to find a means to ascend to the Southern Aerial Docks. Here the author provides several NPCs which can become potential contacts for the Player Characters, including a historical figure or two, along with several means of accessing the Southern Aerial Docks. These means are inventive and the author is clearly having some fun with them. Ultimately, which should happen is standoff between the striking dockworkers and the strike breakers, with both Kime and the Player Characters sort of in the middle, and the situation getting resolved one way or another.

It is at this point that the scenario could have ended and nobody would have been the wiser. However, The Strange Land has a second, much shorter part, which takes place on Mars, a year or two after the events of the first part. The Player Characters are sent to the aid of a hill station towards the edge of the British sphere of influence on the Red Planet. A local noble, Shune, wants the help of the commander of the hill station in ending a labour strike at the nearby pumping station, Astolor Station—which helps keep the waters flowing through the canals of the dying planet. The commander of the hill station would rather not get involved, and certainly not involve the British residency on Mars, but there are rumours too that a British hostage has been taken as well. So a labour strike, a kidnapping, and an unpleasant, condescending Martian noble, but how are they all connected? This is a simpler situation than in the first half of The Strange Land, but not as linear and more open in how the Player Characters approach the situation. Whether they decide to give help to Shune or negotiate with him, or storm the pumping station or parlay with the strikers, there are consequences to their decisions. The various options are discussed and supported with details of the situation’s major NPCs, so rather than running her Player Characters through the plot as in the first half, the Game Master will primarily reacting to their decisions.

Physically, The Strange Land is a short book. It needs a slight edit in places, but the few pieces of artwork and the single map—that of the Southern Aerial Docks—are all decent. However, it would have benefitted from a few more thumbnail portraits of the NPCs, and definitely more maps. Whether that is of Lord Feltam-Hithe’s estate, the region around Astolor Station, and of Astolor Station itself. If not that, then at least an illustration.

Whether written for use with Space 1889: Red Sands or the original Ubiquity System version of Space: 1889, The Strange Land is a solid little scenario. (With a little effort, it could no doubt be adapted to new version, Space 1889: After, currently being Kickstarted by Strange Owl Games.) It takes the Player Characters to the highs and lows of society on both Earth and Mars, and the first half, set on Earth could easily be run without the need to run the second half. There is an enjoyable sense of working-class radicalism to both halves and together they allow The Strange Land to explore the underside to Victorian life the reform movement in Space: 1889.

—oOo—
The Strange Land was the worst scenario we played at Gen Con 2022. This is not to say that the scenario itself is bad. In fact, given its author, it is no surprise that it is a decent, playable, and enjoyable scenario—as written. Yet, of all the gaming experiences we had at Gen Con 2022, it was the worst. Attending Gen Con as a group, we signed up to play a total of five games and got into four of them. These were, in chronological order, Pirates of the Shattered World, X-Crawl, Delta Green, and Space: 1889. Of these, Delta Green was a blast, Pirates of the Shattered World entertaining if crowded, X-Crawl disappointing, and Space: 1889 utterly dreadful. This is despite the fact that our X-Crawl game, which was due to take place in Goodman Games’ Wizard’s Van, was to be run by the game designer, and was an event that we were really, really looking forward to, was cancelled—with good reason. So yes, a gaming experience which was cancelled and thus involved no gaming whatsoever and meant we did not meet the game designer, was a superior gaming experience than the Space: 1889 game.

So why was it so bad?

It took too long to get started and too long for the Game Master to explain the rules. It took too long to get to the hook for the first half of the scenario—the disappearance of Kime—and thus get us involved. When we wanted to roleplay, the Game Master would attempt to move the plot on and when we attempted to investigate, the Game Master would ignore our efforts. The Game Master added a couple of scenes and details that having read and reviewed the scenario are implied, but not really suitable additions given that the scenario is being run in a convention timeslot. So, we felt unengaged in the scenario and grew increasingly bored over the course of the session. In fact, we were communicating this to each other via our Whatsapp group, to the point where we agreed two things. First, it looked like the session of Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition that the Game Master’s wife was running on an adjacent table, was a whole lot more energetic and fun, and that we wished that were playing that instead. Second, when towards the end of the session when the Game Master announced that the scenario was not yet finished, but could be if we decided to stay after the session was supposed to end if we had no pressing appointments, we all agreed that we really, really needed to be somewhere else.

All of which would be exacerbated by ‘Red Hat Guy’. The gaming group of consisted of myself and four other friends. The sixth player was ‘Red Hat Guy’. So named because he wore a red baseball cap. He sat down, selected a character, did not want to know who we were or who our characters were, and only seemed to come alive when there was combat involved. He made no contribution to the investigation or the roleplaying, what little of it we were allowed to do, and said virtually nothing for the whole of the session. However, he proved to be as bored as we were. Towards the end of the session, the player sat next to him sent the following message on our Whatsapp group: “Red hat is skimming through boob pictures. My game is now complete.”

Now in hindsight we should have done something about this. We should have told Red Hat Guy to stop or gone to the Gen Con organisers. We did not. Why not? We were in shock at the audacity of anyone doing such a thing. Had we done so, it would have upended the game, disrupting it, and somehow that did not feel right. Had the one female player been sat next to Red Hat Guy it might have been a different matter. He might never have begun browsing pornography on his mobile phone and the session would have slouched to its end, with none of us the wiser as to how he was feeling. If he had, then she would have very likely, clearly asked him not to, and that probably would have brought the gaming session to end.

Even to this day, we are still in shock even now at what happened with Red Hat Guy. Thankfully, we did not see him again and if we did, we would not want to game with him again. His actions capped what was already a terrible gaming experience, one that we really wanted to get away from, but are never going to forget.

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?
GLORANTHA: A Grim Pilgrimage is a scenario for use with RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.

It is a five page, full colour, 959.82 MB PDF.

The layout is clean and tidy. It is art free, but the cartography is excellent.

Where is it set?
GLORANTHA: A Grim Pilgrimage is set in Prax in the Eiritha Hills.

Who do you play?Player Characters of all types could play this scenario, but as written are expected to be members of one of the tribes of Prax. A Humakti will be useful, and a worshipper or shaman of Daka Fal would be approriate. magic and enchanted weaponry will be very useful.
What do you need?
GLORANTHA: A Grim Pilgrimage requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and the Glorantha Bestiary.
What do you get?GLORANTHA: A Grim Pilgrimage details a Daka Fal shrine in the Eiritha Hills of Prax. It consists of a simple complex of just five rooms, its description in the main, focusing upon the undead threats currently inhabiting its handful of rooms. Three reasons are suggested as to why the Player Characters might be journeying there, the easiest being that a recent party of pilgrims failed to return from its annual visit, and their queen or khan commands them to investigate.

The Game Master has the option to throw in a random encounter or two, but once there, the Player Characters quickly discover it to be infested with the undead. One add fact is that the most recently dead, and the first ones they will encounter, are skeletons rather than zombies. This is an extended combat encounter, with no roleplaying or investigation required. However, there is scope for the Game Master to expand the scenario a little. One way would be to expand on the restoration of the shrine after it has been cleansed of the undead, whilst the Game Master add details about Daka Fal and his worship to the shrine, and possibly add physical details and possessions to the undead, suggesting who they might have been in their former lives and what they were carrying, which could lead to further adventures. The descriptions of both the shrine and its undead are perfunctory at bests, uninspiring at worst.
GLORANTHA: A Grim Pilgrimage is not badly written for what it is, but very much like the earlier GLORANTHA: The search for the Throne of Colymar, GLORANTHA: A Trek in the Marsh, GLORANTHA: The Avengers of Earth Temple, and GLORANTHA: Underwater Quest, it is underwritten and leaves a fair amount of development work for the Game Master to do before she brings GLORANTHA: A Grim Pilgrimage to the gaming table. Probably not as much as the other scenarios from this author, but to really bring it alive, the effort is required. Of course, since if the Game Master is going to have to do that development work, she might as well grab the map and start from scratch.
Is it worth your time?Yes—GLORANTHA: A Grim Pilgrimage is surprisingly not awful. That does not mean that it is actually adequate, but it contains the germ of an interesting encounter if the Game Master is willing to develop the set-up, add the flavour, and the detail, which of course the author failed to do. Then of course, the Game Master can do something about making the dungeon, or rather shrine, interesting.No—GLORANTHA: A Grim Pilgrimage is a self-contained mini-dungeon bash which the author kindly leaves much of the interesting detail, stats, and flavour to be found in the back story—as is his standard practice—for the Game Master to develop herself. Cheap, cheerless, characterless, and charmless. Mostly.Maybe—GLORANTHA: A Grim Pilgrimage is surprisingly not without potential. The location, the backstory, and possible hooks could all be developed into something more interesting and playable than the mini-dungeon it currently is. Of course, the author could have done that for the potential purchaser too, but why break the habit of the rest of his scenarios for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha?

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 ChangePublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Bobby Nelson

Setting: Jazz Age Lovecraft country
Product: ScenarioWhat You Get: Fourteen page, 51.06 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: “Nature never knew colors like this.”Plot Hook: ‘The Color Out of Space’ Redux
Plot Support: Four NPCs, one map, two floor plans/handouts, and one Mythos monster.Production Values: Plain.
Pros# Tranquility turns into countdown horror# Eerie environmental horror# Lovecraft Country scenario# Easy to adapt to other periods and places# Chromophobia
Cons# No pre-generated Investigators# Region map would have been useful# Needs an edit# ‘The Color Out of Space’ Redux

Conclusion# The Change has an eerie sense of bucolic horror and environmental decay in what is a reactive, countdown horror. # Ultimately, ‘The Color Out of Space’ redux too far

As a darkness falls over a Europe under the heel of the Nazi jackboot, a secret war has begun against the invader, one which at the direction of Winston Churchill, Prime Minster of Great Britain, would “…[S]et Europe ablaze.” This would be led by the Special Operations Executive or SOE, whose operatives, often working with local resistance forces, would carry out acts of sabotage against the Axis war effort, as well as work to establish secret armies which ultimately act in conjunction with Allied invading forces. However, there is a darker, more secret war, this against those Nazi agents and organisations which would command and entreat with the occult and forces beyond the understanding of mankind. Yet even this dark drive is riven by differing ideologies and approaches pandering to Hitler’s whims. The Black Sun consists of Nazi warrior-sorcerers supreme who use foul magic and summoned creatures from nameless dimensions to dominate the battlefields of men, whilst Nachtwölfe, the Night Wolves utilise technology, biological enhancements, and wunderwaffen (wonder weapons) to win the war for Germany. Ultimately, both utilise and fall under the malign influence of the Mythos, the forces of which have their own unknowable designs… Standing against them, ready to thwart their malign efforts are the audacious Allied agents of Britain’s Section M, the United States’ Majestic, and the brave Resistance, willing to risk their lives and their sanity against malicious Nazi villains and the unfathomable gods and monsters of the Mythos themselves, each striving for supremacy in mankind’s darkest yet finest hour!

This is the set-up for Achtung! Cthulhu, the roleplaying game of fast-paced pulp action and Mythos magic published by Modiphius Entertainment. Originally published using Call of Cthulhu, Sixth Edition and Savage Worlds in 2013, and later FATE Core, almost a decade on, it returns in brand new edition. Not though written for use with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, but rather for use with the publisher’s 2d20 System house mechanics, first seen in Mutant Chronicles and Robert E. Howard’s Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of. The result is a roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative action in which the Player Characters can take the fight to the enemy, punch out the Nazis, and wield powerful sorcery or psychic powers against their agents and their Mythos allies, as well as even weirder weapons against the backdrop of World War II and the Nazi war machine.

The Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Guide—heralded as ‘Issue No. 2’ in a series on the cover—picks up where the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Player’s Guide left off. Written for the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 Game Master’s eyes only, this is the supplement exposes and explores a whole lot more of the setting and its secrets, presents the six major factions involved in the new Secret War, their personnel minor, major, and notable, the equipment they field, and the magics they wield. Alongside this, there is extensive advice and suggestions for the Game Master on how to run Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 and keep it exciting. Fundamentally, the latter is what sets Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 apart from other roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying. It is meant to be fast and furious, exciting and unnerving, the tone and style hewing heavily into Pulp action. The Player Characters are not so much Investigators—although some investigation is likely to be required in game—but rather Pulp action, anti-Mythos special forces operatives or secret agents. This can be on an ad hoc basis, with the Player Characters coming from a diverse range of backgrounds and cultures, which is very likely to be the default set-up in a campaign, but it could also be run a military Pulp action horror game with the Player Characters all being part of the same unit. For example, Section fields The Grey Watch, a band of Scottish warriors specialising in hand-to-hand combat, always accompanied by a piper playing the Pipes of McMurden, the sound of which strikes fear into the forces of the Mythos, whilst Majestic sends out its Flaming Salamanders of the Majestic Corps, consisting of U.S. marines in flame retardant clothing wielding all manner of flame-based weapons to burn out the Mythos. The action-packed cover of the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Guide very much sets the tone for the roleplaying game, as does the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Player’s Guide.

The Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Guide begins by exploring the factions and history of Secret War, and this not merely divided between the Allies and the Nazis. There are instead six factions, and to extent, this does feel like a set of factions for both roleplaying and wargaming, something that the extensive set of stats for allies, enemies, and forces in the later ‘Heroes & Villains of the Secret War’ and ‘Bestiary’ does nothing to persuade otherwise. On the Allied side are the British Section M and the American Majestic. Both capture the flavour and feel of their respective mundane counterparts, playing to some stereotypes too in keeping with the roleplaying game’s Pulp leanings. Thus, Section M is reserved, but combines desperate ingenuity and improvisation with measured study and cups of tea, whilst Majestic is brasher, more muscular, and relies on psychic operations rather than the classical study of magic. On the Nazi side are two factions, The Cult of the Black Sun and Nachtwölfe, which have different approaches to the Mythos and despise each other. Black Sun uses Hyperborean magics and knowledge to work back and forth between the Dreamlands and the waking world in an effort to free Yog-Sothoth. Nachtwölfe employs Atlantean superscience to develop, arm, and field an array of fantastic new weapons, armoured fighting vehicles, and more. In addition, both the Mi-Go and the Deep Ones have been drawn into the war, sometimes allies of the Nazis, sometimes not, as both have their own agendas. The backgrounds, histories, military structures, bases, missions and goals are all given for the six factions in what is an excellent overview of the Secret War. There is a timeline too, running from 1939 to 1945, noting important events throughout the Secret War, and hinting at potential scenarios which the Game Master could purchase and run for her players, but notably still leaving plenty of room into which the Game Master can insert her own adventures.

The Game Master can arm and equip her Player Characters and NPCs with a vast array of strange and wonderful weapons and devices. For example, the elite snipers of the Bronze Berets use the Beowulf Monstr Slayer Kk. 1 Sniper Rifle, a magnetic propulsion weapon sometimes combined with Elder Sign-inscribed rounds, whilst the Blevins Steam-Assisted Enzymatic Weapons which fire gouts of superheated steam and high-temperature active enzymes which dissolve the physical make-up of some trans-dimensional creatures. There are more mundane—in comparison—items too—like the Sword-Cane or the Bolas (until that is, the weights are filled with explosives!), and in general, such devices and weapons are rare and the ammunition, where required, available in limited quantities. In comparison, the Nazis of both Black Sun and Nachtwölfe have much wider range of weapons and equipment, and it is more widely manufactured, especially the technologically-focused Nachtwölfe. For example, Wotan’s Staff-Spear or ‘Grungnir’, are tipped with black steel forged in the Dreamlands and aid in the casting of Mythos magic, whilst the Anddrsserher-Helm worn by some Nachtwölfe soldiers is bulky, but contains a set of lenses—based on the Cornwallis design stolen from New World Incorporated in a nice nod to the classic Call of Cthulhu campaign, The Fungi from Yuggoth or The Day of the beast—that provides magnified vision, infrared vision, and the ability to see creatures and things that the human eye is normally incapable of seeing. Weapons and devices of both the Mi-Go and the Deep Ones are also given. 

Besides technology, all sides field magic during the Secret War, although reluctantly in the case of the Allies. In the main they restrict themselves to studying and using magics, spells, and rituals from the Celtic and Runic or Norse traditions, as well as Psychic powers, rather than the Mythos magic. Psychic powers are themselves treated as a sort of magic, but a very modern one, and all three traditions are more fully detailed in the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Player’s Guide. The Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Guide instead focuses on Mythos magic, including both its battlefield and ritual applications. These are akin to the classic magics of traditional Lovecraftian investigative horror, but classified according to the deity they relate to—Cthulhu, Nyarlathotep, and Yog-Sothoth. These are likely to be used by the Deep One and Mi-Go factions and to limited extent, if at all, by the other factions. They are accompanied by numerous rituals, some of which like the Dust of Ibn-Ghazi and the various versions of Evoke/Dismiss Deity will be familiar from other roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror, whilst the Pulp nature of Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 is highlighted by the inclusion of healing magic—for both the body and the mind. Similarly, the list of Mythos tomes is a mix of the old and the new.

For the Game Master there is an extensive chapter of advice and suggestions as to how to run Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20. It covers her role and responsibilities, letting the players and their characters be awesome, how to handle both Threats and the action, and so on before delving in the mechanics of the 2D20 System explained in the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Player’s Guide, but here from the Game Master’s perspective. It pays particular attention to handling Truths in play and the consequences of failure. The Momentum and Threat economy are also examined again, and there is advice on creating and handling memorable NPCs too.

This last piece of advice leads into the last two chapters of the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Guide, which together take some forty percent of the book. First, ‘Heroes & Villains of the Secret War’ looks first at the British and American forces, and covers both standard troops and special forces, the latter including those involved in the Secret War, like the Scared Blades: Gopal’s Ghurkhas from Nepal and the Pathfinder Demin Hunters from the First Nation Tlingit peoples. It does a similar thing for Black Sun and Nachtwölfe, as well as the Resistance operating in occupied Europe. Included too are all of the major figures in each of the different actions, whether that is Sally Armitage of majestic or Mina Wolff of Nachtwölfe. Each is rated as either Trooper, Lieutenant, or Nemesis level NPC, depending upon their individual degree of threat and involvement in Secret War. Second, the ‘Bestiary’ does a similar thing for the Mythos. It includes ordinary beasts too, plus the creations of abhorrent science, but in the main presents the various creatures, entities, and gods of the Mythos. Ranging from Colours Out of Space and Ghouls all the way up to Azathoth, Hastur, and Shub-Niaggurath, the things of the Mythos are classified along similar lines and detailed under the 2D20 System. There is a handful of the unfamiliar thrown into the mix to add some unfamiliarity too, but whilst a great many of the entries are familiar, at least conceptually, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 gives them, if not a greater degree of agency, then a greater degree of active and more immediate agency. There is very much a sense in Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 of the Mythos factions not being prepared to play the long game as is traditional both in Mythos fiction and Lovecraftian investigative horror, but preferring to play a more active, if still secret, role in the affairs of men, whether that is as allies or as enemies, and so taking advantage of the chaos and acceleration of change that comes with the war between the Allies and the Nazis.

So the question is, what is missing from the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Guide? Really, only the two aspects of the game. Vehicles, both Allied and Nazi, are not included despite all the various troops are, though they are instead given in the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Player’s Guide. What is missing is a feature of almost every roleplaying game of Lovercraftian investigative horror and that is Sanity and insanity. Being a decidedly pulpier, more action-orientated, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 instead has a Player Character potentially suffer insanity once he has suffered enough mental damage to defeat him, whether from encountering a Mythos monster or reading a Mythos tome. and remove him from the combat and then taken more. This shifts the danger of losing Sanity and suffering from insanity as to more of an afterthought than perhaps a constant worry, but it could have been addressed more clearly. Especially for the Game Master or player adapting from another roleplaying game of Lovercraftian investigative horror.

Physically, the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Game Masters Guide is well presented. It does need an edit in places, but it is well written, and again, the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Player’s Guide before it, the book’s full colour artwork is fantastic. Much of it has been seen in the previous iteration of Achtung! Cthulhu, but the new artwork in the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Game Master’s Guide is really good, capturing the action, excitement, and horror of the war against the darkest forces of the Axis powers.
In its treatment of magic, the monsters of the Mythos, and emphasis upon action, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 is not a game for the player or Keeper who prefers the classic play style of a roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror. For the player and the Game Master who want to emphasis a Pulpier, more action-driven, and less horrific approach to Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 is a great choice, and the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Game Masters Guide ably supports this style and tone with the engaging background of the Secret War, a wide array of foes to challenge the Player Characters, and the means for them to fight back and keep humanity safe.

Since 2018, the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG, beginning with the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG – Player’s Survival Guide has proved to be a popular choice when it comes to self-publishing. Numerous authors have written and published scenarios for the roleplaying game, many of them as part of Kickstarter’s ZineQuest, but the publisher of the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG, Tuesday Knight Games has also supported the roleplaying game with scenarios and support of its own. Dead Planet: A violent incursion into the land of the living for the MOTHERSHIP Sci-Fi Horror Roleplaying Game is one such scenario, but Tuesday Knight Games has also published a series of mini- or Pamphlet Modules. The first of these are The Haunting of Ypsilon 14, Hideo’s World, Terminal Delays at Anarene’s Folly, and Chromatic Transference. The fourth is The Hacker’s Handbook. Wher The Haunting of Ypsilon 14 was a traditional ‘haunted house in space monster hunt’, Hideo’s World presented a horrifyingly odd virtual world, Terminal Delays at Anarene’s Folly a locked room—or locked ship—McGuffin hunt, and Chromatic Transference did cosmic horror, The Hacker’s Handbook is not even a scenario, but a supplement!

The Hacker’s Handbook provides expanded rules for extra detail in for just the one skill in the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG—‘Hacking’. One of the issues in the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG – Player’s Survival Guide is that none of the skill are actually defined and so the Warden has to adjudicate exactly how they in the dark future depicted in the roleplaying game. Most of the time this will be enough, and in play, the Warden can have a player simply roll of his character if he wants to unlock a door, take remote control of a gun turret, or extract information from a computer system. However, if the Warden wants to present a more detailed, even extended challenge for the player whose character has the Hacking skill, then the core rules are insufficient. This is where The Hacker’s Handbook is useful. It still suggests using simple rules under most circumstances, but otherwise suggests presenting the hacking Player Character with a ‘Network’. This is constructed of a linked series of nodes and each node can be individualised. Each is defined by its Function, Security, and Response. In other words, what it does, the degree of how difficult it is to gain unauthorised access to, and what happens if the Hacker’s attempt is noticed by a network admin, automated security feature, A.I., and so on.

The Hacker’s Handbook lists several options for each as well as giving a modifier between zero and five for the roll on the Response Table if the hacker’s intrusion is noticed. For example, an automated security turret might be listed as ‘Automated security turret,  Infrastructure/Hardpoint Control, Hardened, +2 Response’, whilst a medical database might be listed as ‘Medical Records Storage, Data Storage, Secured, +1 Response’. In play, each node can be drawn as a box and the boxes connected to form a diagram of linked nodes and thus you have the computer network for the starship or the facility, and so on.

The Hacker’s Handbook does not ignore the social aspect of hacking either. It suggests ways of gaining access via user accounts rather than direct hacking and the various types of user account which a hacker might gain access to. It also suggests that it is one way of getting Player Characters involved in a hacking attempt whether or not they have the actual skill. Whether or not a Player Character has the skill, it also lends itself to more roleplaying opportunities than might be available with a simple roll against the skill.

Lastly, The Hacker’s Handbook lists equipment that a hacker might want to carry as a loadout. This includes decks, wristcoms, and pieces of gear. Decks include gear slots and often have extra abilities, such as treating Hardened Nodes as Secure Nodes. For example, Maze ignores one response from network security whilst CoyBoy reduces the Response value of a node by a random value. Essentially, this provides some technical equipment and details which can flavour a hacker’s activities in game and bring a little more verisimilitude to play.

Physically, The Hacker’s Handbook is all text, barring the network diagram examples. This is not an issue because the supplement has a lot of information to impart, so none of feels wasted.

There is a lot to like about The Hacker’s Handbook. It provides an easy way to handle a particular aspect of the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG, and supports it with enough details to keep both interesting and challenging.

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An Unboxing in the Nook video of The Hacker’s Handbook can be found here.